Speaker 1: January fifteenth, nineteen eighty was Martin Luther King Day. As
Speaker 1: the young folks with the day all from school in Wilmington,
Speaker 1: Delaware through a party. At about five pm, two white
Speaker 1: fifteen year olds, a male and a female, left the
Speaker 1: party and headed towards some train tracks. There are some
Speaker 1: discrepancies between their accounts, but according to both of them,
Speaker 1: a black man in tan pants and a green jacket
Speaker 1: chased the young man away before raping the young woman.
Speaker 1: The young man said that the assailant was a former
Speaker 1: classmate named Elmer, and the young woman identified eighteen year
Speaker 1: old Elmer Daniels from a photo array. Then the search
Speaker 1: of Elmer's home turned up a tampair of pants and
Speaker 1: a green jacket in addition to the ID and the
Speaker 1: items of clothing. An FBI agent testified a trial about
Speaker 1: hairs found on Elmer's pants and a young woman's undergarments.
Speaker 1: They constituted what he called a double match. But this
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm John Huffington,
Speaker 1: former guests, and we'll have my episode linked in the bio.
Speaker 1: I spent thirty two years in the Maryland Department of Correction.
Speaker 1: Ten of those years were on death row. During that time,
Speaker 1: an FBI whistleblower exposed a fellow agent for testifying beyond
Speaker 1: the limits of science. In my case and many others,
Speaker 1: one of which we will be covering today, I'm so
Speaker 1: honored to be filling in for my dear friend Jason
Speaker 1: flumm As we welcome Elmer Daniels. Can you introduce yourself
Speaker 1: to the audience.
Speaker 2: My name is Elmer Daniels, and I'm a twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: exonery convicted in nineteen eighty for a rape that never happened.
Speaker 1: And before we unpack all that, I just want to
Speaker 1: introduce your attorneys also joining us, Amica Igway. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so Elmer. Before any of this
Speaker 1: happened to you, I just kind of want to hear
Speaker 1: a little bit about your life growing up in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 3: Okay. I came from a two parent household.
Speaker 2: Now, I had my great grandparents, my grandparents, mom and dad,
Speaker 2: big family. I wasn't a bad kid, and I knew
Speaker 2: right from wrong, and I based all my decisions on
Speaker 2: not getting ass whooping. That's for real, I'm being honest.
Speaker 2: And that was the sixties and seventies kid growing up.
Speaker 1: But you did stray from that guiding principle at least
Speaker 1: on one occasion. It did something well, you know, it
Speaker 1: was kind of commonplace in the sixties and seventies, right,
Speaker 1: joy riding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went for a joey ride, all right. That
Speaker 2: was the only thing that I actually was as a
Speaker 2: minor convicted of. It was on my record, and it
Speaker 2: was in Ellesmere. I was a young kid and bumped
Speaker 2: into the van. The keys fell and my light went on,
Speaker 2: Oh there's a van, you know, let's see how far
Speaker 2: you can go in it before you get cart I
Speaker 2: got caught.
Speaker 1: Now, when you got caught for that, did you do
Speaker 1: a juvie time?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I went to Bridge House.
Speaker 2: I stayed at Bridge House for ninety maybe ninety because
Speaker 2: you could just go and then your parents come get you,
Speaker 2: you know. So she let me bake for a while,
Speaker 2: you know, and let me see how it was, and
Speaker 2: actually that that was enough.
Speaker 1: So a little tough love, you know, steered your way
Speaker 1: from the petty crime. I mean, obviously joey riding is
Speaker 1: certainly not a violent crime. But that incident is why
Speaker 1: the police had your mugshot in January of nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: when the alleged rape occurred, Emica, can you fill us
Speaker 1: in a little bit on the details.
Speaker 4: The underlying crime was an alleged rape of a fifteen
Speaker 4: year old white female who left a party on January fifteenth,
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty, with another fifteen year old white male. They
Speaker 4: went to some nearby railroad tracks. When they get there,
Speaker 4: their stories differ. According to the fifteen year old male,
Speaker 4: he engaged in sexual intercourse with the fifteen year old
Speaker 4: white female. The white female denies that she ever had
Speaker 4: sexual intercourse with the male. Nonetheless, the female claims that
Speaker 4: while they were talking on railroad tracks, a black male
Speaker 4: came up to them. The fifteen year old male ran away,
Speaker 4: and after he ran away, the black mail allegedly held
Speaker 4: her down and raped her for two and a half minutes.
Speaker 4: The black mail allegedly had his hands on her neck.
Speaker 1: And both the alleged victim, who will refer to as GS,
Speaker 1: and the young man who will call case. Both of
Speaker 1: them said that the alleged of saund was wearing khaki
Speaker 1: pants and a green jacket, and GS described the alleged
Speaker 1: sailing as having a big news and nails that were
Speaker 1: bitten down. As far as they could go. So what
Speaker 1: happened Next?
Speaker 4: She goes back to the party and tells people that
Speaker 4: she had been raped. The police are called. And when
Speaker 4: the police come, naturally they want to speak to the
Speaker 4: fifteen year old male and questioned him on what occurred,
Speaker 4: and he gives about four different accounts and the first
Speaker 4: time he says some male named Jack Smith came up.
Speaker 4: The police followed that lead find out that it's false.
Speaker 4: After about three or four stories that are inconsistent and
Speaker 4: contradictory and turn out to be false, the police turn
Speaker 4: around and charged this fifteen year od Mail with hindering prosecution.
Speaker 4: They also threatened to charge him with the actual rape
Speaker 4: itself unless he tells them what really happened. And under
Speaker 4: that durest, the fifteen year old Mail says, there was
Speaker 4: some guy named Elmer. I don't know his last name,
Speaker 4: but I was in the same eighth grade math class
Speaker 4: with him. That's going to turn out to be significant
Speaker 4: because the name of the middle school was called Bayered
Speaker 4: Middle School. Elma had in fact attended by a middle school.
Speaker 4: But back in nineteen seventy eight, when this fifteen year
Speaker 4: old Mail was in middle school, Elma was in the
Speaker 4: tenth grade at nearby high School. There was a three
Speaker 4: year age difference between him. He was fifteen, Alma was eighteen.
Speaker 4: They won in the same eighth grade math class together.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, did you even know Casey?
Speaker 2: Never met him before, never met the girl until I
Speaker 2: walked into the court room. Wow, as the first time
Speaker 2: I actually seen both of them.
Speaker 1: So now they go looking for a kid named Elmer
Speaker 1: that attended Bayern Middle School. But the three year difference
Speaker 1: between Elmer and case should have been enough for the
Speaker 1: police to the case he had lied again, this time
Speaker 1: for the very obvious benefit of not being charged in
Speaker 1: the rape himself. But instead they pulled Elmer's mugshot, And
Speaker 1: at this point GS had already seen upwards of three
Speaker 1: hundred mug shots, and who knows how suggestive this identification
Speaker 1: process was. In addition, we know from study after study
Speaker 1: the cross re shoal identifications are less accurate than guessing.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, that's what we have here, And they got
Speaker 1: an arrest warrant for Elmer.
Speaker 2: Thirty five days into my eighteenth birthday, a knock on
Speaker 2: my door six eighteen North Harston Street, City, Wilmington.
Speaker 3: Our brother opens the door.
Speaker 2: Police entered say they were looking for me because they
Speaker 2: were charging me with the crime of rape. At that time,
Speaker 2: not knowing what that was, I had to ask a question,
Speaker 2: what is that? After being explained what that was by
Speaker 2: my sister, I was like, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to think, but I did know I'm going to jail.
Speaker 1: Sir Elmer, you weren't even there. Where were you when
Speaker 1: this happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I wasn't there.
Speaker 2: I was playing basketball at church cross the street from
Speaker 2: my house. You had to sign in, and people that
Speaker 2: I was with their names were on there, and all
Speaker 2: the childhood friends and neighborhood all their names was on there.
Speaker 2: But there had a problem with me because my name
Speaker 2: was on the bottom of the list.
Speaker 3: But it's on the list. Where regards that?
Speaker 1: Now? This church basketball court was well over a mile
Speaker 1: from where the incident occurred.
Speaker 2: Yes, but police said I could run from where I
Speaker 2: lived to where the crime happened in two minutes. I
Speaker 2: mean sixty seconds there went the crime is sixty seconds back.
Speaker 2: And he said he drove it and he got there
Speaker 2: in two minutes. So if I was running, there's no
Speaker 2: way I'm gonna get there in two minutes.
Speaker 1: And then do an assault That last summer was three minutes.
Speaker 3: And come back, so we got a total of seven minutes, so.
Speaker 1: Basically you were running a mile under a minute, So
Speaker 1: that's impossible. Now, this was the pre DNA, but a
Speaker 1: rape kit was performed and physical evidence had been collected.
Speaker 1: So what can you tell us about that?
Speaker 4: There was blood, there was seamen, and there was hair evidence.
Speaker 4: They were able to match the blood type to Elmer.
Speaker 4: They had seamen DNA didn't exist, but there was nothing
Speaker 4: they could use to match that to Elmer.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure had there been a blood type president
Speaker 1: in the semen that matched Elmer, they would have made
Speaker 1: huge smoke about that. But Secrete's status isn't even mentioned.
Speaker 1: So we've got the impossible on foot round trip. The
Speaker 1: blood type didn't match the three year age difference. As
Speaker 1: for the hair evidence, there were hairs collected from Elmer's
Speaker 1: pants as well as hair is collected from Gs's undergarments,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in just a bit. But first,
Speaker 1: when they tossed your house, they found items of clothing
Speaker 1: khaki pants and a green jacket. This is what the
Speaker 1: alleged sound was supposed to have been wearing.
Speaker 2: They actually found the pants in a third bedroom closet.
Speaker 2: There were a pair of khakis, but they were old,
Speaker 2: you know how you put clothes away and pack them.
Speaker 2: They went through the house and they found those. They
Speaker 2: found jacket in my brother's bedroom on the second floor,
Speaker 2: which was his jacket. Had his name on it, but
Speaker 2: they tried to say it belonged to me.
Speaker 4: So there was a notebook that was inside the jacket.
Speaker 4: Fingerprints were lifted from that notebook. There was an FBI
Speaker 4: agent who testified that he could not exclude Elmer, but
Speaker 4: he couldn't include him either, And when we got involved,
Speaker 4: we had them retest those fingerprints, and those fingerprints were
Speaker 4: negative for Elma's fingerprints. So that goes to show the
Speaker 4: lack of evidence that that jacket belonged to Elmer, in
Speaker 4: addition to having another name engraved on the inside.
Speaker 1: So they were really just trying to fit a square
Speaker 1: peg into a round hole.
Speaker 4: From the very beginning, the police were eager to find someone.
Speaker 4: There had been two previous rapes by alleged blackmails of
Speaker 4: white women back in nineteen eighty and the police wanted
Speaker 4: to find out if Elmer was a serial rapist, and
Speaker 4: they actually tried to link him to the previous two rapes,
Speaker 4: and that came out to be not true, so they
Speaker 4: dropped that and proceeded to want to prosecute Elmer. We
Speaker 4: believed send a message and to appease the community that
Speaker 4: we can't hang them like we used to back in
Speaker 4: the sixties, but we can send a message by giving
Speaker 4: an eighteen year old mail a life sentence.
Speaker 1: There was a no bail situation.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming bail was actually five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow, and did you post that bill? No?
Speaker 3: I didn't. I wasn't in financial fortitude to post a bail.
Speaker 1: So while you were stuck in jail from January until
Speaker 1: trial in May of nineteen eighty, I understand that the
Speaker 1: Court of appointed a psychologist to make a recommendation on
Speaker 1: your mental state, and in interviewing you, he raised a
Speaker 1: red flag, saying, among other things, that HEYJS has said
Speaker 1: that her saleing had a big nose and nails that
Speaker 1: were bitten down to the nub. That wasn't the case
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: I went in, in my natural sense its self in state.
Speaker 2: It was comfortable, and he and I had a conversation,
Speaker 2: But at the same time he was observing the things
Speaker 2: that they said were part of me that weren't, and
Speaker 2: he made that assertation in his notes.
Speaker 4: Matt Quarter appointed psychologists actually took the time. He states
Speaker 4: in this letter, I tried not to play detective, but
Speaker 4: I have to write your honor to state that I
Speaker 4: believe Elma Daniels is innocent. And we have that letter.
Speaker 4: He c ced the district attorney and Elmer's public defender,
Speaker 4: and he goes on to lists why he believes that
Speaker 4: Elmer is in fact innocent.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a public defender. How often did
Speaker 1: you even talk to did you meet?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I met defense attorney edbra Pankowski. By the time I
Speaker 2: got to try, I had only seen him twice. But
Speaker 2: the first thing that he offered me when I met
Speaker 2: him was a deal. And I'm like, deal for what
Speaker 2: you know? He said, well, you know, judging that they
Speaker 2: got all the evidence that I see against you, because
Speaker 2: he had ran all over to all the evidence with
Speaker 2: me that he felt was making me guilty. The first
Speaker 2: deal was five to fifteenth to life. That was for
Speaker 2: second degree. I'm like, well, we're going to We're gonna try, right,
Speaker 2: They're gonna try if they're gonna get me, they're gona
Speaker 2: get because I'm an go down fighting.
Speaker 1: So the jury was going to hear from Gs to
Speaker 1: Casey as well as this puff of smoke from the
Speaker 1: FBI at fingerprint analysis about the notebook in the green jacket.
Speaker 1: And then our favorite the FBI agent who also testified
Speaker 1: in my case, special agent Michael P. Malone, and he's
Speaker 1: going to testify about hair is allegedly found on Gs's
Speaker 1: undergarmers and these khaki pants that have been packed away
Speaker 1: in a third bedroom clause at Elmer's house.
Speaker 4: I always say that I don't blame the jury for
Speaker 4: convicting Elmer because the hair analysis would have had a
Speaker 4: tremendous impact on anyone. They had this FBI agent who
Speaker 4: supposedly had all the credentials as an expert and was
Speaker 4: a prolific testifier on behalf of the FBI. He testified,
Speaker 4: as you know, all across the country. He appears, and
Speaker 4: he says in Elma's case that there was a double match.
Speaker 4: What do we mean by a double match? He said,
Speaker 4: there was hair that was found on the pants when
Speaker 4: Elmo was arrested that belonged to Caucasian individual. And there
Speaker 4: was hair found on the underwear of the victim that
Speaker 4: belonged to an African American individual, and he testified to
Speaker 4: the jury that there was a microscopic match between the
Speaker 4: hair and the victims underwear that belonged to Elmer and
Speaker 4: the hair that was found on Elma's pants was belonged
Speaker 4: to the victim. And he said it was a double match.
Speaker 4: That this is something he's never even come across. You
Speaker 4: can imagine the impact that that would have had on
Speaker 4: a jury. Back then there wasn't any DNA, but that
Speaker 4: kind of testimony is equivalent to DNA identification.
Speaker 1: Okay, I get the definition of double match, but guess
Speaker 1: what if neither one of them is the right hair,
Speaker 1: then you've matched nothing. You just have two hairs in
Speaker 1: two different places or three different places that actually aren't
Speaker 1: the same hairs? Am I right in just that basic assumption?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? And that's one of the things when we fast
Speaker 4: forward when we send the transcripts to the FBI, they
Speaker 4: had to admit. The Special Counsel from the US Department
Speaker 4: of Justice wrote to the Attorney General of Delaware admitting
Speaker 4: their agent testified, as they put it, beyond the means
Speaker 4: of science aka also known as he lied.
Speaker 1: And you know he used that phrase to elevate it
Speaker 1: to some extreme like I've never hardy ever seen this,
Speaker 1: or you know this is a double match, and you
Speaker 1: get this catchphrase that, like you said, twelve people like
Speaker 1: you and I are hearing this when you have an
Speaker 1: FBI agent suit and tie Jaeger Hoover. We're all taught
Speaker 1: to believe in the infallibility of their work, because I
Speaker 1: had a similar thing. Agent Michael Malone in my case
Speaker 1: was to a ninety eight point nine percent certainty, but
Speaker 1: we learned later that one he probably didn't even do
Speaker 1: the test himself, and DNA conclusively proved that he was lying.
Speaker 1: So I get what you're saying as far as that goes.
Speaker 1: So everything stacked against Selmer. We've got these junk sciences
Speaker 1: going on. Did your lawyer contact the people that played
Speaker 1: basketball with.
Speaker 2: You, the guy that ran the director he actually testified,
Speaker 2: he signed in. I knew he was there, know all
Speaker 2: his friends, even some of our friends testified.
Speaker 1: But since these people knew you, obviously the prosecution just
Speaker 1: shot holes in your alibi by attacking their credibility on
Speaker 1: that angle. But what about the age discrepancy between you
Speaker 1: and kse I mean, obviously, you guys were not in
Speaker 1: the same year school.
Speaker 4: The prosecutor presented a middle school teacher to say that
Speaker 4: Elmer was in eighth grade math class. We believed that
Speaker 4: teacher did in fact teach Elmer, but this year's prior
Speaker 4: and Elma also to make it more confused, and Elma
Speaker 4: also had brothers who had that same teacher.
Speaker 3: And his sister.
Speaker 4: Yes, we all had him for home room, all had him.
Speaker 4: So but Elmer then takes a stand and tells a jury, no,
Speaker 4: I was not in the same eighth grade math class
Speaker 4: as Casey. The prosecution then calls us a rebuttal witness,
Speaker 4: a detective who is a name defendant in the lawsuit
Speaker 4: that we have going on now and he's still alive,
Speaker 4: who says Elma was in the same eighth grade math
Speaker 4: class as case. So you can see how the jury
Speaker 4: would say, well, if he's going to lie to us
Speaker 4: about being the same eighth grade math class as KC.
Speaker 4: Case testified to it, the teacher testified to it, and
Speaker 4: this rebuttal witness came and testified to it, it must
Speaker 4: be true. And where we follow the prosecutor is just
Speaker 4: like we pulled the transcripts he's an agent of the state.
Speaker 4: The school districts are agents of the state. He could
Speaker 4: have easily pulled those transcripts, but they had a narrative
Speaker 4: and they were going to follow through that narrative that
Speaker 4: Elma was in fact doing us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is definitely improper. Did you just take the
Speaker 1: stand in this case?
Speaker 4: She was one of the first witnesses.
Speaker 1: What's your analysis of the cross examination?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, there was several things that he could have certainly
Speaker 4: explored contradictions not just in her testimony, but the testimony
Speaker 4: of KC. One of the big ones was Casey's claim
Speaker 4: that he had sexual intercourse that should have been explored.
Speaker 4: There was some other evidence that we don't need to
Speaker 4: get into that shows that she did in fact have
Speaker 4: sexual intercourse, but none if that was explored.
Speaker 1: I ask Elmer, It's one thing to have, you know,
Speaker 1: fbi ages and folk up there and they're describing evidence
Speaker 1: and talking about things. It's another thing when it gets personal.
Speaker 1: How did you feel when you sat there and listened
Speaker 1: to Gs's testimony.
Speaker 2: I basically sitting there as an eighteen year old kid,
Speaker 2: is she's lying?
Speaker 3: Literally, she's lying? And what could I do about it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I have people protecting her interests and nobody protected mind.
Speaker 2: So I sit there, watch listen. I can't explode because
Speaker 2: it makes it worse, so I had to sit there
Speaker 2: and swallow it. But at the same time, you can't
Speaker 2: understand why someone would do that.
Speaker 1: So between GS identifying you and Special Agent Malone making
Speaker 1: his double match, any of the other defense efforts were
Speaker 1: doomed to fall short when.
Speaker 2: They found me guilty a month later that they sentenced me.
Speaker 2: I never forget it on my sister's birthday. So they
Speaker 2: give me forty five years to life with the possibility
Speaker 2: up role. But the thing about it is they convicted me,
Speaker 2: sentenced me, offered me a deal in the process before trial,
Speaker 2: after trial, gave me time, pulled me back into court
Speaker 2: eighteen months later, offered me a deal.
Speaker 1: Paul's there for a second. I gotta keep up with
Speaker 1: you on that part of the story.
Speaker 3: Eighteen months they come back with this deal.
Speaker 2: Now, common sense tell me when they did that, because
Speaker 2: they did it before trial, during trial, and then you
Speaker 2: convict me and give me the time, and then you're
Speaker 2: coming back to offer me the deal, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. But then they blamed it on the fact
Speaker 2: that because I had no real serious criminal history, and
Speaker 2: due to the lack of physical trauma to the victim,
Speaker 2: then they didn't feel it was conducive to give me
Speaker 2: what you gave me, and so all those flags went up.
Speaker 3: Something's wrong.
Speaker 2: And that's what I just kept saying to myself, something's wrong.
Speaker 2: Why would you come back and offer me a deal?
Speaker 2: You knocked me in my head, said that's what I deserved.
Speaker 2: Somebody in there knew something was wrong, but that somebody
Speaker 2: couldn't do anymore than they were doing. When I went
Speaker 2: into the penitentiary, it only held five hundred people, okay,
Speaker 2: and you could scratch it at seven. Imagine seeing three
Speaker 2: penitentiaries built, you know, and asking you do you want
Speaker 2: to build or be a part? And I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: not building anything. You're gonna put me in, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. Early into
Speaker 2: being in calls, Rade, I wanted to fight you at
Speaker 2: every cause first I'm scared. Second, I'm not gonna let
Speaker 2: you do anything to me, you know. And I learned
Speaker 2: real earlier because of a guy that was familiar with
Speaker 2: my family and knew my father kind of pulled me
Speaker 2: to the side and he let me know.
Speaker 3: He said, listen, you're angry, but you know if you don't.
Speaker 2: Change, somebody's gonna kill you, or you're gonna kill somebody
Speaker 2: because you're angry. And he said, let me ask you something.
Speaker 2: I said what he said, had all the guys is
Speaker 2: in here who did something to you? And that made
Speaker 2: sense to me because they were there before I got there.
Speaker 2: And so there's a code of ethic, there's inmate code
Speaker 2: of ethic, and.
Speaker 3: Then there's the code ethic for the officers because they
Speaker 3: want to go home.
Speaker 2: So what you see, you see, but you don't see it,
Speaker 2: and the penitentiary all you have is your word.
Speaker 3: I found out that.
Speaker 2: Over the course of time, the most important quality that
Speaker 2: we have as a human being, to be able to
Speaker 2: communicate with people, becomes stagnated. We're around the same people
Speaker 2: every day. We do the same thing twenty three twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a day, and didn't turn around repeat it tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It's just like getting up going to work. I guess
Speaker 2: that's why I like going to work. It's a process.
Speaker 2: But for me to see all those things, and I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna get into all the violent parts of that
Speaker 2: because I don't need that to steer my emotions because
Speaker 2: it does. But I never not thought that I wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna see the other side of the fence. That never
Speaker 2: entertained my mind. But I knew I was gonna be
Speaker 2: here for a while. My whole mindset was that since
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be here, I might as well go ahead
Speaker 2: and do what I gotta do. I got my high
Speaker 2: school diploma, started dabbling in everything else that I could
Speaker 2: closed myself in that eight by ten, and I started
Speaker 2: opening up those books called law and rules and codes
Speaker 2: of ethic, and I started finding out what specific words meant.
Speaker 2: Not even know what layman terms meant until I got
Speaker 2: back into the courtroom and I used the terminology. And
Speaker 2: I don't know where he's speaking. He's speaking lingal language.
Speaker 2: I need to know what he's saying. And that's when
Speaker 2: I learned to have a judge have them explained to
Speaker 2: you so you can understand.
Speaker 1: So you set yourself on the positive path and got
Speaker 1: involved in your own legal fight. But what happened in
Speaker 1: his initial appeal.
Speaker 4: So after he was convicted, he had an ineffective assistance claim.
Speaker 4: They appointed him attorney there, but they appointed him another
Speaker 4: attorney out of the public Defender's office. So that's yeah,
Speaker 4: of course it's a conflict of interesting like a private
Speaker 4: firm or another associate, you know, going after you know,
Speaker 4: another attorney. You know, that's that's what happened. But anyway,
Speaker 4: after that was quickly shot down by the judge Elmer,
Speaker 4: who you know, at the time had a tenth grade
Speaker 4: education and had a life sentence. Even though he requested
Speaker 4: to have a pellate council, he was denied a Pellt
Speaker 4: council and he was forced to fight this case on
Speaker 4: his own pro se for the next thirty six years.
Speaker 4: You know, Elma's official sentence was thirty years to life.
Speaker 4: After he hit thirty years, he petitioned for parole. He
Speaker 4: kept getting denied.
Speaker 2: They want you to admit your crime, and that when
Speaker 2: you do that, you can't take it back. And so
Speaker 2: that was my biggest issue going through all this is
Speaker 2: I wanted something that was rightfully mine, but would I
Speaker 2: sell my soul get it back?
Speaker 4: Finally, after thirty five thirty six years, there was a
Speaker 4: sympathetic African American female on the parole board who seemed
Speaker 4: to really listen to what Elmer was presenting to show.
Speaker 4: In fact, he was innocent, and we believe she advocated
Speaker 4: for him to be released on parole.
Speaker 2: I was parole November twenty fifteen and had met a
Speaker 2: Mecca on January twenty sixth, twenty sixteen. I had an
Speaker 2: expungement some of that up on the church on fifth
Speaker 2: and Clayton Street. If you were convicted of a crime,
Speaker 2: and your crime is like five years old or older,
Speaker 2: you can have those things removed from your record because
Speaker 2: that is one of the things that is hindering you
Speaker 2: from being gainfully employed. And so he got up and
Speaker 2: spoke my life into existence. Everything that came out of
Speaker 2: his mouth was literally me. He said, just imagine for
Speaker 2: a moment that you are a young man and you
Speaker 2: go to prison, you're eighteen nineteen years old, and you
Speaker 2: come out as a fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight.
Speaker 3: Year old man.
Speaker 2: I'm somewhere around there at fifty four or somewhere like that,
Speaker 2: and I'm shaking my head. And he said, then, you know,
Speaker 2: after you come out, your life is basically over. Now
Speaker 2: you got to get it back together. But you don't
Speaker 2: know what to do because the one thing that's hindering
Speaker 2: you is what you actually went to prison for. And
Speaker 2: so I still didn't wait to talk with him, and
Speaker 2: when I got the opportunity to say what I need
Speaker 2: to say, my first question to him was, you know
Speaker 2: you smoke my life just now up here, and I
Speaker 2: just did thirty five years in peditentiary, and I have
Speaker 2: evidence that proved I've never committed a.
Speaker 3: Crime at all. I have it right here in my hands.
Speaker 2: And I remember the young lady coming to tell him, Mistermka,
Speaker 2: your seats ready, and people were in line waiting on you,
Speaker 2: and he said, come on, and so I went from
Speaker 2: the end of his line to the front of his line,
Speaker 2: got his last card, and all he said was, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going.
Speaker 3: To help you. It cost you nothing. And we've been
Speaker 3: here ever since.
Speaker 4: You know, Elma was convicted in May of nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: and I was born in August of nineteen eighty. So
Speaker 4: I feel one of my life missions, reason I'm here
Speaker 4: on earth was to cross paths with Elmer and help
Speaker 4: write the injustice that was done to him.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, you know, instead of being able to just
Speaker 1: focus solely on clearing his name, your efforts were split
Speaker 1: because Elmer got sent back to prisoner on a parole violation.
Speaker 4: When he was released, he was given two conditions. Number
Speaker 4: one he had to obtain and maintain employment, and number
Speaker 4: two was because he was a convicted sex offender, he
Speaker 4: had to take certain classes in order to be rehabilitated. So,
Speaker 4: on the first condition, Elmer obtains employment at a local
Speaker 4: barbecue restaurant, and three weeks into working there, that restaurant
Speaker 4: gets a call from the state police stating that Elmer
Speaker 4: is a convicted sex offender and they were coming out
Speaker 4: the next day to put posters in the restaurant to
Speaker 4: notify patrons that Elmer was a convicted sex offender. So
Speaker 4: you can imagine what happens next. The next day, Elma
Speaker 4: is brought in and it's told hunfortunately he has to
Speaker 4: be let go. So despite the fact that they cause
Speaker 4: Elmer to lose his employment, that was cited as the
Speaker 4: first violation. The second condition was to take these classes,
Speaker 4: which Elma takes all the classes, and upon completing all
Speaker 4: the classes, he said, in order to get a certificate
Speaker 4: of completion, he had to admit guilt.
Speaker 2: And my whole thing was, I'm willing to participate, but
Speaker 2: if you ask me if I did it, I'm going
Speaker 2: to say no, You're repunishing me. That's because I'm simply
Speaker 2: saying no, but you're not listening to why I'm saying no.
Speaker 4: He has a constitutional right to maintain his innocence, but
Speaker 4: he was told we're going to find that it's a
Speaker 4: second violation. So after tasting freedom for eight months, after
Speaker 4: being locked up continuously for thirty six years, he was
Speaker 4: sent back to prison with a clear message that unless
Speaker 4: you're willing to admit guil, you're not going to see
Speaker 4: the light of day again.
Speaker 1: So Emmaicon uncovered for you basically the same thing that
Speaker 1: happened in my case. And if it's all right with you,
Speaker 1: I just want to do a little bit of a
Speaker 1: rundown of that history right now and make sure you
Speaker 1: know everything that was going on at that time. Rhead
Speaker 1: so Agent Michael Malone, the FBI, who was their premier
Speaker 1: hair microscopic examiner, who also became the center in the
Speaker 1: hub of an international scandal that basically took the FBI
Speaker 1: lab down where they don't do microscope hair examinations anymore.
Speaker 1: But this actually started in August of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: There was the guy that ran the metallurgical lab was
Speaker 1: named William Tobin, and he raised concerns about Agent Michael
Speaker 1: Malone's testimony in a different case because he knew he
Speaker 1: was lying, and he brought it up then. And then
Speaker 1: fast forward a little bit, there was the Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: bombing case. I'm sure you've heard about that. After that case,
Speaker 1: a whistle blur came out of the FBI lab, doctor
Speaker 1: Frederick Whitehurst, and he wrote letters. He made a lot
Speaker 1: of allegations. Basically, he was saying that the FBI Lab
Speaker 1: is being coerced into always presenting evidence favorable to the state.
Speaker 1: They were trying to tell him how to do it.
Speaker 1: They weren't following best practices, and he raised a lot
Speaker 1: of issues about agent Michael Malone. Well, Inspector General's Office,
Speaker 1: which is above the FBI, launched a big investigation and
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven they issued a report and they
Speaker 1: named the agent Michael Malone and said that he consistently
Speaker 1: misrepresents evidence and testifies outside of his area of expertise.
Speaker 1: I think, as Emmica said earlier, Lave in terms, it
Speaker 1: sounds like you just called him a liar. So I
Speaker 1: have a copy of that report. I know about it,
Speaker 1: but I can't do anything with it. It's not enough
Speaker 1: to go up against an FBI agent and say he
Speaker 1: lied in my case. You know, it just wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: Now what nobody knew. Right after that report came out,
Speaker 1: the FBI themselves launched a new investigation, and they brought
Speaker 1: an outside forensic scientist to look at every case that
Speaker 1: maloone had touched. Mine was in that mix. I'm sure
Speaker 1: yours was, but they never made it public. So the
Speaker 1: FBI they sent that to my prosecutor with a letter saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with the Helpington case, and my prosecutor
Speaker 1: covered that up for the next fourteen years. I would
Speaker 1: not have known about it if it wasn't for Spencer
Speaker 1: Shoe at the Washington Post in twenty fifteen. Spencer wrote
Speaker 1: the article that exposed it was the whole scandal that
Speaker 1: was going on with the FBI lab. And at that
Speaker 1: point they start scrambling. They know that report was coming out.
Speaker 1: In my case, they ended up DNA testing the hair
Speaker 1: and they were not my hairs. And that's how I
Speaker 1: want a rid of actual innocence. But not to get
Speaker 1: off into that, I'm just saying this started in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, really coalesceding formulated in nineteen ninety seven to
Speaker 1: ninety nine, and you weren't contacted. They didn't tell you.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I think twenty fifteen after the article
Speaker 1: came out, where the Innostance Project got involved with the
Speaker 1: DOJ Department of Justice, and at that point they started
Speaker 1: making some notifications to some defense lawyers. But you and
Speaker 1: I both it cost us probably an extra fifteen years
Speaker 1: in prison because they were withholding this information from us.
Speaker 3: No that first I heard, I would have.
Speaker 1: Turned to Mecca, who I'm sure knows pretty much everything.
Speaker 1: I just said, you're coming on board. It's twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: the articles come out. You've got not only hair their
Speaker 1: evidence is questionable, but you have the agent in question.
Speaker 1: The guide is at the heart of the whole storm.
Speaker 1: Michael P. Malone.
Speaker 4: So we saw, you know, the Inspector General's report, all
Speaker 4: the documentation on what was going on. So we knew
Speaker 4: we had a serious issue. So we sent the trial
Speaker 4: transcripts to the FBI. They pointed a special counsel who
Speaker 4: was looking at this case, and he wrote a letter
Speaker 4: to the Attorney General of Delaware stated as we said earlier,
Speaker 4: that the agent had testified beyond the means of science
Speaker 4: in Elma's case, and that was cited along with what
Speaker 4: we talked about earlier with the transcripts showing Elma was
Speaker 4: not in the same eighth grade math class as KC.
Speaker 1: Not to mention all the other reasons that should have
Speaker 1: kept them from pursuing Elmer at all. But now, unfortunately
Speaker 1: the biological evidence in this case had been destroyed, so
Speaker 1: it was never going to be a slam dunk on
Speaker 1: the exoneration through DNA testing. But how did Delaware react
Speaker 1: to the evidence that you had amassed?
Speaker 4: So the Attorney General's office too finale to not release
Speaker 4: Elmer and to give him alternate solutions. And this is
Speaker 4: a consistent theme that I've seen in a number of
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction cases. Even if they're going to let you go,
Speaker 4: the next thing they do is try to mitigate or
Speaker 4: totally eliminate any potential civil liability that were resulting you
Speaker 4: getting compensated. And one of the ways they do that
Speaker 4: is never totally exonerate you. They offered him a commutation,
Speaker 4: which is you're guilty, but we're just going to cut
Speaker 4: short your sentence. So I want your audience to think
Speaker 4: about this. If you're guilty. You're going to jump at that.
Speaker 4: But Elma was willing to spend the rest of his
Speaker 4: life in jail in order not to admit to a
Speaker 4: crime that he knew he didn't commit, and so he
Speaker 4: turned that down. And so only after we backed them
Speaker 4: in the corner and they had no choice did they
Speaker 4: finally say, Okay, we'll agree to overturn the indictment, remove
Speaker 4: the charges, but we're still not going to say you're
Speaker 4: completely innocent. And if you're going to get compensated, you're
Speaker 4: going to have to fight tooth and nel again to
Speaker 4: get compensated, because Stellaware is one of I think twelve
Speaker 4: states has left that doesn't have any compensation for people
Speaker 4: who have been roughly convicted and incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get the compensation in a minute, but first,
Speaker 1: I really just want to acknowledge what you were willing
Speaker 1: to do with what you had on the line. I'm
Speaker 1: just happy for you that you were able to force
Speaker 1: their hand and win your freedom. What was that day? Like?
Speaker 1: I mean, how'd you feel?
Speaker 2: They ask me how I feel about it? When he
Speaker 2: told me, he said that too, how you feel? And
Speaker 2: my response was, I don't know. Just this day came
Speaker 2: and it's here. You know, you thought you would react
Speaker 2: one way in your mind because it ain't hadn't happened,
Speaker 2: You're going to do all these things. But when he
Speaker 2: literally told me and asked me how I felt, I
Speaker 2: just simply said, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know that I can relate to trust feeling that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I got a whole lot of aren't you happy?
Speaker 3: Was that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I am, But I don't grab that they took celibratory
Speaker 2: away from me. It's just another day. It's another Christmas.
Speaker 2: I noticed significance. It is just another day.
Speaker 1: It's very eerie to have this conversation and you express
Speaker 1: the exact same sentiment I did, because I've never talked
Speaker 1: about that on my release date to anybody, and you
Speaker 1: just said that. I was like, nailed it. You're saying exactly.
Speaker 1: I felt. Everybody's looking for your your feelings and you
Speaker 1: don't have.
Speaker 2: Them, right, You don't have them, and because you had
Speaker 2: become immune to it, people think that something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know inside and I think you
Speaker 1: could probably relate. Like I didn't celebrate holidays, birthdays, any
Speaker 1: of that, and when I came home, I still don't.
Speaker 1: I really don't do much for holidays or birthdays. What
Speaker 1: I started doing was celebrating what I call my freedom
Speaker 1: day to day. I came home July twenty second, and
Speaker 1: I was doing it for a number of years. But
Speaker 1: when I came home, I wasn't fully exonerated. I had
Speaker 1: to take an out for pleague that carried on for
Speaker 1: ten years. It took me ten years after being home.
Speaker 1: I just got mine straight this year. So this year
Speaker 1: is the first year I've ever been a whole. But
Speaker 1: I had made a statement to a friend of mine
Speaker 1: last year. I said, I'm never I'm not going to
Speaker 1: celebrate my freedom Day anymore because all I did was
Speaker 1: trade one prison cell for a bigger one. I still
Speaker 1: have the stigma. I still am not fully clear. And
Speaker 1: then this year I was. I was fully cleared, and
Speaker 1: I actually got to spend it with you know, our
Speaker 1: mutual friend here, Jason Flum, and celebrated the way it
Speaker 1: should be celebrated as an honestly free person. And that
Speaker 1: does mean something. And I know it's important day to you,
Speaker 1: and your battle's not over there. You never got compensated.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, So right now December thirteenth of me five years,
Speaker 2: you know, and December twelfth is my birthday, So December,
Speaker 2: I say, I'll celebrate two birthdays. So I'm like you,
Speaker 2: I'm waiting to get to that point where I don't
Speaker 2: want to celebrate that.
Speaker 3: But it keeps me humble.
Speaker 2: It keeps me conscious of the possibility of it can
Speaker 2: happen to you again, you know, So I'm conscious of that.
Speaker 1: We at least you have Emica by your side. So,
Speaker 1: like you said, your freedom day is December the thirteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. They removed the charges, but didn't recognize your
Speaker 1: innocence to mitigate their civil liability. So are you suing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we sued the FBI, which is United States government,
Speaker 4: and we sued the city of Wilmington and that police department.
Speaker 4: The United States was dismissed from the case after they
Speaker 4: filed emotion claiming immunity, and the federal judge, to his credit,
Speaker 4: even though he said, you know, I have to follow
Speaker 4: the law on immunity, he made the attorneys for the
Speaker 4: United States apologize on the record to Elmer. But nevertheless,
Speaker 4: despite the fact that they recognized it was a tragedy,
Speaker 4: they were not willing to compensate him even a dime.
Speaker 1: And neither his delaware. Now I know that no amount
Speaker 1: of money could ever make up for what they took
Speaker 1: from you, but the very least it could help you
Speaker 1: live out the rest of your life, which you still
Speaker 1: get to do thanks to Amica.
Speaker 2: In the beginning of all this, Like I said to
Speaker 2: ey Mecca when I met his wife, Mary Jane, I
Speaker 2: told him there's not an ocean wide or deep enough
Speaker 2: for me to even begin to tell him what he
Speaker 2: has really done for me.
Speaker 3: And I never cried over this.
Speaker 2: But it's been five years. Some of it's been hard,
Speaker 2: it's really been hard. But for me, I just finding
Speaker 2: a way to stand up, just stand there and walk.
Speaker 2: And I know how I'm doing it, but I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: And if I could get a couple of men together
Speaker 2: and I can help them straighten out their life, I'll
Speaker 2: go forward in a heartbeat because they need people like
Speaker 2: us to really give them insight on what you're facing,
Speaker 2: what you're going to be dealing with. If I help one,
Speaker 2: I did something, If I helped many, then I'm doing
Speaker 2: a whole lot of something.
Speaker 3: Someone opened the door for me to come back through.
Speaker 2: It would be real unfair for me not to try
Speaker 2: to pay that forward.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel that same obligation because I had
Speaker 1: a great law firm that got involved in my case,
Speaker 1: Ropson Gray, and they got me out. And the only
Speaker 1: way to repay any of these folk is to live
Speaker 1: the best life we can live and to pay it forward.
Speaker 1: Like you just said, I know what you're saying. There's
Speaker 1: a weight on our shoulders right now to pay that
Speaker 1: forward so that they feel good about what they did.
Speaker 1: When they point to you, Amica points to you and
Speaker 1: talks about Amoris, like, look what Elmer's out here doing.
Speaker 1: He's taking care of all this business. And that's gonna
Speaker 1: make it. That's gonna make it all worth it. And
Speaker 1: people believe in you and people support you for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I hadn't.
Speaker 2: I hadn't had a chance to look at that reflection
Speaker 2: you just gave me that. I'm sitting here and I
Speaker 2: did all this. I call it crap because it's really
Speaker 2: the media, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Doing it because it does mean something. You know you're
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, just like you knew you were
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, fighting for your life, never giving up,
Speaker 1: never surrendering your integrity, your name, your character, your humanists.
Speaker 1: You know you hung onto that and you're here today
Speaker 1: to give back and you're gonna find your way and
Speaker 1: that's how it's gonna work. But what can our audience
Speaker 1: do to help? I know, you got to go fund
Speaker 1: me and they can certainly help you out, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna make sure we put a link for your GoFundMe
Speaker 1: at the end of this podcast. But overall, either Elmer
Speaker 1: or Emica, what can we do as a community here
Speaker 1: where do we need to step up?
Speaker 4: Well, one of the things is we need to get
Speaker 4: a bill in Delaware to help those who have been
Speaker 4: wrongfully convicted in incarcerated to get compensated. Elmer was instrumental
Speaker 4: in getting a bill drafted. We got it through a
Speaker 4: committee in the State House of Delaware, but the bill
Speaker 4: was never put on the floor. So we want to
Speaker 4: put pressure on Governor John Carney, the leaders of the
Speaker 4: Delaware Senate and the Delaware House of Representatives to say
Speaker 4: Delaware should join the majority of states and having a
Speaker 4: wrongful conviction and incarceration bill. So that's one of the
Speaker 4: things that we can do to help make sure someone
Speaker 4: like Elmer is treated fairly. You know, when Elmer was released,
Speaker 4: he was just released with a shirt on his back
Speaker 4: in the middle of winter, given three days worth of
Speaker 4: diabetic medicine, to the point where once that medication ran out,
Speaker 4: it went to a diabetic shock. And no resources have
Speaker 4: been provided for him, no one's checking on them. So
Speaker 4: we want all of that to change. And Elmer is
Speaker 4: an advocate for that, He's a warrior.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta say, folks, this has been an honor
Speaker 1: for me to be a part of this conversation, to
Speaker 1: meet both of you all. Elmer, you're my hero. I
Speaker 1: want to thank well for conviction and Jason and Connor
Speaker 1: and everybody for letting me do this at this point
Speaker 1: in time. We always like to give our guests that
Speaker 1: last word. Whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind,
Speaker 1: wrap it up for us, tell me what you think.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys for giving us a platform to talk
Speaker 4: about this important issues because unfortunately that many other Elmer's
Speaker 4: out there across prisons across America, and by casting light
Speaker 4: on the injustice that goes on, hopefully we can make
Speaker 4: a change. Hopefully we can make a change in laws
Speaker 4: to say that there should never be a time bar
Speaker 4: procedural time bar if someone is innocent that has evidence
Speaker 4: to show that the innocent. They shouldn't be precluded from
Speaker 4: presenting that in court, which is what happens a lot
Speaker 4: of times the merits never get heard. States should not
Speaker 4: be allowed to destroy evidence, like helping in Elma's case,
Speaker 4: where someone who's facing the life sentence has forensic evidence
Speaker 4: destroyed so they cannot scientifically exonerate themselves. So by casting
Speaker 4: a light on cases like Elmer and the other cases
Speaker 4: that you're doing, you're making a difference and causing people
Speaker 4: to really think that we can make a change in
Speaker 4: our criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think given a little bit more time, I
Speaker 2: know that I'm gonna be okay. It's nice to meet you, John.
Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing that I inspired. You
Speaker 2: want to always do, be able to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I'm down because I know that I'm a voice. I
Speaker 2: know that they can't change you know what has been done,
Speaker 2: but I can change prevent it from happening to someone else.
Speaker 2: So with that, I want no more victims. I don't
Speaker 2: want no more guys going.
Speaker 3: If we can get one thing right, that's the one
Speaker 3: thing we need to get right.
Speaker 2: You know, it's easy to put me there, but it
Speaker 2: makes it hard for me to get myself out when
Speaker 2: you don't give the whole truth, give it, give.
Speaker 3: It up truth.
Speaker 2: If I'm judged by a jury of my peers, I've
Speaker 2: never seen one of those people that I grew up
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood sitting at jury Pool. Those are jury
Speaker 2: of my peers. I have to go back to that neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So those are the people that I have to go
Speaker 2: back to. Those are the people that have to deal
Speaker 2: with me. But I didn't see those people because those
Speaker 2: people knew who that young man was.
Speaker 3: That's what we deal with.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
Speaker 1: John Huffington. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flomm,
Speaker 1: Jeff Kempler, Jeff Clipburne, and Kevin Watis, as well as
Speaker 1: the production staff Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink.
Speaker 1: With research by Shelby Sorels. The music in this production
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow Wrongful Conviction across all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: find me on it, Instagram and Twitter, at Huffington John
Speaker 1: and You can find my book Innocent and I've Seen
Speaker 1: Miscarriage and Justice at John Huffington dot com or wherever
Speaker 1: books are sold. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one