WEBVTT - #583 Jason Flom with Carl Miller 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.680 Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction, back 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.800 with another case update and more behind. 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:11.520 The scenes insights. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.880 And this story started just a few months after I 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.959 was born in nineteen seventy nine. It's the murder of 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.919 a prominent rabbi in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.160 And it finally came to some sort of closure this 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.320 spring twenty twenty six with the exoneration of Carl Miller. 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.360 And this story probably begins before nineteen seventy nine, and 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.640 I suppose it'll never really end, and not just because justice. 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.519 Is not going to be served to the victim or 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:44.199 their family. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.120 Well, let me explain. Even saying the phrase the Ground 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.400 Heights section of Brooklyn, it makes me hear a news 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.800 broadcaster voice in my head, not only because of the 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.720 you know, if it leads, it leads style of American 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.800 media that colored my childhood, along with the peak of 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.960 our city's murder rate during that time, but also there 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.440 was a race riot there in the summer of nineteen 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.120 ninety one between the black and Hasidic populations that lived there, 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.600 and I remember hearing about it on the news nightly. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.039 And once you hear this story you know, it kind 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.840 of becomes hard to ignore that this tension that was 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.039 released through this riot must have been boiling under the 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.200 surface of this neighborhood before even this murder in nineteen 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.480 seventy nine. Now I have you been paying attention to 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:37.240 recent manufactured outrage over this immigrant enclave map of New 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.880 York City. It was at one time strictly self segregated 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.880 by ethnicity. Now it's just economics. But my people are 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.760 at least ethnically Irish. When I was, you know, a teenager, 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.720 I dated an Italian girl, a difference that now seems 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.160 silly to even mention, But at the time there were 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.760 older folks in our in both of our families that 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.520 I definitely looked at it as some sort of interracial arrangement. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.560 So you can imagine that the religious and actual skin 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.080 tone differences between the black folks and the Hasidam in 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.000 Crown Heights that was probably even more difficult to overcome, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:20.000 even though both populations had something very deep and common 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:26.160 as refugees of European style discrimination, the Jews escaping systematic 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.880 annihilation in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Bloc, and then 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.359 black folks escaping the Jim Crow South, only to come 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.880 to places like New York, where even the Irish and 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.400 Italians still hated each other, and many of whom climbed 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.480 out of economic dire straits by joining the police forces 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.920 that systematically tortured and wrongfully incarcerated people like Carl Miller, 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.680 who became some sort of sacrificial lamb to kind of 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.000 diffuse the tension that came from the murder of a 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.480 prominent rabbi in nineteen seventy nine, attention that only would 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.440 explode in nineteen ninety one, well, he had already been 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:08.520 in prison for eleven years. Carl was later paroled after 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.560 over thirty years in prison, just three years shy of 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.440 the establishment of Brooklyn's Conviction Review Unit in twenty thirteen 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.720 under Ken Thompson, which I believe may have started in 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.680 earnest to correct some of the terrifying history of police 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.799 violence and misconduct, but it appears to have morphed into 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.880 some kind of scene washing apparatus that helps maintain the 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.640 veneer of infallibility of our criminal legal system, which is 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.840 operated by flawed human beings, just like everything else is. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.680 Despite the appearance of some higher calling in a commitment 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.640 to public safety that is bastardized in stories like this one. 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.040 And maybe you'll agree with my take when you hear 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:54.600 Carl's story. The Brooklyn CRU accepted his case, turned over 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.400 old investigative files, conducted an investigation, including interviews with witnesses 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.880 that the jury never heard from, as well as those 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.000 who testified, and after you hear this story, you're going 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.080 to wonder why the hell they were ever believed, and 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.800 all of it appears to support Carl's unwavering claim of innocence. 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.680 But before actually doing what the CRU was established to do, 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.840 the Brooklyn DA's office chose instead to meet Carl's team 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.840 in court, proceeding to burn through over a decade of 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.440 tax dollars in Carl's remaining years fighting his innocence claims 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.480 until April first, twenty twenty six, when a judge finally 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.839 agreed with Carl, overturning his conviction on the grounds of 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.799 actual innocence. Meanwhile, when asked for comment, the Brooklyn DA's 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.920 office said they're still reviewing the decision like they planned 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.760 to appeal or some shit. So let's you know, just 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.880 keep that in mind when you're listening to Carl's story 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.760 and ask why this alleged progressive city agency spends tax 0:04:55.800 --> 0:05:00.239 dollars on fighting to maintain convictions like these. Do they 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:02.920 kind of look insane for doing it? 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:05.000 I mean, who. 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:11.040 Benefits from from that? Rabbi Oknoff, the Hasidic community, the 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:16.320 rest of us here in New York, anybody, anybody, And 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.920 while we ponder that, for the first time in forty 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.000 seven years, Carl Miller's name is finally free from the 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:27.760 stain foisted upon him by police misconduct and violence. And 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.200 maybe that sounds too harsh to call it violence, but 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.960 what else is it when you kidnap someone for thirty 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:39.760 one years, steal their youth, steal a father from his children, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.600 and then enslave him. And if that sounds like hyperbole, 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.280 I mean we think differently when it happens to us. Well, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.000 Carl and our other guests don't have to wonder. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.480 On October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy nine, Rabbi David Akanov 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.560 was walking with his prayer case in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.000 when an assailant approached, described as a young black man 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.839 about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, he shot 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.720 the prominent rabbi and stole the prayer case and read 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.920 it to an apartment building. Eventually, NYPD found a young 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.839 man named Daryl Brown, who gave several accounts alleging that 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.800 a local amateur broxer named Carl Miller had made some 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:28.800 incriminating statements. Carl had an open warrant for assault, was 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:33.279 brought in for a lineup, but the eyewitnesses didn't identify him. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.640 After he was processed for the previous assault charge and released, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.120 Carl approached Darryl Brown in the street, but Brown was 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.720 not deterred. At trial, Brown testified that he had seen 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.000 the whole thing from start to finish, so the prosecutor 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.080 no longer needed the other eyewitnesses who did not identify 0:06:50.160 --> 0:07:05.520 Carl in the lineup. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:07.760 back to wrongful conviction, where we have a story born 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.520 out of racial and religious tension in New York City 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.520 that existed certainly before the crime came in the late seventies, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.840 but also through the nineties and even today in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.800 between the Black and Ascidic communities. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:19.840 That live there. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.480 But before we get into how that relates to this story, 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.360 I'm the man who lived at Carl Miller. I'd like 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.040 to welcome back one of his attorneys, James Henning, to 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:29.560 our show. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.160 Pleasure to be back, Jason. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.800 And this time you brought along another attorney who played 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.280 a major role in this case, Carissa Cokin. Welcome, thank you, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.000 and now i'd like to introduce the man himself, Carl Miller. 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.280 And as we record this right now, October twenty fifth, 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.000 twenty twenty three, it's not only his birthday, but also 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.840 the forty fourth anniversary of the crime at the center 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.600 of his wrongful conviction. So Carl, I'm sure that colors 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.280 how you see this day, but we hope that this 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.880 one is a happy birthday. Thank you for choosing to 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.840 spend some of it here with us, and you're welcome. Now, Carl, 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:07.920 can you tell us a little bit about your childhood. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.120 I grew up in Crown Heights with my family. I 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.160 went to public school to twenty one. From there went 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.360 to James D. Lawrence, which is a six hundred school. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.520 My mother and my father moved out and I just 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.040 hung around with some of the guys that I was 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:24.880 associated with. 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.720 Carl did not have his parents around for a while. 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.320 He was expected to go out and handle his own business. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.680 And you were married, and you were a young father 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:34.480 at the time. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.400 That wasn't married at the time, but I was a 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:37.000 young father. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:39.439 I understand you were an amateur boxer. 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:40.240 Yeah. 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.160 I did box for Izzyzerland Youth and Recreation Center and 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.000 Crown Heights, and I had a little reputation in the 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.760 neighborhood as somebody that you didn't want to mess with. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.480 And I think that, unfortunately worked against him when he 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:54.560 was wrongfully accused. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.319 In the months leading up to the murdering question, Carl 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.120 had been in a fight in which he was stabbed 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.760 with a screwdriver and hospitalized with the collapse lung, resulting 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.200 in an open arrestaurant for assault, which seems wrong for 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.600 someone defending themselves against deadly force, But that kind of 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.760 unfair application of the law was nothing new to Karl. 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.800 I did have a confrontation with the seventy first Precinct 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.600 because they used to come around and get guys to 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.280 go in for lineups, and I started telling them, don't 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.480 do that because you getting paid five dollars for a lineup, 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:26.920 but they're not. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:27.960 Giving you back the picture. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.480 So this is my way of like trying to keep 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.400 them out of the police way. 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.280 Which is solid advice. We've seen misidentifications start just that 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.200 way in so many wrongful conviction cases. So as a 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.959 young man, Carl had already witnessed injustices to give him 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.720 that perspective. While in contrast, there appeared to be preferential 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.040 treatment for the Hasidic community in Crown Heights. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.280 It's a strong voting block. It's like, you're not going 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.160 to get elected mayor if you don't have the Hasiatic community, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.280 because they will vote in droves for the candidate that 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.000 the Rebbe tells them to vote for. 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.280 The Hasidic community before and after World War Two settled 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.600 in Crown Heights, which had been anointed by the leaders 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.800 of what is known as the Jabad or Habbad Lubovich movement, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.040 many of whom had escaped persecution either at the hands 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.920 of the Germans or those in the Soviet block. Before 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.959 and after World War Two. Curiously, the city allowed one 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.720 of its most powerful voting blocks to operate their own 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.160 police force, the Jewish Defense League or JDL. 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.120 The hard charge behind that JDL philosophy was never again, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.079 get yourself a gun, don't rely on the cops. People 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.720 lived in an era where the cops were hurting you 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:38.920 onto the trains to auschwitzen bergen Belsen and Triblinka and whatnot. 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.880 It's that Mirkan slogan, never again, We're not going to 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.920 be vulnerable. Imagine any other group in New York City 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.760 having their own police force. There are two very distinct 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.640 worlds there in the Crown Heights area. One that is 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.719 set up with their own ambulance and emergency systems, and 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.800 they've had a number of issues going up until recent days. 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:02.880 With those two communities bordering on each other. 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:04.880 One of the one that really stands out is the 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.480 Crown Heights Riot. But as I will say to people, 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.280 prior to Crown Heights riots, you had like Victor Road. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.240 He was a guy that was a cost of about 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:12.920 the JDL. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.760 And of course you're talking about the awful incident on 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.680 June sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, when approximately twenty ascetic men 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.280 beat a sixteen year old kid named Victor Roads into 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.840 a coma that lasted for two months. And so obviously 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.959 the tension was high in the area, so. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.400 It was always tension, but it wasn't the con attension 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.360 that the Crown Heights Riot had bought. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.280 The Crown Heights riot took place in August nineteen ninety one, 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.920 when a young Hasidic man drove through a red light, 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.440 peered off the road to avoid now oncoming traffic, and 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.319 pinned two seven year old black children under his car, 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.240 one of whom Gavin Cato, was killed, signetic a race riot. 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.200 The story at the scene was the Shabbata ambulance showed 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:03.160 up and went straight for Hasidam while kids underneath the 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:04.760 car and they're trying to lift it up. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.560 The tension that was building for decades exploded. Jewish people 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.559 and their businesses were attacked, and the violence played heavily 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.760 into the nineteen ninety three mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani, 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:19.280 who unseated New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.840 The unrest in Crown Heights was palpable in nineteen ninety three, 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.000 and was certainly present when Victor Rhodes was attacked in 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.640 June of seventy eight, as well as when Rabbi David 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.520 Akanov was murdered in October seventy nine. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.920 Rabbi David Akanov, the victim in this case, was in 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.040 his late sixties. He had been born in Ukraine in 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:44.720 nineteen eleven studied the Torah under Communist rule there. Actually, 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.440 after his bar mitzvah, he wanted to continue studying, but 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:48.920 his parents wouldn't let him, so he went on a 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.800 hunger strike until they gave up and led him. He 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.200 ended up emigrating to the US after learning that the 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.760 KGB was looking into him, and he made efforts in 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.760 the Crown Heights community to help other Jews who were 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.839 living under oppression in Russia. So Rabbi Akanov was by 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.880 all accounts, a very pious and charitable man. He was 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.640 not somebody who seemed to deal with a lot of trappings. 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.640 But he did have a regular prayer case that he 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.480 would bring with him to pray, and it contained and 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.640 I'm going to butcher this terminology, his talis and his tapillon, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.600 which are religious implements used by Lubovich has seed him. 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.760 So just before seven am on October twenty fifth, nineteen 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.960 seventy nine, he's on his way to yeshiva when he shot. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.400 This was a very high profile case. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.880 We've got a very prominent rabbi in the community who 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.720 was shot with a thirty two caliber point blank in 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.040 the face. There were two eyewitnesses to this shooting. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.240 Both of the eyewitnesses Louis Fazio, who was not a 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.600 member of the seated community, and sixteen year old Schinini 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.240 of Sperlin, who was. It's pretty evident that they saw 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.000 the same person running from the scene with Rabbi Akinov's 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:03.600 prayer case. 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:08.240 Now, the descriptions were actually remarkably similar from the two witnesses. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:13.040 A man who was black, twenty one years old, ish right, 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.920 about five nine, one hundred and fifty pounds, medium built, 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.920 medium hair, possibly wearing a hat and a dark jacket. Carl, 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.760 does that description match you or did it match you 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:23.320 at that time? 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.000 At that time, I was probably a five hundred and 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:30.440 eighty pounds, weigh a little afro, and wear too many hats, 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.160 very athletic, not slim, as they had described this person 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:35.440 as being a slender person. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:36.240 That's not me. 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.240 They're talking about a guy who's five nine one fifty. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.640 You're about six feet tall, right, Yeah, there's a significant difference. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.840 You were a boxer, right, so with a class of boxing. 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.520 I was in a light heavy, light heavyweight, light heavyweight. 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:54.920 So the descriptions didn't match, what about alibis and things 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:55.360 like that. 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.000 I was in Queens, New York, celebrating my birthday with 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.320 my daughter's mother at the time, and I left the 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.800 house came back to Brooklyn, and that's when I learned 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:06.520 about the rabbi being murdered. 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.200 Carl had spent the night in Queens, and even after 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.760 lies and coercion, his daughter's mother, Joann Davis, maintained that 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.200 he was there that morning and not in Crown Heights 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.600 at seven am, murdering Rabbi Achanoff and running off with 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.200 his prayer case into the apartment building at five sixty 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:22.320 five Crown Street. 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:27.080 And that is where they end up finding a suitcase 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.480 that belonged to an individual named Darryl Brown. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.360 Rabbi Akanov's prayer case is never found, and in an 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.040 abandoned apartment they find this suitcase belonging to Darryl Brown 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.520 with his property in there, and two days later he 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.680 shows up at the precinct because he heard that they 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:45.640 were looking for them. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.840 Darryl Brown essentially ends up being the only person to 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.560 ever implicate Carl Beller in this crime. 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.320 Right, you don't have to be sure, Lock Holmes to 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.720 figure out that's a misdirection play there, right. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.280 You've also got the fact that Daryl Brown is repeatedly 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.760 lying to them. His statements evolved. His initial statement indicates 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:07.600 that he didn't see anything. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.560 And then they received a second statement from Daryl Brown 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.000 on November eight, nineteen seventy nine, while he was being 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.000 treated at King's County Hospital for a gunshot wound to 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.080 the hand. They never investigate the cause of the wound. 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.720 When they come back to him, presumably with the ability 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.280 to turn the screws a little bit when he's in 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.000 the hospital with the gunshot wound. He now says that 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.480 he and two other friends had seen a Jewish man 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.960 with some money in a pizza falafel store and Carl 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.040 supposedly said, oh, you should have ripped him off, and 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.760 that he had heard the shot and saw Carl near 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:40.400 the scene. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.640 Carl has always maintained that he was not present either 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.400 for the murder or that day in the store. We 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.760 only find out who that actually was much later then. 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:54.080 Darryl Brown in his third documented statement and his first 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.160 sworn statement the next day, on November ninth, he says 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.520 that he had seen Carl near the scene and he 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.440 tried to get into five point sixty five Crown where 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.880 I was staying. I've seen him with a thirty two 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.600 and I spoke to him the day before the crime 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.119 about a jew with money in a blue bag. And 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.640 that's a quote which is important because it departs from 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:14.800 his testimony at trial. 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.280 On the strength of Dall Brown's ever shifting word, Carl 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.560 was eventually charged with the murder. However, with his open 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.000 arrest warrant for assault, his reputation as a neighborhood tough guy, 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.680 and previous interactions with the seventy first Precinct, they came 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.120 looking for him way before Brown had ever made any statements. 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.560 Just a few days after the rabbi's murder in late October. 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.760 My sister tell me that the police was looking for 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.120 me to talk to me. And I called him, said, 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:42.960 what are you looking me for? Oh, we want to 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.080 talk to you about the homicide. Come to the precinct. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:46.879 I'm like, nah, we can talk about not come to 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:48.720 the precinct. I didn't go because I made it was 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.400 going to arrest me, so I had an open case. 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.720 I had a warrant, which is completely within his rights. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.960 And I think it was November fourteenth. They picked me 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.560 up at my house, took me to the sixty ninth Precinct, 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.639 questioned me about the homicide, but they arrested me for 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:02.159 my warrant. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.640 When Carl does get brought to the precinct, he offers 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:11.800 to take a polygraph and provide his fingerprints, and police 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.200 don't take his prince, but they do take a polygraph, 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.040 which they claim Carl failed. He then stands in two 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.560 lineups without council and is viewed by Shanina Sperlin and 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.080 Louis Fazio, the two undisputed eyewitnesses, neither of whom identify him. 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:27.560 I was held on the warrant. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.840 They took me to Rockets Island, came back out and 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.880 walking around the street, and people was telling me that 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.920 this guy Brown was talking about me with the police, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.399 and I had a confrontation with him when I was accident. 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.200 Why are you telling him talking to the police about 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.520 me about this case? Oh, they want me to say 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:45.959 and I'm not going to say nothing. I was just 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.840 telling him leave my name out of it because I 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.639 had nothing to do with that at all. 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.399 This was around probably right after Thanksgiving. 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.840 Darryl Brown on November twenty ninth is given a polygraph 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.439 quote to test out his earlier statement end quote to 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.520 the proctor and according to the police, Brown's polygraph shows 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.600 that he was telling the truth about everything, but there 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.520 was some question about his withholding evidence from the police. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.760 Now think about that statement, because we know number one, 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.640 polygraphs aren't this nuance? Now they weren't this nuance? Then 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:19.600 this was a tool for coercion. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:24.520 It usually is. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court. And 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.359 I need our audience to remember that police are allowed 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.720 to lie to you about evidence, and they routinely lie 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.400 about polygraph results in order to coerce confessions. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.040 When they arrested me on the fourteenth and I volunteered 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.639 for the lineup, the guy has said that, oh, you 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.960 was picked out in Alno, which we come to learn 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.800 that was not true, that I was never identified in Lano. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.639 Then after I take the polygraph test, they said, oh 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.080 you fail. So I'm like, okay, when I watched Perry 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.399 Mason when I was a kid, So if I failed, 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:56.359 allowed to take the test and I was picked out 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.359 in a lineup, what more evidence than you need to 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.600 arrest me? But I wasn't trust I was arrested in No. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:03.159 Thirtieth for this. 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:08.560 Case, after Daryl Brown gives that polygraph statement where according 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.560 to the police, he was truthful about everything. On the thirtieth, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.320 they put Daryl Brown in lineups. But what are you 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.360 putting somebody in lineups for if they've told the truth 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.840 about everything implicating another individual. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.640 That's a good question. If I'm following this correctly, then 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.640 they must have suspected that he might have been the guy, right. 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:32.119 It doesn't make sense to conclude otherwise. Either he's telling 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.719 the truth about everything when he implicates Carl, and okay, 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.880 authorize the arrest. Certainly, there's no basis the next day 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.280 to put Darryl Brown in lineups unless you're saying maybe 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.200 he's still not telling the truth about everything, and instead 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.879 what they do is revert to tunnel vision and authorize 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:54.639 and arrest for Karl based entirely. This is undisputed, entirely 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.480 on the accusation of Daryl Brown, his second differing sworn statement, 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.880 his fourth or fifth differing documented statement since the murder. 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:18.199 It's just a travesty. 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.440 When you coming off the street, you know you gotta 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.760 fight within Rockets Island, because that's how it was so 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.120 it can be really alled on the person that if 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.040 you're not really up to it. And I was the 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:33.159 type of person that I could defend myself, so I 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.199 had no problem like that. You just waiting to go 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:37.919 to trial and prove my innocence. 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.720 So nine months later, September eighth, nineteen eighty, you go 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.920 to trial. I'm assuming you were represented by a public defender. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.960 Yes, I was reaping presented by how it listwise. A 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.280 guy come in tell me, oh, I never lost a 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:52.000 murder case. 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.960 I didn't know you didn't have one until you had minds. 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.119 There were some very serious discovery issues here, whether you 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.679