Speaker 1: On October thirteenth, seven, Julie Ray woke to a sound
Speaker 1: from her ten year old boy, Joel's bedroom. When she looked,
Speaker 1: she did not see Joel and a man in a
Speaker 1: ski mask lunch from the darkness. Julie, a black belt
Speaker 1: in taekwondo, struggled with the masked man as he escaped
Speaker 1: to the back yard, slamming her head on the ground
Speaker 1: before fleeing into the night. Julie banged on her neighbor's door,
Speaker 1: asking for help and saying that Joel was gone. When
Speaker 1: sheriff Deputy Dennis York searched the house, he found Joel
Speaker 1: between the bed and the nearby wall, his pajamas soaked
Speaker 1: in blood. He had been stabbed twelve times. Despite her
Speaker 1: own injuries and the miniscule amount of Joel's blood found
Speaker 1: in her shirt, authorities came up with the theory that
Speaker 1: there was no intruder and that Julie was responsible for
Speaker 1: the death of her own son. After a bumbling tunnel
Speaker 1: vision investigation searching only for evidence of Julie's killed and
Speaker 1: coming up empty, prosecution resorted to using blood spatter analysis,
Speaker 1: a known junk science. They're experts testified anyway, employing no
Speaker 1: actual demonstration that the bloodstains were consistent with Julie wielding
Speaker 1: the murder weapon. Julie was sentenced to sixty five years
Speaker 1: in prison and subjected to the abuse that befalls a
Speaker 1: person who murdered their own child. Just two years later,
Speaker 1: a serial child murderer facing the death penalty for a
Speaker 1: nearly identical crime and who was linked to many other
Speaker 1: similar crimes, confessed to being the masked man from Julie's
Speaker 1: version of events. His confession was corroborated, and she was
Speaker 1: acquitted at her retrial in two thousand and six and
Speaker 1: formally exonerated in two thousand ten. All of this was
Speaker 1: made possible with the help of the Center on Wrongful
Speaker 1: Convictions at Northwestern University, and, most notably, staff attorney Karen Daniel,
Speaker 1: to whom this episode is lovingly and respectfully dedicated. Karen
Speaker 1: was a pioneer in the innocence movement and a hero
Speaker 1: to many. She passed away on December two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Plot Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. I'm your host, and I'm
Speaker 1: here today with a woman who I am really kind
Speaker 1: of in awe of, to put it mildly, Julie Ray
Speaker 1: is a person of incredible integrity, strength, and purpose, I
Speaker 1: would say, And she is an exnerie from Illinois who
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted of the murder of her own son. Julie,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy you're here. I'm obviously sorry you have
Speaker 1: to be here, but I'm happy you're here. Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 1: And with Julie, it's a guy named Ron Safer. Ron
Speaker 1: is a partner at Riley Safer, Holmes and Concilla. And
Speaker 1: Ron is a former assistant u S Attorney for the
Speaker 1: Northern District of Illinois and moreover, he does work today
Speaker 1: for the Center of Wrongful Convictions at the Western University's
Speaker 1: Pritzker School of Law. And he's a colleague and a
Speaker 1: dear friend of the late great Karen Daniel, who will
Speaker 1: speak to you about to whom we will pay tribute
Speaker 1: later in this episode. So Ron, welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here. So yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: side because I'm going to go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: I read Julie's story when she was on the cover
Speaker 1: of the New York Times magazine and the headline was
Speaker 1: she was exonerated of the murder of her son. Her
Speaker 1: life is still shattered and with that it's one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful pictures I've ever seen. Let me just
Speaker 1: say that. You can look it up yourselves, but it
Speaker 1: was there was so much pain and so much, so
Speaker 1: much more to it than that in this photograph. I
Speaker 1: I just thought, this is someone I you know, if
Speaker 1: I can do anything to share her story or two
Speaker 1: help in any way, I am committed to do it.
Speaker 1: So Julie, going back to the beginning, can you take
Speaker 1: us through what your life was like before this happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were a woman of tremendous potential and
Speaker 1: someone who had accomplished a great deal of black belt
Speaker 1: in taekwondo, a doctoral student. Well the black belt in
Speaker 1: taekwon is kind of a joke, but it was something
Speaker 1: Joel and I did together which was really fun. But
Speaker 1: you were working towards your doctor and educational psychology right
Speaker 1: at the time that everything went completely haywire. Can you
Speaker 1: just talk to us a little bit of how you
Speaker 1: chose that field and that's a hell of a thing
Speaker 1: to take on when you're raising a child, you know,
Speaker 1: as a single mom. It was a perfect fit. It
Speaker 1: gave me time to be there for Joel, a flexible schedule.
Speaker 1: School was a good match for me. I really enjoy
Speaker 1: graduate work and the field was very interesting. I had
Speaker 1: wonderful mentors, and I had a planned on a career
Speaker 1: in academia, which would give me a chance to research
Speaker 1: things I loved and was interested in. It would give
Speaker 1: me an excellent environment for Joel. He was brilliant and
Speaker 1: intrigued with learning. Joel and I enjoyed the life that
Speaker 1: we had at the time. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: extracurricular activities and friends. We had a great neighborhood and
Speaker 1: um community where we lived. We were doing a lot
Speaker 1: of fun things together and just really looking forward to
Speaker 1: the next part of our lives together. I remember things
Speaker 1: that Joel and I used to like to do before
Speaker 1: everything changed. I remember sitting by the door when it
Speaker 1: was storming and listening to the rain while we were reading.
Speaker 1: And his favorite soup of chicken noodles, so he had
Speaker 1: chicken noodle and I like tomatoes, so I had tomato.
Speaker 1: Just so many gut memories of all the things we
Speaker 1: were doing in our lives at that time. I remember
Speaker 1: I can't sing to save my life, and John kind
Speaker 1: of inherited some of that ability from me. But we
Speaker 1: would drive through and get tacos from this one place.
Speaker 1: It was actually a little tavern, was a very small talent,
Speaker 1: so we had limited options. And then this one night
Speaker 1: of the week we had these great tacos and they
Speaker 1: had a drive through, and then we would drive through
Speaker 1: and get a half budge Sunday and we had done that.
Speaker 1: We were coming home from taekwondo and we were singing
Speaker 1: I don't know what this song is in the Jungle
Speaker 1: and Mighty Jungle, the line sleeps tonight with the windows down,
Speaker 1: and there was just a really happy time. So much
Speaker 1: was going right, So much was going right. And Ron,
Speaker 1: if I can turn this over to you, because I
Speaker 1: know this is borderline impossible for Julie to discuss, um,
Speaker 1: but can you share some of the details of this case. Um,
Speaker 1: you know what happened and how this all went so
Speaker 1: horribly wrong. Sure, Julie Joel were together in Julie's home
Speaker 1: and in the middle of the night, four am, an
Speaker 1: intruder came into the home. Julie didn't tear him. He
Speaker 1: is somebody who has broken into homes and trailers across
Speaker 1: the country without being heard. He was a serial murderer
Speaker 1: and somebody very skilled at this, and so he was
Speaker 1: not heard. He came into Joel's bedroom, stabbed him to death,
Speaker 1: and pushed him off the bed. Julie awoke to some
Speaker 1: sound and she looked across from her bed into Joel's
Speaker 1: bedroom and saw that he was not in the bed,
Speaker 1: and so she woke herself up, started going towards his
Speaker 1: bedroom and banged into somebody in the hallway. It was
Speaker 1: Tommy lind Cells who she banged into, and the knife
Speaker 1: that he held was found right there where Julie said
Speaker 1: they banged into each other. He then sought to leave
Speaker 1: the house. Julie grabbed onto his legs. Now again, Julie
Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on. All she knows is that
Speaker 1: Joel's not in his bed. So you can imagine what
Speaker 1: a flood of thoughts anybody would have at that time.
Speaker 1: So she doesn't know what's going on, but she grabbed
Speaker 1: onto this guy for dear life. He drags her along
Speaker 1: the carpet and indeed she has rug burns on her
Speaker 1: knees from that. He breaks away, get into the garage
Speaker 1: where there is another door to the outside. Julie wants
Speaker 1: again grabs onto him because he's having trouble getting out
Speaker 1: of that back door. He breaks the glass to get
Speaker 1: out of the back door, and Julie grabs onto him
Speaker 1: again for dear life, thinking that he's the only link
Speaker 1: to Joel, and he drags her along. She has scrapes
Speaker 1: on the top of her feet from being dragged across
Speaker 1: the glass that is broken from that door. He goes
Speaker 1: out into the backyard she's holding on as grass stains
Speaker 1: from that. He then takes her head, smashes it into
Speaker 1: the ground and walks off. Julie immediately went to a
Speaker 1: neighbor's house and they called the police, and the police
Speaker 1: found Joel's at that point dying body. And from there,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, the universe has changed, and everything
Speaker 1: that happened from that minute that I started that narrative
Speaker 1: until Julie got out of jail years later went wrong.
Speaker 1: And this one, I mean, even for me, this one
Speaker 1: is absolutely mind boggling because it not only didn't make sense,
Speaker 1: it couldn't have made sense. You have nothing to pin
Speaker 1: this on, Julie, And in fact, there's every arrow pointing
Speaker 1: directly at an intruder. Of course, like then, nobody knew
Speaker 1: who it was. That comes clear later at the story
Speaker 1: when he actually confesses. Right, the case agent testified under
Speaker 1: my cross examination ultimately that everyone, people who liked Julie,
Speaker 1: people who didn't like Julie, everyone told him that Julie
Speaker 1: and Joel had a good and loving relationship. This was
Speaker 1: a quote. He could not find anyone who would say
Speaker 1: that she raised her voice to him, let alone her hand.
Speaker 1: So why would anybody think that somebody who is a
Speaker 1: PhD candidate in educational psychology, with a good and loving
Speaker 1: relationship with her son, and a good and caring person
Speaker 1: would do something like this and no prior history of
Speaker 1: violence or mental issues or anything nice. Quite not quite
Speaker 1: the opposite, actually right, in order to get to where
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out how, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we'll ever really know why the authorities in this case
Speaker 1: chose to pin this on Julie. Julie had just lived
Speaker 1: through a scene from the worst horror movie than anyone
Speaker 1: could ever see. Every parent's worst nightmare. So Julie, if
Speaker 1: you can talk about it from there, you weren't arrested
Speaker 1: then and there. This was something that took time to
Speaker 1: wind its way through, and at some point they decided
Speaker 1: to develop a narrative, maybe just because they couldn't figure
Speaker 1: it out that involved you. But you've spoken to me
Speaker 1: and in the article about what your life was like
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of this horror. Well, in defense of
Speaker 1: the police, I mean, I think that they were poorly trained.
Speaker 1: I think that they didn't know what to do. It
Speaker 1: was a small town, they weren't used to handling these
Speaker 1: kinds of crime scenes. They showed up mishandled the evidence horribly.
Speaker 1: I mean where there were hair and fiber evidence opportunities,
Speaker 1: they lost them. They actually ruined them. They picked up
Speaker 1: the quilt that Joel had been under and took a
Speaker 1: picture of themselves destroying evidence and then showed that picturing
Speaker 1: court as though they were proud of it. That is
Speaker 1: the level of incompetence. And they did not take fingerprints.
Speaker 1: They for whatever reason, decided that because the way the
Speaker 1: glass broke and fell on the floor or the ground,
Speaker 1: that it was broken out, like I told them, the
Speaker 1: man had broken the glass out, that they didn't think
Speaker 1: that was reasonable, which I don't know what is reasonable
Speaker 1: when you have somebody coming into a home and killing someone.
Speaker 1: He did use a knife from my home, and they
Speaker 1: didn't fingerprint around the knife block that they took the
Speaker 1: knife from. I guess they thought that. I really have
Speaker 1: no clue what they thought. I just don't know. I
Speaker 1: thought they were trying to solve the crime. I thought
Speaker 1: they were trying to catch the person. I was in shock.
Speaker 1: I was in denial. When you're in shock, you look
Speaker 1: for ways to fix things. I thought if I helped them,
Speaker 1: maybe somehow we could fix what had happened. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know, So I just talked to them and
Speaker 1: tried to answer all their questions. I had no idea
Speaker 1: that they could possibly consider me a suspect. I mean,
Speaker 1: they actually came to me at one point and said
Speaker 1: that they had satellite photos, and I was thrilled to
Speaker 1: death because if they had satellite photos, then we had
Speaker 1: evidence that we could use to catch the person that
Speaker 1: did this. And so we went back and forth for
Speaker 1: quite a long time because there were no satellite photos,
Speaker 1: and they thought they were going to catch me in
Speaker 1: some kind of a lie or confuse me or trip
Speaker 1: me up or something. So they kept moving the information
Speaker 1: around like no the satellite photos are only of a
Speaker 1: certain part of the art, and so I would say, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's fine, and you know, just broaden the scope
Speaker 1: of whatever you've got, you know, or look at the
Speaker 1: different time periods. He had to have moved through that
Speaker 1: part of the art at some point, and they had
Speaker 1: no satellite photos at that point. I had no idea
Speaker 1: cops would line. You know, I was looking for some
Speaker 1: real information. I mean, the kind of person that does
Speaker 1: something like this, it's going to do it again. That's
Speaker 1: a key point. I'm glad you brought that up, because
Speaker 1: as citizens, all of us want to see a person
Speaker 1: like Tommy lind Cells apprehended and brought to justice as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible, because everyone's at risk if not. And
Speaker 1: of course we know from the case after case that
Speaker 1: when the wrong person is pursued, ultimately arrested and then charged,
Speaker 1: they stopped looking for the right person. In this case,
Speaker 1: the right person was a serial killer named Tommy themselves.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right to point out the training.
Speaker 1: This was a small town, right, so it's reasonable to
Speaker 1: assume that these officers didn't have a great deal of
Speaker 1: experience investigating crimes as serious as this one. But the
Speaker 1: fact that they didn't even dust the bedroom or the
Speaker 1: butcher block, as you said, for fingerprints, that they didn't
Speaker 1: preserve critical trace evidence from Joel's bedspread, the fact that
Speaker 1: from the beginning they focused on you and any blood
Speaker 1: that you might have tried to wash away right with
Speaker 1: digging they done, thank they dug out the septic tank,
Speaker 1: they did all kinds of things, and they didn't bother
Speaker 1: to give us this information at the time. But apparently
Speaker 1: the first officer on the scene threw up on the scene. Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean that exactly a time when you should have
Speaker 1: been receiving nothing but care and support and they're, you know,
Speaker 1: instead hunting you and trying to pin this thing on you. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let me inject a little bit of experience into this.
Speaker 1: I was a prosecutor. These were not only local police,
Speaker 1: they were the Illinois State Police. These people had experience
Speaker 1: where this went off the rails, was where cases all
Speaker 1: too often get off the rails. They did not believe
Speaker 1: Julie from the first second, and often when children are murdered,
Speaker 1: parents become suspects for whatever reason. These officers jumped to
Speaker 1: a conclusion and then took steps that resulted in confirmation
Speaker 1: of that conclusion. That is, they concluded that Julie did
Speaker 1: it with no evidence, no reason, but they did. Therefore,
Speaker 1: why fingerprint because her fingerprints are going to be all
Speaker 1: over the place. Why preserved fibers because her fibers are
Speaker 1: going to be all of the place. And then they say, well,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence of an intruder. Of course, there's no
Speaker 1: evidence of an true to you destroyed it or it
Speaker 1: did not capture any of the evidence of the intruder.
Speaker 1: So when you view the evidence and then either failed
Speaker 1: to create it or destroy the evidence that is counter
Speaker 1: to the way you view it, then you have a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy. And by the way, you mentioned the
Speaker 1: investigation went on for years. What happened is they investigate, investigate, investigated,
Speaker 1: got of course no evidence that Julie committed the crime
Speaker 1: because she didn't. Asked her to take a polygraph, She
Speaker 1: took a polygraph, passed the polygraph, They investigated some more,
Speaker 1: asked her to take a second polygraph. She passed the
Speaker 1: second polygraph. The local prosecutor would not indict me. He said,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence. I'm not going to indict her. So
Speaker 1: they got a special prosecutor and brought him in. Ed
Speaker 1: Parkinson was a state prosecutor. He came from the Special
Speaker 1: process secutor's office Appellate prosecutor's office. They indicted with a
Speaker 1: grand jury, and he promised that he would tell the
Speaker 1: grand jury if they asked that I had passed two polygraphs.
Speaker 1: Not only did he not give them that information, he himself,
Speaker 1: who was conducting the grand jury, testified by saying, when
Speaker 1: they asked, did she take a polygraph? He said, out
Speaker 1: of fairness to the defendant, I will not answer that question,
Speaker 1: we won't give you that information, implying I had not
Speaker 1: passed polygraphs. Do you feel that at this point, and
Speaker 1: you're really a perfect person to answer this, that the
Speaker 1: people in position to make these decisions knew that they
Speaker 1: were prosecuting an innocent woman. I think that the prosecutors,
Speaker 1: if I had to guess, didn't care. I think he
Speaker 1: certainly misled the jury and didn't care one way or
Speaker 1: the other. The local police, I'm not sure if they knew,
Speaker 1: but they ignored all of the evidence of the contrary.
Speaker 1: For example, Julie put together a sketch of the intruder.
Speaker 1: The local bus station person called the police and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: that guy was just here. He purchased a bus ticket
Speaker 1: to win a Mecca, Nevada, a tiny town. He didn't
Speaker 1: have enough money. I gave him the ticket anyway, I
Speaker 1: wanted him out of here. He gave a horrible vibe
Speaker 1: and she called the police and told him that where
Speaker 1: was Tommy Lynn Sells arrested at one point Winnemucca, Nevada.
Speaker 1: What is between Winnemucca, Nevada and where he bought that
Speaker 1: bus ticket? Springfield, Missouri where two days after he murder Joel,
Speaker 1: he murdered a little girl named Stephanie Mahaney. The police
Speaker 1: knew that the police ignored Unbelievably, it gets worse because
Speaker 1: even if you totally ignore Tommy Lynn Cells, if you
Speaker 1: examine the physical evidence, you realize that it prohibits Julie
Speaker 1: as a suspect. It excludes her. And one thing that
Speaker 1: the state used at her trial was a blood spatter
Speaker 1: expert who testified in a way that is unscrupulous, is
Speaker 1: a compliment. He took over the courtroom, He splattered fake
Speaker 1: blood all over the courtroom, and then he testified that
Speaker 1: the blood ains convicted Julie showed that she committed the crime.
Speaker 1: It showed, in fact exactly the oppost. Julie had three
Speaker 1: transfer stains on her T shirt that had Joel's blood
Speaker 1: on it, which were smudged. They were not transferred by
Speaker 1: a hand. They would transferred by a glove or something,
Speaker 1: something that an intruder might wear. There was blood spatter
Speaker 1: all of this room. Her T shirt was Christine of
Speaker 1: blood spatter, and it was not cleaned. They illumin all
Speaker 1: the house. There was no cleaning that went on. And
Speaker 1: there was one blood spatter from Joel's blood on Julie's
Speaker 1: T shirt. It was a ninety degree that is, a
Speaker 1: drop from directly above it on her back. So when
Speaker 1: could that have possibly happened? Obviously not if she was
Speaker 1: committing the crime. Could not have come from Joel, but
Speaker 1: easily could have come from Tommy Lynn Cells or some
Speaker 1: unnamed intruder at that time who after he smashed her
Speaker 1: head into the ground in the backyard, dropped a bit
Speaker 1: of blood whatever it is. You know that she could
Speaker 1: not have committed that crime from that one drop of
Speaker 1: blood spatter. They put this expert on the stand in
Speaker 1: the second trial. As the juror said, he ended up
Speaker 1: after cross examination, after telling the same lies undirect after
Speaker 1: cross examination, he ended up being a powerful defense witness
Speaker 1: because the blood spatter evidence proved beyond any reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: that Julie was totally innocent of this crime. And there
Speaker 1: are no eyewitnesses. Obviously, there's no forensic evidence. As we've discussed,
Speaker 1: there's no motive. So the entire case hinged on that
Speaker 1: tiny amount of blood on a T shirt. And we
Speaker 1: know that bloods batter. It's not conducted by scientists. Typically
Speaker 1: is conducted by detectives or other law enforcement Personnelity may
Speaker 1: be trained in crime scenes stuff, but they're not trained
Speaker 1: in science, generally speaking. And you know, the idea that
Speaker 1: they can get up there with impunity and with authority
Speaker 1: and make assertions to things like they did in this
Speaker 1: case that are so damning when they actually don't know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about or they're lying. It's another reform
Speaker 1: that needs to be made so that this doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: The blood evidence really was just as you described in
Speaker 1: the first trial. It was distorted, it was lied about,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately Julie's attorney at that time was not equipped
Speaker 1: to take that expert on that and the unanswered question
Speaker 1: of who does this, Who breaks into a home to
Speaker 1: kill a child, leaves an adult essentially unharmed, and forgets
Speaker 1: to bring a murder weapon, uses the weapon from the house, Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is Tommy land selves. He's done that in
Speaker 1: half a dozen cases across the country, but they close
Speaker 1: their mind to the possibility that a person like that existed.
Speaker 1: I think a big part of the reason that juries
Speaker 1: convict people wrongly, especially in a case like this, is
Speaker 1: because it's terrifying to let this kind of a crime
Speaker 1: go unanswered. And we resume that our detectives have done
Speaker 1: their jobs and brought us the right people, that our
Speaker 1: prosecutors are prosecuting sincerely, that they've done their jobs and
Speaker 1: they've worked hard, and they know that they're prosecuting the
Speaker 1: right people. That we can trust the people in the
Speaker 1: stand when they're under oath, that they wouldn't lie. And sadly,
Speaker 1: we are finding that we can't assume these things, and
Speaker 1: that's a terrifying reality that's got to change. And if
Speaker 1: we as a culture and as a country, as a
Speaker 1: group of people, as jurors don't hold accountable prosecutors and
Speaker 1: detectives and law enforcement, it won't change I would add,
Speaker 1: by the way, that at the time we began Julie's case,
Speaker 1: I shared the naive assumptions that Julie just said that
Speaker 1: we have to disabuse people of that the prosecutors are
Speaker 1: there to do the right thing, that the police are
Speaker 1: there to do the right thing. That had been my experience.
Speaker 1: I was a prosecutor for ten years. The Illinois State's
Speaker 1: Attorney General supervised this. When I saw the evidence in
Speaker 1: this case, I said, we need to take this to
Speaker 1: the state's attorney general because they will dismiss this case
Speaker 1: when they hear this. And my colleagues were more experienced,
Speaker 1: said no, that's not going to happen, but I insisted
Speaker 1: on doing it. We went to the highest levels of
Speaker 1: the state's attorney general and I said, look, here's the evidence.
Speaker 1: Here's what we're gonna say an opening statement. Here's how
Speaker 1: I'm going to cross examine your expert. Forget about Tommy
Speaker 1: Lynn cells. Julie could not have committed this crime. Here's
Speaker 1: why at trial, you're going to be humiliated. We are
Speaker 1: going to absolutely not only prove that you can't prove
Speaker 1: her guilty, we will prove her innocent beyond any reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: You should not put her through this. Stop this now,
Speaker 1: and I was convinced they would. Obviously I was wrong.
Speaker 1: When they arrested me and took me to the county jail,
Speaker 1: I still thought, when they figure out they've made a mistake,
Speaker 1: it's all going to be okay. When they did what
Speaker 1: they did to me in that county jail, I realized,
Speaker 1: not only do they not care, they're fully aware you're innocent.
Speaker 1: That's not an issue on the table. That's not what
Speaker 1: this is about. People have no idea what's going on
Speaker 1: when they think privatizing prisons is an option. Think about
Speaker 1: what happens when we privatize military. We call that mercenaries.
Speaker 1: We take the heart out of the military, we take
Speaker 1: the ethics out of it. We have mercenaries. Think about
Speaker 1: what you're doing when you take the value and the
Speaker 1: concern for rehabilitation out of correctional systems, you privatize that
Speaker 1: and make that a business where the bottom line is
Speaker 1: only money. My god, what is going to happen to
Speaker 1: our country when that is a done deal. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to this sham trial that you experienced. When the
Speaker 1: jury goes out, when they came back, did you still
Speaker 1: hold on to that belief that justice would be done.
Speaker 1: You're talking about the first trial. Yeah, when the jury
Speaker 1: came back, you hope and trust that the truth will
Speaker 1: come out and that they will have heard it, because
Speaker 1: you know you're innocent. But they didn't. Obviously they didn't,
Speaker 1: and they did find you guilty and convicted. You have
Speaker 1: first degree murder and since to sixty five years in prison.
Speaker 1: At that point, how did you even remain sane? Now
Speaker 1: you're looking at spending the rest of your life in prison.
Speaker 1: Sixty five years is very unlikely would survive that, but
Speaker 1: you stayed strong to fight. And then along comes the
Speaker 1: team from the Center on Wrongful Convictions and Northwestern, Karen
Speaker 1: Daniel and her team of Avengers. Right, how did you
Speaker 1: first come in contact with them? And what did that
Speaker 1: mean to you when you found out that you were
Speaker 1: going to be represented by this well, let's just call
Speaker 1: it what it was. I mean, she was a legend. Um. First,
Speaker 1: I want to say something about the time I was
Speaker 1: in there and what happened with the conviction, And um,
Speaker 1: I remember getting a letter from one of the jurors saying,
Speaker 1: can you please forgive me for convicting you? And I
Speaker 1: remember one of the jurors saying something about I just
Speaker 1: needed her to look me in the eye and tell
Speaker 1: me she didn't do it. And my attorney at my
Speaker 1: first child would not let me take the stand I
Speaker 1: wanted to, but he wouldn't let me wow, which was
Speaker 1: very frustrating because obviously I would have been able to,
Speaker 1: you know, tell them, um, you know I didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and what had happened, and all those kinds of things,
Speaker 1: and you know, getting that letter and having someone say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm so sorry, I can't sleep at night,
Speaker 1: can you please forgive me? And I remember thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: that makes two of us that can't sleep at night,
Speaker 1: but for different reasons. Um, there's just this futility that
Speaker 1: you feel about life when something like this happens. It
Speaker 1: takes away your faith and humanity. And that's why I
Speaker 1: wanted to answer these questions to gather because when Karen
Speaker 1: told me that they're we're going to take the case,
Speaker 1: I didn't know all of what that meant. But over
Speaker 1: time I came to understand what it meant, and I
Speaker 1: got my sense of confidence and humanity back through each
Speaker 1: hearing and um hug through every time they sat beside me.
Speaker 1: When she told the judgment she would be proud to
Speaker 1: have me as her daughter, which she wasn't old enough
Speaker 1: to have me as her daughter. She would have been
Speaker 1: my sister and we became. I mean, she did for
Speaker 1: me the things a sister would have done. The team
Speaker 1: from Center on Rawful Convictions, again led by Karen Um,
Speaker 1: they really did the work that the authorities should have
Speaker 1: done and could have done in the first place. Right,
Speaker 1: they found the killer, they got a confession. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about how the whole thing on row really the
Speaker 1: identity of Tommy land Cells happened by an accident. There
Speaker 1: was a episode on Julie's case and it said, essentially,
Speaker 1: this is weird. This woman, you know again, had a
Speaker 1: good and loving relationship with her son. There was no
Speaker 1: reason in the world she would do this. There was
Speaker 1: no hard evidence. On the other hand, who does this?
Speaker 1: So it's just weird. And nobody breaks into a home
Speaker 1: to kill a kid, leaves an adult essentially not mortally wounded,
Speaker 1: and forgets to bring a murder weapon. A woman who
Speaker 1: was writing a book on a Texas Death Row inmate,
Speaker 1: Tommy lind Cells, wrote to him and said, I just
Speaker 1: heard somebody say on TV nobody does this. We know
Speaker 1: that's not true, because she knew as he did that
Speaker 1: he had done this time and time again. He wrote
Speaker 1: back and said, now this is six years after the fact.
Speaker 1: Was it in Illinois? Was it two days before? Stephanie Mahaney?
Speaker 1: And the answer, of course was yes and yes. And
Speaker 1: she said why do you ask? And he says, because
Speaker 1: I did it. And then these prosecutors went down and
Speaker 1: they took a tape recorded confession, an eighty six page
Speaker 1: tape recorded confession. Now this is a drug adult guy
Speaker 1: who had committed fifty murders across the United States. So
Speaker 1: we got what the subdivision looked like wrong, He got
Speaker 1: what that outside of the house looked like wrong. He
Speaker 1: got a number of details wrong. But he described the
Speaker 1: conflict with Julie in exactly the same terms as she did.
Speaker 1: He described where he got the knife exactly right. He
Speaker 1: described Joel's bedroom exactly as it was. But they ignored
Speaker 1: all that. Northwestern came along Karen Daniel, who was easily
Speaker 1: the most brilliant legal mind, the most fearless lawyer with
Speaker 1: whom I have ever worked. She put all of this together.
Speaker 1: She put together the corroborating evidence that I described earlier
Speaker 1: at the bus terminal about the fact that he had
Speaker 1: been arrested in Winnimok and all of the things that
Speaker 1: gave teeth to this, and she wrapped it up in
Speaker 1: a beautiful package and filed the habeas petition. They vacated
Speaker 1: the conviction really on grounds that had little to do
Speaker 1: with any of that. They vacated the conviction because the
Speaker 1: prosecutors had been pointed pursuingto the wrong statute, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a technicality. But at the same time, they
Speaker 1: had all of this evidence in front of them, so
Speaker 1: they vacated the conviction. Julie is free for a minute,
Speaker 1: and then they rearrested. That's one of the fascinating things
Speaker 1: to me about our court system and our legal system.
Speaker 1: They specifically said, this is not about Tommy Lynn's cells.
Speaker 1: In our court system works that way. It's not about
Speaker 1: this i e. It is about this. Uh. It's not
Speaker 1: about what's logical, it's not about necessarily what's true, and
Speaker 1: it's certainly not necessarily about what's right. It's about legal precedent,
Speaker 1: it's about technicalities. And so it really is a game.
Speaker 1: It really is a puzzle. It really is a whole
Speaker 1: different language. And that's why if you don't have the
Speaker 1: right attorneys, you don't have a chance. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're innocent or not. At least that's what I've learned.
Speaker 1: And if I hadn't had Karen and Ron and Jeff
Speaker 1: and the attorneys that I had, I would be locked
Speaker 1: up in a very very bad situation for a very
Speaker 1: very long time if I were still alive. And it's
Speaker 1: also quite shocking that the state chose to retry you,
Speaker 1: but they did. By this point, everybody knew you were innocent.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if I would disagree with that,
Speaker 1: but I think that it's it's fair to say that
Speaker 1: this was now a game, right, This was about protecting
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction. Oh yeah. I mean even the prosecutor
Speaker 1: he offered me twenty years due tien both trials. And
Speaker 1: both trials, I said, look, if you think I'm guilty,
Speaker 1: you need to be giving me the destins because whoever
Speaker 1: committed this crime needs to have capital punishment. That's what
Speaker 1: needs to happen here. This is not the kind of
Speaker 1: crime that you give somebody twenty years due ten for
Speaker 1: that's just an insult to Joel and for him to say, oh,
Speaker 1: this woman's evil, which he went on record as saying
Speaker 1: after I was acquitted. But to have offered me twenty
Speaker 1: years due tim that's just well, it doesn't equate well.
Speaker 1: And they did know at that point that Julie was innocent.
Speaker 1: They said at the bond tearing, the first appearance that
Speaker 1: we had on this case. First time I stood in
Speaker 1: front of the judge said, judge, you have to let
Speaker 1: her out on bond, because you yourself said this was
Speaker 1: a very thin, circumstantial case that first of all, she
Speaker 1: appeared at every pre trial hearing. In the trial, second,
Speaker 1: this circumstantial case went off on one unanswered question, who
Speaker 1: does this? Now? Not only do we know who does this,
Speaker 1: but he's confessed. And the judge turned to the prosecutor
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, what about this confession thing? And here
Speaker 1: are the words that the state uttered over a decade ago,
Speaker 1: but they earned in my memory, this is almost verbatim. Oh, judge,
Speaker 1: don't worry about Tommy Lynn Sells. No one will ever
Speaker 1: hear about him because, first of all, Texas will not
Speaker 1: honor an out of state subpoena for a death row inmate,
Speaker 1: which is true, by the way, because they are afraid
Speaker 1: that he will go to a non death penalty state
Speaker 1: and they won't get him back to kill him. And
Speaker 1: we immunized him for the death penalty. So it is
Speaker 1: not a statement against penal interest. It is hearsay no
Speaker 1: jury will ever hear about Tommy Lynn Sells. I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Judge, I do not hear the representative
Speaker 1: of the people of the state of Illinois to be
Speaker 1: telling you that he intends to try this woman for
Speaker 1: essentially her life while concealing from the jury the fact
Speaker 1: that he took a confession from a serial murderer that
Speaker 1: he knows is corroberated by independent definitt I don't hear
Speaker 1: the representative of the people of the state of Illinois
Speaker 1: to be saying that. But if you hear him to
Speaker 1: be saying that, you ought to say not in my courtroom.
Speaker 1: This is not happening. Judge looked at me, looked at him,
Speaker 1: and then imposed a significant bond. So everybody knew that
Speaker 1: Julie was innocent at that point, and it was, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as Julie describes it. Again, so the retrial goes forward.
Speaker 1: This time it's all out in the open. They're not
Speaker 1: able to railroad her the way they did the first time.
Speaker 1: This time, Julie, it's at the stand and proclaimed your innocence,
Speaker 1: and of course, ultimately the jury saw through the bullshit,
Speaker 1: they're bullshit and returned a not guilty verdict. And I've
Speaker 1: read that your knees buckled in the court room. Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that right? When the when the verdict was announced,
Speaker 1: I fell. Yes, I don't remember falling. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know I did, but I don't. I don't remember that part. Um.
Speaker 1: What I remember is looking at Ron and him looking
Speaker 1: at me, and um, I was just really, really really thankful.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I remember about that day. First
Speaker 1: of all, we were at lunch and Julie said, so,
Speaker 1: in your experience as a criminal defense attorney, how long
Speaker 1: does it take the jury in cases like this? I said, well,
Speaker 1: when the jury comes back, I'll let you know, because
Speaker 1: then I will have one criminal defense case. She said, what,
Speaker 1: You've never done this before. Don't you sound excited or worry?
Speaker 1: I know I didn't. Don't you think you should have
Speaker 1: told me that? I said, I guess no. Do you
Speaker 1: feel underrepresented? Uh? But we were, we were in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: and look, there was no evidence it was overwhelming. There
Speaker 1: was no chance, and yet you're standing there. And I
Speaker 1: remembered waiting for the verdict, thinking, I don't know what
Speaker 1: tomorrow looks like. If they say guilty, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to go on in life. So I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what Julie is thinking right now. And when they said
Speaker 1: not guilty. I turned to Julie. Her knees did buckle.
Speaker 1: I went to catch her missed, but we picked her up,
Speaker 1: you know, and we all hugged. It was just an
Speaker 1: enormous relief that finally you could put this aspect of
Speaker 1: the nightmare behind her. She would never again be put
Speaker 1: in that kind of danger. For all the years I've
Speaker 1: been doing this, and I'm constantly Everyone who knows me
Speaker 1: knows I'm always out there talking to strangers about this
Speaker 1: cause people will say to me, well, um, well, there's
Speaker 1: two questions I asked. One is was the prosecutor disciplined
Speaker 1: in any way? And the second is, tell me the
Speaker 1: person who suffered so much the honoree was compensated by
Speaker 1: the state in your case. We know the answer the
Speaker 1: first question is no, as it is in all cases.
Speaker 1: And the answer the second question, I think you have
Speaker 1: to look at compensation broadly. To answer that question, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of um riches in life.
Speaker 1: I think I appreciate life more and I have been
Speaker 1: blessed with some of the most amazing people in the
Speaker 1: world through this experience. I think that there are lessons
Speaker 1: that you learn when you walk a desperately lonely path
Speaker 1: where your shadow is your only company, and there is
Speaker 1: a homecoming when you find out that the world is
Speaker 1: full of wonderful people. They've just been hidden from you
Speaker 1: for a while and you thought they were gone. So yes,
Speaker 1: I've been compensated. So you just heard the grace and
Speaker 1: generosity and strength of character and just uniquely wonderful spirit
Speaker 1: that Julie has to have survived with that kind of
Speaker 1: an attitude and that kind of a desire to help others.
Speaker 1: The answer to your question is no, the state didn't
Speaker 1: compensate Julie. You know, it is unthinkable what she has
Speaker 1: had to bear, and the way she has boarded is
Speaker 1: equally unfathomable, but in a diametrically posed way, in a
Speaker 1: wonderful way. And the way we're gonna stop this is
Speaker 1: for people to stop electing prosecutors who only care about
Speaker 1: statistics and not justice. It's going to be to have
Speaker 1: people stop electing judges who are off on crime and
Speaker 1: more interested injustice. It's going to be people who take
Speaker 1: their oath as jurors seriously and not have the naive
Speaker 1: presumption because you can't have it in today's world. There's
Speaker 1: too much evidence that people are wrongfully drawn into these courtrooms.
Speaker 1: And to have jurors who have an open mind and
Speaker 1: not just listen to the prosecution. And people like Karen
Speaker 1: Daniel devoted her life to doing just that, to opening
Speaker 1: people's eyes time and time and time again, to opening
Speaker 1: the judges eyes, to open the sort of appeals eyes
Speaker 1: the Supreme courtsize jurors eyes, citizens eyes through her indomitable spirit,
Speaker 1: through her incredible intel, act and energy. And we need
Speaker 1: more of those, and we need more Julies in the
Speaker 1: world without the nightmare proceeding it, and we'll get them.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jason so much for having the show and
Speaker 1: taking the time to do the research you do, And
Speaker 1: I would just really beg people to do. You know
Speaker 1: what Karen did. She didn't just see problems. She went
Speaker 1: about finding solutions, one little endeavor at a time. And
Speaker 1: you just put all those things together and you start
Speaker 1: solving the big problems. And again, just be informed. When
Speaker 1: you know things, when you share information, when you educate others.
Speaker 1: These things can't continue to happen because people won't allow
Speaker 1: them to. Information is very, very powerful, So be informed. Well,
Speaker 1: that's very well said, and I appreciate you really are
Speaker 1: doing my out for me because you speak so eloquently
Speaker 1: about the problems and the solutions, and I think we're
Speaker 1: moving as a society in that direction. There's been a
Speaker 1: number of positive developments recently, too numerous to get into now.
Speaker 1: And of course also check out Center for Wrongful Convictions
Speaker 1: and Northwestern who do such wonderful work, and of course
Speaker 1: the Edisence Project Innocence Project dot org. Now closing arguments.
Speaker 1: Usually I asked for closing arguments, but you guys already
Speaker 1: did them. I think at this point all I can
Speaker 1: say is how I'm really honored to have had both
Speaker 1: of you on the show. I think the work that
Speaker 1: you've done and you continue to do Roun is exemplary
Speaker 1: and heroic. And Julie, I said it before at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show, and I'll say it again, you
Speaker 1: are a hero to me and to so many others,
Speaker 1: And I don't even have the right words to say.
Speaker 1: You know what your perseverance and what you're The best
Speaker 1: word is grace, as Ron said, means to all of us.
Speaker 1: It makes us all want to fight harder, longer, and
Speaker 1: better and to help people in your situation and to
Speaker 1: help prevent others from falling into this trap going forward.
Speaker 1: So thank you just for being you, and thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us on wrongful Conviction. This has been an
Speaker 1: amazing experience. Thank you Jason so much. So. Now it's
Speaker 1: with a heavy heart that I want to offer a
Speaker 1: tribute to one of the true legends in the field
Speaker 1: of righting wrongful convictions, a woman who we lost too
Speaker 1: soon in a tragic accident very short time ago, and
Speaker 1: that person is Karen Daniel. Karen was the director of
Speaker 1: the Center for a Awful Convictions at Northwestern Moreover. She
Speaker 1: was a warrior. She's described by so many different people
Speaker 1: who worked with her, who loved her, who were represented
Speaker 1: by her as someone who was tough as nails and
Speaker 1: at the same time was warm and soft and was
Speaker 1: a hugger and someone who cared deeply about the people
Speaker 1: that she represented, and that went far beyond the courtroom
Speaker 1: into all aspects of her life. So I think today
Speaker 1: we have two people who were directly touched by her
Speaker 1: in different ways, and I can't find the right words.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to turn it over to you. I
Speaker 1: guess we'll save Julie, will save you for last, and
Speaker 1: let Ron first, please share your remembrances of this wonderful woman.
Speaker 1: Karen Daniel. Karen was an angel who was lent to
Speaker 1: us from heaven for too short period of time. She
Speaker 1: was a fierce, fearless, incredibly persuasive lawyer, and she was
Speaker 1: also a teacher. She taught countless students about what is
Speaker 1: important in a law degree. She taught me everything that
Speaker 1: I know about wrongful conviction cases. I had never done
Speaker 1: any I was a prosecutor in a previous life and
Speaker 1: then a corporate lawyer. She had tremendous patients, she had
Speaker 1: tremendous intellect. Anything that I do, anything that her students do,
Speaker 1: are all because of what Karen taught us. And you know,
Speaker 1: the ripple effect of the pebbles that Karen tossed into
Speaker 1: the ocean with all of us would cause a tidal wave.
Speaker 1: She is one of the few people who we can
Speaker 1: appropriately use the term hero. Karen changed the world for
Speaker 1: the better. Julie, over to you. Karen's story is the
Speaker 1: stuff that legends are made of. She was quiet, kind
Speaker 1: of like the sun is. She could make things grow.
Speaker 1: She was there in ways that mattered. She wasn't always
Speaker 1: just saying she would do things to make the world
Speaker 1: a better place, but she was doing them. She helped
Speaker 1: exonres with legal matters beyond their exoneration. She would help
Speaker 1: with their medical emergencies, with personal tragedies, family events, celebration.
Speaker 1: She was there when they made memories, and she was
Speaker 1: there when the heart was breaking. She was the one
Speaker 1: that walked you to the cab when everybody else had
Speaker 1: already gone home from the party or was still partying.
Speaker 1: She made sure you were safe getting from here to there,
Speaker 1: when you were of otherwise been alone on the road.
Speaker 1: Karen was there. She was the sister that you didn't have,
Speaker 1: the best friend you always wanted. She wasn't about money.
Speaker 1: She was better than money could ever hire or buy.
Speaker 1: She was priceless. And the changes and the things that
Speaker 1: we all wish we could do in life, she did.
Speaker 1: And she passed that on to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: the desire to do that, the methods for how to
Speaker 1: do it, and I know that all of us who
Speaker 1: were blessed enough to know her, who are struggling still
Speaker 1: with losing her, are trying to figure out how in
Speaker 1: the world we're gonna do something to prove that we
Speaker 1: deserved having had her in her life. That's beautiful. Thank you, Julie,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome Karen wherever you are. You're gone but
Speaker 1: never forgotten, and we're sending our respect and appreciation your way.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innisce project dot
Speaker 1: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music on the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good podcasts and association with signal company Number one