Speaker 1: January fifteenth, nineteen eighty was Martin Luther King Day. As
Speaker 1: the young folks with the day all from school in Wilmington,
Speaker 1: Delaware through a party. At about five pm, two white
Speaker 1: fifteen year olds, a male and a female, left the
Speaker 1: party and headed towards some train tracks. There are some
Speaker 1: discrepancies between their accounts, but according to both of them,
Speaker 1: a black man in tan pants and a green jacket
Speaker 1: chased the young man away before raping the young woman.
Speaker 1: The young man said that the assailant was a former
Speaker 1: classmate named Elmer, and the young woman identified eighteen year
Speaker 1: old Elmer Daniels from a photoor array. Then the search
Speaker 1: of Elmer's home turned up a tampair of pants and
Speaker 1: a green jacket in addition to the ID and the
Speaker 1: items of clothing. An FBI agent testified a trial about
Speaker 1: hairs found on Elmer's pants and the young woman's undergarments.
Speaker 1: They constituted what he called a double match. But this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm John Huffington,
Speaker 1: former guest, and we'll have my episode linked in the bio.
Speaker 1: I spent thirty two years in the Maryland Department of correction,
Speaker 1: ten of those years were on death row. During that time,
Speaker 1: an FBI whistleblower exposed a fellow agent for testifying beyond
Speaker 1: the limits of science. In my case and many others,
Speaker 1: one of which we will be covering today, I'm so
Speaker 1: honored to be filling in for my dear friend Jason
Speaker 1: flumm As we welcome Elmer Daniels. Can you introduce yourself
Speaker 1: to the audience.
Speaker 2: My name is Elmer Daniels, and I'm a twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: exonery convicted in nineteen eighty for a rape that never happened.
Speaker 1: And before we unpack all that, I just want to
Speaker 1: introduce your attorneys also joining us, Emica Igway, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so Elmer. Before any of this
Speaker 1: happened to you, I just kind of want to hear
Speaker 1: a little bit about your life growing up in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 2: Okay. I came from a two parent household. Now, I
Speaker 2: had my great grandparents, my grandparents, mom and dad, big family.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a bad kid, and I knew right from wrong,
Speaker 2: and I based all my decisions on not getting an
Speaker 2: ass whoopings for real, I'm being honest, and that was
Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies kid growing up.
Speaker 1: But you did stray from that guiding principle at least
Speaker 1: on one occasion. It did something well, you know, it
Speaker 1: was kind of commonplace in the sixties and seventies, right,
Speaker 1: joy riding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went for a joey ride, all right. That
Speaker 2: was the only thing that I actually was as a
Speaker 2: minor convicted of. It was on my record, and it
Speaker 2: was in Ellesmere. I was a young kid and bumped
Speaker 2: into the van. The keys fell and my light went on,
Speaker 2: Oh there's a van, you know, let's see how far
Speaker 2: you can go in it before you get cart I
Speaker 2: got caught.
Speaker 1: Now, when you got caught for that, did you do
Speaker 1: a juvie time?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I went to Bridge House. I stayed at Bridge
Speaker 2: House for ninety maybe ninety because you could just go
Speaker 2: and then your parts come get you, you know. So
Speaker 2: she let me bake for a while, you know, and
Speaker 2: let me see how it was. And actually that that
Speaker 2: was enough.
Speaker 1: So a little tough love, you know, steered your way
Speaker 1: from the petty crime. I mean, obviously joey riding is
Speaker 1: certainly not a violent crime. But that incident is why
Speaker 1: the police had your mugshot in January of nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: when the alleged rape occurred. Emica, can you fill us
Speaker 1: in a little bit on the details.
Speaker 3: The underlying crime was an alleged rape of a fifteen
Speaker 3: year old white female who left a party on January fifteenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty, with another fifteen year old white male. They
Speaker 3: went to some nearby railroad tracks. When they get there,
Speaker 3: their stories differ. According to the fifteen year old male,
Speaker 3: he engaged in sexual intercourse with the fifteen year old
Speaker 3: white female. The white female denies that she ever had
Speaker 3: sexual intercourse with the male. Nonetheless, the female claims that
Speaker 3: while they were talking on the railroad tracks, a black
Speaker 3: male came up to them. The fifteen year old male
Speaker 3: ran away, and after he ran away, the black mail
Speaker 3: allegedly held her down and raped her for two and
Speaker 3: a half minutes. The black mail allegedly had his hands
Speaker 3: on her neck.
Speaker 1: And both the alleged victim, who will refer to as GS,
Speaker 1: and the young man who will call case. Both of
Speaker 1: them said that the alleged asaund was wearing khaki pants
Speaker 1: and a green jacket, and GS described the alleged sailing
Speaker 1: as having a big news and nails that were bitten
Speaker 1: down as far as they could go. So what happened next?
Speaker 3: She goes back to the party and tells people that
Speaker 3: she had been raped. The police are called and when
Speaker 3: the police come, naturally they want to speak to the
Speaker 3: fifteen year old male and questioned him on what occurred,
Speaker 3: and he gives about four different accounts and the first
Speaker 3: time he says some male named Jack Smith came up.
Speaker 3: The police followed that lead find out that it's false.
Speaker 3: After about three or four stories that are inconsistent and
Speaker 3: contradictory and turn out to be false, the police turn
Speaker 3: around and charged this fifteen year old Mail with hindering prosecution.
Speaker 3: They also threatened to charge him with the actual rape
Speaker 3: itself unless he tells them what really happened. And under
Speaker 3: that durest, the fifteen year old Mail says, there was
Speaker 3: some guy named Elmer. I don't know his last name,
Speaker 3: but I was in the same eighth grade math class
Speaker 3: with him. That's going to turn out to be significant
Speaker 3: because the name of the middle school was called Bayered
Speaker 3: Middle School. Elma had in fact attended by a middle school,
Speaker 3: but back in nineteen seventy eight, when this fifteen year
Speaker 3: old Mail was in middle school, Elma was in the
Speaker 3: tenth grade at a nearby high school. There was a
Speaker 3: three year age difference between him. He was fifteen, Alma
Speaker 3: was eighteen. They won in the same eighth grade math
Speaker 3: class together.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, did you even know Casey?
Speaker 2: Never met him before, never met the girl till I
Speaker 2: walked into the courtroom. Wow, as the first time I
Speaker 2: actually seen both of them.
Speaker 1: So now they go looking for a kid named Elmer
Speaker 1: that attended Bayern Middle School. But the three year difference
Speaker 1: between Elmer and case should have been enough for the
Speaker 1: police to see the case. He had lied again, this
Speaker 1: time for the very obvious benefit of not being charged
Speaker 1: in the rape himself. But instead they pulled Elmer's mugshot,
Speaker 1: and at this point GS had already seen upwards of
Speaker 1: three hundred mug shots, and who knows how suggestive this
Speaker 1: identification process was. In addition, we know from study after
Speaker 1: study the cross reshoal identifications are less accurate than guessing.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless that's what we have here. And they got
Speaker 1: an arrest warrant for Elmer.
Speaker 2: Thirty five days into my eighteenth birthday, a knock on
Speaker 2: my door six eighteen North Harston Street, City Wilmington. Our
Speaker 2: brother opens the door. Police entered, said they were looking
Speaker 2: for me because they were charging me with the crime
Speaker 2: of rape. At that time, not knowing what that was,
Speaker 2: I had asked a question, what is that? After being
Speaker 2: explained what that was by my sister, I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know what to think, but I
Speaker 2: did know I'm going to jail.
Speaker 1: Sir Elmer, you weren't even there. Where were you when
Speaker 1: this happened?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I wasn't there. I was playing basketball at church
Speaker 2: cross the street from my house. You had to sign
Speaker 2: in and people that I was with their names were
Speaker 2: on there, and all the childhood friends and neighborhood all
Speaker 2: their names was on there. But there had a problem
Speaker 2: with me because my name was on the bottom of
Speaker 2: the list. But it's on the list. Where regards that?
Speaker 1: Now? This church basketball court was well over a mile
Speaker 1: from where the incident occurred.
Speaker 2: Yes, but police said I could run from where I
Speaker 2: lived to where the crime happened in two minutes, I
Speaker 2: mean sixty seconds there went the crime is sixty seconds back.
Speaker 2: And he said he drove it and he got there
Speaker 2: in two minutes. So if I was running, there's no
Speaker 2: way I'm gonna get there in two minutes.
Speaker 1: And then do an assault That last summer was three minutes.
Speaker 2: And come back. So we got a total of seven minutes.
Speaker 1: So basically you were running a mile under a minute,
Speaker 1: So that's been possible. Now, this was the pre DNA,
Speaker 1: but a rape kit was performed and physical evidence had
Speaker 1: been collected. So what can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3: There was blood, there was seamen, and there was hair evidence.
Speaker 3: They were able to match the blood type to Elmer.
Speaker 3: They had semen DNA didn't exist, but there was nothing
Speaker 3: they could use to match that to Elmer.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure had there been a blood type president
Speaker 1: in the semen that matched Elmer, they would have made
Speaker 1: huge smoke about that. But Secret's status isn't even mentioned.
Speaker 1: So we've got the impossible on foot round trip. The
Speaker 1: blood type didn't match the three year age difference. As
Speaker 1: for the hair evidence, there were hairs collected from Elmer's
Speaker 1: pants as well as hair is collected from Gs's undergarments,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in just a bit. But first,
Speaker 1: when they tossed your house, they found items of clothing
Speaker 1: khaki pants and a green jacket. This is what the
Speaker 1: alleged sound was supposed to have been wearing.
Speaker 2: They actually found the pants in a third bedroom closet.
Speaker 2: There were a pair of khakis, but they were old.
Speaker 2: You know how you put clothes away and you pack them.
Speaker 2: They went through the house and they found those. They
Speaker 2: found jacket in my brother's bedroom on the second floor,
Speaker 2: which was his jacket. Had his name on it, but
Speaker 2: they tried to say it belonged to me.
Speaker 3: So there was a notebook that was inside the jacket.
Speaker 3: Fingerprints were lifted from that notebook. There was an FBI
Speaker 3: agent who testified that he could not exclude Elmer, but
Speaker 3: he couldn't include him either, And when we got involved,
Speaker 3: we had them retest those fingerprints, and those fingerprints were
Speaker 3: negative for Elma's fingerprints. So that goes to show the
Speaker 3: lack of evidence that that jacket belonged to Elmer, in
Speaker 3: addition to having another name engraved on the inside, so they.
Speaker 1: Were really just trying to fit a square peg into
Speaker 1: a round hole.
Speaker 3: From the very beginning, the police were eager to find someone.
Speaker 3: There had been two previous rapes by alleged blackmails of
Speaker 3: white women back in nineteen eighty and the police wanted
Speaker 3: to find out if Elmer was a serial rapist, and
Speaker 3: they actually tried to link him to the previous two rapes,
Speaker 3: and that came out to be not true, so they
Speaker 3: dropped that and proceeded to want to prosecute Elmer. We
Speaker 3: believed send a message and to appease the community that
Speaker 3: we can't hang them like we used to back in
Speaker 3: the sixties, but we can send a message by giving
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old mail a life sentence.
Speaker 1: There was a no bail situation.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming bail was actually five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow, and did you post that bill?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I wasn't in financial fortitude to post
Speaker 2: a bail.
Speaker 1: So while you were stuck in jail from January until
Speaker 1: trial in May of nineteen eighty, I understand that the
Speaker 1: Court of the pointed a psychologist to make a recommendation
Speaker 1: on your mental state, and in interviewing you, he raised
Speaker 1: a red flag, saying, among other things, that hey Gs
Speaker 1: has said that her sailing had a big nose and
Speaker 1: nails that were bitten down to the nub. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the case with you.
Speaker 2: I went in in my natural senseus self in state.
Speaker 2: It was comfortable, and he and I had a conversation,
Speaker 2: but at the same time he was observing the things
Speaker 2: that they said were part of me that weren't, and
Speaker 2: he made that ascertation in his notes.
Speaker 3: Matt Quarter appointed psychologists actually took the time. He states
Speaker 3: in this letter, I tried not to play detective, but
Speaker 3: I have to write your honor to state that I
Speaker 3: believe Elma Daniels is innocent. And we have that letter.
Speaker 3: He c ced the district attorney and Elmer's public defender,
Speaker 3: and he goes on to lists why he believes that
Speaker 3: Elmer is in fact innocent.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a public defender. How often did
Speaker 1: you even talk to did you meet?
Speaker 2: Well, I met defense attorney Edward Pankowski. By the time
Speaker 2: I got to dry I had only seen him twice.
Speaker 2: But the first thing that he offered me when I
Speaker 2: met him was a deal. And I'm like, deal for
Speaker 2: what you know? He said, well, you know, judging that
Speaker 2: they got all the evidence that I see against you,
Speaker 2: because he had ran all over the all the evidence
Speaker 2: with me that he felt was making me guilty. The
Speaker 2: first deal was five to fifteenth to life. That was
Speaker 2: for second degree. I'm like, well, we're going to We're
Speaker 2: gonna try right, they're gonna try. If they're gonna get me,
Speaker 2: they're gonna get me because I'm a go down fight.
Speaker 1: So the jury was going to hear from Gs to
Speaker 1: Casey as well as this puff of smoke from the
Speaker 1: FBI fingerprint analysis about the notebook in the green jacket.
Speaker 1: And then our favorite the FBI agent who also testified
Speaker 1: in my case, special agent Michael P. Malone, and he's
Speaker 1: going to testify about hair is allegedly found on Gs's
Speaker 1: undergarmers and these khaki pants that have been packed away
Speaker 1: in a third bedroom clause at Elmer's house.
Speaker 3: I always say that I don't blame the jury for
Speaker 3: convicting Elmer because the hair analysis would have had a
Speaker 3: tremendous impact on anyone. They had this FBI agent who
Speaker 3: supposedly had all the credentials as an expert and was
Speaker 3: a prolific testifier on behalf of the FBI. He testified,
Speaker 3: as you know, all across the country. He appears, and
Speaker 3: he says in Elma's case that there was a double match.
Speaker 3: What do we mean by a double match? He said
Speaker 3: there was hair that was found on the pants when
Speaker 3: Elmo was arrested that belonged to Caucasian individual, and there
Speaker 3: was hair found on the underwear of the victim that
Speaker 3: belonged to an African American individual. And he testified to
Speaker 3: the jury that there was a microscopic match between the
Speaker 3: hair and the victims underwear that belonged to Elmer, and
Speaker 3: the hair that was found on Elma's pants was belonged
Speaker 3: to the victim. And he said it was a double match,
Speaker 3: that this is something he's never even come across. You
Speaker 3: can imagine the impact that that would have had on
Speaker 3: a jury. Back then there wasn't any DNA, but that
Speaker 3: kind of testimony is equivalent to DNA identification.
Speaker 1: Okay, I get the definition of double match, but guess
Speaker 1: what if neither one of them is the right hair,
Speaker 1: then you've matched nothing. You just have two hairs in
Speaker 1: two different places or three different places that actually aren't
Speaker 1: the same hairs? Am I right in just that basic assumption?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And that's one of the things when we fast
Speaker 3: forward when we send the transcripts to the FBI, they
Speaker 3: had to admit. The Special counsel from the US Department
Speaker 3: of Justice wrote to the Attorney General of Delaware admitting
Speaker 3: their agent testified, as they put it, beyond the means
Speaker 3: of science aka also known as he lied.
Speaker 1: And you know he used that phrase to elevate it
Speaker 1: to some extreme like I've never hardy ever seen this,
Speaker 1: or you know this is a double match, and you
Speaker 1: get this catchphrase that, like you said, twelve people like
Speaker 1: you and I are hearing this when you have an
Speaker 1: FBI agent suit and tie Jagger Hoover. We're all taught
Speaker 1: to believe in the infallibility of their work, because I
Speaker 1: had a similar thing. Agent Michael Malone in my case
Speaker 1: was to a ninety eight point nine percent certainty, but
Speaker 1: we learned later that one he probably didn't even do
Speaker 1: the test himself, and DNA conclusively proved that he was lying.
Speaker 1: So I get what you're saying as far as that goes.
Speaker 1: So everything stacked against Selmer. We've got these junk sciences
Speaker 1: going on. Did your lawyer contact the people that played
Speaker 1: basketball with you.
Speaker 2: The guy that ran the director he actually testified, he
Speaker 2: signed in. I knew he was there, know all his friends,
Speaker 2: even some of our friends testified.
Speaker 1: But since these people knew you, obviously the prosecution just
Speaker 1: shot holes in your alibi by attacking their credibility on
Speaker 1: that angle. But what about the age discrepancy between you
Speaker 1: and k C. I mean, obviously you guys were not
Speaker 1: in the same year school.
Speaker 3: The prosecutor presented a middle school teacher to say that
Speaker 3: Elmer was in the eighth grade math class. We believed
Speaker 3: that teacher did, in fact teach Elmer, but this year's
Speaker 3: prior and Elma also, to make it more confused, Elma
Speaker 3: also had brothers who had that same teacher.
Speaker 2: And his sister.
Speaker 3: Yes, we all had him for home room, all had him.
Speaker 3: So but Elmer then takes a stand and tells a jury, no,
Speaker 3: I was not in the same eighth grade math class
Speaker 3: as Casey. The prosecution then calls us a rebuttal witness,
Speaker 3: a detective who is a name defendant in the lawsuit
Speaker 3: that we have going on now and he's still alive,
Speaker 3: who says, Elmer, so it was in the same eighth
Speaker 3: grade math class as CAC. So you can see how
Speaker 3: the jury would say, well, if he's going to lie
Speaker 3: to us about being the same eighth grade math class
Speaker 3: as KC, KC testified to it, the teacher testified to it,
Speaker 3: and this rebuttal witness came and testified to it, it
Speaker 3: must be true. And where we follow the prosecutor is
Speaker 3: just like we pulled the transcripts. He's an agent of
Speaker 3: the state. The school districts are agents of the state.
Speaker 3: He could have easily pulled those transcripts, but they had
Speaker 3: a narrative and they were going to follow through that
Speaker 3: narrative that Elma was in fact the rivers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is definitely improper. Did you just take the
Speaker 1: stand in this case?
Speaker 3: She was one of the first witnesses.
Speaker 1: What's your analysis of the cross examination?
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, there was several things that he could have certainly
Speaker 3: explored contradictions not just in her testimony, but the testimony
Speaker 3: of KC. One of the big ones was Casey's claim
Speaker 3: that he had sexual intercourse. That should have been explored.
Speaker 3: There was some other evidence that we don't need to
Speaker 3: get into that shows that she didn't in fact have
Speaker 3: sexual intercourse, but not if that was explored.
Speaker 1: I do want to ask Ember. It's one thing to have,
Speaker 1: you know, fbi ages and folk up there and they're
Speaker 1: describing evidence and talking about things. It's another thing when
Speaker 1: it gets personal. How did you feel when you sat
Speaker 1: there and listened to Gs's testimony.
Speaker 2: I basically sitting there as an eighteen year old kid.
Speaker 2: Is she's lying, literally, she's lying, And what could I
Speaker 2: do about it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I have people protecting her interests and nobody protected mind.
Speaker 2: So I sit there, watch listen. I can't explode because
Speaker 2: it makes it worse, so I had to sit there
Speaker 2: and swallow it. But at the same time, you can't
Speaker 2: understand why someone would do that.
Speaker 1: So between GS identifying you and Special Agent Malone making
Speaker 1: his double match, any of the other defense efforts were
Speaker 1: doomed to fall short.
Speaker 2: When they found me guilty a month later that they
Speaker 2: sentenced me. I'll never forget it on my sister's birthday.
Speaker 2: So they give me forty five years to life with
Speaker 2: the possibility up role. But the thing about it is
Speaker 2: they convicted me, sentenced me, offered me a deal in
Speaker 2: the process before trial, after trial, gave me time, pulled
Speaker 2: me back into court eighteen months later, offered me a deal.
Speaker 1: Paul's there for a second. I gotta keep up with
Speaker 1: you on that part of the story.
Speaker 2: Eighteen months they come back with this deal. Now, common sense,
Speaker 2: tell me when they did that, because they did it
Speaker 2: before trial, during trial, and then you convict me and
Speaker 2: give me the time, and then you're coming back to
Speaker 2: offer me the deal, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 2: then they blamed it on the fact that because I
Speaker 2: had no real serious criminal history and due to the
Speaker 2: lack of physical trauma to the victim, then they didn't
Speaker 2: feel it was conducive to give me what you gave me,
Speaker 2: And so all those flags went up. Something's wrong. And
Speaker 2: that's what I just kept saying to myself, something's wrong.
Speaker 2: Why would you come back and offer me a deal?
Speaker 2: You knocked me in my head, said that's what I deserved.
Speaker 2: Somebody in there knew something was wrong, but that somebody
Speaker 2: couldn't do anymore than they were doing. When I went
Speaker 2: into the penitentiary, it only held five hundred people, okay,
Speaker 2: and you could scratch it at seven. Imagine seeing three
Speaker 2: penitentiaries built, you know, and asking you do you want
Speaker 2: to build or be a part? Now, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: not building anything you're gonna put me in, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. Early into
Speaker 2: being in calls, Rade, I wanted to fight you at
Speaker 2: every cause, first I'm scared. Second, I'm not gonna let
Speaker 2: you do anything to me, you know. And I learned
Speaker 2: real earlier because of a guy that was familiar with
Speaker 2: my family and knew. My father kind of pulled me
Speaker 2: to the side and he let me know. He said, listen,
Speaker 2: you're angry, but you know if you don't change, somebody's
Speaker 2: gonna kill you, or you're gonna kill somebody because you're angry.
Speaker 2: And he said, let me ask you something, and I
Speaker 2: said what he said, had all the guys is in
Speaker 2: here who did something to And that made sense to
Speaker 2: me because they were there before I got there. And
Speaker 2: so there's a code of ethic, there's inmate code of ethic,
Speaker 2: and then there's the code of ethic for the officers
Speaker 2: because they want to go home. So what you see,
Speaker 2: you see, but you don't see it, and the penitentiary
Speaker 2: all you have is your word. I found out that
Speaker 2: over the course of time, the most important quality that
Speaker 2: we have as a human being, to be able to
Speaker 2: communicate with people, becomes stagnated. We're around the same people
Speaker 2: every day. We do the same thing twenty three twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a day and didn't turn around repeat it tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It's just like getting up going to work. I guess
Speaker 2: that's why I like going to work. It's a process.
Speaker 2: But for me to see all those things, and I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna get into all the violent parts of that
Speaker 2: because I don't need that to steer my emotions, because
Speaker 2: it does. But I never not thought that I wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna see the other side of the face. That never
Speaker 2: entertained my mind. But I knew I was gonna be
Speaker 2: here for a while. My whole mindset was that since
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be here, I might as well go ahead
Speaker 2: and do what I gotta do. I got my high
Speaker 2: school diploma, started dabbling in everything else that I could
Speaker 2: closed myself in that eight by ten, and I started
Speaker 2: opening up those books called law and rules and codes
Speaker 2: of ethic, and I started finding out what specific words meant.
Speaker 2: Not even know what layman terms meant until I got
Speaker 2: back into the courtroom and I used the terminology y'ah.
Speaker 2: And I don't know where he's speaking. He's speaking lingal language.
Speaker 2: I need to know what he's saying. And that's when
Speaker 2: I learned to have a judge have them explained to
Speaker 2: you so you can understand.
Speaker 1: So you set yourself on the positive path and got
Speaker 1: involved in your own legal fight. But what happened in
Speaker 1: his initial appeal.
Speaker 3: So after he was convicted, he had an ineffective assistance claim.
Speaker 3: They appointed him attorney there, but they appointed him another
Speaker 3: attorney out of the Public Defender's office. So that's yeah,
Speaker 3: of course it's a conflict of interesting like a private
Speaker 3: firm or another associate, you know, going after you know,
Speaker 3: another attorney. You know, that's that's what happened. But anyway,
Speaker 3: after that was quickly shot down by the judge Elmer,
Speaker 3: who you know at the time had a tenth grade
Speaker 3: education and had a life sentence. Even though he requested
Speaker 3: to have a pellate council, he was denied a pellt
Speaker 3: council and he was forced to fight this case on
Speaker 3: his own pro se for the next thirty six years.
Speaker 3: You know, Elma's official sentence was thirty years to life.
Speaker 3: After he hit thirty years, he petitioned for parole. He
Speaker 3: kept getting denied.
Speaker 2: They want you to admit your crime, and that when
Speaker 2: you do that, you can't take it back. And so
Speaker 2: that was my biggest issue going through all this is
Speaker 2: I wanted something that was rightfully mine, but would I
Speaker 2: sell my soul get it back?
Speaker 3: Finally, after thirty five thirty six years, there was a
Speaker 3: sympathetic African American female on the parole board who seemed
Speaker 3: to really listen to what Elmer was presented to show
Speaker 3: in fact, he was innocent, and we believe she advocated
Speaker 3: for him to be released on parole.
Speaker 2: I was parole November twenty fifteen and had met a
Speaker 2: Mecca on January twenty sixth, twenty sixteen. I had an
Speaker 2: expungement some of that up on the church on Fifth
Speaker 2: and Clayton Street. If you were convicted of a crime,
Speaker 2: and your crime is like five years old or older,
Speaker 2: you can have those things removed from your record because
Speaker 2: that is one of the things that is hindering you
Speaker 2: from being gainfully employed. And so he got up and
Speaker 2: spoke my life into existence. Everything that came out of
Speaker 2: his mouth was literally me. He said, just imagine for
Speaker 2: a moment that you are a young man and you
Speaker 2: go to prison, you're eighteen nineteen years old, and you
Speaker 2: come out as a fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight
Speaker 2: year old man. I'm somewhere around there at fifty four
Speaker 2: or somewhere like that, and I'm shaking my head. And
Speaker 2: he said, then, you know, after you come out, your
Speaker 2: life is basically over. Now you got to get it
Speaker 2: back together. But you don't know what to do, because
Speaker 2: the one thing that's hindering you is what you actually
Speaker 2: went to prison for. And so I still didn't wait
Speaker 2: to talk with him. And when I got the opportunity
Speaker 2: to say what I need to say, my first question
Speaker 2: to him was, you know, you smoke my life just
Speaker 2: now up here, and I just did thirty five years
Speaker 2: in peditentiary, and I have evidence that proved I've never
Speaker 2: committed a crime at all. I have it right here
Speaker 2: in my hands. And I remember the young lady coming
Speaker 2: to tell him, mister Mecha, your seats ready, and people
Speaker 2: were in line waiting on you, and he said, come on,
Speaker 2: and so I went from the end of his line
Speaker 2: to the front of his line, got his last card,
Speaker 2: and all he said was, Okay, I'm gonna help you
Speaker 2: of cost you nothing. And we've been here ever since.
Speaker 3: You know, Elma was convicted in May of nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: and I was born in August of nineteen eighty. So
Speaker 3: I feel one of my life missions, reason I'm here
Speaker 3: on earth was to cross paths with Elmer and help
Speaker 3: write the injustice that was done to him.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, you know, instead of being able to just
Speaker 1: focus solely on clearing his name. Your efforts were split
Speaker 1: because Elmer got sent back to prisoner on a parole violation.
Speaker 3: When he was released, he was given two conditions. Number
Speaker 3: one he had to obtain and maintain employment, and number
Speaker 3: two was because he was a convicted sex offender, he
Speaker 3: had to take certain classes in order to be rehabilitated. So,
Speaker 3: on the first condition, Elmer obtains employment at a local
Speaker 3: barbecue restaurant, and three weeks into working there, that restaurant
Speaker 3: gets a call from the state police stating that Elmer
Speaker 3: is a convicted sex offender and they were coming out
Speaker 3: the next day to put posters in the restaurant to
Speaker 3: notify patrons that Elmer was a convicted sex offender. So
Speaker 3: you can imagine what happens next. The next day, Elma
Speaker 3: is brought in and it's told unfortunately he has to
Speaker 3: be let go. So despite the fact that they cause
Speaker 3: Elmer to lose his employment, that was cited as the
Speaker 3: first violation. The second condition was to take these classes,
Speaker 3: which Elma takes all the classes, and upon completing all
Speaker 3: the classes, he said, in order to get a certificate
Speaker 3: of completion, he had to admit guilt.
Speaker 2: And my whole thing was I'm willing to participate. But
Speaker 2: if you ask me if I did it, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say no. You're repunishing me. That's because I'm simply saying no.
Speaker 2: But you're not listening to why I'm saying no.
Speaker 3: He has a constitutional right to maintain his innocence, but
Speaker 3: he was told we're going to find that it's a
Speaker 3: second violation. So after tasting freedom for eight months, after
Speaker 3: being locked up continuously for thirty six years, he was
Speaker 3: sent back to prison with a clear message that unless
Speaker 3: you're willing to admit gil, you're not going to see
Speaker 3: the light of day again.
Speaker 1: So Emmical uncovered for you basically the same thing that
Speaker 1: happened in my case. And if it's all right with you,
Speaker 1: I just want to do a little bit of a
Speaker 1: rundown of that history right now and make sure you
Speaker 1: know everything that was going on at that time. Bad
Speaker 1: So Agent Michael Malone, the FBI, who was their premier
Speaker 1: hair microscopic examiner, who also became the center in the
Speaker 1: hub of an international scandal that basically took the FBI
Speaker 1: lab down where they don't do microscope hair examinations anymore.
Speaker 1: But this actually started in August of nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: there was the guy that ran the metallurgical lab, was
Speaker 1: named William Tobin, and he raised concerns about Agent Michael
Speaker 1: Malone's testimony in a different case because he knew he
Speaker 1: was lying, and he brought it up then. And then
Speaker 1: fast forward a little bit, there was the Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: bombing case. I'm sure you've heard about that. After that case,
Speaker 1: a whistle blur came out of the FBI lab, doctor
Speaker 1: Frederick Whitehurst, and he wrote letters. He made a lot
Speaker 1: of allegations. Basically, he was saying that the FBI Lab
Speaker 1: is being coerced into always presenting evidence favorable to the state.
Speaker 1: They were trying to tell him how to do it.
Speaker 1: They weren't following best practices, and he raised a lot
Speaker 1: of issues about agent Michael Malone. Well Inspector General's Office,
Speaker 1: which is above the FBI, launched a big investigation and
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven they issued a report and they
Speaker 1: named the agent Michael Malone and said that he consistently
Speaker 1: misrepresents evidence and testifies outside of his area of expertise.
Speaker 1: I think, as Emmica said earlier, Layman terms it sounds
Speaker 1: like you just called him a liar. So I have
Speaker 1: a copy of that report. I know about it, but
Speaker 1: I can't do anything with it. It's not enough to
Speaker 1: go up against the FBI agent and say he lied
Speaker 1: in my case. You know, it just wasn't enough. Now
Speaker 1: what nobody knew. Right after that report came out, the
Speaker 1: FBI themselves launched a new investigation and they brought an
Speaker 1: outside forensic scientist to look at every case that maloone
Speaker 1: had touched. Mine was in that mix. I'm sure yours was,
Speaker 1: but they never made it public. So the FBI they
Speaker 1: sent that to my prosecutor with a letter saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with the Humpington case, and my prosecutor
Speaker 1: covered that up for the next fourteen years. I would
Speaker 1: not have known about it if it wasn't for Spencer
Speaker 1: Shoe at the Washington Post in twenty fifteen. Spencer wrote
Speaker 1: the article that exposed it was the whole scandal that
Speaker 1: was going on with the FBI lab. At that point,
Speaker 1: they start scrambling. They know that report was coming out
Speaker 1: in my case. They ended up DNA testing the hair
Speaker 1: and they were not my hairs. And that's how I
Speaker 1: want a rid of actual innocence, but not to get
Speaker 1: off into that I'm just saying this started in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Really coalesceding formulated in nineteen ninety seven to
Speaker 1: ninety nine, and you weren't contacted. They didn't tell you.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I think twenty fifteen, after the article
Speaker 1: came out, where the Innocence Project got involved with the
Speaker 1: DOJ Department of Justice, and at that point they started
Speaker 1: making some notifications to some defense lawyers. But you and
Speaker 1: I both it cost us probably an extra fifteen years
Speaker 1: in prison because they were withholding this information from us.
Speaker 2: No that first I heard, I would.
Speaker 1: Have turned to Mecca, who I'm sure knows pretty much everything.
Speaker 1: I just said, you're coming on board. It's twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: the articles come out. You've got not only ha their
Speaker 1: evidence is questionable, but you have the agent in question,
Speaker 1: the guy that is at the heart of the whole storm,
Speaker 1: Michael P. Malone.
Speaker 3: So we saw, you know, the Inspector General's report, all
Speaker 3: the documentation on what was going on. So we knew
Speaker 3: we had a serious issue. So we sent the trial
Speaker 3: transcripts to the FBI. They pointed a special counsel who
Speaker 3: was looking at this case, and he wrote a letter
Speaker 3: to the Attorney General of Delaware stated, as we said earlier,
Speaker 3: that the agent had testified beyond the means of science
Speaker 3: in Elma's case, and that was cited along with what
Speaker 3: we talked about earlier with the transcripts showing Elma was
Speaker 3: not in the same eighth grade math class as kc.
Speaker 1: Not to mention all the other reasons that should have
Speaker 1: kept them from pursuing Elmer at all. But now, unfortunately
Speaker 1: the biological evidence in this case had been destroyed, so
Speaker 1: it was never going to be a slam dunk on
Speaker 1: the exoneration through DNA testing, But how did Delaware react
Speaker 1: to the evidence that you had a messed.
Speaker 3: So the Attorney General's office too for Nale to not
Speaker 3: release Elmer and to give him alternate solutions. And this
Speaker 3: is a consistent theme that I've seen in a number
Speaker 3: of wrongful conviction cases. Even if they're going to let
Speaker 3: you go, the next thing they do is try to
Speaker 3: mitigate or totally eliminate any potential civil liability that were
Speaker 3: resulting you getting compensated. And one of the ways they
Speaker 3: do that is never totally exonerate you. They offered him
Speaker 3: a commutation, which is you're guilty, but we're just going
Speaker 3: to cut short your sentence. So I want your audience
Speaker 3: to think about this. If you're guilty, you're going to
Speaker 3: jump at that. But Elma was willing to spend the
Speaker 3: rest of his life in jail in order not to
Speaker 3: admit to a crime that he knew he didn't commit,
Speaker 3: and so he turned that down. And so only after
Speaker 3: we backed them in the corner and they had no
Speaker 3: choice did they finally say, Okay, we'll agree to overturn
Speaker 3: the indictment, remove the charges, but we're still not going
Speaker 3: to say you're completely innocent. And if you're going to
Speaker 3: get compensated, you're going to have to fight tooth and
Speaker 3: nel again to get compensated, because Stellaware is one off
Speaker 3: I think twelve states has left that doesn't have any
Speaker 3: compensation for people who have been roughly convicted and incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get the compensation in a minute, but first,
Speaker 1: I really just want to acknowledge what you were willing
Speaker 1: to do with what you had on the line. I'm
Speaker 1: just happy for you that you were able to force
Speaker 1: their hand and win your freedom. What was that day?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I mean, how'd you feel?
Speaker 2: They ask me how I feel about it? When he
Speaker 2: told me, he said that too, how you feel? And
Speaker 2: my response was, I don't know. Just this day came
Speaker 2: and it's here. You know, you thought you would react
Speaker 2: one way in your mind because it ain't hadn't happened,
Speaker 2: You're going to do all these things. But when he
Speaker 2: literally told me and asked me how I felt, I
Speaker 2: just simply said, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know that I can relate to trust feeling that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got a whole lot of aren't you happy?
Speaker 2: Was that? Yeah? I am, but I don't grab that
Speaker 2: they took celibratory away from me. It's just another day.
Speaker 2: It's another Christmas. I noticed significance. It is just another day.
Speaker 1: It's very eerie to have this conversation and you express
Speaker 1: the exact same sentiment I did, because I've never talked
Speaker 1: about that on my release date to anybody, and you
Speaker 1: just said that. I was like, he's nailing it. You're
Speaker 1: saying exactly. I felt. Everybody's looking for your your feelings
Speaker 1: and you don't have them.
Speaker 2: Right, You don't have them, and because you had become
Speaker 2: immune to it, people think that something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you know inside and I think you
Speaker 1: could probably relate like I didn't celebrate holidays, birthdays, any
Speaker 1: of that, and when I came home, I still don't.
Speaker 1: I really don't do much for holidays or birthdays. What
Speaker 1: I started doing was celebrating what I call my freedom
Speaker 1: day to day. I came home July twenty second, and
Speaker 1: I was doing it for a number of years. But
Speaker 1: when I came home, I wasn't fully exonerated. I had
Speaker 1: to take an out for pleague that carried on for
Speaker 1: ten years. It took me ten years after being home.
Speaker 1: I just got mine straight this year. So this year
Speaker 1: is the first year I've ever been a whole. But
Speaker 1: I had made a statement to a friend of mine
Speaker 1: last year, I said, I'm never I'm not going to
Speaker 1: celebrate my freedom Day anymore because all I did was
Speaker 1: trade one prison cell for a bigger one. I still
Speaker 1: have the stigma. I still am not fully clear. And
Speaker 1: then this year I was. I was fully cleared, and
Speaker 1: I actually got to spend it with you know, our
Speaker 1: mutual friend here, Jason Flum, and celebrated the way it
Speaker 1: should be celebrated as an honestly free person. And that
Speaker 1: does mean something. And I know it's important day to you,
Speaker 1: and your battle's not over there you never got compensated.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, So right now, December thirteenth of me
Speaker 2: five years, you know, and December twelfth is my birthday,
Speaker 2: So December, I say, I'll celebrate two birthdays. So I'm
Speaker 2: like you, I'm waiting to get to that point where
Speaker 2: I don't want to celebrate that night. But it keeps
Speaker 2: me humble. It keeps me conscious of the possibility of
Speaker 2: it can happen to you again, you know, So I'm
Speaker 2: conscious of that.
Speaker 1: We at least you have Emica by your side. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, your freedom day is December the thirteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. They removed the charges but didn't recognize your
Speaker 1: innocence to mitigate their civil liability. So are you suing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we sued the FBI, which is United States government,
Speaker 3: and we sued the city of Wilmington and that police department.
Speaker 3: The United States was dismissed from the case after they
Speaker 3: filed emotion claiming immunity, and the federal judge, to his credit,
Speaker 3: even though he said, you know, I have to follow
Speaker 3: the law on immunity, he made the attorneys for the
Speaker 3: United States apologize on the record to Elmer. But nevertheless,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that they recognized it was a tragedy.
Speaker 3: They were not willing to compensate him even a dime.
Speaker 1: And neither his delaware. Now I know that no amount
Speaker 1: of money could ever make up for what they took
Speaker 1: from you, but the very least it could help you
Speaker 1: live out the rest of your life, which you still
Speaker 1: get to do thanks to Amica.
Speaker 2: In the beginning of all this, Like I said to
Speaker 2: Mecca when I met his wife, Mary Jane, I told
Speaker 2: him there's not an ocean wide or deep enough for
Speaker 2: me to even begin to tell him what he has
Speaker 2: really done for me. And I never cried over this.
Speaker 2: But it's been five years. Some of it's been hard,
Speaker 2: it's really been hard. But for me, I'm just finding
Speaker 2: a way to stand up, just stand there and walk.
Speaker 2: And I know how I'm doing it, but I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: And if I could get a couple of men together
Speaker 2: and I can help them straighten out their life, I'll
Speaker 2: go forward in a heartbeat, because they need people like
Speaker 2: us to really give them insight on what you're facing,
Speaker 2: what you're going to be dealing with. If I help one,
Speaker 2: I did something. If I helped many them, I'm doing
Speaker 2: a whole lot of something someone opened the door for
Speaker 2: me to come back through. It would be real unfair
Speaker 2: for me not to try to pay that forward.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel that same obligation because I had
Speaker 1: a great law firm that got involved in my case,
Speaker 1: rops In Gray, and they got me out. And the
Speaker 1: only way to repay any of these folk is to
Speaker 1: live the best life we can live and to pay
Speaker 1: it forward. Like you just said, I knew what you're saying.
Speaker 1: There's a weight on our shoulders right now to pay
Speaker 1: that forward so that they feel good about what they did.
Speaker 1: When they point to you, Emmica points to you and
Speaker 1: talks about amories like look what Elmor's out here doing.
Speaker 1: He's taking care of all this business, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: make it. That's gonna make it all worth it. And
Speaker 1: people believe in you and people support you for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I hadn't. I hadn't had a chance to
Speaker 2: look at that reflection you just gave me that. I'm
Speaker 2: sitting here and I did all this. I call it
Speaker 2: crap because it's really the media, but I'm doing.
Speaker 1: It because it does mean something. You know you're doing
Speaker 1: the right thing, just like you knew you were doing
Speaker 1: the right thing, fighting for your life, never giving up,
Speaker 1: never surrounding your integrity, your name, your character, your humanists.
Speaker 1: You know you hung onto that and you're here today
Speaker 1: to give back and you're gonna find your way and
Speaker 1: that's how it's gonna work. But what can our audience
Speaker 1: do to help? I know you got to go fund
Speaker 1: me and they can certainly help you out, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna make sure we put a link for your GoFundMe
Speaker 1: at the end of this podcast. But overall, either Elmer
Speaker 1: or Emica, what can we do as a community here
Speaker 1: where do we need to step up?
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things is we need to get
Speaker 3: a bill in Delaware to help those who have been
Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted in incarcerated to get compensated. Elmer was instrumental
Speaker 3: in getting a bill drafted. We got it through a
Speaker 3: committee in the State House of Delaware, but the bill
Speaker 3: was never put on the floor. So we want to
Speaker 3: put pressure on Governor John Carney, the leaders of the
Speaker 3: Delaware Senate and the Delaware House of Representatives to say
Speaker 3: Delaware should join the majority of states and having a
Speaker 3: wrongful conviction and incarceration bill. So that's one of the
Speaker 3: things that we can do to help make sure someone
Speaker 3: like Elmer is treated fairly. You know, when Elmer was released,
Speaker 3: he was just released with a shirt on his back,
Speaker 3: in the middle of winter, given through three days worth
Speaker 3: of diabetic medicine to the point where once that medication
Speaker 3: ran nowt it went to a diabetic shock, and no
Speaker 3: resources have been provided for him, no one's checking on them.
Speaker 3: So we want all of that to change. And Elmer
Speaker 3: is an advocate for that, He's a warrior.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta say, folks, this has been an honor
Speaker 1: for me to be a part of this conversation, to
Speaker 1: meet both of you all. Elmer, you're my hero. I
Speaker 1: want to thank one for conviction, and Jason and Connor
Speaker 1: and everybody for letting me do this at this point
Speaker 1: in time. We always like to give our guests that
Speaker 1: last word. Whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind,
Speaker 1: wrap it up for us, tell me what you think.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys for giving us a platform to talk
Speaker 3: about this important issues because unfortunately that many other Elmer's
Speaker 3: out there across prisons across America, and by casting light
Speaker 3: on the injustice that goes on, hopefully we can make
Speaker 3: a change. Hopefully we can make a change in laws
Speaker 3: to say that there should never be a time bar
Speaker 3: procedural time bar. If someone is innocent that has evidence
Speaker 3: to show that the innocent, they shouldn't be precluded from
Speaker 3: presenting that in court, which is what happens a lot
Speaker 3: of times the merits never get heard. States should not
Speaker 3: be allowed to destroy evidence, like helping in Elma's case,
Speaker 3: where someone who's facing the life sentence has forensic evidence
Speaker 3: destroyed so they cannot scientifically exonerate themselves. So by casting
Speaker 3: a light on cases like Elmer and the other cases
Speaker 3: that you're doing, you're making a difference and causing people
Speaker 3: to really think that we can make a change in
Speaker 3: our criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think given a little bit more time, I
Speaker 2: know that I'm gonna be Okay. It's nice to meet you, John.
Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing that I aspired. You
Speaker 2: want to always do, be able to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I'm down because I know that I'm a voice. I
Speaker 2: know that they can't change you know what has been done,
Speaker 2: but I can change prevent it from happening to someone else.
Speaker 2: So with that, I want no more victims. I don't
Speaker 2: want no more guys going. If we can get one
Speaker 2: thing right. That's the one thing we need to get right.
Speaker 2: It's easy to put me there, but it makes it
Speaker 2: hard for me to get myself out when you don't
Speaker 2: give the whole truth. Give it, give it up truth.
Speaker 2: If I'm judged by a jury of my peers, I've
Speaker 2: never seen one of those people that I grew up
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood sitting at jury Pool. Those are jury
Speaker 2: of my peers. I have to go back to that neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So those are the people that I have to go
Speaker 2: back to. Those are the people that have to deal
Speaker 2: with me. But I didn't see those people because those
Speaker 2: people knew who that young man was. That's what we
Speaker 2: deal with.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
Speaker 1: John Huffington. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm,
Speaker 1: Jeff Kempler, Jeff Clypburne, and Kevin Watis, as well as
Speaker 1: the production staff Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea and Kathleen Fink.
Speaker 1: With research by Shelby Sols. The music in this production
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralf. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow Wrongful Conviction across all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: find me on it, Instagram, and Twitter at Huffington John,
Speaker 1: and you can find my book Innocent and I've Seen
Speaker 1: Miscarriage of Justice at John Huffington dot com or wherever
Speaker 1: books are sold. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one