Speaker 1: The Innocence Network is a loose affiliation of independent innocence organizations,
Speaker 1: and each year, members of these organizations, as well as
Speaker 1: the hundreds of xanneries who they've helped free, gather for
Speaker 1: the Innocence Network Conference, and our team was honored to
Speaker 1: join them for their twenty twenty two gathering in Arizona.
Speaker 1: On May twenty third, nineteen ninety one, in the Roxbury
Speaker 1: section of Boston, two men entered Kenneth Maclean's home to
Speaker 1: settle a drug dispute. When he escaped, one of the
Speaker 1: men fatually shot him in the street. Two teenage witnesses,
Speaker 1: neither of whom had seen the assailant's faces, described the
Speaker 1: men as black, and that the shooter had a lock
Speaker 1: of hair growing down the nape of his neck. One
Speaker 1: of the witnesses, Derek Hobson, considered the victim to be
Speaker 1: like an uncle to him. When he viewed a photo
Speaker 1: lineup in front of the grieving family, only one of
Speaker 1: the men pictured, Robert Foxworth, had hair that fit Derek's
Speaker 1: description of the shooter. Robert was not in the area
Speaker 1: at the time of the crime and had no connections
Speaker 1: to the victim. Was a known entity of the police
Speaker 1: as a drug dealer. After Derek tried to recant his
Speaker 1: identification at a pre trial hearing, the state knew that
Speaker 1: they needed to strengthen their case. They picked up a
Speaker 1: drug dealer named Troy Logan, who had been bragging about
Speaker 1: being the actual shooter. Logan agreed to give a statement
Speaker 1: implicating Robert instead, and they were tried together along with
Speaker 1: the third man, Ronnie Christian. With Logan's statement at Derek
Speaker 1: Hobson's coerce identification, the other men were acquitted and Robert
Speaker 1: was sent away for life. A few years later, one
Speaker 1: of Logan's co conspirators gave a detailed description of the crime,
Speaker 1: exonerating Robert in front of members of the prosecutor's office
Speaker 1: and federal agents. Yet the fight for Robert's freedom had
Speaker 1: only just begun. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction. Today's episode is a searing indictment of a
Speaker 1: system that I think we all grew up thinking and
Speaker 1: hoping was better than it is. And when I say that,
Speaker 1: this is a grotesque example of just how easy it
Speaker 1: is to send a man away forever on the flimsiest
Speaker 1: of evidence, I came and call it evidence with a
Speaker 1: callous disregard for the rights, the hopes and dreams of
Speaker 1: that individual. Has happened in Massachusetts, and we have the
Speaker 1: man here himself in person. We're here at the Innocence
Speaker 1: Network conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and all the way from Boston,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts is Robert Foxworth.
Speaker 2: So Robert, welcome, Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I would say I'm sorry you're here because of what
Speaker 1: it took for you to be here, but I am
Speaker 1: very happy and honored that you're here to share your
Speaker 1: story and with him his attorney, Amy Belger. Amy is
Speaker 1: a sole practitioner and a post conviction attorney. Welcome, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Thank you, and Robert. We always
Speaker 1: like to start with a little background. Where did you
Speaker 1: grow up and did you have a happy childhood?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a good childhood. I had her you know,
Speaker 3: my dad had his own barber shop in my mom
Speaker 3: was in the medical field, and.
Speaker 2: Area was good. It was a good place to grow up.
Speaker 3: I did have a solid family like that, A lot
Speaker 3: of love did. But at some point I guess I
Speaker 3: took the wrong turn in life and started running the
Speaker 3: streets selling drugs.
Speaker 1: But you're not going to get any judgment here about
Speaker 1: drug use or dealing. I mean, we here at wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction on myself personally. We believe that everyone should be
Speaker 1: free to do with their own body whatever they choose,
Speaker 1: as long as they're not causing harm to other fully
Speaker 1: self sufficient exuter o living humans and certainly using our
Speaker 1: Dealing drugs is not murder, which is the crime that
Speaker 1: we're here to discuss. However, it was drug feeling that
Speaker 1: made you a known nenty of police. In fact, you
Speaker 1: were even known to the detective in this very case,
Speaker 1: Detective Flynn, who it's fair to say probably was not
Speaker 1: so fond of you, which is really the only motive
Speaker 1: I've been able to surmise for why you were targeted
Speaker 1: for a crime you were not in the area to
Speaker 1: even commit if you had wanted to, and had no
Speaker 1: connection to whatsoever. I mean, did you even know the victim?
Speaker 3: I never met this dude a day in his life.
Speaker 3: I would have never known if I met him.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Amy, can you give us the details of
Speaker 1: this horrible scenario. I mean, it starts off with two
Speaker 1: men and one driver. They pulled up to the house
Speaker 1: of Kenneth MacLean. The two were let into the home
Speaker 1: by his eight year old daughter, so they may have
Speaker 1: known her. And it appears that this was drug related.
Speaker 4: From all that we can tell from the investigation, it
Speaker 4: was a drug related dispute between the deceased man whose
Speaker 4: name was Kenneth McLean and the traders of this crime.
Speaker 4: And this eight year old child, you know, witnessed this
Speaker 4: unfold before her eyes, and those men took vengeance on
Speaker 4: her father and at first abused him in an upstairs
Speaker 4: part of the house, and he escaped and came running
Speaker 4: out onto the street unclothed with electrical tape near his
Speaker 4: mouth and his wrists, and they shot him in broad daylight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like something out of a Tarantino movie.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They stripped this man of everything but his sweatshirt, bound
Speaker 1: him with tape, and somehow or other he was able
Speaker 1: to break free and make a run for his very life.
Speaker 1: But of course he had very little chance as these
Speaker 1: men were armed, and tragically he was killed. Robert, had
Speaker 1: you been made aware of this crime? Was it big
Speaker 1: news in the area.
Speaker 3: It's from another part of It's from Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchous
Speaker 3: and rocks from Manipins and Roxbury's to the other end.
Speaker 3: But it was on the news and everyone heard about it.
Speaker 2: They made a shoulder. They had him labeled as a
Speaker 2: drug dealer.
Speaker 1: So and the Boston Police put out an APB. They
Speaker 1: were looking for three black men. A quote that I
Speaker 1: read was one black, dark skin no further descriptions. Number
Speaker 1: two black male six foot to six foot, one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty pounds, about twenty five years old, with medium
Speaker 1: curly hair and a long curl down the center of
Speaker 1: his hair, down the nape of his neck. That remember
Speaker 1: that detail, the long curl that's going to come into
Speaker 1: play shortly. Wearing a red sweatshirt, a red shirt and
Speaker 1: blue jeans. He was the one that fired the shots.
Speaker 1: According to a witness, they're in a red Toyota or
Speaker 1: red Ford Escort, four doors being operated by a dark
Speaker 1: skin black male. Now, these descriptions came from some neighborhood kids.
Speaker 2: Yes, his name was on Derek Hobson.
Speaker 1: Their description. Initially they had said, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: that they couldn't see the faces of the individuals that
Speaker 1: were running away as they were walking to go play
Speaker 1: basketball whatever they were doing, and of course that changed
Speaker 1: over time, and that should give everybody pause. And these
Speaker 1: kids were friends of the man who was murdered.
Speaker 4: Yes, they were close friends and I think distant family
Speaker 4: members with he said, yes.
Speaker 2: He's like an uncle Tom.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they have these descriptions and the hairstyle. How
Speaker 1: did that play into your misidentification or, as we find
Speaker 1: out later, coerced false identification.
Speaker 3: Well, my hairstyle at the time I got curly here
Speaker 3: I used to leave it was a tail. The popular
Speaker 3: hairstyle everyone was So you have a tail in the
Speaker 3: back of end that do you can braid?
Speaker 1: So okay. So this was a popular hairstyle at the time.
Speaker 1: So not exactly a defining characteristic, right, It's not like
Speaker 1: a birthmark or a lazy eye or something, right, But
Speaker 1: you were known to police and had that hairstyle. So
Speaker 1: then a few weeks go by and then there's this
Speaker 1: alleged tip from a confidential informant that names you along
Speaker 1: with three others.
Speaker 4: The fact that it was a documented anonymous call that
Speaker 4: put Robert's name in the case, we were never able
Speaker 4: to source that anywhere. And now that we know what
Speaker 4: we know about the way the Boston Police detectives gathered
Speaker 4: evidence or put a case together to convict him. You know,
Speaker 4: we don't believe that ever took place. We don't believe
Speaker 4: that phone call ever came.
Speaker 1: It seems like they were doing what was unfortunately prevalent
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties of police departments all across this
Speaker 1: country and the quote unquote tough on crime era. And
Speaker 1: as in many cases, it's hard to discern what is
Speaker 1: real and what is fabricated, as it means to another
Speaker 1: end when we consider the source. Now. Nevertheless, this alleged
Speaker 1: confidential informat tip seemed to contain at least some credible information.
Speaker 1: It named Ronnie Christian, one of Roberts's co defendants who's
Speaker 1: believed to have at least known the victim in this case,
Speaker 1: another guy named Stevin Seeey, as well as a guy
Speaker 1: named Whosy Joyner whose name will definitely come up later,
Speaker 1: so remember that name. But before we got ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 1: it was this alleged tip that police claimed at the
Speaker 1: time informed their decision to put Robert's picture into a
Speaker 1: photo lineup for the fifteen year old with this Derek
Speaker 1: Hobson to view.
Speaker 3: They brought him inside the victim's house with the victim's
Speaker 3: family and showed them pitches in me and told him
Speaker 3: that I was the one that did it.
Speaker 1: You were the only one in the lineup with it.
Speaker 1: Dea right, So here's the one identifying factor that the
Speaker 1: kids seemed to be sure of, and they're going to
Speaker 1: put you in there with the only thing that they
Speaker 1: have to cling on to them.
Speaker 4: And Derek was fifteen years old when they did that.
Speaker 4: They pulled him off the street into a home, you know,
Speaker 4: of the grieving victim's family and directed him to identify Robert.
Speaker 1: We see suggestive lineups and show ups and photo arrays
Speaker 1: all the time, but this would fall into the category
Speaker 1: of extremely suggestive.
Speaker 4: Fair and even the fifteen year old child witness was
Speaker 4: trying to message to the detectives, I'm only able to
Speaker 4: identify the hairstyle in the beginning. He did the best
Speaker 4: he could as a child to do the right thing
Speaker 4: in that situation, but as you've probably read, with future
Speaker 4: efforts by the police, his will was overborn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Hobson was shown another photo of Rare week
Speaker 1: or so later. This time, though, Roberts is the only
Speaker 1: photo present from the first photo lineup, as well as
Speaker 1: again being the only person in the lineup with that hairstyle,
Speaker 1: so super suggestive. And we don't know anything else about
Speaker 1: this interaction, but if the first time was any indication,
Speaker 1: never mind what we know happened later at pre trial
Speaker 1: and at trial and what Derek later said as an adult,
Speaker 1: there was probably a lot of pressure and suggestion going on,
Speaker 1: and Derek hobbs that again identified Robert and you were
Speaker 1: arrested on July eleventh. That's six weeks after the crime
Speaker 1: and almost a month after Dark's initial id in front
Speaker 1: of the victim's family. So it doesn't seem like they
Speaker 1: were in a big hurry here. If they were really
Speaker 1: convinced that you were credible for at the public safety,
Speaker 1: they might have moved a little more quickly. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to make light of it, but it
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous. Did you hear that they were looking for you?
Speaker 1: Did they just bust down the door one day?
Speaker 3: I was sitting down watching TV and boom boom, boom,
Speaker 3: boom boom. I turned so my girl at the time
Speaker 3: opened the door and they ran in and they said,
Speaker 3: put your hands behind it back.
Speaker 2: They cuffed me and put me in the.
Speaker 1: Cor and thus begins almost thirty years saga.
Speaker 3: When we went to the motion to suppress hearing and
Speaker 3: this witness got up there and told the judge and
Speaker 3: all of them listen, it's not him. I can't all
Speaker 3: I know is curly hearing the tail. They said, you
Speaker 3: see the guy in court. He says, no, I don't.
Speaker 3: So it was getting the ruling on it in the morning,
Speaker 3: and I swore I was going to win that motion.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He had faith that we had a criminal legal system
Speaker 4: that was going to straighten this out. You know, if
Speaker 4: we can just get into court, if we just get
Speaker 4: in front of a judge and that judge understands that
Speaker 4: this witness is only saying that he's recognizing a hairstyle,
Speaker 4: and you know the legal standard has been explained to
Speaker 4: Robert right, that it was argued correctly to the judge right.
Speaker 4: He had faith that this was going to get straightened out.
Speaker 3: Now, I remember losing it always sat with me wrong.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until Amy and John and them came along
Speaker 3: and finally told that they had a hearing without my
Speaker 3: lawyers present, and it was a judge, the DA, the
Speaker 3: police and the witness, and then it that's where they
Speaker 3: told him that I had asked a witness and that's
Speaker 3: why he testified like he did it.
Speaker 2: The motion to suppress.
Speaker 4: The argument of the prosecutor was that Robert and people
Speaker 4: associated with Robert were the ones who had intimidated the
Speaker 4: witness into not identifying him.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, talk about projection or gas lighting or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. And because as was
Speaker 1: found out later from Derek as an adult, that's precisely
Speaker 1: what they had been doing at this very hearing to
Speaker 1: him when he was just a fifteen year old child.
Speaker 4: Yes, so you had this escalating pattern of the child's
Speaker 4: witness not testifying definitively against Robert, being taken out into
Speaker 4: the hallway or you know, into the back and being threatened,
Speaker 4: and then coming back in and you know, giving more
Speaker 4: definitive testimony.
Speaker 3: And when I came in in a mourning motion to suppress,
Speaker 3: Aaron just threw that out.
Speaker 2: I knew I was going to jail in.
Speaker 4: You know, all these years later, on our motion for
Speaker 4: a new trial that we filed in twenty twenty, he
Speaker 4: came forward and spoke to the die's office and explained
Speaker 4: all of what happened from his perspective, now as a
Speaker 4: grown man, and they credited that that this had happened,
Speaker 4: that these cops did do this, and that the prosecutor,
Speaker 4: the trial prosecutor from their office engaged in this misconduct
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, wow, I wish I'd felt surprised by this,
Speaker 1: but being surrounded by all of these people at the
Speaker 1: Innocence Network conference, men and women with very similar stories,
Speaker 1: it just puts a very exhausting and depressing byingpoint on
Speaker 1: how common and not surprising this all is. In fact,
Speaker 1: that they recognized Derek's statement as credible, now that's the
Speaker 1: surprising part. It shouldn't be, but it is so now
Speaker 1: that they've had so much trouble with their only evidence
Speaker 1: against Robert, this misidentification that Derek Copson was so desperately
Speaker 1: trying to rescind, they knew that they had to gather
Speaker 1: something else against Robert to make dis charge stick instead of,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe finding the real perpetrator, like what they're
Speaker 1: paid to do. And it would be funny if it
Speaker 1: wasn't so sick, because that's exactly what they did. And
Speaker 1: of course I'm talking about Troy Logan. They also picked
Speaker 1: up Ronnie Christian who were not sure if he had
Speaker 1: any involvement, but they were picked up in September. The
Speaker 1: police said that Logan identified you from a photo lineup
Speaker 1: and gave a statement, and according to Logan, you accompanied
Speaker 1: him and another man to Kenneth McLean's house to buy cope. Now,
Speaker 1: you and McLean supposedly argued about a previous deal in
Speaker 1: which McLean allegedly sold you a bad batch. Logan said
Speaker 1: that he left when the fighting started, but that he
Speaker 1: saw you go back inside with a gun and he
Speaker 1: allegedly heard gunshots. So this all sounds like a typical
Speaker 1: course or it said, to buy a statement where a
Speaker 1: witness cops to being there, right because he has to
Speaker 1: under this pressure, but not enough to incriminate himself, right,
Speaker 1: just a safe distance, so to speak. So I mean,
Speaker 1: did you even know this Troy Logan character?
Speaker 3: I never met the guy, but I don't know he's
Speaker 3: from He's a New York gang member from the paperwork
Speaker 3: I see. I never met him a day in my life.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I was getting crazier. I mean, the state
Speaker 1: filed continuance to delay your trial, Robert, because they wanted
Speaker 1: to try the three of you together.
Speaker 3: But my whole thing is I was ready for trial.
Speaker 3: They were already scheduled the trial date and Logan at
Speaker 3: that point he makes a statement to him saying this that,
Speaker 3: and they preclude my trial basically to try us jointly.
Speaker 3: But there's other evidence that they withheld because it would
Speaker 3: have killed logan statement. There's a statement from his stepfather
Speaker 3: who we lived with, that outline that he told the
Speaker 3: stepfather that he was the one that did it.
Speaker 2: So they hit that pot from.
Speaker 1: Me, Amy, looks like you're about to jump out of
Speaker 1: your skin.
Speaker 4: So we didn't get that statement from Troy Logan's stepfather
Speaker 4: until twenty seventeen either, So they buried it, and they
Speaker 4: buried a lot of exculpatory evidence that incriminated Troy Logan.
Speaker 4: Right because Troy Logan's false statement that he gave to
Speaker 4: the police that implicated Robert was necessary to the case.
Speaker 4: This isn't even disputed.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Much of the incriminating evidence against Troy Logan was never
Speaker 4: turned over, but a portion of it, the most important,
Speaker 4: I think, was a report that the Anti Gang Violence
Speaker 4: unit put together where they got information that Troy Logan
Speaker 4: was actually the shooter, and if Toy Logan was the shooter,
Speaker 4: they're trying the case to the jury saying Robert's the shooter.
Speaker 4: They have this police report saying that they have a
Speaker 4: confidential informant who has given them information, and they verified
Speaker 4: the confidential informant through other information. It was considered a
Speaker 4: reliable informant who said, you know, Troy Logan is the shooter.
Speaker 4: He's bragging about it all over the streets of Dorchester.
Speaker 4: He shot Kenny McLain. And they didn't turn that over,
Speaker 4: and their motive for doing that appeared to be that
Speaker 4: Troy was compromised. Troy had given them information about the
Speaker 4: murder implicated Robert, and they didn't have anything on Robert
Speaker 4: except the fifteen year olds with the hairstyle. So it
Speaker 4: wasn't until twenty seventeen that evidence came out that they
Speaker 4: had buried.
Speaker 2: All of that.
Speaker 1: Right, And when we go back to the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show, when I was talking about the flimsiest of evidence,
Speaker 1: like literally, there's a strand of hair, right, and not
Speaker 1: a strand of hair on her microscope, just a hair style, right,
Speaker 1: this was the evidence. Yes, Now let's talk about the attorneys.
Speaker 1: So many of the people we've had on our show
Speaker 1: had attorneys that were not up to the task. And
Speaker 1: that's being kind. But your family hired one of the
Speaker 1: top guys, is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I had Willie Davis who tried me the
Speaker 2: cases before, and.
Speaker 1: So you had Willie Davis and then Troy Logan. You
Speaker 1: had another guy named William White, correct, and then White
Speaker 1: actually joined Davis's firm.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: And the judge ordered you to get a new attorney because
Speaker 1: of this new partnership that these.
Speaker 2: Guys had forged.
Speaker 1: The conflict, Yeah, the conflict that that created.
Speaker 3: When they conflicted him. Ount He didn't give us back,
Speaker 3: no money, He just recommended us to another attorney.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the trial itself, there's this guy you never
Speaker 1: laid eyes on in your life, not even from the
Speaker 1: same city, who's out bragging all over town about having
Speaker 1: done this, and you're being put on trial with him, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, they put me in one area up theirs and
Speaker 3: put him in the other. They brought me down, sat
Speaker 3: me at one table, Ronnie in there, and then the
Speaker 3: Logan over there.
Speaker 4: And you know, ultimately that was a legal issue in
Speaker 4: a legal error, right, you know, trying Robert along with
Speaker 4: Troy Logan.
Speaker 1: Right, since they had this statement for the Logan. Naming
Speaker 1: Robert as a shooter. Admitting that into evidence would have
Speaker 1: opened Logan up to cross examination. But since he's a
Speaker 1: co defendant, forcing him to take the standard trial would
Speaker 1: be a clear violation of his Fifth Amendment right. So
Speaker 1: in order to protect everyone's right to a fair trial,
Speaker 1: the prosecution came up with what they probably thought was
Speaker 1: an elegant solution, but in reality it just trampled on
Speaker 1: Robert's rights and it involved using the name mister X.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, can you elaborate on that.
Speaker 4: Amy Troy Logan's statement to the police where he was
Speaker 4: naming Robert, you know, as the shooter, the DA's office
Speaker 4: proposed to redact Robert's name and call him mister X
Speaker 4: in the statement, you know, for the jury. So the
Speaker 4: statement reads, Troy Logan said that, you know, mister X
Speaker 4: took a gun, went upstairs shot this victim. Mister X
Speaker 4: is the one who did this, and Troy Logan saw it.
Speaker 4: And then the jury was told mister X is not
Speaker 4: Ronnie Christian. So by deduction, okay, there's only one other
Speaker 4: person mister X can be. And their theory of the
Speaker 4: case is Robert is the shooter. So the judicial system
Speaker 4: decides that a fair trial for Robert is well, we're
Speaker 4: going to redact your name out and we're going to
Speaker 4: say mister X, so we don't violate your rights. Right,
Speaker 4: But there isn't anybody else possibly you could ever deduce
Speaker 4: was mister X except for Robert, And at the time
Speaker 4: Robert was tried that was considered a fair trial. There
Speaker 4: wasn't any kind of care and attention systemically to Robert's rights.
Speaker 4: Robert didn't have the advocacy and the representation at the
Speaker 4: time of trial that he should have had. But ultimately
Speaker 4: the argument was put to the judge who certainly knew
Speaker 4: what the law was and didn't do the right thing.
Speaker 1: So the trial itself, how long did it last?
Speaker 2: About a week?
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe they managed to waste a week
Speaker 1: on this what's literally nothing to talk about, this crazy
Speaker 1: mister X, which is like from a bad script. And
Speaker 1: then the witness I think courageously doing his best to
Speaker 1: backtrack and saying that he was only eighty percent sure
Speaker 1: in his identification.
Speaker 4: The way they got him to testify against Robert is
Speaker 4: over the lunch break between the morning and the afternoon
Speaker 4: sessions of trial. They put the kid into a holding
Speaker 4: cell at the courthouse, and they said to him, you
Speaker 4: either testify that that guy sitting there on trial is
Speaker 4: the guy you saw as the shooter, or we're going
Speaker 4: to put you in a cell with the three defendants
Speaker 4: on trial who are murderers. And this is a young boy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he saw no way out other than to tell
Speaker 1: the lies that he was told to tell, right right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as far as the defense goes, Robert, did
Speaker 1: you have an alibi? Did you have witnesses to testify
Speaker 1: on your behalf?
Speaker 3: I would have gotten on the stand, but the problem
Speaker 3: was my loy said it would have hurt me more
Speaker 3: to let them hear my pass and my conviction, so
Speaker 3: I didn't get up there. I didn't get on understand
Speaker 3: so I didn't really present no trial defense. I just
Speaker 3: went on misidentification in an alibi defense. My family members
Speaker 3: in all them came, but at that point I was
Speaker 3: kind of stuck.
Speaker 1: And on March thirty first, nineteen ninety two, predictably, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the jury convicted you of second degree murder and sentence
Speaker 1: you to life in prison. To add insult to injury,
Speaker 1: Logan was acquitted and Christian received a directed verdict of
Speaker 1: not guilty after the state closed its case. So they
Speaker 1: got it exactly wrong. I mean, it's incredible how they
Speaker 1: how they do this and lock up the innocent man
Speaker 1: and let the guilty one go, and then all of
Speaker 1: us remain in danger. And that's exactly what happened here.
Speaker 1: So that moment when you were convicted.
Speaker 3: I didn't know it. I really didn't know it. I
Speaker 3: was a last verdict, they said. I didn't know it.
Speaker 3: Ronnie Fishing got generated I think earlier that day or
Speaker 3: the next day, I can't remember. And then when they
Speaker 3: came back, they read Logan's verdict first and they said
Speaker 3: not guilty. So if my mom was sitting in the
Speaker 3: front row, so when they started saying my name, I'm
Speaker 3: looking around at that it's that I'm not paying attention
Speaker 3: because I just know I'm not going to jail. And
Speaker 3: when I turned around, I seen the mails be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you gotta turn around. The cuff up back, I said,
Speaker 3: for what they told me, And I know that was
Speaker 3: a horrible ride in.
Speaker 2: The back of that meat wagon. That was a horrible ride.
Speaker 3: When I finally got up there, they bring me to
Speaker 3: a unit called the AA unit, and that's basically a
Speaker 3: segregation unit. So when I walked in, this is this
Speaker 3: is straight on it right here. They had trash in
Speaker 3: the middle of the unit's probably halfway to your.
Speaker 2: Calf, mice running around everywhere.
Speaker 3: You got to kick through it and go to yourself
Speaker 3: and lock yourself. And I couldn't believe this. Which prison
Speaker 3: was that?
Speaker 2: Walpole? Walpole?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's infamous.
Speaker 3: I remember in ninety three, I think I was upstate,
Speaker 3: probably about sixteen fifteen, eighteen months somewhere, we got a
Speaker 3: letter from the federal authorities on the Freedom Information Rack request,
Speaker 3: and the letter outline that I wasn't the one that
Speaker 3: did it. I went earl when the lawyer brought me
Speaker 3: this letter, I said, oh, I'm going home. I remember that,
Speaker 3: I saying shit. I was so happy. And then when
Speaker 3: the judge denied to U thirty, he didn't put nothing
Speaker 3: behind it. But the letter didn't have an affidavit supporting it,
Speaker 3: but originally was from the United States Attorney's Office outlining
Speaker 3: who did it and how they did it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a federal debriefing of somebody who was
Speaker 4: involved in this murder. You know, a person that was
Speaker 4: never a suspect and never brought to trial, he was
Speaker 4: a federal informant, and through that debriefing process, the federal agents,
Speaker 4: you know, will say, do you have any other information
Speaker 4: you know, in any other cases, right that you want
Speaker 4: to give us, because they're sitting there in this profit
Speaker 4: session with them and they have immunity. And so the
Speaker 4: guy says, yeah, that Kenneth maclein murder. You guys, you
Speaker 4: convicted the wrong guy, Okay, And the reason I know
Speaker 4: you did is because I was there for the planning
Speaker 4: of it. I was involved in this, right, And that
Speaker 4: was in ninety three, right, And they turned it over
Speaker 4: to Earl Howard, your trial attorney, who didn't make effective
Speaker 4: use of it. Right, And then years later, you know,
Speaker 4: the Suffolk County District Attorney's office didn't do anything about it.
Speaker 4: You know, they've already declared that person to be a
Speaker 4: reliable and formant because they're using his testimony to you know,
Speaker 4: convict other people. Right, they've already decided he's reliable. But
Speaker 4: they did not act.
Speaker 2: And they knew it was true.
Speaker 4: And they knew it was true.
Speaker 3: Because everything in that statement that he made matched the
Speaker 3: evidence from the gun to the person who were in
Speaker 3: the car, the people that were named in prior proceedings.
Speaker 3: Everything that he gave in that rundown outlined who did
Speaker 3: it and they hate He said they had a thirty
Speaker 3: six tech nine millimeter ballistics of the States said, that's
Speaker 3: what it was.
Speaker 2: They said, with three dudes that got in the car.
Speaker 3: And these are the dudes, both of them, dudes t Lovell,
Speaker 3: who no one ever knew, and he sent formant said
Speaker 3: they were in the car. Now, he gave all this
Speaker 3: to the state without knowing anything about my case at
Speaker 3: the time. So it just took that from the state
Speaker 3: and matched it to this point. Because I didn't appeal
Speaker 3: my case in ninety three. I didn't appeal my case then,
Speaker 3: so there was nothing on the books for you to
Speaker 3: read or understand anything. He just gave a statement and
Speaker 3: outline how his involved wasn't who would have acted. And
Speaker 3: when we got that statement, that's when we started comparing
Speaker 3: it and it matched up.
Speaker 1: And that guy's name was Hughesy join us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know there were Boston Police detectives and
Speaker 4: an ADA from Suffolk County who were sitting there in
Speaker 4: the room, the two agencies that were responsible for convicting him,
Speaker 4: and they didn't turn that information over.
Speaker 1: You were let down to, betrayed and screwed over by
Speaker 1: not just the people that were against you, but the
Speaker 1: people that were supposed to be protecting you.
Speaker 2: I thought the same thing.
Speaker 3: Actually, my same attorney that sold me out a trial,
Speaker 3: I had the same attorney on appeal.
Speaker 2: I got the wrong end of the stick by him
Speaker 2: all day.
Speaker 4: Robert's trial attorney did not perfect his appellate rights and
Speaker 4: did not exhaust all of his claims in the state
Speaker 4: court before the time ran out for him to do so.
Speaker 4: It was his attorney dropped the ball, and so Robert's
Speaker 4: first post conviction lawyers John and Linda Thompson, who had
Speaker 4: the case for twenty years, right, I only came in
Speaker 4: at the tail end the last five years. They had
Speaker 4: the case for twenty years. So they're trying to exhaust
Speaker 4: his state claims and bring it up to federal court,
Speaker 4: but it took years to do that. By the time
Speaker 4: they do that they bring it up to federal court,
Speaker 4: the law had changed and made statements like the mister
Speaker 4: X statement inadmissible to convict somebody with evidence like that.
Speaker 4: I think the district court judge in federal court who
Speaker 4: actually heard this the first time on the habeas petition
Speaker 4: did say that that was insufficient evidence to convictor Robert,
Speaker 4: and she let Robert out honest day, right then, and
Speaker 4: she did vacate the conviction, saying that evidence is insufficient
Speaker 4: to have convicted him of this murder. But unfortunately the
Speaker 4: first Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision and put
Speaker 4: the conviction back, and then, of course our sjac Massachusetts
Speaker 4: let that stand. Our Supreme Judicial Court ruled that because
Speaker 4: the law at the time of Robert's trial was that
Speaker 4: that was good evidence, that that was good evidence, and
Speaker 4: that they weren't going to overturn his conviction even though
Speaker 4: he had suffered this injustice of not having his appellate
Speaker 4: rights perfected when they should have been, and if he had,
Speaker 4: he would have had the benefit of that law. It
Speaker 4: was just another gross injustice. John and Linda Thompson, you know,
Speaker 4: they got him out and then they watched him return
Speaker 4: to prison.
Speaker 3: I never forget that time. I never I was out.
Speaker 3: It seemed like eighteen months later. I just got off
Speaker 3: for boom boom boom, boom boom, and I opened it
Speaker 3: and the US my ancius said you're going I never
Speaker 3: forget that there.
Speaker 4: It's unreal it is And John and Linda they they
Speaker 4: fought the case all those years. Even after they didn't
Speaker 4: give up, they were resolved to have him come back
Speaker 4: out again, and thank god he did so.
Speaker 1: With a little break in the middle. You endured almost
Speaker 1: three decades, but ultimately justice delayed was not denied. How
Speaker 1: did you get him? How was he here? How did
Speaker 1: you do it?
Speaker 4: As I said before, John and Linda never gave up
Speaker 4: on the case, trying to get the DA's office to
Speaker 4: give them access to discovery that they knew was there,
Speaker 4: that was withheld because the informant who'sy joiners that I
Speaker 4: sat down, I told them they have all the paperwork.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: They were trying trying to get the discovery, trying to
Speaker 4: get the information, and it just got tiring. John Thompson
Speaker 4: wrote me a letter in January of twenty sixteen. I
Speaker 4: knew of him by reputation, and he knew me sort
Speaker 4: of the same way, and he said, I have an
Speaker 4: innocent client, and I know you have a heart for
Speaker 4: innocence work. And John Thompson is one of the top,
Speaker 4: if not the top, appellate practitioner in Massachusetts. And you
Speaker 4: know as soon as I saw the return address on
Speaker 4: the envelope of the letter, I'm like, whatever he wants
Speaker 4: for me, I'm going.
Speaker 2: To do it right.
Speaker 4: So you know, that's how I became involved in the case.
Speaker 4: He didn't really need my legal mind, right, he needed
Speaker 4: my support, and he needed somebody to come in, you know,
Speaker 4: to sort of be aggressive about the fact that they
Speaker 4: weren't turning over the discovery, actually calling it what it is.
Speaker 4: This is prosecutorial misconduct, this is an ethical violation that
Speaker 4: you haven't turned it over, and I'm going to tell
Speaker 4: everybody if you don't give it to me. And then finally,
Speaker 4: once we had it, we were able to put the
Speaker 4: claim together and between John's efforts and my efforts, you know,
Speaker 4: to try to get the information that went on for
Speaker 4: twelve years, right when they had the documents the whole
Speaker 4: time and they weren't turning them over.
Speaker 3: I talked to John, I remember he said, he asked
Speaker 3: me if I knew Aimy. I said no, He's I'm
Speaker 3: want to reach out this then, and I said, okay,
Speaker 3: since she came in, and it's yeah, I've seen documents
Speaker 3: that I would have never got a lot of them,
Speaker 3: documents and I know that for a fact.
Speaker 1: And you would have probably died in prison.
Speaker 2: I uh certain point. You know, that's a that's the
Speaker 2: pillar size of a basketball.
Speaker 3: And anybody who's got a lot of time and they'll
Speaker 3: tell you it took years to get that pill down.
Speaker 3: When you know, you take a regular pill, you swallow it,
Speaker 3: that's it. But when you're swallowing that pill that you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm never going home. This is where I'm
Speaker 3: going to be for the rest of my life. Every
Speaker 3: day you're trying to take a little gulp to get
Speaker 3: it down and then after finally sat down in here, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is me.
Speaker 2: It's where I'm gonna be at. So when the.
Speaker 3: Lawyers come on board and they litigated and they get
Speaker 3: you that relief and they pulled that ball out of
Speaker 3: this like you go on in life, but you always
Speaker 3: feel it down there. Nothing's going to ever fill out
Speaker 3: spot where that ball was at.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's heavy. It's powerful, and I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone who doesn't know that on the level that
Speaker 1: you do could ever truly understand it. And look, thankfully
Speaker 1: you're on the other side of that basketball sized pill
Speaker 1: in no small part through the work of Amy John
Speaker 1: and Linda Thompson, your own hard work and perseverance most
Speaker 1: of all, and courage. And I also have to mention
Speaker 1: my empathy in all of this. For Derek Hobson, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was coerced as a terrified child to play a
Speaker 1: part in your wrongful conviction. And I've got to imagine
Speaker 1: that he was carrying around a huge amount of guilt,
Speaker 1: even considering how much he pushed back under tremendous pressure.
Speaker 1: I mean, he really did try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he tried.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know what, I think that bothered
Speaker 3: him a lot, because since I've been out, I took him,
Speaker 3: went out to eat me and him and his wife
Speaker 3: and me and my girl, and and he just told me,
Speaker 3: he's all like this bothered me for a long time,
Speaker 3: even before the district attorney called him forward and asked
Speaker 3: him about the case. He said, when they called him
Speaker 3: forward and asked them about the case, after almost thirty years,
Speaker 3: he said, do you want the same story or you
Speaker 3: want the truth? And they said, no, we want the truth.
Speaker 3: That's when he told him the truth when I was
Speaker 3: let out. But he told me he was seeing a
Speaker 3: psych service person for many years over that because he
Speaker 3: couldn't sleep and there was nothing he could do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the hell of a thing to carry around
Speaker 1: with you. And it's beautiful actually that you connected with him.
Speaker 1: You know that says a lot about your character, because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would hold a grudge
Speaker 1: and be easy to understand why they would. So on
Speaker 1: December eighteenth and twenty twenty, prosecutor's father response in self
Speaker 1: superior court that supported a new trial and your immediate
Speaker 1: release from prison. It's said, and this is powerful, and
Speaker 1: this is a quote in summary, the single identification witnesses
Speaker 1: credible recantation of his identification testimony, the substantial likelihood that
Speaker 1: the unnecess scessoroly suggestive identification procedure could have resulted in
Speaker 1: a misidentification of the defendant, and the prejudicial impact of
Speaker 1: the manner in which the co defended statement was presented
Speaker 1: to the jury cast real doubt on the justice of
Speaker 1: the conviction end quote. So District Attorney Rachel Rollins then
Speaker 1: filed an emergency petition on December twenty second, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: with the state's Supreme Judicial Court, and on December twenty third,
Speaker 1: the very next day after hearing from the state and
Speaker 1: your attorney's associate Justice got Kafker ordered your release from
Speaker 1: prison that very day. And here's an incredible quote from
Speaker 1: mister Thompson to a great attorney. He said, a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of government resources goes into convicting people of serious crimes,
Speaker 1: as it should, but there are almost no resources available
Speaker 1: to people who've been wrongfully convicted. We know there are
Speaker 1: many people who been in this situation, and has been
Speaker 1: his character and determination that have made the difference. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: so the day, what was that moment?
Speaker 2: Like, well, I was happy, I came home.
Speaker 3: I came home in the middle of COVID, wasn't no jobs,
Speaker 3: everything was shut down. And you know, even though the
Speaker 3: state they let you out after almost thirty years, they
Speaker 3: just out the door.
Speaker 2: We made a mistake here, they'd leave out the door.
Speaker 2: They don't give you no type of competence.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you put someone there wrong for link,
Speaker 3: you admit it and you open the door for them,
Speaker 3: you can't send them home with nothing. Just that some
Speaker 3: people I had a family, so I went there, but
Speaker 3: some people don't have that.
Speaker 1: You know, That's that's a very important point and it's
Speaker 1: something that's troubled me for a long long time, and
Speaker 1: it's been a significant out of my energy trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, help to build ramps for people coming out
Speaker 1: who don't have that access like you did it, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's it's insane like and it's actoutely insane. So
Speaker 1: we close our show every week the exact same way.
Speaker 1: This is where I first of all, thank you again.
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn my microphone off, leave yours on,
Speaker 1: and just kick back in my chair and let Amy
Speaker 1: Wyce you go first, and let Robert take us out
Speaker 1: for any final thoughts you want to share with me
Speaker 1: and our audience.
Speaker 4: I'm grateful that at long last, the DA's office did
Speaker 4: the right thing and met their obligations and turned over
Speaker 4: the exculpatory evidence that they turned over in Robert's case
Speaker 4: that got us back into court. And I have hope
Speaker 4: going forward that we can have more conviction integrity and
Speaker 4: learn from the wrongful convictions across the nation and recognize
Speaker 4: the flaws and the system for what they are and
Speaker 4: fix them. And if it were not for people opening
Speaker 4: up their minds and deciding that they're going to do
Speaker 4: the right thing, I'm not sure Robert would be here
Speaker 4: right now. Very tenacious advocates. But you need all system
Speaker 4: actors to be honest about the past and honest about
Speaker 4: what needs to be done in the present. And so
Speaker 4: I move forward, you know, from Robert's conviction and exoneration,
Speaker 4: with great hope that the same relief can come to others.
Speaker 3: And for me, I'm happy to be here. I love Amy,
Speaker 3: I love John, I love Linda. It came into my
Speaker 3: life and change it for the better. I come down here,
Speaker 3: I was talking to all these men women down here
Speaker 3: that went through similar trials and tribulations, and you get
Speaker 3: a sense of understanding that it's kind of like a
Speaker 3: unique class because you got the advocates.
Speaker 2: Yah, you got the media.
Speaker 3: Here, you got the family here, so it was just
Speaker 3: one big happy enjoy is. It's like one big family here.
Speaker 3: So I noticed this and I told Amy this today.
Speaker 3: This field, as far as litigating post conviction appeals and
Speaker 3: actual inn's exig reason, all is well dominated by females.
Speaker 2: And you know, we as men have.
Speaker 3: To take our hats off to them, and they say,
Speaker 3: thank you very much. There's a lot of males, but
Speaker 3: then you know it's dominated by females. That's because there's
Speaker 3: no Manchire listening one. When it comes to females, they
Speaker 3: just want to get the job accomplished.
Speaker 2: And they have. That's why it's so packed down. Here
Speaker 2: is here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn and Kevin
Speaker 1: Wardis with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this
Speaker 1: production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
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Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason plom Rawful Conviction is
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