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Canary: The Washington Post Investigates

Chapter 6: "You can always have the last word"

Canary: The Washington Post Investigates

The Washington Post

Society & Culture, Documentary, True Crime

4.62.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How will the accused respond? And what will his defenders say? 

Subscribe to The Washington Post: washingtonpost.com/canaryoffer.

Transcript

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0:00.0

A warning to listeners. This episode contains explicit language and descriptions of sexual violence.

0:16.0

I'm Amy Britton and this is Canary, an investigative podcast from the Washington Post.

0:31.0

Chapter 6. You can always have the last word.

0:43.0

Dear Judge Morrison, I hope that the letter finds you well. My name is Amy Britton and I'm an investigative reporter from the Washington Post.

0:52.0

Last year I authored an article about Lauren Clark, a sexual assault victim whose case she handled in DC Superior Court.

1:00.0

After months of reporting, I was finally ready to reach out to Judge Morrison.

1:05.0

So I was sitting at my desk, typing a letter to him. I wrote that, quote,

1:10.0

Carol Griffin, a 60-year-old woman from Birmingham, Alabama, alleges that you sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager.

1:18.0

Griffin has said this assault happened in the mid 1970s, on the Morrison family property near Marion, Virginia.

1:27.0

I didn't include the full details of Carol's allegations.

1:31.0

I wanted to ask him about those sensitive details in person, so I requested an interview.

1:37.0

As I told him in the letter, quote,

1:40.0

I understand that the story is not complete without the chance to speak with you in extensive detail.

1:47.0

And then I put the letter in the mail.

1:54.0

It's a pretty serious letter to send to someone.

1:57.0

I'm just thinking of kind of like the ripple effects that happen after you send something like this.

2:03.0

And that's not something that I take lightly.

2:11.0

A lot of times, as an investigative reporter, people tend to ask me,

2:15.0

how do you know when the reporting is over?

2:19.0

How do you know when you're done, or if you've got more work to do?

2:23.0

That's a tough question to answer.

2:25.0

Any reporter at the Washington Post might give you a different response.

...

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