Speaker 1: Dalton Pace was a large man who read a junkyard
Speaker 1: out of his home in Decatur, Alabama. He was known
Speaker 1: to carry large amounts of cash. On August nine, after
Speaker 1: a brutal fight, someone shot Dalton Pace and stole that cash. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: thirty five miles away, Gary Drinker's daughter and neighbors were
Speaker 1: delivering a litter of puppies while Gary was there laid
Speaker 1: up on the couch with a back injury on heavy
Speaker 1: pain meds, definitely in no shape to fight anyone, let
Speaker 1: alone a man the size of Dalton Pace. When Gary's
Speaker 1: half sister, Beverly Robinson and her boyfriend Rex Seegar were
Speaker 1: dealing with their own significant legal troubles, they tried to
Speaker 1: trade alleged information about dalton paces murder for leniency, claiming
Speaker 1: that Gary was the killer. To corroborate those false claims,
Speaker 1: Beverly wore a wire between her legs while trying to
Speaker 1: coax the eight words out of Gary, But whenever Gary
Speaker 1: denied involvement, Beverly would rub her thighs together, making his
Speaker 1: denials inaudible. Then the lead detective took it upon himself
Speaker 1: to testify a trial about Gary's alleged taped confession. It
Speaker 1: took a literal dream team of lawyers to undo those lies,
Speaker 1: including the great Brian Stephenson and our returning guest, the
Speaker 1: eminent attorney Richard Jaffee. However, nothing will ever make up
Speaker 1: for all that lost time Gary spent on death row.
Speaker 1: This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flop. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam that's me. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: and today I'm actually almost a little nervous because I
Speaker 1: have not one, but two people who I just look
Speaker 1: up to so much. One you'll recognize, Richard Jaffee, is
Speaker 1: one of the most prolific and successful death penalty lawyers
Speaker 1: in the country. Richard, Welcome back to rawfle Conviction. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I said great to be here. And
Speaker 1: with him is someone who he speaks of in the
Speaker 1: Reverend tones, and he's not the only one. His story
Speaker 1: will anger you, but his spirit will inspire you. Gary Drinkard,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Rona Conviction. Thank you so much. It's wonderful
Speaker 1: to be here. Let's start at the beginning. First of all, Gary,
Speaker 1: did you grow up in Alabama? I did. I've been
Speaker 1: all up in the north and out West, and everything
Speaker 1: always came back to Alabama for the most part. You know,
Speaker 1: until this insane fate befail you, things were pretty good.
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say? Oh? Yeah, everything was going great.
Speaker 1: I had just followed acres of land and then rolled
Speaker 1: into college when we were fixing build a dream home.
Speaker 1: And then bamn, everything goes crazy. Yeah, and everything really
Speaker 1: did go crazy. And just to set the stage, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the afternoon of August when the body of
Speaker 1: Dalton Pace was found in his Decatur, Alabama home. He
Speaker 1: had been shot twice in the back and once in
Speaker 1: the head. Now, Mr Pace ran the junkyard out of
Speaker 1: his home and was known for carrying large rolls of cash.
Speaker 1: He was a guy who didn't trust banks, so he
Speaker 1: was a logical target for somebody, and all of the cash,
Speaker 1: except for the contents of his wallet, had been stolen.
Speaker 1: So Richard, take us back to this crime, because what's
Speaker 1: going to become clear as we go along is that
Speaker 1: it was actually totally impossible for Gary to have committed
Speaker 1: this crime. But somehow or other, long before you even
Speaker 1: heard about the case, he was convicted anyway and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. This is really an extraordinary case because Gary
Speaker 1: was thirty five miles away, and when the authorities got
Speaker 1: there they found a bottle of whiskey and a glass
Speaker 1: and they didn't even fingerprint these two items. After a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, the investigation went nowhere, and suddenly Beverly Robinson,
Speaker 1: who happened to be Gary's half sister, went to the
Speaker 1: police and she said, I can help you find who
Speaker 1: killed Dalton Pace. She said it's my half brother, Gary
Speaker 1: Drinkard And they said, well, you got any corroboration to that,
Speaker 1: and they said, yeah, I'm my boyfriend Rex Seegers, who
Speaker 1: I live with, and that's it, At which point they
Speaker 1: said you're gonna have to give us more than that,
Speaker 1: so they wired her up, sent her over to Gary's
Speaker 1: home around six thirty or so in the morning, sat
Speaker 1: there drinking coffee with Gary, wired up with Detective Gary
Speaker 1: Walker in a van, and like you see on TV,
Speaker 1: down the street listening in real time, Beverly Robinson had
Speaker 1: brought a newspaper of the account and then started reading
Speaker 1: from the newspaper and asking Gary questions about the crime,
Speaker 1: as if Gary might have known something. And every time
Speaker 1: Gary answered the question, the take was not legible because
Speaker 1: and We found this out later. Beverly's wire was between
Speaker 1: her legs and she would rub her legs together every time.
Speaker 1: She would try to get Gary to incriminate himself, and
Speaker 1: he never did. She was almost sort of editing the
Speaker 1: tape for the cops. Gary. When did you first find
Speaker 1: out that you were considered a suspect? Oh, I had
Speaker 1: no clue until the police came one morning and busted
Speaker 1: my door open. They had a search more for marijuana.
Speaker 1: It was a quarter ounce, and they were looking for
Speaker 1: everything except marijuana. They threw my wife and myself on
Speaker 1: the ground handcuffed. They drugged my kids out of the bedrooms.
Speaker 1: One of them stuck a gun to my son's face,
Speaker 1: leaving a bruise. They made my sixteen year old daughter
Speaker 1: and her friend come out of the back bedroom, wouldn't
Speaker 1: let him get a dressed. They were in their bra
Speaker 1: and panties in front of all those polis, and I
Speaker 1: was just outraged. I didn't find out until two weeks
Speaker 1: after I had been arrested for the marijuana that I
Speaker 1: was implicated in a murder. The idea that they were
Speaker 1: willing to bust up your house and then handle your
Speaker 1: family in a way that they did for a quarter
Speaker 1: rounds a pot. Of course, we know that that wasn't
Speaker 1: really what they were after, but DU's the idea that
Speaker 1: it could be used as a pretext to go in
Speaker 1: and bust up a house and a family like that.
Speaker 1: That can't go on anymore. Amazingly enough, it was dry
Speaker 1: in that area of marijuana at the time. Beverly is
Speaker 1: the one that sold it to me. They knew exactly
Speaker 1: where to go find it, and I'm really believing that
Speaker 1: they gave bit to her to sell to me. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to realize that Beverly and Rex
Speaker 1: had also been busted and both of them were facing
Speaker 1: serious criminal charges. And Rex was on parole from Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and he was facing forty years if he screwed up
Speaker 1: his parole, but as a career criminal, he was looking
Speaker 1: at a light sentence in Alabama. So both of them
Speaker 1: were hugely motivated to try to give them Gary a
Speaker 1: likely suspect in their mind if they could get Gary
Speaker 1: to confess to something he wouldn't confess to and didn't
Speaker 1: do it. Now, Dalton Pace was not a small guy, right.
Speaker 1: This is a big, strong man who put up a
Speaker 1: tremendous struggle, and that plays into the story as well. Gary,
Speaker 1: forget the fact that you had an airtight alibi because
Speaker 1: you were thirty five miles away and there was a
Speaker 1: particular reason why your alibi was so tight. Just explain
Speaker 1: to the audience what was going on that very day
Speaker 1: when Mr Case was murdered. I had bought four acres
Speaker 1: of land, and the neighbor had gave my daughter a
Speaker 1: picking these dog that was pregnant. She wanted to pickle
Speaker 1: the litter of the puppies, and she told us when
Speaker 1: she started having the puppies to call her and she
Speaker 1: would come out there and help us birth them. So
Speaker 1: the night of the murder, which I knew nothing about,
Speaker 1: we called the lady and she came over to the
Speaker 1: house with her boyfriend, and she was back with my
Speaker 1: daughter and helping her birth to puppies as her boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I were sitting in the living room watching the news.
Speaker 1: And you were also in no physical shape to burder
Speaker 1: anybody at the time, right, And I was on strong
Speaker 1: muscle actres and I was laid up on the couch
Speaker 1: from a back injury. Is it fair to say that
Speaker 1: you couldn't have even driven to thirty five miles much
Speaker 1: less got out of the car and gone it. Struggled
Speaker 1: with a big, strong man, I could have actually driven there,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't have struggled with him, and overcame anything.
Speaker 1: So Richard, how the hell did they build a with
Speaker 1: no evidence? And how were they able to convince a
Speaker 1: jury that he did it when it should have been
Speaker 1: obvious to anyone that these snitches were incentivized, and in
Speaker 1: all likelihood were the actual perpetrators. Well, it's a great
Speaker 1: question because Gary was appointed for that first trial three
Speaker 1: local lawyers, but none of them were experienced criminal lawyers,
Speaker 1: and especially not in the death penalty arena. They didn't
Speaker 1: call the doctor that treated Gary that would have explained
Speaker 1: the extent of his condition, the fingernail scrapings that were
Speaker 1: on the deceased Dalton pace. They didn't even challenge that
Speaker 1: they weren't tested, nor that fingerprints that were taken from
Speaker 1: the whiskey wasn't compared to Rex or to Beverly. They
Speaker 1: didn't do any of that. What they did was they
Speaker 1: called Beverly as the chief witness, and they called the
Speaker 1: detective that had engineered the wired conversation with Gary and
Speaker 1: Beverly and here's the kicker. That particular detective told the
Speaker 1: jury that while he couldn't hear all of what was
Speaker 1: on the tape, he was able to hear that Gary
Speaker 1: said to Beverly, the old man grabbed me, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had no choice but to shoot it, which was
Speaker 1: never on there. But the lawyers unfortunately left that slide
Speaker 1: and the jury believed the detective that Gary had confessed
Speaker 1: when he didn't. You know, juries can be misled fairly
Speaker 1: easily when people in positions of power views that power.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened here. Now, the jury didn't
Speaker 1: deliberate very long, and yeah, approximately an hour, and the
Speaker 1: judge had told one of his secretaries and it got
Speaker 1: back to my mother that if I put on some
Speaker 1: type of mitigating evidence that he would give me life.
Speaker 1: While problem well, I wasn't about to get my mother
Speaker 1: up there begging and crying for my life when I
Speaker 1: hadn't done anything and I didn't put on any mitigating
Speaker 1: evidence and I was found guilty and send us to death.
Speaker 1: And that was that was devastating because I figured, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going down there with the worst to the worst.
Speaker 1: I've gotta be watching my back all the time. I
Speaker 1: think it's a lot of people's worst nightmare and you
Speaker 1: were living it. Can you just give us a sense
Speaker 1: of death row in Alabama? You know, take us inside
Speaker 1: that cell if you can't. Well. It was a little
Speaker 1: five by eight concrete cell. I mean most people's bathrooms
Speaker 1: are larger than that. It was nasty. They would give
Speaker 1: you cleaning supplies, but you couldn't keep it clean. There
Speaker 1: was cockroaches three inches long, rats running around, insane people hollering.
Speaker 1: We had a man I was on the second tier.
Speaker 1: There was a man on the first tier. He would
Speaker 1: holler twenty four hours of day that there were people
Speaker 1: committing suicide trying to beat the executioner. There were people
Speaker 1: committing suicide because they weren't so much pain, and the
Speaker 1: doctors wouldn't help them. Your friends get sent to be executed.
Speaker 1: If the winds blowing right, you smell burning fledge. It
Speaker 1: was unreal. This episode is underwritten by the a i
Speaker 1: G pro Bono Program. A i G is a leading
Speaker 1: global insurance company, and for over a decade, the ai
Speaker 1: G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of hours of
Speaker 1: free legal services and other support to nonprofit organizations and
Speaker 1: individuals most in need. More recently, the program added criminal
Speaker 1: and social justice reform as a key pillar of its mission.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episod
Speaker 1: so the Ronful Conviction with Jason Flam and of the
Speaker 1: Last Mile Organization, which provides business and tech training to
Speaker 1: help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re enter the workforce.
Speaker 1: The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of
Speaker 1: Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to
Speaker 1: helping young people and students. For more information on the
Speaker 1: work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
Speaker 1: please visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Last Mile
Speaker 1: dot org. I was rereading your chapter in Richard's wonderful
Speaker 1: book Quest for Justice Defending the Damned. Uh. It's the
Speaker 1: second edition. The stories are really brilliantly told. You really
Speaker 1: get a chance to be inside the mind of one
Speaker 1: of the great courtroom lawyers of our time in life
Speaker 1: or death situations. So I think you'll enjoy reading it.
Speaker 1: But as I was rereading that chapter today, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about you somehow or other went from I don't
Speaker 1: know what you want to call the outhouse to the
Speaker 1: Penthouse in terms of your legal representation, because you ended
Speaker 1: up having the great Brian Stevenson gets you a retrial.
Speaker 1: The first attorneys you know at the trial didn't do
Speaker 1: a good job, and I was fearful that the appeals
Speaker 1: attorney wouldn't do a good job. So I wrote Mr
Speaker 1: Stevenson begging for an attorney to handle my appeals. When
Speaker 1: I did hear back from him, he appointed Mr Randy
Speaker 1: Suskin to handle my appeals. I was thrilled Gary got
Speaker 1: a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct improper evidence offered
Speaker 1: against him in his first trial. And now that Brian
Speaker 1: Stevenson and Randy Suskin had done their part, you got involved.
Speaker 1: You weren't even really a the Cator lawyer, so you
Speaker 1: had to basically pull some strings and maneuver yourself into
Speaker 1: this case. If I was going to get on, I
Speaker 1: knew that I would have to get appointed. The problem
Speaker 1: with getting appointed was said, the judge doesn't know me.
Speaker 1: I've not practiced there, but John May's, my good friend,
Speaker 1: did and does practice there. So John was ultimately able
Speaker 1: to talk the judge into appointing us both with some conditions,
Speaker 1: and then Steve Wright from the Sun consider from Human
Speaker 1: Rights called me at home and he offered the services
Speaker 1: of Chris Adams and the mitigation team of Southern Center.
Speaker 1: It was a deal I would never refuse, and boom,
Speaker 1: we had our team in place. I think for many
Speaker 1: people listening, they're probably going, well, Okay, now you got
Speaker 1: this dream team. You have all this evidence. The state
Speaker 1: has no evidence. This should have been a slam dunk.
Speaker 1: The first thing that happened in this case right before
Speaker 1: trial that basically just blew our world was this. We
Speaker 1: were counting on the perfect alibi that Gary had, which
Speaker 1: was multiple people besides of course the doctor in his back.
Speaker 1: And one of those alibi witnesses testified in the first trial,
Speaker 1: and her name was Kelly Hargrove. That was Gary's stepdaughter. Well,
Speaker 1: Kelly was going to be one of three or four
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses we were going to call, and right before
Speaker 1: trial we couldn't reach her, and she had moved to
Speaker 1: Panama City and she would not respond to our couldn't
Speaker 1: even subpoened her. And we figured out what happened. They
Speaker 1: had cut a deal with her, meaning that she had
Speaker 1: got in trouble in Panama City. She was facing some
Speaker 1: potential theft charges, and she cut a deal, even though
Speaker 1: the state never admitted it, and suddenly she became the
Speaker 1: chief witness for the state. She basically said, I perjured
Speaker 1: myself in the first trial, and Gary confessed to me,
Speaker 1: and that was her testimony in the second trial. So
Speaker 1: they were far from done with their dirty tricks. And
Speaker 1: in fact, they really pulled the rug out from under
Speaker 1: you in a pretty serious way here. So you had
Speaker 1: to pivot, but that that wasn't the only card you
Speaker 1: had to play. Oh no, no, no. So where I
Speaker 1: candidly made a tremendous tactical mistake, and I write about
Speaker 1: it in the book with clarity and candor, because lawyers
Speaker 1: need to be conscious of every word they speak. And
Speaker 1: I asked a question that I never should have asked,
Speaker 1: and it was what were the scratches that she claimed
Speaker 1: that she solved twelve days later when she said Gary confessed.
Speaker 1: Where were they on Gary? And it was a huge
Speaker 1: mistake because I didn't take into consideration the obvious is
Speaker 1: that they would have prepped her and showed her the
Speaker 1: pictures of the scratches that Gary had that he received
Speaker 1: when he was arrested and basically jerked onto the concrete
Speaker 1: from his automobile. They jerked him out about it causing scratches,
Speaker 1: and she described those scratches as being very red and
Speaker 1: very fresh and long scratches, and it was what the
Speaker 1: pictures showed, and it was an awful moment for me. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: we got a lunch break and everybody else was eating lunch.
Speaker 1: I was like underwater, and then I figured it out,
Speaker 1: like a bell went on right before we went back.
Speaker 1: Is that there's no way that those were the scratches
Speaker 1: that she saw, because if she'd seen those scratches twelve
Speaker 1: days later when she said Gary confessed, they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been fresh, they would have been scabbed, and they would
Speaker 1: have been in the healing process. There's no way that
Speaker 1: those scratches would have occurred at the crime scene from
Speaker 1: Dalton Pace. There's no way. And once I overcame that hurdle,
Speaker 1: then showing that she was beyond belief was very easy
Speaker 1: to do, especially since we had Affi David's from all
Speaker 1: the people she stole from in Panama City that she denied.
Speaker 1: So the step daughters claims about an alleged confession, we're
Speaker 1: proven to be totally incredible that live brought to you,
Speaker 1: of course by prosecutor conduct. But this wasn't the only
Speaker 1: person that they had coursed. An alibi witness that was
Speaker 1: a friend of Gary's daughter. We flew her up from
Speaker 1: Oregon on our own dime, and when the investigators and
Speaker 1: the prosecution found out, they intimidated her at the motel
Speaker 1: where she was staying and basically spooked her, and she
Speaker 1: refused to testify. They threatened her with perjury, and that
Speaker 1: would have been a nice thing to have her because
Speaker 1: she was another strong alibi witness that they used their
Speaker 1: power to keep her from testifying. Now comes another state's witness.
Speaker 1: Beverly gets back on the stand to repeat the lies
Speaker 1: she told in the first trial, and really the lies
Speaker 1: that started the whole thing. And of course she denied
Speaker 1: having an incentive to lie, and Richard proved that her
Speaker 1: denials were lies, destroying her credibility. So now Beverly, who
Speaker 1: bears a great deal of responsibility for Gary's wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: was all deflated. And when she off the stand, she
Speaker 1: does something absolutely nuts. Gary, go ahead, do you speak
Speaker 1: to that right issue? Was getting off to stand, she
Speaker 1: looks over me and said I've always loved you, and
Speaker 1: the judge said, get her out of here, get out
Speaker 1: of here. I mean, everybody in there could tell she
Speaker 1: was lying. Everybody could tell she was high, she was
Speaker 1: hopped up, like that's like it's like a movie. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like some of my cousin Vinny ship or something.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. What were the other key things that you
Speaker 1: think really turned the jury around. Well, let me start
Speaker 1: by saying this that in the first trial, the detective
Speaker 1: detective Gary Walker had said that while listening to the
Speaker 1: type recorded conversation between Garry and Beverly is half sister,
Speaker 1: that Gary confessed. And I already mentioned that, but the
Speaker 1: tape got enhanced because we insisted the FBI and anstin.
Speaker 1: They brought the FBI agent to testify in state court,
Speaker 1: and the FBI agent had to be honest. And as
Speaker 1: many times as we played the enhanced tape, he never
Speaker 1: heard Gary confessed because it wasn't on there. And then
Speaker 1: Detective Walker testified in spite of it not being on there,
Speaker 1: he insisted, even on my cross with him, he insisted
Speaker 1: that Gary basically confessed. And we played that tape at
Speaker 1: least a half a dozen times and it was very
Speaker 1: clear that Gary never confessed. It was never on the tape,
Speaker 1: and he could not have heard what he told the
Speaker 1: jury in the first trial. On the second trial that
Speaker 1: he heard. And when that occurred, I think the trial
Speaker 1: was pretty much over in our favor. I knew we'd
Speaker 1: put on a good case, and I knew I had
Speaker 1: a good chance of being found not guilty. But you
Speaker 1: never never allow your hopes to get up, or you'll
Speaker 1: get crushed and it'll devastate you all over again. But
Speaker 1: when they sent the jury out to deliberate, Richard and
Speaker 1: the other attorneys went after some coffee. Well, the latch
Speaker 1: in the courthouse went out. Somebody outside had hit a
Speaker 1: telephone pole, and a police officer that was setting with
Speaker 1: me put a gun in my back, and I'm thinking, oh, Lord,
Speaker 1: decision is going to shoot me before I even get
Speaker 1: a chance to hear the juror Jesus Christ Again, if
Speaker 1: you put that in the movie, somebody would go, Now,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna believe that. Sorry, I to take that out. Gary.
Speaker 1: We talked about the worst moment of your life when
Speaker 1: you were found guilty. So this is the opposite. Paint
Speaker 1: the picture for us as best. Can can you take
Speaker 1: us inside that moment in the courtroom. Well, when they
Speaker 1: told me to stand up and they pronounced not guilty verdict,
Speaker 1: everybody in the court room, I believe had tears. I
Speaker 1: think the old judge he was syd a couple of tears.
Speaker 1: That was probably the happiest moment of my life. We
Speaker 1: interviewed the drawers afterwards and they all said, basically, look,
Speaker 1: we know he never could have done it, he never
Speaker 1: should have been charged, and we reached our verdict in
Speaker 1: less than five minutes. There's no way to quantify the
Speaker 1: depth of your feelings when someone is basically snatched away
Speaker 1: from the grips of death. Well, I'm walking out the
Speaker 1: courthouse and my mother's there, my ex wife's there with
Speaker 1: my children, good friends there. My kids are just thrilled
Speaker 1: to death. And they asked me, what's the first thing
Speaker 1: I want to do. I said, get some barbecue right away. So, Gary,
Speaker 1: since getting out, you've been doing some great work with
Speaker 1: Witnessed Innocence, Kirk Blisworth and the whole crew, raising awareness.
Speaker 1: You're literally on a mission to abolish the death penalty.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear more about that. Okay, be
Speaker 1: glad to. Witness to Innocence is anti death penalty organization
Speaker 1: which came to me approximately five years after I was out.
Speaker 1: The group consists of people that have been exonerated from
Speaker 1: death row and their family members and support members. We
Speaker 1: go around the country speaking to anyone that listened to us.
Speaker 1: We we've got this panel called Accuracy Injustice. We speak
Speaker 1: to prosecutors, we speak to judges, and we change a
Speaker 1: lot of minds. I mean, we've helped abolish we haven't
Speaker 1: done it ourselves, but we've helped abolish the death penalty
Speaker 1: in about four states. How can people get involved? We
Speaker 1: have a website, Witness Innocence dot org that's witnessed Innocence
Speaker 1: dot org, a great organization. By the way, We have
Speaker 1: the link in the bio, along with links to the
Speaker 1: groups that help free Gary. Of course, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the Equal Justice Initiative and the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Speaker 1: So just scroll down and get involved. And now we
Speaker 1: come to the part of our show called closing Arguments,
Speaker 1: where I thank you both for sharing this remarkable story,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna turn my mic off, kick back,
Speaker 1: close my eyes and listen to anything. Do you have
Speaker 1: left to say anything on your mind at all, anything
Speaker 1: we left out, So we're gonna save the best for last,
Speaker 1: of course, and no offense to the great Richard Jaffey.
Speaker 1: But that means you, Gary, you're bat and clean up here,
Speaker 1: so to speak. So Richard, the mic is yours. This
Speaker 1: case is the perfect example of every reason why the
Speaker 1: death penalty should be abolished, because everything that's wrong with
Speaker 1: it is present in this case. One, it was a
Speaker 1: lottery that Gary ended up with the legal team he
Speaker 1: ended up with for the second trial, in particular the
Speaker 1: Southern Center for Human Rights, John May's Chris Adams, and
Speaker 1: and secondly, Gary got a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct,
Speaker 1: and then then when a second trial begins, there was
Speaker 1: more prosecutorial misconduct. The case involved an investigation that was
Speaker 1: taking snitches words for things without corroborating it and verifying it.
Speaker 1: It was truly a travesty that Gary was ever charged
Speaker 1: in the first place. So when you look at the
Speaker 1: death penalty and analyze it, this is the perfect example
Speaker 1: of why it simply doesn't work. It's arbitrary, and it's capricious,
Speaker 1: and it is snatching people that are good people out
Speaker 1: of society and wrongfully convicting them and subjecting them to
Speaker 1: losing their lives. Gary over to you. When I got
Speaker 1: off out of prison, I knew I had to get
Speaker 1: a different vocation other than construction because it still had
Speaker 1: to hurt back. And I went to college. UH told
Speaker 1: the teachers what had happened, asked him could I get
Speaker 1: a job? They said yes. I signed up for respiratory therapy.
Speaker 1: I was doing good in class. I was doing great
Speaker 1: in clinicals. Six months before graduation. The hospital will hire
Speaker 1: you if you're doing good. Nurses warted me because I
Speaker 1: could feel the patient's pain and they wouldn't hire me.
Speaker 1: They laughed when they seen that I had been convicted
Speaker 1: of capital murder. They laughed, said, no hospital in the
Speaker 1: country will hire you. That's still on my record witness
Speaker 1: to innocence. I saw what they were doing. UH saw
Speaker 1: the potential in the organization, and I said, definitely I
Speaker 1: would love to be a member. And to me, this
Speaker 1: is one of the best, most powerful anti death pitalty
Speaker 1: organizations around. Before this COVID thing, I was traveling probably
Speaker 1: once a month out just speaking engagement. But now since
Speaker 1: this COVID thing is going on, I sit at home
Speaker 1: and I hope somebody will call thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. Please support your local
Speaker 1: innocence projects and go to the link in our bio
Speaker 1: to see how you can help. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Warns.
Speaker 1: The music on the show, as always, is by three
Speaker 1: time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam is a
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