Speaker 1: Just after four am on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: in front of a Boston housing project, some neighbors heard
Speaker 1: a commotion and saw a group of three men from
Speaker 1: a distance, rob and Batley shoot a cab driver. Another
Speaker 1: cab driver came forward and claimed to have witnessed the
Speaker 1: very moment when the assailants first hailed the cab in
Speaker 1: downtown Boston, and after hypnosis, the caby identified sixteen year
Speaker 1: old Fred Clay and twenty year old James Watson as
Speaker 1: two of the three assailants. Then the witnesses from the
Speaker 1: scene agreed, resulting in the two young men being sent
Speaker 1: away for life. This is wrongful conviction. You're listening to
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all the
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Ronfuel Conviction. We're going to go back
Speaker 1: to Boston for the nineteen seventy nine robbery and murder
Speaker 1: of a taxi driver when both public and private pressure
Speaker 1: produced some very dubious witnesses, and two young men were
Speaker 1: sacrificed to alleviate that pressure. Let's call it what it is.
Speaker 1: We originally covered this story back in twenty nineteen with
Speaker 1: Fred Clay, the co defendant of our guest today, mister
Speaker 1: James Watson. James, thanks for joining us. Yes, a new problem,
Speaker 1: and with him is his appellate attorney, Barb Monroe. Barb,
Speaker 1: thanks for doing this.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me now, James.
Speaker 1: You grew up in Boston, right.
Speaker 3: I've been to Boston all my life, born and raised
Speaker 3: with my mother and two brothers and two sisters. My
Speaker 3: father he did not stay with us, but there was
Speaker 3: another man that dead live with us, which is my baby.
Speaker 4: Sister's father, Joe.
Speaker 3: And he drank a lot and he picked frice at
Speaker 3: my mother and one day he slapped my mother in
Speaker 3: the mouth. And I had to be around nine to ten.
Speaker 3: I lost it and I went in the kitchen and
Speaker 3: I got every can I can possibly get out the
Speaker 3: cabinet and used it to throw metal and I lost
Speaker 3: the fight.
Speaker 4: But he had bruises.
Speaker 3: He had bruises, so we moved from bluehoo Ave to
Speaker 3: Orchard Pop to get away from him, and he found
Speaker 3: us and the guy came. He came in and knocked
Speaker 3: on the door. I ain't see him in a long time,
Speaker 3: so I actually he really didn't recognize him. But he
Speaker 3: knocked on the door and my mother opened the door,
Speaker 3: and I heard her say, how did you find me?
Speaker 3: And he said, I want to see my daughter, and
Speaker 3: my mother said, you don't supposed to be here. That's
Speaker 3: when I realized that's Joe, that's the basket.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm much older now, you know, I was about fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 3: and I've told my buddy, I said, let's kick his ass,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Let's whoop his ass. But
Speaker 3: my sister, she was young. She said, I want to
Speaker 3: see my daddy. So that's what stopped me from in
Speaker 3: his ass.
Speaker 1: The family moved again, this time to the Archdale Housing
Speaker 1: Projects in Roslindale, and over the next few years, James's
Speaker 1: photo ended up in the system for a petty theft,
Speaker 1: and he also met his son's mother, Diane Moses.
Speaker 4: I met Diane in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3: It was only together for like two years before all
Speaker 3: this happened. She had two kids already, you boy and
Speaker 3: a girl, and then she got pregnant with my son,
Speaker 3: Don Juan Moses. He was thirteen months at the time
Speaker 3: before this crime happened. I was on top of the
Speaker 3: world when he was born. I was so full of
Speaker 3: joy it happiness to have a son. Everybody loved him,
Speaker 3: especially the women. The girl loved him.
Speaker 1: And this brings us to the faithful night of November sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, just a little after four am, when
Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old cab driver named Jeffrey Boyegian
Speaker 1: was dropping off of fair at the Archdale Housing projects
Speaker 1: and twenty five year old neighbor Neil Sweat described what
Speaker 1: he saw from his window.
Speaker 2: A cab shows up and it's dark. It's about at
Speaker 2: least eighty feet from where the cab is to where
Speaker 2: this young man is looking out the window, and he
Speaker 2: sees a cab driver getting pulled out of the cab.
Speaker 2: And he sees three black men. Two is tall, one
Speaker 2: was small, and then he sees the shorter one shoot
Speaker 2: the cab driver five times and then they took off.
Speaker 2: He had called another person who was there to go
Speaker 2: to work with him to come look out the window
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: And the other young man was named Ben Brown.
Speaker 3: Ben Brown he used to pick Sweat up to go
Speaker 3: to work because Sweat couldn't read the size on the bus,
Speaker 3: and they get on the bus together and ride up
Speaker 3: to Rossendale Square. The whole family couldn't read it right.
Speaker 3: The mother couldn't read it right.
Speaker 2: This young man who witnessed this had some severe intellectual disabilities.
Speaker 2: And his mother was also there, and she looked out
Speaker 2: and she saw whatever she saw, and she also had
Speaker 2: severe intellectual disabilities as well.
Speaker 1: And the mother's name was Philippa Sweat, and being eighty
Speaker 1: feet away with the aid of only one street light,
Speaker 1: the Sweats were only confident that the assailants wore leather jackets.
Speaker 1: The two were tall and one was small, but they
Speaker 1: weren't confident in their ability to identify them. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: police continued their canvas.
Speaker 3: I was home sleep and the detectives came and knocked
Speaker 3: on my door, and yes, did I hear anything or
Speaker 3: did I see anything? I said, No, I was four
Speaker 3: in the morning. No, I was in latter Land.
Speaker 4: I was sleeping. I did not hear anything.
Speaker 1: James had a thirteen month old son, so it's more
Speaker 1: likely that he'd be getting every minute of sleep that
Speaker 1: he could rather than staying out till four am and
Speaker 1: committing a robbery and murder. With two other guys, one
Speaker 1: of whom bred Clay. He only knew through his would
Speaker 1: be mother in law.
Speaker 3: His mother used to hang out with Diane's mother, and
Speaker 3: that's how I knew Freddy.
Speaker 4: I never hung out with this kid. He wasn't even sixteen.
Speaker 1: Plus Freddie lived at a foster home, not at the projects,
Speaker 1: and perhaps both of their relationships with the system played
Speaker 1: into how they were singled out. When another cab driver
Speaker 1: named Richard Dwyer came forward that Friday morning with a
Speaker 1: story which started out with some naked racism.
Speaker 2: Supposedly, this cab driver saw three black men in the
Speaker 2: red light district down on Washington Street. He put his
Speaker 2: meter on to look that he was busy, So the
Speaker 2: three black men get into a cab. In the cab left,
Speaker 2: and then the next day is when the cab driver
Speaker 2: allegedly sees a picture in the paper of the cab
Speaker 2: that Jeffrey had been driving, and he remembers the cab
Speaker 2: as the one he saw these three black men get into.
Speaker 1: But this shooting happened around four a m. And that
Speaker 1: morning's newspaper had already been printed. So no, mister Dwyer,
Speaker 1: you didn't recognize the licensed number of Jeffrey Boyagian's cab
Speaker 1: in the newspaper. You couldn't have and it's possible that Dwyer, well,
Speaker 1: he could have been motivated by some understandable fear among
Speaker 1: cab drivers and their business interests.
Speaker 2: The day that James was arrested, there was an article
Speaker 2: in the paper as well about the cab drivers being
Speaker 2: upset that there was not enough done about the shooting
Speaker 2: and there's been a lot of shootings and they were
Speaker 2: saying if it was a police getting shot, they'd be
Speaker 2: doing something. So there was a lot of pressure on
Speaker 2: the police to get this taken care of as well.
Speaker 1: So now, as an alleged eyewitness, Dwyer met with Boston
Speaker 1: Police officer Patrick Brady, who had taken a number of
Speaker 1: hypnotism courses, and at some point Dwyer was also shown
Speaker 1: some photo arrays.
Speaker 2: They hypnotize him and they tell him that it's like
Speaker 2: a video recording, so he can stop the frame when
Speaker 2: he sees the men who were getting into the cab,
Speaker 2: and the particular man that he focused in on was
Speaker 2: allegedly James, because he was the polite gentleman letting the
Speaker 2: other two in the cab at least he was polite
Speaker 2: and he could describe him, and he described allegedly Fred
Speaker 2: as well. Couldn't really describe the third person.
Speaker 1: And I think anyone with a human brain can recognize
Speaker 1: that their memories do not work like an on demand
Speaker 1: video streaming service with zoom capabilities. But there's even more.
Speaker 1: The order of photo viewing and hypnotism is also very important.
Speaker 2: This was going to be a case of first impression
Speaker 2: whether hypnotic identifications would be admissible in Massachusetts. So they
Speaker 2: knew that if the testimony came out that he had
Speaker 2: looked at the photographs after he was hypnotized, it would
Speaker 2: be an admissible What they said happened was that he
Speaker 2: was shown photographs of I think it was sixteen random
Speaker 2: black men from the projects, and he chose James and Fred.
Speaker 2: Now allegedly they said this happened before he was hypnotized.
Speaker 2: The reality that we find out when we did our
Speaker 2: investigation was that did not happen that way. So they
Speaker 2: had the change in narrative that he made the identification
Speaker 2: untainted by any hypnosis. So the hypnotism in itself is
Speaker 2: junk science. But the fact that the prosecutor, we believe
Speaker 2: lied and we have found evidence in the DA files
Speaker 2: that showed that he did. It's pretty problematic.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the prospect of using hypnotic identifications going forward was
Speaker 1: just too alluring. Luckily for all of us, the president
Speaker 1: was not established. However, The doctor narrative was that Dwyer
Speaker 1: made a tentative idea of James and Fred from sixteen
Speaker 1: photos of local black men before being hypnotized and then
Speaker 1: making a confident identification of both, which also raises the
Speaker 1: specter of solidifying a false memory. Either way, the police
Speaker 1: sought support for this dubious ID process.
Speaker 3: They have took Diane down to the police station that
Speaker 3: Friday of the crime. I didn't know that, and she
Speaker 3: never told me that. They pulled her over and took
Speaker 3: it down to the station. I had to find out
Speaker 3: down the road. They threatened to give us seven years
Speaker 3: and frame him, take her kids from him, and cut
Speaker 3: her off public aid. If you try to give your
Speaker 3: boyfriend a fucking alibi, That's what he told me.
Speaker 1: Despite Diane naming alternate suspects who were known for similar
Speaker 1: crimes and had been wearing leather jackets, she was being
Speaker 1: coerced into implicating James. But at this time she hadn't
Speaker 1: yet committed to helping the police.
Speaker 3: So after that they had me down the station Saturday Sunday.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm telling them I wasn't there. I didn't
Speaker 3: do this. I got a kid man, I did not
Speaker 3: rob no cab driver. I was not downtown four o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning to take a burlow. He said, are
Speaker 3: you willing to take a polygraph test? I said, listen, man,
Speaker 3: I'll take a polygraph test, drug syrup, whatever you want
Speaker 3: me to do that make you understand that I'm telling
Speaker 3: you the truth.
Speaker 4: I didn't do this. I wouldn't do this.
Speaker 3: And he said, okay, we'll do the polygraph one o'clock Monday,
Speaker 3: so he let me leave.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, they had been talking to philipp and Neil Sweat.
Speaker 2: They start interviewing the Sweats and showing them photographs and
Speaker 2: this went on over the course of the entire weekend.
Speaker 2: Well come to find out that the Sweats wanted to
Speaker 2: move out of the projects for a long time because
Speaker 2: they were one of the few white families living there
Speaker 2: and they wanted to move to the white projects. So finally,
Speaker 2: by Monday, they convinced mister Sweat that he could identify
Speaker 2: mister Watson and mister Clay and he did. Fred was
Speaker 2: the gunman and James was just there to assist and
Speaker 2: the third person who knows, And they moved them.
Speaker 1: And they tried to use hypnosis with Neil Sweat as well.
Speaker 2: They did, but because of his intellectual disabilities his concentration,
Speaker 2: it didn't go so well.
Speaker 1: At this time, Philippus Wett was not willing to join
Speaker 1: her son in making an ID. Meanwhile, James still thought
Speaker 1: a polygraph would prove his innocence, but Detective Burlow didn't
Speaker 1: come to get him until late Monday evening, without his partner,
Speaker 1: but rather some mystery man who left. When they arrived
Speaker 1: at the precinct and James was brought inside.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting in the office and it's just me, Detective
Speaker 3: Burlow and Detective Paul Carroll.
Speaker 4: He said, what would wrong man? You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Why did you kill him? This is supposed to be for
Speaker 4: a parograph. I didn't do this.
Speaker 3: And then he said you've been identified. I said what
Speaker 3: he said, you've been identified.
Speaker 4: So get the fuck out of here. I said, who
Speaker 4: identified me? Who let me see him?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: You've been identified?
Speaker 3: And you being book for murder booked me, fingerprint me,
Speaker 3: took me to Child Street jail and that's where I
Speaker 3: remained for twenty three months.
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Speaker 3: Freddie they made him my coat defended, which I didn't
Speaker 3: know of. I happened to be in Childbree playing cards.
Speaker 3: He came to hild freet and I said, damn, Freddie,
Speaker 3: what they get you for? Oh, I'm in here for
Speaker 3: the same thing you are. I said what, Yeah, they said,
Speaker 3: I shot the gun.
Speaker 4: I said, oh shit. Later on they came and they
Speaker 4: pulled him out.
Speaker 3: Of child speat, and then the lawyer came up. He said, look,
Speaker 3: they don't want you right, they want Freddy. You know me,
Speaker 3: They want to shoot it if you testify against Freddie.
Speaker 3: The DA said he'd give you time serve and cut
Speaker 3: your loose. But all you have to do was testified
Speaker 3: against Frederick Clay.
Speaker 1: Who was a sixteen year old child at that time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, was a baby, he was a kid. He was
Speaker 3: locked up in a Foster home under lock and key.
Speaker 3: The woman name was Missus Kings. He was living in
Speaker 3: the Foster home. Well, the only way you can get
Speaker 3: out the house is use a key to open the
Speaker 3: door from the inside.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to hear Fred's side of this story,
Speaker 1: and I hope you will, we're gonna link his interview
Speaker 1: in the episode of description. So anyway, neither of them
Speaker 1: took a deal. Oddly, they didn't apply more pressure on James,
Speaker 1: considering the options time served or death.
Speaker 3: I didn't know about the death penalty stat too until
Speaker 3: I went for my arraignment and Timothy o'dneill, I'll never
Speaker 3: forget that, bastard. He asked, Judge Irwin, I can never
Speaker 3: forget that as long as as I live. He said,
Speaker 3: I like to indict mister Watson under the death penalty
Speaker 3: status here on due to the nature of the crime
Speaker 3: and the underlining felony the robbery. And Judge Irwin put
Speaker 3: his glasses down over his big fucking nose and said, granted,
Speaker 3: I said death finality. What now, I'm scared. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, I'm growing gray heads at a
Speaker 3: very early age.
Speaker 2: Ten months. Ten months he sat in jail knowing that
Speaker 2: he was facing the death penalty until they took it
Speaker 2: to court, and then with a case that bears his
Speaker 2: name and three others, they found that the death penalty
Speaker 2: is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of those cases that abolished the
Speaker 1: death penalty in Massachusetts. But not knowing this outcome, James
Speaker 1: still didn't waiver. It's amazing. Unfortunately, Diane Moses had her
Speaker 1: children to think of, so she agreed to help the police.
Speaker 3: I found that out when I'm sitting in child Street.
Speaker 3: And then Frank Color, her trinity, came up, said Diane,
Speaker 3: your girlfriend Moses is going to testify against you, saying
Speaker 3: that you told her you was there, but you didn't
Speaker 3: do the shoot. I said, what, I never told her that.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what she's going to testify to.
Speaker 3: And if you want to mean change, I ain't changing shit.
Speaker 3: I did not do this. I did not kill nobody.
Speaker 3: I would never kill nobody or let nobody be killed.
Speaker 3: But anyway I had to find out down the road
Speaker 3: they threatened her. I'm saying, wow, they must already did
Speaker 3: a job on her. So I'm missing my son, and
Speaker 3: I told my sister. I said, joint, go down over there,
Speaker 3: get my son and bring him up here to visit me.
Speaker 3: So she goes down to the apartment. The apartment is empty.
Speaker 3: They took her and moved the down south you mean
Speaker 3: like South Boston, Georgia, Georgia. And that's where she stayed
Speaker 3: until trial. Now, even though Fred was the alleged shooter,
Speaker 3: both Fred and James were charged with first degree murder,
Speaker 3: which later became an issue that won James a new trial,
Speaker 3: but either way, the first trial proceeded in August of
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: Fred and James were tried together and there was no
Speaker 2: physical evidence, and Nil Sweat identified them with his magical
Speaker 2: powers of sight, and Richard Dwyer came in and identified
Speaker 2: both of them, and so he had everyone believing that
Speaker 2: they had made this initial identification free of hypnotism.
Speaker 1: And then he spoke about how his hypnotism session was
Speaker 1: like watching a movie of the assailants getting into Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Boyegian's cab.
Speaker 3: Yes, he said, it was like being at the movie,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, he can picture it clearly that Yes,
Speaker 3: this is the guy saw he said. We walked there
Speaker 3: at New across the street. I opened the door, let
Speaker 3: the other two get in, and then I walked around,
Speaker 3: looked him in the face, and then got into the
Speaker 3: cop and the cab drove off.
Speaker 1: Then Boston Police Officer Patrick Brady was sworn in as
Speaker 1: an expert investigative hypnologist. Okay, and he testified that the
Speaker 1: mind can take mental pictures that are encoded in the brain.
Speaker 1: I'm pausing here because I'm losing my shit, okay, deep breath.
Speaker 1: Then the state also presented an LAPD psychologist, a guy
Speaker 1: named Martin Riser, who testified the the mind works like
Speaker 1: a giant computerized videotape recording. I mean, fuck off with
Speaker 1: this shit. And anyway, the defense presented their own expert,
Speaker 1: a doctor named Martin Orn who said that this tape
Speaker 1: recorder theory of human memory has no scientific support, because
Speaker 1: of course it doesn't. And then the state called Ben Brown.
Speaker 4: Ben Brown didn't testify against me.
Speaker 2: He testified at the first trial, and he was technically
Speaker 2: an adverse witness for the Commonwealth. He did say he
Speaker 2: saw two people pull the cab driver out, but he
Speaker 2: didn't recognize the shooter, and he testified that it was
Speaker 2: not James, that he didn't see him out there.
Speaker 1: So Fred and James both testified in their own defense,
Speaker 1: saying that they'd had nothing to do with this shooting.
Speaker 1: But then Diane Moses took the stand.
Speaker 3: She said, I told her that I was dead and
Speaker 3: that he didn't do the shooting, and she said this,
Speaker 3: He said, we are not going to tell the police
Speaker 3: anything else. I said, we, Who the hell are you
Speaker 3: talking about?
Speaker 1: We?
Speaker 4: She was implicating herself.
Speaker 3: That's how scared she was, you know, because to find out,
Speaker 3: they kept irrastioning every time they saw her.
Speaker 1: So the trial wrapped up with two alleged eyewitness ideas
Speaker 1: opposing expert testimonial hypnosis, followed by Diane Moses with this
Speaker 1: alleged confession.
Speaker 3: They came back with a question that Jermy said, Judge,
Speaker 3: can you define first degree murder? Judge says, you read
Speaker 3: the evidence, you got the record going back and into
Speaker 3: the right with it, so he wouldn't answer their question.
Speaker 3: And they went back there and came back guilty, guilty
Speaker 3: of first green murder, and the judge sent you to
Speaker 3: your natural life and state better tentiaries.
Speaker 4: That was it.
Speaker 3: That's like from the guilty they should be back to
Speaker 3: child Street because they didn't have the room in Wallpole.
Speaker 3: The bids were full, so I stayed into child Street
Speaker 3: and after the next night they shipped me off the
Speaker 3: Wallpole about six thirty at night, and I ended up
Speaker 3: steeping in the dayroom on a cot. The cot had
Speaker 3: to be about four feet five feet and I'm six six.
Speaker 3: And the next day you went out, got up, stand
Speaker 3: up for count, and get up the win for breakfast.
Speaker 3: And when I went to the child hall, a lot
Speaker 3: of people recognize me because some of the guys in
Speaker 3: there were older guys, which you call o gez. You
Speaker 3: know knew my dad, if someone knew my uncle. They
Speaker 3: schooled me on what was going down. You know, I mean,
Speaker 3: you have any problems, you let us know. Don't hang
Speaker 3: with that group. Don't sit at that table. You know,
Speaker 3: you get the don't cut sit you know, sit with us.
Speaker 4: It was crazy. I was only weighing one hundred and
Speaker 4: seventy pounds. I was scared to death. Ain't gonna bullshit you.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: You know, because I heard all the rumors about Walpole,
Speaker 3: you know, finding bodies two days later and they was
Speaker 3: raping guys, and you know what I mean, said, damn man,
Speaker 3: I got to get through this. I didn't know if
Speaker 3: I won't get through to that. I wasn't contemplating on
Speaker 3: killing myself, but I said, I'm gonna have to learn
Speaker 3: how to be a fighting motherfucker and fight.
Speaker 1: He did, and we don't see this often, but he
Speaker 1: actually won on direct appeal way back in March nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. Now, the jury should have been instructed that
Speaker 1: James could be found guilty of bellony murder based on
Speaker 1: robbery only if there was proof that he knew Fred
Speaker 1: had a gun, But obviously this is only a technical issue.
Speaker 1: Bred never had a gun and didn't commit this murder,
Speaker 1: which is where it all becomes like some weird Kafka nightmare.
Speaker 1: But this is how they were able to Win James
Speaker 1: in new trial, which began in January nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Now the hypnosis evidence was not included. It was excluded,
Speaker 1: but the state added philipp A Sweat as a witness
Speaker 1: who up until this point, well, she had never made
Speaker 1: an id.
Speaker 3: When Philip pu Sweat got on a stand and it
Speaker 3: was asked, do you see the defendant that you saw
Speaker 3: on November sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine outside your window, Robin
Speaker 3: his cab driver? And she said well, and the DA
Speaker 3: got so frustrated he said, I'm gonna ask you again,
Speaker 3: missus Sweat, now remind you each time he said this
Speaker 3: To her right, he walked from the witness stand around
Speaker 3: the table and went directly and stood behind my chair
Speaker 3: and asked her the question again, do you see the
Speaker 3: defendant in this courtroom that was participating in the murder
Speaker 3: and Robbie? And she said well, and he didn't even
Speaker 3: let her finish. Do you see the defendant that you
Speaker 3: saw on the women the next sixteenth? Well, to say,
Speaker 3: to tell you the truth, it was dark to say
Speaker 3: that it was him. And then I said, damn, look
Speaker 3: like I might be going home, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But he stood behind my chair, and I looked at
Speaker 3: my lawyer. I said, like, I'm saying to here, like, motherfucker,
Speaker 3: you going to say something because he's directed this, it's
Speaker 3: right to me.
Speaker 4: And she said it was it was kind of dark.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, yeah, okay, And then finally she says, I
Speaker 3: think that's him right there.
Speaker 4: I said, ain't this after all that? You know what
Speaker 4: I mean? Come on and no, But he said nothing.
Speaker 4: My lloyds say nothing.
Speaker 3: Then he foind he's standing around and said, drawn, he's
Speaker 3: directing the witness to the defendant.
Speaker 4: You know, stop. I said, man, it's kind of late
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: James's attorney set up the jury thinking that Philippus Sweat
Speaker 2: is going to get up on that stand and say
Speaker 2: to you, she can't identify who if it was him.
Speaker 2: And then she gets up on the stand and says, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was him. So that kind of sealed the deal.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was enough there already anyways, but that
Speaker 2: sealed the deal.
Speaker 3: It was too much fabricated evidence to a lank jeror
Speaker 3: they know nothing of Mistaken identifications. Eyewitness identification is the
Speaker 3: worst identification, especially a black man identifying a white person
Speaker 3: or a white person dientif for the black person that
Speaker 3: identifications could be totally whaite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cross racial identification has been proven to be less
Speaker 1: accurate than guessing, and not even to mention that they
Speaker 1: were being incentivized eighteen ways till Sunday, which gave them
Speaker 1: a lot of very good reasons to lie. Nevertheless, he
Speaker 1: was convicted again and then denied a direct appeal, and
Speaker 1: because they weren't aware of many of the issues that
Speaker 1: we know about now, they had effectively just given up
Speaker 1: and submitted to life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 3: I've never been in a situation like the Holocaust or
Speaker 3: anything like that, but I mean, I'd just seen you know,
Speaker 3: documentaries on that, and that's what it's felt like. You know,
Speaker 3: you wait to die, stay here, getting that hole and
Speaker 3: stayed it until.
Speaker 4: You die, you know what I mean. Isn't humane, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And eventually a series of Supreme Court decisions began to
Speaker 1: recognize that, at least for juveniles, first ruling in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five that the death penalty was a violation
Speaker 1: of the Eighth Amendments banned on cruel and unusual punishment
Speaker 1: for juveniles, then the same for juvenile life without parole
Speaker 1: for non homicide offenses in twenty ten, followed by an
Speaker 1: extension to homicide cases in twenty twelve, and then those
Speaker 1: decisions were ruled retroactive in twenty sixteen. So Fred, who
Speaker 1: was only sixteen when this crime occurred, found support from
Speaker 1: both Jeffrey Harris, who is private counsel, as well as
Speaker 1: Lisa Kavanaugh, the director of the Committee for Public Services
Speaker 1: Council Innocence Program, and they worked on his parole package
Speaker 1: as well as a motion for a new trial based
Speaker 1: on actual innocence.
Speaker 2: Lisa Kavanaugh Jeff Harris took on Fred's case and there
Speaker 2: was a different attorney appointed for James. They really dug
Speaker 2: down deep into it and found all the stuff on
Speaker 2: the third party culprits of who probably did do the
Speaker 2: shooting but has never been held accountable.
Speaker 1: Now, there were police reports that implicated two young men
Speaker 1: from the projects, Tyrone and Junior Cooper, who were known
Speaker 1: to wear leather jackets, and Tyrone was short matching the description.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, according to Diane Moses's initial interview, a
Speaker 1: man named Jimmy Poole had implicated the Cooper brothers as well.
Speaker 1: But it looks like since the police already had Dwyer
Speaker 1: identifying Fred and James, they were not interested in the
Speaker 1: Cooper's Nonetheless, trial council should have raised this material issue
Speaker 1: and therefore they were ineffective.
Speaker 2: They actually got Fred released in August of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: His motion for new trial was allowed, I think a
Speaker 2: week before they were going to release him on parole.
Speaker 2: James did not get involved with that motion for new trial.
Speaker 2: I was not involved yet, so he stayed behind in prison.
Speaker 2: Then I took over his case in May of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Really credit to Lisa and Jeff because they did more
Speaker 2: than half of the work for me because they had
Speaker 2: already done Fred's case. And then we had the best
Speaker 2: investigator in the world, John Nor Deez.
Speaker 1: And the investigator was able to get confirmation about Diane
Speaker 1: Moses and her motivation to bear false witness by speaking
Speaker 1: with her daughter Charrell Moses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sorelle. How it came to me, was her daughter
Speaker 3: acid you know in mind? Did Jimmy do that? And
Speaker 3: she said no, I told him that because they was
Speaker 3: going to take you away from me, take my kids
Speaker 3: from me. So she said it was either my kids
Speaker 3: or him.
Speaker 4: I gave them him.
Speaker 1: And that's not all John NARDIZI uncovered.
Speaker 2: When we did our investigation, we found a letter that
Speaker 2: the DA at the time, Tim O'Neil, had written to
Speaker 2: a hypnosis expert because he wanted to hire him to
Speaker 2: testify at the trial, and he laid out how it went,
Speaker 2: and what he said in the letter was that he
Speaker 2: was hypnotized and then he was shown photographs. But at
Speaker 2: trial he kept presenting it as he made an identification,
Speaker 2: but free of hypnotism. Then he was hypnotized, then he
Speaker 2: made a second identification, which is why in the second
Speaker 2: letter we found, the expert said, I can't really help
Speaker 2: you because it's not going to be admissible because it's tainted.
Speaker 2: So that was never turned over to the defense, even
Speaker 2: though the defense knew. Both defense knew how the actual
Speaker 2: identification process went down, but they could never prove it.
Speaker 2: If they had this letter from the expert and the
Speaker 2: letter he wrote to the expert, it would have been
Speaker 2: very clear.
Speaker 1: So this is the proof of the false narrative, and
Speaker 1: had they been able to prove it back at trial,
Speaker 1: Richard Dwyer's ID would not have been admitted. But the
Speaker 1: investigator uncovered still more even more about Dwyer.
Speaker 3: The cab company that he worked for was owned by
Speaker 3: an individual named James Quinn. He's a millionaire, and the
Speaker 3: cab drivers that were working for James Quinn were afraid
Speaker 3: that they wasn't getting protection from stuff like this, so
Speaker 3: him and James Quinn got together and cocked up the story.
Speaker 3: And I also forgot to tell you that when Burlo
Speaker 3: took me down to the station right that Monday night,
Speaker 3: the other guy that was with him, I found out
Speaker 3: was the owner of the cab company, James Quinn. But
Speaker 3: we went to trial, I seen him again. I said, damn,
Speaker 3: this motherfucker was in the car with me when I
Speaker 3: went down to the station.
Speaker 1: So it appears that the police and Dwyer may have
Speaker 1: been acting at the behest of this wealthy cab company
Speaker 1: owner to close this case in order to reassure his
Speaker 1: workers so he could keep the money rolling in. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Cooper brothers were free to commit similar crimes, including
Speaker 1: one confirmed arm or so with the alternate suspect evidence
Speaker 1: Charrell moses to hypnotism correspondence, they were able to file
Speaker 1: a motion for new trial based on ineffective assistance of
Speaker 1: counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
Speaker 2: We had the best co counsel in the world, Madeleine
Speaker 2: Blanchet and Rada not A Rajan from the New England
Speaker 2: Innocence Project helped us with the investigation, so we had
Speaker 2: a great team. Without John and Maddie and Rada and
Speaker 2: Lisa and Jeff, I don't know what would happen to James.
Speaker 2: And the reality is that once we found that evidence,
Speaker 2: COVID hit in March of twenty twenty. So now we
Speaker 2: have worked on the motion from the trial. Maddie, my
Speaker 2: co counsel, took over and did the motion to stay
Speaker 2: and it was new territory to try to get somebody
Speaker 2: out convicted a first degree murdered not once but twice.
Speaker 2: But she wrote a brilliant motion to stay. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons we were granted the stay was because
Speaker 2: the Commonwealth admitted that we had a colorable claim because
Speaker 2: of the withheld evidence between the expert and the DA,
Speaker 2: so they admitted there was a very real chance of
Speaker 2: winning on that issue and the judge found it as well,
Speaker 2: so that gave us a lot of hope that it
Speaker 2: would have a good result in the end. And before
Speaker 2: I even filed my full motion for a new trial.
Speaker 2: We got him released in April April sixteenth, twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: he walked out the door.
Speaker 1: James was on supervised release while the state conducted their
Speaker 1: own investigation, and finally, after more than forty one long years,
Speaker 1: James was reunited with his son, Don Juan Moses, who
Speaker 1: was just thirteen months old when James was arrested.
Speaker 4: He lives at May, He does hospice. He loves Karen
Speaker 4: for the elder. He's full of love, he's full of
Speaker 4: the passion. So he's just like his dad. I know
Speaker 4: he's mine. I know he's mine always.
Speaker 3: Karen and I got two grandchildren, kim Monie Jerome Moses
Speaker 3: and Olivia Olivia Rose Moses. It's amazing, you know me.
Speaker 3: I'm just everytime ope my eyes. I think Barbara Eyti
Speaker 3: ope my eyes because I can mys and actually look
Speaker 3: at the sky and not a sell I can walk
Speaker 3: where I want to walk, say what I want to say,
Speaker 3: go where I want to go, no restraints. And I
Speaker 3: really didn't really appreciate freedom until i'd actually lost it,
Speaker 3: And now that I got it back, I appreciated more
Speaker 3: than you can imagine.
Speaker 1: And his release and Eventually, his claim of innocence got
Speaker 1: support from an unexpected source.
Speaker 2: One of the main reasons he got out on the
Speaker 2: stay is because of the victim's family. The Boegians Jerry
Speaker 2: and Katrina wrote a letter to the district attorney and
Speaker 2: agreed that James should be released. And you don't see
Speaker 2: that often. They are extraordinary people, Yes they are, but
Speaker 2: that time they didn't really have the full information. So
Speaker 2: I think it was probably in the back of their
Speaker 2: mind that first of all, Fred was released, so they
Speaker 2: knew that one man had been wrongfully convicted. Now here
Speaker 2: comes the second man who was also wrongfully convicted. But
Speaker 2: they said because of his health issues and until this
Speaker 2: was decided, it was the humane thing to do, and
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of people that would say that.
Speaker 2: They to this day now do believe that he is innocent,
Speaker 2: and they have become quite close with James and Linda.
Speaker 1: Linda is James's fiance.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, I talked to Jerry and Katrina yesterday.
Speaker 3: We want to drive out there and go out to dinner.
Speaker 3: I didn't meet them until it was at an Innocent conference,
Speaker 3: and that's the first time I actually seen him in
Speaker 3: the flesh. It brew me away because they apologized to
Speaker 3: me what happened to me. I was like, you don't
Speaker 3: have to apologize to me. I'm so happy, it's so
Speaker 3: glad to meet you, and I'm so sorry what happened
Speaker 3: to your brother. And we gave each other a hug
Speaker 3: and I told him that the government owes us an apology.
Speaker 3: They victimized us, Me, Freddie, your family, and your brother,
Speaker 3: they victimized us. They welcomed me into their home. And
Speaker 3: it was strange because I'm saying here, I am sitting
Speaker 3: in this man's home, the brother of the man that
Speaker 3: was murdered, and telling me that I believe you are innocent.
Speaker 3: I was speechless. Jerry and Katrina is part of my
Speaker 3: family now, like Barbara Monroe, angel is what I call
Speaker 3: it that. Yeah, we're family for life.
Speaker 1: Well that's beautiful, and there's still more good news after that.
Speaker 2: I finished filing up the actual motion for new trial
Speaker 2: in June twenty twenty, and then it was up to
Speaker 2: the Conviction Integrity Unit to do their investigation and whether
Speaker 2: they would assent to the motion, which took until November tenth.
Speaker 2: So now it was up to the judge to allow
Speaker 2: the motion. So we had assumed that James would have
Speaker 2: his day in court. We bought him a freedom suit.
Speaker 2: Nice custom tailor made Freedom suit for him to wear
Speaker 2: to court. And it was November tenth and I was
Speaker 2: having my coffee and looking at the docket and I
Speaker 2: see motion allowed. I was like, what nobody called us?
Speaker 2: Nobody told us. I read it on the docket. I
Speaker 2: was stunned. I mean I was ecstatic, but I was stunned.
Speaker 2: So he never got to go to court. We didn't
Speaker 2: tell him, and we arranged an impromptu celebration, and.
Speaker 1: They created some reason for him to try on the suit,
Speaker 1: that he needed to buy a new button down shirt
Speaker 1: to go with the suit.
Speaker 3: It was me and my son and John, my investigator,
Speaker 3: and we was out looking for a shirt. We drove
Speaker 3: back to the house and everybody was there. My family
Speaker 3: was there, Barbara, my nieces and nephews that weren't born.
Speaker 3: When I went in and handle nieces and nephews his night,
Speaker 3: welcome home.
Speaker 4: It was amazing.
Speaker 1: And since he's been home, he's dedicated to time to
Speaker 1: building a nonprofit called Confronting Injustice.
Speaker 3: Yes, me and my fiancee, Linda Solomon formed this organization
Speaker 3: called confronted injustice, supporting wrongfully convicted and others adversely impacted
Speaker 3: by this judicial system. We have a YouTube channel and
Speaker 3: we do a podcast Asking here at the House, and
Speaker 3: we're into you guys, And what we deal with is
Speaker 3: post incarceration syndrome. People who are locked up coming out
Speaker 3: of prison. Their mind has been reprogrammed, so to speak.
Speaker 3: You being in prison ten fifteen years, being told win,
Speaker 3: eat shit and sleep for decades. That gets embedded in
Speaker 3: your mind. And do you really stop believing you can't
Speaker 3: do nothing else but what somebody else tells you to do.
Speaker 3: People don't know how serious it is. It's really serious.
Speaker 3: I mean then they come out here and try to function.
Speaker 3: Like my buddy Freddie, he win it as a baby.
Speaker 3: He was stopped at sixteen. So we work with guys
Speaker 3: and women. We go to court, we go and support them.
Speaker 3: We write letters to the parole board. And guys that
Speaker 3: have come out, we come out. They don't have nothing,
Speaker 3: no ID, and you need a mass ID when you
Speaker 3: get apartment or roof over your head and food to eat.
Speaker 4: So we support them.
Speaker 1: If you want to check out the YouTube channel, it's
Speaker 1: hosted on YouTube for BCMTV, a nonprofit media company out
Speaker 1: of Braintree, Massachusetts. We're going to have it linked in
Speaker 1: the episode description along with the New England in It's
Speaker 1: It's project a great organization and getting involved with organizations
Speaker 1: like this one goes a long way to making sure
Speaker 1: innocent men like James, as well as innocent women across
Speaker 1: the country have their freedom restored. And with that, we're
Speaker 1: going to go to closing arguments. This is where I
Speaker 1: think you, Barb and of course James, from the bottom
Speaker 1: of my heart, and I'm now going to turn off
Speaker 1: my microphone, just close my eyes and listen to anything
Speaker 1: else you have to share. Barb, you go first, and
Speaker 1: then just hand the mic off to James and he'll
Speaker 1: take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 2: When these men, usually men, but women as well, come
Speaker 2: out of prison, sometimes most of the time, they don't
Speaker 2: even get an apology, which they should, but they certainly
Speaker 2: don't get compensation they walk out that door. I don't
Speaker 2: know what they get. What I think you got fifty dollars, James,
Speaker 2: and then they took some money out because you owed
Speaker 2: money on your canteen. And they're just left to their
Speaker 2: own to figure it out. After they've been incarcerated. James
Speaker 2: was in almost forty two years, and thankfully he had
Speaker 2: family there to help him, and he had us as well,
Speaker 2: but not everyone has that, and there's no compensation. They're
Speaker 2: trying to get compensation for people immediately when they get out,
Speaker 2: but even what they get now through this state, if
Speaker 2: you are quote unquote actually innocent, which nobody ever is.
Speaker 2: According to them, the most that somebody can get. The
Speaker 2: most that James could have gotten was a million dollars
Speaker 2: for forty two years in prison. Figure out the math.
Speaker 2: That's abominable. And then if you decide to do a
Speaker 2: claim against the city, there's prosecutorial immunity, so that's a
Speaker 2: problem in itself. But then they're forced to go and
Speaker 2: wait and wait to try to get compensation. The city
Speaker 2: of Boston has deep pockets. They can outwait somebody. James
Speaker 2: doesn't have time to wait for that money. So what
Speaker 2: does he have to end up doing at some point
Speaker 2: in time settle for less than he should be getting,
Speaker 2: and there's no amount of money that can compensate for
Speaker 2: what he's lost. But there should be a much higher
Speaker 2: amount of time money that they should get because society
Speaker 2: needs to correct this and these are not disposable people.
Speaker 3: I've got tremendous support that we got the fronting the jete.
Speaker 3: We talk to the men on the telephone. Sometime we
Speaker 3: write them to the house. We sit down, but eat
Speaker 3: and help me get through whatever that's bothering them at
Speaker 3: this particular time. You know what I mean, because there's
Speaker 3: so much you can do at the immediate because I
Speaker 3: don't want to see nobody go through what I went through.
Speaker 3: And I know when I lay my head down tonight,
Speaker 3: somebody's being wrongfully convicted or even murdered, I mean by
Speaker 3: our loved government. Man, don't be afraid to speak up.
Speaker 3: Somebody will believe you. Thanks to Barbara Maddie, I'm living
Speaker 3: proof somebody will listen to you. You can write me.
Speaker 3: They got in the dress. They can write and I
Speaker 3: definitely will return your letter. I'm gonna do everything in
Speaker 3: my power before i leave this planet. Hopefully something changes,
Speaker 3: the law changes, something changes, because you know, if they
Speaker 3: did it to one of my family members, I would
Speaker 3: lose my shit.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 1: production team Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 4: We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in
Speaker 4: this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by
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