Speaker 1: At around nine forty five. On the night of April
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, the fifty four year old
Speaker 1: widow of a Cannon Mills executive was at her home
Speaker 1: and Conquered, North Carolina when a man grabbed her from behind.
Speaker 1: She fought him, scratching her attacker so hard that her
Speaker 1: nails bent backwards, but ultimately he overpowered and raped her.
Speaker 1: She described her assailant as a light skinned black man
Speaker 1: with no mention of facial hair, wearing a dark leather
Speaker 1: coat and a beanie hat. A rape kit was done
Speaker 1: and the police carefully collected a mountain of forensic evidence. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: across town, nineteen year old Ronnie Long was at home
Speaker 1: with his mother, on the phone with the mother of
Speaker 1: his own two year old son till ten PM. A
Speaker 1: few days later, Ronnie received a court summons for trespassing
Speaker 1: in a park after hours. He was wearing a dark
Speaker 1: leather coat at the time. Police would ask the rape
Speaker 1: victim to be present in court to see if her
Speaker 1: attacker was pres and on the day Ronnie, the owner
Speaker 1: of a dark leather coat, was scheduled to appear disguised.
Speaker 1: She sat in the gallery for two hours in Ronnie's presence,
Speaker 1: only to identify him as her attacker when his name
Speaker 1: was called. The state would present a case without any
Speaker 1: of the collected forensic or biological evidence, solely resting their
Speaker 1: case upon this extremely unorthodox and totally unreliable cross racial
Speaker 1: identification and Ronnie's unscratched leather coat. For that, Ronnie has
Speaker 1: been in prison for forty four years. This is wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction with Jason Flamma. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's
Speaker 1: case Will It's going to upset you. I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you right now this is a grotesque injustice that
Speaker 1: was inflicted and is still being inflicted on an amazing
Speaker 1: man named Ronnie Long. And we're hoping to hear from
Speaker 1: Ronnie during the recording. He'll be calling in from prison
Speaker 1: where he has been since nineteen seventy six for a
Speaker 1: crime he didn't commit. In this time of COVID, there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of complications, so we're going to try to
Speaker 1: make it work with us now as well is Jamie Lao.
Speaker 1: Jamie is an attorney at Duke University's Wrongful Convictions Clinic,
Speaker 1: and Jamie, thank you for joining us on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do something unusual here. I actually want
Speaker 1: to start at the end. We almost never do that.
Speaker 1: But there's a quote from a judge named James Wynn,
Speaker 1: who's a circuit court judge in the fourth District Court.
Speaker 1: So this is a serious guy and judge when said,
Speaker 1: and I quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense
Speaker 1: council in the world, not only in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: but in the history of this country would have wanted
Speaker 1: or needed, and which should have been supplied, and yet
Speaker 1: we did not provide it. He goes on to say,
Speaker 1: what is it about us that we want to prosecute
Speaker 1: and keep people in jail when we know evidence may
Speaker 1: exist that might lead to a different conclusion. Why is
Speaker 1: that so offensive to us now that we want to
Speaker 1: protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? What's the
Speaker 1: harm of looking at the new evidence? He said? When
Speaker 1: did justice leave the process? So we let our rules
Speaker 1: blind us to what we all can see? Wow?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, during the course of argument it made us
Speaker 2: optimistic that after forty four years, an end may be
Speaker 2: near to the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case. It's
Speaker 2: been an incredible difficult journey through the courts to get
Speaker 2: his case to where it was. On May seventh of
Speaker 2: this year, you said we'll start at the end, and
Speaker 2: the end at this point in time was an argument
Speaker 2: on May seventh in front of the full Fourth Circuit
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals, which is fifteen active judges, all have
Speaker 2: been appointed by a President. Judge Winn was making that
Speaker 2: quote in response to arguments from the State of North
Speaker 2: Carolina that more or less was asking the court to
Speaker 2: disregard all the evidence that is now known about in
Speaker 2: this case that was hid from Rani at the time
Speaker 2: of his trial in nineteen seventy six. And Judge Winn
Speaker 2: also discussed sort of the circumstances of nineteen seventy six
Speaker 2: and the conditions of black mails, particularly in the South
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six, and how they were wrongfully convicted
Speaker 2: in great numbers. So at the moment Judge Wynn offered
Speaker 2: his viewpoints during the course of the stakes argument, we
Speaker 2: knew that we had succeeded in conveying to the court
Speaker 2: the seriousness and the magnitude of the injustice that occurred
Speaker 2: in Ronnie's case.
Speaker 1: As promised, we got a phone call from Ronnie and
Speaker 1: I must warn you that there was a poor connection
Speaker 1: with the prison, so ry's a little hard to hear.
Speaker 1: But what he has to say needs to be heard,
Speaker 1: so please bear with us.
Speaker 3: You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged
Speaker 3: for this call. This call is from an inmate aunt
Speaker 3: Albemarle Correctional Institution. This call will be monitored and recorded.
Speaker 3: To accept this call, prins stive now to decline this call.
Speaker 4: Hang on.
Speaker 3: Thank you for you think Globe Tail link.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hi Ronnie, thanks for calling me. I know we
Speaker 1: have limited time, so let's get right into it. Now.
Speaker 1: You grew up and conquered North Carolina, right, seven brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. Can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: your life before all of this horrible stuff happened.
Speaker 4: I paid sports when I was in high school, right
Speaker 4: waiting to come forward. See, I learned how to link
Speaker 4: with such song. That's kind of little work I was
Speaker 4: doing with my dad. I would go to work with
Speaker 4: him sometime, take money with him. I had a son.
Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time with my son to
Speaker 4: cool in the game the game when I got the
Speaker 4: street with three.
Speaker 1: Now I read about this one time before you had
Speaker 1: your son, way before the incident that landed you in prison.
Speaker 1: There was an encounter that you once had with some
Speaker 1: police officers. They pulled up on you, harassed you a bit, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing around here? Boy type of thing,
Speaker 1: and you responded, isn't this America all right? I have
Speaker 1: free to walk on this sidewalk? That right.
Speaker 4: I was coming from a girl hell, I was coming
Speaker 4: from a girl out one night. The area that I
Speaker 4: was in he was going to listen like area, So
Speaker 4: I'm coming home one night? The two white couple up
Speaker 4: behind me that the other were you coming from? What
Speaker 4: are you doing in this area here? Pat? Did you
Speaker 4: walk home here? They took me, trust me to be
Speaker 4: downtown for me in a room, I stated, gave up
Speaker 4: too loud, but also gave up, told me too, you
Speaker 4: can leave. I just gotta walk up, went.
Speaker 1: Home, And that's it seems to be how he got
Speaker 1: to be on the radar of the local authorities. And
Speaker 1: then on the Faithful Day of Sunday, April twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, at around nine forty five pm, a
Speaker 1: wealthy white, fifty four year old widow of a Canon
Speaker 1: Mills executive was burged and raped an awful, awful crime,
Speaker 1: and Canon Mills was a major employer in the area,
Speaker 1: and that name's going to come to play a big
Speaker 1: role in this story. The victim said that while she
Speaker 1: was preparing food for a beach trip the following day,
Speaker 1: a black man snuck into her home and grabbed her
Speaker 1: from behind. She said the intruder told her that he
Speaker 1: only had fifteen minutes as his friends were waiting for
Speaker 1: him outside like a horror movie, and he proceeded to
Speaker 1: rape her. She later described her attacker as quote yellow
Speaker 1: looking and quote again not blue black, maybe wearing gloves,
Speaker 1: a beanie hat, no mention of any facial hair, and
Speaker 1: a dark leather coat. She also described the violent struggle
Speaker 1: where she scratched her attacker so hard that her fingernails
Speaker 1: bent backward, which would definitely have left the mark on
Speaker 1: that leather coat. The victim said that whenever she tried
Speaker 1: to move, he would slam her head against the ground.
Speaker 1: Then the phone rang, startling the attacker, who gathered his
Speaker 1: things and left through the front door. Victim then rushed
Speaker 1: over to her neighbors naked, where she was able to
Speaker 1: call the police, and they arrived around ten pm. The
Speaker 1: victim has since passed away. But that being said, she
Speaker 1: was rushed to the hospital for a rape kit, and
Speaker 1: the doctor performed all the tests and collected all the
Speaker 1: biological evidence and everything else. What happened next is that
Speaker 1: Detective Eisenhower of the Concord Police Department arrived at the
Speaker 1: victim's home around ten thirty. He photographed the house and
Speaker 1: began collecting evidence, including latent fingerprints, carpet samples, suspect hair
Speaker 1: paint samples, as well as pieces of the victim's clothing
Speaker 1: and partially burned matches, and he later brought them to
Speaker 1: the State Bureau of Investigation office at Raleigh for examination.
Speaker 1: He also lifted a latent shoe print from a column
Speaker 1: near the porch. Now this is important later as nothing
Speaker 1: but the shoe print was ever the discussed at trial.
Speaker 1: And before we go any further, we need to state
Speaker 1: clearly that Ronnie had a solid alibi, and remember the
Speaker 1: crime took place at nine five. Ronnie, at around nine thirty,
Speaker 1: you were at home with your mother, waiting on your
Speaker 1: father to get back with the car so you could
Speaker 1: head out to a party in Charlotte. You were on
Speaker 1: the phone with the mother of your child. Your mom
Speaker 1: hopped on the phone a few times to say hello
Speaker 1: to her grandson.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, he on the.
Speaker 4: Phone too, but you can't all we understand what he
Speaker 4: say when he was trying to talk. He on the
Speaker 4: phone to my mom was on the phone, on the phone.
Speaker 4: I'm up on the phone and I'm waiting on my
Speaker 4: dad to come back with the card. Hey, I got
Speaker 4: that call o'clock one on to a party and shower.
Speaker 1: So Jamie, can you take us back to how Ronnie
Speaker 1: came to be implicated in it and how he could
Speaker 1: have possibly been convicted in spite of no evidence of
Speaker 1: none zero.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ronnie, very much like other young black men in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six and still today, was harassed by law
Speaker 2: enforcement officers. That harassment directly led to what ultimately becomes
Speaker 2: this forty four year old wrongful conviction. On April twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: the victim is assaulted and raped in her home. A
Speaker 2: few days after that, Ronnie receives a trespassing charge at
Speaker 2: the local park that was adjacent to his home when
Speaker 2: he shouldn't have been there, and during that time it
Speaker 2: appears that he was observed wearing a black leather coat.
Speaker 2: The officer who stopped him. Recalled that the person who
Speaker 2: was described by the victim had been wearing a dark
Speaker 2: leather coat on the night of April twenty fifth when
Speaker 2: she gave a description to law enforcement, and despite Ronnie
Speaker 2: not matching other very prominent features that were included in
Speaker 2: her description, the officer decided that perhaps he was the
Speaker 2: individual who had assault at the victim. I mean it
Speaker 2: was significant the disparities between her description of her assailant
Speaker 2: and Ronnie. She described her assailant as a yellow black male.
Speaker 2: In the South at the time, to describe somebody as
Speaker 2: a yellow black male meant a light skinned black person
Speaker 2: of mixed origin. She never mentioned her assailant having facial hair.
Speaker 2: Ronnie had facial hair, and disputed that he had facial
Speaker 2: hair on April twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, when she
Speaker 2: was assaulted. So despite him having a different complexion having
Speaker 2: facial hair, where she never described facial hair, he becomes
Speaker 2: a suspect. Officers then go to her home and says,
Speaker 2: we have reason to believe that the individual who had
Speaker 2: assaulted you will be in the courtroom on this date
Speaker 2: fifteen days later, May tenth, nineteen seventy six, and we'd
Speaker 2: like you to come down to the courtroom to see
Speaker 2: if you can identify the person who attacked you there.
Speaker 2: So immediately in her mind she thinks they've done some
Speaker 2: investigation and have identified a likely suspect. But all they
Speaker 2: had done is made the connect to the fact that
Speaker 2: Ronnie had a black leather coat, similar to what she described.
Speaker 2: The real curious thing with respect to law enforcement asking
Speaker 2: the victim to go to the courthouse to try and
Speaker 2: make an identification is they had a picture of long
Speaker 2: that they could have shown her when they went to
Speaker 2: her and asked her to come to the courthouse, and
Speaker 2: they could have did it in a fair procedure, or
Speaker 2: as fair as these identification procedures can be, with the
Speaker 2: inclusion of fillers to ensure that she's selecting him from
Speaker 2: memory and not because he looks most like the attacker
Speaker 2: or because she's being presented a suspect in a very
Speaker 2: suggestive way. They elected to forego that. So she's brought
Speaker 2: to the courthouse dressed in a disguise because she's fearful
Speaker 2: that if her attacker was there, he'd recognize her. She
Speaker 2: describes during her testimony being terrify. She sits in the
Speaker 2: courtroom for an hour and a half Inglong's presence and
Speaker 2: fails to identify him. And only when his name is
Speaker 2: called and he walks up to resolve the trespassing charge,
Speaker 2: which was dismissed that day, did she say he's the one.
Speaker 2: But it's telling because we later learned during her testimony
Speaker 2: at trial that there were only twelve black males in
Speaker 2: the courtroom. She quickly eliminated several of them because they
Speaker 2: had afros where they were older. She described one as
Speaker 2: being old and hunched over, and she says that he
Speaker 2: was the only one that looked remotely similar to her attacker.
Speaker 2: And identification evidence is already flawed and highly unreliable, but
Speaker 2: here you can just take her words that she's just
Speaker 2: picking the person that's most likely to be her attacker
Speaker 2: that's present in the courtroom so she can end the
Speaker 2: experience where she's traumatized and terrified, so that in essence
Speaker 2: becomes the only in Singing so Long. And here we are,
Speaker 2: forty four years later, trying to undo that identification.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you brought that up, Jamie, because we
Speaker 1: know the most unreliable eyewitness identification is cross racial. This
Speaker 1: fits exactly into that category, and then, of course there's
Speaker 1: still room for it to get worse. So Ronnie, take
Speaker 1: us back to the day that you were in court
Speaker 1: for the misdemeanor trespassing charge, when you had no idea.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have had any idea that there was a
Speaker 1: rape victim in the gallery who was being led to
Speaker 1: believe that her attacker was in the courtroom that day.
Speaker 1: And the craziest thing is that you two were in
Speaker 1: each other's presence for nearly two hours before she idd you.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, they had a misdemeanor, just passed the child.
Speaker 4: So I go downtown o'clock when you call my name,
Speaker 4: I strewed up with walk in my day. This is
Speaker 4: when the police say. This is when they say that
Speaker 4: she ide me. The same two detectives that was on
Speaker 4: this case, that been on this tape the whole time
Speaker 4: they were sitting in the jury Fox, she testified that
Speaker 4: it was it got me twelve black in the court room.
Speaker 4: He's none of these people in here looking like me.
Speaker 4: She's supposed to be looking far a young black man
Speaker 4: that assaulted her, But she distinctly stated that she's looked
Speaker 4: around and looked around and looked around into the trans
Speaker 4: trip and I didn't see nobody. I want you to
Speaker 4: hold you can think about this. She said. She sitting
Speaker 4: in the courtroom man for over an hour and a
Speaker 4: half looking around, and she never didn't see anyone. The people.
Speaker 4: Why she didn't see anyone else said because of the
Speaker 4: description that she gave the police for the light skinned
Speaker 4: black man with no hand on his face. I'm sitting
Speaker 4: up in there and you understanding saying God's skin, it
Speaker 4: would hang on my favor. So I didn't match another
Speaker 4: the description your nouner said that she was looking for.
Speaker 4: That's why come she couldn't pick me out. You pick
Speaker 4: me out here stairs when they called my name, Run
Speaker 4: along to the front, run along if you court, I said, yeah,
Speaker 4: we've come down front. That's what she says. She recognized.
Speaker 4: She ain't recognized me. She's reping down my name. You go,
Speaker 4: number one, How are you gonna sit in the courtroom
Speaker 4: stairs a whole hour and a half. They were eleven
Speaker 4: ain't but twelve blacks in there. You gonna sit in
Speaker 4: there for a whole hour and a half and you
Speaker 4: don't see this young black man that you're looking for.
Speaker 4: The reason you don't see it because She's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: he got he got head on his face. The court
Speaker 4: asked this woman, could the police department that I told
Speaker 4: you to pick run alone? She said they could, Hell,
Speaker 4: I don't know. That's in the trench. They could, Hell,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So the victim makes this shaky identification, tells the detectives.
Speaker 1: But you've got no idea that any of this is
Speaker 1: going on. You're there for this misdemeanor charge, which gets dismissed,
Speaker 1: and then you go home. But that was not the
Speaker 1: last you'd see of law enforcement that day.
Speaker 4: I walkeroom, went home with the sleep I'll wake up
Speaker 4: two hours later, my mom jelly. Police back down in
Speaker 4: the morning.
Speaker 1: When Ronnie was picked up, he was not told that
Speaker 1: he was suspected of this raid. Instead, he arrived at
Speaker 1: the station at six forty five pm, was read his rights,
Speaker 1: and the police claimed that they asked permission to search
Speaker 1: his car, but they hadn't, and then they testified to
Speaker 1: finding gloves, matchbooks, and a beanie in the car. Ronnie
Speaker 1: maintains that the gloves were his, but the beanie was not.
Speaker 4: Ill follow the police downtown. I used to drive with glos,
Speaker 4: so when I get out of Connie with all speak
Speaker 4: of my phone, my sun Valley. I get out the car,
Speaker 4: I locked the door. I got on the black of
Speaker 4: the other jacket. Yeah, I'm going there. They killed me.
Speaker 4: I'm on suspecting of raping VERTI I'll take my keys up.
Speaker 4: They picked my keys up the front out of the
Speaker 4: door with me, the train two, the ticket that was
Speaker 4: in the courtroom that morning. Yo, man, without going with
Speaker 4: my keys, bring my keys back hill. They're just going
Speaker 4: to look in your car. You ain't got nothing to
Speaker 4: hat now, But yuh ain't gave you permission to look
Speaker 4: at my car either. So they go down look at
Speaker 4: my car. They come back to me and they got mama.
Speaker 4: She took my other jacket off of me. Ys mack.
Speaker 4: It's a mother or stuff. They had my glove, they
Speaker 4: had lime green to bargain that I had never seen
Speaker 4: a dead in my life.
Speaker 1: And for anyone who doesn't know it's a boggin, I
Speaker 1: didn't know it's a boggan is a hat like the
Speaker 1: one described by the victim in this case. So the
Speaker 1: police come back with what they claim to have found
Speaker 1: in your car. Go ahead, Ronnie, they said.
Speaker 4: If you got just got your car, if you won't
Speaker 4: beat hide them back when we take complete our investigations,
Speaker 4: sign your name my hands. You gotta looks on the
Speaker 4: people for me to sign. And they said, sign your
Speaker 4: name my hand if you won't beat behind them. Okay,
Speaker 4: I know. I want my jacket back. Want I don't
Speaker 4: want my glove. I don't know who it is, but
Speaker 4: I don't know. I want my jacket and glove. So
Speaker 4: I signed the people come to find out as a
Speaker 4: consent for the search for cor.
Speaker 1: So they tricked you in order to make it seem
Speaker 1: like you consented, and that way it would have made
Speaker 1: the search technically legal. They planted the lime green patter toboggan.
Speaker 4: Now the police gotta line to eat the bog in
Speaker 4: big court, saying that this is to happen, that the perpetrator.
Speaker 4: I'm telling my lug and then I don't go mad
Speaker 4: that to you, man, I ain't ever heard of that.
Speaker 4: That that ain't gonna head. My log is put the
Speaker 4: inside out. It's really is looking at it. Really you
Speaker 4: got a line when I had it, I got black.
Speaker 4: It's man an, Yeah, I don't know what's the state
Speaker 4: would never let me be, I won't they did.
Speaker 1: So we now come to the conclusion that the police
Speaker 1: planted this beanie in the car so that they could
Speaker 1: have another you know, well really another there is no
Speaker 1: other evidence, so that they could have something that they
Speaker 1: could use against him. And I say something they could
Speaker 1: use against him, because remember all that evidence Detective Eisenhower
Speaker 1: collected from the crime scene. Well, if the red hair
Speaker 1: is that they found in the beanie, that are clearly
Speaker 1: not Ronnie's hair. Bother you just wait because it's about
Speaker 1: to get way worse again. The crime scene evidence comes
Speaker 1: back from the statepue of Investigation in Raleigh, and none
Speaker 1: of it matches Ronnie. But since the rich white widow
Speaker 1: of an executive of one of the biggest employers in
Speaker 1: town just idd him as her rapist rather than just
Speaker 1: doing the right thing, the just thing, the evidence never
Speaker 1: even made it to the prosecutor's office, let alone the defense.
Speaker 1: So the police withheld the evidence from both the defense
Speaker 1: and the prosecution. Let me just repeat that the police
Speaker 1: withheld the evidence not just from the defense, but from
Speaker 1: the prosecution, just in case the prosecution might have decided, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we got the wrong guy. That the
Speaker 1: police decided to play judge jury, and I mean they
Speaker 1: might as well played executioner because poor Ronnie's been in
Speaker 1: prison for forty four fucking years. I mean, this is yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, just when I think I've heard it all,
Speaker 1: and Jamie, you're living this day in and day out. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, what can you add to that? Because it
Speaker 1: gets worse from there?
Speaker 2: Right, So, they not only tested this evidence and it
Speaker 2: didn't match long. When it didn't match Long, they made
Speaker 2: the decision that they wouldn't turn it over to the
Speaker 2: defense or the prosecution, which we contending. We argued this
Speaker 2: at the May seventh hearing that we had in this case,
Speaker 2: that there's a possibility that the prosecutor could have decided
Speaker 2: not to go forward with this case at all had
Speaker 2: he known that all the forensic test results pointed away
Speaker 2: from Ronnie and towards another suspect. There was suspect hair
Speaker 2: collected brought to Raleigh, examined by the crime lab, determined
Speaker 2: by the crime lab to be, in the parlance of
Speaker 2: the lab report of Negroid or Mongolian origin, meaning that
Speaker 2: it came from a person who was either Asian or black.
Speaker 2: And we know that that hair that was collected that
Speaker 2: was suspect hair didn't match Long. If it didn't match Long,
Speaker 2: then the suspect, the person who should have been incarcerated
Speaker 2: for forty four years. There's the evidence of who that
Speaker 2: person's identity is. And it's remarkable in the fact that
Speaker 2: they believe this would be probative. They collected because they
Speaker 2: thought it would be probative. All indications are that it
Speaker 2: did come from the suspect, but when it didn't match Long,
Speaker 2: they kept it from everybody, so the prosecutor would go
Speaker 2: forward on the basis of this completely unheard of identification procedure.
Speaker 2: And I have to tell you, Jason, I'm very skeptical
Speaker 2: whenever any client offers a suggestion that evidence may be planted.
Speaker 2: But as you look at this case and what officers
Speaker 2: did keeping evidence away from the prosecutor, it really makes
Speaker 2: you stop and say, oh, my goodness, this is completely
Speaker 2: consistent with the behaviors of the officers in this case.
Speaker 2: And then when Long says those are my gloves. But
Speaker 2: I've never seeing that beanie in my life, you think,
Speaker 2: why would he acknowledge owning one but not the other.
Speaker 2: And the only explanation is because the officers in this
Speaker 2: case set out to ensure Long was convicted that included lying, hiding,
Speaker 2: and with the beanie manufacturing evidence to ensure that he
Speaker 2: would spend the rest of his life incarcerating convicted for
Speaker 2: this crime, and for whatever reason, the State of North
Speaker 2: Carolina is just willing to ignore that altogether and continue
Speaker 2: to argue that Long is guilty of this crime.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, right, And there's no evidence that he ever
Speaker 1: owned a beanie. There's no photographs of him and a beanie.
Speaker 1: There's no nobody knew about any beanie. There's also the
Speaker 1: fact that the victim had fought her attacker with all
Speaker 1: of her strength, and she had scratched the attacker so
Speaker 1: hard that her own nails bent back.
Speaker 4: You take a leven chack, did you splatch? Did you
Speaker 4: look at them? A microscope? Ain't no wind? Will you
Speaker 4: can sling? That's media? Yeah, microscope step, But yet steal,
Speaker 4: she said, that's the coat, that's the jaging, that's the perpetrator.
Speaker 2: Wolf.
Speaker 4: They won no cludges, meet, they won no sludget sircum.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a good explanation for there being no scratches
Speaker 1: on you, your face, your leather coat. It's painfully simple.
Speaker 1: It's because you weren't there that night. But she I
Speaker 1: d'd you. They were trying to make the square fit
Speaker 1: the circle, and they were willing to bend the rules,
Speaker 1: bend break the rules. They planted evidence in your car
Speaker 1: and tried everything they could to make sure that they
Speaker 1: got a conviction in this case. And people were out
Speaker 1: in the street protesting as well.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So, but when they arrested you, they offered you a
Speaker 1: plea deal so they could make all of that public
Speaker 1: outcry just go away.
Speaker 4: No, they locked me up when they love me, or
Speaker 4: they offered me a seven year tree. They offered me
Speaker 4: a seven year of tree, told me that I would
Speaker 4: be back home in three years, and they made it
Speaker 4: explicitly clear that if I didn't take the tlee, if
Speaker 4: there was daryming for my life. So, I mean, I
Speaker 4: got people in the street, gem the straight, I got
Speaker 4: my family, I did the street. I got people in
Speaker 4: the street fills. They said it's support. I knew exactly
Speaker 4: what they wanted, man. They wanted me to pe feed
Speaker 4: out to that charge so they could put it on
Speaker 4: front pains old letters, long tea. This was a great job.
Speaker 4: So always, y'all, I got hollering and yelling and throwing things,
Speaker 4: unsaying he's going home. But I knew I couldn't do
Speaker 4: that because number one, my dad said, I didn't raise
Speaker 4: y'all say you did something when you didn't do it,
Speaker 4: I turned down the tree. So I was facing yesterday.
Speaker 4: God was a serious lead to the same year, State Carolina.
Speaker 1: But then we get to the trial itself, and this
Speaker 1: is going to shock exactly no one. But the jury
Speaker 1: was all white. Let me just say that again. This
Speaker 1: is an all white jury Conquered North Carolina nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: The jury was handpicked by the Cabres County sheriff. And
Speaker 1: get this, three of the members of the jury worked
Speaker 1: for Canon Mills. And you'll remember that the victim's husband
Speaker 1: worked at Canon Mills as well.
Speaker 2: So the jury chairperson at the time created a master
Speaker 2: list of jurors. To get us summons for jury duty,
Speaker 2: you had to be on that list. And prior to
Speaker 2: Long's trial, he brought that list of master jurors first
Speaker 2: to the sheriff and allowed the sheriff to strike through
Speaker 2: any person on that list that the sheriff deemed unfit
Speaker 2: for jury duty. He then brought the list to the
Speaker 2: conquered police department, and testimony is that the chief of
Speaker 2: police and some of his deputies sat there and did
Speaker 2: the same. So law enforcement, the very people who investigated
Speaker 2: this case, ended up lying about this case. About the
Speaker 2: evidence collected in this case played a role in the
Speaker 2: selection of the jurors who ultimately found mister Long guilty.
Speaker 2: And in this trial, every single witness that testified for
Speaker 2: the state of North Carolina was white. Every single witness
Speaker 2: that testified on behalf of Ronnie Long to demonstrate his innocence,
Speaker 2: to prove his alibi, to show that he was nowhere
Speaker 2: near the victim's home on the night this attack occurred,
Speaker 2: was black. And by selecting an all white jury in
Speaker 2: segregated Concord, North Carolina, in nineteen seventy six, ultimately what
Speaker 2: we had was a circumstance where the jurors were being
Speaker 2: asked to decide between finding their neighbors truthful or finding
Speaker 2: the people from the other side of the tracks, the
Speaker 2: black side of town. They would have had to find
Speaker 2: them truthful over the officers who are their neighbors, who
Speaker 2: were the people who lived in their community, their side
Speaker 2: of town. That's what it would have taken to find
Speaker 2: Long not guilty. And of course we all know how
Speaker 2: it played out.
Speaker 1: And this courtroom there was a racially divided court, with
Speaker 1: blacks on one side and whites on the other. And
Speaker 1: of course, now the really awful result, but predictable result
Speaker 1: of this sham trial, was that on October first, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, with his whole life in front of him,
Speaker 1: Ronnie Long was convicted and sentenced to two life terms.
Speaker 1: His mother fainted, and a riot nearly ensued. Long himself
Speaker 1: has called his conviction a quote modernized lynching sanctioned by law.
Speaker 4: When they found me guilty, they started fighting in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: They started fighting. Man I shoted, I started moving. My
Speaker 4: mom stopped, said bed me. She grabbed me afield, She said,
Speaker 4: who anto, Julie holds.
Speaker 5: Love?
Speaker 4: The still right there? Get that, man.
Speaker 5: I won't even rally the night and listen to this.
Speaker 1: So after Long's conviction, concord bubbled over with fury. The
Speaker 1: next day, hundreds of protesters descended on the cities downtown,
Speaker 1: staging a demonstration in front of the courthouse, and for
Speaker 1: days fifty or more police officers in full riot gear
Speaker 1: stationed themselves at a nearby park, and the least chief
Speaker 1: arned protesters that violence would be met with force. So
Speaker 1: I mean, nothing has changed. And the bravery, the courage
Speaker 1: of these people who protested putting themselves in grave danger
Speaker 1: from the same police force that had just framed their friend,
Speaker 1: their neighbor, their fellow human.
Speaker 2: I had spoke with his trial counsel, Jim Fuller prior
Speaker 2: to the May seventh arguments, and he said, Jamie, I've
Speaker 2: only been maced one time in my life, and it
Speaker 2: was after the verdict when outbursts occurred in the courtroom
Speaker 2: and law enforcement decided to clear out all the supporters
Speaker 2: of LNG. And he said officers were beating a young
Speaker 2: man and he tried to pull the officers away, and
Speaker 2: they turned and sprayed him Long's trial attorney in the
Speaker 2: face with mace.
Speaker 1: Nothing has changed.
Speaker 5: It's really.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to you know. I mean, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be optimistic, and you know, I think we are
Speaker 1: on the verge of change, but it's remarkable how much
Speaker 1: things are as they were forty four years later, the
Speaker 1: post conviction litigation history. Can you walk us through that, Jamie,
Speaker 1: because it's quite extraordinary in and of itself.
Speaker 2: It's been a long process. So it began in the
Speaker 2: nineties after he was convicted, he filed his first what
Speaker 2: we call here in North Carolina emotions for Appropriate Relief.
Speaker 2: They're the post conviction review petitions that initiate post conviction proceedings,
Speaker 2: and it was related to the jury. He was ruled
Speaker 2: against during the course of those proceedings. That was then
Speaker 2: appealed in federal court arguing the same things, that he
Speaker 2: didn't commit the crime and that his trial was unfair
Speaker 2: in part because of the way in which the jury
Speaker 2: was seated, and he was ruled against sing federal court.
Speaker 2: Over the years, he tried to get people to help him,
Speaker 2: and then in two thousand and five, the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: that the University of North Carolina took interest in the case,
Speaker 2: and the present litigation began. They found an attorney to
Speaker 2: work with Ronnie. That attorney did all the work necessary
Speaker 2: to uncover not just the lies, but the evidence that
Speaker 2: was withheld from Long at the time of his trial,
Speaker 2: and they went into state court and held an evidentiary
Speaker 2: hearing where the judge hurt testimony related to the withholding
Speaker 2: of this evidence. That's a real interesting proceeding because the prosecutor,
Speaker 2: the individual who tried Ronnie Long in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: took the stand and testified for long that he didn't
Speaker 2: have copies of these reports. He didn't know that this
Speaker 2: testing was done. Had he known that it was done,
Speaker 2: he would have required that it been turned over. He
Speaker 2: also talked about a sexual assault kit that we haven't
Speaker 2: ben talked about, that they collected one from the victim
Speaker 2: and then it subsequently disappeared.
Speaker 1: Jesus yeah.
Speaker 2: So he testified for long, but despite all that, the
Speaker 2: judging state court ruled against Long and found that he
Speaker 2: hadn't proven that his ranks were violated. The case then
Speaker 2: went to the North Carolina Supreme Court. There are seven
Speaker 2: justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court. One set out
Speaker 2: the decision, and as a result, the Supreme Court split
Speaker 2: three to three. So Tye went to the state. Ronnie's
Speaker 2: conviction was upheld and he was still incarcerated. It then
Speaker 2: went to an organization in North Carolina called the North
Speaker 2: Carolina Innocents Inquiry Commission, and they reviewed the case and
Speaker 2: their focus was trying to find the sexual assault kit
Speaker 2: that was collected and disappeared. They did not find it,
Speaker 2: but they actually discovered that in two thousand and eight
Speaker 2: during the course of those proceedings, officers led again by
Speaker 2: saying that they had no physical evidence remaining in the
Speaker 2: case in their custody, when in fact they had all
Speaker 2: the late fingerprints that had been collected from the crime scene.
Speaker 2: That's when I got involved, and as you're reacting to,
Speaker 2: how just atrocious and an affront to justice this case is.
Speaker 2: I had the same initial reaction the other attorneys I
Speaker 2: work with at the Wrongful Convictions Clinic. We worked to
Speaker 2: file another Habeast petition on Ronnie's behalf. It was dismissed
Speaker 2: because the district Court said that we had failed to
Speaker 2: bring the fingerprint related evidence in state court prior to
Speaker 2: filing our Habeast petition. Of course, it would have been
Speaker 2: brought in state court had it not been hid during
Speaker 2: the time that the state post conviction litigation was ongoing.
Speaker 2: We appealed that dismissal. The Fourth Circuit reversed and sent
Speaker 2: it back to the district court. Then the district Court
Speaker 2: once again granted a dismissal on behalf of the state.
Speaker 2: The district court said that while we had shown that
Speaker 2: evidence was withheld, that it was favorable to long, but
Speaker 2: that the state court was reasonable in determining that the
Speaker 2: evidence was immaterial to the outcome of his trial, so
Speaker 2: it was dismissed again and we appealed that decision, which
Speaker 2: came in July of twenty eighteen. The Fourth Circuit Court
Speaker 2: of Appeals heard oral arguments in May of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: A panel entered a decision two to one saying that
Speaker 2: Long had failed to demonstrate the materiality of the evidence
Speaker 2: since the State Court again was reasonable. That decision came
Speaker 2: down in January of twenty twenty. We then asked for
Speaker 2: full court review. It's called a petition for rehearing in bank.
Speaker 2: And what that triggers is that full fifteen judge review
Speaker 2: of the case. The court agreed to hear it while
Speaker 2: sitting in bank and next to the argument we had
Speaker 2: in on May seventh of twenty twenty. So it's been
Speaker 2: a long fight to get to the point where we
Speaker 2: know that the judges are at least, you know, seeing
Speaker 2: the injustices here that we saw as evidence by the
Speaker 2: statement of Judge Win during the course of those oral arguments.
Speaker 1: And so here we are ending where we started with
Speaker 1: the words of Judge Win expressing his frustration over how
Speaker 1: this happened to Ronnie, amongst so many others. I hope
Speaker 1: you all feel that same frustration and anger right now,
Speaker 1: Judge Wynn said, quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any
Speaker 1: defense council in the world, not only in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: but in the history of this country would have wanted
Speaker 1: or needed, and we should have been supplied, and yet
Speaker 1: we did not provide it. What is it about us
Speaker 1: that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail
Speaker 1: when we know evidence may exist that might lead to
Speaker 1: a different outcome. Why is that so offensive to us
Speaker 1: now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty
Speaker 1: four years ago? End quote? And of course he was
Speaker 1: referring to the illegal activity on the part of law
Speaker 1: enforcement in this case. Quote what's the harm of looking
Speaker 1: at the new evidence? He said? When did justice leave
Speaker 1: the process? So we let our rules blind us to
Speaker 1: what we all can see? End quote. You know the
Speaker 1: fact that the cops took all the evidence from the
Speaker 1: crime scene and never turned it over alone, that should
Speaker 1: be it. They knew it wasn't him from the beginning.
Speaker 1: It just hurts my heart to think of this life,
Speaker 1: this poor fucking guy. Since we recorded this podcast with
Speaker 1: Jamie and Ronnie, I read a quote from Ronnie's mother
Speaker 1: saying that she is just waiting. This is a quote
Speaker 1: from her, just waiting on Ronnie to get out. God
Speaker 1: let me live to see him get out of there.
Speaker 1: End quote. Since nineteen seventy six, Ronnie's grandmother, his two sisters,
Speaker 1: and his father have all passed, and unfortunately they were
Speaker 1: joined by his mother on July eleventh, twenty twenty Rest
Speaker 1: in peace. The family asked Jamie to speak at the
Speaker 1: funeral about Ronnie's case. Ronnie still has his wife, Ashley
Speaker 1: Long waiting for him. She started a petition on change
Speaker 1: dot org that I've already signed, asking Governor Cooper to
Speaker 1: commute Ronnie's sentence. I hope you'll join me. There's a
Speaker 1: link in the episode description. Just scroll down, click and
Speaker 1: let's bring him home. Now to the episode as it
Speaker 1: was previously recorded. Now it comes to the closing of
Speaker 1: the show, which of course I call closing arguments. This
Speaker 1: is where Jamie, I thank you again for being here, Ronnie,
Speaker 1: thank you for calling in. And now I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn off my microphone and leave my headphones on and
Speaker 1: just listen. Jamie, thank you.
Speaker 2: Jason. What I would add is the listeners here, I'm
Speaker 2: sure have heard about cases that involve hiding exculpatory evidence. Separately,
Speaker 2: they've heard of cases involving misconduct and potential lies told
Speaker 2: on the witness stand, cases involving racial injustice. And here
Speaker 2: we have everything togethering one. We have the original trial
Speaker 2: prosecutor testifying on behalf of the defense, acknowledging that materials
Speaker 2: were not only hitting from the defense but from him
Speaker 2: as well. We have evidence pointing to another individual as
Speaker 2: the perpetrator. We have evidence of misconducting lies from officers.
Speaker 2: And despite all that, forty four years later, Ronnie Long
Speaker 2: sis in a prison in North Carolina. I ask everybody
Speaker 2: listening to this to seize this particular moment that we
Speaker 2: are living through in history by taking one action among
Speaker 2: what I hope is many, to help Ronnie achieve justice
Speaker 2: in his freedom. To do that, I hope not only
Speaker 2: that you'll go to change dot org and sign the petition,
Speaker 2: but also contact the Governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper.
Speaker 2: His email is Roy dot Cooper Cooper at NC dot
Speaker 2: gov and tell him to free Ronnie Long now. Because
Speaker 2: while we prove his innocence in court, which we plan
Speaker 2: to do, the governor can make this injustice right tomorrow
Speaker 2: by commuting long sentence to time served and letting him
Speaker 2: walk free. And it's forty four years past due for
Speaker 2: that to occur. And I hope you all will send
Speaker 2: a message to the governor that if he truly believes
Speaker 2: that black lives matter, that lives matter, that he would
Speaker 2: use his executive authority to see that Long goes free,
Speaker 2: not next week, not next month, that Ronnie needs to
Speaker 2: be free.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jason, Yeah, and thank you Jamie. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to just jump in for one more minute and
Speaker 1: say that if anyone here knows someone who knows the
Speaker 1: governor direct the outreach can be a game changer. So
Speaker 1: thank you very much, Jamie, and now I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn it over to our featured guest, Ronnie Long.
Speaker 4: Well, as you know, man, I appreciate the flatform that
Speaker 4: you appreciate and you let me tell my story. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of people you know, says, they're still don't
Speaker 4: know who I am, and the flattered me begins. I've
Speaker 4: heard of me, but they don't know the circumstances behind
Speaker 4: the treatment. I appreciate what you did for me or
Speaker 4: what you're doing for me, and hopefully one day in
Speaker 4: your spens here for a circumit compact the season, I
Speaker 4: could prove everything understands that I'm saying here. Yeah, soever
Speaker 4: they had against me, but no more than the high
Speaker 4: witness identif chasing. They had falls that had flaws. And
Speaker 4: if they know what I'm saying, if they knew they
Speaker 4: had the right man, if they knew they had the
Speaker 4: right man, say, why did they pick by ourselves it's
Speaker 4: a chest. If they knew they had the right man, yes,
Speaker 4: and why did they would hold sixteen ynys physical evident
Speaker 4: they just about the head of the guy. If any
Speaker 4: of that ever just had a point towards me, and
Speaker 4: they would have put off that everness to court. They
Speaker 4: know they didn't have they had the wrong man. They
Speaker 4: know that I wouldn't know the person being assault as
Speaker 4: this moment, but yet still just still put me there.
Speaker 4: Other in his life sings and I've done for it
Speaker 4: four years in regardless you understands saying the whether or
Speaker 4: not I be use cached now whatever.
Speaker 5: Supportful videos, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 5: Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how
Speaker 1: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
Speaker 1: the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one