Speaker 1: It was May fifth, nineteen eighty five. James Daly was
Speaker 1: out bar hopping with his roommates Jack Pearcy and Gail Bailey,
Speaker 1: as well as their friend Oza Shaw, when the four
Speaker 1: of them ran into a fourteen year old Shelley Bogio.
Speaker 1: At some point, all of them went back to the
Speaker 1: house that James, Jack and Gail shared, and James Daly
Speaker 1: went to bed while Gail, Jack's pregnant girlfriend was using
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Jack snuck out with Shelley Bogio, dropping Oza
Speaker 1: Shaw at a payphone on the way. In the early
Speaker 1: hours of the morning. Jack Pearcey returned alone, at which
Speaker 1: point he woke James Daly and dragged him out for
Speaker 1: a few more beers. When they returned, James's pants were wet.
Speaker 1: The following day, Shelley Bogio's body was found choked, stabbed,
Speaker 1: and drowned in the Florida Intracoastal Waterway. Jack Pearcy admitted
Speaker 1: to his involvement of the crime, but implicated James Daly
Speaker 1: as the primary culprit the prosecution and turned promised leniency
Speaker 1: to jailhouse informants who could help them send James Daily
Speaker 1: to where he's been since nineteen eighty seven, Florida's infamous
Speaker 1: death row. Jack Pearcy has since claimed sole responsibility for
Speaker 1: Shelly Boggio's death, but has so far avoided actually affirming
Speaker 1: that claim in a court of law. We're going to
Speaker 1: speak with James's attorney, Josh Dubin, a man whose name
Speaker 1: you've heard on this podcast from me many times and
Speaker 1: also from the mouths of several of the people that
Speaker 1: he's helped free, and he'll tell us about the evidence
Speaker 1: that he's uncovered that the state of Florida refuses to hear,
Speaker 1: even though it clears James Daly's name with or without
Speaker 1: the word of the one and only killer, Jack Pearcy.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. On today's episode, we're going
Speaker 1: to tell the terrifying tale of James Daly, a man
Speaker 1: who was wrongfully convicted decades ago in Florida and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. And with us to tell that story is
Speaker 1: his attorney, Josh Dubin. And for listeners of the show,
Speaker 1: you'll recognize Josh's name because I reference him often. Josh
Speaker 1: is not only a pro bono council of great repute
Speaker 1: for the Innocence Project, he is a jury selection expert
Speaker 1: and has been an integral part of many cases that
Speaker 1: you've heard on this show, including just a few names,
Speaker 1: John Restevo, Clemente, A Gire Herman Atkins, and he is
Speaker 1: a sort of a force of nature. So, without further Ado,
Speaker 1: let me introduce my friend and a personal hero of mine,
Speaker 1: Josh duben Well.
Speaker 2: That made me blush. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So when you're old and gray and sitting in your
Speaker 1: rocking chair and someone asks you what case troubles you
Speaker 1: the most, I know that this is one case that
Speaker 1: will come to mind. Is that fair statement?
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like it's making me old and
Speaker 2: gray and putting me in a rocking chair already, especially
Speaker 2: coming off this latest decision by the court. It's just, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's doing a number on me. But it's really not
Speaker 2: about me. It's about the victim of Shelley Bogio, her
Speaker 2: family's fight for justice and closure, and a clearly innocent
Speaker 2: man that's been sitting on death row for more than
Speaker 2: three decades for a crime that his co defendant has
Speaker 2: admitted he committed on his own. So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: troubling to say the least.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to nineteen eighty five, fourteen year old
Speaker 1: Shelley Bogio was found choked, stabbed over thirty times, and
Speaker 1: finally not even dead yet, was drowned in Florida's intracoastal Waterway. Josh,
Speaker 1: can you take us back to the circumstances of this
Speaker 1: case and explain how James Daly came to be a suspect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was roommates with a person that committed the crime,
Speaker 2: a gentleman by the name of Jack Pearcy. And God,
Speaker 2: I say, gentlemen, I want to shove those words back
Speaker 2: in my mouth. I mean Jack Pearcy was a guy
Speaker 2: that had a very very violent criminal past. He had
Speaker 2: been implicated in a murder for higher scheme where he
Speaker 2: flipped on his co defendants and got himself immunity. He
Speaker 2: had been arrested for terroristic threats against the mother of
Speaker 2: his child. He had been in and out of jail,
Speaker 2: and James Daily didn't know this about him. James Daly
Speaker 2: had done a tour in Korea, two tours in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: His criminal record was all of one arrest for like
Speaker 2: a one punch bar fight, and he met Jack Pearcy,
Speaker 2: I think playing pool at a bar. You know, he
Speaker 2: didn't really know too much about Jack, but they were
Speaker 2: hanging out in Kansas. James Daly, he's having a hard
Speaker 2: time after getting back from Vietnam, just getting along and adjusting,
Speaker 2: and you know, his wife had sort of had it
Speaker 2: with him and kicks him out, so he was sort
Speaker 2: of down on his luck where to go. Didn't really
Speaker 2: know too much about Jack Pearcy, but they ended up
Speaker 2: living together in Florida with Jack Pearcy's girlfriend, Gail Bailey,
Speaker 2: who was pregnant with Jack Pearcy's child. And then May fifth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, there's a group of them, Gail Bailey,
Speaker 2: Jack Pearcy, of course, James Daly, and a man by
Speaker 2: the name of Oza Shaw. Osa Shaw was a friend
Speaker 2: of Jack Piercy's from Kansas. He was down there staying
Speaker 2: with them, and they are, you know, going from a
Speaker 2: bar to a bar, and they see Shelley Bogio and
Speaker 2: her sister, and Jack Pearcy knows them. He had been
Speaker 2: to their house before and bought drugs from their father,
Speaker 2: and he had hung out with Shelley Bogio before. He had,
Speaker 2: in fact been told by Shelley Bogio's father, look, you're
Speaker 2: too old to be hanging out with my young daughters,
Speaker 2: and especially Shelley. They end up going to some bars,
Speaker 2: and there's really no dispute about the fact that Shelley
Speaker 2: bo Jack Pearcy, Gail Bailey, James, Dally Osa Shaw are
Speaker 2: back at the home where Gail, James and Jack live.
Speaker 2: What happens afterwards had been the subject of sort of
Speaker 2: great debate. Who was with Shelley Bogio alone during the
Speaker 2: time frame that the state established at both the trial
Speaker 2: of Jack Pearcy and James Daly she was murdered. They
Speaker 2: said it was between one thirty and three thirty am.
Speaker 2: That's never really been challenged, all right, that is the
Speaker 2: window of the time of death. At some point Jack
Speaker 2: Pearcy leaves that house with Shelley Bogio. In the past,
Speaker 2: Jack has tried to push back the time frame of
Speaker 2: when this happened because he knows what the state's been
Speaker 2: able to establish in terms of when Shelley Bogio died,
Speaker 2: So he claims I left with Shelley Bogio around eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: I then came back to get James Daly and the
Speaker 2: three of us went out together, which makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 2: He was with this girl that he obviously want to
Speaker 2: have sex with. He was flirting with her by all accounts.
Speaker 2: Gail Bailey has even admitted that he had been flirting
Speaker 2: with her earlier in the night that he danced with her.
Speaker 2: Gail Bailey got pissed off, so it makes no sense
Speaker 2: that he would want to go back and get James
Speaker 2: Dally get another man involved. But he claims that he
Speaker 2: went back to the house and got James Daly and
Speaker 2: it's during that time that they went to a bar
Speaker 2: and that James Daly, Jack Pearcy, and Shelly Bozio drive
Speaker 2: to an area close to the bar, and before he
Speaker 2: knows what's going on, James Daly pounces on top of
Speaker 2: Shelley Bogio when she rebuffs his advances and just starts
Speaker 2: stabbing her like a madman.
Speaker 1: So let me get this straight. Jack Piercy tells the
Speaker 1: police a story placing James Daily with he and Shelley
Speaker 1: Bojio between one thirty and three thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: the timeframe of her death. But what prompted him to
Speaker 1: implicate his friend. Was it just the simplest way to
Speaker 1: shift the blame from himself?
Speaker 2: Well, we don't have to speculate, because I asked him
Speaker 2: that I went to visit Jack Pearcy back in December
Speaker 2: and January and March. He confessed to me that he
Speaker 2: did this alone. He doesn't know me. I just walk
Speaker 2: into the prison off the street. I tell him I'm
Speaker 2: from the Innocence Project. There's a death warrant sign for
Speaker 2: James Daily. Are you going to do the right thing?
Speaker 2: That was literally almost the extent of my conversation, and
Speaker 2: I remember counting to seven hundred and sixty one, just
Speaker 2: sitting there and getting comfortable in the silence and just
Speaker 2: letting him think. He you know, got a kind of
Speaker 2: emotional and he said, do you have an affidavit? And I,
Speaker 2: you know, handed him one sheet of paper that basically
Speaker 2: said I did this alone. James Daly had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it. And he signed it and he said,
Speaker 2: just make sure my family's not there. So it was
Speaker 2: clear to me that he had not only done this.
Speaker 2: I knew that he had done it. He knew that
Speaker 2: he had done it, and he just didn't want to
Speaker 2: admit to it in front of his family, and I said,
Speaker 2: why did you even implicate James Daily in the first place?
Speaker 2: And he looked at me kind of like, do you
Speaker 2: really need to ask me that question, kind of smirk
Speaker 2: on his face, and he said, well, who admits to
Speaker 2: committing a murder on their own? He said, I was
Speaker 2: trying to get the attention off of me. And look,
Speaker 2: he had done this before. He had accepted money to
Speaker 2: murder someone stake the person out, and he got caught.
Speaker 2: He never actually went through with the murderer because there
Speaker 2: was too much sort of heat on him, but he
Speaker 2: ended up flipping on his co defendant and getting himself
Speaker 2: out of that crime. He had done this before and
Speaker 2: he figured, I'm going to do it again, and he
Speaker 2: told me that. So we don't have to speculate there this.
Speaker 1: Let's call him what he is, a scumbag. Piercy kept
Speaker 1: slipping through the cracks, and he should, by anybody's definition,
Speaker 1: have been in prison. And had that been the case,
Speaker 1: Shelley Bojio would still be alive and your client would
Speaker 1: not be in prison for this crime because it never
Speaker 1: would have happened. And that's a tragedy on top of
Speaker 1: a tragedy. So, Josh, we know this story that Jack
Speaker 1: Piercy made up, but what about the real story of
Speaker 1: what happened that awful night.
Speaker 2: You know, they say that the truth always catches up
Speaker 2: to the lie, especially when someone is talking. Jack Pearcy
Speaker 2: has talked over the years. He has confessed to this crime.
Speaker 2: He has signed Affidavid's declarations. And what ends up happening
Speaker 2: is he ends up getting pressure applied on him by
Speaker 2: his family and he ends up having to go to
Speaker 2: court to affirm the affidavit or the declaration, and he
Speaker 2: gets cold feet, as family says to him, you know,
Speaker 2: you should not be admitting to this. You're going to
Speaker 2: break our hearts. We've been telling people you're innocent, and
Speaker 2: now we can't do that anymore. Your son will never
Speaker 2: come visit you again, and so forth. And when he
Speaker 2: goes to court, he then just takes the fifth So
Speaker 2: here's what really happened, And now Jack Piercy has admitted it,
Speaker 2: although he didn't realize he was admitting it. And I'll
Speaker 2: explain that in a minute. What really happened is that
Speaker 2: they go back to the house. Gail Bailly, his pregnant girlfriend,
Speaker 2: is in the bathroom. Ajames Daly is in his room.
Speaker 2: Osa Shaw is on the couch and Jack Pearcy uses
Speaker 2: this as an opportunity to leave with Shelley Bogio. Jack
Speaker 2: Pearcy says, Shelley, let's get out of here. Osa Shaw says,
Speaker 2: I want to go with you. I have to make
Speaker 2: a phone call. And remember we're in the mid eighties,
Speaker 2: so they took him to a payphone. Osa Shaw has
Speaker 2: been consistent that he leaves the house with Jack Pearcy,
Speaker 2: Shelley Bogio. It's just the three of them. James Daly
Speaker 2: and Gail Bailey are back at the house, all right,
Speaker 2: There is no dispute about that. Jack Pearcy drives Osa
Speaker 2: Shaw with Shelley Bogio to a payphone. Osa Shaw is
Speaker 2: calling his wife and a girlfriend of his and he's
Speaker 2: on the phone for ten to fifteen minutes, and Shelley
Speaker 2: Bogio and Jack Pearcy get impatient and they start honking
Speaker 2: the horn. Osa Shaw finally says, go ahead and take
Speaker 2: off because the payphone is a short walk away from
Speaker 2: where the house is. So Shelley Bogio and Jack Piercy
Speaker 2: leave and they're alone now up until March of this year.
Speaker 2: Jack Piercy has always maintained that, yes, that happened, but
Speaker 2: it was at about eleven thirty at night, because he
Speaker 2: knows what the time of death is, he knows what
Speaker 2: that window is, so he always pushes this event back
Speaker 2: to earlier in the evening. He claims that he went
Speaker 2: back to the house and got James Daily. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of problems with that. Osa Shaw has always been
Speaker 2: consistent to the following. At some point in the evening,
Speaker 2: Jack Pearcy comes back to the house and he does
Speaker 2: not have Shelly Bogio with him anymore, goes into James
Speaker 2: Daly's bedroom, wakes James Daily up, and the two of
Speaker 2: them leave together. And this is critical, right because when
Speaker 2: was this? When in time was this? And you know,
Speaker 2: we get to the next part of the story, which
Speaker 2: is Jack Pearcy's unwitting admission and the latest turn in
Speaker 2: this case. And he gives me that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's done this to you time and again,
Speaker 1: an admission which he then won't fess up to in
Speaker 1: open court. How many times has he played this game
Speaker 1: with you?
Speaker 2: So Jack Piercy, back in nineteen ninety three, back in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seventeen, and then as recently as late
Speaker 2: last year has admitted in sworn statements that he committed
Speaker 2: the crime alone, that James Daly had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with it, and then he always wiggles out of it.
Speaker 2: So after he gives me the affidavit, I have to
Speaker 2: file it in court, and the papers in Tampa back
Speaker 2: in December and January pick it up. Piercy has confessed again.
Speaker 2: But I have phone calls between his mother and him
Speaker 2: after the papers pick up that he's confessed now to me.
Speaker 2: His mother starts telling him, how could you do this
Speaker 2: to us? We've always maintained that you were innocent. Now
Speaker 2: we can never say that again. Your son will never
Speaker 2: come visit you again. And he comes up with this
Speaker 2: crazy story to his mother on the phone and he says,
Speaker 2: you know, I just did this because they're digging around
Speaker 2: these lawyers for James daily and they'll be able to
Speaker 2: do something that will benefit me one day. How in
Speaker 2: the world could something that we are doing as James
Speaker 2: Daly's lawyers to show that Jack Piercy committed the crime
Speaker 2: alone somehow help Jack Pearcy one day. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just the opposite, but putting that aside for a minute.
Speaker 2: I then go see him in I believe February or
Speaker 2: March of this year, because the court has set a hearing.
Speaker 2: I asked to go and take his deposition, and he
Speaker 2: tells me, I've changed my mind. I'm no longer going
Speaker 2: to say I did this alone. You know, I guess
Speaker 2: not out of the realm of possibility that he would
Speaker 2: try to wiggle out again. So I am there deposing him. Okay,
Speaker 2: with me, There's a prosecutor from the state of Florida
Speaker 2: sitting there, and it's myself and an attorney from Millbank
Speaker 2: who is working on the case with me, Scott Edelman,
Speaker 2: and I'm asking him questions, all within the context of
Speaker 2: him now recanting and saying James Daily committed the crime.
Speaker 2: I was just there and I say to him, when
Speaker 2: was it that you were with Shelley Bogio alone? He
Speaker 2: says all about eleven thirty at night, because remember he
Speaker 2: knows the time frame. So I said to him, well,
Speaker 2: was it before or after you dropped Oza Shaw off
Speaker 2: of that phone booth? He says, without a doubt, I
Speaker 2: went with Shelley Bogio alone to have drinks after I
Speaker 2: dropped Oza Shaw at the phone booth. The following is
Speaker 2: not known to Jack Pearcy. I have phone records from
Speaker 2: that phone booth call. I have the people that he
Speaker 2: called their phone records showing that the calls happened at
Speaker 2: one point fifteen in the morning, and that the wife
Speaker 2: and the girlfriend claim, as Osa Shaw does, that the
Speaker 2: calls took forty five minutes and hour. So now we're
Speaker 2: at two point fifteen in the morning, that it takes
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes to walk back to the house, that Oza
Speaker 2: Shaw gets back to the house, and Jack Pearcy isn't
Speaker 2: back yet, that he sits on the couch for forty
Speaker 2: five minutes an hour with Gail Bailly, and Gail Bailey
Speaker 2: is distraught that Jack Pearcy left with Shelley Boggio. Hours
Speaker 2: pass by Oza Shaw's estimation. It's now three point thirty
Speaker 2: three forty five in the morning. That is when Jack
Speaker 2: Pearcy gets back alone. That is the truth catching up
Speaker 2: to the lie. That is the very first time Jack
Speaker 2: Pearcy had ever under oath put himself square in the
Speaker 2: timeframe that this murder is committed between one thirty and
Speaker 2: three point thirty alone with the victim. And this should
Speaker 2: have been earth shattering to the courts. It's certainly was
Speaker 2: earth shattering to me. And as you know, I'm speaking
Speaker 2: these words, just two days ago, you know, got an
Speaker 2: order from the court denying my motion to have a
Speaker 2: cumulative hearing of all of the overwhelming evidence of James
Speaker 2: Dally's innocence because they now claim that the deposition that
Speaker 2: I took was a quote discovery deposition and it's not admissible,
Speaker 2: and it is just you know, if I had any
Speaker 2: tears left in me, I would cry them. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just beyond frustrating. Doesn't do it justice. I mean,
Speaker 2: the fact that Jack Piercy has been able to wiggle
Speaker 2: out of these confessions and that the criminal justice system
Speaker 2: in Florida just continues to look the other way and
Speaker 2: allow it to happen because of these ridiculous legal technicalities.
Speaker 2: I don't even think that the judge respectfully was right
Speaker 2: about it is just mind mending.
Speaker 1: So Jack Pearcy finally gave an admission that he couldn't
Speaker 1: wiggle out of. However, the court then won't allow it
Speaker 1: to be admitted as evidence, which is just fucking insane.
Speaker 1: And of course doesn't make any of it less true.
Speaker 1: But I still have a few questions about the night
Speaker 1: of the crime. What happened when Piercy came back to
Speaker 1: the house to get James Daly out of bed, and
Speaker 1: how did his pants get wet?
Speaker 2: So it can be no earlier than three p forty
Speaker 2: five in the morning, and Jack Pearcy gets home and
Speaker 2: he's by himself, and Oza Shaw is rock solid about this.
Speaker 2: He has never wavered on this in all the years
Speaker 2: he's given testimony. In this case. Jack Pearcy goes into
Speaker 2: James Daly's room, wakes him up, and then they leave together. Now, look,
Speaker 2: I don't know whether that was because Jack Pearcy was
Speaker 2: freaked out, he was looking for an alibi. Who knows
Speaker 2: why he did what he did next.
Speaker 1: He probably didn't want to face the wrath of his
Speaker 1: girlfriend who he had just treated so horribly, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he left her pregnant in the house while he went
Speaker 1: out to try to have sex with this underage girl.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that he told me that he
Speaker 2: was freaked out and then he just wanted to talk
Speaker 2: and have some beers. He takes James Daly to a
Speaker 2: different location than the murder occurred. They have beers and
Speaker 2: smoke a joint and he says, look, I need you
Speaker 2: to move out. We need your room because the baby
Speaker 2: is coming soon. Remember Gail Bailey is pregnant. And what
Speaker 2: James Daly has said, and what Jack Piercy in fact
Speaker 2: told me, is they pop the trunk on the car
Speaker 2: to sit on the back bumper, and that there's a
Speaker 2: frisbee in the back seat and they're parked on the waterway,
Speaker 2: and that James daily whips it up in the air.
Speaker 2: That was like his thing. He would always like fling
Speaker 2: the frisbee up in the air and try to boomerang
Speaker 2: it back to himself. And that at some point it
Speaker 2: went into like the shallow water, and that James Dilly
Speaker 2: waited out there and got it, so he had wet
Speaker 2: pants when they both got back. Oza Shaw and Gail
Speaker 2: Bailey see them come home and Piercy is dry and
Speaker 2: James Daly has wet pants, and the police say, aha,
Speaker 2: he must have been the one that murdered Shelley Bogio.
Speaker 2: And look, Jack Pearcy has told me that what happened
Speaker 2: with the frisbee happened, And you know, to any of
Speaker 2: the listeners that are thinking, well that sounds odd, Well,
Speaker 2: you know what it might. But I can tell you
Speaker 2: that in every single case that I have worked on
Speaker 2: where somebody is innocent, they always live with what can
Speaker 2: be an inconvenient fact. And I'm going to leave you
Speaker 2: with this thought. When Jack Pearcy implicates him, James Daly
Speaker 2: is living under his own name. He has moved to
Speaker 2: California at this point, it's six months later. He started
Speaker 2: a kitchen cabinet company with a friend and the police
Speaker 2: ask him six months later, we heard from Oza Shaw
Speaker 2: and Gail Bailey that you had wet pants that night.
Speaker 2: You know, he can quickly compute, well, Gail Bailey is
Speaker 2: the mother of Jack Pearcy's child. At this point, Osa
Speaker 2: Shaw is an old friend of Jack Piercy's. They're both
Speaker 2: going to cover for Jack Pearcy. He could have quickly
Speaker 2: said bullshit, my pants were dry, But he lives with
Speaker 2: the inconvenient fact because he's innocent, and he says, yeah,
Speaker 2: they were wet then, and here's what happened. That is
Speaker 2: a hallmark of innocence, a hallmark of innocence. He lives
Speaker 2: with that because he thinks that the police are just
Speaker 2: going to believe him and actually investigate this.
Speaker 1: Right, It's not like they could have gone back in
Speaker 1: time and found some wet stain on something. It would
Speaker 1: have been the easiest thing for him to say that,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. That being said, Piercy goes to trial.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he didn't have a snowballs chance and hell,
Speaker 1: and sure enough he's convicted.
Speaker 2: And the state seeks the death penalty against Jack Pearcy
Speaker 2: and they don't get it.
Speaker 1: He gets life understanding and correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: is that there's a line between the fact that the
Speaker 1: state failed to get the death penalty that they sought
Speaker 1: against Piercy, so they wanted to execute somebody for this
Speaker 1: awful crime, and that led them to do a number
Speaker 1: of terrible, terrible things.
Speaker 2: What happens next is the prosecutor send police in to
Speaker 2: the Penelas County Jail where James Daly is being held
Speaker 2: pre trial to start building a better case against James Daily.
Speaker 2: And they don't have anything to go on with James Daily.
Speaker 2: Accept these wet pants, and it is Operation Frame James Daily.
Speaker 2: And if you want more about exactly what happened, we
Speaker 2: could never cover in this timeframe. Pamela Colov wrote an
Speaker 2: amazing investigative piece about jailhouse snitches, in particularly the one
Speaker 2: in this case, in pro publica in the New York Times.
Speaker 2: But they start pulling people off the pod where James
Speaker 2: Daily was housed had been housed, and what they start
Speaker 2: hearing from inmates is over and over again, he tells
Speaker 2: us he had nothing to do with this, He's innocent.
Speaker 2: And then the detectives let it be known to inmates
Speaker 2: that if you have information leading to the conviction of
Speaker 2: James Daily, if you can help us with the case,
Speaker 2: there's a deal to be had for you. And at
Speaker 2: first they get no takers. They start pulling some of
Speaker 2: the same inmates off the pod, and now they have
Speaker 2: newspaper articles about the crime sitting in front of them,
Speaker 2: and one of these inmates has said in pam Colloff's story, look,
Speaker 2: I could have easily made something up by reading the
Speaker 2: newspaper articles that they put in front of me. But
Speaker 2: they get no takers. They ultimately sort of are giving
Speaker 2: up hope getting a snitch against James Daily, and then
Speaker 2: enter Paul Skealnick. And Paul Skealnick was housed at that
Speaker 2: jail and he was someone that was known to Penelas
Speaker 2: County police officers. He was known to that prosecutor's office.
Speaker 2: He had cooperated in forty some odd cases. And they
Speaker 2: knew he was a liar. They knew that he had
Speaker 2: no way of knowing the things that he knew, and
Speaker 2: they knew that he was a liar in this case
Speaker 2: from the outset. Because what happens is Paul Skolnick had
Speaker 2: already tried to get himself a deal in connection with
Speaker 2: Jack Pearsy's case. He goes to investigators and he says,
Speaker 2: I have information about Jack Pearcy, and they said, uh,
Speaker 2: he's already been convicted. We don't need information about Jack Pearcy.
Speaker 2: So then he takes another try and he says, well,
Speaker 2: now I have information about James Daily. They should have
Speaker 2: said to him, come on, buddy enough, but shockingly they
Speaker 2: listened to him. And the tale he tells them has
Speaker 2: already been found by the Florida Supreme Court to be impossible.
Speaker 2: They have, in commenting on appeals that James Daly has made,
Speaker 2: said the layout of the jail makes his story nuts.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense. Now, remember, he's a known
Speaker 2: snitch in this jail. Paul Skalnick is radioactive. No one's
Speaker 2: going near him. He's cooperated in countless cases. Everybody knows
Speaker 2: he's in a single cell. So Skalmich tells this crazy
Speaker 2: story at James Dally's trial that James Dally is mosing
Speaker 2: past the cell, stops, turns to him for some unknown
Speaker 2: reason and says, she wouldn't shut up, and I killed her.
Speaker 1: So we cannot overstate the disgusting practice of using lying,
Speaker 1: incentivized jailhouse snitches who basically condemned their victims to death
Speaker 1: in exchange for extremely lenient treatment. And Skalnik is one
Speaker 1: of the most grotesque examples of this. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is in nineteen eighty two, he was
Speaker 1: charged with sexually assaulting a child. The case was strong,
Speaker 1: and the victim, this brave little girl, was prepared to testify,
Speaker 1: but officials never prosecuted him for the crime. Instead, he
Speaker 1: pleaded no contest to a separate and far less serious
Speaker 1: charge of grand theft.
Speaker 2: There is incontrovertible evidence that the prosecutors knew that Paul
Speaker 2: Skolnick lied on the witness stand about his past charges
Speaker 2: of sexual assault against minors, and they did nothing about it,
Speaker 2: they didn't correct it. And you know, Paul Skealnick lies
Speaker 2: to the jury and says that he wasn't promised any deal.
Speaker 2: He ends up walking out of jail five days after
Speaker 2: James Daly is sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: The State of Florida where And I'll never forget you
Speaker 1: saying this to me as we've spoken one of our many,
Speaker 1: many conversations about this case, Josh, five or six months ago,
Speaker 1: you said to me, you know, my client, James Daly,
Speaker 1: is either going to be the one hundredth person executed
Speaker 1: by the State of Florida or the thirtieth exonerated from
Speaker 1: death row. And that gives me the chills because what
Speaker 1: that says to us is that the State of Florida,
Speaker 1: even if everyone who they've executed before was guilty, and
Speaker 1: we know that that is not the case because Jesse
Speaker 1: to Pharaoh, and the list goes on, but they're not
Speaker 1: even batting seven hundred and yet they continue to let
Speaker 1: the machinery of death wind its way, grind its way through,
Speaker 1: and daily is in their sights. Has been for a
Speaker 1: long time, but now so more than ever, which makes
Speaker 1: this even more urgent that you're here.
Speaker 2: This case has gained so much attention, and hopefully through
Speaker 2: this podcast that gains more because it is just the
Speaker 2: perfect unfortunate storm of injustice. James Daly has been sitting
Speaker 2: there in this narrow, dank cell for thirty plus us years,
Speaker 2: suffocating in the eventuality that the State of Florida is
Speaker 2: going to take his life for something he did not do.
Speaker 2: And you know, if the courts are not going to
Speaker 2: give him the justice that he deserves and give the
Speaker 2: Boggio family the proper closure they deserve by making sure
Speaker 2: that we don't compound a tragedy by taking another innocent life,
Speaker 2: I have to keep fighting. You know, the state of
Speaker 2: Florida has an opportunity to be a catch all, a
Speaker 2: fail safe. Governor Ronda Santis can make clemency in Florida matter.
Speaker 2: Pam call Off said it best. There is a problem
Speaker 2: with the death penalty in Florida. It is no small
Speaker 2: wonder and it is not some coincidence that Florida has
Speaker 2: more death rogues honerations than any other state in the country.
Speaker 2: And there is a clemency process in Florida that does
Speaker 2: not really apply to death penalty prisoners unless they're willing
Speaker 2: to go and show some sort of contrition, and James
Speaker 2: Daly is not going to show contrition for something he
Speaker 2: didn't do. So there's a lot to fight for these days,
Speaker 2: and the James Daily case is one of them. We're
Speaker 2: seeing right now the power of united voices. Unity, brings change, pressure,
Speaker 2: breaks pipes. To stand by idly in the face of
Speaker 2: injustice is not an option anymore. That applies to cases
Speaker 2: of innocence, police brutality against people of color in this country.
Speaker 2: We have to stand up to it all.
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are listening saying I want to do
Speaker 1: something about this James Daily situation. It's awful. Is there
Speaker 1: something that people can do in.
Speaker 2: Terms of the James Daily case. We need as many
Speaker 2: listeners as we can to sign the petition to the
Speaker 2: Governor's office that this cannot stand. That if the courts
Speaker 2: do not give James Daily justice, that we need there
Speaker 2: to be a real clemency hearing where I can present
Speaker 2: all of the stunning evidence James Daly's innocence.
Speaker 1: Please everyone, scroll down into this episode's description, click the link,
Speaker 1: sign the petition and help bring James Daly home. There
Speaker 1: really is a when it all cost mentality among prosecutors.
Speaker 1: It's at the heart of a lot of the problems
Speaker 1: plaguing our criminal legal system, you know, resorting to the
Speaker 1: use of jailhouse snitches who are totally unreliable and notoriously
Speaker 1: incentivized and wrongly incentivized. It's just one of the many,
Speaker 1: many symptoms of a systemic disease at the root of
Speaker 1: so many wrongful conviction cases. Now, Josh, if you could
Speaker 1: focus on one particular way in which wrongful convictions are obtained,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2: The first thing that comes to mind to me is
Speaker 2: reverse engineering, working from a place of wanting to get
Speaker 2: a desired result, having an idea, a hunch, of feeling,
Speaker 2: a notion that someone did something, and then using pseudoscience
Speaker 2: or some justification for it. And that's what we see
Speaker 2: in so many of these cases. The almost every single
Speaker 2: case that I have worked on that involves an innocent
Speaker 2: man or woman involves some form of junk science.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Look, the gold standard for forensic science in this country
Speaker 2: is the National Academy of Sciences, and there was a
Speaker 2: bombshell report in two thousand and nine where the National
Speaker 2: Academy of Science has found that many of these so
Speaker 2: called forensic disciplines that are used in cases all over
Speaker 2: the country going backwards thirty forty fifty years, and still
Speaker 2: to this date, this is in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: found that they weren't science at all, called out bitemark evidence,
Speaker 2: is saying there's no scientific basis for it whatsoever, And
Speaker 2: still to this day, courts all over the country except
Speaker 2: bitemark evidence. They were critical blood spatter, evidence, of footwear impressions.
Speaker 2: Arson Are these disciplines objective, reliable? Can they be repeated?
Speaker 2: Can they be confirmed? And because of this phenomenon called
Speaker 2: legal precedent, where judges just say, well it was accepted before,
Speaker 2: I'll keep on accepting it, they keep on admitting it
Speaker 2: all over the country, and innocent men and women are
Speaker 2: having their lives destroyed because so called experts get on
Speaker 2: a witness stand and say, well, I can match these
Speaker 2: teeth marks to this individual, on these bite marks on
Speaker 2: that victim, and to a degree of scientific certainty that
Speaker 2: individual did the biting. They were the perpetrator. In Clementia
Speaker 2: Giri's case, there was blood all over the crime scene.
Speaker 2: It was no small wonder that the blood came from
Speaker 2: the two victims. The reason that they were collecting the
Speaker 2: blood of the crime scene was to try to determine
Speaker 2: who the perpetrator was. And that's not because I say so.
Speaker 2: The crime scene investigators in that very case admitted that
Speaker 2: the reason that they were collecting the blood was to
Speaker 2: figure out who the perpetrator was. They never tested a
Speaker 2: single drop of blood.
Speaker 1: We had to test it.
Speaker 2: They were analyzing footwear impressions, and Clementee Geary had admitted
Speaker 2: that he happened upon the bodies and walked through the
Speaker 2: crime scene. There was no small wonder that his shoes
Speaker 2: made some impressions. There were impressions that were never looked at.
Speaker 2: That's a case of just ignoring the the forensic evidence.
Speaker 2: But you know, in so many cases, the conviction comes
Speaker 2: down to the jury buying a so called expert that
Speaker 2: says only the defendant's teeth could have left that mark
Speaker 2: on the victim, when in fact you find out that
Speaker 2: the mark on the victim wasn't even a bite mark
Speaker 2: at all, or that the blood spatter came from this direction.
Speaker 2: And an expert reconstructs the crime in a way that
Speaker 2: sounds so convincing to the jury, and they use acronyms
Speaker 2: and fancy words, and you find out that this so
Speaker 2: called expert doesn't even have a high school education and
Speaker 2: took a forty hour course from a man that gave
Speaker 2: birth to the discipline of blood spatter in a basement
Speaker 2: in Corning, New York that he called the Forensic Institute
Speaker 2: of Science. If we really peel back the curtain and
Speaker 2: people really see what's going on, what I think is
Speaker 2: going to happen is I think you are going to
Speaker 2: be just horrified that courts admit this stuff. People rely
Speaker 2: on it, and it's not juror's faults. It sounds super convincing.
Speaker 2: But what I would like is for there to be
Speaker 2: a greater awareness about what this is, how to spot
Speaker 2: it if you're a juror, and how to scrutinize it
Speaker 2: so that we are not convicting innocent people for crimes
Speaker 2: they didn't commit.
Speaker 1: I emphatically agree with you, Josh. That's why I'm particularly
Speaker 1: proud and actually humbled to announce that we are going
Speaker 1: to be presenting a brand new series, Wrawful Conviction Junk Science,
Speaker 1: and the host will be none other than Josh Dubin,
Speaker 1: the man you've been listening to today, And I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to be involved with it because I think we're
Speaker 1: going to do what I've always wanted to do, which
Speaker 1: is to help make better decisions that will lead not
Speaker 1: only to less wrongful convictions, but to more rightful ones. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So let me start by saying, I'm the one, and
Speaker 2: there's like a big love fest. I'm the one that's
Speaker 2: humbled and honored. I mean, Jason, you're a personal hero
Speaker 2: of mine. I tell you privately all the time. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you publicly now. I mean I am honored, humbled
Speaker 2: and everything in between. To be the host of what
Speaker 2: I think is a really important podcast, it's inspiring, and
Speaker 2: I think it's a real opportunity for people to instead
Speaker 2: of asking how do I get out of jury service?
Speaker 2: Which I always tell people, Well, if you were wrongfully
Speaker 2: accused of a crime, wouldn't you want you on the
Speaker 2: jury instead of getting out of jury service? If you're
Speaker 2: there wanting to be a part of it, especially in
Speaker 2: a criminal case, and make or that justice is really done,
Speaker 2: and that you're highly inquisitive asking the right questions to
Speaker 2: yourself throughout the trial and to your fellow jurorsm when
Speaker 2: you deliberate, So we do not have more of these
Speaker 2: stories about people getting out after decades have passed, and
Speaker 2: rather more stories about them getting acquitted before the damage
Speaker 2: is done or more damage is done, because any criminal
Speaker 2: prosecution against the innocent is damaging to their families, to them,
Speaker 2: and of course to the victim and the victims' families.
Speaker 1: So, Josh, as we get ready to sign off, this
Speaker 1: is the part of the show where I first of
Speaker 1: all thank my guest in this case, you for being here,
Speaker 1: and then turn my microphone off and kick back and listen,
Speaker 1: because this is the segment of the show called closing.
Speaker 2: Arguments, you know, because I feel like this fell on
Speaker 2: deaf ears to some extent. I'll just read to you
Speaker 2: my closing argument to the court that was recently denied,
Speaker 2: and let the listeners judge for themselves how they would
Speaker 2: have ruled if they were the judge. This is no
Speaker 2: ordinary case. There is no more important legal question in
Speaker 2: the American system of justice than whether someone may be
Speaker 2: executed without ever had a meaningful opportunity to present the
Speaker 2: complete evidence of his or her innocence. Recognizing that the
Speaker 2: execution of an innocent person is quote the quintessential miscarriage
Speaker 2: of justice end quote, the request is simple. This court
Speaker 2: should hear and consider the totality of the evidence before
Speaker 2: permitting the State of Florida to execute James Daily. Jack
Speaker 2: Pearcy has confessed time and time again that he killed
Speaker 2: Shelley Boggio and that James Daly had nothing whatsoever to
Speaker 2: do with it. There has been some debate over the
Speaker 2: years about the motives behind Piercey's confessions. Indeed, throughout the
Speaker 2: course of James Daly's three decade long fight to clear
Speaker 2: his name, many have speculated as to why Jack Pearcy
Speaker 2: would repeatedly confess to sole responsibility for the murder, only
Speaker 2: to later recant. But if in fact James Daily was
Speaker 2: the person who murdered Chili Bogio, it makes absolutely no
Speaker 2: sense that Jack Pearcy would ever confess to her murder.
Speaker 2: After all, it would be James Daly who was responsible
Speaker 2: for Jack Pearcy's three decade long wrongful incarceration for in
Speaker 2: essence ruining his life. No person in Pearcy's position would
Speaker 2: ever confess to a murder that would allow Daily to
Speaker 2: escape responsibility. Piercy's most recent effort to explain why he
Speaker 2: would have given such a false confession is so irrational
Speaker 2: and self serving that it is obviously made up. He
Speaker 2: claims that he hoped to gain some advantage of his
Speaker 2: own by capitalizing on the efforts of James Daly's legal
Speaker 2: team to overturn mister Daly's conviction. But how could Piercy's
Speaker 2: legal position ever be helped by his confession that he
Speaker 2: committed the crime alone. Once he confessed, there's no chance
Speaker 2: that anything mister Daly's legal team would be doing could
Speaker 2: somehow benefit Piercy. Moreover, we James Daly's legal team remain
Speaker 2: engaged in a tremendous effort to fight his wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: So even if you take Piercy at his word that
Speaker 2: he confessed to gainst some sort of legal benefit of
Speaker 2: his own, which again makes no sense, he would be
Speaker 2: more incentivized than ever to sit back and see how
Speaker 2: things unfold. So what changed. The only thing that changed
Speaker 2: is that Piercy's mother read about his latest confession in
Speaker 2: the newspaper and expressed her genuine despair. Piercy's mother also
Speaker 2: alerted him to the consequences of his confession with respect
Speaker 2: to his son. So what is far more probable is
Speaker 2: that Jack Piercy's guilty conscience, burdened by the knowledge that
Speaker 2: he may be responsible for and yet another innocent person,
Speaker 2: has caused him to confess his sole responsibility numerous times,
Speaker 2: only to recant when faced with his mother's grief and
Speaker 2: the fear that his family might shun him if he
Speaker 2: finally comes clean about what he did. The court need
Speaker 2: not reach a conclusion on this issue. Reasonable minds can
Speaker 2: disagree about the motive behind Jack Pearcy's confessions and ensuing recantations. However,
Speaker 2: one thing is for certain. Jack Pearcy has managed to
Speaker 2: wiggle out of these confessions in the past by disgracefully
Speaker 2: gaming the legal system at the expense of James Dally's
Speaker 2: grueling pursuit of the truth and the Boggio family's right
Speaker 2: to closure. At long last, the games should end here
Speaker 2: under oath, when the state had the full and fair
Speaker 2: opportunity to cross examine him, Piercy let the truth slip,
Speaker 2: and he did so in the context of yet another
Speaker 2: recantation of a confession committed the crime alone. This is
Speaker 2: earth shattering for James Daly's fight for justice. This is
Speaker 2: the truth catching up to the line. Now the Florida
Speaker 2: Evidence Code requires that this new evidence, in fact, this
Speaker 2: critical admission that places Piercy alone with Shelley Boggio during
Speaker 2: the time frame in which you was murdered, be held
Speaker 2: up to the bright light of the truth. Indeed, let
Speaker 2: it be placed on the scales of justice along with
Speaker 2: the cumulative extraordinary evidence of James Daly's innocence. Then until
Speaker 2: now has been hidden from the eyes of the law
Speaker 2: due to procedural obstacles. Let us then see how the
Speaker 2: scales tip once and for all. Now that was rejected
Speaker 2: by the court. And I ask you, is that asking
Speaker 2: too much? If the courts are not going to listen
Speaker 2: and simply have a hearing and let us present the evidence.
Speaker 2: I would ask your listeners to please help us by
Speaker 2: joining the fight.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one