Speaker 1: Since our initial release of Rodney Long's story, there have
Speaker 1: been some incredible developments, and this is a re release
Speaker 1: of that story with new content outlining the great news.
Speaker 1: At around nine forty five on the night of April
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, the fifty four year old
Speaker 1: widow of a Cannon Mills executive was at her home
Speaker 1: and Conquered, North Carolina when a man grabbed her from behind.
Speaker 1: She fought him, scratching her attackers so hard that her
Speaker 1: nails bent backwards, but ultimately he overpowered and raped her.
Speaker 1: She described her assailant as a light skinned black man
Speaker 1: with no mention of facial hair, wearing a dark leather
Speaker 1: coat and a beanie hat. A rape kit was done
Speaker 1: and the police carefully collected a mountain of forensic evidence. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: across town, nineteen year old Ronnie Long was at home
Speaker 1: with his mother, on the phone with the mother of
Speaker 1: his own two year old son till ten PM. A
Speaker 1: few days later, Ronnie received court summons for trespassing in
Speaker 1: a park after hours. He was wearing a dark leather
Speaker 1: coat at the time. Police would ask the rape victim
Speaker 1: to be present in court to see if her attacker
Speaker 1: was present on the day Ronnie, the owner of a
Speaker 1: dark leather coat, was scheduled to appear disguised. She sat
Speaker 1: in the gallery for two hours in Ronnie's presence, only
Speaker 1: to identify him as her attacker when his name was called.
Speaker 1: The state would present a case without any of the
Speaker 1: collected forensic or biological evidence, solely resting their case upon
Speaker 1: this extremely unorthodox and totally unreliable cross racial identification and
Speaker 1: Ronnie's unscratched leather coat. For that, Ronnie has been in
Speaker 1: prison for forty four years. This is wrongful conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flatta, Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's case Will
Speaker 1: It's going to upset you. I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: right now this is a grotesque injustice that was inflicted
Speaker 1: and is still being inflicted on an amazing man named
Speaker 1: Ronnie Long. And we're hoping to hear from Ronnie during
Speaker 1: the recording. He'll be calling in from prison where he
Speaker 1: has been since nineteen seventy six for a crime he
Speaker 1: didn't commit. In this time of COVID, there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of complications, so we're going to try to make it
Speaker 1: work with us now as well. Is Jamie Lao Jamie
Speaker 1: is an attorney at Duke University's Wrongful Convictions Clinic. And Jamie,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do something unusual here. I actually want
Speaker 1: to start at the end. We almost know ever do that.
Speaker 1: But there's a quote from a judge named James Wynn,
Speaker 1: who's a circuit court judge in the fourth District Court.
Speaker 1: So this is a serious guy. And Judge Wynn said,
Speaker 1: and I quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense
Speaker 1: council in the world, not only in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: but in the history of this country would have wanted
Speaker 1: or needed, and which should have been supplied, and yet
Speaker 1: we did not provide it. He goes on to say,
Speaker 1: what is it about us that we want to prosecute
Speaker 1: and keep people in jail when we know evidence may
Speaker 1: exist that might lead to a different conclusion. Why is
Speaker 1: that so offensive to us now that we want to
Speaker 1: protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? What's the
Speaker 1: harm of looking at the new evidence? He said? When
Speaker 1: did justice leave the process? So we let our rules
Speaker 1: blind us to what we all can see. Wow.
Speaker 2: Well, during the course of argument, it made us optimistic
Speaker 2: that after forty four years, an end may be near
Speaker 2: to the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case. It's been
Speaker 2: an incredible difficult journey through the courts to get his
Speaker 2: case to where it was. On May seventh of this year,
Speaker 2: you said we'll start at the end, and the end
Speaker 2: at this point in time was an argument on May
Speaker 2: seventh in front of the full Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,
Speaker 2: which is fifteen active judges all have been appointed by
Speaker 2: a President judge when was making that quote in response
Speaker 2: to arguments from the State of North Carolina that more
Speaker 2: or less was asking the court to disregard all the
Speaker 2: evidence that is now known about in this case that
Speaker 2: was hid from Ronnie at the time of his trial
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six. And Judge Winn also discussed sort
Speaker 2: of the circumstances of nineteen seventy six and the conditions
Speaker 2: of black mails, particularly in the South in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: and how they were wrongfully convicted in great numbers. So
Speaker 2: at the moment Judge Wynn offered his viewpoints during the
Speaker 2: course of the stakes argument, we knew that we had
Speaker 2: succeeded in conveying to the court, the seriousness and the
Speaker 2: magnitude of the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case.
Speaker 1: As promised, we got a phone call from Ronnie, and
Speaker 1: I must warn you that there was a poor connection
Speaker 1: with the prison. So Ronnie's a little hard to hear.
Speaker 1: But what he has to say needs to be heard,
Speaker 1: so please bear with us.
Speaker 3: You have a pre paid call. You will not be
Speaker 3: charged for this call. This call is from an inmate
Speaker 3: Albemarle Correctional Institution. This call will be monitored and recorded.
Speaker 3: To accept this call, Prince, I've now to decline this
Speaker 3: call hang out. Thank you for using Global tail link.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi Ronnie, thanks for calling me. I know we
Speaker 1: have limited time, so let's get right into it now.
Speaker 1: You grew up and conquered North Carolina, right, seven brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. Can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: your life before all of this horrible stuff happened.
Speaker 4: I played sports when I was in high school. Right
Speaker 4: wait to call for I learned how to link with
Speaker 4: such songs. That's kind of of work I was doing
Speaker 4: with my dad. I'll go to work with him sometime,
Speaker 4: take money with him. I had a son. I spent
Speaker 4: a lot of time with my sons to cool in
Speaker 4: the game the game when I never streeted with three.
Speaker 1: Now I read about this one time before you had
Speaker 1: your son, way before the incident that lands you in prison,
Speaker 1: there was an encounter that you once had with some
Speaker 1: police officers. They they pulled up on you, harassed you
Speaker 1: a bit, hey, you know what you're doing around here?
Speaker 1: Boy type of thing, and you responded, isn't this America?
Speaker 1: All night? I free to walk on this sidewalk?
Speaker 4: That right, I was coming from a girl hell. I
Speaker 4: was coming from a girl house one night. The area
Speaker 4: that I was in, it was only this. I was
Speaker 4: coming home one night. The two white couple pull up
Speaker 4: behind me. That were you coming from? What are you
Speaker 4: doing in this area here? Did you walk home side here?
Speaker 4: They took me, took me downtown for me in a room.
Speaker 4: I stated a gave up too loud, but also came up,
Speaker 4: told me to go, you can leave. I just gotta
Speaker 4: walk up, went home.
Speaker 1: And that's it seems to be how he got to
Speaker 1: be on the radar of the local authorities. And then
Speaker 1: on the Faithful Day of Sunday, a twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, at around nine forty five pm, a wealthy, white,
Speaker 1: fifty four year old widow of a Cannon Mills executive
Speaker 1: was burglarized and raped an awful, awful crime, and Canon
Speaker 1: Mills was a major employer in the area, and that
Speaker 1: name's going to come to play a big role in this.
Speaker 1: In this story, the victim said that while she was
Speaker 1: preparing food for a beach trip the following day, a
Speaker 1: black man snuck into her home and grabbed her from behind.
Speaker 1: She said the intruder told her that he only had
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes as his friends were waiting for him outside
Speaker 1: like a horror movie, and he proceeded to rape her.
Speaker 1: She later described her attacker as a quote yellow looking
Speaker 1: and quote again not blue black, maybe wearing gloves, a
Speaker 1: beanie hat, no mention of any facial hair, and a
Speaker 1: dark leather coat. She also described the violent struggle where
Speaker 1: she scratched her attacker so hard that her fingernails bent backward,
Speaker 1: which would definitely have left the mark on that leather coat.
Speaker 1: The victim said that whenever she tried to move, he
Speaker 1: would slam her head against the ground. Then the phone rang,
Speaker 1: startling the attacker, who gathered his things and left through
Speaker 1: the front door. The victim then rushed over to her
Speaker 1: neighbors naked, where she was able to call the police,
Speaker 1: and they arrived around ten pm. The victim has since
Speaker 1: passed away, but that being said, she was rushed to
Speaker 1: the hospital for a rape kit and the doctor performed
Speaker 1: all the tests and collected all the biological evidence and
Speaker 1: everything else. What happened next is that Detective Eisenhower of
Speaker 1: the Concord Police Department arrived at the victim's home around
Speaker 1: ten thirty. He photographed the house and began collecting evidence,
Speaker 1: including latent fingerprints, carpet samples, suspect hair paint samples, as
Speaker 1: well as pieces of the victim's clothing and partially burned matches,
Speaker 1: and he later brought them to the State Bureau of
Speaker 1: Investigation office at Raleigh for examination. He also lifted a
Speaker 1: latent shoe print from a column near the porch. Now
Speaker 1: this is important. Later has nothing but the shoe print
Speaker 1: was ever discussed at trial. And before we go any further,
Speaker 1: we need to state clearly that Ronnie had a solid alibi.
Speaker 1: And remember the crime took place at nine five. Ronnie,
Speaker 1: at around nine thirty, you were at home with your
Speaker 1: mother waiting on your father to get back with the
Speaker 1: car so you could head out to a party in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: You were on the phone with the mother of your child.
Speaker 1: Your mom hopped on the phone a few times to
Speaker 1: say hello to her grandson.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, he on the phone too, but you can't
Speaker 4: all I understand what he's saying when he was trying
Speaker 4: to talk. He on the phone to my mom was
Speaker 4: on the phone, on the phone. I'm up on the
Speaker 4: phone and I'm waiting on my dad to come back
Speaker 4: with the card. One on to a party and shower.
Speaker 1: So Jamie, can you take us back to how Ronnie
Speaker 1: came to be implicated in it and how he could
Speaker 1: have possibly been convicted in spite of no evidence at all,
Speaker 1: none zero.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ronnie, very much like other young black men in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six and still today, was harassed by law
Speaker 2: enforcement officers. That harassment directly led to what ultimately becomes
Speaker 2: this forty four year old wrongful conviction. On April twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: the victim is assaulted and raped in her home. A
Speaker 2: few days after that, Ronnie receives a trespassing charge at
Speaker 2: the local park that was adjacent to his home when
Speaker 2: he shouldn't have been there, and during that time, it
Speaker 2: appears that he was observed wearing a black leather coat.
Speaker 2: The officer who stopped him recalled that the person who
Speaker 2: was described by the victim had been wearing a dark
Speaker 2: leather coat on the night of April twenty fifth when
Speaker 2: she gave a description to law enforcement, and despite Ronnie
Speaker 2: not matching other very prominent features that were included in
Speaker 2: her description, the officer decided that perhaps he was the
Speaker 2: individual who had assaulted the victim. I mean it was
Speaker 2: significant the disparities between her description of her assailant and Ronnie.
Speaker 2: She described her assailant as a yellow black male. In
Speaker 2: the South at the time, to describe somebody as a
Speaker 2: yellow black male meant a light skinned black person of
Speaker 2: mixed origin. She never mentioned her assailant having facial hair.
Speaker 2: Ronnie had facial hair, and disputed that he had facial
Speaker 2: hair on April twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, when she
Speaker 2: was assaulted. So despite him having a different complexion having
Speaker 2: facial hair, where she never described facial hair, he becomes
Speaker 2: a suspect. Officers then go to her home and says,
Speaker 2: we have reason to believe that the individual who had
Speaker 2: assaulted you will be in the courtroom on this date
Speaker 2: fifteen days later, May tenth, nineteen seventy six, and we'd
Speaker 2: like you to come down to the courtroom to see
Speaker 2: if you can identify the person who attacked you there.
Speaker 2: So immediately in her mind she thinks they've done some
Speaker 2: investigation and have identified a likely suspect. But all they
Speaker 2: had done is made the connect to the fact that
Speaker 2: Ronnie had a black leather coat similar to what she described.
Speaker 2: The real curious thing with respect to law enforcement asking
Speaker 2: the victim to go to the courthouse to try and
Speaker 2: make an identification is they had a picture of long
Speaker 2: that they could have shown her when they went to
Speaker 2: her and asked her to come to the courthouse, And
Speaker 2: they could have did it in a fair procedure, or
Speaker 2: as fair as these identification procedures can be, with the
Speaker 2: inclusion of fillers to ensure that she's selecting him from
Speaker 2: memory and not because he looks most like the attacker
Speaker 2: or because she's being presented a suspect in a very
Speaker 2: suggestive way. They elected to forego that. So she's the
Speaker 2: courthouse dressed in a disguise because she's fearful that if
Speaker 2: her attacker was there, he'd recognize her. She describes during
Speaker 2: her testimony being terrified. She sits in the courtroom for
Speaker 2: an hour and a half Inglong's presence and fails to
Speaker 2: identify him. And only when his name is called and
Speaker 2: he walks up to resolve the trespassing charge, which was
Speaker 2: dismissed that day, did she say he's the one. But
Speaker 2: it's telling because we later learned during her testimony at
Speaker 2: trial that there were only twelve black males in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: She quickly eliminated several of them because they had afros
Speaker 2: where they were older. She described one as being old
Speaker 2: and hunched over, and she says that he was the
Speaker 2: only one that looked remotely similar to her attacker. And
Speaker 2: identification evidence is already flawed and highly unreliable, but here
Speaker 2: you can just take her words that she's just picking
Speaker 2: the person looks most likely to be her attacker that's
Speaker 2: president in the courtroom, so she can end the experience
Speaker 2: where she's traumatized and terrified, so that in essence becomes
Speaker 2: the only evidence against law. And here we are, forty
Speaker 2: four years later, trying to undo that identification.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you brought that up, Jamie, because we
Speaker 1: know the most unreliable eyewitness identification is cross racial. This
Speaker 1: fits exactly into that category, and then, of course there's
Speaker 1: still room for it to get worse. So Ronnie, take
Speaker 1: us back to the day that you were in court
Speaker 1: for the misdemeanor trespassing charge, when you had no idea.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have had any idea that there was a
Speaker 1: rape victim in the gallery who was being led to
Speaker 1: believe that her attacker was in the courtroom that day.
Speaker 1: And the craziest thing is that you two were in
Speaker 1: each other's presence for nearly two hours before she idd you.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, there, misdemeanors just passed downtown. Now, I'm sitting
Speaker 4: there for nine o'clock. When she called my name, I
Speaker 4: stood up and we walked down front of me and
Speaker 4: my dad. This is when the police said. This is
Speaker 4: when they say that she had the same two detectives
Speaker 4: that was on this case, that been on this cape
Speaker 4: the whole time they were sitting in the Cury Fox.
Speaker 4: She testified that it was it got me twelve black
Speaker 4: in the courtroom. He's not any people in here looking
Speaker 4: like me. She's supposed to be looking far a young
Speaker 4: black man that assaulted her but she distinctly stated she's
Speaker 4: looked around and looked around and looked around into the
Speaker 4: trans trip, and I didn't see nobody. I want you,
Speaker 4: I want you to think about this. She said. She
Speaker 4: sitting in the courtroom man for over an hour and
Speaker 4: a half, looking around, and she never didn't see anyone.
Speaker 4: The people. Why she didn't see anyone else said because
Speaker 4: of this special that she gave the police for the
Speaker 4: light skinned black man with no hound in the face. I'm
Speaker 4: sitting up in there, and you understanding saying God's skin
Speaker 4: would hang on my favor, So I didn't ask another
Speaker 4: the description. You understudstand that she was looking for her.
Speaker 4: That's why I come. She couldn't pick me out, but
Speaker 4: she picked me out. Here, says say, when they called
Speaker 4: my name and run along, go to the front, run along.
Speaker 4: If you ain't court I said, yeah, we come down front.
Speaker 4: That's why she said she recognized. She ain't recognized me.
Speaker 4: She's recognized my name. You go, number one, How are
Speaker 4: you gonna sit in the courtroom ere stairs for a
Speaker 4: whole hour and a half. Ain't eleven it ain't but
Speaker 4: twelve blacks in them? You gonna sitting there for a
Speaker 4: whole hour and a half. You don't see this young
Speaker 4: black man that you're looking for. The reason you don't
Speaker 4: see it because she's not Yeah, he got, he got
Speaker 4: on his face. The court asked this woman, could the
Speaker 4: police department got told you to pick run alone? She said,
Speaker 4: they could have. I don't know. That's in the transition.
Speaker 4: They could have.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter
Speaker 1: of this episode of Rafel Convision with Jason Flahm, and
Speaker 1: of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and tech
Speaker 1: training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter
Speaker 1: the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the
Speaker 1: lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations that are dedicated
Speaker 1: primarily to helping young people and students. For more information
Speaker 1: on the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last
Speaker 1: Mile program, please visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the
Speaker 1: Lastmile dot org. This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin,
Speaker 1: Orton and Garrison, a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss
Speaker 1: has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro
Speaker 1: bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our
Speaker 1: society and in support of the public interest, including extensive
Speaker 1: work in the criminal justice area. So the victim makes
Speaker 1: this shaky identification, tells the detectives, but you've got no
Speaker 1: idea that any of this is going on. You're there
Speaker 1: for this misdemeanor charge, which gets dismissed, and then you
Speaker 1: go home. But that was not the last you'd see
Speaker 1: of law enforcement that day.
Speaker 4: Went home with thee I'll wake up a few whiles later,
Speaker 4: my mom Jelly.
Speaker 1: When Ronnie was picked up, he was not told that
Speaker 1: he was suspected of this raid. Instead, he arrived at
Speaker 1: the station at six forty five pm, was read as
Speaker 1: rights and the police claimed that they asked permission to
Speaker 1: search his car, but they hadn't, and then they testified
Speaker 1: to finding gloves, matchbooks, and a beanie in the car.
Speaker 1: Ronnie maintains that the gloves or head but the beamie
Speaker 1: was not.
Speaker 4: I followed the police downtown. I used to drive with
Speaker 4: gloves on, but when I get out of the car,
Speaker 4: I take my gloves off. I speak of my home,
Speaker 4: my son's value. I tried the car, I locked the door,
Speaker 4: I got on the black the other jacket. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 4: go up there, they kill me. I'm a suspecting a
Speaker 4: rapron kay, I'll take my keys up. They take my
Speaker 4: keys up the front out of the door with the
Speaker 4: same to the ticket that was in the courtroom that morning. Yo, man,
Speaker 4: without going with my keys, bring my keys back.
Speaker 1: Kill.
Speaker 4: They're just going to look in your car. You ain't
Speaker 4: got nothing to high here now, but yu, I ain't
Speaker 4: gave you permission to look at my car either. So
Speaker 4: they go down look at my car. They come back
Speaker 4: in and they got my She took another jacket off
Speaker 4: of me as a back gas, just some mother stuff.
Speaker 4: They had my gloves, They had lime green to bark
Speaker 4: that I had never seen a dead in my life.
Speaker 1: And for anyone who doesn't know, it's a boggle. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know if Toboggan is a hat like the
Speaker 1: one described by the victim in this case. So the
Speaker 1: police come back with what they claim to have found
Speaker 1: in your car. Go ahead, Ronnie, say God just.
Speaker 4: Got your car. If you won't beat hide them back
Speaker 4: when we think them investigations. Signed your name my hands.
Speaker 4: You gotta look on the people for me to study, said,
Speaker 4: sign your name my hand. You won't beat him Okay,
Speaker 4: I want my jacket, want my glove, but I don't
Speaker 4: know who. But I don't know. I want my glue.
Speaker 4: So I sent on the people time to sign out
Speaker 4: as a consci cop.
Speaker 1: So they tricked you in order to make it seem
Speaker 1: like you consented, and that way it would have made
Speaker 1: the search technically legal. They planted the lime green hatter toboggan.
Speaker 4: Now the police gotta line lead the bog and saying
Speaker 4: this is to happen in the perpetrator. I'm getting how long?
Speaker 4: Then I don't go where the man I ain't never
Speaker 4: heard of how longest hand side out? It's redish looking at.
Speaker 5: It his head.
Speaker 4: You got a line we had with red areas when
Speaker 4: I had definitely I got black hand long you see
Speaker 4: the red hair this man. This man as not. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know what's going to be. The state would
Speaker 4: never let me DNA test that had I won't have
Speaker 4: a hand day did they would do.
Speaker 1: So we now come to the conclusion that the police
Speaker 1: planted this beanie in the car so that they could
Speaker 1: have another you know, well really now that there is
Speaker 1: no other evidence, so that they could have something that
Speaker 1: they could use against him. And I say, something they
Speaker 1: could use against him, because remember all that evidence Detective
Speaker 1: Eisenhower collected from the crime scene. Well if the red
Speaker 1: hairs that they found in the beanie that are clearly
Speaker 1: not Ronnie's hair, bother, you just wait, because it's about
Speaker 1: to get way worse again. The crime scene evidence comes
Speaker 1: back from the stapue of investigation in Raleigh, and none
Speaker 1: of it matches Ronnie. But since the rich white widow
Speaker 1: of an executive of one of the biggest employers in
Speaker 1: town just idd him as her rapist rather than just
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, the just thing, the evidence never
Speaker 1: even made it to the prosecutor's office, let alone the defense.
Speaker 1: So the police withheld the evidence from both the defense
Speaker 1: and the prosecution. Let me just repeat that the police
Speaker 1: withheld the evidence not just from the defense, but from
Speaker 1: the prosecution, just in case the prosecution might have decided, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we got the wrong guy. That the
Speaker 1: police decided to play judge jury, and I mean they
Speaker 1: might as well played executioner, because poor Ronnie's been in
Speaker 1: prison for four for fucking years. I mean, this is yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just when I think I've heard it all,
Speaker 1: and Jamie, you're living this day in and day out. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, what can you add to that, because it
Speaker 1: gets worse from there.
Speaker 2: Right, So, they not only tested this evidence and it
Speaker 2: didn't match long. When it didn't match long, they made
Speaker 2: the decision that they wouldn't turn it over to the
Speaker 2: defense or the prosecution, which we contending. We argued this
Speaker 2: at the May seventh hearing that we had in this case,
Speaker 2: that there's a possibility that the prosecutor could have decided
Speaker 2: not to go forward with this case at all had
Speaker 2: he known that all the forensic test results pointed away
Speaker 2: from Ronnie and towards another suspect. There was suspect hair
Speaker 2: collected brought to Raleigh, examined by the crime lab, determined
Speaker 2: by the crime lab to be in the parlance of
Speaker 2: the lab report of Negroid or Mongolian origin, meaning that
Speaker 2: it came from a person who was either Asian or black.
Speaker 2: And we know that that hair that was collected that
Speaker 2: was suspect hair, didn't match long. If it didn't match long,
Speaker 2: then the suspect, the person who should have been incarcerated
Speaker 2: for forty four years. There's the evidence of who that
Speaker 2: person's identity is. And it's remarkable in the fact that
Speaker 2: they believe this would be probative. They collected because they
Speaker 2: thought it would be probative. All indications are that it
Speaker 2: did come from the suspect, but when it didn't match Long,
Speaker 2: they kept it from everybody so the prosecutor would go
Speaker 2: forward on the basis of this completely unheard of identification procedure.
Speaker 2: And I have to tell you, Jason, I'm very skeptical
Speaker 2: whenever any client offers a suggestion that evidence may be planted.
Speaker 2: But as you look at this case and what officers
Speaker 2: did keeping evidence away from the prosecutor, it really makes
Speaker 2: you stop and say, oh, my goodness, this is completely
Speaker 2: consistent with the behaviors of the officers in this case.
Speaker 2: And then when Long says those are my gloves, but
Speaker 2: I've never seen that beanie in my life, you think
Speaker 2: why would he acknowledge owning one but not the other.
Speaker 2: And the only explanation is because the officers in this
Speaker 2: case set out to ensure Long was convicted. That included lying, hiding,
Speaker 2: and with the beanie, manufacturing evidence to ensure that he
Speaker 2: would spend the rest of his life incarcerating convicted for
Speaker 2: this crime. And for whatever reason, the state of North
Speaker 2: Carolina is just willing to ignore that altogether and continue
Speaker 2: to argue that Long is guilty of this crime.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, right, And there's no evidence that he ever
Speaker 1: owned a beanie. There's no photographs of him at a beanie.
Speaker 1: There's nobody knew about any beanie. There's also the fact
Speaker 1: that the victim had fought her attacker with all of
Speaker 1: her strength, and she had scraped the attacker so hard
Speaker 1: that her own nails bent back.
Speaker 4: You know, you take a leaven check. Did you spreached?
Speaker 4: Did you look at my mom a microscope? Ain't no
Speaker 4: where in the world you can have that splits. That's media. Yea,
Speaker 4: my coat, look up the microscope data on my coat.
Speaker 4: But yet still she's saying, that's the coat, that's the tacking,
Speaker 4: that's the perpetrator.
Speaker 2: Wolf.
Speaker 4: They won those clutches on me. They won no sludge
Speaker 4: o sircuit.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a good explanation for there being no scratches
Speaker 1: on you, your face, your leather coat. It's painfully simple.
Speaker 1: It's because you weren't there that night. But she i
Speaker 1: d'd you. They were trying to make the square fit
Speaker 1: the circle, and they were willing to bend the rules,
Speaker 1: bend break the rules. They planted evidence in your car
Speaker 1: and tried everything they could to make sure that they
Speaker 1: got a conviction in this case. And people were out
Speaker 1: in the street protesting as well.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So, but when they arrested you, they offered you a
Speaker 1: plea deal so they can make all of that public
Speaker 1: outcry just go away.
Speaker 4: No, they lock me when they love me, or they
Speaker 4: offered me a seven year treatment. They offered me a
Speaker 4: seven year of treaty, told me that I would be
Speaker 4: back home in three years, and they made it explicitly
Speaker 4: clear that if I didn't take the treat if it
Speaker 4: was charming for my life. So, I mean, I got
Speaker 4: people in the street industry, I got my family, I
Speaker 4: did in the street. I got people in the street.
Speaker 4: Dealer says that it's support me. I knew exactly what
Speaker 4: they wanted.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: They wanted to me the pe feed out to that
Speaker 4: charge so they could put it on front pains two
Speaker 4: old letters long. Tea was a great job. So alway, y'all,
Speaker 4: I got holler together and throwing things and then you're
Speaker 4: going home. But I knew I couldn't do that because
Speaker 4: number one, my dad said, I didn't really. So so
Speaker 4: you did something, you didn't do it. I turned down
Speaker 4: the tea, so I will face it too, Yester. God
Speaker 4: was a mysterious leading to it. Took me cool the
Speaker 4: same year, stayed in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: But then we get to the trial itself, and this
Speaker 1: is going to shock exactly no one. This is an
Speaker 1: all white jury conquered North Carolina nineteen seventy six. The
Speaker 1: jury was handpicked by the Cabres County sheriff. And get this,
Speaker 1: three of the members of the jury worked for Cannon Mills.
Speaker 1: And you'll remember that the victim's husband worked at Canon
Speaker 1: Mills as well.
Speaker 2: So the jury chairperson at the time created a master
Speaker 2: list of jurors. To get us summings for jury duty,
Speaker 2: you had to be on that list. And prior to
Speaker 2: Long's trial, he brought that list of mess their jurors
Speaker 2: first to the sheriff and allowed the sheriff to strike
Speaker 2: through any person on that list that the sheriff deemed
Speaker 2: unfit for jury duty. He then brought the list to
Speaker 2: the conquered police department, and testimony is that the chief
Speaker 2: of police and some of his deputies sat there and
Speaker 2: did the same. So law enforcement, the very people who
Speaker 2: investigated this case, ended up lying about this case, about
Speaker 2: the evidence collected in this case played a role in
Speaker 2: the selection of the jurors who ultimately found mister Long guilty.
Speaker 2: And in this trial, every single witness that testified for
Speaker 2: the State of North Carolina was white. Every single witness
Speaker 2: that testified on behalf of Ronnie Long to demonstrate his innocence,
Speaker 2: to prove his alibi, to show that he was nowhere
Speaker 2: near the victim's home on the night this attack occurred,
Speaker 2: was black. And by selecting an all white jury in
Speaker 2: segregated Concord, North Carolina, in nineteen seventy six, ultimately what
Speaker 2: we had was a circumstance where the jurors were being
Speaker 2: asked to decide between finding their neighbors truthful or finding
Speaker 2: the people from the other side of the tracks, the
Speaker 2: black side of town. They would have had to find
Speaker 2: them truthful over the officers who were their neighbors, who
Speaker 2: were the people who lived in their community, their side
Speaker 2: of town. That's what it would have taken to find
Speaker 2: Long not guilty. And of course we all know how
Speaker 2: it played out.
Speaker 1: And this courtroom, it was a racially divided court with
Speaker 1: blacks on one side and whites on the other. And
Speaker 1: of course, now the really awful result, a predictable result
Speaker 1: of this sham trial, was that on October first, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, with his whole life in front of him,
Speaker 1: Ronnie Long was convicted and sentenced to two life terms.
Speaker 1: His mother fainted and a riot nearly ensued. Long himself
Speaker 1: has called his conviction a quote modernized lynching sanctioned by law.
Speaker 4: When they found me guilty, they just started fighting in
Speaker 4: the courtroom.
Speaker 3: I started.
Speaker 4: My mom stopped, she said, behind me, grabbing afield. She said,
Speaker 4: Jillie Holbs, love that fills right there.
Speaker 3: Get that, Megan.
Speaker 4: I won't even rally the night.
Speaker 1: And listen to this. So after Long's conviction, concord bubbled
Speaker 1: over with fury. The next day, hundreds of protesters descended
Speaker 1: on the cities downtown, staging a demonstration in front of
Speaker 1: the courthouse, and for days fifty or more police officers
Speaker 1: in full riot gear stationed themselves at a nearby park,
Speaker 1: and the police chief warned protesters violence would be met
Speaker 1: with force. So I mean nothing has changed. And the bravery,
Speaker 1: the courage of these people who protested, putting themselves in
Speaker 1: grave danger from the same police force that had just framed,
Speaker 1: their friend, their neighbor, their fellow human.
Speaker 2: I had spoke with his trial counsel, Jim Fuller prior
Speaker 2: to the May seventh arguments, and he said, Jamie, I've
Speaker 2: only been maced one time in my life. And it
Speaker 2: was after the verdict when outbursts occurred in the courtroom
Speaker 2: and law enforcement decided to clear out all the supporters
Speaker 2: of LNG. And he said officers were beating a young
Speaker 2: man and he tried to pull the officers away, and
Speaker 2: they turned and sprayed him Long's trial attorney in the
Speaker 2: face with mace.
Speaker 1: Nothing has changed. It's really it's really hard to you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to be optimistic, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think we are on the verge of change. But
Speaker 1: it's remarkable how much things are as they were forty
Speaker 1: four years later. The post conviction litigation history. Can you
Speaker 1: walk us through that, Jamie, because it's quite extraordinary in
Speaker 1: and of itself.
Speaker 2: It's been a long process. So it began in the nineties.
Speaker 2: After he was convicted. He filed his first what we
Speaker 2: call here in North Carolina Emotions for Appropriate Relief. They're
Speaker 2: the post conviction review petitions that initiate post conviction proceedings,
Speaker 2: and it was related to the jury he was ruled
Speaker 2: against or in the course of those proceedings that was
Speaker 2: then appealed in federal court, arguing the same things, that
Speaker 2: he didn't commit the crime and that his trial was
Speaker 2: unfair in part because of the way in which the
Speaker 2: jury was seated, and he was ruled against sing federal court.
Speaker 2: Over the years, he tried to get people to help him,
Speaker 2: and then in two thousand and five, the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: that the University of North Carolina took interest in the case,
Speaker 2: and the present litigation began. They found an attorney to
Speaker 2: work with Ronnie. That attorney did all the work necessary
Speaker 2: to uncover not just the lies, but the evidence that
Speaker 2: was withheld from long at the time of his trial,
Speaker 2: and they went into state court and held an evidentiary
Speaker 2: hearing where the judge heard testimony related to the withholding
Speaker 2: of this evidence. That's a real interesting proceeding because the prosecutor,
Speaker 2: the individual who tried Ronnie along back in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: took the stand in testified for long that he didn't
Speaker 2: have copies of these reports. He didn't know that this
Speaker 2: testing was done. Had he known that it was done,
Speaker 2: he would have required that it been turned over. He
Speaker 2: also talked about a sexual assault kit that we haven't
Speaker 2: even talked about, that they collected one from the victim
Speaker 2: and then it subsequently disappeared.
Speaker 1: Jesus Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he testified for long, but despite all that, the
Speaker 2: judging State court ruled against long and found that he
Speaker 2: hadn't proven that his ranks were violated. The case then
Speaker 2: went to the North Carolina Supreme Court. There are seven
Speaker 2: justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court. One set out
Speaker 2: the decision, and as a result, the Supreme Court split
Speaker 2: three to three. So Tye went to the state. Ronnie's
Speaker 2: conviction was upheld and he was still incarcerated. It then
Speaker 2: went to an organization in North Carolina called the North
Speaker 2: Carolina Innocents Inquiry Commission. They reviewed the case and their
Speaker 2: focus was trying to find the sexual assault kit that
Speaker 2: was collected and disappeared. They did not find it, but
Speaker 2: they actually discovered that in two thousand and eight. During
Speaker 2: the course of those proceedings, officers lied again by saying
Speaker 2: that they had no physical evidence remaining in the case
Speaker 2: in their custody. Winning fact, they had all the latent
Speaker 2: fingerprints that had been collected from the crime scene. That's
Speaker 2: when I got involved and the other attorneys I work
Speaker 2: with at the Wrongful Convictions Clinic, we worked to file
Speaker 2: another Habeast petition on Ronnie's behalf. It was dismissed because
Speaker 2: the district Court said that we had failed to bring
Speaker 2: the fingerprint related evidence in state court prior to filing
Speaker 2: our Habeast petition. Of course, it would have been brought
Speaker 2: in state court had it not been hid during the
Speaker 2: time that the state post conviction litigation was ongoing. We
Speaker 2: appealed that dismissal. The Fourth Circuit reversed and sent it
Speaker 2: back to the district Court. Then the district Court once
Speaker 2: again granted a dismissal on behalf of the state. The
Speaker 2: district court said that while we had shown that evidence
Speaker 2: was withheld that it was favorable to Long, but that
Speaker 2: the state court was reasonable in determining that the evidence
Speaker 2: was immaterial to the outcome of his trial. So it
Speaker 2: was dismissed again, and we appealed that decision, which came
Speaker 2: in July of twenty eighteen. The Fourth Circuit Court of
Speaker 2: Appeals heard oral arguments. In May of twenty nineteen. A
Speaker 2: panel entered a decision two to one, saying that Long
Speaker 2: had failed to demonstrate the materiality of the evidence since
Speaker 2: the State Court again was reasonable. That decision came down
Speaker 2: in January of twenty twenty. We then asked for full
Speaker 2: court review, called a petition for rehearing in Bank. And
Speaker 2: what that triggers is that full fifteen judge review of
Speaker 2: the case. The court agreed to hear it while sitting
Speaker 2: in Bank and next to the argument we had in
Speaker 2: on May seventh of twenty twenty. So it's been a
Speaker 2: long fight to get to the point where we know
Speaker 2: that the judges are at least, you know, seeing the
Speaker 2: injustices here that we saw as evidence by the statement
Speaker 2: of Judge Win during the course of those oral arguments.
Speaker 1: Judge Winn said, quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any
Speaker 1: defense council in the world, not only in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: but in the history of this country would have wanted
Speaker 1: or needed, and which should have been supplied, and yet
Speaker 1: we did not provide it. What is it about us
Speaker 1: that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail
Speaker 1: when we know evidence may exist that might lead to
Speaker 1: a different outcome. Why is that so offensive to us
Speaker 1: now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty
Speaker 1: four years ago end quote. And of course he was
Speaker 1: referring to the illegal activity on the part of law
Speaker 1: enforcement in this case. So the fifteen judge panel for
Speaker 1: the enbuank Herring in the Fourth Circuit heard Ronney's case
Speaker 1: in May twenty twenty, and finally in August, they voted
Speaker 1: nine to six in Ronnie's favor to reverse the dismissal
Speaker 1: of his petition. Then the US District Court granted Ronnie's
Speaker 1: habeas write, setting him free on August twenty seventh, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: after forty four long years, and the very next day,
Speaker 1: the Cabrest County District Attorney dismissed the charges. I mean,
Speaker 1: I will never forget watching the live stream of your release.
Speaker 1: It was really emotional for me, so I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what it must have been like for you.
Speaker 5: I'm sitting on my bunk side come to meet Tim
Speaker 5: to say, yeah, hurry up. They brought to them clothed
Speaker 5: right now. I said, man, what's this, Wh'm going to court?
Speaker 5: He said, nah, Man, they told me release you.
Speaker 6: Just that quick.
Speaker 5: When that man told me.
Speaker 6: There your clothes right there. The wife is out there
Speaker 6: waiting on you.
Speaker 4: I come out.
Speaker 6: Listen if you look down and and shoe, my shoes
Speaker 6: ain't tired. My socks is in my back.
Speaker 5: I walked out on my wife birthday you're talking about.
Speaker 5: I mean elatement to walk out that gate after forty
Speaker 5: four years and turn around and look at it. I
Speaker 5: told myself when I looked at it, I would never
Speaker 5: ever go behind another bar, another locking key. They would
Speaker 5: never ever locked me up again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're fucking ay right about that. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: what did you do with the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was your wife, Ashley's birthday, as fate
Speaker 1: would have it, on top of everything else. So pretty
Speaker 1: nice gift for her, was you? I mean, can you
Speaker 1: walk us through that magical day?
Speaker 5: Doctor? The media who kissed my missus nephew kissed my wife.
Speaker 5: It had been about ninety days since I seen because
Speaker 5: of the COVID thing. Man, So me and my lawyer,
Speaker 5: my wife, a couple of friends with the restaurant state
Speaker 5: Bucaron and cheese, wasn't champagne and anything? Man, dam and
Speaker 5: man all yes, man were sitting around me talking man
Speaker 5: a duilation, being able man to.
Speaker 6: Breathe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, breathing free air after an amount of time that
Speaker 1: is incomprehensible to any of us. Roddie, I can't express
Speaker 1: how happy I am for you. And not long after
Speaker 1: your release, you filed for a pardon of innocence from
Speaker 1: Governor Cooper, who agreed to it in December twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and in March twenty twenty one you receive state compensation,
Speaker 1: which amounts to it's actually shockingly low, but nothing and
Speaker 1: nothing would ever be enough. It works out to about
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand dollars a year, which feels like a bit
Speaker 1: of a slap in the face, but there's really nothing.
Speaker 1: There's no amount that could replace all of that lost time.
Speaker 1: You can't get it back.
Speaker 5: Shit, I can't go back to May ten moncon simancy.
Speaker 6: So I mean, what can they give me? I would, though,
Speaker 6: like understand why, I mean, what type of person, what
Speaker 6: type of mentality you have when you know you send
Speaker 6: an innocent person to the gas tang.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's no answer to how someone could do
Speaker 1: that and just go home and sleep at night. And
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me and
Speaker 1: never will. Is there anything, though, that our audience can
Speaker 1: do to help you or any of the things you're
Speaker 1: trying to achieve.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, every day since I've been out. Man, it's
Speaker 5: a struggle. I gotta go fundme paid. Man, whatever it
Speaker 5: is you can help me with. I want you to
Speaker 5: know that I appreciate this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we'll definitely have that link to our bios,
Speaker 1: so please if you can scroll down and click the
Speaker 1: link and get involved.
Speaker 5: Hey, Jason, listen, I won't let you know man that
Speaker 5: I appreciate you having a platform for me to speak phone.
Speaker 5: So Jason, I won't thank you and your network man,
Speaker 5: stand and say for what you did for me and
Speaker 5: my calls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ronnie, look, I mean when I heard about your situation,
Speaker 1: all of us here at ron Ful Conviction Podcast we
Speaker 1: had to do whatever we could. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that helped. I'm honored that we were
Speaker 1: a part of helping you to win your freedom, and
Speaker 1: I hope we stay friends for a long long time.
Speaker 3: I know we will.
Speaker 1: So now we turn to the closing of our show.
Speaker 1: First of all, I just want to thank you, Ronnie
Speaker 1: for your courage, your strength, your grace. And now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on. Kick
Speaker 1: back in my chair, close my eyes, and just listen
Speaker 1: to whatever you want to share with me at our audience.
Speaker 5: Man, it's little look at what they first put me
Speaker 5: in that seal, and my mind started racing. And the
Speaker 5: only thing that I could keep telling myself was you got.
Speaker 6: To be strong.
Speaker 4: You got to be strong.
Speaker 6: You got it strong, got you strong.
Speaker 5: I took and built on the fact that, Man, I
Speaker 5: knew I didn't have know been to Dell. I built
Speaker 5: on the fact that, man, they were scandalizing my family name.
Speaker 6: They was scandalized in my name.
Speaker 5: It alied on me. When I say that alied on me, man,
Speaker 5: I'm talking about corruption. Corruption unlied on me. Man, don't
Speaker 5: put me in the penitentiary. And I knew that I
Speaker 5: could not let them get away with this shit. Be strong,
Speaker 5: be strong, be strong, health faith, health, faith, and know
Speaker 5: that you can overcome any obstacle, any barrier, any hurds
Speaker 5: in life if you apply yourself.
Speaker 2: The mind.
Speaker 5: When they say the mind is a terrible thing in
Speaker 5: the way, bain bullshit. It is you sit around for
Speaker 5: firsty four years and not do anything to utilize your
Speaker 5: medical capacity. Next thing, you know, man, you understand saying
Speaker 5: you walk around on psychotic drugs and everything because you cannot.
Speaker 6: Deal with the tension and the stress. It's helped. It's hard,
Speaker 6: I'm telling you, but your mind is the key, in
Speaker 6: your heart.
Speaker 5: Is your determination.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ronful with Jason Flamm. Please
Speaker 1: support your local innocence projects and go to the link
Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn
Speaker 1: and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one