Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life.
Speaker 2: I didn't even have a parking ticket, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 3: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 4: do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 5: Everything like everything.
Speaker 4: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 4: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with this. How is this possible?
Speaker 5: I grew up trusting the systems. I've grew up believing
Speaker 5: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 5: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 5: corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
Speaker 5: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 5: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
Speaker 5: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
Speaker 5: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Speaker 2: Our system.
Speaker 1: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a
Speaker 1: little ways, but it's still broken.
Speaker 5: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today,
Speaker 1: I have two extraordinary people as my guests. Justin Brooks,
Speaker 1: who many of you will recognize because he's a return
Speaker 1: guest on the podcast. Justin is the director of the
Speaker 1: California Innocence Project and a personal hero of mine. So Justin, welcome.
Speaker 2: 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 the whole thing as much as
Speaker 1: we can get in cause i know it's impossible to
Speaker 1: share all your saga on this one hour format. But
Speaker 1: Luis Vargas, I'm really happy to have you here. I mean,
Speaker 1: as I always say, I'm happy you're here, but i'm
Speaker 1: sorry you're here, but welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much. I am also very happy
Speaker 3: to do this, and I'm an enthusiast about what's to
Speaker 3: be the result of these type of podcasts. It's a
Speaker 3: blessing to me.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you say that, because I think in
Speaker 1: sharing your story, the best we can hope for is
Speaker 1: that people will get a better understanding of just how
Speaker 1: flawed our justice system is, and how these mistakes can
Speaker 1: really ruin so many people's lives. And by that I
Speaker 1: mean not just yours, but all of the victims that
Speaker 1: were tragically hurt as a result of the fact that
Speaker 1: they put the wrong guy behind bars when there was
Speaker 1: a serial rapist on the loose who was out there
Speaker 1: are committing heinous acts against innocent women in California. So
Speaker 1: let's let's get right into it. Luis, Where where did
Speaker 1: you grow up? What was your childhood? Like bring us
Speaker 1: back memory, you know, like in the movies when it
Speaker 1: gets all foggy and you go back to back to
Speaker 1: the day. How where were you born and where'd you
Speaker 1: grow up?
Speaker 3: I was born in Mexico, I juan A, New Mexico. However,
Speaker 3: I migrated to California when I was about ten years old.
Speaker 3: I grew up in south central Los Angels, you know,
Speaker 3: started going to school, elementary, junior, high, high school, you know,
Speaker 3: and uh, you know that's where I basically grew up at.
Speaker 1: And was your childhood happy childhood? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I know I've had a lot of challenges being an immigrant.
Speaker 1: Difficulty you weren't in the in the you know, probably
Speaker 1: in those times. Growing up in the nineties in south
Speaker 1: central I'm sure it was, you know, a dangerous environment.
Speaker 1: But can you tell us a little more about that.
Speaker 3: Well dangerous it was. I mean I grew up in
Speaker 3: a single parent household, you know, and unfortunately my mother
Speaker 3: had to work two jobs to be able to to
Speaker 3: put food on our tables and keep us clothes, you know,
Speaker 3: and do all that, you know, try to provide for us.
Speaker 3: And as we grew up, it was pretty rough.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 3: It was South central Los Angeles. I mean, it's well
Speaker 3: known for its crime and everything that happens around it.
Speaker 3: I started seeking, you know, outside of the home, the
Speaker 3: things that I wasn't able to get inside the home
Speaker 3: because of the fact that mother was working through jobs,
Speaker 3: not because she didn't want to give it to me,
Speaker 3: but because she was working to jobs. She halreadly ever
Speaker 3: came home. And when she came home, she came home
Speaker 3: so exhausted that she thought, I mean, she needed to
Speaker 3: get some rest in the meantime. You know, I I
Speaker 3: along with a sister, older sister and a younger brother.
Speaker 3: You know, we grew up basically not on our own,
Speaker 3: but you know, figuring things out for the most part,
Speaker 3: you know, on our own, you know. And the things
Speaker 3: that I was figuring out, you know, I was doing
Speaker 3: them by searching places where I didn't really need to be,
Speaker 3: you know, got around, got around the neighborhood, started to
Speaker 3: know a few kids, you know, groupees, and and you know,
Speaker 3: before you know it, I was growing up pretty fast.
Speaker 3: Life on a highway, as they say, you know, and
Speaker 3: it was it was pretty dramatic.
Speaker 1: And you were homeless for a period of time, is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 6: I was? I was? I was.
Speaker 3: I was homeless for a period of time due to
Speaker 3: the fact that I had left home for a while.
Speaker 3: And when I left home, I was down in the
Speaker 3: San Diego area, so I was on my own. I
Speaker 3: was on my own. I was figuring things out on
Speaker 3: my own. I think about it. I mean, a teenager
Speaker 3: not really knowing, you know what latch is about, barely
Speaker 3: figuring life out, trying to make sense of things, you know,
Speaker 3: and just making doing the best he could have survived.
Speaker 3: You know, that was me.
Speaker 1: And it was at that time that you got a
Speaker 1: t too that turned out to play a very role
Speaker 1: that you could never have predicted, that really had a
Speaker 1: devastating impact on your life. Down the road. But we'll
Speaker 1: get into that further as we get along in the story.
Speaker 1: So let's let's fast forward to nineteen ninety eight. This
Speaker 1: was a time when there was a lot of crime,
Speaker 1: much worse than it is now in America. And at
Speaker 1: the time there was a serial rapist on the loose
Speaker 1: in California called the tear drop Rapist, And Justin, can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that and what you know,
Speaker 1: what what was the whole circumstance surrounding that, you know
Speaker 1: that that time?
Speaker 2: Sure, so there was a serial rapist in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: All of the women were Latin women Latina. They were
Speaker 2: all waiting at Buscot early in the morning, and it
Speaker 2: all occurred within a one and a half mile radius
Speaker 2: in a certain area of Los Angeles. The rapists would
Speaker 2: approach them, ask for directions, and it was a Latino man.
Speaker 2: And then all these rapes occurred. The witnesses the one
Speaker 2: defining feature, so just a tattoo was very popular during
Speaker 2: this era, those of us works of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: It's seen this tattoo where it's one or two tear drops,
Speaker 2: and all of the victims described their attacker that way,
Speaker 2: that it was a Latino man, that he approached them
Speaker 2: first thing in the morning at the bus stop, and
Speaker 2: that they with these attacks, and that this tattoo was
Speaker 2: on the attacker. And so it was very clear based
Speaker 2: on this very specific MO that there was one guy
Speaker 2: who was doing all these rapes. Luis ends up getting
Speaker 2: arrested and charged with three of these rapes, which when
Speaker 2: we went back in and started investigating the case, was
Speaker 2: starting with, Okay, why is this one guy charged with
Speaker 2: three of these attacks? And by the time we reviewed
Speaker 2: the case, there had been thirty five documented attacks with
Speaker 2: this exact same m O.
Speaker 1: How many of those had occurred after his arrest.
Speaker 2: So that's the crazy part of the story. We went
Speaker 2: in and we were able to use DNA to match
Speaker 2: up one of the rapes that Luise got accused of
Speaker 2: with rapes that had occurred while he was incarcerated, and
Speaker 2: in fact, one of these rapes occurred while Luis was
Speaker 2: on trial and sitting in jail. And just imagine that
Speaker 2: if if you know your client's on trial for's life
Speaker 2: for this crime and somebody else is committing the same
Speaker 2: crime in the same city, in the same area, with
Speaker 2: the exact same MO and a difficct attorney is getting
Speaker 2: up and telling the jury, you know, these three rapes
Speaker 2: all have the same amount, they're clearly done by the
Speaker 2: same guy. Well it was the same guy, and that
Speaker 2: same guy was still committing those crimes while Luise was
Speaker 2: on trial and after he went to prison.
Speaker 1: And do we know for certain that the DA had
Speaker 1: that information at that time.
Speaker 2: So what we do know is that the police department
Speaker 2: had investigated it so much to the point of that
Speaker 2: they had what was called a rape book, and they
Speaker 2: had linked all these crimes together. And they didn't widely
Speaker 2: publicize this. I don't you know, for whatever reasons they had,
Speaker 2: whether they didn't want to make people scared or create
Speaker 2: some kind of eysteria. But we do know that they
Speaker 2: were in possession of this information, that they had linked
Speaker 2: this information, and yet that information was not turned over
Speaker 2: to the defense. And as you know, it's a clear
Speaker 2: Brady violation that the government must turn over all potentially
Speaker 2: exculpatory evidence to the defense. And this was clearly exculpatory, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is as black and white as it
Speaker 1: can be. And meanwhile, Luis, you had alibis for at
Speaker 1: least one or more of these crimes that you were
Speaker 1: charged with. Is that right?
Speaker 6: Yes, I did. I had alabis.
Speaker 3: I mean I used to work at I used to
Speaker 3: be a manager for a Manhattan bagel store right there
Speaker 3: in North Hollywood, and I used to drive my baker
Speaker 3: even to work, sometimes at four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3: So one of the incidents where we did present an
Speaker 3: alabai court was not admitted because the manager at that
Speaker 3: time that was working along my side, he had written
Speaker 3: it down because the time clock machine had broken. I mean,
Speaker 3: imagine that the iron is right on the one of
Speaker 3: the one times that I really needed to have solid alabi.
Speaker 3: You know, the time clock happens to be broken, so
Speaker 3: he has to go ahead and write it down, jotted
Speaker 3: down with his his with a pen and hands. So
Speaker 3: you know, that's why it wasn't at missed. It wasn't
Speaker 3: admissible in court. But I did have several alibis, and unfortunately,
Speaker 3: you know, none of them seemed to be solid enough
Speaker 3: to be able to hold up, you know, so they
Speaker 3: still went ahead and convicted me on the just basically
Speaker 3: on hearsay.
Speaker 2: You know, well on as Jason you've talked about many
Speaker 2: times on this, So you're convicted based on the bad
Speaker 2: identifications made by these very frightened victims of this horrible crime.
Speaker 1: And these identifications were not you know, from my understanding
Speaker 1: and reading about the case, these identifications were wavering. The
Speaker 1: victims were not sure. At various times, they were you know,
Speaker 1: back and forth, and so even we know for sure,
Speaker 1: and people who listened to the show have probably heard
Speaker 1: the Jennifer Thompson Ronald Cotton episode, you know, where as
Speaker 1: she was described as the perfect witness, a woman who
Speaker 1: was you know, twenty two year old college students sober
Speaker 1: home alone and spent twenty five minutes doing nothing but
Speaker 1: sudying her attacker every detail because she was absolutely determined
Speaker 1: that she was going to memorize everything about his appearance
Speaker 1: and uh and she had time to do it, and
Speaker 1: she identified him with absolute certainty in a lineup in
Speaker 1: a muckshot book and a trial, and of course, eleven
Speaker 1: years later, tragically found out that she had been wrong,
Speaker 1: you know. And she's become a tremendous advocate as as
Speaker 1: he for eyewitness identification procedure improvements and you know, refinements
Speaker 1: and and and you know, there's just there's so many
Speaker 1: things that we need to do, and there's many things
Speaker 1: that we can do to improve that process. But in
Speaker 1: your case, Luis that it wasn't even that it wasn't
Speaker 1: even like it was a strong identification. It was you know,
Speaker 1: they were they were on the fence, and so it
Speaker 1: seemed so insane you had you had an alibi. The
Speaker 1: time clock thing is blowing my mind. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: too because I'm sure some people that are listening in
Speaker 1: La you know, maybe may may have been to your
Speaker 1: bagel store at the time. They may even know you so,
Speaker 1: but go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah it look it's interesting because these these descriptions that
Speaker 3: the young lady gave, you know, which I do feel
Speaker 3: very sorry that it happened to them. You know, I
Speaker 3: think they were ultimately, uh not only influenced by all
Speaker 3: the factors that were surrounding them, the fear, the stress,
Speaker 3: the weapons, the weapon that was used, the chaos, and
Speaker 3: not to mention the fact that when they were interviewed
Speaker 3: at the time that they were interviewed. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: positive that they were influenced by the people that interviewed them,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, how could you go from being
Speaker 3: seventy percent sure okay during a photo expect photo lineup.
Speaker 3: How could you go from being no, no, no, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, eighty five percent sure, Okay, eighty five percent
Speaker 3: sure that I'm within the six pact that you were shown,
Speaker 3: then from eighty five you go down. Talking about one
Speaker 3: of the young ladies that identified me during a photo lineup,
Speaker 3: first she said she was eighty five percent sure, then
Speaker 3: she came back and said seventy percent sure. Then ultimately
Speaker 3: during the trial, when uh, the DA went and asked
Speaker 3: for her identification, all of a sudden, lo and behold, DejaVu,
Speaker 3: you know one hundred percent sure that it was me
Speaker 3: the one, the one that attacked her. You know that
Speaker 3: is amazing to me, the way things happened like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, everything was playing out in front of me
Speaker 3: as if there was some type of motion picture. I
Speaker 3: couldn't understand it. On my mind. Was was baffled because
Speaker 3: of the things that were going on. I was so
Speaker 3: sure and so confident that I was going to win
Speaker 3: this trial because of the fact that I had nothing
Speaker 3: to do with it. I had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3: I mean I was looking at the victims and the
Speaker 3: witnesses straight in the eyes because I wanted them so
Speaker 3: badly to identify me, not as the attacker, of course,
Speaker 3: but as a person that did not have it.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I was dealt with a blow. I was deal
Speaker 3: with what at that time seeing a deadly blow because
Speaker 3: I was I was sentenced to spend the rest of my
Speaker 3: life in prison.
Speaker 1: Fifty five years to life was a sentence. And justin
Speaker 1: this case has you know, so many really terribly common
Speaker 1: earmarks of wrongful convictions, right, you have mistaken with its identification.
Speaker 1: You have exculpatory evidence that was withhold clear Brady violations
Speaker 1: in other words, in legal terms. And you also had
Speaker 1: an incompetent defense attorney who didn't call witnesses to the
Speaker 1: stand that could have and very well might have, you know,
Speaker 1: influenced the jury in a way where they would have
Speaker 1: gotten it right. Which is which is always like that,
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 court 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 shmearing cream
Speaker 1: cheese on the damn thing.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: He was not raping this woman. I mean, oh my god. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, so justin, can you explain how does that
Speaker 1: even happen? Why is that a thing?
Speaker 2: I mean, well, first of all, the ID problem is
Speaker 2: really the biggest problem here. And I'll tell you something
Speaker 2: even more shocking. We are two decades later and Los
Speaker 2: Angeles is still using these procedures. Los Angeles has not
Speaker 2: changed to the best practices for eyewitness identification. And we've
Speaker 2: changed in San Diego, we've changed in Northern California, but
Speaker 2: the biggest county in the United States is still doing this.
Speaker 1: And what are these best practices? What are those best practices?
Speaker 2: So you should never use six packs. So the problems
Speaker 2: with six packs photo rays are well documented. And every
Speaker 2: study has shown that when you show a victim six photos,
Speaker 2: what their brain does is make a comparative analysis of
Speaker 2: those six and they pick out the person who most
Speaker 2: looks like the suspect. Now, it does. They may not
Speaker 2: look like the suspect very much at all, but out
Speaker 2: of those six, it's the person who most looks like it.
Speaker 2: And then they start doing these statistical analysis of you know,
Speaker 2: what's their percentage of clarity, and it's all completely meaningless.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's no way to assess in your
Speaker 2: life what you're eighty percent or what you're sixty percent
Speaker 2: sure of, what you're one hundred percent sure of, because
Speaker 2: memory is so easily contaminated and there's so many problems
Speaker 2: with it. So the best practice is to show single photos,
Speaker 2: one at a time. And more importantly, you cannot have
Speaker 2: the officers involved in the process who know who the
Speaker 2: suspect is, because they always give off tells, and even
Speaker 2: when they don't do something stupid like take a good
Speaker 2: long look at number three, they do the kind of
Speaker 2: things that we hear in this case where the last
Speaker 2: talked about how the witness changed, how sure she was. Well,
Speaker 2: that can happen as simple as this. You pick number,
Speaker 2: you pick letter C, and the officer thinks it's letter C.
Speaker 2: So they say things like good job, okay, great, all right,
Speaker 2: we got them, and now they're one hundred percent sure
Speaker 2: they have the right person. And in rape cases you
Speaker 2: get the worst ideas because you have now a victim
Speaker 2: who's very frightened. It's gone to a lot of trauma,
Speaker 2: who desperately wants this person off the street. So they're
Speaker 2: going to go along with that because that is what
Speaker 2: their psyche wants to happen. They want to be comforted
Speaker 2: by this that they got the right person, that they're
Speaker 2: off the streets. So the problem in this country is
Speaker 2: we have no true national criminal justice policy. Only in
Speaker 2: the federal courts to the very small part of our
Speaker 2: criminal justices, and most of it's in the state courts.
Speaker 2: No one has control to change national policy, so we
Speaker 2: have to fight these battles state by state and then
Speaker 2: county by county, because for example, in Los Angeles, it's
Speaker 2: up to the District Attorney's office and the chief of
Speaker 2: police as to what procedures they use. So this is
Speaker 2: going to be a battle that's going to go on
Speaker 2: for a long time, Whereas in other countries, like I
Speaker 2: just came back from the UK. In the UK, they
Speaker 2: have national criminal justice policies that they put in place
Speaker 2: throughout the country. But we've divided our country into all
Speaker 2: these jurisdictions with all these little pockets of power, and
Speaker 2: we have cases like Louise.
Speaker 1: Right, And this is an interesting thing too, because this
Speaker 1: is not a liberal or a conservative issue, or a
Speaker 1: democratic or Republican or this, or that it should be
Speaker 1: in this case. Is so why I'm so appreciative that
Speaker 1: Louise is here, because this case screams out for all
Speaker 1: the people. And we're talking about dozens of people, women
Speaker 1: who were brutally attacked in the wake of his wrongful
Speaker 1: arrest and conviction because they stopped looking for the real
Speaker 1: guy when they got Luise. Even though these things went
Speaker 1: on and on and on. It's like, so it's or
Speaker 1: they took a beat. I mean, they must have started
Speaker 1: again at some point, but they chose to just not
Speaker 1: share that information with Louise and his team because they
Speaker 1: already had him. But they knew that this was the
Speaker 1: same guy. There was never any question. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't have a more dynamic example of a serial a predator.
Speaker 1: I mean this guy was. I mean, it's unreal. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially in a one point six mile radius, and that
Speaker 1: would have terrified the neighborhood. I mean, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know what bugs me about that is
Speaker 1: that the authorities should have made this known to everyone,
Speaker 1: because what about the how would you like to be
Speaker 1: a parent of one of these kids, or a relative
Speaker 1: or anything else? And you say, wow, if I had known,
Speaker 1: I never would have let her go to the bus
Speaker 1: stop by herself until this guy.
Speaker 2: Was locked up.
Speaker 1: I mean not a chance. I mean, anyone who's listening
Speaker 1: who has a daughter, which I do, it's like you
Speaker 1: would do anything you could to protect that child. Maybe
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even let them go to school until this
Speaker 1: was resolved, But no way would you expose someone to
Speaker 1: a risk that was so incredibly high and you know
Speaker 1: where it's going to happen. And by the way, they
Speaker 1: also should have had patrols out at every bus stop
Speaker 1: for that period of time, right, I mean definitely, how
Speaker 1: long would it have taken. It's one point six miles.
Speaker 1: You would have needed just a quick map, right thing,
Speaker 1: and you could have done it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not even I don't know. It's baffling to me,
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And of course, you know, Luis is
Speaker 1: one victim in this case, but there's so many others
Speaker 1: and it's really it's hard to wrap yourself around it.
Speaker 1: But it's why it's so important that we're doing the
Speaker 1: work 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 animal, who was
Speaker 1: doing these things over and over again, would be off
Speaker 1: the streets. So in order to do that, we know,
Speaker 1: we have the information, We've had it for years. As
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: whether it's the mugshadow or the lineup or any sort
Speaker 1: of eye 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 leads to more mistakes. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, we know too that mugshots and
Speaker 1: this is the simplest thing in the world, right and
Speaker 1: it's science, It's just fucking science. Instead of having six
Speaker 1: pictures on the page you have one, and the mind
Speaker 1: works better that way. And I know I would be
Speaker 1: the world's worst witness because I'm that guy who will
Speaker 1: meet somebody and I'm embarrassed to say so. I'll meet somebody,
Speaker 1: we'll go to lunch, and then I'll run into them
Speaker 1: three days later and they're like, hey, Jason, what's happening.
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, man, how you doing? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like that, I'm like, oh God, I can't
Speaker 1: remember it. I mean, I can't remember names. I can't
Speaker 1: only remember jokes and phone numbers. But anyway, that's my problem.
Speaker 2: So most people, most people are like you though, Jason.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think human beings just really don't have
Speaker 2: that kind of capacity. And as you said, you know,
Speaker 2: the police officers are not great poker players. You know,
Speaker 2: my brother is a professional poker player. And I go
Speaker 2: watch these guys play and they wear hats and sunglasses
Speaker 2: and they look down at the table and they do
Speaker 2: anything to not give a tell of what their hand is.
Speaker 2: And these guys are professional poker players. But I imagine
Speaker 2: these police officers they're giving out all kinds of signals
Speaker 2: of who they really want to get, who the real
Speaker 2: guy is, and it's tragic the results.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they unwinningly go ahead and give up tell tale science,
Speaker 3: I say, a good job or you know, to lead
Speaker 3: to kind of persuade the vectim at this time. But
Speaker 3: sometimes this is the scary part that sometimes they just
Speaker 3: do it for the sake of doing it because they
Speaker 3: want to close a case. I mean, it's interesting to
Speaker 3: me that at this moment, when you're talking about eyewitness identification,
Speaker 3: I was just recalling back one of the faces in
Speaker 3: my trolley and on February I think it was February sixteen,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine. Well, one of the young victims identified
Speaker 3: me in court. I mean this process. The DA at
Speaker 3: this time said that the victim took a long time
Speaker 3: to identify me because she was afraid, I mean a
Speaker 3: long time, five minutes turned it to identify someone, you know,
Speaker 3: and when she couldn't identify me because she scanned when
Speaker 3: the when the DA asked her, you know, if she'd
Speaker 3: seen me in the courtroom, can she please identify me
Speaker 3: as in what I was wearing? She asked the DA
Speaker 3: A question. She goes, I mean picture this, you got
Speaker 3: you have the whole court room. Well it was standing
Speaker 3: a standing room.
Speaker 6: You had the twelve jurors, you had.
Speaker 3: The audience, and then you had me at the defense.
Speaker 3: Of all that time, I had fired my public defender
Speaker 3: because I mean, he was doing.
Speaker 6: Such a lousy job.
Speaker 3: I was so I was so confident that was not
Speaker 3: going to get identified, that I was not going to
Speaker 3: get sentenced that on one of the occasions, went into
Speaker 3: one of our of our hearings, he went ahead and
Speaker 3: asked for another extension. I got up, shot then everything.
Speaker 3: I got up and I said, you, honor, I object,
Speaker 3: I do not want another extension. I want this to
Speaker 3: be over.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: The bailiff rushed from the back and just grabbed my
Speaker 3: shoulders and sat me down, you know. And then when
Speaker 3: I looked at my attorney and I told him I
Speaker 3: don't want another extension, the public vender and he looked
Speaker 3: at me. I mean, he straight out screened from the
Speaker 3: top of this lunch, you're.
Speaker 6: Gonna get sentenced.
Speaker 3: And I go, no, I'm not. I didn't do these crimes, right,
Speaker 3: And the judges slapped slapped the hammer on the on
Speaker 3: the on the desk and just like order the court right.
Speaker 3: So I go, okay, fine, but I told him I
Speaker 3: do not want another extension. Well, fast forward to one
Speaker 3: of the faces in my trial. This young lady had
Speaker 3: such a hard time identifying me that she scanned when
Speaker 3: she was sold to identify the look around the courtroom
Speaker 3: and identify me. She asked the DA a question from who?
Speaker 6: From them?
Speaker 2: And let's go.
Speaker 3: She was pointing to She was pointing to.
Speaker 6: The jury, to the twelve jurors.
Speaker 3: She was asking the DA from who do I have
Speaker 3: to identify my attacker? From them? From the twelve jurors. No,
Speaker 3: that's when the DA said, no, from the whole court room.
Speaker 3: Look at the whole court room. So she scanned from
Speaker 3: left to right, very slowly, left to right, all the
Speaker 3: way from the jury to the defense table. And then
Speaker 3: as I was looking, I mean I didn't lower my
Speaker 3: head for a minute, not even a second. I looked
Speaker 3: at her straight in the eyes and hoped to God
Speaker 3: that she would say, No, that's not him, That's not
Speaker 3: the bump in the nose that I remember, that's not
Speaker 3: the clearest, the unshaven face that I remember. That's not
Speaker 3: the tear drop that I remember seeing or not seeing.
Speaker 3: She looked straight at me. I looked straight at her
Speaker 3: and that not even one fraction of a second. Later,
Speaker 3: she went ahead and scanned the room back all the
Speaker 3: way back to the jury room, to the jury where
Speaker 3: the jury was sitting, and stop hesitated, didn't say nothing.
Speaker 3: The DA once again went like, pronounced her name and said,
Speaker 3: can you please look the court room and identify the
Speaker 3: person that attacks you? Okay, this time she didn't ask
Speaker 3: can you please tell us if the person that I
Speaker 3: could he is here? This time she's saying, can you
Speaker 3: identify the person that attacked you? In other words, you
Speaker 3: know what he's definitely here or you have to do
Speaker 3: is identifying it. So now the victim is over here
Speaker 3: once again, scanning the room from left to right. I mean,
Speaker 3: they took an eternity. And she did this three times,
Speaker 3: and I'm all this time, I'm looking at her, I'm hoping,
Speaker 3: I'm praying to God to be rid of those shackles. Well,
Speaker 3: when she did this the second time, by this time,
Speaker 3: the DA asked the judge to grant her emotions. She goes,
Speaker 3: your honor, can I please move around the court room?
Speaker 3: Your honor goes like, what's the reason the DA, And
Speaker 3: I'm surprised by that time, I had a hired attorney.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised he did not object to that. But when
Speaker 3: the judge asked her what was the reason, she said,
Speaker 3: I just want to move around the court room, let
Speaker 3: her know, let my witness know that she's okay, that
Speaker 3: she's not in danger, that everything's fine, you know. So
Speaker 3: the judge goes granted. So I had an attorney that
Speaker 3: I mean, he was like well maybe at that at
Speaker 3: that time, probably a good sixty four sixties years old.
Speaker 3: Maybe he was Anglo Saxon, real tall, hair, as white
Speaker 3: as snow, and he was pretty light complexed, so light
Speaker 3: that on the heated day he could probably turn red
Speaker 3: because of the heat.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, anyways, the young the DA goes behind him. I mean,
Speaker 3: picture this in the middle of a trial where someone's
Speaker 3: life is I mean, at the precipice of being sentenced
Speaker 3: to fifty five years to life. I mean, I'm talking
Speaker 3: about my earliest chance of parole was going to be
Speaker 3: on October of twenty forty five. Could you imagine that?
Speaker 3: I mean, I thought the whole world was eating me alive. Well,
Speaker 3: the DA goes behind my attorney and stands behind him,
Speaker 3: and she goes to the young.
Speaker 6: Lady, does this look like the person that attacked it?
Speaker 3: Come on all? Was she gonna say no? Then the
Speaker 3: DA she might as well grab her little points. She
Speaker 3: pulled it out, stretched it out and fregen up me
Speaker 3: and said.
Speaker 6: Hey, this is the guy right here.
Speaker 3: Look get them you know, I mean hispanic, possibly a
Speaker 3: gang affiliated, slick hair, black, you know, comet backwards, tattoos,
Speaker 3: look looking a real good. You don't need to think long.
Speaker 6: This is the guy.
Speaker 3: She might as well have said that, because after she
Speaker 3: stood behind my attorney, she stands right, and I knew
Speaker 3: what this was going to cough. I knew what's gonna
Speaker 3: happen next. As soon as I seen her approach my attorney,
Speaker 3: I said, okay, here it comes. Here comes the shotgun blast.
Speaker 3: Because it did feel like a shotgun blast. I felt
Speaker 3: that I was taken back by all the things that
Speaker 3: were going on. I mean, they sentenced me basically, I'm
Speaker 3: nothing but the drama that was in the cours. I'm
Speaker 3: surprised the DA didn't grab tissue and took it to
Speaker 3: the victim and said, here, dry your eyes. You know,
Speaker 3: let the jury see this. You know that you're being
Speaker 3: so affected by this. I'm surprised. I did it happen
Speaker 3: because it was Hollywood. I mean, that was basically Hollywood
Speaker 3: right there. She still right behind me and said this,
Speaker 3: this looks like the person that attacked it. Come on,
Speaker 3: what was the victim going to say? Young lady? Stressed out, scared, nervous,
Speaker 3: you know, influenced by other other factors. This lady had
Speaker 3: gone from during her identification process.
Speaker 6: This lady had.
Speaker 3: Gone from a second photo lineup that they had showed her. Well,
Speaker 3: she was not sure. Now in court she had gone
Speaker 3: from not being sure to being one hundred percent certain
Speaker 3: of her identification. This happened in court after the DA
Speaker 3: stood behind me and acted as appointer and put the
Speaker 3: target on me and said.
Speaker 6: Is this the person that attacked you?
Speaker 3: Take off the ifs, do not even make it a question,
Speaker 3: because you're basically saying, this is the person that attacked you. Well,
Speaker 3: at that moment, that young lady, just at that moment,
Speaker 3: she just went ahead and said, yes, that's him. Oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, I felt that my whole world had fallen
Speaker 3: apart once again.
Speaker 1: And justin that, I mean, it sounds to me like
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think at a certain point a judge has
Speaker 2: a responsibility to say this just doesn't pass the basic test.
Speaker 2: There's a basic rule of evidence that if evidence is
Speaker 2: more prejudicial than probative, it shouldn't be admitted in a courtroom.
Speaker 2: And if she has to look around the room three
Speaker 2: times and be prodded by the DA And as Louis said,
Speaker 2: this identification led to his entire life being taken away
Speaker 2: from him. We just can't let people get convicted in
Speaker 2: this country and go to prison based largely on emotion
Speaker 2: and bad evidence.
Speaker 1: No, that's I mean, that's bad behavior. Doesn't even begin
Speaker 1: to describe it. And you know, I want to I
Speaker 1: do want to make the point, and I make this
Speaker 1: often that you know, I'm a person who believes in
Speaker 1: a system of laws, and I think that we have
Speaker 1: a lot of very good police officers out there, a
Speaker 1: lot of very good prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, but the
Speaker 1: bad ones do just incredible amounts of damage. And this
Speaker 1: is an example of the system failing, Luis and US
Speaker 1: as a society, and the residents of la in so
Speaker 1: many different ways, and it's just it never it never
Speaker 1: ceases to blow my mind how this could go on
Speaker 1: in the country. You know, it's twenty well, this was
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Was the end of the twentieth century. I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking nineteen ninety nine in America, and this
Speaker 1: is not like and it became like a witch trial.
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 well, and it's La. It's not the
Speaker 1: Deep South, right, it's Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: So it happening today, and it's happening. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: the thing it's so frustrating in California is even with
Speaker 2: stories like even and in Luis's case, by the way,
Speaker 2: when we filed the habeas petition and pointed out all
Speaker 2: these inconsistencies and how the DNA from one of the
Speaker 2: cases he was charged with matched up the cases that
Speaker 2: happened when he was in prison, the District Attorney's office
Speaker 2: conceded this case and he was declared innocent. But it's again,
Speaker 2: it's sort of like and now we move on. You know,
Speaker 2: it's we have to make the changes we have to.
Speaker 2: This is what I love why I love your show
Speaker 2: so much, because your show goes back and dissects these
Speaker 2: cases and says, we can't just move on. We need
Speaker 2: to look at these cases and make the changes. And
Speaker 2: what we got to learn from Elisa's case is Los
Speaker 2: Angeles County and every county in America has to stop
Speaker 2: doing these procedures because they are victimizing the people who
Speaker 2: go to prison. They're victimizing the community and the people
Speaker 2: who have been victimized by these people, and they don't
Speaker 2: get the right person. And it's just shocking that it's
Speaker 2: still going on.
Speaker 1: I'll even take it one step further. How would you
Speaker 1: feel if you were one of the jurors and then
Speaker 1: later on you find out that you were tricked right,
Speaker 1: that you were actually tricked into making a decision that
Speaker 1: ruined the lives of Louise and some of his family members,
Speaker 1: but also that led 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'll be some
Speaker 1: people who may have some inherent biases. We try to
Speaker 1: read them out, but it doesn't always happen. But for
Speaker 1: people who are listening now, and I talk about this often,
Speaker 1: everyone who's listening is a potential juror, and someday you're
Speaker 1: going to end up getting called for jury duty. First
Speaker 1: 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 signs 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 the thing or how are they
Speaker 1: behaving in the courtroom? Are they being suggestive? Are they
Speaker 1: is this a fair trial? Am I being presented with?
Speaker 1: Remember it's beyond a reasonable doubt. That's one of the
Speaker 1: bedrocks of our whole system, right, it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: beyond How can anyone listen to this story? And of
Speaker 1: course hindsight's twenty twenty, but how could anyone listen? I
Speaker 1: think anyone listening now would say, well, if I was
Speaker 1: on that jury, I would have I never would have
Speaker 1: voted to convict. I mean, but twelve people did, and
Speaker 1: so you know that's and anyway, now IM gonna turn
Speaker 1: it back over to you, Louise, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Well, going back to a jury identification, right, my son
Speaker 3: and my wife they got a jury summons, and one
Speaker 3: of the things that I told them was like, you know,
Speaker 3: they showed it to me. I told them, you know,
Speaker 3: do this, that's duty that you have to observe. So
Speaker 3: when you go, make sure that you listen to all
Speaker 3: the evidence real carefully, because remember I told them this,
Speaker 3: use my case as an example, and they know very
Speaker 3: well what happened in my case. My case was such
Speaker 3: a high FOTI five case that my picture was coming
Speaker 3: out on every newspaper, even including Laupinill the Mexican newspaper.
Speaker 3: It was front cover, full size, front cover. When I
Speaker 3: went to the Mexican Councilate to try to get my paper,
Speaker 3: my Mexican ID to begin my process and my PIRTH certificate,
Speaker 3: they were requiring me a picture. I d now remember.
Speaker 3: All I had with me was my prison identification and
Speaker 3: the Turning had said, do not show that unless it's
Speaker 3: absolutely necessary. So here I am in the Mexican Counselate
Speaker 3: in front of these people trying to give my Mexican
Speaker 3: paperwork so I could start my identification process. Well, when
Speaker 3: I go in there, I look at a stack of
Speaker 3: newspapers from Lapinille and then guess what all of them
Speaker 3: had my picture on it. They must have been probably
Speaker 3: around maybe twenty four twenty five newspapers stacked up altogether. Well,
Speaker 3: when we went in there, my mother, you know, not
Speaker 3: being just thought I was a celebrity because she's I mean,
Speaker 3: this is something to hold, right, So she went ahead.
Speaker 6: And grabbed about probably five or six.
Speaker 3: Newspapers and put them in her bag. Well, when we
Speaker 3: walked in there, we're in front of I mean, they
Speaker 3: gave us such a hard time to try to get
Speaker 3: our paper that we finally went into this attorney's office, okay,
Speaker 3: And we're in front of her desk, sitting down and
Speaker 3: we're explained to her that I have no identifications that
Speaker 3: I need to begin to get my birth certificate and
Speaker 3: my Mexican matriculand.
Speaker 6: Which is ID.
Speaker 3: And the first thing she tells us is, well, you
Speaker 3: know what, you cannot get it because you have to
Speaker 3: show us a picture I d and once again, my
Speaker 3: mother got so frustrated, missus Jason. My mother got so frustrated,
Speaker 3: mister Brooks that what she did it was funny.
Speaker 6: This was hilarious.
Speaker 3: She went ahead and grabbed one of the newspapers with
Speaker 3: my picture right on the cover, right front cover, on
Speaker 3: my county blues, and she it was the picture of
Speaker 3: the day. I got accelerated, and she went ahead and
Speaker 3: stood up. I mean, it's like they gave her a
Speaker 3: Vita b shot, right, and she stood right up and
Speaker 3: she grabbed the paper and she she literally slammed it
Speaker 3: on the attorney's desk and said, is this enough of
Speaker 3: a ninety for you? In Spanish?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 3: She goes, is this is enough of a ninety? I
Speaker 3: mean she was mad. I hadn't seen my mouth so mad,
Speaker 3: you know, forever, right, But she slammed it on the
Speaker 3: desk and she goes, is this enough for an identification
Speaker 3: for you? My son who was sentenced? And you know,
Speaker 3: the the attorney lit at me, shocked. She looked at
Speaker 3: me and she goes, is that you come on? She goes,
Speaker 3: is that you I go yes, that's me. And that's
Speaker 3: when I when I brought out my idea identification, I
Speaker 3: put it on the desk next to the newspaper and
Speaker 3: told her that's me. And yes, they exponerated me of
Speaker 3: crimes that I have not commite. Back in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 3: I spent close to eighteen years of my life from prison,
Speaker 3: the convict being sentenced to fifty five years to life. Okay,
Speaker 3: no chance of seeing life anytime soon until this miracle happened.
Speaker 3: CIP came into the picture and I went ahead and
Speaker 3: had the opportunity to prove Yes, California and as a
Speaker 3: project came into the picture and had been had it
Speaker 3: not been for them, there were only two ways of
Speaker 3: me coming out of prison. Either people I seen over
Speaker 3: twenty two people killed killed in prison behind the cront
Speaker 3: that I had, you know, and fortunately for me and
Speaker 3: thank god, you know, nothing happened to me. But anyway,
Speaker 3: going back to the story, the attorney looked at me
Speaker 3: and her response, her comeback really shocked me. It really
Speaker 3: shocked me because the first thing she said, she had
Speaker 3: such a secere look in her face. And this is
Speaker 3: what your audience needs to keep in mind, because she
Speaker 3: said the Svargas, I am so sorry. And I looked
Speaker 3: at her and it baffled me. At the moment. I
Speaker 3: wasn't thinking at the moment. I wasn't like putting two
Speaker 3: and two together. But I looked at her and she goes,
Speaker 3: mister Vargus, I'm so sorry, and I go, why is that?
Speaker 3: And then she goes, I'm sorry because a jury. Listen
Speaker 3: to this, mister Jason, mister Brooks. When she apologized, she
Speaker 3: was apologizing for something that to me, apparently she had
Speaker 3: nothing to do it. But then when she gave me
Speaker 3: the response that I needed to really hear, it costs.
Speaker 3: I mean, to me, this was closure in a way.
Speaker 3: It was kind of closer to me because I finally
Speaker 3: felt that someone sympathized, empathized, not sympathize, empathize with what
Speaker 3: I went through. And I'm still struggling to put the
Speaker 3: pieces together. But she said, I'm sorry because a jury
Speaker 3: of your peers. Imagine that someone that wasn't even sitting in.
Speaker 6: The jury at that day.
Speaker 3: But she said, I'm sorry that a jury of your
Speaker 3: peers committed this mistake, and because of that, you were
Speaker 3: sensus to fifty five years to life. I am so sorry.
Speaker 3: And at that moment I said to myself, within my
Speaker 3: I didn't say. All I said to her was thank you,
Speaker 3: But deep inside myself, I was like relishing and the
Speaker 3: fact that I was beginning to find closure because it
Speaker 3: was difficult for me.
Speaker 6: It still is, it still is.
Speaker 3: I'm having trouble with a lot of things out here,
Speaker 3: but you know what, I'm working a lot through it.
Speaker 3: I got wonderful people such as the California Innocence Project,
Speaker 3: Justin Brooks, through kel Cohen, Elisa Berjoko, I had Simpson,
Speaker 3: mister Jeremy, all these wonderful people, even you guys, even
Speaker 3: your station. Even this is helping me event it's helping
Speaker 3: me let everything out. It's helping me go ahead, and
Speaker 3: you know what, forget about my past and renew my
Speaker 3: future because now that's actually what I have to do.
Speaker 3: I have to renew.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: That means a lot for you to say that, because
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's something that's been an obsession
Speaker 1: of mine, is trying to be a small part of
Speaker 1: the recovery process, or the healing process, or the re
Speaker 1: entry process for brave men and women like you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, your your a fantastic role
Speaker 1: model I think for other people who are going through
Speaker 1: not just these challenges, but other challenges in life. I
Speaker 1: think for me, I can say that just having a
Speaker 1: chance to talk with you and to be around others
Speaker 1: who've been through similar horrendous ordeals put so much gratitude
Speaker 1: in my attitude and makes, you know, it gives me perspective.
Speaker 1: And so I you know, I thank you for you know,
Speaker 1: coming on, and I know it's not easy to share
Speaker 1: these experiences, but it's so important in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you too. In the limited
Speaker 1: time that we have left. We covered a lot of
Speaker 1: ground here already. But when you were sent to prison,
Speaker 1: as you said, there were twenty two people in there.
Speaker 1: Some were guilty, some were probably innocent like you, who
Speaker 1: were murdered because they were charged with the similar crimes
Speaker 1: like you were charged with. Yes, 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 sort of way to protect yourself,
Speaker 1: And can can you talk about that? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 3: Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I have to
Speaker 3: do this on almost every six months because in prison
Speaker 3: the the people that controlled the prison yards.
Speaker 6: Okay, they asked for paperwork. Okay, this paperwork.
Speaker 3: Has all your controlling crimes, what have you in prison,
Speaker 3: and all your backgrounds, and it said whether you're charged
Speaker 3: with a rape or not. So what I had to
Speaker 3: do was that I had to Fortunately for me, I
Speaker 3: let it work a job in the program office where
Speaker 3: I had access to the computer. So what I was
Speaker 3: able to do that one document that they would always
Speaker 3: ask for, that the person politicians would always ask for,
Speaker 3: would they would. What I managed to do was that
Speaker 3: I had to type a new controlling crime. I had
Speaker 3: to type different dates, different names of lieutenant captains and
Speaker 3: commissioners that always appeared on the annual classifications. And I
Speaker 3: had to drop the font I had to lower the
Speaker 3: letter size exactly to the size that the original paper had.
Speaker 3: So what I had to do was that I had
Speaker 3: to carefully wide out the information that said that I
Speaker 3: was there for rape and the dates and all that.
Speaker 3: And what I did, I went ahead.
Speaker 6: And typed out first degree burglary.
Speaker 3: On the computer. I lowered the fonts, I went ahead
Speaker 3: and pasted them on top of the document that they
Speaker 3: had given me, and the new dates that coincide with
Speaker 3: all the annual classifications, the new names that coincide with
Speaker 3: all the people that were at that annual pleasications.
Speaker 2: I had to go ahead and do that.
Speaker 3: Almost every six months. Every three months, when they would
Speaker 3: ask for paperwork, they would take it to their cell
Speaker 3: and for two or three days at a time, they
Speaker 3: would analyze it. They would scrutinize it, and they would
Speaker 3: make sure that that paper was legitimate. So what I
Speaker 3: had to do I would have to fabricate new paperwork
Speaker 3: with my information on it, saying that I was there
Speaker 3: for as a struck out inmate under the three strike law,
Speaker 3: and my prime, my controlling Clint, was purty Reburglary.
Speaker 6: So I had to wide out all.
Speaker 3: The information and paste the new information on top. And
Speaker 3: after that I had to run copies, and after that
Speaker 3: I had to analyze it. I had to make sure
Speaker 3: that it was no smudges, no wrinkles, no nothing on
Speaker 3: it that would indicate that it had been tampered with.
Speaker 2: Because if not, so, imagine that, Jason, that we've so
Speaker 2: given over control of our prisons that the shot callers,
Speaker 2: which are other inmates who are running the yard, actually
Speaker 2: request inmates to turn their pace work over to them
Speaker 2: so they can review it and decide whether these guys
Speaker 2: should be killed or not. And a lot of people
Speaker 2: don't realize there's a real hierarchy in prison. There is
Speaker 2: this hierarchy in prison, and if you're in as a
Speaker 2: child molester, you're going to get killed. If you're a
Speaker 2: nerds a rapist, you're to get killed. And you've got
Speaker 2: to answer to what in prison is a higher authority
Speaker 2: not to get guards, not the courts, but the guys
Speaker 2: who are running those yards. And and yes, Louis had
Speaker 2: to worry every day were they going to figure it out?
Speaker 1: Well, that's unbelievable. I mean 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 you know, with
Speaker 1: and a person like yourself who 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 this
Speaker 1: false narrative to literally save your own life is something
Speaker 1: that I'm sure there's some people listening from Hollywood who
Speaker 1: are going to 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 unbelievably brilliant.
Speaker 1: And in fact, if not for that, we probably very
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't be talking to you today because you would
Speaker 1: have been not only then you would have been roughly
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there were others like like you said,
Speaker 1: of those twenty two, and we know now that you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere between five and ten percent of the people in
Speaker 1: prison in America are innocent. So it stands to reason
Speaker 1: if twenty two guys were killed while you were in
Speaker 1: there for similar crimes, Let's say you know, probably two
Speaker 1: of them according to the statistics, probably two of them
Speaker 1: were innocent people who are in prison, and then we're victimized.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too. You know, yesterday I want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out because yesterday I had a lunch
Speaker 1: with a guy Namednick Turner who runs the Vera Institute
Speaker 1: for Justice, who are doing incredible work and trying to
Speaker 1: reform the prison system and bring better practices and humane
Speaker 1: treatment into the prisons. And they're doing this in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways. They're bringing correction officials and high ranking
Speaker 1: members of government to visit European prisons where they treat
Speaker 1: people completely opposite the way we do. I mean, where
Speaker 1: there's respect and there's you know, and it actually leads
Speaker 1: to a better society because of the fact that when
Speaker 1: these people come out there were civism rates are so
Speaker 1: low because they've been treated like human beings when they
Speaker 1: were in and they've been given the tools and the
Speaker 1: dignity to come out and succeed on the outside, because
Speaker 1: 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: then you come out and you know, we could you know,
Speaker 1: have a meal or whatever it could be. And some
Speaker 1: of the things that VERA is doing, and I encourage
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening to go check out via Institute for Justice.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the website off hand, but it's easy
Speaker 1: to look up and see some of the programs that
Speaker 1: they're even doing in prisons in America which are leading
Speaker 1: to dramatic decreases in violence inside the prisons, tremendous drops
Speaker 1: and recidivism rates, which is something we all should care about.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, the good news is there's
Speaker 1: a movement underfoot. I think it's unstoppable at this point.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we're going to need as
Speaker 1: many people to get involved as possible, and I want
Speaker 1: to before we close, I want to encourage people to
Speaker 1: go to the California Innocence Project website as well. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are opportunities to volunteer and get involved. Justin
Speaker 1: can talk more about that maybe in his closing remarks,
Speaker 1: but you know, and and then I want to say,
Speaker 1: this is, you know, as we get ready to wrap
Speaker 1: up this this episode, you know, my favorite part Justin
Speaker 1: knows this, but for Luis's as new for you. My
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show is when I get to
Speaker 1: actually stop talking and just listen. And so what I
Speaker 1: like to do is turn the microphone over to you
Speaker 1: guys for final thoughts. And we're gonna save the best
Speaker 1: for last, and that's you, Luise. So Justin, what can
Speaker 1: you what are your what are your closing remarks? Is
Speaker 1: not it's not a trial, but it might as well be.
Speaker 2: A closing argument. Well, I just think, you know, it's
Speaker 2: so important that people remember that this can happen to you.
Speaker 2: You can be at work one day and the police
Speaker 2: show up and arrest you for something that you know
Speaker 2: nothing about, and you can hope for the best, but
Speaker 2: you can see through bad identification procedures, through false confessions
Speaker 2: that are obtained through people just giving false information, you
Speaker 2: can be convicted of a crime in the United States
Speaker 2: of America and go to prison for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life for something you didn't do. This is all
Speaker 2: of our criminal justice system. We all should take ownership
Speaker 2: of it. We're all responsible for it. So you need
Speaker 2: to get involved. So yeah, go and check out my website,
Speaker 2: California Innofansproject dot org. You could follow me on Twitter
Speaker 2: and hear my rants every day on Twitter. Justin o'brooks Houstinobrooks.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's coming up to be the end
Speaker 2: of Jerry Brown's life as governor in California. He's got
Speaker 2: about one hundred and forty seven days left. So the
Speaker 2: day that he has one hundred days left, I'm going
Speaker 2: to walk to Sacramento for the second time and ask
Speaker 2: him to release a number of our innocent clients that
Speaker 2: we followed clemency petitions for. So I'd ask for the
Speaker 2: support and that retweet my tweets to the governor that
Speaker 2: I tweet every single day and get involved. It's our system.
Speaker 2: We're responsible for it.
Speaker 1: So that's just Justin Obrooks on Twitter, George Justinobrooks 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 take
Speaker 1: my hat and my shoes off too and say, man,
Speaker 1: that is just it's awesome. I'm hoping to join you
Speaker 1: for part of that journey and I'm planning on it,
Speaker 1: and I hope other people will too, and you can
Speaker 1: and people can learn more about that by following Justin
Speaker 1: on Twitter Justin Obrooks and going to California Innocenceproject dot org. Okay, Luis,
Speaker 1: I'm turning it over to you.
Speaker 3: Well, Okay, I'm thankful first of all for having this opportunity. Secondly,
Speaker 3: I let to tell everybody out there. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure you have wonderful audience that want to get involved.
Speaker 3: I do not doubt that at all during the times
Speaker 3: that I was in prison, that all the years that
Speaker 3: I was in prison and I ran into a lot
Speaker 3: of people that used to come up to me and say,
Speaker 3: I'm innocent. I'm innocent of the crimes that they accused
Speaker 3: me of, and then they would vent. I would ask
Speaker 3: them questions and they would vent, and they would tell
Speaker 3: me how their crients went and everything that they went through,
Speaker 3: and they would affirm I am innocent. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: talking about people that were sentenced to twenty five years
Speaker 3: to life plus one hundred more years come on, what
Speaker 3: kind of sentences to those And they were telling me,
Speaker 3: I'm innocent, I'm innocent the crimes I have committed they
Speaker 3: accused me of. Well, I never had the opportunity. I
Speaker 3: never had the opportunity to have a shoulder to be
Speaker 3: able to bent on because then they would ask questions,
Speaker 3: why are you here for? And I couldn't tell them.
Speaker 3: But there were many people that told me that that
Speaker 3: they were innocent. So projects such as the California Innocence Projects,
Speaker 3: and not only public involvement, but all the people that
Speaker 3: also hear these type of cases that are being spoken about.
Speaker 3: I mean I urged them to go in and get involved.
Speaker 3: If you have people, if you have someone in prison
Speaker 3: that has been wrongly convicted and you feel that it's
Speaker 3: been wrongly convicted. As I have heard many stories of
Speaker 3: people out here nowadays, get involved. Write the people that
Speaker 3: you need to write to. I mean when I was
Speaker 3: in person, I were over twenty some letters hoping that
Speaker 3: someone would answer. And I thank god that mister Justin
Speaker 3: Brooks and the California Insans Project did answer that it
Speaker 3: was very important to me. They went ahead and did that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I was able to come out on my own to
Speaker 3: the feet, not on a stretcher. I was able to
Speaker 3: come out and be able to speak out here as
Speaker 3: far as the things that are going on. So people,
Speaker 3: wonderful audiences that are out, get involved. Get involved, because
Speaker 3: you are the one that makes a difference. As mister
Speaker 3: Jason said, you're going to be part of a jury.
Speaker 3: You know, it's going to be up to you to
Speaker 3: be able. You're going to be able to hold someone's
Speaker 3: life in the balance in your hands, and it's going
Speaker 3: to be on you whether that individual gets rightfully, rightfully
Speaker 3: tried or not.
Speaker 6: But you guys are the voice that we have.
Speaker 3: You guys gave me a voice, okay, when I had
Speaker 3: no voice, when I was behind prison bars and I
Speaker 3: couldn't do anything about my situation.
Speaker 6: It was the public.
Speaker 3: It was you guys, the people that got involved that
Speaker 3: was able to help me out, and not because you guys.
Speaker 3: I'm out here right now, I'm talking to you through
Speaker 3: these wonderful means of the radio, and I can feel
Speaker 3: those positative vibies. I can sense that, you know what,
Speaker 3: there is someone out there that saying, you know what,
Speaker 3: I can and I should make a difference. So get involved,
Speaker 3: get involved. Once again, I just want to thank you
Speaker 3: guys for for doing this and for allowing me to
Speaker 3: get involved in such programs such as these, because it's
Speaker 3: a wonderful thing to be able to contribute. They bring
Speaker 3: such self satisfaction to be able to say, you know what,
Speaker 3: I should get involved, So please get involved.
Speaker 1: Louise, thank you again. 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. And I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to getting to know you more as we travel along
Speaker 1: this road and working together to spread the word and
Speaker 1: justin what can I say? You're the you know you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, you're you're a hero of mine and
Speaker 1: so many of us in the movement, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to working closely with you to yeah YouTube for sure,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to working closely with you on
Speaker 1: as we as we turn this whole situation upside down,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what we're going to do. So thanks so.
Speaker 2: Much, brother, I really appreciate all that you do for
Speaker 2: all of us out here.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, this has been an amazing episode for me
Speaker 1: to be a part of, and I want to thank
Speaker 1: the audience for listening to Wrongful Conviction. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: 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: Nisnce Project and 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 innisonsproject dot org to learn how
Speaker 1: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
Speaker 1: the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with signal Company Number one