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