Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Maggie today. I'm sharing an interview I
Speaker 1: did last year, but we chose to hold off on
Speaker 1: releasing it. At the time, Selma Butler was working on
Speaker 1: his post conviction relief, so we didn't want to risk
Speaker 1: slowing down his pursuit of justice in the courts. But sadly,
Speaker 1: despite strong evidence of his innocence, Selma's request for post
Speaker 1: conviction relief has been denied. Now, for the second time,
Speaker 1: he has to go before the Illinois Appellet Court to
Speaker 1: continue his fight. Selma's story is a painful reminder of
Speaker 1: how our justice system can fail and how easily innocent
Speaker 1: people can pay the price, how easy it is to
Speaker 1: lock someone up and how hard it is to get
Speaker 1: them out. I also want you to be the first
Speaker 1: to hear that next week, I'll be making a very
Speaker 1: big announcement. My LoVa for Good colleague Gilbert King will
Speaker 1: be joining me to discuss something I've been working on
Speaker 1: for two years. It'll be coming out in the Bone
Speaker 1: Valley Feed very soon, so stay tuned for that. In
Speaker 1: November of nineteen ninety five, the body of thirty four
Speaker 1: year old Angela Young was found in her thirteenth floor apartment.
Speaker 1: She had been stabbed over sixty times. Angela lived in
Speaker 1: the Chicago Projects in a building that was said to
Speaker 1: be ruled by the notorious gangster Disciples. Rumor had it
Speaker 1: that she was holding drugs for someone in the gang,
Speaker 1: and that she had been killed in a drug related dispute.
Speaker 1: Seventeen year old Salma Butler, who lived three floors below,
Speaker 1: saw the police and sirens outside that day.
Speaker 2: I could remember the day they found her body. It's
Speaker 2: the project building, so everybody want to know what happened.
Speaker 2: You know, someone was killed in the building.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Selma was picked up and arrested
Speaker 1: for Angela's murder based on a statement that police had
Speaker 1: taken from another teenaged boy during an unrelated interrogation.
Speaker 2: When we got in the car, the detective reached back
Speaker 2: and grabbed my neck and he choked me out and
Speaker 2: like spit on me and told me I did it,
Speaker 2: andthing like he really spit in my face. My name
Speaker 2: is Selma Butler. I was wrongfully convicted in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five and I served twenty five years for a crime
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Commit from LoVa for good. This is wrongful conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling today.
Speaker 2: Selma Butler, Yeah, I grew up in Chicago in the projects,
Speaker 2: the Robbert Taylor Projects.
Speaker 1: Selma Butler was born in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: My mom's passed away when I was thirteen, and my
Speaker 2: father was incocrated, basically my entire He went to prison
Speaker 2: when I was five, so he did the maximum of
Speaker 2: like thirty.
Speaker 3: Did you have any kind of relationship with him?
Speaker 2: Yeah? When I was younger, he used to like for
Speaker 2: Christmas and toy cars and stuff and write letters and
Speaker 2: things of that nature.
Speaker 1: Did Sema had two older sisters. He was closest to
Speaker 1: his sister, Lakeisha, who was two years older than him.
Speaker 1: So what was growing up like where you grew up?
Speaker 3: What did you guys do? What was life like?
Speaker 2: It was fun, you know if he was in a project,
Speaker 2: you know, you had all your friends and things like that,
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't as hardsh as you would think it
Speaker 2: would be. You know, by was living in the ghetto.
Speaker 2: You know, it was loving in the household.
Speaker 1: But gangs and gang violence were all around him. By
Speaker 1: the time he reached first grade, Selma had already seen
Speaker 1: his first shooting.
Speaker 2: Like I seen him they shot the garbage man, like
Speaker 2: the guy to get the trash. And in that day,
Speaker 2: I was probably like six or seven somewhere as they
Speaker 2: shot like five six people out there that day, you know.
Speaker 2: So and I was on the basketball court and I
Speaker 2: seen it, you know what I mean. So you see
Speaker 2: it like every day.
Speaker 3: Were you scared? Is that scary to grow up like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's real scary, you know, because I have
Speaker 2: seen guys like come down from school and the guy
Speaker 2: was like just dead out on the bench in front
Speaker 2: of the building.
Speaker 3: Were you worried something could happen to you?
Speaker 2: Always? Really always, you know, not just me and my sisters,
Speaker 2: you know, my family, friends, everybody's life. It's just not mine,
Speaker 2: you know. And then I chose not to be part
Speaker 2: of a game, even though like they automatically put all
Speaker 2: us in the gang, right right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So it don't really matter if you're not in the gang.
Speaker 2: Is in the game when the police gonna see you
Speaker 2: in the gang anyway, depending on where you live, you know, sure,
Speaker 2: you always find yourself at a disadvantage.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: You know, as kids, you have run ins with the
Speaker 2: law and stuff like that. Not just like I'm a
Speaker 2: saying to anything, you know, and I think it's in trouble.
Speaker 2: Not no murderer, But I got in some trouble.
Speaker 1: Despite getting into some trouble now and then, Selma resisted
Speaker 1: the gang life. He had other ambitions, a rite.
Speaker 2: I'm a writer. I didn't have any really hopes and
Speaker 2: dreams like that because I really didn't have a good
Speaker 2: foundation or direction on where I was going in life,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I know, I enjoyed school, so
Speaker 2: I went to school and things like that. I would
Speaker 2: have loved to go to college, you know, like and
Speaker 2: be something in life, you know, but I didn't, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: get the opportunity to, you know, yeah, figure out like
Speaker 2: how great I could be out here.
Speaker 1: You know. When he was thirteen, Selma's mother died suddenly
Speaker 1: from a brain aneurysm. After that, he went to stay
Speaker 1: with his aunt and one of the other buildings in
Speaker 1: the project on the tenth floor of forty three thirty
Speaker 1: one South Federal. That's where he met Gino Wilson.
Speaker 2: I love sports. I played basketball, baseball, and I met
Speaker 2: Geno in a basketball court. He's really good at basketball.
Speaker 2: So we met each other, Like through sports, what.
Speaker 1: Do you remember about him being good at basketball. I
Speaker 1: don't play basketball, So what does that mean now?
Speaker 2: That dude co that dude is that a dude coat?
Speaker 5: Sa'ma butler. He lived in a community in Bronsville, Chicago, Illinois,
Speaker 5: in a public housing authority Robert Taylor Holmes. It was
Speaker 5: like a known area.
Speaker 1: This is Ashley Cohen, partner at the Bonjean Law Group.
Speaker 1: She and Jennifer Bonjean have represented Selma on his post
Speaker 1: conviction proceedings since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5: And there were four or five separate project buildings. Each
Speaker 5: one of them was associated with a different gang. Basically
Speaker 5: the building that he was in, the specific one was
Speaker 5: allegedly run by the gangster Disciples at the time. And
Speaker 5: if you think about it, it's a huge building. It's
Speaker 5: a housing project. It's has sixteen floors, there's ten apartments
Speaker 5: on each floor. It's a massive building.
Speaker 1: When Selma was seventeen and Gino was fifteen, something happened
Speaker 1: in that building that would change both of their lives.
Speaker 5: On November thirteenth, nineteen ninety five, Angela Young is found
Speaker 5: stabbed to death in her apartment. She has sixty five
Speaker 5: stab wounds. The Medical Examiner opine that the wounds appeared
Speaker 5: to have been caused by either a scissor or another
Speaker 5: instrument with multiple blades.
Speaker 1: After Angela's body was found, the police were called. The
Speaker 1: first person to speak with them was a neighbor by
Speaker 1: the name of Hope Miller.
Speaker 5: And according to her, she saw an unidentified male come
Speaker 5: down the stairs and say there's a woman dead in
Speaker 5: that apartment, and then she goes up with a fella
Speaker 5: by the name of Andre Parks. They find her, and
Speaker 5: then the police are called and they examined the scene.
Speaker 5: The apartment was basically a disaster. A female black wig
Speaker 5: was found by the front door. She was found in
Speaker 5: the back bedroom. There's blood on the stove in the
Speaker 5: front She's sitting in a pool of blood. There's blood
Speaker 5: on the walls.
Speaker 2: I can remember the day they found her body because
Speaker 2: you know, it's the Project building, so everybody want to
Speaker 2: know what happened. You know, someone's killed in the building,
Speaker 2: you know, because I could recall like coming out the
Speaker 2: house and looking off the porch and seeing all the
Speaker 2: police cars down there and things like that, and I
Speaker 2: can recall I was I stayed ten o three. Miss
Speaker 2: Young stayed three floors above being thirteen oh one, everybody
Speaker 2: knew everybody in up building. That's how I knew Miss Young.
Speaker 2: I knew her daughters. Her daughter Shamiko was our age
Speaker 2: and she was pretty. So Gino liked her, so you know,
Speaker 2: so you know, he like so, yeah, That's how I
Speaker 2: knew Miss Young. I never had a conversation with Miss Young,
Speaker 2: but I knew her, like you know, how you doing
Speaker 2: type of switch, you know.
Speaker 5: And then the investigation ensues. But as I know from
Speaker 5: doing wrongful conviction work, I never trust what's in police reports,
Speaker 5: but it gives a little bit of a framework of
Speaker 5: what happened. After they find the body, they interview a
Speaker 5: bunch of witnesses. So Gina Wilson was one of the
Speaker 5: people that they interviewed. Hoult Miller is one of the
Speaker 5: people that they interviewed, and Andre Parks is another one
Speaker 5: that they interviewed. And Gino in his his original interview
Speaker 5: to the police, if you believe it, he basically says
Speaker 5: that he went up to the apartment and that he
Speaker 5: had been dating one of Angela's daughters and was going
Speaker 5: up to the apartment to go to see his girlfriend
Speaker 5: and he discovers the body. The police kind of ran
Speaker 5: with that.
Speaker 1: S almost says he hadn't been anywhere near the apartment,
Speaker 1: but somehow, during an entirely separate police interrogation on a
Speaker 1: different matter, his name got pulled into the case.
Speaker 5: The Area One detectives claimed that two teenagers, Earl Gilmore,
Speaker 5: who was fourteen years old at the time but he
Speaker 5: was in seventh grade or sixth grade, and Antonio Thomas,
Speaker 5: who is sixteen years old. They were both in custody
Speaker 5: for unrelated charges. Apparently Earl Gilmour was violating a curfew
Speaker 5: because you know, you just lock people up for violating
Speaker 5: their curfew back then. So detectives have two teenagers in
Speaker 5: custody who they know don't have parents present, are underage,
Speaker 5: easily coursed, easily manipulated, and basically they tell them somebody died,
Speaker 5: and you're going to tell us who did it, and
Speaker 5: you're going to tell us the story of what happened.
Speaker 5: According to the police, they volunteered that they were present
Speaker 5: for the murder of young and that they did it
Speaker 5: with Gina Wilson and Selma Butler. There's this story that
Speaker 5: Angela basically was holding marijuana in her apartment for Gina
Speaker 5: Wilson and Selma Butler. And the reason that they killed
Speaker 5: her was because they discovered that three bags of marijuana
Speaker 5: was missing from the stash that she was holding. So naturally,
Speaker 5: three bags of marijuana equates to sixty six stab wounds.
Speaker 5: And that's how they kind of get their narrative.
Speaker 3: And did you know, Gilmore didn't know.
Speaker 2: Gilmore didn't know Antonio Thomas never hung out with him
Speaker 2: or nothing. He was in the sixth grade. I was
Speaker 2: a junior, you know, so he was a little kid.
Speaker 1: On November thirteenth, nineteen ninety five, Earl Gilmore testified before
Speaker 1: a grand jury that he had seen Selma and Gino
Speaker 1: punch and stab angela young in her bedroom. Earl was
Speaker 1: fourteen years old. There was no adult present while he
Speaker 1: was being questioned by police, and he was not allowed
Speaker 1: to leave police custody until he had given testimony. A
Speaker 1: few days later, Selma and Gino were both arrested and
Speaker 1: charged with first degree murder.
Speaker 2: I was took it to the police station and they
Speaker 2: just set me in a room for a long time.
Speaker 2: When I officer finally came in, I can't recall his
Speaker 2: name or whatever, he explained why I was there. Saying
Speaker 2: that my name came up in a murder. They said,
Speaker 2: I killed my young whatever the case may be like,
Speaker 2: And I explained to him, like, yo, I could I
Speaker 2: kill someone. I got on the same clothes I had
Speaker 2: on yesterday, you know, Like I got on the same clothes,
Speaker 2: so I would just you know, I couldn't, you know.
Speaker 2: So I asked for a polygraph test, and they took
Speaker 2: me to take a polygraph test, and we came back.
Speaker 2: They never gave me the results. But when we got
Speaker 2: in the car, the detective reached back and grabbed my
Speaker 2: neck and he choked me out and like spit on
Speaker 2: me and told me I did it, and things like
Speaker 2: he really spit in my face.
Speaker 3: You were seventeen? Did you have an attorney with you?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 3: Did you know you could?
Speaker 5: Nah?
Speaker 2: Not really nine?
Speaker 1: So they didn't tell you you had to write to
Speaker 1: an attorney.
Speaker 2: No, not that I can recall. I was sent to
Speaker 2: the county jail at the time I was seventeen. I
Speaker 2: was five feet ninety pounds. I mean I was placed
Speaker 2: in the county jail and that was the head.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all the Lava for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In June
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety eight, Gino Wilson and Selma Butler both
Speaker 1: went to trial separately before Judge Joseph Urso.
Speaker 5: Gino goes to trial first, he chooses to have a
Speaker 5: bench trial before Judge Urso and he's acquitted. A trial
Speaker 5: Judge Ursau finds him not guilty. So my client then
Speaker 5: goes to trial.
Speaker 3: How come you opted for a bench trial?
Speaker 2: My attorney, he made ee made the suggested because Gino
Speaker 2: Wilson was acquitted. So he was like, well, if Gino
Speaker 2: Wilson was acquitted, we have the same opportunities would have
Speaker 2: bench draped.
Speaker 1: So when you're at trial, did you think everything was
Speaker 1: going okay? Did you think it was going to wind
Speaker 1: up the same as Geno's and you'd be acquitted.
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am, I did. Once they realized that he didn't
Speaker 2: do it, then I figured like, uh, they don't realize
Speaker 2: I didn't do it as well. That was the case.
Speaker 5: The trial was appalling, So George Grizzecca represented my client,
Speaker 5: Sama Butler and Joe mcgattz prosecuted my client. He waves
Speaker 5: opening arguments. Selma's attorney waves opening arguments, and there was
Speaker 5: a total of five witnesses. The trial lasted maybe all
Speaker 5: of forty five minutes. There were a total of thirteen
Speaker 5: questions asked by Selma's attorney to all of the witnesses.
Speaker 2: I've never been to trial, you know, so I figured
Speaker 2: this hat trial. Go somebody, you know, And then I
Speaker 2: thought he did a good job. I didn't know better.
Speaker 1: Earl Gilmore was brought in to testify for the prosecution.
Speaker 2: Like I prayed to God that Gilmore come to court
Speaker 2: and tell the truth, which he did.
Speaker 1: So I was hopeful.
Speaker 2: I was afraid, but I was hopeful as well, you know.
Speaker 5: Earl Gilmore gets on the stand and then Earl begins
Speaker 5: his testimony by saying that whoever brought him over to
Speaker 5: the grand jury basically said go along with everything they
Speaker 5: tell you, and that's why he did.
Speaker 1: Remember while he was being held in police custody, Earl
Speaker 1: testified before the grand jury that Selma and Gino had
Speaker 1: killed Angela. When he appeared at Thoma's trial two and
Speaker 1: a half years later, Earl tried his best to walk
Speaker 1: back his previous testimony.
Speaker 5: He actually, to his credit Dawes say, he says, when
Speaker 5: I was taken to the police station, I didn't know
Speaker 5: what I was taken there for while we got you.
Speaker 5: Now we're going to charge you with this case if
Speaker 5: you don't go along with what we tell you.
Speaker 1: But despite his recantation, the prosecution was still able to
Speaker 1: admit Earl's initial grand jury statement as evidence.
Speaker 5: And how they present this is they say, you know,
Speaker 5: did you take an oath to tell the truth before
Speaker 5: you testified? And he says yes. And when you testified
Speaker 5: before the grand jury, you were asked the following questions
Speaker 5: and did you give the following answers?
Speaker 3: So they basically put.
Speaker 5: Him in a scenario where he has to say, yes,
Speaker 5: I did give those answers. They're putting him in a
Speaker 5: perjury trap because if he says anything other than that,
Speaker 5: he can be charged with perjury for lying to the
Speaker 5: grand jury. Then they continue asking him questions or you
Speaker 5: asked this question, did you give this answer? And he
Speaker 5: says yes, I was forced, Yes, I was forced, And
Speaker 5: that's kind of how the narrative. But they get in
Speaker 5: the substance of the grand jury testimony, and that's the
Speaker 5: evidence that was ultimately used to convict Selma.
Speaker 1: On October twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, less than an
Speaker 1: hour after the trial started, Judge Urso found Selma guilty
Speaker 1: of first degree murder. He was sentenced to fifty years
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 2: I'm being more often in cost ready for a crab.
Speaker 2: I didn't commit No, I was, I was hurt.
Speaker 1: I cried, I cried, I cried.
Speaker 2: I cried every day I cried.
Speaker 1: Do you think, I guess do you think racism played
Speaker 1: a part in your case? Just lumping just because you
Speaker 1: lived in this building, because of your skin color, they
Speaker 1: said you were a gang member and really kind of
Speaker 1: just determined your faith that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I say that in the sense of, like I
Speaker 2: probably know hundreds of people in the same situation that
Speaker 2: I'm in that's not given the opportunity to talk to you,
Speaker 2: but half the same exact situation. You know, Like when
Speaker 2: you think about what Joseph mcgatz did, because he was
Speaker 2: the state's attorney on this case, and like the little
Speaker 2: evidence that he used to convict me, how many other
Speaker 2: people was done like this? You know, African American poor
Speaker 2: people that couldn't afford attorneys and things like that. You
Speaker 2: know how many other people was done like.
Speaker 3: This, you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, race played the part, poverty paid the part.
Speaker 2: You know. I was afraid, and then I was really little,
Speaker 2: you know, I was a little little. I was only
Speaker 2: five feet. I was afraid, you know. You know, then
Speaker 2: you're around all these guys that didn't committed crimes and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and murders and things like that, and
Speaker 2: you know, you not that guy, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not that guy that's here tough and all that.
Speaker 2: You know. So I was hurt and afraid.
Speaker 1: Within a year or so, Selma began studying at the
Speaker 1: prison law library in order to appeal his case. His
Speaker 1: first appeals in two thousand and two thousand and four
Speaker 1: were dismissed, but he kept at it and eventually that
Speaker 1: led him to someone who would become very important in
Speaker 1: helping him survive life in prison.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget is the lady named Miss Flowers, and
Speaker 2: she runs the law library. She seen my name, My
Speaker 2: name is unique Selma, and she asks me, she said,
Speaker 2: do you have a sibling by the name of Selma?
Speaker 2: That I said, my father. She said, you know you
Speaker 2: work here so the whole time my father worked in
Speaker 2: the library.
Speaker 1: So you got to know your dad from inside prison.
Speaker 1: That is unusual.
Speaker 2: It was due to the fact I haven't seen him
Speaker 2: in so long since I was like five. When I
Speaker 2: met him, I was actually impressed on how intelligent he was,
Speaker 2: like because he studied law and he didn't help guys
Speaker 2: get out of prison and things of that nature. So
Speaker 2: he he's a blessing. He was actually myself made for
Speaker 2: for quite some time.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Wow, wait, so what was that like?
Speaker 2: It was a blessing due to the fact I asked
Speaker 2: somebody there that was guiding me and things of that nature.
Speaker 2: And then you know, so it's a blessing. It was
Speaker 2: a blase, it was. It was horrible. It was with
Speaker 2: him still a blessing. You know.
Speaker 1: Did he give you advice on, you know, how to
Speaker 1: survive in there or anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the sense, you know, state of yourself, mind,
Speaker 2: your business, you know what I mean. You know, go
Speaker 2: to school. I went to school, made the President's list
Speaker 2: a couple of times in college, you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, no, just put my head down.
Speaker 2: It sucked that I was there for something I didn't do,
Speaker 2: but I tried to make the best of it.
Speaker 3: You know, did he believe you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he do laws. So he read the case
Speaker 2: and knew that I was innocent, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So, in addition to reconnecting with his father, there was
Speaker 1: another family member that helped Selma get through prison.
Speaker 6: I am Linda Butler. I am Selma's niece. I know
Speaker 6: him all my life, even though it was of course
Speaker 6: telephonically while he was in prison.
Speaker 1: Linda is the daughter of Selma's sister, Lakeisha. She was
Speaker 1: just a baby when he went to prison, but she
Speaker 1: says he's always been a big part of her life.
Speaker 1: Lakeisha made sure of that.
Speaker 6: She talked to all of us about it. She's she's
Speaker 6: a mother of five, and she just all I remember
Speaker 6: is her, you know, supporting him, having to put money
Speaker 6: on the phone, to the point where it groomed us
Speaker 6: to do the same thing, you know, like this this
Speaker 6: has become our norm. We got an uncle in jail
Speaker 6: for some he didn't do like this is our norm.
Speaker 1: Selma was at the Minard Correctional Center, nearly four hundred
Speaker 1: miles from Chicago, so throughout the first decade of Linda's life,
Speaker 1: their relationship was only by phone.
Speaker 6: We made the best out of it, you know, as
Speaker 6: far as like when he got but of course it
Speaker 6: was very limited, you know, like when he called, we'll
Speaker 6: try to Oh uncle, can you, you know, help me
Speaker 6: write this? Can you you know? Just I just I
Speaker 6: think it was hot. I feel like it was heartbreaking.
Speaker 6: And I remember when I was seven years old. Well,
Speaker 6: I was turning seven, and he was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: come home for your birthday. I'm coming home for your birthday.
Speaker 2: She was seven years old. I told her she her
Speaker 2: birthday was coming, and I told her, well, I'll be.
Speaker 1: On for your birthday.
Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: And on the day of her birthday, I called her
Speaker 2: to wish happy birthday. She told me out lied.
Speaker 6: To her, and I just remember being heartbroken. I didn't
Speaker 6: want to talk to him on the phone, and when
Speaker 6: my mom was like, just talk to your uncle, and
Speaker 6: he like, he was like, I'm sorry, you know, but
Speaker 6: I didn't know any better.
Speaker 1: When Linda was around seven years old, Lakeisha arranged for
Speaker 1: the family to visit Selma in prison, and Linda couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to finally meet her uncle in person. She remembers
Speaker 1: that they had to get up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night to catch the bus.
Speaker 6: And we rode eight hours and they turned us around.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: Why because I think the prison just went on lockdown
Speaker 6: and all that. And mind you, my mom and single mom.
Speaker 6: So the money that she put into it, she don't
Speaker 6: get it back. You know.
Speaker 1: Linda and Selma didn't meet face to face until she
Speaker 1: was eleven years old.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, we had so much to talk about.
Speaker 6: I was able to touch his hand. I was super
Speaker 6: excited could in my mind, I literally didn't know that
Speaker 6: he had a face like cause all I know, you know,
Speaker 6: is him being over the phone. We not have pictures
Speaker 6: because he was so young when he was away. So
Speaker 6: when I first saw him, he just had this little
Speaker 6: smirk on his face, and I'm like, you look like
Speaker 6: my mama.
Speaker 1: Over the years, throughout his appeals, Linda and Selma remained close.
Speaker 2: She sent me money to send letters that I write
Speaker 2: to different attorneys and stuff like that, because it costs
Speaker 2: like seven bucks to send out my path. So she
Speaker 2: would make sure I have money to send to send
Speaker 2: my mail out and stuff like that. And she was young,
Speaker 2: she's probably nineteen twenty, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 2: she's been there on my entire life, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1: For a time, Linda even worked as a corrections officer.
Speaker 3: You decided to go into.
Speaker 1: Corrections, which is interesting because your uncle's in prison.
Speaker 3: So what prompted that? What motivated thought? I don't know.
Speaker 6: I just I guess I was. I wanted to know.
Speaker 6: And when I went into correction, I'm like, Oh my god,
Speaker 6: this is how my uncle's living. He's caged, this is
Speaker 6: his life. Them having to go to bed when they're
Speaker 6: being told to go to bed, the stuff they had
Speaker 6: to eat, and them not being around their family. It
Speaker 6: just gave me a whole outlook on life, like, oh
Speaker 6: my god, in the blink of eye anything, So I
Speaker 6: got to take life seriously.
Speaker 1: Thirteen, with the help of a pro bono attorney, Selma
Speaker 1: filed a second motion for DNA testing, which was granted.
Speaker 2: I realized DNA was my case couse, miss Young she
Speaker 2: had skin ut her and nails. So once I realized that,
Speaker 2: I filed for DNA.
Speaker 5: Testing, and then the conviction integrity unit decided to undertake
Speaker 5: an investigation into his claims.
Speaker 2: Fabio Valatini, he was in chart at the integrity on
Speaker 2: it at the time, and he said he wanted to
Speaker 2: redo the DNA test because you wanted to cross his
Speaker 2: t's and got his eyes. And they gave me a
Speaker 2: court date of July twenty eighth. So I'm thinking, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go home. So I gave away all my items,
Speaker 2: my food and everything, and my T shirts and stuff.
Speaker 1: But when Selma got to court that day, no one
Speaker 1: was there for him, no one from the Conviction Integrity
Speaker 1: Unit and no one from his attorney's office.
Speaker 2: And I had to go back to NRC, which is
Speaker 2: State Ville, and I was crushed. My soul was crushed.
Speaker 2: So I wrote you to court and they told me
Speaker 2: my case was off call, which something I never heard of.
Speaker 2: So I was in court, but I never had a
Speaker 2: court date for like a year.
Speaker 1: At that point. Selma wrote to Bonjen Law Group.
Speaker 5: And we started representing him pro bono in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 5: and we basically started from the beginning.
Speaker 1: And that included reinvestigating the DNA evidence, what there was
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 5: What's so difficult about a case like Selma's is when
Speaker 5: there's no evidence to begin with, it's really hard to
Speaker 5: unravel it because there's really no evidence in the first instance.
Speaker 5: You know, it's not a cut and dry DNA case.
Speaker 5: So you know the DNA evidence, it excluded selma from
Speaker 5: two of the bloodstains, but the victim's fingernails had five
Speaker 5: male profiles and could have been sixty four percent of
Speaker 5: the population, and he was not excluded from that mixture.
Speaker 5: And then another stain he was excluded from was the
Speaker 5: top kitchen gas range and that was a mixture of
Speaker 5: two male profiles and he was excluded from that. The
Speaker 5: problem with the DNA and what the CiU ultimately kind
Speaker 5: of hung their hat on is like, well, he's not excluded,
Speaker 5: so we can't say it's exonerating, right.
Speaker 1: Ashley's team also wanted to explore the idea of alternate suspects.
Speaker 5: The three offenders who we believe are the ones who
Speaker 5: actually did it. One of them could not be excluded
Speaker 5: from the fingernails, and two of them were not excluded
Speaker 5: from a stobe sample and a hall sample.
Speaker 1: Those three individuals were Maurice Pearson, Ricky Buckley, and Andre Parks,
Speaker 1: all known members of the gangster Disciples.
Speaker 5: I mean, had the attorney at the time done any
Speaker 5: investigating at all, he would have come up with what
Speaker 5: we came up with. Twenty five years later, which was
Speaker 5: that everybody in the community knew that Angela was holding
Speaker 5: marijuana for Ruler Reese and dre who were Maurice Pearson,
Speaker 5: Ricky Buckley and andrake Parks, and that there is evidence
Speaker 5: to suggest that they are the true perpetrators.
Speaker 1: When their investigator spoke to Angela Young's daughter, Shamika, the
Speaker 1: team learned even more.
Speaker 5: Jamika told our investigator that young people used to sell marijuana,
Speaker 5: but Ruler Ricky ran the big operation out of the building.
Speaker 5: She also said that a woman and a man outside
Speaker 5: her building one day after the murder told her that
Speaker 5: Reese had killed her mom. Ruler, Reese and Dre went
Speaker 5: and watched some of the trial. It just seemed like
Speaker 5: they were keeping their presence known to make sure that
Speaker 5: nobody snitched. And that's the kind of community that they
Speaker 5: lived in. When we got the file, there was a
Speaker 5: report in there that said that someone called the police
Speaker 5: to report that Maurice Pearson was responsible for Young's murder.
Speaker 5: There's a report that shows he was picked up, there
Speaker 5: was no questioning, and he was ultimately released. That report
Speaker 5: was not in the public defenders fat and as the
Speaker 5: appellate court even said in their decision. The Pearson report
Speaker 5: gives the distinct impression that more information was not available
Speaker 5: because the police did not want to find it. And
Speaker 5: we've seen this in other cases. It wasn't uncommon for
Speaker 5: there to be some sort of relationship with police officers,
Speaker 5: like you scratch my back, eye, scratch yours. You know,
Speaker 5: whoever had the connection to the police officers were like,
Speaker 5: you're going to cover me on this, and we're going
Speaker 5: to frame these other kids because I'm not going to
Speaker 5: prison for this. And that's just how it shook out.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, the Bonjin Group filed a post conviction
Speaker 1: petition based on newly discovered evidence of innocence and ineffective
Speaker 1: assistance of counsel. In March of twenty twenty two, Jennifer
Speaker 1: Bonjing argued Selma's case before the Appellate Court. Justice is
Speaker 1: Nathaniel House, Cynthia Cobbs, and Terrence Lanvin, who is.
Speaker 2: The attorney who's going to make a presentation for the
Speaker 2: appellant today.
Speaker 4: Good morning, your honor, Jennifer Bonjing on behalf.
Speaker 3: Of mister Butler.
Speaker 5: Thanks, I mean, I just listened to the oral argument again.
Speaker 5: The Appellate Corps, especially Justice Labin was appalled by this trial.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and trying to compare with this is one of
Speaker 7: the more unusual cases that I've ever dealt with in
Speaker 7: my thirteen years in the appellate court. Here, but we
Speaker 7: have two defendants co defendants who were tried in bench
Speaker 7: trials in front of the same judge. The first guy
Speaker 7: gets off, the second guy gets fifty years.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Bonjing went on to explain that much of the
Speaker 1: state's case against Selma hinged on the coorst grand jury
Speaker 1: testimony of fourteen years old Earl Gilmore and.
Speaker 7: At the trial of mister Butler, his public defender, who
Speaker 7: by all accounts was a competent attorney, asked all of
Speaker 7: four questions of the police officer who allegedly took this statement,
Speaker 7: a statement that was never memorialized, wasn't signed off on,
Speaker 7: wasn't written, wasn't recorded.
Speaker 4: Nothing that's right, you're right, your honor, and there was
Speaker 4: just no effort to challenge it. And again it is
Speaker 4: mind boggling to me. I can only assume that what
Speaker 4: happened here is that he assumed and not guilty. But
Speaker 4: you can't make those types of assumptions.
Speaker 7: Why the state, I don't know what the state was
Speaker 7: assuming either, because both parties waived opening statement. I've never
Speaker 7: seen a record like this wave opening statement. First witnesses,
Speaker 7: no questions, no questions, no questions, then four questions. Then
Speaker 7: you know, didn't even need a lunch break, and the
Speaker 7: case is over. I mean, this entire case is justice delayed?
Speaker 4: Yes, so I side threw my hands up.
Speaker 1: The Illinois Pellet Court ordered the case to Cook County
Speaker 1: Circuit Court for an evidentiary hearing. In January of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Selma was discharged from prison after receiving day
Speaker 1: for day credit for good behavior. He had served twenty
Speaker 1: five years of his fifty year sentence.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, you come home during a pandemic, like,
Speaker 6: what are we gonna do? So I had looked up
Speaker 6: some things to do and we ended up doing a
Speaker 6: boat ride. Just met him and a couple of my friends.
Speaker 6: We finally able to really have some type of memory,
Speaker 6: and it, oh my gosh, it was so much fun.
Speaker 6: Even when he's on a boat ride, everybody's dancing. He
Speaker 6: he just bombed his head, just chilling.
Speaker 2: You know. Once I got off parole and I was
Speaker 2: able to travel, I went to my me. Wow, I
Speaker 2: rode the jet ski. I got on a parasale. Wow,
Speaker 2: I got the helicopter. Was able to helicopter Beyonce house,
Speaker 2: Bill Gates house.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You know, was able to look at their backyards.
Speaker 1: In they pools.
Speaker 2: I was able to do, you know, some things that
Speaker 2: I'm so you know, I know there's the guys were
Speaker 2: things that get better with you know, I've been having
Speaker 2: some fun.
Speaker 1: You know, Selma is keeping busy with a cause that
Speaker 1: is close to his heart.
Speaker 2: I work with the outlet. There's a mentor program. I
Speaker 2: get paid to mentor fatherless other age boys from the
Speaker 2: age of eight to twenty two. You know. I work
Speaker 2: with the parole officers, you know, going to the schools
Speaker 2: to speak, teaching positive things about gods, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And then after I leave that job, I go to
Speaker 2: another job with maintenance supply and I clean buildings and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, like janitorial work. So that's what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1: And there's been another significant change in Selma's life since
Speaker 1: he got out of prison.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine told me about a Dayton site.
Speaker 2: So I got on the Dayton site and we had
Speaker 2: changed not much, and we started speaking and things of
Speaker 2: that nature.
Speaker 3: And what's her name?
Speaker 2: That name is Jamila. She's intelligent, you know. Uh, she's
Speaker 2: s thoughtful, she's beautiful. The nonprofit organization that I actually
Speaker 2: work for, which is the outlet, she the intake coordinator there,
Speaker 2: so she's responsible for all the boys that come into
Speaker 2: the program just to see someone that gives back and
Speaker 2: thoughtful and things of that nature. You know, you like
Speaker 2: what I like, so I like you.
Speaker 1: Selma and Jamala got married in twenty twenty two. But
Speaker 1: even though he served his full sentence, Selma is still
Speaker 1: not fully exonerated in the eyes of the law.
Speaker 3: He's trying to make a life for himself.
Speaker 5: He's trying to live and he can't because you know,
Speaker 5: he has this looming over him. You know a lot
Speaker 5: of people would be like, oh, you're out anyway, what's
Speaker 5: the big deal, you know, but it's not about that
Speaker 5: for him. He's innocent, and it is a complete travesty
Speaker 5: of justice, even justice. Lavin said. The entire case is
Speaker 5: justice delayed.
Speaker 2: I have to just be hopeful and just lean on God,
Speaker 2: you know, and just get out and do the best
Speaker 2: I can. You know, give more to amenity than it
Speaker 2: didn't gave.
Speaker 1: To me, you know, and Soma says he's not the
Speaker 1: only one who is mistreated by the justice system. He
Speaker 1: still thinks about Angela Young and her two daughters, Shamikha
Speaker 1: and Nicole.
Speaker 2: They didn't probably investigate her mother's death. I wasn't only wrong,
Speaker 2: Miss Young was wrong because they didn't properly investigate her death.
Speaker 2: They didn't care about a death. They didn't care about
Speaker 2: my wrongful resident. You know what I mean. So at
Speaker 2: some point black deaths don't matter, Black lives don't matter.
Speaker 2: We don't matter. You know. Everybody that was a partitive
Speaker 2: was mistreated. So God's will I do right? I do
Speaker 2: right by life.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freelink.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
Speaker 1: links in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wurtis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: producer Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Bial and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: The show is engineered by Jackie Pauley, with additional production
Speaker 1: by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in this
Speaker 1: production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is the production of Lava for
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