Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system. It's just
Speaker 1: the people that implemented they get lost along the way
Speaker 1: and forget what the job really is. He just kept
Speaker 1: on trying to remind me that who was in the authority,
Speaker 1: who was in control, and how easy it was for
Speaker 1: my body to be found in any reality of New
Speaker 1: York City. It's a tough prison when you have the
Speaker 1: guards going against you because they are the biggest gang
Speaker 1: in the prison. They do that. They'll give a guy
Speaker 1: a life sentence and go home and eat spaghetti like
Speaker 1: it was nothing. And anybody that would say, well, why
Speaker 1: would you confess to something that you didn't do? My
Speaker 1: question to them will be why wouldn't you confess when
Speaker 1: somebody is threatening to kill your life? Judge? He said,
Speaker 1: how you feel? I said, I'm okay, he said, with
Speaker 1: the Dad's you're lucky thing you go on. This is
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: Today we have a very special episode. We have two
Speaker 1: fabulous Pennsylvania ladies. Are very special. Guest is Crystal Weimer,
Speaker 1: who is an exonerree from Western Pennsylvania. January two thousand one,
Speaker 1: someone killed Curtis hath outside his Fayette County home. He
Speaker 1: had been beaten and shocked after being convicted of plotting
Speaker 1: the murder that spanned three towns in Fayette County. Crystal
Speaker 1: was behind bars for twelve years at the time. They
Speaker 1: said her teeth led them to her. The dental impression
Speaker 1: was taken of her teeth and they were compared to
Speaker 1: a picture of a bite mark on the victim's body,
Speaker 1: which were found to be a match. Actually, that's not true.
Speaker 1: A scientific expert who testified to all of that in
Speaker 1: court later said it was junk science and he was wrong.
Speaker 1: At today's post conviction Relief Act, doctor Contatine car Zulas
Speaker 1: testified that a bite mark fan on the victim's hand
Speaker 1: was Wimer's do to a bite mark analysis that he
Speaker 1: now considers to be junk science. After Dr Carrazulas testified
Speaker 1: and without hearing any further testimony, President Judge John Wagner
Speaker 1: granted a retrial for Wimer. It was Crystal who started
Speaker 1: her own path to freedom, acting as her own attorney,
Speaker 1: filing paperwork. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project and the Jones Day
Speaker 1: Law Firm got involved. They found other problems with the
Speaker 1: police investigation and the prosecution and convinced to judge she
Speaker 1: is not the killer. Wimer's attorneys believe the real killer
Speaker 1: has never been caught. Crystal, Welcome to the show, Thank you.
Speaker 1: And with Crystel is her fabulous lawyer, Nilam Sanvi, who
Speaker 1: is the legal director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, and
Speaker 1: really looking forward to hearing from you and learning from
Speaker 1: the first time we've had someone from the Pennsylvania Instance
Speaker 1: Project on the show. So welcome, thanks, very happy to
Speaker 1: be here. So, Crystal, your story is insane, even by
Speaker 1: our very lofty standards of insanity. Here at wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: You had the whole pot peri of causes of wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: I mean, your case involved false confession by a co defendant,
Speaker 1: It involved police and prosecutorial misconduct. It involved bite mark evidence,
Speaker 1: which we know is what a politely horseshit right. And
Speaker 1: there's more. It's a fascinating study and terrifying study into
Speaker 1: just how many things can go wrong. So let's go
Speaker 1: back to two thousand and one and even before you
Speaker 1: grew up in Pennsylvania and what was that like, what
Speaker 1: was your We always like to spend a few minutes
Speaker 1: talking about what life was like before this catastrophe happened.
Speaker 1: It was good. I used to work at a plan
Speaker 1: in newsday and assembling TVs and radios and things of
Speaker 1: that nature. And I was working three on three off,
Speaker 1: two on two off days, twelve hour shifts. I was
Speaker 1: a single mother, raising my children by myself. My oldest
Speaker 1: is Rose, she was ten, Miranda was seven, and the
Speaker 1: baby was Bridget and she was four. The high life
Speaker 1: of my life was them raising them and making sure
Speaker 1: they were off to school. And I went to work,
Speaker 1: and I was living life on an everyday basis. Not
Speaker 1: an easy life by any stretch, right, working a difficult job,
Speaker 1: but a good job, and still raising three kids. And
Speaker 1: I have so much respect for single moms everywhere I
Speaker 1: see the amount of work that goes into raising children.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. So the idea that you were able to
Speaker 1: hold it together, you know, while working, is really my
Speaker 1: hat's off to you. So how could this have possibly happened?
Speaker 1: How could you sort of, I guess you could call
Speaker 1: a typical American, right, working, raising children, living sort of
Speaker 1: a regular type of place. Right, How could you become
Speaker 1: ensnared in this craziest possible situation? I don't even have
Speaker 1: the answers. I don't know how to even say how
Speaker 1: it all began. Or let me give some details to
Speaker 1: the audience, and then, Neil, if you could jump in
Speaker 1: any time you want. So, this was a case where
Speaker 1: a guy named Curtis Haith was murdered outside his apartment
Speaker 1: building around four am on January seven, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: And I guess the only reason that it even any
Speaker 1: attention was paid to you in the first place was
Speaker 1: because that night you had been at a party with him, right,
Speaker 1: with a lot of other people. Yes, attending a party
Speaker 1: with somebody and murdering them or very different legally speaking, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what the police did made sense
Speaker 1: because when this man died, they wanted to know, okay,
Speaker 1: who else saw him, what was he doing? So it
Speaker 1: actually kind of made sense as a starting point for
Speaker 1: the investigation to talk to everybody'd been with. But then
Speaker 1: obviously things took a wrong turn from that point on. Right, So, Crystal,
Speaker 1: you and a friend had given him a ride home
Speaker 1: from the party around ten o'clock, right, it was me
Speaker 1: and my cousin, yes, But then you went back to
Speaker 1: the party. I went back to where I was right,
Speaker 1: and he was murdered six hours later or so, at
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning. And by that time, I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you were home asleep with your kids. So how
Speaker 1: did this start to go wrong? Because it took a
Speaker 1: long time. I mean, this kid, this was a cold case, right,
Speaker 1: you know right? They investigated for about a year after Mr.
Speaker 1: Hayes murder and really didn't have any leads. They questioned
Speaker 1: Crystal and a lot of other people, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really have any leads. And then about a year into it,
Speaker 1: they brought in a Pennsylvania State trooper from the Cold
Speaker 1: case Squad to try to investigate more. Because this is
Speaker 1: a relatively small town and an unsolved thomaside is kind
Speaker 1: of big news. So they brought in the cold case
Speaker 1: squad and it's at that point that they started looking
Speaker 1: into the potential bite mark evidence that really became a
Speaker 1: lynch pin of the case against Crystal as things went
Speaker 1: for word. So the victim had been bitten, well supposedly,
Speaker 1: we don't based on what we know now, are not
Speaker 1: even sure whether it was a human bite mark. There
Speaker 1: was an oval shaped bruise on the victim's hand that
Speaker 1: was not identified as a bite mark during the autopsy.
Speaker 1: But when this person from the cold case squad came
Speaker 1: in and was looking at the autopsy photographs, she saw
Speaker 1: it and said, well, I think this is a bite mark,
Speaker 1: even though she was not a dentist or an odentologist
Speaker 1: by training, and then started looking at it from that angle.
Speaker 1: So the trained mortician or a corner right, the forensic
Speaker 1: pathologists right that did the autopsy wasn't able to see
Speaker 1: a bite mark and clearly was looking for any signs
Speaker 1: that they could find because it was a murder, right,
Speaker 1: And we looked into this when we were investigating the case.
Speaker 1: What do you look for in an autopsy? And if
Speaker 1: you're a forensic pathologist, bite marks are one of the things,
Speaker 1: even at that time, that you were supposed to look for,
Speaker 1: an account for, and preserve in a certain way if
Speaker 1: you saw it. And the pathologist did none of those things, right,
Speaker 1: So when I'm what I'm trying to wrap myself around
Speaker 1: here is and this is just the first of so
Speaker 1: many I mean, wacky is is a weird way to
Speaker 1: put it, but so many whacking things about this case.
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to wrap myself around is the idea
Speaker 1: that you have a trained pathologist, forensic pathologist who is
Speaker 1: examining the body and looking with a fine tooth comb
Speaker 1: or microscope, would ever wanna call it for any signs
Speaker 1: of foul play, but yet does not see or report
Speaker 1: anything to do with any bite marks. But yet a
Speaker 1: state trooper, right, there's no train in this area. Right,
Speaker 1: A lay person is going to look at a photograph
Speaker 1: one dimensional a year later and go, I got this.
Speaker 1: I figured it out like some sort of Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 1: moment and say, oh, that's a bite mark. And we know,
Speaker 1: from having examined an uncovered and had to undo cases
Speaker 1: around the country related to bite mark evidence, it is
Speaker 1: probably the junkiest form of science that there is. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many cases that we've seen where they don't
Speaker 1: know whether it's a human bite mark. It could be
Speaker 1: an animal, it could be totally something totally right, it
Speaker 1: could be a right exactly. So this was the beginning
Speaker 1: of what became a real life nightmare for Crystal. So
Speaker 1: then things start getting really tangled, right, and really complicated,
Speaker 1: because there's a whole cast of characters here that are
Speaker 1: all out for themselves and are all working across purposes
Speaker 1: and all working at trying to will save their own asses. Right,
Speaker 1: this is where the incentivized witness thing comes into play, right,
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: the incentivized witnesses in this case, it's interesting, actually didn't
Speaker 1: start even coming forward until Crystal had already been arrested
Speaker 1: and charged with the murder. So after this spite mark
Speaker 1: story comes out there talking to other people, and there's
Speaker 1: a guy in the county jail named Joey Stenger who
Speaker 1: offers to give the police some information about Crystal and
Speaker 1: about this murder, and he's got a bunch of charges,
Speaker 1: so I think he was hoping for something, but at
Speaker 1: this point he wasn't promised anything, so it wasn't really
Speaker 1: incentivized at that point. But he essentially confesses to committing
Speaker 1: the murder and implicates Crystal in it with him. So
Speaker 1: they moved forward based on the spite mark evidence, based
Speaker 1: on this witness Joey Stenger, and some other things they
Speaker 1: had cobbled together. And then years after Curtis's death in
Speaker 1: two thousand four and two thousand five, when Crystals in
Speaker 1: the county jail, you get other prisoners coming out of
Speaker 1: the woodwork saying they've heard Crystal confess to them, which
Speaker 1: just seems ludicrous given the you know, in particular the
Speaker 1: amount of time that had passed since the murder, and they,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, we found that much later, we're
Speaker 1: all asking for deals in exchange for implicating Crystal. Again,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to believe that you, in an effort to
Speaker 1: purge your soul, are going up to total strangers in
Speaker 1: the jail and telling each of them your story about
Speaker 1: how you murdered Curtis hath one night in January of
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. But the sad part was, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know a lot of the people. I just
Speaker 1: met them through testimony or paperwork and stuff to that nature.
Speaker 1: I didn't I never even met him, like on a
Speaker 1: face to face basis, So I didn't even know who
Speaker 1: most of them were. So what happened here, it sounds
Speaker 1: to me like is going back fifteen years to win
Speaker 1: all this stuff was taking place, is that, as we
Speaker 1: see time and again, the police and prosecutor came up
Speaker 1: with a theory and then in the absence of any
Speaker 1: physical evidence, because it wasn't any, they had to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to convince a jury that you were
Speaker 1: this cold blooded killer. Did you have prior violent arrests
Speaker 1: in your past? No, you never murdered anybody else, never
Speaker 1: like you can blow up anything record. No, you weren't
Speaker 1: like a You weren't like a mugger, car thief. That
Speaker 1: he was kidding. I mean, like I said, you find
Speaker 1: sense of humor and all this madness. I tried to
Speaker 1: because otherwise it's just too depressing. So yeah, they would
Speaker 1: have had without having gone to these lengths that they
Speaker 1: did to fabricate evidence against you. The very hard to
Speaker 1: imagine the jury would have convicted you, because what would
Speaker 1: they have said, Here's this woman who is raising three children,
Speaker 1: working a job, respectable citizen, with no prior history of violence.
Speaker 1: One day just up and murdered this guy four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, and we have no evidence to show you,
Speaker 1: but you should take our word for it. That basically
Speaker 1: would have been the case of judge. I mean, somebody
Speaker 1: would have thrown that thing out. Our jury would have said,
Speaker 1: they would have taken ten minutes, and they would have said,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, We're going home, right. And actually the
Speaker 1: charges against Crystal were thrown out the very first time
Speaker 1: they tried to bring them. This is when the additional
Speaker 1: informants and people start coming in, and they charged her again,
Speaker 1: and it was the second time that the charges stuck.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying actually did happen essentially the first
Speaker 1: time around. Yes, that's in two thousand four, right, which
Speaker 1: is already more than three years after the crime was committed.
Speaker 1: The case was dismissed against you because Beale recanted his
Speaker 1: earlier aim that you committed the murder and he refused
Speaker 1: to testify. He was the very first one that recaned.
Speaker 1: Joey Singer was the second one that recaned his statement.
Speaker 1: So whenever Bill recan it, they released me. But they
Speaker 1: never released me because of prejudice. They just released me
Speaker 1: and the judge gave them the option to refile charges
Speaker 1: against me for the second arrest. So I was begging
Speaker 1: to go back to prison, which is absurd, knowing that
Speaker 1: they were going to do this again to me, just
Speaker 1: to have a trial so I didn't have to go
Speaker 1: through all this again the second time. And then who's
Speaker 1: taking care of your children this well, my two oldest
Speaker 1: daughters were with their grandmother whenever all this took place.
Speaker 1: She was putting them off to school and making sure
Speaker 1: they were okay. Well that year, whenever I got released,
Speaker 1: I had three different apartments, Like I was trying to
Speaker 1: come out and get myself back together, and here they
Speaker 1: come again. It was just crazy. So I couldn't get
Speaker 1: myself together and make sure that I was taking care
Speaker 1: of them, not knowing what they were going to do
Speaker 1: to me again. So I wanted to make sure they
Speaker 1: were in a stable environment, which I left them with
Speaker 1: their grandparents, not knowing if they were going to come
Speaker 1: re arrest me again for the second time, or what
Speaker 1: was going to occur. So I wanted them in a
Speaker 1: safe environment. That's why I left them where they were.
Speaker 1: But even still, the idea, I mean, what is that
Speaker 1: like being locked up for something you didn't do and
Speaker 1: then not being able to tuck your kids in or
Speaker 1: read them a story or you know. I mean, especially
Speaker 1: as they're sort of their only parents and as their mom, like,
Speaker 1: how how did you deal with that when you're in prison?
Speaker 1: How did you keep your sanity? It was extremely hard.
Speaker 1: I mean as far as being depressed and crying all
Speaker 1: the time, emotional. I would go see a therapist and
Speaker 1: they counsel all the time. I tried to go to church.
Speaker 1: It was just so hard on a daily basis. A
Speaker 1: part of you just gone. Your baby is just gone.
Speaker 1: And no words can even describe that feeling, like that's horrible.
Speaker 1: That's the worst feeling in the world. Like the babies
Speaker 1: that you bore, that you were supposed to be secure
Speaker 1: and love and nurturing a mom and make sure their
Speaker 1: needs are met, and just quality of time, security time,
Speaker 1: just everything just being ripped apart and away from Oh,
Speaker 1: it is this horrible, horrible in my heart and my mind,
Speaker 1: my emotions. I don't even know how I cope and
Speaker 1: dealt with it. I just I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: try one day at a time. I just kept praying.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what else to do. But it pushed
Speaker 1: me to be persistent. Knowing I was innocent and I
Speaker 1: was wrong. Then I was coming home, So it pushed
Speaker 1: me even more so to fight and take a stand
Speaker 1: for what I believe in. And I knew in my
Speaker 1: heart I was going to come home. I just didn't
Speaker 1: know when or how long. Well I'm getting the chills
Speaker 1: thinking about this. So you were rearrested in September of
Speaker 1: two thousand four, and you went to trial. Yes, and
Speaker 1: you were represented by a public defen on earth at
Speaker 1: the time. Yes, right. I have a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for lawyers in general, but we do know that the
Speaker 1: public defender situation this country is a crisis, nothing less
Speaker 1: than a crisis. We have a situation I think in
Speaker 1: every state where they are underpaid, they're overburdened, they're overworked.
Speaker 1: Some of them are incompetent, but many of them are
Speaker 1: are very competent, but they have an impossible task. So
Speaker 1: if you're in this situation and don't have money to
Speaker 1: defend yourself, and sometimes if even if you do, you
Speaker 1: have really a snowball's chance in hell of getting justice,
Speaker 1: and you now go to trial, it must have seemed
Speaker 1: like a circus. It was a circus. I was just
Speaker 1: in awe with all these people coming on and stand
Speaker 1: and testifying, and I was just like, what where did
Speaker 1: this come from? I'm shaking my head and looking like wow.
Speaker 1: And you know, not only were they coming in and
Speaker 1: saying a bunch of stuff that wasn't true, but they
Speaker 1: were also changing their lives. There were there were different
Speaker 1: lives on different days, right from the same person. The
Speaker 1: Stinger guy changed his story again and again. I mean doesn't.
Speaker 1: At some point somebody go, wait a minute, this guy
Speaker 1: is totally full of shit, right, I mean, I forgive
Speaker 1: my language, but I mean he just kept coming up
Speaker 1: with new lies. Yeah. By our account, by the time
Speaker 1: we got through the trial, the post conviction procedure and
Speaker 1: we're looking at a potential new trial, Stanger had given
Speaker 1: about fifteen different accounts of the events, and there were
Speaker 1: changes every time. So you wonder how the jury could
Speaker 1: believe this guy, which they really had to do because
Speaker 1: he was the only evidence that claimed to have firsthand
Speaker 1: knowledge of Crystal being at the scene, which of course
Speaker 1: was not true. But the jury really had to believe him,
Speaker 1: and they did, which I think just shows you that
Speaker 1: if if it's the prosecution putting up the witness, sometimes
Speaker 1: that's really all you need and it doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: much what they say. He admitted that he was coached
Speaker 1: by the police, right, which is again it's a fact.
Speaker 1: I think most people sit there and go, well, that
Speaker 1: can't happen. That's not allowed. And he admitted that the
Speaker 1: police told him what to say. Yeah, he recanted. He
Speaker 1: said that they fed him the information basically, right, And
Speaker 1: that's done in ways both subtle and not so subtle, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that we see in so many
Speaker 1: of these wrongful convictions police that feed information either like
Speaker 1: I said, sort of artfully, right, but in a suggestive
Speaker 1: and a roundabout way. In this case, it was much
Speaker 1: more blatant. Right. They just told them what they wanted
Speaker 1: him to say. But juries I mean, sometimes they don't
Speaker 1: hear that. Sometimes they don't know. If it's not videotaped,
Speaker 1: it should be video. They should always be videotape. That's
Speaker 1: one of the things we are working so hard on
Speaker 1: at innocence projects around the country, especially one in New
Speaker 1: York as the mandatory videotaping of interrogation. Strange enough, New
Speaker 1: York State doesn't have it. In Pennsylvania we don't have it.
Speaker 1: A couple of counties have started doing it just within
Speaker 1: the last year or so. In this case, it's interesting
Speaker 1: one of Joey's statements to police was videotaped, but they
Speaker 1: didn't start the tape until after they had already been
Speaker 1: taught sucking him for a few hours. So by the
Speaker 1: time he's on the tape there's a relatively, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, canned story coming from him. So
Speaker 1: we didn't get to see what went into it, which
Speaker 1: really you want to see the whole thing obviously, to
Speaker 1: see how it unfolded. Okay, so let me get to
Speaker 1: my soapbox here for a second. So, Crystal, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that I'm so happy you're here is because
Speaker 1: you literally represent everybody in America. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say that if this could happen to you,
Speaker 1: it could happen to anyone, because you just don't fit
Speaker 1: the profile of of somebody who would get picked up,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think there are some people who say, well,
Speaker 1: they must have been involved with something else, And people
Speaker 1: have these different attitudes about axonorees. We know that half
Speaker 1: of our Axonore's had no prior record before they were
Speaker 1: wrongfully arrested and convicted. But the fact is that everyone
Speaker 1: should be concerned and everyone should be angry as I
Speaker 1: am now at the idea that we don't have mandatory
Speaker 1: videotaping of interrogations. It is preposterous. What could possibly be
Speaker 1: either reason why we wouldn't want to be able to
Speaker 1: see what goes on inside that interrogation room and know
Speaker 1: that the person is actually the right person right, None
Speaker 1: of us want murderers walking the streets. But the idea
Speaker 1: that we forget as a society upon basically arrest and
Speaker 1: certainly upon incarceration, we forget that you are one of us, right,
Speaker 1: You're an American, you're a person, you're a human, you're
Speaker 1: a woman. All that's gone out the window. You're just
Speaker 1: somebody to be chewed up and spit out by the
Speaker 1: system once you're in it. And I don't get that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I'm not okay with it, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue to do everything I can't fix it, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna get off my stubbucks now. So anyway,
Speaker 1: when you were a trial and you're watching this crazy
Speaker 1: circus unfold in front of you and you're unfortunately stuck
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, did you think that this
Speaker 1: was still going to be okay, that the jury was
Speaker 1: going to make the right decision, that you're gonna go home.
Speaker 1: I believed in my heart that the church was gonna
Speaker 1: send me for it. I was confident. I felt really
Speaker 1: good about everything, and I knew that I was innocent.
Speaker 1: So I felt like I was going to walk out
Speaker 1: that courtroom and go home where I should have been
Speaker 1: but when they came back and after they gave the
Speaker 1: verdict it was guilty, guilty, guilty. I was just in
Speaker 1: all like, what where did that come from? Can you
Speaker 1: describe that scene? Because nobody can imagine going through that,
Speaker 1: like the pressure of of being in that situation and
Speaker 1: the idea that they're coming back in and they're going
Speaker 1: to decide your fate literally with a life in that situation,
Speaker 1: and so how do it was a murder charge to
Speaker 1: at that, and I'm like, what what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Like a murder trial? And then you're sitting there and
Speaker 1: you're waiting for all these people to decide your future.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen to you? It's just it's like
Speaker 1: your heart wants to stop, like your throat and everything.
Speaker 1: Everything's just like ah, you want to scream, and it's
Speaker 1: just like all bottled inside to you because you don't
Speaker 1: know what they're gonna say. But yet on this same note,
Speaker 1: on the good side of your head, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: well you're fine, you're getting ready to go home, and hey,
Speaker 1: you're happy. But then there's another side like what's going
Speaker 1: to happen? So it's like a mixed emotion thing going on.
Speaker 1: Inside to you, just waiting to hear what they say,
Speaker 1: guilty or not guilty, and imagine that. So I mean,
Speaker 1: and I think that people again have a tendency to
Speaker 1: be able to distance themselves when they're serving on a
Speaker 1: jury from that emotion from that person that is sitting
Speaker 1: in front of them, and they have a tendency to
Speaker 1: trust the system and want to believe people in positions
Speaker 1: of authority who are telling them this woman is a murderer,
Speaker 1: she's terrible, she's all those things they're saying about you, right,
Speaker 1: And I always say that people have to take an
Speaker 1: extra hard look at what's being shown to them when
Speaker 1: they're on that jury and realize that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of bad actors in the system, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: good ones, there's a lot of bad actors in the system,
Speaker 1: and that people like you get caught up in the crosshairs,
Speaker 1: and that in fact, those roles could be reversed one day.
Speaker 1: I highly believe that. I believe that then, being in
Speaker 1: the position that they're in, some people have more heartfelt
Speaker 1: and are educated in that area. But they also need
Speaker 1: to be mindful as well that it's not always good.
Speaker 1: The system isn't always for you, and there is people
Speaker 1: out there that do corruption and do do bad things
Speaker 1: and harmful things. How about this logic? Right, So, if
Speaker 1: you're on a jury and you especially in a small
Speaker 1: town like yours, and you actually are witnessing and unfortunately
Speaker 1: playing an unwitting part in a terrible deception and a
Speaker 1: wrongful esecution, not only are you then subject to being
Speaker 1: victimized by the actual murder who's still walking the streets,
Speaker 1: but also those people, those the various corrupt people, police
Speaker 1: and prosecutors who are perpetrating this terrible act on you
Speaker 1: and in fact on the public. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it again because it's convenient they get away with it,
Speaker 1: and that could be you, juror number seven sitting in
Speaker 1: the jury box. That could be you or somebody you
Speaker 1: love that next time could get caught up just because
Speaker 1: they can't solve the case and they need they need
Speaker 1: somebody because they need to get it off their desk,
Speaker 1: and they want to keep moving up the ranks. And
Speaker 1: we see that people get promoted even when it's exposed
Speaker 1: that they were responsible to these ron plantmakers. So so
Speaker 1: you get found guilty and the worst moment of your
Speaker 1: life I'm assuming, right, Yeah, it was a shock. It
Speaker 1: was just unbelievable. And then you get taken away in
Speaker 1: handcuffs and taken to well back to jail, but then
Speaker 1: ultimately to prison. Right. Yeah. Well they had to escort
Speaker 1: like my sister out of the core room because my dad,
Speaker 1: he had to walk out and calm her down, because
Speaker 1: she was with me that night. And of course your
Speaker 1: sister could lie for you, but there's a difference whenever
Speaker 1: you see her with your own eyes with you. So
Speaker 1: she was so determined to try to help me, to
Speaker 1: get me to the truth, to get me freed. And
Speaker 1: when they say guilty, she just like it was just
Speaker 1: a mess in that whole core room that day. Right,
Speaker 1: that's a crazy thing because for her, I can I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to put myself in her shoes, and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there going, not only do I believe that my sister,
Speaker 1: my my son, whatever it is, is innocent. She knew
Speaker 1: you were right. I mean, you can't be in two
Speaker 1: places at once. That's why she was like so determined.
Speaker 1: She was like, I'm not going to give up fighting
Speaker 1: for you. I'm going to do everything in my willpower
Speaker 1: just to get you freed. There's no reason why they
Speaker 1: should have did this to you. It was just like
Speaker 1: she was mindset. And of course like, yeah, your family
Speaker 1: might tell a little fib or a little story here
Speaker 1: or they are, but whenever you know, without a shadow
Speaker 1: of doubt, with your own personalized and it's a total
Speaker 1: different story. What can you tell us about the experience
Speaker 1: that you had in prison? Was every day the same?
Speaker 1: Were there any bright spots? Was there somebody that inspired you?
Speaker 1: Just give us a sense of what that was like. Um,
Speaker 1: it was really difficult. Like whenever I first went in,
Speaker 1: there was only five and maybe eight individuals women incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Towards the end there was over women, so the prison
Speaker 1: population increased like over half. As far as um survival.
Speaker 1: On an everyday basis, I would have a routine. I
Speaker 1: would try to walk, y'all, go to the yard a lot.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of spiritual churches and services. I
Speaker 1: would always go to them to try to help me
Speaker 1: to get through at all. There was people that would
Speaker 1: visit me through the prison society. They would come and
Speaker 1: see me. They were like Menny Knights. They would come
Speaker 1: and visit me. That helped and inspired me as well.
Speaker 1: There was definitely support as far as church and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But um, it's just hard being surrounded by
Speaker 1: people from all different nationalities college roles. You just don't
Speaker 1: know these people. They're just strangers and you're just thrown
Speaker 1: in this cell with these different people. But you do
Speaker 1: grow close to some of the individuals and you really
Speaker 1: find out who is loyal and who is really honest
Speaker 1: and genuine. And every person and individual would find like
Speaker 1: their sense of group and they're fitting in and belonging.
Speaker 1: That's all I could do, just on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: just trying to maintain in journal and keep myself mentally going. Well,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable and of all my respect for having persevered
Speaker 1: through this and actually found a way out, And I
Speaker 1: want to get to that. How did the Pennsylvania Innocence
Speaker 1: Project first here about the case? Why did you decide
Speaker 1: to take this particular case, and how did you unravel
Speaker 1: this web of lies and deceit? So Crystal wrote to us,
Speaker 1: that's how we get all of our cases. We won't
Speaker 1: even start to look at a case until a person
Speaker 1: writes us a letter. So that's how she first got
Speaker 1: into our process. And Crystal's letters were really compelling. You know,
Speaker 1: going back to what we were talking about earlier with
Speaker 1: her being a single mom, a refrain and all of
Speaker 1: her letters was I'm a single mom of three girls
Speaker 1: and I just want to get home to them, which
Speaker 1: doesn't speak to innocence necessarily, but it was really personally compelling.
Speaker 1: So she went through our review process, which takes years.
Speaker 1: She was sometimes patients, sometimes not with that, but we
Speaker 1: really vet the cases through a multi step process. We
Speaker 1: read every piece of paper we could find, every trial transcript,
Speaker 1: We talked to prior lawyers, We meet with the with
Speaker 1: the person to really assure ourselves this is an innocence case.
Speaker 1: And just from you know, talking, you've seen how complicated
Speaker 1: Crystal's case was. So it took us a long time
Speaker 1: to try to even figure out what the heck was,
Speaker 1: the prosecution's theory, what the heck actually may have happened,
Speaker 1: Who are all these players. There's so many different strands
Speaker 1: to it that it took a lot of time just
Speaker 1: to figure out what a coherent narrative of the case
Speaker 1: might have been. But Crystal really did a lot of
Speaker 1: the work herself. She lost her first couple of state
Speaker 1: court appeals, and so she went to federal court on
Speaker 1: her own to ask for a new trial. There after,
Speaker 1: she had already written to us and we were reviewing
Speaker 1: the case, and the federal judge appointed a lawyer for
Speaker 1: her from the Federal Defender's Office in Western Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: they started investigating the case. They talked to Joey Stenger.
Speaker 1: He recanted his testimony and said everything he said was
Speaker 1: a lie. They knew we were looking at the case,
Speaker 1: and they knew we'd have to go back to state court.
Speaker 1: So we ended up partnering together with them, and that's
Speaker 1: when we really started getting actively involved and representing Crystal
Speaker 1: because we determined by that point it was an innocent case.
Speaker 1: She met all of our criteria. So we started working
Speaker 1: together with the federal lawyers and developed more about what
Speaker 1: was wrong with Stanger's testimony. We went back with them
Speaker 1: and then again on our own to interview this dentist
Speaker 1: that had testified against her, claiming she bit the victim,
Speaker 1: and he said everything he'd said it trial was complete
Speaker 1: junk based on advancements in the field since then. So
Speaker 1: we went through every piece of evidence that they put
Speaker 1: on and tried to see was there any validity to it,
Speaker 1: And it turned out we could debunk every single piece
Speaker 1: of it, and so we went back into state court
Speaker 1: based on that task for a new trial. And I
Speaker 1: want to just take a second here to say, you know,
Speaker 1: you've mentioned something very important, which is the length of
Speaker 1: time it takes for the Pennsylvanians this project, anything is
Speaker 1: this project to get to these cases. And that's why
Speaker 1: it's so important that people who are listening out there
Speaker 1: donate money. I mean, time is great too, but money
Speaker 1: is important because very simply, if you donate to the
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania's project, what is the website, by the way, Innocent
Speaker 1: Project per dot org, Innocence Project, per dot org, because
Speaker 1: then they can hire more lawyer layers or lawyers or paralegals,
Speaker 1: more more office space for students law students to come
Speaker 1: in and take more cases like crystals in a more
Speaker 1: expeditious manner and get more innocent people out because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we know from the best social science estimates that over
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people in prison in America are innocent.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot. And every one of those hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people has a story, not all as crazy as crystals,
Speaker 1: but they all have a story, and they all have families,
Speaker 1: and they all have hopes and dreams that are being
Speaker 1: taken away from them. So yes, donate Innocence Project per
Speaker 1: dot org. So now things have gone full circle. You
Speaker 1: went from hitting the jackpot of all the causes of
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, not all of them, but so many of
Speaker 1: the cause of wrongful cos it went from that to
Speaker 1: having this wonderful team of lawyers representing you and to
Speaker 1: having them not just debunk one theory of the prosecution,
Speaker 1: but all of them. Right, I mean, that's that's pretty
Speaker 1: unusual too. I mean to be able to come back
Speaker 1: at the court and go, not only was this piece
Speaker 1: of evidence wrong, it's all wrong and we could prove it.
Speaker 1: And I see you starting to break out in in
Speaker 1: a big, warm smile. They're thinking about it because how
Speaker 1: incredible is that victory after fighting all them years and
Speaker 1: being persistent and just getting turned down state Superior, State
Speaker 1: Supreme and just all these different news and just fighting
Speaker 1: and just keep going. So you go back to court
Speaker 1: feeling very confident. I guess right, you know, we felt
Speaker 1: pretty confident. And Crystal Bay this point had the Federal
Speaker 1: Defender's office. She had every attorney in my office, which
Speaker 1: at that point was just three were not very big,
Speaker 1: and also this private team of lawyers from the Jones
Speaker 1: Day Law firms. So we felt like we had put
Speaker 1: together the best kis we possibly could. So we thought
Speaker 1: confident and we were prepared to put on a three
Speaker 1: or four day hearing with multiple pieces of evidence witnesses.
Speaker 1: But in Pennsylvania we have one of the most restrictive
Speaker 1: post conviction laws in the country. So we had put together,
Speaker 1: we thought the strongest case we could. We were nervous
Speaker 1: because in Pennsylvania, the judge can't even listen to your
Speaker 1: request for a new trial, can't even hear those witnesses
Speaker 1: if he determines that you didn't file your petition on time.
Speaker 1: So the d A is always argue like, well, us
Speaker 1: is great, you have all those new evidence. You should
Speaker 1: have found it sooner. You're too late. Doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the evidence is, and we were really worried about that aspect,
Speaker 1: whether we could even get over that initial hurdle and
Speaker 1: have the judge listened to what we had to say.
Speaker 1: So we were confident on the one hand, but we
Speaker 1: also knew the legal landscape that we were facing is
Speaker 1: incredibly tough. How do you feel about that? By the
Speaker 1: way either one of you can answer this. The idea
Speaker 1: that it's I guess it's called the sunset clause, right,
Speaker 1: The idea that the courts can say, well, sorry but
Speaker 1: or not even sorry, but you know what, you may
Speaker 1: be innocent, but we don't care because you didn't get
Speaker 1: the you didn't get the information to us on time.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the Twilight zone, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: how can that be personally? I think sometimes the system
Speaker 1: just wants to wrap case is up. They don't care
Speaker 1: if it's right, if it's wrong, if it's indifferent, if
Speaker 1: it's personal, if it's biased. Not always, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times when they get in this little hump and
Speaker 1: they have no other way out, they have no other choice.
Speaker 1: It's just wrapping that case in, that whole outcome, in
Speaker 1: that situation up. How is it that we are able
Speaker 1: as human beings to say that we no longer care
Speaker 1: about you. We don't care because we have to feed
Speaker 1: the system. The system has to go on, machine has
Speaker 1: to go on. And we've seen it over and over again.
Speaker 1: I remember Florida years ago tried to pass the sunset
Speaker 1: clause where they were saying, in some states have this
Speaker 1: right where even if you had DNA evidence of your innocence,
Speaker 1: you had to present it within like a month after
Speaker 1: your Otherwise they weren't going to look at it. Who
Speaker 1: the hell is going to have it a month after
Speaker 1: their trial. But there are states that have that. In
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania is one of them. Yeah, in Pennsylvania, it's pretty traconian.
Speaker 1: Once your conviction is final, you have a year to
Speaker 1: seek a new trial, which is not that long, especially
Speaker 1: if witnesses, you know, they just testified against you, not
Speaker 1: that long before they're really going to be prepared to
Speaker 1: tell the truth. Now, after that year, if you file
Speaker 1: that new trial motion and you lose, your presumptively barred
Speaker 1: from ever seeking relief again. With a few exceptions. So
Speaker 1: if you find new evidence of innocence, like in Crystal's case,
Speaker 1: we had a witness recantation, we had this spite mark
Speaker 1: expert disavowing its testimony, etcetera, you only have two months.
Speaker 1: You have sixty days to go back to court, and
Speaker 1: even if you get in within the sixty days, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the judge is going to find that your
Speaker 1: petition was filed on time. It means that he's going
Speaker 1: to look at Okay, while you've got in with sixty days,
Speaker 1: but could you have found that evidence even earlier sixty
Speaker 1: days from what sixty days from? Basically, when you get
Speaker 1: an inkling at the person might be willing to recant,
Speaker 1: or you have a new expert opinion, whatever you knew
Speaker 1: evidence is. So it's a really short period of time,
Speaker 1: particularly if you don't have a lawyer. But it also
Speaker 1: isn't the end of the game because you get in
Speaker 1: within sixty days, that's just the start of the process.
Speaker 1: The judge then has to see whether that literally was
Speaker 1: the first time you could have brought this evidence, or
Speaker 1: if you could have found it sooner somehow, And the
Speaker 1: d s will always say, well, they could have talked
Speaker 1: to this person a year ago, six months ago, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. In my job, this is what makes me
Speaker 1: bang my head against the desk the most. Are you
Speaker 1: talking about the pc R? A pc R okay, And
Speaker 1: it's what we call a jurisdictional requirements. So if you
Speaker 1: don't meet these things, the judge, even if here she
Speaker 1: wanted to, has no authority to hear the actual evidence.
Speaker 1: It's so maddening it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So then the day comes you're back in court at
Speaker 1: this point, you've been through everything. Had you resign yourself
Speaker 1: like oh, they're just gonna screw me again, or like
Speaker 1: what was your me and lone we have been through
Speaker 1: so much like my good days, my good times. I've
Speaker 1: done fired her one time and then rehired her the
Speaker 1: same day. But it was just all from anger, frustration, preseverance,
Speaker 1: just everything bottled up in me. I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 1: her personally, it was the fact about this system, what
Speaker 1: happened to me, and um, what's been done? And here
Speaker 1: she is trying to assist and help me, but yet
Speaker 1: I'm firing her and hiring her back in the same day.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, that's been real interesting. I mean I
Speaker 1: was just so grateful though here comes my whole team
Speaker 1: and I'm soon to get victory. I was happy, but
Speaker 1: on the same note, I was like, ah, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna help me. It's gonna be the same stuff. Over crap,
Speaker 1: I'm saying in my mind over and over because I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting a where it seemed like. But then all
Speaker 1: these doors started opening so fast. It was just like
Speaker 1: one court date, here we go, another court date scheduled,
Speaker 1: you know, here I'm going back to the county. Here,
Speaker 1: they're coming to see me every day. I'm getting visits
Speaker 1: and getting out of my room and out of my cell,
Speaker 1: and I'm all excited because I know it's getting closer.
Speaker 1: Here comes the big day. So um, when the big
Speaker 1: day came and they said we're releasing her. October first,
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen was the very special day. Very
Speaker 1: next day, they just opened the doors and just released
Speaker 1: me right to the street. Here it is freezing outside
Speaker 1: in the middle of rain, and you know, we have
Speaker 1: jackets and different possessions and properties and things like that.
Speaker 1: After being there for what ten twelve years, so you
Speaker 1: accumulate a lot of belongings and things being in there,
Speaker 1: and it was just unbelievable. Here I am just being
Speaker 1: released to the streets. I didn't even get to go
Speaker 1: back to my home prison to collect what a little
Speaker 1: bit of belongings I had. So I was this released
Speaker 1: rate from the county Joel, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: had to give myself ship to me. So it was
Speaker 1: just shocked. I was just in awe with everything and
Speaker 1: how they went about doing the results of everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: totally unbelievable. Twelve years and here you just throw somebody
Speaker 1: out on the street and don't give them there a
Speaker 1: little bit of belonging, some possessions and let them have
Speaker 1: transportation and have everything in order. They could care less,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter to them. So it is full circle
Speaker 1: because you went into the first trial thinking that justice
Speaker 1: was going to be done, and it wasn't. And then
Speaker 1: you went into the second trial thinking that justice wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be done, and it was. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, here you are like a baby being
Speaker 1: born right out back into the world, like you said,
Speaker 1: like what the hell do I do now? Type of thing. Right,
Speaker 1: But but the good news is you're free. Um at
Speaker 1: that point you're exonerated, formally exonerated. We didn't get exhonerate.
Speaker 1: I got exonerated October first, two thousand and fifteen, was
Speaker 1: my hearing. That's whenever I got free. They put a
Speaker 1: GPS monitor and was still dangle on with me for
Speaker 1: nine months. So from October to June two thousand sixteen
Speaker 1: last year, I had a bracelet one that was my
Speaker 1: fully exoneration day. When they were they took that bracelet
Speaker 1: off and released me. From that point. Yeah, So in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: when somebody is innocent, you can't. You know, some states
Speaker 1: you can ask for like a certificate of innocence, and
Speaker 1: that leads to an exoneration. All we can get is
Speaker 1: a new trial. So in October we were lucky enough
Speaker 1: to be able to get Crystal the new trial. But
Speaker 1: all that that meant was that the d could appeal
Speaker 1: if they wanted to. They could retry her if they
Speaker 1: wanted to. Luckily, they didn't appeal, but they did say
Speaker 1: they were going to proceed to trial. So she was
Speaker 1: out on bail as if she had never been convicted,
Speaker 1: and it was back as if she'd been before the
Speaker 1: first trial, and she was on this electronic monitoring, and
Speaker 1: the judge said a really aggressive trial schedule. We got
Speaker 1: a pre trial order saying you're going to trial in
Speaker 1: December January, and so we hit the ground running and
Speaker 1: did pre trial work for Crystal. In the course of that,
Speaker 1: more information about incentivized witnesses came out that we hadn't
Speaker 1: been able to get during the post conviction process, and
Speaker 1: we filed motions to have all the charges dismissed with prejudice,
Speaker 1: meaning they could never charge her again, and ultimately, after
Speaker 1: a bunch of hearings on that that was finally granted
Speaker 1: in June, so it wasn't over with the release. That
Speaker 1: took another good nine months of lawyering and of Crystal
Speaker 1: hanging in there being on this electronic monitor before she
Speaker 1: could be truly free. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: that drives me crazy too. What people don't understand is
Speaker 1: that the indictment, the original indictments, still stands, even though
Speaker 1: the conviction has been overturned. Basically, what the court saying
Speaker 1: is that your trial was wrong, the result was wrong,
Speaker 1: but the original die missile stands and they can still try.
Speaker 1: We talked about that moment when you were convicted something
Speaker 1: you didn't do, and the horror and shock of that,
Speaker 1: your sister and your dad and the whole terrible scene
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. What was the moment like when you
Speaker 1: were exonerated. Oh she was to so wonderful, Oh man,
Speaker 1: happy tears again. I always call him a moment because
Speaker 1: I always cry, you know, amost one seriality just thinking
Speaker 1: of it, it's just like the victory after like persevering
Speaker 1: and fighting and just everything for so long and so
Speaker 1: hard and you know, want to give up poop and
Speaker 1: you know throw the towel in. You just got to
Speaker 1: keep going, and then it's just like all that weight
Speaker 1: is finally off of you. You're just like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: you're in awe. It's like all a moment. I call
Speaker 1: it all a moment, but um, it's just relief. Just
Speaker 1: like ten things off of your chest, your heart, your mind.
Speaker 1: You'll know how to start, where to begin, but you
Speaker 1: know you're ready and you're doing something somehow, some way.
Speaker 1: So it's just amazing. It's amazing. Like I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: and thankful, just small things that people take maybe for
Speaker 1: granted on a daily basis. I just I'm just grateful
Speaker 1: and thank God just to be out because I could
Speaker 1: have still been in there, and you know, they might
Speaker 1: have tried to put me through trial again and give
Speaker 1: me a life sentence and say, oh death rows signs,
Speaker 1: who's this say? You never know. With all this being said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just so happy and grateful that all
Speaker 1: this is just now it's behind me and I can
Speaker 1: move forward to my future and what lies ahead. And
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful to my team and all the ones
Speaker 1: that did all the work and put up with all
Speaker 1: my notiness and my good days. And bad days and
Speaker 1: moments and times and you know, and here I am
Speaker 1: today and I'm so grateful to meet too and be
Speaker 1: here and spend this time with you is a blessing. Well, um,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm honored people who listen to the show. No,
Speaker 1: I'm really at a loss for words, but this is
Speaker 1: one of those moments. Um. I do know that when
Speaker 1: we're done talking, I'm gonna give you a big hug.
Speaker 1: So the um And And when you meet Chris, it's
Speaker 1: the first thing you think, is this I want to
Speaker 1: give this person a hug If you don't know um
Speaker 1: so anyway, But you know, I think you may have
Speaker 1: already done this. But at the end of each episode,
Speaker 1: we have a tradition here at Wrangful Conviction where I'd
Speaker 1: like to ask if there's any last words you'd like
Speaker 1: this year, I feel like you may have already just
Speaker 1: done that. So in this case, we'll do it differently,
Speaker 1: and we will turn it over to your distinguished attorney
Speaker 1: Neil lem and see if there's anything. Is there anything
Speaker 1: you'd like to leave with the audience, or any final
Speaker 1: thoughts that you have. Oh, I'm just grateful that you
Speaker 1: have shows like this to get this in the public eye,
Speaker 1: to help people to be more aware of their surroundings
Speaker 1: and what occurs out there in the world in our society,
Speaker 1: to make change and make a difference for good and better.
Speaker 1: Well said, I'm so happy that you invited us here
Speaker 1: and that it gives Crystel a chance to give voice
Speaker 1: to her story and also the other women exonorees. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more men in prison. We've only had
Speaker 1: two female clients in our office, but I think the
Speaker 1: challenges are really different, and it's a story that's not
Speaker 1: told as much as it needs to be. So grateful
Speaker 1: that we had the opportunity to be here and have
Speaker 1: Crystal give kind of the women's perspective on this problem
Speaker 1: in a in a mom's perspective as well. Well. This
Speaker 1: has been an extraordinary experience talking to both of you
Speaker 1: and learning from you, and you are a perfect example
Speaker 1: of why those of us in this Innocence movement are
Speaker 1: so passionately devoted to doing what we do. Now your
Speaker 1: home and with your children and your grandchildren and able
Speaker 1: to get on with your life, which is great. I
Speaker 1: want to thank both of you, Crystal and Nilam for
Speaker 1: joining us and Trekking all the way here from Pennsylvania. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you and thank you everyone for listening. This has
Speaker 1: been a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction. Thank you
Speaker 1: don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the INNS Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot
Speaker 1: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Sicktal Company Number one