Speaker 1: I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like
Speaker 1: everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this. How is this possible? I grew up
Speaker 1: trusting the systems. I grew up believing that every human
Speaker 1: thing should do the right thing. And that's why, even
Speaker 1: though I was dealing with CORRP people, I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to brave anyone to get me out of prison because
Speaker 1: I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my
Speaker 1: way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to
Speaker 1: proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And
Speaker 1: that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've
Speaker 1: been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but
Speaker 1: it's still broken, a totally little trust in humanity after
Speaker 1: what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. Today's episode is insane. This story will
Speaker 1: really rattle your perceptions of criminal justice and the guy
Speaker 1: who's here to tell it as an extraordinary guy. In
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, Stephen Barnes entered an unfamiliar new world.
Speaker 1: For two decades, he'd been locked in prison, convicted for
Speaker 1: the murder of sixteen year old Kimberly Simon. It was
Speaker 1: a crime he had not committed. A jury convicted Barnes
Speaker 1: in nine based on mistakes by eye witnesses, allying jail
Speaker 1: house informant, and bad science DNA evidence exonerated Barnes two
Speaker 1: days before Thanksgiving. In two thousand and eight, Stephen Barnes,
Speaker 1: welcome to wrongful Conviction. Thank you for having me. York
Speaker 1: case is truly bizarre, and that it is one of
Speaker 1: the most It's an unreal situation when when you were
Speaker 1: convicted with the total absence of any kind of evidence,
Speaker 1: and with everything that there was pointing elsewhere. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get into that later, but I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning because you were really just a kid
Speaker 1: when this happened. You grew up in the suburbs of
Speaker 1: New York, right, Yeah, a small town in Utica. New
Speaker 1: York called Marcy, New York, right, And how was your childhood? Uh? Good?
Speaker 1: I was. I went to Catholic school for eight years.
Speaker 1: I went to another high school for two years. When
Speaker 1: I was seventeen years old, my real father passed away.
Speaker 1: And then when I was nineteen, I was a year
Speaker 1: at high school. I graduate high school. Was when my
Speaker 1: nightmares started, and you're a nightmare. It started and it stopped,
Speaker 1: and then it's then it really took on a new
Speaker 1: because this was a cold case. This is a terrible case.
Speaker 1: This is a sixteen year old girl. She was brewery
Speaker 1: raped and murdered, and they found her uh off of
Speaker 1: Maine Road, about three miles from my house where I
Speaker 1: grew up. Did you know her? No, she was three
Speaker 1: years younger than me. I didn't never hung out with her.
Speaker 1: I didn't over her, never matter. And she lived right
Speaker 1: in the same town I did. Her parents did. So
Speaker 1: this must have been big news in the town that
Speaker 1: you left. You don't have a lot of murders up there, No,
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, so it was a big thing because
Speaker 1: my area, that stuff don't happen. No, that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff don't happen, And so people must have been paniced.
Speaker 1: Was there a lot of news. There was media all
Speaker 1: over back in eighty five. How I got involved is
Speaker 1: where they found her body. There was four corners and
Speaker 1: they had the cops had roadbox and I went to
Speaker 1: the roadblock and they had eight by ten pitchers of
Speaker 1: her and they asked, you've seen this girl? And I
Speaker 1: said no. And then later on that day I went
Speaker 1: through the roadblock again. But on my way home, my
Speaker 1: buddy has a beverage center and I wanted to get
Speaker 1: a six pack of beer, so I made a loot.
Speaker 1: You turn through the comedian store and the cop was
Speaker 1: on a pay phone and he saw me cut to
Speaker 1: the parking lot and I shot. He shot across the
Speaker 1: street and he pulled me over and he asked me
Speaker 1: for my licensed, my registration, and he said, why did
Speaker 1: you turn around? I said, I wanted to get a
Speaker 1: six pack and I forgotten, so they thought you turned
Speaker 1: around to avoid the road. Yes, And I went through
Speaker 1: the roadblock earlier in the day in the morning. Your
Speaker 1: case really highlights the fact that this can happen to anyone.
Speaker 1: Like you're painting such a mundane picture, right, It's like
Speaker 1: you're going to your thing, You're gonna get a six pack.
Speaker 1: You turn things that everybody very much has done, and
Speaker 1: you're just a typical kid in a typical town. And
Speaker 1: then what after that incident? It was three days exactly
Speaker 1: three days later they called me my mother's house and said,
Speaker 1: can you come up to the sheriff's apartment answer some questions?
Speaker 1: And what were you thinking when you got that call? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like wow, and I'm like, okay, I got
Speaker 1: nothing high I'll go up there and answer wherever you got,
Speaker 1: you know a little bit. I know I was there
Speaker 1: for twelve and twelve hours. Did you get a lawyer
Speaker 1: or anything? Nothing? My first hour there, they're asked me
Speaker 1: where I was on September eight, and I told him
Speaker 1: what I did from when I got up to what
Speaker 1: I did that night and about and then another investigator
Speaker 1: came in and he asked me the same questions. And
Speaker 1: then another investigator came in and he remembered he looked
Speaker 1: me in the eye and he slammed his hand out
Speaker 1: on the dusk and he said, you fan did this,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna tell us how he did it. And
Speaker 1: I stood up and I said, I f and did
Speaker 1: not do it. And I am trying to cooperate with
Speaker 1: you people, and you're trying to blame me. Put this
Speaker 1: on me. I go, I had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: I said, can I call my mother? Yeah? In a minute.
Speaker 1: In a minute, I said, can I have a glass
Speaker 1: of water? They didn't give me a glass of water.
Speaker 1: Then I said that. After a while, they said, can
Speaker 1: we search a vehicle? I'm so sure I had to
Speaker 1: sign a waiver. Then they made me take my shirt off.
Speaker 1: They're looking for scratches. Um. They cut in, tearrogating me. Um,
Speaker 1: asked me who my girlfriend was at the time, What
Speaker 1: do I like to do? And they kept going back
Speaker 1: and forth and you know, and they treated me like
Speaker 1: ship excuse my lane. Which But then after about ten
Speaker 1: hours they said, would you take a polygraph test? Yeah?
Speaker 1: On ten hours there? After ten hours, did you get
Speaker 1: any water by now? Or nothing? No phone call? No?
Speaker 1: No phone never came nothing. Did you ever ask for
Speaker 1: a lawyer? Yes? Nothing, they said, I never asked for nothing.
Speaker 1: The cops took the stand and he said no, But
Speaker 1: so you did ask for a lawer, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: because yea, they didn't even at what point did you
Speaker 1: realize that you needed a lawyer, because well, after like
Speaker 1: the first three or four hours ago, this is getting
Speaker 1: really intense here. They really think I have something to
Speaker 1: do with this. And I've never been in trouble with
Speaker 1: my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket. I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I was brought up like
Speaker 1: cops or the good guys. My parents brought me up.
Speaker 1: You know, cops they treat you this. These guys will
Speaker 1: treat me like I was already convicted. I was. I
Speaker 1: was a scumbag, you know what I mean. It was
Speaker 1: like acting like that Charles Benson in there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I go, with a minute, I go, I'm just living
Speaker 1: my normal life, like nor that ninth year old kid.
Speaker 1: I just got my year out of high school. I go,
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, next thing, you know, like they're
Speaker 1: accusing me a murder rate that means insane. Nineteen, you're
Speaker 1: really still you're closer to a child than an adult.
Speaker 1: But you don't have the sense to ask for a lawyer.
Speaker 1: And this is something I tell people as often as
Speaker 1: I can, because it's so important. If you do get
Speaker 1: picked up for something you didn't do. First of all,
Speaker 1: remember they're not your friends, right and they're not there
Speaker 1: to help you in that situation. So you have to
Speaker 1: protect yourself, and that means ask for a lawyer as
Speaker 1: soon as you go in there and stop talking because
Speaker 1: anything you say, like they said TV, anything you say
Speaker 1: can be used against you, and it will be. And
Speaker 1: then at that point you have a very adversarial relationship,
Speaker 1: but purely adversary relationship. They want you to confess to something,
Speaker 1: and which is amazing too. By the way you were
Speaker 1: you were interrogated for twelve hours and you didn't confess,
Speaker 1: and you were a teenager, so you don't confess twelve
Speaker 1: hours go by? Now what Well? I took the polygraph
Speaker 1: touse state. He threw me in a cop card, took
Speaker 1: me probably like twenty minutes away to a state police barracks,
Speaker 1: threw me in a room, gave me in his book.
Speaker 1: So look through. The book tells you how polygraph it is,
Speaker 1: how it works. What time is it now, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: just started at noon. Now we're almost at eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: at night. It's late, you know. So I didn't know
Speaker 1: the pobably I heard of him. I never took one.
Speaker 1: So they took all this stuff up to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm already nervous wreck. You know, they're trying to blame
Speaker 1: me for this for the last ten hours, harassing the
Speaker 1: hell out of me. I'm like stressed out, aggravated, nervous,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like this is not this
Speaker 1: is not good. You know what I mean, because a
Speaker 1: polygraph test works on your nerves. So they asked me
Speaker 1: some questions. I don't even remember half the questions. They
Speaker 1: asked me, if somebody paid me to do this, do
Speaker 1: you know soon? So I took the test, and I
Speaker 1: remember they it was about half about an hour, and
Speaker 1: I remember I was sitting in a small room and
Speaker 1: they had a glass to Willia mirror in the cops
Speaker 1: room behind there watching me as this guy that was
Speaker 1: this guy He goes, I'm a professional. I do this
Speaker 1: for a living. I polygraph doctors, lawyers, this, everybody. You know.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I understand at your job. So we did
Speaker 1: the polygraph and then on the way at the cops
Speaker 1: brought me back to get my truck at the sheriff's
Speaker 1: apartment and they go, I go, so now what, they go,
Speaker 1: You're free to go home. Oh, they didn't tell you
Speaker 1: if you pass it failed? No, so I get in
Speaker 1: my truck. It's alf white, fingerprinted floor mats are out
Speaker 1: of it. They've whatever, they destroyed it. So I went home.
Speaker 1: I was living my mother still and she goes, where
Speaker 1: you been? She was sleeping, you know, one o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. I go, you gotta get up. I go,
Speaker 1: we got problems there. She goes, what I go. They're
Speaker 1: trying to blame me for this Kim Simon's murder. I says,
Speaker 1: I was up there. She goes, where you been all day?
Speaker 1: I said, have it up there for a little over
Speaker 1: twelve hours. She goes, why don't you call me? I said,
Speaker 1: I asked for a phone call. They don't even let
Speaker 1: me nothing. So the next day, my mother we had
Speaker 1: a family attorney friend, so we called him and I
Speaker 1: told him the situation, and then he called the sheriff's apartment.
Speaker 1: He said, well, they told him the polygraph came back
Speaker 1: and conclusive. Is he willing to take another one? And
Speaker 1: my lawyer that I had, he goes, no, he's not
Speaker 1: taking another one. And it was about six months after
Speaker 1: that they called my house and said, you are to
Speaker 1: report over to the hospital for to give up blood
Speaker 1: and hair. Six months have gone by six months after interrogation.
Speaker 1: So after six months, you're in the clear. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: living my life. Ye I'm going to work. I had
Speaker 1: a very unpleasant experience, but yes, yeah, it just okay,
Speaker 1: you know. So I go up to me and my
Speaker 1: moth drive up there. They take vowels of blood to
Speaker 1: take care from all over my body, and I went home.
Speaker 1: For the next three years, they fouled me, harassed me,
Speaker 1: called my ex girlfriend up, interrogated her, asked all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, What type of sex do I like this? That?
Speaker 1: What type of person I am? Uh? My drugs do
Speaker 1: I drink? All this, you know, crazy stuff, told her
Speaker 1: parents that she keeps dating me, she's going to be
Speaker 1: the next one, you know, all this crazy stuff, and
Speaker 1: I go really, So it was um, three and a
Speaker 1: half years later, after the official interrogation. I'm sitting home.
Speaker 1: It was March. My girlfriend's birthday was gonna be on
Speaker 1: the twenty nine. Me and my little brother and my
Speaker 1: my girlfriend were sitting in my mother's house hanging out
Speaker 1: watching Uh. Back in them days, MTV was good, you know,
Speaker 1: with the videos. So we're watching and having a couple
Speaker 1: of pops and my brother, you know, we're talking. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, there's a knock on the door. There's
Speaker 1: the two investigators that interrogated me. They go, high, Steve,
Speaker 1: can you do you remember us? I said, all could
Speaker 1: I ever forget your ugly mug? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You guys made my life as a morning I go,
Speaker 1: what do you want now? They said, A couple of
Speaker 1: people come forward and you're under the rest. So step
Speaker 1: out of the house. My brother's flipping out, my girlfriend's crying.
Speaker 1: I'm flipping out there. They cuffed me, stuffed me in
Speaker 1: the car. I'm cursing. All the way to from my
Speaker 1: mother's house to the sheriff's apartment is probably a ten
Speaker 1: minute drive. They had about twelve police cars. All the
Speaker 1: freaking guys are out, guns drawn. You know, It's like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on? And I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is insane. Bring me up to the sheriff's department and
Speaker 1: the media is there, and they filmed the cameras getting
Speaker 1: me out of the cop car, and the next day
Speaker 1: in the papers, you know, we got the real murderer
Speaker 1: of this. So I was in the county jail for
Speaker 1: about two months and they finally gave me bail a
Speaker 1: hundred thousands, So my mother put up her house and
Speaker 1: I had a basic lawyer, but he wasn't too good.
Speaker 1: My mother hired a prominent lawyer in here. He was
Speaker 1: noted for He's been around a long time. And I
Speaker 1: was out on bail about a year. I couldn't go
Speaker 1: anywhere I had. I was like an house arrest. I
Speaker 1: didn't wear a bracelet, but I just went to work
Speaker 1: and came home. I couldn't go anywhere. It's couldn't go
Speaker 1: to bars. You were probably infamous at this point, right,
Speaker 1: I mean you've already been convicted in the media pretty much.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they already had me, you know. I then
Speaker 1: they had me seal and deal that was you know.
Speaker 1: I mean if you oh yeah, they already said, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you would get harassed, but oh yeah, I would go.
Speaker 1: I would go to the store my mother, and then
Speaker 1: people there's the scumbag barns at murder rapists, you know,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I just ignored it. And the
Speaker 1: cops used to follow me around, you know. And my
Speaker 1: girlfriend was going to college not far from my house,
Speaker 1: and they would sit in the parking lot. I would
Speaker 1: go down and visit her and they would sit in
Speaker 1: the parking lot and when I was out in bail,
Speaker 1: they'd follow me around. And one day they were behind me,
Speaker 1: and I stopped my truck and got out, and I said,
Speaker 1: what's your problem? I go. You can follow me everywhere.
Speaker 1: Me and my girlfriend went skiing. The officer was up
Speaker 1: on the mountain skiing right behind us. They're following me
Speaker 1: all around when I'm out the bail, and I'm like me,
Speaker 1: I can't even go anywhere, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to go to New York State
Speaker 1: Fair and I was out on bail, and he said
Speaker 1: I had to go to the judge to leave the county.
Speaker 1: And I go to State Fair and I run into
Speaker 1: the investigators there. I go to you guys, nothing better
Speaker 1: than doing to follow me around. And so that went
Speaker 1: on for almost a year and then I my trial
Speaker 1: started in May of and UH picked my jury. In
Speaker 1: my trial, I went through about seven people to get
Speaker 1: a juror, and my juror was mostly elderly people. I
Speaker 1: don't think that everyone. A lot of people back in
Speaker 1: them days, they didn't really want to be on a jury.
Speaker 1: They don't. I think they paid me like five or
Speaker 1: eight bucks and jury duty. And my trial was m
Speaker 1: all circumstantial. Um maybe perhaps it could have been. My
Speaker 1: three main things in my trial was when I was
Speaker 1: in a county jail for a few months. We call
Speaker 1: him jail house rats. There was this guy I locked
Speaker 1: on the gallery with me. I never spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I knew who he was because when I was in
Speaker 1: the county I didn't really talk to any guys, you know.
Speaker 1: I stayed to myself. I didn't talk my case with nobody.
Speaker 1: And this guy was a career criminal, was facing three
Speaker 1: to nine years state for stolen credit cards, bad checks,
Speaker 1: and he after I got on bail, the investigators went
Speaker 1: and interviewed everybody on my tear and this guy said
Speaker 1: that I was talking to him, and I admitted to
Speaker 1: him that I said that I killed this girl. Yes,
Speaker 1: at the conversation never happened. He got a time caught.
Speaker 1: He ended up doing three three, three or four months
Speaker 1: in the county jail and got sprung. He never got
Speaker 1: his three to nine it was supposed to get because
Speaker 1: he did them a big favorites. He lied. And then
Speaker 1: when they searched my truck, this is what they called
Speaker 1: junk science. They said there was a similar gene and
Speaker 1: print on the side of my truck that was similar
Speaker 1: to her type of pick. And the eighties there was
Speaker 1: George Ash jeans and the style of the jeans was
Speaker 1: imprinted on the side of my truck. They said it
Speaker 1: was similar to hers. Well, they had this guy from
Speaker 1: the gene company testify that with that type of pattern,
Speaker 1: that type of gene, and that time frame that that
Speaker 1: year they narrowed it down to three thou was in
Speaker 1: pairs of jeans with that same pattern. So anybody saved
Speaker 1: my truck was parking the parking lot and somebody was
Speaker 1: at the grocery store bumped into side of my truck. Head.
Speaker 1: What's today, they wouldn't use that in trial. They would
Speaker 1: throw that right out. You know, it's called junk. That's
Speaker 1: total junk, and it's ridiculous. I mean, I remember back
Speaker 1: then Jordash is one of the most popular type of jeans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was the guy there and was talking about
Speaker 1: the pattern he had all blown up and it was
Speaker 1: so And then when I when I let him search
Speaker 1: my truck, they found of hair and they said it
Speaker 1: was similar to hers. It was similar to hers. It
Speaker 1: was blonde, but your sister was blonde, right, I mean
Speaker 1: so like, yeah, that's amazing. It was similar to hers.
Speaker 1: That's great. Now this day and age, there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as a similar hair. You know, it's your hair,
Speaker 1: you know, wearing a lot more technology now. But and
Speaker 1: then they took dirt from under my real roles in
Speaker 1: my truck. Yeah, this is where it really blows my
Speaker 1: mind that they said the dirt was similar at the
Speaker 1: crime scene. The dirt was similar. Oh my god, but
Speaker 1: dirt was I was my lawyer talked to somebody in
Speaker 1: my whole county, like ninety five percent of the whole
Speaker 1: county has sand in the dirt, and they asked me
Speaker 1: where did you get the dirt on it? And behind
Speaker 1: my mother's houice wee. We used to have a little
Speaker 1: spot we hung out and we drove our trucks baked.
Speaker 1: There was a little hangout for us neighborhood kids. And
Speaker 1: I didn't wash my truck on a regular basis, and
Speaker 1: I had I and dirt. So they had these jars
Speaker 1: dirt like it was like a big thing. Like. So
Speaker 1: the three types of circumstantial evidence, which each one is ridiculous. Right,
Speaker 1: We're a gene imprint, which By the way, how good
Speaker 1: of an imprint can a gene make on a car?
Speaker 1: Let's just reflect on days and days or weeks later,
Speaker 1: there's a gene imprint. That's that's ridiculous. Okay, that's number one.
Speaker 1: You had the hair which was quote unquote similar to
Speaker 1: the victims, right, A lot of people have similar hair.
Speaker 1: It was blonde, right, Okay, so that's not really I mean,
Speaker 1: that's pretty crazy. And then you have dirt, right. Dirt
Speaker 1: is dirt, right. I mean I'm not a horticulturalist, but
Speaker 1: and the idea that you're going to convict somebody and
Speaker 1: sentenced them to years to life Jared dirt, it's similar.
Speaker 1: It don't make sense. And then let's talk Stephen also
Speaker 1: about the evidence in this case. There was call it
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence of innocence, right, And let's talk about those
Speaker 1: scales of justice and the evidence that tipped in your
Speaker 1: favor and why this should have been really a relatively
Speaker 1: simple verdict for the jury to reach. Right. There was
Speaker 1: there was the alibi. Right. So it was at a
Speaker 1: bowling Alley had at night and had my bowl and sheet,
Speaker 1: I had my buddy I was with, who left the
Speaker 1: bowl and Alley went to a party. He testified his
Speaker 1: parents owned the bowl and alley. They testified people that
Speaker 1: were at the bowling alley in the bar with me
Speaker 1: all testified. There was one guy at the bar that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a friend of mine, but he
Speaker 1: was friends with the victims family, and he said that
Speaker 1: I wasn't at the bar at the time. I said,
Speaker 1: So you got forty something people saying I'm there at
Speaker 1: this time, and they got one guy saying that I
Speaker 1: wasn't there at that time at six o'clock thirty quarters six.
Speaker 1: He said I was there later at seven. And it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to believe that the jury would listen
Speaker 1: to one guy over forty people that had the same story.
Speaker 1: But that's not all. Then you also had the fact
Speaker 1: that there was no physical evidence connecting you to the crime.
Speaker 1: And then there was the tire tracks. Right, your car
Speaker 1: doesn't match entire tracks. Now we're getting to something that
Speaker 1: has an actual basis in science. Right. The sires are
Speaker 1: a certain size. You can't change that size. You didn't
Speaker 1: change the tires in your car that night. Did you
Speaker 1: know it was a truck? You know, I had a
Speaker 1: pretty good sized tread on it. And they said in
Speaker 1: my trial that a lot of the tire tracks were
Speaker 1: from the cop cars. My lawyer said, well, why didn't
Speaker 1: shoot because they never took castings in nothing, And that's
Speaker 1: what they said. They didn't take casting because there was
Speaker 1: a few tracks when they first got at the scene.
Speaker 1: But they didn't. Really these officers, I call him Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1: They were sheriffs. They go to a community college, they
Speaker 1: get a two year degree and they give him a
Speaker 1: badge and they think they're investigator of you know, they
Speaker 1: think they're working for the FBI. They going on the
Speaker 1: butt from a home to Columbo. Right. Yeah, so your
Speaker 1: trial must have taken forever. It's seven jurors that they
Speaker 1: had to if you, I mean, how long did all
Speaker 1: that take? Picked the juror was a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and then how long did the trial take? It was
Speaker 1: almost a month. So this is three and a half weeks.
Speaker 1: And I was saying earlier I had the junk science
Speaker 1: and under was in jail house informant. Then I had
Speaker 1: one other person. This guy was in Utica cop. He
Speaker 1: was off duty. He said him back in Nive. He
Speaker 1: didn't know what vehicle he saw or what person he
Speaker 1: saw on the same road where they found her body.
Speaker 1: He took the stand in my trial and he said
Speaker 1: after three and a half years his mind got better
Speaker 1: and he picked me and my truck out. And what
Speaker 1: they did is they had a photo lineup of all
Speaker 1: these differ from people and he said it was a line. Guy. Well,
Speaker 1: my picture was the only one with blond hair. Everybody
Speaker 1: else had different color hair. Then he had a lineup
Speaker 1: of trucks. They had white trucks, they had they had blue,
Speaker 1: different pickups. My truck was the only red, maroonish pickup truck.
Speaker 1: That's what he saw. But he said he was going
Speaker 1: down Mohawk Street at fifty mile and they said, at
Speaker 1: the rate of speed, you only have so many seconds
Speaker 1: to see a vehicle. Well, this guy said, he picked
Speaker 1: out he saw on in front of my truck. He
Speaker 1: had my license plate and then blow that it was
Speaker 1: a GMC. I had another colorful plate that went underneath.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a big thing in the eighties
Speaker 1: and this kid thing and he said he saw that.
Speaker 1: But if you look at my truck and you see
Speaker 1: that GMC plate, you're going to see the license plate
Speaker 1: right above it. It's like automatic, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: one piece. He said he didn't see the plate number,
Speaker 1: but his body was running for sheriff that year and
Speaker 1: he wanted to be the under sheriff. So that was
Speaker 1: a politics move, you know what I mean. He was
Speaker 1: a incentivized way this too. It blows my mind that
Speaker 1: everyone knows it's illegal to bribe a witness. You couldn't
Speaker 1: have paid somebody to come in and go no, no, no, Steve,
Speaker 1: definitely not. I saw him on the thing. Whatever. You
Speaker 1: can't do that, that's totally You got a jail for that.
Speaker 1: But the government can offer the best bribe in the
Speaker 1: world in exchange for false testimony, which is they can
Speaker 1: go to a guy like this guy who sounds like
Speaker 1: a career scumbag, right, this guy stole over whatever his
Speaker 1: name was testifying. Yeah. So so the idea that they
Speaker 1: can bribe somebody like that with the you know, giving
Speaker 1: them literally years and years of prison time to make
Speaker 1: it just manage like a miracle. Do you think Steve,
Speaker 1: that they knew that you were innocent. I think they did.
Speaker 1: I think they wanted to solve the case. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. Like I said, a early small
Speaker 1: town murder rapes like that don't happen every you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen in my area, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was like this was the biggest story in a
Speaker 1: long time, you know what I mean, ever since I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I don't remember. Let me let me correct.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't want to solve the case. They
Speaker 1: wanted to clear the out of the solid case. They
Speaker 1: would have had to actually go back to the work.
Speaker 1: It was on the news every day in the media.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just kept it was never quiet. So
Speaker 1: the jury goes out and how long did they deliberate?
Speaker 1: For almost twenty four hours? That must have been one
Speaker 1: of the hardest twenty four hours of your life. Yes,
Speaker 1: the first day I went home after the jury, they
Speaker 1: just you know, it was a quarter hour days they
Speaker 1: went and I remember then the second day it was
Speaker 1: home and buddy of mine, my couple of my buddies
Speaker 1: around They go, yeah, I mean it was right before
Speaker 1: Memorial Day and we're gonna go to a like a
Speaker 1: festival party. Uh. They had field days in my area
Speaker 1: of Fireman. It's like a carnival. My buddy was heah'
Speaker 1: were going there tonight? I said, yeah, I said, everything's
Speaker 1: gonna work out, And I haven't slept like along, you know,
Speaker 1: since the jury went out. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is my life, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're trying to nail me to the cross for somebody
Speaker 1: to do, you know what I mean. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this can't be happening, you know what I mean. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like Jock, and I can't even I went to
Speaker 1: this trial, and so we got to call the jury's
Speaker 1: back and we went to the courtroom, and um, me
Speaker 1: and my lawyer, we walked in. I get a little
Speaker 1: teary eyed some things. Um we uh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: But every day during a trial, Um, the jury used
Speaker 1: to look at me when I when I when I
Speaker 1: was sitting there, you know, and people were testifying, the
Speaker 1: jury used to look at me. We take a break,
Speaker 1: come in and out in the jury est always look
Speaker 1: at us, me and my lawyer. But that day we came,
Speaker 1: you know, the jury came back and they wouldn't look
Speaker 1: at me and my lawyer. We walked into courtboro when
Speaker 1: they sit down and then they jury foreman gives the judge.
Speaker 1: You know, we were you know, we reached a verdict
Speaker 1: and they said please stand and they said guilty, and
Speaker 1: I melted. But yeah, I was about to say this
Speaker 1: day of my life. UM no, no, not sorry. I
Speaker 1: get emotional about that. But my lawyer looked at me
Speaker 1: and I've seen the theorical down Sonciety said I'm awful, sorry,
Speaker 1: and I said, so they copped me, put me in judeo.
Speaker 1: You know, we broke my bail and um, we tried
Speaker 1: to get a retrial, and you know, my lawyer put
Speaker 1: in different motions. He said, somebody on the jury knew.
Speaker 1: Somebody testified and they investigated and they said no, it's
Speaker 1: you know, nothing denied. So that was June two. The
Speaker 1: verdict came back. I got sentenced in September. September two
Speaker 1: and I went to court and uh, they gave me
Speaker 1: the max. They life for murder, rape inside of me
Speaker 1: and before the sattens me, I told the judge I'm innocent,
Speaker 1: and my little sister jumped up in the courtroom side
Speaker 1: you were over my brother because the d A said,
Speaker 1: I didn't show any remorse because when my sister jumped
Speaker 1: up and said, that's because he didn't do it, you know,
Speaker 1: in the escortor out of the courtroom, and a few
Speaker 1: other people shouted out some things and the judge says,
Speaker 1: everybody's gotta be quiet, so they sapence me. Then, um,
Speaker 1: eight days later, I was sitting in attica, Um, and
Speaker 1: I remember the two officers that brought me up. They
Speaker 1: you know, they talked ship to me the whole time.
Speaker 1: He said, Uh, you're gonna be somebody's bitch in jail.
Speaker 1: You know they're gonna get you because you're you have
Speaker 1: a rape charge. What So No, I figured, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be home a couple of years. It didn't work.
Speaker 1: A couple of years turned into twenty years while you
Speaker 1: were inside and some of these most violent, hellish places.
Speaker 1: It really is hell on earth. How did you maintain hope? Well,
Speaker 1: the main thing was on my family. They were my
Speaker 1: main supporters. A lot of guys in person helped me
Speaker 1: have any family, you know. And I know I didn't
Speaker 1: do this, and I said, I'm going to fight to
Speaker 1: the end and some day the truth will set me free.
Speaker 1: And I never realized it would take twenty years, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I thought, you know, but it did,
Speaker 1: and then here you are and here I am on
Speaker 1: the show. But like I always tell everybody, Um, hope.
Speaker 1: You know, hope. In my family, it's all they had.
Speaker 1: When I was in jail, I had my mother and
Speaker 1: my brother and my sister. It's all I had. I
Speaker 1: had one close friend, the guy I was with that
Speaker 1: night at the bowling, and he came to visit me
Speaker 1: a couple of times, but everybody else moved on. My
Speaker 1: first six months up state, I told my girlfriend, I said,
Speaker 1: go live your life. I don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: with me. She was year younger than me. I said,
Speaker 1: go meet Mr Wright. You know, have I ever run
Speaker 1: into you again? You know, I hope you do. I said,
Speaker 1: you'd be happy, and she cried and I cried. So
Speaker 1: I'm in jail, and you know, I never called it
Speaker 1: my home or accepted it, but um I figured. You know,
Speaker 1: my lawyer, my child law he did my appeals. Worth
Speaker 1: Department in Rochester day shot my appeal down. Then I
Speaker 1: tried to go to a Court of Appeals and they
Speaker 1: denied me entry. And then six months after that, my
Speaker 1: lawyer died of a massive heart attack at the age
Speaker 1: of sixty. Another part of my luck. My lawyer dies.
Speaker 1: The assistant the a that tried me, he died of
Speaker 1: a massive heart attack six months after my lawyer died
Speaker 1: of a heart attack. So I have sat dormant for
Speaker 1: four or five years, bounced around from prison to prison.
Speaker 1: You know, prison life was not good. I had a fight,
Speaker 1: um strong, survived a week. It prayed on. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be the weak person to get
Speaker 1: prayed on. And I lifted weights and I stabbed people.
Speaker 1: You know, you're forced to live in an environment that
Speaker 1: you not used to and people that you hate. And
Speaker 1: it's just I tell people that I wouldn't wish prison
Speaker 1: on my worst enemy, you know what I mean, It's
Speaker 1: hell on earth. I've never been in trouble, and here
Speaker 1: I am got a life bid and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm ever gonna get out of here.
Speaker 1: Were you a tough guy when you went in? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, yeah, I didn't take no crap,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I I wasn't old bully
Speaker 1: or nothing. But um, then you're in there. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys bigger and tougher than you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's Yeah, there's just a lot of tough There's a
Speaker 1: lot of big guys in there. And I lifted weights,
Speaker 1: and you know I lifted a lot of heavy weights.
Speaker 1: I was big. I want a lot of weight lifting competitions.
Speaker 1: And we had TVs in the yard and um it
Speaker 1: was I don't know, back in the eighties they had
Speaker 1: the Phil down Who show. I remember the Phil down
Speaker 1: Who Show. Well, there's these two guys on there and
Speaker 1: their name was very Shock and Peter Neufeld, and they
Speaker 1: had guys on there that they got out through DNA.
Speaker 1: And this was like in and my mother watched the
Speaker 1: same show. So I go, I'm gonna write them a letter.
Speaker 1: I wrote a twelve pages followed third team page letters,
Speaker 1: explained my whole case to them what happened, you know,
Speaker 1: and they wrote me back questionnaire. They agreed to take
Speaker 1: my case. So for a couple of years to get
Speaker 1: the evidence, they came up, took my blood. We agreed
Speaker 1: on a lab back in them days, my my head
Speaker 1: to pay for the lab testing. The Innocent project was
Speaker 1: very small. You actually talked to Barry on the phone
Speaker 1: and it was about me, five or six law students
Speaker 1: from Cordova and it was a real small operation operation.
Speaker 1: It's not it like it does now. I mean it's
Speaker 1: but they sent it to a lab and they had
Speaker 1: the technology wasn't there. My mother came up and I
Speaker 1: really thought it was going home, you know, I got
Speaker 1: all excited, and I had about seven years and seventy
Speaker 1: years by now, and she came up to visit me
Speaker 1: and said, I'm sorry, but the DNA tests came back inclusive.
Speaker 1: Our technology wasn't there like we have now. And plus
Speaker 1: the way the law enforcement collected evidence back down, you know,
Speaker 1: it was very sloppy. It it still is, but there's
Speaker 1: no a lot of these cops they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: they're not. They should train some people how to do
Speaker 1: evidence and how they handle it, and they put some
Speaker 1: kind of solution on the slides it breaks down DNA
Speaker 1: and stuff. And we still don't have a national standard
Speaker 1: for a storing of this evidence, which is insane. We
Speaker 1: keep the evidence so we can find the guy, right that,
Speaker 1: whoever did this to this poor girl, is this sick,
Speaker 1: sick predator that needs to be off the streets. And
Speaker 1: in order to someday have a chance to get that guy,
Speaker 1: you gotta save the evidence. I mean, and I'm just
Speaker 1: talking about your case. I thought about every case. So
Speaker 1: they should they should absolutely be a standard practice that
Speaker 1: everybody has to adhere to UM. And obviously that wasn't
Speaker 1: the situation in your case. But go ahead, another setback,
Speaker 1: another setback. So I got convicted. My lawyer Dice Peele's
Speaker 1: shot down. Now in conclusive DNA. Now I'm like hopes.
Speaker 1: I always tell people my hope, my candle. You know,
Speaker 1: the flame was like really big, and now the flame
Speaker 1: was just about out, you know what I mean. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm hitting rock bottom. I go, I'm gonna die in here.
Speaker 1: I got a life bed. I almost got ten years in.
Speaker 1: I got another fifteen ago just to go to the
Speaker 1: pro board. Um. If I went to the pro board,
Speaker 1: I have to make gil I didn't do this. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not dying here. Um. And they didn't have
Speaker 1: the death penalty. Good thing, because they probably would have
Speaker 1: executed me. So I always kept studying the law library,
Speaker 1: and I bounced around from prison to prison. I was
Speaker 1: in eight, eight or nine different maxes and throughout the
Speaker 1: state of New York. And I kept busy, and I
Speaker 1: always went to the law library, and I kept up
Speaker 1: on DNA, you know, And then I followed up on
Speaker 1: some cases guys that were that I did time with
Speaker 1: were getting out in NICUs, and I remember reading about DNA.
Speaker 1: It was a y S t R DNA testing. It
Speaker 1: was a real new and touched DNA and that John
Speaker 1: ben A Rains the case where people touched their clothes
Speaker 1: they get DNA. So my brother, they had, my younger brother,
Speaker 1: he drove down to Boston, Massachusetts. They had a conference
Speaker 1: down there from the Alexonorees got out. So he went
Speaker 1: down and talked to Barry and Peter were there in
Speaker 1: a couple of honorees, and he says, I told him,
Speaker 1: you worked on my brother's case like eight nine years
Speaker 1: ago and it was inconclusive. Can you maybe re look
Speaker 1: into it, because you know, technology has come a long way.
Speaker 1: And so it was probably six eight months later. Maddie
Speaker 1: alone called a prison. I was at an Elmira. Actually
Speaker 1: the chaplain came to my cell, and I thought somebody
Speaker 1: passed away, because I lost all my grandparents when I
Speaker 1: was in prison. And I'm like, oh my god. When
Speaker 1: the chaplain comes to your cell, you think automatically, think
Speaker 1: you know, there's a death in a family or something
Speaker 1: bad happen, you know, But the chaplain said, no, it's
Speaker 1: good news. You gotta call the Innocent Projects. So I
Speaker 1: called down and they said many bloms. She said, we're
Speaker 1: taking on your case. So now I got about seventeen sixteen,
Speaker 1: seventeen years and almost and I was thinking, I hope
Speaker 1: they still have the evidence because in my area it's small.
Speaker 1: They don't have the storage to close rape kits. You know,
Speaker 1: they just throw your ship in a box, put it
Speaker 1: on the shelf, you know, after your appeals and sometimes
Speaker 1: they get rid of it. Well, they started to investigate.
Speaker 1: They found the evidence, so I had to go through
Speaker 1: the same process that I went through as years back.
Speaker 1: So we agreed on a lab. And it was almost
Speaker 1: two years after got the evidence they come up to
Speaker 1: my Uh, the two investigators from the Sheriff's department and
Speaker 1: a lady from the lab. Um my staff attorney from
Speaker 1: the Innocent Project called and said they're gonna come up.
Speaker 1: They're gonna squab. You don't talk to him, you know,
Speaker 1: just do the thing, okay. So they came up. It
Speaker 1: was the beginning of November, like this first week in
Speaker 1: November of two thousand and eight. I went in and
Speaker 1: the cops are going, uh, you know, how you doing, Steve?
Speaker 1: I go, I'm doing good. You know while you're here.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, I requested you guys to be here.
Speaker 1: I wrote to the Innocent Project and I requested DNA testing.
Speaker 1: I go, you guys just didn't wake up one more
Speaker 1: and say, you know, Steve Barnes innocent. We want to
Speaker 1: get him out of jail. And they looked at me
Speaker 1: and no, yeah, you're right. We were here because you know,
Speaker 1: we worked for the d a's office. I see up.
Speaker 1: So they swabbed me. You know, he did all that,
Speaker 1: and they sealed everything, and I go, how long is
Speaker 1: it gonna take? And they said about two weeks. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll see in court. I walked out and it was
Speaker 1: a little over two weeks. It was on Friday. It
Speaker 1: was November twenty one. I used to call home talk
Speaker 1: to my mother on Friday night and she was coming
Speaker 1: up to visit on the weekend. And she says, the
Speaker 1: Innocent Project wants you to call. So we locked in
Speaker 1: at five. It was like four thirty quarter to five,
Speaker 1: so I we had a lock in for child and
Speaker 1: I we came back out at about six six. So
Speaker 1: my mother ended up calling the Innocent Project because I
Speaker 1: can't get on the phone, so I called my mother
Speaker 1: after after child, she said, uh, my staff Starney name
Speaker 1: was Alba morale As she's not with Innocent Project anymore.
Speaker 1: About she asked my mother. She goes, it was right
Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving, you know, she asked my mother, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do for Thanksgiving? My mother says, uh, I
Speaker 1: always wish, you know, Steve wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: because we really have them celebrated and Thanksgiving, her Christmas,
Speaker 1: Arney Holidays for you know, two decades. And uh, she told,
Speaker 1: my mother said, another dinner plate at the table, because
Speaker 1: your son's coming home. And that was another time I cried.
Speaker 1: But um, twenty years before that was tears of us sadness.
Speaker 1: Now I had tears of joy and I was on
Speaker 1: the gal arena, dropped the phone and I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going home, you know, and not. So that was
Speaker 1: good Friday, excuse me Friday, and my mother came up
Speaker 1: excuse me that Saturday next day and the prison I
Speaker 1: was in, I was there about six years, and the
Speaker 1: CEO's knew me and my you know, she goes, my son,
Speaker 1: you know, got his honor and he's coming home. So
Speaker 1: they took me at the corps on Monday morning it
Speaker 1: was now four So when I went to the court
Speaker 1: the d A at the time of my trial, the
Speaker 1: head d A. After my conviction, he got he got
Speaker 1: elected as a judge. He was running for to be
Speaker 1: a judge, so they couldn't put me in front of him.
Speaker 1: And then, um, very shocky. He couldn't get a flight
Speaker 1: out from the city down to the courtroom. So you
Speaker 1: put me in the county jail for one more night.
Speaker 1: So I had to go to court on crazy night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're like deciding what to do. I go. Listen,
Speaker 1: I was found out on Friday night, on the twenty
Speaker 1: one that I was innocent, and I've been in jail
Speaker 1: and four more days. So they put me in the
Speaker 1: county jail and every you know, I've been on the
Speaker 1: news and you know, people are coming up to my
Speaker 1: cell in the county jail. Yo, man, you know all
Speaker 1: that time, Oh my god, you know, I could just
Speaker 1: get away from my cell. I just want to chill out.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really sleep much that night, and I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep the whole weekend in jail and in prison,
Speaker 1: and then I they brought me to court, you know,
Speaker 1: and I remember that my mother brought up a suit,
Speaker 1: I mean the property room, and I has to see. Oh,
Speaker 1: I go, listen, we got a problem. He goes, what
Speaker 1: I go? I forgot out to tie a tie. You
Speaker 1: think you could help me out here? So he did
Speaker 1: around his neck and he shook my hand, and then
Speaker 1: they put shackled me all up. You know, pretty ridiculous
Speaker 1: when you at it right, you've already been exonerated. What's
Speaker 1: the point, yes or whatever? Yeah, I know, but you
Speaker 1: gotta be an official in front of the judge. So
Speaker 1: I going, and a social worker from the Innocent Project
Speaker 1: was there. Um Angela. She came into the bullpen and
Speaker 1: she says to you, I just want to let you
Speaker 1: know there's like bazillion cameras people. I mean, there's tons
Speaker 1: of stuff. She goes, when you're walking in there, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be like co spotlights. And I'm like, okay. And
Speaker 1: I was already exhausted. So they brought me in and
Speaker 1: all shackled up, and I'm looking around and I'm like
Speaker 1: seeing people I haven't seen in twenty years. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: and that's my friend Mark. What happened to him? He's
Speaker 1: all gray haired, you know, And I'm looking at all
Speaker 1: my friends that I haven't seen him, Like wow, the
Speaker 1: judge says, you know he's he says, you know about
Speaker 1: the DNA testing and it excluded me and he vacated
Speaker 1: my sentence. So they it took all the shackles off
Speaker 1: and they could hear a pin drop in the courtroom
Speaker 1: when they dropped everything, which and then people were crying
Speaker 1: and my heart was going like forty miles an hour,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, I was like, I don't have
Speaker 1: a heart. I'm saying myself, don't ever heard to take
Speaker 1: Now you're going home? You know what I mean? You
Speaker 1: went through all this for twenty years. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: so then we had a media friends and you know,
Speaker 1: they're asking me all these questions and people were showing
Speaker 1: me what a cell phone was, and take me back
Speaker 1: for a second thing, so that shackles drop, yes, right,
Speaker 1: and then what did you turn around? Did you just um?
Speaker 1: You said you're free to go? When we went into
Speaker 1: another room and uh, where was your mom there? And
Speaker 1: this she was in behind me, sitting behind uh because
Speaker 1: I was at a podium with Barry Shock and my
Speaker 1: staff attorney and my mother was in a back row
Speaker 1: and everybody else that was there. That is that the
Speaker 1: first thing you did turn around to see your mom
Speaker 1: or and you know, and I I just looked at
Speaker 1: the judge and I said I didn't. I was just
Speaker 1: like in awe, you know what I mean? And so
Speaker 1: and then the media friends are starting all the questions.
Speaker 1: And then I went to a nice restaurant, had a
Speaker 1: nice meal for the first time, you know, and what
Speaker 1: have I had a steak and a shrimp cocktail. And
Speaker 1: I remember going up my mother's road where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, Um, places that I hung out
Speaker 1: were torn down. New places were put up, new houses,
Speaker 1: different roads. There was a store called the Walmart that
Speaker 1: I never heard of. The internet. Um. I had to
Speaker 1: start my life over like a sixteen year old kid,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. When they exonerate you, they
Speaker 1: just drop you off the courthouse. When you get prole
Speaker 1: from prison, they give you money. An I D card.
Speaker 1: I didn't have nothing, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: called the prison my counselor. I asked him send my
Speaker 1: soul security and all of my records. They go, you
Speaker 1: can't have them. So I had to get every start over.
Speaker 1: I had to get id to get an I D
Speaker 1: so I had to get a birth certificate, so security card,
Speaker 1: and I gotta picture. I d um learn how to
Speaker 1: drive again, because when I first got in the car
Speaker 1: years ago, he used to have a high beam on
Speaker 1: the floor. Now it's like in a steering wheel. And
Speaker 1: you got this high tech stuff digital it was quite different.
Speaker 1: Technology was hard to deal with the Internet, and then
Speaker 1: you got into texting and I set up an email
Speaker 1: and they gave me a job with the county after
Speaker 1: I got out about six months working with troubled kids.
Speaker 1: And then I was working for re entry. I would
Speaker 1: help guys that got out of prison, you know, try
Speaker 1: to help finding jobs. And I did for about five years,
Speaker 1: and then they quit the funding and then, yeah, why
Speaker 1: would we need any funding to help guys who just
Speaker 1: got out of prison find jobs? What possible? Good? Good like?
Speaker 1: And I worked with troubled kids that you know, they
Speaker 1: couldn't make it in the local high schools. They ever
Speaker 1: got just by learning out of control, you know, as
Speaker 1: you get a lot of satisfacts. Yeah, straightened some of
Speaker 1: them out, but I set them down. But first when
Speaker 1: they came into my group and it set him down,
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I don't care how tough. You are
Speaker 1: what you think you are. But this is what happened
Speaker 1: in my life, you know what I mean. And they
Speaker 1: would look at me, well, and everybody knows who I
Speaker 1: am a small town, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 1: did they ever find the guy who did it? No?
Speaker 1: They put the case on America Most wanted twice. Were
Speaker 1: there any rumors around at the time that this happened?
Speaker 1: The new investigators they after I got out, you know,
Speaker 1: they used to we got me in at d A.
Speaker 1: They used to call me over all the time, and
Speaker 1: they had pictures of certain individuals and trucks that was
Speaker 1: somewhere in mind. They asked me if I knew these
Speaker 1: persons or whatever, and I didn't. And there was a
Speaker 1: guy that was in prison for he kidnapped the girl,
Speaker 1: raped her and the cop he threw in the trunk
Speaker 1: and he went to prison for it. And he jumped
Speaker 1: in the cops are chase him. He jumped in front
Speaker 1: of a train and chopped his legs off. But he
Speaker 1: was a person of interest in my case, um, because
Speaker 1: after I got out there they were running DNA touching people,
Speaker 1: you know, certain they got leads. People were calling mentioned
Speaker 1: the names. Well there's certain individual that was in jail
Speaker 1: and me. They took his DNA and he asked him
Speaker 1: how long it would take to come back, and they
Speaker 1: said about almost two weeks, and he committed suicide. Because
Speaker 1: after I got out, my whole case, how my trial,
Speaker 1: That isn't how it happened. That was like oh lie,
Speaker 1: where they found her body? That was not worse. She
Speaker 1: was murdered, they said in my trial, they said she
Speaker 1: was murdered, raped and left there. That was she was
Speaker 1: dumped off there. Um, she was at a party with
Speaker 1: a bunch of individuals. There was males and females there
Speaker 1: and it was a Satanic worship party. And all this
Speaker 1: stuff came to light after I got out. Um, three
Speaker 1: people called the D's office ad minute they led. The
Speaker 1: new investigators tried to call. The old investigators are now
Speaker 1: retired living in Florida. They didn't want to return their calls.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't cooperate with them. Um, they went and seeing
Speaker 1: the off duty cop testified in my trial, he said,
Speaker 1: it's my story and I'm sticking with it, and get
Speaker 1: out of my house, off my porch. And it isn't
Speaker 1: it weird that it took that long for all this
Speaker 1: stuff to come out. These are important facts. And then
Speaker 1: they had the reports from the original cops. They had
Speaker 1: leads on certain other people. The cops just pushed them
Speaker 1: to the side and didn't even look into any of them,
Speaker 1: didn't even acknowledge him. They just had liners on They go,
Speaker 1: we want Steve Barnes and that's you don't care people
Speaker 1: were calling, you know, leads on someone else. They didn't
Speaker 1: even follow up a none of the way. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: call that tunnel vision. And it's so tragic too, because
Speaker 1: you know that, I mean, like the poor girl would
Speaker 1: happen to her, should never happened to anybody. And the
Speaker 1: idea that the guy who actually person we don't even
Speaker 1: know who it was, maybe more than one person, will
Speaker 1: never know. At this point, I was free to just
Speaker 1: uh you know, live their life, whether they committed other
Speaker 1: crimes like this. Again, we will also know that we'll
Speaker 1: never know that our system so broken up it's insane,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like since I've been I've
Speaker 1: been to Albany like a capital, probably fifteen times, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I finally about filming interrogations
Speaker 1: now and how they do photo lineups. I went out
Speaker 1: with Rebecca Brown and Albany for days on ends. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd be out there for the whole day talking to
Speaker 1: the Senators and assemblymens. And Rebecca Brown is the policy.
Speaker 1: She would come to my area and I got involved
Speaker 1: with my congressman and my assembly mom in my area,
Speaker 1: and they were back in me and they you know,
Speaker 1: we find if the if they had filming interrogation when
Speaker 1: I went, when I got interrogated back down, and it
Speaker 1: would be a different story. And it isn't a easy
Speaker 1: New York state, right. We would think New York State
Speaker 1: pretty advanced, right one of the I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we're way behind our mothering states were like ten years behind.
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, Connecticut. Jersey State patched laws like just ten
Speaker 1: years ago. We still don't have mandatory videotaping of interrogations
Speaker 1: in New York State. It's unbelievable. In my county, my
Speaker 1: DA he does them all to my case, she decided
Speaker 1: to than to his credit. But the idea that we
Speaker 1: do not mandatory videotaping of interrogations at this point, it's
Speaker 1: totally inexcusable. And it's just it's a simple way to
Speaker 1: reduce the number of rawful incarcerations and get more right ones.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just no explanation of any kind that
Speaker 1: makes any sense when it comes to that. So let
Speaker 1: me as see this before we wrap this up. Then
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of years gone by now too.
Speaker 1: But is there a worst experience that you want to
Speaker 1: share with the audience from prison? And also was there
Speaker 1: a moment beside the moment when you actually heard that
Speaker 1: you were going home? Was there another moment that gave
Speaker 1: you some some sort of joy or you know, a
Speaker 1: renewed sense of hope. Well, it was a rough road.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of ups and downs and I
Speaker 1: never had any strong positive things that was gonna you know,
Speaker 1: after I had the first DNA testing that was inconclusive,
Speaker 1: it kind of like I didn't know when I was
Speaker 1: coming home, you know, I thought it was over. I
Speaker 1: I literally gave up hope towards at one point. So
Speaker 1: that was the lowest point. Yeah, But I guess the
Speaker 1: one thing I wanted to ask was there one moment
Speaker 1: of you know, in prison, was there somebody who actually
Speaker 1: showed you some sort of kindness that wasn't expected. Yeah?
Speaker 1: I had a few, you know, there was good cops
Speaker 1: and bad cops. I had some good officers, you know.
Speaker 1: I told a couple of officers you know my situation.
Speaker 1: They believed in me. And when I was in prison,
Speaker 1: I worked with a lot of civilians. I worked maintenance,
Speaker 1: and I got pretty tight with what few of my civilians,
Speaker 1: you know, and I told my story and um, actually
Speaker 1: when I was when I got out, the maintenance supervisor
Speaker 1: gave his phone number. You such need call me when
Speaker 1: you get out, and you're welcome to come to my house.
Speaker 1: And they always gave it looked out for me and there,
Speaker 1: you know, he gave me nice jobs and uh, somebody
Speaker 1: to talk to, you know what I mean. I didn't talk.
Speaker 1: I had a few guys that hung out with that.
Speaker 1: We worked out together. We had our little crew, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And you just you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't talk to your business with a lot of people,
Speaker 1: but you just uh, um, I just they made me
Speaker 1: uh you know, I was having a bad day my boss,
Speaker 1: you know, you know it was you know, I talk
Speaker 1: with him. You know, he goes, you know, you're having
Speaker 1: a bad day. We won't do much today or whatever.
Speaker 1: And when my family came up to visit me, and
Speaker 1: they gave me a nice feeling. And what about I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you talked about when I saw the video,
Speaker 1: you talked about being tear gast, being stabbed, being in fights,
Speaker 1: being in riots. I mean, was there one experience that
Speaker 1: you may not want to share it, but if there was,
Speaker 1: was there one experience that was like the worst? Of course?
Speaker 1: Um it was probably a nineties seven and green Haven
Speaker 1: crusts soil I was. They were starting to build double
Speaker 1: bunks and I was a welder and they wanted me
Speaker 1: to well double bunk cells and I refused, so I
Speaker 1: was keep locked and they took us out of our
Speaker 1: black for key black rack. They let you all for
Speaker 1: one hour a day. And I was an H black
Speaker 1: lower H. And there was one of the other key
Speaker 1: blocked inmates. The cells beat him down. We hear him screaming,
Speaker 1: and we're lining up in the hall with a sergeant
Speaker 1: and they said, uh, you guys, take it to the
Speaker 1: yard and we said, screw you, we ain't moving. He
Speaker 1: just beat down one of the you know, we're not moving.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm giving you another order to move and
Speaker 1: he said, no, we are moving, you know. So in
Speaker 1: prison we call him orange Crushed. I called them Nina turtles,
Speaker 1: the guards with all the pads and right gear. They
Speaker 1: came marching down the hall and I looked at the
Speaker 1: guy next to me, I said, this is that I go,
Speaker 1: do or die? I go, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 1: I go on, We're gonna make it out here alive.
Speaker 1: And they came down and just started wailing on all.
Speaker 1: You know, when we pretty well broken up, and they
Speaker 1: shipped me up up north, you know, and I sat
Speaker 1: in reception and all burned for like two weeks without
Speaker 1: a shower and nothing. They lost my property. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was like I was gonna die there
Speaker 1: that day. It's probably one of my scariest times in prison,
Speaker 1: you know, besides the first day I walked in there.
Speaker 1: You know, when I walked in there one day, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm packing my cell and this guy says, hey, white boy,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna be my bitch in prison. All
Speaker 1: this I don't know. And I took them off ringer
Speaker 1: and I spun around. I blasted right side the head
Speaker 1: with it, you know what I mean. And that's the
Speaker 1: way it is, you know what I mean. The strong survive.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't say, can I think about this
Speaker 1: and let this guy talk to me or take my
Speaker 1: stuff prison. If you touch me or you touched my stuff,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get stabbed or you're gonna die, or that's
Speaker 1: the way it is. You're not gonna get punked down,
Speaker 1: even though wind loser draw. If you you gotta stick
Speaker 1: up for yourself, you know what I mean. If you don't,
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna be a chump punk Literally it is.
Speaker 1: It sounds literally like Shawshank redemption, unbelievable. It's just for
Speaker 1: people listening now, they're probably thinking this is horrible, like
Speaker 1: what happened to you is? It's it's a crime against humanity,
Speaker 1: what happen to you? People are listening, they're going what
Speaker 1: can I do to help? Right? People want to get involved.
Speaker 1: They're gonna hear your story and it's gonna be that
Speaker 1: reaction probably plus plus. So what would you say to
Speaker 1: your average person is out there listening and one of
Speaker 1: the states out there wherever they listen or around the world,
Speaker 1: what could people do to get active to help with
Speaker 1: this situation? Well? I always tell people who are in
Speaker 1: my area and stuff there, you know, some project they
Speaker 1: give me my life back. You know what I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't realize people don't really really look about, you know,
Speaker 1: the daily life. You know, little things in life like
Speaker 1: going to the store, going here in prison. You're you're
Speaker 1: like a programmed person, you know. You get up at
Speaker 1: a certain time every more and you're told what to do,
Speaker 1: seven do your after year, you know, And I tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know it would take twenty years
Speaker 1: prove my innocence because I thought I'd be out after
Speaker 1: a couple of years. But day's turn into weeks, weeks
Speaker 1: turns into months, months turn into years, and years turned
Speaker 1: into decades of loneliness. You know. But but you didn't
Speaker 1: give up when you had every reason to give up.
Speaker 1: Freedom is a lot to me now, you know, like
Speaker 1: years ago. You know, when you're on the street growing up,
Speaker 1: you don't think you know everyday life. But when you
Speaker 1: you swept away and your life's taken away and then
Speaker 1: you get your life back. And but I just want
Speaker 1: to say I would donate to the Innocent Project, you know,
Speaker 1: because um, there's what happened to me. There's hundreds of
Speaker 1: guys after me. I've been out tore almost ten years
Speaker 1: next year, and I was number two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: seventh in the country. Now they're up to three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty something. And I was twenty four in New
Speaker 1: York State and now they're at the thirty something. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened to me, It could happen to anybody,
Speaker 1: and it happens all the time. I mean, there's hundreds
Speaker 1: of guys in prison there worse off to me, doing
Speaker 1: a lot more time to me. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: the Innerstan Project needs money, you know, it's carry on
Speaker 1: with this, you know what I mean? Like my testing
Speaker 1: loan in my case was fiftys you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I want to point out something to Steve, and
Speaker 1: you're a perfect example. This the legislative changes, right, and
Speaker 1: the procedural changes that the Inscence Project has been behind,
Speaker 1: and compensation statutes like in Kansas where we finally just
Speaker 1: got a compensation statute passed, right. You know, these changes
Speaker 1: are seismic shifts, and these are this is the macro
Speaker 1: side of the work, right. The micro side is you,
Speaker 1: even though nothing micro about you, You're a big guy,
Speaker 1: but you know, but the micro side is the individual cases.
Speaker 1: The macro side is where a lot of your dollars
Speaker 1: go if you donate to the Innocence Project like I do,
Speaker 1: like Steve does, you know your money is going to
Speaker 1: affect change that may actually impact you, or your community
Speaker 1: or somebody you love in a very real way. Because
Speaker 1: when these changes are made, the odds of you know, you,
Speaker 1: yourself or a loved one becoming the next Steven Barnes
Speaker 1: go down dramatically. And we're not going to stop. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna keep going and going until we make this
Speaker 1: system as close to perfect as it can be. It
Speaker 1: will that would be perfect, but we can we can
Speaker 1: make a lot, a huge difference, a lot of changes
Speaker 1: feel better, and we are doing that. And now now
Speaker 1: you're you've got a lot of stuff going on, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, now you've been out for a while, you're
Speaker 1: you're nine years, you're living your best life now, living
Speaker 1: to dream. Yeah. I tell people I get up every
Speaker 1: mornings like Christmas morning. You know, Stephen, we have a
Speaker 1: tradition here at Rawful Conviction. I think people really look
Speaker 1: forward to this part of the show because this is
Speaker 1: the part where I shut up and I basically just
Speaker 1: turned the microphone over to you so you can close
Speaker 1: out with any thoughts you want, all Right, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, uh, after all these, all these twenty
Speaker 1: years that I did in prison, Um, I finally got
Speaker 1: my life back. And uh, I can't say it enough
Speaker 1: things that you know, some project, they believed in me,
Speaker 1: they fought for me, they reopened my case, and they
Speaker 1: gave me my life back. I didn't have a life
Speaker 1: for twenty years. You know, I had kept a lot
Speaker 1: of whole hope and I just I'm so happy and
Speaker 1: what happened to me, It's probably happened a lot of
Speaker 1: other people I know, but I hope it doesn't continue
Speaker 1: to happen in the future. And I just hope that
Speaker 1: between me and people on the outside world continue to
Speaker 1: donate to this project and help free to Innocent and
Speaker 1: try to better the system, because our system, you know,
Speaker 1: since I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways,
Speaker 1: but it's still broken, and we need people like like
Speaker 1: all of us a desonaries get together to change laws
Speaker 1: and the Innocent Project and people on the street to
Speaker 1: contribute and helped us whold you know, this Freedom Act
Speaker 1: to you know, progress on. And you know, I've been
Speaker 1: out nine years, it feels like I've been out for
Speaker 1: a lot longer. When I was in prison for all
Speaker 1: them twenty years. It was like days dragged, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, out here so much to do. Um, I
Speaker 1: can't't even imagine, uh, how to explain my freedom. You
Speaker 1: know what my freedom is like so awesome. Now I
Speaker 1: can do what I want, come and go as I please.
Speaker 1: I don't have nobody telling me what to do, what
Speaker 1: time to go to bed, what time to eat, you know,
Speaker 1: turn your light off, wake up at this time. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. When I first got out, I
Speaker 1: took a walk in the woods, you know, breathing fresh
Speaker 1: air and joined life. It's just I'm having a lot
Speaker 1: of fun now, and um, I just want to thank
Speaker 1: the Innocent Project. I don't want to thank you for
Speaker 1: having me on the show. And I look forward to
Speaker 1: uh living a great future. I hope I lived to
Speaker 1: be another fifty six years. I don't have any stress anymore.
Speaker 1: I just I'm on top of the world now. Well
Speaker 1: that's awesome, and you know, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: wish you all the luck in the world. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna thank you again for coming in and being here
Speaker 1: with us and sharing your story, and thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis. The music on the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
Speaker 1: production Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number one