Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Ben Bollen again from the podcast Stuff
Speaker 1: They Don't Want You to Know, and I'm back to
Speaker 1: introduce another one of my favorite episodes of Wrongful Conviction. However,
Speaker 1: before we do that, I'm here to tell you that
Speaker 1: coming up next week, there are some truly exciting things
Speaker 1: on the way from the Lava for Good team and myself,
Speaker 1: so be sure to tune in for that now. This
Speaker 1: week's release is another one that hits close to home
Speaker 1: for me. This is a story about a serial rapist
Speaker 1: that was perpetrating his crimes along a stretch of road
Speaker 1: that runs through Atlanta into a separate jurisdiction just north
Speaker 1: of the city, where only one of the police departments
Speaker 1: got it right and the other well. Their district attorney
Speaker 1: went to prison himself, so without any further ado, the
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction of Willie Pete Williams.
Speaker 2: This episode was recorded pre COVID at the Atlanta Innocence
Speaker 2: Network conference in twenty nineteen. On April fifth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: a woman was exiting her car at a parking lot
Speaker 2: just north of Atlanta when a man approached, asking about
Speaker 2: a woman named Carol. When he got close enough, he
Speaker 2: pulled a gun, forced her into the passenger seat, drove
Speaker 2: to a dead end, and proceeded to rape her. After
Speaker 2: the attack, the victim went to the hospital for a
Speaker 2: rape kit. With a well lit parking lot and over
Speaker 2: forty five minutes with her attacker, she was able to
Speaker 2: put together a composite sketch. On April tenth, a near
Speaker 2: identical incident occurred along the same stretch of road. A
Speaker 2: man approached a woman in a parking lot asking for
Speaker 2: carol before using a threat of violence to get her
Speaker 2: back into the car. However, this time the victim was
Speaker 2: able to talk the attacker into leaving.
Speaker 3: Before a rape occurred.
Speaker 2: The police showed this would be victim the composite sketch,
Speaker 2: and it appeared there was a serial rapist operating in
Speaker 2: the North Atlanta area. Then, on April twenty eighth, Willie
Speaker 2: Pete Williams, along with two of his friends, were stopped
Speaker 2: by police for suspicious behavior in the area of the attacks.
Speaker 2: Police noticed that Pete resembled the sketch and came up
Speaker 2: with a reason to arrest him, saying that he gave
Speaker 2: them false information in order to bring him in to
Speaker 2: be photographed. His photo was shown to both women for
Speaker 2: a positive ID. While Pete was locked up, three more
Speaker 2: attacks would occur with the same mom, but it was
Speaker 2: already too late. Pete Williams spent nearly twenty two years
Speaker 2: in prison before DNA testing proved that another man was
Speaker 2: responsible for all five attacks. This is Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 2: Jason Plumm. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: This episode is going to be a very unique one.
Speaker 2: We have with us Pete Williams, who served twenty two
Speaker 2: years in Georgia prisons for a rape he did not commit.
Speaker 2: Two rapes, actually they did not commit. And with him
Speaker 2: is Drew Finling, who is a how can I say,
Speaker 2: enigmatic character, famous for his work representing some of the
Speaker 2: top hip hop artis in the world, and he's also
Speaker 2: now the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Speaker 2: He got involved in criminal defense work because of Pete's case,
Speaker 2: but they never met it till today. Correct, So this
Speaker 2: is going to be a fun ride and I'm excited
Speaker 2: to be honest. So Pete, welcome, and the same to you, Drew. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: And like I always say, Pete, I'm sorry you're here,
Speaker 2: but I'm glad you're here. And I want to tell
Speaker 2: your story because I think it's an important story for
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons. I guess at the heart of
Speaker 2: it is a mistaken witness identification more than one actually,
Speaker 2: and it's a really important thing for us to talk
Speaker 2: about because it's so common. But can you take us
Speaker 2: back to I mean, this is a long time ago, right,
Speaker 2: because you were exonerating in two thousand and seven, yes,
Speaker 2: but the help of the Innocence Project. So this crime
Speaker 2: goes all the way back to the mid eighties.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, eighty five?
Speaker 2: And what were you up to back then? What was
Speaker 2: your life like? What was going on in Pete's world?
Speaker 4: Most An was working, I had dropped out of school,
Speaker 4: really didn't have much going on other than freedom.
Speaker 2: How old were you?
Speaker 3: I just had twenty three.
Speaker 2: So you're twenty three. You got charged with originally one.
Speaker 3: Rape, right, yeah, one way right at the time.
Speaker 2: And let's talk about this awful rape which occurred on
Speaker 2: April fifth, nineteen eighty five, which is when a woman
Speaker 2: arrived at her apartment complex parking lot along Roswell Road,
Speaker 2: just north of Atlanta, got out, but she got out,
Speaker 2: a man approached, pretending that he was looking for someone,
Speaker 2: but when he got close, he pulled a gun and
Speaker 2: forced her back into the car, then drove her at
Speaker 2: gunpoint to a dead end street where he raped her.
Speaker 2: Then he drove her back to her apartment complex, and
Speaker 2: then he left on foot. So the victim then went
Speaker 2: to the police and the hospital for a rape kit,
Speaker 2: which means there was a sample of the rapist DNA,
Speaker 2: And that becomes important later because after all, there was
Speaker 2: no DNA testing back in nineteen eighty five anyway, So
Speaker 2: later on though, we're going to get to that. So
Speaker 2: by now, the victim had spent a considerable amount of
Speaker 2: time with her attacker, and as a result, she was
Speaker 2: able to help the police put together a composite sketch.
Speaker 2: And this attacker had a particular mo too. Can you
Speaker 2: talk about that, Drew.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what had happened is Roswell Road is a
Speaker 5: very long stretch of road in Atlanta. I want to
Speaker 5: say it goes north and south, but I'm terrible with
Speaker 5: things like that. But the real rapist was trolling up
Speaker 5: and down and he would go to women and I
Speaker 5: think they would kind of be in their twenties and
Speaker 5: they would like blonde hair and blonde hair. And he
Speaker 5: would say the same like have you seen and I
Speaker 5: used to know the name Carol, Carol? Yeah, have you
Speaker 5: seen Carol? And then he'd take him in the car.
Speaker 2: Right. So, five days after the first rape, on April tenth,
Speaker 2: nearly the same thing occurred along Roswell Road, although this
Speaker 2: ended up being an attempted rape, but still the same, Hey,
Speaker 2: do you know Carol or where's Carol? Accept his second
Speaker 2: victim when he tried to get her to take off
Speaker 2: her clothes. I don't know how, but she was able
Speaker 2: to talk him out of raping her. She went to
Speaker 2: the police. They hear this similar MO from just five
Speaker 2: days before, and they show her the composite sketch and
Speaker 2: she agreed that this sketch resembled her would be rapist. So, Pete,
Speaker 2: you've got nothing to do with this. You had nothing
Speaker 2: to do this, but you lived in the area, So
Speaker 2: can you tell us how you were dragged into this?
Speaker 2: When you and two friends got pulled over on Roswell
Speaker 2: Road one night.
Speaker 3: I was riding out right on Roswell and it was
Speaker 3: stopping my car. It was stopped.
Speaker 4: I was passing on the car, So it was a
Speaker 4: compositive skates going around in that area. So the way
Speaker 4: that they arrested me, they told that I gave them
Speaker 4: false information. That's just to get me there and get
Speaker 4: my photograph, my picture to show the witness because I
Speaker 4: gave them information while I was staying everything adequate.
Speaker 2: Oh, you gave them accurate information.
Speaker 4: Yes, of course, yeah, And they said yeah, they said
Speaker 4: it was false. So you know, I couldn't all get
Speaker 4: the police. So you're stop by the police.
Speaker 2: They have this composite sketch in the back of their
Speaker 2: minds and they come up with a reason. They said
Speaker 2: that you gave them false information, which wasn't true, but
Speaker 2: they wanted an excuse to get your photograph to share
Speaker 2: with these two women because they thought that you looked
Speaker 2: enough like the sketch, so they arrested you.
Speaker 3: Then what I was there for a while.
Speaker 4: Wait, I was there maybe about four or five hours,
Speaker 4: but it was a relative cheap.
Speaker 3: Bomb, you know.
Speaker 4: So I was born out maybe three to four hours
Speaker 4: after I was arrested, and two weeks later I was
Speaker 4: truble was rape, accuvate uselt and accovate us solomy, and
Speaker 4: I was arrested and.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what they was talking about.
Speaker 2: Had you even heard about these?
Speaker 3: I didn't have the slightest idea.
Speaker 4: They said it was from POSSI circuling of rape was
Speaker 4: out in that area, and I resembled it.
Speaker 2: Now did that sketch actually resemble you? Yeah, it actually did, right,
Speaker 2: So so you resembled the sketch.
Speaker 3: So that was dead.
Speaker 4: I didn't, you know, I didn't. I haven't raped anybody.
Speaker 4: I just resembled it on positive sketch.
Speaker 2: The sketch resembled you. And then I'm presuming you were
Speaker 2: identified as well in the lineup on court.
Speaker 4: Oh, it was a lineup, and I was identified doing
Speaker 4: the trial as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know that I witness misidentification is the
Speaker 2: leading cause of runful convictions.
Speaker 5: And look, I'm just not the biggest believer in the
Speaker 5: composite sketch because the composite sketch becomes the perpetrator, not
Speaker 5: the perpetrator, and so it just happened to have favored him.
Speaker 5: And then it's the composite sketch and anybody that looks
Speaker 5: like them that replaces who the actual perpetrator is. So
Speaker 5: I'm just not a believer in the whole composite sketch thing.
Speaker 5: I just don't like where they lead, as in convictions
Speaker 5: of innocent people in cases like this.
Speaker 2: So the charges were rape, aggravated assault, and aggravated sod
Speaker 2: of me and true this is where you first entered
Speaker 2: the picture. He became aware of Pete's case, and this
Speaker 2: is at his trial where you were just a young
Speaker 2: man just out of law school pretty much right at.
Speaker 5: The time, I was twenty five years old. I was
Speaker 5: fresh out of law school, and I was an assistant
Speaker 5: public defender assigned to mister William's courtroom where his case
Speaker 5: took place. And I made it my practice then that
Speaker 5: was just watch every case I could. I got it
Speaker 5: up and I loved my job as a public defender,
Speaker 5: and I just had him to watch his case and
Speaker 5: then really started learning about it, and I watched the trial.
Speaker 5: So what had happened is Roswell Road is a very
Speaker 5: long stretch of road in Atlanta, but at some point
Speaker 5: along the road it is the city of Atlanta, and
Speaker 5: then it's no longer the city of Atlanta. Well, the
Speaker 5: real rapist because it wasn't mister Williams. Anybody that watched
Speaker 5: the trial would realize that because I watched the trial
Speaker 5: and I'll talk about that later, and it was obvious
Speaker 5: he was innocent. So, Jason, here's the crazy thing. One
Speaker 5: jurisdiction handling it was City of Atlanta police. On the
Speaker 5: other part of the road was Fulton County police. To
Speaker 5: this day, I don't know if anybody's looked into did
Speaker 5: they ever talk to one another? And in fact, if
Speaker 5: you remember, on the City of Atlanta side, the City
Speaker 5: of Atlanta police called the person the Roswell Road rapist.
Speaker 5: But yet on the other side of the sign was
Speaker 5: this case involving mister Williams. And I've apparently he got
Speaker 5: arrested and then eventually they arrested the other guy who
Speaker 5: I think pled out. Your case was on the ninth floor,
Speaker 5: His case was on the seventh floor. Was on the seven, Yeah,
Speaker 5: he was on seventh, on the eighth You're right, yeah,
Speaker 5: And he pled out during his trial and I went
Speaker 5: and watched his also, because the Public Defender's office did
Speaker 5: that case.
Speaker 2: Wait, how far apart were the two difference?
Speaker 5: I can't remember the dates they weren't too far apart.
Speaker 5: But I watched his and I read up on his
Speaker 5: and I was like, well, this guy did it, and
Speaker 5: it was astonishing, And.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the pattern, right, because for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: the attacker always did the same damn thing. Maybe he
Speaker 2: thought that this was an effective way of him grabbing
Speaker 2: these women, was by asking about this other woman, Carol
Speaker 2: or Carolyn. Why he was fixating on that, Yeah, but
Speaker 2: that was his thing. And he also had this car
Speaker 2: that broke down a lot because a number of the
Speaker 2: women and reported that. And what's crazy is that after
Speaker 2: Pete was arrested, and three more attacks happened with the
Speaker 2: same damn mL right, with exactly the same pattern, the
Speaker 2: exact same pattern. And in fact, this man was responsible
Speaker 2: clearly for all five attacks, but he only face charges
Speaker 2: related to those three, And so the other two attacks
Speaker 2: repined on you Pete and this other guy, Kenneth Wicker.
Speaker 2: He finally got caught because his last victim heroically was
Speaker 2: able to take down her attacker's license plate number. And
Speaker 2: it turned out that Wicker lived right along Roswell Road
Speaker 2: where all of these attacks were taking place, So it
Speaker 2: would seem obvious to the casual observer that the DA
Speaker 2: would hear about these other cases and this other arrest
Speaker 2: and immediately stopped focusing on you, Pete. But that's not
Speaker 2: what happened. And later all of this was brought up
Speaker 2: in Europe, and I'm talking as early as nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: but the DA just didn't fucking care about it then
Speaker 2: or while he was prosecuting you in the first place.
Speaker 5: Sir Jason, Pete and I we just met downstairs and
Speaker 5: we immediately engaged in a conversation about what I'm about
Speaker 5: to bring up which has bothered him to this day,
Speaker 5: and I'm going to tell it to you. And that
Speaker 5: is our system, right relies on ethical prosecutors. Unfortunately, for
Speaker 5: Pete Williams, his prosecutor turned out to be not so ethical,
Speaker 5: as we know from several things, including the fact that
Speaker 5: he's serving a life sentence in his own murder case
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor.
Speaker 5: The prosecutor, oh blot twist, yes, I mean yeah, and
Speaker 5: was also eventually charged not only with that murder, which
Speaker 5: he was found guilty of, but being the lawyer for
Speaker 5: a drug operation when he was in private practice. So
Speaker 5: not the best guy in the world. And I bring
Speaker 5: that up only because you would fathom that a decent,
Speaker 5: ethical prosecutor, which there are many of out there, would
Speaker 5: have realized this having been the lead prosecutor mister Williams case,
Speaker 5: and said, uh, oh, we got problems. And that never happened.
Speaker 5: He never had the ethics of a prosecutor that realized
Speaker 5: what you just said and wanted to put an end
Speaker 5: to his illegal incarceration. It just didn't happen, and there
Speaker 5: was a real breakdown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still trying to process this. This is a story.
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of stories and you know, doing
Speaker 2: this since the early nineties.
Speaker 5: The irony is Pete said to me outside we agreed.
Speaker 5: How come that didn't become the biggest part of the
Speaker 5: story of Pete Williams's illegal conviction and incarceration. As he said,
Speaker 5: I was serving my sentence and my prosecutor was hearting
Speaker 5: his sentence at the exact same time.
Speaker 2: Oh so he went to prison while you were in this.
Speaker 2: Well this is not the same.
Speaker 4: Prison, not the same prison, but he went doing mind cusurrection.
Speaker 2: Did you know that at the time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably it.
Speaker 5: Is on Tell me Jason was one of the biggest
Speaker 5: cases in the history of Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, I can't
Speaker 5: even think in my thirty plus years of practice of
Speaker 5: a federal case that they changed venue. It was such
Speaker 5: a big case. But they actually had to change venue
Speaker 5: to Birmingham in his federal case, his murder case, they
Speaker 5: changed venue as well, and did it somewhere in the woods.
Speaker 5: I don't know, rural Georgia, somewhere, but they actually moved
Speaker 5: his federal case to Birmingham because they just couldn't get
Speaker 5: a jury in Atlanta. Fred Tokars is his name. It
Speaker 5: was one of the biggest cases in the history of Atlanta.
Speaker 2: So I took a second to look up Fred Tokars
Speaker 2: and what I found out was batshit crazy, crazier than
Speaker 2: what Pete and Drew had said. This Georgia prosecutor went
Speaker 2: on to become a private attorney to some big time
Speaker 2: drug dealers, but besides representing them, he was also helping
Speaker 2: them hide their money in nightclubs, and eventually his wife, Sarah,
Speaker 2: threatened to blow the whistle on his illegal and the
Speaker 2: various activities, but instead of turning his life around, he
Speaker 2: plotted to have her kidnapped and killed in front of
Speaker 2: their four and six year old boys. Ricky and Mike.
Speaker 2: I mean, what the actual buck. He was convicted of
Speaker 2: racketeering in nineteen ninety four and eventually also convicted for
Speaker 2: Sarah's murder, receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 2: He was held in secret custody as a marked man,
Speaker 2: and since this interview is recorded, despite his more treacherous
Speaker 2: than usual situation in prison, Fred Tokers died in May
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty in a Pennsylvania prison hospital due to
Speaker 2: complications related to a neurological disorder.
Speaker 5: And that was the prosecutor that put mister Williams away.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's just an unbelievable twist of fate,
Speaker 2: right that the guy who was responsible for ruining your
Speaker 2: life ends up in May. The Pacers Foundation is a
Speaker 2: proud supporter of this episode and of the Last Mile organization,
Speaker 2: which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals
Speaker 2: successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation
Speaker 2: is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana,
Speaker 2: supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people and students.
Speaker 2: For more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation
Speaker 2: or the Last Mile program visit Pacersfoundation dot org or
Speaker 2: the Lastmile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
Speaker 2: a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
Speaker 2: and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
Speaker 2: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
Speaker 2: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
Speaker 2: they announced that work to reform the criminal justice system
Speaker 2: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Speaker 2: Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
Speaker 2: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 2: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 2: extensive work in the criminal justice area. You end up
Speaker 2: getting sentenced to basically a life sentence. Yeah, forty five
Speaker 2: years to life. And you were twenty four at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so forty five to life. And of course what I
Speaker 2: five the life really means life because ultimately it'd be
Speaker 2: sixty eight years old and they'd be asking you to
Speaker 2: lead guilty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the way to ad my sonos lined up
Speaker 4: fifteen teen and twenty do to fifteen one, I do
Speaker 4: to fifteen do to team finish the team do to twining.
Speaker 5: It was consecutive sentences.
Speaker 2: So how did you deal with this? I mean, you're
Speaker 2: behind bars, convicted rapist, looking at spending your the rest
Speaker 2: of your life there? How did you find the strength
Speaker 2: to even continue on and ultimately contact and reach out
Speaker 2: and get this incredible team behind you that led to
Speaker 2: your exoneration and you know, vindication.
Speaker 4: Mm. Well, my first ten year of priism, man, I
Speaker 4: was stayed in the whole segregation of fault all the time,
Speaker 4: in subordination because I felt like there was no hope,
Speaker 4: so I might as well be part of the prism,
Speaker 4: you know. And I met this guy after ten years.
Speaker 4: He's sung gospel and he always went to church, and
Speaker 4: he would always happen, you know, and he had more
Speaker 4: time than that. He had a life sent and some time,
Speaker 4: but he never showed it. He never showed it. And
Speaker 4: I wanted to know why, you know why. It wasn't
Speaker 4: about it, he said the church, Man, I seen in
Speaker 4: the gospel. It makes me feel better. So I used
Speaker 4: to go out and saying it first, because I really
Speaker 4: didn't know any gospels, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 4: once I got to going and listening to gospel, a
Speaker 4: few gospel songs, and I started liking it when I
Speaker 4: became part or choir for about five years, and that's
Speaker 4: where a guy was in there. He had a booklet
Speaker 4: concerning MCENT projects. So I got it and I started
Speaker 4: writing him and told him that it was I had
Speaker 4: some evidence.
Speaker 2: Was this Georgia and is project or New York and.
Speaker 3: Georgia and Georgia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And they got concerned to what kind of evidence
Speaker 4: you had? So I was writing 'em and I told 'em,
Speaker 4: and some way they got a hold of it. They
Speaker 4: said they had destroyed it here and what eighty seven?
Speaker 4: They said they destroyed all that.
Speaker 3: But Cliff.
Speaker 4: Some way, Cliff had talked to some at the GBI,
Speaker 4: being some female, and she allowed him.
Speaker 3: Back there and lo and behold, that was my uh evidence.
Speaker 2: And the evidence at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that
Speaker 2: Pete is referring to is the real rapist DNA sample
Speaker 2: from the rape kit, and they were finally able to
Speaker 2: test it to not only exclude Pete, but they also
Speaker 2: tested against the DNA of the man who had pleaded
Speaker 2: guilty to those other rapes that had happened during the
Speaker 2: same time period. A long roswell road and sure enough, Bengo,
Speaker 2: it's him. But of course this incredible revelation did not
Speaker 2: come without roadblocks and even being told that the evidence
Speaker 2: was destroyed, which we hear a lot when fighting cases
Speaker 2: like these, And Drew, let's go back to you on this.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it's just nuts that we don't have
Speaker 2: a nationwide standard for maintaining evidence. In fact, practices are
Speaker 2: different all over. Some are good and some are, like,
Speaker 2: let's face it, like a third world country.
Speaker 5: There's really no national consistency. And so you know when
Speaker 5: you say earlier, which I completely agree with, that we
Speaker 5: probably have well over one hundred thousand innocent people in
Speaker 5: our prison systems, and that's probably a low number. We
Speaker 5: think about if we had consistency in the preservation of evidence,
Speaker 5: what would we'd be able to do. It's really going
Speaker 5: to require a coordinated effort. But it's the only right
Speaker 5: thing to do.
Speaker 2: There's just absolutely no argument against it. There's nothing bad
Speaker 2: about preserving evidence.
Speaker 5: Well, there's nothing bad about preserving evidence. But then you
Speaker 5: hear about the Georgia Innocence Project. I went down to
Speaker 5: making on behalf of them and argued about just having
Speaker 5: somebody's testing done and prosecutors objected to testing being done.
Speaker 5: Why would you ever object to testing being done? Why
Speaker 5: would you ever object to being able to check off
Speaker 5: the list the possibility that somebody innocent is in jail
Speaker 5: for many years, if not their life. And it's that
Speaker 5: same type of flawed logic that would have some say, well,
Speaker 5: we don't need to take up the room, We don't
Speaker 5: need to do the logistics aren't there for storage. You
Speaker 5: could just fathom the arguments that are coming, you know,
Speaker 5: because prosecutors want to believe and law enforcement want to
Speaker 5: believe that once they have a conviction, it's the right conviction,
Speaker 5: and so you can always deal with that sentiment, which
Speaker 5: is wrong. Yeah, that's the sentiment. It's the same sentiment
Speaker 5: that dictates around the country when good folks are fighting
Speaker 5: a behalf of the innocents project to have testing done
Speaker 5: and they're in courtrooms at the podium facing prosecutors that
Speaker 5: don't want testing to be done.
Speaker 4: To me, why would you want to destroy ivernandek trio person.
Speaker 2: And identify the actual perpetrator like it does.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to think of that. I
Speaker 3: don't Thank.
Speaker 2: God they hadn't actually destroyed the evidence from your case
Speaker 2: because they actually exculpated you, and it ended up causing
Speaker 2: you to be released from prison on January twenty third,
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. And subsequently it matched up to
Speaker 2: Kenneth Wicker, who had already pleaded guilty all those years ago.
Speaker 2: He was then arrested on February ninth, two thousand and
Speaker 2: seven for the April fifth and tenth incidents. Then four
Speaker 2: days later, you were granted a new trial on February
Speaker 2: thith thirteenth, and the DA subsequently dropped all charges.
Speaker 4: Dropped all the charge you know, they took the rape
Speaker 4: and everything away from my report.
Speaker 2: So you were in court when.
Speaker 3: All the charges were actually dropped.
Speaker 2: And what was that like?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 2: Who was there? A lot of family? Was it a
Speaker 2: hot Yeah?
Speaker 4: My family, My family there, and there was a lot
Speaker 4: of people, you know, they was happy for me, you know,
Speaker 4: even people I didn't know, you know, like even the
Speaker 4: police is. And as a matter of fact, one of
Speaker 4: the police that was used to take me back and forth,
Speaker 4: the colt, and she came down and said, I always
Speaker 4: knew you was innocent.
Speaker 2: Wow, how'd that feel?
Speaker 3: Wonderful man, wonderful.
Speaker 2: And it's worth noting that in about fifty percent of
Speaker 2: the instance project cases where DNA has has exculpated an
Speaker 2: exonerate led to the exoneration of an innocent person. It
Speaker 2: has also led to the identification of the guilty person.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right, and in those cases, of course, that
Speaker 2: person has gone on to have committed other heinous crimes.
Speaker 3: Yes, when you.
Speaker 2: Lock up the wrong person, you stop looking for the
Speaker 2: right person, and then that person that's out there is
Speaker 2: most likely going to go and do what they did again.
Speaker 2: It's just a practical issue of we should all want
Speaker 2: to clean up these systems as best we can so
Speaker 2: that ourselves and our families are safe.
Speaker 5: I mean, well, you know, look, Jason, I think it's
Speaker 5: it's symptomatic of a larger issue. It's a symptomatic of
Speaker 5: our problem with mass incarceration of this country. I think
Speaker 5: it's all that is really tied in. We don't as
Speaker 5: defense attorneys and accuse citizens. You know, we don't control
Speaker 5: the fact that, as you well know, we represent five
Speaker 5: percent of the world's population, but closing in on twenty
Speaker 5: five percent of the world's incarcerated population. We don't dictate that.
Speaker 5: And I don't want this to be a session where
Speaker 5: I'm kind of talking about prosecutors, but they control so much.
Speaker 5: Pete's case is emblematic of the problem. You had a
Speaker 5: prosecutor with an antisocial disorder that went on to be
Speaker 5: involved in a murder himself, and as a twenty five
Speaker 5: year old, fresh out of law school kid, I watched
Speaker 5: what I thought was an unethical prosecution, and I watched
Speaker 5: a man lose his freedom because to this prosecutor, it
Speaker 5: was a game. It wasn't about justice, and that's why Peede,
Speaker 5: I made a decision that I was going to spend
Speaker 5: the rest of my life defending people because of your case.
Speaker 5: It was just a job. At that point. I didn't
Speaker 5: know anything about a public defender. I never even met
Speaker 5: a lawyer until my first law school class. I have
Speaker 5: humble beginnings, but your case dictated to me what I
Speaker 5: wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I
Speaker 5: watched that prosecutor game the system. It was just a
Speaker 5: game to him, and unfortunately, the power that being a
Speaker 5: prosecutor brings is often results in misguided prosecutions because they
Speaker 5: have the ability, if they handle ethically, to make sure
Speaker 5: to the best of their ability, that just doesn't happen
Speaker 5: to make sure that evidence is preserved, to make sure
Speaker 5: that there is proper identification procedures, and they have the
Speaker 5: ability to be that wall, that last wall of justice
Speaker 5: to say, you know, I don't I don't need a
Speaker 5: motion to suppress identification because as the prosecutor, I don't
Speaker 5: like the way this went down. We talk so much
Speaker 5: about ourselves as defense attorneys and what our job is,
Speaker 5: but we need to be spending a lot of time
Speaker 5: looking at the other side of the courtroom. And I
Speaker 5: get that there's integrity units closing up, but it needs
Speaker 5: to be a lot greater than that. It needs to
Speaker 5: be a lot better than just every once in a
Speaker 5: while a progressive prosecutor running for office. It needs to
Speaker 5: be all over the country because he has the benefit
Speaker 5: of this happening in Atlanta, But when we go to
Speaker 5: the rural South, the smaller communities in Mississippi and Alabama
Speaker 5: and Tennessee, sadly so a lot of Pete Williams that
Speaker 5: are serving life sentences from prosecutors that were as misguided
Speaker 5: and as corrupt as the one in his case.
Speaker 2: And that's why it's so important for people to get
Speaker 2: out and vote in prosecutor races because most people don't.
Speaker 2: The number of people that vote in these races is
Speaker 2: so small that if you don't think your vote makes
Speaker 2: a difference, it does. I mean we've seen races that
Speaker 2: ended up in a dead heat like Tiede. You know,
Speaker 2: like your vote is important. And if your one of
Speaker 2: these people think, oh, I'm not going to vote in
Speaker 2: the psidential election, it doesn't matter. Yes it does. It
Speaker 2: matters in the presidentialism, but it matters a lot more
Speaker 2: in your local elections where your your DA is running
Speaker 2: and you know, and electing a progressive prosecutor, which that's
Speaker 2: not even the right word, a fair prosecutor could affect
Speaker 2: your life as well, because this could happen to you,
Speaker 2: It could happen to Pete, it could happen to anybody.
Speaker 2: We see it over and over again on this show.
Speaker 2: And then let's even talk about it from a purely
Speaker 2: fiscal level, you know, for any conservatives that are listening,
Speaker 2: When we think about the amount of money that the
Speaker 2: tax of Georgia paid well upwards of a million dollars,
Speaker 2: probably closer to two million dollars to keep Pete locked up,
Speaker 2: and then any other income that he would have been
Speaker 2: able to earn and pay taxes on and you know
Speaker 2: all the rest of this stuff. That's a pretty big
Speaker 2: thing too. I just learned the other day on a
Speaker 2: tangential note, that we spend forty million dollars a day
Speaker 2: in America on pre trial detention, right just because people
Speaker 2: can't post bail. Forty million a day to lock people
Speaker 2: up who haven't been convicted of anything. That's a day.
Speaker 2: That's your tax dollars at work and mine, by the way,
Speaker 2: and whoever's listening, it's nuts. I mean, we lock up
Speaker 2: more people than Russia and China combined. Back to your
Speaker 2: previous point, we locked black people up at six times
Speaker 2: the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid.
Speaker 2: And if you're a woman listening, then you should just
Speaker 2: process this for a second, because while you know what
Speaker 2: Drew said is certainly scary and true about us having
Speaker 2: twenty five percent of the world's prison population, we have
Speaker 2: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. That
Speaker 2: means one out of every three women in prison in
Speaker 2: the world is in America, which is such a small
Speaker 2: country when you look at the vast world that's out there,
Speaker 2: and the more we can do to get out there
Speaker 2: and spread the message. And the more you do to
Speaker 2: get out there and vote and get active and volunteer,
Speaker 2: go to Georgia Innis's project a website, you know, learn more.
Speaker 2: Contact NACDL. What is it, NACDL dot org exactly, NACDL
Speaker 2: dot org. That's National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers dot org.
Speaker 5: So I'm glad you brought up kind of where people
Speaker 5: fall on the political continuum. You should know that the
Speaker 5: term just finished and there's a new governor here. But
Speaker 5: our last governor, Nathan dial As a Republican, two term Republican,
Speaker 5: and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers gave him
Speaker 5: a Champion I gave him a Champion of Justice Award
Speaker 5: for his work on criminal justice reform. And so you
Speaker 5: hit on it. No matter where you are, left wing,
Speaker 5: right wing, no wing, we are any period of time
Speaker 5: right now where people are really focusing on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 5: And I think that you bring up all the numbers,
Speaker 5: they're startling and it can impact anybody, you know, whether
Speaker 5: it's the fact that our prison systems are warehousing the
Speaker 5: mentally ill an adult autistic population. There's so many things
Speaker 5: that attract people. The National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers.
Speaker 5: As you know, we have our foundation for criminal justice
Speaker 5: and we really embrace non lawyers to be part of it.
Speaker 5: Our long term goal is to get non lawyers into
Speaker 5: our leadership track. Let them be trustees. We need people
Speaker 5: to reach out to us. We just want everyday citizens
Speaker 5: to be involved, come to our meetings, and Jason's right,
Speaker 5: there may not be an election that may impact your
Speaker 5: life more than who your local district attorney is. Have
Speaker 5: them answer to your questions. Folks need to take these
Speaker 5: stories to heart, and which is why this podcast is
Speaker 5: so important. They need to understand that not everybody is
Speaker 5: going to be blessed with the opportunity to connect up
Speaker 5: with the Innocence Project. So listen to podcasts like this
Speaker 5: and get involved the most you can.
Speaker 2: And that is once again an ACDL dot org National
Speaker 2: Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Now we have this tradition
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction, which is my favorite part of the show,
Speaker 2: which is where I get to just sit back and
Speaker 2: listen and I leave the microphones on for you guys
Speaker 2: for any closing thoughts that you want to share. And
Speaker 2: because Pete is the honored guest here, not that you're not,
Speaker 2: but you know, he's the star of the show. I'm
Speaker 2: going to let him go last, and so drew any
Speaker 2: parting shots.
Speaker 5: Pete. I just want to wish you the best and
Speaker 5: let you know that the tragedy that occurred to you
Speaker 5: influence the course of my existence. So my family, all
Speaker 5: my clients, I want to hug you.
Speaker 2: Pete.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 4: I'm glad y'all had it broadcast to let people know
Speaker 4: that things like that actually happen. People do go to
Speaker 4: jail wrong for their convicted, and I'm just glad you
Speaker 4: all been a publan note that these things actually happen.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 2: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clibern.
Speaker 2: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 2: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 2: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 2: Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 5: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 5: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 5: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
Speaker 5: and do not necessarily reflect those of love of for
Speaker 5: Good