Speaker 1: On April twenty ninth, two thousand and seven, two masked
Speaker 1: gunmen entered a trailer home occupied by a group of
Speaker 1: undocumented workers in Slide Down, Louisiana and demanded their cash.
Speaker 1: When Jose Carlos Martinez Carpio didn't comply, he was fatally
Speaker 1: shot and a gunman fled in a Chevy Tahoe. The
Speaker 1: witnesses described a gunman as two black men around five
Speaker 1: eight to five ten with no tattoos. Two men were
Speaker 1: reported disposing of a gun outside of a Chevy Tahoe,
Speaker 1: and testing confirmed that that gun was the murder weapon.
Speaker 1: The investigation led to seventeen year old Glenn Carter, who
Speaker 1: confessed to the crime in exchanged for leniency, saying that
Speaker 1: his accomplice was a guy named E. Police approached one
Speaker 1: of Carter's known associates, Ezra Cooper, who offered a trade
Speaker 1: information about two more assailants for leniency. But in a
Speaker 1: crime involving only two assailants, wasn't such lies just be ignored,
Speaker 1: especially when those lies change repeatedly to adapt a new evidence.
Speaker 1: When two different sets of facts were needed to convict
Speaker 1: the actual purpose and these other two guys, A judge
Speaker 1: would never let that slide, right, you would think, but
Speaker 1: this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today
Speaker 1: we're headed to the incarceration capital of the most incarcerated
Speaker 1: nation in the world, and of course I'm talking about Louisiana.
Speaker 1: And today's case involves four men convicted separately for the
Speaker 1: same crime. Two were admittedly guilty, while the other two
Speaker 1: were wrongfully convicted, and each conviction involved a slightly or
Speaker 1: entirely different set of quote unquote facts. And we hope
Speaker 1: for justice to be served for both of the wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted men. One of them is with us today, Jase Washington,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. All yeah, we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And with him his peers advocate Izia Free,
Speaker 1: who was alerted to this insane injustice while during COVID
Speaker 1: taking a break from law school writing articles about the
Speaker 1: criminal legal system. Now she just passed the bar, but
Speaker 1: instead of following the corporate law route that she had
Speaker 1: originally charted and planned for herself, she's diving into her
Speaker 1: very first criminal case pro bono. So, Izzy, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so Jase. Before we launch into
Speaker 1: everything that's wrong with the criminal legal system in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: especially in Saint Tamminy Parish, and your case in particular,
Speaker 1: we'd like to get to know you a bit well.
Speaker 2: I was born in Probley, Louisiana. My mother and my
Speaker 2: father separated when I was younger, so I had kind
Speaker 2: of been going back and forth between them and wait
Speaker 2: to see permanent my fall the Ondell and we'll playing
Speaker 2: a lot of sports baseball, basketball, football, or Leydon.
Speaker 1: And I got a skateboardings so you were living a
Speaker 1: very active lifestyle and Slide Dell, Louisiana with your dad.
Speaker 1: And to make better sense of this story, our audience
Speaker 1: might want to take a look at Slide Dell on
Speaker 1: a map. Now, most people are familiar with New Orleans,
Speaker 1: of course, which is on the south side of Lake
Speaker 1: Pontre Train. Slide Dell, on the other hand, is just
Speaker 1: across the lake to the northeast from New Orleans at
Speaker 1: another fifteen minutes east to Long Eye ten brings you
Speaker 1: right into Mississippi. If you go west over the north
Speaker 1: side of Lake Pontre Train, you go further into Louisiana,
Speaker 1: where Jace used to go to a skate park. So
Speaker 1: skateboarding was big for you as was basketball. Right, How
Speaker 1: tall are you?
Speaker 2: I'm about four.
Speaker 1: So six three sixty four definitely not around five to nine.
Speaker 1: Along with a number of other physical characteristics, I should
Speaker 1: have disqualified you as a suspect in this crime, and
Speaker 1: also as evidenced by your squeaky clean record prior to this,
Speaker 1: if I understand correctly, you had never been in trouble
Speaker 1: with the law in a place where I understand it's
Speaker 1: a difficult maze to navigate for a young black man
Speaker 1: just to emerge unscathed.
Speaker 2: Right, I've payed out of trouble that wasn't in my faith.
Speaker 2: Being in Saint Kamney Tarandeine in Louisiana is a very
Speaker 2: very peculiar situation for young black people, especially young black males.
Speaker 2: You have higher chances of being disadvantaged by the system
Speaker 2: coming out and scathed. It's rather hard whether you're a
Speaker 2: terrible person, a troublemaker, or you're not. I was not.
Speaker 1: No, you were not not even a smudge on your record.
Speaker 1: You are a great student athlete who simply had one
Speaker 1: unfortunate acquaintance. And we're going to get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute, but first, in Louisiana from the Post Reconstruction
Speaker 1: era straight on through to a ballid INITIAI of the past.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Jase and so many others, countless others
Speaker 1: were or could have been convicted by a non unanimous jury,
Speaker 1: first by a jury of get this nine out of twelve.
Speaker 1: Then they changed it too. Eventually they changed it to
Speaker 1: ten out of twelve. And the reason I don't want
Speaker 1: to insult anybody's intelligens because you probably already figured it out.
Speaker 1: So they could disenfranchise black jurors and to make use
Speaker 1: of the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole as punishment for a crime,
Speaker 1: whether the person was guilty or not. Now, in covering
Speaker 1: this case, I came upon a person who helped to
Speaker 1: organize that twenty eighteen ballot initiative. She's very active in
Speaker 1: Saint Tammany and remembers Jason's trial.
Speaker 3: Well, my name is Belinda Parker Brown. I'm with Louisiana
Speaker 3: United International, with a civil constitutional human rights organization that
Speaker 3: focus on the injustice and the criminal justice system. Our
Speaker 3: organization is responsible for nicknaming this racist, unconstitutional Jim Crow law,
Speaker 3: this non unanimous jury verdict. Nicknamed it ten to two.
Speaker 1: You know, I was so happy to see that happen
Speaker 1: during the twenty eighteen mid terms. But here we are,
Speaker 1: just after the twenty twenty two midterms, in which there
Speaker 1: were ballid issues all over the country where voters were
Speaker 1: given the opportunity to end the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole
Speaker 1: in their states, and that measure was approved by the
Speaker 1: way and all of the other states that voted on
Speaker 1: it except for one, Louisiana. But Louisiana is not alone,
Speaker 1: far from it and still benefiting from slave labor. And
Speaker 1: it needs to stop in every state, especially when you
Speaker 1: have entire parishes or counties in this country seemingly devoted
Speaker 1: to pumping out one wrongful conviction after another. And of course,
Speaker 1: no one is more vulnerable to the machinery of our
Speaker 1: criminal legal system than the poor.
Speaker 3: They wind up taking a plea to things that they
Speaker 3: did not do. And that's what they were doing here
Speaker 3: in Saint Tammany, forcing, threatening, badgering young black men to
Speaker 3: take pleas to things that they did not do, just
Speaker 3: because they could not afford attorney. And because of that,
Speaker 3: the lead district attorney, Walter Reed, nicknamed this parish Saint
Speaker 3: Tammany Saint slammony, and that became something that they'd celebrated
Speaker 3: here in this paragh, especially when the reelections and all
Speaker 3: of that stuff would come around. You know, they was
Speaker 3: tough on crime. And you know if you come over
Speaker 3: here with your chie wei's and your dreadlocks, and you
Speaker 3: know we're gonna get you, We're gonna lock you up
Speaker 3: and throw the key away.
Speaker 1: Right. I read the quote that I believe you're referring to,
Speaker 1: and at first I couldn't believe it was real because
Speaker 1: of just the naked racism of it. It was from
Speaker 1: the Saint Tammany Sheriff Sheriff Jack Strain, and this is
Speaker 1: the guy who had been in powered there since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five. He was running for reelection in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: just after Jason's conviction, and on the campaign trail he said,
Speaker 1: and this is a direct quote, he said, for some reason,
Speaker 1: New Orleans chooses to coddle criminals in that area that
Speaker 1: tend to get away with a great deal. End quote.
Speaker 1: And first off, No Orleans Parish between Harry Connock Senior
Speaker 1: and Leon Canazaro was notorious. But back to the quote
Speaker 1: he said, quote, we will not coddle that trash in
Speaker 1: Saint Tammany Parish. If you're going to walk the streets
Speaker 1: with dreadlocks and chewy hairstyles, then you can expect to
Speaker 1: get a visit from a sheriff's deputy.
Speaker 3: Everybody knew who he was talking about. It was the
Speaker 3: most profound racial sickness that can come out of a
Speaker 3: person's mouth that really, you know, inspired me to begin
Speaker 3: to protest against the sheriff's jail. It's like a god
Speaker 3: forsaken hellhole.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: People were being beat and raped and committing so called suicide.
Speaker 3: And he had something that we nicknamed them the squirrel cages.
Speaker 1: These squirrel cages were these three by three or four
Speaker 1: by four foot cells. I mean they were like phone boots, basically,
Speaker 1: nowhere to move, just you could just stand still pretty much,
Speaker 1: and of course no plumbing.
Speaker 3: In these squirrel cages. They would defecate on themselves. They
Speaker 3: would put them in their butt naked for weeks. You know,
Speaker 3: people would just say, okay, I'll do whatever you want
Speaker 3: me to do. I'll say it, you know, I just
Speaker 3: want to get this.
Speaker 1: Over with, and using torture tactics like these pretty much
Speaker 1: insures that law enforce will get whatever statement they want
Speaker 1: to fix a rig a case. So add to that
Speaker 1: to ninety nineimus jury verdicts, and you've got a system
Speaker 1: fixed to maintain a ninety eight percent conviction rate. These
Speaker 1: are the tactics that they used in Jas's case, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a bit. So, Belinda, after
Speaker 1: Jason had already gone to Prisident and Sheriff's strain had
Speaker 1: made these comments while campaigning, your organization had taken to
Speaker 1: the streets to protest.
Speaker 3: Doing the protest on public property, they came out and
Speaker 3: told us to get off of their land. And at
Speaker 3: that particular time, my youngest son, because he was videotaping
Speaker 3: for us at that protest, they the arrested him and
Speaker 3: put him inside of one of those squirrel cages. And
Speaker 3: literally that put the gasoline on my fire to go
Speaker 3: after these people for the wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: So if you take nothing else away from this story,
Speaker 1: it's that you shouldn't fuck with Belinda. So, the two
Speaker 1: people most responsible for Jason's wrongful conviction and countless others,
Speaker 1: the DA Walter Reid, got convicted of a number of
Speaker 1: financial crimes, and from what I understand, those were the
Speaker 1: ones that the FBI could make stick. But the sheriff, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you tell.
Speaker 3: It, Jack Strain. He would spend the rest of his
Speaker 3: life in prison. This sheriff was just a very sick,
Speaker 3: sick man.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: As an organizer, you know, people would come to me
Speaker 3: with these stories and I would like try to vet
Speaker 3: what they're saying. After we dug up everything that we
Speaker 3: possibly could on him. And it was over thirty three
Speaker 3: witnesses that was coming forth saying that the sheriff was raped,
Speaker 3: been people inside of the jail. He was charged with incests,
Speaker 3: raping and molesting his own family members.
Speaker 1: It's an absolute horror show, and it somehow gets worse.
Speaker 1: This sheriff was also brought up on bribery charges. They
Speaker 1: were privatizing the work release program basically slave trading under
Speaker 1: a different name, and he was getting kickbacks from those
Speaker 1: contending to take it private. Just it's unreal. Meanwhile, of
Speaker 1: course he was out there putting these people in squirrel cages,
Speaker 1: in these literal torture cages to supply fresh bodies for
Speaker 1: this slave trade.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if the people are aware
Speaker 3: that the state and the federal government give so much
Speaker 3: money to the jails and prison and you got to
Speaker 3: be at least at ninety seven percent occupancy before you
Speaker 3: can receive the federal and state funding.
Speaker 1: So not only did this sheriff Strain have his own
Speaker 1: the various incentive to keep convictions up as of course
Speaker 1: to the DA seeking re election, but there's literally also
Speaker 1: a financial incentive from the state and federal government to
Speaker 1: keep up the supply of fresh bodies in a center.
Speaker 1: Not that same vile and perverse incentive leads many municipalities
Speaker 1: all over this country to operate this way, torturing or
Speaker 1: coursing statements from not only the quote unquote suspects, but
Speaker 1: witnesses as well.
Speaker 3: Jack Halstead was one of the corrupt prosecutors and that
Speaker 3: prosecuted Jase that was known for badgering and threatening witnesses
Speaker 3: and tell them say if you don't say what it
Speaker 3: is we want you to say. You know, you're gonna
Speaker 3: get your kids taken away from you. You're not going
Speaker 3: to be able to get a job. They literally made
Speaker 3: people lives miserable. You know, we got people that would
Speaker 3: testify to that their doors and stuff were kicked in.
Speaker 1: Again, you've heard these tactics before on this show, and
Speaker 1: if police have never threatened you or coursed you this way,
Speaker 1: maybe you'd be inclined to believe the things they say
Speaker 1: in court and find yourself among the ten out of
Speaker 1: twelve who consistently voted to convict. And so as we
Speaker 1: begin to talk about this case in which there were
Speaker 1: two assailants, you'll see how these two now disgraced former
Speaker 1: elected officials, along with the Jim Crow era practice of
Speaker 1: non unanimous juries, were all integral to Jace's conviction, as
Speaker 1: well as the perverse incentives locally for the sheriff, of course,
Speaker 1: and from the state of federal government. And how and
Speaker 1: why these nefarious actors in Saint Tammany Parish would decide
Speaker 1: to prosecute four young men in a case in which
Speaker 1: there were only two assailants. The two actual admitted assailants
Speaker 1: were Glenn Carter and Edrick Cooper. Grant Gathers and our guest,
Speaker 1: Jace Washington were in addition to what was even called
Speaker 1: for now. Jace, you didn't even know Glenn, right, but
Speaker 1: I understand that you did know Grant and Edric.
Speaker 2: All of us went to school together, you know, create
Speaker 2: basketball and school together. Grant were a little a little
Speaker 2: more than a quaintance's closest.
Speaker 1: Than ed and from what I understand, they both had
Speaker 1: a criminal record. Edric has admitted to making a habit
Speaker 1: of trading false or real information for freedom and his
Speaker 1: general occupation of petty theft and grant had been convicted
Speaker 1: once before, but his experience with the system in Saint
Speaker 1: Tammany played into his decision once they came after him
Speaker 1: for this. So that brings us to April twenty nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. This crime happened in Slide El, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: just on the north side of Lake Poncher Trade from
Speaker 1: New Orleans, where five or six undocumented workers were living
Speaker 1: in the trailer as a home base for their day
Speaker 1: labor jobs in New Orleans. Now being undocumented, these guys
Speaker 1: carried cash and were not likely to go to law
Speaker 1: enforcement if they were robbed, which made them easy targets. So,
Speaker 1: according to the initial statements from the victim's friends, two
Speaker 1: gunmen came into the trailer demanding money. The victim, Jose
Speaker 1: Carlos Martinez Carpio, had trouble understanding with the language barrier
Speaker 1: and attacked the gunman with a kitchen knife or something
Speaker 1: and he was fatally shot. The assailants then fled, leaving
Speaker 1: the rest of the men in the trailer stunned and
Speaker 1: grieving as well as in It was impossibly precarious predicament,
Speaker 1: so some time went by before they called the police.
Speaker 1: The first nine one one call was at nine to
Speaker 1: seventeen PM.
Speaker 2: It was a yap there to God think next door
Speaker 2: to them ended up calling nine one one. That's what
Speaker 2: he explained, that another child that minutes had passed time
Speaker 2: had passed from the time of the shots by and
Speaker 2: been on when one called, because they were trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what.
Speaker 1: To do, and I want to bring Izzy in here now.
Speaker 1: Some of the witnesses in the trailer that night were
Speaker 1: interviewed by the police, right.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think all of them were actually interviewed. But
Speaker 4: there were some of them that said that they heard
Speaker 4: the gunshot. They closed their doors and did not come
Speaker 4: outside at all. But there were two people who said
Speaker 4: that they described seeing two people, the gunmen, enter the
Speaker 4: mobile home. They had their faces covered, but their arms
Speaker 4: were bare, and they could tell that they were black men.
Speaker 4: The taller of the two men went into the kitchen
Speaker 4: area and then they heard gunshots coming from the kitchen area,
Speaker 4: and the shorter gunman who was at the door, he
Speaker 4: was nervous and so he fired his weapon onto the floor,
Speaker 4: and then he also fled the area.
Speaker 1: So the gunman fled. The two witnesses are Echo, Gooyan
Speaker 1: and Avola. They said that one gunman was taller than
Speaker 1: the other, but not by much.
Speaker 4: They said that they were similar to their height, which
Speaker 4: was about five eight and five ten foot tall. Jayce
Speaker 4: stands about six four feet tall and Carter and Cooper
Speaker 4: is about five eight five ten feet tall. Now, jas
Speaker 4: is a black man, but he is extremely light skinned.
Speaker 4: Carter is a little darker. The witnesses that were inside
Speaker 4: the home saw the arms of the assailants, said no,
Speaker 4: they didn't have any tattoos. But if you look at
Speaker 4: Jays he has clearly visible tattoos on both arms.
Speaker 1: So that's three major features right there that don't match
Speaker 1: the witness's descriptions that should have been right there. These
Speaker 1: are things that are not subject to the pitfalls of misidentification.
Speaker 1: You can't really mistake no tattoos for tattoos, dramatic contrasted
Speaker 1: skin tone and six four for five eight.
Speaker 4: The two people that they saw in the mobile home.
Speaker 4: Did not mash the description of Jace Washington.
Speaker 1: Or Grand Gathers for that matter.
Speaker 4: No, they mashed the description of Cooper and Carter right.
Speaker 1: But at this point, the cops just had two black
Speaker 1: men five eight and five ten, dark skin, no tattoos,
Speaker 1: both with guns, faces recovered. I believe they mentioned as
Speaker 1: Chevy Tahoe according to a report written by one of
Speaker 1: the detectives in this case, a detective calendar. Other witnesses
Speaker 1: reported the Chevy Tahoe as well.
Speaker 4: Right April thirtieth, there was an eyewitness that reported two
Speaker 4: black males in a car very close to the crime area.
Speaker 4: One of the black males exit the car and appear
Speaker 4: to be hiding a weapon in the bushes. The officers
Speaker 4: they were able to retrieve the gun and then trace
Speaker 4: the gun to one of the guns that was used
Speaker 4: in that robbery, and that's what led officers to arrest
Speaker 4: Carter in the first place.
Speaker 1: So they zeroed in on seventeen year old Glenn Carter
Speaker 1: a few days later on May third, when he was
Speaker 1: thrown into a squirrel cage, and I believe he was
Speaker 1: facing the death penalty. So it's not a hard decision
Speaker 1: to cooperate. He confessed to the crime, giving a very
Speaker 1: similar story as to witnesses, and gave up the name
Speaker 1: E for the initial E as his accomplice. Now, the
Speaker 1: police were already familiar with eighteen year old Edrick Cooper
Speaker 1: as a known associate of Glenn Carter from previous running,
Speaker 1: so this was basically all the corroboration they needed to
Speaker 1: go scoop him up.
Speaker 2: Who were he was wanted by the detectives already all
Speaker 2: a week earlier they had been looking for him. That
Speaker 2: was the way they were able to identify who Glenn
Speaker 2: Carter was talking about his accompanies.
Speaker 4: So on May fifth, Edrick Cooper he also confessed, but
Speaker 4: he told the officers that there were two other people
Speaker 4: who were with him, Jason Washington and Grant Gethers.
Speaker 2: By Carter implicating him him already being wanted, pulled two
Speaker 2: names out the air try to relieve some of the
Speaker 2: trouble that he was in. It could have been anybody,
Speaker 2: as peoplework from other witnesses that was interviewed by detectives,
Speaker 2: they say he added four or three other names. You know,
Speaker 2: if the detectives knew Cooper was not telling the truth,
Speaker 2: because there were things that they already knew that Cooper
Speaker 2: did not realize they knew right.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned earlier, this was Cooper's m O
Speaker 1: to trade false information for freedom. Saint Tammany police knew
Speaker 1: that from previous interactions, but they were more than happy
Speaker 1: to work with him anyway.
Speaker 2: In the unrelated prime, the same thing happened. I witnesses
Speaker 2: gave descriptions that sid Carter and Cooper called a told
Speaker 2: on Cooper again, and when detectives asked Cooper about it,
Speaker 2: he implicated a third party, and eyewitnesses descriptions that they
Speaker 2: gave did not hit this third party. All the numbers assailings,
Speaker 2: that number of sus that were seen in this other
Speaker 2: unrelated prime.
Speaker 1: Yep, DejaVu all over again. And as we spoke about already,
Speaker 1: Saint Tammany, the sheriff, the DA, they all had their
Speaker 1: own list of incentives to work with Cooper, and none
Speaker 1: of them were truth, justice or public safety. So what
Speaker 1: we're going to see unfold here is the prosecution of
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter on the basis of the witness statements from
Speaker 1: the trailer and his own confession. Then Edrick Cooper pled
Speaker 1: guilty under the same set of facts and then Jace
Speaker 1: gets prosecuted under a totally different narrative. The jury was
Speaker 1: kept completely in the dark, and Cooper was allowed to
Speaker 1: change the details and manipulate the narrative over time in
Speaker 1: order to implicate two more young men, Jason Grant, in
Speaker 1: a crime in which there were only two assailants. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about the ever changing false narrative of Edrick Cooper.
Speaker 4: The initial statement that he gave, he said all four
Speaker 4: of them rode to the crime scene in Carter's vehicle.
Speaker 4: He said that he had a black nine millimeter luger,
Speaker 4: Jace had a thirty eight, and Carter had a forty five.
Speaker 4: He said, Jace and Carter entered the trailer and Cooper
Speaker 4: and Grant stood outside as the lookouts. And so when
Speaker 4: they heard the gunshot, that's when they all started running
Speaker 4: and they drove out of the crime scene, all four
Speaker 4: of them in Carter's car. That's the story that he
Speaker 4: told the officers.
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter, and the trailer witnesses said that Carter, the
Speaker 1: taller of the two gunmen, went into the kitchen, while
Speaker 1: the shorter gunman stayed in the front by the door.
Speaker 1: First of all, if Jace was one of the gunmen,
Speaker 1: then he most certainly would have been the taller one
Speaker 1: by far. Jace being six four is an irreconcilable truth
Speaker 1: on its face, as are the tattoos. Then you have
Speaker 1: the witnesses that reported seeing the gun drop outside the tahoe,
Speaker 1: and just like Glenn Carter and the witnesses from the trailer,
Speaker 1: they also only reported seeing two men. So despite what
Speaker 1: detectives with any sort of moral compass should have done,
Speaker 1: they got an a the rest warrant for Jase and
Speaker 1: the search warrant for Jace's father's house. Now, remember we
Speaker 1: have Glenn Carter with the murder weapon of forty five,
Speaker 1: then Jace allegedly with a thirty eight, and Edric Cooper
Speaker 1: outside with a nine millimeter Luger.
Speaker 4: So Jason's father legally owned a nine millimeter Ruger handgun.
Speaker 4: So when they found that gun, Cooper changed his statement
Speaker 4: to say.
Speaker 1: Ruger, So Ruger not Luger.
Speaker 4: And then he also changed his statement to say that
Speaker 4: it wasn't him, it was Jase that had that gun.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, now, with Jas's plausible access to his father's
Speaker 1: Ruger not Luger Ruger, Cooper has not only to change
Speaker 1: the brand of gun, but also to switch gun placements
Speaker 1: between him and jas So in this version of events,
Speaker 1: Cooper was allegedly outside now with the thirty eight. Now,
Speaker 1: didn't the trailer witness to say that the gunman by
Speaker 1: the front door had fired his weapon into the floor.
Speaker 4: Yes, the thirty eight gun was actually fired in the trailer,
Speaker 4: So Cooper changed the statement to include him and Grant
Speaker 4: Gathers all in the trailer, four people in the trailer
Speaker 4: instead of just two people that he had initially said.
Speaker 1: So the only thing from his initial statement that remained
Speaker 1: the same, and the only thing that was consistent with
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter's statement, was that Glenn Carter used the forty five.
Speaker 1: Other than that, the brand of nine millimeter changed, as
Speaker 1: did who was holding it in order to match what
Speaker 1: the police had found at Jace's father's house, And then
Speaker 1: the number of people in the trailer had to change
Speaker 1: in order to make room for the fact that the
Speaker 1: thirty eight had been fired, as well as the change
Speaker 1: of who was holding what gun. Jace allegedly with his
Speaker 1: father's ruger and Cooper firing the thirty eight into the ground,
Speaker 1: as the witnesses in the trailer had said.
Speaker 4: And as you had mentioned earlier, a lot of those
Speaker 4: people that lived inside the home were immigrants that did
Speaker 4: not have the proper authorization to remain in the United States.
Speaker 4: So right after the incident happened, they were all arrested
Speaker 4: and detained. They were detained until December of that same year,
Speaker 4: when who I believe is the current DA of Saint
Speaker 4: Tammany Parish filed a petition with the court and said
Speaker 4: that these guys were victims and so did not deserve
Speaker 4: to be detained and they had to be released. After
Speaker 4: they were released, one of those people also started change
Speaker 4: in history.
Speaker 1: The current DA is Warren Montgomery, and he worked with
Speaker 1: the Public Defender's Office at the time. Now one of
Speaker 1: the undocumented workers, either at Kagoyan or Avola change their
Speaker 1: story to maybe possibly include a third or fourth assailant
Speaker 1: to give the state the wiggle room they needed to
Speaker 1: eventually prosecute Jason Grant. But back to the immediate aftermath,
Speaker 1: So both you and Grant were about to be arrested.
Speaker 2: They end up coming to pick me up from my
Speaker 2: home the next day. You don't have enough money for
Speaker 2: an attorney. It took us a long time to figure
Speaker 2: out what was being said and who's shit.
Speaker 1: So no money for an attorney means no money for bail,
Speaker 1: and you've got no information about why you're even there.
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what must have been going through
Speaker 1: your mind.
Speaker 2: They take you in the shack world. Cages are full,
Speaker 2: some of them have two or three people in them.
Speaker 2: Some of them still have handcuffs on. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: nineteen years old and I'm trying to proston what's going
Speaker 2: on law. They put me right into one of those
Speaker 2: world keys, and I'm still trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: did I get here.
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Speaker 5: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and
Speaker 5: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
Speaker 5: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 5: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Speaker 2: Four was set It in two, Four Black Bodies Set
Speaker 2: It in two, and at Seeing revealed that work against
Speaker 2: the detective theories. All they did wasdiated change and this
Speaker 2: could have been remedied from the beginning if Detective State Calendar,
Speaker 2: Detective Cannon Garrow had done their job.
Speaker 1: And it seems they might have been doing their job.
Speaker 1: It's just not the job that they pretend it is
Speaker 1: in public. So you were stuck in jail awaiting trial
Speaker 1: with one piece of information or report from Detective Calendar
Speaker 1: about the investigation. Meanwhile they were out there trying to
Speaker 1: fix the case against you. So they tried to corroborate
Speaker 1: Edric Cooper's narrative and they had to change it several
Speaker 1: times by now already just to fit the facts.
Speaker 4: And then DNA evidence was also conducted because he had
Speaker 4: said that they rode in an out in Carter's car,
Speaker 4: and he said Carter gave them certain items from his car,
Speaker 4: like a bandana and items to cover their faces. They
Speaker 4: seized Carter's car, tested it thoroughly for DNA evidence. There
Speaker 4: is not a single instant where Jason's or Grant gathers
Speaker 4: DNA was found in any of the items that were
Speaker 4: found in Carter's car or anything in Carter's.
Speaker 1: Car which had they been in there. Finding neither of
Speaker 1: their DNA. That's not plausible, maybe not even possible.
Speaker 4: Yes, So Cooper then changes the story to say that
Speaker 4: Grant and Jace were in one car, and he and
Speaker 4: Carter were in Carter's car.
Speaker 1: That's convenient, so okay, boom, a new, non existent, nondescript
Speaker 1: car gets introduced. What's odd, though, is that this narrative
Speaker 1: is only present in Jas's case. Great Gathers, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, had a prior and had he gone to trial,
Speaker 1: he could have got life, so he pled guilty in
Speaker 1: exchange for leniency. Understandably in his plea though, he copped
Speaker 1: to being in the Chevy Tahoe, but because he didn't
Speaker 1: fight it, the fact that DNA testing excluded him from
Speaker 1: the Tahoe didn't matter. He just took the seven years
Speaker 1: or whatever they gave him to get out of his
Speaker 1: squirrel cage, and Jace would have been out in like
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, twenty twenty the latest had he done the same.
Speaker 2: They never in a million years expected me to go
Speaker 2: to trial and fight. They were expecting me to be guilty.
Speaker 4: From the moment that he was arrested. All that they
Speaker 4: wanted him to do was just say you're guilty. Just
Speaker 4: say you did it, so then we give you a
Speaker 4: man's a lot of charge and you probably get like
Speaker 4: ten years. And he kept insisting that he's not going
Speaker 4: to plead guilty to something that he hadn't done.
Speaker 2: They tried to at least three or four times after
Speaker 2: I asked for an attorney, which is unconstitutional. The Texas
Speaker 2: State's Canada technique candidero. They would send try to send
Speaker 2: different people in there to give me to make a succession.
Speaker 2: At one point, you've been telling me when I asked
Speaker 2: for my attorney, oh, well, you're going to have a
Speaker 2: public spending. The public desfendant doesn't care about you, so
Speaker 2: it is your best interest to just go ahead. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, I, oh my lord. You know, at
Speaker 2: this point, I'm kind of im agitated. I want my
Speaker 2: lawd So after a while of that, they finally keep
Speaker 2: me in for processing. On my way out to former
Speaker 2: Sheriff Jack Strain made Tommy said, this is a New Orleans.
Speaker 2: You know at this time I had the chipy streadlocked Testyle.
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Strain was very clear about his views and his
Speaker 1: reelection campaign in twenty ten. He equated the chieweed dreadlock
Speaker 1: Hairstyle with criminal behavior, and it's probably why he operated
Speaker 1: the way he did. So the squirrel cage didn't work
Speaker 1: on you, reasoning with you about how you're going to
Speaker 1: get terrible representation hadn't worked.
Speaker 2: What happened next I was taken out of the world
Speaker 2: cage and I was placed in the whole phanati days,
Speaker 2: couldn't see the news. I had to ask someone friend
Speaker 2: of mine to send me internet print out of an
Speaker 2: article to just kind of get an understanding of what
Speaker 2: exactly they was saying was going on, because we still
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I don't think they knew what was going on because
Speaker 1: they hadn't decided on the narrative that they were going
Speaker 1: to frame me with yet. So you got out of
Speaker 1: the whole after ninety days, met with your public defender,
Speaker 1: and finally got to see a report from Detective Stacey Calendar.
Speaker 2: What years later we find out that a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff she put in that first investigative report was
Speaker 2: dedignated and fabricated. She fabricated witnesses statements evidence. She changes
Speaker 2: the descriptions into our witnesses guilds. She changes things that
Speaker 2: Cooper tells her. She just changes things throughout her investigative
Speaker 2: report to make their investigations seem tighter. And what she's
Speaker 2: saying in her report and the investigations done by the detectives,
Speaker 2: it's not magic goal.
Speaker 1: And like you said, you didn't find this out until
Speaker 1: years later. Unfortunately, you did not have the benefit of
Speaker 1: effective counsel or the opportunity to review those materials to
Speaker 1: make that comparison yourself. Certainly, neither your first public defender,
Speaker 1: James Tally, or your second, Melissa Brink, were able to
Speaker 1: develop a defense outlining the discrepancies between detective calendars report
Speaker 1: and the actual investigation.
Speaker 2: For maybe a year and a half, the only thing
Speaker 2: I had was her investigated report. This restricted her words.
Speaker 2: I had no witness trances or witness statements or anything
Speaker 2: like that. So I'm trying to build a defense off
Speaker 2: of what's in this report. And then maybe a two
Speaker 2: months before trial two thousand and nine, did come back,
Speaker 2: and now all of a sudden, that's changed.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I got up an open court and I explained to
Speaker 2: Judge Richard Schwartz what was Kaye's place, And the answer
Speaker 2: he gave me was Melissa bringing handle it, and that
Speaker 2: assessionly turned out to be very, very, very incorrect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was handling what like three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: eight cases. I mean, I gotta pause there again, that's
Speaker 1: crazy when she should have had I mean, even one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty would have been an incredible strain on anyone.
Speaker 1: The ineffective counsel was virtually guaranteed, as it is with
Speaker 1: so many indigent defendants all over the country, the constitutional
Speaker 1: violation is built right in. So Glenn Carter went to
Speaker 1: try out first, followed by Edrick Cooper, then you, then Grant,
Speaker 1: and all four of you were found guilty separately, and
Speaker 1: I mean very separately. And can you explain what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 2: Well, First, Glenn Carr was fried August two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: He was convicted with evidence of only him and Edrick.
Speaker 5: Cooper committing his crime, right, so consistent with the original
Speaker 5: witness statements and his own admission.
Speaker 2: Right, there was no evidence presented by the state of
Speaker 2: three and four other people. The next day, after Glen
Speaker 2: Carter was convicted, Edwick Cooper played guilty, but onder the
Speaker 2: factual basis that it was only him and Carter who
Speaker 2: committed the crime.
Speaker 1: So everything that Glenn Carter and Edrick Cooper copp to
Speaker 1: at their proceedings exonerated deal you earned even mentioned in
Speaker 1: those proceedings. What about his statement that was eventually used
Speaker 1: against you?
Speaker 2: The next day, after pleading guilty, the detectives took him
Speaker 2: for the attorney's office, another slow location. No one's turned
Speaker 2: and nobody knows where they went to reinterview him, And
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, miraculously, this second statement comes up,
Speaker 2: and it seeks to validate the initial investigation that it's
Speaker 2: not a repeating.
Speaker 1: So Cooper's initial statement, which served as the probable cause
Speaker 1: to arrest you and search your father's house, in which
Speaker 1: he admitted to his involvement, that was not even brought
Speaker 1: up at his proceedings, probably because it was so wildly
Speaker 1: and completely out of step with reality. But now they
Speaker 1: needed a new statement that wasn't so obviously false that
Speaker 1: included you and Grant Gathers. And the only thing about
Speaker 1: this new statement that even vaguely resembled the initial statement
Speaker 1: was that you two were there and the Carter used
Speaker 1: a forty five. They also now had one of the
Speaker 1: trailer witnesses allegedly giving them that wiggle room of well
Speaker 1: maybe there was a third or fourth assailant. Who knows
Speaker 1: if this change was just a translator taking some sort
Speaker 1: of creative license, I mean, could have been. But how
Speaker 1: did the judge even allow this to go on? We're
Speaker 1: talking about the narrative of a crime that have just
Speaker 1: appeared twice in front of the court.
Speaker 2: Judge Purist, the judge that did Carters trial and the
Speaker 2: Coopers pleat once he took the plea from Pedrick Cooper
Speaker 2: said an open court on the record that he was
Speaker 2: recognizing these as stipulated facts. Basically, he used the legal
Speaker 2: term he was taking judicial notice, which is he saying
Speaker 2: he's taking these facts that he's been watching throughout the
Speaker 2: Carter proceedings and now at this Cooper proceeding, he's saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what y'all are saying happened in this crime.
Speaker 2: These are the facts of the case. So Judge Juris
Speaker 2: was not going to excel the facts that were presented
Speaker 2: at my trial. And what happened was I was miraculously
Speaker 2: taking out a judge Buris court and placed some entirely
Speaker 2: different set action where a different set of facts were
Speaker 2: consitting to a different judge saying that Hey, two completely
Speaker 2: irreconcilable names happened in this case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just can't have two contradicting narrators of the
Speaker 1: same crime. So even though they switched you to a
Speaker 1: different judge, Judge Schwartz, I mean, wouldn't he just see
Speaker 1: the same thing that Burst did. The state must have
Speaker 1: recognized that this was weak footing.
Speaker 4: Jason's trial was in October twelve, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 4: October nine, they were presenting him with a plea deal
Speaker 4: to testify against Grant Gethers, and he said he can't
Speaker 4: testify against Grant because he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: So you're sticking to your innocence to the bitter end.
Speaker 1: Did your public defender try to encourage you to take.
Speaker 2: A play the guilty Yes, every day up until October fourteenth,
Speaker 2: two thout a nine was the day I was found guilty.
Speaker 2: And I keep telling her the same thing over and
Speaker 2: over and over again. I'm not too guilty as something
Speaker 2: that I didn't do.
Speaker 1: And just out of curiosity, what did they offer? Ten
Speaker 1: years that was.
Speaker 2: Ultimately grand Gether's decision in uilty to eight years that
Speaker 2: was found with guilty of a lesser charge. Grand Gethers
Speaker 2: would have been going to trial for second to he murdered,
Speaker 2: which in Louisiana is a mandatory life citizens no parole.
Speaker 2: So it was a decision between eight years or mandatory
Speaker 2: life with no parole.
Speaker 1: That's pretty easy master to do. And I guess he
Speaker 1: didn't know about the DNA evidence that excluded him from
Speaker 1: ever having entered Glenn Carter Chevy Tahoe. That was a
Speaker 1: part of the narrative of his proceedings. And what about
Speaker 1: the evidence presented in Carter and Cooper's proceedings. You think
Speaker 1: your attorney would be a little more confident and you
Speaker 1: would have fared a lot better at trial. But what happened.
Speaker 2: He tried to get cause of confessions that it's not
Speaker 2: a ray introduced that trial so the jury to hear it.
Speaker 2: The judge shot it down. He said that it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Trustworthy, wasn't trustworthy. They just used it to send two
Speaker 1: men away, one for life.
Speaker 2: It just didn't make any sense. And the dream we
Speaker 2: never heard of it. The twelve people at my trial
Speaker 2: still don't know to this state that this succession existed.
Speaker 2: And if they had, there's reasonable likelihoods that I would.
Speaker 1: Have got not guilty burden I mean, what else are
Speaker 1: we supposed to conclude about this? Judge, he saw the
Speaker 1: evidence from the other two proceedings which impeached the testimony
Speaker 1: of the state star witness against you, and he excluded it.
Speaker 1: So now the jury only hears the narrative of Edrick Cooper,
Speaker 1: and they have no idea how many times it changed
Speaker 1: or how fundamental those changes were. And as we've mentioned,
Speaker 1: up until this point, the impeachment evidence for Cooper's testimony
Speaker 1: had not been developed very well by Jason's attorney.
Speaker 4: The prosecution, you know, they had the burden, but their
Speaker 4: burden was very simple, was just really getting Cooper to
Speaker 4: tell the most recent version of events. The defense's job
Speaker 4: was probably harder. That she needed to be extremely organized
Speaker 4: to list all those statements that Cooper had said that
Speaker 4: weren't true and then actually also do the extra work
Speaker 4: to show that even if we're supposed to believe the
Speaker 4: last statement that he's given and disregard all the prior
Speaker 4: statements that he's saying, this last statement that he's saying
Speaker 4: cannot even be true. And she didn't do that. She
Speaker 4: didn't have the time to do all the investigation, or
Speaker 4: probably didn't have the resources to do the investigations that
Speaker 4: she needed to do, and so she went to trial
Speaker 4: unprepared and the jury could not follow.
Speaker 1: She didn't effectively demonstrate the whole clusterfuck around the narrative
Speaker 1: changing between Cooper outside the trailer with a nine milimeters
Speaker 1: luger and Jace inside with a thirty eight to then
Speaker 1: Jace with a nine milimeter ruger and all four of
Speaker 1: them inside the trailer. Then you have one witness, likely
Speaker 1: threatened with deportation or worse, changing their story to include
Speaker 1: the possibility of more sailance than the original two, then
Speaker 1: going from one car to two cars because DNA evidence
Speaker 1: excluded Jace. How this issue wasn't raised. It just baffles
Speaker 1: and infuriates me. But then there's this phone record evidence
Speaker 1: that was introduced to draw connection between Jason Glenn Carter,
Speaker 1: but it could have easily been used to impeach Cooper's
Speaker 1: ever changing narrative. Cooper had made statements about how he, Jace,
Speaker 1: and Grant went to Mississippi earlier in the day, when
Speaker 1: the phone records show that Jason Grant had never left Louisiana.
Speaker 1: She could have connected those dots or called an expert
Speaker 1: to extrapolate a clear vision of Cooper's lives from the
Speaker 1: phone record, but again she was just overwhelmed and not
Speaker 1: prepared to do that, which could have been a game changer.
Speaker 4: So Cooper had initially told officers that he and Jace
Speaker 4: and Grant they had been in Mississippi and then they
Speaker 4: returned to Sliddale on Sunday, which was the day of
Speaker 4: the incident, about five or so. What is interesting was
Speaker 4: that Jayce had a purchase receipt that showed that he
Speaker 4: was already in Louisiana around three pm. So at trial,
Speaker 4: Cooper changed the testimony again to say that they arrived
Speaker 4: in Slydale at ten am.
Speaker 1: So this appears to be just more of the police
Speaker 1: and edred Cooper perfecting his statement to align with reality,
Speaker 1: and that's what you have to do with live So
Speaker 1: how did they try to connect Jas with Glenn Carter?
Speaker 4: Cooper said that when he got to slide Al, he
Speaker 4: called Carter on Jas's phone. He said that that's when
Speaker 4: they all got together with Carter and that's when they
Speaker 4: planned the robbery together. And then he also said that
Speaker 4: after the robbery, when they were fleeing the area, he
Speaker 4: said that Jace called Carter on Carter's phone, and Carter
Speaker 4: did not answer, so they asked him how many times
Speaker 4: did he call, and he said he called just once.
Speaker 4: When all four of them were initially arrested, there were
Speaker 4: two numbers that were listed for Carter. One number, the
Speaker 4: officers found out quickly was not Carter's number, so they
Speaker 4: proceeded with just the remaining number, and so that number
Speaker 4: that they proceeded through before Jasu's trial as Carter's number.
Speaker 4: That number never appeared on Jas's phone, so.
Speaker 1: Not at either time that Cooper alleged ten am or
Speaker 1: nine eighteen pm. So how did they try to make
Speaker 1: it look like Jason Carter spoke on the phone.
Speaker 4: About a week before Jason's trial, the prosecution goes into
Speaker 4: Jas's phone, there was a phone call from Jase's number
Speaker 4: at nine eighteen so the prosecution presented this number as
Speaker 4: Carter's number.
Speaker 1: So the prosecution just took whatever number Jase called around
Speaker 1: the time of the crime and just told the jury
Speaker 1: that that was Carter's number to match up with Cooper's
Speaker 1: latest version of events. So let's try to unravel this one.
Speaker 4: Cooper said that when Jace called Carter that Carter did
Speaker 4: not answer, but the number that Jace called around nine eighteen.
Speaker 4: It shows that the person actually answered and there was
Speaker 4: a conversation, and it shows that a few minutes or
Speaker 4: so after, Jace called that number again and the person
Speaker 4: also answered.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sure our audience won't be surprised to
Speaker 1: find out that the number that they presented as Carter's
Speaker 1: during trial only appeared in the evening, not at ten am,
Speaker 1: as Cooper had said, thereby exposing yet another one of
Speaker 1: this guy's lives.
Speaker 4: After trial, Jace, this attorney filed a rid with a
Speaker 4: Chord for a subpoena to get that phone record to
Speaker 4: verify if that number was Carter's number, the number that
Speaker 4: Cooper had testified a trial to be Carter's number, and
Speaker 4: that number turned out not to be Carter's number. If
Speaker 4: you read the Court of Appeal's opinion on Jasu's case,
Speaker 4: it appears that that's something that they consider to be important.
Speaker 4: That the state was able to establish that connection between
Speaker 4: Jas and Carter using that phone record. But the phone
Speaker 4: record that they presented was in Carter's phone number, and
Speaker 4: what the prosecution did was they just presented the number
Speaker 4: and showed it to Cooper a trial and said that,
Speaker 4: whose number is this? And then Cooper goes, this is
Speaker 4: Jasu's number. Whose number is this? And then he goes,
Speaker 4: that's Carter's number. Who's the number calling this number? And
Speaker 4: it's like Jasu's number calling Carter's number. Then they bring
Speaker 4: Carter's girlfriend to the stand. Carter's girlfriend. This is two
Speaker 4: years later, two years after this incident had happened. Carter's
Speaker 4: girlfriend comes to the stand and then the prosecution asked
Speaker 4: her back in April of two thousand and seven, was
Speaker 4: Glenn Carter your boyfriend? And she says yes, sir. And
Speaker 4: the prosecution goes and Glenn's Carter's being convicted of murder?
Speaker 4: Is that correct? She goes, yes, sir, in April of
Speaker 4: two thousand, what was Glenn Carter's phone number? Then she
Speaker 4: lists the number that Jays dialed on the night of
Speaker 4: the incident. She lists that as Carter's number from memory.
Speaker 4: Two years two years she remembered the number like that
Speaker 4: from memory. And this is the part where I just
Speaker 4: fell so disappointed in Jas's attorney at the time, because
Speaker 4: she just basically said, I have no questions. She did
Speaker 4: not cross examine this witness to even understand how she
Speaker 4: remembered Carter's number. She did not cross examine Cooper to
Speaker 4: even find out how he remembered that to be Carter's number.
Speaker 4: Two years after the incident happened, she did.
Speaker 1: Find out that this was not in fact Carter's number,
Speaker 1: That both of these witnesses perjured themselves, but too little,
Speaker 1: too late. I've got to imagine that having them memorize
Speaker 1: a number off of Jason's phone that wasn't their friend
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter's had to have been the prosecution's idea. But
Speaker 1: if I were on the jury, I mean, after hearing
Speaker 1: Cooper's testimony, not knowing all the inconsistencies with prior statements
Speaker 1: or how it was contradicted by witness statements, and having
Speaker 1: that testimony corroborated by the phone records, I can see
Speaker 1: how the jury was fooled.
Speaker 4: And even with that, there was at least one person
Speaker 4: on the jury that said that they didn't believe what
Speaker 4: the state was saying. They had that testimony from Cooper.
Speaker 4: Cooper's credibility wasn't properly impeached by Jesson's attorney, and they
Speaker 4: ended up buying his story over the story that Jas's attorney.
Speaker 4: Because I don't even know what story she was trying
Speaker 4: to tell. She didn't put up that defense. There were
Speaker 4: so many other people who are willing to testify about
Speaker 4: Jason's whereabouts. There were so many other witnesses that she
Speaker 4: just didn't call. In the beginning, all that she wanted
Speaker 4: to do was for Jase to plead guilty, So she
Speaker 4: wasn't prepared for a trial.
Speaker 1: Other than the inadequate and disorganized cross examination. I think
Speaker 1: she put your dad on the stand to say that
Speaker 1: you didn't have access to his gun and that you
Speaker 1: were home at the time of the crime. Unfortunately, alibi
Speaker 1: defense from family rarely does the trek. So other than that,
Speaker 1: did your attorney present any defense at all?
Speaker 2: She called no witnesses, She presented none of the evidence,
Speaker 2: none of the fall records, no expert for the Fall Reforce, nothing.
Speaker 2: She did nothing, and she put together no defense to
Speaker 2: actually test the theory and the chinological timeline of Eddie
Speaker 2: Pooble and the state. All of the evidence that I
Speaker 2: have now proving what I'm saying, all of it was
Speaker 2: avid by the state, stuff that they call open discovery,
Speaker 2: stuff that she could have pulled, looked at.
Speaker 1: And been able to sit the pool, which just points
Speaker 1: out that the state had to have known what they
Speaker 1: were doing. This was their information and they simply used
Speaker 1: it to guide the actual guilty party to frame an
Speaker 1: innocent man. I mean, did you have any hope after
Speaker 1: shitting through this sham trial?
Speaker 2: Yes, because Cooper admitted to line the day after he
Speaker 2: took that guilty please. You know, he was asked a
Speaker 2: question and he was like, Okay, yeah, lie then too,
Speaker 2: but I'm not lying right now. And I think that
Speaker 2: was one of the biggest things that made me believe that,
Speaker 2: I mean, come out of this all right. You know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a unanimous very. He was non unanimous. During
Speaker 2: the jury pole, he had one white lady. You could
Speaker 2: see that she was rather perturbed by the fact that
Speaker 2: the other eleven jurors could not see pass them saying
Speaker 2: I committed a crime. During the jury pole, she was
Speaker 2: physically angry that this was happening because she was able
Speaker 2: to see for the status saying and what Edward Cooper
Speaker 2: saying doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 4: So he was acquitted of the second degree murder and
Speaker 4: then they found him guilty of the manslaughter.
Speaker 2: In that moment, I'm trying to wrap my head around
Speaker 2: what was going on and how it had taken place.
Speaker 2: It wasn't very secretive. They're not even sweeping it under
Speaker 2: the rug anymore. They just dumping it on the ground
Speaker 2: and leaving it there. In that moment, I kind of
Speaker 2: realized what I was dealing with. That gilt diberty came.
Speaker 2: I realized I'm dealing with a monster. I was sentenced
Speaker 2: to twenty five years. Twenty five Paul Lady digging ditches,
Speaker 2: digging holes, surrounded by the white guy on a horse
Speaker 2: with rifles and digging. You're pulling vegetables. I mean part
Speaker 2: label and since the day, for since the day. That's
Speaker 2: not slavery, and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It is quite literally slavery according to the thirteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: and then according to voters in the twenty twenty two midterms,
Speaker 1: A voter to keep slavery as a punishment for a
Speaker 1: crime in Louisiana. I mean, between all of the official
Speaker 1: and prosecutorial misconduct, the incentives keep the jail in prison
Speaker 1: population up, and how hopefully overworked and underfunded the public
Speaker 1: defender's offices, It's almost like this is what the legislature
Speaker 1: has planned for poor people. Across Louisiana, let alone all
Speaker 1: over our country. Having a public defender who could not
Speaker 1: possibly organize or present an adequate defense is not the exception,
Speaker 1: it's the rule for indigen defendants. It's a built in
Speaker 1: constitutional violation of the right to effective assistance of counsel.
Speaker 2: So there's a fifty page report that was, i want
Speaker 2: to say, funded by the US Department of Justice, who's
Speaker 2: the American University of Washington, DC, and the findings of
Speaker 2: the report established that the descendants in same family's parish
Speaker 2: are routinely deprived their constitutional rights and their new process.
Speaker 2: There was a sixty minute sectment in twenty seventeen with
Speaker 2: Anderson Cooper and several public defenders from Louisiana were interviewed
Speaker 2: and they were explaining that it's like an assembly line
Speaker 2: in Louisiana. There's an abject underfunding by the state legislator
Speaker 2: of the Public Defendant's office in Louisiana, and they're basically
Speaker 2: operating on a budget where they cannot give the constitutionally
Speaker 2: required representations to get into defendants and expend no remedies,
Speaker 2: and no one is addressing the people who are being objected.
Speaker 2: Predominantly lack of meeral.
Speaker 1: As it affected you and continues to affects other folks,
Speaker 1: and you have not been taking this line down between
Speaker 1: stints out in the fields and studying the lawn, aggressively
Speaker 1: filing pro sae motions, as well as having some legal
Speaker 1: help along the way. But unfortunately you're being denied where
Speaker 1: it seems pretty clear that you should not be, especially
Speaker 1: on the very basic and effective assistance of council claim.
Speaker 2: And you know what that last motion she filed, she
Speaker 2: talks about things that she should have done prior to trial,
Speaker 2: and she just kind of laid it all out so
Speaker 2: that I could come back and fight it on post
Speaker 2: additional collateral attack. She even made the comment to me
Speaker 2: that I should get some kind of relief from not
Speaker 2: being able to use called a statement a trial. She
Speaker 2: was in the belief that, okay, hey, that was so
Speaker 2: big that it's going to get the case overturned. But
Speaker 2: it just every time it comes back to the same name,
Speaker 2: not not not.
Speaker 4: All the other appeals that he filed for the court
Speaker 4: have also been denied because the standard of review on appeal,
Speaker 4: especially if you challenge the insufficientcy of evidence, is that
Speaker 4: the court just holds the position that if the jury
Speaker 4: believed these things to be true, then we're also going
Speaker 4: to believe it to be true. So Cooper's version of events,
Speaker 4: that's what the Court of Appeals take to be true.
Speaker 4: And so when the court finds that a reasonable jury
Speaker 4: could come to that conclusion based on these facts, then
Speaker 4: the court will affirm the person's conviction. Cooper's testimony is
Speaker 4: what is following Jays with every appeal that he files,
Speaker 4: his appeals get denied. But what Jays has been challenging
Speaker 4: is that the testimonies, the evidence that the prosecution presented
Speaker 4: to the jury were not true.
Speaker 1: Right, they presented false evidence, and one can surmise easily
Speaker 1: that they had to know that they were doing so,
Speaker 1: considering how they helped Cooper's shape and mold his statements
Speaker 1: over time to drag two innocent people into this situation
Speaker 1: contrary to the initial witness statements and the factual basis
Speaker 1: presented at both Carters and Cooper's proceedings. But shortly after
Speaker 1: your conviction, between conviction and sentencing, I believe edreck Cooper
Speaker 1: gave a recantation that is believed to have been made
Speaker 1: before trial. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Is he?
Speaker 4: Yes? This is August twentieth, so if I'm reading the
Speaker 4: date right, this was probably before Jason's trial on August twentieth,
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine, where Cooper signed an affidavit that
Speaker 4: he was ready to present to the court to say
Speaker 4: that he had lied about the whole thing, that every
Speaker 4: statement that he had provided was a lie, and that
Speaker 4: he was a scared eighteen year old boy that he
Speaker 4: knew Jays had never been in any type of criminal trouble,
Speaker 4: and so because of that he implicated Jace, because he
Speaker 4: knew that jas wasn't going to get convicted.
Speaker 1: Well, clearly he didn't understand what he was dealing with
Speaker 1: in Saint Tammany Parish. So he wrote this prior to
Speaker 1: Jason's trial, but no one was aware of it until
Speaker 1: between Jase's conviction and his sentencing.
Speaker 2: What happened was I go to courtA Citacy and Jack
Speaker 2: half standard Discratorney's office wrints him with purgury if he
Speaker 2: goes through with the decantation. Same thing with Grant Dealers.
Speaker 2: He did recantation, explaining that he was falciplicated in the crime.
Speaker 4: Grant said that he wasn't there either, and that whatever
Speaker 4: it is that he said about Jason's involvement, it's not true.
Speaker 2: All of this is taken and once again manipulated in
Speaker 2: the state's favor, like Cooper was forced to make those
Speaker 2: he can't taste, or Sam David brand Gillis, and they're
Speaker 2: making me look like I'm the wolf, you know, like
Speaker 2: I'm just a big, bad guy that trying to force
Speaker 2: things into his favor.
Speaker 5: And the whole time it's the opposite classic projection. All
Speaker 5: of these witnesses that they called credible at your trial,
Speaker 5: whom they had coerced into line, they then threatened them
Speaker 5: with perjury for trying to say something they knew to
Speaker 5: be true from their own investigation. So they got Cooper
Speaker 5: and Grant to keep quiet. What about Glenn Carter.
Speaker 2: Carter actually wrote me a letter that I have, and
Speaker 2: he's playing in a letter that people were also that
Speaker 2: I ended up getting caught up in all.
Speaker 4: So Carter wrote a letter to Jayce in which he
Speaker 4: said a number of things, but the most important here
Speaker 4: that he said is that but when all of this
Speaker 4: is over, you could send somebody at me to sign
Speaker 4: the papers for you. Since E which is Edric and
Speaker 4: Grant not gonna do it. I don't feel like you
Speaker 4: should be in here anyway, you didn't do anything, So,
Speaker 4: like I said, let me get my shit situated and
Speaker 4: I might do that for you. I know who was there,
Speaker 4: and I didn't see you, and I.
Speaker 2: Took that and I said, just watched maybe thousand as
Speaker 2: well to get a new trial. Just watchhot that now
Speaker 2: as well, without even addressing the significance of that letter
Speaker 2: in cooperation to everything that I was saying before and
Speaker 2: during the trial. Letters from all three of them have
Speaker 2: been shot down saying basically, did they hold no credibility?
Speaker 1: It's funny how they will find recantations not credible, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't drag into question any previous statements made in
Speaker 1: court by the same person, like did they recently learn
Speaker 1: how to become a liar? Is that the basic theory.
Speaker 1: The only metric they're using for credibility seems to be
Speaker 1: if it maintains a conviction and suits their narrative. And
Speaker 1: in your case, the state had the evidence that this
Speaker 1: credit of the statements made against you a trial. But
Speaker 1: somehow these recantations are the incredible statements, so incredible in fact,
Speaker 1: that when Jace received these recantation letters, his cell got
Speaker 1: tossed do I have that right, Jason?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was in two thousand and ten. I had
Speaker 2: the letters from Grant and Buy. What happened was they
Speaker 2: came to all of myself, man, a lot of my
Speaker 2: early pictures. I've never seen it again after that sease,
Speaker 2: and in that bag, in that self were the recantation was.
Speaker 2: Thankfully I had it home and I sit it in
Speaker 2: someone else's name. I'm glad I did that.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how defeated you would have felt. So
Speaker 1: at least you have a record of the other two
Speaker 1: recantations while you await Carter's help. What did you have
Speaker 1: to wait for to get his help?
Speaker 2: So I don't know what he has going on. Legally,
Speaker 2: they promised him a parole d because he now had
Speaker 2: parole under the juvenile law.
Speaker 1: He was seventeen, right, because he was a juvenile. That
Speaker 1: falls under two very important Scotis decisions Miller versus Alabama
Speaker 1: and Montgomery versus Louisiana. Between the two, it makes a
Speaker 1: mandatory life without parole sentence except in cases of permanent incorrigibility.
Speaker 1: It makes that sentence for a juvenile unconstitutional. And that
Speaker 1: decision was made retroactive, so he was re sentenced and
Speaker 1: probably wants to wait until those proceedings are through before
Speaker 1: upsetting his own apple cart by helping you, since it
Speaker 1: seems they were hell bent on ignoring the signs pointing
Speaker 1: to your innocence, and that has not changed ever since
Speaker 1: your conviction. I think this needs to go to a
Speaker 1: new trial, if not a new venue, because there is
Speaker 1: certainly new evidence and I don't see how you could
Speaker 1: ever be convicted with that new evidence being presented.
Speaker 4: So I have cooper statement where he recanted everything and
Speaker 4: said he liked I have grants where he said he
Speaker 4: I have Carter's letter.
Speaker 1: You also have the subpoena phone records for the number
Speaker 1: passed off as Carter's phone in court, which established collusion
Speaker 1: between Jason Glenn Carter. However, that key piece of evidence
Speaker 1: turned out to be bogus. That subpoena is not in
Speaker 1: Jason's official filings, so it's new evidence. So given the opportunity,
Speaker 1: you could subpoena the phone company again to submit that
Speaker 1: as new evidence. And you also did all the work
Speaker 1: that his attorney never did, thereby destroying Cooper's morass of lies.
Speaker 4: For me, what I'm hoping comes out of this is
Speaker 4: that somebody goes like, Okay, let's look into this. Not
Speaker 4: even take my worry for it. Let's look at the paperwork.
Speaker 4: The statements that were presented to the jury were false,
Speaker 4: and the prosecutor's office knew or should have known, that
Speaker 4: those statements were false. Cooper changed and was allowed to
Speaker 4: change those testimonies with no consequences of perjury. And so
Speaker 4: he constantly keeps changing the stories over and over again
Speaker 4: until it got to a point where the prosecution could
Speaker 4: sell that story to a jury. And as we had
Speaker 4: said earlier, even with all of this, there was at
Speaker 4: least one person in that jury that said that they
Speaker 4: did not believe what the prosecution was selling.
Speaker 1: Them, which in any other state except Oregon at the time,
Speaker 1: would have meant to hung jury. And this brings us
Speaker 1: to the very important development of Louisiana no longer accepting
Speaker 1: non unanimous jury verdicts. They did away with this Jim
Speaker 1: Crow era practice in twenty eighteen by ballot initiative, but
Speaker 1: when this new law was taken to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: rather than making it retroactive, they led it up to
Speaker 1: the state of Louisiana to decide.
Speaker 3: To me, that's like telling the fox that's garden a
Speaker 3: hen house to do something about what you did that
Speaker 3: you know was wrong. So Louisiana staying they're not gonna
Speaker 3: let the people go here. Within our organization, we know
Speaker 3: that it's over eight thousand people. It's over seventeen hundred
Speaker 3: or more here in Saint Tammany Parish, with jas on
Speaker 3: the top of the list.
Speaker 1: Belinda Parker Brown. She and her organization have now filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the State of Louisiana, and in this
Speaker 1: lawsuit they planned to challenge the State of Louisiana once
Speaker 1: again on the issue of these non unitedmous jury verdicts.
Speaker 3: They was caught the highest court in the land, the
Speaker 3: United States Supreme Court rule what they did here was unconstitutional,
Speaker 3: and I'm saying it was criminal. So I'm saying that
Speaker 3: if it was unconstitutional and the United States Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: along with the people voting sixty four percent, let these
Speaker 3: people go.
Speaker 1: Let them go free.
Speaker 3: If we got to organize some type of facilitation on
Speaker 3: how we want to release the people, that's fine, But
Speaker 3: it's not right for them to hold THEMN hostage kidnap
Speaker 3: because they got it wrong.
Speaker 1: And we're going to have action steps linked in the
Speaker 1: bio for Belinda's organization and to help Jace.
Speaker 4: So I put together a petition for Jace. We're hoping
Speaker 4: to create awareness, and we also want the new district
Speaker 4: attorney who is in Saint Tammany Parish. He has the
Speaker 4: power to reopen Jason's case. All the support and documents,
Speaker 4: all the inconsistent statements, Jason's phone records, Carter's phone records,
Speaker 4: Grant Gatherer's phone records, all of that information is available.
Speaker 4: It's for him to give jas a second opportunity for
Speaker 4: his case to be reviewed.
Speaker 1: Go to the bio now and we can all work
Speaker 1: together to write this wrong. And now we're going to
Speaker 1: turn to my favorite part of the show, closing arguments,
Speaker 1: where I think both of you again, I mean you
Speaker 1: just you inspire me to want to work harder and smarter,
Speaker 1: and we're going to keep fighting for you and for
Speaker 1: everyone that we can possibly help that's been rawly convicted.
Speaker 1: So closing arguments works like this, Isy, We're going to
Speaker 1: start with you. I'm going to turn my microphone off,
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my headphones on, close
Speaker 1: my eyes, and just listen to anything else you want
Speaker 1: to share. With our audience and then hand the microphone
Speaker 1: off to Jason. He'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4: April twenty ninth, two thousand and seven. Another human being,
Speaker 4: Jose Martinez Carpio, lost his life. He had a family,
Speaker 4: he had people who loved and cared for him. He
Speaker 4: was an innocent man. He deserves justice, His family deserves justice.
Speaker 4: But if you have a situation where there's somebody else
Speaker 4: who had absolutely nothing to do with what unfortunately happened
Speaker 4: to Jose Martinez, if you have that person serving time
Speaker 4: in prison, then you're not delivering any justice to the victim.
Speaker 4: You're not serving society any good, and in what may
Speaker 4: have been the state's good intention, the state ended up
Speaker 4: victimizing another person and his family. Jason's conviction was a mistake,
Speaker 4: and it's a mistake that needs to be corrected. It's
Speaker 4: been fifteen years over you, and that's all that I
Speaker 4: like to say.
Speaker 2: We have social problems going on all over the world,
Speaker 2: all over the country, social problems affecting predominantly black people.
Speaker 2: A lot of time or not giving the resources and
Speaker 2: not giving the pressing a president Joe Biden christology political leaves,
Speaker 2: but it's wresting a lot of social problems, but it's
Speaker 2: being left out a lot of times. It's it's criminal
Speaker 2: justice systems and the way that if you handles black
Speaker 2: people on a native dating judges in the court, they're
Speaker 2: not taking seriously a litigation done by indigent decent. They're
Speaker 2: not taking seriously a litigation done for who are are
Speaker 2: almost poor. It has changed. You can't continue to run
Speaker 2: a system, operate as a state, as a country, as
Speaker 2: a nation. You can't continue to operate with historically agreeable
Speaker 2: for people who are being adversity affected by the workings
Speaker 2: in the working bureaucratic inside of the system.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms. You can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flamm Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with
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