November 22, 2021
Posted by: Kathleen FitzPatrick
Can you imagine that people make inexplicable false confessions to crimes they did not commit? I know this from painful personal experience. In the spring and summer of 1999, my adult autistic brother falsely admitted to committing a bank robbery under questioning, in the middle of the night, having been taken from his janitorial job. My brother was saved by the man who committed the crime who had been told by his arresting officers that he didn’t have to worry about one of the robberies because “they got someone else for that one.” The bank teller even picked him out of a lineup. You see, the system was on track to charge, try, convict and sentence my brother, who was clearly incapable of robbing a bank…but he had confessed. This is one of many reasons why I support Plush Dozier. His videotaped admission displays a wild-eyed young man who was admittedly intoxicated and who has a long and documented history of mental health problems. Although it was stated in court that his confession was insufficient to convict him, little was done to suggest that this confession could be false. My family’s experience demonstrated that blaming someone for a crime was more important than seeking the truth, protecting an innocent person or investigating the probability that a man who had committed a series of bank robberies might have committed this one, too. Why do people confess to things they did not do? According to an article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (Richard A. Leo, September, 2009), there are many reasons for this disturbing phenomenon. When investigators falsely identify an innocent person as a suspect, a series of errors follows that leads to false confession, such as interrogation that convinces the individual to construct a narrative falsely describing their conduct. Pressure to solve the crime... View Article
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November 22, 2021
Posted by: Kathleen FitzPatrick
Observing the process of jury selection is a deeply disturbing experience. The defendant is a young Black man, the only person of color present in the entire proceeding. His family and supporters are sequestered in another room, invisible to the court and to him. The charges are serious. A man’s life and future will be decided by people who have little knowledge, understanding or experience of what it means to be Black in America. How can this man receive a fair trial? The defendant sits quietly. His serious, persistent and long-standing mental health issues do not show from the outside, yet the impact of this on his behavior bears strongly on the facts of the case. Can jurors understand the implications of his state of mind when this is something experts struggle to assess accurately? If this important aspect of the situation cannot be effectively conveyed, if it is downplayed or dismissed, how can this man receive a fair trial? The judge instructs the potential jurors that any bias or prejudice they may have can not be a factor as they consider the defendant’s case. This of course is not possible. Myriad studies demonstrate that we all harbor conscious and unconscious bias that many of us have never had cause to consider or examine. Uncovering these biases and prejudices requires a significant process of education, review of one’s personal racial socialization, interaction with knowledgeable mentors who have proximity to the real pain of racism and stigma, the willingness to confront uncomfortable blind spots and the ability to see life through an alternate lens. This cannot be accomplished through a brief instruction from a judge. Given the presence of implicit and unexamined bias, how can this man receive a fair trial? Prospective jurors are interviewed in the courtroom and asked if they can be fair and impartial, with minimal definitions of what fair and... View Article
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October 21, 2020
Posted by: Kathleen FitzPatrick
Being prejudiced meant you disliked others based on some perceived characteristic, usually race. Foreigners, people from other parts of the country, people who lived differently could also be the targets of prejudice, but usually it was racial, and it was interpersonal and behavioral. Prejudice was those repugnant “whites only” signs over doors and drinking fountains, abusive language, and denials of services. Prejudice was overt and attitudinal. It was anathema to who we thought we were. My father admitted to me that he had prejudices, although I never observed him to show them, and that he was committed to not transmitting them to us, his children. I realized that some of my older relatives were prejudiced. My father’s uncle made some crude remarks that shocked me, and my grandmother got scared if she saw a black person outside on the street. These things were puzzling to me and I thought they were wrong. We were not prejudiced; that was not acceptable. We were good people. I began to understand that my Italian grandparents faced prejudice for being immigrants from a faraway country where they were poor. They came to the United States in the early 20th century in hopes of a better life, which they built together through hard work and sacrifice, slowly overcoming prejudice as their children were educated and assimilated into American society. When my mother expressed interest in attending college, my grandmother squashed her dreams, saying, “What do you think you are, American?” Actually, she was, having been born in the country in 1925, but the shadow of foreignness and sexism still hung over the girls. My uncles became very successful, rising into the upper class, despite their unusual surname. The prejudice they faced was never the pernicious scourge of racism. Racism is pervasive in American culture, history,... View Article
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August 26, 2020
Posted by: Kathleen FitzPatrick
One of my early memories is being in downtown Syracuse with my father. I think I was about three years old and we were in the area where I would sometimes see “Mr. Peanut” outside his shop. Down the street, I saw a man we would have called a “bum” in those days. I told my father we should give the man some money, and my Dad said no, because the man would just “drink it up.” Then I suggested we give him some food, but Dad steered me away. That’s all I remember now. When we were kids, we would go to an annual community pancake breakfast that featured the appearance of “Aunt Jemima.” I wanted to go up front and meet her. I remember she gave me a hug and spoke to me in a kind way. Another year, it was a different woman in the role, which was a little confusing. It seems like those breakfasts stopped happening, or maybe we stopped going. It’s uncomfortable now to think of those women who dressed up in those outfits to portray what is now known to be – and was then – a garish racist and sexist stereotype. In our white suburb, there was no one to play this role or person of color to share the pancakes. My elementary school was all white and there was no question about it; it was the way things were. When we drove out to my aunt and uncle’s farm in the Hudson River valley area, we drove through Albany on Route 5 and 20, before the Thruway, through a black neighborhood of brownstones that was later gentrified by the State workers. Looking out the car window, the people seemed exotic, exuberant and colorful to me, unlike the folks that surrounded me... View Article
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