Speaker 1: Beginning on January third, nineteen eighty four, and stretching over
Speaker 1: the next five weeks, five women were victims of some
Speaker 1: degree of sexual assault in East Richmond, Virginia. Due to
Speaker 1: the location, nature of the attacks and similar descriptions of
Speaker 1: the assailant, police believed that there was a single attacker.
Speaker 1: On February fifth, nine eight four, eighteen year old Thomas
Speaker 1: Haynesworth was misidentified by one of the victims and arrested.
Speaker 1: All five victims eventually echoed the misidentification. Two of the
Speaker 1: attacks included biological evidence, but in nineteen eighty four, with
Speaker 1: no DNA testing available, prology could only determine that Thomas's
Speaker 1: blood type matched that of the attacker. After one of
Speaker 1: the charges was dropped, he was tried four separate times,
Speaker 1: convicted in three cases, and sentenced to seventy four years.
Speaker 1: Although Thomas was in custody, the assaults continued through December
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty four, concluding with the arrest of Leon Davis,
Speaker 1: a neighbor of Thomas's. According to both men, they wrongly
Speaker 1: resembled one another. Despite their similar appearances and the continued attacks.
Speaker 1: Authorities maintained that both men were guilty. Finally, in two
Speaker 1: thousand five, DNA testing excluded Thomas from his only conviction
Speaker 1: in which there was biological evidence, simultaneously inculpating le On Davis.
Speaker 1: After an investigation, the prosecutors joined Thomas and the mid
Speaker 1: Atlantic Innocence Project, laying responsibility for all of the attacks
Speaker 1: on Mr Davis. Yet, even without opposition, Thomas's case just
Speaker 1: barely succeeded in the Court of Appeals, but nevertheless he
Speaker 1: was finally exonerated after twenty seven years. This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flaman.
Speaker 1: I want to start by saying this episode demonstrates a
Speaker 1: classic example of why eyewitness identification is so terribly unreliable
Speaker 1: and why we must keep working to institute practices that
Speaker 1: safeguard us against the problems with cross racial misidentification as
Speaker 1: happened in this case, keeping an innocent man in prison
Speaker 1: for twenty seven years. And that man is our guest today,
Speaker 1: Thomas Haynesworth. Thomas, I'm so happy to have you here,
Speaker 1: even though I hate the reason why you're here, but
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to be with us
Speaker 1: on the show today and with Thomas, as somebody who
Speaker 1: are avid listeners will recognize, Sean Arburst is the She's
Speaker 1: sort of the straw that stirs the drink at the
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic Innocence Project. She is an attorney, she's an advocate,
Speaker 1: she's a fighter, and she's my friend. And I'm super
Speaker 1: glad to have you here as well, Sean. So welcome
Speaker 1: back to rawfle Conviction. Thank you, Jason script to be here,
Speaker 1: and it is always greing to be with Thomas. So, Thomas,
Speaker 1: take us back, if you would. What was your life
Speaker 1: like growing up? Normal schadow? Grew up with three sisters
Speaker 1: and a younger brother, you know, into sports and some music,
Speaker 1: much child and you grew up in Richmond, Virginia? Is
Speaker 1: that right? Right? Which? Vir right? So it sounds about
Speaker 1: like what the childhood is more or less I want
Speaker 1: to say, supposed to be like, but pretty much sports music.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm sure you had your ups and downs
Speaker 1: like any other teenager. But a series of terrible, terrible
Speaker 1: crimes sort of rock the city of Richmond at this time.
Speaker 1: And Sean, can you describe to us what happened? So
Speaker 1: the crimes Thomas initially got caught up in were a
Speaker 1: group of five crimes between January three and February one night,
Speaker 1: and they were all rapes or sexual assaults in the
Speaker 1: tiny corner of Richmond that's also right on the border
Speaker 1: of Henrico County. It was four crimes in Richmond, one
Speaker 1: in Henrico County. And these are eerily similar crimes. They
Speaker 1: happened at the same time of day, all white victims.
Speaker 1: They all describe I mean, it's a fairly generic description
Speaker 1: because it's white victims describing a black perpetrator. But they
Speaker 1: all describe someone who looks fairly similar, someone who typically
Speaker 1: approaches with a knife, who has a series of kind
Speaker 1: of odd behaviors, says a bunch of odd things. So
Speaker 1: this sort of prototypical One of these crimes was either
Speaker 1: early in the morning or right around dusk. Victim would
Speaker 1: be approached by a perpetrator outside on the street, and
Speaker 1: the perpetrator would take the victim to various locations and
Speaker 1: commit different types of sexual assault, so sometimes vaginal rape,
Speaker 1: sometimes oral sodomy, sometimes adal sodomy, and would make the
Speaker 1: victims kind of pretend to be his girlfriend as they
Speaker 1: were walking around. And when you're looking at a pattern
Speaker 1: like this, obviously not every crime fits precisely into the
Speaker 1: pattern some get interrupted. You know, in this case, the
Speaker 1: attacker was pretty easily scared away. This is part of
Speaker 1: how he avoided being caught for so long. But it's
Speaker 1: that same basic arc. And these are terrifying crimes. And
Speaker 1: the first case the one that said all of this
Speaker 1: in motion. I believe it was not only the crime
Speaker 1: itself that was so jarring, but also the location that
Speaker 1: it occurred in that drew the story to the forefront.
Speaker 1: So tell us what happened there. The first case took
Speaker 1: place on January three, and the victim in that case
Speaker 1: went to her work at a church preschool and she
Speaker 1: was waiting for students to come in for the day
Speaker 1: and was very quickly accosted by a rapist who held
Speaker 1: her at knife point, raped her, and ran away as
Speaker 1: the first parents started coming in for the day. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, if you can imagine that a woman who
Speaker 1: she's in her late teens, early twenties, she is in
Speaker 1: a church, she is waiting for three year olds to
Speaker 1: come in and is dealing with the fact that she's
Speaker 1: just been raped. So right off the bat, these crimes
Speaker 1: are really horrific and the kind of crime that makes
Speaker 1: you think you're not safe anywhere, right, And I think
Speaker 1: it's that mentality that really started making these crimes particularly
Speaker 1: high profile in Richmond. And the second crime took place
Speaker 1: just a few weeks after the first, on January one,
Speaker 1: and it took place in a grocery store. Again, I
Speaker 1: think it added to the horror that these assaults were
Speaker 1: happening in places that we normally think of as being
Speaker 1: safe spaces, right A nursery school, a grocery store. And
Speaker 1: they continued on with alarming regularity because then the time
Speaker 1: between the crimes started shrinking. So we're talking about on
Speaker 1: January and so, now only six days after the second attack,
Speaker 1: a man with a knife approached a woman outside of
Speaker 1: her home and demanded money and sex. She oh luckily
Speaker 1: went inside and slammed the door shut and locked it
Speaker 1: and called the police, so she escaped. That on January
Speaker 1: thirt so, just three days later, an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: woman was abducted, raped, and sodomized at gun point in
Speaker 1: Henrico County, just a few blocks from the other attacks.
Speaker 1: And then on February onet, so again the windows are
Speaker 1: just shrinking faster and faster, a ninety year old woman
Speaker 1: was abducted at gunpoint outside her East Richmond home. The
Speaker 1: gunman forced her to go inside the house, but he
Speaker 1: fled when the family dog began barking at him. And wow,
Speaker 1: I mean what a close call that was. So all
Speaker 1: of these incidents happened within a one mile radius. This
Speaker 1: guy was almost begging to be caught, but he continued
Speaker 1: getting away with it. Now, because of the locations of
Speaker 1: the attacks, that description of the attacker, and the nature
Speaker 1: of the assault, everyone was pretty much on the same
Speaker 1: page that it was one person that was responsible, right,
Speaker 1: But what happens in these cases that we see again
Speaker 1: and again is that there was a misidentification which set
Speaker 1: this awful chain of events in motion. Take us through that, Sean,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind. Absolutely. So, Thomas was walk into
Speaker 1: the store to get sweet potatoes for his mom and
Speaker 1: one of the victims saw him and said, that's my rapest.
Speaker 1: She called police. Police came, picked him up, arrested him,
Speaker 1: and then four more victims identified him as the perpetrator,
Speaker 1: and that was it. Now, these are all cross racial
Speaker 1: eyewitness identifications, and that comes with its own problems already,
Speaker 1: And we find out later that the actual perpetrator did
Speaker 1: in fact resemble Thomas as well, just adding to the
Speaker 1: confusion and making it even harder for the victims to
Speaker 1: make the correct idea. But before we even get into that, Sean,
Speaker 1: can you tell us a bit about cross racial idea
Speaker 1: edification in general. So what we know, and we know
Speaker 1: this based on now decades of social science research, is
Speaker 1: that people are not good at identifying people of different races.
Speaker 1: We also know that white people are particularly bad at
Speaker 1: identifying people of different races, particularly when those people are
Speaker 1: African American. So what we have seen over and over
Speaker 1: and over again is that the likelihood of an error
Speaker 1: by an eye witness is just magnified when it is
Speaker 1: a cross racial identification, that is, a white person identifying
Speaker 1: a black person. If you look at the actual percentage
Speaker 1: of black on white rapes in the country, it is
Speaker 1: infinitesimally small. If you look at the percentage of DNA
Speaker 1: exonerations in rinked cases that are black on white rape,
Speaker 1: it is extraordinarily large. And just those two numbers can
Speaker 1: tell you all you need to know about the enhanced
Speaker 1: risk of air when you have a black and white idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it fits into the stereotype, this sort of racist
Speaker 1: mythology that has been a part of unfortunately, our culture
Speaker 1: and our judicial system for as long as we've had one.
Speaker 1: And then you can't look at the cross racial nature
Speaker 1: of these crimes and not talk about where you are
Speaker 1: and when you're there. So you're in Richmond, which is
Speaker 1: the capital of the Confederacy, and it's and you cannot
Speaker 1: divorce these cases from that time period and that place either. Now, Thomas,
Speaker 1: tell us what happened when they arrested you and what
Speaker 1: was going through your mind? Lease stop me in the morning,
Speaker 1: and they said it later. She picked you out and
Speaker 1: she can dinnify you. That's what I was going. I
Speaker 1: was we're going to the store. He said, what he
Speaker 1: used to do right here, she could denify the person.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I ain't gonna question. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: So you know what, they want to get the female
Speaker 1: the big border back and she licked at me like
Speaker 1: she wan't too shore. And then pol sees the tour
Speaker 1: and she looked in me again like she want to
Speaker 1: shoot about the person. And then they did it for
Speaker 1: the third time. They talked to it. In the third time,
Speaker 1: she just put her hands up and then he came
Speaker 1: in said he was unrest on the rest for what
Speaker 1: you put the handcuffs of me and then you put
Speaker 1: me in back in your control call and he took
Speaker 1: me to the which is said the jail, and I
Speaker 1: got Daniel. They're when it came to reality to me
Speaker 1: what was going on the child will rape actually been.
Speaker 1: We're going to enter I know what did you know?
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by a i G, a leading
Speaker 1: global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global professional services
Speaker 1: company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Working
Speaker 1: to reform the criminal justice system is a key pillar
Speaker 1: of the ai G pro Bono program, which provides legal
Speaker 1: services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals
Speaker 1: most in need as part of Accenture's commitment to racial
Speaker 1: and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono
Speaker 1: legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing
Speaker 1: meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. Okay, so the
Speaker 1: initial identification, at least from your perspective, looked shaky. Hey,
Speaker 1: the victims seemed to go back and forth a few
Speaker 1: times until throwing her hands up in the air. Then
Speaker 1: you're arrested, and eventually all five victims misidentified you as
Speaker 1: the attacker, all five dealing with the cross racial nature
Speaker 1: of this idea as well as the fact that you
Speaker 1: actually did resemble the attackers. So you're charged with rape,
Speaker 1: along with a slew of other charges that came with
Speaker 1: each incident, talking about her abduction, breaking and entering, robbery,
Speaker 1: and then you go to trial. One of ali they
Speaker 1: came with suggesting, you know, you've got these serious childs,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be best you way plead you
Speaker 1: have to, you know, get a license to get fastbo role.
Speaker 1: The someone that the line you cant go these serious chibs,
Speaker 1: You're going to get a license. And I said, now,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna pleagu get nothing to do. I said,
Speaker 1: I'd rather go to trial and I could be to
Speaker 1: con beleet the license. I deal with it, but I'm
Speaker 1: never getting my right up to being innocent though. So
Speaker 1: you've got your own defense team trying to push you
Speaker 1: to admit guilt, which is not, unfortunately, exactly uncommon. Obviously
Speaker 1: some people are actually guilty while others plead guilty just
Speaker 1: because it's a smarter decision to do so. I mean,
Speaker 1: based with the choice of a lenient sentence or the
Speaker 1: unknown at trial, right, especially when life or even death
Speaker 1: sentences are you know, dangling over your head. I mean,
Speaker 1: with that at play, it's no wonder that convictions are
Speaker 1: obtained through guilty pleas at a rate of close to
Speaker 1: nine eight percent, right over ninety seven percent of melody
Speaker 1: convictions in the United States, and results of guilty. Please,
Speaker 1: it's a very understandable choice to make. But when given
Speaker 1: that choice, Thomas, you held firm in your innocence. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a courageous and principle stand to take. Now, Okay,
Speaker 1: So we go to the trial rights or should I
Speaker 1: say the trials, because there were four separate trials. The
Speaker 1: charges in the January seven incident where the attacker approached
Speaker 1: with a knife and the victim fled to her house,
Speaker 1: those charges were dropped. So for the four trials, though,
Speaker 1: the prosecution relied on the victims misidentifications of Thomas. Now,
Speaker 1: in two of the four cases there was some biological evidence,
Speaker 1: But in the early eighties there was no DNA testing,
Speaker 1: only sorology. Right. Yeah, what you have in terms of
Speaker 1: physical evidence in the nineteen eighties is you can test
Speaker 1: seamen for blood type, and you also can test for
Speaker 1: something that's known as secretor status. If I am a secretor,
Speaker 1: I'm somebody who's blood type shows up in my other
Speaker 1: bodily fluids. So like if I spit on a table,
Speaker 1: you can figure out my blood type from the spit.
Speaker 1: A non secretor is somebody whose blood type isn't at
Speaker 1: the spit. So they were in you know, at least
Speaker 1: a couple of Thomas's cases able to do that very
Speaker 1: limited amount of science, but that's science. It could give
Speaker 1: you percentages, but the percentages were pretty big, right, So
Speaker 1: think about all the people in the world who have
Speaker 1: type of blood. Well, that's what you can really narrow
Speaker 1: down to. So you know, Thomas was in that case
Speaker 1: in the population of people who could have committed the crime.
Speaker 1: But that's a really big population to people, right, So
Speaker 1: it really doesn't do a great job of proving anything
Speaker 1: at all. Prology is actually really better at ruling a
Speaker 1: suspect out rather than in. And there's also a moment
Speaker 1: in one of the trials where Thomas's height should have
Speaker 1: ruled him completely out. So in the case in Henriko County,
Speaker 1: the victim had sworn and believed correctly. It turns out
Speaker 1: that her rapist was taller than her. She described the
Speaker 1: rapist as being about five ten. Thomas is five six.
Speaker 1: So Thomas's lawyer actually had the two of them stand
Speaker 1: next to each other in that trial to demonstrate that
Speaker 1: Thomas is actually shorter than this victim. But this is
Speaker 1: part of why I witness testimony is so powerful, right,
Speaker 1: but still didn't shake her confidence that Thomas was the perpetrator.
Speaker 1: She was still sure that Thomas did it. And so
Speaker 1: there's not much a defense lawyer could do in the
Speaker 1: face of that kind of testimony. So the charges had
Speaker 1: been dropped in the January incident, but you still had
Speaker 1: to sit through similar proceedings four times over where the
Speaker 1: facts of four very real, unspeakably horrible assaults were presented,
Speaker 1: but along with no meaningful physical evidence to implicate you,
Speaker 1: even the fact that you didn't match the January thirty
Speaker 1: victims description of the assailant's height. And now the jury
Speaker 1: goes out four times on you, and I've got to
Speaker 1: imagine that the first time was probably the hardest pill
Speaker 1: to swallow. Right. The January third break in and rape
Speaker 1: at the nursery school, how long did that particular trial.
Speaker 1: Last I'm in the first drift the last I think
Speaker 1: a day and a half the jew can that come
Speaker 1: to a verdict and the jealous in the back home
Speaker 1: overnight and told them to think about it, and he
Speaker 1: came back the next day. I think about three are
Speaker 1: they deliberated, and they came back for to get the virgin.
Speaker 1: And I would devastate in my family devastated because the
Speaker 1: three charges at the beginning with rate breaking the entrant
Speaker 1: and Robert Lordy got them to do. Mr Robert child
Speaker 1: so left the jew only with two charges and rate
Speaker 1: and bringing the entrant. They came back. Their family get
Speaker 1: to the rate, but their family not get to breaking
Speaker 1: into the entrance. The preparatory had to break into the
Speaker 1: place to rape the person. So I would wonder how
Speaker 1: you can family get to one and not the other.
Speaker 1: And I noticed about the jel and all my trials.
Speaker 1: Every time their family get to they give me the
Speaker 1: lowest sentence on each charges, the care fading life, the
Speaker 1: five years. If you get twenty to life, they give
Speaker 1: me twenty years. Because they had no sustained everden that
Speaker 1: placed me at the cramp scene. The only thing to
Speaker 1: hey is here words and it's not worried. So now
Speaker 1: your since ten years, and I mean this would seem
Speaker 1: to be the worst day in anybody's life, but you
Speaker 1: have to still stay on trial in these other cases.
Speaker 1: Then you've got thirty six years for January. Then you
Speaker 1: were acquitted for the January twenty one incident, and finally
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted again for the February first incident and sentenced
Speaker 1: to another twenty eight years. I mean, it's hard to
Speaker 1: even read this stuff, and you lived it, and thus
Speaker 1: begins your saga of being a number instead of a name.
Speaker 1: And I got into the penitential. Nothing was that I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna see him later. And to take this, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say here in a b a parler, this
Speaker 1: corrupt system. I'm not gonna sit here they accepting seven
Speaker 1: for my family in my life, you know, at the
Speaker 1: age of eighteen, I'm not gonna see, you know, waste
Speaker 1: all my life and penetendence. So I had to go
Speaker 1: that I'm going right to the end. I had things
Speaker 1: I know how to do. When I first added to
Speaker 1: the system. Everything I asked with the Low Library was
Speaker 1: and I signed up for that. Then I signed up
Speaker 1: for the g d class and I signed up for college.
Speaker 1: So my thing was it, you know, I will prove
Speaker 1: the people wrong. Now I'm in the place that I
Speaker 1: had to grew up overnight. I had to become a
Speaker 1: man over night. It took me three years just to
Speaker 1: open up to people. I did nothing for three years
Speaker 1: this working when the school, I had to learn quick
Speaker 1: and be quick on my feet of thinking all the time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had a couple of older guys
Speaker 1: guide me and tell me, the young blood signed for school,
Speaker 1: take all the tradees and take opportunity you can get.
Speaker 1: Some of the guys are statement the right way, and
Speaker 1: it gave me good advice, and I taking each to that. Well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like there were some good people in there
Speaker 1: who were mentors to you. So I guess there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of light in this miserable, dark tunnel
Speaker 1: that you were in. And now we've got to turn
Speaker 1: our attention to a very important part of this terrible story,
Speaker 1: which is that while you were incarcerated, when the rapes
Speaker 1: should have stopped, they didn't stop at all. They actually increased.
Speaker 1: They continued throughout the East Richmond area, where another at
Speaker 1: least ten women reported being attacked by a young African
Speaker 1: American man who actually asked his victims to call the
Speaker 1: police and refer to him as the quote black ninja. Now,
Speaker 1: on December four to Richmond residents saw a man following
Speaker 1: a woman down the street. He was arrested. This was
Speaker 1: a guy named Leon Davis. Now this is crazy, right.
Speaker 1: So Leon was actually your neighbor, Thomas, and you saw
Speaker 1: him on January right after that incident. But it didn't
Speaker 1: click for you, right, The dots didn't connect until you
Speaker 1: were hearing the victims story and the witnesses at your
Speaker 1: own preliminary hearing for that incident. Right, what was on
Speaker 1: I was my birthday and I came outside of the
Speaker 1: front one of my friends we do it was on
Speaker 1: the front talk and Leon Davis came from the side.
Speaker 1: How is he the leopard? And I looked at him
Speaker 1: and say what do you And he said I would
Speaker 1: come the ndoubted him. That's with the white girls then
Speaker 1: there and so the man you know you're gonna put
Speaker 1: me down there? He said, yeah, he said, he chased
Speaker 1: me and I failed and hit my leg. At the time,
Speaker 1: I had on one interacted with him. So then when
Speaker 1: my priminal here and when the big to see what happened?
Speaker 1: Has she told her friends and he chased them. I
Speaker 1: was saying myself, wow, there was the date on my
Speaker 1: these birthday party. I was at home new day and
Speaker 1: I told my lawyer, I said, look at this guy
Speaker 1: named Leon lit in the street from it. I think
Speaker 1: he has something to do with it. And I told
Speaker 1: him to take the heart also lead to take them
Speaker 1: my case. But you know, my worried fell of death.
Speaker 1: Yet they ain't people, no man, and if only they
Speaker 1: would have who knows how many of these other crimes
Speaker 1: could have been prevented. Sean tell us about this Leon
Speaker 1: Davis guy and how they managed to miss what should
Speaker 1: have been obvious signs. So, in the opinion of the
Speaker 1: Richmond Police Department and the Hanreca Police Department, the crimes
Speaker 1: that Thomas was convicted of, those types of crimes stopped
Speaker 1: when Thomas was arrested, and there was a break in
Speaker 1: crimes like this until April, and that is when Leon Davis,
Speaker 1: according to the original government narrative, began his crime spree.
Speaker 1: I think what the police missed, of course, is that
Speaker 1: he just never stopped his crime spree, but he was
Speaker 1: committing crimes that looked an awful lot like, specifically like
Speaker 1: the last crime Thomas was convicted of, which is the
Speaker 1: one in Henryko County where he made the woman walk
Speaker 1: around and pretend she was his girlfriend, And so he
Speaker 1: was able to keep committing these crimes in an incredibly
Speaker 1: brazen way until his arrest in December. One of the
Speaker 1: most interesting stories I think in this case is what
Speaker 1: I didn't believe when Thomas told me at first. He
Speaker 1: told me that when Hen Leon were locked up together,
Speaker 1: Leon approached him in the Richmond City jail and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know we kind of look alike. I've got a
Speaker 1: hearing coming up in my case. Would you Thomas mind
Speaker 1: standing in for me Leah at defense table to see
Speaker 1: if we can confuse the victim, to see if the
Speaker 1: victim would identify you instead of me. And I thought
Speaker 1: Thomas had to be making that up because it's too
Speaker 1: crazy to be true, but I actually confirmed it. So
Speaker 1: this is something Leon knew, It's something Thomas knew. And
Speaker 1: even though it didn't appear that the police were putting
Speaker 1: two and two together, there was one interrogation record of
Speaker 1: Leon Davis where he was asked if he knew Thomas,
Speaker 1: but I think for a lot of the police officers
Speaker 1: at the time, there's that ongoing stereotype about black men
Speaker 1: being sexual predators, and so I think it was probably
Speaker 1: quite conceivable to the police department at the time that
Speaker 1: there could just be two people who were black men
Speaker 1: going around and doing the same thing. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a crazy coincidence. And you've mentioned earlier, Sean, about the
Speaker 1: fact that these crimes are exceedingly rare, in fact, that
Speaker 1: that stereotype is based on nothing. Yeah, I mean the
Speaker 1: lone black beat up in Thomas's neighborhood. He apparently told
Speaker 1: detectives at the time like you've got the wrong kid,
Speaker 1: like this just isn't him, but detectives didn't buy it.
Speaker 1: Even the juries struggled in this case. The January third
Speaker 1: rape that went to trial first was supposed to be
Speaker 1: the strongest case, but as you heard Thomas say, the
Speaker 1: jury really struggled to reach a verdict and that first
Speaker 1: case sentence Thomas to ten years, and that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the strong case. So even at the time,
Speaker 1: there should have been warning signs that this wasn't right
Speaker 1: and someone should have put two and two together, but
Speaker 1: they didn't. Okay, so let's get to the good part.
Speaker 1: Because Thomas's case, just as his trials were particularly screwy,
Speaker 1: the process of getting him out took some twists and
Speaker 1: turns that we don't often see. All Right, Thomas's case
Speaker 1: first came to our attention because he wrote to us,
Speaker 1: but the context in which he wrote to us was
Speaker 1: a little bit different. There had been several people at
Speaker 1: that point who had been exonerated based on DNA tests
Speaker 1: done on evidence like little tiny clippings of evidence, clippings
Speaker 1: of Q tips, clippings of underwear clothing that had been
Speaker 1: saved by a particular analyst at Virginia's Department of Forensic Science.
Speaker 1: After a few of those exonerations, then Virginia Governor Mark
Speaker 1: Warner ordered the State Crime Lab to do DNA testing
Speaker 1: in every single case between nineteen seventy three and nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine where there was physical evidence saved in these files.
Speaker 1: The Lab sent out of the letters to people who
Speaker 1: had been convicted and who now had DNA testing happening
Speaker 1: in their cases, And I was listed as the contact
Speaker 1: person in those letters. So he already wrote to me
Speaker 1: as a potential d N a case. But then I
Speaker 1: got a call from a Richmond Times Dispatch reporter named
Speaker 1: Frank Greene, who said, there's a case you gotta jump on.
Speaker 1: It's this guy, Thomas Hainsworth. I covered his trial. I
Speaker 1: also covered the trial of the guy who did it.
Speaker 1: Frank had gotten ahold of the DNA reports in the case,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the three cases where Thomas
Speaker 1: had been convicted. The DNA excluded Thomas as the perpetrator
Speaker 1: and linked to Leon Davis as the perpetrator. And this
Speaker 1: was great news for Thomas. But the problem was that
Speaker 1: we only had DNA and one of the three cases
Speaker 1: where Thomas was convicted. What we did have was potential
Speaker 1: DNA in the case where Thomas had been acquitted. So
Speaker 1: we worked with a Richmond Commonwealth's attorney to get that
Speaker 1: evidence tested and once again it cleared Thomas and linked
Speaker 1: to Leon Davis. Wow. And it would seem like this
Speaker 1: is where things should have just opened up for Thomas,
Speaker 1: that he should have been right on his way out
Speaker 1: of there, right, But unfortunately that's just not the way
Speaker 1: that played out. So at that point, what we had
Speaker 1: was five rapes and sexual assaults in a five week
Speaker 1: period that everyone thought were committed by the same person,
Speaker 1: and we know concretely that two were committed by Leon Davis.
Speaker 1: For most people, logically, that gets you to a place
Speaker 1: where you say, well, Leon Davis did the rest of
Speaker 1: these crimes, right, everyone thought they were the same person.
Speaker 1: But that kind of deduction isn't evidence, right. So, even
Speaker 1: though at that point the Richmond Commonwealth Attorney thought Thomas
Speaker 1: was innocent, the Virginia Attorney General, Hank Chinelli, very right
Speaker 1: wing conservative, was on the way to thinking Thomas was innocent.
Speaker 1: You can't prove anything in court that way. What you
Speaker 1: have to do is go to the Virginia Court of
Speaker 1: Appeals and file something very legal sounding called a writ
Speaker 1: of actual innocence, and you have to have proof. So
Speaker 1: we did a couple of different things to try to
Speaker 1: get us there. Thomas took polygraph tests, one for the
Speaker 1: Richmond crimes that he was convicted of and one for
Speaker 1: the Henrico County crime he was convicted of. Passed both
Speaker 1: with flying colors. Of course, we don't necessarily believe too
Speaker 1: much in the reliability of polygraph tests, but it was
Speaker 1: something that the prosecutors could use to sort of justify
Speaker 1: why they believed in Thomas's innocence, and then what we
Speaker 1: had was the similarities between the crimes. So we worked
Speaker 1: with the Attorney General's Office and the Commonwealth Attorney to
Speaker 1: meticulously document all of the similarities between the crimes that
Speaker 1: we new Leon Davis had committed and the remaining convictions
Speaker 1: on Thomas's record, and using all of that, we filed
Speaker 1: a rid of actual innocence in the Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: and I think February of twenty eleven, so Thomas was
Speaker 1: still in prison, we were able to get him paroled
Speaker 1: and released unfortunately as a sex offender. While the case
Speaker 1: was pending, we had an oral argument in March of eleven,
Speaker 1: and again there was no one opposing Thomas's exoneration except
Speaker 1: the court. That oral argument did not go well. It
Speaker 1: was pretty clear that the court just didn't believe we
Speaker 1: had met the burden we were supposed to meet in
Speaker 1: the case. In the summer of two thousand eleven, the
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals came back to us and said, all
Speaker 1: of the judges on the court want to sit for
Speaker 1: another oral argument in this case. And at the time,
Speaker 1: in order to win a rid of actual innocence you
Speaker 1: had to prove by clear and convincing evidence that no
Speaker 1: rational Trier effect could find proof of guilt beyond a
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. And that is to anyone normal out there,
Speaker 1: that just sounds like a bunch of legal, legal, legal boring.
Speaker 1: It's about as highest standard as you can have. So
Speaker 1: we did that oral argument. Thankfully, six of the ten
Speaker 1: judges ultimately agreed that Thomas deserved to have his convictions
Speaker 1: overturned and to be exonerated. So we won by six
Speaker 1: to four. But to put that in perspective, we only
Speaker 1: won by one vote in a case where the Attorney
Speaker 1: General's office agreed with us, which is pretty extraordinary terrifying, actually,
Speaker 1: I mean it's absolutely terrifying. Yeah, I mean you almost lost.
Speaker 1: In other words, like with overwhelming evidence of innocence, the
Speaker 1: Attorney general, prosecutors everybody going, hey, guess what, this was
Speaker 1: a mistake here, a terrible mistake. This guy is innocent,
Speaker 1: and yet you won by one vote. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is this is what happens when you have bad laws.
Speaker 1: So many exhonerations depend on just having a decent person
Speaker 1: on the other side who's gonna wink and nod when
Speaker 1: the bad laws in front of them, And that's not
Speaker 1: what happens in Virginia. Thinking and nodding doesn't work, so
Speaker 1: you're stuck with the bad law. So Thomas, from your perspective,
Speaker 1: finally you've got a fantastic team and all the things
Speaker 1: are lining up. Everybody's starting to acknowledge what you've been
Speaker 1: saying all along, that you're innocent. But you're finally freed
Speaker 1: with all these conditions. You got to wear an ankle monitor,
Speaker 1: you're on the sex offender registry. What was it like
Speaker 1: to walk out into the light, even with all those
Speaker 1: sort of caveats and restrictions, It was flushed with the
Speaker 1: I mean, I would happy to be out, just come home.
Speaker 1: I wanted this because I'll put a chinch and you
Speaker 1: come home and be back with your family. When I
Speaker 1: first came home, I had to meet with one of
Speaker 1: my probation office. I think Sean was with me. I
Speaker 1: knew that I'm a high condition because I was still,
Speaker 1: you know, arranging a sex offender. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: problem with that. You know, I'm gonna apply to the
Speaker 1: law and I'm gonna be obedient to the law when
Speaker 1: I gotta do to maintain my freedom. But when she
Speaker 1: told me that, because I choose to dig something at it.
Speaker 1: I had to bring in person there and be for
Speaker 1: she can meet them and she could tell them what
Speaker 1: I'm locked down for. You know why my cues are.
Speaker 1: And I looked at Sean, and that's sod, Sean. I
Speaker 1: had more freedom and writing prison I have on the street.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit hard to getting adjested to
Speaker 1: because really you're home, you got all the condition still
Speaker 1: leave as a sex offender and still convicted feathering. You
Speaker 1: still ain't really free from me. I couldn't go no where.
Speaker 1: I had to be in the house by five o'clock.
Speaker 1: I couldn't go out the house after that. I could
Speaker 1: leave one of the feet for my house. I had
Speaker 1: his mom's, I had the wood rund my leg, and
Speaker 1: I had this big video. I had to put him
Speaker 1: out pocket with the contraction and it was frustrating, and
Speaker 1: I told Sean on we got to get this over.
Speaker 1: I'm tired in the rest of six of fandom signing,
Speaker 1: you know, I just wanted this over and done. Now
Speaker 1: we get to the best part, which is that in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, ten years ago, when you were freed
Speaker 1: and then finally you were exonerated formally exonerated, cut that ankle,
Speaker 1: bracelet off, and Governor Bob McDonald signed legislation which provided
Speaker 1: you with compensation as well, which is unfortunately most exonaries
Speaker 1: never get compensation. But I'm really glad that you did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't nearly enough, but at least it gave you
Speaker 1: a chance to get started, I would say, with a
Speaker 1: new life. So what was it like when you finally
Speaker 1: were vindicated. It's something that I've tried to do since
Speaker 1: the big one, just to prove my innocenceive I mean, Sean,
Speaker 1: and you know they did outstand the job. I couldn't
Speaker 1: ask for nothing, that I mean, just being literated, being
Speaker 1: back and get me claims over my back, get my
Speaker 1: name stored, that be the person that you know, you
Speaker 1: all not be who they want you to be, the
Speaker 1: bigest monster that to treated me to be. That's all
Speaker 1: I want, you know. Once I got my name clear,
Speaker 1: none of the matter. You know, days she called me
Speaker 1: and say you want six or four? I didn't care,
Speaker 1: like she said, were one by one vote. And I
Speaker 1: did a function one time and one of the judges
Speaker 1: who went against me, he kept there, spoke and he
Speaker 1: got them. He looked at me sir Thomas, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I got a wrong. I want to get you. I
Speaker 1: told him, Hey, I know who want to go against you.
Speaker 1: What happened happening, and I'm free. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1: That call is one of the best calls I've ever
Speaker 1: gotten to make. So now we turned to my favorite
Speaker 1: part of the show, which is called closing arguments, and
Speaker 1: closing arguments as part of the show where I first
Speaker 1: of all thank both of you again, Sean Armbers from
Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic Innocence Project and Thomas Haynesworth for sharing
Speaker 1: your incredible stories here today and just for being who
Speaker 1: you are in the world, because I can't even describe
Speaker 1: how much respect I have for each of you for
Speaker 1: the for reasons. And with that, here's how closing arguments works.
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn off my microphone, kick back in
Speaker 1: my chair and leave my headphones on, probably close my eyes,
Speaker 1: and just listen to whatever else you want to share
Speaker 1: with our audience. Let's start with you Sean and save
Speaker 1: the man Thomas Haynesworth for the final closing argument. So
Speaker 1: what I want to say is that sometimes people listen
Speaker 1: to these stories and hear them as proof that the
Speaker 1: system works. They hear them as proof that well, we
Speaker 1: got it wrong, but eventually we did get it right.
Speaker 1: And in every single one of these cases that I
Speaker 1: have worked on, every exoneration I've seen has been an
Speaker 1: example of the system actually not working the way it
Speaker 1: was intended to work. Innocent people getting out is the
Speaker 1: opposite of what's supposed to happen. There's an extraordinary confluence
Speaker 1: of circumstances that has to happen to even put someone
Speaker 1: in a position to be exonerated. Mary Jane Burton, the
Speaker 1: lab technician at the Department of Front Sciences, had to
Speaker 1: decide that she was going to be the analysts who
Speaker 1: kept random clippings of stuff in her files. She had
Speaker 1: to be assigned to Thomas's case. Three other people had
Speaker 1: to be exonerated. The governor had to order testing in
Speaker 1: those cases. The lab had to agree to notify people,
Speaker 1: and that person had to be me, and Thomas had
Speaker 1: to be Thomas. All of those things had to happen
Speaker 1: just to put Thomas in a position to even prove
Speaker 1: his innocence, and then from there. The scariest thing to
Speaker 1: me about Thomas's case is that the standard to actually
Speaker 1: win was so high that the core wasn't necessarily long
Speaker 1: that we should lose. That's how high it was, even
Speaker 1: in a case where innocences as obvious as Thomas's and
Speaker 1: we won anyway. And so his freedom isn't the result
Speaker 1: of anything going the way it was supposed to. It
Speaker 1: was really the result of everything going the opposite of
Speaker 1: the way it's designed to work. So for all of
Speaker 1: you out here who are taking the time to learn
Speaker 1: about this issue, which is super important and one of
Speaker 1: the many reasons why I think Jason is a national treasure,
Speaker 1: try to remember that changing that system is absolutely crucial
Speaker 1: if we really are going to try to protect people
Speaker 1: who get convicted of things they didn't do. Thomas on you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to say to the inn surpriseect Sean,
Speaker 1: I should appreciate her. What did y'all do? If you
Speaker 1: new feeling and all of them I can speak you
Speaker 1: have more about your project. I just want to say
Speaker 1: to people wherever you're going to you feel you've been wrong,
Speaker 1: convicted wrong, because don't give up. Stand on your grand
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't give up, you will overcome.
Speaker 1: If you don't, anybody who'll be wrong with a big
Speaker 1: speak of for them I'm the best life. Things ain't
Speaker 1: turning what I want there, but they ain't turn out
Speaker 1: better for me, and I just want you to keep
Speaker 1: dis tray, don't give your claim, but to be right,
Speaker 1: stand on your innocent, and a stand up for yourself.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis with research by Lila Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flam Ravul.
Speaker 1: Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one