Speaker 1: I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was brought up like cops are the good guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 1: do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything like
Speaker 1: everything this isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this. How is this possible? I grew up
Speaker 1: trusting the systems. I grew up believing that every human
Speaker 1: thing should do the right thing. And that's why, even
Speaker 1: though I was dealing with corros people, I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to brave anyone to get me out of prison because
Speaker 1: I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my
Speaker 1: way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to
Speaker 1: proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And
Speaker 1: that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've
Speaker 1: been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but
Speaker 1: it's still broken, a totally little trust in humanity after
Speaker 1: what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. Today, I have two extraordinary people as
Speaker 1: my guests. Justin Brooks, who many of you will recognize
Speaker 1: because he's a return guest on the podcast. Justin is
Speaker 1: the director of the California Innocence Project and a personally
Speaker 1: hero of mine. So Justin, welcome back. Thank you so much, Susan.
Speaker 1: And with him is our featured guest, who is an
Speaker 1: extraordinary person with an insane story to tell that I
Speaker 1: think we can all learn a lot from. And I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to hear um the whole, the whole thing,
Speaker 1: um as much as we can get in. And I
Speaker 1: know it's impossible to share all your um, all your
Speaker 1: saga on this one hour format, but Luis Vargas, I'm
Speaker 1: really happy to have you here. I mean, as I
Speaker 1: always say, I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here,
Speaker 1: but welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I am also very happy to do this, and I'm
Speaker 1: enthusiast about what's to be the result of this type
Speaker 1: of podcast. It's a blessing to me. Well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you say that, because I think in sharing your story,
Speaker 1: the best we can hope for is that people will
Speaker 1: get a better understanding of just how flawed our justice
Speaker 1: system is and how these mistakes can really ruin so
Speaker 1: many people's lives. And by that I mean not just yours,
Speaker 1: but all of the victims that were, uh tragically hurt
Speaker 1: as a result of the fact that they put the
Speaker 1: wrong guy behind bars when there was a serial rapist
Speaker 1: on the loose who was out there are committing heinous
Speaker 1: acts against innocent women in California. So let's let's get
Speaker 1: right into it. M Louis, Where where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: What was your childhood? Like bring us back memory, you know,
Speaker 1: like in the movies when it gets all foggy and
Speaker 1: you go back to back to the day. Where where
Speaker 1: were you born and where do you grow up? I
Speaker 1: was born in uh, Mexico, Dijuanavo, CA, California, Mexico. However,
Speaker 1: I migrated to California when I was about ten years old.
Speaker 1: I grew up in south central Los Angeles, you know,
Speaker 1: started going to school elementary, junior high, high school, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know that's why I basically grew up
Speaker 1: at And was your childhood happy childhood? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I know we've had a lot of challenges being an
Speaker 1: immigrant difficulty. You weren't in a you know, probably in
Speaker 1: those times. Growing up in the nineties in south central
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was, you know, a dangerous environment. But
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little more about that well
Speaker 1: dangerous it was. I mean I grew up in a
Speaker 1: single parent household, you know, and unfortunately, my mother had
Speaker 1: to work two jobs to be able to, uh to
Speaker 1: put food on our tables and keep us closed, you know,
Speaker 1: and do all that, you know, try to provide for us.
Speaker 1: And as we grew up, it was pretty rough. It was.
Speaker 1: It was south central Los Angeles. I mean, it's well
Speaker 1: known for its crime and everything that happens around it. Uh.
Speaker 1: I started uh seeking, you know, outside of the home,
Speaker 1: the things that I wasn't able to get inside the
Speaker 1: home because of the fact that mother was working two jobs,
Speaker 1: not because she didn't want to give it to me,
Speaker 1: but because she was working too jobs. She already ever
Speaker 1: came home, and when she came home, she came home
Speaker 1: so it softly that she felt, I mean, she needed
Speaker 1: to get some rest in the meantime. You know, I
Speaker 1: I along with her sister, older sister and a younger brother.
Speaker 1: You know, we grew up basically not on our own,
Speaker 1: but you know, figuring things out for the most part,
Speaker 1: you know, on our own, you know. And the things
Speaker 1: that I was agreeing out, you know, I was doing
Speaker 1: them by searching places where I didn't really need to be,
Speaker 1: you know, got around, got around the neighborhood, started to
Speaker 1: know a few kids, you know, groupies, and and you know,
Speaker 1: before you know it, I was growing up pretty fast.
Speaker 1: Life on the highway, as they said, you know, and
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty dramatic. And you were homeless
Speaker 1: for a period of time, is that right? I was?
Speaker 1: I was? I was. I was homeless for a period
Speaker 1: of time due to the fact that I had left
Speaker 1: home for a while. And when I left home, I
Speaker 1: was down in the San Diego area, so I was
Speaker 1: on my own. I was at my own. I was
Speaker 1: fearing things out on my own. I think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, a teenager not really knowing, you know, what
Speaker 1: life is about, barely figuring life out, trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of things, you know, and just making doing the
Speaker 1: best he could to survive. You know, that was me.
Speaker 1: And it was at that time that you got a
Speaker 1: time too that turned out to play a very um role.
Speaker 1: You could never have predicted that really had a devastating
Speaker 1: impact on your life down the road. But we'll get
Speaker 1: into that further as we get along in the story.
Speaker 1: So let's let's fast forward to um. This was a
Speaker 1: time when there was a lot of crime, um much
Speaker 1: worse than it is now in America. And at the
Speaker 1: time there was a serial rapist on the loose in
Speaker 1: California called the tear drop rapist um And justin, can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that and what you know,
Speaker 1: what were what what was the whole circumstance surrounding that, um?
Speaker 1: You know that that time? Sure, So there was a
Speaker 1: serial racist um in Los Angeles. All of the women
Speaker 1: were Latin women Latina. They were all waiting at bust
Speaker 1: early in the morning, and it all occurred within a
Speaker 1: one and a half mile radius in a certain area
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. Uh, the rapists would approach them, asked
Speaker 1: for directions, and it was a Latino man. And then
Speaker 1: all these rapes occurred. The witnesses the one defining feature,
Speaker 1: so just a tattoo was very popular during this error
Speaker 1: those of us works of the criminal justice system. It's
Speaker 1: seen this tattoo where it's one or two tear drops
Speaker 1: and all of the victims described their attacker that way,
Speaker 1: that it was a Latino man, that he approached them
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning at the bus stop, and
Speaker 1: that the with these attacks and at this tattoo was
Speaker 1: on the attacker. And so it was very clear, based
Speaker 1: on this very specific m O that there was one
Speaker 1: guy who was doing all these rapes. Louise ends up
Speaker 1: getting arrested and charts with three of these rapes, which
Speaker 1: when we went back in and started investigating the case,
Speaker 1: was starting his okay, why is this one guy charged
Speaker 1: with three of these attacks? And by the time we
Speaker 1: reviewed the case, there had been thirty five documented attacks
Speaker 1: with his exact same m O. How many of those
Speaker 1: had occurred after his arrest, So that's the crazy part
Speaker 1: of the story. We went in and we were able
Speaker 1: to use DNA to match up one of the rapes
Speaker 1: that Louise Scott accused of with rapes that have occurred
Speaker 1: while he was incarcerated. And in fact, one of these
Speaker 1: rapes occurred while Luise was on trial and sitting in jail.
Speaker 1: And just imagine that if if you know your clients
Speaker 1: on trial for life for this crime and somebody else
Speaker 1: is committing the same crime in the same city, in
Speaker 1: the same area, with the exact same m O and
Speaker 1: a diffic attorney is getting up and telling the jury,
Speaker 1: you know, whose three rapes all have the same amount
Speaker 1: of they're clearly done by the same guy. Well it
Speaker 1: was the same guy, and that same guy was still
Speaker 1: committing those crimes while Louise was on trial and after
Speaker 1: he went to prison. And do we know for certain
Speaker 1: that the DA had that information at that time. So
Speaker 1: what we do know is that the police department had
Speaker 1: investigated it so much to the point of that they
Speaker 1: had what was called a rape book, and they had
Speaker 1: linked all these crimes together. And they didn't widely publicize this.
Speaker 1: I don't you know, for whatever reasons they had, whether
Speaker 1: they didn't want to make people scared scared or create
Speaker 1: some kind of hysteria. But we do know that they
Speaker 1: were in possession of this information, that they had linked
Speaker 1: to this information, and yet that information was not turned
Speaker 1: over to the defense. And as you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a clear Brady violation that the government must turn over
Speaker 1: all potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. And this was
Speaker 1: clearly exculpatory, right, I mean, this is his black and
Speaker 1: white as it can be. And meanwhile, Luis, you had
Speaker 1: alibis for at least one or more of these crimes
Speaker 1: that you were charged with, Is that right? Yes? I did.
Speaker 1: I had albs. I mean I used to work at
Speaker 1: I used to be a manager for a Manhattan bagel
Speaker 1: store right there in North Hollywood, and uh I used
Speaker 1: to drive my baker even to work sometimes at four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. So one one of the incidents
Speaker 1: where I we did present an alibia court was not
Speaker 1: admitted because the manager at that time that was working
Speaker 1: along my side, he had written it down because the
Speaker 1: time clock machine have broken. I mean, imagine that the
Speaker 1: iron is right, one of the one of the one
Speaker 1: times that I really needed to have solid alibi. You know,
Speaker 1: the time clock happens to be broken, so he has
Speaker 1: to go in and write it down, jotted down with
Speaker 1: his his with a penningham. So you know, that's why
Speaker 1: it wasn't at miss it wasn't admissable in court. But
Speaker 1: I did have several alibis, and unfortunately, you know, none
Speaker 1: of them seemed to be uh solid enough to be
Speaker 1: able to hold up, you know, so they still went
Speaker 1: ahead and convicted me on the just basically on hearsay,
Speaker 1: you know, well on as as Jason, you've talked about
Speaker 1: many times on this sol You're convicted based on the
Speaker 1: bad identifications made by these very frightened victims of this
Speaker 1: horrible crime. And these identifications were not you know, from
Speaker 1: my understanding and reading about the case, these identifications were wavering.
Speaker 1: The the the victims were We're not sure. At various
Speaker 1: times they were, um, you know, back and forth, and
Speaker 1: so even we know for for sure, And people who
Speaker 1: listened to the show have probably heard the Jennifer Thompson
Speaker 1: Ronald Cotton episode, you know, where as she was described
Speaker 1: as the perfect witness, UM, a woman who was you know,
Speaker 1: twenty two year old college students sober home alone and
Speaker 1: spent twenty five minutes doing nothing but budying her attack
Speaker 1: or every detail because she was absolutely determined that she
Speaker 1: was going to memorize everything about his appearance. Um and uh,
Speaker 1: and she had time to do it, and she identified
Speaker 1: him with absolute certainty in a lineup in a muck
Speaker 1: shot book and at trial, and of course, eleven years
Speaker 1: later tragically found out that she had been wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's becoming a tremendous advocate as as
Speaker 1: he for eyewitness identification procedure improvements and um um, you know,
Speaker 1: refinements and and and you know, there's just there's so
Speaker 1: many things that we need to do and there's a
Speaker 1: many things that we can do to improve that process.
Speaker 1: But in your case, Luise, that it wasn't even that
Speaker 1: it wasn't even like it was a strong identification. It
Speaker 1: was uh, you know, they were they were on the fence,
Speaker 1: and so it seems so insane you had you had
Speaker 1: an alibi. The time clock thing is blowing my mind.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too because I'm sure some people that
Speaker 1: are listening in l A, you know, maybe may have
Speaker 1: been to your bagel store at the time. They may
Speaker 1: even know you. So um, but go ahead, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because these uh, these uh uh descriptions that
Speaker 1: the young ladies gave, you know, which I do feel
Speaker 1: very sorry that it happened to them. You know, I
Speaker 1: think they were ultimately, uh not only influenced by all
Speaker 1: the factors that were surrounding them, the fear, the stress,
Speaker 1: the weapons, the weapon that was used, the chaoffs, and
Speaker 1: not to mention the fact that when they were interviewed
Speaker 1: at the time that they were interviewed. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: positive that they were influenced by the people that interviewed them.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, how could you go from UH
Speaker 1: being okay during during a foto expect photo lineup? How
Speaker 1: could you go from being no, no, no, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: eighty five percent sure, okay, eighty five percent sure that
Speaker 1: I'm within the sixth pact that you were shown. Then
Speaker 1: from eighty five you go down talking about Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the young ladies that identified me uh during the
Speaker 1: photo lineup, first she said she was eighty five percent sure.
Speaker 1: Then she came back and said seventy sure. Then ultimately
Speaker 1: during the trial, when UH the d A win and
Speaker 1: and and and asked for her identification, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: lo and behold the jabu. You know sure that it
Speaker 1: was me the one, the one that attacked her. You
Speaker 1: know that is amazing to me. The way the way
Speaker 1: things happened like that. I mean, everything was playing out
Speaker 1: in front of me as if there was some type
Speaker 1: of motion picture. I couldn't understand it. My mind was
Speaker 1: was baffled because of the things that were going on.
Speaker 1: I was so sure and so confident that I was
Speaker 1: going to win this trial because of the fact that
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with it. I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with I mean, I was looking at the
Speaker 1: at the witness is straight in the eyes because I
Speaker 1: wanted them so badly to identify me, not as the attacker,
Speaker 1: of course, but as a person that did not have it. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately I was, I was dered with a blow. I
Speaker 1: was there with what at that time seen a deadly blow.
Speaker 1: Because I was, I was sent to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of my life in prison. Fifty five years to life
Speaker 1: was a sense and and just in this case has
Speaker 1: you know, so many really terribly common um earmarks of
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Right, you have mistaken I witness identification. You
Speaker 1: have exculpatory evidence that was withhold clear Brady violations in
Speaker 1: other words, in legal terms. And you also had an
Speaker 1: incompetent defense attorney who didn't call witnesses to the stand
Speaker 1: that could have and very well might have, um you know,
Speaker 1: influence the jury in a way where they would have
Speaker 1: gotten it right, which is which is always like, that's
Speaker 1: that's all that always blows my mind, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't understand how someone can pass the bar and
Speaker 1: then end up as a lawyer. You have to have
Speaker 1: a you know, a certain amount of intelligence. Not easy
Speaker 1: to pass the bar, right you gotta And and then
Speaker 1: you end up in a core room and you don't
Speaker 1: do the most basic thing that anyone who watches TV knows.
Speaker 1: Call the witnesses who can say he was at a
Speaker 1: different place, He couldn't have done this. He was making bagels,
Speaker 1: fucking bagels. I mean, Jesus Christ, he was smearing cream
Speaker 1: cheese on the damn thing. You know. He was not
Speaker 1: this woman. I mean, oh my god, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: so justin can you explain how does that even happen?
Speaker 1: Why is that a thing? I mean, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: the I D problem is really the biggest problem here.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you something even more shocking. We are
Speaker 1: two decades later and Los Angeles is still using these procedures.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles has not changed to the best practices for
Speaker 1: eyewitness identification. And we've changed in San Diego, we've changed
Speaker 1: in Northern California, But the biggest county in the United
Speaker 1: States is still doing this. And what are those practices?
Speaker 1: Are those best practices? So you should never use six packs?
Speaker 1: Um So, the problems with six packs photo rays are
Speaker 1: well documented and every study has shown that when you
Speaker 1: shows a victim six photos, what their brain does is
Speaker 1: make a comparative analysis of those six and they pick
Speaker 1: out the person who most looks like the suspect. Now
Speaker 1: it does. They may not look like the suspect very
Speaker 1: much at all, but out of those six, it's the
Speaker 1: person who most looks like it. And then they start
Speaker 1: doing these statistical analysis of you know, what's their percentage
Speaker 1: of clarity, and it's all completely meaningless. You know, there's
Speaker 1: there's no way to assess in your life what your
Speaker 1: percential or what you sure of because memory is so
Speaker 1: easily contaminated and there's so many problems with it. So
Speaker 1: the best practice is to show single photos, one at
Speaker 1: a time. And more importantly, you cannot have the officers
Speaker 1: involved in the process who know who the suspect is
Speaker 1: because they always give off tells and and even when
Speaker 1: they don't do something stupid like take a good long
Speaker 1: look at number three, they do the kind of things
Speaker 1: that we hear in this case where Louis talked about
Speaker 1: how the witness changed, how sure she was. Well, that
Speaker 1: can happen as simple as this. You pick number, you
Speaker 1: pick letters C, and the officer thinks it's letter C.
Speaker 1: So they say things like good job, okay, great, all right,
Speaker 1: we got them, and now they're sure they have the
Speaker 1: right person. And in rape cases you get the worst
Speaker 1: ideas because you have now a victim who's is frightened,
Speaker 1: has gone to a lot of trauma, who desperately wants
Speaker 1: this person off the street. So they're going to go
Speaker 1: along with that because that that is what their psyche
Speaker 1: wants to happen. They want to be comforted by this
Speaker 1: that they got the right person, that they're off the streets.
Speaker 1: So the problem in this country is we have no
Speaker 1: true national criminal justice policy only in the federal courts.
Speaker 1: The very small part of our criminal justice is that
Speaker 1: most of it's in the state courts. No one has
Speaker 1: control to change national policy. So we have to fight
Speaker 1: these battles state by state and then county by county,
Speaker 1: because for example, in Los Angeles, it's up to the
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office and the chief of police as to
Speaker 1: what procedures they use. So this is going to be
Speaker 1: a battle that's going to go on for a long time.
Speaker 1: Whereas in other countries, like I just came back from
Speaker 1: the UK. In the UK, they have national criminal justice
Speaker 1: policies that they put in place throughout the country. But
Speaker 1: we've divided our country into all these jurisdictions with all
Speaker 1: these little pockets of power, and we have cases like Louise, right.
Speaker 1: And this is an interesting thing too, because this is
Speaker 1: not a liberal or a conservative issue, or a democratic
Speaker 1: or Republican or this or that it should be in
Speaker 1: this case. Is so why I'm so appreciate that Louise
Speaker 1: is here, because this case screams out for all the people.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about dozens of people, women who were
Speaker 1: brutally attacked in in the wake of his wrongful arrest
Speaker 1: and conviction because they stopped looking for the real guy
Speaker 1: when they got Luise. Even though these things went on
Speaker 1: and on and on. It's like, so it's or they
Speaker 1: took a beat. I mean, they must have started again
Speaker 1: at some point, but they chose to just not share
Speaker 1: that information with Louise and his team because they already
Speaker 1: had him. But they knew that this was the same guy.
Speaker 1: There was never any question. I mean, you can't have
Speaker 1: a more uh dynamic example of a serial predator. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy was. I mean it's unreal. I mean, especially
Speaker 1: at a one point six mile radius and that would
Speaker 1: have terrified the neighborhood. I mean. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know what bugs me about that is that the
Speaker 1: authorities should have made this known to everyone, because what
Speaker 1: about the how would you like to be a parent
Speaker 1: of one of these kids, or a relative or anything else?
Speaker 1: And you see, Wow, if I had known, I never
Speaker 1: would have let her go to the bus stop by
Speaker 1: herself until this guy was lock ball. I mean, not
Speaker 1: a chance. I mean, anyone who's listening who has a daughter,
Speaker 1: which I do, Uh, it's like you would do anything
Speaker 1: you could to protect that child. Maybe you wouldn't even
Speaker 1: let them go to school until this was resolved. But
Speaker 1: no way would you expose someone to a risk that
Speaker 1: was so incredibly high and you know where it's going
Speaker 1: to happen. And by the way, they also should have
Speaker 1: had patrols out at every bus stop for that period
Speaker 1: of time, right, I mean, how long would it have
Speaker 1: taken this one point six miles? You would have needed
Speaker 1: just a quick map, right thing, and you could have
Speaker 1: done it. I mean, you know, it's not even I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's it's baffling to me, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And of course you know, Luis is one victim in
Speaker 1: this case, but there's so many others and it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's really it's hard to wrap yourself around it. But
Speaker 1: it's why it's so important that we're doing the work
Speaker 1: that we're doing. And again, where could the disagreement be.
Speaker 1: Why would we as a society, anyone from any sort
Speaker 1: of political persuasion or any ideology and philosophy would want
Speaker 1: to make sure that this predator, this this animal who
Speaker 1: was doing these things over and over again would be
Speaker 1: off the streets. So in order to do that, we know,
Speaker 1: we have the information, we've had it for years. Has
Speaker 1: justin said, right, you know, we need to have what's
Speaker 1: called the double blind, which means that the person conducting
Speaker 1: with is the muck shadow of the lineup or any
Speaker 1: sort of witness identification procedure cannot must not know who
Speaker 1: the actual suspect is, because even if they have the
Speaker 1: best intentions, they're going to say things that will influence
Speaker 1: the witness in this case, the victims or any witness
Speaker 1: to to you know, to change their opinion, and that's
Speaker 1: not a good thing. That that leads to more mistakes.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, we know too that um,
Speaker 1: mug shots. And this is the simplest thing in the world, right,
Speaker 1: and it's science. It's just fucking science. Instead of having
Speaker 1: six pictures on the page, you have one, and the
Speaker 1: mind works better that way. And I know I would
Speaker 1: be the world's worst witness because I'm that guy who
Speaker 1: will meet somebody and I'm embarrassed to say so. I'll
Speaker 1: meet somebody, we'll go to lunch, and then I'll run
Speaker 1: it to them three days later and they're like, hey, Jason,
Speaker 1: what's happening. I'm like, hey, man, how you doing? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like that, I'm like, oh god,
Speaker 1: I can't remember I mean, I can't remember names. I
Speaker 1: can only remember jokes and phone numbers. But anyway, that's
Speaker 1: that's my problems. So most people, most people are like
Speaker 1: you though, Jason. I mean, I think human beings just
Speaker 1: really don't have that kind of capacity. And as you said,
Speaker 1: you know, the police officers are not great poker players. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, my brother is a professional poker player. And
Speaker 1: I go watch these guys play and they wear hats
Speaker 1: and sunglasses and they look down at the table and
Speaker 1: they do anything to not give a towel of what
Speaker 1: their hand is and these guys are professional poker players.
Speaker 1: But I imagine these police officers they're giving out all
Speaker 1: kinds of signals of who they really want to get,
Speaker 1: who the real guy is, and and it's tragic the results. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. Sometimes they unwinningly go ahead and give up
Speaker 1: tell tell science, I sel a good job, or you know,
Speaker 1: to lead to kind of persuade the victim at this time.
Speaker 1: But sometimes this is the scary part that sometimes they
Speaker 1: just do it for the sake of doing it, because
Speaker 1: they want to close the case. Yeah, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that at this moment, when you're
Speaker 1: talking about I witness identification, I was just recalling back
Speaker 1: to one of one of the paces in my trial
Speaker 1: on February I think it was February sixteen. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: one of the young victims, uh identified me in court.
Speaker 1: I mean this process. The d A at this time
Speaker 1: said that the victim took a long time to identify
Speaker 1: me because she was afraid, I mean a long time
Speaker 1: five minutes turned to identify someone, you know, and when
Speaker 1: she couldn't identify me because she scanned when the when
Speaker 1: the d A asked her, you know, if she'd seen
Speaker 1: me in the court room. Can she please identified me
Speaker 1: as in what I was wearing? She asked the d
Speaker 1: A question, She goes, I mean picture this you got.
Speaker 1: You have the whole progroom. Well it was standing a
Speaker 1: standing room. You had the twelve jurors, you had the audience,
Speaker 1: and then you had me at the defensive. All that time,
Speaker 1: I had fired my my public defender because I mean,
Speaker 1: he was doing such a lousy job. I was so
Speaker 1: I was so confident that was not going to get identified,
Speaker 1: that I was not gonna get sentence that on one
Speaker 1: of the occasions, went went to one of our of
Speaker 1: our hearings. He went ahead and asked for another extension.
Speaker 1: I got up, showing then everything. I got up and
Speaker 1: I said, your honor, I object, I do not want
Speaker 1: another extension. I want this to be over. Man. The
Speaker 1: bailiff rushed from the back and just grabbed my shoulders
Speaker 1: and set me down, you know. And then when I
Speaker 1: looked at my attorney and I told him I don't
Speaker 1: want another extension, the public vendor and he looked at me.
Speaker 1: I mean, he straight out screened from the top of
Speaker 1: this lane, you're gonna get sentenced, And I got no,
Speaker 1: I'm not I didn't do these crimes right, and the
Speaker 1: judge just slapped slapped is uh hammer on the on
Speaker 1: the on the desk and just like order in the court. Right.
Speaker 1: So I go, okay, fine, but I told him I
Speaker 1: did not want another extension. Well, fast forward to one
Speaker 1: of the faces in my trial. This young lady had
Speaker 1: such a hard time identifying me that she scanned when
Speaker 1: she was sold to identify the look around the court
Speaker 1: room and identifying me. She asked the d A a
Speaker 1: question from who? From them? And guess go she was
Speaker 1: pointing too. She was pointing to the jury, to the
Speaker 1: twelve jurors. She was asking the d A from who
Speaker 1: do I have to identify my attacker? From them? From
Speaker 1: the twelve jurors? No, that's when the DA said, no,
Speaker 1: from the whole core room. Look at the whole core room.
Speaker 1: So she scanned from left or right, very slowly, left
Speaker 1: or right, all the way from the jury to the
Speaker 1: defense table. And then as I was looking, I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't lower my head for a minute, not even
Speaker 1: a second. I looked at her straight in the eyes
Speaker 1: and hoped to God that she would say, no, that's
Speaker 1: not him, that's not the bumping the notes that I remember.
Speaker 1: That's not the clearest uh the unshaven phase that I remember.
Speaker 1: That's not the churl drop that I remember seeing or
Speaker 1: not seeing. She looked straight at me. I looked straight
Speaker 1: at her and at that not even one fraction of
Speaker 1: a second later, she went ahead and scanned the room
Speaker 1: back all the way back to the jury room, to
Speaker 1: the jury uh where the jury was sitting, and stop hesitated,
Speaker 1: didn't say nothing. The d a once again win like
Speaker 1: like prono her name, and said, can you please look
Speaker 1: at round the core room and identify the person that
Speaker 1: attacks you? Okay, This time she didn't ask can you
Speaker 1: please tell us if the person that I take is here?
Speaker 1: This time she's saying, can you identify the person that
Speaker 1: attacked you? In other words, you know what he's definitely
Speaker 1: here or you have to do is identifying. So now
Speaker 1: the victim is over here, once again, scanning the room
Speaker 1: from left to right. I mean, they took an eternity.
Speaker 1: And she did this three times, and I'm all this time,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at her, I'm hoping, I'm praying to God
Speaker 1: to be rid of those shackles. Well, when she did
Speaker 1: this a second time, by this time, the D A
Speaker 1: asked the judge to grant her emotions. She goes, to
Speaker 1: your honor, can I please move around the core room.
Speaker 1: Your honor goes like, what's the reason? The d A
Speaker 1: And I'm surprised by that time I had a hired attorney.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he did not object to that. But when
Speaker 1: the judge asked her, what's the reason, she said, I
Speaker 1: just I just want to move around the portom let
Speaker 1: her know, let my witness know that she's okay, that
Speaker 1: she's not in danger, that everything's fine, you know. So
Speaker 1: that judge goes granted. So I had an attorney that
Speaker 1: I mean, he was like about maybe at that at
Speaker 1: that time, probably a good six or four six years
Speaker 1: old maybe. Uh. He was Anglo Saxon, real tall, Harris
Speaker 1: why as snow and he was pretty like complexed, so
Speaker 1: light that on the heated day he could probably turn
Speaker 1: red because of the heat. Right. Well, anyways, the young
Speaker 1: the d A goes behind him. I mean, picture this
Speaker 1: in the middle of a trial for someone's life. Is
Speaker 1: I mean at the precipice of being sentenced to fifty
Speaker 1: five years to life. I mean, I'm talking about my
Speaker 1: earliest chance of parole was going to be on October
Speaker 1: of twenty. Could you imagine that? I mean, I thought
Speaker 1: the whole world was eating me a life. Well, the
Speaker 1: d A goes behind my attorney and stands behind him,
Speaker 1: and she goes the young lady does this left like
Speaker 1: the person that attack you. Come on? What's she gonna say? No?
Speaker 1: Then the d A she might as well grabs her
Speaker 1: little pointer, pulled it out, stretched it out, and fragmopped
Speaker 1: me and said, hey, this is the guy right here.
Speaker 1: Look at him, you know, I mean hispanic, possibly a
Speaker 1: gang affiliated, uh, slick hair, black, you know, commit backwards,
Speaker 1: uh tattoos. Look at them looking a little good. You
Speaker 1: don't need to think long. This is the guy. She
Speaker 1: she might as well have said that, because after she
Speaker 1: stood behind my attorney, she stands right and I knew
Speaker 1: what this was gonna cough. I knew what's gonna happened next.
Speaker 1: As soon as I've seen her approach my attorney, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: here it comes here, it comes to the shotgun blast.
Speaker 1: Because it did feel like a shotgun blast. I felt
Speaker 1: that I was taken back by all the things that
Speaker 1: were going on. I mean, they sentenced me basically, I'm
Speaker 1: nothing but the drama that was in the court, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised to DA didn't grab a tissue and took it
Speaker 1: to the victim and said, here right your rise. You know,
Speaker 1: let the Jewish see this. You know that you're being
Speaker 1: so affected by this. I'm surprised that didn't happen because
Speaker 1: it was Hollywood. I mean, that was basically Hollywood right there.
Speaker 1: She still right behind me and said this, this looks
Speaker 1: like the person that attacked you. Come on, what was
Speaker 1: the victim going to say? Young lady stressed out, scared, nervous,
Speaker 1: you know, influenced by all the other factors. This lady
Speaker 1: had gone from UH and during her identification process. This
Speaker 1: lady had gone from a UH second photo lineup that
Speaker 1: they had showed her where she was not sure. Now
Speaker 1: in court she had gone from not being sure to
Speaker 1: be certain of her identification. This happened in court after
Speaker 1: the d A stood behind me and acted as a
Speaker 1: pointer and put the target on me and said, is
Speaker 1: this the person that attacks you? Take off the ifs,
Speaker 1: do not even make it a question, because you're basically saying,
Speaker 1: this is the person that attacked you. Well, at that moment,
Speaker 1: that young lady just at that moment she just went
Speaker 1: ahead and said, yes, that's him. Oh my goodness, I
Speaker 1: felt that my whole world had fallen apart once again.
Speaker 1: And justin that, I mean, there's it sounds to me
Speaker 1: like there's no question that the judge acted improperly here too, right,
Speaker 1: he absolutely should have called at that point it's a mistrial,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, I think at a certain point a
Speaker 1: judge has a responsibility to say this just doesn't pass
Speaker 1: the basic test. There's a basic rule of evidence that
Speaker 1: if evidence is more prejudicial than probative, it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: admitted in a courtroom. And if if she has to
Speaker 1: look around him three times and be prodded by the
Speaker 1: d A. And as Louis said this, this identification led
Speaker 1: to his entire life being taken away from him. We
Speaker 1: just can't let people get convicted in this country and
Speaker 1: go to prison based largely on emotion and bad No,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's bad behavior. Doesn't even begin to
Speaker 1: describe it. And you know, I want to I do
Speaker 1: want to make the point, and I make this often
Speaker 1: that you know, I'm a person who believes in a
Speaker 1: system of laws, and I think that we have a
Speaker 1: lot of very good police officers out there, a lot
Speaker 1: of very good prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, but the bad
Speaker 1: ones do just incredible amounts of damage. And this is
Speaker 1: an example of the system failing Luise and US as
Speaker 1: a society and the residents of l A in so
Speaker 1: many different ways. And it's just, uh, it never it
Speaker 1: never ceases to blow my mind how this could go
Speaker 1: on in the country. You know, it's twenty Uh well,
Speaker 1: this was twentieth century. Was the end of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking in America and this is not
Speaker 1: It's like and it became like a witch trial. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, with her standing behind you, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're done. That's it. I mean, it's just like just
Speaker 1: draw a circle around you. I mean it's like anyway,
Speaker 1: I can't even And it's and and it's l A's
Speaker 1: not the Deep South, right, it's Los Angeles, um so
Speaker 1: so happening to and it's happening. I mean, that's That's
Speaker 1: the thing that's so frustrating in California is even with
Speaker 1: stories like ease is even and in Louise's case, by
Speaker 1: the way, when we file the haviors petition and pointed
Speaker 1: out all these inconsistencies and how the DNA from one
Speaker 1: of the cases he was charged with matched up with
Speaker 1: cases that happened when he was in prison. The district
Speaker 1: attorney his office conceded this case and he was declared innocent.
Speaker 1: But it's it's again. It's sort of like and now
Speaker 1: we move on, you know, it's we have to make
Speaker 1: the changes we have to. This is what I love
Speaker 1: why I love your show so much, because your show
Speaker 1: goes back and dissects these cases and says we can't
Speaker 1: just move on. We need to look at these cases
Speaker 1: and make the changes. And what we've got to learn
Speaker 1: from Elisa's case is Los Angeles County and every county
Speaker 1: in America has to stop doing these procedures because they
Speaker 1: are victimizing the people who go to prison. They're victimizing
Speaker 1: the community and the people who have been victimized by
Speaker 1: these people, and they don't get the right person. And
Speaker 1: it's just shocking that it's still going on. I'll even
Speaker 1: take it one step further. How how would you feel
Speaker 1: if you were one of the jurors and then later
Speaker 1: on you find out that you were tricked right, that
Speaker 1: you were actually tricked into making a decision that ruined
Speaker 1: the lives of Louise and some of his family members,
Speaker 1: but also that lead to a you know, an outcome
Speaker 1: that was tragically predictable, which is that this serial rapist
Speaker 1: went on to commit these other horrible crimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: the jurors are in there trying to do we would
Speaker 1: hope their level best to make sure that the right
Speaker 1: outcome is reached. I think that almost anybody that goes
Speaker 1: into a jury room is you know, there will be
Speaker 1: some people who may have some inherent biases. We try
Speaker 1: to weed them out, but it doesn't always happen. But
Speaker 1: for people who are listening now, and I talked about
Speaker 1: this often everyone who's listening as a potential juror, and
Speaker 1: someday you're gonna end up getting called for jury duty.
Speaker 1: First of all, go and second of all, when you go,
Speaker 1: be woke, think about Louise, think about what happened to him.
Speaker 1: Look for those lines in the courtroom so that if
Speaker 1: this type of stuff is going on, you're able to
Speaker 1: think about, Wait a minute, the line, how is the
Speaker 1: lineup conductor? How is that? Or how are they behaving
Speaker 1: in the courtroom? Are they being suggestive? Are they is
Speaker 1: this a fair trial? Am I being presented with? Remember
Speaker 1: it's beyond a reasonable doubt. That's one of the bedrocks
Speaker 1: of our whole system, right, it's supposed to be beyond
Speaker 1: How can anyone listen to this story? And of course hindsight,
Speaker 1: but how could anyone listen? I think anyone listening now
Speaker 1: would say, Well, if I was on that jury, I
Speaker 1: would have I I never would have voted to convict.
Speaker 1: I mean, but but twelve people did, and so, um,
Speaker 1: you know that's anyway. Now I'm gonna turn it back
Speaker 1: over to you, Louise. I'm sorry, We're going back to
Speaker 1: uh jury identification. Right. My son and my and my wife,
Speaker 1: they got a jury summons and one of the things
Speaker 1: that I told them was like, do you know wharning
Speaker 1: or When they showed it to me, I told him,
Speaker 1: you know, that's duty that have to observe. So when
Speaker 1: you go, make sure that you listen to all the
Speaker 1: evidence real carefully, because remember I told him this, use
Speaker 1: my case as a sample, and they know very well
Speaker 1: what happened in my case. My case was such a
Speaker 1: high four five case that my picture was coming out
Speaker 1: on every newspaper, even including LA opinion a Mexican newspaper.
Speaker 1: It was front cover, full size front cover. When I
Speaker 1: went to the Mexican councilor to try to get my paper,
Speaker 1: my my Mexican I d to begin my process and
Speaker 1: my birth certificate. They were requiring of me a picture.
Speaker 1: I D now remember all I had with me was
Speaker 1: my prison identification and the turning had said, do not
Speaker 1: show that unless it's absolutely necessary. So here I am
Speaker 1: in the Messican council it in front of these people
Speaker 1: trying to give my my my Mexican paperwork so I
Speaker 1: could start my identification process. Well, when I go in there,
Speaker 1: I look at a stack of newspapers from Lapineon and
Speaker 1: guess what all of them had my picture on it.
Speaker 1: There must have been partly around maybe newspapers stacked up
Speaker 1: all together. Well, when we went in there, my mother,
Speaker 1: you know, not because she thought I was a celebrated
Speaker 1: but because she's I mean, this is something to hold, right,
Speaker 1: So she went ahead and grabbed about probably five or
Speaker 1: six newspapers and put them in her back. Well, when
Speaker 1: we walked in there, we're in front of I mean,
Speaker 1: they gave us such a hard time to try to
Speaker 1: get our paper that we finally went into this attorney's office, okay,
Speaker 1: and and we're in front of her desk, sitting down,
Speaker 1: and we're explained to her that I have no identifications
Speaker 1: that I need to begin to get my first day
Speaker 1: tavocate and my uh Mexican uh matricula, which is I D.
Speaker 1: And the first thing she tells us as well, you
Speaker 1: know what, you cannot get it because you have to
Speaker 1: show us a picture I D. And once again, my
Speaker 1: mother got so frustrated, Mr Jason. My mother got so
Speaker 1: frustrated Mr Brooks that what she did it was funny,
Speaker 1: This was hilarious. She went ahead and grabbed one of
Speaker 1: the newspapers with my picture right on the cover, right
Speaker 1: front cover, I'm my County Blues, and she it was
Speaker 1: the picture of the day. I got accelerated, and she
Speaker 1: went ahead and stood up. I mean, it's like they
Speaker 1: gave her a bottom be shot, right, and she still
Speaker 1: right up, and she grabbed the paper and she slept.
Speaker 1: She literally slammed it on the attorney's desk and said,
Speaker 1: is this enough of an idea for you? In Spanish? Right,
Speaker 1: she goes, is this enough forming idea? I mean, she
Speaker 1: was mad I hadn't seen my mouth so mad, you know, forever, right,
Speaker 1: But she slammed it on the desk because she goes,
Speaker 1: is this enough for an identification for you? My son
Speaker 1: was sentenced? And you know, the the attorney lit at me, shocked.
Speaker 1: She looked at me and she goes, is that you?
Speaker 1: Come on? She goes, is that you? I go, yes,
Speaker 1: that's me. And that's when I when I brought out
Speaker 1: my idea identification. I put it on the desk next
Speaker 1: to the newspaper and told her that's me. And yes,
Speaker 1: they excelerated me of crimes that I had not commited
Speaker 1: back and I spent close to eighteen years of my
Speaker 1: life from prison, the convict being sentence fifty five years
Speaker 1: of life okay, no chance of of seeing life anytime
Speaker 1: soon until this miracle happened. I came into the picture
Speaker 1: and I went ahead and happy opportunity to Yes, California
Speaker 1: and it's a project came into the picture. And had
Speaker 1: it not been, had it not been for them, there
Speaker 1: were only two two ways of me coming out of prison.
Speaker 1: Either people I seen over twenty two people killed killed
Speaker 1: in prison behind the cross that I had, you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately for me, and thank god, you know, nothing happened
Speaker 1: to me. But anyways, going back to the story, the
Speaker 1: attorney left at me and her response, her comebact really
Speaker 1: shocked me. It really shocked me because the first thing
Speaker 1: she said, she had such a subcere look in her face.
Speaker 1: And this is what your audience needs to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: because she said the se argas, I am so storry
Speaker 1: and I looked at her, and it battled me. At
Speaker 1: the moment. I wasn't thinking at the moment. I wasn't
Speaker 1: like like putting two and two together, but I lived
Speaker 1: her and she goes, Mr Vargus, I'm so sorry, and
Speaker 1: and I go, why is that? And then she goes,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because a jury listened to this. Mr Jason,
Speaker 1: Mr Brooks. When she apologized, she was apologizing for something
Speaker 1: that to me apparently she had not didn't do it.
Speaker 1: But then when she gave me the response that I
Speaker 1: needed to really hear, it costs. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: this was closer in a way. It was kind of
Speaker 1: closer to me because I finally felt that someone sympathized empathized,
Speaker 1: not sympathized empathized with what I went through. And I'm
Speaker 1: still struggling to put the pieces together. But she said,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry because a jury of your peers. Imagine that
Speaker 1: someone that wasn't even sitting in the jury at that day.
Speaker 1: But she said, I'm sorry that a jury of your
Speaker 1: peers committed this mistake and because of that you were
Speaker 1: sent to fifty five years to life. I am so sorry.
Speaker 1: And at that moment I said to myself, within my
Speaker 1: I didn't say. All I said to her was thank you.
Speaker 1: But Eve, inside myself, I was like relishing and the
Speaker 1: fact that I was beginning to find closure because it
Speaker 1: was difficult for me. It still is, it still is.
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble with a lot of things out here,
Speaker 1: but you know what, I'm working a lot through it.
Speaker 1: I got wonderful people such as the California Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: Justin Broke through CALCO and a Lisztabe, Joe oh Simpson,
Speaker 1: Mr Jeremy, all these wonderful people, even you guys, even
Speaker 1: your station, even this is helping me. Event. It's helping
Speaker 1: me let everything out's helping me go ahead, and you
Speaker 1: know what, forget about my past and renew my future,
Speaker 1: because now that's actually what I have to do. I
Speaker 1: have to renew well that that means a lot for
Speaker 1: you to say that, because um, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it's something that's been an obsession of mine, is trying
Speaker 1: to be a small part of of the recovery process
Speaker 1: or the or the healing process or the re entry
Speaker 1: process for brave uh men and women like you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, you're you're a fantastic UM
Speaker 1: role model. I think for other people who are going
Speaker 1: through not just these challenges, but other challenges in life.
Speaker 1: I think for me, I can say that just having
Speaker 1: a chance to talk with you and to be around
Speaker 1: others who have been through similar horrendous ordeals put so
Speaker 1: much gratitude in my attitude and makes uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it gives me perspective and uh so I you know,
Speaker 1: I thank you for you know, coming on. And I
Speaker 1: know it's not easy to share these experiences, but it's
Speaker 1: so important in so many different ways. And UM, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you to um. In the limited time
Speaker 1: that we have left, we covered a lot of ground
Speaker 1: here already. But when you were sent to prison, as
Speaker 1: you said, there were twenty two people in there. Some
Speaker 1: were guilty, some were probably innocent like you, who were
Speaker 1: murdered because they were charged with the similar crimes like
Speaker 1: you were charged with um and you managed to survive.
Speaker 1: And I think Justin was telling me that there's a
Speaker 1: you actually found an amazing uh sort of um a
Speaker 1: way too to protect yourself And can can you talk
Speaker 1: about that? You know what I mean? Yes, I know
Speaker 1: exactly what you mean. I had to do this on
Speaker 1: almost every six months because in in prison, the people
Speaker 1: that the people that control the prison yards, Okay, they
Speaker 1: asked for paperwork. Okay, this paperwork has all your controlling crimes,
Speaker 1: what have you in prison and all your backgrounds, and
Speaker 1: it said whether you're charged with a rape or not.
Speaker 1: So what I had to do was that I had
Speaker 1: to Fortunately for me, I let it work, you know
Speaker 1: job in the program office where I had access to
Speaker 1: the computer. So what I was able to do at
Speaker 1: that one document that they would always ask for, that
Speaker 1: the prison politicians would always ask for. What they would
Speaker 1: what I managed to do was that I had to
Speaker 1: type a new controlling crime. I had to type different dates,
Speaker 1: different names of the lieutenant's captains and commissioners that always
Speaker 1: appeared on the annual classifications. And I had to drop
Speaker 1: the funt. I had to lower the letter uh size
Speaker 1: exactly to the size that the original paper had. So
Speaker 1: what I had to do was that I had to
Speaker 1: carefully white out the information that said that I was
Speaker 1: there for rape and the dates and all that. And
Speaker 1: what I did, I went ahead and typed out first
Speaker 1: degree burglary on the computer. I lowered the fronts. I
Speaker 1: went ahead and pasted them on top of the documents
Speaker 1: that they had given me, and the new dates that
Speaker 1: coincide with all the annual classifications, the new names that
Speaker 1: coincide with all the people that were at that annual pressitations.
Speaker 1: I had to go ahead and do that almost every
Speaker 1: six months, every three months, when they would ask for paperwork,
Speaker 1: they would take it to their cell and for two
Speaker 1: or three days at a time, they would analyze it.
Speaker 1: They would scrutinize it, and they would make sure that
Speaker 1: that paper was legitimate. So what I had to do
Speaker 1: I would have to fabricate new paperwork with my information
Speaker 1: on it saying that I was there for as a
Speaker 1: struck out inmate under the three strike law, and my
Speaker 1: prime my controlling plant was first of re Burglary. So
Speaker 1: I had to wide out all the information and paste
Speaker 1: the new information on top and after that I had
Speaker 1: to run copies, and after that I had to analyze it.
Speaker 1: I had to make sure that it was no smudges,
Speaker 1: no wrinkles, no nothing on it that would indicate that
Speaker 1: it had been tampered with, because if not Atomer. So
Speaker 1: imagine that, Jason, that we've so given over control of
Speaker 1: our prison that the shot callers, which are other inmates
Speaker 1: who are running the yard, actually request inmate to turn
Speaker 1: their work over to them so they can review it
Speaker 1: and decide whether these guys should be killed or not.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people are realizing it's a real
Speaker 1: hierarchy in prison. Is this hierarchy in prison? And if
Speaker 1: you're in there as a child molester, you're gonna get killed.
Speaker 1: You're there is a rapist, you're going to get killed,
Speaker 1: and you've got to answer to what in prison is
Speaker 1: a higher authority, Not the card, not the courts, but
Speaker 1: the guys who were running their guards and and Louise
Speaker 1: had to worry every day were they going to figure
Speaker 1: it out? That's unbelievable, Louise. The amount of the amount
Speaker 1: of forethought and the amount of technical ingenuity and uh
Speaker 1: and everything else that you had to to, you know,
Speaker 1: with a person like yourself. We didn't have training in
Speaker 1: these areas, right coming in the idea that you were
Speaker 1: able to create this narrative and then prove it um,
Speaker 1: this false narrative to literally save your own life is
Speaker 1: something that I'm sure there's some people listening from Hollywood
Speaker 1: who are gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna put that
Speaker 1: in a script now, because I don't think anybody's even
Speaker 1: seen that in a movie before. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: unbelievably brilliant. And in fact, if not for that, we
Speaker 1: probably very likely wouldn't be talking to you today because
Speaker 1: you would have been not only then you would have
Speaker 1: been roughly and I'm sure there were others like like
Speaker 1: you said, of those twenty two and we know now
Speaker 1: that you know, somewhere between five and ten percent of
Speaker 1: the people in prison in America are innocent. So it
Speaker 1: stands to reason if twenty two guys were killed while
Speaker 1: you were in there, uh, for similar crimes, Let's say
Speaker 1: you know, probably two of them according to the statistics,
Speaker 1: probably two of them were innocent people who are in
Speaker 1: prison and were victim. And it's interesting too, you know, yesterday,
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out because yesterday I
Speaker 1: had a lunch with a guy named Nick Turner who
Speaker 1: runs the VERA Institute for Justice, who are doing incredible
Speaker 1: work and trying to reform the prison system and bring
Speaker 1: better practices and humane treatment into the prisons. And they're
Speaker 1: doing this in a variety of ways. They're bringing correction
Speaker 1: officials and high ranking members of government to visit European
Speaker 1: prisons where they treat people completely opposite the way we do, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, where there's respect and there's you know, and
Speaker 1: it actually leads to a better society because of the
Speaker 1: fact that when these people come out, the recidivism rates
Speaker 1: are so low because they've been treated like human beings
Speaker 1: when they were in and they've been given the tools
Speaker 1: and the dignity to come out and succeed on the outside.
Speaker 1: Because their attitude in Europe, most places in Europe is hey,
Speaker 1: you know, when you come out, you might be living
Speaker 1: next door to me somewhere, and I'd rather have you
Speaker 1: be somebody who I treat, you know, with dignity. And
Speaker 1: and then you come out and you know, we could
Speaker 1: you know, have a meal or whatever it could be.
Speaker 1: And and some of the things that VERA is doing,
Speaker 1: and I encourage anyone who's listening to check out Vera
Speaker 1: Institute for Justice. UM. I don't remember the website off hand,
Speaker 1: but it's easy to look up and see some of
Speaker 1: the programs that they're even doing in prisons in America
Speaker 1: which are leading to dramatic decreases in violence inside the prisons,
Speaker 1: tremendous drops and recidivism rates, which is something we all
Speaker 1: should care about. UM. And I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: good news is there's a movement underfoot. I think it's
Speaker 1: unstoppable at this point. But at the same time, we're
Speaker 1: gonna need as many people to get involved as possible. UM.
Speaker 1: And I want to before we close, I want to
Speaker 1: encourage people to go to the California Instance Project website
Speaker 1: as well. I'm sure there are opportunities to volunteer and
Speaker 1: get involved. UM. Justin can talk more about that maybe
Speaker 1: in his closing remarks. UM, but you know, and and
Speaker 1: then UM, I want to say this is, you know,
Speaker 1: as we get ready to wrap up this uh, this episode, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, my favorite part Justin knows this, but for
Speaker 1: Luis's is new for you. My favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: UM is when I get to actually stop talking and
Speaker 1: just listen, and so what I like to do is
Speaker 1: turn the microphone over to you guys for final thoughts,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna save the best for Lass And that's you, Louise.
Speaker 1: So justin what can you what? What are your what
Speaker 1: are your closing remarks? It's not it's not a trial,
Speaker 1: but it might as well be closing argument. Well, I
Speaker 1: just think, you know, it's so important that people remember
Speaker 1: that this can happen to you. Uh, you can be
Speaker 1: at work one day and the police show up and
Speaker 1: arrest you for something that you know nothing about, and
Speaker 1: you can hope for the best. But you can see
Speaker 1: through bad identification procedures, through false confessions that are obtained
Speaker 1: people just giving false information, you can be convicted of
Speaker 1: a crime in the United States of America and go
Speaker 1: to prison for the rest of your life for something
Speaker 1: you didn't do. This is all of our criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: We all should take ownership of it. We're all responsible
Speaker 1: for it. So you need to get involved. So yeah,
Speaker 1: go and check out my website, California Infofence Project dot org.
Speaker 1: You could follow me on Twitter and here my rants
Speaker 1: every day on Twitter at Justin oh Brooks, Houstino Brooks
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, come, it's coming up to be
Speaker 1: the end of Jerry Brown's life as governor in California.
Speaker 1: He's got about a hundred and forty seven days left.
Speaker 1: So when the day that he has a hundred days left,
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk to Sacramento for the second time
Speaker 1: and asked him to release a number of our innocent
Speaker 1: clients that we followed the clemency petitions for. So I'd
Speaker 1: asked for the support and that retweet my tweets for
Speaker 1: the governor that I tweet every single day and get involved.
Speaker 1: It's our system, We're responsible for it. So it's just
Speaker 1: Justin O. Brooks on Twitter, George Justino Brooks and and
Speaker 1: just to geek, I mean Justin's being too modest. He's
Speaker 1: going to be walking about seven hundred miles. He's done
Speaker 1: it before and he's doing it again. That's the type
Speaker 1: of commitment that I can just sit here and and
Speaker 1: take my hat and my shoes rocked too, and say, man,
Speaker 1: that is just it's awesome. I'm hoping to join you
Speaker 1: for a part of that journey and and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: planning on it, and I hope other people will too.
Speaker 1: And you can and people can learn more about that
Speaker 1: by following Justin on Twitter Justin oh Brooks and going
Speaker 1: to California Innocence Project dot org. Okay, Louise, I'm turning
Speaker 1: it over to you. Well, Okay, I'm thankful first of
Speaker 1: all for having this opportunity. Secondly, I like to tell
Speaker 1: everybody out there. I mean, I'm pretty sure you have
Speaker 1: wonderful audience that want to get involved. I do not
Speaker 1: doubt that at all. During the times that I was
Speaker 1: in prison, that all the years that I was in prison,
Speaker 1: I ran into a lot of people that used to
Speaker 1: come up to me and say, uh, I'm innocent, I'm
Speaker 1: innocent of the times that they accused me of And
Speaker 1: then they would vent. I would ask them questions and
Speaker 1: they would vent, and they would tell me how their
Speaker 1: crimes went and everything that they went through, and they
Speaker 1: would affirm I am innocent. I mean, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: people that were sentenced to twenty five years to life
Speaker 1: plus a hundred more years come on. What kind of
Speaker 1: sentences are those? And they were telling me, I'm innocent,
Speaker 1: I'm innacent oft times I have committed they accused me of. Well,
Speaker 1: I never had an opportunity. I never had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to have a shoulder to be able to band on,
Speaker 1: because then they would ask questions, why are you here for?
Speaker 1: And I couldn't tell them. But there were many people
Speaker 1: that told me that that they were innocent. So projects
Speaker 1: such as the California In This As project and not
Speaker 1: only public involvement, but all the people that also hear
Speaker 1: these type of cases that are being spoken about. I
Speaker 1: mean I urged them to go in and get involved.
Speaker 1: If you have people, if you have someone in prison
Speaker 1: that has been wrongly convicted and you feel that it's
Speaker 1: been aroundly convicted, as I have heard many stories, people
Speaker 1: out here nowadays get involved right right the people that
Speaker 1: you need to write to. I mean when I was
Speaker 1: in first ever letters hoping that someone would answer, and
Speaker 1: I thank god that they suggested Brooks and the California
Speaker 1: AS Project that answer. Uh that it was very important
Speaker 1: to me. They went ahead and did that. Unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: was able to come out on my own tail fee,
Speaker 1: not on a stretcher. I was able to come out
Speaker 1: and be able to speak out of here as far
Speaker 1: as the things that are going on. So people, wonderful
Speaker 1: audience that are out to get involved, get involved because
Speaker 1: you are the one that makes a differences. As Mr
Speaker 1: Jason said, you're going to be part of a jury.
Speaker 1: You know, it's gonna be up to you to be able.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be able to hold someone's life in the
Speaker 1: balance in your hands, and it's gonna be on you
Speaker 1: whether that individual gets rightly, rightfully uh tried or not.
Speaker 1: But you guys have the voice that we have. You
Speaker 1: guys gave me a voice, Okay, when I had no voice,
Speaker 1: when I was behind prison bars and I couldn't do
Speaker 1: anything about my situation, it was the public. It was
Speaker 1: you guys, the people that got involved that was able
Speaker 1: to help me out. And now because of you guys,
Speaker 1: I'm out here right now, I'm talking to you through
Speaker 1: these wonderful means of the radio, and and I can
Speaker 1: feel those positive vibes. I can sense that, you know what,
Speaker 1: there is someone out there that's saying, you know what
Speaker 1: I can and I should make a difference. So get involved,
Speaker 1: get involved once again. I just want to thank you
Speaker 1: guys for for doing this and for allowing me to
Speaker 1: get involved in such programs such as these, because it's
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing to be able to contribute. They bring
Speaker 1: such self satisfaction to be able to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I should get involved, So please get involved, Luis. Thank
Speaker 1: you again. Um, it's really been inspiring listening to you.
Speaker 1: You're a remarkable man and I wish you all the
Speaker 1: blessings that life has to offer. Um, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to getting to know you more as we travel
Speaker 1: along this road and working together to spread the word
Speaker 1: and justin um, what can I say? You're the you
Speaker 1: know you know, like I said, you're a You're a
Speaker 1: hero of mine and so many of us in the movement.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking forward to working closely with you to
Speaker 1: YouTube for sure, and I'm looking forward to working closely
Speaker 1: with you on on as we as we turn this
Speaker 1: whole situation upside down, which is exactly what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: So um, thanks so much brother. I really appreciate all
Speaker 1: that you do for all of us out here. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this has been an amazing episode for me to be
Speaker 1: a part of, and I want to thank the audience
Speaker 1: for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Don't forget to give us
Speaker 1: a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project, and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 1: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Awardis. The music in the show
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one