Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, Lamont Hunter lived with his
Speaker 1: girlfriend los Milda, along with their blended family in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Speaker 1: Luzmilda's three year old son, Trustin, had been previously hospitalized
Speaker 1: for what was believed to be injuries resulting from child abuse. However,
Speaker 1: no charges ever materialized. Then, on January nineteenth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, Trustin was in Lamont's care when paramedics were
Speaker 1: called to take Trustin again to the hospital, where he
Speaker 1: passed away. Lamont told police that Trustin took a tumble
Speaker 1: down the stairs, but the state's experts believed that the
Speaker 1: medical evidence told a different story, that Trustin's injuries could
Speaker 1: not have resulted from a fall down the stairs, but
Speaker 1: rather from violent shaking coupled with forceful impact, in addition,
Speaker 1: that the three year old boy may have been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: With evidence like this, didn't take long for a three
Speaker 1: judge panel to sentence Lamont Hunter to death. But this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we
Speaker 1: have a story of a crime that never happened, that
Speaker 1: resulted in a death sentence for a man who should
Speaker 1: have been given time to grieve. Laman Hunter a sentenced
Speaker 1: to death in the state of Ohio for a crime
Speaker 1: that never happened, and here to help him tell his story.
Speaker 1: I'm going to introduce I actually asked how she would
Speaker 1: like to be introduced, and Lamon jumped right in and said,
Speaker 1: just call her the amazing Aaron Barnhardt. But for context,
Speaker 1: she is assistant public Defender at the Southern Ohio Federal
Speaker 1: Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit. So, Aarin, thank you for
Speaker 1: being here, thank you for having me, and here to
Speaker 1: tell his own story with this assist from Aaron and
Speaker 1: myself is the man himself who survived this incredible ordeal,
Speaker 1: the Mont Hunter, the Mont I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a miracle that you're here, and you know,
Speaker 1: and Aaron, you are a big part of that miracle.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to your upbringing. The place that
Speaker 1: you were born and where you lived has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with your wrongful conviction. But did you actually
Speaker 1: grow up there in Hamilton County.
Speaker 2: Ohio, Cincinnati. Yes, I did Hamilton County.
Speaker 3: I was born in the late sixties, so I grew
Speaker 3: up through the seventies and eighties, and nineties. My mother,
Speaker 3: my father, hit my heroes work their fingers to the
Speaker 3: bone to provide a good life for me and my siblings.
Speaker 2: My childhood was amazing.
Speaker 3: Like I always say, I was fortunate to be born
Speaker 3: in a family that I was born in school. I
Speaker 3: mean cousins, aunts, uncles. We are all very close knit family.
Speaker 1: You know, I understand eventually you became a father as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I got four biological children and two children that I raised,
Speaker 3: and I have an honorary daughter, Aisha.
Speaker 1: What are the kids' names, Ashley.
Speaker 3: Mariah Lamont Junior, Velita, Eric, Aish and Trinity. I've been
Speaker 3: instrumental in very hands on and raising all my children,
Speaker 3: all six of them.
Speaker 1: To support his family, Lamont worked as a roofer, but
Speaker 1: also he had a side hustle sending drugs through Federal Express,
Speaker 1: which landed him in federal prison. Now, drug trafficking is
Speaker 1: in no way related to how Lamont ended up on
Speaker 1: Ohio's death row, but his prior conviction comes up later
Speaker 1: in the story. So after his stint in prison, he
Speaker 1: went back to roofing and met a woman named les Milde,
Speaker 1: and together they had Lamont's youngest child, Trinity, Los Milda
Speaker 1: also had three boys from a previous relationship, Tyree, Tyrell,
Speaker 1: and Trustin.
Speaker 4: So Lamont actually didn't spend much time with trust In.
Speaker 4: The little boy who died in this case, Trustan, was
Speaker 4: Louis Milda's son, and because of complications with her health
Speaker 4: when he was born, he was basically raised by other
Speaker 4: people family friends and relatives.
Speaker 1: Right Wilma Forte and Amber White.
Speaker 3: Yes, after she delivered Trusting, she had kidney stalls, so
Speaker 3: she had immediately go back in for kidney surgery and
Speaker 3: she couldn't care for Trusting. So they were loving enough
Speaker 3: to take Trusting And for some reason I don't agree
Speaker 3: with Luz mild on this, she just chose to let
Speaker 3: him stay there. That's where Trustin lived.
Speaker 1: Now Loismilda Lamont rarely took care of Trusting, and prior
Speaker 1: to the two thousand and sixth incident that resulted in
Speaker 1: Trustin's death, there had been some suspected abuse back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: In January of two thousand and four, Lamont had been
Speaker 4: carrying trust In up a flight of stairs and tripped
Speaker 4: and fell on trust In and ended up breaking his
Speaker 4: leg bone his tibia. At the time, his two older
Speaker 4: half siblings were there, saw what happened. It was obviously
Speaker 4: an accident. No one even suspected it wasn't an accident.
Speaker 4: He was treated and let go. Then in June of
Speaker 4: or Trustin had sort of a constellation of injuries, some swelling, scratches, rashes,
Speaker 4: some other abrasions like by his lips and his ears.
Speaker 4: When luiz Milda goes to change trust In's diaper, she
Speaker 4: sees that it's really raw and red and irritated, luiz
Speaker 4: Milda wondered if his genital swelling was a bug bite
Speaker 4: or diaper rash, so she takes him to a local
Speaker 4: urgent care. When they see these conditions, they end up
Speaker 4: sending him to the hospital and it's treated as a
Speaker 4: case of abuse.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I don't think we'll ever know what happened to Trustan.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably a combination of things we found
Speaker 4: in medical records that Trustin had a lot of skin
Speaker 4: conditions exzema, other sort of conditions where his hair was
Speaker 4: falling out, environmental stressors and things like that, and then
Speaker 4: he was playing with two older, rambunctious kids. And I
Speaker 4: think probably what happened was there was some combination of
Speaker 4: maybe a little rough housing, maybe some irritation that trusted
Speaker 4: himself elf could have scratched or irritated that resulted in
Speaker 4: these conditions. No matter what happened, everyone agrees Lamont wasn't involved,
Speaker 4: but these circumstances were treated as abuse, and at the
Speaker 4: hospital when they did a skeletal survey an X ray,
Speaker 4: they discovered that Trusten had a number of older healing
Speaker 4: fractures in his hands and feet. Now, Trustin was hardly
Speaker 4: ever taken care of by his mother and therefore Lamont
Speaker 4: so at the time that these injuries would have been
Speaker 4: dated when he sustained them. Trustin was not around either
Speaker 4: Lamont or his mother. He was in the care of
Speaker 4: other people, so he had lived with them right, So
Speaker 4: even if these older injuries were the result of abuse,
Speaker 4: it was not from Lamont or his mother.
Speaker 1: No one was charged in this two thousand and four incident,
Speaker 1: but child protective services were made aware and even though
Speaker 1: Lamont was never even considered a suspect in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, the Hamilton County prosecutors raised the specter of
Speaker 1: ongoing abuse while seeking the death penalty for Lamont. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and six.
Speaker 4: The death penalty information Center has a report called the
Speaker 4: two Percent Report. If you look statistically, Hamilton County and
Speaker 4: Kyga County in Ohio, Cleveland and Cincinnati are part of
Speaker 4: the two percent of counties in the entire nation that
Speaker 4: account for more than half of people on death row
Speaker 4: and more than half of people who've been executed in
Speaker 4: this country.
Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of Ohio wrongful convictions, too many
Speaker 1: to list, but we're going to link Elwood Jones and
Speaker 1: Keith Lamar, both death penalty cases handled by Hamilton County
Speaker 1: prosecutors in which they hid or ignored exculpatory evidence at trial,
Speaker 1: and Lamont's story is no different. So let's get to that.
Speaker 1: On January nineteenth, two thousand and six, tragedy struck when
Speaker 1: Trustin was staying with Liz, Milda and Lamont.
Speaker 2: Lois Milton.
Speaker 3: Well, she get up and go to work, and about
Speaker 3: a hour or two later, I get the boys up
Speaker 3: to get ready for school themselves. So I get Jordan
Speaker 3: and Tiree out the door on their way to school.
Speaker 3: Now I got trust In in Trinity, and I get
Speaker 3: trust In waited for breakfast in our living room that
Speaker 3: I made him French toes, sticks and little sausage links.
Speaker 3: He wanted to watch the new Jurassic Park movie, so
Speaker 3: set him in a chair, put it on for him,
Speaker 3: and decided to start my daily chores. I grabbed Trinity,
Speaker 3: my nine month old, and I went downstairs in the
Speaker 3: basement to finish doing the laundry. That's when I first
Speaker 3: heard him running across the floor above me. Next thing,
Speaker 3: I hear, he's coming tumbling down the stairs and hit
Speaker 3: his head, so.
Speaker 2: I immediately run over.
Speaker 3: His head was back and his eyes were fluttering, and
Speaker 3: I'm scared. I just scooped him up and run up
Speaker 3: the stairs. So I figured I throw some water on
Speaker 3: his face to try to jug him awake, and his
Speaker 3: eyes were still fluttering, so I seeing that he was
Speaker 3: struggling to take a breath. I don't know how to
Speaker 3: do CPR, but I attempted it, so I had to
Speaker 3: open his mouth. I noticed a piece of sausage lodged
Speaker 3: in the back of his mouth, blocking his airway, so
Speaker 3: I got that out on my finger. I held his
Speaker 3: nose and I blew in his mouth like I see
Speaker 3: people do on TV. I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 3: how to do it. I'm not certified nothing, so I
Speaker 3: probably blew too much in his mouth because his stomach
Speaker 3: was getting bloated. I got scared, so I called his
Speaker 3: mother and she immediately came home. They made a big
Speaker 3: deal of this, by the way, at my trial that
Speaker 3: I didn't immediately call the paramedics instead of calling his mother.
Speaker 3: They thought it was something the farious, but it wasn't.
Speaker 3: It was just I panicked, and so paramedics got there
Speaker 3: very quick and started tending to him.
Speaker 2: I was just a mess.
Speaker 4: The dog is running around parking.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I could never prove this, but I know my dog,
Speaker 3: when I left the room, tried to take his food
Speaker 3: from him while he was sitting in that chair. I
Speaker 3: believe that's what prompted Trusting to run across that.
Speaker 1: Floor, and that might explain why he ended up with
Speaker 1: a piece of food lodge in his throat.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the sausage, and I know my dog was harassing
Speaker 3: for it. But they get Trusting in the ambulance and
Speaker 3: Lumilda gets in the ambulance with him, and me and
Speaker 3: Trinity we followed them to the emergency room at Children's.
Speaker 3: That's how my day started. January nineteenth, two thousand and six.
Speaker 4: Trustin had head injuries that were fatal. He had blood
Speaker 4: trapped between the layers of his brain, which they call
Speaker 4: subdural hematoma. And then his brain also swelled, which is
Speaker 4: what happens anytime there's any sort of injury or trauma
Speaker 4: to the brain, they call it cerebral edema. And anytime
Speaker 4: your brain swells, that also puts pressure on your optic
Speaker 4: nerve and results in rental hemorrhages, so bleeding on the
Speaker 4: back of your eye.
Speaker 1: And by now our listeners are familiar with these findings
Speaker 1: as what are commonly associated with the grotesque junk science
Speaker 1: prosecution theory known as shaken baby syndrome. We're going to
Speaker 1: have our shaken baby syndrome episode of wraeful conviction junk
Speaker 1: science length as well. For years, the theory was widely
Speaker 1: accepted across the medical establishment that the presentation of these
Speaker 1: three things could mean only one thing, that the infant
Speaker 1: or toddler had been shaken to death by their most
Speaker 1: recent caretaker, denying any other potential or even probable causes.
Speaker 1: But over time this theory has gradually fallen apart.
Speaker 4: And this field has been very nimble because anytime someone shows, well,
Speaker 4: guess what this person, we know it was an accident,
Speaker 4: and they show these injuries, and then they say like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 4: first of all, we're not going to call it shaking baby,
Speaker 4: because they did experiments. They had big beefy football players
Speaker 4: shake a crash test dummy baby, and they could not
Speaker 4: generate the type of force needed to cause the brain
Speaker 4: injuries without breaking the child's neck. And so they said, okay,
Speaker 4: so maybe shaking alone can't cause it, So shaking with impact,
Speaker 4: that's what we'll say, shaking with impact. So we won't
Speaker 4: call it shaken baby. We'll call it abusive head trauma.
Speaker 4: And they just keep morphing and adapting to whatever fits.
Speaker 1: No matter what has been revealed through biomechanical studies and
Speaker 1: a confluence of medical histories that proved that in addition
Speaker 1: to accidental causes like a fall down the stairs, there
Speaker 1: are eighty one pre existing medical conditions and counting that
Speaker 1: can cause the presentation of those findings. And yet there
Speaker 1: are still proponents of this theory that refused to admit
Speaker 1: that limiting the cause to shaking alone is an unscientific
Speaker 1: leap in logic. And so in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: even though some of the medical establishment had begun to
Speaker 1: realize the problem with this theory, including the neuroscientists who
Speaker 1: had developed it. The state's witnesses attributed Trustin's triad of
Speaker 1: findings to shaking and any other injuries, including a sheared
Speaker 1: vertebrae and what appeared to be an impact injury, to
Speaker 1: further violence. Lamount was arrested on January twenty second, two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, three days after Trusten's death, and he
Speaker 1: has taken a trial in June two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4: The prosecutor, through their child abuse pedatrician witnesses, said these
Speaker 4: kinds of injuries could not have come from a fall
Speaker 4: down the stairs. It had to have been abuse.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: We only see these kinds of injuries from forces like
Speaker 4: in a car accident or maybe LaMotte swung trusting around
Speaker 4: like a base ball bag. You know, that's what have
Speaker 4: caused it, but not from falling down the stairs. And
Speaker 4: then in addition, Trusten had some injuries in his anal
Speaker 4: rectal era. He had three puncture wounds in his rectal mucosa,
Speaker 4: so kind of up in his rectum. There were three
Speaker 4: wounds I think they were about two millimeters in diameter,
Speaker 4: and then kind of on the outside lip of his anus.
Speaker 4: It's not entirely clear if it's a tear or a cut.
Speaker 4: It wasn't that accurately described, and so those injuries were
Speaker 4: used to support a charge of rape.
Speaker 1: As we'll explain later, there was a completely innocent explanation
Speaker 1: for those anal and rectal injuries, yet the child abuse
Speaker 1: pediatrician painted a completely different picture.
Speaker 4: The child abuse pediatrician did say that the injuries were
Speaker 4: consistent with an adult penis. Now that's the magic word, right, consistent,
Speaker 4: which I think a lot of fact finders here and
Speaker 4: think that means a match, but it doesn't at all.
Speaker 4: It just means we can't exclude it as the cause.
Speaker 1: I mean, what adult penis is two millimeters in diameter.
Speaker 4: So macrof is only talking about the external injury kind
Speaker 4: of along the edge of the anus. She never saw
Speaker 4: the internal injuries, the puncture wounds.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So the child abuse pediatrician did not have a full
Speaker 1: understanding of the injuries, which may explain why the coroner,
Speaker 1: doctor Gretel Stevens, true different conclusions.
Speaker 4: What the coroner said was that it looked like the
Speaker 4: interior wounds were like poked with something sharp like maybe
Speaker 4: a pencil, and the prosecutors argued at trial that this
Speaker 4: wasn't penile rape, but this was rape with some sort
Speaker 4: of object.
Speaker 1: While that explanation is still incorrect, at least doctor Stevens's
Speaker 1: assumptions were more grounded in reality. However, the investigation failed
Speaker 1: to find any such object or any efforts to cover
Speaker 1: up that kind of crime. Doctor Stevens also acknowledged the
Speaker 1: evolving science on shaking baby syndrome, saying that a rotational
Speaker 1: fall would be consistent with the shearing of the neck
Speaker 1: that trust And experienced, and that stairfalls are responsible for
Speaker 1: the kinds of findings that were present in trust and situation.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing, like doctor Stevens pretty much was
Speaker 4: a straight shooter at trial, and it was just the
Speaker 4: fact that she hadn't seen the photographs of the actual
Speaker 4: staircase to know that there was a ledge abutting one
Speaker 4: side of the stairs that kind of mashed up with
Speaker 4: some injuries that she saw. There was also a throw
Speaker 4: rug if he had slipped on, that may have contributed.
Speaker 4: She didn't know that Lamont had reported hearing trust and running.
Speaker 1: In addition, the coroner was unaware of the innocent explanation
Speaker 1: for these anal and rectal injuries. So since neither one
Speaker 1: of the state's experts had a full picture of the incident, this,
Speaker 1: along with Lamont's ineffective council, allowed the state's erroneous narrative
Speaker 1: to take hold.
Speaker 4: Lamont's child counsel, Clyde Bennett is the attorney's is not
Speaker 4: a bad criminal defense attorney. He's actually pretty well known
Speaker 4: as a good criminal defense attorney. But there are a
Speaker 4: couple things that just weren't going to work in Lamont's case.
Speaker 4: Number One, a death penalty case is different, a dead
Speaker 4: kid is different, and you can't just kind of rely
Speaker 4: on your old tricks and techniques in this kind of case.
Speaker 4: Number two, this is a case where the evidence is
Speaker 4: all based on medical expert testimony. The evidence is the
Speaker 4: state expert coming in and saying you can only get
Speaker 4: these injuries from abuse, period, And his trial council did
Speaker 4: not hire an expert, not only not to testify or
Speaker 4: just even to consult with an expert to explain the
Speaker 4: medical records to him, to explain the flaws in the
Speaker 4: state experts testimony and reasoning. He said he thought that
Speaker 4: he could just rely on cross examination, and his theory
Speaker 4: was that this chadabe'see pediatrician. She's not qualified to be
Speaker 4: talking about retinal hemorrhages. She's not an ophthalmologist, she's not
Speaker 4: qualified to be talking about the mechanism of injury. She
Speaker 4: doesn't have a degree in biomechanics or anything. Now, this
Speaker 4: is all true. The problem was when he made that objection,
Speaker 4: the court overruled it, and he had no plan B.
Speaker 4: So when that didn't work, he was left to just
Speaker 4: kind of on his own try to cross examine, and
Speaker 4: he knew enough to be dangerous, and so he's asking
Speaker 4: questions about stuff that's not relevant. Like he's trying to say,
Speaker 4: isn't it true that you could have a delayed onset
Speaker 4: of injury? And that is true sometimes, except for that's
Speaker 4: not what happened in Tresten's case. We know what happened.
Speaker 4: He fell down the stairs and was immediately unresponsive, so
Speaker 4: that line of questioning was completely irrelevant. Also, he didn't
Speaker 4: hire an expert to look through the medical records, and
Speaker 4: he didn't look through the records himself.
Speaker 1: I mean, Lamont would have been better off with his
Speaker 1: original court appointed attorney, not I mean much better off
Speaker 1: because it turns out that mister Bennett was more than
Speaker 1: a little bit distracted at the time.
Speaker 4: That's true, he was a little distracted with his own
Speaker 4: legal troubles. Mister Bennett himself was being investigated for some
Speaker 4: pretty serious federal crimes, and in fact, shortly after Lamont
Speaker 4: was sentenced to death, he signed his own plea agreement
Speaker 4: and turned himself into federal custody and went away to
Speaker 4: federal prison. He pled to structured deposits, so depositing money
Speaker 4: just under the reporting limit.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to Lamont, Clyde Bennett was connected to a major
Speaker 1: drug dealer out of Dayton, Ohio, both of whom were
Speaker 1: subjects of a federal investigation that ended in cooperation and
Speaker 1: a plea deal for Clyde. Meanwhile, in Lamont's trial, Clyde
Speaker 1: neglected to prepare the vital medical expert testimony, as well
Speaker 1: as advised Lamont to take a bench trial in front
Speaker 1: of a three judge panel, reasoning that a jury might
Speaker 1: be susceptible to the emotion surrounding a dead child.
Speaker 4: Turns out, so are three judge panels.
Speaker 3: Exactly, especially when we know for sure that this judge
Speaker 3: who's now passed on. Norbert Natl told Clyde Bennett and
Speaker 3: his chambers it wouldn't be wise for him to bring
Speaker 3: me in front of him on a bench trial because
Speaker 3: I lose, and he still advised me not to have
Speaker 3: a jury.
Speaker 4: Now, the advantage of not having a jury is that
Speaker 4: you can save a lot of time because you don't
Speaker 4: have to go through vaidir and get a death qualified jury.
Speaker 4: So you know, Clyde took a flat fee from Lamont's family,
Speaker 4: so it's just economical to make the trial go as
Speaker 4: fast as possible, and so great way to cut down
Speaker 4: on time is to wave jury.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me like the judge actually was telling
Speaker 1: him if you do this, you're going to lose, and
Speaker 1: he was like great. I mean, I'm glad you're laughing
Speaker 1: a lot, because you know, sometimes I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: laughing from crying. Where you lived through this, I say, what.
Speaker 3: I'm doing I've been doing in society. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I've been laughing to keep from crying. Man, it's just
Speaker 3: so much trauma on this journey, man, It's just a
Speaker 3: lot of trauma.
Speaker 1: So this bench troul played out exactly as this judge
Speaker 1: told Lamont's attorney, it would.
Speaker 4: It was pretty easy for them to convict because all
Speaker 4: of the state's expert testimony was entirely unrebutted. So they
Speaker 4: have these experts from the state saying this had to
Speaker 4: be abuse, There is no way this could have come
Speaker 4: from a fall down the stairs. And then on top
Speaker 4: of that, they had the state saying, and look at
Speaker 4: all this other suspicious stuff, injuries in his anal rectal era,
Speaker 4: these injuries in the past when Lamont was around trust In.
Speaker 3: After conviction, Clyde Bennett pops up in the jail on
Speaker 3: a Sunday, and I'm pissed at this point. I'm like,
Speaker 3: what are you doing here? And he just said, man,
Speaker 3: you know, I just wanted to come and ask you
Speaker 3: how our federal prisons, how are they ran, what it's
Speaker 3: like in federal prison. I'm looking at him, like, what
Speaker 3: does that have to do with my case? He said, well,
Speaker 3: he's well, I know you've been in federal prison before,
Speaker 3: and I'm going there. I'm fighting for my own life, Lamont,
Speaker 3: so I just wanted to know how these federal prisons.
Speaker 3: I walked off on him and went back to my sale. Man,
Speaker 3: I was done with him. At the time, so all
Speaker 3: hope was lost at that point. I was convicted and
Speaker 3: then mitigation where you have to get the most closest
Speaker 3: loving person in your life. They had to literally beg
Speaker 3: the courts to save my life. It was humiliating for
Speaker 3: me and my family, and it didn't work, so they
Speaker 3: were dug in. So I still got sentenced to death.
Speaker 3: And my father, who I have a lot of love
Speaker 3: and respect for, he's actually my hero. I after getting
Speaker 3: on a standing testifying and asking the course to save
Speaker 3: my life and telling the story that he did about
Speaker 3: me and growing up with my siblings, he had a
Speaker 3: heart attack right there in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: He had a heart attack right there in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: Right in the courtroom. Ambulance was called.
Speaker 3: They saved his life there, but he had a heart
Speaker 3: attack right in the courtroom. They never got talked about
Speaker 3: in the media or nothing like that. They was too
Speaker 3: busy calling me a monster and a child rapist. And
Speaker 3: my father he's no longer with us. He died in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen before I got home, but from that day
Speaker 3: his health just declined. Since to death, isolated away from
Speaker 3: general population, there's no programming set up for us back
Speaker 3: there it's just mundane and waking up every day knowing
Speaker 3: that your name is on a list to be executed.
Speaker 3: The State of Ohio intents on executing you. And that's
Speaker 3: like having a gorilla constantly on your shoulders, weighing you down.
Speaker 3: And this is it from far as you can see.
Speaker 3: Is it every day? It's like the same day. The
Speaker 3: first year I was there, I was still in the haze.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what to expect as far as the courts.
Speaker 3: I've never appealed the sentence before, so I was, of
Speaker 3: course jaden and kind of paranoid of my attorneys after
Speaker 3: coming through the whrror show of the trial that I
Speaker 3: went through and being served up by my trial attorney, like, well,
Speaker 3: what's going to happen at this phase.
Speaker 4: Although Lamont had pretty capable post conviction attorneys from the
Speaker 4: Ohio Public Defender's Office, unfortunately they couldn't get any traction
Speaker 4: in state court, which is not uncommon. But their claims
Speaker 4: that they raised were not that different than what we
Speaker 4: raised in our federal habeas petition. The problem is they
Speaker 4: didn't have access to the evidence they needed. They asked
Speaker 4: for discovery to get the medical records to depose the coroner,
Speaker 4: just like we did, and it was all denied.
Speaker 1: As we've mentioned a trial, both states experts Macaroff and
Speaker 1: Stevens have been operating with incomplete understandings of the incident. Additionally,
Speaker 1: Makarov had ignored the evolving science on sbs, which continued
Speaker 1: through post conviction, even as the science continued to evolve
Speaker 1: further and further away from her position.
Speaker 4: Doctor Macaroff, she's doubling down on everything as everyone in
Speaker 4: her sort of little industry has to do. This is
Speaker 4: what makes this field so dangerous and unscientific, is the
Speaker 4: feedback loop that exists. During our deposition, doctor Macroff cited
Speaker 4: an article about stairfalls, saying, look, we know stairfalls aren't
Speaker 4: fatal because we draw this data from different hospitals. All
Speaker 4: these kids come in after falling down the stairs and
Speaker 4: they didn't die. And I said, okay, I said, would
Speaker 4: trust In's case be included in that data set? And
Speaker 4: she said, well, what do you mean? I said, well,
Speaker 4: is his case classified as a stairfall because you guys
Speaker 4: don't believe mister Hunter that he fell down the stairs, right,
Speaker 4: And she was like, oh, that's a good point. They're
Speaker 4: self selecting the data they're using to draw the conclusions
Speaker 4: that they used to exclude the data that they don't want.
Speaker 4: And then they say that, you know, these are so rare,
Speaker 4: and I agree. You know, most kids who tumble down
Speaker 4: the stairs don't die from it. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that it's impossible, which is what they say to put
Speaker 4: people on death row. And just because something is rare
Speaker 4: doesn't mean that they know which is the rare case
Speaker 4: and which isn't. So there's all this bad science that
Speaker 4: goes into it. The thing that actually is scientific about
Speaker 4: this would be biomechanics, right force Chawdabez. Pediatricians don't think
Speaker 4: biomechanics have any place in their world. And when doctor Macroff,
Speaker 4: she says, I didn't say lamont abuse trust in. I
Speaker 4: just said that his report does not match the mechanism
Speaker 4: of injury. And I said, well, when you're talking about
Speaker 4: the mechanism of injury, that kind of sounds like force.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Oh, no, I'm not a physicist. Biomechanics doesn't fit there
Speaker 4: or whatever. I don't know how, right, I don't know
Speaker 4: how you can talk about a mechanism without using biomechanics. Anyway,
Speaker 4: we did hire a biold mechanical engineer, and we went
Speaker 4: to the site and he took measurements of the stairs
Speaker 4: and the elasticity of the surface, and he used a
Speaker 4: computer program and he put in the height that Trusten
Speaker 4: was and his weight and the average that a child
Speaker 4: his age could run, and you know, ran through all
Speaker 4: these different scenarios of how he could have fallen and
Speaker 4: showed that, like the forces generated were well within the
Speaker 4: range that have been shown to be enough to generate
Speaker 4: the kind of injuries that he had. So absolutely stair
Speaker 4: falls can cause this. And also now with cell phones
Speaker 4: and security cameras, like, people have started capturing injuries that
Speaker 4: otherwise would have been indicted as abuse if we didn't
Speaker 4: have proof that it was actually accidental. And doctor Macaroff claims.
Speaker 2: It even that could be doctors, even that could be doctored.
Speaker 4: She maybe would have to see it with her own
Speaker 4: eyes to be convinced, and so you know, there's just
Speaker 4: no pleasing the child abuse pediatricians.
Speaker 1: However, the defense was able to please the coroner, doctor Stevens,
Speaker 1: when they provided a fuller picture of the incident, including
Speaker 1: photographs of the staircase. A biomechanical expert and finally, the
Speaker 1: innocent explanation for the anal and rectal injuries that were
Speaker 1: available to prosecutors, the state's experts, and even la Mons
Speaker 1: attorney at the trial. Had he even bothered to look.
Speaker 4: He would have found, like our investigator Pam Swanson did
Speaker 4: when we took over the case, notations in the medical
Speaker 4: records that staff at the hospital in the pic you
Speaker 4: had attempted to take Trusten's temperature three times with a
Speaker 4: rectal thermometer had been unsuccessful, and immediately after that had
Speaker 4: noted blood in his rectum, which of course perfectly matches
Speaker 4: up with the three puncture wounds that the coroner identified
Speaker 4: and said could have been caused by something sharp like
Speaker 4: a pencil. And in fact, and in another piece of
Speaker 4: undisclosed evidence, the coroner even told detectives that she couldn't
Speaker 4: rule out a temperature probe as the cause of this. Now,
Speaker 4: nobody turned that over to Lamont at trial, and the
Speaker 4: prosecutor didn't ask the coroner that question, but he did
Speaker 4: ask the child abuse pediatrician at trial if Trustan's injuries
Speaker 4: could have been caused by a thermometer, and she said no.
Speaker 4: When we deposed the coroner and showed her these records,
Speaker 4: she immediately changed her opinion on the cause of those injuries.
Speaker 4: She still said it was non accidental, but it was
Speaker 4: inflicted medically, not as an assault. For me, I saw
Speaker 4: that and felt like I was just shouting into the void.
Speaker 4: For years after that, nobody seemed to care about it
Speaker 4: until the coroner did. But I was like, people, this
Speaker 4: is it, Like this explains.
Speaker 3: Everything, because that was a huge void in my defense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a huge gap because nobody could explain I.
Speaker 3: Never could explain the rape to the time we found
Speaker 3: that in the record, I couldn't not explain the rape.
Speaker 2: I didn't rape me, So.
Speaker 1: These idiots couldn't even figure out the three pokes with
Speaker 1: the thermometer were what caused what otherwise sounded like an
Speaker 1: awful thing that was done to this child, Right.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's the really troubling thing is that I
Speaker 4: think nobody looked at these records, including doctor Stevens. You know,
Speaker 4: at the time, had she she would have learned things
Speaker 4: about the scene that would have explained the mechanism of injury,
Speaker 4: plus the findings about the anal and rectal injuries, and
Speaker 4: so then, like she did her deposition when we showed
Speaker 4: them to her, she would have changed her opinion not
Speaker 4: only about the injuries that supported the rape, but also
Speaker 4: about the cause of death, that it was not a
Speaker 4: homicide and his trial attorney is just as much to blame.
Speaker 1: So in addition to the Brady violations, this was also
Speaker 1: a clear case of ineffective assistance of counsel as well.
Speaker 4: When we went back to our judge in federal court judgment,
Speaker 4: Michael Watson, with the deposition testimony from Clyde, he kind of,
Speaker 4: in his opinion, went through all the things he didn't do,
Speaker 4: you know, didn't hire experts, didn't talk to witnesses, didn't
Speaker 4: look at the records, blah blah blah. And then the
Speaker 4: way he put it was he appeared to settle on
Speaker 4: his strategy of not using an expert, not as a
Speaker 4: result of a strategic investigation, but rather in lieu of one,
Speaker 4: which is kind of the classic definition of being an
Speaker 4: effective lawyer. You know, like all these people participate in
Speaker 4: a process that could result in a man's execution, and
Speaker 4: that there's so little you know, I mean plenty of time.
Speaker 4: I think there's outright misconduct and malicious intent, and I
Speaker 4: think there's some of that here with the Brady evidence,
Speaker 4: the withheld evidence that we saw, but a lot of
Speaker 4: other is I think just in competence, a lack of thoroughness.
Speaker 4: I don't know that might even be worse, because you know,
Speaker 4: you care so little about being careful in.
Speaker 2: Case, it was such magnitude as a person's life.
Speaker 1: Right with proceeding so fraught with constitutional violations and convincing
Speaker 1: evidence of innocence. The Hamilton County Prosecutor's office joined Lamont's
Speaker 1: motion for a new trial in April twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: but this didn't mean that they were finally seeking justice
Speaker 1: for Lamont.
Speaker 4: After Lamont had a new trial and we are trying
Speaker 4: to get him out on bond, the prosecutor's office ran
Speaker 4: to the coroner's office and got the other pathologists in
Speaker 4: the office to issue this addendum to the original autopsy
Speaker 4: report that basically just says, like, we think the coroner
Speaker 4: was wrong to change her opinion under oath and the deposition.
Speaker 4: We do think that this should still be a homicide
Speaker 4: and still be a rape with zero explanation. And then
Speaker 4: those pathologists refused to talk to us without the prosecutors
Speaker 4: being present. It just became so obvious to us that
Speaker 4: I believe the Hamilton County Coroner's Office, there's supposed to
Speaker 4: be neutral experts guided by science, considers itself an arm
Speaker 4: of the prosecutor's office.
Speaker 1: So while Lamont was still trying to get out on
Speaker 1: bond and the lead up to his new trial, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor's office began to apply pressure.
Speaker 2: And here comes to please offer.
Speaker 4: Basically, Lamont had this pressure of stay here in jail
Speaker 4: for at least another year, or take a plea and
Speaker 4: get out time served. Lamont could walk out the door. Well,
Speaker 4: we decided to fight it and ask for bond, and
Speaker 4: the prosecutors fought dirty. Basically had to go through a
Speaker 4: little mini trial where they are allowed to summarize their
Speaker 4: case by presenting evidence, including evidence that wasn't even presented
Speaker 4: at trial the first time, so stuff that isn't tested
Speaker 4: in any way, but just allegations. We were able to
Speaker 4: beat them there. The judge ruled that they hadn't met
Speaker 4: their burden to keep him locked up. But then the
Speaker 4: bond was five hundred thousand dollars, which he would have
Speaker 4: needed to get fifty thousand dollars together cash to meet it.
Speaker 2: Would have been very hard which we couldn't do.
Speaker 4: I mean, so that was one problem. And then the
Speaker 4: other problem was the prosecutor convinced the judge to order
Speaker 4: no contact for Lamont with anyone under eighteen, so that
Speaker 4: meant all of his nine grandchildren eight at the time.
Speaker 2: And went on the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, he wouldn't be able to meet them.
Speaker 3: My children was in the courtroom when they asked for that,
Speaker 3: and just seeing them cry, man, and they want me
Speaker 3: to meet their kids so bad, and I want to
Speaker 3: meet my grandchildren so bad.
Speaker 2: They're right there.
Speaker 3: That's when you know the decision was firmly made that
Speaker 3: I'm taking his plea agreement.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the prosecutor, Seth Tiger, was just trying
Speaker 1: to have it both ways.
Speaker 4: You're saying that he's so dangerous and such a monster
Speaker 4: that you don't think you should be led at at all.
Speaker 4: But you've offered him a plea, and if he agrees
Speaker 4: to that, he walks out of the door today with
Speaker 4: no conditions at all, no conditions, which is what he
Speaker 4: ended up doing.
Speaker 1: Lamont took the plea for time served, which also meant
Speaker 1: that he's not eligible for state compensation regardless. He was
Speaker 1: finally free after sixteen long years in fifteenth twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Three, one of the best days of my life, mind too,
Speaker 3: on Aaron's birthday, by the way, and ironically I was
Speaker 3: convicted on her birthday as well, sixteen years earlier. Aaron
Speaker 3: had already told me it's a bank of cameras and
Speaker 3: reporters out there, so be prepared when you walk through
Speaker 3: the door. One of the questions was how are you
Speaker 3: feeling getting your freedom back? And my answer then and
Speaker 3: today is still the same. Imagine feeling all of the
Speaker 3: emotions anger, stress, joy and relief, frustration, all of those
Speaker 3: emotions at the same time. I'm still going through it,
Speaker 3: trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: It's been amazing though, and I actually got a good
Speaker 3: start on everything too. Got my driver's license, my cousin
Speaker 3: gave me a vehicle. I got a job rather quickly.
Speaker 3: It took a little longer for me to get in
Speaker 3: an apartment. I have to go in for a full
Speaker 3: knee replacement surgery because O the writer is on set
Speaker 3: in on it, bone on bone, so I haven't been
Speaker 3: able to work. That is frustrating. So I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to figure things out. Aaron set up a GoFundMe page
Speaker 3: that's been helping a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, we're hoping our audience can help out a whole
Speaker 1: bunch more, and who knows how long it's going to
Speaker 1: be till Lemon is on his feet again. So if
Speaker 1: you have a few bucks, a few thousand bucks, a
Speaker 1: few million bucks laid around, whatever you can spare, and
Speaker 1: you want to help this man who has already been
Speaker 1: through so much, we're going to have the GoFundMe linked
Speaker 1: in the episode description along with Lamon's LinkedIn page. He's
Speaker 1: begun public speaking and he's a great speaker, so if
Speaker 1: anyone's interested, I'm sure he'd be very happy to have
Speaker 1: work that's not as physically demanding as the job he
Speaker 1: was able to find before the surgery. And with that,
Speaker 1: we're going to go to closing arguments, where first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to thank Aaron and Lamont, both of you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today. And now I'm just
Speaker 1: going to do what I do best. I'm going to
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair, turn off my microphone, leave
Speaker 1: my headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to
Speaker 1: anything you feel is left to be said. So let's
Speaker 1: start with you Erin, and then just tan the mic
Speaker 1: off to Lamont and Lamont, you take us out into
Speaker 1: the sunset.
Speaker 4: Nothing like this happens without the help of a village,
Speaker 4: and that's certainly true in Lamont's case. In our office,
Speaker 4: attorneys Tasiplesio and Justin Thompson, we're also on Lamont's team.
Speaker 4: I mentioned Pam Swanson. She's retired now, but she's the
Speaker 4: investigator that kick things off. And then our paralegal, extraordinary
Speaker 4: Shannon Flammer.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yes, who runs.
Speaker 4: The office and is really the backbone of everything. Was
Speaker 4: absolutely wonderful. But I honestly don't know if there's a
Speaker 4: single person in the Capitol habeous unit who didn't help
Speaker 4: in some way with Lamont's case. And that includes a
Speaker 4: lot of our law student externs who helped us with
Speaker 4: research and writing, people helped with site checking, just brainstorming
Speaker 4: figuring out how to approach this crazy developments in the case,
Speaker 4: especially when the Supreme Court is changing the law on
Speaker 4: what we're allowed to present in the state court and
Speaker 4: federal court, you know, as it's going on, you know.
Speaker 4: And then he had post conviction attorneys Melissa Jackson and
Speaker 4: Kim Rigby at the Ohio Public Defender's Office, who fought
Speaker 4: valiantly and kept hitting a brick wall, but stayed supportive
Speaker 4: of Lamont. And then we are just so grateful for
Speaker 4: al Gerhartstein, who's been so supportive and brought on some
Speaker 4: amazing attorneys to help us in state court, Sarah Jelsonino
Speaker 4: and Elizabeth Bonham and Marcus Siddodi. They really made an
Speaker 4: awesome team. And then Kate Jutson, who's the executive director
Speaker 4: at the Center for Integrity of Forensic Sciences, helped with
Speaker 4: in particular her expertise in shaking baby science and abuse
Speaker 4: of head trauma. Finally, I think a big part of
Speaker 4: Lamont's success has been his family. As he's mentioned, I
Speaker 4: think he has maybe one of the most supportive families
Speaker 4: that I've ever seen. It's been a real privilege to
Speaker 4: have Lamont and his family trust me with his life
Speaker 4: and with his case, because it's pretty scary, especially it's
Speaker 4: so complicated and technical and you don't know what's going on,
Speaker 4: and they let me into their home to explain things,
Speaker 4: and we're patient as I explained why we need to
Speaker 4: be patient and why it takes so long and that
Speaker 4: kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So one of the things I talk about, especially when
Speaker 3: talking to the law students, is about, you know, how
Speaker 3: to try your best to meet your client where they are,
Speaker 3: you know, intellectually, emotionally if you could. Because I just
Speaker 3: had an attorney asked me, you know, after doing the
Speaker 3: talk up there, she said, what could I do better?
Speaker 3: I have a kind of a guarded client. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying that I can't seem to get through too,
Speaker 3: you know, and he don't trust me. I said, well,
Speaker 3: my recommendation, this is what worked for me and my family.
Speaker 3: It might not work for everybody. If you could pinpoint
Speaker 3: somebody in his family or trusted a friend or something
Speaker 3: who he listens to and try to get through to
Speaker 3: that person and let that person be the liaison or whatever,
Speaker 3: maybe you can, you know, get a better working relationship
Speaker 3: with your client. You know, Aaron took the time, Aaron
Speaker 3: justin to you. They took the time to explain the
Speaker 3: process going forward when Aaron first came on my case,
Speaker 3: when we first met each other, and it was very effective.
Speaker 3: I don't know what other attorneys do with their clients,
Speaker 3: but Aaron took the necessary time literally explain what to
Speaker 3: expect going forward and to relate the same information to
Speaker 3: my family through a liaison which we chose to be
Speaker 3: my sister Debbie, who has been amazing in this process
Speaker 3: as well as keeping me straight when I give Aaron
Speaker 3: problems and have phone.
Speaker 2: Calls and stuff.
Speaker 3: So it's a whole village, like Aaron just mentioned, on
Speaker 3: both sides, it's just it takes a village, man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Vlahm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one