Speaker 1: At ten pm on a snowy April second, twenty two
Speaker 1: year old Andrew Asher and Becky George sat in a
Speaker 1: parked car in front of her brother's apartment on Silent
Speaker 1: Road in Rockford, Illinois. A black man approached the car
Speaker 1: in a blue ski mask and a hoodie, and he
Speaker 1: opened the driver's side door, announcing a stick up. While
Speaker 1: Becky fished around in her purse and tried to offer
Speaker 1: the gunman the sixty dollars she had, he shot Andrew
Speaker 1: Asher twice. Becky ran to her brother's apartment to call
Speaker 1: the police, and the two bullets and their casings were
Speaker 1: retrieved from the crime scene and during the autopsy. Through
Speaker 1: the use of incentivized eyewitness testimony, the coercion of a
Speaker 1: false confession, and grand jury testimony from Patrick Persley's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Samantha Crabtree, testimony she later recanted a trial, and conflicting
Speaker 1: and misleading ballistics expert testimony. Patrick was convicted of first
Speaker 1: degree murder and sentenced to life without parole, with an
Speaker 1: epic appeals process that included Patrick getting a law change
Speaker 1: from prison in order to get new b listics testing
Speaker 1: done that would ultimately set him free. Patrick Pursley suffered
Speaker 1: for over twenty five years for a crime he simply
Speaker 1: didn't commit. In March two thousand seventeen, Patrick's conviction was
Speaker 1: finally vacated and he was released on bond. He was
Speaker 1: formally acquitted at his retrial on January two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. This
Speaker 1: episode was recorded at Complex Con Chicago two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: a culture, fashion, art and music hybrid event described as
Speaker 1: a streetwear fans kind of World's fair featuring limited edition
Speaker 1: brand collaborations, performances, and even the occasional live podcast recording
Speaker 1: like this one. We only had thirty minutes though, to
Speaker 1: tell Patrick's story, so I'll be fleshing out some of
Speaker 1: the details along the way. Patrick Parsley, this is going
Speaker 1: to be extraordinary because, frankly because of you, Because Trick
Speaker 1: is my new friend. I've just gotten to know him,
Speaker 1: his unbelievable spirit and intellect. But Patrick, I want to
Speaker 1: say that I'm happy you're here. I'm sorry you're here
Speaker 1: because you didn't should never even have to be having
Speaker 1: this conversation. But I'm happy you're here. And your case
Speaker 1: has so many of the hallmarks, so many of the
Speaker 1: common factors that we see in rawful convictions over and
Speaker 1: over again. You had incentivized lying witnesses, coerced threatened witnesses.
Speaker 1: You had bad ballistics, terrible ballistics. Right. You had people
Speaker 1: in positions of authority who broke rules, broke laws in
Speaker 1: order to railroad you. Tunnel vision is another factor, right,
Speaker 1: And by tunnel vision, what I mean by that is,
Speaker 1: once a suspect is identified, in many cases, we see
Speaker 1: that the police and prosecutors start to build a narrative,
Speaker 1: either consciously or subconsciously, and they managed to ignore or
Speaker 1: they subconsciously ignore evidence that points away as you see it.
Speaker 1: In your case, yes, alternative suspects, crime scene evidence, clothing, everything,
Speaker 1: everything was contradicted. So Patrick Pursley was rolphly convicted of
Speaker 1: a brutal crime, a robbery of two people in the
Speaker 1: car where the robber shot the guy sitting in the
Speaker 1: car twice and ran and then things went downhill from
Speaker 1: there very quickly. And Patrick, this this was Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 1: But you didn't know the people. You didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about the crime. I didn't even know what happened. You
Speaker 1: were home with your girlfriend when this happened. Yes, I
Speaker 1: was doing the lated birthday party for my son and
Speaker 1: he came from Wisconsin. His birthday was on the twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and we were celebrating on the night of the crime,
Speaker 1: which was four to and had a chemistry set form,
Speaker 1: and we were just tinkering around and have no idea
Speaker 1: of these events happening just a few miles away. I mean,
Speaker 1: while there's another aspect of this that's important to recognize,
Speaker 1: which is crime stoppers, right, and theory crimestoppers great thing. Right,
Speaker 1: people call up, okay, talk about a crime. They're gonna
Speaker 1: make us all safer. They get a reward. But in
Speaker 1: your case, except except when they do it like when
Speaker 1: Tricks case, where someone called up and knew nothing about
Speaker 1: the crime and just gave up his name in order
Speaker 1: to get two thousands the Price of life, right, about
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars a year for the time you were
Speaker 1: in the Price of Life. So all of this must
Speaker 1: have come as a tremendous shock to you when it
Speaker 1: happened in stages, right when you first first you became
Speaker 1: aware that you were a suspect. Can you get into
Speaker 1: that aspect of this whole thing. I was taking my
Speaker 1: daughter and my son to a birthday party and the
Speaker 1: police tried to apprehend me, and unfortunately I was ghetto bred,
Speaker 1: so I fled and that's how it started. That was June,
Speaker 1: about ten weeks after the crime. Two days earlier, on
Speaker 1: June eight, Marvin Windham, a man Patrick knew from a
Speaker 1: few small time we deals around Rockford, was the first
Speaker 1: one to point the finger at him in a call
Speaker 1: he made to crime stoppers. It was later revealed a
Speaker 1: trial that not only did Marvin have for Samantha Crabtree,
Speaker 1: Patrick's girlfriend, but he also received leniency on a number
Speaker 1: of charges that he faced in exchange for his testimony
Speaker 1: not to mention the two thousand and six fifty reward.
Speaker 1: With Wyndham's hot tip, the police now we're able to
Speaker 1: get a search warrant for Patrick and Samantha's apartment, where
Speaker 1: they recovered a tourist nine millimeter that Samantha kept for protection. Notably,
Speaker 1: she always stored it out of reach her for small children.
Speaker 1: While Patrick fled on foot and the cops rated the apartment,
Speaker 1: they brought Samantha and for some aggressive interrogation and I'm
Speaker 1: putting that mild. They interrogrogated my girlfriend for like twelve
Speaker 1: hours she was pregnant, you know, just basically force fit
Speaker 1: narrative to her while disregarding glaring time dradictions. And so
Speaker 1: your girlfriend was a pregnant mother of two or three,
Speaker 1: never been in trouble, three kids, three kids, pregnant mother.
Speaker 1: So she said for twelve hours, and the police tell
Speaker 1: her that if she doesn't tell them exactly what they
Speaker 1: want to hear, she won't see her children till she's forty.
Speaker 1: So here's how this unraveled. So they take her from
Speaker 1: directly from the interrogation room to a grand jury where
Speaker 1: they make her repeat the story right now. She's under oath, right,
Speaker 1: get her own record, get under you know, as substantives
Speaker 1: of evidence come in later. So she tells them what
Speaker 1: they want to hear, and her girlfriend, to her everlasting credit,
Speaker 1: stood strong to get back to. You can talk about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: So as soon as she was out of custody, she
Speaker 1: filed an affidavit with my attorneys and said she was
Speaker 1: courced basically took back her statement. Whether eleanois there is
Speaker 1: no take backs right now. It's called perjury. It's called perjury.
Speaker 1: It's called come in at trial, substantial evidence did you
Speaker 1: say this under oath it comes in as evidence of guilt.
Speaker 1: Your girlfriend ended up spending two years in prison, and
Speaker 1: she didn't go along with the narrative and took it back.
Speaker 1: The narrative of her terrorized, spoon fed and patently false
Speaker 1: confession and her grand jury testimony was that she and
Speaker 1: Patrick were having financial trouble and on the night of
Speaker 1: the murder, they were driving around in search of a
Speaker 1: house to rob when Patrick told her to stop on
Speaker 1: silent road, hopped out of the car, put on a
Speaker 1: blue ski mask, told her to keep the engine running,
Speaker 1: and ran off toward the apartment buildings. Then a few
Speaker 1: minutes later, she heard two gunshots and Patrick returned to
Speaker 1: the car carrying a Taurus nine millimeter. Hours before being
Speaker 1: threatened with a life separated from her children and regurgitating
Speaker 1: this narrative for her false confession, Samantha's apartment was being
Speaker 1: searched by the police where photos were actually staged. There
Speaker 1: was staged photos of her Taurus nine millimeter being stored
Speaker 1: in plain sight for ease of use. The whole gun
Speaker 1: situation as far as like pictures where the gun was,
Speaker 1: It's like I had children in my house I'm not
Speaker 1: going to have a gun and play view where tiny
Speaker 1: old can get it. It just wasn't just whole narrative
Speaker 1: of how it was put together was so far supposed.
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. But early on you and you had
Speaker 1: a lawyer who actually made one move. One move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So every defendant, I think, in the course of America
Speaker 1: says I didn't do it. I had a young lawyer
Speaker 1: who was beginning his career and I was his first
Speaker 1: death penalty case. And then I had the older lawyer
Speaker 1: who kind of just like, I'm out of here. So
Speaker 1: the young lawyer and his pushback, right, you know you
Speaker 1: didn't do it. Well, we'll test the gun. Really, you
Speaker 1: can do that, Yes, please test gun. Test gun. That's
Speaker 1: how it all started. That's what got me here. Ballistic
Speaker 1: testing is very important to this story. Ballistics is the
Speaker 1: study of the dynamics of projectiles or of the internal
Speaker 1: action of firearms. It can tell us what type of
Speaker 1: firearm was used, where it was fired, from how many
Speaker 1: shots were fired, and most importantly for this case, it
Speaker 1: can be used to identify a firearm by the markings
Speaker 1: left on bullets and bullet casings after firing. So after
Speaker 1: both the state's crime lab and the defense is independent
Speaker 1: lab test fire crab Trees nine millimeter and compare the
Speaker 1: bullets and casings from both the test firing and the murder.
Speaker 1: The prosecution's expert testified that the gun used in the
Speaker 1: murder was crab Trees Taurus nine millimeter and this is
Speaker 1: a direct quote to the exclusion of all others. Powerful testimony,
Speaker 1: false but powerful, While the defense is expert testified that
Speaker 1: the murder weapon was likely a Taurus nine million beer
Speaker 1: but not crab Trees. However, the expert hired by the
Speaker 1: defense could not conclusively exclude the gun. So think about this.
Speaker 1: You now have the state testifying with absolute certainty and
Speaker 1: the defense inconclusive in their exclusion of Patrick. This, along
Speaker 1: with Marvin Wyndham's incentivized testimony and Samantha crab Tree's initial
Speaker 1: false confession brings us to where we know this part
Speaker 1: of the story tragically win. However, the ballistics testing becomes
Speaker 1: crucial again many years down the when the jury went out.
Speaker 1: You've now seen a bunch of dirty tricks. You've been
Speaker 1: around the system. You grew up, as you said, in
Speaker 1: the streets, so you know what can happen You're a
Speaker 1: young black man at this point in the clutches of
Speaker 1: a system that is designed to chew you up and
Speaker 1: spit you out. I think Loupe called it planned convalescence.
Speaker 1: I think called it well. That being said, when the
Speaker 1: jury went out, did you have hope? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: knew I didn't do it. I know it was going home.
Speaker 1: And so when they returned a guilty verdict, I just, um,
Speaker 1: I really don't even remember how I got back to
Speaker 1: my cell because I guess the blood drained off my
Speaker 1: body or something. I just went body nomm and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't believe it. I just I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. It floored me. I don't think anybody here
Speaker 1: can possibly begin to understand less somebody else here has
Speaker 1: been through what you've been through. And now you're facing
Speaker 1: the death penalty. Yes, so you come back for sentencing,
Speaker 1: and the judge says, because of the inconsistencies of the evidence,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you the death penalty. However, i
Speaker 1: will give you natural life. I'll find you be a
Speaker 1: minister society. And this is at a time where people
Speaker 1: were actually picketing for me. Getting new trial was very
Speaker 1: strange and very strange correlation. What was going on and
Speaker 1: that's just the same was We're not going to kill
Speaker 1: you quickly, but we are going to kill you slowly. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm having mercy on you because I see the bs
Speaker 1: and evidence. But you're still going buddy. There was a
Speaker 1: cry in the courtroom when he announced that my daughters
Speaker 1: were there. It was something else. You were sent to
Speaker 1: some of the worst, well one of the worst prisons. Yes,
Speaker 1: stay built, and uh, I'm one got job in the
Speaker 1: law library. I tried to play past the game banging
Speaker 1: and the dice games and try to educate myself. I
Speaker 1: got a grant to correspondence classes and law is it
Speaker 1: as bad as everyone thinks it is. I'm a natural
Speaker 1: life survivor right so, right now in the wintertime, although
Speaker 1: locks are cut off the windows, so the natives don't
Speaker 1: make knives. However, what that does that allows your cell
Speaker 1: to have enough ice on you can make a snow
Speaker 1: cone right off the bars and freezing temperatures, mice, roaches,
Speaker 1: so many roaches. You put a potato chip back in
Speaker 1: the corner of your segregation cell and the roaches going
Speaker 1: there and they can't get out, and so you hear
Speaker 1: kind of like the scraping, and that was the Roach
Speaker 1: motel and f house Panopticon. They actually, uh, it's a landmark.
Speaker 1: It's a landmark. And of the two point two million
Speaker 1: people in prison, there are a lot of them who
Speaker 1: don't have air conditioning. And I know a guy who
Speaker 1: died recently in Texas prison. He told his brother that.
Speaker 1: His brother said, why don't you have any sodas? You
Speaker 1: left soda? What you can't keep sodas and your cell?
Speaker 1: He said, I can't because they explode because it's too hot.
Speaker 1: Like what the funk even is that? Well, ice is
Speaker 1: the commodity. They might get one cup of ice in
Speaker 1: the morning, one cup of ice at night. Ice is
Speaker 1: a commodity. So you will deal with the elements. And
Speaker 1: right around April fifteenth, they will turn off the heat
Speaker 1: every year like clockwork, despite the elements. Right in Chicago.
Speaker 1: You you've got some elements here, God knows. And I'm
Speaker 1: always fascinated and amazed by people like yourself who managed to,
Speaker 1: you know, go through this ordeal as an innocent person,
Speaker 1: and the extra psychological damage that that must do to
Speaker 1: a person who's undergoing the extreme physical hardships uh. And
Speaker 1: the loneliness and all the rest of it. The violence
Speaker 1: in the prison, we talked about it, the terrible food,
Speaker 1: et cetera, the cold, the heat, and then you are there,
Speaker 1: you know, innocent, forever innocent. I was done, all my
Speaker 1: appeals were done. I was done in court. That being said,
Speaker 1: you found this something, this inner strength, perseverance, whatever you have,
Speaker 1: you describe it. And you not only didn't you give up,
Speaker 1: but you had and first of all, you had every
Speaker 1: reason to give up. Motion after motion after motion, denied, denied, denied.
Speaker 1: All I needed was one yes. I needed once one yes.
Speaker 1: That's it. And how you got to that is a
Speaker 1: really incredible part of the story. So you're denied, denied, denied. Now,
Speaker 1: as I understand that the law in Illinois at the
Speaker 1: time allowed for postconviction testing of fingerprints in DNA, but
Speaker 1: not ballistic exactly. So in two thousand and I asked
Speaker 1: for the testing. I've seen an article in a tribune
Speaker 1: about Illinois State Police now starts using the IBIS system
Speaker 1: Intrigated Ballistic Identification System, which uses algorithms to connect ballistics
Speaker 1: to crime scenes. So I was like, that can free me.
Speaker 1: I knew it could free me. It was. It was
Speaker 1: just that simple. And unfortunately, because the law didn't allow
Speaker 1: for it. In two thousand, two thousand one, y as
Speaker 1: for the courts was like, no, the law would have
Speaker 1: to be amended. The law would have been changed in
Speaker 1: order to grant me the gun testing, which would potentially
Speaker 1: design of right me. And that was two thousand one. Right,
Speaker 1: So you were stuck on the technicality right because you
Speaker 1: knew that you had this evidence because your lawyer had tested.
Speaker 1: We go back to that right. Your lawyer had had
Speaker 1: the sense to go and get the test independent testing,
Speaker 1: independent lab, independent lab. This lab had only testified for
Speaker 1: defendants four times. So now a lot of people would say, okay,
Speaker 1: here you are in the segregation unit of one of
Speaker 1: the worst prisoners in America. Not a great education. You
Speaker 1: don't have a law degree, you don't have a science degree.
Speaker 1: It would seem to be hopeless. But somehow or other
Speaker 1: you managed to actually get the law changed from inside yourself.
Speaker 1: So uh so, long long story short, Um, it's two
Speaker 1: thousand six. I'm in child hall. There's an award and
Speaker 1: I would say, a southern gentleman, maybe in past life
Speaker 1: he had slave ships. He sees my prayer beads, and
Speaker 1: he says, are you allowed to have him? Sir? And me,
Speaker 1: being the sarcastic bastard, I am, I buck up and
Speaker 1: say yes, sir. So he looks at me, he says,
Speaker 1: are you sure you're allowed to have him? I don't
Speaker 1: like your attitude. He sees the energy coming off me.
Speaker 1: I say, sir, yes, sir, And so he gets a
Speaker 1: little closer in my personal space and the tar man's
Speaker 1: out of the gun. It's about two inmates, and uh,
Speaker 1: he says, I don't like your attitude. I said, we
Speaker 1: don't like your attitude either, sir. You brought much misery
Speaker 1: and suffering to the land. As a result, I went
Speaker 1: straight to segregation six months in some of the worst
Speaker 1: conditions in the United States. But while there I had
Speaker 1: epiphany and I wrote an article that became a state law.
Speaker 1: And what is that law? Yeah, exactly, here we go.
Speaker 1: So the law is seven five i'll see as five
Speaker 1: one sixteen dash three as a minute October twenty seven,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, signed by Governor Buligoevic. I should
Speaker 1: probably send him some money for commissary, because he actually
Speaker 1: he helped me. No, really, he helped me. I just
Speaker 1: it slips in my mind sometimes, but he helped me.
Speaker 1: He really did. He signed my ideas and law. If
Speaker 1: you remember, back in two thousand nine, Illinois Governor Rod
Speaker 1: Blakoyevich was indicted on corruption charges that included the alleged
Speaker 1: solicitation of personal benefit and exchange for Barack Obama's recently
Speaker 1: vacated US Senate seat. Was I remember that well? It
Speaker 1: was a bizarre episode anyway. He was later found guilty
Speaker 1: of seventeen different charges, including wire fraud, attempted extoration, and
Speaker 1: conspiracy to solicit bribes, and sentenced to fourteen years behind bars.
Speaker 1: But before he left office, he did sign Patrick's amendment
Speaker 1: into law. Now back to the law. Bill Ryan worked
Speaker 1: for the Department of Children and Family Services as an
Speaker 1: advocate for long term offenders. He had a newsletter that
Speaker 1: was circulated throughout prisons as well as the families of inmates,
Speaker 1: to law professors and colleges, and even legislators and politicians.
Speaker 1: Mr Ryan published the article that Patrick wrote about amending
Speaker 1: the law to include post conviction ballistics testing through the
Speaker 1: Integrated Ballistics Identification System also known as IBIS. In turn,
Speaker 1: Illinois State Representative Arthur Turner, Senior sponsored the legislation. You
Speaker 1: can imagine the letters that come from prison. And so
Speaker 1: Bill Ryan are a long term advocate, explained to me,
Speaker 1: and Michelle says, Patrick, you just don't get it. I
Speaker 1: had a table full of letters. I reached down to
Speaker 1: grab one letter, open it up. You asked me to
Speaker 1: give it to the senators, and I did so. It's
Speaker 1: completely by the grace of the creator, completely fortuitous, anomalous,
Speaker 1: whatever you think, it was all just luck. Alright, No,
Speaker 1: I mean the stars lined upwards, genetics as a comminator,
Speaker 1: it's all the bob, it's it's a it's a combination
Speaker 1: of everything. And so ultimately the log gets changed. They
Speaker 1: opened the jail doors, they let you out right. No,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly. So the log is changed. Illinois comes
Speaker 1: the first state in the country to have this law
Speaker 1: in order to grant me the gun testing. So the
Speaker 1: log has changed. And jenneral Black, which were in the
Speaker 1: shadow of my attorneys over there on Clark Street who
Speaker 1: spent like four point five million dollars over ten years
Speaker 1: to get me exonerate. Well, first of all, let's not
Speaker 1: leave out there as a lot of heroes in your story, right, No,
Speaker 1: none bigger than you, by the way. But and two
Speaker 1: of them are in the room, and I want to
Speaker 1: recognize Steve Drizzen and Laura and I Rider from the
Speaker 1: Northwestern Center onng for Convictions, who have been steadfast supporters.
Speaker 1: They still are the biggest fans. I mean to be
Speaker 1: embarrassed if you heard something thing. But anyway, so Rochford
Speaker 1: fought every step of the way. They There was no
Speaker 1: like welcoming Reese for the conquering hero. It was none
Speaker 1: of that. It was more like my cousin Vinnie, we
Speaker 1: don't take to canny your can around here. So it
Speaker 1: was a long fight. It was a very long fight.
Speaker 1: About five rounds of gun testing show the gun didn't match,
Speaker 1: and of course no one knits mistakes in this world.
Speaker 1: So we had to fight new trial the trial with Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: now you're hitting your stride, I'm hitting my stride. We
Speaker 1: were winning motion after motion. It was just amazing. It
Speaker 1: was a momentum if you can imagine, um, ten fifteen
Speaker 1: years of representing myself or you know, just trying to
Speaker 1: navigate the system, and uh, you're just starting to look
Speaker 1: like a lawyer. Did you ready tell you that I
Speaker 1: do hear that I take my cues from Steve Drews
Speaker 1: and I confessed. So, as you know, the wheels of
Speaker 1: justice turned painfully slowly. Even after getting the law changed
Speaker 1: in order to request new ballistics testing through the IBIS
Speaker 1: system in two thousand seven, it took a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of fighting in order for Patrick's lawyers to finally be
Speaker 1: able to present the new evidence from two different ballistics experts,
Speaker 1: excluding as the murder weapon the tourist nine millimeter, that
Speaker 1: same tourist nine millimeter that was seized at Patrick's apartment.
Speaker 1: This all happened finally in December of two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: and then at last his conviction was vacated and a
Speaker 1: new trial was granted March of two thousand seventeen, and
Speaker 1: Patrick Percy was released on bond that very April, and
Speaker 1: there he began to fight the new trial from the outside.
Speaker 1: In November two thousand eighteen, Patrick's lawyers filed a motion
Speaker 1: for dismissal in light of a new bit of information
Speaker 1: that was not disclosed by the prosecution after eighteen months,
Speaker 1: a story from Lois Asher, the victim's mother, that alluded
Speaker 1: to conscious wrongdoing by police in regards to the gun.
Speaker 1: Even though at a December two thousand eighteen hearing, she
Speaker 1: admitted that the story came to her second hand through
Speaker 1: her now deceased husband. It's still worth hearing, but did
Speaker 1: not result in a dismissal. There's another aspect of this
Speaker 1: case that needs to be mentioned, which is the story
Speaker 1: of the gun. So basically the state's attorney's once it
Speaker 1: came to realize that the gun didn't match. Even the
Speaker 1: mother of the victim right had came forward and it it
Speaker 1: was like, look, the detectives told me and my husband
Speaker 1: back in two thousands, that back that they couldn't find
Speaker 1: a gun that killed their sons. So they just put
Speaker 1: Patrick's gun into evidence. And when she asked her, her
Speaker 1: husband asked, are you sure you have the right person,
Speaker 1: and they responded, well, we got one anyway. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of victims in this case. The parents
Speaker 1: of the victim right, Your girlfriend ended up spending two
Speaker 1: years in prison. My children. I can't explain watching what
Speaker 1: they went through, you know, all through my children, you know,
Speaker 1: because every stepped away, they were my guiding life. They
Speaker 1: were my guiding life. So finally, the retrial is on
Speaker 1: in January two despite the evidence pointing to the contrary,
Speaker 1: the state's ballistics expert continued to connect the tourist nine
Speaker 1: millimeter seize the Patrick's apartment with the murder weapon. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the defense hired two of the leading forensic firearm and
Speaker 1: tool mark experts in the country, Chris Coleman and John Murdoch,
Speaker 1: who worked independently of one another. That's important and arrived
Speaker 1: at the same conclusion. The markings made on test bullets
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven by the tourist nine millimeters seized
Speaker 1: from Patrick's apartment all matched and showed distinct similarities. However,
Speaker 1: the test bullets did not match the bullets and casings
Speaker 1: recovered from the crime scene. Therefore, the inescapable and for
Speaker 1: the authorities in this case, the inconvenient truth was that
Speaker 1: the tourist nine millimeter did not could not have fired
Speaker 1: the bullets that killed Andrew Asher. Finally, that your day comes,
Speaker 1: your day court, right, how good was that day of vindication?
Speaker 1: Did you float out of the courtroom like, well, it's
Speaker 1: really strange because, um, as I'm caught up in these events,
Speaker 1: I realized all that this is bigger than myself. But
Speaker 1: I had to sit for a second trial and even
Speaker 1: though I knew I knew I was gonna be found innocent,
Speaker 1: I really believed that that everything came out the judge.
Speaker 1: It was very meticulous, he was very fair, right, but
Speaker 1: it was still very much like dangling your feet over
Speaker 1: hell fire because he could say guilty then you go back.
Speaker 1: So that's in the back of my head. So when
Speaker 1: I'm actually exonerated, my lead the court room, I still
Speaker 1: have that goofy look on my face, like right, So
Speaker 1: I still was numb. You know, it's like end to
Speaker 1: end because you really can't believe the gravity of the
Speaker 1: circumstances that you're caught up in. In the twenty five years,
Speaker 1: I've been working on these cases that on this cause,
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform as a whole, de incarceration, mandatory sentencing laws,
Speaker 1: decriminalization of drugs. You know, my heart has been with
Speaker 1: the innocence movement for all those years. So I'm always
Speaker 1: proselytizing the questions I get asked most frequently by civilians
Speaker 1: who don't realize until we talk about it that these
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions happened at the rate that they do. As
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until I found out what happens to
Speaker 1: the people that did this to you, and we know
Speaker 1: he answered to that is nothing almost always karma. Karma
Speaker 1: is always there. Karma is the thing. And too do
Speaker 1: you get compensation? That question gets asked by everybody, and
Speaker 1: people just assume. So when he walks out, tell me
Speaker 1: he got paid, right, the state makes it up to him. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean Illinois has the statute, but you have to
Speaker 1: basically go through another fight called a certificate of innocence,
Speaker 1: and then after that is another fight for the federal
Speaker 1: level for federal civil rights violations, which would be a
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction suit. So it's a process no one you know,
Speaker 1: Like I said, there's no reaths for the conquering hero.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. They fight fight, fight, fight, fight,
Speaker 1: because you're messing with people's careers. It doesn't happen like that.
Speaker 1: But it's so crazy because it's a taxpayer of money.
Speaker 1: It's not like they're paying it themselves. And in Illinois
Speaker 1: there's a there's a cap on how much you can
Speaker 1: get as well, unless you can prove a civil rights violation,
Speaker 1: right right, But all those things are beyond there, beyond
Speaker 1: the kiln, that's all down the line. I have to
Speaker 1: fight a whole another fight called certificate of innocence, just
Speaker 1: like the post conviction petitions. So it's fight after fight.
Speaker 1: But even then, the cap is I think gonna surprise
Speaker 1: a lot of people how low it is. And Illinois
Speaker 1: is not the worst date by far. But what's under
Speaker 1: two hundred I know it's about one twenty something like
Speaker 1: that under two hundred thousand dollars for twenty five years
Speaker 1: and seven. And that's after you fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
Speaker 1: The good news is we're moving. The project has been
Speaker 1: really moving the needle on getting laws passed state after state.
Speaker 1: Compen say laws were now up. The thirty five states
Speaker 1: that having their fifteen states that have no laws of whatsoever.
Speaker 1: There's some states that have a matched I think misconstin
Speaker 1: right next door has a cap of twenty dollars. So
Speaker 1: now you're out right making speeches. And anyone who has
Speaker 1: heard Patrick story today, if you know another organization, corporate
Speaker 1: or otherwise h that's interested in having him come and speak,
Speaker 1: that's how you're supporting yourself. I run my mouth for
Speaker 1: a living. You're run your mouth. I can't. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you can do that. So that's number one, and then
Speaker 1: the other thing is you know, we're just out here
Speaker 1: trying to educate everyone. I mean, I'll ask everybody that's
Speaker 1: here to ask everyone you know to serve on a jury.
Speaker 1: Remember the things that you're hearing now when you're in
Speaker 1: that jury box. You know, the research has not shown
Speaker 1: the jurors are predisposed to think that a person in
Speaker 1: defendens box is guilty just because they're there eight percent.
Speaker 1: So remember Patrick, Remember what happened to him, and how
Speaker 1: what you're watching unfold in front of you as you're
Speaker 1: holding somebody's life in your hands, may not be what
Speaker 1: you're being told that it is. So they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be reasonable doubt right, and it's supposed to be a
Speaker 1: presumption of innocence. None of that work. It's a credibility deficit.
Speaker 1: There's a credibility deficit for a definitive walking indoor period.
Speaker 1: If you pour, there's a credibility deficit. And if you're
Speaker 1: behind bars and you're finding the case, you're not going
Speaker 1: nowhere unless you have an attorney. So pro say gets
Speaker 1: no play, gets no play. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: this question as we wind down, and I have one
Speaker 1: more question after this. Are you better? No? No, that's
Speaker 1: that was a good question. No, it's no, I'm hurt.
Speaker 1: I'm very hurt. You know, I have reservoirs of hurt.
Speaker 1: So seeing what this is done to my children, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like stepping outside of a time machine and not
Speaker 1: really connecting with nothing out here because I'm the analog
Speaker 1: man from you know. So it's really a very strange,
Speaker 1: you know, just surreal existence. But we make the best
Speaker 1: of it. We make the best of it. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: I am kid culture dot org. So I reduced gunn
Speaker 1: and gag violence promote higher education one of organizations I founded.
Speaker 1: While that I am kid culture dot org. And of
Speaker 1: course you're on you on all the social media now too.
Speaker 1: You in the ground running. I mean you only even
Speaker 1: else is January. You got on social media before I
Speaker 1: got out. That was that was that was my thing.
Speaker 1: I was a writer, and Michelle helped propagate the stories.
Speaker 1: And we had professors coming in our Stateville for years
Speaker 1: who was taking our material They were you know, volunteers,
Speaker 1: and they were taking our materials to game pece circles,
Speaker 1: high schools, colleges. Kid Culture actually was born in Stateville.
Speaker 1: While I had a natural life sentence, also, I have
Speaker 1: a book on Amazon. Also the Adventures a Kid Culture
Speaker 1: in the World Explorers. We got t shirts on I
Speaker 1: Am Kid Culture dot org. Please support support support because
Speaker 1: we are trying to connect to stop the violence movement
Speaker 1: across the country. Show Culture to Culture. And one more thing.
Speaker 1: I got to ask this more question before I get
Speaker 1: to the last part. So you did talk very beautifully
Speaker 1: earlier about the programs that you've sponsored in prison and
Speaker 1: about the importance of education. So basically everyone knows how
Speaker 1: the grants got took on our prisons, what we led
Speaker 1: a fight to reverse that we had did charities in prison,
Speaker 1: police left. We said we're gonna do hats for the homeless.
Speaker 1: So every time we tried to do something positive, people
Speaker 1: kind of like, yeah, right, but we still did it.
Speaker 1: So there was very much that persistence. And also try
Speaker 1: to reach out to the community at large to show,
Speaker 1: you know, not just to stare the kids away from
Speaker 1: crime and educate college kids that were volunteering to come
Speaker 1: into state Ville, also kind of educate the public at large.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of mismanagement and gross waste of money
Speaker 1: in the prison system. Well said again. And I now
Speaker 1: come to my favorite part of the show, which is
Speaker 1: when I get to thank you Patrick Pursley for coming
Speaker 1: and and sharing your story, and uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: for for being here and being such a great example
Speaker 1: for everybody of the power of the human spirit. And
Speaker 1: thank the audience here for being here and listening of course,
Speaker 1: Laura and Steve again for everything you're doing, and all
Speaker 1: the great activists in the room. And this part of
Speaker 1: the show I call it closing argument. This is where
Speaker 1: I actually get to turn my mic off. Thank you
Speaker 1: once again. Thank everybody at home or on your device
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to Wrongful Conviction, please check out the
Speaker 1: other episodes. One story is crazier than the other and
Speaker 1: you can learn something from each one of them. So
Speaker 1: now I'm signing off and leaving your microphone on, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna kick back and listen those and arguments. Remember, people,
Speaker 1: everything isn't always is seems. Everyone has intrinsic value. Every
Speaker 1: one of us has value. That has to be our
Speaker 1: mission to be able to teach compassion on love right. So,
Speaker 1: facing the worst possible conditions, you can still move mountains,
Speaker 1: and that is very much a testament to the spirit.
Speaker 1: And I have to thank Northwestern. I have to thank you.
Speaker 1: I have to thank Jenner Block Prison, Neighborhood Arts Project, Michelle,
Speaker 1: everyone that's been there every separate way. Because I'm a mess.
Speaker 1: I would tell you I'm a mess. Don't let anyone
Speaker 1: tell you know otherwise that doing hard time and inhumane conditions,
Speaker 1: that would be against the law for you to leave
Speaker 1: your dog in So you think like that. So I
Speaker 1: always keep a part of me in the cell house.
Speaker 1: Right so right now, let's see they're back from child
Speaker 1: You know that you have birds flying over their heads,
Speaker 1: you have spiders, you have mice, You have people who
Speaker 1: are loved, you know, loved ones of prisoners who are
Speaker 1: basically kind of get the scarlet letter for loving a prisoner.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. So basically, if you have
Speaker 1: loved ones behind bars, write them. How alerted us at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Consultants. We're trying to do something. We got
Speaker 1: a loud prisons talk to us hollars. I am kid
Speaker 1: culture dot Org. That's the five or one C three.
Speaker 1: We do some gun and game violence. We did a mixtape.
Speaker 1: Imagine that fifty three year old man come out person
Speaker 1: doing mixed safe and no I'm not rapping it, just
Speaker 1: tells the story of the wrongful conviction as well as
Speaker 1: the violence in Rockford, but also the hope and I
Speaker 1: always work for love, Always work for love. It is
Speaker 1: the highest vibration of human spirit. And that's my clothes
Speaker 1: and arguments. Thank you so much for having me. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join
Speaker 1: me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
Speaker 1: prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot over
Speaker 1: learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Awardis. The
Speaker 1: music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one