Speaker 1: On June seventh, twenty eleven, twenty three year old Rondel
Speaker 1: Moore was driving down South Stony Island Avenue in Chicago
Speaker 1: with his friend and his brother. Rondell was having car trouble,
Speaker 1: so they pulled into a gas station. While Rondell and
Speaker 1: another man looked under the hood, a black sedan pulled
Speaker 1: into the lot. A gunman exited the sedan and opened
Speaker 1: fire on Rondel's car. Two men were injured, and Rondel
Speaker 1: Moore was fatally shot. An APB went out for a
Speaker 1: black sedan in the area and a young man in
Speaker 1: a black sedan was arrested. Eventually, that young man said
Speaker 1: that he had dropped off someone nicknamed King Chucky at
Speaker 1: the gas station. Police scoured social media and found Darien
Speaker 1: Harris aka King Chucky, who was subsequently identified from a
Speaker 1: lineup by three witnesses and sentenced to seventy six years.
Speaker 1: But this is a wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always
Speaker 1: given voice to innocent people in prison, and now we're
Speaker 1: expanding that voice to you. Call us at eight three, three,
Speaker 1: two oh seven, four six sixty six and tell us
Speaker 1: how these stories make you feel and what you've done
Speaker 1: to help the cause, even if it's something as simple
Speaker 1: as telling a friend or sharing on social media. We've
Speaker 1: really appreciated hearing from our audience so much so that
Speaker 1: we've included one of the messages at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode. So stick around for that, and if you
Speaker 1: have something to say, we definitely want to hear it,
Speaker 1: and you might just hear yourself in a future episode.
Speaker 1: Call us A three three, two oh seven, four six
Speaker 1: sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today's story. You're
Speaker 1: going to be stunned at one particular aspect of this case.
Speaker 1: That is like it would be more appropriate for a
Speaker 1: movie that was set up as a comedy than something
Speaker 1: so deadly serious as this case. It's my great honor
Speaker 1: to introduce our two guests today. First of all, a
Speaker 1: name fans of the show will recognize Lauren Myers Koff
Speaker 1: Maller of the Exoneration Project in Illinois. Lauren, welcome back
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Jason, I'm excited to be back
Speaker 2: with a newly released client.
Speaker 1: Darien Harris. Darien, I'm so sorry for what you've been
Speaker 1: through that brought you to this microphone today, but we're
Speaker 1: honored to have you here as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you allowed me to be here on
Speaker 3: your platform as well.
Speaker 1: So let's go back even before this murder that you
Speaker 1: ended up being charged with. You're only eighteen at the time,
Speaker 1: so there's not that much to even cover. But what
Speaker 1: was your life like before this title wave of insanity?
Speaker 3: A family, good, supportive family, you know, but the sisters.
Speaker 3: I was in high school, I was playing sports, you know.
Speaker 3: I was living my life basically and just having a
Speaker 3: good life, you know. And no matter what I was
Speaker 3: doing while I was outside and having fun with my friends,
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing no crams or nothing like that. I
Speaker 3: was just being a typical teenager and just enjoying my life.
Speaker 3: And I was set to graduate from high school the
Speaker 3: week before I got locked up and I got to
Speaker 3: set in to Georgia State.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you had a pretty bright future. You were
Speaker 1: into music as well, right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, at the time, just being creative. We were just
Speaker 3: raving about things we come up seeing and things like
Speaker 3: homies might be doing something. Was just having fun, you know.
Speaker 1: Around that time, Darien appeared in a RapidIO with a
Speaker 1: few other guys, some of them were tied up with gangs,
Speaker 1: and it seems like gang tensions and the hand fisted
Speaker 1: approach of the Cook County police were at play in
Speaker 1: this wrong for conviction. There was a shooting on June seventh,
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, at a gas station on South Stony Island Avenue.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at it on a map, there's a
Speaker 1: McDonald on the corner above it to the north, and
Speaker 1: then Jackson Park across the street to the east. The
Speaker 1: gas station is a rectangular lot with a depot at
Speaker 1: the center, and just before eight thirty that evening, twenty
Speaker 1: three year old Rondel Moore was fatally shot and found
Speaker 1: towards the backside of the depot.
Speaker 2: The victim had gone to the gas station with some
Speaker 2: friends and his brother. They were having issues with the
Speaker 2: car and this black BMW comes into the parking lot.
Speaker 2: What the police say happened is someone gets out of
Speaker 2: the black car, goes over and shoots at the victim,
Speaker 2: Rondell Moore, and then there are a few other people
Speaker 2: who are shot. There's Marcus Diggs, Quincy Woollard, and then
Speaker 2: the victim's brother, Ronald claimed that he was shot at,
Speaker 2: but the video doesn't really bear that out. So Rondell
Speaker 2: is the only one who is killed, and most of
Speaker 2: the people said that they didn't see who was shooting.
Speaker 1: Both Marcus Diggs and Quincy Wollard could not identify their shooter,
Speaker 1: but Rondell's brother Ronald. The gas station attended Joe Tony
Speaker 1: and two alleged witnesses, Dexter Saffold and Aaron Jones, all
Speaker 1: later made identifications and gave their own versions of events. Luckily,
Speaker 1: there was surveillance footage.
Speaker 2: There is surveillance video of the crime. You can't make
Speaker 2: out much about the person committing the crime, you can't
Speaker 2: see his face, but you can learn some details that
Speaker 2: really helped to kind of unravel the case and show
Speaker 2: what really happened.
Speaker 1: At fourteen seconds after eight twenty seven pm, a black
Speaker 1: sedan pulled into the gas station from the north and
Speaker 1: stopped at the south end, ready to pull back out
Speaker 1: onto South Stony Island Avenue. The shooter got out of
Speaker 1: the car and walked out a frame as he got
Speaker 1: close to Rondell's car and shots were fired. All the
Speaker 1: witnesses agreed that Rondell ran west toward the back of
Speaker 1: the depot, and his friend Marcus Diggs ran north towards
Speaker 1: the McDonald's at eight twenty seven forty seven. The shooter
Speaker 1: also ran to the backside of the depot, then ten
Speaker 1: seconds later ran to the south end of the lot,
Speaker 1: where we're not sure if he got back into the
Speaker 1: black sedan, but either way he fled south. The shooting
Speaker 1: was reported on a few nine one one calls, including
Speaker 1: from an alleged onlooker named Dexter Saffold and an APB
Speaker 1: went out at eight thirty pm for a black sedan
Speaker 1: and the police pulled one over in the area.
Speaker 2: Now, initially, the brother of the victim ran to this
Speaker 2: black car that was pulled over nearby, yelling you killed
Speaker 2: my brother. You killed my brother. So they take that guy,
Speaker 2: the driver, into custody, Aaron Jones.
Speaker 1: According to Ronald Moore's initial statement, the shooter had dark
Speaker 1: skin of mohawk and fled in the black sedan. Aaron
Speaker 1: Jones did not have a mohawk and was alone. Maybe
Speaker 1: this was not the correct black sedan. Ronald later changed
Speaker 1: his statement, saying that he just assumed that the shooter
Speaker 1: got into the black sedan, which left Aaron Jones still
Speaker 1: in suspicion of being connected to the shooter and right
Speaker 1: for police coercion. As the investigation continued, the statements from
Speaker 1: Aaron Jones, Ronald Moore, and Dexter Saffold all shifted each
Speaker 1: time they spoke, leaving only one witness whose story remained consistent.
Speaker 2: The gas station attendant. His name was Jody Tony, and
Speaker 2: so right away when the police came, they talked to
Speaker 2: him and he said, I saw this happen. I know
Speaker 2: who was the shooter because he was in the gas
Speaker 2: station an hour before this happened and he was threatening
Speaker 2: me and threatening to blow my head off. So I
Speaker 2: saw him when he did this, and you know, I
Speaker 2: could identify him.
Speaker 1: Jody Tony was later called in to view a lineup.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, investigators followed up with Dexter Saffold, who
Speaker 1: had called nine to one one.
Speaker 2: So he witnesses a shooting, allegedly doesn't stick around back
Speaker 2: at his apartment. They go to talk to him. He's
Speaker 2: what they call an independent witness, so he's not tied
Speaker 2: to any one. It's not like the brother, it's not
Speaker 2: like someone who would have, you know, some kind of
Speaker 2: motivation potentially to lie.
Speaker 1: Strangely, Saffold made claims that are not supported by the
Speaker 1: surveillance footage, and his statements changed along the way.
Speaker 2: And changed in important ways, including what the perpetrator was wearing.
Speaker 2: He described the perpetrator's wearing a black shirt, all this stuff.
Speaker 2: In the video you can see he's wearing like a
Speaker 2: gray tank top or a light colored tank top. What
Speaker 2: has hair looked like.
Speaker 1: Saffold said that the shooter had his hair and twists,
Speaker 1: meaning braids or dreads, which conflicts with Ronald Moore, who
Speaker 1: said the shooter had worn a mohawk.
Speaker 2: And one of the things about Dexter Saffold that the
Speaker 2: video showed was that he claimed he was eighteen feet away,
Speaker 2: but he was actually eighty feet away, and you can
Speaker 2: see that because at some point right after the shooting happens,
Speaker 2: you can see his scooter in the top of one
Speaker 2: of the frames.
Speaker 1: Saffold pulled into frame a full minute after the shooter
Speaker 1: left the scene. So it's not clear what he saw,
Speaker 1: if anything, including that the shooter ran right by him
Speaker 1: while chasing the victim behind the station, which was contradicted
Speaker 1: by the surveillance footage. And somehow there's room for Saffold
Speaker 1: to become even more absurd, but we'll get to that later.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is that even though Ronald Moore and Dexter
Speaker 1: Saffold disagreed on the hair mohawk versus twists and then
Speaker 1: later a low haircut, they agreed on the hype.
Speaker 3: A discription of the shoot was fast seven.
Speaker 1: And does that describe you in any way?
Speaker 3: No, at the time I was six ' two. I
Speaker 3: never had had a low headcut. They don't scrab me
Speaker 3: it out.
Speaker 1: Then the investigation received one more lead.
Speaker 2: From the police reports. A couple of people who were
Speaker 2: close with the victim, Rondell. His girlfriend and one of
Speaker 2: his friends both said that he had been shot at
Speaker 2: a couple days prior by some people from the East
Speaker 2: Block set of the gangster Disciples. So they said that
Speaker 2: the guy who had shot at Rundell, that it was
Speaker 2: this guy Dony.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, both Dooney and one of his known associates, a
Speaker 1: guy nicknamed Slim, had appeared in a rap video with
Speaker 1: Darien aka Kingchucky.
Speaker 3: You know I did music and shot music video, so
Speaker 3: you know I was around these people or whatever.
Speaker 2: The brother of the victim, he brings this rap video
Speaker 2: to the police and said someone said the shooter was
Speaker 2: in here. And then ends up pointing out Darien.
Speaker 1: It appears this information made its way to Aaron Jones.
Speaker 2: He's being interrogated for murder. They get him to say
Speaker 2: that it was someone named Slim at first. The next
Speaker 2: day that changes to someone named Chucky.
Speaker 3: And then again Aaron Jones originally said, we looked just
Speaker 3: like literally like when they showed a music video we
Speaker 3: used to. I said, he like, do it look just like.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there was some confusion from the
Speaker 2: outset as to who it was because they were both
Speaker 2: in this video, or it was just because Darien was
Speaker 2: in a video with some guys that Rundell was feuding with.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they're similar looking faces, had Ronald confused. After all,
Speaker 1: there was this huge height discrepancy, and either way, the
Speaker 1: investigators chose to ignore the Doony and Slim lead to
Speaker 1: focus singularly on Darien, who had no record and therefore
Speaker 1: no photos in the system. So they pulled pictures from
Speaker 1: social media and got Aaron Jones to identify Darien as
Speaker 1: the man who had flagged him down for a ride
Speaker 1: to the gas station, which was enough for the rest warrant.
Speaker 3: They came to a mom crib like, hey were looking
Speaker 3: for your son. He's been implicated in the murder. And
Speaker 3: she called me like, what did you do? Did you
Speaker 3: do anything? I'm like, I ain't doing nothing. She was like, well,
Speaker 3: let's they want to talk to him, Like, okay, let's
Speaker 3: go talk home. Got none to had, and I got
Speaker 3: me a lawyer and I went down there and they
Speaker 3: tried to talk to me, and I told him I
Speaker 3: have none to say because I don't know nothing, and
Speaker 3: y'all nothing to create something off of what me saying,
Speaker 3: so therefore I have nothing to say. I'm with my
Speaker 3: lawyer and.
Speaker 1: You're doing exactly well. I think any good lawyer would
Speaker 1: recommend that they do people do more or less what
Speaker 1: you did, which you say, I'm not talking and I
Speaker 1: want a lawyer.
Speaker 3: She came down there and she was like, don't say nothing,
Speaker 3: and they ain't want to talk to me because I
Speaker 3: ain't want to talk to them. And then she left,
Speaker 3: and then they tried to bring me and put me
Speaker 3: in a lineup, and I was like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to go into land up without my lawyer. They was like,
Speaker 3: you have to go on the line up, and I
Speaker 3: went in like three full lineups and I remember one
Speaker 3: line up, I was number three. They said it was
Speaker 3: number five and then never came up, and they put
Speaker 3: me in to suggest Atlanta. I'm in Atlanta. I'm the
Speaker 3: only person as young with no facial everybody else older
Speaker 3: than me and everything. So it's it's like if y'all
Speaker 3: giving a description of something, look he's right here.
Speaker 1: So with his own potential murder charges Aaron Jones again,
Speaker 1: I d Darien and then they dragged in the gas
Speaker 1: station attended Jody Tony.
Speaker 2: When they brought himTo the station, they showed him a
Speaker 2: picture of Darien and said, you know, this is the
Speaker 2: guy we have as a shooter, and he said that
Speaker 2: is not the shooter. They had him look at the lineup.
Speaker 2: He did not pick out dary and he said the
Speaker 2: shooter is not in that lineup, and they tried to
Speaker 2: get him to identify Dariy and he said he wouldn't
Speaker 2: do it, and they tried to pressure him and all
Speaker 2: of that, and he wouldn't do it. He was never
Speaker 2: called a trial. So we later got an affidavid from
Speaker 2: him where he identifies who the actual shooter.
Speaker 1: Was, but that was many years later. For now, Jody
Speaker 1: Tony was ignored for Dexter Saffold and the victim's brother,
Speaker 1: Ronald Moore. Despite saffold stubious accounts, the police valued his
Speaker 1: id and then Ronald. Why would the brother of the
Speaker 1: victim id someone that doesn't match his own initial description
Speaker 1: both height and hair.
Speaker 3: Sometimes in the streets like guys or rather lead other
Speaker 3: guys out there.
Speaker 2: We've had that in several cases where when we find
Speaker 2: out why they implicated the wrong person, it was because
Speaker 2: they wanted to take care of it themselves.
Speaker 3: He put me in a situation because you feel like,
Speaker 3: ba't me not doing it? They would have let me go.
Speaker 3: But that's not how the system works here. Once they
Speaker 3: get any type of name, they don't care to do
Speaker 3: their job to make sure the case is closed. They
Speaker 3: just make up create things to get you out the way.
Speaker 3: And that's why so many guys that's wrongfully convicted, that's
Speaker 3: in the conserrated right now because police don't do their
Speaker 3: job and the state's attorney don't care, and they get immunity.
Speaker 3: So you think they care if they create a situation
Speaker 3: just to make somebody go to jail just to close
Speaker 3: their case, they don't.
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was in the police station for about two days.
Speaker 3: Then I was taken to Cook County and process. Then
Speaker 3: I wasn't prepared for it, but in a way I
Speaker 3: had a little bit of street smarts because you know
Speaker 3: that's where I come from. You know, this is my neighborhood,
Speaker 3: is how to grow up. But the gym's around about
Speaker 3: real grown me in fighting, real murders too, And they
Speaker 3: got knaves and they game banging and gang fights go on,
Speaker 3: drug dealing going on, and rapes going on. So you
Speaker 3: have to learn to adapt to your surroundings situation of
Speaker 3: what's going on. Or get you get cute, you get rip,
Speaker 3: you get beat up, you get extoreded. And that's how Jill.
Speaker 1: Is sounds like hell on Earth. And so there you are.
Speaker 1: What did they set bail? You never saw the streets again.
Speaker 3: They didnam on bonn and said I was a minister society,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't be let out on the streets. And I
Speaker 3: never called a case of damn my life. I bet
Speaker 3: you've been arrested. I was encountered three years three years.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ Darien was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm,
Speaker 1: attempted murder, and first degree murder, and at the grand jury, Jones, Moore,
Speaker 1: and Saffold reaffirmed their identifications. But now Ronald said that
Speaker 1: he saw Jones drop Darien off at the gas station
Speaker 1: and then leave, so a new inconsistency. And then he
Speaker 1: said that he recognized Darien from this rap video, even
Speaker 1: though we know that he hadn't seen that video until
Speaker 1: after the shooting.
Speaker 2: There were a ton of issues with his identification. He
Speaker 2: initially accused someone else and then he also was in
Speaker 2: the backseat of his car and claimed the shooter pointed
Speaker 2: the gun at him, but the video shows that the
Speaker 2: shooter didn't point the gun at him, So there are
Speaker 2: a ton of issues with him and with his testimony.
Speaker 2: The brothers' statements and dexter saffold statements, those changed every
Speaker 2: time they told what happened.
Speaker 1: This time, Saffold said that he had chased after the
Speaker 1: shooter on his scooter, which is not supported by the video.
Speaker 1: But importantly, Saffold explained why he wrote a Scooter that
Speaker 1: his diabetes had caused a stroke, and we'll get to
Speaker 1: why that's important later. At Darien's bench trial in front
Speaker 1: of Judge Nicholas Ford.
Speaker 2: This judge is notorious in the end, was run off
Speaker 2: the bench in Cook County because of his actions in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases, and then he ended up a
Speaker 2: Trump appointee an immigration judge in California and was run
Speaker 2: off the bench there for being racist, ableist, etc. And
Speaker 2: so he's currently not a judge, but he has a
Speaker 2: long history of problems with his judicial conduct.
Speaker 1: Darien's bench trou began in March of twenty fourteen. Again
Speaker 1: Ronald Moore testified about seeing Jones drop Darien off and
Speaker 1: leave that he recognized Darien from the rap video, and
Speaker 1: then he made an in court identification. Next up was
Speaker 1: Aaron Jones, but that didn't go as a prosecution had planned.
Speaker 2: He starts testifying and then he immediately recants and he says,
Speaker 2: you know what, man, fuck this. None of this happened.
Speaker 2: The police made me say this. They threatened me. What
Speaker 2: would you do. I had a newborn baby. Darien was
Speaker 2: never in my car. This never happened. And the judge says,
Speaker 2: I'm holding you in direct contempt just because he's recanting,
Speaker 2: Maybe because he's cursing. I don't know. The state had
Speaker 2: not asked him to hold Aaron Jones in contempt. But
Speaker 2: Aaron Jones says, do whatever you need to do to me, man,
Speaker 2: I don't care anymore. This is wrong. So that basically
Speaker 2: ends the state's questioning of him.
Speaker 1: During the crossing examination, mister Jones elaborated, saying that the
Speaker 1: police had told him what to say or he would
Speaker 1: quote rot in prison for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Jes said that the police showed him your photograph there
Speaker 1: and told him to pick you as the gunman, of
Speaker 1: course Jones. The detective then testifies that he interviewed them
Speaker 1: multiple times and never threatened them. But what we expect you.
Speaker 3: Have Aaron Jones, They said, the police officer, Devin Jones
Speaker 3: can hurst him to say what he said. You have
Speaker 3: the aud witness from the gas station, Jody Tunya. They
Speaker 3: said that Devin Jones can hurst him to say what
Speaker 3: he said. You got the victim's brother. This original statement
Speaker 3: did the shooter was fast seven and all that, But
Speaker 3: he changed the statement once he talked to detective Devin Jones.
Speaker 3: So you have to say, Alficer basically colhurst him into
Speaker 3: what to say with this overlooked.
Speaker 1: Though, then the state put on Dexter Saffold, who appears
Speaker 1: to be a willing participant in story time with Detective
Speaker 1: Devin Jones. But that's even worse than that.
Speaker 2: As he's testifying, the defense council asks him about his
Speaker 2: vision because he's diabetic and there are often vision issues
Speaker 2: with that, and he starts looking at the state and
Speaker 2: this is all on the record, it's in the transcripts,
Speaker 2: and the defense council says to the judge, can you
Speaker 2: order him to answer? He keeps looking at the state
Speaker 2: and the witness. Dexter says, I thought that medical was
Speaker 2: supposed to be private. The judge said, well, usually it is,
Speaker 2: but your ability to see is critical to the case,
Speaker 2: so you have to answer. And he says he doesn't
Speaker 2: have any vision issues. And that's where the case really unraveled,
Speaker 2: because on post conviction is discovered that he at the
Speaker 2: time was permanently and legally blind.
Speaker 3: At the state's attorney KNWDA, this person was legally bland.
Speaker 3: So he said, I thought my medical was private. How
Speaker 3: did he know that his medical was private? I mean
Speaker 3: he told him that.
Speaker 1: But neither the defense nor the judge knew that, as
Speaker 1: was made abundantly clear by Judge Ford's closing statement as
Speaker 1: he sentenced Darien to seventy six years.
Speaker 3: He said aloud that he don't believe nobody else. He's
Speaker 3: based in this fan based on the old man. That's
Speaker 3: yourself of testimony. You have an old man that seems credible,
Speaker 3: that seems honest, like he said, and he don't have
Speaker 3: nothing to rebut what he's saying. And at the time
Speaker 3: the judge didn't know that he was legally blind. He
Speaker 3: went on record to say that he trust this person,
Speaker 3: and y'all knew this person was legally blind. Y'all made
Speaker 3: him look like an asshole. And my out day was
Speaker 3: twenty eighty two. And it's like that's a hard pill
Speaker 3: to swallow. It's like, Wow, I'm really sentenced to seventy
Speaker 3: six years for a crime I didn't commit. You hear
Speaker 3: so much about prison, like I was paranoid. I was
Speaker 3: going through so much because I'm like, only, first of all,
Speaker 3: there supposed to be in here. The second of all,
Speaker 3: these are a living dish. Is like I understand that
Speaker 3: I'm convicted of a crime at the end of damn human.
Speaker 3: This is not how you should treat humans. They send
Speaker 3: me the pontiac. I was a pontiac for three months.
Speaker 3: That's what mentally a lot of people, they ain't never
Speaker 3: coming back. That's what.
Speaker 1: Like gas.
Speaker 3: They cut their stomach up and rip their tests out.
Speaker 3: They stick chicken bones and they dick hole and try
Speaker 3: to piss and their stomach blow up. They be on
Speaker 3: the yard, they play with feces, They put feces in
Speaker 3: their mouth shit and they mouth and spit it on
Speaker 3: each other. They go outside with a plastic bag full
Speaker 3: of shit and be squirting it back and forth on
Speaker 3: each other like it's wow down there, Like it be
Speaker 3: men having sex on the yard, like it's wow down there.
Speaker 1: It's hard to bathom that this shit goes on in
Speaker 1: this country, but it's going on right now. It's really
Speaker 1: sickening the whole freaking thing. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: the hell you managed to maintain your sanity, but I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did. And now I want to hear about
Speaker 1: how the hell you manage to find a way out,
Speaker 1: because that's the miracle, right. I mean, we never hear
Speaker 1: about the guys who lost their minds in there, who
Speaker 1: gave up, Oh, who did drugs or killed themselves or
Speaker 1: got killed. Right, there's a lot of innocent guys that
Speaker 1: fit that category. But then there's guys like you who
Speaker 1: somehow or other found the strength to reach out. Well.
Speaker 3: I had a mentor of His name is Samuel Kareem,
Speaker 3: and he had life in jail. So coming into that
Speaker 3: sale with him, you know, I know he was real
Speaker 3: good with the loss. I gave him my paperwork and
Speaker 3: he started reading and he only read like the first
Speaker 3: sixty pages. Was like, I don't have to read it
Speaker 3: no more. And say why he said, because that's your
Speaker 3: way out of jail. Man. That man led he can't see.
Speaker 3: I'm like, how do you know that? He said, because
Speaker 3: I'm a diabetic. He landed back the ability to see.
Speaker 3: That's why he was stuttering. I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 3: what you're telling me about whatever, and I blew it off.
Speaker 3: And then afterwards I asked him like, hey, you gonna
Speaker 3: read like I don't have to read no more. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, whatever, we I'm gonna let my
Speaker 3: lawyer take care of it. Then, and that's when he
Speaker 3: started giving me cases and I didn't. I read them,
Speaker 3: but I didn't comprehend what I was reading. So that's
Speaker 3: when he went to his mentor, Michael Sullivan told him, like, man,
Speaker 3: you got to teach him how to be a man first,
Speaker 3: because he won't comprehend what he reading until you teach
Speaker 3: him a different way of life. So therefore he doubled
Speaker 3: back and we start having long conversations, and that's when
Speaker 3: he started teaching me how to be a man. He
Speaker 3: started teaching me about responsibilities, economics, politics, financial stability, emotional stability,
Speaker 3: mental stability, ways of life, the worth of a woman,
Speaker 3: everything that I need to succeed in life as a man,
Speaker 3: to grow and also to found my purpose in life
Speaker 3: as well, and that's where I started at. Then that's
Speaker 3: when I doubled back on the legal work and he
Speaker 3: gave me a black auditionary and I started reading legal work,
Speaker 3: and his way of teaching me was comparing it to
Speaker 3: real life situations, and that's how I started understanding. So
Speaker 3: he made me order my discovery and they gave my
Speaker 3: discovery redacted because they can't give it to me unredacted.
Speaker 3: And I sat there and I went through every piece
Speaker 3: of paperwork, and that's when I found the gas station attendant,
Speaker 3: Jody Tony, I found a lot of more things, and
Speaker 3: that's when I started writing a lot of lawyers. And
Speaker 3: Jody Garvey wrote.
Speaker 2: Me back, and I believe Darien. You told you were
Speaker 2: a Pellet lawyer. What Samuel said that Dexter Staffold was blind.
Speaker 3: My new lawyer, Jody Garvey went to Dester Staffold and say,
Speaker 3: pointed out right now in Atlanta, up with the private vestigat.
Speaker 3: He said, I can't I need a special apparatus that
Speaker 3: magnifies the image on the paper. That means that in
Speaker 3: the police station they had to give you a special apparatus,
Speaker 3: or they circled and told you what to say. At trial,
Speaker 3: you know, they give you the paper and they say
Speaker 3: do you recognize his paper? He post a look at
Speaker 3: the paper and say yes, is that your signature? Yes?
Speaker 3: Is that what you wrote? Repeat what you wrote? Which
Speaker 3: number pigeons to circle out? How did he do all
Speaker 3: that in court with no special apparatus? That shows you
Speaker 3: that he was conhearsed in the back on what to say.
Speaker 1: But despite Dexter Saffold's blindness as well as Jody Tony,
Speaker 1: Darien's conviction was affirmed on appeal. Then Darien met Lauren
Speaker 1: around twenty nineteen, who was able to find more new evidence,
Speaker 1: starting with Dexter Saffold's litigation history.
Speaker 2: Dexter Staffold had filed so many discrimination lawsuits basically alleging
Speaker 2: that different organizations, colleges, whatever, had discriminated against him because
Speaker 2: of being blind. So he had attached to these lawsuits
Speaker 2: his own vision records, medical records related to his blindness
Speaker 2: over the span. I mean he was filing these starting
Speaker 2: back in like two thousand and two till twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one maybe after, and attaching all this stuff to prove
Speaker 2: he was blind. So that's where we got the evidence
Speaker 2: that he was blind. It was from his own filings.
Speaker 1: In February twenty twenty two, Lauren and Jody Garvey filed
Speaker 1: a post conviction petition to vacate Darien's conviction, and they
Speaker 1: attached a report from an ophthalmologist and professor doctor Vina Raigi,
Speaker 1: who determined that Saffold had advanced glaucoma by twenty eleven
Speaker 1: and had less than five degrees of central vision in
Speaker 1: both eyes and in addition to his legal blindness, the
Speaker 1: time of day that this shooting occurred, made Saffold even
Speaker 1: less reliable.
Speaker 2: Jody Garby had already gotten some halfa davids from an
Speaker 2: investigator had talked to Dexter Saffold, and he told the
Speaker 2: investigator that he had told the prosecution about his vision issues.
Speaker 1: So it appears the prosecution knowingly put on a blind eyewitness,
Speaker 1: and then when he purjured himself about his ability to see,
Speaker 1: they did not bother to correct the record. Lauren also
Speaker 1: sought the help of doctor and Nancy.
Speaker 2: Franklin, an eyewitness expert, to show all of the issues.
Speaker 2: Any sort of police coergion what made any sort of
Speaker 2: identification in this case unreliable from the get go, regardless
Speaker 2: of blindness, although that obviously played a big role. Also,
Speaker 2: Jody Garby had already gotten some HALFI davids from Darien's
Speaker 2: girlfriend at the time, who was his alibi witness, confirming
Speaker 2: that he was at home watching the NBA finals, affi
Speaker 2: davits from Jody Tony like I said, he was confirming
Speaker 2: that it wasn't Darien, and he identified the actual shooter.
Speaker 1: Tony, the gas station attendant, the only eyewitness whose statements
Speaker 1: didn't shift with the police narrative, said that the shooter
Speaker 1: had come into the station before the shooting and threatened him,
Speaker 1: and he identified him from a photo. It was a
Speaker 1: young man named Devonte Pippen aka Slim, who not only
Speaker 1: appeared in the rap video but was also later a
Speaker 1: victim of gang violence in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: So we had all this evidence, it was already such
Speaker 2: a thin case. No physical evidence ever tied Darien to
Speaker 2: the crime. The description just didn't even match. The judge
Speaker 2: didn't hear from Jody Tony, who had always said he
Speaker 2: could see it and he knew who did it, and
Speaker 2: it always said it wasn't Darien. So all of this
Speaker 2: just really put it over the edge. So this is
Speaker 2: December fifth, twenty twenty three. We go to court and
Speaker 2: they agree to v kate Darien's conviction based on all
Speaker 2: the evidence presented in the post conviction petition. But they're
Speaker 2: going to retry him and they want him held without bond.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: What they were going to retry him with is beyond me.
Speaker 2: I don't know what their plan was. They never told
Speaker 2: me if they were planning to call the blind eyewitness
Speaker 2: again or what the plan was there. But that's when Jason,
Speaker 2: that's when you got involved because.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel very grateful that I was in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time, and that I have,
Speaker 1: you know, a real lasting friendship with Kim Fox, who's
Speaker 1: been doing her level best against powerful forces that are
Speaker 1: lined against her. And you know, her job is no picnic,
Speaker 1: trust me, but you know, it happens that she's got
Speaker 1: such a big office, so many you know, adas and
Speaker 1: others working for her that sometimes one of them just
Speaker 1: you know, probably many of them don't share her vision
Speaker 1: or her convictions. For lack of a better word. Of course,
Speaker 1: when Kim heard about this case, she did the right thing.
Speaker 2: I get a call, I think the very next day
Speaker 2: saying that they are not going to move forward with
Speaker 2: the case, and they were very apologetic about it. We
Speaker 2: were already doing up in court December nineteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: to argue some bond issues.
Speaker 3: When I came to court, now I was thinking it's
Speaker 3: a regular court day. Lauren came up like, soy, you
Speaker 3: had the good news, and I was like, yeah, what
Speaker 3: they gonna give me a bond or something. She was like, no,
Speaker 3: They're gonna throw everything out. And I was like, like
Speaker 3: I was shocked, Like I ain't even believe it, and
Speaker 3: I was just like, wow, I really didn't feel real
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: You know, Darien has been out just a few months
Speaker 2: now and is you know, trying to rebuild his life
Speaker 2: and put everything back together after so many years gone.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm he can talk about it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a struggle for all of our clients to do that,
Speaker 2: so we're just trying to do what we can to
Speaker 2: help them with that. We filed for a certificate of innocence,
Speaker 2: so we'll keep you posted on that on our end.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's working through everything.
Speaker 3: When you've been going so long, you've been removed from society,
Speaker 3: you've been moved from the world that you once knew.
Speaker 3: Me coming home personally, I'm in a whole new world
Speaker 3: for me to be free. It don't feel like I'm
Speaker 3: free because mentally it's hard for me to understand and
Speaker 3: adapt to what's going on. Because I got out of
Speaker 3: jail with nothing, and I had slight a little small donations, yeah,
Speaker 3: from the company that Lauren put me into it where
Speaker 3: they gave me two thousand dollars and things like that.
Speaker 3: You know, that's cool, that's helpful. But while I was
Speaker 3: at in maximum penitentiaries. I couldn't take no trades for electrician, plumbing,
Speaker 3: ac construction, nothing, So what do I come home with.
Speaker 3: I can't come home with no degrees, no school out
Speaker 3: of nothing. So the only things that I know is
Speaker 3: the things that I took the time after studying those books.
Speaker 3: That's the only things that I know. But it takes
Speaker 3: money to make that type of money. And they put
Speaker 3: us in these situations hoping that we do reoffend. That's
Speaker 3: why they put us out here like this. Why not
Speaker 3: put us out and say, and we got jobs waiting
Speaker 3: on y'all, good jobs, not no twelve thirteen dollars an
Speaker 3: hour job, because as a grown man, especially with kids,
Speaker 3: what is that going to pay? We need real jobs,
Speaker 3: we need real help, and we don't have that.
Speaker 1: To preaching today. I'll tell you that much. And and
Speaker 1: we appreciate it. We need to hear this stuff. And
Speaker 1: what's the name again? This is a real hero in
Speaker 1: this case. Another one is your mentor what was his
Speaker 1: name again?
Speaker 3: His name is Samuel Kareem ka R I M. He's
Speaker 3: currently located in Stateville Correctional Center. And honestly, that's the
Speaker 3: guy that changed me. That's the guy that I'm fighting
Speaker 3: to get out of jail because he's the smartest man
Speaker 3: I ever met. He has a training out of mask
Speaker 3: all day every day, he read his books, study case law.
Speaker 3: He grows man so much. Just the type of man
Speaker 3: that we need out here in these communities to start
Speaker 3: changing things, to start creating opportunities not only for us,
Speaker 3: but for everybody as a whole, where we come together
Speaker 3: as one. That's what we lack coming up. We lack
Speaker 3: role models, we lack positive man in our life and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 1: Darren asked that we win in competition for clemency for
Speaker 1: his mentor, Samuel Kareem, So we're going to have that
Speaker 1: length in the episode description. And in addition to his advocacy,
Speaker 1: Darien is making music, also starting a nonprofit and launching a.
Speaker 3: Podcast, Justice is Blind. It's a podcast for me to
Speaker 3: give a platform to everybody that's incoscerated all over the
Speaker 3: world to call in and tell their story, rather they
Speaker 3: was wrongfully convicted, or the trauma that they're going through
Speaker 3: a jail all the way the police treating them, or
Speaker 3: they just want to be heard because in jail, with
Speaker 3: our silence and don't nobody listen to us, don't nobody
Speaker 3: give us a chance. Everybody look at us as criminals,
Speaker 3: but everybody in jail not bad people. People could change.
Speaker 3: A sin is a sining, a crime is a crime.
Speaker 3: People may have committed their crimes and people may have
Speaker 3: done their things, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: they're human, They make mistakes. Give them a chance to
Speaker 3: write they wrong. So that's when I'm creating this platform
Speaker 3: for them, guys in jail to speak out and to
Speaker 3: have a voice. And also I'm starting um for perfect
Speaker 3: Call surviving a struggle for guys that's incarcerated as well
Speaker 3: the partner or with the law firm and everybody that's
Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted I had their case over would look to
Speaker 3: have their case tooking so they can have legal support.
Speaker 3: And also I'm going to create programs link up with
Speaker 3: people to have construction, electrician, plumbing, everything of that nature,
Speaker 3: so when guys get out of jail, they have a
Speaker 3: good job to come home too. And trying to find
Speaker 3: a way to find them like affordable has look at
Speaker 3: like a house of complex or something for a gas
Speaker 3: to state that don't have nowhere to go. Everything is
Speaker 3: currently in the making right now, should be done within
Speaker 3: the next few months, but you can follow me on
Speaker 3: Instagram at k at n g c ch u Cky
Speaker 3: Underscore fr E d A R e A L. And
Speaker 3: I have a go fundme which is called Justice is Blind,
Speaker 3: or you just put in Dariel Harriy's and support me
Speaker 3: and my cars to just help me out with living
Speaker 3: expenses and for the non for profit.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna link your Instagram and the GoFundMe as well,
Speaker 1: and with that we're gonna go to my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the show where first of all, I think both
Speaker 1: of you, Lauren and Darien, you're both heroes to me
Speaker 1: and so many other people, and so I appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining us here today. And now I'm just going to
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my microphone off and
Speaker 1: just listen to anything else you feel is left to
Speaker 1: be said. So Lauren, tradition holes that you go first,
Speaker 1: and Darien you take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2: I just hope that people listen to this episode and
Speaker 2: they take away from the fact that this kind of
Speaker 2: thing can really happen to anyone. Darien had never committed
Speaker 2: a crime, he had never been arrested. He was a
Speaker 2: good kid. The only thing was where he lived. I mean,
Speaker 2: he got picked up just by virtue of living in
Speaker 2: a certain neighborhood, being a certain color, and the evidence
Speaker 2: was made to fit him. And he had a really
Speaker 2: bright future in front of him that was stolen from him,
Speaker 2: and he lost out on so much time that he
Speaker 2: is never going to get back in very very formative years.
Speaker 2: We are actually very lucky in his case, which is
Speaker 2: crazy to say that we were able to get him
Speaker 2: out when he can still build a life and build
Speaker 2: a family. And Darien wants I think last count sixteen
Speaker 2: kids crazy. He wants a lot of children. We'll see
Speaker 2: after he has one how he feels about that. But
Speaker 2: he'll be a wonderful dad. He has so many things
Speaker 2: he wants to do to change the world, and he's
Speaker 2: already starting to do it. And I'm just so proud
Speaker 2: to know him, and i can't wait to see all
Speaker 2: the things that he's going to accomplish. Someone with the
Speaker 2: kind of light that Darien has, they can't keep that
Speaker 2: down and they can't snuff it out. So I'm just
Speaker 2: so grateful to be here today with him and to
Speaker 2: be a witness to his life.
Speaker 3: I just want to say that I appreciate Lauren the
Speaker 3: most because she stepped in and did everything and just
Speaker 3: still on the business for real. And Jody Garf, he
Speaker 3: helped me out a lot as well. And I just
Speaker 3: want to let everybody know that everything that I'm doing
Speaker 3: to help free to jails and those people that's growfully
Speaker 3: and convicted, or even the people that is serving a
Speaker 3: town doing this for the black families and the mothers
Speaker 3: that have to go through this because they are incarcerated
Speaker 3: as well. You know, they're not the only people that's concerated.
Speaker 3: And I understand what it means to be in jail
Speaker 3: and be stereotypes. So if I can get out and
Speaker 3: show them that all black people that come from jail
Speaker 3: not this and not that, I want to become that
Speaker 3: stereotype to show them like we not that type of people.
Speaker 3: Like it's people that can actually change. It's people that
Speaker 3: can come from where I come from and make better
Speaker 3: themselves as well and be not all the same. You know,
Speaker 3: it's actually good people still left in this world. I'm
Speaker 3: just looking to help everybody. I know my purpose in
Speaker 3: life is to help people, So I'm gonna follow my
Speaker 3: purpose and chase my dreams. I'm gonna continue to help
Speaker 3: everybody and do everything I gotta do and make a
Speaker 3: positive change. I'm just gonna continue to stick to doing me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 4: Hi. My name is Amanda Graham. I've written down what
Speaker 4: I want to say so I don't start rambling. But
Speaker 4: I began listening to Wrongful Conviction about exactly eight year ago.
Speaker 4: I was on a hunt for a new podcast to
Speaker 4: binge on, and I became hooked. I was so shocked
Speaker 4: by these stories. The story that changed my life, though,
Speaker 4: was episode three forty eight with Zabian Johnson. At this
Speaker 4: same time that this aired, an old high school friend
Speaker 4: of mine was on her second trial for the death
Speaker 4: of an infant in her care. From the day I
Speaker 4: heard she was arrested, I knew in my guts no
Speaker 4: way she would hurt a baby, and I believed there
Speaker 4: had to be some other explanation. So suddenly things began
Speaker 4: making sense to me. I'm actually an RN, and so
Speaker 4: I questioned everything I had been taught about SBS and
Speaker 4: began plummeting into research. I spent hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 4: I made a binder with highlighted points, case files with
Speaker 4: similar details, a list of ways convictions were overturned. I
Speaker 4: listened to every podcast about every case I could find.
Speaker 4: I passed on what I had learned to Ali, the defendant,
Speaker 4: but it was too late. The trial had already began.
Speaker 4: She was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to
Speaker 4: fifty years in prison. There is so much that is
Speaker 4: wrong in this case. This sparked a fire in me.
Speaker 4: I closed and sold my business. I got a certificate
Speaker 4: in legal nurse consulting from the University of Georgia. I
Speaker 4: provided her new attorney with data and case information. I've
Speaker 4: spoken out publicly in her defense, and I'm hoping in
Speaker 4: some way to be able to help other people who
Speaker 4: have been wrongfully convicted of murder by shaking baby syndrome
Speaker 4: and change the way these cases are handled. Your podcasting
Speaker 4: connection to this case has truly changed my life.