Speaker 1: On the night of April twenty third, nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: outside of a convenience store in New Orleans, two young
Speaker 1: men approached a couple and attempted to rob them at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: In the struggle that ensued, one of the perpetrator's, seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Eric Batiste, was shot and killed by his partner.
Speaker 1: The shooter ran off, and the couple gave a description
Speaker 1: of the shooter to the police. Eric and his friends
Speaker 1: were well known to local cops. When the call came
Speaker 1: over the radio, officer Marlon Defillo immediately thought of George Toka.
Speaker 1: The two often ran together, so Defillo figured George may
Speaker 1: have been Eric's partner in the posh robbery and pegged
Speaker 1: him as the one who had killed Eric. When George
Speaker 1: was brought in for questioning, he told police that although
Speaker 1: he and Eric had been out with friends that night,
Speaker 1: he'd left to spend time with his girlfriend at a
Speaker 1: motel during the time of the robbery. At trial, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor pointed out that the victims had id George in
Speaker 1: a photo array, and the motel owner testified that he'd
Speaker 1: never ran a room to a teenager like that. George.
Speaker 1: Officer de Phillo's hunch must have been right, But then
Speaker 1: a can This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to attempt to make sense out of
Speaker 1: a situation that doesn't make any sense. It didn't make
Speaker 1: sense back in nineteen eighty four when it happened. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense now twenty twenty three, almost forty years later.
Speaker 1: None of this should have ever happened, but it did,
Speaker 1: and the consequences are very real. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: be telling you the story of George Toka, my friend
Speaker 1: who is here with us after serving over three decades
Speaker 1: in and Goala Penitentiary in Louisiana. So, George, I'm glad
Speaker 1: we're finally doing this. It's such an important story and
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to have you here.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for the faith, for everything you'll
Speaker 2: commitment to the calls of convictions and stuff.
Speaker 1: And with George today to help us tell this story
Speaker 1: is Richard Davis. Richard is the legal director of the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project of New Orleans, also known as IPNO, one
Speaker 1: of the most respected innocence organizations not just in the
Speaker 1: country but in the world. And I'm really happy Richard
Speaker 1: to have you here.
Speaker 3: Today, thank you and thank you for having us all.
Speaker 1: So, George, what was your life like growing up? You
Speaker 1: were just seventeen when this happened, So you're just a kid.
Speaker 2: Yes, I came up and a single parent home. My
Speaker 2: mom but that she had seven kids and we lived
Speaker 2: in a new all the projects. Never met my father,
Speaker 2: so it was it was tough and not having a
Speaker 2: father there just watch my mom's struggle.
Speaker 4: We didn't have much to eat. Close the West. It
Speaker 4: was tough.
Speaker 1: You were known as chicking George back Dan, which is
Speaker 1: kind of where did you get that nickname from?
Speaker 4: Was growing up?
Speaker 2: Loved animals and we started stealing chickens and people don't
Speaker 2: give me chickens. I ran away at the kid because
Speaker 2: my stepdad became abusive to my mom. And so I
Speaker 2: met a guy land Terrence, and his mother missus Burnt
Speaker 2: and me. I just went to the house. I ain't
Speaker 2: won't leave one day and she's like, well, you come
Speaker 2: on in. So she really bought me clothes, help me
Speaker 2: go to school and things like that. She was a
Speaker 2: good woman. And see she gave me that name chicken
Speaker 2: jaw after watching me after you know, the movie roots
Speaker 2: and stuff and seeing me with chickens and I hate
Speaker 2: I hate that lamb as I got older.
Speaker 4: You know, but it stuck.
Speaker 1: And tell me about your best friend, Eric Batiste. How
Speaker 1: did you guys meet?
Speaker 2: We met in about four to fifth grade, I think
Speaker 2: at Phillips Weekly School. We met and we just instad
Speaker 2: became instant France. And we had so much in common,
Speaker 2: like I said, coming from broken homes and uh, we
Speaker 2: just we just had like a real bob peer love.
Speaker 2: But we were started leaving cut school together and just
Speaker 2: to go to fence quarters on Burger Street just to
Speaker 2: tap dance and shine shoes, just to earne food for cheeseburg.
Speaker 4: You know, it was something to eat and some clothes
Speaker 4: because it.
Speaker 2: Would go home and there was no food at at home,
Speaker 2: you know. Our mom was you know, they work or whatever,
Speaker 2: didn't have any money for food.
Speaker 4: So we just would fend for ourselves as kids.
Speaker 2: And then we began to go to life of crime.
Speaker 2: The tap dancing and the shin sho wasn't bringing in
Speaker 2: much money, so we were begin to see the other
Speaker 2: guys around our neighb would come in crimes, and so
Speaker 2: we started doing that work around bringing in like machines
Speaker 2: and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So you and Eric were, as I understand it, pretty
Speaker 1: well known to the neighborhood police as a couple of
Speaker 1: young kids who were into these petty crimes. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that Eric was also getting into much more
Speaker 1: serious crime, which is what ultimately led his unforse an
Speaker 1: untimely death and to your tragic, wrongful conviction. Richard, can
Speaker 1: you tell us what happened on that fateful night of
Speaker 1: April twenty third, nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the crime that Georgia was arrested for, it
Speaker 3: was two young men were seen trying to rob a
Speaker 3: white couple in the early hours of the morning on
Speaker 3: a street in New Orleans. It turned into an altercation
Speaker 3: and one of the people trying to commit for robbery
Speaker 3: accidentally shot the person he was with, a young man
Speaker 3: named Eric Batiste, who was a seventeen year old who
Speaker 3: was George's best friend. And so essentially what happened is
Speaker 3: that even over a couple who had been robbed, they
Speaker 3: had descriptions of the two people who robbed them, the
Speaker 3: second robber did not match George's appearance at all. An
Speaker 3: officer who knew George and knew Eric from the neighborhood
Speaker 3: heard being radioedvert Eric Batist had been killed and that
Speaker 3: the person who accidentally shot him was his accomplice. And
Speaker 3: just for Eric batist best friend is George Toker. So
Speaker 3: if someone was committing a crime with Eric Batist and
Speaker 3: accidentally shot him, it was George Toker.
Speaker 1: And the officer you're referring to was a local cop
Speaker 1: named Marlon Defillo.
Speaker 2: He and I definitely had a history, you know, coming
Speaker 2: up in my little Lapeno crime looks career. The arrest
Speaker 2: me a field time, I had a few wires out,
Speaker 2: and so he knew me and Eric best friends, So
Speaker 2: you know, he's the main reason why my name got
Speaker 2: implicated in his crime.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: Which should have been obvious as soon as the two
Speaker 1: victims described the man who had killed Eric Batiz to
Speaker 1: the police.
Speaker 3: So they described an a sailant who was I think
Speaker 3: five ten or five eleven and who was older than Eric.
Speaker 3: George was maybe five five or five six at the time,
Speaker 3: and he also was a very young looking seventeen year
Speaker 3: old two and he was significantly smaller both an Eric
Speaker 3: and the description of the second person.
Speaker 1: But even though George didn't fit that description. Officer to Pillow,
Speaker 1: who had already fixed his sights on George for the murder,
Speaker 1: completely ignored that fact. And there was something else about
Speaker 1: George that would have been obvious to the victims had
Speaker 1: he been the second assailant, yet they never mentioned it
Speaker 1: when they were shown George's picture in a photo array.
Speaker 3: George had extremely prominent gold teeth at the time, like
Speaker 3: buck teeth, kind of that you could see with his
Speaker 3: mouth closed. Even and Neave, a witness, described the person
Speaker 3: that the shooter as having gold teeth. The mugshots, of course,
Speaker 3: didn't show George's heights, so they didn't know he was smaller,
Speaker 3: and his gold teeth weren't clear in the photos, and
Speaker 3: then they made those identifications, and that's their case, and
Speaker 3: that is the basis for George getting life without parole.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to take a quick second to
Speaker 1: talk about how terribly unreliable eyewitness identifications can be. Now,
Speaker 1: anyone can see that George doesn't match the description that
Speaker 1: these two people gave, and yet they themselves id'd him
Speaker 1: as the shooter after viewing his photo. Richard, can you
Speaker 1: plane what might have been going on there?
Speaker 3: So as far as we could piece it together. Twenty
Speaker 3: to thirty years later, they were shown a photo array
Speaker 3: containing George. Because it was a photo array rather than
Speaker 3: a live lineup, his height isn't displayed in that and
Speaker 3: it wouldn't have been apparent to them how distinctive his
Speaker 3: gold teeth were, And so they make an identification from
Speaker 3: a photo. I believe it was administered non blind, so
Speaker 3: by an officer who knew who the suspect was in
Speaker 3: the photo and vis across racial identification. So it's this
Speaker 3: classic recipe for a wrongful identification.
Speaker 1: So first off, the photos are not clearly displaying the
Speaker 1: features that excluded George. In addition, it was non blind,
Speaker 1: when the only way these should ever be done is
Speaker 1: that the lineup should be administered by somebody who has
Speaker 1: no knowledge of who the suspects actually are, nor any
Speaker 1: contact with the investigators. But even more important than that,
Speaker 1: in study after study, cross racial identification has been shown
Speaker 1: to be less accurate than even just making a wild yes.
Speaker 1: But back in nineteen eighty four, none of this was
Speaker 1: known and probably should have been, but it wasn't known
Speaker 1: or considered.
Speaker 3: And then, as we see in a lot of cases,
Speaker 3: once they have identified someone from a photo that becomes
Speaker 3: the person they stick with and find ways to discount
Speaker 3: all the contradictory evidence.
Speaker 1: I mean, had they even cared a tiny bit, they
Speaker 1: could have looked beyond officer to Fillow's hunch and found
Speaker 1: truly contradictory evidence. George, after all, had an alibi. Plus
Speaker 1: there could have been alternative suspects.
Speaker 3: Anyone looking at the case knows that the person they're
Speaker 3: looking for is someone with a connection to Eric Patis,
Speaker 3: So it's a pretty small universe of people to look at.
Speaker 3: And George and his girlfriend they had been in a
Speaker 3: place called the MRV Motel at the time of a crime.
Speaker 3: They had been with a group of people including Eric,
Speaker 3: earlier in the night. They had parted ways about four
Speaker 3: hours before Eric was killed and had gone together to
Speaker 3: the MRV motel rented a room there.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget that George was underage. I mean,
Speaker 1: he wasn't even close to being of age. But apparently
Speaker 1: at the MRB Motel no things were a little more
Speaker 1: fast and loose. He didn't necessarily need a credit card
Speaker 1: or even ID to check in there.
Speaker 3: When we investigated the case years later, it is not
Speaker 3: hard to find a lot of people who knew that
Speaker 3: that was the motel in the neighborhood you went to
Speaker 3: when you were underage, because they didn't ask too many
Speaker 3: questions coming back years later. We even had the priest
Speaker 3: from the church across the road saying that this was
Speaker 3: in nuisance business. They were always renting rooms to underage people.
Speaker 1: George had no idea what had happened to his best
Speaker 1: friend until the.
Speaker 4: Next day when I got to know that my friend
Speaker 4: was was cool. I couldn't believe it. I was just
Speaker 4: in shot. I was going to the seeing more than
Speaker 4: the villain.
Speaker 2: But you know, my friend mother told me, I don't
Speaker 2: go down there, Geordie might think you had something to
Speaker 2: do with it. But then the next day, my friend
Speaker 2: of mine, Ju told me that, George, you want to
Speaker 2: know that you wanted for Erica's murder. And my life
Speaker 2: is really just to stop from there. Because when I
Speaker 2: went home and my mom was like, George, get your
Speaker 2: stuff a run, I'm like, man, I didn't do it.
Speaker 4: I'm not running.
Speaker 2: So I always believed that, you know, the justicism was
Speaker 2: the good guys, you know, the judges and the d's
Speaker 2: and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: With rumors swirling around that the police were looking for him.
Speaker 1: George thought he'd better go down to the station and
Speaker 1: tell them he had nothing to do with Eric's murder.
Speaker 1: But before he was able to do that.
Speaker 2: They had a knock on the door and there was
Speaker 2: Ball in the philot lead new pack hell bent on
Speaker 2: a recipe, and he'll put my head out in the back,
Speaker 2: like I got you, George, you know, and you're under
Speaker 2: the rest of him. I'm like, I didn't do it, man,
Speaker 2: I didn't kill my best friend.
Speaker 4: I wasn't with Eric.
Speaker 2: I was in a hotel when it helped. Man, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well I finally got you, and I'm like the fellow,
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: You know, he was so excited to get me in handcuffs.
Speaker 2: So when he got me down to the priests and
Speaker 2: he told her the two detective, this is George right here,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, he just throw me to the wolves.
Speaker 1: Literally to the freaking wolves. Like Officer de Fello, the
Speaker 1: precinct detectives were determined to pin Eric's murder on George
Speaker 1: by whatever means necessary.
Speaker 2: And they beat me until I give me confessed. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm not I didn't kill my best friend. I'm not confessing,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't do it. I've never killed nobody.
Speaker 2: I'm not no murder and I didn't kill my friends,
Speaker 2: so I'm not as signing nothing. And they beat me
Speaker 2: in beat men.
Speaker 4: But then after I got your abiavement a while the
Speaker 4: tech a little bit road. He told me and said,
Speaker 4: George just exceed, don't fit the description.
Speaker 2: But uh they get your good lawyer and uh you
Speaker 2: figured out working out, you know, working out.
Speaker 4: On your home.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by marsh mc cleannan, the world's
Speaker 1: leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy
Speaker 1: and people. It's legal and compliance department provides pro bono
Speaker 1: legal assistance and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
Speaker 1: Two days after his best friend was killed, George Toko
Speaker 1: was arrested in charge for a second degree murder. He
Speaker 1: spent the next year of his life in jail awaiting trial.
Speaker 1: His attorney, Henry Julian, who had just recently left the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's office for private practice, only visited George twice during
Speaker 1: that entire miserable year. The third time they met was
Speaker 1: on the morning of April fifteenth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 4: I just went to court one Monday. He like, you ready,
Speaker 4: we're going to try this morning.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, it really and I say it is
Speaker 2: eric mother out there is my family.
Speaker 4: Nobody would there with my mom, my girlfriend Danielle. That
Speaker 4: was it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't even I was going to try
Speaker 2: out that moment for the first green murder, the faith,
Speaker 2: the depth been.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately George was also facing the note glorious Judge
Speaker 1: Frank Shay.
Speaker 3: Frank Shay took pride in how many jury trials he
Speaker 3: could get through in a day, how fast he can
Speaker 3: move his cases, not providing any kind of justice.
Speaker 1: Some trials in front of Frank Shay went as quickly
Speaker 1: as get this ninety minute. Yeah you heard that correctly.
Speaker 1: Over his thirty three year career as a judge in
Speaker 1: Section G of Louisiana Criminal Court, Louisiana went from thirteenth
Speaker 1: to second in the nation for incarceration, and since his
Speaker 1: reign ended, some of the faulty convictions coming out of
Speaker 1: his court have been vacated. In addition to George, there's
Speaker 1: Isaac Knapper, Elvis Brooks, one of our recent guests on
Speaker 1: the show, and Calvin Duncan who we know to be
Speaker 1: an absolutely breathtakingly brilliant prison lawyer who's helped a lot
Speaker 1: of other prisoners with their appeals. But let's get back
Speaker 1: to the trial.
Speaker 3: George's lawyer had really done very little investigation of the case.
Speaker 3: And this is not a not a difficult case to
Speaker 3: investigate it.
Speaker 1: Right, Like we talked about earlier, Eric Batist did this
Speaker 1: with someone he knew, so there's not a long list
Speaker 1: of potential suspects. And George's girlfriend Danielle was there to
Speaker 1: testify that they had parted with Eric about four hours
Speaker 1: before his death and gone to that infamous MRV motel
Speaker 1: where it seems everyone in town knew that a very
Speaker 1: young person could get a room.
Speaker 3: But the defense law was not prepared for prosecution, calling
Speaker 3: the owner, who, of course wants to protect his business,
Speaker 3: and so I said, no, of course, you do everything
Speaker 3: by the book. No wonder was young looking at George
Speaker 3: would ever get to rent room there? Which is I
Speaker 3: mean going back, we found just everyone from the neighborhood
Speaker 3: knew that was the motel you can rent room when
Speaker 3: you're underage.
Speaker 1: Well, who knows what else was going on behind the
Speaker 1: scenes there, Right, it's entirely possible that the cops either
Speaker 1: threatened the motel owner or that he very well might
Speaker 1: have faced some sort of charges himself. So for him,
Speaker 1: it was probably expedient to go ahead and testify to
Speaker 1: what they wanted him to say, right exactly.
Speaker 3: I think that's always at least an employed for it.
Speaker 3: When when you're running a somewhat sketchy business in law
Speaker 3: enforcement comes cooling. You want to make law enforcement happy.
Speaker 1: I mean, right off the bat, that would have been
Speaker 1: a great way to impeach that witness. But George, it
Speaker 1: just didn't even occur to your attorney. It just didn't
Speaker 1: even think to raise that on cross examination.
Speaker 4: He thought like he thought I was guilted. He didn't care.
Speaker 2: He was so inferior of just Shaye and other people
Speaker 2: either just scared the object or just doing anything. He
Speaker 2: didn't have the investigative team.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He could have simply got the hotel phone records that
Speaker 2: would exonerate me within thirty days instead of thirty years.
Speaker 2: He could have got the dinal records for the gold teep.
Speaker 2: He didn't go get that. He just didn't care.
Speaker 1: But then there's a whole other element of this Richard,
Speaker 1: which is the victim's family, what was their role in this?
Speaker 1: Because they believed throughout in George's innocence, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that would seem like some powerful testimony.
Speaker 3: So I think what we see here is that for
Speaker 3: police and prosecution, they wanted to treat Eric as a
Speaker 3: victim so they could use a murder charge against George,
Speaker 3: how they could get life of outprole against George. That
Speaker 3: essentially they were only treating Veeric as a victim to
Speaker 3: the extent that it helped them punish George, and nothing
Speaker 3: to do with compassion for the family keeping even just
Speaker 3: like basic professionalism in terms of keeping them informed.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that, they weren't even notified
Speaker 1: of the trial as I understand it against George. That
Speaker 1: would be powerful for a jury to see the victim's
Speaker 1: family sitting right behind the accused. I mean that's going
Speaker 1: to have an impact on people, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think when they heard the evidence about this older,
Speaker 3: this older, taller person with son, they you know, they
Speaker 3: already knew it wasn't George because they knew George wouldn't
Speaker 3: like of them if he'd been responsible for Eric's death.
Speaker 3: But they'd have had, you know, like additional that reallyesing
Speaker 3: to know it wasn't George. If they known this description,
Speaker 3: you know they know George, they know Eric, they know
Speaker 3: George's modern the older too to hus and compared to Eric.
Speaker 1: So predictably, George, you were convicted of second degree murder
Speaker 1: and given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole. This was on April twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five. But I have to ask how long
Speaker 1: did the trial take and how long did the jury deliberate?
Speaker 2: It was it was a two day trial. It was
Speaker 2: it a circus. It was it just it wasn't nothing
Speaker 2: done right. The judge kept rushing the winner's office. Stands
Speaker 2: he had a five o'clock appointment to go to I
Speaker 2: think I go to the golf golf events he had.
Speaker 2: He had no respect for black people at all. And
Speaker 2: and then most shocking, he sluck into the jury deliberating
Speaker 2: rum the second day of trial and directed the jury verdict.
Speaker 1: Wait what the he went into the jury room during
Speaker 1: the deliberations.
Speaker 2: He got Tyler waiting for the jury to come out
Speaker 2: the great rum, and he went in there and I
Speaker 2: can it's a imagine that's what he told me to
Speaker 2: kill him out there so he could leave, so the
Speaker 2: track could show that he actually went into the jury
Speaker 2: rum and discussing took part into the jury deliberation of
Speaker 2: my trial. So after he came out of there, the
Speaker 2: jury they all agreed the secondary murder and I was
Speaker 2: wont for convicted. My first five years after being wont
Speaker 2: for convicted, I just laid in the cell in the darkness,
Speaker 2: this this in depressed and mold this shock, this disbelief
Speaker 2: because that that system that then that just took my
Speaker 2: life for for wrong, convicted of killing my best friend,
Speaker 2: somebody I love. But but I know I knew I
Speaker 2: was innocent. That the main thing I knew I didn't
Speaker 2: kill my best friend. I was innocent, and I knew
Speaker 2: that the truth will you know, will come out, and
Speaker 2: so that that that would kept me strong like that
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 4: The whole neighborhood know, I didn't do it, the whole city.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't do it, And I just do believe
Speaker 2: that God knew and that it was gonna work.
Speaker 4: Out for me.
Speaker 2: So that's why I just just kept hold on to
Speaker 2: mount mount troop and my faith and uh I began
Speaker 2: to pass so you know, and God spoke to me,
Speaker 2: you know, like like he let me know, like George
Speaker 2: get in the position to be to be blessed. You
Speaker 2: got you gotta start going low live Berry, get out,
Speaker 2: get out the TV room, and and this depressed state
Speaker 2: just sitting around crying about stuff that's not gonna change
Speaker 2: or not. You gotta you gotta start doing something to.
Speaker 4: Change the situation.
Speaker 2: So I would begin to write innocent projects and stuff
Speaker 2: like in Canada and uh New Jersey, I wrote, Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 2: I wrote, anybody, anybody can reach out for help, shall
Speaker 2: my store? And then I, uh, Calvin came to Lord
Speaker 2: Liberry when I said, man, I got an innocent product
Speaker 2: and knew all that.
Speaker 1: Richards comes back to you. Now, how did Ipno select
Speaker 1: George's case and how do were you able to undo
Speaker 1: this tragic miscarriage of justice?
Speaker 3: I believe Calvin Duncan, another of our clients, recommended it, who,
Speaker 3: as Calvin Duncan, was very active in our organization getting
Speaker 3: started and in recommending a lot of our early cases. Really,
Speaker 3: the investigation got going in about two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: and so we filed in court for George on two
Speaker 3: thousand and four based on investigation that had found evidence
Speaker 3: as to who the taller, older person was with Eric,
Speaker 3: who we found by talking to people in the neighborhood
Speaker 3: and following up of rumors that George and his family
Speaker 3: heard over the years to find out people who actually
Speaker 3: had like direct admissible knowledge on the issue. And then
Speaker 3: we filed a post conviction application in two thousand and
Speaker 3: four and immediately stepped on a landmine because we moved
Speaker 3: to a cues for judge, a judge named Julian Parker,
Speaker 3: because the judge had been a prosecutor in the DA's
Speaker 3: office of a time. George's case was tried, and the
Speaker 3: judge did not take that well and it ended with
Speaker 3: a judge not recused in us in front of that
Speaker 3: judge trying to present George's case with a judge who
Speaker 3: was not happy. He took it as a personal affront.
Speaker 3: And so that's how George's litigation started with our office,
Speaker 3: with us really offending the judge who was the decision maker.
Speaker 1: So a really auspicious start with Judge Parker, but still
Speaker 1: there was truly compelling evidence to support George's innocence claim.
Speaker 3: In the course of our investigation, we had found fingerprint
Speaker 3: lifts where it appeared that the person who had shot
Speaker 3: Eric had touched the car at the crime scene. We
Speaker 3: filed in two thousand and four, and we're going to
Speaker 3: move to have these fingerprints examined. We had located with
Speaker 3: fingerprints and had them moved for safe keeping to the
Speaker 3: head of Property evidence at a Clerk of Court's office
Speaker 3: at a criminal court at two Lane Abroad on the
Speaker 3: ground floor. And that's why they were on August twenty nine,
Speaker 3: two thousand and five, when the levees broke and that
Speaker 3: entire room went underwater, because it was the key crucial
Speaker 3: evidence was being stored below sea level in New Orleans.
Speaker 3: You know, cases are always a struggle, but we've never
Speaker 3: kind of had a case that like started this badly
Speaker 3: from when we started litigating. And George is very kind
Speaker 3: to laugh because this was a cruel situation he was
Speaker 3: putting from the get go.
Speaker 1: So Hurricane Katrina literally washed away one of the greatest
Speaker 1: hopes for relief in your case. You can't make this
Speaker 1: stuff up.
Speaker 2: When it's when it's say we found it, and they
Speaker 2: hear that I'm like a part print or something he
Speaker 2: touched the call, I'm like, you know, they're gonna show
Speaker 2: me were one me and that you know, they don't
Speaker 2: they don't examinerate me. So yeah, and they got that phone.
Speaker 4: Go I was it was I would devastate it. That
Speaker 4: was the first time I actually.
Speaker 1: But there was still a glimmer of hope. EPNO had
Speaker 1: managed to track down multiple witnesses who had either given
Speaker 1: affidavids or who had been willing to testify on George's
Speaker 1: behalf at the original trial, but they were never called
Speaker 1: by the defense.
Speaker 3: They were with the group when they split up at
Speaker 3: the like the night before the murder, and so they
Speaker 3: knew that, like George and his girlfriend went one way
Speaker 3: and Eric and a couple of other people went another way,
Speaker 3: so they knew who Eric had left with and lo
Speaker 3: and behold, it includes a guy called Edison Lierson, who
Speaker 3: is an older, taller guy. And then additionally we found
Speaker 3: people who had then seen Edison Lison just a few
Speaker 3: hours after it was called killed, like in the area,
Speaker 3: crying because he'd accidentally killed Eric, who were willing to
Speaker 3: testify to this. And then we also had a lot
Speaker 3: of witnesses who were willing to say of course MRV
Speaker 3: rented to juveniles, so we had a lot of witness
Speaker 3: testimony even without the documents. So we are to proceed
Speaker 3: with that, even both on basis of George being actually
Speaker 3: innocent and on the basis that if his lawyer had
Speaker 3: done a better investigation, he could have presented at least
Speaker 3: some of his evidence at George's trial and made a
Speaker 3: difference of that way. So we went to court with that.
Speaker 1: So how was this evidence received by Judge Parker.
Speaker 3: After hearing all these witnesses testify. This is in front
Speaker 3: of the judge. We had tried and failed to accuse him.
Speaker 3: He was essentially more aggressive than for prosecuting, and the
Speaker 3: judge says, I believe your witnesses are liars essentially, so
Speaker 3: or I don't find them credible. So I'm not even
Speaker 3: going to consider if you're entitled in utile and I'm
Speaker 3: going to procedurally by you. So the judge kicked George's
Speaker 3: case out of court.
Speaker 1: But you were able to appeal that and managed to
Speaker 1: get Georgia new hearing. And around this time, the US
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had been making a number of landmark decisions
Speaker 1: in juvenile justice, including Miller versus Alabama, in which mandatory
Speaker 1: life without parole sentences were ruled unconstitutional for juveniles, and.
Speaker 3: Of course George was a juvenile and had automatically been
Speaker 3: given life without parole, so that was a question of
Speaker 3: whether this was retroactive. And obviously being made eligible for parole,
Speaker 3: being able to be possibly released, is better than nothing
Speaker 3: for George, but it's not what he deserved. He's innocent,
Speaker 3: he'd never had a fair trial. But we want to
Speaker 3: want to shoot for every target we can to try
Speaker 3: and improve Georgia's situation.
Speaker 1: But when IPNO raised Miller versus Alabama as it applies
Speaker 1: to George's case with the Louisiana Supreme Court, they ruled
Speaker 1: that the statute did not apply retroactively, which was an
Speaker 1: issue that the Supreme Court in the United States had
Speaker 1: yet to reserve.
Speaker 3: So we took the issue to the US Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: and the US Supreme Court actually chose George's case as
Speaker 3: the one to grant Sergio rari for that they were
Speaker 3: going to use his case to decide if a ban
Speaker 3: on automatic juvenile life without parole sentences was retroactive. And
Speaker 3: we have been lucky enough to get Brian Stevenson of
Speaker 3: Equal Justice Initiative, who some trouble all lists know is
Speaker 3: like the best in for business when it comes to
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff going to argue George's case. And
Speaker 3: at that point, as the case was getting ready to
Speaker 3: be argued in the US Supreme Court, a district attorney's
Speaker 3: office came to George with basically an offer of a
Speaker 3: deal was made, and this was that George could get
Speaker 3: out of prison but if they would essentially reduce the
Speaker 3: murder charge to manslaughter they were also charging with armed robbery,
Speaker 3: and he would be able to get out of prison
Speaker 3: that day, but it wouldn't be an exoneration. He wouldn't
Speaker 3: actually have to admit killing his friend, but he would
Speaker 3: have the conviction in place for having killed his friend.
Speaker 3: And so that is for position George was put in
Speaker 3: and it was very very hard for him to accept this.
Speaker 1: And New Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Connezauer's decision here
Speaker 1: is is pretty telling. I mean, let's face it, clearly
Speaker 1: he had some trepidation about facing Brian Stevenson and probably
Speaker 1: getting his ass handed to him before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: But not only that they'd be facing off on a
Speaker 1: case like.
Speaker 3: George's, even amongst anyone who has been sentenced to juvenile
Speaker 3: life without parole. George was unusually sympathetic. He was innocent
Speaker 3: the crime and issue, while it was legally met with
Speaker 3: a different definition of murder, it was an accident, and
Speaker 3: he had, you know, this incredible prison record. So I
Speaker 3: think looking at that, I think you can understand why
Speaker 3: a prosecutor who may not want the barn automatic juvenile
Speaker 3: life about pro to be made automatic, would not want
Speaker 3: George to be the test case on the issue.
Speaker 1: So George, at that point he made the heart wrenching
Speaker 1: decision to take the sentence reduction, keeping your conviction in place,
Speaker 1: and on January twenty ninth, twenty fifteen, you were finally
Speaker 1: released after thirty long, miserable years, you.
Speaker 2: Know, having to pick a pleeple's up. I didn't do
Speaker 2: it in my bedfind I mean it was a double
Speaker 2: name ya. I thought I'd walk out and victory elected
Speaker 2: everybody else. But it was good to get out of
Speaker 2: prism and being able to see my mom, you know,
Speaker 2: seeing her if he spent the time my mondre.
Speaker 4: She died not like a your other.
Speaker 2: So that's the audit bright side, because coming home, it
Speaker 2: was great to be out of jail.
Speaker 4: It was a great eat some nice food, different restaurants.
Speaker 2: You know, there's some pying with a lady that would
Speaker 2: have But for me, my nightmare was still going on.
Speaker 2: It was still difficult, been less situation, and just everywhere
Speaker 2: I went, I was just getting duors slammed my fate.
Speaker 2: I was still bogged down by a conviction for something
Speaker 2: I didn't do. I was out, but not free.
Speaker 1: But it's important to understand what George was up against.
Speaker 1: At that time. No one knew how the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: would have ruled on the retroactivity question. If they had
Speaker 1: ruled against it, kind of Zara's plea deal would have
Speaker 1: been gone and George would have had to continue his
Speaker 1: appellate fight. If, on the other hand, they'd ruled in favor,
Speaker 1: George would still be looking at a life sentence, but
Speaker 1: with parole eligibility as well as a continued fight to
Speaker 1: clear his name. So George took the plea and was released,
Speaker 1: even if he wasn't truly free. However, in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: almost exactly one year after George's release, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of the United States ruled in Montgomery versus Louisiana that
Speaker 1: the rule did apply retroactively. Had George not taken Connizzaro's deal.
Speaker 1: How many times would he have been denied parole? Would
Speaker 1: he otherwise receive justice on his innocent's claim in trial errors?
Speaker 1: Who knows how much more time he would have spent
Speaker 1: an Angola. So he took the deal in front of him,
Speaker 1: as I think I and probably almost all of our
Speaker 1: listeners would have done had we been faced with the
Speaker 1: same Sophie's choice that George was. But the story doesn't
Speaker 1: end there. Fortunately, there was a confluence of circumstances and
Speaker 1: personalities that came together, starting with the twenty twenty election
Speaker 1: of a new DA Jason Williams, who had represented George
Speaker 1: in one of his early appeals. In addition, a new
Speaker 1: reform minded judge, Nandy Campbell took the bench in Section
Speaker 1: g off Louisian Criminal Court, the position previously held by
Speaker 1: the notorious judges Shay and Parker. And finally, thanks to
Speaker 1: the work of Hypno, a new law was passed in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: The one recognized that, for the first time in clear
Speaker 3: or that proving your innocence with evidence, even if it
Speaker 3: wasn't DNA, was a basis to vacating conviction, which was
Speaker 3: something we never had when we were litigating George's case.
Speaker 3: And second, gave prosecutors for power to essentially propose resolutions
Speaker 3: to the court that the court could accept, even if
Speaker 3: that wasn't necessarily a strictly legal right to for thing.
Speaker 3: And so this would have been great for George, except
Speaker 3: for that was for prosecutor problem because who was for
Speaker 3: prosecutor on the case.
Speaker 1: Since the new prosecutor, Jason Williams, had formally represented George
Speaker 1: as an up and coming defense lawyer, he had to
Speaker 1: recuse himself and could not propose a resolution in this case.
Speaker 3: Fortunately, Judge Campbell appointed a special prosecutor, a guy named
Speaker 3: Ron Wilson, who you know, had a real understanding of
Speaker 3: the circumstances of Georgie case, and he's thought, well, the
Speaker 3: appropriate use for prosecutor's power in this situation is that
Speaker 3: we should vacate George is guilty plea conviction, it was unjust,
Speaker 3: and that we should dismiss the case against him. This
Speaker 3: is not a case that should be prosecuted. And so
Speaker 3: in September of last year, in twenty twenty two, George
Speaker 3: was actually fully exonerated.
Speaker 2: You know, like right now, since I've been exonerated. I
Speaker 2: can sleep, I can dance, I can leave, I can
Speaker 2: look hold my head up, I can look in the mirror,
Speaker 2: you know, because that's who I am. I'm not a
Speaker 2: mur I like right now is one big part.
Speaker 4: I'm always dancing.
Speaker 2: There and laughing, because yeah, that's that's my real proton.
Speaker 1: Well, George, you deserve to be laughing. You've been through
Speaker 1: so much and I know you're going to make the
Speaker 1: best of everything that's coming up for you. And in fact,
Speaker 1: you started your own business, a landscaping business called Royal Horticulture,
Speaker 1: and I know you talk about it a lot. You
Speaker 1: just love working outdoors, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Keep my dope and and I won't be locked in
Speaker 2: a where I love to be out you know, and
Speaker 2: is my dream to be successful.
Speaker 4: A landscape company as well as real estate.
Speaker 1: Folks, if you're in the New Orleans area and you
Speaker 1: need some landscaping work done, look up George Toka. We'll
Speaker 1: have a link to Royalty Horticulture in the bio so
Speaker 1: you can find them. So with that said, we now
Speaker 1: turn to the closing of our show, which is called
Speaker 1: Closing Arguments, And this is the part of the show
Speaker 1: that first of all, I thank you, guys, Richard Davis
Speaker 1: and George Toka, thank you so much for being here
Speaker 1: and sharing this harrowing story. And now I'm going to
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off, and
Speaker 1: close my eyes and just listen for anything else you
Speaker 1: want to share with our audience. So, Richard, once you
Speaker 1: go first, and then George will take us off into
Speaker 1: the sunset.
Speaker 3: So I guess the thing for me is just seeing
Speaker 3: the different is made to George, for difference between merely
Speaker 3: being out of prison, being physically free, and the I
Speaker 3: guess for want for better expression, spiritual freedom that has
Speaker 3: come to him with being actually exonerated. And I think
Speaker 3: that has just been so striking for me. We worked
Speaker 3: very hard on George's case, a lot of people working
Speaker 3: on this case over the years, but I, you know,
Speaker 3: always thought it was not just a shame but the tragedy.
Speaker 3: But all we had managed was get him out of prison.
Speaker 3: We hadn't gone in for a result he deserved. So I
Speaker 3: think just seeing what the difference it has made to
Speaker 3: George being exonerated is. I think it's something we've said,
Speaker 3: but I think it's bad saying again.
Speaker 2: I like to say in Clauding that you know, America's
Speaker 2: you know, one of the greatest countries, well degree the
Speaker 2: country you know, in the world, and I love, love it,
Speaker 2: but like I said, I know there's some some bad
Speaker 2: things about our country, and one of them is the
Speaker 2: you know, the justice system where a lot of the
Speaker 2: predators and that some of the racist things that still exists.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's said that you know what happened
Speaker 2: to me, and that that happens all over to other men,
Speaker 2: particularly you know, young black men. How our lives are
Speaker 2: just get destroyed behind some deed a lawyer who just
Speaker 2: who just wanted for their career and not really valued
Speaker 2: a human aspect to the job. And that would take
Speaker 2: a young kid at seventeen or whoever age and just
Speaker 2: destroys life like that, and just you know, Sinema Prinden
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life.
Speaker 4: I lost a lot.
Speaker 2: I don't have any children, never been married, and a
Speaker 2: lot of the years of my life was going I
Speaker 2: can't get back, and I struggled with that at the time.
Speaker 2: But I also gained a lot, and so you know,
Speaker 2: I realized in my life, I can't live in anger
Speaker 2: and all that and and be better that's not who
Speaker 2: I am, and that's not a good way to live.
Speaker 2: You know, my mind to it is like Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: you know the advice that he went about doing good.
Speaker 2: So that's my thing every day to get up to
Speaker 2: try to do good and to help people and to
Speaker 2: perfectivelybor chain. Lit'll do just system, however, that's just will
Speaker 2: live a be a good man and do good and
Speaker 2: enjoy life.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Andy Chelsea, and Lyla Robinson, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clibern. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flomm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one
Speaker 1: the boy An, the land in the dun Y