WEBVTT - #015 Jason Flom with Dennis Maher 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:10.560 With the police banging on the door open up. The 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:12.640 choice to be in that lineup was the last choice 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:13.760 I made as a free man. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.919 A year later, I ended up writing the system. 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.239 I'm going to be one of those people who everyone 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:21.880 in the world is going to think as a monster 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.000 or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:25.319 and I'm just going to have to come to peace 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:25.599 with that. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.520 Somebody was able to look at my picture in the 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.120 database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.479 I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:38.720 might have to play in my hanging. 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:40.479 They had been told. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.640 That two prison officers would have to participate in my execution. 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.240 Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:49.560 all help broke loose. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:01:07.800 But welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.840 we have a very special episode, not only because of 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.399 our amazing guest, Dennis Mayer. First of all, Dennis, welcome 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:14.959 to the show. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:16.040 Thank you for having me. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.679 Dennis will get into his story in a minute, but 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.240 let's suffice it to say that he was a sergeant 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.679 in the United States Army. When he was wrongfully convicted 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.480 of three rapes and served almost twenty years in prison. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.000 I also want to introduce Hannah Riley, who's the director 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.559 of communications for the New England Innocence Project, and she's 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.479 the first time on the show, hopefully not the last. 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.080 And then we have a very close friend of mine, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.480 Alex Spiro. He is a former criminal prosecutor in New 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.920 York and currently a defense attorney. He's also a professor 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.360 at Harvard Law School. Alex, it's great to have you 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.840 on the show as well. Thanks. So Dennis, let's start 0:01:54.880 --> 0:02:00.120 with you. Your case is of great interest, I think, to 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.840 anyone who's interested in this genre, because it touches on 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:08.079 a number of really important and tragically common problems in 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.960 the wrongful conviction world. The mistake and eye witness identification 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:13.760 is unique in your case because of the fact that 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.840 there were three different women who identified you under dubious circumstances, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.720 but nonetheless that identified you. It touches on the storage 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:22.880 of evidence because in your case the evidence had been 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.200 supposedly lost but actually it wasn't. And that's something that 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.840 is really disturbing to anyone who's interested in justice. It 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:37.560 deals with incompetent defense counsel. And also it also has 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:43.320 an element of willful wrongful prosecution. So you really hit 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:47.560 the jackpot of causes of getting locked up for something 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.040 you didn't do. So let's go back, and this is 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.399 a while ago, right, we're talking nineteen eighty three when 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:53.320 this all came down. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:54.440 That's when it started. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.000 Yeah, So nineteen eighty three, paint a picture for us. 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.400 You were were you active to do you in the 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:01.320 military at this time? 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:03.680 Yes, I was stationed at Fort Devons. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.800 Right, and you had been in the airborne Right. I 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.560 was a paratrooper paraterooper station in Italy. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.680 Well, first I was at Fort Bragg, then I volunteered 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.639 to serve overseas. Then I re enlisted to come home 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.600 to Massachusetts, and then I got off a jump status 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.760 to work in my field, which was a diesel mechanic. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.960 And that's another thing. It's it's really upsetting to me, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.760 as someone who loves this country and respects the men 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.560 and women of our military. Here you are. You're twenty 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.680 three years old at the time, yep. And what happened. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:37.920 Let's go back to that. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.880 Well, I graduated from high school in seventy eight and 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.480 enlisted in the Army right out of high school, you know. 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.880 I went through Basic training, Advanced Individual Training, Jump school, 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.560 then went to Fort Bragg, then to Becenza, Italy in 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.480 the five or nine, and then to ten Special Forces 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.320 up at Fort Devons. Then I got off of jump 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.800 status to work as a diesel mechanic because what I 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.119 worked on doesn't drop out of. And then from there 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.800 I was living at home and Lowell with my parents. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.880 I was walking down Westford Street and I was stopped 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.840 by the police. They asked me for identification, so I 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.600 gave him my driver's license, which was outdated because when 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.359 you're in the military you get a cod on the 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.680 back of it that says your license never expires. And 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.800 so well, they asked me for identification. They ran my name, 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.280 which came back negative because I had never been in trouble, 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.960 no speeding, tickets, no nothing. He gave me back my 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.920 ID and then he searched me and he arrested me 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.200 for possession of marijuana. So they brought me to the 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.640 police station and booked me and put me in a 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.000 hold and sell. A couple of hours later, they came 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.680 out and questioned me and they said, where were you 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.120 on the night of November sixteenth, at five point thirty. Well, 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.240 I said, I was in my CEO's office getting yelled 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.520 at because we failed a nuclear biological chemical test. And 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.520 I didn't leave the base till almost quarter past five, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.000 so I didn't get home till almost six o'clock. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:01.880 And then he put me back in the cell. 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.040 And then the other cop come in a couple of 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.400 hours later and asked me the same questions. 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:08.599 I gave him the same answers. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.000 On a night of November seventeenth, I was I left 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.200 the base early to get my car inspected, and I 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.760 went home and took a nap, and then I went 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.680 over to my friend's house to watch the Bruins game. 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.279 And then they brought me into court the next day 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.240 and arranged me for possession of marijuana. And then they 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.640 did what's called an in court identification. They took me 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.239 out of the box and sat me on the bench, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.599 and they brought one of the victims in and she 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:32.960 identified someone else. 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.560 Wait, did you even know what was going on at 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:37.679 this point? I mean, you were being booked for possession 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.400 of marijuana, but now they're bringing a victim. There's no 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:40.760 victim of posession of marijuana. 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.800 True, what I missed was the second time they started 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.640 questioning me, I got mad, you know, why what are 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.880 you questioning me about? And he said, well, we're questioning 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.240 you about a rape that happened on November sixteenth, and 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.720 then attempted rape that happened on November seventeenth. So I said, well, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.520 I guess I need a lawyer. And then next day 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.600 in court they did an in court identification. Now I 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:05.719 was never arraigned for the rapes or anything. They just 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.120 did an in court identification and the victim I died 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.200 someone else and the judge said, you have no grounds 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:11.880 to go forward. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:14.960 Seems like case clothes right there, I mean. 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.800 So they gave me six months probation and said I 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.039 could leave now they had my boots. So I was 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.960 in stocking feet and going to have to walk home 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.800 and stalking feet. As I was leaving the courtroom, they 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:28.920 arrested me and charged me with the rape and the 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.719 attempted rape that the judge said there was no grounds 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:32.479 to go forward on. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:35.360 Okay, Alex, do you want to jump in here because 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:36.720 this whole story is pretty surreal. 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:36.920 Right. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:38.800 First of all, the thing with the boots, we'll get 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.640 back to that, like why they're making you walk home 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.080 and this is in uh it's cold outside, it's in November. 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.440 It's November. Yeah, walking home? Okay, Well that's that's a 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:50.680 little surreal. Then you've just spent the night in jail 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:51.880 for the first time in your life, so I'm sure 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.120 you're a little whacked out anyway at that point. What's 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:56.920 going on here, Alex? Can you get into this? 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.000 I mean, obviously, the use of that sort of identify 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.680 vacation procedure raises serious questions because just presenting him alone 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:06.400 or him in that sort of a setting when he's 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.840 already being accused of some other crime, is not the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.440 right way to conduct I think we know now identification procedures, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.800 but I guess what must have happened is twofold one. 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.520 No doubt that the members of law enforcement were under 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.520 pressure to make an arrest in this case, and secondarily 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.640 during the time in which mister Mayor was incarcerated on 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.880 the initial charge, I'm sure that they noticed things articles 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.720 of clothing putting him near the scene, and other indisha 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.800 that they believed to be corroboration. And so the lack 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.760 of identification obviously did not set this record straight. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.840 Right, And there's a very interesting point that you touch 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.480 on there, which is that there was one of the victims, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.720 or I guess one of the victims, had said that 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.520 the attacker had had a red hooded sweatshirt, right, and 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.120 that became one of the only sort of circumstantial piece 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.320 of evidence that was even something that they could put 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:57.080 a hook on. Right. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:07:59.840 That's why I think they stopped me, because they saw 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.800 I was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, you know, and 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.800 they were two hundred feet away from me, and they 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.200 said I fit the out of conception, but I believe 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:09.960 it was just I had a red hooded sweatshirt on. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:10.240 Right. 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.080 So seven o'clock a night, two hundred feet away, it's 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:13.880 pretty hard to decide. I mean, you'd have to have 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.800 sort of like really superhuman vision to be able to 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:22.920 match a suspect at night, seven o'clock in November in Massachusetts. 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.160 I'm not a meteorologist, but I'm guessing it was dark, 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.160 and so it was dark and you were two hundred 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.520 feet away, and they managed to magically figure out that 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.560 it was you. Now, this goes back to the thing 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:34.200 I talk about often, which is that this is a 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.360 small town, right, You have a rapist out there who's 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.720 just attacked two women, raped one of them, sexually assaulted, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:42.800 and tempted to wape to the other one. They got 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.120 to find somebody there. You are walking around in a 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.880 red hooded sweatshirt. It's like, oh, bingo, this is great. 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.320 We can get this off our desks to an extent, right, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.080 And so Alex, go back to what you were saying before. 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.280 Yeah, I mean, obviously we don't know sort of verbat 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.520 him the back and forth. But no, that is not 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.319 a sound identify procedure. I could say that quite assuredly. 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.080 And what point did you you had requested a lawyer, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.080 At what point did you get assigned a lawyer? 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.000 A lawyer approached my parents and asked if he could 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.960 represent me. Now, this is the lawyer who ended up 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.880 representing me at trial. He approached my parents the same 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.600 day I had one to appoint it to me for possession. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.640 You know, I got six months probation. But then another 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.480 lawyer approached my parents asking if he could represent me, 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.600 and they said yes, yes, because they knew nothing about 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:30.480 the law like me, you know, they'd never been in 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.200 trouble or anything. And he said it'd represent me. For 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.920 five thousand dollars on a rape case. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.840 Now nineteen eighty three, five thousand dollars, five thousand dollars, right, 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.920 I mean that's a lot of money back then, so 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.000 you would hope that this guy would be a real star. 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.400 But that's not the way it worked out at all, 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.920 is it. Back to the scene, So now you're about 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.880 to walk home in your socks stocking feet as New 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.960 Englanders call it, and then you get pulled back in 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.360 and you get charged with two counts of. 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:04.280 Rape and an attempted rape. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.040 Right, Well, I didn't get charged then, they just arrested me, 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.280 and then they took me back to the police station 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.080 and kept me in the station over the weekend and 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.880 brought me into Cambridge Court House and that's where they 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.840 charged me at rape and put me on ten thousand 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.000 dollars bail, which is one thousand dollars cash. So my 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.000 parents bailed me out and then I went to the 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.040 first lineup, which was me six police officers. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:28.800 They were all standing behind a railing. 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.840 I was standing behind a chair and I was ideed, 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:33.360 that was the first one. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.559 That kind of stuff always blows me away. Let's just 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.120 reflect back on that. So they were standing behind a railing, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:41.880 and you were standing behind a chair, So there was 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:43.760 really no reason that anyone would think there'd be anything 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.160 different about you, right, And there were six police officers 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.520 in you okay? And then the victim, one of the victims, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:50.160 comes in. 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:51.719 And identified me. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.040 You know, it was probably obvious to her, you know, 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.400 I'm standing behind a chair. I really don't remember the 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.160 second lineup, but I think it went along the same lines. 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.040 It was me, six police officers, my brother, and this 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.040 time I wasn't standing behind a chair, and she id'd me. 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:09.360 What does your brother have to do with it? 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:11.280 Well, he was just in a line. He was there, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:12.840 and they just wanted to stick him in the lineup. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:14.600 That seems odd, doesn't it? 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.440 And I think that, you know, law enforcement would say 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.120 that later they can assert that they did everything in 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.040 their power to find people that look like him and 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.160 who looks more like a person than their own brother. 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.040 And that's an interesting thing too, because I would this identification, 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:32.480 as everyone who listens to the show knows, is the 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:37.680 leading cause of wrongful conviction. And what we also know 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.040 is that in cases where there's a weapon involved and 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.760 someone is in close proximity and really fearing for their 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.160 life in a very real way, the instance of mistaken 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:52.240 identification goes up. And that's logical, right as an amateur psychologist, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.480 if you're freaking out, literally like you're adrenaline is on, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.839 you know ten, you know your mind's not going to 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.280 through function in the way that it would if you 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.320 were just calmly sitting here and just look at somebody. 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.960 But when someone's got a knife to your throat and 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.880 is either raping or attempting to rape you, your faculties 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.200 are not going to be operating in a normal passion, 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.640 to say the least. And so this case had that 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.360 as well, because the victims were in that exact situation. 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.000 Have you seen the Gorilla basketball video? 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.079 Yes? Okay, have you guys seen that? 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.520 The idea of being we just aren't able to focus 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.400 really clearly on a lot of things at once. So 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.360 if you haven't seen this, I'm completely going to ruin 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:37.040 it for you. 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.280 But no, just watch it. Everyone should watch. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.760 It, right Google, It's on YouTube. A selective attention. 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.280 Test, Right, there's a selective attention test. It involves a 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.400 basketball I strongly recommend that everybody listening to the show 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.880 watched this because it'll give you an idea of just 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.000 how easy it is for your mind to play tricks 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.000 on you. So let's go back to the scene. Right. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.360 So you end up now with this high priced, fancy lawyer, right, 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.199 and you didn't get what you paid for. 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.640 No, I didn't. He never visited where the crime happened. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.880 He never interrogated witnesses or talked to the witnesses or 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.320 anything like that. We went to trial in March of 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.760 two thousand and four. Well before that, January fifth, nineteen 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.760 eighty four, the police came and arrested me again and 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:22.880 brought me down to the police station. I said, well, 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.199 what are you arresting me for. They wouldn't say anything, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.040 and they handed me over to the Air Police department. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.080 So they brought me back to Air and on the way, 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.960 I asked the cop you know what am I under 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.960 arrest for? She said, just shut up. So I asked 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.080 her again and she said just shut up. I says, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:42.200 can you please tell me what I'm under arrest for? 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.880 And she said, well, you're under arrest for a rape 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.280 that happened at the Casa Mano Hotel. I said, where's 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.000 the Casa Mano Hotel? Because I never knew where it 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.600 was until two years ago when I went and spoke 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.120 in air and she said, well, you committed a rape there. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:13:59.000 I said, no, I didn't. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.520 And then they brought me in the air and put 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.760 my bail at fifty thousand dollars cash. So that was 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.720 my last day of freedom, was January fifth, nineteen eighty four. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.560 And then we went through another lineup and I was 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.800 idd again. And in March of nineteen eighty four we 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:16.760 went to trial. 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.200 Going back to your lawyer. So your lawyer didn't visit 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.400 the crime scene, big red flag there, didn't interview the witnesses. 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.640 That seems even more insane. Okay, what else did he 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.560 forget to do or neglect to do? 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.160 I should say he didn't show up for some hearings 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.000 at the trial. He presented most of the case for 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.880 the prosecutor. You know, he's standing next to me. Are 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.160 you sure this is the person? Are you sure? There's 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.840 an point at me saying are you sure this is 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.760 the person who raped you? And of course I got 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:47.400 found guilty. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:49.400 I mean you might as well just say are you 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:51.400 sure that this rapist is the one who raped you? Right? 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.080 I mean it's like I mean it's crazy, so it's incomprehensible. 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.520 I mean, Alex, jump in here because I'm freaking out. 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.400 Yeah, this is not does not sound like good lri that. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.760 Now, let's talk about what good lawyering might have looked like, 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.560 because this is an unusual situation we have here where 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.160 we actually have somebody on the show who can give 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:10.440 us that type of idea. 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.640 I guess I'd break it down into two parts. In 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.600 terms of the identification, I think you have to remember that, 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.480 in terms of Lowell, the women were approached from behind. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.560 You already mentioned the distraction of a weapon, a high 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.720 tense situation affecting the ability to accurately picture somebody and 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.080 recall it. For one, she had already seen the individual 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.280 that she would later pick out, because she had seen 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.000 him in a courtroom setting on a bench, and so 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.160 even if she just remembered that she would falsely identify him. 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.720 It also wasn't a double blind procedure, meaning that the 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.240 investigator ostensibly knew who she was trying to pick out, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.880 put him in a unique setting within the lineup and 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.120 everything else. In addition, all of the witnesses were shown 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.600 photographs in which they identified as I understand it, mister Mayor, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.400 before they viewed a live lineup, And so what often 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.360 happens is that you end up picking out the person 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.760 that you saw in the photo array, not necessarily the 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.800 person you saw on the night in question. And sort 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.600 of all of that, coupled with law enforcements, desire from 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.120 perhaps a very good place of trying to solve this crime, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.640 can lead to a series of identification procedures not being 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.760 pristine and not being correctly done, and the taint from 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:21.200 one bleeds over into the next, because once he's identified 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.880 in these initial cases, the air case becomes a foregone conclusion, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.360 and I think you have to attack that in all 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.360 of those different ways. I also think they used corroborative 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.040 evidence that is a bit of a red herring. They 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.680 see him in the vicinity near the time of the 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.240 initial rapes and Lowell, but the truth is he's from 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.760 that area. It's not like finding somebody in some remote 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.920 location or finding somebody far away from where they normally travel. 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:47.760 They see a knife and a jacket in his car, 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.640 but that's military issued, where that most of the men 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.560 in his age demographic in a military town might very 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:55.440 well have, and he might be wearing. 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:56.080 A red sweatshirt. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.200 But as US folks from Boston know, a lot of 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.480 the sports teams there have red sweatshirt and I don't 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.000 think that is that unique of an item. And so 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.800 there were all of those things that needed to be investigated. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.439 And on top of that, he had an alibi that 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.119 wasn't properly vetted, that could have been properly vetted that 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.159 would suggest he couldn't have been where they say that 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.680 he was. And the crimes themselves, the air crime versus 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.639 the lower crimes, don't have the same fact pattern and 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.239 don't necessarily suggest that the same person perpetrated them. And 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.160 that wasn't really tested or explored, and I think that 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.280 could have been used effectively to suggest law enforcement's tunnel vision. 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.440 Were any of these factors brought up by your attorney 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.000 at trial or at any other time. 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.600 Well, he brought up part of my alibi because where 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.280 I was at the base for the November sixteenth crime, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.199 and they just dismissed it. They said, do you have 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.639 that and write And even though I had NCOs the 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.640 sergeants they are testifying on my behalf that they were 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:49.919 with me. 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.720 So the sergeants actually testified at trial and said that 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.480 you were there. Yeah, those would seem to be relatively 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.560 We're not talking about crackheads, right, We're talking about sergeants 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.800 in the ens United States Army who were saying this 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.520 guy was here. Again, I'm not a professor of metaphysics, 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.520 but you can't be in two places at one time. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:10.280 Everybody knows that. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:12.760 And the sarcists had a reason to remember, right. The 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.000 sergeant said that there had been a test failure and 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.639 that it was an intense meeting and so it wasn't 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.600 a standard meeting. It was a meeting that they would 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.160 have one would think remember, and they remembered him there. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.200 Yeah, that's an excellent point again that a good defense 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.960 lawyer would have brought up. And this is very different 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:29.840 than some of the cases we see where a guy's 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.639 alibi or a woman's alibi is that they were home 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.400 with their parents watching TV or with their wife or something. 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.600 And then they say, wow, the life for anybody would 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.560 lie to protect their family. This is not family, right. 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.280 These guys are not your uncles or brothers or anything else. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.000 I mean, these are guys you work with, and in fact, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.119 they were bitsed at you at this particular time. On 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.880 top of that. So that's just that's just nuts. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.240 I think what the prosecutor may have countered is, even 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.640 if they were to be believed, he still had enough 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.920 time from five point fifteen to five thirty to make 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.919 to the scene. But of course, if you did your 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.600 job and you did an investigation, you would drive a 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.640 car from one location to another, and you would show 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.640