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The Case of False Confessions - Peter Reilly
📻 Episode #132
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 May 13, 2020
About This Episode
Why do we tell these stories?
The Case
Why do we tell these stories?
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin tell us the last story of season one. It’s about Peter Reilly, one of the first modern-day false confessors.
In 1973, police continued to interrogate 18-year-old Peter until he started to believe he was actually guilty of murdering his own mother. But Peter’s friends and neighbors believed in his innocence. Their small-town campaign for Peter’s freedom was eventually joined by a host of big name celebrities.
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin end Season 1 with Peter’s story because it helped launch the movement against wrongful convictions and false confessions. It inspires the work that Steve and Laura do to this day.
To donate, learn more, or get involved, go to: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:03:47“Speaker 1: was his rock band. He lived in Falls Village in Speaker 1: a small cottage, just him and his mom, Barbara Gibbons. Now, Speaker 1: for lack of a better phrase, Barbara was the town eccentric. Speaker 1: She was highly educated, well read, and well traveled, but”
00:15:58“Speaker 1: But on April twelfth, eighteen seventy four, Good Friday, Peter Speaker 1: Riley was convicted of killing his own mother. Speaker 3: It was a bombshell when the jury decided almost entirely Speaker 3: in the basis of the confession, so called confession that Speaker 3: he was guilty, and he was sentenced to six to”
00:27:20“Speaker 1: in understanding that false confessions can happen to anyone, that Speaker 1: they could happen to you, they could happen to me, Speaker 1: and to see the urgency for reform that hearing these Speaker 1: stories produces. It's a sea change, and it's a very Speaker 1: very welcome sea change.”
Listen to the Episode
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← #131 False Confessions - David McCallum #133 Jason Flom and Kim Kardashian on Julius Jones →
Also on the podcast: #12 Peter Pringle · #115 False Confessions - Origin Story · #116 False Confessions - Robert Davis