WEBVTT - #316 Guest Host Laura Nirider with Vincent Ellerbe 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.640 I'm Jason Vlam, host of Roefel Conviction, but this week, 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.960 instead of hearing me, I've invited a legitimate genius from 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.240 the legal world to bring their knowledge and expertise to 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.720 the conversation as guest host here at Rofel Conviction, we 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.960 believe that sharing the stories of the incarcerated innocent can 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.800 create real change in the world, even beyond what these 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.439 real life legal superheroes do every day. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.080 In the middle of one November night in nineteen ninety five, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.720 there was an explosion in Brooklyn, New York. Nineteen different 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.000 people called nine to one one to report what they 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:42.640 heard and what they saw. They reported seeing two men 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.680 running up to a subway token booth on Kingston Avenue. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.640 They poured gasoline into the coinslot and threatened the attendant 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:55.040 with a match. Almost immediately, the toll booth burst into flames. 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.600 The attendant was a man named Harry Kaufman, and as 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.200 the tollbooth caught on fire, he did too. Harry was 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.880 able to run up the street, where passers by helped 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.520 extinguish the flames on his body. More than eighty percent 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.960 of his body was badly burned. He died a few 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.480 weeks later, the crime made headlines in New York and 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.120 around the country. Prominent politicians like Senator Bob Dole and 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.240 Mayor Rudy Giuliani mentioned the case in their tough on 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.479 crime rhetoric. Pressure was mounting for the police to find 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:32.000 the attackers. With little physical evidence and no clear suspects, 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:36.280 Detective Lewis Scarcella turned to one of his favorite tactics, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.240 coercing witnesses. One of the nine to one to one callers, 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.880 James Irons, was forced to give a false confession and 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.600 to name two more accomplices. Thomas Malik and Vincent Ellerby, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.960 were both detained and interrogated, and both eventually gave false 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.520 confessions under pressure. After an investigation and a trial riddled 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.600 with lies and misconduct, Thomas Malie and Vincent Ellerbee were 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.280 convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to twenty five 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:21.200 years to life. This is Wrongful Conviction. Hi, everybody, it's 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.440 Laura and I writer. I am so glad to be 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.000 here guest hosting another episode of Wrongful Conviction. I'm the 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.840 co director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.080 and you might also recognize my voice from another series 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.720 I co hosted on this podcast feed False Confessions. Today, 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.280 I'm here with a real fighter, a real survivor of 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:47.720 false confessions, Vincent Ellerby Vince, you've endured more than any 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.720 human should be asked to endure. I am so honored 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:52.080 to get a chance to talk to you today. Do 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:53.280 you want to introduce yourself? 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.360 Hi, my name Vincent, I'll be I did twenty four years, 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.760 eleven months in twenty five days. I had nothing to 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.360 do it. I was forced to take the way for crime. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:04.480 I had nothing to do it. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.080 And I'm Ron Coopy. I was the lawyer for Vince's 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:14.160 co defendant way back in the nineties, and they were 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.359 tried together, although in front of separate juries. 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.280 Ron, We're so glad to have you here, and Vince, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.680 I am so glad you said every one of those days, 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.200 because every one of those days, hours and minutes counts. 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.040 But Ron, I'm going to start out by asking you 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.360 what was New York City like in the nineteen nineties 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.040 in terms of crime and how people were talking about 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:37.680 crime back then. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.320 By nineteen ninety five, we were pretty much in our 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.760 tenth year of the crack epidemic, which saw a dramatic 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:53.120 increase in crime and a wildly dramatic increase in punitive 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:57.600 law enforcement. It was a time in which the super 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:02.520 predator theory was gained and had gained tremendous currency in 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.800 legal circles and sociological circles. It was coined by a 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.200 sociologist who later attracted it, but the damage had been done. 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.640 The theory was there was a whole generation of black 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.160 youth growing off without fathers, living on the streets, who 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.599 were committing crimes. There was never any consequence to their crimes. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.000 They would always get away with crime after crime after crime, 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.600 and as a result, they would become super predators. These 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:33.240 are people who were so feral and so consciousless they 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:39.200 would go out and do anything to anybody without any empathy, compassion, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.000 or mercy. And we were in the process of creating 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.960 a whole generation of these people, and the only thing 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.320 that we could do about it as a society was 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.760 to incarcerate them forever. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.640 It's one of the most toxic theories out there, right, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.760 I mean, we know this is the theory that led 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.240 to the wrongful conviction of the Central Park five, for example, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.599 now called the Exonerated five. Few years before this happened 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.960 to Vince. And there are so many other cases around 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.159 the country that were driven by the super predator myth. 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.960 Right here in Chicago, the Dixmore five, the Anglewood four, 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.600 the Marquette Park four, the Uptown seven. These numbers just 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.080 keep mounting and mounting and mounting. And Vince's case in 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:23.080 particular is a horrific example of these racist tropes being 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.920 used to incarcerate black kids, Black male children in particular. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.120 So tell us how this toxic brew of racist myths 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:32.559 showed up in this case. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:37.560 So on November twenty sixth, nineteen ninety five, outside of 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:42.280 a token booth in Brooklyn, two people two people, not three, 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.479 and this will become important later on in the story. 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.040 Two people went to that token booth. One of them 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.760 was armed with a thirty caliber carbine a rifle. The 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.560 other had a bottle with gasoline in it. They were 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.039 trying to rob the token boos. The token booth clerk, 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:04.120 Harry Kaufmann, refused to give up the money and he 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:09.839 was behind bulletproof glass, and the perpetrators poured gasoline into 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.400 the slot. According to the prosecution, they then set it 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:18.520 on fire. The token booth exploded. It blew up the booth, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.200 it blew up the money, and it burned up Harry Kaufman, 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:28.040 and he had third degree burns over most of his body. 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:34.960 And he lingered in the burn unit, agonizing day after 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:40.720 agonizing day until I think December tenth he died. It 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.520 was one of those horrific crimes that still made the 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:48.039 headlines in New York even though crime overall actually had 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.080 dropped as the crack epidemic wayne. But it was still 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.760 one of those incredibly high profile crimes that people used 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.960 to illustrate why you can no longer live in New 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.400 York City. Our mayor at the time, a guy better 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.320 known to this audience in his latter incarnation as a 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:13.760 Trump apologist. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for reasons still unclear, noted 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:19.480 that the movie Money Train had just come out, and 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:25.960 he claimed, utterly without evidence, that this particular robbery murder 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.480 had been inspired by the movie Money Train. So it 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.280 was a horrific crime, and everybody agreed it was a 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.240 horrific crime, of course, made more so by the fableism 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:38.800 of our mayor. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.120 What evidence did investigators begin to look into? What leads 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:43.880 do they have to go on. 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:50.480 The problem was they had no suspects. There were no 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.520 fingerprints at the scene, the firearm couldn't be traced. This 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.320 was before the days when there were cameras everywhere and 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.600 everybody had a cell phone. There were no cell phone towers. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:08.680 There was absolutely no evidence that the cops had to 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:13.520 give them a lead to anybody. So when nobody's a suspect, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:19.000 everybody becomes a suspect. Now that night, that night, nineteen 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.800 people called nine to one one to report an explosion 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.000 in the subway station. One of those people was a 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:32.800 guy named James Irons, and he was in his mom's apartment. 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.080 He called up as well. Later his mom got on 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:40.000 the phone. And this is noteworthy because James Irons sounded 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.160 normal on the phone. That is, obviously he was paniced 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.840 something horrible. It just happened, but it just seemed like 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:49.400 another nine to one one caller. 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:51.600 So I want to take a minute and just ask 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:53.280 you to tell us a little bit about the cops 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.480 who ended up getting assigned to this investigation. They were 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.040 out of the seventy ninth Precinct. 0:08:58.520 --> 0:08:58.679 Right. 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.520 Stephen Camille of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad was lead 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.360 on this case. And he was assisted by Lewis Scarcella, 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.120 which is a name that listeners of this podcast will remember. 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.240 Can you give us a little bit of background here. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.040 Now, Disgrace. Detective Lewis Scarcella and his partner Stephen Camill 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.360 were known as Batman and Robin, and Scarcella was very 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:26.000 much Batman. Whatever the lead was, whoever the lead detective 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.000 was named, whether it was Camille or Murphy or O'Reilly 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:35.600 or Derita or O'Toole, it was Scarcella who was actually 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.480 in charge. He led a homicide task for us throughout 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.800 Brooklyn that had a roving commission to stick their nose 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.160 in any homicide they wished. And the amazing thing about 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:53.000 Detective Scarcella, and the reason he received such adulation within 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.280 the police department and the DA's office was he got 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:02.440 witnesses and he got confess sessions, even in cases where 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.280 there appeared to be no witnesses, and even in cases 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.760 where there appeared to be no suspects. He was known 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:13.160 as the closer as well, because he will close this case. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:19.120 At this point, there's close to I think two dozen 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.200 wrongful conviction cases attributed to Scarcella. I think at this 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.160 count eighteen have been exonerated. There are still some cases 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.440 in the pipeline that may or may not result in exonerations. 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:36.280 Out of ninety trials, ninety homicide trials that he. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.600 Works, it's unbelievable. It sounds like he's been responsible for 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.240 so many lost centuries. It's mind blowing. 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:48.160 He's been responsible for lost millennia of black life. If 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.120 you add all those years together, it's not going to 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.040 be in the hundreds at this point, pretty sure it's 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.600 going to be in the thousands. And he didn't have 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.640 any suspects either. So when you have case like this 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:06.560 with no suspects, kind of everybody's a suspect. So what 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.960 you do is you go out and you take every snitch, 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:15.080 every informant, every person on the street that you know of, 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.000 and you basically beat the crap out of them. So 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.640 they go back to the nine one one calls. I 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.960 don't know the television theory the criminal always returns to 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.000 the scene of the crime, and maybe one of the 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:32.040 nine to one one callers actually committed the crime, right, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:34.959 So so footnote here. You know you're told if you 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.760 see something, say something. The lesson of this case, if 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.800 you see something and you say something, depending on who 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.679 you are, you may end up getting convicted for what 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:45.760 you saw and said. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.280 Because one of those good Samaritans who called nine one one, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.640 who tried to help out was this kid, eighteen year 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.240 old James Irons. But here's the thing, right, if he 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.600 did the crime and then called nine one one from 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.240 his home, he would have had to run really really 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.319 fast in order to get home and call nine to 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.920 one one when their call lugs say he did. He 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:07.800 would have been out of breath on that nine one 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.679 one call, and he wasn't. That just doesn't make sense. 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.880 So right there, right there, if you were paying attention, 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.080 which nobody was, you would have had your doubts. Anyway, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.080 Scarcel and Camille bring him in and he gives a confession. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:28.240 He gives a full confession. The confession itself is riddled 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.760 with things that are completely untrue, and he starts to 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.440 name people that he was with, he places himself as 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:37.760 the look at. 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:38.559 So the way this. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.760 Works in interrogations, right, is that when you've got a 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.319 group of people that you want to turn into suspects, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.160 you bring one of them in and you accuse that 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.960 person of being there, but you say, hey, I'm going 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.040 to cut you a deal. You were probably the lookouts, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.160 You probably weren't an active participant, and things will go 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.439 easier for you if you just tell us a story 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:00.560 where you were the lookout and you say, some other 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:01.240 guys do it. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:01.959 Right. 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.080 You see this over and over and over again in 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:08.080 all these cases around the country involving multiple defendants, all 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.640 of whom eventually falsely confessed to the same crime. 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.640 Right, and they get people to say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.240 I knew there was going to be a robbery, but 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.200 I know nothing about a murder. And the guy thinks 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.000 he's getting Okay, I'll do time for the robbery. Lo 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.120 and behold, he just confessed to fell any murder. Or yeah, 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.080 you were just a lookout. They just asked you to 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.720 look out while they went in and did something. Yeah yeah, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.840 I was just like making sure nobody came down. I 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.520 didn't have a weapon. Boom, You've just confessed again to 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.720 acting in concert in a murder. Very very common, and 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.800 it's one of the flashing yellow lights when you see 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:40.600 it today. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.160 Exactly, it's a hallmark of a false confession. So here 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.000 you've got the idea that irons would just be a 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.880 lookout the details of his story aren't matching up with 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.200 the facts right, the number of people, the guns, getting 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.480 things wildly off. But he does put some names forward. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.960 He does. He among other names he puts in are 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.720 Vincent Lerby and Thomas Mulwake. 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.120 So, Vince Ron and I just spoke at length about 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.520 your hometown, Brooklyn, New York, and the horrible crime that 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.720 happened there in November nineteen ninety five. Vince, I want 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.760 to ask you, what was it like to realize all 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.080 of a sudden that you were caught up in this 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.280 case and you were facing these charges. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.840 When I went to Rackens Island, and I didn't really 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.680 have enough time to really sit back and dewelo on 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.320 the case, because you know, you're walking into Rackings Island, 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.400 you know, you got to worry about the phone, making 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.280 sure that nobody's taking nothing from me. So in my mind, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.440 I just blanked it. I just blocked it all out. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.160 I just put all my faith for my lawyer, because 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.520 I said to myself, it's no way possible that they're 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:01.440 gonna find me guilty. 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.240 It's impossible. No matter what, it's impossible, no. 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.640 Matter their confessions, They're gonna see everything it's a lie. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.440 It's mathematically impossible for you not to see it. A 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:12.520 blind man can see it. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.400 You were in like short term survival mode, right, like 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.360 this is gonna be over because they're gonna see I'm innocent. 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.520 Yeah, so it's just out here they say this is 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.800 a normal environment, but when you get it locked up, 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:29.200 that's an abnormal environment. 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.200 So you got to adjust to that. 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.280 I just put my faith for my lawyer, and I 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.840 put my faith for my cole defending because he already 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:38.440 knew the law. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.720 So for me, it was just I was just in 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:41.560 survival mode. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.880 Survival mode in a Rikers in the nineties. It's no joke. 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.840 No, you gotta make adjustments real fast. 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:52.640 And there's somebody else in Rikers at the time, right, 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.960 somebody who ended up giving police what he said was 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:57.600 information about your case. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:04.320 Yeah, rakuon Shabazz, Yeah, they called him ice Pick Marlin. 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.560 I met him, I knew him for all the three days, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:10.800 and I'm not. 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:12.400 Gonna live to me when we went to trial. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.480 We were sitting there and we're on trial, so I 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.920 never knew him as Rayquoron Shabas. I only evenew him 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.240 as Marlin show as we sitting there. When the DA, 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.360 I mean, the DA calls. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:25.360 Their next witness. 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.640 They say, Rake Won Shabazz and I took and looked 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.560 at my coat offending, and he put his head down, 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:32.960 so I tapped him. 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:34.480 I'm like, what's up? And he shook his head like. 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.240 So I'm saying to myself like, okay, who And the 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.920 door opened up and he come out. He got this 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.680 jean suit on, looking fly and in my mind I'm saying, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.800 what is he doing here? And he get on the 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.560 stand and he get to proceed in telling him how 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.960 time he choled him what we did, and how I 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:58.800 chold him what we did, and that I was in 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.760 one upper with him for like three months. And I'm 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.960 saying to myself, like, they got records that will show 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.840 you how long I was up there. So when the 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.520 when when Ron and George's questioning the guy and you 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.879 just you just you just see you see it. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:19.240 Then they brought up his past. 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.800 That's when I found thought about we wasn't the first 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:24.280 individuals he did this too. 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:26.840 In my mind, I know I'm coming home now. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.240 So you're there, you're being tried with Tommy, right, you're 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.399 being tried together separate juries but you're being tried together, 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.760 and Shabaz comes up and says that you confessed again 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.240 to him, and you must be sitting there going I'm 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.040 going home because this guy's crazy. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.160 When you look at everything, from every witness that they 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.760 had to, all the confessions to everything, if you just 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.800 look at it, it's not a jury in the world. 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.680 It's not a jury in the universe that's going to 0:17:57.720 --> 0:17:58.680 convict the money's crime. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.639 Ron, Can you give us a rundown of this trial? 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.520 How was this case with all these holes, these confessions 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.160 that are obviously wrong, How does it result in these convictions? 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.200 This was really before the time there was much science 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.640 available on the issue of false confessions. Some people had 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.879 started work on it, Saul cass and I think had 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.240 been doing it for a few years. But the idea 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:27.919 of calling a false confession expert, that just was not 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.480 an idea that existed in New York criminal trial practice 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:38.320 at the time. And Ray Kwan Shabab's I actually did 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.080 one of these sort of bush league lawyer things. I 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.080 took his criminal record, which at that time was written 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.440 on paper, and I taped all of the sheets together, 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:54.400 and as I approached him, I let the sheets unspooled 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.040 as they did, and I handed him the document, which 0:18:58.040 --> 0:18:59.960 at this point stretched all the way back to the 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.000 defense table, and I asked him if he recognized it, 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.560 and he said, yes, it's his criminal record. I knew 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.160 that he had done this twice before, and I considered 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.719 him to be a so called professional informant. He worked 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.119 for the DA's office, not regularly, but whenever he needed to. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.320 Whenever he got in a jam, he would cook up 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:26.199 some sort of plot, some confession, some conspiracy, and go 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.520 to the DA's office and trade it for lighter treatment. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.840 The DA's office admitted that, yes, he had testified once 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.720 in Brooklyn, and yes he had testified once in Queen's. 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.879 Judge France's xavier A Gito, a name which should also 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.000 be familiar to your listeners because he presided over many 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.720 of these wrongful convictions, said two times isn't enough to 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.800 make him a professional witness, and they let him testify. 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.000 What we did not know, but the Brooklyn DA's office 0:19:55.000 --> 0:20:00.560 certainly knew, was that in the Brooklyn case which preced this, 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:07.560 he had testified that he was a professional liar. He 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.480 was asked, you lie for a living, don't you, mister Shabaz, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.960 and he said, yes, it's insane. 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:17.600 I mean when you think about the way that this 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.040 playing field was stacked, right, it stacked from the moment 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.680 that a teenager walks into the interrogation room alone, without 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.600 a parent, without a lawyer, without any clue about what's 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.040 facing him, and a trial that all just continues with 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:36.159 lies and concealments. Vince, I want to ask you if 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.280 you'll take us back to that moment. I mean, this 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.800 is when the wheels really come off. Right. You've been 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.439 sitting at this trial. You've been telling yourself, I just 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.000 have to make it to the acquittal. I just have 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.480 to make it to the moment when the jury realizes 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.480 that this entire situation is constructed bullshit. 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.520 Well, when they at the crows and arguments, they came 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.119 back with di verdict, little fat thing it was, and 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.880 I don't think we probably wasn't even downstairs an hour 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:05.080 something like that. 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:06.639 They called us back upstairs. 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.720 I remember sitting down and I'm saying to myself. 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.719 All right, I'm about to slide up out of here. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:13.200 It's over. 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.960 And they said, we find the defender's guilty on all chargers, 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.160 so quick fast. I did a calculation in my head 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.000 how old I be when I go to the board. 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.240 I said I'd be forty two years old, said I'd 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.439 be an old man. My daughter wasn't even born yet, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.680 her mother was six months pregnant. But it really didn't 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.600 hit me until I went back to get sentenced, because 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.840 even then I still thought they might have made a mistake, 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.240 might be a chance. But I think the one good 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:47.520 day about that sentence. That day I wore regular clothes, jeans, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:53.040 sweating sneakers, and my col defendant, that's the only thing 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.199 that made me smile that day. He walked into the 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.440 court room, and to this day, I don't know where 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.600 he got it from, but he had on a lime 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:08.760 green suit, a lime green suit, and I'm looking at 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.640 him and I'm saying to myself, this guy can't be serious. 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.600 They're about to give us twenty five years and you 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:19.119 walk in here with a lime green SUITO. And I 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:21.919 remember when I was taking me out the courtroom, I 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:27.240 started singing Tupac, And somehow when I went to the board, 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.800 somehow it changed for me singing Tupac to me cursing 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.399 the judge out the parole board. When I went to 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:35.280 the board, asked. They asked me, did I curse the 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.320 judge out? I said, no, I didn't curse the judge. Job, 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.480 I said, I read a statement that my mother wrote 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:42.399 for me, I said, And when I walked out, I 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.320 was singing Tupac. I said, I don't know how y'all 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.240 got that, but it really didn't hit me til I 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.359 got downstate that I wasn't going home for a long time. 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:55.159 How did you survive all those years in prison? 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:59.960 Fear y'all understand something. 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:00.520 It is island. 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.800 It's different from the penitentiary, and you hear all the 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.760 Harvard stories about the penitentiary. When I get downstairs, the 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:10.560 old timer that I ran into, he asked me, did 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:10.960 I want to. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:14.000 Do a smooth bed? And I said yeah. He said, okay, 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:14.600 this is what you do. 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:16.960 He said, for the first five years in your bed, 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.080 you put in major work. I don't care if somebody 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:23.119