Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 2: do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 3: Everything like everything.
Speaker 1: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 1: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with this. How is this possible?
Speaker 3: I grew up trusting the systems. I've grew up believing
Speaker 3: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 3: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 3: four other people, I wasn't going to break anyone to
Speaker 3: get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with
Speaker 3: the fact that I break my way out of my
Speaker 3: wife's death.
Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty.
Speaker 2: I'm guilty until I prove my innocence.
Speaker 1: And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since
Speaker 1: I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways,
Speaker 1: but it's still broken.
Speaker 3: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's
Speaker 4: episode is insane. This story will really rattle your perceptions
Speaker 4: of criminal justice, and the guy who's here to tell
Speaker 4: it is an extraordinary guy.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, Stephen Barnes entered an unfamiliar
Speaker 2: new world. For two decades, he'd been locked in prison,
Speaker 2: convicted for the murder of sixteen year old Kimberly Simon.
Speaker 2: It was a crime he had not committed. A jury
Speaker 2: convicted Barnes in nineteen eighty nine, based on mistakes by eyewitnesses,
Speaker 2: allying jail house informant and bad science DNA evidence exonerated
Speaker 2: Barnes two days before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4: In two thousand and eight, Stephen Barnes, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Your case is truly bizarre in that it is one
Speaker 4: of the most It's an unreal situation when you were
Speaker 4: convicted with the total absence of any kind of evidence,
Speaker 4: and with everything that there was pointing elsewhere. We're going
Speaker 4: to get into that later, but I want to go
Speaker 4: back to the beginning because you were really just a
Speaker 4: kid when this happened. You grew up in the suburbs
Speaker 4: in New York, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a small town in Utica, New York called Marcy, New.
Speaker 4: York, right, And how was your childhood good?
Speaker 1: I went to Catholic school for eight years. I went
Speaker 1: to another high school for two years. When I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, my real father passed away. And then
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen, I was a year out of
Speaker 1: high school. I graduated high school in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty five was when my nightmare started.
Speaker 4: And your nightmare it started and it stopped, and then
Speaker 4: it really took on a new because this was a
Speaker 4: cold case. This is a terrible case. This is a
Speaker 4: sixteen year old girl.
Speaker 1: Yep. She was brewery raped and murdered, and they found
Speaker 1: her off a main road about three miles from my
Speaker 1: house where I grew up.
Speaker 4: Did you know her?
Speaker 1: No, she was three years younger than me. I didn't
Speaker 1: never hung out with her, I didn't.
Speaker 4: Over never matter.
Speaker 1: Nope. And she lived right in the same town I did.
Speaker 4: Her parents did, so this must have been big news
Speaker 4: in the town. You don't have a lot of murders.
Speaker 1: Up there, No, it was, Yes, it was a big
Speaker 1: thing because my area there, stuff don't happen.
Speaker 4: No, that kind of stuff don't happen. And so people
Speaker 4: must have been panic. Was there a lot of news
Speaker 4: media coverage.
Speaker 1: And there was media all over back in eighty five.
Speaker 1: How I got involved is where they found her body.
Speaker 1: There was four corners and they had the cops had roadblocks,
Speaker 1: and I went through the roadblock and they had eight
Speaker 1: by ten pictures of her and they asked, have you
Speaker 1: seen this girl? And I said no. And then later
Speaker 1: on that day I went through the roadblock again, but
Speaker 1: on my way home. My buddy has a beverage center
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get a six pack of beer.
Speaker 1: So I made a you turned through the communience store
Speaker 1: and the cop was on the payphone and he saw
Speaker 1: me cut through the parking lot and I shot. He
Speaker 1: shot across the street and he pulled me over and
Speaker 1: he asked me for my license and my registration, and
Speaker 1: he said, why did you turn around? I said, I
Speaker 1: wanted to get a six pack and I forgot I.
Speaker 4: Oh, so they thought you turn around to avoid the road.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I went through the roadblock early in the
Speaker 1: day in the morning.
Speaker 4: Your case really highlights the fact that this can happen
Speaker 4: to anyone. Like you're painting such a mundane picture, right,
Speaker 4: It's like you're going to your thing. You're going to
Speaker 4: tell you get a six pack, make you turn things
Speaker 4: that everybody verty much has done, and you're just a
Speaker 4: typical kid in a typical town. And then what.
Speaker 1: After that incident. It was three days exactly three days
Speaker 1: later they called me out at my mother's house and said,
Speaker 1: can you come up to the sherif's apartment answer some questions?
Speaker 4: And what were you thinking when you got that call?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like wow, and I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 1: got nothing to high. I'll go up there and answer
Speaker 1: wherever they got, you know, little bit. I know. I
Speaker 1: was there for twelve and twelve hours.
Speaker 4: Did you get a lawyer or anything else? Nothing?
Speaker 1: My first hour there there asked me where I was
Speaker 1: on September eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, and I told him
Speaker 1: what I did from when I got up to what
Speaker 1: I did that night and well, 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 remember, he looked
Speaker 1: me in the eye and he slammed his hand on
Speaker 1: the desk and he says, you fin did this, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell us how he did it? And I
Speaker 1: stood up and I said, I effin did not do it,
Speaker 1: and I am trying to cooperate with your people, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to blame me. Put this on me. I go,
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with it. I says, can
Speaker 1: I call my mother? Yeah, in a minute. In a minute,
Speaker 1: I said, can I have a glass of water? They
Speaker 1: didn't give me a glass of water. Then I said,
Speaker 1: Then after a while, they said, can we search your vehicle?
Speaker 1: I said sure, I had to sign a waiver. Then
Speaker 1: they made me take my shirt off. They're looking for scratches.
Speaker 1: They kept interrogating me, asked me who my girlfriend was
Speaker 1: at the time, what do I like to do? And
Speaker 1: they kept going back and forth, and you know, and
Speaker 1: they treated me like shit, excuse my langue. Which then
Speaker 1: after about ten hours, they said, would you take a
Speaker 1: polygraph test? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Hold on, ten hours? After ten hours of irrigation, did
Speaker 4: you get any water by now?
Speaker 1: Or nothing?
Speaker 4: No phone call?
Speaker 1: No, no phone never came nothing.
Speaker 4: Did you ever ask for a lawyer?
Speaker 1: Yes? Nothing, they said, I never asked for nothing. Well
Speaker 1: the cop took the stand and he said no.
Speaker 4: But so you did ask for a lawyer? That's I mean?
Speaker 4: Because yeah, they didn't even at what point did you
Speaker 4: realize that you needed a lawyer?
Speaker 1: Because well, after like the first three four hours, I go,
Speaker 1: this is getting really intense here. They really think I
Speaker 1: have something to do with this, and uh, I've never
Speaker 1: been in trouble in my life. I didn't even have
Speaker 1: a parking ticket, you know what I mean. I was
Speaker 1: brought up like cops are the good guys. My parents
Speaker 1: brought me up. You know, copstantly treat you this. These
Speaker 1: guys would treating me like I was already convicted. I was.
Speaker 1: I was a scumbag, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It was like Charles Manson in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I go, wait a minute, I go, I'm
Speaker 1: just living my normal life. Like nineteen 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. Its insane.
Speaker 4: Nineteen you're really still you're closer to a child than
Speaker 4: an adult. But you don't have the sense to ask
Speaker 4: for a lawyer. And this is something I tell people
Speaker 4: as often as I can, because it's so important. If
Speaker 4: you do get picked up for something you didn't do.
Speaker 4: First of all, remember they're not your friends, right, and
Speaker 4: they're not there to help you in that situation. So
Speaker 4: you have to protect yourself. And that means ask for
Speaker 4: a lawyer as soon as you go in there and
Speaker 4: stop talking, yes, because anything you say like this sayd TV,
Speaker 4: anything you say can be used against you, and it
Speaker 4: will be. And then at that point you have a
Speaker 4: very adversarial relationship, but purely adversary relationship. They want you
Speaker 4: to confess to something, and which is amazing too. By
Speaker 4: the way, you were interrogated for twelve hours and you
Speaker 4: didn't confess, and you were a teenager, so you don't
Speaker 4: confess twelve hours go by?
Speaker 1: Now what Well, I took the polygraphs house State. They
Speaker 1: threw me in a cop card, took me probably like
Speaker 1: twenty minutes away to a state police barracks, threw me
Speaker 1: in a room, gave me in his book. So I
Speaker 1: look through. The book tells you how polygraph is, how
Speaker 1: it works.
Speaker 4: What time is it now?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just started at noon. Now we're almost at
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock at night. It's late, you know. So I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to I heard of them. I never
Speaker 1: took one. So they hook all this stuff up to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm already nervous wreck. You know, they're trying
Speaker 1: to blame me for this for the last ten hours,
Speaker 1: harassing the hell out of me. I'm like stressed out, aggravated, nervous,
Speaker 1: you know what. I'm like. This is not this is
Speaker 1: not good. You know what I mean, because a polygraph
Speaker 1: test works on your nerves. So they asked me some questions.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember half the questions. They asked me,
Speaker 1: if somebody paid me to do this? Do you know soon?
Speaker 1: And so took the test and I remember it was
Speaker 1: about half about an hour, and I remember I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a small room and they had a glass
Speaker 1: two way of mirror, and the cops were behind there
Speaker 1: watching me. There's this guy that was this guy. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'm a professional. I do this for a living. I
Speaker 1: polygraph doctors, lawyers, this, everybody.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, I understand it's your job. So we did the
Speaker 1: polygraph and then on the way the cops brought me
Speaker 1: back to get my truck at the sheriff's apartment and
Speaker 1: they go, I go, so now what they go, You're
Speaker 1: free to go home?
Speaker 4: Said, oh, so they didn't tell you if you pass
Speaker 4: or failed.
Speaker 1: No, So I get in my truck. It's all white,
Speaker 1: finger printed floor mats are out of it. Whatever, they
Speaker 1: destroyed it. So I went home as lived with my
Speaker 1: mother still and she goes, where are you being? She
Speaker 1: was sleeping, you know, one o'clock in the morning. I go,
Speaker 1: you got to get up. I go, we got problems there.
Speaker 1: She goes, what. I go, They're trying to blame me
Speaker 1: for this Kim Simon's murder. I says, I was up there.
Speaker 1: She goes, where are you bent all day? I said,
Speaker 1: I've been up there for a little over twelve hours.
Speaker 1: She goes, why don't you call me? I said, I
Speaker 1: asked for a phone call. They won't you let me nothing.
Speaker 1: So the next day my mother we had a family
Speaker 1: attorney friend, so we called him and I told him
Speaker 1: the situation, and then he called the sheriff's apartment. He said, well,
Speaker 1: they told him the polygraph came back and conclusive. Is
Speaker 1: he willing to take another one? And my lawyer that
Speaker 1: I had, he goes, no, he's not taking another one.
Speaker 1: And it was about six months after that they called
Speaker 1: my house and said, you are to report over to
Speaker 1: the hospital to give up blood and hair.
Speaker 4: Six months have gone by, six months after the interrogation,
Speaker 4: So after six months, you're in the clear.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm living my life. Yep, I'm going to work.
Speaker 4: I've had a very unpleasant experience.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I says, okay, you know, so I go
Speaker 1: up to me and my mom drive up there to
Speaker 1: take vowels of blood and take care from all over
Speaker 1: my body, and I went home. For the next three years,
Speaker 1: they fouled me, harassed me, called my ex girlfriend up,
Speaker 1: interrogated her, asked her all kinds of stuff, what type
Speaker 1: of sex do I like this?
Speaker 4: That?
Speaker 1: What type of person I am? My awn, 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 three and a half
Speaker 1: years later after the artificial interrogation. I'm sitting home. It
Speaker 1: was March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight. My girlfriend's birthday
Speaker 1: was going to be on the twenty ninth. Me, my
Speaker 1: little brother, and my girlfriend were sitting at my mother's
Speaker 1: house hanging out watching Back in them days, MTV was good,
Speaker 1: you know, with the videos. So we're watching it, having
Speaker 1: a couple of pops and my brother. You know, we're talking.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, there's a knock on the door.
Speaker 1: There's the two investigators that interrogated me. They go, hi, Steve,
Speaker 1: can do you remember us? I said, oh, can I
Speaker 1: forget your ugly mug? You know what I mean? You
Speaker 1: guys might my life in mesable win. I go, what
Speaker 1: do you want now? They said, A couple people come
Speaker 1: forward and you're under the rest, So step out of
Speaker 1: the house. My brother's flipping out, my girlfriend's crying. I'm
Speaker 1: flipping out. They cuffed me, stuffed me in the car.
Speaker 1: I'm cursing all the way to the from my mother's
Speaker 1: house to the sheriff's apartment's probably a ten minute drive.
Speaker 1: They had about twelve police cars. All the freaking guys
Speaker 1: are out, guns drawn. You know, it's like, what the
Speaker 1: hell's going on? I'm like, this is insane. Bring me
Speaker 1: up to the sheriff's department and the media is there,
Speaker 1: and they filmed the cameras getting me out of the
Speaker 1: cop car, and next day in the papers, you know,
Speaker 1: we got the real murderer of this. So I was
Speaker 1: in the county jail for about two months and They
Speaker 1: finally gave me bail one hundred thousands, so my mother
Speaker 1: put up her house and I had a basic lawyer,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't too good. My mother hired a prominent
Speaker 1: lawyer in the here. He was noted for. He's been
Speaker 1: around a long time. And I was out on bail
Speaker 1: about a year. I couldn't go anywhere I had. I
Speaker 1: was like an house arrest. I didn't wear a bracelet,
Speaker 1: but I just went to work and came home. I
Speaker 1: couldn't go anywhere, couldn't go to bars.
Speaker 4: You were probably infamous at this point, right, I mean
Speaker 4: you'd already been convicted in the media pretty much.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They already had me, you know, they had
Speaker 1: me sealed and deal that was you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if you oh yeah, they already said yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Did you you would get harassed?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I would go. I would go to the
Speaker 1: store with my mother and the people there's that scumbag Barns,
Speaker 1: that murder rapist, you know, stuff like that. So I
Speaker 1: just ignored it. And the cops used to follow me around,
Speaker 1: you know. And my girlfriend was going to the college
Speaker 1: not far from my house, and they would sit in
Speaker 1: the parking lot. I would go down and visit her,
Speaker 1: and they would sit in the parking lot. And when
Speaker 1: I was out in bail, they'd follow me around. And
Speaker 1: one day they were in behind me and I stopped
Speaker 1: my truck and got out, and I says, what's your round?
Speaker 1: And I go, you can follow me everywhere. Me and
Speaker 1: my girlfriend went skiing. The officer was up on the
Speaker 1: mountain skiing right behind us. They're followed me all around
Speaker 1: when I'm out on bail, and I'm like, man, I
Speaker 1: can't even go anywhere, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: then I wanted to go to New York State Fair
Speaker 1: and I was out on bail, and he said I
Speaker 1: had to go to the chudge. You leave the county
Speaker 1: and I go to State Fair and I run into
Speaker 1: the investigators there. I go, do you guys think nothing
Speaker 1: better to do? And to follow me around? And so
Speaker 1: that went on for almost a year, and then my
Speaker 1: trial started in May of nineteen eighty nine and picked
Speaker 1: my jury. In my trial, I went through about seven
Speaker 1: hundred people to get a juror, and my juror was
Speaker 1: mostly elderly people. I don't think they every won a
Speaker 1: lot of people back in the days. They didn't really
Speaker 1: want to be on a jury. They they think they
Speaker 1: paid you like five or eight bucks and jury duty.
Speaker 1: And my trial was all circumstantial. Maybe perhaps or could
Speaker 1: have beens. My three main things in my trial was
Speaker 1: when I was in a county jail for a few months,
Speaker 1: we call him jailhouse rats. There was this guy 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: a county I didn't really talk to any guys, you know.
Speaker 1: I stayed to myself, didn't talk my case with nobody.
Speaker 1: And this guy was career criminal, was facing three to
Speaker 1: nine years state for stolen credit cards, bad checks, and
Speaker 1: he after I got on a bail, the investigators went
Speaker 1: and interviewed everybody on my tier 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.
Speaker 4: Classic.
Speaker 1: Yes, the conversation never happened. He got a time cut.
Speaker 1: He ended up doing three or four months in the
Speaker 1: county jail and got sprung. He never got a street
Speaker 1: to nine, and it was supposed.
Speaker 4: To get because he did them a big favor.
Speaker 1: Yes, he lied. And then when they searched my truck,
Speaker 1: this is what they call junk science. They said there
Speaker 1: was a similar gene imprint on the side of my
Speaker 1: truck that was similar to her type of Back in
Speaker 1: the eighties there was Jordash jeans and the style of
Speaker 1: the jeans was imprinted on the side of my truck.
Speaker 1: They said it was similar to hers. Well, they had
Speaker 1: this guy from the gene company. He testify that with
Speaker 1: that type of pattern, that type of gene and that
Speaker 1: time frame that in that year, they narrowed it down
Speaker 1: to three thoud and pairs of jeans with that same pattern.
Speaker 1: So anybody saved my truck was parking the parking lot
Speaker 1: and somebody was at the grocery store, bumped in the
Speaker 1: side of my truck. Had that saved what's today's a
Speaker 1: They wouldn't use that in trial. They would throw that
Speaker 1: right out. You know, it's called junk.
Speaker 4: It's total junk, and it's ridiculous. I mean, I remember
Speaker 4: back then jordan Ash is one of the most popular
Speaker 4: type of jeans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was. They had the guy there and
Speaker 1: he was talking about the pattern he had all blown
Speaker 1: up and it was so and then when I when
Speaker 1: I let him search my truck, they found of hair
Speaker 1: and they said it was similar to hers.
Speaker 4: It was similar to hers. It was blonde, but your
Speaker 4: sister was blonde, Yes, right, I mean so like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's amazing. It was similar to hers. That's great.
Speaker 1: Now this day and age, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: a similar hair. You know, it's your hair, you know's
Speaker 1: We're in a lot more technology now. But and then
Speaker 1: they took dirt from under my rear rolls in my truck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is where it really blows my mind that
Speaker 4: they sat.
Speaker 1: The dirt was similar at the crime scene.
Speaker 4: The dirt was similar. Oh my god, dirt was.
Speaker 1: When my lawyer talked to somebody in my whole county,
Speaker 1: like ninety five percent of the whole county has sand
Speaker 1: in the dirt, and they asked me, where did you
Speaker 1: get the dirt on you? And behind my mother's house,
Speaker 1: we used to have a little spot we hung out
Speaker 1: and we drove our trucks back. There was a little
Speaker 1: hangout for us neighborroad kids. And I didn't wash my
Speaker 1: truck on a regular basis, and I end dirt. So
Speaker 1: they had these jars dirt like it was like a
Speaker 1: big thing.
Speaker 4: I'm like, So the three types of circumstantial evidence, which
Speaker 4: each one is ridiculous. Right, Yes, were a gene imprint, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, how good of an imprint can a
Speaker 4: gene make on a car? Let's just reflect on days
Speaker 4: and days or weeks later. There's a gene imprint. That's ridiculous. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's number one. You had the hair which was quote
Speaker 4: unquote similar to the victims, right, A lot of people
Speaker 4: have similar hair. It was blonde, right, Okay, so that's
Speaker 4: not really I mean, that's pretty crazy. And then you
Speaker 4: have dirt, right, Dirt is dirt, right, I mean I'm
Speaker 4: not a horticulturalist, but no. And the idea that you're
Speaker 4: going to convict somebody and sentenced them to twenty five
Speaker 4: years to life.
Speaker 1: And a Jared dirt it's similar. It don't make sense.
Speaker 4: And then let's talk Steven also about the evidence in
Speaker 4: this case. There was, of call it overwhelming evidence of innocence, right,
Speaker 4: And let's talk about those scales of justice and the
Speaker 4: evidence that tipped in your favor and why this should
Speaker 4: have been really a relatively simple verdict for the jury
Speaker 4: to reach. Right. There was there was an alibi, right,
Speaker 4: So I was at.
Speaker 1: A bowling alley had at night and I had my
Speaker 1: bone sheet, I had my buddy I was with. We
Speaker 1: left the bowling alley, went to a party. He testified
Speaker 1: his parents owned the bowling 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 victim's family, and he said that
Speaker 1: I Will wasn't at the bar at the time. I said, So,
Speaker 1: you got forty something people saying I'm there at this time,
Speaker 1: and they got one guy saying that I wasn't there
Speaker 1: at that time at six o'clock, five thirty quarter six.
Speaker 1: He said, I was there later at seven. And it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to believe that a jury would listen
Speaker 1: to one guy over forty people that had the same story.
Speaker 4: But that's not all. Then you also had the fact
Speaker 4: that there was no physical evidence connecting you to the crime.
Speaker 4: And then there was the tire tracks. Right, your car
Speaker 4: doesn't match, you know, entire tracks. Now we're getting to
Speaker 4: something that has an actual basis in science. Right, these
Speaker 4: fires are a certain size. Yes, you can't change that size.
Speaker 4: You didn't change the tires on your car that night?
Speaker 4: Did you no kidding on me?
Speaker 1: I was a truck, you know, I had a pretty
Speaker 1: good sized tread on it. And they said in my
Speaker 1: trial that a lot of the tire tracks were from
Speaker 1: the cop cars. And my layer 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 aught from a.
Speaker 4: Home to the ground. Now Colombo, right, yeah, so your
Speaker 4: trial must have taken forever. It's seven hundred jurors at
Speaker 4: the head data if you I mean, how long did
Speaker 4: all that take?
Speaker 1: Picked the juror was a couple of weeks, and.
Speaker 4: Then how long did the trial take?
Speaker 1: It was almost a month, So this is three and
Speaker 1: a half weeks. And I was saying earlier I had
Speaker 1: the junk science and then there was a jail house
Speaker 1: in format, and then I had one other person this
Speaker 1: guy was in Utica cop he was off duty. He
Speaker 1: sent him back in nineteen eighty five. He didn't know
Speaker 1: what vehicle he saw or what person he saw on
Speaker 1: the same road where they found their body. He took
Speaker 1: the stand in my trial and he said after three
Speaker 1: and a half years his mind got better and he
Speaker 1: picked me and my truck out. And what they did
Speaker 1: is they had a photo lineup of all these different people,
Speaker 1: and he said it was a blond guy. Well, my
Speaker 1: picture was the only one with blonde hair. Everybody else
Speaker 1: had different color hair. Then he had a lineup of trucks.
Speaker 1: They had white trucks, they had they had blue, different pickups.
Speaker 1: My truck was the only red Maroonis pickup truck. And
Speaker 1: that's what he saw. But he said he was going
Speaker 1: down Mohawk Street at fifty miles an hour and they said,
Speaker 1: at the rate of speed, you only have so many
Speaker 1: seconds to see a vehicle. Well, this guy said he
Speaker 1: picked out he saw on the front of my truck.
Speaker 1: He had my license plate, and then blow that I
Speaker 1: had it was a GMC. I had another colorful plate
Speaker 1: that went underneath. You know, it was a big thing
Speaker 1: in the eighties, you know, it was a kid thing,
Speaker 1: and he said he saw that. But if you look
Speaker 1: at my truck and you see that GMC plate, you're
Speaker 1: going to see the license plate right above it. It's
Speaker 1: like automatic, you know, it's like one piece. He said
Speaker 1: he didn't see the plate number, but his body was
Speaker 1: running for sheriff that year, and he wanted to be
Speaker 1: the under sheriff. So that was a politic move, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So you had he was an incentivized way too. It
Speaker 4: blows my mind that everyone knows it's illegal to bribe
Speaker 4: a witness. You couldn't have paid somebody to come in
Speaker 4: and go no, no, no, Steve, definitely not. I saw
Speaker 4: him on the thing. Whatever. You can't do that. That's
Speaker 4: totally you got to jail for that. But the government
Speaker 4: can offer the best bribe in the world in exchange
Speaker 4: for false testimony, which is they can go to a
Speaker 4: guy like this guy who sounds like a career scumbag, right,
Speaker 4: this guy stole O or whatever his name was, Murder. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the idea that they can bribe somebody like that
Speaker 4: with the you know, giving them literally years and years
Speaker 4: of prison time make it just manash like a miracle.
Speaker 4: Do you think Steve, that they knew that you were innocent.
Speaker 1: I think they did. I think they wanted to solve
Speaker 1: the case. There was a lot of pressure. Like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, small town murder rapes like that don't happen
Speaker 1: every you know, doesn't happen in my area, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It was like this was the biggest
Speaker 1: story in a long time, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: ever since I was a kid. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me let me correct you. They didn't want
Speaker 4: to solve the case. They wanted to clear the clared.
Speaker 4: To solve the case, they would have had to actually
Speaker 4: go back to work.
Speaker 1: It was on the news every day in the media.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just kept it was never quiet.
Speaker 4: So the jury goes out and how long did they deliberate?
Speaker 1: For almost twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: That must have been one of the hardest twenty four
Speaker 4: hours of your life.
Speaker 1: Yes, the first day I went home after the jury,
Speaker 1: they just you know, nine to five. It was a
Speaker 1: quarter hour days they went And I remember in the
Speaker 1: second day I was home and buddy mine and my
Speaker 1: couple of my buddies around. They go, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: right before Memorial Day. We were going to go to
Speaker 1: like a festival party. They had field days in my area. Fireman,
Speaker 1: it's like a carnival. My buddy goes, yeah, we'll be
Speaker 1: going there tonight and I said yeah. I says, everything's
Speaker 1: going to work out. And I haven't slept like a long,
Speaker 1: you know, since the jury went out, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's like, this is my life, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. They're trying to nail me to the
Speaker 1: cross for somebody to do, you know what i mean.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, this can't be happening, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I'm like, I'm Liko. And I came.
Speaker 1: I went to this trial, and so we got to
Speaker 1: call the juries back and we went to the courtroom
Speaker 1: and me and my lawyer we walked in. I get
Speaker 1: a little teary eyed sometimes we uh ye, but uh
Speaker 1: every day during a trial, the jury used to look
Speaker 1: at me when I when I when I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, when people were testifying, the jury used to
Speaker 1: look at me. We'd take a break, come in and out,
Speaker 1: and the jury used to always look at us, me
Speaker 1: and my lawyer. But that day we came, you know,
Speaker 1: the jury came back and they wouldn't look at me.
Speaker 1: And my lawyer. We walked in the courtroom and they
Speaker 1: sit down and then they jury foreman gives the judge.
Speaker 1: You know, we were you know, we reached the verdict
Speaker 1: and they said please stand and they said guilty. And
Speaker 1: I melted, but yeah, I was about the statues day
Speaker 1: of my life. None not sorry, I get emotional about that.
Speaker 1: But my lawyer looked at me and I seen this
Speaker 1: theory come down to side and he said, I'm awful, sorry,
Speaker 1: and I said, so they cought me and put me
Speaker 1: in jubail, you know, revoke my.
Speaker 4: Bail, and.
Speaker 1: We tried to get a retrial, and you know, my
Speaker 1: lawyer put in different motions. He said, somebody on the
Speaker 1: jury knew somebody testified and they investigated and they said no,
Speaker 1: it's you know, nothing denied. So that was June second.
Speaker 1: I di verdict came back nineteen eighty nine. I got
Speaker 1: sentenced in September. September second and I went to court
Speaker 1: and they gave me the max. They twenty five to
Speaker 1: the life for murder, rape inside of me and before
Speaker 1: they sutens me, I told the judge I'm in and
Speaker 1: my little sister jumped up in the courtroom side. You
Speaker 1: rare over with my brother because the DA said I
Speaker 1: didn't show any remorse, because my sister jumped up and said,
Speaker 1: that's because he didn't do it, you know, and they
Speaker 1: escorted her out of the courtroom, and a few other
Speaker 1: people shouted out some things, and the judge says, everybody's
Speaker 1: got to be quiet, and so they sutens me. Then
Speaker 1: eight days later, I was sitting in Attica and I
Speaker 1: remember the two officers that brought me up date. You know,
Speaker 1: they talked ship to me the whole time. They said, Uh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be somebody's bitch in jail. You know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna get you because you're a you have a rape charge.
Speaker 1: So I figured, you know, I'm gonna be home a
Speaker 1: couple of years. It didn't work. A couple of years
Speaker 1: turned into uh, twenty years.
Speaker 4: While you are inside in some of these most violent,
Speaker 4: hellish places, it really is hell on earth. How did
Speaker 4: you maintain hope?
Speaker 1: Well, the main thing was my family. They were my
Speaker 1: main supporters. A lot of guys in prison, I don't
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 here you are and here I am on the show.
Speaker 1: But like I always tell everybody, hope, you know, hope.
Speaker 1: In my family, it's all they had when I was
Speaker 1: in jail, I had my mother, my brother, and my sister.
Speaker 1: I had one close friend, the guy I was with
Speaker 1: that night at the balling, and he came to visit
Speaker 1: me a couple of times, but everybody else moved on.
Speaker 1: My first six months upstate, I told my girlfriend, I said,
Speaker 1: go live your life. I don't know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen with me. She was a year younger than me.
Speaker 1: I said, go meet mister Wright. You know, have I
Speaker 1: ever run into you again? You know, I hope you do.
Speaker 1: I said you'd be happy. And she cried and I cried.
Speaker 1: And so I'm in jail, and you know, I never
Speaker 1: called it my home or accepted it, but I figured,
Speaker 1: you know, my lawyer, my child or he did my
Speaker 1: appeals worked department in Rochester. They shot my appeal down.
Speaker 1: Then I tried to go to a Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: and they denied me entry. And then six months after that,
Speaker 1: my lawyer died of a massive heart attack at the
Speaker 1: age of sixty eight. Another part of my luck, my
Speaker 1: lawyer dies. The assistant DA that tried me, he died
Speaker 1: of a massive heart attack six months after my lawyer
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack. So I have sat dormant
Speaker 1: for four or five years, bounced around from prison to prison.
Speaker 1: You know, prison life was not good. I had a fight, strong,
Speaker 1: survived the week, get preyed on. You know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be the weak person get prayed on. And
Speaker 1: I lifted weights and I stabbed people. You know, You're
Speaker 1: forced to live in an environment that you not used
Speaker 1: to and people that you hate. And it's just I
Speaker 1: tell people that I wouldn't wish prison on my worst enemy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's hell on earth. Never
Speaker 1: been in trouble, and here I am got a life
Speaker 1: bid and I'm like, I don't know when I'm ever
Speaker 1: going to get out of here.
Speaker 4: Were you a tough guy when you went in, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, you know, yeah, I didn't take no crap,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I wasn't no bowlie or nothing.
Speaker 4: But then you're in there, there's a lot of guys
Speaker 4: bigger and tougher than you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's yeah, there's a lot of tough There's
Speaker 1: a lot of big guys in there. And I lifted weights,
Speaker 1: and you know, I lifted a lot of heavyweights. I
Speaker 1: was big. I won a lot of weightlifting competitions. And
Speaker 1: we had TVs in the yard and it was I
Speaker 1: don't know if back in the eighties they had the
Speaker 1: Phil Downie Who show. I remember on Phil Downey Who Show. Well,
Speaker 1: there's these two guys on there and their name was
Speaker 1: Barry Shock and Peter Nufeldt, and they had guys on
Speaker 1: there that they got out through DNA. And this was
Speaker 1: like in ninety four, and my mother watched the same show.
Speaker 1: So I go, I'm gonna write them a letter. I
Speaker 1: wrote a twelve pages twelve thirteen page letter explained my
Speaker 1: whole case toing what happened, you know, and they wrote
Speaker 1: me back questionnaire. They agreed to take my case. So
Speaker 1: for a couple of years to get the evidence, they
Speaker 1: came up, took my blood. We agreed on a lab
Speaker 1: back in them days, I had to pay for the
Speaker 1: lab testing. The Innocent Project was very small. Well, you
Speaker 1: actually talked to Barry on the phone and it was
Speaker 1: about to be five six law students from Cordova and
Speaker 1: it was a real small operation. Operation is not like
Speaker 1: it does now. I mean it's but they signed to
Speaker 1: a lab and they had the technology wasn't there. My
Speaker 1: mother came up and I really thought I was going home,
Speaker 1: you know, I got all excited and I had about
Speaker 1: seven years in seven eight years by now, and she
Speaker 1: came up to visit me and said, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: the DNA test came back inclusive. Our technology wasn't there
Speaker 1: like we have now. And plus the way the law
Speaker 1: enforcement collected evidence back down, you know, it was very
Speaker 1: sloppy there.
Speaker 4: It still is, but.
Speaker 1: There's no 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.
Speaker 4: And we still don't have a national standard for storing
Speaker 4: of this evidence, which is insane. Yeah, we keep the
Speaker 4: evidence so we can find the guy, right that whoever
Speaker 4: did this to this poor girl, is this sick, sick
Speaker 4: predator that needs to be off the streets and in
Speaker 4: order to someday have a chance to get that guy.
Speaker 4: You got to save the evidence. I mean, and I'm
Speaker 4: just talking about your case. I'm talking about every case.
Speaker 4: So they should additihould absolutely be a standard practice that
Speaker 4: everybody has to adhere to. And obviously that wasn't the
Speaker 4: situation in your case. But go ahead.
Speaker 1: Another setback, Yeah, another setback. So got convicted. My lawyer,
Speaker 1: Dice Peels shot down. Now inconclusive DNA. Now I'm like
Speaker 1: the hopes. I always tell people my hope, my candle.
Speaker 1: You know, the flame was like really big, and now
Speaker 1: the flame was just about out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm hitting rock bottom, Like, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: die in here. I got a life bid. I almost
Speaker 1: got ten years in I got another fifteen to go
Speaker 1: just to go to the pro board. If I went
Speaker 1: to the pro board, I have to meet gilt. I
Speaker 1: didn't do this, So I'm gonna die in here. And
Speaker 1: I didn't have the death penalty. Good thing, because they
Speaker 1: probably would have executed me. So I always kept study
Speaker 1: on the law library, and I bounced around from prison
Speaker 1: to prison. I was in eight or nine different maxes
Speaker 1: and throughout the state of New York, and I kept
Speaker 1: busy and I always went to the law library, and
Speaker 1: I kept up on DNA, you know, and then I
Speaker 1: followed up on some cases. Guys that were that I
Speaker 1: did time with were getting out, and I says, and
Speaker 1: I remember I reading about DNA. It was a ystr
Speaker 1: DNA testing. It was real new and touched DNA on
Speaker 1: that John Benet Rainey 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 a Xanderies got out. So he went
Speaker 1: down and talked to Barry and Peter were there and
Speaker 1: a couple of Xanneries and he says, told them, you
Speaker 1: worked on my brother's case like eight nine years ago
Speaker 1: and it was inconclusive. Can you maybe relook into it,
Speaker 1: because you know, technology has come a long way. And
Speaker 1: so it was probably six eight months later Mattie Delone
Speaker 1: called a prison I was at in Elmira. Actually the
Speaker 1: chaplain came to myself and I thought somebody passed away
Speaker 1: because I lost all my grandparents when I was in prison.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my god. When the chaplain comes
Speaker 1: to your cell. You think automatically, think you know there's
Speaker 1: a death in the family or something bad happen, you know.
Speaker 1: But the chaplain said, no, it's good news. You got
Speaker 1: to call the Innocent Projects. So I called down and
Speaker 1: they said, Manny Palomes, she said, we're taking on your case.
Speaker 1: So now I got about seventeen sixteen, seventeen years in
Speaker 1: almost and I was thinking, I hope they still have
Speaker 1: the evidence because in my area it's small. They don't
Speaker 1: have the storage to close rape kits. You know, they
Speaker 1: just throw your shit in the box, put it on
Speaker 1: the shelf, you know. After your appeals are done, sometimes
Speaker 1: they get rid of it. Well, they started to investigating.
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 the lab and it was almost
Speaker 1: two years after got the evidence. They come up to
Speaker 1: they said, were the two investigators from the Sheriff's apartment
Speaker 1: and a lady from the lab. 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 beginning of November, like this first week in November
Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight. I went in and the
Speaker 1: cops are going, you know, how you doing, Steve. I go,
Speaker 1: I'm doing good, you know while you're here. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I requested you guys to be here. I wrote Tennison
Speaker 1: Project and I requested the DNA testing. I go, you
Speaker 1: guys just didn't wake up one morning and say, you know,
Speaker 1: Steve Barnes is innocent. We want to get him out
Speaker 1: of jail. And they looked at me and he go, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. We were here because you know, we worked
Speaker 1: for the DA's office. I say, yup. So they swabbed me.
Speaker 1: You know, he did all that and they sealed everything,
Speaker 1: and I go, how long is it's gonna take? And
Speaker 1: they said about two weeks. I said, I'll see you
Speaker 1: in court. I walked out and it was a little
Speaker 1: over two weeks. It was on Friday night. It was
Speaker 1: November twenty first. I used to call home, talk to
Speaker 1: my mother on Friday night and see 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 we had a lock in for child and we
Speaker 1: came back out at about six six thirty. So my
Speaker 1: mother ended up calling the Innison Project because I can't
Speaker 1: get on the phone. So I called my mother after
Speaker 1: after child, and she said my staff's thirty name was
Speaker 1: Elba Morale as she's not with the INN Project anymore.
Speaker 1: But she asked my mother, She goes, it was right
Speaker 1: before Thanksgiving, was you know? She asked my mother, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do for Thanksgiving? My mother says, uh,
Speaker 1: I always wish, you know, Steve wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: because we really have him celebrated a Thanksgiving, her Christmas
Speaker 1: or any holidays for you know, two decades. And she
Speaker 1: told my mother said, another dinner played at the table
Speaker 1: because your son's coming home. And that was another time
Speaker 1: I cried. But twenty years before that was tears of sadness.
Speaker 1: Now I had tears of joy. And I was on
Speaker 1: the gallery and I dropped the phone and I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going home, you know. So that was good Friday,
Speaker 1: excuse me Friday, and my mother came up. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: that's Saturday. Next day. And the prison I was in,
Speaker 1: I was there about six years and the seals knew
Speaker 1: me and no, my mo you know, she goes my son.
Speaker 1: You know, the guy's on the raid and he's coming home.
Speaker 1: So they took me in the court on Monday morning.
Speaker 1: It was twenty fourth, November twenty fourth. So when I
Speaker 1: went to the court, the DA at the time of
Speaker 1: my trial, the head DA. After my conviction, he got
Speaker 1: he got elected as a judge. He was running for
Speaker 1: to be a judge, so they couldn't put me in
Speaker 1: front of him. And then very shock, he couldn't get
Speaker 1: a flight out from the city down in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: So they put me in the county jail for one
Speaker 1: more night. So I had to go to court on
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth.
Speaker 4: That was a crazy night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're like deciding what they do.
Speaker 4: I go.
Speaker 1: Listen, I was found out on a Friday night on
Speaker 1: the twenty first that I was innocent. And now I've
Speaker 1: been in jail on four more days. So they put
Speaker 1: me in a county jail and every you know, I've
Speaker 1: been on the news and you know, people are coming
Speaker 1: up to my cell in the county jail. Yo, man,
Speaker 1: you know all that time, Oh my god, you know,
Speaker 1: I could just get away from my cell. I I
Speaker 1: just want to chill out. So I didn't really sleep
Speaker 1: much that night, and I didn't sleep the whole weekend
Speaker 1: in jail, in prison, and then they brought me to court,
Speaker 1: you know. And I remember my mother brought up a
Speaker 1: suit and I'm in the property room. This is I
Speaker 1: asked to see. Oh, I go, listen, we got a problem.
Speaker 1: He goes, well, I go, I forgot how to tie
Speaker 1: a tie. I go, you think you could help me
Speaker 1: out here? So he did it around his neck and
Speaker 1: he shook my hand and then they shackled me all up.
Speaker 4: You know, court pretty ridiculous when you take it right,
Speaker 4: you've already been exonerated. What's the point yes or whatever?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but you got to be official in
Speaker 1: front of the judge. So I going. And a social
Speaker 1: worker from the Innocent Project was there, Angela. She came
Speaker 1: in in the bullpen and she says to you, I
Speaker 1: just want to let you know there's like gazillion cameras people.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's tons of stuff. She goes to me,
Speaker 1: you walk in there, it's going to be like spotlights.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay. And I was already exhausted, so
Speaker 1: they brought me in and all shackled up, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking around and I'm like seeing people I haven't seen
Speaker 1: in twenty years. And I'm like, and that's my friend Mark.
Speaker 1: What happened to him? He's all gray haired, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at all my friends that I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, the judge says, you know, he's he says,
Speaker 1: you know about the DNA testing and it's excluded me,
Speaker 1: and he vacated my satin. So they they took all
Speaker 1: the shackles off and you could hear a pin drop
Speaker 1: in the courtroom when they dropped everything, like and then
Speaker 1: people were crying and my heart was going like forty
Speaker 1: miles an hour, and I'm like, man, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't have a heart. I'm saying myself, don't have
Speaker 1: a heart of tank. Now you're going home, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Went through all this for twenty years.
Speaker 1: And like so then we had a media friends and
Speaker 1: you know, they're asking me all these questions and people
Speaker 1: were showing me what a cell phone was, and we.
Speaker 4: Take me back for a second season. So that shackles drop,
Speaker 4: Oh yes, right, and then what did you turn aroundd.
Speaker 1: Just you said you're free to go. And we went
Speaker 1: into another.
Speaker 4: Room and uh, where was your mom doing this?
Speaker 1: She was in behind me, sitting behind because I was
Speaker 1: at a podium with a very shock, and my staff
Speaker 1: attorney and my mother was in the back row and
Speaker 1: everybody else that was there.
Speaker 4: That is that the first thing you did turn around
Speaker 4: see your mom.
Speaker 1: Or yep, and you know and I and I just
Speaker 1: looked at the judge and I said I didn't. I
Speaker 1: was just like in awe, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And so and then the media friends had starting all
Speaker 1: the questions and then went to a nice restaurant, had
Speaker 1: a nice meal for the first time.
Speaker 4: You know what you have.
Speaker 1: I had a steak on a shrimp cocktail. And I
Speaker 1: remember going up my mother's road where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, places that I hung out were
Speaker 1: torn down, New places were put up, new houses, different roads.
Speaker 1: There was a store called the Walmart that I never
Speaker 1: heard of. The internet. I had to start my life
Speaker 1: over like a sixteen year old kid. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. When they exonerate you, they just drop you
Speaker 1: off the courthouse. When you get parle from prison, they
Speaker 1: give you money an ID card. I didn't have nothing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I called the prison, my counselor.
Speaker 1: I asked them to send my SOLI security and all
Speaker 1: of my records. They go, you can't have them. So
Speaker 1: I had to get every start over. I had to
Speaker 1: get ID to get an ID, so I had to
Speaker 1: get a birth certificate, social Security card, and I got
Speaker 1: to picture ID. Learn how to drive again, because when
Speaker 1: I first got in the car years ago, they used
Speaker 1: to have the high beam on the floor. Now it's
Speaker 1: like on a steering wheel, and you got all this
Speaker 1: high tech stuff digital it was quite different, and technology
Speaker 1: was hard to deal with the Internet, and then you
Speaker 1: got into texting and I set up an email and
Speaker 1: they gave me a job with the county after I
Speaker 1: got out about six months working with troubled kids, and
Speaker 1: then I was working for a re entry I would
Speaker 1: help guys that got out of prison, you know, try
Speaker 1: to help find them jobs. And I did that for
Speaker 1: about five years and then they quit the funding and.
Speaker 4: Then, yeah, why would we need any funding to help
Speaker 4: guys who just got out of prison find jobs? What
Speaker 4: possible good could that in the world.
Speaker 1: It's like, and I worked with troubled kids that you
Speaker 1: only couldn't make it in the local high schools. They
Speaker 1: were got of spying out of control.
Speaker 4: You know, you got a lot of satisfaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I straightened some of them out, but I'd set them
Speaker 1: down the first when they came to my group and
Speaker 1: I set them down, I said, listen, I don't care
Speaker 1: how top you are, what do you think you are,
Speaker 1: but this is what happened in my life, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And they look at me, well, and
Speaker 1: everybody knows who I am. I'm a small town you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like, did they ever find the guy who did it?
Speaker 1: Nope? They put the case on America Most Wanted twice.
Speaker 4: Were there any rumors around at the time that this happened?
Speaker 1: The new investigators day after I got out, you know,
Speaker 1: they used to we got me in the DA. They
Speaker 1: used to call me over all the time, and they
Speaker 1: had pictures of certain individuals and trucks that was somewhere
Speaker 1: in mind. They asked me if I knew these persons whatever,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. And there was a guy that was
Speaker 1: in prison for he kidnapped the girl, raped her and
Speaker 1: the cop he threw in the trunk and he went
Speaker 1: to prison for it and he jumped on and the
Speaker 1: cops are chasing him. He jumped in front of a
Speaker 1: train and chopped his legs off. But he was a
Speaker 1: person of interest in my case because after I got out,
Speaker 1: they were running DNA testing people, you know, certain they
Speaker 1: got leads, people were calling, mentioning names. Well, this certain
Speaker 1: individual that was in jail with me, they took his
Speaker 1: DNA and he asked him how long it would take
Speaker 1: to come back, and they said about almost two weeks,
Speaker 1: and he committed suicide. Because after I got out, my
Speaker 1: whole case on my trial, that isn't how it happened.
Speaker 1: That was like ah Lie where they found her body,
Speaker 1: That was not where she was murdered, they said in
Speaker 1: my trial they said she was murdered, raped and left there,
Speaker 1: that she was dumped off there. She was at a
Speaker 1: party with a bunch of individuals. There was males and
Speaker 1: females there and it was a Satanic worship party. And
Speaker 1: all this stuff came to light after I got out.
Speaker 1: Three people called the DA's office admitted they lied. 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. They went and seen the
Speaker 1: off duty cop that testified in my trolley. 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.
Speaker 4: And isn't it weird that it took that long for
Speaker 4: all this stuff to come out? These are important facts, right.
Speaker 1: And then they had the reports from the original cops.
Speaker 1: They had leads on certain other people. The cops just
Speaker 1: pushed them to the side and didn't even look into
Speaker 1: any of them, didn't even acknowledge them. They just had
Speaker 1: liners on They go, we want Steve Barnes and that's it.
Speaker 1: We don't care. People were calling, you know, with leads
Speaker 1: on someone else. They didn't even follow up on none
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they call that tunnel vision. And it's so tragic too,
Speaker 4: because you know, I mean, like the poor girl would
Speaker 4: happen to her, should never happened to anybody. And the
Speaker 4: idea that the guy, who actually a person we don't
Speaker 4: even know who it was, maybe more than one person
Speaker 4: will never know at this point, was free to just uh,
Speaker 4: you know, live their life, whether they committed other crimes
Speaker 4: like this. Again, we will also know that we'll never
Speaker 4: know that.
Speaker 1: Our system is so broken up it's it's insane, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like since I've been I've been
Speaker 1: to Albany like at Capital, probably fifteen times, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I finally about filming interrogations now
Speaker 1: and how they do photo lineups. I went out with
Speaker 1: Rebecca Brown in Albany for days on ends. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd be out there for the whole day talking to
Speaker 1: these senators and assemblymen's.
Speaker 4: And Rebecca Brown is the policy dollar.
Speaker 1: She would come to my area and I got involved
Speaker 1: with my congressman and my assemblymen in my area, and
Speaker 1: they they were backing me, and they, you know, we
Speaker 1: find if they had filming interrogation when I went, when
Speaker 1: I got interrogated back then, it would be a different story.
Speaker 4: And isn't it New York State?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: We would think New York State pretty advanced, right, one
Speaker 4: of the I mean, you know.
Speaker 1: We're way behind our mothering states. We're like ten years
Speaker 1: behind Rhode Island, Connecticut, Jersey, they best laws like this
Speaker 1: nine years ago.
Speaker 4: We still don't have mandatory videotaping of interrogations in New
Speaker 4: York State. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: In my County, my DA, he does them all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to my case, he decided to.
Speaker 4: Well than to his credit. But the idea that we
Speaker 4: do not have mandatory videotaping of interrogations at this point,
Speaker 4: it's totally inexcusable. And it's just it's a simple way
Speaker 4: to reduce the number of wrongful incarcerations and get more
Speaker 4: right ones. I mean, there's just no explanation of any
Speaker 4: kind that makes any sense when it comes to that.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you this thing before we wrap
Speaker 4: this up. Then. I know there's a lot of years
Speaker 4: gone by now too, but is there a worst experience
Speaker 4: that you want to share with the audience from prison?
Speaker 4: And also, was there a moment beside the moment when
Speaker 4: you actually heard that you were going home? Was there
Speaker 4: another moment that gave you some some sort of joy
Speaker 4: or you know, a renewed sense of hope.
Speaker 1: Well, it was a rough road. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of ups and downs, and I never had any strong
Speaker 1: positive things that was gonna you know, after I had
Speaker 1: the first DNA testing that was inconclusive, it kind of
Speaker 1: like I didn't know when I was coming home, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was over. I literally gave up hope
Speaker 1: towards it at one point.
Speaker 4: So that was the lowest point. Yeah, but I guess
Speaker 4: the one thing I wanted to ask, was there one
Speaker 4: moment of you know, in prison, was there somebody who
Speaker 4: actually showed you some sort of kindness that wasn't expected.
Speaker 1: Yeah? I had a few, you know, there was good
Speaker 1: cops and bad cops. I had some good officers, you know.
Speaker 1: I told a couple officers you know my situation. They
Speaker 1: believed in me. And when I was in prison, I
Speaker 1: worked with a lot of civilians. I worked maintenance, and
Speaker 1: I got pretty tight with what few of my civilians,
Speaker 1: you know, And I told my story. And actually when
Speaker 1: I was when I got out, the maint and supervisor
Speaker 1: gave me his phone numbers. He said, they've called me
Speaker 1: when you get out, and you're welcome to come to
Speaker 1: my house. And they always gave me they looked out
Speaker 1: for me in there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: He gave me nice jobs and somebody to talk to,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I didn't talk. I had
Speaker 1: a few guys that hung out with that we worked
Speaker 1: out together. We had our little crew, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And you just you know, you didn't talk
Speaker 1: your business with a lot of people. But you just
Speaker 1: I just they made me. You know, it was having
Speaker 1: a bad day at my boss. You know, there was
Speaker 1: you know I should talk with him. You know, he goes,
Speaker 1: I know you're having a bad day. We won't do
Speaker 1: much today or whatever. And when my family came up
Speaker 1: to visit me, you know, they gave me nice feeling.
Speaker 4: And what about I mean, I know you talked about
Speaker 4: when I saw the video, you talked about being tear gassed,
Speaker 4: being stabbed, being in fights, being in riots. I mean,
Speaker 4: was there one experience that you may not want to
Speaker 4: share it, but if there was, was there one experience
Speaker 4: that was like the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1: It was probably in ninety seven in Green Having Correction facility.
Speaker 1: I was they were starting to build double bunks and
Speaker 1: I was a welder and they wanted me to weld
Speaker 1: double bunk cells and I refused, So I was keep
Speaker 1: locked and they took us out of our block for
Speaker 1: keep locked rack. They let you out for one hour
Speaker 1: a day. And I was an H black lower H
Speaker 1: and there was one of the other key locked inmates.
Speaker 1: The CEOs beat them down. We heard him screaming, and
Speaker 1: we're lined up in the hall with the sergeant and
Speaker 1: they said, you guys, take it to the yard and
Speaker 1: we said, screw you, we ain't moving. You just beat
Speaker 1: down one of our you know, we're not moving. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you another order to move, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: we ain't moving. You know. So in prison we call
Speaker 1: him Warren's crush. I call him the Ninja Turtles. The
Speaker 1: guards with all the pads and right gear. They came
Speaker 1: marching down the hall and I looked at the guy
Speaker 1: next to me. I said, this is it. 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: of you know, and we got pretty well broken up.
Speaker 1: And they ship me up up north, you know, and
Speaker 1: I sat in reception and Auburn for like two weeks
Speaker 1: without a shower or nothing. They lost my property. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was like I wasn't 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: unpacking my cell and there's Gey says, hey, why boy,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna be my bitch in prison all
Speaker 1: this I go. No, I took them up ringer and
Speaker 1: I spun around. I blasted them 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 touch 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 lose your draw if you got to
Speaker 1: stick up for yourself, you know what I mean. If
Speaker 1: you don't, you know, you're gonna be a chump punk.
Speaker 4: This is literally it is. It sounds literally like Shawshank redemption. Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 4: For people listening now, they're probably thinking this is horrible,
Speaker 4: like what happened to you is it's it's a crime
Speaker 4: against humanity what happened to you? And people listening they're going,
Speaker 4: what can I do to help? Right? People want to
Speaker 4: get involved. They're gonna hear your story and it's gonna
Speaker 4: be that reaction probably plus plus, so what would you
Speaker 4: say the average person's out there listening in one of
Speaker 4: the states, out there wherever they listen, or around the world.
Speaker 4: What could people do to get active to help with
Speaker 4: this situation.
Speaker 1: Well, I always tell people were in my area and
Speaker 1: stuff that Unison project. They gave me my life back,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, you don't realize people
Speaker 1: don't really really look about, you know, the daily life.
Speaker 1: You know, little things in life like going to the store,
Speaker 1: going here. In prison, you're like a programmed person. You know.
Speaker 1: You get up at a certain time every morning, you're
Speaker 1: told what to do, twenty four to seven, do your
Speaker 1: after year, you know, And I tell people, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know it would take twenty years to prove
Speaker 1: my innocence because I thought I'd be out after a
Speaker 1: couple of years. But days turn into weeks, weeks turns
Speaker 1: into months, months turning into years, and years turning into
Speaker 1: decades of loneliness. You know.
Speaker 4: But but you didn't give up when you had every
Speaker 4: 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're swept away and your life's taken away, and then
Speaker 1: you get your life back. But I just want to
Speaker 1: say I would donate to the Innocent Project, you know,
Speaker 1: because there's what happened to me. There's hundreds of guys
Speaker 1: after me. I've been out almost ten years next year,
Speaker 1: and I was number two hundred and twenty seventh in
Speaker 1: the country. Now they're up to three hundred and fifty something.
Speaker 1: And I was twenty four in New York State. Now
Speaker 1: they're up to thirty something.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened to me, it can 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, did
Speaker 1: a lot more time to me. But you know, the
Speaker 1: Innocent Project needs money, you know, it's carry on with this,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like my testing loan in
Speaker 1: my case was fifty thousand dollars, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And I want to point out something too, Steven, You're
Speaker 4: a perfect example of this. The legislative changes right and
Speaker 4: the procedural changes that the INSCE Project has been behind,
Speaker 4: and compensation statutes like in Kansas where we finally just
Speaker 4: got a compensation statute passed. Right, you know, these changes
Speaker 4: are seismic shifts, and these are This is the macro
Speaker 4: side of the work, right. The micro side is you,
Speaker 4: even though nothing micro about you. You're a big guy,
Speaker 4: but you know. But the microside is the individual cases.
Speaker 4: The macro side is where a lot of your dollars go.
Speaker 4: If you donate to the Innocesce project like I do,
Speaker 4: like Steve does, you know your money is going to
Speaker 4: affect change that may actually impact you or your community
Speaker 4: or somebody you love in a very real way. Because
Speaker 4: when these changes are made, the odds of you know,
Speaker 4: you, yourself or a loved one becoming the next Stephen Barnes
Speaker 4: go down dramatically. And we're not going to stop. We're
Speaker 4: just going to keep going and going until we make
Speaker 4: this system as close to perfect as it can be.
Speaker 4: It'll that would be perfect, but we can we can
Speaker 4: make a lot, a huge difference.
Speaker 1: A lot of changes for the better.
Speaker 4: And we are doing that. And now now you're you've
Speaker 4: got a lot of stuff going on, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: now you've been out.
Speaker 1: For a while, your you're nine years, you're.
Speaker 4: Living your best life now.
Speaker 1: Living to dream yup. I tell people I get up
Speaker 1: every morning late Christmas morning, you.
Speaker 4: Know, Steven, we have a tradition here at Rafel Conviction. Yes,
Speaker 4: I think people really look forward to this part of
Speaker 4: the show because this is the part where I shut
Speaker 4: up and I basically just turned the microphone over to
Speaker 4: you so you can close out with any thoughts you want.
Speaker 1: All right. I just want to say, after all these,
Speaker 1: all these twenty years that I did in prison, I
Speaker 1: finally got my life back. And I can't say it
Speaker 1: enough thanks to 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 a couple lot
Speaker 1: of hole and I just I'm so happy and what
Speaker 1: happened to me, it probably happened to 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 in this project and help free the 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 all
Speaker 1: of us exigneries get together to change laws, and the
Speaker 1: Innocent Project and people on the street to contribute and
Speaker 1: help us hold you know, just freedom act to you know,
Speaker 1: progress on. And you know, I've been out nine years.
Speaker 1: It feels like I've been out for a lot longer.
Speaker 1: When I was in prison for all them twenty years,
Speaker 1: it was like days dragged, you know. I mean, out
Speaker 1: here so much to do. I can't even imagine how
Speaker 1: to explain my freedom, you know. And my freedom is
Speaker 1: like so awesome. Now I can do what I want,
Speaker 1: come and go as I please. I don't have nobody
Speaker 1: telling me what to do, what time to go to bed,
Speaker 1: what time to eat, you know, turn your light off,
Speaker 1: wake up at this time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: When I first got out, I took a walk in
Speaker 1: the woods, you know, breathing fresh air, enjoying life. It's
Speaker 1: just I'm having a lot of fun now. And I
Speaker 1: just want to thank the Innocent Project and I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for having me on the show. And
Speaker 1: I look forward to living a great future. I hope
Speaker 1: I live to be another fifty six years. I don't
Speaker 1: have any stress anymore. I'm just I'm on top of
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: Now, well, that's awesome, and you know, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to wish you all the luck in the world.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to thank you again for coming in
Speaker 4: and being here with us and sharing your story.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 4: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 4: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 4: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how
Speaker 4: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 4: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
Speaker 4: the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 4: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 4: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 4: Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 4: and association with Signal Company Number one