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Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.

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Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be

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Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,

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Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.

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Speaker 2: I hadn't done anything wrong.

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Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when

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Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,

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Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one

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Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected

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Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the

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Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.

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Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,

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Speaker 3: in that moment, unchecked authority.

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Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them

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Speaker 2: on TV, because it may just be a dirty da

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Speaker 2: that is trying to rise upward.

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Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction with

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Speaker 3: Jason Flamm. Today, we have an amazing cast of characters

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Speaker 3: and I'm going to introduce the star of our show first,

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Speaker 3: David McCollum.

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Speaker 4: It is freedom after twenty eight years lost in prison

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Speaker 4: for a New York man wrongly convicted of murder.

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Speaker 5: David McCallum.

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Speaker 6: In nineteen eighty six, McCallum and another teen, Willie Stucky,

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Speaker 6: were sentenced to twenty five years to life for the

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Speaker 6: kidnapping and murder of a twenty year old man. The

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Speaker 6: only evidence linking them to the crime was their videotape confessions,

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Speaker 6: which the boys claimed were fed to them by police

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Speaker 6: for nearly thirty years. McCallum insisted he was innocent. A

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Speaker 6: judge agreed. Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson supported the release.

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Speaker 5: We concluded that there was no physical evidence, no DNA evidence,

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Speaker 5: no testimonial evidence.

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Speaker 6: That conclusion came from Thompson's Conviction Review Unit, which was

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Speaker 6: created this year to look at past cases. Out of

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Speaker 6: the thirty they've examined, ten convictions have been overturned.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me, and

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Speaker 3: with David, we have someone who I consider to be

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Speaker 3: a rock star. We have the sitting Brooklyn DA Eric

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Speaker 3: Gonzalez is here to talk about this case. Eric. Welcome,

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Jason, thank you for having me. And we

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Speaker 3: have a very dapper gentleman. You can't see him on

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Speaker 3: the radio, but trust me, he's got a very good tailor.

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Speaker 3: And he's a wonderful lawyer responsible for six exonerations of

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Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted people, including you, David. So, I want to

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Speaker 3: welcome Oscar Michelin to the show.

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Speaker 5: Thank you, Jason, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 3: So, David, this case is so extraordinary, not only because

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Speaker 3: of the length of time you served twenty nine years

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Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted, but because of the way that you got

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Speaker 3: convicted in the first place, way back in well the

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Speaker 3: mid eighties, right, that's how long.

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Speaker 5: That's correct, Yes, nineteen eighty five.

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Speaker 3: So take us back to that time. You were just

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Speaker 3: a child, really, I mean you were an adolescent boy

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Speaker 3: at the time.

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Speaker 5: Right, that's correct. I'm sixteen years old.

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Speaker 3: Sixteen years old. You were convicted of murder. Right, that's

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Speaker 3: not just murder, but other charges as well.

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Speaker 5: That's right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it was a guy named Nathan Blenner who was

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Speaker 3: abducted and murdered.

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Speaker 5: That's correct. Yes, did you.

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Speaker 3: Know this guy?

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Speaker 6: No?

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Speaker 5: I never never seen him in my entire life.

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Speaker 3: No, what were the circumstances of the crime. What happened

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Speaker 3: with this Nathan Blenner guy?

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Speaker 7: Okay, So on October twenty of nineteen eighty five, I

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Speaker 7: will say sometime around three twenty in the afternoon. According

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Speaker 7: to postryposts, of course, mister Blenner, Nathan Blenner, was sitting

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Speaker 7: in his car in front of his home. He was

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Speaker 7: attempting to start the engine for whatever reason, and so

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Speaker 7: as a result of that, two young African American boys

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Speaker 7: approached Nathan Bunna and engaged in the conversation with him.

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Speaker 7: At some point there after, these individuals got into the

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Speaker 7: Carbineatan Blenna and they drove off with mister Blenner. About

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Speaker 7: the next day, on October twenty first, so Benna body

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Speaker 7: was found in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, in a

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Speaker 7: park called Aberdeen Park. His body was found in the

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Speaker 7: back of this park with a gunshot going to the

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Speaker 7: back of the head.

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Speaker 3: How did it come to pass that they picked you

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Speaker 3: up in Stucky Well?

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Speaker 7: The week later, on October twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 7: Missus Stukey was arrested sometime around seven point thirty. According

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Speaker 7: to the information that of course I have, Missus Stukey

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Speaker 7: was approached. It was he was getting on the train

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Speaker 7: to go out to a basketball game and two detectives

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Speaker 7: walked up to him, approached him and acts but he

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Speaker 7: mind coming to the police station. Stucky agreed to go

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Speaker 7: to the police station with these individuals. They went down

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Speaker 7: to the police station. They questioned Missus Stukey about this

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Speaker 7: particular crime. Missus Stukey said that he was with me

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Speaker 7: when his crime was committed, which in fact he was

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Speaker 7: because on that day that this crime was said to

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Speaker 7: have been committed, we know Willie was in a park

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Speaker 7: playing hamble for my sister and their friends. So Willie

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Speaker 7: Stucky said that he was with me. Missus Stucky eventually

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Speaker 7: confessed to witnessing a crime and that crime was that

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Speaker 7: a shot miss of Blenna while Sustuki stood by and watched.

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Speaker 3: And Oscar, you spent ten years working on this case, right,

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Speaker 3: I mean, let's just reflect on that for a second.

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Speaker 3: Ten years to unravel this wrongful conviction. First of all,

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Speaker 3: kudos to you, because that's a hell of a commitment.

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Speaker 3: And David's here is living proof of your work. What

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Speaker 3: kind of a game were they playing here? And why

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Speaker 3: did they do this? And how did even Stuck you get?

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Speaker 3: Was he just chosen at random?

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Speaker 5: No?

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Speaker 8: No, we actually think that it was far more nefarious

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Speaker 8: than that. So it all started with some excellent police

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Speaker 8: work at the beginning of the case where there were

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Speaker 8: two young men who witnessed these two African American males

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Speaker 8: kidnapped and carjack Nathan Blenner in Queens and gave a

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Speaker 8: general description. One was taller than the other. They looked

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Speaker 8: to be about in their twenties. And then the police

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Speaker 8: did a canvas and they found a woman who lived

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Speaker 8: around the corner who said, hey, you know that same day,

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Speaker 8: just about an hour earlier, two young African American males,

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Speaker 8: one taller than the other, about in their twenties, one

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Speaker 8: with corn rows in his hair, approached me where I

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Speaker 8: was washing my car and said, hey, that's a nice car,

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Speaker 8: and it was a Buick Regal, the same car as

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Speaker 8: Nathan Blenner. So they use that description. They put that

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Speaker 8: description out to try to look for people. Two African

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Speaker 8: American males with carjack history, one of them in corn rows,

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Speaker 8: one taller than the other, and sure enough a Queen's

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Speaker 8: pricinct called the Brooklyn Detectives and said, hey, I think

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Speaker 8: we got your guys. They go to find these two

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Speaker 8: guys who match the description perfectly, have a history of

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Speaker 8: violent crime, and one of them works in a hardware

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Speaker 8: store where a kerosene can which was used to burn

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Speaker 8: the car was purchased from. So that looks that sounds great, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 8: cases should be over. So what ended up happening is

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Speaker 8: they let one of those two guys give them a

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Speaker 8: lead about a gun being sold down the street allegedly

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Speaker 8: by somebody named Supreme, and that this guy named James

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Speaker 8: Johnson knows that this gun allegedly was used to commit

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Speaker 8: that crime. And they turn away from these two guys

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Speaker 8: and they go to James Johnson. James Johnson gives him

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Speaker 8: the name Supreme. The cameras in the neighborhood they find

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Speaker 8: that Willy Stuckey goes by the name Supreme, and that's

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Speaker 8: how Willy is arrested. It's from two people who were

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Speaker 8: prime suspects to a rat because he got a great deal.

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Speaker 8: He was a suspect in shooting up of bodega James Johnson,

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Speaker 8: and in exchange for giving them information about the gun,

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Speaker 8: they didn't even arrest him for this robbery and shooting

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Speaker 8: in a bodega. And they had that He said, this kid, Willy,

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Speaker 8: who's known as Supreme in the neighborhood, is accused of

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Speaker 8: doing this. He had a gun, he was trying to

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Speaker 8: unload that he got from my aunt.

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Speaker 3: Now I want to turn too, Eric here for a second.

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Speaker 3: One of the reasons I'm so happy that Eric is

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Speaker 3: here not only because of the respect I have f

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Speaker 3: him and the work that he's doing, but also because

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Speaker 3: it's a Brooklyn case. You're the guy in Brooklyn now,

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Speaker 3: and you know what I want to ask you is

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Speaker 3: this seems almost like it's not funny but almost comical. Right,

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Speaker 3: you have these two guys who are obvious suspects, and

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Speaker 3: it wasn't that easy for them to throw the cops off,

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Speaker 3: because it's pretty clever what they did, right, Otherwise they

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Speaker 3: would have been in prison for the rest of their lives.

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Speaker 3: They just went, hey, there's a gun, and all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, the cops go, let's go chase down the hallway.

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Speaker 3: Here it sounds like it's Beector Cluso.

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Speaker 4: Quite frankly, David had applied to have this case looked

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Speaker 4: at before under a different district attorney at the time,

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Speaker 4: and they denied to you know, reopen the case and

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Speaker 4: re investigate the case in a serious way. And because

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Speaker 4: what David said, because they had a confession, and once

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Speaker 4: the police came upon Willie Stucky and he was a

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Speaker 4: young boy fifth sixteen as well, and he was confessing.

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Speaker 4: Then all the other evidence that would have led to

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Speaker 4: the rightful killers of Nathan Blenner. And you know, I

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Speaker 4: need to say that you feel very sad for his

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Speaker 4: family because they suffered along with David in a different

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Speaker 4: type of way. But the criminal justice system failed, not

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Speaker 4: just David, but also the blend of family and all

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Speaker 4: of us. But once they had this confession, all the

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Speaker 4: other pieces of evidence that made sense, the descriptions that

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Speaker 4: fit the other people, the kerosene car, anything that was

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Speaker 4: inconsistent with that confession was then cast aside and not

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Speaker 4: used and not presented, and really led to what we had,

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Speaker 4: which was this travesty of justice, This evidence that should

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Speaker 4: have been before jury, and had it been before jury,

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Speaker 4: would have cast all doubts on his confession.

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Speaker 3: We talk on the show about false confessions a lot,

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Speaker 3: because I think it's one of the most important things

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Speaker 3: that we can educate the public too, is the idea

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Speaker 3: that just because somebody confessed to a crime, everybody thinks

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Speaker 3: the same way, why the hell would that guy confess?

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Speaker 3: So David, So people say, well, I don't know what

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Speaker 3: he confessed, why did you confess to the crimes?

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Speaker 7: Okay, So first let me just say that sometimes I

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Speaker 7: think when people hear confession, they automatically assume that the

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Speaker 7: person or the persons in this particular case actually committed

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Speaker 7: the crime or else why would they confess to the crime.

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Speaker 7: But I think what sometimes go unnoticed in the public

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Speaker 7: is that things happened in the police precinct that basically

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Speaker 7: forces suspects to, you know, confess the crime they didn't commit.

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Speaker 5: Such as was the case with being really stucky.

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Speaker 7: Well, I'll confessed to the crime for a number of reasons,

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Speaker 7: and I think, well, one of the first ones that

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Speaker 7: was physically beaten while the officers in the case, well,

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Speaker 7: to be more specific, I was beat by the investigative officer,

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Speaker 7: Joseph Budda at the time, also confessed because I was

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Speaker 7: promised that if fact actually confessed to the crime, that

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Speaker 7: I would.

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Speaker 5: Be allowed to go home.

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Speaker 7: And I think sometimes in hindsight, when I think about

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Speaker 7: it now, for example, that I really think I was

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Speaker 7: going home at that time, as a sixteen year old

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Speaker 7: kid confessed to this heinage crime but murder, I actually

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Speaker 7: thought I was going home.

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Speaker 8: They didn't make him confess to the crime. Remember, you know,

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Speaker 8: people say, like, why would someone confess to the crime.

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Speaker 8: Either he nor Wally ever said I took a gun,

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Speaker 8: put it to the back of Nathan's head and shot him.

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Speaker 8: I think if they had asked either of these two

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Speaker 8: boys at that time to say that, they would just say, hey, yo,

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Speaker 8: slow down a second now, because they knew that they

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Speaker 8: would know they weren't going home. But they were specifically

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Speaker 8: told you were just a witness. We know the other

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Speaker 8: guy shot him. So if you say you saw him

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Speaker 8: shoot him, you're out here. What are you so worried about?

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Speaker 8: Plus he already ratted you out, So who are you

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Speaker 8: trying to protect your friend who already sold you down

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Speaker 8: the river? You're going to be a fool. And so

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Speaker 8: I think you know, first obviously the physical abuse, the deception,

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Speaker 8: the pressure, not having a parent there, not having a

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Speaker 8: lawyer there, not knowing what the heck is going on,

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Speaker 8: wondering why your friend would kill somebody number one and

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Speaker 8: number two, why would your friend then rat you out

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Speaker 8: of old people when you know you didn't do it.

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Speaker 5: It shouldn't be lost.

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Speaker 4: These are still children, the children sixteen years old children,

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Speaker 4: and the confession, and I'm sure you're going to get

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Speaker 4: into it, but the confessions don't make any sense, even

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Speaker 4: when they stand up to the evidence that was known

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Speaker 4: and even what was said between each other, the confessions

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Speaker 4: just don't make any sense.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I would ask the audience to put themselves

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Speaker 3: in your shoes. David, you were sixteen years old, you

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Speaker 3: must have been scared shitless.

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Speaker 7: Absolutely, I was definitely afraid, and the fact that I

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Speaker 7: was afraid was so obvious though. But before you than that, though,

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Speaker 7: so when they take it down to the precinct, they

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Speaker 7: played the psychological game with you.

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Speaker 5: So they played this sort.

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Speaker 7: Of good cop backup thing whereas one cop would come

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Speaker 7: in and his tone of voice would be sort of

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Speaker 7: subtle and very calm, and he would ask me questions like,

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Speaker 7: you know, what's your name? Of course we live, and

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Speaker 7: you know, do you play any sports? Who is your

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Speaker 7: favorite team? That sort of thing, And then the officer,

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Speaker 7: the other officer came into so Buddha and I noticed

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Speaker 7: this tone was completely different from the other officers, and

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Speaker 7: you know, he was very very nasty in my opinion,

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Speaker 7: and very aggressive. And I knew then that this guy

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Speaker 7: was not the same guy that I spoke to obviously earlier,

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Speaker 7: so the tones of the two individuals were vastly different

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Speaker 7: from another.

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Speaker 8: St You're in a small windowless room, metal table, metal chair,

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Speaker 8: large officer hulking over you. At one point, Detective Buddha,

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Speaker 8: was now deceased, picked up a chair and held it

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Speaker 8: over his head. He goes, is this how we're going

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Speaker 8: to have to do this? After he'd slapped David around.

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Speaker 8: But one of the things that DNA did is teach

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Speaker 8: people that innocent people confess. Because the Innocent Project has

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Speaker 8: exonerated somewhere around four hundred people with the use of DNA,

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Speaker 8: twenty five percent of those exonerations had a confession, and

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Speaker 8: so those are people who are demonstrably proven innocent. There's

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Speaker 8: no doubt the DNA shows they didn't do it, And

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Speaker 8: in one out of every four DNA exonerations there's a

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Speaker 8: false confession. So the police are trained to interrogate in

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Speaker 8: a certain way. They all use this technique called the

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Speaker 8: read technique, which allows the deception, allows pressure, lets them

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Speaker 8: make up facts, lets them pit one against the other,

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Speaker 8: lots of different things. And in hindsight, I guess you

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Speaker 8: would say, why would I do that? But again, until

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Speaker 8: you've gone through it, it's hard to understand.

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Speaker 3: Let's look at it this way, right, you're sixteen years old.

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Speaker 3: You're totally disoriented because everything is upside down. You have

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Speaker 3: the police, who all of us grew up respecting and

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Speaker 3: thinking they were out for our best interest. And that's

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Speaker 3: the guy you go to if you're in trouble, right,

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Speaker 3: That's how I grew up for sure, and I think

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Speaker 3: most police that is the case. Were you a violent

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Speaker 3: guy prior to this?

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Speaker 5: Oh no, no, no, not at all.

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Speaker 3: So this is all a totally crazy experience in every

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Speaker 3: possible way. You had nothing to prepare you for it.

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Speaker 3: You're all alone and you see no way out, and

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Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, if that wasn't crazy enough,

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Speaker 3: the violence, the threat of further violence. They bring your friend,

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Speaker 3: or they show your friend, they say, hey told you,

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Speaker 3: she said you did, and all you got to do

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Speaker 3: is say he did it.

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Speaker 7: One of the interesting things in my particular case, so

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Speaker 7: when I was first approached by these detectives on the

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Speaker 7: streets in Brooklyn, I was with friends. We were sort

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Speaker 7: of in the game where we were sort of hung

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Speaker 7: outland and so one of the officers approached me you

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Speaker 7: have my picture in his hand. They said, would you

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Speaker 7: mind coming out to the police station for question?

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Speaker 5: That said sure.

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Speaker 7: You know, I didn't do anything, So I felt like

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Speaker 7: maybe they want to come down. Maybe something happened in

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Speaker 7: the neighborhood that they wanted to speak to me about.

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Speaker 7: Maybe I have some information or whatever the case may

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Speaker 7: have been. So I had no reason to sort of

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Speaker 7: be afraid of anything.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 7: It wasn't until I got into the police station where

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Speaker 7: they placed a squad car, where they placed Hanckers on

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Speaker 7: me to an extent where they were very tight. At

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Speaker 7: that point, that's where the sort of the red flag

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Speaker 7: went up and I knew something was something was wrong

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Speaker 7: at that particular time.

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Speaker 5: So I came down to the precpt.

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Speaker 7: Like I said, I had no reason to think that

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Speaker 7: I was gonna be in trouble for anything.

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Speaker 3: Did they read your Miranda rights?

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Speaker 5: No, not in a squad car on the street.

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Speaker 7: And know that I got down to the police station

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Speaker 7: and at some point after some of the questions occurred,

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Speaker 7: that's when they read me my rights.

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Speaker 3: But you probably, like most people who were innocent, you

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Speaker 3: probably thought I don't need a lawyer because I'm just

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Speaker 3: gonna answer some questions and go home because they everyone's

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Speaker 3: gonna know I didn't do this because I was. I

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Speaker 3: wasn't there.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think sometimes I'm know my particular situation, I

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Speaker 7: was so afraid and intimidated really that I wasn't even

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Speaker 7: thinking rationally.

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Speaker 5: I wasn't even thinking at all.

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Speaker 7: I was just kind of numb to the point of

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Speaker 7: being accused of killing somebody when I know I didn't

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Speaker 7: and I know that police suck. He didn't do anything either,

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Speaker 7: So I think it was sort of maybe I don't

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Speaker 7: know if it was shock or anything like that, but

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Speaker 7: I know I was. I was sort of numb to

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Speaker 7: the entire situations. So even for example, when when the

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Speaker 7: Miranda warners were being read to, now, I heard what

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Speaker 7: the officer was saying, but it didn't generate one way

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Speaker 7: or the other.

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Speaker 4: Just back then, these interrogations were not video, and so

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Speaker 4: what the jury's got to see is after the confession

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Speaker 4: had been extracted and written down and sometimes talked through

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Speaker 4: from the defense perspective practiced, then a video machine would

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Speaker 4: be brought into the room to take a confession that

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Speaker 4: seemingly the person is confessing they're not handcuffed. The circumstances

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Speaker 4: at that moment look fairly friendly, considering it's a wider, open,

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Speaker 4: bigger room, there's more light, but everything that happened before

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Speaker 4: that is not captured. And then you're left with the

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Speaker 4: juror who's saying, I would never have confessed I was

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Speaker 4: in a cent of a homicide. So all they see

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Speaker 4: is then the video confession that had been caught in

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Speaker 4: Sometimes it's twelve hours later. I mean, it's a long

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Speaker 4: time later, so that they've been with the police for

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Speaker 4: a very long time.

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Speaker 8: These quote unquote confessions which had very little facts. David's

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Speaker 8: confession statement on the videotape is about three minutes long.

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Speaker 3: That's it.

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Speaker 5: There's no details.

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Speaker 8: He's not asked what caliber weapon, he's not asked what handy.

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Speaker 5: Held the gun in.

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Speaker 8: It literally is about a series of about eight to

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Speaker 8: ten questions he's asked by the prosecutor who comes down

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Speaker 8: to take the confession.

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Speaker 5: Willie's was a little bit longer, about six or seven minutes.

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Speaker 8: It should have been obvious at that point that obviously

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Speaker 8: someone who had committed the crime would have known a

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Speaker 8: little bit more about what had happened, and it was

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Speaker 8: clear that the police officer and maybe even the DA

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Speaker 8: who was involved are a little bit afraid to get

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Speaker 8: into much detail because it was going to show that

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Speaker 8: they didn't have the knowledge of it. But the confessions

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Speaker 8: left a lot more questions unanswered than they resolved.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been a prosecutor for twenty two years and

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Speaker 4: I've taken these videotape confessions when I was writing assistant DA.

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Speaker 4: I've viewed hundreds and hundreds of these confessions. And in

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Speaker 4: this case, when David's file landed on my desk, it

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Speaker 4: had entered the conviction review Unit, and the district attorney

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Speaker 4: at the time, Ken Thompson, said, Eric, I want you

387
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Speaker 4: to pay attention to this case. I want you to

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Speaker 4: look at the confessions and tell me what you think.

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Speaker 4: Got myself readied with all the evidence around me to

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Speaker 4: take a look, and I watched the confessions. I walked

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Speaker 4: in to Ken's office and I said, we have a

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Speaker 4: problem here. That was a confession that did not mean anything.

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Speaker 5: It was the most.

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Speaker 4: Perfunctory confession ever. I mean, this was a case that

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Speaker 4: was supposed to be a carjacking, a robbery. There was

396
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Speaker 4: not a single question about the robbery aspect of the case.

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Speaker 4: What was taken, where did the property go? There was

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Speaker 4: not a single question about the gun, the type of gun,

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Speaker 4: the caliber of the gun.

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Speaker 3: These are not the type.

401
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Speaker 4: Of confessions that you would imagine that a jury would

402
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Speaker 4: convict on. And you have to wonder whether the racial

403
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Speaker 4: aspects of this part case mattered because you had two,

404
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:07,120
Speaker 4: you know, young black men accused of kidnapping someone from

405
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Speaker 4: Queens and bringing them into Brokelyn and killing them.

406
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Speaker 3: You know, was the victim white? Yes, you know, that's

407
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Speaker 3: the problem. And then the other thing that Oscar pointed

408
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Speaker 3: out before is the idea that the jury was led

409
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Speaker 3: to believe that you guys had driven this car throughout

410
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Speaker 3: New York City, but neither one of you had ever

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Speaker 3: driven a car or had a driver's license. You were

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Speaker 3: sixteen years old, so somehow or other you magically taught

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Speaker 3: yourself how to drive during the course of this carjacking

414
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Speaker 3: and robbery and everything else. I mean, you really have

415
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Speaker 3: to suspend a lot of layers of disbelief.

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Speaker 8: With a kidnap victim, alive kidnap victim in the back

417
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Speaker 8: holding him down supposedly with a gun, and the other

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Speaker 8: one is driving from Queens to Brooklyn, and then the

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Speaker 8: police had evidence that this car had been gassed up

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Speaker 8: at one in the morning with the victim's credit card

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Speaker 8: at an Amico gas station. And those days you had

422
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Speaker 8: to go give the credit card to the person. There

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Speaker 8: was no pay at the pump, you know. And wouldn't

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Speaker 8: they mention that I got gassed? They didn't ask them, well,

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Speaker 8: what about did you ever get guessed? I mean, there

426
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Speaker 8: were so many details they could have asked these two

427
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Speaker 8: boys to fill in. And it was just perfunctory is

428
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Speaker 8: exactly the right word.

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Speaker 5: Eric. It was just bare boned. David.

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Speaker 3: I want to get back to you, but I also

431
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Speaker 3: want to say that Ken Thompson, who was I guess

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Speaker 3: your mentor right. Ken was the DA until this year

433
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Speaker 3: when he died way too young, and he took such

434
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Speaker 3: great pride in the Conviction Review Unit, and he was

435
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:33,600
Speaker 3: so proud of the work that he had done to

436
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Speaker 3: get justice for you and other people. So may he

437
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,080
Speaker 3: rest in peace, David. So back to you. You end

438
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Speaker 3: up going to trial, I'm assuming you couldn't make bail, right.

439
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 5: No, you know, to have a bell. Actually he was

440
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:47,160
Speaker 5: rematted that day.

441
00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:49,199
Speaker 8: Was he didn't see his mother out the street for

442
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:50,119
Speaker 8: twenty nine years after that.

443
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:50,400
Speaker 5: Day.

444
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:53,880
Speaker 3: So you were held in Rikers Yes, I was as

445
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:56,320
Speaker 3: a sixteen year old boy. What an experience that had

446
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 3: to have been. And then you go to trial. Did

447
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:01,560
Speaker 3: you still have any hope? Did you think that the

448
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,399
Speaker 3: system was actually going to correct itself and that people

449
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:06,560
Speaker 3: would understand that you could not have done this?

450
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:07,920
Speaker 5: Well? Absolutely I did.

451
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,680
Speaker 7: For example, when I was on record, Islan, I never

452
00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:13,080
Speaker 7: like saw my lawyer at all when I was on records, Allen,

453
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:14,919
Speaker 7: the very first time I saw my lawyer was like

454
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 7: the first day of trial. So he came to the bullpen.

455
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,080
Speaker 7: And when he came to the bullpen, he just simply

456
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:22,520
Speaker 7: came to the bullpen to sort of sort of get

457
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:24,360
Speaker 7: me prepared for what would happen when I walk into

458
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:26,920
Speaker 7: the court room. So that was the very first time

459
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:30,120
Speaker 7: I've seen this attorney in almost almost almost twelve months.

460
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,959
Speaker 3: Actually, Okay, hold on, let's just let's just reflect on this.

461
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:38,000
Speaker 3: So you're facing the murder charge. Your life is at stake.

462
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,080
Speaker 3: You've been in Rikers Island for a year and no

463
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 3: one has come to visit you, no lawyer, nothing, No,

464
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,440
Speaker 3: no they have so he has basically you, he's never

465
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:49,160
Speaker 3: interviewed you.

466
00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 7: No, So what happens when I was on Records Island.

467
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:53,200
Speaker 7: For example, I forget my court The would be a

468
00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 7: journal on a monthly basis. So I would walk into

469
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,600
Speaker 7: court and they every time I would actually I should

470
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:00,360
Speaker 7: say Willie and I will walk into court, and every

471
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 7: time we walk into court, it would be one of

472
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 7: those situations where they just sort of make the schedule

473
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:06,679
Speaker 7: for another court day for the you know. So it

474
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:09,720
Speaker 7: was never a conversation with my attorneys about anything about

475
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,200
Speaker 7: in terms of the case. And you know, I mean

476
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 7: he knew I had alibi witnesses that needed to be interviewed.

477
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 7: I mean of the interviewed them himself.

478
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:18,239
Speaker 5: You know.

479
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:20,199
Speaker 7: So it was a series of things that this lay

480
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:22,440
Speaker 7: failed to do for me during the course of the case.

481
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,640
Speaker 4: So, if I'm correct, you didn't even make an opening statement,

482
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 4: you have a legal option of waiving and opening statement.

483
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 4: His attorney decided that it wasn't even worth talking to

484
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 4: the jury about what his theory of the case would

485
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 4: be and what the evidence he intended to show where

486
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 4: there was in fact a defense to be had. I mean,

487
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 4: they were fingerprints and DNA evidence that came back to

488
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:48,199
Speaker 4: other folks when they found the vehicle. I mean the

489
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 4: gun had not been recovered.

490
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 8: They had those two guys who were arrested on the APB,

491
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 8: the old points bulletin that matched the description one of

492
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 8: them worked at the hardware store.

493
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,320
Speaker 5: This was not a mystery to his lawyer. David didn't

494
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 5: know it. David didn't know any of that evidence. He

495
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 5: was ever told.

496
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 8: But the lawyer had the police reports, and he could

497
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,400
Speaker 8: have offered evidence of someone else's involvement.

498
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 4: And start shaping the jury for what you expect to

499
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 4: the jury to hear, because I mean here, obviously they

500
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 4: have to contest the confession. They have to start laying

501
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 4: the groundwork for that, and then the jury understand that

502
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,880
Speaker 4: there's so much other evidence that goes to David's actual innocence.

503
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:28,919
Speaker 4: And he does not even bother to make those arguments

504
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 4: in the opening statement. He just chooses not to make

505
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 4: it one.

506
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 8: And we ended up getting as part of our investigation

507
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 8: this guy's billing records because he was what was called

508
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 8: AT and B so where you get paid by the

509
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 8: government on an hourly basis to do the case even

510
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 8: though you're not legal AID legally cannot handle homicide cases

511
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 8: in New York. So ATMB panel gets the homicide cases.

512
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 8: So we know what he did because I have his hours,

513
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,879
Speaker 8: and I'll tell you people put more hours in on

514
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 8: a shop lift, Jason. This guy never went to the

515
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 8: crime scene, he never interviewed witnesses. He met once with

516
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 8: his investigator, who we ended up finding out was very diligent.

517
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 8: He never visited Rikers, So we have the proof that

518
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 8: he never visited David's. That's as David's word, because he

519
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,640
Speaker 8: built for it. And as Eric knows from experience, when

520
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 8: you get on ateen B and you're a private lawyer,

521
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 8: a lot of times your bill is limited. The judge

522
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 8: won't let you spend ten thousand dollars shoplifting case. But

523
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 8: when you have a homicide case, that's where eighteen B

524
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 8: lawyers make their money. A judge will never say you

525
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 8: shouldn't have gone to the scene three times. A judge

526
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 8: will never restrain you on a murder case from spending

527
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 8: time on the case. So normally you see an a

528
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 8: eighteen B bill on a homicide case, it's pages, and

529
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 8: I'm talking pages and pages and pages long. This was

530
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 8: one page about a third field of entries on the

531
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 8: case and just have never seen anything like it. It

532
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 8: was the most disgusting, disgusting, terrible representation. Wait listen, just

533
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 8: to put the nail in his coffin, because fortunately he's gone.

534
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 8: I found the investigator. The guy was still alive, and

535
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 8: older guy's seventy six years old, Anthony Cordero. He had

536
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 8: developed the same theory that we did, we didn't know it,

537
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 8: which was that the police those two guys had a relationship,

538
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 8: not above board relationship, and that's why they had to

539
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 8: turn away from those two guys that they found in

540
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 8: that Queen's priests because he was going to point back

541
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,719
Speaker 8: to the police officer involved. So he was working on that,

542
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 8: and then he said to me, you know, I remember now,

543
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 8: I used to pick up Murto that's his name, because

544
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 8: he lived in Brooklyn. I lived in a Long Island. When

545
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 8: I would drive to court, he'd say, can you do

546
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 8: me a favorite? Pick me up on your way in.

547
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 8: And every morning when I picked him up, he was

548
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 8: in his kitchen with a bottle of cheap vodka and

549
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 8: a toll glass of ice, and he would offer me

550
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 8: a drink and I would say, mister Murdle, it's eight

551
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 8: thirty in the morning. I don't drink at eight thirty

552
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 8: in the morning, and he'd have a drink and sometimes

553
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 8: two glasses of vodka before getting in the car and

554
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 8: going to try David's case.

555
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 3: It starts to sound like a lynching.

556
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 8: It was a travesty, is what it was. It was

557
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 8: a total travesty. And you know, it's not easy to

558
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 8: say when I speak at bar groups a lot of

559
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 8: times about rome for convictions, but bad lawyering and not

560
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 8: having qualified attorneys represent those people who are accused of

561
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 8: these crimes is a big cause. It's easy to blame

562
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,120
Speaker 8: over zealous prosecutors and all of that, but the defense

563
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 8: bar has a lot of guilt on these wrawful convictions.

564
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 3: And David, you don't have any knowledge of all this

565
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 3: stuff that's going on, that your lawyers are drunk, that

566
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 3: he hasn't done any work, that none of this stuff

567
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 3: that is supposed to be there to protect you is

568
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 3: operating for you. It's all actually working against you. But

569
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 3: yet you remained optimistic. The jury goes out and they

570
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 3: come back and they find you guilty. I mean that moment,

571
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 3: can you walk us through that?

572
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 5: Sure?

573
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,239
Speaker 7: So for me leaving in the system, still believing that

574
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 7: I had truth on my side, still believing that the

575
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 7: jury is going to find both Willy and I not guilty.

576
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 7: So when the verdict came in, I was sitting, of course,

577
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 7: back into the book, and they are ready call us

578
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 7: out to the courtroom and they read the verdicant and

579
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 7: they said guilty. I was initially stunned, but I had

580
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 7: to make sure that a Hilma can POI and not

581
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 7: only for myself, but I had my mother sitting in

582
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 7: the back of the court room. I didn't want her

583
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 7: to see my reaction, and I also didn't want to

584
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 7: turn around to see hers because that would have probably

585
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 7: got me very, very upset. So what I tried to

586
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 7: do is I tried to sort of have a sort

587
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 7: of even killed straight face. But I was really, really

588
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 7: I was in disbelief because I really had my heart

589
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 7: set on not guilty verdict. So when they actually came

590
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 7: back into that Willie and I were actually guilty of

591
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 7: killing this person, I was also in a state of disbelief.

592
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 7: But it more importantly for me, I think I was

593
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 7: more concerned about my family at that time, who was

594
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 7: in court on a daily basis, you know, supported me

595
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 7: and that sort of thing. Because, for example, one thing

596
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 7: my mother said to me the very first time she

597
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 7: even mentioned a case for me, like when I was

598
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 7: in a precinct. The very next day I went to

599
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 7: court and she asked me, she said, David, you know,

600
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 7: did you commit this crime? And I said, no, mind

601
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 7: did not. So that that conversation or questions never came

602
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 7: up again throughout this whole entire experience. So that and

603
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 7: of itself allowed me some confidence that, you know, my

604
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 7: mom believed in me, she believed what I said to her.

605
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 7: So when this verdict was rare, I just couldn't find

606
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 7: myself to turn around and look at it because I

607
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 7: just know that, you know, she was hurting obviously, and

608
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 7: just for me to see that that it would have

609
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 7: got some kind of reaction out of me, not sort

610
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 7: of in a volatile way, but in a I mean

611
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 7: I probably would have got over emotional, and that's something

612
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 7: they want to do at that particular time.

613
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 5: So I just sort of help my.

614
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 7: Compolsion just just you know, just walked out of the

615
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 7: courtroom after the verdicts were read, and I was able,

616
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 7: of course, to you know, call her on the telephone

617
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 7: that protected that night and talk to her and sold

618
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 7: try to calm it down and try to let her

619
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 7: know everything was going to be fine. This thing is

620
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 7: going to work itself out. You know, the truth is

621
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 7: eventually going to come to light. And just to have patience,

622
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 7: something she always told me to do. Just have patience.

623
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 7: So that was the best way I tried to deal

624
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 7: with such a it what can best be described as

625
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 7: a really tragic event.

626
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 4: And Willly Stucky was convicted as well, and as we know,

627
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 4: he never got out of jail. He passed away in

628
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 4: two thousand and one.

629
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, and let's talk about that for a second. So Willie,

630
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 3: you're code defendant who was equally let down by the

631
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 3: system and a lot of the same things that you did,

632
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 3: and unbelievably had a heart attack at thirty one years

633
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,959
Speaker 3: old in prison and died, never got to have his

634
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 3: day in court and his freedom again. So it's just

635
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 3: another tragic aspect of this horrible case.

636
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 8: And when we were going back to his family, his family,

637
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 8: even when we were starting to look at the case,

638
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 8: they were almost afraid. They were like, you know, I

639
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 8: don't know that we want to look into this. I

640
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 8: don't know that they were prepared to try to think

641
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 8: about They would rather just you know, I don't want

642
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 8: to talk about it.

643
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 5: I don't want to think about it.

644
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 8: And at first that was kind of shocked by that,

645
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 8: but almost in some way that would almost be worse

646
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 8: for them to then find out that obviously they believed

647
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 8: in him, but now that there was proof there, there

648
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 8: was all this stuff that could have been done. It's

649
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 8: like a second death when you think about how wasteful

650
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 8: it is. And you know, the correctional facility never even

651
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 8: really told them. If they say heart attack, but everyone

652
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 8: dies of a heart attack, Okay, it's just cardiac arrest.

653
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 5: They'll tell how.

654
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 8: Did he die, what caused it? And they heard different stories.

655
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 8: A bad time to let the sepsis, you know, had

656
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 8: a heart attack in the yard. They had so many questions,

657
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 8: and I think they were just afraid to look under

658
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 8: the rock and see that it was such a waste

659
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 8: of a life.

660
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you Eric a very difficult question,

661
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 3: which is that in this particular case, so many things

662
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 3: didn't make any sense right because of the nature of

663
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 3: this crime, very violent, with the kidnapping and the driving

664
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 3: all over and the holding the guy down at gunpoint

665
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 3: in the backseat, and everything else that went on in

666
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 3: the murder, you would have to know that a couple

667
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 3: of kids who didn't have a history of trouble, this

668
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 3: would not be the first crist It wouldn't be your

669
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 3: starter crime, right, so I would think, But I want

670
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 3: your opinion that the prosecutor probably knew they were innocent too.

671
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 3: Do you think the prosecutor ever had a thought, well,

672
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 3: this doesn't really make any sense when I'm just going

673
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 3: to go ahead and do my job anyway, and just

674
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 3: well not even do my job. I'm just going to

675
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 3: go ahead and get this conviction and keep it moving.

676
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have to believe that the prosecutor did not.

677
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 4: I have to believe, as the district attorney that a

678
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 4: person who's sworn to uphold the law. You know, one

679
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 4: of the things that I've said publicly about prosecutors is

680
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 4: that prosecutors have a way of trying to synthesize evidence

681
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 4: to make things holes in their cases close and to

682
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 4: close reasonable doubt before juries, and they become trained to

683
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 4: think that way and sometimes the humanity of being a

684
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 4: prosecutor and thinking about this because you know, listen, for me,

685
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 4: I grew up in East New York and Brooklyn, roughly

686
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 4: maybe a year or two younger than David. But the

687
00:31:56,520 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 4: thought of me traveling at that age into Ozelon Park

688
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 4: under the time that we lived in New York City

689
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 4: in the eighties is not something that a black kids

690
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 4: would do at that time who had never been in

691
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 4: that neighborhood before the middle They stand out and it's

692
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 4: very important because we mentioned this, but the two gentlemen

693
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 4: that were there in Queens did not fit the physical

694
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 4: descriptions of either David or Willie. So you ask, how

695
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 4: can a prosecutor go forward on this case? And I

696
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 4: think that you start to believe in your own theory

697
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 4: of the case. And prosecutors and detectives, I think too

698
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 4: often they get a suspect, they have some evidence right here,

699
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 4: they had the confession, and so you have a prosecutor

700
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 4: who's not thinking anything differently than an ordinary person. He's confessed,

701
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 4: they have some evidence. You have these conversations with the detective,

702
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 4: and the grand jury has now indicted the case. And

703
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 4: what I'm really critical about and what I tell my prosecutors,

704
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 4: and this is one of the important way work of

705
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 4: the Conviction Review Unit is that in the eighties and

706
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 4: the nineties, I became a prosecutor in the nineties there

707
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 4: was so much crime, and so much violent crime that

708
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 4: often it was let the juries decide and let the

709
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 4: jury decide whether someone is innocent or guilty. And I

710
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 4: think that was a complete abdication of our responsibility to

711
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 4: do justice.

712
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 5: If a prosecutor.

713
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 4: Cannot believe in their case, they have no business bringing it.

714
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 4: And one of the things that I instruct the Brooklyn

715
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 4: das now is if you have doubt about your case,

716
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 4: you should not be trying that case, and let's look

717
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 4: at the case. But when I came up as a prosecutor,

718
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 4: I will tell you that often it says, well, there's

719
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 4: twelve people in the box, let them decide guilty or innocence.

720
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 4: And so I think in some cases, and I'm not

721
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 4: saying in David's case or Willie's case, but in some

722
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 4: cases prosecutors just said, well, we're going to let the

723
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 4: jury's decide it. And that's wrong, and that's not going

724
00:33:57,120 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 4: to happen again. It can happen again, not.

725
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 3: Going to happen again in Brooklyn for the next four years.

726
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 3: I know that much because we got you in there,

727
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 3: which is great. So, David, you seem like a very composed, thoughtful,

728
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 3: decent man, who has a From what I can tell

729
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 3: knowing you a short time that I have a positive

730
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 3: outlook on life. How the fuck does somebody survive twenty

731
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,280
Speaker 3: nine years in a maximum security prison and come out?

732
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 3: And because when you came out you'd never been on

733
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 3: an airplane, you didn't know I mean a phone. The

734
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 3: phone used to be a thing with a cord that

735
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 3: was stuck to the wall.

736
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 5: Right, that's absolutely correct.

737
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, So how the hell did you first of all,

738
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 3: survive as an innocent man in prison for almost three decades?

739
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 3: And then how has it been coming out? And how

740
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 3: have you managed to become the man that you are now?

741
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 7: Oh wow, Well, thanks for the very kind words. And

742
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 7: I think for me on that a lot of things

743
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 7: fortunately working in my favor. So, for one, I always

744
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 7: always knew that Willie and I were innocent, so the

745
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 7: truth always believed it couldn't be compromisive for that respect. Also,

746
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 7: I have an older sister who's disabled. You know, she

747
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 7: has cerebal palsy. She was born without a spine. Her

748
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 7: name was Ella. She's been bedridden her entire life. So

749
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 7: anytime something would happen in prison, anytime I would feel

750
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:13,479
Speaker 7: a particular way in prison, I would always think about

751
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 7: my sister because she was she was really inspiration for

752
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 7: someone like myself who was also going through some difficult times,

753
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 7: but in my mind, not as difficult as she had been,

754
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 7: so she was I drew inspiration from her, and of

755
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 7: course my mom, who never wavered in believing in me

756
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 7: from the very beginning to the very end, you know.

757
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 7: So I had those things in my favor. But then

758
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 7: as time grew on, of course, I was able to

759
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 7: develop a really good support system. And so what I

760
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 7: mean by that is a really good attorney and Oscar

761
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 7: michelind because Ruber and Hurricane Carter came into my life

762
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 7: at a time where I really needed him the most,

763
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 7: so when I had all the whole bulk of other

764
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 7: friends who factored into my life as well. So I would,

765
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 7: you know, get visits in prison this sort of thing,

766
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 7: and I mean some of the visits that were that

767
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 7: I would get. We would just talk about things that

768
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 7: would happen on the outside. Because one thing Ruben instilled

769
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 7: in me, and he said it was very important that

770
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 7: I think this way is sort of think outside of

771
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 7: prison and put myself outside of prison, at least spiritually.

772
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 7: And that's what I tried to do, and I found

773
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 7: that once I started doing that, I started sort of

774
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 7: like just feeling much better about a lot of different things.

775
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 7: And so when things of course got tough, as they

776
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 7: often did in prison, at least in my experience, I

777
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:20,360
Speaker 7: thought about all the people that I came into my

778
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 7: life of course by the time, and I needed them

779
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 7: the most. And that was really beneficial for someone like me,

780
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 7: because in prison it made so not afford the sort

781
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 7: of a latitude and blessing that I were given. So

782
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,280
Speaker 7: I never took it for granted from that regard. But again,

783
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,360
Speaker 7: the fact that I can see me here and be humble,

784
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 7: I hope is really the testament of other people coming

785
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 7: into my life, not just David McCallum himself.

786
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 4: David, it's an exceptional man. I was immediately touched when

787
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 4: I met him. I know Ken Thompson was as well.

788
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 4: We had David come to the office and talk to

789
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 4: our young interns and make sure that our people who

790
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 4: want to be prosecutors understood what happened to him. David

791
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 4: is just an exceptional man, and I know that we've

792
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 4: done it before, but as the District Attorney of Brooklyn,

793
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 4: I apologize to you, brother for what happened to you,

794
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 4: for how the system lets you down.

795
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 5: Thank you much about.

796
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,919
Speaker 3: That that As a New Yorker and a human being,

797
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 3: I'm gonna add my apologies because we let you down,

798
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,720
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody let you down. But you're here, yes,

799
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 3: and that's a great thing. I mean, I'm thrilled to

800
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 3: have you here.

801
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 5: Thank you.

802
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 3: You mentioned Ruben Hurricane Carter right, Yes, a legend not

803
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 3: only for his boxing abilities, the former number one middleweight contender,

804
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:40,440
Speaker 3: immortalized in the Bob Dylan song. But how did he

805
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 3: come to find out about your case and get involved

806
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 3: and then write a letter that really helped tip the

807
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 3: scales for you? Right?

808
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, thank you for asking that question. That was

809
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 7: actually the foundation of how really all this really began.

810
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,359
Speaker 7: I mean, look, I started a letter writing campaign long

811
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 7: after my state and federal appeals were exhausted, because at

812
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 7: that particular time of that have any able legal recourts

813
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 7: other than the post conviction motion. Then with that, you

814
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,320
Speaker 7: normally have to present Newt's govern evidence, which I didn't

815
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 7: have that at that time obviously. So when I started

816
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:10,919
Speaker 7: my letter writing campaign, I was sitting in a place

817
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 7: called Eastern correctional facility, and I was a law clerk

818
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 7: in the low library and a friend of mine named

819
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 7: Eric Coleman was reading this magazine called The Sun.

820
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 5: Some magazine is like a literal magazine where it has a.

821
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 7: Lot of like short stories and that that it may

822
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 7: soften read in poems and stuff like that, where it

823
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 7: may so often, you know, recite it not necesly to

824
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 7: themselves but to other inmates for example. So what I

825
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 7: had no real really had no real intention of reading

826
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 7: the magazine. All I simply they wanted to do is

827
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 7: to sort of peruse it. So because I want to

828
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 7: go back to my house in units to get ready,

829
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 7: you know, for the next day. So I got this

830
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 7: magazine and I thumbed through the pages and I came

831
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 7: across the injin of view with Ken Klosky in Ruben

832
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 7: Hurricane Carter. So I knew who Ruben Hurricane Carter was.

833
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 7: I know he was a former prize fighter. I know

834
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 7: he had spent nineteen years in prison for a triple

835
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 7: homicide in Pattison, New Jersey, and that sort of thing.

836
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 7: So I wrote Ken Klosky letter hoping that he can

837
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 7: get me in touch with Ruben so and That's pretty

838
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 7: much how this whole story sort of evolved into basically

839
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 7: where I'm actually sitting there now because once I was able,

840
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:07,839
Speaker 7: kin Klowski was able to get me in cont touch

841
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 7: with Ruben. I had an opportunity to meet Ruben on

842
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 7: several occasions. He became sort of a mentor for me.

843
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 7: We had very intense conversations on the telephone. Ruben was

844
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 7: a very intense individual and that sort of thing. So

845
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 7: once Kim was able to put me in touch with him,

846
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,760
Speaker 7: that really set the stage for me meeting other people

847
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 7: that came into my life too and basically sort of

848
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,720
Speaker 7: prepared me. So when Ruben's were was when I actually

849
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 7: eventually got out, not there for the movement was sort

850
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 7: of a positive individual that way, So meeting all these

851
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 7: people sort of set the stage for preparation for me

852
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 7: to get out. So when I got out, of course,

853
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 7: I was shocked at some of the things that I

854
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 7: saw initially, but I wasn't overly shocked about a lot

855
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,439
Speaker 7: of things because again, meeting all these individuals who shared

856
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 7: their stories with me about travels and stuff like that,

857
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 7: that allowed me to get a sense of what society

858
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 7: would be like if got out of prison and that

859
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 7: sort of thing. So I was kind of prepared, it's

860
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 7: but in a lot of ways, I was not prepared.

861
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 5: To be honest with youself. This was also the ad

862
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 5: points of having a really really good support system.

863
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 3: You're not a person that gives up easy, are you?

864
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 5: No?

865
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,800
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, what's my state filler appills were exhausted.

866
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 7: But I just kept thinking about my family, for example,

867
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 7: and at that time, Uli Suckyn. Of course he was

868
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 7: he was still among us, but we had lost communication

869
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,439
Speaker 7: for a while. So I just wanted to just someone

870
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 7: to fight, not necessarily for myself, but for the both

871
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 7: of us.

872
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 8: Ruben was forced to be reckoned with. I had just

873
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 8: done my first exoneration, a guy named Angelo Martinez, and

874
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 8: back in the in those days, it was a very

875
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 8: rare event, so there was a lot of press, a lot.

876
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 5: Of media about it.

877
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 8: And about a week two weeks later, my secretary says,

878
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,959
Speaker 8: there's a phone call for you. It's Rubin Hurricane Carter

879
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 8: on the phone. So I said, it's one of my

880
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 8: idiot friends from the Bronx, just trying to bust my chops,

881
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:51,399
Speaker 8: you know.

882
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 5: I said, I said, all right, put it through. I said,

883
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:55,439
Speaker 5: so what do you want?

884
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 8: And he said, hello, this is doctor Carter, and I

885
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 8: wanted to actually in the case. I want to talk

886
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 8: to you about your next case. And I said, what

887
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 8: are you talking about. I could have believe it was

888
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 8: actually the hurricane like you, Jason, I mean that song,

889
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 8: that story is.

890
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 5: Legend right, I mean, you know.

891
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 8: And he said, I'm going to send you this file.

892
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 8: We need a lawyer in New York, and I want

893
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:20,879
Speaker 8: you to look at the file and call me when

894
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 8: you're done and what you think about the case. So

895
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 8: I called him back after I looked at the file.

896
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 8: I said, this guy got the worst trial I've ever

897
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 8: seen in my life. This guy's trial was horrific. He

898
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 8: should never have been convicted. So Rubin said, yeah, but

899
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 8: do you think he's innocent? And I said, I don't know.

900
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 8: I didn't really look at it, you know, from that aspect.

901
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 8: He said, well, call me back when you've looked at

902
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 8: me from an aspect, because I'm not interested in a

903
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 8: procedural error. I want to establish this guy is innocent.

904
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 8: So then I went back and looked over everything, and

905
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 8: then I found some inconsistencies almost immediately in the confession,

906
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 8: one of which was the thing that the lynchpin really

907
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 8: to the whole wrongful conviction. And I called him and said,

908
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 8: neither of these guys did it. And he said, okay,

909
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,399
Speaker 8: I'm coming down to New York. Let's go visit him.

910
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 8: And I said, okay. And as you could tell anybody

911
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 8: who meets David, you know, you're five minutes into it,

912
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 8: You're like, this guy's not a murderer.

913
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 5: This guy was never a murderer.

914
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 8: And we spent a lot of time that day with David,

915
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 8: and then we brainstormed after it. But Rubin was the

916
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 8: one who got his name, helped us get the leading

917
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 8: false confession expert on the case, a guy named Steve Drizzen.

918
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 8: He helped us get Laura Cohen from Rucers University and

919
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 8: her students to help Dave with the parole piece, and

920
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 8: then they became involved in the reinvestigation as well. And

921
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 8: his letter to the Daily News moved the case to

922
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,240
Speaker 8: the top of the pile. And I don't think David

923
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 8: would have been here if Ruben hadn't gotten into his life,

924
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 8: or frankly, David hadn't just decided to pick up the

925
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 8: Sun magazine that day.

926
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 5: How many times do you think about that.

927
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 7: I think about that a lot, because I had plenty

928
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 7: of opportunities to say, you know what, I'm just going

929
00:42:58,080 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 7: to go back early tonight. You know, I'm not going

930
00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 7: to stay around. I'm not going to stick around. I

931
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 7: didn't have any any more work to do that particular

932
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 7: nights he worked in a law lit Yeah, so it

933
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 7: would have been very easy for me to just sort

934
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 7: of shut it down early, which I did at times,

935
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 7: you know, we feeling tired, that sort of thing.

936
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 4: You want to kind of and then you know, in

937
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 4: two thousand and thirteen Brooklyn elected Ken Thompson.

938
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 5: Well, I have a story about that.

939
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 4: And you have to have a prosecutor who's willing to

940
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 4: take a case that's, you know, thirty years old and say, yeah,

941
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 4: we're going to actually take a look at it, reinvestigate it,

942
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 4: reopen it. Because we know that prosecutors are loath to

943
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 4: do that across the United States, and in fact, even

944
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 4: in the Brooklyn DA's office, the answer had been previously know.

945
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 7: And I'm glad he mentioned that because I remember in

946
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 7: twenty thirteen when during the campaign, when Ken Thompson was

947
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 7: he was campaigning, and so that time I was at

948
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,879
Speaker 7: a place called Otisville. So that's a medium correction for city.

949
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 7: It's like a place like basically made up of dormitory.

950
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 7: So I remember staying up late at night just trying

951
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 7: to hear any sort of campaign news that I could, because,

952
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 7: you know, I want I wanted this guy to when

953
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 7: not because it would guarantee an any freedom or anything

954
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,360
Speaker 7: like that. Well, at least we will guarantee change, and

955
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:09,240
Speaker 7: people like myself in that situation, all I really wanted

956
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 7: was an opportunity, and all as a legal team, all

957
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 7: we really wanted was an opportunity, a fair chance, you know,

958
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 7: to have our case heard, because under the previous regime,

959
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 7: we really believed that we wasn't, you know, given a

960
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 7: fair opportunity to present our case in a way that

961
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 7: we that we needed to. So when Sir Thompson eventually

962
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 7: got itighted, I know that he made some campaign promises

963
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 7: that he would investigate wrong for convictions thoroughly and that

964
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 7: sort of thing. And once I heard that, I really

965
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 7: was really I was emotionally I cried a lot, because

966
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 7: that's what you want to hear, especially someone in my position.

967
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 7: You just want someone to say, you know what, we're

968
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 7: going to do this thing fairly, and however it would

969
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 7: have turned out after that, of course I would have

970
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 7: been disappointed, but at least I would have known that

971
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 7: this individual delivered on a promise on the campaign promise

972
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 7: that some individuals don't normally do under those circumstances. So

973
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 7: when he became the attorney, I think the people of

974
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 7: Brooklyn can attest to this. That really change the dynamics

975
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:03,719
Speaker 7: of the I think the criminals as a system in

976
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 7: general an impression.

977
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 4: We've vacated well under his tenure, twenty one cases in

978
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 4: destroyed period of time that I've been serving as the

979
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 4: acting DA. I've vacated two additional cases who are up

980
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 4: to twenty three cases, and the work of our conviction

981
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 4: review unit is ongoing and there's much more work to

982
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 4: be done.

983
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 3: Well, you have a real dedicated team, right, I mean

984
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 3: in some of these convicted review units around the country,

985
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 3: they have one part time guy or whatever, and you

986
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 3: have a ten detectives assigned to this.

987
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:37,439
Speaker 4: We have full time prosecutors who only handle these reinvestigations.

988
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 4: Currently we have nine full time prosecutors and we have

989
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 4: full time detectives. We have full time paralegals. It's a

990
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:50,320
Speaker 4: many law firm that's working on reviewing cases of wrongful conviction.

991
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 5: It's simply a model.

992
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 8: There really is no other word for it, and no

993
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 8: other place has replicated it. No place has tried to

994
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 8: replicate it. And you know, I knew Ken from Gating.

995
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 8: We were adversaries on a couple of big cases against

996
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,399
Speaker 8: each other. When he got elected DA, I called him

997
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 8: and said, I got talked about this case because we

998
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 8: had been rebuffed countless times by Joe Hines's office. We

999
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 8: were told, come back to us when you get the

1000
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 8: real killers. And I said, I thought, that's your job.

1001
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 8: You know I'm not here to catch the real killers.

1002
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 8: I'm here to show you that this guy and his

1003
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 8: co defender of innocent. And he said, wait till you

1004
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:25,320
Speaker 8: see what we're gonna do. Okay, call me in January,

1005
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 8: call me in February. And I said, I'll give you

1006
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 8: some time, but you really got to look at this case.

1007
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,720
Speaker 8: He said, done, just call me. And I never expected

1008
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,399
Speaker 8: him to do the breath that he did, and him

1009
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:38,439
Speaker 8: and Eric developed this unit that was second to none.

1010
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 8: The standard that Ken said was is it a conviction

1011
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 8: I could live up to? I don't care whether he

1012
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 8: already made this argument. I don't care whether anybody else

1013
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 8: has already looked at it. I want to be able

1014
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 8: to stand by this conviction. That's the tone that Eric said.

1015
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 8: Also because he helped develop the unit with Ken, and

1016
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 8: he put him directly on David's case. And I remember

1017
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 8: telling him, I said, you were the only elected official, Ken,

1018
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 8: that I can think of in modern history who got

1019
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 8: elected promising more rights to the criminally accused. Every other

1020
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 8: prosecutor before Ken was tough on crime. I'm going to

1021
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 8: lock them up, I'm going to stafe streets, war on drugs.

1022
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 8: And this was the first guy who said I'm going

1023
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 8: to try to reform the system, and he put his

1024
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 8: money where his mouth is. Like you said, I couldn't

1025
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 8: believe it when I went up and saw the unit.

1026
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:26,959
Speaker 3: By the way, there's nothing that helps public safety about

1027
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 3: convicting the wrong guys. In fact, that's the opposite effect.

1028
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:46,240
Speaker 3: So let me ask were the real perpetrators ever caught

1029
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 3: in this case? Because if not, then that's another crime

1030
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 3: against society, right right.

1031
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:53,359
Speaker 8: I mean, one of the things that no one thinks

1032
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 8: about a wonful conviction is if the conviction was wrongful,

1033
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 8: it means that the people who actually committed this.

1034
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 5: Crime are still out there, and the people who come.

1035
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 8: Into this crime, unless they're in prison for other things

1036
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 8: they've done since, or who're still.

1037
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 4: Out there, they've never been held accountable. But we believe

1038
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 4: that we know who did this crime, and there is

1039
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 4: no statute of limitations, and if the evidence can never

1040
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 4: be brought and I'm in office, I will bring that case.

1041
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think all of us would like to see

1042
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 3: these guys brought to justice because these are dangerous, scary

1043
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 3: individuals who committed a really terrible crime and got away

1044
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 3: with it. What was the moment when you found out

1045
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 3: that you were going home?

1046
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 5: Sure, guiny motion was substance, So please excuse me on

1047
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 5: that one. My correction.

1048
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 7: Counselor will see the telephone call from Oscar Michelin and

1049
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 7: Laura Colin, and I was summoned to her office to

1050
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,240
Speaker 7: speak to them. And so when I got on the phone,

1051
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 7: Oscar pretty much said to me that you're going to

1052
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 7: be coming to court the next day. I believe it

1053
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 7: was Wednesday, as a matter of fact. And when he

1054
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 7: and Laura said that to me, it is not that

1055
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 7: I didn't believe them, it's that for me, for some

1056
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 7: I just wanted to get to court and hear the

1057
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 7: judge actually say the words that their convention is going

1058
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:16,360
Speaker 7: to be vacated. And I remember leaving my Correctional Counselor's

1059
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 7: office that afternoon, walking back up the hill to my

1060
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 7: housing unit, really crying, and in some ways really didn't

1061
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 7: know you know what I was crying about. It's because

1062
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 7: I was. I mean, I had a lot of mixed emotions.

1063
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 7: Not that I necessarily didn't think that I was going

1064
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 7: to go home, but the fact that I was going

1065
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 7: to be going to court and something big was going

1066
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 7: to happen. So from that standpoint, I was like on

1067
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 7: pins and needles for the rest of the night. And

1068
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 7: on that particular night, for example, I didn't go to

1069
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 7: sleep because I just simply couldn't. I just kept thinking

1070
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 7: about the very next day when I was asked to

1071
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 7: pack up my stuff and I was.

1072
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:53,840
Speaker 5: Going to court.

1073
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 7: And so for me, what I did was when I

1074
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 7: packed up my stuff and getting ready to go to court,

1075
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 7: I gave a lot of my stuf up away, not

1076
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 7: necessarily knowing specifically that I was gonna be coming back,

1077
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 7: but I just I just felt like, you know what,

1078
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 7: I'm gonna I'm gonna give people stuff that I think

1079
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 7: they deserve and they need, and that's what I did.

1080
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 7: So when two investigators from the Brooklyn Districttorney's office came

1081
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 7: to pick me up and they put me in a

1082
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:20,879
Speaker 7: car and he drove off. They were playing the song

1083
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 7: The Hurricane, and so one of the investigators asked me,

1084
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:25,399
Speaker 7: do you know who this guy is? Said, of course,

1085
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 7: I know who that guy is. He said, do you

1086
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 7: know what he's singing, and said, of course I know

1087
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 7: what he's singing. That's Bob Dylan and he's singing the Hurricane.

1088
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:32,360
Speaker 7: And I thought that was really cool. We had a

1089
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 7: really cool woman with these guys coming down to Brooklyn

1090
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 7: because these guys actually grew up in Brooklyn themselves, these investigators,

1091
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 7: and they were just talking to me about how things

1092
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 7: changed in Brooklyn, and so we got downtown. They was

1093
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 7: pointing out certain things to me and it even offered

1094
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 7: me some real food that I've had and had ever

1095
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 7: since I've been in concentrated and that sort of thing.

1096
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 5: So it was sort of that kind of moment. And

1097
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 5: when I actually got into.

1098
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 7: The courtroom, and well, actually before I got to the

1099
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 7: court room, I was taking them to the Brooklyn Districttorney's

1100
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 7: office and take upstairs and I'm not sure what floor

1101
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 7: I was on, and Ken Thompson came in and he

1102
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 7: introduced himself and he told me on certain terms that

1103
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 7: when I walked out of this building to the courthouse,

1104
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 7: that he wanted me to hold my.

1105
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:12,760
Speaker 5: Head up high.

1106
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 7: And I really appreciated those comments because I think he

1107
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 7: was saying that I'm probably gonna do. I'm going to

1108
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 7: be a hack of but because I got hack it

1109
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 7: was on me. Don't look at yourself as as a criminal.

1110
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 7: I think that it was his message. So I did

1111
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 7: what he what he asked me to do, and I

1112
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 7: walked down to the courthouse and we went upstairs and

1113
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 7: eventually went into.

1114
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 5: The courtroom, and I seen all.

1115
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:34,239
Speaker 7: These individuals in there, whether it was the media or

1116
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 7: a lot of a lot of people in the courtroom,

1117
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 7: of course, and as they would say, you know, the

1118
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:38,760
Speaker 7: rest is history.

1119
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 3: So yeah, and Oscar, your take on this? So when

1120
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 3: you called him the night before, did you knew what

1121
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 3: was going to happen the next time? You didn't tell him?

1122
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 8: Well, Ken had called me and said, once you come

1123
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 8: down in Columbus day, bring one other member of your team.

1124
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,839
Speaker 8: The office was closed except for the interview, and Laura

1125
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 8: Cohen and I met with him and we talked for

1126
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 8: a while, and he said, we're going to do it Wednesday.

1127
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 8: We're going to vacate the conviction, and we're going to

1128
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 8: vacate Willie's conviction also. And you know, it was a

1129
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,359
Speaker 8: very very emotional obviously, and No, I called and told him.

1130
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 8: I didn't hide anything from him. He just didn't want

1131
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:14,760
Speaker 8: to believe it until he heard the judge.

1132
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 7: That's like for years of being beaten down by the system,

1133
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 7: being told no all the time, even during my letter

1134
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 7: writing campaign, for example, so before I actually wrote Cad

1135
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 7: that letter, I wrote hundreds of letters to law firms, newspapers,

1136
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 7: New York Times, Daily News, the New York Post, I mean,

1137
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 7: all different sort of kind of publication that I wrote,

1138
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:34,399
Speaker 7: some magazine that I wrote. I'm just trying to get

1139
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:36,359
Speaker 7: some help, you know, because at that time it didn't

1140
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 7: really have any So again, it was not a matter

1141
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 7: of not necessarily believe in them, because I really had

1142
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:45,360
Speaker 7: no reason not to believe them. It's just that I

1143
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 7: just I just wanted to hear this judge say that man,

1144
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 7: and this everything in my life had come to up

1145
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 7: to that point where I just sort of culminated to

1146
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 7: that one moment and the fact that when I got

1147
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 7: into the courtroom, and actually prior to me getting in

1148
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,879
Speaker 7: the courtroom, I had a conversation with Willie Stucky's mom

1149
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 7: and I recall her very specifically saying to me, you know,

1150
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:11,919
Speaker 7: you're my son now, and those words resonated me with

1151
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 7: me in a way that I'll never forget. And so

1152
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 7: when the judge, of course, the da and Oscar was

1153
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 7: in the courtroom and the judge finally you know, of

1154
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 7: course made this decision, I just hugged her and I

1155
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 7: just looked at her. It was a very very bittersweet

1156
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:31,320
Speaker 7: moment for me because at that time, I'm thinking to myself,

1157
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 7: you know, here I am going to be walking out

1158
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 7: of the courtroom very happy, but very sad at the

1159
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,319
Speaker 7: same time, because Willie Stucky, you should have been walking

1160
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 7: out out of this very courtroom.

1161
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 4: With me, and having sat in the first row in

1162
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 4: that courtroom.

1163
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 3: There were a lot of wet eyes all throughout.

1164
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 4: But it was a very emotional moment, the sense that

1165
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 4: justice was delayed for so many years, but there was

1166
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 4: at least at this moment a reckoning and the reckoning

1167
00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 4: that the system had failed, and we've discussed did here.

1168
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 4: It wasn't just a prosecutor or a bad detective. It

1169
00:54:05,239 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 4: was a systemic failure of the criminal justice system. While

1170
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,879
Speaker 4: it was bittersweet for everyone, it was finally that we've

1171
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:13,920
Speaker 4: writed this wrong.

1172
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 3: We have a tradition here on wrongful conviction, which is

1173
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 3: that I like to turn the microphone over to you, David,

1174
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,359
Speaker 3: for closing thoughts, But in this case, because we have

1175
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 3: other special guests here, I'd like to actually do a

1176
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 3: round robin and finish with you. So let's start with Oscar.

1177
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 3: Is there anything else you want to share with our audience.

1178
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:38,359
Speaker 8: No, I just think that for folks out there who

1179
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 8: are listening that say what can I do? And I

1180
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 8: think the most important thing is to just keep an

1181
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 8: open mind when you read stories about people being arrested,

1182
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 8: serve on a jury, if you're called, demand that your

1183
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 8: criminal justice system, that your prosecutors and police live up

1184
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 8: to these standards that we've talked about today, and for

1185
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 8: those who are prosecutors to follow the model, frankly that

1186
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 8: Brooklyn has set. You know, Ken and then Eric have

1187
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 8: followed that. I have not seen replicated throughout the country,

1188
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 8: and I just thank everybody, yourself included, because shedding light

1189
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 8: on these things is the only way that we're going

1190
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 8: to avoid these wrongful convictions in the first place. That's

1191
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 8: the goal is to develop a criminal justice system that's

1192
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,640
Speaker 8: fair to the people, that's fair to the accused, and

1193
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 8: that gets it right more often than it currently does.

1194
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:38,399
Speaker 8: So I appreciate this opportunity to give this information out

1195
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 8: to folks, and hopefully they'll take it with them and

1196
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 8: remember that when they have the opportunity to somehow affect

1197
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:47,000
Speaker 8: the criminal justice system.

1198
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 4: We have an obligation to do justice and not just

1199
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 4: to try to secure convictions. But I also believe that

1200
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 4: part of my job is to protect the innocent, and

1201
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 4: that needs being proact and not just waiting for things

1202
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 4: to play out in the courtroom. And so much of

1203
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 4: what I've tried to do in the short period of

1204
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:11,840
Speaker 4: time is I've done things like hired immigration attorneys to

1205
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,839
Speaker 4: protect people who are accused of crimes who may have

1206
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 4: immigration issues, something that people think is not in the

1207
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:21,280
Speaker 4: role of a prosecutor. But making sure that we protect

1208
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:24,880
Speaker 4: the innocent is important, and we can't lose track of that.

1209
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:29,320
Speaker 4: And for David, you should know that every assistant district

1210
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 4: attorney that we've hired now gets taught on false fed facts,

1211
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 4: which were a key lachpin of on your false confession.

1212
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 4: The science of wrongful identifications and false fed facts, and

1213
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:47,800
Speaker 4: these things were things that prosecutors never trained on. And

1214
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,359
Speaker 4: when we make these exonerations, the first thing that we

1215
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,719
Speaker 4: go back is we do what could we have done differently,

1216
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:56,839
Speaker 4: and we train on it. So I want you to

1217
00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 4: know that the generation of prosecutors in my office for

1218
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 4: being trained and they learned about your case when they

1219
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,320
Speaker 4: learned about you know, a lot of the other people

1220
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 4: we've exonerated. To make sure that this never happens again.

1221
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:09,280
Speaker 4: This can't happen again.

1222
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 3: And I'm going to say before turn over to you, David,

1223
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 3: that for everybody listening, vote, go out and vote in

1224
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 3: your district attorney's racist because you can make a difference. So, David,

1225
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 3: now the highlight of the show is just to turn

1226
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 3: it over to you for any closing thoughts.

1227
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, thank you, thank you for that. You know,

1228
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 7: during my twenty nineties in prison, in prison in general,

1229
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 7: the notion is that you know, you should never trust anybody,

1230
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 7: and I guess in a lot of cases that's actually true.

1231
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 7: But for me, I didn't necessarily subscribe to that theory

1232
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 7: because I didn't feel it was appropriate for me, because

1233
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 7: I felt like I was in a position to have

1234
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 7: to trust somebody in order to get where I needed

1235
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 7: to go, and that was home, you know. So I

1236
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 7: really put my faith in a lot of people to

1237
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 7: help me because I really needed to help. I really

1238
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:58,919
Speaker 7: trust me, I really desperately needed to help. And one

1239
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 7: of the things so I do, like public speaking, every

1240
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 7: every once in a while, I'll tell people so with

1241
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 7: the word the politics come up, with all the stuff

1242
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 7: that's happening in our you know, in our country these days.

1243
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 7: I always tell people just believing, believing people. If you

1244
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 7: don't believe in your left and officials to the extent

1245
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 7: that you don't trust him, believe in people, because it's

1246
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:18,800
Speaker 7: the people that surround you who's going to make the difference.

1247
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 7: It is going to create the change that's necessary. And

1248
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 7: I know for me, in meeting Ken Thompson, and I

1249
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 7: had the privilege of being invited to his funeral by

1250
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 7: his wife, and I can say that when I had

1251
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 7: the opportunity to speak for the time that I did,

1252
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 7: and I shared with the audience that I at that

1253
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 7: time I had to find my fuld daughter at the Quinn,

1254
00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 7: and I specifically said that Ken Thompson is the reason

1255
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 7: why I have my daughter, and that was totally sincere

1256
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:49,400
Speaker 7: about that, because if this individual didn't show the courage

1257
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,720
Speaker 7: that he showed in taking on this particular endeavor of

1258
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:56,280
Speaker 7: wrongful conviction cases, a lot of people, not necessarily myself,

1259
00:58:56,360 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 7: but a lot of other people would be in the

1260
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 7: world of trouble right now. Uite, frankly would probably still

1261
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 7: be incarcerated. And I just saw dis close with this

1262
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 7: when the acres I was, you know, introduced me to

1263
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 7: his children and his wife. That was a very touching

1264
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 7: moment for someone like me because I'm sitting there and

1265
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 7: I'm looking at his sous and I got the opportunity

1266
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:16,560
Speaker 7: to meet these guys, and you know, that was doubt

1267
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 7: for me, was the privilege. And I would like to

1268
00:59:18,360 --> 00:59:21,320
Speaker 7: say that that that said more about the Gonzales than

1269
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 7: than it did about me.

1270
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 5: And so I just want to thank.

1271
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 7: You because that really struck a chord with me even

1272
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 7: after I met with you going my way.

1273
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:31,920
Speaker 5: Home, and so I felt really good good about that.

1274
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 7: I looked at that as a as a privilege and

1275
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 7: I just wanted to, you know, for some of us,

1276
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 7: when I see the ex outs getting going, to really

1277
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 7: let him know and thank him for that, because that

1278
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 7: that touched some That touched the emotional chord for me,

1279
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,480
Speaker 7: and it just showed me and it just really confirmed

1280
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 7: and reinforced for me what I just mentioned earlier about people,

1281
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 7: and that's important for people just to have faith in

1282
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 7: each other. And that's simply when I what I did

1283
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 7: during my time in prison and it paid off.

1284
00:59:56,920 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 5: Well. Thank you, David.

1285
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 4: It's been a privilege to have met you you and

1286
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 4: to know you and to see you doing the great

1287
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 4: work that you're doing, the awareness that you bring, and

1288
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 4: to see you happy with your own family makes me

1289
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:10,760
Speaker 4: very grateful.

1290
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you

1291
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 3: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud

1292
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 3: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll

1293
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:30,040
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping

1294
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:33,760
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot

1295
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 3: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd

1296
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:40,000
Speaker 3: like to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.

1297
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:42,640
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR

1298
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 3: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on

1299
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 3: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast.

1300
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava

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Speaker 3: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One

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Speaker 4: And What Will