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Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Rosha Paccerreiro.
Speaker 3: And I'm Ivet gen teelay.
Speaker 1: In.
Speaker 3: This week, we're talking about the case of Tricia Miley,
Speaker 3: also known by most as the Central Park Jogger.
Speaker 2: And for those of you who don't know about this case,
Speaker 2: in April of nineteen eighty nine, Tricia was brutally attacked
Speaker 2: and then raped while running in the park one night,
Speaker 2: and later five African American and Latino teenagers were arrested
Speaker 2: for the crime. They came to be known as the
Speaker 2: Central Park Five. Then, the biggest issue in this case
Speaker 2: is that the Central Park Five were innocent and were
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted. So today we'll be talking with Jason Flomm,
Speaker 2: who hosts and produce a podcast literally called Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: With Jason Flamm, I've listened.
Speaker 3: To a few of his episodes, and he is beyond
Speaker 3: inspiring and he is an absolute expert. But first, our
Speaker 3: producer Trevor is going to walk us through today's case.
Speaker 2: Thirty years ago, the case of the Central Park five
Speaker 2: shook New York City to its core. Today it stands
Speaker 2: as a cautionary tale of injustice. I ended up being
Speaker 2: attacked and beaten, bound, gagged, and raped. I have no
Speaker 2: memory of it because of the brain injury.
Speaker 1: Investigators quickly focused on a group of black and Hispanic
Speaker 1: boys who were in the park that night. As soon
Speaker 1: as we get in, they separate us and they start
Speaker 1: working on us. And I'm hearing.
Speaker 4: Corey being physically beaten.
Speaker 1: In the next role, Tricia Miley was a twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old woman who was beaten, raped, and left for
Speaker 1: dead one night in Central Park in New York City.
Speaker 1: Tricia had been raised in a suburb outside of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: She was a passionate athlete, naturally competitive, and, as she
Speaker 1: put it herself, quote a fighter all her life. Tricia
Speaker 1: eventually moved to New York City, where she worked at
Speaker 1: the financial firm Solomon Brothers, where she often worked late
Speaker 1: on the night of April nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine, Tricia
Speaker 1: Miley left her apartment for a jog just before nine
Speaker 1: pm and headed for the park. That night, a group
Speaker 1: of about thirty teenagers from East Harlem reportedly entered Central
Speaker 1: Park from the park's north side. Police had been getting
Speaker 1: reports of attacks against cyclists and joggers by roving bands
Speaker 1: of teens. According to one police officer, a school teacher
Speaker 1: who was beaten with a lead pipe quote looked like
Speaker 1: he was dunked in a bucket of blood. At ten
Speaker 1: fifteen pm that night, police arrested two of the teenagers,
Speaker 1: Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, both fourteen years old. Raymond
Speaker 1: and Kevin named thirty three other teenagers who'd been out
Speaker 1: that night, and police would eventually arrest three more, Antron
Speaker 1: McRae fifteen, Yusef Salam fifteen, and Corey Wise, who was sixteen.
Speaker 1: All five were black and lived in East Harlem. At
Speaker 1: one thirty am that morning, police found Trisham Miley in
Speaker 1: a ravine three hundred feet off of one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty second Street. The first officer who found her said, quote,
Speaker 1: she was beaten as badly as anybody I've ever seen beaten.
Speaker 1: She looked like she was tortured. End quote. She had
Speaker 1: lost seventy five to eighty percent of her blood and
Speaker 1: had suffered brain damage and internal bleeding. Her left eye
Speaker 1: socket was fractured so badly that the eye had been dislodged.
Speaker 1: The only parts of her body that were left unbruised
Speaker 1: were the soles of her feet and now. The interrogation
Speaker 1: of the five teen boys took an intense turn, lasting
Speaker 1: nearly twenty four hours. The boys later claimed that the
Speaker 1: officers told them that if they would confess, they could
Speaker 1: go home, and they did submit a videotaped confession, although
Speaker 1: one of them, Yusef Salam, gave a written confession that
Speaker 1: he refused to sign. There were no lawyers or parents
Speaker 1: present at this interrogation. The boys quickly recanted their statements,
Speaker 1: but it was too late. At a press conference, police
Speaker 1: announced that they'd found the perpetrators, and their names quickly
Speaker 1: got out to press. Many news stories presumed their guilt.
Speaker 1: About a month later, the same day Trisia Miley woke
Speaker 1: up from her coma, Donald Trump took out full page
Speaker 1: ads in all of New York's major newspapers calling to
Speaker 1: bring back the death penalty for the teens. Miley described
Speaker 1: her attacker as a young man with stitches on his
Speaker 1: A detective consulted local hospitals for a man matching that description.
Speaker 1: He was given the name Mattia Rayas, a seventeen year
Speaker 1: old who worked in a bodega near the crime scene.
Speaker 1: The detective never followed up on that lead. In the
Speaker 1: years that followed, Rayes would go on to rape at
Speaker 1: least two more women. Meanwhile, the Central Park Five, as
Speaker 1: they came to be known, were convicted of crimes ranging
Speaker 1: from sexual abuse to rape to attempted murder. Despite the
Speaker 1: fact that none of the boys could pinpoint the location
Speaker 1: of the attack, and all five came up with different
Speaker 1: incorrect timelines of the attack on Trisha Miley. There was
Speaker 1: also a staggering lack of DNA, physical or forensic evidence
Speaker 1: connecting any of them.
Speaker 4: To the crime.
Speaker 1: All five got the maximum sentence. It wasn't until two
Speaker 1: thousand and two that Mattia Rayas came forward and confessed
Speaker 1: that he'd been the one to rape Miley. He provided
Speaker 1: details of the attack that were corroborated by DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: The new district attorney conducted an investigation, after which the
Speaker 1: city withdrew all charges against the Central Park Five. By
Speaker 1: this time, all but Raymond Santana and Corey Wise had
Speaker 1: already completed their sentences. Collectively, they sued the city and
Speaker 1: reached a forty one million dollar settlement in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: And so what actually happened to Tricia Miley? And what
Speaker 1: does the wrongful conviction of these five young men of
Speaker 1: color tell us about the flawed and bias justice system
Speaker 1: used to find them guilty.
Speaker 2: So today we are going to discuss Tricia the Central
Speaker 2: Park five, and then we're going to have a more
Speaker 2: organic and open conversation about the issue of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: And joining us today to talk about all of that
Speaker 2: is Jason Flom.
Speaker 5: And Although Jason is famous as.
Speaker 2: A former big executive for record companies like Capital, Virgin
Speaker 2: and Atlantic, among others, Jason has spent years fighting for
Speaker 2: justice and raising awareness of wrongful conviction. He's worked as
Speaker 2: a board member with the Innocence Project and also hosts
Speaker 2: a podcast called Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. We are
Speaker 2: so honored and excited to have you here with us today.
Speaker 5: Welcome Jason to Facing Evil.
Speaker 4: Oh what a nice introduction. I'm going to get all
Speaker 4: weepy here in a minute. You know, I love yes
Speaker 4: and thank you for that. I am, in fact, the
Speaker 4: founding board member of the Innison's Project. Definitely not the founder.
Speaker 4: The founders are Peter Neufeld and Barry Shack, but I've
Speaker 4: been with them from for a long long time. Very
Speaker 4: proud of the organization and what it stands for and
Speaker 4: the work that we do. And the podcast, of course
Speaker 4: is wrongful conviction. And we're now Jesus of over forty
Speaker 4: million lessons and growing, so join us, and the stories
Speaker 4: are every week is mind blowing. So yeah, So I'm
Speaker 4: glad to be here with you all and excited to
Speaker 4: do this interview. Let's let's get it on. Let's go,
Speaker 4: let's roll line.
Speaker 5: Know well, I would love to know how did you
Speaker 5: get here?
Speaker 4: So I got into this back around the time your
Speaker 4: parents were probably meeting, before they even thought about having
Speaker 4: you all. So in nineteen ninety three, I was I
Speaker 4: was on my way to go somewhere in a taxi
Speaker 4: and I went to the New Standard. By the New
Speaker 4: York Times, it was sold out, so I bought the post.
Speaker 4: No one should ever buy the Post unless you really
Speaker 4: need something to clean up what your dog is doing
Speaker 4: on the street with, you know, But I did because
Speaker 4: I wanted something to read. You know, there was no
Speaker 4: there was no phones to carry around and read everything
Speaker 4: on it back then. So there was an article in
Speaker 4: the Post that I was obviously meant to read. It
Speaker 4: was a story of a kid named Stephen Lennon who
Speaker 4: was serving fifteen years delay for a non violent first
Speaker 4: defense cocaine possession charge in a maximum security prision in
Speaker 4: New York State, And I was like, would you say
Speaker 4: come again? Now? I knew not thing about the drug
Speaker 4: laws at the time. I knew a lot about drugs
Speaker 4: because I had been to rehab and I had my
Speaker 4: own issues with substance abuse. But it just blew my
Speaker 4: mind because I was like, he was thirty two. I
Speaker 4: was thirty two. It could have been me, you know.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, he had been in prison
Speaker 4: for six eight years already. I had been sober for
Speaker 4: almost eight years. I was like that the roles could
Speaker 4: have been reversed, you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 4: I decided I got to do something about this. I
Speaker 4: knew nothing about anything. I had a mullet in purple.
Speaker 4: Doc Martins you know, but I got to do something.
Speaker 4: So I got the only attorney I the only criminal
Speaker 4: the festivalayer I knew back then. Now I know hundreds
Speaker 4: of them. I got the only one I could think of,
Speaker 4: but the guy in Bob Colleena. He represented two of
Speaker 4: my artists, Stone Tumble Palads and skid Row and they
Speaker 4: were getting arrested weekly back then. So I had them
Speaker 4: on speed dow. Yeah, and long story short, I got
Speaker 4: to take the case pro bono. Six months later, we
Speaker 4: end up at a court room in Malone, New York.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there holding the kids mother's hand. They bring
Speaker 4: him in in shackles like he's freaking you know, the
Speaker 4: night stalker or something, right, mass murderer.
Speaker 5: For cocaine possession.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the arguments go back and forth. The judge
Speaker 4: was an old guy with white hair. I was like,
Speaker 4: this is not going to go well in any case.
Speaker 4: The judge said, blah blah blah whatever. He said, bang
Speaker 4: the gavel down and said the motion is granted. And
Speaker 4: I was like, whoa, what just happened. I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I think I may actually have a superpower. Yes, and
Speaker 4: I'm going to this is what I'm going to do now,
Speaker 4: and so it's what I've been doing ever since today.
Speaker 3: Jason, like, we want to jump into this, right, the
Speaker 3: Central Park five. And what I want to ask you is,
Speaker 3: what do you remember about that case? And where were
Speaker 3: you when it happened.
Speaker 4: I was in New York, born in New York. I
Speaker 4: lived in New York my whole life. So this was
Speaker 4: a major. I mean a major doesn't begin to describe it.
Speaker 4: It was a frenzy. It was a media frenzy of
Speaker 4: epic proportions. And people, Now, the media would have you
Speaker 4: believe there's a clime wave. Now, there's no crime whatsoever now,
Speaker 4: not in New York. I mean not in any of
Speaker 4: the places they're telling you it really exists. There's some
Speaker 4: crime here and there. There's no wave, there's no It's
Speaker 4: all hype designed for clickbait and selling newspapers and getting
Speaker 4: politicians to be able to do things that we the
Speaker 4: public really don't want them to do. Right. So it's
Speaker 4: all a very sick, sinister, cynical, and cruel plan, but
Speaker 4: people fall for it. So the Center Bark five happened
Speaker 4: at a time when there was actually a significant amount
Speaker 4: of cime. There were eight or nine times as many
Speaker 4: murders every year as there are now. It still wasn't
Speaker 4: Mad Max like they would have you believe, but it
Speaker 4: was a different vibe in the city and people were
Speaker 4: a little bit on edge, and this horrible crime took
Speaker 4: place in Central Park, So this got everybody up in arms, right,
Speaker 4: and the cops went wild and just decided to arrest
Speaker 4: five kids of color, right, young teenage boys.
Speaker 5: Babes, not grown men, boys.
Speaker 4: Middle school kids right, not even not even close to
Speaker 4: high school yet. So maybe some of that were close
Speaker 4: to high school, they weren't in high school. So this
Speaker 4: is where things went really sideways, right, And I've interviewed
Speaker 4: three of the guys on my podcast, Raymond Santana. I
Speaker 4: think it was the first episode we ever did.
Speaker 5: Oh, we need to go back and listen to that one.
Speaker 4: That. Yeah, So it was as people have seen the
Speaker 4: movie when they see us, or anyone who's listened to
Speaker 4: them on my podcast or any podcast knows it was
Speaker 4: a disgusting circus. And the fact is the authorities knew
Speaker 4: that they didn't do it, And if they didn't know
Speaker 4: it right off the bat, they knew it real soon after,
Speaker 4: because first of all, they had every reason to know
Speaker 4: that there was one perpetrator, even just from the fact
Speaker 4: of the grass was wet, there was one set of footprints,
Speaker 4: there was one you know, bodily fluids from one person,
Speaker 4: not five right, five, Yeah, And there was no indication
Speaker 4: that any of these kids were there, but it didn't matter.
Speaker 4: They were good for it, and so you know, they
Speaker 4: got them to falsely confess, which is a surprisingly common phenomenon.
Speaker 4: Twenty nine percent of the first one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: DNA exonerations about false confessions. And there's no reason to
Speaker 4: think it's changed since then. Right, So this is this
Speaker 4: is a very common phenomenon, and its madness because everyone
Speaker 4: thinks they would never confess to a crime they didn't commit.
Speaker 4: But everybody has a breaking point.
Speaker 5: Of course, they're human.
Speaker 4: It happens in every city in the country. Just the
Speaker 4: most surprising thing is how unsurprised we all are by it.
Speaker 4: It's just like it's just how sad is that, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't think of a city that doesn't have their
Speaker 4: central Park FIVEE and there's not the center part five
Speaker 4: is so far from unique. It's just the fact that
Speaker 4: it was this super high profile case, or we wouldn't
Speaker 4: know about it. There are thousands, tens of thousands of
Speaker 4: other kids who went through the same thing that those
Speaker 4: children did. So two things I want to say about
Speaker 4: the Central Park five. One is because the prosecutors willfully
Speaker 4: ignored the evidence that showed that it was a single perpetrator.
Speaker 4: And even though that guy was right on their radar, right,
Speaker 4: they were investigating him for another very similar crime at
Speaker 4: the time that this happened. This is this guy, what
Speaker 4: was his name, Ruiz ray Is rey Is right, Rayes,
Speaker 4: So this guy had committed a similar crime. They it
Speaker 4: should have been the first place they looked was this guy, right,
Speaker 4: But they just chose to persecute these kids even after
Speaker 4: the blood work came back, which was weeks after they
Speaker 4: had been arrested, and showed that none of them matched right,
Speaker 4: none of them. It could not have been any of them.
Speaker 4: And they knew this, and they didn't fucking care. So
Speaker 4: what happens is Reyes of course gets away with it,
Speaker 4: because don't forget, when the cops frame an.
Speaker 5: Innocent person, the real person is going to keep doing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, except for in cases where there was no crime committed, right,
Speaker 4: we have a lot of cases where there's no crime
Speaker 4: at all, and they framed somebody who's mostly women that
Speaker 4: suffer that indignity. So Reyes went out and he used
Speaker 4: his time being free courtesy of the New York Police Department,
Speaker 4: to rape three or four other women and murder one
Speaker 4: of them in front of her children in her apartment.
Speaker 3: That goes back to, you know, the big issue, right
Speaker 3: is racial profiling. Like we know how common that is.
Speaker 3: You're just talking about it. How it's it's just rampant
Speaker 3: throughout the system.
Speaker 4: Right. Oh yeah, I mean the racial profiling is, you know,
Speaker 4: is a problem. It's one of the common causes of
Speaker 4: wrongful convictions. It certainly was in this case. As it
Speaker 4: turns out, it was a Latino guy who did it.
Speaker 4: They never did bother to investigate him. He ended up
Speaker 4: confessing after getting into an altercation with one of the
Speaker 4: guys in prison. Right, and if any of your listeners
Speaker 4: in New York, I'm very excited that I was a
Speaker 4: doctor salom use of Salam. Now he's a doctor. I'm
Speaker 4: not a medical doctor, but he's a PhD. He's running
Speaker 4: for city council, which is going to be a great
Speaker 4: turn of events.
Speaker 2: He's a beautiful Yeah that I allow yeah, they all are,
Speaker 2: and they've because that's what we do right on facing evil.
Speaker 2: We're we're not all about the saalaciousness. We want to know,
Speaker 2: like what do you do after the trauma all of that?
Speaker 2: You have to move onward and upward and heal. Right,
Speaker 2: and all of these now they are, you know, young adults,
Speaker 2: but they were children when this happened, and they have
Speaker 2: taken that and ran with it in the most beautiful,
Speaker 2: inspiring way possible.
Speaker 5: It doesn't erase what happened.
Speaker 4: You're so right, And that's one of the things that
Speaker 4: drives me forward in this work is that these are
Speaker 4: people who have been through hell, literal hell, like our
Speaker 4: prison system is hell, honorate, and they've been through that
Speaker 4: through no fault of their own, and come out carrying
Speaker 4: buckets of water for the people they left behind. And
Speaker 4: what can you say about people like that? Right? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: you just you just want you want to be a
Speaker 4: member of that family. And and I'm very honored to
Speaker 4: call many of them, you know, family to me. You know,
Speaker 4: Amanda Knox calls me big brother. And Michelle Murphy is
Speaker 4: literally like my niece out at Oklahoma. She did twenty
Speaker 4: years of a life sentence. And I have so many
Speaker 4: really really wonderful relationships with you know, the Rerenzo Johnson.
Speaker 4: There's just so many of these people are just they're
Speaker 4: my freaking heroes, and they make me want to work
Speaker 4: harder and smarter, and so that's what I do. I
Speaker 4: make speeches sometimes that I say, you know, I've had
Speaker 4: a lot of number one records, but I've never had
Speaker 4: one that's as good as walking somebody out of prison.
Speaker 4: I walked Nelson Cruz out last Thursday in Queens. It's
Speaker 4: an unbelievable feeling. It's so wonderful. So you're exactly right.
Speaker 4: Event these are people who are just the most graceful, gracious, optimistic,
Speaker 4: time hearted. There's no bitterness. I'm like, how is this
Speaker 4: even possible? And you know who said it best, John Huffington.
Speaker 4: John Huffington did thirty two years in Maryland, sentence to
Speaker 4: death and proven actually innocent. Prosecutor has been disbarred for
Speaker 4: framing him, one of only five that's ever been disbarred
Speaker 4: for framing an innocent man. And he's at it like this,
Speaker 4: as somebody asked him, man, why aren't you bitter? And
Speaker 4: he looks at him and he goes Man. That's why
Speaker 4: the rear view mirror is small, but the windshield's big.
Speaker 4: So back to cent Foary five. So what one other
Speaker 4: thing I wanted to say about that? And they're not
Speaker 4: called the exaggerated five. And this is I'm gonna. I'm
Speaker 4: literally i have my hands in the prayer position. I'm
Speaker 4: begging the audience. If you get picked up and brought
Speaker 4: in for questioning, I don't care what they're questioning you for. Okay,
Speaker 4: they could be questioning you for mowing your lawn the
Speaker 4: wrong way, right, whatever it is. Don't say a word
Speaker 4: except your name, and I want a lawyer, and then
Speaker 4: stop talking until your lawyer gets there. And that's all
Speaker 4: you do. You can say, am I free to leave?
Speaker 4: You might well be. And if you are, leave, don't
Speaker 4: stay there. Don't try to be helpful. Don't I know
Speaker 4: you might be innocent or this. That doesn't matter because
Speaker 4: they're allowed to lie to you. No, never mind if
Speaker 4: they use violence like they did in such a Part
Speaker 4: five case, and that still happens. Physical violence is still
Speaker 4: a thing, and at least it's a perceived, very real threat.
Speaker 4: So in America they can lie to you in the
Speaker 4: interrogation room. Not in other Western countries. They can lie
Speaker 4: to you, and they lie to you about lying to you. Right.
Speaker 4: They'll say, look, Rosia, you seem like a nice lady,
Speaker 4: but you know, we got your fingerprints on the knife.
Speaker 4: We just got it back from the lab to your fingerprints.
Speaker 4: What do you expect us to do?
Speaker 5: We got They're allowed to do that.
Speaker 4: Yes, they listen on your sister's next door. She says,
Speaker 4: you did it right, she's here and you're like I. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: they're keeping you there for ten hours, twenty hours, no food,
Speaker 4: no sleep. Maybe you've been up the night before, maybe
Speaker 4: you just witnessed a crime, maybe who knows, or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. And eventually you'll say anything to get out
Speaker 4: of that room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't say nothing. So, Jason, I was listening to
Speaker 3: you were talking to Koran Butler, which was, by the way,
Speaker 3: a great interview the NBA star Koran Butler, And you know,
Speaker 3: it moved me when he was talking about how he
Speaker 3: was fighting to get rid of solitary confinement. And I
Speaker 3: think about Corey wise because all of the time that
Speaker 3: he spent in solitary confinement, and it's a miracle that
Speaker 3: Corey is still who he is today. I mean, what
Speaker 3: are your feelings about that?
Speaker 4: Oh, we definitely need to get rid of solitary confinement.
Speaker 4: It's one of the many, many things we need to
Speaker 4: fix in our gulag system here in America. I mean,
Speaker 4: what the hell solitary confinement? It's only designed to crush
Speaker 4: people's souls and make them go insane. You know, a
Speaker 4: huge percentage of people in our jails and prisons have
Speaker 4: mental challenges, and then rather than giving them the help
Speaker 4: that they need, instead we put them in a place
Speaker 4: where they're guaranteed to get worse. And if you go
Speaker 4: into these institutions with challenges of that nature, you are
Speaker 4: not able to follow the millions of rules and you know,
Speaker 4: orders that are being thrown at you. So you end
Speaker 4: up getting deeper and deeper into that hole. When then
Speaker 4: right into the actual hole, as they call it, right
Speaker 4: where you're going to be twenty three hours a day,
Speaker 4: you know, in a five by nine foot cell.
Speaker 5: That would drive anyone crazy of course.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there was this this horrible story about this
Speaker 4: practice in the South where they were putting these kids
Speaker 4: that you know, the age of the Central Park five
Speaker 4: kids are a excelary five. When they went in and
Speaker 4: these little cells with nothing, right, there's nothing there except
Speaker 4: for a bed and you know a window the size
Speaker 4: of you know, the slit like the size of a
Speaker 4: pencil or something like that. Why do we do that too?
Speaker 4: Why are they not allowed to have light? Right? Yeah,
Speaker 4: And so these kids were getting crazy and they would
Speaker 4: like literally like scratch a hole in the wall. Right.
Speaker 4: So they ended up taking all of that away and
Speaker 4: left these kids basically in a bare concrete cell with
Speaker 4: nothing in it and no light. So they're sitting in
Speaker 4: the dark, like what are we talking about, like the
Speaker 4: Count of Monte Cristo sounds it's got yet get in
Speaker 4: the un wouldout, you know, would go crazy if they
Speaker 4: knew about this, and hopefully they do. And you know,
Speaker 4: I heard Amanda Knox on a podcast recently talking about
Speaker 4: how you know, people who are in our prisons and jails,
Speaker 4: if they're there, especially if they're there for a violent crime,
Speaker 4: it's almost impossible not to argue that they have some
Speaker 4: sort of something's wrong. Right, there's wires that aren't connected
Speaker 4: properly in their brain. Something happened to them, as in
Speaker 4: any cases they had childhood abuse. Right, hurt people, hurt
Speaker 4: people hurt people. Hurt people know that. I mean, we
Speaker 4: know the crimes. There's crimes of opportunity, there's crimes that
Speaker 4: are caused by and this is the crazy thing. And
Speaker 4: I've been preaching this in New York where our mayor
Speaker 4: is running wild, you know, taking away the programs that
Speaker 4: actually help people and giving all the money to the
Speaker 4: cops and then lying about a crime wave. But you
Speaker 4: know what causes those kind of crimes is desperation, right
Speaker 4: when you have shoplifting and things like that. And what
Speaker 4: stops those crimes from happening is hope.
Speaker 2: How do we move onward and upward? Like we know
Speaker 2: that wrongful convictions are going to happen, have happened, happen
Speaker 2: to the exonerated five, think the gods and goddesses that
Speaker 2: they did get out finally. But what can we do
Speaker 2: to make this not happen? Or how do we drive
Speaker 2: those numbers down? How do we change.
Speaker 4: Well, what listeners can do is, first of all, when
Speaker 4: you get that jury duty notice, don't crumple it up
Speaker 4: and throw it in the garbage. If you're listening to
Speaker 4: this show, then you're you're a lot more educated, and
Speaker 4: you're the type of person we need on. Jury's next
Speaker 4: thing is vote, and I know people are tired of you.
Speaker 4: Oh they told me the vote volvo, you vote, you
Speaker 4: know what? These local elections DA races are critically important
Speaker 4: because das have massive and virtually unchecked power. So when
Speaker 4: the DA's race in your area has happened, especially if
Speaker 4: you live in a smaller community, but even if you
Speaker 4: live in a big city, not that many people vote
Speaker 4: in those races, your vote matters a lot. And so
Speaker 4: look into this candidates. It's not that hard, you know,
Speaker 4: go to a paper that you trust in your area.
Speaker 4: There are very few to go around these days, but
Speaker 4: if there's one, or ask somebody who you trust, so
Speaker 4: you don't have to do all the research yourself if
Speaker 4: you don't want to. But usually it's a pretty clear
Speaker 4: cut choice and vote in people who actually care about
Speaker 4: these issues and who aren't out just pretending that this
Speaker 4: is just some sort of weird scorecard and that these
Speaker 4: people that are the defendants are just there to service
Speaker 4: their political ambitions or their career goals. And that's unfortunately
Speaker 4: the way a lot of prosecutors operate, not all of them.
Speaker 4: So judges races DA's races things like that, and then
Speaker 4: what we have to do on a more macro level.
Speaker 4: We have to educate people, and we created a show
Speaker 4: called Wrongful Conviction, Junk Sign and Junk Science. Is I
Speaker 4: learned so much listening to it. I don't host that
Speaker 4: one that was hosted by my friend Josh Dubin, and
Speaker 4: on Junk Science, we teach people about how these junk
Speaker 4: sciences lead to wrongful convictions day and day out all
Speaker 4: over the country, Like these things are absolute nonsense, and
Speaker 4: yet they're allowed in courtrooms in all fifty states every day.
Speaker 4: My point being that that's question once you understand that
Speaker 4: these sciences are not real, that CSI is a fictional
Speaker 4: show that doesn't have any relationship to reality, and the
Speaker 4: same is true of most of those other crime shows. Right,
Speaker 4: they're entertaining, sure, yeah, yeah, I know people who play
Speaker 4: a drinking game when they watch Lon Order Lawyers a
Speaker 4: group of lawyers, and every time there's a constitutional violation,
Speaker 4: they take a shot and they don't even make it
Speaker 4: to the first commercial breakcause they're all asleep. I mean,
Speaker 4: these shows are unfortunately giving people this false sense of
Speaker 4: security that these forensic people are accurate and these sciences
Speaker 4: are working and the authorities are getting all the justice
Speaker 4: that you want, and the bad guys off the street,
Speaker 4: and you can sleep safely at home. Everything's good. So
Speaker 4: you know the idea that science constantly evolves and that
Speaker 4: things we know now we didn't know before. And then
Speaker 4: textbooks are rewritten and new protocols are established. But lall
Speaker 4: looks backwards. Science goes forwards. Law looks backwards. A judge
Speaker 4: will have somebody in their courtroom and they're saying, you know, well,
Speaker 4: it's a bitemark case. And then you'll have a lawyer
Speaker 4: like an innist's project lawyer like Chris Fabricat, who wrote
Speaker 4: this fantastic book called Junk Science. If you're a book reader,
Speaker 4: read Junk Science by Chris Fabricat. He's them in and say, well,
Speaker 4: we've proven in scientific study after study that bitemarks have
Speaker 4: no bearing. Like, no, there's not a human being alive
Speaker 4: who can tell you from a bitemark whether it was
Speaker 4: you or a vet. They can't even tell if it's
Speaker 4: an animal or a human, or whether it's a bitemark
Speaker 4: at all. And yet somewhere in this country today there's
Speaker 4: a guy in a lap coat up on a standing.
Speaker 4: I'm a forensic dis that pathologist, and I'm telling you
Speaker 4: this is a vets bite mark. There's nobody else that
Speaker 4: could have made this bite mark. And that's the way
Speaker 4: that and the jury is sitting there going, oh my god,
Speaker 4: well that she's guilty as hell.
Speaker 5: They believe what they're being told.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, when you serve on a jury,
Speaker 4: you need to understand these things. And also you need
Speaker 4: to understand that in many of these cases, there's no
Speaker 4: other corroborating evidence. Maybe there's a jailhouse nitche but there's
Speaker 4: nothing else. Maybe there's a false confession but there's nothing else.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's some forensic guy telling you these stories very authoritatively,
Speaker 4: but there's nothing else. And there's controverting evidence as well.
Speaker 4: And then you've got to remember that it's supposed to
Speaker 4: be innocent until proven guilty, as supposed to be beyond
Speaker 4: a reasonable doubt. But those principles are just words why
Speaker 4: our system operates right now. So those are some of
Speaker 4: the things that people can do to help stem the
Speaker 4: tide of this scourge of wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about the work
Speaker 3: that you do with the Innocence Project. I know you
Speaker 3: spoke about it earlier. But what specifically do you do
Speaker 3: and how does it help?
Speaker 4: Well, what the Innocence Project does is the Innocence Project.
Speaker 4: We have an intake department. We get hundreds of letters
Speaker 4: a month, as you can imagine, from people who want
Speaker 4: us to champion their case. The majority of those people
Speaker 4: are innocent when we research it, but not all of them. Certainly,
Speaker 4: some people are just bored. So we take on cases.
Speaker 4: Most of the cases involve DNA evidence, but not all
Speaker 4: of them. And then you know, often we're able to
Speaker 4: exonerate people, although it takes a long time, and that's
Speaker 4: why we have to stop these things from happening in
Speaker 4: the first place. Even the best case scenario, it takes
Speaker 4: a long long time, even with a great team, even
Speaker 4: with an innocence project, innocence projects all over the country.
Speaker 4: I'm on the board of the New York Anessis Project,
Speaker 4: which is the original one. So the other work that
Speaker 4: there's the micro and the macro, and the macro work
Speaker 4: is you know, arguably the most important work, because the
Speaker 4: Embassis Project works to change practices and to change laws
Speaker 4: in order to help make the system fairer and better
Speaker 4: for everyone and make us all safe. In the process,
Speaker 4: as we talked about before, by making sure that the
Speaker 4: wrong person doesn't go to jail and the right one
Speaker 4: for lacke of a better word, remains free. So you know,
Speaker 4: that involves working on changing eyewitness procedures and changing you know,
Speaker 4: forensic practices and changing the man I mentioned before, Chris Fabricant,
Speaker 4: the author of the book Junk Science. I'm gonna plug
Speaker 4: it again because I want. I think he's the Strategic
Speaker 4: Litigation Director. It's a position that I funded in honor
Speaker 4: of my dad when he passed away about eleven and
Speaker 4: felve years ago. Some of the work he does is
Speaker 4: Chris will take him in individual case of someone who
Speaker 4: was wrongfully convicted, like Keith Allen Harward served thirty four
Speaker 4: years on a bite mark case, and then when he's exonerated,
Speaker 4: he'll go and use that case to help drive policy
Speaker 4: change or try to get legislators to pay attention, because
Speaker 4: you know, when you have an actual human being, it's
Speaker 4: harder to ignore it.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, fantastic Jason, what is the light in the darkness
Speaker 2: for the exonerated five?
Speaker 4: For you, it's an incredible time to be having this conversation.
Speaker 4: They just dedicated the gate that those kids walked to
Speaker 4: the park on that faithful night. Is now the exonerated
Speaker 4: five gate.
Speaker 5: I did not know that.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a whole this winter. And
Speaker 4: of course, you know, we can't mention the exonerating five
Speaker 4: without talking about the fact that the evil orange clown
Speaker 4: who was foul befouling the White House up until a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago. But back when at the time
Speaker 4: of the original arrest, he took out a full page
Speaker 4: added the New York newspapers saying that we should bring
Speaker 4: back the death penalty so we can execute these kids.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: And he then fought against them getting compensation after they
Speaker 4: were proven innocent. And he has always doubled down on
Speaker 4: his nonsensical, wrong headed and disgusting rhetoric regarding the fact
Speaker 4: that these kids, who everybody knows and it's been proven
Speaker 4: scientifically in the court of law, didn't commit this crime.
Speaker 5: Did you see what your beautiful friend, doctor Yusef Salaam
Speaker 5: said yesterday?
Speaker 4: So powerful, what did you say?
Speaker 2: So this is straight from the NBC News article that
Speaker 2: came out just this week. It says, and I quote
Speaker 2: Salaam doubled down on condemning Trump's actions, writing quote. You
Speaker 2: were wrong then and you are wrong now.
Speaker 5: End quote. He also wrote he will.
Speaker 2: Not resort to hatred, bias, or racism, and that he
Speaker 2: wishes Trump no harm. Rather, I'm putting my faith in
Speaker 2: the judicial system to seek out the truth, he wrote.
Speaker 2: I hope that you exercise your civil liberties to the
Speaker 2: fullest and that you get what the exonerated five did
Speaker 2: not get. A presumption of innocent and a fair trial.
Speaker 3: How powerful is that?
Speaker 4: Beautiful?
Speaker 2: And that's from Clarretta Bellamy NBC News doctor Useph Salam.
Speaker 4: And they took out an ad in the newspaper, the
Speaker 4: exonerated five. I guess I think doctor Salam was the
Speaker 4: one who spearheaded that.
Speaker 5: Yes he did.
Speaker 4: Yes, It's great to see the five guys, you know,
Speaker 4: doing as well as they are. They still face all
Speaker 4: sorts of struggles as anybody was who's been through this
Speaker 4: thing they've been through, but they are survivors. They are
Speaker 4: beacons of light. They're my friends, and I'm certainly proud
Speaker 4: to know them and to work with them. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's just one of the blessings of the work that
Speaker 4: I do is getting, like I said, to be around
Speaker 4: those guys, you know, so and that is the light.
Speaker 5: That is the light right there.
Speaker 4: One more plug. There's a book that just came out
Speaker 4: by Justin Brooks, who is the founder of the California
Speaker 4: Innis's Project. It's called You Might Go to Prison Even
Speaker 4: Though You're Innocent. So it's a really powerful book. Justin
Speaker 4: is a great lawyer, a great friend of the movement,
Speaker 4: and a great man. And I strongly recommend this book
Speaker 4: for anyone who wants to learn more about this amazing topic.
Speaker 4: It's called You Might Go to Prison Even Though You're
Speaker 4: Innocent by Justin Brooks.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's been amazing having you. As we
Speaker 3: say in Hawaiian, Mahalo nuila, my brother, you are doing
Speaker 3: your thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, right back, Gatsian. Thanks for having me on here,
Speaker 4: and I'm excited to hear our episode.
Speaker 3: Today's message of Hope and Healing goes out to Corey
Speaker 3: Wise and Tron McCrae, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, and Usef Salom.
Speaker 3: They were just kids between the ages of fourteen and sixteen,
Speaker 3: and when the wheels of the criminal legal system ran
Speaker 3: them over, it changed them in some ways that can
Speaker 3: never be fixed.
Speaker 2: And today's umula also goes out to Triscia Miley, whose
Speaker 2: life was turned horrifically upside down that night in April
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, but yet she still somehow manages to persevere.
Speaker 2: She even ran the New York Marathon in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: saying that she felt like she had quote reclaimed her park.
Speaker 3: The Central Park five now go by the Exonerated five. Raymond, Kevin,
Speaker 3: and Yusef have become activists and pushed for videotaped interrogations.
Speaker 3: Yusef serves on the board for the Innocence Project, which
Speaker 3: is dedicated to freeing the innocent and preventing wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: And Corey works as a social justice reform advocate, and
Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen he donated one hundred and forty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars of his settlement to the Innocence Project. And Atron
Speaker 3: is a loving husband and father of six and now
Speaker 3: lives a quiet life.
Speaker 2: All six of these individuals have survived tragedy and put
Speaker 2: in the work to make the world a better place.
Speaker 2: And so to all of you who do the work,
Speaker 2: onward and upward, emua, emua. Well that's our show for today.
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion
Speaker 2: and if there's a case you'd like for us to.
Speaker 3: Cover, find us on social media or email us at
Speaker 3: facingebl pod at Tenderfoot dot tv. And one small request
Speaker 3: if you haven't already, please find us on iTunes and
Speaker 3: give us a good rating and a good review. If
Speaker 3: you like what we do, your support is always cherished
Speaker 3: until next time.
Speaker 2: Aloha.
Speaker 1: Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Russia Pacquerero and Avet Gentile.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald
Speaker 1: albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
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