Speaker 1: On May eleventh, nineteen ninety two, Marilyn Malara was with
Speaker 1: a group of people mourning a friend who had recently
Speaker 1: been killed by the Latin Kings. The group split up,
Speaker 1: and Marilyn went out with a friend and another mourner
Speaker 1: who they both had met that night, Jackie Montanez, who
Speaker 1: had her own sordid history with that gang. At around midnight,
Speaker 1: the three were driving near Humboldt Park when two guys
Speaker 1: who knew Jackie called out to her at a light.
Speaker 1: They all agreed to meet in the park to hang out.
Speaker 1: It turned out that these two men were members of
Speaker 1: the Latin Kings. Jackie lured one of them into the
Speaker 1: bathroom to make out, and when he stopped to urinate,
Speaker 1: she shot him in the back of the head. When
Speaker 1: she emerged alone, the other man asked about his friend,
Speaker 1: and Jackie shot him too. Marilyn and her friend were
Speaker 1: caught completely unaware and panicked. They fled the scene. Then
Speaker 1: the case fell into the hands of two of Chicago's
Speaker 1: now most infamous detectives, who used incentivized snitches, false eyewitness testimony,
Speaker 1: and coercive interrogation tactics to pull Marilyn and her friend
Speaker 1: into a case that should have rested squarely on Jackie
Speaker 1: mount and as his shoulders, then Marilyn's hired attorney inexplicably
Speaker 1: advised her to plead guilty while getting nothing in return
Speaker 1: from the prosecutors, sending her directly to death row. News
Speaker 1: of this case would reach then twenty nine year old
Speaker 1: law professor Justin Brooks, and it drove him to uproot
Speaker 1: his life and begin a two and a half decade
Speaker 1: long quest to expose the misdeeds of those detectives and
Speaker 1: have the evidence of Marilyn's innocence finally heard. She was
Speaker 1: released on April eighth, twenty twenty. This is Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason Blom Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
Speaker 1: Today we have an episode for you that is deeply
Speaker 1: person to me, but it's even more personal to our
Speaker 1: second guest today, Justin Brooks. He is the founder and
Speaker 1: director of the California Innocence Project. Justin Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. Always the pleasure, Chason, thank you, And I'm
Speaker 1: about to introduce one of the most extraordinary people and
Speaker 1: stories that I've ever met or heard. And when I
Speaker 1: say that Marilyn Malaro, who I'm going to introduce in
Speaker 1: a second was sentenced to death in the nineties in
Speaker 1: Illinois after pleading guilty to a crime she didn't commit.
Speaker 1: So her attorney did such a terrible job that he
Speaker 1: actually resigned from the bar after the trial and became
Speaker 1: a priest. Marilyn, I'm so sorry that you have to
Speaker 1: be here because of what you went through, but I'm
Speaker 1: so happy you're here, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So this whole insane story began around midnight on May
Speaker 1: eleventh and into May twelfth, nineteen ninety two, when two
Speaker 1: members of the Latin Kings were shot and killed in
Speaker 1: and around a bathroom in Chicago's Humble Park. But Maryland,
Speaker 1: I want to go back even before that, you were
Speaker 1: just twenty one years old. What was your life like
Speaker 1: before all of this happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I was a mother of two. I used to
Speaker 2: work two jobs, live with my brother. I sold drugs
Speaker 2: at the time to help pay for the bills. I mean,
Speaker 2: a single woman of mother too. Was very difficult to
Speaker 2: pay for bills on your own, so I had to
Speaker 2: choose another method to bring some sort of income, and
Speaker 2: stelling marijuana and concaine was one of them.
Speaker 1: So you really had three jobs, two legal ones and
Speaker 1: one in the shadows. But no judgment here. I'm not
Speaker 1: a religious person, but let them who was without sincast
Speaker 1: the first stone and Justin, can you take us back
Speaker 1: to what happened and how the hell they decided to
Speaker 1: focus on an innocent woman when in fact they could
Speaker 1: have and probably did know all along who the real
Speaker 1: perpetrator was of this awful crime. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, this case, Jason, and we can get
Speaker 3: into each one of these elements as we go along,
Speaker 3: involved every cause of wrongful conviction that you discussed on
Speaker 3: this podcast. This case involved a false confession, false informant testimony,
Speaker 3: a bad identification, a bad lawyer, bad judges, and bad cops.
Speaker 3: So pretty much all the causes of wrongful conviction occurred together.
Speaker 3: It was the perfect storm which led Maryland to spend
Speaker 3: twenty seven years in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
Speaker 1: This case was such an insane injustice that it actually
Speaker 1: led you to give up your life as you knew
Speaker 1: it and found an innocence project. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this case changed my life. I had heard about it.
Speaker 3: I was at the time in Michigan teaching law school,
Speaker 3: and I read in the newspaper about this young woman,
Speaker 3: Marilyn Molara, who'd been sentenced to death on a plea bargain.
Speaker 3: And when I read that, I thought, how could she
Speaker 3: possibly been sentenced to death on a plea bargain. It's
Speaker 3: a plea, but it's certainly not a bargain, and you
Speaker 3: know there's supposed to be some kind of negotiated result
Speaker 3: where you get a lesser sentence as a result of
Speaker 3: you giving up all the rights that you have to
Speaker 3: give up in a plea agreement, and you're giving up
Speaker 3: your right to trial, you're giving up a lot of
Speaker 3: your ap pellet rights, and you know you're going directly
Speaker 3: to jail. And with her, she went directly to death row.
Speaker 3: And I was so shocked by it that I've found
Speaker 3: out more about her case. I ended up meeting with
Speaker 3: her on death row. She was a scheduled for execution,
Speaker 3: and I remember the day vividly, one twenty five years ago,
Speaker 3: sitting across from Maryland and saying, how did you end
Speaker 3: up here? And she told me this remarkable story about
Speaker 3: how this lawyer who had never handled a case like
Speaker 3: this in the past had no training on death penalty litigation,
Speaker 3: never negotiated anything with the prosecution, pled her straight up
Speaker 3: to the homicide case, and the result was she was
Speaker 3: sentenced to death. And then she said the most amazing thing,
Speaker 3: which is and I'm innocent. And so I went back
Speaker 3: to the law school where I was teaching, and I
Speaker 3: told my students her story, and I said, you know
Speaker 3: who wants to help me out on this case? And
Speaker 3: four brave souls raised their hands, and we started investigating it,
Speaker 3: and everywhere we looked, we found out that she was
Speaker 3: innocent and that her case was a complete fabrication.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, when you first told me about
Speaker 1: this case, or however I learned about it, I became
Speaker 1: obsessed with it as well, and kept me up many nights,
Speaker 1: and I was so thrilled when it finally resolved. You know,
Speaker 1: it was nice for you and I'd have something else
Speaker 1: to talk about. Okay, So let's go back to May eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. Maryland's out driving around with Jackie Montez
Speaker 1: and another friend around midnight or something, the night before
Speaker 1: a mutual friend's funeral who had been killed by the
Speaker 1: Latin Kings. They were near Humboldt Park, and they had
Speaker 1: two guys who knew Jackie, Jimmy Cruz and Hector Reyes.
Speaker 3: You know, these guys saw these three girls and they
Speaker 3: started chatting at the light, and all three women went
Speaker 3: to Humboldt Park with these two guys who remembers the
Speaker 3: Latin King. Jackie went into the bathroom with one of
Speaker 3: the men. They were making out in the bathroom. He
Speaker 3: turned around to urinate, and she pulled a gun out
Speaker 3: and shot him in the back of the head. She
Speaker 3: then leaves the bathroom. And then there's two stories. The
Speaker 3: story that convicted Marylyn, which we ultimately proved to be false,
Speaker 3: was that Jackie walked over handed the gun to Maryland
Speaker 3: and then she shot the second victim. What we now
Speaker 3: know happened was Jackie came out of the bathroom, the
Speaker 3: other guy said, you know, where's my homeboy? She makes
Speaker 3: a joke about it. She laughs and says he's taken
Speaker 3: a shit. He turns around, and she walks over and
Speaker 3: shoots him in the back of the head in the
Speaker 3: exact same manner.
Speaker 1: Wait, so I have a couple of questions, but let's
Speaker 1: just start with this. How did they all not hear
Speaker 1: the gunshot from inside the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we actually had at former homicide detective go to
Speaker 3: the park because I never understood why the guy outside
Speaker 3: wouldn't be fully alerted to what happened. But apparently because
Speaker 3: it was a low caliber bullet and it was a
Speaker 3: contact killing, meaning the gun was actually on the back
Speaker 3: of his head. His head actually acted as a sort
Speaker 3: of silencer, so there wasn't a lot of noise, even
Speaker 3: though it was a tiled bathroom.
Speaker 1: Do we know why Jackie did what she did?
Speaker 3: So? What Jackie has has said over the years is
Speaker 3: her motivation was a friend of theirs was killed by
Speaker 3: the Latin Kings, But there's also been a lot of
Speaker 3: talk about that she was doing it to rise up
Speaker 3: in the gang, to be seen as someone who would
Speaker 3: do something like this.
Speaker 1: So what did Marilyn do when the shooting happened.
Speaker 3: Well, Marilyn and the other girl are in shock, they
Speaker 3: see what happened, They run, and of course you know
Speaker 3: when you run, it's going to be equated to guilt.
Speaker 3: Neither Marilyn nor her other friend knew what Jackie Mantins
Speaker 3: was up to that night, and then ultimately they're arrested
Speaker 3: walking out of this funeral that we've been talking about
Speaker 3: for their friend who'd been killed by the Latin Kings.
Speaker 1: And Marylyn, can you give us just from your perspective.
Speaker 1: So here you were a mother of two, you're snatched
Speaker 1: off the street after this funeral, and you and fifteen
Speaker 1: year old Jackie Mount and as the woman, the girl
Speaker 1: really who actually committed this crime, were brought down to
Speaker 1: the Latin Kings and detective I can believe they did this,
Speaker 1: and detectives tell them, quote unquote, these are the two
Speaker 1: girls that killed your homeboys, which put you at immediate
Speaker 1: and grave risk. It threatens to make your kids into orphans.
Speaker 1: And then the cops bring you down to the station,
Speaker 1: deny you legal representation, interrogate you for around twenty hours
Speaker 1: without any sleep, and ultimately you signed a statement that
Speaker 1: they had prepared.
Speaker 2: It was a terrible moment. We had just left the funeral.
Speaker 2: The detectives just came straight and arrested Montanesse and myself.
Speaker 2: Then they parked. They received a phone call. Once they
Speaker 2: hung up with the phone call, they took us to
Speaker 2: Humble Park. We sat there for like a good ten
Speaker 2: minutes and they were questioning us. I did not answer anything.
Speaker 2: After the ten minutes, they took us to the beach
Speaker 2: in Spalding. They displayed us before the Latin Kings, and.
Speaker 1: That must have been terrifying in and of itself.
Speaker 2: At that moment, all I thought it was my ending
Speaker 2: was right there. You know, somebody's going to pull the
Speaker 2: trigger and kill us both. Then they took us to
Speaker 2: Grant and Central, placed us in separate rooms, and from
Speaker 2: then on that's where the interrogation began. They took turns
Speaker 2: Detective GUERVERA. Halverson and kept questioning me over and over,
Speaker 2: trying to get me to admit that I've committed one
Speaker 2: of the crimes, which I kept telling them I did not.
Speaker 2: So the interrogation kept going back and forth between Guevara
Speaker 2: and Halverson. They wanted me to say something that I
Speaker 2: could not say. You know, they wanted me to lie,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to lie, but they kept pressuring
Speaker 2: me and pressuring me, and it's just, you know, it
Speaker 2: becomes to where you're like, what the hell, Just leave
Speaker 2: me the hell alone. And you know, I spent time
Speaker 2: just crying, and it was like they didn't care. It's
Speaker 2: they didn't care about the tears. They didn't care about
Speaker 2: how I felt. They didn't care about, you know, how
Speaker 2: they were pressuring me, you know, and so mentally, emotionally,
Speaker 2: and physically, it was very draining.
Speaker 1: So justin why was Marilyn in their sights and how
Speaker 1: did they come to focus on her?
Speaker 3: So this case started for Marilyn with a combination of
Speaker 3: some corrupt detectives detective Guevara and Halverson, who, by the way,
Speaker 3: have been linked to now dozens of exonerations in Chicago
Speaker 3: and more than fifty million dollars in settlements for wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: So you have a couple of corrupt detectives and a
Speaker 3: snitch who's just making stuff up and gave three separate
Speaker 3: statements that kept changing in order for them to be
Speaker 3: consistent with the detective's story. And it started with her
Speaker 3: saying that Jackie Martinez had been bragging about these killings.
Speaker 3: Then once they got Marilyn into the mix, then she
Speaker 3: changed the story and said that Jackie just took credit
Speaker 3: for one of the murders. And then once they got
Speaker 3: a confession out of Maryland, after keeping her for nearly
Speaker 3: twenty four hours in custody and keeping her up all night,
Speaker 3: then they built this news story where Now, this snitch
Speaker 3: claims to have seen these girls before the shooting and
Speaker 3: had said that they were going to go do the
Speaker 3: shooting in gang vernacular, which was that apparently they said,
Speaker 3: We're going to roll on some flakes. And by the way,
Speaker 3: this snitch had been charged with a drug crime that night,
Speaker 3: which of course was later on dropped after they used
Speaker 3: her testimony. And all this was to build in the
Speaker 3: evidence they needed to make their case, and they were
Speaker 3: just literally just making up their case as they went along.
Speaker 3: So it started with corrupt detectives and a snitch and
Speaker 3: then it went downhill from there.
Speaker 1: Now, Marylyn, you've now gone through this unbelievable ordeal, no sleep,
Speaker 1: twenty something hours in the police station, and you signed
Speaker 1: a statement prepared by the police. At that point you
Speaker 1: probably would have signed anything to make this torture stop, right,
Speaker 1: But did you understand what this meant? I mean, you
Speaker 1: were implicating yourself in both murders, one is a shooter
Speaker 1: and the other as a conspirator.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that was not explained to me at that point,
Speaker 2: and at that time I did not know the difference.
Speaker 2: You know, when they're telling you, well, if you want
Speaker 2: to grow old and see your kids, and this is
Speaker 2: your best bet that you take the blame from one
Speaker 2: of the murders, and Jackie Monteness will take the blame
Speaker 2: for the other. So it's like they leave you with
Speaker 2: no choice because you're going to put your children's before anything.
Speaker 2: So I just went ahead and signed that statement.
Speaker 1: And of course there's more insanity coming our way, right,
Speaker 1: because there's a witness who ends up testifying to seeing
Speaker 1: the murders from her apartment window, even though we find
Speaker 1: out later, right, I guess justin your investigation on covers
Speaker 1: some interesting things about that.
Speaker 3: Sure, so after they use this snitch testimony to get
Speaker 3: to Maryland, they now have to build the case up.
Speaker 3: And this woman claimed to see the shooting from her apartment.
Speaker 3: And the first weekend I was working on this case,
Speaker 3: I drove to Chicago with my students and stood right
Speaker 3: in front of her apartment building. And it was crazy
Speaker 3: because all you had to do is go to the
Speaker 3: park to realize that she was lying. And when I
Speaker 3: measured it off, the distance between her apartment and the
Speaker 3: bathroom where the shooting occurred in front of it was
Speaker 3: four hundred and eighty nine feet. And she claimed at
Speaker 3: night in the dark with hardly any lighting. She saw
Speaker 3: Jackie hand this gun to Marylyn and do this shooting. Now,
Speaker 3: this is like saying you were sitting in a football
Speaker 3: stadium behind one end zone in the dark, and you
Speaker 3: saw someone hand somebody a hot dog behind the opposite
Speaker 3: end zone.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take your analogy one step further because
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty nine feet is closer to two
Speaker 1: football fields, and it's dark, and there was foliage in
Speaker 1: the way, right, So I mean, they don't even have
Speaker 1: that in a football state. I've never seen one with foliage.
Speaker 1: So there you go with your law students that it
Speaker 1: takes you five minutes to realized that this whole thing
Speaker 1: is complete horseshit.
Speaker 3: It was factually impossible for her to see what she said,
Speaker 3: and nobody investigated it. Now when we finally tracked her down. Coincidentally,
Speaker 3: the one person who said they saw this shooting, the
Speaker 3: one person in the city of Chicago, was in a
Speaker 3: relationship with one of the victims, and none of that
Speaker 3: stuff was ever reported or investigated. So that's the bad
Speaker 3: identification portion of this case. So now we have bad cops,
Speaker 3: bad snitch testimony, and bad identification.
Speaker 1: And then there's this lawyer. This lawyer in quotes Jeremiah Lynch.
Speaker 3: So he was hired to represent Maryland. There were friends
Speaker 3: who hired him. He was paid a retainer. I don't
Speaker 3: know if he capitulated his role in this case because
Speaker 3: he figured there was no more money coming, so why
Speaker 3: not just plea this out? You know, a death penalty
Speaker 3: cases takes a lot of time and energy and doing
Speaker 3: a trial very expensive and time consuming. But he took
Speaker 3: this ten thousand dollars retainer and as a result, he
Speaker 3: had a couple of meetings with Maryland, short meetings, and
Speaker 3: he didn't meet with the district attorney, and he didn't
Speaker 3: go to the crime scene, even though later on when
Speaker 3: he was questioned he wasn't that far away his office
Speaker 3: from the crime scene, and he'd claimed that maybe he
Speaker 3: jogged by there one time. Just basic stuff wasn't done
Speaker 3: and he had no training in this, and this was
Speaker 3: his final case as a lawyer. After Marylyn was sentenced
Speaker 3: to death. He actually went, you know, took off out
Speaker 3: of the courtroom. And it took me a year to
Speaker 3: find him. And usually lawyers are easy to find. And
Speaker 3: when I found him, he was studying to be a
Speaker 3: priest at University of Detroit, and he now is a
Speaker 3: Catholic priest. And you know, if this was a movie,
Speaker 3: we'd have to change his name because it would be
Speaker 3: too corny that his name was father Lynch. And he
Speaker 3: literally did Lynch Marylynd in this case due to his accompetence.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
Speaker 1: and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
Speaker 1: tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re
Speaker 1: enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving
Speaker 1: the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily
Speaker 1: to helping young people and students. For more information on
Speaker 1: the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
Speaker 1: visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org. This
Speaker 1: episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
Speaker 1: and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
Speaker 1: law firm. The AIG Pro Bono program provides free legal
Speaker 1: services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals
Speaker 1: most in need, and recently they announced that working to
Speaker 1: reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar
Speaker 1: of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an
Speaker 1: unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
Speaker 1: of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice area. So Marilyn's lawyer, this ex lawyer who's now
Speaker 1: a priest, gave her terrible and that's not even strong
Speaker 1: en forward counsel, because when you plead guilty, there's almost
Speaker 1: always some sort of a deal made and leniency given.
Speaker 1: But in this case, there was no deal on the table,
Speaker 1: so she doesn't even get a trial. And on top
Speaker 1: of that, her right to present evidence of innocence at
Speaker 1: that time and into the appellate process had been waived,
Speaker 1: so she went straight to a sentencing hearing in front
Speaker 1: of a jury, and it's just the process cution telling
Speaker 1: twelve normal everyday people what a terrible, violent, evil person
Speaker 1: she is.
Speaker 3: And then there's the question of whether she gets death
Speaker 3: or whether she gets life in prison. Now the reason
Speaker 3: is so incompetent. It's because you could at least make
Speaker 3: an argument if the sentencing was being done by a judge,
Speaker 3: that the judge had sort of off the record indicated
Speaker 3: this isn't going to be a death case. But when
Speaker 3: it's a jury, you have no assurances of anything. So
Speaker 3: the jury now gets to hear everything that the prosecution
Speaker 3: wants to put on, crime scene photos of dead bodies,
Speaker 3: testimony from the victim's family, all these things in the
Speaker 3: sentencing phase of a death case, and Marilyn ends up
Speaker 3: getting sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: And it's worth noting that Illinois, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long ago, it was more than ten years ago, there
Speaker 1: was a professor at Northwestern who assigned his students to
Speaker 1: find innocent people on death row. And the student's eleven
Speaker 1: innocent people on death row students, by the way, and
Speaker 1: at that point Governor Ryan at the end of his term,
Speaker 1: commuted the death sentences of everyone on death row in
Speaker 1: Illinois because he realized that I think during his term
Speaker 1: they'd executed ten people, and here these students had found
Speaker 1: eleven innocent ones. So his you know, they weren't even
Speaker 1: batting five hundred, even if they got it right on
Speaker 1: the ones they executed, and it's extremely unlikely that they
Speaker 1: didn't execute some innocent people along the way, so you know,
Speaker 1: they were maybe getting it right. About three out of
Speaker 1: ten times, and we're talking about the death penalty for
Speaker 1: christ sakes, So Marilyn, can you give us some insight
Speaker 1: into what it was like on death row as a
Speaker 1: young mother now separated from her children, thrown into this
Speaker 1: twilight zone nightmare.
Speaker 2: Well, when I first arrived to Dwight, and I was
Speaker 2: taken to Cottage fifteen where it's basically segregation, and they
Speaker 2: have a wing where they held the defro inmates, and
Speaker 2: it's basically glass where segregation inmates can see the defro inmates.
Speaker 2: And they put me past that glass into a cell
Speaker 2: and I went in the room. They had brought me
Speaker 2: some boxes with clothing, all my beddings and everything that's
Speaker 2: required from the institution to give to you, and wouldn't
Speaker 2: make my bed. I just sat there and started praying,
Speaker 2: and I just kept praying and praying, got on my
Speaker 2: knees and I'm like, Lord, just take the rings, whatever
Speaker 2: you know, whatever you want me to do, I'm here
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna do it. You know, Just let me
Speaker 2: be at ease, let me be at peace, let me
Speaker 2: be right by you, and let me get through this
Speaker 2: as fast as I can. You know, it was a
Speaker 2: beginning of a new start for me, away from everybody
Speaker 2: and getting to know new people. And the officer came
Speaker 2: back and saw me praying and kind of disturbed me.
Speaker 2: It's like, hey, miss Malero, would you like the chuckhole open?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, sure, left the chuck hole open. The
Speaker 2: girls came by, introduced them self to me, and they
Speaker 2: sat there and they pray with me, you know, through
Speaker 2: the chuck ho and so, you know, it was like
Speaker 2: an experience being back there on death Ro. I try
Speaker 2: to stay as active as I possibly could back there.
Speaker 2: You know, you're not allowed to be with other offenders,
Speaker 2: but the people they were back there, so we had
Speaker 2: moments to where we were able to come out at
Speaker 2: hour at a time or two people at a time.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it for the most part, not that I
Speaker 2: enjoyed being on death ro, but the way I was treated.
Speaker 2: I was loved and cared for. I was tend to.
Speaker 2: They would always constantly pray for me. We had lieutenants
Speaker 2: and officers, you know, kind of stay back there with us,
Speaker 2: keeping us company and praying with us. And because you
Speaker 2: get to know these officers, if they're a part of you,
Speaker 2: you know, they no longer become officers. You know, some
Speaker 2: of them are compassionate and their heart goes out to
Speaker 2: you and they try to spend as much time as
Speaker 2: they positively can, you know, keeping you on a positive note.
Speaker 2: And majority of the times I would stay in my
Speaker 2: room and I would try to sleep my days away,
Speaker 2: and the officer were like, miss Maler, get up, get up,
Speaker 2: let's go, let's go to the yard or whatever, and
Speaker 2: I would go just to you know, stay motivated. I
Speaker 2: tried to do some schooling. I enrolled in myself for college.
Speaker 2: Within three months, they came back and told us back
Speaker 2: there that we were not worthy enough to take any
Speaker 2: schooling because we were defro inmates. We were you know,
Speaker 2: about to be executed. So they took the schooling from us.
Speaker 2: And one of the ladies back there decided that, hey, okay,
Speaker 2: so let's get some sponsors. Let's write the church and
Speaker 2: see if they would you know, sponsor us and pay
Speaker 2: for some schooling for us. And that's what we did.
Speaker 2: We started writing several churches organizations to try to see
Speaker 2: if we got sponsors. You know, I was blessed to
Speaker 2: get two different spons to get some of my education.
Speaker 2: You know, I have diploma certificates. Right now, I have
Speaker 2: like four more modules left before I attain my sociate's
Speaker 2: degree on theology. And it hasn't been easy. It's been
Speaker 2: kind of a rough time in prison because prison's not
Speaker 2: designed for you to be comfortable. It's designed for you
Speaker 2: to be uncomfortable, for you to stay in trouble. But
Speaker 2: it all determines on the individual in side and what
Speaker 2: is it that you want to do and accomplish while
Speaker 2: you're there. So I was determined to do the right thing,
Speaker 2: not just by me, but for my children and my
Speaker 2: family and for my attorneys who were fighting hard to
Speaker 2: get my release. So I owed it to everybody, not
Speaker 2: just myself. So I pretty much stayed busy trying to
Speaker 2: stay focused on a positive note while I was there.
Speaker 1: Do you think they knew you were innocent?
Speaker 2: Yes, they did. They knew from the moment that I
Speaker 2: got there, because before my arrival, Montanez was already at
Speaker 2: Dwight Correctional Center and she was always bragging about, you know,
Speaker 2: killing these guys, so they already knew that I was innocent.
Speaker 1: And justin Jackie signed after Davids had admitted verbally numerous
Speaker 1: times that she alone planned and executed the murders.
Speaker 3: So these are the arguments that we made for years
Speaker 3: and years and years, but the problem was no one
Speaker 3: was willing to listen to them as long as that
Speaker 3: police stood, and Marilyn never had an opportunity to present
Speaker 3: this evidence in a trial.
Speaker 1: So the process of how the hell this thing finally
Speaker 1: unraveled itself, it took god a better part of two
Speaker 1: and a half decades, really, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty five years I was working on it. I
Speaker 3: mean when I started this case, to put it in context,
Speaker 3: I was twenty nine and Marilyn was twenty four, and
Speaker 3: now I'm fifty five, and I won't say how old
Speaker 3: Marilyn is, but it's been a long journey. So now
Speaker 3: that death sentence got reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court
Speaker 3: because the prosecution got greedy in the sentencing phase and
Speaker 3: in the prosecution's closing argument to the jury actually said,
Speaker 3: you know, ladies and gentlemen, miss Malario filed emotion to
Speaker 3: suppress her confession in this case, that show she has
Speaker 3: no remorse, and that's another reason to sentence her to death. Now,
Speaker 3: the problem with that argument is you're basically saying, because
Speaker 3: somebody asserted a constitutional right, they should be executed based
Speaker 3: on that, And when it went in front of the
Speaker 3: Illinois Supreme Court, the ILLINOI Supreme Court ruled unanimously in
Speaker 3: Marylyn's favor to reverse the death sentence, saying like, you
Speaker 3: cannot use a constitutional right as an aggravating circumstance, and
Speaker 3: also we don't even see a logical connection between a
Speaker 3: lawyer filing emotion and then a person not having remorse.
Speaker 3: So then we went back to a new sentencing. I
Speaker 3: handled that sentencing along with the Chicago Public Defender's office.
Speaker 3: I first tried to get in all the innocence evidence,
Speaker 3: but it was very difficult because they didn't want to
Speaker 3: hear it because they said, this isn't about whether she's
Speaker 3: innocent or guilty, this is about whether she gets sentenced
Speaker 3: to death. Because the court refused to withdraw her plea,
Speaker 3: so Marilyn's always been stuck with this plea. She then
Speaker 3: gets sentenced to natural life, which was the best case
Speaker 3: scenario out of that proceeding, and then we start this
Speaker 3: two decades long odyssey trying to get her out of
Speaker 3: prison or get her a new trial. I took the
Speaker 3: case up on appeal. From there, we went into federal court.
Speaker 3: We argue the ineffective assistance a council Federal court. The
Speaker 3: oral argument with it was really frustrating. One of the
Speaker 3: justices kept saying, well, it was her decision to plead,
Speaker 3: and I said, your honor, this is like going to
Speaker 3: a doctor's office and they say you're going to be
Speaker 3: dead in ten minutes if you don't have open heart
Speaker 3: surgery and you're saying, okay. Your right to effective assistance
Speaker 3: a council means getting good advice, and there was no
Speaker 3: way this advice was good. But I lost petition, the
Speaker 3: US Supreme Court, lost petition the Governor's office three separate
Speaker 3: times for clemency. I file a petition in the United
Speaker 3: Nations trying to declare Chicago's justice system as a human
Speaker 3: rights violation where they allow people to plead guilty and
Speaker 3: get death on a plea bargain. And due to all
Speaker 3: the incompetence in this case, the United Nations has still
Speaker 3: not ruled on that petition. So there's been a lot
Speaker 3: of proceedings and ultimately the most successful one occurred just
Speaker 3: a few months ago, and that was finally another petition
Speaker 3: to the governor asking for her release, laying the case
Speaker 3: out that evidence had never really seen the light of day.
Speaker 3: It's madness. I mean, the idea that she was prevented
Speaker 3: from presenting overwhelming evidence of innocence is not It's absolutely nuts.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible indictment of our system. There should be
Speaker 3: some mechanism for justice to see.
Speaker 1: The light of day. Of course, the last resort this
Speaker 1: case was a clemency from the governor.
Speaker 3: And by the way, it wasn't just me that petition
Speaker 3: for that, it was the Exoneration Project, the Illinois Innocence Project.
Speaker 3: As you said, there's been a lot of innocence work
Speaker 3: in Chicago over the past few decades. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of great lawyers and organizations. They're doing it.
Speaker 1: I know, I called so many people trying to get
Speaker 1: this on the governor's desk. That's probably people listening who
Speaker 1: are like, oh, bomb, you bother to crap out of
Speaker 1: me in this case for so long. But anyway, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, because the point is that it finally worked.
Speaker 1: So Maryland, So October ninth of twenty nineteen, there's a
Speaker 1: clemency hearing, and then there's a god almost seven months
Speaker 1: go by, almost to the day until April sixth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: How did you find out that the governor had granted
Speaker 1: you clemency?
Speaker 2: I had surgery not too long ago, and one of
Speaker 2: the officers that sat with me at the hospital ended
Speaker 2: up working with internal affairs and she comes to my room.
Speaker 2: She's like, hey, Marylyn, I need to see you. And
Speaker 2: I'm like yeah. Everybody's like, oh shucks, I ace here. Hi,
Speaker 2: you're contra band, you know. So she's like, no, come here,
Speaker 2: I need to speak to you. I'm like okay, and
Speaker 2: she's like do you know. And I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: you're leaving me too. And she's like, oh, you don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm like, don't know what. She whispered in my ear
Speaker 2: and she's like, no, you're going home. I'm like, stop
Speaker 2: playing with me. And she's like, I'm for real. I'm like,
Speaker 2: stop playing with my emotions. This is not funny. I
Speaker 2: love you. You're good to me. You were good to
Speaker 2: me then, but right now you're kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: working a little nerve. She's like, no, no, I'm for real.
Speaker 2: She's like, Officer Dorsey is up there at the business
Speaker 2: office right now, shutting down your account. When are your
Speaker 2: paperwork the people for the parole board is coming to
Speaker 2: see you. You need to sign the paperwork. The governor's
Speaker 2: sending you your release form. You need to sign it.
Speaker 2: I said, I believe it when I see it. And
Speaker 2: I looked at her and she's like, H'm for real.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I believe you. So then there's two
Speaker 2: officers who are just they go above and beyond. They're
Speaker 2: very compassionate and I'm very fond of them because they
Speaker 2: break their neck to help women in there. And Lamar
Speaker 2: and Hardison and were like, miss Malari, come to the
Speaker 2: day room right now. And I'm like, oh shucks. And
Speaker 2: they were like, we're about to announce it on the
Speaker 2: intercom that you're going home. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: please do not do that just yet. They were like what,
Speaker 2: Because I don't want the girls to be in an
Speaker 2: uproar because once they find out that I was going home,
Speaker 2: because they've been waiting and waiting impatiently. We were on lockdown,
Speaker 2: difficult situation to where we couldn't see each other. I
Speaker 2: felt like maybe a riot would have kicked out on
Speaker 2: the unit, you know. So what we did was we
Speaker 2: waited till the next morning. So I woke up about
Speaker 2: four o'clock in the morning and started packing my things
Speaker 2: and giving everything I had away. I didn't care. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to take nothing home but my bible, my pictures,
Speaker 2: my school were and my legal work. That's all. I
Speaker 2: walked out of there with everything else was left behind,
Speaker 2: and the lieutenant came with the paperwork. I signed it.
Speaker 2: The parole board came. I signed it at seven o'clock
Speaker 2: in the morning when count was clear. They're like, we
Speaker 2: got to get you out the institution so you won't
Speaker 2: be on our eight o'clock count. I'm like, okay. So
Speaker 2: we went to the BFI, took my picture, took the fingerprints,
Speaker 2: took my stuff to property, and was headed out the
Speaker 2: front gate and right at the sally port where the
Speaker 2: visitors come in. Outside at the gate is where my
Speaker 2: brothers were waiting for me, and all the wardens were there.
Speaker 2: The administration was there at Heidie Brown and other people,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, hugged me. We knew we didn't
Speaker 2: have it the coronavirus. We hugged and said our goodbyes,
Speaker 2: you know, shed tears, and everybody was kind of mad
Speaker 2: that I didn't say bye. To the ladies the institution,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't because we were on lockdown, you know. So,
Speaker 2: I mean when the girls found out, the officers blasted it, Hey,
Speaker 2: Malario's going home, and everybody started hollering out the window,
Speaker 2: trying to let the other ladies on other units know
Speaker 2: that I was going home, and you know, they were
Speaker 2: hollering and screaming, don't forget about us, don't forget about us.
Speaker 3: I tell you, Marylyn, when I got the call that
Speaker 3: you were getting out, I couldn't even speak.
Speaker 1: It's just.
Speaker 3: It's just been so long, and yeah, it's heartbreaking. I'm
Speaker 3: glad it's over. But I really hope we can learn
Speaker 3: from the story, and I hope some changes are made.
Speaker 1: Did you get a chance to see your children while
Speaker 1: you were in prison or what was that communication?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Over all those twenty six years.
Speaker 2: I was pretty blessed. I had a family who would
Speaker 2: take turns bringing my kids see me constantly, So in
Speaker 2: that perspective, I, you know, was very grateful for my family.
Speaker 2: So throughout my whole incarceration, I was able to see them.
Speaker 2: It was heartbreaking sometimes because my oldest son will always
Speaker 2: try to undo the handcuffs to release me and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, and he will always be like, my mom, let's go,
Speaker 2: let's go. And I'm like, no, baby, I got to
Speaker 2: stay here in school. He's like, Mom, you're not in school,
Speaker 2: You're in jail, you know. So they pretty much knew.
Speaker 2: So at that point I knew that I had to
Speaker 2: keep it real with them and be like, yeah, mommy's
Speaker 2: in jail, you know, but not for long, and I'll
Speaker 2: be home with you guys. You know. It took them
Speaker 2: to be grown men now, but I'm blessed to be
Speaker 2: here with them and be able to spend time with
Speaker 2: them and my grandkids and my family. Since I've been
Speaker 2: out here, I've been on a movement trying to focus
Speaker 2: back on those ladies that are still there, that are
Speaker 2: also innocent, that no one knows about, because like myself,
Speaker 2: I've been fighting and it's been falling on deaf ears
Speaker 2: and the same thing with the women's that are in there.
Speaker 2: So I am fighting hard with the Exoneration Project to
Speaker 2: make these ladies known. So that's what I'm working on
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: You've really hit the ground running, and it's awesome to
Speaker 1: see that your spirit is beyond and all I can
Speaker 1: say about that is welcome home. And of course, there
Speaker 1: was another development, which is that in May of this year,
Speaker 1: the Cook County State's Attorney's Office began a comprehensive review
Speaker 1: of now retired Detective Ronaldo Guervera's cases in what has
Speaker 1: now been called one of the biggest policing scandals in
Speaker 1: US history. And let me just say that again, one
Speaker 1: of the biggest policing scandals in US history. This is
Speaker 1: the detective, well, the two detectives that were responsible for
Speaker 1: your wrongful conviction. But justin what about Ernest Halverson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's been tied into these cases as well. You know,
Speaker 3: as usual, it's not one bad apple. There was a
Speaker 3: lot of bad things happening in Chicago back then and
Speaker 3: there's still problems now. And fortunately we have organizations like
Speaker 3: the Exoneration Project in Chicago, the Illinois Innocence Project, the
Speaker 3: Center of Wrongful Convictions. It's a real hotbed of wrongful
Speaker 3: convictions in Chicago, and they're not just letting these lay down.
Speaker 3: You know, for a long time it's been about just
Speaker 3: getting our clients out of prison. But we need real
Speaker 3: reform and we need to examine these cases after they
Speaker 3: happen and look for the people responsible and hold them
Speaker 3: accountable and then look at their other cases. I've been
Speaker 3: talking for years about how Detective Guevara was part of
Speaker 3: Marland's case because people have been looking at him for
Speaker 3: a long long time. But the problem is in our system.
Speaker 3: Getting the truth into a format that then can get
Speaker 3: presented within our judicial system and have a result is very,
Speaker 3: very difficult. It's the greatest frustration of my life is
Speaker 3: that often we know the truth and we have the facts,
Speaker 3: but for some reason, the system won't allow those facts
Speaker 3: to be presented or won't give you an opportunity to
Speaker 3: get the right result, and that's taken away twenty seven
Speaker 3: years of Marilyn's life.
Speaker 1: It's so remarkable to sit here and listen to Marylyn,
Speaker 1: and you know, it just dawned to me. She hasn't
Speaker 1: had one negative thing to say. There hasn't been any
Speaker 1: trace of and maybe I'm just not hearing it, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's there of bitterness. No. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's focused on during this interview, on the things, the
Speaker 1: bright spots, the positive things that happened while she was
Speaker 1: on death row, while she was in prison in maxim
Speaker 1: security prison for twenty six years, or something she didn't do.
Speaker 1: So all I can say is you are a blessing
Speaker 1: and it is an honor to be able just to
Speaker 1: talk to you and to be a part of your
Speaker 1: story in some small way.
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of knew that eventually. You know, I've
Speaker 2: always believed in God, and I've always placed my faith
Speaker 2: in Him and allow me to see me through. That's
Speaker 2: going to be okay, that I was going to come
Speaker 2: through this if I kept believing and maintaining my faith
Speaker 2: in him.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot to maintain faith after everything you've
Speaker 1: been through, but more power to you.
Speaker 3: And she is extraordinary. You know you said about how
Speaker 3: a positive an upbeat she is. I've had times over
Speaker 3: the last couple of decades when Marilyn has tried to
Speaker 3: cheer me up about the case, and you know, that's
Speaker 3: a very strange thing. She's been a believer. She's an
Speaker 3: incredibly strong women. And that's what we see with a
Speaker 3: lot of exoneries. They are different, and they are survivors
Speaker 3: and they are fighters, and that's why they make it
Speaker 3: through this nightmare.
Speaker 1: Well said, and it is justice delayed, but at least
Speaker 1: in this case, justice was not denied. And there's still
Speaker 1: fighting left to be done on Marilyn's behalf, and I
Speaker 1: know she's in the best possible hands with you in
Speaker 1: the California Innocence as well as all the other great
Speaker 1: people that have been involved in helping to get you home, Marylyn,
Speaker 1: and I want to put a plug in too. You've
Speaker 1: heard today about the work of the California Innocence Project
Speaker 1: as well as the two other organizations that helped free Maryland,
Speaker 1: the Illinois Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project, and we're
Speaker 1: going to have a link in our bio to all
Speaker 1: of those wonderful organizations. Please go and click on the
Speaker 1: link and learn more and join us and get involved.
Speaker 1: So this is part of the show where I first
Speaker 1: of all get to thank both of you for coming
Speaker 1: on and sharing your thoughts and your perspective and your spirit.
Speaker 1: And then I turned my microphone off and kick back
Speaker 1: on my chair with my headphones on, close my eyes
Speaker 1: and just listen to whatever else you have to say. Maryland.
Speaker 1: We're going to save you the best for last, and
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to that. So now again, Justin Brooks,
Speaker 1: founder and director of the California Innocence Project, law professor
Speaker 1: and human rights fighter extraordinaire. Thank you again for being
Speaker 1: here with us today.
Speaker 3: You know this case changed my life, Marylynd changed my life.
Speaker 3: I was teaching law school and a nice quiet life
Speaker 3: in the middle of Michigan with a nice little Victorian house,
Speaker 3: and I'd been a criminal defense attorney for a number
Speaker 3: of years in Washington, d C. But when I got
Speaker 3: involved in this case, I was shocked. I was shocked
Speaker 3: at the United States of America, a twenty one year
Speaker 3: old individual could be sentenced to death on a polea bargain,
Speaker 3: with no investigation into our case, a conspiracy between the
Speaker 3: police and the lawyers and the judges. Everybody'd let this happen.
Speaker 3: They let this twenty one year old fall through this
Speaker 3: giant crack. It shocked me, and I didn't think I
Speaker 3: could be shocked as a criminal defense attorney, and so
Speaker 3: it just changed my life. It caused me to leave
Speaker 3: my job in Michigan, move to California, start the California
Speaker 3: Innisen's Project. And this case is the inspiration for the
Speaker 3: more than thirty people we've been able to free in California.
Speaker 3: I don't think any of that would have happened without Maryland.
Speaker 3: And now even a few months after she's out of prison,
Speaker 3: it's still not real to me because it's been part
Speaker 3: of my life for so long. It's almost like I
Speaker 3: don't know who I am if I'm not representing Marilyn
Speaker 3: Molaro and trying to get her out of prison. So
Speaker 3: I'm really happy we could tell her story today. It's
Speaker 3: an important story and it's certainly a big part of
Speaker 3: who I am.
Speaker 1: Amen to that. And Wow, Marilyn, that must have been
Speaker 1: an amazing feeling to hear justin say those words and
Speaker 1: to know that you are a key element in the
Speaker 1: freedom of so many others who were wrongfully convicted of
Speaker 1: thirty in counting so and now what we've all been
Speaker 1: waiting for, no pressure. Thank you again, Marilyn Malarro for
Speaker 1: being here, for being so strong, and will turn it
Speaker 1: over to you for closing arguments.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you. I want to thank everybody
Speaker 2: who's been involved in my case throughout my twenty seven
Speaker 2: plus years. I've had a lot of good people working
Speaker 2: on my case, and some of them are still in
Speaker 2: contact with me, and that's a very you know, emoctional thing.
Speaker 2: Knowing that these people can still stay in contact, which
Speaker 2: they didn't have to, but they are, you know, so
Speaker 2: I take that to heart. Prison life has not been
Speaker 2: easy for me, you know. I've had some struggles, my
Speaker 2: ups and downs, you know, my downfalls, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's part of the struggle while you're in prison. And
Speaker 2: sometimes you have to set up a mechanism so that
Speaker 2: people won't, you know, think that you're vulnerable or take
Speaker 2: the best of you. So I always had my head
Speaker 2: up and always stay positive. I've always tried to do
Speaker 2: my best to help other women. My experience with my
Speaker 2: situation in my case had helped me to deal with
Speaker 2: other women in their situations as well and help them
Speaker 2: cope with, you know, their pain and suffering and being
Speaker 2: able to be away from their families. And you know,
Speaker 2: while I've been incarcerated, I've helped create different programs, different
Speaker 2: groups and join the Phoenix Rising, And as soon as
Speaker 2: a week within joining Phoenix Rising, which is a program
Speaker 2: from long term prisoners, I was voted in to become
Speaker 2: a committee member, and you know, I was honored by
Speaker 2: that because a lot of women had respect for me
Speaker 2: and a lot of my ideas and we've always succeeded
Speaker 2: in everything that we've tried. To accomplish, and the wardens
Speaker 2: would allow me to partake in a lot of the
Speaker 2: things and be a part of what they would do
Speaker 2: in the institution. And they asked me and Tammy Fike
Speaker 2: if we would create a program for the elderly and
Speaker 2: the disabled, and we took a whole unit, which was
Speaker 2: House Unit six, and we created that which became a
Speaker 2: safe haven for those women so they would not be mistreated,
Speaker 2: you know, and misled and extorted and beat down in
Speaker 2: whatever other case could have taken place with these women.
Speaker 2: And We've created various programs, groups, activities. You know, we
Speaker 2: constantly always pray for the unit so the women's could
Speaker 2: get along together and not create a lot of chaos.
Speaker 2: And I'm very grateful that I'm here now. I'm grateful
Speaker 2: for Justin. You know, Justin always told me, Hey, Marylyn,
Speaker 2: I'm never divorcing this case, so you get home. But
Speaker 2: like I told Justin, I'm home, but you're still not
Speaker 2: divorcing me. You're stuck with me for life. So you know,
Speaker 2: now he's got to deal with me, so, you know,
Speaker 2: and Lauren and the other Lauren and you know, send
Speaker 2: the all these people. So I'm very grateful and at
Speaker 2: this moment, I'm trying to do me. I'm still at peace.
Speaker 2: I'm happy with the women I've became while I was incarcerated,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: and that's helping people while I'm out here and reaching
Speaker 2: back out to the women that are still in there
Speaker 2: as well as to the men. You know, I'm insupportive
Speaker 2: of all the Gervarra victims and I'm just going to
Speaker 2: continue to be me and be positive, and one day
Speaker 2: I hope to put together my work release center to
Speaker 2: help some of these women that don't have places to go.
Speaker 2: And that's my story, that's my life, and that's my dream,
Speaker 2: and I believe I was designed.
Speaker 1: To do this. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Nnocence Project, and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin wardis the music in the show. Is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
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