WEBVTT - #437 Jason Flom with James Kluppleberg 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.640 On March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four, five children and 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:09.000 their mother, twenty eight year old Elva Lupercio, were killed 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.879 in an apartment building fire. It was originally ruled accidental, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.919 but a fire captain who was unseen unofficially may have 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.800 had some reservations about that finding. Then, in November nineteen 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.919 eighty seven, a man named Dwayne Glasgow, who lived nearby 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.159 the nineteen eighty four fire, was arrested for burglary and 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.120 offered some information that back in nineteen eighty four, looking 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.000 out an attic window, he had seen his old roommate 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.040 James Kluppelberg walking back and forth to the building before 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.120 the fire and later admitting to setting it. And then, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.720 in December nineteen eighty seven, while coincidentally reporting an unrelated arson, 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.040 James Kloppelberg was questioned about the nineteen eighty four fire 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.600 and allegedly gave an oral confession in January nineteen eighty eight. 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.400 Even though allegations of coercion shed doubt on the statement, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.480 testimony from Glasgow and the fire captain were enough to 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.760 send James away for six natural life sentences plus fourteen years. 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:16.960 But this is wrongful conviction Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.040 This is an arson case. I hate arson cases. I 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.120 think it's one of the worst of all the junk sciences. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.800 It's also a torture case because the man we're going 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.040 to be speaking to is just another victim of the 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.520 torture crew in the Chicago PD under Lieutenant John Burge. 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.400 And before I even introduce James Kloppelberg, I'm going to 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.279 first reintroduce somebody who our listeners will probably recognize, Carl Leonard. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.360 Carl is an attorney at the Exoneration Project in Illinois. 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.560 So Carl, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:52.880 Thank you. It's great to be here. 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:58.200 So James, I'm sorry. I think, like the city of Chicago, Illinois, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.840 the country, everybody owes you in a post and more. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.120 But I'm so glad you're here and I appreciate you 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:04.120 being here with us today. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.200 My pleasure and thank you for having me. It's a 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:07.560 true honor, James. 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:12.280 Before we get into the awful occurrence that happened in 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.880 Chicago that led to the deaths for which you were 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.799 years later wrongfully convicted, your life wasn't easy from the beginning. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:19.760 Is that fair to say? 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.359 Yes, that would be a fair representation. I had a 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.160 low income childhood, so to speak, with three sisters and 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.560 a brother and my mother. We moved around a lot. 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.600 I think at one point, probably about once a year 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.320 for like a decade ish or so. Growing up. I 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.560 remember going to a lot of different schools, almost a 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.560 different one every year, and things were tough, you know, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.400 as far as finances and everything. But for the most part, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:46.160 my mother always made sure there was food on the 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.960 table and we were loved and taken care of. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:51.520 By the time James was eighteen years old, he had 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.240 been married, and during a rough patch, he was temporarily 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.160 staying with his friends Don Graymont and Dwayne Glasgow, who 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.520 lived about four doors down from where this far I occurred. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.919 A few weeks later, the couple had their own troubles, 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.440 along with two kids and another one on the way. 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.400 On February sixteenth of eighty four, she gave birth to 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.840 her third child and Dwayne took her to the hospital 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.520 and I was staying over so I watched the other 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.560 two children. I got a phone call from her that evening. 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.440 He had not returned yet, and she asked if I 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.079 was still looking for a place to stay. I said yeah. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.520 She said, well you can move into the bedroom up 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.360 in the attic. You want to help me out with 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.240 the bills, fine, whatever. I said, Well, what's he going 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.880 to say about this? She said, I don't care. That's 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:37.560 the catch. I want you to pack his stuff. I 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.120 want him out. Apparently, while she was giving birth to 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.160 his third child, he was in the waiting room with 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:47.200 his girlfriend and a gym bag with some beer, kicking back, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.480 having a good time. The nurses told her what was 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.640 going on, obviously, and so when he came home that evening, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.520 his stuff was packed and I told him there's the door. 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:03.640 She basically dumped Dwayne because of things that weren't working 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.520 out between the two of them. Me and down ended 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.320 up starting a relationship. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.560 Somehow, this didn't cramp your friendship or theirs? 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.360 Right, Well, that was the thing. A couple days before 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.520 the fire, he had came back, knocking at the door, 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.040 asked to talk to her. She came into the kitchen. 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.279 She's like, he's got nowhere to go. Can he stay upstairs? 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.279 I'm like, this is your house because by that time, 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.279 obviously I'd moved downstairs. I said, this is your house 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:31.719 if that's what you want. Fine, and so he was 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:36.039 actually staying there in the upstairs where I was originally staying, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.679 and I was gone all day that day the fire occurred. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.200 I was at my ex wife's house taking care of 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.080 things over there. Came home that night. They were him, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.440 his girlfriend and Dawn. They were fairly intoxicated, and several 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.720 hours into the night, you know, me and Don had 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.000 had some arguments, and I entered and left a few 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.240 times to cool off, and came back in and we 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.960 were sitting around the kitchen table talking and next thing 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.159 we know, we see this fire. We got the kids 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.040 out of the house, put them in my car. The 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:08.799 fire went on for several hours. 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.599 Carl, if you could take us back and explain what 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.240 happened on that awful, awful night. This was back in 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.440 nineteen eighty four, March twenty fourth. I mean, whether whether 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.680 it was arson or not, we know that James had 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:22.760 nothing to do with it. But this was a tragedy. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.520 It was a tragedy. It's an incredibly sad case. It 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.800 happened early in the morning. There was an apartment building 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.440 on the south side of Chicago. The first floor was vacant, 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.600 and a fire started on that first floor and there 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.800 was a family that lived upstairs. Seven people in the family, 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.120 a husband and wife, five kids, and the fire unfortunately 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.400 killed the mom and the children. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:56.719 Twenty eight year old Elva Lupercio and her five children Santos, Sonya, Cristo, Bell, Gadira, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.520 and Annabel, all of whom were living on the second floor, 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.440 died and her husband managed to escape. His name was Santos, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.480 but he suffered a frash, furt skull, and severe burns. 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.400 So just a terrible, terrible tragedy. At that time in Chicago, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.240 fires were investigated by the Chicago Police Department. It had 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.560 a bomb and Arson unit which was in charge of 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:23.360 investigating suspicious fires, and they did an investigation and concluded 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.680 that the fire was most likely an accident. 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.279 Testing for the presence of accelerants came up negative, closing 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.719 the case as a tragic accident not a crime. Until 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.880 November nineteen eighty seven when Dwayne Glasgow was arrested for burglary, theft, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.599 and violating probation, and he brought up the nineteen eighty 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.599 four fire. According to Glasgow, he had watched through an 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.080 attic window as James went back and forth to the 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.760 building right before the fire, and that James later admitted 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.239 to setting the blaze. Meanwhile, back in nineteen eighty seven, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.960 now twenty two years old, James was a plumber and 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.200 electrician while moonlighting as a security guard. He and his 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.680 girlfriend Bonnie had plans to get married when in December 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.720 nineteen eighty seven, coincidentally, a month after Glasgow's statement, James 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.720 reported an actual arson. While working at his security job. 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.320 One of the apartment complexes that I was assigned to, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.800 an automobile caught fire. I saw somebody running from the 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.840 parking lot that night and a couple police detectives came 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.120 to see me. I was at a job site and 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.280 they said they needed me to look at mugshots. I said, sure, 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.440 no problem, but it'll have to wait till I'm done. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.400 I'm in the middle of one of the worst winners 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.880 Chicago had had and like forever, and I was thawing 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.600 frozen pipes at this building. They informed me I was 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.120 going with them one way or another. They took me 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.600 to a leventh and State informed me that there was 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:44.880 a witness that claims to have saw me start the 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.920 automobile fires, but that he couldn't get down there for 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.200 several hours because he was at work. If I wanted 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.320 to go home, now, all I had to do was 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.200 take a polygraph test proved that I didn't do it, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.760 and they'd let me go. I said, sure, no problem, 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.600 let's go. They take me to another floor inside a 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.720 dimly lit room. It soundproofed. A gentleman says he needs 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.480 me to sign a waiver, and I was barely able 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.400 to make out that it said that I was about 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:16.400 to be questioned for a fire concerning six deaths in 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.560 nineteen eighty four. I told the examiner that this is 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.360 the wrong form, that this is not what I was 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.400 here for. I said, I'm not signing that, and he 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.480 stepped out of the room. The detective that brought me 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.280 down burst into the room, threw me up against the wall, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.959 put a pair of handcuffs on me, drug me upstairs, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.080 and him and his partner then proceeded to beat me 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:38.760 for next several hours. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:43.320 So you were one of the countless victims suspects, as 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.240 well as some witnesses who were brutally tortured inside these 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:52.720 Chicago ped torture chambers disguised as interrogations. 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.679 Yes, they laid me face down on the ground while 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:01.560 one of them pulled my cuffs my arms towards my shoulders. 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.800 The other one proceeded to kidney shot me or continued 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:07.920 to beat me in my lower back area until I 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:12.120 started hemorrhaging blood through my urin. I was a urinated myself. 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:14.200 There was a lot of blood in the urine at 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.120 the time, and I uttered the words I did it, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:18.440 and they stopped the beating. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.720 I mean, you probably would have confessed a Kennedy assassination, truthfully. 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.280 Yes. At one point they wanted me to sign a 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.480 confession and also removed his weapon from his holster and 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:31.520 said I was going to sign it or else, And 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:32.959 I said, at that point he might as well just 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.000 go ahead and pull the trigger, because signing it would 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:35.760 be the same thing. 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.640 Wrongful. Conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.640 Now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us at 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.280 eight three three T seven for six sixty six and 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.320 leave us a message. Tell us how these powerful, often 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:11.080 tragic stories make you feel outraged, inspired, motivated. We want 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.320 to know. We may even include your story in a 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.920 future episode. Call us A three three two O seven 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:18.120 for six six six. 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.440 The way it works is after the police have gotten 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.559 the soon to be defendant to the place where he 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:32.520 or she is saying what they want them to say. 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.440 They'll oftentimes rehearse it, and then they bring in the 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.520 Felony Review States attorney who take a statement from them, 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.319 and at the end they ask the person to sign, 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.000 and then that's often the last time the soon to 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.480 be defendant ever sees the outside of a jail cell. 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.439 The state's attorney wanted to take my statement. I started 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.200 to give him a statement basically saying I did it. 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.840 I told him that I needed to talk to my 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.440 then girlfriend. He allowed me to make a phone call 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.320 to her. She made a three way phone call to 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.480 my then attorney. I told him what was going on. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.120 He told me to put the state's attorney on the phone. 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.480 They had a brief conversation. State's attorney slammed the phone down, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.720 went out to the hall, told the officers to process me, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.839 not to speak to me, not to touch me, and 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.040 to get me out of there. A couple days after 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.160 the beating on my intake, I was so badly beaten 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.560 that the Cook County officers wouldn't turn a blind eye 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.200 to it, and they actually documented all of my injuries. 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.920 The state's attorney. I mean, he had to know that 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.640 you had been tortured. There was no question, right, Carl, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.160 What do you think he was thinking at that point 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:43.560 in time. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:45.880 I you know, I have no idea, but I think 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.840 that the mechanism they use in Chicago in Cook County, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.440 I think is very unique, where we bring in an 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.840 assistant state's attorney a prosecutor to take the actual statement, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.120 and I think the entire felony of view system is 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.120 designed to sort of inoculate against allegations of torture and 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.800 abuse by the time you get into court. Because there 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.439 were so many people claiming a lot of them truthfully 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:13.960 that their statement had been beaten out of them. You 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.200 put a lawyer in the room who has a law 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.520 license on the line, who can then come to court 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.560 and say, look, I'm just a lawyer. I didn't see 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.320 anything wrong, and I don't know what was going through 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.760 this particular states attorney's mind, but it may have been 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:29.680 there's no way I can go to court and say 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.880 that nothing bad happened here, so I need to protect myself. 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.560 Nevertheless, Cook County sought the indictment in January nineteen eighty eight. 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.559 The officer that presented the case for the state at 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.360 the grand jury outright committed perjury. One of the jurors 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.200 had asked him why I had done this at the 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.760 completion of the state's presentation, and he replied that it 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.080 was my pattern that when I got mad at my girlfriend, 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.240 I went out and set fires. Another juror then asked, 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.679 so he had been caught for this before, and he 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.480 replied yes. The only problem is I had never so 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.800 much as been questioned for an Argiston fire in my 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.319 entire life, let alone caught or convicted. 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.199 So on January twenty seventh, nineteen eighty eight, James, you 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.120 had dieted on charges of arson and six counts of. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.160 Murder, actually eighteen counts of murder. Eighteen counts they charged 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.200 me three times on each victim, along with seven counts 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.760 of attempted murder. My entire indictment, I believe was around 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:28.960 thirty one counts. 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.320 But the well documented evidence of torture shed doubt on 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.280 James's statement to officers and the state's attorney. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:40.680 When my lawyer put on a motion to suppress my 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.000 statement due to the abuse, and the judge granted it 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.960 because of the abuse was so blatant the state's attorney 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.760 stood up and said, your honor, are you also suppressing 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.079 what he told the state's attorney that night. The state's 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.760 attorney didn't beat him, and I just sat there and 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.640 I was just stunned into amazement that he swore up 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.880 onside and down the other I wasn't beaten, And now 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.040 he was basically conceding I was beaten, but that what 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.520 I told the state's attorneys should be allowed in because 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:12.280 he didn't beat me. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:13.959 Pretty freaking devious. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.240 Well, you have to keep in mind the judge that 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.480 suppressed my confession got removed from my case after suppressing 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:22.840 my confession because he went against the system. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:23.320 Wow. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.800 Within two weeks of that, Judge Loretta Hall Morgan was 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.520 assigned my case. And it didn't register really at the time, 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.640 but the judge who was going to be sitting at 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.240 this bench trial already knew about my confession because it 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.520 was part of the record that it was suppressed. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.520 And this doomed bench trial finally began in July nineteen 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:43.080 eighty nine. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.720 The state put on six witnesses, two people that they 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.680 call life or death witnesses that said that we survived 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.480 the fire and the family was alive when we went 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.200 to sleep woke up to smoking fire. They didn't implicate 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.240 me at all. They put on a medical examiner who 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.640 said that in his opinion, the cause of death was 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.440 smoking fire carbon monoxide poisoning, and that the manner of 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.600 debt was homicide. When asked why he originally said there 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.000 were accidents, he said that's because that's what he was 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.920 told by the police, and that four years later the 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.080 police told him that they wanted to charge somebody and 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.400 he had to change his death certificates to homicide. They 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.040 then brought a gentleman in from the Chicago Fire Department 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.080 who was there that night as an observer who was 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.720 training a class for a future fire investigating team that 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:33.000 was going to take over fire investigations in Chicago, called Ofi. 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.320 He testified that due to burn patterns, he was positive 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.320 that this was an arson fire, but yet he told 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.000 nobody for four years, and the reason that the state 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.560 used him as a witness, in my opinion, is because 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.280 he filed no reports, so there was nothing to impeach 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.080 him with. Whereas the original officers who investigated the fire 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.200 that said it was an accident, they would have had 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.600 to have went back on their original report, and then 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.840 they put on don Graymont, who was my girlfriend at 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.720 the time, who told the truth that I had nothing 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.440 to do with it. They then proceeded to impeach her 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.720 with a grand jury statement that she made that after 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.720 making it, she went to the Office of Maternal Affairs 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.280 and said I was just forced to commit perjury in 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:15.520 front of the grand jury. And then they brought Dwayne 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.760 glasgow in, who gave the testimony that he gave in 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.280 exchange for going home. The next day, my attorney presented 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.560 no defense whatsoever. At the end of the state's case, 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.920 he stood up. He asked for a directed verdict of 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.440 not guilty. The judge said motion denied. He said, oh, well, 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.560 the defense rests, and he sat down, and the judge 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:36.520 said she was going to take a ten minute break 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.960 to have closing arguments. She took a ten minute break, 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.160 came out and found me guilty. My lawyer just sat there. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:42.160 No closing arguments. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:43.240 There were no closing arguments. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.680 Carl, help is he talking about no closing argument? 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.280 It doesn't make any sense. So many things about James 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:52.800 trial don't make any sense. 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.880 Right. Well, what happened was, like I said, she took 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.560 the break. We came back and I was expecting closing arguments, 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:04.080 and she sat down and started reading her findings. And 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.280 I'm looking at my attorney, like what's going on here? 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.320 And he's like, don't worry about It'll be okay. And 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.399 she said, as to counts like twenty five through thirty 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.240 one or whatever it was, or twenty four through thirty one, 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.320 those are the attempt counts, there's going to be a 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.960 finding of not guilty because there's no evidence to indicate 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.560 that the defendant intended to harm those individuals. As to 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.480 the remainding counts in the indictment, there's a finding of guilty. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.359 I was, for want of a better word, I was 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.679 just in shock. I mean, I couldn't believe that she 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.159 had found me guilty. I was just dumbfounded at the 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.360 fact that if a person was guilty of this crime, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.639 how could they have been not guilty of attempting to 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.000 kill the people that jumped out the windows and lived, 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.560 but guilty of killing the people that perished. It wasn't 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.880 like this was a crime with a gun or a knife. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.119 Fire is indiscriminate. If I had set the fire, I 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.240 would have intended harm on everybody. Apartment building, not just 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.040 certain people. Her verdict held no sense to me whatsoever. 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.800 And then she so nonchalantly after finding me guilty, she 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.359 literally said the words, gentlemen, what's your pleasure? And it 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.439 was at that point that the state's attorney stood up 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:18.960 and said, your honor, at this time, we'll be asking 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:19.600 for the death. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:24.040 Penalty, gentleman, what's your pleasure? That's what she said, what's 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.159 your pleasure? As if this is some sort of sick game. 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.679 I don't even have the right words for this. So 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:31.400 they asked for the death penalty. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.280 The next step, you have to have a hearing. When 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.679 it took me a couple of days to process what 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.960 had happened, and somebody else who was incarcerated awaiting trial 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.119 at the time, told me that I needed to get 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:46.680 down to the jail's library, the law library, and speak 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.360 to somebody down there because what was happening wasn't right. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.000 And that's when I found out a lot of things, 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:54.879 you know. I found out that I was actually able 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.600 to demand a jury for the death penalty phase because 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.600 I didn't want her to make that decision. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.800 In case the story isn't crazy enough, there's a crazy 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.400 footnote to this whole thing, which is that on October seventh, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.400 nineteen eighty nine, while you were waiting sentencing, you had 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.760 walked out of the Cook County jail after bond records 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.520 were altered to lower your bond from no bond to 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.960 twenty five thousand dollars, and your mom posted twenty five 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.159 hundred in cash, and then the jail officials discovered that 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.280 a jail employee had been bribed with three thousand dollars 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.120 to alter the record, and then you were arrested days 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.120 later and brought back. What in the world again, I've 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.199 never heard anything like this before. 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.119 What you're speaking of hold some truth to it. I 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.639 don't recall as to what my ex wife actually did 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.600 for the jail official that altered the record, but nobody 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.680 was listening to me. I was going to be put 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.000 to death for something I did not do, and so yes, 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:56.600 I bonded out. I was hoping that while out, I 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.960 could probably get enough notoriety to the case to where 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.719 people might look into it and see the errors that 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:08.000 were committed. Technically, I was arrested, but I actually called 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.439 them and told them where I was. They were making 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.760 threats against my family that if I did not come back. 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.000 They were going to take it out on them. So 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.919 I called the state's attorney and told him where I was. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.840 It was not my proudest moment in all of this, 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.800 but again, when somebody's talking about taking your life, and 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.320 after what I had already been through with the beatings 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.120 and everything and what I had seen happened to this point, 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:36.440 I didn't know what else to do. 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.439 James was back in Cook County Jail in November nineteen 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.280 eighty nine, where he began all kinds of proceedings trying 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.600 to save his own life, including demanding a new attorney 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:46.720 and a new judge. 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.199 When it came time for my sentencing, I had requested 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.080 to remove my attorney because I did not feel that 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.400 I was being represented in a manner to save my life. 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.520 The judge denied the request, so I went to the 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.119 Attorney Disciplinary Commission and said that I'd given my attorney 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.520 a large amount of money to hire investigators and things 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.639 like that, and he did nothing. He never came to 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:12.879 see me, he never spoke to me, at which point 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.080 my attorney notified the judge that he was under investigation 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.920 by the commission and that she had to let him out. 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.359 Of the case. She wasn't happy about it. At that point, 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.640 I also moved to remove her as a judge because 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.440 she was not giving me what I felt was a 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.040