Speaker 1: On January two thousand four, James J. Davis went to
Speaker 1: a big party at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple to celebrate
Speaker 1: his little brother, Daniel's birthday. James's knight was cut short
Speaker 1: when he drank too much and vomited several times. Daniel
Speaker 1: put him in a cab to meet with his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Canine Johnson. Two hours later, a big fight broke out
Speaker 1: in the club, resulting in their friend, Jamal Black, being
Speaker 1: stabbed and another man, Blake Harper, being shot and killed.
Speaker 1: Police would interview people at the scene to get a
Speaker 1: description of the shooter, a light skinned black man with braids,
Speaker 1: but James didn't have braids at the time. He had
Speaker 1: short hair with waves. Police then called stabbing victim Jamal
Speaker 1: Black's home and spoke to his sister, who happened to
Speaker 1: be James's spurned x teena Black who casually named James
Speaker 1: is the shoot her, even though she had never even
Speaker 1: been at the party in the first place. Police found
Speaker 1: Jamal at the hospital, who told them the identity of
Speaker 1: the real shooter, Tay Hall, so was it ta or Ja.
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, Jose Machicote, who was at the club
Speaker 1: that night, would enter the precinct and second Tina Blacks identification.
Speaker 1: About six weeks after that, James found himself the target
Speaker 1: of an interrogation, a sham lineup, and a murder charge.
Speaker 1: Only after his case was picked up by the Legal
Speaker 1: Aid Society wasn't revealed that Jose machic Cote was actually
Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous drug dealers in Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: the subject of a joint FBI NYPD investigation. Magic Cote
Speaker 1: was murdered five months after his false testimony that sent
Speaker 1: James to prison for the rest of his life. This
Speaker 1: is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Welcome back to Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host, and
Speaker 1: today you're gonna hear a story that when they write
Speaker 1: the History of Wrongful Conviction as they could put this
Speaker 1: on the cover because this story is so outrageous that well,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna have to hear it for yourself. Hello,
Speaker 1: this is a prepaid correct call from an inmate at
Speaker 1: New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. This
Speaker 1: call is subject to recording and monitoring. To accept charges,
Speaker 1: press one to refuse charges, press too. You would like
Speaker 1: thank you for using Securist. You may start the conversation now.
Speaker 1: On the phone from prison where he's been for almost
Speaker 1: twenty years, we have James J. Davis. Hello, Jay, thanks
Speaker 1: for calling in and I hope that we'll be able
Speaker 1: to make a difference. And with us today we have
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Felber, who is the supervising attorney in the Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Unit of the Legal Aid Society. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having us. Let's go back to the beginning. James, you
Speaker 1: had a rough childhood growing up in Brownsville in Brooklyn, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very My mother and my father were really in my life.
Speaker 1: There was more of my grandma my prother School was
Speaker 1: good up until maybe in fifth sixth grade, where where
Speaker 1: you start noticing that you're closing ain't the same as
Speaker 1: everybody else's and people pick on you and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: My father died when I was in fourth grade. Roughly
Speaker 1: two years later. My mother passed away. The year before that,
Speaker 1: my brother father passed away, so both of us had
Speaker 1: no parents by the time I reached sixth grade. Did
Speaker 1: you feel like a certain amount of responsibility, you know,
Speaker 1: as an older sibling at that point, I think I
Speaker 1: had all little responsibility. I had to watch that to
Speaker 1: my little brothers. I had to keep people from picking
Speaker 1: on him outside as well as keep people from picking
Speaker 1: on me and bullying me. So that's when the fight started. Happened,
Speaker 1: and I started getting into a lot of trouble. No,
Speaker 1: everybody has your mother joke. I've got to imagine that
Speaker 1: they stung you know a lot more with all you've
Speaker 1: been through already, So now you're staying at Grandma was
Speaker 1: looking out for your younger brother, But who's looking out
Speaker 1: for you? By the time I was fourteen, I was
Speaker 1: getting beat a lot. I had a cousin who was
Speaker 1: supposed to be disciplining me for getting in trouble in
Speaker 1: school and in the neighborhood, and it was kind of assessive.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening. I started running into the
Speaker 1: streets as much as I could, for as long as
Speaker 1: I could. I was doing a lot of stupid stuff.
Speaker 1: I was young, robbing people. I was something weird or
Speaker 1: whatever the older, the older guys on the corner might
Speaker 1: be able to supply. And that's when you ended up
Speaker 1: in juvie. Yes, when when I when I made it
Speaker 1: the juvie, I'm going to school and I met this teacher,
Speaker 1: the guy named Mr Bliss, very very very smart guy,
Speaker 1: like he knew something about anything or whatever you wanted
Speaker 1: to act. I liked that he had that much knowledge,
Speaker 1: and I confided in him about schooling, and he convinced
Speaker 1: me to take much e D and I ended up
Speaker 1: passing at that past. He was like, you can go
Speaker 1: to community college and keep going to high school now
Speaker 1: for re education. I was taking like biology and in
Speaker 1: global history or economics classes and it was giving me
Speaker 1: credit for is somebody had come and check my work.
Speaker 1: So I understand. You're accepted to Cape for your community
Speaker 1: college in North Carolina, near where your aunt lived, no
Speaker 1: small feat considering your record, but your probation officer wouldn't
Speaker 1: transfer your supervision out of state, so you were trying
Speaker 1: to get yourself into some computer science classes locally. Around
Speaker 1: that time, I found out that my brother was into
Speaker 1: the streets, and that's pretty much where I got back
Speaker 1: involved in the streets, stunning weed and being there for
Speaker 1: this case. Elizabeth, take us back to January four. What
Speaker 1: happened that faithful night? Okay, So January was his brother
Speaker 1: Daniel's birthday, and Dan wanted to go to a party
Speaker 1: that was being held at a Masonic temple lodge where
Speaker 1: they hosted events. It was a party for people with
Speaker 1: January birthdays. Well, my brother birthday was coming up. It
Speaker 1: was more whatever you want to do, I'm gonna participate.
Speaker 1: Bo is an older guy from the neighborhood that he's
Speaker 1: like a well like guy. He does parties. He knew
Speaker 1: my brother as well. Two of them was promoting the
Speaker 1: party po and another guy, I don't know which. One
Speaker 1: of them my brother. He've been talking about his birthday
Speaker 1: for a long time, so they put him on the
Speaker 1: fly I guess Jay was not really a partygoer. He
Speaker 1: was a quiet guy. I think he'd tell you himself.
Speaker 1: He'd rather stay home with friends smoke weed um. But
Speaker 1: he loved his brother. He was fiercely protective, so he
Speaker 1: decided to go with them as well my brother birthday.
Speaker 1: My plan was the like, we just gonna shield, maybe
Speaker 1: call up some girls to come hang out at the
Speaker 1: projects with us. They can't drink for free hang out.
Speaker 1: He was been doing going to the party because his
Speaker 1: name was on the flyers. So it comes to be
Speaker 1: almost twelve o'clock and I wanted to surprise my brother,
Speaker 1: so I walked to the liquor store before closed to
Speaker 1: get a bottle all away and a bottle of Hennessey.
Speaker 1: And when I got back, my brother was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot the party. And Jay was not a big drinker,
Speaker 1: so by the time he got to the party, he
Speaker 1: had had a few already. And then he persuaded the
Speaker 1: bouncer to let him or one of the hosts to
Speaker 1: let him combine the two drinks he was drinking, which
Speaker 1: were Hennessey and champagne. Uh, kind of a disgusting combination.
Speaker 1: He threw them to you know, we put them together.
Speaker 1: He went into the party and he proceeded to have
Speaker 1: a few more drinks in the bathroom because they told him, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can have your own drink, but you have to
Speaker 1: put some shade on it before you know it. I
Speaker 1: was trying to rush my drinks so that we can
Speaker 1: actually get out of the bathroom. I wanted to see
Speaker 1: what the party was really light. Plus my brother you
Speaker 1: don't smoke, so he's out on the dance floor most
Speaker 1: of it. Um anyway, when I want to get out there.
Speaker 1: Actually enjoyed some of his birthday with him, and the
Speaker 1: mixture didn't agree with me. The Hennessey, and the more
Speaker 1: wet turned my stomach over. That was the start of
Speaker 1: the end of the night. I threw up maybe once
Speaker 1: or twice in the bathroom, and before I know it,
Speaker 1: through the laugh and I hit my brother pretty much like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, now, I gotta take you back home.
Speaker 1: We just got here. We ain't even fully been in
Speaker 1: the club long enough. Through negotiation, I just told him
Speaker 1: and I just woke me outside. I catch a cab
Speaker 1: and I go to my girlfriend house. So they went outside.
Speaker 1: They got a cab and James called his girlfriend kennein
Speaker 1: Johnson and took the cab to her place and she
Speaker 1: met him outside. Her mother didn't like James, so they
Speaker 1: would stay with her aunt. I got there at to
Speaker 1: forty five maybe three. So when I got there, she's
Speaker 1: sitting on the steps already. I step out the cab.
Speaker 1: They got threw up in between, cause before I even
Speaker 1: tested this out, she came running down the steps, rubbed
Speaker 1: my back, I think, in well to our house, stop
Speaker 1: at the store, and went into our house. And that
Speaker 1: was this. I think she even had a couple of
Speaker 1: jokes and I, hey, y'all go again. So he was
Speaker 1: long gone before anything happened at the party, which was
Speaker 1: around four in the morning. A fight broke out and
Speaker 1: somebody was seriously stabbed. We now know that was Jamale Black,
Speaker 1: and Blake Harper was shot and killed. A couple other
Speaker 1: people were shot, but not seriously. But Um James had
Speaker 1: already left the party hours earlier. So you wake up
Speaker 1: the next morning at your girlfriend canins her aunt's house.
Speaker 1: Really and one of the guys you were with, Jamale Black,
Speaker 1: had been stabbed the night before. How did you hear
Speaker 1: that news? Both of us up, The news is on,
Speaker 1: it's about the Masonic temple. Immediately called my house on
Speaker 1: the land. Uh. And the first thing I asked, this
Speaker 1: is my brother there. My grandmother like, yeah, he came
Speaker 1: in last night. He's in the room sleep. You know
Speaker 1: they had a fight, right, And I asked for my
Speaker 1: aunt because my honor probably no more than my grandmother would.
Speaker 1: And my honor is like, yeah, Jamal got stabbed and
Speaker 1: and this guy got stabbed and somebody got killed, but
Speaker 1: nobody knew who the guy was that got killed. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm coming over there. I got there. My
Speaker 1: brother pretty much told me I wasn't really involved in it,
Speaker 1: but it was crazy and it fight broke out, people shooting,
Speaker 1: girls screaming, and everybody running. Police had responded to the
Speaker 1: scene and they interviewed a number of people at the club,
Speaker 1: and no one that the interviewed knew the identity of
Speaker 1: the shooter. But he was described as a young, light
Speaker 1: skinned blackmail with braids on the back of his head. Now,
Speaker 1: m James, is that an accurate description of you at
Speaker 1: that time? No, I actually didn't have braids at the time.
Speaker 1: I had a low speed is a like waves. So
Speaker 1: police have already interviewed witnesses at the scene the night before.
Speaker 1: Your friend who was stabbed, Jamal Black. They called his house,
Speaker 1: but they get a sister on the phone and stat Now, James,
Speaker 1: you have a storied past with this young woman, correct,
Speaker 1: a black like the first girlfriend I've ever had. We've
Speaker 1: never done anything together, but we've been like close friends
Speaker 1: ever since, being boyfriend and girlfriend and like eight and
Speaker 1: nine years old. And when I win Tod, Juvie me
Speaker 1: and have made contact against somehow, and we was talking
Speaker 1: about pretty much moving in with each other when I
Speaker 1: came home. But when I came home from Juvie, it
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know she gave me like the
Speaker 1: cold showed up. I did three and a half years
Speaker 1: almost I'm coming home to a girlfriend thinking that, you know,
Speaker 1: sex is like right there on the list one of
Speaker 1: the first things at the seeing each other's family and
Speaker 1: kicking it for a little bit. Holme on. It was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to do that. So I was like
Speaker 1: not really to be pressure and p and pressure in anything.
Speaker 1: But this is stuff that we've been speaking about for
Speaker 1: like over a year. Ready after that day, we never
Speaker 1: spoke as girlfriend and boyfriend the game, but we see
Speaker 1: eachev v and passing and we always remain called you,
Speaker 1: but we never spoke on a relationship or any of
Speaker 1: that stuff of her. Again. What we learned was that
Speaker 1: Tina Black still Harvard a flame for him and was
Speaker 1: hugely jealous when she found out that he had a
Speaker 1: new girlfriend, and out of spite, she told the police
Speaker 1: that James did the shooting, even though you can tell
Speaker 1: by the only police record on her she wasn't at
Speaker 1: the party that night. She was very sick with juvenile diabetes,
Speaker 1: too sick to go to a party. The police should
Speaker 1: have known that she wasn't at the party, and yet
Speaker 1: they just focused on him. The second page of the
Speaker 1: detective notebook says PERP James Davis j So it's just
Speaker 1: tunnel vision from then on out right. So the people
Speaker 1: that were there couldn't identify the suspect. The woman who
Speaker 1: wasn't there does identify a suspect. And of course we
Speaker 1: know that Tina later on confess to her mother and
Speaker 1: to others, and she had lied to the police. It
Speaker 1: just seems like so many different things went wrong that
Speaker 1: didn't need to write. And this now we're up to
Speaker 1: the part where the detectives went to the hospital, right
Speaker 1: and the interview Jamal Black So, can you can you
Speaker 1: talk about the Aliabet? Sure? So the detectives actually went
Speaker 1: to the hospital the day of the incident and they
Speaker 1: were told he was just coming out of surgery. He
Speaker 1: was too out of it. The doctors wouldn't let him
Speaker 1: interview Jamal. Jamal testified out our hearing and he told
Speaker 1: the court that what happened was those detectives came back
Speaker 1: later and they wanted to know what happened, and at
Speaker 1: first he wasn't really engaging with them, but then they
Speaker 1: made it seem like they thought he was the shooter,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. Because if there's a brawl and one
Speaker 1: person gets shot and the other person get stabbed, you
Speaker 1: kind of think that they're they're somehow related. And so
Speaker 1: because of that, Jamal told them what happened, which was
Speaker 1: he had been stabbed by the guy who was subsequently killed,
Speaker 1: and this guy named Tay Hall was helping him out
Speaker 1: of the party when he says, oh shit, pushes Jamal
Speaker 1: to the ground and you hear shots fired. Jamal looks
Speaker 1: up and he sees Tay putting a gun back in
Speaker 1: his pocket and saying, I got to get out of here.
Speaker 1: The police are coming. But there was no written report
Speaker 1: about that conversation, and it never came out. At the hearing.
Speaker 1: The judge said, Oh, it's just not credible that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a report about it. Well, it's also not
Speaker 1: credible that you wouldn't interview the person who was stabbed,
Speaker 1: because they would most likely have the most relevant information.
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward then to a couple of months
Speaker 1: after the shooting, right, and that's when the warrant squad came.
Speaker 1: They were actually looking for your younger brother when they
Speaker 1: arrested you, and you weren't even aware that they were
Speaker 1: looking for you because you knew that you didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with this, and there was no reason
Speaker 1: to suspect you of anything other than being drunk and
Speaker 1: throwing up on the sidewalk um. And they arrested you
Speaker 1: and brought you to the precincts and interrogated you for
Speaker 1: hours and hours. Maybe they thought you were going to
Speaker 1: confess or something like, maybe even a false confession, but
Speaker 1: you never did. No. They took me from my house
Speaker 1: and under the guys that I had a warrant, which
Speaker 1: I did. I did have a warrant for dissortedly conduct
Speaker 1: and do community service. But they never took me to
Speaker 1: the court building. They took me down to like COMMASI headquarters,
Speaker 1: where I met Detective Hutchinson for the first time before
Speaker 1: they took me to the precinct. At the precinct, they
Speaker 1: pretty much was asking me, do I know Jamal Black?
Speaker 1: And do I know what happened to Jamal Black? So
Speaker 1: I explained to them the same thing that I just
Speaker 1: was telling you about getting drunk and leaving the party,
Speaker 1: and that seemed all right. They left, and then they
Speaker 1: came back and they were still asking me about the
Speaker 1: party and where I was at so I gave him
Speaker 1: more detail of who I went with, who actually walked
Speaker 1: me to the door, whatever, where I went after I
Speaker 1: left the party, and they left again, but this time
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm feeling funny. I'm like, they keep asking
Speaker 1: me where was that? The next time he came in,
Speaker 1: I think he started asking about the shooting. Do you
Speaker 1: know the guy that got killed? I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know the guy that got killed, but I know one
Speaker 1: of the guys that got shot because I went to
Speaker 1: school with him as well. But I don't know the
Speaker 1: guy that got killed. And from there, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly the rest of the questions, but it
Speaker 1: was pretty much all about the shooting there. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: when when am I going to court? I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be going to court, and like, no, what we're gonna
Speaker 1: do is we're gonna put you in the lineup. I'm like,
Speaker 1: a line up. I need a lawyer. It was like,
Speaker 1: do you have a lawyer. I'm like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: have a lawyer, but I have a lawyer and my
Speaker 1: family who can come and represent me. And he asked
Speaker 1: me for his name and phone him. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't have a phone number for him, but he should
Speaker 1: be listed. My uncle, Robert, Robert Davis is a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I don't want somebody present. But he tells me if
Speaker 1: I don't have a number for him, then he can't
Speaker 1: call them. And they just took me back to the
Speaker 1: room and left me in the room, and from there
Speaker 1: they went to the lineup and they came back with
Speaker 1: four guys. Three of them is dog skin, two of
Speaker 1: them heavy. Said this can't be the people that they
Speaker 1: got to put in the lineup with me. Nobody looks
Speaker 1: like me, nobody favors me in no way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, this can't be. Then he brings two
Speaker 1: more guys in, like Indian looking guys. I'm like, nah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a fix. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about this lineup and how things went
Speaker 1: so wrong? As he says in his own statement, this
Speaker 1: is not a fair lineup. So the lineup in itself
Speaker 1: was already suggestive. But there were three people who viewed
Speaker 1: the lineup. One of them was Jose Macha Cody. He
Speaker 1: was the first witness that they brought into view a
Speaker 1: photo spread about six weeks earlier, and it was unclear
Speaker 1: why he was called He was the brother in law
Speaker 1: of the man who died, but he was not one
Speaker 1: of the people that had been originally interviewed. Is pretty
Speaker 1: common knowledge that when you've picked someone out of a photograph,
Speaker 1: you picked them again in the lineup because you recognize
Speaker 1: them as the person. But the lineup happened six weeks
Speaker 1: later at the lineup um. The two other witnesses, Harold
Speaker 1: Poe and Sean Belton, they were brought there by the
Speaker 1: mother of the deceased, and according to their testimony, she
Speaker 1: called them and said, they have the guy they think
Speaker 1: who did it at um the precinct and they want
Speaker 1: you to just come to see if you can, you know,
Speaker 1: identify him, or something to that effect. That's already contaminating
Speaker 1: the lineup because there's a pressure put on them that
Speaker 1: this is the person they have, the person. They feel
Speaker 1: compelled to pick one person, especially especially when the mother
Speaker 1: of the deceased has show for driven you to the precincts.
Speaker 1: So they picked James, but one of them said, always
Speaker 1: from the beginning, well he resembles him except where the braids,
Speaker 1: because when James got arrested, his hair was short, and
Speaker 1: the other guy Sean Belton. Now, originally he had said
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything when the police spoke to him.
Speaker 1: Now he said, oh, I just said that because I
Speaker 1: was afraid. But the description he gave before he viewed
Speaker 1: him was someone wearing a Skully cap and that's nowhere
Speaker 1: in any description. And also five ten and James was
Speaker 1: like five seven, so he didn't even describe someone that
Speaker 1: looked like James. So that's how they picked him. There
Speaker 1: was a fourth person at the lineup who did not
Speaker 1: testify at the trial or the hearings, and what Detective
Speaker 1: Hudginson said about him was we picked him out. He
Speaker 1: just wouldn't sign the sheets, saying he had Again, you
Speaker 1: know though some things just your alarm goes off that
Speaker 1: smells fishies. So um, we caught up with him. He
Speaker 1: did not want to be involved. He made that a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty percent clear. But what he told us was, no,
Speaker 1: I never said that was the guy. That's why I
Speaker 1: wouldn't sign. And what I said to them was if
Speaker 1: you say that's the guy, that's the guy. So to me,
Speaker 1: that says they will be prompted to pick James. And
Speaker 1: I should just add that. Sean Belton at the second
Speaker 1: trial retanted again and said I just glanced at him.
Speaker 1: He gave four separate statements, so that was him, and
Speaker 1: the other guy always only said he resembled him. So essentially,
Speaker 1: it really came down to host the cod when you
Speaker 1: think about the the convenience of Tina Black Jr. Given
Speaker 1: my name to to the detective, and then a week later,
Speaker 1: Jose Macha Cody, the drug building, violent robber who's a
Speaker 1: humble barber, now just happens to walk into the priestinct.
Speaker 1: Though he didn't stay at the crime scene when everything happened,
Speaker 1: he fled the crime scene. He walks into the precinct
Speaker 1: and he picks my picture. He's the only one that
Speaker 1: goes to the precinct and it just so happens that
Speaker 1: he's known in this neighborhood. To me, the whole the
Speaker 1: whole case is weird from beginning to end. I think
Speaker 1: that this was a misunderstand Then maybe from speaking to
Speaker 1: Jamale Black, him telling them the story he told them
Speaker 1: about pay in them act his system about pay and
Speaker 1: she telling them Jane and Ages went from there with
Speaker 1: the easiest thing that they could do to close the case,
Speaker 1: and and it dies so't happen to be that I
Speaker 1: was convenient for them. This episode is sponsored by A
Speaker 1: i G, a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin,
Speaker 1: Wharton and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The A
Speaker 1: I G pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need,
Speaker 1: and recently they announced that working to reform the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission.
Speaker 1: Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impact,
Speaker 1: actual pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members
Speaker 1: of our society and in support of the public interest,
Speaker 1: including extensive work in the criminal justice area. After the lineup,
Speaker 1: they told me I was being charged with murder, and
Speaker 1: he offered me a deal pretty much to taking hunchings,
Speaker 1: and asked me to tell him that I did it,
Speaker 1: because he already heard about the story of what happened.
Speaker 1: Somebody told him that two groups of guys was fighting,
Speaker 1: and the guy and one of the groups had a knife,
Speaker 1: and the guy of a group had a gun, and
Speaker 1: he shot the guy with the knife to defend itself.
Speaker 1: But if you tell me that, then I can help you.
Speaker 1: I speak to the D eight. I'm like, what the
Speaker 1: hell kind of ship is that? Why the fund would
Speaker 1: I tell you I did something that I'm telling you
Speaker 1: I wasn't even aware of. I wasn't there for it.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, if I was you, I would
Speaker 1: have did the same thing. If it was me, a
Speaker 1: god comes at me with a knife and I got
Speaker 1: a gun, I would have shot at him. To you,
Speaker 1: ain't doing that wrong? I was like, well, you want
Speaker 1: me to admit to somebody didn't do it? That's wrong
Speaker 1: right there, and told them if you would have told
Speaker 1: me that this was this was about from the beginning,
Speaker 1: I probably would have never spoke to you. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have tried to help you. But here it is. I
Speaker 1: tried to help you, and I turned out to be
Speaker 1: the one going to jail. Pretty much. They think of
Speaker 1: printing me and put me in a holding cell for
Speaker 1: the rest of the night. So now things go from
Speaker 1: bad to worse right the trial. There's a number of
Speaker 1: problems at both trials, although the first trial amazingly ended up.
Speaker 1: And you know it hurts me to say this, and
Speaker 1: I know you must have had a lot of sleepless
Speaker 1: nights over this, James. But the first trial, in spite
Speaker 1: of the fact that you had substandard defense, you still
Speaker 1: ended up with an eleven to one hung jury in
Speaker 1: favor of acquittal. I rarely hear that, So talk about
Speaker 1: the trial from your perspect James. So his trial is
Speaker 1: going on. I'm reading the paperwork that they gave me
Speaker 1: the day before my trial actually started. I'm still going
Speaker 1: through paperwork and I'm noticing that, you know, they black
Speaker 1: out the names, so you don't know who's who. But
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the stories, and now it was making
Speaker 1: sense with the d D fives from the police station,
Speaker 1: because now I'm seeing, oh, this is the guy that
Speaker 1: said he never seen nothing at the crime scene. That
Speaker 1: changed his story the other two times to this story now,
Speaker 1: which happened to be Sean Belton. His first statement to
Speaker 1: the police at the crime scene was I never seen
Speaker 1: what happened. I was talking to two girls and shots
Speaker 1: went off and I ducked for cover to protect myself.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything. Have a told throughout the whole thing,
Speaker 1: he never identified me from the precinct to trial. He
Speaker 1: only told the officers that it was two guys that
Speaker 1: looked like each other that had the fight and the
Speaker 1: shooting and everything, and he only referred to me as
Speaker 1: looking similar to one of the guys in that trial.
Speaker 1: He said, I resembled the guy that he's seen as
Speaker 1: the priest, and he never picked me out and said
Speaker 1: definitively that's him right there that I've seen doing the shooting.
Speaker 1: Like you have this this one guy, jose A Macha Cody,
Speaker 1: who's laming the cause of his murder on his brother
Speaker 1: in law. Well, the two prosecutors witnesses beside him are
Speaker 1: saying that he started the whole fight. You have a
Speaker 1: conflict between your own witnesses with their pointing the finger
Speaker 1: at this guy is saying that he did X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z that caused us to come over and be
Speaker 1: if assistance to him. But this is your main witness,
Speaker 1: jose Macha Codis, and he's saying that I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. I'm a humble barber. I never
Speaker 1: committed a crime again after I was blocked up all
Speaker 1: of those years ago. But here it is. You got
Speaker 1: two witnesses that you put in on the stand. You
Speaker 1: want us to believe that they identified me, but you
Speaker 1: don't want us to believe that they're saying that this
Speaker 1: guy's lying and he started to fight that led to
Speaker 1: the shooting in Stabbin. Did you think you were gonna
Speaker 1: be exonerated as you should have been? I thought that
Speaker 1: I would be at the first trial because the jury
Speaker 1: that we had, they was asking questions that were relevant,
Speaker 1: that should have stood out to the police officers that
Speaker 1: did the investigation, to the d a's office that got
Speaker 1: the paperwork from the police officers, and though my lawyer
Speaker 1: didn't put on the best case, the jurors used their
Speaker 1: comments sense Tonin Johnson. His girlfriend did testify at the
Speaker 1: first trial. I think that in part was part of
Speaker 1: what led to the eleven to one acquitted that she
Speaker 1: was a very persuasive witness, because she was very persuasive
Speaker 1: at the hearing as well. She's explaining to them how
Speaker 1: I came to the house a stand over her aunt's place.
Speaker 1: She explained pretty much why her mother didn't like me
Speaker 1: as much or why we didn't stay at a mother's
Speaker 1: house and some others was like a CEO or x
Speaker 1: CEO at the time, so it was like kind of
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest. This guy that's selling weed and
Speaker 1: always smoking with no job. I guess she didn't think
Speaker 1: I was good enough for her daughter. The first trial
Speaker 1: ended up with an eleven to one hungry in favor
Speaker 1: of acquittal. Even the judge that it must be wrong
Speaker 1: if eleven of your PIDs the things one way and
Speaker 1: you go against that. But at the second trial, the
Speaker 1: d A is saying that I one of the witnesses
Speaker 1: have a pod. Didn't really change his testimony. We had
Speaker 1: his testimony read into the record because throughout the whole
Speaker 1: thing he never identified me. He only referred to me
Speaker 1: as looking similar to one of the guys Sean Belton rekn't.
Speaker 1: But it's I can't really consider that. We can't because
Speaker 1: he went back to the initial statement that he never
Speaker 1: seen anything. The other person that they say picked me
Speaker 1: out of a photo of right, he never signed on
Speaker 1: none of the pitches. But the detective is saying I
Speaker 1: made a monk next to the picture that he picked
Speaker 1: out because he wouldn't sign it. It's like that don't
Speaker 1: even make sense. The only only witness that they had
Speaker 1: was jose marche Cody that actually positively picked me out
Speaker 1: of the lineup. And we find out later that the
Speaker 1: state's sole remaining witness jose machic Cot, the testimony on
Speaker 1: which the whole case rested, was not the humble barber
Speaker 1: that the state made him out to be, but actually
Speaker 1: a full time drug dealer, right prone to violence and
Speaker 1: under a joint investigation by the FBI and NYPD. And
Speaker 1: all you needed was your star witness Kennyan Johnson to
Speaker 1: show up and counter matic coch just like she did
Speaker 1: at the first trial. But at the second trial. I'm
Speaker 1: not with my girlfriend anymore, so our contact is kind
Speaker 1: of really touching goal where she know that I'm only
Speaker 1: calling to notify her court dates and what's going on
Speaker 1: with my life, which she's trying to avoid. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. But and Kenyan Johnson, the day before
Speaker 1: she was supposed to come in or two days before,
Speaker 1: we spoke, and then I didn't hear nothing from her.
Speaker 1: My lawyer said he spoke to her and she was
Speaker 1: supposed to be coming in, and then she didn't show up,
Speaker 1: but she was still being nice to him on the phone.
Speaker 1: He called her again and then she cursed him out.
Speaker 1: She told him that he sent police to her house
Speaker 1: that like one in the morning. But we learned that
Speaker 1: day in the courtroom that it wasn't actually my lawyer
Speaker 1: that sent the police, that it was the district attorney
Speaker 1: who subpoenaed her, even though in court she said, I
Speaker 1: never planned on calling this girl as a witness because
Speaker 1: I don't know what she's gonna say. Even though she
Speaker 1: heard what my witness said at the first trial. It
Speaker 1: was well known at my case that come over there
Speaker 1: and like me. But they still this is the point
Speaker 1: at her and sent police to her house that like
Speaker 1: one in the morning while her mother's house, which actually
Speaker 1: infuriated her mother and caused her mother to kick out.
Speaker 1: That right there pretty much still to deal as far
Speaker 1: as her come in to court. And at that point
Speaker 1: I was asking, like put me on the stand, and
Speaker 1: she's not gonna come in. I'm the only thing we
Speaker 1: got left. You didn't do nothing else with nobody else.
Speaker 1: So for me understand, like they're gonna eat you alive,
Speaker 1: with your with your prior history and stuff. They eat
Speaker 1: you alive, and the jury see that, then then find
Speaker 1: you guilty. That's the last thing I wanted. So I'm
Speaker 1: no lawyer. Let him got me and tell me guilty.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's listening it is probably wondering right now. Well,
Speaker 1: if if I was representing him back then, I would
Speaker 1: have checked to cell phone records. I would have checked
Speaker 1: the cab records. We could have gotten ahold of the
Speaker 1: cab company and see if anybody because you took a
Speaker 1: cab right, and none of that stuff was done right.
Speaker 1: The weird thing is, out of all of the easy
Speaker 1: stuff that we think of that could have been done,
Speaker 1: my attorney at the time highest uh chiropractor or a
Speaker 1: child doctor to do medical examin or work, and I've
Speaker 1: never even seen the medical examin or work or any
Speaker 1: paperwork that he had done. But he didn't go and
Speaker 1: check a cab. He didn't go and speak to none
Speaker 1: of these witnesses that's in the d D files from
Speaker 1: the police reports. But you found adopted to play as
Speaker 1: a medical examiner from your office building. It's sad to say,
Speaker 1: but if you don't have money to actually pay for
Speaker 1: a lawyer, in the justice system doesn't really work for you.
Speaker 1: It's real that it does. You really come across lawyers
Speaker 1: like Susan and Liz or people like to actually go
Speaker 1: out of their way to help somebody out to show
Speaker 1: that they're innocent. And I appreciate every good of it.
Speaker 1: Look the officers telling me that I have to get
Speaker 1: off the phone. He's uh pressing them because of the
Speaker 1: time frame, I guess, because we was really only supposed
Speaker 1: to get like half our phone calls. No problems. You
Speaker 1: can do that around a couple of guys that that
Speaker 1: are friendly, hit and know my situation that wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that everything was all right, but well back
Speaker 1: even even today or tomorrow or whenever. I can thank
Speaker 1: you again, Thank you again. I appreciate you, and I
Speaker 1: hope you will have a nice day. I will speak
Speaker 1: to you soon. Yeah, we'll be back in touch for
Speaker 1: sure later. H J has hung up. What an unbelievably
Speaker 1: calm and gentle spirit he's got. It's here. He is
Speaker 1: in this chaotic situation in actual security prison in the
Speaker 1: time of COVID, with people whose phone time he's sort
Speaker 1: of you know, borrowing or whatever, and guards who are
Speaker 1: going hey, you know, like and yet he is so focused,
Speaker 1: which makes me even more sad thinking about the lost
Speaker 1: potential that that a simple act of kindness from that
Speaker 1: parole officer twentysomething years ago could have just avoided this
Speaker 1: whole thing. And god knows what he'd be doing with
Speaker 1: his life now contributing to society and probably building a
Speaker 1: family and everything else. So um, So meanwhile the story
Speaker 1: goes on. Mr Machakote was murdered by a drug dealer
Speaker 1: five months after james second trial, after he was trying
Speaker 1: to rob the drug dealer for for the second time
Speaker 1: in a month. Um. So, yeah, he was tortured and killed.
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is some Quentin Tarantino stuff now,
Speaker 1: but this is the guy that the authorities were painting
Speaker 1: to be a wonderful citizen who was bravely coming forward
Speaker 1: and now he's a simple barber and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So that's all out the window. But there was also
Speaker 1: Brady violations in this case, right, so can you talk
Speaker 1: can you speak to that? So we learned this. Um.
Speaker 1: The hearing was going on, the actual innocence hearing that
Speaker 1: we litigated last summer and we're appealing now. Um it
Speaker 1: was actual innocence and ineffective assistance of council. That's when
Speaker 1: we finally got eight witnesses in to talk um and
Speaker 1: support James's story of innocence. So um, during our hearing,
Speaker 1: I reached out to the assistant U S attorney because
Speaker 1: people were prosecuted federally for killing Matcha Cody and through
Speaker 1: it I met the FBI agent who told me that
Speaker 1: at the time of the trial, Jose Matcha Cody was
Speaker 1: under their investigation. It was a joint NYPD FBI investigation
Speaker 1: into drug dealing, major drug dealing in Brownsville and lo
Speaker 1: and Behold. In the spring, which was when the second
Speaker 1: trial was happening, a confidential informant was buying huge quantities
Speaker 1: of heroin and cocaine from Matcha Cody. Now we don't
Speaker 1: know if the assistant district attorney knew that, but it's
Speaker 1: hard to believe that the detective who used to be
Speaker 1: a narcotics detective Brownsville did not know that this man
Speaker 1: was a one of the major, most violent drug dealers
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn and be under you know, investigation by the FBI.
Speaker 1: So that was never disclosed. No, that would have been
Speaker 1: an inconvenient fact to bring up, and they were trying
Speaker 1: to present him as the perfect witness, right, so he
Speaker 1: was so brave. Yeah, So there's the Brady violation because
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be complete without that, right, right. So they
Speaker 1: have an obligation to turn over this information that they
Speaker 1: knew about and that's what we believe happened here. And yes,
Speaker 1: it does seem like that happens all the time. And
Speaker 1: what was in it for Matic Cody Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go down too deep a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of conspiracy theories, but that he was on parole
Speaker 1: the night of this murder. He had violated parole by
Speaker 1: being out past his curfew. And the fight that Jay
Speaker 1: was referring to, a lot of the police reports say
Speaker 1: a Spanish guy wearing a fur coat grabbed a bottle
Speaker 1: within a fight on the floor. That was Magic Cody.
Speaker 1: So that was also a violation of paroles. So I
Speaker 1: don't know whether they threatened him with having him locked up,
Speaker 1: whether there was something corrupt going on. You know, it
Speaker 1: was the seventy five Precinct, which is notorious. UM has
Speaker 1: had some problems with corruption over the years. I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. Even the FBI agent, although he said,
Speaker 1: you know, he was on a bad guy list, that's
Speaker 1: what he how he referred to matcha cody, which is
Speaker 1: a computer database that you're supposed to check for any
Speaker 1: witness And in fact, the day they interviewed the witnesses
Speaker 1: at the club. They did HEID to checks on those witnesses,
Speaker 1: but there's no HEID to check in the paperwork for
Speaker 1: Match of Cody. So there's just something fishy about Match
Speaker 1: of Cody and why they're so protective of him. And
Speaker 1: all we do know is that when the prosecutor got
Speaker 1: up in summation and said, he's such a credible witness,
Speaker 1: and you know he's credible because he was so honest
Speaker 1: about his past and now he's a barber. Well he
Speaker 1: might have been honest about his past, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: really honest about his present. So you know, in addition
Speaker 1: to the problems with you know, idea evidence in a
Speaker 1: situation like that, you also have this unsavory character pretending
Speaker 1: to be someone that he's not. Wow. Yeah, it's it's exhausted.
Speaker 1: This this one's actually tell me about it. I'm still
Speaker 1: writing the brief with the appeal, so none of that's
Speaker 1: disclosed to the defense of James second trial, right, and
Speaker 1: we know about the whole Match of Cote thing. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a an exclamation point on the whole
Speaker 1: thing that he ends up. I mean, I'm sorry the
Speaker 1: guy got murdered, but so such a short time after this,
Speaker 1: as if to really just drive this home. You know,
Speaker 1: he ends up in like a scene from Reservoir Dogs
Speaker 1: being tortured to death by a guy who he was
Speaker 1: trying to rob for a second time, a drug dealer,
Speaker 1: I mean, nice witness, right, and the first time he
Speaker 1: entered at gunpoint and tied them up and robbed them.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't his first rodeo, no, And it sounds
Speaker 1: like they turned the tables on him and then he, yes,
Speaker 1: he met his demise and took this, uh, this false
Speaker 1: testimony he presented to the grave with him. Yes. Now
Speaker 1: you know, we get to the post conviction investigation and
Speaker 1: of course you had a meeting with the conviction Review
Speaker 1: Unit in Brooklyn and this would seem to be one
Speaker 1: little ray of light. So where do we stand with that?
Speaker 1: So that was actually before I became involved in in
Speaker 1: the case. Um Susan Epstein, who did the appeal and
Speaker 1: did a phenomenal investigation, brought the witnesses to the conviction
Speaker 1: review unit. They had the case incredibly for five years.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly clear what happened, but one refrain that
Speaker 1: is throughout the transcripts of those interviews is why didn't
Speaker 1: you come forward sooner. The assistant district attorney assigned to
Speaker 1: this case just seemed very suspicious from the beginning, and
Speaker 1: she gave some of them a really hard timing. But
Speaker 1: she got a lot of this information. I mean, she
Speaker 1: went to prisons and she spoke to Jamal Black, who's
Speaker 1: currently incarcerated, and he told her that it was Tay
Speaker 1: who did the shooting. And she also fixated on some
Speaker 1: inconsistencies that I think are not material. The story that
Speaker 1: was told was coherent. Each witness corroborated one another. The
Speaker 1: vast majority of the witnesses told them that Jay's hair
Speaker 1: was short. He cut his hair because he had some
Speaker 1: kind of skin condition. So just like you'd remember a
Speaker 1: party because you were throwing up all night, you'd remember
Speaker 1: that someone had short hair because they thought it was
Speaker 1: ring worm. It's not entirely clear that's what it was,
Speaker 1: but it was some skin condition that they remembered and
Speaker 1: his hair was short. But they had all this information,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I don't know why they dragged their feet
Speaker 1: and they never came right out and said, we don't
Speaker 1: believe you. We think he's guilty. Even after we brought
Speaker 1: the motion and started the hearing, they said to the press,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still looking into it, or something to
Speaker 1: that effect, but for some reason they just were unpersuaded.
Speaker 1: That's weird. I mean, look, there's even inside of a
Speaker 1: conviction of your unit like Brooklyn, where we'd like to
Speaker 1: think that everybody is on top of their game. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't really explain. You have these
Speaker 1: witnesses who are actually bravely coming forward now, right, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of them, right. It's not like this is
Speaker 1: one person. These are people who are you know, members
Speaker 1: of the community, who are who are not kids anymore either.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also worthwhile to mention why james
Speaker 1: brother Daniel, and Tina Black were unavailable to testify. Tina,
Speaker 1: a young woman who named James in the first place,
Speaker 1: is sadly no longer with us. In two thousand and thirteen,
Speaker 1: she died of complications related to the very diabetes that
Speaker 1: had kept her from the party that faithful night, all
Speaker 1: the way back in two thousand and four, And sadly,
Speaker 1: Daniel James is younger brother there who put him in
Speaker 1: the cab that night, tragically was murdered. In two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: so now the Brooklyn cru hasn't come to a decision,
Speaker 1: and they still could do something about it if they
Speaker 1: so choose, but you and Susan Epstein weren't going to
Speaker 1: wait around for that, And that brings us to the
Speaker 1: hearing we've been referring to this entire time. You and
Speaker 1: Susan Filder for forty Emotion, which is New York Legal
Speaker 1: lees for a motion to set aside the judgment that
Speaker 1: was in September two thousand eighteen, and you argued for
Speaker 1: James's actual innocence as well as ineffective assistance of council
Speaker 1: and newly discovered evidence at this hearing back in June
Speaker 1: of two thousand nineteen. Yes, we were pretty optimistic going
Speaker 1: into it. So we had eight witnesses, including James. James
Speaker 1: went first, as you saw his very intelligent, UM, humble,
Speaker 1: low keyed and um, I think he makes a good impression,
Speaker 1: and he went first. And also so they couldn't say, oh,
Speaker 1: of course he said this. He sat through the whole
Speaker 1: hearing and listened to what everyone else said. So he
Speaker 1: told the story that you heard, you know, about leaving
Speaker 1: because he was intoxicated. And then Jamal Black came in
Speaker 1: and one thing about Jamal Black that was really, I think,
Speaker 1: very persuasive. He had initially refused to cooperate and sent
Speaker 1: a letter to Susan saying he ruined my life because
Speaker 1: he had James had slept with his girlfriend when he
Speaker 1: was locked up at Riker's, and he held a grudge.
Speaker 1: And he even told me when we were preparing to testify,
Speaker 1: because he has a bad quality I have. I get
Speaker 1: it from my father. I can really hold a grudge.
Speaker 1: But he came in and he told the whole story.
Speaker 1: First of all, he helped walk James out to the car,
Speaker 1: but then they started to get into a fight about
Speaker 1: this girlfriend again and he went inside and he met
Speaker 1: up with Tay, the shooter. So he told the whole
Speaker 1: story about how he got stabbed because his younger brother
Speaker 1: was involved in the fight and he went over and
Speaker 1: he heard this guy say, you thought this was over.
Speaker 1: He turned around, he was steps. He he goes through
Speaker 1: the whole incident of how the stabbing happened, and how
Speaker 1: the shooting happened, and how it was Tay, and then
Speaker 1: how he told this to the police. We also had
Speaker 1: the woman who cut his hair, who although she didn't
Speaker 1: remember exactly when she cut it. She did remember that
Speaker 1: she told him it was breaking off and that he
Speaker 1: had to cut it, and that the last time she
Speaker 1: saw him his hair was short. And you had Corey Hines,
Speaker 1: who was at the party in the bathroom laughing at
Speaker 1: him as he was throwing up UM. Sadly, his brother
Speaker 1: had signed an Affidavid saying I put him in a
Speaker 1: cab and sent him to his girlfriend's house. He was
Speaker 1: murdered UM in two thousand and twelve, so we you know,
Speaker 1: didn't have his him as a witness. We had his
Speaker 1: affidavit and we believe the judge should have allowed that
Speaker 1: into evidence, and he didn't. UM. And we had nine Johnson,
Speaker 1: the girlfriend who didn't show up at the second trial.
Speaker 1: We actually had to do what's called a material witness
Speaker 1: order to have her arrested to bring her in, which
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to do. But she came in,
Speaker 1: even though she was mad at me about that. She
Speaker 1: got on the stand. So when that happens, they assigned
Speaker 1: an attorney to you, and the attorney came in and
Speaker 1: said to the judge, she's willing to testify, but she's
Speaker 1: terrified of the family and What came out on the
Speaker 1: witness stand is that after she testified at the first trial,
Speaker 1: friends and family of the deceased followed her not just
Speaker 1: out of the courtroom, but out of the courthouse, calling
Speaker 1: her names, threatening her if we're going to find out
Speaker 1: where you live, if we see you on the street.
Speaker 1: And it was so bad that James's attorney put her
Speaker 1: in a cab because he was afraid of her having
Speaker 1: to take public transportation home. So here she is. She
Speaker 1: hasn't seen James since the first trial. And she gets
Speaker 1: on and she essentially says exactly what she testified to
Speaker 1: years before that. You know, she met him at her
Speaker 1: mother's house. He got out of the car. He was
Speaker 1: staggering like stupid drunk because kind of how she put it,
Speaker 1: and and threw up, and she got am a ginger
Speaker 1: ale out of bodega and they walked to his hands.
Speaker 1: So she told that entire story. The two new witnesses
Speaker 1: that I found also particularly compelling. One was in the
Speaker 1: statement by James. He refers to Bio. His real name
Speaker 1: is Ernest. Ernest was one of the promoters, and we
Speaker 1: found him and he was willing to testify, and like
Speaker 1: a few days before he testified, we asked him, well,
Speaker 1: how is it that you remember that he was there,
Speaker 1: and he said, because we used to have a competition
Speaker 1: about who had the better waves in our hair. So
Speaker 1: I remember when he came in and I was joking
Speaker 1: about whose waves were better. So, unprompted, he basically said
Speaker 1: he had short hair at the time. So he said
Speaker 1: that on the witness stand. And he also said somebody
Speaker 1: had thrown up by the bar, and he asked the
Speaker 1: bouncer what happened here, and he said, oh, you know
Speaker 1: those two brothers. One of them was drunk, and I
Speaker 1: told him they had to leave. So that was information
Speaker 1: we didn't even know about. And then, lastly, and maybe
Speaker 1: the most emotionally compelling witness was taina black senior, the mother.
Speaker 1: So she came in, you know, with the cane. She's
Speaker 1: like crippled by arthritis. She basically was racked with guilt
Speaker 1: that she knew her daughter. Her daughter eventually confessed to her,
Speaker 1: and she went through all this stuff about they got
Speaker 1: a call one day from Rikers and her kids were
Speaker 1: there and she said, who's that Rikers? Uh? And they
Speaker 1: said James, And she said, why is James at Rikers?
Speaker 1: And one of the sun said, ash your dumbasked daughter,
Speaker 1: So like she remembered little details like that, and then
Speaker 1: bit by bit her daughter revealed to her that she
Speaker 1: had set James up and that he was never coming
Speaker 1: home and that she was still in love with him.
Speaker 1: So that was extremely compelling testimonies. So that was essentially
Speaker 1: our case. It was like so many people who you know,
Speaker 1: added little bits and pieces to the story and created
Speaker 1: this really cohesive story about what really happened there that
Speaker 1: nobody bothered to investigate. Then there's another sort of what
Speaker 1: could be seen as a devastating blow that took place
Speaker 1: on January sixteen years to the day after Blake Harper
Speaker 1: was tragically murdered. The judge denied James Davis wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: motion and its entirety. I remember reading that the first time.
Speaker 1: We're going, oh god right, we were stunned. Um so
Speaker 1: he he ruled against us on everything. We By the
Speaker 1: end of the hearing we had three points. One was
Speaker 1: that we had proved James was actually innocent by clear
Speaker 1: and convincing evidence. That's the standard. That his lawyer was
Speaker 1: ineffective by not doing a proper investigation. Um. He didn't
Speaker 1: even hire an investigator, that's what James was referring to.
Speaker 1: And he said he hired a doctor. He hired a
Speaker 1: doctor who appeared to have been his brother to review
Speaker 1: the medical records, so he knew what he had to
Speaker 1: do to get paid to hire someone. So we had
Speaker 1: an ineffective assistance of counsel point. And then we asked
Speaker 1: the judge to reopen the hearing so that we could
Speaker 1: call this FBI agent, so that we could show that
Speaker 1: they would have known about this evidence that Matchic Cody
Speaker 1: was not just a humble barber, but he was a
Speaker 1: major drug dealer in Brooklyn. And the judge refused to
Speaker 1: reopen the hearing. Originally set all simus subpoena for an
Speaker 1: FBI agent because you have to subpoena them, then changed
Speaker 1: his mind on that, said you didn't prove it, but
Speaker 1: he didn't give us a chance to completely prove it,
Speaker 1: and um, so he denied every aspect of hearing. And
Speaker 1: now there's really literally one stop left on this. Um
Speaker 1: you don't get to appeal these to call them for
Speaker 1: forty hearings in New York. You don't get to appeal
Speaker 1: of for forty as a matter of right. You have
Speaker 1: to ask permission. It's called seeking leave to appeal, and
Speaker 1: we did get permission to appeal. So we are in
Speaker 1: the process of writing a brief and this is the
Speaker 1: last stop. We are going to the second Department of
Speaker 1: Pellet Division and asking them first and foremost to find
Speaker 1: him innocent and dismiss these charges. Do you know when
Speaker 1: that hearing is going to be. We're shooting for September, UM,
Speaker 1: hoping to get the brief filed in time for September.
Speaker 1: If it's not September, it will be October. There is
Speaker 1: a petition and we're gonna link to it in the
Speaker 1: episode description. So for anyone who feels outraged as I
Speaker 1: do and wants to help James, go to our episode
Speaker 1: description and it will be links to take you two
Speaker 1: action steps that you can take. Hello, this is a
Speaker 1: prepaid collect call from an inmate at New York State
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. This call is subject
Speaker 1: to recording and monitoring. To accept charges, press one to
Speaker 1: refuse charges, Press thank you for using Securist. You may
Speaker 1: start the conversation now. Hello, Oh James, I'm glad you're back. Um.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and I spoke a bit about your post conviction
Speaker 1: litigation or where you're at now legally speaking. But I
Speaker 1: didn't know that justice system actually takes this long. But
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe, you know, uh, two years, I'll be
Speaker 1: back home. They fixed this whole thing, and I'll be home.
Speaker 1: Two years turned into seventeen and I'm still fighting and
Speaker 1: trying to convince them that they actually locked up the
Speaker 1: wrong person. And then, to compound this tragedy again, the
Speaker 1: little brother that you felt so responsible for it was
Speaker 1: murdered in two thousand twelve. I mean, I can't possibly
Speaker 1: begin to imagine your pain, but your grandmother's still here.
Speaker 1: My brother and my grandmother is like my oldest friends
Speaker 1: in the world. My grandmother had been there for as
Speaker 1: long as I knew. I know she know my pain
Speaker 1: because she lost some other and she lost her daughter
Speaker 1: the same way I did. Well, not the daughter, but
Speaker 1: my mother the same way. She lost some of her
Speaker 1: And my brother was there with me through everything. So
Speaker 1: it's like I lost out on with little I was
Speaker 1: able to spend his life with him in seventeen years,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother's life she just turned eighty June eighteenth,
Speaker 1: like she was sixty three. I just missed all of
Speaker 1: these birthdays and times to spend with her. I would
Speaker 1: have been an adult where I could have actually because
Speaker 1: I just I think that was my first Christmas ever
Speaker 1: actually really buying my grandmother my own gifts, and she
Speaker 1: was so happy for that. And then if every year
Speaker 1: since that's something I didn't even do. I prayed for
Speaker 1: her every night. I he had to be strong for me.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons that I lived for my grandmother,
Speaker 1: about the grace of God. She just turned eighties June nineteen.
Speaker 1: My mother was murdered two weeks or yeah, weekend some
Speaker 1: change at the Mother's Day, which was hard for my grandmother,
Speaker 1: and then my brother on Father's Day right before her birthday.
Speaker 1: So it's like I've had a real, real rough journey.
Speaker 1: Her journey is just as rough. So this is why
Speaker 1: that's like my closest friend right there outside of my
Speaker 1: brother that passed away. The same beings I got. He got,
Speaker 1: the same little budget clothes or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call him, I got. He got. He's in in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: in the house over not having our parents or my
Speaker 1: mother being a crackhead. He got the same thing. We
Speaker 1: endured everything together, so it was like, it's the only
Speaker 1: person that really really know my struggle. So to lose
Speaker 1: him while here right the hard Yeah, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: your story. Your life has exhausted, has taken so much
Speaker 1: out of me, and I've only listened to it. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine having lived it. We need to do everything
Speaker 1: we can to bring you home. James. Um, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you. I mean, we have as our regular listeners, no,
Speaker 1: at the end of each episode, we have our featured segment,
Speaker 1: which I call closing Arguments, and this is where I
Speaker 1: first of all thank you, and then I just kicked
Speaker 1: back in my chair and turn my microphone off and
Speaker 1: leave my headphones on and turn it over to you
Speaker 1: for whatever else you think needs to be said. So now, um,
Speaker 1: Liz over to you for closing arguments. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to listen and to speak to James and to
Speaker 1: get to know what a what a good person he is,
Speaker 1: what a smart, humble, kind person he is, and for
Speaker 1: giving us this chance to tell a story to as
Speaker 1: many people as possible. There was from from the day
Speaker 1: he was arrested. I'm going to get emotional me clear
Speaker 1: and convincing evidence of his innocence. Not just clear and convincing,
Speaker 1: compelling evidence of his innocence, and he told everyone what
Speaker 1: they needed to do to learn that he was innocent.
Speaker 1: From the beginning, he told Detective Hutchinson, go speak to
Speaker 1: He listed about six names, and you know, from those
Speaker 1: six names there would have been other people because this
Speaker 1: was a huge party and a lot of people knew him.
Speaker 1: But whether it was tunnel vision, a lack of respect,
Speaker 1: or indifference, Detective Hutchison did nothing to investigate. The prosecutor
Speaker 1: did nothing to investigate, and the person who, under the law,
Speaker 1: has the obligation to investigate, did not do so. He
Speaker 1: kept telling James, well, it's their burden, it's not our burden.
Speaker 1: But this is a twenty one year old facing murder charges,
Speaker 1: facing life in prison, which he's now serving a life
Speaker 1: in prison sentence. Seems to me, you have both a
Speaker 1: legal and a moral obligation to do everything you can
Speaker 1: to prove his innocence, to prove he's not guilty. That's
Speaker 1: the standard at a trial. When you have so much evidence,
Speaker 1: it's almost obscene to turn your back to it. And
Speaker 1: yet that's what happened. At this trial. And yet fifteen
Speaker 1: years afterwards, these people came forward, and you know, they
Speaker 1: may know each other from the community, but somewhere in
Speaker 1: their thirties, somewhere in their forties, somewhere in their fifties,
Speaker 1: they weren't all hanging out together conspiring to tell a
Speaker 1: story to help James. They told different pieces, and what
Speaker 1: they didn't remember they said they didn't remember, but each
Speaker 1: and every one of them painted a very vivid picture
Speaker 1: of a young man who loved his brother very much,
Speaker 1: who went to the party because he wanted to celebrate
Speaker 1: with his brother, who got stumbled down, throwing up, drunk,
Speaker 1: left the party kind of out of it, met his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: spent the night at her aunt's house, and wasn't even
Speaker 1: there when the shooting happened. And yet, incredibly, once again,
Speaker 1: the judge chose not listen to James. In fact, in
Speaker 1: his decision he said, well, you can't listen to anything
Speaker 1: he said, because he's the defendant here, he's he's convicted,
Speaker 1: and of course he has an overwhelming interest in the outcome,
Speaker 1: which is not the law. So he just disregarded everything
Speaker 1: James said, despite the fact that most of it was
Speaker 1: corroborated and substantiated by the other witnesses. You know. He
Speaker 1: he also said you had to have direct evidence. There
Speaker 1: was no direct evidence that James went to his girlfriend's
Speaker 1: house that night. Well, there was a huge amount of
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence. They walked him to the car, so they
Speaker 1: didn't see the cab leave. Circumstantial evidence is extremely compelling
Speaker 1: and used all the time in court. So he discounted
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence. And he also wouldn't let us bring in
Speaker 1: Daniel's AFFI David, even though again this federal law says
Speaker 1: when you're talking about actual innocence, you're allowed to bring
Speaker 1: in everything, even if it wouldn't come in ordinarily at
Speaker 1: a trial. So Daniel is dead, he was murdered, but
Speaker 1: we have his affidavit and guess what it says I
Speaker 1: put him in a cab and it went to Kenen's house.
Speaker 1: So we did have that piece, but we weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to put it in. So once again justice was denied
Speaker 1: for James. And I think we've already been through just
Speaker 1: the shaky, questionable evidence that was the prosecution. This is
Speaker 1: the last chance. There's nothing after the second Department of
Speaker 1: Pellet Division, and I just I just hope people hear
Speaker 1: this and and they're rightfully outraged and they demand justice
Speaker 1: for James because he really is innocent and he deserves
Speaker 1: to go home. That was well said, m beautiful closing
Speaker 1: argument actually, and I've heard a lot of them. Um,
Speaker 1: and now James, over to you for closing arguments. You
Speaker 1: are an incredible person. Your spirit comes through even over
Speaker 1: the phone, even in the most stressful situation. You are
Speaker 1: just an inspiring guy. What can I say? And so
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep fighting for you out here. And I
Speaker 1: thank you for being on the show and shining a
Speaker 1: light on this awful injustice. And now I'll turn it
Speaker 1: over to you for closing arguments. I want to say
Speaker 1: thank you to you again. Thank you to the Elizabeth Felba,
Speaker 1: Susan have Stein, the whole legal as society, everybody that's
Speaker 1: been helping me with my case. Without them, I probably
Speaker 1: would have gave up this fight. They kept me strong
Speaker 1: and kept me motivated. All of the stuff that's going
Speaker 1: on in the world today is so much on my mind.
Speaker 1: I think that our justice system really needs to be
Speaker 1: looked at on the outside and on the inside. The
Speaker 1: treatment is really really no different and it's going all
Speaker 1: the way starts that law enforcement, with their investigations and
Speaker 1: the things that they may do. If they make one
Speaker 1: bad mistake, it may change somebody's life forever. And they're
Speaker 1: human like everybody else. Everybody's encycled to make mistakes. But
Speaker 1: when you don't try to exture mistakes, you just lie
Speaker 1: about them or cover them up, you only make things
Speaker 1: worse for people that should actually have a fair shot.
Speaker 1: You're telling people lives away from people, people families actually
Speaker 1: still love them and care about them in their stuffering.
Speaker 1: Just as much more efforts should be done on on
Speaker 1: getting things right, opposed to just worrying about convictions and
Speaker 1: putting people away. Sometimes because in our hate wee we
Speaker 1: make poor judgment decisions. We send people away that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be locked up. People do deserve to have a fair
Speaker 1: shot at whether it be trial, grand jury hearings, or
Speaker 1: even the benefit of the doubt when the officer comes
Speaker 1: in the restue. It's no different on the inside. Not
Speaker 1: everybody in here deserves to be treated so harshly. When
Speaker 1: you are already sentenced for a crime, you've already been punished.
Speaker 1: You don't come to prison and be and it's more
Speaker 1: or torture you come to correct whatever bad behavior you
Speaker 1: was doing. You do your time that they gave you,
Speaker 1: because that's what they say, if you did the crime,
Speaker 1: through the time. But I'm not supposed to be tortured
Speaker 1: and the views what about the people that actually didn't
Speaker 1: do the crime. That's just like a casualty of war.
Speaker 1: And for let him get tortured and being and everything too,
Speaker 1: it don't seem like staring impart your trials or what
Speaker 1: actually takes place. They label you and then they send
Speaker 1: you away, and then they make it hard for you
Speaker 1: to prove your innocence to get back out. Even when
Speaker 1: you do prove it, it's still hard for them to
Speaker 1: let you go. As they're saying, well, it sounds like
Speaker 1: he's telling the truth, and it's the same thing. And
Speaker 1: we learned that these other guys were liars and all
Speaker 1: of these other things. But I don't know, maybe he's
Speaker 1: still guilty. Let's just keep him in there and double
Speaker 1: triple qua truble check and let him waste some more
Speaker 1: of his life away even though he might be totally innocent.
Speaker 1: And it seems like he is from where we've we've
Speaker 1: been looking at, but not a hundred percent show. He
Speaker 1: didn't prove it to me a hundred like, that's that's crazy,
Speaker 1: that's insane, that would huly life is worth. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrong for convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to
Speaker 1: learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The
Speaker 1: music on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Sicknal Company Number one