Speaker 1: With the rise of dual income households throughout the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, an unprecedented number of families were relying on
Speaker 1: near strangers for childcare. Subsequently, a wave of child sex
Speaker 1: abuse hysteria began, in which any claim at all from
Speaker 1: a child was granted credence, no matter how outlandish or
Speaker 1: probably false they were. At this time, Howard Dudley and
Speaker 1: Diane Moore were jointly raising their daughter Amy, but were
Speaker 1: never married. Eventually, Howard founder a nude sense of faith
Speaker 1: that his wife and had two sons. Even though Howard
Speaker 1: paid child support and maintained a presence in Amy's life,
Speaker 1: one can imagine that Howard's new willingness to settle down
Speaker 1: was not well received by the mother of his first
Speaker 1: child or her family, including Amy's babysitter, Lydia mas Darkey.
Speaker 1: On October thirty one, Amy allegedly told missus Darkey that
Speaker 1: her father was quote nasty, already primed to believe the
Speaker 1: worst about Howard, and demanding an explanation, Starkey began a
Speaker 1: series of suggestive question and Amy allegedly claimed sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: To look out for Amy's best interest. During the social
Speaker 1: services investigation, she was aside a guardian Ed Lightham, who
Speaker 1: determined that Amy's story was untrue. Nonetheless, the trend demanded
Speaker 1: that credence be granted to the child's claims, triggering Howard's arrest.
Speaker 1: The prosecution ignored and hit the guardian ed Lighthem's recommendation,
Speaker 1: and even though Amy recanted her allegations immediately after trial,
Speaker 1: Howard's been nearly twenty five years in prison as a
Speaker 1: child sex offender. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to
Speaker 1: share this story because it's unique in terms of the
Speaker 1: almost three episodes we've we've done, but it's not unique
Speaker 1: because it was a common story at the time that
Speaker 1: it was happening. It's the story of a man named
Speaker 1: Howard Dudley who was convicted of a crime that never happened,
Speaker 1: and who spent almost three decades incarcerated because of a
Speaker 1: series of lies, superstitions, hysteria that sort of swept the nation.
Speaker 1: So before I introduced the other distinguished guests who we
Speaker 1: have on here, I want to introduce Mr Dudley himself,
Speaker 1: Howard Dudley. Welcome to Raffle Conviction. Good morning, excited about
Speaker 1: being here this morning. Well listen, I'm excited to have
Speaker 1: you here. I'm sorry you're here because of what you
Speaker 1: went through with Howard. Today is a remarkable woman named
Speaker 1: Teresa Newman. Teresa is recently retired, but she was a
Speaker 1: clinical professor of law and Merida at Duke Law. So
Speaker 1: this is a serious person. You don't get that title
Speaker 1: by not being tough and smart. And you also don't
Speaker 1: get Howard Dudley out of prison without those qualities and characteristics.
Speaker 1: So Teresa, thank you for being here today. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having us. And this story is outrageous.
Speaker 1: Stories like this have actually kept me up at night.
Speaker 1: And I mean again, this one is this is It's
Speaker 1: about as bad as it gets, but it isn't unique,
Speaker 1: and that's why I think it's all the more important
Speaker 1: that we tell it. But Howard, before we get into
Speaker 1: the story itself, let's talk about your youth. You grew
Speaker 1: up in a small town in North Carolina. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's correct, that's right, a little town called Institute. I
Speaker 1: grew up in the home mom, dad and nine siblings,
Speaker 1: and my dad had squat rules and he enforced talk
Speaker 1: the work. They out of trouble not to go out
Speaker 1: and disperse the family. Name. Yeah, I guess have any case,
Speaker 1: you'd have to have some strict rules or it would
Speaker 1: be pure chaos. But it sounds like your parents and
Speaker 1: still had some good values in you. And I also
Speaker 1: understand that you played guitar and still do, and eventually
Speaker 1: you grew up, and that a woman named Diane Moore.
Speaker 1: You had a daughter together named Amy. But it appears
Speaker 1: that you never intend unmarried Diane and weren't ready to
Speaker 1: settle down. I wasn't really a good boyfriend. I ad
Speaker 1: met to that right there. But we worked out between
Speaker 1: the court and myself and Amy's mother that I could
Speaker 1: spend time with her. She spent weekends. Maybe we had
Speaker 1: a great relationship and that was on good terms, I thought.
Speaker 1: And while you two tolerated each other for the good
Speaker 1: of your daughter, Diane ended up becoming infected with HIV
Speaker 1: and she was very ill for a while, so a
Speaker 1: relative named Lydia May Starkey began shouldering more of Diane
Speaker 1: into the bargain. But nonetheless you moved on with your life.
Speaker 1: I met my wife, and uh we got married. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't sup me as I was, and after Mary, we
Speaker 1: had a son named Dennis, who was a musician today,
Speaker 1: and Adrian living a productive life. I was determined to
Speaker 1: make a good life for my children, and that was
Speaker 1: my in devil. I worked, my wife went to college,
Speaker 1: and her last year in school she had a major quote.
Speaker 1: And so basically I was a provider for my family.
Speaker 1: So at this time, you were providing for your family
Speaker 1: living in a trailer, while paying child support for Amy,
Speaker 1: who would join you on the weekends and during the
Speaker 1: week her relative Lydia makes Darkey would care for her
Speaker 1: as Diane's health continued to deteriorate. The babysitter she called
Speaker 1: Howard mean because he had broken up with Diane Moore,
Speaker 1: who she later died of age she was ill, and
Speaker 1: then Howard, moving on with life, became born again. Christian
Speaker 1: got married, had these two kids. So one could easily
Speaker 1: see how some really, you know, hard hurt feelings could develop,
Speaker 1: making it easy for Lydia May to believe horrible things
Speaker 1: about you, and later on maybe even to cajole young
Speaker 1: Amy into making wild accusations that she would later recaan't Amy.
Speaker 1: As I understand, it was a bit more susceptible to suggestion,
Speaker 1: as she had some intellectual limitations. But even before we
Speaker 1: get into the specifics of your case, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to mention at this time period, the late eighties
Speaker 1: and early nineties, was the absolute height of a wave
Speaker 1: of child sex abuse hysteria, and cases were weeping across
Speaker 1: the country, one nonsensical case after the other, and I
Speaker 1: think probably the most widely known one was the McMartin preschool,
Speaker 1: but very close by to Howard and his family in
Speaker 1: North Carolina was a Little Rascal's daycare center, where the
Speaker 1: accusations were beyond absurd, I mean just absolutely outlangeious things
Speaker 1: that a kid might conjure up on the spot. Now
Speaker 1: that's not to say that there perhaps weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: some real allegations among the false ones, but in that climate,
Speaker 1: social services, police and eventually juries were buying the allegations
Speaker 1: credible or not. Absolutely. And I wasn't a lawyer when
Speaker 1: these cases were sweeping the nation and frankly internationally, um
Speaker 1: but I remember, just like you, Jason, reading it and
Speaker 1: thinking these sort of fantasy allegations. And people have different
Speaker 1: theories about what led to this period of near hysteria,
Speaker 1: but I think many believe it was a time of
Speaker 1: two parent families. Both parents were working, so children were
Speaker 1: being taken care of by strangers, were near strangers, and
Speaker 1: all it takes is rumor and innuendo that something untoward
Speaker 1: is happening in these places. And the Little Rascals is
Speaker 1: a great example, and that's right here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: The trial which was against every worker and owner at
Speaker 1: that day care center. That trial was occurring for the
Speaker 1: owner of the center just minutes away from where Howard
Speaker 1: Dudley lived. The stories were in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: where in the international papers, were in every local newspaper,
Speaker 1: and in that one newborn babies were being tossed to
Speaker 1: sharks off the coast of North Carolina. There were pirate
Speaker 1: ship allegations, clearly the stories of children, But the the
Speaker 1: other important piece of this period of time was that
Speaker 1: no research had really been conducted on whether young children
Speaker 1: could fabricate such stories. So if they told you a
Speaker 1: quote story, that story had to be true. Any listener
Speaker 1: who is a parent today knows that that's a crazy notion.
Speaker 1: Children makeup stories all the time. They lived in fantasy.
Speaker 1: But that was that period. Today it is known that
Speaker 1: children can lie that it's really important to conduct interviews
Speaker 1: of children in a certain way that the medical evidence
Speaker 1: that was believed to be dispositive abuse at the time
Speaker 1: is not a friend of mine named Gus Gustler. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he ever came across him, but he's
Speaker 1: a criminal defense lawyer for a long time in North
Speaker 1: Carolina and he defended one of these cases. He was
Speaker 1: actually representing a man who was a golf pro whose
Speaker 1: wife operated a daycare facility, and just because he would
Speaker 1: go and pick her up from work once in a while,
Speaker 1: he got caught up in it as well. And I
Speaker 1: believe he got convicted because at the time it was
Speaker 1: just like everybody was just believing anything that anybody said,
Speaker 1: and of course these were crimes that never even happened.
Speaker 1: We represent one of the last surviving multi defendant, multi
Speaker 1: children cases from this period, and the man was convicted
Speaker 1: in seven and it absolutely nothing happened. But he was
Speaker 1: a van driver for a day care center with some
Speaker 1: cognitively impaired adults on the van as well, and two
Speaker 1: of those adults were boyfriend and girlfriend, and they were
Speaker 1: doing as the children said that married people were doing
Speaker 1: married people things on the bus and That's how it started,
Speaker 1: and it ended up with our client, Junior Chandler in
Speaker 1: prison since seven and we'll be there for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life unless we can successfully petition the cord.
Speaker 1: There's still so many people suffering in prison, like Junior Chandler,
Speaker 1: James King, whose case we've covered on the show. And
Speaker 1: if you have the opportunity, please go back and list
Speaker 1: of that one. That one it hurts my heart and
Speaker 1: we'll have it linked in the bio. And then who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe you know something, Maybe it's something you can do
Speaker 1: to help me. And Howard, you haven't even been home
Speaker 1: that long. It was only two thousand sixteen when you
Speaker 1: got out. So let's turn to the story at hand. Here.
Speaker 1: This was October, which was a Sunday. Amy had just
Speaker 1: been returned to her mother and Miss Darkey and I
Speaker 1: understand that over the weekend you had been firm with
Speaker 1: Amy about something, as parents often are when trying to
Speaker 1: raise their children, you know, the right way, and she
Speaker 1: had a complaint that you were quote nasty, And it
Speaker 1: was at this point that Ms Darkey began a series
Speaker 1: of leading questions, resulting in some very serious allegations and accusations.
Speaker 1: Well What's really important is that the babysitter was predisposed
Speaker 1: to believing that Howard was me and would do anything right.
Speaker 1: So when Amy said my daddy is nasty, she went
Speaker 1: straight to sexual and said does he put his mess
Speaker 1: inside of you? So at that, given Amy's other characteristics,
Speaker 1: you know, she went with it. And she had been
Speaker 1: inappropriately watching adult TV. So she had seen the Sally
Speaker 1: Jesse Raphael show where they had talked about rape. So
Speaker 1: with a head full of adult content and being pressed
Speaker 1: for an explanation about her meaning of the word nasty
Speaker 1: by miss Darkey with a suggestive line of question like
Speaker 1: does he put his mess inside you? I mean that's
Speaker 1: the first direction she went in talking about Amy's dad. Eventually,
Speaker 1: under this absurd and obscene pressure, nine year old Amy,
Speaker 1: who was even more impressionable than her contemporaries, allegedly said
Speaker 1: that Howard had quote humped her and quote had s
Speaker 1: e X with her. So the accusation was reported to
Speaker 1: Diane and then the police. Diane and Miss Starkey, I
Speaker 1: think they noted certain things that they can run down
Speaker 1: into the pole sit and they're gonna come back running
Speaker 1: with handcuffs and wants. I think that you that little trial,
Speaker 1: the little rascal that you that as an opportune time
Speaker 1: to vent her anger out at me. Of course, in
Speaker 1: this incredibly fraught time period, with a little Rascal case
Speaker 1: looming in the headlines, the Kinston Police and Lenore County
Speaker 1: DSS were primed to jump on a case like this one.
Speaker 1: But it soon should have been clear that these accusations
Speaker 1: of sexual activity on multiple occasions were totally false, because
Speaker 1: when they began to ask Amy to retell what happened,
Speaker 1: she told at least nine different stories to d s S. Nine,
Speaker 1: and the stories were both inconsistent and wildly implausible, if
Speaker 1: not impossible. For example, she said that on one occasion
Speaker 1: she had been stabbed and then a neighbor came and
Speaker 1: halted the alleged attack. There was no evidence, of course,
Speaker 1: that she had ever been stabbed, and no neighbor could
Speaker 1: corroborate the story. There was also a claim about him
Speaker 1: putting hot sauce on his privates and the hot sauce
Speaker 1: smelled like goats, And you know, it starts to go
Speaker 1: into really bizarre and obviously patently false territory. This was
Speaker 1: all supposed to be happening inside. Remember just a tiny
Speaker 1: trailer while Howard's wife was there nursing their newborn. Just
Speaker 1: wholly unbelievable. I mean, there was also a claim in
Speaker 1: which she was supposed to have been raped while wearing
Speaker 1: pajamas and underwear, which she said that time with the pajamas,
Speaker 1: she was wearing her pandies and pajamas, and yet she
Speaker 1: was vaginally penetrated by her father. Well, you can't do
Speaker 1: that through pajamas. Amy was the evidence, and bless her heart,
Speaker 1: she is the faulty evidence in the case. And it's
Speaker 1: not her fault. Remember, she was a nine year old
Speaker 1: child with intellectual limitations and didn't know how things worked,
Speaker 1: including sacks and what would happen to her father with
Speaker 1: these false claims. And we know Amy immediately recanted after trial.
Speaker 1: She clearly feels guilt about that all of these years later,
Speaker 1: But she was a child nine years old and the
Speaker 1: adults in her life as well as the authorities, should
Speaker 1: have known better. And as it turned out, there was
Speaker 1: one person that did so as his protocol in a
Speaker 1: case where the dispute between legal guardians and a minor's
Speaker 1: interest must be looked. After Amy was assigned a guardian
Speaker 1: d Lightham and this person also looked into the allegations.
Speaker 1: While Amy was being interviewed and the claims were being verified,
Speaker 1: the Guardian ed Lightham read everything you know. His job
Speaker 1: is to advocate for the best interests of the child
Speaker 1: and he concluded that it was an Amy's best interest
Speaker 1: not to let her testify falsely against her father. He
Speaker 1: decided that not from the start of his investigation. He
Speaker 1: decided at the end of his investigation, he did a
Speaker 1: full investigation. He interviewed people who knew Amy, He went
Speaker 1: to her school. He understood Amy's pensions, for limitations, her characteristics,
Speaker 1: the other actors. He read the reports. He did a
Speaker 1: full investigation, a fuller investigation, and really tried to stop
Speaker 1: the prosecution of Howard and to try to stop the
Speaker 1: substantiation of abuse by the Department Social Services. But he
Speaker 1: was unsuccessful. So you mentioned an important word here, substantiation.
Speaker 1: The police were waiting for that to move forward with
Speaker 1: an indictment. As unclear if the SS even knew that. So,
Speaker 1: even though the Guardian light Um could see the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall. After the initial investigation and interviews, DSS
Speaker 1: inexplicably continued down this course towards substantiation, and on December
Speaker 1: they filed the petition in Lenore County Juvenile Court alleging
Speaker 1: abuse and neglect, and there was a hearing two weeks
Speaker 1: later in which Howard was ordered to seize contact with
Speaker 1: Amy and Diana, at which point the social workers also decided,
Speaker 1: despite the total lack of evidence to corroborate Amy's claims,
Speaker 1: that they would go with the mantra of that time
Speaker 1: that credence must be given to the child story, thus
Speaker 1: substantiating the claim and triggering the police to act more aggressively.
Speaker 1: But something else happens here that makes absolutely no fucking sense.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, and it all goes to show that the
Speaker 1: social workers didn't really believe in they's claims. Now, get this,
Speaker 1: The social workers agreed to a plan in which Howard
Speaker 1: could potentially regain unsupervised visits upon completing some kind of
Speaker 1: counseling for an unspecified amount of time. I mean, am
Speaker 1: I missing something here? You're not missing a thing. And
Speaker 1: they came to that conclusion after they had a team meeting.
Speaker 1: How can you substantial ate the allegations? Because if they
Speaker 1: believed them to be true, they never could have given
Speaker 1: visitation to the person who perpetrated those kinds of acts.
Speaker 1: That said. When we interviewed the lead social worker years later,
Speaker 1: I asked, do you sometimes just substantiate so you can
Speaker 1: get access to the family, In other words, do a
Speaker 1: deeper investigation, And she said yes, yes, yes, evidently without
Speaker 1: any appreciation about what substantiating the allegations would lead to,
Speaker 1: and in fact did lead to in Howard's case. The
Speaker 1: police department then charged because the Department of Social Services
Speaker 1: was substantiating and they were substantially eating largely because they
Speaker 1: had to give queens to the child, which is in
Speaker 1: their report, and also because they wanted to figure out
Speaker 1: what was going on with this family, so they had
Speaker 1: to substantiate something to get DSS access to the family,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Of course, couldn't have happened the
Speaker 1: way she described it, given the size of the trailer
Speaker 1: and where people were sleeping, and that Howard's wife was
Speaker 1: home with a newborn and waking up every hour throughout
Speaker 1: the night to take care of this newborn and had
Speaker 1: a two year old close by. It just didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And the guardian udelighted him, who was overridden by d
Speaker 1: S s and Kingston Police Department. He didn't succeed in
Speaker 1: stopping the train that had already headed off the station. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a crime that not only didn't happen, you
Speaker 1: also have that there was no opportunity even for Howard
Speaker 1: to have done this or anyone to have done this
Speaker 1: in this space that they cohabitated, as you just said, Teresa.
Speaker 1: So Howard, turning to you during this period of time,
Speaker 1: where were you, were you being held, were you out
Speaker 1: on bond? And what was going on? And you're you're
Speaker 1: a guy who had had no previous interaction with the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. You were a good young man, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. I was sitting back in that count of
Speaker 1: jail my lawyer, Mr Harvy, he comes in. He thought
Speaker 1: talking with me about a police bargain. He told me,
Speaker 1: said things ain't looking good for you. And I learned
Speaker 1: that the police barging basically saying that you were guilty.
Speaker 1: And that's all I need to hear. Right down, I said,
Speaker 1: oh no, I said, no police bargain for me, And
Speaker 1: he got a little hysterical. He said, Mr, this is
Speaker 1: one thing that he told me with true, and you
Speaker 1: don't take the police ball. You're gonna be gone for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's what he told me. And then
Speaker 1: it kind of hit me kind of hard. Think about
Speaker 1: my children here, wife, here, how are they going to survive?
Speaker 1: I begin to think about it. So I talked to
Speaker 1: those with my wife. She pointed at me, she said,
Speaker 1: you tell the truth. It's like you've been doing. And
Speaker 1: so that's what helped me make my choice to stick
Speaker 1: with it. I don't regret it. I don't regret it.
Speaker 1: I had to live with Howard I got. I got
Speaker 1: to coneper more and look at Howard in the mirror.
Speaker 1: If I would have gave them what they wanted to
Speaker 1: taken the police boggin. I don't think I've be seen
Speaker 1: here talking to y'all to day. I think he took
Speaker 1: me out. I think it's easy to understand not being
Speaker 1: able to live with yourself if you had to say
Speaker 1: publicly not only something so disgusting, but also so patently untrue.
Speaker 1: Although some people are fine with things like that, I mean,
Speaker 1: consider our former president, but Howard is not like that.
Speaker 1: So you stuck to your innocence righteously and went to trial. Now,
Speaker 1: as Teresa mentioned earlier, amy was the only evidence in
Speaker 1: this case, false evidence. Of course that she immediately recanted
Speaker 1: after trial, But that's all there ever was. And I
Speaker 1: want to turn to Teresa here, because when you dove
Speaker 1: into this case many years after the wrongful conviction, you
Speaker 1: did what Howard's Lawn really everybody else should have done
Speaker 1: in the first place, was to appropriately assess Amy's mental
Speaker 1: state and competency to stay in trial. Now we alluded
Speaker 1: to this earlier, the fact that she had some intellectual limitations.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what you learned Amy has some challenge?
Speaker 1: Is a psychological problems? Did then? Does now? She has
Speaker 1: some cognitive limitations more suggestible than of the population. So
Speaker 1: this was a little girl who had nine probably was
Speaker 1: much younger in her affect and her intellectual attainments. There's
Speaker 1: a real question about whether she was competent to stand trial,
Speaker 1: and I think everyone will be interested in learning how
Speaker 1: they assessed her competence. They asked her if she knew
Speaker 1: her colors, if she knew her letters, if she knew
Speaker 1: a number of things, and she answered yes to each
Speaker 1: of those without demonstrating that she in fact knew her colors,
Speaker 1: knew her letters. You could ask a one and a
Speaker 1: half year old, you know, yes or no questions, and
Speaker 1: they likely answer guests. I mean, this poor girl was
Speaker 1: just thrust into this situation answering questions about these vulgar,
Speaker 1: terrible acts of which she had no knowledge because at
Speaker 1: most she had heard about them from an episode of
Speaker 1: Sally Jesse, Raphael her babysitter, or more likely the prosecutors.
Speaker 1: She should have just been in school, but instead she
Speaker 1: was in a courtroom walking through these inconsistent and implausible statements.
Speaker 1: But wise, let's call what they are that she had
Speaker 1: made up. So how did they make her sound credible
Speaker 1: to the jury? When she testified, she was asked leading
Speaker 1: questions because she was a child. You usually can't ask
Speaker 1: leading questions and witnesses, um, there's a prohibition. But with
Speaker 1: a child you can ask leading questions if you requested,
Speaker 1: and you're the stay. So, of course, as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: the testimony was bare bones, but also quite different from
Speaker 1: the previous tellings of the story by Amy. So the
Speaker 1: prosecutors allowed this, this sort of way of leading Amy
Speaker 1: through a coherent narrative. Meanwhile, I understand the DSS reports
Speaker 1: which contained all of Amy's interviews. Now those reports were
Speaker 1: all with hell, we've been talking about the different retellings
Speaker 1: by Amy, and the wild inconsistencies among the tellings and
Speaker 1: the outlandish details, so all of that was withheld. Howard
Speaker 1: didn't know about them at the time of trial, and
Speaker 1: his defense lawyer didn't know. Now this state new. The
Speaker 1: prosecutors knew because they had access to the DSS records,
Speaker 1: and certainly the DSS chose a worker who led the
Speaker 1: investigation knew. Even when it's the era of one must
Speaker 1: give credence to the child, there was still one hopes
Speaker 1: it would have been a juror or two at least
Speaker 1: um who would say no, no, no, no, that's crazy talk,
Speaker 1: and maybe would have hung the jury. I like to
Speaker 1: believe that the defense lawyer would have won of outright
Speaker 1: acquittal if he had had those documents and had done
Speaker 1: even a modicum of investigation of his own. And he
Speaker 1: had not. And this was a guy I don't forget,
Speaker 1: who had been practicing law for only about a year
Speaker 1: and had devoted only about thirty hours of this case,
Speaker 1: including the two day trial. He found no pre trial emotions,
Speaker 1: nor conducted any of own investigation, including it to Amy's
Speaker 1: competency or the story she had told. He could have
Speaker 1: also hired an independent medical expert, who knows how helpful
Speaker 1: it could have been. When children are believed to have
Speaker 1: been physically abused sexually abused, child medical evaluation report is completed.
Speaker 1: In this case, one was worried by d s S.
Speaker 1: I believe it was done three weeks later, which is
Speaker 1: a mistake. But they did three weeks later, and there
Speaker 1: was no physical evidence of abuse. Importantly, at trial, Howard's
Speaker 1: defense lawyer did not call an independent medical expert. He
Speaker 1: called that doctor, the one who conducted the child medical
Speaker 1: evaluation for the state, and he got that doctor to say, no,
Speaker 1: there wasn't any physical abuse. But that doctor also said,
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases of sex abuse, the exam
Speaker 1: is normal. So that was completely unhelpful. I mean to
Speaker 1: have the medical examination conducted three weeks later. Our bodies
Speaker 1: are elastic, they heal. Of course, they were't gonna find
Speaker 1: anything three weeks later unless the damage was so severe,
Speaker 1: which I don't even want to imagine, and thankfully we
Speaker 1: don't have to in this case. There was no damage
Speaker 1: even three weeks earlier. So Amy's mother, Diane and Lydia May,
Speaker 1: the babysitter, also took the stand. Obviously, they weren't witnesses
Speaker 1: to anything, so I'm not sure what they had to offer.
Speaker 1: And Howard You took the stand as well, denying the charges,
Speaker 1: saying that the comment about you being nasty, this all
Speaker 1: started with you disciplining Amy for poor behavior. Your wife
Speaker 1: also testified about the size of your mobile home and
Speaker 1: how she had never heard any screams or anything unusual
Speaker 1: during Amy's visits, as well as how she was up
Speaker 1: at all hours nursing a newborn, which rendered all these
Speaker 1: claims impossible. And one more thing I heard that Jrewish
Speaker 1: said that I was believable and Amy was believable. But
Speaker 1: they say at the end of the day they had
Speaker 1: to go with the daughter. No, why not go with
Speaker 1: the other dance? Right? I mean, if you have two
Speaker 1: people telling completely different stories, now granted one of them
Speaker 1: as a nine year old child, go with the evidence.
Speaker 1: The problem with these cases, particularly during that period of time,
Speaker 1: was that people were told they had to believe the children.
Speaker 1: His daughter is saying it, right, why would she say
Speaker 1: that it has to be true? Ultimately the jury went out.
Speaker 1: When they came back in, did you still have a
Speaker 1: hope that finally the truth would come out? And you
Speaker 1: could go back to your normal life. When use an
Speaker 1: innocent individual, absolutely you look for them, come back, get
Speaker 1: this over with so I can go home, go back
Speaker 1: with my life. As I strew that, that's what I
Speaker 1: was looking to hear. And I watched twelve jurist come
Speaker 1: out and say guilty, guilty, guilty. I said, I can't
Speaker 1: believe this is happening. It's ridiculous. H you know what
Speaker 1: society sometimes saying what people in feel say you were
Speaker 1: found guilty. I'd like to use the term I was
Speaker 1: made guilty because they had an absolutely nothing to prove
Speaker 1: that I was guilty. And inside prison, that's a bad
Speaker 1: that's a terrible case to carry inside the prison because
Speaker 1: everybody is talking have their opinion about your case or
Speaker 1: what they've seen on the new I slung hard to
Speaker 1: my relationship with God, and I met other Christians that
Speaker 1: was in prison, Gods that had made some mistakes, bad choices,
Speaker 1: and we connected and sharing my story talking to them.
Speaker 1: That's what helped me to be in to deal with
Speaker 1: my situation at hand. And it got a little better
Speaker 1: from there and people begin to believe in me. I
Speaker 1: never dropped my relationship with God. I kept it for
Speaker 1: the twenty four years in prison, prayer read my bottle
Speaker 1: each and every day, and that's something I did every
Speaker 1: They're repetitious. That was my survival. Of course, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you found a way through considering what prison life
Speaker 1: can be like for someone founder or actually made guilty
Speaker 1: of a crime like the one that never happened in
Speaker 1: this case. And it must have eased your burden and
Speaker 1: your mind a bit. When your daughter, Emmy came forward
Speaker 1: to recount immediately after trial, can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1: Did it surprised you? I knew my daughter. It didn't
Speaker 1: surprise me. But what surprised me she did it so quickly.
Speaker 1: I knew my daughter. I knew she couldn't live with
Speaker 1: that because she and I were so cool. It would
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been so bad if we had a
Speaker 1: close relationship. I was a good day, and I love
Speaker 1: my daughter, still in love with the day. That's why
Speaker 1: it fits her so bad when she had to live
Speaker 1: with what she had to live with, which was a
Speaker 1: whole lot. Right now today, She'll tell me, right now today, Dad,
Speaker 1: I think I owe you explanation. I said, no, you
Speaker 1: don't owe mer explanation. I know I was a good day.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a perfect day. I definitely wasn't a perfect boyfriend. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you don't get life in prison
Speaker 1: for being a bad boyfriend. Not even in this country
Speaker 1: did Diane ever come around. Before Diane and his mother
Speaker 1: passed away, she was even trying to get me out
Speaker 1: of prisone. We went to court and she made a statement.
Speaker 1: I didn't know amy with Lyne. I thought she was
Speaker 1: telling the truth. These are her words. So with these
Speaker 1: two very powerful recantations, plus support from family and your church,
Speaker 1: they hired a lawyer to amount your post conviction campaign.
Speaker 1: My family had a season lawyer in Kingston, James Perry.
Speaker 1: We thought that he would do the investigation that never
Speaker 1: occurred previously. What we realized that the information that would
Speaker 1: needed to free me. He didn't get it, but he
Speaker 1: did come down and talk to me when I was
Speaker 1: in prison, but his conversation was only about me taking
Speaker 1: a policebar can get out of Frielson. I wasn't about
Speaker 1: to say I have committed a crime against my daughter
Speaker 1: just to get out of Friels. And if I was
Speaker 1: gonna do that, I would never came to film because
Speaker 1: that door was open for me at the very beginning.
Speaker 1: So the reason the earlier lawyers, including Mr Perry, failed
Speaker 1: in part because they had a fundamental misunderstanding of what
Speaker 1: you needed to do to get relief in a recantation case.
Speaker 1: The recantation the case is when the principal witness or
Speaker 1: a material witness lies during the trial and then they admitted.
Speaker 1: Like Amy did immediately after the trial, she was with
Speaker 1: a different babysitter. That babysitter was reading a Bible story
Speaker 1: about truth and Amy started crying and said, I lied
Speaker 1: on my daddy. So that gives you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: go back into court on a recantation claim. But what
Speaker 1: they did was just put Amy on the stand, and
Speaker 1: Amy says, okay, I lied. But they don't give the
Speaker 1: judge anything else because then the judge has, well, she
Speaker 1: told story A at trial and now she's telling story B.
Speaker 1: How do I decide which one is the truth. So
Speaker 1: when we got it, we said, how can we provide
Speaker 1: the judge the context to understand that Amy's recantation is
Speaker 1: true and her trial testimony is false? Right? Not only
Speaker 1: was his trial lawyer wildly ineffective, but his seasoned to
Speaker 1: Pelt attorney neglected to do what was necessary in a
Speaker 1: recantation case as well, so as I understand that Howard's
Speaker 1: friend of volunteer would come into work in the prison chapel,
Speaker 1: a guy named Lewis Alexander May he rest in peace.
Speaker 1: He advocated for Howard with the Duke Quanfi Convictions Clinic,
Speaker 1: and that really put Howard on the radar and on
Speaker 1: the path to freedom. A really important step along that path, though,
Speaker 1: was a series of articles written by a man of
Speaker 1: a journalist named Joseph Neff who's now with the Marshall Project.
Speaker 1: He worked for the Raleigh Newson Observer and he wrote
Speaker 1: series on Howard's case that really helped us, including he
Speaker 1: got an interview with the Guardian at lightem who spoke
Speaker 1: out of turn. He realized he shouldn't have spoken to
Speaker 1: a journalist and called the journalist the next day, I
Speaker 1: believe and said, can I say now that that was
Speaker 1: all you know off record? And the journalists said no,
Speaker 1: And so we had what the Guardian and Lightham thought
Speaker 1: about the case. We accepted Howard's case in two thousand
Speaker 1: eight and we investigate fully. We had a remarkable expert,
Speaker 1: a woman named Sally Johnson of m D psychiatrist, and
Speaker 1: she did testing of Howard and Amy and it was
Speaker 1: extremely helpful information, but it did take five years to
Speaker 1: file the motion for appropriate reliefs that collected all of
Speaker 1: the evidence. During that time, we were also talking to
Speaker 1: the district attorney, which is what we do in every case.
Speaker 1: We try to get the district attorney to agree with
Speaker 1: us and join us in seeking relief for our clients.
Speaker 1: But it didn't work in that case actually lasted through
Speaker 1: that district attorney and another. We then had to go
Speaker 1: before the judge, Judge Paul Jones, who was the last
Speaker 1: person to deny relief to Howard. We had to convince
Speaker 1: him not to bar us procedurally which is a court mechanism,
Speaker 1: and to allow us to reopen the case in court,
Speaker 1: and we did. He allowed us to go forward with
Speaker 1: all of our claims and then he recused himself so
Speaker 1: we had a different judge. So now you Jamie law
Speaker 1: who our listeners world question remember from the Ronney Long case,
Speaker 1: and another great lawyer of Spencer Paris, a friend of
Speaker 1: yours to Resa, tremendous travel layer who came out of
Speaker 1: retirement just for this case. The three of you prepared
Speaker 1: for this hearing in two thousand sixteen. We had seven claims.
Speaker 1: The very first claim which I was amused when I
Speaker 1: look back at it this morning. The very first claim
Speaker 1: is Howard Dudley is innocent, and then we lay out
Speaker 1: make a just an argument for his innocence. You can't
Speaker 1: win on innocence. There is no pre standing claim in
Speaker 1: North Carolina or nearly anywhere. But innocence is enough. But
Speaker 1: if you actually make a claim, a real claim of it,
Speaker 1: there's just a corresponding increased likelihood in the past cases.
Speaker 1: He looked at of relief, so I'm like, we're leading
Speaker 1: off with claim of inniscence. So but then the other
Speaker 1: claims were all the context right. So it was that
Speaker 1: Amy was tested on suggestibility and she truly is more
Speaker 1: suggestible than ninety nine point nine percent of the general population.
Speaker 1: And that was done by Dr Sally Johnson. That was
Speaker 1: a real forensic evaluation that Amy has a low i
Speaker 1: Q in the sixty eight range, which makes her less
Speaker 1: able in some ways to understand the ramifications of what
Speaker 1: was happening, that it arose in this period of mass hysteria,
Speaker 1: and we explained the context of the Little Rascal's trial
Speaker 1: happening essentially next door. We had three claims and ineffective
Speaker 1: assistance of counsel that explained everything that the lawyer failed
Speaker 1: to do, including getting all the documents from the Department
Speaker 1: Social Services and from Paul Porter, the Guardian and light Um.
Speaker 1: So we put all of that together and that bolstered
Speaker 1: Amy's recantation. One amazing thing that happened at that hearing, though,
Speaker 1: was that when Amy was on the stand and it's
Speaker 1: difficult for her as a nine year old, as a
Speaker 1: teenager again and then as a grown woman, but the
Speaker 1: judge asked if he could speak to her directly. The
Speaker 1: judge turned towards Amy and he said, look at me.
Speaker 1: This ain't got nothing to do with this between me
Speaker 1: and you. He said, your dad to do anything to you.
Speaker 1: She said no, sir, and that was all he needed.
Speaker 1: So on March two, two thousand sixteen, the Honorable Judge
Speaker 1: Parsons agreed that Amy's recantation was credible, that there was
Speaker 1: ineffective assistance of counsel, and that the prosecution failed to
Speaker 1: disclose both the Social Services report as well as the
Speaker 1: fact that the Guardian ad light Um had concluded that
Speaker 1: Amy's claims were false. The prosecution would eventually dismiss all
Speaker 1: charges two months later. But what was that moment like
Speaker 1: when the judge vacated confection and finally ordered you release
Speaker 1: from prison and we sit there and court Mrs Newman
Speaker 1: hill my arm. She would look around at my family
Speaker 1: and with a smile on and I knew was going
Speaker 1: in our favor him. But I had had so many
Speaker 1: that down, so I didn't know what to believe, you know,
Speaker 1: And so when things really like to knock me out.
Speaker 1: When that judge turned around, looked at me, said most
Speaker 1: of you going home today, I said myself, Did I
Speaker 1: hear what I think I hear? And I didn't tell
Speaker 1: me knew, but I was more famous. But that was
Speaker 1: a great moment. My family, everybody started to a roar
Speaker 1: in the court room, and it was just a high moment.
Speaker 1: My favorite story is, because I'm a lawyer and a
Speaker 1: rule followers. We're walking out and Howard's wearing his prison
Speaker 1: guard and he's just dropping it behind him on the ground,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, we've got to read, Howard, we have
Speaker 1: to return these He looked at me like I was insane.
Speaker 1: I am not worried about returning. He closed. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: get outside and they're just throngs of his supporters and
Speaker 1: reporters and Joe Naffer of the series on Us attended
Speaker 1: the whole hearing. He was writing more. It was a
Speaker 1: truly joyous, joyous day. It was great. It was great
Speaker 1: when I walked out the door. Freedom, It was freedom.
Speaker 1: But it hit me that my wife wasn't there to
Speaker 1: see that. She worked so hard. My mama wasn't there
Speaker 1: to see this. That was a moment that called me
Speaker 1: to break down. They were hard at this speciplo moment
Speaker 1: because they wasn't there. They worked so hard. One day
Speaker 1: my wife just failed. Dated my MoMA vihan her the
Speaker 1: last time in the Rex hospital. We sung together, we
Speaker 1: prayed together, we cried together, and I left that day.
Speaker 1: I knew that would be the last time I would
Speaker 1: see her alive. And those emotions just came on me
Speaker 1: all at once when I was walking out, and it
Speaker 1: just overtook me. But very good day, you know, they're
Speaker 1: very difficult day. Bitter sweet, yeah, bi sweet. So then
Speaker 1: the April two eighteen, you fold the federal civil rights
Speaker 1: suit against the City of Kingston, seeking compensation. They eventually
Speaker 1: settled in July. You know, I mean nothing they could
Speaker 1: ever pay you with make up for what you lost,
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing. And then you are granted a
Speaker 1: pardon of innocence from Governor Roy Cooper. So not only
Speaker 1: did the prosecution dismiss the charges, but then you've got
Speaker 1: to officially recognize officially, yes, I got hanging on my wall.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say this right here, Jamie Most, the spensive,
Speaker 1: Miss Newman, the Dude Law Team. I'd like to see
Speaker 1: it like this right here. They saved my life. They
Speaker 1: saved my life. I can't put it in a better
Speaker 1: words of that right there, all of them. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: be sure to you know, link up to the Duke
Speaker 1: Law School Wrongful Conviction Clinic to check the link in
Speaker 1: the bio of the episode. And now I'll turn to
Speaker 1: closing arguments. You know, it starts off with me, of course,
Speaker 1: thanking both of you for joining us, Theresa Howard, and
Speaker 1: so now we're going to turn to closing arguments. This
Speaker 1: is the part of the show where I turned my
Speaker 1: microphone off and leave both of yours on and just
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you want to share with me
Speaker 1: in our audience. So Theresa, why don't you go first?
Speaker 1: Then hand the mic off to Howard, and Howard, you
Speaker 1: can take us out into the sunset. Every time Howard
Speaker 1: and I have an opportunity to talk about this case,
Speaker 1: whether it's publicly or in private, I learned something new
Speaker 1: about Howard. And what I learned today is that Howard
Speaker 1: sees himself as sort of everyman or ordinary man, just
Speaker 1: a regular person trying to live his life, when in fact,
Speaker 1: I and the people who have gotten to know him
Speaker 1: through this long journey would say he's truly extraordinary in
Speaker 1: that he refused to do what I think so many
Speaker 1: of us would do to go home to be with
Speaker 1: our families. He refused to take that early exit with
Speaker 1: the plea bargain before trial and layer when it looked
Speaker 1: like maybe it was going to be offered through the
Speaker 1: previous lawyers, and he refused to do that because he
Speaker 1: is a man of truly remarkable integrity, and as he says,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I could not have taken that
Speaker 1: plea and admitted to doing the things that I did
Speaker 1: not do. In that that I have lived my life
Speaker 1: in a different way from what they expect me to say. So,
Speaker 1: how are your truly extraordinary well on my behave? I
Speaker 1: would say, might just say that Teresa Jamie most expense,
Speaker 1: some must the Coleman, the Duke law students, Well, I
Speaker 1: say that they helped helped to restore my integrity of
Speaker 1: the law. I didn't think they were such things after
Speaker 1: my situation at any lawyers that had a heart. I
Speaker 1: really didn't think that until they restored it. There are
Speaker 1: some good lawyers out there. There's something that got a heart.
Speaker 1: There is something that want to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: They'll something take their work serious. There is something that
Speaker 1: out there that really really care about what they are doing.
Speaker 1: People lives. Like I said earlier, and I continue to
Speaker 1: say this, because they saved my life. I was in
Speaker 1: a situation that I didn't think I would never get
Speaker 1: out of. I had so many notes. I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was sa thing and yes's would it come down
Speaker 1: the lawyers and this was the turn. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: But I could never say enough about what they have
Speaker 1: done on my behalf, restoring my freedom back and back
Speaker 1: with my family children, even though they are wrong now
Speaker 1: but old old at all to do well. Family Will Family,
Speaker 1: Real Family. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lila Robinson. The music
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flom
Speaker 1: Rnful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one THO