WEBVTT - #397 Guest Host Kemba Smith with Leon Benson 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.920 In the early morning hours of August eighth, nineteen ninety eight, 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:10.920 shots rang out in downtown Indianapolis. Casey Shane, a young 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.080 man who had been known to frequent a gay bar 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.800 in the area, was found dead in the driver's seat 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.560 of his truck. A young woman who was delivering newspapers 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.680 in the area witnessed the shooting. She described the gunman 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.120 to police as a dark skinned black man wearing a 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.720 black shirt and jogging pants with three white stripes down 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.160 the sides. Later, in a photo array and a live lineup, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.400 she picked out Leon Benson. Leon lived a few blocks 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.839 from the shooting and was known to police as a 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:48.199 drug dealer. When Leon was arrested a week later, he 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.280 insisted he had nothing to do with the shooting. He'd 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.040 been in a building across the street that night and 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.520 dozens of people had seen him there. But at trial, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.600 the young woman who had identified Leon from the lineup 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.600 did so again in front of a jury with convincing certainty. 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.200 She had seen the shooter with her own eyes, she 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:13.160 told the court, and she pointed at Leon Benson. But 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:31.280 this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I'm 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:38.240 kimbas Smith. Criminal justice advocate, formerly incarcerated individual, presidential clemency recipient, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.240 and author and executive producer. And I'm sitting in today 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.360 for Jason Flahm, who is a good friend, longtime supporter, 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:51.520 and I'm excited today to be here with Leon Benson. Hi. Leon, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:53.800 thanks for being on Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:55.560 Hey, thank you for having me. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.360 And we also have uss Laura Basilon from the University 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.640 of San Francis GO School of Law, where she is 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.320 the director of the Criminal, Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:06.360 Clinic Programs. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:07.400 Welcome, Laura. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.079 Thank you so much for having us. 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.400 And thank you so much for your passion and the 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.320 work that you do. Leon. So what was most interesting 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.119 to me about your case was that during that particular 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.520 time when you are arrested in nineteen ninety eight, there 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.160 was this big, you know thing already with the war 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.840 on drugs, but there was an influx now black and 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.000 brown people going into the system. And so my case 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.000 was a drug case, a crack case. And so I 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.799 know with my case, the prosecution withheld discovery information and 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.320 just to read all the many errors that transpired with 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.440 your trial, it just really struck a chur with me, 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.840 and not to mention. I used to live in Indianapolis 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.080 as well, so I'm really excited to just dive in. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.560 Can you tell us about your life before all of 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.639 this happened. You know, where you're from, where you grew up, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.280 anything about your family life. 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.440 You know, first and foremost, I'm from Flint, Michigan, and 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.760 I'm proud to say that. You know, Flint is a 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.760 blue collar community, you know, the underdog. You know, we 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.960 got that fighting spirit. I think I had a great childhood. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.160 I mean I didn't know I was poor anything like that. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.160 I was very creative growing up. I was able to 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.919 see a diverse crowd of people and culture. 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:28.880 At a young age. 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.840 And you know, I participated in sports, played basketball, you know, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.160 things like that, you know, typical things of a kid. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.760 So I did have an affinity for hip hop, but 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.640 I also started to have an affinity for you know, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.320 the fast life, fast money, things like that. You know, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.760 growing up, I was a typical kid who experienced gang violence, 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.760 experienced street violence, things like that. 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:55.560 You know. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.040 I eventually moved to Detroit when I was seventeen and 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.840 and love Detroit. You know, I made my bones in 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.360 Detroit very early. You know, fair feeling Puritan. You know, 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.760 at this point, it seems like a very typical urban background. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.120 As I reflect back on my life, I see a 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.880 lot of things that could have been a lot better, 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.880 but they could have been a lot worse too, you know. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:23.919 And at the time that this incident happened, what was 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:25.080 going on in your life? 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.320 In August eighth, for nineteen ninety eight, I was twenty 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.200 two years old, and at the time, what was happening 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.159 for me in my life? It was like, you know, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.000 the the hip hop stuff that was going on with Tupac, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.359 you know, in Big Eie master P. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.599 You know, this was the backdrop. You know. I was 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:45.880 in Indianapolis, Indiana. 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.240 I had come down there, not to sell drugs or 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.279 anything like that. I came down there as a professional painter, 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.120 home renovator. I was able to renovate like eighty homes 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.440 before I was laid off, and you know, unfortunately, you know, 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.080 I got back into the street life. So the area 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.839 I was in, it was a transit area in the 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.320 near downtown area Indianapolis. It was a lot going on. 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.400 It was very transit, very moving, and this was one 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.279 of the reasons that attracted me to this particular part 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.560 of the city of Indianapolis because it reminded me of 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:19.240 Detroit and Flynt. 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.680 And this was also the neighborhood where the crime took place. Laura, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.240 can you tell us something about the area kind of 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.080 set the stage for what happened that night? 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.560 Indianapolis, the downtown part of it where this crime took place, 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.640 was fairly violent. It was known for a place where 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.760 you could buy and sell drugs, and as Leon also indicated, 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.719 was this interesting mix where this is the late nineties, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.640 there was a lot of homophobia, and it was also 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.960 a place where people who were gay could go to bars, 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:54.520 including the Varsity Lounge and meet other people who were gay. 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.320 The victim in the case was twenty five year old 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.640 Casey Shane. He was from Plainville, which was middle class 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.279 su bourbon community about twenty miles outside of Indianapolis. What 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:05.920 was he doing downtown that night? 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.240 Our operating theory has always been that Casey Shane was 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.719 there that night in that particular part of Indianapolis because 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.599 he had visited the Varsity Lounge, and we know he 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.000 had visited that bar in the past because witnesses had 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.880 identified him as being there, and there's fairly strong evidence 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.440 at this point to suggest that he was gay, but 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.200 also closeted for the reasons that you might expect, which 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.479 is that very very few people, even in extremely liberal places, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.080 which Indianapolis was not, were out of the closet at 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.320 that point in time. And so our theory is that 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.120 he went out that night and went to the Varsity 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.640 and had a few drinks and maybe had an interaction 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.880 with someone there and then maybe arranged to meet them 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.760 a couple of blocks away, which is where the actual 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:57.000 crime itself occurred. 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.440 With all of that, can you run down ionologically the 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.880 night of August eighth, nineteen ninety eight. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.240 Yeah, so it was a fairly ordinary night in that 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.720 Leon was hanging out at a place called the Priscilla Apartments, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.560 which was also known as Little Vietnam. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.560 It was a building that I saw drugs out of, 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.200 and at this particular point of the night, I'd been 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.320 out there all day. So I came back to my 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.120 headquarters was this building, and I was in the back 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.640 of the buildings and by the steps, and I was 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.120 there with Timothy Gaither with a whole bunch of other people, 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:38.640 and you know, it was beer drinking, we smoking, and then. 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.000 Around a little after three o'clock in the morning, there 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.760 was this sound of gunfire. 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:49.160 And we heard shots like by popow paw, and it 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:50.800 was like they were so close. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.880 And one of Leon's friends, miss Shirley, who had just 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:58.920 gone outside, saw what they believed to be this black 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.880 pickup truck parked kind of idling outside across the street, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.280 and there was a man in the truck in the 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.920 front seat who wasn't moving, and there was a man 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.480 on the sidewalk who had fired multiple times into the vehicle, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.400 then walked away, walked back and fired again, And this 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:21.720 was just a completely shocking, seemingly out of nowhere shooting, 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:26.000 and from Leon's perspective, all he heard were the shots. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.800 You know, I stay in the back of the building 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.080 for maybe twenty thirty minutes, so I left out that 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.239 back part of the door and went to my apartment 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:41.719 that was also in that direction, going like several blocks away. 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.160 And he kind of went about his evening and then 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.440 only later realized that it was this young white man 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.280 who was in the neighborhood and this was a really 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.120 big deal that he had essentially been executed in his car, 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.199 and the police just came in kind of swarmed into 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.920 the neighborhood and essentially shut down business as usual there 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.720 for a while because they were extremely intent on finding 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:07.680 someone to arrest. 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.480 Now went on about my business, and it was a 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.920 parade of police, you know, later on that day, and 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.880 I didn't come back to the area for several days. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.120 I think there was a lot of pressure in this 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.160 case because the suspect who had been seen by witnesses 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.880 was black, the victim was white. I think that cross 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.280 racial nature put extra pressure on the police, and there 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.160 was just a lot of heat in the neighborhood in 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.199 the next couple of weeks, and a lot of, as 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.640 I said, pressure on the police to solve this crime 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.080 and really get someone in custody and charge them. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:44.120 So Leon was nowhere around he heard the shot. What 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:49.600 led to this investigation? How did they even connect Leon 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:51.000 to the case? 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:57.000 Initially, the police were given leads that the person who 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.360 committed the shooting was a man named Joseph Webster, and 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.800 they had that information because there was talk in the 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.160 streets that it was Joseph Webster. And there was other information, 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.880 including from a man named Dakaria Fulton who had actually 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.840 witnessed the shooting, that Joseph Webster had committed that crime, 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.439 but it so happened that a young woman named Christy 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.800 Schmidt was there at the scene. She was a white woman. 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:23.240 Her reason for being in the neighborhood was that she 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.520 was delivering newspapers. So for your younger listeners back in 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.440 the day, you would put a quarter in a box, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.920 you'd open the box and you would pull out a newspaper, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.040 and Christy was the person who would stack those newspapers, 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:35.599 and that's what she was doing. She was in the 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.120 middle of doing that when she heard the shots and 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.600 she looked up and she saw the shooter. And her 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.640 initial description she said, he never got into the light. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:43.960 And recall it's very dark to three o'clock in the morning. 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.679 She was one hundred and fifty feet away, a full 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.400 block away, and according to the lead detective, a man 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:54.720 named Alan Jones, when she was given different mugshots to 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.080 look at, she was given Joseph Webster's mug shot, and 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.199 she said that it was not Joseph Webster, and then 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.640 detective Jones showed her a picture of Leon and Christy 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.240 Schmid said that his face leapt off the page and 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.240 that she was certain that this was the person that 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.319 this was the shooter, and when that happened, the entire 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.280 trajectory of the case changed. 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.840 So you're saying this key witness pointed out Leon on 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.160 a lineup, despite having only seen the shooter in the 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.840 dark of night for a few seconds and from one 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:28.640 hundred and fifty feet away. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.840 And she said, initially to the detective on the scene, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.360 Detective Leslie van Buskirk, he had a dark complexion. And 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.520 of course, as you can see all too clearly because 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.120 we're all looking at each other and these little zoom pictures, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.760 Leon is very light complexed. There were a lot of 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:47.000 things that didn't make any sense about her description, which 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:52.200 also evolved and became increasingly specific and dramatic over time. 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.080 And I want to point out too that study after 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.680 study has shown the unreliability of cross racial identification. They've 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:04.040 been to be less accurate than just taking a wild guess. So, Laura, 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.960 was there anything else about the photo identification or the 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:08.280 lineup that seems sketchy. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.520 Yes, there's a lot of opaqueness around that. They never 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.520 recorded that interview. We have no idea what detective Jones 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.880 said to her. We don't know if suggestive language was used. 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:20.880 We don't know how many pictures she actually looked at. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:22.880 She does not have a clear memory of that at 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.319 the time. And so once they had this woman as 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.720 their witness, they built the entire case around that, which 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.760 meant essentially that they developed tunnel vision, and it really 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:36.080 became about propping up her account and making everything revolve 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.800 around and reinforce what she was saying. And every time 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.679 they received a piece of information that pointed away from 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.240 Leon and toward Joseph Webster, they would bury it in 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.200 the file and not turn it over. 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.520 And another thing, there was another witness who came forward 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.440 as well, a neighborhood guy named Donald Brooks who had 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.960 previously gotten into a beef with Leon, I think over 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.200 a drug deal gone sour. He told detective Jones that 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.920 the shooter was a guy named Detroit, which was Leon's nickname. 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.160 Donald Brooks later went back on a statement, but we'll 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.520 hear more about that later. Leon. All of this came 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.720 as a surprise to you because you were arrested on 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.080 the fourteenth of August, about a week after the shooting happened. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.280 But originally you thought they were picking you up for 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:17.840 something else. 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:25.400 Right that day, I was still in my drug business 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.680 at the time. You know, my run in with authorities 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.200 was I got caught with possession of cocaine and so 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.520 I was on a misdemeanor of probation charge. So when 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.559 the police rolled up on me and Shirley now sitting 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.360 on the stool, they said I had a warrant for 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.840 possession of cocaine and probation violation, and you know, I 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.920 was arrested for that. We went to the police station 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.240 and they tained me to the wall in the room. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:58.920 And I just fell asleep. I fell out and then 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.000 I was awakened. I don't know for how long. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.720 It was cold as hell in there, and they came, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.560 you know, Detective Jones and Van Buskirk, and it was 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.520 interrogate me. They told me like, hey, what do you 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.920 know about this murder? And instantly for me, I felt 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.600 like this is a game. I was nowhere around, no 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.680 murder scene. I got nothing to do with this stuff. 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.080 I just held my own But I thought it was 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.240 a joke that they had come to me about a murder, 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.640 and even saying that somebody'd seen me do it. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.400 It was laughable. It was laughable. 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:56.440 My biggest mistake was not asking for a lawyer. You know, 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.200 twenty twenty, hindsight is always there. But you know, when 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.720 I start to understand the law, I realized that most 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.479 people like me at the time, you know, twenty. 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.240 Two year old, uneducated. 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:13.040 Of course, you know, you had this notion that if 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.760 you say, get a lawyer, as if it's saying you guilty, 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.800 you know, the system say you're innocent, to proven guilty. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:21.480 But it was quite the opposite. 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:21.800 For me. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.400 It was guilty and to proven innocent. So I didn't 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.920 know this at the time. So I'm volunteering my location 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.200 where I was at, and I find out later that 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.040 you know, the detective, you don't manipulated, you know this information. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:40.239 You know he omitted. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.640 Out of forty people in the building, you only can 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.160 find two people who said they didn't see me. And 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:50.000 I gave you at least ten twelve apartment numbers of 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.200 people that see me right right, and even worse, even 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.840 worse because I gave up that information. You know, I 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.160 wasn't thinking that people, you know, even in the building, 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.640 that they had seen me that day would probably be like, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:04.960 I don't want to get involved. 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.880 I'm no, I didn't see nothing what you're talking about. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.600 And they was right to feel like that, you know 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:11.680 at the time. 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.840 You know, so as bad as it sounds, you know, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.360 a lot of us play this game with the system, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.880 and I'm talking to my people that's out there, you know, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.120 in the street life or whatnot. You know, on one hand, 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.600 we want to, you know, be out there doing our 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.920 thing in the dark, selling drugs, you know, moving the 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.280 things that we do. But then on the other hand, 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:33.680 we wanted to we still want to trust it. We 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.720 don't trust the police, but we want to trust the 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.720 police at the same time, you know, come save me, right, 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.640 you know. And I was in that type of frame 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.320 of mind at that time, and honestly, as a citizen, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.760 whether whether I was an accused drug dealer, accused murderer, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:55.240 accused robber, or whatnot, the law in the system supposed 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:01.160 to be impartial, and I was feeling like that, but 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:02.240 that wasn't the case. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.760 But you did eventually hire a lawyer to represent you, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.600 a man named Timothy Miller. How did he feel about 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:09.520 your chances? 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:11.920 So he came to me and I gave him a 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.040 little run down. He's like, yeah, yeah, man, I already 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.480 know that. Man, We're going to get this case dismissed. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.879 You know, I just want twenty thousand. You might not 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.560 have to pay the whole thing because we'd get this dismissed. 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.919 Just give me a five thousand dollars retainer and you 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.560 know we would go from there. Man, hey, I absolutely 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:29.480 believe you right. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.159 And then your trial was set for May of nineteen 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:36.199 ninety nine in Marion County Superior Court. So, Leon, what 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.400 were you actually feeling as the trial date was approaching? 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.320 You know, I had a lot of different emotions. You know, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.440 I was very nervous. I had never been to trial before. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.919 So at this point, me feeling like it was laughable 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.760 was over with. I'm going to trial. I'm like, oh, man, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.480 oh they for real? You know. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.280 So the state had a couple of our witness says 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.200 Christy Smith, who pitched you out of the lineup as 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.760 the shooter, and Donald Brooks, who had given your name 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.840 to the police. But at trial, Donald try to recant 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.919 a statement saying he didn't remember what he'd said to 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.880 the detective Jones, and he didn't remember seeing you near 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.480 the truck. And not only that, you knew that your 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:22.000 defense attorney had an acepisleeve. A man named Dakaria Fulton Laura, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.399 can you tell us about Dakaria and why he was 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:25.920 so crucial to the defense. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.720 Basically, Leon, Joseph Webster, and Dakaria were all drug dealers 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.399 in this area. They didn't work together, but they also 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.199 weren't enemies. He didn't really have anything against anybody. He 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.919 just told Detective Jones exactly what he saw. What had 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.840 happened was, he was in his apartment a couple blocks away. 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:43.960 He decided he wanted to go smoke a blunt. He 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:46.480 needed some rolling papers. He starts walking towards the seven 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.000 eleven and just by happenstance, he's literally across the street 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.240 and he looks and he sees Casey Shane's park car, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.080 and he sees this man standing by the car, and 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.440 he watches this interaction go down, and he's pretty close. 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.359 He's much much closer than Christy Schmidt ever was. And 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.879 he recognizes the guy as Joseph Webster because he's wearing 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.040 these very distinct Adidas jogging pants block with three white 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.160 stripes down the side, but also because he and Joseph 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.560 Webster had run into each other earlier that day, and 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:16.879 Joseph Webster had been carrying a gun and showed it 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.520 to Takaria, who told Webster, you're a fool. You need 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.439 to put that gun away. And so it was this 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:26.040 very clear, strong identification from someone who knew everyone new Leon, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.080 knew Joseph Webster and really didn't have any skin in 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.320 the game. And that statement did get turned over to 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:32.880 Timothy Miller like a. 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:34.480 Week before the first trial. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:39.640 You know, Timothy Miller had finally given me the January 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:44.520 nineteen ninety nine discovery supplement, and in this it had 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.760 Dakaria Fulton's statement, and. 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.720 I looked, I'm like, oh, man, this guy's saying he's 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:51.520 seen it, right. 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.320 I'm like, man, look hey, I'm not finn to go home, right. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.200 So I go back to the sale block and I'm 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:00.560 showing them. I'm like, look man, I told man, look 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.480 they got the witness right there, like we giving each 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:04.959 other hog fight. Like, bro, man, you going home. So 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.040 I go to the first trial that Karly wasn't there. 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.200 Just the mere mention of him is what got a 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.520 hung jury. In my opinion, I was able to listen 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.440 from the hole and sell to the jury pool coming 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:17.720 out and them saying. 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.880 You know, where's that other guy on? They mentioned him? 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:21.879 But where is he at. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.399 In the first trial, the jury hung sex to sex, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:27.720 so it was a split work. There were six people 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.040 who did not think there was enough evidence to convict. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.240 I say this all the time that my trial wasn't 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.720 a trial really of Leon Benson, but it was a 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:43.520 trial of urban America against America, because everybody in my 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.800 trial was people who were from the streets, people of color, 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.680 and our challenge was these people in us. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.520 That's how I felt. It was a clear line drawn, 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:02.119 and I got the raff of a that energy. I 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.040 felt some nasty energy in there. It was nasty. 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.080 But when they came back and said a mistrial, I 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.080 wasn't necessarily relieved. I was glad not to hear a 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.159 guilty verdict, but I was figuring, like, oh, once we 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:15.880 get to Cary Fault, I'm out of here. 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.800 So then there was a second trial about six weeks later, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:21.360 in July of nineteen ninety nine. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:23.840 There were some major differences though, between the first and 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:26.320 the second trial, and I think maybe the biggest one 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.000 was that in the first trial, Timothy Miller called a 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.600 guy named Tim Gather who alibied Leon because he had 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:35.960 been sitting next to him inside the building when the 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.600 shots were fired, and so that really did establish an alibi, 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.399 and it's consistent with what Leon had always said. And 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.399 in the second trial, and we don't know why he 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.320 didn't call him. I think one of the things that 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.280 is completely frustrating and not explicable is that he never 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.520 called Fulton, not in the first trial and not in 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.359