BROOKLYN, N.Y. — As the sun set at his back, Sundhe Moses stood quietly looking off in the distance at a half-torn-down building. He said this was the first time he’d ever been to Prospect Plaza, a public housing complex being demolished in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. This is where 4-year-old Shamone Johnson was roller-skating with friends on Aug. 28, 1995, when she was killed by a stray bullet. It is also the scene of the crime Moses was accused of committing. “It’s like an out-of-body experience, because they’re telling me that I was here and that I did something,” he said.

The death of 4-year-old Shamone Johnson and wounding of four other kids grabbed headlines when it happened. That morning almost two decades ago, 19-year-old Moses was abruptly taken from his bed and dragged out of his apartment. At the police station, he was accused of shooting the little girl. “When he told me that, I actually felt a little relieved,” he said. "In the sense that I know that I had nothing to do [with it].” Moses thought he’d soon be back with his family, including his 5-month-old son. But during a grueling 12-hour interrogation, he confessed to the crime. It would be more than 18 years before he returned home. His case is one of 50 that the Brooklyn district attorney's office is reviewing after questions about the tactics of an acclaimed former homicide detective surfaced last year.

The interrogation room

In the interrogation room, the more Moses denied the allegations, he said, the more aggressive the detectives became. He didn't eat or drink, and he was allowed to use the bathroom only once. After a few hours, Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella entered the room, according to Moses.

Retired Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella declined to comment for this report. “He physically used his hands, slapped me, choked me, and the rest of the officers held me, so I wouldn't protect myself or I wouldn't lash back out at him,” Moses said. Scarcella was legendary at the time, known for making arrests and getting convictions in crime-scarred Brooklyn. In 1995 — the year Moses was charged with murder — the city’s violent crime rate took a nosedive, attributed in part to aggressive new policing techniques. Outnumbered, tired and in fear of his life, Moses said he went into survival mode. “At that point they weren't acting like detectives, they were actually acting like a gang,” he said. “They wouldn't accept anything outside of a confession. So, with not knowing the law, of course, I said, ‘Well, I'll tell them what they want to hear. And I can prove that that was a lie later on.’” Detectives wrote up a confession for Moses with their version of events. To put an end to his nightmare, he signed it. “I never thought that I would get convicted,” he said.

My name was dragged through the mud. My family was put through a few things, a lot of things, and my son grew up without a father. Because in all of this, it seems like the victim was forgotten. There’s still a mom out there who lost her child. Sundhe Moses

But the confession with his signature would prove to be far more influential than any other piece of evidence in court. Upon seeing it, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 16 years to life in prison. “I was in shock. I couldn't say much,” he recalled of the day his verdict was read. “I'm a very strong-willed person, but for a second — just for a second — suicide flashed through my mind.” Moses’ mother, Elaine, was beside herself at the thought of the youngest of her eight children spending his life in prison. “I wanted to go to the subway and jump on the train tracks. That’s how bad it was,” said Elaine, who emigrated from Liberia more than 30 years ago. “I went through a lot of illness, a lot of surgery. I went through depression."

All too common

To most, the idea of a false confession is baffling. “I mean, who ever heard of false confessions, that somebody would confess to a crime they didn’t commit? That’s what everybody believes,” said Lonnie Soury, co-founder of False Confessions, a public advocacy organization aimed at raising awareness about false confessions and supporting legal reforms to prevent them. Of 27 exonerations in New York state, 13, or almost half, were based on false confessions, according to the organization. And about a quarter of all wrongful convictions nationwide involved a false confession.

“In Sundhe Moses’ case, we needed to see the police officer … when he choked Sundhe and hit him … A jury needs to see that. Anything less should not be allowed in court,” said Lonnie Soury, co-founder of False Confessions, a public advocacy organization. America Tonight “It is the most compelling piece of evidence you can get to a jury and almost always results in a conviction, false or otherwise,” Soury said. “Once it gets into a prosecutor’s hands and then before a judge, and then before a jury, it’s over.” He receives stacks of letters from inmates looking for help every day. “What about the guys that are still in prison?” he said, thumbing through a pile of unopened mail on his office desk. “These are full of their legal cases. These are information about their families and about their cases and evidence of their innocence." There's a growing body of research on the psychology of false confessions. The factors that researchers say can contribute to a false confession include duress, coercion, intoxication, mental impairment, violence or the fear of it, and the threat of a harsh sentence. To help prevent false confessions, Soury believes all interrogations should be recorded. Currently, fewer than half the states require it. “In Sundhe Moses’ case, we needed to see the police officer, Detective Scarcella,” he said. “We needed to see when he choked Sundhe and hit him. That’s what we need to see. A jury needs to see that. Anything less should not be allowed in court.”

No physical evidence whatsoever. No blood, no fibers, no hair, no ballistics, no bullet traces, no powder residue burns; absolutely not a shred of physical evidence to connect him with the crime in any way. Ron Kuby Attorney

Other reforms that advocates who warn about false confessions support include making it illegal for interrogators to introduce false evidence, doing more to protect particularly vulnerable suspect populations and re-examining the "guilt-presumptive" approach of the Reid technique — the nine-step questioning process that has been popular among interrogators for 50 years.

Hope

Eighteen years into Moses' sentence, Scarcella, the detective who got him to confess, became the target of an investigation himself. It followed coverage in The New York Times that examined a dozen cases involving Scarcella and found "disturbing patterns" in his conduct with eyewitnesses and his "delivery of confessions" from suspects. The district attorney's Conviction Review Unit is now re-examining more than 50 cases that involved evidence produced by Scarcella — who is accused of lying, cheating and other misconduct — and that resulted in convictions. Moses' case is one of them.

Moses’ mother, Elaine, hugs him at a party welcoming him home from prison. courtesy After his mother read about the investigation in the paper last year and told him about it, Moses wrote a letter to attorney Ron Kuby, who decided to take on his case pro bono. “No physical evidence whatsoever. No blood, no fibers, no hair, no ballistics, no bullet traces, no powder residue burns; absolutely not a shred of physical evidence to connect him with the crime in any way,” Kuby said. Kuby and his team tracked down two key witnesses, who both said that Moses was not the shooter. “One of them was the cousin of the little girl who was killed. The other was the close friend of the mother of the little girl who was killed,” Kuby said. “These people had no reason to lie. And they both told us that Sundhe was not the person.”