Speaker 1: When I interviewed Darnell Phillips in the spring of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: it was actually a heard interview for me to do
Speaker 1: this gentle giant of a man who had never been
Speaker 1: in trouble. I was studying to be a minister, was
Speaker 1: just starting his life as a teenage young man. Was
Speaker 1: wrong for the convicted since to one hundred and seven
Speaker 1: years in prison, he was released conditional release even after
Speaker 1: he proved his innocence with DNA, still restricted in his movements,
Speaker 1: and yet he has not let any of this hold
Speaker 1: him back. Just this year he started his dream business,
Speaker 1: a mobile auto detailing business called Redemption Auto Detailing LLC.
Speaker 1: Redemption Auto Detailing. Yet he's a minister. It's incredible. When
Speaker 1: I heard that name, I almost fell on the floor.
Speaker 1: Darnell is a pro at taking people's beat up looking
Speaker 1: cars and making them look like brand new. Therefore Redemption
Speaker 1: Auto Detailing, and he has a sort of a joy
Speaker 1: about the way he goes about life, but also just
Speaker 1: the way that he approaches his job. And as a result,
Speaker 1: the business is growing and flourishing. It's in Virginia. Look
Speaker 1: him up. His Instagram is at darn phill nineteen that's
Speaker 1: dar and Phil the number nineteen. Follow Darnell and you
Speaker 1: will be inspired because he is hitting it out of
Speaker 1: the park. He got engaged to a wonderful woman. What
Speaker 1: can you say about a guy who served almost three
Speaker 1: decades in prison of one hundred and something year sentence
Speaker 1: for a crime everybody knew he didn't commit. That victim
Speaker 1: came forward, everybody came forward, and yet spent not a
Speaker 1: minute of time feeling sorry for himself and is living
Speaker 1: his best life. Darnell, if you're listening, you have all
Speaker 1: my respect and for all you wrongful conviction listeners, I'm
Speaker 1: super excited for you to hear this episode.
Speaker 2: This Paul is from a correction facility.
Speaker 3: And it's subject to monitoring and recording.
Speaker 4: Fact eleven embarism, Okay, and it hasn't been easy.
Speaker 5: One hundred years, that's man. I'm a kid. I didn't
Speaker 5: do anything, you know, and uh you know that was ah,
Speaker 5: that was real painful, man. No, because my life was
Speaker 5: discarded as if you know, like I was a piece
Speaker 5: of trash or something, you know. One hundred years and
Speaker 5: I had dreams and I wanted to do things. I
Speaker 5: wasn't committing crimes, you know, I was a very good
Speaker 5: young man.
Speaker 6: That is what happened in so many cases. The cops
Speaker 6: have a hunch because are so smart at the scene,
Speaker 6: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
Speaker 6: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
Speaker 6: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
Speaker 6: many of these wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: They open it to sell door and I walk down
Speaker 2: stif and I actually walked down stairs to be outside.
Speaker 2: It felt very strange to be, like I said, to
Speaker 2: be walking without no shackles on my feet. I thought
Speaker 2: it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm that's me. I'm your host, and today we
Speaker 1: have Darnelle Phillips, wrongfully in prison for twenty eight years
Speaker 1: and only released back on September twenty fifth. Welcome, Glad
Speaker 1: you're here.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I always say I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy
Speaker 1: you're here. And with him, Lisa SPE's is here and
Speaker 1: she runs Virginians for Judicial Reform. And Lisa and I
Speaker 1: have been working closely together for a while now on
Speaker 1: some Virginia cases. So I'm glad you're here as well.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So, Darnell, your case is troubling in so many ways. Yes,
Speaker 1: the fact that you were ever prosecuted for this case
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 5: And let's go back.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a really brutal case. It's a
Speaker 1: violent rape of a ten year old girl, white girl,
Speaker 1: and Darnell is larger than life blackmail, and we know
Speaker 1: the cross racial identifications are incredibly unreliable. But let's not
Speaker 1: even go there yet. How did this ever come to
Speaker 1: pass in the first place? You didn't match the description.
Speaker 1: There's so much misconduct and so many mistakes both I
Speaker 1: think deliberate and accidental in your case. But let's go
Speaker 1: back to where did this happen? How did this happen?
Speaker 1: How did you first get wrapped up in it at all?
Speaker 5: In Virginia Beach in August nineteen ninety, I was in
Speaker 5: the process of trying to to do something like you
Speaker 5: do with music. You know, I was a young guy.
Speaker 5: You know, you want to make money, you want to
Speaker 5: try to, you know, go after your dreams. It just
Speaker 5: so happened to meet a young man from New York
Speaker 5: at the gym where he used to box at and
Speaker 5: so I saw that he was interested in music. When
Speaker 5: I said, well, you know what, I have another friend
Speaker 5: who goes to Norfolk State, the DJ. We can get together,
Speaker 5: maybe we can get this demo. We wanted to try
Speaker 5: to do it for this rap group called Public Enemy,
Speaker 5: and you know, in the early nineties. And so one
Speaker 5: of the days that I was over Michael's house, it
Speaker 5: was raining outside. When the rain began to settle down,
Speaker 5: we went back outside. We were laughing, just doing things,
Speaker 5: smoking a cigar, just talking futuristic things. You know. We
Speaker 5: had man, I would love to, you know, be a
Speaker 5: music producer, and you know he's talking about y'all I
Speaker 5: love to rap. And so when we got I'm not
Speaker 5: even ten steps outside of his house, there was a
Speaker 5: guy walking by and he asked could I have a light?
Speaker 5: Gave him a light and everything. So we went walked
Speaker 5: around the corner. That just so happened. Police they rolled up.
Speaker 5: And when they rolled up, we were like, well, what's
Speaker 5: going on, officer? He said, well, young girl had just
Speaker 5: been raped. We're like, whoa, We said, somebody just walked
Speaker 5: by us. We told him. They went that way back
Speaker 5: towards a place called corporate apartments. It was a military
Speaker 5: housing unit, and so he said, well, will you be
Speaker 5: around because in case we need to talk to you.
Speaker 5: He said, what, sure, but we didn't say anything. About
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes later, the auser came back through. He spoke
Speaker 5: with us. I was eighteen, Michael was sixteen. Spoke with
Speaker 5: Michael about, you know, where had he been and but
Speaker 5: Michael really didn't fit the description. So I was like, well,
Speaker 5: he's been with me, so there's no way in the
Speaker 5: world he could have been doing a type of crime.
Speaker 5: I had an all brown and black. They were looking
Speaker 5: for a man that had great shorts on white and
Speaker 5: green with the number forty two on the jersey. So
Speaker 5: you know, obviously I didn't fit the description. I wasn't
Speaker 5: the person's hired or anything. But nevertheless, they said, well
Speaker 5: can you try this hat on? But I was like, well,
Speaker 5: I didn't wants to try a hat on or whatever. Right,
Speaker 5: I had a hat I guess similar to the person
Speaker 5: who did the crime. It's like a Chicago Bulls hat.
Speaker 5: So Michael put the hat on. They snapped a picture.
Speaker 5: Then they asked me willingly. I said, yeah, sure, no problem.
Speaker 5: I put the hat on him. They snapped the picture
Speaker 5: the officer. He drove me home that night. That Friday,
Speaker 5: I was arrested. When I was arrested, they didn't tell
Speaker 5: me what I was arrested for. And it took some hours.
Speaker 5: Got down to the police station and spoke to a
Speaker 5: few detectives, you know, for like four hours probably. Then
Speaker 5: there was another detective came in, you know, unlike the
Speaker 5: other ones. And I grew up around police officers, you know,
Speaker 5: they were kind to us. Then they come through the neighborhood.
Speaker 5: We would speak with him. And when I spoke to
Speaker 5: the detective, he automatically started just belittling me. He moved
Speaker 5: your you know, you did the crime. I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: what are you trying to damage my life? Man? You know,
Speaker 5: like you're trying to hurt me. What are you doing?
Speaker 5: And so he just kept getting in my face and
Speaker 5: arguing at me and trying to get me to confess.
Speaker 5: He was trying to leave me on questions. I was
Speaker 5: smart enough, even though I was eighteen years old, I
Speaker 5: was smart enough to know that he was trying to
Speaker 5: pull me into a trap. I said, look, man, I said,
Speaker 5: I don't know what your situation is, but look, you
Speaker 5: got the wrong, man. I said, I have alibis and everything.
Speaker 5: Why while you doing this? He just said, well, look
Speaker 5: you told me. I said, I didn't tell you anything.
Speaker 5: I said, well, I'm not gonna sign anything. I said,
Speaker 5: you know, I didn't know. I said, I'm not signing anything.
Speaker 5: He's like, well, he said, that's make any difference. He said,
Speaker 5: who you think they're gonna believe me over you? He said,
Speaker 5: I'll take that young girl. He said, when I put
Speaker 5: in pig tails, and they'll look at you like an animal.
Speaker 5: I said, why are you doing so me? I put
Speaker 5: my head down because I said, I just want to
Speaker 5: go home, maybe my family, you know. And he told me,
Speaker 5: he said, well You're never going home. And so that
Speaker 5: right there he broke my heart. But nevertheless I still
Speaker 5: didn't't giving him what he wanted. He wanted me to
Speaker 5: just outright tell him I did it. I said, man,
Speaker 5: I just can't do that. Man. And after that was
Speaker 5: in jail that thirty Saturday morning. That Monday, I went
Speaker 5: to court. Next you know, I'm hearing I confessed and
Speaker 5: I had brutally raped this girl. And so I'm I'm
Speaker 5: caught up like what because I had an alibi witness
Speaker 5: I had a preacher's wife. She was in the house,
Speaker 5: her son, guy named Michael Northfleet, and a host of
Speaker 5: other guys who saw me that day that knew they
Speaker 5: I all had on all brown and black. I hadn't
Speaker 5: been out, and so I was a bit fuddled because
Speaker 5: the only move I made that they was to get
Speaker 5: to his house stay in his house. And when we
Speaker 5: saw the police later on, that was it.
Speaker 1: Well, Lisa, there were all these signs. I mean, they
Speaker 1: weren't just ignored. They were I mean, his rights were
Speaker 1: trampled on. We know that because I mean when you
Speaker 1: get an officer actually lying about a confession, we know
Speaker 1: about false confessions. This wasn't even that, this was a
Speaker 1: non confession that they then just made up a story.
Speaker 1: He told you he was going to do it, and
Speaker 1: he did do it right, Which is interesting too because
Speaker 1: he actually told you upfront, here's what I'm going to
Speaker 1: do to you. What would anybody feel in that situation
Speaker 1: other than why are you doing this to me? I'm
Speaker 1: not that guy. Like it's such a horrifying scenario, and
Speaker 1: especially like he said, as you did, as I did,
Speaker 1: I'm sure as Lisa did. We all grow up respecting
Speaker 1: authority figures expecting the uniform. We know that they're there
Speaker 1: to serve and protect and that they're the people you
Speaker 1: call if you're in trouble. Now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they are the people are trying to put you in trouble.
Speaker 1: So Lisa helped me out here because this is a
Speaker 1: bad one.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know how much I can help you
Speaker 3: out with it. I mean, it reminds me of so
Speaker 3: many other cases that we've heard about, the Central Park
Speaker 3: five and Jeff Daskovic and Andy Kreebeck, And I think
Speaker 3: the difference is that Darnell had the state of mind
Speaker 3: at the time that he just was not going to
Speaker 3: give a false confession, and clearly that officer knew that
Speaker 3: and he didn't care, and he was going to say
Speaker 3: that he did it anyway. And that's, you know, the
Speaker 3: story that they continue to say that Darnell confessed, and
Speaker 3: that's what they've stuck to for twenty eight years. So
Speaker 3: in the recent court decision, it still continues to state that,
Speaker 3: you know, Darnell confessed, which we just know is patently false.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get to that later because there's
Speaker 1: a whole long tail on this story, right you know,
Speaker 1: he's still being persecuted by the state, even after having
Speaker 1: been proven innocent, and even after the victim coming forward
Speaker 1: repeatedly and really begging the authorities to reverse this and
Speaker 1: realizing that she had made a mistake. And we can
Speaker 1: get into that too, and how she was really coerced
Speaker 1: into implicating you. Obviously, when someone endures a traumatic experience,
Speaker 1: which hers can't be more traumatic than what this poor
Speaker 1: girl went through, they're going to be prone to misidentifying
Speaker 1: someone or making mistakes, even if everybody does their job
Speaker 1: the way they're supposed to. That's not what happened here.
Speaker 1: But what they're probably not going to make a mistake
Speaker 1: on is identifying the color of the clothes, right, facial characteristics, height, Right,
Speaker 1: she's not sitting there with you know, a grass to
Speaker 1: be able to show how tall you are, how much
Speaker 1: you weigh. They could be off by twenty thirty fifty
Speaker 1: pounds even who knows. But they're not going to make
Speaker 1: a mistake on the color of the clothes, not that
Speaker 1: big of a mistake. It's not like it was gray
Speaker 1: or you know, light black, or you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like you were wearing completely different clothes, brown.
Speaker 5: And black Paisley black pants, brown and black Paisley shirt.
Speaker 5: Chicago Bulls had person they were looking at had a
Speaker 5: white and green jersey with the numbers forty two. She
Speaker 5: described that person is being a little older, out of shape.
Speaker 5: At the time, I used to run every morning, so
Speaker 5: I was like one hundred and seventy pounds. I should
Speaker 5: train with my cousin, you know, go boxing and everything.
Speaker 5: So you know, I was slim and trim, you know.
Speaker 5: And the sad part about it was that that brown
Speaker 5: and black garment. They paraded it around in court as
Speaker 5: if that was the white and green shirt, as if
Speaker 5: they implicated me with guilt. And I'm like, are they
Speaker 5: seeing this? The jury, I'm like, are you seeing this?
Speaker 5: This is a brown and black shirt, then someone with
Speaker 5: white and green.
Speaker 1: This is not like that thing that went around on
Speaker 1: the internet a while ago where it was a dress
Speaker 1: gold or is it blue? Right, and there was this
Speaker 1: whole This is not that. This is cut and dry.
Speaker 1: Anybody with eyes can tell the difference between those colors.
Speaker 1: It's not tricky. But speaking of tricky, I mean, the
Speaker 1: only word I can think of for it is disgusting
Speaker 1: on a number of levels, which is what they did
Speaker 1: to influence this young girl to implicate you, right, they
Speaker 1: were willing to go to extreme lengths to let's just
Speaker 1: call it, get this case off their desk, Lisa, Can
Speaker 1: you talk about some of the things that they did
Speaker 1: to influence this young girl who was so impressionable at
Speaker 1: this point and so damaged and so upset.
Speaker 3: So the victim in this case was a ten year
Speaker 3: old female who had been brutally sexually assaulted. She could
Speaker 3: not identify anyone when they came to speak with her,
Speaker 3: and they influenced her by telling her that Darnell had
Speaker 3: in fact confessed, but that they couldn't use the confession
Speaker 3: against him. They told her that her blood was found
Speaker 3: on Darnell's underwear. They told her that Darnell had committed
Speaker 3: similar crimes and been in trouble in the past, all
Speaker 3: of which were absolutely false, and they told her this
Speaker 3: to influence her to give an identification of Darnell to
Speaker 3: maintain the charge and also to get a conviction in
Speaker 3: a trial. Yeah, I mean disgusting. I don't even think
Speaker 3: begins to cover doing that to someone, because not only
Speaker 3: are you doing this to Darnell, who they knew was innocent,
Speaker 3: it's not a mistake. It's not an innocent mistake. In
Speaker 3: this case, they knew he was innocent. And it's not
Speaker 3: just leaving a predator on the street who's most likely
Speaker 3: going to commit another crime like this, but you're also
Speaker 3: committing a fraud on a ten year old victim who
Speaker 3: was sexually assaulted and her family who all had to
Speaker 3: go through that, and then twenty eight years later she
Speaker 3: finds out that it's all been a lie. And think
Speaker 3: about what kind of wrapping your mind around that would
Speaker 3: do to you after going through that kind of an
Speaker 3: experience as a child, and now having a wrap your
Speaker 3: mind around that you know you were part of this
Speaker 3: fraud as well, I mean unknowingly didn't do anything wrong
Speaker 3: on her own. She was told this, and of course
Speaker 3: we all believe the police. When you're ten and you
Speaker 3: go through something like that, all of us would believe that.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to the girl, I was getting
Speaker 1: the chills while you were talking, because I was thinking,
Speaker 1: who's to say that this guy who's still out on
Speaker 1: the streets wasn't going to go back and rape her again?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: She was in danger, and look, maybe they couldn't have
Speaker 1: caught him anyway. Maybe he had disappeared into thin air
Speaker 1: or gone to Canada or who knows right, but if
Speaker 1: he was around, there was a way to find him.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is Virginia Beach too, This is not
Speaker 1: a tiny little town. They have resources, right, They have
Speaker 1: trained professionals that could have gone and done the hard
Speaker 1: work to go find this guy.
Speaker 3: Well, the tourism industry in Virginia Beach is very strong,
Speaker 3: as well as the military community, and I think for
Speaker 3: both of those things, you know, you would want to
Speaker 3: find the actual perpetrator rather than just lock somebody up and,
Speaker 3: like you said, get the file off their.
Speaker 1: Desk and give the public the false impression that everything's
Speaker 1: safe now and you can go out and do your thing,
Speaker 1: when in fact they should have been telling people to
Speaker 1: keep a careful eye on their kids while we're continuing
Speaker 1: this investigation. Don't let them go anywhere by themselves. I'm
Speaker 1: sure kids were just right back to riding their bikes
Speaker 1: and doing whatever they did in Virginia Beach back then,
Speaker 1: twenty eight years ago. Tarnell, let's talk about the trial.
Speaker 1: There you are with alibi witnesses, credible alibi witnesses. As
Speaker 1: you said, the preacher's daughter, and this and that, and
Speaker 1: like your friends, and you had an almost air tight case.
Speaker 1: How long were you in jail awaiting trial.
Speaker 5: I stayed in jail for like five months and I
Speaker 5: made bond. Here's how far the injustice goes, Jason. When
Speaker 5: I was in jail, my lawyer told me, I said, Darnelle, look,
Speaker 5: you don't have a record, and there are certain things
Speaker 5: in this case that he said, don't line up, he said,
Speaker 5: but they have to give you a record. I said,
Speaker 5: give me a record like what he said, They're going
Speaker 5: to open a book up on you. They can give
Speaker 5: you a robbery charge. I said, a robbery charge. So
Speaker 5: they gave me. It was two cases. But because this
Speaker 5: rate charge was so heavy, they gave me a robbery
Speaker 5: charge when I had witnesses. I was at work. I
Speaker 5: couldn't have been there, right, I didn't drive at the time, Jason.
Speaker 1: So so they invented a prior robbery just.
Speaker 5: So they could just to give me a criminal record.
Speaker 1: So they had an open robbery case and they just decided.
Speaker 5: He told me they were gonna dump it, and they
Speaker 5: gave a description of the man at the time. You know,
Speaker 5: when I saw the guy on the photos I saw,
Speaker 5: it was like he was like a larger, light skinned guy,
Speaker 5: had bald head at the time, and my ID picture
Speaker 5: I had full headed hair, you know this summertime. I
Speaker 5: was you know, dark brown.
Speaker 1: So they had like a surveillance photo of the guy
Speaker 1: or somewhere.
Speaker 5: But the guy had an ear ring in his ear.
Speaker 5: Now here's the thing about it. I had an ear
Speaker 5: ring in my ear when I was fourteen. It became
Speaker 5: infected because my brother friend did it. But by the
Speaker 5: time trial came along four years later, the victim had
Speaker 5: said the guy had an earring, but a plastic surgeon
Speaker 5: came and told him that it's no way in the
Speaker 5: world his ear could have been opened at that time.
Speaker 5: He says, this is a fully heeled ear. He said,
Speaker 5: it's no way in the world possible. And so I
Speaker 5: didn't look like the guy. I had alibi witnesses, so
Speaker 5: they give me another false charge. But the other case,
Speaker 5: I was facing three life sentences in thirty years, So
Speaker 5: really I wasn't thinking about that too much, right, and
Speaker 5: so they were just pretty much dumping everything on me.
Speaker 5: So when I got out on bond Man, I was
Speaker 5: a very fearful person because my outlook on the police office.
Speaker 5: They weren't the same anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing they caught the guy that killed
Speaker 1: Ay Blinket. They might have tried to pin that on
Speaker 1: you too, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we got an open case here. They was this guy.
Speaker 1: We were in the theater back in eighteen sixty whatever,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, no, yeah, this guy, this is
Speaker 1: the guy right here. You know what I mean. We
Speaker 1: can laugh about it now, Well you're laughing about it,
Speaker 1: but like it's actually it's preposterous. So back to the trial.
Speaker 5: So I got out on bond. No remember the fifth
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety. I went to trial in June nineteen ninety.
Speaker 5: I saw my first day, my lawyer told me to
Speaker 5: go to the back of the courtroom. I was like, well,
Speaker 5: why do you tell me to go to the back
Speaker 5: of the courtroom. For they saw the prosecutor walking the
Speaker 5: victim down the aisle and they stopped on my aisle.
Speaker 5: And she didn't point me out, but what she did
Speaker 5: she stopped by my eye and I'm like, what in
Speaker 5: the world is going on? But later on we found
Speaker 5: out that they coached her. She said that they coached her,
Speaker 5: that Look, he's going to be sitting at that table.
Speaker 5: This is what he got on. Don't change your story.
Speaker 5: So she was coached, not only by police officer, was
Speaker 5: coached by prosecutors. Came time for trial to you know,
Speaker 5: the victim pointed me out from that. I found that
Speaker 5: out maybe like a year ago, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So keep mind twenty seven years past. I'm finding this out.
Speaker 5: I'm like, that's what's going on. Because I was often puzzled,
Speaker 5: why didn't they just stop her where the row I
Speaker 5: was at? And so I said, that's why the prosecutors
Speaker 5: did that.
Speaker 1: Were there any rumors around because you were out for
Speaker 1: this period of time before the trial, were there rumors
Speaker 1: around the neighborhood about somebody else that might have done it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the name was mentioned by one of the victim's
Speaker 5: family friends. Is what ass I believe the victim's father
Speaker 5: about some man named Omar because one of the victim's
Speaker 5: friend she said that when she was walking on the
Speaker 5: path and saw the girl with the bike, she said
Speaker 5: she saw also so a guy with a black hat,
Speaker 5: very popular Michael, like a bulls hat at the time.
Speaker 5: You know, he was toiling in his hands and she
Speaker 5: said he had on similar type clothing, you know, white,
Speaker 5: white and green and stuff. She said, well, he was
Speaker 5: toiling the hat and then when she looked, he just
Speaker 5: took off running and she said, oh, they looked just
Speaker 5: like Omar. In court when I heard that, I said, okay,
Speaker 5: so evidently maybe you know, they'll find this Omar guy
Speaker 5: saw be in the clear. But they never really looked for.
Speaker 1: Omar, you know, so they weren't really interested in No more.
Speaker 5: They weren't interested Omar. They were interested in Darnell.
Speaker 3: But at that point also it's important to remember that
Speaker 3: not only was their misconduct by the police and Darnell's
Speaker 3: original questioning, but there was continued misconduct by pointing Darnell
Speaker 3: out to the victim in the courtroom and coaching her
Speaker 3: and telling her these false things about Darnell from the
Speaker 3: first place, so really from the Star throughout the trial
Speaker 3: with the prosecutors, there was continued sheenanigans to nail it
Speaker 3: on him. And I don't really think they were interested
Speaker 3: in anybody else.
Speaker 1: Clearly they weren't interesting.
Speaker 3: But they clearly knew that he didn't do it, too,
Speaker 3: because if he did it, you don't have to go
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 5: This way that's true.
Speaker 1: But I mean we do have obviously cases of tunnel vision,
Speaker 1: where you have prosecutors and police who believe that they
Speaker 1: have the right guy and then they just sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, they get into this sort of vortex where
Speaker 1: they shape and shift the narrative in order to fit
Speaker 1: what they believed to be true. And that's a thing
Speaker 1: that happens. This doesn't seem like that was the case
Speaker 1: at all. They knew you didn't confess, they knew you
Speaker 1: weren't wearing the right clothes, they knew you had an alibi,
Speaker 1: they knew you had never been in trouble. There was
Speaker 1: not one little thing that would have indicated to anybody
Speaker 1: that was actually you. So this cannot be swept under
Speaker 1: the rug and called it, you know, a mistake and
Speaker 1: in a case of tunnel vision, because that's clearly not
Speaker 1: what it was. I mean, what this was was a
Speaker 1: lynching for back of a better word. And so you
Speaker 1: go to trial. How long did the trial last?
Speaker 5: Three day? Trial?
Speaker 1: Did you testify?
Speaker 5: Yes? I did? And what was that like? Well, to me,
Speaker 5: eighteen you know, you don't have the same verbiage azz.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm a toure prosecutor you know, and so
Speaker 5: even though you can stand your grounds, you really can't
Speaker 5: protect yourself because you don't know any of the legal terminology.
Speaker 5: And so every time you're trying to say, no, I
Speaker 5: was here with my friend, well this and that, and
Speaker 5: it didn't trick me up. I just couldn't express myself
Speaker 5: as well as I can now, because you know, the
Speaker 5: eighteen year old down there in the forty seven year
Speaker 5: old donaire a large difference, you know. And so to
Speaker 5: me it was hard fying because I'm like, can't they
Speaker 5: can't they see what's going on? I mean, they about
Speaker 5: to take my life. I said, they're not considering this,
Speaker 5: and I'm looking at the prosecutors and they were dead
Speaker 5: set on me going to prison for the rest of
Speaker 5: my life. I'm looking at the police officer. I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm looking at them fabricating a story because I know
Speaker 5: I was in the house that day, and so I
Speaker 5: couldn't have been out raping someone. I was trying to
Speaker 5: tell them this what I was watching on TV. If
Speaker 5: you go back and look at this on TV, you'll
Speaker 5: see I'm correct. There's no way I know where I
Speaker 5: could have been on the crime scene. If I'm watching TV.
Speaker 5: I was trying to tell them about my friend's mother.
Speaker 5: She had told them, but they would not let her
Speaker 5: testify in court because at that moment she had brain
Speaker 5: cancer and the months that I was out, she began
Speaker 5: to lose her sight. But she said she still remember
Speaker 5: that man did not have on white and green. That
Speaker 5: man held him all brown and black, and he was
Speaker 5: right here on this couch with me. So they never
Speaker 5: let her testify that day. To me, it was horrible.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't have a juror of my peers.
Speaker 5: You know, I think the closest I they came to
Speaker 5: a dur on my peers was a person that was
Speaker 5: she's probably about twenty eight. I don't know whether she
Speaker 5: was Chinese, I don't know what she was.
Speaker 1: But no black people on the Jersey Nah, oh boy,
Speaker 1: you know. And so you know, I had lunch the
Speaker 1: other day with a friend of mine who was doing
Speaker 1: great things and criminal justice perform and she was telling
Speaker 1: me before she became this performer, you know, now, I
Speaker 1: don't think anbody woul put her on a jury, but
Speaker 1: she was on the jury. And she said she was
Speaker 1: on this case. It was a serious criminal case. And
Speaker 1: she said the third day of deliberations, the jury start saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really don't care anymore whether the
Speaker 1: guy's guilty or not. I'm going home like I've had it,
Speaker 1: Like I got things to do. I can't be bothered
Speaker 1: with this anymore. Like people were just breaking down, all right, guilty,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like people were just caving.
Speaker 1: And I'm making that point because I don't know what
Speaker 1: went on in your jury room, but after three days,
Speaker 1: you know, you could kind of understand how jurors could
Speaker 1: become so stressed out and everybody wants to go home.
Speaker 1: But I think when you're listening to Darnella and you
Speaker 1: hear the pain, and you know that he's just one
Speaker 1: of millions that have gone through this, so many of
Speaker 1: whom were innocent. You know, I'm just asking people to
Speaker 1: keep that in mind when you're in that jury room
Speaker 1: and it's an inconvenience, you know what, We got to
Speaker 1: work together to prevent these things from happening. And it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen if people are going to be
Speaker 1: susceptible to their own personal needs at a time when
Speaker 1: they hold somebody's life in their hands, as it was
Speaker 1: in your case. Because I got to believe that there
Speaker 1: were jurors in that room that we're sitting there going
Speaker 1: wait a minute, though the thing didn't match the description
Speaker 1: that this that that I mean, you know, because there
Speaker 1: was no forensic evidence. I mean, they made up a
Speaker 1: story about a hair, right, one hair on a blanket, right,
Speaker 1: that was another thing.
Speaker 5: Right, they said the man, he's eighty something now, but
Speaker 5: he told them, well, you know, that was what they
Speaker 5: called junk science. But at the time he said that
Speaker 5: it had like fourteen particulars that kind of they were
Speaker 5: similar to mine. But when they tested it in two
Speaker 5: thousand and one, it shows it wasn't mine at all.
Speaker 5: As a matter of fact, whoever it was the mother
Speaker 5: had Caucasian. It was a mine, the man from the
Speaker 5: Department of Defense, they tested it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was junk science involved on top of
Speaker 1: all the other stuff. That was the only physical evidence
Speaker 1: was one hair on a blanket that was found with
Speaker 1: the girl near the girl, which of course now we
Speaker 1: know wasn't your hair anyway. So if they needed another
Speaker 1: story to make up, there there it was. And how
Speaker 1: long did the jury deliberate.
Speaker 5: Deliberate it like three days on the third day of
Speaker 5: the trial, about eight o'clock at night, they rendered the
Speaker 5: decision and they told me, you know, guilty. I'm like, guilty.
Speaker 5: I know what guilty means. But I'm thinking they made
Speaker 5: a mistake because how could you incarcerate somebody who's innocent?
Speaker 5: And so I'm thinking that maybe I didn't hear this right,
Speaker 5: and they were reading off the jurors, you know, suggestions,
Speaker 5: and you know, I'm looking at my lawyer. I'm saying, say,
Speaker 5: am I going home tonight? And he looks at me,
Speaker 5: say he said no. I'm like, what's going on? You know,
Speaker 5: He's like, man, you see you're going to prison. Man,
Speaker 5: I said, I'm going to prison. Man told him I
Speaker 5: was facing one hundred seven years, but they did. They
Speaker 5: gave me one hundred years, right, and then with that robbery,
Speaker 5: they gave me a seven year sentence. Ye hundred years
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, and I'm like, a hundred years,
Speaker 5: I said, man, I'm a kid. I didn't do anything
Speaker 5: that was real painful man, you know, because my life
Speaker 5: was discarded as if, you know, like I was a
Speaker 5: piece of trash or something. You know, you know, a
Speaker 5: hundred years I had dreams and I wanted to do
Speaker 5: things I wouldn't committing. You know, I was a very
Speaker 5: good young man. I just wanted to help people with
Speaker 5: my life, and here they are, they want to.
Speaker 1: Take my life. So there you go to prison. You're
Speaker 1: stuck there for decades. And as you said, you were
Speaker 1: a young man with dreams and hopes like anybody would
Speaker 1: be at eighteen. How did you manage to never lose
Speaker 1: hope in this situation?
Speaker 5: You know, I was personally. I had just came into
Speaker 5: my faith and I said, you know, regardless of how
Speaker 5: long I have to stay there, I said, I'm not
Speaker 5: going to allow that place to cause me to succumb
Speaker 5: to its environment. The court system had already failed me.
Speaker 5: So and I just believed that one day the truth
Speaker 5: will come out. You know. That's just something that was
Speaker 5: a conviction in me. Outside of that, the only thing
Speaker 5: that got me through my faith. Man, I'm gonna be
Speaker 5: honest with you, writing, you know, reading the Bible and
Speaker 5: studying and praying. And because I want to go into industry,
Speaker 5: so I studied for that because I wanted to help people.
Speaker 5: And so I said, well, if I can't help people
Speaker 5: on the outside, I can help people on the inside.
Speaker 5: And so that's what I started doing teaching and preaching
Speaker 5: and writing. You know, I said, wrote several manuscripts with books,
Speaker 5: just teaching myself a lot of things. Man, studying business.
Speaker 5: I studied law because I did it some of the
Speaker 5: pro sal on my own case before I worked. You know,
Speaker 5: I did everything I could man to keep my head
Speaker 5: above waters.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: But mostly I would say my faith, man, and helping people. Man.
Speaker 5: I found relief in helping others, you know, because everything else, Man,
Speaker 5: it had failed me.
Speaker 1: So ultimately we know now that you're here, this is
Speaker 1: the good part of the story. How did you first
Speaker 1: get in touch with the Virginia Innocence Project? What did
Speaker 1: that mean to you when they agreed to represent you?
Speaker 1: And then how did things develop from there?
Speaker 5: Well, I was the teacher's aid at Southampton Correctional Center
Speaker 5: for several years, and I had a boss there that
Speaker 5: he sent something to the New York Innocence Project because
Speaker 5: he said, bhavior was kind of strange. He said, I
Speaker 5: kind of stood out for the other inmates, and he said,
Speaker 5: you don't belong here. He said something wrong. So I
Speaker 5: broke down and I told him the story, and he said,
Speaker 5: don He said, I put something into the New York
Speaker 5: Innocence Project, he said, I don't know whether or not
Speaker 5: they got it, he said, but I put it in.
Speaker 5: And so several years later, I was at Green Rock
Speaker 5: Correctional Center. I think New York had sent me back
Speaker 5: some paperwork said that they were opening up Virginia chapter
Speaker 5: of the Innocence Project. And so one of the students
Speaker 5: came and visited me. And this is right after my
Speaker 5: father had died in two thousand and nine. You know.
Speaker 5: They visited me and told me he said, Man, I
Speaker 5: don't know whether or not I'll be able to help
Speaker 5: you before I leave, he said, but I'm gonna give
Speaker 5: it my best shot, try to get you out of
Speaker 5: there before I graduated. I said, that's cool. So I
Speaker 5: met that one student he graduated. I hadn't heard anything for,
Speaker 5: you know, several years, and so finally my older sister
Speaker 5: one morning, she said, you know what, I have to
Speaker 5: do something. So she drove up. She had never been
Speaker 5: to Charlottesville. She drove up to Charlottesville and she had
Speaker 5: my paperwork. When she went there, she didn't know whether
Speaker 5: or not university was open what, but she asked when
Speaker 5: with the that was dear Jen right once she be there.
Speaker 5: So she brought in, you know, the boxes and everything,
Speaker 5: and ultimately, and this is project, they really started looking
Speaker 5: more intent. One thing that touched me. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 5: you what touched me. Jennifer Gibbons had told me. She said,
Speaker 5: you know, Donelle, even if we don't find DNA, you
Speaker 5: know, because they would look for DNA, the say they couldn't
Speaker 5: find any DNA because the Prosecutor City had been destroyed
Speaker 5: in two thousand and five. So she said, you know,
Speaker 5: we're gonna fight this even if we don't find DNA.
Speaker 5: I finally felt like I was being heard. I went
Speaker 5: through so many decades without being heard, and now finally
Speaker 5: I didn't know how to take it. Someone talking to
Speaker 5: you like a human didn't give them the time and
Speaker 5: the energy. And they talked to me. They were very kind,
Speaker 5: and so I was like, man, I said, I'm actually
Speaker 5: going to get some help now. I had been praying
Speaker 5: about this for years. I said, man, I'm really going
Speaker 5: to get some help. I said, I have to give
Speaker 5: it up to the Inner Project. You know, they were
Speaker 5: more than lawyers. They were like family to me.
Speaker 1: Well they were lawyers, they were family. They were also
Speaker 1: private investigators. They were doing.
Speaker 5: Yes, they did. They started looking around, combing around for evidence,
Speaker 5: and in twenty sixteen they had found some evidence, you know,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, okay, now, let's see what this did.
Speaker 5: They going to show up and clear me. You know,
Speaker 5: I had no problem testing because knew I didn't do anything.
Speaker 5: So they went try to get it tested, the clothing
Speaker 5: because some of the other stuff had been destroyed deliberately,
Speaker 5: in my opinion, they tested it. They said that Virginia
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything, so they went to an external lab.
Speaker 5: In that lab in California, they found some DNA.
Speaker 1: And let's not skip over too quickly the fact that,
Speaker 1: as if they hadn't done enough, they also lied to
Speaker 1: you about the existence of the evidence, right, They covered
Speaker 1: it up for a decade. For a decade they said
Speaker 1: there's no evidence, but there was evidence. And we've seen
Speaker 1: this again and again in Alan Newton's case, Kurk Bloodsworth's case,
Speaker 1: so many cases where they say the evidence is not here,
Speaker 1: but it's here. Somebody just has to go look for it.
Speaker 1: But they just keep moving the gold posts and trying
Speaker 1: to hope that the maybe they're trying to get the
Speaker 1: lawyers to give up. I mean, every time I try
Speaker 1: to figure it out or understand it, I just I
Speaker 1: don't understand why they Why would anybody not want to
Speaker 1: get to the truth, except for they want to protect
Speaker 1: somebody's reputation. And this goes on and it's still going
Speaker 1: on to this day in your case, which you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully it will get resolved because we know now that
Speaker 1: your outfie, you're still not even really free. So that's
Speaker 1: another thing that has to get addressed. And when we
Speaker 1: get to that part of the story. So they found
Speaker 1: the DNA, they got it tested in California. How did
Speaker 1: you find out that the results came back that showed
Speaker 1: that you weren't the.
Speaker 5: Guy I was on the ballpark because this was like
Speaker 5: the third go round because as Virginia tested it, they
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything. But the guy in California, he said
Speaker 5: he tested right where they were testing and he found it.
Speaker 5: I'm like, how does that work? Because Virginia's they're very flawed,
Speaker 5: they're very behind on technology when it comes to DNA.
Speaker 5: But yet when you present it to the courtrooms, they
Speaker 5: don't want to receive it because it's not from Virginia.
Speaker 5: But yet Virginia they have a very flawed forensic science laboratory.
Speaker 5: You know, I have to say that because if it wasn't,
Speaker 5: you know, I wouldn't be here. Years later, so I
Speaker 5: was outside on the yard. An officer told me, look,
Speaker 5: someone wants to talk to you, so I call my lawyer.
Speaker 5: So when I talked to him, Deringja and Wright asked me.
Speaker 5: She said, donall you you're sitting down. I said, well,
Speaker 5: what is it, Derja? She said, are you sitting down?
Speaker 5: I'm like I said, yeah, yeah, she said. A man
Speaker 5: called from the laboratory in California. He said it wasn't yours.
Speaker 5: And they said, now here's something that people get confused about.
Speaker 5: Whoever it was in the DNA had three markers similar
Speaker 5: to mine. Scientifically, one in ten African American men have
Speaker 5: three markers of the same But then when you get
Speaker 5: to the rest of the markers, it shows O, this
Speaker 5: is a totally different person. One in twenty three individuals
Speaker 5: have the same three markers. And so the man told
Speaker 5: them that when you look on the outside, he said,
Speaker 5: you see the person had similar markers three but when
Speaker 5: you get to the rest of them, to which they
Speaker 5: didn't want to test, he said, it shows you it's
Speaker 5: not donell He says, it's not him. It's not him.
Speaker 5: So these labs outside of Virginia they saw the truth,
Speaker 5: but when we brought it back over Virginia side, they
Speaker 5: didn't want to process it because they didn't do it.
Speaker 5: So go figure, Go figure, man.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that science only worked inside the state lines.
Speaker 1: You know, science is science.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, you know, no one really pushed that law yet,
Speaker 5: you know, pushed it through. Man, But you know, you
Speaker 5: have a lot of innocent guys being overlooked. They have proof,
Speaker 5: but because sometimes the labs didn't come through Virginia, the
Speaker 5: testing income through Virginia, they just can't get anything done.
Speaker 5: And some of these guys I talked to Saturday, I said,
Speaker 5: it's beautiful you call me because I'm going to New York.
Speaker 5: I said, Man, you know I can never forget you,
Speaker 5: and I'm not going to forget you. You know, I said,
Speaker 5: I wish I was totally clear. Man, I can really
Speaker 5: do some things to help you, you know, but like
Speaker 5: I say, you know, unfortunate. I'm not in that position yet.
Speaker 1: But which is an interesting thing because you were paroled
Speaker 1: without admitting guilt, which almost never happens. And I know
Speaker 1: the audience is probably thinking, wait a minute, but now
Speaker 1: the DNA, wouldn't the case just be overturned and thrown out,
Speaker 1: But they still fought that, and you had to go
Speaker 1: out sort of through the almost through the back door,
Speaker 1: so to speak, right by getting paroled, but still being
Speaker 1: forced to register and you know, be punished again on
Speaker 1: the outside because in your case, Virginia just doesn't want
Speaker 1: to admit that they're wrong. What we were talking about before,
Speaker 1: which is so profound, is the victim herself, right, who's
Speaker 1: now a grown woman. I mean, this is twenty eight
Speaker 1: years ago, so she's thirty eight, thirty nine years old,
Speaker 1: and talk about what her advocacy for you has mat
Speaker 1: how they have prevented her, Like she wanted to actually
Speaker 1: come and greet you and hug you and apologize or
Speaker 1: whatever it was that was on her mind as you
Speaker 1: were coming out the prison gates, and they wouldn't even
Speaker 1: allow her to do that.
Speaker 5: She had requested it, because she was the one who
Speaker 5: went and testified on my behalf, you know once my lawyers.
Speaker 5: Of course, I've never spoken to her outside of that
Speaker 5: at all, but my lawyers when they talk to us,
Speaker 5: she's like, well, look, you know, I want to do
Speaker 5: whatever I can to help get Darnell exonerated. She went
Speaker 5: to the parole board herself. So she asked my lawyers.
Speaker 5: She said, well, you know, can I go and see
Speaker 5: Darnelle law They're like, well, you know, I can't do
Speaker 5: that because you know, like I said, the system. You know,
Speaker 5: she still want to meet me to this day, I
Speaker 5: can't meet her. I don't know. Man. I appreciate her because,
Speaker 5: you know, she could have kept in her mind, she
Speaker 5: would have went to a grade with it. But she
Speaker 5: was a bold woman. To me, that was a profound
Speaker 5: because she's done more than a lot of times than
Speaker 5: many of the legal people have done for me, you know,
Speaker 5: because she came forth with the truth. She filled in
Speaker 5: a lot of blanks that I didn't know, my lawyers
Speaker 5: didn't know as to why things were going on, you know,
Speaker 5: like an undercurrent, and she filled them blanks in. So
Speaker 5: for that, I'll ever be grateful to her.
Speaker 1: And so you walked out of prison after twenty eight years.
Speaker 5: Well, I was ecstatic then, Jason, because one, you know,
Speaker 5: you're you're an ambitious man, Lisa, You're a very ambitious woman.
Speaker 5: You know, you had an opportunity to work in your passions.
Speaker 5: Well me, even though a lot of times I worked
Speaker 5: on my passion in prison. Now I'm like, I can
Speaker 5: finally come out and do this because those fires never
Speaker 5: died in me and so I'm like, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: be able to do this now. That's all I wanted
Speaker 5: to do. I wanted to feel like what my purpose
Speaker 5: was that was going to ministry, to get in the business,
Speaker 5: to marry. My fiancee would have been with me for
Speaker 5: eighteen years fighting alongside me. I'm like, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: be able to get married now, I'm gonna be able
Speaker 5: to go to in the ministry. I'm gonna be able
Speaker 5: to start a business. I'm gonna be able to be
Speaker 5: around my mother and to close that chapter of my life,
Speaker 5: so to speak.
Speaker 1: What is it like now, Like, how's your day to day?
Speaker 1: Been out for four months now?
Speaker 5: When people do recognize me, they're very empathetic, you know,
Speaker 5: sympathetic towards me. But when it comes time to work, now,
Speaker 5: like keep mind, like I'm forty seven years old, man,
Speaker 5: pretty much have to start like a person who's sixteen
Speaker 5: years old. The jobs I go for, I go for
Speaker 5: like sales jobs or I go for any other type
Speaker 5: of job. I mean, I'm broken down to warehouse or whatever.
Speaker 5: I just wanted some employment. Sometimes even though they're not
Speaker 5: supposed to discriminate, and even though they believe you, and
Speaker 5: even though they took me, I recognize your case. But
Speaker 5: one of the jobs I had went to the man said,
Speaker 5: you know, he said, man, you have to be cleared
Speaker 5: when I do the background chase. He said, you have
Speaker 5: to be cleared for this job. He said, I understand
Speaker 5: your situation, but you have to be cleared, and so
Speaker 5: that I couldn't get the job. Personally, I understood because
Speaker 5: I know that he has to represent his business. But
Speaker 5: in my heart and mind, I'm like, man, I'm still
Speaker 5: paying for something I didn't do. So I have to
Speaker 5: depend on other people for money when that is not
Speaker 5: my nature at all. All I want to do is
Speaker 5: be able to provide for myself, get married, you know,
Speaker 5: get a vehicle. I have to depend on people for
Speaker 5: rides because I can't even get a cheap vehicle. And
Speaker 5: so even though I'm glad to be out, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm grateful, but I still have to suffer day to day.
Speaker 5: I want to start my own business. I wanna start
Speaker 5: all those detailing business But if I could work, I
Speaker 5: could get the little money that it costs a little
Speaker 5: six thousand dollar that shouldn't a struggle. But you can't work,
Speaker 5: so you can't get the money. And so I'm not
Speaker 5: a criminal, So I'm not gonna commit crimes. I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna sell drugs. I'm not gonna ride. That's not my nature.
Speaker 5: The only thing I can do, man is prey man
Speaker 5: look for opportunity to come man.
Speaker 1: People that are listening, maybe they live in or know
Speaker 1: about opportunities in the area of Virginia Beach area. How
Speaker 1: would they contact you? Do you have a website or
Speaker 1: an email address or something like that you wanna share.
Speaker 5: I have an email d ar n p h I
Speaker 5: L nineteen at yahoo dot com.
Speaker 1: Darnfeld d A r n p h I L nineteen
Speaker 1: the number nineteen at Yahoo. If people want to reach
Speaker 1: out to you for speaking gigs maybe or anything else
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: We actually set up a GoFundMe to try to give
Speaker 3: him more opportunities. Now you know, in the meantime of
Speaker 3: being fully exonerated.
Speaker 1: How do people access to GoFundMe so they.
Speaker 3: Can google Darnell Phillips go fund me, or they can
Speaker 3: go to the website V four jr dot org and
Speaker 3: there's a link on our website to the go fundme
Speaker 3: account v as in Victor the number four j r
Speaker 3: dot org. Or they can look us up Virginians for
Speaker 3: Judicial Reform on Facebook and there are links to it
Speaker 3: on our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well.
Speaker 1: So before we wrap up, my question for you is,
Speaker 1: are you better.
Speaker 5: No, I'm gonna be honest with you, Jason. That would
Speaker 5: sound crazy, but when I said that I wouldn't let
Speaker 5: that place, I wouldn't let this situation change me. I
Speaker 5: meit that. I vowed that to myself and I vowed
Speaker 5: it to God. I said, I will not allow that
Speaker 5: to change me because it will make me like them,
Speaker 5: you know. And I'm not talking about inmate. It would
Speaker 5: make me like the wickedness that people perform to get
Speaker 5: me in there, you know. So I'm not bitter. I
Speaker 5: did not like what happened to me, but I'm not
Speaker 5: bitter because the people I met, the experiences I went
Speaker 5: through outside of the legal system. Now, the individuals I met,
Speaker 5: it opened my eyes up to you know that their
Speaker 5: cause is bigger than myself and my only thing is
Speaker 5: how do I get involved to help them? You know,
Speaker 5: because it's all about helping people. It's all about helping
Speaker 5: people get to the next level in their life, you know.
Speaker 5: And you have to live your life or calls outside
Speaker 5: of yourself, you know, like like you, you know you
Speaker 5: you're a great producer, but you find the time to
Speaker 5: help guys in situations like mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: There's two different things. But nevertheless, that's a passion of yours,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. That's a God's send for
Speaker 5: guys like me. Man, you don't really know how how
Speaker 5: strongly you know you affect us. Man, You really affect
Speaker 5: us to a degree, man, to our core, because you
Speaker 5: actually hear guys, You actually take the time. I remember
Speaker 5: when I called you on the phone. I was shocked.
Speaker 5: I thought I was gonn get a secretary of So
Speaker 5: I said, I just got answered his phone. I mean
Speaker 5: for real, I said, he this guy answered his phone.
Speaker 5: I said, just got cared for real. And so you
Speaker 5: don't find many people like you, man, So I would
Speaker 5: just sit there and continue what you're doing, man, you know,
Speaker 5: and pray after it. One day, Man, I'll be able
Speaker 5: to help people just like that.
Speaker 1: You definitely will. And you know, for me, it's a
Speaker 1: duty but also a privilege to be able to be
Speaker 1: around people like yourself who have been to hell and
Speaker 1: back and come out with a smiling face and a
Speaker 1: bouncing your step. It's an unbelievable thing. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really a selfish thing that I do, you know, because
Speaker 1: it makes my life better, you know, knowing you people
Speaker 1: like Lisa that are involved in the fight. The other
Speaker 1: Xigneries really the finest people that I've had the chance
Speaker 1: to come across, most of them are Exigneries. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: so I don't really understand it, but it is what
Speaker 1: it is. So this is the part of the show
Speaker 1: which is my favorite part of the show because this
Speaker 1: is a part of the show where I get to
Speaker 1: stop talking and listen. And you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to thank both of you for coming. It's
Speaker 1: been an honor for me to tape this show with you.
Speaker 1: So thanks again Darnell Philips for coming in and sharing
Speaker 1: your thoughts. And Lisa Speeds. Keep fighting the good fight,
Speaker 1: you know, We'll keep working together and the winds are
Speaker 1: few and far between, and the frustrations a lot, but
Speaker 1: we just keep fighting.
Speaker 3: So but the ones are worth it.
Speaker 1: That's right. So now I'm gonna turn it over to
Speaker 1: you just for some brief final thoughts. Lisa, you can
Speaker 1: go first, because we're going to save the best for last.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. I think Darnell's case
Speaker 3: is just kind of interesting to me because I learned
Speaker 3: about him from another wrongfully convicted person that's still in prison.
Speaker 3: And when I would email with Darnell has emails to
Speaker 3: me while he was still in prison. We're so like
Speaker 3: uplifting and it just was like a breath of fresh
Speaker 3: air into my day. So seeing him be on the
Speaker 3: outside and meeting him in person today was an incredible experience.
Speaker 3: We have some real problems with the criminal justice system
Speaker 3: in Virginia. We don't have parole, jury's recommend sentences. The
Speaker 3: way our rid of actual innocence is designed is, you know,
Speaker 3: to kind of circumvent actual justice. Ignoring DNA evidence because
Speaker 3: it didn't come from Virginia lab is wrong. And so
Speaker 3: you know, we would love for more people to get involved,
Speaker 3: and I know Darnelle wants to get involved and trying
Speaker 3: to change the system there to truly seek out justice
Speaker 3: for all of us and make it better. So thanks
Speaker 3: for having me.
Speaker 5: What I would like to say, I would like to
Speaker 5: speak to those who are presently incarcerated. You know, if
Speaker 5: they can hear me, that there is always hope, you know,
Speaker 5: never give up, you know, never let go of your
Speaker 5: dream of being released from prison. Especially for the false incarcerated.
Speaker 5: Know that there are groups and people who will hear you,
Speaker 5: can hear you, and can feel what you're feeling. From
Speaker 5: one innoc and man to another, I said, man, keep
Speaker 5: your faith, don't give up. This is twenty eight years later.
Speaker 5: As long as we have good people like the Innocence Project,
Speaker 5: Jays flam Messa Speeds, these people out here to help us.
Speaker 5: So don't give up. You know, sometimes it's easy to
Speaker 5: you know, to stop writing people, to just succumb to
Speaker 5: the system, you know, figuring you know you're losing hope
Speaker 5: and figuring that, hey, look, no one wants to hear
Speaker 5: no one wants to get involved in my situation. Don't
Speaker 5: fall prey to the lie. Reach out. There's someone who
Speaker 5: will help you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction and tune in
Speaker 1: next week. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps, and I'm
Speaker 1: a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Speaker 1: Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
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