WEBVTT - #317 Jason Flom with Elvis Brooks 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:05.960 It was July first, the start of the July fourth 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:09.760 weekend nineteen seventy seven, in New Orleans, in the then 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.800 predominantly white working class ninth Ward, two black men approached 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.000 the welcome in bar, requesting two beers to go, and 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.200 the owner obliged, believing that she had recognized the shorter 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.440 of the pair from the neighborhood. They grabbed the cans 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.599 of beer and then forced their way in a gunpoint, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.240 demanding money from the register as well as from the 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.640 intoxicated patrons, one of whom Cecil Lloyd, was fatally shot. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:35.320 The assailants set their beer cans down on the bar, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.519 leaving their fingerprints behind. The police began their investigation, casting 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.479 a wide net, considering all the local black men as 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.040 potential suspects, including a young man named Elvis Brooks, who 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.519 had previously been wrongfully arrested for a nineteen seventy four 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.680 robbery and attempted murder. When three of the surviving witnesses 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.320 identified Elvis from a photo array and again in court, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.920 it must have seemed to the jury that his parade 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.760 of thirteen alibi witnesses were perjuring themselves to save Elements 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:15.520 from prison. But this is wrongful conviction. We'll be right 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:25.240 back after this. Welcome back to wronful Conviction. Today, I 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:27.200 have a case out of New Orleans, and it's a 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:31.920 case of cross racial misidentification, which, as you know, in 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.520 study after study, has been found and proven to be 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.959 even less accurate than guessing. And with us to discuss 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.920 the case is the man himself, Elvis Brooks, who did 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:50.960 over four decades in Angola Penitentiary. Elvis, Welcome to wronful Conviction. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.080 Jason and joining Elvis is one of his post conviction attorneys. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.520 She's the supervising attorney for case development at Edison's Project 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.480 New Orleans, also known as IPNO. Charrelle Arnold, Welcome to 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:04.280 ronfel conviction. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:05.520 Thank you for having me. 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.680 So. This is Orlands Parish in nineteen seventies. We've covered 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.520 several other cases from this era, both in Orleans Parish 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.720 and elsewhere in the surrounding areas Bobby Jean Johnson, Vincent Simmons, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.959 Malcolm Alexander, where it seems like the state was running 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.400 more of a kidnapping racket than anything resembling justice or 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:25.320 public safety. 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.919 Orlean's Parish has been really challenged for a long time 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.600 in terms of the administration of the criminal legal system, 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.359 how Orleans Parish has treated people of color and particularly 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.359 its black residents. In nineteen seventy seven, mister Brooks lived 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.360 in an area that was primarily white. His family was 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.120 one of the only black families who lived there. Honestly, 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.120 that was part of the reason that he was targeted 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.640 for this crime. This was an area that was very 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.080 like white working class back then. The Lower ninth Ward, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.600 of course, would become an area that was largely black 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.720 area obviously by the time Hurricane Katrina came, So this 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.800 was an area that was really kind of on the 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.600 cusp of Frankly, I think many white residents believed something dangerous, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.000 but in actuality was an area where black families would 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.680 eventually become homeowners and grow a really vibrant neighborhood. So 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.200 many of the witnesses I imagined in this case, or 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.280 people who lived around there, would later be part of 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.600 the white flight of white residents of Orleans Parish who 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.200 left to the suburbs. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.160 And this is a phenomenon we saw all over the 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.440 country in this era, with white residents fleeing to suburbia. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.280 Talking Brooklyn, Detroit, and of course New Orleans and Elvis. 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.640 You grew up in that fraught time. Can you tell 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.520 us a little bit about your childhood. 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.520 I was one of twelve kids, five boys, the seventh girls. Oh, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.240 the middle boy. You know, I had it known. I'm 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.160 a kid life, you know. I went to school and 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.840 I had two of the best parents in the world. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.080 Yeah, they'd have to be kids is no small feat. 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:08.000 I can't even imagine that's in some superhero category. And 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.360 it must have been hard for them to keep you 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:11.280 all in line. 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.720 Out the bed. Look key, and I ain't no my 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.920 daddy he used to have to come to school quite 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.800 a bit for me and my Beretta. Young teenagers, you know, 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.320 acting crazy, you know, fighting, joy ride, you know, shooting, 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.000 hooking all we never heard anyone, you know. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.279 Now. Joy Riding was a bit of a raucous teenage 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.080 trend back then, where you'd steal a car for a 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.160 short period of time with the intention of returning it 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.599 or abandoning it unnoticed. Which it's foolishness for sure, but 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.839 it's certainly not murder. But I can also imagine that 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.640 the joy rides at least pissed people off, right. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.640 I think he could have been upsetting some people. I 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.120 think these were crimes that frankly, white teenagers were committing 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.120 that people did just call joy rides, right, and they 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.040 weren't getting arrested, or they weren't getting. 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.960 Through Me and my partner I better. We'd be hanging 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.320 out there, you know, just hanging out, you know, and 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.039 the police has come threatened us. You know, we know, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.320 y'all all, get off the street. We're gonna arrest y'all, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.479 you know, but put some charges on y'all. You know, 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.800 we were being young. We ain't take them serious, you know. 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.520 So since you had this reputation as a troublemaker, they 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.200 would threaten you with bogus charges to enforce some sort 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.920 of an unofficial curfew that they made just for you. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.280 And it turns out that you should have taken those 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.640 threats seriously. Now, this wasn't the detective in the case 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:36.960 we're here to discuss today, but this guy did do 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.400 something that put you in jeopardy for this case. There 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.600 was a robbery turned homicide in your neighborhood at a bakery, 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.039 and one night he made his usual threat to get 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.480 you off the street. That you didn't take that seriously. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.520 But this time it got a bit more real for you, right. 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.560 Yes, in nineteen centy full the detective put a robbery 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.880 and a tip murder charge on me. I was seven. 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.200 I ain't even know where the rivalry happened, you know. 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.800 It happened on Saint claud and Treacle. That was about 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.479 seven blocks away from where I live, you know, And 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.839 he stopped me three times altogether. He told me if 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:16.800 he ever catched me on the street again, he's gonna 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.520 bring me up to jail for that charge. You know. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.919 Third time he saw me out there, he arrested me, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.960 you know, and brought me to my parents' house and 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.159 told my parents. You know, I know he Elvers didn't 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.640 have anything to do with this, but I gotta teach 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.160 him a lesson. I said, I'm gonna arrest him. I'm 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.440 gonna book him. I'm gonna put him on the line up. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.600 He ain't gonna get identified because he didn't do this here. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.960 But I got to teach him a lesson. I was 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.640 frank of printed and I had a mug, you know, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.640 smug shot. You know. I went on the line up 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.560 and I was out when they arrest me on this 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.039 case here. That's all they talked about was that nineteen 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:55.360 seventy four case, you know. 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.440 So this detective trying to show you tough love, as 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.640 if that was in his job description, put you permanently 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.920 on the docket, ready to be sold off and shipped 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:12.880 off to Angola. So three years later, that's exactly what happened. Chelle. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:17.600 Can you describe the events of July first, nineteen seventy seven, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.320 at a bar in the ninth Ward called the Welcome 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.320 Inn that resulted in the failed shooting death of a 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:24.520 man named Cecil Lloyd? 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:29.760 Sure? So this crib. I believe it was a Friday night, 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:31.640 but it was just the start of basically the fourth 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.920 of July weekend. And the bar was a small neighborhood bar, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.880 tiny place, not a lot of room to move around. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.160 There was a few patrons left, and I think one 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.360 or two people working the bar. As far as we 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.360 can tell, these patrons had been drinking all day, right, 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.320 they were having a good time, enjoying the weekend. Two 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.120 black men come to the door. And this was a 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.760 bar that I think was primarily a white bar. Everyone 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.560 who worked there was white, The owner was white. As 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.320 far as I'm aware, The patrons were all white two 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.360 black men come to the door and the owner says 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.160 that they ask for beers to go, and she says 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.520 that she opened the door to get them the beers 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.560 because she recognized one of the men from the neighborhood. 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.560 She hands them the beers and then they push in 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.040 the door. But importantly to mister Brooks's case, they set 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.040 their beer on the bar top. Just a couple steps 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.880 inside the bar and they basically commence a robbery. So 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.320 they empty the cash register. They demand everyone get down 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.360 on the ground. There's sort of a lead robber and 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.319 kind of the supporting robber. One of them is armed 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.240 with a gun, or at least one of them is 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.280 the one who fires the fatal shot. I believe only 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.640 one shot is fired, and sadly, mister Lloyd is killed, 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:55.920 seemingly for no reason. Mister Lloyd complied just like everyone else, so. 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.080 This must have scared the living shit out of everyone 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.360 in that bar. Lloyd complied and still got killed. So 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.880 all bets were off. But these two men leave, and 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.520 of course the cops are called in. What did the 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:10.720 victims say to the police? 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.959 They take witness statements from everybody. We now know that 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.320 these statements differed quite a bit from one another in 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.240 many ways. By the time of trial the statements would 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.840 become remarkably more consistent. But that night, the witnesses give 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.280 sort of general descriptions of the men. We know they 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.280 were both black. They give a variety of different clothing descriptions, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.000 a variety of hair descriptions. We know that one is 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.600 short and one is tall. Mister Brooks was eventually convicted 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.600 of being the shorter of the two robbers. Who is 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:44.240 the shooter? 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.319 Right? It's my understanding that the shorter of the two 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.360 assailants was about five four. 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.120 Yeah, five full full by one hundred and forty pound 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.720 out five eight by one hundred and forty something pound, 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.559 and he said he had shot hair, but I had 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.840 a big the shorter robber. 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.000 I think it may have also technically bett afro. But 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.200 mister Brooks's hair was like much bigger. You know, mister Brooks, 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.520 he could be described as short, but the hairstyles that 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.280 the witnesses described just didn't match mister Brooks. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.920 So we're seeing a market difference in height as well 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.360 as length of hair. So how does Elvis even get 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.520 dragged into the consciousness of these victims? 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.880 The bar owner Ms Caruso, the woman who chose to 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.120 let the men into the bar. She believes that she 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.959 recognized the shorter robber from the neighborhood. And in the end, 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.720 this is really the only connection that mister Brooks has 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.079 to this case is that his family was a black 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.200 family who lived in the neighborhood. Beyond that, police have 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.600 nothing to go on. So what detectives do, and we 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.480 know this from the police files that we've been able 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.400 to obtain, is that they basically just started getting lists 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.720 of black men who lived in the naighborhood Jesus Christ 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.040 and so there are just lists and lists. Frankly, a 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.960 man who could have been wrongfully convicted for this crime. 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.720 Right if it wasn't mister Brooks, it certainly would have 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.560 been someone else on one of these lists. Interestingly, when police 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.480 create these lists, Elvis Brooks isn't on them. We don't 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.800 know exactly what police did with these lists. It seems 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.160 as though they may have gotten photos of some of 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.800 these people and tried to show the robbery victims these photos. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.520 We don't know for sure. There's not great documentation on this, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.200 but for several weeks, police don't have a suspect in 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.880 this case, they are basically all they have to go 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.240 on is a black man who maybe lives in the 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.200 neighborhood or has been in the neighborhood at some point. 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:50.439 And so this is how randomly, right coincidentally, despite having 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:55.160 gotten these lists of people, mister Brooks's name isn't on them. Suddenly, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.640 from reading the police report, one of the police officers 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.400 would have you believe that he suddenly came to buy 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.960 a suspect that matched the description who lived in the neighborhood, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:07.320 and that was Elvis Brooks. 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.559 I mean, it sounds like a sinister game of eeny 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:15.240 Meeni Mini mo right, And this is why we must 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.160 remind people that black lives matter, because to these people, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:24.040 they simply don't. So even though he's four inches taller 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.200 than the shooter, has a big afro unlike the shooter, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.320 they still put Elvis's photo in an array to show 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:32.040 to the victims. 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.760 I don't know that it's even like multiple photos on 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.880 one piece of paper. They just have photos, and one 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.800 of those photos is of Elvis Brooks. But it's not 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.240 a photo from nineteen seventy seven. It's a photo from 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:49.120 several years before, right, when mister Brooks had been arrested previously, 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.600 and so they take this old photo where his hair 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.160 looks differently, right, because it was two years previously. His 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.080 hair is much shorter in this photo than his hair 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.360 was in nineteen seventy seven. He hadn't cut his hair 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.400 in between, because it was an afro that he was 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.760 letting grow out. And so they take this old photo 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.560 to the witnesses from the bar. But because it's the 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.520 same photo, when a witness signed the back of it, right, 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.600 Sometimes when you sign things, you can tell that there's 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.240 writing on the back of something. So it's certainly possible 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.640 that as they're showing the photo to the witnesses from 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.920 the bar, it's very obvious which photo has been identified. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.120 So not only is the photo lineup suggestive because of 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.640 the signature on the back, but also the photo of 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.880 Elvis from nineteen seventy four more closely met the description 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.800 of the actual assailant in nineteen seventy seven than Elvis 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.239 did in that same year. This is also a situation 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.480 where you have three fully traumatized victims, so not exactly 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.760 a room full of people with clear heads, and the 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.640 victims were white. The assailants were black. And we have 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:02.240 to go back to this important point, which is that 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:07.960 study after study has shown that cross racial identification it's 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.640 less accurate than guessing. So they got three cross racial 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.480 identifications from two patrons, mister Nodo, Miss Chibriani and the 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.120 bar owner, Miss Caruso, But they didn't have to go 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:25.600 down the identification route, right. What about the fingerprints they're 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.080 right there on the beer cans. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.920 Correct. The police got to the scene and they knew 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.360 exactly what would be probative to fingerprint in this scene. 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.960 This isn't a case where they were figure printing the 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.040 ceiling or something like that. They knew that the robbers 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.560 had touched these beer cans and that they had then 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.480 set those beer cans on the bar top. And so 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.160 they collected those Kansas evidence and they were able to 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.720 get usable prints that they could compare to mister Brooks's prints. 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.920 And what we now know and what police and what 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.280 the district attorney in nineteen seventy seven knew as they 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.800 were trying to kill mister brook right to prosecute him capitally, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.120 was that the fingerprints onw those beer cans didn't match 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.040 Elvis Brooks We don't know whose they were, but we 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.240 know they didn't belong to mister Brooks. 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.960 So they got these fingerprints, they knew that they didn't 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:21.120 match Elvis, but yet they decided to go ahead and 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.240 pursue the death penalty. Anyway, let's just marinate on that 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:30.640 for a second. That sounds like state sanctioned attempted murder. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.680 Needless to say, if these folks were civilians, they'd be 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.480 charged and punished accordingly. But our system has decided that 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.880 these people have special privileges, including the right to kill 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.360 for the advance of their careers with no recompense. And 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.600 this was the notorious Harry Konic senior era, so this 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.840 sort of behavior was the norm, even from the junior 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.520 Ada who was trying the case. So they ignored the 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.960 beer can fingerprints that they knew to be from the 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.360 actual assailants, no question about it, and they got an 0:15:58.360 --> 0:15:59.960 a arrest warrant for Elvis instead. 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.600 And I was at work that day. You know. When 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:06.280 I got home, my sister said, the police would look 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.480 like you for you. I say it, for what they said, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.920 you kill somebody. I said, kill somebody. I said, I 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.880 ain't never killed nobody. Then I went to the phone 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:15.880 book called the Philip Prieston. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:16.160 You know. 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.800 Ashually was they looking for all the books? And they said, yeah, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.120 they see where you're at. I said, I'm all paid 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.200 for Saint claud and Fallston. Then way they came and 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:25.080 got me right there. 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:40.280 You know, we'll be right back after this. 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.480 This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.320 AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.120 a positive difference in the lives of its employees and 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.840 in the communities where we work and live. In light 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.680 of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.560 in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.800 the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:09.280 other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.919 I had to go to get bond, said, that's the 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.960 first thing I went to wish I didn't have any 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.520 bond because the first degree murried. So after that they 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.240 went into the motive identification brought me the colder. So 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.879 I feel like, I know I didn't do it, I said, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.320 I said, these people here ain't gonna say I'd done it, 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:37.800 because I knew I didn't do it. I say they 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.159 got the wrong person. You know. When I go in 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.840 the court room for emotional for identification, one of them said, 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.320 he potative it wasn't me, you know, but the DA 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.480 came in print at me said this ain't the man. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.879 He said, no, my pottier, that ain't the man. And uh, 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.720 the two ladies you know, they said it was me, 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:05.600 you know. But when I gave bet to trial a man, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.240 that change in mind, you know, and see it was me, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:08.639 you know. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.280 So Joseph Noto when he went to court for the 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:17.760 motion to suppress identifications, he essentially couldn't recognize if the 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.919 man he had identified in the photo, if that was 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.360 the same man who was in court. Someone who can't 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.119 even look at a photo and say if it's the 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.680 same person as someone's sitting in front of them, shouldn't 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.920 be considered to be reliable evidence against someone. 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:36.280 Yet somehow something helped him come around by the time 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.160 of trial to make the identification. 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.879 At trial, the evidence against mister Brooks is three cross 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:48.119 racial stranger identifications. At least two of the witnesses were 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.560 quite a bit older than mister Brooks. It can be 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.280 more difficult to identify someone who's of a different age 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.920 than you are. We most recognize people who look more 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.600 like us. It's just easier for people to remember. And 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:05.639 then also, these people had been drinking for hours in 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.520 a dark bar. They were terrified. They were being told 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.639 to lie down on the ground. Someone had just been shot, 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:18.320 seemingly randomly. And this is a very quick situation. And 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.800 so they've had only a few minutes to look at 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.760 a person they've never seen before and to identify them 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.960 after they've been drinking, some of them seemingly for hours. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.479 And then there's a fourth witness presented a trial in 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.479 addition to the other three we've already mentioned. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.800 The fourth person is actually he's the victim who can't 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:42.840 identify anyone. He describes the circumstances of the crime and agrees, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.359 you know, in many ways with the other witnesses, but 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.600 he could never make an identification of mister Brooks. And 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.600 so this was the evidence against Elvis Brooks. No physical 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:53.920 evidence ever tied him to the crime, and in fact, 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.679 the fingerprints right made it very clear that he was 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.040 not one of the robbers. 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.240 So what the hell is this? How is it that 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.680 the defense did not bring this up? 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.920 His lawyer didn't mention the fingerprints because he wasn't told 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.840 about the fingerprints. The police right, they had gathered the evidence, 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.640 they had tested the evidence, They knew about the evidence. 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.359 We know that the assistant district attorney in this case 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.840 knew about the evidence because of notes we would later 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:24.920 find in the DA file. Mister Brooks's attorney was never 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.919 told that there were fingerprints, exonerating his client. But in 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:32.720 this trial that lasted only a few hours, mister Brooks's 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:39.720 attorney fought. He presented witness after witness after witness, all 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:44.359 demonstrating Elvis Brooks's alibi for that night. Mister Brooks also 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.879 testified on his own behalf right. He told the jury 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.199 that he was innocent, that he didn't do this. In total, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:57.120 the jury chose to believe four white witnesses who had 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.400 been drinking in a dimly lit bar, oh for thirteen 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:08.240 black witnesses who described almost to a t, the alibi 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.480 that mister Brooks had that night. They all explained how 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.360 they had come to be at the Brooks house that evening, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.480 what they were doing, the time periods they were there, 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.719 what they saw Elvis doing. These were people who, yes 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:23.879 many of them were related to mister Brooks, though not 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.800 all of them, but these were also people who just frankly, 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.840 they corroborated one another, not in a perfect way, right, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.320 not everyone had been there for the exact same time 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.520 period that night. But they were clear as to what 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.760 mister Brooks had been wearing, which wasn't the clothing described 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.639 as the robber was wearing, what his hair had looked like, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.560 and what he had been doing. And they were all 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.000 clear that in this small shotgun style house, which right, 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.439 it's a house that it has one entrance and one exit. 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.680 It's very clear when someone leaves a shotgun house, you 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.479 can't sneak out. They knew that mister Brooks had been 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.639 there all night, he couldn't possibly be the robber. Yet 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:02.800 these black voices were ignored. 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.960 I had my brother, he come over there with his friend, 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.879 and my sister she come over over her boyfriend and 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.760 she had her three kids. Well I'm the one to 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.920 open the door for them, you know, for the July 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.399 was coming up, and uh, they wanted to come visit 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.040 my mom and daddy. You know, no, I might have 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.800 been a bad little kid, but my mom and daddy 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.320 they were very honest people, you know, even if it 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.399 was meant I had to help the death pending. It 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:33.399 wasn't gonna lie for me. You know. 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.360 After this very short proceeding, three cross racial misidentifications were made, 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.119 but thirteen alibi witnesses swore that you were with them instead, 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:46.680 and your life was literally hanging in the balance. Did 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:48.600 you still hold out hope that the jury was going 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:50.160 to believe your parents and your family? 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:55.159 You know what, at that time, I was young, Like 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.240