WEBVTT - #029 Jason Flom with Jerry Miller 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:05.920 I think we have the best legal system. 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.319 It's just the people that implement they get lost along 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:11.520 the way and forget what their job really is. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.840 He just kept on trying to remind me that who 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.079 was in authority, who was in control, and how easy 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.400 it was for my body to be found in any 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:24.800 alley of New York City. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.520 It's a tough prison when you have the guards going 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.920 against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:33.720 They do that. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.080 They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:37.600 in eat spaghetti like it was nothing. 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.159 And anybody that said, well, why would you confess to 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.959 something that you didn't do? My question to them will 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.919 be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:47.360 your life? 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.680 The judge, he said, how you feel? I said, I'm okay. 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.320 He said, well, the days you're lucky day you're going home. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:17.679 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.120 Jason Flamm. I was actually nervous coming over here. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.640 I was so excited because we have somebody, Well, you're 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.240 gonna have to hear for yourself, somebody named Jerry Miller. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.440 Miller was convicted back in nineteen eighty two. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.040 He served more than twenty years for a brutal rape, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.360 but recent DNA testing proved he wasn't the rapist. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.640 He later filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging the now 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.960 retired officers had framed him for the crime by conducting 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:47.400 a suggestive lineup and failing to disclose evidence. The judge 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.240 rejected those claims, ruling the officers did not engage in 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:52.560 any misconduct. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.320 Jerry Miller was paroled last year, but still had to 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:56.840 register as a sex offender. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.680 He missed nieces and nephew's birthday parties because he was 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.960 not all to be around children. He had to wear 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.520 an ankle bracelet and keep to a nine pm curfew. 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.280 Jerry Miller was the two hundredth American wrongly convicted to 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.079 be cleared by DNA evidence. 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.440 After twenty five years in prison for a kidnapping, rape 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.040 and robert that he did not commit. Jerry Miller is 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.520 now free, his conviction removed from the record based on 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:21.760 DNA testing that proves his innocence. 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.360 Jerry, Welcome to ronfuel conviction. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:26.440 Hey, how you doing. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:31.400 Good morning, and with Jerry we'll call him exoneration Royalty. 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.880 Here today, the founder of the National Registry of Exonerations. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.880 Maurice Posley is here with us today. Maurice, welcome, Thank you. 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.639 It's a pleasure to be here. So, Jerry, your story 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.079 is remarkable in so many ways. But first take us 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.000 back to the day this crime happened. You were in 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.440 Chicago watching a fight with your father and your brother, right. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.160 Actually, yes, I was home watching the fight. 0:02:55.600 --> 0:03:00.280 My father was president brothers uncle, and I had no 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.959 idea about any of this because I wasn't thrown into 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.120 it until a week later. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.799 The way that happened was I just was stopped by 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:09.399 the police. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.160 They said I was peering in the cars as if 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.680 I was stealing cars, and so from that point they 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.280 took down my name or they ran my name, and 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.240 they said, well, you got a lot of traffic tics 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:21.799 and I told him, I said, I don't even have 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.919 a car, so I don't know how that's possible. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.440 Well, your name Jerry Miller. So a lot of Jerry 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.520 Miller's in Chicago, and you were arrested for walking while black. 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.520 Well that's correct. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.600 But what happened is they just took my name and 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.200 everything down, and so the crime had already occurred as 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.720 soon because they were looking for somebody. And so when 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.200 I go home, you know, I'm going about my life 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.160 and then you know, these people who had stopped me 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.920 show up at my home. I at first don't know 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.280 who it is. All I know is the police, and 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.280 I'm wondering why they knocking on the door. And so 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.920 when I answered the door, they say, are you Jered Miller? 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.440 I said yeah, and they say can we speak to you? 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.760 I said, what is it? And I hear my little 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.000 brothers and my mother said who's at the door, and 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.640 then say could you step out? When I stepped out, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:12.800 that was probably the worst thing I could have did, 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.560 because at that point they put me on the arrest, 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:18.800 put me in cuffs, and put me in the police car, 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.400 and then they took me to almost fifteen miles away. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.320 I would think I lived on the southeast. 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.479 They took me to build my western and that's on 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.080 the north side, right, And so at that point, for 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.200 three days, no one knew I was. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.320 My parents was all you know. They knew. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.839 The police came to the door, and they saw the 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.920 police drive off with me, but no one actually knew 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.720 where they took me. And so for three days they 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.920 had me in interrogating me, trying to intimidate me. Well, 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.400 I was intimidated because I actually know what was going on. 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.440 They just kipnapped me and so this is the police 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.919 and I'm in in lock up and no one is 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:00.000 answering any question. 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:02.000 And then they. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.320 Took me to police headquarters. They asked me to do 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.400 a lot to take the test, and I had agreed 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.800 to it, no problem. But when I got there, they 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.279 had blank paper and they had an area for you 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.159 to sign your name, and being a fresh at the military, 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.000 I was like, wait a minute. I remember they would 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.640 always say you do not sign anything you don't understand. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:24.880 That's good advice throughout life. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:24.800 You know. 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.680 So and they had words like they're too four, and 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.040 I really didn't understand what that meant in the context 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.880 of a blank piece of paper and a place for 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:34.760 you to sign your name. 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:36.839 I said, I'll do the LOTE test, but I'm not 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:37.719 signing this paper. 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:38.080 Now. 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.680 Let's talk about the crime. The crime was a brutal 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.680 crime in which a forty four year old white woman 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.880 was accosted by a young black man in the parking 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.240 garage who pushed her into her car, beat her up, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.320 raped her, and robbed her and then threw her. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:53.760 In the trunk. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:54.800 That's it. 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:56.279 And then he attempted to. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.360 Drive out of the garage and the cashier, I'm getting 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.400 the chills thinking about this doinga the cashier who was 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.760 very alert, he recognized the car, so he didn't allow 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:08.920 the guy to drive out. And then another guy came 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:10.719 and the guy jumped out and fled on foot, and 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.159 she was freed, but she never identified you. And in fact, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.039 the cops had some very difficult things to try to 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.120 figure out in this case because, and obviously they really 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:22.840 wanted to solve this case, a lot of pressure. Right, 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.440 white woman rape by it's just you know, it's the typical. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.800 So it was downtown, it was right off Michigan Avenue, 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.000 and it's where a lot of people go, and so 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.640 there was a lot of pressure to solve this from 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.520 that perspective, Yes, and we. 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.600 See a lot of wrongful convictions happening in exactly those 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.000 type of circumstances, but there's a lot of pressure from 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.719 the community that they care. 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.240 About the most. Let's just say right, it's wrong, but 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:50.080 that's the way it is. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:51.200 It's exactly right. 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.280 And in this case they had some hurdles to overcome 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:59.719 because your blood type didn't match, and your fingerprints didn't match, 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.120 and they had this evidence. So at some point somebody 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.479 had to make a conscious decision and say, well, let's 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.680 just stick with this guy, even though we know he's 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.800 not the guy, because they had to know you weren't 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.040 the guy because you didn't magically change your blood type 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.160 or your fingerprints. And furthermore, the victim described that the 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.480 perpetrator was clean shaven, and you had it, and you 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:23.600 had a lot. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.960 Of I had a go tee directly up under the 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.360 chin and it was at least I say, two and 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.320 a half three inches, And you cannot grow a goateee 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.960 two and three a half inches in seven days. This 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.640 was totally just ignored. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:40.600 Right, I mean, Muris, would you agree that at some 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:46.120 point a conscious decision was made to frame Jerry. 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.720 A conscious decision was made that even though the facts 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.400 don't fit, we think this is the guy, and they 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.440 put the blinders on and they keep going ahead even 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.920 though there's all these red flags that point away where 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.200 this case went off the track right from the beginning 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.520 was the woman victim with police creates a composite sketch. 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.640 These composite sketches go into a daily flyer that gets distributed. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.560 Back in those days, it was a piece of paper 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:15.480 that got distributed at every shift change, and so people 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.160 would look for it. And the story was that the 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:23.000 two guys that had stopped you for looking in cars said, well, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.680 that looks like the guy we just saw. So at 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:32.760 that point those two officers were convinced that this Jerry 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.000 Miller who they saw supposedly looking in cars was the 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:40.920 person in the composite. And the case starts to move forward, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.880 and they don't want to stop and take a breath 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.920 and say, well, wait a minute, could we be wrong. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.920 Could the person who drew the composite have made a mistake, 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.839 and composits are notoriously bad to begin with, or could 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.440 the woman who gave the details have just been so 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.640 flustered and so upset by this horrible thing that happened 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:01.960 to her. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.800 Well, and this woman had said that the rapist, the attacker, 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.920 had ordered her to keep her eyes shut during the 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.600 whole ordeal, and so she had admitted from the beginning 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.120 that she would be having a very hard time making 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.280 an identification, but that didn't stand in the way of progress. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.920 And this is also a case in which the cashiers 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.400 were white, Is that right? 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:25.719 No? 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.640 No, they actually was the people who identified me to 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.199 the point of the police making the arrest, because the 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.640 rest was made because of the identification. They were black 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.240 and the victim was white. And I always said to myself, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.280 why are these people lying about seeing me? Why don't 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.920 they just tell them that they make a mistake. And 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.280 then the victim is saying they kept her out the 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:52.920 loop until a trial. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.040 You know, she wasn't even involved in the case. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.280 Just my experience of being the man in the hot seat, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.880 I learned and they literally at one point had to 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.760 know I wasn't the person, but at one point they 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.120 just decided they didn't care and it made no difference. 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.200 But they were black and she was white. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:13.600 What about the cops who arrested you. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:15.120 They were two white cops. 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.880 Cross racial is a serious, serious problem in a case 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.600 like Jerry's. You sort of really don't know is did 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.520 the guys who worked at the security booths of the 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:31.439 cashier's booth, did they honestly mistakenly or did they were 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.319 they basically nudged by the police to say, well, we've 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.600 got the guy, we think this is the guy, we 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.240 believe this is the guy, and so they'll say, well, okay, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.440 I mean you hear this in cases of wrongful identification 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.640 where it's well, the police assured me that they had 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:50.920 the guy, and so I could figure out who to 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:52.600 pick or however. 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:52.800 They did it. 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.320 And then when you know, you go into the courtroom, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.199 you know who it is. He's sitting there, but they 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.839 know who the defendant is, and when they say, well, 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.040 do you see him in the courtroom, it's pretty easy 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:04.440 to find the right person. 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:05.000 Right. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.800 So meanwhile, here you are in the middle of this nightmare, 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.880 the way that took this, and then the trial comes 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.640 and you were very misfortunate to have a judge who 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:24.120 turned out to be a very corrupt and dishonest individual 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:25.920 on top of all the other problems. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.719 Right, yeah, he has a stow himself. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.319 Actually, Judge Maloney went to prison ultimately for fixing murder cases. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.880 The evidence over time showed that number one, he was 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.440 a very harsh sentence or maximum guy. He was throw 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.240 away the key guy. You know, you got forty five years, 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.440 which was oh my god. And he tended to balance 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.320 the cases that he pitched where he was on the take, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.040 and some of these were murder cases. Where he was 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.600 taking bribes to throw him out. He balanced that out 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:01.480 by being extraordinarily harsh in other cases. It's incredible. I mean, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.880 it's right out of a bad movie, right. You can't 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.000 make this stuff up. And he ended up going to 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:07.800 prison himself. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.400 Yeah, even went to prison. I think he received fifteen years, 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:12.400 if I'm not mistaken. 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.440 So Chicago, on top of everything else we know, is 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:22.320 a place where wrongful convictions are extremely common, and you 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.280 had the perfect storm hitting right. 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:25.319 You had a. 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.760 Lot of the different factors that we see again and 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.760 again in these cases. Then you got Chicago where it 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.200 just was sort of common, right. 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.640 The state of things back then was well. Ultimately, they 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.120 had a federal investigation where they indicted seventeen judges and 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.960 more than one hundred court clerks and lawyers defense lawyers 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.400 for fixing cases. It was the name of that Graylow operation. 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.959 Graylor. Oh my god, I didn't know that. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.199 That is where it was the first time in American 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.280 history where they bugged a judge's court room, his chambers 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.120 rather and caught them on tape fixing murder case. It 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.760 was accessible, Holy shit. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:07.960 I mean, on top of everything else, you had the 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:13.680 police who were systematically torturing suspects right in that warehouse, right, 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.760 and this is Chicago, right. People need to understand that 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.840 this is a phenomenon that happens all over the place, 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.840 and we as a society owe it to people like 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:27.200 yourself and to just regular civilians walking around to stop 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.679 this insanity and to actually focus the resources of law 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:36.679 enforcement on catching the actual perpetrator, because, again not atypical 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.720 in your case, the actual perpetrator was left on the 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.960 streets and ultimately went on to rape and rob other people. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.480 And those are victims that never should have been victimized. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:49.160 That's true. 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.080 You wonder who benefited from making me fit into that well? Ho, 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:55.800 that was a waste of time because the gas day 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.120 was out there, so if they knew they was framing me, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:13:59.880 then they knew they was leaving the gap. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.160 The immediate sort of gratification. If that's the right way 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.120 of saying, we've solved this crime. We've shown that we 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.240 do our jobs. We are sending the message that we're 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.360 protecting the public. Unfortunately, they do it on the backs 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.120 of innocent people like Jerry. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.760 And the innocent victims. I mean, how would you feel 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.000 if you were that person? The next person that he raped, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.480 or the father or brother or mother or daughter or 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.880 whatever of that person. And you're going, well, not only 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.400 are you left in this terrible situation where for years 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.600 you've been angry at the wrong person, you've also been 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:41.320 deceived in a very tragic way by the people that 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.120 you trust who are supposed to be protecting all of us. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.200 And then you find out that that person who victimized 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.440 you or your loved one is out there or was 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.960 out there doing the same thing to other people. It's 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.720 just another terrible blow for a victim and a victims 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.440 family to have to absorb. But let's get back to you, Jerry. 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.280 So you go to trial and you're represented by a 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:04.000 public defender. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.600 No, no, actually my father retained a lawyer. His name 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.480 was Sheldon Rosky. He took my case. But in the 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.080 end I got convicted. So even as I went through 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.440 that process, even before they charged me, I didn't understand 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.600 why they was trying to put this on me because 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.640 I knew I had nothing to do with whatever they 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.800 were talking about. Because they kept me to die. They 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.520 never told me what went well or nothing. It just 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.480 was just pushing me, pushing me on through their system. 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.200 You know, with the palm prints on top of the 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.320 garbage camp, you know, and taking it somewhere and then 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.600 coming back and asking questions in around about way, still 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.720 not explaining to me what this is all about. And 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:52.200 then the fact that I couldn't call anyone and no 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:53.320 one knew I was. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.800 You're talking about during the interrogation. Yeah, how crazy is 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.120 it that they won't even tell you why you're there, 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:06.000 Like they're trying to drive you insane? Basically, because who 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.960 could withstand that type of a scenario on top of 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:11.800 everything else. At least if you knew what they were 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:13.840 charging it with, you could say, well, wait a minute, 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.040 you know on that day or whatever I mean. But 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.240 they wouldn't even give you that much information. So that's 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.000 a really horrible place to be in. And then comes 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:23.480 to trial. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.520 Well, actually, as you speak about the tearrizing, imagine a 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.080 knock on the door, you foolishly step out, and then 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.960 you're handcuffed in that context and put into a police 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.000 car and take in fifteen miles. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.760 Or you say foolishly. But you know, the thing is 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.960 most people are sort of raised and it sounds like 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.560 you were that the police are there to do the 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.160 right thing. So when they make a request of you 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.520 like that, you're not thinking maybe now you might think 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:53.880 I wouldn't think that. 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:55.040 Your thinking that. 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.040 If I step out the door, I'm probably going to 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:58.080 be handcuffed. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.720 Yeah, that's a million miles no way I could have 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:02.480 figured that out. 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.600 And because you know where you were at that point 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.800 and in the military you were working, you thought, this 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:09.840 is what police do. 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:10.520 This is their. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.800 Job to come around and ask some questions, not thinking 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.719 they're just going to whisk you away because somebody has 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:18.000 decided you look like a picture. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.800 Now on top of that, now this is you know, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.600 this might be hard to believe. To further make your 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.000 point about where are we when you're doing things like that. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.320 As they was driving, I saw my brother in the car. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.600 He's with his girl, and he was coming towards us 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.960 in a different direction. My hands are tapping behind my 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.080 back in the back seat and I'm trying to get 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.439 his attention, you know, and he's looking. I don't know 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.240 if he even saw me, but the police told me 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:44.880 say if he stopped, he going to jail too. 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.680 I mean, that's a randomness thing. 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.479 This is I mean, this is this is literally how 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:53.560 it happened, how it started out. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.320 I didn't want to talk about that trial and that moment. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.560 You go through the trial and then the jury goes out. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.480 Now you're in a situation that is I think impossible 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.320 for anyone to imagine. What did you think they were 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.000 going to say? Did you think that they were going 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:09.439 to get to the truth? 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.920 Well, you know, it's funny that the process it self 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.240 wears you down, you know, because you would get a 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.600 court date, okay, and so when you had to go 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.040 before the judge four in the morning, they would stop 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.040 knocking your door until you get ready. And you're going 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.440 through the jail system, and you start off at four 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.120 in the morning, and then by the time you get 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.440 to the bullpen to where you are and they come 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.040 get you from there and take you right into the courtroom. 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.840 They did that almost ten times, waking me up four 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.760 in them on the court case. As soon as I 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.719 get there before the judge, nothing is really said at 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.640 all continues, which means put them back in the bullfen, 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.560 send him right back to the part of the jail 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:50.440 where he's located. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:52.919 And they did that over ten times. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.960 It where is you down? And my point is you 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.840 just want it to be over. Of course I want 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.880 to be found innocent, but I'm going through the process. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.199 I know that they are railroading me. I know what 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.720 they're doing, and there's nowhere for me to stop. It's 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.119 like a train that you just cannot stop. 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.520 On those days when they would wake you up at four, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.800 did they give you breakfast? Did they give you coffee? 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.320 Or they just took you and you're just sort of 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:17.800 there on an empty stomach. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.600 Well, you would get breakfast along the way. 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.960 Something you get breakfast along the way, then you would 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.480 if you're still there, if you're still on your way 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.280 or you're still waiting to see the judge, they would 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.439 give you a blooney sandwich, which is like a piece 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.680 of horse meat with two slices of bread wrapped in 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.080 some cellarphan But at one point that even tastes good. 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.320 It's just it's a it's a hell of a situation 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:43.640 to be. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.520 In the process is very dehumanizing. 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:47.720 Oh yeah, all the way through. 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.440 So you finally get to court and you finally get 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.879 your day in court. And it goes back to my 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.520 question when the jury went out, were you optimistic, were 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:58.320 you pessimistic? 0:19:58.440 --> 0:19:59.320