VII · Alleged Confession | Defense Argument

Argument · 7 of 17

VII. The Alleged Confession Is Not a Confession Given by Mr. Robinson to Law Enforcement

The State and the media have repeatedly used the word confession. The Court must be precise about what was actually presented.

There is no:

recorded police interrogation in which Mr. Robinson admits the offense;
body-camera recording of such an admission;
signed confession;
audio recording of an admission to his parents;
original handwritten confession recovered and scientifically attributed to him;
live testimony from his mother;
live testimony from his father;
or live testimony from Mike Mitchell.

What the State actually presented falls into three categories:

Messages recovered from Twiggs’s phone and attributed to Mr. Robinson.
A photograph on Twiggs’s phone of a note Twiggs said he found.
Secondhand accounts of alleged statements to parents and a family friend who did not testify.

Those are not the same thing as producing Mr. Robinson’s own authenticated confession.

Day 4 Hearing — Twiggs's Recorded Interview Played in CourtThe recorded interview (not a police interrogation of Mr. Robinson) that forms the basis of the State's "confession" narrative. Source: Court TV.