Speaker 1: On May second, nineteen eighty three, Clyde Coleman was fatally
Speaker 1: shot at his home in southwest Philadelphia. Multiple eyewitnesses claimed
Speaker 1: to have seen three black men fleeing the scene, the
Speaker 1: back of one of their shirts covered in blood. While
Speaker 1: one witness recognized the blood soak the sailor from a
Speaker 1: local bar, another witness said that he looked like a
Speaker 1: man who had visited with mister Coleman just two days prior. Eventually,
Speaker 1: this witness identified one of the victim's friends, Mary Walker,
Speaker 1: from a photograph. Even though the other witnesses were not
Speaker 1: convinced that the police had the right man, the jury was.
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: I really hope you're in the mood to hear a
Speaker 1: remarkable story about an amazing man. Well, we have two
Speaker 1: amazing men on the show today. Actually, the person who
Speaker 1: lived through a nightmare that spent almost four decades of
Speaker 1: wrongful incarceration thirty eight years plus, Larry Walker, is here
Speaker 1: with us. Larry, first of all, I'm sorry you're here
Speaker 1: because of what you went through to get here, but
Speaker 1: I'm very honored to have you on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for just taking time out to interview.
Speaker 1: Me and with him is a guy I can't believe
Speaker 1: we haven't had on the show before, a luminary in
Speaker 1: the world of righting wrongs in the criminal justice world.
Speaker 1: Paul Castellerro, who is the legal director of Centurion Ministry,
Speaker 1: is a name that I'm sure you're familiar with, the
Speaker 1: very first innocence organization in the United States. Paul, I'm
Speaker 1: really really honored to humble to have you here on
Speaker 1: the show today.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: And this incredible story was in what was certainly almost
Speaker 1: the epicenter of wrongful convictions. And I'm talking about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: especially back in the eighties, but unfortunately not just in
Speaker 1: the eighties. And this was a case that well, I'll
Speaker 1: just say this, it was so bad that even the
Speaker 1: trial DA said that it was the thinnest homicide case
Speaker 1: he ever tried. That was a quote. So before we
Speaker 1: get into all the details of the crime itself and
Speaker 1: of course of the process that led to this horrendous injustice, Larry,
Speaker 1: let's go back. What was your life like growing up?
Speaker 1: Did you grow up in Philly?
Speaker 2: Yes, I grew up in Southwest Philly. Ten siblings, five
Speaker 2: brothers and five sisters. Close knit family. I was into sports,
Speaker 2: go to church services, and active to my community. I
Speaker 2: had my children in an early age, and I was
Speaker 2: basically just trying to be a father to my children.
Speaker 1: Twenty two years old when you went away. Your kids
Speaker 1: were basically toddlers when you went to prison, right, I
Speaker 1: mean three and five years old?
Speaker 2: Yes? Correct? Yes, my daughter was three and my son
Speaker 2: was five.
Speaker 1: And how old were they when you came home?
Speaker 2: My daughter was forty and my son was forty two.
Speaker 1: That's just I mean, that really puts it in perspective.
Speaker 2: The memories, the good times that I had when I
Speaker 2: was home with my children before this happened is what
Speaker 2: basically kept me a lot. It was times we went
Speaker 2: to the zoo and a lot of birthdays I remember
Speaker 2: with them. That kept me going through autumn thirty eight
Speaker 2: years while I was incarcerated.
Speaker 1: You know, I was hardened when I read that the
Speaker 1: mother of your kids, they all stuck close to you
Speaker 1: throughout this ordeal.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, correct. Their mother was very supportive even to
Speaker 2: this day. She was the one that when I wanted
Speaker 2: to give up, she kept helping me to encourage me
Speaker 2: to go on, you know, and she was the one
Speaker 2: that was coming up in the mountains, you know, the
Speaker 2: van services, getting the kids up early in the morning.
Speaker 2: She put them through Catholic school, you know, she helped
Speaker 2: them with, you know, the education that there are successful
Speaker 2: adults today. She was the glue that kept us together.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm happy you had her, even though I wish
Speaker 1: she never would have had to show that kind of strength.
Speaker 1: So I want to get to how you were taken
Speaker 1: away from them, which started way back on May second,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, when a friend of yours named Clyde
Speaker 1: Coleman was fatally shot. And let's turn to Paul for
Speaker 1: the details of this crime for which all accounts always
Speaker 1: pointed to three assailants, not.
Speaker 3: One, and he obviously was not any of them. And
Speaker 3: they had really very good evidence of who the perpetrator
Speaker 3: was that they said was Larry in this incident. And
Speaker 3: the case develops where fourteen or fifteen year old young
Speaker 3: man is on his way home. He lived in an
Speaker 3: attached house right next to where the victim lived. As
Speaker 3: the young man had approached the house, he saw two
Speaker 3: guys that were lingering in the area. The victim and
Speaker 3: this young man, they have a joint walkway that they shared.
Speaker 3: As he's walking up, the door opens to the victim's
Speaker 3: house and there's an unknown guy standing in the doorway.
Speaker 3: This young man he sees the victim was lying on
Speaker 3: the floor, and the victim gets up from the floor
Speaker 3: and he comes up behind the guy standing in the doorway,
Speaker 3: which they say is Larry, and he attacks him, and
Speaker 3: the victim yells to the young man to run, run, run,
Speaker 3: And it turns out the victim has been shot and
Speaker 3: is bleeding profusely, and when he grabs the perpetrator, who
Speaker 3: they say was Larry, from behind, leaving massive amounts of
Speaker 3: blood apparently on the guy's back shirt that eventually the
Speaker 3: perpetrator is able to throw off the victim and he
Speaker 3: takes off running. The young man said the guy he
Speaker 3: saw in the doorway look like a guy he had
Speaker 3: seen a couple of days earlier who was over the
Speaker 3: house visiting with the victim.
Speaker 1: And so the police had interviewed this young man, Victor Hopkins,
Speaker 1: as well as his mother, Emma Ellis, who had also
Speaker 1: seen the assailants, three black men who had just run off.
Speaker 3: The cops, and they go around the neighborhood looking. A
Speaker 3: young woman a couple of blocks away says she saw
Speaker 3: three guys going down the street and one guy was
Speaker 3: holding a gun and he had blood on the back
Speaker 3: of his shirt. And I know that guy. He hangs
Speaker 3: out in a bar where I've been. The police totally
Speaker 3: and completely ignored it.
Speaker 2: I also would like to add that one of the
Speaker 2: three men that was fleeing from the scene of crime
Speaker 2: had a cast on his hand. They should have went
Speaker 2: to maybe the nearest hospital in the community.
Speaker 1: But they never explored any of those other avenues.
Speaker 3: They made no effort none whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Instead, they focused solely on the description from the fifteen
Speaker 1: year old kid, Victor Hopkins, that the purp looked like
Speaker 1: someone who he had seen at mister Coleman's two days earlier.
Speaker 3: And that person, it turns out, was Larry. Larry knew
Speaker 3: the victim. They were friends, and Larry had been over
Speaker 3: there visiting him on a Saturday afternoon. This happened on
Speaker 3: a Monday, so he said it looked like him, and
Speaker 3: so the police try to figure out who is the
Speaker 3: person over there that Saturday that this young man says
Speaker 3: he looked like, and they identified Larry's photo and boom.
Speaker 3: Larry was in the case.
Speaker 1: And our audience has heard many times we've talked about
Speaker 1: the incredibly unreliable practice of identification procedures. So, Larry, how
Speaker 1: did you first learn about this? This is a friend
Speaker 1: of yours that got killed. So that's a terrible piece
Speaker 1: of news to get and then to be wrongfully accused
Speaker 1: and ultimately tried and convicted. How did you first find
Speaker 1: out about this murder?
Speaker 2: Jason? I basically found out through word on the street.
Speaker 2: People was talking about it. I heard it from a friend.
Speaker 1: When did the cops first come and talk to you
Speaker 1: or did they arrest you?
Speaker 2: The incident happened on the second, It was about two
Speaker 2: weeks after that round at thirteenth. They came to my home.
Speaker 1: Did they look for the bloody shirt? Did they look
Speaker 1: for the gun?
Speaker 2: Yes, they came with a warrant. They searched my home.
Speaker 3: They found nothing, no evidence whatsoever they would indicate any
Speaker 3: kind of connection to this crime or is there any
Speaker 3: other crime?
Speaker 1: So that didn't deter them at all. They went ahead
Speaker 1: and took you downtown and they interrogated you. How long
Speaker 1: did the interrogation last? Did you have an attorney?
Speaker 2: Didn't have an attorney. I just knew that I was innocent.
Speaker 2: I told him constantly over that I had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it.
Speaker 3: He was fully cooperative with the police. He waived his
Speaker 3: rights to, you know, not speak to them. And whether
Speaker 3: they're doing this they know about this other person who's
Speaker 3: identifying the guy that is in a bar that matches
Speaker 3: the description to a t of the perpetrator. It is
Speaker 3: just mind boggling that they could persist in going after
Speaker 3: him or at the same time not investigate who this
Speaker 3: woman says is the person.
Speaker 2: I was taken to I think fifty fifth and pounds
Speaker 2: and I was locked up. I never saw the streets ever.
Speaker 1: Since nineteen eighty three to twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 2: My family paid for a paid attorney for me, and
Speaker 2: he didn't interview the witnesses. He didn't interview me before
Speaker 2: I went to trial.
Speaker 3: It's kind of frightening how you could represent somebody on
Speaker 3: a murder trial and not interview the basic witnesses in
Speaker 3: the case. He didn't interview the police officers, he didn't
Speaker 3: interview the young man who was identifying Larry. He had
Speaker 3: the report of the police officer interviewing this woman, and
Speaker 3: what the woman said about seeing these guys running away
Speaker 3: from the scene and never spoke to the woman. And
Speaker 3: then once the trial begins, he tells the judge, well,
Speaker 3: there's this witness, and we don't know where she is
Speaker 3: or anything about her. He does get the judge involved,
Speaker 3: and the judge says to the prosecutor, we'd better find
Speaker 3: this witness. There's another witness, which was the young man's mother.
Speaker 3: Initially she identifies Larry also, but when you get the
Speaker 3: trial she says, no, I'm not sure that this is
Speaker 3: the person, and so she takes away her identification. But
Speaker 3: he didn't interview any of these people.
Speaker 1: So going in to trial they had at least they
Speaker 1: thought they had two white witnesses identifying Larry, Victor Hopkins
Speaker 1: and his mom, Emma Ellis. But then on the first
Speaker 1: day of trial, with the mom recanting, it goes down
Speaker 1: to just one, the young teenage kid.
Speaker 3: And incidentally, the young man when he testifies, when he
Speaker 3: asks can you identify the person you saw at Larry's
Speaker 3: sitting at the defense table, he basically says worth the
Speaker 3: de fact, well do I have to be sure.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, So even he was unsure, and then on
Speaker 1: the second day of trial. The third witness, the woman
Speaker 1: who had seen the three men fleeing the scene and
Speaker 1: who knew one of them from a local bar. She
Speaker 1: was subpoened and did come in to testify.
Speaker 3: The night before the second day, the police go to
Speaker 3: the hospital where this young woman was with her fiance
Speaker 3: who had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down,
Speaker 3: and they subpoena her and tell her she's got to
Speaker 3: be in court. The next day.
Speaker 2: She came and testifying and said that I wasn't one
Speaker 2: of the men, so I was very hopeful that the
Speaker 2: jewry took that into account.
Speaker 3: By the defense counsel because he doesn't know the facts
Speaker 3: of the case, where he hasn't even read the police report,
Speaker 3: he doesn't elicits the fact that the guy that saw
Speaker 3: running had blood on the back of his shirt and
Speaker 3: that I know him, which is kind of critical. I
Speaker 3: know who he was from a bar. It never gets
Speaker 3: elicited from her, and that's the testimony, And then the
Speaker 3: prosecution doesn't ask her any questions and then brings on
Speaker 3: one of the investigating cops to say, after he learned
Speaker 3: about her existence, he tried to find her, but he
Speaker 3: couldn't find her. According to this cop, there's no report
Speaker 3: or anything of him ever doing anything to find her.
Speaker 3: And then the cop says, when we went to the
Speaker 3: hospital to subpoena her, she didnied who she was. She's unreliable,
Speaker 3: you know, she can't be trusted, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And that's the evidence they present.
Speaker 1: And you didn't know at the time that this investigator
Speaker 1: hadn't tried to find her, and the jury had no
Speaker 1: reason to doubt him. But something came out years later
Speaker 1: about that testimony, which we're going to get to it
Speaker 1: just a bit. But as far as his trial, the
Speaker 1: jury was left with two witnesses casting doubt on Larry's guilt,
Speaker 1: the investigator casting doubt on one of those witnesses, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately the jury sided with the young man who
Speaker 1: made a sort of a hesitant could we call it
Speaker 1: in court identification of Larry.
Speaker 2: I was really hoping that, you know, that it would
Speaker 2: have been in my favor. I couldn't believe that they
Speaker 2: came back with that verdict. I had a life sentence.
Speaker 2: It was like a nightmare. It was like an out
Speaker 2: of body experience. I was numbed, and it's just it
Speaker 2: was unreal. When I first came into prison. I went
Speaker 2: down to Greatest Ford. It was like a new world
Speaker 2: to me. I had never been incarcerated before. I heard
Speaker 2: rumors and stuff about prison. You go walk down the block,
Speaker 2: they be yelling and so forth and all. Just knowing
Speaker 2: that you're around actual murderers, I was very nervous and scared.
Speaker 2: You know. A couple old heads told me, if you
Speaker 2: stay in your lane and you just mind your business,
Speaker 2: you'll be all right. And that's what I basically did
Speaker 2: for them thirty eight years. You know, I try not
Speaker 2: to get involved in certain things that I seen. I
Speaker 2: witness some murders one time with a guy with a shank,
Speaker 2: and you know, just human nature. You want to help someone,
Speaker 2: you know, you want to let them come in your cell.
Speaker 2: But you know, people tell you that you can't get
Speaker 2: involved in them type of things because the people that
Speaker 2: are looking for that person, they would come after you.
Speaker 2: That sympathy that I have for people, you can't show
Speaker 2: them type of emotions when you're in prison you ask
Speaker 2: them for trouble. It's completely opposite to that human nature
Speaker 2: and you just basically have to try to hold on
Speaker 2: to just a little bit of it to keep you
Speaker 2: from going insane. I lost both of my parents. While
Speaker 2: since I've been down, my mother and my father always
Speaker 2: believed in my innocent. My mother was coming up to
Speaker 2: see me all the many years, and to her health
Speaker 2: prevented her from coming. And even when her and my
Speaker 2: father was called home, me being a lifer, I wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to go to the funeral. That was one of
Speaker 2: my most darkest days. Not being there for them was
Speaker 2: really some of my roughest days. By being incarcerated for
Speaker 2: something I didn't do.
Speaker 3: One of the things rationing about his survival for thirty
Speaker 3: eight years is so much of it is I think
Speaker 3: he had the benefit of fail He had this course,
Speaker 3: this family of his, they never abandoned him. They knew
Speaker 3: he was innocent. They stuck by him through everything thirty
Speaker 3: eight years. When you think about.
Speaker 2: It, that's what kept me going, Paul, my daughter and
Speaker 2: my son. I had family. They supported me all them
Speaker 2: thirty eight years, coming up in the mountains. That's what
Speaker 2: kept me going. Besides my faith in Christ. You know
Speaker 2: when I had bad days in prisons, that's what kept
Speaker 2: me going and supported my family and my faith. Instead
Speaker 2: of being pessimistic about life, I'm more optimistic. I had
Speaker 2: faith that one of the courts would, you know, get
Speaker 2: this right, that will correct the wrong that was done
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: And so your appeals raised a number of issues. Chief
Speaker 1: among them, of course, was an effective assistance of counsel.
Speaker 3: And Larry had read this lawyery, you know, or a
Speaker 3: lawyer who did nothing but took the retainer and pocketed it.
Speaker 3: And that was it.
Speaker 1: And despite that, the appeals were repeatedly denied, and without
Speaker 1: knowledge of what had been hidden by the state about
Speaker 1: the third witness who was so badly the disparaged by
Speaker 1: the investigator, trial is unreliable. The years just continued to
Speaker 1: tick off and roll on by.
Speaker 2: After over so many years and times going from one
Speaker 2: court to another court, my faith started to you know, waiver.
Speaker 2: But I really believed that the truth was going to
Speaker 2: come out, that one of the courts would roll in
Speaker 2: my favorite to overturn my life sentence.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I try to reach out to different state representatives. I
Speaker 2: wrote Temple Innocent Project, I wrote Dressul Innocent Projects, but
Speaker 2: no one basically really listened to my cry until I
Speaker 2: wrote a Centurn Ministry.
Speaker 1: And Centurion ministries took over around twenty fourteen or fifteen
Speaker 1: before Paul came on as their legal director, and at
Speaker 1: that time an investigator named Alan Maymon was hard at
Speaker 1: work reinvestigating the case.
Speaker 2: I like to speak a little bit about Alan and
Speaker 2: how he tried to get my records. He went down
Speaker 2: the city Hall with my daughter and my son trying
Speaker 2: to get these records to the so forth. For many years.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just you know, going down here one time.
Speaker 1: So Alan Maymon and your family were just getting stonewalled
Speaker 1: by the previous DA Seth Williams. That name man, That
Speaker 1: was a dirty, dirty guy man. He ended up in
Speaker 1: prison himself. Meanwhile, they were reinterviewing witnesses. One of them
Speaker 1: gave them the name of a more likely alternative suspect
Speaker 1: with a rap sheet a mile long, who had been
Speaker 1: convicted of an eerily similar murder to mister Colvin's.
Speaker 3: And this is before Larry Krashner became the district attorney.
Speaker 3: They were kind of faking that they had a conviction
Speaker 3: integrity unit in the Philadelphia DA's office. And when Centurion
Speaker 3: had some evidence that some guy indicated he was involved
Speaker 3: in the murder this woman had received a statement from him,
Speaker 3: you know who, they sent out to interview the woman.
Speaker 3: They sent out the son of the investigator in Larry's
Speaker 3: case to investigate whether his father's investigation of the murder
Speaker 3: was incompetent.
Speaker 1: The sun I've heard everything. I've never heard that beare
Speaker 1: ye know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just it's mind boggling when you look
Speaker 3: at it.
Speaker 1: But fortunately Larry Krasner was elected DA and your team
Speaker 1: was finally given access to those police files in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: I just want to say a little bit about Larry Krasner.
Speaker 2: I just want to thank him for as creating the
Speaker 2: integrity Unit and giving the information over to Sinturnity. That's
Speaker 2: where I found out that the prosecutor, as far as
Speaker 2: the letter that he had wrote on my behalf is
Speaker 2: referring to that my case was the thinnest case that
Speaker 2: he ever prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was from a twenty twelve and a twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen letter that your trial prosecutor, Richard P. Myers wrote
Speaker 1: to then DA Seth Williams. He continued saying, quote, it
Speaker 1: is the only homicide case that I tried in which
Speaker 1: I had a doubt regarding the guilt of the accused
Speaker 1: end quote. But this was just the beginning with Larry's files.
Speaker 1: The witness who had seen the three men fleeing and
Speaker 1: testified at trial that Larry was not one of the assailants,
Speaker 1: if you remember. The lead detective god understand and said
Speaker 1: that she was first that she was unfindable, and then
Speaker 1: when they did find her, she was uncooperative and unreliable.
Speaker 3: The prosecution didn't disclose the fact that this woman who
Speaker 3: witnessed these three men running away from the scene was
Speaker 3: a witness and was cooperating with the police in another
Speaker 3: murder investigation involving her boyfriend who had been shot along
Speaker 3: with another young man who had been killed, and her
Speaker 3: boyfriend was in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down,
Speaker 3: and she was cooperating with the police in that investigation,
Speaker 3: and they present her as this unreliable person. You know.
Speaker 3: The cop actually says he tried to find her. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: this woman's in the police station in the same homicide division,
Speaker 3: given interviews to this officer's colleagues. Isn't this other murder case?
Speaker 3: And he gets on the standing Larry's trial and says,
Speaker 3: she was uncooperative. We couldn't find her, you know, she's unreliable.
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, she seemed to have been easily locatable and
Speaker 1: reliable when she was being helpful to the state, but
Speaker 1: she quickly became a target for character smears and other
Speaker 1: dirty tricks when she began to testify to actually clear
Speaker 1: a man who was innocent.
Speaker 3: And the tragic part of the whole case, on another
Speaker 3: level of many tragic components to it, is this young woman,
Speaker 3: based on her cooperation in that other case, got murdered
Speaker 3: about three months after Larry's trial, so she was always
Speaker 3: unavailable to us and to anybody trying to reinvestigate this
Speaker 3: case because she had been killed previously. The Lord of
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania was if anything appeared in a public record, you're
Speaker 3: responsible for it. And so if it appeared in a
Speaker 3: public record in nineteen ninety two, well that's when there's
Speaker 3: that's where the limitations began to run.
Speaker 1: This is an awful and an often ignored element a
Speaker 1: post conviction for a lot of cases in Pennsylvania. If
Speaker 1: something is a matter of public record and therefore findable,
Speaker 1: the burden is and was on you and your attorney
Speaker 1: to have found it before being procedurally barred from using it,
Speaker 1: which means only six months from the date it was
Speaker 1: entered into the public record. That's all you got.
Speaker 3: The Conviction Integrity Unit. They felt that in Pennsylvania that
Speaker 3: the course would say, you should have found the fact
Speaker 3: that this woman who witnessed these three men running away
Speaker 3: from the scene was cooperating with the police in another
Speaker 3: murder investigation, that the course would say, you should have
Speaker 3: found this evidence earlier. Meanwhile, there had been a number
Speaker 3: of cases that come down from the United States Court
Speaker 3: of Appeals for the Third Circuit that basically said, no,
Speaker 3: you can't hold somebody accountable for something that's in the
Speaker 3: public record that they have no ideas in the public record.
Speaker 1: So where was it part of the public record? Where
Speaker 1: were you expected to.
Speaker 3: Affect There's a kernel in a case. It's a published
Speaker 3: case and it refers to her and being killed. But
Speaker 3: the case has no application to anything, you know, no
Speaker 3: legal principle. It wasn't anything your cite for president for
Speaker 3: any kind of legal issue. And they were saying, you
Speaker 3: should have found this case has learned that you know
Speaker 3: she was cooperating in this other case. You should have
Speaker 3: found out earlier that we suppressed evidence. The fact that
Speaker 3: you have some evidence now too bad. He stays in
Speaker 3: jail because you could have found it earlier.
Speaker 1: You'd think a conviction integrity and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they would be created would be the circumvent these type
Speaker 1: of very stringent legal standards. So anyway, how was this
Speaker 1: ultimately resolved.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't vacate the conviction. The only way we were
Speaker 3: getting Larry out was is if he took a plea
Speaker 3: to a reduced charge. So that's what we did. We
Speaker 3: had to take a plee to a reduced charge, and
Speaker 3: he walked out based on under reduced charge. The idea
Speaker 3: that we somehow should have been able to find this
Speaker 3: evidence of their perjury at his trial, and because we
Speaker 3: didn't find it out until when they gave us access
Speaker 3: to the records, too bad. Take the plea, you can
Speaker 3: walk out, or we can litigate the issue of whether
Speaker 3: or not you should have found this earlier. And of
Speaker 3: course if we litigate it, you know where Larry is prison, Well,
Speaker 3: we litigate it. So Larry had his joy said, but
Speaker 3: fifty eight to either come out to a family he's
Speaker 3: been deprived of and a life he's been deprived of
Speaker 3: for thirty eight years, or take a plea. I go
Speaker 3: to Larry and I speak to Larry about this, and
Speaker 3: Larry says to me, Paul, could you guarantee me I'll
Speaker 3: be free in a year if we continue to fight
Speaker 3: because I'm innocent? And I said, Larry, you know I
Speaker 3: can't guarantee you what a court will do in a year.
Speaker 3: I mean we might not even be, you know, heard
Speaker 3: in the year.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm a big fan of Larry Krasner. I'd like
Speaker 1: to clone that guy and put him in offices all
Speaker 1: over the country. Nobody's perfect, though, this outcome was far
Speaker 1: from perfect. But nonetheless, Larry, I think you know, Look,
Speaker 1: no one can follow you from making that decision. What
Speaker 1: was it like to walk out into the air, into
Speaker 1: the arms of your loved ones? What did you do first?
Speaker 1: Did you go get something to eat? Did you hug
Speaker 1: a tree? Like?
Speaker 2: What did you do? Well? Jason? When I first heard that,
Speaker 2: I was, you know, found out that I was truly
Speaker 2: going home after thirty eight years or something I didn't
Speaker 2: do in prison. You know, I was overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: I was excited standing outside the prison waiting for him
Speaker 3: to come out. There was must have been what Larry
Speaker 3: fifty people and all of his family. It was just
Speaker 3: the kind of you know, jump for joy. Moment dimnity
Speaker 3: emerged from behind the doors.
Speaker 2: My family had a gathering for me at a hall.
Speaker 2: I went to go eat, and I had relatives, my
Speaker 2: sisters and brothers and cousins and so forth, and all His.
Speaker 3: Daughter Sharena arranged with the local community center to cater
Speaker 3: a little celebration lunch. It was wonderful and I.
Speaker 2: Went out to go eat with Paul and his white
Speaker 2: was there. I had a big stake for my first mail.
Speaker 3: It was really cool.
Speaker 1: Larry. We're all thrilled that you're free, that you're home,
Speaker 1: that you're here with us today. I know that there'll
Speaker 1: be people that are listening that would like to support
Speaker 1: you as well. You have a go fundme that people
Speaker 1: might be able to help you because the state obviously
Speaker 1: has never given you any compensation and they're not going to.
Speaker 1: So this is the part of the show that I
Speaker 1: always look forward to. It's called closing arguments, and it
Speaker 1: works like this. I thank each of you again for
Speaker 1: taking your time to be here today and share this
Speaker 1: remarkable story. And then I'm going to turn my microphone off,
Speaker 1: beat my headphones on, and kick back in my chair
Speaker 1: and just listen to anything else that you guys want
Speaker 1: to share.
Speaker 3: I guess what I want to share is that, you know,
Speaker 3: Larry is an extraordinary human being, and I think he's
Speaker 3: blessed by the fact that he has a wonderful family.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be negative, but these wrongful conviction
Speaker 3: cases where people can out of jail after spending thirty
Speaker 3: eight years or twenty four years or whatever period of
Speaker 3: time thirty years, it's not a victory. It's a sad
Speaker 3: comment on a system that consistently and persistently makes the
Speaker 3: same mistakes over and over and over and really does
Speaker 3: little to correct them. You know. Yet, we have a
Speaker 3: federal system that is hostile to reviewing state courts convictions.
Speaker 3: And that wasn't the case, you know, pre nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: six and the passage of the Anti Terrorism Affected Death
Speaker 3: Penalty Act, and state courts have created barriers to relitigating
Speaker 3: cases and to bringing cases of innocence forward. People have
Speaker 3: to understand that there are lots and lots of innocent
Speaker 3: people behind bars that are prevented from bringing claims based
Speaker 3: on time constraints and in access to evidence that they
Speaker 3: should be able to access. But the courts say, no,
Speaker 3: you don't have a right through it, and the problems
Speaker 3: continue to this day, over and over, and Larry's case
Speaker 3: is really illustrative of exactly that. And it's just a
Speaker 3: frightening kind of system. And you have to understand the system.
Speaker 3: It's dependent upon human beings, and human beings have to
Speaker 3: act in a certain way in order for fairness to occur,
Speaker 3: and when they don't do what they should do, you
Speaker 3: wind up with wrongful conditions.
Speaker 2: Jason, I just would like to encourage of the family
Speaker 2: that may be going through something similar like my case,
Speaker 2: that family support is very important for people that's incarcerated
Speaker 2: for something they didn't do. I just like to encourage
Speaker 2: other families to support they loved ones. And I also
Speaker 2: like to encourage the listeners to write other organizations that
Speaker 2: take cases on like minds. If it happened to me,
Speaker 2: I believe that it can happen to other people. I
Speaker 2: just like to thank some turn in ministry for believing
Speaker 2: in me and fighting for me over these many years
Speaker 2: and bringing me home to my family and my loved ones. Jason,
Speaker 2: once again, not to repeat myself, to thank you for
Speaker 2: taking his time out for you know, interviewing me and
Speaker 2: getting my story out. It means a lot to me
Speaker 2: and just want to say go equals.
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: Annie Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleibern. 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: Wrong for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signals Opening number
Speaker 1: one