WEBVTT - #162 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Henry McCollum and Leon Brown 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.480 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer, 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.680 and I'm Steve Drison. In today's episode, the crime is 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.520 bad about as bad as it gets. But the way 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.480 police and prosecutors mishandled this case and condemned two innocent 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:21.240 men to death, that's a crime unto itself. Henry McCollum 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.840 and his younger brother, Leon Brown survived a decades long 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.400 fight for the truth from behind bars. Henry and Leon 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.800 are living proof that false confessions can send innocent people 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:33.760 to death row. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.360 Twenty years ago, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which Laura 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:51.080 and I co direct, was deeply involved in exonerating men 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:56.120 off of death row in Illinois. The numbers kept ticking up. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.480 It went up to twenty people who had been wrongfully sentenced. 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.640 To death, twenty innocent people. Eventually, Illinois lost confidence that 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:06.760 the people on death row were actually guilty, and so 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:08.160 we got rid of the death penalty. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.559 When the death penalty was abolished in Illinois ten years ago, 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.600 there were some prosecutors who claimed that the sky would fall, 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:22.680 that crime rates would rise, that the system would miss 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:28.960 the ability and the power to use the death penalty 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:34.240 to right wrongs, and that hasn't happened. We've moved on, 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.880 we've evolved, and it's time for the rest of the 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:39.240 country to follow suit. 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:41.800 Here's the thing. The death penalty is supposed to be 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.200 reserved for the worst of the worst, but way too 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:46.720 often those are the cases where wrongful convictions happen. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.120 These are the crimes where there is so much pressure 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.720 on law enforcement to come up with quick answers that 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:56.720 there are rushes to judgment. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:57.240 Right. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.640 That's the problem with the death penalty. People can get 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.240 so blinded with the horrificness of a crime that moral 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.000 outrage can distort the search for the truth. And that's 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.800 what happened in this case. Henry McCollum and his brother 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.679 Leon Brown paid a terrible price for the police's rush 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:14.359 to judgment. 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:19.120 The facts of the crime often don't tell the whole story, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.800 and sometimes tell a false story. So while on paper 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:31.120 this case looks like one that is deserving of the 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:37.000 ultimate punishment, in practice, it sent two innocent men to 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:42.679 prison for more than thirty years. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.880 Today's story starts in Robison County, North Carolina. It's a 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.920 rural area on the state's southern border, eighty miles inland 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.400 from the Atlantic coast. Since the eighteenth century, Robison County 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.720 has been known for social strata and racial strife. It's 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.320 a place where a small group of elite white men 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:04.000 descended from colonial landowners, dominate everything from the lumber business 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:08.480 to the illegal drug trade to the courtrooms. Meanwhile Native Americans, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:13.280 poor whites, and black people get the scraps. On September 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.760 twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, Ronnie Lee Buwie came home 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.960 to his tiny house in one of Robinson County's predominantly 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.519 black communities. It was a little after twelve am. He'd 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.200 just finished working the midnight shift. Within minutes, he noticed 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.000 that his eleven year old daughter, Sabrina, was missing from 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:34.200 her room. Sabrina's family calls the police. As the sunrises 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.640 and words spreads, Friends and neighbors fan out to search 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.800 for her, but there's no sign of Sabrina until the 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.480 next afternoon, September twenty sixth. That's when Sabrina Buoy is found, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.440 and it's one of the worst discoveries imaginable. Sabrina is 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.640 lying in a soybean field, dead, surrounded by empty beer 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.720 cans and cigarette butts. She's been beaten and raped. She 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.880 isn't wearing anything except for a bra that's been pushed 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.840 up around her neck. And her cause of death Sabrina 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.080 had been suffocated by her own underwear. Someone had pushed 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:08.880 them into her throat with a stick. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.880 Now, when I read about this crime, it just gutted me. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.119 My reaction was visceral. There's a level of depravity here 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:19.120 that shocks the conscience. 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:21.960 Police couldn't bring themselves to believe that someone from their 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.280 own community would have done this, so they started investigating outsiders. 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.479 Pretty soon, police caught wind of a rumor about a 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.520 nineteen year old who just arrived in Robison County to 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.920 visit his mom. The local high schoolers thought this new 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.360 kid might have killed Zabrina because, according to them, he 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:44.040 looked weird. That new kid's name was Henry McCollum. Even 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.880 though his mom lived in Robison County, Henry had grown 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.000 up in New Jersey with his grandma. Henry had been 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.080 diagnosed with intellectual disability when he was really young. For years, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.840 he attended a special school, but he failed a bunch 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.919 of grades anyway and eventually dropped out. School wasn't Henry's 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.800 strong suit, but obedience to authority was he'd never been 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.719 associated with any kind of crime. With nothing more to 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.200 go on than a high school rumor, police go to 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.919 Henry's mom's house and on the evening of September twenty eighth, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:21.480 they bring Henry in for interrogation. Three police officers question 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.880 him for more than four hours, all off camera. So 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.760 we don't know everything that happened in that room. What 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.840 we do know is that some of Henry's interrogators were 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.080 familiar with the crime scene. They knew all the information 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:38.679 that a killer would be expected to describe. Sometime around 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.479 two am, the interrogators emerged from the room with a 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.680 confession that named Henry as one of Sabrina's assailants. It 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.559 had been written out by the cops. Henry had signed 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.520 it at the end in oversized letters that looked like 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.760 a child's handwriting. According to Henry, as soon as he 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.159 wrote his name on the last page, he looked up 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.920 at his interrogators and said, can I go home now? 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.919 I think Henry is a very kind person. He's a 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:06.000 very thoughtful person. 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.440 That's Representative Vernetta Alston. She's a member of the North 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.560 Carolina State Legislature. But before that she was a death 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.800 penalty lawyer who worked on Henry's case. 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.160 From the first time I met Henry in twenty twelve. 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.920 It's my impression that his deficits were very obvious. I 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.120 think anyone talking to him now, or five years ago 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.680 or thirty years ago would have noticed, and so as 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.600 a result of his deficits, he signed the statement. Now, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.440 I think most folks in that circumstance would understand that 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.520 if they signed a confession to murder that they wouldn't 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.000 be allowed to walk out the front door of a 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.760 police station. But the statement used language that Henry was 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.200 very unlikely to have understood, and so he didn't know 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:48.480 what was happening at all. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.000 While Henry's confession was light on details, its story tracked 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.760 exactly what an investigator who'd been at the scene would know, 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.960 everything from the pattern on Sabrina's shirt to the brand 0:06:58.000 --> 0:06:59.440 of cigarettes left behind. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.520 Here's the thing, Henry could not lead the police to 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:09.760 any evidence that they didn't already know about. His confession 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:15.280 only contained details that the police already knew. That's a 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.800 red flag. You have to wonder, is this the suspect's 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.960 confession or a confession that was scripted by law enforcement 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.320 to ensure that this suspect was going to get convicted. 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.200 Henry's confession didn't just implicate him. The story was that 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.280 he'd attacked Sabrina along with four other teenagers. Now, three 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.480 of those teens turned out to have strong alibis. One 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.440 of them had even been out of state at the 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.560 time of Sabrina's death. Prosecutors never filed charges against those three, 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.880 But the fourth person named it was Leon Brown, Henry 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.640 McCollum's fifteen year old brother. And while Henry was disabled, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:58.480 Leon's limitations were far more profound. His IQ was in 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.480 the forties, on the border line between moderately and severely disabled, 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:04.480 and he was completely illiterate. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.440 Both of these men, who were at that time boys, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:13.520 their intellectual disabilities were exploited. Folks who have cognitive deficits 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.320 that make it difficult or complicated for them to make 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:21.560 everyday decisions to get dressed, to loan as schedule, to 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.920 make food for themselves, to drive cars, to learn in 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.680 school at a level that's consistent with their age. Folks 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.360 who are unable to do those things, we shouldn't be 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.760 holding them to the same standard in our criminal justice system. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.760 And certainly not in our death penalty system. 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.400 When Henry implicated Leon in his confession, it turned out 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.520 the timing was pretty bad. While Henry was being questioned, 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.600 the boy's mom arrived at the police station, begging to 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.559 see Henry. Police told her she'd have to wait until 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.280 he confessed. But here's the thing. Henry's mom brought Leon 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.080 with her to the station. He was almost surely too 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.360 disabled to be left home alone. So after Henry confessed 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.120 and the police came looking for Leon, they didn't have 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:07.160 to go any farther than their own lobby. Police put 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.080 Leon into an interrogation room, then marched his big brother 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.440 in to show him what to do. Within minutes, Leon 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.319 was signing a written out confession of his own, scratching 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.840 his name as best he could on the bottom of 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.000 a statement he couldn't even read. Based on their confessions, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.440 the two brothers were arrested and charged with rape and 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:27.400 capital murder. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.679 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.720 and Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.319 law firm. The AIG pro Bono program provides free legal 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:51.200 services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.240 most in need, and recently they announced that working to 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.040 reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.600 of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has law had an 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.840 unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.920 the most vulnerable members of our society and in support 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.600 of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:12.360 justice area. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.760 The question of who killed Sabrina Buie gripped Robinson County. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.760 The crime was terrible and the community wanted justice, so 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.480 the county's top prosecutor took over the case. The district 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:35.280 attorney himself, Joe Freeman Britt, was six foot six, a 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.679 seasoned trial lawyer known for dramatic courtroom flourishes like pounding 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.320 bibles in front of the jury. But he was more 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.440 than just a flashy attorney. By the time Henry and 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:49.600 Leon's cases crossed his desk, Joe Freeman Britt had become 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:54.160 infamous nationwide for his success at obtaining the death penalty. 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.280 Over his career, Britt sent more than forty seven people 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.640 to death row. At one point, he obtained two dozen 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:06.000 death sentences in only twenty eight months. Britt was so 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.199 prolific that He even ended up in the Guinness Book 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.880 of World Records, which called him the deadliest prosecutor. 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:20.040 Some prosecutors believe deeply in the eye for an eye mentality. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.320 For some, it's almost a biblical calling, like religious fervor 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:25.920 that animates them. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.920 Forty seven people, I mean, if he weren't a prosecutor, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.440 he'd be one of the most prolific serial killers in 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:32.360 the United States. 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.360 Forty seven people, that's unthinkable. 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.559 It seems like Britt leaned into his hard ass reputation. 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.480 He'd run training conferences for other prosecutors where he taught 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.959 them to quote, rip that jugular out. When he felt 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.920 like waxing poetic. Britt would say, within each of us 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.440 burns a flame that constantly whispers, preserve life at any cost. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.000 It's the prosecutor's job, he would add to extinguish that flame. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.720 I think that that sums up he was as a 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.280 person and as a district attorney. Joe Freeman, Britt was 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.800 frankly a terror. He was a large, commanding presence, and 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.600 I think really leaned into that persona. I know that 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.440 he was very from what I've read, he was very 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.560 much into the theater of a courtroom and really played 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.720 into that to secure convictions. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.960 Joe Freeman Britt was in full form, gearing up to 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.240 try Henry and Leon for Sabrina's murder and seeking the 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.480 death penalty for them both. But before trial, two major 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.480 problems emerged with Britt's case against the brothers. First of all, 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.080 Henry and Leon's confessions didn't match each other on several 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.760 important details, who was involved, how they met up with Sabrina, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.720 and the details of the rape and murder. And of 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.280 course there was the matter of the three other boys 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.000 named in Henry's confession, all of whom were definitely innocent. 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:59.079 Leon or Henry. There was nothing other than their words 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.000 that linked them to this crime. 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:02.520 You know. 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.920 And Henry and Leon were not the kinds of people 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.440 that would have committed a perfect crime. 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.360 Even the way in which the confessions were written didn't 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:11.959 ring true. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:16.200 In a statement used language that Henry was very unlikely 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.520 to have understood, and I think that's a product of 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.520 his age and most certainly a product of his intellectual disabilities. 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.720 And Leon's is similar. If you look at Leon's statement 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.040 is written in penmanship that Leon was incapable of because 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.679 of his deficits, and again used language in detail and 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.120 just sentence structure that Leon would have been incapable of creating. 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.760 The second problem, there was a pretty obvious alternative suspect, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.560 a man named Roscoe Artists. Artists lived near the field 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.920 where Sabrina's body was found, and he had a disturbing history. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.320 Only a few weeks after Henry and Leon were arrested, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.920 Roscoe Artists had murdered an eighteen year old girl in 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.440 an attack eagerily similar to the attack on Sabrina. Both 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.120 victims were raped and asphyxiated. Both of them were also 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.280 found in fields wearing nothing but bras pushed up around 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.040 their necks. It gets worse. Roscoe Artist was also a 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.520 suspect in another rate murder case from nineteen eighty. In 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.440 that case, the victim was found with an object shoved 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.000 in her throat, another similarity that should have been impossible 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:17.439 to miss. 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:22.960 Henry McCollum and Leon Brown did not have the kind 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:28.880 of background that suggested they were capable of the horrific 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.600 nature of this crime. This was the work of a 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:38.320 sexual predator, probably a single sexual predator. Because of the 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.680 way the crime scene presented itself. This is not some 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:49.080 huge community that is beset by violent crime, and the 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.160 first thing that police officers should have done is focus 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.960 on men in their own community who had a proclivity 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.120 for committing these kinds of crimes. Risco Artists showed a 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.960 history of doing this over and over again, and his 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.840 home was very close to where the body was found. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.360 Now here's the really crazy thing about Roscoe Artists. One 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.640 month before Henry and Leon went to trial, Artists was 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.120 tried and convicted for the attack on the eighteen year 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.480 old girl. He was sentenced to death. And that fact 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.920 almost gives away the punchline, because sure enough, Roscoe Artists 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.480 was prosecuted by Joe Freeman Britt himself for a crime 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.920 nearly identical to the one Britt was prosecuting Henry and Leon. 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:33.160 Four. 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.840 The similarities between Artists's other murders and Sabrina's death should 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:39.080 have been unmistakable. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.960 Those are a warning signs, stop lights to say, hey, 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.040 wait a minute, let's see what really happened here. Let's 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.479 look at people who more fit the profile. 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.560 Well, Roscoe Artists was no stranger to law enforcement. That's 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.520 what's so mind boggling about this case. It was all 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:01.200 there ready to be done right done, so wrong. 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.600 So wrong. This horrible, tragic nightmare could have been averted 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.680 from the very get go, and the woman who Rascal 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:14.280 Artists killed less than a month after Sabrina Buie was killed, 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:16.120 her life might have been saved. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.360 Not everyone overlooked the similarities between these murders. We know 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.680 this because of what happened with a piece of forensic 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.520 evidence in the case, a single unidentified fingerprint found on 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.960 one of the beer cans near Sabrina's body. Three days 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.320 before Henry and Leon's trial started. The police sent a 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.200 request to the state crime Lab to compare that beer 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:43.240 can fingerprint to the fingerprints of Roscoe Artists. But Joe 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.120 Freeman Britt, even before the crime lab had time to 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.840 do the testing. Britt charged ahead with Henry and Leon's trial, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.400 and that trial was hardly a fair fight. You've got 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:58.000 the deadliest da facing off against two disabled teenagers. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.360 Never stood a chance. It's going to be their word 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.840 against the word of the police when this case goes 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.240 to trial. How's somebody with a fifty six IQ or 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.960 a forty nine IQ supposed to try to match their 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.560 wits with a prosecutor like Joe Freeman Brett. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.600 The heartbreaker was when Henry McCollum took the stand in 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.320 his own defense with his typical flare. Joe Freeman Britt 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.520 handled that cross examination himself. Didn't that touch your soul 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.040 at all? Britt asked, when that little girl was down 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.000 on the ground hollering, it didn't touch my soul. Henry answered, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.240 because I didn't kill nobody. He added, I want to 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.680 tell you something, Joe Freeman, God got your judgment right 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:48.160 in hell waiting for you. It wasn't enough. The jury 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.080 convicted both Henry and Leon based on the confessions. After 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.520 the verdict came back that fingerprint testing appears to have 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:56.280 been canceled. 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.399 Joe Freeman Brett was much more concern and laser focus 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.560 on pursuing the death penalty against Tarry McCollum and Leon 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.760 Brown that he was in finding the real killer. They 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.879 failed to pursue a fingerprint examination that I tend to 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.119 think would have been very much determinative in this case, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.399 and I have to imagine that Jof Freeman Britt was 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:19.840 part of that decision making process. 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.080 The defense was never even told that police had requested 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:28.000 fingerprint testing. Instead, that information remained hidden, and Henry and 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.760 Leon were sent to North Carolina's death Row, right alongside 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.680 Roscoe artists. A few years later, in nineteen eighty eight, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.879 a court overturned Henry and Leon's convictions, but Britt retried 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.320 them both separately. In nineteen ninety one, at Leon's second trial, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.600 the judge dismissed the murder charges against him, so Leon 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.959 was convicted only of rape and sentenced to life in prison, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.959 not death. But Henry still faced murder charges and he 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.480 was soon convicted again. His attorneys hoped that at least 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.560 they might be able to save his life this time, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.399 but they were wrong. When Henry's sentence was read, he 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.399 sat silently with his head down on the table, like 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:15.800 a scared child. He had to go back to death row. 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.600 The case of Sabrina Buoi's murder was closed, but not forgotten. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.000 That disabled kid who became a murder suspect because some 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.000 high schoolers thought he looked weird was soon being singled 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.760 out by a justice on the United States Supreme Court. 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.520 But Henry McCollum's case was getting attention for all the 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.720 wrong reasons. It was nineteen ninety four and the Supreme 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.560 Court was debating whether the United States should still have 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.280 the death penalty. In a case from Texas one, Justice 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.800 Harry Blackman wrote that the death penalty should be ruled unconstitutional. 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.679 Justice Blackman described how lethal injection works, how one human 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.200 being injects drug into another human's body in front of 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.119 an audience, until the condemned person dies in front of them. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.280 The justice wrote about his experience of trying for twenty 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.840 years to develop rules that would ensure a perfect death 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:18.200 penalty process. After nearly two decades, he declared the task impossible. 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.840 No set of rules would be able to guarantee that 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.200 we only execute the guilty and only after the guilty 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:29.120 receive a fair process. From this day forward, Justice Blackman wrote, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.879 I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.440 Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing rebuttal, and this is 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.000 where Henry and his brother Leon come in. Lethal injection, 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.560 Justice Scalia wrote, looks pretty desirable compared to some of 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.159 the worst murder cases. He urged readers to consider the 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.359 case of the eleven year old girl killed by stuffing 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.320 her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.800 by lethal injection compared with that. Justice Skala was talking 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.359 about the case of Sabrina Buie. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.440 Justice Scalia said, if there's ever a case that warranted 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.359 the death penalty, it's this one. Knowing what we know 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:14.160 now about Henry Lyon's innocence, I think it completely undermines 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.920 any legal or moral argument behind that statement, because if 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.119 this case could be held up as the poster case 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.800 for the death penalty, and now we've discovered what an 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:30.280 absolute mess of negligence and railroading it involved, then that 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.040 means the entire system is undermined. 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.480 The years ticked by and that railroading started coming to 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.399 light as the record of Joe Freeman Britt started getting 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.160 some scrutiny. According to a report by Harvard Law School's 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:47.879 Fair Punishment Project, Britt committed misconduct in fourteen cases. In 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.640 Henry McCollum's case, the report said, he failed to notify 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.560 the defense not only about the beer can fingerprint, but 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.639 also about a cigarette butt found near Sabrina's body. In 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.920 two thousand and five, more than twenty years after Sabrina died, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.040 Henry's post conviction lawyers asked for DNA testing on the 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.440 traces of saliva left on the cigarette butt. That testing 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.679 found a single male profile and it didn't belong to 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.040 Henry or Leon. That evidence should have been enough to 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:18.800 exonerate them right then and there. 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.000 The testing wasn't sophisticated enough at that point to match 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.000 it to someone else. Basically, we knew that it wasn't Henry's. 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:27.919 We knew that it wasn't Leon's, but that's all that 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:28.480 we knew. 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.680 The profile couldn't be run through the national DNA database, 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.040 and so Henry and Leon were denied exoneration because their 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.280 lawyers couldn't tell the state whose DNA it really was. 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.199 It took nearly nine years for the case to regain momentum. 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:45.040 In twenty fourteen, with. 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.200 The help of another inmate, Leon wrote to the North 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:50.880 Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission and asked them to look into 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:51.320 his case. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:58.760 The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is an independent state 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:06.679 agency charged with investigating claims of actual innocence. But the 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.320 Commission doesn't have an agenda. It's not here to prove 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:15.280 that the defendants did not commit this crime. It's here 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.160 to find the truth, and it's the only statewide agency 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:20.400 like it in the country. 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.120 As the Sincree Commission could say, we want to test 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.720 the sevidence. We want access to these records, We want 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:27.760 access to these boxes of evidence that it has been 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:29.960 sitting on your shelf for thirty years. Hand them over 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.440 to us right now. So that's an extraordinary power to have. 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:37.560 There was no stone left unturned. They tested every hair, 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.800 they tested wrappers found at the crime scene. They tested 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:45.880 beer cans. They tested all of her clothing, her blouse, 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:52.600 her shoes, her socks, her underpants. They tested cigarette butts. 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:57.080 This time, with more sophisticated testing, the cigarette butt DNA 0:23:57.400 --> 0:23:58.760 was able to be identified. 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:00.960 It wasn't Henry's, it wasn't Leon's. 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.440 When they ran it through the North Carolina database, they 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:08.520 got a hit. They got a hit to Roscoe artists. 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:12.000 We knew of Roscoe artists, we knew how early similar 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:12.960 their crimes were. 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:17.280