Speaker 1: The Innocence Network is alusiffiliation of independent innocence organizations, and
Speaker 1: each year, members of these organizations, as well as the
Speaker 1: hundreds of exonorees who they've helped free, gather for the
Speaker 1: Innocence Network Conference, and it's a beautiful thing. For one weekend.
Speaker 1: The axonorees can all count on the fact that there
Speaker 1: are other people around who share their experience, and our
Speaker 1: team was honored to join them for their twenty two
Speaker 1: gathering in Arizona. We recorded a number of interviews and
Speaker 1: that damage that these stories due to your faith in
Speaker 1: humanity is only then restored by the amazing people telling
Speaker 1: those stories. Clay Chabou and his friend Doug Graham were
Speaker 1: bikers who dealt some drugs in Garland, Texas. Clay's brother
Speaker 1: in law, Jerry Paps, was a customer with a newborn son.
Speaker 1: Clay was beginning to leave that life behind when on
Speaker 1: April nineteenth six, Doug Graham's common law wife was found
Speaker 1: in her home having been sexually assaulted and shot it
Speaker 1: when Paps returned a gun that he'd taken from his sister.
Speaker 1: He told her husband Clay about how he was at
Speaker 1: Dougs that morning to buy drugs, heard gunshots and flat
Speaker 1: witnesses had seen PAP's card there, and he was later
Speaker 1: found wearing bloody clothing. However, even with all of this
Speaker 1: evidence pointing towards PAPS, he was able to redirect detectives
Speaker 1: towards his rough looking brother in law, Clay Shabau. A
Speaker 1: rape kit was performed, but in the DNA testing that
Speaker 1: would one day exclude Clay was not available. Curiously, no
Speaker 1: blood type evidence was presented. Instead of simply using the
Speaker 1: evidence that implicated PAPS, detectives decided that they needed a
Speaker 1: statement from Clay. When Clay refused to testify to something
Speaker 1: that he didn't know, detectives chose to ignore all evidence
Speaker 1: and the inconsistent statements from PAPS to focus their efforts
Speaker 1: squarely on Clay. Using PAPS as their star witness and
Speaker 1: the implicit bias against bikers, Clay Shabou was sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison. It took the evolution of DNA testing,
Speaker 1: the post conviction statutes allowing it, and the dedicated team
Speaker 1: at the Innocence Project to finally prove what seemed to
Speaker 1: be evident to the prosecutor at Clay's original trial. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's episode.
Speaker 1: How can I say this? If I was going to
Speaker 1: teach the third grade class how to solve a crime,
Speaker 1: I might present them with the evidence that was available
Speaker 1: and abundant in this case, and they would solve this case.
Speaker 1: I would say within an hour at the most. I mean,
Speaker 1: this one came with instructions, and yet the authorities managed
Speaker 1: to not only lock up an innocent and but let
Speaker 1: the obvious suspect remain free. And of course I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the case of Clay Shabou. Clay, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: everything you went through. So thank you for being here today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me and with Clay one of
Speaker 1: his attorneys, Jason Craig from the Innocence Project in New York. Jason,
Speaker 1: I think this is your first time on the show,
Speaker 1: but hopefully not the last. It is. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: be here and so thanks for having me. All Right, So, Clay,
Speaker 1: you were born a couple of years before I was,
Speaker 1: and grew up in Texas, no Ohio, Ohio. So tell
Speaker 1: us about that. What was your childhood like? Father was
Speaker 1: a truck driver, mother, you know, home care that a
Speaker 1: lot of kids and uh, my parents boke up when
Speaker 1: I was eight years old. I got shoveled from one
Speaker 1: family member to the other for about seven years or
Speaker 1: so until I was about fifteen, and I decided to
Speaker 1: take off my own, so I started across the country,
Speaker 1: hitchecking across country. Wound up in California for a few years,
Speaker 1: got married that last about a year, got divorced. I
Speaker 1: went back to Ohio and decided john the military. In
Speaker 1: one I was on an aircraft carrier. There's a large
Speaker 1: ship with a five thousand guys, but we were all
Speaker 1: could find a small spaces and under authority. So I
Speaker 1: think it gave me the strength and a fortitude to
Speaker 1: endure whatever went through later in life. Sir, about three
Speaker 1: three and apt years in the military, and I got
Speaker 1: run over by hit and run drug driver on my motorcycle.
Speaker 1: So I got discharged and went back to Ohio. And
Speaker 1: we're here at the Innocence Network conference. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to be recording live and in person again. And you
Speaker 1: can't see Clay, but I can. And the way he
Speaker 1: dresses today, he looks like a being a corporate boardroom somewhere.
Speaker 1: But you were a tough guy back then, right, And
Speaker 1: no judgment here. You were involved in some let's just say,
Speaker 1: extra legal activities right absolutely where I was raised in Ohio,
Speaker 1: you don't impoverished. There's actually the Hell's Angels clubhouse, so
Speaker 1: a lot of people there indulge in mind altering drugs.
Speaker 1: We can't afford to go to bail for skiing trips,
Speaker 1: so we take ours locally internally. I'm understanding. By the way,
Speaker 1: Like I said, no judgment here. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, we probably could compare our old photos
Speaker 1: because I had so much hair I couldn't even see.
Speaker 1: I looked like cousin it. And I used to smoke
Speaker 1: weed from from sun up to sundown, and I was
Speaker 1: involved in some some stuff I definitely shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: involved in. So anyway, So you were into motorcycles, the
Speaker 1: Hell's Angels, drugs, did some dealing, and you moved to Texas.
Speaker 1: At some point, you got married, had a son, Harley,
Speaker 1: a few months before all this happened, and he's here
Speaker 1: with us today. And Harley's uncle, your brother in law,
Speaker 1: Jerry Paps, he lived nearby with his wife and he
Speaker 1: used to come to you and a friend of yours,
Speaker 1: Doug Graham, for drugs. Now, from what I understand, Paps
Speaker 1: was into speed and coke and was led to believe
Speaker 1: that Doug had cut a batch of whatever he was
Speaker 1: taking with too much baking soda or some other substance,
Speaker 1: even though it was you, Clay who did the cutting,
Speaker 1: and Doug was aware of this, And that leads us
Speaker 1: up to April nineteenth, thank he said Garland, Texas, unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to Clay, perhaps had taken a gun from his sister,
Speaker 1: Clay's wife, and later that day, Doug Graham's common law wife,
Speaker 1: who was twenty eight years old, her body was found
Speaker 1: in their home. And this is just awful, so brace yourself.
Speaker 1: But she had been tied, gagged, shot three times, and
Speaker 1: she had been raped. A rape kit was performed, but
Speaker 1: that evidence, unfortunately, wasn't useful, or perhaps the blood type
Speaker 1: evidence wasn't useful to the state, because you got to
Speaker 1: imagine if it was, they would have brought it up.
Speaker 1: But we don't know either way. And however, the biological
Speaker 1: evidence didn't become useful to Clay and really all of
Speaker 1: us until DNA testing became available many years later. And
Speaker 1: I want to turn into Jason here, because this really
Speaker 1: was a horrific crime. Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: And that did get attention immediately, even on the local news.
Speaker 1: And it just so happened to be someone who Clay
Speaker 1: a new love, the victim's husband. They weren't really legally married.
Speaker 1: Doug Graham was really about one of my best friends,
Speaker 1: and I mean we associated on Christmas, we played cards,
Speaker 1: we hung out together for several years, and so that
Speaker 1: was the initial nexus that even started any interest in
Speaker 1: Clay for any reason. There was no physical evidence connecting
Speaker 1: Clay to the crime. That wasn't the case for his
Speaker 1: brother in law. That's absolutely right. Um. When you said
Speaker 1: in the introduction that most elementary school children could have
Speaker 1: solved this case within a few hours and actually identified
Speaker 1: the actual perpetrator, you're right. The police they had one individual,
Speaker 1: Gerald Papps, who was telling a series of different stories
Speaker 1: over and over again. A person who had been found
Speaker 1: with blood on his shirt within hours of this homicide.
Speaker 1: Person who had proceeds from the victim's home, person who
Speaker 1: had pawned some items that were taken there, whose car
Speaker 1: had been at the victim's home earlier in that day.
Speaker 1: None of this information was dependent on anyone else's statement.
Speaker 1: This was actual physical evidence linking him to the crime.
Speaker 1: What the detectives also had was someone else, Clay who
Speaker 1: was actually helping, who actually reached out and said there
Speaker 1: might be some to what had just happened when his
Speaker 1: brother in law had shown back up to return this gun. Correct,
Speaker 1: they came to my house, asked me a few questions,
Speaker 1: and I told him all about how my brother in
Speaker 1: law had taken the gun from his sister's purse prior
Speaker 1: to this. And he was standing at the door and
Speaker 1: I said, come on in. He said, no, no no, I
Speaker 1: gotta go. I said, and he handed me the gun
Speaker 1: and I said, what are you doing with this? He said,
Speaker 1: a part of this morning for Sandy's purse. I looked
Speaker 1: and I said, where's the clip. He said, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and he hand me the clip and I noticed the
Speaker 1: clip was empty. I swords the bullets, he said. I
Speaker 1: threw him out. I said, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Him in here? So he came in and he said,
Speaker 1: he tells me the story. He claimed he was supposed
Speaker 1: to meet the victim's husband, Doug Graham, but he said
Speaker 1: he got over there and before he could even get
Speaker 1: out of his car and go in, he saw two
Speaker 1: men pull up in a car and they went inside
Speaker 1: and he heard gunshots. So he got scared and left.
Speaker 1: So he came back to my house and he returned
Speaker 1: this gun. He left my house, and I'm thinking that
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody had been hurt at the time,
Speaker 1: so thinking, you know, he's been up all night on speed.
Speaker 1: So I didn't pay much attention to it. And uh,
Speaker 1: later that afternoon, I was supposed to meet Doug or
Speaker 1: another deal we're gonna do. But and I wasn't even
Speaker 1: paying attention to the TV. It's almost like it played
Speaker 1: and then I heard it and I had to replay
Speaker 1: it my mind to say, what did they just say?
Speaker 1: And my wife she knew the victims, and she said
Speaker 1: that's her. I said, what And for some reason in
Speaker 1: your mind you didn't lead to that conclusion. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that he could do something like that. It
Speaker 1: would be like somebody trying to tell you your brother
Speaker 1: or your mother or something. Was I mean, I knew
Speaker 1: the guy for several years. I've been married to his
Speaker 1: sister for severy and I just couldn't conceive it. That's
Speaker 1: just so far out of my realm and world of
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I've never really heard anybody
Speaker 1: about myself through my own abuse of things. So I
Speaker 1: believed his story. I believe that he was there, saw
Speaker 1: a couple of people, and I really wanted him to
Speaker 1: just try to lead them to help solve the situation
Speaker 1: in itself. I gotta tell you. I pondered over that.
Speaker 1: I didn't call Doug until like the next day, because
Speaker 1: I tried to reach Doug that night because I was
Speaker 1: supposed to meet and somebody strange answered his house phone,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, I don't know who that is.
Speaker 1: They said, well, who are you trying to get ahold?
Speaker 1: What do you want for it? So I hung up?
Speaker 1: So I said, man, something has really gone wrong over there.
Speaker 1: So I went back down to Jerry's house and I said, Jerry,
Speaker 1: I'm going to drive over to Dougs. You want to
Speaker 1: go with me? He said, oh, no, no, no, man,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go anywhere near the place. And
Speaker 1: then I started getting one more larry and worried. And
Speaker 1: now I'm in a situation to note where you know,
Speaker 1: if I do do this, I gotta live with his sister,
Speaker 1: you know, And how do you live with your wife
Speaker 1: when you reported her brother for something like I mean,
Speaker 1: just the conflict in that my head and heart was.
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you know what, this is my sister,
Speaker 1: my wife, and want somebody helped me. And the next
Speaker 1: day is when I decided to call Doug and tell
Speaker 1: him how I think I had information. He had just
Speaker 1: been born, he just five months old, and uh, I
Speaker 1: was trying to knock off the stupid stuff, straighten myself
Speaker 1: up because he was finally something more important to me
Speaker 1: and for our listeners place son. Harley's here with us now.
Speaker 1: He's about twice the size of his father, but uh,
Speaker 1: and he's now thirty six years old. And I just
Speaker 1: turned you know, like you know, and they say the
Speaker 1: prefundal cortex and males doesn't develop until twenty five when
Speaker 1: he started having false, huge consequences. And so I think
Speaker 1: it was just a matter of you know, age and
Speaker 1: plus like I say, him being born. And it was
Speaker 1: my friend and so I wanted to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: But we see too often people like you who come
Speaker 1: forward trying to help and wanted to be you know,
Speaker 1: good citizens and believed in the system um as you did,
Speaker 1: and it ends up putting them in the cross. Hairs.
Speaker 1: Let me see this. In fairness of things, I kind
Speaker 1: of created this whole scenario in a way for myself. Um,
Speaker 1: Jerry wanted more drugs. I don't want to get them
Speaker 1: to him. I told me you should call my friend Dog.
Speaker 1: I just wanted him to get out of my house
Speaker 1: and leave. So that's what led him to go over
Speaker 1: to Doug's house. Later though, Jerry would tell a story
Speaker 1: about how the drugs I had had had gotten from
Speaker 1: Doug earlier we're inadequate. Well quite frankly, it was my
Speaker 1: own doing. I had put too much cut on the drugs.
Speaker 1: So there wasn't no animosity between me and Doug because
Speaker 1: Doug didn't need anything wrong. But I had told Jerry
Speaker 1: that just to get him out of my house. I said, Man,
Speaker 1: it still still good you wanting this, So in fairness man,
Speaker 1: I sort of set the stage that led the police
Speaker 1: to believe that I had a reason that I was
Speaker 1: angry with Dug over it. But they didn't really look
Speaker 1: at the smaller facts, like Doug knew that wasn't true.
Speaker 1: Dog knew that I was supposed to meet him again
Speaker 1: that night to do another deal. I mean, so when
Speaker 1: they left my house, that afternoon, they asked me if
Speaker 1: they could have the gun. They asked if I had
Speaker 1: him more of the same kind of bullets like happily
Speaker 1: rented and give him to him. They left, and within
Speaker 1: a few hours my brother in law's wife came to
Speaker 1: the house screen about how the police had showed up
Speaker 1: arrested him. And as I understood it, by then, they
Speaker 1: had already had a witness that positive identified his card
Speaker 1: to seeing the crime. They called him blood on his clothes,
Speaker 1: on tickets for stolen merchandise and maybe some stall merchandise.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, you know, like I said, it
Speaker 1: was clean cut. I was a rough looking guy. And
Speaker 1: so he gave the story that I had borrowed his car,
Speaker 1: and then he didn't go there, and a lot him
Speaker 1: just change the story every time his facts proved wrong.
Speaker 1: They just let him change the story because they didn't
Speaker 1: see why Jerry would do something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: they were looking for the motive. And I'll tell you this,
Speaker 1: the detectives simply didn't want to believe that I had
Speaker 1: handed them the solution to this case on a silver pladder.
Speaker 1: They're like, no, we're detectives. There's gotta be more to this,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be more complicated, you know, something for us
Speaker 1: to unraveling figure. I just don't think they could accept
Speaker 1: the fact that this would have been so simply had
Speaker 1: they just looked at the evidence as it stood. So
Speaker 1: they came back and arrested me. So you're arrested taking
Speaker 1: a jail. Were you in jail awaiting trial? They didn't
Speaker 1: bail out. No, they had me on a I think
Speaker 1: a Quartermaine and how long did you think about eight months?
Speaker 1: Eventually just rolled out to where they came to me
Speaker 1: and they said, look, we don't think you're actually there,
Speaker 1: but we need somebody to testify. If you'll testify against
Speaker 1: your brother law, will let you go. This was a
Speaker 1: situation where the state felt they needed a confession, someone
Speaker 1: who could turn into a witness who was actually there
Speaker 1: and one person had information. Because there was only one
Speaker 1: person there, Gerald PEPs, and Clay was not there, was
Speaker 1: not involved, and so he had no ability to offer
Speaker 1: what the state wanted, what the state felt they needed
Speaker 1: to prove a case. I believed in the just system
Speaker 1: whole hardly. I just come out of the military. I've
Speaker 1: never been in serious trouble in any kind before. And
Speaker 1: so I said, listen, I can't do that. Do you
Speaker 1: want me to lie to possibly send this guy to
Speaker 1: death row for something I don't know he did or not?
Speaker 1: It's okay. Well, they went to Jerry brother along said
Speaker 1: the same thing, and he got the standpoint and figure said,
Speaker 1: you were both there. He pulled the trigger, then let
Speaker 1: him go, and they gave me a life sentense. So
Speaker 1: he gave the state what they needed and he got
Speaker 1: to benefit an immediate benefit that lasted for him a
Speaker 1: couple of decades. Yeah. I mean, there's that saying a
Speaker 1: body for a body, right, and we know that sadly,
Speaker 1: in too many cases, the authorities are happy to just
Speaker 1: get somebody, closed the case and move on. And then
Speaker 1: the idea that in this case they had every reason
Speaker 1: to know, they may even have known that the guy
Speaker 1: who was weaving these bizarre tales. I mean, nobody could
Speaker 1: possibly believe that, but they did, or at least the
Speaker 1: jury did. There's a very telling note that we uncovered
Speaker 1: in the prosecuter's file years later when we're looking into
Speaker 1: the case, acknowledging that paps he was found within hours
Speaker 1: bloody T shirt and the quote is, you know something
Speaker 1: like this is a problem for us. Well, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a big problem for us. You you literally had the
Speaker 1: person who was connected to the crime physically, with physical evidence.
Speaker 1: Who is your star witness. That's a huge problem for
Speaker 1: the state. And we can never know exactly what was
Speaker 1: in the prosecuter's mind when she wrote that note, but
Speaker 1: the context clues are fairly clear. She understood that the
Speaker 1: person that they were relying on to solve this homicide
Speaker 1: was someone who was actually involved in the homicide. And
Speaker 1: of course now we know that with certainty based on
Speaker 1: the DNA testing that was done years later, But even
Speaker 1: at the time of trial, the contemporaryius notes that the
Speaker 1: prosecutor had recognized that they had a problem because perhaps
Speaker 1: their star witness was the person who was found with blood.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is the person who initially said he
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the crime at all, wasn't
Speaker 1: even there, and then puts himself there, eventually changes the
Speaker 1: story that way, and then changes the story a little
Speaker 1: bit more, puts himself there, and then changed the story
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and all of a sudden he's
Speaker 1: now inside the house, but never willing to say what
Speaker 1: we now know he actually did. One of the things
Speaker 1: that really stuck out to me when I was reading
Speaker 1: about the trial was the idea that, and I think
Speaker 1: this should be a red flag in every case, is
Speaker 1: when Jerry said that you forced him at gunpoint to
Speaker 1: tie up the victim. That's not a thing that happens
Speaker 1: except maybe in some weird TV show or movie. Right,
Speaker 1: supposed to be your criminal partner again, and you're pointing
Speaker 1: to gun at him. Now did I point a gun
Speaker 1: on and making cure of the TV out to Jason
Speaker 1: unless there was something else presented. I don't even understand
Speaker 1: how a jury could get this one wrong. So what
Speaker 1: did they hear? They have a witness who claims to
Speaker 1: have been there during the entire crime, who is now
Speaker 1: backed by the state, called by the state, who's walking
Speaker 1: them through what we now know is and what Clay
Speaker 1: obviously knew then was a fictitious story about what happened,
Speaker 1: and they're hearing it blow by blow from this witness
Speaker 1: as the state solicits information from him, and then the
Speaker 1: state calls other witnesses to vouch for Jerry, to present
Speaker 1: Jerry as this person who was overwhelmed by the ringleader
Speaker 1: who is the defendant there Clay, but Jerry. Of course,
Speaker 1: in the state's eyes, was this person who wasn't a
Speaker 1: violent person, hadn't done other bad things, didn't look like
Speaker 1: Clay looked at the time, you know, So what they
Speaker 1: presented was me as a criminal in general, Rhode Harley
Speaker 1: Davison's Currens did drugs look like Charles Manson and so Clay,
Speaker 1: what was the evidence that was presented in your defense
Speaker 1: at the trial? Unfortunately? I mean my defense was, look,
Speaker 1: I was at home sleeping. I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: approve that? So the only person that was able to
Speaker 1: testify in my behalf was my wife, which was the
Speaker 1: sister of the witness against me, and so they just
Speaker 1: claimed she's a liar to protect me, not considering that,
Speaker 1: how do you think she could get up there and say,
Speaker 1: you know, look, he need to do it, indirectly implicating
Speaker 1: your own brother. I think the failure is that the prosecutor,
Speaker 1: they knew the limitations of what they knew. They didn't
Speaker 1: need DNA testing in to know the limitations of their case.
Speaker 1: They wrote about it in their notes, and they should
Speaker 1: have been the ones who check that beyond a reasonable
Speaker 1: doubt standard before they put someone's life at stake. The
Speaker 1: jury goes out. How long did they deliberate, Clay, I
Speaker 1: didn't have time to smoke a cigarette before they said
Speaker 1: the jury is back. Wow, so his minutes. If you
Speaker 1: can take us back to that moment, I just went
Speaker 1: into a sort of shock state because they really didn't
Speaker 1: impact me or Hippie until they immediately conducted the penalty phase.
Speaker 1: And my wife at the time, Harley's mother, got up
Speaker 1: and went to the bathroom and they ran the penalty
Speaker 1: face so fast. By the time she came back in
Speaker 1: the bathroom, they were already announcing life. You know what
Speaker 1: soon does they do that? They stand up and I
Speaker 1: drag you the back, And I remember asking if they
Speaker 1: put me in a private cell because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be in with the crowd of you know, other
Speaker 1: people being transport around, and I just wanted to scream
Speaker 1: and terror and I did. In my mind, prison is
Speaker 1: boredom punctuated by sheer stark terror. You just after the
Speaker 1: over the years, you adapt, you have to. When I
Speaker 1: went in Texas, Prisicisca was a run by what they
Speaker 1: call the building tender system. Inmates were running it. There
Speaker 1: was only a handful of guards to three thousand inmates.
Speaker 1: The inmates were empowered with authority weapons to maintain the
Speaker 1: for the system. It was brutal, absolutely brutal. You know,
Speaker 1: it's odd. Even though it was run by prisoners and
Speaker 1: it was brutal if you follow the rules of them.
Speaker 1: There was a lot more internal freedom and it was
Speaker 1: more of a physical thing. In fact, it wasn't until
Speaker 1: some years to follow at a large lawsuit, Federal brought
Speaker 1: in special masters and they brought the guards in and
Speaker 1: they took the building tenters out. Became more of a
Speaker 1: mental pressure. But I had to say again because I
Speaker 1: was a little older, I think, and I had gone
Speaker 1: to the military, and I used my head the gang
Speaker 1: members and things that taught him how to do things
Speaker 1: that they weren't doing that made it profitable for them.
Speaker 1: So I became an asset, and so they would say
Speaker 1: leave him alone. So I tried to stay, you know,
Speaker 1: just actually involved with either education or up then to
Speaker 1: keep my mind off of, you know, the day to
Speaker 1: day mundane. And was there a lowest and the highest
Speaker 1: point for you while you were in there at a
Speaker 1: number of the the one that first of all my
Speaker 1: pother died, And at those points I considered suicide, but
Speaker 1: that's not my deal. I even had all figured out
Speaker 1: several ways to do it. But quite frankly, I knew this.
Speaker 1: I see my mind strip away everything else. My mind
Speaker 1: knew it didn't do what it was being punished for,
Speaker 1: and it just needed to know it had a way
Speaker 1: out if it had to at all last resort. So
Speaker 1: once I had that option of suicide, knowing that I
Speaker 1: do have the option to get out of this if
Speaker 1: I have to, that gave me the strength to go on. Finally,
Speaker 1: when you know, after years and years of Dallas telling
Speaker 1: me that they had lost the evidence, once I knew
Speaker 1: they had to be alive, and I fought it for
Speaker 1: ten twelve years on the found it. And then the
Speaker 1: high point would have been on a little step was
Speaker 1: when Texas finally passed a law whatever that said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to apply for DNA testing. That gave
Speaker 1: me some hope. But I just would have been when
Speaker 1: DNA testing proved that JR. Paps Semen was recovered from
Speaker 1: the rape of kit. His DNA was on her hands,
Speaker 1: DNA their fingernails, and then I knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: we probably had pretty good shot of at least you know,
Speaker 1: convincing that they had it wrong and might want to
Speaker 1: look at it again. Identifying paps, DNA and this extremely
Speaker 1: probative items of evidence. As Clay recounted, it was the
Speaker 1: key that turned the story. And at that point in time,
Speaker 1: I think Clay's perception is is accurate. Even the people
Speaker 1: who were absolutely convinced that the prosecutor might have been
Speaker 1: on the right path from the get go, even those
Speaker 1: individuals had to start opening their eyes and wonder, now
Speaker 1: what was going on. While this case came with instructions
Speaker 1: from the very beginning now twenty years later, so it
Speaker 1: came with scientific certainty. The actual perpetrator was identified, the
Speaker 1: state located him, he had gone back to Ohio by
Speaker 1: that point in time, and eventually, you know, was arrested
Speaker 1: for the crime. Now this is the state's star witness,
Speaker 1: but they did, with the DNA evidence testing that was done,
Speaker 1: identify him and ultimately convict him. After Clay's conviction was overturned, Jason,
Speaker 1: I think most people in the audience are probably thinking, now, well, amen, right, finally, justice, exoneration, compensation,
Speaker 1: and in this case, that's not the story of Clay's
Speaker 1: case right now. So tragically, after the DNA evidence identified Paps.
Speaker 1: The state decided to reprosecute Clay. They knew that they
Speaker 1: had been lied to, that they allowed someone to lie
Speaker 1: to the jury, They knew the actual perpetrator who had
Speaker 1: been convicted. They decided to reprosecute Clay, and it gets worse.
Speaker 1: By that important time. Clay was fortunate that some of
Speaker 1: the physical evidence was retained, the evidence that identified Paps,
Speaker 1: but much of the physical evidence had been lost by
Speaker 1: that point in time. So the state's plan was to
Speaker 1: just run it back now, recognizing that the person who
Speaker 1: they had put all their faith in the first time
Speaker 1: was the actual perpetrator, but unwilling to recognize that the
Speaker 1: case had no legs to stand on against Clay, and
Speaker 1: Clay was forced to contemplate going to trial again without
Speaker 1: even the ability to examine and retest some of the
Speaker 1: other evidence that the state at this point had lost. So,
Speaker 1: for example, the purported murder weapon we mentioned earlier, Jerry
Speaker 1: Papps when he was arrested, had a bloody T shirt
Speaker 1: that had been lost. We couldn't demonstrate that even paps
Speaker 1: fourth or fifth or eighth version of events wasn't accurate.
Speaker 1: Had we been able to identify the victim's blood on
Speaker 1: his T shirt for example it and I have to
Speaker 1: say I was actually hopeful that we would be able
Speaker 1: to convince the judge once we knew we couldn't convince
Speaker 1: the prosecutor to just dismiss it against Clay, because then
Speaker 1: this conduct in this case was so deep. We tried
Speaker 1: from all angles, both negotiating with the prosecutor, we tried
Speaker 1: with the judge, and we weren't successful. And ultimately that
Speaker 1: left Clay once again in the moment where he's posed
Speaker 1: with a question that he should have never had to face.
Speaker 1: What to do when the prosecutor comes to him. Now,
Speaker 1: you can walk out time served, but on one condition,
Speaker 1: you have to play guilty. It's hard to figure out
Speaker 1: what master they're serving at this point in time, too.
Speaker 1: Write they have the guy, the guys, they got him,
Speaker 1: the right guy. Now finally you got the right guy.
Speaker 1: Even though you guys did everything you possibly could to
Speaker 1: funk this up as bad as you possibly could. Now
Speaker 1: the right guys in prison. And that was extremely frustrating.
Speaker 1: And so, as Clay mentioned, you know, he had been
Speaker 1: failed by the system before he had seen that happen,
Speaker 1: he'd seen what jurors did very quickly at an original trial,
Speaker 1: and I don't fault Clay for a second for making
Speaker 1: the decision that allowed him to walk out and be
Speaker 1: with us today. And as I mentioned earlier, Clay's son
Speaker 1: Harley is here with us right now, so we wanted
Speaker 1: to give him a chance to talk about his memories
Speaker 1: and what the day his father was freed, what that
Speaker 1: time was like for him. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: explain happiness and anger at the same time. His brother
Speaker 1: is the one that brought him home, and I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember it was. It was a Silver dodgeery and
Speaker 1: that turned the corner. I remember staying in the front guard.
Speaker 1: I was so excited to do some him jumping up
Speaker 1: and down, obviously crying as soon as you got out
Speaker 1: the truck. Happy, happy and mad. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know how to explain it, happy about at the same time.
Speaker 1: You know, I hugged him, told him I love him,
Speaker 1: and then I have to share because him taking that
Speaker 1: guilty plead was partly my decision. He had called me
Speaker 1: when they offered him that. He said, what do I do? Man?
Speaker 1: He said, I can, I can come home now, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna they're gonna leave it on my record. They're
Speaker 1: gonna call me a murderer. Or I can fight this.
Speaker 1: And I didn't do this early, and no, I didn't
Speaker 1: do it, so I know I can fight him. I
Speaker 1: could probably get some money on us. You know, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll both be fine. You know, everybody will be fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said that, Who fucking cares if they call you
Speaker 1: a murderer? Are you? He said, no, Harley, it's great.
Speaker 1: You already gave him twenty three years. They're gonna look
Speaker 1: for every reason they can. I love to gamble. I
Speaker 1: already gave you twenty three years for nothings are clearly
Speaker 1: not in my favor. I'll go home. That affected me
Speaker 1: for twenty three years. That affected all of his family.
Speaker 1: My mother, or asked her mom. You know she stayed
Speaker 1: married to him, and I was about nineteen. She was
Speaker 1: sitting pretty brutal place as well. You know, it's your
Speaker 1: brother and your husband. She never called my dad guilty,
Speaker 1: and she never defend Jerry, So it makes me feel
Speaker 1: like she knew more. But she was just in a
Speaker 1: hard place and and it always, it always kind of
Speaker 1: bugged me because Jerry was around her family. I almost
Speaker 1: feel like a bad human for saying it sometimes when
Speaker 1: I'm glad that everything happened and happening, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he passed away in prison, which is perfect in my
Speaker 1: and I think I'm allowed to feel that way, but
Speaker 1: it repped our painoint apart. But we can we can
Speaker 1: do this to to humans and throw them in prison
Speaker 1: and it there not be a lot of recourse, you know,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor. I actually learned some of the day that
Speaker 1: I didn't know. You know, this could be a problem
Speaker 1: for us. You were aware of that even you destroy
Speaker 1: your life. Oh well sorry, well no, you owe me
Speaker 1: more than that. I don't want money. You go to
Speaker 1: prison now, you know that's what you should do. How
Speaker 1: many other people did you do this too? Was this
Speaker 1: the only one you got caught in? And that's just
Speaker 1: that's just one one time era, one prosecutor in one city.
Speaker 1: How often does this happen all over the United States,
Speaker 1: over the world. This is the first Sentstance conference that
Speaker 1: I've been too. I was shocked by how many exat
Speaker 1: reeves there are. I thought it was only a couple,
Speaker 1: you know, are like tad or fifteen, which is still
Speaker 1: at that's still too many. You know if this was
Speaker 1: an airline. Statistically speaking, if this was an airline that
Speaker 1: had planes crashing, they would shut it down and fix
Speaker 1: it immediately. There would be outrage everywhere. Something has to change.
Speaker 1: This has got to be fixed. I also want to
Speaker 1: point out that these people who are making these decisions
Speaker 1: to reprosecute, or at least we're threatening to reprosecute Clay.
Speaker 1: We're more than happy to spend countless more tax dollars
Speaker 1: on a ridiculous sham trial, a second ridiculous sham trial,
Speaker 1: but we're somehow so protective of the idea that we
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to use those same tax dollars to compensate
Speaker 1: this man gets a little more opplicating for one reason,
Speaker 1: and that's something we've kind of missed over, and that
Speaker 1: it's my original prosecutor. See, as you known that they
Speaker 1: have various laws for set amounts of conversation when someone
Speaker 1: German rockly convicted, and you can't prosecute a prosecutor if
Speaker 1: they're just doing their job within the limits of the law.
Speaker 1: But if they they violate the law, you can take
Speaker 1: that out and sue for untold amounts. And that's what
Speaker 1: we proved. My original prosecutors broke the law like withholding
Speaker 1: evidence that present a testimony that she knew was false,
Speaker 1: So we had special hearings. She went to the bar.
Speaker 1: She was found guilty, but again the bar protects themselves
Speaker 1: and they ever punishment, but it was considered what they
Speaker 1: call a private sense or something that they wouldn't tell
Speaker 1: us what they did to her. She still remained a
Speaker 1: current d A in another county at that time. Listen
Speaker 1: whether or not they want to put it in a
Speaker 1: legal document. I don't think there's any sane or rational
Speaker 1: person that believes you had anything to do with this crime.
Speaker 1: The good news is you're here. You're never going back,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that we're here to uh put a
Speaker 1: sort of a stamp on it and tell this story
Speaker 1: in the way that you've told it today. Okay, And
Speaker 1: now we have a tradition. It's called closing arguments. First
Speaker 1: of all, I think both of you again, Jason Craig
Speaker 1: from the Innocence Project, Claisha Bow, honoree for being here
Speaker 1: and sharing your story. And and then I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: off my microphone, kicked back in my chair and turn
Speaker 1: it over to you guys for any final thoughts you
Speaker 1: want to share with me and our audience. As is
Speaker 1: also traditional, Jason, We're going to let you go first
Speaker 1: and then have the man himself take us out. Excellent, Jason,
Speaker 1: thank you, and thank you for your team for doing
Speaker 1: the podcast. I think it's it's super important to share
Speaker 1: these stories. So I guess i'd just say this when
Speaker 1: I see Clay, or particularly when I'm here at these
Speaker 1: annual conferences and see hundreds of people who have overcome
Speaker 1: similar challenges, I'm reminded by some of the people who
Speaker 1: didn't have the same strength to get to the end,
Speaker 1: or didn't have the same time because their life just
Speaker 1: ended in prison or gave up. Had Clay not had
Speaker 1: the fortitude to keep fighting, to write the next letter,
Speaker 1: to just say no, no, I'm not going to stop
Speaker 1: right now. So Clay, just like everyone who's here at
Speaker 1: this conference, are the They're the strongest people who we know.
Speaker 1: If Clay couldn't keep going, if Clay couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: how to to live the next day in prison, just
Speaker 1: like everyone who's here at the conference now, had they
Speaker 1: not had the fortitude to keep going, we wouldn't know
Speaker 1: their story. We wouldn't be able to tell their story.
Speaker 1: And so I guess the closing thought that I wanted
Speaker 1: to see is, you know, when I see Clay sitting here,
Speaker 1: I see the hundreds or thousands of additional people who
Speaker 1: some of us know them very well because we worked
Speaker 1: on their cases and we could never get them to
Speaker 1: the innocence finish line. They still are in prison or
Speaker 1: tragically they died in prison. And I think that seeing
Speaker 1: Clay here everyone else here is absolutely wonderful and energizing,
Speaker 1: and it's a reminder of the additional work we can
Speaker 1: do and some of the work that we can do
Speaker 1: because those cases will never be identified. We'll just never
Speaker 1: know about thousands of people who have the same tragedy,
Speaker 1: but we won't know their names. Mine would be um
Speaker 1: for the public society people to wake up and recognize that,
Speaker 1: you know, they have the power to assess the evidence
Speaker 1: as it is presented to them, not just except what
Speaker 1: the prosecutors tell them. And just keep it this in
Speaker 1: mind because these things, at least they're coming more to
Speaker 1: light because of scientific d and A evidences made it
Speaker 1: conclusively proven. But just remember this, it could be your brother,
Speaker 1: your sister, your mother, your father that's on that stand
Speaker 1: next time being accused. You know, if you think you're
Speaker 1: just walk in there and you want to go home,
Speaker 1: you don't really want to delve into it. Just remember,
Speaker 1: let's give you next time. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall,
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Wardis with research by Lyla Robinson.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at its. Jason
Speaker 1: flam Raval Conviction is the production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one