Country Justice

“If there was an overriding theme as to what went wrong, it was the lead investigators backed into a theory and just wouldn’t get off it when the evidence wouldn’t add up,”

I would highly recommend avoiding getting arrested in a small town. This can be rather difficult, mind you, since you don't actually have to do anything illeagal to get arrested in a small town, If a Sheriff's "hunch" leads to you, that's just about it. So the only way to be sure that you don't get arrested in a small town is not to go, which is even better advice.

But poor Matthew Livers has to live in one. He was charged with helping murder his aunt and uncle, Wayne and Sharmon Stock, last April, and has spent the last seven months in jail until it became glaringly obvious that not only did the evidence condemn him but actually seemed to exonerate him.

There was some tension between Livers side of the family and that of the murder victims, and rumors started to fly around after the killings. Understand, country folks are full of faith. They have a lot of faith in Jesus. They have even more faith in their rumors.
A pizza place North Platte went out of business a while ago because of rumors that the owner was a gay man with AIDS. Thirteen years later, there are still some that will get very angry if you suggest that this wasn't true. Our schools, you see, don't teach us how to sift empirical facts out the giant grain bin of bullshit, so we rely on the word of familiar faces to discern the truth. Please don't waste your time suggesting that this system doesn't work. There are those that know this, and there are those who will always refuse to know.

And so the remors continued to fly around Murdock and Plattsmouth, and so suspicion turned to Matt Livers: he's young and different, and so he was arrested.

Now Livers is mentally challenged, and the interrogating officers (Earl Schenck of the Cass County sheriff's department and state patrolman William Lambert) knew that he would eventually crack if they only raised their normal macho/cop/father/God act to the next level. The interrogation lasted for 11 hours. Livers could have asked for a lawyer at any time, of course. I'm sure they told him that.

Lambert: "You shot her in the face. You shot her in the face Matt."
Livers: "Dude, I didn't."
Lambert: "What do you mean 'dude"
Schenck: "Bull!"
Livers: I didn't, I mean..
Lambert: You didn't what?
Livers: "I didn't do anything."
Lambert: "You are full of shit. You did too. Tell us that we are wrong. Tell us that this is a lie. You can tell it's a lie, can't you? We know from the natural reaction of people. You are in the chair. You are sitting there, You're shaking because you know it's the truth. You know it's the truth in your heart.



I've talked to a few cops in my day. All of them, to a man, are very proud of their ability to "read people." They believe that they can spot suspicious activity by a certain twitch or crawl to someone's movements. They believe they can detect the nervousness of a liar. They teach the shit out of this at police acadamy.

All of it is nonsense, of course. The ability to read people doesn't exist, and there is no such thing as a "natural reaction." or at least, the nervousness of a mentally challenged young man being yelled at by authority figures would be much the same whether he was telling the truth or lying.

Nonetheless, the psychic detectives got their confession.

Perhaps the real question is why we still bother with the entire interrogation ritual. Out of all forms of evidence, the human word is the least reliable. We have the technology to detect microscopic blood and tissue fragment. Human accounts of a situation only get in the way of the hard scientific record.

But juries aren't moved by science. They are moved by a widow's tears. They are moved by a cop looking a suspect "in the eye" and drawing theall-important confession out of him. there have been several occasions where a confessed killer was scientificly proven innocent, but people refused to believe it, he confessed.

Attribute this to the human desire to believe that we are special. We want to believe that our relationships and interactions are somehow sacred, that they form a more profound truth than concrete, physical reality. Why do you think we are so shocked when somebody lies to us, Even though our own senses and our own judgement give us false information all the time?

The truth is that human interactions are just as self-serving,empty, and meaningless as monkeys picking the bugs off each other's backs. A lot of human misery can be done away with if only we had the courage to accept this.

Cox (Cass County attorney) said he didn’t blame the State Patrol or the Cass County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators worked hard and did as well as they could, he said. And ultimately, he pointed out, Livers and Sampson were freed.

“This is the process working,” he said.

Oh, but of course. An innocent man only spent seven months in jail. I assume that Mr. Cox would be just as forgiving if a suspect was on the loose for seven months.

Rest assured, if this case had gone to trial, Livers would have been convicted. evidence or no evidence, the small-town trust in authority would have prevailed.
A jury torn between reality and the thought of a sheriff's disapproving glare may have felt some emotional distress, but ultimately would put on a brave face and turn up the voltage. Livers would have been sentenced to death most likely. Many would have crowed about how we know how to treat killers here in the heartland.

All credit in the world goes to the Cass County public defender, Julie Bear, in performing what must be a thankless duty. Lawyers are despised in these parts. I can think of no better proof of good chracter than to be despised in Cass County.