Speaker 1: It was late on the night of April eleven, when
Speaker 1: a single teenage mother of two Sabrina Butler, went for
Speaker 1: a jog while her two young boys slept at home.
Speaker 1: When she returned and checked on her nine month old Walter,
Speaker 1: he wasn't breathing. With no phone in a new apartment building,
Speaker 1: Sabrina picked him up and banged frantically under neighbor's doors,
Speaker 1: begging for help. Finally, a woman let her in and
Speaker 1: showed Sabrina how to perform adult CPR on her infant son.
Speaker 1: At the hospital, they couldn't figure out what was wrong
Speaker 1: with Walter, and they blamed his internal injuries on child abuse.
Speaker 1: Sabrina was aggressively interrogated well into the morning hours, and
Speaker 1: a statement was drafted for her to sign, accounting for
Speaker 1: the damage to his internal organs, a common result of
Speaker 1: performing adult CPR on an infant. Tired alone and scared,
Speaker 1: Sabrina signed underneath the dotted line as an act protest.
Speaker 1: A parade of medical professionals, and her coerced statement made
Speaker 1: Sabrina's not guilt deeply look like a callous lie, sending
Speaker 1: her to Mississippi's death Row. Her novice trial lawyer contacted
Speaker 1: civil rights attorney and death penalty activist Clive Stafford Smith,
Speaker 1: whose investigation discovered and confirmed why Walter had stopped reading
Speaker 1: in the first place. He suffered from chronic nephrotic syndrome
Speaker 1: brought on by policystic kidney disease. Sabrina Butler is the
Speaker 1: first female Death Row ex honoree in the United States.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Farmer, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. Today we have Sabrina Butler Smith, who is
Speaker 1: the first woman ever to have been exonerated from death
Speaker 1: row in the United States. And the story is much
Speaker 1: deeper than that, but Sabrina, welcome. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. And we have another Smith
Speaker 1: by Skype. We have a British attorney who specializes in
Speaker 1: civil rights cases as well as overturning death penalty cases
Speaker 1: in the US. Clive Smith, thanks for being here and
Speaker 1: joining us over the phone. My pleasure. Sabrina. Let's start
Speaker 1: with you. I want to go back in time to
Speaker 1: your life, you know, as a teenager, having a child,
Speaker 1: having a baby, single mom, right back in Mississippi, Columbus,
Speaker 1: Mississippi right correct, and what was that, like, how did
Speaker 1: you deal with it? That's that's a lot of responsibility
Speaker 1: for a young kid like yourself back then. Well, actually
Speaker 1: being that young, I was kind of me and my
Speaker 1: mom didn't have a really good relationship, and so I
Speaker 1: think that let me down the path that I traveled on. Um.
Speaker 1: And actually my son that passed, he was my second child.
Speaker 1: I actually had two at that time. I've it on
Speaker 1: my own since I was fourteen, So basically trying to
Speaker 1: figure out life from fourteen year to grow up fast?
Speaker 1: Yes I did. Sabrina was convicted, wrongfully convicted, and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death for the murder which we know was not
Speaker 1: a murder at all of her baby boy, Walter Dean Butler.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to April eleven. You went out
Speaker 1: for a job, yes, and you returned to find a
Speaker 1: horrible situation. My son wouldn't breathing, and I panicked, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do because where I stayed
Speaker 1: at i'd only been over there a little while. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a phone. UM, I had just got the
Speaker 1: apartment through hood housing. I was a four teenager that
Speaker 1: didn't have a job or money, and the people over
Speaker 1: there did not know me in that apartment complex, so
Speaker 1: it was kind of hard, and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: car or anything like that, and so I just grabbed
Speaker 1: him and started beating on doors trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: get someone to help me. And that was very difficult
Speaker 1: at that time of night because it was late. What
Speaker 1: time was it, almost twelve o'clock, so I did have
Speaker 1: a hard time trying to get help. Um. The first
Speaker 1: lady that opened her door, she said that her kids
Speaker 1: were sick and she didn't have time to take me
Speaker 1: to the hospital. So that lady closed the door in
Speaker 1: my face. And when I ran downstairs, a lady from
Speaker 1: an end apartment and asked me what was wrong, and
Speaker 1: grabbed my son and we took him in an apartment.
Speaker 1: She put him on the floor and started CPR. So
Speaker 1: I went next door to try to get someone else,
Speaker 1: and finally I got this couple that was willing to
Speaker 1: take me. And so when I went back in, she
Speaker 1: told me to hold his nose, blowing his mouth and
Speaker 1: pressing his stomach, but she didn't tell me the right way,
Speaker 1: so I applied adult CPR to my son all the
Speaker 1: way to the hospital, not knowing that whatever was wrong,
Speaker 1: I probably was making it worse. I didn't know that though.
Speaker 1: I was just scared and I was trying to get
Speaker 1: him to breathe, but he um, he didn't, and we
Speaker 1: know that by the time he got to the hospital
Speaker 1: was really too late. Um. They attempted to resuscitate Walter
Speaker 1: at the hospital unsuccessfully. And then I have to say,
Speaker 1: there are, unfortunately, tragically a lot of cases like this
Speaker 1: where people, well meaning people like yourself, apply CPR that
Speaker 1: they've been taught to do, but they have never been
Speaker 1: taught the difference between doing it for a child or
Speaker 1: an adult. And we know that if you do it
Speaker 1: the normal CPR techniques to a child, it's virtually impossible
Speaker 1: to do that without breaking their ribs or causing some
Speaker 1: other kind of injuries because they're so little and so fragile. Um, Clive,
Speaker 1: let's turned to you. How did this thing go so
Speaker 1: wrong so fast? And why was Sabrina convicted when all
Speaker 1: she was trying to do was help? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: there there are several factors on. I mean, one is Sabrina,
Speaker 1: as she says, was eighteen and panic stricken. Another is
Speaker 1: that and this was something I didn't know until I
Speaker 1: got involved in Sabrina's case. Actually that in Mississippi, which
Speaker 1: is true of all fifty states. If you go to
Speaker 1: a hospital with a child who has been injured, if
Speaker 1: the doctors and medical staff report this as child abuse,
Speaker 1: then they're absolutely immune from being sued or being prosecuted
Speaker 1: for anything. If they don't reported as child abuse, then
Speaker 1: they can be held liable themselves. So what happens when
Speaker 1: a child is brought in by a terribly panic stricken
Speaker 1: mother like Sabrina, is there's this osmotic pressure that forces
Speaker 1: the hospital to look at this and start talking about
Speaker 1: it as child abuse from the very beginning, whether that's
Speaker 1: true or false, and their insurance policy makes them do that.
Speaker 1: And obviously what that does to an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: Sabrina is make a panic even more. And then you
Speaker 1: get this other absolutely bizarre thing. I mean, I've done
Speaker 1: now a lot of shaken baby cases and that a
Speaker 1: child syndrome cases. There are only two medical diagnoses. They
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with helping the child get cured,
Speaker 1: but everything to do with prosecuting the caregiver. And that's
Speaker 1: those two diagnoses. So if you think about it, the
Speaker 1: diagnosis of that a child syndrome is it looks like
Speaker 1: the child has been abused, and then there are other
Speaker 1: elements of this diagnosis that the caregiver changes her story.
Speaker 1: And this's got nothing to do with treating the child
Speaker 1: for whatever it is, a broken rib or whatever. It's
Speaker 1: all to do with prosecuting the parents. So when someone
Speaker 1: likes Sabrina says, you know, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: The child stopped breathing. I think he's sick, and then
Speaker 1: the doctors say, well, I don't think that's true. I
Speaker 1: think this is abuse. Then someone like Sabrina inevitably starts panicking, saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, yesterday he had a little fall, or the
Speaker 1: other day something else happened. That's then a diagnostic criterion
Speaker 1: for saying that she abused that child. And then of
Speaker 1: course the police come in and start getting heavy handed
Speaker 1: at the young girl like Sabrina. When I took my
Speaker 1: son in, I was panic and I was scared, but
Speaker 1: I thought about, oh, you're in trouble because you left
Speaker 1: him at the house by myself. That was my thing.
Speaker 1: So people were asking me, you know, why were there
Speaker 1: so many statements. Well, the statements was trying to cover
Speaker 1: up the fact that I had left my son alone
Speaker 1: for those ten minutes, and so I was trying to
Speaker 1: explain that away. I knew that I should not have
Speaker 1: left him at home by myself, but I didn't kill him.
Speaker 1: I just was trying to cover that up. And so
Speaker 1: when we got an intem derogation, you know, they asked
Speaker 1: me a bunch of questions, and I could just remember
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, say something to that fact. Did
Speaker 1: you have a lawyer or anyone to help you as
Speaker 1: you were there in your most panic state that anyone
Speaker 1: could ever be in having just lost your child? The
Speaker 1: only thing I had With the two detectives that were
Speaker 1: in the room, and they were dead set on saying,
Speaker 1: you stump your baby, You beat them. That's what they
Speaker 1: kept saying. But how did they finally succeed in their
Speaker 1: quest to get you to say a bunch of things
Speaker 1: that that not only weren't true, but that you knew
Speaker 1: weren't true, and that they probably knew weren't true. Well,
Speaker 1: the lead investigator kept screaming at me, and when I
Speaker 1: finally started telling him what exactly what happened, um, he
Speaker 1: bought up everything that I had to say, and he
Speaker 1: threw that into trash. And after so many hours of
Speaker 1: him yelling and screaming and looking like he wanted to
Speaker 1: get up and jump on me, fight me, you know,
Speaker 1: I was scared. He actually wrote out the statement and
Speaker 1: he shoved it in my face. Um. He wrote on
Speaker 1: the statement that I had punched my son, and I
Speaker 1: just agreed to everything that they said because I wanted
Speaker 1: it to end. He kept saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: what you did, and we need you to write sign this.
Speaker 1: You know, they kept screaming at me, and that was
Speaker 1: like four hours of interrogation with him, and I was
Speaker 1: just I was tired. I just didn't know how. I
Speaker 1: just wanted it all to end. So I didn't sign
Speaker 1: where he told me to. I signed under the line,
Speaker 1: hoping that that was my way of saying, look, I
Speaker 1: didn't do this and that someone would see that. Well,
Speaker 1: and at this point, you had been up right, because
Speaker 1: this started at midnight. This ordeal started at midnight. So
Speaker 1: now we're talking about a teenage traumatized grieving mother who
Speaker 1: hasn't slept, who is literally fighting for your life at
Speaker 1: this point, who knows how you would react. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about false confessions. We of course have
Speaker 1: our whole new season of the show False Confessions, which
Speaker 1: is very purposefully highlighting the fact that these false confessions
Speaker 1: play a role in approximately of wrongful convictions. In your case,
Speaker 1: the circumstances were even more grave because we know that
Speaker 1: ultimately you were sentenced to death. Clive, how is it
Speaker 1: that they did such a ridiculously poor job investigating the
Speaker 1: medical side of this case, so much so that later on,
Speaker 1: when Sabrina was finally exonerated, that they basically acknowledged, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't really do any work on it. And the
Speaker 1: doctors were like, yeah, I guess I was wrong about that.
Speaker 1: Like I think most people like to think that that
Speaker 1: couldn't happen in America. Well, I tell you, when you
Speaker 1: think about what the causes are of illnesses and injuries
Speaker 1: and children, we're still pretty medieval in that, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting better. But the other factor is that you
Speaker 1: have a g P. I have great sympathy with GPS.
Speaker 1: I don't know how on earth how some GP who's
Speaker 1: meant to know everything about everything is possibly going to
Speaker 1: be able to figure out what it is that's afflicting
Speaker 1: the person. And so you have these folks who actually
Speaker 1: they're just not experts, and they're called in and they're
Speaker 1: asked to say what happened to this child? And again
Speaker 1: all of this had been set in motion by what
Speaker 1: happened in the hospital, where the doctors had this sort
Speaker 1: of pressure to say that it was child abuse. And
Speaker 1: once they say it's child abuse, people professionals don't like
Speaker 1: to admit they made mistakes, and they really really really
Speaker 1: don't like to admit they made mistakes in cases where
Speaker 1: they contribute to an eighteen year old young woman being
Speaker 1: sentenced to death for something she didn't do. So when
Speaker 1: a doctor takes a position that this looks like abuse,
Speaker 1: there's this sort of human pressure to stick with it
Speaker 1: and to then start justifying it using granderlinquent Latin terms
Speaker 1: that no one else understands. And you know, in that
Speaker 1: first trial, there was no challenge, no meaningful challenge to
Speaker 1: these doctors coming in saying this was abuse, and they
Speaker 1: stated it like it was on a tablet and Moses
Speaker 1: in Mount Sinai. In this trial, from what I've read
Speaker 1: and seen about it, it's basically a joke. Not a
Speaker 1: funny joke, but a joke. I mean, this trial, no
Speaker 1: witnesses recalled in your defense, because the disc attorney subpoenaed
Speaker 1: every last one of them, and one of my Ernie,
Speaker 1: was drunk during the whole trial. He was piping can
Speaker 1: in his mouth and he kept telling me, you know,
Speaker 1: we got this thing nipped in the bullet, don't you
Speaker 1: worry about it. And so that's the way it went
Speaker 1: through the whole trial. I was just told to look
Speaker 1: at the jury. That was it. If you're a corporate
Speaker 1: lawyer in New York and you're representing someone for money,
Speaker 1: you get a thousand dollars an hour, and yet in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: for representing someone for their life, you get a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for the whole case, and you get what you
Speaker 1: paid for. And there were two lawyers in Sabrina's first case,
Speaker 1: and one, as she says, I'm afraid, he's absolutely true
Speaker 1: that he was just a drunk, and the other was
Speaker 1: this young guy who I have great respect for. But
Speaker 1: he had no idea what he was doing. He tried
Speaker 1: um and you know the thing I'll give him most
Speaker 1: credit for was after that had failed, Sabrina, the first
Speaker 1: thing he did was give a call to my office
Speaker 1: to get some help on the appeal. But you kind
Speaker 1: of wish that that had happened before poor Sabrina had
Speaker 1: got sentenced to death. The trial took, how well, it
Speaker 1: took a week? You had now been held in jail
Speaker 1: awaiting trial for how long? Did a little bit over
Speaker 1: a year before I went to try in the first trial.
Speaker 1: So you've been in jail for a year. Obviously that's
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience, piling on top of the other, you know,
Speaker 1: awful experiences that you've had already. You've got one drunk
Speaker 1: lawyer and one lawyer who doesn't really know his way
Speaker 1: around the courtroom. But you know, you didn't do it right.
Speaker 1: So when the jury went out, how long did they
Speaker 1: deliberate for? I think about an hour or two. I
Speaker 1: just knew that they were going to come back and
Speaker 1: and say I was guilty because my attorneys they didn't really,
Speaker 1: you know, stand up and do anything in my behalf.
Speaker 1: And it was like everything was solely on the district attorney.
Speaker 1: The jury was not looking at my attorneys at all.
Speaker 1: They were looking on the floor, they were looking at
Speaker 1: the ceiling, they was looking everywhere else but when my
Speaker 1: attorney spoke. But when the district attorney spoke, they were
Speaker 1: on the edge of these seats, and so me looking
Speaker 1: at it at that age, I said to myself, I'm
Speaker 1: done for I mean, I knew that, I just had
Speaker 1: that feel. I ask you a question on that though,
Speaker 1: because you know, if it's my son, well, and he's
Speaker 1: died through some tragedy, and I'm incredibly broken hearted about
Speaker 1: it to have some prosecutors stand up there and say
Speaker 1: that I'm guilty of murdering my own child, and then
Speaker 1: going one step further and being all pious and saying
Speaker 1: I'm so sub human that I deserve to die. Um,
Speaker 1: when you know that the worst you did was maybe
Speaker 1: give up for a jog when you shouldn't have. Glad
Speaker 1: they hurt me with every fibrob might being because I
Speaker 1: kept asking my attorneys to let me take the stand
Speaker 1: in my own defense, and they wouldn't do what. They
Speaker 1: kept saying, we got this thing, we got a nipped
Speaker 1: in the bug, we don't need you to testify. We
Speaker 1: beg them through the whole thing, and they would not
Speaker 1: let me testify. And I try, and then they impugned
Speaker 1: your right to not testify. Your for the moment, right,
Speaker 1: And then the prosecutor got up in her face and
Speaker 1: said looked like a masters right, That's what he did.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
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Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. The A i G Pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
Speaker 1: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
Speaker 1: they ounced that working to reform the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Always
Speaker 1: has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful pro
Speaker 1: bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our
Speaker 1: society and in support of the public interest, including extensive
Speaker 1: work in the criminal justice area. When I walked into
Speaker 1: Mississippi's death throw that was nineteen I had to walk
Speaker 1: down this long haul and when I first got there,
Speaker 1: they put book spray in your hair. They strip you
Speaker 1: of everything that you have. I sit in it like
Speaker 1: glass tank for like two hours, and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: all the people going around. And they came and they
Speaker 1: fingerprinted me and they just took all of what I
Speaker 1: thought was me away. They gave me his name tag.
Speaker 1: It had murderer on it, it had my MDOC number
Speaker 1: on it, and it had death. So I had to
Speaker 1: walk with my hands shackled around my waist and I
Speaker 1: had to walk with leg guards. And I had a
Speaker 1: security guard who was walking next to me, a correction officer,
Speaker 1: and he said, you see those inmates out there and
Speaker 1: then feel He said, um, we tell them when to
Speaker 1: get up, and he said, we tell them when to
Speaker 1: go to sleep, We tell him what to eat, and
Speaker 1: he's what, you will die here. And by the time
Speaker 1: he said that, by the time I got to MAXI security,
Speaker 1: because we had to walk, I was just I was crying.
Speaker 1: I couldn't think. I was trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: what was happening to me. So when I got there,
Speaker 1: they put me in a six by nine c oh
Speaker 1: no bigger than your bathroom and shut the door and left.
Speaker 1: And during that time that was one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things to ever have to deal with. None that I
Speaker 1: didn't kill my son, knowing that these people are saying
Speaker 1: we're gonna kill you. I had a death date at
Speaker 1: the time was July the second of and I didn't
Speaker 1: know that the state had exhaust all state remedies before
Speaker 1: they could actually carry out his death sentence. So when
Speaker 1: that day came, that was one of the hardest days. Man.
Speaker 1: I I paced the floor, I listened for every sound
Speaker 1: I listened to all the Noah's his keys made because
Speaker 1: I was thinking that they were coming to take me
Speaker 1: for my depth. So that is very it was very
Speaker 1: traumatic for me. That is completely insane. I mean, talk
Speaker 1: about psychological torture beside all the physical deprivation, and for
Speaker 1: you not to even know that you weren't going to
Speaker 1: be executed, no one bothered to tell you that you
Speaker 1: have I mean, that's that's nuts. I've never heard that before,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing this stuff for almost three decades.
Speaker 1: It's insane. And the fact that you're sitting here upright
Speaker 1: again and smiling is I you know, now I'm starting
Speaker 1: to understand why people say all the great things they
Speaker 1: say about you. So how did you find the strength
Speaker 1: to persevere? She was the only woman on death row
Speaker 1: in Mississippi at that time. Know I was not. It
Speaker 1: was another girl on on death row named Susan Bafford
Speaker 1: who helped me a lot. But I say to anyone
Speaker 1: who asked that question, my most basic strength is Claude
Speaker 1: because when claide game, Cloud was the only one who
Speaker 1: came to the prison. Cloud brought me artwork. He kept
Speaker 1: talking to me. He kept saying, you know, give me
Speaker 1: a chance to look at this case. We're going to
Speaker 1: fix this. That's why I feel so close to him,
Speaker 1: because he saved my life. Without Clive or Rob McDuff,
Speaker 1: the other attorney, right, correct, I don't think I would
Speaker 1: be sitting here because I mean, he was a godsend.
Speaker 1: Cloud was a godsend. And I thank him a hundredfold
Speaker 1: for bringing out the evidence in my case. I really do.
Speaker 1: And Clive, so you got a letter one day and
Speaker 1: the mail from one of her trial attorneys. Is that
Speaker 1: how they started? I think he called me up actually,
Speaker 1: and I remember coming to see Sabrina, And you know,
Speaker 1: I was representing Susie belf for at the time too,
Speaker 1: And it's sad to say, not the only time that
Speaker 1: I've heard of someone on the throw. But the lawyers
Speaker 1: didn't even tell them that they weren't going to get executed.
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember meeting Sabrina for the first time,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's a kid, right, Sorry out that
Speaker 1: Sabrina that you were a kid, You're right, and you
Speaker 1: know she's stuck there all by herself. And you know,
Speaker 1: I looked at her case and I thought this is
Speaker 1: going to get reversed. I mean versus the comment on silence,
Speaker 1: but there's all sorts of other stuff that the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Supreme Court actually didn't even reach. So I was pretty
Speaker 1: confident we're going to get a new trial. But then
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to have to go back and
Speaker 1: start again. And you were convinced you were going to
Speaker 1: get executed. I was convinced you weren't. That there was
Speaker 1: still a long road ahead of us. The case against
Speaker 1: her as such nonsense. But nevertheless, you know, once someone's
Speaker 1: been convicted and since to death, there is a huge
Speaker 1: presumption of guilt and it's going to be really hard
Speaker 1: to get him out from under it. Sabrina on death
Speaker 1: roll in Mississippi. Um, I know you talked about the
Speaker 1: one other person who was there with you, Susan. Yes,
Speaker 1: Susan Badfort. Did she give you hope to persevere? I
Speaker 1: mean you talked about Clive and the other attorney who
Speaker 1: came to your rescue, quite literally, like the Avengers writing
Speaker 1: it out of nowhere, I guess. But um, were there
Speaker 1: anything like that? I'd like to be an Avenger? I
Speaker 1: appreciate well, Sabrina and I are going to go to
Speaker 1: a costume store and get your cake when we're done here,
Speaker 1: so you'll be all right and I don't worry about it. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, was there any Was there any particular moment
Speaker 1: that you think back on and you go, that was
Speaker 1: a moment when I found hope. Well, I can remember
Speaker 1: going through my deaf date. Before that, we used to
Speaker 1: get down on the floor and the toilets were connected
Speaker 1: between walls and we would have that as our phone,
Speaker 1: and I started talking to her. She was older than me. Um.
Speaker 1: I think Susan was like twenty six when she got
Speaker 1: sentence in the same county that I was from Columbus, Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Clyve worked on her case as well, and so we
Speaker 1: got to know each other like that, you know, And
Speaker 1: she started talking to me and was trying to explain
Speaker 1: to me about the death sentence and how it works
Speaker 1: and stuff like that after the fact. So that's how
Speaker 1: I had someone to talk to. So she communicated through
Speaker 1: the event or through the vent, through the vent and
Speaker 1: the toilet. They kept us where we couldn't um talk
Speaker 1: to anyone. They put us down this hall and they
Speaker 1: put a piece of tape on the floor because they
Speaker 1: didn't know, you know, where to put female death row inmates.
Speaker 1: So we were just down the hall and I think
Speaker 1: it had no one beyond this point. And as far
Speaker 1: as me and Susan, we had to sign paper saying
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't kill each other before we could even
Speaker 1: go on Yark Altogether, everywhere we went we had to
Speaker 1: be shackled. We had no contact, No other inmates could
Speaker 1: come and touch us, to say anything to us. We
Speaker 1: were locked down twenty three hours a day, and then
Speaker 1: when they did give us a yard call, it was
Speaker 1: just just standing this bullpen like you do dogs, with
Speaker 1: no shade, no nothing. It's just standing out there. That's
Speaker 1: the way they had us. I mean, it was crazy,
Speaker 1: but now we know you're here, and I want to
Speaker 1: highlight that beyonds changed a lot in court with proper
Speaker 1: legal representation that everybody should have. And Clive, when did
Speaker 1: you feel that the tide really turned in the retrial. Well,
Speaker 1: you have to remember that actually no one ends up
Speaker 1: in prisoner on death row for something they didn't do
Speaker 1: without there being a semblance of evidence. First, there was
Speaker 1: the question of the injuries to little Walter. You had
Speaker 1: the injuries to his chest, which we could explain through CPR,
Speaker 1: and that also tied into the statement against Sabrina, because
Speaker 1: the police said coaster into saying she punched the child,
Speaker 1: which wasn't that far from the truth. The truth is
Speaker 1: she had done CPR to the child in a way
Speaker 1: that was almost the equivalent. But this was after the
Speaker 1: child was succumbing to other things, and so we were
Speaker 1: able to show to the jury the way that the
Speaker 1: police coerster. Most importantly, I think was the medical evidence.
Speaker 1: I spent many many long hours in the medical library
Speaker 1: in your Lands looking for what I thought the real
Speaker 1: explanation would be for what we saw in this child,
Speaker 1: and that was when I came across the chronic nephrotic syndrome,
Speaker 1: the syndrome that Sabrina's daughter has. To you know, this
Speaker 1: seemed clearly to explain everything we were seeing, and that
Speaker 1: was one part of hope, because we were able to
Speaker 1: get our own medical examiner who could give an explanation
Speaker 1: for what really happened, but also get their medical examiner
Speaker 1: to admit what he didn't know, and their GP also
Speaker 1: to admit that they simply didn't know that there was
Speaker 1: this chronic nethrotic syndrome that could explain all of the
Speaker 1: things they saw and they just didn't know about it
Speaker 1: because that was beyond their expertise. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the turning point in the trial was when
Speaker 1: we had their cup on the stand and I had
Speaker 1: this really ugly doll, and I wanted him to show
Speaker 1: the jury how he would do CPR on a little infant.
Speaker 1: And you know, it didn't really matter what he did
Speaker 1: because he was a police officer who was trained in CPR.
Speaker 1: So if he did it properly with two little fingers
Speaker 1: on the infant's chest, then that would demonstrate what no
Speaker 1: one else in the courtroom probably knew, which was how
Speaker 1: to do it properly. But if he got it wrong,
Speaker 1: then that was the end of that case. Because if
Speaker 1: the police officer trained like that would do CPR in
Speaker 1: the way that we said that Sabrina had done it,
Speaker 1: in a way that would crush the infants ribs, then
Speaker 1: you know, that was an incredibly powerful argument for for
Speaker 1: what had actually happened. And sure enough, he would have
Speaker 1: killed that little child the way he did CPR. He
Speaker 1: put his two hands on it, and he would have
Speaker 1: crushed the child. And then of course he went out
Speaker 1: in the hall, and I knew he was going to
Speaker 1: tell his body in the hall that we just got him.
Speaker 1: So I made an argument to the judge in front
Speaker 1: of the jury that I was afraid that he was
Speaker 1: going to tell the next police officer how to do
Speaker 1: it properly. And sure enough, that's what he did, And
Speaker 1: so we exposed that when the next guy came in,
Speaker 1: and that just showed that they were all getting together
Speaker 1: in the whole way and trying to concoct a case
Speaker 1: against Sabrina. So all of that went really well. But
Speaker 1: having said that, there are a couple of other things.
Speaker 1: Some of the other witnesses the neighbors and so forth
Speaker 1: who corroborated what Sabrina said, which was that she had
Speaker 1: run around desperately trying to find people to take her
Speaker 1: to hospital and help her. You know, this just showed
Speaker 1: the truth that here was eighteen year old who was
Speaker 1: in a massive panic, as opposed to what the prosecutor
Speaker 1: wanted to say that she was some sort of sociopath
Speaker 1: with beaten up a little baby. Then you come to
Speaker 1: the verdict, and I've got to say, you know, capital trials,
Speaker 1: for me, as a lawyer of the greatest laxative known
Speaker 1: to humanity, if you're not nervous when you're doing those cases,
Speaker 1: then you just shouldn't be doing them. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to admit to my knees knocking, although in cruptly well,
Speaker 1: I was trying to hold Subrener out. Oh man, claud Now,
Speaker 1: I mean when we had to stand before the judge,
Speaker 1: my legs felt like spaghetti news and Clidnn was holding
Speaker 1: me on either side, and I when the when the
Speaker 1: judge came back with that not guilty verdict, I just
Speaker 1: felt because I I was like, finally this is over,
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, thinking that it's you know, it's okay,
Speaker 1: I'm free, but you know that wasn't the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I'm still not free. I'm still working through
Speaker 1: that because after I got out and I got a
Speaker 1: chance to see my oldest son, I had to fight
Speaker 1: four more years to get him back. And then my daughter,
Speaker 1: who was seventeen years old, has the same exact disease
Speaker 1: my son died from so and it was policyistic kidney disease.
Speaker 1: And both of her kidneys are bad and they're saying
Speaker 1: that she will lose both and there's no cure. So
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. I'm fighting, the same, the same
Speaker 1: thing every day. It's hard because I've already lost one.
Speaker 1: The reason I consider my profession such a privilege is
Speaker 1: there is no greater privilege, I think, than being able
Speaker 1: to help just give someone like Sabrina her life back.
Speaker 1: It's it's a fantastic thing to be blessed and be
Speaker 1: able to do. It would be great if we didn't
Speaker 1: have to do these things, but those of us who
Speaker 1: work in this field movement, I couldn't have said it
Speaker 1: better myself. I mean, the happiest moments of my life
Speaker 1: putting my kids in a separate category, because that is
Speaker 1: a separate category. It's true. But let me say this, Well,
Speaker 1: I've got you. I mean, I'm really grateful for you
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing. And let's just get a commitment
Speaker 1: on the air while we're here that you're going to
Speaker 1: carry on doing it for the next fifty years. What age?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure? Well if will I will, I can't stop,
Speaker 1: won't stop, not gonna stop. And just getting to now
Speaker 1: all the amazing things that Sabrina is doing. Um, not
Speaker 1: to spoil the surprise, but Sabrina has been a tremendous
Speaker 1: advocate for change for moments a quarter century now. If
Speaker 1: you go to Witness to Innocence dot org, we are
Speaker 1: death row survivors. And if you go to that website
Speaker 1: then you can get me and several others any other
Speaker 1: speaker that you might like to come and speak for you. Right.
Speaker 1: That's Witness to Innocence dot org. Witness to Innocence dot org,
Speaker 1: and you can find Sabrina there as well as so
Speaker 1: many other extraordinary people who I'm very fortunate to call
Speaker 1: my friends and who I'm proud to work together in
Speaker 1: this fight to abolish the death penalty. And before we
Speaker 1: get the closing arguments. One thing I did want to
Speaker 1: ask you, Clive, is I would like you to talk
Speaker 1: about what people should look for if they're on a jury,
Speaker 1: and how to make our listeners be the best jurors
Speaker 1: that they can be. There are several things you should
Speaker 1: bear in mind. The first is what does it really
Speaker 1: mean to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt? And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty horrified when I ask judges about that because when
Speaker 1: I've asked judges to put a number on it, the
Speaker 1: average judge, both in America and in Britain, and I've
Speaker 1: done this many times, that has averaged out it sure.
Speaker 1: That means they're aiming to be wrong one time in
Speaker 1: six and with six million Americans are in the judicial system,
Speaker 1: the judges are aiming to put a million innocent people
Speaker 1: into prison when they take that as their standard. And
Speaker 1: there's Robin Hurdle teach you if you aim low, you miss.
Speaker 1: And the other thing to think about is a juror
Speaker 1: is there are twelve of you, but there's only one
Speaker 1: of you, and the one of you is the person
Speaker 1: who has responsibility for what you do. So very often
Speaker 1: there's this sort of herd mentality where everyone wants to agree,
Speaker 1: but you're not responsible for what those other people do,
Speaker 1: and as an individual juror, you have the right from
Speaker 1: beginning to end to say, you know, respectfully, I just disagree.
Speaker 1: And one of the things we never tell jurors is
Speaker 1: how they can disagree, so they're never told that. At
Speaker 1: any moment, you as a juror, can send a note
Speaker 1: out to the judge saying, well, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: really matter what these other eleving people are doing. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you we're not no agree because I think that
Speaker 1: this person is not guilty and you always have that right,
Speaker 1: and people try to bully you into not doing that.
Speaker 1: Well said, and I'm glad you brought that up. That's
Speaker 1: actually a new, a new point I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of our listeners, and it's super important for everyone
Speaker 1: to know that if you're on a jury, you have
Speaker 1: that right. You can just basically say, hey, this this
Speaker 1: is going to end in hung jury or an acquittal
Speaker 1: because I'm not voting guilty. And if that's how you feel,
Speaker 1: don't be bullied. I've heard too many stories, as you have,
Speaker 1: people who finally just got tired and they wanted to
Speaker 1: go home and they threw somebody life away literally because
Speaker 1: of peer pressure and because no one told them, and
Speaker 1: that is your right. No one told them that you
Speaker 1: can say enough is enough now, and I think that's
Speaker 1: just very unfair. I'm juriorus that we didn't say them.
Speaker 1: You know. I think a lot of jurors also aren't
Speaker 1: told that. Actually, therefore is the only one that really matters,
Speaker 1: because we have to have unanimous jury verdicts in this country. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now comes the featured part of our show, where
Speaker 1: I thank both of you profusely for coming in, and
Speaker 1: Sabrina for you sharing your story and your remarkable journey,
Speaker 1: and and Clive, of course, thank you for for calling
Speaker 1: in and for all the amazing work that you've been doing.
Speaker 1: And so now in order, because we saved the best
Speaker 1: for last, with all due respect to you, sir Clive,
Speaker 1: we're going to save Sabrina for last. All right, very good?
Speaker 1: I will. I've been doing death penalty works since I
Speaker 1: was about twenty, which is a long long time ago,
Speaker 1: and I do it because of what my mother said
Speaker 1: to me, which is, there's no point you're having a
Speaker 1: law degree if you don't look at the people that
Speaker 1: we as a society most hate and you get between
Speaker 1: them and the people doing the hating. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about the death penalty, it's extraordinary in theory,
Speaker 1: but in practice, when that jury and that judge came
Speaker 1: back to say to Sabrina, who I count as a
Speaker 1: dear friend and I count as a very valuable human being,
Speaker 1: when they came back and said to her that we
Speaker 1: are going to take your life away. We're going to
Speaker 1: sacrifice you on the altar to some mythological god of deterrence,
Speaker 1: because we're going to do that to pretend that we're
Speaker 1: doing something meaningful about crime. That's just terrific to me.
Speaker 1: I've watched six of my clients die in the electric,
Speaker 1: the gas chamber, and the lethal injection ganny, and it's
Speaker 1: always in the middle of the night for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: and it's because I think we're deeply ashamed of what
Speaker 1: we're doing. And each time I have come out of
Speaker 1: the death chamber and I've looked up at the stars
Speaker 1: above and I've thought to myself, my God, did that
Speaker 1: really make the world a better place? And you know,
Speaker 1: the bottom line is sure didn't. And I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that in Sabrina's case, not only did she not end
Speaker 1: up on the lethal injection ganny. But she ended up
Speaker 1: getting her life back and making so much of it.
Speaker 1: And that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. Sabrina Well, I
Speaker 1: basically want to say that the journey was not easy. UM.
Speaker 1: I had to do a lot of growing up going
Speaker 1: through this trial and tragedy of losing my son. Um.
Speaker 1: Today I still fight the state of Mississippi where my
Speaker 1: son is buried. It took me two years to find him.
Speaker 1: When I did find him, he was buried on a
Speaker 1: dark gravel road in the woods, on a hill under
Speaker 1: a tree. Uh, no marker except the little bit marker
Speaker 1: that they have. UM. I am trying to fight them
Speaker 1: because I found out that the death certificate still says
Speaker 1: today that he was murdered. Okay, So when I found
Speaker 1: that out, there was another blow to me as a person,
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to say, you still have this out here.
Speaker 1: I was found not guilty. The system of Mississippi paid
Speaker 1: me for wrong for conviction what they thought it was worth.
Speaker 1: But you still are convicting me in some sort of way.
Speaker 1: How could I ever be a nurse or doctor anything
Speaker 1: with death certificate that stated that. So the attorney is
Speaker 1: now working in the process of trying to get the
Speaker 1: State Examiner's office to change the death certificate in itself.
Speaker 1: They refused to do that, so now we have to
Speaker 1: go to That is another battle that I am currently
Speaker 1: in the process of trying to do. Um I said
Speaker 1: that in the sense to say that we are all
Speaker 1: a human beings, we do not have the right as
Speaker 1: each individual to take a person's redemptive period. That's my belief.
Speaker 1: I feel that as long as God has me here,
Speaker 1: I Am going to fight till I can't fight anymore,
Speaker 1: because that's what I'm here for. I feel like I
Speaker 1: can go all over the world and talk about this
Speaker 1: case and tell I'm blue in the face. If it
Speaker 1: changed one mind, one heart, then I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: doing my job. And I just thank God and for
Speaker 1: all the people that were involved in my case that
Speaker 1: he gave me a second chance to try to help
Speaker 1: someone else, and that's what I'm here for. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music
Speaker 1: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one