Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, Charles and Julie mcquarie were having
Speaker 1: marital trouble and seeing a counselor while amicably sharing both
Speaker 1: the care of their three year old boy, Chad, and
Speaker 1: occasionally the same bed. On May five, Charles left Julie's
Speaker 1: house around ten fifteen pm and made a phone call
Speaker 1: in the pre cell phone era. This corroborated that he
Speaker 1: had arrived at his apartment the following morning. Charles's parents
Speaker 1: were expecting Julie to drop off Chad and began to
Speaker 1: worry when she did not show. After several unanswered calls
Speaker 1: from Charles and his parents, Charles's father was the first
Speaker 1: to discover Julie's body just inside her front door. It
Speaker 1: was determined that she had died of blunt force head
Speaker 1: trauma sometime in the early hours of the morning. A
Speaker 1: red bandanna was found in the body, and a clump
Speaker 1: of hair as were found in her hand that did
Speaker 1: not belong to her or Charles. Besides conflicting and dubious
Speaker 1: reports of a car that looked like Charles's at Julie's
Speaker 1: house that morning, no evidence connected him to the crime.
Speaker 1: Despite a similar instant it within a month committed by
Speaker 1: a man known to wear red bandanas. The police maintained
Speaker 1: their focus on Charles. Since the district attorney was reluctant
Speaker 1: to charge Charles, Julie's family hired a private prosecutor team
Speaker 1: who sought the help of notorious junk science dentist Dick Superan.
Speaker 1: Superan testified that some of Julie's wounds were not only
Speaker 1: bite marks, but that they were made by Charles at
Speaker 1: the time of death, effectively sealing his fate. Suparan has
Speaker 1: since recanted that testimony, including the assertion that the wounds
Speaker 1: were even bite marks at all. Yet, somehow Charles is
Speaker 1: still serving a life sentence in an Alabama prison. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to ronal conviction. You know,
Speaker 1: when listeners of our show asked me, what are some
Speaker 1: of the most disturbing cases I've ever heard of? I
Speaker 1: will list off Vincent Simmons, Richard Gloss of pedro Rena. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many others I could mention, But
Speaker 1: before we even start today, I think Charles McQuary has
Speaker 1: to be added to that horrifying list. Joining us. Besides
Speaker 1: the man himself, we have his attorneys, first from the
Speaker 1: Southern Center for Human Rights, Mark Loud and Brown, Mark,
Speaker 1: welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you very much for having
Speaker 1: and a voice you'll all recognize, I'm sure. Chris Fabric Kent.
Speaker 1: Chris is the strategic Litigation director at the Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: the author of the fantastic book You've heard me talk
Speaker 1: about it before, Junk science and the American criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: And he's also a frequent guest on the show and
Speaker 1: was featured on our Junk Science podcast hosted by Josh
Speaker 1: Dubin where he talked about bite mark analysis, which was
Speaker 1: the pivotal thing in this case. And so Chris, welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction. It's great to be back. Jason,
Speaker 1: thanks for having us and now calling in from an
Speaker 1: Alabama prison where he's been locked up for I hate
Speaker 1: that I even have to say this for over thirty
Speaker 1: seven years. Charles mccruary, thank you for joining us. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you app Well, we're happy to have you here.
Speaker 1: Despite the reason why you're here, or more to the
Speaker 1: point where you are as you call us today, and
Speaker 1: that reason is bite mark analysis, which is a proven
Speaker 1: junk science. It fails that not only reliably concluding who
Speaker 1: made a bite mark, but also a reliably identifying wounds
Speaker 1: as bite marks at all, especially because these wounds are
Speaker 1: found on skin and the medium itself is elastic and
Speaker 1: usually changing over time as it heals or decomposes or grows.
Speaker 1: And then some Charlotte comes into court claiming that they
Speaker 1: can match a suspects teeth to usually a photograph of
Speaker 1: an injury, and they say they can do this to
Speaker 1: the exclusion of every other set of teeth on the planet.
Speaker 1: It's just in bananas. But it's only recently that lawyers
Speaker 1: like Chris and Mark been battling these junk science experts
Speaker 1: in post conviction because at the time of conviction, everybody
Speaker 1: bought into these lies. And Chris, I've been quoting your
Speaker 1: book left and right, And of course the book I'm
Speaker 1: talking about is junk science and the American criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: But what are some of the other common threads between
Speaker 1: these wilful convictions that are based on junk science and
Speaker 1: bite mark analysis in particular. But I've seen in all
Speaker 1: of these cases, I feel like I've been involved in
Speaker 1: all the bite mark cases over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: is that I have never seen an effective cross examination
Speaker 1: of a bite mark expert at trial, and all the
Speaker 1: transcripts that I've read, I've never even seen the question,
Speaker 1: you know, even the most basic one. You know, you
Speaker 1: think about when an injury is inflicted, usually during the
Speaker 1: crime itself, nobody was there, Nobody knows the position that
Speaker 1: the perpetrator or the victim was in at that time.
Speaker 1: But we know one thing is that it's on a
Speaker 1: mortuary slab where the photographs were taken of this injury.
Speaker 1: And we know that the injury has changed, often quite
Speaker 1: dramatically as a result of decomposition of the body, and
Speaker 1: they continue decomposition, So you may match quote unquote a
Speaker 1: bite mark quote unquote one day and not the next.
Speaker 1: You might be one hour and not the next hour, right,
Speaker 1: because skin is changing all the time, particularly with the
Speaker 1: deceased victim. So you never see that type of cross examination,
Speaker 1: and you never see like, how is it that you
Speaker 1: know that this is a bite mark? What is it
Speaker 1: about being a dentist that makes you an expert in
Speaker 1: diagnosing an injury as a bite mark? Right with the
Speaker 1: proximity to teeth? Nonsense? Right, So you never see those
Speaker 1: and I think that just as a general matter on
Speaker 1: junk science, convictions. Broadly speaking, is that it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to cross examine your way out of a wrongful conviction
Speaker 1: with junk science. Once the judge lets it in, you
Speaker 1: got two strikes against you anyway, you know, And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure Johnny cochrane could have saved Charles McQuary once
Speaker 1: Dick Subran gets on the stand and you know, spouts
Speaker 1: these invented credentials, right the American Board of Forensic go
Speaker 1: to intology. It's That's what I wrote about this in
Speaker 1: the book. It's just an invented organization. Never tested any
Speaker 1: of their members on their abilities to actually match bike
Speaker 1: marks or even diagnose them. They just gave each other
Speaker 1: board certifications to bring into court and wild jurors in
Speaker 1: places like in Louise, Alabama, and they led to a
Speaker 1: lot of wrongful convictions, including at least three others by
Speaker 1: Dick sub Ran. And we'll go further into how this
Speaker 1: junk science applies to Charles's case in just a bit,
Speaker 1: but first I'd like to go back to before all
Speaker 1: of this happened. Tell us Charles about your life growing up.
Speaker 1: Were you born in Alabama? I was born actually in
Speaker 1: the Panhandle of Florida, and UH lived in Mobile a
Speaker 1: couple of years when I was in first or second grade,
Speaker 1: But anyway, we moved to in Blujia at the beginning
Speaker 1: of my third grade year and grew up there and
Speaker 1: graduated in Blujia High School. Went to UH Junior College
Speaker 1: there at Earley and Wallace for a year or so,
Speaker 1: and then I transferred to McArthur Tech College and Op,
Speaker 1: which is just fifteen miles or so away, and finished
Speaker 1: a associate degree in computer science. A few months later.
Speaker 1: They started working for the junior college that I had
Speaker 1: been a student at previously, and was set up and
Speaker 1: then later ran the computer center there. They didn't really
Speaker 1: have one when I started there. You know, this was
Speaker 1: back in seventy nine, so we're in a very early
Speaker 1: period as far as computers were concerned. And worked there
Speaker 1: for five years and then had gone over to the
Speaker 1: Power Company album Electric co Op it was called in
Speaker 1: this now Power South. So pretty much if our living,
Speaker 1: that's all I'd really ever done full time was computer work.
Speaker 1: So okay, you were working in the field that has
Speaker 1: become central to all that we do, so plenty of
Speaker 1: potential in your life. And I understand you were also
Speaker 1: a volunteer e MT. The rescue Squad as it was
Speaker 1: called in Andalusia, Alabama. Yeah, the rescue Squad was all
Speaker 1: volunteer organizations, about thirty men that provided damns and rescue
Speaker 1: for that area. You know, reward didn't work to say
Speaker 1: the least. Yes, saving wise kind of the freaking opposite
Speaker 1: of being a murderer, right, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: of course during this rise in your career, both professional
Speaker 1: and in the volunteer space, you had married your high
Speaker 1: school sweetheart, Julie Bonds, had a great job fulfilling community
Speaker 1: service and had your son Chat in two, through which
Speaker 1: you and Julie shared a bond that could not be
Speaker 1: broken even if your marriage was going through a rough patch,
Speaker 1: and it was, you know, the little back is just
Speaker 1: a lot of poor decisions on probably both of our part,
Speaker 1: but certainly on mine, and we kind of grew apart,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know. I said we had We had
Speaker 1: a good relationship, very very amicable to say the least.
Speaker 1: We were together pretty much every day. Even during the
Speaker 1: time that we later separated and I had an apartment
Speaker 1: across town. We were still very involved, of course with
Speaker 1: our sons. As well as mutual friends and things like that.
Speaker 1: And we were together constantly even though we were we
Speaker 1: were separated and trying to work out you know, merrity
Speaker 1: issues and so forth. Yeah, and it seems that things
Speaker 1: may have worked out in your marriage had all of
Speaker 1: this tragic series of events not come to pass. The
Speaker 1: night before Julie died, you two had actually spent the
Speaker 1: evening together, correct that night, I've been over there. We
Speaker 1: had actually been to see a marriage counsel, right, had
Speaker 1: had an affair before that for the for several months
Speaker 1: prior to that, and then had ended it, although I
Speaker 1: was you know, still talking to the little lady for
Speaker 1: a while there, and and anyway, June and I were
Speaker 1: trying to work through those things, and so we had
Speaker 1: actually had an interview with the marriage counselor that night,
Speaker 1: if and then we were actually met back over the
Speaker 1: house later and stayed at the house for I guess
Speaker 1: a couple of hours or so, left around tim fIF
Speaker 1: ten thirty, somewhere in that range. And this affair that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, the woman you're referring to is Gloria Wiggins, who,
Speaker 1: at least from trial testimony, said that you had called
Speaker 1: her on the phone from your apartment. I remember this
Speaker 1: is the era before cell phone, so this is decriborative
Speaker 1: evidence that you were actually at the apartment. You know,
Speaker 1: I had that phone call. I'm at the apartment when
Speaker 1: I made the call, and then you know, I just
Speaker 1: go to sleep, and then the next morning, I get
Speaker 1: up at whatever time, six thirty six, had to be
Speaker 1: at work at seven thirty. Okay. So this is the
Speaker 1: morning of May thirty first, and you were having what
Speaker 1: you thought it was going to be a normal day,
Speaker 1: and as per usual, your parents were waiting for Julie
Speaker 1: to drop off chat at their house on her way
Speaker 1: to work right usually around eightish, and so there was
Speaker 1: times when she'd bring me breakfast her you know whatever.
Speaker 1: And so that morning I had called her about that
Speaker 1: and picking up something on her way, and then get
Speaker 1: an answer and turned around call right back. I figured
Speaker 1: I'd just died the wrong number something. Still didn't get answer,
Speaker 1: and even then it didn't particularly along. You know, you
Speaker 1: just think, Okay, she left for work a little earlier something.
Speaker 1: I really thought a little of it, and then um,
Speaker 1: later on it was I believe after a I called
Speaker 1: my mom's house and she hadn't got there yet. And
Speaker 1: my mom, of course I want something like that, and
Speaker 1: she just starts worrying. So, you know, I called the
Speaker 1: house a couple more times and getting no answer, and
Speaker 1: so eventually I called her a workplace. They had not
Speaker 1: seen her either, and about that time, you know, my
Speaker 1: mom was like, so he dad is going to check
Speaker 1: on said okay, okay, I'll go there, and just doing
Speaker 1: you're kind of like we're leaving, you know, fears so speaking.
Speaker 1: So I leave work, go towards the house, and many
Speaker 1: of the rescue squad members we had two way radios
Speaker 1: in our personal vehicles, and so as I'm going to
Speaker 1: the house, I hear him on the radio call about
Speaker 1: an enamous going to beside Charles mccroary's house or near
Speaker 1: Charles mccroary's house. And even then, you know, my thought
Speaker 1: was maybe a neighbor in trouble or somebody outside, or
Speaker 1: I call and tell them, you know, look, I'm on
Speaker 1: my way over there anyway. And when I get there,
Speaker 1: my dad's outside and he's just you know, he's upset,
Speaker 1: and he said, something's wrong with Julie, you know where
Speaker 1: he issue. So he just kind of like going towards
Speaker 1: the house and I said, where's Chaid, And he said,
Speaker 1: I've I've already got Chad. He's at the neighbors. He
Speaker 1: had he had already been in the house and found
Speaker 1: or the front door was a jar when he got there.
Speaker 1: So your father was the first to see this horrible
Speaker 1: crime scene before whisking away your three year old boy,
Speaker 1: who was thankfully unharmed. It's the only silver lining in
Speaker 1: this whole thing. And as you mentioned, he had taken
Speaker 1: him to the neighbors. Julie, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: not so fortunate. She had been beaten to death. Rigor
Speaker 1: mortis typically sets in about three to six hours after death,
Speaker 1: and by the time investigators arrived on scene around nine am,
Speaker 1: rigor mortis had not yet set in, so the murder
Speaker 1: must have occurred sometime between three and six am. Well,
Speaker 1: you hadn't seen her since about ten fifteen pm, despite
Speaker 1: conflicting and dubious reports of a car that looked like
Speaker 1: yours having been allegedly seen at the house during those hours.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get to that in a bit,
Speaker 1: but first I want to talk about the crime scene itself. Now,
Speaker 1: this was a terribly violent struggle. A stocking had been
Speaker 1: tied to her right wrist. Haro was founded her left
Speaker 1: hand hair that must have logically belonged to the person
Speaker 1: with whom she was fighting for her very life. There
Speaker 1: was also a red bandanna found near the body. Now
Speaker 1: the fire poker from the fireplace appeared to be missing
Speaker 1: and was never found again. From the autopsy, it appears
Speaker 1: that she was struck four times in the back of
Speaker 1: the head, with one wound to the side of the head,
Speaker 1: blunt trauma to the left part of the skull, eleven
Speaker 1: puncture wounds to the left breast, fractures on both mandibles,
Speaker 1: bruises on her face and ribs, and two bruises that
Speaker 1: may or may not have been bite marks on her
Speaker 1: right shoulder. So this is your wife, the mother of
Speaker 1: your son, and now you've come upon this unbelievably bloody
Speaker 1: and brutal crime scene. When you when you walk in
Speaker 1: and see that, you just mean, you don't know, you
Speaker 1: just don't know what to do. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: know what to think. Is so shocking that there's really
Speaker 1: no standard response for it, you know, after it had
Speaker 1: saying that Julie was dead, and then the riscue score
Speaker 1: got there right after that and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew all the guys on the squad. They were
Speaker 1: all friends of mine, and they were, you know, wanted
Speaker 1: to see. At that point, the police had not arrived
Speaker 1: or anything. And and so after we do that, I
Speaker 1: come out and I go across the street to Chad,
Speaker 1: and I remember, I remember holding him and just really
Speaker 1: the thought to come to mind is, my God, what
Speaker 1: has happening? Remember him kind of pushing back a little bit.
Speaker 1: I guess I was squeezing him too tight or something.
Speaker 1: But and then in the coming days, you know, he
Speaker 1: would ask far and which try to answer him as
Speaker 1: best you can. This is an incredibly brutal crime, and
Speaker 1: the perpetrator undoubtedly would have been very bloody. And there
Speaker 1: was only alleged to have been about four hours past
Speaker 1: between the last time that Mr McQuary he saw the
Speaker 1: victim in this case and when he was first questioned
Speaker 1: by police at that time. They turned over all of
Speaker 1: his clothes, They started the inter of his car, they
Speaker 1: searched his house. They found no trace of blood on anything.
Speaker 1: Then they examined the hairs that were clutched in the
Speaker 1: victim's hand. Those hairs were not from the victim and
Speaker 1: they were not from Charles mcquarie. In other words, they
Speaker 1: were from a third person. We still don't know whose
Speaker 1: hairs those were. There was also a red bandanna found
Speaker 1: near the victim's body. There was a construction worker that
Speaker 1: worked next floor to the victim's house who was known
Speaker 1: to wear a red bandanna. There was an open window
Speaker 1: on that side of the house, the same side as
Speaker 1: the construction site, that had a fresh bootprint outside that window.
Speaker 1: The police took an impression of that bootprint, but then
Speaker 1: never compared it to anything or anybody, and never dusted
Speaker 1: the window sill that was open for fingerprints. But we
Speaker 1: know that a man who worked at that construction site
Speaker 1: named Ainsworth was known to wear a red bandanna. And
Speaker 1: we know that a few weeks after this murder, Key
Speaker 1: committed a home invasion rape and served twenty years in
Speaker 1: prison for that crime, was never investigated as a suspect
Speaker 1: in this case. Then we also know that Mr McCary
Speaker 1: had been entirely cooperative with the prosecution from beginning to end,
Speaker 1: had voluntarily supplied samples of his hair, his DNA, his body,
Speaker 1: all of which was exculpatory, nothing to point to Mr
Speaker 1: McQuary's guilt. The only physical evidence was concocted, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the bite marks in a second. The only
Speaker 1: other evidence was that neighbor across the street who claimed
Speaker 1: that around four o'clock in the mornings, nineteen year old
Speaker 1: kid decides to get up and check on the garden,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't sure of the date, and he isn't
Speaker 1: sure of the truck, but he thought that on the
Speaker 1: date in question, that he had seen a truck similar
Speaker 1: to Mr mcquarie's. And despite this extremely dubious teenage middle
Speaker 1: of the night gardening scenario, we also found out later
Speaker 1: that he and later his grandfather not only exaggerated their
Speaker 1: vantage point, but also several other neighbors with much more
Speaker 1: credible recollections reported only Julie's car in the driveway on
Speaker 1: the date and time and question. That's the only evidence
Speaker 1: that they had apart from the spike mark and the
Speaker 1: bite mark. Even their trial expert, Dick Suberan years later
Speaker 1: admitted that he wasn't even sure if it even was
Speaker 1: a bite mark at all. But even back in other
Speaker 1: than the refuted recollection of this teenage middle of the
Speaker 1: night gardener and his grandfather all other evidence pointed away
Speaker 1: from Charles, but tunnel vision had already set in, and
Speaker 1: some say that it came back to something Charles had
Speaker 1: said at the crime scene and what later the prosecutor
Speaker 1: tried to use against him at trial. It was when
Speaker 1: at the scene, looking at the body with the other
Speaker 1: rescue squad guys and police and seeing the gash on
Speaker 1: the back of her head, Charles said something to the
Speaker 1: effect that do you think it was the licks to
Speaker 1: her head? Is that what killed her? So they just
Speaker 1: totally ignored the clump of hair in her hand, the
Speaker 1: red bandanna, any alternative suspects, the lack of blood on
Speaker 1: anything that Charles owned, and started turning their focus on
Speaker 1: him anyway, on Charles, do you remember when that happened?
Speaker 1: I do know there was a time when the fielding
Speaker 1: is almost like the atmosphere changed. You could just fill
Speaker 1: it in the air. And in fact, I believe later
Speaker 1: Saturay I told my mom that looked, you know that
Speaker 1: they're they're turning this on me, They're looking at me.
Speaker 1: And then it was on Saturday night. The mayor of
Speaker 1: Andalusia was a man named Chalmers Bryant. He was a
Speaker 1: long time family friend of ours. He was a diggon
Speaker 1: in our church and I had known Challenge a long time.
Speaker 1: He was also one of the charld members of the
Speaker 1: Rescue Score, so I knew him through that. He called
Speaker 1: me and said, look, I want to talk to you.
Speaker 1: So we talked on Saturday night for a good while
Speaker 1: and Chelmers told me then he said, you know they
Speaker 1: think you did this, he told me, said, I don't
Speaker 1: believe that, he said, But I'm the mayor. I can't
Speaker 1: get involved in this, you know, I've got to let
Speaker 1: the police do their work. Wow. So, okay, if you're
Speaker 1: at home listening to this insane story right now and thinking, well, okay,
Speaker 1: but you're somehow safe, You're somehow insulated from the possibility
Speaker 1: of being the victim of a wrongful conviction. Are you
Speaker 1: friends with the mayor? Because even a friendship like that
Speaker 1: couldn't save Charles, which shows us, in very stark terms
Speaker 1: that none of us are safe. So, just after Julie's
Speaker 1: funeral on that Monday, they brought you in for a
Speaker 1: more accusatory interview that ended up in your arrest. Did
Speaker 1: they try to extract a confession as we saw off
Speaker 1: and see? Oh? Yes? Act as we were walking over
Speaker 1: to the county jails when one of them said, you know,
Speaker 1: we can help you on this. You've got a long
Speaker 1: record of community service, you come from a good family.
Speaker 1: You know, all these kinds of positive things about in
Speaker 1: my life that they seem to soon forget. But they say,
Speaker 1: you know, we can do a deal here where you know,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to the d A and see if we can't.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we can do ten years that
Speaker 1: time manslaughter without a weapon. I believe it was called
Speaker 1: for like ten years is the max. And said, you
Speaker 1: know you'd be home and two or three years for
Speaker 1: Chet even gets in school. Good. You know you'd already
Speaker 1: be home. So I'm not pleading guilty to something I
Speaker 1: didn't do. And and that kind of ended that discussion.
Speaker 1: And oddly enough, the Coving and County d A. Great
Speaker 1: Elandier had no plans on indicting you none. The case
Speaker 1: against you was just too weak. A false confession would
Speaker 1: have definitely changed his tune. But you didn't crumble. This
Speaker 1: is why Julie's family, on this bizarre Alabama law, was
Speaker 1: able to bring in private prosecutors to do with Great
Speaker 1: Elanier rightfully did not want to do he declined to
Speaker 1: do it, Mark, do I have that right? That's right
Speaker 1: from talking to folks in the community that he was,
Speaker 1: at best lukewarm about the prospect of indicting Mr mccruary
Speaker 1: and trying the case, as you would think he would be, because,
Speaker 1: as you've pointed out, there was no evidence against Mr mccruary,
Speaker 1: and the evidence that there was was exculpatory, right, And
Speaker 1: so I believe it was Julie's uncle approached this father
Speaker 1: son duo of Frank and Harvey Tippler, who were very
Speaker 1: well known trial attorneys, and so he went out and
Speaker 1: paid them to prosecute the case. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the point at which this alleged bite mark sort of
Speaker 1: as Chris said, it's concocted. There were a number of
Speaker 1: puncture wounds on the victim's body. It was the Tipplers
Speaker 1: who took this injury and decided that these were potentially
Speaker 1: teeth marks, and it took this evidence to Dr Dick Subaran,
Speaker 1: who rose to fame as one of the forensic odentologists.
Speaker 1: Is to like to call themselves when they're in court,
Speaker 1: it's just a fancy way of saying forensic dentist and
Speaker 1: Subaran decides that these R and D teeth marks, but
Speaker 1: he's very you know, noncommittal about associating these teeth marks
Speaker 1: with Mr McCrory. Then the case gets closer and closer
Speaker 1: to trial. And you see this in wrongful conviction after
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, particularly as it relates to junk science. And
Speaker 1: this is why junk science is so convenient, because it
Speaker 1: really can say whatever you needed to say, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't saying enough before trial. But by the time it
Speaker 1: got to trial, Dick Subran was saying that it was
Speaker 1: Mr mccrary's teeth to exclusion for everybody else on the
Speaker 1: planet's teeth that made this particular bite mark. So according
Speaker 1: to this letter from Suberan to the Tipplers that was
Speaker 1: hidden from the defensive trial, Suberan shared his own doubts
Speaker 1: about making that match in court, but then he later
Speaker 1: did it anyway a trial. Now how he squared that
Speaker 1: circle for himself, we don't know. But the Tipplers now
Speaker 1: had their, you know, the piece of evidence that they
Speaker 1: needed to win, not to get justice, but to win
Speaker 1: for trial. And this is just five months later in October.
Speaker 1: And remember Charles was doing well in life, so he
Speaker 1: was able to hire a real solid team Bubba, Marcel
Speaker 1: and Larigos said, who were experienced defense laws. They just
Speaker 1: couldn't overcome what was eventually the recanted false testimony of
Speaker 1: Dick Subran. So it's a short trial, a couple of days.
Speaker 1: What is frustrating is that the opening and closing statements
Speaker 1: are not transcribed, so we only have the testimony of
Speaker 1: the witnesses. And like you mentioned, it really comes down
Speaker 1: to the bite mark right after suv run. But in
Speaker 1: addition to that, the Tipplers presented the marriage counselor as
Speaker 1: well as the woman with whom Charles had had an affair,
Speaker 1: Gloria Wiggins, to solidify their narrative that marital trouble was
Speaker 1: a potential catalyst or motive. But oddly enough, this woman,
Speaker 1: Gloria Wiggins, actually corroborated that Charles was back in his
Speaker 1: apartment around him thirty pm, not at Julie's. They also
Speaker 1: brought up this comment from Charles at the crime scene
Speaker 1: about the quote licks to the back of her head.
Speaker 1: Now again he was making an observation and she had
Speaker 1: a massive gash to the back of her head. So far,
Speaker 1: this is not a compelling case at all. Then they
Speaker 1: brought out the nineteen year old with the crazy midnight
Speaker 1: gardening story, Willie Meeks, who had been staying with his grandfather,
Speaker 1: Hubert Walker, Julie's neighbor, who also testified. There's this teenager
Speaker 1: kitty corner from Julie's home who claims that he was
Speaker 1: out at four thirty five o'clock in the morning checking
Speaker 1: on his grandfather's garden. It may have been the morning
Speaker 1: of May one, he's not really sure. And he sees
Speaker 1: this car that looks similar to the one that Mr
Speaker 1: mccruary drives parked at Julie's house, right, so whatever that
Speaker 1: is worth um. Interestingly, his grandfather there, who lives in
Speaker 1: that home, also testifies and claims that he is also
Speaker 1: up in the morning and also says that he sees
Speaker 1: a similar car, but he says that the car has
Speaker 1: parked somewhere else, in a different location. So, like you
Speaker 1: have these two stories that I think the prosecution probably
Speaker 1: hoped would corroborate each other, which actually didn't corroborate each other,
Speaker 1: probably because they were inaccurate. You know. Meek said that
Speaker 1: he saw the truck there and and my attorney had
Speaker 1: him draw a sketch, and that's part of the trial records.
Speaker 1: There's actually a hand drawn sketch of where the truck
Speaker 1: was parked. And I think it's the point a lot
Speaker 1: of people just didn't catch in the jury at the time.
Speaker 1: The house has a double driveway in it, and Julie's
Speaker 1: car would always would always parked it, you know, closer
Speaker 1: to the front door. My Bronco was hit beside it,
Speaker 1: but there was plenty of room in the driveway for
Speaker 1: both vehicles. So when I got there, my dad's car
Speaker 1: was already there, park beside Julie's car in the dry
Speaker 1: so I just pulled up behind him over on the
Speaker 1: grass to the left side of the driveway. And then
Speaker 1: Danny leaves to go tell mother what had happened. And
Speaker 1: so when he leaves, that leaves an opening in the driveway.
Speaker 1: And so that's exactly how Meeks drew it on his diagram,
Speaker 1: and to me is obviously what Meeks saying, that's what
Speaker 1: he'd remember seeing that morning after the police got there
Speaker 1: and after all this had happened, And there's an aerial
Speaker 1: photo of the scene taken by the police that shows that.
Speaker 1: So it seems like maybe this kid was interviewed in
Speaker 1: the aftermath about seeing Charles's car a few days after
Speaker 1: the fact, and his recollection was a bit fuzzy. Perhaps
Speaker 1: his memory was enhanced by that aerial photo. Will never know. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: as we've seen in other cases, you just had a
Speaker 1: kid who for whatever reason, wanted to insert himself into
Speaker 1: an investigation to help the police. However, what we found
Speaker 1: out just before the evidentially hearing that Chris and Mark
Speaker 1: recently tag team was that an investigator working for Chris
Speaker 1: checked out the properties and get this, the vantage point
Speaker 1: that Willie Meeks and his grandfather had. They checked it out,
Speaker 1: and what they found is that that vantage point was
Speaker 1: totally misrepresented to the jury. The jury had been told
Speaker 1: that they were right across the street, but if you
Speaker 1: were standing where they said they were standing and looking
Speaker 1: at Julie's house, you would not have been able to
Speaker 1: see the driveway in the way that they claimed. This
Speaker 1: kid who testified he was checking the garden as the
Speaker 1: father of a teenager. It struck me when I read
Speaker 1: the transcript, was like, who does that? Who gets up?
Speaker 1: But like, you know, I think that you know, normally
Speaker 1: when you would have a testimony like that at a
Speaker 1: trial that you would have some sort of explanation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was part of my job, like to go out
Speaker 1: and you know, make sure that the garden was still
Speaker 1: there at four thirty in the morning, when it's still
Speaker 1: basically dark out. The defense called two other neighbors, one
Speaker 1: of whom had an actual explanation that was credible for
Speaker 1: why they were out on the morning of May thirty one.
Speaker 1: That is, they were getting in their car to go
Speaker 1: to work. These were, you know, and it was an
Speaker 1: adult who had had a job. These two witnesses said
Speaker 1: there was no car there, meeting that description. So this midnight,
Speaker 1: pre dawned gardening teenager and his grandfather, who remember, whose
Speaker 1: accounts did not corroborate each other, were refuted by two
Speaker 1: other neighbors with credible recollections of that morning who said
Speaker 1: that both said that Charles's car was not there. And in
Speaker 1: in addition to this weak evidence, the Tipplers presented no confessions, eyewitnesses,
Speaker 1: forensic evidence because there wasn't any. The hairs found in
Speaker 1: Julie's hand were not a match for Julie or Charles.
Speaker 1: Charles's clothes, his car, fingernails, his apartment, no blood evidence
Speaker 1: at all was found and that get this prior to trial.
Speaker 1: At one point they even claimed that they had found
Speaker 1: blood on his tennis shoes, but when it came back
Speaker 1: from the lab it turned out to be Coca cola. Now,
Speaker 1: the defense presented Charles, who, of course reiterated the same
Speaker 1: statement that he had been making since day one, recounting
Speaker 1: his every step and maintaining his innocence. The defense tried
Speaker 1: to ing up the evidence of an intruder coming through
Speaker 1: the open rear window, the bootprint, and the red bandanna,
Speaker 1: as well as the construction worker Ainsworth who worked behind
Speaker 1: Julie's house and committed a rape and home invasion just
Speaker 1: a month after Julie's murder, but none of it gained
Speaker 1: enough traction to overcome the testimony of Dick Subaron. Dr
Speaker 1: Richard subern fresh off his testimony convicting Ted Bundy. Dr
Speaker 1: Suberon is a charismatic guy, one of the sort of
Speaker 1: godfathers of forensic ode antology. Right. He's got resume full
Speaker 1: of credentials, at least he did in at the time
Speaker 1: of this trial. Fancy doctor flies up to Andalus al
Speaker 1: Obama from Miami and wow's the jury with this quote
Speaker 1: unquote science. And you know, I think the private prosecutors,
Speaker 1: the Tipplers, knew how important he was because they saved
Speaker 1: him till the end of their case against Mr McQuary,
Speaker 1: And right at the end of his testimony, they do
Speaker 1: this series of questions, Is this a bite mark? Yes?
Speaker 1: Did Mr mccruary make the light mark? Yes? Did he
Speaker 1: do it during the murder? Essentially yes? And if you're
Speaker 1: a juror, that's hard to overcome. Um. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's tons of all their exaltatory information out there, obviously,
Speaker 1: but you just had this fancy doctor who flew up
Speaker 1: from Miami saying this guy bait her while he was
Speaker 1: killing her. You know. It's usually at this point that
Speaker 1: I asked if you were still holding out hope that
Speaker 1: the jury got it right, but it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: anyone did. Can you take us back to that moment,
Speaker 1: that awful moment when the jury came back in, well,
Speaker 1: when when they walked in, I mean, I could have
Speaker 1: told you the verdict before they read. I just jurors
Speaker 1: that were smiling and looking at us and so forth.
Speaker 1: But when they came back in that they were not
Speaker 1: looking our way. And I knew then, you know that
Speaker 1: it was over when Jorge Bowen, you know, wound guilt.
Speaker 1: I told him then that I didn't kill her. I
Speaker 1: knew he wasn't gonna make any real difference, but there's
Speaker 1: something I felt I had to say. I had to
Speaker 1: tell him personally as it listen, you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: to say in front of everybody, I did not do this.
Speaker 1: And we were surprised that the judge allowed me to
Speaker 1: remain out on bond until citizen and that was just
Speaker 1: don't heard of. And I've often thought that maybe that
Speaker 1: was a little bit of how he felt about the case,
Speaker 1: because you just don't get convicted of murder and stay
Speaker 1: out on bonding. And I went out for ten more days.
Speaker 1: Prison is is a is a horrible place. You don't
Speaker 1: want to be there, and you don't want your family there,
Speaker 1: to say the least, there's a real adjustment. Is not
Speaker 1: the word for it is culture shock. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just not something I ever dreamed in the worst nightmare,
Speaker 1: whatever happened. And so to get sentenced to life sentences,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a while to adjust to that.
Speaker 1: There's no way I ever want to even imagine, much
Speaker 1: un less live through it. So I mean, seeing what
Speaker 1: Dick S. Hoover did, did you have any hope that
Speaker 1: this could ever be undone? Uh, well, we we've of
Speaker 1: course did a direct appeal to criminal core appears like
Speaker 1: he normally would, and that was shot down, although there
Speaker 1: were some comments in their opinion that you know, they
Speaker 1: agreed that Suberan's testimony had substantially changed from the time
Speaker 1: he wrote the letter until he actually came in the
Speaker 1: courtroom and that should have been revealed to us under
Speaker 1: discovery lass. But the judge said that Marsil my attorney,
Speaker 1: did not object at the proper time to preserve it
Speaker 1: for appellate review. And it's like, I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: your attorney doesn't object even though they think there's an
Speaker 1: issue here. And then of course we didn't. We didn't
Speaker 1: know until after I was at Kilby for a while
Speaker 1: at a hearing on a motion for a new trial.
Speaker 1: The d a greatly near at the time great and
Speaker 1: made the comment about Harvey went down there one day,
Speaker 1: and that's when we first learned that Harvey Tippler, the
Speaker 1: young the son of the Tipplers, had act that gone
Speaker 1: down to Carl Gave with Florida, met with Suberan from
Speaker 1: the time of the letter until the time of the trial.
Speaker 1: So now it's like, Okay, now we're seeing some understanding.
Speaker 1: Why did this testimony changed like it did? Wow, So
Speaker 1: now things begin to appear a bit clearer. You know,
Speaker 1: another thing happened after this case. The Tippler is younger
Speaker 1: member of their duo went to federal prison serving life
Speaker 1: sentence for solicitation and murder as an aside. Right, So
Speaker 1: these are the guys that prosecuted an innocent man. So
Speaker 1: it appears Harvey Tippler may have been willing to fudge
Speaker 1: evidence to ruin an innocent man's life, which makes his
Speaker 1: solicitation of murder conviction not that surprising, let's face it.
Speaker 1: So what did the Alabama Supreme Court do with this information?
Speaker 1: Supreme courts, they really just didn't do anything with it,
Speaker 1: and then it just set for a while in I'm
Speaker 1: not sure the date here, in the early two thousand's
Speaker 1: or someone the two thousands that the cases involved in
Speaker 1: Michael and the dental mess over there in Mississippi were
Speaker 1: two different men were sentis to death row. Yeah, Levon
Speaker 1: Brooks and Kennedy Brewer. It was like two thousand seven
Speaker 1: two eight Michael West that was basically exposed as being
Speaker 1: a fixer for hire. If you didn't have the evidence
Speaker 1: you needed to convict, he basically just show up and
Speaker 1: match any teeth to almost any injury, right exactly. That
Speaker 1: case became public and we got wind of it and
Speaker 1: Newsweek magazine, I believe it was. And so after that
Speaker 1: we filed a Rule thirty two trying to attack the
Speaker 1: dental evidence, but at that point we didn't have near
Speaker 1: the resources. Any serious ammunition didn't come up until I
Speaker 1: got a letter from Mark earlier. The Innocence Project of
Speaker 1: New York had asked if we would be willing to
Speaker 1: provide records they were doing, i think a task force
Speaker 1: or studying dental cases around the country. So we provided
Speaker 1: all the records. You know, when we in strategic litigation
Speaker 1: at the Innocence Project decided to focus on rankmark comparison.
Speaker 1: That evidence we identified as well as we possibly could
Speaker 1: every bite mark conviction in the history of time, and
Speaker 1: we focused on death penalty cases initially, and then we started,
Speaker 1: you know, litigating all of these cases because we know
Speaker 1: that any conviction that rests on junct science is inherently
Speaker 1: unreliable and because Mark and I have litigated many post
Speaker 1: convicsion cases previously, including another wrongful conviction of Sheila Denton
Speaker 1: in Georgia that was also bite Mark case. We reached
Speaker 1: out to Mark, you know, because Mark and the Southern
Speaker 1: Center for Human Rights Liddy Gates and Georgia and in Alabama,
Speaker 1: and referred Mr McClory's case to him. I read the
Speaker 1: transcript and I thought, yep, we're gonna take this. You know,
Speaker 1: Mr McClory's lead trial councils deceased now, but the junior
Speaker 1: trial attorney at the time is not. And you know,
Speaker 1: he was practicing in 's still practicing. So that's a
Speaker 1: career of something like thirty seven thirty nine, forty years.
Speaker 1: When I walked into his office after I learned of
Speaker 1: this case a couple of years ago, he had Mr
Speaker 1: McCrory's file sitting behind his desk and he said, that's
Speaker 1: where I keep my file because this is that case,
Speaker 1: this is the case that haunts me. One of the
Speaker 1: first things we did was we've talked with Chris and
Speaker 1: he said, wow, let's just see if Dr Suberan what
Speaker 1: he thinks today. And so we asked him, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not very popular with the dentists, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: particularly after publishing my book, But I do have respect
Speaker 1: for forensic analysts of any discipline that are willing to
Speaker 1: review their prior case work and to recant when they
Speaker 1: know they've been wrong, when they know that their opinion
Speaker 1: may have led to the conviction of an innocent person.
Speaker 1: And I think that with notable exceptions that we've talked
Speaker 1: about um on your show before, Jason, but most forensic
Speaker 1: analysts are trying to do the right thing. They're not
Speaker 1: trying to frame innocent people for crimes that they didn't commit.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have the influence of you know,
Speaker 1: prosecutors saying that you know, this guy is a guilty
Speaker 1: murderer and we need your opinion to help put them away,
Speaker 1: you know, many friends ag analysts believe that they're doing
Speaker 1: the right thing by giving the opinion to the prosecution
Speaker 1: that they want. Dick s Uberan went back, he reviewed
Speaker 1: his testimony, he reviewed the evidence at issue, and he
Speaker 1: entirely recanted his opinion. Once that happened, Mark and I
Speaker 1: decided to co counsel this case together, and we filed
Speaker 1: a petition for a new trial untainted by false, misleading
Speaker 1: evidence that was presented, nonetheless is so called scientific evidence
Speaker 1: to Mr mccorary's jury. So that's what we want. We
Speaker 1: filed this motion for a new trial in the case,
Speaker 1: and we were granted an evidentiary hearing, and in the
Speaker 1: lead up to this evidentry hearing, the day before, we
Speaker 1: got an offer from the prosecution for time served, which
Speaker 1: means that all Mr McCory has to do is accept
Speaker 1: responsibility for this murder, and he goes home that day.
Speaker 1: That day, goes back to his son, to his sisters,
Speaker 1: to his life after thirty seven years in prison. He
Speaker 1: did not hesitate for one second in rejecting it. I
Speaker 1: think I'd plead guilty almost anything to get out of
Speaker 1: prison after being in for that long. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was as much evidence as anything else that Mr
Speaker 1: mcquarie is an instant man. And the fact that it
Speaker 1: was offered in the first place, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they let him go home after he was sentenced, but
Speaker 1: before he went to prison, all of it adds up
Speaker 1: to an even more seering indicting of the whole system.
Speaker 1: Someone asked me recently, did you entertain it? And I
Speaker 1: didn't know I didn't entertain him. I'm not about to
Speaker 1: plead guilty to a murderer that I did not do
Speaker 1: for many reasons. I mean, obviously I want to get
Speaker 1: out of prison, but we want to know what happened
Speaker 1: and who did it and so forth, and it seems
Speaker 1: to be that we're the only ones chasing those answers.
Speaker 1: The police have long since given up on trying to
Speaker 1: help that. It seemed like in many ways they've tried
Speaker 1: to cover their tracks on their uh in epiness. Back
Speaker 1: when all this occurred, I mean the early and he's
Speaker 1: investigator Blade Garrett destroys and burns several things that could
Speaker 1: have been used for DNA. That's when DNA was just
Speaker 1: becoming known and just becoming popular, and yeah, he burns
Speaker 1: these things. Now, we would love to do DNA testing
Speaker 1: of the fingernail scrapings that were taken from Julie right
Speaker 1: despite no scratches im Mr McQuary, the hair that was
Speaker 1: found clutched in her head, the red bandanna like the
Speaker 1: one that Ainsworth War. We would love to test all
Speaker 1: of that for DNA, but one of the police officers
Speaker 1: burnt it all and so it's unavailable for testing. Who
Speaker 1: burns evidence. This is insane, like, at least lie lie
Speaker 1: to us, right, lie it was tell us that you
Speaker 1: lost it, but you burned it. It just speaks to
Speaker 1: the fact that all the people in positions of power
Speaker 1: really must know that he's innocent. It's just astonishing. So
Speaker 1: we proceed to the hearing, and in addition to the
Speaker 1: recantation that was done in an Affidavid and you know, notably,
Speaker 1: the prosecution did not call pick Subran to try to
Speaker 1: rehabilitate him or to try to salve at his conviction. Instead,
Speaker 1: we put on the evidence, and we put on to
Speaker 1: forensic dentists Adam Freeman and Cynthia Brazowski, both of whom
Speaker 1: are to extent that anybody can be well qualified in
Speaker 1: this field. They're both very well qualified, and we've studied it,
Speaker 1: and they both opined that this was not a bite mark.
Speaker 1: They looked at the other injuries that had not been
Speaker 1: called teeth marks and pointed out that these things that
Speaker 1: were called teeth marks and these other things that weren't
Speaker 1: appeared to be the same instrument that created all these
Speaker 1: injuries which were not teeth right. And then additionally and importantly,
Speaker 1: we had an investigator go out to the scene a
Speaker 1: couple of days before the hearing and take a look
Speaker 1: at the vantage point that the kid across the street
Speaker 1: and his grandfather claimed to have seen Mr McQuary's truck
Speaker 1: or something that looked like his truck, maybe on the
Speaker 1: day of the murder, maybe not. And the description of
Speaker 1: the vantage point that they gave to Mr mccary's jury,
Speaker 1: it was described as being directly across the street. But
Speaker 1: if you were standing where they said they were standing,
Speaker 1: and you were looking towards the victim's house, you would
Speaker 1: not have been able to see the driveway in the
Speaker 1: way that they claimed. And when we put our investigator
Speaker 1: on the stand, we showed evidence from the nineteenes that
Speaker 1: showed that the houses were in the same position, that
Speaker 1: there were no new structures, and that they were the
Speaker 1: same when we did the hearing last year. So even
Speaker 1: this one shred of weak evidence was further undermined at
Speaker 1: this hearing. To sort of close out the rest of
Speaker 1: the hearing, you know, we we felt like we did it.
Speaker 1: That's the only evidence. It's not there anymore, right, And
Speaker 1: so what does the prosecution do. The prosecution has an
Speaker 1: investigator from their office read the direct testimony of some
Speaker 1: of the witnesses who testify it in so this guy
Speaker 1: is just literally reading the transcript. He's not reading the
Speaker 1: cross examinations, he's not reading any of the defense witnesses.
Speaker 1: He's just reading certain prosecution witnesses from which seems to
Speaker 1: me a concession that they have no response to anything
Speaker 1: that we've we've said, and then enclosing argument, get up
Speaker 1: and create an entirely new theory of guilt. Right. Liliana
Speaker 1: Sigoura and Jordan Smith did an article for The Intercept
Speaker 1: on this case, and they called the closing argument a
Speaker 1: fever dream. It was just this story that the new
Speaker 1: prosecutor made up, completely inconsistent with the theory that the
Speaker 1: prosecution had at the time. And so we're sitting there like,
Speaker 1: what is going on? What? What is this? This makes
Speaker 1: no sense? This is a totally new theory. And so
Speaker 1: a few days after the hearing, an investor, Guiter and
Speaker 1: I went down to the prison where Harvey Tippler was
Speaker 1: serving his prison since he was agreeable he knew the
Speaker 1: case well. He has since passed away. He spoke with
Speaker 1: us for quite a while about his memory of the
Speaker 1: case because I mentioned at the outset. We didn't have
Speaker 1: the opening statement and the closing argument, and so we
Speaker 1: didn't know what the prosecution argued in closing. So we
Speaker 1: went to the source and we said Mr Tippler, what
Speaker 1: did you say in closing? And he said, oh, is
Speaker 1: the bite mark? That was all we had, you know,
Speaker 1: And so we submitted a notice to the court saying
Speaker 1: we would like to let the court know that Mr Tippler,
Speaker 1: the lawyer who tried the case, disagrees with the new tact,
Speaker 1: essentially that the prosecution has taken and the court didn't
Speaker 1: allow us to add that to the record, so they
Speaker 1: had no response to the new evidence and instead made
Speaker 1: up this story. And the real kicker was when they
Speaker 1: said that the jury was free to decide for itself
Speaker 1: that it was Mr McQuary's bite mark. So, notwithstanding three
Speaker 1: dentists who said it's not a bite mark, let alone
Speaker 1: mr mcquarie's, the execution said, well, but the jury could
Speaker 1: have decided that it was, and therefore his conviction should stand. So,
Speaker 1: to put it differently, lagers are more capable of engaging
Speaker 1: in junk science than the junk scientists themselves, right, and
Speaker 1: so that the idea is is that you don't even
Speaker 1: need an expert witness. We can just put this junk
Speaker 1: science in front of the jury and that would be
Speaker 1: good enough for government work. You know what, did you
Speaker 1: bring in somebody like Sue or on with these big
Speaker 1: fantasy pictures and all that, and they're gonna believe what
Speaker 1: he says. And the idea that somehow they can take
Speaker 1: that out and the jury would have reached the same
Speaker 1: verdict is ridiculous. It's unfucking real. And then on the
Speaker 1: first of March, you guys filed the motion to reconsider
Speaker 1: the order. In it, you've described all of the other
Speaker 1: White Mark cases that resulted in overturned convictions, and this
Speaker 1: motion began. I think this is so powerful just with
Speaker 1: the names of thirty five people who combined probably served
Speaker 1: over a thousand years in prison. If I to guess,
Speaker 1: and we know some of these names because they've been
Speaker 1: on the show, and I mean we can read them
Speaker 1: one at a time, I feel like we should go in,
Speaker 1: like each take turns reading the names. Keith Harward, Robert Stinson,
Speaker 1: Gerard Richardson, Willie Jackson, Roy Brown, Ray Crone, Calvin Washington,
Speaker 1: Joe Williams, James O'Donnell, Levon Brooks, Kennedy Brewer, Benny Starks,
Speaker 1: Michael Christini, Jeffrey Mouldwan, Anthony Kiko, Harold Hill, Dan Young Jr.
Speaker 1: Greg will Hoote, Crystal Wimer, Stephen Cheney, William Richards, Alfred Swinton,
Speaker 1: Sherwood Brown, John Cunso, Gary Sazari, Sheila d Robert du Bois,
Speaker 1: Eddie Lee, Howard, Gilbert Pool, and of course the man
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, Charles mccruary. And each of these
Speaker 1: people was wrongfully convicted due to bite mark evidence, and
Speaker 1: there are countless other names that could be added to
Speaker 1: this list that we haven't been able to help yet.
Speaker 1: So with that, Charles is in your thirty seven of
Speaker 1: this slow moving train wreck. You know, I want to
Speaker 1: find out from you guys, is there any steps that
Speaker 1: people can take? Is their petition? Is there someone? What
Speaker 1: can people do? We are appealing the case. We've partnered
Speaker 1: with some Alabama lawyers who are are helping us do
Speaker 1: the best we can to try to convince the appellate
Speaker 1: court that the trial court will cut it wrong. And
Speaker 1: so that's the next step. And I think just the
Speaker 1: more people who know about the case, the better we
Speaker 1: share the podcast the articles to those listeners in Alabama too,
Speaker 1: right into your lawmakers and question you know why Charles
Speaker 1: McQuary and instant man is still in prison, and this
Speaker 1: is correctible. Charles McQuary can still live the rest of
Speaker 1: his life and be reunited with his family. So I
Speaker 1: hope that listeners will help spread the word, help put
Speaker 1: pressure on the decision makers to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: We really want people in Alabama to know that this
Speaker 1: is happening in their backyard and this is not a
Speaker 1: right or a isssue. This is a human rights issue.
Speaker 1: There should be no politics in freeing the innocent, so
Speaker 1: please do get involved. We'll put links in the bio
Speaker 1: to action steps you can take. Again, Chris Fabric can't
Speaker 1: go get the book junk Science. Some of these stories
Speaker 1: are just too crazy to be believed. But you'll understand
Speaker 1: the issue so much better. And it's a great reading
Speaker 1: reason like a novel. And now we turn to the
Speaker 1: part of our show that I know everyone looks forward
Speaker 1: to like I do, which is called closing arguments. And Chris,
Speaker 1: you know how it works. Um, Charles was going to
Speaker 1: tell you how it works right now, and Mark Um,
Speaker 1: so basically I thank you closing arguments. I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off and leave it on for each
Speaker 1: of you guys to share any thoughts that you have,
Speaker 1: anything we may have left out, or anything else you
Speaker 1: want to say. So we'll go Chris, then over you Mark,
Speaker 1: and then of course Mr McQuary, Charles, please close it out.
Speaker 1: I like people to retain their skepticism and that it's
Speaker 1: really important that we all serve on juries, that we
Speaker 1: have skeptical jurors and that don't believe anything that somebody
Speaker 1: tells you just because they're board certified or they're wearing
Speaker 1: a white lab coat. I want to just read a
Speaker 1: quote that I think is is important for people to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. You know, Chris and I have mentioned
Speaker 1: a few times that we represented a woman by the
Speaker 1: name of of Sheila Denton in Georgia. It was a
Speaker 1: bite mark case and in two thousand and twenty Miss
Speaker 1: Denton was granted a new trial. This is down in Waycross, Georgia,
Speaker 1: conservative part of of Georgia, and the judge chief judge wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: proven unreliable scientific evidence should never serve as the basis
Speaker 1: of a conviction and should be dealt with by the
Speaker 1: courts if and when it is found. And like Dr Suvaran,
Speaker 1: who we applaud for admitting his mistake, like this judge
Speaker 1: who wrote this, who applaud for being courageous enough to
Speaker 1: overturn a murder conviction because it was based on proven,
Speaker 1: unreliable scientific evidence. I just hope that there are more
Speaker 1: judges and prosecutors out there who have the courage that
Speaker 1: this judge did to see that and to enforce that. Well. Again,
Speaker 1: I appreciate uh your interest in the case, and I
Speaker 1: just say that I think I wrote this recently. There
Speaker 1: should not be a finality in a case where an
Speaker 1: innocent person is in prison, and I think what some
Speaker 1: courts want to do is close the door. This is
Speaker 1: not the only case we know of thirty something exoneries
Speaker 1: just from dental evidence alone, and how many others are
Speaker 1: out there so juries. While they try to make I think,
Speaker 1: good decisions, they do not make perfect decisions, and there
Speaker 1: should be a real process that for people seriously look
Speaker 1: at this when people claim innocence, and I appreciate groups
Speaker 1: like yourself and others that are working on that. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to raw full conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claverne, and Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flom Raleful Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one