Selects: How Police Interrogation Works

Every year, police across the U.S. get thousands of criminals to confess to their crimes. The trouble is, the procedure that almost all departments use is grounded in bad science and can produce false confessions. Learn about ways of making you talk in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's s
Y s k Seles, I've chosen how police interrogation works
from back in two thousand and fourteen. It's a really
fascinating look into how the cops get people to admit
that they did the worst thing they ever did in
their entire life, and some people who didn't do anything

(00:22):
at all to admit that they did something. If you
thought that was confusing, just wait till you hear this episode.
But it is pretty mind blowing, So buckle up. I
hope you enjoy and as much as anything, I hope
it really opens your eyes. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
A production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to

(00:49):
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
uh and Noel. I guess producer nol is over there,
which makes this stuff you should know. Jerry's on the beach.
Good for her. Yeah, and I'm Jelly. Yeah. It'd be
nice to be on the beach right now. Sure would
podcasting on the beach. Yeah, there's a beach person for sure.
In uh is she okay? She was flip pops like

(01:14):
in the dead of winter. Yeah, that's true. The beach
person which got nice feet up. Can I say that
I acquired for saying that. I don't think so. If
you said it, like alone in a room or something
she didn't feel like she could leave, you'd probably get
fired for that. But yeah, saying it on the podcast
to everybody's probably in the clear. Okay, we'll find out.

(01:35):
I mean, she edits these so she'll say thanks Juckers.
You so Chuck. Have you ever been interrogated by the police. No,
that's good. No, it's a good way to be. I
was shaking down on the street once, but they didn't
ask us any questions. Stopping frisk Yeah, in New York.

(01:55):
In Athens, m just walk into the car after being out,
threw us all against the wall. Fristus been left. I'm
sure it was a real cop. Yeah, there were cops. Man.
I was like, what's going on? Huh? I don't even know.
I still don't know what happened. Well, I guess they
were just stopping and frisking. A little known fact, Athens,
George is the real home of stopping frisk Well, five

(02:18):
minutes after it happened, we didn't care. You know, these
are college days. Yeah. Now though you must be burning
with a sense of injustice over the whole thing. Well,
I ask you if you've ever been interrogated by the police,
because we're about to talk about police interrogation, so it
seems appropriate. And before we get started, I have some

(02:39):
side reading that I think my interest some people. Um
there is a New Yorker article called the Interview. Um,
there's one called Joe Arity was the Happiest Man on
Death Row. It's in Westward. Uh, there's something called Brooklyn's
Baddest which was in g Q. And then lastly, looking
left or right doesn't indicate your lying in Smithsonian. So

(03:02):
all those articles are awesome, and they all have something
to do with this police interrogation, which is it turns
out becoming an increasingly controversial subject. Yeah, and I think
this probably brings our police suite to a close or
close to it, don't you think? I think so every
time I know, and I didn't even know this existed,
and then I saw it and it turned out to

(03:23):
be one of the more interesting ones, I think. Yeah,
and it's kind of falls into this um law enforcement category,
into the subcategory of are largely debunked armchair psychological or
armchair psychology techniques like polygraph Yeah, we did that, Fingerprints,

(03:44):
we did that, truth serum we did that. Yeah. Like,
there's all these episodes that we've done out there about
just law enforcement techniques. We're doing them. We were like,
oh wow, this is this should not be the way
it is. And apparently police interrogations similar. Yeah, it's a
bit of a shakedown. So let's talk about this. Like

(04:05):
in in the United States, there is um a long
and storied history of rather intense interrogation and I think
you know this, this comes before the United States too.
We did a medieval torture episode as well. There are
plenty of interrogations going on. We did the Spanish Inquisition
that was pre United States. Yeah, I would I would

(04:26):
say that falls into the banner though, of our police
and crime interrogation. Yeah right, So, um, the United States, though,
has carried on the torch of basically beating suspects up
to get confessions. This is where the term the third
degree comes from. Actually, like when somebody's like, hey, why

(04:48):
do you give me the third degree? They may or
may not know it, but they're they're speaking about interrogation
techniques that cats use to use yeah, those third degree techniques.
A lot of were involved deprivation, like or you know
the one where they shine the bright light in your face.
That's old school. Yeah, that's an old movie trope. But
you know, no access to food and water, Um, long

(05:10):
periods of isolation. We might beat up a little bit,
we might threaten you. That's the third degree, right, And
then uh, starting in about the thirties, the public started
to say, I don't know if this is such a
good idea because I might end up in a police
interrogation one day, and I don't want to get beat up.
And then the I guess the straw that started to

(05:31):
break the camel's back came in ninety seven in the
case Brown versus Mississippi, where Brown said, Hey, your thug
cops tied me up to a tree and with me
more than once, not just with me more than once.
Strung me up in a tree to whip me more
than once has happened repeatedly, and I don't think that
the confession they got should stand. The Supreme Court said,

(05:54):
we agree with you. Yeah, it was He and his
two buddies were accused of murdering Uh. They were tenant farmers,
murdering their ball. Basically. Of course, they were black guys
and the boss was a white guy, so they were
pretty determined. Then well we'll see over and over. A
lot of these cases of coerced false confessions are mainly
because someone really wants to tab somebody as the criminal. Well, yeah,

(06:18):
for a lot of different reasons. There can be a
sense of injustice. There can be a genuine conviction that
this person is guilty um, and then there can be
the you know, the case clearance um percentage that a
cop needs to keep up. But there's a lot of
reasons why a cop might say you need to confess. Yeah.

(06:40):
I think a lot of them too that I've seen
documentaries on at least or because of the public, Like,
hey man, we really need to finger somebody for this,
because people are scared, and who better than this person
who might not be too smart or might but might
be kind of poor and can't afford and doesn't you know,
representation doesn't know what's going on. So let's run them up,

(07:01):
run them up, ring them up, sure, run them up
a flagpole, right and see if it sticks to the wall. Yeah.
But despite the fact that it is not easy to
get someone to confess. Uh, they estimate between fort of
suspects do confess and that's the one thing you don't
want to do, and up still do it. Yeah, so

(07:23):
we should say supposedly up to um eight percent of
suspects in in the United States waive their right to
silence and counsel. Yeah that's just wait, that's just agreeing
to be interrogated, right, not necessarily confessing. Yeah. So, but
you can get around the whole idea of a false
confession or of being coerced into confessing or whatever, just

(07:44):
by remaining silent, not being like part of that demand
your lawyer. I mean, we're gonna give you some tips, um,
not how to get away with a crime, but some
tips on if you if you are rounded up and
put in a room, there are some things you can do. Right.
This is a public service announcement with guitars. By the

(08:05):
nineteen fifties, they confessions that were involuntary. Um, they consider
it involuntary, not just if you were beaten and threatened,
but if you were all the deprivation third degree techniques
were no longer allowed, like even if you couldn't use
the bathroom, or if you've been promised something in return
for confessing, or we'll go easy on you, buddy, or

(08:26):
if you'd even just been threatened, that counts as coercion too,
And so in about the fifties, UM the United States said, Hey,
this kindler, kinder, gentler interrogation technique thing is is starting
to work out. Let's put a bow on the whole
thing and say that for a confession to be admissible,
the the confess or has to sign it yeah and

(08:50):
say yeah, I didn't I didn't do anything under coercion.
This is my own, full, free confession and here's my signature,
and UM, which helped but certainly didn't stop false confessions. Right.
So the thing is is, UM law enforcement replaced the
physical coercion with what amounts to plainly is psychological manipulation.

(09:15):
And it's predicated on the idea that you when you
are saying you didn't do something and you're guilty, you
are going to become stressed out. And then the that
stress is derived from anxiety over knowing you're guilty and
having to lie. Because when you're being interrogated and you're

(09:38):
denying that you're guilty, the cops don't just say oh, okay,
well thanks, for coming by. If they think you're guilty,
they or they want to think you're guilty, they're going
to keep pressing you. Like interrogations aren't necessarily brief things, right,
So the more they press you, the more stressed you
should get. And the more stressed you get under this

(09:59):
idea of um interrogation technique, the obvious, the more obvious
it is that you're guilty, which means the more they press,
So this feedback loop starts, right Yeah. I mean they're
basically relying on a few basic human things inherent to humans,
tendencies inherent to humans. Um. One is you're gonna probably
open up more to someone who is like you, uh,

(10:21):
to their If you start talking, it's gonna be hard
to stop. And three, if you're if you're telling the truth,
it's gonna be harder to lie. Right, So they kind
of prey on that with some age old techniques like
the good cop, bad cop. Right you you uh, if
you feel like you're being persecuted, but then you're also
being rescued by somebody else, you're going to identify with

(10:42):
the rescuer, trust them. That's a classic move. And here's
the thing like that, a lot of this stuff, like
the Good Cop part um is predicated on this complete
and utter deception that that cop understands where you're coming
from and sympathizes with you. That cop does not sympathize
with few. That cop may understand where you come from,

(11:02):
but he or she probably despises that, and they are
not your friend. But the whole one of the whole
points of um of interrogation is for the cop to
pretend like they're they're right there with you, they understand
where you're coming from, they feel for you. This is
just you're jammed up and I want to help you
get out of it. Oh yeah, you see. I mean
if if all this sounds super familiar from every TV

(11:25):
show or movie you've ever seen, is because they it's
been written so much that it's almost like they don't
need to do their own Like writers don't even need
to do their own research into how this is differ
because it's just how it is in the movies. When
it is in the movies is how it is in
real life. When I was reading this, I was like, oh, yeah,
I've seen that before. I've seen that technique before, Like

(11:48):
it made me Actually researching this article made me appreciate
that there are some TV cop show writers out there
who like really do their homework, Like The Wire, like
every it was a little more nuance. It's like law
and Order. Um, what is it? Uh? I don't watch
those the one Vincent didn't offer you. I don't know. Oh,
I can't remember what it's called criminal minds something like that.

(12:10):
It's not it, um, like it's a little more overt, right,
but it's all the all the factors are there. Yeah.
Another one of the tried and true techniques is maximization.
That's when they try to scare you. Um, if you've
ever heard like, oh you're you're pretty Josh, they're gonna
love you in prisoner. I hear that almost every day.

(12:32):
That is a classic maximization, or just you know, they're
going to throw the book at you for what you've done.
You're unless you you know, start playing along, you're gonna
get the max exactly. Um. They may also go the
exact opposite route, which is minimization, which is to create
the idea that society will will commiserate with you because

(12:55):
anybody in your position would have done the same thing.
You know, like that that little lady was ask him
for her person to be taken. You know, in this
day and age, in this economy, that kind of thing. Um,
polygraph was used for a while, and they still use that,
but most times, um, if you listen to our show
on polygraphs, they're not admissible in court. So a man

(13:17):
named John Reid, he was a polygraph analyst, said, you
know what, there's a lot of things that happen during
a polygraph exam that we can use without the machine,
just to root out the truth or lies. Yeah. Basically,
John Reid said, Hey, I've noticed through all of my
experience all of these things that a person who is

(13:39):
guilty or who confesses at least goes through. And here
are some ways to like really make this more efficient,
to make them react more strongly, to get them to
confess faster, more forcefully. And he came up with the
order called the Read Technique nine steps of the Read Technique,

(14:00):
trademark of Johnny Reidon Associates. Yeah, really, because Johnny Reidon
Associates is like this business that's still very much around. Yeah.
I don't know if I need to say that, but
it is their technique. Yeah, And they train the CIA,
the FBI, the local law enforcement there, like the in
the United States, the red technique is the gold standard

(14:21):
for police interrogation. The problem is it is also being
increasingly proven to be based on basically armchair psychology and
not science. It's say, it's going through the same thing
right now that like a lot of the forensic sciences
are going through. There's like based on intuition that doesn't
really hold up to scrutiny. And I should say the

(14:46):
red technique has not been across the board debunked, and
it makes sense in a lot of ways, but there
are studies out there that have said, like this doesn't
really this doesn't really hold up. Yeah, he defends it. Uh,
he says, it's very sound technique, but false confession comes
from improper use in bad police work. Yeah, and it's

(15:07):
not it's not necessarily like the read people are treated
like they're you know, they're out to get anybody and everybody.
The Red technique is criticized because the whole foundation that
it's built on is the presumption of guilt, and it
has been shown to prove or produce false um confessions.

(15:28):
That's right, all right, If you sit down in a

(15:54):
in a room to get interrogated by the cops. One
thing that they're probably going to start doing is lying
to you and saying we have evidence that they may
not have. We have witnesses that put you at the
scene that don't exist. Basically, with a few exceptions, cops
can lie and say whatever they want in there. And

(16:14):
that is going to make someone nervous. Even though you
were you know, surgical gloves when you broke into that house,
if they say your fingers are all over the place,
you're gonna start second guessing yourself and get nervous. Yeah.
And even if like you weren't in that house ever,
and you know that you weren't in that house, you're
gonna start to wonder if maybe you suffer from blackouts
and do horrible things like this cop is saying, Wow,

(16:35):
you're blacked out. Um, And yeah, the courts of upheld
the cops right to deceive. Uh. And I've read about
a study that found that of six and thirty detectives
in the U. S. And Canada that were pulled say
they use false evidence ploys where they're saying you have
surprised it is not a hundred yeah, you would guess,

(16:57):
I mean maybe the other eight percent We're just like
they didn't even look at what they were saying, you know,
but yeah, they you can and they do say we
have your fingerprints, we have a witness, we have d
n A. They can completely lie about what they have
and that they have it on you to get you
to confess. It doesn't matter. You can't say, well that

(17:22):
cops said he had evidence doesn't matter. And the whole
legal basis for this idea for the cops to be
letting the cops deceive is this uh longstanding notion that
no innocent person would ever sign a confession even if
they were lied to about physical evidence of their guilt

(17:42):
being at the scene of the crime, because there they
know they're not guilty. The problem is that long standing
idea is coming under more and more scrutiny is being
found to be not the case. Like people, it's been
shown people will when lied to in situations like that,
they will infest the things that they did not do.
I know it seems crazy for people like you and me, um,

(18:05):
because I know I would never do that, but you know,
I'm not mentally challenged or I'm not poor, and I
haven't you know, there's a lot of reasons why someone
might falsely confess. Yeah, and I think though also it's
not just necessarily like going how you are going into it. Like, Yes,
the a lot of the like mentally ill people UM

(18:27):
make up a decent amount of UM false confessions. Same
with UM, mentally handicapped, cognitively impaired people, UM, people of
low socioeconomic status. There are a lot of a lot
of factors that set you up to be more likely
to have a false or give a false confession. Knowing
your rights. But if you took if we took you

(18:48):
and ran you through a long enough UM interrogation with
people who knew what they were doing, they who knows
what you would sign, I'd be all right, we'll see
because I am stand this all. I know my rights.
I have a very strong mind. Probably say I want
a lawyer. Well yeah, I just ended all. And then
I'd be like, m, I don't know any lawyers. Do

(19:11):
you know a lawyer? I have an entertainment attorney. Does
that count? Um, they know lawyers? Yeah, exactly. This is
the whole network. So UM, once they bring you in
the room, the room itself uh. And this is all
from Read's manual. He wrote a manual nineteen sixty two
with a Northwestern law professor named fred Inboo called Criminal

(19:32):
Interrogation and Confessions. I imagine every writer in Hollywood has
a copy of that on their shelf. Um. But the
room that you see on TV, that's what there they suggest,
you know, nothing on the walls, a very plain desk,
a very uncomfortable chair on one side, two chairs on
the other for the detectives. UM, that one way mirror

(19:52):
that's gonna serve a purpose of letting people spy on
you and just to make you nervous even if there's
no one on the other side, and put you out
of reach from this one. I didn't really uh, I
had never really noticed. But out of reachs from just
light switches and maybe the the a c uh, what
do you call those thermostatic thermostatic just to make you

(20:12):
feel powerless. It's all a mind game to make you
feel helpless. So far seems pretty intuitive, pretty logical, Like
if you can't flip the lights on and off, it's
not something I would think that I would want to
do right then, but maybe knowing seeing that it was
that far away, yeah, woid just give me this reinforced
the idea that, Like, I couldn't even if I wanted to,
because it's all the way over there. That's probably small

(20:33):
detective in between me and that, like exactly, but it
makes sense. But I point that out because that's that's
the read technique. Stuff like that, keep the light switches
away from the criminal because it'll make him feel helpless,
right does It sounds a little hinky, but it it
makes sense in a way. That is the read technique encapsulating.

(20:54):
So let's continue, Chuck, So that was that's just the room. Yeah, yeah,
that they suggest there there if you follow the re
technique to a t, and this is one of the
saving graces of it. Um, you're supposed to do what's
an initial interview, And if you're the detective and you
go into in an initial interview of an interrogation, you

(21:14):
are the re technique tasks you with going in without
a presumption of guilt. Yet that's the point of the
initial interview, is you're supposed to be sizing your guy
up and determining for yourself as a seasoned investigator, whether
you think initially they're guilty or innocent. I'm sure that
happens some Yeah, there's another study that found that it's

(21:37):
often skipped as well. Um, and that's they just start
like hammering right away. Well, yeah, you're throwing out the
the the potential for this, um, this person to be
treated as possibly innocent. You're not sizing up. You're going
in assuming they're guilty. So but if you if you
do go through that initial interview, the other point of

(21:57):
it is that you're supposed to be creating a bay line. Yeah,
which I think is that showed up in the polygraph
one too, Yeah, which isn't surprising because John Reid was
a polygraph expert for a while too. Yeah, and you've
been gratiated yourself, you know, in the first few minutes
by this point, like, uh, if if you're if you're
in Philadelphia and your suspect has on like a Phillies cap,
you might talk about the game last night, right exactly.

(22:20):
And that that throws back to um, the suspect being
more likely. Can you trust someone that shares their same
views that they feel they can identify with, So the
detective will do whatever they can to make it seem like, oh,
you're a Catholic, I'm a Catholic too, that kind of thing,
you know. Yeah, And so once you've got a little
bit of rapport going on, is when you're gonna set

(22:40):
your baseline. And I thought this is pretty interesting. You don't,
and I'm gonna start looking for this on cop shows
to see if they don't overtly talk about it, if
they're just how good they are with their you know, uh,
with their acting, because if they're looking at the eyes, um,
then they're going to be accurate, because that's one of
the way is supposedly you can create a baseline. Um,

(23:03):
you're gonna ask some some questions that require memory recall,
and you're gonna ask other questions that require more creativity,
and you're gonna look at where their eyes go. Supposedly,
if your eyes moved to the right, that is just recall,
because you're I guess looking in the direction of your
memory center of your brain. If it's more creative, you

(23:24):
might look to the left. And then then you're gonna
use these later on to see if your suspect is
creatively making up a lie, they might look to the left,
or if they're just truthfully recalling something, they might look
to the right. Is that bunk? Yes, all right, it's
very dangerous too, because they that is incredibly widespread. It's
a popular misconception. If you ask anybody if you move

(23:45):
your eyes a certain way, does it indicate your lying?
Most people are gonna say yes, Yeah, it totally does.
I can't remember if it's right or left, but if
you look a certain way, it means you're lying. So
that's a longstanding thing that's based actually on a self
help philosophy from the seventies, has nothing to do with science.
And actually Richard Wiseman, who we Um incorrectly said, did

(24:10):
some research that proved that ghosts exist in our ghost episode. Yeah,
that guy, he's done someones to debunk this. He did
a couple of studies and in one of the studies
he found um. He he used footage of people who
were holding press conferences searching for lost relatives. But the
person pleaing for their relatives return was later convicted of

(24:33):
like killing or kidnapping their their relatives, so they were
obviously lying. They were committing a huge lie in front
of the public. And he found that they were just
as likely to look to the left or the right.
There was no correlation whatsoever. Yeah, I'm sure there are
facial cues of pantomimes if you're Christopher Walkin. But um,
it all depends on the person to write, like, you

(24:54):
could be really good at lying or really good at
throwing people off with facial cues. Yeah, or the idea
that you your eyes move in a certain direction at
all because you're coming up with a lie or because
you're remembering something might not It doesn't mean anything necessarily. Yeah.
We also did one of micro expressions. This is a
culmination of a lot of shows. I'm realized. Yeah, it
really is so um that was another one. You you've

(25:16):
got the baseline set. You're watching the eyes even though
you really shouldn't be. Um, But for the most part,
you're you're seeing what your suspect appears like when they're
stressed or I'm sorry, when they're relaxed. And and the
reason you're creating this baseline of what they act like
when they relaxed is because if you ask them questions

(25:40):
and they answer them and appear relaxed, then supposedly they're
telling the truth. Again, this is predicated on some faulty
ideas because here's the problem. Anxiety is not necessarily linked
to lying. Like, yes, you may appear anxious if you're lying,
But that doesn't mean that if you're anxious, you're lying, right,

(26:03):
Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I would do that.
I would do the chuck chuck technique would be the
fast thing, like I would set him up. I'll calm
and be like, Hey, did you watch a game last night? Yeah?
How cool? Why did you kill it? Old lady? Yeah?
You like the Phillies. Yeah, it was a pretty good game.
How do you think they're gonna go far? Yeah? Did
you kill your wife? And boom? That was pretty good?
You almost said yes, yeah, really and you didn't kill

(26:25):
your wife? No? I mean, geez, that was thrilling. The
chuck technique. I I like the Colombo. What's that? Oh? Well,
you're just like that's that's great. I'm glad you like
the Phillies. I just want to thank you for coming by.
That's it was good to meet you. Write if we
if we need anything, can we call you? And they're like, yeah,
they're so relieved that they get to lead, and then you, oh,

(26:47):
I'm sorry, but one more thing. Why did you kill
your wife? That Colombo did? Yeah, he was a little
better at it than I was. He would say, there's
there's just there's one of the things just not making
sense to me. If you think of your wife, why
were you found standing over with the knife? Yeah, so
that's how Colombo would catch him off guard, like really
get them to let their guard down. Yeah. I like that.

(27:09):
So you said, he I know what Colombo was. I
was about to say he went on and killed his wife.
But that was Robert Blake. Yeah, that was Barretta. What
was his technique? I don't know. I never watched Barretta
check your gun with the matre d and then isn't
that what he did? Know? What did you do? I
think he left his gun with the matre d soup,
that's what he said he did, Like, you know, I'm

(27:30):
here table for two, here's my coat and here's my gun. Yeah,
well you hang onto that for me, will you be
my alibi? Um? I think we're at the read technique now, right,
we are. So the the other stuff was from the
book that's based on the read technique criminal interrogation and confessions.
But now we are at the actual read technique, the

(27:53):
nine point technique that is designed to maximize um, just come,
which leads to more frequent confessions. Yeah, and it's actually
it's illegal and a lot of European countries for children, um,
which which it should be, because that's another risk factor
going in. They can produce false confessions as age of course,

(28:16):
and we'll get to some of those later. Those are
kind of uh maddening when you read about like a
fourteen year old it's interrogated without their parents for like
a full day, but it happens. So step number one
and the re technique is the confrontation. Uh. And this
is after the initial interview you have. You're going to
present the facts of the case. You're gonna tell them

(28:37):
about the evidence, um, what they're faced with, the all
the evidence against them, even if you're making some of
it up. You might want to invade their personal space
at this time if you're Matthew McConaughey, uh. And then
you start looking for things like fidgety, uh, suspect they
look in their lips, are they like mustle with their hair? Um.

(28:58):
And then if you're a skater, you might say, all right,
I've got this guy just where I want him. That
guy ran his fingers through his hair. He's guilty, exactly.
And that's kind of part of the part of The
issue that a lot of critics of the re technique
bring up um is that basically, if you stripped non
verbal stuff out, then you've got some sound stuff there. Right.

(29:19):
The biggest problem is when you're trying to read nonverbal
cues because there it's not rooted in science, rooted in
armchair psychology and pop science totally. So the idea that
somebody's fidgeting meanings they're guilty and they're lying. Not necessarily
they could be fidgeting because any human being would be
really uncomfortable when placed in that situation and interrogated by

(29:43):
cops who are experts at it. Right. Uh So, step
number two is theme development, and you're gonna be a
little more soothing here with a softer voice. And this
is when you come up with some some theories and
a story maybe of why they committed this crime. Like
you know, you just couldn't go on any longer now
when your best friend at sex with your wife. You

(30:05):
just couldn't live with that, could you. And if the
suspect latches onto that in some verbal or nonverbal ways
and they'll continue they don't, then they'll just create another theme. Yeah,
and the the detective will basically just kind of while
they're creating the story for the for the suspect to
latch onto there also actively listening to the suspect to

(30:27):
see if the suspect will latch onto it in any way,
shape or form, and if they don't, they try another one.
If they do, then they start to kind of beef
that one up and at least alternatives, which actually comes later,
but in the meantime. One of the main techniques of
the read technique is stopping denials. But I didn't do it, Josh, listen,

(30:50):
I'm telling you I was. But imagine my finger on
Chuck's lips right now. That's why you would never do that.
Now you stop denials, does it creates a sense of hopelessness,
like the like, don't you feel hopeless with my fingers
on your lips? So hopeless you have no idea? Uh?

(31:10):
It makes you feel hopeless that you don't even have
the opportunity to to reason with this cop. You can't
defend yourself, not at all, so you have a sense
of hopelessness. Plus, the other upside if you're an interrogator
is that you're keeping the person from talking, meaning they
also can't ask for counsel. Then I don't see why

(31:30):
people don't just do that the first thing, over and
over say I need a lawyer, I need a lawyer,
I need a lawyer. I read this article in I
think this stranger aren't the oddest Seattle. I don't know.
It wasn't a great article. It was kind of um,
it was just kind of misleading, like the the author
really wanted you to to sympathize with the guy who

(31:52):
was guilty and didn't really revealed that he really was
pretty guilty towards the end. But it had this this
really great exploit nation for why people don't ask for
a lawyer in this article. Yes, and I've seen it before,
but this article really got the point across that this
guy was, like I mean, he'd done some stuff before,

(32:13):
like I think like he um he was he dabbled
in drugs and like ran an illegal like poker game
and stuff like that like mouthfeasance. Yeah, and he so
enough so that he was like he knew he was
technically guilty in the eyes of the law, but not
for this thing that they wanted him on. Um, so

(32:35):
he was he had that guilt to begin with, and
then these cops saying like, you're gonna really look guilty
if you if you ask for a lawyer. That's one.
And then the other aspect was if you lawyer up,
we can't help you. One. If you talk to us,
that's the only way we can help you get out
of this jam. We want to help get jam like

(32:57):
we we know we might we would have done the
same thing you did. Yeah, but the cops never want
to get you out of a jam. No, that's not
what they're trying to do. And so what they were
saying was like if you clam up this, like, who
knows what's going to happen to you. They were doing
all sorts of really effective psychological manipulation. And the guy
they were talking to was a lawyer's son. Yeah, and
this guy who like forty years old, a lawyer's son,

(33:20):
and so he'd known his whole life to ask for
a lawyer. And even this guy didn't immediately ask for
a lawyer because these cops got him. You know, I
probably wouldn't either. Actually, if I was if I was
arrested today after work and obviously completely innocent of anything,
would that be mind blowing if that happened and I
was completely innocent. I would I would at first, my

(33:40):
first instinct would probably be like, I don't need a
lawyer and I didn't do anything, Yeah, like why why
occurred that expense? Well, I think that's another aspect of
the initial um, initial consultation. That an initial discussion where
it's like, oh, it's all friendly, we're talking about the Phillies.
Why would you need a lawyer for that? All right,
I retract my statement. I get it now, but you

(34:01):
should stick to your original statement no matter what. Like,
you have a right to counsel and there's no reason
you should not invoke it. Your your punishment is not
going to be worse for asking for a lawyer. Yeah,
you should open up. You sound like one of those
legal commercials called Josh Clark. That reminds me we should
do and we should mention the A C l U

(34:22):
episode that was a pretty good in too. Yeah, man,
this thing is just so many tangential podcasts. So the
stopping denials, that's a big part of the read technique.
And then um, there's something that's similar that John Reid noticed,
but it is a little nuance. There's a difference, uh,
and that's objections to to to read denials were different

(34:45):
than objections, and objections were something to be treated differently
as a result. Yeah, an objection. The example they gave
here was like, I would never rape somebody because my
sister was raped and that it destroyed our family, So
of course I wouldn't do something like that, right. So
to a cop, that's not a denial. A denial is
like I didn't do that. I didn't do that that,

(35:06):
that's not me. You got the wrong guy. Those are denials,
and the cops would try to stop you from completing
those sentences. That objection you just said is a denial,
but it's encapsulated with um, yeah, a justification something to it.
Do you remember when you used to take multiple choice
tests in high school? They always said that if you

(35:26):
don't know the answer, usually the one with the most verbiage,
the one with the most words is the right one.
I never heard that it's true that works out. It's
not good at taking tests either. Well, no, wonder, we
need to get in the way back machine. You can
go take some more multiple test tests. Knowing that now,
But the the I think that's kind of the same
premise for an objection. It's like, it's not just a denial.

(35:50):
It's there's more to it, and the fact that somebody
put that much more thought into it means that there's
something to that. So a cop will take that and
cultivate it and try to turn the at around and
they would say, we, I know you love your sister,
and you know you you stood by her while she
was raped, So of course this wouldn't be like a

(36:11):
recurring thing. This is just a one time thing that
you did and you were out of your head or whatever,
because you care about your sisters, so you would never
do this all the time or something. And so all
of a sudden, you're you're kind of like you're giving
the suspect like a something to latch onto, something for
them to to basically re enter society to an extent,

(36:34):
because at this moment, especially if they're guilty, they are
totally on the ounce with society, and the sole representative
of society, and who's speaking with them right now is
the cop that's interrogating them, and everybody wants to be included. Yeah,
and if you don't, then your a sociopath and they're
gonna get you anyway. They're well, yeah, but they're gonna

(36:55):
have a hard time through interrogation. So number five is
getting the spects attention. Is I don't know these the
real titles or is this just the liberties of the
author of this article. I don't know what We'll call it.
Getting the suspects attention. And uh, this is when you
pretend to be the ally of the suspect um, because

(37:15):
at this point they're probably looking for a way out.
And that's when you might go, hey, man, I get it.
If I call it my best friend having sex with
my wife, I'd kill him too. Yeah, I understand where
you're coming from. And uh, maybe a little pad on
the shoulder, a little rub on, a little rub on
the back, or maybe a pad on the back and
just some reassurance, like I get to where you're coming from. Man,

(37:38):
it could have could happen to any of us, and
you're in big trouble at that point. Yeah, and that's
probably going on like throughout. Yeah, and the themes run
these all overlap quite a bit. But if if there's
an objection that you've noticed that you're working, you've turned
around and you're working, Yeah that objection with an extra
layer of compassion and commiseration. Yeah. Uh, and I guess

(38:00):
really kind of start to ensnare the suspect a lot more.
It's weird because I'm I'm repulsed by a lot of this,
but I'm also very impressed by like what I've seen
on TV. What you can tell is someone who's really
good at it. Oh yeah, it's an effective like an
art form. There's UM I believe something like eight percent
or seventies six percent of UM suspects who are interrogated

(38:24):
in this manner when you take out people who UM
invoke their miranda rights, uh confess like it has an
enormous confession, right, And there's a lot of people who
the vast majority the study I saw or the number
I saw, six of those confessions are from guilty people,

(38:49):
but something like point zero four percent are false confessions.
The problem is there's still such thing as false confessions.
There's no safeguards. It's just it just so happens that,
like the false confessions are in that small of an amount. Yeah,
and that percentage isn't high. But if you think about
how many people are interrogated, that's like several hundred per
year in the US, up to several hundred per year.

(39:12):
That's a lot of people. Yeah, and it's not like
that that those people just it gets found out at
trial or somewhere down the road that they're innocent. Like,
those people may spend the rest of their lives in jail.
At the worst case, they may be executed, which has
probably happened in the history of the US, although it
hasn't been um irrefutably proven yet. Yeah, and you can

(39:36):
listen to how the Innocence Project works. From June, we
interviewed paula Is on, Oh, yeah, that's right. I wish
I'd known a lot more about the Innocence Project back
when we did that episode, Like I kind of got
it and understood it. But just over the last few years, Um,
I've kind of I understand it even more. Yeah, I

(39:58):
wish I would have known better than It's still a
good episode. We talked to Paul paul Is on Yeah,
she's a real pro. Yeah, no, it's not, is it? Okay,
that's how rumors get made. Well, I just liked her
like more after you said that. Oh yeah, yeah, I
love Steve's on. Um, all right, and back to the

(40:18):
red technique. At this point, number six, the suspect might
lose resolve and uh, This seemed really obvious to me.
If the suspect is has his shoulders hunched, or has
got his head in his hands, or is crying, then
you've got them just where you want them as an interrogator, right,
you were going to get your confession, whether it's a

(40:39):
false confession or not. That's not guaranteed by these outward signs. Again,
if you strip away the non verbal stuff from the
red technique, it's it's pretty pretty good stuff. And apparently
this is where you really want to regain their attention.
Like if they start crying, like forced them to look
you in the eye. Uh, because I guess that works.
That increases the stress level. Um. So remember we talked

(41:01):
about that theme development. It's like here, here's what happened,
you know, and they object to that, and then you
take that objection, you turn it around, and they start
to latch onto that theme couched in that objection. You
take that next, and as you're developing it, it becomes
one of two or more alternatives. But basically you're taking

(41:25):
the theme that the person latched onto and you're making
that the minimal um example. It's almost like a good cop,
bad cop version of reasons why you did it exactly.
So it's it's um you you you shot that lady
in the back because she was a horrible person. Nobody

(41:47):
is going to think that you did it because you
just wanted the entrance money, exactly, that anybody in your
position would have done this. And everyone's gonna understand this
is why you not. This horrible reason, this reason, this
reason society can live with. Maybe you'll go to jail
for a year two, who knows, But when you come out,

(42:09):
everybody's gonna say, Hey, that Bernie guy is okay. I
would have shot that old lady in the back too.
Did you see that movie? Yeah, that's good. Uh, it's not. Hey,
that Bernie guy needs to burn in hell for the
rest of his life because it killed some poor old
lady for insurance money. You know. So with the cops
sitting there saying, here's what we're saying, you're agreeing to.

(42:30):
Here's this horrible interpretation that I can't control. But this
I've created and sculpted with your help. So let's throw
this horrible, big thing away and this thing that doesn't
seem nearly as bad is what the press will hear.
They will start to put it on paper. Yeah. But
here's what you're not thinking about what you're doing is

(42:51):
it's the same in both cases. If you're confessing to
a murderer and you are just at a point to
where you're you think, man, that sounds way better in
a NewSpace paper and this other thing. And also it's
coming out of the mouth of this detective that is
um that is appearing to commiserate with you, that has
empathized with you, that maybe told you on the side
like hey, I hated that old lady too, and I'm

(43:13):
glad you did it. The cop can totally say that,
and and to win the trust of the suspect. So
all of these factors combine all of a sudden, you
have a story, you have a narrative, you're working out
with the cops. You may not even realize that that's
what's going on. And then the cops going to say,
I have a piece of paper and a pen here,

(43:34):
and I want you to write down what we just
talked about. I want you to write down your confession. Yeah, well,
they're gonna bring someone else in there first. Well, there's
probably already someone else in there. They may bring a
third a new person in there. Uh, to try and
force them to retell their story, which they probably won't
want to do. Uh. And that's when you can introduce like, hey,

(43:56):
you don't want to tell the story again to this
new detective. I know you're tired here to take the
spend exactly, don't stab me with it. By this time,
the person will likely want to do just about anything
to get out of that room and from writing and
signing this this confession. There's salvation on the other end.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel, even

(44:17):
if it's possibly jail. Yeah, they can get out of
this room. They can get out of this horrible interrogation. Yeah.
They may promise like a hot meal, like something as
simple as that can can get someone to sign a
confession at the end of a long, long day. So
you've got the written confession, you haven't signed, Uh. They

(44:39):
probably have to sign an additional waiver that says I
didn't write this under coercion or else. They'll include that
in the confession and then you have basically what amounts
to a slam dunk conviction in court. Yep. And that
is the read technique. Uh. And we're gonna talk about
some real cases of interrogation right after this break. Alright, Chuck.

(45:19):
So that's the red technique. You got your purpose, super effective, um,
and it has been used in plenty of cases. Like
we said, the number that I saw was like point
zero per point zero four of confessions or false confessions, UM,
which is extraordinarily small, which means that a lot of

(45:40):
truly bad guys get caught through the red the red technique, right. Um.
And there's this one in this article on how stuff works, um,
how police interrogation works. And it's with a woman named
Nicole Michelle Frederick. It's between her and a detective named
Victor Lauria, and it takes place in Detroit in September

(46:01):
of two thousand three. And Um, Nicole Michelle Frederick was
the step mom to a two year old daughter, and
the two year old daughter had shown up in the hospital,
I believe, unresponsive with bruises all over her body had
clearly been physically abused. And the step mom was saying,
she falls down a lot, like I don't think anybody

(46:23):
heard her, Like she just gets bruised like that, And uh,
it certainly wasn't me, but not only was it not me,
I don't think it was anybody. The little girl just
falls down, she does it to herself. And with that,
Detective Lauria took her to be blaming the victim that
she was trying to go free. By blaming this little

(46:43):
girl for being clumsy, lumsy and difficult, yes, which a
detective can then latch onto is reprehensible as that sounds, uh,
by trying to get some empathy, going like, hey, I
get it, you know, like this is a tough baby, yes,
and it's I'm sure it's trying, and it's very difficult.
So all of a sudden, uh, Detective Lauria has has

(47:05):
this I guess this theme, this justification that was set
up by the suspect, and he starts to play it out.
He's saying, like this this girl, she was a difficult baby.
She's crying. You lose your head for a minute and
you get a little rough and you know it could
happen to anybody, and um uh ms. Frederick says, no,

(47:30):
that's not right at all. Nobody hurt this kid. I
don't understand why you don't believe me. You seem to
be not listening to me, which is from what I understand,
that's you're in the danger zone right there, and your derogation.
If somebody's saying, if they're pressing back their own reality
on the you the detective, you're not in control, right
then they are. So uh, Laurias started to look for

(47:52):
another theme, and it was along the same lines, but
rather than losing your head for a minute, it was
a split second. Something happen been in a flash of
a minute or flash of a second, and she perked
up a little. Yeah, she started to latch onto that one. Yeah.
So then he knew he had her, you know, in
a pretty tough spot, and um, she started nodding her head.

(48:12):
He sets up the alternative and said, you know what,
if you don't explain this thing, every he's gonna everyone's
gonna just assume that you're this awful, abusive person. Um.
I think people might understand more though, because everyone's been there.
If we paint you know, if if it was just

(48:33):
a split second thing and he lost control, people are
going to get that. So those are the alternatives. All
of a sudden, and then it came, uh, it came
out that the her daughter had had had brain damage,
it was likely not gonna die. And then all of
a sudden, the suspects started saying, oh I I they're
gonna get me for murder. Yeah. Well, he pointed out

(48:53):
to her, He's like, by the way, you haven't even
asked about the condition of your daughter. And she was like, no,
I haven't totally have. He's like, no, you really haven't.
And she's like, well, how is she. He's like, she's
not gonna make it, and that's when she goes, oh no, yeah,
I'm gonna be tried for murder. And she was and
found guilty. Um, she she confessed, I believe right. Yeah,

(49:15):
she admitted to shaking shaking a baby and then said
out loud, I killed the little girl. I killed her right. So, Um,
she was convicted of killing her two year old stepdaughter.
And last I saw, I found an appeal in two
thousand five that was denied. That was the last I
saw of her after her conviction. So it does work,

(49:36):
and Detective Lauria followed all of these steps, um, and
got a bad guy in this case. Yeah, and so
a lot of times it goes down just like it should.
But it is super controversial, which we've talked about some
and you mentioned at the beginning. One of the biggest
problems is it's guilt presumptive. Is they go in there thinking,

(49:57):
all right, this person's the goal of the of the
interrogation is to get a confession, not to find out
whether or not someone did something. In most in many cases,
they go in there thinking this person is guilty. And
if you're going in there thinking you're guilty, even if
you don't mean to, you're gonna start to filter out

(50:18):
any reasons why they might be innocent, even if they're
good reasons and valid reasons. And that ain't no good, No,
it's not. That's um. That's well, it's pretty huge flaw really,
even if it does result in only point zero four
percent of false confessions. Yeah, and you also mentioned that, Um,
the whole purpose of the interrogation is to make someone

(50:39):
stressed and uncomfortable. And then when you notice people behaving
stressed and uncomfortable, that's the presumption an indicator of guilt. Supposedly,
when it's like you said, would you call a feedback loop,
So you know, I want to make you stressed and uncomfortable,
you're being stressed and uncomfortable, that means you're guilty. Yeah,
it's an odd way to approach things. It's coercion UM.

(51:03):
And then there's also been a lot of people to
point out that a lot of these techniques are the
same thing that are used in brainwashing, which we did
a show on July two thousand nine, did a brainwashing
show invading a personal space, not allowing the person to speak, UM,
using contrasting alternatives to have them come to uh, make

(51:25):
them feel like they're making a decision or that they
have a choice or some sort of power. I think
you brainwashed me in that episode two right, Yeah, we
did a little role play. Yeah, it was awesome. Man,
um I turned you into a prep that was five
years ago. Yeah, and then UM position and confession as
a means of escape. Oh yeah, that was like the

(51:45):
last step I think before resolution was to say like
just like denounce your family or whatever and you will
be saved or something. Right in this case, it signed
this thing and man, you're gonna get that hot meal
and that cigarette I promised you. The thing is is
like we said, it's uh, it does produce false confessions.
And I saw somewhere that of people who have been

(52:10):
exonerated with DNA evidence, UM gave a false confession. So
people go to jail for years for this kind of thing. Well,
here's a few of the more famous cases. Peter Riley
in nineteen seventy three, it's an eighteen year old who
is whose mother was murdered. Um, I think no siblings
and no father, so like the only parent he'd ever known.

(52:32):
And after eight hours of interrogation by Connecticut police, he
confessed to brutally murdering her. Murdering her and uh, I
was convicted on manslaughter based on the confessional loan. There
was no evidence, no motive. Medical findings suggested that there
were at least two attackers, and uh, the town really
got behind him apparently, and like, so this kid didn't

(52:53):
do this, He's not that kind of guy. And let's
have bake sales and raise money. And Arthur Miller, the
famous playwright, lived in the town, and he championed it
because he did a lot of work with a c
l U and Um. Eventually new evidence came out that
exonerated him, and he was set free after three years
in prison. Three years not too bad. That's better than

(53:13):
Earl Washington Jr. Who in nineteen eighty two he was
described as in please everybody, I'm using scare quotes here
He was described by psychologists as mildly retarded. He had
an i Q of sixty nine, which is a whole
other kettle of fish that mean anything anyway, But um,
he confessed to raping and murdering a nineteen year old

(53:34):
woman under interrogation. He was convicted on the confession alone, right, Yeah,
just on the confession. Well, a lot of these are
and spent eighteen years in prison, some of them on
death row and was apparently rescued from the executioner with
like nine days to go. Yeah. But at the same time, like,
as a jury, what are you to do when someone

(53:55):
says I did this, you know, I mean hopefully don't know,
maybe maybe add some other evidence to no, I agree.
The thing is is Earl Washington's um thing. He he
was somebody else was caught doing it using DNA. That's
that's been a huge change to this kind of thing.

(54:15):
It's at least exonerated people like free and clear. But
that's that brings up another problem with false confessions. Not
only do innocent people go to jail, guilty people stay free,
and they accumulate more victims over time, you know, like, um,
how how how many more children would that that lady
in Detroit have abused if like she'd gotten off or something,

(54:38):
you know. I mean, like the and the guy who
created UM the read technique actually had a false confession
and wrongful conviction under his belt, a guy. If you
read the article UM the uh the interview in The
New Yorker, the first thing he talks about is this
guy in the fifties who was in jail for twenty

(54:59):
years from ordering his wife even though he didn't do it,
who was um interrogated by John Reid himself. Wow. Yeah,
So the guy who actually did do it went on
to rape pregnant women and um commit all these other
horrible crimes that he wouldn't have He wouldn't have done
had he been caught the first time, or had the

(55:20):
cups still been looking for him. Wow. So yeah, it's
a huge point. I mean, like, it's not just innocent
people in prison, it's guilty people out still. Yeah, if
you really want to see uh this all firsthand, I
highly recommend the documentary from Ken burn Sarah Burns, and
David McMahon, The Central Park Five. And this is the

(55:41):
famous story in of five young African American men who
were set up the River for a rape in Central
Park and they did not do it. And uh. It's
a great documentary and it's just summarizes how you can
get a false confession very nicely and it all plays
out and you see these inner abuse and get really
angry and uh, but that was definitely a case of

(56:05):
UM sort of like with the Atlanta child murders, Like
people are scared to go into Central Park now and
we've got these five use who aren't so smart and
they're poor, and we can we think they did it
and I don't care what the evidence says. We need
to finger them for the crime and put them all
over the news so people will feel safe again. But

(56:25):
they were eventually exonerated thanks to DNA again um, and
they spent depending on which guy, between six years and
twelve years in prison. And really great documentary and I
think it's on Netflix. It is it is. Have you
seen it? Yeah? Yeah, that's a good one. UM, so
chuck this. We've basically been talking mostly about the red technique,

(56:48):
that there are alternatives. There's some law enforcement agencies have
lost faith in um, the red technique. Uh and in Britain,
apparently in there's a bunch of false confessions that came
to light and the British government said, we need to
figure something else out. So they created a Blue Ribbon
task force and said, come up with an alternative to

(57:12):
the red technique, which ironically is a technique in the
re technique. But what they came up with was called peace,
which this is the worst acronym of all time, but
preparation and planning, engage and explain, account closure, evaluate clearly
spells peace. Yes, um. So they came up with it

(57:35):
after a couple of years and by two thousand and
one it was pretty widespread. But the Peace technique is
predicated on the idea that you're not going after a confession.
This technique, like you as a an investigator an interrogator,
you're going in to just get the whole story out
and as much detail as possible, and you're not going

(57:57):
after a confession. You're not accusing the person of the crime,
you're being polite and you're here's another thing, and a
lot of people think that this will cure false confessions
almost in and of itself, videotaping the confession from beginning
to end. And so what the cops do is they
interview the the suspect. They say, well, what about this,

(58:18):
here's a discrepancy, what about this? And they're not being accusatory,
they're just putting everything out there and letting this person
explain it in front of the video tape or in
front of the video camera, and then the tape is
shown to a jury and the jury apparently decides whether
the person is lying or not. Yeah, And this is
all built on the what I think is a pretty

(58:38):
rock solid theory that it is really hard to lie
and lie and lie and keep it all straight and
keep it all and that that congruous line that's believable
at some point, if you keep talking and you're lying
a bunch, you're gonna mess up. And that's what they
prey on, especially if you've just spent the last day,

(59:00):
hours like drinking cruddy coffee and eating a few ho
hoes and being asked questions by interrogators, even if they're
being polite like yeah, you're you're gonna have a really
hard time keeping up with what you've already said. Yeah,
Like you've got to be a real skilled sociopath to
lie for hours and hours and hours. Uh. And then

(59:20):
they'll bring him again and again a week later, let's say,
you know, let's have some more tea and let's sit
down and talk. And uh, a week later, you might
forget some of the things you said. And um, and
the cops have the video and they're writing down all
the details. Seems pretty solid to me. Yeah, so good
on you Britain. And um, there are some people here
in the US trying to teach it to cops here,
but apparently it's just like word of mouth and the

(59:41):
particular jurisdiction has to be down with it and support it,
and it's just not super widespread here. Yeah. Well, I mean,
the read technique isn't the force of law. It's just
the gold standard. It's the one that everybody uses and there, like,
I want to be like the cops on the shows. Well, yeah, exactly,
I want to do the piece technique. Um, the in Canada,
I found a completely different technique too. It's called the Mr.

(01:00:04):
Big technique. Have you heard of it. It's it's extremely involved. Basically,
you the suspect, will meet an undercover cop who's posing
as a criminal while you're out and about and free
and easy or whatever, or maybe while you're being booked whatever,
and you guys are gonna become friends and over the
course of the next several months, this undercover cop is

(01:00:27):
going to gain your trust and get you to ultimately confess.
That shows how little crime there is. They're like, so,
would you cut down your neighbor's street right exactly where
like they can spend like three months on a single confession.
You know. Yeah, But it's called the Mr. Big technique
and it actually the reason it's called Mr biggess Uh
in its ideal form, you, um, the suspect are become

(01:00:50):
like kind of criminal compatriots with this this undercover cop
who then introduces you to Mr Big, this crime boss
who wants you to step up to the next crime
lab bowl. But it's gonna get you to talk about
this murder that you did or whatever, and then you
confess it and you're being secretly taped and you don't
know it and you've just entrapped yourself. Man. I love Canada,

(01:01:11):
Mr I might have to move there, man, Yeah, you're
gonna stick around after a Toronto or Vancouver might just
one country. So we said earlier we were gonna give
some tips. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't. Um.
They seem a little silly, but they recommend you just
don't talk. You don't talk, they said, imagine the words
I invoke my rights to remain silent painted on the

(01:01:33):
wall and stare at them. Uh, ask for counsel, ask
for a lawyer. And then the number five thing they
say to do is cultivate hatred for your interrogator. Who
who's that from Peace Help Beagle or something weird like that.
It's yeah, it's for recommendations for animal rights activists who
get arrested. So yeah, he seems kind of basic to me.

(01:01:57):
It is, but I think it's one of those things
where they can easily go out the window when you're
in that situation, you know. Yeah, and again, if you're
in the United States and you invoke your right to council,
that's that like the cops are they have to stop,
and if they don't, that's a that's a big problem.
I kind of perversely want to know how I would
hold up. I know it's no laughing matter and I

(01:02:18):
shouldn't joke around about it, but I would like to
be interrogated just to see. Uh so, Uh, I guess
that's if you want to learn some more about UM
police interrogation, check out this article police interrogation on how
stuff works dot com. It's a good one, um, and
you can find that by using the search bar, of course.

(01:02:39):
And since I said that it's time for listener mail,
I'm gonna call this Jittery Joe's. Oh Yeah Coffee. Hey guys, Hope,
Paul as well my wife Cassie now are big fancy
yalls and uh we've been listening for years. This summer
we took a two month honeymoon to Southeast Asia. It
was a blast. Your podcasts kept the sane. Thanks for that.
You sent you a postcard from uh angkor Wat in Cambodia. Uh.

(01:03:04):
It was bought there, written in Borneo, and mailed from Malaysia.
Remember so it was well traveled. Um. Anyway, we live
in Athens and love to hear your stories about Athens.
We actually live in five Points on the Shortcut Road
where Chuck told about his mystery creepy old Lady ghost story.
I drive by there every day and I always keep
an eye out for her. But my day jobs with

(01:03:24):
Jittery Joe's Coffee Roasters, a local Athens institution, and um,
he brought a huge box of coffee and shirts and
hats and hand delivered it to the office. And Uh,
I think he was surprised to know that. I remember
when Jittery Joe's first opened, because he was like, oh, well,
that was before my time. I think he I didn't

(01:03:47):
think I was as old as I was, But I
remember Jittery Joe's opening up. It was a big deals,
like the first kind of good indie coffee house in Athens.
I didn't know they were the first, but I'm not
surprised the first one I remember at least. But he
suggests the Sumatra Wahana. He said, it's unlike any coffee
I've ever had. People either love it or hate it.
So um, that is from Mike Lord and you can

(01:04:10):
just look up Jittery Joe's online. I'm sure you can
order this stuff. Yeah, you definitely can. Thanks for the coffee, Mike,
it's good. Yes, and thank you to your wife Cassidy
for all the support. Uh. If you want to give
Chuck and Eye free stuff, we are happy to accept it.
You can get in touch with us to ask for
our physical mailing address and we'll give it to you. Okay, Yeah,
I have to say showing up at the office and

(01:04:31):
announced was a little weird, but since he had a
huge box of coffee, it was all forgetting. Oh yeah,
so your combaring gifts, It's like, yeah, yeah, it's social lubricant.
Yeah gifts, sorry, especially good on It's like jittery Joe's coffee.
You can get in touch with us via Twitter at
s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, so I Stuff you Should Know. You

(01:04:53):
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Stuff Works dot com, and as always, joined us at
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