Speaker 1: On April two thousand three, three men robbed a Houston
Speaker 1: checkashing store, shooting and killing the clerk, Alfredia Jones, as
Speaker 1: well as the responding officer, Charles Clark. An eyewitness saw
Speaker 1: the men flee to a local housing project. Two of them, men,
Speaker 1: the Sean Claspi and Elijah Joubert, were soon identified and arrested,
Speaker 1: but they protected the third man by pointing the finger
Speaker 1: at Dwyane Brown. The Sean Classby had cut a deal
Speaker 1: for his testimony against Dwayne, and a second eye witness
Speaker 1: was coerced into supporting that testimony. But Dwyane was at
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Erica Dockery's apartment at the time of the crime.
Speaker 1: He had called her at her workplace on the apartment's landline,
Speaker 1: and Erica corroborated that story. The prosecutor soon charged Erika
Speaker 1: Dockery with perjury for her grand jury testimony, sending her
Speaker 1: to jail for four months, away from her kids, and
Speaker 1: causing her to eventually start telling the story that he
Speaker 1: wanted here with no more alibi witnesses and no phone
Speaker 1: records presented a trial to corroborate his story. Dwayne, a
Speaker 1: man they knew was innocent, was sent to death row.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. You're about to hear the
Speaker 1: story of Dwayne Brown. This case involves an innocent man
Speaker 1: sentenced to death, a district attorney who knew he was
Speaker 1: innocent before he prosecuted him, and witnesses that were coerced
Speaker 1: as too light of a term. With us today to
Speaker 1: tell the story is the man who is primarily responsible
Speaker 1: for getting him out. Brian Stolar's Welcome to wrongful Conviction. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me and of course
Speaker 1: saving the best for last. We have the man himself,
Speaker 1: Dwayne Brown. Thank you for being here, and welcome to
Speaker 1: wrong for conviction. Thank you, thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: and sorry for everything that you had to go through
Speaker 1: to get here to be here, but so happy that
Speaker 1: you're free today. So let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up and what was your life
Speaker 1: like before this this tragedy happened that you ended up
Speaker 1: being falsely blamed for. Well, I grew up back and
Speaker 1: forth and takes us a Loisano mom, but I mainly
Speaker 1: stay in Louisiana. Out here is just straight country. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun if you like being out
Speaker 1: in and opening. That's what well I live in now Okay,
Speaker 1: And Brian, can you take us back to the crime
Speaker 1: and how the hell Dwayne Ever got his name thrown
Speaker 1: into the mix when it should have been clear to
Speaker 1: everyone that he wasn't and could not have been a
Speaker 1: part of this scenario. On April third, two thousand three,
Speaker 1: three men robbed the Houston check cashing store and South
Speaker 1: Houston called Ace America's Cash Express. There was an inside job.
Speaker 1: Someone who worked there said there was gonna be three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand bucks, a huge drop of money, so people
Speaker 1: were conspiring to steal it. Three men went to go
Speaker 1: rob it, and the clerk who was there that day
Speaker 1: turned out to not be the woman who gave him
Speaker 1: the inside tips. She got cold feet, decided she didn't
Speaker 1: want to be there. So a woman named Alfredia Jones,
Speaker 1: who had just had a baby with twenty seven year
Speaker 1: old woman and she opened the door. She got bum
Speaker 1: rushed by one of the guys. They asked her open
Speaker 1: the safe. She says, I have to call to let
Speaker 1: my boss know him here. She calls, but she uses
Speaker 1: the code form being robbed as I'm opening store twenty
Speaker 1: four or something like that. That was code from being robbed.
Speaker 1: Officer Charles Clark, year old, decorated veteran of the Houston
Speaker 1: Police Force, almost on the verge of retirement, was nearby.
Speaker 1: They were towing cars for impound and he happened to
Speaker 1: be nearby. So he went to the scene and was
Speaker 1: murdered tragically. And Alfredia Jones was murdered tragically. And the
Speaker 1: record driver who was with the cop had driven by
Speaker 1: the scene and saw three men rush out. And the
Speaker 1: three men went to a housing complex, got rid of
Speaker 1: some clothes, you know, tried to get out of town.
Speaker 1: Now two of those men we know. One of them
Speaker 1: was arrested the next day to Sean Glassbie and then
Speaker 1: then man named Elijah Jolbert last week twenty one, Elijah Tree.
Speaker 1: Now there was three men. Glassby and Jilbert sort of
Speaker 1: conspired to tell them that Dwayne Brown was the third guy,
Speaker 1: and they had several interviews with the cops. They were
Speaker 1: getting the third degree, and Glassby cut a deal. He
Speaker 1: agreed to plead guilty to armed robbery only and take
Speaker 1: a thirty year sentence in exchange for testifying against Dwayne
Speaker 1: and Elijah Jolbert and separate trials. Lajah Jolbert was charged
Speaker 1: with murdering Alfredia Jones and Dwayne Brown was charge of
Speaker 1: murdering Officer Clark. So they got to charge two people
Speaker 1: with capital murder, which we know Texas loves their death
Speaker 1: penalty right, And these guys didn't want to implicate the
Speaker 1: third for whatever reason, the actual third guy who was
Speaker 1: known to them. But how did it come to your
Speaker 1: attention that you were a suspect in this case? If
Speaker 1: they just bust down your door one day and my
Speaker 1: mom and came that man, somebody told her that what
Speaker 1: was going on? So she was asked me, what's going on?
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know. She said, well, if he
Speaker 1: wasn't there, let's just go tell yourself into the police station.
Speaker 1: And they pulled me over right before I got to
Speaker 1: the police station. Did you know that this was what
Speaker 1: they wanted you for? No? I didn't. So you just
Speaker 1: were going in to see what was going on pretty much.
Speaker 1: And then did you ever see free air again after
Speaker 1: that moment? Oh? No. Once they put the handkles somewhere,
Speaker 1: I didn't try them loosen until twelve years later, listeners
Speaker 1: of our show, No I've had rob Well and Rodney
Speaker 1: read two innocent men on death row in Texas on
Speaker 1: the show. I can't even imagine what twelve minutes on
Speaker 1: there would be like, much less twelve years. But you're
Speaker 1: here to tell the tale, which is great, and you
Speaker 1: know how it happened to you and how it got undone. Brian,
Speaker 1: if you could walk through some of the dirty tricks
Speaker 1: that they used in order to fabricate this case and
Speaker 1: to condemn an innocent man, you know, the whole system
Speaker 1: broke on Dwayne. Now, there's never been and never will be,
Speaker 1: any science that ties Dwayne to this offense. No DNA,
Speaker 1: no gunch at residue, no fingerprints, no nothing. And so
Speaker 1: they had to get this conviction through witness testimony because
Speaker 1: they already had de Sean Glasbiew who agreed to plead
Speaker 1: guilty thirty years testify against them. But by law they
Speaker 1: incorporated the snitches testimony with evidence, but they had none
Speaker 1: because they had no science. And I realized pretty early
Speaker 1: on when I got the case on habeas which will
Speaker 1: explain later, that this was corrupt from the very very beginning,
Speaker 1: and it's manifests itself in a couple of different ways. First,
Speaker 1: witness intimidation. He had one witness named Sharon to Simon,
Speaker 1: who had told the police if she did not see
Speaker 1: Dwayne the morning of they apparently had all congregated at
Speaker 1: a at a housing complex. She said that she didn't
Speaker 1: see him. The police and the press her frightened her
Speaker 1: and said, if you don't say that you saw Dwyanne
Speaker 1: that morning, we're gonna take your kids away. She was
Speaker 1: living in a housing voucher at a child with cerebral
Speaker 1: paulsy in and a wheelchair. Wanted nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the police. They made her life miserable. They came by
Speaker 1: every day and so she said, fine, I saw him there.
Speaker 1: So that's one piece of witness. They said that they
Speaker 1: saw the morning of. But Jason, nowhere was the investigation
Speaker 1: more corrupt and I think more broken then in the
Speaker 1: grand jury process involving Erica Dockery. Now Erica Dockery was
Speaker 1: Dwayne's girlfriend, and Dwayne had an alibi from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: He was at Erica's apartment on the morning of the
Speaker 1: murder and made a phone call to where she worked.
Speaker 1: And so she goes to the police station and tells
Speaker 1: that exact thing. When I left for work that morning,
Speaker 1: he was there, and yeah, later that morning, I was
Speaker 1: working as a home health carriage to an elderly woman.
Speaker 1: A phone call came in. I looked down on the
Speaker 1: caller ID box, which incidentally have to explain to anyone
Speaker 1: under the age of thirty. But on the caller ID
Speaker 1: box it said her house. The elderly woman picks it up,
Speaker 1: it's Dwayne, hands it to Erica. She tells that to
Speaker 1: the cops, and then she gets put in what's called
Speaker 1: the grand jury. For those of you who are not
Speaker 1: criminal defense lawyers, a grand jury is an investigative body
Speaker 1: of members of the public. But I have to get
Speaker 1: to that later too. Is how this was also skewed.
Speaker 1: Members of the public sit and listen to the evidence,
Speaker 1: and if there's enough evidence to proceed, then the grand
Speaker 1: jury says, yes, prosecutor, you may proceed with a charge
Speaker 1: against that defendant. Then the charge is lodged, and then
Speaker 1: get to the trial stuff like you see on TV.
Speaker 1: Eric goes to the grand jury and says this, he
Speaker 1: was there when I left that morning, and the phone
Speaker 1: call came in, and there's a moment where it all
Speaker 1: turns now. Erica is uncounseled. She goes in there tells
Speaker 1: the truth. During a break, dan Rizzo, the prosecutor in
Speaker 1: this case we hear a lot about, takes her into
Speaker 1: a locked room and says, if you don't say what
Speaker 1: I want, if you don't tell me the truth, my truth,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna go jail the rest of your
Speaker 1: life or maybe die. And then she goes back in
Speaker 1: the grand jury and the grand jurors themselves start badgering
Speaker 1: her and threatening her and pressuring her, saying things like,
Speaker 1: come on, Erica, don't worry about that guy, think about
Speaker 1: your kids. Tell us the true, and she holds firm
Speaker 1: and tells the truth. And then afterwards dan Rizzo decides
Speaker 1: to charge her with perjury. Why because he could. He
Speaker 1: asked for a high bail for her. She's not violent,
Speaker 1: has no prior convictions or anything, but asked for high
Speaker 1: bail because he can, because he knows that she'll sit
Speaker 1: in jail because she can't make the bail. She sits
Speaker 1: there for four months, loses her job, her children get
Speaker 1: raised by her cousin, and finally she's like, screw it,
Speaker 1: I don't care, just get me out of here, and
Speaker 1: she agrees to get out plead guilty, says fine, I lied,
Speaker 1: and then she says a trial that Dwayne was not
Speaker 1: there when she left, and yes she got a phone call,
Speaker 1: but it was not from her house. And really she
Speaker 1: is the most pivotal witness because we talked to jurors.
Speaker 1: So really her testimony was fabricated and manufactured as a
Speaker 1: result of pressure from the grand jury and pressure from
Speaker 1: Dan Rizzo. And that happened with not only her but
Speaker 1: another witness, Tronto Signmon. The grand jury process in Texas
Speaker 1: was built broken Houston and paneled grand jurors by what's
Speaker 1: called the pick apal grand jury system. Pickapal sounds something
Speaker 1: more fun than grand jury, so here it is a
Speaker 1: judge would appoint a commissioner, usually a donor or a friend.
Speaker 1: That friend would go get their friends and they go
Speaker 1: to the grand jury together. And it was typically older
Speaker 1: white folks sitting in judgment of minorities in one of
Speaker 1: the most diverse cities in the country. And the fourth
Speaker 1: person of the grand jury and a police officer shooting
Speaker 1: investigation was himself a police officer. That is a system
Speaker 1: the Erica doctory founder in and so she testifies against him,
Speaker 1: and as Simon testifies against him, and glassbeed. And that's it.
Speaker 1: That puts an innocent good man on death row. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it allows at least one of the actual perpetrators
Speaker 1: to get off light as well as the third actual
Speaker 1: perpetrator escaping justice entirely that man. We did a thorough
Speaker 1: investigation of who we believe the third person to be.
Speaker 1: We go to the d A and we say, here's
Speaker 1: the guy who we believe it to be. We lay
Speaker 1: it out chapter and verse, and I said, investigate this
Speaker 1: guy swab as DNA came go interrogate him, do something
Speaker 1: they didn't. He was in jail for a armed robbery.
Speaker 1: This man gets out and murder someone in a drug
Speaker 1: deal gone bad. Now, so do you talk about public safety?
Speaker 1: The cascade of wrongs here led to that man who
Speaker 1: was murdered by this man. So, Dwayne, you lived through
Speaker 1: this already totally insane tornado of bullshit, but you weren't
Speaker 1: being represented by Brian yet. And while awaiting trial in
Speaker 1: Harris County jail, your attorney, Loretta Muldro came to you
Speaker 1: with a deal. Not much of a deal though, forty
Speaker 1: years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea, which
Speaker 1: is suspect to begin with in a case in which
Speaker 1: a police officer had been killed. But that's beside the point,
Speaker 1: because even though she advised you to take the deal,
Speaker 1: you stood your ground. Yes, Mr Loretta Modro, she told
Speaker 1: me to take the deals. She would like, you've been
Speaker 1: in her year, you will do forty years, you'll come
Speaker 1: home role and all that. I'm like, I didn't do
Speaker 1: this crime. Would you steal a sign? And she said yes,
Speaker 1: And I totally if you didn't do it, so he
Speaker 1: could go sign the papers and you could do the
Speaker 1: sign because I wasn't going to do it. Good for you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if they really thought that he murdered a
Speaker 1: police officer, nobody's offering you anything that allows you to
Speaker 1: ever go free again. So there was some under a
Speaker 1: current to that offer right there. And we know it,
Speaker 1: and you know it, and I know it, and they
Speaker 1: knew it. But you did the right thing. Now it
Speaker 1: comes to the trial. And again when I say the
Speaker 1: whole system broke on Dwayne, I don't just mean the prosecution,
Speaker 1: police work, the investigation, the grand jury which was corrupt.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about everything. He didn't have money to hire
Speaker 1: an attorney, and there is now, but at the time
Speaker 1: there was no public sender system, so it was private
Speaker 1: lawyers willing to take the case on a reduced see
Speaker 1: and Vernamujo took the case. Dwayne tells her the alibi,
Speaker 1: and she does not issue a subpoena to the phone company.
Speaker 1: And I had asked her later when I got involved,
Speaker 1: It's like, why didn't you Why didn't you ask for that?
Speaker 1: And she's like, I didn't think they'd have them, and
Speaker 1: I was like, a man's life, it stands in the balance.
Speaker 1: She said, well, I used to work there and I
Speaker 1: didn't think they kept landline phone records. That's the distinction
Speaker 1: she makes, and that's where he made the phone call from.
Speaker 1: And that's really critical Jason, because he was the landline.
Speaker 1: He was there at the house, could not have been
Speaker 1: at the crime scene, and he need a superman cap
Speaker 1: to get there. So then she presents that defense. When
Speaker 1: we talked to the jurors, they were like, but where's
Speaker 1: the evidence of the phone call? And so she could
Speaker 1: not prove that he made the phone call and didn't
Speaker 1: put a single piece of evidence in for his case.
Speaker 1: There was a critical ALBI witness, Reginald Jones who lived
Speaker 1: with Erica and Dwayne, who was there who saw him
Speaker 1: come down the stairs, you know, at a certain time,
Speaker 1: which would have given credence to the fact that he
Speaker 1: was sleeping. Is actually asleep there in this murder. Maybe
Speaker 1: she didn't call him, she didn't try to speak at
Speaker 1: the phone record, and he gets found guilty to nobody's surprise.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by the a i G pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program. A i G is a leading global insurance company,
Speaker 1: and for over a decade, the ai G pro Bono
Speaker 1: Program has provided thousands of hours of free legal services
Speaker 1: and other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need.
Speaker 1: More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform
Speaker 1: as a key pillar of its mission. This episode is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Stand Together. Stand Together is a
Speaker 1: philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For
Speaker 1: more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have
Speaker 1: been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By
Speaker 1: empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses,
Speaker 1: Stand Together tackles the root causes of problems in our community.
Speaker 1: These and empowers those closest to the problems to drive solutions.
Speaker 1: Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step
Speaker 1: a Act, empowering community based programs that help people re
Speaker 1: enter society, and now working to bridge divides in our communities.
Speaker 1: To learn how you may get involved, visit stand Together
Speaker 1: dot org, slash Conviction. The Ansis files on Netflix covers
Speaker 1: Twayne's case, so you can get a deeper look there
Speaker 1: as well. You can check out the whole story and
Speaker 1: Brian Stolars is amazing book Grace and Justice on death Row. Now, Dwayne,
Speaker 1: you're convicted and sentenced to death row, can you tell
Speaker 1: us about what your initial experience was like in that
Speaker 1: hell hole? Oh? Man, When I got there, the first
Speaker 1: thing they said it was getting driss but but naked.
Speaker 1: It was like I was just shocked, I guess, And
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I get a naked go see
Speaker 1: everybody in the doctors and all list. And when they
Speaker 1: put you in the sale, man, it's like this is unreal.
Speaker 1: Seven uh footsteps sideways in thirteen forward and I'm sex too,
Speaker 1: and my guest my home is another two and a
Speaker 1: half foot tall, I guess. Long and there was the ceiling.
Speaker 1: I can put my palm of my hand on the ceiling,
Speaker 1: and the twenty three over there you could put your
Speaker 1: palm on the ceiling. So this is almost like a
Speaker 1: living tomb that they put you in basically, right, I
Speaker 1: would say this rufus maybe eight ft tall. I guess
Speaker 1: if that nine ft tall, and you get fed through
Speaker 1: the slots to use the door. It's just this is
Speaker 1: not right. That sail is not designed for any man
Speaker 1: to be in that long term. It misses with your mind.
Speaker 1: And I think the Lord that I can come back
Speaker 1: out crazy or nothing, because I did see some people
Speaker 1: just lose it in there. It's it's not right at all. Now.
Speaker 1: I know that they had a suicide on that throw
Speaker 1: this week in Texas, and I imagine you probably saw
Speaker 1: your share of that as well, because you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is no place to put any human being.
Speaker 1: When they first put me in and said I didn't
Speaker 1: have anything, no picture, no letter, no address to write
Speaker 1: anybody or nothing. The only address I had was my
Speaker 1: grandmother address, and that's because I remembered it my heart.
Speaker 1: No phone calls you have to put in a request
Speaker 1: for a phone call, and they would take thirty days
Speaker 1: a longer, or to even get it. It was man.
Speaker 1: The sale was just empty, It was cold, and it
Speaker 1: was nothing. They didn't even bring me a bunk and
Speaker 1: un said, I want to say the next day or
Speaker 1: the day after that. And the only way I started
Speaker 1: getting something it was a guy but we called in
Speaker 1: fifty fifty. That was the first person that gave me
Speaker 1: a coffee cup, a new to lead or anything soaping
Speaker 1: the thing. It took me a good little while to adapt.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say that's twenty three hours a
Speaker 1: day during the week, twenty four on the weekends. Where
Speaker 1: would you go for the extra hour during the day,
Speaker 1: either to the rick yard or to the barricades. But
Speaker 1: I call it because I know that you can do
Speaker 1: is look up. You've got twenty ft walls alloway around you,
Speaker 1: and it's no bigger than the cell. Mhm. Right, So
Speaker 1: you go to an outdoor cell basically one hour a
Speaker 1: day now twice a week, three days in the day room,
Speaker 1: and you've got two days outside. Mhm. You gotta get
Speaker 1: button naked anytime you leave the cell or going back
Speaker 1: to the cell. I used to call it my favorite
Speaker 1: part of the day, just to make the cards called
Speaker 1: the favorite part of the day, because why just to
Speaker 1: make the guards mad? Why would you make him mad?
Speaker 1: They gotta sit there and look at you lift your
Speaker 1: cleanus up, and a lot of they don't want to
Speaker 1: look at that. So I will say, hey, time to
Speaker 1: get stripped out the favorite part of the day. I
Speaker 1: say that they would look at me in my face like, man,
Speaker 1: you're crazy. Well you took a dehumanizing part of it
Speaker 1: and made it humorous, which shows your gracing, your your
Speaker 1: inner peace. Okay, so how did you find out that
Speaker 1: Brian was going to take your case? When I first
Speaker 1: met Burned and he was talking, and I was like, religiously,
Speaker 1: you go out one year and to the other because
Speaker 1: I really didn't trust him, because I thought he was
Speaker 1: gonna be like Loretto Modro and Robert Modro and you know,
Speaker 1: talk good, but don't follow through with it. But it
Speaker 1: took me three years to trust him, and he stayed
Speaker 1: at it. So he was consistent with it, and I
Speaker 1: thank you for that. He kept fighting for what he
Speaker 1: was believed in and I love him for that for real.
Speaker 1: And Brian, he had every right to be skeptical. He
Speaker 1: had been let down or screwed really by everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I can understand why he wouldn't trust me
Speaker 1: because of how he had been wronged by his trial lawyer.
Speaker 1: And he actually even had a second lawyer who was
Speaker 1: a direct appeal lawyer who also didn't do you know,
Speaker 1: great job for him. So I was just called habeas
Speaker 1: corpus lawyer, which is for the non lawyers on this
Speaker 1: it's just it's any anything else you can find about
Speaker 1: the case, like usually it's for DNA and other new evidence.
Speaker 1: And it took a number of times of me going
Speaker 1: back down there and really not talking about the case,
Speaker 1: and I showed interest in who he was. One of
Speaker 1: the only beautiful things about going to meet him was
Speaker 1: it was all all behind glass on phones. I could
Speaker 1: bring twenty dollars with the vending machine quarters to buy
Speaker 1: him whatever he wanted for food, because the food there
Speaker 1: obviously is terrible, and like it was my favorite part
Speaker 1: of going because we had little mini thanksgivings every time
Speaker 1: and I'd buy him, you know, an appetizer, a main course,
Speaker 1: and a dessert and one time they had the lion pie.
Speaker 1: You thought it was freaking Christmas. It was just like
Speaker 1: but the greatest day ever, and he lined up a
Speaker 1: Hawaiian punch, a cheeseburger, and a key line pie and
Speaker 1: we sat there and talked for hours, and over time
Speaker 1: we began to trust each other, and I began to
Speaker 1: truly love him and believe that this was my mission
Speaker 1: as a lawyer and a person. And things would happen
Speaker 1: like can we get an affidavit from a critical witness,
Speaker 1: or we would tell him that we had a court hearing,
Speaker 1: and he realized I was actually doing real work for
Speaker 1: him and cared about him deeply. I'm glad, I'm glad
Speaker 1: he trusted me. Can you explain habeas corpus? Because the
Speaker 1: literal meaning is you shall have the body? Right, it's
Speaker 1: medieval back. What you're telling the court is you have
Speaker 1: the body and I wanted out, and you are doing
Speaker 1: that by raising anything new newly discovered evidence can be
Speaker 1: raised in the habeas corpus petition. And that's what we
Speaker 1: took on with my prior law firm, Cano Gates pro Bono.
Speaker 1: Got a bunch of people who are you know, committed
Speaker 1: to the mission. Jacy Kaplan, Bethey, Nick far Christate, Megan Whistler.
Speaker 1: Are all these folks? So I just love dearly for
Speaker 1: helping me, helping Dwayne, but that was our mission. The
Speaker 1: Habeas corpus brief is what we would submit, would be
Speaker 1: two seventy page brief. And in that brief we discovered
Speaker 1: with all the new evidence, we could find all the
Speaker 1: affidavits from the witnesses who described the pressure and the threats.
Speaker 1: So when I we're in tooth thou in eleven right,
Speaker 1: Erica Dockery, let's talk about her. She is the most
Speaker 1: critical witness. I got a hot tip on where she lived.
Speaker 1: I'd fly down to Houston go knock on her door.
Speaker 1: She slammed the door in my face because the last
Speaker 1: time she got involved this, she went to jail. But
Speaker 1: here is where the case turns for Dwayne. Anthony Graves
Speaker 1: whose exsonary number twelve from Texas's death row, Dwayne is
Speaker 1: number thirteen. So by just by that standard alone, they've
Speaker 1: executed over five hundred. Dwayne and Anthony are like living unicorns.
Speaker 1: And so Anthony Graves gets out and he says a
Speaker 1: lot of guys belong there, but your guy doesn't. So
Speaker 1: what can I do? And that the beautiful moment of
Speaker 1: paying it forward. I'm forever grateful to Anthony. I said,
Speaker 1: I can't get Erica to talk to me. I just
Speaker 1: want to find out what the truth is. And his
Speaker 1: girlfriend had been pressured and Anthony's own case, so he's like,
Speaker 1: I got you. He goes and talks to her and says, hey,
Speaker 1: just talk to that fast talking lawyer, and she said
Speaker 1: she would. So I flew down on a Sunday, had
Speaker 1: lunch at a Cajun restaurant and I said to her,
Speaker 1: I can't take your kids away, do anything to you.
Speaker 1: Just tell me the damn truth, please, And then she
Speaker 1: starts to sort of cathartically cry, and I said, I
Speaker 1: was Layne there when he left that morning, yes, And
Speaker 1: did you get a phone call? Yes? And where was
Speaker 1: it from? From my home? Did you talk to him? Yes?
Speaker 1: And she starts letting it all out in a very
Speaker 1: cathartic way, and she said to me the following which
Speaker 1: sticks in my brain forever. She said, Brian, I chose
Speaker 1: my kids over Dwayne, and I'm sorry, and she want
Speaker 1: to make it right. I wrote affidavit, she signed it,
Speaker 1: and I submitted that to the d A. And so
Speaker 1: that was step one in the affidavit. She we can't
Speaker 1: her testimony a trial, swearing that the ad A quote
Speaker 1: told me he did not believe me, that it was
Speaker 1: not a good person, that he was going to take
Speaker 1: my children away by calling Child Protective Services, and that
Speaker 1: I was going to go to jail for a very
Speaker 1: long time. I would never see my children again. These
Speaker 1: threats are why I gave the testimony I did. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a special place in hell for people that would
Speaker 1: do to her and of course to you. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about these phone records. The whole damn case comes
Speaker 1: down to phone records. It's a mainline phone record. If
Speaker 1: he's there in Eric's house, he cannot be at the
Speaker 1: crime scene. Can't do it. I drove it, you can't
Speaker 1: do it. So I sa poen at the phone company. Nope,
Speaker 1: it's been of the cops notes between the d A note.
Speaker 1: So I go see Dwayne and I say to him,
Speaker 1: this is the only time I cursing documentary. I said,
Speaker 1: I can't find these fucking phone records. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: and I started crying. I put my head against the glass,
Speaker 1: and this man who's in a cell that you can
Speaker 1: almost touch side to side, brought me peace and brought
Speaker 1: me grace and said, hey, it's all right. The truth
Speaker 1: is gonna come out. So, Dwayne, how did you stay
Speaker 1: so damn peaceful in there and then transfer that piece
Speaker 1: to me? Yoga good? All right? How did the phone
Speaker 1: records magically appeared? So I had all these affidavits from
Speaker 1: a Simon Erica and I go to the d A.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this guy's innocent, innocent, is didn't do it?
Speaker 1: And she says this. She says, just like that. So
Speaker 1: you flapped her hand at me and says, all you
Speaker 1: fast talking yankee lawyers from big firms come down here,
Speaker 1: say your system is broken. Say the guys are innocent,
Speaker 1: he's guilty. You're gonna watch him die. And Jesus, I
Speaker 1: had all that I could not to channel my inner.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad's a union carpenter from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: doesn't take shift from anybody. I said to her, I said,
Speaker 1: I'll be back, like terminator style. But I didn't know
Speaker 1: I was gonna be able to be back. And so
Speaker 1: we had a hearing coming up which we're going to
Speaker 1: present all the evidence, all the affidavits, and before that hearing,
Speaker 1: we get an email like I've never seen before. And
Speaker 1: the email is from the prosecutor and when who did
Speaker 1: that to me? Sent it to the judge and my
Speaker 1: co counsel and she says, it's the purfocy email to
Speaker 1: let you know that the HPD officer in charge then
Speaker 1: investigation of the Brown trial, Breck McDaniel, found a box
Speaker 1: of documents over the weekend while spring cleaning his garage.
Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding, and my co council in Dallas
Speaker 1: gets the box, Megan, and you know, I called her,
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, what's in there? And she's like, God,
Speaker 1: it just looks like stuff we've seen before. So I
Speaker 1: kind of hang up, figuring this was just a nothing.
Speaker 1: And then about an hour later I get a call
Speaker 1: that they say, check your email phone record. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not that good of a lawyer after all. I'm just
Speaker 1: freaking lucky it was in his garage in a box.
Speaker 1: But here here is what's worse. I know, how could
Speaker 1: it get any worse, But here's what's worse. Attached to
Speaker 1: that phone record was a subpoena from Dan Rizzo, the prosecutor,
Speaker 1: to the phone company, dated the day after Erica testified
Speaker 1: about the phone call in the grand jury. Dan Rizzo
Speaker 1: sent a subpoena signed it got the records back from
Speaker 1: the phone company and never turned them over to his
Speaker 1: defense lawyer, or in a moldrow, to me as his
Speaker 1: habeas lawyer, or anyone else. And yet they were found
Speaker 1: in a cops garage in two thousand and thirteen. This
Speaker 1: is a classic what's called Brady violation. Was a constitutional
Speaker 1: violation when you don't turn over sculptor records as a prosecutor.
Speaker 1: And they agreed to a new trial without a hearing,
Speaker 1: which I've been told in Texas never happened. And so
Speaker 1: we waited for seventeen months because a stable of Republican
Speaker 1: judges was up for election on the Appellate Court and
Speaker 1: they were never going to give Dwayne a new trial
Speaker 1: in an election year. But in November they were all
Speaker 1: re elected, these judges, and the day after that re election,
Speaker 1: they issued an order formally vacating his conviction and ordering
Speaker 1: a new trial. That he came the night before and
Speaker 1: the ladies told me to pack up. You on the chain,
Speaker 1: so they don't never let you know what's going on here.
Speaker 1: They just come to you doing to tell you what
Speaker 1: you gotta do. I started packing my stuff up, and
Speaker 1: the next morning they can't get me around I don't
Speaker 1: know what time it was. They can't got me and
Speaker 1: put me in the van. That van is you can't
Speaker 1: see out of it. You handcuffs if they have an accident.
Speaker 1: If you don't die, you're really gonna be hurt. Uh.
Speaker 1: They got into the county once again. I was back
Speaker 1: with nothing, and they had some guys that was already
Speaker 1: there waiting to go to trial that was from death.
Speaker 1: Rod knew, and they just started giving me, you know,
Speaker 1: soap stuff, two paces and stuff like that, hygiene and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was gonna happen after that. I
Speaker 1: just just in there. So that's November, around the turn
Speaker 1: of the year, round December, he actually goes back to
Speaker 1: population and the d A was changed by that. And
Speaker 1: actually the DA who gave him the new trials name
Speaker 1: is Mike Anderson. He died of cancer. He authorized the
Speaker 1: new trial. His wife, Devin Anderson, who took over his
Speaker 1: d A, was in charge of reinvest getting the crime
Speaker 1: to see if they were going to be a retrial.
Speaker 1: And so the only benefit of those seventeen months that
Speaker 1: I talked about, but the the Pelate court was that
Speaker 1: the user chronicles all over this. They had pressured and said,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're following too the air? What do
Speaker 1: you do? What do you do about Brown? And then
Speaker 1: on June eight, Twayns released my lawyer Can. She came
Speaker 1: to see me and I'm like, what's going on? She like,
Speaker 1: did you see the TV? I'm like, no, what's on
Speaker 1: the TV? You're like you're getting out. When she said that,
Speaker 1: I started crying. I'm like, man, don't play with me now,
Speaker 1: just another time played like that? But she was real
Speaker 1: and when she left, the girls came with the god.
Speaker 1: He normally handcuffed me in the bank. This time he
Speaker 1: didn't put no hand coues home me. He just walked
Speaker 1: into my cell and said, when you read it, just
Speaker 1: let me know. Hit the button. I got up there,
Speaker 1: I went to the celle, I looked in up. I say, man,
Speaker 1: I don't want nothing that of yet. I turned to
Speaker 1: the run and I gave all the stuff to the
Speaker 1: guys that was already there, and I love He woke
Speaker 1: me up and Dwayne, you said on the tips outside
Speaker 1: the prison that you have no hate in your heart
Speaker 1: for what they did to you, and that you can't
Speaker 1: trust everyone, but you can love everyone. That was the
Speaker 1: first thing came out the first thing I thought about it,
Speaker 1: and that just said it. That's like some Mandela shift
Speaker 1: right there. Amazing. So, Brian, can you explain to us
Speaker 1: this madness of the civil suit when people are exonerated,
Speaker 1: there's a hodgepodge of laws across the country or some states,
Speaker 1: you don't get anything. In Texas. The statue is actually
Speaker 1: fairly generous. It's eighty thousand dollars a year. For every
Speaker 1: year you're in, put the same amount in an annuity
Speaker 1: going forward, so it gets broken out over his life.
Speaker 1: So Dwanne would get about two million, one million up
Speaker 1: front and a million broken out. But in order for
Speaker 1: that to happen, the disc attorney has to file what's
Speaker 1: called an affidavit of actual innocence. When he was released
Speaker 1: in a Devon Anderson just said, I don't have enough
Speaker 1: events to go forward. That's not the same thing as
Speaker 1: actually innocent. So we asked for an independent special counsel,
Speaker 1: and special council was appointed, my named John Really. After
Speaker 1: ten months, John Really issued a lengthy report declaring Dwayne
Speaker 1: actually innocent. The d A agrees, the court signs in order.
Speaker 1: We send that to the comptroller and he denies it.
Speaker 1: We heard that back channel. The Attorney General wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to the comptroller saying, don't pay him because the
Speaker 1: Houston Police Union still thinks Dwyane did it. And so
Speaker 1: we had to file a petition the Texas Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and in December, finally the Texas Supreme Court ruled that
Speaker 1: the Comptroller's denial was improper, and so the court ordered
Speaker 1: the comptroller to pay Dwayne and behold finally after all
Speaker 1: these years. And so now the whole legal team feels finally,
Speaker 1: so a sense of relief. But there's still one thing
Speaker 1: left is accountability for Dan Rizzo, the d A. Dan
Speaker 1: Rizzo has a bar hearing. I believe he should be
Speaker 1: disbarred at a minimum. And it's important not to gloss
Speaker 1: over this particular sular fact, which is that in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, as part of the civil suit, kim og
Speaker 1: who's the current d A, disclosed a long concealed email
Speaker 1: between Rizzo, the ad A, and Detective McDaniel, which happened
Speaker 1: the day after Dockery's testimony at the grand jury hearing,
Speaker 1: and McDaniel, referring to the hidden phone records that Rizzo
Speaker 1: had subpoena, had said and I quote I was hoping
Speaker 1: that it would clearly refute Erica's claim that she received
Speaker 1: a call at work, but it looks like the call.
Speaker 1: Detailed records from the apartment shows that the home phone
Speaker 1: dialed Erica's place of employment at about eight thirty am
Speaker 1: and again at ten oh eight am. They knew, they
Speaker 1: always knew, and they deliberately suppressed withheld glide and conspired
Speaker 1: to send an innocent man to death row. And then
Speaker 1: I don't know this, but I'm just gonna speculate they
Speaker 1: probably went home that night and had a nice dinner,
Speaker 1: watched the little TV, and went to bed. And I
Speaker 1: just don't understand what makes people like that. What I
Speaker 1: have found in the last five years, though, is the
Speaker 1: beauty of strangers to join the beauty of those who
Speaker 1: hear his story, including you you. I am forever touched
Speaker 1: by the generosity of those who have heard his story
Speaker 1: and offered to help him. My church agreed to help
Speaker 1: buy him a truck. After the Netflix documentary, we heard
Speaker 1: from folks across the world asking how they could help,
Speaker 1: and we set up a go fund Me page that
Speaker 1: raised nearly thirteen thou dollars that we've now taken down
Speaker 1: because he's been compensated, and Dwayne is asked, if you're
Speaker 1: motivated by this story, to donate to the in this
Speaker 1: this project in other similar organizations before I sign off
Speaker 1: and let you guys have the final words. The book
Speaker 1: is Grace and Justice on Death Row by Brian stole Our.
Speaker 1: So now this is the closing part of our show.
Speaker 1: We call it appropriately enough closing arguments. First of all,
Speaker 1: I thank both of you guys for being here today
Speaker 1: and sharing this amazing story of cards and perseverance. And
Speaker 1: then I turned my microphone off, I kicked back, closed
Speaker 1: my eyes and let you guys talk about whatever you
Speaker 1: want to say for the final words. So first we're
Speaker 1: gonna do Brian stole Ours and then Dwayne Brown Death
Speaker 1: Row ex honoree over to you guys. Thank you, and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having us. Dwayne's story has
Speaker 1: been the sort of the blessing of my life. I
Speaker 1: am honored to tell it. But the reason why we
Speaker 1: tell it is so that there won't be future Dwaynes.
Speaker 1: Dwayne will always tell me there's more of me out
Speaker 1: there and the only way to changes through the power
Speaker 1: of the story. And what we need is accountability for
Speaker 1: those in power who do this so there are no
Speaker 1: future Dwaynes. And it is truly my honor and privileged
Speaker 1: to tell the story. And Dwayne, I just love you
Speaker 1: like a brother and I'm so glad that that you
Speaker 1: are free over to you. Trust no one but love everybody.
Speaker 1: And thank you an for listening to watching don't forget
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic of you wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join
Speaker 1: me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
Speaker 1: prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: The music on 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 Signal Company Number one