Speaker 1: On February two, a string of five armed robberies occurred
Speaker 1: in Gary, Indiana, leaving one man shot dead in front
Speaker 1: of his wife and three young daughters. All the victims
Speaker 1: described the assailant as a black man around five six
Speaker 1: with a tangle hat red bandanna, black leather jacket, and
Speaker 1: some sort of scarring on his face. Instead of compiling
Speaker 1: a photo array of men fitting that description, investigators included
Speaker 1: the photo of Timmy Donald, a man who was six
Speaker 1: ft tall with no facial scarring, and, according to at
Speaker 1: least one victim, was the suggested choice of investigators. In fact,
Speaker 1: a search warrant had already been obtained for Timmy's home
Speaker 1: before he had been misidentified. Three of the robbery victims,
Speaker 1: including one former Gary police officer, were separately shown the
Speaker 1: photo array and did not identify Timmy, but the other
Speaker 1: two of view the array together. A mixture of police
Speaker 1: and peer pressure produced two misidentifications during the live lineup.
Speaker 1: According to one victim, when she said that Timmy was
Speaker 1: bigger than the aunt robber, she was assured that they
Speaker 1: had the right guy, even though it was proven that
Speaker 1: Timmy was at work at the exact time that the
Speaker 1: victim had spotted the actual attacker on the street and
Speaker 1: tried to report it. Tunnel vision had already set in
Speaker 1: and that report was hidden from the defense. Despite no
Speaker 1: physical or forensic evidence, as well as a solid alibi
Speaker 1: and the protests of all the other victims, the misidentifications
Speaker 1: were enough to send Timmy Donald away for a sixty
Speaker 1: year sentence. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
Speaker 1: Today's case is pretty much mind blowing. It was an
Speaker 1: insane crimes for me, but how they ended up convicting
Speaker 1: a man named Tim Donald and sending him to sixty
Speaker 1: years to life in prison on some of the shakiest
Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony I've ever heard, ignoring and covering up exculpatory evidence.
Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning. We're talking about an Indiana
Speaker 1: case that occurred in the early nineties in a time
Speaker 1: when police corruption. It would be comical if it wasn't
Speaker 1: so sinister. And we have the man himself here today
Speaker 1: with us. So without further ado, Tim Donald, welcome to
Speaker 1: Raw for conviction. Thank you for having me. And you know,
Speaker 1: I always say I'm sorry you're here because of the
Speaker 1: reason why you're here, but I'm very grateful and honored
Speaker 1: to have you here on the show with us, and
Speaker 1: of course with you today. Is my friend and someone
Speaker 1: who a lot of us call a hero in this movement.
Speaker 1: She's a professor of criminal justice who serves as the
Speaker 1: executive director of the Center for Justice and Post Exoneration
Speaker 1: Assistance at Purdue University Northwest. Dr Nikki Jackson, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Raw Conviction. Thanks Jason, Thanks for having me so Tim.
Speaker 1: It's been thirty years since this happened, but it must
Speaker 1: seem like yesterday in some ways to you. Let's go
Speaker 1: back in time two before this insanity, when you were
Speaker 1: just a young man with hopes and dreams like anybody else.
Speaker 1: What was your life like growing up in Indiana back
Speaker 1: in the in the seventies, eighties and early nineties. I
Speaker 1: had four sisters, mother, stepdad, doing grade school, middle school,
Speaker 1: high school. I enjoyed playing sports baseball, basketball, and just
Speaker 1: hanging around my family in France. Were you good player?
Speaker 1: Good athlete? Pretty good? That I hear the underneath that sone.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he was probably really good. Sound some humility. Um,
Speaker 1: I had dreams of playing center fear for the Chicago Coast.
Speaker 1: So you were good Yeah, let's not listen. I had
Speaker 1: dreams of being a pro ball player, but I also
Speaker 1: knew many dreams. Yeah, mine, there was no connection between
Speaker 1: those dreams and reality. So you grew up? And what
Speaker 1: did you have any run ins with the law before
Speaker 1: this insane series of events? Yeah? And uh, nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: we wanted the bar my friends uncle Carr to go
Speaker 1: to the beach, and I know the net of the
Speaker 1: still in column was missing. That's usually associated with the
Speaker 1: car being stolen. So I actually his uncle what was
Speaker 1: going on with that? He said? He said he lost
Speaker 1: the key and he was in the process of getting
Speaker 1: that a Nixon fixed. So we got stopped by the
Speaker 1: police and he noticed the initial and automatically he thought
Speaker 1: the car was stolen, so we was arrested. His uncle
Speaker 1: eventually came to the police station, brought the proper paperwork
Speaker 1: showing ownership of the car, and I was released and
Speaker 1: was not charged with a crime. Good thing he had that.
Speaker 1: I got arrested for the lessant Carter. I was fingerprinted,
Speaker 1: and that's how my pictures got in the Gary police
Speaker 1: dep And I think that's an important point to touch
Speaker 1: on because I think it's why a lot of young
Speaker 1: men like yourselves, who come from various when over policing
Speaker 1: is occurring, end up in this system through no fault
Speaker 1: of your own in this case. So this crime, this
Speaker 1: is a crazy scenario. I'm talking about February seven two
Speaker 1: in Glenn Park, which was the neighborhood in Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 1: There were five armed robberies, all within one hour of
Speaker 1: each other, and the fourth robbery resulted in the death.
Speaker 1: A man named Bernard him Menaz was arriving home with
Speaker 1: his wife, Kimberly Bolinsky and their three little daughters. A
Speaker 1: man had a handgut it. He grabbed a little girl,
Speaker 1: the biggest one to seven year old, and demanded money,
Speaker 1: and miss Belinsky said that her husband put the cash
Speaker 1: from his wallet, which was less than to dollars on
Speaker 1: the ground, told the robert to go into the house
Speaker 1: and take whatever he wanted. The robber picked up the money,
Speaker 1: but was angry what he saw that was so little
Speaker 1: of it, threw it down the ground, yelled out, you
Speaker 1: don't value your family, and then he pointed his gun
Speaker 1: at the one year old's face. And this is a sick,
Speaker 1: sick guy than the victim. Mr Jimenez through a small
Speaker 1: wooden picnic table at the assailant. There was a struggle,
Speaker 1: and the struggle ended with the robber fatally shooting this
Speaker 1: young father and fleeing five minutes after Mr Hemnez was murdered.
Speaker 1: The perpetrator then gets to another victim, robs her and
Speaker 1: her daughter. And she is a former Gary police officer.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really important as well, right, and
Speaker 1: since this is a case of my identification, Curiously, this
Speaker 1: former Gary police officer never identified you, and one would
Speaker 1: think that her judgment might hold more weight with the
Speaker 1: local police. I mean, she's a cop after all, but
Speaker 1: it did not. And all of the robbery victims, as
Speaker 1: well as Mr Himenez his wife, Kimberly Blinski, described the
Speaker 1: assail in a similar way. Right blackmail about five six,
Speaker 1: black leather jacket, kangole hat with a red bandanna, really
Speaker 1: sleepy eyes. And they all said that he had really
Speaker 1: bad skin, like maybe acne scarring or something like that.
Speaker 1: So let's go to the first most obvious thing, Tim
Speaker 1: how tall are you? I'm six, So the victims described
Speaker 1: the perpetrator who was five six or five seven. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you suddenly grow after you went to prison where
Speaker 1: you maybe five six, five seven. Back then you had
Speaker 1: a excellent makeup artist. Yeah, you didn't have anything wrong
Speaker 1: with your skin either, as all the victims had described
Speaker 1: the assailant. Right, it's a mystery as to how you
Speaker 1: could have even been considered a potential suspect. What did
Speaker 1: your skin like magically heal itself overnight or magically get
Speaker 1: terrible over. I mean, it's it's also it's monstrously ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's yet inexplicably the investigation still was sent in your direction.
Speaker 1: We still don't know, maybe we'll never know what the
Speaker 1: motivation was. But before they had even done this sort
Speaker 1: of shady identification procedure, Timmy was arrested on some kind
Speaker 1: of traffic violation. Just four days after this crime, I
Speaker 1: was arrested. More second, they came to his home with
Speaker 1: this arresta warrant for failure to say. Yeah, that sounds fishy.
Speaker 1: But at this point you're probably still just thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go take care of this and be on my way.
Speaker 1: I knew something's wrong. They came to the house. It
Speaker 1: was like they was picking up the president for the
Speaker 1: White House, with all the cars and things of this nature.
Speaker 1: So I knew it wasn't something more than a traffic
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was to this degree. Had you
Speaker 1: heard about this crime spree? I mean, was it no
Speaker 1: one in the area. I think my sister had read
Speaker 1: about it in a newspaper. So after he was taken
Speaker 1: to the police station under this warrant for these you know,
Speaker 1: failure to appear in court, he was placed in a
Speaker 1: photo lineup. So Mr Donald's picture was put in the
Speaker 1: six pack in that photo lineup based on that arrest. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it was tossed in. Now, three of the victims,
Speaker 1: you'd line up separately, but that wasn't the case with
Speaker 1: these other two kimber LYE. Blinsky and Ronda Williams. From
Speaker 1: my understanding, these two women were placed in the same
Speaker 1: room and identified Mr Donald, whereas all the other victims
Speaker 1: did not identify him. They all had said this is
Speaker 1: not the man. What happened was, these two women are
Speaker 1: in this room. It's once a Caucasian ones African American.
Speaker 1: The Caucasian female says, I'm not sure. At some point
Speaker 1: in the game, she changes her story and says, yes,
Speaker 1: it's him, Yes, it's him. Later and we can talk
Speaker 1: about this because I think this is so important to
Speaker 1: Timmy's case is the recantation made by Ronda Williams. When
Speaker 1: Ronda says she was basically coerced to pick Mr Donald
Speaker 1: out of that photo lineup, Kimberly Bolinsky says, no, we
Speaker 1: got the right guy. So you have this element of
Speaker 1: cross racial identification, which study after study has proven to
Speaker 1: be actually less accurate than guessing. And yes, you heard
Speaker 1: that right. It's less accurate than guessing, especially in cases
Speaker 1: where someone witnesses a violent crime up close. So at
Speaker 1: first Kimberly was not sure. Then she eventually comes around
Speaker 1: to that idea, and all the other people in the
Speaker 1: room leaning on Ronda. And what's really important to note
Speaker 1: is that all of the victims, every victim had reported
Speaker 1: that the assailant had really bad skin, had a different
Speaker 1: build than Mr Donald had. The man they described could
Speaker 1: not have been Mr. Donald. Yet in a photo lineup,
Speaker 1: these two women together picked out Mr Donald. After the
Speaker 1: victims were shown the photo lineup, then there was a
Speaker 1: physical lineup. The land up was like it was suggestive
Speaker 1: everybody supposed to resemble one another. None of the guys
Speaker 1: resemble me. I was like the tallert the tallest one
Speaker 1: in the lineup, and the same two victims identified Mr
Speaker 1: Donald right. Well, we know that photo lineups can be
Speaker 1: done in a very suggestive manner, and they often are.
Speaker 1: And then once the victim or even eyewitness sees that
Speaker 1: photo in the photo lineup and identifies that, now their
Speaker 1: mind starts to lock in on that image. And then
Speaker 1: they go to the live lineup, and you have a
Speaker 1: person who doesn't resemble the actual perpetrator, but resembles the
Speaker 1: person that they picked out when they were being suggestively
Speaker 1: shown the photos in the six pack. And of course
Speaker 1: you go, oh, that's yeah, because you're already that's the
Speaker 1: way our mind works. The next day they went and
Speaker 1: conducted a search of his home. The kingle hat and
Speaker 1: a red bandanna were never discovered, and none of the
Speaker 1: victims for longess wasn't something my home. They found absolutely
Speaker 1: no evidence that linked Mr Donald to any of these
Speaker 1: robberies or the murderer of Mr Heminez. The thing they
Speaker 1: struck me as they had affid David for a search
Speaker 1: warrant sign by the judge hour before to line up
Speaker 1: was even conducted. But you need probable calls to get
Speaker 1: the search want right, and they didn't have that. They
Speaker 1: made their minds up and they were going to make
Speaker 1: the evidence fit the narrative that they wanted instead of
Speaker 1: looking at the evidence and then analyzing it for what
Speaker 1: it was. It's very shocking to even know that this
Speaker 1: even got to trial. I mean, there was zero evidence, zero,
Speaker 1: yet you were charged with first degree murder and two
Speaker 1: counts of armed robbery. The trial took place in Lake
Speaker 1: County Circuit Court in June of ninety two. Now, your
Speaker 1: older sister or Sheila, and her partner, Dan Hopkins both
Speaker 1: testified during the evening of the crimes, you were car
Speaker 1: shopping with them in a place called Merylville and Crown Point, Indiana.
Speaker 1: And the car salesman testified. Right, so someone could say, well,
Speaker 1: the relatively people say whatever they say about that. But
Speaker 1: the car sales were testified that the three of you
Speaker 1: were at their dealerships at the same time of day
Speaker 1: as the crimes occurred. But for some reason, the dealership
Speaker 1: employees didn't verify that they were on the exact same
Speaker 1: day as the crime. What I don't understand, what what
Speaker 1: was that all about? That keep being said. But my
Speaker 1: sister Brawn proof a business card that was dated and
Speaker 1: had car prices on it the same day that these
Speaker 1: class was committed, so I don't know what it was
Speaker 1: put out there, Like we visit the car dealership and
Speaker 1: one on the same day of the cross and the
Speaker 1: cameras in the auto dealership the footage had been erased.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the issues. My trail attorney didn't
Speaker 1: get there in time and off and they had and
Speaker 1: since you didn't have the money to bond out, you
Speaker 1: were not able to develop the alibi evidence that your
Speaker 1: lawyer didn't seem to have the time or inclination. Let's
Speaker 1: call it what it is to develop now. Any absence
Speaker 1: of physical or forensic evidence was explained away just as
Speaker 1: we were. Alibi evidence was as well, and even though
Speaker 1: three of the five victims never identified you, they still
Speaker 1: had Kimberly Bolinsky adamantly supporting her I D while Rhonda
Speaker 1: Williams was convinced to go through with her as a trial. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: any of Rhonda's reservations at the live lineup and the
Speaker 1: fact that she had reported seeing the attacker proven to
Speaker 1: not be you in the street. In the days following
Speaker 1: the robberies, all that critical information was hidden from your
Speaker 1: defense team, and so the jury found you guilty and
Speaker 1: you were sentenced to sixty years. After the verdict was
Speaker 1: really I've just looked back towards my family. They were
Speaker 1: sitting directly and back on me, and one of my
Speaker 1: sisters was trailing. At the time she discollapsed, I already
Speaker 1: know that I had death found guilt, and my man,
Speaker 1: my Mancas was the safety and welfare my sister at
Speaker 1: the time. The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of
Speaker 1: this episode of rawul Conviction and of the Last Mile organization,
Speaker 1: which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals
Speaker 1: successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana,
Speaker 1: supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping young people
Speaker 1: and students. For more information on the work of the
Speaker 1: Pacers Foundation or the Last Bile Program, visit Pacers Foundation
Speaker 1: dot org or the Last Mile dot org. The first
Speaker 1: time I want to yard and I looked at that
Speaker 1: forty ft wall and you can't see nothing. The only
Speaker 1: thing that you can see at this guy. And that's
Speaker 1: what really stuck in my head. Of course, with the
Speaker 1: prisoner user experience different type of emotions. You know, you
Speaker 1: go through about a depression. I remember one time I
Speaker 1: was having a hard time sleeping and I remember this
Speaker 1: show I was watching. I forgot the name on the show.
Speaker 1: It was a guy on death row in Texas. He
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to an innocent project and eventually they
Speaker 1: helped him get off a death row and release for prison.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, I just sat down there. I
Speaker 1: brought the summary of my case. I got a directory
Speaker 1: of all the innocent projects in the United States, and
Speaker 1: I got a copy of the letter. I just sent
Speaker 1: them out to all the innocent projects. Amazingly, things started
Speaker 1: to turn around. It was not that long after you
Speaker 1: went to prison, right that it was discovered that, not
Speaker 1: long after the crime, and before you had been arrested,
Speaker 1: one of the victims, victim named Williams, had called the
Speaker 1: police and reported that she saw the man who robbed
Speaker 1: her on the street. So Williams had been living with
Speaker 1: the fact that she felt like she had, you know,
Speaker 1: picked out the wrong man, and we now know that
Speaker 1: she had called the police. I believe three days after
Speaker 1: she had been robbed. She said, I see the man.
Speaker 1: I think this is him who actually robbed me. So
Speaker 1: the police went her home, they spoke with her, and
Speaker 1: then they went to Mr Donald's workplace. They checked out
Speaker 1: his time card, they spoke to his supervisor, and they
Speaker 1: found that there was no way that Mr Donald could
Speaker 1: have been the man in front of her home when
Speaker 1: he was at work. In fact, he had lunch with
Speaker 1: his supervisor at the time that she had phoned the police.
Speaker 1: So Rhonda Williams, prior to your formal charges, had spotted
Speaker 1: the actual assailant on the street and reported it, and
Speaker 1: the police looked into it, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: the person that she saw could not have been you
Speaker 1: because you had been at work provably so at the
Speaker 1: time that she had seen the attacker. I'm just pausing
Speaker 1: for a second for emphasis. That seems like it should
Speaker 1: have mattered to the police, that's right, and yet nobody
Speaker 1: knows about this. The detectives did not inform anybody. This
Speaker 1: didn't come out till after he'd been incarcerated for many,
Speaker 1: many years. That was just the first time that they
Speaker 1: would tell evidence. In my case, If the attorney had
Speaker 1: had this information, this case would have pretty much been
Speaker 1: a done deal. That information, as I understand. It became
Speaker 1: the basis for a post conviction motion to vacate Tim's conviction,
Speaker 1: but the motion, as well as the subsequent appeals were denied.
Speaker 1: They said the information had married, but it was a
Speaker 1: town known it and that's why they got to that.
Speaker 1: During that time, I was transitioning to another attorney, my
Speaker 1: trial attorney. He was running for the mirror Geary, So
Speaker 1: at this time I didn't have an attorney, and I
Speaker 1: guess the time frame they supposed been found and over left.
Speaker 1: I mean, these technicalities make me crazy. I think most
Speaker 1: people would agree that justice is more important than the
Speaker 1: technical details, and furthermore, the finality, which seems to be
Speaker 1: the opposite of the way our system functions. So now
Speaker 1: we passed forward to two thousand and six, when the
Speaker 1: McDill Innocence Project at Northwestern University's McDill School of Journalism
Speaker 1: and later the Chicago Innocence Center began reinvestigating your case
Speaker 1: to him, and they found evidence that showed that an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old street gang member, a guy named Lavelle Thompson,
Speaker 1: who had bacial acne and was about the right height,
Speaker 1: he had been murdered shortly after the robberies and the
Speaker 1: murder of Mr jimnez Now in two thousand nine, so
Speaker 1: another three years go by. Williams provided us warned statement
Speaker 1: saying that at the time she viewed the photographic lineup,
Speaker 1: she was with Bolinsky. So Williams said, she pointed to
Speaker 1: your photo and Olinsky began to weep. However, a police
Speaker 1: officer noted in a report that Bolinsky was not completely
Speaker 1: sure of her identification. Williams also said in the statement
Speaker 1: that when she viewed the live lineup, she told the
Speaker 1: detective that, Timmy, that you were bigger and taller than
Speaker 1: the robber, right, just like we keep its been saying
Speaker 1: this whole time, and as you had been saying probably
Speaker 1: the whole time. However, the detective assured her that you
Speaker 1: were in fact the guy, and that you had been
Speaker 1: arrested across the street from Williams's home. Now, she said,
Speaker 1: the detective quote unquote, convinced me that I had picked
Speaker 1: the right guy end quote. Williams also said she never
Speaker 1: told prosecutors about her reservations or the detectives em successfully
Speaker 1: coercing her, and she said that she remained convinced that
Speaker 1: the man that she saw shortly after the robbery was
Speaker 1: the gunman who robbed her, which again would have mean
Speaker 1: that it could not possibly have been you. And everybody
Speaker 1: knew that because they knew that you had been at
Speaker 1: work at that time. That was beyond any doubt. But
Speaker 1: she testified to her doubts and to the police detective's
Speaker 1: effort to persuade her during a sworn deposition that she
Speaker 1: gave in two thousand thirteen as part of the post
Speaker 1: conviction proceeding to vacate your conviction. So now things are
Speaker 1: really gathering momentum about this time. That's when the notes
Speaker 1: was discovered That Roda and my trial prosecutor had a meeting.
Speaker 1: This was before trial, way back in ninety two. Head
Speaker 1: told the dean prosecutor was prosecuting my case that she
Speaker 1: wont certain that I was the individual. She said I
Speaker 1: was taller, she said my shoulders with wada, and that
Speaker 1: she wasn't sure. So he knew about these notes and
Speaker 1: he got her on stand knowing that she testified to
Speaker 1: something that she ain't sure about. So these no stay
Speaker 1: hidden in this prosecuted foul for over twenty years before
Speaker 1: they were discovered. That's the second Brady valiation. I don't
Speaker 1: have any words for that, right, Nikki, What can you
Speaker 1: say about behavior? What can you say? Well, it's unacceptable.
Speaker 1: And I think people need to be held accountable. If
Speaker 1: prosecutors and or police didn't do what they should be doing,
Speaker 1: they should be held accountable. I mean, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, these folks are responsible for stealing this
Speaker 1: man's life. And if you and I stole somebody's life,
Speaker 1: we would be held accountable. It's hard to think of
Speaker 1: another profession where you have no accountability, right because they
Speaker 1: have this immunity, they're able to get away with these things.
Speaker 1: But I think once we start holding criminal justice actors responsible,
Speaker 1: we will start to see change for the better. I
Speaker 1: thank god that he didn't put the nose to the thread.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that's a miracle right there. And and that
Speaker 1: brings us to two thousand and sixteen, twenty four years
Speaker 1: and we end up on January thousand, sixteen in the
Speaker 1: Lake County Circuit Court right where the judge vacated your
Speaker 1: convictions and granted a new trial. Now, the judge said
Speaker 1: that the prosecution contended that the same man had committed
Speaker 1: both crimes and had argued that the identifications were positive
Speaker 1: and without any reservations. So the judge ruled that the
Speaker 1: prosecution's failure to disclose Miss Williams's reservations about her identification,
Speaker 1: as well as the detective's effort to persuade her successfully
Speaker 1: as it turned out, to identify you, rendered your trial unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: constitutionally unfair, as he called it, And so on January
Speaker 1: two days later, the Lake County States Attorney dismissed the
Speaker 1: charges and you were released. You went in as a
Speaker 1: twenty three year old kid. Really, let's say, said you're
Speaker 1: more the kid and the man. Now you're a forty
Speaker 1: seven year old man. And so we talked about that
Speaker 1: terrible moment when you were convicted of a crime you
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with. What about this moment? I
Speaker 1: want to take you back a little bit, Jason, Like
Speaker 1: we prior to me finding out that the charges was
Speaker 1: a getting business, my mother had came to visit me
Speaker 1: and she told me it was like a three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty dollar came to number the zact number power
Speaker 1: ball and she says she's gonna play it. So the
Speaker 1: following Monday, I loosely called my mother and my auntie,
Speaker 1: and my mother told me we won. So I don't
Speaker 1: think when she said we won't think she's talking about
Speaker 1: the power Ball that I was elated here the truth
Speaker 1: family came out. What about the power Ball? They didn't
Speaker 1: didn't win that she probably was more excited for this week.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you he would have gave that power ball
Speaker 1: ticket winning ticket to get her son on There's no
Speaker 1: question about it. So and keep in mind, Jason that
Speaker 1: while he had been exonerated in January, we all know
Speaker 1: he's innocent. The prosecutor has even stated that he is innocent. Listen,
Speaker 1: there is no statue of limitations for for homicide, so
Speaker 1: the state at any time can still come back and
Speaker 1: bring charges against Mr Donald. And I don't think people
Speaker 1: really understand how this haunts Mr Donald today tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: mean this, You know, they can come back even with
Speaker 1: no evidence, nothing here in Indiana, and that's really problematic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they can come back everywhere that I know of,
Speaker 1: and they can retry you. Normally they won't, but sometimes
Speaker 1: they try to extract the plea just in order for
Speaker 1: you to avoid the retrial. And after everything you've already
Speaker 1: been through, you know, who knows how somebody's going to
Speaker 1: react to that, they offered me a plea. Bog To
Speaker 1: thousand and thirteen. The prosecutor had reached out to his attorney.
Speaker 1: They had offered him an Alfred plea to get out,
Speaker 1: and he refused because, Timmy, what you shared with me
Speaker 1: was that you would not agree to something that you
Speaker 1: did not do, and that they called your mama a liar,
Speaker 1: and for those reasons, he chose not to accept that
Speaker 1: Alfred plea, or he would have been out of prison
Speaker 1: in they called my sister a lawyer, my blood in
Speaker 1: law a lawyer, And I just couldn't accept taking a
Speaker 1: plea walk and I know I didn't have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. So the prosecutor clearly knew in advance,
Speaker 1: three years earlier that they didn't have anything right. They knew,
Speaker 1: they knew. In fact, I called the prosecutor after I
Speaker 1: met Mr Donald and I said, Hey, is this guy
Speaker 1: really innocent? And he said he's a hundred percent innocent.
Speaker 1: We locked up the wrong guy. I mean, I will
Speaker 1: never forget that phone call. Yeah, but what does it
Speaker 1: say as well about this system and the people in
Speaker 1: it that they come to you. Sure they knew you
Speaker 1: were innocent, and they're trying to They're trying to screw
Speaker 1: you again by getting you to sign a way, literally
Speaker 1: sign your life away in order to go home. I
Speaker 1: haven't figured out how people sleep at night, Jason. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie to you. I really don't know how
Speaker 1: people can sleep at night knowing that an innocent person
Speaker 1: is sitting in prison and they have the power and
Speaker 1: the authority to help release that individual. It's unbelievable, and
Speaker 1: instead they go the exact opposite way and try to
Speaker 1: make the situation worse, trying to double down because it's
Speaker 1: not enough that we kept this innocent man in prison
Speaker 1: for half of his life. Right now, I was going
Speaker 1: to make sure that he can't ever get justice by
Speaker 1: making him sign a piece of paper that we know
Speaker 1: is false. I mean, I don't know how they sleep
Speaker 1: at night either. I think you're a great example for
Speaker 1: everyone of somebody who's been to hell and back and
Speaker 1: come out. You know, wanting to make a difference is
Speaker 1: making a difference in the lives of others, not sitting around.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, if you were in the in the bar,
Speaker 1: drunk in the corner every day all day, nobody could
Speaker 1: judge you because of what you went through, but instead
Speaker 1: you're working hard with Dr Jackson, educating people, helping other exonrerees,
Speaker 1: doing all kinds of incredible stuff. I think it's important
Speaker 1: to know what happened with Timmy's life like after like
Speaker 1: literally when he got out. So I equate leaving prison
Speaker 1: coming back into the society to being dropped in the
Speaker 1: foreign country and you don't know the language. Is all
Speaker 1: the customers. I want to stay with my sister, the
Speaker 1: science sister that I was with a fiance. Is they
Speaker 1: now married? They offered me wrong, great, the same sister
Speaker 1: and fiance that we're you're my witnesses. Yes, they offered
Speaker 1: me a places and stay, and I gladly accepted. When
Speaker 1: I saw this picture of Mr Donald in a newspaper,
Speaker 1: I knew I had to meet him. My background is
Speaker 1: domestic violence, but when I met Mr Donald, what I
Speaker 1: observed was another victim, but a victim of a system.
Speaker 1: And when he got out of prison, you know, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of struggles and challenges, right, dental health issues,
Speaker 1: medical health, economic strife. I mean, he didn't have a job,
Speaker 1: a driver's license for resume. You know, how do you
Speaker 1: craft a resume when there's twenty four years missing, So
Speaker 1: think about how hard that is. And so when we
Speaker 1: met and he shared those struggles, there was no question
Speaker 1: that things needed to change for exonrees here in Indiana. Well,
Speaker 1: you're being released people that actually committed a crime. They
Speaker 1: had more resources than people that being wrongly convicted. And
Speaker 1: I don't got a problem with that. They need to
Speaker 1: receive this and Ray, you're so had, but they're steal
Speaker 1: accommodate lawful convicted individual. Also, through Timmy, I have learned
Speaker 1: so much about the flaws in the system and all
Speaker 1: of the re entry struggles. So I said it, Timmy,
Speaker 1: we've got to fix it. We got to fix it.
Speaker 1: We've got to address these issues. And that's what we've
Speaker 1: been doing. One of the first things that I promised
Speaker 1: Timmy was that we would get a compensation statute in
Speaker 1: the state of Indiana. I fought very hard, and two
Speaker 1: years later, we we have a compensation statute, which is
Speaker 1: still a problem. Our axonorees have to choose between litigation
Speaker 1: or compensation the way it currently stands, and that's problematic
Speaker 1: because again we're revictimizing them. We're saying you can't pursue
Speaker 1: litigation if you want to receive the compensation. Again, we're
Speaker 1: holding them hostage. So you and I cross passed during
Speaker 1: that fight to get the compensation bill passed. And like
Speaker 1: you may, this bill has its problems, but it's still
Speaker 1: a first victory in the longer battle for a just system.
Speaker 1: And you and I go into depth on how you
Speaker 1: got this done in our interview on my other podcast,
Speaker 1: Righteous Convictions, where I encourage our listeners please go check
Speaker 1: this out. Well, we'll have it linked in the bio
Speaker 1: to make it easy for you. Now, you sat on
Speaker 1: two prison advisory boards were and you were able to
Speaker 1: use that position knowing a number of lawmakers, and you
Speaker 1: were able to rally support for this bill, as flawed
Speaker 1: as it is. So that is something you continue to
Speaker 1: work on from an organization that you found it in
Speaker 1: Timmy's name, which is beautiful actually back in the Willie T.
Speaker 1: Donald Exoneration Advisory Coalition. So what have you guys been
Speaker 1: up to? And you know, we need some help for
Speaker 1: the folks here in Indiana in terms of post exoneration assistance.
Speaker 1: We have an amazing board of directors. We are very
Speaker 1: fortunate that we've got the Center for Justice and Post
Speaker 1: Exoneration Assistance established at the University per Due Northwest has
Speaker 1: been incredible supporter. They have helped fund this, as has
Speaker 1: Assignmon family. So we are looking at policy issues, you know,
Speaker 1: policy reform, post exoneration needs of exonore ees, and also
Speaker 1: obviously claims of innocence. Mr Donald is paying it forward.
Speaker 1: And there's no better eyes, no better lens to look
Speaker 1: at a wrongful conviction than an exonoree. We have a
Speaker 1: long list of things that we are attempting to do.
Speaker 1: As you know, on average it takes about nine years
Speaker 1: to get somebody exonerated. I'm not a lawyer, so I
Speaker 1: am hoping to raise funds to get more money so
Speaker 1: we can hire an attorney or have attorney's work pro
Speaker 1: bono on the cases that Mr Donald and the students
Speaker 1: are now reviewing. So some really great things have happened
Speaker 1: as a result of actually of our friendship, of our meeting.
Speaker 1: You know, some incredible things have happened. So if anybody
Speaker 1: is interested in learning more about the work at the
Speaker 1: Center for Justice and Post Exoneration Assistance is doing, they
Speaker 1: can email me at c J P A at p
Speaker 1: MW dot E d U. And if there's anybody who's
Speaker 1: interested in in providing donorship sponsorships. We would be very
Speaker 1: excited to talk to you, you know, help you better
Speaker 1: understand what we're doing and why this is so important
Speaker 1: to all citizens of the state of Indiana and actually nationwide.
Speaker 1: We're going to have all of that linked in to
Speaker 1: bio in addition to a go fund me for Timmy.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to go to my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the show, which of course is called closing arguments.
Speaker 1: And closing Arguments is, of course the part of the
Speaker 1: show where I kicked back in my chair. Thank both
Speaker 1: of you, of course profusely for being here. Turn my
Speaker 1: microphone off, leave my headphones on, and just listen to
Speaker 1: anything else you want to say. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me here today. I really do hope that
Speaker 1: the viewers learned something regarding wrongful convictions, particularly in terms
Speaker 1: of mistake and witness identification, and that everybody understands that
Speaker 1: this could happen to you. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I end everything with when I'm talking about wrongful
Speaker 1: convictions is if you were ever placed in police custody, interrogation, whatever,
Speaker 1: make sure you ask for an attorney. I think that
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest mistakes that people make. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense when you're innocent, you have nothing to hide,
Speaker 1: so you think you don't need an attorney. And unfortunately
Speaker 1: we know thousands of people have been wrongly convicted and
Speaker 1: that's just the tip of the iceberg. Right, So again,
Speaker 1: thank you for for having me. And I also want
Speaker 1: to say thank you to Mr Donald for allowing me
Speaker 1: to enter into his world. So thank you, Timmy for that.
Speaker 1: Thank you well. Wrongful incus would never happen. And if
Speaker 1: my hope that doing my joby says, I've been out bit.
Speaker 1: I then came across the lot of young people that's
Speaker 1: entering the law profession. Let it be a h attorney,
Speaker 1: prosecutor and someone going into police work. And it's my
Speaker 1: host that learning about my case and other people cases
Speaker 1: about wrong conviction is my hope that once they entered
Speaker 1: in today land of work. Yeah, the old guard eventually
Speaker 1: a leave in the new way of coming in and
Speaker 1: the probably sign up right a light on this troubling issue.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Cheff Clyvern and Kevin Wardis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason flam Raleval Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with
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