WEBVTT - #521 Jason Flom with John "Divine G" Whitfield 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.480 On March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight, outside of the 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:10.000 Brookline Housing Project, a drug deal went bad, resulting in 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:14.280 the shooting death of a guy named Jimmy CALIBERA Soon, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.400 a notorious thief and cyrial informant named Richard Doyle ran 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.240 into one of the assailants, a guy named Howard Wesley, 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.360 and after their encounter, Doyle claimed that a guy who 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.240 lived at the Brookline Houses named John Whitfield, also known 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.600 as Divine G, was one of his shooters, and while 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:38.160 Harold Wesley admitted his own involvement, he vehemently denied Divines, 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.000 but Wesley died in jail before getting to say so 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:53.040 at Divines trial. This is wrongful Conviction. You're listening to 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.840 Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.160 LoVa for Good podcasts one week early and ad free 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.240 by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:15.360 All right, welcome to a very special edition of Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.600 And I say that in all sincerity. We have not 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.319 one but two of my personal heroes here today. Jeffrey Deskovic, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.280 who's been on the show before as an exonery. Now 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.280 he's back as the attorney for a man who's yet 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.920 to be exonerated, but is as innocent as could be 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.800 and will be exonerated with your expert help. Is that 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.679 fair to say, Jeff, you're to say, Jeff Deskovic, welcome 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:38.760 back to wrongful conviction. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:40.679 Thank you very much. And I do want to share 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.280 that I do represent the Vine also in collaboration with 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:44.319 Oscar Michelin. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.480 And that's ironic that as other lawyers named Oscar because 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.280 the Vine was just nominated for an Oscar for his 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.040 film Sing Sing, So he's got Oscar covered in every direction. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.200 Were you actually nominated for an Oscar or the film 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:57.840 was nominated? 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.360 No, I was nominated for Adaptive screen Well that's why 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:02.880 I went to the Oscars. You can't go to the 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.480 Oscars unless you're nominated, right, specifically, Yeah, sat next to 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.200 Ray find during the class photos. 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:08.920 It's incredible. 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.399 I mean, this man is just different. Twenty five years 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:18.040 in prison, Oscar nominated, accomplished author, playwright. I mean he's 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:19.959 a healer, right, I mean, this is a guy who 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.160 brought peace to a place that desperately needed it through creativity. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.680 Divine is out shopping a number of new screenplays that 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:30.880 he's written. All of us are looking forward to seeing 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.680 where you go next, because this guy is truly the limit. 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.040 Sorry if I'm embarrassing you right now, but Divine, I'm 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:39.080 just really honored that you're here on our show. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.000 I'm honored to be here, man, thank you for inviting me. 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.840 And this is a New York story. You were born 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:45.880 in New York, right like me? 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.239 Absolutely, East New York is where I actually was born 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.760 and had lived in Kanas and Brownsville. 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.760 I'm a Brooklyn Night one hundred percent. 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.800 And you grew up in a time when New York, 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.119 especially in those areas, was experiencing a lot of turmoil. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.799 But you, somehow or other, even back then, were working 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.720 on developing your artistic side. Right, Can you can tell 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.680 us a little bit about growing up in your teenage 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.200 years and what that was all like before everything went 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:15.160 off the rails. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:16.960 I was kind of like a good kid. I was 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.200 one of them adventurous kids. I was all into really 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.120 positive and productive things. And I was around about eleven 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.799 twelve years old. I was so fascinated with Bruce Lee. 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.880 I used to make eight millimeters karate movies. Me and 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.760 my friend Frank Johnson, we used to make these karate 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.960 movies in charge our friends like a quarter a dollar. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.400 That was an early state of my artistic energy. And 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.720 then I eventually started dancing. I became a really efficient dancer. 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.480 I actually I was recruited by a dance group called Realism, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.320 and it was a semi professional group. I appeared on 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.840 television with Stephanie Mills. Y'all probably may remember the show 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.720 called Soap Factory Disco. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.160 In nineteen seventy nine. It was an old show. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.560 I appeared on two episodes with Stephanie Mills when she 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.520 was singing her song put Your Body in It. 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:04.560 I did shows with Neil. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.960 Ward, Instant Funk, and a variety of other popular groups, 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:10.400 and I was pretty good at dancing. 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:10.720 Then. 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.119 At that time I also became a DJ and eventually 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.080 became probably one of Brookline's most famous DJs. It was 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.599 a group I had called mix Machine. Actually in the 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.560 movie sing scene they mentioned it. Coleman Domingo says, yeah, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.320 they used to call me mix Machine, and they mentioned 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.480 that name several times. And because of the dancing, eventually 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.160 I went to High School Performing Arts, and for those 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.719 who know high School Performing Arts, that's the fame school, 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.000 the famous Fame. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.039 School from the movie Fan Yeah, from the movie Fame. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.720 They filmed it in that particular school where I was at. 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.680 I really wanted to go there for acting, so I 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:46.920 got in with dance and I wanted to switch over 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.760 to acting. But eventually I left high school performing arts. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.120 I just couldn't deal with all of the teasing, the bullying, 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.359 and I wasn't the type of person who really respond 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.000 well to abuse. I mean, I knew martial arts, I 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.760 got into a lot of so eventually I moved on 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.200 and went to Kanarsi High School, where I ultimately graduated. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.719 While all that was going on, I. 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.960 Always kept a after school job, worked on the weekends 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.080 because as a DJ, I needed money to buy the records, 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.719 to buy the equipment, to keep things updated. That was 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.520 basically my life before my life, like you said, went 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.599 off the rails. And then I got into this accident. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.839 It was severe, woke up in the hospital. It was 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.560 really damaged pretty bad. I couldn't work, and eventually I 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.960 even tried to go back to work. I started delivering pizzas. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.480 I was Abdomino's pizza delivery boy, and eventually I had 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.719 to quit that job because of the injuries. It was 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.800 so much on me and the doctors telling them, you 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:43.760 can't work. My lawyer's telling me, you can't work. You 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.360 gotta let these injuries heal. Time go by, I couldn't 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.400 get unemployment, I couldn't get certain monies, and then I 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.479 made probably the biggest mistake of my life. 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:54.160 All my friends was in the game. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.479 Hustling out in the street, and I was always able 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.280 to avoid it. But after that accident, I said, you know, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.279 when I'm a sneak, out sell some drugs, and it 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.960 backfired on me. I didn't last two weeks on the 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:05.960 streets because I had no idea what I was doing. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.080 I had copped out to the drug possession. I went 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.000 up state for one to three and out of the 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.600 clear blue Scott They brought me back down the Riker's 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.080 Allen and recharged me for a homicide, a homicide I 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:18.640 had absolutely nothing to do with. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.839 It was about two months before Divine began his one 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.760 to three year bid for possession that this homicide had 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.360 occurred on March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight, somewhere along 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.320 the stretch of one hundred and eighth Street that ran 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.880 through the Brookline Projects and much of what we know 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.960 comes from a recorded statement with one of the assailants, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:37.599 a guy named Harold Wesley. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.400 From what I understand, it was a drug deal gone bad. 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.880 It was between Shatik, Harold Wesley, an individual named Patrick, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.440 and this guy named Jim. Harold Wesley calls him Jim Carabella, 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.919 but his actual name, according to the police reports, was 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.400 Rudolph MIGLARISI. What happened is the old Shatique drugs or something, 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.880 and Shatik wanted to drug ugs or the money, and 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.279 they started arguing over it, and Shatig says that he 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.840 pulls the gun, shoots him in the head, and then 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.680 he made Patrick stand there and pull the trigger. Then 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.560 they run and Harold Wessey says that he sees a 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.160 woman who was dressed in some sort of green coat 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.760 or something. That was Marjorie Shack, whom he says she 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:19.760 lived in that building on the third floor. 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.040 Divine only found out about this recording and Marjorie Shack 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:26.880 long after he had been convicted. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:27.880 Come to find out. 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.720 We eventually tracked her down and Marjorie Shack also confirms 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:32.440 that she told the. 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:33.200 Police it wasn't me. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.000 The police kept showing up pictures of me trying to 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.520 convince her that it was me, and she said, no, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.360 it's not him, it's not him. The night that had happened, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.680 I was across town at my stepfather's house over there 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.480 on Buffalo Avenue, and that night I remember coming in 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.160 and because the crime happened in the back of my building, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.520 I've seen all the police ropes and police cars in 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.640 the back of my building, so obviously I knew something happened. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.200 Next day, I'm hearing rumors in the neighborhood. Yo, some 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.480 guys from out of the neighborhood shots guy in the 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:01.320 back of the building. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.960 So the neighborhood was buzzing. But it doesn't appear that 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.200 anyone cooperated until Harold Wesley had a run in with 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:09.480 police that June. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.080 Harold Wesley had got arrested for possession of drugs, a 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.680 shotgun and the weed, and when the police pulled him over, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.320 he was about to have a shootout with the police. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.880 Somehow the shootout was avoided. Howld Wessey goes in custody. 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.760 Now he wants to cut a deal with the Feds. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.000 So now atf steps in and this is how the 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.760 audio tape came about. He's on this audio tape trying 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.440 to cut this deal with the Feds, and now this 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:42.400 guy starts talking about every crime and everything he knew 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.839 in the neighborhood. And he's jumping all over the place too. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.439 He's not focusing on one thing. He's talking about this thing. 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.240 Then he jumps to this, then he jumps from here. 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.960 He's jumping from there, and it's kind of discombobulated when 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.360 you read the tape. And onside one of the tape 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.600 he mentions me he's mentioned me about a conflict with drugs, 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:04.120 had been with some guy named R and Jr. That 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.200 he was trying to get me to pay him to 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.720 deal with JR and R. So somehow the police thought 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.680 that he was saying that the JR and R was 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:14.760 Jim Carabella. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.160 So they got that whole thing all screwed up. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.040 So by the time you get to side to of 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.000 the tape, you can see that they're confused. See, the 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.000 police already knew that it was Shatique and Patrick that 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.360 did it, so they confirmed that. But then he said, 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.760 well then what about Divine, Well did Divine order it? 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.559 And then Harold West They cleared it up conclusively. By 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.040 the end of the tape, he said, no, Divine didn't 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.120 order it. Even he was getting frustrated with ATF agent. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.800 His name is Bob Hamilton. He was getting really frustrated 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:46.560 with him, like, well, why you keep bringing up this 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.640 divine character when I'm talking about something else. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.319 And while this recording happened and Wesley was in custody, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.040 a guy named Richard Doyle and his friend Scott Bell 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.880 were arrested for burglarizing the home of someone named mar 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.080 Sigliano as for a possession of crack. And Doyle knew 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.480 Divine from the projects, but they never got along, so 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.440 that's a bit of bad luck. When Doyle ran into 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:10.640 Harold Wesley. 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.319 Richard Doyle saw Harold Wesley's shatik in the ballpins, and 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.080 because they knew each other, they started talking. Now, I 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.800 guess what Shatik must have told him. Yo, They must 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.120 have thinked, this is the vine, because you can see 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.280 on the tape that they actually kept pressing Harold, that 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:29.800 kept mentioning my name, and Harold kept telling him no, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.000 not the vine, not the vine. Then Richard Doyle came 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.560 to Scott Belly and said, yo, listen, I got a 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:37.880 way for us to get out, we can say we 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.720 saw Devine did this crime. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.559 Richard Doyle got the idea that he was going to 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.959 get both of them out of jail by falsely implicating 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:46.520 Divine for a homicide. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.320 Because Richard Doyle is a professional informant, He's been doing 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.920 this for a while. He testified in Pencil and Jeffrey's case, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.120 he testified and Gary Reedy's case, but he testified in 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:56.200 multiple cases. 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.720 So he has a history of this and he knows 0:10:58.800 --> 0:10:59.400 that if you. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.520 Come up with this type of information that prosecutors love 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:04.040 you for this and you can get out of jail. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.640 So Scott Bello says, no, I'm not doing that, No, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.439 I'm not doing that. So Richard Doyle goes on about 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.960 his business and Scott Belli sees him talking to a 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:13.760 man in a suit and the next thing you know, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.560 they walking out of prison. Then, after Richard Doyle gets 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.640 out a week later, miraculously, he goes to the police 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.120 station claiming to be an eye witness to this. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.120 So, on the strength of this serial informants word, Divine 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.000 was transferred from Upstate to Rikers to face this homicide charge, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.559 even though Harold Wesley had already cleared his name. 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.200 The minute I went on Rikers Island, like about three 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.400 days later, he committed suicide in Brooklyn House of Detention. Well, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.959 they say he committed suicide. I did a four year 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.640 request and got all of the documents. They said that 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.240 they found him with the rope that allegedly hung him 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.760 under his mattress. So in essence, he hung himself, took 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.960 the rope off his neck and put it under his mattress. 0:11:57.679 --> 0:11:58.800 So you figure that out. 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.400 But like I said, I didn't even know about Harold 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.440 was the or this confession tape until after his conviction, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.120 let alone what he was about to face a trial. 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.200 I didn't know who actually was accusing me of it. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:11.720 And to the day of trial. 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.160 It was a tactic that they used called trial by ambush. 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:16.040 They would hide. 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.160 All of the evidence from you and then on a 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.240 day of trial they come in there with a two 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.240 foot stack of documents and say here. And that's when 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.200 I discovered that it was this notorious crackhead. I mean, 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:31.319 he was the crackhead extraordinary in Brookline projects and he 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:33.160 accused me of this homicide. 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.319 And here's where discovery laws being inadequate before, which is 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.200 why we're fighting to try to maintain them now comes 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.800 into play. Okay, because this tape that Divine has mentioned, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.440 the tape went missing many years later they claimed it 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.800 was missing. But if it had been automatic discovery right away, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.800 very early in the process, then Divine's lawyer could have 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.200 had that tape, It could have used that at the 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.439 trial and almost certainly would have gotten an acquittal. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:12:59.520 Absolutely. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.720 Discovery laws in New York changed from trial by ambush 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:09.280 to automatic discovery in twenty twenty, and right now various 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:14.240 nefarious forces are working to repeal this vital reform. They 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.160 want to take us back to an era when a 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:21.600 request for discovery was both over and underwhelming. As Divine described, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.760 a defendant would literally receive a volume of documents that 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.360 would be near impossible or impossible even to digest on 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.439 the eve of or during trial. But also the prosecutor 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.040 would get to decide what was going to be given 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.680 to the defense. Right. I mean, it's the wolf guarding 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.920 the henhouse, and I don't have to tell our audience 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.960 what a Brady violation is. And in Divine's case, that 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:48.800 meant Carol Wesley's confession, any mention of Marjorie Shack or 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.320 the deal made with Richard Doyle, who claimed that he'd 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.760 witness Wesley and Divine shoot MILLIASI under a street lamp 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.280 from thirty five feet away, and then he'd run to 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.400 a nearby stay order to retrieve receipts for some unknown reason, 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.000 and returned to the scene with a store clerk named 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:06.120 Wayne Harris. 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.440 And Wayne Harris says, no, I never saw him that night, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.840 But in terms of his credibility here in this case, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.880 there's three provable lies. There's another twelve very likely lies. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.760 Doyle testified that his burglary charges had been dismissed before 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.840 he'd come forward because the burglary victim's nephew, sal Mar Sigliano, 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.920 had directed he and Scott Bell to do it. He 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.200 also testified that he'd received no benefit for his testimony, 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.880 even though it was later discovered that the burglary charge 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.160 was pending through his grand jury testimony, as well as 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.280 an armed robbery charge in Nassau County that also just 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.960 poof went away. He also said that after he'd gotten 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.120 out of jail in June of eighty eight, that he 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.480 was approached by armed men who he didn't know, implying 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.240 possible witness tampering, but according to police reports written by 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.960 the lead detective, Robert Lincoln, he knew who that armed 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.240 person was and was unrelated to this case. Doyle also 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.640 claimed to have been sober for months, but on the 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.360 night he been arrested, one of the charges was for 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.080 possession of crack. In addition to Doyle, the jury heard 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.120 from the medical examiner about the cause of death, Harold 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.920 Wesley's arresting officer about the gun he found in Wesley's trunk, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.480 and then a ballistic expert linked that gun to bullets 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:20.680 recovered from the scene. 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.040 The whole case against the Vines is based on this 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.800 one and formant the trial judge, you know, Judge Edgido 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.720 at the sentencing even says that this whole case just 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.520 comes down to Richard Doyle's credibility. 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.720 He said, without Richard Doyle, there was no case. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:39.160 And you end up getting sentenced to concurrent terms right 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.680 of twenty five years to life, five to fifteen years, 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.680 and two to a third to seven years. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.720 I mean, listen, man, it's a nightmare beyond description. You 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.880 know when they read it out, you know, the whole 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.960 courtroom exploded. I exploded, you know I didn't do it, 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:58.680 screaming it was just a nightmare. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:15:59.520 I couldn't believe it. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.600 Family was crying, I was crying. It was just the 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:22.800 shark of all sharks. At the time in Clinton, Attica, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.600 green Haven, that was a very racist jail. They got 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.680 active clanmen in Greenhn and at the time in Auburn. 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:31.880 I did my rounds. 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.360 But when I got to Sing Sing Sing Sing was 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.160 terrible too because they had a lot of drug wars, 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.680 a lot of gang violence, a lot of just a lot. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.480 Of prisons are just violent, period. 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:43.480 But when I got to Sing Sing, it was a 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.480 blessing in disguise because Sing Sing is close to the city, 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.960 so they were more acclimated to have programs and people 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.760 were more able from the city to come up to 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.320 the jails. So I seen it as an opportunity. I 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.760 was on an all out mission. Being sentenced to twenty 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.120 five years to life can bring something to you that 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.920 you don't even know that you got waking up every 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.439 morning into a nightmare. When you go to sleep, you 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.360 out of the nightmare, you dreaming you free, and then 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:12.120 you wake up. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.480 It was like every morning, Uh, here go this nightmare again. 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:16.680 Here we go again. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.480 So that gave me that fire. I got into the NAACPA. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.800 I eventually went to college, eventually got a master's degree, started. 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.439 RTA and rehabilitation through RTA is rehabilitation through the arts. 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:29.720 You know. 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.600 It was just a lot going on, and I became 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.200 a jail house lawyer man that was very efficient. 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:36.600 I learned how to do motions. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.000 I learned how to do this because at that point 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.760 I knew that my entire life depended on me finding 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.680 a way to do it. And I'm not rich. I'm 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.360 a poor person. My family's poor. We don't have lawyers, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.560 we don't have money for that. So I went in 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.600 that lawyer liberry and I learned, and ultimately I do 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.160 legal writing. I ended up becoming a very efficient novelist 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.920 writer because I said, once the court thought rubber stamping it, 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.119 I said, I gotta come up with some kind of 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:03.119 way to fight this. 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.000 Well writing, what can I do? I can write, and 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:07.000 ultimately my. 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.760 Memoir The Whitfield Files, won a National Writing Award. 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.919 It's a Pen award, right, Yeah, there's a Pen Award. 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.800 In addition to his Oscar nomination, Divine won the prestigious 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.160 Pan Award four count of four times. So we're gonna 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.639 link all of that in the episode description. He was 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.159 and still is stunningly prolific. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.840 It shocked me at times when I sat back and 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.760 realized one time, I wrote three novels in one year, 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.440 did a four to forty article seventy eight, and was 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.960 running RTA, and was the president of the NAACP sponsoring 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:43.600 culture war in his classes Black History Month classes GED classes. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.639 People used to ask how do you do it? And 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.760 one of the ways I used to do it. I 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:52.640 had a meticulous checklist system. Every year I would write 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.040 out what I'm gonna do for this year, and then 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.639 every month I would break them down into months, a 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.960 checklist in months, and then a checkliss in weeks, and 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.080 a checklist in days, and every day I would check 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:08.439 off those. So every day of my life that was living, breathing. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.480 It was about doing something. If there was a moment 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.679 I wasn't doing something, was it was misery. It was 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.240 like I lived by just staying proactive and moving. 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.159 And he brought that drive and organizational prowess to his 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.280 appellate fight as a pro say litigant, meaning he was 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.600 on his own without an attorney, and after his initial 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.760 appeals were denied, his first post conviction motion, known as 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:32.359 a four to forty in New York, was based on 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.680 Doyle's perjured testimony that his burglary charges had been dismissed 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.639 before he even spoke to police about this, and that 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.120 he'd received no benefit. But Divine found out that Doyle's 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.760 charges hadn't been dismissed until after his grand jury testimony. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.440 This was a Brady violation as well as false testimony, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.680 and in addition, Scott Bell gave an affidavit about Doyle's 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.720 plan to falsely accused Divine who he didn't like, to 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.560 get their charges dismissed, and there was also an affidavit 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.920 from the burglary victim, Salmar Sigliano about how he tried 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:07.720 to press charges but nothing ever materialized. Yet somehow, the 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.119 motion was denied in nineteen ninety six, so Divine moved 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.080 on to federal habeas and filed a Foyer request with 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.320 the King County DA, which turned up a disclosure for 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.080