Speaker 1: This episode was recorded pre COVID at the Atlanta Innocence
Speaker 1: Network conference in twenty nineteen. On April fifth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: a woman was exiting her car at a parking lot
Speaker 1: just north of Atlanta when a man approached asking about
Speaker 1: a woman named Carol. When he got close enough, he
Speaker 1: pulled a gun, forced her into the passenger seat, drove
Speaker 1: to a dead end, and proceeded.
Speaker 2: To rape her. After the attack, the victim went to
Speaker 2: the hospital for a rape kit.
Speaker 1: With a well lit parking lot and over forty five
Speaker 1: minutes with her attacker, she was able to put together
Speaker 1: a composite sketch. On April tenth, a near identical incident
Speaker 1: occurred along the same stretch of road.
Speaker 2: A man approached a woman in.
Speaker 1: A parking lot asking for Carol, before using a threat
Speaker 1: of violence to get her back into the car. However,
Speaker 1: this time the victim was able to talk the attacker
Speaker 1: into leaving before a rape occurred. The police showed this
Speaker 1: would be victim the composite sketch, and it appeared there
Speaker 1: was a serial rapist operating in the North Atlanta area. Then,
Speaker 1: on April twenty eighth, Willie Pete Williams along with two
Speaker 1: of his friends, were stopped by police for suspicious behavior
Speaker 1: in the area of the attacks. Police noticed that Pete
Speaker 1: resembled the sketch and came up with a reason to
Speaker 1: arrest him, saying that he gave them false information in
Speaker 1: order to bring him in to be photographed.
Speaker 2: His photo was.
Speaker 1: Shown to both women for a positive ID. While Pete
Speaker 1: was locked up, Three more attacks would occur with the
Speaker 1: same mom but it was already too late. Pete Williams
Speaker 1: spent nearly twenty two years in prison before DNA testing
Speaker 1: proved that another man was responsible for all five attacks.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Plomm. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. This episode is going to be a very
Speaker 1: unique one. We have with us Pete Williams, who served
Speaker 1: twenty two years in Georgia prisons for a rape he
Speaker 1: did not commit. Two rapes, actually they did not commit.
Speaker 1: And with him is Drew Finling, who is a who
Speaker 1: can I say, enigmatic character, famous for his work representing
Speaker 1: some of the top hip hop arts in the world,
Speaker 1: and he's also now the president of the National Association
Speaker 1: of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He got involved in criminal defense
Speaker 1: work because of Pete's case, but they never met it
Speaker 1: till today, correct, So this is going to be a
Speaker 1: fun ride and I'm excited to be honest. So Pete, welcome,
Speaker 1: and the same to you, Drew. Absolutely, And like I
Speaker 1: always say, Pete, I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're here. And I want to tell your story because
Speaker 1: I think it's an important story for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2: I guess at the heart of it is.
Speaker 1: A mistaken witness identification more than one actually, and it's
Speaker 1: a really important thing for us to talk because it's
Speaker 1: so common. But can you take us back to I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a long time ago, right, because you were
Speaker 1: exonerated in two thousand and seven, yes, but the help of
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project, So this crime goes all the way
Speaker 1: back to the mid eighties.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah?
Speaker 3: Five?
Speaker 2: And what were you up to back then? What was
Speaker 2: your life like? What was going on in Pete's world?
Speaker 3: Most An was working, I had dropped out of school,
Speaker 3: really didn't have much going on other than freedom.
Speaker 2: How old were you?
Speaker 3: I just had twenty three.
Speaker 1: So you're twenty three. You got charged with originally one.
Speaker 3: Rape, right, yeah, one way right at the time.
Speaker 1: And let's talk about this awful rape which occurred on
Speaker 1: April fifth, nineteen eighty five, which is when a woman
Speaker 1: arrived at her apartment complex parking lot along Roswell Road,
Speaker 1: just north of Atlanta, got out, but she got out,
Speaker 1: a man approached, pretending that he was looking for someone,
Speaker 1: but when he got close, he pulled a gun and
Speaker 1: forced her back into the car, then drove her at
Speaker 1: gunpoint to a dead end street where he raped her.
Speaker 1: Then he drove her back to her apartment complex, and
Speaker 1: then he left on foot. So the victim then went
Speaker 1: to the police and the hospital for a rape kid
Speaker 1: which means there was a sample of the rapist DNA,
Speaker 1: and that becomes important later because after all, there was
Speaker 1: no DNA testing back in nineteen eighty five anyway, So
Speaker 1: later on though, we're going to get to that. So
Speaker 1: by now, the victim had spent a considerable amount of
Speaker 1: time with her attacker, and as a result, she was
Speaker 1: able to help the police put together a composite sketch.
Speaker 1: And this attacker had a particular mo too. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that, Drew.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what had happened is Roswell Road is a
Speaker 4: very long stretch of road in Atlanta. I want to
Speaker 4: say it goes north and south, but I'm terrible with
Speaker 4: things like that. But the real rapist was trolling up
Speaker 4: and down Roswell Road and he would go to women
Speaker 4: and I think they would kind of be in their
Speaker 4: twenties and they would like blind and blonde hair, and
Speaker 4: he would say the same like have you seen and
Speaker 4: I used to know the name Carol, Carol? Yeah, have
Speaker 4: you seen Carol? And then he'd take him in the car.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, five days after the first rape, on April tenth,
Speaker 1: nearly the same thing occurred along Roswell Road, although this
Speaker 1: ended up being an attempted rape, but still the same Hey,
Speaker 1: do you know Carol?
Speaker 2: Or where's Carol?
Speaker 1: Accept his second victim when he tried to get her
Speaker 1: to take off her clothes. I don't know how, but
Speaker 1: she was able to talk him out of raping her.
Speaker 2: She went to the police.
Speaker 1: They hear this similar MO from just five days before,
Speaker 1: and they show her the composite sketch and she agreed
Speaker 1: that this sketch resembled her would be rapist. So Pete,
Speaker 1: you've got nothing to do with this. You had nothing
Speaker 1: to do this, but you lived in the area, so
Speaker 1: can you tell us how you were dragged into this
Speaker 1: when you and two friends got pulled over on Roswell
Speaker 1: Road one night.
Speaker 3: I was riding out right on Roswell and it was
Speaker 3: starting in my car. I was passing on the car,
Speaker 3: so it was a compositive skates going around in that area.
Speaker 3: So the way that they arrested me, they told that
Speaker 3: I gave them false information. That's just to get me
Speaker 3: there and get my photograph, my picture to show the
Speaker 3: witness because I gave them information while I was staying
Speaker 3: everything adequate.
Speaker 2: Oh, you gave them accurate information, yes.
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, And they said yeah, they said it
Speaker 3: was false. You know, I couldn't all get the police,
Speaker 3: so you're.
Speaker 2: A stop by the police.
Speaker 1: They have this composite sketch in the back of their
Speaker 1: minds and they come up with a reason. They said
Speaker 1: that you gave them false information, which wasn't true, but
Speaker 1: they wanted an excuse to get your photograph to share
Speaker 1: with these two women because they thought that you looked
Speaker 1: enough like the sketch, so they arrested you.
Speaker 2: Then what I was there for a while.
Speaker 3: Wait, I was there maybe about four or five hours.
Speaker 3: But it was a relative cheap bomb.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So I was going out three to four hours after
Speaker 3: I was arrested, and two weeks later I was sure
Speaker 3: it was rape, aggravated uselt and aggravate US solomy and
Speaker 3: I was arrested and I didn't know what they was
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 2: Had you even heard about these?
Speaker 3: I didn't have the slightest idea. They said it was
Speaker 3: from positive circling of rape was out in that area
Speaker 3: and I resembled it.
Speaker 1: Now did that sketch actually resemble you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It actually did, right, So so you resembled the sketch,
Speaker 2: so that was dead.
Speaker 3: I didn't you know, I didn't. I haven't raped anybody.
Speaker 3: I just resembled it in positive skitch.
Speaker 1: The sketch resembled you. And then I'm presuming you were
Speaker 1: identified as well in the lineup on court.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was a lineup, and I was identifying doing
Speaker 3: the trial as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know that I witness misidentification is the
Speaker 1: leading cause of wrongful convictions.
Speaker 4: And look, I'm just not the biggest believer in the
Speaker 4: composite sketch because the composite sketch becomes the perpetrator, not
Speaker 4: the perpetrator. And so it just happened to have favored him,
Speaker 4: and then it's the composite sketch and anybody that looks
Speaker 4: like them that replaces who the actual perpetrator is. So
Speaker 4: I'm just not a believer in the whole composite sketch thing.
Speaker 4: I just don't like where they lead, as in convictions
Speaker 4: of innocent people in cases like this.
Speaker 1: So the charges were rape, aggravated assault, and aggravated sod
Speaker 1: of me, and true, this is where you first entered
Speaker 1: the picture. He became aware of Pete's case, and this
Speaker 1: is at his trial where you were just a young man,
Speaker 1: just out of law school pretty much right at.
Speaker 4: The time, I was twenty five years old. I was
Speaker 4: fresh out of law school, and I was an assistant
Speaker 4: public defender assigned to mister William's courtroom where his case
Speaker 4: took place. And I made it my practice. Then I
Speaker 4: would just watch every case I could. I just gobbled
Speaker 4: it up, and I loved my job as a public defender.
Speaker 4: And I just happened to watch his case and then
Speaker 4: really started learning about it, and I watched the trial.
Speaker 4: So what had happened is Roswell Road is a very
Speaker 4: long stretch of road in Atlanta, but at some point
Speaker 4: along the road, it is the City of Atlanta, and
Speaker 4: then it's no longer the City of Atlanta. Well, the
Speaker 4: real rapist because it wasn't mister Williams. Anybody that watched
Speaker 4: the trial would realize that, because I watched the trial
Speaker 4: and I'll talk about that later, and it was obvious
Speaker 4: he was innocent. So, Jason, here's the crazy thing. One
Speaker 4: jurisdiction handling it was City of Atlanta police. On the
Speaker 4: other part of the road was Fulton County Police. To
Speaker 4: this day, I don't know if anybody's looked into did
Speaker 4: they ever talk to one another? And in fact, if
Speaker 4: you remember, on the City of Atlanta side, the City
Speaker 4: of Atlanta police called the person the Roswell Road rapist.
Speaker 4: But yet on the other side of the sign was
Speaker 4: this case involving mister Williams, and apparently he got arrested
Speaker 4: and then eventually they arrested the other guy who I
Speaker 4: think pled out. Your case was on the ninth floor,
Speaker 4: his case was on the seventh floor, was on the seven, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he was on seventh, on the eighth, you're right, yeah,
Speaker 4: And he pled out during his trial and I went
Speaker 4: and watched his also because the Public Devendor's office did
Speaker 4: that case.
Speaker 2: Wait, how far apart were the two different?
Speaker 4: I can't remember the dates. They weren't too far apart.
Speaker 4: But I watched his and I read up on his
Speaker 4: and I was like, well, this guy did it, and
Speaker 4: it was astonishing, And.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the pattern, right, Because for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the attacker always did the same damn thing. Maybe he
Speaker 1: thought that this was an effective way of him grabbing
Speaker 1: these women, was by asking about this other woman, Carol
Speaker 1: or Carolyn. Why he was fixating on that? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that was his thing. And he also had this car
Speaker 1: that broke down a lot, because a number of the
Speaker 1: women reported that. And what's crazy is that after Pete
Speaker 1: was arrested, and three more attacks happened with the same
Speaker 1: damn mL right with exactly the same pattern, the exact
Speaker 1: same pattern. And in fact, this man was responsible clearly
Speaker 1: for all five attacks, but he only face charges related
Speaker 1: to those three, And so the other two attacks repined
Speaker 1: on you, Pete and this other guy, Kenneth Wicker. He
Speaker 1: finally got caught because his last victim heroically was able
Speaker 1: to take down her attacker's license plate number, and it
Speaker 1: turned out that Wicker lived right along Roswell Road. Where
Speaker 1: all of these attacks were taking place. So it would
Speaker 1: seem obvious to the casual observer that the DA would
Speaker 1: hear about these other cases and this other arrest and
Speaker 1: immediately stopped focusing on you, Pete.
Speaker 2: But that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: And later all of this was brought up in your appeals,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking as early as nineteen eighty six, but
Speaker 1: the DA just didn't fucking care about it then or
Speaker 1: while he was prosecuting you in the first place.
Speaker 4: Sir Jason, Pete and I we just met downstairs and
Speaker 4: we immediately engaged in a conversation about what I'm about
Speaker 4: to bring up which has bothered him to this day,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to tell it to you, and that
Speaker 4: is our system, right relies on ethical prosecutors. Unfortunately, for
Speaker 4: Pete Williams, his prosecutor turned out to be not so ethical,
Speaker 4: as we know from several things, including the fact that
Speaker 4: he's serving a life sentence in his own murder case
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor, the prosecutor oh blot twist, yes, I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and was also eventually charged not only with that murder,
Speaker 4: which he was found guilty of, but being the lawyer
Speaker 4: for a drug operation when he was in private practice.
Speaker 4: So not the best guy in the world. And I
Speaker 4: bring that up only because you would fathom that a decent,
Speaker 4: ethical prosecutor, which there are many of out there, would
Speaker 4: have realized this having been the lead mister Williams case,
Speaker 4: and said, uh, oh, we got problems. And that never happened.
Speaker 4: He never had the ethics of a prosecutor that realized
Speaker 4: what you just said and wanted to put an end
Speaker 4: to his illegal incarceration. It just didn't happen, and there
Speaker 4: was a real breakdown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still trying to process this.
Speaker 2: This is a story.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of stories, and you know, doing
Speaker 1: this since the early nineties.
Speaker 4: The irony is Pete said to me outside we agreed.
Speaker 4: How come that didn't become the biggest part of the
Speaker 4: story of Pete Williams's illegal conviction and incarceration. As he said,
Speaker 4: I was serving my sentence and my prosecutor was hearving
Speaker 4: his sentence at the exact same time.
Speaker 2: Oh so he went to prison while you were in this.
Speaker 2: Well this is not the same.
Speaker 3: Prison, not the same prison, but he went doing mind cusurrection.
Speaker 2: Did you know that at the time? Yeah, I probably it.
Speaker 4: On tell me Jason was one of the biggest cases
Speaker 4: in the history of Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, I can't even
Speaker 4: think in my thirty plus years of practice of a
Speaker 4: federal case that they changed venue. It was such a
Speaker 4: big case. But they actually had to change venue to
Speaker 4: Birmingham in his federal case, his murder case, they changed
Speaker 4: venue as well, and did it somewhere in the woods,
Speaker 4: rural Georgia somewhere, But they actually moved his federal case
Speaker 4: to Birmingham because they just couldn't get a jury in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Fred Tokars his name. It was one of the biggest
Speaker 4: cases in the history of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So I took a second to look up Fred Tokars
Speaker 1: and what I found out was batshit crazy, crazier than
Speaker 1: what Pete and Drew had said. This Georgia prosecutor went
Speaker 1: on to become a private attorney to some big time
Speaker 1: drug dealers, but besides representing them, he was also helping
Speaker 1: them hide their money in nightclubs, and eventually his wife, Sarah,
Speaker 1: threatened to blow the whistle on his illegal and the
Speaker 1: various activities, but instead of turning his life around, he
Speaker 1: plotted to have her kidnap and killed in front of
Speaker 1: their four and six year old boys, Ricky and Mike.
Speaker 1: I mean, what the actual fuck. He was convicted of
Speaker 1: racketeering in nineteen ninety four and eventually also convicted for
Speaker 1: Sarah's murder, receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: He was held in secret custody as a marked man,
Speaker 1: and since this interview is recorded, despite his more treacherous
Speaker 1: than usual situation in prison, Fred Tokers died in May
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty in a Pennsylvania prison hospital due to
Speaker 1: complications related to a neurological disorder.
Speaker 4: And that was the prosecutor that put mister Williams away.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, it's just an unbelievable twist of fate
Speaker 1: right that the guy who was responsible for ruining your
Speaker 1: life ends up inmate. The Pacers Foundation is a proud
Speaker 1: supporter of this episode and of the Last Mile organization,
Speaker 1: which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals
Speaker 1: successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana,
Speaker 1: supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people and students.
Speaker 1: For more information, on the work of the Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: or the Last Mile Program. Visit Pacersfoundation dot org or
Speaker 1: the Lastmile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
Speaker 1: a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
Speaker 1: and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
Speaker 1: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
Speaker 1: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
Speaker 1: they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
Speaker 1: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Speaker 1: Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
Speaker 1: our society and in support of the public interest, including
Speaker 1: extensive work in the criminal justice area. You end up
Speaker 1: getting sentenced to basically a life sentence. Yeah, forty five
Speaker 1: years to life. And you were twenty four at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so forty five to life. And of course what I
Speaker 1: five the life really means life because ultimately it'd be
Speaker 1: sixty eight years old and they'd be asking you to
Speaker 1: be guilty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the way to hit my sonos lined up
Speaker 3: fifteen teen and twenty do to fifteen one to do
Speaker 3: to fifteen do the team finish the team?
Speaker 4: Do to twining? It was consecutive sentences.
Speaker 2: So how did you deal with this?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're behind bars, convicted rapist, looking at spending.
Speaker 2: The rest of your life there?
Speaker 1: How did you find the strength to e and continue
Speaker 1: on and ultimately contact and reach out and get this
Speaker 1: incredible team behind you that led to your exoneration and
Speaker 1: you know vindication.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 3: Well, my first ten year of priism, man, I was
Speaker 3: stayed in the whole segregation and fought all the time
Speaker 3: in subordination because I felt like there wasn't no hope,
Speaker 3: so I might as well be part of the prism,
Speaker 3: you know. And I met this guy after ten years.
Speaker 3: He's sung gospel and he always went to church, and
Speaker 3: he was always happen, you know, and and he had
Speaker 3: more time than that, He had a life sent and
Speaker 3: some time, but he never showed it. He never showed it,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to know why, you know why. It
Speaker 3: wasn't about it, he said the church. Man, I sing
Speaker 3: the gospel and it makes me feel better. So I
Speaker 3: used to go out and sing it first because I
Speaker 3: really didn't know any gospels, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But once I got to going and listen to gospel.
Speaker 3: I learned a few gospel songs and I started liking it.
Speaker 3: Came paul Or Choir for about five years, and that's
Speaker 3: where a guy was in there. He had a booklet
Speaker 3: concerning MCENT projects. So I got it in that started
Speaker 3: writing him and told him that it was I had
Speaker 3: some evidence.
Speaker 2: Was this Georgia Andson's project or New York and George
Speaker 2: and Georgia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they got concerned and what kind of evidence
Speaker 3: you had? So I was writing them and I told them,
Speaker 3: and some way they got a hold of it. They
Speaker 3: said they had destroyed it here in eighty seven. They
Speaker 3: said they destroyed all that. But Cliff, some way, Cliff
Speaker 3: had talked to some at the GBI, be on some female,
Speaker 3: and she allowed him back there and lo and behold,
Speaker 3: that was my.
Speaker 2: Evidence.
Speaker 1: And the evidence at the Georgia Breau of Investigation that
Speaker 1: Pete is referring to is the real rapist DNA sample
Speaker 1: from the rape kit, and they were finally able to
Speaker 1: test it to not only exclude Pete, but they also
Speaker 1: tested against the DNA of the man who had pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty to those other rapes that had happened during the
Speaker 1: same time period of long roswell and sure enough, Bingo,
Speaker 1: it's him. But of course this incredible revelation did not
Speaker 1: come without roadblocks and even being told that the evidence
Speaker 1: was destroyed, which we hear a lot when fighting cases
Speaker 1: like these, And Drew, let's go back to you on this.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's just nuts that we don't have
Speaker 1: a nationwide standard for maintaining evidence. In fact, practices are
Speaker 1: different all over. Some are good and some are, like,
Speaker 1: let's face it, like a third world country.
Speaker 4: There's really no national consistency. And so you know when
Speaker 4: you say earlier, which I completely agree with, that we
Speaker 4: probably have well over one hundred thousand innocent people in
Speaker 4: our prison systems, and that's probably a low number. We
Speaker 4: think about if we had consistency in the preservation of evidence,
Speaker 4: what would we'd be able to do. It's really going
Speaker 4: to require a coordinated effort. But it's the only right
Speaker 4: thing to do.
Speaker 1: There's just absolutely no argument against it. There's nothing bad
Speaker 1: about preserving evidence.
Speaker 4: Well, there's nothing bad about preserving evidence. But then you
Speaker 4: hear about the Georgia Innocence Project. I went down to
Speaker 4: making on behalf of them and argued about just having
Speaker 4: somebody's testing done, and prosecutors objected to testing being done,
Speaker 4: Why would you ever object to testing being done? Why
Speaker 4: would you ever object to being able to check off
Speaker 4: the list the possibility that somebody innocent is in jail
Speaker 4: for many years, if not their life. And it's that
Speaker 4: same type of flawed logic that would have some say, well,
Speaker 4: we don't need to take up the room, We don't
Speaker 4: need to do the logistics aren't there for storage. You
Speaker 4: could just fathom the arguments that are coming, you know,
Speaker 4: because prosecutors want to believe and law enforcement want to
Speaker 4: believe that once they have a conviction, it's the right conviction,
Speaker 4: and so you can always deal with that sentiment, which
Speaker 4: is wrong. Yeah, that's the sentiment. It's the same sentiment
Speaker 4: that dictates around the country when good folks are fighting
Speaker 4: amhalf of the innocents project to have testing done and
Speaker 4: they're in courtrooms at the podium facing prosecutors that don't
Speaker 4: want testing to be done.
Speaker 3: To me, why would you want to destroy ivernandek trio person.
Speaker 2: And identify the actual perpetrator like it does.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to think of that, really,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: Thank god they hadn't actually destroyed the evidence from your case,
Speaker 1: because they actually exculpated you. And it ended up causing
Speaker 1: you to be released from prison on January twenty third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, And subsequently it matched up to
Speaker 1: Kenneth Wicker, who had already pleaded guilty all those years ago.
Speaker 1: He was then arrested on February ninth, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: for the April fifth and tenth incidents. Then four days later,
Speaker 1: you were granted a new trial on February thirteenth, and
Speaker 1: the DA subsequently dropped all charges.
Speaker 3: All the charge you know, they took the rape and
Speaker 3: everything away from my report.
Speaker 2: So you were in court when all the charges were
Speaker 2: actually dropped. And what was that like? How? Who was there?
Speaker 2: A lot of family? Was it a hot Yeah?
Speaker 3: My family, My family there, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: of people there. They was happy for me, you know,
Speaker 3: even people I didn't know, you know, like even the
Speaker 3: police is. And as a matter of fact, one of
Speaker 3: the police that was used to take me back and forth,
Speaker 3: the colt, and she came down and said, I always
Speaker 3: knew you was innocent.
Speaker 2: Wow, how'd that feel? Wonderful man, wonderful And.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that in about fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: and this is project cases where DNA has has exculpated
Speaker 1: an exonerate led to the exoneration of an innocent person,
Speaker 1: it has also led to the identification of.
Speaker 2: The guilty person.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right, and in those cases, of course, that
Speaker 1: person has gone on to have committed other heinous crimes.
Speaker 2: Yes, when you lock up the.
Speaker 1: Wrong person, you stop looking for the right person, and
Speaker 1: then that person that's out there is most likely going
Speaker 1: to go and do what they did again. It's just
Speaker 1: a practical issue of we should all want to clean
Speaker 1: up these systems as best we can so that ourselves
Speaker 1: and our families are safe.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, you know, look, Jason, I think it's
Speaker 4: it's symptomatic of a larger issue. It's a symptomatic of
Speaker 4: our problem with mass incarceration of this country. I think
Speaker 4: it's all that is really tied in. We don't as
Speaker 4: defense attorneys and accuse citizens. You know, we don't control
Speaker 4: the fact that, as you well know, we represent five
Speaker 4: percent of the world's population, but closing in on twenty
Speaker 4: five percent of the world's incarcerated population. We don't dictate that,
Speaker 4: and I don't want this to be a session where I'm,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of talking about prosecutors, but they control
Speaker 4: so much. Pete's case is emblematic of the problem. You
Speaker 4: had a prosecutor with an anti social disorder that went
Speaker 4: on to be involved in a murder, and as a
Speaker 4: twenty five year old, fresh out of law school kid,
Speaker 4: I watched what I thought was an unethical prosecution, and
Speaker 4: I watched a man lose his freedom because to this prosecutor,
Speaker 4: it was a game. It wasn't about justice, and that's
Speaker 4: why ped I made a decision that I was going
Speaker 4: to spend the rest of my life defending people because
Speaker 4: of your case. It was just a job. At that point,
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about a public defender. I never
Speaker 4: even met a lawyer until my first law school class.
Speaker 4: I have humble beginnings, but your case dictated to me
Speaker 4: what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.
Speaker 4: I watched that prosecutor game the system. It was just
Speaker 4: a game to him, and unfortunately, the power that being
Speaker 4: a prosecutor brings is often results in misguided prosecutions because
Speaker 4: they have the ability, if they handle ethically, to make
Speaker 4: sure to the best of their ability, that just doesn't
Speaker 4: happen to make sure that evidence is preserved, to make
Speaker 4: sure that there is proper identification procedures, and they have
Speaker 4: the ability to be that wall, that last wall of justice,
Speaker 4: to say, you know, don't I don't need a motion
Speaker 4: to suppress identification because as the prosecutor, I don't like
Speaker 4: the way this went down. We talk so much about
Speaker 4: ourselves as defense attorneys and what our job is, but
Speaker 4: we need to be spending a lot of time looking
Speaker 4: at the other side of the courtroom. And I get
Speaker 4: that there's integrity units closing up, but it needs to
Speaker 4: be a lot greater than that. It needs to be
Speaker 4: a lot better than just every once in a while
Speaker 4: a progressive prosecutor running for office. It needs to be
Speaker 4: all over the country because he has the benefit of
Speaker 4: this happening in Atlanta, But when we go to the
Speaker 4: rural South, the smaller communities in Mississippi and Alabama and Tennessee, sadly,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of Pete Williams that are serving life
Speaker 4: sentences from prosecutors that were as misguided and as corrupt
Speaker 4: as the one in his case.
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so important for people to get
Speaker 1: out and vote in prosecutor races because most people don't.
Speaker 1: The number of people that vote in these races is
Speaker 1: so small that if you don't think your vote makes
Speaker 1: a difference, it does. I mean we've seen races that
Speaker 1: ended up in a dead heat like Tiede. You know,
Speaker 1: like your vote is important and if one of these
Speaker 1: people think, oh, I'm not going to.
Speaker 2: Vote in the psidential election, it doesn't matter. Yes it does.
Speaker 1: It matters in the presdentialism, but it matters a lot
Speaker 1: more in your local.
Speaker 2: Elections where your your DA.
Speaker 1: Is running and you know, and electing a progressive prosecutor,
Speaker 1: which that's not even the right word, a fair prosecutor
Speaker 1: could affect your life as well, because this could happen
Speaker 1: to you, It could happen to Pete, it could happen
Speaker 1: to anybody. We see it over and over again on
Speaker 1: this show. And then let's even talk about it from
Speaker 1: a purely fiscal level, you know, for any conservatives that
Speaker 1: are listening, When we think about the amount of money
Speaker 1: that the taxpayers of Georgia paid well upwards of a
Speaker 1: million dollars, probably closer to two million dollars to keep
Speaker 1: Pete lock up, and then any other income that he
Speaker 1: would have been able to earn and pay taxes on
Speaker 1: and you know.
Speaker 2: All the rest of this stuff.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty big thing too. I just learned the
Speaker 1: other day on a tangential note, that we spend forty
Speaker 1: million dollars a day in America on pre trial detention,
Speaker 1: right just because people can't post bail. Forty million a
Speaker 1: day to lock people up who haven't been convicted of anything.
Speaker 2: That's a day.
Speaker 1: That's your tax dollars at work and mine, by the way,
Speaker 1: and whoever's listening, it's nuts. I mean, we lock up
Speaker 1: more people than Russia and China combined. Back to your
Speaker 1: previous point, we locked black people up at six times
Speaker 1: the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid.
Speaker 1: And if you're a woman listening, then you should just
Speaker 1: process this for a second, because while you know what
Speaker 1: Drew said is certainly scary and true about us having
Speaker 1: twenty five percent of the world's prison population, we have
Speaker 1: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. That
Speaker 1: means one out of every three women in prison in
Speaker 1: the world is in America, which is such a small
Speaker 1: country when you look at the vast world that's out there,
Speaker 1: and the more we can do to get out there
Speaker 1: and spread the message. And the more you do to
Speaker 1: get out there and vote and get active and volunteer,
Speaker 1: go to Georgia NIS's project website, you know, learn more.
Speaker 1: Contact NACDL. What is it, NACDL dot org exactly, NACDL
Speaker 1: dot org. That's National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers dot org.
Speaker 4: So I'm glad you brought up kind of where people
Speaker 4: fall on the political continuum. You should know that the
Speaker 4: term just finished and there's a new governor here. But
Speaker 4: our last governor, Nathan dial As a Republican, two term Republican,
Speaker 4: and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers gave him
Speaker 4: a Champion I gave him a Champion of Justice Award
Speaker 4: for his work on criminal justice reform. And so you
Speaker 4: hit on it. No matter where you are, left wing,
Speaker 4: right wing, no wing. We are any period of time
Speaker 4: right now where people are really focusing on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 4: And I think that you bring up all the numbers,
Speaker 4: they're startling and it can impact anybody, you know, whether
Speaker 4: it's the fact that our prison systems are warehousing the
Speaker 4: mentally ill an adult autistic population. There's so many things
Speaker 4: that attract people. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Speaker 4: As you know, we have our foundation for criminal justice
Speaker 4: and we really embrace non lawyers to be part of it.
Speaker 4: Our long term goal is to get non lawyers into
Speaker 4: our leadership track, let them be trustees. We need people
Speaker 4: to reach out to us. We just want everyday citizens
Speaker 4: to be involved, come to our meetings, and Jason's right,
Speaker 4: there may not be an election that may impact your
Speaker 4: life more than who your local district attorney is. Have
Speaker 4: them answer to your questions. Folks need to take these
Speaker 4: stories to heart, and which is why this podcast is
Speaker 4: so important. They need to understand that not everybody is
Speaker 4: going to be blessed with the opportunity to connect up
Speaker 4: with the innocence projects. So listen to podcasts like this
Speaker 4: and get involved the most you can.
Speaker 1: And that is once again an ACDL dot org National
Speaker 1: Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Now we have this tradition
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, which is my favorite part of the show,
Speaker 1: which is where I get to just sit back and
Speaker 1: listen and I leave the microphones on for you guys
Speaker 1: for any closing thoughts.
Speaker 2: That you want to share.
Speaker 1: And because Pete is the honored guest here, not that
Speaker 1: you're not, but you know he's the star of the show.
Speaker 1: I'm going to let him go last, and so drew
Speaker 1: any parting shots.
Speaker 2: Pete.
Speaker 4: I just want to wish you the best and let
Speaker 4: you know that the tragedy that occurred to you influence
Speaker 4: the course of my existence. So my family, all my clients,
Speaker 4: I want to help you, Pete.
Speaker 3: I'm glad y'all had it broadcast to let people know
Speaker 3: that things like that actually happen. People do go to
Speaker 3: jail wrong for the convicted, and I'm just glad you
Speaker 3: all been a pubblan note that these things actually happen.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It really helps.
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 1: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction. Podcast Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one