Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of January twenty fourth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, gunfire erupted in front of a house
Speaker 1: in Detroit, Michigan. Twenty five year old Jamon Mcatyre ran
Speaker 1: toward a nearby alley, where his assailants finished the job. Initially,
Speaker 1: two alleged witnesses claimed that they didn't see the assailants,
Speaker 1: but a few weeks later, one of them identified three
Speaker 1: men from a photo array, including Anthony Legion. Despite claims
Speaker 1: of innocence from all three men, an alleged cellmate claimed
Speaker 1: that they said differently in private, but this is wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
Speaker 1: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
Speaker 1: at eight three three two oh seven four six sixty
Speaker 1: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
Speaker 1: and what you've done to help the cause, even if
Speaker 1: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
Speaker 1: on social media, and you might just hear yourself in
Speaker 1: a future episode. Call us A three three two oh
Speaker 1: seven four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: where we've got another Detroit case that involves a drug house,
Speaker 1: a dirty cop playing both sides, a dead body, no
Speaker 1: white witnesses, only fabrications, including a jailhouse snitch, and it
Speaker 1: appears that a drug syndicate may have been pulling a
Speaker 1: lot of the strings here and joining us, one of
Speaker 1: the survivors of this insane story, Anthony Legion, Anthony, thanks
Speaker 1: for doing.
Speaker 2: This with us, Thanks for having me and returning.
Speaker 1: To help tell this story. A guy who we met
Speaker 1: in New Orleans at the twenty twenty four Innocent Network Conference,
Speaker 1: civil rights attorney Wolf Muller. Wolf, welcome back to Ronful Conviction.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: And you may remember Wolf from Daryl Siggers's story. Another
Speaker 1: case out of Detroit where it seems like police misconduct
Speaker 1: was basically the norm, especially when it came to fabricating
Speaker 1: witness testimony and using jailhouse snitches.
Speaker 3: The Detroit Police Department and particularly the homicide section in
Speaker 3: the late nineteen eighties, all through the nineteen nineties and
Speaker 3: extending the early two thousands, if they had a weak case,
Speaker 3: they would recruit some snitch, typically from what would be
Speaker 3: the ninth floor jail, where you're only supposed to be
Speaker 3: held there for about forty eight hours before you get
Speaker 3: transferred to the county jail. But some of these guys
Speaker 3: on a ninth floor were in the ninth floor lockup
Speaker 3: for a year or more and they had sheets over
Speaker 3: their cells which were off to the side. They had VCRs,
Speaker 3: they had TVs, they had food, they had drink, they
Speaker 3: had everything because they were regular snitches for the DPD.
Speaker 3: And what three of them have said under oath is
Speaker 3: we would get discovery packages from the detectives, told to
Speaker 3: memorize it, a handwritten statement from the homicide detective saying
Speaker 3: how this guy confessed and all you had to do
Speaker 3: was sign it. And so they had these extra benefits
Speaker 3: that nobody knew about. And then one guy got off
Speaker 3: on a second degree murder charge which was twelve to
Speaker 3: twenty five years after doing seven years, and the testimony
Speaker 3: from one of the homicide detectives was he's helped us
Speaker 3: out in about twenty cases. Well, there is no way
Speaker 3: any reasonable juror would ever listen to something like that
Speaker 3: and think twenty different people who didn't know you confessed
Speaker 3: to murder.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe this is real life, but here
Speaker 1: we are. And if you don't remember the case of
Speaker 1: Larry Smith Junior, well, we're going to have it thinked.
Speaker 1: In the episode description, the circumstances are similar to what
Speaker 1: happened to Anthony and his co defend. It's Marvin Cotton
Speaker 1: and DeVante Parks in the city that they all called home.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a Detroit, Michigan seventies eighties. My
Speaker 2: mother and father had been married until my father passed,
Speaker 2: so for over thirty years. So, you know, I had
Speaker 2: a structured home. You know, Detroit was on the rise.
Speaker 2: You know, it was jobs, the factories. You know. I
Speaker 2: had a pretty pretty good childhood. Went to school, graduated
Speaker 2: from Cody High School, played sports, you know, just a
Speaker 2: normal childhood life, engaged with the young ladies in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Prior to my incarceration, I was twenty seven years old.
Speaker 2: I had two children by one young lady, and right
Speaker 2: before I got incarcerated, she had found out she had cancer.
Speaker 2: And when she found out, our relationship wasn't on the
Speaker 2: best of terms. So just imagine how that felt when
Speaker 2: she found out that she had that and already wasn't
Speaker 2: the best, you know, boyfriend, So it was difficult. Me
Speaker 2: and her had kind of split up, but I had
Speaker 2: to step up to the plate, and you know, take
Speaker 2: care of my children. My son who was two and
Speaker 2: my daughter was like seven at the time. So I
Speaker 2: had them living with me, and you know, they would
Speaker 2: go back and forth, but she was going through these treatments,
Speaker 2: so I had the children with me for the most
Speaker 2: of the part. And you know, I was in to
Speaker 2: real estate, investing money in real estate and things of
Speaker 2: that nature. So I was at home a lot with
Speaker 2: the children.
Speaker 1: At twenty seven years old, Dantony had a full plate
Speaker 1: and a meaningful career with no real connection to the victim,
Speaker 1: Jamon McIntyre or what became the crime scene a place
Speaker 1: called the Third Street House.
Speaker 3: From all the police reports, and what the police officers
Speaker 3: knew is this was a drug house maintained and kept
Speaker 3: by Jimmon McIntyre, who was related either by blood or
Speaker 3: they call them plain nephews with the Johnson crime family,
Speaker 3: the drug family that ran a lot of dope out
Speaker 3: of Detroit at that time in the early two thousands,
Speaker 3: late nineties. We found out later years and years later,
Speaker 3: a nephew of the Johnsons, Santonian Adams, was a Detroit
Speaker 3: police office there at the time of the crime was
Speaker 3: actually running security for the Johnson crime family. As a
Speaker 3: Detroit police.
Speaker 1: Officer, Anthony's only connection to the Third Street house was
Speaker 1: through his childhood friend Marvin Cotton.
Speaker 2: I actually didn't know anything about what was going on
Speaker 2: in the house or the players. Only person that I
Speaker 2: knew and vaguely knew him was Jamal McIntyre. Marvin and
Speaker 2: Jamon were good friends, and I had went over there
Speaker 2: one time with Marvin. We stopped over there. Marvin and
Speaker 2: Jama was having conversations and they was in their own
Speaker 2: little circle talking. He was there for probably about fifteen
Speaker 2: to twenty minutes maybe. So that's the only thing that
Speaker 2: I know about the house, and I don't know how
Speaker 2: much you guys knew. But prior to mcatire's death, Marvin
Speaker 2: had an issue with the police department.
Speaker 3: Cotton wasn't the cleanest guy. I think he was selling
Speaker 3: guns on the side. Well, the Detroit copp lost her
Speaker 3: gun and it ended up in Cotton's hands and he
Speaker 3: sold it and the cops busted into his house, strung
Speaker 3: him up to his shower naked, started braiding him, and
Speaker 3: he filed the citizens complaint against the two cops and
Speaker 3: they ended up getting disciplined.
Speaker 2: And I believe one officer was fired behind it. This
Speaker 2: was like a month or two before MCing Tires murder.
Speaker 2: According to what Marvin had said that when he got arrested,
Speaker 2: the police was talking about him filing that complaint against.
Speaker 3: It, So he had a target on his back from
Speaker 3: an unrelated matter and Legion just got caught up in it.
Speaker 1: It probably also didn't help that Marvin arrived at the
Speaker 1: third Street house shortly after the incident was over. But
Speaker 1: let's back up to just before. It was shortly after
Speaker 1: midnight on January twenty fourth, two thousand and one. Jimon
Speaker 1: McIntyre was on the front porch and a man named
Speaker 1: Kenny Lockhart was in the upstairs bedroom with his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Renee Tate, while Santonian Adams, the Johnson's police officer nephew,
Speaker 1: was in a van in the driveway, and he eventually
Speaker 1: told the story that was partially supported by McIntyre's sister.
Speaker 3: Three guys had come up and we're hanging around on
Speaker 3: the porch. Apparently McIntyre's sister comes over. This is a
Speaker 3: little bit after midnight, and she's looking for some money.
Speaker 3: He gives her some money, she leaves. She doesn't recognize
Speaker 3: any of the three. Shortly after she leaves, Adams is
Speaker 3: in the driveway and all of a sudden, here shots
Speaker 3: being fired. Now at this time, Lockhart is in the
Speaker 3: bedroom with his girlfriend, here's the shooting, doesn't see any
Speaker 3: of this, closes his door because he's trying to protect
Speaker 3: his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: The only person who could really say what was going
Speaker 2: on in the shooting was Santonio Adams. He said he
Speaker 2: was in a van and he's seen two people on
Speaker 2: a porch shooting. He didn't know which direction they were
Speaker 2: shooting at. He said he heard Jama's voice.
Speaker 3: And McIntyre calls to him Tone nicknamed Tone. As he's
Speaker 3: running out of the house being chased by these guys,
Speaker 3: runs down an alley across the street and gets gunned down.
Speaker 2: No witnesses material the day it happened, nobody said who
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: The sole source of the initial narrative was Officer Adams,
Speaker 1: who has to cover for why he's had a known
Speaker 1: drug house to begin with. He didn't make any ideas
Speaker 1: or descriptions either, but he did claim that he shot
Speaker 1: at the assailants.
Speaker 3: He says, I couldn't find my gun, but as I
Speaker 3: was ducking when I heard the shots. I saw a
Speaker 3: gun under the front passenger seat, so I grabbed that
Speaker 3: and I got off about four shots. Well, he never
Speaker 3: did turn in his official law enforcement handgun to have
Speaker 3: it analyzed. When they did take a look at it,
Speaker 3: they found there were four bullets missing. You have to
Speaker 3: account for every bullet when you're a police officer, and
Speaker 3: so they later found there were four bullets missing. His
Speaker 3: story never added up, but they didn't pursue him.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, the police collected evidence. Two guns were
Speaker 1: found near McIntire's body in the alley, three more in
Speaker 1: the house, none of which were claimed by Officer Adams
Speaker 1: as the one he alleged used. Now, they dusted the
Speaker 1: house for fingerprints. Then, for reasons that were revealed much later,
Speaker 1: Kenny Lockhart went from ear witness to eyewitness and lead
Speaker 1: detective Cues put together a carefully selected photo array for
Speaker 1: Lockhart to view on February fifteenth.
Speaker 2: I think it was like eight people in a photo array,
Speaker 2: including me, Marvin Cotton, and Devonte Parks, who was the
Speaker 2: other individual who was charged in this case as well.
Speaker 2: Lockhart said that it was Cotton for sure, that he
Speaker 2: knew Cotton prior to this mind you.
Speaker 3: Lockhart first told the officers he didn't see what happened,
Speaker 3: and second he knew Cotton, so if Cotton had been there,
Speaker 3: he would have identified Cotton.
Speaker 2: And then he said two or seven, meaning me or
Speaker 2: Davonte Parks looked like the other individual. That was the identification.
Speaker 1: To get around the fact that both Lockhart and his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: Rene Tate had made statements that they never left the
Speaker 1: bedroom and hadn't seen the assailants, the narrative was amended
Speaker 1: to include the shooters returning to the house after Jaman
Speaker 1: was already dead to kill Kenny Lockhart.
Speaker 2: And he never said none of this. On the day
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 3: Incident, Lockhart says that the guys are in his house
Speaker 3: and the guy he identifies as Cotton tells another guy
Speaker 3: shoot him, shoot Lockhart. Lockhart claims he takes a shot,
Speaker 3: only the problem is there are no bullet holes in
Speaker 3: the house. Even one of the police officers wrote in
Speaker 3: his notes, the guy's not telling the truth. I don't
Speaker 3: believe what word he says.
Speaker 1: And maybe there's something to that. Considering that Marvin Devonte
Speaker 1: and Anthony were not arrested until a week later, on
Speaker 1: February twenty second, and for Anthony, it wasn't even for
Speaker 1: this incident, but rather for the murder of someone named
Speaker 1: Devin Taylor.
Speaker 2: I'll get arrested in an unrelated case. This was an
Speaker 2: individual who I knew. He was killed on the East Side.
Speaker 2: You know, the police, what they did back then was
Speaker 2: they just rounded up people, witnesses or not witnesses, anybody
Speaker 2: without even charges, without warrants or anything, and bring them
Speaker 2: in and then threaten them, you know, to either coherse
Speaker 2: them to confess to that crime or conhurse them to
Speaker 2: confess to other crimes, and that process. While I'm in jail,
Speaker 2: they asking me about McIntire's case, saying, if I say
Speaker 2: that Marvin and Devonte Parks did it, they won't charge
Speaker 2: me with that, and they won't charge me what I'm
Speaker 2: already in here for. I'm like, I didn't do either
Speaker 2: one of these crimes. They said, well, all you got
Speaker 2: to do is say Marvin and Devonte Parks did it,
Speaker 2: and we'll let you go right now.
Speaker 1: But it appears that Anthony's refusal only led to his
Speaker 1: own charges in both murders.
Speaker 2: Now, this whole time, while the criminal proceedings is going on,
Speaker 2: no discovery is coming out. The only evidence that they
Speaker 2: claimed that they had with respect to the McIntire case
Speaker 2: was Lockhart's photo identification, saying that me or Parks looked
Speaker 2: like the individual. And then when he came to court,
Speaker 2: you know, he made a positive identification. At the preliminary examination,
Speaker 2: he said, oh no, I'm certain, I'm certain it's him.
Speaker 2: He was the light skinned guy. You see me sitting here.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely not light skinned. So that was his description
Speaker 2: of me. I was the high yellow, light skinned guy.
Speaker 2: And then by the time it got the trial, he said,
Speaker 2: you know, he's ninety percent sure that I look like
Speaker 2: one of the guys. But moving right before the trial
Speaker 2: is when they came up with the jail house informant,
Speaker 2: Ellis Fraser.
Speaker 3: This snitch witness popped up five days before trial, which
Speaker 3: is when it was disclosed the defense. We have a
Speaker 3: witness who says that Cotton confessed and implicated legion. Now
Speaker 3: that just shows how weak your case is when you
Speaker 3: have to come up with something in the bottom of
Speaker 3: the ninth inning to try to resurrect your case.
Speaker 2: My attorney came in with Fraser's statement and he said,
Speaker 2: this guy said, you guys down there and confessed to him.
Speaker 2: I'm like what my lawyer said, I don't believe none
Speaker 2: of this shit. This is what Detroit Police Department does,
Speaker 2: but they're gonna use this guy. And so he filed
Speaker 2: a pre trial motion not to let it in for
Speaker 2: two reasons. Number one, it was basically a trial by
Speaker 2: ambush because the police department said that they had this
Speaker 2: information about Fraser four months before the trial, never turned
Speaker 2: it over to us till right before trial. So my
Speaker 2: lawyer argued that it shouldn't come in on that ground,
Speaker 2: And then the alternative it shouldn't come in because he's
Speaker 2: saying that Cotton confessed to him, and therefore that evidence
Speaker 2: coming in against me will violate my right to confront Cotton.
Speaker 3: Cotton can't testify because he's a defendant and was going
Speaker 3: to exercise his constitutional right to remain silent.
Speaker 2: And I can't cross examine him.
Speaker 1: To avoid violating Anthony's right to confront his accuser. His
Speaker 1: and Marvin's trials should have been sabered, but they continued
Speaker 1: until the same issue arose again.
Speaker 3: Kenny Lockhart, the key witness who the police knew hadn't
Speaker 3: seen anything, said that he was absolutely one hundred percent
Speaker 3: certain of the three guys who were charged, Legion Cotton
Speaker 3: and Avante Park. Only it turns out right before a
Speaker 3: trial they verified Park said an airtight alibi.
Speaker 1: Parks charges were going to be dismissed, which would have
Speaker 1: destroyed Kenny Lockhart's credibility, let's face it, and therefore the
Speaker 1: whole state's case.
Speaker 3: If Parks gets on the stand and the agreement that
Speaker 3: they're going to dismiss charges because he's got an alibi
Speaker 3: is explained to the jury, well then there goes Lockhart's
Speaker 3: whole identification because Lockhart said he is one hundred percent
Speaker 3: certain of those three guys, and one of them has
Speaker 3: an airtight alibi.
Speaker 2: The day of trial, we all was in the bullp me,
Speaker 2: Marvin Cotton, and DeVante Parks. But the only two people
Speaker 2: that they brought out was me and Cotton, and they
Speaker 2: left him back there. So the jury never seen him,
Speaker 2: never heard nothing really about him, and never knew that
Speaker 2: Lockhart made that identification of him.
Speaker 3: And the lawyers are going where's Parks because the whole
Speaker 3: case was all three of them, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: Parks is severed from the case and Devonte Parks misidentification
Speaker 3: got ruled inadmissible. It was irrelevant to this case. The
Speaker 3: whole thing stinks. The gamesmanship of the prosecutor is telling
Speaker 3: Devonte Parks, we will dismiss your case, but only after
Speaker 3: the Cotton Legion trial, so they ensure that he does
Speaker 3: not testify.
Speaker 2: You know, most lawyers, they don't call the co definden
Speaker 2: to the stand because they lawyer co definit the layer
Speaker 2: gonna say, oh, no, my client ain't getting on that stand.
Speaker 3: Because he was a still defendant at the time and
Speaker 3: was going to exercise his constitutional right to remain silent.
Speaker 2: And so that's why we couldn't call him.
Speaker 1: So DeVante Parks's case breaking testimony was effectively hidden from
Speaker 1: the jury, all while Anthony has another wrongful accusation to
Speaker 1: fight after this trial, which began in October two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. So let's start with the physical evidence.
Speaker 2: Nick recovered, like five weapons, two weapons potentially is the
Speaker 2: murder weapon. All these shell cases, they ran tests on
Speaker 2: all of this stuff. They do fingerprints inside the house,
Speaker 2: outside the house. None of this stuff come back to
Speaker 2: New York. You got a missing gun by a police officer,
Speaker 2: So who's admits to firing shots? At somebody and his gun.
Speaker 2: They don't have his gun, but we do got two
Speaker 2: guns in the alley, so it's one of them. The
Speaker 2: guns that he claimed he lost. Who knows. But you
Speaker 2: got all these witnesses surrounding this house, and nobody said
Speaker 2: that I committed any crime. Even if you believe Lockhart,
Speaker 2: which you shouldn't because he changed his story from the
Speaker 2: beginning to the end, but he said that I looked
Speaker 2: like one of the people that was in the house.
Speaker 3: The state's evidence simply came to Lockhart and being backed
Speaker 3: up by a snitch witness, which then would give credibility
Speaker 3: to Lockhart. Right as much as the defense tried to
Speaker 3: punch holes in Lockhart, Lockhart could say, I knew Cotton,
Speaker 3: so I knew who it was. And then this other
Speaker 3: guy legion, I saw him too. And they never got
Speaker 3: to hear about the Devonte Parks misidentification, which would have
Speaker 3: been huge. But then Lockhart, it's backed up by Elis Fraser,
Speaker 3: who's saying the same thing.
Speaker 1: Fraser testified that he and someone who he thought was
Speaker 1: Anthony or in one cell while Marvin Cotton was in
Speaker 1: the one next door, and Fraser's cellmate allegedly introduced him
Speaker 1: to Cotton through a brick wall, and then Cotton supposedly
Speaker 1: confessed implicating the person sharing the cell with Fraser, who
Speaker 1: he claimed was named Anthony on the witness stand.
Speaker 2: And they said, well, who was Anthony? Oh, Anthony is
Speaker 2: the person in that photograph, which was Davonte Parks. He
Speaker 2: just got his names mixed up and said Parks was Anthony.
Speaker 2: He didn't remember the lie enough to come into court
Speaker 2: and say, oh, no, Davonte Parks is the one that.
Speaker 3: Introduced Years later, Ellis Fraser finally grows a conscience and
Speaker 3: says in an affidavit that the officer in charge Hughes
Speaker 3: walks him into court and has to explain to him
Speaker 3: who these guys are, so he makes sure that he
Speaker 3: picks them out and identifies Cotton as Cotton and doesn't
Speaker 3: confuse the guys.
Speaker 2: So either he got his names mixed up when the
Speaker 2: police gave him the information, or he just didn't know
Speaker 2: which person to pick out in the courtroom. But in
Speaker 2: the jury's mind, where else would Fraser get this information?
Speaker 2: Not knowing that the DPD ran a jail house snitch
Speaker 2: program on the ninth floor, they provided people discovery material,
Speaker 2: so that they can familiarize themselves with the facts and
Speaker 2: then come up with a story to support the facts.
Speaker 2: The jury never knew that. Had they known that, then
Speaker 2: they would have new this is all put together.
Speaker 1: Anthony did mount the defense, presenting alibi witnesses to swear
Speaker 1: to his actual whereabouts, which should have included his co
Speaker 1: defend at Marvin Cotton, who had arrived on the scene
Speaker 1: shortly after the shooting, importantly without Anthony, But Marvin couldn't
Speaker 1: testify for the same reason that kept Parks off the stand.
Speaker 1: All the others were loved ones who could be explained
Speaker 1: away as willing to lie, so that left their last hope.
Speaker 1: Kenny Lockhart's girlfriend, Renee Tate.
Speaker 2: If you look at her statements, she contradicts what Lockhart
Speaker 2: was saying. She said Lockhart never left the room, never
Speaker 2: seen anybody, and then somebody got to her, and she
Speaker 2: was shaken and nervous at the trial, you know, and
Speaker 2: we didn't know why she was, you know, while she
Speaker 2: was acting like that, but that's what it was, and
Speaker 2: we found out later she was pressured to stick to
Speaker 2: the story Lockhart told her.
Speaker 1: And this time it appears that the pressure wasn't even
Speaker 1: from the police, So both Tate and Fraser supported the Lockhart,
Speaker 1: whose credibility was protected by the prosecutors, who went so
Speaker 1: far as to say that the Third Stread House wasn't
Speaker 1: even a well known drug house. Sure why not? And
Speaker 1: on October nineteen, two thousand and one, both Marvin and
Speaker 1: Anthony were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to
Speaker 1: life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 2: You know, when you hear people say, before you're about
Speaker 2: to die, like your life flashes, you know, in front
Speaker 2: of you, That's what it was like. It was like
Speaker 2: I seen, like everything just flashed in front of me,
Speaker 2: like I seen myself as a child. You know, I
Speaker 2: seen myself, you know, you know, coming through the wound
Speaker 2: and coming into life and seeing my life snatched. And
Speaker 2: that's what happened at that split second. But walking out
Speaker 2: the courtroom, I walked out of that courtroom and said,
Speaker 2: I'm getting out of prison, and I'm about to go
Speaker 2: in prison and learn everything about this system that did
Speaker 2: this to me, and I'm gonna get myself out of prison.
Speaker 2: Before I even got sentenced, you know, I started putting
Speaker 2: together my strategy on what I was going to do
Speaker 2: to get out of prison.
Speaker 1: And if you remember, he still had to fight the
Speaker 1: Devin tail, the murder charge for which he had been
Speaker 1: preparing his defense until he saw what they were willing
Speaker 1: to do in the mcintarre case, presenting testimony like Lockharts
Speaker 1: and Frasiers while the defense witness appeared to have been coerced.
Speaker 2: Once all of this stuff started coming out, I said,
Speaker 2: oh no, I'm not gonna risk getting two life sentences.
Speaker 2: I had to, you know, resolve that case because otherwise,
Speaker 2: guess what another jail house informat would be like. Oh,
Speaker 2: Anthony confessed to me, And so I took a plea.
Speaker 2: I took a no contest.
Speaker 1: Please.
Speaker 3: When you've rolled the dice and you come up snake
Speaker 3: eyes because of some witness that came up five days
Speaker 3: before trial, you don't want to roll the dice again.
Speaker 2: And as you can see, they really didn't even care
Speaker 2: to go to trial, but they just wasn't going to
Speaker 2: dismiss it. That's why they offered me eight years eight
Speaker 2: to twenty. So I said, okay, I'll take that deep Now, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this time, but I'm gonna start working
Speaker 2: on this life sentence and get this sentence.
Speaker 1: Off you're listening to Ron for Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 2: When I went to prison, the first thing I said
Speaker 2: after I got processed, where's the lightbrary? And so I
Speaker 2: bought a blackslaw dictionary. I bought a Michigan Court Rules.
Speaker 2: I bought a Federal Rules of Civil Procedures. I bought
Speaker 2: a typewriter. I spent like fifteen hundred dollars on legal supplies.
Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to learn that language that they
Speaker 2: were speaking in the courtroom that I didn't know, and
Speaker 2: they learned what they knew in order to fight this case.
Speaker 1: In December two thousand and two, Anthony filed a motion
Speaker 1: for a new trial in which he claimed ineffective assistance
Speaker 1: of council for the failure to call Parks as a witness,
Speaker 1: even though the prevailing wisdom is that a co defendant's
Speaker 1: council will not advise the defendant to wave their Fifth
Speaker 1: Amendment rights. This also drew attention to the gamesmanship of
Speaker 1: the prosecution, effectively hiding the misidentification of Parks. And the
Speaker 1: unreliability of Lockhart, and along with the motion, Anthony submitted
Speaker 1: an affidavid from Parks, who had plenty that he would
Speaker 1: have liked to say.
Speaker 2: Number one is da Fraser said that it was Parks
Speaker 2: who introduced him to Cotton, and Parks was involved in
Speaker 2: the conversation. He just got his names mixed up and
Speaker 2: said Parks was Anthony, so DeVante. Parks would have been
Speaker 2: able to testify and say, wait a minute, I didn't
Speaker 2: introduce him and I ain't hear no conversation about that,
Speaker 2: so that's discredits Fraser. He could have discredited Lockhart by saying,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, Lockhart said that he knew Parks and
Speaker 2: that we had all been there on several occasions. Parks
Speaker 2: could have no, I don't know you, and he had
Speaker 2: an alibi for that day which would have disproved with
Speaker 2: Lockhart was saying. So that's what the emotion for new
Speaker 2: trial was premised on, and they denied.
Speaker 3: To hear it.
Speaker 1: Both of their convictions were affirmed in a pos court
Speaker 1: in October two thousand and three, and then Anthony filed
Speaker 1: his federal habeas petition in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: Based on the reasons the Fader called Parks the confrontation violation,
Speaker 2: and I'll talk about that in the minute. And insufficient evidence,
Speaker 2: because we also argued it was insufficient evidence to convict
Speaker 2: me a first degree murder. Even if you look at
Speaker 2: the case and the light most favorable to the prosecution,
Speaker 2: it wasn't no evidence that said I committed a murder.
Speaker 2: Lockhard said he didn't see the shooting. If you believe
Speaker 2: what he said, he said that the three people came
Speaker 2: to the house after the shooting. So you have to
Speaker 2: look at what testimony you had to look at to
Speaker 2: support that. Fraser's so the violation of the rights to confrontation.
Speaker 2: The sixth Amendment says that you have a right to
Speaker 2: confront your accusers. Now in this context, Cotton would be
Speaker 2: my accuser if you rely on Fraser, which was the
Speaker 2: jail house informant. The jail house informant says Cotton told him, oh,
Speaker 2: me and Anthony committed this murder and this rob even
Speaker 2: though he doesn't specify who the anthony is because remember
Speaker 2: he picked out a picture of Parks as being Anthony.
Speaker 2: But in any respect, I needed to cross examine Cotton
Speaker 2: so he could clarify his statement. But Cotton got a
Speaker 2: Fifth Amendment right not to testify, so that infringed upon
Speaker 2: my right right. So that's why we at trial, we
Speaker 2: move for a separate trial out so that Fraser's testimony
Speaker 2: couldn't come in against me, and the judge denied that.
Speaker 2: The federal court in two thousand and seven agreed and
Speaker 2: reversed my conviction and vacated.
Speaker 1: And that sounds like it should have been the end
Speaker 1: of an episode, but we've got over another ten years
Speaker 1: of fighting uf to go.
Speaker 2: In the federal court. When I won in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, the Attorney General appealed it to the United
Speaker 2: States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and what
Speaker 2: happened was a new law had came out. So the
Speaker 2: case that I relied on for the confrontation violation was
Speaker 2: Ohio versus Roberts, and what that says is you can't
Speaker 2: allow an unreliable, non testifying co defendit statement to come
Speaker 2: in against another code defending, so Fraser's testimony was obviously unreliable. However,
Speaker 2: they changed that law in Crawford versus Washington, which came
Speaker 2: out in two thousand and four after my conviction, and
Speaker 2: that ruler said the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause only texts
Speaker 2: testimonial statements. In other words, had Cotton confessed to the police,
Speaker 2: that statement can't come in against me, but if he
Speaker 2: tell it to a fellow inmate or a friend or
Speaker 2: something like that, they said that that can come in
Speaker 2: against you. And that's why they reversed that ruler. It's
Speaker 2: an unfair law, but that's what put the life sentence
Speaker 2: back on me. So what we did, we said, okay,
Speaker 2: just they changed that confrontation law, which is the sixth Amendment. Well,
Speaker 2: now we want to argue the fourteenth Amendment. He got
Speaker 2: a due process right to confront his accusers. So it's
Speaker 2: the same argument for different constitutional provisions. So the Sixth
Speaker 2: Circus said, okay, we're remanded back to the law course
Speaker 2: and you start that argument all over from scratch.
Speaker 1: And while that fight was underway, new evidence began to emerge,
Speaker 1: starting with Fraser's recantation in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: And so we had investigated. They finally tracked him. Now
Speaker 2: he said, oh yeah, the detectives gave me that information.
Speaker 2: Marvin didn't confess to me, and then we found out
Speaker 2: that he also testified in other cases. It's a guy
Speaker 2: in prison right now serving a life sentence for Fraser's
Speaker 2: testimony a guy named Bobby Smith, and our investigators reached
Speaker 2: out to him as well, and he said he didn't
Speaker 2: confess to Fraser either.
Speaker 1: Fraser added that he got a seven month break on
Speaker 1: a one year sentence, but that the prosecutor told him
Speaker 1: not to say anything about any benefits in court. Fraser
Speaker 1: gave a second affidavit in twenty fourteen, stating in even
Speaker 1: stronger terms that he never spoke to Cotton and that
Speaker 1: his statement was completely dreamed up by the prosecution. So
Speaker 1: with that, the investigators moved on to Kenny Lockhart, who
Speaker 1: remember was staying in the upstairs bedroom of a drug
Speaker 1: house run by the Johnson crime family.
Speaker 3: A guy named Kurt Nerd was living with Lockhart, and
Speaker 3: Lockhart told him the whole story, told him Johnson offered
Speaker 3: him ten thousand dollars depend it on Cotton and Legion,
Speaker 3: and he didn't want to do it, but ten thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a lot of money, and so Nerd went to
Speaker 3: a Detroit Police homicide detective Walter Bates and told him.
Speaker 3: Even gave Bates the handwritten napkins that he took notes
Speaker 3: on after Lockhart had told him this. Bates never turned
Speaker 3: that evidence over.
Speaker 1: So it appears the police and the Johnson's were very
Speaker 1: interested in steering the outcome of the investigation. And then
Speaker 1: it became clear which of them had gotten to Renee Tape.
Speaker 3: Lockhart's girlfriend at the time, who was in the bedroom
Speaker 3: with him. She's terrified of the Johnson crime family. But
Speaker 3: she spoke to an investigator for the State of Pelot
Speaker 3: Defender's office and said exactly what happened, and that Lockhart
Speaker 3: never saw anybody because neither of them saw anybody. But
Speaker 3: she is afraid of the Johnson's.
Speaker 2: We found out later why she basically shut down and
Speaker 2: testified to things contrary to what she put in her statement.
Speaker 2: She was pressured by Keith Johnson to stick to the
Speaker 2: story that Lockhart told him.
Speaker 1: So what did they do? Like, how did they stoop?
Speaker 2: They was gonna kill her kids?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was evidence that came out maybe like two
Speaker 2: thousand and twenties.
Speaker 3: She won't sign an affidavit and has basically said, if
Speaker 3: you subpoena me to testify, I'm just gonna lie. And
Speaker 3: I said I would say I never said that. So
Speaker 3: apparently the Johnsons still have a long reach in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: They had evidence of, for example, the affidavit of Curtin Ard,
Speaker 3: and that helped, but it didn't give them any relief
Speaker 3: in the court system. The court system is much more
Speaker 3: focused on procedure than whether you're innocent or whether you
Speaker 3: get screwed at trial. And finally, in about twenty eight
Speaker 3: team the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office opened up a conviction
Speaker 3: Integrity Unit and that was the life saving process for
Speaker 3: a lot of guys. And the CiU does its own investigation.
Speaker 1: And they spoke with Detective Hughes.
Speaker 2: The investigator was a ex police officer, so he knew
Speaker 2: the main detective on our case, so he didn't think
Speaker 2: that this guy would record him, but he got the
Speaker 2: detective on there admitted that the house was a drug house,
Speaker 2: even though they told the jury that it wasn't. He's
Speaker 2: admitting this. He admitted that Lockhart never gained that initial identification.
Speaker 2: It was some other guy, a drug dealer, a major
Speaker 2: drug dealer. And then he admitted to some other things
Speaker 2: in there that the police officer was basically protecting that house.
Speaker 2: He was a security for this drug organization and had
Speaker 2: the jury now in all this, they'd have been like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, maybe some drug dealers did this murder.
Speaker 2: We didn't know that this was a major drug location
Speaker 2: and that the cop was running security for this operation,
Speaker 2: and that Lockhart never made that identification like he testified too.
Speaker 2: That would have shredded their entire case.
Speaker 1: So this is when Detroit PD officer Santonian Adams was
Speaker 1: first revealed, and it seems like the jury wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the only ones coming to the conclusion that this was
Speaker 1: all related back to the Johnsons.
Speaker 3: Everybody in the hood always knows, the streets always know,
Speaker 3: really what happened, that Santonian Adams, who was friends with McIntyre,
Speaker 3: set McIntyre up, and maybe Lockhart set McIntire up too,
Speaker 3: because think about it, if he had been in the house,
Speaker 3: he'd have been killed two. If this was just a
Speaker 3: robbery for drugs, that would have killed everybody. Word on
Speaker 3: the curb was that since McIntire's and Cotton were buddies
Speaker 3: and doing stuff together, Johnson wanted Cotten out of there.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of how it came down. Johnson was
Speaker 3: the one orchestrating all of this, whether it was a
Speaker 3: hit and then since McIntire's already dead, now if you
Speaker 3: can get and legion, he doesn't want them in a picture,
Speaker 3: have the cops go to them.
Speaker 1: So it looks like the Johnson's gave Detective Hughes the
Speaker 1: three names, then gave a Lockhart ten grand to corroborate,
Speaker 1: and then scared the shit out of her nay tate
Speaker 1: while the police and prosecutors went ahead and did the rest.
Speaker 3: So the CiU took a fresh look at the case,
Speaker 3: and then they were able to understand, especially with this
Speaker 3: tape that the PI had with Donald Hughes, where Hughes
Speaker 3: admitted that Lockhart hadn't seen anything. Now you start getting
Speaker 3: into a whole lot of police misconduct. That shed a
Speaker 3: whole new light on the trial and their right to
Speaker 3: a fair trial. They were robbed of due process, and
Speaker 3: the CiU concluded they that they couldn't say that these
Speaker 3: guys were innocent. What they did was they said there
Speaker 3: was so much police misconduct they were entitled to a
Speaker 3: new trial. And then a winn County prosecutor's office realized
Speaker 3: the flaws with the case and dismissed the charges. But
Speaker 3: I think what really rocked this case is that the
Speaker 3: prosecutor's office was very likely involved in this miscarriage of
Speaker 3: justice with not allowing Parks to take the stand because
Speaker 3: they didn't dismiss the charges until after this conviction.
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, both Marvin and Anthony's charges were dismissed. Anthony told
Speaker 1: us about how that day unfolded.
Speaker 2: You know, in prison. You know, I found inner peace
Speaker 2: in prison through studying the law, and I worked on
Speaker 2: other people's cases when I was in prison. You know,
Speaker 2: I was the go to guy in prison. Any prison
Speaker 2: that I went to, I turned the day room into
Speaker 2: my law office and I would get me a corner.
Speaker 2: I have my typewriter set up, I have all my
Speaker 2: law books. People would come to my office and we
Speaker 2: working on other cases. You know, I got people out
Speaker 2: of prison from prison, and so that's what I was doing.
Speaker 2: And I was actually working on the finishing touches on
Speaker 2: this brief, and the counselor came in and said, you know,
Speaker 2: come to the office with me for a minute. When
Speaker 2: you got a phone call, normally that means somebody in
Speaker 2: your family done died, or you know, some bad news.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, here we go. And I didn't
Speaker 2: even have the CiU on my mind, but it was
Speaker 2: my attorney and my investigator, and then she said, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Kim Worthy agreed to let you go. I
Speaker 2: broke down in te you. I couldn't even talk, and
Speaker 2: so the councilor said, we'll have him call you back later.
Speaker 2: He needed to get hisself together. So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: definitely a breath of fresh air when I got that news.
Speaker 1: The decision came down on October first, twenty twenty, but
Speaker 1: the nightmare wasn't over. He still had to contend with
Speaker 1: his eight to twenty year sentence for Devin Taylor. He
Speaker 1: was finally released on parole on December fifteen, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and since his release, he's been reinvestigating and fighting that case,
Speaker 1: as well as continuing the practice of law that he
Speaker 1: began inside.
Speaker 2: I'm in the a Pillot division at Wolf Law Firm,
Speaker 2: not Wolf Gang, but Rachel Wolf, so I run her
Speaker 2: a pilot division. Then I'm also a Pillot consultant in
Speaker 2: my own office, where I do pretty much the same thing,
Speaker 2: but at a reduced rate for guys who can't afford
Speaker 2: to pay for an attorney. We do investigation work, briefs, motions,
Speaker 2: and everything like that, and then I pitch their cases
Speaker 2: to different attorneys where they can afford them or even
Speaker 2: do it pro bono. I'm also a member of the
Speaker 2: Organization of Exigneries. I'm on the board of directors a
Speaker 2: Safe and Just Michigan. You know, I got my own
Speaker 2: nonprofit here towards exposing the falsehood of jail house nitch
Speaker 2: testimony Anthony Legion dot com and has my story on
Speaker 2: there on my Facebook page, Safe and Just Michigan DJST
Speaker 2: task Force. It can also support that DJST task Force
Speaker 2: dot com. It's NonStop. I work all day, twelve hours
Speaker 2: every day trying to save somebody's life from spending the
Speaker 2: rest of their life in prison.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Wolf is doing the same on your civil suit.
Speaker 3: The problem is civil litigation. Now. The wheels turned very
Speaker 3: very slowly. Right now, we are just in the process
Speaker 3: after a few years of summary judgment motions where they're
Speaker 3: trying to throw the case out on qualified immunity. There's
Speaker 3: a whole nother can of worm, but that's where we're
Speaker 3: at now. And then they'll kick the can down the
Speaker 3: road and go to the six Circuit Court of Appeals
Speaker 3: if their motion is denied and it'll drag it out further,
Speaker 3: and all that does is just kick these guys in
Speaker 3: the face some more.
Speaker 1: It's fucking disgraceful. But we hear the same thing all
Speaker 1: too often. Right here, we're going to have both of
Speaker 1: you linked in the episode description so people can keep
Speaker 1: up with you or who knows, maybe they might need
Speaker 1: your services. So with that, let's go to closing arguments.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for being here and for all the incredible
Speaker 1: work you're doing and closing arguments, well, if you start
Speaker 1: anything else you want to share with our incredible audience
Speaker 1: and with me of course, and then we're gonna let
Speaker 1: Anthony take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 3: What would be a good closing on this story. It's
Speaker 3: that they, as much as they have been screwed, are
Speaker 3: trying to give back to get other guys out who
Speaker 3: they know are innocent in prison, and they're doing the
Speaker 3: best they can with the resources they have. To call
Speaker 3: attention to wrongful convictions, to the causes of wrongful convictions,
Speaker 3: witness misidentifications. It's the largest cause of wrongful convictions. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they're innocent. Sometimes like this, they're intentional, and they're just
Speaker 3: trying to do the best they can. To make the
Speaker 3: best of the lives that they've got, and they're doing
Speaker 3: a very admirable job.
Speaker 2: For people that are similarly situated or have loved ones
Speaker 2: that's similarly situated, don't give up. The road may seem long,
Speaker 2: gloomy and dark, but you got to stay focused, you know,
Speaker 2: you got to stay fighting. And now I used to always
Speaker 2: encourage the younger brothers, don't get caught up in the
Speaker 2: prison politics. Don't get caught up on a basketball court,
Speaker 2: on a chest table playing cards. If you're trying to
Speaker 2: get out of prison, you have to move like you
Speaker 2: want to get out of prison. At talk, walk, sleep,
Speaker 2: everything like you want to get out of prison, because
Speaker 2: then the officers are gonna respect you in that manner.
Speaker 2: A lot of the correctional officers knew my agenda was
Speaker 2: to get out of prison. I didn't care about nothing
Speaker 2: that was going on in prison, even though I seen
Speaker 2: people die in prison, get stabbed in prison. You know,
Speaker 2: I had to see some horrific things. And again, like
Speaker 2: I said, I found my inner piece in studying the law.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I encourage anybody whoever loved want
Speaker 2: to go through this and encourage them to stay focused
Speaker 2: and on type of their fight to get out of prison.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: It's Jason Vlahm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one