Speaker 1: On March seventeenth, two armed and masked men robbed a
Speaker 1: bank in Saint Louis, Missouri, and fatally shot a security
Speaker 1: guard named Richard Heflin in the process. As part of
Speaker 1: their plan to destroy evidence and evade captured, they had
Speaker 1: pre soaked the getaway van with gasoline, but before they
Speaker 1: got to switch from the van to a second getaway vehicle,
Speaker 1: the van caught fire. One assailant, Norris Holder, was arrested
Speaker 1: at the scene, but the second assailant escaped and was
Speaker 1: described as a black man about five nine, with singed
Speaker 1: hair and an injured right hand. Norris Holder told investigators
Speaker 1: that the escape b was named John, but later changed
Speaker 1: that name to Bill. Police arrested an acquaintance of Holders
Speaker 1: named Billy Allen. Other than being black, Billy did not
Speaker 1: match the initial descriptions, but curiously was somehow identified by
Speaker 1: four witnesses, including Holder. Imagine being selected for this jury
Speaker 1: and hearing investigators testify about an alleged confession, as well
Speaker 1: as that four witnesses, including the only other assailant, identified
Speaker 1: Billy Allen. You might feel pretty confident in your verdict,
Speaker 1: Yet here we are, almost a quarter century later to
Speaker 1: publicly reveal for the very first time, case breaking exculpatory
Speaker 1: evidence from the state's own files that was ignored by
Speaker 1: both the prosecution and the defense. Did I mentioned they
Speaker 1: send them to death? This is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction. Today we're going to do something I
Speaker 1: don't think we've ever done before, which is that we're
Speaker 1: covering a federal death penalty case. And we're honored. I'm
Speaker 1: honored to have Professor Mark Howard, leader of the Making
Speaker 1: an Exono Reprogram at Georgetown. So Mark, welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. Great to be back. Jason, thanks, And with
Speaker 1: Mark is his distinguished co professor who has also been
Speaker 1: on the podcast before more than once for the right
Speaker 1: and the wrong reasons. Marty tank Cliff was wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: himself and served seventeen years when Marty was wrong for
Speaker 1: convicted of murdering his parents, and of course he's been
Speaker 1: exonerated and we become great friends. And he also is
Speaker 1: Mark's childhood friend and the co professor now at Georgetown
Speaker 1: of the Making an Exono re Program. So Marty Tankliffe Esquire,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. You know the fact that we're
Speaker 1: all here today is a beautiful thing, but it's also
Speaker 1: an extremely troubling thing because we're here today to talk
Speaker 1: about Billy Allen, who has been on death row in
Speaker 1: the federal system for a quarter of a century. However,
Speaker 1: since he was nineteen years old. I appreciate you, you you know,
Speaker 1: you all taking an interest in my story and wanted
Speaker 1: to tell it. Well, Billy, yours is a story that
Speaker 1: definitely needs to be told, so welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: But before we get into all the details, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear about your life before this horrible scenario took place.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up in a house with three
Speaker 1: sisters on the north side of St. Louis, which was,
Speaker 1: I guess you can save, flooded with drugs, a lot
Speaker 1: of violence and stuff like that. Even though I lived
Speaker 1: in the under privileged neighborhood, I went to school in
Speaker 1: a privileged neighborhood. Platon, Missouri is considered probably one of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest places in Missouri. You know, no matter if
Speaker 1: I go out to the play school district and I'm
Speaker 1: around rich people, I still have to deal with my surroundings.
Speaker 1: When I come home. You're like, where do I fit
Speaker 1: in in things? It sounds like you had a foothold
Speaker 1: in these two sort of opposit worlds of halves and
Speaker 1: have nots, which sounds like it could be pretty confusing.
Speaker 1: So after you graduated high school and leading up to
Speaker 1: March of ninety seven, what were you up to, to
Speaker 1: be honest with people, You know, I was hustling at
Speaker 1: the time. You know, I wasn't a big drug dealer
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I was just hustling at the time.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I was trying to find
Speaker 1: my way at the time, and that's why I met
Speaker 1: the you know, the girl I ended up with who
Speaker 1: I was going to move in with, you know, because
Speaker 1: basically I was going to get a job, stop selling
Speaker 1: drugs and just I guess you can say starting my
Speaker 1: growth not only for her, but she had a daughter,
Speaker 1: so I was trying to be better for all of them.
Speaker 1: So you're at a crossroads, and it sounds like you
Speaker 1: were choosing a more promising path. But your connection to
Speaker 1: the old neighborhood happened to bring you into contact with
Speaker 1: one of the actual bank robbers in this case, Norris Holder.
Speaker 1: You had met him through job corps once and then
Speaker 1: had a chance encounter with him years later. Apparently you
Speaker 1: had sold him some weed once or vice versa, and
Speaker 1: it was this chance meeting and short lived hang out
Speaker 1: just just a few days before Holder committed this crime
Speaker 1: that even put you into the realm of possibilities. I mean,
Speaker 1: how well did you even know this older guy? Why
Speaker 1: didn't know Holder? Per se? I guess you can say
Speaker 1: the way they tried to, you know, sell the story
Speaker 1: to my jury. When I was at the club one
Speaker 1: day order I knew one of his friends he was with,
Speaker 1: you know, just from my neighborhood, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: we end up just talking. So he's like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: you know, let's hook up one day, just being cordial
Speaker 1: with people. Plus, like I said, I knew the guy
Speaker 1: he was with. Then a few days, you know later,
Speaker 1: I get a call from him, you know, basically like
Speaker 1: hey man, you know, I'm gonna go to the mall
Speaker 1: and you know, I got some weed, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm I'm in now. But for them to make
Speaker 1: it seem like we were friends, we were plot in
Speaker 1: this crime or anything like that, how can you say
Speaker 1: that that I would involve myself in a you know,
Speaker 1: in a crime of this magnitude with somebody I didn't
Speaker 1: even know, right, it doesn't make a whole hell of
Speaker 1: a lot of sense until you consider the investigators in
Speaker 1: this case, one of whom Joseph Nickerson is on the St.
Speaker 1: Louis d a's do not testify list, which is, by
Speaker 1: the way, exactly what it sounds like. He's not allowed
Speaker 1: to testify in cases because he lies so much. He's
Speaker 1: the detective, by the way, from another egregious wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: case out of St. Louis, Lamar Johnson, who is still
Speaker 1: awaiting justice. And Lamar also did some drug dealing, as
Speaker 1: did Billy, so they were typical targets for this Nickerson guy.
Speaker 1: In Lamar's case, Nickerson fabricated a narrative from alleged witness statements,
Speaker 1: but these witnesses later denied saying any of the things
Speaker 1: Nickerson had attributed to them, So you know, just sat
Speaker 1: around just making ship up. He perjured himself to make
Speaker 1: Lamar's culpability even plausible. And then there's a cash incentivized
Speaker 1: eyewitness who was convinced by investigators that the massed gunman
Speaker 1: in this case was Lamar Johnson, so he went along
Speaker 1: with the idea which you'll see in a bit, sounds
Speaker 1: eerily similar to what happened in this case. Now, I
Speaker 1: believe his partner, a guy named Carol, is actually doing
Speaker 1: time now for assaulting someone who was in custody. So
Speaker 1: it's patterns like these that give a helpful context to
Speaker 1: what happened in Billie's case. So let's get to that
Speaker 1: the morning of March seventeenth. Where were you actually that
Speaker 1: that faithful morning. I had left the house early that morning,
Speaker 1: like at eight o'clock in the morning. They claimed that
Speaker 1: I had called holder and told them let's get ready
Speaker 1: for the crime and all this stuff from the house.
Speaker 1: But how can I call you from the household. I'm
Speaker 1: already gone, you know. So I get to the mall
Speaker 1: early in the morning, and my first stop is to
Speaker 1: the hat zone. So I went to foot locker, and
Speaker 1: I went to another story foot quarters, and right after that,
Speaker 1: I went to Famous in Bar, which is a clothing store.
Speaker 1: I went to this tuxedo place, and so as I'm chopping, basically,
Speaker 1: I see Christagogue. Now Christagogue is a security guard who
Speaker 1: was after the mall to pick up his paycheck. He
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, I'm just going to pick up my checking,
Speaker 1: and I planned to go to another mall to do
Speaker 1: some shopping and stuff like that. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: can I ride with you? I was like, look, I
Speaker 1: just got to drop a few items off to a
Speaker 1: girl I was dating, and so he was like okay.
Speaker 1: So he went to pick up his chick and we
Speaker 1: left them all and I dropped off a few items
Speaker 1: for her baby and basically gave us some money because
Speaker 1: we were moving in together, and left. So you've been
Speaker 1: out of the house since eight am. At the mall
Speaker 1: where you visited, several stores, made several points of contact,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about people who were disinterested alibi witnesses
Speaker 1: to people who didn't know you. And there was also
Speaker 1: surveillance footage. So all the great alibi evidence of places
Speaker 1: you away from the scene at the time of the crime,
Speaker 1: none of it was investigated or later presented on your behalf.
Speaker 1: So while you were shopping across town, there was this
Speaker 1: bank robbery going on at the Lindelle Bank and Trust,
Speaker 1: which is Caddy corner from this huge park in St.
Speaker 1: Louis that houses the St. Louis Zoo, several museums, landmarks,
Speaker 1: and golf course, skating rink, and this area is known
Speaker 1: as far As Park. Again. This is March seven, around
Speaker 1: five am, when two masked and armed men busted down
Speaker 1: the door and told everybody to get on the ground.
Speaker 1: There were two bank robbers who stole fifty thou dollars
Speaker 1: and a security guard named Richard Heflin was killed in
Speaker 1: the process of that robbery. And then the two men
Speaker 1: left the scene in a getaway van, drove to Forest
Speaker 1: Park and they had a plan apparently to set the
Speaker 1: van on fire and then get away in a different
Speaker 1: vehicle that they planted there. But the van had actually
Speaker 1: been pre soaked in gasoline and exploded and caught on
Speaker 1: fire inside the park before sort of the full extent
Speaker 1: of their plan and getaway plan could work. And so
Speaker 1: the driver, a guy named Norris Holder, was still on
Speaker 1: fire himself and was pulled out of the car, and
Speaker 1: then the second suspect ran away, so Holder was in
Speaker 1: custody almost immediately. And I've listened to the dispatch tapes
Speaker 1: from that morning. It sounds pretty chaotic, but ultimately it
Speaker 1: sounds like a team of folks trying to bring the
Speaker 1: bank robbers and murderers of this bank security guard to justice.
Speaker 1: And this is so important. Every one of them described
Speaker 1: a blackmail about five eight to five ten, wearing gray
Speaker 1: sweats and a blue and red colored jacket, and they
Speaker 1: said he had singed hair understandably since the pan was
Speaker 1: on fire, and an injured right hand. They never described
Speaker 1: the person with a beard. And I had a beard
Speaker 1: at the time, or if I was the person who
Speaker 1: walked up to you and asked you for directions, wouldn't
Speaker 1: that be one of the most descriptive things you can
Speaker 1: point out about an individual. Had it actually been you,
Speaker 1: they would have mentioned a beard, right, That's a that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big detail for everybody to leave out. But
Speaker 1: they did not say that. They also would have said
Speaker 1: over six two instead of around five nine. Big difference there.
Speaker 1: Six two is tall five nine. Most people would say
Speaker 1: a short for a man. And when you were eventually
Speaker 1: picked up, your right hand was not injured and your
Speaker 1: hair was not burned in any way. So if you
Speaker 1: listen to all of the dispatch tapes as we did,
Speaker 1: the story remains the same. In the immediate aftermath, the
Speaker 1: assailant came over a hill from the direction of the
Speaker 1: burning van. He went toward the fence line and allegedly
Speaker 1: told them that his van caught fire and he needed
Speaker 1: to get to the metro link. Both park workers, you know,
Speaker 1: when they first came forward, they claimed that all they
Speaker 1: did was gave him directions to the metro link. The
Speaker 1: thing about it is when we get the trial, both
Speaker 1: park workers changed their story. They claimed they gave the
Speaker 1: person a ride outside of the park. Do you know
Speaker 1: I have their actual recordings or police officer is standing
Speaker 1: right with them calling into dispatch the Warnestree Division supervisor
Speaker 1: that forestry workers all the second subject he was running
Speaker 1: east from the burning van by a construction trailer. This
Speaker 1: about Jordie George Easter the heading right over here by
Speaker 1: the fence line. There's a hole in the sounds floor
Speaker 1: with who had adaptly win He tugh with them and
Speaker 1: metro LINKA and afore we got the information. You don't
Speaker 1: really want that. Everybody's what you happened after we had it.
Speaker 1: Loved to the big robber stud in guard that the
Speaker 1: stubdic would life staying call and understood the new metro
Speaker 1: Lake that I have it on a plate punds and
Speaker 1: have on a multi colors y. The park workers just
Speaker 1: told them that they gave the person directions right, These
Speaker 1: park workers along with everyone else at this point, we're
Speaker 1: just feeding in whatever they could to help nab this guy,
Speaker 1: no other agenda. They pointed him in the right direction
Speaker 1: and he left got away whatever through a hole in defense. Importantly,
Speaker 1: not in someone's car. Giving this assailant a ride outside
Speaker 1: the park would really make for a much more credible
Speaker 1: I D. Which is why we believe this story changed
Speaker 1: by the time of trial. But back to the immediate aftermath. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the effort to close it on the second assailant was unsuccessful,
Speaker 1: and they were hoping to get something out of Holder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when Holder was arrested, he said the person wouldn't was
Speaker 1: m guy named John. Then they with the defining and say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: whoever is the least culpable is who might get leniency
Speaker 1: in this case. So basically you need to provide us
Speaker 1: you know where the story you know, or something that
Speaker 1: can help us out or help you out. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, he switches from John and he mentioned
Speaker 1: my name. So now he's given them something concrete, a
Speaker 1: full name, and not just a name that feels chosen
Speaker 1: at random. That's the thing. He didn't even know my
Speaker 1: last name he just said, Bill, Just Bill. That's it.
Speaker 1: I'll show you where Bill lives. Now. The thing about
Speaker 1: the John's situation is this. Throughout the reports, does a
Speaker 1: person named JB who was connected to Holder? We think
Speaker 1: JB is his cousin. I can't, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to falsely accuse anybody or anything like that, you know,
Speaker 1: but that's this is what the reports are basically saying.
Speaker 1: It's my belief that Holder is using me as escape
Speaker 1: go to protect somebody who was close to So now
Speaker 1: you had no idea what was coming your way. Did
Speaker 1: you even know that this bank robbery had taken place? Well,
Speaker 1: I did see the crimes. You go on the news
Speaker 1: when they arrested Holder, and so I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not involving, so it doesn't really draw
Speaker 1: my attention to it. Next thing, I know, I'm at
Speaker 1: the apartment, you know, with the girl I was living
Speaker 1: with at the time, and I hear some banging on
Speaker 1: the door and don't know what the hell is going
Speaker 1: on or anything like that. FBI and police officers come
Speaker 1: to my door. They arrest me, and the first thing
Speaker 1: I tell them I had the clothes and everything that
Speaker 1: I had bought on the couch, and I told the officers, look,
Speaker 1: you're arresting the wrong person. Here are all the items.
Speaker 1: The receipts are still in the back, the clothes are
Speaker 1: still in the back, and I'm like, look, just go
Speaker 1: to the mall and ask to see the surveillance footage
Speaker 1: and basically you'll see that I have an alibi at
Speaker 1: the time to crime took place. You know, you can't
Speaker 1: beat a video, and so they were basically just yessing
Speaker 1: me off. And so they took me down to the
Speaker 1: homicide office, and that's when I kept repeating the same
Speaker 1: story and that they can talk to Christian gag who
Speaker 1: was a security guard at the time, to find out
Speaker 1: whether or not I was at the mall. Yeah, But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: they weren't interested in solving the case. They were interested
Speaker 1: in fixing the facts to match the name that they
Speaker 1: got from Norris Holder. So I mean, I'm using facts
Speaker 1: very loosely there. So you were arrested around two am.
Speaker 1: What happened next When I was in the homicide office,
Speaker 1: it's two officers that came and talked to me, Thomas
Speaker 1: Carroll and Joseph Nickerson. Now I told both officers I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: you all can go to the mall, you all can
Speaker 1: get the recordings, and you all can see that I
Speaker 1: have an alibi. Now, they claimed they went to the mall,
Speaker 1: yet for some reason, there's no surveillance footage that can
Speaker 1: be found. I believe they have this footage because I believe,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing. I reported about this before the
Speaker 1: Lamar Johnson case. I reported that they were probably withholding
Speaker 1: this evidence, and come to find out years later they
Speaker 1: withhold recordings of Lamar Johnson case. So it's like a
Speaker 1: pattern down there dealing with these officers, a pattern that
Speaker 1: is unfortunately valent in St. Louis, and let's face it,
Speaker 1: around this whole country as our alleged false confessions or
Speaker 1: fabricated statements, which we'll get into in a bit. But first,
Speaker 1: what happened in that interrogation room when I first came
Speaker 1: in and as they reported their reports, you know, like
Speaker 1: I told him, look, I didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with the crime. So this is when you know both
Speaker 1: of them, you know, officers were like, okay, well if
Speaker 1: you didn't commit this crime and give us your DNA.
Speaker 1: I'm like, sure, shoot, I ain't gonnaunerdo what did you
Speaker 1: can have it? When I was in prison, I used
Speaker 1: to always ask guys who would say they're innocent. One
Speaker 1: of the first person I said, would you be want
Speaker 1: to do with DNA test? And almost ninety nine point
Speaker 1: nine percent of the people who were really innocent said,
Speaker 1: I will do a DNA test. I will do any
Speaker 1: forensic tests that I can do to prove my innocence.
Speaker 1: And Billy falls into the category who said I want
Speaker 1: to do anything and everything possible. Next thing they do,
Speaker 1: they'd sell the van you know that would use in
Speaker 1: the crime was soaked in gasoline. You know, so if
Speaker 1: you don't have any gasoline on your clothes, you know,
Speaker 1: that can help prove that you weren't there. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're here, you can have all of my clothes. So
Speaker 1: I willingly gave him my DNA and my clothes. I
Speaker 1: mean the fact that this entire case was covered in gasoline,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and Billy has none on him. They
Speaker 1: tested the co defendant. His clothes were sure enough, every
Speaker 1: inch of them had gasoline residue on him. Billy had
Speaker 1: a credible alibi. DNA test results came back negative. They
Speaker 1: left open the question whose DNA is it and that
Speaker 1: hasn't been pursued, hasn't been shown, but it's certainly not Billy's.
Speaker 1: So take take us back there, Billy to the interrogation
Speaker 1: and I d process. Next thing I know, FBI agent
Speaker 1: comes into the room. But agent Jan Hartman, you know,
Speaker 1: she started reading my rights. This is the first time
Speaker 1: I was ever read my right. So I'm like, well, look,
Speaker 1: I want a lawyer from the court period. I'm done talking.
Speaker 1: I don't have anything to say. You all are gonna
Speaker 1: believe me. So, according to her trial testimony, she never
Speaker 1: told on anybody about my request for an attorney. So
Speaker 1: one officer comes in, he conducted the lineup. I'm like, well, look,
Speaker 1: you know where's my attorney at And he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't need an attorney for this. I'm like,
Speaker 1: but I asked for one. He's like, well, you can
Speaker 1: get one afterwards. So they took me to the lineup.
Speaker 1: And now here's the crazy part about this lineup. I'm
Speaker 1: the tallest person in their day. I'm line up. They
Speaker 1: have nobody close to six two in this lineup, Nobody
Speaker 1: who looks like me in this lineup. And to make
Speaker 1: matters worse, he puts me in position number three. I
Speaker 1: am the tallest person in the thing, and I'm beside
Speaker 1: the two shortest people inside there. So basically you're giving
Speaker 1: people the person you want them to pick. Not only
Speaker 1: is it suggestive, but it's also telling about the description
Speaker 1: they had exactly five eight, five ten. And like our
Speaker 1: line up, a lot of people when they envision lineup,
Speaker 1: they envision you behind the glass and the witnesses are
Speaker 1: outside of the thing. The St. Louis if they have
Speaker 1: a piece of cloth, it's like a black piece of
Speaker 1: cloth right there, so you can see. You can actually
Speaker 1: see the damned person who's basically identifying you, you know,
Speaker 1: and you can hear him. And this is just how
Speaker 1: hilarious my lineup was. This lady I'll mcgillion. You know,
Speaker 1: they were telling her, well, can you identify the person
Speaker 1: you saw? She picks the person in position number two. Now,
Speaker 1: if you look at this person in my line up photo,
Speaker 1: this dude has a freaking full beard. He looks nothing
Speaker 1: like me, and he fits the description that she gave
Speaker 1: of the person she saw at the crime. So now
Speaker 1: I hear this guy he comes in and say, hey,
Speaker 1: look we think it's the guy in position number three.
Speaker 1: Can we bring him forward and you look at him?
Speaker 1: She was like are you sure? You're like yeah, So
Speaker 1: they tell the number two guys go back, and they
Speaker 1: take me out of the lineup, and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you might be right. Wow. If you go
Speaker 1: to my transcripts, she will tell you she picked the
Speaker 1: guy in position number two. So why would you pick
Speaker 1: somebody five, a full beard, full head of hair, and
Speaker 1: yet all of a sudden you switch your account to
Speaker 1: somebody six to small beard at the time. So come
Speaker 1: to find out, you know, in the dispatch tape, she
Speaker 1: actually is reporting that she couldn't even describe the person
Speaker 1: she saw. This is on their own recordings. My attorney
Speaker 1: didn't find it. It was never presented on my defense
Speaker 1: or anything. But yet this woman was allowed to pick
Speaker 1: somebody in position number two who was clearly different than
Speaker 1: I was, and then basically come to court changed her story,
Speaker 1: claimed that she never told the officers that. And then
Speaker 1: we have the recordings to prove that the prosecutors presented
Speaker 1: false testimony. And this wasn't the only time the prosecutors
Speaker 1: not only put on false testimony in this case, nor
Speaker 1: was it the last time that one of the quote
Speaker 1: unquote eyewitnesses picked someone out when they had no business
Speaker 1: doing so, because they admitted not having seen the assailant,
Speaker 1: like the guy who had followed the van from the
Speaker 1: bank to the park, William Green. William Green walked in
Speaker 1: the room. Like I said, you can clearly hear what
Speaker 1: the person is telling them, you know, talking to the witnesses.
Speaker 1: He comes in the door and he tells them, look,
Speaker 1: I can't identify anybody. You know what the officer tells him,
Speaker 1: just pick anybody, And that's exactly what he does. He
Speaker 1: just he just get a random pick. He never picked me.
Speaker 1: But why would you even take that chance? The same
Speaker 1: reason we have to remind people that black lives matter,
Speaker 1: as well as why that statement has ever met with
Speaker 1: any pushback. Exactly, I'm no for a fact, my life
Speaker 1: didn't matter. When you're going through that, when you're sitting
Speaker 1: in this situation that you're hearing these things going on,
Speaker 1: you're like, man, what did I do to deserve this?
Speaker 1: Why are these people doing what they're doing when basically
Speaker 1: everything shows that they're lying. This episode is underwritten by
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Speaker 1: G is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and
Speaker 1: in recognition of a i g s commitment to criminal
Speaker 1: and social justice reform, the a i G pro Bono
Speaker 1: Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented
Speaker 1: communities and individuals. So you have two witnesses who admitted
Speaker 1: in front of you that their identifications were entirely invalid.
Speaker 1: And then you have these two park workers who said
Speaker 1: that they gave the assailant a ride and that the
Speaker 1: assailant was not wearing a mask, so they got a
Speaker 1: good look. As we already pointed out, the dispatch tapes
Speaker 1: proved that these two accounts were also lies. They were
Speaker 1: standing there with the police saying that they had pointed
Speaker 1: the assailant towards the metrolink, But my attorney never presented
Speaker 1: this recording. I found the recorder a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: so I just found out about them because I kept
Speaker 1: telling everybody, I'm like, look, I know these guys in
Speaker 1: line they would be you know. Everybody was like well
Speaker 1: we you know, you have to prove it. So I knew,
Speaker 1: um they had turned over these dispatched tape transcripts, but
Speaker 1: they only gave me six pages. Do you know the
Speaker 1: actual recording is over an hour and a half long.
Speaker 1: My producer transcribed these tapes. The ninety minutes segment you're
Speaker 1: talking about comes out to thirty nine pages, and that's
Speaker 1: what the artificial intelligence transcriber missing a lot of the
Speaker 1: actual words. So basically, they withheld the fact that they
Speaker 1: knew that both park workers were lying that or they
Speaker 1: were counting on your attorney not doing his job. So
Speaker 1: we already heard about al mcgillian and William Green. So
Speaker 1: what happened when these park workers walked into the lineup room?
Speaker 1: When William Green didn't pick me out? The officer walked,
Speaker 1: you know, William Green out, and you see the two
Speaker 1: park workers. I literally when they opened the door, you
Speaker 1: can see the two park workers standard side by side,
Speaker 1: and they were like, look, you know, we think it's
Speaker 1: the guy in position number three. Before they even walk
Speaker 1: into the room, they were like, yeah, yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: guy in position number three. And the officer tells him, no,
Speaker 1: you will have to come in and identify him so
Speaker 1: we can put it on records. So they come in
Speaker 1: and pick me in position number three. That's how they
Speaker 1: got me. So this total sham identification procedure where all
Speaker 1: the witnesses already and willing to help out the boys
Speaker 1: in blue with whatever they need, plus Norris Holder, who's
Speaker 1: incentivized to try to avoid the death penalty, even though
Speaker 1: that ended up backfiring for him. This is essentially that's
Speaker 1: all they had against you. All the other evidence, or
Speaker 1: let's call it, but it is, the actual evidence told
Speaker 1: a totally different story. They tested holders clothes for traces
Speaker 1: of gasoline. I'm talking about the shoes, his sox, his pants,
Speaker 1: his shirt, his T shirt. Everything he had on came
Speaker 1: back positive for traces of gasoline. I gave you my clothes.
Speaker 1: Not a single trace of gasoline was found on anything,
Speaker 1: and they knew that as well as that you didn't
Speaker 1: match any of the physical descriptions. You didn't have the
Speaker 1: injury your right hand that was described the witnesses, an
Speaker 1: injury that would have explained the blood left behind on
Speaker 1: the strap to a bullet proof vest. It was tested
Speaker 1: for both yours and the victim's DNA, both negative. Yet still,
Speaker 1: some how, some way they chose to believe holder and
Speaker 1: basically rigged the I D process. But they didn't stop
Speaker 1: with just one fix. Your attorney could have found all
Speaker 1: of this evidence. So they needed some more, right, you know,
Speaker 1: they wanted me to confess to the crime, and I
Speaker 1: told him I don't have anything to do with this crime.
Speaker 1: So you maintain your innocence throughout your quote unquote I
Speaker 1: did in that fixed lineup. But now when you're going
Speaker 1: to trial, you received discovery. Next thing I know, I
Speaker 1: read a report a few days later basically saying that
Speaker 1: I confessed the crime. There's get this, not a single
Speaker 1: piece of evidence to show that a confession ever took place. Well,
Speaker 1: to me, it's a perfect example of a larger phenomenon
Speaker 1: that we know well, which is that when there's this
Speaker 1: pressure to close a case, they start making ship up
Speaker 1: so they feel like they need a little bit more
Speaker 1: on Billy Ell and so hey, he confessed. Well, where's
Speaker 1: the evidence of this confession? Was it recorded? No? Where
Speaker 1: their notes? Yes? Okay, then where are the notes? We
Speaker 1: don't have them anymore. We lost them, we threw it away.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that's just bullshit. Beginning middle to end.
Speaker 1: They didn't even say they lost it, which would have Like,
Speaker 1: you know, they said they threw it away. So I
Speaker 1: mean they threw away the only evidence that they had
Speaker 1: that this alleged confession ever took place. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not um, I'm not really. Usually they say it
Speaker 1: was lost in a flood. We've heard that in a
Speaker 1: number of cases. Yeah, we had it, but it was
Speaker 1: lost in a flood. In this case, they say, no,
Speaker 1: we threw it away. They claimed that after the line off,
Speaker 1: I demanded to speak to a Lieutenant Henderson because I
Speaker 1: allegedly knew him from a previous case. The previous case
Speaker 1: they mentioned is a friend of mine. He was murdered.
Speaker 1: We were the victims in that case. And basically they
Speaker 1: so they used my friend's murder to say that I
Speaker 1: confessed to this black officer because I knew him and
Speaker 1: I trusted him. Now, I kept telling my lawyer's I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know this guy. One thing I do
Speaker 1: know is that when my friend was killed, there wasn't
Speaker 1: one black officer that came to their climb scene that day.
Speaker 1: So basically I'm telling my lawyer to look for this
Speaker 1: police report so I can prove that they, you know,
Speaker 1: manufactured this line. He never find it. I find this
Speaker 1: myself a few years later, and come to find out
Speaker 1: Henderson didn't even worked that day. So how can I
Speaker 1: ask to confess to somebody that I never even met before?
Speaker 1: But we were never able to fund them with that.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of bullshit slinging at your trial
Speaker 1: and a near total abdication of duty by your defense attorney,
Speaker 1: who could have done so much more with what was
Speaker 1: available to him to discredit this horrendous lide that perhaps
Speaker 1: even the jury saw through, but they most definitely were
Speaker 1: not provided with what they needed to see the real
Speaker 1: truth in this case. I mean, let's face it, the
Speaker 1: very least he could have done was present the negative
Speaker 1: gasoline residue and DNA test results that would have had
Speaker 1: a big impact on the jury. I mean, the fact
Speaker 1: that he didn't even highlight this, didn't even make it
Speaker 1: part of his case, part of his defense. A government
Speaker 1: forensic expert even testified a trial saying that anyone who
Speaker 1: had been in that van would have had gasoline present
Speaker 1: on their clothing. Yet he just didn't seize that moment,
Speaker 1: probably because he hadn't done his freaking homework or he
Speaker 1: would have known to do it. I mean, this was
Speaker 1: any first year law student would have known to do that.
Speaker 1: And then there's all these different eyewitnessed discrepancies, right, and
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned, there were four alleged eyewitness ideas, and
Speaker 1: considering the dispatch tapes and interview recordings that were available
Speaker 1: to him, more could have been done to impeach all
Speaker 1: of them. Two of the eyewitnesses, after all, said on
Speaker 1: the tapes that they were unable to identify the purpose.
Speaker 1: On top of what they said and did at the lineup.
Speaker 1: Then you've got these two park workers saying that they
Speaker 1: gave the assailant a ride and identified Billy. But your
Speaker 1: attorney would have researched and pointed out that that testimony
Speaker 1: was contradicted by what they had said in their initial
Speaker 1: statements via the dispatch tape. He didn't present one piece
Speaker 1: of evidence he crossed examine these witnesses though that's it
Speaker 1: didn't present not a single shred of all the evidence
Speaker 1: I found that he had access to. He didn't even
Speaker 1: look forward. So, not having done the preparation, his cross examination,
Speaker 1: among other things, fell predictably short. His public defender did
Speaker 1: an unconscionably poor job, didn't seek any confirmation of Billy's alibi,
Speaker 1: just sort of let it go to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think about somebody goes shopping in a very public place.
Speaker 1: The first thing you're gonna do is have an investigator
Speaker 1: to every single store, speak to people, get videos, trying
Speaker 1: to find witnesses down right, I mean, there could have
Speaker 1: been receipts from them, all security footage which instantly would
Speaker 1: have cleared Billy, and he didn't do anything and didn't
Speaker 1: make any attempt to obtain that. And now, of course
Speaker 1: it's far too late. Of course, there was a security
Speaker 1: guard that gave him a ride as well, Chris shagag
Speaker 1: How do you not present him or look into when
Speaker 1: he picked up his paycheck. There would have certainly been
Speaker 1: a record that showed that this took place at the
Speaker 1: time of the crime, which would have cleared Billy. But
Speaker 1: none of this was done. Norris Holder identified you in
Speaker 1: an effort to save himself and his actual partner in
Speaker 1: crime from death row little good that ended up doing
Speaker 1: for him anyway, though. And meanwhile, there's the first person
Speaker 1: that he named, whose name was John. This is another
Speaker 1: lead that could have and should have been developed, But
Speaker 1: beyond the leaves that could have been developed, there was
Speaker 1: everything that was already available that Billy has been able
Speaker 1: to use to prove that the witnesses and the police
Speaker 1: were lying, Which makes this all so unbelievable that this
Speaker 1: ever even made it to trial. Yeah, all the evidence
Speaker 1: that I'm presented on my behalf is in their own files,
Speaker 1: So they knew that when they put in at this testimony,
Speaker 1: when they opted at this story and claimed all these things,
Speaker 1: they had their actual reports that shows something other than
Speaker 1: what they were actually testified too, So it wasn't like
Speaker 1: it was just a lot concocted about the officers. The
Speaker 1: prosecutors basically allowed them to tell these lives because they
Speaker 1: have these fowls with them when they put these people
Speaker 1: on the stands. Yeah, you think that would make them
Speaker 1: eligible for attempted murder? And perhaps your trial attorney could
Speaker 1: be and should be considered for criminal negligence because without
Speaker 1: the defense you needed, the jury was left with this
Speaker 1: pack of lies and not much else. And before we
Speaker 1: go to this trial's inevitable conclusion, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about this really makes me sick. This electric stunt belt
Speaker 1: that Billy was made to wear throughout the proceedings. What
Speaker 1: in the actual funck is up with that? I don't
Speaker 1: have words, Jason, I don't know. It's part of the dehumanizing,
Speaker 1: degrading process that I think often happens to different degrees.
Speaker 1: This is extreme to scares into viewing somebody as being
Speaker 1: responsible and perhaps worthy, so to speak, of getting the
Speaker 1: death penalty. My thing was, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: times you want to stand up, you know, you want
Speaker 1: to tell them, you know, object, or you want to,
Speaker 1: you know, yell out, hey, you're on our innocent or
Speaker 1: you want to yell out to the jury, or you
Speaker 1: want to stand up and you know, kind of defend yourself,
Speaker 1: especially when you're not being defended by your turn, you know.
Speaker 1: But the thing about the Marshalls, they were like, look,
Speaker 1: if you make any quick movements, we're gonna push the button.
Speaker 1: Freaking twenty votes of fifty. I don't even remember how
Speaker 1: many votes this thing is. I don't know, man. I
Speaker 1: felt even more imprisoned because I couldn't say anything, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything. They were essentially treating you like cattle,
Speaker 1: and by the way, that's not even the way cattle
Speaker 1: should be treated. Exactly do you have to realize I
Speaker 1: wasn't called Billy Allen. I was called a murderous dog
Speaker 1: by my prosecutor. Montier Rout. Was never allowed to basically
Speaker 1: see the truth, the whole truth, for nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: They got half of a story that was concocted by
Speaker 1: officers that could have easily been disputed with evidence. And
Speaker 1: so that's why I'm kind of hoping that this platform
Speaker 1: allows my jury to hear this stuff and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I think I made a mistake. Did
Speaker 1: you have any hope that they were going to see
Speaker 1: that at the time. No, Honestly, I told my mom,
Speaker 1: and this is a stadd part about it, um, I
Speaker 1: told my mom right before the verdict, I say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get found guilty. And she was like, no,
Speaker 1: don't say that. I said, look, mom, my lawyer isn't
Speaker 1: gonna present a defense, so don't be surprised. I prepared
Speaker 1: my mom emotionally and prepare my family to accept the
Speaker 1: fact that I was going to get found guilty. I
Speaker 1: accepted it, you know. And here's the thing. I wasn't
Speaker 1: mad at my jury. I was more mad at my
Speaker 1: defense attorney for him not defending me. And proving to
Speaker 1: them that I was innocent. So I wasn't mad at then,
Speaker 1: because if I were to sit on that jury, I
Speaker 1: would have to find a person guilty. There was nothing
Speaker 1: I could do. From the moment I got locked up.
Speaker 1: That started my mission to prove my innocence. One because
Speaker 1: when I went into court, you know, the victim's family
Speaker 1: was there, and I saw people looking at me with
Speaker 1: so much anger and so much pain and so much hate.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I got people hate me when they
Speaker 1: have the wrong person. So I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make it my mission to prove that I'm innocent. And
Speaker 1: you know, I made that same problems to my mom
Speaker 1: and they saidly. That started my journey where I started
Speaker 1: reading all the fouls. I read every single page, every
Speaker 1: single sentence, every transcript, everything, and I started putting together
Speaker 1: this puzzle. And when you see the story that they
Speaker 1: tell at my trial, and you see all the evidence
Speaker 1: that they had to to show something different, you start
Speaker 1: to ask yourself, why would somebody go this far to
Speaker 1: convict me for something they know I didn't do, where
Speaker 1: their own evidence proves on this. So that has been
Speaker 1: the burden that I've had to carry, you know, in
Speaker 1: a sense, being innocent, being innocent as a burden man.
Speaker 1: You know, every day you're fighting to live, you're fighting
Speaker 1: to prove your innocence. You're fighting to convince judges to
Speaker 1: do the right thing who won't do the right thing.
Speaker 1: So your first appeal happened in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: and it was based on your Fifth Amendment right to
Speaker 1: be indicted by a grand jury. Essentially, the effort sought
Speaker 1: to get you off of death row. What's interesting is
Speaker 1: that his sentence was mixed. So the first count, which
Speaker 1: was bank robbery in which a killing occurs, he was
Speaker 1: convicted and got life. On the second, which was using
Speaker 1: a firearm during in relation to a federal crime of
Speaker 1: violence which resulted in murder, he was convicted and got
Speaker 1: the death penalty. Then that was appealed by Billy and
Speaker 1: it was reversed so commuted to life. But then the
Speaker 1: state appealed it to the Eighth Circuit and made back
Speaker 1: to death and put him on death row. But I
Speaker 1: think the fact that you had these different outcomes just
Speaker 1: suggest us there's something fishy here. And also the fact
Speaker 1: that the state appealed to get it back on death
Speaker 1: row just shows how hell bent they are on having
Speaker 1: the highest possible outcome and win for their case based
Speaker 1: on what they decided to pursue, which was death penalty.
Speaker 1: The best predictor of whether somebody is going to get
Speaker 1: the death penalty is the race of the victim. So
Speaker 1: having a white victim and black perpetrator, suddenly the odds
Speaker 1: of prosecutors going for death penalty shoot up, as they
Speaker 1: did in this case. While we're on the subject of
Speaker 1: race in the community that was half white and half
Speaker 1: flag literally split evenly, some are other the jury pool
Speaker 1: ended up being ten white jurors, so the prosecutors found
Speaker 1: all sorts of reasons to strike black people from the jury,
Speaker 1: and on appeal in two thousand nine, Billy Allen's lawyers
Speaker 1: saw it an evid entry hearing on the race issue,
Speaker 1: noting that as of the twelfth of May two thousand
Speaker 1: nine of the four hundred and sixty federal defendants against
Speaker 1: whom the U. S. Attorney General had authorized federal prosecutors
Speaker 1: to seek the death penalty, and this will shock no one,
Speaker 1: but a hundred and nineteen of them were white, and
Speaker 1: three hundred forty one we're from minority racial or ethnic groups,
Speaker 1: of whom two hundred and thirty seven were black. So
Speaker 1: I know today, I don't know the percentages, and is
Speaker 1: probably about the same percent American population as black. And
Speaker 1: yet somehow or other, over fifty of the time the
Speaker 1: death penalty was used weaponized against people innocent or guilty
Speaker 1: in the federal system, it was used against black people,
Speaker 1: and then fully another hundred and four of those four
Speaker 1: d and sixty total were people from other minority groups.
Speaker 1: The direct quote from the government to this incredible statistical
Speaker 1: evidence was quote, there are three kinds of lies, lies,
Speaker 1: damn lies, and statistics. This is so nonsensical, it's like cartoonish,
Speaker 1: but again deadly serious. And a judge, of course, ruled
Speaker 1: that even if the court would agree with Mr Allen,
Speaker 1: that these statistics amounted to a compelling indictment of the
Speaker 1: federal governments using the death penalty against minoriti defendants, which
Speaker 1: is basically him almost tacitly acknowledging that it did. He
Speaker 1: goes on to say, the law is nevertheless clear that
Speaker 1: the defendant cannot make out a selective prosecution claim under
Speaker 1: the equal Protection Clause without evidence that there was discriminatory
Speaker 1: motive to prosecute him in particular. Yeah. So that's the
Speaker 1: lasting legacy of one of the worst Supreme Court decisions
Speaker 1: in our lifetime, which is seven McCleskey versus Kemp, where
Speaker 1: there was an overwhelming finding that still exists today and
Speaker 1: statistical pattern that's indisputable that you have an overrepresentation of
Speaker 1: people of color, particularly African Americans, who are sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: It's undeniable, and the Supreme Court says, even though that
Speaker 1: may be true, it will not help any individual African
Speaker 1: American defendant sentenced to death unless they can show that
Speaker 1: race was a bias in their particular case. And the
Speaker 1: only way to show that it's basically getting a secret
Speaker 1: recording of the prosecutor using the N word or somehow
Speaker 1: something that would be just so egregious that would be
Speaker 1: caught on tape, and that of course never comes to light.
Speaker 1: But we know the overall pattern is there. We're letting
Speaker 1: these biases run rampant, and the Supreme Court, unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: given a green light to them and that continues today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And while this argument was less about Billy's case in
Speaker 1: particular and more about the bent of the entire system
Speaker 1: against black defendants, it was also one that became more
Speaker 1: pressing at the time. There was a moratorium on executions
Speaker 1: on the federal level that started in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: but it was lifted in two thousand nineteen. The previous
Speaker 1: occupant of the Oval Office spent the last gasp of
Speaker 1: his power overseeing the first seventeen executions in a generation
Speaker 1: on the federal level, sixteen by lethal injection and one
Speaker 1: by elextecution. He's the same person who sought to bring
Speaker 1: the death penalty back in New York State many years ago,
Speaker 1: seeking the death penalty execution of several young men that
Speaker 1: were wrongfully accused in New York City in Central Park
Speaker 1: five from the Central Park five now known as the
Speaker 1: Exonerated five. And the fact that Billy Allen bore witness
Speaker 1: to these executions from his vantage point as one of
Speaker 1: the long serving people on death row. In spite of
Speaker 1: this remarkable body of exculpatory evidence, so Billy also raised
Speaker 1: claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for the reasons that
Speaker 1: we've already laid out here, And of course the gasoline
Speaker 1: residue and DNA test that truly do exculpate Billy. Let's
Speaker 1: face it, I wrote a letter to my attorney, and
Speaker 1: I framed it this way for a reason. I said, basically,
Speaker 1: I about to file on appeal. I located DNA evidence,
Speaker 1: I located gasoline results, I located all this evidence. Had
Speaker 1: you known about these things before I went to trial?
Speaker 1: Which you have presented these things on my behalf. And
Speaker 1: he in his letter, in his response to me, he
Speaker 1: specifically says, yes, he would have presented these things. Eddie
Speaker 1: known about them before trial. Now here's the thing about it.
Speaker 1: These things were in the in the records that he
Speaker 1: handed over to me. There was no way in hill
Speaker 1: that my trial was fair when I had an attorney
Speaker 1: who specifically responded to a letter that had he knew
Speaker 1: about these things, he would presented them. But yet he
Speaker 1: had these things in his possession and never looked for Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've seen some pretty grotesque examples of ineffective assistance of
Speaker 1: counsel before, but this is a whole new level. But
Speaker 1: yet somehow you were denied on that front as well.
Speaker 1: All those denials and basically the rejection, it becomes a
Speaker 1: burden on your shoulders, you know. So that has been
Speaker 1: my burden for the last few years, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to find all the evidence, and now that I found it,
Speaker 1: I can't get people to listen. What what what does
Speaker 1: it take for people to care? What does it take
Speaker 1: for situations to change? And to me, I guess that
Speaker 1: goes to the Georgetown project. The Georgetown project, I felt
Speaker 1: like ignited a whole and a flame that has you know,
Speaker 1: basically dimmed over the years. And that was my first introduction,
Speaker 1: you know, to market Marty into the you know, the
Speaker 1: students at Georgetown. And I asked, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I asked Mark. I was like, well, what is your
Speaker 1: process of picking people? And he was like, we go
Speaker 1: through thousands and thousands of applications and only pick five
Speaker 1: and yours stood out. And that meant everything to me.
Speaker 1: And of course, you mean Georgetown's making an Axondore class
Speaker 1: and remarkably, it's an undergraduate course, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to be a law student, of forensic scientist or a
Speaker 1: private investigator to look at some of the evidence and say,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how did this actually even go forward
Speaker 1: to trial? How much less result than a conviction? And Marty,
Speaker 1: you know, I watched the remarkable video that you and
Speaker 1: your students put together with the making Axondo re class,
Speaker 1: of course, and those it is in that class never
Speaker 1: ceased to blow my mind with the amazing, amazing work
Speaker 1: that they do semester after semester, class after class, and
Speaker 1: of course their work has led to the actual freeing
Speaker 1: of four people now, right, I mean Keith Washington, Valentino Dixon,
Speaker 1: Eric Rittick, and now Orlando Trey Jones. Right, these kids
Speaker 1: are doing absolutely phenomenal jobs. Some of them have even
Speaker 1: come to work for us or have gone on to
Speaker 1: law school working as paralegals on pro bono cases or
Speaker 1: other nonprofits. They are truly incredible assets to this movement
Speaker 1: for justice, and I'm so glad that you all landed
Speaker 1: on Billy's case. Billy's case, to me, it was just
Speaker 1: a multitude of things that went wrong. Every week that
Speaker 1: we live, we see another man or woman become exonerated.
Speaker 1: And what we also see is that something from the
Speaker 1: original case went wrong, and it was either from the prosecutor.
Speaker 1: To Lisa's point of view, there were some wrongdoing, forensic misconduct,
Speaker 1: or incompetent lawyers. And in Billy's case, I think he
Speaker 1: had a little bit of everything. You know, there was
Speaker 1: someone else who was seen with Holder planning the bank robbery,
Speaker 1: but that was just never pursued. There was an anonymous
Speaker 1: tip that we don't know much more about. We just
Speaker 1: know that the initials of the suspect are d M,
Speaker 1: and obviously that's not Billy Allen DM, but we don't
Speaker 1: know more and haven't been able to find out more
Speaker 1: because it's been kept you under wraps. But that very
Speaker 1: well could be the second person who Holder is protecting.
Speaker 1: There's d M, there's JB as Billy mentioned, and a
Speaker 1: whole lot of potential avenues if you could just access
Speaker 1: these materials, but they've been fighting it every step of
Speaker 1: the way. Now there was renewed efforts to test the
Speaker 1: DANNI evidence against other potential suspects, which was the focus
Speaker 1: of your filings. Not only is there this bloody strap
Speaker 1: that excludes you and the victim that they refused to
Speaker 1: run through CODIS or test against anyone else, there's also
Speaker 1: the matter of a damp cloth that was found near
Speaker 1: the fence where the second suspect escaped from Forest Park.
Speaker 1: They tested it for d n A and it excluded you,
Speaker 1: but have since sealed those results. I'm sure if they
Speaker 1: had matched Billy, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
Speaker 1: So how have those efforts gone thus far? Thanks stopped
Speaker 1: every year from the first year I filed pro say,
Speaker 1: my lawyers have filed, We've done everything we could to
Speaker 1: get them to basically do all the testing, and my
Speaker 1: judge basically is has refused every single request and the
Speaker 1: prosecutor has opposed every prium of testing. In my case,
Speaker 1: I can't get nothing tested. If we could test that
Speaker 1: DNA against other possible suspects, who knows what would come
Speaker 1: up in this case. But there's such a conspiracy, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not too strong a word to say that police
Speaker 1: and prosecutors have in just sealing tight a conviction, even
Speaker 1: if it's the wrong one, even if there's evidence that
Speaker 1: proves that it was a mistake. My case is in
Speaker 1: one of those where I'm just asking people to, you know,
Speaker 1: take a chance on me. I'm asking people to believe
Speaker 1: in my evidence and fight for me. So that's where
Speaker 1: this is at right now. And Billy and his team
Speaker 1: are fighting this on two fronts, trying to get access
Speaker 1: to those biological materials as well as seeking a pardon
Speaker 1: from President Biden. There's a petition among so many other
Speaker 1: action steps linked in the bio, but go there now,
Speaker 1: don't wait, go to the bio, click on it, signed
Speaker 1: a petition, and in addition to all of that, there's
Speaker 1: the making an exonery video. Please check all of it out.
Speaker 1: We also encourage you to join Billy Supporters this November
Speaker 1: and Washington, d C. For a rally. You can follow
Speaker 1: Billy on Instagram. It's free Billy b I L l
Speaker 1: I E Allen A l L E n so free
Speaker 1: Billy Allen to receive updates. And now we go to
Speaker 1: our closing work. First of all, I thank all of
Speaker 1: you for joining us. I'm just gonna kick back in
Speaker 1: my chair, turn my microphone off, and just listen for
Speaker 1: any closing thoughts that you all have. Let's start with Mark,
Speaker 1: then Marty, and then and then Billy over to you
Speaker 1: to close this out. Thanks, Jason. Billy is an extraordinary person.
Speaker 1: He is warm, he is caring, he is funny, he
Speaker 1: is compassionate, he is dedicated, hard working, and he's incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: And I got to see a lot of his artwork.
Speaker 1: I actually have some of it now in my office
Speaker 1: at Georgetown. But Billy is himself a beacon of light
Speaker 1: and hope for this world. And what I really hope
Speaker 1: more than anything is that the rest of the world
Speaker 1: will discover the Billy that I've come to know and love,
Speaker 1: and to recognize his talent and to appreciate his humanity,
Speaker 1: and that hopefully he'll have that opportunity to connect with
Speaker 1: the world as a freeman soon. There's just two things
Speaker 1: I want people to understand. Well, is an epidemic. We
Speaker 1: had one and seventy three exonerations that were recognized by
Speaker 1: the National Registered Exhonery. We already have a hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy three. Billy should be added to that list in
Speaker 1: the near future. Our system can't function if we keep
Speaker 1: convicting innocent people, and when there's evidence that somebody was
Speaker 1: denied justice, we let them languish in prison day after
Speaker 1: day after day. The day has to come where Billy
Speaker 1: gets his day for justice. And I look forward to
Speaker 1: the day where Mark, myself, our students can be waiting
Speaker 1: outside of a prison somewhere like we have for four
Speaker 1: other individuals to watch Billy walk out of prison. I'm
Speaker 1: not just somebody who's saying they're innocing, you know. I'm
Speaker 1: somebody who can show you that I'm in a sing
Speaker 1: and to me, I feel like that should ignite people
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, let me go to bad
Speaker 1: for this guy. You know, I'll get, you know, letters
Speaker 1: from people saying, hey, I'm praying for you, and I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I appreciate the prayers, but I need you
Speaker 1: to speak out, you know, because you need those voices
Speaker 1: in the high places to be able to hear that
Speaker 1: you do care. And I feel like the more people
Speaker 1: who show that they care, the more the system is
Speaker 1: going to have to care and gonna have to give
Speaker 1: us the testing that we're looking for and allow the
Speaker 1: evidence to be the thing that motivates you to want
Speaker 1: to go out there and fight for me to want
Speaker 1: to go out there. And you know, every time you're
Speaker 1: on social media, instead of posting about the new foods
Speaker 1: you're eating, to be able to say, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: free Billy Allen period, you know, And and November will
Speaker 1: be going to d C, you know, to basically do
Speaker 1: a march on d C to present my case. And
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that people start raising their voice and have
Speaker 1: an influence when we do follow our petition of biding
Speaker 1: to be able to make him say, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're always asking another country to do right by their citizens.
Speaker 1: We fail this guy right here. Let us do the
Speaker 1: right thing now and return him to his family. And
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm going to read you something that
Speaker 1: I think it will help you kind of gather who
Speaker 1: I am and my journey. And it's called long soldier.
Speaker 1: To find myself engaged in the conflict that some have
Speaker 1: deemed to be a battle between good and evil, and
Speaker 1: it is I who they have labeled the ladder. This
Speaker 1: battle is not one worth on the reward will be
Speaker 1: heard thought about a stench of gun smoke charred flesh,
Speaker 1: nor where bloodstains will take the same brown with footsteps
Speaker 1: travel to the froe. No, this battle was one that
Speaker 1: is rooted in the bloodlines and bloodshed that painted the
Speaker 1: stripes red, and in the blue sky that weighed fifty stars,
Speaker 1: which are a time saluted or drape over the caskets
Speaker 1: of fallen heroes. Now, because I know that there are
Speaker 1: those who like to take one's word out of context
Speaker 1: with malicious intent, No, there's no way in my claiming
Speaker 1: the role of hero. I'm just one who has been
Speaker 1: wrathfully imprisoned, and who wishes defend myself against those who
Speaker 1: have brought this battle to my doorsteps. And in doing so,
Speaker 1: I planned to defend myself against the lies ms represent
Speaker 1: Patian in advances to take my life in the pretense
Speaker 1: of justice. Now, after I expose this injustice, if you
Speaker 1: then deem my actions to be that of a hero,
Speaker 1: know that it is I who will not make such
Speaker 1: a claim. This battle will take place on what many
Speaker 1: have deemed to be sacred ground, or what some have
Speaker 1: said to be the foundation of our society, without which
Speaker 1: will cause chaos and leave in its path destruction. And
Speaker 1: that battleground is the constitutionists amendments to oversee this battle
Speaker 1: and to ensure that it's conducted without a hint of bias, favoritism,
Speaker 1: nor that it will be tainted with the temptation of
Speaker 1: power or financial gain. Is Lady Justice yet, to my disbelief,
Speaker 1: though she is supposed to stand out front of the
Speaker 1: symbol of fundamental fairness, I could have sworn that I
Speaker 1: saw her trip of scale of justice and favor of
Speaker 1: my foes, who already have superior power, resources, and who
Speaker 1: attack without malicious forethought. Though I know that the other again.
Speaker 1: It's me. I do not waiver on my stands, and
Speaker 1: I hold tight to the hilt of my sword of
Speaker 1: truth and evidence, where my evidence is the material which
Speaker 1: it has been forced me. I closed my eyes, say
Speaker 1: a prayer, and I can only hope that God here.
Speaker 1: My please is I throw stones at Goliath, and it
Speaker 1: is I who am the long soldier. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production
Speaker 1: team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Wardis, with research
Speaker 1: by Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied
Speaker 1: by three time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
Speaker 1: as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
Speaker 1: you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason flom Rnful Conviction is the production of
Speaker 1: Lava a Good Podcast in association with Signal Company Number
Speaker 1: one h