Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
Speaker 3: do know that everything was stacked against me.
Speaker 2: Everything like everything.
Speaker 3: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
Speaker 3: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with this. How is this possible?
Speaker 4: I grew up trusting the systems. I've grew up believing
Speaker 4: that every human being should do the right thing. And
Speaker 4: that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with
Speaker 4: corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get
Speaker 4: me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the
Speaker 4: fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
Speaker 2: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
Speaker 2: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Speaker 1: Our system.
Speaker 5: Since I've been out ten years, it has come a
Speaker 5: little ways, but it's still broken.
Speaker 4: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm that's me, and today we have a great program.
Speaker 1: I'm really really excited because one of the people who
Speaker 1: I really look up to in the innocence movement is here.
Speaker 1: Justin Brooks is the founder and director of the California
Speaker 1: Innocence Project. And so Justin welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And on the phone, we have an extraordinary person named
Speaker 1: Guy Miles, who served over eighteen years in prison for
Speaker 1: a crime that happened in California while he was in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. And I know that sounds crazy, and it is,
Speaker 1: but when you hear the story, it's just going to
Speaker 1: get crazier.
Speaker 2: Miles was convicted of a nineteen ninety eight armed robbery
Speaker 2: and Fullerton. He had an alibi, but an eyewitness.
Speaker 1: Identify him in court.
Speaker 5: Years later, the real robbers confessed and said Miles, this
Speaker 5: guy had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: So Guy, welcome to the show. As I always say,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Justin take us back because this case, you know,
Speaker 1: even after twenty five years of working in this field,
Speaker 1: when I read this case, I was trying to you know,
Speaker 1: my head was kind of spinning. But can you take
Speaker 1: us through the circumstances of this case and then we'll
Speaker 1: get with guy and walk through the whole situation.
Speaker 2: Sure, so this is a you know, I find myself
Speaker 2: saying this often, as I'm sure you do that this
Speaker 2: is a crazy case. But when you look at the
Speaker 2: facts of this case, it would be literally comical if
Speaker 2: it didn't have such tragic results for guy. This guy,
Speaker 2: Bernard Teamer, was paying his car off at a Savings
Speaker 2: and Loan and every time he went in there he
Speaker 2: saw that they had a lot of cash. So he
Speaker 2: gets a couple of his buddies together and says, let's
Speaker 2: go rob this place. But they know me in there,
Speaker 2: so I'll wait outside in the car and you guys
Speaker 2: go in and rob it. So they pull up in
Speaker 2: front of the Savings and Loan and Bernard has such
Speaker 2: a short attention span that he actually gets bored while
Speaker 2: they're doing the robbery, and he sees an auto parts store,
Speaker 2: so he decides to do a little shopping, so he
Speaker 2: gets out of his car, locks the car, goes in
Speaker 2: the autoparts store and starts asking about parts for a
Speaker 2: rare car that he has. The guys come back who've
Speaker 2: committed the robbery. They can't get in the car, and
Speaker 2: the actual guy who's working the autoparts store points out
Speaker 2: the window and says, hey, I think your boys are
Speaker 2: waiting for you out there. So he runs out, unlocks
Speaker 2: the car, they get in, they drive away. So now
Speaker 2: the alarms go off. Everybody goes outside. The people from
Speaker 2: the bank are outside, the guy from the autoparts star
Speaker 2: is outside. They say, oh, we just got robbed, and
Speaker 2: he says, oh, I just saw those guys, and one
Speaker 2: of them was in here looking for these parts for
Speaker 2: this rare car. It so takes them about five minutes
Speaker 2: to catch Bernard, who is one hundred percent guilty of
Speaker 2: this crime, and then they start trying to piece together
Speaker 2: who are the other two.
Speaker 1: Robbers because Bernard's not giving it up.
Speaker 2: He's not telling them anything. And so the way they
Speaker 2: do it is this officer puts together photo rays, but
Speaker 2: instead of using the descriptions that are given of the robbers,
Speaker 2: he instead just puts a bunch of people who live
Speaker 2: in the same neighborhood as Bernard Teamer and they don't
Speaker 2: match the descriptions at all. As you go through the photos,
Speaker 2: there's really heavy people, really skinny people, light skinned people,
Speaker 2: dark skinned people, people with long dreadlocks, bald people. It's
Speaker 2: the most ridiculous set of photo rays you've ever seen.
Speaker 2: In it it's not based on anything except for their associated
Speaker 2: with Bernard Teamer. Only one person vaguely matches the description
Speaker 2: and the photo rays, and that's Guy Miles.
Speaker 1: So they went through these photographs of the people in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, but they actually managed to somehow forget to
Speaker 1: put in the photos of the guys who were in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood who were the actual perpetrators, who could have
Speaker 1: been identified by any number of these people that were
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: And to match the descriptions that are given by the witnesses.
Speaker 2: And so we had experts actually go through the photos
Speaker 2: and they said, based on the description given, the only
Speaker 2: person that would be picked here is Guy Miles, because
Speaker 2: they didn't put other people in the photo rays that
Speaker 2: matched the description. And so they violated the most fundamental
Speaker 2: thing of putting a photo ray together. And as you know,
Speaker 2: there's already enough problems with identifications without following any of
Speaker 2: the basic procedures and the basic procedure is you have
Speaker 2: fillers that match the description given by the witnesses and
Speaker 2: on in there that fit that description. They were all
Speaker 2: very specific to people in the neighborhood, right.
Speaker 1: And so the way memory works is that your mind,
Speaker 1: especially as more time goes by, and your mind goes
Speaker 1: towards the one who most resembles. And we know that
Speaker 1: memory is you know, some people think it's like a camera,
Speaker 1: but it's the farthest thing from it, and it's easily
Speaker 1: everyone is easily influenced. And this is why mistake and
Speaker 1: eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions.
Speaker 2: And in this case, one of the witnesses when she
Speaker 2: came in, she couldn't identify him anyway. When Guy Miles
Speaker 2: was right in front of her, she couldn't identify him.
Speaker 2: And the shocking thing that I've seen now in a
Speaker 2: number of cases is they take a recess, they go
Speaker 2: out in the hallway, the witness talks to the district attorney,
Speaker 2: and the next thing you know, they're making the identification.
Speaker 2: Guy goes off to prison for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty easy to see what could go wrong there.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get into more of this, the
Speaker 1: fact that there was there were nine alibi witnesses who
Speaker 1: could have who could have and well some of them
Speaker 1: did play a guy in Las Vegas, right, six of
Speaker 1: them testified. I mean as you said, I mean, and
Speaker 1: there is a very comical element to that, right, the
Speaker 1: idea that the guys in the autopart store board and
Speaker 1: then that's to come out of the cars lock. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's literally like that's the beginning of a movie that start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you put Robert Donney Jr. In there, you got a hit,
Speaker 1: So put robertized Junior or anything. But that's beside the point.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to you guy, because I want
Speaker 1: to get a sense of what your life was like
Speaker 1: before this this tragedy happened that turns your life upside down.
Speaker 5: Well, if I grew up in Carson, California, raised by
Speaker 5: both my mother and father Christian people, good people you
Speaker 5: know inher died and instill good values in me, you know,
Speaker 5: I was I'm not going to say I was an angel.
Speaker 5: I did get in a little trouble, played a lot
Speaker 5: of sports, got married, head kids.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you sort of it sounds like sort
Speaker 1: of a typical childhood. Actually right, nothing crazy.
Speaker 2: He does have unusual parents, and that both of them
Speaker 2: are ministers. And every single court hearing, I've never had
Speaker 2: a client's family quite like this. The entire courtroom was
Speaker 2: filled with well dressed, well behaved people, polite to the da,
Speaker 2: polite to the judge, even though he'd gone through this
Speaker 2: total travesty.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that is an unusual I haven't heard that either,
Speaker 1: and it sort of adds a real interesting element to this.
Speaker 1: So then fast forward to it was at June twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, a long time ago, that faithful day
Speaker 1: when Fidelity Financial Institution at Fullord in California was robbed
Speaker 1: by these band of idiots. It's really like a clown show.
Speaker 1: And how did you first find out that you were
Speaker 1: a suspect? What happened? And what day was it? Was
Speaker 1: it the day of or it was it was afterwards
Speaker 1: that you first got arrested?
Speaker 5: Right, right, it was No, it was actually a couple
Speaker 5: of weeks after the robbery took place. You know, I
Speaker 5: got a call from my sister that the police were
Speaker 5: looking for me, wanted to talk to me. I came
Speaker 5: down from Las Vegas, h came in, talked to the officers.
Speaker 5: They arrested me, right, They had like seven or eight
Speaker 5: Orange County police officers there, and you know, I was
Speaker 5: it was kind of strange to me because I'm like,
Speaker 5: why is Orange County wanted to talk to me? I
Speaker 5: thought maybe somebody in cards and wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 5: They arrested me and told me that I was being
Speaker 5: booked for a robbery in Orange County, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: in Orange County. I've even been to Orange County. You know,
Speaker 5: I was just I was confused, really didn't know what
Speaker 5: was going on at that point.
Speaker 1: Did they read you your rights and stuff?
Speaker 5: They read me my rights and told me that I
Speaker 5: was being arrested for Orange County robbery and that they
Speaker 5: were going to come to my house and do a
Speaker 5: raid to see if they can find evidence that links
Speaker 5: me to the robbery. And so they actually drove me
Speaker 5: back to the house rated my house. Of course, they
Speaker 5: found none because it was nothing to be found, whisked
Speaker 5: me off to Orange County jail, booked me, and from
Speaker 5: there that's where the nightmare started.
Speaker 1: When did you first get to see a lawyer? Did
Speaker 1: you request a lawyer? Did you give an interview voluntarily.
Speaker 1: How did that roll out?
Speaker 5: So I wasn't even thinking about a lawyer because I
Speaker 5: knew I didn't do nothing wrong. So that was the
Speaker 5: last thing on my mind, is requesting the.
Speaker 1: Lawyer, right, And that's something in justin you wait in here,
Speaker 1: whatever you want. That's something that I talk about on
Speaker 1: the show frequently, is that if you do get wrongfully arrested,
Speaker 1: because there's enough people instance that there's enough people listening
Speaker 1: to this show right now, that somebody is going to
Speaker 1: have this experience. Unfortunately, probably several people who are listeners
Speaker 1: at some point. You don't think it can happen to you,
Speaker 1: but I think, guy, you'd probably agree it could hapen
Speaker 1: anyway one, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, I agree, I definitely agree.
Speaker 2: And people think they can straighten things out often and
Speaker 2: their words get twisted. I thought this would all be
Speaker 2: cleared up. I wanted to clear it up and go home, right,
Speaker 2: And so innocent people almost always give statements because they've
Speaker 2: got nothing to hide, and often those times those are twisted.
Speaker 1: And justin you know, I think you'll agree, but feel
Speaker 1: free to correct me because you're in the front lines,
Speaker 1: on the front lines every day. But my advice is
Speaker 1: give your name, your address. And then the next thing
Speaker 1: you say is I want a lawyer. Absolutely, and that's it,
Speaker 1: because they're not your friends. They're not there to help you,
Speaker 1: and nothing you say is going to be is going
Speaker 1: to help you. Right, there's nothing you can say that literally,
Speaker 1: of all the billions of words in the English language,
Speaker 1: none of them are good except for I want a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Innocent people come in and are much more forthcoming than
Speaker 1: guilty people.
Speaker 2: Sure, they're going to be totally cooperative because they think
Speaker 2: I've got nothing to hide.
Speaker 1: And like most people, like I grew up thinking that,
Speaker 1: and prosecutors in the system is fair and it works,
Speaker 1: and it will. It's there to protect you and to
Speaker 1: protect and serve. That's what it says on the side
Speaker 1: of the thing, right, so on the side of the cars.
Speaker 1: But in fact, you know, in many cases, not always,
Speaker 1: but in many cases they have a different agenda, and
Speaker 1: that agenda is just to get you, and and they
Speaker 1: don't let and guys yours is really a terrible but
Speaker 1: perfect example of that. They didn't want to let the
Speaker 1: fact that there was no evidence connecting you to the
Speaker 1: to the thing, and that the witnesses weren't certain and
Speaker 1: that you had alibi, and they didn't want to let
Speaker 1: any of that get in the way of a perfectly
Speaker 1: good conviction. So you're in there and you're thinking you're
Speaker 1: going home in twenty or thirty minutes, and you're giving
Speaker 1: them these statements. You're you're accused of a crime in
Speaker 1: a place that you've never been to that happened when
Speaker 1: you were in a different state, correct, Yeah, and where?
Speaker 1: And this one, really, when you think about it, came
Speaker 1: with instructions, right, because this is a crime, and many
Speaker 1: crimes there's no witnesses, right. In this case, you had
Speaker 1: lots of witnesses who got very very good views of it.
Speaker 1: There wasn't time, They weren't hundreds of yards away like
Speaker 1: we see in some cases. They were right there, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you had the I mean, the probably
Speaker 1: the perfect witness would have been the guy in the
Speaker 1: in the auto shop or the whatever, the thing that
Speaker 1: the crazy idiot went into, right, because he was not
Speaker 1: under duress.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And we know that witnesses how much harder time identifying
Speaker 1: people when they're at the actual crime scene because they're
Speaker 1: so stressed out and there adrenaline is going crazy. But
Speaker 1: this guy was just trying to sell them some stuff
Speaker 1: for his fancy car or whatever, and so he would
Speaker 1: have had no stress. It was just a typical transaction.
Speaker 2: And that's why Bernard got caught. I mean, Bernard was
Speaker 2: was in this thing without a doubt, right, But when
Speaker 2: it came to the other IDs, you know, you had
Speaker 2: guns in people's faces. There was violence within the Savings
Speaker 2: and Loan. They were cross racial. It had all the
Speaker 2: indsha that you've talked about on this show that create
Speaker 2: for bad identifications.
Speaker 1: Right of course. So did you get to see your lawyer.
Speaker 5: I'll see my lawyer the first day at court because
Speaker 5: we were looking for a lawyer. They gave me a
Speaker 5: public a defender, and public defender came and talked to me.
Speaker 5: He was really talking about nothing. Seems like he was
Speaker 5: working with them. So my mother and then was like, no,
Speaker 5: we're going to find a lawyer. Finally found a lawyer
Speaker 5: by the name of Frank Williams, and he came down
Speaker 5: and talked to me and we went into court pleaded
Speaker 5: not guilty, and that's when the case commenced.
Speaker 1: But how about this Frank Williams guy. Was he He's.
Speaker 5: A terrible lawyer, terrible terrible. We actually hired him because
Speaker 5: he was a family friend, you know, he kind of
Speaker 5: grew up with us, so my mom felt comfortable, you know,
Speaker 5: hire him. But he came with all kind of sets
Speaker 5: and problems. His conduct was definitely suspicions. So he used
Speaker 5: to come see me two o'clock in the morning, late
Speaker 5: for court, never prepared, didn't go talk to any other
Speaker 5: witnesses out of state, and it was just, I mean,
Speaker 5: it was crazy. His whole investigation was bizarre and unprofessional.
Speaker 1: Was he even a criminal lawyer?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was a criminal lawyer. He's just born. Now.
Speaker 1: Oh there's a criminal lawyer and a criminal well.
Speaker 2: And we see that a lot. It's you know, it's
Speaker 2: always a smell test when you're looking through that. We
Speaker 2: get six thousand letters a year seeking assistance, so there's
Speaker 2: always a smell test with you know, which of the
Speaker 2: cases we think we got an innocent person here and
Speaker 2: we can do something about. And it's breathtaking the number
Speaker 2: of people who we look up the lawyer in thecowbar
Speaker 2: dot org website and find that they're disbonded.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the courtroom. You know, you've
Speaker 1: painted a picture which is really again, feels like a
Speaker 1: movie to think about your parents being you know, distinguished
Speaker 1: members of the community, your friends being there, their friends
Speaker 1: being there, and yet they're like the only distinguished people
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. As it turns out, the rest of
Speaker 1: the system is broken. So how did it? How long
Speaker 1: did the trial take? And I want to get to
Speaker 1: what the moment was like, which I'm guessing was probably
Speaker 1: the worst moment of your life. It's probably a pretty
Speaker 1: good guess when when you found out that you were
Speaker 1: going to be spending basically the rest of your life
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 5: Well, the trial took actually to get to get to
Speaker 5: the point of trial, it took like almost two years.
Speaker 5: I fought the cave for almost two years before I
Speaker 5: actually went to trial. Once I got to trial, it
Speaker 5: was probably like maybe four weeks, four to six weeks
Speaker 5: before the actual verdict came down.
Speaker 2: It's a long trial, and they deliberated for a long time.
Speaker 2: Wasn't it five days? They deliberated for seven days?
Speaker 5: Seven days deliberation.
Speaker 2: So I mean only you need to hear is that
Speaker 2: to know that there's problems with a case If citizens
Speaker 2: are willing to sit in a room for seven days
Speaker 2: and argue about it. How is there not reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: After a four to six week trial? Right, So these
Speaker 1: are people who've been want to go home. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: want to go back to work, they want to go
Speaker 1: see their you know, whatever the hell they're doing is
Speaker 1: better than this.
Speaker 5: Yes, he actually came at one point, came with a
Speaker 5: hung jury and the judge sent them back in there
Speaker 5: to redliberate and see if they can come to some
Speaker 5: kind of you know, agreement.
Speaker 1: And you were being held in custody this whole time.
Speaker 5: The whole time, where were you We're guilty until proven
Speaker 5: more guilty?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I never heard that before. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: could laugh about it now. So you were guilty until
Speaker 1: proven more guilty? And where were you being guilty at?
Speaker 1: Where were they holding you?
Speaker 5: Orange County Jail, Orange County, California, Santa Hanah Court. That's
Speaker 5: the court I went to.
Speaker 1: So the moment comes to hung jury has been sent
Speaker 1: back and back and whatever, and they're sitting there in days,
Speaker 1: they're turning into weeks, and finally they come back in. Uh,
Speaker 1: they tell you they've got a verdict. What were you thinking?
Speaker 1: Did you think that after all of this? I'm sure
Speaker 1: you had lost a lot of faith in the system
Speaker 1: by now, But did you still think you were going
Speaker 1: to be exonerated?
Speaker 5: I did, and I didn't. But let me rewind a
Speaker 5: little bit before that, uh, that deliberation, before that verdict
Speaker 5: came down, I was. I was in there doing everything
Speaker 5: I could to get noticed to this court. I wrote
Speaker 5: the mayor of Orange County. I even wrote the witness,
Speaker 5: the victim in the case and told hers, you have
Speaker 5: a right to you know, really investigate this this this
Speaker 5: case and see if I'm really the guy who did it.
Speaker 5: Of course, that letter was returned because they said I
Speaker 5: couldn't write to a victim. I even wrote numerous letters
Speaker 5: to the district attorney. We sat down, had a long conversation,
Speaker 5: and she told me in front of him, she said,
Speaker 5: I don't believe you did this case, but you're good
Speaker 5: for it. And I couldn't believe. She told me that
Speaker 5: right there in front of my attorney.
Speaker 1: That was an assistant DA.
Speaker 5: That was Karen walk and she was in a deputy
Speaker 5: district attorney.
Speaker 1: So she came in. I'm just processing this now. So
Speaker 1: she came in and said.
Speaker 5: What exactly She told me to my face, I don't
Speaker 5: believe you did this the pieces to the puzzle doesn't fit,
Speaker 5: but you're good for it. You've been in trouble before,
Speaker 5: so hey, you're good for it. And they even tried
Speaker 5: to get my attorney to have me go in the
Speaker 5: room with Bernard Teamer or somebody else and wear a
Speaker 5: wire and all kind of crazy stuff she was they
Speaker 5: were trying to set up. That never even came out,
Speaker 5: but all that stuff was being set up. I even
Speaker 5: stood up at the council table while the witness while
Speaker 5: the victim was on the stand, stood up and asked
Speaker 5: her if she can get off the stand, come look
Speaker 5: at me closely. And first du the DA rejected, and
Speaker 5: then she let her come down. The victim came down
Speaker 5: and said, hey, that's not him, that's not the guy
Speaker 5: right there. The DA rushed, take a recess. Rushing, well,
Speaker 5: it was already in recess. Take the victim outside, talk
Speaker 5: to her. She come back. They bring the jury back
Speaker 5: in and she points me out and say, yeah, that's
Speaker 5: the guy. And they say, well, what change your mind
Speaker 5: from that time?
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I mean, I'm just just like that.
Speaker 5: So they asked my lawyer asked her, what change your
Speaker 5: mind from the time you said it wasn't him till
Speaker 5: the time the DA took youther so well, she showed
Speaker 5: me a picture and I said, that's the guy on
Speaker 5: the picture right, and it looks like him, and you know,
Speaker 5: maybe he cut his hair or something. It went on
Speaker 5: this long tangem about me cutting my hair or whatever.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so.
Speaker 2: They go, so they go back to the they go
Speaker 2: back to the photo that she id'd from, and this
Speaker 2: is the classic sourcing error for an identification where the
Speaker 2: witness now is completely confused because they're saying, no, no,
Speaker 2: this is the person you identified. See this is him.
Speaker 2: And now they're matching the photo with guy and of
Speaker 2: course it is him. He's in the photo that they
Speaker 2: did the ID from. And now your sourcing is so difficult.
Speaker 2: You don't know whether your ID in them from the
Speaker 2: crime scene, your idnum from the photo. You're being reinforced
Speaker 2: by them saying this is the person who committed the crime.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And you see this happens over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: This is not a rare instance.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the DA saying I know it's not you. You
Speaker 1: have the witness going I know it's not you, yeah,
Speaker 1: I and eyewitnesses saying I know it's not right nine
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses going away more than nine?
Speaker 5: Only nine was accepted.
Speaker 1: Oh right, only nine came to court, and I think
Speaker 1: six were allowed to testify, but you had.
Speaker 2: That's another frustrating thing about this judge. The judge says
Speaker 2: this is redundant testimony.
Speaker 1: Well how is it?
Speaker 2: And he limited the number of alibi witnesses. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't make it. And how is it redundant testimony when
Speaker 2: each individual is a separate credibility determination by the jury
Speaker 2: where they might believe one I won't believe another. There
Speaker 2: are different circumstances. The judge just was tired of it.
Speaker 2: Let's move on. Okay, A bunch of you say he
Speaker 2: wasn't there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, half a Las Vegas ready to testify for you, right, basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Steve Winn rolled out on the stand.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like, that's the first time I've ever
Speaker 2: seen that in a case where judge said alibi witnesses
Speaker 2: were redundant testimony.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, why let an alibi witness get in
Speaker 1: the way of a perfectly get in fiction, right, or
Speaker 1: a perfectly bad conviction in this case? Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And a little interesting rock and roll tidbit you'll appreciate
Speaker 2: is one of the witnesses described one of the suspects
Speaker 2: as looking like Warren G. And that becomes important later
Speaker 2: on when we find the guy who does in fact
Speaker 2: look like Warren g And bring him into court and
Speaker 2: we're looking over him saying, this guy does look like
Speaker 2: Warren G. Guy Miles doesn't look anything like Warrang g And,
Speaker 2: but this elderly white judge didn't seem to be able
Speaker 2: to make any of those distinctions between not a wrap.
Speaker 2: So I'm not good at a cross racial identification either
Speaker 2: he was. He was as bad or worse at it
Speaker 2: than the witnesses.
Speaker 1: And while we're on that subject, you know, because we're
Speaker 1: dropping a lot of knowledge here, which I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you know. Having you here is really great because of
Speaker 1: the fact that we can get into some of these
Speaker 1: topics and the way that we do. But we know
Speaker 1: now from study after study that as as prone to
Speaker 1: error as I would say identification is, and it's wildly
Speaker 1: prone to error, we know that cross racial identification is
Speaker 1: much worse, much less reliable. It's the worst, it's the worst.
Speaker 2: Half the people I've walked out of prison have been
Speaker 2: as a result, they were convicted as a result of
Speaker 2: cross racial identifications. Because when you work in southern California,
Speaker 2: we have we're a mixing pot and it's constant. It's
Speaker 2: whites and Latinos and blacks and Asians, and they're almost
Speaker 2: always wrong.
Speaker 1: So bear that in mind those of you out there
Speaker 1: who are listening. You know, if you're on a jury
Speaker 1: and you're looking at somebody in a case where a
Speaker 1: you know that's the centerpiece of the prosecution is an
Speaker 1: eyewitness identification, be aware that they're extremely unreliable. And then
Speaker 1: if it happens to be a cross racial identification, you
Speaker 1: can basically just throw it out the window, because you know,
Speaker 1: there have been studies that show that you actually have
Speaker 1: a better chance of being right just by guessing. Yep.
Speaker 1: And there's a classic study you could look it up
Speaker 1: from I think it was the eighteen nineties in England
Speaker 1: and it's been done over and over again where they
Speaker 1: took people who didn't witness the crime and they got
Speaker 1: it right more often than people who did. And that's
Speaker 1: due to a number of factors, including the adrenaline and
Speaker 1: you know, pressures of all different kinds and psychological factors
Speaker 1: and so yeah, so that.
Speaker 2: Just starts, by the way, with it's the first four
Speaker 2: years of our life where we code how to do
Speaker 2: facial recognition. So if your mom is white, your dad
Speaker 2: is white, your brother's white, your sisters are white, you
Speaker 2: actually can't develop that skill to do facial recognition as
Speaker 2: well with other races for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: If you come from a multi racial family and those
Speaker 2: first few years you get a lot of exposure to
Speaker 2: a lot of races, you get better at it. But
Speaker 2: it's just as simple as that. It's a human thing
Speaker 2: that all human beings need to develop facial recognition, and
Speaker 2: it happens in the first few years of their lives.
Speaker 1: So back to you, guy, OK, So, now the moment
Speaker 1: comes is spending an unbelievable ordeal already and now you've
Speaker 1: dealt with this trial that's gone on for a month
Speaker 1: and a half or whatever it is. The jury shuffles
Speaker 1: back in. Did you think at that moment that you
Speaker 1: were going to be found guilty or innocent?
Speaker 5: I really didn't know. I had a bad vibe looking
Speaker 5: at the jury how they wouldn't look at me, And
Speaker 5: I don't know I was I guess I was hopeful
Speaker 5: that I wouldn't be found guilty, but I don't know.
Speaker 5: I just had that eerie feeling that those twelve people
Speaker 5: in there were going to find me guilty, especially after
Speaker 5: the judge sent them all back in. So, you know,
Speaker 5: I was more on the I'm gonna get found guilty
Speaker 5: than I would not being found guilty, I mean being
Speaker 5: found innocent.
Speaker 1: And then the moment comes, and then the moment.
Speaker 5: Comes and they stand up and find me guilty on
Speaker 5: all counts.
Speaker 1: And what can you describe that moment? I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's painful to even talk about it, but you know,
Speaker 1: was it? I mean the courtroom must have erupted. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there were tears, and I mean, how did you
Speaker 1: even process this?
Speaker 5: At that point. I wasn't even worried about myself. I
Speaker 5: was looking at my mother. I was watching how she
Speaker 5: broke down. I knew there was gonna be complications to
Speaker 5: her health. I just seen the tears. I just seen
Speaker 5: her tears just coming down, and I knew then that
Speaker 5: it was gonna be a tough robe. Man. I just
Speaker 5: just put my head down and just just said, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna have to deal with it whichever way it comes.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna have to deal with it. But I
Speaker 5: was more concerned about my mother than anything else at
Speaker 5: that moment.
Speaker 1: Well, that says a lot about your character too, And
Speaker 1: you know, and you're here, I think as a result
Speaker 1: of your character and of your you know, the strength
Speaker 1: that you found to withstand something and persevere through something
Speaker 1: that I think almost anybody else would have you know,
Speaker 1: given up, given in, and you know, died in prison
Speaker 1: because you were sentenced to seventy five years to life.
Speaker 1: And now you find yourself in this dangerous, hostile environment
Speaker 1: with no way out where. How can you explain that.
Speaker 5: It was a hard journey I had. I had to
Speaker 5: And I tell this story frequently. I tell adjusting them
Speaker 5: this all the time. I had to basically just trick
Speaker 5: my mind into believing that I was going to get
Speaker 5: out tomorrow, the next day soon. But I knew in
Speaker 5: my hearts of heart that that wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 5: But I had to kind of like trick my mind
Speaker 5: to believe in that. I had to, you know, have
Speaker 5: long talks with myself. I have to had to walk
Speaker 5: back and forth, you know, in a cell and just
Speaker 5: tell myself that it's you know, it's it's gonna get better. Later,
Speaker 5: you're gonna be out, They're gonna find it true, you're
Speaker 5: gonna go home, and all this is gonna be a
Speaker 5: distant memory after three or four years. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: still playing the same game with my mind. I'm praying
Speaker 5: a lot. I'm uh you know, I'm talking to my
Speaker 5: mom and father. They're keeping me strong. Like I said,
Speaker 5: as Justin said, they was at every court day, they
Speaker 5: were at every accepted, every phone call, came to every
Speaker 5: visit they could. They even made sure that my kids
Speaker 5: got there. They brought them so I saw them fight
Speaker 5: for me, so I couldn't let them down. I had
Speaker 5: to fight for myself too, and that's what I did.
Speaker 5: But again, at the same time, I had to play
Speaker 5: with my mind a little bit and make myself really
Speaker 5: believe that I was getting out the next day or
Speaker 5: the day after that, or the week after that, but
Speaker 5: in some near future out with coming home.
Speaker 2: Guy's spirit was incredible, and I deal with hundreds of
Speaker 2: people in prison, every single student who went to see him.
Speaker 2: Every time I saw him, he'd keep his spirits up.
Speaker 2: We'd call him smiley Guy. You know, he never felt
Speaker 2: sorry for himself. He just kept committed towards you know,
Speaker 2: thinking I'm getting out of here, I'm getting out of
Speaker 2: this nightmare. And I think you're right, Jason's there's a
Speaker 2: certain kind of special person You've had a lot of
Speaker 2: them on this show that to survive that situation, like
Speaker 2: you don't know if you'd do it. I don't know
Speaker 2: if i'd do it. And it's hard to believe where
Speaker 2: people can must up that kind of strength to be
Speaker 2: in prison for something you didn't commit. Every morning you
Speaker 2: wake up, it's a surrealistic nightmare. And yet there are
Speaker 2: these special people who survive it like I.
Speaker 1: And so justin how many times did you visit guy
Speaker 1: in prison? Can you even count?
Speaker 2: We had a lot of visits, a lot of time
Speaker 2: in San Quentin. I spent a lot of time up there.
Speaker 2: I every Christmas, I do my Christmas tour and I
Speaker 2: drive all over the state of California and try to
Speaker 2: see all my clients who are locked up because that's
Speaker 2: the hardest time of the year for them. So I
Speaker 2: definitely see a guy every Christmas. In fact, I just
Speaker 2: said to him yesterday, I'm glad I'm not going to
Speaker 2: see you next Christmas in prison.
Speaker 1: Amazing and it would seem like, you know, getting the
Speaker 1: California UNISONCE Project involved. I mean, you literally went from
Speaker 1: the outhouse to the penthouse in terms of legal representation
Speaker 1: to go from. And by the way, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put in a plug right now for people to support
Speaker 1: the California Innis's project and how do they do that?
Speaker 2: Justin go to California Innocence Project dot org and they
Speaker 2: can see Guy mile story there and all the clients
Speaker 2: that we freed.
Speaker 1: That's California Innocence Project dot org. And we're going to
Speaker 1: get into more of that in a minute. But so
Speaker 1: it took fifteen years, even with the best team of
Speaker 1: lawyers you could want or have. And it's interesting too,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get to the happy part of
Speaker 1: the story in a minute, but before we get there,
Speaker 1: because I saw that amazing video of you getting out
Speaker 1: and justin greeting you and driving you, and it's so
Speaker 1: much joy and that it's just really hard to explain.
Speaker 1: And people can watch that too if you Google it,
Speaker 1: or you go to California Innisons Project dot or you'll
Speaker 1: find this remarkable video. It's been viewed millions of times,
Speaker 1: which is so great. Before we get to the the
Speaker 1: you know the best part of the story, which is
Speaker 1: the moment when you were actually declared innocent. Is there
Speaker 1: going back if you could tell us, was there a
Speaker 1: time you could identify or moments you could identify as
Speaker 1: the happiest if there was a happy moment in prison,
Speaker 1: and was there a moment when which was really the
Speaker 1: darkest time that you had?
Speaker 5: Well, I say the darkest, darkest time was finding out
Speaker 5: my mother had cancer. That's when I felt like, oh man,
Speaker 5: how would I get through this? If something happened to
Speaker 5: my mother? How would I get through this? It was
Speaker 5: always that fear of getting a phone call or sliding
Speaker 5: the letter under the door saying you need to go
Speaker 5: see the chaplain. You know, I live with that every
Speaker 5: day when she was in the hospital. But luckily she
Speaker 5: pulled through and she overcame the cancer. My happiest days
Speaker 5: was writing that letter to the California Innison's Project and
Speaker 5: they finally accepted me as a client. I knew then
Speaker 5: that there was hope, and you know, I heard so
Speaker 5: much about the organization, but it was just like I
Speaker 5: can never get in that. You know, everybody tries to
Speaker 5: get to the Innosis Project and get turned down or
Speaker 5: they don't have enough resources to handle their case. So
Speaker 5: you know, in my mind, hey, I'm probably not going
Speaker 5: to make it either, but I'm sure of going to try.
Speaker 5: And I wrote letter after letter after letter, and they
Speaker 5: responded back to me and told me that they will
Speaker 5: review my case. It took like maybe six seven months
Speaker 5: for them to review the case. Man, I was overjoyed there.
Speaker 5: It was like, hey, light at the end of the tunnel,
Speaker 5: but it.
Speaker 2: Was a long tunnel. It was a long legal tunnel.
Speaker 2: Another way this case is extraordinary is we got a
Speaker 2: habeas hearing, but as often happens in California and other states,
Speaker 2: it was assigned back to the trial judge. So the
Speaker 2: trial judge already had his own personal biases about the
Speaker 2: case and he'd heard it, and he kind of went
Speaker 2: through the motions of that hearing and we lost. So
Speaker 2: we presented all the problems with the identification. I cross
Speaker 2: examined the original office who did the ID and in fact,
Speaker 2: by the time I was done my cross examination and
Speaker 2: showed him all the mistakes he'd made, he actually came
Speaker 2: over to me and said, I didn't do any of
Speaker 2: this intentionally, and if it's my mistake that led to
Speaker 2: your guy being wrongfully convicted. I really hope you win.
Speaker 2: So he realized he wasn't even intentionally doing these photo
Speaker 2: rays the way he did it, just wasn't trained. Well,
Speaker 2: this was who they said that. This was the investigating
Speaker 2: officer who did the identification procedure when I showed him
Speaker 2: saying yeah, when I showed him like, you don't put
Speaker 2: photos of people who don't match the description. And I
Speaker 2: took him through all the procedure manuals and how you
Speaker 2: put them together. So we go through the whole hearing,
Speaker 2: we show all the problems with the IDs, we bring
Speaker 2: in the alibi witnesses, we put the whole thing back
Speaker 2: on and we lose. And then a list of beercle
Speaker 2: who's an amazing lawyer in my office, doesn't give up easily.
Speaker 2: She appealed that decision, and then we went back and
Speaker 2: did it a second time and.
Speaker 1: We lost with in the same judge again yes.
Speaker 2: And then we went back up to the Court of
Speaker 2: Appeal and there as a matter of law, reverse the decision,
Speaker 2: saying that we had brought in sufficient evidence that this
Speaker 2: conviction should be reversed. And then we came up against
Speaker 2: another obstacle, which I think is an interesting thing to explore,
Speaker 2: in that the District Attorney's office, after this whole journey,
Speaker 2: said we're we prosecuting. So I sat in a jail
Speaker 2: with guy. I'm sure he'll remember because it was a
Speaker 2: year and two days ago, and I said, here's what
Speaker 2: we're looking at. Man, You've been exonerated, but they can
Speaker 2: always reprosecute. And they say they're reprosecuting, And in fact,
Speaker 2: ALYSSA put together a whole stack of pretrial motions just
Speaker 2: to see if they were bluffing, and they weren't. They
Speaker 2: were going back to trial. Best case scenario, you get
Speaker 2: exonerated at trial, but that means you're going to sit
Speaker 2: here in jail until that's over, and I don't know
Speaker 2: how long that's going to be. Worst case scenario, a
Speaker 2: jury convicts you again, because who knows. I don't think
Speaker 2: that will happen, but I'm sure you didn't think that
Speaker 2: was going to happen the first time round. Right, If
Speaker 2: you take this deal now and plee out, they'll walk
Speaker 2: you out here today. And what do you do in
Speaker 2: that situation? And how do you advise your client? I
Speaker 2: just got to lay it out to them, that's the
Speaker 2: honest truth. I think I'm going to win this retrial.
Speaker 2: I think I'll get you exonerated, but I can't give
Speaker 2: any guarantee of that this will get you out today.
Speaker 2: So plea bargains are now defining the entire system. And
Speaker 2: this wasn't true ten fifteen years ago. When we get
Speaker 2: an exoneration, everyone would walk away. And now I'm seeing
Speaker 2: two paths happen across the United States. There's some vari
Speaker 2: astute district attorneys who are getting ahead of these stories,
Speaker 2: creating conviction review units and getting in on the exonerations.
Speaker 2: And there's other ones that are digging their heels in
Speaker 2: and fighting these things to the bitter end because they
Speaker 2: don't want to lose, they don't want to be sued,
Speaker 2: they don't want these stories in the news. And it's
Speaker 2: really terrible because in California, even in Bakersfield, even in
Speaker 2: San Bornadino, they didn't used to fight exonerations once we won,
Speaker 2: and now they are.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy because you know, you know, the public
Speaker 1: really needs to be made aware that this is your
Speaker 1: tax dollars at work. Right You have prosecutors who've been
Speaker 1: proven wrong, who've had a higher court tell them, huh uh, nope,
Speaker 1: you screwed this up. This wasn't your guy, And they're
Speaker 1: going to come in and instead of doing their jobs,
Speaker 1: they're going to go and spend more weeks and months
Speaker 1: and overtime and this and that and everything else, and
Speaker 1: then they're going all in the hope of reconvicting an
Speaker 1: innocent guy who's then going to go back to prison,
Speaker 1: where we're going to continue to pay for that, right,
Speaker 1: And the cost of incarceration in America are staggering, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, just you know, just in terms of on
Speaker 1: a very basic mundane level, just the money that the
Speaker 1: taxpayers pay to keep people innocent people, but everybody.
Speaker 2: They even do it, by the way, Jason, they do
Speaker 2: it in cases where there's no time left. Another one
Speaker 2: of my clients, Bill Richards, they threatened to reprosecute him
Speaker 2: and had he they successfully won that reprosecution. He was
Speaker 2: already on parole. So they were willing to spend county
Speaker 2: money going through an entire murder trial again where at
Speaker 2: the end of that result would be no incarceration anyway,
Speaker 2: So what could that possibly be about? So we filed
Speaker 2: a motion that they were using their office irresponsibly and
Speaker 2: it was prosecutorial misconduct, and then they dropped the case
Speaker 2: when that was picked up by the media. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: These are our resources. We only have a limited number
Speaker 2: of resources for criminal justice, and they're just not being
Speaker 2: allocated correctly because a lot of times people's egos derived
Speaker 2: those decisions. You said something, by the way, heartbreaking to
Speaker 2: me that day, guy, and lawyers aren't supposed to cry,
Speaker 2: but it made me cry. And you said to me
Speaker 2: me that you didn't want to let me down by
Speaker 2: taking a play. And I've talked to other lawyers about
Speaker 2: that in our movement because I think it's an important
Speaker 2: message that lawyers remember that sometimes the clients think they're
Speaker 2: letting us down. And I said to you, you know,
Speaker 2: this is your life, man. You got to do what's
Speaker 2: best for your life, and I'm glad you did that.
Speaker 5: You know, they fought so hard since they took my case.
Speaker 5: I mean it was nitty gritty, they got down and dirty.
Speaker 5: They really got out there and got the evidence. I
Speaker 5: mean they fought tooth and nail. We had, Like I said,
Speaker 5: to evident, you're a hearing another hearing in the Pellic court.
Speaker 5: It was like never giving up. So I told Justin
Speaker 5: that because you know, I just watched the dedication in
Speaker 5: him to fight him, and it was just like, man,
Speaker 5: me copping out. It was like letting them down after
Speaker 5: all they did for me, you know. And that's why
Speaker 5: I told you, Man, I just I just I just
Speaker 5: feel bad, you know, like basically bailing out on him.
Speaker 5: And that's why I told him that.
Speaker 1: So you ended up making the decision that I think
Speaker 1: almost anyone would make face with that impossible choice, and
Speaker 1: I had and you had to plead down. You plead
Speaker 1: it down or do you have to plead guilty to
Speaker 1: the crime in.
Speaker 2: The first lead no contest to the charges, right.
Speaker 1: So it's like an Alfred Plate. Yeah, so you pleaded
Speaker 1: no contest. I had to be another bit of pill
Speaker 1: to swallow. And now you have to live the rest
Speaker 1: of your life as a convicted felon, as if they
Speaker 1: didn't do enough.
Speaker 2: And we were trying to and we at the same
Speaker 2: time we're fighting for clemency for guy. This guy is
Speaker 2: part of what we call the California twelve, which are
Speaker 2: twelve clients we identified now it's five six years ago
Speaker 2: as being great cases for clemency from Governor Jerry Brown,
Speaker 2: and the governor has the power to at any time
Speaker 2: give any one and clemency he wants to give in
Speaker 2: the state prison system. Unfortunately, most governors use it in
Speaker 2: you know, to give it to people or connected to power,
Speaker 2: or someone who happens to work in the governor's mansion
Speaker 2: in the garden. It's very random. And so we identified
Speaker 2: these twelve cases and we actually walked clemency petitions from
Speaker 2: my office in San Diego. I walked all the way
Speaker 2: to Sacramento with those clemency petitions, seven hundred and twelve miles.
Speaker 2: Guy's family walked a good portion of that with us.
Speaker 1: And how long did that take?
Speaker 2: It took fifty days. It was walking the entire way
Speaker 2: up the coasts, all in the highways.
Speaker 1: That's as far as Gump shit right there.
Speaker 2: It was. I had far If you go on YouTube
Speaker 2: and say justin Brooks mile four fifty Innocence March, you
Speaker 2: can see how I looked at mile four fifty. I
Speaker 2: looked like far As Gump. And we had hundreds of
Speaker 2: people with us by the time we got to Sacramento
Speaker 2: and we presented those twelve clemency petitions to the governor.
Speaker 2: He has still not acted on any of them. Is
Speaker 2: now five years later, and in that time we've released
Speaker 2: five of those twelve. There's still seven left in prison.
Speaker 2: The governor now has one hundred and I think eighty
Speaker 2: some days left in office, who's counting, And during that
Speaker 2: time he could give clemency to these final seven. And
Speaker 2: so I've been every day on social media asking people
Speaker 2: to call the governor, write the governor, ask him to
Speaker 2: grant clemency to the California twelve. And if anyone can
Speaker 2: follow me on Twitter at Justin O Brooks every single
Speaker 2: day that can retweet to the governor and he gets
Speaker 2: these messages, but he hasn't done anything about it yet.
Speaker 2: And in Guy's case, we're sitting there with a plea offer,
Speaker 2: the possibility of clemency, and it's this very high stakes
Speaker 2: poker that you're playing, and we find to make the
Speaker 2: decision to play in the card of him taking this
Speaker 2: deal so he can move on with his life, which
Speaker 2: is of course Guy's decision.
Speaker 1: There's a rumor going on around that you're going to
Speaker 1: do another walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna do the final hundred miles, which is
Speaker 2: actually some of the most brutal part of it because
Speaker 2: I'm going to walk from San Francisco to Sacramento and
Speaker 2: in September a part of it. You're definitely coming and
Speaker 2: walking my brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, sounds like I better get my sneakers out too.
Speaker 1: I love that it'll be.
Speaker 2: The last hundred on the He'll have one hundred days
Speaker 2: left in October, and so on that day we're going
Speaker 2: to walk the last hundred miles and it'll take about
Speaker 2: five days, doing about twenty miles a day, and we'll
Speaker 2: go to Sacramento and try to get his attention again
Speaker 2: to these final seven cases. It's just heartbreaking. They are
Speaker 2: compelling cases, strong evidence of innocence, every one of them.
Speaker 2: And you can see them on our website at California
Speaker 2: Inniston's Project dot org.
Speaker 1: And can people sign up to do the walk there too?
Speaker 2: Yeah, then get information about the walk and we'll tell
Speaker 2: them what the rallies are and if they follow me
Speaker 2: on Twitter, I'll be tweeting about it between now and then.
Speaker 1: And that's justin Obrooks on Twitter. Why are the last
Speaker 1: one hundred miles the most brutal.
Speaker 2: Because it's so hot and you're just crossing California. I
Speaker 2: mean a lot of people said to me, why didn't
Speaker 2: Why didn't you guys walk up the five. It's like,
Speaker 2: if you walk up the five, you be dead. It
Speaker 2: goes through the desert the whole way. So we did
Speaker 2: the coastal walk and Big Star is very beautiful. It's
Speaker 2: not as fun when you're walking in and going up
Speaker 2: and down those hills, but at least it's not brutally hot.
Speaker 2: But when you cut inland and we hit there at
Speaker 2: around June, it was insanely hot. That last hundred miles
Speaker 2: when you're walking to Sacramento.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of walk And that's an incredible, incredible story,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you told it. So yeah, I think, Look,
Speaker 1: I'm very optimistic that this governor will do the right thing.
Speaker 1: He's certainly been actively pursuing cases for clemency. He's granted
Speaker 1: I think more clemencies for lifers than any previous governor or.
Speaker 2: Probably he's granted a lot of clemencies, but most of
Speaker 2: them have been out of custody people, right, people with
Speaker 2: old drug charges. But yeah, this governor's been on the
Speaker 2: right side of a lot of issues, a lot of
Speaker 2: progressive issues, which is why I was willing to walk
Speaker 2: seven hundred and twelve miles because I thought, this guy'll do.
Speaker 1: This, and I think it's important for people to realize
Speaker 1: that that stigma is gone. You know, President Obama granted
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred and sixty something clemencies in the last days
Speaker 1: in office, and there wasn't a peep from anybody, like
Speaker 1: and by the way, I was advocating for much many
Speaker 1: more than that, but nobody said a word. Right, there
Speaker 1: was a one article written, hey, wait, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, it's not a thing anymore. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's just not a thing.
Speaker 2: Right, So pendulum always swings right.
Speaker 1: So guy, before we get to the closing of the show,
Speaker 1: I did want to ask you about that moment when
Speaker 1: the High Court the Court of Appeals reverse your conviction,
Speaker 1: because it has to be just the opposite of the
Speaker 1: devastation that you felt when you were wrongfully convicted in
Speaker 1: the first place. Can you describe that moment?
Speaker 5: I was excited when I got the word that the
Speaker 5: Pellic court had reversed my conviction.
Speaker 1: How'd you find out?
Speaker 5: I found Actually I found out through my daughter. She
Speaker 5: told me. She's like, hey, Dad, Hey dad. I happened
Speaker 5: to call my daughter and she was like, hey, Dad,
Speaker 5: did you hear what happened? I was like what. She
Speaker 5: was like, you know, you coming home? I was like, huh,
Speaker 5: what are you talking about? And she said that we
Speaker 5: just got word that the pelicourt reversed your conviction and
Speaker 5: they letting you come home. I was like what. I
Speaker 5: guess she had it all wrong. She heard reverse and
Speaker 5: she thought it just immediately I come home that day,
Speaker 5: so I was excited. I instantly called Justin and them
Speaker 5: and they confirmed what she had told me that the
Speaker 5: pellicourt had reversed my conviction. But there was still a
Speaker 5: process that we needed to go through to see if
Speaker 5: the district attorney was going to retry me or just
Speaker 5: decide to let the case go. We got word that
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court wanted to look at the case, and
Speaker 5: so here the agony again. We're now waiting on a
Speaker 5: Supreme Court to review the appellic Court's decision. But anyway,
Speaker 5: they elected to leave the case as it was. But
Speaker 5: I believe they What was that Justin?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we passed a new evidence law in California. California
Speaker 2: had actually the toughest new evidence law in the country.
Speaker 2: And I know this because I wrote a lat of
Speaker 2: your article on topic and read every one of them.
Speaker 2: And in California, you had to have new evidence that
Speaker 2: completely undermined every element of the prosecution's case.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And so unless you have overwhelming evidence of innocence really
Speaker 2: anything short of DNA, and you're going to have trouble
Speaker 2: winning a case in California. And we got a new
Speaker 2: law passed in California that mimics the rest of the
Speaker 2: states that just basically says, if you have evidence that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have been convicted at trial, had the jury
Speaker 2: heard it, they wouldn't have convicted you, that's sufficient. And
Speaker 2: because we had that new evidence law in California, we
Speaker 2: well surpassed that standard in Guy Miles case.
Speaker 1: So, Guy, you know, it's after talking to you and
Speaker 1: after seeing the video of you on the way home,
Speaker 1: I feel like I know you already, which is great.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to getting to know you in person.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll be doing some walking together. So but we
Speaker 1: have we've come to the point in the show which
Speaker 1: is my favorite part and I think probably the audience's
Speaker 1: favorite part, which is the part when I stopped talking.
Speaker 1: And the tradition here is at the end of each episode,
Speaker 1: I turned it over to our distinguished guests and let
Speaker 1: you have the last word, and you can literally say
Speaker 1: whatever you want about whatever you want. I think everybody
Speaker 1: is me most of all. It's really interested to hear
Speaker 1: what you have to say. But we're going to save
Speaker 1: the best for last, and we're going to let Justin
Speaker 1: go first. So Justin, I'm going to turn it over
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: You know, this is our collective criminal justice system, right
Speaker 2: so I don't think we can just sit back and
Speaker 2: do nothing about all the failings of it, because it's
Speaker 2: our failings. And that's why I love this show. I
Speaker 2: love the work that you do. I love our community
Speaker 2: because we're trying constantly to make the system better. We
Speaker 2: know we can't perfect it, we know we'll never hit
Speaker 2: one hundred percent, but there's a lot of changes that
Speaker 2: can be made so that innocent people don't go to
Speaker 2: prison and so the innocent people get out of prison.
Speaker 2: And Guy Miles is another example of things that can
Speaker 2: be done to make the system better. Improve identification procedures.
Speaker 2: Let's stop with the sentences that are so high that
Speaker 2: people are forced into plead guilty to things they didn't commit.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of reforms that we can make, and
Speaker 2: so I think we learned something about every one of
Speaker 2: these cases, and we learned something that we need to do.
Speaker 2: So i'd ask your audience to, you know, take action
Speaker 2: and get involved. You know, go to our website Californiasanceproject
Speaker 2: dot org see things that you can do, and just
Speaker 2: get involved. Do jury duty, get involved in your community,
Speaker 2: be part of the solution, or you're really part of
Speaker 2: the problem.
Speaker 1: Guy. Hey, we'll turn it over to you now for
Speaker 1: last words.
Speaker 5: First of all, I just want to thank the California
Speaker 5: Nison's Project for even accepting my case and have to
Speaker 5: accepting my case, going the distance to find what was
Speaker 5: needed to show the judge, the justice system, and everybody
Speaker 5: else around that there are actual innocent people in jail.
Speaker 5: My daughter Taja, the hardest part being away from her
Speaker 5: was her first pregnancy, having my grandson. I remember her
Speaker 5: telling me. I know it was hard for her to
Speaker 5: tell me that she was pregnant at a young age,
Speaker 5: and you know, I wasn't there to kind of help
Speaker 5: her through that time, so that was kind of hard
Speaker 5: for me. But I want her to know that I
Speaker 5: love her and I don't judge her, and you know
Speaker 5: she's always gonna be my little baby guy, Charles, you
Speaker 5: know the same to them. You know, those are my boys,
Speaker 5: and I know it was hard for them while I
Speaker 5: was away, but I also loved them, and you know
Speaker 5: I'm home now we can put all that behind us
Speaker 5: and just move forward and just thank God that we're
Speaker 5: able to, you know, reunite and just you know, be
Speaker 5: a family and continue doing what we're doing, and that's
Speaker 5: having fun, talking and enjoying each other's company. And a
Speaker 5: special thanks to my mother and father definitely for not wavering,
Speaker 5: being there for me every step of the way, never
Speaker 5: turning their back on me. Like I said, when I
Speaker 5: got out, they knew I was innocent coming in. They
Speaker 5: knew I was innocent coming out. They continue to fight
Speaker 5: for me, even when it looks like things were bad
Speaker 5: and I wasn't coming home. They never gave up, and
Speaker 5: they continue their fight with Justin Ulyssa and the rest
Speaker 5: of the gang at the California Innocence Project. To everybody
Speaker 5: else out there who's going through the similar or the
Speaker 5: same thing that I'm going through, continue to fight, continue
Speaker 5: to keep hope alized, just stay strong and believe Not
Speaker 5: every da is bad, not every judge is bad, not
Speaker 5: every lawyer is bad. But we just have to pray
Speaker 5: and ask God to just continue giving us strength that
Speaker 5: we do find the good ones. And that's all I
Speaker 5: want to say. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you here.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I'm looking forward to getting together
Speaker 1: with you and doing some walking and I will see
Speaker 1: you in California and hopefully someday we'll get you to
Speaker 1: New York and we'll put the red carpet off for
Speaker 1: you again. Thanks for being part of it.
Speaker 5: It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Give my love to your parents.
Speaker 1: Guy, I will, I will, all right, see you later.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with s NO Company Number
Speaker 1: one