Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of corrupt detective. I was
Speaker 1: notive enough to believe that I would be able to
Speaker 1: just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that
Speaker 1: they would investigate adequately and so that I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going to prison because I was a good person. I
Speaker 1: hadn't anything wrong. In the back of your mind, you say, well,
Speaker 1: when we go to a hearing, we go to court,
Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all way up to United States
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. You have someone with a badge with ultimate
Speaker 1: and really, in that moment, unchecked authority. Don't presume that
Speaker 1: people are guilty when you see them on TV, because
Speaker 1: it may just be a dirty d A that is
Speaker 1: trying to rise upward. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to ronfle Conviction with Jason Flam. Today. We have an
Speaker 1: amazing cast of characters and I'm going to introduce the
Speaker 1: star of our show first, David McCullum. It is freedom
Speaker 1: after twenty eight years lost in prison for a New
Speaker 1: York Man wrongly convicted of murder. David McCallum in McCallum
Speaker 1: and another teen, Willie Stucky, were sentenced to twenty five
Speaker 1: years to life for the kidnapping and murder of a
Speaker 1: twenty year old man. The only evidence linking them to
Speaker 1: the crime was their videotape confessions, which the boys claimed
Speaker 1: were fed to them by police for nearly thirty years.
Speaker 1: McCallum insisted he was innocent. A judge degree Brooklyn District
Speaker 1: Attorney Ken Thompson supported the release, and we concluded that
Speaker 1: there was no physical evidence, no DNA evidence, no testimonial evidence.
Speaker 1: That conclusion came from Thompson's Conviction Review Unit, which was
Speaker 1: created this year to look at past cases. Out of
Speaker 1: the thirty they've examined, ten convictions have been overturned. Welcome
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. And with David, we have someone who
Speaker 1: I consider to be a rock star. We have the
Speaker 1: sitting Brooklyn d A. Eric Gonzalis is here to talk
Speaker 1: about this case. Eric, Welcome, thank you, Jason, thank you.
Speaker 1: And we have a very dapper gentleman. You can't see
Speaker 1: him on the radio, but trust me, he's got a
Speaker 1: very good tailor and he's a wonderful lawyer responsible for
Speaker 1: six exonerations of wrongfully convicted people, including you, David. So
Speaker 1: I want to welcome Oscar Michelin to the show. Thank you, Jason,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me so, David, this case is so extraordinary,
Speaker 1: not only because of the length of time you serve
Speaker 1: twenty nine years wrongfully convicted, but be cause of the
Speaker 1: way that you got convicted in the first place, way
Speaker 1: back in well, the mid eighties, right, that's how long.
Speaker 1: That's correc So take us back to that time. You
Speaker 1: were just a child, really, I mean you were an
Speaker 1: adolescent boy at the time, right, let's correct him sixteen
Speaker 1: years old. Sixteen years old, you were convicted of murder, right,
Speaker 1: that's not just murder, but other charges as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it was a guy named Nathan Blenner who was
Speaker 1: abducted and murdered. That's correct. Yes, did you know this guy? No,
Speaker 1: I never have seen him my entire life. Now, what
Speaker 1: were the circumstances of the crime. What happened with this
Speaker 1: Nathan Blenner guy? Okay, So in October twenty I will say,
Speaker 1: some time around three twenty in the afternoon, according to
Speaker 1: post repost of course, Mr Blenna and Nathan Blennet was
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in his car in front of his home
Speaker 1: that was attempted to start the engine for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: And so as a result of that, two young African
Speaker 1: American boys approached Nathan and engaged in the conversation with him.
Speaker 1: At some point there after, these individuals got into the
Speaker 1: carbonating Blenna and they drove off with Mr Blah About
Speaker 1: the next day, for October twenty one, so Benda body
Speaker 1: was found in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn and a
Speaker 1: park called Aberdeen Park. When his body was found in
Speaker 1: the back of this park with a gunshot going to
Speaker 1: the back of the head. How did it come to
Speaker 1: pass that they picked you up? And Stucky? Well? The
Speaker 1: week later, on October twenty seven five, Mrs Ducky was
Speaker 1: arrested some time around seven thirty. According to the information,
Speaker 1: and of course I have Mr Stucky was approached. It
Speaker 1: was he was getting on the train to go out
Speaker 1: to a basketball game into the tents, walked up to
Speaker 1: approached them and expally mind coming to the police station.
Speaker 1: Stucky agreed to go to the police station with these individuals.
Speaker 1: They went down to the police station. The question Mrs
Speaker 1: Stucky about this particular crime. Mr Stucky said that he
Speaker 1: was with me when his crime was was committed, which
Speaker 1: in fact he was because that day that this crime
Speaker 1: was said to have been committed, really was in a
Speaker 1: park playing handbo with my sister and her friends. So
Speaker 1: Bullie Stucky said that he was with me. Mrs Stucky
Speaker 1: eventually confessed to witnessing a crime, and that crime was
Speaker 1: that I shot Mr blenn office and stuck. He stood
Speaker 1: by and watched, and Oscar, you spent ten years working
Speaker 1: on this case, right, I mean, let's just reflect on
Speaker 1: that for a second. Ten years to unravel this wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: First of all, kudos to you, because that's a hell
Speaker 1: of a commitment. And David's here is living proof of
Speaker 1: your work. What kind of a game were they playing here?
Speaker 1: And why did they do this? And how did even
Speaker 1: stuck you get Was he just chosen at random? No? No,
Speaker 1: we actually think that it was far more nefarious than that.
Speaker 1: So it all started with some excellent police work at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the case where there were two young
Speaker 1: men who witnessed these two African American males kidnapped and
Speaker 1: carjack Nathan Blenner in Queens and gave a general description
Speaker 1: one was taller than the other. They looked to be
Speaker 1: about in their twenties. And then the police did a
Speaker 1: canvas and they found a woman who lived around the
Speaker 1: corner who said, hey, you know that same day, just
Speaker 1: about an hour earlier, too, young African American males, one
Speaker 1: taller than the other, about in their twenties, one with
Speaker 1: corn rows in his hair, approached me when I was
Speaker 1: washing my car and said, hey, that's a nice car.
Speaker 1: And it was a Buick Regal, the same car as
Speaker 1: Nathan Blenner. So they used that description. They put that
Speaker 1: description out to try to look for people to African
Speaker 1: American males with carjack history, one of them in corn rows,
Speaker 1: one taller than the other, And sure enough a Queen's
Speaker 1: priestinct called the Brooklyn Detectives and said, hey, I think
Speaker 1: we got your guys. They go to find these two
Speaker 1: guys who match the description perfectly, have a history of
Speaker 1: violent crime, and one of them works in a hardware
Speaker 1: store where a kerosene can which was used to burn
Speaker 1: the car was purchased from. So that looks that sounds great, right,
Speaker 1: cases should be, you know. Over So what ended up
Speaker 1: happening is they let one of those two guys give
Speaker 1: them a lead about a gun being sold down the
Speaker 1: street allegedly by somebody named Supreme, and that this guy
Speaker 1: named James Johnson knows that this gun allegedly was used
Speaker 1: to commit that crime. And they turn away from these
Speaker 1: two guys and they go to James Johnson. James Johnson
Speaker 1: gives the name Supreme. The cameras the neighborhood they find
Speaker 1: that Willie stuck it goes by the name Supreme, and
Speaker 1: that's how Willie is arrested. It's from two people who
Speaker 1: were prime suspects to a rat because he got a
Speaker 1: great deal. He was a suspect in shooting up of
Speaker 1: bodega James Johnson, and in exchange for giving them information
Speaker 1: about the gun. They didn't even arrest him for this
Speaker 1: robbery and shooting in a bodega, and they had that.
Speaker 1: He said, this kid, Willie, who's known as Supreme in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, is accused of doing this. He had a
Speaker 1: gun he was trying to unload that he got from
Speaker 1: my aunt. When I turned to Eric here for a second.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I'm so happy that Eric is here,
Speaker 1: not only because of the respect I have from in
Speaker 1: the work that he's doing, but also because it's a
Speaker 1: Brooklyn case. You're the guy in Brooklyn now, And you
Speaker 1: know what I want to ask you is this seems
Speaker 1: almost like it's not funny but almost comical. Right, you
Speaker 1: have these two guys who are obvious suspects, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't that easy for them to throw the cops off,
Speaker 1: because it's pretty clever what they did, right, Otherwise they
Speaker 1: would have been in prison for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: They just went, hey, there's a gun with and and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the cops go, let's go chase
Speaker 1: down the hallway. Here. It sounds like Inspector Cluseau quite frankly,
Speaker 1: David had applied to have this case looked at before
Speaker 1: under a different district attorney at the time, and they
Speaker 1: denied to you know, reopen the case and re investigate
Speaker 1: the case in a serious way because what David said,
Speaker 1: because they had a confession, and once the police came
Speaker 1: upon Willie Stuckey and he was a young boy as well,
Speaker 1: and he was confessing, then all the other evidence that
Speaker 1: would have led to the rightful killers of Nathan Blunner.
Speaker 1: And you know, I need to say that I feel
Speaker 1: very sad for his family because they suffered along with
Speaker 1: David in a different type of way. But the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system failed not just David, but also the blended
Speaker 1: family and all of us. But once they had this confession,
Speaker 1: all the other pieces of evidence that made sense, the
Speaker 1: descriptions that fit the other people, the kerosene car, anything
Speaker 1: that was inconsistent with that confession was then cast aside
Speaker 1: and not used and not presented, and really led to
Speaker 1: what we had with Wass travesty of justice. This evidence
Speaker 1: that should have been before jury, and had it been
Speaker 1: before a jury, would have cast all doubts on his confession.
Speaker 1: We talk on the show about false confessions a lot,
Speaker 1: because I think it's one of the most important things
Speaker 1: that we can educate the public too, is the idea
Speaker 1: that just because somebody confessed to a crime, everybody thinks
Speaker 1: the same way, why the hell would that guy confess?
Speaker 1: So David, so people say, well, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he confessed, Why why did you confess to the crimes? Okay,
Speaker 1: So first let me just say that sometimes I think
Speaker 1: when people hear confession, they automatically assume that the person
Speaker 1: or the persons in this particular case actually committed the
Speaker 1: crime or else. Why would they confessed to the crime.
Speaker 1: But I think what sometimes go unnoticed in the public
Speaker 1: is that things happened in the police precinct that basically
Speaker 1: forces suspects to you know, confess the Crown they didn't commit,
Speaker 1: such as what the case would be really stucky. Well,
Speaker 1: I confessed to the crown for a number of reasons,
Speaker 1: and I think, well, one of the first ones that
Speaker 1: was physically beaten while the officers in the case, well,
Speaker 1: to be more specific, I was beat by the investigator,
Speaker 1: officer Joseph Buddha at the time. Also confessed because I
Speaker 1: was promised that the fact actually confess to the Crown,
Speaker 1: that I would be allowed to go home. And I
Speaker 1: think sometimes in hindsight, when I think about it now,
Speaker 1: for example, that I really think I was going home
Speaker 1: at that time, as a sixteen year old kid confessed
Speaker 1: to this Phoenish crime, but murder, I actually thought I
Speaker 1: was going home. They didn't make him confessed to the crime. Remember,
Speaker 1: you know, people say, like, why would someone confess to
Speaker 1: the crime. Either he nor Wally ever said I took
Speaker 1: a gun, put it to the back of Nathan's head
Speaker 1: and shot him. I think if they had asked either
Speaker 1: of these two boys at that time to say that,
Speaker 1: they would say, hey, yo, slowed down a second now
Speaker 1: because they knew that they would know they weren't going home.
Speaker 1: But they were specifically told you were just a witness.
Speaker 1: We know the other guy shot him. So if you
Speaker 1: say you saw him shoot him, you're at here. What
Speaker 1: are you so worried about? Plus he already ratted you out,
Speaker 1: So who are you trying to protect your friend who
Speaker 1: already sold you down the river? You're gonna be a fool.
Speaker 1: And so I think you know first obviously, the physical abuse,
Speaker 1: the deception, the pressure, not having a parent, they're not
Speaker 1: having a lawyer there, not knowing what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on, wondering why your friend would kill somebody number
Speaker 1: one and number two, why would your friend then rat
Speaker 1: you out of all people when you know you didn't
Speaker 1: do it. You shouldn't be lost. These is still children,
Speaker 1: the children sixteen years old children, and the confessions. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna get into it, but the confessions
Speaker 1: don't make any sense, even when they extend up to
Speaker 1: the evidence that was known and even what was between
Speaker 1: each other. Their confessions just don't make any sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would ask the audience to put themselves in your shoes. David,
Speaker 1: you were sixteen years old, you must have been scared shitless. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I was definitely afraid, and the fact that I was
Speaker 1: afraid was so obvious though. But before you that though,
Speaker 1: so when they take it down to the precinct, they
Speaker 1: played the psychological game with you. So they played this
Speaker 1: sort of good cop backhop thing whereas one cop would
Speaker 1: come in and his tone of voice would be sort
Speaker 1: of subtle and very calm, and he would actually questions like,
Speaker 1: you know, push your name, of course we live, and
Speaker 1: you know, do you play any sports? Who is your
Speaker 1: favorite team? That's sort of thing. And then the officer
Speaker 1: other alster came in to us, a buddh and I
Speaker 1: noticed this tone was completely different from the other officers,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was very very nasty in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and very aggressive. And I knew then that this guy
Speaker 1: was not the same guy that I spoke to obviously earlier.
Speaker 1: So the tones of the two individuals were vastly different
Speaker 1: from another. You're in a small windowless room, metal table,
Speaker 1: metal chair, large officer hulking over you. At one point,
Speaker 1: Detective Buddha was now deceased picked up a chair and
Speaker 1: you know, held it over his head and goes, this
Speaker 1: is how we're gonna have to do this, after he
Speaker 1: had slapped David around. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: DNA did is teach people that innocent people confess, because
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project has exonerated somewhere around four people with
Speaker 1: the use of DNA. Of those exonerations had a confession,
Speaker 1: and so those are people who are demonstrably proven innocent.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt the DNA shows they didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and in one out of every four DNA exonerations there's
Speaker 1: a false confession. So the police are trained to interrogate
Speaker 1: in a certain way. They all use this technique called
Speaker 1: the read technique, which allows the deception, allows pressure, lets
Speaker 1: them make up facts, lets them pit one against the other,
Speaker 1: lots of different things. And in hindsight, I guess you
Speaker 1: would say, why would I do that? But again, until
Speaker 1: you've gone through it, it's hard to understand. Let's look
Speaker 1: at it this way, right, you're sixteen years old. You're
Speaker 1: totally disoriented because everything is upside down. You have the police,
Speaker 1: who we all of us grew up respecting and thinking
Speaker 1: they were out for our best interest, and that's the
Speaker 1: guy you go to if you're in trouble, right, That's
Speaker 1: how I grew up for sure, and I think most
Speaker 1: police that is the case. Were you a violent guy
Speaker 1: prior to this? Oh no, no, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: So this is all a totally crazy experience in every
Speaker 1: possible way. You have nothing to prepare you for it.
Speaker 1: You're all alone and you see no way out, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, if that wasn't crazy enough,
Speaker 1: the violence, the threat of further violence. They bring your
Speaker 1: friend or they show your friend and said, hey told me,
Speaker 1: she said you did it. All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: say he did it. One of the interesting things in
Speaker 1: my opportunity case. So when I was first approached by
Speaker 1: these detectives on the streets in Brooklyn, that was the friends.
Speaker 1: We were sort of the game where were sort of
Speaker 1: hung out at And so when of the officers approached me,
Speaker 1: you have my picture in his hand and said, would
Speaker 1: you mind coming out to the police day for question,
Speaker 1: I said sure. You know, I didn't do anything, So
Speaker 1: I felt like maybe they want to come down. Maybe
Speaker 1: something happened in the neighborhood that they want to speak
Speaker 1: to me about. Maybe I have some information or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may have been, so I have no reason
Speaker 1: to sort of be afraid of anything, you know. It
Speaker 1: was it was until I got into the police station
Speaker 1: when they plays squad car where they places heckles for
Speaker 1: me too. They stay where they but very tight. At
Speaker 1: that point, that's where it sort of red. The red
Speaker 1: flag went up and knew something was or something was
Speaker 1: wrong at that particular time. So I came down to
Speaker 1: the precept. Like I said, I had no reason to
Speaker 1: think that I was gonna be in trouble for anything, Miranda, right, Um, No,
Speaker 1: not in a squad car on the street. And I
Speaker 1: got down to the police station and at some point
Speaker 1: after some of the questions ocured, that's when they read
Speaker 1: me my rights. But you probably, like most people who
Speaker 1: are innocent, you probably thought, I don't need a lawyer
Speaker 1: because I'm just gonna answer some questions and go on
Speaker 1: because they everybody's gonna know. I didn't do this because
Speaker 1: I was I wasn't there. Yeah, I think sometimes in
Speaker 1: my particular situation, I was so afraid of intimidated really
Speaker 1: that I wasn't even thinking rationally. It wasn't even thinking
Speaker 1: at all, And I was just kind of numb to
Speaker 1: the point of being that choosed of killing somebody when
Speaker 1: I know I didn't and I know that police suck.
Speaker 1: He didn't do anything either, So I think it was
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know if it was shock or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but I know I was. I was sort
Speaker 1: of numb to the entire situation. So even for example,
Speaker 1: when when the mirandam onners were being rented that I
Speaker 1: heard what the officer was saying, but it didn't generate
Speaker 1: one way or the other. Back then, these interrogations were
Speaker 1: not video, and so what the juries got to see
Speaker 1: is after the confession had been extracted and written down
Speaker 1: and sometimes talked through from the defense perspective practiced, then
Speaker 1: a video machine would be brought into the room to
Speaker 1: take a confession that seemingly the person is confessing they're
Speaker 1: not handcuffed. The circumstances at that moment look fairly friendly,
Speaker 1: considering it's a wider, open, bigger room, it's more light,
Speaker 1: but everything that happened before that is not captured, and
Speaker 1: then you're left with the juror who's saying, I would
Speaker 1: never have confessed I was in a sin of a homicide.
Speaker 1: So all they see is then the video confession that
Speaker 1: had been quitte in. Sometimes it's you know, twelve hours later.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a long time later, so that they've
Speaker 1: been with the police for very long time. These quote
Speaker 1: unquote confessions which had very little facts. David's confession statement
Speaker 1: on the videotape is about three minutes long. That's it.
Speaker 1: There's no details. He's not asked what caliber weapon, he's
Speaker 1: not asked what handy held the gun in what it
Speaker 1: literally is about a series about eight to ten questions
Speaker 1: he's asked by the prosecutor who comes down to take
Speaker 1: the confession. Willie's was a little bit longer, about six
Speaker 1: or seven minutes. It should have been obvious at that
Speaker 1: point that obviously someone who had committed the crime would
Speaker 1: have known a little bit more about what had happened.
Speaker 1: And it was clear that the police officer and maybe
Speaker 1: even the DA who was involved a little bit afraid
Speaker 1: to get into much detail because it was going to
Speaker 1: show that they didn't have the knowledge of it. But
Speaker 1: the confessions left a lot more questions unanswered than they
Speaker 1: than they resolved. I've been a prosecutor for twenty two
Speaker 1: years and I've taken these videotaped confessions. When I was
Speaker 1: writing as System d A, I've viewed hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of these confessions, and in this case, when David's file
Speaker 1: landed on my desk, it had entered the conviction review unit,
Speaker 1: and the district attorney at the time, Ken Thompson, said, Eric,
Speaker 1: I want you to pay attention to this case. I
Speaker 1: want you to look at the confessions and tell me
Speaker 1: what you think. I got myself readied with all the
Speaker 1: evidence around me to take a look, and I watched
Speaker 1: the confessions. I walked in to Ken's office and I said,
Speaker 1: we have a problem here. That was a confession that
Speaker 1: did not mean anything. It was. It was the most
Speaker 1: perfunctory confession ever. I mean, this was a case that
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a carjacking or robbery. There was
Speaker 1: another single question about the robbery aspect of the case.
Speaker 1: What was taken, where did the property go? There was
Speaker 1: not a single question about the gun, the type of gun,
Speaker 1: the caliber of the gun. These are not the type
Speaker 1: of confessions that you would imagine that a jury would
Speaker 1: convict on. And you have to wonder whether the racial
Speaker 1: aspects of this part recular case mattered because you had
Speaker 1: to you know, young black men accused of kidnapping someone
Speaker 1: from Queens and bringing them into Brookelyn and killing them.
Speaker 1: You know, was the victim white? Yes, you know that's
Speaker 1: the problem. And then the other thing that the Oscar
Speaker 1: pointed out before is the idea that the jury was
Speaker 1: led to believe that you guys had driven this car
Speaker 1: throughout New York City, but neither one of you had
Speaker 1: ever driven a car or how to driver's license. You
Speaker 1: were sixteen years old, so somehow or other you magically
Speaker 1: taught yourself how to drive during the course of this
Speaker 1: car jacking and robbery and everything else. I mean, you
Speaker 1: really have to suspend a lot of layers of disbelief
Speaker 1: when a kidnapped victim alive, kidnapped victim in the back
Speaker 1: holding him down supposedly with a gun, and the other
Speaker 1: one is driving from Queens to Brooklyn, and then the
Speaker 1: police had evidence that this car had been gassed up
Speaker 1: at one in the morning with the victim was credit
Speaker 1: card at Amico gas station. And those days you had
Speaker 1: to go give the credit card to the person that
Speaker 1: was no pay at the pump, you know, And wouldn't
Speaker 1: they have mentioned that I got gas? They got they
Speaker 1: didn't ask them what about did you ever get guessed?
Speaker 1: I mean, there were so many details they could have
Speaker 1: asked these two boys to fill in, and it was
Speaker 1: just Perfunctory's exactly the right word. Eric, It was just David.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to you, but I also
Speaker 1: want to say that Ken Thompson, who was I guess
Speaker 1: your mentor right. Ken was the d A until this
Speaker 1: year when he died way too young, and he took
Speaker 1: such great pride in the Conviction Review Unit, and he
Speaker 1: was so proud of the work that he had done
Speaker 1: to get justice for you and other people. So may
Speaker 1: he rest in peace, David. So back to you. You
Speaker 1: end up going to trial. I'm assuming you couldn't make bail, right, No,
Speaker 1: you know actually he was remanded that day. Was he
Speaker 1: didn't see his mother out in the street for twentine
Speaker 1: years after that day. So you were held in Rikers
Speaker 1: as a sixteen year old boy. What had experienced that
Speaker 1: had to have been and then you go to trial.
Speaker 1: Did you still have any hope? Did you think that
Speaker 1: the system was actually going to correct itself and that
Speaker 1: people would understand that you could not have done this? Well?
Speaker 1: Absolutely I did. For example, when I was on Ker's album,
Speaker 1: I never like saw my lawyer at all. When I
Speaker 1: was on kas Albud. The very first time I saw
Speaker 1: Hi Illinoyer was like the first day of trial. So
Speaker 1: he came to the bullepen. And when he came to
Speaker 1: the bullepen, he just simply came to the bullepen to
Speaker 1: sort of sort of get me prepared for what would
Speaker 1: happen when I walk into the courtroom. So that was
Speaker 1: the very first time I've seen this attorney and almost
Speaker 1: almost twelve months. Actually, okay, hold on, let's just let's
Speaker 1: just reflect on this. So you're facing the murder charge.
Speaker 1: Your life is at steak. You've been in Rikers Island
Speaker 1: for a year and no one has come to visit you,
Speaker 1: no lawyer, nothing, no, not they have, so he has
Speaker 1: basically you. He's never interviewed you. No, So what happens
Speaker 1: When I was on macas aland for example, I would
Speaker 1: get my court This would be a journal on a
Speaker 1: monthly basis, so I would walk into court and then
Speaker 1: every time I would actually I should say Willie and
Speaker 1: I were walk into court, and every time we walked
Speaker 1: into court, it would be one of those situations where
Speaker 1: they just sort of make the schedule for another court
Speaker 1: day for the you know. So it was never a
Speaker 1: conversation with my attorneys about anything about in terms of
Speaker 1: the case. And you know, I mean he knew I
Speaker 1: had alibi witnesses that needed to be interviewed. I mean
Speaker 1: the interviewed them himself, you know. So it was a
Speaker 1: series of thing that this lawyer failed to do for
Speaker 1: me during the course of the case. So, if I'm correct,
Speaker 1: you didn't even make an opening statement. You have a
Speaker 1: legal option of waving and opening statement. His attorney decided
Speaker 1: that it wasn't even worth talking to the jury about
Speaker 1: what his theory of the case would be and what
Speaker 1: the evidence he intended to show where there was in
Speaker 1: fact a defense to be had. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: fingerprints and DNA evidence that came back to other folks
Speaker 1: when they found the vehicle, and that the gun had
Speaker 1: not been recovered. They had those two guys who were
Speaker 1: arrested on the APB, the old Points bulletin that matched
Speaker 1: the description one of them worked at the hardware store.
Speaker 1: This was not a mystery to his lawyer. David didn't
Speaker 1: know it. They didn't know any of that evidence he
Speaker 1: was ever told, But the lawyer had the police reports,
Speaker 1: and he could have offered evidence of someone else's involvement
Speaker 1: and start shaping the jury for what you expect to
Speaker 1: like the jury to hear, because I mean, here, obviously
Speaker 1: they have to contest the confession. They have to start
Speaker 1: laying the groundwork for that and letting the jury understand
Speaker 1: that there's so much other evidence that goes to David's
Speaker 1: actual innocence. And he does not even bother to make
Speaker 1: those arguments in the opening statement. He just chooses not
Speaker 1: to make it one. And we ended up getting as
Speaker 1: part of our investigation this guy's billing records because he
Speaker 1: was what was called a team B so where you
Speaker 1: get paid by the government on an hourly basis to
Speaker 1: do the case even though you're not legally legally cannot
Speaker 1: handle homicide cases in New York, So a team B
Speaker 1: panel gets the homicide cases. So we know what he
Speaker 1: did because I have his hours, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: people put more hours in on the shop lift Jason.
Speaker 1: This guy never went to the crime scene, He never
Speaker 1: interviewed witnesses. He met once with his investigator, who we
Speaker 1: ended up finding out was very diligent. He never visited Rikers,
Speaker 1: So we have the proof that he never visited David's.
Speaker 1: That's just David's were because he built for it as
Speaker 1: and as Eric knows from experience, when you get on
Speaker 1: a Team B and you're a private lawyer, a lot
Speaker 1: of times your bill is limited. The judge won't let
Speaker 1: you spend ten thousands of shoplifting case. But when you
Speaker 1: have a homicide case, that's where a tem B lawyers
Speaker 1: make their money. Judge will never say you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: gone to the scene three times. A judge will never
Speaker 1: restrain you on a murder case from spending time on
Speaker 1: the case. So normally you see an a Team B
Speaker 1: built on a homicide case, it's pages and I'm talking
Speaker 1: pages and pages and pages long. This was one page
Speaker 1: about a third field of entries on the case and
Speaker 1: I just have never seen anything like it. It was
Speaker 1: the most disgusting, terrible representation. Wait listen, just to put
Speaker 1: the nail in his coffin, because fortunately he's gone. I
Speaker 1: found the investigator guy was still alive, and older guys
Speaker 1: seventy six years old, Anthony Cordero, he had developed the
Speaker 1: same theory that we did. We didn't know it, which
Speaker 1: was at the police. Those two guys had a relationship,
Speaker 1: not above board relationship, and that's why they had to
Speaker 1: turn away from those two guys that they found in
Speaker 1: that Queen's priest because it was gonna point back to
Speaker 1: the police officer involved. So he was working on that,
Speaker 1: and then he said to me, you know, I remember now,
Speaker 1: I used to pick up Marta that's his name, because
Speaker 1: he lived in Brooklyn. I lived along Island. When I
Speaker 1: would drive to court, he'd said, can you do me
Speaker 1: a favorite? Picked me up on your way in. And
Speaker 1: every morning when I picked him up, he was in
Speaker 1: his kitchen with a bottle of cheap vodka and a
Speaker 1: toll glass ice, and he would offer me a drink
Speaker 1: and I would say, Mr myrtle, it's eight thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning. I don't drink any thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: And he'd have a drink and sometimes two glasses of
Speaker 1: vodka before getting in the car and going to try
Speaker 1: David's case. It starts to sound like it was a travesty,
Speaker 1: is what it was. It was a total travesty. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's not easy to say when I speak
Speaker 1: at bar groups a lot of times about Rome for convictions,
Speaker 1: but bad lawyering and not having qualified attorneys represent those
Speaker 1: people who are accused with these crimes. It's a big cause.
Speaker 1: It's easy to blame over zealous prosecutors and all of that,
Speaker 1: but the defense bar has a lot of guilt on
Speaker 1: these rawful convictions. And David, you don't have any knowledge
Speaker 1: of all this stuff that's going on, that your lawyers
Speaker 1: are drunk, that he hasn't done any work, that none
Speaker 1: of this stuff that is supposed to be there to
Speaker 1: protect you is operating for you. It's all actually working
Speaker 1: against you. But yet you remained optimistic. The jury goes
Speaker 1: out and they come back and they find you guilty.
Speaker 1: I mean that moment. Can you walk us through that? Sure?
Speaker 1: So for me, living in the system, still believe that
Speaker 1: I had truth on my side, still believing that the
Speaker 1: jury is going to find both WILLI and I are
Speaker 1: not guilty. So when the verdict came in, I was sitting,
Speaker 1: of course, back into the bulk and already call us
Speaker 1: out to the courtroom and they read the verdict and
Speaker 1: they said guilty. I was initially stunned, but I had
Speaker 1: to make sure that our hellmarking POSI, and not only
Speaker 1: for myself, but I had my mother sitting in the
Speaker 1: back of the courtroom. I didn't want her to see
Speaker 1: my reaction, and I also didn't want to turn around
Speaker 1: to see hers because that would have probably got me
Speaker 1: very very upset. So what I tried to do is
Speaker 1: I tried to sort of have a sort of even
Speaker 1: killed straight face. But I was really, really I was
Speaker 1: in disbelief because I really had my heart set on
Speaker 1: not guilty verdict. So when he actually came back and
Speaker 1: said that Willie and I were actually guilty of killing
Speaker 1: this person, I was also in a state of disbelief.
Speaker 1: But it were importantly for me. I think I was
Speaker 1: more concerned about my family at that time, who wasn't
Speaker 1: court on a daily basis, you know, supported me and
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Because, for example, one thing my
Speaker 1: mother said to me the very first time he she
Speaker 1: even mentioned in case for me, like when I was
Speaker 1: in the precinct. The very next day I went to
Speaker 1: court and she asked me since she said, David, you know,
Speaker 1: did you commit this crime? And I said, no, mind
Speaker 1: did not. And so that that conversation or questions never
Speaker 1: came up again throughout this whole entire experience. So that
Speaker 1: and of itself allowed me some confidence that you know,
Speaker 1: my mom believed in me, she believed what I said
Speaker 1: to her. So when this verdict was rare, I just
Speaker 1: couldn't find myself to turn around and look at it
Speaker 1: because I just know that, you know, she was hurting, obviously,
Speaker 1: and just for me to see that that would have
Speaker 1: got some kind of reaction out. I mean that sort
Speaker 1: of in a volatile way, but in a I mean
Speaker 1: I probably would have got over emotional, and that's something
Speaker 1: they want to do with that particular time. So I
Speaker 1: just sort of help my compulsion just just you know,
Speaker 1: just walked out of the courtroom after the verdicts were read,
Speaker 1: and I was able, of course to you know, call
Speaker 1: her on the telephone that protected that night and talked
Speaker 1: to her and told her, trying to comment out and
Speaker 1: try to let her know that everything was gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: This thing is gonna work itself out, you know, the
Speaker 1: truth is eventually going to come to light. And just
Speaker 1: to have patients something she always told me to do.
Speaker 1: Just have patients. So that was the best way I
Speaker 1: try to deal with this such a other what could
Speaker 1: can best be described as a really a tragic, tragic
Speaker 1: event and really Stucky was convicted as well, and as
Speaker 1: uh we know, he he never got out of jail.
Speaker 1: He passed away in two thousand one. Yeah, and net's
Speaker 1: talk about that for a second. So Willie, you're co
Speaker 1: defending who was equally let down by the system. Endoor
Speaker 1: a lot of the same things that you did, and
Speaker 1: unbelievably had a heart attack at thirty one years old
Speaker 1: in prison and died. I never got to have his
Speaker 1: day in court and his freedom again. So it's just
Speaker 1: another tragic aspect of this horrible case. And when we
Speaker 1: were going back to his family, his family, even we
Speaker 1: were starting to look at the case, they were almost afraid.
Speaker 1: They were like, you know, I don't know that we
Speaker 1: want to look into this. I don't know that they
Speaker 1: were prepared to try to think about They would rather
Speaker 1: just you know, I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about it. And at first
Speaker 1: I was kind of shocked by that, but almost in
Speaker 1: some way that that would almost be worse for them
Speaker 1: to then find out that obviously they believed in him,
Speaker 1: but now that there was proof there there was all
Speaker 1: this stuff that could have been done. It's like a
Speaker 1: second death when you think about how wasteful it is.
Speaker 1: And you know, the correctional facility never even really told them.
Speaker 1: And they say heart attack, but everyone dies of a
Speaker 1: heart attack. Okay, it's just cardiac arrest. It'll tell how
Speaker 1: did he die, what what caused it? And they heard
Speaker 1: different stories. A bad to let the sepsis, you know,
Speaker 1: had a heart attack in the yard. They had so
Speaker 1: many questions, and I think they were just afraid to
Speaker 1: look under the rock and see that it was such
Speaker 1: a waste of a life. I'm gonna ask you, Eric
Speaker 1: a very difficult question, which is that in this particular case,
Speaker 1: so many things didn't make any sense right because of
Speaker 1: the nature of this crime, very violent, with the kidnapping
Speaker 1: and the driving all over and the holding the guy
Speaker 1: down at gunpoint, the backseat and everything else that went
Speaker 1: on in the murder. You would have to know that
Speaker 1: a couple of kids who didn't have a history of trouble,
Speaker 1: this would not be the first cred wound be your
Speaker 1: starter crime, right, so I would think. But I want
Speaker 1: your opinion that the prosecutor probably knew they were innocent too.
Speaker 1: Do you think the prosecutor ever had a thought, well,
Speaker 1: this doesn't really make any sense when I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and do my job anyway, and just will
Speaker 1: not even do my job, and I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and and get this conviction and keep it moving.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to believe that the prosecutor did
Speaker 1: not I have to believe that the district attorney that
Speaker 1: a person who has sworn to uphold the law. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've said publicly about prosecutors
Speaker 1: is that prosecutors have a way of trying to synthesize evidence,
Speaker 1: to make things holes in their cases closed and to
Speaker 1: close reasonable doubt before juries, and they become trained to
Speaker 1: think that way, and sometimes the humanity of being a
Speaker 1: prosecutor and thinking about this because you know, listen, for me,
Speaker 1: I grew up in East New York and Brooklyn, roughly
Speaker 1: maybe a year or two younger than David. But the
Speaker 1: thought of me traveling at that age into Ozonhoe talk
Speaker 1: under the time that we lived in New York City
Speaker 1: in the eighties is not something that a black kid
Speaker 1: kids would do at that time who had never been
Speaker 1: in that neighborhood before. They stand out. And it's very
Speaker 1: important because we mentioned this, but the two gentlemen that
Speaker 1: were there in Queens did not fit the physical descriptions
Speaker 1: of either David or Willie. So you ask, how can
Speaker 1: a prosecutor go forward on this case? And I think
Speaker 1: that you start to believe in your own theory of
Speaker 1: the case. And prosecutors and detectives, I think too often
Speaker 1: they get a suspect, they have some evidence right here,
Speaker 1: they had the confession, and so you have a prosecutor
Speaker 1: who's not thinking anything differently than than an ordinary person.
Speaker 1: He's confessed, they have some evidence. You have these conversations
Speaker 1: with the detective, and the grand jury has now indicted
Speaker 1: the case. And what I'm really critical about and what
Speaker 1: I tell my prosecutors, and this is one of the
Speaker 1: important work of the Conviction Review Unit, is that in
Speaker 1: the eighties and and the nineties. I became a prosecutor
Speaker 1: in the nineties, there was so much crime, and so
Speaker 1: much violent crime, that often it was let the juries
Speaker 1: decide and let the jury decide whether someone is innocent
Speaker 1: or guilty. And I think that was a complete abdication
Speaker 1: of our responsibility to do justice. If a prosecutor cannot
Speaker 1: believe in their case, they have no business bringing it.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I instruct the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: d as now is if you have doubt about your case,
Speaker 1: you should not be trying that case. And let's look
Speaker 1: at the case. But when I came up as a prosecutor,
Speaker 1: I will tell you that often it says, well, there's
Speaker 1: twelve people in the box, let them decide guilt or innocence.
Speaker 1: And so I think in some cases, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying David's case or Willie's case, but in some cases
Speaker 1: prosecutor just said, well, we're going to let the juries decided,
Speaker 1: and that's wrong, and that's not going to happen again.
Speaker 1: It can happen, gonna have again, and Brooklyn for the
Speaker 1: next four years. I know that much because we got
Speaker 1: you in there, which is great. So, David, you seem
Speaker 1: like a very composed, thoughtful, decent man who has from
Speaker 1: what I can tell knowing you're a short time that
Speaker 1: I have a positive outlook on life. How the funk
Speaker 1: does somebody survive twenty nine years in a maximum security
Speaker 1: prison and come out And because when you came out
Speaker 1: you've never been on an airplane, you didn't know I
Speaker 1: mean a phone. The phone used to be a thing
Speaker 1: with a cord that was stuck to the wall. Right,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely correct. Yeah, So so how the hell did
Speaker 1: you first of all, survive as an innocent man in
Speaker 1: prison for almost three decades, and then how has it
Speaker 1: been coming out and how have you managed to become
Speaker 1: the man that you are now? Oh wow? Well, thanks
Speaker 1: for the very kind words. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: a lot of things fortunately working in my in my favor.
Speaker 1: So for one, I always always knew that Willie and
Speaker 1: I were innocent, so the truth always believed it couldn't
Speaker 1: be compromised for that respect. But also I have an
Speaker 1: older sister who's disabled. You know, she has cerebal palsy.
Speaker 1: She was born without a spot. Her name is Ella.
Speaker 1: She's been bed ridden her entire life. So anytime something
Speaker 1: would happen in prison, any time I would feel a
Speaker 1: particular way in prison, I would always think about my
Speaker 1: sister because she was she was really inspiration for someone
Speaker 1: like myself who was also going through some difficult times,
Speaker 1: but in my mind, not as difficult as she had been,
Speaker 1: so she was drew inspiration from her, And of course
Speaker 1: my mom, who never wavered in believing in me from
Speaker 1: the very beginning to the very end. You know, so
Speaker 1: I had those things in my favor. But then as
Speaker 1: time grew on, of course, I was able to develop
Speaker 1: a really good support system. And so what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is a really good attorney and Oscar mission.
Speaker 1: And because Ruben Hurricane Carter came into my life at
Speaker 1: a time where I really needed him the most. So
Speaker 1: when I had all these in the whole boat of
Speaker 1: other friends who packed into my life as well, so
Speaker 1: I would, you know, get visits in prison this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and I mean some of the visits that
Speaker 1: would that I would get. We were just talking about
Speaker 1: things that would happen on the outside. Because one thing
Speaker 1: Ruben instilled in me, and he said, it was very
Speaker 1: important that I think this way is sort of to
Speaker 1: think outside of prison and put myself outside of prison,
Speaker 1: at least spiritually. And that's what I tried to do,
Speaker 1: and I found it. Once I started doing that, I
Speaker 1: started sort of like just feeling much better about a
Speaker 1: lot of different things. And so when things of course
Speaker 1: got tough, as they often did in prison, at least
Speaker 1: in my experience, I've thought about all the people that
Speaker 1: I came into my life of course for the time
Speaker 1: and I needed on the most and that was really
Speaker 1: beneficial for someone like me, because in prison it may
Speaker 1: not afford the sort of a latitude in blessing that
Speaker 1: I were given. So I definite took it for granted
Speaker 1: for that regard, but again, um, the fact that I
Speaker 1: could see here and be humble, I hope it's really
Speaker 1: the testament of other people coming into my life, not
Speaker 1: just David McCallum himself. David's an exceptional man. I was
Speaker 1: immediately touched when I met him. I know Ken Thompson
Speaker 1: was as well. We had David come to the office
Speaker 1: and talked to our young interns and make sure that
Speaker 1: our people who want to be prosecuted understood what happened
Speaker 1: to him. David is just an exceptional man, and I
Speaker 1: know that we've done it before, but as the District
Speaker 1: Attorney of Brooklyn, I apologize to you, brother for what
Speaker 1: happened to you, for how the system let you down.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much about that. Did that as a
Speaker 1: New Yorker and a human being, I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: add my apologies because we we let you down. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody let you down. But you're here and that's a
Speaker 1: great thing. I mean, I'm thrilled to have you here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Reuben Hurricane Carter right, a legend not only
Speaker 1: for his boxing abilities to former number one middleweight contender,
Speaker 1: immortalized in the Bob Dylan song. But how did he
Speaker 1: come to find out about your case and and get
Speaker 1: involved and then write a letter that really helped tip
Speaker 1: the scales for you? Right? Well, yeah, thank you for
Speaker 1: asking that question. That was actually the foundation of how
Speaker 1: it really all this really began. I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: started a letter mariting campaign long after my state and
Speaker 1: federal pills were exhausted, because at that particular time I
Speaker 1: did have any other league recourse other than the post
Speaker 1: conviction motion, and with that you normally have to present
Speaker 1: luty's govern evidence, which I didn't have at that time obviously.
Speaker 1: So when I started about lether writing campaign, I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a place called Eastern Correctional Facility, and I
Speaker 1: was a law clerk in a low library, and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine named Earl Coleman was reading this magazine
Speaker 1: called The Sun. Some magazine is like a literal magazine
Speaker 1: where it has a lot of like short stories and everything.
Speaker 1: It may soften read in poems and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: where it may so often, you know, recited not Dusty
Speaker 1: to themselves but to other it Mays for example. So
Speaker 1: what I had no real really had no real intention
Speaker 1: to read the magazine. All I simply want to do
Speaker 1: is to sort of produse it. So because I want
Speaker 1: to go back to my house and units to get ready,
Speaker 1: you know, for the next day. So I got this
Speaker 1: magazine and I thumbed through the pages and I came
Speaker 1: across the edge of row with kN Klasskey and Ruben
Speaker 1: Hurricane Carter. So I knew who Rubin Hurricane Carter was.
Speaker 1: I know he was a you know, former prize fighter.
Speaker 1: I know he had spent nineteen years in prison for
Speaker 1: a triple homicide and Patterson, New Jersey. And that's what
Speaker 1: I think. So I wrote Ken Klassky letter hoping that
Speaker 1: he can get me in touch with Ruben. So and
Speaker 1: that's pretty much how this whole story sort of evolved
Speaker 1: into basically while I'm actually sitting there now, because once
Speaker 1: I was able to Closs, he was able to get
Speaker 1: me in cont touch of Ruben. I had opportuned me
Speaker 1: Ruben on several occasions. He became sort of a mentor
Speaker 1: for me. We had very intense conversations on the telephone.
Speaker 1: Movement was a very intense individual and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So my camel was able to put me in touch
Speaker 1: with him. That really like set the stage for me
Speaker 1: meeting other people that came into my life too, and
Speaker 1: basically sort of prepared me. So when I Rubens were
Speaker 1: was a when I actually eventually got out that there
Speaker 1: for you. The movement was sort of a positive individual
Speaker 1: that way. So meeting all these people sort of set
Speaker 1: the stage for preparation for me to get out. So
Speaker 1: when I got out, of course I was shocked at
Speaker 1: some of the things that I saw initially, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't overly shocked about a lot of things because again,
Speaker 1: meeting all these individuals who shared their stories with me
Speaker 1: about travels and stuff like that, that allowed me to
Speaker 1: get a sense of what society would be like if
Speaker 1: I got out of prison and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of prepared. It's always but in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, I was not prepared to be
Speaker 1: honest with is. So this was also the importance of
Speaker 1: having a really really good support system. You're not a
Speaker 1: person that gives us, are you know? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: what's my state Philip pills were exhausted, but I just
Speaker 1: kept thinking about my family, for example, and at that
Speaker 1: time really sucky. Even of course he was, you know,
Speaker 1: he was still among us, but we had lost communication
Speaker 1: for a while. So I just wanted to do some
Speaker 1: want to fight, not necessarily for my supper, for the
Speaker 1: both of us. Ruben was forced to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1: I had just done my first exoneration a guy named
Speaker 1: Angelo Martinez, and back in the in those days, it
Speaker 1: was a very rare events, so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of press, a lot of media about it. And about
Speaker 1: a week two weeks later, my secretary says, there's a
Speaker 1: phone call for you. It's Ruben. Hurricane Carter on the phone.
Speaker 1: So I said, it's one of my idiot friends from
Speaker 1: the Bronx, just trying to bust my chops, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, I said, all right, put it through. I said,
Speaker 1: so what do you want? And he said, hello, this
Speaker 1: is Dr Carter and I wanted to actually in the case.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about your next case.
Speaker 1: And I said, what are you What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe was actually the hurricane Like like you Jason,
Speaker 1: I mean that song, that story is legend, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know. And he said, I'm going to send you
Speaker 1: this file. We need a lawyer in New York, and
Speaker 1: I want you to look at the file and call
Speaker 1: me when you're done and what you think about the case.
Speaker 1: So I called him back after I looked at the file.
Speaker 1: I said, this guy got the worst trial I've ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life. This guy's trial was horrific. He
Speaker 1: should never have been convicted. So Ruben said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: do you think he's innocent? And I said, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't really look at it, you know, from that aspect.
Speaker 1: He said, well, call me back when you looked at
Speaker 1: me from that aspect, because I'm not interested in the
Speaker 1: procedural error. I want to establish this guy is innocent.
Speaker 1: So then I went back and looked over everything, and
Speaker 1: then I found something consistency is almost immediately in the confession,
Speaker 1: one of which was the thing that the lynch pin
Speaker 1: really to the whole wrongful conviction. And I called him
Speaker 1: and said, neither of these guys did it. And he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm coming down to New York. Let's go visit him.
Speaker 1: And uh, I said, okay. And as you could tell
Speaker 1: anybody who meets David. You know, five minutes into it,
Speaker 1: you're like, this guy's not a murderer. This guy was
Speaker 1: never a murderer. And we spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: that day with David, and then we brainstormed after. But
Speaker 1: Ruben was the one who got his name. Helped us
Speaker 1: get the leading false confession expert on the case, a
Speaker 1: guy named Steve Drizzen. He helped us get Laura Cohen
Speaker 1: from Rutgers University and her students to help David the
Speaker 1: parole piece, and then they became involved in the reinvestigation
Speaker 1: as well. And his letter to the Daily News moved
Speaker 1: the case to the top of the pile. And I
Speaker 1: don't think David would have been here if Ruben hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten into his life, or frankly, David hadn't just decided
Speaker 1: to pick up the Sun magazine that day. How many
Speaker 1: times you think about that, I think because I had
Speaker 1: plenty of opportunities to say, you know what, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go back early tonight. You know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to stay around. I'm not gonna stick around. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any any more work to do that, particularly as
Speaker 1: he worked a Yeah, so it would been very easy
Speaker 1: for me to just sort of shut it down only,
Speaker 1: which I did at times. You know, we feeling tired.
Speaker 1: That's sort of thing you want to And then you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and thirteen Brooklyn elected Ken Thompson, where
Speaker 1: I have a story about that, and you have to
Speaker 1: have a prosecutor who's willing to take a case that's,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years old and say, yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: actually take a look at it, reinvestigated, reopen it, because
Speaker 1: we know that prosecutors are love to do that across
Speaker 1: the United States, and in fact, even in the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: d A's office, the answer had been previously known. And
Speaker 1: that's I'm glad you mentioned that because I remember in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen or when during the campaign when Ken
Speaker 1: Thompson was he was campaign it and so that time
Speaker 1: I was at a place called Oldersville, So that's a
Speaker 1: medium connection. It's like a place like basically made up
Speaker 1: of dormitory. So I remember staying up late at night
Speaker 1: just trying to hear any sort of campaign news that
Speaker 1: I could because you know, I wanted I wanted this
Speaker 1: guy to when not because it would guarantee any any
Speaker 1: freedom or anything like that, but at least we will
Speaker 1: guarantee change, and people like myself in that situation, all
Speaker 1: I really wanted was an opportunity and all as a
Speaker 1: legal team, all we really wanted was an opportunity and
Speaker 1: fair chance, you know, to have our case heard, because
Speaker 1: under the previous regime, we we really believed that we wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, given a fair opportunity to present our case
Speaker 1: in a way that we that we needed to. So
Speaker 1: when some Thompson eventually got elected, I know that he
Speaker 1: made some campaign promises that he would investigate one for
Speaker 1: convictions thoroughly and that sort of thing. And once I
Speaker 1: heard that, I really was really I was emotionally ab
Speaker 1: cried a lot, because that's what you want to hear,
Speaker 1: especially someone in my opposition. You just want someone to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're gonna do this thing fairly. And
Speaker 1: however it would have turned out after that, of course
Speaker 1: I would have been disappointed, but at least I would
Speaker 1: have known that this individual delivered on the promise, on
Speaker 1: the campaign promise that some individuals don't normally do under
Speaker 1: those circumstances. So when he became the attorney, UM, I
Speaker 1: think the people of Brooklyn can attest to this, that
Speaker 1: it really changed the datatics of the I think the
Speaker 1: criminal assis system in an impression. We've vacated both under
Speaker 1: his tenure cases in destroyed period of time that I've
Speaker 1: been serving as the acting d A, I've vacated two
Speaker 1: additional cases who were up to twenty three cases. And
Speaker 1: the work of our conviction review unit is ongoing and
Speaker 1: there's much more work to be done. Well, you have
Speaker 1: a real dedicated team, right, I mean in some of
Speaker 1: these convictive review units around the country they have one
Speaker 1: part time guy or whatever, and you have we have
Speaker 1: we have a tender tend detective assigned to this. We
Speaker 1: have full time prosecutors who only handle these reinvestigations. Currently
Speaker 1: we have nine full time prosecutors, and we have full
Speaker 1: time detectives. We have full time paralegals, to have many
Speaker 1: law firm that's working on reviewing cases of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: It's simply a model. There really is no other word
Speaker 1: for it, and no other place has replicated it. No
Speaker 1: place has tried to replicate it. And you know, I
Speaker 1: knew Ken from really gating. We were adversaries on a
Speaker 1: couple of big cases against each other. When he got
Speaker 1: elected d A. I called him and said, I got
Speaker 1: talked about this case because we have been rebuffed countless
Speaker 1: times by Joe Hines's office. We were told, come back
Speaker 1: to us when you get the real killers. And I said,
Speaker 1: I thought, that's your job. You know I'm not here
Speaker 1: to catch the real killers. I'm here to show you
Speaker 1: that this guy and his co defender or innocent. And
Speaker 1: he said, wait till you see what we're gonna do. Okay,
Speaker 1: call me in January, call me in February. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'll give you some time, but you really look at
Speaker 1: this case. He said, done, just call me. And I
Speaker 1: never expected him to do the breath that he did,
Speaker 1: and him and Eric developed this unit that was second
Speaker 1: to none. The standard that Ken said was, is it
Speaker 1: a conviction I could live up to. I don't care
Speaker 1: whether he already made this argument. I don't care whether
Speaker 1: anybody else has already looked at it. I want to
Speaker 1: be able to stand by this conviction. That's the tone
Speaker 1: that Eric said. Also, because he helped developed the unit
Speaker 1: with Ken, and he put him directly on David's case.
Speaker 1: And I remember telling him, I said, you were the
Speaker 1: only elected official can that I can think of, in
Speaker 1: modern history who got elected promising more rights to the
Speaker 1: criminally accused. Every other prosecutor before Ken was tough on crime.
Speaker 1: I'll lock him up, I'm gonna safe streets, war on drugs.
Speaker 1: And this was the first guy who said I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to reform the system and he put his
Speaker 1: money where his mouth is. Like you said, he I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it when I went up and saw the unit.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's nothing that helps public safety about
Speaker 1: convicting the wrong guys. In fact, that's the opposite effect.
Speaker 1: So let me ask where the real perpetrators ever caught
Speaker 1: in this case, because if not, then that's another crime
Speaker 1: against society, right right, I mean, one of the things
Speaker 1: that no one thinks about in willful conviction is if
Speaker 1: the conviction was wrongful, it means that the people who
Speaker 1: actually committed this crime are still out there, and people
Speaker 1: who come into this crime, unless they're in prison for
Speaker 1: other things they've done since her, we're still out there.
Speaker 1: They've never been held accountable. But we believe that we
Speaker 1: know who did this crime, and there is no statute
Speaker 1: of limitations. And if the evidence can never be brought
Speaker 1: and I'm in office, I will bring that case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think all of us would like to see these
Speaker 1: guys brought to justice because these are dangerous, scary individuals
Speaker 1: who committed a really terrible crime and got away with it.
Speaker 1: What was the moment when you found out that you
Speaker 1: were going home? Sure get emotional substance, So please excuse
Speaker 1: me on that one. My correction council will see the
Speaker 1: telephone call from Oscar Mischelin and Laura Cohen, and I
Speaker 1: was summoned to her office to speak to them. And
Speaker 1: so when I got on the phone, Oscar pretty much
Speaker 1: said to me that you're going to be coming to
Speaker 1: court the next day. I believe it was Wednesday, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact. And when he and Laura said
Speaker 1: that to me, it's not that I didn't believe them.
Speaker 1: Is that for me? For something? I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get to court and hear the judge actually say the
Speaker 1: words that their conviction is going to be vacated. And
Speaker 1: I remember leaving my Correctional Counselor's office that afternoon, walking
Speaker 1: back up the hill to my house and unit really crying,
Speaker 1: and in some ways really didn't know you know what
Speaker 1: I was crying about. It is because I was I mean,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of mixed emotions. Not that I
Speaker 1: necessarily didn't think that I was going to go home,
Speaker 1: but the fact that I was going to be going
Speaker 1: to court and something big was gonna happen. So from
Speaker 1: that standpoint, I was like on the pins and needles
Speaker 1: for the rest of the night. And on that particular night,
Speaker 1: for example, I didn't go to sleep because I just
Speaker 1: simply couldn't. I just kept thinking about the very next
Speaker 1: day when I was asked to pack up my stuff
Speaker 1: and I was going to court. And so for me,
Speaker 1: what I did was when I packed up my stuff
Speaker 1: and getting ready to go to court, I gave a
Speaker 1: lot of my of a way, not necessarily knowing specifically
Speaker 1: that I was just gonna be coming back, but I
Speaker 1: just I just felt like, you know what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give people stuff that I think they deserve
Speaker 1: and they need, and that's what I did. So, when
Speaker 1: two investigators from the Brooklyn Districttorneys Office came to pick
Speaker 1: me up and they put me in a car and
Speaker 1: he drove off, they were playing the song the Hurricane,
Speaker 1: and so one of the investigators asked me, do you
Speaker 1: know what this guy's of course I know who that guys.
Speaker 1: He said, do you know what these thinkings? Said? Of course,
Speaker 1: I know what he's thinking. That's about hob Dialan and
Speaker 1: he's singing the Hurricane. And I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 1: We had a really cool woman with these guys coming
Speaker 1: down to Brooklyn because these guys actually grew up with
Speaker 1: Brooken themselves, these investigators, and they were just talking to
Speaker 1: me about how things changed in Brooklyn, and and so
Speaker 1: we got downtown. It was pointing out certain things to
Speaker 1: me and it leaven off me some some real food
Speaker 1: that I've had and had ever since I've know been
Speaker 1: inconcerrated and that sort of thing. So it was sort
Speaker 1: of that kind of moment. And when I actually got
Speaker 1: into the courtroom, and well actually before I got to
Speaker 1: the court whom I was taken to the Brooklyn District
Speaker 1: Trainings office and take upstairs and my show what FLOORA
Speaker 1: was on, and Ken Thompson came in and he introduced
Speaker 1: himself and he told me on certain terms that when
Speaker 1: I walked out of this building to the courthouse that
Speaker 1: he wanted me to hold my head up high. And
Speaker 1: I really appreciated those comments because I think he was
Speaker 1: saying that I'm probably gonna I'm gonna be haircuffed. But
Speaker 1: because I got had was on me. Don't look at
Speaker 1: yourself as it is a criminal. I think that there
Speaker 1: was this message. So I did what he what he
Speaker 1: asked me to do, and I walked down to the
Speaker 1: courthouse and he went upstairs and eventually went into the courtroom.
Speaker 1: And I've seen all these individuals in there with the media,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of people in the courtroom
Speaker 1: off us and as they were saying, you know, the
Speaker 1: rest is history. So yeah, and Oscar, you're taken. And
Speaker 1: so when you called them the night before, did you
Speaker 1: knew what was going to happen the next day? You
Speaker 1: didn't tell him? Well, Kenneth called me and said, once
Speaker 1: you come down in Columbus day, bring one other member
Speaker 1: of your team. The office was closed except for the
Speaker 1: interview and Laura Cohen and I met with him and
Speaker 1: we talked for a while and he said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it Wednesday. We're gonna vacate the conviction and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna vacate Willie's conviction also, And you know, it was
Speaker 1: a very very emotional obviously, and no I called and
Speaker 1: told him I didn't hide anything from He just didn't
Speaker 1: want to believe it until he heard the judge. That's
Speaker 1: like from years of being beaten down by the system,
Speaker 1: being told no all the time, even during my letter
Speaker 1: writing campaign, for example, So before I actually wrote Kidding
Speaker 1: that letter, I wrote hundreds of letters to law firms, newspapers,
Speaker 1: New York Times, Daily News, the New York Post. I mean,
Speaker 1: all different sort of kind of publication that I wrote,
Speaker 1: some magazine that I wrote, I'm just trying to get
Speaker 1: some help, you know, because at that time I didn't
Speaker 1: really have any. So again it was not a madam
Speaker 1: that's not not necessarily believe in them, because I really
Speaker 1: had no reason not to believe them. It's just that
Speaker 1: I just I just wanted to hear this judge say
Speaker 1: that man, and this Everything in my life had come
Speaker 1: to up to that point where just sort of culminated
Speaker 1: to that one moment in the fact that when I
Speaker 1: got into the courtroom, and actually prior to me getting
Speaker 1: the courtroom, I had a conversation with Willie Stucky's mom
Speaker 1: and I recall a very specifically saying to me, um,
Speaker 1: you know you're my son now, and those words resonated
Speaker 1: me with me in a way that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: And so when the judge, of course, the the d
Speaker 1: A and Oscar was in the courtroom and the judge finally,
Speaker 1: you know, of course made this decision. Um, I just
Speaker 1: hugged her and I just looked at her. It was
Speaker 1: a very very bittersweet moment for me because at that time,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, you know, here I am gonna
Speaker 1: be walking out of the courtroom very happy, but very
Speaker 1: sad at the same time, because really, stucky you should
Speaker 1: have been walking out out of this very court room
Speaker 1: with me so and having sat in the first role
Speaker 1: in that courtroom. There were a lot of wet eyes
Speaker 1: all throughout. But it was a very emotional moment um
Speaker 1: the sense that justice was delayed for so many years,
Speaker 1: but there was at least at this moment of reckoning
Speaker 1: and the reckoning that that the system had failed. And
Speaker 1: we've discussed did here. It wasn't just a prosecutor or
Speaker 1: a bad detective. It was a systemic failure of the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. While it was bitter sweet for everyone,
Speaker 1: it was finally that we've righted this wrong. We have
Speaker 1: a tradition here on wrongful conviction which is that I
Speaker 1: like to turn the microphone over to you, David for
Speaker 1: closing thoughts. But in this case, because we have other
Speaker 1: special guests here, I'd like to actually do around Robin
Speaker 1: and finish with you. So let's start with Oscar. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you want to share with our audience? No,
Speaker 1: I just think that uh, for folks out there who
Speaker 1: are listening, that that say to what can I do?
Speaker 1: And I think the most important thing is to just
Speaker 1: keep an open mind when you read stories about people
Speaker 1: being arrested, serve on a jury, if you're called, demand
Speaker 1: that your criminal justice system, that your prosecutors and police
Speaker 1: live up to these standards that we've talked about today,
Speaker 1: and for those who are prosecutors to follow the model.
Speaker 1: Frankly then that Brooklyn has set, you know, Ken and
Speaker 1: then Eric have followed that that I have not seen
Speaker 1: replicated throughout the country. And I just thank everybody, yourself included,
Speaker 1: because shedding light on these things is the only way
Speaker 1: that we're gonna avoid these wonful convictions in the first place.
Speaker 1: That's that's the goal, is to develop a criminal justice
Speaker 1: system that's fair to the people, that's fair to the accused,
Speaker 1: and that gets it right more often than it currently does.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate this opportunity to get this information out
Speaker 1: to folks, and hopefully they'll take it with them and
Speaker 1: remember that when they have the opportunity to somehow affect
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system, we have an obligation to do
Speaker 1: justice and not just to try to secure convictions. But
Speaker 1: I also believe that part of my job is to
Speaker 1: protect the innocent, and that needs being proact and not
Speaker 1: just waiting for things to play out in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: And so much of what I've tried to do in
Speaker 1: the short period of time is I've done things like
Speaker 1: hired immigration attorneys to protect people who are accused of
Speaker 1: crimes who may have immigration issues, something that people think
Speaker 1: is not in the role of a prosecutor. But making
Speaker 1: sure that we protect the innocent is important and we
Speaker 1: can't lose track of that. And for David, you should
Speaker 1: know that every assistant district attorney that we've hired now
Speaker 1: gets taught on false fed facts, which were a keyl
Speaker 1: in shpin of your false confession. The science of you know,
Speaker 1: wrongful identifications and false fed facts, and these things were
Speaker 1: things that prosecutors never trained on. And when we make
Speaker 1: these exonerations. The first thing that we go back is
Speaker 1: we do what could we have done differently, and we
Speaker 1: train on it. So I want you to know that
Speaker 1: the generation of prosecutors in my office so being trained,
Speaker 1: and they learned about your case when they learned about
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the other people we've exonerated
Speaker 1: to make sure that this never happened again. This can't
Speaker 1: happen again. And I'm gonna say before turn over to you, David,
Speaker 1: that for everybody listening, vote, go out and vote in
Speaker 1: your this your attorney's racist, because you can make a difference.
Speaker 1: So David, now the highlight of the show is just
Speaker 1: to turn it over to you for any closing thoughts. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for that. You know, during my
Speaker 1: twenty nine is in prison. In prison in general, the
Speaker 1: notion is that, you know, you should never trust anybody,
Speaker 1: and I guess in a lot of cases that's actually true.
Speaker 1: But for me, I didn't necessarily subscribe to that theory
Speaker 1: because I didn't feel it was appropriate for me, because
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in the position to have
Speaker 1: to trust somebody in order to get where I needed
Speaker 1: to go, and that was home, you know, So I
Speaker 1: really put my faith and a lot of people to
Speaker 1: help me because I really needed to help. Really trust me,
Speaker 1: I really have desperately needed to help. And one of
Speaker 1: the things so I do like public speaking every every
Speaker 1: once in a while, I'll tell people, so with the
Speaker 1: world through the politics, come up with all the stuff
Speaker 1: has happening, you know in our country these days. I
Speaker 1: always tell people just believing, believing people. If you don't
Speaker 1: believe in your look that officials to the extent that
Speaker 1: you don't trust them, believing people, because it's the people
Speaker 1: that surrounding who's going to make the difference. It's going
Speaker 1: to create the change that's necessary. And I don't know
Speaker 1: for me and meeting Ken Thompson, and I had the
Speaker 1: privilege of being invited to his funeral by his wife,
Speaker 1: and I can say that when I was had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak for the time that I did and
Speaker 1: I shared with the audience that I at that time
Speaker 1: I had to find my full daughter the Quinn and
Speaker 1: I specifically said that Ken Thompson is the reason why
Speaker 1: I have my daughter. And that was totally sincere about that,
Speaker 1: because if this individual didn't show the courage that he
Speaker 1: showed in taking on this particular endeavor of wrong for
Speaker 1: conviction cases, a lot of people, not necessary myself, but
Speaker 1: a lot of other people would would be in the
Speaker 1: world of trouble right now. And wife, frankly would probably
Speaker 1: still be accocerated. And it just so just closed with this.
Speaker 1: When the Agins I was, you know, introduced me to
Speaker 1: his children and his wife. That was a very touching
Speaker 1: moment for someone like me because I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at his sins and I got the opportunity
Speaker 1: to meet these guys, and you know, that was doubt
Speaker 1: for me, was the privilege. And I would like to
Speaker 1: say that that that said more about dickens hows than
Speaker 1: than it than it did about me. And so I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you because that really struck a
Speaker 1: chord with me. Even after I met with you going
Speaker 1: my way home and I felt really good good about that.
Speaker 1: I looked at that as a as a privilege, and
Speaker 1: I just want to, you know, for sil Us, but
Speaker 1: when I see the because I was getting gonna really
Speaker 1: let him know thank him for that, because that that
Speaker 1: touched something that touched the emotional chord for me, and
Speaker 1: that just showed me and it just really confirmed and
Speaker 1: reinforced for me when I just mentioned earlier about people
Speaker 1: and that's important for people just to have faith in
Speaker 1: each other. And that's simply when I when I did
Speaker 1: during my time in prison, and it paid off. Thank you, David,
Speaker 1: that you been in a privilege to have met you
Speaker 1: and to know you and to see you doing the
Speaker 1: great work that you're doing, the awitness that you bring in,
Speaker 1: to see you happy and with your own family makes
Speaker 1: me very grateful. Don't forget to give us a fantastic
Speaker 1: review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And
Speaker 1: I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I
Speaker 1: really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important
Speaker 1: cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to
Speaker 1: Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam
Speaker 1: Is a production of Lava for Good podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one on