WEBVTT - #057 Jason Flom with Andre Hatchett 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:05.080 America has two point two million people in prison. If 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.200 just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people. 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.040 That's a lot of people's lives destroyed. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:18.440 If the system want to take you out of society, 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.800 they will do it no matter what laws they have 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.680 to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:25.800 they're breaking the lord. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.360 Having to hear those people say that I was guilty 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.519 of a crime that I did not commit, and then 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.559 hear my family break down behind me and not be 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.600 able to do anything about it. I can't describe the 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:38.640 crushing weight that was. 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.680 I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption. 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:46.840 A lot of times we look and we see something 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.200 happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said, 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:50.720 that could never happen to me, but. 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:52.600 They can. 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:15.480 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.360 Jason Flamm today. I'm very excited to have an amazing 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.840 group of guests, and I'm going to save our star 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.399 for the last introduction, But first of all, I want 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.280 to introduce Sema Safey, who is an attorney with the 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.640 Innocence Project in New York. Sema, welcome to the show. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.320 Thank you for having me Jason. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.560 And today we have a first on wrongful conviction. We 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.240 have the brother of the exonery here to help tell 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.240 the story and to keep an eye on his little 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.280 brother as well. Right, so, Jerry Hatchett, welcome to Wrongful Conviction. 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:46.479 Thanks for having me here. 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.680 And like I said, the best for last. So the 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.279 star of our show is Andre Hatchett, who served twenty 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.200 five years in prison, not including a year in jail 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.120 waiting for trial for a crime he did not commit. 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.680 When you hear Andre, Sikiel noticed that his voice is 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.440 very low, and that's because of the fact that he 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.800 had been shot in the neck prior to even having 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:09.880 any of this stuff happen in the first place. 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.079 Andre Hatchett enjoying his first real taste of freedom after 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.880 more than two decades in prison. A judge overturned his 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.480 nineteen ninety two murder conviction and the beating death of 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.400 a woman whose body was found in a Bedford Stuyvesant park. 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.720 The only evidence in the case the eyewitness testimony of 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.920 a man who first told police someone else killed the victim, 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.880 and who fingered hatchet when comps found out that first 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.000 suspect was in jail at the time of the killing 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.919 and couldn't have done it. The Brooklyn District Attorney's Conviction 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.720 Integrity Unit cooperating with lawyers from the Innocence Project, who 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.760 say Hatchett was also recovering from gunshot wounds at the 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.080 time and was physically unable to carry out the murder. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.680 Attorney Barry Scheck says Hatche's case shows that pending legislation 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.320 on witness questioning should be passed. Hatchett was twenty four 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.919 years old when this all started. He turns fifty in May. Now, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.640 Hatchett is surrounded by relatives who say they never lost 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.920 faith even as he became a victim of the system. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.920 Andre, Welcome to Wrong for Conviction. Thank you, Andre. Let's 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:11.000 go back. This was early nineties we're talking about, but 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.400 even before that, Where did you grow up? How did 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.360 you grow up? How was your family life? Tell me 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:16.160 a little back. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.000 All right, First, we came from down South. We moved 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.760 in Wrong Island, fergust in early seventy five, me and 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.359 my mother and my three brothers and my stepfather. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.400 So you moved up here when you were a kid. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.080 Basically I was young. I was young. 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.640 My mother used to work in the buiicycle shop. I'm 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.760 talking about my mother. First, I missed because she passed 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.520 away while I was in jail. I missed. 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.120 I got ps PETE TSD. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:43.640 Yeah, I got that right now. 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.520 And so so we grew up and my mother used 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.360 to we should make money trying to help my mother. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.000 Cause my mother used to she was single parents because 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.320 she came up here, bringing us up here. So she 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.600 always tell us, you ever get in trouble, son, you 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.840 and you know I don't go to jail. I don't 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.240 the job. She got clothes folks, she don't have no money, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.920 and she for five for us. You know, don't do that. 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.800 So I never did nothing get in trouble. I used 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.040 to listen to my mother. You know, I always been 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.160 slow education. You know I can't read to right. That 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.000 guy still abong working. 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.480 On the tree. So growing up, I mean, it sounds 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.479 like you had a pretty happy child that obviously you 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.440 had some some learning disabilities I still do right, and 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.840 some difficulties, but the fact is you were doing okay. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.920 Things were all right. You have your family and your brother. 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:30.640 And then we moved to Brooklyn. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.480 As I got big, we used to pack bag at 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.480 key food shovel snow anything to help my mother. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.600 So you've grown up, you're getting along making. 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.120 I used to pack bags at Key Food. As I 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.120 got bigger, I went to the ice company. I was 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.599 so strong, right, I was so strong that ice. They 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.240 used to call me animal there. 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.200 You remember these times, Yeah, we we was kids like 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.599 summer jobs. We would go there and help at the 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.680 ice company because my stepfather drove the truck for the 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:00.359 ice company. So we used to go there in the 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.440 summertime and help out around there and work with them, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.600 you know, work on the truck and helping everything. And 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.200 I left, but Andre stayed around because I moved to 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.359 Long Island and we got a real job, you know. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:16.960 But he stayed on the ice cruck working with my 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:17.840 stepfathering him. 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:20.760 So before this crime ever even happened, you were a 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:22.880 victim of a terrible crime yourself. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:23.160 Right. 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:25.800 I got shot. I don't know who something today with 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:27.960 the brother I was going through the store. I don't 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.080 know who something. I got hit in the neck and 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.560 growing in the leg, in the throat. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.360 And that's an important point. And Seema, jump in here 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.239 for a second, because this is what's so crazy about 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.120 your case. Right, We're talking about a crime that was 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.320 committed on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety one. The victim was 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.440 a woman named Meta make Carter. And it is really 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.640 a gruesome crime. It's like something off of a True 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.880 Detective or one of those shows on TV. And you know, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.320 if you can jump in and tell us a little 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.119 bit about the crime and why it's so preposterous that 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:05.000 anyone could have ever identified or prosecuted or convicted Andrea 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.440 of a crime that it is physically impossible. Forget the 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.280 fact that the alby witnesses and everything else, but it 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.200 was also physically impossible that he would have committed this crime. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.320 So the victim was, like you said, a thirty eight 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.239 year old woman. Her body was found in a park 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.479 in Brooklyn, and it was eleven o'clock at night. It 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:30.080 was a drizzly, rainy scene, and it was this is 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.720 going to be pretty graphic. But her body was found, 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.600 her skull was exposed because of how badly bludgeoned she 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.000 was in the head. Her teeth were knocked out of 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.640 her gums. Her body had been dragged across a distance. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.560 Her clothes were found strewn across the park. Her vulva 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:52.000 had been ruptured when she was examined at autopsy, and 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.440 her body was placed in a position that the DA's 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.840 office ultimately when they exonerated Andrea, described it as sort 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.680 of like it was deliberately placed in sort of a 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:09.720 crucifix style position. And so whoever committed this crime had 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:15.360 to inflict a significant amount of force to have done this. 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.600 And there were three metal pipes found in the vicinity 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.640 of her body which were believed to have been the 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.240 murder weapon that was used to bludgeon and sodomize her. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.800 Andrea was in a cast and two crutches on the 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.400 night of the crime. The victim's own mother testified that 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.480 he was using crutches on the night of the crime 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.000 because earlier that night he was with the victim because 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.920 his aunt lived in the same rooming house as the 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.080 victim and the victim's mother, so he would visit his 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.440 aunt almost every day and occasionally he would chat with 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.160 the victim, watch TV, borrow her mother's records, and so 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.960 they were acquainted. And so later that night, the victim 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.280 went out, I think she went to buy some drugs. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.240 She never came back home. Andre left. He had an 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.400 alibi for the rest of the night, even when the 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.680 comps inner viewed him, they let him go because he 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.440 had a solid alibi. Now, what was chilling is that 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.760 there was such grave defense counsel incompetence in this case 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.640 that his first defense counsel was deemed ineffective by that 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.440 trial judge. And so the trial judge said, you were 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:17.280 so incompetent, I'm going to give this man a second 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.920 trial because he didn't even present his alibi, he didn't 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.280 cross examine witnesses, he had a hearing impediment, so he 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.679 gave him a second trial. His second lawyer was someone 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:28.680 who was suspended from the practice of law for a 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.640 period of time in the eighties. Neither lawyer ordered Andre's 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.079 medical records to show that it would have been physically 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.040 impossible with his condition to have committed this crime, and 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.200 all they needed to do was make that clear to 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:41.640 the jury. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:42.400 They never did. 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:43.120 Well. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.880 Going back to his first attorney, me and my mother 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.040 was in a Supreme court downtown Brooklyn, and like I said, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.320 we never been in trouble before, so we didn't know 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.600 what lawyer to get for no case. Me being the oldest, 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:57.959 I'm trying to do anything to help my mother because she. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.360 High blood pressure help proproblems. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.199 So you see a guy in the Supreme Court and 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.040 he say he's a lawyer. I'm like, how much I 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.640 paid for his first lawyer, right, mister Panzer. I paid 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.320 him I think a couple of thousand dollars down to 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.240 try to help my mother out. We get in court, 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.280 like he said, the judges just I'm in court me 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.240 saying he didn't do it. Check his medical records. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:22.960 I'm telling me. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.040 His brother's telling the judge this, check his medical records. 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:27.080 It isn't impossible. 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.160 And they didn't even listen to me. They was like, oh, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.200 you got to go to the boss association to get 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.120 your money back. And I told the judge I paid 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.160 this guy, and the judge like, you paid him. 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:37.400 He was a legal aid. 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.559 But I didn't even know that the first lawyer was 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.600 a legal aid, that he wasn't supposed to charge me. 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.520 I'm trying to do anything to help my brother and 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.959 my mother, you know, out, So I didn't know. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:50.760 Let me go back a minute, So when were you shot? 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.360 Hundred I was shot at nineteen ninety it was going 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.120 into the wintertime. 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.640 So you were shot not long before this terrible crime happened. 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:01.800 And this crime is as terrible as it gets. 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.320 And when he was shot, he got shot in his 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.520 leg and he had to take a bone out of 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.679 his hip and put in his leg, and he had 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:11.480 screws in his. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.040 Leg timrod like a table. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.840 So when the cops questioned him, he actually had to 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:17.760 cast on his leg. 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.000 What was the circumstances? Where were you going? It just 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:21.959 came out of nowhere. 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.520 I was going to the store, just going to the store, 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.559 passer like a block and they just start shooting somebody, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.120 dogs got killed, all the people got shot. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.240 I don't know who shot me back to the day. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.200 And that's one of the things with this case that 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.760 troubled me so much from the first time I became 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.240 aware of it, is the idea that it's unusual that 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.560 you have a case that's seemingly so totally open and 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.560 shot that literally a sixth grader could have represented you 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:51.000 and said, your honor, this can't be. This is not possible. Right, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.920 You cannot drag somebody as his body was dragged. You 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.360 could not have committed this crime in any of the 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.080 things that were said. As we'll find out later, the 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:12.640 whole system failed you. So you were shot, and then 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.040 how did they end up even coming to the idea 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:17.920 that maybe you could have been the one that did this. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:18.680 I don't know. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.719 She lived in my aunt building. She lived in my 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.760 aunt building because I go there because my aunt lived there. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:27.240 She passed away to my aunt named Angie Angie Atchie. 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:29.719 I mean, this is my head is spinning every time 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.480 I think I've heard it all, I hear a story 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.240 like Andrea's and I'm like, okay, this is just I mean, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.840 as you described that crime, and it's as gruesome of 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.000 a crime as there could be. And the idea that 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.760 they would willfully prosecute somebody who they knew were innocent 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.440 because anybody would have known he was innocent, and leave 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.000 that guy who's a true monster on the streets to 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.360 potentially do this type of thing to another innocent person. 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.520 I mean, what am I missing here? This is insane. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.120 So Andre and the victim were acquaintances. As Andre mentioned, 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.480 she lived in the same rooming house as Andrea's aunt. 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.120 When Andre would visit his aunt, he would sometimes talk 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.880 to or watch TV with the victim, and he was 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.640 with the victim earlier in the evening that night, and 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.120 the victim asked Andre to borrow a couple dollars, so 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.880 he gave her three dollars. She went, she bought some drugs. 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.840 She came back smoked in the house. She borrowed a 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.720 few more dollars, left again, never came back. 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:28.800 Andre didn't see her. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.320 Andre waited for her with her mother, and then after 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.920 about half an hour, Andre left again. And then he 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.080 had gone home, spent some time with his cousin, watched 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.480 some TV. He remembered the TV show he watched, went 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.520 to bed, and then her body was found later that night. Now, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.320 the mother was interviewed by police. She said, the last 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.600 person I saw my daughter with was Andre Hatchett. Police 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.800 interviewed him the next day. He had a solid, detailed alibi. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:54.720 They let him go. 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.679 Eight days later, a man named Jerry Williams gets arrested 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:04.600 for an unrelated burglary. Now, Jerry Williams is in the 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.480 bullpen at the precinct and he tells cops, hey, I 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.240 have some information about that high profile murder that took 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.440 place in the park in Brooklyn, and he described the person. 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.360 He said, I knew him from the neighborhood. I knew 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.320 him from soup kitchens. Now, Andrea had never been to 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.840 a soup kitchen because he was on SSI he didn't 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:23.640 need to go to soup kitchens. And then he starts 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.480 describing the person. He says, I saw this crime from 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.240 a distance of forty feet. It was a rainy night. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.679 He said, I heard someone make a deep scream. I 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.199 was with my friend named Popeye. So he said, then 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.240 Popeye yells out, are you okay? Because they see a 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:44.400 shadow of someone with something in his hand, swinging his 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.640 arm on the ground to a body on the ground, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.679 and so Popeye screams out, are you okay? And they 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.680 said that a man screamedback, stepped the f off in 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.960 a very distinctive voice that could be heard from a 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.360 distance of forty feet. So then this guy, Jerry Williams said, 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.400 and I think the guy is someone you know. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.800 I think he was a suspect. He has crutches. 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.000 So he knew that Andrea had already been cleared by police, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.160 and he started to describe this person as in a 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.840 way that was very consistent with Andre, because Andre had crutches. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.520 So Jerry Williams had a very distinct reason to want 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.200 to be helpful to the police, right because he was 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.760 a suspect in a Berkeley had been arrested for a Bergley, right, 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.760 So he's sitting there going, hey, I got an idea. 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.360 This is a crime everybody's talking about in the neighborhood. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.480 If I can be helpful to them, they'll be helpful 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.800 to me. He doesn't care about you, Andre, So he's like, yeah, 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.560 let me just try to give up some bogus information 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:40.040 and tell a story that they're going to want to hear, 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.240 and then maybe they'll let me go home. 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:47.640 And what's interesting is right after that description, police go 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.680 and get Andre to conduct a lineup. Andre voluntarily goes 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.200 back to the police station. They do a lineup, Jerry 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:59.120 Williams identifies Andre. Andre wasn't arrested, And what we later 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.160 found out, which was presented a trial, was that the 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.840 DA directed the cops not to arrest Andre even though 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.280 he had just been identified in a lineup, and the 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.440 document that we retrieved said, according to the DA's office, 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.520 there was insufficient evidence to support an arrest. So clearly 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.800 there was some concern about this man's reliability. Now, this 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.760 man was the star witness for the prosecution at trial. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.760 Jerry Williams was a crack addicted drug dealer with thirty 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.440 prior arrests, that is the only witness. So what happens 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:36.200 after this lineup where Andre gets to go home. Jerry Williams, 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.800 who has this burglary arrest, is released the next day 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.400 and he voluntarily offers to help police find Popeye, this 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.840 other witness that he claims witness this crime. So, after 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.040 many efforts, they find Popeye. Popeye comes in, they bring 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.880 Andre into do a second lineup again. Andre voluntarily comes 0:15:55.880 --> 0:16:00.400 in and Popeye identifies Andre in the lineup and he 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:01.760 is ultimately arrested. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:03.720 Now, what is again not. 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.800 Addressed a trial is the fact that Popeye had initially 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.080 chosen someone else out of the lineup, not Andre. Now, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.720 Popeye never testifies at Andre's first trial, never testifies at 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.960 his second trial. The only person who testifies is Jerry Williams. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.120 Who's the guy who has the motivation to want to 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.920 lie because he walked out on his thirty first arrest. Yeah, Jerry, 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:26.920 you obviously remember this like it was yesterday. 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.680 Yeah, because they didn't arrest him. He was going back 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.000 and forth to the precinct. But by the time he 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.600 did go to trial, they made sure that he didn't 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.520 have a cash on his leg so in front of jury, 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.760 like this guy was never shot or never heard anything. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.760 And when the guy said he screamed, he got shot 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.400 in his neck and his voice box. He couldn't even 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.680 he couldn't even barely talk. So it was impossible for 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:50.560 him to scream. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:52.640 It's impossible for him. The scream was impossible for him 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.440 to commit. The murder, was impossible for to drag the body. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:55.680 All of it was impossible. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.400 So Fergus the police name. He kept going, I'm gonna 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.160 give you a lot of tech detests. I'm gonna give 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.159 you a lot of tech detests. He never gave it 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.800 to me. He talked about don't skip town. He asked me, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.879 don't skip Tom Judge. Study, going back to the precinct study, 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.959 going back then. He said to one me, look at 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.200 a muck shop book. Right said, you know him, I'll 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.440 let you go. But he never did. He never did 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.120 show me a work. He tried to make me pick 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:22.639 somebody of the muck shop but trying to do the 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.120 same thing to me what they did to him. Cause 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:27.920 then they cussed him. Oh, I picked him out of 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:29.639 the muck shop book. He said, they'll let me go 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:31.240 while I went in and I said, I didn't do thathing, 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:32.600 I didn't do nothing. 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:33.480 So I kept on. 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.400 Going there, go on there, don't skip time, mister acher. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.160 They came, came, got me. Did I come back from 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.000 from my friend from a walk to my mother house? 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:42.840 From Shirley House? 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:43.080 Right? 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.440 So the corse ran up on me, locked me up again. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:48.920 He said, you're on the rest. You about to shoot 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.040 me from in the back, Furgus said, And I said 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.679 for what for the same case. They let me go, 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.720 and then they came back and gave me thirty days 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:57.480 lady for son n ain't do now. 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.919 One of the main questions at trial was what happened 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:06.399 to Jerry Williams's burglary charge exactly? Now. Jerry Williams was, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.120 by any sane estimate, a clearly unreliable witness. He had 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.920 thirty prior arrests, He had twenty prior convictions. He went 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.800 through every single disposition of every prior conviction he had 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.679 from the seventies up until the day he testified. He 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.680 remembered the disposition of every single prior arrest except that burglary. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.879 So the judge asked the assistant district attorney, what happened 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.560 to that burglary charge, and she claimed that he was 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.400 arraigned on it and she would check during the recess 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.439 to figure out what happened to the charge. There was 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.520 nothing on the record to show that she ever checked, 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.520 and so there was a question as to whether he 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.320 got a deal in exchange for testifying for the state 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.840 in this high profile murder, and he testified a trial. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:51.800 He never got a deal. 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.320 What was uncovered by one of our Cardozo law students 0:18:55.359 --> 0:19:00.440 after the Innocence Project took on Andre's case is that 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.720 that arrest for that burglary was what's called three forty three. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.159 Now we don't really know what three forty three means, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.199 but there was some decision made by somebody not to 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.960 go forward with that arrest. And so when we went 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.920 to the conviction Review Unit at the Brooklyn DIA's office, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.800 that was one of the things we wanted them to 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.840 look up. What they ultimately ended up finding was something 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.120 very different that was withheld from Andrea's attorney. But that 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.439 was a very significant loophole or gap at the trial 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.920 is what happened to that burglary charge. Because this man 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.280 could not, from a distance of forty feet have seen 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:42.000 someone commit this crime. And certainly to claim that he 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.320 heard Andre, a man that he conceded he never had 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.040 a conversation with, to claim that he screamed from a 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.920 distance of forty feet step the f off makes hardly 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.200 any sense when Andre could barely speak at his own 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.199 trial because he had just been recently shot in the 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.960 throat and was recovering from a gunshot wound. And so 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.359 Jerry Williams claimed that he recognized Andre by his voice 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.199 even though he had never once spoken to him, and 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.280