1
00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:03,760
Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject

2
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:05,800
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording.

3
00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:19,799
Speaker 2: Fact ere and it hasn't been easy.

4
00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:21,720
Speaker 3: One hundred years that sad man. I'm a kid.

5
00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 4: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know

6
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:28,520
Speaker 4: that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know,

7
00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:32,360
Speaker 4: because my life was discarded as if you know, like

8
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:34,199
Speaker 4: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,

9
00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,320
Speaker 4: one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted

10
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:39,120
Speaker 4: to do things I wouldn't commit in crimes.

11
00:00:39,479 --> 00:00:39,680
Speaker 3: You know.

12
00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:42,160
Speaker 4: I was a very good young man.

13
00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:45,080
Speaker 5: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops

14
00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:48,120
Speaker 5: have a hunch because they're so smart at the scene,

15
00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,880
Speaker 5: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,

16
00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:55,320
Speaker 5: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off

17
00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:57,960
Speaker 5: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so

18
00:00:58,080 --> 00:00:59,600
Speaker 5: many of these wrongful convictions.

19
00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:03,760
Speaker 3: They open it to cell door and I'll walk down

20
00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:07,920
Speaker 3: stif and I actually walked downstairs to be outside.

21
00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:10,679
Speaker 2: It felt very strange to.

22
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,920
Speaker 5: Be, like I said, to be walking without no shackles

23
00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:13,560
Speaker 5: on my feet.

24
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:15,640
Speaker 2: I thought it was a dream. But then again it

25
00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:16,360
Speaker 2: wasn't a dream.

26
00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:30,200
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back, to wrongful conviction. Today

27
00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:35,280
Speaker 3: I have Gloria Chillian, who served seventeen years for a

28
00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 3: murder that well, double murder that of course she had

29
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:42,240
Speaker 3: no part in. And when you hear how this all

30
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:44,440
Speaker 3: came down, you're going to be scratching your head like

31
00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,560
Speaker 3: I am now, and with her is one of my

32
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:50,920
Speaker 3: favorite humans. The senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project,

33
00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:54,960
Speaker 3: Nina Morrison. So, Gloria, Nina, welcome, Thank you, Hi Jason.

34
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:57,080
Speaker 3: And like I always say, I'm glad you're here, but

35
00:01:57,080 --> 00:01:58,160
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you're here.

36
00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:00,880
Speaker 1: So you know, here than somewhere else.

37
00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. I read about your case in that amazing book,

38
00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:12,120
Speaker 3: Anatomy of Innocence by Laura Caldwell, and I was dumbfounded, actually,

39
00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:15,480
Speaker 3: I mean forgetting the fact that you look. I mean,

40
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:17,600
Speaker 3: you can't judge a book by its cover, but you

41
00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:20,040
Speaker 3: look so unlike anyone that would be a double murderer

42
00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,440
Speaker 3: that's actually sort of hard to process. I don't know

43
00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:25,239
Speaker 3: if you ever looked like a double murderer back in

44
00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one, did you?

45
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:26,880
Speaker 1: No?

46
00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:30,000
Speaker 3: Hardly, No, not so much. And if you don't believe me,

47
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:32,239
Speaker 3: just take a look at my Instagram and you'll see

48
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,480
Speaker 3: what I mean, because I posted pictures of Gloria on there,

49
00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 3: and then I defy you to identify her as anything

50
00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:43,160
Speaker 3: other than just what she is, just this sweet, lovely

51
00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:44,560
Speaker 3: woman that.

52
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 1: Was not a master criminal.

53
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:46,239
Speaker 2: No.

54
00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:47,880
Speaker 3: In fact, you were a law student. But we'll get

55
00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,040
Speaker 3: to that in a minute. And this is a bizarre

56
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:55,400
Speaker 3: case because on December ninth, nineteen eighty one, just to

57
00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 3: set the stage, two men disguised as telephone repairman this

58
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:00,640
Speaker 3: is what we know, entered the home of an elderly

59
00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:05,280
Speaker 3: couple in Rosemont, California. Sounds sort of ominous. Already, Ed

60
00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:08,200
Speaker 3: Davies was fatally shot, his wife, Grace was shot in

61
00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:11,800
Speaker 3: the head but survived, and six suitcases full of silver

62
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:13,840
Speaker 3: were stolen. I mean, it's like the beginning of a

63
00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:18,760
Speaker 3: novel or something. It's weird. Okay. This was obviously a

64
00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 3: terrible crime and raised I'm sure a lot of anxiety

65
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:27,240
Speaker 3: in the community, which leads to pressure. But you were

66
00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:32,200
Speaker 3: an unlikely suspect for a lot of reasons. I mean,

67
00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:36,280
Speaker 3: you weren't anywhere near there. So this whole situation makes

68
00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 3: absolutely no sense to me and for you, I can't

69
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:41,880
Speaker 3: even imagine. So can you take us back to nineteen

70
00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:44,520
Speaker 3: eighty one. Can you explain how this all happened?

71
00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:49,360
Speaker 1: Yes, back then I was going to law school. I

72
00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:54,840
Speaker 1: also worked as a process server and did small investigative

73
00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:57,400
Speaker 1: work in order to make enough money. I had just

74
00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 1: gone through a divorce and it was not particularly pleasant,

75
00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:04,160
Speaker 1: so we were fighting about everything. So I actually took

76
00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:06,839
Speaker 1: a semester's leave from law school so that I could

77
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:10,240
Speaker 1: make enough money because it looked like the settlement for

78
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,880
Speaker 1: my divorce wasn't going to go through. I worked for

79
00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:15,720
Speaker 1: a man named Virgil Fletcher who owned a coin store.

80
00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:20,719
Speaker 1: It was called Allied Coins, and mister Davies was one

81
00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:25,680
Speaker 1: of the customers there. We found out later Virgil Fletcher

82
00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:28,760
Speaker 1: did not like mister Davies for some reason which I

83
00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:31,000
Speaker 1: didn't know at the time, which made it even more confusing.

84
00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:34,800
Speaker 1: Virgil Fletcher and his partner were splitting up, and that

85
00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:38,920
Speaker 1: also was a very acrimonious split, and he and his

86
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,480
Speaker 1: partner were trying to pull everything on each other that

87
00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,000
Speaker 1: they could, you know. So what I was doing for

88
00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,840
Speaker 1: him was a lot of the accounts that had been

89
00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:51,359
Speaker 1: assigned to him. I had to go out and find

90
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 1: them and do things like that. But this whole case

91
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:59,000
Speaker 1: is centered around coins and coin shop dealers and the

92
00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:02,080
Speaker 1: people that were were fully involved in that scene. At

93
00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:06,159
Speaker 1: that time, there were several robbery murders from people that

94
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:07,640
Speaker 1: were in that particular world.

95
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:10,479
Speaker 3: And it's interesting too reading back to the story of

96
00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:12,800
Speaker 3: how you were first arrested. I mean, it's sort of

97
00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:16,640
Speaker 3: very cinematic too. Right, you were visiting your boyfriend. I

98
00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:19,200
Speaker 3: guess he was right and preparing to have a little

99
00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:24,240
Speaker 3: afternoon delight type situation. And I'm not saying anything that

100
00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:24,640
Speaker 3: the book.

101
00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:26,279
Speaker 1: Why that always comes up, I don't.

102
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,040
Speaker 3: Know, but it's sort of a It sort of does

103
00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:30,479
Speaker 3: paint the picture, and then here comes a knock on

104
00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:30,919
Speaker 3: the door.

105
00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 1: Yes, And the knock on the door, unfortunately, was the

106
00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:37,400
Speaker 1: Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. And one of the things that

107
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:41,400
Speaker 1: you mentioned was, you know, creating a problem in the community.

108
00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,240
Speaker 1: Sacramento County sheriffs had not solved one single homicide in

109
00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:49,360
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one. Wow, so they were really pushing on

110
00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:52,200
Speaker 1: this one as well. The Sheriff's department had set up

111
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:55,640
Speaker 1: a tip line and someone called in. It was a

112
00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:58,159
Speaker 1: woman and it was later to learned that it was

113
00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:01,320
Speaker 1: Virgil Fletcher's girlfriend. He got her to make this call,

114
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:04,520
Speaker 1: but it's said you should check out a law student

115
00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 1: named Gloria, And that is how the police got to me.

116
00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:13,039
Speaker 1: They had interviewed Fletcher the night before and the next

117
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:15,240
Speaker 1: day when the knock came on the door at the

118
00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: most inauspicious time, what they told me was that they

119
00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:22,279
Speaker 1: wanted to ask me some questions about Fletcher, which, okay,

120
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:25,200
Speaker 1: I didn't really get it, but I went downtown with

121
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:27,080
Speaker 1: them and the minute they got me in a room

122
00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:30,640
Speaker 1: everything changed. That was very cinematic as well. You know,

123
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,240
Speaker 1: you have the poor suspects locked up in the room

124
00:06:33,279 --> 00:06:37,400
Speaker 1: with these guys and they're accusing me of planning this crime.

125
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 1: They're starting from the position that they know I did

126
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:42,520
Speaker 1: it and they can prove it. And you know, I

127
00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:44,480
Speaker 1: talked to him for a little while and finally I

128
00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,000
Speaker 1: just said, you know, this is ridiculous. I want a lawyer.

129
00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 3: When people get picked up as you did, who had

130
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,640
Speaker 3: nothing to do with and had no knowledge of a

131
00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:58,560
Speaker 3: situation a crime, they generally go in as you did,

132
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:01,760
Speaker 3: waving their right to an attorney, expecting that everything's going

133
00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:05,240
Speaker 3: to go smoothly. And you, being a law student, you

134
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:07,640
Speaker 3: had reason to believe that the system would work. You're

135
00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:10,560
Speaker 3: studying the law, and you're a smart woman, so if

136
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,280
Speaker 3: you just say what you got to say, you can

137
00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:15,320
Speaker 3: get home in time for the six o'clock news. But

138
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:18,160
Speaker 3: that was not anything like what happened.

139
00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:21,040
Speaker 1: I actually ended up on the six o'clock news right

140
00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:24,200
Speaker 1: because once they stood up and arrested me and they

141
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,120
Speaker 1: took me outside, I realized this had to have been

142
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:29,640
Speaker 1: a setup. The media was everywhere. Obviously, they had been

143
00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 1: notified and it had been called, and this had been

144
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,200
Speaker 1: their intention from the very beginning. One of the cops

145
00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:37,640
Speaker 1: I was wearing a long sweater coat, and he took

146
00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:39,920
Speaker 1: it and put it over my head, which was the

147
00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:41,280
Speaker 1: perfect image right there.

148
00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:45,200
Speaker 3: Right this way they could begin the process of sort

149
00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,160
Speaker 3: of shaping public opinion in the way that they wanted to,

150
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:50,680
Speaker 3: which is to turn you into this master criminal, which

151
00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:53,280
Speaker 3: was again ironic, since you had no prior record of

152
00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:56,520
Speaker 3: any kind. Do you think that they actually thought that

153
00:07:56,600 --> 00:07:57,720
Speaker 3: you did it at that time?

154
00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:01,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. I do know that years later, when

155
00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:06,960
Speaker 1: my investigator went to Sacramento, he interviewed Lieutenant Beyondy, who

156
00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:09,160
Speaker 1: was the head of homicide at that time, and he

157
00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:13,840
Speaker 1: asked him specifically if Beyondy thought I was guilty, and

158
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:19,440
Speaker 1: Beyondy said, quote, I don't know, I know Ray thought

159
00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:19,840
Speaker 1: she was.

160
00:08:20,240 --> 00:08:22,600
Speaker 6: Sounds like sometimes in these cases there's a little thread

161
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:26,000
Speaker 6: where they have one fact that they can't quite figure out,

162
00:08:26,080 --> 00:08:27,440
Speaker 6: or a lead, and then they run with it in

163
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,840
Speaker 6: a direction that has no basis in fact, but fits

164
00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:33,240
Speaker 6: what they think they know. Was there a temporarly on

165
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:35,440
Speaker 6: or some information that a woman had shown up to

166
00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 6: case the house with the two actual killers at.

167
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,080
Speaker 1: Some point, yes, And that made the case even more

168
00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:47,440
Speaker 1: confusing because that particular I guess pattern style of operating

169
00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:50,760
Speaker 1: had been used in Sacramento County, and one of the

170
00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:54,760
Speaker 1: victims was a woman named Elizabeth Lee. Elizabeth Lee happened

171
00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:57,360
Speaker 1: to be in the courthouse when she saw Gary Massey's

172
00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:00,640
Speaker 1: wife and she went running to the nearest dep He's saying,

173
00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,600
Speaker 1: that's the woman, Those are the people that robbed me,

174
00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:09,080
Speaker 1: And she ran around the courthouse in a state of panic,

175
00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,760
Speaker 1: and eventually she ended up talking to Christopher Cleland, who

176
00:09:12,880 --> 00:09:16,240
Speaker 1: was the district attorney who was prosecuting me, and he

177
00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:18,679
Speaker 1: told her if she didn't shut up and get out

178
00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:21,760
Speaker 1: of the courthouse, he would have her arrested. He was

179
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:26,319
Speaker 1: not interested in anything that she had to say. If

180
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:28,960
Speaker 1: she identified Joanne Massey as a woman who came to

181
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:32,720
Speaker 1: her door with that same particular fact pattern, it would

182
00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:35,600
Speaker 1: just make my guilt even more dubious as far as

183
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:36,720
Speaker 1: a jury was concerned.

184
00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:39,360
Speaker 3: Right, it would have made his job more difficult. Yeah,

185
00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:40,600
Speaker 3: that was not part of the plan.

186
00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:41,120
Speaker 2: No.

187
00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:45,840
Speaker 3: They held you in jail for almost five months awaiting trial.

188
00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:48,800
Speaker 1: They tried to get an extension. I was being prosecuted

189
00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:51,840
Speaker 1: by John o'mera at the time, but the judge who

190
00:09:51,920 --> 00:09:55,200
Speaker 1: was hearing the case ruled that there was insufficient evidence

191
00:09:55,559 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 1: and he ordered me released right then.

192
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was insufficient evidence. There was noah evidence, and

193
00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:04,760
Speaker 3: you go back home, try to, I guess, rebuild, right.

194
00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:07,520
Speaker 1: I was really in a state of shock and I

195
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 1: just kind of wandered around, both dazed and numb. But

196
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:13,480
Speaker 1: I had a horrible feeling in the back of my

197
00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:16,800
Speaker 1: head somewhere that this wasn't over. And I don't know

198
00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:20,280
Speaker 1: why I had that feeling, but I was right, it

199
00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:20,880
Speaker 1: wasn't over.

200
00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:23,439
Speaker 3: And then there's another knock on the door.

201
00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:27,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. Literally about a year later they came and they

202
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:31,880
Speaker 1: rearrested me. And this, of course was after Gary Massey

203
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:34,880
Speaker 1: had gone to trial and had made the deal that

204
00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:38,000
Speaker 1: he had made, which I knew nothing of at the time.

205
00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:40,440
Speaker 3: So Massy was the killer, yes, and he had been

206
00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 3: sentenced to life in prison.

207
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:43,440
Speaker 1: Life without the possibility of parole.

208
00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,080
Speaker 3: And as soon as he got that sentence, he decided

209
00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:48,120
Speaker 3: he was going to try to take a little more

210
00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:51,080
Speaker 3: active role than his own sort of destiny, right. He

211
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:53,280
Speaker 3: wanted to make a deal with the cops, and he

212
00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:57,080
Speaker 3: immediately contacted the Sheriff's department offering the same day.

213
00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:00,440
Speaker 1: Same day, he went back to the jail and picked

214
00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:02,000
Speaker 1: up the phone and called them and said, I can

215
00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:02,319
Speaker 1: help you.

216
00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:04,760
Speaker 3: And at that point it's fair to say me and

217
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 3: I guess he would have said anything they wanted him

218
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:07,680
Speaker 3: to say.

219
00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's hard to believe he just suddenly had a

220
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:11,560
Speaker 6: crisis of conscience. On the same day he got sentenced

221
00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:13,920
Speaker 6: to life without parole. And this is again pretty common.

222
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:14,200
Speaker 1: You know.

223
00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 6: Sometimes we see people who've committed crimes, who are arrogant,

224
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:20,800
Speaker 6: assume they're going to get away with it. Suddenly the

225
00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 6: trial or the investigation doesn't go so well. They're facing

226
00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:27,640
Speaker 6: serious time, and then they become desperate and say, what

227
00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:29,400
Speaker 6: can I do to help myself. My lawyers aren't going

228
00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:30,559
Speaker 6: to get me out of this. I got to help

229
00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:33,880
Speaker 6: myself and offer up somebody who had nothing to do

230
00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:35,560
Speaker 6: with the crime as a way to try to reduce

231
00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:38,600
Speaker 6: their own sentence. That's perfectly legal. They can do that,

232
00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 6: they can offer cooperation, but the law says that the

233
00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:47,040
Speaker 6: prosecutor has to turn that information, all discussions, all agreements,

234
00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 6: all suggestions or promises of benefits to these witnesses over

235
00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:54,760
Speaker 6: to the accused so that the jury can hear about it.

236
00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:57,840
Speaker 6: Because a jury is going to feel very differently about

237
00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:00,440
Speaker 6: someone who they think is getting a better fit to

238
00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:05,560
Speaker 6: themselves from turning in another person, versus someone who claims

239
00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:07,800
Speaker 6: there's nothing in it for me. I just am doing

240
00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,520
Speaker 6: the right thing. And in Massi's case, because he'd already

241
00:12:10,559 --> 00:12:13,760
Speaker 6: been sentenced, it allowed the prosecutor to say he's got

242
00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:15,840
Speaker 6: nothing to gain, he's already going to prison for the

243
00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:17,480
Speaker 6: rest of his life. In some ways it makes it

244
00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:21,480
Speaker 6: much more believable because he's doing his time, he's going

245
00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:23,520
Speaker 6: to pay the price, and he's just come and clean

246
00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:26,000
Speaker 6: on what really happened, and that wasn't.

247
00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:27,640
Speaker 3: The truth, right, And if they would have asked him

248
00:12:27,679 --> 00:12:30,400
Speaker 3: to identify you as the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby.

249
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:32,360
Speaker 3: That probably would have been what he would have done,

250
00:12:32,559 --> 00:12:34,720
Speaker 3: absolutely right, I mean, because at that point he really

251
00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:36,680
Speaker 3: did have nothing to lose. We know that guy's not

252
00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,840
Speaker 3: a stand up guy, and he's looking to make a

253
00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:41,560
Speaker 3: deal and they've got a great offer. So he identifies

254
00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:45,680
Speaker 3: you for allegedly planning this crime, and we say incentivized witness,

255
00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:47,760
Speaker 3: we could say extremely incentivized witness. In this case.

256
00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:51,360
Speaker 1: Incentivized almost doesn't apply to the treatment that they gave him.

257
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:55,320
Speaker 1: They took him out to dinner in nice restaurants, They

258
00:12:55,760 --> 00:12:58,120
Speaker 1: let him have sex with his wife in some of

259
00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:02,199
Speaker 1: their offices. They he actually took his twelve year old

260
00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: son with them when they went up in the hills

261
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 1: with Massey to reclaim the property that he had buried

262
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,400
Speaker 1: up there. The district Attorney Kit Cleveland gave this twelve

263
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:17,000
Speaker 1: year old boy a coin that had come from the robbery.

264
00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:20,640
Speaker 1: It had belonged to mister Davies, and allowed him to

265
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 1: keep it, apparently as some sort of souvenir, which still

266
00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:27,880
Speaker 1: appalled me to this day. I think that's absolutely sick.

267
00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:33,520
Speaker 1: It's macabre, yes, very.

268
00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:34,360
Speaker 3: But I'm still trying to get a grip on this.

269
00:13:34,480 --> 00:13:38,280
Speaker 3: So all these perks that he was offered, this was

270
00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:39,800
Speaker 3: after he was convicted.

271
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:43,079
Speaker 6: Yes, people have been convicted of serious crimes can get

272
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:45,640
Speaker 6: a lot of benefits after they testify. I mean, we've

273
00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:49,640
Speaker 6: got on the Innocent Project website examples of benefits that

274
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,840
Speaker 6: convicted people get while they're in jail, video games, and

275
00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:57,360
Speaker 6: you know, extra visits and hotel rooms when they go

276
00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:00,480
Speaker 6: travel to testify that the rest of us could never afford.

277
00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:02,760
Speaker 6: You know, Thankfully, it doesn't happen in every case, or

278
00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:05,960
Speaker 6: even most cases, but it does happen. And again, the

279
00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:10,000
Speaker 6: rule is prosecutor's office can give people benefits within the law,

280
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:12,640
Speaker 6: depending on whatever the law is of that jurisdiction, but

281
00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:15,280
Speaker 6: they've got to let the defense know. And that's really

282
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:18,439
Speaker 6: where the outrage comes in because when jurors hear about this,

283
00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:21,480
Speaker 6: if they hear about this criminal getting treated like a king,

284
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 6: they're obviously going to feel very differently about their testimony.

285
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 6: And prosecutors know that, so they either don't give the

286
00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:30,000
Speaker 6: benefits in the first place, or if they do, they

287
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 6: have to disclose them.

288
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:33,640
Speaker 3: And the inverse is true too, Like in Sonny Jacob's case,

289
00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:36,360
Speaker 3: when the real murderer wanted to confess, they kept giving

290
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:38,400
Speaker 3: him perks in prison in order to get him not

291
00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:39,000
Speaker 3: to confess.

292
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:39,200
Speaker 2: Right.

293
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,480
Speaker 3: So that's actually the flip side of the same sort

294
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,920
Speaker 3: of very strange problem. And it is such a strange

295
00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:49,400
Speaker 3: thing because everybody knows that you can't bribe a witness, right,

296
00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:52,520
Speaker 3: All kinds of penalties come with that. Nothing good happens

297
00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:56,720
Speaker 3: out of that, but they can anyway, So he identifies you,

298
00:14:56,920 --> 00:14:59,280
Speaker 3: they come and arrest you, and you go to trial.

299
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,320
Speaker 1: Actually, when they came and arrested me, they'd charged me

300
00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:07,760
Speaker 1: with the death penalty again, even though Cleland, who was

301
00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:10,960
Speaker 1: now the prosecutor, knew for a fact where he'd gotten

302
00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:14,320
Speaker 1: his new witness from and his new information. But fortunately

303
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:17,520
Speaker 1: for me, the California Supreme Court made a decision in

304
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:21,480
Speaker 1: People versus Carlos that took my actual charges out from

305
00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:24,480
Speaker 1: underneath the death penalty. So they released me on bail.

306
00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:27,240
Speaker 1: The judge let me out on twenty five thousand dollars bail,

307
00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:31,920
Speaker 1: and I was out for almost three and a half years.

308
00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:36,960
Speaker 3: Crazier and crazier. I mean, I've never been a judge,

309
00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 3: but I would say that if I was a judge,

310
00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,920
Speaker 3: and I thought that you were responsible for shooting two

311
00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:46,400
Speaker 3: elderly people, killing one of them during a robbery in

312
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:49,560
Speaker 3: cold Blood. I'm not sure twenty five thousand would be

313
00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:51,320
Speaker 3: the number I would choose, you know what I mean,

314
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:53,880
Speaker 3: I think it would be a high multiple of that.

315
00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:56,240
Speaker 3: So you're out for three and a half years with

316
00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:00,480
Speaker 3: this gigantic anvil hanging over your head. How did you

317
00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:01,760
Speaker 3: function during that time?

318
00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:02,720
Speaker 1: Very poorly?

319
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:04,640
Speaker 3: What did you do?

320
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:09,760
Speaker 1: Mostly have a nervous breakdown? I mean, I was really

321
00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:12,240
Speaker 1: as you said, it's like having an anvil hanging over

322
00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: your head. It's a true sort of damocles. But I worked.

323
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:22,440
Speaker 1: It's difficult to explain, and part of it was my

324
00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:25,400
Speaker 1: own state of mind. But it was almost as if

325
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:27,840
Speaker 1: I didn't have this case. I never went to court

326
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,720
Speaker 1: except to get an extension. Nobody seemed to be interested

327
00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:35,520
Speaker 1: in me. Nobody paid any attention to me until everything

328
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:37,960
Speaker 1: else was done. The other problem was that I could

329
00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:41,800
Speaker 1: no longer afford private counsel. I had hired a lawyer

330
00:16:41,920 --> 00:16:44,840
Speaker 1: from my first arrest. This time I had a lawyer

331
00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:48,240
Speaker 1: who was appointed from the Appellate defenders because the public

332
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:51,960
Speaker 1: defenders were already involved in Massey's case, and I guess

333
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 1: he was just good enough to get me convicted.

334
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:58,400
Speaker 3: Well, it's good enough to process you, but not represent you. Right,

335
00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:02,040
Speaker 3: it's pretty nuts that you were sentenced to thirty two

336
00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:02,720
Speaker 3: years to life.

337
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:03,000
Speaker 2: Right.

338
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 1: Oh. Yes, the prosecutor on the day that I was sentenced,

339
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:09,960
Speaker 1: and the standard sentence for this type of case would

340
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:12,760
Speaker 1: have been twenty five years to life, but mister Cleland

341
00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:14,960
Speaker 1: stood up in court and he went on to this

342
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:18,440
Speaker 1: short rant about how I'd always been a model citizen,

343
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:21,400
Speaker 1: I'd never been in trouble, I was going to law school,

344
00:17:21,720 --> 00:17:24,879
Speaker 1: and therefore I should get more time than anybody. And

345
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:27,240
Speaker 1: the judge granted his request and they sentenced me to

346
00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:30,280
Speaker 1: thirty two years to life, despite the fact that the

347
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,680
Speaker 1: actual killer was already going to be sentenced to twenty

348
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:34,639
Speaker 1: five years to life.

349
00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:37,679
Speaker 3: Right, So you got an extra seven years for allegedly

350
00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:42,320
Speaker 3: planning this crime. Yes, and when you're experiencing that, this

351
00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:45,240
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like and I don't want to come off

352
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:46,919
Speaker 3: sounding the wrong way, but this doesn't seem like the

353
00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:49,840
Speaker 3: type of crime that a young woman who's on her

354
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,840
Speaker 3: way up in the world as a law student would

355
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:54,880
Speaker 3: participate in. Like if you were really desperate for money,

356
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,240
Speaker 3: would you go and rob and shoot an elderly couple

357
00:17:57,320 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 3: to steal some silver.

358
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:01,359
Speaker 6: I mean, a lot of our clients get prosecuted on

359
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:05,520
Speaker 6: theories that make absolutely no sense, you know. And oftentimes

360
00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:08,440
Speaker 6: what we find in these wrongful conviction cases is the

361
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:11,840
Speaker 6: police come up with a suspect or a theory and

362
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:14,560
Speaker 6: then come up with a motive to make it fit.

363
00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:18,320
Speaker 6: So they think that somebody must have killed his spouse

364
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,159
Speaker 6: or girlfriend, and even though there's no history of animosity,

365
00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:24,680
Speaker 6: they come up with a crazy hypothesis. Like our client

366
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:26,960
Speaker 6: Michael Morton in Texas, they said he killed his wife

367
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 6: because she wouldn't have sex with him on his birthday

368
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,639
Speaker 6: because she was tired, because they had been out to

369
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 6: dinner with their toddler son and he was disappointed they

370
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:36,520
Speaker 6: didn't have sex, which is true because he left a

371
00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:39,320
Speaker 6: note along those lines, but he didn't kill her over it.

372
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,280
Speaker 6: And in Glorious case, there's some indications that they thought

373
00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,679
Speaker 6: that there was a woman involved helping them case the

374
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,119
Speaker 6: joint and then it seems like somebody came up with

375
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:51,240
Speaker 6: this concept like, oh, maybe it's that law student who's

376
00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:54,720
Speaker 6: hanging around with that coin dealer she's a smart broad,

377
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:57,760
Speaker 6: maybe she's the mastermind, and they ran with it. The

378
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:01,320
Speaker 6: problem is there was no evidence to supported except these

379
00:19:01,480 --> 00:19:07,240
Speaker 6: incentivized witnesses facing criminal charges themselves, and in some cases

380
00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:10,400
Speaker 6: like Glorias, they build an entire prosecution around these highly

381
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:12,399
Speaker 6: dubious witnesses and an unsupported theory.

382
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 3: I mean, there was no evidence whatsoever except for the

383
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 3: word of the killer. Yes, I mean it almost seems

384
00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:20,840
Speaker 3: like that should be not okay, not okay.

385
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:24,080
Speaker 6: Well, state courts are free to set the parameters of

386
00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:28,879
Speaker 6: what constitutes sufficient evidence to convict someone. So just because

387
00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:31,560
Speaker 6: a jury says you're guilty doesn't mean the conviction stands.

388
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,719
Speaker 6: That's not even because of new evidence, but even just

389
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:37,879
Speaker 6: evaluating what happens at trials. A lot of times courts

390
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 6: will undertake what's called a sufficiency review and say that's

391
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:43,960
Speaker 6: just not enough. In Texas, for example, of all places,

392
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:47,679
Speaker 6: the highest criminal court has ruled that you cannot be

393
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 6: convicted of murder based on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.

394
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 6: So if someone were to be charged in a situation

395
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,399
Speaker 6: like Gloria's, where the only evidence against them was the

396
00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 6: word of one or two people who admitted their own

397
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:03,760
Speaker 6: involvement in the crime. You couldn't be convicted without corroboration.

398
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:06,439
Speaker 6: The problem is that in a lot of places that

399
00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:10,639
Speaker 6: even have those rules, almost anything counts as corroboration. So

400
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,399
Speaker 6: one eyewitness saying oh, I saw someone who looked like

401
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 6: a woman with short brown hair fleeing the scene could

402
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:21,280
Speaker 6: be corroboration. Or a witness who's not an accomplice saying, oh,

403
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:23,440
Speaker 6: she said something about you know, they did something bad

404
00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:26,240
Speaker 6: last week. I mean, people can interpret it pretty loosely.

405
00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 6: It really depends on the judges you're in front of.

406
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:30,879
Speaker 6: But at least there's a corroboration requirement. And I don't know.

407
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:32,760
Speaker 6: I don't practice in California now, so I don't know

408
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 6: what the law currently is. It's hard to imagine many

409
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,720
Speaker 6: courts today, knowing what we know about Jeilhouse informants, would

410
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:42,760
Speaker 6: allow that testimony to be the basis for a conviction,

411
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:44,199
Speaker 6: even if the jury believed it.

412
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:46,600
Speaker 3: Right, at least all of the conviction in which I

413
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:49,000
Speaker 3: mean thirty two years to life's basically a life sentence. Yeah,

414
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:51,600
Speaker 3: in thirty two years eligibility right, So, and that doesn't

415
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 3: mean you're walking out the door at thirty two years either.

416
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:56,199
Speaker 6: No, I mean, and as you know, Jason, and you

417
00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:59,639
Speaker 6: know most parole boards, the innocent get penalized. So you

418
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,760
Speaker 6: get a sentence of thirty two to life. But as

419
00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:04,760
Speaker 6: soon as you come up for parole, if you're not

420
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 6: ready to quote unquote express remorse for the crime, which

421
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,360
Speaker 6: really means admitting guilt. You can't say I'm sorry those

422
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:13,120
Speaker 6: people died, but I had nothing to do with it.

423
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,919
Speaker 6: You have to say, I'm sorry they died and I

424
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:17,760
Speaker 6: did it, and I regret what I did. And if

425
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 6: you don't show that appropriate remorse in their view, you're

426
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 6: not going to get parole in most cases. And so

427
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:28,199
Speaker 6: in glorious case, you know, she was exonerated before I think,

428
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:30,160
Speaker 6: right before you had to go before the board.

429
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,400
Speaker 1: No, I still had several years left to see even

430
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: though I had been in there for seventeen and a

431
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,440
Speaker 1: half years. But when I went for my first parole

432
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:41,119
Speaker 1: board review, which they later did away with, but the

433
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,880
Speaker 1: woman from the board talked to me and I told

434
00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:46,880
Speaker 1: her I was innocent. I had nothing to do with this,

435
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 1: and she actually said to me, you know, you're not

436
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 1: going to come up for parole for a long time,

437
00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 1: but you need to realize that if you don't accept responsibility,

438
00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: and if you don't express your remorse and make a

439
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,400
Speaker 1: miss for what you did, then you are not going

440
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: to get out on parole.

441
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 3: Right. So isn't it bizarre that we have a system

442
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 3: in which you plead innocent, you go to prison, and

443
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,399
Speaker 3: you plead guilty and you go home. Yes, that's truly

444
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 3: Alice in Wonderland, right, except not the cute kids version.

445
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 3: So we can go back to the trial, that moment

446
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:23,160
Speaker 3: in the courtroom when the jury went out, and now

447
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 3: you're dealing with your appellate defender who's not Clarence Daryl, right,

448
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 3: and the jury goes out. I mean, you've been now

449
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 3: through sort of Kafka escortdeal for the last four plus

450
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:37,160
Speaker 3: years already, starting with the time that you were first

451
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 3: you know, taken in well, yeah, before you've even arrested it,

452
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 3: starting for the time to knock on the door. Did

453
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 3: you think that there was still a chance that the

454
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 3: jury would see the light and do the right thing.

455
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: It's difficult for me to put that into words. At

456
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: times my law school education really betrayed me, and at

457
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: other times it served me well. On this particular issue,

458
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: I simply decided that, you know, I hadn't done this.

459
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: They couldn't possibly convict me. I mean, there wasn't anything

460
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:13,480
Speaker 1: there except for this guy on the witness stand, and

461
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: I don't know the jury was out for two and

462
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: a half days, if I recall it correctly. But I

463
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: rocketed from one side to the other half the time.

464
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: I believed that I was going to go home. When

465
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: my boyfriend dropped me off at court that last time,

466
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 1: he said, I'll pick you up for dinner. You know,

467
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,199
Speaker 1: we'll go out someplace nice, assuming that I would be

468
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: found innocent, and so I went with that fantasy for

469
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:42,880
Speaker 1: a while. It's difficult to explain how the mind deals

470
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: with some of these things that are simply impossible to

471
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: deal with. I mean, you think I'm going to lose

472
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: my mind. This is insane, and it is insane. And

473
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: then again, somehow or other, you managed to switch over

474
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:01,719
Speaker 1: to another state of thought or of being. Most people

475
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: that have been through this experience have experienced that same

476
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: thing to where they're you're not even thinking logically anymore.

477
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time articulating it because it is

478
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 1: that difficult to understand. Yeah, and I still don't get it.

479
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:19,360
Speaker 3: It was something you were ill prepared for, to say

480
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 3: the least, right, based on your previous life. You know,

481
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 3: I mean you were going to have you were on

482
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 3: your way to having a very pleasant existence. Right. What

483
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 3: kind of lawyer were you planning on being?

484
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: By the way, actually I was interested in estates and trusts,

485
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: but I also would occasionally give some thought to criminal law.

486
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 1: But like everybody else, the only thing I knew about

487
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,360
Speaker 1: criminal law was what I learned in the first year

488
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: of law school. You know. I didn't want to have

489
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: anything to do with criminals, not those people. Well, I

490
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: rapidly became one of those people and found out that

491
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,120
Speaker 1: those people are not at all who we think they are.

492
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 3: You know, when I started recording these podcasts Wrongful Conviction,

493
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 3: my main goal wasn't is that we would by telling

494
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 3: these stories and sharing the real life situations that happen

495
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 3: to people just like you, we would educate the audience

496
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 3: so that when they go to serve on a jury,

497
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 3: they are woke right and they are for lack of

498
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 3: a better where that's a technical term, and they are

499
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 3: you know, armed with the knowledge that these things happen,

500
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 3: and also that you know, it's really terrifying. You know

501
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 3: a friend of mine who is herself from a Harvard

502
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 3: Law school graduate lawyer, she was on a jury or

503
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 3: not that long ago, and she told me by the

504
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 3: third day, people were like, I really don't care anymore

505
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 3: whether they're guilty or not. I want to go home.

506
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 3: I got stuff to do. Like so if you need

507
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 3: me to vote guilty, so be it. Like that was

508
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 3: literally conversations that were happening in the jury room. And

509
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 3: we don't know what was happening in your jury room.

510
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 3: But the fact is all I can do is say

511
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 3: to people that are listening, you know, listen to the

512
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 3: words of Gloria. Even though it's all that long, you

513
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 3: can still hear the pain and you know, recognize that,

514
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 3: you know, the extra day of your life or whatever

515
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 3: it is. And of course then there's that saying, which

516
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start using a tag line of my emails.

517
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 3: I think you know that it's better that one hundred

518
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 3: guilty men go free than the one incent should suffer

519
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 3: William Blakston.

520
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: And people seem to literally believe that it's better and

521
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: they are safer if all the innocent people go to

522
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: prison just so they get the one guilty.

523
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 3: Person, right, And then the irony of that is that,

524
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 3: of course, we know in most cases, when the innocent

525
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 3: person goes to prison, the guilty person remains free. In

526
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 3: your case, if there was another perpetrator, that person was free.

527
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 3: We know the actual killer in your case did go

528
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 3: to prison. But in most cases, and you know we

529
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 3: know this from the Innocence Project, there's so many cases

530
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 3: where we have used DNA to identify an innocent person

531
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 3: or to prove the innocence of the person who is convicted,

532
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 3: and then whila, a hit comes up in the National

533
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 3: Database CODIS and we are able to identify the actual

534
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 3: perpetrator or the authorities identify the actual perpetrate.

535
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that all the

536
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 6: innocents cases, the DNA cases, and the non DNA cases

537
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 6: have shown is that this false choice we were sold

538
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 6: in the nineties by the tough on crime crowd, that

539
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 6: you have to choose between safety and due process or

540
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,880
Speaker 6: safety and justice, is a myth, because sending innocent people

541
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 6: to prison doesn't keep us any safe, or it makes

542
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 6: us less safe. We've you know, as you mentioned, in

543
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 6: a number of our cases, in fact, close to half

544
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 6: of them. One hundred and sixty out of the first

545
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 6: three hundred and sixty four DNA exonerations. The investigation that

546
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 6: was done to clear the innocent person also led to

547
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 6: the apprehension of someone who had actually gone on to

548
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 6: commit other violent crimes while the innocent person was sitting

549
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 6: in prison. And that includes murders, that includes rapes, that

550
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 6: includes robberies, you name it. Sometimes multiple crimes by the

551
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 6: same person. And we created additional crime victims and additional

552
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 6: suffering while this innocent person was sitting in prison. So

553
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 6: you know, juror should know that by sending someone to

554
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 6: prison in who they have some doubts about their guilt,

555
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 6: they're not making the streets safe or they're not doing

556
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 6: the safe thing or the right thing. They're doing a

557
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 6: pretty reckless thing.

558
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 3: No, they're actually making themselves left safe. Yeah, even on

559
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 3: just a purely selfish basis. Right, And you look at

560
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 3: probably one of the most glaring examples that would be

561
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 3: Ronald Cotton, right, because we know when he was wrongfully

562
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 3: convicted of rape, the actual perpetrator remained free and raped

563
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 3: over thirty other women before he was apprehended. So, I mean,

564
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 3: what a terrifying thought that is it's just my heart

565
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 3: goes out to everyone involved in that situation. It's just unimaginable.

566
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 3: So how did you manage to survive this ordeal in

567
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 3: seventeen and a half years? And it seems like your

568
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 3: mind is intact? Right? I mean I only know you

569
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 3: for days. No, from what I know of you, you've

570
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 3: accomplished amazing things since you've been out, So you can't

571
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 3: have lost your mind completely while you were in. Can

572
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 3: you explain that?

573
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 2: What?

574
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 3: How does that? No one can really understand, including me,

575
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 3: and I've been doing this for twenty five years.

576
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: Actually, it goes back to what I said earlier about

577
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: having to separate states of mind. But I was also

578
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: saved by a peculiar situation at that particular time. When

579
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: you first go to prison, you have to appear before

580
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: what's known as a classification committee, and they look over

581
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: your past, your conviction, et cetera, et cetera, and they

582
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 1: decide where you should best work. When I told them

583
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: that I'd been to law school, this particular group of

584
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: people laughed at me. They said I was lying, They

585
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: said it was impossible, and then they assigned me the

586
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: law library and I remained working there for sixteen years,

587
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: and it was a strange time and place. It has

588
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: never happened before with California Department of Corrections, and it

589
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: will never happen again, that's for certain. But I worked

590
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: for people that had absolutely no information about a law

591
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: library or how to staff it, how to run it,

592
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: or how to do anything else. And they quickly realized

593
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: that I could help them learn this, and then I thought, oh,

594
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: what the heck, We'll just let her do it. So

595
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 1: I eventually ended up buying all the books organizing the institution,

596
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: and I spent all of my days helping women, not

597
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: just with their various convictions, but also with a lot

598
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: of institutional stuff. And about that time, there was a

599
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: senator from San Diego and she wanted to hold a

600
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: hearing on battered women because it was just at that

601
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: time period that people were becoming interested in battered women,

602
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: and in California at that time, they were not allowed

603
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: to present any evidence of abuse or violence against them

604
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: in their defense, which made those convictions a definite slam dug.

605
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: So anyhow, this had all they had been institution had

606
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: been contacted. Chief Deputy Warden came down and he asked

607
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: me to put together panel and to do some other

608
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: stuff for these various interviews that were coming up, which

609
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: I did, and after that they just pretty much let

610
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: me do whatever I wanted to do. I ordered all

611
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: the books. I instituted services across the fence, which means

612
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: that there were areas of the prison where the confinement

613
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: is far more restrictive. One area of the prison was

614
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: simply for people who were suffering from mental illness, and

615
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: so I was able to establish legal services for them.

616
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 3: So it's fair to say that you maintained your own

617
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 3: well being by helping other people, right.

618
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: I had my little underground law practice going on there,

619
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: and some very strange clients by the way, But yeah,

620
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: I knew I could not figure out what had happened

621
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:42,239
Speaker 1: to me. The only thing that I seized on and

622
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: I don't know why, and as it turns out, it

623
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: was presciented. But I always believed in the back of

624
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: my head that if the Ninth Circuit ever saw my case,

625
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: they would not let it stand. And as it happened,

626
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: it was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that reversed

627
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: my conviction.

628
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 3: So I'm just going to read paragraph that I think

629
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: is going to really shake people up because it shakes

630
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 3: me up, which is that Ten years later, after a

631
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 3: federal petition for rid of habeas corpus had been filed,

632
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 3: defense investigators discovered evidence of Massey's agreement with the prosecution,

633
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 3: including a letter. This is where it gets deep, right,

634
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 3: that's me editorializing, including a letter Massy sent to the

635
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 3: prosecutor soon after you were arrested. In the letter, brace yourself,

636
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: Massey said, quote, I lied my ass off for you people.

637
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 3: The letter, as well as two others Massey wrote that

638
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 3: detailed the resentencing agreement, were never disclosed to the defense

639
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 3: by the prosecution. M Nina, you want to shine a

640
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 3: little light on this one, because that's illegal.

641
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 6: I'm going to use my actual law.

642
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: Degree to tell you that's illegal.

643
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 6: No, it's in all seriousness. That is a textbook example

644
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 6: of the kind of correspondence from a witness that has

645
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 6: to immediately be turned over to the defense. Whether or

646
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 6: not the prosecutor thinks that Massey is telling the truth,

647
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 6: that is, did he lie his ass off?

648
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 3: Then?

649
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 6: Is he lying his ass off now when he says

650
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 6: he did? Is the truth somewhere in between? The defense

651
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 6: has to have access to that statement so that they

652
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 6: can cross examine him on it, and obviously a witness

653
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 6: who's telling the prosecutor I lied my ass off for

654
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 6: you people is not going to have much credibility in

655
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,239
Speaker 6: the eyes of the jury. So the prosecution has to

656
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 6: know that turning that over will be fatal to Gloria's prosecution.

657
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: They still have to turn it over. At my Hebe's hearing,

658
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: the district attorney when he was questioned about these letters

659
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: and what he had done with them, he was asked,

660
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: why didn't you turn them over to the defense at once,

661
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: and he said, I didn't know where to send them. Obviously,

662
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: once your conviction is final, you no longer have the

663
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: same trial attorney that you had, But that doesn't mean

664
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: that the guy fell off the end of the earth either.

665
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: He should have turned them over immediately to him. He

666
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: could have sent them to me. He could have done anything,

667
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: and he knew precisely what he should have done, but

668
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: he was determined enough to stand there and come up

669
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: with a bald face.

670
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 6: Lie Lauria was pretty easy to find. He could have

671
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 6: found her. She was in the California Department of Corrections

672
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 6: with a number attached to her name, and he knew

673
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 6: exactly where to find her, and he could have sent

674
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 6: the letter to her, and he certainly knew who her

675
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 6: prior lawyers were.

676
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: Yes, And the idea that he would even have a

677
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: gall to say something like that, it just bothered me,

678
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 1: and it still does. There are a few things that

679
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: have been said and done in my case that just

680
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: still blow my mind.

681
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 6: And I think it says a lot about the culture

682
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 6: of lack of accountability for the minority of prosecutors, and

683
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 6: it is fortunately still a minority. But who commit these

684
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 6: egregious acts of misconduct that he thought he could get

685
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 6: away with such a ridiculous answer. You know, anybody, anybody

686
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 6: else caught red handed hiding a letter like that, I mean,

687
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 6: could have come up with a better excuse, a lie,

688
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 6: a something. And the fact that he just gave this

689
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 6: completely ridiculous explanation that doesn't hold water just shows how

690
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 6: he thought nobody was going to care and nobody would

691
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 6: believe him. And Gloria, you know, was the rare convicted

692
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 6: defendant who was able to get a federal court to

693
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 6: throw out her conviction based on undisclosed evidence. It's very

694
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 6: hard to do these kinds of violations. By definition, stay

695
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 6: hidden right, They're designed to stay in the shadows, and

696
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 6: many of those letters get shredded, never to be seen again.

697
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 6: And it's you know, as in so many of these cases, Jason,

698
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 6: of people you talk to, they are both the unluckiest

699
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 6: and the luckiest people in the world. The unluckiest for

700
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 6: what happened to them, and the luckiest that the proof

701
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 6: of their innocence and of the state's misconduct was available

702
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 6: and that their lawyers found it.

703
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 3: Someday and Massy, in some sort of strange attack of conscience,

704
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,760
Speaker 3: later admitted that much the evidancy gave was false, including

705
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 3: all the testimony that what he said that he didn't

706
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 3: make a deal with the prosecution in exchange for a

707
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,399
Speaker 3: sestimony that is nessimarily that you were the mastermind behind

708
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 3: the robbery. You admitted all of that was false. Yes,

709
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 3: And ultimately, as we said in two thousand and two

710
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 3: of the Ninth Circuit Court reversed your conviction and ultimately

711
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 3: the charges were dropped. From all the years of me

712
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,280
Speaker 3: working with Nina and the good people at the Innocence

713
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 3: Project and serving on their board, the two questions I

714
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 3: get asked most frequently are in cases like this, did

715
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 3: somebody go after the prosecutor. And the second question I

716
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 3: get asked the most is did this person who served

717
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 3: seventeen this killian lady, did she get compensation? I mean,

718
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 3: please tell me she got taken care of.

719
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: He was brought up on charges by the California State

720
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: Bar Association from what he had done to me. And

721
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: they had fooled around with my case for apparently quite

722
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,720
Speaker 1: a few years. They were considering raising charges, then they did,

723
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: then they didn't whatever. But eventually he had a trial

724
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:14,439
Speaker 1: at the State Bar Association. He was found guilty and

725
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: he was censured. The judge said that the real problem

726
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: with the case was that it was so old that

727
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: he had a wonderful career except for these minor laughs.

728
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 1: And if the case had been recent then her decision

729
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: would have been very different because he had already retired,

730
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: and so she censured him and that was it. It

731
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: did make a difference to me because it was at

732
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 1: least an acknowledgment by the state of California that somebody

733
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: had done something wrong to me. Personally, I would have

734
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: liked to have seen him locked up, even though that

735
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: wasn't on the table at that particular time. But at

736
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,879
Speaker 1: least they acknowledged that there was an issue there other

737
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: than that the whole thing was a big joke.

738
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 6: I mean, it's extremely rare for any prosecutor caught committing

739
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 6: misconduct ever face any accountability from the state bar in

740
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 6: any state. And we actually have data in California. There

741
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 6: was this study done about ten years ago by our

742
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,760
Speaker 6: friends at the Northern California Anison's Project and the Veritas

743
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 6: Initiative where they tracked court findings of misconduct by prosecutors

744
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 6: over a twelve year period, and they found more than

745
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 6: six hundred cases where they could identify the prosecutors by

746
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 6: name who were found by a court who have committed misconduct,

747
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 6: and only six of them had faced any professional discipline whatsoever,

748
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 6: So less than one percent of the ones they could find,

749
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 6: and of those, many were what glorious prosecutor got, which

750
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 6: was a slap on the wrist. I mean, he got

751
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 6: a finding that he had violated the ethics rules, which

752
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,359
Speaker 6: is what the state bar has jurisdiction over. But all

753
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 6: he got was a what's called an admonishment, so just

754
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 6: don't do that again. Yeah, And she lost seventeen years

755
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 6: of her life plus all the time she spent before

756
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 6: she went to prison, with the hanging of her head,

757
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 6: and then the lifelong consequences and repercustoms that she'll have

758
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 6: to deal with for having had her life stolen and

759
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 6: her career stolen.

760
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and society lost out too, because you

761
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 3: could have been out here contributing and you know, doing

762
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 3: good stuff and paying taxes and instead of us paying

763
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 3: for you to be locked up, right for Californians to

764
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,919
Speaker 3: be And that's a whole other consequence of all these things.

765
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 3: It's probably the least dire consequence, but it's still a consequence.

766
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 3: And when you multiply it by the number of people

767
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 3: who end up in a situation like yours, it becomes

768
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 3: a real number. Since you got out. I mean, one

769
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 3: of the things that I find interesting because of my

770
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 3: you know, sort of obsession with this advocacy work on

771
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 3: behalf of people who are formally incarcerated, is this organization

772
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 3: that you founded, which is called the Action Committee for

773
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 3: Women in Prison. And all I know is what I read,

774
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 3: which is that it's an organization that works to improve

775
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 3: conditions for female prisoners. Of course, it's worth noting that

776
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 3: in America, many people know that we have four point

777
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 3: four percent of the world's population twenty five percent of

778
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 3: the world's prison population. But what people don't seem to

779
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 3: talk about as much is the fact that we have

780
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 3: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. So,

781
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 3: you know, organizations like yours are so needed, and can

782
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 3: you talk about the organization and what led you to

783
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 3: found it and what is due and where's it at now.

784
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,280
Speaker 1: I wanted to help the women that I left behind,

785
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: and at the time when I was in prison, there

786
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: was a lot going on in there, not just with

787
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: battered women, although that was where I developed my interest

788
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: in expertise and battered women because I didn't believe they

789
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: should have been in prison in the first place. I mean,

790
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: you know, when someone is strangling you or attempting to

791
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 1: shoot you, I think you have the right to defend

792
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: yourself or to defend your child. Other than that, there

793
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 1: were a lot of women that I knew that deserved

794
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: to get out regardless, and the parole board was a

795
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:53,359
Speaker 1: real problem at that time. There was also a tremendous

796
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: problem with the medical department. They were killing us on

797
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: a regular basis, and that also includes in the men's prisons,

798
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: and beyond that, I wanted to do what I could

799
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: to ensure that they did not feel that they were forgotten.

800
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: When I first went to prison, things were a lot different.

801
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: We wore our own clothes, we got various privileges, we

802
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: got Christmas gifts. There was a lot that was done

803
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: to try to make people feel women feel that they

804
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: were not forgotten by society and that they were still

805
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: decent people. That changed radically, particularly in the nineties. The

806
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: composition the pro board changed totally. It was all former

807
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: law enforcement basically, and I certainly didn't think that they

808
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: could understand what it was like to be small, female

809
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,720
Speaker 1: and in fear of your life. I started a Christmas

810
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: project so that people would not feel that they had

811
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:49,439
Speaker 1: been forgotten, and it still goes on to this day.

812
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: Last year, my organization helped provide approximately five thousand gift

813
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 1: bags for incarcerated women in southern California. That includes the

814
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,800
Speaker 1: prison and the fire camps and the jail as well.

815
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: The main thing that I thought that I could do

816
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: was to tell people what I had learned, which was

817
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: that women in prison were not who I thought they were.

818
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: They're just basically people like you and me who've made

819
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:22,840
Speaker 1: wrong choices. Or who've been in intolerable circumstances. That of

820
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,760
Speaker 1: course applies to people who acquired their convictions in defense

821
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: of their life or in defense of their children. I

822
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: thought that people in prison must be vicious, bizarre, every

823
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: stereotype you could possibly think of. And I learned very

824
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 1: quickly that that is not who those women were at all.

825
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: And a lot of those women helped to save my life,

826
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of times when I didn't

827
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: think I could make it another three and a half seconds.

828
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 1: And there are times when it just closes in on

829
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: you and you can't do this anymore. With women, it

830
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: usually happens between five and seven years. It happened to

831
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 1: me at about six years, and I had a very

832
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: good friend. Her name is Janet Dixon. We're still trying

833
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 1: to get her out. She's been in almost forty three years.

834
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 1: But she would pick me up every night after dinner

835
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: with a friend of hers, another lifer, and they would

836
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: make me come out and they would just walk me

837
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: around the yard for two three hours at a time.

838
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: I guess the purpose was just to keep my feet

839
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: moving and to keep my head from the darker places,

840
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: and somehow or other, I mean, with their love and

841
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: their care. I got through it. There were definitely times

842
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: when I looked at the fence and thought, why isn't

843
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: that stupid thing electrified? And why can't I get to it.

844
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: I was devastated when they told me they didn't shoot

845
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:47,879
Speaker 1: to kill. There are times when that is exactly where

846
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: you go. Suicide is an alternative to an intolerable reality.

847
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of times when I spent that

848
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: time thinking about that, thinking about some way to end

849
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: this all, when I didn't think I could stand in

850
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: the pain anymore. But then I would, something would happen,

851
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 1: and I would get interested in something else, like getting

852
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: somebody out of prison, or you know, beating their one fifteens,

853
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 1: which are disciplinary reports. And somehow I got through it.

854
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: You just put one foot in front of the other

855
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: day after day. I do not know how people that

856
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,839
Speaker 1: are sentenced to life without the possibility of parole get

857
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 1: through a day. I don't believe that I could have

858
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: done it if that had been my sentence. I'm not

859
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 1: a stupid woman. I would not have been there. If

860
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: I was facing something like that, I would have taken

861
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:37,359
Speaker 1: myself out.

862
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 6: Can I ask you about something that you know we

863
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 6: hear and read a lot about women in prison that

864
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 6: there are a lot of women there who end up

865
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 6: because they have a relationship with someone, typically but not always,

866
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 6: a man who is kind of high up in a

867
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 6: crime or a criminal enterprise, and the woman might have

868
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 6: some tangential involvement, agreeing to carry something or transport something

869
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 6: or make a phone call once, but they don't have

870
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 6: access to information they can trade with law enforcement when

871
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 6: they get caught. Was that something that you found to

872
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 6: be common among the women that you met inside.

873
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: Absolutely. In fact, there were cases where the women weren't

874
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: even involved in the crime at all, but they were

875
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: convinced by the man, usually a man that they were with,

876
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: that if they would plead guilty and take the case,

877
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: that you know, they'd only get like sixteen months in

878
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: prison and he would love them forever and take care

879
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: of them and send them boxes and whatever. And some

880
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: of these women actually walked into court and did that,

881
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: they took the case, and of course everything turned out

882
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,240
Speaker 1: totally different. They ended up getting longer sentences, like maybe

883
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 1: ten years, and the guy was gone in the wind.

884
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: Another thing is that people who were involved with crime

885
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,240
Speaker 1: or have been arrested or have dealt with the criminal

886
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 1: justice system in some way know how to work the system.

887
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: There are cases that I know of where women have

888
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 1: confessed to doing something that is physically impossible for them

889
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: to have done. And I'm thinking of the woman who

890
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:08,839
Speaker 1: was about my size. I'm five feet tall and if

891
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: I lie about it, I weigh one hundred and thirteen pounds.

892
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,959
Speaker 1: This woman was convicted of strangling her six foot one

893
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,879
Speaker 1: husband to death manual strangulation, and it was her son

894
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: who committed the crime, and the prosecution just went along

895
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: with it. I mean, what do you tell him, just

896
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: lie there and I'll try to make this quick. It's insane.

897
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: And yet they go ahead and they accept those cases.

898
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: They accept those please, and the women end up doing

899
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: the time. Oftentimes the man will say something like, you know,

900
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: you'll get less time, the women get more time. Or

901
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: if the man says that she is the mastermind, she's

902
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: the one who planned all of this, she will get

903
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: a longer sentence than he will. He'll get twenty five

904
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 1: to life, she'll get life without he'll get fifteen to life.

905
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: She'll get twenty five to life. And they are held

906
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 1: to longer terms by the parole board. It's a type

907
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: of discrimination that. I mean, you think it can happen

908
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,919
Speaker 1: until you see it and it's right there in front

909
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: of you on the paperwork. It amazes me to this

910
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: day that someone would even accept a plea bargain like that.

911
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 3: So I wanted to ask you this. I'll ask both

912
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 3: of you this, and then we'll go to closing comments.

913
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 3: If people are listening now and they want to get involved,

914
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 3: and they want to help with your organization, or they

915
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 3: want to help with women in prison in general, because

916
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 3: I have a number of amazing women who have approached

917
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:37,919
Speaker 3: me and wanted to volunteer and wanted to do stuff,

918
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 3: so we started to put together our own sort of

919
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,439
Speaker 3: impromptu group. We came up with an interim name called

920
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 3: Women for Women who Shouldn't be in Prison. But then

921
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 3: I found out that you've already been doing this work,

922
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to hear more about that and

923
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 3: how can other people, women or otherwise get involved.

924
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: I do have a website. I haven't been doing much

925
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: with it lately. I've been focusing more on the exoneration

926
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: issue and my work with the Exonerated Nation. But my

927
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: website is acwip dot net. It's always a struggle to

928
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 1: come up with enough gifts. We can definitely use donations

929
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:21,360
Speaker 1: and anybody who wants to get involved. I think the

930
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: saddest thing about prison that is so different in the

931
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: United States from other countries is that we isolate our prisoners.

932
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: We demonize our prisoners. They're all murderers and maniacs, and

933
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: nobody should have anything to do with them or to

934
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: get involved. And that just isn't true in other countries

935
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: where they have a different philosophy, they help people rehabilitate

936
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 1: themselves and reintegrate themselves into society. We don't do that here.

937
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: But visiting programs, gift programs, letter writing programs, all of

938
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: those things are really important, and.

939
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 3: People can access that information on your website.

940
00:48:59,440 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 1: Yes they can.

941
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 6: Maybe there'll be some web designers out there who want

942
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:04,479
Speaker 6: to take that duty over from you so you can

943
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 6: focus on the other piece.

944
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: That's a wonderful idea.

945
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 6: You know, everyone in prison needs outside support, but for

946
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 6: women it can be particularly lonely and isolating. Because of

947
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 6: the way our society is structure and the way we're raised.

948
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 6: Women are often the caretakers when a man goes to prison.

949
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 6: They're the glue that keeps the family together, keeps the

950
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 6: relationship together. And sadly, when women go to prison. You know,

951
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 6: there are exceptions to every rule, but by and large,

952
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:29,799
Speaker 6: a lot of men, a lot of family members, they're

953
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 6: overwhelmed with their own lives and they move on and

954
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 6: the women get left behind. And that's why the support

955
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 6: from people who are generous of heart is so critical.

956
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: Women get dumped at the gate.

957
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 3: Okay, So once again it's acwip dot net and you

958
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 3: can go there and learn about how to get involved

959
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 3: and write letters and volunteer or send donations. Glory, can

960
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 3: you tell us about your book.

961
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: Yes, my book is called full Circle because it begins

962
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,720
Speaker 1: with my arrest and it ends with my district attorney

963
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: being brought up on charges, and in that sense, the

964
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,919
Speaker 1: circle will is closed, despite the fact that so much

965
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:07,879
Speaker 1: has continued to go on. It's available on Amazon, It's

966
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 1: available on Barnes and Noble or any place else where

967
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: you can normally buy a book. I talk about my case,

968
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: but I also have about a third of the book

969
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: explaining what happens in prison and what goes on behind

970
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: the walls. And it actually is like a real little universe,

971
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 1: but it's not one you'd ever want to get caught

972
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: up in again. The book is full circle, like Gloria

973
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: Chillian and Sandy Coburn, full.

974
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 3: Circle like Gloria Chillian. I'm going to read it, and

975
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 3: I hope you will too. So we have a tradition.

976
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 3: Nina knows this, I'll tell you, Gloria at rofuel conviction,

977
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 3: don't be scared.

978
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 1: I don't like surprises.

979
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 3: So the tradition is that at the end of each episode,

980
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 3: I first of all thank you both for being here,

981
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 3: Lauria Achillian and Nina Morrison. And then I get to

982
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 3: stop talking, which I think you know is not something

983
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 3: I'm great at, but I'm going to do it anyway

984
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 3: and just listen and just leave the mic open for

985
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,879
Speaker 3: any final thoughts that you have. And so let's start

986
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 3: with you, Nina, and then you will be the closer.

987
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 3: You're the headline act.

988
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 6: One thing you asked about earlier that I don't think

989
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 6: we got to because our conversation was going in so

990
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 6: many other interesting directions is whether Gloria ever got financial

991
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 6: compensation for any of the time that she lost or

992
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 6: what happened to her. And the answer is no, And

993
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 6: her case highlights a glaring whole of injustice in the

994
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 6: compensation system, which is that if your civil rights are violated,

995
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 6: which Gloria's clearly were, in the course of a criminal case,

996
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 6: you often can sue the law enforcement officials responsible under

997
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 6: the federal civil rights laws or under state law. The

998
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:52,279
Speaker 6: catch is that if the prosecutor is the one responsible

999
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,759
Speaker 6: for those civil rights violations, they have what's called immunity.

1000
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 6: It's like those of you who read Harry Potter may

1001
00:51:57,640 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 6: remember the invisibility cloak where you can put it on

1002
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 6: and be seen. Prosecutors get the lawsuit equivalent of an

1003
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 6: invisibility cloak. By and large, were anything they do during

1004
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 6: the course of a criminal trial, no matter how egregious,

1005
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 6: they can't be sued for by order of the US

1006
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 6: Supreme Court from many years ago. And so if the

1007
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 6: letters from Massi the real killer, had been in the

1008
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,720
Speaker 6: police file but the prosecutor had never seen them, Gloria

1009
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 6: might have had a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the state

1010
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 6: and one. However, because they were in the prosecutor's file,

1011
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 6: everyone involved gets immunity, and that's incredibly unfair.

1012
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: It needs to change, thank you, Nina. It's often said

1013
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: that you can judge a society by looking at its prisons,

1014
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:39,759
Speaker 1: and if that is true, then our society is in

1015
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 1: really terrible shape. As I said earlier, we demonize our prisoners,

1016
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: We separate them, We do everything that we can to

1017
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: act as if they're not even humans, they're not part

1018
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,240
Speaker 1: of us. I think maybe it makes people feel safer.

1019
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I probably felt the same way

1020
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 1: decades and decades ago before I had any real experience.

1021
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: But we need to stop sending innocent people to prison.

1022
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds like a no brainer, but

1023
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. My guess is that at

1024
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 1: any given time, there are at least probably one hundred

1025
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,280
Speaker 1: thousand people you know in prison who do not deserve

1026
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 1: to be there, who are wrongfully convicted. Most of them

1027
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 1: have short sentences. You can't even get organized to help

1028
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: them because it is so expensive and so time consuming

1029
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: to exonerate a person. I am, as we said earlier,

1030
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: one of the luckiest people alive, because the evidence that

1031
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:38,799
Speaker 1: saved my life and that got me out of that

1032
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: hell hole was there for me to be able to use.

1033
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,320
Speaker 1: But I need to help the people that I left behind.

1034
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: I have to believe this happened to me for a

1035
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:52,800
Speaker 1: reason other than just plain ill luck. We need to

1036
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: take a look at what goes on in our criminal

1037
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,399
Speaker 1: justice society. And the last thing that I can say

1038
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: to you is the most important thing. This could happen

1039
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: to you. Don't ever believe it couldn't.

1040
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening. This has been a very special

1041
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,439
Speaker 3: episode for me and hopefully for you too.

1042
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:12,360
Speaker 6: Yeah, Gloria, thanks for coming.

1043
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 1: Thank you.

1044
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you

1045
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud

1046
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 3: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll

1047
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,720
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping

1048
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org

1049
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 3: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like

1050
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 3: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.

1051
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:48,280
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time Oscar

1052
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,359
Speaker 3: nominade composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on

1053
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 3: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.

1054
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava

1055
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 3: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one