Speaker 1: Vietnam and Korean War veteran John Burge joined Chicago PD
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy, a detective in nineteen seventy two, and
Speaker 1: eventually Detective commander of Area two and later Area three.
Speaker 1: During his career, Haines acts of brutality and torture were
Speaker 1: carried out by him or at his direction, fixing cases
Speaker 1: with coerce confessions and false witness statements alike. He and
Speaker 1: his brethren were known as the Midnight Crew before his
Speaker 1: termination in Disgrace in nineteen ninety three and his eventual
Speaker 1: federal prison sentence. Purge and his crew beat an electrocuted
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Marcus Wiggins to extract the confession to
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety one murder of Alfredo Hernandez. Fortunately, a
Speaker 1: courageous witness named Sean Tyler came forward and ensured that
Speaker 1: the attempted frame job failed. Marcus's mother, Carol ensued and
Speaker 1: eventually settled for ninety five thousand dollars. However, the Midnight
Speaker 1: Crew didn't like being exposed. In nineteen ninety four, they
Speaker 1: tried to frame Marcus again along with Sean Tyler, for
Speaker 1: the murder of Rodney Collins, but Marcus was at school
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, so his alibi was rock solid. Sean Tyler
Speaker 1: was not as lucky, and he's currently serving fifty eight years. Then,
Speaker 1: on February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Theopolis Tigue was found,
Speaker 1: undressed and shot. I won't bore you with a completely
Speaker 1: made up story about a fender bender from witnesses who
Speaker 1: have since recanted, one of whom was shot in the
Speaker 1: mouth the morning he was set to deliver an affidavit.
Speaker 1: Marcus Wiggins was paroled after twenty three years in prison
Speaker 1: and has not yet been exonerated. This is wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: That's me, of course, I'm your host, and today we're
Speaker 1: gonna be telling the story with Marcus Wiggins of Marcus Wiggins.
Speaker 1: Marcus was framed three times by the same cops that
Speaker 1: let me just roll that back again. Three times by
Speaker 1: the same cops. He was physically tortured in a way
Speaker 1: that you know you would see and locked up abroad
Speaker 1: in some third world country, but it happened right in
Speaker 1: Chicago with us. Today, we have his legal team and
Speaker 1: that consists of Justin Bonus, who is Marcus's pro bono
Speaker 1: appellate counsel. So Justin, Welcome to ronfuel Conviction.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 1: And then a guy with his own amazing story, but
Speaker 1: we're going to tell it in a different episode. But
Speaker 1: today we have Jared Adams. Jared was wrongfully convicted himself
Speaker 1: since almost three decades in prison and basically became a
Speaker 1: lawyer in prison, got himself out, passed the bar, worked
Speaker 1: at the Innocence Project for a couple of years as
Speaker 1: an attorney, is now in private practice. I'm super happy
Speaker 1: to have you on here this time as an attorney
Speaker 1: representing an innocent man.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the opportunery.
Speaker 1: Great to have you here. And of course, Marcus Wiggins,
Speaker 1: as I always say, I'm happier here, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you're here because of the reason why you're here. But anyway,
Speaker 1: welcome to Wronful Conviction.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you, man.
Speaker 1: So let's get right into it, because this story, it's
Speaker 1: a Chicago story, and of course Chicago has a miserable
Speaker 1: history of law enforcement, having tortured hundreds of black men,
Speaker 1: specifically black men in a literal torture chamber. It was
Speaker 1: an off site warehouse. And I know it sounds insane,
Speaker 1: but it's all true. It's all been documented, and hundreds
Speaker 1: of innocent men went to jail. But also cops went
Speaker 1: to jail as a result of their horrendous illegal activities
Speaker 1: and their disgusting practice of torturing confessions and false witness
Speaker 1: statements out of people. And of course that group of
Speaker 1: cops was known as the infamous Midnight Crew of Chicago
Speaker 1: Police Detective Commander John Burge. Now Laura and I writer
Speaker 1: and Steve Drizzond covered them on our show Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: False Confession. So to hear more about them, you can
Speaker 1: find that right on our feed here. But today we're
Speaker 1: here to talk about Marcus's cases specifically. So Marcus, take
Speaker 1: us back to before all of this happened. What was
Speaker 1: your life like growing up young?
Speaker 4: At school?
Speaker 5: Want to be a firefighter, a seeker, service agent, you know,
Speaker 5: just being a kid, come home from school, do my homework,
Speaker 5: dele get cartoons, you know, just a normal kid life.
Speaker 1: A normal kid life. But this nightmare began when you
Speaker 1: were just thirteen years old.
Speaker 2: So Marcus gets picked up in ninety one for homicide,
Speaker 2: along with several other people and he's beaten with a
Speaker 2: flashlight over the head, electrocuted, taken in the precinct, tortured
Speaker 2: some more along with other people. And from my understanding
Speaker 2: is is that people actually heard screams in the police station.
Speaker 2: And all the while that this was going on, there
Speaker 2: was a witness that could exonerate Marcus. That did exonerate
Speaker 2: Marcus a guy by the name of Sean Tyler. And
Speaker 2: the police were so on to Sean Tyler that a
Speaker 2: judge issued a protective order for Sean Tyler that the
Speaker 2: police were not allowed to talk to Sean Tyler. And
Speaker 2: this case went on for about four or five years
Speaker 2: before the case was dismissed in nineteen ninety six. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, Marcus's mother filed the civil rights complaint
Speaker 2: alleging the torture by John Burge and Fred Bunkie. Was
Speaker 2: a sergeant, Kenneth Boudreau, James O'Brien, These were all officers
Speaker 2: that were involved with Marcus's alleged statement that they took
Speaker 2: after they beat him until he gave the statement.
Speaker 5: I'm just shocking that a person, as a citizen of
Speaker 5: his country, was alleged shock something that this guy learned.
Speaker 4: I think I read some at V.
Speaker 1: And R in Korea.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, and came over here man and used in tactics.
Speaker 4: And it's not outrage. Yeah, that's like man blowing to me.
Speaker 5: Like the State's Attorney's office, every body that who was
Speaker 5: evolved didn't say, enough is enough, man, we can't allow
Speaker 5: this to happen to our citizens.
Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine with what you went through, you
Speaker 1: would have confessed to killing Abraham Lincoln. Am I right?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 5: You know people going to that type of torture, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, anything just to get from under
Speaker 5: that pressure and that pain that you're going.
Speaker 2: Through, especially at thirteen years old, I.
Speaker 4: Mean thirteen and then the thirteen years.
Speaker 3: The thing about it too, You know when you think
Speaker 3: about birds, Jason, you don't get decorated in Korean Wars
Speaker 3: and Vietnam Wars if you don't get trauma. You understand
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So, this is a guy who was
Speaker 3: given such power, and it may have been broken with
Speaker 3: Marcus's case, but the PDS office had notes between each
Speaker 3: other for years before Marcus, and they were all saying, hey,
Speaker 3: these guys, it's like they're reading off a template you know,
Speaker 3: it's like all their confessions aren't signed and written the same,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's like, you know, Marcus said, somebody
Speaker 3: should have stepped up and said stop, let's not move
Speaker 3: forward until we find out if all one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty of these black men who signed confessions and I'm
Speaker 3: just throwing out a number, but you could just scratch
Speaker 3: out a name and you could put Marcus's or anyone
Speaker 3: else's confession, Sean Tyler and all of them, and you
Speaker 3: would see the same hallmarks. There's no way judges weren't
Speaker 3: tipped that something was wrong with that.
Speaker 1: Right, every confession was the same, and every one of
Speaker 1: the victims would basically described the same treatment.
Speaker 3: That lawsuit that Marcus's mom spearheaded, it really unearthed exactly
Speaker 3: how they were doing what they were doing, right, because
Speaker 3: it's one thing for people to just say, hey, they
Speaker 3: beating me, they kicking me. They found out in several
Speaker 3: different other circumstances that they were doing the same type
Speaker 3: of technics. They were smacking people with phone books so
Speaker 3: it wouldn't leave a mark. They would twist your genitals
Speaker 3: so no one could be seen, and in court were
Speaker 3: bruises on them, so when Marcus went through with the lawsuit,
Speaker 3: it settled for ninety five thousand, and may Marcus a
Speaker 3: target from that point on.
Speaker 1: This was the Alfredo Hernandez murder, right, And ultimately they
Speaker 1: couldn't pin that on you. Now we get to the
Speaker 1: second framing, right, which is the murder of Rodney Collins, right,
Speaker 1: And so they do no investigation whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Right now, which homicide didn't they do any investigation on?
Speaker 2: They did no investigation on all of them. They rely
Speaker 2: on terrible, wholly unreliable witnesses. I mean, Marcus's name in
Speaker 2: Rodney Collins gets thrown in there, and they list him
Speaker 2: as a gang member in the Alfredo Hernandez, the different
Speaker 2: gang member in Rodney Collins, and then I think a
Speaker 2: different gang member in Theopolis tig which we haven't gotten
Speaker 2: to yet, which is nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: So we did a little research Marcus on you, because
Speaker 1: I went back thinking, well, why would he be targeted
Speaker 1: by the cops in this way in the first place?
Speaker 1: And all I could find about your background is that
Speaker 1: you were described as sweet, caring, good hearted, funny like
Speaker 1: people had nothing but good things to say about young Marcus.
Speaker 1: And I mean, were you ever in a gang or
Speaker 1: anything like that. No, No, he knew the answer that
Speaker 1: question because I researched it and the idea that this
Speaker 1: was really good versus evil, like literally good versus evil.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about cops that were well ultimately convicted
Speaker 1: of heinous acts of violence, torture, psychological abuse, electrocuting, mock executions.
Speaker 2: Right, the same detectives that arrested and tortured Marcus and
Speaker 2: knew about Sean Tyler as an exculpatory witness, then go
Speaker 2: after Sean Tyler for the Rodney Collins murder. He's another
Speaker 2: bird victim, so is his brother. There were several others
Speaker 2: that were convicted in this murder, and Sean, I think
Speaker 2: he was beaten into he vomited blood. Sean Tyler ends
Speaker 2: up getting fifty eight years in prison and his post
Speaker 2: conviction motion is pending and he's claiming he's innocent. So
Speaker 2: Marcus was a target of that investigation as well, from
Speaker 2: these same officers. Marcus was eliminated as a suspect because
Speaker 2: he was in school in Wisconsin, because he left the state, Okay,
Speaker 2: because he was terrified, all right, as he still is.
Speaker 2: And I think if Marcus had been in the city
Speaker 2: of Chicago. For the Rodney Collins he.
Speaker 3: Would have gone down for he would have been Yeah,
Speaker 3: he would be convicted.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now we get to the crux of this situation.
Speaker 1: Why Marcus spent twenty three years Ron Fleet incarcerated the
Speaker 1: murder of Theopolis Teague on February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: This is the story of the crime that the police
Speaker 1: and State's Attorney's office used to convict Marcus. But I
Speaker 1: believe we can all see a pattern forming here that
Speaker 1: leans towards this being a total fabrication from Berg and
Speaker 1: his flunkies. So, okay, Allegedly, Theopolis Tigue was driving down
Speaker 1: fifty first Street in Chicago with Cedric Farley and Terrence
Speaker 1: Tyler Sean Tyler's fucking brother by the way, Okay, And allegedly,
Speaker 1: now the maroon car in front of Theopolis Tigue's car
Speaker 1: backs up into them with enough force to push them.
Speaker 1: I'm in the car backward. Then Tigue allegedly drove to
Speaker 1: the fifty two hundred block of South Marshfield Avenue, parked
Speaker 1: his car, and got out to assess the damage, at
Speaker 1: which point, supposedly the driver of the maroon car. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: Marcus Wiggins stepped up to Teague and said what's up now.
Speaker 1: Teague and the others allegedly ran, while Marcus allegedly opened fire,
Speaker 1: killing Tigue. Now, neighbors heard thirteen shots that supposedly came
Speaker 1: from a nine millimeters semi automatic. Neither were shellcasings found
Speaker 1: or collected at the scene, by the way, nor were
Speaker 1: bullets recovered from Tigue's body. So police maintained that the
Speaker 1: shooting was geang related, despite what we already covered, which
Speaker 1: was that Marcus was never in any gangs. Again, the
Speaker 1: state's word here is wholly and totally unreliable. Now, according
Speaker 1: to Cedric Barley, a statement and testimony that he later recanted,
Speaker 1: he ran over to Tigue, who allegedly told him that
Speaker 1: a guy named Stutter shot him, and Stutter was Marcus's nickname.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Marcus, please clarify about calling you Stutter and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, Like where it came from.
Speaker 4: It came from after the torture.
Speaker 5: Like my friend, my friends and my cousin knows when
Speaker 5: I talk, I stutter, So given the name because I
Speaker 5: know I stuttered after the torture.
Speaker 3: So that's important, Jason, because they put that shit in
Speaker 3: the witness's mouth. Man, that's intimate knowledge from somebody that
Speaker 3: you know, soooed you want wow.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Convision with Jason Flam and of the Last
Speaker 1: Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help
Speaker 1: incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers
Speaker 1: across Indiana, supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping
Speaker 1: young people and students. For more information on the work
Speaker 1: of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, please
Speaker 1: visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice area. It's worth noting that a witness to
Speaker 1: the alleged fender bender, remember that part of the story
Speaker 1: reported that the car Marcus was allegedly driving was maroon
Speaker 1: or burgundy, but we know that he never owned a
Speaker 1: Maruna burgundy car. You owned a black car. And the
Speaker 1: mechanic bravely also reported that when Marcus brought his black
Speaker 1: car again black color was black to the shop, it
Speaker 1: had no damage to the rear bumper, so and the
Speaker 1: police told it. So the police knew that that didn't match.
Speaker 2: Up the mechanic. That information only comes out three years
Speaker 2: after his conviction. So it's documented that that car was
Speaker 2: in the shop. And get this, the police take the
Speaker 2: car out of the shop destroy it right away.
Speaker 1: Now here's another crazy thing about this case. The victim,
Speaker 1: Theopolis Tigue, his body was discovered clothed only in a
Speaker 1: T shirt and boxers in the dead of Chicago winter.
Speaker 3: So during this time, in this era, when people were robbed,
Speaker 3: they would make them undress almost right, So that was
Speaker 3: a big detail. It was glossed over, right. So it's
Speaker 3: more likely than not how the body was found, like
Speaker 3: you said, with a T shirt with the boxes, that
Speaker 3: he was robbed, being shot and killed, and it had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the scenario that they made up
Speaker 3: to get their.
Speaker 2: Target Marcus or he was dropped there.
Speaker 3: That as well. Those are the options, but the option
Speaker 3: of back into the car. I went to go check
Speaker 3: the damage, I was shot and ran away. It's nonsense
Speaker 3: and it's never been credible.
Speaker 1: So we now have the car. He didn't known the gun,
Speaker 1: he never owned the gang that he was never in,
Speaker 1: because they said this was a gang related shooting, which
Speaker 1: again would point away from Marcus. Everyone knew he was
Speaker 1: never in a gang. In fact, he used to be
Speaker 1: tormented by gang members because he wasn't in a gang.
Speaker 1: So ultimately Marcus is charged with murder. Atlanta Johnson his
Speaker 1: attorney through the initial trial, and the state utilized that
Speaker 1: murder is chosen carefully. Three witnesses, Cedric Farley, RL Mahon,
Speaker 1: and Kelly Stokes to testify against Marcus.
Speaker 2: And he fully recanted it. He was interviewed by Kenneth Boudreau,
Speaker 2: who was a person that Marcus sues in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: To say, Kenneth Boudreau was a hands on interviewer.
Speaker 2: Totally hands on. People want to make Chicago only look
Speaker 2: like confessions are what these guys were obtaining through torture.
Speaker 2: They were getting everything through torture. All the witnesses in
Speaker 2: this case were the type of guys that you want
Speaker 2: to flip, And how do you flip them?
Speaker 3: Force it to go to move?
Speaker 1: Was it right? Well, they weren't doing any investigating, so
Speaker 1: I guess what else you've got?
Speaker 2: They do no canvas in this case. What police do
Speaker 2: when they find a body in the neighborhood, what do
Speaker 2: they do? They go door to door to talk to people.
Speaker 2: What independent witnesses do we have? They don't do that.
Speaker 2: No shellcasings, no door to door. You arrest a guy
Speaker 2: three hours later, and Jason three hours after the crime.
Speaker 2: In the nineties and even till today, it is standard
Speaker 2: to do gunshot residue testing on clothing hands that the
Speaker 2: powder is going to stay on you. They don't do
Speaker 2: any of this because they don't want the physical evidence
Speaker 2: to show the unreliability of their witnesses. And I mean
Speaker 2: unreliability to me is actually a kind word in this
Speaker 2: in this case.
Speaker 3: Of very kind.
Speaker 2: It's kind the lies, the fabrication, and all the witnesses
Speaker 2: say when they're in the police station they're talking about
Speaker 2: Marcus Wiggins.
Speaker 1: They were aggressively disinterested in who actually committed this crime,
Speaker 1: which of course is just more bad.
Speaker 2: Safety issue, right of course.
Speaker 3: You know for folks like Marcus, you know, even like
Speaker 3: myself back then, you can't afford a fucking attorney man
Speaker 3: like you can't even like somebody like justin back then,
Speaker 3: with those facts, fucking hamram Man. The guys found damn
Speaker 3: near neked in the winter time, if he was running,
Speaker 3: when did he time time to take his call?
Speaker 2: What you investigate?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: They if they would have called the cops in this
Speaker 2: case in front of a Chicago jury, the jury would
Speaker 2: have heard that these cops were sued by this kid
Speaker 2: five years prior and they tried to frame them in
Speaker 2: ninety four like this all would have caught. And I
Speaker 2: hate to slam them because they cross examine one the witnesses.
Speaker 2: One of the witnesses recants, but then they don't call
Speaker 2: their own investigator. But they get out of the witness
Speaker 2: that the witness recanted. A thirteen year old this guy
Speaker 2: orl Mayhan, who was named as the killer by one
Speaker 2: of our witnesses, presently recants. You know, he actually says
Speaker 2: Marcus doesn't do it, I mean, you know, and then
Speaker 2: he and then he gets back and he recants on
Speaker 2: his recantation.
Speaker 1: All three of them later recanted their testimony. Right. Two
Speaker 1: of them, Farley and Stokes, signed affid David's admitting that
Speaker 1: their testimonies were false. That's very brave, right, considering what
Speaker 1: they had been through. When you say, well, what happened
Speaker 1: to the third witness, I'm glad you asked. The third
Speaker 1: witness was fatally shot in the mouth on the day
Speaker 1: that he planned to sign a similar document. That's got
Speaker 1: to give everybody the fucking chills. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: shot in the mouth on the day he was going
Speaker 1: to sign a similar document.
Speaker 3: What a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ's that's a mafia.
Speaker 2: And he recanted to three different people. He recanted on
Speaker 2: the witness stand in the trial. He recanted to Marcus's
Speaker 2: appellet attorney, and then he recanted to another woman, Tracy Ross,
Speaker 2: who gave a sworn affidavit as well. So Url Mayhan.
Speaker 2: He recanted three separate times before he was killed.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't enough, people are probably pulling their
Speaker 1: hair outs in the home listen to this or in
Speaker 1: their car. Melinda Chavers also reported what she knew about
Speaker 1: the case and assigned affidavit that she was sitting on
Speaker 1: her porch when Tigue, a member of the Blackstones. Tige
Speaker 1: was the victim came up to her and said that
Speaker 1: he saw a murder by other Blackstone members and that
Speaker 1: they were going to come after him and kill him.
Speaker 1: So this is powerful, right, because those witnesses were never
Speaker 1: called to the stand either. And we don't know if
Speaker 1: that's because of threats from detectives or more torture or
Speaker 1: just ineffective assistance, but that's certainly since Marcus was never
Speaker 1: a member of the Blackstones, you know, or any of
Speaker 1: these gangs, that certainly would have also been exculpatory. So
Speaker 1: there were all these different witnesses who could have refuted
Speaker 1: the state's phony narrative, the whole thing about the bumper.
Speaker 1: There were the witnesses that could have placed you at
Speaker 1: your girlfriend's house, multiple witnesses. Why why did your attorney
Speaker 1: not call them? And did you have conversations with your
Speaker 1: attorney about it at that time?
Speaker 6: Man oh Man, I had a conversation with them, but
Speaker 6: she was unimpression that she didn't need to call witness
Speaker 6: because m Mayhem and changed his.
Speaker 4: Statement and that was going to be the winning tickets.
Speaker 3: You know, I listen all too familiar, and yeah, and
Speaker 3: I mean and it's the same thing that I went
Speaker 3: through where it is where a lawyer court appointed. Oh
Speaker 3: this is a slam dunk. You don't have to worry
Speaker 3: about that. I've never heard of a patient saying, look,
Speaker 3: that's okay. You gave me half the antibiotics, you can
Speaker 3: keep the rest. I think this half will probably work.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Right, doctors take half of my appendix out? I think
Speaker 1: that'll work?
Speaker 3: Makes no sense.
Speaker 1: But you know, there was no chance. This was a
Speaker 1: show trial because Marcus was never going to get a
Speaker 1: fair ruling as long as the presiding judge was then
Speaker 1: as Turnback because Turnback was known at the time as
Speaker 1: being a part of Burges's go to team when he
Speaker 1: had worked in the state's attorney's office and he had
Speaker 1: a history of accepting confessions despite knowing that they were
Speaker 1: coerced and given under torture.
Speaker 4: Sick name Thurnback. He allowed the state to have their weight,
Speaker 4: and then Mark turned on to Johnson, couldn't do this,
Speaker 4: couldn't do that. He gave his state a lot of league.
Speaker 5: Way later when I found out who don about was,
Speaker 5: I ain't stand a chance anyway.
Speaker 1: So September nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Marcus, I mean, you
Speaker 1: had a lot of bad days in your life leading
Speaker 1: up to this, But can you take us back to
Speaker 1: that miserable day when you were found guilty at first
Speaker 1: degree murder? And since the forty six years in prison?
Speaker 1: What was that moment?
Speaker 4: Like I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't no, you know,
Speaker 4: killed you and then he gave me forty six years
Speaker 4: no prison is It's what.
Speaker 5: Like the soldiers when they leave from overseas and come
Speaker 5: back home, they have post trump stress.
Speaker 4: I have that, you know what I'm saying. Because of
Speaker 4: the torture, the jails, the penitentiaries, there's not a place
Speaker 4: nobody want to be. You have to constantly be on guard.
Speaker 4: You got to defend yourself.
Speaker 5: The officers, you know, they come in with a baggage
Speaker 5: on top of everything else that's going on in our jails.
Speaker 4: So it's a nightmare, man. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Don't nobody want to leave at nightmare? I don't want
Speaker 4: to leave a nightmare no more.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and two, Marcus filed approchate motion with detailing
Speaker 2: about the destruction of the car, detailing that the car
Speaker 2: was in the shop. You know, it's amazing. The car's
Speaker 2: in the shop. Car gets destroyed by the police, the
Speaker 2: piece of evidence that they needed to prove their case
Speaker 2: that there was a car accident gone right. Marcus's alibis
Speaker 2: all detailed in his pro say motion in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two. It was a very good motion. It should
Speaker 2: have had a hearing. It was summarily denied. Again, we
Speaker 2: go back to Dennis Drnbeck, the guy who presides over
Speaker 2: his trial, the guy who has this intimate relationship with
Speaker 2: these cops, is the guy that hears the post conviction motion.
Speaker 2: And then for years Marcus went really without a lawyer,
Speaker 2: and again he battled, and Northwestern got involved because they
Speaker 2: saw Marcus's case and they ended up doing a documentary.
Speaker 2: Jane Riley took over his case and God bless her,
Speaker 2: God bless her, God bless her. But she passed away,
Speaker 2: and so Marcus gets stuck in limbo. He submits an
Speaker 2: application to the Torture Commission and they tell him we
Speaker 2: don't condone the fact that your witnesses were tortured, but
Speaker 2: you weren't tort Yeah, so it was outside of yes, right,
Speaker 2: you weren't tortured in this case. You were tortured in
Speaker 2: any other case, the nineteen ninety one case, but we
Speaker 2: can't help you, right, So then you know, I got
Speaker 2: involved when I saw the documentary, and of course I
Speaker 2: knew Jared is licensed in Illinois, and we kind of
Speaker 2: formed like voltron and you know, and literally, let me
Speaker 2: just tell you something. Very few cases that I have,
Speaker 2: Jared knows this. I've got cases where men are getting
Speaker 2: ready to be exonerated four five years. The investigation takes right,
Speaker 2: Marcus's investigator hits the ground in August, motions filed in January.
Speaker 2: We've got seven affid davids from twenty twenty right, all
Speaker 2: the witnesses of recandidate full file from the prosecutor's office
Speaker 2: where you know, you see that Fred Bunkie is the
Speaker 2: supervisor at the scene of the investigation. This is a
Speaker 2: guy that Marcus sued personally in nineteen ninety three. He's
Speaker 2: the supervisor, He's the quarterback. He chooses what detectives are
Speaker 2: going to interview what and says he chooses Kenneth Boudro
Speaker 2: to interview Kelly Stokes. And then what we learned from
Speaker 2: Marcus Wiggins is is that James O'Brien was in the
Speaker 2: police station after they arrest Marcus Wiggins three hours after
Speaker 2: the doms it sticks his head and says, go suck
Speaker 2: your thumb in the corner now, because allegedly after he
Speaker 2: was thirteen and he had this, the trauma that he
Speaker 2: suffered when he was thirteen from being electrocuted caused him
Speaker 2: to suck his thumb. O'Brien walks right in there, and
Speaker 2: Marcus knows O'Brien because he was beat over the head
Speaker 2: with a flashlight by James O'Brien, and he tells him,
Speaker 2: we're going to stick your ass with this one. You
Speaker 2: ain't beaten this one right. The misconduct was so bad
Speaker 2: in the police station that Cedric Farley, one of the witnesses,
Speaker 2: said that they were passing around a single photo of Marcus.
Speaker 2: They showed him a single photo of Marcus, and they're
Speaker 2: talking about the lawsuit in the police station. But it
Speaker 2: gets where I mean again. The first witness to mention
Speaker 2: Marcus his name is Terrence Tyler, and we go back
Speaker 2: to the Tyler named Terrence is Sean Tyler's brother. Terrence
Speaker 2: is recovering right now from a stroke, but he recanted
Speaker 2: to two separate people. He recanted his statement and he said,
Speaker 2: I know Marcus is innocent, that he didn't commit this crime.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is unbelievable too, because Marcus has a
Speaker 2: code defendant in this case. This code defendant goes bench,
Speaker 2: he goes bench trial. Let me just explain that you
Speaker 2: have a right in America to a jury trial.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Would you want one person judging you or would you
Speaker 2: want twelve people judging you?
Speaker 1: Right? Man, you want twelve exactly.
Speaker 2: You definitely don't want to judge if you're a defendant.
Speaker 2: The code defendant in Marcus's case goes bench and gets acquitted. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's crazy, Okay, And he's still so scared to talk
Speaker 2: because of retaliation. Every witness that's Rickannon, Kelly Stokes, Ricannon
Speaker 2: fearful retaliation, Cedric Farley, Recannon fearful retaliation. Lavelle Adams, who
Speaker 2: was the co defendant, refuses to talk because he said
Speaker 2: his lawyer said, don't speak because the Chicago Police Department
Speaker 2: will come after you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about folks impoverished areas, no protection, no protection,
Speaker 3: there's no I'm just gonna get up and move. That's
Speaker 3: not an option. Yeah, Jason, where you're going? Where the money? Yet?
Speaker 3: You know it's not an option, just hostage in their
Speaker 3: own place.
Speaker 2: And where's WITSEC for the civilians in Chicago?
Speaker 1: Right right?
Speaker 2: Where's with this protection against the police.
Speaker 1: In case anyone thought we were exaggerating any part of
Speaker 1: the torture as a practice of the Chicago Police Department,
Speaker 1: a not insignificant number of police officers in the Chicago
Speaker 1: PDE who were doing this systematically. There was an investigation
Speaker 1: which resulted in Birds himself going to prison for three years, which,
Speaker 1: don't even get me started, three years for framing and
Speaker 1: torturing hundreds of people while he collected pension, collected pension,
Speaker 1: their tax dollars are paying for the shit. So there
Speaker 1: were actual convictions that this was all supported and all found,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's hard to prove these things. It's
Speaker 1: always hard to get any sort of justice when it's
Speaker 1: a person in blue that's committed almost thirty years later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want, I want to be real clear
Speaker 2: about this because this was a thirty year conspiracy, because
Speaker 2: it starts in ninety one, right, Yeah, But Marcus has
Speaker 2: testified in other cases right credibly where he's identified these
Speaker 2: officers because being around these men for so long, he
Speaker 2: was able to identify them, and courts have found him credible.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is something that is firmly established. And
Speaker 2: it's unfortunate that Marcus had the languish in prison for
Speaker 2: twenty three years and for me.
Speaker 5: To stad it come home from the jails back until sady,
Speaker 5: where everybody want to play politics, nobody want to step
Speaker 5: up and do the right thing, which is that's what
Speaker 5: you was put in these positions for any way, is
Speaker 5: to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think State's Attorney Kimpbox is the kind
Speaker 1: of person that will do the right thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we had her on Righteous Convictions just a few months ago.
Speaker 1: We asked her about your case, and although she couldn't
Speaker 1: comment on the ongoing proceedings, she expressed her hopes for
Speaker 1: getting to the truth and righting the wrongs of the past.
Speaker 1: I believe we've laid out plainly here today the only
Speaker 1: thing that justice could or even should mean here and now,
Speaker 1: with your leave application granted, the ball is in her court.
Speaker 3: If the Cook County State's Attorney's office is not willing
Speaker 3: right now to say Marcus Wiggins is actually innocent like
Speaker 3: me and Justin, and forget me and Justin. Just look
Speaker 3: at the evidence says. If they not aren't willing to
Speaker 3: do that, then then Jason, what's wrong with being able
Speaker 3: to admit that this man didn't receive a fair trial?
Speaker 1: Well, don't ask me, because obviously nothing but Marcus, October thirtieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, you walked out of prison. You were paroled.
Speaker 1: You should have been exonerated. You will be exonerated. October
Speaker 1: thirty you walked out of prison. What was that like?
Speaker 4: Hey, it's like a feeling that I can't describe, man,
Speaker 4: But I was so happy. I was I was humble,
Speaker 4: I was peaceful. It was just feel so good man,
Speaker 4: to actually have your feet the hit of the payments
Speaker 4: and walk around and just feel that feel that freedom,
Speaker 4: feel that wind, feel that space. It was amazing man.
Speaker 1: And you and we know you passed your driving tests.
Speaker 1: Obviously you had to get a cell phone, computer. I
Speaker 1: know I know you FaceTime because we've spoken on FaceTime
Speaker 1: a bunch of times. All this new stuff that happened
Speaker 1: while you were locked up, right, how is it getting
Speaker 1: used to it? Starting to feel comfortable with some of
Speaker 1: this new technology and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'm I'm still learning how to work my phone,
Speaker 4: my laptop, I'm still having to learn that too.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of new stuff googogle going on out here.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to get familiating.
Speaker 1: And we're going to put links in the bio to
Speaker 1: learn more about Marcus's case to be able to support him.
Speaker 1: And now we turn to the part of our show,
Speaker 1: which I call closing arguments. First of all, I thank
Speaker 1: each of you for being here, and then turn off
Speaker 1: my mic, kick back in my chair and just sit
Speaker 1: and listen and learn from whatever you want to share,
Speaker 1: anything we might have left out, or anything you want
Speaker 1: to say at all about anything. I don't care if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the weather. So let's do this.
Speaker 1: Alphabetical order is good for me and also saves Marcus
Speaker 1: for the closing of the closing argument. So you're bad
Speaker 1: and clean up, Marcus. Let's go to Jarrett first, then Justin,
Speaker 1: and then Marcus.
Speaker 3: Justice requires us to stop waiting for things to become
Speaker 3: a hashtag before we stand up and do something. You know,
Speaker 3: as we think about the one year anniversary of us
Speaker 3: watching George Floyd lose his life, you know, we as
Speaker 3: a society have to say to ourselves We've come a
Speaker 3: long way, but there's so much work to do, and
Speaker 3: I want to close my comments by saying this, there
Speaker 3: is power in people's voices.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: People become jurors, people become judges, people are voters. People
Speaker 3: can make a difference. And I want people to think
Speaker 3: about this when they are faced with things that challenge
Speaker 3: them doing the right thing and speaking up. If your
Speaker 3: life was to be depicted in a book where the
Speaker 3: only reader would be someone that means the world to you,
Speaker 3: would they read that book and walk away impressed right
Speaker 3: now about you for what is right, calling out.
Speaker 4: Things that are wrong.
Speaker 3: If you can't answer that question definitively, there's more work
Speaker 3: to do, Jason. I can't answer that question definitively, So
Speaker 3: I get up and I work every day, and so
Speaker 3: I'm just calling on folks to not allow the norms
Speaker 3: and the depictions and narratives of folks to ever stop
Speaker 3: their moral compass from doing the right thing. I want
Speaker 3: to thank you, my friend, for having me on the show.
Speaker 3: Justin Marcus is an honor and a pleasure and a
Speaker 3: privilege to know you, to represent you and your mom
Speaker 3: a real g I'm gonna get her name on the
Speaker 3: T shirt real soon so people know who she is
Speaker 3: because she is the one who she get the credit
Speaker 3: for giving birth to you more than once. She gave
Speaker 3: birth to you to get here, and she also loved
Speaker 3: you out of that situation, and she's still fighting. Justin
Speaker 3: will tell you, okay, she will. She'll put you, put
Speaker 3: you in your place if you say something wrong.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I thank you, guys man again for his opportunity,
Speaker 3: and it's always a pleasure to be around you all.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you to us.
Speaker 2: Justin h definitely Carolyn Johnson's strong woman has spoken her many,
Speaker 2: many many times. So would you want somebody that you
Speaker 2: sued to investigate you for a homicide? Successfully sued? I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that's like, I think this is a common
Speaker 2: sense case just to get the man a new trial.
Speaker 2: We don't even need to get to the witnesses. We
Speaker 2: could just stop it. Would you want somebody that you
Speaker 2: sued to be the person that investigated you for a homicide?
Speaker 2: The answer is no, Okay. I mean, and these guys
Speaker 2: really really disliked Marcus. Not only does he sue them,
Speaker 2: but he also basically internally gets them in trouble, blows
Speaker 2: the lid off of bird. This is like the Keystone
Speaker 2: case that sets everything in motion. This is like the
Speaker 2: clearest case I've ever seen a retaliation. And that's before
Speaker 2: we get to of the witnesses. All right, Every witness
Speaker 2: in this case is recannid. There's no evidence that Marcus
Speaker 2: was in a gang. There's no evidence that there was
Speaker 2: a car accident, there's no evidence that there were shellcases
Speaker 2: at the scene, there's no evidence that backs up this trial.
Speaker 2: Literally like happened in a vacuum, right where everything was
Speaker 2: literally stripped away in this trial, so you don't hear
Speaker 2: the truth. It is just clearly a depiction that only
Speaker 2: the state's attorney and the police department wanted the jury
Speaker 2: to hear. And then Marcus had no defense. How can
Speaker 2: anyone have a fair trial when something like that goes on.
Speaker 2: And then when you come back and witnesses are a
Speaker 2: little bit more willing to talk about what actually happens
Speaker 2: because it takes time for people to come It takes time.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm not the same as I was
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager. There are things when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager that I probably would have lied about
Speaker 2: if I had gotten put into a certain situation. So
Speaker 2: it took time for this body of evidence to come
Speaker 2: forward and these witnesses to come out and tell you
Speaker 2: what happened in that precinct. These cops were obsessed with
Speaker 2: Marcus Wiggins, and we'll name them James O'Brien scumbag, Okay,
Speaker 2: Kenneth Boudreau scumbag, and Fred Bunky scumbag. They were all
Speaker 2: under the umbrella of John Birch. These are the ones
Speaker 2: that focused on Marcus. And every single witness that testified
Speaker 2: in this case said the same thing, which is I
Speaker 2: was either beaten, I was threatened, and this is why
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: What I did.
Speaker 2: And it's believable because it's happened. How I mean at
Speaker 2: this point that we don't have two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight hands we got I don't know, there's so many
Speaker 2: hands that you'd have to have to count the fingers
Speaker 2: that this has happened. It's just it's unbelievable. And Marcus
Speaker 2: case is clear. There was no case against Marcus. This
Speaker 2: is a complete, utter fabrication and it's the clearest case
Speaker 2: I've ever seen of retaliation in my life.
Speaker 1: All Right, Marcus, saving the best for last over to you, Well, Well, we.
Speaker 5: Know, we know, and we see what's going on all
Speaker 5: around the country, fars dealing with the police, how they
Speaker 5: fabricate they police reports, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: our video comes out, obviously from what they filed in
Speaker 5: the reports, so we know what's going around to see.
Speaker 5: We know what's going on these officers, especially in the
Speaker 5: city of Icago, where I feel like I'm up against
Speaker 5: a giant and don't nobody want to do the right
Speaker 5: thing because their friends did their careers. They were about
Speaker 5: more conventions, more of this and study doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: It frustrates me so much. It just frustrats me so much.
Speaker 4: But on a broader note, y'all have been a blessing
Speaker 4: to me, man, since I've been out. Man, y'all truly
Speaker 4: been a blessing all y'all. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: all three of y'all. You know, I just want to
Speaker 4: continue to strive for what I'm doing, and I feel
Speaker 4: like I'm in debt to help the next person. I
Speaker 4: feel like I'm in debt to y'all to help the
Speaker 4: next person to be on the same page that y'all
Speaker 4: along when y'all come out, help people and fight the
Speaker 4: powers that be man and y'all definitely been a blessing, man.
Speaker 4: I definitely appreciate y'all from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: And I'm just hoping, I hopeing Kim Fox do the
Speaker 4: right thing.
Speaker 5: See how full acknowledge of what's going on in our commune,
Speaker 5: how four not as going on with our birds in
Speaker 5: the Midnight crew.
Speaker 4: I just hope everybody just do the right thing, man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamer.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Cliber and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one