Extra Credit 4: pbs frontline the confessions

"How could four men confess to a brutal crime that they didn't commit? Inside the incredible saga of the Norfolk Four -- a case that cracks open the justice system to reveal almost everything that goes wrong when innocent people get convicted."

This video was documented on the Norfolk Four case. This case was about a detective named Robert Glen Ford who aggressively accused and achieved confessions from four men to a crime they did not commit during an interrogation. The event started when a man, Daniel Williams, called 911 after hearing that his neighbor's wife was brutally raped and murdered. Immediately after he had called the authorities, he was asked to go to the police station to answer some questions. Upon his arrival, Williams, was placed in an interrogation room where he was accused of this crime. Williams was then interrogated by detective Ford, a detective who's reputation was gained by the amount of convictions he had won. According to this document, detective Ford had no evidence that Williams might have been the perpetrator of this crime. Including to this argument, detective Ford had done a polygraph test and a DNA test in which both proved that Williams was not at the scene. At this time, it was more than clear that Ford no longer cared about finding the truth but instead was only looking for a conviction.

Detective Ford managed to not only get a confession from Williams, but also got others involved in the crime scene. He achieved to involucrate six other men in this crime. Ford plotted out the entire story to the crime in which he had forced Williams and the others to confess to. Later after the incident, the true perpetrator, Omar Ballard, was found due to valid evidence and was questioned. He said that he was the only one that committed the crime. By the end of the document, Ford was prosecuted in the court of law and charged and convicted with two cases of extortion. On the other hand, two of the six men were released and found innocent; the other four still have there cases pending.

Overall, This document encourages me to believe that our justice system is not anywhere near perfect and will probably never be right. With cases such as these, it shows us how corrupted the system to this country is; There maybe many innocent people that are sitting in jail and many perpetrators that are running free in our streets. One can only hope that some day our justice system becomes just.