Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in the United States,
Speaker 1: a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the guiding legal principles of
Speaker 1: the U s criminal justice system. But the flip side
Speaker 1: of the presumption of innocence is that once a person
Speaker 1: is found guilty by a jury, the burden of proof
Speaker 1: to overturn that conviction falls completely on them, and it's
Speaker 1: extremely difficult. It's so difficult that even if an attorney
Speaker 1: discovers overwhelming evidence, that still might not be enough to
Speaker 1: garner the person's release. That means, for a wrongfully convicted person,
Speaker 1: the uphill legal battle towards exoneration might prove impossible. Netflix
Speaker 1: series like Making a Murderer and podcasts like Serial demonstrate
Speaker 1: just how difficult it can be to even get a
Speaker 1: new tra aisle. That's where the work and legal expertise
Speaker 1: of organizations like The Innocence Project becomes so important. These
Speaker 1: organizations are dedicated to providing free legal services to innocent
Speaker 1: people behind bars so that they have a fighting chance
Speaker 1: of gaining their freedom in The Innocence Project was founded
Speaker 1: in New York City to exonerate the wrongfully convicted through
Speaker 1: DNA testing, and the nonprofit organization works to reform the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. By two four more organizations formed and
Speaker 1: began meeting at an annual conference. The association shifted to
Speaker 1: a loosely affiliated network with fifteen initial members and an
Speaker 1: executive board the following year. Today, the Innocence Network includes
Speaker 1: sixty seven member organizations around the world, fifty five of
Speaker 1: which are located in the United States, mostly housed in
Speaker 1: law schools. The organizations provide pro bono, that is, free
Speaker 1: legal services to people who have been convicted of crimes
Speaker 1: and are seeking to prove their innocence. Additionally, these organizations
Speaker 1: work to redress the causes of wrongful convictions and make
Speaker 1: improvements to the way the criminal justice system functions. You
Speaker 1: might think that if new DNA evidence is found even
Speaker 1: after a person is convicted, it's automatically tested to be
Speaker 1: sure the right person is behind bars. But that's not
Speaker 1: the case at all. When someone who's already convicted of
Speaker 1: a crime wants to have new DNA tested, they must
Speaker 1: request permission from the prosecutor. If the prosecutor won't agree,
Speaker 1: the defendant must file a motion to have it tested,
Speaker 1: and in that case, it must fit certain requirements of
Speaker 1: the state statute. That means questions must be answered, like
Speaker 1: would favorable DNA results create a reasonable probability that the
Speaker 1: defendant would not have been convicted at their original trial. However,
Speaker 1: because the defendant is already convicted and in prison, they
Speaker 1: no longer have the right to a court appointed attorney,
Speaker 1: and so any incarcerated person trying to prove their innocence
Speaker 1: must pay for an attorney to file that motion or
Speaker 1: help from an organization like the Innocence Project. If and
Speaker 1: when DNA gets tested, it doesn't always immediately exonerate the innocent,
Speaker 1: even if it's in their favor. Obtaining exoneration is a
Speaker 1: lengthy two step process. First, the original conviction must be
Speaker 1: vacated if DNA or other evidence comes back in favor
Speaker 1: of the defendant, and that means that the judge sets
Speaker 1: aside the original guilty verdict, and then the defendant returns
Speaker 1: to pre trial status, so it's as if they had
Speaker 1: never been tried and the original accusation remains. Before the
Speaker 1: wrongfully accused to be completely exonerated, either the district attorney
Speaker 1: or the court has to dismiss the indictment altogether. Usually
Speaker 1: that's the result when there's new evidence of their innocence.
Speaker 1: But we spoke with Vanessa Potkin, director of post conviction
Speaker 1: litigation at The Innocence Project, and she said in rare occasions,
Speaker 1: clients are brought to another trial and officially vindicated by
Speaker 1: a jury who acquits them. This is what happened in
Speaker 1: the case of an Any Right, who was retried after
Speaker 1: DNA testing in excluded him and implicated someone else rape
Speaker 1: and murder. He was convicted for in a new eleven
Speaker 1: day trial in twenty sixteen, found Right not guilty on
Speaker 1: all charges. The jury deliberated for less than an hour.
Speaker 1: It took three years between Rights DNA results and the
Speaker 1: new trial, which seems like a long time to wait,
Speaker 1: but it's not extensive in these type of cases. An
Speaker 1: average wrongful conviction case takes about seven years, according to Potkin.
Speaker 1: She said it's relatively easy to be wrongfully convicted and
Speaker 1: extraordinarily difficult to be exonerated from a wrongful conviction. Other
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted people don't have time to wait for a
Speaker 1: new trial. Take the case of Elvis Brooks. Brooks, a
Speaker 1: black man, was sentenced to life in prison in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, when he was just a teenager, for murder
Speaker 1: and for armed robbery of a bar in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: The conviction was based only on the eyewitness testimony of
Speaker 1: three white strangers who had been inside, but there was
Speaker 1: other evidence fingerprints left on two beer cans on the
Speaker 1: bar by the real perpetrators. This evidence was suppressed by
Speaker 1: the prosecutors who convicted him. It was never provided to
Speaker 1: Brooks or his attorneys. When the Innocence Project New Orleans
Speaker 1: learned of the fingerprint evidence, they filed an application for
Speaker 1: post conviction relief in January of twenty nineteen, alleging Brady violations,
Speaker 1: which means the government failed to disclose evidence favorable to
Speaker 1: the accused. The state objected, but the Orleans Parish District
Speaker 1: Attorney's office gave Brooks two choices, plead guilty to the
Speaker 1: lesser offenses of manslaughter and three counts of armed robbery
Speaker 1: and be immediately freed or remain in prison awaiting a
Speaker 1: new trial that could take years. Brooks, who was sixty
Speaker 1: two at the time, chose the plea and was released.
Speaker 1: Many of the exonerated except these deals with the devil
Speaker 1: just to be freed, but in exchange they can never
Speaker 1: receive compensation from the state or five al civil suits
Speaker 1: for wrongful convictions. Some plea deals also protect the prosecutors
Speaker 1: from disciplinary action, and in the eyes of the law,
Speaker 1: Brooks is still guilty of crimes he adamantly denies committing.
Speaker 1: In a statement, one of brooks attorneys at Innocence Project
Speaker 1: New Orleans, Shrell Arnold, said Elvis Brooks was wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: and it is wonderful that he is being reunited with
Speaker 1: his family after forty two years. Mr Brooks never sought
Speaker 1: a plea agreement. It is deeply unfair that an innocent
Speaker 1: man would be forced to choose between entering a plea
Speaker 1: to secure his immediate freedom and waiting years more in
Speaker 1: prison to prove his innocence through litigation. The situation is
Speaker 1: particularly unfair given that the state has known about the
Speaker 1: new evidence presented in this case since nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: Both Brooks and Wright have told the lawyers that the
Speaker 1: Innocence Projects that worked with them that they are the
Speaker 1: fortunate ones right told the Innocence Project people have been
Speaker 1: so kind and so warm toward me, so gracious towards me.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to all those bowl Even on the street,
Speaker 1: wherever I go, people hug me or they want to
Speaker 1: shake my hand. It's so humbling to me because I'm
Speaker 1: no different from anybody else. When I tell people that
Speaker 1: I'm the luckiest guy in the world, they look at
Speaker 1: me like, yeah, right, and they laugh. People don't have
Speaker 1: an idea. Man, I am the luckiest man in the world,
Speaker 1: and not just for one reason, but for a whole
Speaker 1: lot of reasons. Unlike Brooks, who can't seek compensation for
Speaker 1: his wrongful incarceration, some exonorees can receive financial reimbursement and
Speaker 1: services to help them adjust to a life of freedom.
Speaker 1: Whether they are entitled to a financial reward and how
Speaker 1: much varies by state. But what none of them can
Speaker 1: ever get back are the years of missing out on
Speaker 1: their lives and those of their family and friends. As
Speaker 1: of January, the Innocence Project has documented more than three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five DNA exonerations in the United States alone,
Speaker 1: twenty one we're on death row. Nearly all were wrongfully
Speaker 1: convicted of sexual assault and or murder, and despite being
Speaker 1: innocent of the crimes. Approximately to confessed an eleven percent
Speaker 1: had pleaded guilty. These innocent people spent an average of
Speaker 1: fourteen years in prison. Today's episode was written by Kerry
Speaker 1: Whitney with thanks to Keith Finley, and was produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: legal topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is
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