WEBVTT - #417 Jason Flom with Larry Walker 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.560 On May second, nineteen eighty three, Clyde Coleman was fatally 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:10.319 shot at his home in southwest Philadelphia. Multiple eyewitnesses claimed 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.960 to have seen three black men fleeing the scene, the 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.439 back of one of their shirts covered in blood. While 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.079 one witness recognized the blood soak the sailor from a 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.720 local bar, another witness said that he looked like a 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.200 man who had visited with mister Coleman just two days prior. Eventually, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.600 this witness identified one of the victim's friends, Mary Walker, 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.559 from a photograph. Even though the other witnesses were not 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.760 convinced that the police had the right man, the jury was. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:54.680 But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.800 I really hope you're in the mood to hear a 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.920 remarkable story about an amazing man. Well, we have two 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.640 amazing men on the show today. Actually, the person who 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.760 lived through a nightmare that spent almost four decades of 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:14.240 wrongful incarceration thirty eight years plus, Larry Walker, is here 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.200 with us. Larry, first of all, I'm sorry you're here 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.280 because of what you went through to get here, but 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:20.840 I'm very honored to have you on the show. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.800 Thank you for just taking time out to interview. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.920 Me and with him is a guy I can't believe 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.920 we haven't had on the show before, a luminary in 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.520 the world of righting wrongs in the criminal justice world. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.000 Paul Castellerro, who is the legal director of Centurion Ministry, 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.360 is a name that I'm sure you're familiar with, the 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.520 very first innocence organization in the United States. Paul, I'm 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:46.680 really really honored to humble to have you here on 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:47.360 the show today. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.200 Well, it's a great pleasure to be here. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.960 And this incredible story was in what was certainly almost 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.520 the epicenter of wrongful convictions. And I'm talking about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.320 especially back in the eighties, but unfortunately not just in 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.559 the eighties. And this was a case that well, I'll 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.200 just say this, it was so bad that even the 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.480 trial DA said that it was the thinnest homicide case 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.920 he ever tried. That was a quote. So before we 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.520 get into all the details of the crime itself and 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.600 of course of the process that led to this horrendous injustice, Larry, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.040 let's go back. What was your life like growing up? 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:27.000 Did you grow up in Philly? 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.520 Yes, I grew up in Southwest Philly. Ten siblings, five 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.760 brothers and five sisters. Close knit family. I was into sports, 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:40.080 go to church services, and active to my community. I 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.000 had my children in an early age, and I was 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.400 basically just trying to be a father to my children. 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.000 Twenty two years old when you went away. Your kids 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.320 were basically toddlers when you went to prison, right, I 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:54.720 mean three and five years old? 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.240 Yes? Correct? Yes, my daughter was three and my son 0:02:58.400 --> 0:02:58.880 was five. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.000 And how old were they when you came home? 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.320 My daughter was forty and my son was forty two. 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.240 That's just I mean, that really puts it in perspective. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.120 The memories, the good times that I had when I 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.040 was home with my children before this happened is what 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.880 basically kept me a lot. It was times we went 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.639 to the zoo and a lot of birthdays I remember 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.160 with them. That kept me going through autumn thirty eight 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:26.720 years while I was incarcerated. 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.360 You know, I was hardened when I read that the 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.600 mother of your kids, they all stuck close to you 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:33.840 throughout this ordeal. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:38.360 Right, yes, correct. Their mother was very supportive even to 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.080 this day. She was the one that when I wanted 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.560 to give up, she kept helping me to encourage me 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.240 to go on, you know, and she was the one 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.360 that was coming up in the mountains, you know, the 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.200 van services, getting the kids up early in the morning. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.600 She put them through Catholic school, you know, she helped 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.440 them with, you know, the education that there are successful 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.040 adults today. She was the glue that kept us together. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.320 Well, I'm happy you had her, even though I wish 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.160 she never would have had to show that kind of strength. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.600 So I want to get to how you were taken 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.960 away from them, which started way back on May second, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.000 nineteen eighty three, when a friend of yours named Clyde 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.719 Coleman was fatally shot. And let's turn to Paul for 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.720 the details of this crime for which all accounts always 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:28.400 pointed to three assailants, not. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.160 One, and he obviously was not any of them. And 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:37.640 they had really very good evidence of who the perpetrator 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.200 was that they said was Larry in this incident. And 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.800 the case develops where fourteen or fifteen year old young 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:46.880 man is on his way home. He lived in an 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.800 attached house right next to where the victim lived. As 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:51.760 the young man had approached the house, he saw two 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.120 guys that were lingering in the area. The victim and 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.080 this young man, they have a joint walkway that they shared. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.560 As he's walking up, the door opens to the victim's 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.679 house and there's an unknown guy standing in the doorway. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:07.919 This young man he sees the victim was lying on 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:09.960 the floor, and the victim gets up from the floor 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.239 and he comes up behind the guy standing in the doorway, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.680 which they say is Larry, and he attacks him, and 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.080 the victim yells to the young man to run, run, run, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.600 And it turns out the victim has been shot and 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:27.040 is bleeding profusely, and when he grabs the perpetrator, who 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.440 they say was Larry, from behind, leaving massive amounts of 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.000 blood apparently on the guy's back shirt that eventually the 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.080 perpetrator is able to throw off the victim and he 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.359 takes off running. The young man said the guy he 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.760 saw in the doorway look like a guy he had 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.120 seen a couple of days earlier who was over the 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.120 house visiting with the victim. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.800 And so the police had interviewed this young man, Victor Hopkins, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.239 as well as his mother, Emma Ellis, who had also 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.520 seen the assailants, three black men who had just run off. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.080 The cops, and they go around the neighborhood looking. A 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.560 young woman a couple of blocks away says she saw 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.680 three guys going down the street and one guy was 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.960 holding a gun and he had blood on the back 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.120 of his shirt. And I know that guy. He hangs 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:22.000 out in a bar where I've been. The police totally 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:23.640 and completely ignored it. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:25.960 I also would like to add that one of the 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.000 three men that was fleeing from the scene of crime 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.400 had a cast on his hand. They should have went 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.320 to maybe the nearest hospital in the community. 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.640 But they never explored any of those other avenues. 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.719 They made no effort none whatsoever. 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.520 Instead, they focused solely on the description from the fifteen 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.640 year old kid, Victor Hopkins, that the purp looked like 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.960 someone who he had seen at mister Coleman's two days earlier. 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.640 And that person, it turns out, was Larry. Larry knew 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.159 the victim. They were friends, and Larry had been over 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.599 there visiting him on a Saturday afternoon. This happened on 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.159 a Monday, so he said it looked like him, and 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.240 so the police try to figure out who is the 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.520 person over there that Saturday that this young man says 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.320 he looked like, and they identified Larry's photo and boom. 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:15.680 Larry was in the case. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.840 And our audience has heard many times we've talked about 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:25.640 the incredibly unreliable practice of identification procedures. So, Larry, how 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.400 did you first learn about this? This is a friend 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.400 of yours that got killed. So that's a terrible piece 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.760 of news to get and then to be wrongfully accused 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:39.400 and ultimately tried and convicted. How did you first find 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:40.560 out about this murder? 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.760 Jason? I basically found out through word on the street. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.880 People was talking about it. I heard it from a friend. 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.520 When did the cops first come and talk to you 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:51.560 or did they arrest you? 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.440 The incident happened on the second, It was about two 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.000 weeks after that round at thirteenth. They came to my home. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.480 Did they look for the bloody shirt? Did they look 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:01.200 for the gun? 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.920 Yes, they came with a warrant. They searched my home. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:08.920 They found nothing, no evidence whatsoever they would indicate any 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.440 kind of connection to this crime or is there any 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:12.120 other crime? 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.400 So that didn't deter them at all. They went ahead 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.400 and took you downtown and they interrogated you. How long 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.960 did the interrogation last? Did you have an attorney? 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.960 Didn't have an attorney. I just knew that I was innocent. 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.520 I told him constantly over that I had nothing to 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:27.120 do with it. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.400 He was fully cooperative with the police. He waived his 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.920 rights to, you know, not speak to them. And whether 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.439 they're doing this they know about this other person who's 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.840 identifying the guy that is in a bar that matches 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.800 the description to a t of the perpetrator. It is 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:50.240 just mind boggling that they could persist in going after 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.280 him or at the same time not investigate who this 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.960 woman says is the person. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.000 I was taken to I think fifty fifth and pounds 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.640 and I was locked up. I never saw the streets ever. 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.040 Since nineteen eighty three to twenty and twenty one. 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.280 My family paid for a paid attorney for me, and 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.600 he didn't interview the witnesses. He didn't interview me before 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:15.560 I went to trial. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.440 It's kind of frightening how you could represent somebody on 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.599 a murder trial and not interview the basic witnesses in 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.360 the case. He didn't interview the police officers, he didn't 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.600 interview the young man who was identifying Larry. He had 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.640 the report of the police officer interviewing this woman, and 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.520 what the woman said about seeing these guys running away 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.400 from the scene and never spoke to the woman. And 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.559 then once the trial begins, he tells the judge, well, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.520 there's this witness, and we don't know where she is 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.520 or anything about her. He does get the judge involved, 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.080 and the judge says to the prosecutor, we'd better find 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.720 this witness. There's another witness, which was the young man's mother. 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.160 Initially she identifies Larry also, but when you get the 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.719 trial she says, no, I'm not sure that this is 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.320 the person, and so she takes away her identification. But 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.600 he didn't interview any of these people. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.200 So going in to trial they had at least they 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.679 thought they had two white witnesses identifying Larry, Victor Hopkins 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.720 and his mom, Emma Ellis. But then on the first 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.120 day of trial, with the mom recanting, it goes down 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.000 to just one, the young teenage kid. 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.760 And incidentally, the young man when he testifies, when he 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.360 asks can you identify the person you saw at Larry's 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.560 sitting at the defense table, he basically says worth the 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:36.720 de fact, well do I have to be sure. 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.400 Jesus Christ, So even he was unsure, and then on 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:43.800 the second day of trial. The third witness, the woman 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.520 who had seen the three men fleeing the scene and 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.560 who knew one of them from a local bar. She 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.520 was subpoened and did come in to testify. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.840 The night before the second day, the police go to 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.640 the hospital where this young woman was with her fiance 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.600 who had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down, 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.720 and they subpoena her and tell her she's got to 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:08.880 be in court. The next day. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.760 She came and testifying and said that I wasn't one 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.959 of the men, so I was very hopeful that the 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:16.720 jewry took that into account. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.120 By the defense counsel because he doesn't know the facts 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.960 of the case, where he hasn't even read the police report, 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.800 he doesn't elicits the fact that the guy that saw 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.679 running had blood on the back of his shirt and 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.640 that I know him, which is kind of critical. I 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.600 know who he was from a bar. It never gets 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.240 elicited from her, and that's the testimony, And then the 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.600 prosecution doesn't ask her any questions and then brings on 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.600 one of the investigating cops to say, after he learned 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.040 about her existence, he tried to find her, but he 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.560 couldn't find her. According to this cop, there's no report 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.520 or anything of him ever doing anything to find her. 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.880 And then the cop says, when we went to the 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:02.800 hospital to subpoena her, she didnied who she was. She's unreliable, 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.880 you know, she can't be trusted, that kind of stuff. 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:07.480 And that's the evidence they present. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.679 And you didn't know at the time that this investigator 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.080 hadn't tried to find her, and the jury had no 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.640 reason to doubt him. But something came out years later 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:18.920 about that testimony, which we're going to get to it 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.400 just a bit. But as far as his trial, the 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.840 jury was left with two witnesses casting doubt on Larry's guilt, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.560 the investigator casting doubt on one of those witnesses, and 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.040 then ultimately the jury sided with the young man who 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.840 made a sort of a hesitant could we call it 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.160 in court identification of Larry. 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.480 I was really hoping that, you know, that it would 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.240 have been in my favor. I couldn't believe that they 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.280 came back with that verdict. I had a life sentence. 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.000 It was like a nightmare. It was like an out 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.760 of body experience. I was numbed, and it's just it 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:11.720 was unreal. When I first came into prison. I went 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.320 down to Greatest Ford. It was like a new world 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.360 to me. I had never been incarcerated before. I heard 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.240 rumors and stuff about prison. You go walk down the block, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.880 they be yelling and so forth and all. Just knowing 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.080 that you're around actual murderers, I was very nervous and scared. 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.920 You know. A couple old heads told me, if you 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.880 stay in your lane and you just mind your business, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.240 you'll be all right. And that's what I basically did 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.080 for them thirty eight years. You know, I try not 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:44.120 to get involved in certain things that I seen. I 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.360 witness some murders one time with a guy with a shank, 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.920 and you know, just human nature. You want to help someone, 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.360 you know, you want to let them come in your cell. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.120 But you know, people tell you that you can't get 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.560 involved in them type of things because the people that 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.360 are looking for that person, they would come after you. 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.800 That sympathy that I have for people, you can't show 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.800 them type of emotions when you're in prison you ask 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.400 them for trouble. It's completely opposite to that human nature 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.600 and you just basically have to try to hold on 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.040 to just a little bit of it to keep you 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.920 from going insane. I lost both of my parents. While 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.520 since I've been down, my mother and my father always 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.440 believed in my innocent. My mother was coming up to 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.160 see me all the many years, and to her health 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.720 prevented her from coming. And even when her and my 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.240 father was called home, me being a lifer, I wasn't 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.600 allowed to go to the funeral. That was one of 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.000 my most darkest days. Not being there for them was 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.840 really some of my roughest days. By being incarcerated for 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:51.800 something I didn't do. 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.360 One of the things rationing about his survival for thirty 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.040 eight years is so much of it is I think 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.720 he had the benefit of fail He had this course, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.120 this family of his, they never abandoned him. They knew 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.840 he was innocent. They stuck by him through everything thirty 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.160 eight years. When you think about. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.320 It, that's what kept me going, Paul, my daughter and 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.280 my son. I had family. They supported me all them 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.800 thirty eight years, coming up in the mountains. That's what 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.480 kept me going. Besides my faith in Christ. You know 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.720 when I had bad days in prisons, that's what kept 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.200 me going and supported my family and my faith. Instead 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.560 of being pessimistic about life, I'm more optimistic. I had 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.680 faith that one of the courts would, you know, get 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:35.880 this right, that will correct the wrong that was done 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:36.240 to me. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.640 And so your appeals raised a number of issues. Chief 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.160 among them, of course, was an effective assistance of counsel. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.800 And Larry had read this lawyery, you know, or a 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.360 lawyer who did nothing but took the retainer and pocketed it. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:50.200 And that was it. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.920 And despite that, the appeals were repeatedly denied, and without 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.640 knowledge of what had been hidden by the state about 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.600 the third witness who was so badly the disparaged by 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:05.320 the investigator, trial is unreliable. The years just continued to 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:06.880 tick off and roll on by. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.760 After over so many years and times going from one 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.320 court to another court, my faith started to you know, waiver. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.560 But I really believed that the truth was going to 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.560 come out, that one of the courts would roll in 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.280 my favorite to overturn my life sentence. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:23.680 You know. 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.840 I try to reach out to different state representatives. I 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:32.000 wrote Temple Innocent Project, I wrote Dressul Innocent Projects, but 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.600 no one basically really listened to my cry until I 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.800 wrote a Centurn Ministry. 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.040 And Centurion ministries took over around twenty fourteen or fifteen 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.080 before Paul came on as their legal director, and at 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.960 that time an investigator named Alan Maymon was hard at 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:49.800 work reinvestigating the case. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.400 I like to speak a little bit about Alan and 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.320 how he tried to get my records. He went down 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.320 the city Hall with my daughter and my son trying 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.960 to get these records to the so forth. For many years. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.200 It wasn't just you know, going down here one time. 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.120 So Alan Maymon and your family were just getting stonewalled 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:14.879 by the previous DA Seth Williams. That name man, That 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.000 was a dirty, dirty guy man. He ended up in 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.080 prison himself. Meanwhile, they were reinterviewing witnesses. One of them 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.880 gave them the name of a more likely alternative suspect 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.199 with a rap sheet a mile long, who had been 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.240 convicted of an eerily similar murder to mister Colvin's. 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.720 And this is before Larry Krashner became the district attorney. 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.199 They were kind of faking that they had a conviction 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:41.000 integrity unit in the Philadelphia DA's office. And when Centurion 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.000 had some evidence that some guy indicated he was involved 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.320 in the murder this woman had received a statement from him, 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.560 you know who, they sent out to interview the woman. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.680 They sent out the son of the investigator in Larry's 0:17:54.720 --> 0:18:00.000 case to investigate whether his father's investigation of the murder 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:00.919 was incompetent. 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.639 The sun I've heard everything. I've never heard that beare 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:03.879 ye know. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.000 Yeah, it was just it's mind boggling when you look 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:06.360 at it. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.640 But fortunately Larry Krasner was elected DA and your team 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.360 was finally given access to those police files in twenty nineteen. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.000 I just want to say a little bit about Larry Krasner. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.399 I just want to thank him for as creating the 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.760 integrity Unit and giving the information over to Sinturnity. That's 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.360 where I found out that the prosecutor, as far as 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:26.520 the letter that he had wrote on my behalf is 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.119 referring to that my case was the thinnest case that 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:30.200 he ever prosecuted. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.240 Yeah, this was from a twenty twelve and a twenty 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.760 fifteen letter that your trial prosecutor, Richard P. Myers wrote 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.439 to then DA Seth Williams. He continued saying, quote, it 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.040 is the only homicide case that I tried in which 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.280 I had a doubt regarding the guilt of the accused 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.040 end quote. But this was just the beginning with Larry's files. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.720 The witness who had seen the three men fleeing and 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.280 testified at trial that Larry was not one of the assailants, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.240 if you remember. The lead detective god understand and said 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.919 that she was first that she was unfindable, and then 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.160 when they did find her, she was uncooperative and unreliable. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.520 The prosecution didn't disclose the fact that this woman who 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.720 witnessed these three men running away from the scene was 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:17.040 a witness and was cooperating with the police in another 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.320 murder investigation involving her boyfriend who had been shot along 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.280 with another young man who had been killed, and her 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.880 boyfriend was in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down, 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.120 and she was cooperating with the police in that investigation, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.520 and they present her as this unreliable person. You know. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.080 The cop actually says he tried to find her. Meanwhile, 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.960 this woman's in the police station in the same homicide division, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.359 given interviews to this officer's colleagues. Isn't this other murder case? 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.520 And he gets on the standing Larry's trial and says, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.160 she was uncooperative. We couldn't find her, you know, she's unreliable. 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.199 Strangely enough, she seemed to have been easily locatable and 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.920 reliable when she was being helpful to the state, but 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.240 she quickly became a target for character smears and other 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.040 dirty tricks when she began to testify to actually clear 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:10.400 a man who was innocent. 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.000 And the tragic part of the whole case, on another 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:17.280 level of many tragic components to it, is this young woman, 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.360 based on her cooperation in that other case, got murdered 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.399 about three months after Larry's trial, so she was always 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:31.879 unavailable to us and to anybody trying to reinvestigate this 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:50.000 case because she had been killed previously. The Lord of 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.480 Pennsylvania was if anything appeared in a public record, you're 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.639 responsible for it. And so if it appeared in a 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.880 public record in nineteen ninety two, well that's when there's 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.000 that's where the limitations began to run. 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.040 This is an awful and an often ignored element a 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.800 post conviction for a lot of cases in Pennsylvania. If 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.840 something is a matter of public record and therefore findable, 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.720 the burden is and was on you and your attorney 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.520 to have found it before being procedurally barred from using it, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.240 which means only six months from the date it was 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:25.320 entered into the public record. That's all you got. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:30.080 The Conviction Integrity Unit. They felt that in Pennsylvania that 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.320 the course would say, you should have found the fact 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.680 that this woman who witnessed these three men running away 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.159 from the scene was cooperating with the police in another 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:41.840 murder investigation, that the course would say, you should have 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.040 found this evidence earlier. Meanwhile, there had been a number 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.480 of cases that come down from the United States Court 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.040 of Appeals for the Third Circuit that basically said, no, 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.040 you can't hold somebody accountable for something that's in the 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.600