Speaker 1: We originally aired the following episode on February two thousand seventeen.
Speaker 1: It was only our twelfth episode. Peter Pringle was a
Speaker 1: death row axonoree in Ireland, and you'll hear all about
Speaker 1: that situation just after this, But he actually ended up
Speaker 1: marrying a death row exonoree out of Florida, a wonderful
Speaker 1: human named Sunny Jacobs. They're both wonderful people, or were. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Peter Pringle passed away on December thirty one, New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: at their home in Clinic Moren Costello, County, Galway. Peter
Speaker 1: devoted himself tirelessly to his family, to his beloved animals,
Speaker 1: and most of all to helping other axonorees get back
Speaker 1: on their feet and find their footing through meditation, yoga, diet.
Speaker 1: He just was a guy who never stopped giving back.
Speaker 1: And I'm honored to have known you, Peter, and I
Speaker 1: hope you're in a better place. He survived by his
Speaker 1: wife's Sonny, daughter Anna, and sons Thomas and John, as
Speaker 1: well as their twelve grandchildren. Rest in peace and power,
Speaker 1: Peter Pringle. With the police banging on the door, open
Speaker 1: up the choice to be in that lineup was the
Speaker 1: last choice I made as a free man. A year later,
Speaker 1: I ended up writing the system. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: one of those people who everyone in the world is
Speaker 1: going to think as a monster or suspect as a
Speaker 1: monster for the rest of my life, and I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have to come to peace with that. Somebody was
Speaker 1: able to look at my picture in a database and
Speaker 1: say that I was somewhere where I definitely was it.
Speaker 1: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 1: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
Speaker 1: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
Speaker 1: my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
Speaker 1: the last time, all hell broke los. But this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: Today's guest is a dear friend of mine and an
Speaker 1: extraordinary person, Peter Pringle. Pringle was accused of participating in
Speaker 1: a murder of two police officers following a bank robbery
Speaker 1: in Ireland. After his conviction, he was sentenced to death
Speaker 1: by hanging, and the police officer who had lied to
Speaker 1: get me convicted was now a retired detective superintendent. He
Speaker 1: had been promoted up to the top. Just days before
Speaker 1: the news was to be tied around his neck. Peter
Speaker 1: learned that Oreland's president had committed his since to forty
Speaker 1: years without for all good face, to farty years, which
Speaker 1: wasn't a possibility for me at the time. I could
Speaker 1: feel myself, which at the time was a reasonable Peter.
Speaker 1: Was an extraordinary story. So happy to have you here.
Speaker 1: You're also the first guest on wrongful conviction who's not
Speaker 1: born in America. Thank you. It's annor to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Yeah, I was just saying, it's
Speaker 1: it's exciting that you're here because, as I said, we're
Speaker 1: taking it international now right, your as Irish as Irish
Speaker 1: can be. So Peter, let's go back to the we're talking.
Speaker 1: This is a very interesting time right when things were
Speaker 1: going sort of crazy in your home country, right, So
Speaker 1: bring us back to what what was give us the
Speaker 1: climate and the what happened was in night there was
Speaker 1: a bank roberty in Ireland which the police save us
Speaker 1: carried up by two men three men rather and the
Speaker 1: getaway car traveling across country, small country roads, collided with
Speaker 1: a police car at a small cross roads. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a movie. Yeah. Well, and this is now the
Speaker 1: police version of events because it goes I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and so I really can't give you the the I
Speaker 1: can give you what I think is the accurate event
Speaker 1: of what happened because of my later investigations. But there
Speaker 1: was the two cars collided, there was an exchange of
Speaker 1: going far and two police officers were killed, and the
Speaker 1: three raiders escaped a cross country with three bank croppers. Yea,
Speaker 1: and where did this happen? In a town called Balhadrine
Speaker 1: and County rosscommon in Ireland. But at the time you
Speaker 1: were far away. I was in a different region, different
Speaker 1: country altogether, and whatever. That's an important detail. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: that evening one man was arrested not too far away
Speaker 1: and he had a bullet wound in his chest. And
Speaker 1: the following morning a second man was arrested and the
Speaker 1: third man escaped cross country. And two days after the crime,
Speaker 1: a police officer managed to catch the man that were chasing,
Speaker 1: actually caught hold of him and was the only police
Speaker 1: officer to see the man when the man wasn't wearing
Speaker 1: a mask. But the man struggled and got away from
Speaker 1: the police officer and ran away across the fields in
Speaker 1: stole a car and escaped again, and apparently he passed
Speaker 1: through the town where I was and got away again
Speaker 1: from the police, and twelve days after the crime, they
Speaker 1: arrested me, brought me in and framed me up for
Speaker 1: the crime I hadn't committed. Now there was there's a
Speaker 1: backstory there too, right, there was a reason there's they
Speaker 1: wanted you. Right, you were known to the cops and
Speaker 1: they were a person that they would have liked to
Speaker 1: pin something on. And this was sort of a ki. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I was known in the context that I was a
Speaker 1: political activist. I had been a political activist from the
Speaker 1: time I was sixteen years of age, and I've been
Speaker 1: involved with the i ra A and I had been
Speaker 1: interned when I was eighteen years of age. From nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven to fifty nine, I was in imprisoned in
Speaker 1: a prison camp on the Coral in Ireland without interment.
Speaker 1: It means that you're imprisoned without any charge or trial
Speaker 1: on suspicion. So they had this background. They classified me
Speaker 1: as a subversive, so it was handy for them to
Speaker 1: get me off the streets. That's the way they saw it.
Speaker 1: But at the time at the crime happened, I I
Speaker 1: had a very serious alcohol problem and I was on
Speaker 1: a binge. I was drinking. I've been drinking with buddies
Speaker 1: for days and days and days. And then they told
Speaker 1: me that they thought the police might be looking for me.
Speaker 1: I said for what. So I decided, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd have to come off the drink and go on
Speaker 1: go to the police and find out what this is
Speaker 1: all about. But before that happened, I had come off
Speaker 1: the drink. But before I could go to them, they
Speaker 1: found me in the house of a friend and arrested
Speaker 1: me and took me in. They found you in the
Speaker 1: house of friends that you were on this this binge,
Speaker 1: knowing you you're you're someone who's prone to extremes, right,
Speaker 1: some days, I've been drinking. That's a lot of drinking. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and I imagine this is um, this is not casual drinking.
Speaker 1: This isn't no, this is this was serious alcoholic drinking. Yes.
Speaker 1: And and I've been a fisherman, you see, I see,
Speaker 1: which probably saved me, because when you're going to see
Speaker 1: in a trawler, you don't drink. There's no drinking a boat.
Speaker 1: So I only drank when when I got ashore, which
Speaker 1: was a different story. And at the time of my arrest,
Speaker 1: I was a skipper of a boat carrying cargo out
Speaker 1: to the Urn Islands, which are three islands off the
Speaker 1: west coast of Ireland, Callaway off Callaway Bay, inhabited islands.
Speaker 1: So my job was to carry different cargoes on the
Speaker 1: ship boat out of the islands, landed safely and bring
Speaker 1: the boat back safely. That that was my job at
Speaker 1: the time. Not just to give some context, Peter looks
Speaker 1: like the skipper of a boat. He's very tall and
Speaker 1: strong and very well built, and he's got long flowing hair.
Speaker 1: You know, for someone like me who grew up in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: what would I know about skippers of boats? Right? We
Speaker 1: have rowboats in Central Park here. That's about it. But
Speaker 1: in any case, yes, he very much looks the part.
Speaker 1: So you were so this was your job at the time,
Speaker 1: that was my job, And as luck would have it,
Speaker 1: I I took the day off work the day that
Speaker 1: the robbery happened. I went on a binge and they
Speaker 1: used that against me, as as I had taken the
Speaker 1: day off work to gone committed. Robbery hadn't happened, But Anyway,
Speaker 1: when I was arrested and I was taken to the
Speaker 1: police station, and that's a funny thing about that too,
Speaker 1: because after twelve days on the bit on drinking, you know,
Speaker 1: I was entering into detox because this was the first
Speaker 1: day I hadn't drank. And when the arrest and took
Speaker 1: me into the police card to protectives each side of me,
Speaker 1: I had to shiver it and they said I was
Speaker 1: shivering because of fear, because of guilt, gilt. I was
Speaker 1: shivering him because I was after binge. But when they
Speaker 1: got me into the police station, they first thing they
Speaker 1: did us strip me naked and a team of detectives
Speaker 1: walked around inspected my body, which I found to be
Speaker 1: very weird, uh, And they all looked very disappointed, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know why. I later discovered they were disappointed
Speaker 1: because I didn't have a bullet wound. Because remember the
Speaker 1: guy that they arrested I had been shot told him
Speaker 1: that his friend had also been shot, so they were
Speaker 1: looking to see how the bullet wound. And when I
Speaker 1: didn't have a bullet wound, that looked pretty disappointed. But
Speaker 1: that didn't stop them framing me up. So I was
Speaker 1: arrested at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and at
Speaker 1: four o'clock they commenced interrogations. And I was interrogated from
Speaker 1: four pm Saturday afternoon until four thirty a m. On
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, twelve and a half hours. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a break when I had a visit, two breaks when
Speaker 1: I had two short visits with my lawyers in the middle,
Speaker 1: but that was twelve and twelve hours basically to see
Speaker 1: you and two detectives in the room we had that
Speaker 1: may and a team of detectives. They were coming in
Speaker 1: relays of twos and trees and and interrogating and you know,
Speaker 1: with the occasional beating in the drown in for good
Speaker 1: measure because two colleagues have been killed. And they were
Speaker 1: very very angry. And so then at four am in
Speaker 1: the morning, I was brought down into a dirty cell
Speaker 1: and put into a dirty cell, and a police officer
Speaker 1: was outside with a baton and it's the solid door,
Speaker 1: and they closed the door and then he was outside
Speaker 1: banging on the metal door with his baton so that
Speaker 1: I couldn't fall asleep. And then at eight am they
Speaker 1: took me out of the cell and at eight thirty
Speaker 1: recommenced interrogations and I was interrogated from eight thirty am
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning right through till four thirty am on
Speaker 1: Monday morning. Wow, so that's another twenty hours. And during
Speaker 1: that day it's very interesting actually in the afternoon that
Speaker 1: was on the Sunday, the what we're known in Ireland
Speaker 1: as the Heavy Gang. These were the Serious Crime Squad
Speaker 1: who had a terrible reputation. They took over the police
Speaker 1: station and they allowed they let all the local police
Speaker 1: go off to a football match or something, and so
Speaker 1: the only people in the police station with me on
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon where the Serious Crime Squad and Special Branch.
Speaker 1: And at one point in the afternoon I was being
Speaker 1: interrogated and I was they when they beat you, they
Speaker 1: make sure not to leave marks, so you get kidney
Speaker 1: punches that they I'd be standing while they'd be questioning
Speaker 1: me and one would come behind me with his pistol
Speaker 1: and you know, whack you in the in the kidneys,
Speaker 1: which is very very painful. And are they take their
Speaker 1: boots and rasp them down along my shins, you know,
Speaker 1: on the shin bone, along the skin to tear the
Speaker 1: skins and stuff like that you wouldn't think about our
Speaker 1: our stamp on your toes. These are big, heavy men,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're you're wearing a pair of canvas
Speaker 1: shoes that they've given me. Um. And at one point
Speaker 1: that I I knew I needed a break. This was,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew I was. I was getting very
Speaker 1: tired of this. So I said I wanted to use
Speaker 1: the toilet, and they said you're not going to use
Speaker 1: the toilet. You're not going to use the toilet, you know,
Speaker 1: because they use fierce language, you know. And I waited
Speaker 1: a little while and then I said to the inspector
Speaker 1: who was conducting matters, I said, it's like this now,
Speaker 1: I said, if you don't let me use the toilet,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to pistol the floor here in
Speaker 1: this office. They went PI there and he said, well
Speaker 1: he would too, he would too to be you know.
Speaker 1: So with that they left the room and they called
Speaker 1: into other detectives and they left the room, and after
Speaker 1: about ten minutes they were told they could take me
Speaker 1: out of the toilet. So the two detectives took me out.
Speaker 1: I was in front, walked out the door, down the
Speaker 1: corridor and turned right along a long corridor, and about
Speaker 1: halfway down this corridor there's an alcove to a staircase
Speaker 1: going stairs where he's going up, and the men's room
Speaker 1: was on the left, near the opposite that that's alcove.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the corridor, the door was
Speaker 1: open out onto the car park on the street. And
Speaker 1: I'm walking now, but you know, you can imagine I'm
Speaker 1: sort of hypertense because of all that's happening, and I'm
Speaker 1: walking down along the corridor, and I had the door
Speaker 1: open because they wanted me to make a run for
Speaker 1: it so they could see. And when I got just
Speaker 1: at this alcohol, a detective standing in the alcohol that
Speaker 1: I couldn't see put his foot out to trip me.
Speaker 1: But I was so hypertense I saw it and I
Speaker 1: lifted I stepped over his foot, and the detective behind
Speaker 1: he says, ah, you won't catch peether like that. And
Speaker 1: with that, the guy that had tried to trip me says,
Speaker 1: I'll fucking catch him, he says, and he cocked a
Speaker 1: newsy submchine on. He said, I'll kill the bastard. And
Speaker 1: I got an a merciful push in my back and
Speaker 1: I was propelled through the door of the men's room
Speaker 1: and up against the wall to the side, and the
Speaker 1: detective behind me, who was a special Branch detective, shielded
Speaker 1: my body, put his hands up right that sheeted my
Speaker 1: body and said into my ears, say nothing, say nothing,
Speaker 1: Say nothing. And he said to his call he shut
Speaker 1: the war and they shut the door, and there was
Speaker 1: a big we're already gone on out in the hallway.
Speaker 1: The guy with the gun was wanting to get at me.
Speaker 1: And the next thing we heard an a torrative voice saying,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? And then hand me that weapon
Speaker 1: and then to somebody as take care of that weapon,
Speaker 1: and he says, you to my office, and I gather
Speaker 1: what happened WHI was. The superintendent came in and saw
Speaker 1: what was going on and stopped it. But in the toilet,
Speaker 1: the detective that was protecting me still covered my back,
Speaker 1: covered me with his body, which is a very brave
Speaker 1: thing to do because I know the lunatic was going
Speaker 1: to shoot me. And and then when when everything here
Speaker 1: quieting down, he says to me, I need to have
Speaker 1: a pain now too, he says, after all that, and
Speaker 1: so that was it, and I was brought back and
Speaker 1: the interrogations continued, I mean, we've heard these stories from
Speaker 1: people who were wrongfully arrested and subjected to awful interrogations
Speaker 1: in America. And we don't really know much about the
Speaker 1: audience here because we haven't covered it in any detail
Speaker 1: what goes on overseas, but it sounds every bit as
Speaker 1: bad as anything that goes on in America. And of
Speaker 1: course we do know that, as you pointed out, when
Speaker 1: police officers are killed, they get crazy. Um, they get
Speaker 1: into an irrational state, and they probably do things that
Speaker 1: there they wouldn't normally do normally do And and uh
Speaker 1: so you you were subject to I mean from I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to do the math, like almost forty hours
Speaker 1: of interrogation as far, and I'm guessing that there was
Speaker 1: what we know that you didn't get any sleep. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you weren't given anything to eat. Well, no, they
Speaker 1: were bringing on our coup or something like that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a sound with you know, right, so they Okay,
Speaker 1: so at least you had that going for yourself. But
Speaker 1: that which is better than you you would have thought
Speaker 1: based on the way they're treating you. Right, But then
Speaker 1: again they like to do that, right, They like to
Speaker 1: pull you in a little bit and then put you
Speaker 1: back out and do that whole like psychological torture thing
Speaker 1: as well. And I was put into the cell down
Speaker 1: on Monday morning at four thirty am on Monday morning.
Speaker 1: I was taken out again at eight o'clock and I
Speaker 1: was interrogated into noon on Monday and then I was
Speaker 1: taken on the armed desk cort of police to Dublin
Speaker 1: to the and brought before the Special Criminal Court where
Speaker 1: I was charged with capital morderan robbery. And you never
Speaker 1: confessed the absolutely not. I should tell you this one.
Speaker 1: My father was a policeman. My father had been a
Speaker 1: police officer. Yeah, and at the time when I was
Speaker 1: a young man, and he knew of my involvement with
Speaker 1: the Republican movement, and he tried to talk me out
Speaker 1: of it, of course, and he said to me at
Speaker 1: one stage he said to me, are you if you're
Speaker 1: going to stay with these people that you're involved in now?
Speaker 1: He said, I want to tell you to give you
Speaker 1: some advice. He says, if you're ever arrested by that crowd,
Speaker 1: And I said, fun crowd. He said that crowd in
Speaker 1: the castle. Dublin Castle was the center for the special branch,
Speaker 1: and he was referring to a special branch. He said,
Speaker 1: if they deal with political matters, he says, if every
Speaker 1: you're arrested, don't answer any questions. He said, give them
Speaker 1: your name, address, and data bart and say nothing else.
Speaker 1: And I said why that, He says, because no matter
Speaker 1: what you say, they'll twist it and use it against you.
Speaker 1: So when I was arrested, and that was my policy
Speaker 1: when I had been arrested many times before, because if
Speaker 1: anything happened in the area that I was in, they
Speaker 1: would you do a sort of round up the usual suspects,
Speaker 1: anything political happened, I mean, And and they pulled me
Speaker 1: in and they questioned me, and I'd say nothing, and
Speaker 1: they'd released me and that was the end of it.
Speaker 1: So I knew about the procedures when I was arrested.
Speaker 1: But they brought me before the Special Criminal Court which
Speaker 1: was established for the trial of political offenses, which is
Speaker 1: a tribunal of three judges, no jury, and there I
Speaker 1: was charged and remanded in custody to the maximum security
Speaker 1: prison where I was put And in truth, when I
Speaker 1: got to the maximum security prison, that even on the
Speaker 1: Monday evening, and I was that was kind of interesting too,
Speaker 1: because when I was brought into what they called reception
Speaker 1: in the prison, I was stripped, of course, they stripped
Speaker 1: seratin going into the prison, and there was a senior
Speaker 1: chief officer what they called a chief officer there jailer,
Speaker 1: and they handed me prison clothes. I said that, aren't
Speaker 1: They said you have to put them one. You have
Speaker 1: to wear prison clothes. I said no, I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: political prisoner. I don't wear prison clothes. And they said,
Speaker 1: but you have to, that's it. No. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not wearing my own clothes. Back and I said, if
Speaker 1: you don't give me my own clothes, I'll go naked.
Speaker 1: They respond to that, and they said, why, well, some
Speaker 1: of them want to beat me up again. You see,
Speaker 1: wanther to beat me up. And the chief said, no, no,
Speaker 1: not that, don't do that. He said, are you serious?
Speaker 1: I said, of course, I'm serious. I said, I'm a politic,
Speaker 1: good prisoner. I'm not wearing prison clothes. And he said,
Speaker 1: give me his fucking clothes. So I got my clothes
Speaker 1: and I was brought into the prison wing where I
Speaker 1: was where everybody else was not wearing their own clothes too,
Speaker 1: because it was a political wing. You see, I was
Speaker 1: put into a cell, and I can tell you this much.
Speaker 1: To get into that prison cell with a clean bed,
Speaker 1: even though it's a narrow, army type of bed, take
Speaker 1: off my clothes and get into the bed and sleep.
Speaker 1: It was such a relief after forty eight harrowing hours
Speaker 1: and me I was detoxing during all this time that
Speaker 1: I was in the police station, and there I was.
Speaker 1: And then three months later I was given a copy
Speaker 1: of the book of evidence, and I saw in the
Speaker 1: book of evidence where one detective sergeant was claiming that
Speaker 1: on the Monday morning that would have been after thirty
Speaker 1: four hours of interrogation, I had supposedly suddenly blurted out
Speaker 1: these words. I know that you know I was involved,
Speaker 1: but on the advice of my solicitor, I'm saying nothing,
Speaker 1: and you'll have to and you'll have to prove it
Speaker 1: all the way. I'd never spoken those words, because, as
Speaker 1: I said, all I gave was my name, addressed data
Speaker 1: bed and if I wanted to use the toilet, I said,
Speaker 1: don't want to use the toilet. So for thirty four
Speaker 1: hours of them interrogating you and alternately beating you and
Speaker 1: waching people and going in and out and depriving you
Speaker 1: of sleep and everything else. All you gave them was
Speaker 1: your name address and to say to them, I am
Speaker 1: innocent of what you're accusing me of. So you your
Speaker 1: dad's advice really stuck with you absolutely because he knew
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a police officer, right, which is
Speaker 1: an ironic twist, right, the fact that your dad was
Speaker 1: a police officer and you end up being accused of
Speaker 1: killing two police officers and then tortured by police officers.
Speaker 1: It's very strange. Life is very strange, and your story
Speaker 1: is particularly insane, um so, and what an odd thing
Speaker 1: to just reflect for a second on the fact that
Speaker 1: you were just expressing how you felt a sense of
Speaker 1: relief and you almost sounded joyful at the idea that
Speaker 1: you were being put into a cell in a maximum
Speaker 1: security prison just because you had just been through this
Speaker 1: unbelievable ordeal. Because I was away from the ardal, you see, right,
Speaker 1: I was safe from it. That's why I could relax,
Speaker 1: I know. But you gotta understand, like for anyone else
Speaker 1: you know who's in society to hear that or me
Speaker 1: right now, to go to think of how that could
Speaker 1: be that you could actually feel happy about being an
Speaker 1: innocent person put into a tiny cell with a hard cot.
Speaker 1: But then again, there was the best thing you had
Speaker 1: seen in at least, yes, right, you get some sleep,
Speaker 1: So my mind didn't go to that fact that I
Speaker 1: was in the maximum security prisoner or that I was
Speaker 1: accused wrongly. At that stage in my exhaustion, all I
Speaker 1: wanted was rest. And then a funny thing happened the
Speaker 1: following morning. I woke up at seven o'clock on the
Speaker 1: following morning. The cell I was in was on the
Speaker 1: ground floor, and I woke up the following morning at
Speaker 1: seven o'clock to hear a voice outside the cell in
Speaker 1: the prison yard, outside the cell screaming, Jesus helped me,
Speaker 1: help me, help me, Oh, Jesus Christ helped me. Like
Speaker 1: I heard a scream, and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Because I didn't know. I thought
Speaker 1: maybe some prisoner was being battled or something. And then
Speaker 1: I heard otherwise saying come on, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: cut that down, come on, And there was a whole
Speaker 1: schommercial going on outside in the prison yard, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was, and I thought, really, I'm
Speaker 1: in a right hell hall here. This is this is
Speaker 1: a prisoner being battered. You know. It was only afterwards
Speaker 1: when the cell door opened I heard that actually it
Speaker 1: was a prison officer had had a nervous breakdown the
Speaker 1: yard and they were trying to take them away. That
Speaker 1: was their first morning. That was my first morning experience
Speaker 1: in the maximum security prison. What was the name of
Speaker 1: the prison, Portlicia Prison. It was in the Midlands, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome to Portlicia, which it was known it's known colloquially
Speaker 1: as the Bark. Yeah. So at this point, had you
Speaker 1: already been sentenced? No, no, just accused. They've thrown you
Speaker 1: into this prison while you await your trial, that's right.
Speaker 1: And I was sawn. There was no such thing as
Speaker 1: put me in with other people on remand I was
Speaker 1: put in with people that had already been convicted. It
Speaker 1: was a political wing, so the way it worked there,
Speaker 1: in one way, it was a tough place to be.
Speaker 1: So let's go forward to the trial and the conviction,
Speaker 1: because there's so much more to your story. So the
Speaker 1: trial takes how long does it take to get to
Speaker 1: the trial? Okay, Well, three months after I was arrested,
Speaker 1: I got a copy of the Book of Evidence and
Speaker 1: when I read the book of evidence, I saw where
Speaker 1: the tanctive sergeant was claiming that after thirty four hours
Speaker 1: of interrogation, I had suddenly blurted out these words until
Speaker 1: I said, Tom, already I know you know, yeah, which
Speaker 1: I never said. And the first time I came across
Speaker 1: these words was when I read the book of evidence,
Speaker 1: and that was the principal evidence against me. You're so
Speaker 1: called confession, my so called oral confession. So when we
Speaker 1: went to try, now the two other people had been arrested,
Speaker 1: the three of us were tried together, right, So the
Speaker 1: trial took twenty three court days over six weeks, and
Speaker 1: for the first twelve days of the trial, my name
Speaker 1: wasn't even mentioned, apart from the fact they charges were
Speaker 1: read out to me. After that, my name wasn't mentioned
Speaker 1: for twelve days. So I'm sitting in the dock. It's
Speaker 1: surreal as if I'm one of the audience, because they're
Speaker 1: talking about stuff about these other guys and nothing about me.
Speaker 1: And then after twelve days they went to my case,
Speaker 1: and when my case was then open, they opened the
Speaker 1: case against me. The police officer who had captured the
Speaker 1: guy they were chasing, whom they claimed was me went
Speaker 1: into the witness box and he was asked he see
Speaker 1: the man again, and he said, yes, he's in the
Speaker 1: court and can you point him out? And he said, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the docks. So he pointed to a
Speaker 1: man in the public gallery, standing in the public gallery
Speaker 1: and he says, that's him standing up there. And it
Speaker 1: was really bizarre because all of the public gallery in
Speaker 1: the court was packed, but all the people standing beside
Speaker 1: this man moved away from him and somehow found space,
Speaker 1: and he was left standing like this in his own
Speaker 1: like something you see in the movies, you know, And
Speaker 1: the whole courtroom started laughing. It seemed so funny. But
Speaker 1: I was convicted. They never stopped that man, they never
Speaker 1: arrested him, They allowed him leave the court. Is he
Speaker 1: your believe that was actually the guy? Oh well, he did.
Speaker 1: Police officer who had caught him in spoke to him,
Speaker 1: said that was actually the guy, and he had the
Speaker 1: and he knew I was in the dock. He knew
Speaker 1: I was the accused. And it's it's interesting, in in
Speaker 1: bizarre that we've seen this before, that the actual killer
Speaker 1: would come to the courtroom to watch the proceedings, right
Speaker 1: apparently he did. Yeah, that is a phenomenon that happened.
Speaker 1: It's a weird and and so he was allowed to
Speaker 1: leave the court. And I was convicted on the evidence
Speaker 1: of the detective sergeant that had spoken those wards I
Speaker 1: told you about that. I never said, and that was
Speaker 1: the evidence of one which I was convicted. And sense death,
Speaker 1: did your attorney bring up the fact that the other
Speaker 1: defendant had said that you had? He said to me afterwards,
Speaker 1: what that evening? He said to me, Now I should
Speaker 1: explain the situation in the special trimming court. Not like
Speaker 1: in America. I was the accused is not allowed sippy
Speaker 1: side the lawyers. Okay, So you have the the tribunal,
Speaker 1: the registrar, the solicitors, the barristers, the journalists, and then
Speaker 1: behind unar raised slight be elevated the dock. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in the dock, so I am about I suppose I'm
Speaker 1: about the equivalent of about six rows of seats behind
Speaker 1: my lawyers, and they're facing the opposite direction from me.
Speaker 1: They're facing the court as I am, So I can
Speaker 1: only see their backs, and I can't consult with them.
Speaker 1: And the only time I can consult with them is
Speaker 1: when the trial that day is over. So when I
Speaker 1: raised the matter with my lawyers at the time, they
Speaker 1: told me, oh, well, you can't be convicted now, as
Speaker 1: the detective has said the police officers made out of identification.
Speaker 1: There's no way you can be convicted. And I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about the law at the time. Well
Speaker 1: it seems logical though, understand it says, yeah, the guys here,
Speaker 1: there he is, and you're going okay, yeah, good. But
Speaker 1: the thing about it is, if that had happened in
Speaker 1: the North of Ireland, if my lawyers had been any good,
Speaker 1: they would have asked for a mistrial straightaway. They would
Speaker 1: ask for the dismissal straight away. But they didn't. And actually,
Speaker 1: my senior counsel who didn't even turn around to look
Speaker 1: at this man and didn't even turn around to look
Speaker 1: right the police officer pointed to. He said to the
Speaker 1: police officer, so you've identified the defendant as the man,
Speaker 1: and the police officer said yes. And then the prosecution
Speaker 1: council stood up and he said, in fairness to the accused,
Speaker 1: my lord, he said, I have to point out he
Speaker 1: said that this witness was shown a photograph of the
Speaker 1: accused before the trial and don't not allowed to do that,
Speaker 1: you see, So then that meant that his evidence was disallowed.
Speaker 1: Oh so his evidence of having pointed out the actual killer,
Speaker 1: who we believe was the actual killer, was disallowed because
Speaker 1: of that, But not your false confession. Were you able
Speaker 1: to testify in your defense? No, my lawyers said it
Speaker 1: no evidence against me, and that if I went into
Speaker 1: the witness box it would mitigate against me, and that
Speaker 1: the state would put me, put me apart. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't afraid to go into the witness box, and fact
Speaker 1: I wanted to go into the witness box, but my
Speaker 1: lawyers misdirected me and say, no, there's no evidence against you,
Speaker 1: so there's no need for you to go into the
Speaker 1: witness box. So again another common factor that we see
Speaker 1: a couple of common factors that we see in these
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. You're a victim of police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct,
Speaker 1: and incompetent defense attorneys, and ultimately you're convicted and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. Let's talk about that moment, and then let's
Speaker 1: move forward to the craziness that happens on the eve
Speaker 1: of your execution. Right. Yeah, Well, when the case was over,
Speaker 1: when the prosecution case in the defense case was finished,
Speaker 1: the court reserve judgment to the following day, and we
Speaker 1: were brought back to the prison to be brought up
Speaker 1: the following day to hear our judgment when we were
Speaker 1: convicted and so so you had been convicted and not sentenced. No,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been convicted. Oh, so you had to go.
Speaker 1: You had to go back to the prison. And the
Speaker 1: wonder off the court as to whether they were going
Speaker 1: to convict or not. That's a long night and it was.
Speaker 1: It was pretty clear that they were going to convict
Speaker 1: the other two guys because there was evidence against them,
Speaker 1: but there was not. The only evidence against me was
Speaker 1: this the word of this police officer which I had disputed,
Speaker 1: and plus the fact that the other police officer I
Speaker 1: had identified the actual culprit who was not me. So
Speaker 1: when we went up the following day, anyway, they convicted
Speaker 1: me and they sentenced me to death. And the sentence
Speaker 1: meant like this. The presiding member of the court said
Speaker 1: you should be taken from this court to the place
Speaker 1: in which you were last held. And this was now
Speaker 1: on the twenty seven November, and on the nineteen day
Speaker 1: of November nine in the year of a Lord nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty you should be made to suffer debt by execution
Speaker 1: in the manner prescribed by law. And then and you're
Speaker 1: also sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for the robbery. My
Speaker 1: inner response at the time was, this is crazy. If
Speaker 1: I'm going to be executed in three weeks time, I
Speaker 1: can't save the fifteen years. And if I'm going to
Speaker 1: serve the fifteen years, I can't be execution three weeks time.
Speaker 1: And that was the way my head was around the
Speaker 1: whole time. And then I was taken down underneath the
Speaker 1: court room to the cells. I was put in the cell,
Speaker 1: and then my lawyers come down to see me in
Speaker 1: this alcove that was there, and I was brought out
Speaker 1: to the alcove to me with my lawyers. But the
Speaker 1: senior lawyer hadn't yet come. And when he came in
Speaker 1: a few moments later and he came up to me,
Speaker 1: he was weeping. He was crying, he was in tears.
Speaker 1: And I found myself in this bizarre situation that I
Speaker 1: was standing up with my arm around His name is
Speaker 1: Shamus Egan, the lawyer. My arm was around him, and
Speaker 1: I said, it's okay, it's okay, don't worry, which we
Speaker 1: haven't appealed. Don't worry. And he's crying his eyes out,
Speaker 1: and I think myself, this is weird. Go backwards, this
Speaker 1: is this, this is about face. Yeah, he should be
Speaker 1: consoling me and I, you know, whereas I'm consoling him.
Speaker 1: And and so I was brought back to the prison. Now,
Speaker 1: when I was brought back to the prison, now I'm
Speaker 1: a sentence, a condemned prisoner, right, so I'm putting in
Speaker 1: a debt cell. And at first actually didn't put me
Speaker 1: in the debt cell, to put me in a in
Speaker 1: an isolation area. And they put me in an ordinary
Speaker 1: sell in an isolation area with two jailers in the
Speaker 1: style sall with me. And that night there was no
Speaker 1: sleep because these guys were sitting reading papers, rustling, talking,
Speaker 1: you know, and I couldn't get to sleep until eventually
Speaker 1: during the night I sat up and I said to them,
Speaker 1: and I said, now listen, here to meet you guys.
Speaker 1: The chief has told me that in this situation that
Speaker 1: I mean, I can have whatever jailer's I want with me.
Speaker 1: And unless you pair be totally quiet, I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask for you every night, and they went, oh Jesus,
Speaker 1: dont to that, And there was as quite as lambs
Speaker 1: and I got through the night. But then the father
Speaker 1: was a very good reverse psychology there. Yeah, it's almost
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like an active rebellion, I guess
Speaker 1: in a certain way. And also I'm a bit rebellious
Speaker 1: and an element of controlling your own situation which is
Speaker 1: completely out of your control. Yeah, And then I protested
Speaker 1: the following day and they put us into a they
Speaker 1: created what they called the death cell, which was a
Speaker 1: larger cell, and the three condemned prisoners were put in there.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't bed down again the wall. You and
Speaker 1: the other two the actual bankruppers, Yeah, yeah, you didn't
Speaker 1: know until that point, right, No, Well, I knew one
Speaker 1: of them previously because I knew him from drinking, but
Speaker 1: otherwise I didn't know them. And of course it's often
Speaker 1: asked to me, why didn't they say you weren't with them?
Speaker 1: And the fact that the matter is each of them
Speaker 1: were conducting a defense of not guilty. They were pleading
Speaker 1: not guilty, and if they had said that I wasn't
Speaker 1: with them, that would prove that they were guilty. And
Speaker 1: the charge carried a mandatory death sentence. They had nothing
Speaker 1: to lose, they weren't going to They were just trying
Speaker 1: to save their own necks. And I understood that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: in that condemned cell that was we went in. I
Speaker 1: was in there on the November and about a week
Speaker 1: before Christmas of that year. In the nine eighty the
Speaker 1: way the rule was, the condemned prisoner wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: speak to any other prisoners, and the jailers were told
Speaker 1: not to speak to condemned prisoner for their own protection,
Speaker 1: because if a jailer, like a prison guard, gets to
Speaker 1: like a condemned prisoner or have respect for condemned prisoner,
Speaker 1: it would be very difficult for them to participate in
Speaker 1: cold bloodedly taking that person's life, which is logically true.
Speaker 1: But on this particular occasion, about a week before Christmas,
Speaker 1: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
Speaker 1: might have to play my hanging. Now. They were sitting
Speaker 1: as close as I am to you, Jason, and they
Speaker 1: were discussing this as if I wasn't there, as if
Speaker 1: I wasn't a human being. They had been told that
Speaker 1: two prison officers would have to participate in my execution,
Speaker 1: and they were very concerned to know would bonus they
Speaker 1: would receive for doing this job, because of course it
Speaker 1: was outside of their normal work, and what role they
Speaker 1: would have to play. And the role they would have
Speaker 1: to play, they said, was that when my body would
Speaker 1: go down to the trapdoor of the gallows, there would
Speaker 1: be two prison officers on the knees and each one
Speaker 1: would have to pull on one of my legs to
Speaker 1: make sure my neck was broken. You know, I'm almost
Speaker 1: never at a loss for words, but I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to say about that whole Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to say about it either, but I was
Speaker 1: already angry over what they had done to me. But
Speaker 1: this made me enraged, but in a funny kind of way,
Speaker 1: and it was our kind of way. It helped me
Speaker 1: because it forced me to face the reality straight in
Speaker 1: front of me that I was likely to be hanged.
Speaker 1: How old were you? Forty one? And facing that reality,
Speaker 1: to my surprise, I discovered that I wasn't afraid to die,
Speaker 1: but what I was afraid of was that I might
Speaker 1: not be able to die with dignity. I was terribly
Speaker 1: afraid that they might succeed in taking away my human dignity,
Speaker 1: and I determined I wouldn't a lew him do that.
Speaker 1: Now they had imprisoned me physically, but they couldn't imprison
Speaker 1: my mind, or my heart or my spirit. And so
Speaker 1: I determined that it was within those realms of myself
Speaker 1: I would exist while I was in that situation. And
Speaker 1: that's what I did, in the mind, the heart, in
Speaker 1: the spirit. Yeah, and so you came within eleven days
Speaker 1: of being executed, that's correct. But before that, my my
Speaker 1: lawyer has made an application for leave to appeal, which
Speaker 1: put a stay on the execution. But then the appeal
Speaker 1: court refused my application for leave to appeal, so I
Speaker 1: got no appeal and they said a new day from
Speaker 1: the execution, which was the eighth of June. And about
Speaker 1: two weeks after the new day was set, my lawyers
Speaker 1: going on to visit me in the prison and they
Speaker 1: wanted me to allow them to put in a plea
Speaker 1: for clemency on my behalf, and I refused. I said
Speaker 1: no way. And the senior counsel, the guy who had
Speaker 1: been trying after the trial, he was in tears again,
Speaker 1: you know, very emotional man, and he's it but they
Speaker 1: might hang you, Peter Well, I said, if they do,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the first innocent person they've hanged. But
Speaker 1: I will not plea for clemency for something I didn't do.
Speaker 1: And I actually asked for a piece of paper and
Speaker 1: I wrote, gave them written instructions to that effect, because
Speaker 1: I was afraid they would actually go and do it anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh yes. The reason I said this was that government
Speaker 1: cabinet had met and discussed whether I would be executed
Speaker 1: or not and couldn't come to an agreement about it.
Speaker 1: And they were concerned that the following week the cabinet
Speaker 1: was going to meet again and the cabinet might decide
Speaker 1: to execute me. So they went away very upset, and
Speaker 1: I went back to my cell. And the following week
Speaker 1: when the cabinet met, I later learned that the Prime
Speaker 1: ministers before any discussion would happen and said we're not
Speaker 1: we're not executing Pringle. It would be political suicide. And
Speaker 1: then they instructed the President to commute the sentence. And
Speaker 1: the President commuted sentence from debt to forty years penal
Speaker 1: servitude without any possibility of parole or mission, and I
Speaker 1: was put out into the general prison population where I
Speaker 1: could talk to people and I could exercise in the yard.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like a I mean, I mean better
Speaker 1: than being executed, I guess, but not by a whole lot,
Speaker 1: because essentially it's a death sense. You're forty one years old,
Speaker 1: You've got forty years in prison. You're gonna die in prison, right,
Speaker 1: But that's not what happened, No, because at the time
Speaker 1: I I knew I had three options. You know, I
Speaker 1: could face the farty years, which wasn't a possibility for
Speaker 1: me at the time. I could kill myself, which at
Speaker 1: the time was a reasonable proposition, not let them refuse,
Speaker 1: to allow them to probably keep me for farty years.
Speaker 1: But then I realized if I did that, they'd say
Speaker 1: I had done it out of Germors. So I couldn't
Speaker 1: allow that. So I determined I was going to try
Speaker 1: and prove my innocence, and ultimately you did fifteen years later.
Speaker 1: So let's let's walk through that because I want to
Speaker 1: get to the next phase of your life, which is
Speaker 1: so extraordinary. Well, I should also tell you that there
Speaker 1: was no law labory in the prison, So how did
Speaker 1: you go about for being here innocence? I had a
Speaker 1: friend who worked in the university outside and she had
Speaker 1: access to the law libra in the university, and I
Speaker 1: arranged with her the photocopy sections of law books and
Speaker 1: find out which were the best criminal law books and
Speaker 1: constitution law books and follow copy sections of them. You
Speaker 1: had plenty of time to study, but like Shan, I
Speaker 1: couldn't study. You see, I left school when I was
Speaker 1: thirteen years of age, and it worked all my life,
Speaker 1: and I know form of education, and my anger was
Speaker 1: such that I just couldn't read the documents understandable. So
Speaker 1: I determined I had to try and learn how to relax.
Speaker 1: So I got a friend to leave me in a
Speaker 1: little book on yoga with illustrations of the postures, and
Speaker 1: I began to teach myself yoga in the cell on
Speaker 1: my own, and teach myself meditation. And as I mastered
Speaker 1: those two disciplines, my anger got less and I was
Speaker 1: able to study. And I spent my time studying. And
Speaker 1: then what happened was other guys in the prison would
Speaker 1: come to me with their documents, with their cases and
Speaker 1: asked me what I look at their cases, and I said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: and I would because it was helping them. Was also
Speaker 1: helping me, and so that's why I did most of
Speaker 1: my time in the jail. I in the prison, I
Speaker 1: studied law as best I could, and eventually in January two,
Speaker 1: I opened my own case on my own behalf in
Speaker 1: the High Court in Dublin under the Irish Constitution. Now
Speaker 1: I know money, I know lawyers, so I had to
Speaker 1: prepare the case myself, file it myself, and conduct the
Speaker 1: case myself. So that which meant that they had to
Speaker 1: take me on their armed escort of military and police
Speaker 1: up to the court where I represented myself against the
Speaker 1: top lawyers of the state and the case ran from
Speaker 1: January until May when my conviction was overturned. But in
Speaker 1: July two I want an order for discovery in the
Speaker 1: High Court and that that that's another I'll tell you
Speaker 1: there's there's reams to this story that it's kind of
Speaker 1: important to say this one to you. One of the
Speaker 1: cars used in the crime had been stolen and goal
Speaker 1: away on the second of July. The crime happened the seventh.
Speaker 1: It was stolen on the second of July between eleven
Speaker 1: p m and eleven forty five p m from the
Speaker 1: from the car park of a hotel right and the
Speaker 1: evidence of the stealing of that car was allowed into
Speaker 1: the trial because that court ruled that the stealing of
Speaker 1: the car formed part of the res geste of the offense,
Speaker 1: which meant that the person who stole the car had
Speaker 1: done the killing right. Okay, but on the date of
Speaker 1: the car was stolen. At the time the car was stolen,
Speaker 1: I was delivering four thousand concrete blocks on the Ardon
Speaker 1: Islands with fifty more or more witnesses there now. I
Speaker 1: delivered the concrete block about five years after I had
Speaker 1: been I was imprisoned. I got a letter from my
Speaker 1: former boss, the guy who owned a little company that
Speaker 1: owned the boat that I was scrippling, asking me if
Speaker 1: I had been paid for the delivery and for the
Speaker 1: blocks to the value of six hundred pounds, which I
Speaker 1: didn't know about because that wasn't my role. My role
Speaker 1: was simply to be the scriport to take the cargo out.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what the what the cost. I
Speaker 1: wrote back and told him that, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: we believe you, We understand that. But he said, the
Speaker 1: man that you delivered to has refused to pay his bill.
Speaker 1: And five years later, when the threatened court action to
Speaker 1: get the money. He told them that he had paid
Speaker 1: me the money because I'm imprisoned. You see, I'm imprisoned
Speaker 1: doing forty years for murder, capital warden m robbery. So
Speaker 1: he was going to blame me. So I wrote him
Speaker 1: out of a letter saying that of course i'd never
Speaker 1: ha done it. And when the case came for court,
Speaker 1: the man never appeared in court, and the court ruled
Speaker 1: against him and accepted my account, and the matter was finished.
Speaker 1: But I went into the book of evidence, and I
Speaker 1: saw that my boss supposedly had made a statement of
Speaker 1: the book of evidence saying I sailed at eleven o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning and come back at eleven o'clock that night,
Speaker 1: which would have meant I had the possibility of Steve
Speaker 1: in the car, okay, Whereas I sail at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the afternoon and didn't get back to goa till
Speaker 1: two am the following morning. Now I knew he had
Speaker 1: a peuter, and I knew as a charge of the
Speaker 1: accountant he kept all records. So I wrote him and said,
Speaker 1: if you were a record of the sailing on that day,
Speaker 1: and he said he had you sail at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the afternoon and you got back at two am
Speaker 1: in the morning. So I wrote to him again, as ever,
Speaker 1: then tell me this, why did you make this statement,
Speaker 1: this false statement. I never made a statement. Oh, they
Speaker 1: made it up. They made it up. He never made
Speaker 1: a state your conviction to try and get me convicted.
Speaker 1: He never made a statement, and he was never even
Speaker 1: asked to make a statement. And so later when I
Speaker 1: got a lot more discovery, I discovered there were actually
Speaker 1: twenty three prosecution witnesses in the case had never made
Speaker 1: any statements, although there were statements in the book of
Speaker 1: evidence attributed to them, and had he He told me
Speaker 1: that if he had been asked to make a statement,
Speaker 1: he would have told the truth. And had he been
Speaker 1: asked to made his statement and told the truth, I
Speaker 1: couldn't have been convicted. So I asked him would he
Speaker 1: make an affidavits. When he swearing afidavits at that night,
Speaker 1: drafted us and Affidavid sent it out to him. He
Speaker 1: got it notarize and swore it and sent it back
Speaker 1: into me. So when I heard in the court and
Speaker 1: the High Court and looked for an order of discovery
Speaker 1: and the lawyers for the statement saying no he's only fishing.
Speaker 1: He hasn't got anything. I said, yes, I have, when
Speaker 1: I produced two copies of this Affiday. But I said,
Speaker 1: I have here the sworn Affiday with a prosecution witness
Speaker 1: stating clearly that he not only did he not make
Speaker 1: the statement attributed to him, but he was never even
Speaker 1: asked to make a statement. And I offered it to
Speaker 1: the court and the judge wasn't accepted. And I offered
Speaker 1: it to the state lawyers, and they wouldn't accept it,
Speaker 1: because of course if they had accepted it, they would
Speaker 1: have had to deal with it. But wouldn't the judge
Speaker 1: want to deal with it? You would think, no, no,
Speaker 1: do don't forget. He wasn't being I mean, he was
Speaker 1: looking at me as if I was a piece of dirt.
Speaker 1: So what happened there? So I won my order for discovery?
Speaker 1: And then when I got my order for discovery, didn't
Speaker 1: I get a photo copy of the notebook of the
Speaker 1: detective who had claimed I'd spoken those words in a
Speaker 1: particular period of interrogation and he has warned us on
Speaker 1: note and that he had recorded the interrogation and recorded
Speaker 1: these words. And when I got his notebook, I saw
Speaker 1: in the notebook. It's very clear he wrote the words
Speaker 1: in before the period of interrogation and which he claimed.
Speaker 1: I said, that's tricky, but they take nothing against me,
Speaker 1: and they decided this was what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very organized and very insidious, very coordinated.
Speaker 1: I mean that the lengths that they went to to
Speaker 1: to get the conviction, to protect the conviction, to to
Speaker 1: basically run rough shot over the truth are extraordinary to
Speaker 1: still out of by the way, which I'll tell you
Speaker 1: about as we get on through this. But in January
Speaker 1: of a human rights lawyer offered me his help. When
Speaker 1: I took it, we got a legal team, we went
Speaker 1: to the Court of Criminal Appeal on the new legislation,
Speaker 1: and the case ran from And the police officerhood lied
Speaker 1: to get me convicted was now a retired detective superintendent.
Speaker 1: He had been promoted up to the top. By the way,
Speaker 1: the cops who lied in the trial were all promoted,
Speaker 1: and the cop who saved my life and who refused
Speaker 1: to lie in the trial was never promoted. I am
Speaker 1: I not surprised. I mean, this is such a web
Speaker 1: of absolutely lies and bad actors and everything else. So
Speaker 1: your convictions thrown out your your freed right, and then
Speaker 1: you told me a great story about your first day
Speaker 1: on the outside, or your first was the first thing
Speaker 1: you did when you got out. Well, when I was
Speaker 1: released out of the special coin record, out on the street,
Speaker 1: I was met with a plethora of media people with
Speaker 1: microphones and cameras and ours took my face, drong questions
Speaker 1: at me, and I didn't have time to sort of
Speaker 1: realize that I was free, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I didn't have time to let it sink in. And
Speaker 1: then I was taken by my lawyer to the TV station,
Speaker 1: the national TV station where I was. We were interviewed
Speaker 1: for the news that evening, and then my friends organized
Speaker 1: a party. A bunch of people had set up at
Speaker 1: the fence committee for me outside, and they took a
Speaker 1: floor of a pub and organized a big party. And
Speaker 1: there was a huge, big party going on, and we
Speaker 1: went to that and that went on all that evening
Speaker 1: and everybody got drunk except me. I wasn't drinking. And
Speaker 1: I stayed with two friends that night in their house.
Speaker 1: And the following morning, when I got up, I was
Speaker 1: the first one up. I went down to the kitchen
Speaker 1: and I went out to the back garden, which was
Speaker 1: a lovely long back garden, and the sun was shine,
Speaker 1: was a beautiful day. There were no big walls around me.
Speaker 1: There was flowers and trees and bushes. And I walked
Speaker 1: down the garden and at the bottom of the garden
Speaker 1: there was a big old apple tree, really big, old,
Speaker 1: gnarled do you know that they'd become gnarled apple tree?
Speaker 1: And I could hear in the distance the sound, the
Speaker 1: background noises of the city. But I went to this
Speaker 1: tree and I stood with the three and I realized
Speaker 1: that and all the time I had been in jail,
Speaker 1: and all the time the trouble I had gone through,
Speaker 1: this tree was growing in this garden on its own,
Speaker 1: with nature, producing its fruit and shedding its leaves every year,
Speaker 1: year and year out, doing its own thing, and immune
Speaker 1: from the corruption, the greed, and the rat race, the
Speaker 1: injustices and everything else. And I put my arms around
Speaker 1: the trunk of the tree, and I wept, and I released,
Speaker 1: And that's when I knew for certain I was free.
Speaker 1: That was in So that's twenty one years ago. And
Speaker 1: then another extraordinary thing happened in your life, which is
Speaker 1: something I'm very well aware of. Well, something or someone. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: three years after I got out. And it was difficult
Speaker 1: times for a while ago after I got out, because
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to fit into society again when you're
Speaker 1: locked up. But I had yoga meditation and I used
Speaker 1: that and a little bit of prayer. And three years after,
Speaker 1: one day, I got a phone call from an American
Speaker 1: lady who told me her name was Sunny Jacobs. And
Speaker 1: she told me she was speaking at a meeting three
Speaker 1: days later where I was, and invited me to come
Speaker 1: in here and talk. And I said, what are you
Speaker 1: going to talk about? And she said the death penalty
Speaker 1: and I said, yes, I'm interested in that. I'll come along.
Speaker 1: And I brought two friends and I went along and
Speaker 1: it was a room above a public course. At one
Speaker 1: o'clock on a Friday, I went up to the room.
Speaker 1: There was nobody there, and after a few minutes, the
Speaker 1: door opened on the fire side of the room and
Speaker 1: this little woman walked in and I walked over to
Speaker 1: her and I said, you must be Sunny Jacobs, and
Speaker 1: she looked up at me with a big smile, and
Speaker 1: that's how we met. And I listened to her story
Speaker 1: and I was hugely emotionally upset by listening to it,
Speaker 1: and I knew I had to talk with her. And
Speaker 1: I said to her, I need to talk with you,
Speaker 1: and she said, got to be good. I need to
Speaker 1: talk with you too, And but she said, I'm leaving
Speaker 1: in an hour. This was on a Friday. So where
Speaker 1: are you going? She says, I have to go to
Speaker 1: Cork for the annual General Meeting of Amnesty into the
Speaker 1: Irish section of an inst International. I should be there
Speaker 1: at eight o'cok tomorrow evening. I said, stay over with me.
Speaker 1: I said, on I guardantee, I'll get you down there.
Speaker 1: And so she went how far away with Cork four
Speaker 1: for hours drive and she went to Mary Lawler, who
Speaker 1: was the General Secretary of Amnesty at the time, and
Speaker 1: asked Mary, because of course she was unsure about whether
Speaker 1: she should go with the stranger in a strange country.
Speaker 1: And Mary knew me and knew in my story, and
Speaker 1: she said, oh, that's wonderful, thank you, Peter. Yeah, yeah, great.
Speaker 1: So we transferred Sunday's case from her car into my
Speaker 1: audioloppy and she stayed in my house that night. In
Speaker 1: the following morning, we went to my friend on the
Speaker 1: cafe and go away. We went to his place for breakfast.
Speaker 1: He asked us to come for breakfast and he said
Speaker 1: to me, are you driving her down the Cork? And
Speaker 1: I said yeah. He says, you can't go drive something
Speaker 1: to car conductor loppy. He said here, and he reaches
Speaker 1: hand in his pocket and he gave me the keys
Speaker 1: of his Mercedes. He said, just get it back to
Speaker 1: me tomorrow morning. So we drove sunny down to Cork
Speaker 1: in the Mercedes. We traveled in style. And as we
Speaker 1: were on the car Ferny crossing the river, Shannon eating
Speaker 1: a pack lunch which he had made up for us,
Speaker 1: she said to me, what's your interest in all of this?
Speaker 1: And I told her that I too had been wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted and sentenced to death. And she said, you see
Speaker 1: it got through very well, She said, and how did
Speaker 1: you get through so easy, so well? And I said,
Speaker 1: yoga and meditation first of all. By the way, this
Speaker 1: is a hell of a first date. I gotta give
Speaker 1: it up to you. For a guy who had been
Speaker 1: in prison for fifty news, you got game, okay, and
Speaker 1: so so that. Yeah, it's extraordinary. As I keep using
Speaker 1: that work because I don't know what else other words
Speaker 1: to use the fact that Sonny, of course, had also
Speaker 1: been sensed that that for a similar crime that happened
Speaker 1: a continent away five six thousand miles from where you
Speaker 1: were charged and convicted. She was charged and convicted. But
Speaker 1: both of you were actually and absolutely innocent, and you
Speaker 1: served similar amounts of time in prison. She actually a
Speaker 1: little bit longer than you, and both of you had
Speaker 1: more in common than that, right, We both were committed
Speaker 1: to a lifestyle of meditation and yoga. We're vegetarians, right,
Speaker 1: So it's sort of the universe organizing itself in a way.
Speaker 1: That is, it was inevitable that we should come together,
Speaker 1: if you think about serendipity, synchronicity and everyone to cause metaphysics.
Speaker 1: So then you drive her there. We drive her there
Speaker 1: and the cork to car. Now, honestly, had got us
Speaker 1: two rooms in a hotel across from the hotel of
Speaker 1: what the convention was, and each of us lay on
Speaker 1: a bed separately, and for three and a half hours
Speaker 1: we discussed forgiveness. Well that was the key forgiveness. And
Speaker 1: then I brought her back to her room and she
Speaker 1: said to me, would I call her when as I
Speaker 1: leave at six in the morning, would I call her
Speaker 1: in the morning, I said yes, So on the morning,
Speaker 1: I knocked at the door and she got up, and
Speaker 1: we said good bye to each other and we'd keep
Speaker 1: in touch. I had got my friend's card and dropped
Speaker 1: back to go away. Did you guys kiss or was
Speaker 1: there any physical interaction? Old hands? Exactly what happened was
Speaker 1: a perfect gentleman. He said to me, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to think I'm not attracted to but I'm in
Speaker 1: a kind of a relationship and I like to try
Speaker 1: to leave an honorable life. And that's what clicked in
Speaker 1: my mind, because at that point in my life I
Speaker 1: had no time for bs, you know, And so that
Speaker 1: impressed me. How long have you been out of prison?
Speaker 1: By this time, I was out three years, so almost
Speaker 1: a yeah, he was out right, so you've been not
Speaker 1: sex and he'd not three Okay, fine, that's not the
Speaker 1: most joke. And say, you see that she's five years
Speaker 1: older than me, right, I got it five years out
Speaker 1: before me, and anyway, okay, So then that was what happened.
Speaker 1: And then we hadn't made any arrangement. But when he
Speaker 1: got home he called me, and that's and I knew
Speaker 1: that it had clicked for him too, so then you
Speaker 1: ultimately were married, which is my favorite part of this
Speaker 1: story actually. But what we actually did was about ten
Speaker 1: years ago, we decided that we were going to exchange
Speaker 1: vows with each other, and we bought two clatter of
Speaker 1: rings and on the winter salts that's the shore to
Speaker 1: stay of the year, because Sunny said we should do
Speaker 1: it on the shorter stay of the year because we
Speaker 1: don't want to have a long engagement. We gave rings
Speaker 1: to each other in the morning, and we were engaged
Speaker 1: in the evening, and we went down to the seashore
Speaker 1: with our dogs and we exchanged vows on the seashore
Speaker 1: in the evening time, and the sun and the moon
Speaker 1: were both in the sky at the same time, which
Speaker 1: we taught was very auspicious. And then what happened. We
Speaker 1: were having some difficulty when we leave the country coming
Speaker 1: back because we're given Sunny hassle about whether she could
Speaker 1: come back into the country or not. And this was
Speaker 1: because she was with me, you see. So we decided
Speaker 1: we're going to get married. But getting married in Ireland
Speaker 1: is much more amocratically difficult than it is in America.
Speaker 1: And we found out that you could apply in New
Speaker 1: York and get a license and get married the next day.
Speaker 1: So we had no money to come to New York.
Speaker 1: So now at that stage, by the way I was,
Speaker 1: we were existing on my state pension, which is like
Speaker 1: very small. So the theater that had put on The
Speaker 1: Exonerated the film called contacted us. They were doing a
Speaker 1: producers weekend and they wanted us to come and speak
Speaker 1: at two dinners that they were hosting. And Sunny says, oh,
Speaker 1: we wanted to go to New York to get married,
Speaker 1: and they said, you gotta get married in New York.
Speaker 1: We'll host the wedding. So they hosted the wedding. They
Speaker 1: brought us to New York and they follow us up
Speaker 1: in the hotel and they hosted the wedding. So they
Speaker 1: were about a hundred and twenty and thirty people at
Speaker 1: the wedding. We only knew six or seven of them.
Speaker 1: None of our family were there. It was so funny.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious. Brookshields, Amy Irving, Marlotte Thomas, and Stockard
Speaker 1: Channing were at the wedding. There were four people actress
Speaker 1: is who have played Sunny in the play The ex
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Play, Yeah, and sunny story is one of six
Speaker 1: that are profiled in this remarkable play in which so
Speaker 1: many incredible actresses have portrayed you. Um, and so they
Speaker 1: showed up at the wedding. So you have this sort
Speaker 1: of celebrity wedding which adds a certain element of strangeness
Speaker 1: to the whole thing. The best part of it was
Speaker 1: that when Sonny was asked do you take this man
Speaker 1: to be your awfully weather husband, the four actresses stepped forward.
Speaker 1: I said, with Sonny, we do hilarious. That's amazing, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Fun. So you may actually be married to
Speaker 1: five women at this point. Hard to say, um, and
Speaker 1: I'm not judging you. I'm just saying you might want
Speaker 1: to have somebody look into it. Um. So the there's
Speaker 1: a wonderful announcement if you google Peter Pringle and Sunny
Speaker 1: Jacob's wedding. My belief I can't prove this is that
Speaker 1: you're the only two Death row exonorees who have ever
Speaker 1: been married after exonerations, because there are very few women
Speaker 1: who have been sentenced to death and even many fewer
Speaker 1: who have been exonerated. So you really, you really hit
Speaker 1: the jackpot. And so I do want to put in
Speaker 1: a plug because now Sonny and Peter operate a phenomenal
Speaker 1: organization called the Sunny Sanctuary and it is sort of
Speaker 1: a haven or whatever you want to call it where
Speaker 1: they bring a newly exonerated people over to the coast
Speaker 1: of Ireland and help them reintegrate, right it's probably the
Speaker 1: best word, and get their get their lives back, and
Speaker 1: get their their spirits back, so to speak. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of healing from the inside out. We helped
Speaker 1: them to release the anger and business that they hardy
Speaker 1: over what was done to them and paint the picture
Speaker 1: of the Sunny Sanctuary for people out there who can't
Speaker 1: really visualize, well we we managed. We managed to rent
Speaker 1: a three bedroom house on four teen acres on the
Speaker 1: side of a hill overlooking a lake and there's there's
Speaker 1: hazel woods down to the lake and each bedroom is
Speaker 1: on sweet so that every person who comes as their
Speaker 1: own bathroom and toilet. And it's on the coast. It's
Speaker 1: four miles from the sea, but it's it's only just
Speaker 1: above the lake and it's in a very it's at
Speaker 1: the end of the road. The nearest store is six
Speaker 1: miles away. There's more than a few animals there right, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we have let a see. Now we have three cats
Speaker 1: and four dogs, four hens and five goats and the
Speaker 1: partridge in a pear tree something like that. I jokingly
Speaker 1: call it the menagerie. Sometimes we melt the goats and
Speaker 1: sunny process of the milk and sunny makes wonderful goats cheese,
Speaker 1: three different types of gold cheese. So we also have
Speaker 1: what they call a poly tunnel, which is the equivalent
Speaker 1: of a greenhouse, where we grow on vegetables. So when
Speaker 1: people come to us, we feed him on organic food
Speaker 1: and organic free range of eggs, and they have of
Speaker 1: milk and cheese, homemade goat cheese, organic goat cheese. And
Speaker 1: do you teach them meditation yoga? Yes, as we share
Speaker 1: with them. We don't conduct therapies as such. But what
Speaker 1: what happens is that when they come at first, they
Speaker 1: will tell us what has happened to them, They release
Speaker 1: the things they need to release, and then we can
Speaker 1: share with them how we dealt with the issues that
Speaker 1: are causing them problems and open the way for them
Speaker 1: to the realization that actually they're more than just an exonary.
Speaker 1: They're not just a person who's been in prison. They're
Speaker 1: more than that. The fact that they were wrongfully imprisoned
Speaker 1: just an episode in their life, and it's an episode
Speaker 1: they can put behind them now. It always travels with them,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to live in the past, and
Speaker 1: they have an opportunity of realize themselves as full human beings.
Speaker 1: And we bring them out and socialize with our friends,
Speaker 1: and we go to events and and to the theater,
Speaker 1: and so they they get a chance to mingle with
Speaker 1: people as as hard and already people. It's so inspiring
Speaker 1: to me and to many of us who work in
Speaker 1: the Innocence movement that a very large percentage of Axonorees
Speaker 1: are driven to help others who have gone through a
Speaker 1: similar ordeal. And so it's UH. I think the most
Speaker 1: powerful thing I've witnessed, and I was asked this question yesterday,
Speaker 1: is the coming together of Axonore's and the sharing of
Speaker 1: the experiences and the healing that comes from that, uh,
Speaker 1: and from being with others who are the only people
Speaker 1: alive who can possibly begin to understand what you've been through.
Speaker 1: Even though every situation is unique and every story is unique,
Speaker 1: but still the experience is more similar than not, and
Speaker 1: it's so wonderfully inspiring to hear the stories, both of
Speaker 1: your stories and the fact that they're now one and
Speaker 1: and what you've done and how you've turned this unimaginable
Speaker 1: set of circumstances into such a force for positivity and
Speaker 1: change and good is something that I think everyone who's
Speaker 1: listening and and so many others are going to be
Speaker 1: affected by. And it's inspiring me and so many others
Speaker 1: to want to do more and help more, or as
Speaker 1: many as we possibly can. I should before we have
Speaker 1: to wrap this up if any of you are listening
Speaker 1: now and haven't heard the Sunny Jacob's episode, but I
Speaker 1: strongly encourage everyone to check out the Sunny Jacob's episode.
Speaker 1: But before we sign off, Peter, are there any last
Speaker 1: words that you'd like to share with the audience. Learn
Speaker 1: not to carry anger. Anger is a natural, national, natural phenomenon.
Speaker 1: We get angry, I get angry, everybody gets angry. But
Speaker 1: don't hold it. Don't hold it. Don't hate because hate
Speaker 1: consumes the hater. An anger consumes the angry person. That
Speaker 1: doesn't consume the person you're angry against, and its damage
Speaker 1: your held. Let it go and try and be into
Speaker 1: spirit of forgiveness, because that's where your real strength is.
Speaker 1: Our real strength is in the fact that we decided
Speaker 1: we would move towards healing and forgiveness and det go
Speaker 1: of all those negative emotions. And I wish everyone the best.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis.
Speaker 1: With research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flom. Ravul Conviction is
Speaker 1: a product action of Lava for Good Podcasts and association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one h