WEBVTT - #431 Jason Flom with Tyrone Clark 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.440 On June twenty third, nineteen seventy three, a young woman 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.400 was returning to her apartment in Boston when an assailant 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.080 grabbed her from behind, forced his way into the building, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.840 and dragged her upstairs. During a struggle that culminated in 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.439 a rape, the young woman managed to stab her attacker 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:21.200 on the shoulder with a kitchen knife. However, the encounter 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:26.080 was not over. The assailant paraded her, bruised and bloodied 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.400 through the streets of Boston for nearly six more hours 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.120 on a bus to a restaurant, and even spoke to 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.080 some of his friends. Eventually, she escaped to a Roxbury firehouse, 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.839 where one of the firefighters scared off the assailant. Seminal 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.879 fluid was collected at the hospital. When the survivor described 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.000 the assailant as black, five ten and one hundred and 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.920 sixty pounds. She also recalled that the assailant had mentioned 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.760 his recent release from Concord Correctional. When shown eleven photographs 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.240 of men who had recently been released, she chose Tyrone Clark, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.640 even though Tyrone was only five seven and one hundred 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.520 and thirty five pounds. Five other witnesses chose Tyron as well. 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:24.320 But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:30.080 The man we're interviewing today, Tyrone Clark, served over forty 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.600 eight years in prison for a crime he had absolutely 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.559 nothing to do with. The story is unfathomed, but every 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.200 part of it is true. So before I introduce mister 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.360 Clark to you, now, I'm going to introduce his attorney, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.160 Neil Rafael. Thanks for being here on the show. Thank 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.920 you for having me and Tyrone Clark man. I'm so 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.960 happy and honored that you're here, and I'm looking forward 0:01:56.040 --> 0:02:00.680 to sharing your story with the world. Thank you so, Tyrone, 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.520 Before we talk about the crime itself, which is a 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.080 horrible crime that you had nothing to do with. Again, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.840 I'm going to point that out. Your life wasn't easy 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.440 from the get go, right, Can you tell us about 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.799 growing up in the well but damn you were born 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.760 in the fifties, right, early mid fifties. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.040 Yeah, I originally from Breesville, North Carolina. I came to 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.360 Boston with my mother when I was a baby. It 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.480 was like nine of us at the time. I came 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.679 up like a very poor background. We was on welfare. 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.919 We all basically like slept in the same bed. All 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.480 of us tried to struggle the best way we can 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.680 to get full clothes. My father tried to do what 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.560 he can by robbing banks and stuff like that, but 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:45.720 he went away for a long time. So I didn't 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.200 really get to know my father that well because he 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.600 was in prison. So my mother was just on her 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:52.840 own trying to raise us and stuff, and I got 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.640 taken away from her. They all raided the house and stuff, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.359 and they separated all of us from my mother. 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:02.840 So you went at the foster care, not just. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.560 One foster home. I bosted through a few foster homes. 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.320 I went through one that was abusive because I went 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.560 to bed, so I tried to skate when they found me. 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.799 I didn't know where all my other brothers and sisters went. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.640 My mother she had a breakdown. She went to a 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.600 mental institution. So you know, I didn't spend a lot 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.320 of time with my family, get to know them the 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.560 way I was supposed to know them, like a family. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.960 Had good times with them, know, we really had Christmas, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.280 all the good holidays and stuff like that. 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.200 Well, you never really had any chance to be a kid, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.360 to have a decent child at all, and you rarely 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.120 didn't have much of a shot at life from the beginning. 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.120 Too many kids go through similar experiences. We really should 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:48.720 be able to do better, and we're going to get 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.080 into the crime itself. You had some juvenile delinquencies, which 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.080 are understandable. You're trying to make ends meet, and anybody 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.760 who hasn't walked them mile in your shoes probably can't 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.880 judge you for those either. These were robberies and things 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.520 like that, but those probably had the effect of putting 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.240 you on the radar of the police. When this very 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:13.720 serious crime took place on Saturday, June twenty third of 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.839 nineteen seventy three, and I'm just going to describe the crime. 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.360 In the afternoon, around three o'clock, a young woman was 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.480 returning to her apartment on Park Drive in Boston from 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.919 a shopping trip. She approached the door to her building 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.720 and an attacker grabbed her from behind and went with 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.200 her into the vestibule of her building. He struck her 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.440 and forced her to give him the little money she had, 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.359 about thirty dollars, and then he forced her upstairs to 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.720 her apartment, raped her, beat her, and dragged her through 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.600 the city in a six and a half hour saga. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.360 He took her on a bus, forced her to eat 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.039 a meal with him at a little Spanish restaurant. She 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.360 had her speak to some of his friends. She was 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.599 basically kidnapped right all the while. She tried to get 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.880 somebody to help with her face bruised and bloody, and 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.880 nobody helped her until she finally escaped into a Roxbury firehouse. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.479 Sailin tried to follow her in, but then he ran 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.480 away when the fireman said that he was going to 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:05.440 call the cops. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.000 She initially looked through a photo lineup book of one 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.120 hundred to one hundred and fifty photos and wasn't able 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.040 to identify anybody during the assault. The individual had mentioned 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.640 that he or his brother had just been recently released 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.960 from Concord, and so this next subsequent day they showed 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.520 her ten or fifteen photos of individuals we'd been recently 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.560 released from Concord. Now, Tyrone had some juvenile fenches and 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.200 he had been in Conquered Reformatory school, and so he 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.200 was put into that photo lineup and as a result, 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.560 she identified Tyrone as being her assailant. 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.600 And of course he was black and she was white, right, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.360 so it's a cross racial identification. This is a good 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.800 time to point out that in study after study that 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.919 has been proven that cross racial identification, even in a 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.320 case like this where the victim spent such a long 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.600 time with her attacker in daylight, cross racial identification has 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.840 been proven to be less accurate than guessing. Didn't match 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.560 the physical description either, right. She described the assailant though, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.840 as five ten, about one hundred and sixty pounds, and 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.440 Tyrone was only one hundred and thirty five pounds, so 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:11.599 that's a pretty big discrepancy there. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.960 Subsequently, the four firefighters who were at the firehouse that 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.440 evening identified Tyrone as being the assailant as well. And 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.880 then you mentioned that she had visited a restaurant and 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.760 the waiter identified Tyrone as being the assailant. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.560 And we're not sure what happened during these other five 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.960 identification procedures, but it's possible the police may have been 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.800 suggestive toward the photo that the victim had chosen. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.159 There was no physical evidence indicating that Tyrone had been 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.160 the assailant. There was no fingerprints, there was nothing at 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.200 the scene reflecting that Tyrone had been there. She had 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.679 testified that she had stabbed the individual with a knife 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.600 in the back during the assault, and Tyrone didn't have 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.360 any sort of markings on his back. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.479 She couldn't be mistaken about the idea that she stabbed someone, right, 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.040 and to her credit, she fought back right. 0:06:59.200 --> 0:06:59.640 But if she. 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.560 Stabbed, where did the stab wound go? Somebody was walking 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.880 around with a stab wound and some bloody clothes and 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.400 it wasn't him, So they should have said, hey, we 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.880 got to keep looking because this guy doesn't have a 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.160 stab wound. Am I missing something here? No? Did they 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:15.160 do a rape kit? 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.040 They did take the semen sample at the hospital, but 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.160 they didn't preserve it, unfortunately. And when I first started 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:23.880 working on the case in two thousand and two, that 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.720 was the first thing we tried to locate was the 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.480 rape kit from the hospital or at the quote unquote 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.600 seemen sample, and they were not able to locate it. 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.960 So they had the evidence. Had they really wanted to 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.720 do a proper investigation, they could have even with the 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:41.000 primitive technology they had fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.200 they may have been able to eliminate him. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:44.760 And then the other thing that stood out to me 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.560 is that this crime didn't happen in twenty minutes. This 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.080 took place over six hours, and you would think there 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.560 would be some sort of fingerprint evidence, either in the 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.000 apartment at the restaurant or somewhere along the scene of 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.120 the crime. They were on a bus, but there was 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.560 never any physical evidence that linked Tyrone at all to 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:00.000 this crime. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.160 They said I was the per portrator. They didn't do 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.840 no real search background, or real thorough investigation. They just 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.160 grabbed me off the street and Tyrone. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.640 You were arrested, I believe, two days after this crime happened, 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.280 so you wouldn't have had time for the stabling to heal. 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.040 So it's not like this was months and months later. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.520 So am I right? You were arrested two days after 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:21.920 the crime. 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.080 When I was released from Conquer Correctional Center, I was 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.560 eighteen years old. I was in a halfway house. The 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.760 night watchman came upstairs and told me that the Boston 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.040 police want to talk to me. When I came downstairs, 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.439 he asked me questions about where I was at and 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.880 this certain time and told me take my shirt off. 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.439 Can we look at your body? And I said yeah, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:45.360 I said, what's going on? 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:45.600 Man? 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.960 I was shocked. I said, I ain't know what the 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.720 hell was going on? Man, It was reported that you 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.600 raped a woman. I said what I said, no, man, 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.160 I said, you got the wrong person. I said, I'm 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.160 not no rapist. Man like that, he told me. They 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.679 turned around and stuff, and they looked at me and stuff, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:04.440 and the next thing they cuffed me up and took 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.200 me from the halfway house, brought me to headquarters and 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.640 booked me. They looked at me in the police station too. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:13.600 Like I said, I didn't know what they were looking for. 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.480 To my public defender was telling me that the person 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.520 was stabbed and know concerned that this woman got raped, 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.240 and they was looking for knife woms. So when they 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.560 shirched me, it was nothing on my body. So I 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.160 was taken away and putting to a county jail, Child 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:35.000 Street jail, the worst jail in Massachusetts where a person 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.559 like at my age that went there, I could have 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.520 got killed, could have got raped. I was scared, you know. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.920 So I stayed in that county jail for lease, about 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.200 like a year before I went to trial. 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.600 Tyrone presented evidence at trial of alibis the two alibis 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.840 for the time period. Because this was a lengthy crime 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.439 it took place during the day. So Tyrone was at 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.440 a party for part of the proceeding and was also 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.520 at a friend's apartment for part of the proceeding and 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:00.960 testified that he. 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:01.440 Was with them. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:06.360 My mother, my witnesses, everybody was in court testified and 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.360 stuff like this about my way abouts and stuff. I 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.440 had about like six witnesses. Nail testified against me. 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.480 You had six IDs against you, the victim, the four firefighters, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:18.960 and the restaurant server. 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.040 Yeah. I heard all this stuff, man, and I was like, Wow, 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.880 why somebody do this to me? I says, I'm not 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.559 none of this what they saying I am, And all 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.720 these people lying on me saying that they see me 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.720 with this lady. I ain't never ever seen any of 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.360 these people. Jason. Man, It's just like I seemed like 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.560 I woke up to some type of nightmare and then 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:43.079 I had all white jewelry. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.800 I mean, even with the fact that you had this 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:52.679 eyewitness identification, there's such powerful exculpatory evidence that at least 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.760 any competent legal mind would be able to mount some 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:58.800 sort of defense. How did they end up getting away 0:10:58.840 --> 0:10:59.920 with having an all white jury. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.319 Tyrone's attorney, he was still alive when I started handling 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.160 the case, and I never really got into it with him. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.840 Why the jury pool was constituted the way it was, 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.200 I do think because it was the nineteen seventies in Boston. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.800 There was a lot of racism back then, obviously with 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:17.960 the busting crisis and other things that were happening in 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:22.319 the city. That because of that jury pool, and because 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.719 all of Tyrone's witnesses were minorities and all of the 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.960 state's witnesses were white, that Tyrone faced a serious uphill battle. 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.839 Tyrone's attorney, he said Neil after the opening statement, given 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.960 the horrific nature of the crime, and given the jury pool, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.360 they looked at Tyrone like he was the devil. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:45.400 So predictably, on January twenty fourth, nineteen seventy four, a 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:50.000 Suffolk County jury convicted you, Tyrone, of rape, robbery, and 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.280 kidnapping ann. You were sentenced to life in prison, as 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.600 well as other sentences that they threw on top of that. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.280 My mother, Man, she was young at the time. She 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.040 was so hurt. They sentenced me to life in prison 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.520 twenty five to thirty five on and after in the 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.439 eighth and ten concurrent my mother was so hurt and 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.600 broke down. Next thing, you know, they just took me 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.040 away and took them sent me up the Wallpost State 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:31.240 Prison at the age of eighteen. Man, I came from 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.880 a family. Everybody been to jail. My older brother was 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.439 in prison too. When I got the wall pole in 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.320 nineteen seventy three, it was a news article. Everybody seen it. 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.280 My older brother, you knew a lot of guys up state. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.640 You sent a letter up the wall Poles State Prison, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.080 told some of his friends. Yo, my brother man sentence man. 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.360 Something he didn't do when they asked him, would they 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.160 look out for me? And stuff? So when I got there, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.760 they snatched me as I got at the door and stuff. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.160 So they took me to their block and stuff. They 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.520 looked out for me, gave me canteens, stuff that I needed. 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.559 I didn't take no shit for nobody, you know what 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.960 I'm saying. I learned how to box in prison. I 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:14.959 put in my own work what they call put in 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.199 your own work, protect myself to survive the best way 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.400 I can. I don't even know how I made it, 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.880 but I made it, you know, the grace of God. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.760 And I went to parole boards and handerings and stuff. 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.120 I kept getting denied because I maintained my innocence, had 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.600 a lot of letdowns and stuff over the years. And 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.520 I found a lawyer, man by the name of Barysheck 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.920 with Innocent Project. I wrote to him, I told him 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.800 about my case, and he says, oh, we really don't 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.160 handle Massachusetts cases and stuff, but I can refer you 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.640 to the Innocent Project in Massachusetts. So he did that 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.040 and they gave me an attorney, and you talking to 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:54.839 him right now. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.280 Neil began working on the case from two angles. At 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.920 the time it was two thousand and two DNA testing 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.960 was available. While pursuing biological evidence to support the claims 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.679 of actual innocence, Neil also fought for Tyrone's immediate release 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.200 due to the guidelines for parole in nineteen seventy four, 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.160 as well as his subsequent sentences after the rape. That 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.960 route was unusual. 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.600 So Tyrone was sentenced to life on the rape, and 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.760 he was sentenced to twenty five to thirty on the 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.160 robbery and concurrently eight on a kidnapping. So in nineteen 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.880 eighty eight on the rape, Tyrone was paroled. Then he 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.880 started serving his sentence from the robbery and the kidnapping 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.400 in two thousand and three, Tyrone called me and said, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.240 I've got this letter from the Parole Board indicating that 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.160 his nineteen eighty eight parole had been reversed in two 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.400 thousand and two or two thousand and three. For cases 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.160 that were very old, they started aggregating sentences for the 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.400 purposes of parole. So they decided for Tyrone's case, because 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.440 he was sentenced to life on the rape and thirty 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.560 on the robbery, and concurrently eight on the kidnappings, they 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.360 were going to aggregate and have one parole hearing. But 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.760 the problem was Tyrone had already been parolled in nineteen 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.280 eighty eight and they didn't want to release him. So 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.960 what they ended up doing was quote unquote reversing his 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.640 parole without a hearing or a lawyer being present. So 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.160 in two thousand and three I sued the Parole Board 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.440 on Tyrone's behalf, basically arguing that that was a constitutional violation. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.800 We had a hearing and the judge told them they 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.760 were going to lose, and so we settled Tyrone's civil 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.040 action against the Parole Board, and so he was essentially 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.360 released because with good time, he had served his concurrent 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.120 sentences of the robbery and the kidnapping. But he's on 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.160 his eighty eight pro on his life sentence. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.080 So now you're on the streets for the first time 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.960 in thirty years. Everything looks very different. I mean, imagine 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:55.880 from seventy three to two thousand and five, everything has changed. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.320 Where did you go? What did you do? 0:15:58.480 --> 0:15:59.400 How did you survive? 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.000 Parole officer found me a sober house in Boston, so 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:08.080 I stayed there. Then I applied for Boston Housing Thority 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.160 and I lived in a room in the South thend 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.359 of Boston. They had me going to sex offend the program. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.240 I went through the hurdles. Man, after coming out of prison, 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.400 I ain't know nowhere to go to get closed. I 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.320 didn't know anything. I wasn't in a good space. Man, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.040 my triggers kicked in. I know how to hustle. So 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.840 I ended up shoplifting and I stole some clothing items, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.960 violating my parole. I still today regret what I did. 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.680 I got arrested, kept me for eighteen years back behind 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:40.760 the walls for a shoplift. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.080 Yeah, and that's eighteen years of taxpayers paying probably at 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.600 least well over a million dollars to keep you behind 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.400 bars for stealing four hundred dollars worth of clothes. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.600 He had pled no contest, and they revoked his parole. 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:56.640 We would try to fight it at the pro board hearing, 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.160 but because we had sued them, they were not interested 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.040 in giving him any sort of parole. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.280 While this strained relationship with the Parole Board did not 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.560 bode well for any future appearances, there was still Tyrone's 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.520 actual innocence claim. Although there were six identifications, they were 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.800 cross racial and likely suggestive processes. Tyrone didn't match the description. 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:21.240 No physical evidence tied into the scene, no fingerprints matched him, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.399 and if they had, they would have used it. He 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.639 had multiple alibi witnesses as well, and in the two thousands, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.160 DNA testing was evolving rapidly. 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.040 So Massachusetts had passed post conviction DNA testing statue. And 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.360 when I had worked on the case in early two 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.800 thousand and two two thousand and three, we had tried 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.280 to locate the semen sample that had been left at 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.320 the hospital. There were male socks that had been left 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:45.080 at the scene in a bloody towel. We hadn't been 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.040 able to locate anything any physical evidence, and the case 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.000 had hit a roadblock. But then in the appellate file 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.399 of the Suffolk County District Attorney. We were able to 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.280 locate the knife, and so Tyrone asked if I would 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.080 file a motion under that statute for testing, which was 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.000 eventually granted. The first round of testing was inconclusive, and 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.320 at that point, because this case was primarily an identification case, 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.360 we had started working with CPCs and an attorney named 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:13.200 Lisa Kavanaugh. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.760 CPCs or Committee for Public Council Services is long for 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.280 public defender in Massachusetts, and Lisa Kavanaugh spearheaded an initiative 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.560 within the office to look into innocent's cases. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.280 In around twenty fifteen sixteen, I started working with a lawyer, 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.720 Jeff Harris. My presumption was that the Commonwealth had been 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.080 in contact with the victim because that's their legal obligation, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.240 and Jeff reached out to the victim and as a 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.280 result of those conversations, it came out that she had 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.840 real questions about whether her identification of Tyrone was accurate. 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.440 So when I heard all this good news and stuff, man, 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:52.320 I was like, wow, man, this is great. Man, there's 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.200 light at the tunnel. I think I'm going to go home. 0:18:55.920 --> 0:19:00.720 I really felt as though that she searched so many years, 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.280 she was hitten for so many years. Her conscience made 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:09.760 her come forward. And what happened was she went to 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:11.400 Jennifer Thompson. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.000 Jennifer Thompson survived the rape in which she studied her 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:19.520 attacker's face, yet was also led to identify the wrong man, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.800 Ronald Cotton. I had the honor of interviewing both of 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.640 them together and we're going to have that incredible episode 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.480 linked in the episode description. 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.679 Jennifer Thompson told the lady in my case, she don't 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:35.000 be afraid to tell your story. No, go public with it. 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:37.920 She went on the radio, she went on TV. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:44.280 Back in twenty nineteen, the victim wrote letters to the 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:48.200 Massachusetts pro Board and the court saying that she believed 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.960 that she could have identified the wrong man. She said 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.639 that she was worried that she, the four fireman, and 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.240 the servant at the restaurant picked the same person because 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.560 he looked like the assailant without actually being the assailant, 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.240 and that there were other issues that they have tainted 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.920 the identification process. In her letter to the parole Board, 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.200 she wrote, this is in twenty nineteen quote. If Tyrone 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.520 Clark were to be tried today, given the lack of 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.480 physical evidence linking him to the crime. I doubt that 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.399 he would be convicted. I fear that he may also 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:19.200 be a victim. 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:33.280 End quote. 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.680 When I heard that she was doing all this stuff, 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.160 and I was in prison, and guys was calling me, Tomrone, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.359 You're on TV. Man, old victim is talking about you. Man, Oh, Tomron, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.520 You're gonna get out of prison. Man. You know, I 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.879 was happy, you know what I mean, And you know 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:54.720 saying when she came forward the way she did with 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.560 the DA's office and all these people, you know, wrote 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.320 story reason. This lady is an inspiration. It wasn't her fault. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.800 This could have happened to anybody what happened to me. 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:13.440 I appreciate this lady for which she did. It wasn't 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.439 for her still alive that came forward, I would have 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:18.280 died in prison. 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.760 With the support of the victim. Tyrone's attorneys saw it. 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.440 Subsequent DNA testing with the latest methods revealing a male 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.200 profile and a knife that simply did not match Tyrone, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.400 and they filed a motion for a new trial in twenty. 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.440 Twenty, even after the victim had come forward, even after 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.480 the DNA issue had been explored, even after Jeff primarily 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.720 had done a lot of work on witness identifications. The 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.840