Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flaman. I'm over the top excited because this
Speaker 1: is our three hundredth episode. Listen. I wish we never
Speaker 1: had to do any episodes at all, and I wish
Speaker 1: that these wrongful convictions weren't even a thing. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna keep doing them for as long as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: Until my last breath, I'll be making these podcasts. But
Speaker 1: this is the three one, and we are honored and
Speaker 1: I'm humbled to have as a guest host for this
Speaker 1: episode my friend and personal hero, Mr erl On Woods.
Speaker 1: Now erl On you probably know his name because he's
Speaker 1: the guy who created and co hosted the groundbreaking podcast
Speaker 1: Your Hustle, which he produced while serving time in San
Speaker 1: Quentin Prison. So thank you for your continued support. We
Speaker 1: still have tons more work to do and we hope
Speaker 1: you'll listen and get involved. Back in the car, Connelly
Speaker 1: was living in San Francisco, California, that was doing a
Speaker 1: crack era and police was doing everything they could to
Speaker 1: stump out gang activity. On April eight nine, there was
Speaker 1: a drive by shooting in Karraman's neighborhood. The bullets injury
Speaker 1: Levin and killed two Charles Hughes and Rowshawn Johnson. Of
Speaker 1: the eight people who were allegedly involved in the crime,
Speaker 1: only one person, Paul Green, was convicted and sentenced. The
Speaker 1: pressure was built in for police to find other perpetrators.
Speaker 1: About a month before this crime happened, Karamad had gotten
Speaker 1: into a fight with another kid from school. It landed
Speaker 1: Karamid with an assault charge, so police created a narrative
Speaker 1: around his fight that it started a whole series of
Speaker 1: violent retaliations resulting in the drive by shooting. Yet police
Speaker 1: had no evidence beyond one witness would claim he heard
Speaker 1: Karamik bragging about his involvement. Still, Kara Mood would be
Speaker 1: convicted of to murders and ten attempted murders. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. I'm Herlin Woods and I'm a
Speaker 1: co host and co creative a podcast called ear Hustle,
Speaker 1: which brings you the daily realities of life inside prison
Speaker 1: shared by those living it. And we also do stories
Speaker 1: from the outside, posting coarceration. And today I have the
Speaker 1: pleasure of guest hosting Wrongful Conviction. And I'm here with
Speaker 1: a cat named Karami Connley and Carami. I would like
Speaker 1: you to introduce yourself to the people. Hello, everybody, what's up? Rline.
Speaker 1: Glad to be here. I'm excited about talking about the story.
Speaker 1: My name is Karama Conley. I'm from originally Oakland, California,
Speaker 1: born and raised, raised between there in San Francisco, California. So,
Speaker 1: Karra mod um, can you describe your life prior to
Speaker 1: being arrested. I was born to a family a nine.
Speaker 1: I have five brothers, three sisters. Our neighborhood was predominantly
Speaker 1: African American working class families. Um. Everybody in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: knew each other, you know, mother's, father's you know, it
Speaker 1: was a great environment to grow up in. Cool and
Speaker 1: and let me ask this. You know you grew up
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. How was like law enforcement in your neighborhood?
Speaker 1: You know, did you have any prior run ins with
Speaker 1: him or any anything leading up to nah And And
Speaker 1: that's a great question, right. And it's interesting because my
Speaker 1: dad was in the military, so we had already kind
Speaker 1: of been in still with that kind of country duty,
Speaker 1: honor stuff. But my dream really was to be a
Speaker 1: SWAT officer when I was young, right, back in those days,
Speaker 1: they were considered the good guys. And I've always seen
Speaker 1: police officers like that. Did anything derail you from becoming
Speaker 1: a SWAT officer? Yeah? Yeah, when I became a teenager. Um,
Speaker 1: so you have to tie in what they call the
Speaker 1: crack era, right, the drug era that changed everything. That
Speaker 1: changed our whole community, That changed our perceptions of like
Speaker 1: the police. That changed everything. You started seeing people in
Speaker 1: our community, in our neighborhoods, like who started kind of
Speaker 1: indulging in the selling of it. So that's when you
Speaker 1: started seeing like, wow, look at that. You know, he
Speaker 1: got a new car. You know, you start seeing all
Speaker 1: these different things you've never seen before. So that's when
Speaker 1: I started understanding like there was a shift going on
Speaker 1: in our our society and particularly in our community. You
Speaker 1: started seeing, you know, police more at the schools. You
Speaker 1: started those kind of interactions. So what we didn't know,
Speaker 1: meaning like the kids in the community, teenagers, was that
Speaker 1: the police officers started creating these narratives around our community.
Speaker 1: So they started calling them turfs, right, And we definitely
Speaker 1: believe that they were trying to take a page out
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles politics gained politics and stuff, and that
Speaker 1: there and if you from like this area, you were
Speaker 1: part of this turf and then this turf and people
Speaker 1: used always, uh try to correct these officers and journalists
Speaker 1: when they used to use these turns, and people used
Speaker 1: to be like, what are y'all talking about? Like we
Speaker 1: ain't this ain't no turf. So the police are creating
Speaker 1: this narrative, But did you identify with any games sunny
Speaker 1: Dale or Bay Point or any of that, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't that type of thing, man, Like, the only ones
Speaker 1: that created that narrative that was trying to put us
Speaker 1: in that was police officers. Okay, So I want to
Speaker 1: move into the story a little bit. In March, you
Speaker 1: get into a fight with a friend from school named
Speaker 1: Jeff Franklin over some gossip going around. And then later
Speaker 1: on that same day, in an unrelated event, there's this
Speaker 1: other crime, a guy named Peter Lee is murdered. The
Speaker 1: police connect these two incidents, I guess because they happened
Speaker 1: on the same day or something. So tell me about
Speaker 1: your first interaction with the police. How did they connect
Speaker 1: these two separate things. This is where I could introduce
Speaker 1: uh Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks because they were there too.
Speaker 1: African American veteran homicide detectives, and uh, they were always
Speaker 1: wearing suits and these like for Dora Brims, and uh,
Speaker 1: they came to my house. They never called me to
Speaker 1: come down there. They came to my house. And my
Speaker 1: father was always a straight shooter, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know my son, I know, he doesn't have anything
Speaker 1: to hid, so he didn't mind them talking to me.
Speaker 1: They started asking me about the situation with Jeff, like,
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, we had an altercation and you know,
Speaker 1: we resolved it. We made peace and everything was cool,
Speaker 1: and uh, they started alluding to Peter possibly being murdered
Speaker 1: because of the artercation I had with Jeff. Right, this
Speaker 1: was their narrative. Like, so I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? So it was like they were trying
Speaker 1: to say what you did proceeded this. So they they
Speaker 1: started asking me about all these different people and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know who you're talking about. I
Speaker 1: don't know this person. I don't know that person. That's
Speaker 1: when they kind of formulated this. Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think they were they were piste off that I
Speaker 1: wasn't really helping them. The narrative that the police were
Speaker 1: pushing was that this is all gang related. And then
Speaker 1: about a month later, on April, there was a drive
Speaker 1: by shooting in Bay View in your neighborhood. Eleven people
Speaker 1: were injured and two people were killed, Charles Hughes and
Speaker 1: Roshawn Johnson. And it's really a terrible crime. It's sad.
Speaker 1: But how did you get wrapped up in all of this?
Speaker 1: There was a lot of pressure on the police to
Speaker 1: solve these crimes. You know, people in the community were
Speaker 1: coming out and they were like fed up with this stuff,
Speaker 1: and they were you know, now the police are really
Speaker 1: just going crazy, like okay, because now they're saying that
Speaker 1: this was retaliation for Peter Lee being killed. So now
Speaker 1: they come back to me again. So they now they
Speaker 1: come in with a different energy, like they're threatening me
Speaker 1: and all this other kind of stuff. So my pops
Speaker 1: was like, look, I'm not letting him talk to you again,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So that was it, and uh,
Speaker 1: but they were like, look, we're gonna we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back and get him if he doesn't help us, you know,
Speaker 1: get you know this, that and the other. So but
Speaker 1: in July they came back with a warrant. So they
Speaker 1: charged me with that assault and that at that time,
Speaker 1: but they had me thinking they were charging me with
Speaker 1: murders or whatever. So I'm like, this is why you
Speaker 1: are arrested me. I'm like, well, that was already resolved,
Speaker 1: but the district attorney had picked it up. And so
Speaker 1: what I learned later was that because I had no
Speaker 1: criminal record I had, I was not even in the system.
Speaker 1: I said, this is a way for them to get
Speaker 1: me in the system under paperwork, right, So you know,
Speaker 1: they booked me, and ultimately I pleaded totally. Even then
Speaker 1: I told them, yeah, I did it. I did that.
Speaker 1: We had an issue and that's what happened, and we
Speaker 1: resolved and I wasn't trying to hide it or nothing
Speaker 1: like that. So that's they end up giving me three
Speaker 1: years probation and I spent like thirty days in jail
Speaker 1: in the county whatever. They gave me three years probation.
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, detective Saunders and Henders with their suits in
Speaker 1: there for door brims, they end up arresting a guy
Speaker 1: named Paul Green for the drive by shooting on April eight,
Speaker 1: and doing Paul's trial in you were called to testify. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't around till two when Paul Green's trial started
Speaker 1: that I get a subpoena to his court. So I
Speaker 1: get an outside lawyer, Donald Bergerson, who would later become
Speaker 1: my actual attorney, but I get him to represent me
Speaker 1: on this subpoena because I'm like, I don't have nothing
Speaker 1: to say to these people. So Paul Green goes on trial,
Speaker 1: You get subpoena and hired Donald Bergerson to representation, and
Speaker 1: then at some point you start to realize that there
Speaker 1: was more to this, that they were going to try
Speaker 1: to wrap you up in the same crime that April
Speaker 1: eight drive by shooting that killed two people. Do you remember, member,
Speaker 1: how you first heard about that. The rumblings started coming,
Speaker 1: Like my lawyer started talking to me about hey, uh,
Speaker 1: you know they're talking about this guy, like they have
Speaker 1: some evidence against you for this, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what what that's just when Clifford Polk enters the picture.
Speaker 1: He was he was probably four years younger than me,
Speaker 1: But Clifford Polk was a guy who was really friends
Speaker 1: with my younger brother that he was friends. We met
Speaker 1: he was in high school. He was raised by a
Speaker 1: single mother, so we kind of took him in as
Speaker 1: a younger like siblings, so to speak, because that's how
Speaker 1: my father was with the kids in the neighborhood. He
Speaker 1: would just you know, be a father figure to a
Speaker 1: lot of these kids. Clifford Pope, now he's a pretty
Speaker 1: important character in the story because it's ultimately his evidence
Speaker 1: that they used to convict you. What did he say
Speaker 1: to the police to tie you into the crime? Poke
Speaker 1: brought in another mutual friend of ours name Batis Batis Richardson.
Speaker 1: He said that Batis loaned me a weapon, and then
Speaker 1: when Batiste went to retrieve the weapon back from me,
Speaker 1: like hey, let me get that back, Cliff said that
Speaker 1: I said to Patize, oh you don't want that man
Speaker 1: that got cheap Charlie name written all over it, and
Speaker 1: Chief Charlie that's Charles Hughes, one of the people murdered
Speaker 1: on April eight. Cliff just made up a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: He just started making up stuff like I was selling
Speaker 1: guns out of my house and he was just making
Speaker 1: up stuff, right, And then they investigated Batist of course,
Speaker 1: to collaborate what Cliffs said, and of course Patisse was like,
Speaker 1: what you know, this is bullshit, Like this did not happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what this dude is talking about. So
Speaker 1: my attorney told me, they want you to turn yourself in,
Speaker 1: and I said, I turned myself in for what he's like,
Speaker 1: they have a charge against you, like, they have a warrant.
Speaker 1: And it was probably two months before they finally came
Speaker 1: to the house while I was there and arrested me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now we're getting into the trial. The prosecution's main
Speaker 1: argument was the testimony of Clifford Pope. There was some
Speaker 1: back and forth between both sides as to whether Pope
Speaker 1: was being incentivized by the police to implicate you, but
Speaker 1: Pope said on stand that he wasn't in witness protection
Speaker 1: and he wasn't getting anything in return for his testimony.
Speaker 1: And this is really important and we'll get back to
Speaker 1: that later on. So all this is going on, and
Speaker 1: you actually decided to testify in your own defense, something
Speaker 1: that you rarely see. Why don't you decide to testify?
Speaker 1: So one of the primary reasons why I testified is
Speaker 1: because one, I didn't do it right, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid to get up there, and I knew whatever the
Speaker 1: district attorney was going to say about me like I
Speaker 1: had already admitted to it, meaning like my prior saw
Speaker 1: it or whatever it was like, so I knew beyond
Speaker 1: that anything he tried to allege against me, he would
Speaker 1: be just making it up. And I felt like I
Speaker 1: wanted to I wanted to speak my piece, like I
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to say no, I didn't do this,
Speaker 1: And and getting up there, I mean, how did how
Speaker 1: did you feel about to try to how did you
Speaker 1: gauge the jury that you think they was they was listening.
Speaker 1: I just figure if they hear this information, they're gonna
Speaker 1: side with the truth. So the way that the d
Speaker 1: A spun it though he painted a very effective picture,
Speaker 1: all they see is what's on TV. And it's like
Speaker 1: like what I once thought police are good. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you weren't bad, you wouldn't be coming from out of
Speaker 1: that holding tanking this orange like you would be coming
Speaker 1: from out here, Like it's all those dynamics where at play,
Speaker 1: and and going through that, going through that trial, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm gonna speak for from personal, but going
Speaker 1: through a trial, you don't know what's going on, you
Speaker 1: don't know the law, you don't you have no clue
Speaker 1: on whether it's up down whatever. You're just sitting there.
Speaker 1: How long did your trial last? And when you was convicted?
Speaker 1: How did the words guilty hit you? Okay, so my
Speaker 1: trial lasted I would say, I wouldn't say it lasted
Speaker 1: longer than two weeks. They tried to offer me a deal.
Speaker 1: So my lawyer came in there and he's like, I
Speaker 1: know this is the part that you know, you you
Speaker 1: don't we want to hear about and you know, but
Speaker 1: I have to do this, you know, like I have
Speaker 1: to offer this, and you know, Jennin is talking about
Speaker 1: a deal here. And I said a deal like what
Speaker 1: they're gonna let me go? And I don't assume what like?
Speaker 1: And he's like, whoa, no, you know. Uh. He said,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to take thirty years, you know, uh
Speaker 1: you could, I said, what thirty years? Like? So then
Speaker 1: my lawyer went down to like fifteen years, right, and
Speaker 1: then he went down to like ten and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking a day like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: taking a day period. And I told my lawyer, I said, man,
Speaker 1: they're about to find me not guilty. And we went
Speaker 1: out there and they, you know, the foreman read the
Speaker 1: verdict or gave it to the judge and the judge
Speaker 1: said guilty. It was a surprise. It was a It
Speaker 1: was kind of surreal. So I just kind of sat
Speaker 1: with it, like, Okay, um, what do we do now.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by the A i G pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program. Hey i G is a leading global insurance company,
Speaker 1: and the A i G pro Bono Program provides free
Speaker 1: legal services as well as other support to many nonprofit
Speaker 1: organizations as well as individuals who are most in need,
Speaker 1: and they recently announced that working to reform the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission.
Speaker 1: Once that happened, uh, you know, it was just guilty
Speaker 1: or all these charges, right, So you also have your lawyer.
Speaker 1: When you hear your lawyers say, your honor, you want
Speaker 1: to put this in a record to appeal to this.
Speaker 1: So that means you have one last chance, which is
Speaker 1: you can go in front of the judge and then
Speaker 1: the judge can actually just do the right thing, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna Oh, I don't believe that the burden
Speaker 1: of proof was met on the side of the prosecution,
Speaker 1: and and that's what I was hoping for. And I
Speaker 1: really thought that that was gonna happen. And I spoke
Speaker 1: to the judge. You know, I told the judge, I said, listen,
Speaker 1: all I expected was fairness and impartiality, and I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten any of that. So I'm appealing to your fairness
Speaker 1: and your impartiality in this matter. That's what I said
Speaker 1: to him. And uh, he gave me all these life sentences,
Speaker 1: like so what what was your what was your sentence? Um?
Speaker 1: So I ended up with twelve life sentences to without
Speaker 1: parole plus twenty six years? Damn hell long? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know I might be joking, but ship, how long
Speaker 1: would have had took you to do all that time? Well?
Speaker 1: And then I would have had to die once, come back,
Speaker 1: dieg in, come back, died ten more times, come back,
Speaker 1: and then do twenty six years. That's what it meant
Speaker 1: like the ship didn't make no sense to it was
Speaker 1: surreal it did. I'm like, you could have just gave
Speaker 1: me one life sentence and it would have helped me,
Speaker 1: but it it essentially was a death sentence. That's basically
Speaker 1: what it was. I used to claim on one of
Speaker 1: my partners, he had two hundred and ten years to
Speaker 1: life and ship under the three strikes law and we
Speaker 1: just be like, man, so when you get out, okay,
Speaker 1: so you you on your way to prison from the
Speaker 1: county jail, and I you know, it's a trip. Man. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I've always wondered about, you know, innocent people
Speaker 1: in prison. You know, I was pretty much guilty for
Speaker 1: the uh my actions, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: I always while I was in prison, I used to
Speaker 1: always wonder what an innocent individuals. So I gotta ask, man,
Speaker 1: what was prison like for an innocent man? Man, Look,
Speaker 1: I watched that movie before I ever went to prison, before,
Speaker 1: like it was American me and I watched some other
Speaker 1: kind of penitentiary movies, and that ship was just like
Speaker 1: scary as fun. Right. So I was like, god, never,
Speaker 1: I never never want to go to prison, right. And
Speaker 1: this is before any of that stuff. Like it was
Speaker 1: just that environment, that culture, right, and San Quentin being
Speaker 1: the one place, especially back then, because when I went
Speaker 1: to San Quentin, like the inmates were like the counsel
Speaker 1: they did all the intake, you know, like it wasn't
Speaker 1: you didn't go see a counselor they did it. They
Speaker 1: gave you your CDC number, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: your picture looked like you wanted them Alcatraz Island inmates. Like,
Speaker 1: so that's what I had. That was my experience. Like
Speaker 1: they did a special transfer because I was now like
Speaker 1: essentially a death penalty kind of case with them ailwops,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have to wait for the prison bus
Speaker 1: and load up. They literally got me out of there
Speaker 1: the next day, Like I didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: say bye to nobody, Like as soon as I was
Speaker 1: convicted the next day, I was on that butt on
Speaker 1: that van on my way to Quentin. And what was
Speaker 1: your mindset like going in with the ail wasp sentence,
Speaker 1: you know, life without the possibility of parole. It didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't. It didn't compute because it didn't make sense
Speaker 1: to me, Like I didn't understand what that meant, Like
Speaker 1: this is my first time going through something like this,
Speaker 1: So I didn't understand that it meant you're gonna die
Speaker 1: in prison, you ain't never going to the board. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand any of that. I just assumed at some
Speaker 1: point somebody gonna get me back, you know, my lawyer
Speaker 1: or somebody gonna find something that's and and again we
Speaker 1: had an appeal in so you you hanging on those
Speaker 1: hopes like that your appeal and and uh so I
Speaker 1: I just told myself immediately, I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just gonna meet this environment how it meets me.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I'm about to do. I have to ask, man, like,
Speaker 1: like what was what was like a bad day in
Speaker 1: prison for you? Every day? There's not a prison I
Speaker 1: went to. I'm talking about By the time I left prison,
Speaker 1: I have been to like ten different and all maximum
Speaker 1: security prisons because of my ail walk everywhere up north
Speaker 1: to down south by the Mexican border in between, like
Speaker 1: I've been to all of that, and I tell you
Speaker 1: it was it was because of the type of sentence
Speaker 1: I had. It meant that I was only going to
Speaker 1: be around what they call the most violent kind of inmates,
Speaker 1: the most you know, all of that stuff. And uh
Speaker 1: and it and it lived up to every every word
Speaker 1: of that. Like two years after I was in prison,
Speaker 1: I was almost murdered in an unprovoked attack by some
Speaker 1: white supremacists. I just just real quick what happened. Me
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine was just like walking the
Speaker 1: track and and uh it was like these five five guys,
Speaker 1: they were Nazi low riders as they call them in
Speaker 1: lars back then. And uh, they all had flat pieces
Speaker 1: of steel like and two of them came at my partner,
Speaker 1: like two of them, three of them came at me.
Speaker 1: And uh, thank God, like divine intervention in my fighting skills,
Speaker 1: because I did receive like some puncture wounds, Like I
Speaker 1: got about nine puncture wounds out of it because it
Speaker 1: was three of them. But they didn't hit no vital Uh,
Speaker 1: they wasn't able to hit vital organs because of the
Speaker 1: fact that I was fighting back um and the guard
Speaker 1: for shooting and stuff like that. And uh, in turn,
Speaker 1: you know that that put me in like a war
Speaker 1: mode mind, like when your security has breached like that,
Speaker 1: Like it's like what happened when I was on the streets,
Speaker 1: Like my perception changed from that point. So so it's
Speaker 1: safe to say you've seen a lot of violence in
Speaker 1: those level for prisons every day every day. I was
Speaker 1: just like you. I looked at the Court of appeals
Speaker 1: as a way to get out. How did how did
Speaker 1: it work out for you? And and and in post
Speaker 1: litigation that you win your appeals denied I was denied
Speaker 1: all the way through around two thousand one, Uh, two
Speaker 1: other guys that I grew up with, John tennis In
Speaker 1: and Anton Gulf JJ and Sodapop That's what their names were.
Speaker 1: So around two thousand one, John's case started getting some
Speaker 1: traction in the news. A journalist by the name of A. C.
Speaker 1: Thompson who had worked for the Bay Guardian news at
Speaker 1: the time. So John Tennison's brother, Bruce, always believed that
Speaker 1: his brother was falsely convicted. He decided to I guess
Speaker 1: he connected some kind of way with this journalist, told
Speaker 1: H man, my brother is innocent and this and that,
Speaker 1: and the police are lying. And so A. C. Thompson
Speaker 1: decided to investigate it. He discovered that the exact same
Speaker 1: homicide detectives Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks that had done
Speaker 1: that to me had prior done it to John Tennison
Speaker 1: and Anton Golf. In their case, there had already been
Speaker 1: a videotape confession of the person who had already killed. Uh,
Speaker 1: the people that John and Anton had been convicted of,
Speaker 1: they had already had a videotape confession of the person
Speaker 1: who did it, admitted to it. They suppressed it. When
Speaker 1: the Bay Guardian newspaper came out with John Tennyson's face
Speaker 1: on the front of it and like questioning whether this
Speaker 1: man should be imprisoned. His brother, Bruce worked for this
Speaker 1: like car lot. He was a car lot attended and
Speaker 1: next to his car lot was the law firm Kecker
Speaker 1: in Vaness. So what Bruce did was Bruce took all
Speaker 1: those Bay Guardian newspapers out that thing and he put
Speaker 1: them on their car windows. And they had happened to
Speaker 1: have a pro bono wing in their uh, their firm.
Speaker 1: So they investigated, and sure enough they found out that
Speaker 1: there was a suppressed tape and that these two guys
Speaker 1: have been framed. So at the same time in two
Speaker 1: thousand three that they were being exonerated, I received the
Speaker 1: letter out the blue from the Innocence Project. I sent
Speaker 1: the letter to my father, and my father gathered up
Speaker 1: all my information that they were requesting and sent it
Speaker 1: to him. So, um, the Innocent Project, once they connected
Speaker 1: the dots and seeing that we had the same homicide
Speaker 1: detectives that had done all of this, they was like
Speaker 1: they started coming to visit me. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: crazy kind of story. The Northern California Innocent Project ends
Speaker 1: up taking your case and they bring it to Kicker
Speaker 1: in van Ness, hoping they would have some more information
Speaker 1: that could help you out. They end up talking to
Speaker 1: this lawyer, a guy named Daniel Purcell, who worked on
Speaker 1: John and Antoine's case, and Daniel Purcell says to this day,
Speaker 1: he said, if it wasn't for your name, you would
Speaker 1: still be imprisoned. He said, the name registered. And he said, like,
Speaker 1: where have I heard that name from? During the investigation
Speaker 1: of John and Anton's case, they sent an investigator, they
Speaker 1: had a motion for discovery and and I guess the
Speaker 1: city said you can go check this storage unit in
Speaker 1: these files and whatever, you know. And he had to
Speaker 1: go under, like he had to go under the debris
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff to pull these boxes out.
Speaker 1: It just so happened to have new Meris boxes with
Speaker 1: my name and all kinds of other stuff connected to it.
Speaker 1: And Dan was like, So the first thing Dan did
Speaker 1: was he contacted my old attorney, Donald Bergerson, and he's like, hey, Don, like,
Speaker 1: you know who did tell him who he was what
Speaker 1: they were doing. He said, yeah, so we have these
Speaker 1: boxes and it has all these receipts and this and
Speaker 1: this and this, and my lawyer at the Donald was
Speaker 1: like I knew it, I fan knew it. He was like,
Speaker 1: and then it made sense to me because back when
Speaker 1: I was in trial, this man used to file so
Speaker 1: many damn motions, right, and he always alleged that the
Speaker 1: district Attorney, Alfred jian Ninny was withholding information and not
Speaker 1: turning everything over so much so that we had to
Speaker 1: have a special hearing in order to resolve it once
Speaker 1: and for all. And that's when Giannini went on the
Speaker 1: record and back then and was like, your honor, we
Speaker 1: have given. I've given and furnished Mr Bergerson with everything
Speaker 1: just to any other. So now we got all this
Speaker 1: suppressed evidence sitting right here. So what ultimately came to
Speaker 1: light from all those boxes of suppressed evidence was that
Speaker 1: Clifford Pope not only lied when he named you, but
Speaker 1: he was actually paid to do it. In the trial,
Speaker 1: Clifford said that he wasn't in witness protection, but the
Speaker 1: evidence in those boxes proved that he was. He'd been
Speaker 1: paid a nice chunk of change to name you in
Speaker 1: this crime. And then in two thousand five, ten years
Speaker 1: after you were sent to prison, cliff free candidate's testimony,
Speaker 1: he said that he was telling the truth now because
Speaker 1: he could no longer live with the guilt of you
Speaker 1: being in prison for a crime you didn't do. Do
Speaker 1: you hold any animosity towards him? I never saw a
Speaker 1: Cliff as anything other than like a victim. As like me,
Speaker 1: Cliff is a young kid, you know, and he's scared
Speaker 1: to depise homicide. They do the same assume the same
Speaker 1: thing that they tried to do to me to him,
Speaker 1: But it worked on him, and your lawyers from the
Speaker 1: Northern California Innocent Project ended up taking this suppressed evidence
Speaker 1: us all the way to the California Supreme Court. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by two thousand nine, the California Supreme Court, which I
Speaker 1: think this happens less than seven percent of the time
Speaker 1: with l watch cases, but they granted me an evidentiary hearing.
Speaker 1: So for the first time in all these years, I
Speaker 1: was able to come back in two thousand and ten
Speaker 1: for a week and we were able to depose the
Speaker 1: district attorney and I think Hendricks, the Sanders partner, had
Speaker 1: passed away in oh eight by this time, so they
Speaker 1: were also able to interview and depose Earl Sanders, and uh,
Speaker 1: basically they just was blaming each other, like Alfred Jennenny
Speaker 1: was saying, no, they never gave us this stuff. Sanders
Speaker 1: was saying, we gave Jenny and all this stuff. And
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting back like whatever, y'all still fucked up,
Speaker 1: like it ain't y'all the Hall Live period. So Judge
Speaker 1: Marta J. Miller, she uh, she looked through it, and
Speaker 1: she saw through it, and she ultimately, uh, she vacated
Speaker 1: my conviction December fourteen. I believe it was so caramel.
Speaker 1: As you know, I was commuted by Governor Brown. My
Speaker 1: life sentence was commuted gone. And I know what I
Speaker 1: felt like, I have to ask you this, how did
Speaker 1: you find out that you were getting out. I was
Speaker 1: just in the cell like they had sent me back
Speaker 1: to prison, and I was doing what I do and
Speaker 1: uh one of my friends came up to me and
Speaker 1: he was like, man, you know you're going home, right.
Speaker 1: I was like what He was like, Man, you're going home,
Speaker 1: and he slid the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle to
Speaker 1: me under my door and it had my article right
Speaker 1: there on the front page. Judge vacates conviction, right. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh ship. So
Speaker 1: then you really start feeling like getting me out of
Speaker 1: here right now. You know what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: Like you think you free now right? Trust, I know
Speaker 1: that feeling about Let me out now. But the d
Speaker 1: A can hold you in there to see if the
Speaker 1: city wants to retry the case. But luckily for you,
Speaker 1: the d A at the time, Kamala Harris, the one
Speaker 1: that wants you to wait and see what happens with
Speaker 1: the city. She was leaving office to take a new
Speaker 1: job as the California Attorney General. She was being replaced
Speaker 1: by a new d A, George Gascone. The first major
Speaker 1: order of business he did was dismiss my case outright,
Speaker 1: like just straight up just dismissed it, and uh, and
Speaker 1: then I would be released January twelve, January Gascon. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing right there. And you you have
Speaker 1: to explain, man, like what was that day like when
Speaker 1: you first walked out, Like what did you do? Of
Speaker 1: course I was elated to be getting out, but now
Speaker 1: it's like fuck, like you know, I'm out of prison now,
Speaker 1: what you know what I mean? Like I'm coming out
Speaker 1: of a controlled environment, extremely controlled environment to just basically
Speaker 1: be able to do what I want to do. So
Speaker 1: it was overwhelming like it was scary. It was I
Speaker 1: was happy about it, um, but it was it was
Speaker 1: just like I gotta take this one day at a time.
Speaker 1: But then ultimately I just to you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna take this head on out here,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, that's what I did. I never
Speaker 1: looked back, you know. And now that you're free, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Well? When I first came home, like
Speaker 1: I was, I was, Uh, I was always like going
Speaker 1: to different law schools, you know, and talking talking to
Speaker 1: the first and second year law students. And I was
Speaker 1: doing this like all over the state, Like I was
Speaker 1: just going everywhere anywhere I was invited. Like I love
Speaker 1: talking about this story because it feels like it almost
Speaker 1: feels like it's not me I'm talking about, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And I kind of I kind of always say I
Speaker 1: was already free mentally, sparitually, I was already free. They
Speaker 1: just physically had my body. So I was very focused,
Speaker 1: like prior to getting out of prison, like, I was
Speaker 1: very focused on how I was going to live my life,
Speaker 1: what I was gonna do. One of the main things
Speaker 1: was to be able to get back into prison, to
Speaker 1: be able to walk back through that visiting room as
Speaker 1: a free person, you know, with people that I literally
Speaker 1: grew up with in prison because I spent at that
Speaker 1: point half my life in there. So that was one
Speaker 1: of the most empowering things, was to be able to
Speaker 1: get approved by the CDC to come back in and visit,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, and that's where I met you. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. I was serving life sentence and
Speaker 1: you came in and that's how I met you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So from that point it was all about, Okay, I
Speaker 1: know all these great stories and different people in prison,
Speaker 1: and I always say prison is one of the most
Speaker 1: untapped markets for creatives. So uh, in sen I ultimately
Speaker 1: created a production company, Lifted Clouds, and uh the goal
Speaker 1: there was to just bring a lot of guys content,
Speaker 1: um books, you know, personal stories, you know, all of
Speaker 1: this to the to the public, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: some amazing it's some amazing people in there. Camel Connelly,
Speaker 1: We thank you for definitely telling us your story of
Speaker 1: being appreciated evicted in California, man, and I'm glad you
Speaker 1: out here like the one your thing man, and and
Speaker 1: appreciate everything you're doing. Yeah. I appreciate you all having
Speaker 1: me on here. So Caraman, you know, I always wanted
Speaker 1: to be a lawyer. So now we're coming to what's
Speaker 1: called closing arguments. Do you have any final thoughts, any epiphanies,
Speaker 1: what would you like to share with the wrongful conviction listeners?
Speaker 1: You know, I would just say that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like there's this there's this this kind of myth
Speaker 1: where people say, you know, everybody in prison say always
Speaker 1: say they're innocent, right, everybody says they're innocent when they're
Speaker 1: in prison. Um, And that's a myth, honestly, Like there
Speaker 1: are gods. Most of the guys that I was in
Speaker 1: prison with, they said they did the crime. They just
Speaker 1: didn't believe they should have got the time that they got.
Speaker 1: Like I said, essentially, a life without parole sentence is
Speaker 1: the death sence. But imagine if they would have gave
Speaker 1: me the death penalty and I would have actually died
Speaker 1: on death row, you know, and then you see all
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, So that's that's the scary part about
Speaker 1: all of this. We think our systems are perfect and
Speaker 1: and they're not. They're not. They need to be absolutely
Speaker 1: reformed from the inside out and I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: so much might come as a surprise. I'm not anti
Speaker 1: law enforcement by no me, you know. So, so do
Speaker 1: you still want to be a SWAT member? I am
Speaker 1: a SWAT member, just in a different way. Also, it's
Speaker 1: and one thing I can't say I did this whole story, man,
Speaker 1: is uh, you got the best thing because your name
Speaker 1: is what got you back into the game. So no doubt. Man.
Speaker 1: I thank my father and my mom for that because
Speaker 1: growing up it was hell having that name because nobody
Speaker 1: can pronounce it right, you know. Shout out to my
Speaker 1: mom and pops, you know, for that. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Role for Conviction. I'm your guest host Erlin Woods.
Speaker 1: I like to thank our executive producer Jason Flam and
Speaker 1: Kevin Waters. The senior producer for this episode is Jackie
Speaker 1: Pauli and our producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburn.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Rook Sandra Guidi. The music in this
Speaker 1: production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Rath.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on
Speaker 1: all three platforms. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Facebook at Arline Woods, and check out ear Hustle,
Speaker 1: the podcast I co created with Nichil Poor wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. We also wrote a book called This
Speaker 1: is ear Hustle, Unflinching stories of everyday prison life. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one. On next week's guest
Speaker 1: hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, my friend and personally hero
Speaker 1: Egs Honerie and musician Jimmy Dennis is going to interview
Speaker 1: Chester Home in the third about their harrowing, tragic shared
Speaker 1: experiences of having been locked up in Philadelphia for crimes
Speaker 1: they didn't commit. Now, both men were put away by
Speaker 1: the notorious, infamous and even I'm gonna say, evil prosecutor
Speaker 1: Roger King, who get this. He put more people on
Speaker 1: death row than anyone else in Pennsylvania history. And we
Speaker 1: know a bunch of them were innocent. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys will never know about who we put
Speaker 1: on death row who are innocent as well. It's it's sickening,
Speaker 1: but it's a must here story. It's gonna be on Monday.
Speaker 1: In the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed