Belief perseverance
24
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3
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3
PODCASTS
Search complete. 24 mentions across 3 episodes found for "Belief perseverance".
Sep 15, 2026
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
This is Leon from Prologue Projects.
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
On today's episode of "5 to 4," Peter and Michael are talking to journalist and friend of the show, Josie Duffy Rice, about her new podcast series, "The Backfire Effect." Josie's series dives into the case of Temujin Kenzo, a man serving a life sentence in Michigan State Prison for the 1986 murder of college student Scott Macklem.
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
But Temujin says he could not have killed Scott because he was hundreds of miles away when his murder took place.
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
How can someone be convicted of a murder when they were halfway across the state when it happened? The answer includes, but is not limited to, corrupt cops, a drug-addled defense attorney, an imaginary ninja syndicate, and an amateur hypnotist.
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
"The Backfire Effect" is the story of a truly wild case that also highlights some of the most insidious parts of our legal system.
Leon NeyfakhNARRATOR
This is "5 to 4," a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and the criminal justice system suck.
Peter ShamshiriHOST
Welcome to "5 to 4," where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have carried our civil rights to safety, like Donald Trump being carried from Ground Zero by firefighters.
Josie Duffy RiceGUEST
You love me
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
But that one moment would still haunt these witnesses, and many others in Port Huron, almost 40 years later.
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
I'm Josie Duffy Rice, and this is The Backfire Effect, episode one, The Good Cop.
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
I'm not from Michigan.
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
I'm from Georgia.
25 MINS LATER
Joshua SharpCORRESPONDENT
He's done an insane amount of work.
Joshua SharpCORRESPONDENT
And once I realized that all of that's there, I'm thinking, okay, maybe actually, wait a second, maybe, my God, maybe Herb's already figured it out and nobody, including Herb, has put it all together because, I mean, I couldn't tell you how many interviews he's done.
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
In psychology, there's a term called the backfire effect, a concept coined 15 or so years ago, though the ideas that undergird it have existed for much longer.
Josie Duffy RiceHOST
It says that correcting a false belief can sometimes strengthen it.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
I'm jumping back into The Chinatown Sting to tell you about another project that I've been working on.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
It's a new podcast called Examined: The Backfire Effect.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
And like The Chinatown Sting, it's a look at the ripple effects that one court case can have, how they extend far beyond the people directly involved at the time.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
Examined: The Backfire Effect starts in the fall of 1986, when a student is murdered in broad daylight in Port Huron, Michigan.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
The police quickly found their suspect, and prosecutors painted him as a dangerous mastermind.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
But there was one problem.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
He had been nowhere near the scene of the crime, and there were multiple eyewitnesses who could prove it.
Lydia Jean KottHOST
In The Backfire Effect, the host, Josie Duffy Rice, tells the story of this strange and complicated man who has now been in prison for over four decades for reasons that get more complicated the closer you look.