Speaker 1: A warning for our listeners. This episode contains discussion of
Speaker 1: child sexual assault and of suicide. Please listen with caution
Speaker 1: and care. In February of nineteen ninety four, a six
Speaker 1: year old girl living in New Orleans complained of pain
Speaker 1: in her abdomen and pelvic region. When she was examined
Speaker 1: at the hospital, the doctor suspected she had been sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: and the police were alerted. The child was questioned by
Speaker 1: doctors and by the police without apparent present. According to
Speaker 1: the doctor, when he asked who had harmed her, the
Speaker 1: child named Patrick Brown, her mother's live in boyfriend. Patrick
Speaker 1: insisted that he was innocent. He would never hurt a child,
Speaker 1: let alone someone in his own family. Without any corroborating evidence,
Speaker 1: the prosecution relied solely on the notes taken by the doctor,
Speaker 1: and after just a day, an hour and half of trial,
Speaker 1: the doctor's word was enough to convince the jury to convict.
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'm Tiffany Reese, host of the podcast Something Was Wrong,
Speaker 1: sitting in for Jason flam. I am a documentarian, survivor,
Speaker 1: and advocate, and on my audio docuseries podcast I work
Speaker 1: with survivors of abuse and crime. Today's case tragically impacted
Speaker 1: the lives of two people, someone who was wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: of a heinous crime and the victim of that crime
Speaker 1: who tried for decades to tell the truth that the
Speaker 1: wrong person was in prison and was not heard. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: there are two survivors in this story, and one of
Speaker 1: them is with us today, Patrick Brown. Patrick, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us and being willing to share
Speaker 1: your story and your experience with us today. I'd like
Speaker 1: to start by just saying how sorry I am for
Speaker 1: what you've experienced. It was incredibly heartbreaking coming across your
Speaker 1: story and the story of the survivor. It was clear
Speaker 1: to me that you're both victims and survivors of so
Speaker 1: much systemic and legal abuse within this story, and I
Speaker 1: think it's really brave that you're willing to share with
Speaker 1: us after everything that you've already experienced and overcome to
Speaker 1: be here today. So thank you so so much.
Speaker 2: You're welcome, You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. To your attorney, Kelly Orion's, who's
Speaker 1: also joining us today. Kelly, could you introduce yourself and
Speaker 1: give us a little bit about your background, before we
Speaker 1: jump into Patrick's story.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, thank you so much for having both of
Speaker 3: us here today. So I am the director of the
Speaker 3: Decarceration and Commune to the re Entry Clinic at the
Speaker 3: University of Virginia School's Law. That is a mouthful in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaker 1: Patrick, I'd love to go back a bit and talk
Speaker 1: a bit about you and where you were born, and
Speaker 1: a little bit about your background and who you were
Speaker 1: leading up to this horrific experience.
Speaker 2: I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, braised in a
Speaker 2: lay and I I come from a good family. We're
Speaker 2: a beautiful family. Family was full of love, so it
Speaker 2: wasn't broken at all. You know, to where my family
Speaker 2: the open arms of whoever welcome and feed them, help
Speaker 2: them out. Well. I wasn't no bad person, but I
Speaker 2: took a turn in my life as I was growing up.
Speaker 2: That's to become street hung out all night, hung with
Speaker 2: the fellas, doing this, doing that, to the point to
Speaker 2: where when I met my kid, Mama, my soldier. You know,
Speaker 2: everybody got to have a soldier.
Speaker 1: How did you meet Kathy? What was your reallyationship?
Speaker 2: Like? Oh, man, I met Cat. You know, I was
Speaker 2: just coming at the club and she was walking up
Speaker 2: and she was squiding me, so I was stopped and
Speaker 2: I say, you know, saw my concerns. She's a nice
Speaker 2: looking woman. And when I talked to her, we had
Speaker 2: hooked up and we know, we dated having fun and
Speaker 2: you know, moved in with her like two weeks. Then
Speaker 2: the relationships stuff like that, and from there to where
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful relationship. She had my daughter, and
Speaker 2: the whole time she was pregnant, I was just soul
Speaker 2: protective of her. I don't want nobody to smoke around her.
Speaker 2: I don't want nobody doing that. And I always pop
Speaker 2: up at the house. She'll robot stomach leaves back in
Speaker 2: the screels, didn't come back home. It was just like
Speaker 2: like a no mo tea for me. And she was
Speaker 2: all the way one hundred with me. But what I
Speaker 2: was one hundred with her. I understand somewhat I wasn't.
Speaker 2: Somewhat I wasn't because I stood in the screech all night, hustling,
Speaker 2: try to provide for my family by the streets, and
Speaker 2: really I didn't have time for my family at home.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think like you did the best
Speaker 1: you could in the situation you were in at the time.
Speaker 1: I mean you were only twenty years old.
Speaker 4: Right, right in nineteen Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: That it's tough when you want to be able to
Speaker 1: provide for your family and you feel like you have
Speaker 1: limited options. I think sometimes on how.
Speaker 2: To do that right. Well, you know, I really had
Speaker 2: no guidance on how to raise a family, how to
Speaker 2: keep up with the bills and make sure that the
Speaker 2: family had Medicare, And I ain't know about all that.
Speaker 2: You know, ain't nobody really hold my hand and showed
Speaker 2: me how to become a man to provide for family
Speaker 2: like the man supposed to do. Because when I was
Speaker 2: really young, my dad had died. I wouldn't had no
Speaker 2: fault to figure in my life. I just went on
Speaker 2: my own, try to learn from the streets.
Speaker 1: Did you have any previous run ins with the law?
Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know, the lifestyle, but did you have
Speaker 1: any like did they know who you were?
Speaker 2: When the system? The system, they did know who I
Speaker 2: was because during the time of my arresting, during the
Speaker 2: time my trial, they really gave me a figure how
Speaker 2: many times that I had been arrested and the thirty
Speaker 2: seven times that I've been arrested, was fighting and activated battery,
Speaker 2: disturbing the peace, stuff like that. It wasn't have really
Speaker 2: no major crime. It was like mostly missed the meanor childs.
Speaker 1: Yes, and nothing involving violence against children to be.
Speaker 2: Clear, no, no, nothing involved.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Patrick. We're going to talk about the events
Speaker 1: that led to your wrongful conviction. Now, I'd like to
Speaker 1: remind the listeners that we'll be discussing some triggering topics
Speaker 1: involving a minor child. To protect the privacy of the victim,
Speaker 1: we are not using her real name. Instead, we'll call
Speaker 1: her Sarah Kelly. Would you mind walking us through what
Speaker 1: we know of the case.
Speaker 3: All right, So, first, I think it's important to make
Speaker 3: clear that this is a case where someone was horrifically
Speaker 3: victimized and survived an awful assault, and then was revictimized
Speaker 3: for twenty years after while she tried to tell the
Speaker 3: people around her, including the district Attorney's office, that the
Speaker 3: wrong person was in prison. I think it's important to
Speaker 3: acknowledge the two ways that the victim in this case
Speaker 3: was and the survivor in this case was harmed.
Speaker 4: So the case.
Speaker 3: Starts in February of nineteen ninety four, when Sarah was
Speaker 3: six years old.
Speaker 4: It was the day after Marti Gras.
Speaker 3: When she started complaining about discomfort and her abdomen and
Speaker 3: her pelvic region. So they attempted some home remedies and
Speaker 3: over the counter treatment, but that didn't work, and so
Speaker 3: then she was taken in to see doctor Ronald Wilcox.
Speaker 3: Doctor Wilcox immediately suspected that she had been reaped and
Speaker 3: asked doctor Maria Menna, a pediatric specialist in child sex abuse,
Speaker 3: to evaluate Sarah. And so they start talking to Sarah
Speaker 3: about what happened to her. What's really critical to understand
Speaker 3: about what happens next is what is actually said in
Speaker 3: the doctor's office versus what then gets put onto paper
Speaker 3: and given to the police and given then to the
Speaker 3: district attorney's office. And what the difference is is you
Speaker 3: have in the doctor's office a lot of what we
Speaker 3: would call, you know, leading questions because you're dealing with
Speaker 3: a six year old girl at the time, it was
Speaker 3: recorded in the doctor's notes that she's said, quote, Patrick
Speaker 3: put his penis in me down there. Sarah maintains that
Speaker 3: is not what she said, and that at the hospital
Speaker 3: she was only asked who is Patrick, to which she
Speaker 3: responded essentially that he was her family member. When NOPD
Speaker 3: detectives were called in, Sarah was also questioned without a
Speaker 3: family member present.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kelly. So now Patrick, could you tell us
Speaker 1: about what your experience was when you arrived at the
Speaker 1: hospital that day with Sarah's mother.
Speaker 2: Me and Kaji arrive at the hospital to get it.
Speaker 2: And when I got there, I passed the room, the
Speaker 2: examination room, and I seen family members in the room
Speaker 2: with Sarah to the part to where when the detectives
Speaker 2: and then came out of another room and brought me
Speaker 2: into it. Was questioned me about it and basically questioned
Speaker 2: me about you know something that happened to the victim.
Speaker 2: And it was asked me a question by do I
Speaker 2: know anything about it? And no, I don't know. That's
Speaker 2: why I'm here at the hospital try to find out
Speaker 2: what is the problem.
Speaker 3: At this At this time, mister Brown is completely cooperative
Speaker 3: with the police and wants to know who hurt this
Speaker 3: little girl that he loves and takes care of, and
Speaker 3: so he is not at all thinking like a suspect.
Speaker 3: He submits to various testing.
Speaker 4: He waived his.
Speaker 3: Rights to an attorney and his right to remain silent
Speaker 3: and spoke to detectives without an attorney, where he denied
Speaker 3: allegations that he had raped Sarah.
Speaker 2: I went out to the police station with him and
Speaker 2: was in a room where Raeric coroper with him as
Speaker 2: to answering a lot of questions to the part to
Speaker 2: where they asked me, did I actually do the crime?
Speaker 2: And I think I could just tell her this, lamb,
Speaker 2: I don't know nothing about it. The more I know
Speaker 2: about it is what y'all telling me right now. And
Speaker 2: I don't know nothing about it. None of that.
Speaker 3: However, based on the statements that Sarah made, or rather
Speaker 3: was alleged to have made two doctors that day, mister
Speaker 3: Brown was arrested on the charge of aggravated rape.
Speaker 2: It was something unspeakable, you know, it's really speakable to
Speaker 2: well get you off for something that you didn't do,
Speaker 2: that did actually putting this charge on me. But some
Speaker 2: kind of way that everything printed at me for some reason.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, because maybe I probably do know why,
Speaker 2: because the way I was through, the type of person
Speaker 2: I would, and that side of the family didn't really
Speaker 2: want me to be with their daughter. But like I said,
Speaker 2: she was my soldier. She was my everything. You know,
Speaker 2: I would protect car. I would lose my life to
Speaker 2: give hers and the kids. So I never talked to
Speaker 2: nobody while I was in jail about it, but I
Speaker 2: was going back and forth to court with it and
Speaker 2: doing a pretrial investigation and all that is really really
Speaker 2: kind of hurtful because it was like, this is really
Speaker 2: actually happened. You know, you're taking me to the trial
Speaker 2: behind something I did not do. And where is the
Speaker 2: evidence because I ain't seen evidence at all, because I
Speaker 2: know they're supposed to do a rape kit and all that,
Speaker 2: and didn't no rape kit, and didn't no joining the blood,
Speaker 2: and did nothing to take down evidence DNA and did
Speaker 2: not that.
Speaker 3: After he was arrested, he was given a two hundred
Speaker 3: and if the thousand dollars bond. His family could not
Speaker 3: afford the roughly thirty thousand dollars that it would have
Speaker 3: cost him to pay a bail bondsman, so mister Brown
Speaker 3: spent more than nine months in jail waiting to go
Speaker 3: to trial. His family also could not afford an attorney,
Speaker 3: so Robert Jenkins, an attorney from the Orleans Parish Indigent
Speaker 3: Defender Panel, was appointed to represent mister Brown.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a rundown of the details of
Speaker 1: the trial? December thirteenth, nineteen ninety four. Who was the judge,
Speaker 1: the name of the prosecutor?
Speaker 4: Absolutely so.
Speaker 3: Mister Brown went to trial in Section A of Orleans
Speaker 3: Parish Criminal District Court in front of Judge Morris Reid.
Speaker 4: The prosecutor on the case was David Wolfe.
Speaker 1: And the district Attorney at the time was the notorious
Speaker 1: Harry Connick Senior, who headed up the Orleans Parish DA's
Speaker 1: office from nineteen seventy three to two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Jason's covered some of the many wrongful convictions that occurred
Speaker 1: under Connick's watch on this podcast. His office was known
Speaker 1: for withholding and suppressing evidence. In fact, the Innocence Project
Speaker 1: of New Orleans estimates that during his tenure, favorable evidence
Speaker 1: was withheld in the trials of one in four men
Speaker 1: sent to death row.
Speaker 3: The trial started that evening with opening statements and it
Speaker 3: concluded the next day. We don't actually know the full
Speaker 3: extent of what happened during the trial, because, as mister
Speaker 3: Brown learned over the nearly thirty years that he fought
Speaker 3: his conviction since his direct appeal no trial's transcript has
Speaker 3: actually been made available. When the case was reopened by
Speaker 3: the District Attorney's office in twenty twenty three, we still
Speaker 3: could not find a transcript despite many, many, many efforts. However,
Speaker 3: what we do know is that the whole trial lasted
Speaker 3: about a day and a half from the time of
Speaker 3: jury selection to the time a verdict was delivered, which,
Speaker 3: when you think about it, is deeply concerning considering the
Speaker 3: mandatory sentence for aggravated rape at the time and still today,
Speaker 3: is life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: Kelly who testified in the trial and whose behalf did
Speaker 1: they testify on.
Speaker 3: Zarah was twice brought into the court to testify, and
Speaker 3: twice her nose started to bleed as soon as she
Speaker 3: took the stand and questions began, which was something that
Speaker 3: was really common for her at the time whenever she
Speaker 3: was in a very stressful situation, and so she was dismissed.
Speaker 3: No accommodations were made for her to testify in private,
Speaker 3: and instead the state called doctor Wilcox to testify in
Speaker 3: her place, and recalled doctor Wilcox was the first physician
Speaker 3: to examine her.
Speaker 1: The child being questioned in front of the whole court
Speaker 1: instead of the judges chambers, Like, what is your opinion
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's.
Speaker 1: Obviously so traumatic and stressful to the child that they're
Speaker 1: having this physical reaction after being raped. It just seems
Speaker 1: that the victim wasn't being thought of.
Speaker 4: I completely agree.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, cases like this are really tough
Speaker 3: because we keep courtrooms public for really important reasons, to
Speaker 3: make sure that crucial decisions in our justice system that
Speaker 3: carry serious consequences that compromise people's liberty interests do not
Speaker 3: happen in private, and when witnesses testify juries are empowered
Speaker 3: to make a decision about that witness's credibility. So, to
Speaker 3: answer your question, I think there's a tension because we
Speaker 3: want to make sure that people are safe. We want
Speaker 3: to make sure that children who have been harmed are
Speaker 3: not re traumatized, but we also have to ensure that
Speaker 3: the Constitution is followed, that liberty interests are not compromised
Speaker 3: in private. That being said, I do believe that accommodations
Speaker 3: could have been made to make Sarah more comfortable and
Speaker 3: less stressed, and that is crucial here because as we know,
Speaker 3: as Sarah has told us in the decades since this happened.
Speaker 3: She did not say what doctor Wilcox alleged that she said,
Speaker 3: and so had she had the opportunity to testify, she.
Speaker 4: Would have been able to say the truth.
Speaker 3: She would have been able to testify that she did
Speaker 3: not accuse Patrick of rape, and that was a very
Speaker 3: crucial fact for the jury to have. Instead, adults testified for.
Speaker 1: Her, and instead, what did the jury hear from doctor Wilcox.
Speaker 3: Doctor Wilcox testified to what was in what was recorded
Speaker 3: in his notes that Sarah had told him that Patrick
Speaker 3: put his penis in me down there, a statement that
Speaker 3: we now know and knew at the time had the
Speaker 3: police disclosed it, that was not was what was actually
Speaker 3: said in the doctor's office. So they were able to
Speaker 3: introduce the doctor's report with no scrutinity with this statement
Speaker 3: that never got to be cross examined. So what happened
Speaker 3: then is she never got a chance to tell her story.
Speaker 3: So the jury convicts mister Brown of aggravated rape in Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Age of the victim as an aggravating factor, and she
Speaker 3: was six years old at the time that she was raped.
Speaker 3: So he was sentenced to manna story life without the
Speaker 3: possibility of parole and was sent to the Louisiana State
Speaker 3: Penitentiary at Angola.
Speaker 2: The hardest part being incarcerated is that you lose a
Speaker 2: family member while you're in now, and I lost several
Speaker 2: family members. My mom, she went to three open house
Speaker 2: surgeries who I was incarcerated, and some people that really
Speaker 2: loved me, like my grandmother, my aunt's cousins, they passed
Speaker 2: away while I was incarcerated. And that's the hardest part
Speaker 2: to where they didn't want let you go out, to
Speaker 2: go to any funerals or none of that, and with
Speaker 2: the type of charge that they placed me on, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of restrict me from everything to where at a
Speaker 2: certain age I had to see my daughter once she
Speaker 2: get older, and any one of my family members, they
Speaker 2: can't come in as a child. Those certain things I
Speaker 2: couldn't do. I couldn't go around certain people, certain jobs
Speaker 2: I can't have because of the charge.
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly sorry that you experienced that. That must have
Speaker 1: been so hard to be stigmatized like that and for
Speaker 1: something you.
Speaker 2: Did not do. From the time my cuceration, you know,
Speaker 2: I had to try to make it work for me.
Speaker 2: I had to due to the times that and let
Speaker 2: the time do me. So at the time I was
Speaker 2: in there, you know, I educated myself. I become a
Speaker 2: better person, becomes a mentor, and I'm becoming helping a
Speaker 2: lot of people out there at a GOOLA even down
Speaker 2: to from the Oufenity security staff to where I got
Speaker 2: to know them and they got to know me, and
Speaker 2: they see that I'm not a really bad person, you know,
Speaker 2: from that part from being that goal of being it's
Speaker 2: separing criticism from a lot of dudes that's around now.
Speaker 2: Really nothing really came hurt me no more because I'm
Speaker 2: all crowed out from that and anything that's not positive,
Speaker 2: I just don't want to be around it. But on
Speaker 2: my coatre that you know, they had dues there and
Speaker 2: they were going through a lot of things that they
Speaker 2: need mentor that he talked to and especially that's what
Speaker 2: I did. At one point in time in my life.
Speaker 2: I did lost hope. I did lost I hope to
Speaker 2: where I wouldn't come home, I wasn't gonna be with
Speaker 2: my family again. And I had looted in my mind
Speaker 2: to not be a commodity to the system to where
Speaker 2: you're just holding me there and collecting money off of me,
Speaker 2: and I'm doing this and doing that to keep a
Speaker 2: prison function to where dang, I ain't had them a
Speaker 2: hope because you know it ain't goal inside of prison.
Speaker 2: Contraband comes and goes in there, and the most dealy
Speaker 2: contraband that they had in there was that fit now,
Speaker 2: and that fit now into the prison to where I
Speaker 2: did wanted to take that just the end this life,
Speaker 2: because I didn't want that type of life inside of
Speaker 2: a system behind something I did not do. And then
Speaker 2: you know, when I got there, dude, say life, I
Speaker 2: mean lock in forever. Man, I ain't no going home.
Speaker 2: The next place I would be was a party. Lookout,
Speaker 2: mister penitentious cemetery. That's what I was gonna be. I
Speaker 2: was still going to be incocerated.
Speaker 1: What kept you going, Patrick, What gave you hope?
Speaker 2: My family kept coming. It's fishing me talk to my
Speaker 2: daughter every day on the phone. My daughter was a
Speaker 2: month and eight days old when I got arrested. From
Speaker 2: that time, she was just a baby. She don't know
Speaker 2: nothing about the charge. And she fought for me too.
Speaker 2: She fought to keep me well, I keep hope going.
Speaker 2: She wanted her daddy. That kept me going down with
Speaker 2: my heart. She kept me going, she kept me fighting,
Speaker 2: ca me find this to be with them, so she
Speaker 2: could have a fault in our life.
Speaker 1: So if you could, Kelly, speak to uh, if you
Speaker 1: recall when you first heard about mister Brown's case, what
Speaker 1: stood out to you like as a human and what
Speaker 1: drew you to essentially work on the case and kind
Speaker 1: of like how your relationship started those early days.
Speaker 3: So I got a call on March twenty fourth of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three from the District Attorney's office, Jason William's office.
Speaker 3: It was specifically from Assistant District Attorney Emily maw who
Speaker 3: is the head of the civil rights division in the office.
Speaker 3: And I was asked if I was available to come
Speaker 3: in immediately, and I was told that a young woman
Speaker 3: had just come into their office and had essentially said
Speaker 3: that the wrong person was in prison for raping her.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty extraordinary call to get. You don't often
Speaker 3: say no when a district attorney's office calls you as
Speaker 3: a defense attorney and says we think we have someone
Speaker 3: in prison who shouldn't be there.
Speaker 4: I didn't need much more information than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, So what did they tell you when you
Speaker 1: got to their office on that day.
Speaker 3: What we knew is that in two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: when Sarah was fourteen years old, was when she first
Speaker 3: attempted to get the District Attorney's office to listen to
Speaker 3: her about the fact that the wrong man was in
Speaker 3: prison for raping her. She explained that she estimated that
Speaker 3: she had written at least one hundred letters to the
Speaker 3: District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1: And the DA at that time was still Harry Connick Senior.
Speaker 3: In twenty fifteen, she submitted an affidavit to the District
Speaker 3: Attorney's office at this time led by Leon Canazero, declaring
Speaker 3: that mister Brown was not the person who raped her
Speaker 3: and identifying by name the man who did. She remembers
Speaker 3: going to the DA's office at least four times, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the fourth time, on March twenty fourth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, that someone in that office actually decided
Speaker 3: to listen to her.
Speaker 1: And that was, of course, after Leon Connazaro had been
Speaker 1: succeeded as a district attorney by Jason Williams, who was
Speaker 1: elected in twenty twenty and.
Speaker 3: They immediately began reinvestigating her case. And I think what
Speaker 3: was most important to the investigators and to myself was
Speaker 3: Sarah's incredible credibility, her ability to recall in detail the
Speaker 3: efforts that she had made over more than two decades
Speaker 3: to undo this injustice and for the truth to be
Speaker 3: accepted by the DA's office. And part of what also
Speaker 3: bolstered her credibility was how deeply deeply harmed she was
Speaker 3: by having this truth ignored.
Speaker 1: What drew me to this story or this you know,
Speaker 1: hearing about mister Brown's experiences and Sarah's experience is that
Speaker 1: it really highlights how important it is to listen to
Speaker 1: survivors and for their voices to be heard. And you know,
Speaker 1: on the other side of that, the detriment that can
Speaker 1: happen to us when we're not heard. Two and a
Speaker 1: half perpetrators out of one hundred that rape actually end
Speaker 1: up in prison. That's the current statistics. And I mean,
Speaker 1: working with survivors every day, I know that, like the
Speaker 1: trust just isn't there that the effort will be meaningful
Speaker 1: and it won't just do more harm. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a really sad reality and a place to be,
Speaker 1: but it's one that we need to sit with because
Speaker 1: it's so important that we address it because it's absolutely
Speaker 1: not okay.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely not okay, and it's just a.
Speaker 1: Very heartbreaking, very heartbreaking example of the many cracks within
Speaker 1: the system. Kelly, What was the post conviction process like
Speaker 1: that led you from taking this case on to ultimately
Speaker 1: mister Brown's release.
Speaker 3: One thing that I think is very important and I
Speaker 3: want to throw it in there, is that mister Brown
Speaker 3: litigated his case himself for two decades. In fact, the
Speaker 3: petition that was granted on May eighth was actually the
Speaker 3: one that mister Brown filed himself pro see over a
Speaker 3: year before this hearing. In it, he argued factual innocence
Speaker 3: under a very new law in Louisiana that allows you
Speaker 3: to plead factual innocence. So the DA's office actually filed
Speaker 3: their response to mister Brown's pro say petition, and before
Speaker 3: they did this, they reviewed all of the available records.
Speaker 3: They reinterviewed witnesses, consulted with law enforcement, and spent a
Speaker 3: considerable amount of time listening to Sarah and assessing her
Speaker 3: credibility as well as verifying the details in the story
Speaker 3: that she told them. After reviewing all available records, they
Speaker 3: found clear and convincing evidence that mister Brown was factually innocent,
Speaker 3: and based on their filing their response to mister Brown's
Speaker 3: pro say petition, they found a few things. Most compelling
Speaker 3: those were the fact that Sarah stated unequivocally and on
Speaker 3: multiple occasions that mister Brown was not the man who
Speaker 3: raped her. Also that in twenty fifteen, she submitted a
Speaker 3: sworn affidavit to the DA's office, in it stating that
Speaker 3: mister Brown was not the person who raped her and
Speaker 3: naming the person that did. They also considered testimony and
Speaker 3: statements from the time the case was pre trial that
Speaker 3: indicated that during a fight with the victim's mother, a
Speaker 3: man gloated about raping Sarah and about the fact that
Speaker 3: mister Brown was doing time for the crime.
Speaker 1: That sounds like it would have been a pretty major
Speaker 1: incident for the defense to explore, but somehow the jury
Speaker 1: never heard about it. Can you tell us more about
Speaker 1: that exchange and why it was not brought up a trial?
Speaker 3: So this fight occurred well before the triald, near the
Speaker 3: time that mister Brown was indicted on the charge of
Speaker 3: aggravated rape. The prosecution was aware of this fight. It
Speaker 3: is not entirely clear how accurately that evidence was provided
Speaker 3: to the defense. We know definitively that the fact that
Speaker 3: there were witnesses to this fight and witnesses.
Speaker 4: To this admission that was not disclosed to the defense, and.
Speaker 1: What was said during the fight that was significant.
Speaker 2: He stated, I know that your daughter has got rape
Speaker 2: and I ain't gonna be the one to do the
Speaker 2: time for and.
Speaker 3: I believe he also said, you know that mister Brown
Speaker 3: is doing time for somebody else's crime. And it's just
Speaker 3: it's almost irrefutable, right, Like that's a very relevant fact
Speaker 3: for a jury to hear and understand. This is the
Speaker 3: same man that Sarah stated raped her in the affidavit
Speaker 3: that she gave to the DA's office in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: They submitted this information to the court and on May eighth,
Speaker 3: an evidentiary hearing was held. And so when Sarah took
Speaker 3: the stand to testify, she was able to look at
Speaker 3: mister Brown, who was sitting at the table next to me,
Speaker 3: and she told the court about her twenty year effort
Speaker 3: to be able to sit where she was that day
Speaker 3: and tell the truth of what happened to her. At
Speaker 3: the end of that hearing, Judge Calvin Johnson delivered his ruling,
Speaker 3: and before he did, he addressed Sarah and mister Brown directly,
Speaker 3: and I'll never forget what he said, and I want
Speaker 3: to repeat it verbatim. He said the state was complicit
Speaker 3: in the harm and horror that Sarah endured. He then
Speaker 3: vacated mister Brown's conviction and granted mister Brown a new trial,
Speaker 3: and Emily maw the Chief of the Civil Rights Division,
Speaker 3: immediately revised the bill of information that was filed against
Speaker 3: him in nineteen ninety four and immediately dismissed the charges.
Speaker 3: That day, he was able to hug Sarah, he was
Speaker 3: able to hug his family, and he was able to
Speaker 3: walk out.
Speaker 4: Of the front steps and not have to go back
Speaker 4: to Angola.
Speaker 1: Patrick, I can't imagine what it must have felt like
Speaker 1: to be in that courtroom with Sarah and to hear
Speaker 1: her testimony, and for both of you, after almost thirty years,
Speaker 1: to finally be heard.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was unbelievable. It was beautiful. I know
Speaker 2: that this person came out and being heard, you know what,
Speaker 2: kind of helped heal me. Heal me a whole lot
Speaker 2: so well. Once she gave a test, moment she finished
Speaker 2: gaving a TESTI moment she came up and she hugged me.
Speaker 2: And once she hugged me in the court room, I
Speaker 2: felt her pain, she felt mine. She told me that
Speaker 2: she was sorry that I have to go through it.
Speaker 2: I told her that I was sorry too, that I
Speaker 2: wouldn't death for I got supposed to. She said that
Speaker 2: she loved me. I told her that I love her back.
Speaker 2: Say say you never go back there. I know you
Speaker 2: never go back. I told her that I'll never leave again.
Speaker 2: Only way that I leave from this place.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Oh my goodness, thank you so
Speaker 1: so much for your time and your willingness. It is
Speaker 1: incredibly brave to be this vulnerable in such a public way,
Speaker 1: and I just want to hold space and acknowledge that
Speaker 1: what you did today is an incredibly big thing. And
Speaker 1: I wish you and your family all of the best
Speaker 1: in the future. And yeah, thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: We also want to let our listeners know that there's
Speaker 1: a GoFundMe page to help you get back on your feet.
Speaker 1: So listeners, if you want to show your support for
Speaker 1: Patrick as he starts this new chapter in his life,
Speaker 1: please look for Patrick Brown on GoFundMe dot com or
Speaker 1: go to the link in our episode Bio. Now, this
Speaker 1: is the part of the show that we call closing arguments.
Speaker 1: We'd like to hear your final thoughts, anything at all
Speaker 1: that you want to share with listeners or that you
Speaker 1: hope listeners will take away from hearing this story. Kelly,
Speaker 1: can we hear you're closing arguments first, and then we'll
Speaker 1: hear from Patrick.
Speaker 3: This is the first exoneration that I have ever been
Speaker 3: involved in, and I am horrified by what I have
Speaker 3: learned through this process. I also think it's really important
Speaker 3: to remember that what happened to mister Brown.
Speaker 4: Is a symptom of a diseased system.
Speaker 3: That puts not only people who are factually innocent in prison,
Speaker 3: but puts people in prison who should not be there
Speaker 3: in the first place, people who have caused harm, but
Speaker 3: who also have a larger story, who have a story
Speaker 3: that is often rarely ever heard, usually until decades later.
Speaker 3: And so I hope that mister Brown's story will inspire
Speaker 3: us not just to look at the cases of people
Speaker 3: who are actually innocent, but the cases of all people
Speaker 3: who are in prison, to question and continue questioning is
Speaker 3: prison really an answer and an effective answer to the
Speaker 3: harm that's occurring in our community. It has been, in
Speaker 3: my experience, a one hundred and fifty year experiment that
Speaker 3: has failed. It has not served people that have been harmed.
Speaker 3: It has not brought justice to victims and survivors. I
Speaker 3: know that we can do better. I believe that we
Speaker 3: can do better, and I hope that all of us
Speaker 3: will be inspired to take a second look at this
Speaker 3: system that we have become so dependent on and taken
Speaker 3: for granted, and challenge ourselves to radically reimagine what justice
Speaker 3: and safety and health look like in our communities and
Speaker 3: try to do so much better.
Speaker 4: Than we have done.
Speaker 2: To all of listeners, adele, be mindful what should do
Speaker 2: because just saying I heard that person they hurt out
Speaker 2: of people's be truthful to yourself and others to the
Speaker 2: point to where we need to stop all the nonsense
Speaker 2: and be straightforward with ourselves. That's not putting an instant
Speaker 2: person in jail. Let's stop the folence. Let's just stop
Speaker 2: all that because it ain't worth it. We all just
Speaker 2: come together, no matter and I we love no color race.
Speaker 2: Get along. It's time for us people to get along
Speaker 2: and enjoy life and George's beautiful world that God gave
Speaker 2: us because we don't have nothing. You know, who else
Speaker 2: can we depend on? We basically depend on the people
Speaker 2: that's around us. You know, we don't know nobody until
Speaker 2: we open our mouth and start communicate. I want to
Speaker 2: start communicating, we start learning people. We have a better world.
Speaker 2: And I really appreciate you all listening and have a
Speaker 2: good heart orom your heart to life itself. Hope y'all
Speaker 2: have a good heart.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
Speaker 1: early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis for inviting me to sit in today,
Speaker 1: and thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: Leila Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: follow me Tiffany Reese at Lookiboo and listen to my
Speaker 1: podcast Something Was Wrong. Wherever you get your podcasts. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one