Speaker 1: While renting a room in Selinas, 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 Doug do Bell. James would
Speaker 1: come by occasionally to pick up his mail and socialize,
Speaker 1: as he did on August first, nineteen ninety seven, for
Speaker 1: the Selena's Airshow. A few days later, while Landlord Dug
Speaker 1: do Bell was in Las Vegas, James intervened when he
Speaker 1: saw ruth Anne trying to sell Doug's mobed. Ruth Anne,
Speaker 1: who had already pawned Doug's TV, threatened James that she
Speaker 1: would get back at him if he ever told Doug.
Speaker 1: When Doug returned from Vegas on August eleventh, James found
Speaker 1: himself accused of stealing Doug's TV, which he firmly denied
Speaker 1: while reporting the story about ruth Anne and the moped.
Speaker 1: When Eric Barton confirmed that ruth Anne was the culprit,
Speaker 1: James found him self accused once again, this time for
Speaker 1: the alleged August first sexual assault of thirteen year old Jamie,
Speaker 1: during which time he allegedly ejaculated on a tan carpet.
Speaker 1: When confronted with a carpet testing negative for seamen, the
Speaker 1: young girl said that her dog must have eaten it.
Speaker 1: She later changed the story to a blue carpet that
Speaker 1: Dobell confirmed did not exist. Despite these glaring red flags,
Speaker 1: that DA used Jamie's story and a medical experts testimony
Speaker 1: that has since been characterized as absurd to send James
Speaker 1: away from thirty five years to life. This is Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm. Today you're going to hear a story that
Speaker 1: is disturbing in so many ways. This story is the
Speaker 1: story of a man who's been in prison for a
Speaker 1: quarter century for a crime that never happened. And it's
Speaker 1: got so many lies in it that you'll you may
Speaker 1: need a pen and paper to keep track of the lies.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just absolutely breathtaking the web that was
Speaker 1: woven in order to not only convict, but also keep
Speaker 1: this innocent man in prison for this long. The attorney
Speaker 1: is Ian Graham. He's a civil rights attorney with Cravis
Speaker 1: Graham and Zucker in California. Ian. Welcome to Ronful Conviction.
Speaker 2: Thanks Jason. It's a real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: And soon you'll be hearing the phone ring and we'll
Speaker 1: be hearing from the man himself, James King, will be
Speaker 1: calling in from the California Men's Colony, which is a
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like sort of a benign name
Speaker 1: for a place that is no place for an innocent
Speaker 1: man to be. Oh, and here we go. We're going
Speaker 1: to our call right.
Speaker 3: Now, Globe, I have a prepaid call from Jeans, an
Speaker 3: inmate at the California Men's Colony, San Luis Obispo, California.
Speaker 3: This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.
Speaker 3: To accept this call, say or dial five now. Thank
Speaker 3: you for using Global tail Link.
Speaker 1: Hello James, Hi, finally get to talk to you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here too, even though I really
Speaker 1: hate why you're here or more to the point, where
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So tell us a bit about your life growing up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I grew up in Actually I was born
Speaker 4: in Germany. My dad was in the army for twenty
Speaker 4: five years and We came back to the United States
Speaker 4: when I was like six years old, and then we
Speaker 4: moved to California, and I've been in California all my life.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in a military family. And we've
Speaker 1: spoken with your mom, Lilyan, many times, and it sounds
Speaker 1: like you had a relatively normal life working in the
Speaker 1: moving business until you had a run in with the
Speaker 1: off for burglary. Now that's a serious crime, but when
Speaker 1: you hear the details of it, it was actually a
Speaker 1: bit more benign than it sounds.
Speaker 4: The coly three hundred dollars. So I was mad and
Speaker 4: I shouldn't have done it, and I went in the
Speaker 4: house and took a VCR. When I took it, I
Speaker 4: even called her and told her I took your VCR
Speaker 4: and she called the police call me. That's how that happened,
Speaker 4: and they got me for burglary. So I had to
Speaker 4: plead guilty to it. I got a year in prison
Speaker 4: for that. That was all it was to it. And
Speaker 4: I should never done that.
Speaker 1: So, Okay, you knew this person and they owed you money,
Speaker 1: and you obviously shouldn't have done that. You've acknowledged that
Speaker 1: that was a dumb thing to do. But now you've
Speaker 1: got one strike for burglary.
Speaker 4: But I have no six grimes in my life at all, man,
Speaker 4: not even allegations that I've done anything right.
Speaker 1: So this was a non sexual crime. So why did
Speaker 1: I even bring it up, you might be asking yourself. Well,
Speaker 1: at the time, with the newly minted nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: crime bill, what this meant was that you had one
Speaker 1: strike against you, so a second offense would mean doubling
Speaker 1: any sentence. But for now, you just got the one
Speaker 1: year sentenced. So you get out, go back to the
Speaker 1: moving business, doing odd jobs, and you're renting a room
Speaker 1: from a man named Doug Dobell and Salinas, California.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was living in dougle Bill's out for about
Speaker 4: seven months and I moved out and got my old place.
Speaker 4: It was in ninety seventh and I was leaving this
Speaker 4: Selenas at the time. When I moved out, I still
Speaker 4: stay friends with Doug, and I had to go over
Speaker 4: there and get my meal every day because I did
Speaker 4: not had my male swish. I just kept it there
Speaker 4: at Doug's house, all right.
Speaker 1: So you were also doing some odd jobs for Doug.
Speaker 1: You two guys had a mutual friend, Eric Barton, who
Speaker 1: was dating a woman who had just begun renting a
Speaker 1: room from Doug. And her name was ruth Ann, a
Speaker 1: woman 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 nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven at Doug Dobell's house.
Speaker 2: So, in the summer of nineteen ninety seven, there were
Speaker 2: four or five people living there. In addition to Jamie
Speaker 2: and ruth Anne, there was a woman named Bonnie Roman,
Speaker 2: her husband and Bonnie's brother I believe named Eli Roman.
Speaker 2: So on August first, nineteen ninety seven, James goes by
Speaker 2: Dobell's house. I believe it was the day of the
Speaker 2: Salinas Air Show. So he was going over to see Dobell.
Speaker 2: And you know, he knew ruth Ann a little bit,
Speaker 2: and you know, have a few beers for the air show.
Speaker 2: And so he goes into the house and Eric Barton
Speaker 2: is occupied in the bedroom with ruth Ann.
Speaker 4: Ruthann wanted me to go to the store for her
Speaker 4: and hit some beer for her. She didn't have a car,
Speaker 4: her car was broke down, so nice to me. When
Speaker 4: I was going to the store, Jamie asked me because
Speaker 4: she'd go and get a sola pop and I say,
Speaker 4: to ask your mother, and her mother sits sure.
Speaker 2: So King goes and gets some beer and comes back
Speaker 2: to the house. Ruth Ann comes out and gets a
Speaker 2: beer out of the fridge, and King's there and Jamie's there,
Speaker 2: no issues, goes back into the bedroom with Barton, and
Speaker 2: you know, the day goes off without a hitch. Over
Speaker 2: the course of the next few days, while Doug Dobell
Speaker 2: was still out of town in Las Vegas, James sees
Speaker 2: ruth Ann trying to sell Dobell's mophead and intervenes and
Speaker 2: stops her and tells her she can't be selling Dobell's property.
Speaker 2: Ruth Anne and James got into a verbal altercation when
Speaker 2: he prevented her from selling the moped.
Speaker 4: I said, excuse me, sir, this is not ruth Danner's mouthped.
Speaker 4: This is the owner's moped. And if you buy this,
Speaker 4: you're buying something that is stolen. And that's when Ruth
Speaker 4: Dan turned to me, you bastard, if you tell Doug
Speaker 4: about this, she said, if we get if we getting
Speaker 4: picked it out of here because of you, I will
Speaker 4: pay you back one hundred times over.
Speaker 2: She had, also, by the way, pawned Dobell's television that
Speaker 2: week when he was out of town. So on August eleventh,
Speaker 2: Dobell returns from Las Vegas to his house and he
Speaker 2: notices that there's property damaged. His TV is missing, and
Speaker 2: James tells Dobell that ruth Anne had pawned the TV
Speaker 2: and tried to sell the moped, and this was later
Speaker 2: confirmed by Eric Barton, who had seen ruth Anne do
Speaker 2: this stuff too. So Dobell and ruth Anne get into
Speaker 2: an argument about her conduct while she's staying at the house,
Speaker 2: and the next day, ruth Ann comes to Dobell with
Speaker 2: Jamie and tells Dobell that James King has molested and
Speaker 2: tried to rape Jamie. Dobell, who was horrified and actually
Speaker 2: scared that he was going to be himself accused of
Speaker 2: this assault, immediately calls the police and Dobell drives Jamie
Speaker 2: and ruth Anne to the police station for Jamie to
Speaker 2: be interviewed and on the way to the police station.
Speaker 2: Ruth Ann is mad at Dobell because, as Bell testified,
Speaker 2: he didn't give ruth Ann and Jamie time for them
Speaker 2: to get their stories straight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is just the beginning, I mean, yeah, And
Speaker 1: so she is now grasping at straws because she's angry
Speaker 1: that her scheme was sort of you know, interrupted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but I guess maybe should give just a
Speaker 2: brief background. You know, Jamie's thirteen years old, and this
Speaker 2: is her mother who's working as a prostitute and has
Speaker 2: been a drug addict. And Jamie would later testify that
Speaker 2: she was raped when she was four, and she was
Speaker 2: raked when she was eight, and as you'll see, will
Speaker 2: become relevant later a second time. She also said that
Speaker 2: there was a convenience store involved, and we have fairly
Speaker 2: good evidence that she was also being sexually assaulted at
Speaker 2: this time that we're talking about August of nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: just not by James King. So I have a great
Speaker 2: deal of sympathy for Jamie and her situation. He doesn't
Speaker 2: change the facts that we're going to develop going for
Speaker 2: 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, Dobell has driven them down to
Speaker 1: the police station. What happened at that interview?
Speaker 2: Jamie was taken into a room separated from her mother
Speaker 2: and interviewed by detectives. She said that on that day
Speaker 2: of August first, when James King came over to the house,
Speaker 2: that he was going to go to the convenience store
Speaker 2: to buy beer, and that because there was no one
Speaker 2: else around, he knocked on the bedroom door, interrupted Barton
Speaker 2: and ruth Ann and asked ruth Anne whether he should
Speaker 2: take Jamie to the store with him or just leave
Speaker 2: her there, And ruth Anne said, yeah, why don't you
Speaker 2: take her? So, she says, she and James drove to
Speaker 2: the liquor store, convenience store whatever it is. He got beer,
Speaker 2: he bought Jamie a soda, and they're driving back and
Speaker 2: she said that on the way back he pretended to
Speaker 2: get lost and he began touching her thigh into her
Speaker 2: private areas. And then they get back to the house.
Speaker 2: Ruth Ann comes out of the bedroom, she gets a
Speaker 2: beer from the fridge, goes back into the bedroom. She
Speaker 2: sees Jamie. There's nothing going on no problem at that point.
Speaker 2: According to Jamie, James takes her into the garage in
Speaker 2: the house and on top of a piece of carpet
Speaker 2: that's in the garage Dobell, by the ways, in the
Speaker 2: carpet business, so there's a fairly large square of carpet
Speaker 2: that she says that he then forced her to orally
Speaker 2: copulate him, and that he raped her, and that he
Speaker 2: ejaculated and the seamen went on the carpet. She was
Speaker 2: actually very clear about that. The detectives asked her follow
Speaker 2: up questions to make sure because they would be able
Speaker 2: to then verify the story. So they ask her follow
Speaker 2: up questions and she says, yes, it was a brown
Speaker 2: or tan carpet. She told them where it was in
Speaker 2: the garage. I think initially at least one of them
Speaker 2: was slightly skeptical because for about a few things, Jamie
Speaker 2: had said that the attack had lasted for seventy five minutes,
Speaker 2: which seemed like an exceedingly long time, and there were,
Speaker 2: you know, a few other details. So then they went
Speaker 2: over and they interviewed ruth Ann, and ruth Ann said
Speaker 2: that King had never come in and asked if he
Speaker 2: could take Jamie to the store that had never happened.
Speaker 2: That when she came out of the bedroom, you know,
Speaker 2: she saw Jamie sitting there reading a book. No problem,
Speaker 2: nothing seemed out of order. Then she said that when
Speaker 2: Jamie told her about the incident, she said that King
Speaker 2: had tried to rape her, but not the story that
Speaker 2: she told the police. The detectives then went back in
Speaker 2: with Jamie and said, your mom said that, you know,
Speaker 2: she didn't see this and she didn't hear that, and
Speaker 2: that you told her that it was only James had
Speaker 2: tried something. And Jamie said, well, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know why my mom would say that. So there's
Speaker 2: already discrepancy there. And so then the detectives asked Jamie, well,
Speaker 2: did you tell anybody about what happened to you at
Speaker 2: the time that it happened or days afterwards? Jamie says,
Speaker 2: the only person that I told the next day was
Speaker 2: my friend Erica. Erica then says, no, that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Erica says that she does remember Jamie telling her that
Speaker 2: King had assaulted her, but that happened after Dobell had
Speaker 2: gotten home, so, in other words, it had happened sometime
Speaker 2: after August eleventh, more than ten days after the attack,
Speaker 2: So there were some flags in the story just from
Speaker 2: the beginning here.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of flags, and the story really
Speaker 1: is just getting started, because when you hear what happens
Speaker 1: next and the way these lies start to unravel, it
Speaker 1: would be comical if it wasn't tragic.
Speaker 2: So when the interview concludes, Officer Hickman, he goes immediately
Speaker 2: to Dobell's house and Dobell takes him into the garage
Speaker 2: and there is a tan or brown carpet exactly in
Speaker 2: the place that Jamie described it. Dobell tells the officer
Speaker 2: it's been it for at least a month, and it's
Speaker 2: the only one that's been in this garage for several months.
Speaker 2: So the officer takes that carpet and they have it
Speaker 2: laboratory tested for semen and it tests negative, And just
Speaker 2: so they're sure, they take two other pieces of carpet,
Speaker 2: not even remotely where Jamie said they were, or fitting description,
Speaker 2: but they just wanted to be thorough, so they grab
Speaker 2: two other pieces and they test those. They test negative.
Speaker 2: The detectives then went back asked again for Jamie to
Speaker 2: tell the story, and again Jamie tells a story, talks
Speaker 2: about king, It talks about how we ejaculate on the
Speaker 2: tan or brown carpet. So then the officer says, you know,
Speaker 2: we had that carpet tested and it didn't show that
Speaker 2: there was any semen on it. It didn't come back,
Speaker 2: didn't test positive. There was none. And Jamie says, that's
Speaker 2: because my dog ate that part of the carpet.
Speaker 1: That's because my dog ate that part of the carpet.
Speaker 2: Right, And you know, these are the things that a
Speaker 2: thirteen year old girl might say, which he's caught in
Speaker 2: a lie. So the officer says, your dog ate it,
Speaker 2: and she says, well, also, I think my mom may
Speaker 2: have cut it up and maybe then also washed it.
Speaker 2: And the officer says, well, the carpet doesn't look like
Speaker 2: it's damaged in any way. And Jamie didn't have anything
Speaker 2: to say to that. So that is the state of
Speaker 2: the evidence that was turned over to the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1: This is where it should have ended, right, Yes, this
Speaker 1: was a moment right where the DA had that opportunity
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, none of this makes any
Speaker 1: fucking sense. Yeah, so you know, unless you guys can
Speaker 1: bring me something you know, some physical evidence. I witnessed
Speaker 1: testimony some something other than angled web of lies from
Speaker 1: a poor child. I'm not going to prosecute this case,
Speaker 1: but that's not what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they try to build some corroboration and on
Speaker 2: about August I think it was nineteenth or so, almost
Speaker 2: three weeks or so after this alleged attack by King,
Speaker 2: they have the prosecution's medical expert, doctor Valerie Barnes, examined
Speaker 2: Jamie and she says, oh, I saw a red spot
Speaker 2: on Jamie's mouth, and I saw redness in her vagina
Speaker 2: and a cleft on the hymen and you know, up
Speaker 2: streaking here, and these are consistent with the sexual assault
Speaker 2: as she described it. That's just simply false. It's false.
Speaker 2: And we know it's false because when James King's conviction
Speaker 2: was overturned for the first time, it was overturned because
Speaker 2: his lawyer had failed to call a medical expert to
Speaker 2: rebut that testimony from Valerie Barnes. And if they called
Speaker 2: a medical expert to rebut that testimony, this is a
Speaker 2: federal judge talking, it would have demonstrated that it wasn't true.
Speaker 2: And we know that because doctors Crawford and Coleman, and
Speaker 2: they are eminently qualified in child sexual assault cases and
Speaker 2: typically testify for the prosecution. Reviewed doctor Barnes's examination of
Speaker 2: Jamie and did their own examination of the same pictures
Speaker 2: and everything in Barnes looked at, and they concluded that Barnes'
Speaker 2: findings were medically absurd to the point of showing bias,
Speaker 2: that none of the injuries or red spots that they
Speaker 2: saw were indicative of an assault that happened on August first,
Speaker 2: or anytime around then. Acute sexual assault injuries like that
Speaker 2: heal within seventy two hours, maybe a week at most.
Speaker 2: They said that what Barnes saw were simply normal markings
Speaker 2: and that there was no cleft on a hymen. They
Speaker 2: could see it clearly. But those absurd findings had the
Speaker 2: benefit for the prosecution of corroborating Jamie's story because they said,
Speaker 2: these are consistent with the assault. So there's your corroboration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nice expert. And before we move on to the
Speaker 1: inevitable in this trial, authorities had another opportunity to do
Speaker 1: the right thing here, but it too went completely ignored.
Speaker 2: Shortly after the allegations came up and the investigation started going,
Speaker 2: Dobell found Jamie's diary in her room and he turned
Speaker 2: it over to the police. And in that diary, Jamie
Speaker 2: wrote about a man named Eli who she was in
Speaker 2: love with and who did stuff to her, and she
Speaker 2: would write things like do you really love me? Or
Speaker 2: do you just want to do those things to me?
Speaker 2: And this would seem like is Eli Roman, who was
Speaker 2: living in the house and who was in his mid
Speaker 2: to late twenties at the time, And remarkably, she wrote
Speaker 2: about some sort of sexual interaction with Eli on the
Speaker 2: day or within a day of when she accused King.
Speaker 2: So in her diary there's something on August twelfth or
Speaker 2: thirteenth about you know, Eli and you know, doing stuff
Speaker 2: to her. So at trial she's asked about this and
Speaker 2: she denies it all and she says, no, no, I
Speaker 2: just write stuff in there. It didn't have anything to
Speaker 2: do with with Eli. So, you know, it's even it's
Speaker 2: even a bit richer here where you actually have someone
Speaker 2: who is assaulting her who she professes to love in
Speaker 2: her diary.
Speaker 1: Right, which just adds to the total absurdity of doctor
Speaker 1: Barnes examining Jamie nearly three weeks after this alleged August
Speaker 1: first incident, when acute injuries like that would heal within
Speaker 1: just over seventy two hours, and then testified about those
Speaker 1: findings at trial, attributing them to the alleged August first incident,
Speaker 1: when Jamie's diary clearly indicates that statutory rape happened within
Speaker 1: days of this examination. So James, did you hire a
Speaker 1: lawyer and what exactly did your lawyer do? Well?
Speaker 4: At first I had a public defender. That lawyer never
Speaker 4: got me an expert dispute all that right.
Speaker 1: So with no expert to refute and Jamie's testimony, this
Speaker 1: was basically a FATA complay. But there was still some
Speaker 1: hope in that there were so many holes in Jamie's story,
Speaker 1: especially about the carpet where she alleged that James deposited seamen,
Speaker 1: which came up negative every time despite many efforts. Then
Speaker 1: her ridiculous answer about the dog, you know, having eaten
Speaker 1: the carpet. It's like my dog ate my homework, literally,
Speaker 1: and then it gets even worse. The carpet in her
Speaker 1: story changed colors.
Speaker 2: She switched from her statement about the carpet being tan
Speaker 2: or brown, which she'd said, I think three or four
Speaker 2: times at this point leading up the trial to the
Speaker 2: fact that the carpet was blue. In other words, no, Okay,
Speaker 2: my story before about the dog chewing it, Maybe that
Speaker 2: doesn't seem reasonable. So let's just say it's a blue carpet,
Speaker 2: and it's a different carpet. Well, Dobell testified that there
Speaker 2: was no blue carpet in the garage. Again, Dobell's in
Speaker 2: the carpet business, which is why we're talking about carpet
Speaker 2: in the garage and why he knows about it. But
Speaker 2: he said that months earlier that there was a piece
Speaker 2: of blue carpet in the garage, but that it had
Speaker 2: been out of there for months prior to when this
Speaker 2: assault allegedly occurred, and that the only piece of carpet
Speaker 2: that even remotely matched the description that she's talking about,
Speaker 2: and that was that piece that was taken by the police,
Speaker 2: that the criminalists testified that was laboratory tested and negative
Speaker 2: for semen, and that it would have tested positive if
Speaker 2: there had been any fluids on there. But a jury
Speaker 2: of twelve people, with all the flaws and biases that
Speaker 2: twelve people bring, seeing the testimony of a thirteen year
Speaker 2: old girl accusing this man who has a prior felony,
Speaker 2: non sexual felony on his record, is very compelling testimony.
Speaker 2: It's a testimony of a child talking about the abuse
Speaker 2: they've suffered. And James King is convicted and he is
Speaker 2: sentenced to thirty five years to life in prison.
Speaker 4: It was devastating because I knew I was innocent, that
Speaker 4: I knew that this was all wrong. Man, I couldn't
Speaker 4: believe it. You feel like somebody hit me with the
Speaker 4: two by four right in the face. Man twenty two
Speaker 4: years old. I never even had an allegation that I
Speaker 4: even touched a girl in a wrong way, and he
Speaker 4: won't happen to do me.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, robono legal assistance to
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
Speaker 1: of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice area.
Speaker 4: Going to prison for a sex crime is very rough,
Speaker 4: as dagerous guys in prison don't like that. I have
Speaker 4: been jumped in prison, I have been eat down. So
Speaker 4: you what happened the guy that I was selling up with.
Speaker 4: He went through my vapor work and found out what
Speaker 4: I was in there for, and he went out in
Speaker 4: the yard and told all the inmates what I was
Speaker 4: in there for. And that's when they jumped me, beat
Speaker 4: me up. He got happened to got to convey, and
Speaker 4: I still got to deal with it. You got to
Speaker 4: watch yourself in here twenty four years. I've been in
Speaker 4: here for nothing. My mother, she's ninety years old, and
Speaker 4: I just don't want her to die. Why I'm in prison.
Speaker 4: It's going to tear me up, man, you know, because
Speaker 4: I'm really close to my mom and I just wanted
Speaker 4: to be out there with her, and here I'm in
Speaker 4: here for nothing, you know, and it's really eat me.
Speaker 1: Up through bad I know. James. We've spoken to your
Speaker 1: mom several times, received many letters from her, and we
Speaker 1: promised her that we do all we possibly can to
Speaker 1: make a difference for you, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why we're here right now talking about it and
Speaker 1: shining a light on this horrible injustice. So Ian tell
Speaker 1: us what happened in post conviction. His early appeals were
Speaker 1: repeatedly denied through nineteen ninety eight. Ninety nine, all the
Speaker 1: way till two thousand and nine when finally he got
Speaker 1: to the federal habeas petition.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, and it is very hard to get even
Speaker 2: a federal court to hear you on the merits of
Speaker 2: your claim. It's even harder to win on the merits
Speaker 2: of your claim. But his federal habeas petition made it
Speaker 2: through all of the procedural barriers, and the federal district
Speaker 2: judge ended up granting his habeas petition on the claim
Speaker 2: of ineffective assistance of counsel, basically saying his trial lawyer
Speaker 2: was ineffective for failing to call a medical expert who
Speaker 2: could have rebutted the testimony of doctor Valerie Barnes that
Speaker 2: Jamie had injuries consistent with an assault by King. And
Speaker 2: she granted that because the two doctors, Crawford and Coleman,
Speaker 2: had provided not only declarations but witness testimony about what
Speaker 2: they saw and about how wrong doctor Barnes was. So
Speaker 2: this judge grants the ineffective assistance a council, And in
Speaker 2: making that finding, this judge looked at Jamie's testimony and
Speaker 2: noted the serious gaps and contradictions in her testimony. The
Speaker 2: statement about the carpet and how it tested negative, and
Speaker 2: then she said the dog ate it. And then she
Speaker 2: changed and said the carpet was blue. And all these
Speaker 2: things were noted by the federal judge overturning his conviction.
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is so long ago. This was
Speaker 1: making me so sick. This is twelve long years ago,
Speaker 1: and it should have ended there. But the DA decided
Speaker 1: to retry mister King, charging him with three counts of
Speaker 1: aggravated sexual assault on a child and lude conduct with
Speaker 1: a child, all of which he of course still pled
Speaker 1: not guilty. And prior to the retrial, this is important,
Speaker 1: the prosecution offered him a deal, a plea deal.
Speaker 2: He was presented with an option, will throw out the rape,
Speaker 2: we'll throw out the oral cop. If you just plead
Speaker 2: to one count of lude conduct, you'll walk out a
Speaker 2: freeman time served, you are free to go. You can
Speaker 2: be back with your mother. And he turned it down.
Speaker 2: No guilty person offered the chance to walk out of
Speaker 2: prison or face retrial would say, fuck you, I'm innocent.
Speaker 2: Retry me. And he did.
Speaker 1: That, and Jamie informed the prosecution that she didn't object
Speaker 1: to the plea deal. But mister King, that's amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's so, but mister King rejected it, maintaining his complete innocence, and.
Speaker 2: So they retried him. You know, the wrinkle here that
Speaker 2: really stands out to me is that leading up to
Speaker 2: the trial, some DA investigators did a few interviews with Jamie,
Speaker 2: and in these interviews, Jamie accused King of also sexually
Speaker 2: assaulting her in the living room in the house, and
Speaker 2: the prosecutors started sort of following up on it, and
Speaker 2: then she admits, no, that's a lie. It was actually
Speaker 2: Eli Roman that made me do that. So she's lying
Speaker 2: here again in twenty ten, so that was leading up
Speaker 2: to the trial. So she goes into the courtroom again
Speaker 2: and she tells the story again, and doctor Barnes says,
Speaker 2: you know, does her thing again.
Speaker 1: Her testimony remained consistent from the first trial, even though
Speaker 1: she'd been called out by these renowned esteemed doctors. Right,
Speaker 1: doctor James Crawford Jakubiak, who has received a Distinguished Service
Speaker 1: Award from the Sexual Assault Investigator Association with California in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. Since nineteen ninety four, had been
Speaker 1: listed on the Best Doctors in America. Ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the cases he testified and he pressified for the prosecution.
Speaker 1: And then there's doctor Lee Coleman, a psychiatrist with a
Speaker 1: specialty in sexual abuse cases, who also testified and agreed
Speaker 1: with doctor Crawford. It really is a mystery how he
Speaker 1: was able to be convicted wrongly a second time.
Speaker 2: Just simply on the testimony of Jamie and doctor Barnes.
Speaker 2: Even though his conviction was overturned by a federal court,
Speaker 2: and even though the federal judge made all those findings
Speaker 2: about the holes and the evidence and the unbelievability of
Speaker 2: Jamie's story, James King got retried, and he got sentenced
Speaker 2: again to thirty five years to life, and once again
Speaker 2: the appellate process gears start turning. He has his direct
Speaker 2: appeal in the California Court of Appeal habeas petitions and
Speaker 2: those are denied once again. Actually, he filed a pro
Speaker 2: per which means without a lawyer, basically by him self.
Speaker 2: He chicken scratched out of federal habeas petition because he
Speaker 2: didn't have counsel at the time. And this time they
Speaker 2: denied it because the doctors testified at trial, and so
Speaker 2: even though they had serious doubts about Jamie's credibility, you know,
Speaker 2: the federal court said, we're not here to relitigate you know,
Speaker 2: who we believe and who we don't believe. That's not
Speaker 2: our role. That's a jury's role. So our hands are
Speaker 2: tied and we're going to deny your Federal district habeas petition.
Speaker 2: And then in twenty seventeen, my firm was contacted by
Speaker 2: James and his mother, Lilian. You know, the first thing
Speaker 2: that we do is start reading, you know, we get
Speaker 2: the trial transcripts, and we look at the direct appeal
Speaker 2: briefs and the habeas petitions and the court's rulings. This
Speaker 2: is one of those things where you feel your stomach turning.
Speaker 2: It's hard to believe that this case has happened the
Speaker 2: way it's happened, and that j MS is once again
Speaker 2: in prison serving thirty five years to life based on
Speaker 2: the state of the evidence in this case. If you
Speaker 2: talk to any of the lawyers that have represented James
Speaker 2: throughout this saga, each one of them will tell you
Speaker 2: the same thing, that this is a man who is innocent,
Speaker 2: and they believe it as much as they've ever believed
Speaker 2: any case they've ever had. When you're in this field,
Speaker 2: you see a lot of cases of a lot of
Speaker 2: people saying they didn't do it, and maybe some of them.
Speaker 1: You agree with.
Speaker 2: Maybe some of them say, well, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: they didn't do it, but their constitutional rights were violated
Speaker 2: at trial, and there are very few that you would
Speaker 2: bet your eyeballs that they're factually innocent. And this is
Speaker 2: a case that every lawyer who's touched it, aside from
Speaker 2: a prosecutor, would tell you that, and I'd tell you that.
Speaker 2: After we got involved in the case. What we saw
Speaker 2: was that the issue of false evidence had never been raised.
Speaker 2: And our view of the evidence and of the law
Speaker 2: is that the testimony that Jamie gave that the rug
Speaker 2: was now blue is false, It's demonstratively false, and the
Speaker 2: testimony of Valerie Barnes is false. To eminently qualified doctors
Speaker 2: have said it's false, and they've said it's absurd. They've
Speaker 2: said that the things that doctor Barnes testified to but
Speaker 2: a cleft on the highmen and things of that nature
Speaker 2: simply were not there, did not exist. Her findings are absurd.
Speaker 2: So we file the habeas petition alleging false evidence introduced
Speaker 2: at trial and ineffective assistance of his appel council for
Speaker 2: failure to raise that issue. The Superior Court actually requested
Speaker 2: some informal briefing on the issue, and what the Additional
Speaker 2: Attorney's office came back with was, well, we're just saying
Speaker 2: that there's a disagreement amongst experts. Doctor Barnes's testimony isn't false.
Speaker 2: She testified to what she saw, and then Crawford and
Speaker 2: Coleman testified to their findings, and the jury made their determinations,
Speaker 2: so you can't say that that's false. And regarding the
Speaker 2: blue carpet, they said, well, Jamie was just mistaken about
Speaker 2: whether the carpet was blue or tan, and that explains everything.
Speaker 2: And we submitted a reply brief saying basically, all that's
Speaker 2: clearly bullshit. You know, look at this, look at the transcripts.
Speaker 2: You know he's innocent. This evidence was false, and the
Speaker 2: Superior Court, not unsurprisingly unfortunately denied the Haavy's edition. We
Speaker 2: filed in the California Court of Appeal and it was
Speaker 2: and so then we filed havieyas setition in the California
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. This is our last forum here, and if
Speaker 2: this is denied, he's already filed a federal habeas petition
Speaker 2: proper by himself, so we can't just go back to
Speaker 2: federal court and knock on their door again. And I
Speaker 2: am deeply worried that if the California Supreme Court denies
Speaker 2: this habeas petition, that our only avenue at that point
Speaker 2: is to petition the governor's office for clemency or commutation,
Speaker 2: which is a difficult case to make when you have
Speaker 2: allegations like these.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a long shot, but it's also always
Speaker 1: worth to try. And the good news is that you
Speaker 1: have a great governor in California and his team, who
Speaker 1: I've gotten to know are really terrific people.
Speaker 2: We are going to sort of change dot org petition
Speaker 2: that we would love for people who have heard of
Speaker 2: about this case and who agree that James King should
Speaker 2: not spend any more time in prison than that he's
Speaker 2: an innocent man, would go to the link and read
Speaker 2: more about the case and voice your.
Speaker 4: Support once you see the evidence to see that I
Speaker 4: am completely innocent of this crime, and I just beg
Speaker 4: you to please people, Can you please sign my petition and.
Speaker 1: We'll of course link to that in the bio, So
Speaker 1: please do go to the bio sign the petition. There
Speaker 1: will be other information as well. And now you know,
Speaker 1: we go to the part of the show that we
Speaker 1: call closing arguments. First of all, I thank you for
Speaker 1: being with us, and of course, James, you know what
Speaker 1: can I say except for the entire human race owes
Speaker 1: you an apology and so much more. And I hope
Speaker 1: that we're able to see you free in the not
Speaker 1: too distant future. So and now closing arguments, I leave
Speaker 1: your microphones on, turn mine off, kick back in my
Speaker 1: chair with my headphones on, and just listen for anything
Speaker 1: you want to say. Let's start with you Ian and
Speaker 1: save mister King. To close out the show.
Speaker 2: James King is innocent. I think any fair minded person
Speaker 2: looking at the facts of this case and the history
Speaker 2: of this case would agree with there is an innocent
Speaker 2: man who has served twenty four years and he didn't
Speaker 2: do it. He's innocent. I don't fault Jamie. The circumstances
Speaker 2: of her life leading up to this were horrible. She was,
Speaker 2: in my view, being assaulted at that time, but by
Speaker 2: somebody else, by somebody that she professed to love. When
Speaker 2: it came to accusing somebody, she was able to accuse
Speaker 2: James King of conduct that someone else had done to her.
Speaker 2: These cases require evidence. You can not simply take the
Speaker 2: word of one person. They require corroboration. And when there's
Speaker 2: no physical evidence, when there's no corroboration, that should be
Speaker 2: a red flag. And then when the evidence comes back
Speaker 2: and it contradicts the allegations, that should be an even
Speaker 2: bigger red flag. And then when those contradictions are absurd,
Speaker 2: that the dog ate the evidence that the carpet magically
Speaker 2: switched colors, that James King did this stuff to me.
Speaker 2: Oh wait a minute, sorry, it was actually Eli Roman
Speaker 2: who did that stuff to me. That should be a
Speaker 2: stop sign. It shouldn't happen at that point. No one
Speaker 2: should have their life put in jeopardy. And let's not sugarcoated.
Speaker 2: I mean this is it's a death sentence. James King
Speaker 2: is going to die in prison unless his conviction is overturned,
Speaker 2: his sentence is commuted, He's not going to get out.
Speaker 2: He's sixty six years old now and he's not in
Speaker 2: great health. His mother's name is Lilian, she's in her
Speaker 2: mid eighties and she is in rapidly declining health. His
Speaker 2: one hope is to get out before she dies, and
Speaker 2: her one hope is to see her son again outside
Speaker 2: of prison's. This is the kind of case that you know,
Speaker 2: makes you question what you're doing as a lawyer, if
Speaker 2: what you're doing has any value. If we lose, if
Speaker 2: his conviction isn't overturned.
Speaker 1: Have I failed?
Speaker 2: If we lose, James King dies in prison, his mother
Speaker 2: dies without ever seeing her son outside of prison again,
Speaker 2: And you know I will have failed.
Speaker 1: James Now over you God, I'm I'm just just begging
Speaker 1: that somebody will please help me this girl.
Speaker 4: Man, they hated me because I am the one who
Speaker 4: got to evicted because see, they had nowhere to go.
Speaker 4: They were living on the streets. They hadn't made there
Speaker 4: and I came along and I took it away from her.
Speaker 4: It was nothing but revenge and revenge only, man, That's
Speaker 4: why they did this. I just pray that somebody would
Speaker 4: please took a look at my patience, see the evidence
Speaker 4: that I am totally innocent of this crime. My mom,
Speaker 4: she thank you so much what you're doing for me.
Speaker 4: She is so happy to hear this, what you guys
Speaker 4: are doing now for me. She's so happy. And I
Speaker 4: want you to know this. Then, I want you to
Speaker 4: know one thing this never happened. This never happened.
Speaker 1: Then, thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Cliburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one