Speaker 1: In the spring of Antoine Cubi, a rising basketball star
Speaker 1: from the Sumburbs of Chicago, had a bright future with
Speaker 1: offers to play college ball as well as professional basketball abroad.
Speaker 1: One night, his friend Jeremy Bruder asked him to accompany
Speaker 1: him to a part of town that Antoine knew well
Speaker 1: for a hook up on some new tires and rims.
Speaker 1: Antoine's friend's younger brother, Kevin Jackson, asked if he could
Speaker 1: tag along and get a ride to the liquor store.
Speaker 1: While waiting for Jeremy's contact at the tire shop, Antoine
Speaker 1: received a phone call from a girlfriend. While they spoke
Speaker 1: about their plans to meet up later, Kevin Jackson and
Speaker 1: Jeremy Brewder went out of Antoine's site and gunshots rang out.
Speaker 1: Antoine didn't know who ad fired the shots, but Kevin
Speaker 1: came racing back to the car, telling him to drive.
Speaker 1: When Antoine began to drive to safety, he noticed Jeremy
Speaker 1: struggling to survive. He stopped the car, demanding answers from
Speaker 1: Kevin and began to walk back over to the tire shop.
Speaker 1: When police arrived, One think that the field report logging
Speaker 1: the inventory of Antoine's pat town would match the inventory
Speaker 1: of items locked when he arrived at oak Park PD,
Speaker 1: that the officer unseen could not have possibly missed a
Speaker 1: large wad of bills alleged to belong to Jeremy Bruder.
Speaker 1: One would think you might also believe that a teenager
Speaker 1: might not need medical attention after a night spent in
Speaker 1: the interrogation room. We certainly hope so, But this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we have
Speaker 1: a story from oak Park, Illinois. Now this is a
Speaker 1: nice suburb just outside of Chicago, but still within the
Speaker 1: limits of Cook County, and unfortunately for our guests today,
Speaker 1: this story features a lot of the hallmarks of Chicago
Speaker 1: style powerful conviction. Aunt On Qubi had and still has
Speaker 1: so much athletic and intellectual talent, but the time and
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to excel at life was robbed from him.
Speaker 1: He joins us from Stateville Penitentiary, Antoine, Welcome to ron
Speaker 1: for conviction. Thank you. I appreciate you having me and
Speaker 1: we appreciate you being here, even though I hate the
Speaker 1: reason why you're here in the first place. And with
Speaker 1: him today is his attorney from Riley's Safer Homes at
Speaker 1: ken Silla. You might recall that firm, of course from
Speaker 1: a previous guest, Roun Safer. Well, this is Joe Harris's
Speaker 1: first appearance, and we hope it's not the last. So Joe,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Jason, thank you very much. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's start out in the usual place by getting
Speaker 1: to know Antoine a bit well. Originally from the South side,
Speaker 1: the far south side of Chicago, Argue of Guards project.
Speaker 1: That's originally where my mother, darlne Qubis from and her
Speaker 1: side of the family. My father, he's from the West
Speaker 1: side of Chicago. They separated not too long after my birth.
Speaker 1: My mother was able to get us of the projects,
Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, she also made sacrifices to get
Speaker 1: us to the suburbs, which was oh Park until we
Speaker 1: uh eventually end up moving to the further west suburbs,
Speaker 1: which was Westmont. Went to school, stay active in sports,
Speaker 1: had a lot of friends, never really got into any trouble.
Speaker 1: You know. I fell in love with the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: I think that's what mostly kept me out of trouble
Speaker 1: all those years. Yeah, the elephant in the room is
Speaker 1: that you were an amazing basketball player, like you had
Speaker 1: that thing right that high schools were checking you out
Speaker 1: in junior high colleges were scouting you out as early
Speaker 1: as your freshman year, like you had that kind of
Speaker 1: special talent. Yeah, I um. I was a starter on
Speaker 1: the varsity all four years. I was All Conference, All Area,
Speaker 1: All State, All Americans, got nominated to the All American
Speaker 1: McDonald Game scholarships. To go to college, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't complain. I couldn't complain during those times. You know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, that opportunity had, you know, taken from me.
Speaker 1: But during that time, it was very promising. You know.
Speaker 1: Antoine had a great mom and a salad upbringing, and
Speaker 1: he was a good kid and he didn't have any
Speaker 1: behavioral problems at all or no criminal record. He finished
Speaker 1: his high school career in n six at a school
Speaker 1: called Donners Grove South, and he had his sights set
Speaker 1: on a variety of options, but the one that he
Speaker 1: was really kind of most focused on was going to
Speaker 1: the University of Illinois. He wanted to play basketball and
Speaker 1: study business and political science. So in June of ninety six,
Speaker 1: Antoine Koube had pretty much everything to look forward to.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it and it's ironic because your mom
Speaker 1: got you out of Chicago, away from not only violent crime,
Speaker 1: but also away from the Chicago p D and their
Speaker 1: predatory practices. Of course, was just three years after Marcus
Speaker 1: Wiggins mother won a civil suit against the city when
Speaker 1: John Burge's Midnight crew had beaten and electrocuted him. There
Speaker 1: was a eighteen year old child at the time, but
Speaker 1: they tortured him into making a false statement incriminating himself.
Speaker 1: Is also two years before that same department made its
Speaker 1: third and unfortunately their first successful attempt at framing Marcus.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard his story, we're gonna have it
Speaker 1: lengked in the episode bio, and I hope you'll listen
Speaker 1: to it. But what we'll see here is that oak
Speaker 1: Park p D was still very, very capable of similar tactics,
Speaker 1: even though the relationship with the oak Park p D
Speaker 1: was a bit more cozy with this around the community.
Speaker 1: In fact, on that note, Antoine, you knew one of
Speaker 1: these cops. But before all this happened because oak Park
Speaker 1: p D used to sometimes provide security for sporting events,
Speaker 1: including your basketball games. Yes, I don't want to necessarist
Speaker 1: a security for the game, but they would be there,
Speaker 1: their presence was there. This one particular officerite eighty years.
Speaker 1: He's been norm need since I would say, grammar school.
Speaker 1: You know, my name was was ranking since then, and
Speaker 1: he used to do security at the games. I remember
Speaker 1: him speaking to me from time to time. You know,
Speaker 1: he was a black officer in that town, and you
Speaker 1: know he kind of spood out amongst the rest of them,
Speaker 1: which puts a fine point on a dynamic at play
Speaker 1: in this story that you and Officer Harris are just
Speaker 1: two of the very few black people in this very
Speaker 1: homogeneous suburb. Well, Oak Park, It's a predominantly white suburb
Speaker 1: of Chicago. It is very close to the city limits.
Speaker 1: It's known as a very progressive area. I mean, the
Speaker 1: entire Chicago area is certainly not without its racial tensions.
Speaker 1: It's obviously also chewing the suburbs of Chicago, right, and
Speaker 1: as we see all over this country, especially when you
Speaker 1: have a white victim and perceived black assailants, the ham
Speaker 1: fisted police violence available in Chicago was ready to be
Speaker 1: deployed here as well, even with Officer Harris's participation in
Speaker 1: your eventual prosecution. Now, typically on this show, if we're
Speaker 1: bringing up a previous relationship with the officer. It's usually
Speaker 1: because our guests had been arrest said before, maybe by
Speaker 1: that same officer, but you had no criminal record whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So here we're talking about an officer who knows about
Speaker 1: your talents, and he knew about your promising future, but
Speaker 1: he still had no qualms about letting this wrongful conviction happen.
Speaker 1: And it appears that his fluid relationship with the truth
Speaker 1: was what ultimately brought his career to an end, thankfully.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, let's shift away from
Speaker 1: the full grown men who were aware of you to
Speaker 1: the guys you knew in high school. And let's start
Speaker 1: with the Jackson's Jamie and Kevin, who also grew up
Speaker 1: in Oak Park. Jamie is older than Kevin and I,
Speaker 1: but me and Jamie were closer because the things that
Speaker 1: we had in common, you know, especially when it came
Speaker 1: to you know, basketball and girls and you know, things
Speaker 1: of that nature. You know, we called each other cousins,
Speaker 1: you know, because we were so close. Kevin never really
Speaker 1: hung around us, you know, he was always off doing
Speaker 1: his own thing with a different crowd of people. So
Speaker 1: Kevin was only in your life by virtue of his
Speaker 1: brother Jamie. But in the town oak Park, if you
Speaker 1: limit yourself to only black friends, you might not have
Speaker 1: that many friends at all. What about Jeremy Brewer. Me
Speaker 1: and Jeremy we were lab partners, and you know when
Speaker 1: your lab partners, you know, you get close. You know
Speaker 1: you talk every day. That's cool. And eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: it layed out of school from kind of time. You know,
Speaker 1: he would come to my house. You know, we play
Speaker 1: video games and just hang out. And this brings us
Speaker 1: to late spring n You were wrapping up your senior
Speaker 1: year of high school and about to start college in
Speaker 1: the fall, played basketball somewhere. Who knows where life was
Speaker 1: going to take you. At this point, you came to
Speaker 1: own a few cars, and Jeremy Brewer had just gotten
Speaker 1: a Jeep and had taken notice of one of your cars. Right,
Speaker 1: I had a couple of cars, and I had a
Speaker 1: Jeep chair key, and I had rams on mine, and
Speaker 1: he wanted some rams because he had just got a jeep. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Jeremy was always telling me about a guy
Speaker 1: that he met at the car wash where he was
Speaker 1: working at It was a guy who was going to
Speaker 1: you know, hook him up with some rams. And tires. You, oh,
Speaker 1: he didn't tell me when he didn't tell me how
Speaker 1: or who the guy was. So the conversation pretending to
Speaker 1: the rims and tires really didn't go anywhere at that
Speaker 1: moment until the faithful night of June one, when you
Speaker 1: were with your newborn son and his mother at her
Speaker 1: place in Villa Park, Illinois. And you've got a few
Speaker 1: pages for people don't remember pages. That's when we used
Speaker 1: to some people used to carry pages because before cell phones. Again,
Speaker 1: but you've got a few pages from an unfamiliar number.
Speaker 1: I called the number back and it was Jeremy. He
Speaker 1: just came up on a hook up on some rams
Speaker 1: and tires for his jeep and cannot take him to
Speaker 1: Oa Park. At first I said no, and he bade
Speaker 1: me to take him out there, so I said okay,
Speaker 1: And he just wanted somebody to ride with him. So
Speaker 1: you drove your girlfriend's car to meet up with Jeremy,
Speaker 1: and you drove in separate cars to this tire shop
Speaker 1: in Oak Park. It was pitch black in there. The
Speaker 1: doors was lied, so you know, we knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: we banged on the window, No one came, so we
Speaker 1: walked around to the back to the garage door and
Speaker 1: we banged on the door, await a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: He said he was early, so I was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: since we're a little early, you know, we can go
Speaker 1: waste some time. So I was like, man, we can
Speaker 1: go to my cousin's house, which I was speaking of Jamie,
Speaker 1: which he stayed maybe about ten minutes away in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know every weekend, you know, Jamie, you
Speaker 1: throw a get together, you know, people is always at
Speaker 1: his house. Once we got there, Jeremy didn't want to
Speaker 1: go up, so he stayed down. I told him I'll
Speaker 1: be right back. And while you're upstairs, you obviously saw
Speaker 1: Jamie Jackson and Kevin Jackson was living there at the
Speaker 1: time as well. Kevin asked me to what I was
Speaker 1: doing out there, and I told him, you know, I
Speaker 1: came out here to bring my friend up buy some
Speaker 1: rims and tires for his jeep. So he asked me,
Speaker 1: do you think you could take me to the liquor store,
Speaker 1: and I told him I can probably take you. Once
Speaker 1: we're done. Since I'm on this side of town, I
Speaker 1: might as well hang out, So yeah, you can ride
Speaker 1: with me now. All three of you headed back to
Speaker 1: the tire shop in your girlfriend's car. Apartment building diagonal
Speaker 1: to the back of the ram shop, so we parked
Speaker 1: facing the garage door of the ram shop. All three
Speaker 1: of us got out. We went back to the front
Speaker 1: of the ram shop, knocked on the door, banged on
Speaker 1: the window, no response, so we banged doing the garage
Speaker 1: door as well. So instead of us leaving, we just
Speaker 1: hung out for about maybe ten fifteen minutes or so.
Speaker 1: As we're sitting there talking and waiting, my patron goes off.
Speaker 1: It was a friend of mine named Kia. I went
Speaker 1: back to the car to use the phone and give
Speaker 1: her a call to get in the driver's seat with
Speaker 1: the door open, and I can see Kevin and Jeremy
Speaker 1: walking towards Madison Street to the front of the ram shop.
Speaker 1: They eventually got out of my sight and as I'm
Speaker 1: still talking on the phone, a few seconds a minute
Speaker 1: later or a couple of minutes later, I hear a
Speaker 1: gunshot and I'm reading after David taking from Kia bank
Speaker 1: right now signed under penalty of perjury. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen, she said, and I quote Antoine and I
Speaker 1: were arguing about whether we would meet up that night,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly I heard multiple gun shots in the background.
Speaker 1: The gun shots did not sound like they were immediately
Speaker 1: next to the phone, and I did not hear anything
Speaker 1: said by anyone in connection with the gun shots. And
Speaker 1: quote so from the only other actual witness to some
Speaker 1: degree to this crime. The gun shots were in the background,
Speaker 1: away from the phone and away from Antoine. Now what
Speaker 1: happened next? I see Kevin running towards the car, and
Speaker 1: I'm waiting on Jeremy to follow behind him. But Kevin
Speaker 1: jumps in the passenger seat. He says, I got the bitch,
Speaker 1: let's go. So I immediately started the car and I
Speaker 1: put it in dry. As I make a left hand
Speaker 1: turn facing Madison Street, arride passed and I see Jeremy
Speaker 1: laying in the bushes. So once I get to Madison Street,
Speaker 1: I immediately stop on the next block. I don't keep
Speaker 1: going to Harlem to get on the expressway and try
Speaker 1: and get away. I immediately pull over on the next block,
Speaker 1: asked Kevin, like what happened, and before he had a
Speaker 1: chance to respond, I just lost it. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember if I hit him, or if I grabbed
Speaker 1: him or if I I don't remember exactly what I did,
Speaker 1: but I want to say I hit him. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I told him I'm going back to the scene. I'm
Speaker 1: going back, so we get out the car. I immediately
Speaker 1: tried to cut through someone's backyard to get straight to
Speaker 1: the alley, and the fence was locked. I went to
Speaker 1: the next entrance that I saw, and it was some
Speaker 1: big green garbage kids blocking the walkway, so I just
Speaker 1: started walking. That's when the Forest Park police initially put
Speaker 1: the spotlight on us and told us to take our
Speaker 1: hands out our pocket and walked towards them, and the
Speaker 1: park police came. At this point, you had no idea
Speaker 1: why Kevin did what he did. Before you even had
Speaker 1: time to work through this scenario in your head, two
Speaker 1: police departments and a bunch of E m T s
Speaker 1: had already shown up on the scene, and this was
Speaker 1: a congested neighborhood. There were lots of people living in
Speaker 1: the vicinity and the shots were easily heard, so there
Speaker 1: were a number of call ins to the police department.
Speaker 1: The Oak Park police start to preserve the scene, interview witnesses,
Speaker 1: and essentially they do everything that they need to prosecute
Speaker 1: both Kevin Jackson and Antoine inside the first twelve hours,
Speaker 1: and that started with padding you down while E. M.
Speaker 1: T s were working on Jeremy not too far away
Speaker 1: at the tire shop. Now, importantly, they did not find
Speaker 1: a gun or a giant watter of cash on you.
Speaker 1: The initial report reflects that, but the placement of the
Speaker 1: giant a wad of cash mysteriously changed later in a
Speaker 1: subsequent report. I'm sure you can guess why. But okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to the immediate aftermath. Did they find
Speaker 1: the gun? An Officer Romero actually does find a gun
Speaker 1: in a garbage can. Unfortunately finds it in a garbage
Speaker 1: can where the towel wrap around it and also submerged
Speaker 1: in water, so any fingerprints DNA et cetera from the
Speaker 1: gun were no longer viable. What happened next? They put
Speaker 1: me in the car and they put him in another car.
Speaker 1: I remember them taking us back to the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime. What happened when I got out the car,
Speaker 1: I remember the first person in voice that I heard
Speaker 1: was Officer Harris. He's like, Oh, that's Antoine QB. That's
Speaker 1: the basketball star. And they walked me towards Jeremy as
Speaker 1: the pyramidics was working on him. I guess they were
Speaker 1: trying to get him to identify me. At this point, however,
Speaker 1: Jeremy is unconscious and is not able to attempt to
Speaker 1: identify either Kevin or Antoine. Now I need to point
Speaker 1: out that later on there was a report from Officer
Speaker 1: Harris saying that Jeremy named Antoine Qubi. Now this was
Speaker 1: touted as a dying declaration, but when the a m
Speaker 1: T s on the scene, the ones who had been
Speaker 1: on the scene were asked to corroborate this alleged dying declaration.
Speaker 1: They did not. Interestingly, this is not from a report
Speaker 1: that Eddie Harris prepares himself. It's from a report prepared
Speaker 1: by another police officer, supposedly taken from an interview that
Speaker 1: occurred at three thirty a m. Which was after Kevin
Speaker 1: Jackson had been interviewed by the police and had claimed
Speaker 1: that he had nothing to do with this and that
Speaker 1: it was Antoine. Right after they had figured out what
Speaker 1: the narrative the crime would be, this alleged dying declaration
Speaker 1: made its first appearance, but Antoine's name had gone out
Speaker 1: over the dispatch, so police had Antoine's name early on,
Speaker 1: perhaps from Jeremy. However, the context of how ants once
Speaker 1: then came out is bothering to say the least. But
Speaker 1: no paramedic heard or saw what Officer Harris later claimed
Speaker 1: at trial. That's critical. We're gonna get back to an event.
Speaker 1: So back to the scene. Jeremy was unconscious, unable to
Speaker 1: make an id. Then what they took us on the
Speaker 1: next block for show up, put the spotlight on us
Speaker 1: the head, I guess people in the area, and they
Speaker 1: did this two times. Come to find out later on
Speaker 1: that no one identified me in the two shots, but
Speaker 1: they identified Kevin both times. After that last show up,
Speaker 1: they took us to the police station and they automatically
Speaker 1: did a gunshot resident test on me. And I really
Speaker 1: didn't know what that was at the time. I know
Speaker 1: they was just swapping my hands right. Why would you
Speaker 1: have known? Gunshot residue testing or GSR testing is not
Speaker 1: something on any lay person's radar in even not to
Speaker 1: this day, I would say, but definitely not back and now.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was believed that the presence of
Speaker 1: the elements associated with gunfire could only mean one of
Speaker 1: three things. Either you handle a gun or Ammo fired
Speaker 1: a gun or were in fact a gunshot victim. Please
Speaker 1: check out our coverage of gunshot residue, un rawerful conviction
Speaker 1: junk science with our host Josh Tubin. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a linked in the bile. But what is now known
Speaker 1: is that the elements associated with gunfire can be deposited
Speaker 1: by a number of other accessible sources, things like cigarette ash,
Speaker 1: dried urine, brake pads. Not to mention, GSR can also
Speaker 1: be found all over police stations and in police vehicles,
Speaker 1: which means you can easily get what they called touch
Speaker 1: transfer just from being in sitting in the back of
Speaker 1: a squad cors that. So, the truth is that the
Speaker 1: only probative and useful result of a GSR test is
Speaker 1: a negative one in which the subject hadn't been given
Speaker 1: an opportunity to wash their hands, which you were not. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, without having been able to wash your hands,
Speaker 1: the absence of any of those elements on your hands
Speaker 1: or clothing would have been should have ruled you out
Speaker 1: completely as a potential shooter. And the gun that was
Speaker 1: used to shoot Jeremy was fired eight times. He was
Speaker 1: only hit six times, but it was fired eight times.
Speaker 1: It was a nine millimeter handgun, so they both have
Speaker 1: the gun shot residue tests administered to them. Now, Antoine
Speaker 1: says that his hands were swabbed right away, even though
Speaker 1: the police reports said that evidence wasn't collected until after
Speaker 1: I think it was three am. Interesting that this information
Speaker 1: was recorded around the same time as Officer harris Is
Speaker 1: alleged statement about the uncorroborated dying declarations. So what were
Speaker 1: the results? Now, what's very interesting is that the police
Speaker 1: actually don't bother to have these test results analyzed right away.
Speaker 1: They actually sit on them for a two and a
Speaker 1: half months. But when the when the results come back
Speaker 1: for Antoine, they come back completely negative. So if if
Speaker 1: if he had this gun and he shot at eight times,
Speaker 1: they're not finding any of these particulates. And Antoine never
Speaker 1: washed his hands before he was swabbed to do the
Speaker 1: gunshot residue test, and the form is very specific about
Speaker 1: whether there's been washing in the hands, because if the
Speaker 1: hands are washed, the test is invalid. But you mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about this a little later. But the lawyer
Speaker 1: for Antoine, George Howard, doesn't use them in Antoine's defense
Speaker 1: at trial, so that's not part of the story. But
Speaker 1: there is another part of the story, as you suggested,
Speaker 1: because the same test was performed on Kevin Jackson. Now,
Speaker 1: the police report said that those tests weren't done until
Speaker 1: like four hours later than Antoine's, like seven in the morning.
Speaker 1: But Kevin Jackson was permitted to wash his hands twice
Speaker 1: before the test, so before he was being fingerprinted, he
Speaker 1: washed his hands and after, so it invalidated the test entirely.
Speaker 1: So Antoine did not wash his hands. Kevin washed his
Speaker 1: hands twice, so both sr test came back negative. However,
Speaker 1: Antoine's was the only ballot test of the two. Why
Speaker 1: in the world was Kevin allowed to wash his hands
Speaker 1: twice before before the test? Perhaps just a mistake, or
Speaker 1: maybe just maybe it was because he agreed to trade
Speaker 1: testimony against Antoine for leniency. I mean, he had everything
Speaker 1: to gain an exchange for cooperating. And don't forget Illinois
Speaker 1: still had the death penalty of the time, so he
Speaker 1: had everything at stake. And we'll get to the interview
Speaker 1: process in a bit. But first, Antoine, what else do
Speaker 1: you remember from your booking? They put me in this
Speaker 1: real skinny room, you know, they took my clothes, all
Speaker 1: my belongings. They gave me this real thin paper suit
Speaker 1: and shoes to put on. As I was in their
Speaker 1: room and it was going through the inventory, the officer
Speaker 1: came in with a brown paper bag. It was a
Speaker 1: big brown paper bag and he said, it on top
Speaker 1: of the counter and he said, man, this belongs to
Speaker 1: him as well. So when she opened it up and
Speaker 1: lifted up it was a cowed the gun and some
Speaker 1: money inside of the bag and said it just belongs
Speaker 1: to him too. I don't think anyone needs dispelled out
Speaker 1: for them, but inventory should be removed from your person
Speaker 1: and logged. You can't just introduce new items from cottonos
Speaker 1: where there was already a field report done. Logging would
Speaker 1: have been found on his person. And we already mentioned
Speaker 1: that the gun and towel have been found in a
Speaker 1: trash can Bay Officer Romero. Now it's just given to Antone.
Speaker 1: And the money, where the hell did that come from?
Speaker 1: Why was that not found on Antoine during the path down?
Speaker 1: I mean it would be a key fact issue in
Speaker 1: a robbery case, like who has the money after the
Speaker 1: robbery and the key police officer and all. This is
Speaker 1: an Oak Park officer named Tesca. It was Tesca who
Speaker 1: personally took custody of Antoine. The first report out from
Speaker 1: the police radio is that there's been shots fired, so
Speaker 1: he knows there's a gun involved. He knows that he
Speaker 1: has one of the kids that might have been responsible
Speaker 1: shooting the gun, so he does a full pat down
Speaker 1: in the field. He finds Antoine's wallet with his idea
Speaker 1: in it, but that's all. When they get back to
Speaker 1: the police station, he claims that they had to do
Speaker 1: another path down, and supposedly now he finds something brand
Speaker 1: new that he didn't find in the field, and that
Speaker 1: is a wad of bills. It's eleven hundred and four dollars.
Speaker 1: It's eighty separate bills in a big wad. How could
Speaker 1: Officer Testcut miss a wad as big as what Antoine
Speaker 1: Kobe allegedly had in his right front pocket. The right
Speaker 1: front pocket is not a place you just skim over.
Speaker 1: It's the main pocket for the majority of humans, the
Speaker 1: right of the left front pocket. And he wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: miss a load of eighty bills. That's a big wad
Speaker 1: that would cause a serious bulge. Not only was there
Speaker 1: no lot of cash found on him, but there was
Speaker 1: also no gun or wet towel. But now this bag
Speaker 1: of evidence, it's just claimed. So what else do you remember?
Speaker 1: I remember them putting me in this cell. It was
Speaker 1: I think it was right in front of a the
Speaker 1: entrance door, because every officer detective that came in they stopped.
Speaker 1: They banged on the door. They called me stupid, said
Speaker 1: I blew my life away. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: how much time had passed. They came and gat me
Speaker 1: out of the room and put me inside of an
Speaker 1: interrogation room and handcuffed me behind my back. As I
Speaker 1: said in the chair, They kept asking me, you know,
Speaker 1: so what took place? And I kept telling him I
Speaker 1: just want to use the phone. I was a little
Speaker 1: sarcastic with him, you know, I wasn't answering that questions.
Speaker 1: I told him I didn't have anything to say to him.
Speaker 1: And every time they left out of the room a
Speaker 1: little while later they had come back, not knowing that
Speaker 1: when they were going back and forth, they were talking
Speaker 1: to Kevin and then they had come and talk to
Speaker 1: me and they say, okay, well this is what we
Speaker 1: know took place, and this is what we know happened.
Speaker 1: And I told him Okay, well, if you know, just
Speaker 1: let me use the phone. I don't have nothing else
Speaker 1: to say to you. They did this maybe like two
Speaker 1: or three times. So the last time when they came in,
Speaker 1: detective Munching and Jergenson kind of got frustrated with me,
Speaker 1: the detectives and they walked out, and I was still
Speaker 1: handcuffed in the chair. I was facing the door. It
Speaker 1: was a piece of paper over the window of the door,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't see in. I remember the door cracking open.
Speaker 1: I could just see the light from the crack, and
Speaker 1: I saw a hand hit the light inside of the room.
Speaker 1: A few seconds later, the door pushed open. People were
Speaker 1: like rushed in and I couldn't see their faces, but
Speaker 1: I could see the silhouette of them coming in. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was one or two who was
Speaker 1: behind me who was holding my shoulder and arms as
Speaker 1: I sat in the chair. The other ones that came in,
Speaker 1: they were just hitting me all over my body. This
Speaker 1: episode is underwritten by A i G, a leading global
Speaker 1: insurance company. A i G is committed to corporate social
Speaker 1: responsibility and is making a positive difference in the lives
Speaker 1: of its employees and in the communities where we work
Speaker 1: and live. In light of the compelling need for pro
Speaker 1: bono legal assistance, and in recognition of a i g
Speaker 1: s commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the ai
Speaker 1: G pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other
Speaker 1: support to underrepresented communities and individuals. I sat there with
Speaker 1: my head down for a while. My body was it
Speaker 1: was hurting. They came in with the phone, they said
Speaker 1: it on the death, plugged it up, and a blank
Speaker 1: piece of paper. And I remember this piece of paper
Speaker 1: saying time and signature, and it was like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is a new protocol that we used to prove that
Speaker 1: we allowed you to use the phone. We need you
Speaker 1: to sign here. And he looked at his watch, and
Speaker 1: when I did it, he took the phone and he
Speaker 1: took the piece of paper and he walked out. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if he was coming back or or what.
Speaker 1: I know. Some time later, the state's attorney walked in
Speaker 1: and then she wanted to go over my confession with me,
Speaker 1: and I told her. I was like that I never
Speaker 1: made a confession. I didn't do that. I never made
Speaker 1: I never talked to anybody. So she showed me the paper.
Speaker 1: It was tight and I hit my signature and I
Speaker 1: told her I didn't I didn't make this statement, and
Speaker 1: she walked out. That was the last time I saw her.
Speaker 1: So now the money and gun magically were declared to
Speaker 1: be in your possession. They got this piece of paper
Speaker 1: that was when you signed it and is now being
Speaker 1: passed off as assigned confession. And of course Kevin Jackson's
Speaker 1: cooperation was also working against you. Now, there are so
Speaker 1: many things wrong with both your alleged confession and Jackson's statement.
Speaker 1: So let's just start with what did Kevin Jackson say. Well,
Speaker 1: he says that he's recruited by Antoine to take part
Speaker 1: in this robbery. You know that they go off in
Speaker 1: the car together, and then because he has to separate
Speaker 1: himself from the actual pulling of the trigger, he says
Speaker 1: that when they're proceeding down the alley, he lags bhind
Speaker 1: because he has to urinate in some bushes, and then
Speaker 1: he doesn't see what actually happens. But he here's an
Speaker 1: inn exchange between Antoine and Jeremy, and then he here's
Speaker 1: the shots. And as opposed to Kevin Jackson running back
Speaker 1: to the car, it's Antoine running back to the car.
Speaker 1: And of course, when given the opportunity to essentially right
Speaker 1: antoine statement for him, they aligned some things from Antoine's
Speaker 1: alleged statement with Kevin's to make it seem like the
Speaker 1: two statements were corroborating one another, like the detail about
Speaker 1: Kevin allegedly stopping to pee in the bushes. Now, the
Speaker 1: police might take issue with you or Antoine saying that
Speaker 1: this alleged confession was anything but above board, But there's
Speaker 1: both no evidence that it actually is, but rather there
Speaker 1: is evidence to the contrary. There's no video, no audio recording,
Speaker 1: no stenographer, and they're not even contemporaneous notes from the
Speaker 1: police officers. And we know that abuse did occur. Right
Speaker 1: those who came to see him saw that he got
Speaker 1: really badly beat up by the cops. And because he
Speaker 1: was denied a phone call, the first person who did
Speaker 1: see him was not his mother or his lawyer, Mr
Speaker 1: Mac who was my junior high basketball coach. Somehow he
Speaker 1: knew I was there. They let him visit me. He
Speaker 1: was okay, and I told him, no, I'll st our client.
Speaker 1: I him I was hurting. He immediately said that he's
Speaker 1: going to let my mom know. Because no one knew
Speaker 1: where I was at when my mom and my aunt came.
Speaker 1: When they saw the condition I was in, they lost it.
Speaker 1: They went off on the detectives and and every other
Speaker 1: police officer they saw that was in the station, and
Speaker 1: they told him they had to leave and that they
Speaker 1: wanted to visit me. They con visit me in the
Speaker 1: county jail. After that, I was getting transported to the
Speaker 1: county jail. It was me, Kevin, and it was another
Speaker 1: guy named Anthony Ferguson who got arrested that night for
Speaker 1: domestic violence. We were all in the Patti wagon and
Speaker 1: I just started spitting up blood. Anthony Ferguson say, man,
Speaker 1: was that you who are heard in the other room?
Speaker 1: And I was like yeah. He said, man, I heard
Speaker 1: everything that they've done to you. This is my name,
Speaker 1: this is my number. You know, if your lawyers want
Speaker 1: to talk to me, give him my information. And that
Speaker 1: was the last that I heard of him until years
Speaker 1: later when I was able to get an affidator from him.
Speaker 1: Everything that Mr Ferguson, because you are happening to Antoine
Speaker 1: corroborating to some degree what we've all heard here. Now
Speaker 1: at this point, you had no idea Kevin Jackson had
Speaker 1: flipped the situation to his advantage, and this obviously took
Speaker 1: the heat off of Kevin Jackson. Kevin Jackson was tried
Speaker 1: first under a theory that he was responsible for the
Speaker 1: killings in part because he didn't stop what was going on,
Speaker 1: and he actually supposedly drove the getaway car, and he
Speaker 1: was sentenced to forty years in prison. He is now released.
Speaker 1: Did you know that Kevin was doing this to you?
Speaker 1: I didn't know this until we went to court in Maybrook,
Speaker 1: me would Illinois. I thought you were tried separately. That
Speaker 1: was just a regular court date, okay, so you were
Speaker 1: both at court for your own proceedings. Was this his
Speaker 1: bench trial and just a pre trial hearing for you? Exactly?
Speaker 1: That was the pre trial. And all the bailiffs knew me.
Speaker 1: So it was one day in court and his lawyer
Speaker 1: comes in to the bullpen and it's like me, Kevin
Speaker 1: and like other guys and his lawyer because lawyers telling okay,
Speaker 1: when we're go in there, this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But he was talking so low to her I really
Speaker 1: couldn't hear him. So Kevin and his lawyer went out
Speaker 1: and immediately the bailiffs came in to the bullpend. He
Speaker 1: was like, QB, he's out there saying that you did this,
Speaker 1: like he had nothing to do with it. So I
Speaker 1: was like, no, that's not true. So Kevin came back,
Speaker 1: so I asked him. I say, I said, what just
Speaker 1: happened out there? And he says nothing. So now it's
Speaker 1: starting to make sense. Kevin saw how I said I
Speaker 1: was getting so he bangs on the door and he
Speaker 1: tells the bailor that he has to use the washroom,
Speaker 1: and the bailor's let him out. I never saw Kevin
Speaker 1: again until he came home in twenties seventeen, at which
Speaker 1: point he said he was going to give you a
Speaker 1: sign after David. That never came to crouation. But Kevin
Speaker 1: never even testified at your trial. He didn't have to
Speaker 1: confession evidence in your case. A complete fabrication was all
Speaker 1: the state really needed. This confession turns into the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of the state's case, but there are a number of
Speaker 1: features of this so called confession that just make it
Speaker 1: obvious that it's not a trustworthy description of what actually happened.
Speaker 1: The statement reads nothing like the way Antoine would talk.
Speaker 1: Are right, there were facts in the statement that are
Speaker 1: totally contradicted by the unchallenged facts, like the statement says
Speaker 1: there were four shots and there are actually eight shots.
Speaker 1: There are four different versions. There were parts that were
Speaker 1: totally inconsistent version diversion, like whose money was involved, Jeremy's
Speaker 1: where is it Antoine? Whose gun was involved? Was it
Speaker 1: Jeremy's gun? Did Antoine get the gun? When does Antoine
Speaker 1: actually supposedly take possession of the gun before that night
Speaker 1: or does it get it that night? There are these
Speaker 1: versions are very much inconsistent and wild contradictions and inconsistencies
Speaker 1: like these are hallmarks of false confessions. In this case,
Speaker 1: they're taking wild stabs and a plausible version of its
Speaker 1: consistent with their incentivized defendant in order to nap both
Speaker 1: young men. So Antoine didn't go to trial for almost
Speaker 1: three years. Part of that time he was in the
Speaker 1: notorious Cook County jail, and his family hired an attorney,
Speaker 1: a reputable guy at the time, George Howard, at this
Speaker 1: time had a fairly distinguished record. He was an African
Speaker 1: American criminal defense lawyer in Chicago. You know, he had
Speaker 1: been a speaker at a lot of the area law
Speaker 1: schools tried a lot of cases. But here's the problem.
Speaker 1: What they don't know is that he's already clearly overburdened.
Speaker 1: He had been suspended actually in and into NIX for
Speaker 1: neglecting his cases. This is a time when there were
Speaker 1: still death penalty in Illinois. And George Howard look at
Speaker 1: Antoine's case and and he immediately told him, he said,
Speaker 1: look at they say, you killed a white boy in
Speaker 1: oak Park. He doesn't think there's any way to defend
Speaker 1: Antoine given the evidence that he is aware of, and
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm here to save your life. So George
Speaker 1: Howard decides he's going to insert an insanity defense, and incredibly,
Speaker 1: he coaches Antoine and his family to fake mental illness.
Speaker 1: He told me how to act in front of the
Speaker 1: judge when I go see the psychiatrists and psychologists. I
Speaker 1: literally had to teach myself like I had to look
Speaker 1: at other people behavior who was mentally ill or who
Speaker 1: was insane. I mimicked them basically because this is what
Speaker 1: my lawyer told me that I needed to do in
Speaker 1: her to come home. I think I did it well
Speaker 1: because they end up sending me to Elgin Mental Hospital.
Speaker 1: So it was like three times, I was found unfit
Speaker 1: to stand trial. I stayed in the mineral institution for
Speaker 1: a few months, at least the county jail. I knew
Speaker 1: what I was dealing with. As far as the violence,
Speaker 1: I knew, I knew the environment, but the middle hospital,
Speaker 1: you don't know who you're dealing with. And then the
Speaker 1: medicines that they hit me on at that time were
Speaker 1: spirit all hell, dog thors, the Those are the things
Speaker 1: that I had to deal with because I was only
Speaker 1: impresson because that's what was going to get me home.
Speaker 1: He took his lawyer's advice. He was obviously was successful
Speaker 1: at it for a while, but he couldn't sustain it,
Speaker 1: and eventually the state is able to prove that this
Speaker 1: is just a sham and Antoine is forced to go
Speaker 1: to trial. This was a four day trial. The state
Speaker 1: called seventeen witnesses, lay fact witnesses, people who saw the
Speaker 1: car park, people who saw the car pull away, the
Speaker 1: person who found the body. They have medical experts obviously
Speaker 1: to talk about the cause of death, and forensic people
Speaker 1: who talk about the gun. The gun was actually was
Speaker 1: a stolen gun, and they couldn't get prints off the gun.
Speaker 1: They certainly didn't have any fingerprints or DNA of Antoine's.
Speaker 1: And then they also called some police supervisors and one
Speaker 1: of the detectives, and the states that Jarney, you did
Speaker 1: the interrogations and we've been over all the most damning
Speaker 1: evidence already. They placed the cash among Antoine's possessions. Kevin
Speaker 1: Jackson placed himself at the scene and implicated Antoine, although
Speaker 1: Kevin did not testify at Antoine's trial. There's also this
Speaker 1: fabricated confession and an alleged dying declaration. But George Howard
Speaker 1: was not fighting the state's evidence. He didn't develop anything
Speaker 1: to combat it. No defense, but the insanity defense. If
Speaker 1: almost thinking, I think he said something to the effect
Speaker 1: of open argument. My client didn't do this, and there's
Speaker 1: no evidence to prove that he did it, but if
Speaker 1: he did do it, being he was insane during the time,
Speaker 1: so I wishy washy insanity play on top of the
Speaker 1: evidence that the state did actually present, fabricated as it was.
Speaker 1: It's so crazy way because the state is fabricating all
Speaker 1: their evidence, and your attorney is fabricating and insanity. You
Speaker 1: weren't insane, and the jury officer was going to see
Speaker 1: through that but there was a lot he could have
Speaker 1: done instead of leading insanity, including calling your middle school
Speaker 1: coach who could have corroborated that you'd been beaten. Or
Speaker 1: he could have just pointed out all the glaring inconsistencies
Speaker 1: and contradictions between statements, not to mention the inconsistent reports
Speaker 1: about Antoine's possessions, namely the lot of cash that wasn't
Speaker 1: found in his right front pocket during the initial path
Speaker 1: town and of course the E M T s who
Speaker 1: would have refused the officer's testimony about the dying declaration.
Speaker 1: In light of all of that, Officer Harris's testimony a
Speaker 1: trial was particularly devastating. Officer Harris says, what he gets
Speaker 1: to the scene and Jeremy is still conscious that he
Speaker 1: asks him a question, specifically who shot you? And Harris
Speaker 1: says that Jeremy allegedly said it was Antoine QB. The
Speaker 1: question is what exactly did Harris ask? We do know
Speaker 1: that Antoine's name went out over the police radio, so
Speaker 1: Antoine's name came from somewhere and probably came from Jeremy.
Speaker 1: But the is what question was he answering? And here's
Speaker 1: an important piece of evidence. The paramedics were there in
Speaker 1: two minutes from when they were called. So they get
Speaker 1: there very shortly, if not exactly, at the time when
Speaker 1: the police show and there are five paramedics on the scene,
Speaker 1: not one of them corroborates Harris's story. No one other
Speaker 1: than the police officers say that Jeremy identified Antoine as
Speaker 1: a shooter. Right. We're talking about the same police department
Speaker 1: that developed an alternate slate of Antoine's personal effects, that
Speaker 1: beat the ship out of him and gave him a
Speaker 1: blank piece of paper to sign, then filled it out
Speaker 1: with an alleged confession. So pretty close to zero credibility
Speaker 1: to go around here. So when you're only sources are
Speaker 1: Oak Park p D or the e m T S,
Speaker 1: I'd go with the e m T S. Right. They
Speaker 1: don't have it, They don't have a motivation to lie,
Speaker 1: and they didn't equivocate. They were sure that they hadn't
Speaker 1: heard Harris asked the question who shot you? One thing
Speaker 1: we do know for sure is that Eddie Harris was
Speaker 1: fired by the Old Park Police Department shortly after what
Speaker 1: happened here, in part for lying in the course of
Speaker 1: his duties. So there's incredible doubt that Eddie Harris told
Speaker 1: the truth about what question he asked Jeremy Bruder as
Speaker 1: he lay dying. But that's the story that Eddie Harris
Speaker 1: told the jury, and George Howard didn't call a single
Speaker 1: paramedic to talk to the contrary. There's so much that
Speaker 1: he did not do. He did not develop the defense
Speaker 1: that Antoine had no motive to shoot Jeremy, that Antoine
Speaker 1: had no special need for that kind of money at
Speaker 1: knowing her actions with Jeremy, that was anything close to
Speaker 1: supporting the possibility that he showed him. He was on
Speaker 1: the phone with his girlfriend when this happened. But George
Speaker 1: Howard doesn't develop that no phone records, He didn't put
Speaker 1: his girlfriend on the stand. You know that Antoine actually
Speaker 1: stopped the car, got out and went back to the
Speaker 1: scene when he knows that people have heard the shots,
Speaker 1: he knows that the police are coming, and he's going
Speaker 1: right back there. You know, when George Howard doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything with the gunshot residue tests, and you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't attack the supposed dying declaration, the claim that Antoine
Speaker 1: had the money on him after the shooting. He doesn't
Speaker 1: attack Antoine's alleged confession. He doesn't do these things, and
Speaker 1: why do any of that when your strategy was insanity.
Speaker 1: George Howard called one witness, a psychiatrist from Michigan, who
Speaker 1: came and testified that Antoine qb. Didn't have a sufficient
Speaker 1: mental state to understand what he was doing, that he
Speaker 1: essentially was insane. The problem was, or one of the problems,
Speaker 1: was that he was testifying based on Michigan standards for insanity,
Speaker 1: and the fact of the matter is they were in
Speaker 1: Illinois court and they needed to have the Illinois standards supplied.
Speaker 1: So his testimoney was rejected. So that's how this case
Speaker 1: went to the jury. So the state's case went completely
Speaker 1: unrebutted and the only defense was rejected. The only thing
Speaker 1: that George Howard did that worked was to convince the
Speaker 1: judge that because Antoine had no prior criminal history, it
Speaker 1: would be cruel to sence him to death. So he
Speaker 1: was spared the death penalty, but told that he essentially
Speaker 1: would die in prison. They gave me natural life without
Speaker 1: the possibility of the role for the murder, and then
Speaker 1: they gave me thirty years for the armed robbery. I
Speaker 1: remember him saying guilty, and everything else went to blank,
Speaker 1: like literally quiet, and I heard one person, my mom.
Speaker 1: I heard my mother cry, and I didn't hear anything else.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear no one else talking. I didn't hear
Speaker 1: anything but my mother, you know, leaving the county jail,
Speaker 1: going to UM Joliette, which was annexed, you know, that
Speaker 1: was the receiving. I think that was the scariest ride ever.
Speaker 1: You know, you get in, you know they strip you
Speaker 1: and make you take the shower, and you know, throw
Speaker 1: the powder on you and put you in the I
Speaker 1: DLC uniform. I stayed in Juliette for a few days
Speaker 1: and they told me I was going to the pit.
Speaker 1: You know, that was the nickname for Menard. And you
Speaker 1: know that's right there in the Mississippi River, like eight
Speaker 1: hours away from home. When I got down there, it
Speaker 1: was so racist. You know, it was literally separated, you know,
Speaker 1: blacks against whites. You know, you had a lot of
Speaker 1: race rides down there. Um. You know, people literally dying
Speaker 1: on the regular. I've seen everything from murders to rape.
Speaker 1: I've seen people die right in front of me. I've
Speaker 1: seen people get beat over over packer cookies. It can
Speaker 1: be anything, anything can trigger anything be triggering, you know,
Speaker 1: We hear about the conditions in our prisons every week,
Speaker 1: but no one who hasn't been there can imagine. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: your post conviction proceedings were and are very similar to
Speaker 1: things we hear on this show every week as well.
Speaker 1: His trial was by two thousand one, his direct appeal
Speaker 1: had been denied. Antoine also pursued a habeas petition in
Speaker 1: federal court in two thousand months, but that was also
Speaker 1: quickly denied. And you think that making the case for
Speaker 1: ineffective assistance might not be that hard considering the defense
Speaker 1: or lack of defense that you had, but with the
Speaker 1: evidence presented, accepted its truth in this case, and knowing
Speaker 1: what we know about our impellate system, is understandable that
Speaker 1: he was met with the Niles. What about his post
Speaker 1: conviction petition. He did not file a post conviction petition
Speaker 1: until two thousand six, and then it was amended it
Speaker 1: later in two thousand nine to include actual innocence claims
Speaker 1: at one point supported by affidavits. Right, You've got a
Speaker 1: few who affi David's in two thousand and eight, one
Speaker 1: from an ex girlfriend of Jamie Jackson who said that
Speaker 1: Kevin was living with Jamie at the time, and when
Speaker 1: she called Jamie the day after the shooting this would
Speaker 1: be June two, that Jamie was upset that some money
Speaker 1: and shoes, along with a nine millimeter pistol were missing.
Speaker 1: When she asked Jamie about Antoine's arrest, he told her
Speaker 1: that quote, Antoine would not be in trouble because Kevin
Speaker 1: Jackson would tell the police what really happened that night
Speaker 1: and quote. Also in two thousand eight, man named Robert Walker,
Speaker 1: who did time with Kevin Jackson at Danville Correctional from
Speaker 1: two thousand three to two thousand five, also swore that
Speaker 1: Kevin had admitted to the crime multiple times over that period,
Speaker 1: in addition to saying that Antoine was not responsible for it,
Speaker 1: saying and I quote Kevin Jackson say that Antoine QBI
Speaker 1: got the time for the case that he should have
Speaker 1: got end quote. There were also afid David's from Antoine's
Speaker 1: mother and aunt who swore to his injured condition when
Speaker 1: they visited him at Oak Park p D. And then
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten that caught up with Anthony Ferguson,
Speaker 1: who swore to seeing Antoine before and after his night
Speaker 1: of horror and torture at the Oak Park Police Station
Speaker 1: injury free the night before, followed by spitting up blood
Speaker 1: in the patty Way. The state eventually made a motion
Speaker 1: to dismiss the original post conviction petition because it was
Speaker 1: too late. Unfortunately for Antoine, the appellate court decided in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen that he was too late, and so
Speaker 1: they threw his case out. So in this intermediate period
Speaker 1: of time between two thousand thirteen in the present, there
Speaker 1: have been a number of different efforts, primarily by Antoine himself,
Speaker 1: to try to develop evidence of his innocence. One of
Speaker 1: those efforts was having a linguistics expert, Richard Leonard, examine
Speaker 1: the language used in the alleged confession and compared to
Speaker 1: Antoine's known writings and speech, and the conclusion of this
Speaker 1: expert was that there was no similarity between the language
Speaker 1: that was used in the sign statement that the police
Speaker 1: used as confession and the way in which Antoine actually
Speaker 1: speaks and rights. In fact, they found that the language
Speaker 1: more accurately reflected the writing of the detective who allegedly
Speaker 1: took the statement. For example, quote I met Jeremy at
Speaker 1: cass Avenue at sixty third Street in westmont at an
Speaker 1: unknown time. That is definitely cop talk. Another example was
Speaker 1: the use of the word then, as in I then
Speaker 1: told Jeremy to move his jeep to the end of
Speaker 1: the alley. We both then went into the building after
Speaker 1: ringing Jamie's bell. Every time the word then was used
Speaker 1: in the alleged confession, it followed the sentences subject. Now,
Speaker 1: compared to other known writings of Antoine, he always put
Speaker 1: the word then first. For example, then I went here
Speaker 1: that I did this, that I did that right. And
Speaker 1: what's more alarming still is that the use of the
Speaker 1: word then closely resembles the writings of the detective testifying
Speaker 1: as Antoine at his trial. This report was done back
Speaker 1: to two thousand fourteen. Now, in two thousand seventeen, as
Speaker 1: we referred to earlier, Kevin Jackson was released. I actually
Speaker 1: talked to him over the phone. A mutual friend of ours,
Speaker 1: you know, connected us and gave me his number. I
Speaker 1: wanted him to do the right thing. I wanted him
Speaker 1: to tell people that I didn't do it. And I
Speaker 1: called him. You know, he was talking to me like
Speaker 1: like nothing happened, Like he didn't just sit there and
Speaker 1: tell them that I did this. But I asked him
Speaker 1: I said, I needed you to talk to my lawyers
Speaker 1: and tell him I didn't do this. I need you
Speaker 1: to be honest and tell him the truth. And he
Speaker 1: said he would. When they did try to set up
Speaker 1: meetings and appointments with him, he wouldn't show, so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he kept saying that he was going to
Speaker 1: give me an after David telling the truth, but he
Speaker 1: never followed through. So that's where I'm at now. And
Speaker 1: this happened just before Joe's firm, Riley Safer Holmes and
Speaker 1: Ken Silla picked up Antoine's case pro bono in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, and they have also gotten the same run
Speaker 1: around from Kevin Jackson. If that's not to say other
Speaker 1: avenues are not being explored to solidified Antoine's claim of
Speaker 1: actual innocence. So those efforts include efforts to explore Kevin
Speaker 1: Jackson's willingness to tell the truth what Kevin Jackson said
Speaker 1: to other people about what happened that night. Certain individuals
Speaker 1: have been identified who say that Kevin Jackson has said
Speaker 1: explicitly that Antoine was not personally involved. So more people
Speaker 1: who corroborate what Robert Walker said in two thousand ten.
Speaker 1: Now since two thousand eighteen. Both his junior high basketball
Speaker 1: coach who visit him at the police station, and his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend, Kia Banks, have both come forward, signing after
Speaker 1: Davis corroborating with Antoine and his GSR test has been
Speaker 1: saying all along that Kevin Jackson shot Jeremy Bruder, that
Speaker 1: Antoine completely unaware of Kevin Jackson's plans, as evidenced by
Speaker 1: his behavior in the aftermath. I mean, why the help
Speaker 1: with a guilty person returned to the scene to essentially
Speaker 1: turn himself in. You know, why would a bright, super
Speaker 1: talented high school basketball star with college offers all over
Speaker 1: America and no history of criminal behavior, no history of
Speaker 1: violent behavior shoot one of his best friends eight times
Speaker 1: for you don't have to be sure a lot Holmes
Speaker 1: to figure this out. So, is there anything that our
Speaker 1: audience can do to help? If anybody who's listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast has any information that they think might be
Speaker 1: valuable to us in terms of what it is that
Speaker 1: we're trying to do for Antoine, that I would sincerely
Speaker 1: ask that they contact our office. My name is Joe
Speaker 1: O'Hara and the firm is Riley Safer Homes and Cancilla
Speaker 1: we'll have action steps lenked in the bio, including the
Speaker 1: change dot org petition asking for relief in his case.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the best part of the show.
Speaker 1: Let's face it, it's my favorite part, and it's called
Speaker 1: closing arguments. And this is the part where I thank
Speaker 1: each of you, both of you for joining us today
Speaker 1: and courageously sharing Antoine and your story. Um, and now
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna turn my mike off, leave my headphones on,
Speaker 1: and kick back on my chair to listen to your
Speaker 1: closing thoughts. Let's start with Joe and finish up with Antoine.
Speaker 1: You know, the criminal justice system has failed Antoine horribly.
Speaker 1: You always have to come back to that question, which
Speaker 1: is why would hop bright kid, a super talented athlete
Speaker 1: like Antoine Cub with no history, no history at all
Speaker 1: of criminal behavior, violent behavior, why would he do something
Speaker 1: like this? The state's case against Antoine had big holes
Speaker 1: from the beginning, and and they knew it because there
Speaker 1: was no good motive. He wasn't a kid from the
Speaker 1: streets who had done anything like this before, and they
Speaker 1: didn't have any witness except for somebody who was involved
Speaker 1: in a very biased witness, Kevin Jackson, and they didn't
Speaker 1: have any forensic evidence or physical evidence of any kind,
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't have any gun evidence, or blood evidence,
Speaker 1: or fingerprint evidence or DNA evidence or the The only
Speaker 1: test that they did that g SR was was negative.
Speaker 1: So the state had to do something and they filled
Speaker 1: the holes in the case with the evidence that was
Speaker 1: manufactured by the police, and that was essentially the supposed
Speaker 1: dying identification of Antoine by Jeremy, the possession of the
Speaker 1: robbery money that was planted on Antoine, and then the
Speaker 1: the alleged confession, and all of this was exacerbated by
Speaker 1: the fact that George Howard decided to rely only on
Speaker 1: an insanity defense to try to save Antoine from the
Speaker 1: death penalty. So me where we find ourselves as Antoine
Speaker 1: is endured over you know, over twenty five years at
Speaker 1: this point of incarceration as a result of these failures
Speaker 1: of the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, and particularly in Cook County, UH,
Speaker 1: situations like Antoine's are not unusual. UH. It is very
Speaker 1: important for the public to support the efforts of those
Speaker 1: in public service, including the people who run this Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction podcast. They need your support, they need your encouragement
Speaker 1: to continue to identify and rectify some of the horrible
Speaker 1: things that have resulted because the system doesn't work the
Speaker 1: right way. I want to first thank you for allowing
Speaker 1: me this opportunity to speak the truth. A lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't know about a lot of these things that
Speaker 1: took place during my arrest, before and after, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad you gave me this platform to do so. I
Speaker 1: just asked that, you know, people not make assumptions, just
Speaker 1: use the black and white evidence in front of you.
Speaker 1: And I just hope that in the near future that
Speaker 1: I'd be home because I missed being a father, I
Speaker 1: missed out being a grandfather, and you know, being a son.
Speaker 1: All that was taken away from me, including my potential future.
Speaker 1: You know, who knows what could have came of it,
Speaker 1: But I am grateful and I'm going to continue to fight,
Speaker 1: and I just want to thank you. So I know
Speaker 1: my time is wrapping up now. So um, I just
Speaker 1: want to thank everybody for being an advocate for me
Speaker 1: and supporting me. Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis with research by Lila Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flom.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one