WEBVTT - #440 Maggie Freleng with Cassandra Black Elk 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:08.959 In February of twenty twenty two. Cassandra black Elk was 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.559 a young mother of three living in Bismarck, North Dakota. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:17.279 Her girls were her whole world. Six year old de 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.280 Laiza loved school and wanted to be a biologist. One 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.200 year old a Maria already had a strong personality. Cassie 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.960 called her their wild child, and Starlight was the baby, 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.640 just three weeks old. On the evening of February eighteenth, 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.520 Cassie was at home with the girls and Starlight's father, Seth. 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:42.440 Eagle, chilling, hanging out with my kids. We was watching 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.400 a movie. It was cooking supper. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.080 Seth left around midnight to go hang out with friends. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.640 Cassie fed Starlight and put the two oldest girls to bed, 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.080 Then she lay down with Starlight beside her and fell asleep. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.560 She woke up around six in the morning to find 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:04.040 Starlight wasn't breathing. Daliza called nine one one, but it 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.880 was already too late. Starlight was dead, and before she 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.080 could fully process what had happened, the police were telling 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:16.119 Cassie that she was under arrest for felony child neglect. 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.200 They were telling me, if somebody did something to Starlight, 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.120 somebody killed her. 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.679 Cassie knew that wasn't true, and she had one question 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.479 for her lawyer, what does the autopsy report say? 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.600 I kept said the same, Well, what if it came 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.360 back as I wasn't at fault. And then he was 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.839 like telling me we could deal with that later. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.319 But by the time she got the answer, it was 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:45.959 too late. Cassie was already in prison. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.840 I'm Cassie black Elk and I was wrongfully incarcerated for 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.080 eleven months. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.240 From LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:17.560 Freeling today. Cassandra blackout O. Cassandra black Elk was born 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:22.200 August fourth, nineteen ninety five in Bismarck, North Dakota. She's 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.240 a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe. Cassie grew 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:30.240 up in Rapid City, South Dakota, the middle child of nine. 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:31.400 It was. 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:38.519 Busy, chaotic, closest to my three little sisters. We'd always 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.239 play house school, went swimming at the Why all the time. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:47.560 We just ran around the trailer park that we used 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:53.399 to live in and hung out with all our friends. Yeah. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.160 Cassie had her first daughter, Daliza at nineteen, with a 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.680 boyfriend from high school. At age twenty two, she decided 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.200 to move back to Bismarck to go to school. She 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.680 had plans to become a social worker. Cassie's second daughter, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:12.600 Amara was born in twenty twenty and then Starlight. When 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:13.480 was Starlight born? 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.440 January twenty fifth, twenty twenty two. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:19.320 How did you meet Starlight's dad? 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.520 Up here hanging out with friends? Yeah? Meant the first 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:24.480 year I moved up here. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.160 Cassie and Seth Eagle moved in together and at twenty 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.880 six years old, Cassie was happy to be a stay 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.720 at home mom. She loved hanging out with her girls. 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.800 Seth helped to support Starlight and Cassie's two older daughters 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.440 with oil royalties he received as a member of the 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.800 Mja tribe the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara nation. On the 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.680 evening of February eighteenth, twenty twenty two, Cassie, Seth, and 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.400 the girls were all at home together. So what do 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:54.960 you remember from that night? 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:55.120 Like? 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.800 How did the night start? Tell me? I guess from 0:03:57.840 --> 0:03:58.760 the beginning. 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.320 I don't know. We were hanging out after my oldest 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.839 got back from school. We was watching a movie, we 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:12.720 was cooking supper barbecue chicken, steamed veggies, and mashed potatoes. 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.240 At what point you and Seth got in an argument? 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.159 Yes, yeah, well yeah, well we was kind of fighting 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:20.920 throughout that whole day. Really. 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.960 As the evening went on, Cassie and Seth began drinking, 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.560 and when their fight turned physical, Cassie ended up with 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.960 a bloodied ear. Finally, Seth stormed out to go see 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:33.920 some friends. 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.960 Yeah, he was there all the way up until I 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.880 don't know about midnight one. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.279 Or some Yeah, and what'd you do when he left? 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.000 Fed my daughter and laid down with them. 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.400 So when you guys go to sleep, everything was normal. 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.120 I thought it was normal. I don't know. I just 0:04:54.760 --> 0:05:02.320 I didn't think I was gonna wake up too. Everything gone. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.280 What do you remember waking up? 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:20.160 It's okay, Cassie, my daughter gone, she was she was 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:21.280 stiff and cold. 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.279 I was freaking out. My oldest had to call nine 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:28.560 on one. 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.800 And then when the police got there, what happened. 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.800 Well, right away they were questioning me at my house. 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.440 I wasn't even with them in my house for a 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:47.039 full ten minutes. They wanted to know what happened here. 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.880 I was trying to get a hold of someone to 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.040 get a hold of set and they told me I 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.880 needed to get off my phone. They noticed I had 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.400 a bloody ear, and after that they told me to 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:01.239 go to the police station. 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.680 And then what happens at the police station. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:10.880 They start questioning me. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:17.440 Were they questioning or were they kind of telling you? 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:19.159 Oh? 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.000 Yeah, they were telling me their story. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.960 Which was what what was their story? 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:37.200 Somebody did something to starlight, somebody killed her. 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.440 So that first interrogation that she goes into is actually 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.240 three hours long, and you can imagine the state that 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:53.840 she was in given the timing of the interrogation. My 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.240 name is Jim Mayer and I'm a managing attorney with 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:02.520 the Great North Innocence Project. The officers doing the interrogation 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.920 are convinced and have jumped to the conclusion that Cassie 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.800 has done something to the baby. They begin their interrogation 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.440 by telling her that the child had bruising, that they 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.440 could tell the child had some injury. They start to 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.440 speculate that maybe there was some kind of abusive event, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.720 maybe there was shaking. They start describing the symptoms of 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.720 shaking baby syndrome to her and how that could have happened. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.440 Remember this is just a few hours after Cassie had 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.360 found Starlight lifeless beside her. The officers telling her all 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.119 this were not trained medical professionals, and the body had 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.040 not even been examined yet. 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.640 It sounded to me like one of those officers had 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.160 recently been to a training and learned about shaken baby syndrome, 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.960 which of course is a highly controversial and dubious diagnosis, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.040 as any of us who work in this industry know. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.520 But he started explaining to Cassie in this interrogation room 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.120 what happens when you shake a baby and how you know. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.960 That seemed to fit the situation that she was in. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.640 Couldn't have been further from the truth, but he was 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.120 insisting that that was probably what had happened here and 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.600 trying to get her to confess to it. She continued 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.880 throughout this interrogation to insist that there were no injuries, 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.200 that the baby was fine when she had given her 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.480 a bottle and swaddled her and put her to bed 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.440 around one or two in the morning, and that there 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:23.200 was no injury. 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.080 So the officers ramped up their interrogation. 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.000 They would try all of these techniques, like telling her 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:31.880 you didn't mean to do it whatever you did was 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.360 an accident. You just lost control, that maybe the baby 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.720 was crying, maybe the baby couldn't sleep, maybe she got 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.080 frustrated and just lost control and shook the baby. Just 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.280 tell us that you're a person who needs help and 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.720 not an evil person, right, and that things will go 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.000 better for you, or they would tell her that, you know, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.000 the autopsy is going to come back and it's going 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:53.959 to show there's trauma. You're much better off if you 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.959 just tell us now what you did, it's going to 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.800 go better for a jury. They even told her that 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.800 Child Protective Services had taken her other two children and 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.560 that she wouldn't get them back unless she was willing 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.680 to say what it was she did to this baby 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.200 to cause its death, which of course put her in 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.200 an impossible situation because she didn't do anything, and she 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.800 knew she didn't do anything, nor had her boyfriend, and 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.000 so she maintained her innocence throughout this interrogation despite the 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:26.320 pressure that they put on her. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:32.960 Did you start questioning yourself at any point? Were you wondering, like, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.000 maybe maybe I did roll over on her because she 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:37.120 was in the bed with you, right? 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.720 Yeah? But no, no, because the way I had her sleeping. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.600 She was out a slant away from me, and my 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.440 girls were on the other side, and I woke up 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:52.280 in the same spot, literally, like the same way when 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:52.960 I went to bed. 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.000 Three days later, on February twenty second, Cassie was trying 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.280 charged with felony child's neglect. That same day, state medical 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.840 examiner doctor Barry Miller performed an autopsy on Starlight. The 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.600 autopsy was attended by the state's attorney, Julie Lawyer, and 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.600 several officers from the Bismarck Police Department. While they were 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.199 still awaiting the autopsy results, Cassie's case was going forward. 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.079 She was assigned to public defender James Lores. 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.320 And the first thing that happens is they have a 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.960 bail hearing that the prosecution comes in. It says, look, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.560 this is an infant death case. We need to set 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:33.520 bail at a high level. She couldn't meet it, so 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:38.040 she's stuck. She's behind bars, awaiting trial. She's got two 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.880 young children from whom she separated at this incredibly dramatic time, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.040 So that's one layer of pressure that was added to her. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.920 And I guess maybe I'm missing something, But how is 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:54.240 she able to be charged without even having a medical diagnosis. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.120 Can they do that? I mean, I've never seen that. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.439 The charging documents in her case, which came out on 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.600 February nineteenth, what they said was, we know that she 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.680 was responsible for the death, but we don't yet know 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:14.280 the mechanism of the death, pending the autopsy results. So 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.440 it was just the you know, a perfect example of 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.960 a rush to a conclusion with really no solid foundation 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:30.200 for it whatsoever, just assumptions that were made. Then, when 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.040 a plea deal is offered by the prosecution, her lawyer 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:35.640 urges her to take the deal. 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:44.880 Well, he said that they were considering of two years 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:49.240 and he was going to talk to them and see 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.120 if he get it out to eighteen months. And that's 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.559 when I went to eighteen months. 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.160 That following week, her attorney was trying to rush Cassie 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.000 into taking the plea because he knew that the prosecute 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.840 was leaving for private practice in a few weeks after that. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.840 He said the deal might be off the table, and. 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.040 He says things like, you'll be out before you know it. 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.680 You're pleading guilty. You'll get a five year sentence, but 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.080 you'll only serve about eighteen months and you'll be out 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.320 before you know it. Cassie was resistant to that for 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:21.920 good reason. She kept saying, I know I didn't do 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.000 anything to my child. I'm innocent. When can we see 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:26.520 a copy of the autopsy report? 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.280 I kept asking him for the autopsy. I kept said 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.360 the same, Well, what if it came back as I 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:34.320 wasn't at fault. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.480 Ultimately, what her lawyer says to her is, you're getting 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.960 ahead of yourself for now. Just plead guilty. If the 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.480 autopsy comes back favorable to you, we'll deal with that later. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.920 How did that make you feel when he was like, no, no, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.959 and just kind of brushed something so important aside. 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.240 Like it didn't matter. I don't think it mattered to anybody. 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:00.080 How Starlight passed away. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.079 At her lawyer's urging, Cassie finally gave in and pled 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.880 guilty to the charge of felony child's neglect. The plea 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.520 deal did not mention Starlight's death. It simply said that 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.400 Cassie had willfully failed to provide proper parental care or 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.480 control necessary for the physical health of her baby. She 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.080 received a sentence of five years, with all but eighteen 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.959 months of it suspended because Seth was not the father 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.920 of the two older girls. They were placed in foster care. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.440 Cassie was sent to the Dakota Women's Correctional Center in 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.920 New England, North Dakota. 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.320 What was prison like, Well, I don't recommend it to nobody. 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.920 Everybody says it's a cakewalk and what not, but it wasn't. 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.120 It's like how, It's just how. 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.560 When you first got in there, did you tell anybody 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.040 like I don't belong here. I didn't do. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.480 This, yep. I told everyone that every day. A lot 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.960 of girls in there just content with that life. 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:05.000 Not me. 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.800 So that's not me, it's not my life. I couldn't 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.720 relate to half their stories. I just didn't know what 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.720 to say to half of them. I was always just 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.520 angry because I felt like I shouldn't have been in jail. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.680 Everybody heard it from me. Oh no, I lost my daughter. 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.880 None of that made sense, none of it was okay. 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:28.920 So I was always mad. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.240 So here she is, she's pled guilty, she's been sentenced, 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.280 she's in prison serving her sentence, and her lawyer had 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.080 essentially told her that he couldn't help her get the 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.040 autopsy report at that point, but she didn't give up. 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.680 She kept working on her own to get a copy 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:45.000 of it. 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.400 Cassie called the Medical Examiner's office in Bismarck over and 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:56.240 over from prison, asking for the report. Finally she was 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.680 able to fill out an online form to have it 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:05.240 mailed to her, and then she waited and waited. Three 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.280 months went by, and. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.440 Then eventually she gets that copy, I think sometime in 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.160 July of twenty twenty two, where she gets to read, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:16.920 you know, the story of what actually happened to her 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:18.080 baby for the first time. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.120 You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.200 listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.680 one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:55.160 for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Doctor Miller's final autopsy 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.080 report was dated May twenty seventh, twenty twenty two, two 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.720 weeks after cast entered her plea, and it confirmed what 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.840 she had always known, which she had tried to tell 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.680 everyone that she hadn't done anything to hurt her baby. 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.600 There was no evidence of neglect, trauma, or abuse. Three 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.040 week old Starlight had died of unexplained sudden infant death syndrome. 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.440 Do you remember that moment when you got it and 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:30.200 reading it. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.560 Yeah, I felt a whole lot of relief, but didn't 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.640 really do much. So I was just sat there crying 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.120 because there was nothing I could do. I was already 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:40.880 sent in prison. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.479 My name's Adam Martin. I'm ten years sober, formally incarcerated, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.280 have multiple felonies on my background. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.280 Adam is the founder and CEO of the F five Project, 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.400 a nonprofit based in Fargo, North Dakota. It provides the 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.640 formally incarcerated with support and re entry resources. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.760 You know, all my friends were either dying or going 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:08.440 to prison, and so after the last friend had went 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.520 to prison and then the couple had overdosed off fetanol 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.520 or heroin or whatever, I just felt like I wanted 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.240 to do something different than what was being done. There 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.000 was no real plan to start it. I just started 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.399 going into the jail and trying to help guys that 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.639 were being released, really just through storytelling. I didn't have 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.400 any services or resources or anything. And then what happened 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.040 is is that the guys started calling me when they 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.840 were getting out of prison or jail, and I didn't 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:37.960 have anything, so I just let him sleep on my 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.080 couch and then it turned into seven years later. We 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.520 have over sixty employees in that we're in nine different 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.800 cities and have three transitional houses or three cities that 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.320 we have transitional houses in Okay. 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.520 So what is far going North Dakota, Like, I mean, 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.480 maybe tell me a little bit about the demographic. I mean, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.359 we know Cassie is indigenous, so tell me about it. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.320 Yeah, So the landscape is, you know, obviously it's like 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.240 eighty five percent white. We have there's not even a 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.800 million people in North Dakota, Okay, So there's like seven 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.439 hundred and seventy thousand of that seven seventy to about 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.000 two hundred and forty thousand identifies having a criminal conviction. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.600 And so we're about twenty eight percent of our general 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.880 population identify as that, which is about three percent higher 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.400 than the national average. Of that Native Americans or Indigenous 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.480 people account for around five percent of the population, but 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.440 they account for twenty five percent of the prison population. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:39.960 And so a lot of the stuff that we see 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.840 nationally trending is similar here, but just with different groups 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:45.160 and then higher percentages. 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.879 Adam's work with F five led him to joining the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.160 board of the Great North Innocence Project, where he met 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.840 Jim in August of twenty twenty two. They went together 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.439 to speak about their organizations at the New England Women's Prison. 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.240 And so this young Native American woman came up to 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:08.080 me and she was very timid, and she couldn't even 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.680 look me in the eye. She was shaking, she was teary, 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.399 teary eyed, and she just all she said to me 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.400 was I don't belong here. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.840 Cassie told Adam that she was in prison for killing 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.800 her baby, but she was innocent. And then she told 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:23.600 him about the autopsy report. 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.679 And I've been in court enough to know that autopsy 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.480 reports are a big deal, right, And the fact that 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.760 it came out after she was convicted sent off a 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.199 red flag. And I was like, okay, well what did 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.120 it say? And she said that my baby died of SIDS. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.280 And so I introduced her right there to James. And 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.240 when we left the prison, James came up to me 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:55.040 and he was like, we have a case. She has 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.000 a case, and we're going to get her released. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.280 In a way, her story was just so simple and straightforward. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.600 You know, you tell a lot of these stories and 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.560 you see how convoluted they can be. Cassie's story is 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.199 not convoluted at all. There was a tragic death of 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:30.080 her baby that could not have been prevented by anyone. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.960 In December of twenty twenty two, Jim moved to vacate 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.359 Cassie's conviction, citing the autopsy report as new evidence, and 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:43.360 also that Cassie's attorney had provided ineffective representation by advising 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.080 her to take the plea and evidentiary hearing was held 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:51.840 on January nineteenth, twenty twenty three, before Judge Daniel Borgin. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.800 We presented the testimony from the medical examiner herself. She 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.600 testified about the fact that there was no trauma in 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.440 this case, that there was no evidence that the death 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.800 resulted from something Cassie did or did not do. 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:07.760 Doctor Miller told the court that she would have been 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.159 willing to share her preliminary findings with the defense prior 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.199 to the final report, but Cassie's defense attorney never asked 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.199 for it. The prosecution, however, knew all along what it 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:19.720 would say. 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.280 One of the claims we made in our petition was 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.360 that the state's attorney was present at the autopsy, so 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.879 she knew that the autopsy was not showing any signs 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:34.040 of trauma, and yet she managed to extract a guilty 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:35.800 plea without disclosing what she knew. 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.560 But in addition to the evidence they had, Jim knew 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.800 that in order to present the most effective case, Cassie 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:44.159 would have to testify. 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:46.520 And I was a little nervous about telling her that 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:48.720 because she was so quiet and soft spoken. I thought 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.240 that would scare her. And she said something like, I'm ready, 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.280 I can do that, and I just thought, Wow, She's 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.200 come a long way in the few months that I've 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.159 known her in terms of her confidence, and part of 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:01.560 that was just that she was ready to tell her story. 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.760 So Cassie took the stand and told Judge Borgan everything 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:07.119 that had happened. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.600 The conversations with her defense lawyer, where she's professing her 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.560 innocence and saying, I want the autopsy. I want the autopsy, 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.240 and he's telling her, just take this plea. We'll deal 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.080 with that later. She tells that entire story, and her 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.679 testimony was very, very credible, which the judge found and 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.280 that was a big reason why he granted relief. 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.399 Cassie was released from prison the next day pending a 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:32.400 new trial. 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.720 And one of the North Dakota Supreme Court justices actually 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.919 wrote separately to say that with the new evidence of 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.760 the autopsy report, it's very likely that she would be 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.440 acquitted at trial as a matter of law, because they 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:50.040 just didn't have the evidence. 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:52.880 At that point. Jim says, the state had a decision 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:53.240 to make. 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:56.000 Do they now let the case go or do they 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.360 choose to recharge her. Again, very disappointed to learn from 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:05.879 them that they and to continue to prosecute. So they 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.320 shifted their theory to say that because Cassie had been 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:13.480 drinking alcohol that night, regardless of whether that had anything 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.920 to do with her baby's death, that in and of itself, 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:20.360 drinking alcohol while you have children at home is felony 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.679 child neglect, And so they pursued the case on that theory. 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.200 Has that ever been a precedent that was set before 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.120 drinking equals felony child neglect? 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.360 I have not seen an example where that fact alone 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.720 was constituting felony child neglect. That really makes you wonder 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.080 in terms of a charging decision, whether a middle class 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.719 white mother who'd had a few glasses of wine at 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:49.840 the ballet and was still under the influence when she 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.760 relieved the nanny would be charged I seriously doubt it. 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.200 I spoke to a lot of other defense lawyers about this, 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.840 you know, in other states around the country, and what 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:05.639 I heard mostly was your client's not white, is she m? 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:10.000 I said, no, she isn't. So I guess sometimes drinking 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:12.680 while being non white and in charge of children could 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:20.000 get in some more trouble than other folks would see. 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.600 I think some assumptions were made based on who Cassie 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.119 is and what she looks like, and what community she 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:34.199 comes from. I also think that on all sides of 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.840