Speaker 1: On September fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight, there was an argument
Speaker 1: inside of Philadelphia rowhouse. As one party tried to leave,
Speaker 1: the other man followed, making threats that left him fatally shot.
Speaker 1: The victim's brother only knew one man in that party,
Speaker 1: Trevor Mattis, but Trevor maintained that he was just a bystander.
Speaker 1: Then another eyewitness corroborated that story. Yet this eyewitness said
Speaker 1: something else at Trevor's trial, This is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Ben Bollen from The
Speaker 1: Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, and once again
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be hosting the show. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're speaking with our guest, Trevor Matis, who was calling
Speaker 1: in from a Pennsylvania correctional facility to share a story. Trevor,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us, Aware and folks. If we're detecting
Speaker 1: an accent here, that's because Trevor originally traveled to the
Speaker 1: US as a student from Jamaica, right.
Speaker 3: I came from a backgrown of working class single Pearan
Speaker 3: household and she had her brothers, so I had an
Speaker 3: extended family. You just run into anybody else. That's just
Speaker 3: how it is in the community that came from properties,
Speaker 3: almost like a community property. With Winni Switchers growing up
Speaker 3: as an only child, a lot of times I was
Speaker 3: with my grandmother, who was a retired teacher who I
Speaker 3: think she instilled in me from a very early age
Speaker 3: the love of knowledge, reading specifically, but I was drawn
Speaker 3: to the sciences as I grew up, specifically biology. Then
Speaker 3: I was always achieving in school without any extra.
Speaker 1: Promping, and Trevor's academic achievement continued. His high scores on
Speaker 1: placement tests put him in the best high school in
Speaker 1: all of Jamaica, and soon it came time to take
Speaker 1: the Jamaican equivalent to the SATs.
Speaker 3: I know my mom at a single appearance. She always
Speaker 3: told me to shoot for it without really being a
Speaker 3: conviction that I was achieving, and in one day sure
Speaker 3: enough came back. You have been accepted to City University
Speaker 3: and your college. So when I got accepted, I was
Speaker 3: another check caused a financial commitment that she wasn't really
Speaker 3: prepared for tuition is like twice the amount of the
Speaker 3: regular tuition when you be coming from a foreign country
Speaker 3: or whatever. Because she always told me there's one man,
Speaker 3: so she always had she said, I'm not rich, i
Speaker 3: can't leave your riches, but I'm going to make sure
Speaker 3: you get a good education. At that point in time,
Speaker 3: because the promise was made, she found that we do
Speaker 3: not miss a point with that note. This scramble was on, well,
Speaker 3: who you gonna stay with housing arrangement blah blah blah,
Speaker 3: and just extended friends and family and netwhek somewhere was
Speaker 3: found to me that was in Queen's village. So I
Speaker 3: ended up in Queen's going to your college.
Speaker 1: So at this point Trevor is a pre med biology
Speaker 1: major and he ended up graduating with honors. He is
Speaker 1: planning to become a dentist, and he can pretty much
Speaker 1: go to any school he wishes.
Speaker 3: For this after I finished, was interested in one of
Speaker 3: those schools in Philly like temp Law, University of pen
Speaker 3: and Afferent from the neighborhood. He was actually resided in
Speaker 3: Philadevasys to come back and forth. So he said, well,
Speaker 3: whenever already actually should come up with him, and then
Speaker 3: I could see with him in his apartment, and then
Speaker 3: he was part of this community of Jamaican guys, young guys,
Speaker 3: and I think it was doing his spring and the
Speaker 3: summer's like somewhere around here when the weather was nice.
Speaker 3: So usially screaming Soka dominos and as a nine young person,
Speaker 3: initially to me, it was almost like a boys camp
Speaker 3: because there are all these young guys, young Jamaicans, palier,
Speaker 3: cohesive little unit and it was just a bold, fun
Speaker 3: flirt with girls or whatever, just being a young man.
Speaker 1: For some quick context here, it was the summer of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, and while Trevor was enjoying this coming
Speaker 1: of age experience, the crack epidemic had swept across many
Speaker 1: American cities, and this also applied to Philadelphia. It appears
Speaker 1: that some of the young men we've mentioned were involved.
Speaker 3: I got to realize that they were involved in the
Speaker 3: joke game, but was not right where we were seeing it.
Speaker 3: There was just like an old hangover spot because it
Speaker 3: was well kept. Us at one bad Jamika and elder
Speaker 3: to us, and so we used to hang upstairs. But
Speaker 3: jokes would be so from the base then, and.
Speaker 1: It was soon discovered that this house on Louis Street
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia was already under federal surveillance. The focus was
Speaker 1: on a man named Franklin Watson. He was present on
Speaker 1: the night of the incident September fourteenth into the fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, when the crew selling drugs out the
Speaker 1: basement included a man named Kirk Crump, as well as
Speaker 1: two brothers, Paul White and Everton Mead Johnson. Trevor showed
Speaker 1: up with a man named Mikey Donovan who was visiting
Speaker 1: from out of town.
Speaker 3: He was basically new to Philadelphia, not somebody I really
Speaker 3: had no extensive long term relationship with. We've made each
Speaker 3: other to somebody, and he said he wanted to what
Speaker 3: phil it was like. We had a good Rahore at
Speaker 3: that time.
Speaker 1: So Trevor took Mikey Donovan to this hangout spot that
Speaker 1: doubled as a drug house to see the owner of
Speaker 1: the place, Rudy, but they spoke to Kirk Crump instead.
Speaker 3: When I arrived, it was early in the morning, like
Speaker 3: twif thirty one name, and I was surprised to see
Speaker 3: a lot of the other guys upstairs in the living room.
Speaker 3: But these are guys that I know. The guy I'm with,
Speaker 3: Mike Donovan doesn't know them. So when I spoke to
Speaker 3: her indication, he said something like, oh, so many people
Speaker 3: in the house. Why so many people know? Something like that.
Speaker 3: But it was a basically generalized conversation, not about whether
Speaker 3: someone should be here or not. So Johnson in the
Speaker 3: basements and stuff her he must have phone was offended
Speaker 3: and that I don't know. And he found up the steps,
Speaker 3: was like boom, boom, boom, flung the door open. That
Speaker 3: it his lamp, and then his first words was, by
Speaker 3: the fuck you want to know? So why so much
Speaker 3: people know? Something like that very barely cooes his manner.
Speaker 3: He liked to intimidate because he was kind of big,
Speaker 3: but that's just his personality and how he acts. Mike
Speaker 3: had done but who was right beside me? He don't
Speaker 3: know the spurs and so he just basically he asked
Speaker 3: me in a low tone, he asked me, who is
Speaker 3: this guy? Why is he talking so rough? That further
Speaker 3: inside chance, So he basically was like pussue you, oh,
Speaker 3: the blue pursue you you know me and the code
Speaker 3: up the streets at that time, a remark like that
Speaker 3: basically that declaration of war, So that immediately escalated things.
Speaker 3: I could not understand where's all of that coming from.
Speaker 3: I was like, what can I be done? The deed escalated,
Speaker 3: that was my first thought. He was like stepping towards
Speaker 3: an aggressive times step. So I basically put myself in
Speaker 3: between both of them, and I was pleading, minimisea listen,
Speaker 3: calm don, what's this all about? That's uncalled for. So
Speaker 3: I basically got him to step back and take a
Speaker 3: seat on the stool. And he was in a steering
Speaker 3: countest now with Michael donabout behind me. So it's a
Speaker 3: hardcore great locked in this real tunnel vision with anger.
Speaker 3: Yeah me, it's clearing at him, and I have no
Speaker 3: clue what the reaction is going to be from Mikil
Speaker 3: Japan who is behind me. And so I looked towards
Speaker 3: the guy that was in the kitchen I was speaking
Speaker 3: to and I said that where is really just all
Speaker 3: the blue basically the giant change something? And he said
Speaker 3: he just left. He went to the bus stop to
Speaker 3: escort his daughter to work. So that basically gave me
Speaker 3: an opportunity to know to a right, let me go
Speaker 3: find him. So I'm just trying to divert that said
Speaker 3: come let's go or something to that. I'm trying to
Speaker 3: back down up and come, and took two more steps
Speaker 3: towards the front doors. If you know me, this is
Speaker 3: not big something like that. And when I look back
Speaker 3: on more than I see him like a stepped back relax.
Speaker 3: And therefore I figured that the game did worked because
Speaker 3: that looked like nothing further gong go. So I hate
Speaker 3: my step towards the front door, over the front door,
Speaker 3: and I was ahead by a couple of steps. I
Speaker 3: looked back and I was seeing Mikey Donner was just
Speaker 3: emerging on the front door. So while I'm thinking that
Speaker 3: I'm taking these steps towards the bust, I hear the
Speaker 3: screen door clang again. I mean somebody had come out
Speaker 3: by the time it shut. When I turned around on
Speaker 3: the streets, Johnson was buying his car jump and his
Speaker 3: car trunk was already opened and he was reaching in.
Speaker 3: Mike Donovan was on the sidewalk. Johnson said something. Most
Speaker 3: likely it would have been something intimidating, and the moment
Speaker 3: he said something, Mikey Donovan pulled I've gone out of
Speaker 3: his ways and hop fire immediately.
Speaker 1: Everton Meet Johnson was shot fatally. According to the autopsy report,
Speaker 1: the bullet entered from the back of his body toward
Speaker 1: the front. Perhaps Mikey Donovan didn't wait for me Johnson
Speaker 1: to turn around and fire, and since the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime was in front of a drug house, it
Speaker 1: appears no one stuck around to speak to the police,
Speaker 1: except for the victim's brother, Paul White. According to others,
Speaker 1: Paul had tried to stop his brother from following Donovan
Speaker 1: and then he ran to the basement to get help
Speaker 1: during the shooting, but he told police something else.
Speaker 3: Because he had never seen Mike Donovan in his life.
Speaker 3: He immediately told them he saw two people shoot his
Speaker 3: brother find me along with this unknown Jamaican me that
Speaker 3: you know. He said, I had a Tech nine, a
Speaker 3: big machine gun and mine and a handgun. And he
Speaker 3: said both the bos basically ambushim at the corner of
Speaker 3: the car, and I was shooting and Danavan was shooting.
Speaker 3: The seven shot fat. So that was basically what he
Speaker 3: told them at the scene of the cramp what the
Speaker 3: state is now because it happened at a joke host the
Speaker 3: state really created this narrative of a joke curve for
Speaker 3: r peer. So they took that and said, well, it
Speaker 3: was a dispute of who was supposed to sell jokes
Speaker 3: of the hose now me and just have friends from
Speaker 3: back then, you know what I mean we had. Anyways, that's
Speaker 3: not all we operate. If he wanted to sell jokes
Speaker 3: or the house he had, all right, Kirk is one
Speaker 3: selling know, so anybody could make some type of arrangement
Speaker 3: with Kirk or whatever. So it wasn't no circumstance that
Speaker 3: we would be in competition or anything like that. It
Speaker 3: just a third story. But the state basically said I
Speaker 3: took it upon myself to eliminate my arrivals.
Speaker 1: So Trevor was arrested and over time, this unknown Jamaican
Speaker 1: is eliminated from the.
Speaker 3: Narrative, so nobody could identify, nobody knew where he was.
Speaker 3: So basically, after I was made to target, the state
Speaker 3: and everyone does didn't even try to final anything. Thirred
Speaker 3: about the microdynamo that that's just how it works. They
Speaker 3: had to target that they wanted, and everything was gear
Speaker 3: to get this targeted regardless. What is my turn up?
Speaker 1: Speaking of? While Trevor sat in pre trial detention for
Speaker 1: nearly two years. The separate federal investigation of the drug
Speaker 1: house closed in on Franklin Watson, who was present on
Speaker 1: the night of the murder and tried to trade information
Speaker 1: for leniency, And this was three weeks before trial in
Speaker 1: January nineteen ninety. The Feds told the prosecution about this witness,
Speaker 1: but for reasons that we'll discuss later, the defense remained
Speaker 1: in the dark about this and a number of other things, including,
Speaker 1: for instance, why the state wanted a bench trial.
Speaker 3: When I got to the court room, I requested the
Speaker 3: jury trial, and then my lawyer got very old rage
Speaker 3: and told me that he had an agreement with the
Speaker 3: prosecute that's did not seek the head penalty if I
Speaker 3: took a non jury trial. But I still was trying
Speaker 3: to be adamant. So a couple of minutes before the
Speaker 3: trial started, my mom was there and she came to
Speaker 3: me in tears and distraughts, telling me that I should
Speaker 3: listen to the lawyer because he told her that they
Speaker 3: don't like Jamaicans in Philadelphia at that time, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to try in the electric cheer and she was
Speaker 3: so broken that that broke me. Just to see her
Speaker 3: so distraught, So I rel ended and basically went along.
Speaker 1: So perhaps the state was confident that the assigned judge
Speaker 1: would give them their desired result, as would Franklin Watson.
Speaker 3: The morning of the trial, the prosecutor announced as a
Speaker 3: surprise witness just walked into his office five minutes before
Speaker 3: the trial started and said he was there, and this
Speaker 3: is how he announced it.
Speaker 4: Rotson.
Speaker 3: So when he puts him understand, Watson testifies that he
Speaker 3: was present. What is the first person ever said that
Speaker 3: there was an argument in the house in the kitchen
Speaker 3: between Johnson and I over who should sell jokes from
Speaker 3: that location. And then he said for the first time
Speaker 3: also that I brandished a weapon in the house and
Speaker 3: had to be restrained by others. Then I walked out,
Speaker 3: Johnson followed me out. We began to fight outside for
Speaker 3: one minute by the car trump and then I got
Speaker 3: the better of Johnson, pulled the weapon and shot him
Speaker 3: multiple times from close range, and no one else was involved.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So, in contrast to Paul White's original statement about two shooters,
Speaker 1: Watson named Trevor as the loan shooter, and on cross examination,
Speaker 1: Trevor's attorney was able to expose Watson's vulnerability.
Speaker 3: He got the fact that Watson was a federal informant.
Speaker 3: I understand, but the lawyer he never followed up the
Speaker 3: final what was happening? What did he say to defense?
Speaker 3: It was just less that that just came out. So
Speaker 3: basically that was how he impeached the credibility. And as
Speaker 3: soon as he finished testifying, the prosecutor arrested their case.
Speaker 3: They were like, well, we're not going to call the
Speaker 3: original White now no more. Werested my lawyer objective. He
Speaker 3: requested a mistrial, saying, Yeerona, it's a child by ambush.
Speaker 3: We have been waiting for this case for over two years.
Speaker 3: We have all this discovery. Nowhere in the entire discovery
Speaker 3: was a Watson mention. They brought this person at the
Speaker 3: twelfth hour claiming that he is a surprise waitness and
Speaker 3: now they want to rest the case. They had the sidebar,
Speaker 3: and then prosecutor relented and said our year and postponed
Speaker 3: the case for one day and then we will bring
Speaker 3: White the following him.
Speaker 1: Additionally, and this is absent from the record, Watson escaped
Speaker 1: a potential thirty year sentence in exchange for this testimony
Speaker 1: and then came Paul White.
Speaker 3: So the next day he brought White to the standard
Speaker 3: and the White entire testimony was radically different and it
Speaker 3: mimicked almost play by play, what Watson said. So initially
Speaker 3: White was talking about two people shooting. Now he changed
Speaker 3: and he said there was only one person and that
Speaker 3: was me. And he also added an altercation because it
Speaker 3: was never an adducation mentioned anywhere at the scene of
Speaker 3: the crime or at the preliminary year and.
Speaker 4: A year after.
Speaker 3: But at the trial he testified it was an altercation,
Speaker 3: but he said it didn't last a minute. He said
Speaker 3: it lasted a few seconds before a brandish a weapon
Speaker 3: and Shaq Johnson. So that's how his testimony changed to
Speaker 3: mimic what Watson said, but he did not repeat the
Speaker 3: allegation of it was an argument over job.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the inconsistencies between White statements as well as how
Speaker 1: they were inconsistent with Watson's, these issues are never pointed
Speaker 1: out to the judge.
Speaker 3: Well, I him in the head with a gun. You
Speaker 3: know you hit somebody in the head with a gun.
Speaker 3: Be authors to going to show us a specific mark
Speaker 3: that I've gone with. Leave And then White after what
Speaker 3: he said the federal informant was not there to weakness,
Speaker 3: and the federal informant said White was not there. He
Speaker 3: said White was in the basement, and a federal informant
Speaker 3: said I had a chrome nine millimeter. White said first
Speaker 3: it was a Tick nine machine handgun, and then at
Speaker 3: the child testimony he said it was a nine milimeter
Speaker 3: but it was grown.
Speaker 1: So without these glaring inconsistencies pointed out or what else
Speaker 1: was hidden from the court at the time the judge
Speaker 1: made his decision on the first degree murder, criminal conspiracy,
Speaker 1: and weapons charges.
Speaker 3: He basically summarized the case and said it was a straightforward,
Speaker 3: clear cut case of joke urs dispute, and I did
Speaker 3: defend and took it upon myself to eliminate my rival
Speaker 3: once and for all by gunning him down in cold
Speaker 3: and within less than sixty seconds.
Speaker 4: I was sawing it with the automatic sendments of life,
Speaker 4: but of the passability of broad and my mom was there,
Speaker 4: so I know that basically broker Art. When I'm looking
Speaker 4: back to the whole scenario, it was basically a present
Speaker 4: with a foregun conclusion. Maybe two months after I was convicted,
Speaker 4: I received a statement that was made three weeks before
Speaker 4: matrial by what to the federal authorities, which was a
Speaker 4: part of his pleats to the federal authorities. And in
Speaker 4: the statement it was Excotory specifically stated that he was
Speaker 4: present at the chance to shooting, that Johnson was shot
Speaker 4: by Mikey Dana Vlan and I was merely a bystander,
Speaker 4: and that was just three weeks before my child. And
Speaker 4: he spoke to the faith and told him basically actual
Speaker 4: version of events, and then came into the stage and
Speaker 4: gave a own separate contra victory statement.
Speaker 3: For state prosecutor.
Speaker 1: This was clearly a Brady violation. It upended the state's case.
Speaker 1: So this one Trevor an evidentiary hearing on direct appeal.
Speaker 3: The same judge that convicted me had an evidential here
Speaker 3: in five six months after I was convicted. The federal
Speaker 3: prosecutors would understand when they carrabber the authenticity of the
Speaker 3: Watson Pree Deal statement that I had. So when they
Speaker 3: saw that I was able able to trial the case,
Speaker 3: they contacted this prosecutor and conveyed the information that he
Speaker 3: might have the wrong perpetrator. And that is how this
Speaker 3: prosecutor became aware of Franklin Watson and made arrangements to
Speaker 3: interview was one of the federal prosecutors said he specifically
Speaker 3: recall that name sax because the saxophone or something that
Speaker 3: that is saying.
Speaker 1: So it appears that Trevor's prosecutor, Richard Sachs, received this
Speaker 1: information that Trevor was indeed an innocent bystander, but somehow
Speaker 1: on the eve of the trial, Watson changed his story.
Speaker 1: This allowed Sacks to forge ahead with the prosecution anyway,
Speaker 1: in spite of the federal prosecutor's efforts.
Speaker 3: They gave it to him orally over the phone, Prosecutor
Speaker 3: Toulist and also he said he didn't receive a specific
Speaker 3: information that he might have the wrong perpetrator. So they
Speaker 3: contradicted each other. But the judge said he found both
Speaker 3: bodies to be.
Speaker 1: Truthful, even though these testimonies are indirect contradiction.
Speaker 3: And then the judge it meantal gymnastics by saying, since
Speaker 3: the federal arts or conveyed the information orally over the
Speaker 3: telephone and not in writing, the information would not amount
Speaker 3: to really because of state prosecutor had nothing physically to
Speaker 3: turn over to the defense. Wow. Yeah, But then he
Speaker 3: went even Further, I guess he knows that wouldn't pass
Speaker 3: the smell this, so he came up with this rational.
Speaker 3: He said, well, even if the document was available and
Speaker 3: turned over to the defense and the federal informal testified
Speaker 3: exactly the exculpulary statement he made in that document, he
Speaker 3: would still have found me guilty, not as a perpetrate
Speaker 3: at this time, but as a co con spirit and
Speaker 3: the laws at that time it will be sentenced exactly
Speaker 3: the same way of mandatory life with oparole.
Speaker 1: Even though the only witness, Watson, who even said anything
Speaker 1: about a criminal conspiracy, the Trevor had allegedly killed me
Speaker 1: Johnson to take out a rival dealer. That witness had
Speaker 1: just been clearly proven to lie.
Speaker 3: So I told my lawyer immediately, as we have to
Speaker 3: appeal this, and he was like, of course, So he
Speaker 3: agreed to file an appeal, and they sent me off
Speaker 3: state note and I was absolutely in the hole at
Speaker 3: that time. And weeks went by and then let us
Speaker 3: never got real response, never weeks and weeks went by,
Speaker 3: and then I reached over to my family, contact this
Speaker 3: lawyer and they find out what's going on with my appeal.
Speaker 3: He informed them that did not file an appeal within
Speaker 3: the timeframe. The thurnit the window to find the notice
Speaker 3: of appeal, so the issue became waved. According to the
Speaker 3: legal language, was basically I gave up on that issue, and.
Speaker 1: With that failure is barred from raising the issue again
Speaker 1: in state court. So he tries federal court.
Speaker 3: There's a federal magistrate that the case and he ordered
Speaker 3: that I be retried within one hundred and twenty days
Speaker 3: are re released. The state appeal his decision, and the
Speaker 3: district judge reversed the magistrates and uphel the conviction, maintaining
Speaker 3: that there was a procedural default. Therefore, the federal courts
Speaker 3: cannot entertain this issue whatsoever because the state did not
Speaker 3: get full opportunity to reverse their own mistake or their
Speaker 3: own issue. And I appeal that to the appellate court
Speaker 3: at the federal level. They ruled that they were very
Speaker 3: troubled by the circumstances of this case and they clearly
Speaker 3: articulated that they will not decide this case on the merits.
Speaker 3: Whether or not this judge is ruling that oral communication
Speaker 3: is not pretty. However, they could not welcome the procedural
Speaker 3: default the issue, but that claimed to be entertained in
Speaker 3: the federal courts. So as a result, they upheld the conviction,
Speaker 3: with the astering that they were very troubled by the circumstances.
Speaker 1: So the case breaking evidence that surfaced back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety has effectively been newter by the system since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one. The fight was fortunately revived in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: This is when the man who was in the kitchen
Speaker 1: that night, Kurt Crump, sent Trevor an affidavit.
Speaker 3: The affidavit basically clarified that he operated residence and that
Speaker 3: it is the victim. Johnson was one of his friends.
Speaker 3: That the confrontation occurred in the kitchen between Johnson and Donovan,
Speaker 3: and I intervened calm Johnson down. I left the house
Speaker 3: with Donovan in tour and he said that Johnson was
Speaker 3: angry that he was going to get his guns, and
Speaker 3: why he tried to stop him from bard. You know,
Speaker 3: Johnson shoved White aside, and a storm goes behind Donavar
Speaker 3: and said that White ran down the basement together two
Speaker 3: other guys to curve trailed behind Johnson to the front door,
Speaker 3: and in his activity he described his saw Johnson reaching
Speaker 3: the trunk when Mike Danaban shot him multiple times, and.
Speaker 1: That version of events is corroborated by the trajectory of
Speaker 1: the bullets from the back to the front. This contradicted
Speaker 1: both trial witness testimonies, and it continued to further discredit
Speaker 1: Paul White.
Speaker 3: When the shots were fired, Curve heard White and the
Speaker 3: guy from the basement coming up behind him from the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Basically that White was not a witness because he said
Speaker 3: was behind him when the shots got fired. But they
Speaker 3: heard the shots and when he turned they as really
Speaker 3: had begun to flee back down the business. He can
Speaker 3: exit the residence to a business and that basically was it.
Speaker 3: And he actually did follow up with a sworn video
Speaker 3: deposition with the corroborreate affective and I submitted all of
Speaker 3: that to the state court and it was denied it untimely,
Speaker 3: no explanation. I appealed that to the state's unpelate courts
Speaker 3: and they ruled that this evidence was untimely, but they
Speaker 3: gave their explanation. They said it was cumulative because it
Speaker 3: produced no new facts. It basically said the same thing
Speaker 3: that the defense said. They said I should have gotten him,
Speaker 3: and basically they didn't. Said I could have gone. It
Speaker 3: didn't tell me how I was going to get him.
Speaker 3: They didn't discuss the fact that the state was looking
Speaker 3: for kirk Crumb because he was one of the persons
Speaker 3: that was in the discovery as a weakness.
Speaker 1: So you heard that, right, folks. Not even the state
Speaker 1: can find this guy, yet Trevor is expected to do so.
Speaker 1: It turned out that kirk Crump had been arrested in
Speaker 1: another state under an alias before he was deported to Jamaica,
Speaker 1: so finding him would have been nearly impossible. Yet when
Speaker 1: Trevor appealed to the federal courts, they said that these
Speaker 1: two factors made the witness unreliable and so they denied
Speaker 1: him as well.
Speaker 3: Subsequent nine two tenty twenty three, friends and family finally
Speaker 3: get the resources to hire a forensic expert, doctor Sheril
Speaker 3: leg from Pittsburgh, and he compared the trial testimony from
Speaker 3: the witnesses, and he compared it to the autos report
Speaker 3: and the ballistics evidence, and he gave a report. It's
Speaker 3: his scientific conclusion that the description given by the state
Speaker 3: witnesses were fabricated because they conflicted with the autops report
Speaker 3: and described things that were physically impossible. They described the
Speaker 3: victv shot multiple times in the chess face area, when
Speaker 3: the autopsy reports showed that all the shots were going
Speaker 3: from back to front.
Speaker 1: Bullets don't have opinions. Bullets are not eye witnesses.
Speaker 3: These are facts facing somebody face to face and shoot
Speaker 3: them in the back. On top of that, in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, a private investigator in Jamaica located a federal
Speaker 3: informat and what's revealed that he actually did explain the
Speaker 3: same thing to the state prosecutor when the broad him
Speaker 3: in the office, when that I was an innoc advices standard,
Speaker 3: and then at that point he said Sacks got animated
Speaker 3: and was angry and said this would be an open
Speaker 3: and shortcase if he identified me as a perpetrator, explaining
Speaker 3: to him that he would have negative implications on his
Speaker 3: upcoming federal sentencing and the pleaar agreement that he had
Speaker 3: signed feel incoporate. So this report that they investigator submitted,
Speaker 3: along with thessarily work report, those two things are currently
Speaker 3: in front the court and.
Speaker 5: Another Acire Trevor, we wish you all the luck in court,
Speaker 5: even though you shouldn't need any well wish is in
Speaker 5: the first place, it certainly feels like you do.
Speaker 1: And if anyone listening has any information or wishes to
Speaker 1: support Trevor in any way, we'll make sure to link
Speaker 1: ways to reach them. In our episode description, you'll see
Speaker 1: that he also goes by the name Anton ford On Socialist.
Speaker 1: And with that we go to our closing. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit back here and listen to anything
Speaker 1: that Trevor has left to say. Let's let you have
Speaker 1: the last word, all right, thank you.
Speaker 3: For giving me this opportunity to address your listeners. I've
Speaker 3: endored more than my full measure of injustice. As a result,
Speaker 3: I'm driven by a desire to do my part and
Speaker 3: to contribute everything I can to bend the moralogue of
Speaker 3: the universe towards more justice. I aspire to embody the
Speaker 3: virtues of revolutionary love, radical empathy, unapologetic kindness, and unconditional freedom.
Speaker 3: I was forged to leading the bowels of a castoral
Speaker 3: cauldun of oppression, where I was subjected to unspeakable trans
Speaker 3: and tribulations at the hands of manifesting justice, systemic violence,
Speaker 3: and steed inflicted torture meant to terrorize and design to dehumanize.
Speaker 3: Yet I survived. I was grown down by the millstone
Speaker 3: of oppression, tried by the fires of cruelty, and tested
Speaker 3: in the face of unmitigated brutality. Yet I persevered to emerge,
Speaker 3: a defied, purified, and sanctified. I'm now obsessed with and
Speaker 3: possessed by an urgent need to call out, condemned and
Speaker 3: deconstruct white supremacy, to love, clear, for, and nurture all
Speaker 3: and any authentic expression of humanity. To demand liberty, equity,
Speaker 3: and the humane treatment of the entire spectrum of nature.
Speaker 3: And to end in justice and all forms of exploitation.
Speaker 3: In the last seven years, Philadelphia's Conviction Integrity Units has
Speaker 3: released over fifty inmates who were wrongfully convicted, a total
Speaker 3: of more than seven hundred years sent incascerated illegally. All
Speaker 3: of these black and brown people were sentenced to deathbine
Speaker 3: casceration is sentenced ephimistically referred to as life without the
Speaker 3: possibility of parole. Note these wrongful convictions occurred in Philadelphia County,
Speaker 3: and there are many more similar cases like mine yet
Speaker 3: to be reviewed. On June nineteen, twenty twenty three, Philadelphia
Speaker 3: District Attorneys Office released their Racial Injustice Report. This report
Speaker 3: stated unequivocally that Philadelphia's criminal justice system is racists. This
Speaker 3: is a refusable proof that the wrongful convictions uncovered and documented.
Speaker 3: We're not a matter of mistakes nor the system being broken. No,
Speaker 3: this is institutional racism at work, and like all other
Speaker 3: institutional racism, it's next serious and amounts to social engineering.
Speaker 3: This is in justice by design. I argue that the
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions in Philadelphia are so pervasive that they cannot
Speaker 3: be tolerated by a civilized society, and we cannot depend
Speaker 3: on the current lethogic by drip one case at the
Speaker 3: time judicial review process to address this pervasive systemic problem.
Speaker 3: Too many cases will be missed. We need an across
Speaker 3: the board legislative fixed the remedy the cruel and unusual
Speaker 3: harms inflicted by the state sanctioned the convictions of innocent people.
Speaker 3: We need parole eligibility for lifers. There is no parole
Speaker 3: for life as in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is one of the
Speaker 3: four states in the Union that still employs the Barrick
Speaker 3: draconian sentence in scheme of mandatory life without the possibility
Speaker 3: of parole for murder. It's time to drive Pennsylvania's archaic
Speaker 3: crime code into the modern era of Greece, mercy and
Speaker 3: second chances. In February twenty sixteen, the United States Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: in the case of two co versus Louisiana, rule that
Speaker 3: sentence in juvenile offenders that is, offender seventeen years and
Speaker 3: younger to mandatory life without parole was unconstitutional. As a
Speaker 3: result of this ruling, Pennsylvania had to re sentence over
Speaker 3: five hundred juvenile lifers, many incarcerated for over twenty years.
Speaker 3: As of today, over one hundred of these juvenile lifers
Speaker 3: have been sentenced and successfully reintegrated into society. Listen, there
Speaker 3: are more than five thousands of the lifers, many incarcerated
Speaker 3: over twenty years, languishing in prison in Pennsylvania. These other
Speaker 3: five thousand lifers are no different, not by one judge,
Speaker 3: now by one iota, from the juvenile lifers who were
Speaker 3: paroled and successfully returned to the community. There is a
Speaker 3: moral imperative, if not legal, equal protection, case to be
Speaker 3: made that parole eligibility must be extended to these other
Speaker 3: five thousand lifers. These other five thousand lifers, including myself,
Speaker 3: do not have to die in prison to keep society safe.
Speaker 3: I have a vision to make parole available to all
Speaker 3: eligible lifers in Pennsylvania. I'm talking about bending the moral
Speaker 3: arc of the universe towards more justice by ending the
Speaker 3: politics of injustice. To achieve this goals, I need substantial
Speaker 3: support and access to institutional resources. I want to create
Speaker 3: a nonprofit organization, Gordon Justice und Accountability Project, to implement
Speaker 3: a comprehensive five year plan design to achieve a roles
Speaker 3: eligibility for life within Pennsylvania. I call upon all councient
Speaker 3: just people who desire to help to join me on
Speaker 3: this mission. You may contact me on the social media
Speaker 3: platform of Instagram at my fun I am twenty three
Speaker 3: page that is fun. I am twenty three a niam
Speaker 3: two three the sign up for this cause. Thank you
Speaker 3: for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction. You can
Speaker 2: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 2: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
Speaker 2: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank
Speaker 2: our production team, Color Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well
Speaker 2: as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and
Speaker 2: Jeff Cliber. The music in this production was supplied by
Speaker 2: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
Speaker 2: follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for
Speaker 2: Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me
Speaker 2: on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a
Speaker 2: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal.
Speaker 4: Company Number One.
Speaker 2: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 2: in this show are accurate.
Speaker 4: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
Speaker 4: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 4: those of Lava for Good.