Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility and its subject
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording. Exactly easy. A hundred years I said,
Speaker 1: I'm a kid and I didn't do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know that was that was real painful, Mary, No,
Speaker 1: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
Speaker 1: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred years that had dreams and I wanted to
Speaker 1: do things. I wasn't committing crimes. You know. I was
Speaker 1: a very good young man. That is what happened in
Speaker 1: so many cases. The cops have a hunch, because they're
Speaker 1: so smart at the scene, they have a hunch, and
Speaker 1: once they act on that hunch, they sort of developed
Speaker 1: tunnel vision and they take off marching in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: And it happens in some any of these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: They opening the cell door, and I walked downstairs. And
Speaker 1: I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt very
Speaker 1: strange to be, like I said, to be walking without
Speaker 1: shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream.
Speaker 1: But then again, it wasn't a dream. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: So are we all? We all hooked up here? We're here,
Speaker 1: We're here, test one to three sure of Chip Harding,
Speaker 1: Albamarle County, Virginia. This call is from a correction facility
Speaker 1: and is subject to monitoring and recording. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam It's me. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: and today we have an episode that is uh going
Speaker 1: to rock your world. Um. We have three guests today. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save the best for last, but we have
Speaker 1: John Grisham in the studio with us. John, Welcome, delighted
Speaker 1: to be here, and Sheriff Chip Harding of Albemarle County. Yes, Sir,
Speaker 1: are going to be here Virginia. And on the phone
Speaker 1: is YenS, Sirring one of the most remarkable people I
Speaker 1: know and one of the most extraordinary cases of injustice
Speaker 1: that we've ever covered on this show. So, Yen's I
Speaker 1: always say, I'm I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry
Speaker 1: you're here. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the station and John as well. So this is a
Speaker 1: case that takes us back to the eighties, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, UM, a case that has all the makings
Speaker 1: of a John Grisham novel. Actually, UM, because this goes
Speaker 1: back to yen's when you were first Uh, an exchange
Speaker 1: student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar. From everything I'm
Speaker 1: told this is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman at the
Speaker 1: Universe to you Virginia. Um and yeah, and do you
Speaker 1: want to do you want to take us back there
Speaker 1: and tell us how this started? Sure? Um, this was
Speaker 1: a four in the file. M. I arrived at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia at a freshman, became prisoner students there,
Speaker 1: and I met a young woman there who was two
Speaker 1: and a half years older than I was elizabeths. And
Speaker 1: we were both in the same dormitory. She had entered
Speaker 1: the university lady because she had had an adventurous unison. Um.
Speaker 1: She had gone to an English boarding school and run
Speaker 1: away with her girlfriends to Europe, things like that. And
Speaker 1: so he came to u V A m private deposed
Speaker 1: and the rest of us in that dormitory. And I was, um,
Speaker 1: not an American citizen. My father was a German diplomat.
Speaker 1: That's why I was living in you know what, the States,
Speaker 1: and her family came from South Africa and from Canada.
Speaker 1: So we were drawn to each other as being um foreigners.
Speaker 1: UM not you know, not Americans and the post about
Speaker 1: fall semester. We fell in love, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was quite surprised to everybody else in the dormitory because
Speaker 1: she was very experienced and very mature and I was,
Speaker 1: I guess a nerd uh an uber nerd um um
Speaker 1: and virgin to boot it. So she was my very
Speaker 1: first girlfriend. You were a German uber version nerd. It's
Speaker 1: quite a combination against And she was a beautiful young woman,
Speaker 1: striking woman, UM who you know, anyone in your situation
Speaker 1: would have probably fallen head over heels for considering the circumstances. Um.
Speaker 1: But but the you know, it was of course a
Speaker 1: faithful uh star across love affair. Yes, and yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a very short lived love affair as well. Um.
Speaker 1: Three months after we started dating, or maybe four months
Speaker 1: after we started dating, UM, we went to Washington, DC
Speaker 1: to spend a weekend together, and in the course of
Speaker 1: that weekend, she um told me that she was still
Speaker 1: using drugs, which he had previously told me he had
Speaker 1: stopped doing, and that she needed to use our rental
Speaker 1: car to run some drugs from Washington, DC to her dealer,
Speaker 1: who was also the university student back in Charlottesville, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to come along, but she wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: because she said that I was such a nerd, nobody
Speaker 1: would know drug dealer would want to do business around me. UM.
Speaker 1: So she drove off in the car by herself and
Speaker 1: came back eight hours later. UM until she had killed
Speaker 1: her parents, and she said that, UM, you know, the
Speaker 1: drugs had made to do it, and they had deserved
Speaker 1: it anyway, and if I didn't help her, she would
Speaker 1: be executed. She would be back then they used elected
Speaker 1: to She said that they would fry her. Um. She
Speaker 1: said that I should be her alibi until the police.
Speaker 1: She was with me in Washington, and I told her
Speaker 1: that that would never ever work, because the police never
Speaker 1: believe boyfriends or husbands or wives and people like that.
Speaker 1: So I came up with this brilliant idea um based
Speaker 1: on Charles Dickens a Tale of Two Cities of all things. UM,
Speaker 1: I would take the blame for her. I would take
Speaker 1: the rap for her and save her life. Um At
Speaker 1: was based on a character in this Charles Dickens novel,
Speaker 1: um Sydney Carton, who did that in this novel. The
Speaker 1: difference was that in the novel that particular character actually
Speaker 1: did get executed. Whereas my father was a German diplomat,
Speaker 1: I thought I had diplomatic community. I thought that I
Speaker 1: could take the blame for her crime. And all that
Speaker 1: would happen with me was about the sent back to
Speaker 1: Germany and put in prison there in proven Our prison
Speaker 1: for about ten years. And I thought that giving ten
Speaker 1: years of my life was worth saving draw life from
Speaker 1: the electric ture. Um. Yeah, it's sort of a twisted nobility. Um,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's sort of very hard to imagine.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, will do crazy things for
Speaker 1: love all the time. And you know, as you and
Speaker 1: I have spoken on the phone at length the ends
Speaker 1: about this, and in fact his wars have been started
Speaker 1: over love affairs. So you know, you're not the only
Speaker 1: person by far that's ever done something so crazy, but
Speaker 1: this is certainly an extreme example. Um. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: well go ahead, and sorry, it's not gonna say. It's
Speaker 1: a bit like at the end of the movie Titanic,
Speaker 1: right when Leonardo Ditapriol lifts Kate Windlet onto that door
Speaker 1: to save her life and then he sort of sinks
Speaker 1: away and gives his life for her. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: except I didn't lift take windlet up on that door.
Speaker 1: I looked at Sharon Stone from basic instinct upon that door,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, sacrifice myself for her. Yes, we
Speaker 1: we were talking about this earlier ends and I said
Speaker 1: that it's it's such a strange fate that you happen
Speaker 1: to have only been with one woman and she turned
Speaker 1: out to be the devil. Um, it's it's really something
Speaker 1: is unimaginable. Um, you know, it's calling her the devil
Speaker 1: is a little oversimplified. She was later diagnosed with a
Speaker 1: very severe personality disorder, so you know, she actually had
Speaker 1: serious mental health issues. And and of course that she
Speaker 1: claimed that her mother had sexually abused her with the
Speaker 1: knowledge and cooperation of her father. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's some indications that that may have actually been true. Ums,
Speaker 1: we'll never know for sure now, but you know, she
Speaker 1: was a troubled young woman. This I want to fast
Speaker 1: forward a little bit because I want to get into
Speaker 1: the current circumstance and how we can hopefully make a
Speaker 1: difference and get you home where you belong. Um. But
Speaker 1: as things developed, you initially were not suspects, and but
Speaker 1: then at some point you decided to to make a getaway.
Speaker 1: And this is back in the days when and for
Speaker 1: people who don't remember, in the eighties you can sort
Speaker 1: of travel the world under a different name. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't all these different It wasn't you know, so tightly
Speaker 1: monitored or regulated. And so you guys went around the
Speaker 1: world and ultimately ended up in England. Um, which is
Speaker 1: also sort of a crazy adventure to think about these
Speaker 1: two lovers, uh, running away from the authorities, traveling the
Speaker 1: world with a suitcase, and you know, it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of a it sounds sounds kind of romantic and
Speaker 1: adventurous and you know, um, cinematic at the same time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you ended up in England, and that's when things
Speaker 1: began began to go wrong, right, because you were ultimately
Speaker 1: arrested for passing bad checks, as I understand it. And
Speaker 1: then um, and then we get to the point where
Speaker 1: the false confessions come in, or your false confession. So
Speaker 1: the police Elizabeth and me back from the tail to
Speaker 1: the police station and they slee wrote into the police
Speaker 1: station lab book that I was to be held in
Speaker 1: Canino Cardo. In other ways, I was to be isolated
Speaker 1: from the outside world and not give an access to
Speaker 1: my lawyer, and that's exactly what they did for four days.
Speaker 1: They interrogated me for four days, many many hours, dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens and dozens of hours. And then finally on
Speaker 1: the fourth day, UM, when I decided to keep my
Speaker 1: promise to Elizabeth that I had made uh fifteen months earlier, um,
Speaker 1: and I decided to take the blame for what she did.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did. I told him the story
Speaker 1: that she and I had cooked up. And of course
Speaker 1: that fast confession contained many states that the real killer
Speaker 1: would not have made. I described the clothing of one
Speaker 1: victim incorrectly, and I placed the other in the wrong room.
Speaker 1: And they were numerous mistakes like that, um, um, which
Speaker 1: you know should have learned the police to the fact
Speaker 1: that I might not be telling the truth. Um. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, of course, at that time, the police
Speaker 1: who were interrogating me were in possession of an FBI
Speaker 1: crime scene profile by one by one of the people
Speaker 1: invented crime scene profiling, one of the leading special agents,
Speaker 1: and that profile said that the crime had been committed
Speaker 1: by a woman in a close relationship to the victims.
Speaker 1: And of course I was a man, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know the victims, like the one time for twenty minutes. Um,
Speaker 1: so they should have known that what the story I
Speaker 1: was telling them was not true. Um, nevertheless. Um. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, the other thing that happened is that just
Speaker 1: a couple of hours after I told the police that
Speaker 1: I did it, Elizabeth told the police that he did it.
Speaker 1: She said, I did it myself. I got off on it.
Speaker 1: But by that space, the police had decided that I
Speaker 1: was abilty one. So they actually let her withdraw that confession,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious in a way because, um, they found
Speaker 1: hosting the prince at the crime scene and not mine.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's, um yeah, quite incredible that they
Speaker 1: let her withdraw that confession. But they did. And so
Speaker 1: they ended up charging me with being the killer and
Speaker 1: they charged her with being the accomplice. You have one minute.
Speaker 1: They charged me with being the killer, and they charged
Speaker 1: her with being an accomplice, and they put me on
Speaker 1: trial and convicted me of something that I didn't. But
Speaker 1: we could back, I could talk about the blood which
Speaker 1: they used at the trial and look changeful way. Let
Speaker 1: me hang up and call back. We're back. Hey, we're back.
Speaker 1: So um, there's there's a lot of things wrong with
Speaker 1: this case. There's so many it's it's hard to even
Speaker 1: fit them into a uh an episode of the show.
Speaker 1: But one of them that I talked about, and as
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we've known each other quite some
Speaker 1: time and advocating alongside this amazing team of people that
Speaker 1: you have. And what I say to anyone that will
Speaker 1: listen to me is this is an unusual situation because
Speaker 1: normally in false confession cases you have people who are
Speaker 1: trying not to implicate themselves and who may be of
Speaker 1: limited mental abilities as well. Uh in some cases. In
Speaker 1: your case, you were trying to implicate yourself, right, so
Speaker 1: there would have been no reason for you not to
Speaker 1: tell the truth if in fact you knew what it was.
Speaker 1: But the reason that you were wrong about these details
Speaker 1: is because you just didn't know. So here you had
Speaker 1: a guy who are the smartest guy in the room,
Speaker 1: and you were trying the best to save your the
Speaker 1: love of what you thought was the love of your life,
Speaker 1: and yet you were unable to get almost anything right
Speaker 1: because of the fact that you weren't there. So that
Speaker 1: makes it hard. And I do want to bring John
Speaker 1: and Chip into the conversation to just to talk about this, uh,
Speaker 1: this scenario that took place in England and and and
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of it. Um John, you want to
Speaker 1: jump in here, Yeah, well if you, it goes back
Speaker 1: to a confession, false confession, because there's no um, there's
Speaker 1: no other proof, uh, two convicians of the murder. So
Speaker 1: you've got all they have is a false a confession.
Speaker 1: And with any false confession case, what you would hope
Speaker 1: that the authorities do is once they managed to extract
Speaker 1: the confession and whatever technics they used to do that
Speaker 1: is that they will match it up to the physical
Speaker 1: events to see if it in fact matches. And false
Speaker 1: confessions virtually never match up because there are too many details. There,
Speaker 1: too many um uh specifics in the murder, the method
Speaker 1: of murder, the place, the blood, the blood splattered, the clothing,
Speaker 1: the room, whatever. There's a whole of fingerprints, footprints, and
Speaker 1: there's a long list of items that you know. The
Speaker 1: police go through any investigation, and with a false confession,
Speaker 1: it's usually fairly simple to uh, to realize once you
Speaker 1: start matching the confession given by somebody who wasn't there,
Speaker 1: it's impossible for them to remember all the details that
Speaker 1: the real killer would actually know, where he left the bodies,
Speaker 1: how he killed him, while you know who who did what,
Speaker 1: what was on the kitchen table, what was knocked over,
Speaker 1: what was spuilt? These are all you know, it's fairly
Speaker 1: common consense. And and then in Yen's case, you know
Speaker 1: there were so many discrepancies between his confession and actual
Speaker 1: physical crime scene. You just want to scream and say,
Speaker 1: why didn't somebody put these together? Match them up? And
Speaker 1: and somebody, whether the cops and the local boys are
Speaker 1: you know, not always that reliable, especially in a rural
Speaker 1: county like uh, Bedford, Virginia, where you know, they don't
Speaker 1: they don't see a lot of murders, and the cops
Speaker 1: are not that well trained and sophisticated. Um, you you
Speaker 1: just you you, You want to say, why can't you
Speaker 1: guys look at what's obvious. What frustrates me is when
Speaker 1: you get to trial and you have what you think
Speaker 1: should be a competent defense lawyer who cannot walk through
Speaker 1: the confessions step by step by step and show the
Speaker 1: discrepanties between the confession and the actual crime scene. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this was done or attempted in Yend's case,
Speaker 1: but it certainly was not effective. And so that's that's
Speaker 1: what we always start in a false confession case is
Speaker 1: let's match it up with the proof, and it never
Speaker 1: matches him. It never does. And this was a crazy
Speaker 1: case because on top of all the other you know,
Speaker 1: factors that led to his wrangful conviction. UM. I think
Speaker 1: there was an inherent bias. I can't prove this because
Speaker 1: of the fact that it was Bedford County, which ironically
Speaker 1: was as the county that lost more soldiers in World
Speaker 1: War Two to the Germans per capita than anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the United States. It's why the World War Two
Speaker 1: Memorial memorial is there. And so I think that there's
Speaker 1: at least an argument that there could have been a
Speaker 1: the oddswood stacked against the ends from the beginning. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to bring Sheriff Harding into the into the conversation. UM,
Speaker 1: Sheriff Harding is a four You've been in law enforcement
Speaker 1: for several decades, four decades, right, and have been recognized
Speaker 1: by uh it's I mean, his resume is is nuts.
Speaker 1: When you look at the number of accreditations he has,
Speaker 1: in the number of awards he's won and he's UM,
Speaker 1: one of the most accomplished people in law enforcement the
Speaker 1: United States. And you've been you've dived into this case,
Speaker 1: uh with I mean with all with all guns blazing,
Speaker 1: so to speak. And and is it possible, Sheriff, You've
Speaker 1: examined this evidence eighteen ways till Sunday. Is it theoretically
Speaker 1: possible that Jains committed this crime? Is it possible? I
Speaker 1: mean he could have been dropped down with us from
Speaker 1: a spaceship and done it. But is it logical he
Speaker 1: he was there when these murders occurred. Extremely unlikely he
Speaker 1: was there. There's nothing that puts him there other than
Speaker 1: this false confession. And as John was saying earlier, Um,
Speaker 1: the confession didn't match the crime scene when you look
Speaker 1: at it, I mean, there was some huge discrepancies that
Speaker 1: weren't followed up. You had a young investigator, his first
Speaker 1: homicide case you'd ever investigated, and I'm I'm reading the
Speaker 1: transcript going, You've gotta be kid me. You didn't do
Speaker 1: any follow up. Plus they didn't take the confession. So
Speaker 1: when he gets the court, very skillfully, the prosecutor only
Speaker 1: asked questions that were consistent with the cram scene in
Speaker 1: the event and admitted the inconsistencies. And as John was
Speaker 1: pouring out, he had a very very ineffective defense attorney
Speaker 1: that didn't bring that to the attention to the jury,
Speaker 1: among other things. And yend take us back in your UM.
Speaker 1: You know from your perspective, UM, this this is a
Speaker 1: nightmare that no one can imagine living through. You would
Speaker 1: you had been in jail in England for quite some
Speaker 1: time before you even came to trial. You had nothing
Speaker 1: in your life experience that would prepare you for any
Speaker 1: of this, Um And now here you are in the
Speaker 1: in the grip of the justice system in Virginia, UM
Speaker 1: as a sort of an arch villain, right And what
Speaker 1: was this like for you to go through this at
Speaker 1: the time? Did you believe that you would be um,
Speaker 1: that you would actually win this case? Um? Can I
Speaker 1: A couple of other factories have been answer you a
Speaker 1: question I details that corroberate the confession. At the time
Speaker 1: of trial, the prosecutor um Um pointed out to the
Speaker 1: jury twenty six times that the police found um some
Speaker 1: O type blood at the crime scene, and that I
Speaker 1: was the only person involved in the case who had
Speaker 1: type of blood. The victims did not have type of blood,
Speaker 1: and my girlfriend did not have type of blood. The
Speaker 1: only person involved in the case was type old blood
Speaker 1: was meat, is what the prosecutor told the jury twenty
Speaker 1: six times. And it would take another two and a
Speaker 1: half decades to find out through DNA testing that indeed
Speaker 1: that was type of blood that was left by somebody else.
Speaker 1: So what a fact that seemed to corroborate the confession
Speaker 1: at the time of the trial his mouth shown, actually
Speaker 1: and a sheriff harding, what percentage of the population has
Speaker 1: uh this type of blood? I think it's about, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty h right, So I mean that really is
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a ridiculous thing to try to pin
Speaker 1: anything on, but yet the prosecutor mentioned it for six times.
Speaker 1: It's also worth mentioning, uh that Yenza is lead trial
Speaker 1: lawyer was disbarred a few years after your uh, your false,
Speaker 1: your wrongful conviction, and he was desbarred because of mental illness. Uh.
Speaker 1: Drugs were a factor in all of this, and it
Speaker 1: was shown that he was suffering from this um, this
Speaker 1: this profound problem during the time of your trial. So
Speaker 1: that's just another important thing to recognize. Feel like you
Speaker 1: wanted to know what it felt like. UM. At that stage,
Speaker 1: I had already been in prison for four years fighting
Speaker 1: extra vision UM from England to the United States. For
Speaker 1: most of those four years, I was convinced. Then all
Speaker 1: my lawyers were convinced, and everybody thought that I would
Speaker 1: definitely be sentenced to death. UM. So I spent four
Speaker 1: years in prison in effect psychologically on death row. I
Speaker 1: was IOWA was everybody, including my own team, totally that
Speaker 1: had no chance of avoiding the Electric two. Um. And
Speaker 1: then at the last minute that was avoided. We went
Speaker 1: an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights and
Speaker 1: I was brought back to America. And that sort of
Speaker 1: thing hasn't effect on you psychologically, living in prison for
Speaker 1: four years believing that you're gonna die pretty inclusively in
Speaker 1: the Electric two. And then I got that brought back
Speaker 1: to his opinion. Everybody hated me, everybody was convinced that
Speaker 1: of guilty. UM. And it was you know, he was
Speaker 1: really was scary. I was. UM. It was very frightening
Speaker 1: experience and and I did not handle it well. I
Speaker 1: cannot handle it well um um. But again you have
Speaker 1: to put them against the background of my having done it.
Speaker 1: Spent you know, three years under comminent threat of death
Speaker 1: and then coming into the zoo atmosphere and having to
Speaker 1: see Elizabeth Hayston, a woman that that sacrificed myself for
Speaker 1: get up to understand and told herself, um, and tell
Speaker 1: all these lives to put me away in prison. Um.
Speaker 1: And when I say that he courted herself, that's not
Speaker 1: just the claim I make. Um. Twenty six years later,
Speaker 1: he actually admitted that in a He admitted that herself
Speaker 1: at that trial. But at that time nobody knew that,
Speaker 1: and nobody cared. They just wanted a witness point singer
Speaker 1: at me. And she did that job she brought and
Speaker 1: that and my own frost confession and the type of
Speaker 1: blood that's what didn't me. And the sock print, of course,
Speaker 1: was a ridiculous piece of evidence that no no serious
Speaker 1: person should have ever even it shouldn't been allowed in court,
Speaker 1: and it shouldn't have been in the way that was
Speaker 1: done was very devious. Um. But I want to go
Speaker 1: back to John and Chip here, because John, you were
Speaker 1: a criminal defense lawyer in your younger years, and Chip
Speaker 1: obviously you were a very accomplished investigator. UM. How would
Speaker 1: you guys have handled this, and do you think what
Speaker 1: could have been done to save ends? And if you were,
Speaker 1: if you were representing him back then, what would you
Speaker 1: have said. It's difficult to uh, you know, project myself
Speaker 1: into that situation, especially now many years later. Uh. Only
Speaker 1: practiced law for ten years, and my my dream when
Speaker 1: I was very young was to become an accomplished courtroom lawyer,
Speaker 1: a big time trial lawyer. And to do that, I
Speaker 1: volunteered for all of the indigent cases that I could
Speaker 1: possibly get because I needed to work. But also he
Speaker 1: got me in the courtroom. And within uh, within two
Speaker 1: years of finishing law school, I had tried to murder
Speaker 1: cases by myself. Uh no second chair. They weren't capital cases,
Speaker 1: but they were murder cases, and I had won both
Speaker 1: of them, uh not guilty and um so I was
Speaker 1: in the courtroom a lot. I did win many cases
Speaker 1: because they weren't supposed to be one Uh. Most of
Speaker 1: my clients went to prison. But anyway, that was that
Speaker 1: was my world back then, was criminal defense law, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to parlay that into you know, a courtroom
Speaker 1: resume for for big cases. And so that was very
Speaker 1: much the way I lived back then. Uh. And when
Speaker 1: I read these cases, uh, and I read a lot
Speaker 1: of them now being on the board of the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project and working with innocence cases, and you see some
Speaker 1: of the defense work by lawyers. And this was a
Speaker 1: private attorney that end his family provided a guy who
Speaker 1: was not even from the area. I think he's from
Speaker 1: Detroit to someplace. Um. But to see the the incompetence
Speaker 1: of defense lawyers and the and the lack of effort,
Speaker 1: the lack of integrity and challenging the prosecution, even challenging
Speaker 1: the judges. Uh, It's it's extremely frustrating. And we see
Speaker 1: it all the time in in wrongful conviction cases where
Speaker 1: you have all the reasons, all of the factors that
Speaker 1: lead to wrongful convictions, whether it's junk science or jailhouse
Speaker 1: nitches or false confessions or whatever. We have a list.
Speaker 1: But the one that really irritates me a lot is
Speaker 1: the incompetent defense work because there's no excuse for it's
Speaker 1: it's a question of simple hard work or saying no
Speaker 1: to a case you shouldn't take to begin with. So
Speaker 1: I can't tell you specifically what I would have done
Speaker 1: thirty years ago to save YenS. I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not that smart, but um, hard word, there's there's
Speaker 1: rarely a substitute for hard work and fortitude in challenging
Speaker 1: the facts, and I didn't see it in this case.
Speaker 1: And Sheriff Harding, I want to talk to you because, um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that you know, YenS has assembled
Speaker 1: this remarkable team and it's a great credit to him.
Speaker 1: And you're an interesting character in this because you're a
Speaker 1: conservative guy or a guy who's obviously law and order guy,
Speaker 1: and yet you have devoted yourself selflessly and spent time
Speaker 1: that you could have been doing anything else, two hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours to this case. Um, so can you talk
Speaker 1: about that? And then can you talk about the the
Speaker 1: actual h forensic evidence right Well, his attorney, Stephen Rosenfield,
Speaker 1: asked me to take a look at part of the
Speaker 1: pardon petition to see if I could find a way
Speaker 1: to strengthen it or to see if he's missmissed something
Speaker 1: in it. And I told Steve at the beginning, I
Speaker 1: felt like you was guilty based on everything I've seen.
Speaker 1: I know Governor Kane had tried to send him back
Speaker 1: to Germany. I was opposed to that, um, because I
Speaker 1: felt like he was guilty. He should have been given
Speaker 1: any special consideration just because he was a German. But
Speaker 1: so Steve gave me the case. It won't take about
Speaker 1: a couple of hours. Well, I ended up taking a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff home that night. My wife thought I
Speaker 1: lost my mind because I spent basically the whole weekend
Speaker 1: the dining room table covered with material that Steve gave me.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh my god, this is nothing like
Speaker 1: what was represented in And in conclusion, UM, I inter
Speaker 1: upriting nineteen page letter to the governor breaking down the
Speaker 1: closing arguments of the case. You know, it's the strength
Speaker 1: of the government's case Last Might at the Apple, and
Speaker 1: I broke that down. And then after that was published,
Speaker 1: I had another investigator work with me for twenty five years, said,
Speaker 1: let me help former FBI agent that I know that
Speaker 1: I worked in another case with jumped in and one
Speaker 1: of the original invest Bedford investigators said he felt like
Speaker 1: Yan's had been railroaded and was in us. And also,
Speaker 1: so the four of us have been working in collectively,
Speaker 1: we've given a couple of thousand hours and um, you
Speaker 1: want to talk briefly about to forensics. The old blood
Speaker 1: was very powerful as was mentioned UM, and I will
Speaker 1: say if I was on that jury, I would have
Speaker 1: convicted him based on it the way the evidence was
Speaker 1: represented so skillfully by the prosecutor. The old blood now
Speaker 1: we know absolutely no one can test the fact that's
Speaker 1: not insuring he's not been detected in the crime scene.
Speaker 1: But two other males, one with a b blood and
Speaker 1: one with old blood have been detected in the crime
Speaker 1: scene and we have not identified those people and have
Speaker 1: not In my opinion, Bedford County should consider having an
Speaker 1: open homicide investigation. Then you look at the next piece
Speaker 1: of evidence that was pretty powerful. The Commonwealth UM originally
Speaker 1: got a certificate of analysis from the State Bureau of
Speaker 1: Forensics saying that the shoes you have one minute remaining.
Speaker 1: The shoe in socks size was consistent with a six
Speaker 1: and a half to seven and a half woman shoe
Speaker 1: a man five or six well originally had And this
Speaker 1: just blew my mind. They originally had a small female
Speaker 1: as a prime suspect in this thing. And the prosecutor
Speaker 1: wrote a letter and we got a copy of it
Speaker 1: attached with the draft aff of David saying that he
Speaker 1: wanted this woman's blood, fingerprints and shoe impressions because her
Speaker 1: shoe was consistent with what was in the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Now that you turn in and go to trial, you
Speaker 1: don't hear anything. The defense attorney brings nothing up. They
Speaker 1: bring in a non qualified uh individual to testify. He
Speaker 1: did a what we like to refer to as a
Speaker 1: magic trick, created an over the lay of impression of
Speaker 1: Yen's foot and said it basically fits like a glove,
Speaker 1: reminds you of o J And he was even instructed
Speaker 1: he could not testify as an expert. But when you
Speaker 1: look at the closing arguments of the prosecutor, he says
Speaker 1: he can only fit one man. One man in the
Speaker 1: world could and he pointed yensering and we know that's
Speaker 1: hoop law, that's junk evidence. And the same the same
Speaker 1: man that that put this on in front of the jury,
Speaker 1: Robert halott Um, did the same thing in another case
Speaker 1: where a man was given the death penalty, and thank
Speaker 1: god it took a few years. He did not get executed.
Speaker 1: DNA prude, he absolutely didn't do it. So you have
Speaker 1: here you have the same junk science being used again.
Speaker 1: There was a juror that gave an affidavit to the
Speaker 1: attorneys that said it was tied six six in the
Speaker 1: jury room. They wanted to take a look at the
Speaker 1: sock and shoe evidence again and he said that's what
Speaker 1: turned the tide. And we know now, uh, we know,
Speaker 1: now that's ludicrous. Um, they're really two parts. You've got
Speaker 1: a false confession and you also have a false alibibe.
Speaker 1: You've got Elizabeth who claims she stayed at the hotel
Speaker 1: room and when YenS came back. She said, Yenz comes
Speaker 1: back that night after midnight and a sheet covered in
Speaker 1: blood from head to toe in the rental vehicle, and
Speaker 1: YenS asked her to clean it up with Coca cola.
Speaker 1: Yet that vehicle was tested with luminol and I've never
Speaker 1: had a case where blood had been present. Even Bleach
Speaker 1: had gotten it all out, no indication of any blood
Speaker 1: at all, And was testimony from the Oaks, the rental
Speaker 1: agency that the car was an immacula condition, no signs
Speaker 1: of any coca cola. We have since learned and and
Speaker 1: dig it in the little limited information we can see, Um,
Speaker 1: that there was actually blood found in the trap of
Speaker 1: the shower of the master bedroom and that show wall
Speaker 1: illuminated like fourth of July. So it gives us the
Speaker 1: impression as investigators at least one of the participants in
Speaker 1: this homicide took a shower, so why would he be
Speaker 1: covered in blood from head to toe. It's impossible. And
Speaker 1: there are three or four more things that Elizabeth says
Speaker 1: that occurred. We can disprove with her alibi as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, not close. We have not everything that
Speaker 1: has come out of that woman's mouth. We can either
Speaker 1: prove as provable that she's lying or it's highly suspects
Speaker 1: she's lying. We've looked very hard and everything at YenS
Speaker 1: has said, and we have not caught him in a lie.
Speaker 1: Everything that he said, we have no reason not to
Speaker 1: believe him. There there's a book that Jens wrote with
Speaker 1: Bill's seized mark called The Far, Far Better Thing, and
Speaker 1: in uh on page to twenty, I'm going to read this.
Speaker 1: Russell Johnson, a fully qualified footprint expert, was so averaged
Speaker 1: that he wrote a letter to the editor of the
Speaker 1: roan Oake Newspaper declaring that the sock print evidence was
Speaker 1: worthless junk science. He said, there appeared to have been
Speaker 1: a slide in the heel before it came to rest, which,
Speaker 1: of course would invalidate any attempt to size the thing up.
Speaker 1: And then he made a very strong quote that said
Speaker 1: that the bloody sock print quote provides no evidence whatsoever
Speaker 1: that Mr Surring was at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 1: So the idea that this was the thing that the
Speaker 1: juror's sight as the thing that broke them from a
Speaker 1: six six tie to ultimately an unanimous guilty verdict, it
Speaker 1: should be offensive to anyone who believes in truth and justice,
Speaker 1: and it certainly is to us, which is why we're
Speaker 1: here now. Um, John, do you look like you have
Speaker 1: something on your mind? No, I'm just uh fascinated by
Speaker 1: the level of junk science that permeates our courtroom still today.
Speaker 1: Whether it's uh sock print analysis or bite mark analysis,
Speaker 1: or hair analysis or bootprint analysis. There's a long, sad
Speaker 1: list of these analyzes that have put so many people
Speaker 1: in prison, uttered by people who are not qualified. Uh.
Speaker 1: You you know, you can go to a weekend seminar
Speaker 1: and study blood splatter analysis, get a certificate and call
Speaker 1: yourself an expert, and some some prosecutors somewhere can call
Speaker 1: you in a murder trial and you, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: much say whatever you want you to. Say, we are
Speaker 1: at the Innocence Project. We are laboring to provide some
Speaker 1: national standard for forensic sciences to get to clean up
Speaker 1: the courtroom and get all the crap out of it.
Speaker 1: So we have good qualified experts who give valid scientific
Speaker 1: opinions about things that are really really important. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: the Ron Williamson case, the book I wrote about the
Speaker 1: innocent man. He was convicted in part because of hair analysis, uh,
Speaker 1: provided by the Oklahoma State Crime Lab. And this expert
Speaker 1: took some scalp in pubic hair from the crime scene
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, that's it's a bit matches Ron and
Speaker 1: the jury eight done up. Uh. Ten years later that
Speaker 1: same hair when Ron was tried at eighty seven, there's
Speaker 1: no DNA. Ten years later we had DNA and all
Speaker 1: seventeen hairs were excluded from by DNA from Ron Williamson.
Speaker 1: So there and then later a few years ago, the
Speaker 1: FBI admitted that when it comes to hair analysis of
Speaker 1: their own, FBI examiners got it wrong. Okay, that's the FBI,
Speaker 1: that's the cream of the crop. Can you imagine what
Speaker 1: the numbers are for the State crime Lab. So the
Speaker 1: junk science is just uh sickening and and Gens is
Speaker 1: imprisoned today because of junk science. It's there's so much
Speaker 1: because this case. We're talking about a case in which
Speaker 1: a couple was brutally murdered, stabbed multiple times, each of
Speaker 1: them very bloody crime scene, full rich with biological evidence
Speaker 1: from the actual killers. UM. In theory, you also had
Speaker 1: a logical um explanation for this, in that Elizabeth had
Speaker 1: said multiple times that she had been sexually abused by
Speaker 1: her mother, that her father may have been involved in
Speaker 1: this in some way. There was a clear motive in
Speaker 1: that sense. You had drugs, which no one ever claimed
Speaker 1: that you were on drugs, but we know that she
Speaker 1: was doing hard drugs and that she was running with
Speaker 1: a very very nefarious crew back then and would have
Speaker 1: had access to the type of people who might commit
Speaker 1: a murder like this. UM. People who knew you back then,
Speaker 1: including some people for law enforcement, said that it was
Speaker 1: Even Elizabeth said it was ludicrous to think that you
Speaker 1: could have committed a brutal crime like this because you're
Speaker 1: not a physically imposing guy. It would have had to
Speaker 1: overpower two adults. UM. None of it ever made any sense,
Speaker 1: and there should have been It should have been relatively
Speaker 1: simple and now. Of course, so many people have weighed
Speaker 1: in on this, including Chuck Reid, one of the original
Speaker 1: investigators in the case, who has said in emphatic terms
Speaker 1: that it could not have been you, that he doesn't
Speaker 1: believe it was you. Um. And yet we still uh
Speaker 1: find ourselves in this situation where we're still all trying
Speaker 1: to get you out, And it's it's also worth talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that you know you have while in prison,
Speaker 1: distinguished yourself in ways that are almost unprecedented, writing nine
Speaker 1: books widely published um as Educating Yourself, becoming a tai
Speaker 1: Chi master and meditation teacher and uh and of course
Speaker 1: having had an absolutely perfect record behind bars. I often
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that you've never, to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: never even spilled your coffee. So it's it's remarkable in
Speaker 1: what it says about you. And also about the idea
Speaker 1: that we are a nation supposedly of second chances of forgiveness,
Speaker 1: So why anyone would want to keep you in even
Speaker 1: if they are unwilling or unable, unwilling to look at
Speaker 1: orunable to understand the scientific evidence of your innocence. The
Speaker 1: idea that we still keep you behind bars, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just it's an affront to anyone who believes in in
Speaker 1: in just decency. It's been very various difficult for me,
Speaker 1: especially over the last two and a half years since
Speaker 1: the parting octation was submitted based on the DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: It's been really difficult for me because for thirty years
Speaker 1: we start, there was no DNA evidence in this case
Speaker 1: that could prove my innocence. And then after thirty it
Speaker 1: was actually I on the phone with my lawyer, Steve Rosenfield,
Speaker 1: flipping through some old forensical points I found, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's the part is based on. A half years later,
Speaker 1: we cannot get anybody to act on it, you know.
Speaker 1: And then and then going to listen more, let me
Speaker 1: jump in for a second, because we have here an interesting, uh,
Speaker 1: such an amazing group, right. We have John Grisham, who
Speaker 1: is you know, one of the most famous, if not
Speaker 1: the most famous virginian Um legendary figure from the literary world,
Speaker 1: and who is certainly no stranger to politics or justice.
Speaker 1: And we have Sheriff Harding, who knows his way around
Speaker 1: law enforcement as well or better than anybody in the state.
Speaker 1: And maybe you guys can try to give me some
Speaker 1: insight as to why this case is such a difficult
Speaker 1: one to resolve in the face of such overwhelming evidence
Speaker 1: of innocence. Um, you know, and and such a strong
Speaker 1: group behind the ends. I mean when I say a
Speaker 1: strong group, Angela Merkel and La Merkel spoke to President
Speaker 1: Obama on several occasions about YenS. I mean, when have
Speaker 1: we ever heard of that that the president, the former
Speaker 1: president of Germany, President Shultz, flew to Virginia just for
Speaker 1: the purpose of meeting with the parole board to say,
Speaker 1: send him home. I'll take care of him. I want
Speaker 1: to house him, I want to get him a job,
Speaker 1: I want to you know, mentor him. I mean, you
Speaker 1: have the one of our most important allies in the
Speaker 1: world who have made it a national priority at the
Speaker 1: highest levels to extricate YenS from this impossible situation and
Speaker 1: bring him back to his own country. And yet here
Speaker 1: we are. Can can you guys touch on this? What?
Speaker 1: How do you explain this? Touch on I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, Jason from your working in
Speaker 1: the innocence world. It's as frustrating as this is. It's
Speaker 1: not unusual. Uh, we We've had cases before. We're Uh,
Speaker 1: we have to fight tooth and nail to obtain a
Speaker 1: DNA testing for one of our clients, and we we
Speaker 1: get the DNA testing, all the objections of the local
Speaker 1: prosecutors and local law enforcement, we get the DNA testing.
Speaker 1: It clears our clients slash inmate whatever, and so he's cleared. Okay.
Speaker 1: Then it takes a year procedurally to get him out.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes the prosecutor will say, well, I don't really believe
Speaker 1: the DNA results. We're gonna try you again, and so
Speaker 1: they bring him back to the local jail where they
Speaker 1: can keep him forever. Uh, And a year goes by,
Speaker 1: two years ago. You know this is not again as
Speaker 1: frustrating as it is, as maddening as it is. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed to say it's not that unusual. I think
Speaker 1: in Yen's case, though, we are um pressing ahead with
Speaker 1: the full court press on many fronts. We are um
Speaker 1: cautiously optimistic that the right people are listening to us.
Speaker 1: We are almost sanctimonious in our belief that we are
Speaker 1: right and everybody else is wrong, and it's time to
Speaker 1: make something good happen. And um, that's that's why we
Speaker 1: are going to these efforts, and we're not gonna, um,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna stop, slow down or be quiet. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're just gonna get more and more vocal and push
Speaker 1: harder and harder until we get justice. Sheriff Hardy. On
Speaker 1: top of all the other evidence and FBI agents like
Speaker 1: Ed Saulsback who came forward and others to say that
Speaker 1: they had been evidence that had been hidden or or
Speaker 1: not turned over and not disclosed in the way that
Speaker 1: the law mandates that it must be. There's also the uh,
Speaker 1: in chapter eighteen of the book that I referenced before,
Speaker 1: there's the story of the car in the woods, right,
Speaker 1: which would again if you would think that this alone
Speaker 1: would be enough to send Yen's home, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote from the book again. Uh
Speaker 1: you know. In two thousand eleven, Tony Buchanan, the retired
Speaker 1: owner of a Lynchburg area auto transmission shops, said that
Speaker 1: three to five months after the murders car was towed
Speaker 1: into his shop for repairs, it's undercarriage matted with grass
Speaker 1: and mud, as if it had been sitting in the
Speaker 1: woods for a while. The tow truck driver told Buchanan
Speaker 1: the two door cheval they belonged to quote some college kids.
Speaker 1: And here's the important part. He said in this sworn
Speaker 1: statement that when he looked inside, he saw that the
Speaker 1: floorboard on the driver's side was quote full of dried blood.
Speaker 1: Beside the console between the front seats, also covered and
Speaker 1: dried blood, was a single edged hunting type knife, the
Speaker 1: same type that was used to kill the Hasoms. Now
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here, I've got chills just reading that. And
Speaker 1: you know, he that this same guy testified or swore
Speaker 1: and affidated that neither none of those people was YenS.
Speaker 1: YenS was not one of the people that returned the car.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was one and somebody else was the other. But
Speaker 1: yet here we go again. Yeah, he claimced, just a shame.
Speaker 1: So much time has passed. He claimed that he called
Speaker 1: and to Rickey Gardner, who was the lead investigator in
Speaker 1: that chief deputy in Bedford, and told him about this
Speaker 1: Gardener Denizette says, it didn't happen. Um, so so much
Speaker 1: time has passed. Some of the investigators did work that lead,
Speaker 1: and we kind of ran it out because time time
Speaker 1: was not on our side. We tried to find any
Speaker 1: documentation with material checks and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: The bikes just don't have it from back in n
Speaker 1: But if they had been followed up home properly at
Speaker 1: the time, same way, if they had sent investigators to
Speaker 1: the hotel they'd stayed at, it had cleared it up
Speaker 1: right away that Yen's was there, she wouldn't. It was
Speaker 1: his story of what he purchased was consistent with the
Speaker 1: hotel bill which she said she purchased when she stayed.
Speaker 1: There was very inconsistent way over what with the bill
Speaker 1: showed in it. But you know the bottom line, it
Speaker 1: most frustrated for me the law enforcement. I'm in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and I hope I'm respecting law enforcement. I'm a sitting sheriff,
Speaker 1: and yet the sitting sheriff in Bedford County refuses to
Speaker 1: meet with me and even discussed the case. The lead
Speaker 1: investigator won't meet with the four of us who have
Speaker 1: given thousands of hours pro bono. We don't have anything
Speaker 1: in it. We're just looking for justice. We asked for
Speaker 1: one hour and he says he doesn't have time. However,
Speaker 1: we do have him caught on videotape saying a few
Speaker 1: years ago, this happened thirty years ago. He was convicted
Speaker 1: in court. Why do we need to go any further
Speaker 1: than And I think that's the attitude, which is it's
Speaker 1: really shut down. From an investigative standpoint, We've not had
Speaker 1: access to the investigative files or any further testing because
Speaker 1: I'm out of my jurisdiction and getting absolutely no cooperation
Speaker 1: from Bedford. We have proved absolutely that they lied and
Speaker 1: concealed the fact that there was an FBI profile done.
Speaker 1: My buddy who's retired FBI agent, we had asked the
Speaker 1: FBI several times and they couldn't find any information. This,
Speaker 1: Ricky Gardner said absolutely hundred percent if it was not done.
Speaker 1: We now have actual documents from not five from the
Speaker 1: FBI that indicate a profile was done in Quantico, Virginia.
Speaker 1: So you know, my buddy um form the FBI agent said.
Speaker 1: If they will allow about that and it won't cooperate,
Speaker 1: what else is there? It certainly raises a red flag
Speaker 1: with us as investigators. Do we have any form of
Speaker 1: corruption or wrong or doing. Yeah, they won't even allow
Speaker 1: you to test the DNA of two guys that we
Speaker 1: know are in for committing similar crimes in another county
Speaker 1: in Virginia, who we don't we have no idea whether
Speaker 1: they committed this crime or not, but there's there's some
Speaker 1: reason to believe that they were. These two guys knife
Speaker 1: demand multiple times to death within a few days, and
Speaker 1: that far from the Hassome residents. Whether those victims were located,
Speaker 1: and these two folks, one of them at least was,
Speaker 1: according as background and we've read was involved in in
Speaker 1: heavy drugs and the Lynchburg area, as we believe Elizabeth was.
Speaker 1: She was admitted heroin user. And there there DNA should
Speaker 1: be in the data bank. They're both doing life of
Speaker 1: that murder. And we simply ask, would you take those
Speaker 1: profiles compare them to the crime scene, and the state says,
Speaker 1: can't do it. It's got the jurisdiction where the offense occurred.
Speaker 1: They have to request it into our knowledge. They're not
Speaker 1: doing anything, which is just remarkable, right when you think
Speaker 1: about the idea that they just refused to test something
Speaker 1: that can only prove like one or another, either these
Speaker 1: guys did it or they didn't. Why wouldn't we want
Speaker 1: to know? We want to know from investigative standpoint, do
Speaker 1: we want to keep following those two guys as a
Speaker 1: lead or can they be excluded based on the DNA
Speaker 1: very somebody would take about three or four minutes to
Speaker 1: compare those barcodes. It's so frustrating. I'm used to working
Speaker 1: in my own jurisdiction. If I want something tested, I
Speaker 1: asked Glad to do it, they do it. If I
Speaker 1: want to search one, I get it. If I have
Speaker 1: witnesses and we have two or three people that need
Speaker 1: to be interview in this case, they refuse to cooperate whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I don't have any grandeur authority to serve as a
Speaker 1: peno on them. So it's I really feel for the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project. I see what they go through now now
Speaker 1: that I'm on the other side. Defense, I feel like
Speaker 1: you're operating with both hands tad behind your back. Everything's
Speaker 1: working against you. So you gotta put a lot more
Speaker 1: work and effort into it than you really should and
Speaker 1: try to get to the truth, which we all should want.
Speaker 1: But apparently we don't all always want the truth and justice.
Speaker 1: You know. It's also something I want to touch on
Speaker 1: before I turn over to John for a second, which
Speaker 1: is that back in two thousand and eight or nine,
Speaker 1: with the support of Bishop Sullivan and other luminaries both
Speaker 1: religious and political, figures. Governor Kane granted a conditional pardon.
Speaker 1: I guess you would say that's would have allowed you
Speaker 1: to go back to Germany. And this is such an
Speaker 1: unbelievable thing to even think about. When I hear myself
Speaker 1: tell the story to people, I don't even believe it myself,
Speaker 1: but I know it's true. And then as literally as
Speaker 1: you were packing your bags, UH, the governor, the new
Speaker 1: governor came in, Governor McDonald, and he revoked for the
Speaker 1: first time and then two and thirty four year history
Speaker 1: of Virginia. He revoked the previous governor's order and and
Speaker 1: and decided that you would be kept in prison for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, which is just an unbelievable
Speaker 1: thing to process, and it is it is remarkable going
Speaker 1: back and thinking about the number of people, on the
Speaker 1: quality of people that have come to your defense, and
Speaker 1: even now the support of amazing people from journalism the
Speaker 1: Washington Post who are even here today covering the story. UM.
Speaker 1: So many of of the literally the finest UM organizations
Speaker 1: and and the leaders of different UH from all all
Speaker 1: all parts of the UH the country have have taken
Speaker 1: up this cause. And I wanted to ask you, John
Speaker 1: of all the millions of things you could be doing
Speaker 1: with your time right now, and we know that with
Speaker 1: about you know, the estimates are five percent of people
Speaker 1: in President America, which is about a hundred thousand people,
Speaker 1: are innocent. There's so many innocent people. And again there's
Speaker 1: so many other things that you Sheriff me. Uh, the
Speaker 1: million of the pro bono lawyers who have helped the
Speaker 1: Ends throughout the years and still help him now. Steve
Speaker 1: Rosen fellops in north and others. Why are you so
Speaker 1: obsessed with this case? I wouldn't say I'm obsessed. I'm
Speaker 1: very concerned about it. Uh. Since The Innocent Man was
Speaker 1: published in two thousand and six and I joined the
Speaker 1: board of the Innocence Project in New York, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of this type of work as you have, Jason.
Speaker 1: I haven't done as much as you have. But we,
Speaker 1: as individual members, we we tend to get involved in
Speaker 1: cases that we hear about. I'm still involved with the
Speaker 1: two guys in Oklahoma. There's a case in Mississippi that
Speaker 1: I'm involved with. I've known about the end Seering case
Speaker 1: here for Tive. We went to twenty five years in
Speaker 1: Charlettsville and um I've read about the case a long time,
Speaker 1: becau I didn't pay much attention to it. I saw
Speaker 1: that it was a confession. I figured, well, okay, they
Speaker 1: got the right guy. Um it was never too involved
Speaker 1: in the case. And then a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: UM talked to Steve Rosenville. We you know, we had
Speaker 1: we had a coffee, talked about the case, and he
Speaker 1: asked me to take a look at it. Well, by
Speaker 1: the end the case had been looked at, uh so
Speaker 1: many different ways by so many different people. And Chip
Speaker 1: Harding also, uh you know, spoke about the case and
Speaker 1: said he by then he had five hours in the case.
Speaker 1: He's probably got five thousand now. But Um, I just
Speaker 1: started reading about the case. He read, read the book,
Speaker 1: UH saw the movie and realized this took place, you know,
Speaker 1: very close to where I lived. I was convinced, became
Speaker 1: convinced it was a huge miscarriage of justice, and UH
Speaker 1: became fascinated with it. And UM, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: about writing the story. I thought about writing the book.
Speaker 1: These instance cases always inspired me to UM write the
Speaker 1: story because the stories are so almost all of them
Speaker 1: are so fascinating, compelling, heartbreaking, but they're just good, rich, deep,
Speaker 1: complicated stories, and I love that type of a story. So, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I talk to you Jason. We we've known
Speaker 1: each other for a long time. We we sort of
Speaker 1: got involved in the case after you and and here
Speaker 1: we are. And the more work that I do, I'm
Speaker 1: still catching up to you guys. But the more we
Speaker 1: work together, the more we're more determined we are to
Speaker 1: to to get a just decision in this case. And
Speaker 1: U we have. You know, we have several avenues left.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not hopeless by any means. We don't
Speaker 1: view it as hopeless. We we think we can smell victory.
Speaker 1: John was just thinking about the multiple avenues available. Um,
Speaker 1: most citizens cases have only one real option, and that's
Speaker 1: hardened and that's usually a full part. And that makes
Speaker 1: it very difficult because somebody has to admit that they
Speaker 1: made it terrible mistake. My case is a little bit
Speaker 1: unusual and that the state actually has still sen They
Speaker 1: have the option of an absolute pardon, which would be
Speaker 1: to declare my innocence and actually admit what really happened,
Speaker 1: which was that this is a wrongful conviction. But they
Speaker 1: have trod options. They have a conditional pardon, which would
Speaker 1: be just to say that there's a lot of doubts,
Speaker 1: but not to say I'm actually innocent, just to say
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions and a lot of doubts,
Speaker 1: you can't be sure. And then there's a third option,
Speaker 1: and that would be parole. So what are mystifying things
Speaker 1: to me about this my case in comparison to other cases,
Speaker 1: that they have a whole smartest board of options to
Speaker 1: choose from full pardon or absolute pardon, conditional pardon, and
Speaker 1: then row, and they're choosing not to exercise any of
Speaker 1: these options. And I find that truggling. Sheriff Harty, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put the same question to you. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have my own reasons. I mean, different cases affect all
Speaker 1: of us differently. Um, you're both of Virginia, of guys.
Speaker 1: I'm a New York guy, but you know I recognize
Speaker 1: injustice when I see it, and I also recognize in
Speaker 1: this case the the added tragedy of human potential and
Speaker 1: that ends. And he and I've talked about this at length. Um,
Speaker 1: the idea that Ens could be I mean, he has
Speaker 1: contributed a lot to society, even from the inside of
Speaker 1: these maximum security prisons, he's been stuck in for all
Speaker 1: these years. But the idea that he could be out,
Speaker 1: you know, doing great things. Um, with his intellect and
Speaker 1: with his his spirit and his courage. But what what
Speaker 1: is it about this case in particular that makes you
Speaker 1: wanted to vote your free time when you know, again
Speaker 1: you could be out fishing or whatever it is, playing golf. Well,
Speaker 1: this just came to me and I'm captivated by it.
Speaker 1: Like you say, you really have to dig into it
Speaker 1: to what's really grandhold of you. I first got it,
Speaker 1: really interested in this type of work, innocence work, by
Speaker 1: reading John Grisham's book back when it first came at
Speaker 1: The Innocent Man. And then I became friends with Brandon Garrett,
Speaker 1: used to be a professor here at the uv a's
Speaker 1: at Duke University. Now he has a book out Wrong
Speaker 1: Full Convictions, How criminal prosecutions went wrong, and he's got
Speaker 1: a lot of research data. Um. I'm not bragging, but
Speaker 1: I worked as an investigator and invest get a supervisor
Speaker 1: for thirty years and I never lost a case and
Speaker 1: always thought I did it right. But after reading John's
Speaker 1: book with Holy Talita, I don't think I ever wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted someone. But the opportunity surely was there. You tend
Speaker 1: to get tunnel vision, just like these folks did here.
Speaker 1: You tend to go in those gray areas that you
Speaker 1: think because you think you've got the right guy, you're
Speaker 1: doing the right thing to protect your community, and you're
Speaker 1: not necessarily doing that. So and looking at this case,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing all of those things. I'm seeing tunnel vision.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing junk signs. I'm seeing so much it's wouldn't
Speaker 1: be interesting. I'm if I had to sit in jail
Speaker 1: like he has to look at it. But I'm founding
Speaker 1: a fascinating case to dig into. Um. I I read
Speaker 1: some of the letters, it just blew me away. There
Speaker 1: was one by Elizabeth that she wrote ninety days before
Speaker 1: the murder that said, I'd always believe that I made
Speaker 1: men fall in love with me so I could take
Speaker 1: out all the hatred I felt for them by humiliating them.
Speaker 1: I despised their cheap lust and easy passions, and in
Speaker 1: the end I made them hate themselves for loving me
Speaker 1: and the torture inflicted so she might be enjoying him
Speaker 1: sitting there. The other part of it is looking at
Speaker 1: Jim Updyke, who give him credit. I thought that he
Speaker 1: did a good, masterful job of winning the case. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was about justice, he wrote in
Speaker 1: an in an interview that I've got a copy of.
Speaker 1: On one hand, she freely admitted her parents wouldn't be
Speaker 1: dead if not for her. I agree with that she
Speaker 1: wanted them dead. On the other hand, she was a
Speaker 1: great assistance to me, up Dyke said. Haysam helped him
Speaker 1: gather the evidence against Soaring and even outlined the whole
Speaker 1: case for him. Where you gotta be kidding me, but
Speaker 1: you see this stuff all over the country. Um, you
Speaker 1: know right now, I've got a lot of invested in this,
Speaker 1: as do the other investigators. And and we'll do anything
Speaker 1: we can, yeah, prove his innocence if he if we
Speaker 1: do feel like he is, and we will prevail because
Speaker 1: we're not going, as John said, we're not going to stop. Um,
Speaker 1: We're going to keep fighting until we get him out
Speaker 1: and then we'll move on to the next one. But
Speaker 1: until that's done, um, we're not. We're just going to
Speaker 1: get noisier and we're going to get more efficient, and
Speaker 1: uh we're going to uh you know, ultimately prevail. I
Speaker 1: think that you know, we do have, UM a state
Speaker 1: here where I think there's a number of very good
Speaker 1: people in the system. I think that people on the
Speaker 1: parole board are very well meaning people. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think the governor is a is a good governor who
Speaker 1: cares about this stuff, UM, cares about justice. UM. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true in all states by any means,
Speaker 1: but I think that that is true here, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna find out just how true it is,
Speaker 1: UM by shining a light on all these different aspects
Speaker 1: of the case. UM yend's before we close, I did
Speaker 1: want to ask you about your your current team, UM,
Speaker 1: what they've meant to you, UM, as well as Gayle
Speaker 1: Starling Marshall and you know, if you can just touch
Speaker 1: on that, I had a really really bad Kyle La
Speaker 1: especially the start, like you mentioned, I had really really
Speaker 1: fantastic loves, frightening funny, including UM so much defarity Attorney
Speaker 1: General Marshall, UM also feel bad and who's in the
Speaker 1: movie and of course Steve Ensfield, who is stuff like
Speaker 1: so many years and Steve mart you know, there's you know,
Speaker 1: lawyers can blame, but there's some really wonderful motels as well,
Speaker 1: and m and that has been really really hopeful to
Speaker 1: me as well to know that, um, you know, not
Speaker 1: everybody and the legal is also there is some rolling
Speaker 1: really time to human beings working as wires. And and
Speaker 1: then you know, the start seeing you guys that time,
Speaker 1: wonderful people like you and and telling profession and and
Speaker 1: not team to adjust to a ready to the editor
Speaker 1: public yesterday in the Richmond Times that um, you know,
Speaker 1: people who really have no important better things to do
Speaker 1: with their life and to worry about me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: stepping into my life and trying to help me. UM,
Speaker 1: that's that's really really impowerted and and and it's given
Speaker 1: me hope and and it gives me the hope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: trying to hold on a little while longer, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to see whether this can be is a in some
Speaker 1: way span before I have all day. UM, I can
Speaker 1: tell you exactly eleven seven five days, okay, eleven India.
Speaker 1: UM here months in the leven days. And it hasn't
Speaker 1: been easy, but that's you do have an extraordinary, extraordinary team,
Speaker 1: including the leaders of Germany. So um past and present. UM,
Speaker 1: I want to tell the audience there's there's a movie
Speaker 1: Killing for Love and the book is a far far
Speaker 1: better thing by Yensering and Bill Sizemore, A far far
Speaker 1: better thing, um and uh. For audience members who want
Speaker 1: to get involved, you can send an email to Elena
Speaker 1: A L. E n A dot yar Movski, which is
Speaker 1: why A R m O s k A hy at
Speaker 1: Governor dot Virginia dot gov. Or you can go to
Speaker 1: the website which is Governor dot Virginia dot gov. That's
Speaker 1: Governor dot Virginia dot gov. UM. And then this is
Speaker 1: part of the show that we've become known for. It's
Speaker 1: I think everyone's favorite part of the show. It's mine.
Speaker 1: And this is a part of the show where I
Speaker 1: get to thank our guests. UM. In this case of
Speaker 1: course John Grisham, John, thanks for being here. And Sheriff Harding,
Speaker 1: Sheriff Chip Harving our album Wall Accounty. Of course, U
Speaker 1: Yen's thanks for for participating in this and sharing your
Speaker 1: thoughts and experience and educating our audience. I want to
Speaker 1: turn it over to each of you just for brief
Speaker 1: closing thoughts, and of course we'll end with you. UM anyway, John, UM,
Speaker 1: final thoughts just far as uh. Yeah, I've said it before.
Speaker 1: These rawful conviction stories are always compelling and tempting from
Speaker 1: my point of view, too uh right about them to
Speaker 1: to tell the fantastic stories as said as they are, uh,
Speaker 1: but to also hopefully raise awareness. Had I not written
Speaker 1: The Innocent Man published it uh for thirteen years ago,
Speaker 1: there would not be the Netflix series now, which is
Speaker 1: getting far more attention in the book, which is all good,
Speaker 1: But as far as the stories go, you know, I've
Speaker 1: I've got my top five innocent stories that I've went
Speaker 1: across in the past twelve years, and uh, Yens's case
Speaker 1: has got to be in the top three. It's just
Speaker 1: such a compelling uh story of wrongful conviction, all the
Speaker 1: different ways that that that the things that go wrong
Speaker 1: with our system, and also the relationship with us um
Speaker 1: his accuser is fantastic. I hope there's a happy ending.
Speaker 1: We believe it's gonna be a happy ending, because we're
Speaker 1: all uh working hard with a game plan to get
Speaker 1: YenS out and they're getting back to Germany, and Jens
Speaker 1: and I have this uh kind of a running gag
Speaker 1: that one day soon we're gonna be drinking a beer
Speaker 1: together in Munich of October Fest. I'm coming to and
Speaker 1: by the way here and I have the same deal,
Speaker 1: so you know I don't I don't want to make
Speaker 1: you not feel special, but we got the same We're
Speaker 1: all invited. We're all invited to october Fest. That's right, um,
Speaker 1: Sheriff Harding final thoughts. Until I got involved in this
Speaker 1: kind of work, I always thought that you were found
Speaker 1: guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But it looks like in America,
Speaker 1: once you're found guilty, to be found innocent or pardon,
Speaker 1: it almost has to be your innocent beyond a shadow
Speaker 1: of a doubt. The standard is way too high. It's
Speaker 1: shameful for me to have fifty years in the justice
Speaker 1: system and to see the pushback. Not just in this case,
Speaker 1: but I think I've read three or four cases from
Speaker 1: prosecutors and law enforcement that don't man up and step
Speaker 1: up and admit they make mistakes and seek the truth,
Speaker 1: and no one has ever held accountable. In the first
Speaker 1: two fifty cases that Brandon Garrett examined, in many cases
Speaker 1: prosecutors with held excupltore evidence. So the law enforcement in
Speaker 1: that one single case, that one officer ever go to
Speaker 1: trial or spend one day in jail. So we can't
Speaker 1: police ourselves. How do we anticipate the public is going
Speaker 1: to have a confidence in us to police them? And now, UM,
Speaker 1: saving the best for last, UM ends UH your final thoughts.
Speaker 1: Thank you. UM. I think it's important for your audience,
Speaker 1: UM to realize that they are estimated one hundred thousands
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted prisoners in the United States. UM. That's a
Speaker 1: small city, and I'm far from the only one. I'm
Speaker 1: really really grateful to the three of you, John Grisham,
Speaker 1: your parting and Taste Flam for drawing attention to my case.
Speaker 1: But let's not forget the other victims of miscarriages of justice. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I really would hope for
Speaker 1: here is that if I'm ever released, UM, I can
Speaker 1: maybe help UM draw attention to all those other people
Speaker 1: and work towards systemic changes so that things likeness don't
Speaker 1: happen to other people in future US. You know something
Speaker 1: to think about. There's a hundred thousands innocent people in
Speaker 1: prim in the United States. UM. Somebody should be really
Speaker 1: bothered by that, and we hope help your audience thinks
Speaker 1: about them as well. And I'm want to stand giving
Speaker 1: this opportunity to speak today talk about John Grisham, Sheriff
Speaker 1: Chip Harvy of Babolore County, and you and sirring the
Speaker 1: thank you 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 Innisis 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 inniss
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 on the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at rang Full Conviction and on Facebook
Speaker 1: at rang Full Conviction podcast. Rawn Full Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Segnal Company Number one h