Speaker 1: This interview was recorded pre COVID nineteen at a fundraiser
Speaker 1: for the Innocence Project in front of a live studio audience.
Speaker 1: It was July nine six, while on leave from his
Speaker 1: job as a river barge deckand twenty two year old
Speaker 1: Damon Thibodeaux visited his relatives to Champagne's around noon on
Speaker 1: July nineteenth. Their fourteen year old daughter, Damon's step cousin, Crystel,
Speaker 1: walked to a nearby grocery store and never came back.
Speaker 1: Damon joined what eventually became the entire neighborhood on a
Speaker 1: frenzied search for crystal that lasted through the night and
Speaker 1: into the next day. When he returned home for some
Speaker 1: much needed sleep, the sheriff came knocking at the door. Inexplicably,
Speaker 1: Damon had become a suspect and what would turn into
Speaker 1: a rape and homicide investigation when they found Crystel's partially
Speaker 1: nude body strangled to death with a red extension cord.
Speaker 1: Damon maintained his innocence, agreeing to a polygraph, which interrogators
Speaker 1: would tell him he had failed. Now, if you've listened
Speaker 1: to our series about false confessions with Laura and I
Speaker 1: writer and Steve Drisen. A lot of the elements of
Speaker 1: Damon's story will sound familiar. The polygraph ploy, the false
Speaker 1: fed facts followed by a false confession, in this case,
Speaker 1: to the rape and murder of an underage family member,
Speaker 1: even with no physical evidence connecting him to the crime,
Speaker 1: the wild disparity between his confession to her rape and
Speaker 1: the fact that she hadn't been raped at all, among
Speaker 1: a host of other inconsistencies, Damon Thibodeaux was nevertheless convicted
Speaker 1: and sentenced to death. With the help of the Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: DNA testing, and a surprisingly cooperative district attorney, Damon was
Speaker 1: exonerated on September two, thousand twelve. This is Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is an very interesting when we're recording in front of
Speaker 1: a live audience, But today is particularly special because I
Speaker 1: have Vanessa Potkin, who was the first staff attorney at
Speaker 1: the Instance Project and as a senior staff attorney now
Speaker 1: and has been on the show before. So Vanessa, welcome back.
Speaker 1: It's great to be back. And with Vanessa is Damon Thibodeaux,
Speaker 1: who was sentenced to death for a brutal crime that
Speaker 1: we now know he didn't commit. So damon, as I
Speaker 1: always say, I'm glad you're here, but I'm sorry you're here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for inviting me, Jason. Um, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the time that all this stuff happened. Um, you were
Speaker 1: twenty two years old, and what was your life like?
Speaker 1: You were from Louisiana, right, I'm from Louisiana. Um, spent
Speaker 1: most of my time in Texas. I moved back to
Speaker 1: Louisiana and I got a job as a decand working
Speaker 1: off shore. Got my job, you know. It was three
Speaker 1: weeks into the job, took some short leave to pay
Speaker 1: some bills and things like that, and your step cousin disappeared. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: was sitting at the dining room table. Her father was
Speaker 1: sitting across from me. He left to go do something.
Speaker 1: I was working on his watch. He couldn't put the
Speaker 1: band on, so I said, I'll put it on for you,
Speaker 1: and she asked me to take her to the store.
Speaker 1: I told her I couldn't do it without your parents permission,
Speaker 1: and she said, no, I need you to take me down.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I can't do it, and she left
Speaker 1: and that was the last time I saw her. Wow,
Speaker 1: what time was that? More or less just afternoon I
Speaker 1: believe and she was fourteen, right, yes, and so that
Speaker 1: was noon. When did you start to become concerned? And
Speaker 1: how did the whole thing unfold? And how did you
Speaker 1: find out that she was missing? And when did the
Speaker 1: search start? Of me, we want to know everything. Well,
Speaker 1: her mother was the one who started to panic. What time,
Speaker 1: uh maybe two three o'clock? She started making calls to
Speaker 1: try to find out where she is because she had
Speaker 1: never done anything like this before, She never disappeared like that,
Speaker 1: you know. She started calling people to help her look
Speaker 1: for and offered to help her out, you know, driving
Speaker 1: around the neighborhoods and help them look for So how
Speaker 1: many people went out, I mean I'm envisioning like a
Speaker 1: large group like you see on TV A hold the
Speaker 1: whole neighborhood. They had the Coast Guard helicopter there as
Speaker 1: well by nightfall, flying around the neighborhood with their light
Speaker 1: trying to help the search teams in the wooded areas.
Speaker 1: And they had fire trucks out there with all their lights,
Speaker 1: and the police were out there and there was a
Speaker 1: wooded area behind the apartment complex where they lived, and
Speaker 1: everybody in the neighborhood just went walking through it and
Speaker 1: it was like almost side by side. We had all
Speaker 1: driven around the neighborhood, some of the places that she'd
Speaker 1: hang out in, some of the friends that she would
Speaker 1: hang out with, none of them had seen her. After
Speaker 1: searching all night long and having been up for the
Speaker 1: previous thirty five hours as well, Damon finally went home,
Speaker 1: planning to rejoin the search after getting some much needed rest,
Speaker 1: But just as he was about to lay down, there's
Speaker 1: a knock at the door. It's the police. Damon wants
Speaker 1: to help in any way you can't, and so he
Speaker 1: agrees to go with them. But while at the police station,
Speaker 1: everything would change. I was in the interrogation room when
Speaker 1: they found the body, so they had already identified you
Speaker 1: as a suspect. Yes, why you? I still don't know
Speaker 1: to this day. Do you have any theories on the evidence.
Speaker 1: The state's theory was that his cousin goes missing, she
Speaker 1: walks out to the store. She's going to the Win
Speaker 1: Dixie and when her mother starts to worry about her.
Speaker 1: About an hour later and there's a search party that
Speaker 1: Damon actually leaves the house and encounters her, and it's
Speaker 1: at that point that he decides to have sex with
Speaker 1: her and kill her, and then comes back, you know,
Speaker 1: to be seen and to be part of a search party.
Speaker 1: So it never really added up, but they did, you know,
Speaker 1: take him into custody and start interrogating him. And initially
Speaker 1: they were interrogating him about a missing person, right, and
Speaker 1: then during that questioning her body is found, and so
Speaker 1: it turns into an interrogation about what happened to this
Speaker 1: girl who's missing too. Now you're a suspect and a homicide.
Speaker 1: And when she was found, the initial thought was that
Speaker 1: she had been sexually assaulted. That's correct, because she was
Speaker 1: partially nude, and she had been strangled with a chord, right,
Speaker 1: an electrical chord. And so they interrogated you for almost
Speaker 1: half a day on no sleep. And they can, and
Speaker 1: they did, play all sorts of dirty tricks in the
Speaker 1: interrogation room. UM. In America, unlike England and many other countries,
Speaker 1: they can lie to you and the interrogation room as
Speaker 1: much as they want. They are allowed to watch you,
Speaker 1: and they did. Um. They gave you a fake polygraph test,
Speaker 1: among other things. UM, there's a thing actually was developed
Speaker 1: in Chicago about fifty years ago, right, the read technique,
Speaker 1: which is a psychological protocol that's designed to elicit confessions,
Speaker 1: be they false or true. So what what happened in
Speaker 1: the interrogation, Banessa, Because you've studied this obviously you worked
Speaker 1: on the case, and you've got him out, I mean
Speaker 1: fifteen years and death row. But he's here, he's not dead,
Speaker 1: which is great, right, Um. In essence, project worked on
Speaker 1: the case. You know, it was a huge monumental effort
Speaker 1: to get to the point where Damon was released. When
Speaker 1: we looked at the confession evidence. Um, you know, Damon
Speaker 1: was brought in and he is, you know, interrogated under,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, less than ideal circumstances. You know,
Speaker 1: the night before she went missing, he had been out
Speaker 1: hanging out with friends and so he didn't get a
Speaker 1: lot of sleep. And then of course she goes missing
Speaker 1: and there's a search party, and so he's not getting
Speaker 1: sleep that night either. And then the following day he's
Speaker 1: after about thirty five hours of being up, he's brought
Speaker 1: in and interrogated, and for the first five hours, Damon
Speaker 1: is adamant about his innocence. Right, You brought up the
Speaker 1: read technique, and you know, in the US we went
Speaker 1: from a time where it was permissible to be confessions
Speaker 1: out of people, and then we became more enlightened and said, no,
Speaker 1: you can't physically coerce the confession. But that coercion turned
Speaker 1: to mental coercion, and so the read technique really is
Speaker 1: about using different coercive techniques to elicit a confession, and
Speaker 1: many times it is an accurate confession, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times at also work so well that it will
Speaker 1: get people who are completely innocent to confess. So for
Speaker 1: the first five hours, Damon is saying, I'm innocent. I
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with this. But part of the
Speaker 1: re technique is to not accept the denial. So when
Speaker 1: you know the suspect denies that they were involved, they
Speaker 1: keep saying, we know you're lying, and they will not
Speaker 1: accept innocence as an answer. So they did that to
Speaker 1: Damon and the ultimately they told him the only way
Speaker 1: you can prove your innocence is for you to take
Speaker 1: a polygraph. So he agrees, right, But the polygraph, as
Speaker 1: you pointed out, Jason, was a sham and it was
Speaker 1: really employed just to advance the interrogation, and so he
Speaker 1: takes what he believes to be a polygraph um and
Speaker 1: they come back and they say, you failed, and we
Speaker 1: now know you're lying because you failed. So hearing that
Speaker 1: you know you failed, and if you have any belief
Speaker 1: in a polygraph test and you're twenty two, you know,
Speaker 1: they keep questioning him, how could this happen, and ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, get him to say, well, I had a
Speaker 1: dream and a dream, you know, I saw my cousin
Speaker 1: who was killed, or I saw a girl who was killed.
Speaker 1: And then ultimately, you know, they keep questioning him. And
Speaker 1: you know, what we've seen in so many false confession
Speaker 1: cases is that through questioning, with leading questions, details of
Speaker 1: the crime are conveyed. That then, under pressure, when you know,
Speaker 1: somebody like Damon, nine ten hours into the interrogation just
Speaker 1: has had enough and feels their only way out is
Speaker 1: to give the police what they want, they incorporate those
Speaker 1: details that now have been you know, either consciously or
Speaker 1: unconsciously conveyed to them by the detectives who are asking
Speaker 1: the questions. And so ultimately he gives a statement. But
Speaker 1: as we you know, would would come to learn looking
Speaker 1: at the statement, many of the details that he gave
Speaker 1: about the crime matched what the police believed to be
Speaker 1: true at the time they were doing the interrogation, but
Speaker 1: later turned out to be details that were inconsistent with
Speaker 1: the known facts of the crime. Right, they're feeding him
Speaker 1: information is not even the right information. All he's doing
Speaker 1: is repeating what they're saying to him. And if we
Speaker 1: know that a false confession is the worst possible thing
Speaker 1: in the eyes of a jury, they don't know it's
Speaker 1: false obviously. And what I've seen is that false confessions
Speaker 1: typically happen after long, long interrogations like yours, because someone
Speaker 1: who's guilty would prefer not to sit in there in
Speaker 1: that airless room that we've all seen on TV for
Speaker 1: hours and hours on end, in a very hostile environment
Speaker 1: with no food and no drink and no nothing, so
Speaker 1: they might as well just spit it out. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's just incredible, innocence is actually a risk factor
Speaker 1: for making a false confession, because an innocent person under
Speaker 1: that pressure feels like, let me just give them what
Speaker 1: they want to hear. And once I get out of here,
Speaker 1: the system is gonna work and it's going to sort
Speaker 1: itself out, and people are going to realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: as they further investigate, as they do their police work
Speaker 1: that they should do, they're going to see that they
Speaker 1: got the wrong person. And here in addition to you know,
Speaker 1: telling Damon that he failed a polygraph, they also threatened
Speaker 1: him and said, look, if you don't admit this, you know,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a media circus and you're gonna be ranted,
Speaker 1: you know, a pedophile, and you're going to die by
Speaker 1: lethal injection. Of course, by confessing, you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: save himself from the death penaltakes, that's exactly what he got.
Speaker 1: And we know also that they interrogated youth Damon for
Speaker 1: nine hours, but they only recorded fifty four minutes of it, right,
Speaker 1: so we know how that works too, right, They left
Speaker 1: all the various stuff out. Well, the polygraph came up
Speaker 1: missing as well. They can't find it. They don't, no
Speaker 1: one knows where it's at. But this was the premise
Speaker 1: for them to keep going with their investigations. The police
Speaker 1: used the polygraph as a ploy to coerce Damon's false
Speaker 1: confession to having raped, beaten, and strangled Crystal with a
Speaker 1: white or gray speaker wire from his car however, the
Speaker 1: victim was strangled with a red extension cord. He also
Speaker 1: said that he ejaculated both in and on the victim,
Speaker 1: but the medical examiner found no semen whatsoever, and that
Speaker 1: she hadn't even been raped. Given these inconsistencies, prosecutors got
Speaker 1: very creative to salvage their case. So basically in the
Speaker 1: confession statement, they had Damon saying that he, you know,
Speaker 1: had sex with the victim and ejaculated on her stomach
Speaker 1: and inside of her. But as Jason said, there was
Speaker 1: no seaman evidence recovered. And so, uh, you know, as
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions go, you know, a detective takes the stand
Speaker 1: and has asked, how can you explain? How can you
Speaker 1: account for this? And he says, well, there were maggots
Speaker 1: on the body, and so the maggots ate the sperm,
Speaker 1: and the jury bought it. The Corners report says she
Speaker 1: hadn't even been raped, right, So it's just how they
Speaker 1: found her, and they just went off to that conclusion
Speaker 1: while she was raped. In the case, there is no
Speaker 1: case I was. I was getting copies of whatever my
Speaker 1: lawyer at the time was getting from the crime labs.
Speaker 1: You know, I had copies of the same thing. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's no way they're going to convict me, you know,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't turn out that way. So you
Speaker 1: went to trial, and can you explain to us what
Speaker 1: that was. I mean, you sit there and you watch
Speaker 1: as your life falls apart, and there's nothing you can
Speaker 1: do about it. You're a spectator on the sideline. You're
Speaker 1: now in someone else's life. I mean, who who, whoever
Speaker 1: did this was supposed to be sitting in that seat,
Speaker 1: not me. Now I'm sitting in that seat. So now
Speaker 1: I'm in this individual's life. I have no idea who
Speaker 1: it is. And it's just you're speechless. And when the
Speaker 1: jury went out, did you think for a minute that
Speaker 1: they would convict you. No, I didn't. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: they see the evidence put in front of them, you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna look at this and say, okay, there's no
Speaker 1: way he did this. But it's like they didn't even
Speaker 1: pay attention to what was being presented. And most juries don't.
Speaker 1: They don't pay attention to the evidence that's in front
Speaker 1: of them. Like, like you said, they hear a false
Speaker 1: confession and they think, oh, that's it. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna con fest is something I didn't do, so obviously
Speaker 1: he did it. And that's just not true, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know that in the first what was the first
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty DNA generations, almost a quarter of them
Speaker 1: involved false confessions. Right, that's how common it is, right,
Speaker 1: And the numbers just growing. So now we have three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five DNA generations and we're up to
Speaker 1: have involved false confessions. It is one of the leading
Speaker 1: causes of wrongful convictions. And yet it's very hard for
Speaker 1: the public and judges and lawyers even to understand how
Speaker 1: you would confess to a rape or murder that you
Speaker 1: didn't commit. With a false confession, you're almost certain to
Speaker 1: be convicted. And more often people then will take a
Speaker 1: guilty plea because the chance of a conviction despite innocence
Speaker 1: is almost certain. So the jury comes back and they
Speaker 1: declare you guilty on all accounts. I mean, I can't imagine. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not a whole lot you can do. Now.
Speaker 1: Your life is not yours anymore. You now belong to
Speaker 1: the state. You are the property of the state. That's
Speaker 1: why they give you a number. You know, they took
Speaker 1: me to Angola took all of my identification and destroyed
Speaker 1: it everything, gave me a little prison I d with
Speaker 1: a prison number on it and that's it. Put me
Speaker 1: in the cell, and then gold just to paint a picture.
Speaker 1: Is formerly the slave Plantation. The reason it's called Angola
Speaker 1: because the slaves were brought over from Angola and it
Speaker 1: was once the bloodiest prison in the country. And there
Speaker 1: you were. How did you deal with it? And how
Speaker 1: did you even find the strength to survive and ultimately
Speaker 1: reach out and get ahold of the Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: and you know, how how are you even here? It's amazing. Well,
Speaker 1: for the first three years, I contemplated whether or not
Speaker 1: I wanted to be part of the monkey show? What's
Speaker 1: the monkey show? The execute? I actually thought about um
Speaker 1: dropping my appeals and having them carry out the execution
Speaker 1: and just be done with it. They make a spectacle
Speaker 1: when they execute someone, as everyone knows, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all it's all on the media. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: taking of a life, and they've turned it into some
Speaker 1: kind of sport. You know, everybody's like, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to kill this guy. And I did not want
Speaker 1: to be part of that. Things are a little different
Speaker 1: now because now they're looking at things while they're trying
Speaker 1: to look at it more humanely. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: How you kill someone is still an inhumane act. And
Speaker 1: with all the exonerations in the country today, I have
Speaker 1: to ask the question, how many more is it gonna
Speaker 1: take before we abolish it? Before we bolish it? How
Speaker 1: many more you already know you've killed innocent people? How
Speaker 1: many more? Twenty three hours a day no contact with anyone,
Speaker 1: twenty three hours a day in the cell, but no
Speaker 1: human contact. How do you deal with it? How did
Speaker 1: you deal with it? Like? How did you not lose
Speaker 1: your mind? You find things to do, like what whatever?
Speaker 1: You can play cards, exercise, clean the cell. I actually
Speaker 1: scrubbed myself with a toothbrush just to stay busy, just
Speaker 1: to stay busy. So ultimately you ended up somehow or
Speaker 1: other finding out about the Innis's Project reaching out. Well,
Speaker 1: Denise le buff had comes to see me one day.
Speaker 1: This was, you know, long before I had written the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project. We'll get to that in a minute. And
Speaker 1: this is the first time I had met Denise. Everyone
Speaker 1: calls her Danny. I call her Denise. It's a respect thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but she's sitting down in front of
Speaker 1: me and she's like, Okay, look, you didn't do this.
Speaker 1: I know your first lawyer wasn't all that good, but
Speaker 1: give me a chance. And that point on, I made
Speaker 1: it a point to at least attempt in existence, I suppose,
Speaker 1: instead of just giving up on it. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I had heard about the Innocence Project and I actually
Speaker 1: wrote them a letter. I gave them my lawyer's information,
Speaker 1: my information and the case number, and I sent it
Speaker 1: to him and I got a response back saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the only correspondence we're going to have because
Speaker 1: until they actually pick up a case. That's how it works,
Speaker 1: because you know, obviously there are guilty guys out there
Speaker 1: who are writing the Innocence Project trying to find a loophole.
Speaker 1: And that's the type of letter that I got. Next thing,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, there's this law firm in Minnesota
Speaker 1: who's down there taking my case. There's the Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: Barry and Vanessa show up one day and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: what does that like. It's like the Avengers write again
Speaker 1: or something. Right now now you look at it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: here comes thor with the hammer, you know, but still here,
Speaker 1: I am, what six seven years into this death sentence,
Speaker 1: and it takes another three or four years before they're
Speaker 1: ready to go talk to the district attorney. You know,
Speaker 1: Steve calls me Steve Kaplan, he's one of the lawyers
Speaker 1: from Frederickson and bron who handled my case, and he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do you want to do this? You want to
Speaker 1: just go to court and you you want to talk
Speaker 1: to the district attorney. I said, talk to the district
Speaker 1: attorney first, and everyone was was against the idea. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. You know who he is. He's he's
Speaker 1: a product of Paul Connick and they just want to
Speaker 1: kill people. And I said, well, what do I have
Speaker 1: to lose? You know, it's either another ten twenty year
Speaker 1: fight or maybe just by luck, he'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: So they set up a meeting and he agreed to
Speaker 1: reinvestigate my case and you're you're in that meeting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this wasn't you know. Now, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about conviction review units, you know, being established throughout
Speaker 1: the country, but this was several years go, and so
Speaker 1: you know, we arranged a meeting to go talk to
Speaker 1: the d A. Paul Konic and who was the cousin
Speaker 1: of Harry Connick. So he's the good cousin, and um,
Speaker 1: he is the d A. M. Jefferson Parish. And you know,
Speaker 1: big team there. They had an investigator, Vince Lammy on
Speaker 1: the room and uh Steve Wimberley the first assistant. So
Speaker 1: they assembled a big team and we basically went through
Speaker 1: a presentation of the confession of the timeline which just
Speaker 1: virtually made it impossible for Damon to have been involved.
Speaker 1: So when we walked through and we did a presentation,
Speaker 1: they did acknowledge that there were enough problems in the
Speaker 1: case that they should undertake an investigation. And it was
Speaker 1: quite a massive undertaking. Um, every piece of evidence that
Speaker 1: existed was sent out for DNA testing, and because he
Speaker 1: had been arrested that night, they had taken a male
Speaker 1: rape kit from him. I mean there was not one
Speaker 1: piece of physical evidence to suggest that he had anything
Speaker 1: to do with the crime. And in fact, the victim
Speaker 1: had been strangled with a piece of wire and um
Speaker 1: it had been burned off of a wire that was
Speaker 1: hanging in a tree. So the perpetrator burned it off
Speaker 1: and then took it to strangle the victim, and we
Speaker 1: were able to get some bloods and DNA on that
Speaker 1: wire at the scene that that excluded Damon. So you know,
Speaker 1: there was years of a joint reinvestigation with the district
Speaker 1: attorney's office to get to the point where they acknowledged
Speaker 1: that Damon was innocent and they had convicted and sent
Speaker 1: an innocent man to death row. How often is it
Speaker 1: that a district attorney that's prosecuted a case is the
Speaker 1: same district attorney that comes back and releases that individual.
Speaker 1: It's rare. So kind of did something in Louisiana that
Speaker 1: was pretty much unheard of and it could have hurt him.
Speaker 1: You know, he took that chance to step out there
Speaker 1: and say, okay, wait, we got a problem. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad he got out of his comfort zone and
Speaker 1: decided to take a step in a new direction. So
Speaker 1: now it comes to the good part of the story, right,
Speaker 1: the moment right when you found out that you were
Speaker 1: actually going to go home. How did you find out?
Speaker 1: What was it like? It was a phone call on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday. I think it was. Everything was agreed to.
Speaker 1: They had set something up to have the judge and
Speaker 1: the district attorney signed everything. But the thing they were
Speaker 1: trying to get everything done before Friday because that's when
Speaker 1: the prison office is closed. So this was all done
Speaker 1: on a Friday, and they had everything faxed over to
Speaker 1: the prison and the sergeant comes down to the to
Speaker 1: the cell. He says, pack your stuff. You're going home,
Speaker 1: but first we have to take you over to the
Speaker 1: hospital to have you checked out. So I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm in a full jumpsuit and change and I go
Speaker 1: to the hospital and the ranking officers there is like
Speaker 1: by s and a jumpsuit and chains. Where's his property? Well,
Speaker 1: he's it's everything's back to the the cell where he's going home.
Speaker 1: He's he's not supposed to be going at So they
Speaker 1: had to take me back to death Row, take me
Speaker 1: out of the jumpsuit, and I gotta put my clothes
Speaker 1: on and grab my stuff. So you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's not real until you walk out the gate.
Speaker 1: And after you worked on this case for all those years,
Speaker 1: what was it like for you? Well, um, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: I personally wasn't there because I was basically nine months
Speaker 1: pregnant and I couldn't get on a plane, so I
Speaker 1: missed that moment of seeing Damon Um. But it was
Speaker 1: you know, Barry Scheck was there, Steve Kaplan from the
Speaker 1: law firm, Danny Labuff from the Capitol Resource Center in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and it just you know, I don't even know what
Speaker 1: the estimate is of Steve's hours. Steve, I mean, he
Speaker 1: he was so instrumental in helping me out while while
Speaker 1: I was there, and post release, he helped me out
Speaker 1: in ways that you know, you just can't repay. You know,
Speaker 1: this man, he flew down here and drove me back
Speaker 1: to Minnesota because I had decided to move to Minnesota
Speaker 1: after I was released to start things over, and I
Speaker 1: lived with him until November of that year, got my
Speaker 1: own place, and he actually the Innersence Project helped me
Speaker 1: get a car, helped me with my rent, and Steve
Speaker 1: helped me out with that as well. And you know,
Speaker 1: I can't repay him for what he's done. So Damon,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you, and it's beautiful to hear
Speaker 1: you say that. UM, have you been compensated? No, so
Speaker 1: you've got nothing. I've got nothing. There is current litigation, um, right,
Speaker 1: but if you know you're having to make ends to
Speaker 1: me on your own. Yeah. I mean, if I don't
Speaker 1: do nothing, I'm gonna lose my mind. You know, there
Speaker 1: are things I want to do, places I want to go.
Speaker 1: You know. I like that juicy steak, you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: but you gotta pay for it, right, So you're out there,
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm out there doing my job, and
Speaker 1: you know, if it comes through, then hey, I'm all
Speaker 1: for it. But if not, then you know I've got
Speaker 1: a job to do. So look, I think, Damon, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a terrible story. It's a remarkable story. You're
Speaker 1: a remarkable guy. You're out there now driving a truck
Speaker 1: and living life and seeing the country and experiencing freedom.
Speaker 1: And that's awesome and we're really proud of you. And
Speaker 1: now we get to my favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: which is that I actually get to stop talking and
Speaker 1: just listen. And so before I do that, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you both again for coming and being on
Speaker 1: the show. Vanessa Popkin, Senior staff attorney at The Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: badass lawyer and human being and uh and Damon Thibodeaux
Speaker 1: Death row Ax honoree and inspirational character. So um, i'
Speaker 1: gonna think We're gonna save the best for last, and
Speaker 1: that's you, Damon. So with all due respect that we're
Speaker 1: gonna turn it over to you, Vanessa for your closing thoughts. Well,
Speaker 1: we've talked about, you know, the number of people in
Speaker 1: prison and the US leading in terms of our prison
Speaker 1: population leading the world. Um, and you know when it
Speaker 1: comes to and what the error rates are and how
Speaker 1: many people that means are innocent in prison today, and
Speaker 1: when you take a look just at death row in itself,
Speaker 1: we have about people on death row. There have been
Speaker 1: conservative estimates that four four or four point one percent
Speaker 1: of people on death row are actually innocent, and so
Speaker 1: that would mean there are hundred and nine people incarcerated
Speaker 1: today on death row facing execution um for crimes that
Speaker 1: they didn't commit. David, Well, Um, you know, being where
Speaker 1: I am now as opposed to where it was six
Speaker 1: years ago. You know, a lot of guys in my
Speaker 1: position they don't have anything when they walk out, and
Speaker 1: it's sometimes years before they get compensation. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of help getting where I am. You know, the
Speaker 1: reason why I'm driving in truck is because I'm at
Speaker 1: a guy at the Minneapolis Auto Show, guy named Bill
Speaker 1: Collins Fronds of truck driving school. Uh he was, you know,
Speaker 1: at the auto show. He drives, you know, stock cards
Speaker 1: as well as a hobby. And he asked me one day,
Speaker 1: he said, what do you think about driving truck? And
Speaker 1: I said it's okay. He said, well, I want to
Speaker 1: pay for you to go through my school and get
Speaker 1: your CDL. I'm sitting here thinking, okay, I have the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project doing this, I have Steve doing this, and
Speaker 1: now here's this guy here. He's he's offering to pay
Speaker 1: for me to go to schools to get this license.
Speaker 1: You know. Here here I am today. I'm pretty much
Speaker 1: paid to see the country, you know. But it takes
Speaker 1: a lot to give someone their life back. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean life as breathing. I mean we walk out.
Speaker 1: We have no job, we have no soil of security,
Speaker 1: we have no retirement we have we don't have a license,
Speaker 1: we don't have an idea. I had to fight to
Speaker 1: get my birth certificate with my name on it. And
Speaker 1: if not for the Innocence Project and other lawyers involved,
Speaker 1: then I don't know where I'd be right now. More
Speaker 1: programs need to be put in place for exonorees because
Speaker 1: someone who actually gets out on parole has more resources
Speaker 1: at their disposal than someone like myself, and you know
Speaker 1: that should not be the case. You know. Being where
Speaker 1: I am now is is it's a blessing, you know,
Speaker 1: And coming from where I've been, will but reduced said
Speaker 1: it best. My worst day out here is better than
Speaker 1: my best day in prison. So I think, I think
Speaker 1: everybody for helping me out every day. I try. I
Speaker 1: try every day to do it right, So don't forget
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocents Project that I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music
Speaker 1: on the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts. In association with signal Company number one