Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.
Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement they get lost along
Speaker 2: the way and forget what their job really is.
Speaker 3: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
Speaker 3: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
Speaker 3: it was for my body to be found in any
Speaker 3: alley of New York City.
Speaker 4: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
Speaker 4: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
Speaker 1: They do that.
Speaker 3: They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home
Speaker 3: in eat spaghetti like it was nothing. And anybody that said, well,
Speaker 3: why would you confess to something that you didn't do?
Speaker 3: My question to them will be why wouldn't you confess
Speaker 3: when somebody's threatening to kill your life? The judge, he said,
Speaker 3: how you feel?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm okay.
Speaker 3: He said, well, the days you're lucky day you're going home.
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 4: Jason Flamm. Today we have two very special guests. Jerome Morgan,
Speaker 4: who was exonerated after serving twenty years in prison in
Speaker 4: Louisiana in the worst possible conditions.
Speaker 5: Morgan was seventeen when he was convicted of the murder
Speaker 5: of a sixteen year old at a party and was
Speaker 5: sent away to Angola for life. He proclaimed his innocence,
Speaker 5: but it wasn't until new evidence was discovered in prosecutors'
Speaker 5: files that Morgan's conviction was overturned, helped by two eyewitnesses
Speaker 5: who recanted, saying their statements more than twenty years earlier
Speaker 5: had been coerced by police.
Speaker 6: Kevin Johnson and Hakeem Shabaz were teenagers when they said
Speaker 6: they were coerced into naving Jerome Morgan as a shooter
Speaker 6: in the murder murder of the sweet sixteen party back
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 5: The DA's office finally dropped the charge last May. It
Speaker 5: was a triumphant moment for Morgan and his attorneys at
Speaker 5: Innocence Project New Orleans. A teenager who went to prison
Speaker 5: walked out as a thirty seven year old man.
Speaker 4: And one of his attorneys is here as well. From
Speaker 4: the Innocence Project of New Orleans also known as IPNO.
Speaker 4: Kristin Winstrom is here. Jerome and Kristin, welcome to ronful conviction.
Speaker 7: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Let's go back to May twenty second, nineteen ninety three
Speaker 4: and even a little further back than that.
Speaker 2: You grew up in New Orleans, Yes, sir, Yes, I
Speaker 2: grew up in the neighborhood called Putch Train Park here
Speaker 2: in New Orleans. It was a neighborhood that was built
Speaker 2: for and by Black's in nineteen fifty five, right after
Speaker 2: Brown versus Board of Educations with the Separate but Equal
Speaker 2: law that was written into the constitution, and so they
Speaker 2: had lent the history of ownership.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I grew up in a culture
Speaker 1: of being.
Speaker 2: Able to teach it yourself and being able to take
Speaker 2: care of people, you know that needs your help in
Speaker 2: the community.
Speaker 4: And did they have a big family.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I grew up in foster care from the age of
Speaker 2: three until my own full arrest. My mom she didn't
Speaker 2: receive a former education, so her reasons were because she
Speaker 2: wanted us to have an education, she placed us in
Speaker 2: falster care. And that's how I end up in the
Speaker 2: punch Trained Park neighborhood with a foster family by the
Speaker 2: name of the Johnson's.
Speaker 4: And on May twenty second, nineteen ninety three, you were
Speaker 4: barely seventeen years old. It just turned seventeen, Yes, sir,
Speaker 4: so are you're still a child.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, as a young young male and you know,
Speaker 2: going through the phases of puberty. Of course, naturally, you know,
Speaker 2: as a young person you struggle with your identity, you know,
Speaker 2: this this stage of puberty and just trying to find
Speaker 2: your identity.
Speaker 4: You ended up going to a party in a hotel ballroom.
Speaker 4: It was a sweet sixteen party, yes, sir, and so
Speaker 4: it sounds like, you know, recipe for a good night
Speaker 4: and then things went crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well this the backup a little bit.
Speaker 2: I was put out from the foster home in Punchry
Speaker 2: Train Park a day after my sixteenth birthday for being
Speaker 2: suspected of selling drugs in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: In nineteen nine three.
Speaker 2: My best friend was murdered, but before then, his mom
Speaker 2: called him in nineteen ninety two with some crack rock
Speaker 2: in his room, and so she called all of our parents,
Speaker 2: you know, his friends, because you know, it was a
Speaker 2: group of us.
Speaker 1: It was friends that hang out every day.
Speaker 2: And so she called my foster parents and then in
Speaker 2: turn put me out, and so I didn't see my
Speaker 2: friends because I went to stay in another area in
Speaker 2: New Orleans in the eight war with my aunt who
Speaker 2: had a one bedroom apartment on Franklin Avenue and she
Speaker 2: stayed there with her daughter, who was a year younger
Speaker 2: than me. And so my friend Romeo Johnson asked me
Speaker 2: to come to the party because we hadn't been hanging
Speaker 2: out and they wanted to, you know, spend some time,
Speaker 2: and so I agreed. We met up at another friend's
Speaker 2: house and walked to the party, and so we got there.
Speaker 2: I was very familiar with a lot of people there
Speaker 2: because my freshman year was spent at McDonald thirty five
Speaker 2: and that's where the young lady whose birthday was.
Speaker 1: That's where she attended.
Speaker 2: And by this time all it was, all of us
Speaker 2: was juniors at the time, are just finishing our junior
Speaker 2: year in school, and so all I needed was to
Speaker 2: and I have credits to graduate, so you know, it
Speaker 2: was pretty much a friendly party until two group of
Speaker 2: guys started to you know, push and shove each other
Speaker 2: while dancing on the dance floor, and so that escalated.
Speaker 2: But one group of guys left out to I guess,
Speaker 2: avoid anything that may transpire from that pushing and shoving,
Speaker 2: but then decided to come back in. And the moment
Speaker 2: they decided to come back in, the other group of
Speaker 2: guys that they was, you know, getting into the skirmish
Speaker 2: with you know, approached them and then they started to fight.
Speaker 2: And once the fight started, it was like a bro
Speaker 2: many people fighting and then shots he erupted. And once
Speaker 2: shots he erupted it. I was standing there next to
Speaker 2: the speakers by the DJ table because I enjoy music.
Speaker 1: But once I heard the shots, my immediate reaction was.
Speaker 2: To jump behind the DJ table and hide under the
Speaker 2: DJ table so that I won't get shot. A few
Speaker 2: of my friends in my peripheral I could see them
Speaker 2: running in some of the same directions and then running
Speaker 2: into another room.
Speaker 4: How many people were at the party.
Speaker 2: Well, by record, over eighty because everybody had to enlist
Speaker 2: their names before leaving. But that don't account for the
Speaker 2: people that may have left as they were running from
Speaker 2: the gun shots.
Speaker 4: But at least eighty people, it was a pretty big party. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I mean, gunshots
Speaker 4: in a crowded place like that, anything could happen. You
Speaker 4: could have been shot, so you're hiding under the table.
Speaker 2: Right and the shots ceased. You hear a lot of screaming, yelling.
Speaker 2: I heard, in particular, somebody shot in the area where
Speaker 2: I thought i'd see my friend run too, So immediately
Speaker 2: my attention went to there. I left it, went and
Speaker 2: went into that room and found a person that we
Speaker 2: was acquainted with was shot in the leg and my
Speaker 2: friends were trying to help him. So immediately took off
Speaker 2: my shirt because I see two wounds, entry wound and
Speaker 2: exit wound. I don't know where I learned it from,
Speaker 2: but I took off my shirt to tie around his
Speaker 2: leg under the wound to stop the bleeding. But my
Speaker 2: shirt didn't fit because he was a kind of bulky guy.
Speaker 2: So my friend Romel Johnson snatched the table caught off
Speaker 2: of the refreshment table to tie around his leg, and
Speaker 2: so once we tied that around his leg, we sat
Speaker 2: there and to the ambulams came.
Speaker 4: And then the police were called quickly. Yes, yes, I'm
Speaker 4: sure probably a lot of different people, probably called nine
Speaker 4: one one, and they showed up within minutes, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, but at the time I had no knowledge
Speaker 2: of it. Like I said, I was in this adjacent
Speaker 2: room waiting with this victim.
Speaker 1: Into the ambulance came.
Speaker 2: So my personal knowledge of the police being there came
Speaker 2: about when we came out of the room with this
Speaker 2: victim and just that'll go with the paramedics so they
Speaker 2: can get him to the hospital.
Speaker 1: But once I came out of there, it was like
Speaker 1: table set up.
Speaker 2: It was ununiformed police there and uniform police there.
Speaker 4: So I'm sure everybody listening is going, okay, well, so
Speaker 4: what's the story here? I mean, why would anybody possibly
Speaker 4: there's over eighty people, because, like you said, not including
Speaker 4: the people who left, they counted eighty people there, and
Speaker 4: obviously a lot of people probably ran right out the door.
Speaker 4: The people who are closest to the door, it's a
Speaker 4: safe bet they went to the street and got the
Speaker 4: hell out of there. I want to ask Christen this too,
Speaker 4: Like again, it sounds like you're going home and it's
Speaker 4: a very unfortunate incident. You actually acted in a very
Speaker 4: kind of heroic way for somebody who's not trained as
Speaker 4: a doctor or anything else. Maybe you saw it on
Speaker 4: TV or whatever, but you did what a concerned and
Speaker 4: honorable citizen would do, which has come to the aid
Speaker 4: of somebody who's been shot and bleeding, and you did
Speaker 4: what you could do in the circumstance, and then stayed
Speaker 4: there till the ambulance came. That's more than ninety percent
Speaker 4: of people would have done or did do right. So
Speaker 4: it sounds like that's where this story ends, but it's
Speaker 4: not so. Kristin, What can you tell us, like, how
Speaker 4: did he possibly become a suspect under this scenario? I mean,
Speaker 4: I know it's Louisiana, and I know it's New Orleans
Speaker 4: and crazy shit happens here every day all day and
Speaker 4: twice on Sunday.
Speaker 1: But tell us what happened?
Speaker 7: Well, to clarify a little bit. Once the shots are fired,
Speaker 7: not only was Jerome's friend shot in the leg, but
Speaker 7: there was another individual who shot in the abdomen. He
Speaker 7: ultimately survived that shooting. And one boy, Clarence Landry, was
Speaker 7: shot and killed and he died there on the scene.
Speaker 7: And so that's how this became murder charge. But the
Speaker 7: reason that when our office looked at Jerome's case and
Speaker 7: we were committed to representing him, even though we didn't
Speaker 7: initially know how we're going to do it, is because,
Speaker 7: by everyone's account, the gunman shot those bullets and then
Speaker 7: ran out of the room.
Speaker 4: It was a single gunman, yes, single gunman, a lot
Speaker 4: of shots though.
Speaker 7: Let me think I believe there were eight shots. Seven
Speaker 7: or eight shots.
Speaker 4: That's a lot in a crowded room.
Speaker 7: But yeah, and so by all accounts, that gunman ran
Speaker 7: out of the room, as you would expect somebody who
Speaker 7: shoots a gun into a crowd, But he left the building.
Speaker 7: He left the building. And when the detectives arrived a
Speaker 7: bit later after the initial police arrived, and they took
Speaker 7: down the names, phone numbers, addresses, school social security numbers
Speaker 7: of every kid who was still in the room and
Speaker 7: kind of had them line up and asked them their information.
Speaker 7: I think basically was asked him, do you know anything?
Speaker 7: Everyone in the room gave them their basic information and
Speaker 7: said I don't know who it was. I couldn't see it.
Speaker 7: They were then free to leave. And so there was
Speaker 7: in the police report a list of I believe eighty
Speaker 7: four names and Jerome's name, date of birth, address, social
Speaker 7: security number is listed there By all accounts he was
Speaker 7: in the room after the shooting. So the gunman fled,
Speaker 7: Jerome Morgan is still in the room, and somehow he
Speaker 7: gets convicted of this murder. So that's why we are
Speaker 7: always confident in his innocence. But I can tell you
Speaker 7: why he was.
Speaker 4: Convicted let's talk about that, because it is an insane
Speaker 4: story of incompetence, malfeasance, misconduct, carelessness, and just sort of
Speaker 4: a don't give a fuck about the truth type of attitude.
Speaker 4: They were fishing in the wrong pond, right, They knew
Speaker 4: that the actual perpetrator left, So what did they do.
Speaker 4: They decided to pick somebody from a group of people
Speaker 4: who should have automatically been excluded, right, And they lied
Speaker 4: in order to accomplish that goal. I mean, and they
Speaker 4: didn't lie a little, they lied a lot, right, Which
Speaker 4: is one of the things that makes this case an
Speaker 4: important case for people to know about because it wasn't
Speaker 4: a small lie. It was a big lie, and it
Speaker 4: was a series of them that led to Jerome almost
Speaker 4: having his entire life taken away from him, but certainly
Speaker 4: his more than half of his life was taken from him.
Speaker 4: And had you guys not gotten involved, he would have
Speaker 4: died in prison.
Speaker 7: Yes, he had a sentence of life without parole. So
Speaker 7: that was a sentence in Louisiana. That's a sentence to
Speaker 7: die in prison.
Speaker 4: So, Jerome, you were a boy, not a man. All
Speaker 4: of a sudden, you're a boy in a very grown
Speaker 4: up situation. So what happened and then what went through
Speaker 4: your mind?
Speaker 1: Well, but you know I was there. You know, I
Speaker 1: was a witness.
Speaker 2: I seen the fire from the gun, and I seen
Speaker 2: the guy and dead and you know other guy shot. Now,
Speaker 2: the guy that was breaking up the fight, I didn't
Speaker 2: see him because from the record, he ran out into
Speaker 2: the lobby. And that's how they initiated the call to
Speaker 2: the police, because as soon as he ran out, he
Speaker 2: ran into a lobby and a person in there saw
Speaker 2: that he was injured and bleeding and called the police.
Speaker 2: You know, just that experience. But being in New Orleans
Speaker 2: is like it's no surprise at that time. You know,
Speaker 2: New Orleans had a heavy culture and kind of rowdy music,
Speaker 2: bonce music, hype music, and that's what started the humbug
Speaker 2: between the.
Speaker 1: Two group of guys.
Speaker 2: You know, Like I said, I was put out from
Speaker 2: the Foster Home, so I was staying with my aunt,
Speaker 2: and you know, we were poor. Usually when I was
Speaker 2: staying with in the Foster Home, you know, I was
Speaker 2: more well off because I had more community, more neighbor support.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying that because at this particular time, I
Speaker 2: had to go find some cheap clues to wear to
Speaker 2: the party something new, and at the time the trend
Speaker 2: was Warner brother T shirts, you know, Jean Sharks and
Speaker 2: tennis shoes, maybe some socks or something. But I say
Speaker 2: that to say, this is what I bought all Knall
Speaker 2: Street that ned it went to the party, and this
Speaker 2: is what the group of guys that got into with
Speaker 2: the guy who would feelings shot and his friends wore
Speaker 2: that night, Warner brother T shirts and Jean Sharks tennis shoes.
Speaker 2: So my thing is by a lot of people being
Speaker 2: aware of who I was and my friends because we'd
Speaker 2: be at a lot of teenage events, you know, school dances, parties,
Speaker 2: we used to go to skate country a lot, so
Speaker 2: a lot of people are familiar with our face and
Speaker 2: so they probably misassociated me with this other group, and
Speaker 2: the other guy that actually did it probably resemble me
Speaker 2: in their perspective. So that's how I was associated with
Speaker 2: that group, by you know, these teenage rumors. But at
Speaker 2: the time, like I said, I needed to and I
Speaker 2: have credits to graduate high school, so I was trying
Speaker 2: to focus on that, especially since my mom initially put
Speaker 2: me in foster care to get an education, and so
Speaker 2: I was also working at when Dixie at a grocery store.
Speaker 1: So I was trying to figure out my life.
Speaker 2: As it would end as a teenager and as I
Speaker 2: would approaching being an adult.
Speaker 1: But you know, I had a lot to figure out.
Speaker 4: I was reading about your case in the National Registry
Speaker 4: of Exonerations. And here's where it gets really weird. Right,
Speaker 4: and I'm just going to read this right the way
Speaker 4: they wrote it. It says that in June nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 4: so this is the next month, shortly after the Clime
Speaker 4: police received a crime Stoppers tip that the gunman may
Speaker 4: have been you, Jerome Morgan. The detective assemble the photographic
Speaker 4: lineup that included the photograph of you, a seventeen year old,
Speaker 4: and other people who had been at the party. This
Speaker 4: is where it gets weird. Two witnesses are shooting were
Speaker 4: shown the photo lineup containing your photo. One witness did
Speaker 4: not identify anyone in the lineup as the gunman, and
Speaker 4: the other, Kevin Johnson put it says, put Morgan's photo asides,
Speaker 4: I'm going to call you by your last name here
Speaker 4: and said quote he knew that guy from grade school
Speaker 4: and he was not the shooter. Now I'm getting the
Speaker 4: chills like I do on this show, and I'm going, Okay,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, we're done. Let's keep looking, because now
Speaker 4: we know this guy's not the guy. Yeah, so that
Speaker 4: should have excluded you right off the bat. Now, there's
Speaker 4: another part of this that's extremely disturbing, which is the
Speaker 4: same kid, Kevin Johnson told police that he chased the gunman,
Speaker 4: which is a crazy thing to do in the first place.
Speaker 1: He chased the.
Speaker 4: Gunman outside the building and followed him until he leaped
Speaker 4: over a fence and escaped. Right, so the police knew
Speaker 4: that the gunman ran, jumped over a fence, and escaped,
Speaker 4: and later on they managed to sort of twist this
Speaker 4: into a whole different narrative where they said that actually
Speaker 4: they didn't show up till half an hour after the
Speaker 4: shooting happened, which we know was not true at all,
Speaker 4: and that therefore you must have been the guy who
Speaker 4: ran away, jumped over the fence, and then came back
Speaker 4: to blend in with the crowd, because that would be
Speaker 4: just the dumbest fucking thing anybody could possibly imagine to do.
Speaker 4: Knowing that the police must be on their way, you're
Speaker 4: going to go back and sort of as they would say,
Speaker 4: blend In, that's a little bit of a stretch, right,
Speaker 4: So Kristin, how did they get how did they get
Speaker 4: a con? I mean you would think that there's just
Speaker 4: not a reasonable person that would believe this story.
Speaker 7: Yes, there was a gunman who ran out of the
Speaker 7: room and Jerome was undeniably in the room after the
Speaker 7: police arrived, and the best witness to who that gunman
Speaker 7: was explicitly excluded Jerome from the lineup, So it seems
Speaker 7: pretty clear that Jerome was not the person who did it.
Speaker 7: After Kevin Johnson excluded Jerome from the photo array, the
Speaker 7: police had no other leads. I don't know that they
Speaker 7: were doing much work. They relied at that point on
Speaker 7: rumors from high school kids. That's what the crime stoppers
Speaker 7: tip was based on. These are all just high school
Speaker 7: kids spreading rumors. And there were rumors that they're of
Speaker 7: other people besides Jerome as well. But the rumor that
Speaker 7: got to the police was Jerome Morgan, and so they
Speaker 7: put that photo line up together, he was excluded, and
Speaker 7: then they had no more leads. And so then that
Speaker 7: was June second, when that photo array was shown, and
Speaker 7: nothing happened in the investigation. I mean, you can look
Speaker 7: at the police reports and there's really nothing in the
Speaker 7: police reports between June second until August twenty second, three
Speaker 7: months after the crime. And based on the police reports
Speaker 7: and what the jury heard, supposedly spontaneously, the police just
Speaker 7: called Hakeem Shabaz, who was one of the kids who
Speaker 7: was shot that night. He was shot in the abdomen
Speaker 7: and survived. He was not involved in the fight, but
Speaker 7: he was trying to break up the fight, and supposedly
Speaker 7: the police called him three months after the crime. This
Speaker 7: is the first time speaking with him, and he just said,
Speaker 7: Jerome Morgan shot me, and he came in and made
Speaker 7: a photo identification. So that's the account that the police had.
Speaker 7: That's what the jury heard.
Speaker 4: Right now. What's troubling me a little bit about this
Speaker 4: is if you were the guy who got shot and
Speaker 4: you knew who did it, what the fuck would take
Speaker 4: you so long to come forward with that information. Did
Speaker 4: you know Shabaz?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he was a familiar face because we attended
Speaker 2: McDonald thirty five as Freshmans together.
Speaker 4: Right. What happened there, Kristen, the true.
Speaker 7: Story of how Hakim came to name Jerome Morgan. So
Speaker 7: the truth is is that Hikim had no idea who
Speaker 7: shot him. He like everyone else in that room. It
Speaker 7: was a dimly lit ballroom, and when the shots are fired,
Speaker 7: there was a bright light that came from the gun.
Speaker 7: No one could see the face of the gunman. Hakim
Speaker 7: was in the middle of breaking up a fight. He
Speaker 7: was in no better position to identify the gunman than
Speaker 7: other people who were shown photo rays and couldn't make
Speaker 7: an identification. So the truth is he didn't know. But
Speaker 7: in that three months he heard rumors about Jerome as well.
Speaker 7: He heard that name being thrown around. And what actually
Speaker 7: happened was the police called him and got him on
Speaker 7: the phone and they said, Hikim, do you know who
Speaker 7: shot you? And he said no, and they said Jerome
Speaker 7: shot you. So the detective is telling him Jerome shot him,
Speaker 7: and Haikim, hearing the same name that he's heard in rumors, thinks, okay,
Speaker 7: I'll believe that. He agrees, okay, and he goes down
Speaker 7: to the police station and makes an identification and makes
Speaker 7: a form statement. So now we have one witness who
Speaker 7: explicitly says that Jerome Morgan was the gunman.
Speaker 4: But that's not all.
Speaker 7: No, So now at that point, the police arrest Jerome.
Speaker 2: Adventures arrested me on my mom's birthday that year, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, October seventh. I mean, I was arrested, but
Speaker 2: they didn't get any indictment because it was just one eyewitness.
Speaker 2: And remember Kevin Johnson that gave a negative photo idea
Speaker 2: of me, and so I sat seventy two a's in
Speaker 2: Orleans Parish prison.
Speaker 1: I had to be released after.
Speaker 2: That time because they didn't get an indictment, and so
Speaker 2: they all crossed it and I was released on December sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4: Okay, so now you're out right. So this has a
Speaker 4: lot of twists and turns, but they weren't done. They
Speaker 4: were going to stick. As we see sometimes and myopic
Speaker 4: would be a nice way to put it right. We
Speaker 4: see this that once once a lie gets started or
Speaker 4: a witch hunt or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 4: they don't give up easy, and they don't like to
Speaker 4: be proven wrong. And they needed somebody right, they needed
Speaker 4: to solve this crime.
Speaker 1: Well, at the time when I was released, I don't
Speaker 1: think they care that normal happens.
Speaker 2: It was a black guy, young black guy that was killed,
Speaker 2: so nobody in the DA's office really cares about that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. It wasn't until the fatal victim's mom
Speaker 2: got into the newspaper and got into the news and
Speaker 2: made attention that nothing is getting done behind my son's murder,
Speaker 2: and so that would cause them to, I guess, try
Speaker 2: to make like they were doing something to appease this
Speaker 2: parent who was making them look bad in the media
Speaker 2: about this crime taking place and no one being held accountable.
Speaker 4: So then it comes back around and you're eventually rearrested, yes,
Speaker 4: and brought in for trial, and I assume you were
Speaker 4: represented by a public defender.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, contract butblic of defender. But out that the
Speaker 2: current occurrence happened. The fatal victim's mom went to Kevin Johnson,
Speaker 2: and I guess picked him up and told him that
Speaker 2: you need to talk to the DA and somebody because
Speaker 2: the person that is being rumored to have killed my
Speaker 2: son has been released and we have to do something
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 4: And Kevin Johnson, just to refresh everybody's memory, was the
Speaker 4: guy who originally had said that you weren't the guy
Speaker 4: he knew you from grade school, You were not the shooter.
Speaker 4: But now all of a sudden his memory is different.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean he's feeling pressure from you know,
Speaker 2: his best friend, one of his best friend's parents and
Speaker 2: their family. You know they have he had eleven other siblings.
Speaker 2: Clarence Landry did Lass Landry was the kid who was killed. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and so and the other two friends antonio' bradley and
Speaker 2: Harrison Hogan.
Speaker 1: They weren't able to make identifications.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a out of pressure on Kevin
Speaker 2: because and then he buried the guilt of going back
Speaker 2: into the ballroom after the initial skirmish and they left.
Speaker 2: They were supposed to returning to get a cousin of
Speaker 2: his from inside the party, but once they went back
Speaker 2: inside the party, that's when the fight happened and his
Speaker 2: best friend was murdered. So Ms Landry picked up Kevin
Speaker 2: Johnson from his job. They went to i think first
Speaker 2: the homicide detective office. The homicide detective pointed him to
Speaker 2: the d's office so that he could make a statement.
Speaker 2: And so they say that he altered statement in a
Speaker 2: way because he's saying a homicide detective misunderstood what he
Speaker 2: was saying, that he was in shock when he seen
Speaker 2: a picture and he said oh, he can't be, like,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Just right right, So he went from it can't be
Speaker 4: to oh, it can't be. At the trial, there were
Speaker 4: a number of people who testified on your behalf and
Speaker 4: said that you never left the room, but we know
Speaker 4: that the shooter did, so that would be pretty strong testimony.
Speaker 4: You testified as well, and yet you were convicted in
Speaker 4: a trial that lasted one day. There has to be
Speaker 4: and this is something that is and should be troubling
Speaker 4: to every person, every American, the idea that a trial
Speaker 4: or the consequences are so profound. Literally it's a death sentence.
Speaker 4: I've spoken to some ex houneries who will say that
Speaker 4: they would have preferred to be sentenced to death than
Speaker 4: life without parole. Yes, because it's death either way.
Speaker 1: It just takes longer.
Speaker 4: You get to spend the rest of your life in
Speaker 4: hell and then die and.
Speaker 1: Then over at a younger age and maybe a other people.
Speaker 4: It's pretty shocking that the justice system could take such
Speaker 4: a casual approach to somebody's life, but that's what they do,
Speaker 4: and down here in Louisiana they do it all the time. Yes,
Speaker 4: So it's almost like a factory process. It's a machine
Speaker 4: that grinds up the people it's supposed to serve. It
Speaker 4: leaves the public in a situation of which the actual
Speaker 4: killer is out there a roam in the streets, dangerous
Speaker 4: as ever. And also when you think about locking up
Speaker 4: a seventeen year old person, we're going to spend millions
Speaker 4: of dollars over the years. Now, it's good for business.
Speaker 4: We know that there's people making money on it, but
Speaker 4: the public is paying for it, yes, through the tax
Speaker 4: dollars and everything else. So the only people making money
Speaker 4: are the people who provide services for the prison, right
Speaker 4: the industries that are associated with the prison. In some cases,
Speaker 4: the sheriffs themselves. And we have a particularly strange situation
Speaker 4: in this country in some states where sheriffs actually own jails.
Speaker 7: You just talk about making money off of incarcerating people.
Speaker 7: Obviously there's all the services, but there's the make money
Speaker 7: off of that system. But there's also the individual men
Speaker 7: who are at Angola, which is a former slave plantation
Speaker 7: or a combination of multiple slave plantations, where you've got
Speaker 7: men working in fields and to be for money to
Speaker 7: make off of them. And we had at some point
Speaker 7: requested Jerome's disciplinary record at the prison. This was in
Speaker 7: the nineties. He was disciplined for not picking cotton fast enough.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's just reflect on that for a second. What
Speaker 4: century is this exactly? He was disciplined for not picking
Speaker 4: cotton fast enough. I mean the images that that conjures
Speaker 4: up of the worst, you know, the most shameful periods
Speaker 4: in American history are very real. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 4: and this is this is in the nineteen ninety yea today, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was ninety six ninety seven that occurred.
Speaker 2: In the proper word, they say it was not enough
Speaker 2: speed and efficiency, and the infraction was a worker fans
Speaker 2: aggravated worker fings.
Speaker 4: Why do I feel like Abe blink and is spinning
Speaker 4: in his grave right now? Okay, so that was your
Speaker 4: infraction among yes, yes, so Angola to paint a picture.
Speaker 4: It's still a slave plantation, right. It's named Angola because
Speaker 4: of the fact that it was a slave plantation and
Speaker 4: the slaves were brought from Angola, so they named it Angola.
Speaker 4: Didn't take a lot of imagination, and it is really
Speaker 4: a place that's removed from society and is basically free
Speaker 4: from any sort of oversight as far as I can tell.
Speaker 4: And what goes on in Angola, stays in Angola. Right,
Speaker 4: I call it the silence scene of truth, the silencing
Speaker 4: of truth. What do they pay the the inmates at Angola.
Speaker 1: For a sense, but you only get two cents?
Speaker 2: Two centses automatically put into some savings for you to
Speaker 2: afford court documents or supposed to be educational things.
Speaker 1: But usually what they do is save the two cents.
Speaker 2: So when you get in debt for restitution or any
Speaker 2: other rule in fraction they write you up on they
Speaker 2: can take that money that you pay as a fine
Speaker 2: or debt to whatever in fraction they root you up on.
Speaker 4: Two cents an hour. Yes, wow, I thought you know.
Speaker 4: I thought I knew that, but I just didn't want
Speaker 4: to say it because it sounds too crazy. And I
Speaker 4: didn't want to say something that was completely crazy because
Speaker 4: it sounds so crazy that it's crazy. But it's crazy,
Speaker 4: so okay. And we know that in Louisiana, for second
Speaker 4: degree murder, there's only one sentence, which is life without parole. Lwop.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: There you were, all of a sudden serving life in
Speaker 4: prison without par in what I think many people would
Speaker 4: say is the worst prison in America. One of the
Speaker 4: worst in the world. How did you find the fortitude
Speaker 4: to inner strength, whatever it is, to be able to
Speaker 4: get through this and to ultimately contact the Innocence Project
Speaker 4: of New Orleans and continue to fight for your freedom.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think almost anybody else would have just
Speaker 4: given up and given in. That's not what happened. I mean,
Speaker 4: here you are. Somehow or other, you managed to persevere
Speaker 4: and triumph.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just that one thing I can
Speaker 2: always remember that I never thought of myself as just
Speaker 2: a prison you know, of any kind. I was thankful
Speaker 2: in the sense that I had been exposed to people
Speaker 2: who believed in freedom. Like I said, the neighborhood I
Speaker 2: grew up in had a history that I wasn't aware
Speaker 2: of at the time. But the culture and climate of
Speaker 2: everyday life then was of just you know, being self supportive,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, to supporting yourself in a sense,
Speaker 2: always thinking positive, always knowing that you have enough capability
Speaker 2: pass it as anybody else, to do what you need
Speaker 2: to do to make your life a successful one. And
Speaker 2: so it didn't always seem that easy. But when I
Speaker 2: was able to kind of like get over myself pity
Speaker 2: or whatever. I always revert back to that that you know,
Speaker 2: I am a person. I'm blessed to be able to
Speaker 2: see here, smell, have all my lambs. You know, my
Speaker 2: heart is beating fine, and so at least I can
Speaker 2: have an encouraged word for somebody else and in turn
Speaker 2: that would encourage me, because that's that's all I wanted
Speaker 2: for my life to be, as you know, a difference
Speaker 2: maker to somebody else.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Well, let me ask you this too. Was there a
Speaker 4: person or people inside Angola who inspired you to stay strong?
Speaker 2: And it was a lot of people, And then outside Angola,
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody there. I was one of the youngest,
Speaker 2: probably one of the smallest at the time, and so
Speaker 2: you know, there was many people like I would get
Speaker 2: written up and go to extending lock Down. That's where
Speaker 2: I met, I guess, my most influential friends, because you know,
Speaker 2: when you in solitary confinment on lockdown, you stand and
Speaker 2: sell one man's sell for twenty three hours a day
Speaker 2: and let you outside of that six x nine sell
Speaker 2: into another caged area for an hour to take a
Speaker 2: shower and do exercise and or socialize with other guys
Speaker 2: on a tier with you, and so, like you said earlier,
Speaker 2: I've always been like a mild mannered person, reserved, you know,
Speaker 2: in a great sense, and so I was then, but
Speaker 2: you couldn't be at that time because you dry yourself
Speaker 2: insane just holding all that stuff in. One guy, in particular,
Speaker 2: when I had my first experience on lockdown, that was
Speaker 2: able to you know, converse with you know, bounce our
Speaker 2: frustrations off each other and also encourage each other to
Speaker 2: think positively about what we can do.
Speaker 1: Which guy is that? Noel Brooks? Noel Brooks who's Angola.
Speaker 2: You know, he helped me out a lot, and we
Speaker 2: helped each other out and thinking about ways that we
Speaker 2: could help ourselves and help out this.
Speaker 1: So that just one, but you know there was many.
Speaker 4: So Kristin, how did this impossible situation eventually get Rizaud?
Speaker 4: How is he sitting here in front of us now?
Speaker 7: Well, there are three pieces of new information that we
Speaker 7: learned that really just completely undermined the case against Jerome
Speaker 7: and proved his innocence. One is that there was a
Speaker 7: nine to one to one complaint history, which is a
Speaker 7: document that shows when a nine to one one call
Speaker 7: comes in, and some of the initial information that comes
Speaker 7: in from that caller and it's blocked off by minutes
Speaker 7: of time, and the nine one one complaint history here
Speaker 7: shows that the call came in from the Howard Johnson's lobby.
Speaker 7: This is where the sweet sixteen party was, at a
Speaker 7: hotel lobby. It was clearly in response to seeing Hikeim
Speaker 7: Shabaz arrive in the lobby shot, and that call came
Speaker 7: in at eleven thirty and the complaint history showed that
Speaker 7: the police arrived at eleven thirty six, so six minutes later.
Speaker 7: But the state's theory at trial was that somehow Jerome
Speaker 7: shot everybody, ran out of the room, jumped over a fence,
Speaker 7: hit a gun, and then returned to the room full
Speaker 7: of eighty some odd witnesses and waited for the police
Speaker 7: to arrive. And the only information that the jury heard
Speaker 7: about the timing of the arrival of the police and
Speaker 7: how possible that would be the window of time where
Speaker 7: the gunman theoretically could have returned to this room, as
Speaker 7: unbelievable as it sounds, was actually from Jerome himself. He
Speaker 7: testified he was asked how long it took for the
Speaker 7: police to arrive, and he said thirty to forty five minutes,
Speaker 7: and probably the reason for that is that that's how
Speaker 7: long it took for the detectives to arrive. Not the
Speaker 7: uniformed officers that came in and sealed the room and
Speaker 7: made sure no one left or returned, but the detectives
Speaker 7: that actually interacted with the kids arrived thirty five minutes
Speaker 7: after at twelve o five am, And so those are
Speaker 7: people he interacted with. That's probably what he was recalling
Speaker 7: when he testified to that. And there had been some
Speaker 7: prior testimony earlier on in the trial that suggested that
Speaker 7: there was an unusually long gap between the nine to
Speaker 7: one to one caller between the shooting and the police arriving,
Speaker 7: and so the jury heard the sort of thinking there
Speaker 7: might have been an unusual circumstance where a crime scene
Speaker 7: just sat unattended for a long period of time. And
Speaker 7: theoretically it's so absurd to say, but the gunman may
Speaker 7: have returned to the room, so that made it physically
Speaker 7: possible for him to have potentially have come back. But
Speaker 7: once we knew that the police had arrived six minutes later,
Speaker 7: and they all testified that they arrived and they sealed
Speaker 7: the room and no one left after that and no
Speaker 7: one returned after that. That really changed the state's theory.
Speaker 7: It undermined the state's theory. The other two pieces of
Speaker 7: information relate to the witnesses, So the only evidence against
Speaker 7: Jerome at trial were these two teenage witnesses who testified
Speaker 7: that they saw him as the gunman. But what we
Speaker 7: learned was that Hakim Shabaz first told the police that
Speaker 7: he did not know who the gunman was, and that
Speaker 7: the police said, Jerome shot you, and then he just
Speaker 7: agreed only because it was consistent with rumors he had heard,
Speaker 7: not from what he actually saw that night, but he
Speaker 7: had just heard some rumors and the police were repeating
Speaker 7: those rumors back to him, and he's a teenager, and
Speaker 7: he went along with it, thinking he was doing the
Speaker 7: right thing. Kevin Johnson, we know, initially saw the photo,
Speaker 7: array saw Jerome's familiar face, didn't know Jerome's name, but
Speaker 7: saw a familiar face and had seen the gunman and
Speaker 7: excluded him. And the jury did hear that. The jury
Speaker 7: did hear that. But the jury also heard this explanation
Speaker 7: that when he said, oh, it can't be him, what
Speaker 7: he meant was like, oh, I can't believe it was him.
Speaker 7: That's what the jury heard, and that he made a
Speaker 7: subsequent identification. But what we learned from talking to Kevin
Speaker 7: was that he was brought back to the police station
Speaker 7: with missus Landry, with his best friend's mother, the mother
Speaker 7: of the boy who was killed, and she was upset
Speaker 7: because she thought that the person who had shot her
Speaker 7: son had been released from prison. As Jerome mentioned earlier,
Speaker 7: he's under a lot of pressure. He blames some himself
Speaker 7: for the death of Clarence, and so he just goes
Speaker 7: along with what the police say. The police tell him
Speaker 7: that he's shown another photo array, a different photo array
Speaker 7: this time. So the first one was just a set
Speaker 7: of your book photos because the police didn't have a
Speaker 7: photo of Jerome. Second time around, Jerome had been arrested,
Speaker 7: so they made another second photo array of mugshots, and
Speaker 7: again he's shown it. He does the same thing, puts
Speaker 7: Drome's photo aside, and they say, who did you say
Speaker 7: was the gunman? And at that point, Kevin had heard
Speaker 7: rumors he had heard the name Jerome Morgan, so he
Speaker 7: repeats the rumor. He says Jerome Morgan, But he doesn't
Speaker 7: realize that the photo that he's putting aside and eliminating
Speaker 7: is Jerome. So he has a name, but it's separate
Speaker 7: from the face, and the police say, sure, it's not
Speaker 7: this guy, pointing to Jerome's photo. That's Jerome Morgan. And
Speaker 7: for him, well, he hurt again. It's just like Hachem.
Speaker 7: He'd heard these rumors and now the police are reinforcing
Speaker 7: these rumors, and so he agrees. And so both of
Speaker 7: them went and testified at trial believing that they were
Speaker 7: identifying the right person and not knowing that the police
Speaker 7: were working off of the same rumors that they were
Speaker 7: hearing and there was no other evidence behind that at all.
Speaker 7: So when they testified, it was probably pretty convincing. I
Speaker 7: wasn't there because they thought that they were doing the
Speaker 7: right thing and that they were identifying the gunmen, when
Speaker 7: in fact it was all the police telling them.
Speaker 4: But then fast forward twenty years, yes, and they came clean.
Speaker 7: Yes, so they didn't know. So again Jerome gets convicted.
Speaker 7: They are not aware that there is no other evidence.
Speaker 7: So they go along with their lives and then an
Speaker 7: investigator from our office talks to each of them separately
Speaker 7: and he points out to them, did you know that
Speaker 7: Jerome was in the room after the shooting, and neither
Speaker 7: of them knew that, and so once there was a stain,
Speaker 7: I don't know if that's the right word, but something
Speaker 7: that kind of undermined their confidence that they had quote
Speaker 7: unquote identified the right person. Then they started telling the
Speaker 7: investigator about how those identifications came to happen that really
Speaker 7: undermine their confidence in what they had done. They may
Speaker 7: have known that they didn't really have a reason behind
Speaker 7: identifying Jerome, or they may have known even that it
Speaker 7: really wasn't the right person, but they thought they were
Speaker 7: doing the right thing. And it wasn't until they learned
Speaker 7: that the person they identified as the fleeing gunman was
Speaker 7: in the room after the police arrived that really changed
Speaker 7: their perspective, and so they came clean. They told this
Speaker 7: true story of how they came to make the identifications.
Speaker 7: It's not just a recantation, it's really an explanation of
Speaker 7: how those identifications happened and what the police did to
Speaker 7: make those false identifications happen.
Speaker 4: At some point, the police went to these two witnesses
Speaker 4: who now are whether it's their conscience or whether it's
Speaker 4: this new information that's being provided to them, that they
Speaker 4: are now being made aware that they were fed lies
Speaker 4: by the police twenty years earlier, and that they played
Speaker 4: a major role in locking Jeroam up for the rest
Speaker 4: of his life. Based on being misled is a nice
Speaker 4: way of putting it. Now, the authorities are really scrambling
Speaker 4: to pack this conviction right, and what did they do
Speaker 4: to these two guys? What did they threaten them with
Speaker 4: in order to try to coerce them into not telling
Speaker 4: the truth?
Speaker 7: Well, both of them. Both of these witnesses consulted with
Speaker 7: attorneys before they signed Affidavid's and before they provided testimony
Speaker 7: in our post conviction hearing, so they knew that there
Speaker 7: was a possibility of a charge when they chose to
Speaker 7: get up on the stand and testify.
Speaker 1: A perjury charge.
Speaker 7: Yes, perjury charge, But they did, and they withstood direct
Speaker 7: and cross examination back and forth. Their stories remained consistent
Speaker 7: and based on that, plus the nine to one complaint
Speaker 7: history that shows that Timeline Jerome's conviction was overturned and
Speaker 7: so nothing happened to them initially, this state chose to
Speaker 7: appeal that decision to an intermediate appellate court, and the
Speaker 7: appellate court upheld the trial court's decision in a very lengthily,
Speaker 7: clearly well thought out ruling. And after that ruling came down,
Speaker 7: when it appeared, oh no, this granting of post conviction
Speaker 7: relief is going to be upheld, the state then chose
Speaker 7: to charge these two witnesses with perjury. I just think
Speaker 7: the timing of it is interesting. It wasn't immediate. If
Speaker 7: they really cared about protecting people against society against inconsistent statements,
Speaker 7: they could have charged them with perjury back when they
Speaker 7: signed these affidavits. But they did it after there was
Speaker 7: a good signal that the decision to overturn Jerome's conviction
Speaker 7: was going to be upheld and that there would be
Speaker 7: a new trial.
Speaker 4: And we know that there were two lawyers who represented
Speaker 4: those two guys pro bono right yes, and spent years
Speaker 4: actually defending them against this evil machine of New Orleans
Speaker 4: justice or injustice, and ultimately they prevailed.
Speaker 2: Another interesting fact that may not be too noticeable, but
Speaker 2: at the same time, I don't know you know how
Speaker 2: it happened in for his order, but it did also
Speaker 2: filed to have the judge recused and forced him to
Speaker 2: recuse himself. And so I end up in another section
Speaker 2: of court with a judge that was pretty you know,
Speaker 2: cool with the DA Yeah, Judge Franz Zibleich.
Speaker 4: So they wanted to make sure they got a judge
Speaker 4: who was going to give them the best chance of
Speaker 4: winning and keeping you in prison. But none of that
Speaker 4: stuff worked because ultimately you won. What are the names
Speaker 4: of those two lawyers, by the way, because I want
Speaker 4: to give them a shout out for having spent all that.
Speaker 1: Time, Jason Williams and BOBBYA.
Speaker 4: Sportsburgh, So Jerome. When you finally prevailed, what was that like?
Speaker 4: Because we talked about the misery and the heartbreak of
Speaker 4: the whole thing. What was it like the moment when
Speaker 4: you actually did you even believe it was happening?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it was happening, But I often describe
Speaker 2: it as just being overwhelmingly excited.
Speaker 1: I mean, you envision these.
Speaker 2: Things, you know, all those years, and that's what holds
Speaker 2: you up when you feeling like you can't make it
Speaker 2: no more.
Speaker 4: Give us a picture of the courtroom that day. What
Speaker 4: were you wearing, what did it, what time of day
Speaker 4: was it, Who was in the courtroom with you?
Speaker 1: How did you react from the moment that I was
Speaker 1: released from prison or jail.
Speaker 2: I also had an ankle brason on too, so I
Speaker 2: still felt incarcerated. But even in that moment, just being outside,
Speaker 2: smelling the air of society, and you know, seeing my
Speaker 2: friends who was there from it since day one, being
Speaker 2: able to see them and hug them, and being able
Speaker 2: to just change into some regular clues right there in
Speaker 2: the street. It just was overwhelmingly exciting. When I exited prison,
Speaker 2: they didn't have any.
Speaker 1: Clues for me.
Speaker 2: Of course they didn't keep my clue for twenty years,
Speaker 2: but they're supposed to have your clothes that you went
Speaker 2: into prison with waiting on you when you get out.
Speaker 1: So I didn't have any clues.
Speaker 2: There, but you were never supposed to get out right,
Speaker 2: and so they gave me an oversized undershirt and some
Speaker 2: oversized shots that looked like pants, just to be released with.
Speaker 2: And so you know, my family and friends had few
Speaker 2: articles clothing for me a change into. Once I got out,
Speaker 2: Christian met me that evening. It was like six o'clock
Speaker 2: on the fourth of February twenty fourteen, and so we
Speaker 2: stayed there on on Dupre Street, just celebrating, just smiling
Speaker 2: and hugging and you know, just taking in the new
Speaker 2: era because there had been a long time coming.
Speaker 1: For all of us. What do you eat? I wanted Popeyes,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, New Orleans fried chicken, you know, and
Speaker 1: I ain't going to you don't get.
Speaker 4: Any of that, right, I mean, after twenty years of slop? Right,
Speaker 4: how good does food taste?
Speaker 1: Oh? It tastes wonderful.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's I'm very you know, particular about what I eat.
Speaker 2: So it makes me feel good that I have options, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I because sometimes, you know, you have to go to
Speaker 2: sleep Hongry. You know a lot of guys return home
Speaker 2: and have cancer, and that's because of the slop that
Speaker 2: they eat for so long, and so you know, you
Speaker 2: have to kind of monitor that, you know, when you're
Speaker 2: in prison, and it gets tough because you know, everybody
Speaker 2: family is not well off enough to provide them with
Speaker 2: money to spend to buy food from, you know, the
Speaker 2: prison canteen or whatever.
Speaker 4: And I'm glad you brought that up because there are
Speaker 4: a number of cases here in Louisiana people who were
Speaker 4: exonerated after decades in prison just came out and died
Speaker 4: of cancer shortly after they got out. And I think
Speaker 4: that that has to be a contributing factor. And it's
Speaker 4: also important to highlight and people are going to listen
Speaker 4: and say, no, that's not true, because when I read this,
Speaker 4: I was like, no, that can't be true. But it
Speaker 4: is true that in Alabama they have a program where
Speaker 4: the sheriffs who own the jails of an an annual
Speaker 4: budget for food and whatever's left over they get to keep,
Speaker 4: not the sheriff's department, the sheriff themselves. So they've been
Speaker 4: feeding the inmates there corn dogs all day, every day
Speaker 4: because it's the cheapest thing you can get. And there's
Speaker 4: a lawsuit taking place right now. You can't even make
Speaker 4: this stuff up, and it's just it's sort of under
Speaker 4: the radar. And of course with the current administration that
Speaker 4: we have, they turn a blind eye to it or
Speaker 4: they just endorse it. But on a state level, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of changes being made now. Jerome, I
Speaker 4: know you've been very outspoken in a very thoughtful way
Speaker 4: about the issues of socialization and compensation. As far as
Speaker 4: compensation goes, there's a crazy range of options different depending
Speaker 4: on what state your wrongful conviction took place. In Louisiana,
Speaker 4: we know has the worst criminal justice system in the
Speaker 4: entire country, And as far as that goes as far
Speaker 4: as far as socialization and compensation are concerned. What does
Speaker 4: that look like for somebody like you who had their
Speaker 4: entire well twenty years of their life taken away.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean in reality, if I use myself as
Speaker 2: an example, I wouldn't be surprised. I'd be in jail tomorrow,
Speaker 2: you know, behind unpaid bills. I haven't received anything, if anything,
Speaker 2: I've paid towards the same system. I pay taxes, you know,
Speaker 2: because I work for wages that you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: even able to afford all of the basic necessities that
Speaker 2: I would need. I've paid for drug testing, I paid bond.
Speaker 2: I had to pay twelve percent of twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars bond and just just continue or expenses that has
Speaker 2: resulted from my situation. But it doesn't look good, and
Speaker 2: that's why guys don't make it. Some guys result to
Speaker 2: drug use, alcohol, They have to result the crime sometime
Speaker 2: to take care of themselves. And so we are still
Speaker 2: in the fight of and conversation for myself and also
Speaker 2: civil action against prosecutor. Socialization is a struggle because that's
Speaker 2: one of the silent killers. Social deprivation of guys in
Speaker 2: prison I mean meaning that they don't know how to
Speaker 2: communicate themselves to others that's not in prison with them
Speaker 2: because they have been doing that for so long, basically
Speaker 2: right amongst a fabric that excludes, you know, females, and
Speaker 2: you know, with all the other challenges, that's probably the
Speaker 2: heaviest challenge because you know, guys are excited now because
Speaker 2: now they can socialize with females once they get out,
Speaker 2: but there's no way to transition these guys into doing
Speaker 2: that in a healthy way. And also people that don't
Speaker 2: recognize as Silent Killer kind of misjudge or misunderstand or
Speaker 2: forming incarcerated person's communication towards them, and so it just
Speaker 2: create a whole bunch of confusion. A lot of guys
Speaker 2: get mixed off of relationships and have to end up
Speaker 2: going back to jail for domestic reasons, retaliatory reasons of
Speaker 2: the person that they got into these intimate situations with,
Speaker 2: and it causes a big problem. I just try to
Speaker 2: be reminded of that every day. But being in prison
Speaker 2: and being able to visit with people that's interning with
Speaker 2: the Innocence Project and working alone with the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: gave me the opportunity to exercise some social skills that
Speaker 2: I would need, you know, once I was released.
Speaker 4: So it's actually almost like some crazy through the looking
Speaker 4: glass insanity that not only haven't you been compensated, but
Speaker 4: you're paying the state for the privilege of having been
Speaker 4: locked up for twenty years in Angola because I didn't
Speaker 4: even realize you're paying for drug testing and the bond.
Speaker 4: I mean that, don't get me started on that. That's
Speaker 4: a whole other show. That's madness. And what we should
Speaker 4: be doing as a society is providing counselor psychologists or
Speaker 4: whatever appropriate form of treatment. You know, we know a
Speaker 4: lot of guys that come out have severe mental issues,
Speaker 4: but we don't. We don't do any of that. You
Speaker 4: have to sue to get your money, and we know
Speaker 4: that in Louisiana there's a cap right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean that conversation here is a whole
Speaker 2: another injustice Kristin.
Speaker 4: What is the compensation statute in Louisiana? I mean, I
Speaker 4: know it again, but I don't even like to say
Speaker 4: it because I hear myself say and I don't even
Speaker 4: believe myself saying it.
Speaker 7: The Louisiana compensation Statute provides for twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 7: per year of wrongful incarceration, but it's capped at two
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty thousand, so it's essentially capped at ten years.
Speaker 7: I think we have one, maybe two clients who served
Speaker 7: less than ten years. Everybody served more than ten years,
Speaker 7: Drome served twice that, some have served three times that.
Speaker 7: So you get compensated for just ten years, and it's
Speaker 7: only at twenty five thousand dollars. That's paid out in
Speaker 7: twenty five thousand dollars increment. And this is all after
Speaker 7: you get a judgment, which can take years. And then
Speaker 7: there is something called compensation for loss of life opportunities,
Speaker 7: and the idea there is to provide some money for education,
Speaker 7: job skills training, and medical expenses. But that's set up
Speaker 7: in such a way there's a theoretical eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 7: pot for that. There's a time limit on using that money,
Speaker 7: and the way it's set up is that you have
Speaker 7: to spend the money before you get the money, and
Speaker 7: so you walk out of prison with nothing, then you
Speaker 7: wait years to receive that first twenty five thousand dollars check,
Speaker 7: and then if you have medical expenses, You're expected to
Speaker 7: front them before you get reimbursed, and that can take
Speaker 7: just the reimbursement can take over a year. It's an
Speaker 7: unfair system. It's fair to say.
Speaker 4: It's cool, I mean, and it's important for people to
Speaker 4: hear about it, especially from somebody like you, your own,
Speaker 4: who's been through it and it's still going through it.
Speaker 4: It seems like it never stops, by the way, I
Speaker 4: want to say, in the innocence community, which is it
Speaker 4: really is a community, right. There's innocence projects all over
Speaker 4: the country and all over the world, but in that community,
Speaker 4: the Innocence Project of New Orleans is considered one of
Speaker 4: the gold standards of innocence work. So you were very fortunate,
Speaker 4: much more fortunate than probably dozens of guys that you
Speaker 4: know that are in Gola who deserve a need a break.
Speaker 4: But yet you get out and you're still facing this
Speaker 4: incredible mountain to climb. There needs to be a whole
Speaker 4: paradigm shift, the idea that people like yourselves who have
Speaker 4: been through no fault of their own, ground up by
Speaker 4: the system and then come out and it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: you deserve a big fucking hug from society and like
Speaker 4: a program. You know, no one's saying you should get
Speaker 4: like the minute you walk out, you should get a
Speaker 4: mansion and a thing and whatever. Right, but a fair shake,
Speaker 4: I think is what most of the guys would want.
Speaker 1: I would suggest me and.
Speaker 2: You know, in the spirit of justice, that we find
Speaker 2: ways to put them in position to use that experience positively,
Speaker 2: use those sufferings or whatever they've been through to help
Speaker 2: somebody else cope through it and not have to fall
Speaker 2: victim to it. And if we can understand as a society,
Speaker 2: then you know, the money that we worried about far
Speaker 2: as you know, this person getting to match in a
Speaker 2: expensive car, what would be a concern, because these people
Speaker 2: will be able to afford those things for themselves as
Speaker 2: they seem to need them, you know, because you put
Speaker 2: them in a position where they can make it earn
Speaker 2: honest living, doing something that could turn whatever they have
Speaker 2: to heal from and relating it to somebody else and
Speaker 2: helping them go through it.
Speaker 1: And not end up being a victim of it.
Speaker 4: That's very well said, and I think those words are
Speaker 4: really important. Before we wrap up, is there any last
Speaker 4: thoughts that you am about anything that you want to
Speaker 4: share with the audience.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts,
Speaker 2: but I mean, but to be shot, the one thing
Speaker 2: that I will say, kind of like a capital I
Speaker 2: just mentioned about us thinking of justice in that way,
Speaker 2: is that, you know, the just shall live by faith.
Speaker 2: The just shall live by faith. And I'm speaking of
Speaker 2: all of us. The people that I know that interested
Speaker 2: and invested in justice live by faith in the sense
Speaker 2: that they feel they have the faith that my good
Speaker 2: could harm the wrong in the world. And so we
Speaker 2: have to believe that good will harm the wrong in
Speaker 2: the world. And so we have to approach everything with
Speaker 2: good nature or good spirit, not the manipulative or conniving
Speaker 2: or deceitful, you know, or selfish. That we have to
Speaker 2: come to the table of life with the faith and
Speaker 2: goodness of faith, and positivity faith and groot of faith,
Speaker 2: in togetherness, of faith, in equality, and that's the only
Speaker 2: way that we're gonna live in a peaceful world. Then
Speaker 2: you will see that there has no room for selfishness
Speaker 2: or any inequality or disparities amongst humanity.
Speaker 4: Wow, I don't even know what to say, and people
Speaker 4: who listen know I'm rarely at a loss for words.
Speaker 4: But all I can say after that is to thank
Speaker 4: both of you for being here. You've been listening to
Speaker 4: a special New Orleans edition of Wrong for Conviction. You
Speaker 4: heard me and our guests today are Jerome Morgan and
Speaker 4: Kristin Winstrom, and thank you both for being here and
Speaker 4: sharing your story.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jason. Thank you appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jason, don't forget to give us a fantastic
Speaker 4: review wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps.
Speaker 4: And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and
Speaker 4: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
Speaker 4: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
Speaker 4: to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate
Speaker 4: and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 4: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
Speaker 4: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 4: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 4: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 4: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 4: association with Signal Company Number one