WHY THE INNOCENT ARE MORE LIKELY TO GO TO PRISON

It is nearly impossible to defend yourself against a false accusation. Because you begin at an information disadvantage, and you make strategic errors that hand the game to the false accuser.

I have often been struck by how confusing it is to be falsely accused, and how unexpectedly difficult to defend yourself. One time I walked into a restaurant, and the owner said that three people had seen me run out falling-down drunk to avoid paying the bill after a previous visit. He could not tell me what day this happened, or provide a copy of the bill I didn’t pay.

What actually happened is that the owner showed up after the shift was over, looked in the computer, and saw a tab that had never been closed out. When he asked the waitress about it, she said it was possibly my tab. I eventually (after a few weeks) figured out most likely the waitress mistook the cash I left on the table for her tip, and assumed I had paid separately at the cash register. (There were a variety of contributing factors I won’t go into.)

But when I was first accused, I did not know where to begin. I knew I never left drunk like he said, because I specifically always made sure not to get drunk or drive drunk. So the first thing out of my mouth was “I never left here drunk.” To which the owner immediately responded “Three people saw you sneak out of here falling-down drunk.” That was false, but I had no idea if someone actually claimed they saw that or who, or the truth that he actually made that up on the spot (knowing the other employees who were his family members would immediately play along with this lie to back him up).

So I began with a strategically weak defense, and which he could easily defeat by having other employees (family members) lie about me. I started out attacking a point in his story that was not where the real error was, and which point he could easily defend, because I did not actually know what happened and I was not on guard for being falsely accused. The best honest defense would be “No, I left the money on the table and the waitress imagined it was her tip because of these reasons.” The best defense would be to not even come back to the restaurant. But because I was falsely accused, and I had no idea why, I was bumbling around confused while he was developing and reinforcing his lies. Whereas a guilty person would have developed a winning strategy from the start.

Understand what the owner is doing. He is responding to my efforts to deny I did it, by bolstering his false accusation to defeat my defenses, using lies or whatever it takes. But I don’t at first understand this is what is happening, and by the time I figure this out he is already three steps ahead.

When the owner saw a tab that was never closed, he just assumed someone left drunk and would come back the next day. When he did not see me for a few weeks, he assumed I was avoiding paying. When I denied that is what happened, he responded by trying to construct a fake portfolio of evidence I could not deny, to beat me and force me to pay.

But I was totally confused, and blindsided by his game of constructing lies. To where he had already gained an advantage of knowing what I was going to say, and knowing what I could not disprove, before I realized where to even begin defending myself against someone lying about me, or that I needed to. I had already admitted things which they could build their lies around, before I realized I needed a strategy.

Three things had already happened. First, I had already admitted to most of his story because I did not think I needed to deny or lie or hide anything. In this case I had admitted to visiting the restaurant on a previous day. Second, for not knowing what actually happened because I did not participate in it, and not knowing where the actual error in his story came from, I had begun with a weak strategy of attacking the part about being drunk. Third, I had given him a chance to respond by inventing stronger lies against me (and letting him know he needed to), until he finds one I cannot defeat. Whereas if I was guilty, I would be the one coming up with lies surprising him, until I found one he could not defeat.

If I really had intentionally run out without paying, I would not admit to being there a previous day. Rather I would not come back to the restaurant at all. If I really had run out without paying, I would know what the employees actually saw and did not see. So I would be able to come up with a more strategically-designed defense, such as by saying “None of you were even here when I left, and you did not see what happened”, or “John, the guy you recently fired, was behind the bar and I handed him a $100 bill” or whatever.

If I was guilty, I would know right off that I needed to come up with a good strategy. I could come up with a lie based on knowledge, and know the weak part in their story to attack. And know that I needed to find a weak part and attack it, rather than try to tell the truth and reason with them. Since if I was guilty I would know exactly what really happened, I could come out strong saying “none of you were even there”. And then when they admitted this, I could start exploiting this by lying.

There was another time where a garbage truck crashed into me. The driver came to my window and apologized for running into me. My car was impaled on the ladder he said until the police came or his manager came or whatever, so I left for a moment to take care of my errand. And when I came back out the cop and his manager were lying that I crashed into the garbage truck, and the cop wrote me a ticket for it. They said both neighbors on either side of the street had witnessed me crashing into the garbage truck, while he was not even inside the truck. I said let me talk to the neighbors. The cop said no, you are not allowed to talk to the neighbors.

Because I was surprised by being falsely accused and I did not understand why, I used a weak defense of pointing out to the cop I could not drive my car sideways into the front of a garbage truck. The cop said my back swung out when I turned away. I pointed out the first impact was in front of my rear axle making that impossible. The cop said “We’re talking inches.” What I did not realize is that the neighbors did not actually say what the cop claimed, and it was the cop who came up with the lie. So arguing with the cop about the point of impact was pointless, and just gave him a chance to come up with strategic lies to beat my defense.

It took me a few weeks to fully piece together why the driver drove into me and what the neighbors saw and said. The arm that grabs the trash can was stuck, and he was stopped across someone’s driveway trying to get the can unstuck, when she came out and needed to leave for work. There is a second steering wheel on the passenger side of the garbage truck. The driver jumped in the far side and started driving while looking back at the arm holding the trash can on the passenger side and veering to avoid a fence, without realizing there was a car passing by the far side of his truck. He then got out the passenger side and walked around the front of his truck to apologize to me, giving the appearance to the neighbor on my side that he was never in the truck. And the neighbor on his side is the one who hurried him to move out of her driveway so she could leave. From her vantage point, she could not even see there was a car coming on the far side of his truck, and possibly also did not know exactly when the accident happened. But she felt bad to point out (or for some other reason did not want to bring up), that the driver hurriedly veered and crashed into me because she was in a hurry and harassed him to move while he was at the back trying to get the can unstuck.

If I had known what actually happened, I would have told the cop “No, the neighbor on that side told him to move his truck because he was blocking her driveway but neither of them could see me driving by, and all the neighbor on this side saw was him walk around the front of his truck after he hit me.” But being confused about where the error was – being wrong about who was lying – I instead started arguing with the cop about the point of impact, to which he just responded with lies. Whereas if I actually had crashed into the garbage truck, I could have just left in a hurry. Or called the cops and lied that he crashed into me, having not been lulled into inaction by the driver apologizing to me. So in my confusion I used a weak strategy, attacked the wrong part of the story, and let the liar develop his responses to my defenses, before I knew what was happening.

So let’s consider a generic version of this setup. A cop arrests you for a hit and run, and says somebody saw you hit a parked car and drive off. If you were actually there and did it, you know what the witness saw and didn’t see. So you say “No, from where that person was they couldn’t see the front of the parked car, and it was actually the car in front of me that hit the parked car.”

Whereas suppose you are innocent, but the cop saw your beat up car, and just decided to say you are the one who did it. You will mistakenly think the problem is with what the witness actually saw or said. To you that will seem like where the confusion or weak point in the story must be. So instead of just knowing you need to lie and say “No, the car in front of me did it”, you say “What did the witness really say? I think he was confused.”

You think you are attacking the weak point in the accusation. But what you don’t realize is the cop knows it is a lie, and knows that is the weak point he has to defend. So he has turned his lie into the best defended part of the accusation. He has already showed the witness a picture of you and your car, and gotten the witness to agree to say you are the one he saw crash into the parked car.

So you attack the most fortified part of the story, the lie. Because you don’t know what actually happened, you mistakenly imagine the witness might actually have been confused. And the cop is ready for you, whereas you are still confused and clueless that the cop is lying about you and why and how it started and where the real weak point is that is best for you to attack. Whereas if you were guilty, you would know all you have to say is “the witness could not see the crash from where he was”. And if you were actually guilty rather than the cop making it up, the cop would not have coached the witness to reinforce the part of his story he knows is weak, and he is the one who would be caught off guard. The cop would not know what weak part of the story you will first attack because he is not lying. And so he would not have already reinforced the weak part of the story anticipating your obvious attack.

This is the situation Mandi May Jackson finds herself in, where she was locked up without bond from day one, and never even saw the video they faked to accuse her, and never even really knew what they were accusing her of or where the weak point in the story was or who was lying. And so she attacked dumb things in the most confused strategy. And this is how I imagine it must have been for William Dillon, when some cops decided to focus on him and have some people lie about him. And Dillon was taken totally off guard, probably saying “I did not confess to that other jail inmate”, without knowing this is a designed unbeatable scam used to convict the innocent every day. Whereas if he was guilty, or realized he was about to be framed, he could have come up with a better alibi right off, like by getting a friend to lie he was with a friend at the time.

So people cops falsely accuse are the easiest targets. They are totally defenseless and confused making all the wrong moves, until the cops have put the finishing touches on their trap and the target realizes too late what has happened to them. Smart people know from the first step, cops will lie about you and avoid them at all costs and assume they will lie and try to get information about their lies before saying anything. Do not try to reason with them or tell the truth, that will hand the game to the liars.