Anne Driscoll - My Innocent Murderer and Guilty Mugger

 

I know a man named Angel. He's not really a friend, at least not in the traditional sense of a friend. He's a prisoner. He's serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. He's been in jail for 21 years. And for almost the last 10 years, I've been looking into his case, and reading case files, and court transcripts. When you get involved in a case, you find that there are a lot of mistakes very often in an innocence case like that.

 

And to be honest with you, I'm not a lawyer. In fact, I have no training in the law. I'm a journalist. And truth be told, I have no training as a journalist either. [audience chuckles] I actually started out as a social worker. I realized very quickly when I switched from social work to journalism that the skills are the same. You have to get to talk to people, get them to trust you, tell you things. But also, the function is the same. You're basically acting as a witness for someone, and you're validating their experience.

 

I found when I started doing innocence work and investigating cases in which people have been wrongfully convicted, that it's even a hybrid of both of those things, because you're listening to their stories and reporting it to the world that a mistake has happened. And very often, it's even more profound. It's such an amazing tie that binds you to that person, because very often, you're the only person that believes them.

 

And so, Angel's case, as I said, I've been working on for almost 10 years, and I've gotten to know him very well. Even though I wouldn't say he's my friend, I do care about him deeply. I went to visit him once when he turned 43. It was his birthday, and so I bought him Hostess CupCakes out of the vending machine, and I sang him Happy Birthday. He told me that it was the only time that anybody had ever visited him on his birthday. And in fact, the people from the Innocence Project where I worked, they were his only visitors ever. 

 

So, in large part because of my experience with Angel, I decided that I would apply for a Fulbright scholarship. I was very lucky to get it. I came here to Dublin in September of 2013 to work with the Irish Innocence Project. The idea of my project was to teach the law students working on the Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College how to investigate an interview in order to better progress the cases. It was a fantastic year. It's like the best year of my life. It was so good, and I was so lucky that I was invited to come back for another year.

 

And the last night that I was here in May, before I went back to Boston, I went to the ATM machine and I took out €120. I was walking back along the Grand Canal to my apartment, which overlooks Griffith College, where I teach. It was a beautiful night and it was still light out, and I thought, oh, you know, it's your last night, you should take pictures. So, I started snapping pictures of the neighborhood. And then, when I got to my apartment, I thought, oh, you know, you should get some pictures of Griffith, too. It's right at Heralds Cross bridge, and I went over to the bridge, and I was leaning on the railing with my iPhone snapping pictures. 

 

A guy came up on a bike behind me and tried to grab my phone. This was not what I was expecting. When something like that happens, you have no idea how you're going to react. This is how I reacted. "Get the fuck out of here." [audience laughter] And so, we started wrestling. [audience laughter] I have no idea what I was thinking. But I got my phone back. [chuckles] And I thought, okay, that's it. That's the end of this. But it wasn't. Because when I looked while we were wrestling, my handbag actually got caught on the handlebars of his bike. I could see that he saw that if he got away, he was going to get my bag. And I thought to myself, oh my God-- In a split second I realized, if he gets my bag, he's going to get actually €150, my credit cards, my GNIB card, my PPS card, and my passport. 

 

I was leaving the next day, and I knew, if he gets my passport, I am not going to make it to see my son get his doctorate in physical therapy. I'm a mother. [audience laughter] You know where this is going, right? [audience laughter] I went mental. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]

 

So, we started fighting again. [audience laughter] We're wrestling, I almost pull his pants off. [audience laughter] We're fighting. At some point, I end up on the ground. My pants get shredded, my knees get shredded. I could see that he saw that other people were starting to notice what was going on. He took off. He left my bag. He also left his bike. [audience laughter] So, when this was happening out of the corner of my eye, I had seen a car pull over on the bridge. A guy got out of the car and he said, "I'm an off-duty garda. I saw the whole thing. I've called for assistance. The police are coming." And I thought, oh my God, the irony of this.

 

 

I have spent my whole year here tearing apart the work of investigations, exposing mistakes. It doesn't make me that popular with the police. And here they are coming to my rescue. And so, I was just like, "I just can't believe the irony of this." And the next thing that happened is a woman came over from across the street and she said, "I saw the whole thing." She said, "He went down under the bridge, he went that way." And she said, "By the way," she said, "you are the only person I know who gets mugged and then ends up mugging the mugger." [audience laughter]

 

We were having great crack at the crime scene. [audience chuckles] And then, a third guy comes over. He's on a bike and he says, "I followed the guy on my bike through the lanes." He said, "I called the police. I think they have him." So, the police come and they say, "What happened?" So, I say, "Well, I teach at Griffith College. I'm leaving tomorrow for Boston. A guy tried to mug me." And he said, "Oh, what do you teach?" [audience chuckles] And I thought, I am not telling you what I teach wrongful convictions. I said, "Journalism." So, he said, "Well, would you mind coming down? We'd like you to ID the guy." 

 

Now, what I didn't tell you about Angel, is the reason why Angel is in jail for life for a murder he didn't commit is because of bad eyewitness identification. I know from my work that 75% of the wrongful convictions that are overturned based on DNA evidence are due to bad eyewitness identification. I mean, everybody thinks like, “If you see something, it's like a tape recorder in your head, right, you're going to have accurate recall later.” But that's not at all the way memory works. Memory is highly fallible and highly malleable, and yet it's very, very convincing to a jury. 

 

And in the case of Angel, the guy that ID'd Angel couldn't tell time, couldn't tell height, couldn't tell weight, couldn't tell distance or time, what day of the week it was, his birthday, what town he was in. And so, I was being asked to go down and ID somebody. I know that this kind of ID is called a show up. It's the worst form of ID, because it's completely subjective. It's not like you have eight people in a lineup and you don't know-- You know, you're supposed to pick somebody out, and you don't even know if the right person is there. In this case, there's one person and a couple of cops. It's just like, I am just so distraught, because I don't want to make the wrong identification. 

 

I know what happens to people when things go awry. Because I've heard the stories. I've heard what happens to people when they tell you their story and how for no apparent reason somebody is arrested and tried and convicted and sentenced for something they didn't do, and the fallout that happens. They lose their homes, their families, their livelihood. So, I was not looking forward to doing this at all. But what choice do I have? I'm leaving the next day.

 

So, I go down, and there's a guy there, and he's leaning against the fence with a cop on either side. I look at him and I think, yeah, he had short blonde hair, but was he that short? I don't know. And I look, and he's got a navy-blue tracksuit on. Yeah, I remember. I almost pulled it off of him. [laughs] But were the stripes white or green? I have no idea. I think, I just don't want to make a mistake. I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's wrongful conviction. I, all of a sudden, have sympathy for eyewitnesses, because it's really, really hard to be an eyewitness.

 

In the end, I say, "Yeah, it looks like the guy, but I'm not sure. Believe me, I'm not sure." So, they asked me, "Will you come back and make a statement? Sign a statement?" I say, "Yeah." We go back to the police station, and the cop that took my statement. Did everything as he should. He didn't misconstrue anything I said. There weren't any misleading questions. I signed the statement. It's exactly what I told him. So, in this case, everybody did everything they were supposed to do and even more.

 

So, I leave, and I had plans to meet a friend for a last pint, maybe two or three. [chuckles] When I meet with her, when we go to the pub, I'm telling her what happened. Truthfully, it wasn't the mugging that unsettled me and rattled me. It was the idea of having to ID someone. That was what was really unsettling for me. That's what really shook me up. We were talking about it, and then the phone rings exactly three hours after this mugging happened. And it was the police. And they said, "We just want you to know that the guy has confessed." I was like, “Oh, man.” And he said, "He asked us to call you. He wanted to apologize and tell you he was sorry." 

 

I was just so relieved, so relieved. Because one more Angel wouldn't be created. And truthfully, I'm waiting any day now to hear whether Angel is going to be freed. But the takeaway for me, was that, yes, it's a very profound experience. You're bound to somebody, you're tied to somebody when you hear their story and when you act as a witness. But it's also a profound one when you're an eyewitness. Thank you very much.