MovieChat Forums > Rectify (2013) Discussion > Could someone help me on this? Spoiler

Could someone help me on this? Spoiler


Ok, we saw the finale, but now Mackinnon left all up to the viewer as a question of faith to believe he was innocent or not, which by the way was one of the main argument of the show. So Why Daniel never made a statement claiming for his innocence? All the contrary whether he was pushed hard in two occasions of his life, he confessed the crime, or just arguing lack of memory.....mushrooms do that?

Why then we all want to keep thinking he was innocent? Too much empathy with Daniels charm?

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[deleted]

I swear to God you say the dumbest stuff of anyone I've ever come across. I hope you are a troll.

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[deleted]

U a mishuganah bro?

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[deleted]

I agree with inyoface...and that's just after reading a few of your posts. Considering some of the "conclusions" you've reached here, this show is clearly over your head.

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[deleted]

I'm with ya inyoface415!!

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The evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Trey. It wasn't even subtle.

Daniel making a statement of his innocence wouldn't be in the nature of his character. He's invested himself fully in doing what's necessary to have the potential for a decent life. That's his focus. Let Jon Stern, DA Person, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and Sheriff Daggett do their work, and make the statements. DA Persons already intimated questions about Daniel's guilt in the press conference:

DA PERSON
In the days and weeks since,
however, details have come
to light that raise doubts about
Mr. Holden's guilt.
On the two occasions when he confessed, it was made completely clear that they were coerced in different ways.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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You should read up on the very real problem with coerced confessions, which is Daniel's first confession, and confessions to stay out of prison, which is his second confession. Police and prosecutors hate admitting they were wrong. The loophole in the law is that prosecutors can offer people who were seemingly wrongfully accused a way out, usually after many years in prison. The catch is that the seemingly innocent person has to admit guilt, and the prosecutors are off the hook for what they did.

Daniel himself can't claim his innocence because he honestly can't remember. There was a scene this season that dealt with this. The difference is now there is evidence of who raped her, and there is evidence of Trey going back. There is also tons of evidence of a botched investigation. The main thing to me that points to Daniel being innocent is Trey. At the end, Daniel being involved never came out of his mouth. That tells me it's either Trey or Chris.

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It's pretty much spelled out that Daniel is innocent, Chris is the rapist & murderer, & Trey is just a dirtbag.

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I'm pretty sure about this one too.

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Peteyandjia, if you would tell where exactly it's spelled out that Chris is the murderer and Trey is not, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Also, what does "Trey went back" mean to you?


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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The finale basically confirmed Chris was the killer. By having Trey's last info dump about Chris getting bit, it's the last piece we find out and it heavily points the finger at him.

The point of "Trey went back" was to lead back to Trey, who then pointed towards Roger, which then pointed back to Roger's connection to Chris, which is what the show ends on.

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"Confirmed?" WTF?

Despite Trey's history of egregious manipulation and lies, despite evidence of psychopathy, despite his attitude toward Hanna - and women in general - and despite his sudden realization he's a suspect in Hanna's murder, you take his word for it?


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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Yes I don't think they could have telegraphed their intentions any clearer to the audience. They even show Chris, who rarely appears, reacting to the TV broadcast with a close up of his daughter. What's the point of the Roger stuff if not to bring up Chris again?

Despite Trey's history of egregious manipulation and lies, despite evidence of psychopathy, despite his attitude toward Hanna - and women in general - and despite his sudden realization he's a suspect in Hanna's murder, you take his word for it?


They choose to directly answer this "Something's gotta be the truth."

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What's the point of the Roger stuff if not to bring up Chris again?

The point of the Roger stuff is to show why George was forced to change the story Trey had ordered him and Chris to tell - that they saw no sex or rape at all - "or else."

Foulkes forcing George to change his story then pointed back to Trey, who had two realizations: 1) George had changed the the story to actually point a finger at Daniel; and 2) Foulkes pressured him to do it. Thus Trey realized LE were evidently more than half-way convinced Daniel was their man, so he could tighten that tunnel vision.

He did it, not by saying he saw Daniel raping Hanna, but by DENYING he saw it, which made it seem to LE that he was "protecting a friend" as CJ assumed, while adding another lie in the form of claiming he saw Daniel and Hanna arguing, which gave LE the motive they were looking for.

This same premeditation, this coolness under fire, happened earlier that day, before the kids were picked up. Trey had the presence of mind to visit Chris and reinforce that they keep their stories united, thereby implying that he did not know Hanna was dead.

Having supposed motive for Daniel murdering the girl, this is why in the interrogation tape CJ emphasizes that he must have been angry, and that he'd fought with the girl:

CJ PICKENS
She was pretty beat up down
there. Wounds like that, a young
man has to be angry. You get
angry a lot, Daniel. Lose your
temper. You got in a fight with
her, didn't you?
George's Hail Mary lie about the wound on Chris's right hand is just more of the same.

The reason they show Chis reacting to the news with his daughter there, is to imply that he is not going to escape informal justice. The case is going to destroy his life. The statute of limitations on rape may have expired but LE will be using his confession, not against him but as evidence againsts Hanna's murderer -- namely Trey. The same Trey who kept a piece of Hanna for himself these last 20 years, her hair scrunchie, which Daggett's team recovered from the lockbox.

Edited to add more about Trey:

Trey emphasized more than once -- I count three from memory -- that he could have sex with Hanna anytime he wanted. Since she was 14. It is important to note that Trey was, and remains, seriously invested in the idea that he'd never need to force this girl to have sex with him. He jumps on any suggestion that his motive to kill her might be related to her denying sexual access "anytime I wanted to." It was a point of pride with him to let people know that.

Except... we know that on that night, Hanna did refuse him. As Nelms testifies, Trey described this as "change the rules in the middle of the game," to deny him sex, and he was "not going to go down for that."

Trey repeats that he never thought he raped Hanna because in his mind it was always consensual. Therefore no motive. Whereas according to Trey, the only one she refused permission to was Chris, ergo he has motive. The problem here is that Trey evidently cannot accept Hanna "changing the rules" on him. To his mind it can't ever be non-consensual, since she is his to be had "any time I wanted." By this logic then, Trey should "not go down for that" -- "that," meaning a rule that did not apply to him. Whereas with Chris (and George), Hanna could deny them, and if they forced her it would truly be nonconsensual.

(Trey missed his calling; as an ace obfuscator he should have worked for Exxon back in the ‘80s when they learned the more effective way to combat concerns sure to come about climate change was not to argue against it directly, but to muddy the waters.)

Trey assumed Hanna was easy. How dare she turn around and refuse him - and in front of other boys? And now there was even a risk she might claim he raped her! And Nelms and George might give in and confess all three of them gang raped her. All this would amount, from his POV, as a huge exposure of his being denied access to this girl he could “have” anytime he liked. She caused all this anxiety by "changing the rules."

Evidently having "free" access to Hanna for sex was a point of pride with him. She meant something to him, but not in an affectionate sense, because anyone you can "have" any time you like is effectively property. And so, after Hanna's dead Trey keeps a piece of the "property" he considered his -- the hair scrunchie.

Trey tells Daniel:
TREY
You know what? If it had been
me? I would've gone down there
and killed every sonofabitch who
put anything inside of her.
Here he literally projects himself into Daniel's shoes - that is, someone who has a "claim" on the girl, witnessing her having sex with others. He doesn't kill those others, he just threatens to if they tell. Instead, he kills the girl who, in his mind, started out letting them put themselves inside of her, then "changed the rules" and denied them. That’s displaced rage.

Nelms testifies:
NELMS
But afterwards, she was more
worried about Daniel than what
had happened... Well, she kept
asking us not to tell him... She
just sat there. Looking ashamed,
and I don't know how else to say
this, but kind of pouty... like how
my daughter does now sometimes
when she's... hurt, or mad. Or
disappointed.
So Hanna, who Trey tells Daggett he'd been having sex with since she was 14, not only "changed the rules," causing him grief, but adding insult to injury was now thinking only of Daniel – and she was telling HIM, Trey, not to say anything to him! With this, Hanna made it abundantly clear that she belonged to Daniel, not to Trey, and in a way that Trey could never access.

The blows to his ego just kept coming, with that one being the topper. There’s the rage CJ was talking about, the motive: “She was pretty beat up down there. Wounds like that, a young man has to be angry.

That’s why “Trey went back,” and that’s why he was happy to send Daniel to death row.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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Looking at the pieces throughout the series does point to Trey true, but looking at the final episode on it's own and the structure of the show overall, leads to the writers wanting to indicate Chris.

Consider that season 3 was build up to Trey being busted and was the perfect time to conclude the mystery, for the audience at least, if they wanted to stick with Trey. Instead they continue to dig deeper. To roll with your theory then most of season 4 is a step backwards, Trey pointing the audience at clues which leads right back to himself.

The reason they show Chis reacting to the news with his daughter there, is to imply that he is not going to escape informal justice. The case is going to destroy his life. The statute of limitations on rape may have expired but LE will be using his confession, not against him but as evidence againsts Hanna's murderer -- namely Trey. The same Trey who kept a piece of Hanna for himself these last 20 years, her hair scrunchie, which Daggett's team recovered from the lockbox.


I disagree, its too close to the end to bring him up for that. We have a new clue dropped and then we have Chris who we rarely see make an appearance. There's a perfect opportunity in the Trey scene to bring up the scrunchie and stick it to Trey but the last moments are to point to Chris, so again they're telling the audience what's important in the end. They don't bring up the scrunchie at all in season 4 which makes me think that is reading more into it than intended.

And part of it is they leave the audience knowing Trey is telling at least some of the truth at the end. We know that he did not kill George. We also see Trey meeting more informal justice than Chris (losing his house, wife, and eggs), so Chris is also more of a loose end to tie into the story.

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We also see Trey meeting more informal justice than Chris (losing his house, wife, and eggs),






This made me literally laugh out loud. Just thankful I didn't have a mouthful of coffee!


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[deleted]

Makarov's clever comparison of eggs with wife and house is a gem. The kind of absurdity I love.


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Trey:

"He's a drug store, truck driving man
He's the dead o the Ku Klux Klan"

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[deleted]

So glad to see someone else thinks the impetus was on Chris at the end...that the broader hint may just be that he -- surprise! surprise! -- is the one who killed Hanna.

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Nelms is scum. He could've done it. He did have motive. But there's no circumstantial evidence that he did the deed, while there is circumstantial evidence that Trey did. That's what it comes down to.

Consider that season 3 was build up to Trey being busted and was the perfect time to conclude the mystery, for the audience at least, if they wanted to stick with Trey

I don't think it's a sound method of working out whodunnit by stepping outside of the story world. I think we must stick with the circumstantial evidence within it. Same goes for the "perfect opportunity" comment.

To indulge you a little, though: S3 built up to the irony of Trey being busted for something we knew he didn't do. A kind of cliffhanger. While it would be poetic justice, this also created a natural desire to have the perp face his real crime. So there was a nice lingering question there, if he was gonna have to face it, or if this weird poetic justice would play out instead. After all, it wasn't the only poetic development for the bad guys: the Senator got a stroke that paralyzed him from taking any defensive action.

S4 added CJ Picken's testimony about Trey's demeanor when told that George had pegged Daniel for the rape. It revealed how Trey, even as a kid, had the presence of mind to cooly manipulate LE to inrease their tunnel vision on Daniel. Since this testimony comes only in the previous episode from when he tells Daggett his story about Nelms' hand, his outstanding ability to manipulate comes fresh to mind.

they're telling the audience what's important in the end

What Trey says about Nelms' hand doesn't actually make him any greater a suspect in Hanna's murder than before he said it. Trey doesn't know what we and Daggett know, that Nelms confessed to raping the girl. It's not news that she didn't want "country club Chris." But while mentioning that supposed injury, Trey mentions for the fourth time, that I can recall, that he could have Hanna any time he wanted, ergo he had no motive.

Trey says "You see, I never thought that I raped her, Carl, whereas Chris knew he did." That's his defense for supposed lack of motive.

Except for the fact that Hanna apparently didn't want him, either. She put him in the same category as "that privileged dick." Uh-oh.

So, 1) a big blow to his narcissistic ego, his property rejecting him in the first place; 2) Nelms testifies that after she was raped she was worried about Daniel finding out -- i.e., she "belonged" to him now, not Trey; and 3) she might go public accusing him of doing something he couldn't believe was possible for him to be responsible for. You see, it would be grossly unjust.

Trey is the one who has the intimate history with Hanna. He's the one who is emotionally invested in the world understanding that he, Trey, could have her any time he wanted.

They don't bring up the scrunchie at all in season 4 which makes me think that is reading more into it than intended.

Okay. And yet the fact still exists that Trey kept Hanna's hair scrunchie in his lockbox for 20 years. And the fact also still exists that he evidently thought of Hanna as his property. The character emphasized that multiple times, making it very hard to forget. These two facts read naturally together. Circumstantial evidence.

George told Bobby "Trey went back." Thus we learn that George suspected that Trey had killed Hanna. Thus George asks him, specifically, "Did you kill her, Trey?" He still suspects.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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And the fact also still exists that he evidently thought of Hanna as his property



Did he think of her as his property or did he just mean she was easy? I never saw any possessiveness, just that she was just always available to him.

There have always been girls who guys know will put out, doesn't mean they think of any of those girls as their "own", just that they can have sex with them any time they want because the girls are not discriminating.

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Did he think of her as his property or did he just mean she was easy?

An unnecessary binary. "Easy" implies only Hanna's responsibility. Someone like Trey would welcome that view. However, "Any time I want" also implies Trey's responsibility. There's an "I" in there. It's on his time. According to his whim. It implies a particular attitude toward another human being. Her "coo hole." She's a thing to him. Hanna may have contributed to her objectification; and Trey was just the kind of guy to embrace it.

You never saw any possesiveness because there is no longer anything for him to possess except in memory. Thus the scrunchie in his box of old valued possessions, like his hot wheels car, and other items. Thus the possessiveness is in his words, repeated and emphasized. His possessiveness was in the past, so it must be implied.

You last observation is true as far as a generalization goes; however, this is a particular kind of man. Recall Trey's ironic complaint as Daggett drives away: "All you son of a bitches playing God!" The irony is that Trey has consistently treated people like objects, like pawns. He's an extreme manipulator. He gets off on playing God. He cares nothing for others' feelings -- he clearly has no capacity to empathize. There are no lack of examples through the story's four seasons. We know he was like that 20 years ago. This way of being is consistent with thinking of Hanna in material terms, as merely a possession, not a human being.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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She's a thing to him. Hanna may have contributed to her objectification; and Trey was just the kind of guy to embrace it.



No argument there. Yes, she was a thing, someone with whom he could indulge his sexual urges.


You never saw any possesiveness because there is no longer anything for him to possess except in memory. Thus the scrunchie in his box of old valued possessions, like his hot wheels car, and other items. Thus the possessiveness is in his words, repeated and emphasized. His possessiveness was in the past, so it must be implied


But you can imply possessiveness from a scrunchie? Maybe it was no more than a reminder of his first time and had little to do with Hanna herself, who, as you say, was an object, something to be used.

And keeping s scruchie doesn't mean he was a murderer or that he raped her. You keep coming back to that, but it's not "evidence"....and not as much evidence as Daniel sitting beside her, having put daisies all around her. Or Chris, who may have been bitten by Hanna, and who was protected by his father and Foulkes. Why would Trey be so brutal to her (her injuries "down there") when he had sex with her regularly? That would far more likely be Chris, who she rejected.

All you son of a bitches playing God!" The irony is that Trey has consistently treated people like objects, like pawns. He's an extreme manipulator. He gets off on playing God. He cares nothing for others' feelings -- he clearly has no capacity to empathize. There are no lack of examples through the story's four seasons. We know he was like that 20 years ago. This way of being is consistent with thinking of Hanna in material terms, as merely a possession, not a human being.


Who really played God in this story? Foulkes. Authority. Those with power and the will and means and determination to apply it. He was the DA, it was he who insisted Daniel was guilty, he who protected Chris, he who orchestrated the whole thing. He was the God figure. Trey was right when he said that to Daggett: they did play God.

Trey had no power. He just took advantage of the corruption by others. His collusion has now bitten him in the butt and he's bitter and angry. I think the "evidence" that he's the killer is so obvious that in a series like Rectify we should see it as misleading and realize that Trey, who has been suspicious from the beginning, is not who killed Hanna. That it was Chris, all along.

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Maybe it was no more than a reminder of his first time and had little to do with Hanna herself, who, as you say, was an object, something to be used.

It's possible to take every item in isolation. By doing so it reliably results in obscuring story context. Of course this is selective.

Why would Trey be so brutal to her (her injuries "down there") when he had sex with her regularly?

I've stated why, in plain English.

Who really played God in this story?

Obfuscation. The subject is Trey. There is no value in comparing his manipulative prowess to Foulkes and declaring Foulkes the "real" kind. That has no relevance to the consideration of Trey as Hanna's killer. There is either much evidence that Trey is a master manipulator from way back, who treats people as pawns, or there is not. To earn the rank of #1 suspect in Hanna's murder he does not need to have the kind of power Foulkes et al wield.

There is far more circumstantial evidence pointing to Trey than Chris. Your "should see" dictate relies on stepping outside of the story world itself to reel in a familiar pattern from other mysteries. A pattern that not all mysteries employ. Well, that's quite arbitrary. This is only happening because there's a need to bolster the relatively slight circumstantial evidence within the story world that points to Chris. By contrast, when it comes to Trey there's no inducement to grab at abstractions because the circumstantial evidence is considerable within the world of the story.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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It's possible to take every item in isolation. By doing so it reliably results in obscuring story context. Of course this is selective.



It's no more selective than your insistence that it indicates Trey kept something from when he killed her.


Why would Trey be so brutal to her (her injuries "down there") when he had sex with her regularly?

I've stated why, in plain English.



Trey's pride was hurt? He was possessive? I think Chris' fear of his reputation and his father trumped Trey's pride.

Obfuscation. The subject is Trey. There is no value in comparing his manipulative prowess to Foulkes and declaring Foulkes the "real" kind. That has no relevance to the consideration of Trey as Hanna's killer. There is either much evidence that Trey is a master manipulator from way back, who treats people as pawns, or there is not. To earn the rank of #1 suspect in Hanna's murder he does not need to have the kind of power Foulkes et al wield.


BS. The subject is who played God. You quoted what Trey said to Daggett for the purpose of saying it was Trey who played God. I presented information that it was not Trey but others who played God, just as Trey said. The problem is you can't give Trey any validity; in order to fit your scenario he has to be lying every time he opens his mouth. I'm saying maybe not; maybe he's telling some truths that you don't want to admit because it doesn't fit your belief that McKinnon showed all the "evidence" which points to Trey. If Trey was such a master manipulator from way back -- and again I think it was Foulkes and the sheriff and Chris' father who did the manipulating -- then why did they suspect him? Why was he charged with George's murder? It was not Trey who put Daniel in prison but a perfect storm of boys who lied, a boy who was a little different to begin with, high on mushrooms, was found beside the dead girl, and who confessed because he was coerced, and a corrupt DA and a sheriff who went along with him.

There's as much "proof" and indication/implication that Chris is the killer as that Trey is. That's all I'm saying and all I've ever said. Assuming that Daniel is not.




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It's no more selective than your insistence that it indicates Trey kept something from when he killed her.

You've missed the point: to look at evidence in isolation means you're unable to comprehend the character in whole. So for example, you'll be inclined to think Trey is merely a collector of sentimental memorabilia. "His first time." Aaaaw. But there is slightly more to Trey than that, namely his profile as a psychopath. Miss the context, you miss everything.

I think Chris' fear of his reputation and his father trumped Trey's pride.

Okay. So first thing Chris does is fly into a rage and beat the tar out of Hanna's private parts. Hmm.

The story offers very little to substantiate Chris as the one who "went back," to protect his reputation or for whatever other reasons, whereas it does quite a bit to substantiate Trey as the one who "went back" for the reasons described. More than one reason, mind. A perfect little storm in Trey's squirrely brain.

I presented information that it was not Trey but others who played God

No, you presented information that others also played God, not that Trey didn't. The subject was Trey, so your comment was irrelevant.

If Trey was such a master manipulator from way back

I refer you to CJ Pickens' interview.

why did they suspect him?

Because he was too cool. He dug in his heels, though. And he said what the tunnelers wanted to hear, so they didn't pursue other suspects - like Trey - as Pickens admitted. It was well played.

Why was he charged with George's murder?

Because he messed up his manipulation. When I say "master-manipulator," I mean he plays God and is evidently good at it; I don't mean he actually is God. Nobody's perfect.

It was not Trey who put Daniel in prison but...

Straw man. Neither stated nor even implied it. What I do say is that Trey made a significant contribution.

I get that you're saying there's as much evidence against Chris. But it's not adding up to that much. Trey's story about the hand is moot, and Chris' supposed motivation for the obvious crime of passion doesn't stack against the bundle of pathologies that make up Trey's psychopathy; his history of egregious manipulation and lies - including planting evidence; his obvious pride of possession; his keeping the scrunchie for 20 years; his listening to a voice in the shed; his mistreatment of his daughter; and many more, including of course "Trey went back." That too is all I'm saying and all I've ever said.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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I tend to agree with you, that Trey was red herring from Day One, and the scrunchie as well. Yes serial killers have been known to keep "trophies", but I don't think it was anything more than a memento from a day that changed all their lives. Heck even Jared kept a memento of Hanna's.

He still could be the guilty one, but it would be pretty anti-climactic. I guess we'll never know with certainty.

Rectify - parody pix
https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TLG67x/

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Obviously we won't know with certainty. But we can identify and reflect on circumstantial evidence.

The "anti-climactic" bit really doesn't makes sense because the "twist" that it's really the clean-cut privileged guy and not the obviously creepy guy is itself a terrible cliché. It's more overworked than having the killer turn out to be the psycho all along. That the former pattern is so attractive is a testament to how firmly established it is -- it's what pops to mind right away.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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the clean-cut privileged guy and not the obviously creepy guy is itself a terrible cliché.



And of course, we've not seen any other clichés in this series, especially in Season 4. /s

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That's the equivalent of bringing up other characters playing God when the subject is Trey's manipulations. Cliché elsewhere doesn't imply that the choice to implicate the creepy guy and not the clean-cut guy was a cliché. As mentioned, it's actually not a cliché; going with the clean-cut guy is. Allmsayin'.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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[deleted]

What's the matter? Not happy that the series ended and unequivocally proved that you're wrong in your assertion of Daniel's guilt? You mad bro?

Hehehehehe

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He mad!

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[deleted]

Oh look. Forced confessions of children:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330452/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephanie_Crowe

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[deleted]

Right, because being in prison where he was sexually assaulted was so good for his psyche...

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[deleted]

It's been clear since Trey tried to frame Daniel for killing George that Trey was the killer.

This season reinforced that several times, and not subtly. George, Chris, and Trey raped Hanna, then Trey went back and killed her. The show has been perfectly clear about it.

Daniel doesn't know all that. He has no idea what happened. He was tripping and the police hammered at him 'til he didn't know what to believe. He does not have the information we do. I think he is sure of his innocence at this point, but he will never know entirely what is real memory from that night, and what was images put into his head by authority figures.

We do. If we were watching and listening.

"Oh, I'll be polite. Right up until I'm rude."

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under any circumstances, would yourself confess guilty of a horrible crime if you really didn´t remember? I am not saying that in the movie was all explained as you have said, what i did not understand is Daniel´s confessions, that´s all "ToheelenBackagaing" smartest person on the planet!!!!!!

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under any circumstances, would yourself confess guilty of a horrible crime if you really didn´t remember?

What one person would do is not the point. The point is that some people under some circumstances will confess to crimes they did not commit. There's quite a bit of literature on false confessions available, if you care enough to look into it.

LE induced false confessions are among the leading causes of injustice. The top causes are:

- mistaken or false eyewitness identification
- forensic fraud or error
- false or coerced confessions
- mental illness
- racial bias/class bias
- jailhouse informants/snitch witnesses
- professional misconduct
- police misconduct (overzealous or unethical police/detectives/investigators)
- ineffective assistance of council, defence lawyers (plea bargains/deals); and/or prosecutorial misconduct.

False confessions occur in different ways. There are three kinds, identified by scholars: voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized.

- Voluntary false confessions are self-incriminating statements given to LE without external pressure.

- Coerced-compliant are confessions given to avoid interrogation, to avoid explicit or implied threats, or to gain a promised or implied reward. ("And all the while, me just sitting there waiting for my father because you promised me that I would get to see him once I just gave you the truth. You promised me that I could go home. But I didn't go home. And I didn't rape her, did I? You were wrong. Are you at all surprised?")

- Coerced-internalized false confessions are made by a vulnerable person who has been subjected to extremely suggestive and misleading interrogation tactics, and as a result comes to believe they might be guilty. This belief can be reinforced by false memories.

Obviously in some cases the kind of false confession is a blend.

I've done a fair amount of reading on false confessions. A good primer is Police Interrogations and False Confessions: Current Research, Practice, and Policy Recommendations, especially the lead chapter, which is available as a separate document, titled The Three Errors: Pathways to False Confession and Wrongful Conviction, by Richard A. Leo (University of San Francisco - School of Law) and Steven A. Drizin (Northwestern University - School of Law, Bluhm Legal Clinic):

"...three sequential errors that occur in the social production of every false confession: investigators first misclassify an innocent person as guilty; they next subject him to a guilt-presumptive, accusatory interrogation that invariably involves lies about evidence and often the repeated use of implicit and/or explicit promises and threats as well; and once they have elicited a false admission, they pressure the suspect to provide a post-admission narrative that they jointly shape, often supplying the innocent suspect with the (public and nonpublic) facts of the crime.

"We refer to these as the misclassification error, the coercion error, and the contamination error.

"Additionally, at least three other processes - 'misleading specialized knowledge,' 'tunnel vision,' and 'confirmation bias' – usually pave the way to a wrongful conviction by convincing all of the criminal justice actors to ignore the possibility that the confession is false."


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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i guess you´r getting this info from reliable sources, but for me there is no way a decent person confess twice in his/her life of a brutal crime unless has serios doubts he did not commit it or under torture. this is were McKinnon got it all wrong. but it is just my opinion.

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Yes, these are reliable sources. There's a lot more if you are interested. Evidence that people confess, and confess more than once, is undeniable. Again, certain people are relatively vulnerable under certain circumstances.

And yes, it is just your opinion. Okay. The obvous question is why you are unwilling to make it an informed one. Because despite evidence you just say "for me" it's the way you want to think regardless.

That is the definition of prejudice: holding to an opinion without proper enquiry, or in spite of evidence.

I want you to read the following. It's just one case of a great many:

"As I wrote this chapter, my attention was drawn to a courtroom in South Carolina, where 41-year-old Billy Wayne Cope was just convicted for the rape and murder of his 12-year-old daughter Amanda. Cope awoke one morning to find the oldest of his three daughters face down, cold and lifeless in her bed. It looked as if she had been strangled to death. Cope’s wife worked the night shift, so she was not home. Immediately he called 911, but when the police arrived they treated him more like a suspect than a griefstricken father. Based on an erroneous first impression that there was no sign of a forced entry and belief that Cope showed “too little emotion,” the police interviewed him twice, sent him to the hospital for a physical examination, and then took him to the station for questioning that would begin late at night and extend into the early morning.

For more than 24 hours, Cope vehemently asserted his innocence despite persistent charges and accusations (e.g., “I swear before God, standing right here . . . I did not do anything to my daughter”). During that time, he waived his rights, volunteered to be examined, and five times offered to take a polygraph test: “So you have faith in the polygraph test?” he was asked. “Yes,” he replied. The next morning, after spending the night in jail, without food or drink, bewildered, still separated from family and friends, and without counsel, Cope was administered a polygraph test by a police examiner who reported to him that he failed (in fact, a leading researcher who later scored the charts indicated that Cope had actually passed).

Devastated by the result, Cope wondered aloud if a person could commit such a heinous act without knowing it—an idea suggested to him the previous night by his interrogators. According to the examiner, Cope broke down and admitted that “I must have done it.” He then allegedly followed this admission with a full narrative story of how he molested and strangled his daughter, cleaned up, and went back to sleep.

Cope spent the next two and half days in jail, alone, still lacking contact with family, friends, or an attorney. He then handwrote a second confession in which he said that he had sexually assaulted and killed Amanda within the context of a dream. At that point, the police took him back to the house, where he reenacted on videotape—and in vivid and gruesome detail—how he had awakened in the middle of the night, molested and killed Amanda while in a dissociated state, suddenly realized what he had done, went back to sleep, forgot what had occurred the next morning, then once again recalled his
actions. This reenactment was followed by a fourth, even more detailed, confession typed by one of the detectives and signed by Cope.

Serving as an expert witness for the defense in this case, I believed that Cope’s confessions were taken under highly stressful circumstances, that police investigators used interrogation tactics that put innocent people at risk, and that Cope’s statements were filled with contradictions and factual errors. None of this meant that Cope was innocent or that his confessions were false.

Shortly thereafter, however, DNA tests revealed that the donor of the semen and saliva found on Amanda’s dead body was not Cope but a sex offender, who was new to the neighborhood, and who had broken into other homes, raping and killing other girls in the same way.

One would surmise from this DNA exoneration that Billy Wayne Cope would have been released from jail, freed, and compensated. Yet just hours after the DNA results were received, the police told Cope’s wife in an egregious lie that the semen was her husband’s, wired her, and sent her to jail to try to get her husband to confess again, which he did not (she died of surgery complications shortly thereafter, believing that the semen was her husband’s).

When the DNA was later matched to James Sanders, a serial offender, the prosecutor — armed with a police-induced confession that now did not match the facts of the crime, and lacking any evidence whatsoever of a link between the two men — charged Cope with conspiracy, arguing that he had pimped his daughter out to Sanders.

The only additional evidence at trial was presented by a female friend of Cope’s late wife who was corresponding with the defendant. She presented two confessional notes allegedly received shortly before trial that Cope had sent to her from jail. But Cope denied writing these notes, which were penned on paper he had no access to and in a handwriting that was likely not his own. As for the witness, she had once before been charged with forgery in another matter.

In short, there was no evidence of Cope’s involvement other than his original confessions. Yet after only five hours of deliberation, a South Carolina jury voted to convict him."
Internalized False Confessions, Saul M. Kassin, Massachusetts Professor of Psychology, Founder of Legal Studies at Williams College.

This jury outcome is not unusual, because people share your belief that a "decent" person would never confess to a horrible crime. That is why:
"In criminal justice, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon — so much so, as one prominent legal scholar put it, that its introduction makes other aspects of a trial 'superfluous.” (McCormick, 1972, p. 316).
I.e., get a confession, you don't have to do the hard work of finding evidence. In fact, your evidence can be full of holes and it won't matter. This goes back a long way.

If you take a look at the Project Innocence website, about 1/5 of the cases involve defendants who falsely confessed:
"15 to 25% of innocent defendants overall — and a much larger percentage of homicide defendants — who have been exonerated by DNA evidence had confessed (Innocence Project, 2001; White, 2003).
- The Psychology of Confessions: A Review of the Literature and Issues, Saul M. Kassin and Gisli H. Gudjonsson, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Department of Human Development, Cornell University.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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thks for taking such time on well based explanations being written. Now I see it more realistic and more attached to what is really happening in real life. how sad then. Then confessions should had lesser weight for the prosecutor and the jury as been demonstrated can be coerced.

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No probs, Hagaxxx. Props to you for bearing with it and keeping an open mind.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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Also self-incrimination, sense of guilt, might be the fuse for someone to condemm themselves.

Daniel´s behaviour is strange since he was relased, is like he was in a sort of reincarnation process, someone comes from the death to me....

Funny enough when in the finale his boss asks him, What do you think of me as a boss? he says, I did not think about it, should I ? Daniel is not in the same planet.....

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His boss is depicted as an insecure moron, a guy who gets off on his puny power over someone he knows is extremely vulnerable.

For example, the way he tells Daniel about his raise: He asks to see him in his office in a grave voice, then says "I'll just cut to the chase," a way to imply he's got bad news to deliver.

He wants to enjoy his ability to cause discomfort. But Daniel is new to the working world and to miniature dictators like his boss, so he doesn't read the signs and respond to them with the desired level of emotion.

The boss's little game misfires. He can't read Daniel, either; that's why he asks what Daniel thinks of him. It's a subtle bit of comedy, this scene.

Daniel's boss is like an internet troll who tries hard to provoke, only to get starved by his target/s. They don't read the signs.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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Agree ;-) that miniboss touched the wrong target. It was hilarious. and definitivelly is a troll.

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They don't read the signs.



Not exactly subtle. Think Sign will get it?

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Daniel lost his formative young adult years to solitary confinement. He has no idea how to interact as an adult.

His answer to his boss is appropriate and in character. Mentally, Daniel is still 16.

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You're right to be skeptical. Since confessions are so damning and a real nightmare for defense attorneys, they're always attacked as being "coerced" or "false". They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't try to get that confession thrown out. This doesn't necessarily mean the confession is false, however.

Yes, there are documented cases where it's been proven that people have falsely confessed to a crime they didn't commit, but not as many as defense attorneys would like you to believe.


Rectify - parody pix
https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TLG67x/


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but not as many as defense attorneys would like you to believe.

Well, how many are defense attorneys actually claiming? Do you have a critique in mind that shows this claim is inflated?

Stats are easily at hand from, say, the Innocence Project or the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which of course are staffed by defense attorneys. So it would be interesting to compare those sources with yours.

There are also studies done by legal scholars, psychologists, and so on. But just sticking to the Innocence Project, out of their 258 DNA exonerations, they say 25% have involved a false confession. According to Richard Leo, one of the leading experts on false confessions:

"If 10% of the two million men and women imprisoned in the United States are innocent, as is estimated by the Department of Justice, then we can extrapolate that as many as 50,000 of their convictions involved false confessions."


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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This is all moot anyway because we are dealing with the world of the story, here.

Within this story, it is spoon-fed to the audience, and more than once, that this was a false confession.

"Oh, I'll be polite. Right up until I'm rude."

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Are you arguing that defense attorneys with a confessed client don't always try to get the confession thrown out? Because that's basically all I said, and it's a no-brainer.

I agree with Helen that within the context of the show we're being spoon-fed, but I always question what's in the spoon, especially in a reality-based program. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, for the right price, worked hard to set OJ free. Just sayin'. :)

Rectify - parody pix
https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TLG67x/

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Are you arguing that defense attorneys with a confessed client don't always try to get the confession thrown out?

No. You're jumbling false confessions with confessions generally. These are two different contexts. There are reasons to ask to get a confession thrown out that have nothing to do with it being false.

I was responding to the specific claim that "there are documented cases where it's been proven that people have falsely confessed to a crime they didn't commit, but not as many as defense attorneys would like you to believe."

I was wondering what source you were thinking of where defense attorneys make an estimate of the number of false confessions, and perhaps a source that critiques this claim.

About Barry Scheck, what you're just sayin' is tarring with a big brush. A little innuendo, to imply something fishy about the Innocence Project. Nice work, I guess.

As for Barry Scheck's defense itself, looks like you're also implying there's something fishy about that too. He was the DNA expert on the defense team, and he dismantled the supposedly rock-hard DNA evidence presented by the prosecution. Nobody denies that the DNA evidence was both degraded and contaminated.

In fact one of the prosecutors, Woody Clarke, acknowledged it, and afterward joined with Scheck on a commission about handling DNA evidence going forward. Because at the time the collection and storage methods were terrible. Scheck's contribution changed all that. That was his job, and it was right for him to do it.

Scheck:

“That was the only silver lining that I can see in the Simpson case in that it changed the entire way that law enforcement approached the gathering of evidence for purposes of DNA testing and frankly for forensic testing generally.”
As a result of Scheck's influence, people with no money who had to rely on public defenders have been helped due to more rigorous DNA treatment. Scheck's co-founding the first Innocence Project inspired the establishment of others. A lot of innocent people have been exonerated because of Scheck's direct and indirect influence. For free. I'll repeat that: for free. But hey, it's always easier to just smear.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

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