Speaker 1: While renting a room in Salinas, California, a woman named
Speaker 1: ruth Anne supported her drug habit and her thirteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter Jamie with welfare and prostitution. James King previously
Speaker 1: rented a room in the same house, where he still
Speaker 1: received mail and maintained friendships, including with ruth Anne's boyfriend
Speaker 1: Eric Barton and the landlord, Dug Dobell. James would come
Speaker 1: by occasionally to pick up his mail and socialize, as
Speaker 1: he did on August first for the Salinas Air Show.
Speaker 1: A few days later, while Landlord Doug Dobell was in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, James intervened when he saw ruth Anne trying
Speaker 1: to sell Dug's moped. Ruth Anne, who had already pawned
Speaker 1: Doug's TV, threatened James that she would get back at
Speaker 1: him if he ever told Doug. When Doug returned from
Speaker 1: Vegas on August eleven, James found himself accused of stealing
Speaker 1: Doug's TV, which he firmly denied while reporting the story
Speaker 1: about ruth Anne and the moped. When Eric Barton confirmed
Speaker 1: that ruth Anne was the culprit, James found himself accused
Speaker 1: once again, this time for the alleged August first sexual
Speaker 1: assault of thirteen year old Jamie, during which time he
Speaker 1: allegedly ejaculated on a tan carpet. When confronted with the
Speaker 1: carpet testing negative for semen, the young girl said that
Speaker 1: her dog must have eaten it. She later changed the
Speaker 1: story to a blue carpet that Dobelle confirmed did not exist.
Speaker 1: Despite these glaring red flags, that d A used Jamie's
Speaker 1: story and a medical experts testimony that has since been
Speaker 1: characterized as absurd to send James away for thirty five
Speaker 1: years to life. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Today you're
Speaker 1: gonna hear a story that is disturbing in so many ways.
Speaker 1: This story is the story of a man who's been
Speaker 1: in prison for a quarter century for a crime that
Speaker 1: never happened. And it's got so many lies in it
Speaker 1: that you'll you may need a pen and paper to
Speaker 1: keep tracking the lies. I mean, it's just absolutely breathtaking
Speaker 1: the web that was woven in order to not only convict,
Speaker 1: but also keep this innocent man in prison for this long.
Speaker 1: The attorney is Ian Graham. He's a civil rights attorney
Speaker 1: with Travis Graham and Zucker in California, Ian. Welcome to
Speaker 1: ronfle Conviction. Thanks Jason, it's a it's a real pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here. And soon you'll be hearing the phone
Speaker 1: ring and we'll be hearing from the man himself, James King,
Speaker 1: will be calling in from the California Men's Colony, which
Speaker 1: is a I mean, it seems like sort of a
Speaker 1: be nine name for a place that is no place
Speaker 1: for an innocent man to be. And oh and and
Speaker 1: here we go. We're going to our call right now.
Speaker 1: You have a prepaid call from and in Nada, the
Speaker 1: California Men's Colony, San Luis Obispo, California. This call and
Speaker 1: your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. To accept
Speaker 1: this call, say or dial five now. Thank you for
Speaker 1: using Global till Link. Hello James, Hi, finally get to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Well, I'm so glad you're here too,
Speaker 1: even though I really hate why you're here or more
Speaker 1: to the point, where you are. Thank you. So tell
Speaker 1: us a bit about your life growing up. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Actually I was born in Germany.
Speaker 1: My dad was in the army for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: And we came back to the United States when I
Speaker 1: was like six years old, and then we moved to California,
Speaker 1: and I've been in California all my life. So you
Speaker 1: grew up in a military family. And we've spoken with
Speaker 1: your mom, Lily and many times, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: you had a relatively normal life working in the moving
Speaker 1: business until you had a run in with the off
Speaker 1: for burglary. Now that's a serious crime, but when you
Speaker 1: hear the details of it, it was actually a bit
Speaker 1: more benign than it sounds to call over. So I
Speaker 1: was mad and I shouldn't have done it, and I
Speaker 1: went in the house. It took a VCR. When I
Speaker 1: took it, I even called her and told her I
Speaker 1: took your VCR and she called the police on me,
Speaker 1: and that's how that happened, and they got me for burglary.
Speaker 1: So I had a pretty guilty to it. I got
Speaker 1: a hear in prison for that. That was all it
Speaker 1: was to it, And I should never done that. So, Okay,
Speaker 1: you knew this person and they owed you money, and
Speaker 1: you obviously shouldn't have done that. You've acknowledged that that
Speaker 1: was a dumb thing to do. But now you've got
Speaker 1: one strike for burglary. But I have no six crimes
Speaker 1: in my life at all, man, not even allocations that
Speaker 1: I've done anything right. So this was a non sexual crime.
Speaker 1: So why did I even bring it up, you might
Speaker 1: be ask yourself. Well, at the time, with the newly
Speaker 1: minted crime bill, what this meant was that you had
Speaker 1: one strike against you, so a second offense would mean
Speaker 1: doubling any sentence. But for now you just got the
Speaker 1: one year sentence. So you get out, go back to
Speaker 1: the moving business, doing odd jobs, and you're renting a
Speaker 1: room from a man named Doug Dobell and Salinas, California. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was living in dougna Bill's out for seven months
Speaker 1: and I moved out and got my old place it was,
Speaker 1: and I was leaving in Selena's at the time. When
Speaker 1: I moved out, I still stay friends with Doug, and
Speaker 1: I had to go over there and get my mail
Speaker 1: every day because I did not had my mail switch.
Speaker 1: I just kept it there at Dug's house, all right.
Speaker 1: So you were also doing some odd jobs for Doug.
Speaker 1: YouTube guys had a mutual friend, Eric Barton, who was
Speaker 1: dating a woman who had just begun renting a room
Speaker 1: from Doug, and her name was ruth Anne, a woman
Speaker 1: who threw her own admission had suffered from manic depression,
Speaker 1: borderline multiple personality disordered drug addiction, all while struggling to
Speaker 1: support her drug habit and her thirteen year old daughter
Speaker 1: Jamie with the help of welfare and prostitution. So, now
Speaker 1: ian this brings us to the summer of seven at
Speaker 1: Doug Dobell's house. So in the summer of seven there
Speaker 1: were four or five people living there. In addition to
Speaker 1: Jamie and ruth Anne, there was a woman named Bonnie Roman,
Speaker 1: her husband and Bonnie's brother I believe named Eli Roman.
Speaker 1: So in August one, James goes by Dobell's house. I
Speaker 1: believe it was the day of the Salinas Air Show.
Speaker 1: So he was going over to see Dobell. And you know,
Speaker 1: he knew ruth An a little bit and you know,
Speaker 1: have a few beers for the air show. And so
Speaker 1: he goes into the house and Eric Barton is occupied
Speaker 1: in the bedroom with ruth Ann. Ruthan wanted me to
Speaker 1: go to the store for her and get some beer
Speaker 1: for her. She didn't have a car, her car was
Speaker 1: broke down. So nice to me when I was going
Speaker 1: to the store. Jamie asked me, because she'd go and
Speaker 1: get a store to pop and I said, he asked
Speaker 1: your mother. So King goes and get some beer and
Speaker 1: comes back to the house. Ruthan comes out and gets
Speaker 1: a beer out of the fridge and kings there and
Speaker 1: Jamie's there, no issues, goes back into the bedroom with Barton,
Speaker 1: and you know, the day goes off without a hitch.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the next few days, while Doug
Speaker 1: Dobell was still out of town in Las Vegas, James
Speaker 1: sees Ruthan trying to sell Dobell's mop head and intervenes
Speaker 1: and stops her and tells her she can't be selling
Speaker 1: Dobell's property. Ruth Anne and James got into a verbal
Speaker 1: altercation when he prevented her from selling the mop head.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, sir, this is not good is both. This
Speaker 1: is the owner's moped and if you buying us, you're
Speaker 1: buying something that is stolen. And that's when ruth Dan
Speaker 1: turned to me, shed bastard, if you kill Dug about this,
Speaker 1: she said, if we get if we get picked it
Speaker 1: out of here because of you, I will pay you
Speaker 1: back a hundred times over she had also, by the way,
Speaker 1: ponwd Dobell's television that week when he was out of town.
Speaker 1: So on August eleven, Dobell returns from Las Vegas to
Speaker 1: his house and he notices that there's property damaged. His
Speaker 1: TV is missing, and James tells Dobell that ruth Anne
Speaker 1: had pawned the TV and tried to sell the moped,
Speaker 1: and this was later confirmed by Eric Barton, who had
Speaker 1: seen ruth and dow this stuff too. So Dobell and
Speaker 1: Ruthan get into an argument about her conduct while she's
Speaker 1: staying at the house, and the next day, Ruthan comes
Speaker 1: to Dobell with Jamie and tells Dobell that James King
Speaker 1: has molested and tried to rape Jamie. Dobell, who was
Speaker 1: horrified and actually scared that he was going to be
Speaker 1: himself accused of this assault, immediately calls the police and
Speaker 1: Dobell drives Jamie and Ruthan to the police station for
Speaker 1: Jamie to be interviewed, and on the way to the
Speaker 1: police station, Ruthan is mad at Dobell because, as doe
Speaker 1: Bell testified, he didn't give Ruthan and Jamie time for
Speaker 1: them to get their stories straight. Yeah, this is just
Speaker 1: the beginning, I mean, And so she is now grasping
Speaker 1: at straws because she's angry that her scheme was sort
Speaker 1: of you know, interrupted. Yeah, well, but I guess maybe
Speaker 1: should give just a brief background. You know, Jamie's thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, and this is her mother who's working as
Speaker 1: a prostitute and has been a drug addict. And Jamie
Speaker 1: would later testify that she was raped when she was four,
Speaker 1: and she was raped when she was eight, and what
Speaker 1: as you'll see, will become relevant later a second time.
Speaker 1: She also said that there was a convenience store involved,
Speaker 1: and we have fairly good evidence that she was also
Speaker 1: being sexually assaulted at this time that we're talking about August,
Speaker 1: just not by James King. So I have a great
Speaker 1: deal of sympathy for Jamie and her situation. It doesn't
Speaker 1: change the facts that we're going to develop going forward,
Speaker 1: but that's just the circumstances that we're dealing with here.
Speaker 1: So now this awful scenario is starting to grow legs,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Right, do Bell has driven them down
Speaker 1: to the police station. What happened at that interview, Jamie
Speaker 1: was taken into a room separated from her mother and
Speaker 1: interviewed by detectives. She said that on that day of
Speaker 1: August one, when James King came over to the house,
Speaker 1: that he was going to go to the convenience store
Speaker 1: take buy beer, and that because there was no one
Speaker 1: else around, he knocked on the bedroom door, interrupted Barton
Speaker 1: and ruth Anne and asked Ruthan whether he should take
Speaker 1: Jamie to the store with him or just leave her there,
Speaker 1: And and ruth Anne said, yet, why don't you take her?
Speaker 1: So she says, she and James drove to the liquor store,
Speaker 1: convenience store, whatever it is. He got beer, he bought
Speaker 1: Jamie a soda, and they're driving back and she said
Speaker 1: that on the way back he pretended to get lost
Speaker 1: and he began touching her thigh into her private areas.
Speaker 1: And then they get back to the house. Ruthann comes
Speaker 1: out of the bedroom, she gets a beer from the fridge,
Speaker 1: goes back into the bedroom. She sees Jamie. There's nothing
Speaker 1: going on, no problem at that point. According to Jamie,
Speaker 1: James takes her into the garage in the house and
Speaker 1: on top of a piece of carpet that's in the garage,
Speaker 1: Dobell by the ways in the carpet business, so there's
Speaker 1: a fairly large square of carpet that she says that
Speaker 1: he then forced her to orally copulate him, and that
Speaker 1: he raped her, and that he ejaculated and the seaman
Speaker 1: went on the carpet. She was actually very clear about that.
Speaker 1: The detectives asked her follow up questions to make sure
Speaker 1: because they would be able to then verify the story.
Speaker 1: So they asked her follow up questions and she says, yes,
Speaker 1: it was a brown or tan carpet. She told them
Speaker 1: where it wasn't the garage. I think initially at least
Speaker 1: one of them was slightly skeptical because for about a
Speaker 1: few things, Jamie had said that the attack had lasted
Speaker 1: for seventy five minutes, which seemed like an exceedingly long time,
Speaker 1: and there were, you know, a few other details. So
Speaker 1: then they went over and they interviewed ruth Anne, and
Speaker 1: ruth Ann said that King had never come in and
Speaker 1: asked if he could take Jamie to the store. That
Speaker 1: had never happened. That when she came out of the bedroom,
Speaker 1: you know, she saw Jamie sitting there reading a book,
Speaker 1: no problem, nothing seemed out of order. Then she said
Speaker 1: that when Jamie told her about the incident. She said
Speaker 1: that King had tried to rape her, but not the
Speaker 1: story that she told the police. The detectives then went
Speaker 1: back in with Jamie and said, your mom said that,
Speaker 1: you know, she didn't see this and she didn't hear that,
Speaker 1: and that you told her that it was only James
Speaker 1: had tried something. And Jamie said, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why my mom would say that, So
Speaker 1: there's already a discrepancy there. And so then the detectives
Speaker 1: asked Jamie, well, did you tell anybody about what happened
Speaker 1: to you at the time that had happened or in
Speaker 1: days afterwards? Jamie says, the only person that I told
Speaker 1: the next day was my friend Erica. Erica then says, no,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. Erica says that she does remember Jamie
Speaker 1: telling her that King had assaulted her, but that happened
Speaker 1: after Dobell had gotten home, So, in other words, it
Speaker 1: had happened sometime after August eleven, more than ten days
Speaker 1: after the attack. So there were some flags in the
Speaker 1: story just just from the beginning here. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of flags, and the story really is just getting started,
Speaker 1: because when you hear what happens next, and the way
Speaker 1: these lies start to unravel, it would be comical if
Speaker 1: it wasn't tragic. So when the interview concludes, Officer Hickman,
Speaker 1: he goes immediately to Dobell's house and Dobell takes him
Speaker 1: into the garage and there is a tan or brown
Speaker 1: carpet exactly in the place that Jamie described it. Dobell
Speaker 1: tells the officer it's bene for at least a month,
Speaker 1: and it's the only one that's been in this garage
Speaker 1: for several months. So the officer takes that carpet and
Speaker 1: they have it laboratory tested for semen and it tests negative.
Speaker 1: And just so they're sure, they take two other pieces
Speaker 1: of carpet, not even remotely where Jamie said they were
Speaker 1: or fitting description, but they just want to be thorough,
Speaker 1: so they grabbed two other pieces and they test those.
Speaker 1: They test negative. The detectives then went back asked again
Speaker 1: for Jamie to tell the story, and again Jamie tells
Speaker 1: the story, talks about King, It talks about how he
Speaker 1: ejaculated on the tan or brown carpet. So then the
Speaker 1: officer says, you know, we had that carpet tested and
Speaker 1: it didn't show that there was any semen on it.
Speaker 1: It didn't come back, didn't test positive, there was none.
Speaker 1: And Jamie says, that's because my dog ate that part
Speaker 1: of the carpet. That's because my dog ate that part
Speaker 1: of the carpet, right, And and you know, these are
Speaker 1: the things that a thirteen year old girl might say,
Speaker 1: which is caught in a lie. So the officer says,
Speaker 1: you're dog ate it, and she says, well, also, I
Speaker 1: think my mom may have cut it up and maybe
Speaker 1: then also washed it. And the officer says, well, the
Speaker 1: carpet doesn't look like it's damaged in any way. And
Speaker 1: Jamie didn't have anything to say to that. So that
Speaker 1: is the state of the evidence that was turned over
Speaker 1: to the District Attorney's office. This is where it should
Speaker 1: have ended, right, Yes, this was a moment right where
Speaker 1: the d A had that opportunity to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: none of this makes any fucking sense. So, you know,
Speaker 1: unless you guys can bring me something, you know, some
Speaker 1: physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, some something other than a angled
Speaker 1: web of lives from a poor child about a prosecute
Speaker 1: this case. But that's not what happened. Yeah, Well, they
Speaker 1: try to build some corroboration and on about August I
Speaker 1: think it was nineteenth or so, almost three weeks or
Speaker 1: so after this alleged attack by King. They have the
Speaker 1: prosecution's medical expert, Dr Valerie Barnes examined Jamie and she says, oh,
Speaker 1: I saw a red spot on Jamie's mouth, and I
Speaker 1: saw redness in her vagina and a cleft on the
Speaker 1: himen and you know, streaking here, and these are consistent
Speaker 1: with the sexual assault as she described it. That's just
Speaker 1: simply false. It's false. And we know it's false because
Speaker 1: when James King's conviction was overturned for the first time,
Speaker 1: it was overturned because his lawyer had failed to call
Speaker 1: a medical expert to rebut that testimony from Valerie Barnes.
Speaker 1: And if they called a medical expert to rebut that testimony,
Speaker 1: this is a federal judge talking, it would have demonstrated
Speaker 1: that it wasn't true. And we know that because doctor's
Speaker 1: Crawford and Coleman, and they are eminently qualified in child
Speaker 1: sexual assault cases and and typically testified for the prosecution,
Speaker 1: reviewed Dr Barnes's examination of Jamie and did their own
Speaker 1: examination of the same pictures and everything in Barnes looked at,
Speaker 1: and they concluded that Barnes findings were medically absurd to
Speaker 1: the point of showing bias, that none of the injuries
Speaker 1: or red spots that they saw were indicative of an
Speaker 1: assault that happened on August one or any time around then.
Speaker 1: Acute sexual assault injuries like that heal within seventy two hours,
Speaker 1: maybe a week at most. They said that what Barnes
Speaker 1: saw we're simply normal markings, and that there was no
Speaker 1: cleft on a hymen. They could see it clearly. But
Speaker 1: those absurd findings had the benefit for the prosecution of
Speaker 1: corroborating Jamie's story because they said, these are consistent with
Speaker 1: the assault. So there's your corroboration. Yeah, nice expert. And
Speaker 1: before we move on to the inevitable in this trial,
Speaker 1: authorities had another opportunity to do the right thing here,
Speaker 1: but it too went completely ignored. Shortly after the allegations
Speaker 1: came up and the investigation started going, Dobell found Jamie's
Speaker 1: diary in her room and he turned it over to
Speaker 1: the police. And in that diary, Jamie wrote about a
Speaker 1: man named Eli who she was in love with and
Speaker 1: who did stuff to her, and she would write things
Speaker 1: like do you really love me? Or do you just
Speaker 1: want to do those things to me? And this would
Speaker 1: seem like is Eli Roman who was living in the
Speaker 1: house and who was in his mid to late twenties
Speaker 1: at the time, And remarkably, she wrote about some sort
Speaker 1: of sexual interaction with Eli on the day or within
Speaker 1: a day of when she accused King. So in her
Speaker 1: diary there's something on August twelve or thirteen about you
Speaker 1: know Eli and you know, doing stuff to her. So
Speaker 1: at trial she's asked about this and she denies it
Speaker 1: all and she says, no, no, I just write stuff
Speaker 1: in there. It didn't have anything to do with with Eli.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's even it's even a bit richer
Speaker 1: here where you actually have someone who is assaulting her
Speaker 1: who she professes to love in her diary, right, which
Speaker 1: just adds to the total absurdity of Dr Barnes examining
Speaker 1: Jamie nearly three weeks after this alleged August first incident,
Speaker 1: when acute injuries like that would heal within just over
Speaker 1: seventy two hours, and then testified about those findings at trial,
Speaker 1: attributing them to the alleged August first incident, when Jamie's
Speaker 1: diary clearly indicates that statutory rape happened within days of
Speaker 1: this examination. So James, did you hire a lawyer and
Speaker 1: what exactly did your lawyer do? Well? At first, I
Speaker 1: had a public offender. That lawyer never got me an
Speaker 1: expert dispute all that right. So with no expert to
Speaker 1: refute and Jamie's testimony, this was basically a fatal complay.
Speaker 1: But there was still some hope in that there were
Speaker 1: so many holes in Jamie's story, especially about the carpet
Speaker 1: where she alleged that James deposited seamen, which came up
Speaker 1: negative every time despite many efforts. Then her ridiculous answer
Speaker 1: about the dog, you know, having eaten the carpet. It's
Speaker 1: like my dog ate my homework, literally, and then it
Speaker 1: gets even worse. The carpet in her story changed colors.
Speaker 1: She switched from her statement about the carpet being tan
Speaker 1: or brown, which she had said I think three or
Speaker 1: four times at this point leading up the trial, to
Speaker 1: the fact that the carpet was blue. In other words, no, okay,
Speaker 1: my story before about the dog join it. Maybe that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem reasonable. So let's just say it's a blue carpet,
Speaker 1: and it's a different carpet. Well, Dobell testified that there
Speaker 1: was no blue carpet in the garage. There Again, Dobell's
Speaker 1: in the carpet business, which is why we're talking about
Speaker 1: carpet in the garage and why he knows about it.
Speaker 1: But he said that months earlier that there was a
Speaker 1: piece of blue carpet in the garage, but that it
Speaker 1: had been out of there for months prior to when
Speaker 1: this assault collegedly occurred, and that the only piece of
Speaker 1: carpet that even remotely matched the description that she's talking about,
Speaker 1: and that was that piece that was taken by the police,
Speaker 1: that the criminalists testified that was laboratory tested and negative
Speaker 1: for semen and that it would have tested positive if
Speaker 1: there had been any fluids on there. But a jury
Speaker 1: of twelve people, with all the flaws and biases that
Speaker 1: twelve people bring, seeing the testimony of a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old girl accusing this man who has a prior felony,
Speaker 1: non sexual felony on his record, is very compelling testimony.
Speaker 1: It's the testimony of a child talking about the abuse
Speaker 1: they've suffered. And James King is convicted and he is
Speaker 1: sentenced to thirty five years to life in prison. They
Speaker 1: was devastating because I knew I was innocent, and I
Speaker 1: knew that this was all wrong. Man. I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: it to like somebody hit me with the dude by
Speaker 1: four right in the face. Man two years old. And
Speaker 1: I never even had an allegation that I even touched
Speaker 1: a girl in a wrong way, and and he did
Speaker 1: would happen to do me? This episode is underwritten by
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Orton and Garrison, a leading international law firm.
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to provide
Speaker 1: an impactful oro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: members of our society and in support of the public interest,
Speaker 1: including extensive work in the criminal justice area. Going to
Speaker 1: prison for a sex crime as very rough as dangerous.
Speaker 1: Guys in prison don't like that. I have been jumped
Speaker 1: in prison. I have been eight down. See what happened
Speaker 1: to the guy that I was selling up with. He
Speaker 1: went through my paperwork and found out when I was
Speaker 1: in there for. And he went out of the yard
Speaker 1: and told all the inmates when I was in there for.
Speaker 1: And that's when they dumped me, beat me up. That happened.
Speaker 1: It's gotta convey, and I still gotta deal with you.
Speaker 1: You gotta watch yourself in here twenty or four years.
Speaker 1: I've been ed her for nothing. My mother, she's she's
Speaker 1: ninety years old, and I just don't want her to die.
Speaker 1: Why in prison it's gonna it's gonna tear me up, man,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm really close to my mom and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be out there with her. And
Speaker 1: here I'm in here for nothing, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: really the up Row band, I know, James. We've spoken
Speaker 1: to your mom several times, received many letters from her,
Speaker 1: and we promised her that we do all we possibly
Speaker 1: can to make a difference for you, which is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we're here right now talking about
Speaker 1: it and shining a light on this horrible injustice. So
Speaker 1: Ian tell us what happened in post conviction. His early
Speaker 1: appeals were repeatedly denied through nine all the way till
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, when finally he got to the federal
Speaker 1: habeas petition. Right. Yes, and it is very hard to
Speaker 1: get even a federal court to hear you on the
Speaker 1: merits of your claim, it's even harder to win on
Speaker 1: the merits of your claim. But his federal habeas petition
Speaker 1: made it through all of the procedural barriers, and the
Speaker 1: federal district judge ended up granting his habeas petition on
Speaker 1: the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, basically saying his
Speaker 1: trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to call a medical
Speaker 1: expert who could have rebutted the testimony of Dr. Valerie
Speaker 1: Barnes that Jamie had injuries consistent with an assault by King.
Speaker 1: And she granted that because the two doctors, Crawford and Coleman,
Speaker 1: had provided not only declarations, but witness testimony about what
Speaker 1: they saw and about how wrong Dr Barnes was. So
Speaker 1: this judge grants the ineffective assistance a counsel, And in
Speaker 1: making that finding, this judge looked at Jamie's testimony and
Speaker 1: noted the serious gaps and contradictions in her testimony. The
Speaker 1: statement about the carpet and how it tested negative, and
Speaker 1: then she said the dog ate it, and then she
Speaker 1: changed and said the carpet was blue. And all these
Speaker 1: things were noted by the federal judge, overturning his conviction.
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is so long ago. It's just
Speaker 1: making me so sick. This is twelve long years ago,
Speaker 1: and it should have ended there. But the d A
Speaker 1: decided to retry Mr King, charging him with three counts
Speaker 1: of aggravated sexual assault on a child and lewd conduct
Speaker 1: with a child, all of which he of course still
Speaker 1: pled not guilty. And prior to the retrial this is important,
Speaker 1: the prosecution offered him a deal, a plea deal. He
Speaker 1: was presented with an option, will throw out the rape,
Speaker 1: will throw out the oral cop. If you just plead
Speaker 1: to one count of lewd conduct, you'll walk out a
Speaker 1: freeman time served, you are free to go. You can
Speaker 1: be back with your mother. And he turned it down.
Speaker 1: No guilty person offered the chance to walk out of
Speaker 1: prison or face retrial would say, fuck you, I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: Retry me. And he did that, and Jamie informed the
Speaker 1: prosecution that she didn't object to the plea deal. But
Speaker 1: Mr King, that's amazing, I mean, that's so. But Mr
Speaker 1: King rejected it, maintaining his complete innocence, and so they
Speaker 1: retried him. You know the wrinkle here that that at
Speaker 1: least stands out to me, is that leading up to
Speaker 1: the trial, some d A investigators did a few interviews
Speaker 1: with Jamie, and in these interviews, Jamie accused King of
Speaker 1: also sexually assaulting her in the living room in the house,
Speaker 1: and the prosecutors sort of sort of following up on it,
Speaker 1: and then she admits, no, that's a lie. It was
Speaker 1: actually Eli Roman that made me do that. So she
Speaker 1: lying here again in two thousand ten, so that was
Speaker 1: leading up to the trial. And so she goes into
Speaker 1: the courtroom again and she tells the story again and
Speaker 1: Dr Barnes says, you know, does her thing again. Her
Speaker 1: testimony remained consistent from the first trial, even though she'd
Speaker 1: been called out by these renowned esteemed doctors. Right, Doctor
Speaker 1: James Crawford Jakubiak, who has received a Distinguished Service Award
Speaker 1: from the Sexual Assault Investigator Associations with California two thousand three,
Speaker 1: had been listed on the Best Doctors in America of
Speaker 1: the cases he testified and he pressedified for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: And then there's Dr Lee Coleman, a psychiatrist with a
Speaker 1: specialty in sexual abuse cases, who also testified and agreed
Speaker 1: with Dr Crawford. It's it's it's really is a mystery
Speaker 1: how he was able to be convicted wrongly a second time,
Speaker 1: just simply on the testimony of Jamie and Dr Barnes.
Speaker 1: Even though his conviction was overturned by a federal court,
Speaker 1: and even though the federal judge made all those findings
Speaker 1: about the holes and the evidence and the unbelievability of
Speaker 1: Jamie's story, James King got retried and he got sentenced
Speaker 1: again to thirty five years to life. And once again
Speaker 1: the appellate process gears start turning. He has his direct
Speaker 1: appeal in the California Court of Appeal habeas petitions and
Speaker 1: those are denied. But once again, actually he filed a
Speaker 1: pro per which means without a lawyer, basically by him self.
Speaker 1: The chicken scratched out of federal habeas petition because he
Speaker 1: didn't have counsel at the time. And this time they
Speaker 1: denied it because the doctors testified at trial, and so
Speaker 1: even though they had serious doubts about Jamie's credibility, you know,
Speaker 1: the federal court said, we're not here to relitigate, you know,
Speaker 1: who we believe and who we don't believe. That's not
Speaker 1: our role. That's a jury's role. So our hands are
Speaker 1: tied and we're going to deny your federal district habeas petition,
Speaker 1: and then in my firm was contacted by James and
Speaker 1: his mother, Lilyan. You know, the first thing that we
Speaker 1: do is start reading, you know, we get the trial transcripts,
Speaker 1: and we look at the direct appeal briefs and the
Speaker 1: habeas petitions and the court's rulings. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things where you you feel your stomach turning. It's
Speaker 1: hard to believe that this case has happened the way
Speaker 1: it's happened, and that ja Ms is once again in
Speaker 1: prison serving thirty five years to life based on the
Speaker 1: state of the evidence in this case. If you talk
Speaker 1: to any of the lawyers that have represented James throughout
Speaker 1: this saga, each one of them will tell you the
Speaker 1: same thing, that this is a man who is innocent,
Speaker 1: and they believe it as much as they've ever believed
Speaker 1: any case they've ever had. When you're in this field,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of cases of a lot of
Speaker 1: people saying they didn't do it, and maybe some of
Speaker 1: them you agree with. Maybe some of them say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they didn't do it, but they
Speaker 1: constitutional rights were violated at trial. And there are very
Speaker 1: few that you would bet your eyeballs that they're actually innocent.
Speaker 1: And this is a case that every lawyer who's touched it,
Speaker 1: aside from a prosecutor, would tell you that. And I
Speaker 1: tell you that after we got involved in the case,
Speaker 1: what we saw was that the issue of false evidence
Speaker 1: had never been raised. And our view of the evidence
Speaker 1: and of the law is that the testimony that Jamie
Speaker 1: gave that the rug was now blue is false. It's
Speaker 1: demonstratly false, and the testimony of Valorie Barnes is false too.
Speaker 1: Eminently qualified doctors have said it's false, and they've said
Speaker 1: it's absurd. They've said that the things that Dr Barnes
Speaker 1: testified to but a cleft on the hymen and things
Speaker 1: of that nature, simply we're not there, did not exist.
Speaker 1: Her findings are absurd. So we file the habeas petition
Speaker 1: alleging false evidence, introduced a trial and the ineffective assistance
Speaker 1: of his appella a council for failure to raise that issue.
Speaker 1: The Superior Court actually requested some informal briefing on the issue,
Speaker 1: and what the Addition Attorney's office came back with was, well,
Speaker 1: we're just saying that there's a disagreement amongst experts. Dr
Speaker 1: Barnes's testimony isn't false. She testified to what she saw,
Speaker 1: and then Crawford and Coleman testified to their findings, and
Speaker 1: the jury made their determinations, so you can't say that
Speaker 1: that's false. And regarding the blue carpet, they said, well,
Speaker 1: Jamie was just mistaken about whether the carpet was blue
Speaker 1: or tan, and that explains everything. And we submitted to
Speaker 1: reply brief saying basically, all that's clearly bullshit. You know,
Speaker 1: look at this, look at the transcripts. You know he's innocent.
Speaker 1: This evidence was false. And the Superior Court, not unsurprisingly
Speaker 1: unfortunately denied the having petition. We filed in the California
Speaker 1: Court of Appeal and it was and i'd and so
Speaker 1: then we filed habeas ptition in the California Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: This is our last forum here. And if this is denied,
Speaker 1: he's already filed a federal habeas petition proper by himself,
Speaker 1: so we can't just go back to federal court and
Speaker 1: knock on their door again. And I am deeply worried
Speaker 1: that if this California Supreme Court denies this habeas petition
Speaker 1: that Our only avenue at that point is to petition
Speaker 1: the governor's office for clemency or commutation, which is a
Speaker 1: difficult case to make when you have allegations like these. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always a long shot, but it's also always worth
Speaker 1: a try. And the good news is that you have
Speaker 1: a great governor in California and his team, who I
Speaker 1: gotten to know are are really terrific people. We are
Speaker 1: going to sort of change dot org petition that we
Speaker 1: would love for people who have heard of about this
Speaker 1: case and who agree that James King should not spend
Speaker 1: any more time in prison than that he's an innocent man,
Speaker 1: would go to the link and reads more about the
Speaker 1: case and voice your support. You see the evidence and
Speaker 1: see that I am completely innocent of this crime, and
Speaker 1: I just think you to please people, can you please
Speaker 1: sign my petition and will of course link to that
Speaker 1: in the bio, So um, please do go to the
Speaker 1: bio sign the petition. There will be other information as well,
Speaker 1: And now you know, we go to the part of
Speaker 1: the show that we call closing arguments. First of all,
Speaker 1: I thank you for being with us, and of course James,
Speaker 1: you know, what can I say except for the entire
Speaker 1: human race, os you an apology and so much more,
Speaker 1: and I hope that we're able to see you free
Speaker 1: in the not too distant future. So, and now closing arguments,
Speaker 1: I leave your microphones on, turn mine off, kick back
Speaker 1: in my chair with my headphones on, and just listen
Speaker 1: for anything you want to say. Let's start with you,
Speaker 1: Ian and save Mr King. To close out the show.
Speaker 1: James King is innocent. I think any fair minded person
Speaker 1: looking at the facts of this case and the history
Speaker 1: of this case would agree with there is an innocent
Speaker 1: man who has served twenty four years and he didn't
Speaker 1: do it. He's innocent. I don't fault Jamie. The circumstances
Speaker 1: of her life leading up to this were horrible. She was,
Speaker 1: in my view, being assaulted at that time, but by
Speaker 1: somebody else, by somebody that she professed to love. When
Speaker 1: it came to accusing somebody, she was able to accuse
Speaker 1: James King of conduct that someone else had done to her.
Speaker 1: These cases require evidence. You can not simply take the
Speaker 1: word of one person. They require corroboration, and when there's
Speaker 1: no physical evidence, When there's no corroboration, that should be
Speaker 1: a red flag. And then when the evidence comes back,
Speaker 1: and it's it contradicts the allegations that should be an
Speaker 1: even bigger red flag. And then when those contradictions are absurd,
Speaker 1: that the dog ate the evidence that the carpet magically
Speaker 1: switched colors, that James King did this stuff to me. Ah,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, sorry, it was actually Eli Roman who
Speaker 1: did that stuff to me. That should be a stop sign.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't happen at that point. No one should have
Speaker 1: their life put in jeopardy. And let's not sugarcoated. I
Speaker 1: mean this is it's a death sentence. James King is
Speaker 1: going to die in prison unless his conviction is overturned,
Speaker 1: his sentence is commuted. He's not going to get out.
Speaker 1: He's sixty six years old now and he's not in
Speaker 1: great health. His mother's name is Lilian, she's in her
Speaker 1: mid eighties and she is in rapidly declining health. His
Speaker 1: one hope is to get out before she does, and
Speaker 1: her one hope is to see her son again outside
Speaker 1: of prison. It's this is the kind of case that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, makes you question what you're doing as a lawyer,
Speaker 1: if what you're doing has any value. If we lose,
Speaker 1: if his conviction isn't overturned. Have I failed? If we
Speaker 1: lose James King dies in prison, mother dies without ever
Speaker 1: seeing her son outside of prison again, and you know
Speaker 1: I will have failed James now over you. Oh God,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just just just begging if somebody who
Speaker 1: please help me this this girl. Man, they hated me
Speaker 1: because I am the one who got to be evicted
Speaker 1: because see, they had no word to go. They were
Speaker 1: living on the streets. They hadn't made there and I
Speaker 1: came along and I took it away from her. It
Speaker 1: was nothing but revenge and revenge only, man, That's why
Speaker 1: they did this. I'm just prayed that somebody would please
Speaker 1: took a look at my cacentcy, the evidence that I
Speaker 1: am totally innocent of this crime. My mom, she thanks
Speaker 1: you so much what you're doing for me. She is
Speaker 1: so happy to hear this, what you guys are doing
Speaker 1: now for me. She's so happy. And I want you
Speaker 1: to know this that I want you to know one thing,
Speaker 1: this never happened. This never happened. Then, thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence projects and go to the link in our
Speaker 1: bio to see how you can help. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warnas.
Speaker 1: The music on the show, as always, is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
Speaker 1: Company Number one