WEBVTT - #018 Jason Flom with Tony Wright 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:05.080 My interview with Tony Wright originally aired on April third 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:10.960 of twenty seventeen, and since his full exoneration and declaration 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.040 of actual innocence, he started working in the mailroom behing 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.520 in Philadelphia's largest law firms, Pepper Hamilton in July twenty seventeen. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.160 Tony and I have done a number of appearances together. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:27.400 He's always full of life, full of wisdom, and just 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.680 a great, great guy to be around, sort of a 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.720 gentle giant of a man. And I'm proud to call 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.199 him my friend. And here's the good news. A lot 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.520 of exgneries never get compensated, and we'll talk about those 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.440 reasons in the course of the different episodes. But happy 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.640 to report that in twenty eighteen, Tony Wright received a 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:56.360 settlement of almost ten million dollars from the state of Pennsylvania. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:02.040 I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life. 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.959 I went to sleep because September seventh was the first 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:06.240 day of my high school year. 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:08.000 I was gonna be a senior. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.160 At twenty two, I was set to start college. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.640 I woke up and my wife was never the same again. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.679 Cops came out with guns drawn and I never saw 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:19.240 freedom ever since after that. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.480 It's like roach mode, Tom, once you get in and 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:23.480 I can't mount. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:33.559 This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome to another 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.160 episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today, I am 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.640 particularly honored to have the co founder and co director 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.000 of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, as well as our 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.680 most recent I believe our most recent exgnery Tony Wright. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:49.559 A man jail for twenty four years. 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.800 As we tried again today he was found not guilty 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.280 of his crimes, and. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.360 I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man. 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:58.640 All hell broke loose. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.440 But Tony Wright was victed of the rape and murder 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.600 of Luis Talley in Philadelphia back in nineteen ninety three, 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.520 a crime he's always said he didn't commit. Lots of 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.359 emotion today as the jury read its verdict in the courtroom, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:17.399 audible gas as they declared Anthony Wright not guilty. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.600 Peter, Tony, welcome to the show. Thank you. So let's 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.760 get right into it. Peter came out well, sort of. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:26.440 We can only say he came out of retirement to 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.120 if he hadn't actually tried a case in about twenty 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.160 years prior to this one. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:34.840 This was the first, my first criminal trial more than 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.640 two decades, and probably first criminal trial where I was 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.480 a sort of a principle in more like twenty five years. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.040 And it's sort of counterintuitive because people wouldn't have thought 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.480 of that, right But the fact is that in almost 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.840 all the cases where we find DNA that truly proves 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.679 that the person who's incarcerated convicted falsely but everyone to 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.680 call it is actually innocent, the charges get dropped. But 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.520 not here. This was a unique case in that sense, 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:01.880 right now. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.919 This was the first case in the twenty five year 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:09.160 history of the Innocence Project where after the overwhelming evidence 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.280 of innocence produced by the DNA testing was certainly enough 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.520 to get the conviction vacated, Whereas in almost every other case, 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.200 the prosecutors would then dismiss the chargers. Here the Philadelphia 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.560 DA said, no way, we're going to back up our detectives, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.160 frankly who framed Tony and make you go through another trial. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.679 So Tony, even after the DNA evidence came back exonerating him, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.320 had to stay in prison another two and a half 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:39.320 years awaiting the retrial. 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.520 It's extraordinary and it's horrifying. Tony has sort of become 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.800 almost like a face of the innocence movement because of 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.160 the incredible coverage and Rolling Stone Magazine which ran a 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.360 phenomenal story focusing of course on the misconduct of the 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:58.240 Philadelphia police and prosecutors and on this case. In that story, 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.400 it was very poignant when they said that in this 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.560 century or whatever they however they phrased it, a black 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.000 man has a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:10.720 Mississippi than he does in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And that's really 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.080 a terrible indictment of a city, a Northeastern city where 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.520 people would think that the justice system would function much 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.080 better than it would in the Deep South. But Tony, 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.240 I want to get to you. So let's go back 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:24.000 to the beginning. 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:24.640 You grew up. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.760 You were in Pennsylvania, born and bred right, yes, And 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.560 so you grew up in Philadelphia proper, yes? And what 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:32.200 was that like? 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.320 I was raised by just my mother. My father wasn't 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.720 there because he didn't want to be there. He wasn't 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.280 there because at that time my mother wouldn't allow him 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.120 to be there. I mean, he's a great guy, he's 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.520 he's president in my life every day now and has 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.080 been for a very long time. I grew up in 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.520 the worst part of the city with my mom. 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.080 And you had a very difficult childhood with I guess 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.799 it was your stepfather, right, who was very violent. 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.960 Yeah, very beautiful, I mean very It was more so 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.480 to my mother, but you know, you know I had 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.520 to endure that as well. You know, as a small 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.320 child growing up. That's hard. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.839 You know, No, I'm getting the chills thinking about it, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.640 because that's almost I would imagine for those of us 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.400 who have an experience that we can't imagine it. But 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.720 the fact is, not being able to defend your own 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.839 mother from a violent predator like that is a terrifying 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.440 scenario for any child. And I want to fast forward 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.000 a little bit, Tony, So you ended up getting in 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.760 some trouble, but then really turning your life around. We 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.839 were diverted as a young adolescent, really fifteen years old, right, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.320 You were diverted to a program for troubled use as 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:39.479 opposed to being sent to prison. 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:39.760 Yeah. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.080 The program was called Vision Quest at that time. I 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.360 believe Vision Quests saved my life and helped me put 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:52.080 things back in perspective because as an alternative to actually 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.560 lock an use up. I mean, you know, no handcuffs, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:00.400 no nothing. So you know, as a structured environment, very disciplined, right, 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.320 no picnic either, No no pick, definitely not no picnic. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.960 I mean it was hard, but you know, it instilled 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.560 so much discipline in you, patience, and back then it 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.520 was a great place place for me to be. I 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:18.359 was there three years. I built some relationships with people 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.960 that really took care of me. I mean, so you know, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.400 a lot of kids was up there for not going 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.239 to school and shoplifting that, and I was up there 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.760 for a sat with the police and which was very serious. 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.440 And you know, the people told me, you know, if 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.200 I do came there and did what I was supposed 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.479 to do, they'll take care of me. And they did 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:38.800 just that. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.480 Man, And you really did turn your life around. And 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.359 that's what makes this story particularly tragic because when we 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.080 get to the point of when you were arrested for 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.360 a crime you had no knowledge of. It had nothing 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.320 to do with a brutal crime, the rape and murder 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:55.400 of a seventy seven year old woman. You know, you 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.120 were on the right track, right, You were working a 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.479 full time job in construction. You had a young son. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.320 We were still very young, twenty years old, right, So 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.560 let's go back to that. And you know, the facts 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.200 of the case are well known and have been well documented, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.240 so let's go through that. You're twenty years old. You're 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.240 sitting at home. It's a Sunday afternoon, right Sunday afternoon, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.320 very normal, everything cooking, getting ready for the football game. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.440 When I'm ready for the football game. October twentieth, you 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.600 never forget it, man, it was the worse day of 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.679 my life. I was staying with my mother at the time, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.360 me and my girlfriend and my son was over my 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.000 mother's house and my mother and my girlfriend was in 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.600 the kitchen cooking brunch, and they just woke me up. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:35.560 And I was laying on a couch and my son 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.360 was sitting underneath me, playing with his toys. And it 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.280 was a knock at the door, and almost simultaneously, the 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.520 phone rung. I grabbed the phone and answered the phone, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.720 and my mother came in the living room and answered 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.480 the door. And when I asked the phone, it was 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.080 my son's grandfather on the phone, who lived down North 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:56.600 Philly at the time, and he said, the police just 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.880 left here looking for you. I said, well, they just 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.360 walked in in the house. I'll call you back soon 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.120 as they leave, let me see what they want. And 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.280 when I got off the phone, you know, they said 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.920 they wanted to take me down to the station and 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.080 asked me some questions. So, you know, growing up, we 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.960 taught that the police is the people that protect you 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.840 and serve the community. Again, I didn't do anything wrong, 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.840 so I didn't have a problem with going with them 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.680 to ask whatever questions they had for me. And when 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.280 I got to the station, instead of asking me questions, 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.840 they told me that they know I committed this murder. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.400 They got evidence to back it up, and they also 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:34.280 had witnesses. 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.480 Right, And this is I mean, we're talking Peter, going 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.360 back to you know, this is twenty five years ago 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:41.840 in Philadelphia. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.720 Right, October nineteen ninety. 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.640 One, October ninety one. And back then, the culture in 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.360 Philadelphia was so I mean, it was as backwards as 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:52.360 it could be, is that right. 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.200 It was during the time when the police had declared 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.839 war on drugs, had declared war on black youth, and 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:05.079 the combination of the two obviously would come down heaviest 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.439 on people like Tony and his peers, and they didn't 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.560 really care about staying within the rules. That was the 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.319 main thing they wanted to close these cases. There were 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.600 a number of homicides. They just wanted somebody to be 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:21.440 held accountable. And you had a situation here where the 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.280 people who were in fact were part of the real 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.560 group that were responsible for the rape and murder of 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.199 this woman. Decided that Tony was the person that they 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.120 would name because it would deflect attention from themselves, and 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.720 it was somebody who the police would like to get 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.640 because of that prior run and that Tony had had 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.400 with the police that sent him to vision quest a 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.800 few years earlier. So that was the situation, and once 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.080 they decided to go with Tony, rules didn't matter anymore. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.920 And as you can appreciate, the very first thing is 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.480 when they bring him in to question him. If you 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.960 believe the police version, they bring Tony in and within 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.000 a minute and a half, Tony simply gives a detailed 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:10.440 confession to the rape and murder, without any interrogation, any 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.560 questioning anything. It's not tape recorded, it's not videotape, it's 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.719 not even in Tony's words. It's simply written out. As 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.640 they said of verbatim Q and A by the police. 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.800 It was idiotic. There's no way any of that happened. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.840 It was disproved that it could have happened during our trial. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.080 But that's how they did it, and they got away 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:30.000 with it in those days. 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.520 Yes, it was systematic, and it was really part of 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.959 a culture that had been created by a Rizzo, right 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.280 who was the former police chief and a high school 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.520 dropout who rose through the ranks to become one of 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.920 the most brutal police chiefs in the history of this country, 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.480 and he openly endorsed violence. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:49.840 Domestic battery, aggravated assault with a handgun, child endangerment. Officer 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.160 Richard Rizzo's arrest record by his own department reads like 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.280 a launder list of bad police behavior. The seventeen year 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.960 veteran has been investigated twenty nine times for rules violations, 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.439 has been suspended seven times, and still has three disciplinary 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:04.120 cases pending. 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.679 So this was really not really out of the even 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:07.480 though out of the ordinary. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.360 Well, in fact, to be very very specific, the precinct 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.120 with this incident occurred the thirty ninth that in that 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.200 year or the year before, a number of officers in 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.320 that precinct were indicted by the federal government for corruption 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.880 and convicted and sent to prison. Wow, so it's not 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.000 just an abstraction. It was going on right there. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:31.959 So back to you, Tony. So there you are in 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.000 the police station. You're twenty years old, and we know, 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.760 we have research that shows how common it is for 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:43.679 a false confession to be elicited or coerced from a minor. Right, 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.320 often it's teenagers. But at twenty you're still not fully developed. Right, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.600 You're not a child, but you're not really a grown 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.040 up yet. But in your case, there was a real 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.880 threat of physical violence, right if you were handcuffed to 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.520 a chair. I mean, walk us through that terrifying situation 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:58.280 that you were in. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.960 I was waiting for somebody to come and said it 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.319 was a joke, man, But it just kept going on 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.360 and on and on and on and wouldn't stop. Man. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:11.080 And at twenty years old, you know, I wanted my mother, man, 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.920 I wanted to see my mother bad. You know how 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.040 I've never been in that type of situation. Man. It 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:18.760 was crazy. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:19.600 Uh. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.720 You know, they handcuffed me to a chair in the 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.000 middle of between both of my legs and the chair 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.440 that I was sitting in. They made me sign the paper. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:31.440 They actually told me if I signed and I can 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:31.840 go home. 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.560 What the detectives specifically say to you when he got 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:35.400 in your face. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.120 Oh, he said he was gonna poke my eye and 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:38.040 skull fuck me. 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.320 Right, Well, that's I mean, at that point, you'd sign anything, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.560 right in fact, and you didn't know what you were signing, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.439 because if, as Peter was saying, if we were to 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.360 believe the police version of events, you walked in and 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.719 said basically volunteered to be executed. Right, You're like, yeah, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:55.360 I'm just gonna sign this thing. You guys, go ahead 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:57.680 and execute me and I'll see you later. But in fact, 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.920 you were there. You didn't have a lawyer, right, you 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.680 didn't have a guardian or a parent. Right, yet you 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.800 were all alone against overwhelming odds and the threat of 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.400 extreme physical violence, which was a real threat. We know 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.120 from those days that was they weren't kidding. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.840 Oh man, you just said, Man, that whole regime down there, 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.720 and at the time, twenty five years ago. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.640 Man, and we know that it's I mean, it's improved, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.880 but there's still a lot of work to be done 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:25.760 to fix the system. I mean, there's still a lot 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.319 of this stuff going on around the country in Philadelphia, right, 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:29.880 and Peter. 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.920 Well, you know what's going on, because in fact, you know, 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:38.280 these cops did frame Tony. And yet in twenty fifteen, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.280 the DA's office said, we're going to back up those cops, okay, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.559 because we don't want the public to know that our 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.960 cops are framing innocent people for crimes. So the DA's 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.559 office was complicit, right with the cops, except they're doing 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.360 it in twenty fifteen, not nineteen ninety one. 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.960 So victed of a crime you know nothing about, and 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.360 sent to prison where you're there pretty much in an 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.640 impossible situation, separated from your son, separated from your family, 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:11.319 in a terrible prison. 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:11.600 Right. 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.240 Yeah. I just think the one thing you may want 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.800 to mention is that when he's convicted, he's convicted of 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.440 capital murder. So he was facing the death penalty and 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.240 probably would have been executed but for the fact that 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.360 his mother came in during the sentencing phase and just 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.600 begged the jury to spare my son, who's a decent 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.840 human being and wouldn't have done something like this. And 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:39.040 so the vote was seven to five to execute Tony. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:43.840 And in Pennsylvania, unlike a place like Alabama, you needed 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.960 a unanimous vote to execute somebody. So but for those 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.640 few votes, Tony would be dead now, despite the fact 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.160 that he was factually innocent. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.120 So there you are in prison. But you didn't give up, hope, right. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.120 I think a lot of people would and no one 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.800 could imagine what it's like. But you didn't give up. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.320 You worked in the law library, you wrote letters right 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.920 and then and then what happened? How did all this 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:08.600 turn around? 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.720 My family? My family first, man, my family. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.000 For your family, stuck by you, which is fantasy. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.920 Me always, I didn't feel sorry for myself, man. I 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:20.800 just wanted out of there. Yeah, I mean, I just 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.440 made sure my business and did anything I was supposed 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.320 to do. Wrote letters, and I wrote sent letters to everybody, 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:35.160 and surprisingly almost every letter was responded to. Everybody wrote back, 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:40.320 and everybody referred me to the Instance project over New York. 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.320 How many letters did you write? Was it one a 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:43.920 week or one a month? Day? 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.880 Ten at a time. I put ten in the box 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.280 all the time to day, No, ten, about ten a week, 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.240 ten a week? Yeah, I mean I just sent them 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.760 to everybody, everybody that had some type of legal facility, 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.560 you know, I just wanted some feedback from the people, 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.360 and a lot of people was interested in my case, 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.360 and everybody kept it. I guess it was out their jurisdiction. 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.119 And everybody kept referring me back to the Essence Project 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.120 over New York City. And I had written the Nocent 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.280 Project first, and as you know, when they'd written me back, 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:18.640 they sent me a question there and then they said, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.200 you know, don't send no additional information, don't call, and 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.280 we'll contact you as we felt we need some information 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.560 from you. And during the time just waiting to hear 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.440 from the Essence Project, I just kept sending letters and 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.480 letters and letters, and as an Edison Project was doing 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.320 this investigation until my case, and finally they accepted it. 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:40.920 And then one day you get a letter from the 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.120 Niscence Project. It's almost like getting a letter from the 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.640 lottery commissioned, like, hey, we find your ticket or something. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.360 Right, you have no idea, man. When I got that letter, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.880 I read the letter and I thought I was seeing 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.920 something that I wasn't seeing, or I was reading something 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.520 that wasn't there. I thought I was dreaming. I got 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.720 the letter and it was a ut of saying that 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:02.920 they accepted my keys. I put the letter down and 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.359 put it in the cell, shut the door to the 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:10.360 long walk down a jail block, and walk back. Yeah. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.119 I mean a couple of deep breaths, went back in 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.960 and read it. Man, it was it was. It was unbelievable. 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:31.720 It was unbelievable, Peter, let's talk about that. 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.560 So we get a lot of letters, right, I mean, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.119 we have boxes, you know, it's an amazing thing to see. Right, 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.480 we have the intake department, as we call it. Right, 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.199 we get letters from all over the country, hundreds a 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.879 month actually, Right, And so how did it come to 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.640 be that Tony's case was was accepted? And let's let's 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:51.680 explain the process, because I think it's interesting. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.920 So, I mean, one of the problems at the Innocence 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:59.240 Project is obviously there's an overwhelming demand for our representation. 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.000 And so so the way we work, and it's almost 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:06.159 like an emergency room in an urban hospital, is you 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.720 deal with the most critical cases first. So obviously anyone 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.840 who sentenced to death goes to the top of the list, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:17.000 and we'll look at those cases first. Otherwise, Tony's case 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.880 comes in and it goes online and when people get 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.120 to it, they get to it and that can take 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.200 a couple of years to evaluate the case, to pull 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.400 out old transcripts, to look at police reports, lab reports, 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.240 and see whether or not Tony's case is the kind 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.119 of case that we could take at the project. And 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.840 that's very simple. If it's a case where biological evidence 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.119 was collected during the initial investigation, if DNA testing could 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:49.080 demonstrate that this individual was innocent or likely to be innocent, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.800 and that biological evidence still existed, we would take the 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:57.440 case irrespective of what other evidence was used to convict somebody, 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.840 as long as the individual was saying I didn't do it. 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.400 And in this case, it was like the trifacta right 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.520 because all of the it matched up on all of 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.159 those criteria. And of course, in Pennsylvania particularly, we know 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.639 that race is a factor in wrongful conviction. So Tony 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.360 had it all stacked against him, right, he had the. 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.200 Except for two things, okay. One is when the case 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.679 was litigated by our staff attorneys in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.080 DIA's office said, this is not a case involving who 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.600 was there. It's not an id issue because Tony write it, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.960 confessed to the cops, all right, He signed a confession 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.919 and once you sign a confession, you're no longer eligible 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.119 for DNA evidence under Pennsylvania law. So the Innocent Project 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.480 lawyers had to litigate the case for eight years up 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.520 to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court before they remanded it back 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.439 to the trial court, saying no, no, no, no, no, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.199 Wait a second, just because you say there was a 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.520 confession doesn't mean it's a reliable confession. And if this 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.320 biology and the biology could be determinedive, you have that 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.399 right to DNA testing. So years were wasted by the 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:11.360 stubborn resistance of the Philadelphia DA's office just to do. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:11.879 In the test. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.280 Forget the consequences of the test, Let's just do the test. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.320 They were opposed to it, which is incredible, right, because 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:20.800 a DNA test. The only thing that can happen with 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.360 a DNA test is that it can find the truth. Right, 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:25.400 it's going to find the truth. It might be turned 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:27.200 out that the guy's guilty on that, and that happens 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:28.160 in some of our cases too. 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:29.480 It certainly happens, right. 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.320 And if it is, it is. But I mean, it's 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.040 so odd that somebody would be opposed to finding out 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:34.440 the truth. 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:39.320 Well, it's odd if your purpose as a prosecutor or 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.000 as a court is the search for the truth and 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.240 justice if, on the other hand, as was the case 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.240