Speaker 1: On March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four, a man named
Speaker 1: Carl Voltz dropped off his friend Kenneth Hayes at twenty
Speaker 1: two point fifty Annabel Street in Detroit, Michigan. As he
Speaker 1: got out of the car, a gunman came out of
Speaker 1: the darkness, fatally shooting Hayes as he struggled up the driveway.
Speaker 1: Neither Carl Volts nor anyone in the house had seen
Speaker 1: the shooter's face. However, a car in the area belonged
Speaker 1: to a young man named Jay Clay, which led investigators
Speaker 1: to another young man named Larry Smith. The victim's landlord
Speaker 1: said that Hayes's grow friend identified Larry, and the landlord's
Speaker 1: son thought the assailant walked like Larry as well. Then
Speaker 1: Shell Casings allegedly founded the scene with the same size
Speaker 1: as one allegedly found in Larry's laundry hamper. But this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is an episode well of full circles. And when I
Speaker 1: say that we have somebody who listeners the show will
Speaker 1: probably recognize one of my great heroes, Jared Adams, whose
Speaker 1: full circle involved going from being wrongfully convicted himself, from
Speaker 1: serving over a decade in a maximum security prison to
Speaker 1: becoming a lawyer and helping other wrongfully convicted people get justice. Jarrett,
Speaker 1: so great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Jason, always a pleasure man.
Speaker 1: The other full circle here is the star of our show,
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Larry Smith Junior. We're glad you're here.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: When I say full circle. This is a man who's
Speaker 1: working at a rec center now in Detroit, Michigan, helping
Speaker 1: senior citizens as well as youth. And it is Detroit
Speaker 1: that he was snatched out of when he was just
Speaker 1: a kid himself. But before we get into all of that,
Speaker 1: what was your life like growing up? Did you grow
Speaker 1: up in a Detroit.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, I was the only child my mom.
Speaker 4: She had me and then my siblings would come later,
Speaker 4: like basically through it. I had adoption more or less.
Speaker 4: But we was family. We grew up in the same
Speaker 4: house and life was cool. My mom always told me
Speaker 4: long as I worked, as long as I put forth
Speaker 4: that effort, as long as I did well in school.
Speaker 4: At the times was tough, but it was gonna come
Speaker 4: a time when they wouldn't be so tough. She was
Speaker 4: gonna have those degrees that she was going and working
Speaker 4: so hard for, and that our life was just gonna
Speaker 4: be different.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 1: So right, I read here that your mom was studying
Speaker 1: for her masters in sociology. Do you have similar aspirations?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just an eight year old kid at
Speaker 1: the time. What did you have in mind? What did
Speaker 1: you want to do with your life.
Speaker 4: I was working and I was going to school, and
Speaker 4: my attent was to become a respiratory therapist.
Speaker 3: I think my future was promising.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your nickname, I understand, was butter how'd that
Speaker 1: come to be?
Speaker 2: My mama?
Speaker 3: Some with my mom when I was born?
Speaker 1: My complexion And this is the Michigan story. And we've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of Michigan stories on this show, and
Speaker 1: this was aticular time and place when people were being framed.
Speaker 1: It's call it what it is like. It was day
Speaker 1: in and day out.
Speaker 2: You got to think about where Detroit was in the nineties,
Speaker 2: just like a lot of the inner city neighborhoods dealing
Speaker 2: with the crack epidemic and drugs and gangs and things
Speaker 2: like that. So Detroit was dealing with a bunch of homicides,
Speaker 2: you know, And what they would do is try to
Speaker 2: find ways to resolve unsolved homicides, and they would do
Speaker 2: it in a way that would just downright be violating
Speaker 2: people's constitutional rights.
Speaker 1: So Larry fell into the cross hairs somehow, and it
Speaker 1: didn't make sense because you were a kid who wasn't
Speaker 1: on the radar, shouldn't have been on the raidar of
Speaker 1: the police at all, which must have been tricky just
Speaker 1: to avoid that life in the area and that time
Speaker 1: and place that you were growing up in. But somehow
Speaker 1: or other, you were navigating these challenges and then everything
Speaker 1: went crazy. So Jared set the stage for the whole
Speaker 1: situation if you.
Speaker 2: Would, well, I think the best place to start with.
Speaker 2: Set in the stage is Ralph Cartwright, who was addicted
Speaker 2: to drugs along with his mom, Sondra cart Right, lived
Speaker 2: together in a house that they used to rent out
Speaker 2: rooms to drug dealers to have a supply of drugs.
Speaker 2: And in this case, the victim lived in one of
Speaker 2: those rented rooms because he sold drugs and rob drug dealers.
Speaker 1: Which is dangerous behavior to say the least. So the victim,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Hayes, was shot around five thirty am March twenty four,
Speaker 1: eighty four, in front of the Cartwright's house at twenty
Speaker 1: two fifty Annabel Street, Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 2: The victim was called out of his house at the
Speaker 2: middle of the night to do a drug deal. He
Speaker 2: has someone drive him to an apartment complex. We assume
Speaker 2: he makes a purchase or not he comes back. When
Speaker 2: he's coming back and he's getting out of his vehicle
Speaker 2: is when someone is lying in wait and runs out
Speaker 2: of the bushes and fire shots. The victim takes off
Speaker 2: and runs across the front of the car from whether
Speaker 2: a person dropped them.
Speaker 1: Off and the driver was mister Hayes's friend, a guy
Speaker 1: named Carl Voltz, and.
Speaker 2: Mister Volts saw the shooter and said, I couldn't see
Speaker 2: anyone's face, but he gave a description, and it did
Speaker 2: not match Larry at all. He described the man as
Speaker 2: being heavy set. If you see any picture of Larry
Speaker 2: from back then Larry is then you would not mistake
Speaker 2: him for being heavy set at all.
Speaker 1: Right, But Carl Voltz's description was disregarded, as was the
Speaker 1: statement of another witness, the victim's girlfriend, who was in
Speaker 1: the house at the time of the shooting. What did
Speaker 1: she tell the police?
Speaker 2: She said exactly what she said to the Conviction and
Speaker 2: Charity unit. Years later, she says she never saw anyone
Speaker 2: shoot the victim. The victim was her boyfriend, so she
Speaker 2: would have been honest about that. She said she was
Speaker 2: still in the bed sleep and didn't see anything but
Speaker 2: herd the shots.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: No one knew about that statement until years later. Rather,
Speaker 1: there was a statement from the landlord, Sandra Cartwright, who,
Speaker 1: as someone involved in drugs, she and Ralph were vulnerable
Speaker 1: to police coercion. Well Cartwright attributed the following words to
Speaker 1: the victim's girlfriend quote, I looked right in his face.
Speaker 1: It was butter unquote and as we mentioned, that was
Speaker 1: Larry's childhood nickname.
Speaker 2: That same person denied ever saying that she saw Larry.
Speaker 2: And she also told police the very same day that
Speaker 2: they were investigating, that someone had came up to her
Speaker 2: in a social club and told her that they were
Speaker 2: going to kill her boyfriend, and she gave them the
Speaker 2: name of that person. And they never went to go
Speaker 2: talk to this guy investigate this guy.
Speaker 1: So instead of just an open and shut case, they
Speaker 1: chased down a far less compelling lead than a drug
Speaker 1: dealer who was recently robbed, and who knows what kind
Speaker 1: of relationship that drug dealer had with law enforcement. So
Speaker 1: this much less compelling lead was that one of the
Speaker 1: witnesses had said that they saw a car that belonged
Speaker 1: to a friend of Larry's name, Jay Clay, who delivered newspapers.
Speaker 1: But it was five thirty am, the typical newspaper delivery time,
Speaker 1: and this was on his delivery route.
Speaker 2: Larry's friend has identified his vehicle driving past around the time.
Speaker 2: He has a legitimate reason why. Now, something like that
Speaker 2: in most cases isn't uncommon to be reported and followed
Speaker 2: up on, But in Larry's case, they didn't follow up
Speaker 2: on it to investigate it, to find out if it
Speaker 2: was any truth of whether his friend was involved, well,
Speaker 2: whether he was involved. They investigated to make them involved.
Speaker 2: They apply pressure to Sondra Cartwright and made her come
Speaker 2: up with a version of events that has been found
Speaker 2: to be untrue, and the police knew because they had
Speaker 2: a police report from the young lady said she never
Speaker 2: told Sandra cart Write anything about identifying Larry Smith as
Speaker 2: shooting because she says she was never.
Speaker 1: Up And then Ralph Cartwright supported his mother's narrative saying
Speaker 1: that he didn't see Larry's face, but he recognized him
Speaker 1: anyway in the area before and after the shooting. No, no, no, no, no, no, Like,
Speaker 1: what does that even mean?
Speaker 2: Larry was never identified ever at all by eyewitness. They
Speaker 2: got the witness to say that the person that they
Speaker 2: saw around the crow six, the way they walked was
Speaker 2: similar to how that guy named Butter, you know, a
Speaker 2: couple blocks down walked and also his freeend drives the car.
Speaker 2: So you can see how if you want to make
Speaker 2: that narrative fit, you can make it fit.
Speaker 1: So we have Sandra cart Writ's secondhand identification even though
Speaker 1: the alleged eyewitness said she never saw anyone, and then
Speaker 1: Ralph making an identification of Larry's walk which sounds like
Speaker 1: some sort of like that's almost junk science to the
Speaker 1: nth degree. But this was just a precursor to actual
Speaker 1: junk science later when a Hancho brand footprint was allegedly
Speaker 1: found at the scene. Now, Larry, this was in your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Your friend Jay had probably overheard the shots. When did
Speaker 1: you hear about it?
Speaker 4: Well, my mom she called me at work, said she
Speaker 4: wanted me to go to the police station. I ain't
Speaker 4: asked no question, like okay, mama, I ain't did nothing,
Speaker 4: I ain't involved in nothing. So I got my car
Speaker 4: from work and I drove down there to me twenty
Speaker 4: six years, ten months in seven days actually to come
Speaker 4: home from that ride.
Speaker 2: So as they're investigating the case, they've already gotten out
Speaker 2: ahead of their skis. They've charged both Larry's friend and
Speaker 2: Larry with this murder based solely off of this guy
Speaker 2: who says he saw the vehicle and he's seeing a
Speaker 2: guy running away who appears to walk like Larry, and
Speaker 2: the third party statement of a lady who says someone
Speaker 2: told them they saw, you know, Larry do it. So
Speaker 2: the case immediately starts to fall apart because Jason it
Speaker 2: wasn't true. On the day that Larry was arrested, the
Speaker 2: police go inside of his house and they come out
Speaker 2: and say, we found some shellcasings and these shellcasings, mattch
Speaker 2: some shellcasings that are over at the crime scene right right.
Speaker 1: They said forty caliber bullets were used, and then they
Speaker 1: allegedly found an empty box of forty caliber bullets in
Speaker 1: Larry's bedroom, as well as a spent shellcasing in his
Speaker 1: laundry hamper, which was then said to have been fired
Speaker 1: by the same weapon.
Speaker 2: But then the autopsy report comes back and the autopsy
Speaker 2: says the victim was not with the shallcasings that you
Speaker 2: got from the crime scene or that you got from
Speaker 2: Larry's house. He was shot with a smaller caliber weapon
Speaker 2: and the bullet was left inside of him.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, it gets worse, It.
Speaker 2: Gets, it gets worse.
Speaker 1: Listens to it to keep from crying sometimes, I know.
Speaker 2: But this is gonna really blow your mind. Now. So
Speaker 2: as the weeks are going on and they're turning into months,
Speaker 2: and they're realizing that they got the wrong guy right,
Speaker 2: the wrong two guys.
Speaker 1: But they still tried to square this circle. So let
Speaker 1: me guess they accused Jay the paper boy of firing
Speaker 1: at thirty two.
Speaker 2: The cold defendant is able to produce a lady, and
Speaker 2: this is an older lady, very credible, no dog in
Speaker 2: this fight. She says that that boy was on my
Speaker 2: porch handing me the paper when we both heard the shots,
Speaker 2: and so that definitively places the cold defendant delivering papers.
Speaker 2: So they dissed the charges against the co defendant, And
Speaker 2: now said Larry did this all by himself and had
Speaker 2: to be shooting with two guns and got away on
Speaker 2: foot there with.
Speaker 1: Two guns, like the wild West, like boo boom.
Speaker 2: Boom with the wild West. It gets worse, Okay, when
Speaker 2: they investigate further, they find out that the person who
Speaker 2: dropped off the victim, mister Votes said, I couldn't see
Speaker 2: anyone's face, but the guy was only firing from one gun.
Speaker 2: So literally every step that they took to frame Larry,
Speaker 2: it was unraveling. So what they did was they reached
Speaker 2: to an old trick and they produced a jail house
Speaker 2: informant who put together a false story and he had
Speaker 2: never even met or seen or was even housed with Larry.
Speaker 1: So Larry, back to you. So now you're caught up
Speaker 1: in this vortex. I mean, describe to us what it
Speaker 1: was like. You go from the police station, they interrogate you,
Speaker 1: they took you straight to jail. From there, they kept.
Speaker 3: Me in jail like three days, and they put me
Speaker 3: in a county.
Speaker 1: How long were you in jail awaiting trial?
Speaker 3: Eight months or something?
Speaker 1: Did you get to sign a public defenders trash?
Speaker 3: My mother, she took her last money and got an attorney.
Speaker 4: He didn't do very well more or less like did
Speaker 4: you ever heard the term somebody swap somebody out or
Speaker 4: they don't do a great job. And I say that
Speaker 4: because the guy who testified against me, the jail house person,
Speaker 4: he had testified against other people as well.
Speaker 3: He had a history and if.
Speaker 4: Somebody would when it did some type of investigation, it
Speaker 4: was records that was in there, but the police and
Speaker 4: the prosecutors had them.
Speaker 3: They was in eight files, and.
Speaker 1: It's possible that they never made those records available to
Speaker 1: your attorney, just like the statement from the victim's girlfriend.
Speaker 1: But had you known about this repeat offender snitch, that
Speaker 1: could have crumbled their whole house of cards. But still,
Speaker 1: even without that, this snitch, Edward Allen, his story was
Speaker 1: full of holes. He alleged that you had bragged about
Speaker 1: how you killed Kenneth Hayes with a glock nine millimeter
Speaker 1: guns right while J. Clay had a forty five caliber.
Speaker 1: So he got the calibers wrong and the number of
Speaker 1: assailants wrong. Pretty important details. But nonetheless, the state went
Speaker 1: to trial in November of ninety four, presenting the cart rights,
Speaker 1: this erroneous snitch testimony, as well as the forty caliber
Speaker 1: shell casings, which allegedly served as this connection between Larry
Speaker 1: and the crime scene, even though the victim was killed
Speaker 1: by a thirty two caliber weapon and the only actual eyewitness,
Speaker 1: Carl Voltz, said that the shooter fired only one gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, the police tried to frame Larry.
Speaker 2: It was a plant of forty caliber shalecasinges at and
Speaker 2: around the scene of the shooting, and that these showcases
Speaker 2: were recovered from Larry's house, and when the ballistics came
Speaker 2: back from the autopsy, it clearly was not the same
Speaker 2: caliber and there was some explaining to do.
Speaker 1: Yet they still presented a police technician and a detective
Speaker 1: that testified about the forty caliber bullets found at the
Speaker 1: scene in Larry's house, followed by a medical examiner who
Speaker 1: testified about the thirty two caliber bullets found in the
Speaker 1: body of the victim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the bullet is so much bigger on a
Speaker 2: forty caliber.
Speaker 1: They even presented a police firearms expert, David Pouch, who
Speaker 1: testified to that fact, but he also testified that the
Speaker 1: forty caliber casings found at Larry's house were fired by
Speaker 1: the same gun as the casings from the scene, So
Speaker 1: in other words, just doubling down on the two gun theory.
Speaker 2: Even though the only real eyewitness, Carl Votes, has said
Speaker 2: he never saw anything but one person shooting with one gun.
Speaker 2: Carl testified that as soon as the victim got out
Speaker 2: of the car, someone ran out of a gangway and
Speaker 2: opened fire on him, who he described in detail, and
Speaker 2: the description did not match Larry at all.
Speaker 1: While Carl Bowles exonerated Larry, if the jury were to
Speaker 1: believe him over law enforcement, it would have meant that
Speaker 1: those shells had to have been planted in Larry's house,
Speaker 1: which was something it seems like they were not willing
Speaker 1: to accept. It would have also meant that two more
Speaker 1: officials who took the stand and claimed that Larry had
Speaker 1: made incriminating statements to them while in custody, had actually
Speaker 1: perjured themselves.
Speaker 2: They did purged themselves, I mean, point blank period.
Speaker 1: They lot, but somehow they had muddied the waters enough
Speaker 1: with the casing allegedly found at Larry's house and the scene,
Speaker 1: in addition to a bootprint that was found at the
Speaker 1: scene that they matched with the Hancho brand boot taken
Speaker 1: from Larry's house. When the shoe print analyst took the stand,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor asked, quote, and these are a mirror image
Speaker 1: of that pattern, end quote to which the expert agreed.
Speaker 2: If I found a pair of prints for air Jordans,
Speaker 2: what does that mean nothing?
Speaker 1: There are other Air Jordans, just like there are other
Speaker 1: Hancho brand boots. I mean right, It's like, did they
Speaker 1: only manufacture one pair? It's insane, which is one reason
Speaker 1: why shoeprint analysis is such bullshit, especially when there's no
Speaker 1: other corroborating information.
Speaker 2: The boot was a boot that his cousin had a
Speaker 2: bag full of other clothes. They never provided any context
Speaker 2: to this boot. They never said they saw any mud
Speaker 2: on the boots, that the boots had looked like it
Speaker 2: had been worn at all. There was never any pictures
Speaker 2: matched up to the prints of the boots. The shit
Speaker 2: was all made up.
Speaker 1: And you can hear the shoe print analysis episode of
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction junk signs that we're gonna have linked in
Speaker 1: the bio. I just listened to it again myself. It's
Speaker 1: it's mind boggling. So now we get to our witnesses.
Speaker 1: Let's start with Sandra cart Right, who testified about the
Speaker 1: victim's girlfriend's alleged identification. Quote I looked him right in
Speaker 1: the face. It was butter end quote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I looked him right in the face. And Sandra
Speaker 2: cart Wright had an open case against her, and she
Speaker 2: didn't come to court to testify. On a day that
Speaker 2: she was called, the police issued a warrant for her arrest,
Speaker 2: and in exchange for her testifying, they dismissed the charges
Speaker 2: that were pending against her.
Speaker 1: So incentivized to say the least. But this statement was
Speaker 1: a second hand account. What about the girlfriend herself?
Speaker 2: She was never called to court. It was some trickery.
Speaker 2: And you know, there were some shortcomings of Larry's defense.
Speaker 2: I'll just say that a fast one was gotten over
Speaker 2: on them, and this witness was never called. I don't
Speaker 2: believe that the defense team ever had the police report
Speaker 2: that was taken the night of from the witness who
Speaker 2: says that she never saw anyone. I believe if they
Speaker 2: had that they would have called her. Because we know
Speaker 2: that Larry himself didn't learn of it until after his
Speaker 2: post conviction lawyer had obtained it. And this was already
Speaker 2: a decade later.
Speaker 1: Wow, So the judge, jury and defense were completely unaware
Speaker 1: of the girlfriend's actual statement just Sandra cart writes secondhand
Speaker 1: testimony to the contrary with no opportunity to cross examine
Speaker 1: the actual eyewitness.
Speaker 2: And not only can they not cross examine this person,
Speaker 2: but now you have a jail house in Foreignert coming
Speaker 2: in and you know, he's like, yeah, he told me
Speaker 2: he did it, and things like that, and so you
Speaker 2: put that together, it's the perfect storm.
Speaker 1: And I understand that the inconsistencies between the guns and
Speaker 1: the snitch testimony and the thirty two caliber bullets pulled
Speaker 1: from the body of the victim that was never pointed out.
Speaker 4: I didn't know nothing about this guy testified that gives
Speaker 4: me doing what he had a history of doing. Like
Speaker 4: I just knew I didn't say nothing to him. I
Speaker 4: knew I didn't say nothing to no police, that I
Speaker 4: didn't commit no crime.
Speaker 1: So the fabricated evidence appears to have overcome the only
Speaker 1: actual eyewitness, Carl Voltz, as well as your mother who
Speaker 1: testified about how you were in your basement bedroom all
Speaker 1: night long.
Speaker 2: She knew Larry was in the house because she was
Speaker 2: in the front room finishing up their dissertation to complete
Speaker 2: her Masters and it was only one way Larry could
Speaker 2: get out of his room. He would have to come
Speaker 2: up the stairs and go out the front door.
Speaker 4: When they said guilty, man, do you know that?
Speaker 3: My lawyer?
Speaker 4: When I asked him, I said what they say. He
Speaker 4: pushed away from me like he was scared. He didn't
Speaker 4: even want to talk to me. He wanted to be
Speaker 4: separated from me. And it was like, you got my life.
Speaker 4: Man helped me, you know, helped me. Goodness, man, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I went to Riverside quarantine. First, they brought us off
Speaker 4: a bus, all of us together, and they had a
Speaker 4: woman strip searchers like they had a man tell us
Speaker 4: take all our clothes off, and they had a lady
Speaker 4: inspectors like we was cattle. This introduction into institutions, it
Speaker 4: was like experience and the closest thing that I could
Speaker 4: see slaves having. My second day in general population, I've
Speaker 4: seen a guy get raped. I walked in the shower
Speaker 4: on the guy was getting raped. Eight months seeing I've
Speaker 4: seen a guy get killed.
Speaker 3: I stayed there about ten months.
Speaker 4: From there, they send me up north to u RF
Speaker 4: and that stand for you are fucked.
Speaker 3: They had on KKK.
Speaker 4: Belt buckles, tattoos and that you would have to fight
Speaker 4: with the guards period, and if you didn't fight the guard,
Speaker 4: you had to go to the hole for a year.
Speaker 4: If you whooped the guard, then you was the man.
Speaker 4: If you didn't whoop the guard or you was refused
Speaker 4: to fight. If you lost, it was okay. But if
Speaker 4: you didn't fight, you had to go to a hole.
Speaker 1: For a year like some gladiator shit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, they tell you fight fuck a lock up,
Speaker 4: and that's what it was. So to go through that experience.
Speaker 4: In the whole time, all I'm saying is, damn God,
Speaker 4: why you do this to me? Like I ain't dead nothing,
Speaker 4: So now like I'm going through process of okay, ain't
Speaker 4: no God, ain't no, this, ain't no that. Like Mama,
Speaker 4: I'm trying. Every phone causes eight to ten dollars to
Speaker 4: call home everything. I'm just a purity burden on everybody.
Speaker 4: I need help. The only help I got his meat.
Speaker 4: I just got testified against by somebody who I don't know.
Speaker 4: And then I'm back in nineteen ninety five. I'm finding
Speaker 4: out that the guy who testified against me, the jail
Speaker 4: house person, he had testified against other people as well.
Speaker 4: He had a history. Well how do I find these people?
Speaker 4: And that's put off a whole nother rat race because
Speaker 4: now I'm going through the process of learning to live
Speaker 4: inside of this environment. But I got to ask people
Speaker 4: who they call killers, that I need to find out
Speaker 4: what the hell is going on with me in my life.
Speaker 1: So you were navigating this horrendously violent situation while not
Speaker 1: knowing who, if anyone, you can trust, but still desperately
Speaker 1: in need of information on this snitch Edward Allen, who
Speaker 1: was a prolific jail house snitch, and he wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one by far. Rather, Wayne County had a snitch
Speaker 1: system where they were sort of routinely incentivizing these guys
Speaker 1: not only with lenient sentences, but they took it several
Speaker 1: steps further. I'm talking about drugs, women they would provide.
Speaker 1: They basically turned part of the police station into a flophouse.
Speaker 2: Just going to say that too, Jason, where you can
Speaker 2: come and have girls come in and go out. And
Speaker 2: really what they were doing was this. They had a
Speaker 2: couple men at a time who were housed on a
Speaker 2: ninth floor lockup. And let me explain what the ninth
Speaker 2: floor lockup is. If you're suspected of a crime, the
Speaker 2: police could hold you for up to forty eight hours,
Speaker 2: but at that point they have to either release or
Speaker 2: charge you. So anyone on the ninth floor is only
Speaker 2: supposed to be on the ninth floor for up to
Speaker 2: forty eight to seventy two hours. You know, at most
Speaker 2: they had a couple men at a time who were
Speaker 2: living on the ninth floor who were Michigan Department of
Speaker 2: Corrections inmates who were ritted out and housed on the
Speaker 2: ninth floor and given jobs as tear tenders, and they
Speaker 2: would grab a broom, sweep past your sale, start a
Speaker 2: conversation up with you, and he go out the next
Speaker 2: day and say I talked to him what you need
Speaker 2: me to do?
Speaker 1: And that was the scheme. If I understand this correctly.
Speaker 1: They were giving these guys on the ninth floor like
Speaker 1: papers to read so that they would know what to say,
Speaker 1: right because they obviously nobody confessed to these idiots when
Speaker 1: they were sweeping along the thing like, I mean, just
Speaker 1: thick for a second, how ridiculous that is. Some guy's
Speaker 1: sweeping along. It's like, hey, Larry, how you doing. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. I just killed this guy at five
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. How you doing? What's your name? Again,
Speaker 1: it's so stupid that it's like, I mean, nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, but somehow or other they were able
Speaker 1: to sell it.
Speaker 2: And one of the alleged culprits who was in this
Speaker 2: informant thing, he had done this upwards of twenty cases
Speaker 2: and no alarm bells go off none. This goes without saying,
Speaker 2: but I have to say it. This was happening to
Speaker 2: young black men in the city of Detroit. This would
Speaker 2: have raised alarm beals if this took place in an
Speaker 2: affluent neighborhood or county. They were only doing this to
Speaker 2: people who had very little resources to afford a defense.
Speaker 2: And you say this all the time, Jason. The justice
Speaker 2: system is what you can afford, which.
Speaker 1: You can't absolutely and it starts with cash bail, because
Speaker 1: let's face it, if you have money for bail, you
Speaker 1: don't go through the same experience in the criminal legal
Speaker 1: system as those who don't. Guilty not guilty, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Only money matters, and not having it can leave you
Speaker 1: in a situation or an informant has an opportunity to
Speaker 1: trade false information on you, as what happened in this case,
Speaker 1: that can then be spun to appear truthful in court.
Speaker 1: And this Edward Allen and countless other snitches have worked
Speaker 1: the system with their allies in the prosecutor's offices around
Speaker 1: the country, and who knows, we'll never know how many
Speaker 1: lives they've ruined.
Speaker 4: By the admission of the guy testified against me, not
Speaker 4: only did he lie, he was weaponized by them. They
Speaker 4: taught him what to do when he was a minor
Speaker 4: and then became an adult, and then made it all
Speaker 4: the way to do it to me. Matter of fact,
Speaker 4: it's a guy named Charles Wilson one seven two six
Speaker 4: eight eight. The same guy testified against me, testified against
Speaker 4: him thirteen years before.
Speaker 2: Why he's still in prison.
Speaker 1: He's still in prisons.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's in prison right now, twenty some years.
Speaker 1: And that's Charles Wilson. I'm just gonna write that name
Speaker 1: down right now. I got it our producer Connor, who's
Speaker 1: of course listening in. It sounds like we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to cover this case.
Speaker 2: We're representing mister Wilson. We definitely need a push. I'll
Speaker 2: discuss to you. You know what our strategy.
Speaker 1: Is, well, you know my number. So this guy, Edward Allen,
Speaker 1: Larry was definitely not his only you know, victim, Let's
Speaker 1: call it what it is. In fact, he gave an
Speaker 1: interview edbro Allen gave an interview in twenty seventeen in
Speaker 1: which he spilled his guts on everything, which ended up
Speaker 1: being very helpful in freeing Larry and several others.
Speaker 2: When the informant was interviewed, he said he had never
Speaker 2: seen Larry before. He didn't even know what he looked like.
Speaker 2: He says that he was fed the information by prosecutors
Speaker 2: and by police officers and told what to say, who
Speaker 2: to point out, and how to get around the questions
Speaker 2: of the defense attorney. This was not an accident. This
Speaker 2: was deliberate. Larry and his mom were ill prepared to
Speaker 2: fight against this because Larry had never been in any
Speaker 2: trouble before. His mom at the time that this was
Speaker 2: going on, she was so adamant that Larry didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: And do you know whose testimony they found not credible
Speaker 2: and whose testimony they found credible? I can guess they
Speaker 2: found mom's testimony not credible. But somehow a lifelong informant
Speaker 2: who had not even met Larry didn't have any of
Speaker 2: the details correct. Somehow the court in the jurors found
Speaker 2: this got to be more credible than the person who
Speaker 2: gave birth and raised.
Speaker 1: Larry credible until, of course, he was no longer useful.
Speaker 1: And as I understand it, before the twenty seventeen interview
Speaker 1: and all this information came out, Allen had actually written
Speaker 1: a letter to Larry in two thousand and three admitting
Speaker 1: that he'd lied. But the judge denied your motion for
Speaker 1: a new trial anyway, saying that she didn't find Alan's
Speaker 1: recantation credible. How convenient, then your new attorney, Mary Owens,
Speaker 1: filed habeas in two thousand and seven. The following year,
Speaker 1: the Michigan State Crime Lab was shuddered after widespread errors
Speaker 1: and firearm testing and ballistics evidence were exposed, including in
Speaker 1: cases involving the expert in your case, David Pouch. So
Speaker 1: when Mary Owen sought to retest the forty caliber casings
Speaker 1: allegedly found at the scene and in your basement, the
Speaker 1: crime scene casings were saved, but the one from your
Speaker 1: basement had been destroyed. Again quite convenient.
Speaker 4: So I had just jumped from two thousand and seven
Speaker 4: to twenty and thirteen, right, I'm transferring from prison to prison.
Speaker 4: So a guy by the name of Jesse agnew He
Speaker 4: asked me to see a brief of mine. He said, hey, man,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna introduce you to Claudia Whitman. She came from
Speaker 4: Colorado and she went to bat for me for like
Speaker 4: twelve years. She fought for me pro bono, her and
Speaker 4: Mary Owens, and come be known all the guys who
Speaker 4: got released based on this what happened to me. Claudia Whitman,
Speaker 4: she ended up knowing all of them.
Speaker 2: There were four guys whose convictions were reversed that were
Speaker 2: tied to this ninth floor allegation in a certain set
Speaker 2: of homicide detectives, and.
Speaker 4: They had what they call our Conviction Integrity Unit in
Speaker 4: Wayne County. That's what opened up and that's what freed me.
Speaker 2: So when Val Newman and the Conviction Integrity Unit started
Speaker 2: investigating these cases, they saw that the same allegations were
Speaker 2: being made. And Jason, you know how that goes, right, Like,
Speaker 2: if one person, yeah, two persons maybe, but if three,
Speaker 2: four people, five people are saying the same thing, then
Speaker 2: it deserves some credit and also some deeper dive investigation.
Speaker 2: In Larry's case, they went to interview the witnesses again,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, the young lady said again she never
Speaker 2: told anyone she saw Larry shoot anyone because she wasn't
Speaker 2: even looking out outside. She said she never said it.
Speaker 2: So at that point is when I believe Val Newman
Speaker 2: and the Conviction Intergrity Unit acknowledged the corruption that was
Speaker 2: so blatant in the case. I took my cap to
Speaker 2: the courage it took from that office to would turn
Speaker 2: his conviction, because if it was left to Larry filling
Speaker 2: the motion in court, we would be doing this interview
Speaker 2: off of a prison call, because no court really designed
Speaker 2: to take such courageous acts. They are more so designed
Speaker 2: to preserve finality than they are to deliver justice.
Speaker 1: That's true across our entire criminal legal system, unfortunately, and
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the United States actually ruled that
Speaker 1: way and said that even in death penalty cases, that
Speaker 1: finality is more important than actual innocence. And people find
Speaker 1: that shocking, and it is shocking, and it should be
Speaker 1: shocking to anybody of good conscience or just anybody at all.
Speaker 1: But that's where we're at. And of course the system
Speaker 1: is designed thanks to the awful EDPA Act back from
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four and other factors. Yeah, we need to
Speaker 1: repeal edput exactly. And these things make it virtually impossible
Speaker 1: for somebody to dig out of that quicksand that you
Speaker 1: found yourself in. And luckily there was a conviction of
Speaker 1: you unit, and luckily there was somebody there who was sincere,
Speaker 1: and that's a big part of why you're here.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: It's heavy, and I think every day like I love
Speaker 4: al Newman because if it be one for her, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: be out of prison. She said that one wrongfully convicted
Speaker 4: was one too many. So you know, I'm just hopeful
Speaker 4: that they hear this and they hear the pleat for
Speaker 4: that man, Charles Wilson, so that I can get that
Speaker 4: stuff for all my conscience because I know that guy
Speaker 4: lied on me. And every time I talk to Charles Wilson,
Speaker 4: I'm telling him, Bro, it's gonna be all right. And
Speaker 4: it's making me feel like I'm a liar, because it's
Speaker 4: not all right for somebody to wake up for forty
Speaker 4: years plus in prison for a crime to commit.
Speaker 3: It's not all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, we're in that fight together and that's for sure.
Speaker 1: And we got Jared, you know, And for me, it's
Speaker 1: such an honor to get to know you and to
Speaker 1: see people like yourself who've been through hell and come
Speaker 1: out carrying buckets of water for the people left behind.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think there's anything better. You know,
Speaker 1: you could be doing and taking this horrible, horrible, unimaginable
Speaker 1: experience and transforming it into positive good, just as Jarrett
Speaker 1: has done and has so many of the other ex houneries.
Speaker 1: So okay, so let's get to the good stuff. So
Speaker 1: ultimately you prevailed. So take us to that series of events,
Speaker 1: because I you know, we've had a lot of doom
Speaker 1: and gloom on this show, but I want to hear
Speaker 1: the good stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, they had let Ramon War go, they had a
Speaker 4: little Sino Hamilton go, they had let Banara Hower go.
Speaker 4: So watching these people go, my attorney told me that
Speaker 4: she felt like they was going to do something. So
Speaker 4: I was in the in there sleeping and guys come
Speaker 4: and hit the door.
Speaker 3: Boom boom boom boom boom. I jump up, like, man,
Speaker 3: what's up?
Speaker 4: Go to the door. They're like, man, you going home tomorrow.
Speaker 4: You're going home tomorrow. And it's people all I'm talking about,
Speaker 4: like prisoners. They all in the hall way and I'm
Speaker 4: coming out. I'm looking like what's up? And the security
Speaker 4: guards people they clapping.
Speaker 3: Like, bro, you're going home tomorrow. I'm like what They're like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I go to the TV. I see it on the TV.
Speaker 3: I get up there.
Speaker 4: I started passing my stuff for a whund because they
Speaker 4: say I'm going to court tomorrow where they saying they're
Speaker 4: going to drop the charges. So the next day came
Speaker 4: and I didn't go to court. I just walked straight
Speaker 4: from back in the day room with a prison to
Speaker 4: the control center to the street where I read a foreigner,
Speaker 4: half paid statement about other people in it semitically frail
Speaker 4: over sentenced being incarcerated, asking the governor to take a
Speaker 4: look at what had been taking place. And that's just
Speaker 4: what happened, man Like. It wasn't no big long. It was, oh,
Speaker 4: you're going home to Maryland, and I was to it.
Speaker 1: I must have seemed like a dream, especially since you
Speaker 1: were woken up out of a deep sleep and just banging,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden everybody's cheering. I mean,
Speaker 1: you must have had that dream before and now it
Speaker 1: was real.
Speaker 4: I'll just say this for anybody who've been through what
Speaker 4: we've been through. Right, they gonna understand this. It's times
Speaker 4: in my life that I still think I'm dreaming. But
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna do nothing to mess it up. See,
Speaker 4: I ain't gonna do nothing to mess it up long
Speaker 4: as I keep putting out good energy, long as I
Speaker 4: keep giving the love that was bestowed on me.
Speaker 3: See, I ain't get a second chance. This was really
Speaker 3: my first chance.
Speaker 4: But for a lot of people our experiences, they considered
Speaker 4: to be a second chance. They say stuff like, don't
Speaker 4: do that no more. Right, So you're right, I won't
Speaker 4: go down to the police station. Like, you're right, I
Speaker 4: won't do that no more. But as far Red just
Speaker 4: loving it being a part of giving energy and advocating
Speaker 4: on behalf of innocent people, medically frail people. Oh but
Speaker 4: since people like I'm gonna do that every day and
Speaker 4: a day gonna go by, I ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 1: Larry, is there anything you want people to do? Is
Speaker 1: there a website you think they should go to? Is
Speaker 1: there another person besides Charles Wilson you want to shout
Speaker 1: out and bring attention to their case? And what can
Speaker 1: people do to help?
Speaker 4: So out of Wayne County we got Tamara Washington, She's
Speaker 4: going through what I'm going through. They say her file
Speaker 4: is missing. So she talked to Dwayne County prosecuted. She
Speaker 4: told us that she would do what was needed in
Speaker 4: order to help her out, but she never did. So
Speaker 4: I want to shout out to Merraa Washington four A
Speaker 4: six three six y four Wayne Duve sixteen forty four
Speaker 4: ninety eight, again innocent, but he been in prison over
Speaker 4: forty some years. So I want to ask you guys
Speaker 4: this question. When a person is innocent, right and they
Speaker 4: got natural life, when you say that over and over again,
Speaker 4: what is the next step? Is there any formal relief?
Speaker 4: Is there any formal relief with a person with a
Speaker 4: death sentence inside of prison? Is there another option that's
Speaker 4: made available for that person too? So you serve forty
Speaker 4: forty one, forty five years, when is enough enough? So
Speaker 4: I just want to point that out that in this
Speaker 4: country where you don't have no self gates and then
Speaker 4: how you pronounce it the ADPA atput so then you
Speaker 4: got something as such, it don't allow us to file
Speaker 4: our appeals. So I'm hopeful that us is on the
Speaker 4: reads as a collective can march down on DC, and
Speaker 4: that we could talk to these administrations about what's taking
Speaker 4: place in this country. Because without getting our friends at
Speaker 4: the top to help us on our local levels and
Speaker 4: getting our people on the local levels to work with
Speaker 4: us people on these levels.
Speaker 3: We done, man, We done.
Speaker 4: So that's all I just want to say, is innocent
Speaker 4: medically frail over sentience It When you get old and
Speaker 4: you innocent, you're going to die in prison. That means
Speaker 4: you're gonna become medically frail because you over sentenced. I
Speaker 4: just want people to learn that.
Speaker 1: With that, we now turned to my favorite part of
Speaker 1: the show, which of course is called closing arguments or
Speaker 1: I again thank YouTube guys, Jared Adams, Larry Smith Jr.
Speaker 1: For being here with us today and sharing your stories.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to turn my microphone off and
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair, close my eyes with my
Speaker 1: headphones on, and just listen to any other thoughts you
Speaker 1: want to share with me and our amazing audience. So, Jared,
Speaker 1: we always do it the same way. You go first,
Speaker 1: and then we turn it over to our future guest.
Speaker 2: I would love for us to find a way to
Speaker 2: implement both strategies that prevent wrongful convictions collectively as well
Speaker 2: as tackle issues of reintegration. And I say collectively again,
Speaker 2: and I'm speaking to the entire innocent world when i
Speaker 2: say this, the innocence world, the movement, the network, the organizations.
Speaker 2: We need to start moving as one body because it
Speaker 2: is way too difficult to deal with one case alone. Collectively,
Speaker 2: if we move in the same direction, the same accord,
Speaker 2: same beat, it allows us to fight this giant a
Speaker 2: lot more effectively. I say that along with tackling the
Speaker 2: issue of government entities such as cities like the City
Speaker 2: of Detroit, who has decided not to compensate mister Smith
Speaker 2: but instead find a way to limit their damages and
Speaker 2: continue to drag mister Smith through this anxiety field roller
Speaker 2: coaster that has not sopped since he went down to
Speaker 2: the police station willingly because his mama called him.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to say that for every person that's
Speaker 4: got a family member that's incarcerated, some people saying they innocent,
Speaker 4: other people, you know, they're just there for a long time,
Speaker 4: don't give up on your people. If if my people
Speaker 4: would have gave up on me, I would have died
Speaker 4: in prison for a crime ie commit. And it was
Speaker 4: that energy that allowed me to carry on to our
Speaker 4: community in which I stay here and to be able
Speaker 4: to put forth these actions. So I just call on
Speaker 4: every person out there to put forth they good effort,
Speaker 4: put forth they good heart, because it's something good and everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful anyway.
Speaker 4: So free William Wiley, Free Tamia Washington, of course, free
Speaker 4: Charles Wilson. And thank you for having us, Thank you
Speaker 4: for having Jared and myself, and thank you for doing
Speaker 4: what you do. Oh freeda innocent freedom medically frail Fredo
Speaker 4: over since we cannot lead it out.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team
Speaker 1: Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
Speaker 1: at Wrong for Conviction. You can also follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company
Speaker 1: Number one