Speaker 1: Since our initial release of James Davis's story, there have
Speaker 1: been some incredible developments. This is a re release of
Speaker 1: that story with new content outlining the great news. On
Speaker 1: January twenty fourth, two thousand and four, James J. Davis
Speaker 1: went to a big party at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple
Speaker 1: to celebrate his little brother, Daniel's birthday. James's night was
Speaker 1: cut short when he drank too much and vomited several times.
Speaker 1: Daniel put him in a cab to meet with his
Speaker 1: girlfriend Kneed Johnson. Two hours later, a big fight broke
Speaker 1: out in the club, resulting in their friend Jamel Black,
Speaker 1: being stabbed and another man, Blake Harper, being shot and killed.
Speaker 1: Police would interview people at the scene to get a
Speaker 1: description of the shooter, a light skinned black man with braids,
Speaker 1: but James didn't have braids at the time. He had
Speaker 1: short hair with waves. Police then called stabbing victim Jammel
Speaker 1: Black's home and spoke to his sister, who happened to
Speaker 1: be James's spurned ex, Tina Black, who casually named James
Speaker 1: as the shooter, even though she had never even been
Speaker 1: at the party in the first place. Police found Jamel
Speaker 1: at the hospital, who told them the identity of the
Speaker 1: real shooter Tay Hall, so was it Tay or Jay?
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, Jose Machakote, who was at the club
Speaker 1: that night, would enter the precinct and second Tina Black's identification.
Speaker 1: About six weeks after that, James found himself the target
Speaker 1: of an interrogation, a sham lineup, and a murder charge.
Speaker 1: Only after his case was picked up by the Legal
Speaker 1: Aid Society was it revealed that Jose Machakote was actually
Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous drug dealers in Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: the subject of a joint FBI NYPD investigation. Machakote was
Speaker 1: murdered five months after his false testimony that sent James
Speaker 1: to prison for the rest of his life. This is
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: with Jason flamm That's me. I'm your host, and today
Speaker 1: you're going to hear a story that when they write
Speaker 1: the History of Wrongful Convictions they could put this on
Speaker 1: the cover, because this story is so outrageous that well,
Speaker 1: you're just going to have to hear it for yourself.
Speaker 2: Hello, Lucy is a prepaid correct call from Sure an
Speaker 2: inmate ed New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Speaker 1: This call the subject of recording and monitoring.
Speaker 3: To accept charges, Press one to refuse charges, Press two
Speaker 3: if you would like, thank you for using Securius. You
Speaker 3: may start the conversation now.
Speaker 1: On the phone from prison where he's been for almost
Speaker 1: twenty years, we have James J. Davis. Hello, Jay, thanks
Speaker 1: for calling in and I hope that we'll be able
Speaker 1: to make a difference. And with us today we have
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Felber, who is the supervising attorney in the Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Unit of the Legal Aid Society.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. James, you had a
Speaker 1: rough child a growing up in Brownsville and Brooklyn, right, Yeah, very.
Speaker 4: My mother and my father weren't really in my life.
Speaker 4: It was small. My grandmother and my brother. My father
Speaker 4: died when I was in fourth grade. Roughly two years later,
Speaker 4: my mother passed away. The year before that, my brother
Speaker 4: father passed away, so both of us had no parent
Speaker 4: by the time I reached sixth grade. I had to
Speaker 4: keep people from picking on him outside as well as
Speaker 4: keep people from picking on me and bullying me. So
Speaker 4: that's when the fight started happening. I started getting into
Speaker 4: a lot of trouble. I was doing a lot of
Speaker 4: stupid stuff. I was young. I was robbing people, I
Speaker 4: was selling weed.
Speaker 1: And that's when you ended up in juvie.
Speaker 4: Yes, when I make it the juvie. I'm going to
Speaker 4: school and I met this teacher, a guy named mister Bliss,
Speaker 4: and he convinced me to take my TV and I
Speaker 4: ended up passing. After I passed, he was like, you
Speaker 4: can go to community college and get going to high
Speaker 4: school now for re education.
Speaker 1: So I understand you accepted the CAPE for your community
Speaker 1: college in North Carolina, near where your aunt lived, no
Speaker 1: small feat considering your record, but your probation officer wouldn't
Speaker 1: transfer your supervision out of state, so you were trying
Speaker 1: to get yourself into some computer science classes locally.
Speaker 4: Around that time, I found out that my brother was
Speaker 4: into the streets, and that's pretty much where I got
Speaker 4: back involved in the streets, selling weed and being there
Speaker 4: for this case.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth, take us back to January twenty fourth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. What happened that faithful night?
Speaker 3: Okay, So January twenty fourth was his brother Daniel's birthday,
Speaker 3: and Daniel wanted to go to a party that was
Speaker 3: being held at a Masonic temple lodge where they hosted events.
Speaker 3: It was a party for people with January birthdays.
Speaker 4: We all grew up in the projects. Bio is an
Speaker 4: older guy from the neighborhood that he's like a well
Speaker 4: like god. He does parties. He knew my brother as well.
Speaker 4: My brother he been talking about his birthday for a
Speaker 4: long time, so they put him on the fly I
Speaker 4: guess on my brother birthday. My plan was to like,
Speaker 4: we just going chill, maybe call up some girls to
Speaker 4: come hang out at the projects with us. He was
Speaker 4: bent throwing going to the party because his name was
Speaker 4: on the flyers. So it comes to be almost twelve
Speaker 4: o'clock and I wanted to surprise my brother, so I
Speaker 4: walked to the liquor store before it closed to get
Speaker 4: a bottle on my weet and a bottle of Hennessy.
Speaker 4: And when I got back, my brother was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I forgot the party.
Speaker 3: So by the time he got to the party, he
Speaker 3: had had a few already, and then he proceeded to
Speaker 3: have a few more drinks in the bathroom because they
Speaker 3: told him, okay, you can have your own drink, but
Speaker 3: you have to put some shade on.
Speaker 4: It before you know it. I was trying to rush
Speaker 4: my drinks so that we can actually get out the bathroom.
Speaker 4: I wanted to see what the party was really like
Speaker 4: in the Hennessy, and the moat turned my stomach over.
Speaker 4: That was the start of the end of the night.
Speaker 4: I threw up maybe once or twice in the bathroom,
Speaker 4: and before I know it, through the laughing, I hear
Speaker 4: my brother pretty much like, come on, man, now, I
Speaker 4: got to take you back home. We just got here.
Speaker 4: We ain't even fully been in the club long enough.
Speaker 4: Through negotiation, I just told them I just woke me outside,
Speaker 4: I catch a cab and I go to my girlfriend house.
Speaker 3: So they went outside. They got a cab and James
Speaker 3: called his girlfriend, Canine Johnson, and took the cab to
Speaker 3: her place and she met him outside. Her mother didn't
Speaker 3: like James, so they would stay with her aunt.
Speaker 4: I got there two forty five maybe three. So when
Speaker 4: I got there, she's sitting on the steps already. I
Speaker 4: step out the cab.
Speaker 1: They I threw up in.
Speaker 4: Between cars before I even tested the sidewalk. She came
Speaker 4: running down the steps, rubbed my back I think, and
Speaker 4: walked to our house, stop at the store and went.
Speaker 3: Into our house, so he was long gone before anything happened.
Speaker 3: At the party, which was around four in the morning,
Speaker 3: a fight broke out and somebody was seriously stabbed. We
Speaker 3: now know that was Jammel Black and Blake Harper was
Speaker 3: shot and killed. A couple other people were shot, but
Speaker 3: not seriously. James had already left the party hours earlier.
Speaker 1: So you wake up the next morning at your girlfriend
Speaker 1: Kneen's her aunt's house. Really, and one of the guys
Speaker 1: you were with, Jamel Black, had been stabbed the night before.
Speaker 1: How did you hear that news?
Speaker 4: Well, both of us up. The news is on. It's
Speaker 4: about the Masonic temple. Immediately I called my house on
Speaker 4: the landline in my aunt is like it Jamel got
Speaker 4: stabbed and somebody got killed, but nobody knew who the
Speaker 4: guy was that got killed. So I'm like, I'm coming
Speaker 4: over there. I got there. My brother pretty much told
Speaker 4: me I wasn't really involved in it, but it was
Speaker 4: crazy in it, a fight broke out, people shooting, girls screaming,
Speaker 4: and everybody run in.
Speaker 1: Police had responded to the scene and they interviewed a
Speaker 1: number of people at the club, and no one that
Speaker 1: they interviewed knew the identity of the shooter. But he
Speaker 1: was described as a young, light skinned Blackmail with braids
Speaker 1: on the back of his head. Now, James, is that
Speaker 1: an accurate description of you at that time?
Speaker 4: No, I actually did have raids at the time. I
Speaker 4: had a low season like waves.
Speaker 1: So police have already interviewed witnesses at the scene the
Speaker 1: night before. You're a friend who has stabbed Jamel Black.
Speaker 1: They call his house, but they get his sister on
Speaker 1: the phone.
Speaker 4: Instead, Tina Black, like the first girlfriend I ever had.
Speaker 3: What we learned was that Tina Black still harbored a
Speaker 3: flame for him and was hugely jealous when she found
Speaker 3: out that he had a new girlfriend, and out of spite,
Speaker 3: she told the police that James did the shooting, even
Speaker 3: though you can tell by the only police record on
Speaker 3: her she wasn't at the party that night. She was
Speaker 3: very sick with juvenile diabete, too sick to go to
Speaker 3: a party. The police should have known that she wasn't
Speaker 3: at the party, and yet they just focused on him.
Speaker 3: The second page of the detective notebook says Purp James
Speaker 3: Davis Jay, So it's just tunnel vision from then on out.
Speaker 1: Right, So the people that were there couldn't identify the suspect.
Speaker 1: The woman who wasn't there does identify a suspect, And
Speaker 1: of course we know that Tina later on confessed to
Speaker 1: her mother and to others as she had lied to
Speaker 1: the police. Now we're up to the park where the
Speaker 1: detectives went to the hospital, right, and the interviewed Jammel Black.
Speaker 3: So the detectives actually went to the hospital the day
Speaker 3: of the incident and they were told he was just
Speaker 3: coming out of surgery. He was too out of it.
Speaker 3: The doctors wouldn't let him interview Jamel. Jammel testified out
Speaker 3: her hearing and he told the court that what happened
Speaker 3: was those detectives came back later and Jammel told them
Speaker 3: he had been stabbed by the guy who was subsequently
Speaker 3: killed and this guy named Tay Hall was helping him
Speaker 3: out of the party when he says, oh shit, pushes
Speaker 3: Jamel to the ground and you hear shots fired. Jamel
Speaker 3: looks up and he sees Tay putting a gun back
Speaker 3: in his pocket and saying, I got to get out
Speaker 3: of here. The police are coming. But there was no
Speaker 3: written report about that conversation and it never came out.
Speaker 3: At the hearing, the judge said, Oh, it's just not
Speaker 3: credible that they wouldn't have a report about it. Well,
Speaker 3: it's also not credible that you wouldn't interview the person
Speaker 3: who was stabbed, because they would most likely have the
Speaker 3: most relevant information.
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward then to a couple of months
Speaker 1: after the shooting, right, and that's when the warrant squad came.
Speaker 1: They were actually looking for your younger brother when they
Speaker 1: arrested you, and you weren't even aware that they were
Speaker 1: looking for you because you knew that you didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with this and there was no reason
Speaker 1: to suspect you of anything other than being drunk and
Speaker 1: throwing up on the sidewalk.
Speaker 4: They took me from my house under the guys that
Speaker 4: I had a warrant, which I did. I did have
Speaker 4: a warrant for disorderly conducting do community service, But they
Speaker 4: never took me to the court building, took me down
Speaker 4: to like homicide headquarters where I'm at Detective Hutchinson for
Speaker 4: the first time before they took me to the precinct.
Speaker 4: At the precinct, they pretty much was asking me do
Speaker 4: I know Jamail Black? And do I know what happened
Speaker 4: to Jamail Black? So I explained to them the same
Speaker 4: thing that I just was telling you about getting drunk
Speaker 4: and leaving. Who actually walked me to the door, whatever
Speaker 4: where I went after I left the party. From there,
Speaker 4: I don't remember exactly the rest of the questions, but
Speaker 4: it was pretty much all about the shooting there. So
Speaker 4: I'm like, when am I going to court? I'm supposed
Speaker 4: to be going to court. They're like, no, what we're
Speaker 4: going to do is we're going to put you in
Speaker 4: the lineup. I'm like, a lineup. I need a lawyer.
Speaker 4: It's like, do you have a lawyer? I'm like, no,
Speaker 4: I don't have a lawyer, but I have a lawyer
Speaker 4: in my family who can come and represent me. But
Speaker 4: he tells me if I don't have a number for him,
Speaker 4: then he can't call him. Then they just took me
Speaker 4: back to the room, left me in the room, and
Speaker 4: from there it went to the lineup and he came
Speaker 4: back with four guys. Three of them is dog skinned,
Speaker 4: two of them have He said, nobody looks like me,
Speaker 4: Nobody favors me in no way, shape or form, But
Speaker 4: I'm like, this can't be Did he bring two more
Speaker 4: guys in, like Indian looking guys. I'm like, nah, this
Speaker 4: is a six.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about this lineup
Speaker 1: and how things went so wrong?
Speaker 3: So the lineup in itself was already suggestive, but there
Speaker 3: were three people who viewed the lineup. One of them
Speaker 3: was jose Machakodi. He was the first witness that they
Speaker 3: brought into view a photo spread about six weeks earlier,
Speaker 3: and it was unclear why he was called. He was
Speaker 3: the brother in law of the man who died, but
Speaker 3: he was not one of the people that had been
Speaker 3: originally interviewed. It's pretty common knowledge that when you've picked
Speaker 3: someone out of a photograph, you pick them again in
Speaker 3: the lineup because you recognize them as the person. But
Speaker 3: the lineup happened six weeks later. At the lineup, the
Speaker 3: two other witnesses, Harold Poe and Sean Velton. They were
Speaker 3: brought there by the mother of the deceased, and according
Speaker 3: to their testimony, she called them and said, they have
Speaker 3: the guy they think did it at the precinct, and
Speaker 3: they want you to just come to see if you
Speaker 3: can you identify him or something. To that effect that's
Speaker 3: already contaminating the lineup because there's a pressure put on
Speaker 3: them that this is the person they have, the person
Speaker 3: they feel compelled to pick one person, especially especially when
Speaker 3: the mother of the deceased has chauffeur driven you to
Speaker 3: the precincts. So they picked James. But one of them
Speaker 3: said always from the beginning, well he resembles him except
Speaker 3: for the braids, because when James got arrested, his hair
Speaker 3: was short. And the other guy, Sean Velton, Now originally
Speaker 3: he had said I didn't see anything when the police
Speaker 3: spoke to him. Now he said, oh, I just said
Speaker 3: that because I was afraid. But the description he gave
Speaker 3: before he viewed him was someone wearing a Scully cap
Speaker 3: and that's nowhere in any description. And also five ten
Speaker 3: and James was like five seven, so we didn't even
Speaker 3: describe someone that looked like James. So that's how they
Speaker 3: picked him. There was a fourth person at the lineup
Speaker 3: who did not testify at the trial or the hearings,
Speaker 3: and what Detective Hutchinson said about him was, oh, he
Speaker 3: picked him out. He just wouldn't sign the sheet saying
Speaker 3: he had again, you know some things just your alarm
Speaker 3: goes off. That smells fishy, So we caught up with him.
Speaker 3: He did not want to be involved. He made that
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty percent clear. But what he told
Speaker 3: us was Noah, I never said that was the guy.
Speaker 3: That's why I wouldn't sign. And what I said to
Speaker 3: them was if you say that's the guy, that's the guy.
Speaker 3: So to me, that says they were being prompted to
Speaker 3: pick James, and I should just add that. Sean Belton
Speaker 3: at the second trial recanted again and said I just
Speaker 3: glanced at him. He gave four separate statements, so that
Speaker 3: was him, and the other guy always only said he
Speaker 3: resembled him. So essentially it really came down to hosely
Speaker 3: matcha cody.
Speaker 4: When you think about the convenience of Tina Black Junior
Speaker 4: given my name to the detective, and then a week later,
Speaker 4: jose Machakodi, the drug building, violent robber who's a humble bober,
Speaker 4: now just happens to walk into the precinct. Though he
Speaker 4: didn't stay at the crime scene when everything happened, he
Speaker 4: fled the crime scene. He walks into the precinct and
Speaker 4: he picks my picture. He's the only one that goes
Speaker 4: to the precinct and it just so happens that he's
Speaker 4: known in this neighborhood. To me, the whole case is
Speaker 4: weird from beginning to end. I think that this was
Speaker 4: a misunderstanding, maybe from speaking to Jamel Black and him
Speaker 4: telling them the story he told him about Kay send
Speaker 4: them asking his sister about pay and she telling them Shane,
Speaker 4: and they just went from there with the easiest thing
Speaker 4: that they could do to close the case, and it
Speaker 4: just so happened to be that I was convenience for them.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison.
Speaker 1: A leading international law fer. Paul Weiss has long had
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
Speaker 1: criminal justice area.
Speaker 4: After the line up, they told me I was being
Speaker 4: charged with murder, and he offered me a deal pretty
Speaker 4: much to take the questions and asked me to tell
Speaker 4: him that I did it because he already heard about
Speaker 4: the story of what happened. Somebody told him that two
Speaker 4: groups of guys was fighting and the guy in one
Speaker 4: of the groups had a knife, and the guy and
Speaker 4: the other group had a gun, and he shot the
Speaker 4: guy with the knife to defend himself. But I can
Speaker 4: tell me that I can help you. I speak to
Speaker 4: the daight. I'm like, what the hell kind of shit
Speaker 4: is there? Why the fuck would I tell you I
Speaker 4: did that. I'm telling you I wasn't even aware of
Speaker 4: I wasn't there for it. He's like, you know, if
Speaker 4: I was you, I would have did the same thing.
Speaker 4: If it was me a guy comes at me with
Speaker 4: a knife and I got a gun, I would have
Speaker 4: shot him too. You ain't doing nothing wrong. I was like,
Speaker 4: but you want me to admit to something I didn't do.
Speaker 1: That's wrong?
Speaker 4: Right there, the fingerprinted me and put me in a
Speaker 4: holding cell for the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: Now things go from bad to worse right the trial.
Speaker 1: There's a number of problems at both trials, although the
Speaker 1: first trial, amazingly, in spite of the fact that you
Speaker 1: had substandard defense, you still ended up with an eleven
Speaker 1: to one hungury in favor of a quittle.
Speaker 4: You have this this one guy, Jose Machikoti, who's laying
Speaker 4: the cause of this fight on his brother in law. Well,
Speaker 4: the two prosecutors witnesses beside him, I say and that
Speaker 4: he started the whole fight, and he's saying that I
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with it. I'm a humble barber.
Speaker 4: I never committed a crime again after I was locked
Speaker 4: up all of those years ago. You have a conflict
Speaker 4: between your own witnesses.
Speaker 3: Canein Johnson. His girlfriend did testify at the first trial.
Speaker 4: She's explaining to them how I came to her aunt's
Speaker 4: place while we didn't stay at her mother's house because
Speaker 4: some of us was like a CEO or x CEO
Speaker 4: at the time. I guess she didn't think I was
Speaker 4: good enough for her daughter.
Speaker 3: I think that, in part was part of what led
Speaker 3: to the eleven to one Equila that she was a
Speaker 3: very persuasive witness.
Speaker 4: But at the second trial, the DA is saying that
Speaker 4: I threatened. One of the witnesses. Sean Belton recants, but
Speaker 4: it's I can't really consider that recanting because he went
Speaker 4: back to the initial statement that he never seen anything.
Speaker 4: Havel Poe. We had his testimony read into the record
Speaker 4: because throughout the whole thing he never identified me. He
Speaker 4: only referred to me as looking similar to one of
Speaker 4: the guys. The other person that they say picked me
Speaker 4: out of a photo or Ratey never signed on none
Speaker 4: of the pictures. But the detective is saying I made
Speaker 4: a mank next to the picture that he picked out
Speaker 4: because he wouldn't sign it. It's like that don't even
Speaker 4: make sense. The only only witness that they had was
Speaker 4: jose Manchakoti that actually positively picked.
Speaker 1: Me out of a lineup, And all you needed was
Speaker 1: your star witness Kenean Johnson to show up and counter Machakot,
Speaker 1: just like she did at the first trial.
Speaker 4: But at the second trial, I'm not with my girlfriend anymore,
Speaker 4: so our contact is kind of really touching. Go is
Speaker 4: you know that I'm only calling to notify her court
Speaker 4: dates and what's going on with my life, which she's
Speaker 4: trying to avoid. I guess I don't know. My lawyers
Speaker 4: said he spoke to her and she was supposed to
Speaker 4: be coming in and then she didn't show up, but
Speaker 4: she was still being nice to him on the phone.
Speaker 4: He called her again and then she cursed him out.
Speaker 4: She told him that he sent police to her house
Speaker 4: that like one in the morning. But we learned that
Speaker 4: day in the courtroom that it wasn't actually my lawyer
Speaker 4: that sent the police, that it was the district attorney
Speaker 4: who subpoenaed her, even though in court she said, I
Speaker 4: never planned on calling this girl as a witness because
Speaker 4: I don't know what she's gonna say, even though she
Speaker 4: heard what my witness said at the first trial. But
Speaker 4: they still mistubpoened at her and sent police to her
Speaker 4: house at one in the morning, which actually infuriated her
Speaker 4: mother and caused her mother to kick her out. That
Speaker 4: right there pretty much stealed the deal as far as
Speaker 4: her coming to court and tell me guilty.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's listening is probably wondering right now, Well, if
Speaker 1: I was representing him back then, I would have checked
Speaker 1: to cell phone records, or I would have checked the
Speaker 1: cab records. You could have gotten hold of a cab
Speaker 1: company and see if anybody because you took a cab right,
Speaker 1: And none of that stuff was done right.
Speaker 4: The weird thing is, out of all of the easy
Speaker 4: stuff that we think of that could have been done,
Speaker 4: my attorney at the time hired a chiropractor or child
Speaker 4: doctor to do medical examine or work. And I've never
Speaker 4: even seen the medical examine, the work, or any paperwork
Speaker 4: that he had done. But he didn't go and check
Speaker 4: a cab. He didn't go and speak to none of
Speaker 4: these witnesses. That's in the DD files from the police reports.
Speaker 4: But you found an adopted the player as a medical
Speaker 4: examiner from your office building. It's sad to say, but
Speaker 4: if you don't have money to actually pay for a lawyer,
Speaker 4: then the justice system doesn't really work for you. It's
Speaker 4: rare that it does.
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, the story goes on. Mister Machacote was murdered
Speaker 1: by a drug dealer five months after James's second trial. Yes,
Speaker 1: after he was trying to rob the drug deal there
Speaker 1: for the second time in a month. So yeah, he
Speaker 1: was tortured and killed. And I mean, this is some
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino stuff now, but this is the guy that
Speaker 1: the authorities were painting to be a wonderful citizen who
Speaker 1: was bravely coming forward and now he's a simple barber
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. So that's all out the window.
Speaker 3: So we learned this as the hearing was going on,
Speaker 3: the actual innocence hearing that we litigated last summer, and
Speaker 3: we're appealing now. During our hearing, I reached out to
Speaker 3: the assistant US attorney because people were prosecuted federally for
Speaker 3: killing Machakodi and through it, I met the FBI agent
Speaker 3: who told me that at the time of the trial,
Speaker 3: Jose Machakoti was under their investigation. It was a joint
Speaker 3: NYPD FBI investigation into drug dealing, major drug dealing in
Speaker 3: Brownsville and lo and Behold. In the spring, which was
Speaker 3: when the second trial was happening, a confidential informant was
Speaker 3: buying huge quantity of heroin and cocaine from Machakodi. Now
Speaker 3: we don't know if the assistant district attorney knew that,
Speaker 3: but it's hard to believe that the detective who used
Speaker 3: to be a narcotics detective in Brownsville did not know
Speaker 3: that this man was a one of the major most
Speaker 3: violent drug dealers in Brooklyn and be under investigation by
Speaker 3: the FBI. So that was never disclosed.
Speaker 1: No, that would have been an inconvenient fact to bring
Speaker 1: up as they were trying to present him as the
Speaker 1: perfect witness, right.
Speaker 3: And what was in it for Matchakodi? You know, I
Speaker 3: don't want to go down too deep a rabbit hole
Speaker 3: of conspiracy theories, but he was on parole. The night
Speaker 3: of this murder, he had violated parole by being out
Speaker 3: past his curfew. And the fight that Jay was referring to,
Speaker 3: a lot of the police reports say a Spanish guy
Speaker 3: wearing a fur coat grabbed a bottle within a fight
Speaker 3: on the floor that was Macha code, So that was
Speaker 3: also a violation of paroles. So I don't know whether
Speaker 3: they threatened him with having him locked up, whether there
Speaker 3: was something corrupt going on. You know, it was the
Speaker 3: seventy fifth Precinct, which is notorious. And all we do
Speaker 3: know is that when the prosecutor got up in summation
Speaker 3: and said, he's such a credible witness, and you know
Speaker 3: he's credible because he was so honest about his past
Speaker 3: and now he's a barber. Well he might have been
Speaker 3: honest about his past, but he wasn't really honest about
Speaker 3: his present. So, you know, in addition to the problems
Speaker 3: with you know, ide evidence, in a situation like that,
Speaker 3: you also have this unsavory character pretending to be someone
Speaker 3: that he's not.
Speaker 1: It's almost like an exclamation point on the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, he ends up in like a scene from
Speaker 1: Reservoir Dogs being tortured to death by a guy who
Speaker 1: he was trying to rob for a second time, a
Speaker 1: drug dealer. I mean, nice witness.
Speaker 3: Right, and the first time he entered at gunpoint and
Speaker 3: tied them up and robbed them. So it wasn't his
Speaker 3: first rodeo.
Speaker 1: No, And it sounds like they turned the tables on him,
Speaker 1: and then he took this false testimony presented to the
Speaker 1: grave with him.
Speaker 4: Yes, I didn't know the justice system actually takes this long,
Speaker 4: but I thought, maybe, no, two years, I'll be back home,
Speaker 4: they'd fix this whole thing, and I'll be home. Two
Speaker 4: years turned to seventeen and I'm still fighting and trying
Speaker 4: to convince them that they actually locked up the wrong person.
Speaker 1: And then, to compound this tragedy again, the little brother
Speaker 1: that you felt so responsible for was murdered in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't possibly begin to imagine your pain.
Speaker 1: But your grandmother's still here, my.
Speaker 4: Brother, my grandmother is like my oldest friends in the world.
Speaker 4: My grandmother been there for as long as I knew.
Speaker 4: I know she know my pain, and my brother was
Speaker 4: there with me through everything. So it's like I lost
Speaker 4: out on with little I was able to spend his
Speaker 4: life with him in seventeen years and my grandmother's like
Speaker 4: she was sixty three. I dismissed all of these birthdays
Speaker 4: and times to spend with her. I think that was
Speaker 4: my first Christmas ever, actually really buying my grandmother my
Speaker 4: own gift, and she was so happy for that. Then. Yeah,
Speaker 4: every year, since it's something I didn't even do, I
Speaker 4: pray for her every night. I need her to be
Speaker 4: strong for me. That's one of the reasons that I
Speaker 4: lived for my grandmother. My mother was murdered two weeks
Speaker 4: or yeah, a week and some change at the Mother's Day,
Speaker 4: which was hard for my grandmother, and then my brother
Speaker 4: on Father's Day right before her birthday. So it's like
Speaker 4: I've had a real, real rough journey. Her journey is
Speaker 4: just as rough. So this is why that's like my
Speaker 4: closest friend right there outside of my brother that passed away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine. We need to do everything we
Speaker 1: can to bring you home, James. Yes, So now you
Speaker 1: know we get to the post conviction investigation, and of
Speaker 1: course you had a meeting with the conviction review unit
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: That was actually before I became involved in the case.
Speaker 3: Susan Epstein, who did the appeal and did a phenomenal investigation,
Speaker 3: brought the witnesses to the Conviction Review Unit. They had
Speaker 3: the case incredibly for five years. It's not exactly clear
Speaker 3: what happened, but one refrain that is throughout the transcripts
Speaker 3: of those interviews is why didn't you come forward sooner?
Speaker 1: And there's lots of them, right, It's not like this
Speaker 1: is one person. These are people who are, you know,
Speaker 1: members of the community, who are not kids anymore either.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they dragged their feet and they
Speaker 3: never came right out and said we don't believe you,
Speaker 3: we think he's guilty. Even after we brought the motion
Speaker 3: and started the hearing, they said to the press, you know,
Speaker 3: we're still looking into it, or something to that effect.
Speaker 3: For some reason, they just were unpersuaded.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the hearing we've been referring
Speaker 1: to this entire time. You and Susan filed a four
Speaker 1: to forty motion, which is New York legal leese, for
Speaker 1: a motion to set aside the judgment that was in
Speaker 1: September twenty eighteen, and you argued for James's actual innocence
Speaker 1: as well as ineffective assistant of counsel and newly discovered
Speaker 1: evidence at this hearing back in June of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yes, we were pretty optimistic going into it, so we
Speaker 3: had eight witnesses, including James. James went first, so he
Speaker 3: told the story that you heard about leaving because he
Speaker 3: was intoxicated. And then Jammel Black came in and he
Speaker 3: had initially refused to cooperate and sent a letter to
Speaker 3: Susan saying he ruined my life because James had slept
Speaker 3: with his girlfriend when he was locked up at Rikers
Speaker 3: and he held a grudge. But he came in and
Speaker 3: he told the whole story. First of all, he helped
Speaker 3: walk James out to the car, but then they started
Speaker 3: to get into a fight about this girlfriend again and
Speaker 3: he went inside and he met up with Tay, the shooter.
Speaker 3: So he told the whole story about how the stabbing happened,
Speaker 3: and how the shooting happened, and how it was Tay,
Speaker 3: and then how he told this to the police. We
Speaker 3: also had the woman who cut his hair and that
Speaker 3: the last time she saw him his hair was short.
Speaker 3: And you had Corey Hines, who was at the party
Speaker 3: in the bathroom laughing at him as he was throwing up.
Speaker 3: His brother had signed an affid David saying I put
Speaker 3: him in a cab and send him to his girlfriend's house.
Speaker 3: I'm sadly he was murdered in twenty twelve, so we
Speaker 3: didn't have him as a witness. We had his affidavit
Speaker 3: and we believed the judge should have allowed that into evidence,
Speaker 3: and he didn't. And we had Caneen Johnson, the girlfriend
Speaker 3: who didn't show up at the second trial. We actually
Speaker 3: had to do what's called a material witness order to
Speaker 3: have her arrested to bring her in, which I really
Speaker 3: didn't want to do. So when that happens, they assigned
Speaker 3: an attorney to you, and the attorney came in and
Speaker 3: said to the judge, she's willing to testify, but she's
Speaker 3: terrified of the family. And what came out on the
Speaker 3: witness stand is that after she testified at the first trial,
Speaker 3: friends and family of the deceased followed her not just
Speaker 3: out of the courtroom, but out of the courthouse, calling
Speaker 3: her names, threatening her if we're going to find out
Speaker 3: where you live, if we see you on the street.
Speaker 3: And it was so bad that James's attorney put her
Speaker 3: in a cab because he was afraid of her having
Speaker 3: to take public transportation home. So here she hasn't seen
Speaker 3: James since the first trial, and she essentially says exactly
Speaker 3: what she testified to years before, that he got out
Speaker 3: of the car, threw up, and she got him a
Speaker 3: ginger ale out of bodega and they walked through his hands.
Speaker 3: So she told that entire story. The two new witnesses
Speaker 3: that I found also particularly compelling. One was Bo. His
Speaker 3: real name is Ernest. Ernest was one of the promoters,
Speaker 3: and we asked him, well, how is it that you
Speaker 3: remember that he was there, and he said, so, I
Speaker 3: remember when he came in and I was joking about
Speaker 3: whose waves were better. So, unprompted, he basically said he
Speaker 3: had short hair at the time. And he also said
Speaker 3: somebody had thrown up by the bar, and he asked
Speaker 3: the bouncer what happened here, and he said, oh, you
Speaker 3: know those two brothers. One of them was drunk and
Speaker 3: I told they had to leave. So that was information
Speaker 3: we didn't even know about.
Speaker 1: I think it's also worthwhile to mention Tina Black, a
Speaker 1: young woman who named James in the first place, is
Speaker 1: sadly no longer with us. In twenty thirteen, she died
Speaker 1: of complications related to the very diabetes that had kept
Speaker 1: her from the party that faithful night all the way
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: And then lastly, and maybe the most emotionally compelling witness
Speaker 3: was Tina Black Senior, the mother. So she came in,
Speaker 3: you know, with the cane. She's like crippled by arthritis.
Speaker 3: She basically was racked with guilt that her daughter eventually
Speaker 3: confessed to her and that she had set James up
Speaker 3: and that he was never coming home, and that she
Speaker 3: was still in love with him. So that was extremely
Speaker 3: compelling testimony. So that was essentially our case.
Speaker 1: Then January twenty four to twenty twenty, sixteen years to
Speaker 1: the after Blake Harper was tragically murdered, the judge denied
Speaker 1: James Davis's wrongful conviction motion in its entirety. I remember
Speaker 1: reading that the first time, we're going, oh god.
Speaker 3: Right, we were stunned. And then we asked the judge
Speaker 3: to reopen the hearings so that we could call this
Speaker 3: FBI agent, so that we could show that they would
Speaker 3: have known about this evidence that Matchi Coodi was not
Speaker 3: just a humble barber, but he was a major drug
Speaker 3: dealer in Brooklyn, and the judge refused to reopen the hearing.
Speaker 3: And now there's really literally one stop left on this.
Speaker 3: You don't get to appeal a four to forty as
Speaker 3: a matter of right, you have to ask permission. He's
Speaker 3: called seeking leave to appeal, and we did get permission
Speaker 3: to appeal. So we are in the process of writing
Speaker 3: a brief and this is the last stop. We are
Speaker 3: going to the second apartment at Pellet Division and asking
Speaker 3: them first and foremost to find him innocent and dismiss
Speaker 3: these charges.
Speaker 1: So it turns out that the last stop in the
Speaker 1: second department of Pellet Division, Jay and Elizabeth Hail Mary
Speaker 1: pass was a great success. And I have with me
Speaker 1: right now, James J. Davis. Jay, welcome back to wrongful conviction,
Speaker 1: finally breathing free.
Speaker 5: Hey man, thank you, Jason, thank you for having me back.
Speaker 5: It feels good to actually be doing this from my
Speaker 5: own cell phone, ins out of a jail phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, obviously this should have never happened. It
Speaker 1: would have been better if you never had to go
Speaker 1: through this in the first place. But now, from what
Speaker 1: I understand, Elizabeth was able to finally prove that your
Speaker 1: trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to present any
Speaker 1: of the laundry list of alibi witnesses that would have
Speaker 1: easily and certainly cast reasonable doubt and proven your innocence
Speaker 1: at the original trial. Do you have, like if you
Speaker 1: could say anything to them, because they're probably listening, let's
Speaker 1: face it, do you have a message for Elizabeth and
Speaker 1: all her great people at the Legal Aid Society.
Speaker 5: I gotta think Susan and Elizabeth and the rest of
Speaker 5: the Legal Aid Society for the help that they gave me.
Speaker 2: Is without them, I wouldn't be here right now.
Speaker 1: So that's the great news. But the truth is we're
Speaker 1: not completely out of the woods yet because after all,
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn DA has the choice to either appeal the decision,
Speaker 1: retry you, or dismiss the charges, and we're all hoping
Speaker 1: and so many of us are praying that they choose
Speaker 1: the latter, because, as we've outlined here, out of the
Speaker 1: three who originally identified you, there's Sean Belton who recanted,
Speaker 1: and Harold Poe who didn't testify at the second trial
Speaker 1: and always only said James resemble the shooter. So that
Speaker 1: leaves the dead drug dealer who lied to the jury
Speaker 1: about his true identity, a lie the prosecutor capitalized on
Speaker 1: in her summation. The likely incentivized witness, Jose Machacote is
Speaker 1: the only person left identifying you. Meanwhile, the person who
Speaker 1: was stabbed and saw Tay Hall kill Black Harper. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm referring to Jamal Black, a guy who, despite his
Speaker 1: own personal grudge against you, testify to your innocence and
Speaker 1: today Hall's guilt. So if the Brooklyn DA's Office chooses
Speaker 1: to continue to charge you, it's definitely not any interest
Speaker 1: of justice. Please don't let us down here. And that said, Jay,
Speaker 1: what have you been up to since you released in
Speaker 1: May twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to spend time with my family. Men, you,
Speaker 2: my grandmother, me.
Speaker 5: And have been talking one on one about creating new
Speaker 5: memories because, as I told you before, my mother was
Speaker 5: murdered at the Mother's Day and my brother was murdered
Speaker 5: right at the Father's Day. So we've been putting positive
Speaker 5: energy into the universe to create new memories for them.
Speaker 2: Two occasions and me coming home started it off.
Speaker 5: So we're trying to continue try to do something nice
Speaker 5: for our birthday, create some better memories, cover up the
Speaker 5: old ones, just have some happy moments, Man, enjoy the
Speaker 5: rest of our time together.
Speaker 1: And is there any way that our wonderful audience can
Speaker 1: show you their support.
Speaker 5: There's a go fundme base that my family is running
Speaker 5: for me right now, and I'm trying to get me
Speaker 5: be adjusted back to society. Anything that the audience can
Speaker 5: do to help would be great.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I'm just happy to be here and have this opportunity.
Speaker 1: We will absolutely definitely have that link in our bios
Speaker 1: so our listeners can help. And I can honestly say,
Speaker 1: and everyone who knows me knows this. Nothing makes me
Speaker 1: happier than news like yours. So thank you again for
Speaker 1: talking with us. And with that, I'd like to give
Speaker 1: your closing an argument and update. And what I mean
Speaker 1: now again is I'm just gonna kick back in my chair,
Speaker 1: turn off my microphone and just listen to whatever you
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: Say, Jason, Man, I just want to say thank you. Man.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you again, thank Susan Epstein, Elizabeth
Speaker 5: Felber and the Legal Aid Society for the help that
Speaker 5: they've given me.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I don't want to thank God. Man is without him
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Clyburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one