West Memphis Three | When Justice Gets It Wrong | 5
American Scandal
Wondery
4.6 • 18.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
University of Michigan law professor David Moran never planned to spend his career freeing the wrongfully convicted. But after handling several appeal cases that exposed deep flaws in the system, he realized how widespread the problem really was. In 2009, he co-founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which has since helped free more than 45 people. Moran joins Lindsay to discuss how the West Memphis Three case reflects the patterns he’s seen across wrongful convictions, why prosecutors sometimes pursue cases built on faulty evidence, and whether the justice system is finally learning from its mistakes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to get more from American Scandal? |
| 0:02.9 | Subscribe to Wondry Plus for early access to new episodes, |
| 0:06.4 | add free listening, and exclusive content you can't find anywhere else. |
| 0:10.1 | Join Wondery Plus in the W Graham, and this is American Scandal. |
| 0:29.4 | Oh, wow. |
| 0:32.0 | Oh, ah. |
| 0:33.5 | Oh, wow. In May of 1993, three eight-year-old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, and within only weeks, |
| 0:55.9 | police had their suspects. Three teenagers accused of carrying out a satanic ritual killing. |
| 1:01.9 | There was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. But under pressure to solve the case, |
| 1:06.9 | police obtained a confession from one of the boys, and that was enough. |
| 1:17.3 | Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Miss Kelly were convicted and sent to prison for a crime they did not commit. |
| 1:23.4 | Thirty years later, the story of the West Memphis Three has become a haunting example of how moral panic, |
| 1:28.6 | media pressure, and tunnel vision can conspire to put innocent people behind bars. |
| 1:34.2 | Today, we're joined by someone who has spent his career confronting exactly those kinds of injustices. |
| 1:38.3 | David Moran is a retired professor at the University of Michigan Law School. |
| 1:44.9 | He co-founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic in 2009, which has helped free dozens of wrongfully convicted people. |
| 1:49.7 | We'll talk about how wrongful convictions happen even in the face of evidence to the contrary, |
| 1:54.9 | what these cases can teach us about the dangers of certainty and the cost of getting it wrong. |
| 1:56.7 | Our conversation is next. Mom and dad. Mom and Mom, Dad and Dad, Dad and Dad, whatever, parents. Are you about to |
| 2:07.7 | spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Drive an old Granny's |
| 2:12.7 | house? I'm setting the scene, I'm picturing, screaming, fighting, back-to-back hours of the |
| 2:18.3 | K-pop Demon Hunter's soundtrack on repeat. |
... |
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