but. for a few jomo sold his life. seven days in. an al-jazeera. and rob matheson in doha the top stories on al-jazeera the schoolboy football team and their coach have been found after a nine day ordeal trapped underground in a flooded cave complex in northern thailand rescue workers struggled for days to drain the waters in a bid to reach the twelve youngsters and their twenty five year old coach the mission to bring them out may now take some time when he has the latest from shanghai. after a long search that at times seemed hopeless the first signs emerged that twelve boys and the football coach were alive the british searches were the first to make

contact deep inside tunnel one cave how many of your. program and. what a murder you have. her. confirmation outside came from the man who for the past nine days had the job of delivering what little news there was about the fate of the missing this time he was able to say what everyone wanted to hear. about the thirteen missing people the latest report from the seal unit which went in and managed to reach but the beach they found the beach flooded but then they went further about three hundred to four hundred meters to another area of high ground they found a young brothers a safe it's been an agonizing wait for the families many of whom have been camping

near the entrance to the cave since they went missing woman. icon express how i feel it's stunning and i'm very proud i never expected this day to come that i didn't have any information that led me to believe that my son would come out. for more than a week expert divers struggled to get through the cave system because of the huge amount of water flowing swiftly through its progress was painstakingly slow and at times the conditions forced the searches to retreat getting the boys and their coach out of the cave may be a long and difficult process and the big challenge may still be the water level even though it's dropped dramatically in the last few days more heavy rain is on the way. pumping is continuing around the clock to try to get as much water out of the cave before the heavy rains returned the priority now is on getting food drinking water and medical attention to the thirteen while a plan is hatched to try to get them out which once complete will bring to an end

a horrific ordeal and a remarkable story of survival wayne hay al-jazeera chiang rai mexico's president elect says his offer to help reduce u.s. bound migration in exchange for president donald trump support and the us manuel lopez obrador spoke to trump on the phone after his electoral win on sunday. the u.n. says more than a quarter of a million syrians have now been displaced by the government's offensive to retake their our province jordan is set to hold talks with syria's ally russia this week in the hope of paving the way for a ceasefire the un's envoy for yemen is in the sun not to meet who the rebels as martin griffiths is trying to broker a deal to end the bombardment of the who think controlled city of hard data by the saudi emma rattie coalition the coalition backs the yemeni government which is demanding the who these withdraw israel's knesset has passed a law to allow the government to deduct three hundred million dollars

a year from the palestinian authority's budget israeli politicians claim the authority paid three hundred fifty million dollars last year to palestinian prisoners jailed for the tacking israeli security forces and their families germany's interior minister says he no longer plans to resign after reaching a compromise with chancellor angela merkel on migration the dispute was resolved after hours of tense talks on monday horses a half what is the leader of the merkel's main coalition partner the c.s.u. he was unhappy about a migration agreement with the e.u. . i felt a pain man has been shot dead while presiding over a weekly flag raising ceremony in the city video of antonio holly's assassination was posted on social media and in the lead a controversial walk of shame campaign parading drug suspects around town on city those are the headlines coming up next on al-jazeera it's the system life and.

fold. i'm see no nicad you know i got like three nine millimeter just pointed directly at my face on night what is this a bad ways you come to me and would go a drone for the latest on a grainy out of your body peeing me i see ok what's going on cinder you know just to take to be as i'm like no he's a disguise columbo. he's a have you know was seen a t.v. series colombo i see a grown up growing up i don't watch columbo a few times these days so you know columbo how ways get sees me so i'm telling you right now. you will be found guilty one sixth. of the american criminal justice system enforces our laws and keeps watch over us at first. but who is watching the system. and joe berlinger and i used my camera for twenty years to knock down doors and pursue the truth just now we're going inside the american

criminal justice system i'm a sucker for law enforcement the elected officials the court system the corrections to find out if justice is served. you know every day in this country thousands of suspects are identified by eyewitnesses but a shocking number of these eyewitnesses get it wrong in fact in all of the d.n.a. exonerations that have happened today seventy percent of them have involved faulty eye with this. identification but what happens when there is no d.n.a. evidence and all that is. in dallas christopher scott spent thirteen years in prison trying to get to the bottom of that question man i was where again taking care of my family our ways home enough to feed my key is put him to be taken to school i was everest a guy and when i went in they gadda be kidding me christopher scott's case is one

of the hundreds that have been reinvestigated by the dallas county district attorney's office james hamm in the lead the investigation. here's this location two gentlemen went in to protect some drugs gunfire and shoot and the resident at this house was killed. when the police arrived they were looking for transportation the area two black males one tall one short the victim witness to c.e.o.'s could be given that description it was reported that she awoke and there were two men in the house and spouse had just been murdered happen pretty quickly within minutes police cars descended upon the scene on the lookout for two suspects an officer passed another car had two black males in it he turned around trying to light on him as they pulled into a driveway often well. saw that there was a tall one the shorter one which matched the big description given by the c.s. could beat out and call for backup christopher scott was in that car along with a friend named claude simmons and you know i got like three now a millimeter just pointed directly i'm a face on my what is this

a bad ways you come at me and would go a drone for where you just need to come outside and we'll get away with being situated if everything is ok then we are you go they ended up taking chris into custody taking down the playstation interview him down there and if he did having to do it they told me he'd be released how would you as concerned about was being put is out of the polish coin have indeed in it. christopher scott's fate literally his life would hang up on whether or not an eyewitness could correctly identify him . and i witness of a different race who had just seen a high impact home invasion robbery and murder go down in a matter of seconds. they put me in front of a big glaze window. handcuff me to the beach but everybody else in the room was pushed own of this out with a pin c.d.'s in the beach they can only see me in my head it was day on the early

morning hour raise up a cop walk the lady up and say this is the guy to keep. i'm behind a glass window but on concede like you. know she. can these criminal justice system was just beginning another inmate in new orleans was already eleven years deep into a life sentence in one thousand nine hundred four george toko was identified by two witnesses both of them white who accused coke of accidentally shooting his best friend. of a robbery. all of the time all of the time. you saw eric. marlin the fellow was on active duty on the day of the murder. because of the food. and they will pause here and yes they walk to the car they

were confronted by two suspects at least one holding a gun and they demanded property money while the gunman held the female robbery victim on the driver's side of the car eric but began to struggle with the male victim. the gunman panicked fired a shot at the passenger and. so when i had received information that eric was dead to first name came to mind was joe. a few hours later marlin to fill the arrested george coca the next day the two witnesses identified toca using this photo lineup provided by the new orleans police department a majority voted and then. they're going to have one george polk a claims he was never there he told police that he spent the night in this motel

after attending a high school dance at the superdome. eric but leave the dance with another young man who fits the description of the gunman given by the witnesses. the police to his story they had eye witnesses and you have an eyewitness to say i was there i saw him do it i saw him in this robbery that is the best evidence. in one nine hundred eighty five toko was tried found guilty of murder and sentenced to life. is doing hard time in one of the toughest places in the country louisiana's ingall a prison twenty nine years later george's sister sandy is still convinced that he's innocent i think about a village of the time. oh they alone you know he's on my mom and i wake up it's like you know i thank god and i say my prayers and i always pray for my brothers. book cover him such a horrific environment you know and just keep his mind you know keep his sanity i

don't remember getting the noise and fall and all of the porch falling all down in the street and you know just crying out to god like why how you know it is unbelievable if he was guilty in a crime didn't. risk because at least i know you you've been near for something day you have to be the right one from a seventeen year old child to a forty eight year old man crime they're shooting camy sandy has never given up on her brother but she's not battling the says. i'm alone in fact she has the kind of support and rarely found in a murder case the support of the victim's family. being falsely accused incarcerated for something he did not do and at such a young age joyce doli as nephew was eric but the man george toca was convicted of murdering two loving brothers you know they could have been closer no one is listening to us that george is innocent each day each year to still be here

you know you finally get the chance to prove his innocence when he can't come home until we can get for our my family we can finalize eric's death because we don't have the satisfaction of the personal difficulty of it being punished for it and that somebody else wasn't guilty how life is going down the drain for something you didn't do. george told his case raises troubling questions about the procedures used by police to obtain accurate eyewitness identifications many of these practices have been in place for years but now they are being put to the test . so we're here at john jay college of criminal justice and that happened to see dr jennifer dyson we're going to do some experiments and i would this identification and i love coming to criminal justice schools and meeting with young people because

they haven't yet lost their idealism and they still have a strong belief in the system that's going to remind yourself of what the system can do. i drove religare jennifer dyes her pleasure to meet us. so tell us what we're what we're going to do today absolutely so i'm an eyewitness identification researcher i've been studying the factors that influence eyewitness reliability for about fifteen years and so i thought today we would run you through an experiment so you can see how the research is conducted right and how actor a. i would say them patients who are studying not only people in the research lab but also witnesses in the real world about thirty percent of the time witness is a real cases who pick someone and say yes that's the person who committed the crime are wrong and i actually have a demonstration if i can i can show you. so here's an example they like to show you we've called the penny example and the instructions i'll give you is like you take

a look at this and tell me which one is the real penny. i would say that is it number four what most people do if they don't immediately recognize the person they go to the second process which is can i figure it out like a multiple choice question and so they'll eliminate a bunch one two and three those are ten eleven and twelve are often ghana's in the opposite direction and at the end of the day people narrow down their options and pick the one that is the best and we researchers call that relative judgment relative to the others you pick the one that's the best in fact now i want to switch to number five is that number five there were five is actually the most commonly chosen penny but this also demonstrates another very important principle for witnesses in real cases and that is law enforcement are supposed to tell the witness that the real perpetrator or penny may or may not be there so that none of the above and the multiple choice question really is an option and here none of them are actually the real penny. tell me that i did not tell you that just like

many law enforcement officers because it's not part of their policy and they're not mandated to do so don't tell witnesses in advance keep in mind we might not have the right guy right the real perpetrator may not be here that's not part of their repertoire. what jennifer dicer and other leading researchers believe is that the identification procedures used by the majority of the police departments in this country are outmoded and unscientific that was the case in dallas in one nine hundred ninety seven a witness had just identified christopher scott as the man who shot and killed her common law husband during a robbery he said you know you committed this crime and i what crime is did so you know even told me what i would be a book for so i said i'm not answering no more question into you t.m. me who typical cops see you it in the south dream to me what you know so i say we i have used to reassure me i'll be excused usual he say yeah of course you can go to

work so i know when you were one of those rules you when you won't get you look up whatever room you windies went to. easy and you planted india to wear them so when i walked up and i seen homeless out. april fifteenth one thousand nine hundred five two eyewitnesses testify they see george accidentally shoot his best friend eric but teased during the course of an armed robbery. that. then. you know right. was convicted and has spent more than half of his life in prison he maintains that he's innocent he agreed to talk with us about this case during his weekly phone call to his family. and to make x. comedienne to shake hands very quickly make eye conversation go they think oh god you know. i. am. everybody feel

that way. a comment i would have done. from. every my family call you. that i'm going to describe i could kill my best friend. ok they are not there they are full of guilt by association. than a friend of a very bad day what i. could trust them to commit a crime. five hundred baht apology okotie. allow myself to call a record to. get out i was not the color suspect toca believes that because he is black in the eye witnesses against him were white the odds were stacked against him in a place like new orleans. bigger than the boundary in the middle. of

a given time. the female witness got the closest look at the shooter she picked out george polk from a photo lineup but toca believes when the witness saw him in court she realized her mistake i think she's really going to be a fun. one to get all of the trial i think i think when you know your question of course it would go ok i have it pretty good i mean i was not telling her that i want to see what he has come forward with their courage what it was downright mean only she. is still amazed how both witnesses continue to stand by their stories. they have. to get a good look at the. tree stump. don't want to telegraph you know you're going to be very good just three years later. maybe you could be

a part of the have learned unless you want to. finally come forward oh i don't care if you know me really. really fine fine of america fired right here all right you are. probably only going to be ok. that. innocence project you want to know has always taken on difficult cases cases that take years and years and years to when we took on judges case because he's innocent it's very clear i think most lay people looking at the case can see that he didn't do the crime emily maus the director of the innocence project in new orleans since two thousand and one staff of help when the zone aeration of twenty wrongfully convicted inmates do is take his conviction is based exclusively on across racial identification by two witnesses who were exposed to procedure by the new orleans police department that has been proven time and time again in every way that the

police department conducted it to increase in accuracy and identification the innocence project is arguing that the state willfully ignored those inconsistences and has suppressed efforts to give toca a new trial as a lawyer who is frequently challenging convictions when there is new evidence of innocence a court still look to an eye witness and say that the eye witness identified. baffles me that that happens given what we know now by the potential problems with eyewitness identification in the last ten years cognitive psychologist legend dicer have been shattering the myths surrounding eye witness identification they're like some basic beliefs that i think a lot of people have why would somebody falsely confess or how could you miss identifies. they fascinating thing about the whole system in the process is that generally speaking these are mistaken witnesses who really believe they're accurate they're not lying today dyce art has invited a group of students to her offices at john jay college to demonstrate how police procedures work and how witnesses behave. the students have been told they will be

participating in a social science study but that's all they've been told they have no clue about what is going to happen next something that takes place here will turn them from in this in bystanders into witnesses to are just going to be watching a video and then answer questions about it and a lot of thoughts and forms and just to give your consent to be a part of the study. and look at my i don't actually have to kind of consent. let me just go grab it i'll be right back to you guys just sit tight for a second. does anybody know vicki she just said she just stepped out on your pickup a laptop on for my t.v. so imagine that so i thought i hope so. thank you.

ok so we can get started i've got my forms press in my laptop your friend came in. my friend it's a kind of freaky teen i have no idea who that was i think someone just on my laptop i guess i should call security. ok as you guys probably guessed already this is part of the experiment and the person that was here we're going to find that was an actual fact that his laptop so was going to happen that was going to happen and we're going to bring participants back one at a time we're going to ask them to give a description of the criminal who stole the laptop and then we would show them some photographs to see if they can make a correct id decision ok let's let's bring along the line of questioning utilized here is consistent with the questions that law enforcement used with real eye witnesses starting with the physical attributes of the suspect as much as you can remember about what he looked like what he was wearing any details really that you

can remember but i can remember ziska i think you were in a blue collar unders black sweater white collar top. five nine and six i have technicians harris i kind of greyish not to wait here brown hair and blue jeans pants brown shoe was a little bit over medium build so we'll have a you when you think about it most of these answers are pretty they in fact they could have been describing just about any middle aged white man in america. and think about the real world cases we have two african-american man accused of violent crimes that took place in a matter of seconds the men were also identified by witnesses of a different race research has shown these cross racial identifications can be biased when i witness cases are overturned forty percent of the time the witnesses of gotten wrong were members of a different race where round in my case they had hispanic latest and she remembered

seeing a black guy kid you know a cross racial you look in it you know how could dark complected a medium height i mean a mean leg mean in america you describe and when you describe it you describe what would be most a majority to mean in america they say there are two days in a prison sentence the day you go in and the day you go home for christopher scott that first day never should have happened i took you don't achieve it. just see it busy in a day you want to say i say yes ma'am i say convicted to romain in believe me when i tell you this i will be back to fight my case this is not over. back in new york and our eyewitness identification experiment a laptop has been stolen and the witnesses have already given conflicting descriptions of the suspect. the next step is for the investigator in this case

vicki to show the witnesses a lineup this is how most police departments do it it's called the six pack six pictures on one page. the next thing i want to do is i'm going to show you a line of six people that's what you try to find which one is ok. he looks more like the guy on the bottom right. do you think that's him yeah i think that's him on the bottom right i think i'm confident i feel very confident that it was that guy that was that. that was bad yes ok why do we call it. was not a not a recommended police practice first all of the individuals were presented at the same time what this tends to result in is witnesses who compare the photos and pick the one who's the best and you could actually almost hear that in the language where it kind of settled on number six. this is just one of the potential errors made by the new orleans police department in the case against george polk the

department has become notorious for outmoded police tactics and corruption. toko was given a life sentence for the murder of his best friend eric but during the commission of the robbery. the way that the police conducted this procedure was in every way. creating an inaccurate identification of an innocent suspect in this case george polk said this here is the six pack and you can see here this is george toca and these are the fillers that they used at the time of the shooting both the witnesses describe the gunman as being tall and having a medium build george polk is five foot five and weighed just over one hundred pounds it's one of several inconsistency in the accounts given to the police by the eyewitnesses what's interesting is you can see highlights from here you can see

very clearly whether or not george took a house. for very prominent gold teeth. in a crime went past and. have spoken there is no way that if they would not have noticed his guilty as we are seeing in these identification experiments it's easy for eyewitnesses to give in accurate information i got a good look of his eyes at least i like the way looks like the innocence project case goes much further it accuses the new orleans police. mina perverting justice by miss the entire eyewitness identification procedure there is no evidence in the record at school that they were told when they were showing this. that. you know the suspect may or may not be in this life that is very important to do and then there's been significant risk that it's one of the things that the department of justice recommend agencies do the new orleans police department declined our request to comment on this case.

july on al jazeera. in a new series of head to head maddie hasson talk of the big issues with hard hitting questions pakistanis going to the polls to elect a new government. will the country take people in power continues to examine the use and abuse of power around the world a generation of voters in zimbabwe grew up knowing only the leadership of robert mugabe now they're electing a new president and for the first time since independence his name's not on the ballot on television and online the stream continues to tap into the extraordinary potential of social media to disseminate news. on al-jazeera. capturing a moment in time. snapshots of other lives other stories. providing

a glimpse into someone else's work. witness on al-jazeera. iraq matters and in doha the top stories on twelve boys and their football coach have been found after ten days missing in a flooded cave in thailand parents cheered as their agonizing wait for news came to an end the operation will now turn to working out how to pull the group from the underground complex. to live around the mountain is not rising with the seal team has found them they have to take care of them inside the mansion first we won't take any risks but it seems cool because it's their job to bring the mess what we have to do here is to make sure the n.h.l. does not rise up mexico's president elect says he's offered to help reduce a u.s.

bound migration in exchange for president donald trump support and there is money well look doris spoke to trump on the phone after his electoral wind on sunday the u.n. says more than a quarter of a million syrians have now been were displaced by the government's offensive to retake that our province jordan is said to hold talks with syria's ally russia this week in the hope of paving the way for the ceasefire the un's envoy for yemen is in sanaa to meet who the rebels martin griffiths is trying to broker a deal to end the bombardment of the who think controlled city of hard data by the saudi and iraqi coalition the coalition backs the yemeni government which is demanding the who things withdrawal israel's knesset has passed a law to allow the government to deduct three hundred million dollars a year from the palestinian authority's budget the money will be taken from taxes and tariffs that israel collects on the authorities behalf israeli politicians claim the authority paid three hundred fifty million dollars last year to

palestinian prisoners jailed for attacking israeli security forces and their families. germany's interior minister says he no longer plans to resign after reaching a compromise with chancellor angela merkel on migration the dispute was resolved after hours of tense talks on monday or say hoffa is the leader of merkel's main coalition partner the c.s.u. he was unhappy about her migration agreement with the e.u. saying it didn't offer enough protection to germany's borders. a fellow pain man has been shot dead while presiding over a weekly flag raising ceremony in his city video of antonio hollande whose assassination was posted on social media and in that a controversial walk of shame campaign parading drug suspects around town on city those are the headlines coming up next on al-jazeera it's this system by for now. and then reported on. u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west

africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for dr evil this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country haven't truly been able to escape the war. back in new york and our eyewitness identification experiment a laptop has been stolen and the witnesses have already given conflicting descriptions of the suspect. but i can members of what i think you are in a blue collar unders black sweater white collar top. five nine and six missions harris i kind of greyish not to put it on white here brown hair. here's the six pack photo lineup that was shown to the witnesses but with their choice of

been affected if they were told originally that the actual suspect is not pictured here he also was not told in advance that the actual person who stole the laptop may or may not be there so he's led to believe induced to believe that he's supposed to pick someone who looks more like the guy on the bottom right inducing or guiding a witness to make a decision is a major flaw in the witness identification system and the next witness here in this experiment is proof of how this can happen. i think at the. bottom of the closeness and i'm not. really him. that's the guy that we think is the first to. accuse accosts he's the closest so you can see the witness starting to change their identification decision because of some subtle pressure absolutely. in dallas the eyewitness identification procedure used in christopher

scott's case was a powerful tool for the prosecution despite its many flaws they took me straight to my more you know he told me say look. this is capital murder i'm like ok what is did he save the life and death. went you mean he's exactly what i just see they can be the key to you a give you a life sentence and with no forensic evidence to lean on the prosecution put all of its weight behind the testimony of its star witness i can believe she was seeing where she was seen because. it is like a play is like a movie when you see the prosecutor doing his theme with his witnesses lead her into all of her questions to guided the and this is just a guy to be it it is she saying yes it is e.m.r. remember him our window if we get him he ruined my life i can believe it. according to george toca the real person who shot and killed his friend eric batiste new orleans is still on the streets and very well i mean.

everybody. else you know just show every shot what. should we should rush just rush george's sister sandy had heard rumors about the suspect in the neighborhood but as the years went by she couldn't find anyone who would be willing to talk about it on the record then she got a call from a girlfriend who remembered that the guy she was dating at the time of the murder had shown up visibly shaken by something that had just happened that she's that that morning he came over to the house you know he had on his money clothes and you know got up i was so scared i know was going on it is she talking. i literally dropped the phone but why would you keep there from me knowing that's my brother

live on the land we talking about i didn't know at the time a whole lot about the law you know but at the same time i know i needed to do something to help my brother at least get some type of attention talk to somebody less involved or somebody that knows somebody because they were getting into all of this connection sandy went back to the live feed housing complex where she and george grew up. it was a high crime area and a tough place to get information about an old case especially a case that pointed a finger at the police. lawless is one of the words this police force in america any of that has been like there for years i ever since i can remember from being a young key everybody will petrified. we grew up in uprising you would even call the police you understand people were trying to handle things on the own because did they have to fund to protect in third but it wasn't all protection not a service they were providing and it wasn't a service to where were bill if it you so you never felt safe it was so much police

brutality these kids to start really really growing up where this almost hatred in the what the police department. the new orleans police and gays in the pattern of practice of conduct that was both discriminatory and unconstitutional and that too often undermined the public's trust and the city's efforts to effectively prevent crime in march of two thousand and eleven the justice department released the findings of a two year investigation of the new orleans police. the report found that wallace police used too much force against civilians too often didn't report it and often failed to investigate the use of force darling in order that african-americans were just unfortunately arrested when compared to white citizens the report was explosive it found some of the most widespread dysfunction and corruption in the history. big city policing in america. today the justice department and the city of

new orleans filed a consent decree to ensure that local police services are delivered in a manner that is affective in complies with the constitution and the laws of the united states it's an extreme measure and one hundred twenty six pages the federal consent decree is aimed at correcting longstanding patterns of police misconduct and it specifically requires the new orleans police department to completely overhaul its eyewitness identification procedures but as far as his lawyers are concerned there is little evidence of change we have a district attorney's office here that has said publicly if all we've got is one eye witness i'm willing to take that case to trial one piece of evidence that has been shown to be one of the most unreliable kinds of evidence in criminal cases the consequence is in many of these trials a life without parole i think that is a huge disservice to the citizens of this city if george polk and his supporters are looking for hope that justice will come to new orleans they can take

a look at the city of dallas and what happened to another inmate stuck in the system christopher scott. nearly given up hope when he showed his case to a jailhouse lawyer and he read it any made fun of me one time he was like do it is no way in a word you want to get out of prison you've got to mean it when she is on my why you see it you have no d.n.a. in your case somebody has to come back and say did they actually committed this crime before you get released and i had told him i say you know would almost be out of a meeting to get out of prison for the. case. i'm leanin b. and i'm trying to figure out my name may. create. the kid from oak cliff. county's next district attorney. not only for bad guys but i'm responsible for making sure that if someone comes out of court we're not going to be down there trying to put them in they didn't i was

elected in two thousand and six i was the first african-american elected in the whole state of texas. being a person of color obviously i have issues with law enforcement it didn't work for me and people look like me. for a long time and so i wanted to come in and make sure that law enforcement worked for community that basically distrusted the thought process was that a da was to protect a conviction at all cost and when i came in i looked at these cases to make sure that if a person was wrongfully convicted that they got their fair day in court and they would be exonerated and also we would actually go in pursuit of the actual person that committed the crime in two thousand and seven watkins created a special unit to reexamine those cases he named at the conviction integrity unit and they started on packing case files the unpacking of the case starts with

getting all the documents that we can that are available normally that's a transcript of the trial so we can see what happened jim would handle a substantial amount of the factual investigation. and cynthia will handle the legal side. and then we'll all get together and we pose questions to each other so that we challenge the validity of the conviction within a year of the unit was investigating four hundred guilty verdicts and they cleared six men through the use of d.n.a. technology. won't he be exoneration exoneration exoneration and i'm like oh yeah you know it may be china happen to some of us so i want to beg writing letters again of people but the real test was clearing someone like christopher scott chris because case is one of the first cases that we actually investigated from the standpoint of i winced indication it was a non d.n.a. case. craig watkins was putting his career and the credibility of the conviction

integrity unit on the line. if i go with this case based on the subjective information i would just in case my going to ruin the opportunity for us to pursue this program that we have if this individual actually committed the crime and is found out years later so the first thing idea first thing out it's first time i've ever done this was i'm going to go to go down and talk to him face to face he was in his you know geo uniform. looked him in the eye and ask him. you know i truly believed him when he answered the questions but he didn't commit the crime scott's next break came when he met a lawyer from the dallas county public defender's office. this you know i say you do. thank you michel moore was racking up a string of exoneration victories and dallas when i was in prison i seem

a shia more on t.v. again god's exonerated and i was stand by it of i can get this lady to represent me i'll probably get exonerated like a week later i get it from dallas canny create walk in southeast sandwich or was appointed my castle and we talk i am here i do it i've said that from the beginning i can a last hope for a little bit and fighting as much but i didn't do it and never told anybody i did it i completely innocent and i have maintained that the entire time even when i lost hope with the system i maintain my innocence the unthinkable was happening in dallas public defenders and prosecutors were working side by side on a wrongful conviction case word was spreading throughout the system that christopher scott's case was mishandled and another person had gotten away with the crime. christopher scott finally caught

a break when an inmate serving time for another gun related crime came forward to identify himself. this was the man police should have been looking for. is name is alonzo arty farty had written a letter to the corps and said i did this i was i was not the shooter but i was a good guy i'm sick and you know i want to clear my conscience on this next party gave up the shooter it was a man named michael anderson aka de mike you can see how frightened witness making cross racial identification could confuse kalid simmons with the mike michelmore arranged to meet harding he was able to take us through. going to five crack at the house previously kind of scoping out the house because they had actually seen a lot of money in the house going back to the house to steal money during the trial and during the initial investigation. his name along to hardy and michael anderson

is names that come up in investigation that they were known to be committing these robberies that they were robbery. mexican drug dealers in the area i've got to give a lot of. them hammond because look at the scene and going to the ballistic stuff he's like well there's stuff is missing and then they knocked on the door they open the door. from what alonzo hardy's they recognized the mike from the previous robbery and alonzo hardy was standing by the door to the left and the victim shot at him. and the bullet pierced his coat and did strike his body and all that pierced his coat and that and then as you saw in the gun toward my. hand and reinvestigated the scene and put the confession in the evidence together and after thirteen years the first non d.n.a. exonerations case in dallas was fred could this mean freedom for christopher scott

and cause simmons. quite soon in christopher scott. reporting from the same court room receiving life sentences twelve years ago today their names clear the evidence supports the final finding factually and each defendant in these two cases are actually innocent. we made a mistake and we can begin to individuals. in crimes in which they didn't commit i wasn't angry i wasn't being about the situation i was happy i had my time to be made in prison i had my time to be be in prison it was no time for me because i didn't want this day my growth that what i'm trying to do i have. to try to force see him make happen when christopher scott was released from prison the state of texas compensated him with a million dollar settlement he never forgot what it was like to wear that white

jumpsuit every day so he built a store and filled it with color and style. and when an inmate is exonerated or if they serve time with scott he helps them to get back some of their dignity with a fresh set of clothes to go which is. good. christopher's mean where. he was in prison. you know what i mean he said but the stories really homebase from the system changing work he does with the band the fellow exonerates each falsely identified by an eyewitness even phillips twenty six years for a crime he didn't commit. twenty five years for a crime committed they call themselves the house of renewed hope and what we do is we receive many many managers individual this imprison this claiming their innocence in we read they cases we read they try and train scripts in it we feel

like it's something that we can't. do a shoot to be done we dig deep into the case christopher scott's exoneration was a watershed moment for the criminal justice system in the city of dallas the police department under intense public pressure decided to change their outmoded eyewitness identification procedures basically it was an opportunity to look at. the research that was out there ron waldrop is the former assistant police chief he helped to spearhead the changes and procedure we showed on the facts here is how many have been overturned by the n.s.a. and here's what the research said the first step was to embrace the findings of researchers like gen dicer time in two thousand and thirteen dicer along with ron waldron helped to publish a groundbreaking national institute of justice report the report breaks down the steps that law enforcement agencies should take in order to make their eyewitness identification procedures more accurate and fair we agreed and pushed for him to be

a test city we took every step that the research indicated was beneficial when we put it in the system. move the dallas police department away from what are considered bad practices like the ones we've seen so far in the experiment so to recap the laptop was stolen investigator showed the witnesses a six pack lineup this guy pick number six the wrong suspect this woman was coerced into picking number five. now the way we changed it in dallas they would parallel and then they would give all the admonitions are going to be a group autographs keep in mind that it's just as important they are innocent people as right and. it's things that you tell the witness that are important for them to know the people that you see in the photograph might not look exactly like a dead at the time that you saw them because some pictures might change the person who committed the crime may or may not be in the photographs that you see to keep that in mind as bad as the person looking at the lineup that no matter if they have

then a fight about you're not the place you're going to continue to investigate whether you make and i think. and the investigation is going to continue they would take it to a blind administrator so that's when the officer detective who's showing the images or the people should know who the suspect is in the case and that's so that they can't unconsciously or consciously influence the witness in any way then they show in terms of question with one of the top. there can't be any unintentional else out in front and they have to make an independent decision on each photograph as they go through no witnesses are less likely to make a mistake take an innocent person if the images are just show one at a time. and that gets us to defense recommendation ask the witness if they make their identification how certain they are now how are you. pretty confident turns out this witness is right the suspect was not in the lineup.

really seem like such basic and obvious things it's surprising that everyone doesn't do it is a resistance or education it's a little bit of both. being frank the resistance across the country is more from prosecutors than it is from law enforcement you know law enforcement want the tools that are the most effective to help them with their job and they're generally speaking receptor receptive to these kinds of reforms you're not going to limit my mistakes witness and identification you just try to make it as. as good a system as you can to minimize the mistakes and then understand that mistakes can still be made and rely on other investigated minds to try to resolve them before anybody spends or laugh in prison for something they didn't do. since the day george toko was arrested convicted and sentenced for the killing of his best friend eric betts least he has said he did not do it by two thousand and ten after twenty

four years behind bars momentum was finally building for george polk. he was granted a post conviction hearing to present new evidence a criminal court in new orleans if you're in was the culmination of years of amateur detective work by his sister sandy who never lost hope and nobody even second guessed that i know even downey with the innocence projects help sandy coax a number of reluctant witnesses to come forward many who pointed the finger at another suspect. when you look at his physical description exactly matches the description initially given by the two witnesses to the crime june sixteenth two thousand and ten george polk is post conviction relief hearing open in new orleans for new witnesses testified another man shot eric battista nine affidavits were presented tokens lawyers made the case that research on cross racial

identifications prove them to be biased then judge julian parker ended the hearing . tearful testimony today from the victim's family was not enough to grant george hope that chance at freedom several other witnesses said that another man confessed about judge julian parker dismissed those claims. jersey nearly said yeah all those do it all right all right abbi was there day and the judge literally sit there and so everybody in the court. you know where they come from after twenty some years but he don't know who paid them of is if i went to these people and literally paid the money to come forward the state actually argued in that hearing that it was a conspiracy of people from the left feet high zing projects to free one of their own we all wanted to start shroom and shoutin in but we knew not to do that because we'd be locked up so we left the courthouse. with that type of feeling feeling that

he was trying to give us and consideration but as far as we was concerned he gave us north consideration. the innocence project has filed an appeal but as every year passes george hokum by gets harder and harder to prove his innocence. or forever question i want to think that that's what on. earth of orchestras crime i mean if it weren't for the figure on itself not what we're going to hear every recount or character or the reputation of. a long queue fighting to the day he's really. a monkey searching is somewhere in. need to talk to the councilman i need to talk to the cell. i'm not both with. you know to wheels of justice move slow but they do move in i just think at the right time

right place it could be fixed but it's up to us to fix it because this where we've had the good to vote to put the right people in the right positions to make the changes that we need not criminal justice. this is one of the most fired parents of our judicial system what to do with children examining juvenile justice he didn't adult crime he's got to face an adult sons adolescents should not be demanding the rest of their lives for actions that are taken at that period of their lives is just as guilty as suffers the same consequences that's the law exploring the dark side of american justice the system with joe burden on al-jazeera.

greg. hello there for the southwestern parts of the u.s. it's still rather dry and that's not good news because we could really do with some wet weather to dampen down the flames these fires all from the northern parts of california and see just how ferocious they also know wet weather on the horizon here but elsewhere there has been a north of heavy rain all out of this system here is gradually beginning to break up now but i think for some of us in texas we're going to see a cluster of thunderstorms that's one to stick around as we head through tuesday and into wednesday just rushing track a little bit further towards the west ahead of that staying dry and pretty hot with washington d.c. all the way out at thirty three degrees a bit of

a towards the south and there's plenty of showers here but also a good deal of sunshine but it do you think that the showers are beginning to pull themselves together over poles acosta reka and up in tunica regular here inside the showers are going to stick around as we head through the next few days so to say i am wednesday both looking pretty wet for us before the towards the south of forcing one of the reason it's pretty chilly at the moment so a maximum temperature just of nine or ten degrees it really will feel cool for us here for a seat in santiago though here the temperatures are recovering but there's more rain edging its way towards us and wednesday is looking pretty words. in an exclusive documentary series al-jazeera reveals the full story of a war that changed the face of the middle east this is not a war to defeat israel this is a war to open the way for the promise of the final episode of

a three part series explores the impending threats of two global superpowers i don't cover as why the out israeli conflict continues to this day the war in october the battle and beyond at this time on al-jazeera with over forty thousand people killed under his rule it took twenty five years to bring him to a court of law but why for so long was such a brutal dictator considered an ally of the west who heard the reporting to the congress that the press there were engaged in a clip of al-jazeera unravels the history of chad's notorious former president is saying had three dictator on trial on al-jazeera. fresh perspectives new possibility. being less generous and taliban made noise to be public support debates and discussions when you see tough

questions like this what comes to why how do you respond before how global of all could we see out is here is the winning programs take you on a journey of down the line. only ounces their man. this is al jazeera. i know i'm right matheson this is the news our live from doha coming up in the next sixty minutes. heard rigor rescuers in thailand finally locate a youth football team trapped in a flooded cave for ten days the. scenes of joy outside the caves but officials say it could take days.