A new best-selling book, Catch the Devil, chronicles Skalnik's career helping prosecutors secure dozens of convictions—despite being a serial liar and criminal.
asserted
prosecutors → sell → convictions
His cartoonishly long rap sheet included elaborate frauds, multiple grand thefts, and sexual assault of a child; at various times, he passed himself off as a Southwest Airlines executive, a high-powered attorney, and a Vietnam War hero.
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he → include → executive
In July, Reason's Billy Binion interviewed author Pamela Colloff, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and reporter at ProPublica.
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Binion → interview → ProPublica
How is it possible for someone with such an intense history of dishonesty to still earn the state's trust for decades?
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someone → earn → decades
I think you hit upon the big question of the book, right?
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you → think → book
Skalnik was a former police officer himself, so he sort of knew how the game worked.
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game → know → ?
When he got to whatever county jail he ended up in, he could size up whoever it was that prosecutors most wanted a conviction against.
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prosecutors → get → conviction
And he would produce these incredible quote-unquote "confessions."
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he → produce → confessions
And in return for his testimony about those confessions, he would usually be let free.
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he → let → confessions
You can imagine how there were police and prosecutors who bought this.
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who → imagine → this
I think what becomes more difficult as he's used more widely in [Pinellas County,] Florida—where he helped send upward of 40 men to prison—at what point does someone say, "What are the odds that this guy in the jail has a better batting record than our best detectives?"
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guy → think → detectives
No one ever says that.
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one → say → that
The book covers a lot of disturbing cases, but the one central to it is a murder case in Florida.
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one → cover → Florida
Can you set the scene?
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you → set → scene
A: There was a 14-year-old girl named Shelly Boggio who was found in a body of water.
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who → be → water
She'd been stabbed over 30 times, and the assumption was that she'd been sexually assaulted.
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she → stab → times
The investigation quickly narrows down to a man named Jack Pearcy, who had a long history of violence against women.
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who → narrow → women
He was the last person seen with Boggio.
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He → see → Boggio
When he's interviewed by investigators, he realizes they know too much.
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they → interview → much
So he pivots to saying that he had his housemate—Jim Dailey—with him that night, and that it was Jim who committed this crime.
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who → pivot → crime
Jim did not have that kind of record, and there's no physical or forensic evidence tying him to the crime, or any motive whatsoever.
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Jim → have → crime
Skalnik is brought in very shortly before the trial starts.
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trial → bring → ?
He is moved in the jail to be close to where Jim Dailey was.
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Dailey → move → jail
Within 24 hours, he says he has procured Dailey's confession—a total stranger who's awaiting trial.
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who → say → trial
It was a story that really played upon jurors' sympathies.
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that → play → sympathies
He talked about how Jim Dailey had supposedly told him about stabbing Shelly Boggio to death and how she'd been staring at him in this pleading way, but she wouldn't die.
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she → talk → way
It's this horrific image, and he is sentenced to death.
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he → sentence → death
What makes you think Dailey is actually innocent?
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Dailey → make → ?
A: There have been over 200 people in the U.S. who were sentenced to death who have since been exonerated.
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who → sentence → death
We know that jailhouse informants—who are notoriously unreliable—are a factor in 25 percent of those wrongful convictions.
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who → know → convictions
When you see a case with three jailhouse informants, no physical evidence, no motive, and your quote-unquote "eyewitness" is the main suspect in the case?
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eyewitness → see → case
To me, the secondary theme was that when credible evidence may exonerate someone after a jury has rendered a verdict, it is depressingly difficult to get another chance.
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it → exonerate → chance
I am obsessed with this idea that the system is built to compound its own errors.
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system → build → errors
When new evidence comes out—and there's a lot of new evidence that comes out over the years that really points toward his innocence—you would think that would be enough.
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that → come → innocence
But what you see is that courts really look backward at precedent and jury verdicts rather than forward at new evidence.
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courts → see → evidence
Jim gets terrific attorneys in this case—too late.
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Jim → get → case
They do incredible work, and it doesn't matter.
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it → do → work
Too many judges have rubber-stamped this testimony by Paul Skalnik.
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judges → stamp → Skalnik
There's no way for the courts to essentially say, "Hey, let's go back and look at this holistically and see if any of this makes sense."
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any → be → sense
It was shocking to me to see that.
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It → see → that
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
