WEBVTT - #034 Jason Flom with Lamonte McIntyre 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:05.840 I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.040 I was naive enough to believe that I would be 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.040 able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence, 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.600 that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.200 be going to prison because I was a good person. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:18.239 I hadn't done anything wrong. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.120 In the back of your mind, you say, well, when 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.720 we go to a hearing or we go to court, 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.600 the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.480 knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.199 from the lower courts all the way up to the 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:34.920 United States Supreme Court. 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:41.320 You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really, 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.199 in that moment, unchecked authority. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.320 Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.400 on TV, because it may just be a dirty da 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:52.320 that is trying to rise upward. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:01:12.920 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Ronfuel Conviction with 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:18.120 Jason Flumm. Today's episode will make your blood boil and 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:21.960 it will blow your mind. So settle in because this 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:23.440 is going to be a crazy ride. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.520 Guilty one word ceiling. Lamont McIntyre's fate. 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.960 Lamont McIntyre aged seventeen in nineteen ninety four has so 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.280 far been imprisoned for twenty two years. Twenty two years ago, 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.320 two young men, twenty one year old Donielle Quinn and 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.080 his thirty four year old cousin, Donald Ewing, were gunned 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.560 down in a horrible double homicide. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.319 Six hours after the murder's police arrested McIntyre, but never 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.160 searched his house for evidence. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.680 Moreover, it was a trial which prosecutors offered no physical 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.440 evidence tying McIntyre to the crime, no motive, no connection 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.240 between him and the victims, no weapon, no fingerprints, nor 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.760 did Kansas City, Kansas Belief even requests search warrants to 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:04.200 find any of that material. 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.680 A retired officer who reviewed the case caused the investigation 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:09.040 grossly deficient. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.560 Most notable is that the family of the victims for 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:17.000 twenty two years have steadfastly insisted that he is innocent. 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.200 Other witnesses, also relatives of the victim, insist that as 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.799 soon as they saw McIntyre sitting at the defense table, 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.840 they knew he was not the shooter. They told the prosecutor, 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.600 but were ignored. One family member has signed an affi 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.639 David claiming that under pressure from police and the prosecutor 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:33.280 she lied at McIntyre's trial. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.560 For the first time a jury is speaking publicly about 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.600 the case, Greg Lauber says that he now believes that 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:41.880 Ryan Dot County jury was wrong. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.160 They didn't care about anything. They just had their man and. 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.359 It was enough for the twelfth person jury. In deliberations, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.440 Lauber says he and another juror were holdouts, but it 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:53.600 was late in the day and there was mounting pressure 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.359 from others who wanted a verdict. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.560 Maybe I had an opportunity to, you know, do something 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.160 good on that jury, but I sure didn't do it. 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.320 I took a coward's way out. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.799 It is the speedy investigation and prosecution of that crime 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.760 in this place that a team of exonerators now insist 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.960 was also the focus of a terrible injustice. Lamont McIntyre, 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.680 age seventeen in nineteen ninety four, has so far been 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.440 imprisoned for twenty two years, convicted, and given two consecutive 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.079 life sentences for a crime they say he never committed. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.040 Well, I'm just going to say I'm really happy that 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:32.320 today joining us to discuss the insane case of Lamont McIntyre, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.360 we have with us Lamont's attorney Cheryl Pilot, as well 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:42.720 as retired FBI special agent Al Jenerich. Cheryl and Al, 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:44.000 thank you for being here. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:45.080 Thank you so much. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:46.839 We're glad to be here, happy to be here. 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.120 And we will be hearing later on in the episode 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.160 from Lamont, who will be calling in from prison in 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.640 Kansas where he has been incarcerated for approximately twenty four 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.360 years now since he was a teenage for a crime 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.720 that he did not commit. Now, let's go back to 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.000 the beginning. On April fifteenth, nineteen ninety four, there were 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.560 two men sitting in a Cadillac in Kansas City, Kansas, 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:13.920 when they were approached by a man with a shotgun. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.000 These facts are not in dispute right correct, And what 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.039 we know is that four shots were fired into the car, 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:25.960 killing the passenger, Donielle Quinn instantly and the driver, Donald Ewing, 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.359 who died later in the hospital. And amazingly, within six hours, 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.240 they managed to find a guy who had nothing to 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.520 do with the crime, Lamont McIntyre, who was seventeen at 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.280 the time, and he was arrested and charged with two 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.600 counts of first degree murder in spite of a total 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.000 lack of any physical evidence. Connecting him to the crime. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.160 How did this happen? Cheryl and Al jump in whenever 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:51.640 you want. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:59.560 Lamont was arrested and prosecuted after police obtained three interviews 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.359 from witnesses, one of them never testified. But the taped 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.599 interviews of these eyewitnesses in a very serious crime, obviously 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.200 where someone can go to prison for the rest of 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.719 their life, amounted to a total of twenty taped minutes, 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.719 and one of the eyewitnesses was only interviewed for four minutes. 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:22.719 Is that an investigation? 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:24.520 What is that? So? 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:24.840 Al? 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:26.800 You've done a lot of research, and you were in 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.400 the FBI for quite a while, Is that right? 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.360 I was in the FBI for twenty five years. I 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.960 was a special agent. I specialized in investigating police corruption. 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.360 I worked in Chicago very successfully, and then in Kansas City. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.479 Kansas Agent Generich was not involved with this murder case 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.680 at all when it happened. I knew mister Generich through 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.920 other cases and after he retired a number of years. 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.320 After he retired, actually and I was working on trying 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.599 to achieve Lamont's exoneration, I approached him to talk to 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.839 him about the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department and things 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.680 that I had uncovered in my investigation. And it was 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.280 at that point that Alan and I started talking about 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.560 some of the things he had learned while working for 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.160 the FBI, and they matched up with some of the 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.320 things I had uncovered in my investigation. And it was 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.719 because of that that he became a witness in this 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.440 case that I hoped to use at our hearing. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:39.359 So, prior to Lamont's arrest, can we talk about what 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.760 was happening with this particular cop, whose name was Roger Glubski. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.600 Sometime around nineteen eighty eight or so, I was able 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.840 to open an investigation into police corruption in Kansas City, Kansas, 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.440 And as the investigation went on over time, over many years, 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:02.600 we developed maybe somewhere between two fifteen police officers who 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.680 were titled the subjects of the investigation. Some of it 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.200 involved civil rights like beating people up, stealing their shoes 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.679 when they were walking down the street because the officer 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.640 liked the shoes, or in the case of Kallupski, you know, 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:20.880 sexual extortion. But most of it involved corruption involving drugs, 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.960 mostly cocaine. And in the course of this investigation, just 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.160 by talking to people, which is what I'm pretty good 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.160 at over time. You know, a number of people told 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.400 us about Gallupski extorting sex from black women, and he 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.920 liked black women. We never developed enough evidence on Gallupski 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.400 to prosecute him. That's the extent of my knowledge about Gulupski, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:48.040 and I had no involvement whatsoever in the murder investigation. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.640 Now, I always believed that that police were good, and 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.760 the police were on our side and they're there to 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.760 protect us all and so I always find these stories, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.200 even as long as I've been working on this issue, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.440 and I've got twenty five years now of experience, but 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.120 I always find these stories so just depressing and shocking, 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:10.920 and it flips everything upside down. 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.960 Well, like you, I was very naive until I went 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.360 to Chicago and then I sought you police corruption on 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.920 the mass of scale. But then when I got back 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:25.000 to Kansas City in eighty six and probably got involved 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.920 in Kansas City, Kansas in eighty eight, and I saw 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.360 the same activity there, it wasn't on the grand scale. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:32.160 You know. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:37.040 It's that it's conducted in Chicago. It's basically police officers, 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.640 most of whom are white, picking on minorities, most of 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.920 whom are black, Some of them are hispanic, because when 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.400 you're a drug dealer, you know, you can't go to 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.320 the police or the FBI and say, hey, these cops 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.080 are stealing my drugs, these cops are stealing my drug money. 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.439 You basically have to you have to suck it up. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:57.760 So that's what they do in Chicago, that's what they 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:58.480 do everywhere. 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:06.720 So so Lamont his troubles really began when his mom 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.320 was at a car with I guess was her boyfriend 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:15.120 at the time, Cheryl Right and Glubski approached the car 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.720 and told her to get out and threatened her with 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.680 the rest or the rest of her boyfriend unless she 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.680 agreed to come down to the police station. And then 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.600 the problems really began when she refused to become one 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.960 of his girls, so to speak. Right, I mean, obviously, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:39.239 she was in a terrible situation where she's very vulnerable, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.520 not able to defend herself from a cop who's willing 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.520 to go to almost any lengths to fulfill his desires. 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:52.040 She had a tremendous problem, and she decided that she 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.760 wanted to maintain her dignity really, right, And so what 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.880 seems like happened is that as a consequence of her action. 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:06.760 Golubski decided that he would target and frame her son 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.800 in something that is so evil that you just sit 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.400 there and say, I don't you know, it makes me 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.240 want to quit the human race. And not only that, 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.480 but he was also represented by an attorney who was 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.640 so incompetent that he was disbarred not too long after 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.920 the trial. So what kind of a chance did he 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:28.520 really have. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:36.440 Well, that's a lot to untangle right there. There was 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.800 an encounter that Lamont's mother had with the detective some 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.240 years earlier. I mean it was years actually before the 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:49.800 double homicide happened. And at the time of the double homicide, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.880 my client was inexplicably dragged into the case. One of 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.160 the eyewitnesses told the police she thought the shooter looked 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.640 like a Lamont dating her Nie. Police never bothered to 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.440 find out what Lamont that was. They don't go ask 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:09.240 the niece what Lamont that was. They simply put another Lamont, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.440 and it's undisputed, an entirely different Lamont, my client into 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:20.680 the case and somehow obtain this identification. What's interesting about 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.440 the lineup, and I've never seen anything like this before, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.439 is three of the five photos were of young male 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.040 members of the McIntyre family. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.440 You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say, well, 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.840 that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's one perpetrator. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:40.920 It's not like somebody said there were three brothers that 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:44.800 were involved. It's one perpetrator, you know. And then the 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:50.040 justice system, we know, has a tendency to chew people 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.679 up and spit them out when they are poor, particularly 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:58.560 if they're minorities and underrepresented. It's really it's not a 0:11:58.559 --> 0:11:59.959 fair fight, is it. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.679 Well, I mean this whole thing was an impossible battle 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.360 for Lamont to begin with. I mean, first of all, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:14.880 the investigation itself, I don't think really qualified is a 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.600 true investigation because so little was done. No evidence of 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.480 motive was ever uncovered. There was no physical evidence that 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.040 tied Lamont to the crime. There was not even any 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.680 evidence that he knew the two victims. There are backgrounds 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.880 of the two victims and who might have a motive 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.800 to harm them that was never investigated. There was an 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.360 eyewitness directly across the street who was never interviewed, whose 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.280 mother said, you know, she knows who the suspect is. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.600 I mean, the failures and lapses and irregularities in this 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.800 case just go on and on. I mean, other than 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.800 the twenty minutes of taped interviews from the eyewitnesses, there 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.360 was very little else And the only evidence at trial 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:07.319 against were two eyewitnesses who were we contend confuse, coerced, manipulated, 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:12.920 threatened into implicating Lamont McIntyre, and that was it. There 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:14.000 was nothing else. 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.760 So you have this cop and this department that is 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.720 so corrupt isn't even the right word, but that's engaged 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.679 in so many illegal activities. And isn't it ironic and 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:33.280 tragic that Lamont is in prison, living in hell after 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:38.160 twenty four years and this cop who was from what 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:45.240 I've read, raping people, robbing people, dealing drugs, protecting drug dealers, 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.080 he's out. How is that? I mean? And that must 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.960 not sit well with you with your whole background either. 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.079 What I'm really hoping for, what our entire team is 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.120 hoping for, and what we have sought for a long time, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:04.280 is a very full investigation into the activities of this detective. 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.920 There needs to be an investigation by people who have 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.760 the power and the authority and the ability to follow 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.200 all the leads, develop information, compel the testimony of witnesses 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.600 and obtain other evidence. 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:24.320 Ah, let me turn it to you for a second, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:29.160 because we have not had somebody with your background and 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:34.960 experience on the show before. And I would venture to 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.320 say that you had a very, very difficult and dangerous job, right, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.160 I mean, investigating cops, particularly when you're investigating cops who've 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.080 got a lot to hide, makes you a very unpopular person, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.360 I would think. So, looking back on it, how did 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:56.920 this manage to go on for so long without somebody 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.440 coming along and saying, you know, besides you, hey, hey, 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:03.000 we're not going to tolerate this. 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.400 They don't give a shit. At the time we were 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.240 doing these investigations, the police chief of Kansas City, Kansas, 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.560 a guy named Tom Daly. He had previously been indicted 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.160 by the Federal Strike Force for extorting money at a 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.560 whorehouses along the Kaw River in Kansas. He was doing 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.239 that allegedly when it was a captain. He was acquitted 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.640 because it was a real weak case. But after being 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.760 acquitted for extortion, the city wound up eventually making him 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.960 the chief. Is that the actions, you know, wever responsible 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.000 a city administration or a police department. So he had 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.400 the chief over there Tom Daly, who had previously been 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.160 indicted by the FEDS. He despised the federal government. He 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.560 hated the US Attorney's Office and the FBI. And he's 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.840 the chief, he was part of it. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.920 So you have this guy Golubski, who, in that scenario 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:02.080 is operating basically with impunity, right because he knows his 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:08.480 chief doesn't give a shit, and with the chief having literally, 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.440 well for what it sounds like, gotten away with that 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.280 particular pattern of activity as well as I'm sure other 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.960 things that he was doing. The people underneath him are 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.000 probably thinking, hey, this is great, no one's gonna touch us, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.240 and they're right, and nobody did. So how frustrating was 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.160 that for you? There? You are really fighting an unwinnable war, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.440 right You're there trying to protect the public from the 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.880 police force with a chief of police who not only 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.680 doesn't give a fuck, but doesn't want that. He wants you. 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.440 He probably wants you the fuck out of his hair, 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:41.720 so he could just go and run his little you know, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:43.160 run the streets how he wants to. 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.120 Right when I started working over there, you had a person, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:48.800 you know, some guy I knewed a lot of people 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.720 in the County jail, and they would say so and 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.680 so confronted me and stole my money, stole my drugs. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.680 You go, what's the cops name? I don't know his name, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:59.720 you know what's he looked like? Well, you know he's 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.920 some Well you go to the police. The police did 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.720 not have photographs of their police officers, So if a 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.000 victim came in there alleging that so and so officer 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.840 robbed from me, extorted me, they didn't even have photographs 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.840 to show people so they could identify who the police 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.000 officer was. So good luck, you know, through the US 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.639 Attorney's Office, through Julie Robinson, who was a prosecutor at 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.960 the time, we subpoenaed photographs of every sworn officer in 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.040 the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department, and there was hell 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.520 to pay for that. I was almost removed from the 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.520 investigation because of that. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:38.240 You know. 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.520 I think one of the problems is that other law 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.680 enforcement officers don't want to investigate law enforcement and as 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.879 a general rule, I think they find it distasteful something 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.959 they would rather avoid, and there is a tendency to 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.720 minimize misconduct. I found that really pretty shocking. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.080 Not in light of it, everything else we're talking about. 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.160 But I could see how you would, and it really 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.679 gets easier and easier to see how these wrongful convictions 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.560 are so common. I mean, here we have an interesting situation, right, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.760 We're talking to Al, who's in there with his badge, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.840 working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and basically being 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.520 told go fuck himself. So what chance does a seventeen 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.520 year old black kid from the poorer side of town. 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.199 What chance does he have against this blue wall, this 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.760 blue monster that was out to get him. He had 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:44.119 no chance. So now fast forward to twenty four years later, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.600 the monsets in the prison studying reading, by all accounts, 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:54.479 a model prisoner, somebody who maintains a positive outlook in 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.400 spite of this. You know what can only be described 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.199 as the worst fate that can befall individual, to be 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.760 concarcerated with something you didn't do for the rest of 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.400 your life. But now we have hope, right, I mean, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.600 he has hope thanks to you and the years of 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.679 work that you've done in this case, in Al and 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.000 other brave people who have devoted their time and in 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.240 some cases probably even risk their own personal safety to 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:19.639 try to get justice. In this case, what does it 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.159 look like now, what happens next? Tell us what's going on. 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:29.360 We have a evidentiary hearing coming up in October and 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.880 we intend to present somewhere between forty and fifty witnesses 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:41.040 who provide very powerful testimony on various aspects of the case. 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.199 There was almost nothing really to support the conviction to 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.280 begin with, nothing other than the testimony of the two 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:52.920 eye witnesses, and I believe that has been thoroughly shredded 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:58.680 at this point through recantations and admissions and the result 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:03.399 of other investigations. And we are also focusing on the 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.240 very troubling misconduct in the case. It is intimately connected 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:13.399 to how the investigation was conducted, and we're going to 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:17.000 bring all that out and show how we believe this 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.560 went wrong, and we very much hope to be successful. 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.640 What's the data of the hearing October twelfth. October twelfth, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:27.919 And is this in a federal court. 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.000 We are in Windott County District Court, which is a 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:35.800 state court. My client is litigating what's called a successive 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:40.400 petition under sixtysh fifteen oh seven, and you have essentially 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.040 a procedural barrier to get over before you can get 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.200 back into court, but we do have this evidentiary hearing 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.720 schedule that we are very very excited about. One of 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.280 the most compelling things about the case we haven't mentioned 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.720 this yet, is that the families of both victims have 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.200 always known my client is innocent and are very much 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.760 squarely supporting the quest to free him. They know that 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.080 they did not get justice. Their families did not get justice. 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.159 And that's Cheryl. In your experience, it's not a common thing, right, 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.439 I mean, most of the cases I've seen, even in 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.840 the face of what could be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.720 the victim's family sometimes stick with you what they've been 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.480 told all along because they just can't. They can't even 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.399 process the idea that they may have been lied to 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:28.120 and that the wrong person may have been serving time 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.640 for the murder of their loved one. So in this case, 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.840 this is a very unusual scenario. 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:33.760 Isn't it. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:34.160 It is? 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:39.080 And one of the eyewitnesses is related to both of 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:45.359 the victims, and she her family and the family of 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.560 the second victim to whom she's a bit more distantly related, 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:51.119 have always told me that they have known from the 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.159 beginning that the authorities got the wrong man. They have 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.159 always known this. They've made periodic efforts to correct this, 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.879 to a d rest this, to try and get some justice, 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:03.360 all without success. 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.520 And they were never tested, they never called it testify 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:06.960 a trial. 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.400 One of them was not called to testify. Another has 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.840 admitted that she lied, that she was coerced. The other 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.600 eyewitness seems frankly, very perplexed by her testimony, and it's 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:27.320 very clear that it's an eyewitness a misidentification based on manipulation. 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.959 And we know also that had this trial taken place 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.280 twenty years later or so, with everything that's known now 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.560 about the unreliability of eyewitness identification, there's a very good 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:40.600 chance that that would have been discredited because there was 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:42.240 no other evidence connecting him to the crime. 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.400 You take a person who's traumatized, who has just witnessed 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.639 a really horrific event, and they can be pretty easy 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.280 to pressure or manipulate. And in fact, this witness provided 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.080 in a tape statement my client's last name, a man 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:00.480 she did not know and had never heard of, which 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.840 raises the very interesting question of who gave her the name. 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.880 It was undisputed at trial that she did not know 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.639 my client. Yet the fact that there was an original 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.640 tape statement where she provided his name never came out 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:20.040 that was never admitted at trial. She also stated wrongly 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.080 that my client was the Lamont who had dated her niece. 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:26.359 At trial undisputed that that was not true. It was 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:30.400 an entirely different Lamont who was in fact identified by 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:34.000 his name to the jury, an entirely different person. So, 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.400 I mean, the whole thing is troubling beginning to end, 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:45.560 really a perfect storm of chaos and horror and misconduct, 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:47.000 things being done improperly. 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:52.320 And if there wasn't already enough to chew on, this 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:56.280 is the part that really just sets me off. His 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.879 court a point that Attorney Gary Long was on supervised 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.919 obation at the time of the trial for failing to 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.800 diligently handle three prior cases. He was suspended from the 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:09.920 bar a couple of years later for failure to adequately 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:12.239 hnder a separate criminal case. And he was this bar 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:15.280 in nineteen ninety eight. How is it even possible that 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:18.000 in a life or death situation, because this is really 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.560 somebody's life that they were playing with, right, how could 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.199 it be in this great country of ours that you 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:28.600