WEBVTT - #374 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Henry McCollum and Leon Brown 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.320 Hi there, it's Laurini writer, and this time I'm here 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.120 with some really encouraging news for anyone committed to true 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:12.760 justice in this country. This is a case that was 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.680 used by US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to justify 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.560 why the death penalty exists. But as we'll hear in 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.000 this episode, the murder he was using as proof that 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.800 the death penalty should remain in place was in fact 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.760 an egregious, wrongful conviction, exactly the reason why we should 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.479 question death sentences in every case. Eventually, justice was served 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.400 for Henry McCollum and Leon Brown. After thirty one years 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.400 on death row. They were exonerated on the basis of 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.480 actual innocence, and we're thrilled to tell you that since 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.320 our episode first aired, they've also received compensation for what 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.600 they went through. In May twenty twenty one, the brothers 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.520 were awarded seventy five million dollars, the largest wrongful conviction 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.520 verdict in US history. Over the years, their cases were 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:04.000 reviewed by dozens of judges, lawyers, and jurors who couldn't 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.720 see the truth of their innocence. With this settlement, finally, 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:19.560 Henry and Leon were believed welcome to wrongful conviction, false confessions. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.319 I'm Laura and I writer, and I'm Steve Drewson. In 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.200 today's episode, the crime is bad about as bad as 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.760 it gets. But the way police and prosecutors mishandled this 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.480 case and condemned two innocent men to death, that's a 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.800 crime unto itself. Henry McCollum and his younger brother, Leon 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.360 Brown survived a decades long fight for the truth from 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.360 behind bars. Henry and Leon are living proof that false 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:56.000 confessions can send innocent people to death row. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.680 Twenty years ago, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which Laura 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.640 and I codirect, was deeply involved in exonerating men off 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.440 of death row in Illinois. The numbers kept ticking up. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.639 It went up to twenty people who had been wrongfully 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.440 sentenced to death. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.280 Twenty innocent people. Eventually, Illinois lost confidence that the people 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.360 on death row were actually guilty, and so we got 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:24.440 rid of the death penalty. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.840 When the death penalty was abolished in Illinois ten years ago, 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.920 there were some prosecutors who claimed that the sky would fall, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:39.000 that crime rates would rise, that the system would miss 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:45.280 the ability and the power to use the death penalty 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:50.520 to right wrongs, and that hasn't happened. We've moved on, 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.200 we've evolved, and it's time for the rest of the 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:55.520 country to follow suit. 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.120 Here's the thing. The death penalty is supposed to be 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.560 reserved for the worst of the worst, but way too 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.040 often those are the cases where wrongful convictions happen. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.440 These are the crimes where there is so much pressure 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:11.000 on law enforcement to come up with quick answers that 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.560 there are rushes to judgment. Right. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.000 That's the problem with the death penalty. People can get 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.519 so blinded with the horrificness of a crime that moral 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.320 outrage can distort the search for the truth. And that's 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.120 what happened in this case. Henry McCollum and his brother 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.040 Leon Brown paid a terrible price for the police's rush 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:30.640 to judgment. 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.440 The facts of the crime often don't tell the whole story, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:41.120 and sometimes tell a false story. So while on paper 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:47.440 this case looks like one that is deserving of the 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:53.280 ultimate punishment, in practice it sent two innocent men to 0:03:53.360 --> 0:04:00.600 prison for more than thirty years. 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:00.160 To day. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.560 Story starts in Robison County, North Carolina. It's a rural 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.400 area on the state's southern border, eighty miles inland from 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.800 the Atlantic Coast. Since the eighteenth century, Robison County has 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.160 been known for social strata and racial strife. It's a 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.320 place where a small group of elite white men descended 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.479 from colonial landowners, dominate everything from the lumber business to 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.760 the illegal drug trade to the courtrooms. Meanwhile Native Americans, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:29.600 poor whites, and black people get the scraps. On September 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.080 twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, Ronnie Lee Buie came home 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.280 to his tiny house in one of Robison County's predominantly 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.840 black communities. It was a little after twelve am. He'd 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.520 just finished working the midnight shift. Within minutes, he noticed 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.320 that his eleven year old daughter, Sabrina, was missing from 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.520 her room. Sabrina's family calls the police. As the sunrises 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.960 and words spreads, Friends and neighbors fan out to search 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.120 for her, but there's no sign of Sabrina until the 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.840 next afternoon, September twenty sixth. That's when Sabrina Buoy is found, 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.760 and it's one of the worst discoveries imaginable. Sabrina is 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.960 lying in a soybean field, dead, surrounded by empty beer 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.039 cans and cigarette butts. She's been beaten and raped. She 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.320 isn't wearing anything except for a bra that's been pushed 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.160 up around her neck. And her cause of death Sabrina 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.359 had been suffocated by her own underwear. Someone had pushed 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.200 them into her throat with a stick. 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.200 Now, when I read about this crime, it just gutted me. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.440 My reaction was visceral. There's a level of depravity here 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:35.400 that shocks the conscience. 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.240 Police couldn't bring themselves to believe that someone from their 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.520 own community would have done this, so they started investigating outsiders. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.800 Pretty soon, police caught wind of a rumor about a 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.839 nineteen year old who just arrived in Robison County to 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.280 visit his mom. The local high schoolers thought this new 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.680 kid might have killed Zabrina because, according to them, he 0:05:55.720 --> 0:06:00.400 looked weird. That new kid's name was Henry McCollum. Even 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.200 though his mom lived in Robinson County, Henry had grown 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.240 up in New Jersey with his grandma. Henry had been 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.359 diagnosed with intellectual disability when he was really young. For years, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.120 he attended a special school, but he failed a bunch 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.239 of grades anyway and eventually dropped out. School wasn't Henry's 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.080 strong suit, but obedience to authority was he'd never been 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:27.000 associated with any kind of crime. With nothing more to 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.520 go on than a high school rumor, police go to 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.280 Henry's mom's house, and on the evening of September twenty eighth, 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.880 they bring Henry in for interrogation. Three police officers questioned 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.200 him for more than four hours, all off camera. So 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.080 we don't know everything that happened in that room. What 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.159 we do know is that some of Henry's interrogators were 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.400 familiar with the crime scene. They knew all the information 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.960 that a killer would be expected to describe. Sometime around 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.760 two am, the interrogators emerged from the room with a 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.000 confession that named Henry as one of Sabrina's assailants. It 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.880 had been written out by the cops. Henry had signed 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.839 it at the end in oversized letters that looked like 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.080 a child's handwriting. According to Henry, as soon as he 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.440 wrote his name on the last page, he looked up 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.240 at his interrogators and said, can I go home now? 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.240 I think Henry is a very kind person. He's a 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:22.320 very thoughtful person. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.760 That's Representative Vernetta Alston. She's a member of the North 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.840 Carolina State Legislature, but before that, she was a death 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.160 penalty lawyer who worked on Henry's case. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.440 From the first time I met Henry in twenty twelve. 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.280 It's my impression that his deficits were very obvious. I 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.440 think anyone talking to him now, or five years ago 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.960 or thirty years ago would have noticed, and so as 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.920 a result of his deficits, he signed the statement. Now, 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.760 I think most folks in that circumstance would understand that 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.800 if they signed a confession to murder, that they wouldn't 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.320 be allowed to walk out the front door of a 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.080 police station. But the statement used language that Henry was 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.520 very unlikely to have understood, and so he didn't know 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:04.720 what was happening at all. 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.320 While Henry's confession was light on details, its story tracked 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.080 exactly what an investigator who'd been at the scene would know, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.280 everything from the pattern on Sabrina's shirt to the brand 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:15.760 of cigarettes left behind. 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.840 Here's the thing. Henry could not lead the police to 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:26.000 any evidence that they didn't already know about. His confession 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:31.600 only contained details that the police already knew. That's a 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.080 red flag. You have to wonder, is this the suspect's 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.280 confession or a confession that was scripted by law enforcement 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.600 to ensure that this suspect was going to get convicted. 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.520 Henry's confession didn't just implicate him. The story was that 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.600 he'd attacked Sabrina along with four other teenagers. Now, three 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.800 of those teens turned out to have strong alibis. One 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.760 of them had even been out of state at the 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.960 time of Sabrina's death. Prosecutors filed charges against those three, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.200 but the fourth person named it was Leon Brown, Henry 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.960 McCollum's fifteen year old brother. And while Henry was disabled, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.800 Leon's limitations were far more profound. His IQ was in 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.800 the forties, on the borderline between moderately and severely disabled, 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:20.760 and he was completely illiterate. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.760 Both of these men, who were at that time boys, 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:29.839 their intellectual disabilities were exploited. Folks who have cognitive deficits 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.600 that make it difficult or complicated for them to make 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.840 everyday decisions to get dressed, to loan as schedule, to 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.200 make food for themselves, to drive cars, to learn in 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.000 school at a level that's consistent with their age. Folks 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.640 who are unable to do those things, we shouldn't be 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.040 holding them to the same standard in our criminal justice system, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.040 and certainly not in our death penalty system. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.720 When Henry implicated Leon in his confession, it turned out 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.800 the timing was pretty bad. While Henry was being questioned, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.880 the boy's mom arrived at the police station begging to 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.839 see Henry. Police told her she'd have to wait until 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.600 he confessed. But here's the thing. Henry's mom brought Leon 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.360 with her to the station. He was almost surely too 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.680 disabled to be left home alone. So after Henry confessed 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.400 and the police came looking for Leon, they didn't have 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:23.480 to go any farther than their own lobby. Police put 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.400 Leon into an interrogation room, then marched his big brother 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.760 in to show him what to do. Within minutes, Leon 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.640 was signing a written out confession of his own, scratching 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.120 his name as best he could on the bottom of 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.319 a statement he couldn't even read. Based on their confessions, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.720 the two brothers were arrested and charged with rape and 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:43.680 capital murder. 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.000 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:59.000 and Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.280 law firm. The u AIG pro Bono program provides free 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.440 legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.440 individuals most in need. And recently they announced that working 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.960 to reform the criminal justice system will become a key 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.640 pillar of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.880 an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.800 to the most vulnerable members of our society and in 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.440 support of the public interest, including extensive work in the 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:28.640 criminal justice area. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:39.040 The question of who killed Sabrina Buie gripped Robinson County. 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.080 The crime was terrible and the community wanted justice, so 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.800 the county's top prosecutor took over the case. The district 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.600 attorney himself, Joe Freeman Britt, was six foot six, a 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.960 season trial lawyer known for dramatic courtroom flourishes like pounding 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.640 bibles in front of the jury. But he was more 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.640 than just a flashy atturn me. By the time Henry 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.559 and Leon's cases crossed his desk, Joe Freeman Britt had 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.480 become infamous nationwide for his success at obtaining the death penalty. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.600 Over his career, Britt sent more than forty seven people 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.920 to death row. At one point, he obtained two dozen 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.400 death sentences in only twenty eight months. Britt was so 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.480 prolific that he even ended up in the Guinness Book 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.199 of World Records, which called him the deadliest prosecutor. 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:36.360 Some prosecutors believe deeply in the eye for an eye mentality. 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.600 For some, it's almost a biblical calling, like religious fervor 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.240 that animates them. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.199 Forty seven people, I mean, if he weren't a prosecutor, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.760 he'd be one of the most prolific serial killers in 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:48.680 the United States. 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.640 Forty seven people, that's unthinkable. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.880 It seems like Britt leaned into his hard ass reputation. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.760 He'd run training conferences for other prosecutors where he taught 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.280 them to quote ripped that jugular out. When he felt 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.280 like waxing poetic, Britt would say, within each of us 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:10.160 burns a flame that constantly whispers, preserve life at any cost. 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.360 It's the prosecutor's job, he would add to extinguish that flame. 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:16.920 I think that that sums up who he was as 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.960 a person and as a district attorney. Joe Freeman. Britt 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:25.680 was frankly a terror. He was a large, commanding presence, 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:30.719 and I think really leaned into that persona. I know 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.520 that he was very from what I've read, he was 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.520 very much into the theater of a courtroom and really 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.040 played into that to secure convictions. 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.280 Joe Freeman Britt was in full form, gearing up to 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.560 try Henry and Leon for Sabrina's murder and seeking the 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.760 death penalty for them both. But before trial, two major 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.760 problems emerged with Britt's case against the brothers. First of all, 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.400 Henry and Leon's confessions didn't match each other on several 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.040 important details, who was involved, how they met up with Sabrina, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.040 and the details of the rape and murder. And of 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.560 course there was the matter of the three other boys 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:10.320 named in Henry's confession, all of whom were definitely innocent. 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.480 Leon or Henry. There was nothing other than their words 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.400 that linked them to this crime, you know. And Henry 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.680 and Leon were not the kinds of people that would 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.760 have committed a perfect crime. 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.640 Even the way in which the confessions were written didn't 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:28.240 ring true. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.480 In a statement used language that Henry was very unlikely 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.840 to have understood, and I think that's a product of 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.840 his age and most certainly a product of his intellectual disabilities. 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.040 And Leon's is similar. If you look at Leon's statement 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.360 is written in penmanship that Leon was incapable of because 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.000 of his deficits, and again used language and detail and 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.760 just cent in structure that Leon would have been incapable 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:52.000 of creating. 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.040 The second problem. There was a pretty obvious alternative suspect, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.840 a man named Roscoe Artists. Artists lived near the field 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.200 where Sabrina's body was found, and he had a disturbing history. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.600 Only a few weeks after Henry and Leon were arrested, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.240 Roscoe Artists had murdered an eighteen year old girl in 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.760 an attack eerily similar to the attack on Sabrina. Both 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.360 victims were raped and asphyxiated. Both of them were also 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.600 found in fields wearing nothing but bras pushed up around 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:23.360 their necks. It gets worse. Roscoe Artists was also a 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.800 suspect in another rape murder case from nineteen eighty. In 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.720 that case, the victim was found with an object shoved 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.320 in her throat, another similarity that should have been impossible 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:33.760 to miss. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.280 Henry McCollum and Leon Brown did not have the kind 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:45.160 of background that suggested they were capable of the horrific 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.920 nature of this crime. This was the work of a 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:54.640 sexual predator, probably a single sexual predator. Because of the 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.000 way the crime scene presented itself. This is not some 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:05.360 huge community that is beset by violent crime, and the 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.560 first thing that police officers should have done is focus 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.239 on men in their own community who had a proclivity 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:17.400 for committing these kinds of crimes. Rosco Artists showed a 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.280 history of doing this over and over again, and his 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.160 home was very close to where the body was found. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.680 Now here's the really crazy thing about Roscoe Artists. One 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.920 month before Henry and Leon went to trial, Artists was 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.440 tried and convicted for the attack on the eighteen year 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.720 old girl. He was sentenced to death. And that fact 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:42.160 almost gives away the punchline, because sure enough, Roscoe Artists 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.760 was prosecuted by Joe Freeman Britt himself for a crime 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.200 nearly identical to the one Britt was prosecuting Henry and Leon. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:49.320 For. 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.120 The similarities between Artists's other murders and Sabrina's death should 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.359 have been unmistakable. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.280 Those are a warning signs, stop lights to say, hey, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:03.360 wait a minute, let's see what really happened here, Let's 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.800 look at people who more fit the profile. 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.879 Well, Roscoe Artists was no stranger to law enforcement. That's 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.800 what's so mind boggling about this case. It was all 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:16.680 there ready to be done, right, and it was done 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:18.439 so wrong, so wrong. 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.560 This horrible, tragic nightmare could have been averted from the 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:27.240 very get go, and the woman who Rascal Artists killed 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.320 less than a month after Sabrina Buie was killed, her 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:32.479 life might have been saved. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.679 Not everyone overlooked the similarities between these murders. We know 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.000 this because of what happened with a piece of forensic 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.840 evidence in the case, a single unidentified fingerprint found on 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.280 one of the beer cans near Sabrina's body. Three days 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.639 before Henry and Leon's trial started, the police sent a 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.520 request to the state crime Lab to compare that beer 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:59.840 can fingerprint to the fingerprints of Roscoe Artists. But Joe Freeman, 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.120 even before the crime lab had time to do the testing, 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.040 Britt charged ahead with Henry and Leon's trial. And that 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.400 trial was hardly a fair fight. You've got the deadliest 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:14.600 da facing off against two disabled teenagers. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.639 Never stood a chance. It's going to be their word 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.160 against the word of the police when this case goes 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.520 to trial. How's somebody with a fifty six IQ or 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.240 a forty nine IQ supposed to try to match their 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.840 wits with a prosecutor like Joe Freeman Britt. 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.919 The heartbreaker was when Henry McCollum took the stand in 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.639 his own defense with his typical flare. Joe Freeman Britt 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.840 handled that cross examination himself. Didn't that touch your soul 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.360 at all? Britt asked, when that little girl was down 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.320 on the ground hollering, it didn't touch my soul. Henry answered, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.520 because I didn't kill nobody. He added, I want to 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.960 tell you something, Joe Freeman, God got your judgment right 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:04.480 in hell waiting for you. It wasn't enough. The jury 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.359 convicted both Henry and Leon based on the confessions. After 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.840 the verdict came back that fingerprint testing appears to have 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:12.560 been canceled. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.240 Jeff Freeman Brett was much more concerned and laser focus 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.879 on pursuing the death penalty against Tenry McCollum and Leon 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.040 Brown than he was in finding the real killer. They 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:29.200 failed to pursue a fingerprint examination that I tend to 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.439 think would have been very much determinative in this case, 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.680 and I have to imagine that Joe Freeman Britt was 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.160 part of that decision making process. 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.400 The defense was never even told that police had requested 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:44.320 fingerprint testing. Instead, that information remained hidden, and Henry and 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.040 Leon were sent to North Carolina's death Row, right alongside 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.000 Roscoe artists. A few years later, in nineteen eighty eight, 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:56.159 a court overturned Henry and Leon's convictions, but Britt retried 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.919 them both separately. In nineteen ninety one, at Leon's si 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.120 second trial, the judge dismissed the murder charges against him, 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.480 so Leon was convicted only of rape and sentenced to 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.359 life in prison, not death. But Henry still faced murder 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.200 charges and he was soon convicted again. His attorneys hoped 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:15.960 that at least they might be able to save his 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.760 life this time, but they were wrong. When Henry's sentence 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.040 was read, he sat silently with his head down on 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.879 the table, like a scared child. He had to go 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:41.399 back to death Row. The case of Sabrina Buie's murder 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.240 was closed, but not forgotten. That disabled kid who became 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.800 a murder suspect because some high schoolers thought he looked 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.840 weird was soon being singled out by a justice on 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.520 the United States Supreme Court. But Henry McCollum's case was 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.000 getting attention for all the wrong reasons. It was nineteen 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.480 ninety four, and this the Preme Court was debating whether 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.560 the United States should still have the death penalty in 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:08.719 a case from Texas one, Justice Harry Blackman wrote that 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:13.359 the death penalty should be ruled unconstitutional. Justice Blackman described 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:17.840 how lethal injection works, how one human being injects drugs 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.080 into another human's body in front of an audience, until 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.440 the condemned person dies in front of them. The justice 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.760 wrote about his experience of trying for twenty years to 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.320 develop rules that would ensure a perfect death penalty process. 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.560 After nearly two decades, he declared the task impossible. No 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.560 set of rules would be able to guarantee that we 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.119 only execute the guilty and only after the guilty receive 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.720 a fair process. From this day forward, Justice Blackman wrote, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.480 I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death. 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.040 Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing rebuttal, and this is 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.560 where Henry and his brother Leon come in. Lethal injection, 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.159 Justice Scalia wrote, looks pretty desirable compared to some of 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.760 the worst murder cases. He urged readers to consider the 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.000 case of the eleven year old girl killed by stuffing 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.920 her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:18.440 by lethal injection compared with that. Justice Scalia was talking 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.400 about the case of Sabrina Buwie. 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.360 Justice Scalia said that if there's ever a case that 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.840 warranted the death penalty, it's this one. Knowing what we 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.040 know now about Henry Leon's innocence, I think it completely 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:35.359 undermines any legal or moral argument behind that statement, because 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.280 if this case could be held up as the poster 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.080 case for the death penalty, and now we've discovered what 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:47.680 an absolute mess of negligence and railroading it involved, then 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:49.640 that means the entire system is undermined. 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.000 The years ticked by and that rail roading started coming 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.679 to light as the record of Joe Freeman Britz started 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.280 getting some scrutiny. According to a report by Harvard Law 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:04.880 School's Fair Punishment Project, Britt committed misconduct in fourteen cases. 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.720 In Henry McCollum's case, the report said he failed to 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.160 notify the defense not only about the Beercan fingerprint, but 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:17.320 also about a cigarette butt found near Sabrina's body. In 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.520 two thousand and five, more than twenty years after Sabrina died, 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:24.639 Henry's post conviction lawyers asked for DNA testing on the 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.040 traces of saliva left on the cigarette butt. That testing 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:31.280 found a single male profile and it didn't belong to 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.639 Henry or Leon. That evidence should have been enough to 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:36.400 exonerate them right then and there. 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.600 The testing wasn't sophisticated enough at that point to match 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.640 it to someone else. Basically, we knew that it wasn't Henry's. 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:45.520 We knew that it wasn't Leon's, but that's all that 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:46.040 we knew. 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.280 The profile couldn't be run through the national DNA database, 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:53.640 and so Henry and Leon were denied exoneration because their 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.880 lawyers couldn't tell the state whose DNA it really was. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.800 It took nearly nine years for the case to regain momentum. 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:02.640 In twenty fourteen, with. 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.760 The help of another inmate, Leon wrote to the North 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:08.480 Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission and asked them to look into 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:08.920 his case. 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:16.359 The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is an independent state 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:24.280