Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door open up. The
Speaker 1: choice to be in that lineup was the last choice
Speaker 1: that made as a free man. A year later, I
Speaker 1: ended up writing the system.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
Speaker 2: in the world is going to think as a monster
Speaker 2: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
Speaker 2: and I'm just going to have to come to peace
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
Speaker 3: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
Speaker 4: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 4: might have to play in my hanging.
Speaker 1: They had been told that two.
Speaker 4: Prison officers would have to participate in my execution.
Speaker 1: Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man,
Speaker 1: all help broke loose.
Speaker 5: But this weekend we're recording from sunny San Diego at
Speaker 5: the Innocence Network Conference, And because we have so many
Speaker 5: xaneries together, we'll be doing two shorter interviews with two
Speaker 5: incredible exoneries who will talk about what this conference means
Speaker 5: to them, Floyd Ledsoe and Cornelius Dupree. But let's start
Speaker 5: with Maddie Delone, the executive director of the Innocence Project,
Speaker 5: who will explain how this conference came into existence and
Speaker 5: what it's all about. Maddie Delone. Maddie, welcome, Thanks Jason.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 5: Maddie is a force of nature. She has spent her
Speaker 5: entire life in criminal justice reform, fair to say, and
Speaker 5: everything from working inside of prisons to really building and
Speaker 5: running what is the organization at the forefront of the
Speaker 5: innocence movement, at the center, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 5: And we're here today at the Innocence Network conference in
Speaker 5: San Diego, which is an out of this world's extraordinary event.
Speaker 5: And Maddie, you and I go back to the beginning
Speaker 5: of this together and your memories better than mine. So
Speaker 5: I wanted to talk to you about how this all
Speaker 5: started and also what it means to be here, not
Speaker 5: only for you and the staff, but for the x Hoonneries.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a lot, Jason. So the Innocence Project started
Speaker 2: about twenty five years ago as a small clinic at
Speaker 2: Cardozo Law School with Barry and Peter running the show,
Speaker 2: working with students, other law professors, and really understanding the
Speaker 2: power of the science to get people out of prison.
Speaker 2: The DNA technology was pretty new in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: Pretty quickly they realized how many innocent people there were
Speaker 2: and how much work it was going to take to
Speaker 2: get people out of prison across the country, and they
Speaker 2: began to find law professors really at other universities across
Speaker 2: the country to do this work. So the sort of
Speaker 2: next projects in the network were formed, the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: in ninety two, There was a project in ninety four.
Speaker 2: I just heard that the Innocence Project Northwest rated their
Speaker 2: twentieth anniversary this year. So those are among the first projects,
Speaker 2: and pretty quickly people realized they needed to have a
Speaker 2: way to come together and to begin to share what
Speaker 2: they were learning and figure it out. You have to
Speaker 2: remember that while we have fifty post conviction DNA laws
Speaker 2: right now, so for people for whom DNA can prove
Speaker 2: in a sense, you now have a way to get
Speaker 2: back into court. That wasn't true when this all started.
Speaker 2: So they had to figure out how do you get
Speaker 2: back into court when there's no mechanism, and they use
Speaker 2: the press, and they use persuasion, and more and more
Speaker 2: they could use as they began exonerating people, the power
Speaker 2: of those stories and the experiences of the xonaies. I
Speaker 2: think the first network conference was in two thousand, so
Speaker 2: it's seventeen years later, and this is the sixteenth conference.
Speaker 2: At that first conference, there were maybe seventy five or
Speaker 2: eighty people. I wasn't there, but Barri and Peter were there,
Speaker 2: and a number of the people who are still in
Speaker 2: this work today. And with each conference the conference grew,
Speaker 2: new projects started, more people were exonerated, the exoneries began
Speaker 2: to come to the conferences in bigger and bigger numbers.
Speaker 2: We began to work. You began to work to help
Speaker 2: pay for people to get there, to put them up
Speaker 2: in hotels, people who had no resources.
Speaker 5: Right, these are people from all over the country and
Speaker 5: even other parts of the world as well.
Speaker 2: That's right. We had an amazing conference at the Ohio
Speaker 2: Innocence Project hosted in two thousand and eleven I think,
Speaker 2: where we invited Mark Gotsei, who was the Ohio Innocence
Speaker 2: Project director, really invited people from around the world who
Speaker 2: were doing this work to come, and they brought x
Speaker 2: hooneries from Japan and Italy and other places. So it
Speaker 2: has grown from probably in two thousand, maybe eight or nine,
Speaker 2: exonerated people and today in San Diego they're almost two hundred.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's amazing. I mean last night we posted a
Speaker 5: graphic on the screen with the total number of years served,
Speaker 5: including two hundred and twenty two years served on death row.
Speaker 5: Extraordinary being here and being a part of it, and
Speaker 5: just sort of experiencing the energy, the positive energy that's
Speaker 5: developed or that's generated, I should say, from the ex
Speaker 5: houneries being around each other, because not unlike what I
Speaker 5: understand to be the case with POW's prisons of war,
Speaker 5: no one can understand what they've been through except for
Speaker 5: each other, as much as we try and as much
Speaker 5: as we want to help, and so it's really been
Speaker 5: an extraordinary journey to watch them heal. And it's obviously
Speaker 5: a very long, it's a never ending journey, but progress
Speaker 5: is being made in this building as we speak, and
Speaker 5: that's the remarkable thing to be a part of.
Speaker 2: Can I just tell you a story I just heard
Speaker 2: from one of the directors of one of the projects
Speaker 2: this morning. They have a client who got out of
Speaker 2: prison after thirty two years and got out maybe four
Speaker 2: or five months ago. Came to the conference last night.
Speaker 2: As you were saying, there was an introduction of all
Speaker 2: of the ex Honeries, including forty seven X Honeries who
Speaker 2: had never been here before. And at the end of
Speaker 2: that presentation and the whole crowd is standing and cheering
Speaker 2: and crying and they're hugging each other on stage. Her
Speaker 2: client walked down the stairs from the stage and said
Speaker 2: to her this is the first time I felt free.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's heavy, and it's magical. I mean,
Speaker 5: there's no other word to explain it. And yeah, it's
Speaker 5: so great because every time one of them gets up
Speaker 5: and the crowd erupts, nobody tells anybody to erupt, and
Speaker 5: nobody tells anybody to stand, But it's a standing ovation
Speaker 5: every time, and they're really among their peers, and they're
Speaker 5: among people who love them and care about them as
Speaker 5: we do. So it's a it's just an awesome thing.
Speaker 5: What is that for the Innocence Project? I mean, how
Speaker 5: have you been able to focus the staff who traditionally
Speaker 5: were just focused on the legal stuff. How are you
Speaker 5: able to build this into the sort of the deal
Speaker 5: lack of a better word, the DNA of the Innocence Project.
Speaker 2: One thing we had, you know, as we got more
Speaker 2: and more people out about ten years ago. We actually
Speaker 2: made the decision with our board that you're on to
Speaker 2: hire a social worker, and we now have two social
Speaker 2: workers who work in the office and each of them
Speaker 2: works on cases as people are about to come home,
Speaker 2: and then is a person for them to go to
Speaker 2: and talk to over the course of you know, intensively,
Speaker 2: probably the first year, but for some people they're still
Speaker 2: talking often ten years later. We also have developed a
Speaker 2: fund for Innocence Project exonarees who don't have resources or
Speaker 2: have family without resources when they come out, so that
Speaker 2: we can help pay for rent or medical care that's
Speaker 2: not covered under state insurance schemes, or whatever the case
Speaker 2: may be. And I think we're trying to get I know,
Speaker 2: we're trying to get better and better at that every year,
Speaker 2: and we're learning more and more from the exoneries themselves
Speaker 2: about what it takes. And one of the things I
Speaker 2: think it takes, and you talked about it at the beginning,
Speaker 2: is bringing them together with each other more often. They
Speaker 2: really are the people who are best able to help
Speaker 2: each other heal. And we're realizing the importance of their
Speaker 2: families and the importance of helping find support for their
Speaker 2: family members because like the exonarees. The family members worked
Speaker 2: for twelve years, for ten years, twenty years, thirty years,
Speaker 2: when they stuck with them. They work to help get
Speaker 2: somebody out. And if you've been on that course of
Speaker 2: getting yourself out or helping someone else get out for
Speaker 2: twenty years and then they're out, you have to find
Speaker 2: the next course of purpose. And I think there's hope
Speaker 2: for many people that it will just be glorious and
Speaker 2: perfect and they'll be free. It's a thing they worked
Speaker 2: at for so long. But life on the outside is hard, and.
Speaker 5: The first question people want to know is do they
Speaker 5: get compensation when they get out? And they're flabbergasset to
Speaker 5: find out that not only are there I think twenty
Speaker 5: states that don't have compensation statutes at all, but also
Speaker 5: even if you are entitled the conversation, it can take
Speaker 5: many years to get it. So you're just in the
Speaker 5: twilight zone. Now you're out and trying to figure out
Speaker 5: how to live with nothing, and it's an incredible series
Speaker 5: of challenges. Let's just talk for a moment, Maddie about
Speaker 5: the strategic litigation aspect of our work.
Speaker 2: So we have two programs, and the strategic litigation program
Speaker 2: is a pretty new program for the last five years,
Speaker 2: although I like to think that the Innocence Project has
Speaker 2: been doing it in maybe a less focused and concentrated
Speaker 2: way forever. But the Strategic Litigation Unit, which was founded
Speaker 2: five years ago by your generosity and that of your family,
Speaker 2: run by Christopher Fabricant, who's a brilliant lawyer, really works
Speaker 2: on getting the courts to understand their role as a
Speaker 2: gatekeeper of bad evidence going into cases. And so the
Speaker 2: Strategic Litigation Unit takes cases around the country where there
Speaker 2: is bad forensic science is trying to be introduced, or
Speaker 2: eyewitness identification procedures that were done in a way that's
Speaker 2: not reliable and not likely to give you the best ID.
Speaker 2: In fact, seventy five percent of the DNA cases have
Speaker 2: had an eyewitness identification, which is erroneous. So we know
Speaker 2: how important it is to get the ID procedures right,
Speaker 2: and our team finds cases to teach courts about how
Speaker 2: to vet evidence and to keep bad evidence out. If
Speaker 2: we can keep bad evidence out of these cases in
Speaker 2: the first place, then you'll never have people being wrongly
Speaker 2: convicted until and lessen until the police and prosecutors and
Speaker 2: the courts understand that at the front end and begin
Speaker 2: to implement procedures and keep the evidence out of court.
Speaker 2: We're going to continue to replicate the problems we have
Speaker 2: with wrongful conviction and to put more people in. And
Speaker 2: you said it yourself, it takes forever to get them out.
Speaker 2: If somebody goes in and they exhaust their state appeals
Speaker 2: eight years later, and then they write to us and
Speaker 2: then we take their case and then we litigate the
Speaker 2: case for ten or twelve or fifteen years. Sometimes heard
Speaker 2: someone today who has a case that they picked up
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine. It's twenty seventeen. The person was
Speaker 2: just freed. That's an entire life. So we have to
Speaker 2: stop it at the front end, and that's what the
Speaker 2: Strategic Litigation Unit tries to do. The Joseph Flohm Special
Speaker 2: Council has done amazing work in the courts to try
Speaker 2: to protect people from having bad evidence admitted in the
Speaker 2: first place in the courts. And that's what it's going
Speaker 2: to take to really change the system.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I know that my dad, if he were here,
Speaker 5: would be thrilled to see the quality of the work
Speaker 5: that's being done in his name. He was a supporter
Speaker 5: of the instant project, and Scadden of course has donated
Speaker 5: tens of thousands of.
Speaker 2: Millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of legal
Speaker 2: brilliant legal talent and support to the.
Speaker 5: Project, and they still do to this day. Recently, Keith
Speaker 5: Allen Harward was freed after thirty three years in prison
Speaker 5: in Virginia with the help of the pro Bone of
Speaker 5: Department at Scatten in DC, run by Don Salzman. So yeah,
Speaker 5: it just continues. Unfortunately, our work will never end. We'd
Speaker 5: love to put ourselves out of business, but unfortunately that's
Speaker 5: not going to happen in our lifetimes. Maddie Delone, it's
Speaker 5: a pleasure to have you on the podcast today and
Speaker 5: I really appreciate you stopping by and dropping some knowledge.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason, great to be here. Keep up the
Speaker 2: great work.
Speaker 5: So that was a great introduction to the conference from
Speaker 5: my friend and partner in Fighting Injustice, Maddie the loan.
Speaker 5: Let's continue with the one and only Floyd Bledsoell.
Speaker 1: After spending sixteen years behind bars for a murder his
Speaker 1: brother committed.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety nine, fourteen year old Camille Arfman went
Speaker 4: missing after getting off the bus from school Bledsoe's older brother,
Speaker 4: Tom confessed several times to the murder and led police
Speaker 4: to her body, but several days later, Tom Bledsoe changed
Speaker 4: his story, pinning the murder on Floyd. New DNA evidence
Speaker 4: in October of twenty fifteen implicated Tom Bledsoe.
Speaker 6: Just over a month ago, Floyd Bledsoe's murder conviction was overturned.
Speaker 5: Law enforcement a district coord agreeing he was an innocent man.
Speaker 5: Floyd Bledsell, Welcome to the show. Thank you. Floyd is
Speaker 5: an axonnery from Kansas who served.
Speaker 7: Sixteen years sixteen years.
Speaker 5: And you out there listening had just as much to
Speaker 5: do with it as he did, that's fair to say.
Speaker 5: And his attorney, Alice Craig is here. Alice, welcome, thank you,
Speaker 5: thanks for being here. So we're here at the Innocent
Speaker 5: Network conference in San Diego. Have you been to San
Speaker 5: Diego before?
Speaker 7: No, this is a very beautiful city.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pretty. It's different than Kansas, very different than
Speaker 5: Kansas and the Ocean. I I just can't even So
Speaker 5: your case in a nutshell revolved around this rape and murder,
Speaker 5: and it's so bizarre because this one came with instructions
Speaker 5: right tragically, your brother was the culprit. And what makes
Speaker 5: this so insane is that he went he confessed to
Speaker 5: a religious figure, was a pastor or something, and then
Speaker 5: he confessed to the police. Yes, and he provided the
Speaker 5: murder weapon, told him where to find.
Speaker 7: The body, took him to the body, took him to
Speaker 7: the body.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Right, So you're probably having the same reaction I was,
Speaker 5: which was okay, so thanks for telling us, and here's
Speaker 5: your one way ticket to prison, right, I mean, but
Speaker 5: that's not what happened.
Speaker 7: No, can you walk us.
Speaker 5: Through how you ended up being charged for a crime
Speaker 5: that your brother had not only clearly committed, but had
Speaker 5: confessed to in every conceivable way.
Speaker 8: Right, and he had confessed to multiple times, multiple people
Speaker 8: had heard him. Basically what happened On November seventh, at
Speaker 8: about ten o'clock that evening, he went to the police station,
Speaker 8: made a phone call to the pastor of the church. Said, Hey,
Speaker 8: this is Tom.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry. I lied to you.
Speaker 8: I know where she is. I'm going to turn myself in.
Speaker 8: He says, I wish I could have turned back to
Speaker 8: hands of time, but I can't. And then he said,
Speaker 8: please help my parents through this, and then he hung up.
Speaker 8: Called our father, and then called Jim back again and
Speaker 8: left basically the same message, saying that he wished he
Speaker 8: hadn't done it, wish he could have turned back to
Speaker 8: hands of time, but he made his choice. He's going
Speaker 8: to pay for it for the rest of his life,
Speaker 8: and that mom and dad were mad at him, and
Speaker 8: he was turning himself in. He asked the church to
Speaker 8: forgive him, God to forgive him, and they took him
Speaker 8: to get int Arney. Then the attorney went to the
Speaker 8: police department. His attorney told him that Tom knows where
Speaker 8: the girl is, and then the police went with him
Speaker 8: to where the body was.
Speaker 7: He showed him.
Speaker 8: The detectives testified at trial that the area was so
Speaker 8: well concealed and only the true perpetrator would have known.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't a lucky guest. No, No.
Speaker 7: And it was the middle of the night, dark.
Speaker 5: And he had just bought the gun, and he had
Speaker 5: just bought the the gun.
Speaker 7: Two weeks prior. So much stuff.
Speaker 5: This was literally the easiest case in the history of
Speaker 5: criminal justice for the authorities. Alice, would you disagree with that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: I mean this was it like, I mean, it's gift
Speaker 5: wrapped right.
Speaker 8: They charged him with murder that Monday. Three or four
Speaker 8: days later, he decides he doesn't like jail and says
Speaker 8: he didn't do it, that his brother did it, which
Speaker 8: was me. So the police they were like, well, how
Speaker 8: did you know all this stuff? He said, well, he
Speaker 8: confessed to me on the side of the road. Detective
Speaker 8: Carino says, okay, that's plausible and says when Tom says
Speaker 8: two thirty in the afternoon, Randy says, are you sure?
Speaker 8: And this is all said in my trial. Randy says
Speaker 8: are you sure? And Tom says, yep, I'm positive.
Speaker 7: Had to be two thirty.
Speaker 8: Randy told admitted a trial that he told Tom that
Speaker 8: he was lying and Tom said, no, I'm not. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 8: you are. You want to know how I know you're lying?
Speaker 8: He was like, how he said Floyd was sitting in
Speaker 8: my patrol car two thirty in the afternoon, and Tom said, well,
Speaker 8: must have been earlier. Randy admitted to giving Tom facts
Speaker 8: to make his story more believable.
Speaker 7: At my trial.
Speaker 5: The whole thing is just like, actually, I mean, and
Speaker 5: there's so much I mean, I guess basically.
Speaker 8: It comes down to people getting tunnel vision, people making mistakes,
Speaker 8: poor detective work, stuff that should have been investigated they
Speaker 8: didn't look at. And then you throw Tom's defense attorney,
Speaker 8: who you know, his job is to get his client
Speaker 8: off and he means necessary within the law, supposedly. And
Speaker 8: so I don't think we know the true reason why
Speaker 8: everything went the way did. But ultimately, with his attorneys
Speaker 8: and help and poor investigation, things flipped. They arrested me,
Speaker 8: they claim on November fifteenth, but when they interviewed me
Speaker 8: on November eleventh, I believe it was twelveth somewhere running there.
Speaker 8: They had me in the holding cell, wouldn't let me leave.
Speaker 8: They told my wife or my ex wife, but my
Speaker 8: wife then that they didn't know where I was. They
Speaker 8: said he got in a car and left. When she said, well,
Speaker 8: his car's out front, they told her he left. We
Speaker 8: don't know where he went. I was in their holding cell.
Speaker 5: The whole thing is totally set.
Speaker 8: You know, for four days, nobody knew where I was
Speaker 8: except them, And then finally, after the press got a
Speaker 8: hold of it, then they.
Speaker 7: Charged me with for sugar murder.
Speaker 8: And then I went to trial. I had poor representation
Speaker 8: and got found guilty. The Tippeek at Capitol Journal interviewed
Speaker 8: an individual who was on the jury member and he said,
Speaker 8: we didn't know who did it, but this was our
Speaker 8: opportunity to make somebody pay. I guess we made a mistake.
Speaker 8: Sixteen years that's a mistake.
Speaker 5: I guess We'm interesting. We just had somebody paid, just
Speaker 5: picked somebody out of the phone book, and just you know,
Speaker 5: I mean in this case, it was just you know, Alice,
Speaker 5: what a crazy turn of events. I mean, ultimately Floyd
Speaker 5: was exonerated, right, and Alice, how did the exoneration come about?
Speaker 6: So Floyd's case is one of those cases that I
Speaker 6: think every lawyer who looked at it was really interested
Speaker 6: in and wanted to help. None of us were going
Speaker 6: to let go of it. My clinic at k Law School,
Speaker 6: the Innocence Project there, we took his case on. We
Speaker 6: probably started working on your case in two thousand and
Speaker 6: five and went to federal court. And the interesting thing
Speaker 6: with the federal habeas that we did is that the
Speaker 6: federal district judge when we filed our habeas, actually ruled
Speaker 6: in Floyd's favor and issued an opinion that essentially said
Speaker 6: Floyd was innocent. And this conviction couldn't stand. Once he
Speaker 6: did that, Floyd said, well, can I be released? And
Speaker 6: I guess So we asked the federal court to release
Speaker 6: him while the state appealed, and they did so. Floyd
Speaker 6: was actually out for a year. That was probably the
Speaker 6: nine months that was probably the hardest thing for us.
Speaker 6: The state appealed his case to the Tenth Circuit. I
Speaker 6: remember when we were about to argue in the Tenth Circuit.
Speaker 6: I was talking to the state's attorney before we walked
Speaker 6: up to the podium, and he said to me, we
Speaker 6: don't think Floyd did it, but we have to protect
Speaker 6: our jury verdict.
Speaker 5: Okay, well, let's just think about that for a second.
Speaker 5: We don't think he did it, but the jury verdict
Speaker 5: is more important than justice or one person's them and
Speaker 5: liberty and all that in pursuit of happening to all
Speaker 5: that stuff is all out the window because we need
Speaker 5: to protect our jury theoretic because it's a sort of quoint.
Speaker 6: Well, actually, what gets worse is we lost in the
Speaker 6: Tenth Circuit because of the standard of review, and the
Speaker 6: Tenth Circuit said, we're not going to overturn this. Kansas
Speaker 6: State courts and so we lost and they reversed the
Speaker 6: federal district judge and I had to call Floyd and
Speaker 6: tell me how to go back to prison.
Speaker 5: But then you got them out. We're sitting here.
Speaker 6: So at that point in time, we filed for DNA testing,
Speaker 6: and one of our concerns was that the investigation that
Speaker 6: was originally done, and I think it goes back to
Speaker 6: what you said at the very beginning that this seemed
Speaker 6: to be a slam dunk case. So a lot of
Speaker 6: investigation that should have been done wasn't done. And our
Speaker 6: biggest concern, I think, was whether or not there'd be
Speaker 6: evidence to test. That was the largest concern we had.
Speaker 8: And they actually told me over and over again. They
Speaker 8: were like, look, we can't go back and fix bad
Speaker 8: detective work. You can't because we're talking at that time.
Speaker 7: It was twelve years, yeah, twelve years later.
Speaker 8: You know, it's not like you can just walk back
Speaker 8: even a few months and see everything because a lot
Speaker 8: changes in twelve years.
Speaker 5: And by the way, and there's no way to tell
Speaker 5: this story in short of a time as we have
Speaker 5: here because it's too twisted. But on top of everything else,
Speaker 5: we can't leave out a couple of important details one
Speaker 5: is that your dad got involved. At the trial, he
Speaker 5: testified in favor of your brother, saying that he, you know,
Speaker 5: he gave him an alibi, He created all kinds of
Speaker 5: phony alibis and stuff like that, which is so it's
Speaker 5: like something out of Shakespeare, right, or a Greek tragedy.
Speaker 5: We find out later that he was actually protecting himself
Speaker 5: because he helped with covering up and disposing of the
Speaker 5: body and all that stuff. And yes, he didn't want,
Speaker 5: you know, he didn't want to go to jail.
Speaker 8: Well, when we pulled the DNA, that's when we've discovered
Speaker 8: obviously one of the motives for him to wanting to
Speaker 8: cover for Tom so hard.
Speaker 5: Right, And the DNA proved conclusively that not only weren't
Speaker 5: you the culprit, but that in fact the perpetrator, but
Speaker 5: in fact it was your brother, and that your dad's
Speaker 5: DNA was found on her socks, on the victim socks.
Speaker 5: Because this theory there is that he helped to drag her.
Speaker 5: It sounds grotesque to the graveside or whatever, and of
Speaker 5: course that's a crime as well. In protecting himself, he
Speaker 5: managed to flip the script and get his innocent son
Speaker 5: sentenced for murder while his guilty son stayed out. And
Speaker 5: then to wrap up the crazy, right, as if all
Speaker 5: this wasn't crazy enough, he killed himself. He did right,
Speaker 5: and he left three suicide notes in which he said,
Speaker 5: in case anybody wasn't listening the first time, he said
Speaker 5: it again, that he did it, that you didn't, that
Speaker 5: he was the sole perpetrator.
Speaker 7: That he has sent an innocent person to prison.
Speaker 5: His own brother, right, who's sitting here with me right now.
Speaker 5: So we hear at the Innoc's Network conference in San Diego,
Speaker 5: a weekend of healing and hope and strength, and you
Speaker 5: are a shine example of all of those things. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you could see and meet Floyd, you know, he's
Speaker 5: just sort of a I mean, you'd never know, you know,
Speaker 5: he looks like a guy who won the damn lottery,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And so that's the way
Speaker 5: he carries himself, which always, I mean all respect to you.
Speaker 5: I'm always amazed at the joy and grace that the
Speaker 5: Xneries exhibit. And you're as good of an example as
Speaker 5: anyone could be. So let's talk about how you got
Speaker 5: from there to hear right, because you come out of prison,
Speaker 5: but it ain't so easy after that, is it? No?
Speaker 8: You know, when an xonerary comes out of prison, they
Speaker 8: don't have much, if anything at all. Kansas does not
Speaker 8: have any compensation laws. I'll speak for Kansas because that's
Speaker 8: what I know. After sixteen years, you make a dollar
Speaker 8: five a day, and that's only if you work the job.
Speaker 8: The days you don't work, you don't get paid.
Speaker 5: Dollar five a day, right, you know, and most and
Speaker 5: less one more time and no compensation laws and no
Speaker 5: compensation right. One of the twenty states that has only five.
Speaker 7: Days for eight hours. Put that on a credit report, right,
Speaker 7: you know, almost your last shob dollar five a day.
Speaker 5: Five days a week, and it sounds a lot like
Speaker 5: five twenty five a week. You know, exactly you made
Speaker 5: five and twenty five dollars a week. No, not exactly.
Speaker 8: And so when we come out, you know, the clothes
Speaker 8: that you see, you know, when I was coming out
Speaker 8: of the Jefferson County Courthouse, the final shirt of jeans
Speaker 8: and the shoes that was bought by my attorneys. I
Speaker 8: had an aunt and an uncle and a few family members,
Speaker 8: but my aunt and uncle stuck by me for the
Speaker 8: whole sixteen years.
Speaker 5: And let's not leave out of this your kids, right,
Speaker 5: because when you went in and they became victims.
Speaker 8: Till I had two boys and a wife, she got
Speaker 8: divorced because obviously, you know, it was her sister in
Speaker 8: law or it was her sister, and she had the
Speaker 8: police and the county attorney was telling her all this stuff,
Speaker 8: lying to her, you know, lying to the family. She
Speaker 8: took my kids from me, filed to have my rights removed.
Speaker 8: The I saw I saw my kids prior to my
Speaker 8: release was November twelfth, at one point thirty in the
Speaker 8: afternoon of nineteen ninety nine. I gave Cody, who was
Speaker 8: two and a half at that time, and Christian, who
Speaker 8: was nine months. I kissed in a hug and said
Speaker 8: I'll be back in a couple hours, and I never
Speaker 8: came back. And then for sixteen years I didn't see them.
Speaker 8: You know, I wrote letters, you know, I had a
Speaker 8: nice stack of letters wrote to them when I first started.
Speaker 7: Every day, every day I'd.
Speaker 8: Write and say I'm coming, Oh, I'll be homes on
Speaker 8: their birthday, Christmas, everything.
Speaker 7: You tried not to lose.
Speaker 8: Hope, and ultimately, after a while I gave up for
Speaker 8: writing because I had no place to send the letters
Speaker 8: nobody to read to the boys, to tell them, Hey,
Speaker 8: I love you, I'm thinking of you. I haven't forgot
Speaker 8: for sixteen years. I never once forgot my kids. I
Speaker 8: got a lot of friends that are still in prison,
Speaker 8: most of them are rightfully there. And I remember once,
Speaker 8: right before I got released for that short time in
Speaker 8: two thousand and eight, you know, he was like, Floyd,
Speaker 8: do you ever think you'll ever be.
Speaker 7: Able to see your kids?
Speaker 8: And I said, well, someday I'll be able to see them.
Speaker 8: Most people were like, you're crazy, You're crazy. You're never
Speaker 8: going to get out. You keep saying the same thing
Speaker 8: week after week. And finally in twenty and sixteen, in April,
Speaker 8: I saw my kids. What was that like, Well, they're
Speaker 8: much taller. Cody's six almost six y two and Christians
Speaker 8: five eleven.
Speaker 5: Wow, because you're not a tall man too. They're in
Speaker 5: towering over you.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: You know, you left them as these little babies, and
Speaker 5: now you're looking up at them.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 8: And you know what, there's no two people on this
Speaker 8: or that I'd rather look up to than those two boys.
Speaker 5: And they're doing good now in spite of this terrible
Speaker 5: childhood that they had to endure without their dad and
Speaker 5: with this being fed these lies and believing that their
Speaker 5: dad was a child rapist and a murderer, right, And
Speaker 5: you know what a way to grow up that is.
Speaker 5: So somehow or other, you persevered in prison, even with
Speaker 5: this added burden of not being able to contact your kids.
Speaker 5: And you can see. I mean, I'm looking in your
Speaker 5: eyes right now, and the pain is it. It's unreal. And
Speaker 5: as a parent, and I'm sure a lot of people
Speaker 5: that are out there listening have kids, I'm sure you can,
Speaker 5: you know, try to imagine what that would be like.
Speaker 5: But we can't imagine. And that's what's so powerful about
Speaker 5: this conference. I believe it's being able to get people
Speaker 5: together who have had similar experiences and you would know
Speaker 5: better that.
Speaker 8: Last year was my first conference in San Antonio. I'd
Speaker 8: been out twelve weeks. Twelve weeks, and you know, I
Speaker 8: show up here and you're just starstruck because in Kansas
Speaker 8: you feel like you're all alone. But then you get here.
Speaker 8: Last year there was one hundred and fifty three Eggsonneries
Speaker 8: that had been in the same boat. I remember sitting
Speaker 8: down and eating with Amanda Knox and Ryan Ferguson and finally,
Speaker 8: you don't have to explain how you feel because they
Speaker 8: already know. You don't have to answer all the questions
Speaker 8: of well what do you mean by that? It don't
Speaker 8: even have to be spoken because we've been through the
Speaker 8: same or the similar ways. We've all learned how to cope,
Speaker 8: and you learn how to persevere through it. And there's
Speaker 8: so much healing, so much renewal here. I've been looking
Speaker 8: forward to it since when I got back to Kansas
Speaker 8: City last year, you know, I was looking forward to
Speaker 8: the next one because you learn that there's people.
Speaker 5: Just like you. Yeah, Unfortunately, there's thousands of them, and
Speaker 5: there's then there's tens or hundreds of thousands that are
Speaker 5: still in the numbers are truly mind boggling. Yeah, for me,
Speaker 5: it's just an honor and a privilege to be here
Speaker 5: and be amongst you and the you know, and the
Speaker 5: other men and women who have so overcome such impossible
Speaker 5: challenges and odds and tragedies and trauma. To be here
Speaker 5: and be speaking for the people who are still in really,
Speaker 5: when you think about it, right, and for each other
Speaker 5: and stand it up for each other like you do.
Speaker 8: And that's some of the stuff that I do now
Speaker 8: is I go to the Kansas Legislature and try to
Speaker 8: get the laws change to ensure that it doesn't happen.
Speaker 8: You know, I've spoke on the on the Mandatory Recording
Speaker 8: Act for Kansas, the recording of interrogation, right, That's one
Speaker 8: of the biggest causes was you would think that if
Speaker 8: you have somebody can that you would.
Speaker 7: Record it, right.
Speaker 5: I was not smart to me.
Speaker 8: Jefferson County did not. They did not do any recordings
Speaker 8: of Tom until November twenty fourth or twenty fifth.
Speaker 5: It just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 7: Everybody else they recorded right off the bat.
Speaker 5: It's just it's like Alison Wanslan, It's just like through
Speaker 5: the looking lass. It's just backwards and upside down and
Speaker 5: inside out. It's nothing that they did make any sense.
Speaker 5: And I will say for myself, and I think I'm
Speaker 5: speaking for ninety some percent of the people that are listening,
Speaker 5: that if we weren't hearing this from your mouth, the
Speaker 5: story just you know, if I tell this story to someone,
Speaker 5: they're going to go, no, no, no, you got something wrong there,
Speaker 5: because it doesn't work like that. It can't work like that.
Speaker 5: I mean, Alice, you must have the same feeling like
Speaker 5: it's just totally fucking bizarre.
Speaker 6: This case is very bizarre, but it's not the only one.
Speaker 6: And I think that's the sad truth of it is.
Speaker 6: Floyd and I have been working together for so long,
Speaker 6: but there's other people that we're going to continue to
Speaker 6: as a team try and get out.
Speaker 5: We all have of the shared responsibility, and I think
Speaker 5: everyone who's listening hopefully will feel the same sense and
Speaker 5: want to get involved and help, because you can't be
Speaker 5: around somebody like you, Floyd and not feel like Jesus,
Speaker 5: that could have been me, because it really could have
Speaker 5: been any of us. Right, You're just a regular guy.
Speaker 5: You weren't some career criminal or some sinister like dark
Speaker 5: force of just a regular guy going about your life
Speaker 5: with a couple of young kids in the middle of America,
Speaker 5: you know, just a regular guy.
Speaker 7: I was working for a drry, just trying to raise
Speaker 7: my kids on.
Speaker 5: The farm, right, and then this, Right, And it's just
Speaker 5: so weird how when the forces of justice they start
Speaker 5: to churn and they just grind people up, and it's
Speaker 5: only a miracle that somebody like you can actually survive
Speaker 5: this ordeal and come out in one piece with a
Speaker 5: smile on your face. I see how you light up
Speaker 5: when you're talking about your kids. So now they're twenty
Speaker 5: and eighteen. Yes, and they're tall enough to be a
Speaker 5: basketball players and they're doing good. Yes, if you want
Speaker 5: to talk about that a little bit, sure, a little bit,
Speaker 5: go ahead.
Speaker 8: But he's just enlisted in the army. He's going into intelligence.
Speaker 8: He just finished basic training. He's on his way to
Speaker 8: go for extended training for intelligence. Christian is a senior
Speaker 8: in high school. He'll be graduating in May, going to
Speaker 8: fire fighter school.
Speaker 5: Amazing, So you got you got a soldier and a
Speaker 5: fireman yep. And are you close to the kids now?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 8: I try to get up there at least once a
Speaker 8: month to see him. Cody will be a little harder
Speaker 8: because now he's out here, but we stay in contact.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 8: I do animal portraits, painting and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: Uh, Floyd learned painting.
Speaker 5: People see that.
Speaker 6: You must actually exhibiting right now at the Johnson County
Speaker 6: Public Library.
Speaker 8: Yes, and it'll be on exhibit till May fifteenth.
Speaker 5: But is there a website people can go if they
Speaker 5: want to just see it, because a lot of people
Speaker 5: can't get to the.
Speaker 7: Tonight now yet. You know, I hope to have it
Speaker 7: up here pretty quick.
Speaker 5: You let us know when you do it, we'll we'll
Speaker 5: put it on our site and people can be able
Speaker 5: to find the Floyd Bloods or maybe you'll turn out
Speaker 5: to be the next who knows Homer Winslow or something
Speaker 5: like that, you know.
Speaker 8: And then I got married November nineteenth last year.
Speaker 5: Congraduations.
Speaker 8: She has a seventeen month old So I have a
Speaker 8: stepson that's seventeen months Blake, and he's a ball.
Speaker 5: So it's actually kind of a full circle, now, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Right now you got your kids back. You actually have
Speaker 5: a young son who's really almost about the same age
Speaker 5: as one of your kids was when you went in.
Speaker 5: So it's really a redo. I mean, what a difference
Speaker 5: to see somebody like you, who would have been literally
Speaker 5: rotting and suffering in prison for the rest of your
Speaker 5: life if not for the fact that good people like
Speaker 5: Alice and others that donate almost all of their time
Speaker 5: to the cause had come to the rescue and had
Speaker 5: ultimately proven that what should have been obvious to the
Speaker 5: authorities all along and really was obvious, you know.
Speaker 8: And I remember just before we filed for the DNA.
Speaker 8: I would call Alice and Jeane and Beth.
Speaker 7: They'd give me the answer.
Speaker 8: We don't know what we're going to do, but we'll
Speaker 8: figure out something. It was like, we hit this big
Speaker 8: little stone wall, and I wrote in the thinking card
Speaker 8: to the d NKU and I said, when you're instructors
Speaker 8: and your students hitting the stone wall.
Speaker 7: They didn't give up and turn around.
Speaker 8: They picked up the chisel, they picked up the hammer,
Speaker 8: and they made away. And that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 8: They gave me my life back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they don't make it easy for anyone to get
Speaker 5: out of prison. I mean, even with extremely talented attorneys
Speaker 5: and advocates, which you were in that sense lucky to have.
Speaker 5: A lot of people don't even have that. It's still
Speaker 5: almost impossible task because they just keep putting up roadbloxed because,
Speaker 5: like you said, Alice, they want to protect the jury
Speaker 5: verdict or the wrongful prosecution or the wrong whatever the
Speaker 5: hell it is. And it's so weird. It's like why
Speaker 5: why why why? No? This is simple, right, everybody needs
Speaker 5: to know who really did it.
Speaker 6: It's hard to convince people. Even when we filed the
Speaker 6: DNA reports in Floyd's case, the investigators for Jefferson County
Speaker 6: that were reinvestigating it said, well, this doesn't mean Floyd
Speaker 6: didn't do it or wasn't involved, and it wasn't really
Speaker 6: until Tom committed suicide that they were convinced that was
Speaker 6: the only thing that did it. If we hadn't had
Speaker 6: that would probably still.
Speaker 5: Be litigating it. Sounds like if you would have had
Speaker 5: pictures and photographs of the crime taking place and a
Speaker 5: timestamped video of you being somewhere else doing something else,
Speaker 5: they still would have went, well, yeah, they would have
Speaker 5: come up with it, because we've seen that. I mean,
Speaker 5: they come up with theories that are just a first
Speaker 5: grader would go that don't make any sense, But they do,
Speaker 5: and they did, and you're the living proof of it.
Speaker 5: But now you're here, so San Diego, what are you
Speaker 5: going to do? Well, now you're saying going surfing, what
Speaker 5: do you do out here?
Speaker 8: Well, Kansas, guys, I've always wanted to write a jet ski,
Speaker 8: So I'm trying to convince people to write a jet
Speaker 8: ski with me. But they're not really him because they're like,
Speaker 8: it's kind of cold in the morning, but hey, what's
Speaker 8: a little hyperthermia. You know it'll wear off eventually, you know, but.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm gonna make sure you get on a jet
Speaker 5: skip if I have to go with you.
Speaker 8: So I got the chance to go to La Jolla
Speaker 8: to see the sea lions, uh huh. And those are
Speaker 8: so awesome because you're just a few feet away. You
Speaker 8: can almost walk right up to them. I wouldn't recommend
Speaker 8: petting them because they kind of growl at you, but
Speaker 8: it's amazing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they don't have those in Kansas right now. So
Speaker 5: I really appreciate you being here. I know it's not easy.
Speaker 5: I appreciate you being here, and also you being here,
Speaker 5: so I appreciate you being in San Diego at the conference.
Speaker 5: I appreciate you being a really remarkable beacon of light
Speaker 5: and hope. And I really appreciate both of you being
Speaker 5: guests on this very special edition of Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 5: Jason Flomm from the Innocent Network conference, where we are
Speaker 5: generating so much positive energy that we could probably light
Speaker 5: up at least a mid size city. Once again, Lloyd Alice,
Speaker 5: thank you for being here. It's been an extraordinary experience
Speaker 5: for me. And now let's have some fun sounds grew.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 5: It's my pleasure, my honor actually to introduce a friend
Speaker 5: of mine for many years, an incredible man, Cornelius Duprix.
Speaker 5: He maintains and projects an incredible positive attitude and great energy,
Speaker 5: and that's why he's now an ambassador to the new
Speaker 5: ex hoonnaies, helping them adapt to life on the outside.
Speaker 9: In nineteen eighty, Cornelius dupre was sentenced to seventy five
Speaker 9: years for aggravated robbery.
Speaker 1: Cornelius Dupree Junior was just nineteen years old when he
Speaker 1: first went to jail.
Speaker 9: The crime included abduction and rate. He has served the
Speaker 9: longest prison term of any Texas inmate ever cleared through
Speaker 9: DNA evidence. Pre was released last July on parole after
Speaker 9: thirty years behind bars. One week later, DNA test results
Speaker 9: proved his innocence.
Speaker 5: Cornelius, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 5: So Cornelius, your story is remarkable in the fact that
Speaker 5: you served thirty one years in prison, that's correct for
Speaker 5: a crime you had nothing to do with, had no
Speaker 5: knowledge of, and no involvement with.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 5: And this was a crime, I mean, the length of
Speaker 5: your sentence is extraordinary and unusual even among the axgoneries.
Speaker 5: But the causes of your wrongful conviction are common. You
Speaker 5: were a victim of wrongful identification and to some extent racism,
Speaker 5: I would say, right, And I want to talk about
Speaker 5: this with wrongful convictions that are based on misidentifications, which
Speaker 5: is the most common cause of wrongful conviction. It's been
Speaker 5: proven scientifically that the least accurate form of eywouldness identification
Speaker 5: is crossration. Yes, and in this case, and I want
Speaker 5: to go back to it all those years ago, in
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy nine, right, that's correct, That seems like another century.
Speaker 5: It was another century actually, and two white people in Dallas,
Speaker 5: Texas were robbed. It was a couple and the woman
Speaker 5: was sexually assaulted by two black men. And you and
Speaker 5: a buddy were out. What were you doing that night?
Speaker 3: We were on our way to a party, and they
Speaker 3: had house parties back then.
Speaker 1: He and I.
Speaker 3: Decided earlier the day that we was going to attend
Speaker 3: this party, you know, foo blocks away from where our
Speaker 3: parents lived. We lived with our parents at that time,
Speaker 3: So about maybe ten thirty eleven o'clock at night, we
Speaker 3: proceeded on to attend the party. And before us we
Speaker 3: acknowledged that there was a couple of squad cars.
Speaker 1: You know, just sitting there.
Speaker 3: So we proceeded on to go to the party, and
Speaker 3: the cops they stopped us and asked us where we
Speaker 3: were going, and we told them we was on our
Speaker 3: way to the party, and they at that point asked
Speaker 3: us to get up against the car and they frished
Speaker 3: us and find a bag of weed, marijuana and a
Speaker 3: little darrin of pistol which my co defendant had. So
Speaker 3: they proceeded to frish us to try to find more
Speaker 3: stuff out. Soon then we really thought, you know, we
Speaker 3: were in trouble for the marijuana and the little gun,
Speaker 3: you know, a little pistol and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So we were thinking that we were going.
Speaker 3: To go to jail and possibly get out. You know,
Speaker 3: we were probationists. I was kind of borderline, you know, juvenile,
Speaker 3: young adult, you know. I guess they could have made
Speaker 3: it a felony, you know, a dult felt in the case.
Speaker 5: Because you were twenty at the time, right.
Speaker 3: Well, no, I was ninety, yes, nineteen turning twenty. So
Speaker 3: I was kind of borderline, I think. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: an adult straight across the border.
Speaker 1: I was an adult. He was a young juvenile.
Speaker 5: Right, And to be fair, as the seventies. Everybody was
Speaker 5: carrying back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, y, yes, that was the thing.
Speaker 5: But the pistol, you know, a couple of young black
Speaker 5: eyes and Texas with a pistol. The cops don't They
Speaker 5: don't like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's correct.
Speaker 3: And were they white cops, Yes they were. They were
Speaker 3: white cops from an all black neighborhood.
Speaker 5: But you had no idea that this robbery, this sexual
Speaker 5: assault had taken place, not in the general vicinity.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Again, I come from an all black neighborhood. You know,
Speaker 3: it's all black. And from what I gathered, this incident
Speaker 3: happened man a few miles away, which was another neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I guess at a convenience.
Speaker 3: Store something like that. I'm not really for sure. I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about it. All I know is
Speaker 3: they stopped us, asked us where we were going, and
Speaker 3: put the cuffs on us, and then proceeded to taking
Speaker 3: us to the count of jail.
Speaker 5: And then things went really wrong. Yes, sir, you were
Speaker 5: not a rich guy. No, so you couldn't afford to hire,
Speaker 5: not by a long shot. Right, So you had a
Speaker 5: public defender, Yes, I did, And the evidence against you
Speaker 5: really they had no physical evidence, no, because if they
Speaker 5: had it, they would have had to lie about that
Speaker 5: because you weren't there. So the only evidence they had against.
Speaker 1: You was the marijuana and the pistol, but.
Speaker 5: That had nothing to do with the client that you
Speaker 5: were convicted of.
Speaker 3: Well, they used it as I mean, because I guess
Speaker 3: the guy was robbed. I mean, I guess that would
Speaker 3: have took a pistol or something of that sort.
Speaker 5: Well, but at the same time, I mean, how many
Speaker 5: people have pistols. We know there's more guns in America
Speaker 5: than our people, and back then in Texas, I imagine
Speaker 5: a lot of people are carrying guns. That doesn't prove
Speaker 5: you assaulted and raped and robed anybody. But there was
Speaker 5: no physical evidence. There was no biological evidence. There was
Speaker 5: no sperm or hares or anything else that could have
Speaker 5: connected you to this crime, which was since it was
Speaker 5: a crime that was physical in nature, that evidence would
Speaker 5: have existed and would have been able to be tested.
Speaker 5: There wasn't DNA technology back then, but there was enough
Speaker 5: blood type or this or that that they could have tested,
Speaker 5: and if they had, they would have learned that you
Speaker 5: were not the guys that did it. Again, it comes
Speaker 5: back to they had circumstantial evidence, which is, here's these
Speaker 5: two black guys. There's a lot of black guys though, right,
Speaker 5: And here's a little gun, right, yes, And I don't
Speaker 5: want to minimize that as a gun. The weed has
Speaker 5: nothing to do with anything, right. And then they have
Speaker 5: these two white people, this couple who made a mistake.
Speaker 5: I don't think they wanted to identify the wrong pripall.
Speaker 5: I'm sure they wanted to do it right. But we
Speaker 5: know now and they knew to an extent then that
Speaker 5: I went identification it's such an imperfect thing. And then
Speaker 5: of course there's all the stuff that happened at the
Speaker 5: police station and the ways that these procedures aren't conducted,
Speaker 5: whether it's mug shots or lineups or any other thing.
Speaker 5: We know that there's a lot of there's been a
Speaker 5: lot of improvement since then, and the Innists Project has
Speaker 5: been behind a lot of those. But there's a lot
Speaker 5: still that has to be done to help to diminish
Speaker 5: the number of wrongful identifications. But in your case, I'm
Speaker 5: guessing that most of those procedures weren't followed. They had
Speaker 5: a couple of guys, they probably felt a lot of pressure.
Speaker 5: This is a crime that, particularly in the South. Nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy nine, a couple of white people getting sexually assaulted
Speaker 5: by a couple of black men. They want to get
Speaker 5: this off their desk, right, They're probably a lot of
Speaker 5: pressure probably coming from the top, get this solid. And
Speaker 5: they got a couple of guys and you were one
Speaker 5: of them. You go to trial. Did you still believe
Speaker 5: that the system was going to function correct?
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say no in that regards.
Speaker 5: As the trial went on, were you becoming more I mean,
Speaker 5: obviously you had to be scared, but were you said
Speaker 5: you were a believer in the system, And a lot
Speaker 5: of the guys that I've interviewed on the show and
Speaker 5: women have said, yeah, I thought that justice would be
Speaker 5: done because this doesn't happen. But in your case, when
Speaker 5: the jury went out, were you expecting that they would
Speaker 5: convict you and send you to seventy five years in
Speaker 5: present like they did?
Speaker 3: Well, that was like my whole cart. It was like
Speaker 3: I knew I was innocent. I know nothing about this
Speaker 3: case in which they were allegend that I committed, and
Speaker 3: so all I had was the system. So I sit
Speaker 3: in the count of jail or waiting trial so that
Speaker 3: I can come and sit before the accuser. I really
Speaker 3: didn't know how the trial system work. I felt that
Speaker 3: once I go to trial, I would sit before the
Speaker 3: cue and they would actually see me and say that's
Speaker 3: the wrong guy.
Speaker 1: But that's not how it went.
Speaker 5: That didn't happen. And then the jury went out and
Speaker 5: they came back in, and then the worst possible result happened. Yes,
Speaker 5: guilty verdict. Was your family in the courtroom? What was
Speaker 5: that moment? Like? How did you even deal with it?
Speaker 3: They did not let my family in the courtroom. They
Speaker 3: stopped him at the back of the court and for whatever.
Speaker 1: Reason did not allow them in.
Speaker 3: I was not allowed to testify due to the public
Speaker 3: offender that I had told me that it'd be to
Speaker 3: my best interest not to take the stand because they were.
Speaker 1: Going to make me look like a you know, a
Speaker 1: hootlum or something like.
Speaker 5: This sort public business.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they were.
Speaker 3: Saying that it was the burden of proof was on
Speaker 3: them to prove that I was guilty. That I didn't
Speaker 3: have to take the stand and to prove my innocence
Speaker 3: and it being naive, you know, to the law, I said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm innocent, and I felt like, okay, I really didn't know.
Speaker 3: So I sit there and once I made that decision,
Speaker 3: they ate more lunch.
Speaker 5: So you got cuvict you got sentenced to seventy five
Speaker 5: years in prison, and your co defender was sentenced to life.
Speaker 5: And then so many years went by and eventually you
Speaker 5: found out about the Innocence Project. Had you given up
Speaker 5: hope by this point or like, you know, you were
Speaker 5: in for decades already by the time that over two decades.
Speaker 3: No, no, uh, I never given up hope. I always
Speaker 3: felt that someday I was going to be released. I
Speaker 3: just didn't know when that day was gonna come.
Speaker 5: Because with the seventy five year sentence, they were going
Speaker 5: to carry you out of there in the box. Yes, possibility,
Speaker 5: that was the only way you were getting out. But
Speaker 5: so you wrote a letter to the Innocence Project in
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven, and obviously we took your case
Speaker 5: and that was the inn Project New York, and then
Speaker 5: things started to really turn your way.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was actually after the O. J. Simpson trial.
Speaker 3: It was a big trial and whatnot, And I think
Speaker 3: that's somewhere along there they became kind of well known,
Speaker 3: you know, DNA and whatnot, and uh, I was one
Speaker 3: who was very active in the law library, the rich
Speaker 3: rooms in the prison system. And one of the guys
Speaker 3: who know that I was working on my case and
Speaker 3: trying to get out, told me about DNA the introduced
Speaker 3: you know, told me about the ensign project and that
Speaker 3: that was some information that I could use concern the
Speaker 3: NSIN project in DNA.
Speaker 1: And so I sit in my cell and I.
Speaker 3: Had to figure out a way because I know I
Speaker 3: was in jail for robbery that didn't consist of DNA.
Speaker 1: I was never charged of the rape case.
Speaker 3: It was dismissed, right, And so when he told me
Speaker 3: about the DNA and the Innocent project, I had to
Speaker 3: figure out a way in which I could write this
Speaker 3: letter to the Niscient Project explaining to them that I
Speaker 3: was in prison for a robber that I didn't commit,
Speaker 3: but in the course of this rob but that was
Speaker 3: also a rape case that occurred that I was never
Speaker 3: tried for they dismissed, and that if you go back
Speaker 3: and open up that rape case and do a DNA
Speaker 3: on it, it's going to show that I didn't I'm
Speaker 3: not the perpetrator who raped the lady.
Speaker 1: And if I didn't rape the lady who.
Speaker 3: Was with the guy in which they said I robbed
Speaker 3: then I'm not the actual perpetrator.
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what happened. Fortunately the evidence was preserved,
Speaker 5: it was tested, and you walked out of prison a
Speaker 5: freeman in twoenty ten after thirty one years.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 5: In Texas prisons, which is even saying that name Texas prisons,
Speaker 5: it just conjures up all kinds of nightmare scenarios. I mean,
Speaker 5: from the heat to the it's just an unimaginable thing
Speaker 5: to be able to persevere and overcome. And now now
Speaker 5: you're an ambassador to new exigneries at the conference.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: You know, I want to ask you specifically about the
Speaker 5: conference because here you are in sunny San Diego an ambassador.
Speaker 5: That really means that you're here to help some of
Speaker 5: the newly exonerated people. I was going to say men,
Speaker 5: but we know it's men and women. And what's that like?
Speaker 5: What does that mean to them? What does that mean
Speaker 5: to you? Because you're viewed as somebody that is extremely
Speaker 5: respected among the entire community for the way you carry yourself.
Speaker 5: How does that feel for you and what's the impact
Speaker 5: of that role?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm very honored and pleased to have that title,
Speaker 3: but that it's just a title.
Speaker 1: To me. I'm very emotional and I take it very personal.
Speaker 3: When I engage with the guys and welcome these guys
Speaker 3: in as family. What I try to do is give
Speaker 3: back what was given to me when I was first released.
Speaker 3: When I came to my first conference, there was a
Speaker 3: few guys that came up to me after, you know,
Speaker 3: being confined for such an long time and being all
Speaker 3: up tight and not knowing what they expect and not
Speaker 3: knowing anyone.
Speaker 1: It's very challenging. It can be very scary because you.
Speaker 3: Don't know anyone, and being in prison for such a
Speaker 3: long time, You're in a hard environment.
Speaker 1: It's a very different environment.
Speaker 3: It's not an environment in which you embrace people.
Speaker 1: It's an environment in which you keep people at bay.
Speaker 1: You know, you keep them away. And so.
Speaker 3: By the guys embracing me after such a long time
Speaker 3: and welcomed me home and making me feel a part
Speaker 3: of family, I took that very personal. That stuck with me,
Speaker 3: and so throughout the whole time in which I have
Speaker 3: been free, I was trying to figure out a way
Speaker 3: in which I can become a part of this platform
Speaker 3: and give back to these guys and welcome these guys
Speaker 3: in and allow these guys to know that we are
Speaker 3: family and we stand by you, and we're gonna support you.
Speaker 3: We're going to do everything we can me personally in
Speaker 3: my power to.
Speaker 1: Make it better for these guys. You know, because.
Speaker 3: We come from different parts of the world in terms
Speaker 3: of prison, but we all suffer the same thing and
Speaker 3: we all can identify with that, and so it's going
Speaker 3: to take people who understands that to try to make
Speaker 3: this more of a family atmosphere, more of a welcome home.
Speaker 5: It's amazing because I heard you use the word family
Speaker 5: several times in that beautiful speech, and it really is
Speaker 5: a family. I mean, that's the sense that I get.
Speaker 5: And the experience of being in that room last night
Speaker 5: when almost two hundred Dexigneries got on stage, it was
Speaker 5: a beautiful thing to see and be a part of.
Speaker 5: And the speeches that were made and the hugging and
Speaker 5: the dancing and the connecting of people who have shared this.
Speaker 5: You know, everybody in that room is a member of
Speaker 5: a club that nobody wants to belong to. But now
Speaker 5: it's amazing because every single exonery I've been privileged to
Speaker 5: spend time with is so devoted to helping their fellow
Speaker 5: exunarees and making a difference in not only improving their lives,
Speaker 5: but in helping other people who are still stuck in
Speaker 5: the system. And that's what we're here to do on
Speaker 5: the show, is to educate people and inform people and
Speaker 5: try to prevent the next Cornelius Dupree from ever happening,
Speaker 5: you know, ever getting into the system. You know, once
Speaker 5: you get started on this work, I was lucky I
Speaker 5: sort of stumbled into it twenty something years ago. You
Speaker 5: can't stop, you know, you can't stop because there's no
Speaker 5: better feeling. And I see it in your eyes when
Speaker 5: you're talking about it. How you're able to do it now.
Speaker 5: It's a high, that is it's impossible to even put
Speaker 5: it into words. So we talked about the worst moment
Speaker 5: of life when you were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to
Speaker 5: spend the rest of your life in prison. What's the
Speaker 5: best thing that's happened since you've been out.
Speaker 3: Being married, getting married to my wife after courting my
Speaker 3: wife for such a long time. My wife is my
Speaker 3: best friend, She's my support system.
Speaker 1: As you know, I met my wife while I was
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 3: I've actually known my wife for twenty some years prior
Speaker 3: to me getting out of prison and married my wife.
Speaker 1: So my wife's been there practically thirty years.
Speaker 5: How did you meet her? Let's go back to that.
Speaker 3: Well, I met my wife while I was in prison.
Speaker 3: My wife was actually a prison guard. Incredible, Yes, my
Speaker 3: wife was. She was going to sam Houston her she
Speaker 3: major in criminology. She was on her way to possibly
Speaker 3: becoming a warden at some point in time, and she
Speaker 3: was actually a prison guard. I befriend my wife first.
Speaker 3: She was someone who I highly respected. She had no
Speaker 3: clue who I was. I had no idea that she
Speaker 3: would become my wife. Again, she was a lady who
Speaker 3: I highly respected. My job in prison kind of allowed
Speaker 3: me to kind of get a little up close and
Speaker 3: personal with the guards, you know, being that I had
Speaker 3: been in prison such a long time, I was one
Speaker 3: who was pretty much trusted, you know.
Speaker 1: I had a job that allowed me.
Speaker 3: To intermingle with some of the guards, and so she
Speaker 3: was one who I used to talk to a great deal.
Speaker 3: My wife is a minister, so she was always talking
Speaker 3: about Christ.
Speaker 1: She's very religious. Auented and that's what won me over.
Speaker 3: That was one of the prayers in which I prayed
Speaker 3: to God to send me a Christian woman in my
Speaker 3: life to kind of help.
Speaker 1: Me stay the course. I never knew it would be her.
Speaker 5: It's an incredible love story. I mean, but you can't
Speaker 5: see through the radio, but Cornelius is a very stylish
Speaker 5: and handsome, distinguished looking gentleman. But still you have to
Speaker 5: have an incredible amount of game right to be able
Speaker 5: to meet the woman of your while you're on the inside. Right.
Speaker 5: You've got tens of millions of people out here on
Speaker 5: different dating websites can't even find love, and you found
Speaker 5: it in the most hellish place on earth. It's just
Speaker 5: really beautiful that you found each other however, even though
Speaker 5: it was a horrible circumstance, and that we're able to
Speaker 5: connect on the outside and create a family. And I
Speaker 5: see when you're talking about I see the love in
Speaker 5: your eyes. It's amazing. So I would like to ask
Speaker 5: you if there's anything at all that you want to say.
Speaker 3: Well, I would just like to say to kind of
Speaker 3: enlighten people about what the Innocent Project is all about.
Speaker 3: I really wanted to know that we are family. I
Speaker 3: feel that we are now a community. There are so
Speaker 3: many innocent men and women nowadays that we are actually
Speaker 3: a community within ourselves. And that's good, that's great because
Speaker 3: we can all identify with each other's hurt. There's a
Speaker 3: big word around us that doesn't quite understand what actually
Speaker 3: we literosten see is what the Innocent Project is all about.
Speaker 3: And the people who have roamly been in prison, these
Speaker 3: people all suffer. We all suffer from some form of PTSD,
Speaker 3: and we need to be close and identify with one another,
Speaker 3: talk to one another so that we can start the
Speaker 3: healing process.
Speaker 1: This is what it's all about.
Speaker 5: So to add to that, I always like to give
Speaker 5: people a way to get involved, right and so of
Speaker 5: course you've heard me say the number of times. Please
Speaker 5: go to www dot nssproject dot org. You can learn
Speaker 5: more about Cornelius and his case and his life, learn
Speaker 5: how to get involved. Is there another any other website
Speaker 5: that you'd recommend? Or that's that's the place to go.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's that's the place to go.
Speaker 5: That's the place to go. Please join us, join us
Speaker 5: in this movement. There's so many more people in this
Speaker 5: tragic situation, and we gotta. We got to give them
Speaker 5: the hope and give them the ability to get there,
Speaker 5: get back out on the outside and achieve the freedom
Speaker 5: that they deserve. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 5: Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
Speaker 5: a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
Speaker 5: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 5: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject
Speaker 5: dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 5: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 5: Kevin Wortis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 5: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 5: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a
Speaker 5: production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Speaker 5: Company Number one
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