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Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't

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Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I

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Speaker 2: do know that everything was stacked against me.

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Speaker 1: Everything like everything.

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Speaker 3: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I

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Speaker 3: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do

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Speaker 3: with this. How is this possible?

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Speaker 4: I grew up trusting systems. I've grew up believing that

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Speaker 4: every human being should do the right thing. And that's why,

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Speaker 4: even though I knew I was dealing with corp people,

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Speaker 4: I wasn't going to break anyone to get me out

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Speaker 4: of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that

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Speaker 4: I break my way out of my wife's death.

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Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I

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Speaker 1: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.

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Speaker 1: Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it has

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Speaker 1: come a little ways, but it's still broken.

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Speaker 4: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.

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Speaker 5: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with

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Speaker 5: Jason flamm that's me and today we have a very

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Speaker 5: interesting and unusual show planned for you. Our two guests

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Speaker 5: today are Shabaka Shakur, who served twenty seven years in

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Speaker 5: prison for a double murder that he had nothing to

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Speaker 5: do with. And Chabaca. Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 5: And with him is his attorney, who has had a

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Speaker 5: very colorful history, to say the least. It's been involved

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Speaker 5: in some of the most controversial and interesting cases of

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Speaker 5: the last generation. And I'm really excited to hear from

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Speaker 5: you today. Ron Kooby, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 6: Thank you.

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Speaker 5: Jason, Ponytail and all still there. He's still a hippy.

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Speaker 5: It's unbelievable. We got Ron who's got as much hair

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Speaker 5: as you can imagine, and Chabacca who's got absolutely none.

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Speaker 5: So I'm just giving everybody a visual, so thank you.

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Speaker 5: I want to mention quickly the fact that you are

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Speaker 5: a TV star now right you have your own show

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Speaker 5: on Stars.

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Speaker 6: I wouldn't go that far, but Stars is doing a

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Speaker 6: fantastic series called Wrong Man, directed and produced by Joe Berlinger,

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Speaker 6: who had been the Paradise Loss series, and basically they

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Speaker 6: take three cases of people all homicides around the country

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Speaker 6: who claim they were innocent, have done many years in prison,

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Speaker 6: and they put resources into the case. They hire me

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Speaker 6: detective's former States attorney, Detroit homicide detective, FBI cold case consultant,

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Speaker 6: and they have us reinvestigate these cases scratch.

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Speaker 5: So they're doing this right.

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Speaker 6: They're absolutely right. They're providing the resources that defense lawyers

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Speaker 6: didn't have originally and most of us don't have now

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Speaker 6: to go through the case from the beginning and to

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Speaker 6: determine whether or not it indeed is the wrong Man.

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Speaker 6: Six episodes, three cases, One Question, Wrong Man on Stars

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Speaker 6: every Sunday night at nine pm and available for downloading

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Speaker 6: on these Stars.

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Speaker 5: App All right. Shout out to Jeff Hirsch, my friend

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Speaker 5: at Stars, and the whole crew and Joanna who's here.

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Speaker 5: That's the show that I'm going to be watching and

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Speaker 5: I hope everyone else will too, and I'm looking forward

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Speaker 5: to learning more about these cases. Thanks Shebaka. This story

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Speaker 5: is as terrifying as it is typical. And what I

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Speaker 5: mean by that, and we'll get into it, is that

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Speaker 5: you were a victim of someone who was detective who

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Speaker 5: was one of the most notorious detectives in terms of

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Speaker 5: framing people in the history of our country, the world.

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Speaker 5: It's a very dubious distinction, and we'll get into all

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Speaker 5: of that, but let's go back to the beginning. Did

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Speaker 5: you grow up in Brooklyn?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I was born and raised in Brooklyn, lived most

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Speaker 2: of my earlier life in Brownsville and Bedford Stuvestant areas

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Speaker 2: of Brooklyn.

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Speaker 5: And Shabaka Shakur is not your birth name.

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Speaker 1: No, I was named after my father, Lou Holmes.

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Speaker 5: But going back to your childhood, so did you have

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Speaker 5: a traditional family situation. Was it a crazy neighborhood you

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Speaker 5: grew up in? Can you paint the picture, because this

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Speaker 5: was crazy times when you were growing up.

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, I lived in browns but I lived in

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Speaker 1: the projects.

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Speaker 2: I grew up in the projects, lived in the projects

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Speaker 2: mostly all my life. But I did have both my

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Speaker 2: mother and my father. You know, we lived in a

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Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't a single parent house or the

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Speaker 2: normal you know routine that they try to say. I

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Speaker 2: had parents, I went to good schools, have brothers and sisters.

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Speaker 1: We were a solid family.

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Speaker 5: So you grew up around this environment that's you know,

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Speaker 5: well known to anyone who's you know, familiar with New York.

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Speaker 5: And it's interesting because the time we live in now,

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Speaker 5: you know, contrary to what people would have you believe,

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Speaker 5: is a we're hitting historic lows in terms of crime rates.

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Speaker 5: And I think that back then we were probably pretty

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Speaker 5: close to the high I'm a New Yorker born and bred,

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Speaker 5: so I remember it was, you know, it was well

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Speaker 5: known that this stuff was. It was crazy in those times.

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Speaker 5: And then one day in nineteen eighty eight, everything went haywire.

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Speaker 5: Your world got turned well, got turned completely upside down

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Speaker 5: sometime between eighty eight and eighty nine, right when you

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Speaker 5: were wrongfully convicted. But in nineteen eighty eight, there was

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Speaker 5: a double murder in your neighborhood. And it was a

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Speaker 5: couple guys that you knew right right.

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Speaker 2: It was guys that I had known them for almost

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Speaker 2: a decade. I had went to school with one of them,

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Speaker 2: but I knew both of them. They were close friends

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Speaker 2: who hung out all together, so I met one through

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Speaker 2: the other. But Stephen Hewitt was a guy that I

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Speaker 2: went to high school with, and I knew him from

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Speaker 2: my first year in high school and we went through

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Speaker 2: high school together. And Fitzgerald Clark what we called c

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Speaker 2: was Steven's best friend and they lived in Flatbush, but

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Speaker 2: we went to school downtown for a green area, and

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Speaker 2: we knew each other, so we hung out during school

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Speaker 2: and even after school.

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Speaker 1: They were they were close friends of.

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Speaker 5: Mines and they were they were in the game. They

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Speaker 5: were yeah, drug game.

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Speaker 1: They were drug dealers. Uh.

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Speaker 2: At the time that we're talking about, this was during

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Speaker 2: the crack academic So not only was it high in crime,

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Speaker 2: but you know, the city was being devastated by crack

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Speaker 2: and there was a call for aggressive police because with

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Speaker 2: crack came not only the destruction of people physically from

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Speaker 2: the drug, but also an increase of violence. You know,

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Speaker 2: Crack was one of the most lucrative drug trades at

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Speaker 2: the time, and people were killing for neighborhoods, you know.

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Speaker 5: Right. And it's interesting when we're going back to this

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Speaker 5: because I've spent you know, twenty five years working to

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Speaker 5: decriminalize drugs and you know, restore some sanity to our

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Speaker 5: drug policy. And the only distinction I want to make

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Speaker 5: there is that crack didn't make people violent. The money

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Speaker 5: made people violence, right. They people who were committing the

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Speaker 5: violence weren't high, they were they were they were ones

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Speaker 5: who weren't high. They were ones who wanted to get

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Speaker 5: everybody else high, and they were competing and fighting and

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Speaker 5: killing for the right to have that that income stream.

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Speaker 5: So I just want to make that clear to our

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Speaker 5: audience who may not be as familiar, since it shows,

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Speaker 5: you know, we don't spend a lot of time talking

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Speaker 5: about drugs. But that being said, so these two guys

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Speaker 5: get murdered in what seems like it was a drug hit, right, yes,

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Speaker 5: And how did they end up focusing on you? You know?

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Speaker 5: Was it just laziness? Was it?

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Speaker 2: Well, it was it was partly laziness and it was partly,

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Speaker 2: I would say, a tunnel vision by the police. Once

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Speaker 2: I became a suspect, they they zeroed in on me

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Speaker 2: and they ignored everything else. So I knew these guys

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Speaker 2: and we had a really close relationship. So at that

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Speaker 2: time I had driven one of them over to the

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Speaker 2: block where we were selling drugs and Gates Avenue and

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Speaker 2: in the Busherk section of Brooklyn, and we was having

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Speaker 2: a conversation about a car. So I was trying to

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Speaker 2: sell them my car because at the time I was

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Speaker 2: working in Queen's Queen's County Register's department, and I was

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Speaker 2: trying to have a more calm life when I at

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Speaker 2: one point, to be honest with you, I was selling

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Speaker 2: drugs with them. You know what I'm saying. I needed money.

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Speaker 2: They they you know, came to me. They said, listen,

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Speaker 2: help us out with this, and I made runs. I

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Speaker 2: did errane. I did do the work for them to

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Speaker 2: make money for myself. But it got to the point

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Speaker 2: where I had a decent job. I really didn't want

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Speaker 2: to do it no more. I didn't want to take

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Speaker 2: a chance on going to prison, so I was backing

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Speaker 2: away from that. But I still had a good report

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Speaker 2: with them, So I went around there. I had met

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Speaker 2: a girl that I was dealing with that lived in

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Speaker 2: that neighborhood, so I went around there to where the

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Speaker 2: drug spot was. Their brother who didn't live in New York,

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Speaker 2: who actually lived in Florida. He was the brother of

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Speaker 2: Fitzgerald Clark, the guy that we used to call See and.

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Speaker 1: He was the older brother. He didn't know us, he

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Speaker 1: didn't know me.

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Speaker 2: He had just barely he had just met us because

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Speaker 2: he didn't live in New York. And he started becoming

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Speaker 2: involved in their drug trade, bringing drugs from Florida to

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Speaker 2: New York. So this is like one of the few

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Speaker 2: interactions that he had with with me personally. That night,

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Speaker 2: me and Steve had made an agreement about the car.

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Speaker 2: He wanted to buy my car. He was gonna give

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Speaker 2: me a certain amount of money. He wanted to give

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Speaker 2: me some money from their drug spot that night and

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Speaker 2: then owe me the rest. See who was his friend

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Speaker 2: and mins, But we used to always argue. We we just

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Speaker 2: had that type of relationship where we was always arguing

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Speaker 2: about everything, but not a violent relationship or aggressive relationship

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Speaker 2: to each other. We just grew up together and we

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Speaker 2: was always on opposite sides of everything. So me and

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Speaker 2: him were arguing about the car, and SE's brother witnessed

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Speaker 2: this argument. So later on, when she and Stephen were murdered,

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Speaker 2: his brother, recalling that I was arguing with his brother,

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Speaker 2: went to the police and implicated me in the murder,

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Speaker 2: and the police.

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Speaker 1: Arrested me, came and get me to take me to

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Speaker 1: the priest and to question me.

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Speaker 2: I answered all the questions, told him where I was,

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Speaker 2: told him I wasn't nowhere in Brooklyn at that time,

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Speaker 2: explained to him the whole situation. Gave him the name

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Speaker 2: of alibi witnesses that they could contact right there. They

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Speaker 2: contacted him that same night and verified my alibi. But

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Speaker 2: when they went to Detective Scarsella and said, we got

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Speaker 2: a guy that was pointed out by the brother of

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Speaker 2: the deceased, but the guy has an alibi and he's

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Speaker 2: saying he wasn't there, and we really don't have anything,

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Speaker 2: Scarcella took it upon himself to join into the interrogation

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Speaker 2: and then fabricated a confession against.

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Speaker 5: Me, right, and that's you know, it is interesting. You know,

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Speaker 5: you talk about how you had alibi witnesses, more than one.

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Speaker 5: There was no physical evidence connecting you to the crime.

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Speaker 5: They found the gun that was used, but it didn't

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Speaker 5: trace back to you in any way. There were no fingerprints,

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Speaker 5: there was no there was nothing for them to go on.

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Speaker 5: There's nothing to point the finger at you. But they

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Speaker 5: didn't care. And Scarcella, people who are fans of the

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Speaker 5: show listen to the show, have heard his name before

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Speaker 5: because we've had other exoneries on who were framed by

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Speaker 5: the same guy. And you know, Ron, this is where

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Speaker 5: I want to turn to you, because you have probably

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Speaker 5: as much experience as anyone in the country. Going after

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Speaker 5: police who are on the wrong side of the law.

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Speaker 5: So I'd love to get your take on this part

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Speaker 5: of the story because obviously you have intimate knowledge of it,

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Speaker 5: as well as knowledge of the entire world of you

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Speaker 5: know that that blue wall, so to speak.

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Speaker 6: So I had first met Detective Scarcela in the nineteen

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Speaker 6: nineties when he was still working as a detective, still

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Speaker 6: doing the things that we know now that he did,

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Speaker 6: and I had cross examined him in a very high

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Speaker 6: profile case, which itself is now under no This was

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Speaker 6: the token booth bombing case. And he amazed me at

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Speaker 6: just how good he was at lying, how charming, how avuncular,

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Speaker 6: or how we would look at the jury and bond

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Speaker 6: with them. And I knew he was lying because I

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Speaker 6: knew the facts of the particular case, but it didn't matter.

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Speaker 6: People really liked Luis Scarcela. Jurys liked him, Judges loved him.

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Speaker 6: Prosecutors thought he would, you know, the greatest thing on

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Speaker 6: earth because he would literally make their cases. So I

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Speaker 6: had a lot of experience with him from that time

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Speaker 6: before he became famous in the public with the Rantic case.

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Speaker 6: Shabaka had written to me he had done his own

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Speaker 6: post conviction motion was all put together, and the singular

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Speaker 6: witness against him was the Scarcella confession. And this was

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Speaker 6: a remarkable confession because it was not witnessed by anybody else.

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Speaker 6: Scarcella was not the case detective. There was no audio

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Speaker 6: tape made, there was no video tape made, there was

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Speaker 6: no signature of Sabacca's. The whole confession existed only out

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Speaker 6: of Scarcella's mouth, and it was almost a stereotypical conviction.

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Speaker 6: It started out, like so many of Scarcella's convictions did,

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Speaker 6: and the confessions he obtained, with a shout out to

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Speaker 6: the cleverness of Scarcella. That is to say, in Shebacca's confession,

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Speaker 6: Scarcella had Shabacca saying, you know what's going on, you

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Speaker 6: know the story. Other cases, you got it right, I

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Speaker 6: was there, I mean this that. Phrases like that come

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Speaker 6: up in close to a dozen different cases. So the

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Speaker 6: confession always starts out with congratulations, mister detective, you're such

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Speaker 6: a smart guy.

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Speaker 5: You got me.

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Speaker 6: And in this case there was no corroboration, which is

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Speaker 6: unheard of, especially since Scarcella was not even the case detective.

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Speaker 6: The case detective questioned Sheabaka for hours and all he

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Speaker 6: got was Shabacca's alibi, which by the way, proved to

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Speaker 6: be completely correct. Eventually get him out of prison. Eventually

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Speaker 6: comes you know, twenty eight years later though, And so

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Speaker 6: Scarcella walks into the cell and then walks out twenty

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Speaker 6: minutes later with this confession and didn't even call the

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Speaker 6: case detective and say, hey, hey, hey, detective, Mahoney, come

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Speaker 6: on in. This guy's got something to say. Nothing. It's

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Speaker 6: the only place this confession occurred. And the paperwork showed

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Speaker 6: that Scarcelo really wanted Mahoney, who was the case detective,

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Speaker 6: to take responsibility for the confession. He was willing to

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Speaker 6: give it up. Mahoney could say that he got it.

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Speaker 6: Mahoney didn't trust it, so Mahoney wrote the statement down

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Speaker 6: but never attributed to anybody in any fashion, and that,

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Speaker 6: you know what we call the orphan statement, Like Mahoney

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Speaker 6: could remember where it came from. Who said that he

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Speaker 6: knows that Shebacca didn't say that to him, And that

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Speaker 6: was the key piece of evidence that got Shebacca convicted.

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Speaker 5: Let's go back to that conviction, because you were arrested,

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Speaker 5: I'm assuming on that day after Scarcela came in and

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Speaker 5: magically produced this confession in twenty minutes that this other

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Speaker 5: experienced detective couldn't get from you in hours and hours

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Speaker 5: of questioning.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was The murder happened one night. The next day,

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Speaker 2: I was at work and they came to get me

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Speaker 2: at work to tell me that they wanted to take

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Speaker 2: me to the preescint to ask me questions. Now, of

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Speaker 2: course I didn't know about the murder at the time,

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Speaker 2: so I went to the precinct and I answered the

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Speaker 2: questions because I didn't know what was going on. They

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Speaker 2: didn't take take me to the priest and say, oh,

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Speaker 2: we want to talk to you about a murder. They

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Speaker 2: just said we want to ask you some questions about

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Speaker 2: where you were last night. So I'm answering the questions

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Speaker 2: because I didn't want to get in trouble.

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Speaker 5: Were you thinking that they knew something about your past

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Speaker 5: drug stuff or.

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Speaker 2: On the way to the preescint, one of the cops

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Speaker 2: asked me if I owned a green BMW, which I

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Speaker 2: did right, So that was the car that I had

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Speaker 2: given to Steve the night before. So I knew who

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Speaker 2: had the car, and I know that they were drug dealers.

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Speaker 2: So in my mind, I'm thinking, did they get caught

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Speaker 2: with drugs in the car? And now it's coming back

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Speaker 2: to me, you know, I'm trying to figure out what

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Speaker 2: it is, but I don't want to lie. So I'm

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Speaker 2: going to the priests, and when they're asking me, do

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Speaker 2: you know these guys, I'm saying, yeah, I know these guys.

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Speaker 2: Is this your car? I'm saying, yeah, that is my car.

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Speaker 2: But I didn't have my car last night. I wasn't

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Speaker 2: with them last night. I was in Queen's. I was

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Speaker 2: with this person. I was with that person. So I

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Speaker 2: didn't want to lie, but I'm telling them exactly where

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Speaker 2: I'm at so that they would realize that whatever happened,

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Speaker 2: I wasn't involved.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until the.

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Speaker 2: End of nearly nearing the end of that conversation with

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Speaker 2: Detective Mahoney that he tells me about their murders. So

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Speaker 2: now I'm like, Okay, I don't know nothing about that.

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Speaker 2: I had nothing to do with nobody being murdered. I

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Speaker 2: already told you where I was, and that was the

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Speaker 2: gist of my conversation with Detective Mahoney. I had no

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Speaker 2: previous knowledge prior to him telling me about what was

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Speaker 2: going on when detectives Scott Sella came in, like Ron said,

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Speaker 2: he had nothing to do with my case. He wasn't

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Speaker 2: assigned to my case. He was just in the prisint

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Speaker 2: And when he came in, they came to him and said, look,

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Speaker 2: we got a guy who was saying he wasn't there,

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Speaker 2: but he's the only suspect that we have.

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Speaker 1: And remember I was like, I got this, I'll take

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Speaker 1: care of this, right, And that's exactly.

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Speaker 5: What he did.

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Speaker 1: He came in and he said, okay.

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Speaker 2: I got it, I'll handle this, and he came in

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Speaker 2: there to talk to me. But as soon as he

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Speaker 2: came in there, he came in there aggressively accusing me.

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Speaker 2: I know you did it. I know who you are.

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Speaker 2: You were selling drugs with these guys. These guys are

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Speaker 2: drug dealers, all of y'all involved. You murdered them so

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Speaker 2: that you wouldn't have to share the block with them

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Speaker 2: or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Right. So I looked at him and I said, you

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Speaker 1: know why, I don't even want.

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Speaker 2: To talk to you, you know, and he got aggressive,

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Speaker 2: started banging on the table. I'm trying to help you,

345
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Speaker 2: but instead you're going to go up north for a

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Speaker 2: long time.

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Speaker 1: You're going to go down for these murders.

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Speaker 2: So I was telling them, you know, very politely, go

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Speaker 2: f yourself because I didn't want to deal with that,

350
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Speaker 2: and he left. At that point, I had no idea

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Speaker 2: that he was going to fabricate a confession. I thought

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Speaker 2: that was the end of the conversation. I didn't even

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Speaker 2: know about the confession until I was arrested and I

354
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Speaker 2: was given a quarter pointed attorney and the quarter point

355
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Speaker 2: attorney tells me, you confessed, And I said, are you crazy?

356
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Speaker 2: I didn't confess. I told the people where I was,

357
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Speaker 2: I gave them the alibi witnesses. They verified my alibi witnesses,

358
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Speaker 2: and the quarter pointed said, yeah, that's what you told

359
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Speaker 2: this detective, but you confessed to the other detective. And

360
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Speaker 2: that's when I realized that this guy had fabricated a confession.

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Speaker 5: And this is an important time to mention that the

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Speaker 5: confession is the most powerful evidence that there can be.

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Speaker 5: It's really hard for any jury or jurist or juror,

364
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Speaker 5: I should say, it's hard for any juror to understand

365
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Speaker 5: why someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit.

366
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Speaker 5: And you know, as people listen to the show and

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Speaker 5: they hear these stories over and over again, they start

368
00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,000
Speaker 5: to understand many cases are coerse confessions. In your case,

369
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Speaker 5: there was no confession. And let's not forget this. Scarcella

370
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Speaker 5: was a guy who used the same witness in six

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Speaker 5: different murder cases, who was a drug addict, part time prostitute.

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Speaker 5: I think who he was supplying with drugs and was

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Speaker 5: you know? And he was so lucky that she having

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Speaker 5: no witness six different murders. I mean, that's kind of

375
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Speaker 5: a miracle. I do want to take this opportunity because

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Speaker 5: Ron's here too, and maybe he can ask me this.

377
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Speaker 5: But I often tell people on the show, and Shabaka

378
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Speaker 5: would have benefited from this advice. I think right that

379
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 5: if you get arrested for something you didn't do, and

380
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Speaker 5: you get taken in the only thing you should say

381
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Speaker 5: is your name, your address and I want a lawyer.

382
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Speaker 5: Would you agree with that without a doubt?

383
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Speaker 6: And whenever I debate with cops about this, I always say,

384
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Speaker 6: let me ask you this. If your son called you

385
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Speaker 6: from a precinct and said, Dad, I've just been arrested.

386
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Speaker 6: What should I do? What are you going to tell?

387
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Speaker 6: And the cops invariably say I said, don't say anything,

388
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Speaker 6: We'll get you a lawyer. Don't say we're without a lawyer.

389
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Speaker 6: And we know that's true. Now, Shabaka had some experience

390
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Speaker 6: in the criminal justice system, so and he knew he

391
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Speaker 6: didn't do anything, so he felt comfortable giving his alibi,

392
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Speaker 6: which was ultimately born out decades later, and he felt

393
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Speaker 6: comfortable telling Scarcela, get the f out of here, I'm

394
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Speaker 6: not going to talk to you. What nobody anticipated was

395
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 6: that Scarcella would simply make up a confession. So you've

396
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 6: got the made up confession. You have the brother of

397
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 6: the dead guy, originally telling a muddled story but thinking

398
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 6: Schabacca was involved. But through a period of time with Scarcela,

399
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 6: his story.

400
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:26,959
Speaker 7: Changes, evolves, morphs, until he saw Shabaka shoot both of them,

401
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 7: you know, one in the back and another in the

402
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 7: back as he was running things that he could not

403
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,879
Speaker 7: have seen because physically impossible.

404
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 6: Because he wasn't there, well he wasn't there, had he

405
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 6: been there, just the location of the bodies was all wrong.

406
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,199
Speaker 6: But okay, so now you've got your eyewitness kind of,

407
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 6: you've got your confession, not really, and you stop looking

408
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 6: for anybody else now had they spent all another day

409
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 6: or two, they would have discovered that one of the

410
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 6: guys who got made dead at night had been the

411
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Speaker 6: subject of a previous murder attempt just two months earlier

412
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Speaker 6: by the Rankers.

413
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Speaker 1: Actually both of.

414
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Speaker 6: Them, right yeah, both of them, right right, yes, yes.

415
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 5: Steve, Okay, let's just pass this. So this one came

416
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 5: with instructions, right right.

417
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Speaker 6: Right right, It's like, Okay, they missed the first time.

418
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 6: I mean, they shot up the club, but they missed

419
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 6: the guys the first time. So and everybody knew it

420
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 6: was the Rankers, which is a Jamaican drug dealing group,

421
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 6: particularly violent even by the standards of the time, and

422
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 6: they're not sort of forgiven for that kind of people.

423
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 6: They weren't like, oh okay, well we missed them the

424
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 6: first time. We'll give you a pass. There was every

425
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 6: reason to think that they had fallen into conflict with

426
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 6: the Rankers over drug turf and that that's what this

427
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 6: murder was, but nobody cared at the time. I will

428
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 6: note that they continued to look at the Rankers after

429
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 6: Shabaka was convicted. After he was convicted, given his forty

430
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 6: life and sent up state, there was still other detectives

431
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 6: who weren't entirely comfortable and were pursuing those leads which

432
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,600
Speaker 6: ultimately went nowhere. But had they done it at the beginning,

433
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 6: this whole thing would have been different.

434
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 8: Like Ron said, the the confession, the alleged confession, nobody,

435
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 8: nobody would have predicted that, you know what I'm saying.

436
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 2: It was It was just beyond my thinking that this

437
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 2: guy was going to say that I confess to something.

438
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 2: The situation around it was suspicious from the get go

439
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 2: because you're in a precinct with at least thirty forty

440
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 2: police officers and not one, not one police officer heard

441
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: the confession. Right, There's no notes, there's no there's nothing,

442
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: there's no proof of it. There's no you know, anytime

443
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 2: you take a confession, anytime you see a police officer

444
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 2: interview anybody, they write it down. There was nothing written there.

445
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 2: There was no signing of the confession. They didn't even

446
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 2: call the prosecutor and say this guy just confessed. They

447
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 2: didn't take a video tape. There was absolutely no proof

448
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 2: of a confession other than that Detective Scartsella just saying

449
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: it out of his mouth. Even though we're in a

450
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 2: priestinct full of people, so there was no proof that

451
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 2: a confession ever existed. Now what Ron said about the

452
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 2: previous attack on these people. Two months prior to that,

453
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: there was an attempt on both of these same guys.

454
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 2: So what's the odds that somebody tries to kill two

455
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 2: guys and then two months later those same two guys

456
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: actually get killed.

457
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 5: It must have been really unpopular.

458
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 6: I mean, look, it's happened, but those would be the

459
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 6: likely suspects to begin with. So so what you have here, Okay,

460
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 6: you've got a bad detective, no question about it, but

461
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 6: he's not the only person involved. You have an allegedly

462
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 6: not bad detective, the actual case detective, who does nothing.

463
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 6: You have a prosecutor who decides to go ahead and

464
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 6: believe this stuff or at least put it in front

465
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 6: of the jury. You have a judge who who has

466
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 6: seen Scarcella before and will see Scarcella again and allows

467
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 6: this whole case to go forward. And ultimately you have

468
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 6: a jury that has never seen Scarcela before. But gosh,

469
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 6: you know, he seems like a much you know that dude.

470
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 6: Then the black guy here and convicts, and appeals court

471
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 6: after appeals court after Appeals Court affirms. And this has

472
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 6: been the pattern, not just in Schabacca's case, but in

473
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 6: over a dozen other cases that this detective got involved in.

474
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 5: And I want to point out that the only winners

475
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 5: in this scenario were the rankers, right, which is, uh,

476
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 5: society loses obviously, Sabacca gets his life taken away from

477
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 5: or you know, most of it, and you know, the

478
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 5: victims don't get justice, and these guys are free to

479
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 5: go out there and shoot the next guy that crosses

480
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 5: their path.

481
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 2: Those guys actually ended up going to federal prisident for

482
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 2: I believe, like twelve different murders. But the amazing thing

483
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 2: is that how they discover this. One of the guys

484
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: in my case, Fitzgerald Clark, had got arrested in a

485
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 2: shootout with a machine gun against the Rinkers during that

486
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 2: previous attempt. So when he ends up dead from the

487
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: case that I'm in jail for, he has an open

488
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 2: case that he doesn't show up for. When he doesn't

489
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 2: show up, the judge acts is, okay, where is he at?

490
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: So the family has to go and say, oh, he's dead.

491
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: He's no longer alive. So the judge actses for well,

492
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 2: let me see some type of proof. You can't just

493
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: come in here and say he's dead. So the proof

494
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 2: that they give him was the death certificate in my case.

495
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: So at that point, the District Attorney's office has connected

496
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 2: the two cases.

497
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: Right, They know that this guy had.

498
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 2: A previous attempt on him and then he's dead. They

499
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: know who did the previous attempt. Yet their tunnel vision

500
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 2: prevented them from investigating that this is a suspect. You know,

501
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 2: here's a story that the brother's saying, Oh, this guy

502
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 2: had arguing with my brother.

503
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: But here's a guy who here's.

504
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 2: Some guys who actually attempted to kill him just recently.

505
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: So their suspects.

506
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 2: But because of the tunnel vision or the police and

507
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, they ignored that evidence. If they had searched

508
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 2: just a little bit, they would have found out that

509
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: the attorney who bailed out Fitzgerald Clark, the guy who

510
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 2: got killed in my case, was the same attorney who

511
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 2: worked for the Rankers who got disbarred for fraud in

512
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: working with the Rankers in fraudulent paperwork that he did

513
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 2: for them. Like, the connections are all there.

514
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 6: So there was a lot of stuff there that could

515
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 6: have been investigated that should have been investigated, but Scarcella,

516
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 6: like so many of his colleagues, decided to short circuit

517
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 6: this entire process because he was convinced Shebaca was guilty.

518
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 6: I have actually never known accoup who went out and

519
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 6: deliberately framed a person who he knew was innocence, planted

520
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 6: evidence and somebody he believed to be innocent, or lied

521
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 6: about a person he believed to be innocent uniformly. Uniformly,

522
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:30,959
Speaker 6: when the police engage in this kind of activity, it's

523
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 6: because they think the person is guilty, and that guilty

524
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 6: person they think is going to get off because there's

525
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 6: not enough evidence against him. So it falls to the

526
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 6: Scarcellas of the world, of whom there were many and

527
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 6: remain many. He was just better at it than anybody else.

528
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 6: It falls to them to put some extra frosting on

529
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 6: the cake to make sure that the guilty guy gets convicted.

530
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 5: Stay tuned, will be right back. So you go to

531
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 5: trial with your public defender having been held in jail.

532
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 5: I'm assuming pre trial for what for about a year?

533
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: For I think it was fourteen months.

534
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 5: Did you how first of all, how long was the trial?

535
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: The trial was like two days, a day and a

536
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: half something like that.

537
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 5: That's a pretty question.

538
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: You don't have any evidence, right, you.

539
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 5: Have your alibi witnesses, and they if they.

540
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: Were never caught.

541
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: What happened was I had a public defender who did

542
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 2: not believe I was innocent, and like you said, he

543
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 2: just like most people thought, this guy confessed he's guilty.

544
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 2: So he came to me and tried to say and

545
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 2: told me I'm going to get you a good plea.

546
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 2: And I told him I don't want to plea. I'm

547
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 2: going to go to trial. I didn't commit this murder.

548
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 2: And he said, listen, you can't win a trial. I'm

549
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 2: going to get your good plead. So he never investigated

550
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 2: my case at all. I wrote to the judge. Six

551
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 2: months in, I wrote to the judge and told the judge, listen,

552
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 2: I need a new lawyer. This guy does not believe

553
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 2: him in his saying, he's not doing any investigative work.

554
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 2: He's not going to be able to prove my innocence.

555
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 2: The judge ignored it. Six months later, a year in,

556
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 2: I write to the judge again and file of motion

557
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 2: to have him dismissed as my as my attorney because

558
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 2: he's done no investigation. I've given him the name of

559
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 2: alibi witnesses. I've given him everything that I can give him.

560
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 2: You know, I've told him people that I remember that

561
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: live on that block who he could go.

562
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: Interview. He does none of this.

563
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: So right before I'm getting ready to go to trial,

564
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 2: I go back to the judge, and the judge on

565
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 2: record tells me I'm not going to get rid of

566
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 2: your lawyer. Now you're getting ready to start trial. But

567
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 2: I'm telling the judge he he hasn't investigated anything. Today

568
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 2: I start trial, I have to write a summary of

569
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 2: the facts because he didn't even know the facts of

570
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: the case.

571
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 5: Did he ever visit you in jail?

572
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: He never visited me.

573
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: He after court court dates, he would go in the

574
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 2: back and talk to me and we would argue because

575
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 2: I told him, you're not investigating. I'm innocent. He tried

576
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 2: to get me to take a plea. When I wouldn't

577
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 2: take the plea, and I kept pushing.

578
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: To go to trial. He said, Okay, we're going to

579
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: go to trial.

580
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 2: Like I said, I had to write him a summary

581
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 2: of the facts because he didn't know the facts of

582
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,719
Speaker 2: my case. We went to trial and he did terrible

583
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 2: because he hadn't he hadn't investigated, he hadn't talked to

584
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 2: none of the alibi witnesses.

585
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: I had to get on the phone and call one

586
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: of my alibi.

587
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 2: Witnesses and tell him come to court because the lawyer

588
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 2: had never reached out to her.

589
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: And she came to court.

590
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: And when she came to court, she stepped in the

591
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: courtroom and told basically the judge, I'm the alibi witnesses. No,

592
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 2: and he still did not use the alibi witness at try.

593
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 5: I've heard that story more times than I would like

594
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 5: to have heard it.

595
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 6: So take a quick pause here. What are the elements

596
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 6: we have so far? We have a corrupt detective. We

597
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 6: have a system that believes Shakur is guilty and is

598
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 6: not looking at any other suspects. We have a prosecutor

599
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 6: who's more than willing to put a highly dubious story

600
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 6: before a jury, and we have a judge who's willing

601
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 6: to allow it. And now sort of the last piece

602
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 6: of this is in place an utterly incompetent defense lawyer

603
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 6: who not only doesn't believe his client is innocent, but

604
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 6: is unwilling to even prepare a defense for the client

605
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 6: he believes is guilty. All he wants is a plea.

606
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 6: He hasn't done any work, he's underpaid, and just doesn't care.

607
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 6: So this is the storm.

608
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 5: And I was going to say that if you didn't already.

609
00:34:57,960 --> 00:34:59,839
Speaker 5: I mean, the worst part of it, really, the most

610
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 5: excusable part, is that he doesn't care. I mean, you know,

611
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:09,280
Speaker 5: he's sitting there and I think everyone listening is probably

612
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 5: feeling the same way. I'm feeling that the feeling of

613
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 5: helplessness that you must have had as a person who's

614
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 5: literally facing spending the rest of your life in prison

615
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 5: and nobody's helping you.

616
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: That that word is exactly how I felt helpless because

617
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 2: I brought it to the judge's attention and the judge said, no,

618
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,280
Speaker 2: you have to go on with this attorney, even though

619
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 2: I'm telling the judge he's not doing anything. He's not

620
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: investigating the case. He hasn't spoken to any of the witnesses.

621
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 2: There are gaping holes in this story, right. The brother

622
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 2: of fitz Gerald Clark, his initial statement to the police

623
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 2: was I know who did this, right, He never said

624
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 2: I saw it. And then in his statement that night

625
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 2: in the precinct, when he did speak in detail to

626
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,959
Speaker 2: the police. He still didn't say he saw me commit

627
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 2: the crime. A year later, he's not saying, oh I

628
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 2: know who did this because he had an argument.

629
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: He's saying, I actually saw the murder.

630
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 2: I seen Shebacca sneak up behind my brother and shoot

631
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:22,959
Speaker 2: my brother twice in the back.

632
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 5: Amazing how the memory comes back. Here's the thing.

633
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.

634
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: His brother died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

635
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 2: So the account that he gave a trial didn't even match.

636
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 1: The ballistics or the autopsy or anything.

637
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 5: It wasn't even close.

638
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 6: No, right, And after we got the case and we

639
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 6: did some reinvestigation. I mean this, the witness had long

640
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 6: since died, but we did speak to his brother, and

641
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 6: his brother was convinced that he was convinced that Shabak

642
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 6: had done it. It's not though he got on the

643
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 6: witness stand deciding to implicate somebody he thought was innocent.

644
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 6: He got on the witness stand with the encouragement of

645
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 6: Scarsella and the district attorney and the judge and embellished

646
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:19,280
Speaker 6: a story again because he thought the guy was guilty.

647
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 6: And if I don't tell these things the way I'm

648
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 6: supposed to tell them this guilty guy is going to

649
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 6: get off.

650
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 5: So you were fucked. I mean, basically, the odds. If

651
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 5: I was a bookie and I was watching this proceeding,

652
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,439
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have taken any money from anybody who wanted

653
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 5: to bet guilty. There would have been no odds that

654
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 5: I would have accepted because it was a lock. I mean,

655
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 5: you were done, right. What jury is possibly going to

656
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 5: watch that proceeding and come up with any other conclusion

657
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 5: other than that You're getting to.

658
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 1: Want to hear some funny.

659
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 2: The jury took longer in deliberation than the trial. Wow,

660
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 2: the jury took two and a half days of deliberation.

661
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 2: The trial was only a day and a half. The

662
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 2: jury even hearing these stories and having no defense because

663
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,720
Speaker 2: no alibi was presented, no defense at all, the jury

664
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 2: had problems because they kept saying, this confession doesn't make

665
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:21,439
Speaker 2: sense and this guy's story doesn't make sense. So they

666
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 2: took two and a half days of deliberation before they

667
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 2: found me guilty.

668
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 5: So they come back in and obviously they found you guilty. Yes,

669
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 5: and that moment. Can you paint a picture of that moment?

670
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 5: Like was the courthouse? Was it a hot day? A

671
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 5: cold day. Well, who was there? Was it? Noisy?

672
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: Was it?

673
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 5: This? Was it?

674
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 1: That my mother was dead?

675
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 2: That's what I remember, because I remember turning around and

676
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 2: looking at her, and she had tears in her eyes.

677
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 2: And I just kept thinking to myself, like, wow, I

678
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:02,439
Speaker 2: can't believe, you know that this is actually happening. It's

679
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 2: funny because to a certain extent, you know, even then,

680
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 2: I considered myself like conscious, like understanding that the system

681
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 2: doesn't work, but I still have some faith that it

682
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 2: was gonna work. I figured they can't find me guilty.

683
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 2: They How can somebody say they saw me shoot somebody

684
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 2: in the back and he was never shot in the back.

685
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 2: You know, How can somebody say, Okay, he confessed and

686
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 2: they don't even have the confession, you know, they have

687
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 2: nothing but his word. So all of these things was

688
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 2: running through my mind, and I'm saying, there's no way

689
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,800
Speaker 2: that these guys can't realize that this is a setup.

690
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: And I was praying for.

691
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 2: The best, and then I was just praying that it

692
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 2: would be manslaughter. And when they convicted me of murder,

693
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 2: I remember the judge. I don't know if it was

694
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 2: then or my senses, but I remember the judge giving

695
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 2: me an opportunity to say something, and my lawyer basically.

696
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: Saying to be remorseful, you know, And.

697
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 2: I remember me telling the judge I started to say,

698
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sorry about these guys' deaths. And I

699
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 2: remember I said, I'm sorry about these guys' deaths, but

700
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.

701
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: That's all I can say.

702
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 2: I said, I really didn't do it, and that was

703
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 2: all I can say it, you know, Like my lawyer

704
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 2: was kind of like pushing me say something, be remorseful,

705
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,760
Speaker 2: try to, you know, but I just I was stuck

706
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 2: because all I kept telling was I didn't do it,

707
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 2: and that was it.

708
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 5: You know. It's shocking to me that I don't think

709
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 5: any maybe there's one state that has mandatory videotaping of

710
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 5: witness statements, right, because the witnesses, as you said, can

711
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 5: be led very easily. They can be influenced, they could

712
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 5: be fed information, and eyewitness identification is such a tremendous factor.

713
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 5: It's the number one cause of wrongful company.

714
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 6: Right because even though we know how frequently witnesses eyewitnesses

715
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 6: are wrong, even though we have a zillion studies that

716
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 6: has shown this, when somebody gets it up there in

717
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 6: the courtroom and looks at the defendant and points at

718
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 6: the defendant and said, it's him. I'll never forget his

719
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 6: face as long as he lives. People believe that, just

720
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 6: like people believe that only guilty people make confessions, and

721
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 6: so they believe the false confessions. They believe the bad

722
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 6: eyewitness identification. So that's what I think people should. And obviously,

723
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 6: if you have no forensic evidence, especially these days where

724
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 6: you know there's DNA, there's cell phones, cell phone towers,

725
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,439
Speaker 6: Google searches, we all leave these electronic signatures. If all

726
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 6: of that is kind of missing, then you should be

727
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 6: really skeptical about this.

728
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 5: In this country, if I was redoing the justice system,

729
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 5: I might put in a rule that says that if

730
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 5: there's no corroborating evidence other than a cross racial identification,

731
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 5: the case is not going well.

732
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 6: At least a cross racial identification of a stranger. Yeah,

733
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,240
Speaker 6: I mean, if it happens to be your wife or something,

734
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 6: then that's.

735
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 5: Right, fair enough, But that's that's not the that's not

736
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 5: the common.

737
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 2: Let me say also that I think that there has

738
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 2: to be open discovery also because in my case specifically,

739
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 2: like I said, the prosecutor knew that a previous attempt

740
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:46,240
Speaker 2: had been made on these guys. They knewice a month

741
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,439
Speaker 2: after my arrest, you know, so.

742
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: They if they had.

743
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 2: Turned that information over to the defense, you know, and

744
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 2: assuming that the defense lawyer would have investigated, because he

745
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 2: did invested anything else, but assuming that he had that information,

746
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 2: he would investigate it.

747
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,280
Speaker 1: That was reasonable doubt. That's what I needed.

748
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 6: And people don't realize that even in place like New York,

749
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 6: which is fancied as a progressive state, we have trial

750
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 6: by ambush. And by that I mean you don't get

751
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 6: the witness statements against you until the day of jury selection,

752
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 6: or maybe a day earlier, just so we don't have

753
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 6: to disrupt jury selection. All of that material, all of

754
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 6: the things the witnesses said they saw you do, you

755
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 6: don't get that until your trial is just about to begin,

756
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,479
Speaker 6: which of course makes taking an intelligent plea impossible because

757
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 6: you have no idea what it is they have against you.

758
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 6: It makes investigation impossible, especially if you're innocent, you don't

759
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 6: have any idea who the witnesses are. If you're guilty,

760
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 6: it's easier because oh yeah, yeah, Joe and Snappy they

761
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 6: were there. You know, I can tell you all about them,

762
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 6: what's wrong with them. But if you're totally innocent, you

763
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 6: have no idea who these people are, then there's no

764
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 6: investigation that can take place.

765
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 5: Right. Trial by ambushers dates back to hundreds of years

766
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 5: ago in England where they used to think that, you know,

767
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 5: this was the best way to get to the truth

768
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 5: was by ambushing people so they wouldn't have time to

769
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 5: get a defense together. So, Shabaka, you end up getting sentenced.

770
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 2: To forty years two sentences of twenty to life running consecutively.

771
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 5: Forty years life. You were twenty two years old at

772
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 5: the time, right, so we know that when you hear

773
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,919
Speaker 5: these census fifteen to life, twenty to life, forty to life,

774
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 5: it really means life unless you're willing to take a

775
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 5: plea to something you didn't do. So because the parole

776
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 5: board doesn't want to hear that same story you told

777
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 5: in the courtroom, I'm innocent, I didn't do it. I'm sorry,

778
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 5: these people are dead. Nobody wants to hear that shit.

779
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 5: So you go to prison. Which prison were you sent to?

780
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: First prison I was sent to was sing sing.

781
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 5: And sing sing back then? Was? I mean, it's still

782
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 5: a very intimidating place just to visit, and to go

783
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 5: there as young man at twenty two years old, you

784
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:04,920
Speaker 5: must have been scared out of your wits.

785
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 2: I think that at the beginning, I went through a

786
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 2: whole transition of emotions at the beginning, Like I said,

787
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 2: it was my failure to accept what had happened. I

788
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 2: just kept believing that the best outcome was gonna happen.

789
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 2: When my appeals started getting denied, there was a time

790
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 2: of anger in which, you know, I ended up getting

791
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 2: in trouble going to the box solitary confinement for years,

792
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 2: you know, because I was just so angry that my

793
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: mind was thinking, you know, these guys put me in here,

794
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,839
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give them hell, you know. And it wasn't

795
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 2: until I think I was in solitary confinement that I

796
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 2: met other brothers in there that had been in there

797
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 2: for years, and they would ask me, you know, what

798
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 2: are you here for? And I would say, I'm innocent,

799
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:56,479
Speaker 2: but I've been charged with two murders and they would

800
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 2: tell me, you can't.

801
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 1: Give up, you know.

802
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 2: And I started to see guys that I had came

803
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: to prison with who were doing five years, ten years,

804
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 2: and they were going home, and it started to dawn

805
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 2: on me that I would never go home, that this

806
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 2: was going to.

807
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: Be my life from now on unless I.

808
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 2: Seriously got into trying to find a way out. And

809
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 2: it became a revelation that it wasn't going to be

810
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 2: through somebody else helping me, that it had to be me.

811
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 2: So I started to go to school. I went to college,

812
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 2: I got a college degree. I started to learn law,

813
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 2: started taking law classes. At the time, Cornell was giving

814
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 2: law classes inside the prison, so I started signing up

815
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: for law classes. I got a job in the law library,

816
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,720
Speaker 2: started learning by working through with other people's cases, helping

817
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 2: them with their cases, and it happened to be the

818
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 2: best thing that could have ever happened to me, because

819
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 2: working in the law library, I kept running into cases.

820
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: That had to do with Detective Scarseller. You know.

821
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 2: So as I'm reading people's cases and I'm saying, this

822
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 2: is the same detective in my case, and I'm asking

823
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 2: them questions about their case, and he said, yeah, he

824
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 2: set me up. And then I'm saying, yeah, he set

825
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 2: me up too. But then when it became like two people,

826
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 2: three people, four people, I started to see the pattern

827
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: and I said, wow, he didn't just do this to me,

828
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 2: He did it to.

829
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 1: A lot of people, you know.

830
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:34,879
Speaker 2: And I started to formulate in my own mind that

831
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: the only way I was going to get.

832
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: Out was to expose Scarsella.

833
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 2: We had to show that this guy was a crooked cop,

834
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 2: I think it was.

835
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: I had started working on my motion.

836
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 2: And I met up with Derek Hamilton, who was also

837
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: a scar Seller case.

838
00:47:57,680 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: He had already put in his motion.

839
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 2: He was waiting for his response, and I told him,

840
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 2: I said, look, we need to expose this guy. We

841
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 2: need to really concentrate on Scarseller. He's the key, you know.

842
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 2: I told him, I said I know about three or

843
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 2: four guys who he set up, and he told me, well,

844
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 2: I know about three or four guys too, and we

845
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 2: started comparing our notes. So, like I said, he had

846
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 2: already pushed his motion. So in my motion, I started

847
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,760
Speaker 2: focusing on Scarseller. Even though I started arguing the actual

848
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: innocence claim, a portion of it was saying that Scarsella

849
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 2: should not be believed because of his suspicious actions in

850
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:42,399
Speaker 2: all these cases. And I started enumerting cases in which

851
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:47,839
Speaker 2: it was very suspicious of confessions and evidence that, you know.

852
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 2: So as I did that we happened to look up

853
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 2: that Derek was paroled, and because he was paroled, he

854
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 2: was outside.

855
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: And by then we had started.

856
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 2: Gathering people, me and him and Danny Mincom, who was

857
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 2: another guy that was innocent. We all worked in the

858
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 2: law library and we started working together as a group,

859
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 2: and we formed our own group which we call AI,

860
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,359
Speaker 2: which was to us, meant the actual innocence guys, and

861
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 2: we would work on actual innocence cases. Like if somebody

862
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 2: came and said we're innocent, we would sit down with

863
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 2: them and really grill them to see, if you know,

864
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 2: go over their evidence, go over their case to see

865
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 2: if they were really innocent, and if we believed it,

866
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 2: we would take them in and we would work with

867
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 2: their case too.

868
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 5: Now you actually had a law firm in prison, Yes,

869
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 5: which is pretty incredible.

870
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 2: You know, all three of us were law clerks and

871
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 2: we knew the law, but our specialty was really that

872
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,879
Speaker 2: actual innocence. So we started working on people's cases like that.

873
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,280
Speaker 5: It's incredible. I mean, just visualizing the law firm in prison,

874
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 5: it's just so. And I know Derek very well, you know,

875
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 5: I know Derek, and he's he's a brilliant guy. I

876
00:49:54,920 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 5: mean an incredible, incredible legal mind, and his story is amazing.

877
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 5: Of course he's been on the podcast as well on

878
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 5: wrongful conviction. So that was your moment where you actually

879
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 5: sort of found this, you know, inner strength and this

880
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 5: desire to better yourself and in the process find a

881
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,439
Speaker 5: way to get yourself out, which you did the same

882
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 5: for a number of other guys that are still in there.

883
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 5: And that's you know, and that's so inspiring to people

884
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 5: like me who are in this movement. Realize that we

885
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 5: don't have endless amounts of time. I do want to

886
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 5: get to the conclusion, and Ron I want to get

887
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 5: back to you, and then we're going to finish up

888
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 5: with you. So you get involved. And what was the

889
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 5: magic bullet? What was the silver bullet here? How did

890
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 5: you manage to help Shebaka find his way out of

891
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:45,799
Speaker 5: this morass? Twenty seven years later?

892
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 6: There wasn't a magic bullet. There were a lot of

893
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 6: numerous small, non magic bullets that eventually perforated the target sufficiently.

894
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 6: Shebacca has sent me hist of papers, and you know,

895
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 6: it was an amazing set of papers. It was the

896
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 6: amazing if a lawyer had done it was even more

897
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 6: impressive that it was. It came from people who have

898
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 6: the fewest resources and the least formal legal education, although

899
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 6: they did have a lot of time and they had

900
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 6: a lot of motivation. And I recognized Scarcella from the

901
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 6: earlier days and recognized this is exactly the kind of

902
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 6: stuff he did, and I felt we could win this,

903
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 6: and so I agreed to take the case. Shebaka made

904
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 6: it very clear that Okay, he's happy that I'm taking

905
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 6: the case, but he remains in control of strategic decisions.

906
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 6: He had had enough lawyers telling him what was best

907
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 6: for him, and I agreed with that and agreed to

908
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 6: work under those conditions. And then it just became a

909
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 6: very long process. The judge granted a hearing. Before we

910
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 6: went to hearing, all of the stuff about Scarcella emerged.

911
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 6: The new information was found. Shabaka had managed to find

912
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 6: a couple of witnesses who were there with Harley Young,

913
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 6: the star eye witness, who were in the building with

914
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 6: him at the time the shooting took place. They came

915
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 6: forward the alibi witnesses whoever the lawyer saw back then,

916
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:24,280
Speaker 6: the young women he saw back then that he didn't

917
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 6: want to put on the stand. The middle aged women

918
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 6: right now were extremely impressive, regular citizens, hard working, smart,

919
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 6: very very persuasive, and over a series of I guess

920
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 6: about a year of hearings, finally the judge wrote a

921
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 6: very strong decision vacating his conviction and stating for the

922
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 6: record that there was a significant likelihood that Scarcela had

923
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:58,720
Speaker 6: fabricated the confession. And at that point the DA's office,

924
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 6: under new leadership now under Ken Thompson, called me and

925
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 6: said we're done, We're not appealing, we're not retrying. Charges

926
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:10,359
Speaker 6: will be dismissed, and Shabaka walked out. In June of

927
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 6: twenty fifteen.

928
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 5: Yes, how did you get the news that the conviction

929
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 5: was being vacated after this crazy ordeal? Where were you?

930
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 2: I was in prison in Shriwanka Correctional Facility. At my

931
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 2: job I used to work at that point, I was

932
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 2: working at the Grievance Department because they would no longer

933
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 2: let me work in the law library. So I was

934
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 2: working at the grievance department and the officer came and said,

935
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 2: you got a phone call from your wife.

936
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: So I went and got a call and I called

937
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: her and she said they reversed your case. So initially

938
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 1: I wasn't.

939
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:57,919
Speaker 2: Sure if she was correct, because you know, she could

940
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 2: have got it confused and wanted to hear from somebody officially.

941
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 2: So I hung up and I called Leah Busby, who

942
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 2: is the attorney with Ron Cooby on my case. And

943
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 2: Leah was like excited. She said, they reversed your case

944
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 2: and you're gonna come home, you know, And I was shocked.

945
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: But my first question, like, when is now tomorrow? When?

946
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:27,919
Speaker 2: So they was like, as soon as the paperwork clear,

947
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 2: you're getting out. And it took a few days, but no,

948
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 2: it was the shortest time ever because I knew I

949
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 2: was getting out soon.

950
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 5: Did you sleep during those three days?

951
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 2: Yes, everybody thought, and that's a question that people always ask,

952
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 2: the anxiety of those last few days, But to be

953
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,839
Speaker 2: honest with you, it was the most common days of

954
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 2: the whole bit. The anxiety comes when you don't know

955
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 2: what's happened, but when you know, okay, I'm getting out

956
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:00,879
Speaker 2: of here in the next couple of days, like all

957
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 2: my stress was gone.

958
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 5: I was wondering about that because there's people people follow

959
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 5: me on Instagram, which I'm at. It's Jason Flommer, of course,

960
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 5: but people follow me know that. Yesterday I walked a

961
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:12,879
Speaker 5: guy out of prison in Virginia, Lenny Singleton, after twenty

962
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 5: three years, and I was wondering. I forgot to ask

963
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 5: him that, but I was wondering whether he had got

964
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:17,880
Speaker 5: any sleep the night before, knowing that he was going

965
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 5: to get out the next day. But yeah, I guess

966
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 5: it's one of the others. You don't sleep at all.

967
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 5: You sleep like a baby. And now shabaka. The best

968
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 5: part of the show every week is when everyone stops

969
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 5: talking and lets you well in this case you, but

970
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:37,480
Speaker 5: whoever the featured guest on the show is just have

971
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:41,439
Speaker 5: the mic to say whatever it is you want. One

972
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,320
Speaker 5: thing I am interested in knowing is whether you feel

973
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 5: bitter about what happened to you and what and how

974
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 5: you're how you're processing all this and moving forward. But uh,

975
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 5: this is this is that time, So the mic is yours.

976
00:55:56,560 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't feel bitter. I feel.

977
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 2: I feel sad that the people haven't taken that there's

978
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:11,120
Speaker 2: been no accountability, you know, like he said that Scarcella

979
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 2: is still basically has gotten away with what he's done.

980
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 2: He's ruined lives, not just minds, but noumerous others, and

981
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 2: then people don't even realize that it's not just a defendant,

982
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 2: it's the families.

983
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: It's my mother and my father.

984
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 2: My mother died while I was in prison, and I

985
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 2: never got a chance to spend no time with her.

986
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:34,280
Speaker 2: My father died within the year of me coming home,

987
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 2: and even when I came home, he was suffering from

988
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 2: dementia and didn't even know I was home, so they

989
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:46,800
Speaker 2: never got to see me as a free man. It's

990
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 2: families that get destroyed because of the situation that he created.

991
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 2: And it's and like I said, it's not just me,

992
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 2: it's doesn't so far. That saddens me because they were

993
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 2: people who could have stopped it. Not only Detective Scarseller,

994
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:05,800
Speaker 2: but everybody who allowed it to go on is complicit,

995
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:08,439
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. The district attorneys, the other

996
00:57:08,520 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 2: police officers, the judges who looked at this case and

997
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 2: seeing all of these gaping holes in the story, continue

998
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 2: to allow it. Everybody's responsible for this, and until we

999
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 2: actually take personal responsibility to say, Okay, I'm gonna do

1000
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:28,600
Speaker 2: something to not let this go on, it's going to continue.

1001
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 2: Because that's the way the criminal justice system has been

1002
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 2: created to protect people like Detective Scarseller. That's like I said,

1003
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 2: I'm not bitter, I'm just saden that we haven't realized

1004
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 2: that and done something more about that situation. Since I've

1005
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:50,880
Speaker 2: been home now, I continue to work with certain cases.

1006
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 2: You know, Danny wyn Kong's one, Stephen Brathway is another,

1007
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,080
Speaker 2: James Jenkins. These are people who I know are and

1008
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 2: a centing who are incarcerated, and continue to work with them.

1009
00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 2: I've been able to put my life back in order

1010
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 2: to some extent, as far as you know, to reconnect

1011
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 2: with my family, my brothers, my sisters, my nephews, my nieces,

1012
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 2: people who you know, I have nephews and nieces who

1013
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 2: never even saw me. You know, they was raised hearing

1014
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:23,840
Speaker 2: about their uncle, but never having the opportunity to see me.

1015
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 2: So it gives me a time to put back my family.

1016
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:32,360
Speaker 2: I'm working now. I own a restaurant in Brooklyn and

1017
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 2: Bedstine seven one eight Live eleven fourteen Forton Street and

1018
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 2: definitely come there and eat with us and enjoy it

1019
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 2: because not only is he a restaurant, but it's an

1020
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 2: event space where we do things to give back to

1021
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 2: the community. Like we're always having some type of event

1022
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 2: in which we interact with the community and we try

1023
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 2: to give back. You know, I spent most of my

1024
00:58:57,640 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 2: life in prison, so I want to be able to

1025
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 2: really interact with the world now that I'm home, and

1026
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 2: to be some type of example for that. Even in prison,

1027
00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 2: you can come out and do something positive that because

1028
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 2: there's a fear of guys in prison, and the fear

1029
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 2: is purposely promoted so that people can do what they

1030
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:26,919
Speaker 2: want to do without anybody having any empathy for those

1031
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 2: guys in prison.

1032
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:33,959
Speaker 5: Well, I'm really happy to see you out here doing

1033
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 5: good things. If people want to reach out to you,

1034
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 5: if they want to learn more about these cases that

1035
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 5: you just talked about, if they want to get involved

1036
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 5: in help, how can they do that? Do you do Facebook?

1037
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 5: Because you want to get paid at.

1038
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: My Facebook page is shabakakor they can go up there.

1039
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,760
Speaker 2: I'm always posting stuff about these cases and about stuff

1040
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 2: that we're involved in and stuff that we're doing.

1041
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:01,280
Speaker 1: So if you follow me on Facebook, you can catch

1042
01:00:01,320 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: up on everything that we're doing.

1043
01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 5: Okaybacca Shakur and of course that's s h A b

1044
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 5: A k A and Shakour like Tupac Shakur. Everybody knows

1045
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 5: how to spell that, So yeah, I please do get involved,

1046
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 5: follow Shabaka and let's get these other guys home and

1047
01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 5: keep this momentum going. So I want to thank both

1048
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:28,840
Speaker 5: of you for coming and dropping some knowledge with everybody

1049
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 5: here on Wrong for Conviction. Ron, thank you, Thank you, Ron,

1050
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:37,800
Speaker 5: Kooby stars the wrong Man is the show and Shabacca

1051
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 5: Shakur is the right man for the job, and he's

1052
01:00:41,400 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 5: going to go get these other guys out and I'm

1053
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 5: going to help him. Everybody get involved. So Shabaka, thank

1054
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 5: you so much for being here.

1055
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.

1056
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you

1057
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:05,800
Speaker 5: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud

1058
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 5: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll

1059
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 5: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping

1060
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 5: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org

1061
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 5: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like

1062
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:21,800
Speaker 5: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.

1063
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 5: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR

1064
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 5: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on

1065
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 5: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast.

1066
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava

1067
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 5: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one