Speaker 1: My interview with Tony Wright originally aired on April third
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen, and since his full exoneration and declaration
Speaker 1: of actual innocence, he started working in the mailroom behing
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia's largest law firms, Pepper Hamilton in July twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Tony and I have done a number of appearances together.
Speaker 1: He's always full of life, full of wisdom, and just
Speaker 1: a great, great guy to be around, sort of a
Speaker 1: gentle giant of a man. And I'm proud to call
Speaker 1: him my friend. And here's the good news. A lot
Speaker 1: of exgneries never get compensated, and we'll talk about those
Speaker 1: reasons in the course of the different episodes. But happy
Speaker 1: to report that in twenty eighteen, Tony Wright received a
Speaker 1: settlement of almost ten million dollars from the state of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: I came from a beautiful neighborhood, had a beautiful life.
Speaker 1: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
Speaker 1: day of my high school year.
Speaker 3: I was gonna be a senior.
Speaker 2: At twenty two, I was set to start college.
Speaker 4: I woke up and my wife was never the same again.
Speaker 5: Cops came out with guns drawn and I never saw
Speaker 5: freedom ever since after that.
Speaker 2: It's like roach mode, Tom, once you get in and
Speaker 2: I can't mount.
Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today, I am
Speaker 1: particularly honored to have the co founder and co director
Speaker 1: of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, as well as our
Speaker 1: most recent I believe our most recent exgnery Tony Wright.
Speaker 3: A man jail for twenty four years.
Speaker 6: As we tried again today he was found not guilty
Speaker 6: of his crimes, and.
Speaker 2: I walked back inside that prison for the last time. Man.
Speaker 2: All hell broke loose.
Speaker 6: But Tony Wright was victed of the rape and murder
Speaker 6: of Luis Talley in Philadelphia back in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 6: a crime he's always said he didn't commit. Lots of
Speaker 6: emotion today as the jury read its verdict in the courtroom,
Speaker 6: audible gas as they declared Anthony Wright not guilty.
Speaker 1: Peter, Tony, welcome to the show. Thank you. So let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. Peter came out well, sort of.
Speaker 1: We can only say he came out of retirement to
Speaker 1: if he hadn't actually tried a case in about twenty
Speaker 1: years prior to this one.
Speaker 4: This was the first, my first criminal trial more than
Speaker 4: two decades, and probably first criminal trial where I was
Speaker 4: a sort of a principle in more like twenty five years.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of counterintuitive because people wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: of that, right But the fact is that in almost
Speaker 1: all the cases where we find DNA that truly proves
Speaker 1: that the person who's incarcerated convicted falsely but everyone to
Speaker 1: call it is actually innocent, the charges get dropped. But
Speaker 1: not here. This was a unique case in that sense,
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 4: This was the first case in the twenty five year
Speaker 4: history of the Innocence Project where after the overwhelming evidence
Speaker 4: of innocence produced by the DNA testing was certainly enough
Speaker 4: to get the conviction vacated, Whereas in almost every other case,
Speaker 4: the prosecutors would then dismiss the chargers. Here the Philadelphia
Speaker 4: DA said, no way, we're going to back up our detectives,
Speaker 4: frankly who framed Tony and make you go through another trial.
Speaker 4: So Tony, even after the DNA evidence came back exonerating him,
Speaker 4: had to stay in prison another two and a half
Speaker 4: years awaiting the retrial.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary and it's horrifying. Tony has sort of become
Speaker 1: almost like a face of the innocence movement because of
Speaker 1: the incredible coverage and Rolling Stone Magazine which ran a
Speaker 1: phenomenal story focusing of course on the misconduct of the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia police and prosecutors and on this case. In that story,
Speaker 1: it was very poignant when they said that in this
Speaker 1: century or whatever they however they phrased it, a black
Speaker 1: man has a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: Mississippi than he does in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And that's really
Speaker 1: a terrible indictment of a city, a Northeastern city where
Speaker 1: people would think that the justice system would function much
Speaker 1: better than it would in the Deep South. But Tony,
Speaker 1: I want to get to you. So let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning.
Speaker 2: You grew up.
Speaker 1: You were in Pennsylvania, born and bred right, yes, And
Speaker 1: so you grew up in Philadelphia proper, yes? And what
Speaker 1: was that like?
Speaker 2: I was raised by just my mother. My father wasn't
Speaker 2: there because he didn't want to be there. He wasn't
Speaker 2: there because at that time my mother wouldn't allow him
Speaker 2: to be there. I mean, he's a great guy, he's
Speaker 2: he's president in my life every day now and has
Speaker 2: been for a very long time. I grew up in
Speaker 2: the worst part of the city with my mom.
Speaker 1: And you had a very difficult childhood with I guess
Speaker 1: it was your stepfather, right, who was very violent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very beautiful, I mean very It was more so
Speaker 2: to my mother, but you know, you know I had
Speaker 2: to endure that as well. You know, as a small
Speaker 2: child growing up. That's hard.
Speaker 1: You know, No, I'm getting the chills thinking about it,
Speaker 1: because that's almost I would imagine for those of us
Speaker 1: who have an experience that we can't imagine it. But
Speaker 1: the fact is, not being able to defend your own
Speaker 1: mother from a violent predator like that is a terrifying
Speaker 1: scenario for any child. And I want to fast forward
Speaker 1: a little bit, Tony, So you ended up getting in
Speaker 1: some trouble, but then really turning your life around. We
Speaker 1: were diverted as a young adolescent, really fifteen years old, right,
Speaker 1: You were diverted to a program for troubled use as
Speaker 1: opposed to being sent to prison.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The program was called Vision Quest at that time. I
Speaker 2: believe Vision Quests saved my life and helped me put
Speaker 2: things back in perspective because as an alternative to actually
Speaker 2: lock an use up. I mean, you know, no handcuffs,
Speaker 2: no nothing. So you know, as a structured environment, very disciplined, right,
Speaker 2: no picnic either, No no pick, definitely not no picnic.
Speaker 2: I mean it was hard, but you know, it instilled
Speaker 2: so much discipline in you, patience, and back then it
Speaker 2: was a great place place for me to be. I
Speaker 2: was there three years. I built some relationships with people
Speaker 2: that really took care of me. I mean, so you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of kids was up there for not going
Speaker 2: to school and shoplifting that, and I was up there
Speaker 2: for a sat with the police and which was very serious.
Speaker 2: And you know, the people told me, you know, if
Speaker 2: I do came there and did what I was supposed
Speaker 2: to do, they'll take care of me. And they did
Speaker 2: just that.
Speaker 1: Man, And you really did turn your life around. And
Speaker 1: that's what makes this story particularly tragic because when we
Speaker 1: get to the point of when you were arrested for
Speaker 1: a crime you had no knowledge of. It had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with a brutal crime, the rape and murder
Speaker 1: of a seventy seven year old woman. You know, you
Speaker 1: were on the right track, right, You were working a
Speaker 1: full time job in construction. You had a young son.
Speaker 1: We were still very young, twenty years old, right, So
Speaker 1: let's go back to that. And you know, the facts
Speaker 1: of the case are well known and have been well documented,
Speaker 1: so let's go through that. You're twenty years old. You're
Speaker 1: sitting at home. It's a Sunday afternoon, right Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 1: very normal, everything cooking, getting ready for the football game.
Speaker 2: When I'm ready for the football game. October twentieth, you
Speaker 2: never forget it, man, it was the worse day of
Speaker 2: my life. I was staying with my mother at the time,
Speaker 2: me and my girlfriend and my son was over my
Speaker 2: mother's house and my mother and my girlfriend was in
Speaker 2: the kitchen cooking brunch, and they just woke me up.
Speaker 2: And I was laying on a couch and my son
Speaker 2: was sitting underneath me, playing with his toys. And it
Speaker 2: was a knock at the door, and almost simultaneously, the
Speaker 2: phone rung. I grabbed the phone and answered the phone,
Speaker 2: and my mother came in the living room and answered
Speaker 2: the door. And when I asked the phone, it was
Speaker 2: my son's grandfather on the phone, who lived down North
Speaker 2: Philly at the time, and he said, the police just
Speaker 2: left here looking for you. I said, well, they just
Speaker 2: walked in in the house. I'll call you back soon
Speaker 2: as they leave, let me see what they want. And
Speaker 2: when I got off the phone, you know, they said
Speaker 2: they wanted to take me down to the station and
Speaker 2: asked me some questions. So, you know, growing up, we
Speaker 2: taught that the police is the people that protect you
Speaker 2: and serve the community. Again, I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have a problem with going with them
Speaker 2: to ask whatever questions they had for me. And when
Speaker 2: I got to the station, instead of asking me questions,
Speaker 2: they told me that they know I committed this murder.
Speaker 2: They got evidence to back it up, and they also
Speaker 2: had witnesses.
Speaker 1: Right, And this is I mean, we're talking Peter, going
Speaker 1: back to you know, this is twenty five years ago
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: Right, October nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: One, October ninety one. And back then, the culture in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia was so I mean, it was as backwards as
Speaker 1: it could be, is that right.
Speaker 4: It was during the time when the police had declared
Speaker 4: war on drugs, had declared war on black youth, and
Speaker 4: the combination of the two obviously would come down heaviest
Speaker 4: on people like Tony and his peers, and they didn't
Speaker 4: really care about staying within the rules. That was the
Speaker 4: main thing they wanted to close these cases. There were
Speaker 4: a number of homicides. They just wanted somebody to be
Speaker 4: held accountable. And you had a situation here where the
Speaker 4: people who were in fact were part of the real
Speaker 4: group that were responsible for the rape and murder of
Speaker 4: this woman. Decided that Tony was the person that they
Speaker 4: would name because it would deflect attention from themselves, and
Speaker 4: it was somebody who the police would like to get
Speaker 4: because of that prior run and that Tony had had
Speaker 4: with the police that sent him to vision quest a
Speaker 4: few years earlier. So that was the situation, and once
Speaker 4: they decided to go with Tony, rules didn't matter anymore.
Speaker 4: And as you can appreciate, the very first thing is
Speaker 4: when they bring him in to question him. If you
Speaker 4: believe the police version, they bring Tony in and within
Speaker 4: a minute and a half, Tony simply gives a detailed
Speaker 4: confession to the rape and murder, without any interrogation, any
Speaker 4: questioning anything. It's not tape recorded, it's not videotape, it's
Speaker 4: not even in Tony's words. It's simply written out. As
Speaker 4: they said of verbatim Q and A by the police.
Speaker 4: It was idiotic. There's no way any of that happened.
Speaker 4: It was disproved that it could have happened during our trial.
Speaker 4: But that's how they did it, and they got away
Speaker 4: with it in those days.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was systematic, and it was really part of
Speaker 1: a culture that had been created by a Rizzo, right
Speaker 1: who was the former police chief and a high school
Speaker 1: dropout who rose through the ranks to become one of
Speaker 1: the most brutal police chiefs in the history of this country,
Speaker 1: and he openly endorsed violence.
Speaker 5: Domestic battery, aggravated assault with a handgun, child endangerment. Officer
Speaker 5: Richard Rizzo's arrest record by his own department reads like
Speaker 5: a launder list of bad police behavior. The seventeen year
Speaker 5: veteran has been investigated twenty nine times for rules violations,
Speaker 5: has been suspended seven times, and still has three disciplinary
Speaker 5: cases pending.
Speaker 1: So this was really not really out of the even
Speaker 1: though out of the ordinary.
Speaker 4: Well, in fact, to be very very specific, the precinct
Speaker 4: with this incident occurred the thirty ninth that in that
Speaker 4: year or the year before, a number of officers in
Speaker 4: that precinct were indicted by the federal government for corruption
Speaker 4: and convicted and sent to prison. Wow, so it's not
Speaker 4: just an abstraction. It was going on right there.
Speaker 1: So back to you, Tony. So there you are in
Speaker 1: the police station. You're twenty years old, and we know,
Speaker 1: we have research that shows how common it is for
Speaker 1: a false confession to be elicited or coerced from a minor. Right,
Speaker 1: often it's teenagers. But at twenty you're still not fully developed. Right,
Speaker 1: You're not a child, but you're not really a grown
Speaker 1: up yet. But in your case, there was a real
Speaker 1: threat of physical violence, right if you were handcuffed to
Speaker 1: a chair. I mean, walk us through that terrifying situation
Speaker 1: that you were in.
Speaker 2: I was waiting for somebody to come and said it
Speaker 2: was a joke, man, But it just kept going on
Speaker 2: and on and on and on and wouldn't stop. Man.
Speaker 2: And at twenty years old, you know, I wanted my mother, man,
Speaker 2: I wanted to see my mother bad. You know how
Speaker 2: I've never been in that type of situation. Man. It
Speaker 2: was crazy.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, they handcuffed me to a chair in the
Speaker 2: middle of between both of my legs and the chair
Speaker 2: that I was sitting in. They made me sign the paper.
Speaker 2: They actually told me if I signed and I can
Speaker 2: go home.
Speaker 4: What the detectives specifically say to you when he got
Speaker 4: in your face.
Speaker 2: Oh, he said he was gonna poke my eye and
Speaker 2: skull fuck me.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, that's I mean, at that point, you'd sign anything,
Speaker 1: right in fact, and you didn't know what you were signing,
Speaker 1: because if, as Peter was saying, if we were to
Speaker 1: believe the police version of events, you walked in and
Speaker 1: said basically volunteered to be executed. Right, You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sign this thing. You guys, go ahead
Speaker 1: and execute me and I'll see you later. But in fact,
Speaker 1: you were there. You didn't have a lawyer, right, you
Speaker 1: didn't have a guardian or a parent. Right, yet you
Speaker 1: were all alone against overwhelming odds and the threat of
Speaker 1: extreme physical violence, which was a real threat. We know
Speaker 1: from those days that was they weren't kidding.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you just said, Man, that whole regime down there,
Speaker 2: and at the time, twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: Man, and we know that it's I mean, it's improved,
Speaker 1: but there's still a lot of work to be done
Speaker 1: to fix the system. I mean, there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff going on around the country in Philadelphia, right,
Speaker 1: and Peter.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what's going on, because in fact, you know,
Speaker 4: these cops did frame Tony. And yet in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: the DA's office said, we're going to back up those cops, okay,
Speaker 4: because we don't want the public to know that our
Speaker 4: cops are framing innocent people for crimes. So the DA's
Speaker 4: office was complicit, right with the cops, except they're doing
Speaker 4: it in twenty fifteen, not nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: So victed of a crime you know nothing about, and
Speaker 1: sent to prison where you're there pretty much in an
Speaker 1: impossible situation, separated from your son, separated from your family,
Speaker 1: in a terrible prison.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I just think the one thing you may want
Speaker 4: to mention is that when he's convicted, he's convicted of
Speaker 4: capital murder. So he was facing the death penalty and
Speaker 4: probably would have been executed but for the fact that
Speaker 4: his mother came in during the sentencing phase and just
Speaker 4: begged the jury to spare my son, who's a decent
Speaker 4: human being and wouldn't have done something like this. And
Speaker 4: so the vote was seven to five to execute Tony.
Speaker 4: And in Pennsylvania, unlike a place like Alabama, you needed
Speaker 4: a unanimous vote to execute somebody. So but for those
Speaker 4: few votes, Tony would be dead now, despite the fact
Speaker 4: that he was factually innocent.
Speaker 1: So there you are in prison. But you didn't give up, hope, right.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would and no one
Speaker 1: could imagine what it's like. But you didn't give up.
Speaker 1: You worked in the law library, you wrote letters right
Speaker 1: and then and then what happened? How did all this
Speaker 1: turn around?
Speaker 2: My family? My family first, man, my family.
Speaker 1: For your family, stuck by you, which is fantasy.
Speaker 2: Me always, I didn't feel sorry for myself, man. I
Speaker 2: just wanted out of there. Yeah, I mean, I just
Speaker 2: made sure my business and did anything I was supposed
Speaker 2: to do. Wrote letters, and I wrote sent letters to everybody,
Speaker 2: and surprisingly almost every letter was responded to. Everybody wrote back,
Speaker 2: and everybody referred me to the Instance project over New York.
Speaker 1: How many letters did you write? Was it one a
Speaker 1: week or one a month? Day?
Speaker 2: Ten at a time. I put ten in the box
Speaker 2: all the time to day, No, ten, about ten a week,
Speaker 2: ten a week? Yeah, I mean I just sent them
Speaker 2: to everybody, everybody that had some type of legal facility,
Speaker 2: you know, I just wanted some feedback from the people,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people was interested in my case,
Speaker 2: and everybody kept it. I guess it was out their jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: And everybody kept referring me back to the Essence Project
Speaker 2: over New York City. And I had written the Nocent
Speaker 2: Project first, and as you know, when they'd written me back,
Speaker 2: they sent me a question there and then they said,
Speaker 2: you know, don't send no additional information, don't call, and
Speaker 2: we'll contact you as we felt we need some information
Speaker 2: from you. And during the time just waiting to hear
Speaker 2: from the Essence Project, I just kept sending letters and
Speaker 2: letters and letters, and as an Edison Project was doing
Speaker 2: this investigation until my case, and finally they accepted it.
Speaker 1: And then one day you get a letter from the
Speaker 1: Niscence Project. It's almost like getting a letter from the
Speaker 1: lottery commissioned, like, hey, we find your ticket or something.
Speaker 2: Right, you have no idea, man. When I got that letter,
Speaker 2: I read the letter and I thought I was seeing
Speaker 2: something that I wasn't seeing, or I was reading something
Speaker 2: that wasn't there. I thought I was dreaming. I got
Speaker 2: the letter and it was a ut of saying that
Speaker 2: they accepted my keys. I put the letter down and
Speaker 2: put it in the cell, shut the door to the
Speaker 2: long walk down a jail block, and walk back. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean a couple of deep breaths, went back in
Speaker 2: and read it. Man, it was it was. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: It was unbelievable, Peter, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: So we get a lot of letters, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: we have boxes, you know, it's an amazing thing to see. Right,
Speaker 1: we have the intake department, as we call it. Right,
Speaker 1: we get letters from all over the country, hundreds a
Speaker 1: month actually, Right, And so how did it come to
Speaker 1: be that Tony's case was was accepted? And let's let's
Speaker 1: explain the process, because I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, one of the problems at the Innocence
Speaker 4: Project is obviously there's an overwhelming demand for our representation.
Speaker 4: And so so the way we work, and it's almost
Speaker 4: like an emergency room in an urban hospital, is you
Speaker 4: deal with the most critical cases first. So obviously anyone
Speaker 4: who sentenced to death goes to the top of the list,
Speaker 4: and we'll look at those cases first. Otherwise, Tony's case
Speaker 4: comes in and it goes online and when people get
Speaker 4: to it, they get to it and that can take
Speaker 4: a couple of years to evaluate the case, to pull
Speaker 4: out old transcripts, to look at police reports, lab reports,
Speaker 4: and see whether or not Tony's case is the kind
Speaker 4: of case that we could take at the project. And
Speaker 4: that's very simple. If it's a case where biological evidence
Speaker 4: was collected during the initial investigation, if DNA testing could
Speaker 4: demonstrate that this individual was innocent or likely to be innocent,
Speaker 4: and that biological evidence still existed, we would take the
Speaker 4: case irrespective of what other evidence was used to convict somebody,
Speaker 4: as long as the individual was saying I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: And in this case, it was like the trifacta right
Speaker 1: because all of the it matched up on all of
Speaker 1: those criteria. And of course, in Pennsylvania particularly, we know
Speaker 1: that race is a factor in wrongful conviction. So Tony
Speaker 1: had it all stacked against him, right, he had the.
Speaker 4: Except for two things, okay. One is when the case
Speaker 4: was litigated by our staff attorneys in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia
Speaker 4: DIA's office said, this is not a case involving who
Speaker 4: was there. It's not an id issue because Tony write it,
Speaker 4: confessed to the cops, all right, He signed a confession
Speaker 4: and once you sign a confession, you're no longer eligible
Speaker 4: for DNA evidence under Pennsylvania law. So the Innocent Project
Speaker 4: lawyers had to litigate the case for eight years up
Speaker 4: to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court before they remanded it back
Speaker 4: to the trial court, saying no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: Wait a second, just because you say there was a
Speaker 4: confession doesn't mean it's a reliable confession. And if this
Speaker 4: biology and the biology could be determinedive, you have that
Speaker 4: right to DNA testing. So years were wasted by the
Speaker 4: stubborn resistance of the Philadelphia DA's office just to do.
Speaker 2: In the test.
Speaker 4: Forget the consequences of the test, Let's just do the test.
Speaker 1: They were opposed to it, which is incredible, right, because
Speaker 1: a DNA test. The only thing that can happen with
Speaker 1: a DNA test is that it can find the truth. Right,
Speaker 1: it's going to find the truth. It might be turned
Speaker 1: out that the guy's guilty on that, and that happens
Speaker 1: in some of our cases too.
Speaker 4: It certainly happens, right.
Speaker 1: And if it is, it is. But I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so odd that somebody would be opposed to finding out
Speaker 1: the truth.
Speaker 4: Well, it's odd if your purpose as a prosecutor or
Speaker 4: as a court is the search for the truth and
Speaker 4: justice if, on the other hand, as was the case
Speaker 4: with the Philadelphia DA's office, that they thought their primary
Speaker 4: responsibility was to defend convictions. In fact, when they initially
Speaker 4: set up a conviction integrity unit at about the same
Speaker 4: time that we were fighting to vacate Tony's conviction, the
Speaker 4: individual assigned to be in charge of that unit said
Speaker 4: not that his job was to get to the truth
Speaker 4: and we look at old cases, but his job was
Speaker 4: to defend the integrity of all old convictions. It was
Speaker 4: like something out of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: So, Tony, So now you're languishing in prison. You know
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project has got your case. You know they're
Speaker 1: on your side. You know you have a lot of hope.
Speaker 1: But it's got to be a tortuous process. And then
Speaker 1: things get even crazier, right because twenty two years into this, right,
Speaker 1: it's a lifetime that you've been in prison, and the
Speaker 1: DNA test comes back and shows, well.
Speaker 2: That Tony right committed.
Speaker 1: This crown shows that you were telling the truth all along,
Speaker 1: other than the false confession which was obtained basically under torture. Absolutely, right,
Speaker 1: so now you're like, I mean, and people at the
Speaker 1: Inniss Project got to be high fiving, right, and everybody's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're good. We're going to get this guy home and
Speaker 1: go back and try to rebuild your life. But as
Speaker 1: Peter was representing before, that's not what happened, because in
Speaker 1: this case, they were more interested in standing by the
Speaker 1: conviction and protecting what they now knew was a false
Speaker 1: conviction than they were in any type of justice for
Speaker 1: a guy who they now knew was innocent. And so
Speaker 1: how the hell does that work? Because anybody would say, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, don't they have to let him go now?
Speaker 1: So how did they get around now?
Speaker 4: So the way it works is, okay, there are two
Speaker 4: parts to the exoneration process. The first thing you have
Speaker 4: to do is you have to get them to vacate
Speaker 4: the original conviction. Once you vacate the original conviction, then
Speaker 4: it's up to the district attorney whether they want to
Speaker 4: dismiss the charges or whether they want to retry the case.
Speaker 4: So in this instance, initially they even fought us on
Speaker 4: vacating the conviction, and we were about to have a
Speaker 4: one week hearing in court when the Philadelphia Inquirer came
Speaker 4: out with an editorial saying, this is crazy. You have
Speaker 4: to vacate the conviction based on the new DNA evidence.
Speaker 4: You can't go forward. And once that story appeared, and
Speaker 4: that editorial appeared the day before the hearing was to commence,
Speaker 4: the prosecutor threw in the towel and vacated the conviction,
Speaker 4: but then announced they were going to retry him, and
Speaker 4: they were going to retry it as a capital murder.
Speaker 1: Right, And now this is particularly I mean, it's as
Speaker 1: disturbing as it is fascinating. Right, So it was a
Speaker 1: rape and murder of a seventy seven year old woman, Tally, right,
Speaker 1: Louise Tally was her name. And so now we've got
Speaker 1: the DNA that proves with absolute scientific certainty that Tony
Speaker 1: couldn't have been the guy that did it, So they
Speaker 1: had to come up with something like what kind of
Speaker 1: crazy theory could you possibly concot.
Speaker 4: So, just to appreciate the setting, So it's the rape
Speaker 4: and murder of a seventy seven year old widow who
Speaker 4: lived alone in a modest house in North Philadelphia. She
Speaker 4: stabbed to death repeatedly after being raped. The DNA testing
Speaker 4: and it was always the police understanding that there was
Speaker 4: a single perpetrator crime. So the DNA testing on the
Speaker 4: seamen a collective from the rape kit, excluded Tony Wright
Speaker 4: as being the source. Okay, that's number one. Number two.
Speaker 4: Once they get a single male profile, it goes off
Speaker 4: to the CODIS national DNA database of convicted felons that
Speaker 4: was established by the FBI. It goes off to the
Speaker 4: database and boom, they get a hit. They get a
Speaker 4: hit on a guy named Ronnie Bird who at the time,
Speaker 4: Tony Wright had never known this person, have met this person.
Speaker 4: Tony Wright was at the time, in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 4: was twenty years old. This guy, Ronnie Bird was forty
Speaker 4: twice Tony's age, but half the age of Missus Tally,
Speaker 4: the victim in this case. And we find out that
Speaker 4: Ronnie Bird was a crack addict at the time who
Speaker 4: lived as a squatter in an abandoned half house that
Speaker 4: was adjacent to the backyard of Missus Tally's home.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's amazing, right, right, So.
Speaker 4: It's obvious Missus Tally wasn't romantically involved with anybody. Obviously,
Speaker 4: Ronnie Bird is the person who raped her and murdered
Speaker 4: her and stole her TV sets, because the TV sets
Speaker 4: were seen the very next day being sold on the
Speaker 4: street by one of Ronnie Bird's friends, who was a
Speaker 4: crack dealer who lived a few houses down. Remember, Tony
Speaker 4: didn't even live in the neighborhood, so it was obviously
Speaker 4: Ronnie Bird. So what are they going to do. They
Speaker 4: have no evidence to connect Tony Wright to Ronnie Bird,
Speaker 4: so they invent an insane theory. And the theory is
Speaker 4: that based on the confession, you should believe that Tony
Speaker 4: Wright raped and killed this woman, and that when he
Speaker 4: fled the house, he left the front door Ajar, and
Speaker 4: after he left, this crackhead who lived as a squadron
Speaker 4: nearby row the door Ajar, wandered into the house and
Speaker 4: vaginally raped and anally sodomized a corpse. Literally, what they
Speaker 4: were saying is that Ronnie Bird was the unindicted necrophiliac,
Speaker 4: and that was the theory they put forward to the
Speaker 4: second jury this summer in Philadelphia to try and get
Speaker 4: a conviction.
Speaker 1: Not just any corpse, a bloody corpse.
Speaker 4: Right, And also it wasn't just that we got to
Speaker 4: remember in terms of where Ronnie birds seamen was found
Speaker 4: what they had to acknowledge was that Ronnie Bird vaginally
Speaker 4: raped this woman and then Italy sodomized this corpse. It
Speaker 4: was ridiculous, it was offensive, it was mean spirited. But
Speaker 4: because it was an office and a leadership in the
Speaker 4: Philadelphia DIA's office that cared more about defending corrupt cops
Speaker 4: than getting to the truth. Unfortunately, Tony Wright had to
Speaker 4: endure another trial where if he lost, he would face
Speaker 4: the rest of his life in prison without parole.
Speaker 1: And this is this whole case is so there's so
Speaker 1: many problems with it. There's evidence we haven't even talked
Speaker 1: about from earlier, from the first trial, right where they
Speaker 1: invented theories about him about Tony having had her clothing
Speaker 1: in his home, which was not true. They brought in
Speaker 1: the shoes that were the wrong side. They claimed that
Speaker 1: her TV set was in his house, which it wasn't.
Speaker 1: There were so many lies, and then they just kept
Speaker 1: building this house of lies higher and higher, right until
Speaker 1: eventually it had to topple. But it took another two
Speaker 1: and a half years, testing Tony's patience and will even further.
Speaker 1: And then here comes Peter Neufeld and the Innocence Project
Speaker 1: team down to Philadelphia, Tony, they bring you back to court, right,
Speaker 1: but now your roll in not only with conviction, not
Speaker 1: only with scientific evidence, but also with a team of
Speaker 1: lawyers that is ready to take on the toughest challenges.
Speaker 4: I should add that the team from the Innstance Project
Speaker 4: was our senior staff returning in Arrison who've been working
Speaker 4: on Tony's case trying to get DNA testing for eight years,
Speaker 4: and myself, and then we teamed up with two fabulous
Speaker 4: lawyers at the Schneider firm in Philadelphia, Sam and Rebecca,
Speaker 4: and they were just wonderful. And so Tony had four
Speaker 4: lawyers who were going to the mat Forum and.
Speaker 1: We did, rolling in like the fucking Avengers. I like it.
Speaker 1: So let's go to the you know, the verdict. So
Speaker 1: there you are in court, twenty five years later, twenty
Speaker 1: five years in prison, you're back in court. The evidence
Speaker 1: has been read, the jury goes out. That must be
Speaker 1: an incredible amount of pressure. And I mean, you've already
Speaker 1: been through this, You've already been through everything. There's nothing
Speaker 1: they can throw you haven't seen already. But nonetheless, what happens,
Speaker 1: they don't deliberate, they didn't deliver it. For very long,
Speaker 1: did they.
Speaker 2: Well further and form. Well, I've never felt so sure
Speaker 2: comfortable about anything in my life. Very comfortable with the
Speaker 2: men and women we selected to serve on this jury.
Speaker 2: I felt very comfortable with my team. I just wanted
Speaker 2: my day in court. I was looking forward.
Speaker 1: To It was your family there. Everybody was there, so
Speaker 1: you had a whole you had a whole contingent there.
Speaker 2: You had that everybody, my family, friends, people I didn't know,
Speaker 2: so many people was down there to support.
Speaker 1: And then and then the jury went out and they
Speaker 1: came back unbelievably quickly, really right, I mean there was
Speaker 1: a long trial.
Speaker 4: Well it was a two and a half weree trial,
Speaker 4: and the jury went out at noon, and the clerk
Speaker 4: had ordered sandwiches for them, and it's our understanding that
Speaker 4: they actually reached a verdict within five or ten minutes,
Speaker 4: but they stayed there because the sandwiches have been delivered,
Speaker 4: and so they finished the sandwiches and then told the
Speaker 4: courtroom deputy that they were ready to render their verdict.
Speaker 1: And they didn't just render their verdict. This was a
Speaker 1: particularly powerful thing, didn't didn't some of them cry as.
Speaker 4: They crying as was part of the defense team and
Speaker 4: Tony all at the same moment when the verdict was delivered,
Speaker 4: which was basically not guilty on all counts, And it
Speaker 4: was not only an extraordinary moment which Tony should describe,
Speaker 4: but the only thing I will say, which is really
Speaker 4: a continuation of the bad faith of the Philadelphia DIA's office.
Speaker 4: They immediately issued a statement saying just because they voted
Speaker 4: not guilty doesn't mean that he's innocent. In fact, it
Speaker 4: just means they have a reasonable doubt, to which the
Speaker 4: jurors responded on their own, told the press, that's ridiculous, Okay,
Speaker 4: They said, the evidence of his innocence was overwhelming, and
Speaker 4: that's what contributed to the verdict that we delivered. Had
Speaker 4: nothing to do with reasonable doubt, and it had to do
Speaker 4: with the fact that we unanimously concluded within minutes that
Speaker 4: ton Right was completely innocent of these crimes.
Speaker 1: And then there's more still to the story, because here's
Speaker 1: these jurors who had been there for two and a
Speaker 1: half week, the serious imposition in anybody's life. But they
Speaker 1: didn't leave, right, They stayed. And why did they stay?
Speaker 2: They wanted to see me, Well, they wanted to see me.
Speaker 2: They was out there with all my legal team, all
Speaker 2: my family.
Speaker 1: They wanted to meet the family. And then, and then,
Speaker 1: and then, I love this part of the story, Tony,
Speaker 1: So in just one more little sort of fuck you, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, in any other situation. And I'm sure people
Speaker 1: are thinking as they're hearing the story, well, now it's triumphant.
Speaker 3: You're free.
Speaker 1: They take off the handcuffs, you walk out of the
Speaker 1: court room into the sunshine, there's balloons, ribbons, whatever the
Speaker 1: hell there is. But that's not they didn't even do that, right,
Speaker 1: But there was this over lining.
Speaker 3: So they took you.
Speaker 1: Back to jail right just because they could, which seemed
Speaker 1: so ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Well it wasn't just that. What happened was when the
Speaker 4: jury returned the verdict of not guilty, we explicitly on
Speaker 4: the record, then asked the judge to set him free
Speaker 4: so we could walk out of the courtroom into the
Speaker 4: arms of his son and all his aunts and the
Speaker 4: rest of his family. And the judge refused to do it,
Speaker 4: just refused to do it. So the jurors were all
Speaker 4: waiting downstairs expecting that Tony will be released momentarily from
Speaker 4: the courthouse and they could hug him which is what
Speaker 4: they wanted to do, and the judge said no way,
Speaker 4: and so Tony had to go back to the Philadelphia jail,
Speaker 4: which was about fifteen miles away from the courthouse, and
Speaker 4: we had to get a court order. We then had
Speaker 4: to go out to the county jail to get Tony,
Speaker 4: but the jurors said they wanted to come back. They
Speaker 4: wanted to see him. And so the next day the jury,
Speaker 4: though they had been discharged, they were no longer part
Speaker 4: of this case, they took off from work whatever they
Speaker 4: were doing, and they all went up into town to
Speaker 4: the Schnada firm and waited just so they could have
Speaker 4: a moment to embrace Tony Wright, who they knew had
Speaker 4: endured so much adversity for so many years for something
Speaker 4: he clearly didn't do.
Speaker 1: Right. They wanted to embrace, and they wanted to apologize
Speaker 1: for what the city of Philadelphia had done to their
Speaker 1: fellow citizen. Right. But here's the such a happy moment,
Speaker 1: and I could tell you really lit up when you
Speaker 1: were talking to me about it before, Tony. So they
Speaker 1: take you back to the jail, right, But you're on
Speaker 1: cloud nine, right because you know you're going home and
Speaker 1: you've been vindicated, and you've been pretty much. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't be you can't be more powerfully vindicated than
Speaker 1: by this particular jury, and so quickly. It's such an
Speaker 1: indictment of the of the prosecution who had wrongfully persecuted you.
Speaker 1: So you go back to the jail and then what happens.
Speaker 1: You walk in and what happened.
Speaker 2: You got a high profile case and you're going back
Speaker 2: to court. Everything that's happening, you know, I mean going
Speaker 2: and coming. The jail is always aware of it. I mean,
Speaker 2: just for the safety of that and made the safety
Speaker 2: of the institution. You don't know how it's gonna go.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been on trial for two and a
Speaker 2: half weeks and everybody's you know, since I got damned,
Speaker 2: myself was vacated. Everybody had been paying attention to everything
Speaker 2: that was going on with me. News reporters outside the
Speaker 2: court every day, you know, trying to talk to one
Speaker 2: of my attorneys or all my family, and you know,
Speaker 2: they reported on the news every night. I was on
Speaker 2: the front of the paper every.
Speaker 1: Day, every day, going back and forth.
Speaker 2: Every Monday through Friday, whatever happened to court that day.
Speaker 2: They had editorial about it in the Philadephia Deli News
Speaker 2: every single day. I was on the front of the
Speaker 2: punt of paper for two and a half weeks every
Speaker 2: day as long as the trial went on. So everybody
Speaker 2: the institution, you know, the inmates or the papers and
Speaker 2: you know, pass them around word of mouth, so everybody
Speaker 2: was really playing a closer tend to what was going
Speaker 2: on with me. And and unbeknown to me, uh, when
Speaker 2: a verdict came in, I guess it was pronounced on
Speaker 2: the radio that they have a verdict. So you know,
Speaker 2: they said they locked the jailing down at that point,
Speaker 2: and the guards was everybody hollowed around the TVs and
Speaker 2: and and and they computers and and and when the
Speaker 2: verdict came in, now guilty, they said. The s guards
Speaker 2: first was screaming, hiling, running around things, saying he they
Speaker 2: just acquitted him, you know what I mean? So uh,
Speaker 2: and not knowing you know I I you just said
Speaker 2: that I was on cloud nine. I didn't even care
Speaker 2: that I had to be shadowed one more time and
Speaker 2: take that last ride back up to the prison because
Speaker 2: the judge refused and signed off and let me walk
Speaker 2: out the court room with my family and my attorneys.
Speaker 2: And when I walked in and when I bought me
Speaker 2: off that bus and I walked back inside that prison
Speaker 2: for the last time, Man, all hell broke loose. Man.
Speaker 2: Everybody was so guards was jumping up and down. Who
Speaker 2: came and got me off the bus first? And then
Speaker 2: when I went to the houses you know where I
Speaker 2: was housed, that everybody it was so much noise, scream
Speaker 2: and everybody was hugging me and high five. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was beautiful. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a scene that really, I mean, I wish
Speaker 1: it was on film, right, we would show it every
Speaker 1: chance we got.
Speaker 4: Well, the one thing we did get to see, which
Speaker 4: was pretty cool. Two things. One is when the legal
Speaker 4: team came out with his family to get him. They
Speaker 4: brought us into the reception area and they closed it
Speaker 4: off to everybody else, and the superintendents and all the
Speaker 4: top brass of the jail came out and stood in
Speaker 4: the line. They all had big smiles on their faces
Speaker 4: and they all wanted to watch. They all wanted to
Speaker 4: watch Tony Wright reunited with his family. They all congratulated him.
Speaker 4: There were hugs there. It was really quite extraordinary to
Speaker 4: see all these people. They were all thrilled for Tony,
Speaker 4: for his family. And then when we took Tony on
Speaker 4: the walk outside the jail for about i'd say, three
Speaker 4: hundred yards to get back to the parking lot where
Speaker 4: the press was, You're walking alongside the jail, tier after
Speaker 4: tier after tear, and the noise was incredible. Everybody was
Speaker 4: banging pots and pans against the window, yelling good luck
Speaker 4: and all that the entire jail and we heard it too,
Speaker 4: and it really did send chills through my spine. And
Speaker 4: it's a sound, it's a wave of sound that I'll
Speaker 4: never forget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something you couldn't even make up right, It's
Speaker 1: just it's something that happened.
Speaker 3: It's real. You're real, you're here.
Speaker 1: You're in New York. That's sun is shining. You're one
Speaker 1: of the most positive people that we know. And he
Speaker 1: spoke so eloquently last night at an event in New York.
Speaker 1: And I'm really thrilled that you were able to come
Speaker 1: and be here on Wrongful Conviction and I want to
Speaker 1: thank you and Peter Neufeld. This has been a very
Speaker 1: special episode of Wrongful Conviction, and Tony, I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, because you deserve every great blessing that could
Speaker 1: come your way.
Speaker 7: Thank you, don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Speaker 7: Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
Speaker 1: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how
Speaker 1: to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in
Speaker 1: the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 2: During the Wine in the Way, Ny