Speaker 1: If you will place your left hand on the Bible
Speaker 1: and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me,
Speaker 1: and I do solemnly swear, then titled action find the
Speaker 1: defendant guilty of the prime It makes no sense, it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must equit. We
Speaker 1: all took the same of of office. We're all bound
Speaker 1: by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
Speaker 1: to bear true faith in allegiance to the same that
Speaker 1: you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you
Speaker 1: solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about
Speaker 1: to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
Speaker 1: nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway, m d N.
Speaker 1: A kind of changed everything. It was the game changer
Speaker 1: because for the first time in history we had really
Speaker 1: definitive proof of innocence, although I'm gonna say the second
Speaker 1: time in history. I always tell my students DNA cases
Speaker 1: aren't the best cases. The best cases are murder cases
Speaker 1: where the victim shows up alive later on, and there's
Speaker 1: there's been ten of those documented in history of the
Speaker 1: United States. But short of the victims showing up alive
Speaker 1: and DNA cases, it gets very difficult to win these cases.
Speaker 1: But here's what I've seen happen over the last twenty
Speaker 1: years is DNA opened the door to make believers out
Speaker 1: of judges that hey, innocent people are falling through the cracks.
Speaker 1: Let's face it, Exoneration cases in the United States aren't
Speaker 1: exactly commonplace. According to the United States Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: there were just under one and a half million people
Speaker 1: in prison by the end of two thousand eighteen, but
Speaker 1: as of May, there have only been two thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred exonerations, and a lot of those exonerations have happened
Speaker 1: very recently. This is because of things like advancement in
Speaker 1: DNA and other technology. DNA has been a very helpful
Speaker 1: tool in providing evidence of innocence for wrongly incarcerated people.
Speaker 1: But as the California Innocence Project director Justin Brooks said
Speaker 1: at the beginning, DNA has done more than simply providing evidence.
Speaker 1: It's opened the door to the idea that people are
Speaker 1: in fact in jail for crimes that they did not commit.
Speaker 1: Judges eyes are now more open, Judges are now more
Speaker 1: willing to consider that wrongful evidence is real, and to
Speaker 1: hear wrongful conviction cases even if there is not DNA
Speaker 1: evidence to clear them. Here's Amelia Maxfield, forensic science specialists
Speaker 1: for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Before there was DNA evidence,
Speaker 1: no one even believes that the system got it wrong
Speaker 1: or could get it wrong. So it's definitely been the
Speaker 1: catalyst for many exonerations and for kind of the innocence
Speaker 1: movement as a whole. If there's any way for us
Speaker 1: to go back and test evidence it was found at
Speaker 1: the crime scene to try to identify the true perpetrator,
Speaker 1: will do that. That's kind of the easiest, removes straightforward
Speaker 1: way to get back into court if you have new
Speaker 1: evidence of an alternate perpetrator from a DNA analysis. Even
Speaker 1: though courts today are more likely than ever before to
Speaker 1: hear claims of actual innocence, there are still a lot
Speaker 1: of roadblocks along the way, especially in the way that
Speaker 1: evidence is tested and stored when that evidence might contain
Speaker 1: d N A. There's the first hurdle of even getting
Speaker 1: access to the evidence. Evidence is kept in the custody
Speaker 1: of the state. It may or may not have been
Speaker 1: stored properly. It may or may not have been retained
Speaker 1: at all. There was a widespread evidence destruction order issued
Speaker 1: in the city of Philadelphia twenty years ago because there
Speaker 1: was like a maggot infestation of evidence. Years worth of
Speaker 1: potentially exculpatory DNA evidence was just destroyed because it wasn't
Speaker 1: properly stored. We've had some counties where we've gone to
Speaker 1: look for evidence it was just stored in the courthouse basement,
Speaker 1: and then there was a flood, and then the evidence
Speaker 1: is gone. And then there's a second hurdle of getting
Speaker 1: access to testing. You have to get an order from
Speaker 1: the court, and different states have different standards in order
Speaker 1: to be eligible for DNA testing. A reasonable DA who
Speaker 1: has a post conviction case from the eighties or nineties
Speaker 1: where DNA testing was never done and the evidence still exists,
Speaker 1: many of them will take the tact that we think
Speaker 1: they should, which is, you know, we have the evidence,
Speaker 1: why not just test it and it'll either confirmed the
Speaker 1: conviction was right, or it'll show that the conviction was wrong,
Speaker 1: and then we'll go from there. It's just fair and
Speaker 1: just to test the evidence. Then you have the cost barrier,
Speaker 1: so DNA testing is extremely expensive. Even simple DNA testing
Speaker 1: runs you in the multiple thousands of dollars. Most states
Speaker 1: have statutes written in such a way that the state
Speaker 1: will pay for DNA testing either if you meet a
Speaker 1: certain higher legal standard or if you agree for the
Speaker 1: testing to be done at the state's lab. We just
Speaker 1: don't trust some of the state labs, or they don't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to do the testing that we want.
Speaker 1: They don't have the technology we need. We're often looking
Speaker 1: for small amounts of touch DNA found on specific items
Speaker 1: and they don't have the ability to do that type
Speaker 1: of testing. Getting the evidence in front of the court
Speaker 1: and having them understand what it means and agree that
Speaker 1: it is exculpatory is kind of the final hurdle. It's
Speaker 1: amazing how many times when you have a rape and
Speaker 1: murder case and you finally test the DNA and it
Speaker 1: exonerates your client. It's not his DNA, it's someone else's DNA.
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, for the first time, the
Speaker 1: state comes back with the theory that there was a
Speaker 1: second person there, that your client is still involved in
Speaker 1: the murder, but a second person also raped the victim,
Speaker 1: and that's never been a theory before. Amelia says, they
Speaker 1: haven't actually had that many successful DNA exonerations. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's been the minority of the Pennsylvania Innocence Projects exoneration cases.
Speaker 1: Most of our clients have been exonerated based on new
Speaker 1: evidence in the form of new witnesses coming forward, or
Speaker 1: witnesses were chanting their testimony, or you know, finding something
Speaker 1: in the homicide file, or ineffective assistance of trial counsel.
Speaker 1: We also try to get new opinions based on modern
Speaker 1: science in cases where a forensic science was used that
Speaker 1: may be outdated, if we can get an analyst who's
Speaker 1: been properly trained to look at a discipline and tell
Speaker 1: us whether what was done was valid or not. There's
Speaker 1: something like two thousand exonerations total, and only three hundred
Speaker 1: of those involved DNA. There was a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people in Texas whose convictions were overturned because there was
Speaker 1: misconduct by a specific officer involved in their case. So
Speaker 1: those are all exonerations, but they're not DNA generations. A
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Michelle Tiegel, is a criminal lawyer who
Speaker 1: works in Texas. Michelle has lots of experience working in
Speaker 1: both small towns and big cities, and I asked her
Speaker 1: about some of the issues that she sees in her
Speaker 1: post conviction practice. You would think it's just, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we know this is now faulty science, so we're just
Speaker 1: going to get him out. But there's so much more
Speaker 1: to it than that, and our systems are procedural beasts.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes lawyers have to really put their heads together and
Speaker 1: then often really try and convince prosecutors to work with
Speaker 1: them and trying to find a way to remedy and
Speaker 1: fix what has happened. Meaning you know that someone's been
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted on faulty science. But Michelle says that even
Speaker 1: if you do get a prosecutor to play ball, there
Speaker 1: are still a lot of challenges. In Texas, there are
Speaker 1: certain timelines that you have, and then there are of
Speaker 1: course different issues that you can file what's called a
Speaker 1: writ to basically get your case back before the trial
Speaker 1: quarter back before one of the higher courts in that
Speaker 1: jurisdiction based on new evidence or new science. But then
Speaker 1: there are all these procedural what I would call hurdles.
Speaker 1: You have to get a certain standard of evidence or
Speaker 1: a certain type of testimony or a certain type of testing,
Speaker 1: and then it has to be presented to the right
Speaker 1: you know, decision maker, whatever court that may be in
Speaker 1: that jurisdiction, and then those decisions are never moved and
Speaker 1: usually made quickly. There's often tons of briefing and paperwork
Speaker 1: that comes behind that to convince whoever the decision maker
Speaker 1: is that this is accurate, and you have to get
Speaker 1: x often to back that up experts that normally would
Speaker 1: not be cheap, but that you're often begging to work
Speaker 1: for free to try to help free someone who was
Speaker 1: convicted on faulty science. And it's it's kind of begging
Speaker 1: all the way down the line, is what post conviction
Speaker 1: lawyers have to do. I mean, I commend them for it,
Speaker 1: because it is often thankless work and they spend years
Speaker 1: on it. I was involved in a capital murder case
Speaker 1: years ago, a man named Ed Graff who was originally convicted,
Speaker 1: and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the
Speaker 1: highest criminal appellate court in Texas, reversed his conviction, but
Speaker 1: they remanded it. And what that means is is that
Speaker 1: they just sent it back to the trial court. They
Speaker 1: didn't say he was innocent, they did not exonerate him,
Speaker 1: but they said the science was bad. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: send this case back to either be resolved by the
Speaker 1: d a's office through a plea bargain or tried to
Speaker 1: a jury. And we ultimately tried that case to a
Speaker 1: jury with all new science, different experts, and you know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of witnesses, of course from a
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty capital murder case that we're no longer alive,
Speaker 1: and that became a tricky thing. What we wanted them
Speaker 1: to do, what we would have rather them done in
Speaker 1: that case, was just to exonerate our client, but they
Speaker 1: instead reversed the conviction and said, we're not actually going
Speaker 1: to call him actually innocent. We're going to say that
Speaker 1: there was a flaw in this science and a problem
Speaker 1: and we know that now, and so we're going to
Speaker 1: send the rest back to be heard by jury or
Speaker 1: decided by the d A. Michelle says, the jury deliberated
Speaker 1: for about two whole days. When a jury's out a while,
Speaker 1: you start, especially as a defense lawyer, thanking somebody in
Speaker 1: there's fighting for my client. They're not just willing to,
Speaker 1: you know, say guilty and let's send him away for life.
Speaker 1: We hadn't really had many conversations or plea bargain negotiations
Speaker 1: because we we believed our client was innocent. During the
Speaker 1: course of the jury being out for two days, we
Speaker 1: started having some of those conversations and and as a
Speaker 1: criminal defense lawyer, anytime an offer is communicated, whether you
Speaker 1: want your client to take it or not, you have
Speaker 1: to communicate it. That's not something that's negotiable or that
Speaker 1: we have discretion on. We also started looking at the
Speaker 1: parole laws because this was a man who had already
Speaker 1: served over twenty years in a Texas prison for the
Speaker 1: conviction that had been obtained in the nineteen eighties. We
Speaker 1: determined that if he pled guilty to anything less than
Speaker 1: a life sentence, based on old parole laws, he would
Speaker 1: immediately be released, meaning the d A, the judge, the
Speaker 1: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, they would have no control.
Speaker 1: It was a mandatory release on anything less than a
Speaker 1: life sentence. Because of the time he had already served.
Speaker 1: He ended up taking a plea bargain offer of less
Speaker 1: than a life sentence. He pled guilty while the jury
Speaker 1: was still out, so we didn't get a verdict. The
Speaker 1: d a's office actually and this ended up being kind
Speaker 1: of a little bit of a Snapho, but the d
Speaker 1: a's office in McLennan County did not know about that
Speaker 1: parole law and immediately went to the media and said
Speaker 1: that they would contest him ever being released and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't get out on parole, and we kind of just
Speaker 1: left it at that. Eventually, the media and everyone caught
Speaker 1: onto it, and what I said was and I got
Speaker 1: some you know, it wasn't a popular thing to say,
Speaker 1: but I stand by it. Is. My job is to
Speaker 1: explain a lot of my client. The d a's job
Speaker 1: is to know the law himself or herself. It's not
Speaker 1: my job to explain it to them. And unfortunately they
Speaker 1: didn't know the law in that situation. And so my
Speaker 1: client is out now and I'm glad for that because
Speaker 1: I think he should be personally. But that was kind
Speaker 1: of a I guess you could say a technical procedural
Speaker 1: when for that man m M. I think there's this
Speaker 1: misconception from television shows that make the news that DNA
Speaker 1: is some sort of a magic bullet for the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system. DNA has been and continues to be a
Speaker 1: fantastic tool. It's used to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the question of who committed a crime, but there are
Speaker 1: many cases or situations where DNA evidence might not be
Speaker 1: available or even applicable. For the rest of the episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to play for you parts of the interviews
Speaker 1: with the four exonorees we spoke to about their exoneration
Speaker 1: processes and their release from prison. Although these are four
Speaker 1: or unique individual cases, they are all very difficult experiences,
Speaker 1: and there are some commonalities across the board, including the
Speaker 1: amount of time and effort that it took to prove
Speaker 1: their innocence, the challenges they faced in rejoining society, and
Speaker 1: the continued effects of their time in prison. Here's William Dillon,
Speaker 1: the exonoree we spoke with in the episode on Scent Dogs.
Speaker 1: When I got out, I was despaired with the fact
Speaker 1: that they hadn't caught who actually committed the crime. And
Speaker 1: that's what really bothered me more than anything. Some people saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're free now here is great, and then some people
Speaker 1: look at well, this guy could be a massive mascular
Speaker 1: and all that it was bothering me internally in my heart.
Speaker 1: And when they finally came through and got the DNA
Speaker 1: on this guy and then a confession to this guy,
Speaker 1: and I ended up getting compensated and everything. I felt
Speaker 1: a lot better through the process. I was able to heal.
Speaker 1: I feel that that's helped me a lot. In the
Speaker 1: journey forward. You may recall that William was arrested for
Speaker 1: a murder when he offered to help with the police investigation.
Speaker 1: After being subject to intense interrogation, irresponsible use of a
Speaker 1: forensic dog, and faulty eyewitness testimony, William served twenty seven
Speaker 1: years of a life sentence for a crime he did
Speaker 1: not commit. When I was indicted for murder, there was
Speaker 1: an anonymous phone call by a woman that said you
Speaker 1: have the wrong person. That these two guys were the
Speaker 1: ones involved in the crime. At that same time, the
Speaker 1: chief investigator was the one that came to get me
Speaker 1: from the car. He just wrote it down in the
Speaker 1: file and didn't look into it well. It ended up
Speaker 1: being thirty years later that those two guys were the
Speaker 1: ones that were involved in the crime, as well as
Speaker 1: two other juveniles. They did DNA on a shirt that
Speaker 1: gets the killer left in the truck of the man
Speaker 1: that was supposed to identify me that night, which my
Speaker 1: lawyer was gonna have me try on at the trial.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing I didn't. The one whose DNA
Speaker 1: they got on the shirt, he denied any involvement. He
Speaker 1: was in Chicago. DNA was taken thirty years later for
Speaker 1: domestic violence. He was seventeen at the time of the murder.
Speaker 1: The second guy had been living on the streets, and
Speaker 1: he confessed that FORUM had committed the crime. And even
Speaker 1: then the police still tried to put me in their crew,
Speaker 1: saying wasn't dealing, there wasn't involved, And the guy that
Speaker 1: when living on the street says, no, he was not
Speaker 1: involved at all. My parents never believe I was actually
Speaker 1: innocent of the crime. People ask me to you to
Speaker 1: forgive them. Of course I do. When you're manipulated by
Speaker 1: a power and a justice system that is supposed to
Speaker 1: be the last of the line, is supposed to be
Speaker 1: the true sense of justice, the true sense of what's
Speaker 1: going on, at least as closest we can get it.
Speaker 1: And you know as an individual of being the one
Speaker 1: being attacked, and you know that witnesses in your case
Speaker 1: have been manipulated by people that are using this power
Speaker 1: and authority. I can forgive anybody that has been manipulated.
Speaker 1: I can't forgive those that did the manipulating. I think
Speaker 1: it really didn't matter to them about justice. I keep
Speaker 1: saying all the time that you know, maybe it was
Speaker 1: one or two, but in the basic senses of it
Speaker 1: is is all of them. They were all down with
Speaker 1: the count. Probably one or two that started the ball rolling,
Speaker 1: and then everybody just followed on end. Could have been
Speaker 1: somebody that just trying to shine up the stars and
Speaker 1: get another conviction down the road. Another guy gone down
Speaker 1: the road, who cares. My life didn't matter to imperiod.
Speaker 1: They destroyed my life completely, they really did. They just
Speaker 1: didn't know it would come back to buy them. William
Speaker 1: says that when the day of his exoneration finally came,
Speaker 1: he felt at least some sense of peace. I can't
Speaker 1: even begin to tell you that I felt like it
Speaker 1: was being carried down those steps. It was such an
Speaker 1: amazing feeling. It was gratifying more than you know, the
Speaker 1: sense of being found innocent or known to be innocent,
Speaker 1: or just to be released from the hell that I
Speaker 1: had been in. It was just a very very happy thing.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there was huge hurtles to overcome,
Speaker 1: and technology had completely changed. People had phones in their pockets, computers.
Speaker 1: When I went to prison. The phones were on the
Speaker 1: wall and NASA had the computers. Everything was just extremely fast.
Speaker 1: Information was everywhere. It was a hurdle, but at the
Speaker 1: same time I was figured it was out to me,
Speaker 1: So I just dove into it as much as I could,
Speaker 1: and I just took ahold of it and learned as
Speaker 1: much as I could as fast as I could information wise,
Speaker 1: And it's not that complicated. You have to really get
Speaker 1: in and want to get it. I think the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdle for me was shopping with so many selections as perplexing.
Speaker 1: I would go look for a bar so going there
Speaker 1: and to be so many choices, I'd have to walk
Speaker 1: out because I just get this overwhelming feeling and have
Speaker 1: to leave. A simple as that sounds, that's that was
Speaker 1: probably the biggest dilemma that I had. The reason why
Speaker 1: I came on here today is I want to let
Speaker 1: your listeners know that what you see on TV is
Speaker 1: not the real thing. That is not the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: Those are actors acting. The real criminal justice system is
Speaker 1: a horrific place, and it doesn't matter if you're right
Speaker 1: or wrong, you will end up getting turned upside down.
Speaker 1: It's like I tell everybody all the time. One minute
Speaker 1: I was a passing here in a vehicle, the next minute,
Speaker 1: I'm on a freeway fast ride to prison with a
Speaker 1: life sentence. And it can happen to anyone, anywhere, at
Speaker 1: any time. This is not to support say that we
Speaker 1: don't need the police and the justice system. I've been
Speaker 1: in those places where these people in these places are
Speaker 1: absolute maniacs. We need the police, but the justice system
Speaker 1: itself needs to be corrected. There needs to be a
Speaker 1: secondary overlook of cases. And I understand it's costly and
Speaker 1: it does this in there, but the problem is that
Speaker 1: these people were allowed to push this wagon without him
Speaker 1: any factual evidence to it. Does it prove this doesn't
Speaker 1: prove that. It's hard to say, but my point is
Speaker 1: with some oversight, some of this will be slowed down.
Speaker 1: Here's the perspective of Bill Richards. A few episodes ago,
Speaker 1: we heard the story of how he was wrongfully incarcerated
Speaker 1: for the murder of his wife and served twenty three
Speaker 1: years in prison the California Innostance Project. It was the
Speaker 1: best thing for me. I was on a level four
Speaker 1: yard and sent Noah prison to hard core yard that
Speaker 1: the guy was working with us talking to him about it,
Speaker 1: and he was innocent. He gave me the address for
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project, which you just opened up at that time.
Speaker 1: So I wrote them a letter and they sent me
Speaker 1: back a questionnaire, and I sent them a bunch of
Speaker 1: information that I had that I had written myself, like
Speaker 1: about sixty pages of documentation of perjury and stuff by
Speaker 1: the police. So they came down to students and then
Speaker 1: viewed me, and you know, they did the investigation and
Speaker 1: they were instrumental in picking up the case because you know,
Speaker 1: they get a couple of thousand cases a year people
Speaker 1: asking for help. Built a couple of years from the
Speaker 1: actually sign on to represent me because they have to investigate.
Speaker 1: You know, they need to know you're really innocent, and
Speaker 1: is there anything to work with. The Innocence Project probably
Speaker 1: spent sixteen years working on the case to get me out.
Speaker 1: You know, I stay in touch with other people. There's
Speaker 1: a woman whose husband is in prison in Missouri. Her
Speaker 1: husband is represented by the Missouri Innocence Project, and she's
Speaker 1: always trying to raise money and get a private lawyer.
Speaker 1: And I told you you couldn't possibly pay private lawyer
Speaker 1: to do with the projects. Do this is what they do.
Speaker 1: It's what they know how to do. Get fundraisers. I
Speaker 1: don't even want to consider how much money, just in
Speaker 1: expenses it costs to get me out of prison. You
Speaker 1: could never do that with a private attorney unless you're
Speaker 1: thinking rich. Bill recalled all the evidence that they telephone
Speaker 1: and the Innocence Project found which suggested he was in
Speaker 1: fact innocent. I'm trying to think there's DNA and a
Speaker 1: murder weapon. It was exactly the places where their experts
Speaker 1: of the killers DNA would be. They are considerable other things.
Speaker 1: There's also planet evidence. There was a point, after being
Speaker 1: in Jeez almost twenty years when that technicality came into play.
Speaker 1: A court had already rolled at the evidence pointed unerringly
Speaker 1: the innocence and he didn't have half the evidence we
Speaker 1: have now, and they used technicality and the higher courts
Speaker 1: just ignored, said well, we're not going to look at that.
Speaker 1: At that point, I thought I lost. That's the first
Speaker 1: time I gave up. When the California Innocence Project was
Speaker 1: working on William's case, they encountered a technicality in case
Speaker 1: law that would not let them submit new expert testimony.
Speaker 1: They fought that technicality and it has since been removed
Speaker 1: by the California legislature. Technicality was that expert witnesses could
Speaker 1: not recancer testimony or new expert witnesses cannot be considered
Speaker 1: because their testimonies only an opinion. But that's what the
Speaker 1: jury here is. I don't care if it's DNA, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and expert testifies to it. It was such
Speaker 1: a bad thing that they've done this, as so many
Speaker 1: other people, and I think my case stood out because
Speaker 1: I've already had a rule of innocence that the legislature
Speaker 1: introduced a bill to change the law to say, this
Speaker 1: is totally ridiculous. You've got evidence of innocence and you
Speaker 1: can't use it. I think there's only fourteen people in
Speaker 1: the whole legislature that didn't vote for it. So it
Speaker 1: was very well received. And when that came, we went
Speaker 1: back to court and I got out on the evidence
Speaker 1: unanimously in the Californy Supreme Court. But that's look another
Speaker 1: seven years. It's like being dropped on an alien planet
Speaker 1: because nothing is the same. And I was only in
Speaker 1: twenty three years and I look at these guys get
Speaker 1: out after forty It's a completely different world technology. That's
Speaker 1: why I say I'm catching up on computers. I'm way
Speaker 1: behind on them, and they're smarter than I am, you
Speaker 1: know so, And I think they fight me half the time.
Speaker 1: Society is different, people are different. Money isn't even the same.
Speaker 1: Not to mention, everything costs three to four times what
Speaker 1: it did before the line of work I did. There's
Speaker 1: almost none of it around anymore, and they're surely not
Speaker 1: hiring a guy that's almost seventy years old to do it.
Speaker 1: I think it would be easy to find something that
Speaker 1: wasn't changed, because everything changes. And of course I'm not
Speaker 1: a young man anymore, and that doesn't help, you know,
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm still a young man, because for some reason,
Speaker 1: your mind when you go through this doesn't And I've
Speaker 1: talked to others honories that they still picture them. So
Speaker 1: I still ficture myself as forty. I look in the Maratha,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, who's at I drive down the street
Speaker 1: I used to live on, and I don't recognize it
Speaker 1: because the trees are so big. Young trees have been planted,
Speaker 1: just a little almost saplings now go by there the
Speaker 1: two ft in diameter and there's a canopy over the
Speaker 1: road to me, this was overnight to me. This was
Speaker 1: I was this guy here and this is the life.
Speaker 1: And now you're dropping out here in and everything has
Speaker 1: changed and I haven't been there to change with it,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's it. When you're inside, you don't
Speaker 1: change with the world. You're isolated away from it. Bill
Speaker 1: is now involved in a civil lawsuit against the police
Speaker 1: officers who went after him. He could not talk about
Speaker 1: that case very much since it is owngoing litigation, but
Speaker 1: he and his legal team say that they have found
Speaker 1: proof that evidence was planted that resulted in his conviction.
Speaker 1: One of the attorneys she's looked through the records and found,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this evidence turned up ten days after
Speaker 1: the autopsy. So that is a major part of where
Speaker 1: we're going after them today is we have valid evidence
Speaker 1: that planted evidence to incriminate me. I'm hoping we get
Speaker 1: some sort of settlement. I don't have any family at
Speaker 1: my age. I mean, I don't need it money unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but I do have a living trust. If the cancer
Speaker 1: gets to me before the civil action has done, all
Speaker 1: the money will go to St. Jude's Wanted Warrior Project,
Speaker 1: child refuge innocience projects. If I can't do some good
Speaker 1: to somebody else for what they did to me. Since
Speaker 1: I've been out, been merrit twice, I guess you could
Speaker 1: say I'm being the true American person now days. Calvin
Speaker 1: Johnson was the first d NA AS honoree from the
Speaker 1: state of Georgia back in nine when we heard about
Speaker 1: his case a few episodes ago. He was convicted by
Speaker 1: an all white jury using inconclusive blood and faulty forensic
Speaker 1: hair evidence. At the same time, he was declared not
Speaker 1: guilty on a similar case by a diverse jury because
Speaker 1: there was overwhelming proof of innocence. He was finally exonerated
Speaker 1: after the evidence in the first case was sent to
Speaker 1: a lab for DNA testing. He's been out of prison
Speaker 1: for twenty years now, but he's faced major setbacks once
Speaker 1: they set him free. I mean, when you get desonerated,
Speaker 1: you come out with nothing. You don't get the little
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars to say that Georgia mc gee. You
Speaker 1: you don't get closed that they might give you. You
Speaker 1: can't get into any of the programs that they may have,
Speaker 1: and they just toss you all. You're like a baby
Speaker 1: and you need HILP. If you were in prison, and
Speaker 1: you will die, Betty. Now, guess what, you don't having
Speaker 1: the medical benefits. At a hard time getting the driver
Speaker 1: license because I didn't have a car. So I had
Speaker 1: a Runner car and I got there to the test.
Speaker 1: I got in the runner car to do the driver
Speaker 1: tests and they walked out him and they tell me
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you can't take the tests in the
Speaker 1: runner car. I get out of the car and I
Speaker 1: walked to the car behind me, two complete stranger, and said, hey,
Speaker 1: excuse me, sir. I said, they won't let me take
Speaker 1: the test in my car because it's a Runner car.
Speaker 1: Said can I use your car? And he said yeah.
Speaker 1: So I asked him and say kind I had this
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes to get familiar because I ain't
Speaker 1: been out of prison. But two weeks I took the
Speaker 1: test and I passed. That's an obstacle. The obstacle is
Speaker 1: a little simple stuff. You go to the gas station.
Speaker 1: Guess what it's self served. When I went to prison,
Speaker 1: people would come out and they would pump your gas
Speaker 1: and wash your windows. We didn't have self serves. I'm
Speaker 1: standing there at the pump, looking around, hoping nobody staring
Speaker 1: at me. Don't I didn't know what to do. I
Speaker 1: was a very to ask anybody. I went to get
Speaker 1: my own apartment. He said, Mr Johnson, you don't have
Speaker 1: bad credit. You just don't have any credit. They want
Speaker 1: to try to try to charge me, like triple the
Speaker 1: deposit something. So I got upset. I remember going to
Speaker 1: getting all these newspaper articles where they had been getting
Speaker 1: out of prison and going back to that office. I
Speaker 1: laid these articles across the desk and said, now, look,
Speaker 1: this is why I don't have any credit. I've been
Speaker 1: locked up for sixteen years. I've been punished for a
Speaker 1: crime I didn't commit. Now out here in this world,
Speaker 1: you're trying to punish me even more, and it's not fair.
Speaker 1: And so I guess what. They went ahead and they
Speaker 1: read with the department under the normal amount of depositive
Speaker 1: people normally pay. But these are the challenges. I do
Speaker 1: have a job that I've been at for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years, which is really fortunate. I've been working with Martha,
Speaker 1: which is Metropolitan, a lot of rappertricive authority. They're like
Speaker 1: a big kid. Sometimes it was what with Giant train said,
Speaker 1: but but I love it. I can't retire now. I'm
Speaker 1: still hanging around. I'm pretty healthy, I feel good, So
Speaker 1: why retire Now that I'm working and I'm actually giving
Speaker 1: a paycheck, I mean like, wow, hey, it's great. Finally
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from Joe Das another Exonoree we
Speaker 1: spoke to earlier this season. Joe has been very involved
Speaker 1: in the work of restorative justice and emotional healing since
Speaker 1: he left prison, not only for himself but for others
Speaker 1: who have been wronged by the criminal justice system. Almost
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis, there's another man or woman who
Speaker 1: has been falsely accused who's getting out through one way
Speaker 1: or another. And this wasn't so common before DNA. A
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I sat in the same prison from
Speaker 1: the six years with the man who was also innocent.
Speaker 1: I didn't know he was innocent, and he didn't know
Speaker 1: I was innocent until we saw each other twenty seven
Speaker 1: team or at the Innocent's Conference, and we're looking at
Speaker 1: each other. Damn, you were innocent too. And for all
Speaker 1: my brothers and sisters that are sitting in some sort
Speaker 1: of compliment anywhere, not only in the nation, but throughout
Speaker 1: the globe, all I can say to you is never
Speaker 1: give up. Always continue to fight, never never give up.
Speaker 1: Joe says that after finishing his time, he was determined
Speaker 1: to clear his name. So once I get out, I
Speaker 1: remember that I had been told by the a c O.
Speaker 1: You go to the public defenders office. I went to
Speaker 1: the public defenders office. They told me the same thing again.
Speaker 1: Can't help you. Go back to your trial attorney. Finally,
Speaker 1: I said, well, I don't have the choice. I have
Speaker 1: to go to the devil and convicted me. I went
Speaker 1: back to the district attorney, called him and told him listen,
Speaker 1: I am out now assured you that I did not
Speaker 1: commit this crime. And now that you guys had DNA tests,
Speaker 1: I want to come give you my blood. I want
Speaker 1: you to test so you can see that I did
Speaker 1: not commit it. You don't have to trust my side
Speaker 1: of the story because I wasn't there. You weren't there.
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you what. Why don't you let science
Speaker 1: prove it for you. I showed up at the DA's office.
Speaker 1: He has an investigator show up, and the first question
Speaker 1: out of the investigators of mouth is well, what do
Speaker 1: you hope to accomplish with this? I assured him, listen,
Speaker 1: the only thing I want to do is clear my name.
Speaker 1: There's no way in the world you guys are gonna
Speaker 1: be able to return my years to me. Finally, he
Speaker 1: returned my call one day and tells me, listen, the
Speaker 1: d a's office paid for this DNA test and it's
Speaker 1: inconclusive and that's it. Nothing else we can do. My
Speaker 1: wife and I were always sitting around, brainstorming, throwing ideas around,
Speaker 1: what can we do, What can we do? What can
Speaker 1: we do? My wife says, what kind of other evidence
Speaker 1: was there? And that's when it dawned at me. There
Speaker 1: was a slipper. When the guy ran off, he lost
Speaker 1: one of his slippers, I said, son of a gun.
Speaker 1: When my appeals had exhausted, they destroyed all the evidence
Speaker 1: so that slipper was no longer there. Somehow or another.
Speaker 1: They have to preserve evidence, because in this case, I
Speaker 1: was out of evidence to preserve. But Joe held out
Speaker 1: and continued finding. Finally, after ten long years, he got
Speaker 1: his exoneration. Thankfully, they had so many reformer, retired settles
Speaker 1: ap D investigators who were able to talk and realize,
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, we had put together a task
Speaker 1: force to try to find that guy. We never did
Speaker 1: you mean somebody actually set in prison for those crimes.
Speaker 1: The local district attorney recognized what had gone wrong in
Speaker 1: Joe's case, so he started to use Joe's case to
Speaker 1: train other prosecutors and police departments on how to improve
Speaker 1: their investigative processes. I'm in all of the district attorney
Speaker 1: and the positive changes that he's working towards that district,
Speaker 1: the trades offices, night and day from what it was
Speaker 1: way back when I was wrongly convicting. The general public
Speaker 1: isn't to where they see people on TV. Oh, this
Speaker 1: person just got out. This person got tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. That is a very small minority that gets
Speaker 1: those millions of dollars. And I can assure you right now,
Speaker 1: I don't care how many tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: a lot of these agonies receive from the state, from
Speaker 1: the county, and the majority of them are able to
Speaker 1: get that much. Are the ones who are able to
Speaker 1: prove prosebratorial misconduct, which is extremely, extremely difficult to prove.
Speaker 1: Those few men and women who get that money are
Speaker 1: walking zombies. A lot of them. You may see them
Speaker 1: on a TV show, you may interview them on a podcast.
Speaker 1: Do not look at the exterior facade, because I've had
Speaker 1: people tell me what you look okay, you speak well,
Speaker 1: you must be okay. I said, don't you ever ever
Speaker 1: read a book by its cover, because you don't know
Speaker 1: what PTSD I have to endure and live with for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. On top of dealing with PTSD,
Speaker 1: Joe has also had struggles adapting to civilian life. The
Speaker 1: first thing was even trying to get a job. Because
Speaker 1: I wasn't exonerated directly from prison. I had to come
Speaker 1: out and do three years of Pearl. For three years.
Speaker 1: I was so paranoid. I was so concerned that I
Speaker 1: would be framed again by these cops. So everywhere I went,
Speaker 1: every step I took, I kept a journal, talk about paranoia,
Speaker 1: talk about being super hyper vigilar. I couldn't even shop
Speaker 1: in the stores, you know, without these people getting too
Speaker 1: close to me with a shopping cart, touching me with
Speaker 1: a shopping cart, like turn around, ready to kill people.
Speaker 1: What the hell are you doing so close to me?
Speaker 1: Add to that, they put me up on that sex
Speaker 1: offender and registry. Think about my children not being able
Speaker 1: to play with kids in the neighborhood. Think about some
Speaker 1: kids riding their bikes too close to me, and their
Speaker 1: parents or grandparents done enough to them, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: come on, and taking them home because they were afraid
Speaker 1: they think that I'm some sort of a monster. The
Speaker 1: opportunity cost that I lost of earning an education, of
Speaker 1: earning a living, of being able to contribute to social security.
Speaker 1: Fortunately took a lot of weekend and night courses and
Speaker 1: I was able to get into into corporate America and
Speaker 1: earn a better living. There's not a data goes by
Speaker 1: that this doesn't affect me in one way or another.
Speaker 1: I don't have the capacity to concentrate like I used to.
Speaker 1: I don't have the capacity to exercise the emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: that I used to her that I could have been
Speaker 1: able to work on it on a daily basis. Joe
Speaker 1: says he eventually found people to talk about his situation,
Speaker 1: including Jennifer Thompson. Jennifer was once attacked and identified the
Speaker 1: wrong person out of the lineup. She later fixed that
Speaker 1: misidentification and she started her own foundation called Healing Justice
Speaker 1: for people who were Wrongfully incarcerated. The circles that she
Speaker 1: holds revolve around restorative justice and believe me, I have
Speaker 1: spent I don't know how much money on therapist. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't until I sat in a restorative justice circle
Speaker 1: and I saw the magic in it. Because I could
Speaker 1: now sit in a circle in the fire as they
Speaker 1: call it, what other axonorees who have been through what
Speaker 1: I've been through. And we sat there and we shed
Speaker 1: tears for a whole weekend. I walked away a million
Speaker 1: pounds lighter. When an exonore is exonerated, people think, well,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know that individual. There's nothing that
Speaker 1: I can do for that person. Of course you can.
Speaker 1: We all have some sort of gift that we were
Speaker 1: born with that we can share with another human being.
Speaker 1: We all have some kind of influence, whether you can
Speaker 1: give a person a coat, a pair of shoes, an
Speaker 1: opportunity of a job, mentoring. You know, you may be retired,
Speaker 1: you may not have the financial means to give a
Speaker 1: person anything you can mentor the person. Believe me, I
Speaker 1: don't know of any man or woman stepping out of
Speaker 1: prison who is going to turn down I and from anybody.
Speaker 1: If you can ever serve as a bridge just to
Speaker 1: even refer that person to somebody else, If you don't
Speaker 1: have the means or the influence do so, because you
Speaker 1: never know what a little act of kindness can do
Speaker 1: for another individual. As I mentioned at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode, exonerations are extremely rare. These men are incredibly
Speaker 1: unfortunate to have been put into these situations in the
Speaker 1: first place. They unfairly lost so many years of their lives.
Speaker 1: But in at least one way, they are lucky that
Speaker 1: lawyers and innocence projects and conviction integrity units were eventually
Speaker 1: able to look at their cases, consider evidence of their
Speaker 1: actual innocence, and take some action. So many cases in
Speaker 1: the United States do not have that type of evidence
Speaker 1: or support. Criminal cases often boiled down to one person's
Speaker 1: word against another. As they say, you can't prove a negative.
Speaker 1: It's so much harder to find evidence that something did
Speaker 1: not happen than it is to find evidence that something
Speaker 1: did happen. As William Dylon mentioned, he did not have
Speaker 1: an alibi for the day of the murder because he
Speaker 1: wasn't doing anything really remarkable. The day that William did
Speaker 1: not commit the murder, He did not know that he
Speaker 1: would be needing to keep track of where he was
Speaker 1: and what he was doing. There is a reason that
Speaker 1: innocent until proven guilty is a basic tenant of the
Speaker 1: United States criminal justice system. The right to make the
Speaker 1: state prove someone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is a
Speaker 1: foundational principle of our system of justice. However, the way
Speaker 1: our system is set up is that people simply watching
Speaker 1: the news and people who eventually become jurors simply assume
Speaker 1: that someone is guilty merely because they are arrested. In
Speaker 1: other words, the system is supposed to operate on a
Speaker 1: innocent until proven guilty base sys, but in reality it
Speaker 1: works just the other way. People generally consider that someone
Speaker 1: is guilty unless they can somehow prove themselves to be innocent.
Speaker 1: The system gravitates towards finality, and appellate courts can be
Speaker 1: hesitant to reverse a conviction even when errors have occurred
Speaker 1: at trial. It's fair to say that once a jury
Speaker 1: has found someone guilty, it is extremely difficult to undo
Speaker 1: that decision through the traditional appellate process or through an exoneration.
Speaker 1: If you have a message for these axonorees, or, like
Speaker 1: Joe said, anyone still incarcerated around the globe, give us
Speaker 1: a call at four zero four for one zero zero
Speaker 1: four for one next time on Sworn. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't think about this, but I do
Speaker 1: a lot of work with prison inmates. When you have
Speaker 1: a mandatory minimum where there's no parole, and you take
Speaker 1: away hope from a prison and made of getting out,
Speaker 1: you create a very very scary prison system. If you
Speaker 1: sentence people to twenty five years to life without parole,
Speaker 1: they are going to go into prison and commit more
Speaker 1: crimes because they're never going to get out, and they
Speaker 1: have no hope of every getting out, and they know
Speaker 1: they're never gonna get out. What are you gonna do
Speaker 1: to him? Sworn is a production of Tenderfoot TV and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Our lead producer is Christina Dana. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright for Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I Heart Radio, and
Speaker 1: myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young, Mason Lindsay,
Speaker 1: Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright, and Halle Beadall. Original music and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is Blood in the Water by Layup. Show art and
Speaker 1: design is by Trevor Eisler, editing by Christina Dana, mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the team at I Heart Radio from U t
Speaker 1: a or In Rosenbound and Grace Royer, Ryan Nord and
Speaker 1: Matthew Papa from the Nord Group back Media and Marketing
Speaker 1: and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a very
Speaker 1: personal and special thanks to all of our contributors and
Speaker 1: guests who have helped to make all of these episodes possible.
Speaker 1: You can find Sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip Holloway on
Speaker 1: Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our website is
Speaker 1: sworn podcast dot com, and you can check out other
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv. If
Speaker 1: you have questions or comments, you can email us at
Speaker 1: Sworn at Tenderfoot dot tv or leave us a voicemail
Speaker 1: at four zero four for one zero zero four one.
Speaker 1: As always, thanks for listening. H