Speaker 1: Hey, it's me Jason Flam and I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco.
Speaker 1: So for any of my listeners who aren't already familiar
Speaker 1: with you, Lauren is the I'm gonna embarrass you now,
Speaker 1: the absolutely brilliant investigative journalists and the host of the
Speaker 1: wildly popular series started with Murder in Oregon my favorite,
Speaker 1: then Murder in Illinois incredible, and coming in January to
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. Well, I am, I am flattered by that,
Speaker 1: but you know you are one of my idols. Really,
Speaker 1: the work that you've done in the wrongful conviction space
Speaker 1: and judicial reform is just phenomenal, and Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite podcasts. And congratulations to you guys
Speaker 1: for hitting now the milestone of three hundred episodes, and
Speaker 1: that I mean the fact that there are three hundred
Speaker 1: of these cases of wrongfully convicted men and women who
Speaker 1: have suffered needlessly in prison for decades is just overwhelming. Well,
Speaker 1: the fact is three d isn't even the beginning of
Speaker 1: the top of the tip of the iceberg. There are
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of wrongly convicted people. We are just
Speaker 1: telling some of the stories of some of the ones
Speaker 1: we know about, and they're outrageous. Every one blows my mind,
Speaker 1: and you know, in order to help spread this word,
Speaker 1: I've asked some of the people I most admire, including
Speaker 1: some who are rongly convicted, some of the best attorneys
Speaker 1: in the country crem with the visitors, and of course
Speaker 1: some of my favorite podcast hosts and journalists, and you,
Speaker 1: Lauren were at the top of my list. I I
Speaker 1: really sincerely appreciate that vote of confidence, Um, But I
Speaker 1: have to say I was so appreciative, Um, and honored
Speaker 1: to get the chance to fill in for you, but
Speaker 1: to also have the opportunity to speak with Mark Shant
Speaker 1: and his attorney. It's an incredibly heartbreaking, moving and infuriating story. Well,
Speaker 1: you did a phenomenal job. I'm so excited to be
Speaker 1: able to present this to our audience. Please listen to
Speaker 1: this important episode of Wrongful Conviction. Back in Springfield, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: the After Five night club was a place where a
Speaker 1: few shady characters like to hang out. Two of them
Speaker 1: were the Stokes brothers, and on the night in question,
Speaker 1: they were outside selling cocaine. But that night, their cocaine
Speaker 1: deal went bad. A couple of young guys approached the
Speaker 1: brothers and their two customers. One of them lunged for
Speaker 1: a gold chain and a scuffled agan Someone pulled out
Speaker 1: a gun and started shooting. One of the customers, Anthony Cook,
Speaker 1: was shot in the shoulder and meet it out alive,
Speaker 1: but an innocent bystander, Victoria Seymour, was killed. Witnesses to
Speaker 1: the shooting reported seeing a blue van with Connecticut plates,
Speaker 1: so during their investigation, the Springfield cops reached out to
Speaker 1: the police in Hartford, Connecticut, looking for some leads. In
Speaker 1: a completely unprofessional investigation, the Hartford police landed on Mark Shant,
Speaker 1: a teenager who had recently moved into the city. On November,
Speaker 1: he was convicted of murder and sentenced to natural life
Speaker 1: in prison without the possibility of parole. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. I'm a broadcast journalist and a podcaster.
Speaker 1: You may have listened to my show as Murder and
Speaker 1: Oregon and Murder in Illinois, Mark and John. I am
Speaker 1: so excited to be sitting in this chair guest hosting
Speaker 1: for Jason because I have to tell you in my
Speaker 1: career I've covered wrongful convictions and stories of corruptions, but
Speaker 1: this is such an insane story that I found myself
Speaker 1: screaming at my monitor while I was doing research for it.
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable. So thank you both for speaking with me.
Speaker 1: I'd love you both to introduce yourselves. Mark, why don't
Speaker 1: you start well, my name is Mark Shan. I am
Speaker 1: originally from I was born in Queens, New York, raised
Speaker 1: in Queens. My father and my mom came in from
Speaker 1: Panama when they were pretty young, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was basically raised in New York. My dad relocated to Hartford,
Speaker 1: Connecticut area when I was very young. He was a
Speaker 1: small business owner. He had several small businesses, kind of
Speaker 1: make a long story store and get to the meat
Speaker 1: of it. I um came up to help him with
Speaker 1: some of his small businesses. I was subsequently arrested, as
Speaker 1: you know, taken to Massachusetts. I was put on trial
Speaker 1: for murder I had absolutely no involvement in. I was
Speaker 1: found guilty, sentenced to natural life without the eligibility of parole,
Speaker 1: and as you also not, started twenty seven years in
Speaker 1: prison for a crime I didn't commit. And John, you
Speaker 1: were instrumental in helping right this wrong. Well, yes, I
Speaker 1: am my partner Linda Thompson, and Linda is actually the
Speaker 1: one who first became involved in Mark's case. Linda and
Speaker 1: I are partners in a small firm of Thompson and
Speaker 1: Thompson and Springfield, Mass. I've been practicing law since nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy Linda since nineteen seventy six, so we're veterans. Linda
Speaker 1: became involved in Mark's trial when Mark's trial lawyer consulted
Speaker 1: her about whether Mark should testify in his own defense,
Speaker 1: and so we were not directly involved in the trial,
Speaker 1: but we were present when the verdict was returned, and
Speaker 1: very shortly after that we took over the case to
Speaker 1: do appeals and motions for a new trial. So we
Speaker 1: worked on this case for almost as long as Mark
Speaker 1: was in prison, about twenty seven years, which is very
Speaker 1: unusual with the wrongful conviction case that you were involved
Speaker 1: from the beginning, Mark, could you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about your life in Hartford before all of
Speaker 1: this began. When I came up here, I was just
Speaker 1: turned eighteen before this happened. You know, I kind of
Speaker 1: lived a normal teenage life, you know, I wasn't the
Speaker 1: best kid, you know. I mean I got into a
Speaker 1: little bit of trouble and stuff like that, nothing major
Speaker 1: at all. I think I was eighteen going on nineteen
Speaker 1: when I was arrested. But but before my arrest, you know,
Speaker 1: I would help my dad out with his small business.
Speaker 1: I would go back and forth to New York, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of short, you know, my
Speaker 1: life before this happened. In regards to me relocating to Connecticut,
Speaker 1: I was not hit long before I was arrested. But
Speaker 1: right before you were arrested, you actually met the woman
Speaker 1: who became the love of your life and and the
Speaker 1: mother of your third son. Yes, Quentin, John, if you
Speaker 1: could take me now, you were living in Hartford, Mark,
Speaker 1: but the crime that you were convicted of committing actually
Speaker 1: occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is about eight miles away.
Speaker 1: You're from Springfield, John, correct, If you could just kind
Speaker 1: of paint a picture of Springfield in for me, particularly
Speaker 1: around the club where the crime that Mark was convicted
Speaker 1: of committing occurred. Well, Springfield at that time was a
Speaker 1: fairly segregated city, and at that at the time, in
Speaker 1: the mid eighties, there was a lot of drug trafficking
Speaker 1: and use, particularly cocaine. There were quite a few homicides
Speaker 1: compared to the size of the city, and the police
Speaker 1: were typical of the police around this area at that time.
Speaker 1: That is, most of the police training was on the
Speaker 1: job training. There were a lot of problems with in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system, with the process of discovery, so
Speaker 1: there was a constant struggle on the defense side trying
Speaker 1: to get information and evidence that would help the defendant
Speaker 1: in court. It's safe to say that it wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: a level playing field, and that is something, particularly with
Speaker 1: the exculpatory evidence that very much plays into Mark's case.
Speaker 1: But let's actually go to the night of the crime.
Speaker 1: So shortly after eleven PM on September two in Springfield, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: there is a drug deal that goes bad outside the
Speaker 1: After five lounge and there's four gentlemen involved, Charles heavy Stokes,
Speaker 1: his brother David, and they're engaged in a drug deal
Speaker 1: with two other guys, Anthony Cook and Michael Houston, and
Speaker 1: that's when things go wrong. Apparently there approached by several
Speaker 1: unidentified young men who basically ask if they can see
Speaker 1: what's going on, and in that scuffle, one of them
Speaker 1: grabs towards one of the gentleman's chains, and that's when
Speaker 1: a gun's produced. Shots are fired and very unfortunately and
Speaker 1: innocent bystander, five year old Victoria Seymour is shot and
Speaker 1: killed and Anthony Cook is shot in the shoulder but survives.
Speaker 1: Now at that time, mark, where were you at that
Speaker 1: exact moment where this unfolds. Earlier that day, I had
Speaker 1: a root canal. I was kind of been paining all day,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, I would go back and
Speaker 1: forth to pick my wife up from work because Maya
Speaker 1: was working at a beauty salon right right, probably about
Speaker 1: I want to say, five ten minutes maybe ten minutes
Speaker 1: away from my father's bar. So the reason I kept
Speaker 1: going back and forth because she says she's gonna be
Speaker 1: ready fifteen minutes, and fifteen minutes I'm thinking we're going home.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm in pain from a root canal
Speaker 1: earlier that day, but around that time, uh, she finally
Speaker 1: was ready. I put it in the car. But if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, around that time, I was actually in
Speaker 1: a bar and I stopped at a bar because someone
Speaker 1: suggested to take a shot, and you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: a drinker, but I was willing to try anything. At
Speaker 1: that point, I wasn't scruciate pain, and I went home
Speaker 1: and laid down. You are almost thirty miles away at
Speaker 1: that exact time, and you have multiple people who can
Speaker 1: back you up on that story. So how did they
Speaker 1: settle upon Mark? How does Mark get dragged into this?
Speaker 1: It's not clear to us exactly how that happened. We
Speaker 1: know that for the this happened on September two, and
Speaker 1: we know that for the next two weeks they took
Speaker 1: statements from a lot of different people. They never got
Speaker 1: a consistent description of the assailant. After about two weeks,
Speaker 1: they've developed some information that it was some group of
Speaker 1: young men from Hartford who came up to Springfield. The
Speaker 1: Springfield police got in touch with the Hartford police. Then
Speaker 1: in about a week, a detective from Hartford produced about
Speaker 1: thirty mug shots, and from those photographs, somehow Mark's photo
Speaker 1: became the subject of attention and it began to they
Speaker 1: begin to use it prominently. At the same time they
Speaker 1: had obtained the Springfield police had obtained three polaroid photographs.
Speaker 1: So this was one of the things that I was
Speaker 1: shouting at my my screen over. So those polaroid pictures
Speaker 1: were taken of Mark, not related to this shooting at all.
Speaker 1: But they told you Mark that there was some kind
Speaker 1: of traffic and fraction based on your motorcycle. Correct, It
Speaker 1: was maybe, like I want to say, like forty to
Speaker 1: fifty motorcycles. We drove to New Haven to um parade.
Speaker 1: When we came back, we all lined up in front
Speaker 1: of my father's bar. Well, there's almost forty bikes there,
Speaker 1: and the cop walked across the street and came straight
Speaker 1: to my bike. He put his hand on the on
Speaker 1: the tank and he said, oh, this bike is warm.
Speaker 1: You've you've been riding his bike and you don't have
Speaker 1: a motorcycle license. Now, he didn't ask me for my license,
Speaker 1: and he asked me my name. He didn't he didn't
Speaker 1: know I didn't have a motorcycle license. There's forty guys there,
Speaker 1: so apparently he already knew something about me. So he said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna told your bike and you're going downtown. They
Speaker 1: took me downtown. And while I was downtown, you know,
Speaker 1: I had nothing to hide, So he said, you mind
Speaker 1: if I take a pot for it? Of you mind?
Speaker 1: If I take a picture of you, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm gonna get a ticket and get out
Speaker 1: of it. But apparently this was a part of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Is kind of blatantly obvious, because you don't
Speaker 1: tell a guy's bike and give him a ticket and
Speaker 1: take them downtown for driving a motorcycle without a permit.
Speaker 1: First of all, that's a warning, you know. Second of all,
Speaker 1: he didn't see me driving a motorcycle. He just walked
Speaker 1: over there, right, And they clearly didn't pick you out
Speaker 1: at random. But one of the reasons they might have
Speaker 1: picked you out, we're the glasses you were wearing. Because
Speaker 1: the police interviewed two teenage boys who said they were
Speaker 1: at a pizza king restaurant on the night of the
Speaker 1: nightclub shooting. They tell the police that six men came
Speaker 1: in asking about a gold chain that was stolen at
Speaker 1: a run DMC concert, and the chain they were looking
Speaker 1: for sounded a lot like the one that Heavy Stokes
Speaker 1: was wearing. The teenage boys described the men asking about
Speaker 1: the chain to be about five seven, with corn rows
Speaker 1: and gazelle glasses and john if I'm not mistaken. They
Speaker 1: also said that these men left in a customized blue
Speaker 1: and gray van with Connecticut plates. That's right, Lauren. The
Speaker 1: these were two fifteen year old middle school students. They
Speaker 1: reported that they had this encounter, and that does introduce
Speaker 1: Randy Weaver into the case. And there are some notable
Speaker 1: things about Randy and he's probably the the person that
Speaker 1: the police were actually looking for because he was While
Speaker 1: he was not a look alike, he was he resembled
Speaker 1: Mark strongly. They are about the same size he wore.
Speaker 1: They were both run DMC officionados. They both followed. They
Speaker 1: are used the run DMC style of dress and corn rows, braids,
Speaker 1: gazelle glasses, and Andy had a two toned blue Chevrolet
Speaker 1: van with Connecticut license plates. That van was also spotted
Speaker 1: or a van like that was spotted leaving the vicinity
Speaker 1: of the after five after the shooting. Randy Weaver had
Speaker 1: was later stopped in Hartford and his van was impounded.
Speaker 1: Weaver was a guy who had they had mixed with
Speaker 1: the Hartford police as a drug dealer earlier in his
Speaker 1: in his career, and he lived in the same vicinity
Speaker 1: and so he got word that people were looking at
Speaker 1: him and pointing out that he looked like Mark shand
Speaker 1: who had already been arrested. He changed his appearance, He
Speaker 1: cut his hair, and he kind of disappeared himself because
Speaker 1: he figured, as he told us later, the police didn't
Speaker 1: know who they were after, but they had already grabbed
Speaker 1: mar Randy knew that Mark wasn't involved, and he was
Speaker 1: afraid that he would be, that he would be arrested
Speaker 1: because he was there. He came to us later and
Speaker 1: he told us that he was there at the time
Speaker 1: that the shooting occurred. And so that makes it that
Speaker 1: much more suspicious. Mark, that you're targeted out of one
Speaker 1: of forty bikes and you're brought in because you're wearing
Speaker 1: these gazelles. You match the basic description of Randy Weaver,
Speaker 1: and now they've taken polaroid shots of you that then
Speaker 1: pop up almost as training tools to retrofit placing you
Speaker 1: at the scene of the crime. John, will you just
Speaker 1: dive in a little bit about the way in which
Speaker 1: photos were used to in this case misidentify the person.
Speaker 1: We have a fairly definite and also kind of sketchy
Speaker 1: at the same time understanding of that. What we do
Speaker 1: know is that the police had somewhere between thirty and
Speaker 1: forty photos that they were using. But what we also
Speaker 1: know is that they were so disorganized. That is not
Speaker 1: deliberately disorganized, but just not professionally trained. They were not
Speaker 1: well coordinated. So they would guys would go police officers
Speaker 1: would go out on their own shift and take photographs
Speaker 1: with them, show find witnesses, take statements, show the photographs,
Speaker 1: and not make good records either of what photographs they
Speaker 1: were showing, what combinations we call them a raise. But
Speaker 1: they didn't do that systematically, and they in particular, they
Speaker 1: didn't make a record of negative responses. They would not
Speaker 1: write that down because that didn't help their case. At
Speaker 1: this point, they were not really investigating as much as
Speaker 1: they were putting together a case against Mark shand so
Speaker 1: tunnel vision had definitely set in. Yes, And since they
Speaker 1: weren't keeping good records, their work could be adjusted as
Speaker 1: they as their information developed, and as they moved along.
Speaker 1: So when if they had had an unsatisfactory interview or
Speaker 1: an unsatisfactory showing with a witness, they didn't need to
Speaker 1: deal with that because they didn't necessarily keep a record
Speaker 1: of it, and they could go back to that witness
Speaker 1: later with a different set of photographs and come up
Speaker 1: with an identification which led to your arrest. Mark, can
Speaker 1: you take me to the exact day and time of
Speaker 1: your arrest and how that went down. That day, I
Speaker 1: stopped by to talk to my dad. He was in
Speaker 1: the bodle of various things, and I spoke with him
Speaker 1: a little bit. I went upstairs to talk to my sister,
Speaker 1: not doing nothing in particularly. One guy drove by and
Speaker 1: he told me he said, you know they called me
Speaker 1: Cash is my nickname, And he said Cash. Listen. I
Speaker 1: don't know why he looking at you. To drive back
Speaker 1: for looking at you, I said, okay, whatever. So I
Speaker 1: saw them go this way. You know, I'm talking or
Speaker 1: whatever to someone, and the cop car comes back this
Speaker 1: way and it stops, and you know, they an officer
Speaker 1: got out and he said you Mark Shan. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he says you're under rest for murder. I
Speaker 1: was like what And he pulled out his handcuffs and
Speaker 1: a couple of people heard it, Like you know, people
Speaker 1: thought like we was being punked or something, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's a TV show. Nobody thought it was serious. I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, I really thought it was a joke. I said,
Speaker 1: what would you say? He said, you're under rest for murder.
Speaker 1: Well tell me, tell me about the interrogation that took place. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't much of an interrogation. It was blatantly obvious
Speaker 1: that the Harvard cops didn't know much of what's going on.
Speaker 1: And you know, you could tell it was a thing
Speaker 1: where they were just told, like, you know, some youth
Speaker 1: from here, and they went and snatched me. And I
Speaker 1: could see that they were just holding me and waiting,
Speaker 1: and and then um, super turney by the name of
Speaker 1: Francis Bloom and two officers came in. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: much of an elegation. You know. He told me stuff
Speaker 1: like I know you was in Springfield and and you're
Speaker 1: you're no good, murdering piece of ship, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put you away, and and you know, just it was
Speaker 1: it's a little foggy now, but he was basically telling me.
Speaker 1: He wasn't asking me anything. He's basically telling me he
Speaker 1: knew I did it, and I'm gonna get you for murder.
Speaker 1: And why did you come up to Springfield? And I said,
Speaker 1: I've never been in Springfiord called me a liar, and
Speaker 1: you know that sort of thing. So it wasn't an
Speaker 1: interrogation per se. They didn't sit me down and say,
Speaker 1: had you ever been in Springfield? Do your own van?
Speaker 1: Did nothing, nothing. It wasn't that kind of thing. It
Speaker 1: was more accusatory. You know. He was screaming at me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was for effect or not.
Speaker 1: And I think he was a little flustered that I wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, flustered. I think that bothered him a little because,
Speaker 1: quite frank, I wasn't flustered because I know I didn't
Speaker 1: kill anybody. So I'm thinking this is gonna blow over,
Speaker 1: Like maybe they'll come and be like, Mark, you know,
Speaker 1: we made mistake. Maybe they'll get me up there. And
Speaker 1: some people look at me back, that's not the guy,
Speaker 1: and I'll be home tomorrow. I'll be out tomorrow. And
Speaker 1: I didn't come home for three decades. So you're arrested.
Speaker 1: You're in jail, and then at some point a lineup
Speaker 1: is suggested and you say, let's do it. You know,
Speaker 1: the lineup is presented to Heavy Stokes, who was one
Speaker 1: of the guys involved in the cocaine deal. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that lineup, Mark, So the lineup was really suggestive,
Speaker 1: and it was it was beyond suggested if John probably
Speaker 1: could speak to it better than I can. But within
Speaker 1: this lineup, it was myself. It was an officer that
Speaker 1: had previously arrested the guy that was doing a line up.
Speaker 1: One of them saved his life by sticking his finger
Speaker 1: in a bullet hole, so he knew that guy. It
Speaker 1: was another guy who grew up with him, another guy
Speaker 1: who he knew from the neighborhood. And there was me.
Speaker 1: So it was quite obviously, you know, it was quite
Speaker 1: obviously who he was supposed to point out. I mean,
Speaker 1: he know the cop didn't come from Harford and kill anyone.
Speaker 1: He knew the other couple who stuck his finger in
Speaker 1: his bullet hole didn't do it. He knew the guy
Speaker 1: he knew from the neighborhood didn't do it. You know.
Speaker 1: So the lineup was really suggestive, and you know, I
Speaker 1: guess I was the only guy in there that could
Speaker 1: have been, you know, as in his mind, could have
Speaker 1: been responsible for it. So exactly that that was another
Speaker 1: point where I'm screaming at my screen. You're the only
Speaker 1: guy in that lineup that the person who's supposed to
Speaker 1: identify you doesn't know, right exactly, That's right. The lineup
Speaker 1: was a staged lineup. It was designed to produce an
Speaker 1: identification of Mark. The second thing that was at work
Speaker 1: here is the practice of rewarding witnesses. Nobody else gets
Speaker 1: to do that, where the rest of us have to
Speaker 1: get our witnesses the honest way. That is, we want
Speaker 1: you to tell you, tell us what you know. We
Speaker 1: want you to testify to what you know. And if
Speaker 1: you do that, well we can do is say thank you.
Speaker 1: The police and the prosecutors can say to a witness,
Speaker 1: you are facing charges in another case. If you testify
Speaker 1: for us in this case, we'll give you a break
Speaker 1: on the prosecution we have against you in that other case.
Speaker 1: So that witness is compromised by that offer of leniency
Speaker 1: in exchange for testimony. That's a common standard practice around
Speaker 1: the United States, and it is a terrible problem. And
Speaker 1: that definitely um was on display in the trial because
Speaker 1: there were six witnesses who testified against you, and they
Speaker 1: all had incentive to identify you in one form or another.
Speaker 1: Take me to the trial, John, I know that Linda,
Speaker 1: your partner, was actually at the trial at at some point.
Speaker 1: How would you give me a brief synopsis of the trial,
Speaker 1: how would you categorize it? As we've noted, there were
Speaker 1: six eyewitnesses who claimed that they were at the after
Speaker 1: five and saw these this brief flurry of events. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty straightforward case in that sense. The big
Speaker 1: handicap to the defense was that they were not Roy
Speaker 1: Anderson was not aware of silent arrangements for testimony. For example,
Speaker 1: not only Heavy Stokes, who was one of the victims,
Speaker 1: but Anthony Cook, who was also a victim. That is,
Speaker 1: he was shot and his shooting was one of the
Speaker 1: charges that Mark was tried on. Both of them had
Speaker 1: to be bribed, They had to be rewarded to to testify.
Speaker 1: The victims wouldn't testify without a deal. That's how thoroughly
Speaker 1: corrupt this trial was. So the trial takes place between
Speaker 1: November nine and twenty, and the prosecutor is the Assistant
Speaker 1: District Attorney, Francis Bloom, who has a rather spotty history
Speaker 1: um in terms of protocol. You're going into trial knowing
Speaker 1: that there is no physical evidence linking you to any
Speaker 1: of the crimes that took place on September two, because
Speaker 1: you were thirty miles away at the time. Did you
Speaker 1: go into trial fairly confident. Yeah, I kind of thought
Speaker 1: that you know, it'll come out, you know, it'll all
Speaker 1: come out in the Washington and wanted the dust to drew.
Speaker 1: Someone had judged it. Someone will see that this is
Speaker 1: not diving. It's not you know, it's not coming together.
Speaker 1: But Mark, you had an alibi that was confirmed by
Speaker 1: seven people. Yes, that should have and convincing as well.
Speaker 1: You had a dental procedure that was done that day,
Speaker 1: you weren't up for clubbing that night, You're driving half
Speaker 1: an hour. So how does that fall apart in the courtroom?
Speaker 1: First of all, eyewitness testimony is special, a special kind
Speaker 1: of testimony. The jurors are inclined to look at them
Speaker 1: sympathetically and expect them to know the truth. That can
Speaker 1: be very convincing. Just one person, six of them all
Speaker 1: saying the same thing. That's powerful evidence. But Mark has
Speaker 1: seven eyewitnesses who back up as alibi. How does that
Speaker 1: fall apart in court? There are two basic problems with
Speaker 1: an alibi. Usually your alibi witnesses are friends or family. Okay,
Speaker 1: So one of Mark's problems was that he was not
Speaker 1: involved in this crime. Therefore he couldn't say when it happened,
Speaker 1: or what he was doing, where it was, and so forth.
Speaker 1: This happened on September two. Mark was arrested October nine,
Speaker 1: So it's almost two full months before Mark is aware
Speaker 1: that he's even a suspect. And what do they do.
Speaker 1: They notify the people that they were with to let
Speaker 1: them know that there's a problem that they need help with.
Speaker 1: And so Maya is calling her sisters and other family
Speaker 1: members and saying, do you remember September two? Do you
Speaker 1: remember what we were doing? And so they talked about
Speaker 1: what they were doing. They all discuss it and they
Speaker 1: get it down and then they go tell the lawyer. Well,
Speaker 1: in the trial, after they've given their testimony, the cross
Speaker 1: examination goes something like this. When Maya's cross examined, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor says, so, when you found out when when Mark
Speaker 1: was charged, you contacted all of these witnesses, didn't you, Yes?
Speaker 1: And you told them when this happened. Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: And you all discussed your testimony, didn't you, Yes? And
Speaker 1: you all decided that you had an alibi for Mark,
Speaker 1: didn't you yes? Okay, And that's all true, but it
Speaker 1: sounds like they all got together and cooked up a
Speaker 1: story for him. Okay, so Mark, take me to the
Speaker 1: moment when the verdict is decided. Well, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and true dramatic fashion, they asked me to stand, He said,
Speaker 1: Mark shamp please then and they read the verdict. They said, um,
Speaker 1: you know, basically guilty on all accounts. And I can
Speaker 1: recall it distinctively. I almost didn't hear anything else after that,
Speaker 1: but my mother's scream, you know what I mean? Um
Speaker 1: m hmm. Do you remember returning? Was was Maya in
Speaker 1: the courtroom when they announced the verdict. My whole family, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my whole family is in the court room. I I
Speaker 1: kind of I couldn't turn around to him because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to look at my mother. I heard her
Speaker 1: screams and it bothered me so much. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to look at her one top her hearing, you know,
Speaker 1: So I just stared straight ahead. Um, I just heard
Speaker 1: him screaming, and I glanced back one time and it
Speaker 1: was kind of holding my mom up, and I just
Speaker 1: started looking straight ahead again. I didn't want to look back,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. Yeah, So yeah, that's what I remember most,
Speaker 1: and the judgment explaining to me what had just happened,
Speaker 1: and do I understand what it just happened. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, at that moment when I when I went myself,
Speaker 1: I kind of really came to the realization that I
Speaker 1: was excuse my friends, but I was fucked. You know.
Speaker 1: I really came to the conclusion like, wow, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a cumbination of what the fun was going
Speaker 1: on in the back vaccines, of whatever the hell bloom
Speaker 1: had going on. But I kept saying to myself, like,
Speaker 1: they really convicted me in this crime. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. You know. I had to like come to
Speaker 1: terms with that, you know, and that took me literally
Speaker 1: twenty seven years to come to terms with that. You know.
Speaker 1: I never really, like you know, said, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: you convicted. That never happened. Ever, literally every day, every
Speaker 1: moment for seven years, I was in disbelief of what
Speaker 1: had happened. I really was. So you end up serving
Speaker 1: twenty seven years in prison, and meanwhile Maya is at
Speaker 1: home and she never gives up on you. Tell me
Speaker 1: about your support system while you were inside, and how
Speaker 1: Maya created a home for your three sons. Well, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's that's immeasurable. I mean, right from the beginning.
Speaker 1: She supported me. She you know, she came in to
Speaker 1: see me in jail. She would get my other two
Speaker 1: sons from previous relationships and made sure they got to
Speaker 1: meet each other and knew each other and grew up
Speaker 1: together steadfast. And she just she was there for me
Speaker 1: the entire time. You know, I would see her like
Speaker 1: every week, unless it was like a snowstorm or death
Speaker 1: in the family. I want to say, it was like
Speaker 1: a I want to have to our rise some time,
Speaker 1: but nothing would stop her. She you know, she kept
Speaker 1: my family together. She supported me, She did what she
Speaker 1: could financially. You know, we were scrape up money to
Speaker 1: pay investigators and attorneys. And you know, she was dead
Speaker 1: when I was arrested, and she was dead day step
Speaker 1: foot out of it. So you know, I can't say
Speaker 1: enough about what she did. Um, John, do you want
Speaker 1: to walk me through the post conviction litigation. We had
Speaker 1: information early on about Randy Weaver and Tracy Fisher in particular,
Speaker 1: those two witnesses. Those two men were being talked about
Speaker 1: and we're saying things that implicated them and exonerated Mark.
Speaker 1: We couldn't find Randy Weaver. We found Tracy Fisher because
Speaker 1: he was in prison. We believed that Weaver and and
Speaker 1: Fisher were key witnesses in Mark's case, but they were
Speaker 1: we couldn't get any evidence from them. We were in
Speaker 1: the position now where we were doing the appeal of
Speaker 1: Mark's convictions, saying that the trial was unfair, but we
Speaker 1: were also investigating to try to discover additional evidence to
Speaker 1: show that he was not guilty. That was the time
Speaker 1: when the falsified report surfaced, the two page report that
Speaker 1: showed that Charles Stokes had described someone who could not
Speaker 1: possibly have been Mark. That was on the second page
Speaker 1: of a two page document that had been altered to
Speaker 1: look like a one page document. So you have this
Speaker 1: information that was hidden from Mark's original defense attorney. What
Speaker 1: did you do next? So we went back to the
Speaker 1: trial judge Judge Murphy, and Judge Murphy laughed it off.
Speaker 1: He said, well, I don't understand why the police did this,
Speaker 1: but the defense had all that information anyway, which was
Speaker 1: just false, and that's the way the motion for the
Speaker 1: new trial went. We lost that and then we appealed.
Speaker 1: Of course, each time we've got a ruling like that,
Speaker 1: we had to go. I went and met with Mark
Speaker 1: and had to explain to him how we had lost
Speaker 1: so that by that time, by the time we finished
Speaker 1: that litigation, it was I had to say to Mark,
Speaker 1: this is it. Well, this is the last thing we
Speaker 1: There's nothing left to do. You're you're stuck here. And
Speaker 1: we both I remember we we held hands and cried.
Speaker 1: Mark said to me, John, I'm not giving up this.
Speaker 1: I'm not I do not accept this. There's got to
Speaker 1: be some way. I'm not giving up. And I said, Mark,
Speaker 1: there's only one thing that's going to get you out
Speaker 1: of here. It's gonna be new evidence. We have to
Speaker 1: get new evidence. And it looked really, really bleak until
Speaker 1: Jim McCloskey and Centurion Ministries finally said we're gonna take
Speaker 1: the case. Jim mccoskey talked Randy Weaver into coming in
Speaker 1: and making sworn statements that implicated him. That is, Randy
Speaker 1: Weaver was willing to say, I was there at the
Speaker 1: after five when the shooting occurred, and I know Mark
Speaker 1: Shand and he wasn't there. Sin Terrio took a while
Speaker 1: to to come full circle and accept my case. They
Speaker 1: didn't accept it initially, you know, for whatever reason, maybe
Speaker 1: they weren't fully convinced I mean their reputable organization and
Speaker 1: their name cares a lot of weights, so I understand
Speaker 1: how they have to be convinced of your innocence before
Speaker 1: they take your case. And as I mentioned, they did,
Speaker 1: they do diligence, investigated the case before they literally told
Speaker 1: me we're accept officially accepting your case. And from the
Speaker 1: time they did that to the time I was out
Speaker 1: was a very short period of time. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I could be wrong in regards to the time frame
Speaker 1: of how these things go, but from the day they
Speaker 1: accepted my case, I think I was out two years later.
Speaker 1: There was a so though, a sense of urgency because
Speaker 1: take me to the medical crisis you had. What year
Speaker 1: was it, and what happened? In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: I had an aneurism was subacnoid hemorrhage, which is a
Speaker 1: bleeding of the brain. I was sitting there and I
Speaker 1: thought it was it was like an instant headache, almost
Speaker 1: like someone just hit me in the head with a hammer,
Speaker 1: like it was instant. A couple of guys that always
Speaker 1: come when the count claimed prisoner asked me, do I
Speaker 1: want to play chess? It was three of us. We
Speaker 1: would play whoever lose, get up and we just play
Speaker 1: all day and drink coffee and talk about sports and
Speaker 1: play chess. And we did that often. And they came
Speaker 1: to my door said coming out to play chess, and
Speaker 1: I said, give me a minute, and I had a headache.
Speaker 1: So they came back fifty minutes, like, come on where
Speaker 1: you at, Like we you know, he's getting ready to
Speaker 1: lose this game. Come on your next. The third time
Speaker 1: they came back to the cell to ask me to come.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand their words, so I was acutely aware
Speaker 1: something was really screwed up. And I picked myself up
Speaker 1: and I walked to the officers station and I couldn't talk.
Speaker 1: And from what they say, my pupils were dilating, and
Speaker 1: they you know, my eyes rolled up in my head.
Speaker 1: I couldn't answer no questions. The shift commander came in
Speaker 1: and he said, this guy is fun something right. He
Speaker 1: don't even know his own name. And I woke up
Speaker 1: in the hospital and I found out it was an
Speaker 1: anneurism and almost died in prison. And the doctor came
Speaker 1: in and was explaining to me. I could hear him,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't respond that I had an aneurism. And
Speaker 1: they was gonna take me downstairs and try to tie
Speaker 1: it off and stop the bleeding. And he, you know,
Speaker 1: he was brutally honest with me, said, Mark, almost se
Speaker 1: people that have these don't live through him. So it's
Speaker 1: a good chance you may not come upstairs from this,
Speaker 1: he said. He directed the offices. He said, you want
Speaker 1: to take some phone numbers and call his family members
Speaker 1: immediately because he may not come upstairs. And I told
Speaker 1: him to call those numbers. I don't remember him doing it.
Speaker 1: And then I asked him for a piece of paper
Speaker 1: and he gave me an envelope and I wrote on
Speaker 1: the paper, UM, yeah, uh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: wrote I wrote on the paper. Uh. I just wrote out,
Speaker 1: please help me. And I told him to get that
Speaker 1: paper to Jim McCloskey, because I can really remember like
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, like, funk, I'm gonna die in here
Speaker 1: for Croma. Didnt dude, like never mind going through this,
Speaker 1: but I'm literally about to die in prison for Croma.
Speaker 1: Da come. And I could just recall begging him to
Speaker 1: get that envelope to to Jim McCloskey, and U uh,
Speaker 1: I remember waking up with just like twenty people in
Speaker 1: the room just kiss me and crying and hugging me,
Speaker 1: and the doctor kind of standing there and waiting for
Speaker 1: him and explain it to him that it's a good
Speaker 1: chance I may not come back upstairs and explain it
Speaker 1: to them, you know what the subberact noog memorrhage was.
Speaker 1: And he said he's gonna take me downstairs, and I'm
Speaker 1: listening and that he was crying, and they, you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of just whisked me downstairs, and you know,
Speaker 1: I made I made it through that. But Jim McCloskey
Speaker 1: would later say that that was kind of the catalyst
Speaker 1: for them to like say, like, we gotta get this
Speaker 1: guy to funk out of here. You know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it particularly skipped any cases because of that,
Speaker 1: but they really started, you know, really accepting my cases
Speaker 1: and started to work it a little more, I would
Speaker 1: say because of that, because he explained to me, by
Speaker 1: that time, they was fully convinced about innocence and they
Speaker 1: didn't want to see me dye in prison for crime
Speaker 1: I didn't commit, never mind spend the rest of my
Speaker 1: life in prison. So I think it worked a little
Speaker 1: harder on my case, you know, than they normally would have.
Speaker 1: The letter got to him, and he hasn't framed, and
Speaker 1: he hasn't in his office. Now, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: and I think in my in my whole ordeal, the
Speaker 1: two things that stick out to me most was that
Speaker 1: and my mom screaming in court, Like those are two things.
Speaker 1: They literally flashed through my my every fucking day. Every day,
Speaker 1: one of the two of those flashed through my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes once twice a week or something, I
Speaker 1: would just I'll be in a car by myself, and
Speaker 1: I'll just bail out and cry like a baby and
Speaker 1: tears my shirt to be wet, and I'll just cry
Speaker 1: about you know, I say, like, what the hell did
Speaker 1: they do to me? They took a third in my life,
Speaker 1: and you know, and I'll just wipe my face and
Speaker 1: go on about my day. And it still happens, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if you can say I
Speaker 1: feel sorry for myself. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but every now and then it still hits me. And
Speaker 1: and I'm waiting for that to dissipate and stop, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't stopped yet. So you know, I deal with it,
Speaker 1: you know, I deal with it. I can't say I
Speaker 1: got over it yet. I couldn't say that to you
Speaker 1: and be telling the truth because I didn't. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine Mark, it's it's not just something that you get over.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had some ext dreamly harrowing experiences. But
Speaker 1: eventually you did get out of prison and you were exonerated.
Speaker 1: The work of Centurion and your lawyer, John Thompson, all
Speaker 1: their investigative work paid off and the case was dismissed.
Speaker 1: That must have been such a happy day. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me what it was like when the judge finally
Speaker 1: said that you were free to go? Um, do you
Speaker 1: remember the exact words he used? He kept kind of short.
Speaker 1: He said, you're free to go. He said you're free
Speaker 1: to go. I didn't believe it. I'm looking at John
Speaker 1: and then they're like, what the hell did you just say?
Speaker 1: Like I really couldn't believe he said that, and you
Speaker 1: know it, it kind of washed over me. But you know,
Speaker 1: I remember my whole body just I had pins and needles,
Speaker 1: you know, or my skin like and he said you're
Speaker 1: free to go, and anybody went crazy again, just like
Speaker 1: they did twenty seven years before before a different reason.
Speaker 1: This time, you know, he had to calm the court
Speaker 1: down again. In and John's trying to explain to me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can go home. And it's like John
Speaker 1: had to explain to me like I was a three
Speaker 1: year old. I'm like, what the hell does happened? Like
Speaker 1: he said you could go and um, yeah, I walked
Speaker 1: out of the courtroom, free man. M hm. And at
Speaker 1: the at the point you were released, you had four grandkids,
Speaker 1: cracked and you had met them all while you were
Speaker 1: in While you were in prison, yeah, it was all
Speaker 1: brought to me as infants. Yeah, little babies, yep. And
Speaker 1: uh I had four and I gotta have seven now.
Speaker 1: So take me to your life today and the family
Speaker 1: that you reconnected and reunited with that that Maya had
Speaker 1: really kept together while you were in prison. I reconnected
Speaker 1: with my entire family and my immediate family. I see
Speaker 1: every day if I could, you know, I try to
Speaker 1: go see my grandkids every single day. It's hard because
Speaker 1: I got a lot going on, but you know, we
Speaker 1: do the regular stuff, you know, get together Sunday dinner
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. I have more of
Speaker 1: the house and um, you know, when I went in,
Speaker 1: I had um three sons. They were literally to one
Speaker 1: and Quentin was almost a new born. And um, when
Speaker 1: I got out, they were thirty and thirty one. So
Speaker 1: we had a lot of reconnecting to do, and and
Speaker 1: we've done that. We're good. We're in a good place.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, I've just been I've been really busy.
Speaker 1: I keep creating problems for myself, like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I watched my father with small business, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to be an entrepreneur. I'm kind of following his footsteps.
Speaker 1: So every time I start a little project in it,
Speaker 1: it's often running and it's I find another issue for myself.
Speaker 1: So you know, I, um, my first business was a
Speaker 1: smoothie shop. I opened a smoothe shop. It's been open
Speaker 1: for seven years now. And um, I currently have a
Speaker 1: coach store in in a major mall in Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: I'm opening my second smoothie shop as well. So I'm constantly,
Speaker 1: you know, busy, and I literally don't have a moment
Speaker 1: to breathe. But I take that over the previous twenty
Speaker 1: seven years any day. All right, we are getting to
Speaker 1: the end of our interview here, and I want to
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here and for sharing
Speaker 1: your stories. You know, something we like to do is
Speaker 1: close this show, um by giving the last word to
Speaker 1: our guest and Mark. You have been through so much
Speaker 1: and you have had such an amazing life experience. It
Speaker 1: would be my honor if you would be willing to
Speaker 1: share your closing argument with us. My story is, you know,
Speaker 1: as bad as it as it is, it's not the
Speaker 1: end of this thing. What happened to me, and and
Speaker 1: and how it happened to me and the way it
Speaker 1: was allowed to happen to me is a culture. What
Speaker 1: Francis Bloom did is a culture. It's accepted all the
Speaker 1: way to the top. And I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: got judges overlookings, overlooking trials. They see the stuff, they
Speaker 1: know something doesn't jib, and they oversee the trial and
Speaker 1: watch it happen. Right, This is a culture untiling unless
Speaker 1: we start to address it. Untilling unless district attorneys are
Speaker 1: held accountable for knowingly wrongfully getting a person convicted and
Speaker 1: watching him do three decades in jail knowing that their
Speaker 1: case wasn't a righteous case until they literally put in
Speaker 1: handcuffs for that. Until then, Unless that happens, this is
Speaker 1: gonna happen a lot more. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host, Lauren Bright Pacheco. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers Jason Flom and Kevin Wardace.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer this episode is Jackie Polly and our
Speaker 1: producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburne. Our editor is
Speaker 1: Roxandre Guidi. The music in this production is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well
Speaker 1: as Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can
Speaker 1: find me online at Lauren Bright Pacheco, and you can
Speaker 1: find my podcasts Murder and Oregon and Murder in Illinois
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcast and my latest Murder in Miami,
Speaker 1: is out this January. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode of Wrongful Conviction. As
Speaker 1: regular listeners will know, the show is usually hosted by
Speaker 1: Jason Flom, but this fall he invited an amazing group
Speaker 1: of guest hosts to bring their own talents and perspectives
Speaker 1: to the interview. I am honored to be closing out
Speaker 1: this season, which has included hosts like Ear Hustles, er
Speaker 1: Lon Woods, legal experts Chris Fabrikant and Laura and I Rider,
Speaker 1: author Gilbert King and Axonres, Patrick Pursley, and Jimmy Dennis.
Speaker 1: You can listen to all fifteen guest hosted episodes in
Speaker 1: the Wrongful Conviction Podcast Feed starting January nine. Pullitzer Prize
Speaker 1: winning journalist Maggie Freeling is back for a second season.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling features heartbreaking and inspiring stories
Speaker 1: of people who have been incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit,
Speaker 1: told in Maggie's unique personal style. Season two will shine
Speaker 1: a light on cases of wrongfully convicted women, a cause
Speaker 1: that Maggie is passionate about and one that doesn't get
Speaker 1: the attention it deserves. This is a must listen show
Speaker 1: for anyone interested in the real life impact of the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. Listen every Monday in the Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: Podcast Feed starting January nine,