Speaker 1: In May of two thousand and four. Marvin Haynes was
Speaker 1: a pretty average sixteen year old kid.
Speaker 2: I was a party animal at that time, so it
Speaker 2: was like I just couldn't wait for the weekends and
Speaker 2: just you know, just to have a good, nice clothes
Speaker 2: on and just be able to go have fun. That's
Speaker 2: what I was like doing.
Speaker 1: Marvin didn't have a care in the world except for
Speaker 1: the latest trends and chasing girls. That is until he
Speaker 1: was picked up by the police.
Speaker 2: It was just like basically something happened bad and just
Speaker 2: asking me like was I involved or do I know
Speaker 2: anything like that? And they was talking about a flower shop,
Speaker 2: so I didn't really know what they were talking about.
Speaker 3: They never really told me it was a murder.
Speaker 1: Marvin says he had never been in any kind of
Speaker 1: serious trouble, so he wasn't really worried about it. He
Speaker 1: figured there was a mix up and the police would
Speaker 1: get it right.
Speaker 2: I was thinking more like at that time, as long
Speaker 2: as I get out by Friday and so I can
Speaker 2: go on.
Speaker 3: What I was doing is wels, Yeah, So I was
Speaker 3: like that's all my thought process was.
Speaker 1: But Marvin never left the station.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Marvin Haynes. I was wrongly convicted
Speaker 2: at sixteen. I spent nineteen in like seven months incarcerated.
Speaker 1: From lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today. Marvin Hayes Marvin Haynes was born on December sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. He was raised in a working class
Speaker 1: family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father worked in construction and
Speaker 1: his mother stayed at home raising the family. He's one
Speaker 1: of seven kids.
Speaker 2: I got three sisters older than me, well, four sisters
Speaker 2: and then me. Then I got a little brother and
Speaker 2: a little sister. I'm the oldest boy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: We had a close knit family.
Speaker 2: So it was like we did all a lot of
Speaker 2: things together, like summer vacations to my granny home.
Speaker 3: State Vllley Fair, six Flags, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like Marvin says, growing up,
Speaker 1: life was pretty good.
Speaker 3: As a kid.
Speaker 2: I just like to have fun and like you know,
Speaker 2: play with cars and you know stuff like that, just
Speaker 2: like kid things. So like I go home watch Nickelodeon literally,
Speaker 2: so yeah, that was like one of my things.
Speaker 1: All the classic Nickelodeons, all the classes, you know. Hay Arnold's.
Speaker 1: There was like, oh, did you ever watch Doug Doug?
Speaker 3: Also, what's the Rugrats? You know what I mean? So
Speaker 3: like all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Marvin told me he especially loved to bike ride.
Speaker 2: People look at me and be like at my cass
Speaker 2: and be like, do you play football? Used to play football?
Speaker 2: But no, I just used to watch ride bikes.
Speaker 1: A lot, kind of bikes like BMX bikes, regular.
Speaker 2: All the BMX bikes like Gt. Dino's, Gary Fisher's.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, the nice bikes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But as he got older and became a teenager, Marvin
Speaker 1: says his priorities changed.
Speaker 2: It was all about being having the newest clothes and
Speaker 2: like girls parties every weekend, go to like all the
Speaker 2: parties in the neighborhood, so you know, just having fun.
Speaker 1: Having fun with your friends around.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was me. Yeah, literally, Like so I liked
Speaker 3: it having all the new shoes and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So that was like what I liked doing.
Speaker 1: Did you work? No?
Speaker 3: I didn't work.
Speaker 1: How'd you get money to buy nice shoes?
Speaker 2: I got five sisters and stuff, So I used to like, honestly,
Speaker 2: some of my sister used to have the nicest shoes
Speaker 2: and if I couldn't get them that week or something,
Speaker 2: I'd probably get, you know, get their shoes or because
Speaker 2: they had jobs and stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I had ways, and Marvin knew how
Speaker 1: to hustle his sisters.
Speaker 4: I had children really young.
Speaker 1: This is Marvin's sister, Marvina. She's four years older.
Speaker 4: And Marvin helped me out with the kids because I
Speaker 4: was like always like going out and running the streets.
Speaker 1: And you left your baby brother to you.
Speaker 4: But it was the house of us, right. It was
Speaker 4: like the mom is there and she probably don't want
Speaker 4: to watch the kid. And then Marvin's like, you give
Speaker 4: me five dollars. I'm like, yeah, I'm giving you five dollars.
Speaker 5: I'm out of.
Speaker 1: Marvin was just an ordinary sixteen year old kid, hanging
Speaker 1: out with friends and chasing the latest trends.
Speaker 5: Honestly, I was just living for the that day, Marvin
Speaker 5: told me.
Speaker 1: The evening of Sunday, May sixteenth, two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: was just like any other.
Speaker 2: I was at a party, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 2: just having fun, doing regular things, went home late, you know,
Speaker 2: like two in the morning, two three in the morning, slept.
Speaker 3: And woke up like a normal day. You know, like
Speaker 3: woke up at like late in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Marvin says he got up and went to meet up
Speaker 1: with friends at some local spots.
Speaker 5: Like where I know everybody yet, so just going about
Speaker 5: your norse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going by my normal life.
Speaker 1: So a few days later, on May nineteenth, Marvin wakes
Speaker 1: up to his mom and I think it was a Wednesday.
Speaker 2: I was woke up early in the morning and my
Speaker 2: mom was basically saying, like, the police here. They got
Speaker 2: a warrant for your arrest. They just want to talk
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: At first, Marvin says he wasn't too concerned because.
Speaker 2: This that happened to me before, for like violations of
Speaker 2: curfews and different things like that.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's exactly the charge. They picked him up
Speaker 1: and held him on he'd missed a court appearance for
Speaker 1: breaking curfew.
Speaker 6: With you, okay.
Speaker 1: The police took Marvin into the station for questioning.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Yeah, they brought me into an interrogation room,
Speaker 2: set me in there for a while.
Speaker 3: I feel like I don't have nothing to hide, okay,
Speaker 3: your junior.
Speaker 1: So Marvin spoke to the officers with no adult or
Speaker 1: attorney president, thinking this was just for a curfew violation,
Speaker 1: and I think it was a curve from g.
Speaker 3: And I was walking to the club.
Speaker 6: She regretting because you don't have a car, you don't
Speaker 6: have a relacens.
Speaker 2: I ain't got no much, okay, but just was telling
Speaker 2: them my normal thing of what I was doing that
Speaker 2: past week, you know, like the past days that led
Speaker 2: it to me being in that room. So I'm just
Speaker 2: telling them like who I hang with, where i'd be at,
Speaker 2: you know, just stuff like that, and oh my cousin
Speaker 2: Poopie house. I actually had some cash on me, so
Speaker 2: I was asking them about, like, hey, did you make
Speaker 2: sure you give me a receipt for the money that
Speaker 2: I you know that I had when I came here?
Speaker 3: I said, seat because they took they took my money
Speaker 3: after the game. I didn't know nothing. I had no
Speaker 3: idea what was going on.
Speaker 1: Marvin had no idea that while he was sitting there
Speaker 1: worrying about receipts for a few dollars, that he'd been
Speaker 1: identified in a murder.
Speaker 2: But then when I when I was hearing them saying
Speaker 2: like we got your fingerprints and stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: I was just like I was like discompibulated, Like what
Speaker 2: what was y'all talking about.
Speaker 3: I had to really think back, like what did I
Speaker 3: do wrong this weekend?
Speaker 7: We know you were in that Mark, Okay, so we
Speaker 7: know that.
Speaker 3: And they was talking about a flower shop, and I
Speaker 3: ain't never told nobody ain't a flower shop. Yeah you have, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you have, Marvin straight up. Now, I'm keeping it real
Speaker 3: with you.
Speaker 4: You say, keep unreal.
Speaker 7: I'm just trying to give her town.
Speaker 3: That's Martin.
Speaker 4: Where you saying, you saying that you're trying to point
Speaker 4: You're trying to say that you were in the flower shop.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Straight, I was putting two together and I still was
Speaker 2: kind of confused, expressing to them like y'all got the
Speaker 2: wrong person.
Speaker 1: That person had shot and killed fifty five year old
Speaker 1: Randy Scharer inside his family business, Jerry's Flower Shop.
Speaker 7: Is that a flower shop in North Minneapolis May sixteenth,
Speaker 7: two thousand and four. Someone comes in and is asking
Speaker 7: for flowers, ends up, you know, pulling a gun and
Speaker 7: saying he wants money from from the back.
Speaker 1: This is Andrew Marcourt. He's a managing attorney at the
Speaker 1: Great North Innocence Project. Andrew explains that the robber had
Speaker 1: originally been speaking with Cynthia McDermott when her brother Randy walked.
Speaker 7: In and the person shoots him two times.
Speaker 1: Then McDermott flees out the back.
Speaker 7: She becomes kind of the primary eyewitness in the case.
Speaker 1: McDermott had run to a neighbor's house and called nine
Speaker 1: one one before rushing back to the flower shop, where
Speaker 1: she found her brother Randy dead. McDermott told first responders
Speaker 1: that the gunman was a tall, thin blackmail in his
Speaker 1: early twenties. She said he weighed about one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty pounds, and she also specified his hair was short
Speaker 1: cropped to his head. When police first showed her a
Speaker 1: photo lineup, she identified someone with what she said was
Speaker 1: seventy five to eighty percent confidence.
Speaker 7: This witness Cynthia McDermott. She actually picked a filler, which
Speaker 7: is like one of the nun suspects in the lineup.
Speaker 7: You know, she picked this person who looks nothing like
Speaker 7: Marvin and more to the points, I mean, you know,
Speaker 7: in terms of just best practices, when someone picks a filler,
Speaker 7: I mean, what that tells you is they don't, you know,
Speaker 7: like they don't have a good memory of what the
Speaker 7: suspect looks like.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't it have been that guy.
Speaker 7: Well, one, he was a filler, so there was no
Speaker 7: reason to suspect him. He was just pulled from the database.
Speaker 7: But also they did they did actually look into whether
Speaker 7: he could be a credible suspect, and he appeared to
Speaker 7: have an alibi that he was in South Dakota at
Speaker 7: the time. That really should have been the end of
Speaker 7: it for her, that that should have been like, well,
Speaker 7: she doesn't know, so we're going to have to solve
Speaker 7: this case some other way. But that wasn't the end
Speaker 7: of it. So Marvin comes to the attention of the
Speaker 7: police a few days later with an an anonymous with
Speaker 7: a tip saying that there's some word that little Marvin
Speaker 7: was involved.
Speaker 1: Why did you have the nickname Little Marvin?
Speaker 3: My dad named.
Speaker 2: Marvin, So it was like everybody that know me called
Speaker 2: me little Marvin, or everybody that like literally that know.
Speaker 3: Me, call me Little Marvin.
Speaker 1: At the time, Marvin was indeed little, at least compared
Speaker 1: to the suspect that McDermott had described.
Speaker 7: He was much smaller, I think about fifty pounds lighter
Speaker 7: than the estimate, several inches shorter, several years younger, but
Speaker 7: perhaps most Obviously, the witnesses just both to describe someone
Speaker 7: with short hair. The primary witness that he had short cropped.
Speaker 1: Hair, and at the time Marvin had a tall afro.
Speaker 7: Nothing anyone could describe as close cropped hair. When they
Speaker 7: did the photo lineup, though, they didn't use a contemporaneous
Speaker 7: picture of him, even though he'd been arrested at that
Speaker 7: time and they had there was you know, they had
Speaker 7: a mugshot created that day.
Speaker 3: What they used was a.
Speaker 7: Two year old photo where he did have short hair,
Speaker 7: so it was much more closely resembling what the witnesses
Speaker 7: had described, even though that wasn't how he looked that day.
Speaker 7: So that was a problem.
Speaker 1: So they have they they have Marvin in custody right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah afro. They know this witness they're looking for is
Speaker 1: taller with no afro, and they're like, well, fine, we'll
Speaker 1: just we'll still go for him.
Speaker 5: But an old picture, yeap.
Speaker 7: So they so they use this old picture and in
Speaker 7: that time she she did pick him. I mean, this
Speaker 7: case is just an absolute disaster from a eyewitness identification perspective.
Speaker 3: At least, I'm keeping it.
Speaker 6: I'm keeping it.
Speaker 3: When they came to see me, they was asking me that,
Speaker 3: so this is how you wear your hair?
Speaker 6: Tell me why did you change your hair style?
Speaker 3: And I didn't put twods too together because I'm like,
Speaker 3: I didn't. I just like this, I'll wear my hair,
Speaker 3: you know. They kept asking me about my hair.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Marvin was put in a live lineup work.
Speaker 3: Going in March. Stand right there and right there, look
Speaker 3: straight at the window. Turns it right.
Speaker 1: I've never been in a lineup? What is that like?
Speaker 1: Is it like in the movies? Like are you? Is
Speaker 1: there a glass wall and you can't see that?
Speaker 3: No way, I can't even lie to you.
Speaker 2: It's true when they say that when you go to
Speaker 2: like through a like a uh a difficult moment in
Speaker 2: or life or is something like hard like that, you
Speaker 2: can't really remember it like I can't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't really remember it for years until I really seenk.
Speaker 7: It don't move and allowed the many voice repeat that
Speaker 7: to me.
Speaker 3: Don't don't move. Where's the tape? Where's the tape? This
Speaker 3: is no joke, there's no joke. I want the money.
Speaker 3: I want the money.
Speaker 1: No tell no till in that lineup, McDermott picked Marvin again,
Speaker 1: and at this point Marvin realized he might be in trouble.
Speaker 2: Got intense, and then I realized, like, man, like they
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, frame me. But then I was
Speaker 2: thinking like, well, they gonna find the right person and
Speaker 2: then they gonna just gonna come and correct this. I
Speaker 2: literally didn't think that I would be going to prison
Speaker 2: or I would be arrested for something like this. So
Speaker 2: I was more thinking I was in I was trusting them,
Speaker 2: thinking like Okay, well they gonna figure this out and
Speaker 2: they gonna come to me and be like, Okay, we
Speaker 2: got the wrong person, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: I never thought I would go to prison or I
Speaker 2: would be arrested for something like this. At that time,
Speaker 2: these my family didn't know nothing about the justice system.
Speaker 2: We never had a family member to go through anything
Speaker 2: like this, you know what I mean. So we was
Speaker 2: not knowledgeable about things like this or what to do
Speaker 2: when it happened.
Speaker 3: Or don't talk to the police. We was talk like
Speaker 3: the police is the good guys.
Speaker 1: But the police charged Marvin with first degree murder and
Speaker 1: second degree assault. Happened to Marvin. It affected our whole family,
Speaker 1: Mervin's mother especially.
Speaker 2: She asked me once though, she was like, Marvin, did
Speaker 2: you have anything to do with this, and I told her,
Speaker 2: like she only asked me one time. I said, no,
Speaker 2: I had, I don't know nothing about this, and she
Speaker 2: never asked me again. She knew that I wasn't lying
Speaker 2: about that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We were a good kid, yeah, but never I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't say I was a great kid. But she knew
Speaker 2: that I wasn't involved in on stuff like that, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So it only took for me
Speaker 2: to tell her one time that I wasn't involved in
Speaker 2: it or I didn't have and she knew that I
Speaker 2: wasn't lying about it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But the truth that her sixteen year old boy was
Speaker 1: being charged with murder was too much for Mervin's mom
Speaker 1: to handle.
Speaker 4: My mom kind of like mentally checked out. There was
Speaker 4: like never any more dinner at the dinner table. Our
Speaker 4: parents separated totally at that point. And so when it
Speaker 4: affected my mom and my parents, it affect us all,
Speaker 4: which caused the other children to end up being like
Speaker 4: the system. My mom eventually lost her kids and my
Speaker 4: sister took them, and so it's just like it affected
Speaker 4: me in crazy ways, affected our whole family and we
Speaker 4: wasn't able to ask her, We wasn't able to check
Speaker 4: on her, because when you were mom, everybody just think
Speaker 4: you're strong.
Speaker 3: She took it hard.
Speaker 2: She started partying more too after that and just going out.
Speaker 2: My mom never was going out. She stayed at home,
Speaker 2: took care of us. But once this happened to me,
Speaker 2: she's just like, you know, like was trying to escape it,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, or trying to figure because
Speaker 2: she felt like she couldn't do.
Speaker 1: Nothing, and she couldn't. The case was moving forward with
Speaker 1: the witness ideas in the bag, the police focused on
Speaker 1: what they believed had happened, homing in on Marvin's family
Speaker 1: for answers.
Speaker 7: They claim that Marvin was hanging out with some friends
Speaker 7: and his cousin over at another friend's house.
Speaker 1: The police questioned Marvin's fourteen year old cousin, Isaiah. During
Speaker 1: the first few interviews, Isaiah didn't have anything to say,
Speaker 1: but then in a later interrogation, Isaiah cracked. He allegedly
Speaker 1: told police.
Speaker 7: That Marvin said that the mourning of that he was
Speaker 7: going to go hit a lick, which is like a
Speaker 7: slang term for committed a robbery. Afterwards, he told him
Speaker 7: he had shut a white man.
Speaker 1: He'd be the first of three kids who the police
Speaker 1: would use to implicate Marvin in the crime. A few
Speaker 1: months later, a fourteen year old acquaintance of Marvin's gave
Speaker 1: a statement. Anthony Todd told police had also heard Marvin
Speaker 1: bragging about hitting a lick. Then a year later, in
Speaker 1: August two thousand and five, seventeen year old Marvin Haines
Speaker 1: went to trial. Mike Fernstall prosecuted the case. He presented
Speaker 1: multiple witnesses he believed with I d Marvin as the shooter,
Speaker 1: including Cynthia mcdermodd, who said she had no doubt Marvin
Speaker 1: had shot and killed her brother. But then Marvin's cousin
Speaker 1: Isaiah took the stand.
Speaker 7: He actually, in a pretty dramatic moment, actually tried to
Speaker 7: recant from the stand at trial and said, look, this
Speaker 7: isn't true. The only reason I said it is that
Speaker 7: they were threatening me with my own time. Said that
Speaker 7: I was looking at you know, up to fifteen years,
Speaker 7: get half of what Marvin's looking at if if I
Speaker 7: don't cooperate.
Speaker 3: He told the people.
Speaker 2: He told a judge, he said, look y'all making me
Speaker 2: say my cousin to jail for something he didn't do.
Speaker 2: He's screaming like this man is He's saying, like my
Speaker 2: cousin is innocent, And they took him off the stay.
Speaker 7: They they call a recess because things really went off
Speaker 7: the rails. I mean, this is in live court with
Speaker 7: the state, and then they go back and you know,
Speaker 7: basically they're threatening him with perjury charges if he doesn't
Speaker 7: recant his recantation. And he was you know, there was
Speaker 7: testimony that he's on the hall he's you know, a
Speaker 7: kid and who like bawling in the hallway because he's
Speaker 7: been placed in this this impossible situation. So anyway, they
Speaker 7: bring him back in and he ends up and kind
Speaker 7: of fits and starts basically going back to the original
Speaker 7: story he told the police.
Speaker 1: A few other witnesses were called to the stand, including
Speaker 1: Robb Seely, who was a fourteen.
Speaker 7: Year old boy who was in the neighborhood attending temple
Speaker 7: and just happened to be walking by and heard shots
Speaker 7: and saw someone fleeing shortly.
Speaker 1: After the shooting. Seely had ideed Marvin in a lineup,
Speaker 1: but a year later on the stand, Seely said he
Speaker 1: had doubts. Another witness Jennifer Coleman testified that she had
Speaker 1: spoken to Marvin the morning of the shooting at his
Speaker 1: house and he told her he shot some old white man. However,
Speaker 1: Coleman could not I d Marvin in court and the
Speaker 1: house she had said was Marvin's was actually the house
Speaker 1: of another person named Marvin. Things were looking shaky for
Speaker 1: the prosecution. Finally it was the defense's turn. Marvin's mom
Speaker 1: hired a private defense attorney, Cassius Benson, to represent Marvin.
Speaker 1: Benson advised Marvin not to take the stand, as many
Speaker 1: defense attorneys do. However, Marvin insisted.
Speaker 2: What I'm like, man, look often in take the stand
Speaker 2: and tail they's people that I'm innocent.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm telling my story, and I was able to I
Speaker 2: was able to tell, you know, I wasn't the person
Speaker 2: that committed this crime.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 7: He gave a story which is the same story he's
Speaker 7: been saying for years, which is that he was home
Speaker 7: in bed that morning, that he went out with friends
Speaker 7: the night before, was I got home kind of late,
Speaker 7: slept in and it was kind of an unremarkable day.
Speaker 7: So that that was essentially the defense case.
Speaker 1: After a week long trial. With no forensic evidence tying
Speaker 1: Marvin to the shooting, no murder weapon, shaky witness ideas,
Speaker 1: and even a witness recanting on the stand, Marvin thought
Speaker 1: he'd be back to being a teenager in no time.
Speaker 1: Did you think you'd be convicted?
Speaker 3: No, I did not think I was going to be convicted.
Speaker 2: I did not ever think I was going to be convicted, Like,
Speaker 2: especially with all the evidence that I seen myself. So
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, like, it's so obvious they this is impossible
Speaker 2: for me to get convicted.
Speaker 3: So when it happened, it was just like I was shocked.
Speaker 3: I was just like damn.
Speaker 1: On September second, two thousand and five, the jury convicted
Speaker 1: Marvin a first degree murder and second degree assault. Did
Speaker 1: you see your family in the courtroom?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Hell, yeah, my mom that that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's okay. There's tissues right here too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm good though, But I just see my mom. I
Speaker 2: had affected her. That's the only thing that made me upset.
Speaker 2: She actually just walked out, and she was said so mad.
Speaker 1: After seeing his mother walk out, seventeen year old Marvin,
Speaker 1: upset and angry, lashed out at the judge, yelling.
Speaker 4: All y'all gonna burn it hell, because you'll know I
Speaker 4: didn't commit this, that's what you said.
Speaker 3: Yeah I did. It was just like I said.
Speaker 2: When it happened, I couldn't believe that they was able
Speaker 2: to you know, a judge was able to see this
Speaker 2: stuff taking place, and like it was. The courtroom was
Speaker 2: packed with people and they seen that, you know, I
Speaker 2: was actually wrongly convicted.
Speaker 4: It was very hard for us to actually understand what
Speaker 4: was happening to Marvin because we had this faith into
Speaker 4: the system.
Speaker 1: Later that month, Judge Robert Blazer sentenced Marvin to life
Speaker 1: in prison. Well, Marvin's family grappled with their new reality.
Speaker 1: Marvin was in his own health, sent to an adult
Speaker 1: men's prison to serve his time, and in order to survive.
Speaker 1: Marvin says he had to be tough.
Speaker 2: When I first got to prison, I had to, you know,
Speaker 2: do a lot of different things to establish my dominance
Speaker 2: and let them know, like I'm not going for none
Speaker 2: of this type of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well did you have to do you're a kid that
Speaker 1: winds up in an adult prison, Yeah, I had.
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of fighting when I came
Speaker 3: to the county. I was fighting adults.
Speaker 2: I understand now that a lot of people going through
Speaker 2: a lot of things in there, So anything could send
Speaker 2: somebody over there over the top, any little thing, or
Speaker 2: it's just like that because you people facing life. I
Speaker 2: was hopeless at that point.
Speaker 1: Marvin told me, with time like that, some people have
Speaker 1: nothing to lose, so they'll try to prove themselves by
Speaker 1: picking on someone else like a kid.
Speaker 2: You gotta, you know, protect yourself by any means, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, Or you'll become a victim in
Speaker 2: that place because in them environments like you test it
Speaker 2: all the time, you know what I mean, Or just
Speaker 2: like you got to prove yourself.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: I was hanging out with people that I wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't have the best my best interest at hand.
Speaker 3: So I had to really learn a lot.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: When I first got there, I was seventeen years old,
Speaker 2: so I was, you know what I'm saying, just trying
Speaker 2: to get by.
Speaker 1: Actually, Marvin says he's lucky he's not facing time for
Speaker 1: something he actually did, like fighting with other prisoners.
Speaker 2: I could have harmed somebody in there, or somebody could
Speaker 2: have harmed me because in them environments, like people I
Speaker 2: don't understand like you test it all the time.
Speaker 1: But Marvin says things changed when he wound up in
Speaker 1: solitary confinement just shortly after he got to prison.
Speaker 2: I ended up in a whole one time and I
Speaker 2: read about the Innocent Project. It was at the last
Speaker 2: page of the the article that I of this magazine
Speaker 2: that I seen. It was literally the last page and
Speaker 2: it was just saying, if you actually innocent, you wrongly convicted, please.
Speaker 1: Contact Is this in a prison magazine or like what
Speaker 1: magazine was the Innocence Project advertising in?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Probably I think it was. It was like a
Speaker 3: mirror of prison mirrors.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was so yeah, it was at the
Speaker 2: last page, and I'm like, damn, I'm like I I
Speaker 2: literally ripped it out. So when I got out the whole,
Speaker 2: when write to the lad Iberry, that's when I really
Speaker 2: started finding out like, damn, You're not the only person
Speaker 2: that's gone through this or that went through this.
Speaker 3: So I started writing people I could beare to even write, No, I.
Speaker 1: Still can't get over that you were a child, Like
Speaker 1: thinking back for sixty and I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would even comprehend what a life sentence is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't even describe it. Yep, I show you
Speaker 3: a letter.
Speaker 2: I was all over the place where explaining my story
Speaker 2: of people and just trying to get them to understand
Speaker 2: that I'm innocent.
Speaker 1: Marvin says. A week later, the Great North Innocence Project
Speaker 1: wrote him back and sent a questionnaire. He filled it
Speaker 1: out and sent it back and then waited and waited,
Speaker 1: but nothing. So we went ahead and filed an appeal
Speaker 1: without them in two thousand and seven, but he was denied.
Speaker 2: I got that letter in the mail and I sat
Speaker 2: down and I read it, and I was just like,
Speaker 2: all right, I gotta find a different way. Like literally,
Speaker 2: I didn't never give up. I didn't cry, I didn't
Speaker 2: I wasn't mad or nothing. I was just like, okay,
Speaker 2: well they not listening at this time, you know, and
Speaker 2: I'll go to I used to go tell the people
Speaker 2: that I was close to in there, and I used
Speaker 2: to tell them like, look, man, my appeal got denied,
Speaker 2: and they and they ain't really give me no words
Speaker 2: and encouraged me. I had to do it myself, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. I had to encourage myself that
Speaker 2: it'll be okay.
Speaker 1: Marvin says he didn't even want to tell his family
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to disappoint them. Plus he was
Speaker 1: on the outs with some family members like his cousin
Speaker 1: Isaiah and his sister Marvina.
Speaker 4: I didn't talk to Marvin for like three or four
Speaker 4: years just because of family issues.
Speaker 1: But Marvina and Marvin eventually reconnected and she became the
Speaker 1: driving force behind his case. It all happened when Marvin
Speaker 1: convinced her to take over his social media. We talked
Speaker 1: over the phone a few times and Marvin was like,
Speaker 1: just take my past code. I don't want your past go.
Speaker 4: So I finally took the past code and I started
Speaker 4: to work his social media account. And then as I
Speaker 4: was sitting on my couch, I had started connecting with
Speaker 4: people like all over the world in Hong Kong, people
Speaker 4: from Detroit, Michigan, everywhere, and I was aligning myself anywhere
Speaker 4: that I can to tell what had happened to my brother.
Speaker 4: But then as I was sitting on a couch, on
Speaker 4: a couch similar to this one, and I'm doing the Facebook,
Speaker 4: I heard a voice in my head and it said,
Speaker 4: you're not going to get your brother out behind this keyboard.
Speaker 1: So Marvina hit the streets and made a sign with
Speaker 1: Marvin on it, and I went out to this protest.
Speaker 4: A sister by the name Amoni Dotton asked me if
Speaker 4: I wanted to speak on my brother's behalf, and when
Speaker 4: she pulled.
Speaker 1: Me to the front, is like she pulled me through
Speaker 1: a universe, and I felt this power. At the time,
Speaker 1: North Minneapolis was dealing with a surge in violent crime.
Speaker 1: Many residents were scared and elected officials and the police
Speaker 1: responded by arresting people in record numbers, not all of
Speaker 1: them guilty, and many from families just like Marvina's.
Speaker 6: So family started to reach out to me and they say,
Speaker 6: we found you on Facebook, We've seen you on a
Speaker 6: news or we heard you speak here.
Speaker 1: This is going on with our family.
Speaker 4: I started organizing protests and press conferences for my brother
Speaker 4: in Minneapolis.
Speaker 6: Woke Marvin up at the age of sixteen in our
Speaker 6: mother house. In two thousand and four, they gave him
Speaker 6: life for a crime evidence shows he didn't commit this
Speaker 6: t I was like popping up at the key at
Speaker 6: the General's office, going to the Governor's house wherever I
Speaker 6: needed to be, because I needed people to understand that
Speaker 6: when we're talking about Wronfau incarceration.
Speaker 4: That's a state of emergency. There's more than one way
Speaker 4: to lynch amen, and what they're doing with wrongfo incarceration,
Speaker 4: that's called a miling day lynching.
Speaker 1: While Marvina fucked for Marvin on the outside, Marvin continued
Speaker 1: researching his case and writing The Great North Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: From the inside.
Speaker 7: There was a couple of rounds where he had reached
Speaker 7: out to us over the years, and there weren't any
Speaker 7: real big breaks for a long time. But then finally
Speaker 7: just a couple of years ago, we were able to
Speaker 7: get some new evidence. Kind of the big break for
Speaker 7: us was we were able to talk with Robbie Seely,
Speaker 7: who was one of the eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1: Robbie Ceely was the fourteen year old who said he
Speaker 1: saw someone fleeing the flower shop. He'd initially id'd Marvin,
Speaker 1: but later on the stand expressed doubts.
Speaker 7: He told us that he never actually got a good
Speaker 7: look at Marvin's face, that he didn't know who the
Speaker 7: perpetrator was, that he felt pressured to make an identification
Speaker 7: because you know, he himself was a young kid at
Speaker 7: the time and the police were saying this is a
Speaker 7: really serious case. He felt like he needed to help
Speaker 7: him out, and he did the best he could within
Speaker 7: some very flawed procedures, but he had no idea and
Speaker 7: he never saw the person's face and was willing to
Speaker 7: go on the record with that.
Speaker 1: From there, the prosecution's entire case crumbled.
Speaker 7: Got recantation from Anthony Todd, who is one of one
Speaker 7: of the witnesses who said a trial that Marvin had
Speaker 7: told him he was going to go.
Speaker 3: Hit a lick.
Speaker 1: Remember he was fourteen, a middle schooler.
Speaker 7: He originally said he didn't know anything until he got
Speaker 7: into some trouble himself. And so the police go and
Speaker 7: see him and and you know, similarly are sort of
Speaker 7: threatening him with his own time, and he cracks in
Speaker 7: the same way that Isaiah Harper did.
Speaker 1: Marvin's cousin Isaiah.
Speaker 4: The police had tried to talk to Isaiah many, many times.
Speaker 2: They came to him multiple times, saying, well, you're going
Speaker 2: to get charged with drive without license or these different
Speaker 2: charges if you know you don't give us information.
Speaker 7: Now, he had had tried to recance back at trial,
Speaker 7: but he he, you know, sort of reaffirmed his reincantation
Speaker 7: to us. He said that they had reason to think
Speaker 7: it was Marvin and that they knew he had him
Speaker 7: from and that look, you know, if you are if
Speaker 7: you're obstructing an investigation, you can get half the time
Speaker 7: that the principal actor is looking at You could be
Speaker 7: looking at fifteen years and he was I think he
Speaker 7: was fourteen at the time. He was even younger than Marvin.
Speaker 7: So a fourteen year old kid saying if you don't cooperate,
Speaker 7: you could go to prison for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Teenagers being threatened to lie on another teenager.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's not that hard to understand, like why
Speaker 7: you would crack under those circumstances.
Speaker 1: Marvina, did you talk to your cousin at that time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he lived with me throughout it. I helped support
Speaker 4: it Isaiah, even when folks out that I shouldn't have
Speaker 4: had supported Isaiah.
Speaker 1: That's still my blood cousin.
Speaker 4: And at that time I knew that the police had
Speaker 4: done something bad and then even using our cousin to test,
Speaker 4: to make him throw him in adult prisons, to make
Speaker 4: him say that his own blood cousin did that. Do
Speaker 4: you you know how it made Isaiah feel walking into Thanksgiving,
Speaker 4: everybody's whispering around his head.
Speaker 1: He's fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: A lot of my cousins and stuff family members, they
Speaker 2: didn't even allow him over at their house because they like,
Speaker 2: you send little Marvin and jail for life. And you know,
Speaker 2: he's innocent. I got cousins that don't even still talk
Speaker 2: to him to this day, and he's affected by that.
Speaker 2: So they created more victims victims by doing that.
Speaker 7: Well, we were able to get an eyewitness i ID
Speaker 7: expert to do a really deep dive on some of
Speaker 7: the problems with his case and the science behind eyewitness
Speaker 7: identifications to show that this was just a really profoundly
Speaker 7: flawed idea.
Speaker 1: To start. The photo lineup was not done in a
Speaker 1: double blind manner.
Speaker 7: Which you know, means that the person administering the lineup
Speaker 7: does and know who the suspect is, which is just
Speaker 7: a really basic fundamental best practice for eyewinness identifications.
Speaker 1: And then the police used to Marvin again in a
Speaker 1: second lineup, this time a.
Speaker 7: Live, old fashioned in person lineup, and that again just
Speaker 7: violates sort of every best practice. No, and like it's
Speaker 7: just a basic principle that you don't show the witnesses
Speaker 7: the same suspect more than once. And there's a couple
Speaker 7: of reasons for that that are pretty intuitive, Like, once
Speaker 7: they've seen him, he's gonna look familiar to them, right,
Speaker 7: because he's the one. He's the only common denominator, right,
Speaker 7: He's the one they're showing me more than once. That
Speaker 7: must be the guy they think did it. And of course,
Speaker 7: with good procedures, that is exactly what you want to avoid,
Speaker 7: is any suggestion to the witness of who the suspect is.
Speaker 3: So that was.
Speaker 7: Just enormously problematic, and.
Speaker 1: From the jump one of the officers at the lineup
Speaker 1: had raised concerns, Michael Keef. He said he wasn't confident
Speaker 1: in the identification correct, that he had doubts as to
Speaker 1: convicted defendants guilt.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and he testified that he had problems with the
Speaker 7: lineup procedures, and he objected at the time and it
Speaker 7: was overruled. And he testified that this was the one
Speaker 7: case he'd worked on that had resulted in a conviction
Speaker 7: where he had real doubts about whether that person was guilty,
Speaker 7: which was a pretty pretty dramatic moment in the court
Speaker 7: that week.
Speaker 1: Andrew and the Great North Innocence Project filed their case
Speaker 1: in late June of twenty twenty three and had a
Speaker 1: hearing around Thanksgiving. By this point, the case was huge news.
Speaker 2: When I came back from court, everybody that I knew,
Speaker 2: I will everybody in the prison was just like walking
Speaker 2: up to me, like, man, you was on court TV
Speaker 2: because you see all the and stuff and seeing that
Speaker 2: I was on front page to start your grew and
Speaker 2: I'm like, look, it's it's impossible for them not to,
Speaker 2: you know, give me some gestice at this time, because
Speaker 2: it's it's everywhere, you know what I mean, people seeing that.
Speaker 2: You know, I was actually growly convicted that they put
Speaker 2: the facts in there, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 2: it was just like me seeing that and stuff, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I was in a good move.
Speaker 3: I was just so happy.
Speaker 1: And then Marvin's thirty sixth birthday came.
Speaker 3: I was actually just being a chill that day. I
Speaker 3: worked out.
Speaker 2: It was gonna make me some food and just watch
Speaker 2: the sport. I wasn't gonna watch the NBA like it was.
Speaker 2: NBA was a Wednesday, I think it was Boston. It
Speaker 2: was a couple of double hitters or something like that
Speaker 2: that day. So I was keeping it simple actually, and
Speaker 2: then I got a call and shit.
Speaker 7: And December sixth we were able to call him and
Speaker 7: tell him that the Stay Headed read that we had
Speaker 7: proved our case, they were gonna concede, and that he
Speaker 7: was gonna go home. It was pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: What did he say? Do you even remember like what happened?
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just I kind of could hear
Speaker 3: a little happiness then Andrew voice.
Speaker 2: Because you know, he more nuts alned with his stuff
Speaker 2: and just like reserve and shit, So he really don't
Speaker 2: he really you don't really see too much emotion from him,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like that.
Speaker 3: Was just like WHOA.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even really I just was like Pam. I
Speaker 2: just was excited because I knew that day was gonna come.
Speaker 2: I never doubted it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I never, not once.
Speaker 2: I never thought myself that you're never gonna I never
Speaker 2: I knew that I wasn't gonna do no life since that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I knew that because I'm I got too much fight
Speaker 3: in you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Marvin was a free man.
Speaker 8: Almost twenty years ago, a terrible injustice occurred when this
Speaker 8: state prosecuted Marvin Haines.
Speaker 1: In front of the press and his family. Mary Moriarty,
Speaker 1: the county's top prosecutor, looked Marvin in the eye and
Speaker 1: offered an apology.
Speaker 8: You lost the opportunity to graduate from high school, to
Speaker 8: attend prom have relationships, attend weddings and funerals, and spend
Speaker 8: time with your family around the holidays. I am so
Speaker 8: deeply sorry for that.
Speaker 1: Marvin says he was able to keep fighting because of
Speaker 1: his faith.
Speaker 3: God finna give me do this. So it was more.
Speaker 2: I had so much faith, man, You had no idea,
Speaker 2: and I don't even know how I had that much faith.
Speaker 2: Even now, I still got the faith, but I always knew.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, look this stuff based on truth is
Speaker 2: gonna reveal.
Speaker 7: Marvin has had just an incredible support group, you know,
Speaker 7: an incredible amount of support from his family. His sisters
Speaker 7: have been standing by his side for years, just fighting
Speaker 7: relentlessly for him.
Speaker 1: Marvina founded Minnesota Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform because of Marvin's
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, but she says she hasn't forgotten about Randy
Speaker 1: Shearer and Cynthia McDermott.
Speaker 4: I'm really really sorry that that happened to that family,
Speaker 4: and when the right person doesn't go to jail, we
Speaker 4: know that that leaves the killer out to prey on
Speaker 4: other people in our community.
Speaker 1: She now works to help other families fighting for loved
Speaker 1: ones who are wrongfully convicted. Marvin and I spoke at
Speaker 1: this year's Innocence Network conference in New Orleans, just three
Speaker 1: months after his release from prison. He told me about
Speaker 1: his new place he just furnished, and how excited he
Speaker 1: is to work.
Speaker 2: I work at It's like a material handler typeverything, fork
Speaker 2: lift driving, different.
Speaker 3: Things like that. But my job.
Speaker 2: I like my job, and stuff is cool because I
Speaker 2: was in prison working doing similar work and I was
Speaker 2: getting paid like twenty five cents an hour, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. So after two weeks of eighty hours,
Speaker 2: my check fourteen dollars, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Or it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: So to know that I got at least I'm able to,
Speaker 2: you know, take care of my responsibilities and stuff with
Speaker 2: a job and just accomplish the goals at I'm sitting, are.
Speaker 1: You thinking about like dating or having a family or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 3: No, I don't. I don't thinking about no family.
Speaker 2: I am dating though I got a girlfriend and stuff
Speaker 2: that I've been with that that was rocking it out
Speaker 2: with me when I was in there and stuff. She
Speaker 2: been there through some through some hard times and help
Speaker 2: me with a lot of stuff. So yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't see no kids in my future. I feel
Speaker 2: like I had too much time taking away so I
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 5: Wanted, like, just live your own mind in my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel like I want to be the baby,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, and be spoiled and all
Speaker 3: that stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, does your girlfriend spoil you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: She do. Honestly, I'm a miss Like waking up to
Speaker 2: breakfast and coffee and stuff like that, I was just
Speaker 2: thinking like, damn, like to know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: wake up to that. You know, it's gonna be cray.
Speaker 2: I gotta do it all myself, like she Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: gonna be weird, but I do.
Speaker 3: I'll be ay.
Speaker 1: Marvin, how do you feel now you're out? But knowing
Speaker 1: now that that back then there were police officers that
Speaker 1: weren't they didn't feel good about this. Your cousin was
Speaker 1: lying like, how do you feel now looking back that
Speaker 1: all of these people just didn't even feel good about
Speaker 1: this conviction.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, I'm not mad at
Speaker 2: them because you know, carmar always come back around and
Speaker 2: truth always prevails. So the end of the days like
Speaker 2: I can't dwell on what they've done to me or
Speaker 2: I feel some way about it, because luckily I got
Speaker 2: my life and I'm still young and I'm able to
Speaker 2: still go be productive, and I'm so blessed.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in the episode description to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is Halle Dolce, with additional
Speaker 1: mixing by Josh Allen and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurtis.
Speaker 1: The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Come Any Number One