Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording exactly a hundred years. That's manly.
Speaker 1: I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know that was that was real payingful man, no,
Speaker 1: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
Speaker 1: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred years. I had dreams and I wanted to
Speaker 1: do things. I wouldn't commit me crimes. You know. That
Speaker 1: was a very good young man. That is what happened
Speaker 1: in so many cases. The cops have a hunch because
Speaker 1: they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch,
Speaker 1: and once they act on that hunch, they sort of
Speaker 1: developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. They opening the cell door, and I walked downstairs.
Speaker 1: And I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
Speaker 1: very strange to be, like I said, to be walking
Speaker 1: without shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream,
Speaker 1: But then again, it wasn't a dream. This is wrong
Speaker 1: for conviction. Welcome back to Wrong for Conviction. My guest
Speaker 1: this week is Messiah Johnson and Messiah. First of all,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure being here. Some Messiah. This case and let's go back.
Speaker 1: It's a Virginia case. It is. You came from Norfolk. Yes,
Speaker 1: and this goes back to late nineties, right, Yes, it
Speaker 1: goes back to December. The crime actually happened on December nine,
Speaker 1: was the day of my arrest. This was an armed
Speaker 1: robbery of a hair salon in Norfolk in which nobody
Speaker 1: was hurt. That doesn't make it right. Um, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. I'm not a favorite of armed robberies by
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, this is a
Speaker 1: robbery that you had nothing to do with. You had alibis,
Speaker 1: there was no physical evidence connecting you to it. And
Speaker 1: first of all, set the table for us here. How
Speaker 1: old were you at the time, what were you doing,
Speaker 1: and how is your life? I was four years old
Speaker 1: at the time. I was working for government funded program.
Speaker 1: It was a lead abatement program. I happened to be
Speaker 1: one of the people who were educated in the field
Speaker 1: very early on. I uh so, you were helping to
Speaker 1: get lead out of housing housing and I got a
Speaker 1: biochemical certificated from O D you in this field, and
Speaker 1: at the time of my arrest, I was actually writing
Speaker 1: a proposal to hut Homes for like five million dollars
Speaker 1: to kind of extend our licenses to other states and
Speaker 1: kind of setting myself up for my career in this field.
Speaker 1: And then of course this happened, and you kind of
Speaker 1: just obliviated everything that I had planned for my life.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with you now. We had dinner last night.
Speaker 1: Here you are in the blue suit, you know, with
Speaker 1: the tie and looking the part of somebody who would
Speaker 1: be doing exactly what you described like doing actually very
Speaker 1: good work helping people. And you know, if people want
Speaker 1: to go to my Instagram, it's at it's Jason Flam
Speaker 1: you'll see pictures that I posted with Messiah and you'll
Speaker 1: see what I mean. You know, you look like an
Speaker 1: upstanding citizen like anybody else, and yet if you've been
Speaker 1: through this unbelievable or deal twenty years in prison, it's
Speaker 1: so strange because, aside from the fact that there was
Speaker 1: no evidence taking physical appearances aside, you just wouldn't seem
Speaker 1: to fit any sort of profile of somebody that would
Speaker 1: commit an arm robbery. When you've got this whole other life.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not a thing. It's just not a thing.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's go back to it. So this robbery
Speaker 1: takes place, yes, and they're out obviously looking for suspects.
Speaker 1: And how did it end up that you even got
Speaker 1: on the radar. That's a good question, because I didn't
Speaker 1: really understand it until I actually went to trial in
Speaker 1: August the following year. I tried to take you back
Speaker 1: to the day I was arrested on the nineteenth December.
Speaker 1: It really was a typical day in the life of
Speaker 1: any young man in my age from where I'm from.
Speaker 1: A couple of friends hanging out. It was on a Friday.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the day, I had you made arrangements to
Speaker 1: see a friend of mine, a lady friend of mine,
Speaker 1: later on in the night. But prior to that, another
Speaker 1: friend of mine, he and I decided to go up
Speaker 1: to shoot pool conversed with some other friends, and we
Speaker 1: were doing that, and it kind of got to the
Speaker 1: time where I was about to go to see this
Speaker 1: lady friend, and so I made a phone call while
Speaker 1: I was in the club. It was a little bit
Speaker 1: too noisy. She couldn't hear me. So I said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna step outside across the street and make this
Speaker 1: phone call so you can hear me, you know, just
Speaker 1: to let her know I was on my way. And
Speaker 1: then he and I were gonna part ways. And so
Speaker 1: as I was walking out of the club, it was
Speaker 1: several officers coming in and the phone booth was directly
Speaker 1: across the street. We walked across the street. I didn't
Speaker 1: see any cops, so they must have been hiding around
Speaker 1: the building and the dock or something like that, because
Speaker 1: you know, as soon as I picked up the phone,
Speaker 1: you know, everything about my life kind of changed in
Speaker 1: the instance, because all I can hear was screeching tires,
Speaker 1: flashing lights and sirens, and in that moment, it was
Speaker 1: difficult the process was what was happening. But from behind
Speaker 1: the lights, you know, before my eyes really had a
Speaker 1: chance to adjust, you can really hear the demands of
Speaker 1: putting hands up, and so you don't really have time
Speaker 1: to process that. So I just complied, not really knowing
Speaker 1: what was going on, and I did so because, you know,
Speaker 1: once my eyes were able to judge it was three
Speaker 1: or four guns in my face. I remained calm because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do anything that would cause me
Speaker 1: to be possibly out anything like that, and so we
Speaker 1: were asked to put our hands up, which we did,
Speaker 1: and we were placing handcuffs and your one friend, me
Speaker 1: and one other friends and you know, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: at the time, only after studying the law that this
Speaker 1: is where the miscarriage is. Justice began to make manifest
Speaker 1: against me because I was sat down on the curve
Speaker 1: with handcuffs on in between two police cars and the
Speaker 1: Neil versus big as. If you understand you know the
Speaker 1: citation law, it tells you that any person that is
Speaker 1: singly displayed in handcuffs is presumed to be the person
Speaker 1: who did the crime when you're doing a show up.
Speaker 1: And so we finally got a chance to look at
Speaker 1: the case later on and realized that the person who
Speaker 1: initially I didn't know he was with the officers as
Speaker 1: we were leaving out of the club, he was with them,
Speaker 1: and so once they put us in handcuffs, he had
Speaker 1: told the police that, you know, well, one of the
Speaker 1: other victims that I worked with is at his shop,
Speaker 1: and so instead of the police just going back to
Speaker 1: get him to do a show up, he actually took
Speaker 1: the person who initially identified me back there with him
Speaker 1: and allowed them to ride in the car together. As
Speaker 1: they were riding in the car together, it's easy for
Speaker 1: him to say there, he is right there, right, so
Speaker 1: they could share the information already seen you, yeah, and
Speaker 1: we've seen this time and again. Of course, that's going
Speaker 1: to increase exponentially the percentage of people who are going
Speaker 1: to identify that suspect. We know from research, even when
Speaker 1: somebody sees a person in the defendants box, just the
Speaker 1: normal person off the street who is now adjuror that,
Speaker 1: people have a natural proclivity to think that that person
Speaker 1: must be guilty, because otherwise what would they be doing there.
Speaker 1: But then when you take that, and then you add
Speaker 1: to it someone who's been a victim and a person
Speaker 1: in handcuffs on the street with the police, it's almost
Speaker 1: like a fate to complete, Like it would be strange
Speaker 1: for them not to identify you. They would have to
Speaker 1: be like, um, I don't know, would have to be
Speaker 1: something bizarre, you have to be the wrong race or something. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors that go to that. So
Speaker 1: at this point, did you realize how dire the situation
Speaker 1: was or did you feel like they just made a
Speaker 1: mistake and I'm going to go home after this gets
Speaker 1: sorted out. No, prior to the show up, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a moment where one of the officers, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I'm a little confused, officer, what is
Speaker 1: this about? And he was card you, well, you're suspecting crime.
Speaker 1: What crime could that have been? We've been here a
Speaker 1: majority of the night, the day and night, so what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? And he was like, well, I
Speaker 1: let the detectives share that with you when you go downtown.
Speaker 1: So it was already they had already made a decision.
Speaker 1: It was a predetermined idea that I was going downtown regardless,
Speaker 1: you know, even prior to the show up. At least
Speaker 1: that's what it seemed like to me. So now they
Speaker 1: take you downtown, and they brought your friend. What was
Speaker 1: your friend's name? His name was Mandel. Until you and
Speaker 1: Mondel both got taken downtown, we did interrogated separately, as
Speaker 1: of course, you know, its the whole You know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put him in this very cold cell. And those
Speaker 1: of us who have been locked up, you always know
Speaker 1: you always put in a very ice cold cell, and
Speaker 1: it's so cold that you're in the fetal position just
Speaker 1: to keep warm. And so I've studied a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: and I can always see why people really just want
Speaker 1: to just get away from the police station and they
Speaker 1: just kind of just say, you know, I did it
Speaker 1: just to get away from the circumstances, because it's a process.
Speaker 1: It's a very harsh on a person when you're in
Speaker 1: that very cold selling. Then they bring you out and
Speaker 1: they held you in this freezing cell for how long
Speaker 1: you know, a few hours? Wow, then you're going to
Speaker 1: be interrogated. But yes, but you never confessed and they
Speaker 1: have any knowledge of what they were talking about. Right,
Speaker 1: But we know that a lot of people do confess
Speaker 1: in the circumstances. You just said, just to go home,
Speaker 1: even if they don't know what they're talking Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but you did not know. They brought me out after
Speaker 1: that and began the good cop, bad cop thing. And
Speaker 1: the first thing I said was, look, before you ask
Speaker 1: me any questions, I want to make a phone call
Speaker 1: to an attorney. I'm a practitioner of Islam and I'm
Speaker 1: righteous and them civilized. So whatever you accuse me of,
Speaker 1: you know, you have the wrong person. I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about a robbery or any other crime, and so
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was dire until, you know, he
Speaker 1: got very upset. I think the fact that he automatically
Speaker 1: thought I was a Muslim. He began to talk about
Speaker 1: being a Muslim to me, and that's not what I am.
Speaker 1: I was a practice of Islam, of my cultures, the
Speaker 1: fibers a nation of guards and earths, and um I
Speaker 1: didn't really want to get into a dialogue with him
Speaker 1: about that, but then he said, well, you don't have
Speaker 1: to talk to me. You're gonna end up with fifty felonies.
Speaker 1: And then that's when it kind of began to tense.
Speaker 1: St up I was, you know, concerned then, so what
Speaker 1: do you mean? He said, Yeah, we're gonna be typing
Speaker 1: up about fifty felonies against you. And in the state
Speaker 1: of Virginia, that's one of the states that can stack charges.
Speaker 1: So for every individual robbery, I got an abduction charge,
Speaker 1: a fire on for deduction, and the fire on for
Speaker 1: the robbery. So I ended up with forty three felonies,
Speaker 1: most of them current life sentences, based on the one
Speaker 1: crime that they suspected you were doing. Exactly why out
Speaker 1: um I don't even know what to say about that.
Speaker 1: I turned one of the forty three. That math is
Speaker 1: just as fuzzy as could be. So how long were
Speaker 1: you interrogated for? You know, the records show that I
Speaker 1: was brought out to be interrogated and not said that
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything, and then I was taken right
Speaker 1: back to my cell, which is not the truth. You know,
Speaker 1: you would have to look at the time frame, you know,
Speaker 1: from the time I was down at the police Operations
Speaker 1: Center and to the time I was actually taking to
Speaker 1: the jail, which was about seven or eight hours, And
Speaker 1: so I was taken out of that cell on three
Speaker 1: different occasions to the interrogation room. Did you get your
Speaker 1: phone call? I never got the phone call. And actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at my pre trial records, it will
Speaker 1: tell you that Massiah requests a phone call and we
Speaker 1: tell him a phone call is not one of his rights.
Speaker 1: But he left out the fact that I requested a
Speaker 1: phone call to talk to an attorney. So I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that you probably should have said I want an attorney
Speaker 1: and then they stopped questioning you. Right If you said
Speaker 1: I want to call an attorney, that's not the same thing.
Speaker 1: I wanted an attorney president, they did stop questioning me,
Speaker 1: and once I requested that, they stopped questioning me and
Speaker 1: took me back to the sale of the final time.
Speaker 1: And then you were held for almost a year before
Speaker 1: your trial. Is that right? Just about nine months exactly.
Speaker 1: And I went to my first trial in August, and
Speaker 1: tell me about that. Because you didn't have a quarter
Speaker 1: point of attorney I did initially, which was the foundation
Speaker 1: of the injustice. Once I got into the courtroom at
Speaker 1: an attorney by the name of Andrew Sebak, and during
Speaker 1: preliminary hearing in the cells, it's very packed. Everybody's waiting
Speaker 1: to go for their hearing, and so several lawyers are
Speaker 1: coming talking. He comes in and speak to me, and
Speaker 1: you know, the first thing he says was, my name
Speaker 1: is Andrew Sebak, so forth and so on. He said, now, look,
Speaker 1: what can you tell me about this crime, which was
Speaker 1: perplexing to me. And I was like, look, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about this crime. I'm not guilty of it.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that when you go in here,
Speaker 1: you separate the witnesses and you know, make sure that
Speaker 1: they understand I have anything to do with this, Okay,
Speaker 1: he leaves, comes back and it's as if he didn't
Speaker 1: hear anything. I said, you know again he was asking,
Speaker 1: He said, well, when you and your friend committed this crime.
Speaker 1: And then my antennas went up immediately, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? I just told you to have anything to
Speaker 1: do with this crime. And so this man actually went
Speaker 1: into this courtroom without a stenographer, which was one of
Speaker 1: my first requests because I figured that something was wrong.
Speaker 1: And when I walked in the courtroom, there was no sonographer.
Speaker 1: So my initial reaction to him was where's the scenographer.
Speaker 1: This guy told me, well, it's too late to get
Speaker 1: one now, we're already in here. And so I was frustrated,
Speaker 1: and I was speaking kind of loud, and the deputy
Speaker 1: was saying, look, we have to keep it down. We're
Speaker 1: about to of course, it's going to be in sessions.
Speaker 1: So I said, okay. He separated the witnesses. These witnesses
Speaker 1: described two different people. Once said this guy had on
Speaker 1: camouflage from head to toe. One said he had on
Speaker 1: a blue jacket. It was the kind of evidence that
Speaker 1: you simply just get up and say you're honor based
Speaker 1: on the evidence. Asked for the charge to be dismissed.
Speaker 1: But at the end of everything, you know, he's simply said,
Speaker 1: that's all I have, Yanna. The courtroom was dumbfounded. The
Speaker 1: judge had to look over top of his glass and
Speaker 1: say that's it. And he said, oh, other than the
Speaker 1: fact that we asked for a bond. Obviously, now you're
Speaker 1: extremely knowledgeable about the law, but at the time you weren't.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming right now I wasn't knowledgeable of the law.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're being wrong. What was your reaction?
Speaker 1: Did you like elbow room like I actually did? And
Speaker 1: the deputy had to step in again and say, look,
Speaker 1: we have to relax. Like I'm saying to him, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Man? What happened? And so I didn't
Speaker 1: want to put up a fuss in the courtroom. I
Speaker 1: knew that the judge knew that something was wrong, but
Speaker 1: I made a phone call to him. When I got
Speaker 1: back to the jail. We got on the phone and said, look,
Speaker 1: what did you do to me in courtroom today? May
Speaker 1: you didn't have a scenographer? I said, are you working
Speaker 1: with the commonwealth or something? And you know, he said
Speaker 1: that there's other people that feel like you may have
Speaker 1: committed this crime. And so my suggestion to you is,
Speaker 1: if you don't want me on your case, I would
Speaker 1: suggest you get me off. And that basically told me
Speaker 1: that he was somehow work with the police Department order
Speaker 1: the Commonwealth Attorney. And we found out years later that
Speaker 1: he was actually desbarred because he was dealing with a
Speaker 1: mental deficiency. Wow. And so when I went to court
Speaker 1: to get him off from my case, the judge gave
Speaker 1: me a five minute speeches in the transcripts about how
Speaker 1: this is a good attorney, and I said, yeah, honest.
Speaker 1: He told me he was working with the Commonwealth in
Speaker 1: so many words, and then he asked the attorney, like,
Speaker 1: what do you say to this man who's accusing you're
Speaker 1: working to come off? He said, well, am I getting
Speaker 1: a check from the Commonwealth, and the judge that's not
Speaker 1: what I'm asking you. He actually speak to him and
Speaker 1: his chambers and removed them of from my case. It
Speaker 1: was then that I hired an attorney. But at this
Speaker 1: point this was still part of the initial phase. I
Speaker 1: had you already been convicted, No, this was this is
Speaker 1: preliminary hearing. So okay, So now we're dealing with an
Speaker 1: attorney who is mentally impaired. Yes, doesn't have a stenographer
Speaker 1: in the courtroom, which alone should be impossible. I mean,
Speaker 1: that can't happen. And then you have a judge who's
Speaker 1: looking over his glasses at him and go on, really, dude,
Speaker 1: like really, And then they have been working with the
Speaker 1: commonwealth against your best interests. And above all, you had
Speaker 1: an attorney who is coming to you, ignoring everything you're
Speaker 1: saying time and time again, and going tell me how
Speaker 1: about how you robbed this place and who did you
Speaker 1: do it with and all this other stuff. And you
Speaker 1: had to be looking forward to having your day in
Speaker 1: court and having an attorney who's got your back, who's
Speaker 1: going to go up there and tell the truth and
Speaker 1: make this go away. You know, my family now decided that,
Speaker 1: and we didn't have a lot of money, we decided
Speaker 1: that we would get a you know, attorney. We considered
Speaker 1: a seasoned attorney who had a name for himself, who
Speaker 1: had been, you know, practicing law for some time. And
Speaker 1: then what happened. We went into court August nineteenth. Now,
Speaker 1: initially before we even went in, several people who were
Speaker 1: victims said, look, I can't identify anybody. These guys had
Speaker 1: on a mask, they were covered up completely. It's no
Speaker 1: way I can come in here and identify anybody. And
Speaker 1: so for every person that came in and said that,
Speaker 1: those charges were dropped. And then we went through the trial.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that he asked when one
Speaker 1: of the witnesses got understand was did you see any photographs?
Speaker 1: And the witnesses said yes. The detective came by my
Speaker 1: place of residence and showed me some photographs. He said, well,
Speaker 1: how many futogre residents he he said, well, she said,
Speaker 1: I saw a book of about sixty photographs where I
Speaker 1: picked out a person that I thought me had been
Speaker 1: the person. And then my lawyer immediately asked for a
Speaker 1: mistrial because we hadn't seen any photographs, and the Commonwealth
Speaker 1: claimed she didn't know anything about it, and so the
Speaker 1: next day the mistrial was granted. And I really didn't
Speaker 1: want to mistrial. I wanted to go through with this
Speaker 1: trial because I felt like I had a drey of
Speaker 1: my peers. And what I mean by that is that
Speaker 1: the majority of the jury was black, which is unusual,
Speaker 1: you know, and of a certain age closer to my age.
Speaker 1: And while I was sitting and sell alone, my lawyer
Speaker 1: came back and said, look, they're offering you a plea deal.
Speaker 1: I said, why are you bringing it to me? I'm innocent, Like,
Speaker 1: it's no way I'm taking a plea deal. What was
Speaker 1: the play? Three years? Three years? You know, Once I
Speaker 1: didn't take that plea deal, this became about malicious prosecution,
Speaker 1: and she knew it was really no evidence, you know,
Speaker 1: reliable evidence, which we found out later on. I'm locked
Speaker 1: up because I wear glasses because one of the one
Speaker 1: of the robbers had glasses on. That's it, because I mean,
Speaker 1: how can you possibly have my witness identification when I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard enough in the situation of violent, chaotic
Speaker 1: situation to identify anybody if they don't have a mask,
Speaker 1: but with a mask, come on, I mean, that's crazy. Like,
Speaker 1: but now you've refused the plea deal. Now they're out
Speaker 1: for blood because you had the audacity to reject the
Speaker 1: plea deal for crime you didn't command. So it goes
Speaker 1: to trial, and how did it end up going so wrong?
Speaker 1: I testified, my witnesses, testified, my alibi witnesses. There were
Speaker 1: no contradictions, and it's hard to explain my lawyer, you know,
Speaker 1: it was really no pre trial investigation by him where
Speaker 1: I expected for him to give me. It was as
Speaker 1: if I was only getting like from him, just enough
Speaker 1: for him to be able to say to the ball
Speaker 1: I did my job. But when you look at it
Speaker 1: more closely, you understand that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: things that he didn't do that he could have done.
Speaker 1: I know that by the time the evidence, this was
Speaker 1: what really stood out to my attorneys. By the time
Speaker 1: they had heard two days of trial, when they were
Speaker 1: time to go in and make a decision, a question
Speaker 1: came out from the jury, and that question was who
Speaker 1: positively identified Massida winning Where? This was after all the
Speaker 1: evidence was presented to them. The case was just that
Speaker 1: confusing that they couldn't remember who identified me positively winning where?
Speaker 1: And the judges said, you have to go from your
Speaker 1: own recollection. I can't tell you that, And so they
Speaker 1: went in. They were in there for about forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: not long. My lawyer came back to tell me and said, look,
Speaker 1: if it's not good, they found you guilty. And I was.
Speaker 1: I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. Man, it was um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's hard to explain. In sort of
Speaker 1: a haze. And as I was sitting there, you know,
Speaker 1: the jury began readn't go off how much time for
Speaker 1: each charge that I was convicted of, and they were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, seven seven, five, five. And it was a
Speaker 1: moment when my attorney looked at me and said, well,
Speaker 1: how much is that? And I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: you have depending paper, you're not adding this up after
Speaker 1: the first five years, you know, I didn't hear anything else.
Speaker 1: And so how many charges were convicted of? Six charges?
Speaker 1: Twenty six charges for allegedly walking into a beauty salon,
Speaker 1: holding up the place, and not even whoever was did
Speaker 1: this didn't actually hurt anybody? Right, No, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a violent crime because there was a weapon involved, so exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, legally speaking at a violent crime. But I
Speaker 1: do think there's an important distinction when no one was hurt. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's traumatic for the victims in this case to have
Speaker 1: gone through this, and there's I don't want to diminish
Speaker 1: that in any way. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: bizarre when you know that murderers get fifteen years, right,
Speaker 1: and around the world the most you can get in
Speaker 1: most civilized countries is fifteen years no matter what you've done, right,
Speaker 1: And here you have a crime in which nobody was hurt,
Speaker 1: and forgetting the fact that for a second that you're innocent.
Speaker 1: So they convicted you on twenty six counts, but they
Speaker 1: ended up sentencing you when they added up the fives
Speaker 1: and the sevens and everything else, one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: two years thirty two years or so, and in Virginia
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, you know, and it took
Speaker 1: away the ability to have parole available to you. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, in that statute, there's an additional statue
Speaker 1: that says you also have to serve eighty five percent
Speaker 1: of your time. So what I received was equivalent to, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're to live the rest of your life in prison
Speaker 1: and didn't die there. Yeah, they abolished pearl in Virginia,
Speaker 1: which is, uh, it's incomprehensible to me. But the idea
Speaker 1: that they sentenced you to life in prison after offering
Speaker 1: you three years also like, how is there even a
Speaker 1: universe in which you could say, well, as a society,
Speaker 1: we were good with you doing three years for this,
Speaker 1: but because you exercise your constitutional right to a trial,
Speaker 1: you get a hundred and thirty two years. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was devastating for me and my family. And I can
Speaker 1: tell you that it was a moment where I was
Speaker 1: at the jail after that happened, sentenced and my oldest daughter,
Speaker 1: who was about seven at the time, she came to
Speaker 1: see me, and you know, she's an intelligent young lady,
Speaker 1: and she asked me, she said, Dad, do you really
Speaker 1: have a hundred and thirty two years and doing prison?
Speaker 1: And I said yes, and you know, her response was,
Speaker 1: you can't even live that one. There was a moment,
Speaker 1: you know, which was really important to me while I
Speaker 1: was being sentenced. I didn't drop my head, but I
Speaker 1: think one of my family friends must have noticed that
Speaker 1: maybe I was about to. She actually stood up in court,
Speaker 1: you know, and said, look, hold your head up. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna give up. And it was in that moment,
Speaker 1: very early for me, in that moment that I realized
Speaker 1: that I was gonna have to continue fighting. And so
Speaker 1: after that, I just knew it was time for me
Speaker 1: to get back to business of fighting for my freedom.
Speaker 1: When you get in prison, when you really understand that
Speaker 1: they've decided that they want to take your life, because
Speaker 1: everything about my life changed the way I walked talk.
Speaker 1: You know, everything, the movements, how long I got to
Speaker 1: be on the phone, who I can call, what kind
Speaker 1: of foods to eat, what kind of medical care? Everything
Speaker 1: changed complete league, and so I decided that I didn't
Speaker 1: want that to be my life. And so what I
Speaker 1: did was I looked at the contrast to myself imprisoned,
Speaker 1: and the contrast is most of us have who are
Speaker 1: doing time with that has that amount have fallen to
Speaker 1: despair and given up because Virginia has made it extremely
Speaker 1: difficult for you to get out of prison. Once you're
Speaker 1: in prison, everything is contingent on newly discovered evidence. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people are not aware the anti terrorism
Speaker 1: effective definitely. I gotta speak about this all the time
Speaker 1: that Bill Clinton acted. Basically, it is telling you that
Speaker 1: once you're direct appeal is over where you have representation,
Speaker 1: that you are required to file Haber's corpus within a year.
Speaker 1: So you're expected a law student. How long does it
Speaker 1: take that person to graduate eight years in seven or whatever.
Speaker 1: You're required to have that knowledge and represent yourself proceed
Speaker 1: with any adequate information and materials, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: then after that year, you judicially bought from being able
Speaker 1: to present legitimate claims, your costumes advice being violated. It's
Speaker 1: just ridiculous. The idea that that we would want to
Speaker 1: keep anybody in prison one day after we find out
Speaker 1: that they're innocent, regardless of whatever procedural you know, it's nuts, right,
Speaker 1: And the fact that we want to deny somebody like
Speaker 1: yourself the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence is completely
Speaker 1: illogical too. And you really said it best. I mean
Speaker 1: when you talk about the idea that, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: you're You're given a year for a lot of people
Speaker 1: who hadn't been to college to learn everything you would
Speaker 1: have learned in college plus law school. Not everything, but
Speaker 1: all the most important things that are gonna help you
Speaker 1: in your defense. Then figure out how to file these
Speaker 1: papers and find the evidence that's been hidden from you
Speaker 1: in the first place. That would have been much easier
Speaker 1: to find an original trial and then file it. And
Speaker 1: then it's much harder for a pro say emotion to
Speaker 1: succeed an emotion that's filed by an attorney in the
Speaker 1: free world. So it's really a shame that that law
Speaker 1: has prevented so many other people from getting out that
Speaker 1: deserve to get out. I will say this. I know
Speaker 1: I hear the terminology mass incarceration quite often, but with
Speaker 1: this law, and especially with the laws and the state
Speaker 1: of Virginia, you know, this is more along the lines
Speaker 1: of judicial genocide. This is not mass incarceration. You're talking
Speaker 1: about taking away generations of individuals and never giving them
Speaker 1: a second chance back out of society. And it's targeted
Speaker 1: with disenfranchise mainly blacks and Latinos. Yeah, they make it
Speaker 1: easy to get in and really hard to get out,
Speaker 1: I mean almost impossible. Unfortunately. Uh. I began to study
Speaker 1: the law. You know, I did a lot of research
Speaker 1: on my own case, and you know, when I combed
Speaker 1: through the transcripts just to see how many because I
Speaker 1: can remember all these contradictions, I ended up with nine
Speaker 1: pages of conflicting testimony. Was just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1: It was one of the things I presented to the
Speaker 1: Innocent Project and to other organizations. I did a lot
Speaker 1: of research, rich and I painted a very clear picture
Speaker 1: of my innocence with all the research I had done,
Speaker 1: and began presenting it and I was turned down by
Speaker 1: quite a few post conviction organizations, and then the Innocence
Speaker 1: projects began to materialize, and we're talking about the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia Instance Project to do incredible work they do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've been down there and I know the people there,
Speaker 1: and I encourage anyone listening to support them. You can
Speaker 1: just google University of Virginia Instance Project. It's a great
Speaker 1: organization to hear more about that. But one of the
Speaker 1: people that I had a pleasure speaking to was did
Speaker 1: Your In Right? And I'm smiling now because I think
Speaker 1: about the first time I met did Your In Right?
Speaker 1: And she and I had a conversation and even though
Speaker 1: we were having a conversation about my case, it was
Speaker 1: a personal conversation too, about character and family and you know,
Speaker 1: just my how much loss I had endured. And so
Speaker 1: how many years have you been there by this point?
Speaker 1: Fourteen fifteen years? And Deirdre as the director right, she
Speaker 1: is director of the Innocent Project at uv A School
Speaker 1: Law and runs the pro bono clinic. So for you,
Speaker 1: that's when things started to take a term in the
Speaker 1: right direction. It did. She understood immediately once I presented
Speaker 1: those things to her, and she's impeccable in her investigation skills.
Speaker 1: She knew exactly how she wanted to, you know, go
Speaker 1: about getting the necessary information. Her and her students went out.
Speaker 1: They utilized the Free Information Act and found out that
Speaker 1: this guy had committed all these robberies around the same
Speaker 1: time I was arrested. And this is what led them
Speaker 1: to the person who actually committed the crime. They went
Speaker 1: to see him and he basically five minutes into the
Speaker 1: conversation and he was like, I know why you're here.
Speaker 1: You know, they mentioned that, you know, this beauty salon
Speaker 1: got robbed, and he basically said, look, I know what
Speaker 1: you want. I'm the person who did this. He said
Speaker 1: he didn't know that anybody was actually locked up for
Speaker 1: the crime, and UM had spoke to his spiritual advisors
Speaker 1: and family men, was in you know, he wanted to
Speaker 1: just come clean about it. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really dramatic.
Speaker 1: Because they went to see him. They were only giving
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes to talk to him, and in those
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes they had to somehow other earn his
Speaker 1: trust and get him to confess to a crime that
Speaker 1: you were in prison for. And they did, and then
Speaker 1: from there we began to build a case, not forward,
Speaker 1: We started from the back. Once we got the confession,
Speaker 1: in Virginia. You know, you don't take it directly to
Speaker 1: the commonwealth because then they're gonna go to all the
Speaker 1: witnesses involved. Everybody want to say, look, this guy is
Speaker 1: trying to say that he didn't have anything to do
Speaker 1: with it. They're going to get out for Davis from
Speaker 1: those people. But we did that, and by the time
Speaker 1: we presented that to the courts, we got denied by
Speaker 1: the same judge who initially refused to give me a
Speaker 1: sentence reduction, but he was still on the bench. I
Speaker 1: think he's still present now. Because of Virginia law after
Speaker 1: that year, you're not allowed to follow Habeas. Corp was
Speaker 1: second and successor has Corpus, so he denied us. And
Speaker 1: so mcculoff was in office at the time, right And
Speaker 1: this gets to a really interesting part of the story too,
Speaker 1: because Governor mccauliffe um, who have become very friendly with
Speaker 1: to his credit, he had this sense of outrage when
Speaker 1: I was talking to him about these crazy sentences that
Speaker 1: Virginia was handing out to people. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: about Travian Blount, and we talked about Letting Singleton, and
Speaker 1: we talked about some of these other people that were
Speaker 1: doing these literally like mind blowing sentences, and you were
Speaker 1: you were certainly one of them, I mean, like your sentences,
Speaker 1: so nut and he fortunately was in a position to
Speaker 1: do something about it. So how did that come down?
Speaker 1: So to me, it was very forward thinking governor, and
Speaker 1: he had made public comments about how how far behind
Speaker 1: Jenia was compared to other states in the clminal justice system,
Speaker 1: and so we as a whole thought that it was
Speaker 1: best for us to put together a petition for clemency
Speaker 1: while he was in office before he left, and so
Speaker 1: we did that. And that's basically like buying a lot
Speaker 1: of retakes. It is it is. I say that all
Speaker 1: the time. It is very difficult because they usually deal
Speaker 1: with those things after you've exhausted all your remedies. And
Speaker 1: because we had this newly discovered evidence, we were able
Speaker 1: to still go to the federal courts, which we're getting
Speaker 1: ready to do now because we're still pending. And so
Speaker 1: on the day that he was leaving, on the day before,
Speaker 1: we were asking, you know, has he ruled on the
Speaker 1: side his petition yet, and he's like no, but he's
Speaker 1: getting to it, and he'll get to it before he leaves.
Speaker 1: And you know, ditter was calling periodically every hour. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna get it. We're not sure yet,
Speaker 1: you know, I tried to call this person. They said, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're looking at it right now. So the day of
Speaker 1: I think, no more than an hour after he was
Speaker 1: supposed to be leaving office, we get the call, you know,
Speaker 1: and he said, you've been granted the conditional part and
Speaker 1: with the absolute aspect of the part and still pending,
Speaker 1: you know, the outcome of the investigation. And that was
Speaker 1: a wonderful feeling, man, to hear that dis recalled me.
Speaker 1: We were just elated. We will overjoyed here, the whole team, everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, General in right and Jennifer Gibbons who was
Speaker 1: another attorney there, also a director. They have been coming
Speaker 1: to the prison regularly and calling for me. They assisted
Speaker 1: me and aided me in ways, you know, and anybody
Speaker 1: who who is represented by them will tell you they
Speaker 1: go above and beyond with their representation and helping you
Speaker 1: not only with the legal aspect, but personal things that
Speaker 1: you'd be going through in prison. It's rare you see
Speaker 1: somebody who does that, you know, all the way proceed throughout,
Speaker 1: you know, but this was a collective effort of all
Speaker 1: of us. What was the reaction in the prison when
Speaker 1: you got this news where people jealous? Were they happy?
Speaker 1: What was the reaction of the other The majority of
Speaker 1: people were happy because they understood my struggle. They saw
Speaker 1: me working. There's two different types of people in prison,
Speaker 1: those who working to get out those who's just waiting
Speaker 1: for something to happen. And while I was in prison,
Speaker 1: I helped a lot of people along the way digit
Speaker 1: and righting. Jennifer Gills will tell you I've read people's cases.
Speaker 1: I've read multiple cases. I've done research myself and help
Speaker 1: them with their cases, file motions for them. But I've
Speaker 1: also introduced them to gender in right and Jennifer Gibbons
Speaker 1: and so those people and a lot of people, I
Speaker 1: made quite a few friends. You imagine after twenty years
Speaker 1: you make some friends. They were just related. How long
Speaker 1: did it take you to get out after they after
Speaker 1: the call they want to make you do five months?
Speaker 1: I did four from January to April because they have
Speaker 1: that re entry every entry program, but I I stayed
Speaker 1: on top of the people every day, like, look, you
Speaker 1: gotta get this program. Man. Everything is supposed content on
Speaker 1: me getting out. Is me complete these programs, so they
Speaker 1: put me to the top of the list. And you know,
Speaker 1: you had a hundred and twelve years left to go,
Speaker 1: and now it turns to four months. How did those
Speaker 1: four months go by? Faster? Slow? It went by the
Speaker 1: same For me. I put myself in that kind of
Speaker 1: mind frame that I'm not I don't really believe until
Speaker 1: it actually happens. You know, even though I got the
Speaker 1: pardon with a discretionary release date, you still don't believe
Speaker 1: until it actually happens. Anybody, I think everybody will tell
Speaker 1: you this. Until you actually crush that threshold, you just
Speaker 1: don't believe it. Man. And I've seen the video of
Speaker 1: you walking out of prison into the arms of your
Speaker 1: family and attorneys from the Virginia and It's project. It's
Speaker 1: a very powerful moving thing to see. Going back to
Speaker 1: prison for a second, sometimes like to ask what was
Speaker 1: the best and the worst thing that happened? It was
Speaker 1: there a moment, even in the darkest of times, when
Speaker 1: there was like a ray of flight or hope mentally
Speaker 1: and emotionally, you know, there's valleys and peaks. You know,
Speaker 1: you're trying to make sense of everything that's happening to you,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to stay within the realm of reality,
Speaker 1: but that reality maybe something that's for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. And so for me, there was some a
Speaker 1: few dark moments and I reached out to you know,
Speaker 1: Nikki Giovanni. You know, she's a renown black activist, scholar, poet,
Speaker 1: and educator, because she had a poem that resonated with
Speaker 1: me called Quoting the Black I p And I couldn't
Speaker 1: find a book anywhere, and so I wrote her, and
Speaker 1: she wrote me back and sent me to autograph books,
Speaker 1: and that kind of gave me that these people out
Speaker 1: here that still really do care, you know. And so
Speaker 1: there were moments like that that really continue to inspire
Speaker 1: me to, you know, fight from my freedom. But I
Speaker 1: have to say this, all of who I am today
Speaker 1: is a reflection of of that which has been shaped
Speaker 1: and motive by my circumstances of the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: So I developed a very profound perspective about life that
Speaker 1: has allowed me to know my purpose, and within that purpose,
Speaker 1: it's really about helping others. And so at some point
Speaker 1: I want to be able to develop a nonprofit which
Speaker 1: I've really developed, and it's called the Lying Initiative. Liberating
Speaker 1: individuals oppression now and it will have several programs, and
Speaker 1: they want about educating the the community about laws and
Speaker 1: how they can affect change through their legislators, people who
Speaker 1: are supposed to represent them. But I learned a lot
Speaker 1: of elders in the communities they don't have the education.
Speaker 1: They want to be educated about the law and how
Speaker 1: they can effectively make change. And so that in and
Speaker 1: cause a recent prevention with the youth and investigative practices
Speaker 1: for those who are in prison who don't have the
Speaker 1: money and can't find the resources. Because everything in Virginia
Speaker 1: is based on post conviction investigation, you really need that
Speaker 1: in order for you to even find newly discovered evidence. No,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up, because that is truly
Speaker 1: what the Virginia Innocence Project did in your case. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't really reinvestigated the case, and it was never investigated
Speaker 1: properly in the first place, exactly. And you know, if
Speaker 1: we had a fairer system, we would have defense attorneys,
Speaker 1: even public defenders, who were given enough time to work
Speaker 1: on each individual case that they could at least mount
Speaker 1: some sort of effective investigation. Obviously, they're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to do you know what a private attorney
Speaker 1: who is working on just a few cases can do,
Speaker 1: because they're always going to be overworked. But we need
Speaker 1: to reduce that burden because some of these guys are
Speaker 1: working on a hundred cases at the time and and
Speaker 1: there's just no way even the best attorney in that
Speaker 1: situation can't possibly do the most effective job for their client.
Speaker 1: And in your case, it was literally your life that
Speaker 1: was hanging in the balance. And so forgetting the fact
Speaker 1: that you had this you know, half crazy and competent
Speaker 1: guy in the first place. Um, I mean you had
Speaker 1: really hit the jack pot of me between the mistaken
Speaker 1: eye witnesses and an official misconduct and effective assistance of counsel,
Speaker 1: the show up the I mean everything, it's really it's
Speaker 1: it's the reverse jackpot. I mean everything that could have
Speaker 1: gone wrong went wrong, and we know what the end
Speaker 1: result was, and and and results. It's a man in
Speaker 1: prison for twenty years and and even then it's a
Speaker 1: merror icle that you're here now and still fighting, which
Speaker 1: is great, and I want to talk about that too,
Speaker 1: because you are fighting your case. I believe you will prevail,
Speaker 1: even though it's them tedious process and has made it
Speaker 1: so difficult for federal judges to overturn state convictions even
Speaker 1: when they know it's wrong. But that being said, you're
Speaker 1: also you know, it seems to me like you're hitting
Speaker 1: the ground running, you know, not missing a beat. I
Speaker 1: know you're working now, But you have a skill. That's
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about because you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know who's listening. It might be somebody listening who
Speaker 1: might need some of your talents, you know, um and
Speaker 1: talking about graphic design and you know, talk about some
Speaker 1: of that stuff that it was a trade that was
Speaker 1: available at sausse to state prison, communication, graphic loss and design.
Speaker 1: It's the re entry process. And so I finally made
Speaker 1: it into the class and became proficient. But I'm still
Speaker 1: a feeling and so every time I go to fill
Speaker 1: out applications so forth and so on. You got to
Speaker 1: check the box. You gotta check the box. But if
Speaker 1: people want to if they need somebody to do some
Speaker 1: design of work for him or something like that, whether
Speaker 1: they're in Virginia or even do something you could do
Speaker 1: on the web, how could they reach out to you?
Speaker 1: My Gmail was Lois Sean three six S L O. R.
Speaker 1: D s h I n E. It's l O R
Speaker 1: D s h I n E three sixty at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's correct. Come on Facebook, Instagram, what's your Instagram? Oh,
Speaker 1: Messiah alidl So it's Messiah M E S s I
Speaker 1: A h A l A d A y'all, l A
Speaker 1: space and then Johnson. Okay, Messiah, it's easy, I think
Speaker 1: once you type in Messiah and then L A D
Speaker 1: A R and then underscore Johnson. So, Messiah, I want
Speaker 1: to um, of course, thank you for coming and being
Speaker 1: here and sharing this insane story. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are gonna take something out of it
Speaker 1: that's going to be meaningful to them, not least which
Speaker 1: is your spirit, which remains, you know, just so positive
Speaker 1: and it's it's quite remarkable. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: we'd ask you, is there anyone else that you want
Speaker 1: to thank? Do you want to shout out your girls? Yes?
Speaker 1: I couldn't be here today without all the love and
Speaker 1: support that I received from my family and friends. It
Speaker 1: was an arduous journey and it still is because I'm
Speaker 1: still fighting for exoneration. I need to be vindicated for
Speaker 1: all the stuff that you know I've been through. But
Speaker 1: They have truly been an inspiration to me, and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't have done it without them and all of
Speaker 1: the students that help work on this case. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's in right, her family, Jennifer Givevens, her family, the
Speaker 1: media who eventually began reporting the true story, and I
Speaker 1: don't know the list can I can go on forever?
Speaker 1: Yourself for having me here today and allowing me to
Speaker 1: share this story and this truth, because ultimately, I hope
Speaker 1: that this inspired somebody, whether you're a prisoner in prison
Speaker 1: and feel like you're hopeless, these stories and I've listened
Speaker 1: to a lot of your podcasts. They are inspiring. Even
Speaker 1: though I've gone through my own set of circumstances, those
Speaker 1: podcasts are still inspiring to me for me to continue
Speaker 1: fighting for myself for others, that means a lot. I mean, no,
Speaker 1: you're you're genuine. I met you a few months back,
Speaker 1: and I always want to know if somebody is genuine,
Speaker 1: you know, especially if you haven't gone through these set
Speaker 1: of circumstances, and you are the real deal man um
Speaker 1: And I appreciate everything that you're doing because you could
Speaker 1: be doing so many other things, but to have somebody
Speaker 1: at some point inspire you and for you to take
Speaker 1: on this cause. Man is truly important man for society
Speaker 1: and I'm with you man, well, thank you man. That
Speaker 1: means a lot. And um, and now after I collect myself, UM,
Speaker 1: I want to honor our tradition here at wrong for
Speaker 1: conviction and our our listeners know this is a part
Speaker 1: of the show where I get to, uh to basically
Speaker 1: sign off. But before I do that, UM, and what
Speaker 1: I mean by that, I don't mean sign off, So
Speaker 1: don't don't true now because it's the best part of
Speaker 1: the show. But I want to, uh, of course, thank
Speaker 1: you again Messiah Johnson for coming in and sharing, um,
Speaker 1: your story with us. UM. I want to apologize to
Speaker 1: you for what society America, Virginia you know, put you through.
Speaker 1: But I know the best is yet to come for you,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to a friendship and watching you,
Speaker 1: you know, succeed beyond everybody's wildest expectations. So I get
Speaker 1: to turn the microphone, my microphone off and leave yours
Speaker 1: on for any closing thoughts that you have. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know Melvin van People's Mario van People's father, Well,
Speaker 1: he said he had a friend that had three partners.
Speaker 1: They all went out to a club one day and
Speaker 1: all three of them got locked up. Two of them
Speaker 1: got out on bail, went home. His friend got out
Speaker 1: the next day, and by the time he got there,
Speaker 1: his friends had split up his property in his house
Speaker 1: as if he was never coming back. And he said,
Speaker 1: this is basically the mentality of society about prisoners, and
Speaker 1: so you have to know that that mentality won't bring
Speaker 1: about a change. You know, you have to know that
Speaker 1: these laws can affect you, either directly or indirectly in
Speaker 1: some form of fashion if you're not involved. I hope
Speaker 1: that me coming here today, like I said, inspires others
Speaker 1: to continue fighting for themselves and others. It is truly
Speaker 1: a necessity that we begin to educate ourselves. So my
Speaker 1: plea to everybody is begin educating yourself, begin, you know,
Speaker 1: getting behind these causes of criminal justice reform so we
Speaker 1: can bring about a true balance back in society. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. This has been an amazing experience for
Speaker 1: me and I hope for you to. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next week on Wrong for Conviction. Don't forget to give
Speaker 1: us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It
Speaker 1: really helps and I'm a proud donor to the Innocence
Speaker 1: Project and I really hope you'll join me and supporting
Speaker 1: this burying partant cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Speaker 1: Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
Speaker 1: donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis. The music in the show
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one