Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flahman. 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: going to keep doing them for as long as we
Speaker 1: possibly can. Until my last breath, I'll be making these podcasts.
Speaker 1: But this is the three hundredth one, and we are
Speaker 1: honored and I'm humbled to have as a guest host
Speaker 1: for this episode my friend and personal hero, mister Erlon Woods.
Speaker 1: Now Erlon you probably know his name because he's the
Speaker 1: guy who created and co hosted the groundbreaking podcast ear Hustle,
Speaker 1: which he produced while serving time in San Quentin prison.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your continued support. We still have
Speaker 1: tons more work to do and we hope you'll listen
Speaker 1: and get involved.
Speaker 2: Back in the nineteen eighties, Karam Conley was living in
Speaker 2: San Francisco, California, that was doing the crack era and
Speaker 2: police was doing everything they could to stump out gang activity.
Speaker 2: On April eight, nineteen eighty nine, there was a drive
Speaker 2: by shooting in Karamand's neighborhood. The bullets injury Levin and
Speaker 2: killed two Charles Hughes and Roshawn Johnson. Of the eight
Speaker 2: people who were allegedly involved in the crime, only one person,
Speaker 2: Paul Green, was convicted and sentenced. The pressure was building
Speaker 2: for police to find other perpetrators. About a month before
Speaker 2: this crime happened, Kara Mad had got into a fight
Speaker 2: with another kid from school and landed Karamid with an
Speaker 2: assault charge. So police created a narrative around this fight
Speaker 2: that it started a whole series of violent retaliations resulting
Speaker 2: in the drive by shooting. Yet police had no evidence
Speaker 2: beyond one witness would claim he heard Karamad bragging about
Speaker 2: his involvement. Still, Kara Mood would be convicted of two
Speaker 2: murders and ten attempted murders. He was sentenced to life
Speaker 2: in prison without the possibility of parole. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: I'm Marline Woods and I'm the co host and co
Speaker 2: creator of podcast called Ear Hustle, which brings you the
Speaker 2: daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it.
Speaker 2: And we also do stories from the outside post incarceration.
Speaker 2: And today I have the pleasure of guest hosting Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 2: and I'm here with a cat named Kramat. Conley and
Speaker 2: Kramat I would like you to introduce yourself to the people.
Speaker 3: Hello, everybody, what's up roline? Glad to be here. I'm
Speaker 3: excited about talking about the story. My name is Caramut Conley.
Speaker 3: I'm from originally Oakland, California, born and raised, raised between
Speaker 3: there in San Francisco, California.
Speaker 2: So, Caramut, can you describe your life prior to being arrested.
Speaker 3: I was born to a fan a nine I have
Speaker 3: five brothers, three sisters. Our neighborhood was predominantly African American
Speaker 3: working class families. Everybody in the neighborhood knew each other,
Speaker 3: you know, mothers, fathers, you know, it was a great
Speaker 3: environment to grow up in.
Speaker 2: Cool And let me ask you this. You know you
Speaker 2: grew up in San Francisco. How was like law enforcement
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood? You know, did you have any prior
Speaker 2: run ins with them or any anything leading up to Nah?
Speaker 3: And that's a great question, right. And it's interesting because
Speaker 3: my dad was in the military, so we had already
Speaker 3: kind of been in still with that kind of country duty,
Speaker 3: honor stuff. But my dream really was to be a
Speaker 3: swat officer when I was young, right back in those days,
Speaker 3: they were considered the good guys. And I've always seen
Speaker 3: police officers like that.
Speaker 2: Did anything derail you from becoming a SWAT officer?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, when I became a teenager. So you have
Speaker 3: to tie in what they call the crack era, right,
Speaker 3: the drug era that changed everything, That changed our whole community,
Speaker 3: That changed our perceptions of like the police. That changed everything.
Speaker 3: You started seeing people in our community, in our neighborhoods,
Speaker 3: like who started kind of indulging in the selling of it.
Speaker 3: So that's when you started seeing like, wow, look at that.
Speaker 3: You know, he got a new car. You know, you
Speaker 3: start seeing all these different things you've never seen before.
Speaker 3: So that's when I started understanding like there was a
Speaker 3: shift going on in our society and particularly in our community.
Speaker 3: You started seeing, you know, police more at the schools.
Speaker 3: You started those kind of interactions. So what we didn't know,
Speaker 3: meaning like the kids in the community, teenagers, was that
Speaker 3: the police officers started creating these narratives around our community.
Speaker 3: So they started calling them turfs, right, And we definitely
Speaker 3: believed that they were trying to take a page out
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles politics, gain politics and stuff and at
Speaker 3: that there and if you from like this area, you
Speaker 3: were part of this turf and then this turf. And
Speaker 3: people used to always try to correct these officers and
Speaker 3: journalists when they used to use these turns, and people
Speaker 3: used to be like, what are y'all talking about? Like
Speaker 3: we ain't this ain't no turf.
Speaker 2: So the police are creating this narrative. But did you
Speaker 2: identify with any gangs Sunnydale or Bay Point or any
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: No, because it wasn't that type of thing. Man, Like,
Speaker 3: the only ones that created that narrative that was trying
Speaker 3: to put us in that was police officers.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I want to move into the story a
Speaker 2: little bit. In March nineteen eighty nine, you get into
Speaker 2: a fight with a friend from school named Jeff Franklin
Speaker 2: over some gossip going around. And then later on that
Speaker 2: same day, in an unrelated event, there's this other crime,
Speaker 2: a guy named Peter Lee is murdered. The police connect
Speaker 2: these two incidents, I guess because they happen on the
Speaker 2: same day or something. So tell me about your first
Speaker 2: interaction with the police. How did they connect these two
Speaker 2: separate things.
Speaker 3: This is where I could introduce Earl Sanders and Napoleon
Speaker 3: Hendrix because they were their two African American veteran homicide detectives.
Speaker 3: And they were always wearing suits and these like for
Speaker 3: Dora Brims, and they came to my house. They never
Speaker 3: called me to come down there. They came to my house.
Speaker 3: And my father was always a straight shooter, and he's like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, my son, I know he doesn't have anything
Speaker 3: to hide, so he didn't mind them talking to me.
Speaker 3: They started asking me about the situation with Jeff, like,
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, we had an altercation and you know,
Speaker 3: we resolved it. We made peace and everything was cool.
Speaker 3: And they started alluding to Peter possibly being murdered because
Speaker 3: of the altercation I had with Jeff. Right, this was
Speaker 3: their narrative, Like, so I was like, what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? So it was like they were trying to
Speaker 3: say what you did preceded this. They started asking me
Speaker 3: about all these different people and I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know who you talking about. I don't know this person.
Speaker 3: I don't know that person. That's when they kind of
Speaker 3: formulated this. I don't know. I think they were pissed
Speaker 3: off that I wasn't really helping them. The narrative that
Speaker 3: the police were pushing was that this is all gang related.
Speaker 2: And then about a month later, on April eighth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, there was a drive by shooting in Bayview
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood. Eleven people were injured and two people
Speaker 2: were killed, Charles Hughes and Rosehawn Johnson. And it's really
Speaker 2: a terrible crime. It's sad. But how did you get
Speaker 2: wrapped up in all of this?
Speaker 3: There was a lot of pressure on the police to
Speaker 3: solve these crimes. You know, people in the community were
Speaker 3: coming out and they were like fed up with this stuff,
Speaker 3: and they were you know, now the police are really
Speaker 3: just going crazy, like okay, because now they're saying that
Speaker 3: this was retaliation for Peter Lee being killed. So now
Speaker 3: they come back to me again. So they now they
Speaker 3: come in with a different energy, like they're threatening me
Speaker 3: and all this other kind of stuff. So my pops
Speaker 3: was like, look, I'm not letting him talk to y'all again,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So that was it, and uh,
Speaker 3: but they were like, look, we're gonna we're gonna come
Speaker 3: back and get him if he doesn't help us, you know,
Speaker 3: get you know this, that and the other so but
Speaker 3: in July they came back with a warrant, so they
Speaker 3: charged me with that assault and that at that time,
Speaker 3: but they had me thinking they were charging me with
Speaker 3: murders or whatever. So I'm like, this is why y'all
Speaker 3: arrested me. I'm like, well, that was already resolved, but
Speaker 3: the district attorney had picked it up. And so what
Speaker 3: I learned later was that because I had no criminal
Speaker 3: record I had, I was not even in a system.
Speaker 3: I said, this is a way for them to get
Speaker 3: me in the system under paperwork, right, So you know,
Speaker 3: they booked me, and ultimately I pleaded totally even them.
Speaker 3: I told them, yeah, I did it. I did that.
Speaker 3: We had an issue and that's what happened, and we
Speaker 3: resolved it and I wasn't trying to hide it or
Speaker 3: nothing like that. So that's they end up giving me
Speaker 3: three years probation and I spent like thirty days in
Speaker 3: jail in the county or whatever. They gave me three
Speaker 3: years probation.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, detective Saunders and Henders with their suits in
Speaker 2: there for door brims. They end up arresting a guy
Speaker 2: named Paul Green for the drive by shooting on April
Speaker 2: eighth and during Paul's trial in nineteen ninety two, you
Speaker 2: were called to testify.
Speaker 3: Yet it wasn't around till ninety two when Paul Green's
Speaker 3: trial started that I get a subpoena to his court.
Speaker 3: So I get an outside lawyer, Donald Bergerson, who would
Speaker 3: later become my actual attorney, but I get him to
Speaker 3: represent me on this subpoena because I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: have nothing to say to these people.
Speaker 2: So Paul Green goes on trial, You get subpoena and
Speaker 2: hire Donald Bergerson to represent you, and then at some
Speaker 2: point you start to realize that there was more to this,
Speaker 2: that they were going to try to wrap you up
Speaker 2: in this same crime that April eight drive by shooting
Speaker 2: that killed two people. Do you remember remember how you
Speaker 2: first heard about that.
Speaker 3: The rumblings started coming, Like my lawyers started talking to
Speaker 3: me about, hey, uh, you know, they're talking about this guy,
Speaker 3: like they have some evidence against you for this, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, what this is. When Clifford Polk enters the picture,
Speaker 3: he was probably four years younger than me, But Clifford
Speaker 3: Polk was a guy who was really friends with my
Speaker 3: younger brother that he was friends we met, he was
Speaker 3: in high school. He was raised by a single mother,
Speaker 3: so we kind of took him in as a younger siblings,
Speaker 3: so to speak, because that's how my father was with
Speaker 3: the kids in the neighborhood. He would just you know,
Speaker 3: be a father figure to a lot of these kids.
Speaker 2: Clifford Pope, now he's a pretty important character in this
Speaker 2: story because it's ultimately his evidence that they used to
Speaker 2: convict you. What did he say to the police to
Speaker 2: tie you into the crime.
Speaker 3: Polk brought in another mutual friend of ours named Batist
Speaker 3: Batiste Richardson. He said that Batist loaned me a weapon,
Speaker 3: and then when Batist went to retrieve the weapon back
Speaker 3: for me, like hey, let me get that back, Cliff
Speaker 3: said that I said to Batist, oh you don't want
Speaker 3: that man that got cheap Charlie name written all over.
Speaker 2: It, and Chief Charlie, that's Charles Hughes, one of the
Speaker 2: people murdered on April eight.
Speaker 3: Cliff just made up a lot of stuff. He just
Speaker 3: started making up stuff like I was selling guns out
Speaker 3: of my house and he was just making up stuff, right,
Speaker 3: And then they investigated Batist, of course to coroborate what
Speaker 3: Cliff said, and of course Batiste was like, what you know,
Speaker 3: this is bullshit, Like this did not happen. I don't
Speaker 3: know what this dude is talking about. So my attorney
Speaker 3: told me they want you to turn yourself in, and
Speaker 3: I said, I've turned myself in for what He's like,
Speaker 3: they have a charge against you, like, they have a warrant.
Speaker 3: And it was probably two months before they finally came
Speaker 3: to the house while I was there and arrested me.
Speaker 2: Okay, so now we're getting into the trial. The prosecution's
Speaker 2: main argument was the testimony of Clifford Pope. There was
Speaker 2: some back and forth between both sides as to whether
Speaker 2: Pope was being incentivized by the police to implicate you,
Speaker 2: but Pope said on stand that he wasn't in witness
Speaker 2: protection and he wasn't getting anything in return for his testimony,
Speaker 2: and this is really important and we'll get back to
Speaker 2: that later on. So all this is going on, and
Speaker 2: you actually decide to testify in your own defense, something
Speaker 2: that you rarely see. Why did you decide to testify?
Speaker 3: So one of the primary reasons why I testify is
Speaker 3: because one, I didn't do it right, and I wasn't
Speaker 3: afraid to get up there, and I knew whatever the
Speaker 3: district Attorney was going to say about me, like I
Speaker 3: had already admitted to it, meaning like my prior saw
Speaker 3: it or whatever it was like, So I knew beyond
Speaker 3: that anything he tried to allege against me, he would
Speaker 3: be just making it up. And I felt like I
Speaker 3: wanted to I wanted to speak my peace, like I
Speaker 3: wanted to be able to say no, I didn't do this.
Speaker 2: And getting up there, I mean, how did you feel
Speaker 2: about the try? How did you gauge the jury? Did
Speaker 2: you think they was? They was listening.
Speaker 3: I just figured if they hear this information, they're gonna
Speaker 3: side with the truth. So the way that the DA
Speaker 3: spun it though he painted a very effective picture. All
Speaker 3: they see is what's on TV. And it's like, like
Speaker 3: what I want to start. Police are good? If you
Speaker 3: weren't bad, you wouldn't be coming from out of that
Speaker 3: holding tank in this orange like you would be coming
Speaker 3: from out here, Like it's all those dynamics where I play.
Speaker 2: And going through that, going through that trial, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna speak from personal, but going through a trial,
Speaker 2: you don't know what's going on, you don't know the law,
Speaker 2: you don't you have no clue on whether it's up
Speaker 2: down whatever. You just sitting there. How long did your
Speaker 2: trial last? And when you was convicted? How did the
Speaker 2: words guilty hit you?
Speaker 3: Okay, so my trial lasted, I would say, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say it lasted longer than two weeks. They tried to
Speaker 3: offer me a deal. So my lawyer came in there
Speaker 3: and he's like, I know this is the part that
Speaker 3: you know, you don't we want to hear about, and
Speaker 3: you know, but I have to do this, you know,
Speaker 3: like I have to offer you this, and you know,
Speaker 3: jen Enny is talking about a deal here. And I
Speaker 3: said a deal like what they gonna let me go?
Speaker 3: And I don't assume what like? And he's like, well, no,
Speaker 3: you know, he said, if you willing to take thirty years,
Speaker 3: you know you could. I said, what thirty years like?
Speaker 3: So then my lawyer went down to like fifteen years, right,
Speaker 3: and then he went down to like ten and I said,
Speaker 3: I'm not taking a day like, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 3: taking a day period. And I told my lawyer, I said, man,
Speaker 3: they about to find me not guilty. And we went
Speaker 3: out there and they, you know, the foreman read the
Speaker 3: verdict or gave it to the judge and the judge
Speaker 3: said guilty. It was a surprise. It was a It
Speaker 3: was kind of surreal. So I just kind of sat
Speaker 3: with it, like, Okay, what do we do now.
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by the AIG pro Bono Program.
Speaker 1: AIG is a leading global insurance company, and the AIG
Speaker 1: pro Bono Program provides free legal services, as well as
Speaker 1: other support to many nonprofit organizations as well as individuals
Speaker 1: who are most in need, and they recently announced that
Speaker 1: working to reform the criminal justice system will become a
Speaker 1: key pillar of the program's mission.
Speaker 3: Once that happened, you know, it was just guilty on
Speaker 3: all these charges, right, So you also have your lawyer.
Speaker 3: When you hear your lawyer say your're want to put
Speaker 3: this in a record, to appeal this to do so,
Speaker 3: that means you have one last chance, which is you
Speaker 3: can go in front of the judge and then the
Speaker 3: judge can actually just do the right thing, you know,
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna ow, I don't believe that the burden
Speaker 3: of proof was met on the side of the prosecution,
Speaker 3: and that's what I was hoping for. And I really
Speaker 3: thought that that was gonna happen. And I spoke to
Speaker 3: the judge. You know, I told the judge, I said, listen,
Speaker 3: all I expected was fairness and impartiality, and I haven't
Speaker 3: gotten any of that. So I'm appealing to your fairness
Speaker 3: and your impartiality in this matter. That's what I said
Speaker 3: to him. And he gave me all these life sentences.
Speaker 2: So what was your What was your sentence?
Speaker 3: So I ended up with twelve life sentences too without parole,
Speaker 3: plus twenty six years.
Speaker 2: Damn how long? I mean? I know I might be joking,
Speaker 2: but shit, how long would it that took you to
Speaker 2: do all that time?
Speaker 3: Well, and then I would have had to die once,
Speaker 3: come back, die again, come back, die ten more times,
Speaker 3: come back, and then do twenty six years. That's what
Speaker 3: it meant.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: The shit didn't make no sense to me. It was
Speaker 3: surreal it did. I'm like, you could have just gave
Speaker 3: me one life sentence and it would have helped me,
Speaker 3: but it essentially was a death sentence. That's basically what
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 2: I used to clawn with one of my partners. He
Speaker 2: had two hundred and ten years to life and shit,
Speaker 2: onder the three strikes law, and we used to be like, man,
Speaker 2: So when you get out Okay, so you you on
Speaker 2: your way to prison from the county jail, and you
Speaker 2: know it's a trip. Man. You know, I've always wondered about,
Speaker 2: you know, innocent people in prison. You know, I was
Speaker 2: pretty much guilty for the my actions, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. But I always while I was in prison,
Speaker 2: I used to always wonder, what are innocent individual So
Speaker 2: I got to ask, man, what was prison like for
Speaker 2: an innocent man?
Speaker 3: Man, Look, I watched that movie before I ever went
Speaker 3: to prison, before like it was American me and I
Speaker 3: watched some other kind of penitential movies, and that shit
Speaker 3: was just like scary as fuck. Right, So I was like, god, never,
Speaker 3: I never never want to go to prison, right, And
Speaker 3: this is before any of that stuff, Like it was
Speaker 3: just that environment, that culture, right, and saying Quentin being
Speaker 3: the one place, especially back then, because when I went
Speaker 3: to San Quentin, like the inmates were like the counselor
Speaker 3: they did all the intake, you know, like it wasn't
Speaker 3: you didn't go see a counselor. They did it. They
Speaker 3: gave you your CDC number, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Your picture looked like you one of them. Alcatraz Island inmates. Like,
Speaker 3: so that's what I had. That was my experience. Like
Speaker 3: they did a special transfer because I was now like
Speaker 3: essentially a death penalty kind of case with them Alwops.
Speaker 3: So I didn't have to wait for the prison bus
Speaker 3: and load up. They literally got me out of there
Speaker 3: the next day, Like I didn't get a chance to
Speaker 3: say bye to nobody, Like as soon as I was
Speaker 3: convicted the next day, I was on that butt on
Speaker 3: that van on my way to Quinton.
Speaker 2: And what was your mindset like going in with the
Speaker 2: alwop sentence, you know, life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 3: It did I didn't. It didn't compute because it didn't
Speaker 3: make sense to me, Like I didn't understand what that meant,
Speaker 3: Like this is my first time going through something like this,
Speaker 3: So I didn't understand that it meant you gonna die
Speaker 3: in prison, You ain't never going to the board. I
Speaker 3: didn't understand any of that. I just assume at some
Speaker 3: point somebody gonna get me back, you know, my lawyer
Speaker 3: or somebody gonna find something that's And again, we had
Speaker 3: an appeal in so you hanging on those hopes like
Speaker 3: that your appeal and and uh so I just told
Speaker 3: myself immediately, I said, you know what, I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: meet this environment how it meets me. Like, that's what
Speaker 3: I'm about to do.
Speaker 2: I have to ask man, like, like, what was what
Speaker 2: was like a bad day in prison for you?
Speaker 3: Every day there's not a prison I went to I'm
Speaker 3: talking about. By the time I left prison, I had
Speaker 3: been to like ten different and all maximum security prisons
Speaker 3: because of my LWOP everywhere up north to down south
Speaker 3: by the Mexican border in between. Like I've been to
Speaker 3: all of that, and I tell you it was it
Speaker 3: was because of the type of sentence I had. It
Speaker 3: meant that I was only going to be around what
Speaker 3: they call the most violent kind of inmates, the most
Speaker 3: you know, all of that stuff. And uh and it
Speaker 3: and it lived up to every every word of that.
Speaker 3: Like two years after I was in prison, I was
Speaker 3: almost murdered in an unprovoked attack by some white supremacists.
Speaker 2: It just just real quick. What happened.
Speaker 3: Me and a friend of mine was just like walking
Speaker 3: the track and and uh it was like these five
Speaker 3: five guys, they were Nazi lowriders as they call them
Speaker 3: in LRS back then, and uh, they all had flat
Speaker 3: pieces of steel like and two of them came at
Speaker 3: my partner, like two of them, three of them came
Speaker 3: at me, and uh, thank God, like divine intervention in
Speaker 3: my fighting skills, because I did receive like some puncture wounds,
Speaker 3: Like I got about nine puncture wounds out of it
Speaker 3: because it was three of them. But uh, they didn't
Speaker 3: hit no vital Uh they wasn't able to hit vital
Speaker 3: organs because of the fact that I was fighting back
Speaker 3: and the guard were shooting and stuff like that. And
Speaker 3: in turn, you know that that put me in like
Speaker 3: a war mode mind, like when your security is breached
Speaker 3: like that, Like it's like what happened when I was
Speaker 3: on the streets, Like my perception changed from that point.
Speaker 2: So so it's safe to say you've seen a lot
Speaker 2: of violence in those level four prisons.
Speaker 4: Every day every day.
Speaker 2: I was just like you. I looked at the Court
Speaker 2: of Appeals as a way to get out. How did
Speaker 2: it work out for you and in post litigation that
Speaker 2: you win your appeals denied?
Speaker 3: I was denied all the way through around two thousand
Speaker 3: and one. Two other guys that I grew up with,
Speaker 3: John Tennyson and Anton Golf JJ and Sodapop, that's what
Speaker 3: their names were. So around two thousand and one, John's
Speaker 3: case started getting some traction in the news. A journalist
Speaker 3: by the name of A. C. Thompson who had worked
Speaker 3: for the Bay Guardian news at the time. So John
Speaker 3: Tennyson's brother Bruce always believed that his brother was falsely convicted.
Speaker 3: He decided to I guess he connected some kind of
Speaker 3: way with this journalist, told him, man, my brother is
Speaker 3: innocent in this and that, and these police are lying.
Speaker 3: And so AC Thompson decided to investigate it. He discovered
Speaker 3: that the exact same homicide detectives Earl Sanders and Napoleon
Speaker 3: Hendrix that had done that to me, had prior done
Speaker 3: it to John Tennyson and Anton Golf. In their case,
Speaker 3: there had already been a videotape confession of the person
Speaker 3: who had already killed the people that John and Anton
Speaker 3: had been convicted of. They had already had a videotape
Speaker 3: confession of the person who did it, admitted to it.
Speaker 3: They suppressed it. When a Bay Guardian newspaper came out
Speaker 3: with John Tennyson's face on the front of it and
Speaker 3: like questioning whether this man should be in prisoned. His brother,
Speaker 3: Bruce worked for this like car lot. He was a
Speaker 3: car lot intendant and next to his car lot was
Speaker 3: the law firm Kecker and Vaness. So what Bruce did
Speaker 3: was Bruce took all those Bay Guardian newspapers out that
Speaker 3: thing and he put them on their car windows. And
Speaker 3: they had happened to have a pro bono wing in
Speaker 3: their firm. So they investigated, and sure enough they found
Speaker 3: out that there was a suppressed tape and that these
Speaker 3: two guys have been framed. So at the same time
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three that they were being exonerated,
Speaker 3: I received the letter out the blue from the Innocence Project.
Speaker 3: I sent the letter to my father, and my father
Speaker 3: gathered up all my information that they were requesting and
Speaker 3: sent it to him. So the Innocence Project, once they
Speaker 3: connected the dots and seen that we had the same
Speaker 3: homicide detectives that had done all of this, they was
Speaker 3: like they started coming to visit me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a crazy kind of story. The Northern
Speaker 2: California Innocent Project ends up taking your case and they
Speaker 2: bring it to Kecker and van Neess hoping they would
Speaker 2: have some more information that could help you out. They
Speaker 2: end up talking to this lawyer, a god named Daniel Purcell,
Speaker 2: who worked on John and Antoine's case.
Speaker 3: And Daniel Purcell says to this day, he said, if
Speaker 3: it wasn't for your name, you would still be in prison.
Speaker 3: He said the name registered, and he said, like, where
Speaker 3: have I heard that name from. During the investigation of
Speaker 3: John and Anton's case, they sent an investigator. They had
Speaker 3: a motion for discovery, and I guess the city said
Speaker 3: you can go check this storage unit and these files
Speaker 3: and whatever, you know, and he had to go under,
Speaker 3: like he had to go under the debris and all
Speaker 3: of this stuff to pull these boxes out. It just
Speaker 3: so happened to have newnumerous boxes with my name and
Speaker 3: all kind of other stuff connected to it. And Dan
Speaker 3: was like, So the first thing Dan did was he
Speaker 3: contacted my old attorney, Donald Bergerson, and he's like, hey, Don, like,
Speaker 3: you know, who did tell him who he was what
Speaker 3: they were doing. He said, yeah, so we have these
Speaker 3: boxes and it has all these receipts and this and
Speaker 3: this and this, And my lawyer at the Donald was like,
Speaker 3: I knew it. I effen knew it. He was like,
Speaker 3: And then it made sense to me because back when
Speaker 3: I was in trial, this man used to file so
Speaker 3: many damn motions, right, and he always alleged that the
Speaker 3: district attorney out for j and NI was withholding information
Speaker 3: and not turning everything over so much so that we
Speaker 3: had to have a special hearing in order to resolve
Speaker 3: it once and for all. And that's when g and
Speaker 3: NI went on the record and back then and was like,
Speaker 3: you're honor, we have given. I've given and furnished mister
Speaker 3: Bergerson with everything, this, that and the other. So now
Speaker 3: we got all this suppressed evidence sitting right here.
Speaker 2: So ultimately came to light from all those boxes of
Speaker 2: suppressed evidence was that Clifford Pope not only lied when
Speaker 2: he named you, but he was actually paid to do it.
Speaker 2: In the trial, Clifford said that he wasn't in witness protection,
Speaker 2: but the evidence in those boxes proved that he was.
Speaker 2: He'd been paid a nice chunk of change to name
Speaker 2: you in this crime. And then in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: ten years after you were sent to prison, cliff recannidate's testimony.
Speaker 2: He said that he was telling the truth now because
Speaker 2: he could no longer live with the guilt of you
Speaker 2: being in prison for a crime you didn't do. Do
Speaker 2: you hold any animosity towards him.
Speaker 3: I never saw Cliff as anything other than like a victim.
Speaker 3: As like me. Cliff is a young kid, you know,
Speaker 3: and he's scared to death of these homicide They do
Speaker 3: the same, I assume, the same thing that they tried
Speaker 3: to do to me to him, But it worked on him.
Speaker 2: And your lawyers from the Northern California Innocent Project ended
Speaker 2: up taking this suppressed evidence all the way to the
Speaker 2: California Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, by two thousand and nine, the California Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: which I think this happens less than seven percent of
Speaker 3: the time with ELWAK cases, but they granted me an
Speaker 3: evidentiary hearing. So for the first time in all these years,
Speaker 3: I was able to come back in twenty ten for
Speaker 3: a week and we were able to depose the district
Speaker 3: attorney and I think Hendrix, the Sanders partner, had passed
Speaker 3: away in eight by this time, so they were also
Speaker 3: able to interview and depose Earl Sanders, and basically they
Speaker 3: just was blaming each other, Like al virgin Anny was saying, no,
Speaker 3: they never gave us this stuff. Sanders was saying, we
Speaker 3: gave Gnny and all this stuff and I'm just sitting
Speaker 3: back like whatever, y'all still fucked up, Like it ain't y'all.
Speaker 3: Y'all lied, period. So Judge Marla J. Miller she looked
Speaker 3: through it, and she saw through it, and she ultimately
Speaker 3: she vacated my conviction December fourteenth.
Speaker 2: I believe it was so cararaa. As you know, I
Speaker 2: was commuted by Governor Brown. My life sentence was commuted gone.
Speaker 2: And I know what I felt like, I have to
Speaker 2: ask you this, how did you find out that you
Speaker 2: were getting out.
Speaker 3: I was just in the celle like they had sent
Speaker 3: me back to prison, and I was doing what I
Speaker 3: do and one of my friends came up to me
Speaker 3: and he was like, man, you know you going home? Right?
Speaker 3: I was like what? He was like, Man, you going home?
Speaker 3: And he slid the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle to
Speaker 3: me under my door and it had my article right
Speaker 3: there on the front page, Judge vacate's conviction. Right. So
Speaker 3: I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh shit. So
Speaker 3: then you really start feeling like get me out of
Speaker 3: here right now? You know what am I doing here?
Speaker 3: Like you think you free now? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Trust I know that feeling about let me out now.
Speaker 2: But the DA can hold you in there to see
Speaker 2: if the city wants to retry the case. But luckily
Speaker 2: for you, the dad's a time Kamala Harris the one
Speaker 2: that wants you to wait and see what happens with
Speaker 2: the city. She was leaving office to take a new
Speaker 2: job as the California Attorney General. She was being replaced
Speaker 2: by a new DA George Gascon.
Speaker 3: The first major order of business he did was dismissed
Speaker 3: my case outright, like just straight up, just dismissed it,
Speaker 3: and and then I would be released January twelfth. January twelfth,
Speaker 3: two thousand and eleven.
Speaker 2: To George Gascon.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's a good thing right there.
Speaker 2: And you you have to explain, man, like what was
Speaker 2: that day like when you first walked out, Like what
Speaker 2: did you do?
Speaker 3: Of course, I was elated to be getting out, but
Speaker 3: now it's like fuck, like you know, I'm out of prison, now,
Speaker 3: what you know what I mean? Like I'm coming out
Speaker 3: of a controlled environment, extremely controlled environment to just basically
Speaker 3: be able to do what I want to do. So
Speaker 3: it was overwhelming, Like it was scary. It was I
Speaker 3: was happy about it, but it was it was just
Speaker 3: like I got to take this one day at a time.
Speaker 3: But then ultimately I just kind to you know, it's like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm finna take this head on out here,
Speaker 3: you know. And that's what I did. I never looked back,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: And now that you're free, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Well? When I first came home, like I was, I was,
Speaker 3: I was always like going to different law schools, you know,
Speaker 3: and talking talking to the first and second year law students,
Speaker 3: and I was doing this like all over the state,
Speaker 3: Like I was just going everywhere anywhere I was invited.
Speaker 3: Like I love talking about this story because it feels
Speaker 3: like it almost feels like it's not me I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: you know. And I kind of always say I was
Speaker 3: already free mentally, spiritually, I was already free. They just
Speaker 3: physically had my body. So I was very focused, like
Speaker 3: prior to getting out of prison, like, I was very
Speaker 3: focused on how I was going to live my life,
Speaker 3: what I was going to do. One of the main
Speaker 3: things was to be able to get back into prison,
Speaker 3: to be able to walk back through that visiting room
Speaker 3: as a free person, you know, with people that I
Speaker 3: literally grew up with in prison because I spent at
Speaker 3: that point, half my life in there, So that was
Speaker 3: one of the most empowering things was to be able
Speaker 3: to get approved by the CDC to come back in
Speaker 3: and visit, you know, and that's where I met you. Yep,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: I was serving the life sentence and you came in
Speaker 2: and that's how I met you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So from that point it was all about, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know all these great stories and different people in prison,
Speaker 3: and I always say prison is one of the most
Speaker 3: untapped markets for creative So in twenty sixteen, I ultimately
Speaker 3: created a production company, Lifted Clouds, and the goal there
Speaker 3: was to just bring a lot of guys content books,
Speaker 3: you know, personal stories, you know, all of this to
Speaker 3: the public, you know, because it's some amazing it's some
Speaker 3: amazing people in there.
Speaker 2: Caramel Connley, we thank you for definitely telling us your
Speaker 2: story of being I appreciate you convicted in California, man,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad you out here like doing your thing, man,
Speaker 2: and appreciate everything you're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate y'all having me on here.
Speaker 2: So Karama, you know, I always wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 2: So now we're coming to what's called closing arguments. Do
Speaker 2: you have any final thoughts, any epiphanies, what would you
Speaker 2: like to share with the wrong full conviction listeners?
Speaker 3: You know, I would just say that. You know, It's
Speaker 3: like there's this this kind of myth where people say,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody in prison say always say they're innocent, right,
Speaker 3: Everybody says they're innocent when they're in prison, And that's
Speaker 3: a myth, honestly. Like there are guys, most of the
Speaker 3: guys that I was in prison with, they said they
Speaker 3: did the crime, they just didn't believe they should have
Speaker 3: got the time that they got. Like I said, essentially
Speaker 3: a life without parole since is a death sentence. But
Speaker 3: imagine if they would have gave me the death penalty
Speaker 3: and I would have actually died on death row, you know,
Speaker 3: and then you see all of it. Yeah, So that's
Speaker 3: the scary part about all of this. We think our
Speaker 3: systems are perfect, and they're not. They're not. They need
Speaker 3: to be absolutely reformed from the inside out. And I'm
Speaker 3: gonna tell you so much might come as a surprise.
Speaker 3: I'm not anti law enforcement by no mean, you.
Speaker 2: Know, so, do you still want to be a SWAT member?
Speaker 3: I am a SWAT member, just in a different way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also's and one thing I can say out this whole story, man,
Speaker 2: is uh, you got the best name because your name
Speaker 2: is what got you back into the game.
Speaker 3: So no doubt.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: I thank my father and my mom for that, because
Speaker 3: growing up it was hell having that name because nobody
Speaker 3: can pronounce it right, you know. Shout out to my
Speaker 3: mom and pops, you know, for that.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
Speaker 2: Erline Woods. I like to think of our executive producer
Speaker 2: Jason Flumm and Kevin Watis. The senior producer for this
Speaker 2: episode is Jackie Paul and our producers are Lila Robinson
Speaker 2: and Jeff Cleiburn. Our editor is Rook Sandra Guidy. The
Speaker 2: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 2: composer Jay Raff. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Rome Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 2: for Good. On all three platforms, you can find me
Speaker 2: on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Erline Woods and check
Speaker 2: out ear Hustle, the podcast I co created with Nirapoor
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. We also wrote a book
Speaker 2: called This is Ear Hustle, Unflinching stories of everyday prison life.
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 2: and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 1: On next week's guest hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, my
Speaker 1: friend and personally hero ex Hoonery and musician Jimmy Dennis
Speaker 1: is going to interview Chester Holman the Third about their harrowing,
Speaker 1: tragic shared experiences of having been locked up in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: for crimes they didn't commit. Now, both men were put
Speaker 1: away by the notorious, infamous and even I'm going to say,
Speaker 1: evil prosecutor Roger King, who get this. He put more
Speaker 1: people on death row than anyone else in Pennsylvania history.
Speaker 1: And we know a bunch of them were innocent. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of guys will never know about who
Speaker 1: we put on death row who are innocent as well.
Speaker 1: It's sickening, but it's a mustier story. It's going to
Speaker 1: be on Monday in the Ronful Conviction podcast feed