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Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door open up.

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Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last

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Speaker 2: choice I made as a free man.

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Speaker 3: A year later, I ended up writing the system.

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Speaker 4: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone

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Speaker 4: in the world is going to think as a monster

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Speaker 4: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,

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Speaker 4: and I'm just going to have to come to peace

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Speaker 4: with that.

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Speaker 5: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the

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Speaker 5: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.

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Speaker 6: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they might.

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Speaker 1: Have to play in my hanging.

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Speaker 6: They had been told that two prison officers would have

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Speaker 6: to participate in my execution. Now I walked back inside

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Speaker 6: that prison for the last time. Man, all help broke loose.

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Speaker 7: But welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today

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Speaker 7: we have a very special episode, not only because of

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Speaker 7: our amazing guest, Dennis Mayer. First of all, Dennis, welcome

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Speaker 7: to the show.

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Speaker 6: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 7: Dennis will get into his story in a minute, but

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Speaker 7: let's suffice it to say that he was a sergeant

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Speaker 7: in the United States Army. When he was wrongfully convicted

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Speaker 7: of three rapes and served almost twenty years in prison.

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Speaker 7: I also want to introduce Hannah Riley, who's the director

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Speaker 7: of communications for the New England Innocence Project, and she's

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Speaker 7: the first time on the show, hopefully not the last.

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Speaker 7: And then we have a very close friend of mine,

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Speaker 7: Alex Spiro.

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Speaker 1: He is a former criminal.

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Speaker 7: Prosecutor in New York and currently a defense attorney. He's

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Speaker 7: also a professor at Harvard Law School. Alex, it's great

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Speaker 7: to have you on the show as well.

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Speaker 2: Thanks.

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Speaker 7: So Dennis, let's start with you. Your case is of

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Speaker 7: great interest, I think, to anyone who's interested in this genre,

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Speaker 7: because it touches on a number of really important and

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Speaker 7: tragically common problems in the wrongful conviction world. The mistake

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Speaker 7: and I winness identification is unique in your case because

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Speaker 7: of the fact that there were three different women who

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Speaker 7: identified you under dubious circumstances, but nonetheless that identified you.

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Speaker 7: It touches on the storage of evidence because in your

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Speaker 7: case the evidence had been supposedly lost but actually it wasn't.

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Speaker 7: And that's something that is really disturbing to anyone who's

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Speaker 7: interested in justice. It deals with incompetent defense counsel. And

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Speaker 7: also it also has an element of willful wrongful prosecution.

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Speaker 7: So you really hit the jackpot of causes of getting

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Speaker 7: locked up for something you didn't do. So let's go back,

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Speaker 7: and this is a while ago, right, we're talking nineteen

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Speaker 7: eighty three when this all came down.

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Speaker 6: That's when it started.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, So nineteen eighty three, paint a picture for us.

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Speaker 7: You were were you active to a you in the

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Speaker 7: military at this time.

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Speaker 6: Yes, I was stationed at Fort Devons.

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Speaker 7: Right, and you had been in in the airborne Right.

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Speaker 7: I was a paratrooper paraterooper station in Italy.

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Speaker 6: Well, first I was at Fort Bragg, then I volunteered

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Speaker 6: to serve overseas. Then I re enlisted to come home

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Speaker 6: to Massachusetts, and then I got off a jump status

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Speaker 6: to work in my field, which was a diesel mechanic.

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Speaker 1: And that's another thing.

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Speaker 7: It's it's really upsetting to me, as someone who loves

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Speaker 7: his country and respects.

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Speaker 1: The men and women of our military. Here you are.

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Speaker 1: You're twenty three years old at the time.

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Speaker 6: Yep.

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Speaker 1: And what happened. Let's go back to that.

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Speaker 6: Well, I graduated from high school in seventy eight and

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Speaker 6: enlisted in the Army right out of high school. You know.

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Speaker 6: I went through Basic training, Advanced Individual Training, Jump school,

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Speaker 6: then went to Fort Bragg, then to Vicenza, Italy in

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Speaker 6: the five or nine, and then to ten Special Forces

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Speaker 6: up at Fort Devons. Then I got off of jump

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Speaker 6: status to work as a diesel mechanic because what I

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Speaker 6: worked on doesn't drop out of. And then from there

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Speaker 6: I was living at home and Lowell with my parents.

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Speaker 6: I was walking down Westword Street and I was stopped

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Speaker 6: by the police. They asked me for identification, so I

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Speaker 6: gave him my driver's license, which was outdated because when

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Speaker 6: you're in the military you get a cod on the

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Speaker 6: back of it that says your license never expires, and

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Speaker 6: so well, I asked me for identification. They ran my name,

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Speaker 6: which came back negative because I had never been in trouble.

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Speaker 6: No speed and tickets, no nothing. He gave me back

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Speaker 6: my ID and then he searched me and he arrested

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Speaker 6: me for possession of marijuana. So they brought me to

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Speaker 6: the police station and booked me and put me in

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Speaker 6: a hold and sell. A couple of hours later, they

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Speaker 6: came out and questioned me and they said, where were

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Speaker 6: you on the night of November sixteenth, at five point thirty. Well,

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Speaker 6: I said, I was in my CEO's office getting yelled

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Speaker 6: at because we failed a nuclear biological chemical test. And

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Speaker 6: I didn't leave the base till almost quarter past five,

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Speaker 6: so I didn't get home till almost six o'clock. And

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Speaker 6: then he put me back in the cell. And then

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Speaker 6: the other cop come in a couple of hours later

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Speaker 6: and asked me the same questions. I gave him the

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Speaker 6: same answers. On a night of November seventeenth, I was

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Speaker 6: I left the base early to get my car inspected,

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Speaker 6: and I went home and took a nap, and then

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Speaker 6: I went over to my friend's house to watch the

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Speaker 6: Bruins game. And then they brought me into court the

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Speaker 6: next day and arranged me for possession of marijuana. And

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Speaker 6: then they did what's called an in court identification. They

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Speaker 6: took me out of the box and sat me on

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Speaker 6: the bench, and they brought one of the victims in

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Speaker 6: and she identified someone else.

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Speaker 7: Wait, did you even know what was going on at

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Speaker 7: this point? I mean, you were being booked for possession

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Speaker 7: of marijuana, but now they're bringing a victim. There's no

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Speaker 7: victim of possession of marijuana.

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Speaker 6: True. What I missed was the second time they started

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Speaker 6: questioning me, I got mad, you know, why what are

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Speaker 6: you questioning me about? And he said, well, we're questioning

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Speaker 6: you about a rape that happened on November sixteenth, and

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Speaker 6: then attempted rape that happened on November seventeenth. So I said, well,

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Speaker 6: I guess I need a lawyer. And then next day

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Speaker 6: in court they did an in court identification. Now I

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Speaker 6: was never arraigned for the rapes or anything. They just

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Speaker 6: did an in court identification and the victim I need

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Speaker 6: someone else, and the judge said, you have no grounds

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Speaker 6: to go forward.

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Speaker 1: Seems like case closes right there, I mean.

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Speaker 6: So they gave me six months probation and said I

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Speaker 6: could leave now they had my boots. So I was

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Speaker 6: in stocking feet and going to have to walk home

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Speaker 6: and stalking feet. As I was leaving the courtroom, they

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Speaker 6: arrested me and charged me with the rape and the

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Speaker 6: attempted rape that the judge said there was no grounds

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Speaker 6: to go forward on.

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Speaker 7: Okay, Alex, do you want to jump in here because

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Speaker 7: this whole story is pretty surreal.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 7: First of all, the thing with the boots, we'll get

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Speaker 7: back to that. Like why they're making you walk home

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Speaker 7: and this is in Uh it's cold outside, It's it's November.

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Speaker 7: It's November. Yeah, walking home? Okay, Well that's that's a

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Speaker 7: little surreal. Then you've just spent the night in jail

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Speaker 7: for the first time in your life, so I'm sure

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Speaker 7: you're a little whacked out anyway at that point. What's

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Speaker 7: going on here, Alex? Can you get into this?

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Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, the use of that sort of identify

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Speaker 2: procedure raises serious questions because just presenting him alone or

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Speaker 2: him in that sort of a setting when he's already

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Speaker 2: being accused of some other crime, is not the right

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Speaker 2: way to conduct I think we know now identification procedures,

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Speaker 2: but I guess what must have happened is twofold one.

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Speaker 2: No doubt that the members of law enforcement were under

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Speaker 2: pressure to make an arrest in this case, and secondarily

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Speaker 2: during the time in which mister Mayor was incarcerated on

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Speaker 2: the initial charge, I'm sure that they noticed things articles

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Speaker 2: of clothing putting him near the scene, and other indisha

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Speaker 2: that they believed to be corroboration. And so the lack

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Speaker 2: of identification obviously did not set this record straight.

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Speaker 7: Right and There's a very interesting point that you touch

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Speaker 7: on there, which is that there was one of the victims,

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Speaker 7: or I guess one of the victims, had said that

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Speaker 7: the attacker had had a red hooded sweatshirt, right, and

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Speaker 7: that became one of the only sort of circumstantial piece

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Speaker 7: of evidence that was even something that they could put

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Speaker 7: a hook on.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 6: That's why I think they stopped me, because they saw

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Speaker 6: was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, you know, and they

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Speaker 6: were two hundred feet away from me, and they said

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Speaker 6: I fit the out of conception, but I believe it

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Speaker 6: was just I had a red hooded sweatshirt on.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 7: So seven o'clock at night, two hundred fet away, it's

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Speaker 7: pretty hard to decide. I mean, you'd have to have

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Speaker 7: sort of like really superhuman vision to be able to

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Speaker 7: match a suspect at night, seven o'clock in November in Massachusetts.

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Speaker 7: I'm not a meteorologist, but I'm guessing it was dark,

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Speaker 7: and so it was dark, and you were two hundred

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Speaker 7: feet away, and they managed to magically figure out that

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Speaker 7: it was you. Now, this goes back to the thing

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Speaker 7: I talk about often, which is that this is a

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Speaker 7: small town. Right, you have a rapist out there who's

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Speaker 7: just attacked two women, raped one of them, sexually assaulted

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Speaker 7: and tempted to wape the other one. They got to

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Speaker 7: find somebody there. You are walking around in a red

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Speaker 7: hooded sweatshirt. It's like, oh, bingo, this is great. We

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Speaker 7: can get this off our desks to an extent, right,

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Speaker 7: And so Alex, go back to what you were saying before.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously we don't know sort of verbat

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Speaker 2: him the back and forth. But no, that is not

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Speaker 2: a sound identify procedure. I could say that quite assuredly.

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Speaker 7: And what point did you you had requested a lawyer,

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Speaker 7: At what point did you get assigned a lawyer.

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Speaker 6: A lawyer approached my parents and asked if he could

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Speaker 6: represent me. Now, this is the lawyer who ended up

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Speaker 6: representing me at trial. He approached my parents the same

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Speaker 6: day I had one to appoint it to me for possession.

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Speaker 6: You know, I got six months probation. But then another

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Speaker 6: lawyer approached my parents asking if he could represent me,

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Speaker 6: and they said yes, yes, because they knew nothing about

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Speaker 6: the law like me, you know, they'd never been in

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Speaker 6: trouble or anything. And he said it'd represent me for

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Speaker 6: five thousand dollars on a rape case.

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Speaker 7: Now nineteen eighty three, five thousand dollars, five thousand dollars, right,

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Speaker 7: I mean that's a lot of money back then, so

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Speaker 7: you would hope that this guy would be a real star.

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Speaker 7: But that's not the way it worked out at all,

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Speaker 7: is it. Back to the scene, So now you're about

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Speaker 7: to walk home in your socks stocking feet as New

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Speaker 7: Englanders call it, and then you get pulled back in

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Speaker 7: and you get charged with two counts.

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Speaker 6: Of rape and an attempted rape. Right, Well, I didn't

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Speaker 6: get charged then, they just arrested me, and then they

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Speaker 6: took me back to the police station and kept me

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Speaker 6: in the station over the weekend and brought me into

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Speaker 6: Cambridge Court House and that's where they charged me with

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Speaker 6: rape and put me on ten thousand dollars bail, which

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Speaker 6: is one thousand dollars cash. So my parents bailed me

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Speaker 6: out and then I went to the first lineup, which

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Speaker 6: was me six police officers. They were all standing behind

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Speaker 6: a railing. I was standing behind a chair and I

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Speaker 6: was ided that was the first one.

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Speaker 1: That kind of stuff always blows me away. Let's just

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Speaker 1: reflect back on that.

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Speaker 7: So they were standing behind a railing and you were

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Speaker 7: standing behind a chair, so there was really no reason

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Speaker 7: that anyone would think there'd be anything different about you, right,

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Speaker 7: And there were six police officers in you okay?

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Speaker 1: And then the victim, one of the victims, comes in.

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Speaker 6: And identified me. You know, it was probably obvious to her,

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Speaker 6: you know, I'm standing behind a chair. I really don't

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Speaker 6: remember the second lineup, but I think when along the

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Speaker 6: same lines, it was me, six police officers, my brother,

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Speaker 6: and this time I wasn't standing behind a chair, and

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Speaker 6: she id'd me, what.

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Speaker 1: Does your brother have to do with it?

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Speaker 6: Well, he was just in the line. He was there,

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Speaker 6: and they just wanted to stick him in the lineup.

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Speaker 1: That seems odd, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: I think that, you know, law enforcement would say that

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Speaker 2: later they can assert that they did everything in their

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Speaker 2: power to find people that look like him and who looks.

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Speaker 3: More like a person than their own brother.

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Speaker 7: And that's an interesting thing too, because I would this identification,

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Speaker 7: as everyone who listens to the show knows, is the

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Speaker 7: leading cause of wrongful conviction. And what we also know

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Speaker 7: is that in cases where there's a weapon involved and

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Speaker 7: someone is in close proximity and really fearing for their life,

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Speaker 7: in a very real way, the instance of mistaken identification

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Speaker 7: goes up. And that's logical, right as an amateur psychologist,

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Speaker 7: if you're freaking out, literally like you're adrenaline is on,

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Speaker 7: you know ten, you know your mind's not going to

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Speaker 7: function in the way that it would if you were

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Speaker 7: just calmly sitting here and just look at somebody. But

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Speaker 7: when someone's got a knife to your throat and is

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Speaker 7: either raping or attempting to rape you, your faculties are

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Speaker 7: not going to be operating in a normal passion, to

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Speaker 7: say the least. And so this case had that as

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Speaker 7: well because the victims were in that exact situation.

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Speaker 4: Have you seen the Gorilla basketball video?

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Speaker 1: Yes, okay, have you guys seen that?

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Speaker 4: The idea of being we just aren't able to focus

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Speaker 4: really clearly on a lot of things at once. So

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Speaker 4: if you haven't seen this, I'm completely going to ruin.

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Speaker 1: It for you. But no, just watch it. Everyone should watch.

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Speaker 4: It, right Google, It's on YouTube's a selective attention.

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Speaker 7: Test, right, there's a selective attention test. It involves a

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Speaker 7: basketball I strongly recommend that everybody listening to the show

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Speaker 7: watched this because it'll give you an idea of just

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Speaker 7: how easy it is for your mind to play tricks

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Speaker 7: on you. So let's go back to the scene, right.

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Speaker 7: So you end up now with this high priced, fancy lawyer, right,

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Speaker 7: and you didn't get what you paid for.

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Speaker 6: No, I didn't. He never visited where the crime happened.

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Speaker 6: He never interrogated witnesses or talked to the witnesses or

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Speaker 6: anything like that. We went to trial in March of

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Speaker 6: two thousand and four. Well before that, January fifth, nineteen

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Speaker 6: eighty four, the police came and arrested me again and

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Speaker 6: brought me down to the police station. I said, well,

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Speaker 6: what are you arresting me for? They wouldn't say anything,

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Speaker 6: and they handed me over to the Air Police department.

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Speaker 6: So they brought me back to Air and on the way,

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Speaker 6: I asked the cop you know what am I under

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Speaker 6: arrest for? She said, just shut up. So I asked

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Speaker 6: her again and she said just shut up. I says,

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Speaker 6: can you please tell me what I'm under arrest for?

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Speaker 6: And she said, well, you're under arrest for a rape

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Speaker 6: that happened at the Casa Mano Hotel. I said, where's

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Speaker 6: the Casa Mana Hotel? Because I never knew where it

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Speaker 6: was until two years ago when I went and spoke

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Speaker 6: in air and she said, well, you committed a rape there.

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Speaker 6: I said, no, I didn't. And then they brought me

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Speaker 6: in the air and put my bail at fifty thousand

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Speaker 6: dollars cash. So that was my last day of freedom,

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Speaker 6: was January fifth, nineteen eighty four. And then we went

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Speaker 6: through another lineup and I was idd again. And in

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Speaker 6: March of nineteen eighty four we went to trial.

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Speaker 1: Going back to your lawyer.

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Speaker 7: So your lawyer didn't visit the crime scene, big red

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Speaker 7: flag there. Yeah, didn't interview the witnesses. That seems even

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Speaker 7: more insane. Okay, what else did he forget to do

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Speaker 7: or neglect to do?

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Speaker 6: I should say he didn't show up for some hearings

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Speaker 6: at the trial. He presented most of the case for

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Speaker 6: the prosecutor. You know, he's standing next to me. Are

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Speaker 6: you sure this is the person? Are you sure? There's

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Speaker 6: an point at me saying are you sure this is

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Speaker 6: the person who raped you? And of course I got

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Speaker 6: found guilty.

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Speaker 1: I mean, anybody as well to say are you sure

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Speaker 1: that this rapist is the one who raped you?

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Speaker 7: Right? I mean it's like, I mean, it's crazy. So

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Speaker 7: it's incomprehensible. I mean, Alex jump in here because I'm

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Speaker 7: freaking out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not does not sound like good LORI that.

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Speaker 7: Now, let's talk about what good lawyering might have looked like,

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Speaker 7: because this is an unusual situation we have here where

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Speaker 7: we actually have somebody on the show who can give

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Speaker 7: us that type of idea.

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Speaker 2: I guess I'd break it down into two parts. In

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Speaker 2: terms of the identification, I think you have to remember that,

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Speaker 2: in terms of Lowell, the women were approached from behind.

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Speaker 2: You already mentioned the distraction of a weapon, a high

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Speaker 2: tense situation affecting the ability to accurately picture somebody and

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Speaker 2: recall it. For one, she had already seen the individual

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Speaker 2: that she would later pick out, because she had seen

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Speaker 2: him in a courtroom setting on a bench, and so

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Speaker 2: even if she just remembered that she would falsely identify him.

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Speaker 2: It also wasn't a double blind procedure, meaning that the

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Speaker 2: investigator ostensibly knew who she was trying to pick out,

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Speaker 2: put him in a unique setting within the lineup and

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Speaker 2: everything else. In addition, all of the witnesses were shown

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Speaker 2: photographs in which they identified as I understand it, mister

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Speaker 2: mayor before they viewed a live lineup, and so what

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Speaker 2: often happens is that you end up picking out the

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Speaker 2: person that you saw in the photo array, not necessarily

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Speaker 2: the person who saw on the night in question. And

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Speaker 2: sort of all of that, coupled with law enforcements, desire

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Speaker 2: from perhaps a very good place of trying to solve

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Speaker 2: this crime, can lead to a series of identification procedures

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Speaker 2: not being pristine and not being correctly done, and the

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Speaker 2: taint from one bleeds over into the next, because once

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Speaker 2: he's identified in these initial cases, the air case becomes

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Speaker 2: a foregone conclusion, and I think you have to attack

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Speaker 2: that in all of those different ways. I also think

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Speaker 2: they used corroborative evidence that is a bit of a

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Speaker 2: red herring. They see him in the vicinity near the

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Speaker 2: time of the initial rapes and Lowell, but the truth

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Speaker 2: is he's from that area. It's not like finding somebody

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Speaker 2: in some remote location or finding somebody far away from

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Speaker 2: where they normally travel. They see a knife and a

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Speaker 2: jacket in his car, but that's military issued, where that

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Speaker 2: most of the men in his age demographic in a

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Speaker 2: military town might very well have, and he might be

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Speaker 2: wearing a red sweatshirt. But as US folks from Boston know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of the sports teams there have red sweatshirt,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think that is that unique of an item.

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Speaker 2: And so there were all of those things that needed

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Speaker 2: to be investigated. And on top of that, he had

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Speaker 2: an alibi that wasn't properly vetted, that could have been

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Speaker 2: properly vetted that would suggest he couldn't have been where

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Speaker 2: they say that he was. And the crimes themselves, the

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Speaker 2: air crime versus the lower crimes, don't have the same

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Speaker 2: fact pattern and don't necessarily suggest that the same person

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Speaker 2: perpetrated them. And that wasn't really tested or explored, and

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Speaker 2: I think that could have been used effectively to suggest

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Speaker 2: law enforcements, tunnel vision.

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Speaker 7: Were any of these factors brought up by your attorney

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Speaker 7: at trial.

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Speaker 1: Or at any other time.

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Speaker 6: Well, he brought up part of my alibi because where

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Speaker 6: I was at the base for the November sixteenth crime,

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Speaker 6: and they just dismissed it. They said, do you have

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Speaker 6: that and write And even though I had NCOs the

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Speaker 6: sergeants they are testifying on my behalf that they were

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Speaker 6: with me.

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Speaker 7: So the sergeants actually testified at trial and said that

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Speaker 7: you were there. Yeah, those would seem to be relatively

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Speaker 7: We're not talking about crackheads, right, We're talking about sergeants

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Speaker 7: in the ends United States Army who are saying this

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Speaker 7: guy was here.

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Speaker 1: Again, I'm not.

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Speaker 7: A professor of metaphysics, but you can't be in two

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Speaker 7: places at one time. Everybody knows that.

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Speaker 2: And the Starhouse had a reason to remember, right. The

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Speaker 2: sergeants said that there had been a test failure and

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Speaker 2: that it was an intense meeting, and so it wasn't

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Speaker 2: a standard meeting. It was a meeting that they would

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Speaker 2: have one would think remember, and they remembered him there.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, that's an excellent point again that a good defense

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Speaker 7: lawyer would have brought up. And this is very different

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Speaker 7: than some of the cases we see where a guy's

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Speaker 7: alibi or a woman's alibi is that they were home

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Speaker 7: with their parents watching TV or with their wife or something.

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Speaker 7: And then they say, wow, the lie for anybody would

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Speaker 7: lie to protect their family. This is not family, right.

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Speaker 7: These guys are not your uncles or brothers or anything else.

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Speaker 7: I mean, these are guys you work with, and in fact,

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Speaker 7: they were bitsed at you at this particular time. On

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Speaker 7: top of that, So that's just that's just nuts.

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Speaker 2: I think what the prosecutor may have countered is, even

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Speaker 2: if they were to be believed, he still had enough

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Speaker 2: time from five point fifteen to five thirty to make

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Speaker 2: to the scene.

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Speaker 3: But of course, if you did your job and you

404
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Speaker 3: did an.

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Speaker 2: Investigation, you would drive a car from one location to another,

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Speaker 2: and you would show what the traffic patterns were at

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Speaker 2: that time and show that it was feasibly impossible. And

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Speaker 2: so there was a way to draw that out and

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Speaker 2: tighten up that alibi that it does not appear what's done.

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Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I mean, and we'd also don't know how

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Speaker 7: long that meeting went on for. But how long would

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Speaker 7: it have taken you Even if you had left immediately,

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Speaker 7: you had had to walk to get to your car,

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Speaker 7: you would have had to drive off the base. I

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Speaker 7: imagine there's some you know, some elapsed time there. And

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Speaker 7: then how long would it have taken you on a

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Speaker 7: typical day to drive from there to where the rape occurred.

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Speaker 6: Probably half hour to forty five minutes.

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Speaker 7: Case closed, right, I mean, that just doesn't match your honor.

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Speaker 7: He wasn't there because he was somewhere else.

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Speaker 2: One of the things is you know, he was rested

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Speaker 2: so close in time, it's much easier to figure out

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Speaker 2: where you were since you were arrested within forty eight

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Speaker 2: hours of when.

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Speaker 3: The accusation was right.

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Speaker 2: So the sergeant's memories would have also been sharp. If

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Speaker 2: he was arrested two or three years later, one could say,

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Speaker 2: you don't really remember where you were in the night

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Speaker 2: of November fifteenth or sixteenth, But because it happened so

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Speaker 2: close afterwards, he really did have an independent memory, and

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Speaker 2: so did the other individuals that were interviewed.

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Speaker 7: Alex brings up a very good point, which is that

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Speaker 7: it's contemporaneous. It's like, right now, this is what happened,

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Speaker 7: this is where you were. You should be out of

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Speaker 7: there at that moment in time with any sort of

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Speaker 7: competent defense. What about the prosecutor at that point, I mean,

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Speaker 7: how does a prosecutor, having been a prosecutor, you obviously

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Speaker 7: have insight that nobody else that's ever been on this

439
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:44,760
Speaker 7: show does. What is it that causes a prosecutor to

440
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:49,199
Speaker 7: continue to prosecute somebody and I ultimately lock them up

441
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:53,560
Speaker 7: or sends them to death when they have real hard

442
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:55,680
Speaker 7: evidence that it wasn't the guy.

443
00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:58,920
Speaker 2: Well, the notion that they had hard evidence may be

444
00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:01,679
Speaker 2: a bit of an over statement. I guess this is

445
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:03,639
Speaker 2: why you need to have a strong defense, because what

446
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's seeing is multiple identifications and seeing evidence that's

447
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 2: corroberative put before him, right, and we went through the identification,

448
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:13,680
Speaker 2: and we went through the corroboration, and when you peel

449
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 2: away at it, it doesn't seem as strong.

450
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 3: Now, what did he make of the alibi witnesses.

451
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,119
Speaker 2: I have a feeling that he probably thought to himself, well,

452
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:22,800
Speaker 2: if he left it, if he knew he was going

453
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:24,159
Speaker 2: to be at that meeting, and he knew that the

454
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:26,240
Speaker 2: meeting was over at five ish, it gave him exactly

455
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:29,120
Speaker 2: the right amount of time, not just to little time,

456
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 2: but exactly the right amount of time to both have

457
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,560
Speaker 2: a supposed alibi and to commit the crimes in question.

458
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 2: And so he would take facts in the world that

459
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 2: you might look through a different lens at, and he

460
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 2: would look through them at a lens that he's guilty.

461
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 2: I know that he's guilty, So what else proves that

462
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 2: he's guilty?

463
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:47,880
Speaker 7: But in this case, as in many other rawful convictions,

464
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 7: there was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime.

465
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 2: But in the nineteen eighties, if you were to commit

466
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:57,080
Speaker 2: a crime in the woods, there usually wasn't forensic evidence.

467
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 2: So the counter to that would be, you wouldn't expect

468
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 2: to find forensic evidence outdoors, and you wouldn't expect to

469
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 2: find videotape because it's not like New York in twenty seventeen,

470
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 2: And you wouldn't expect to find DNA because it was

471
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:13,239
Speaker 2: prior to the modernization of DNA technology. And so what

472
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:15,199
Speaker 2: you have here is exactly what you'd expect to have.

473
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 2: You have a woman who is a credible witness who

474
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:19,479
Speaker 2: swears under oath that he did it, and you have

475
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 2: other factors such as the clothing, the time and place,

476
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,159
Speaker 2: and the repetition of the events, suggesting that he's a good.

477
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 7: Suspect, circumstantial but nonetheless enough to be able in a

478
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:35,199
Speaker 7: prosecutor's mind to rationalize the continued prosecution or persecution in

479
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:39,239
Speaker 7: this case of somebody like you. So fast forward to

480
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 7: the trial. We know that this attorney mounted a feeble

481
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 7: would be a nice way of putting it. In competent

482
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 7: would probably be a better description of the representation. Horrible

483
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 7: and overpaid. Those are the ways I would describe the

484
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 7: defense that you received in this case, which is again typical.

485
00:22:57,800 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 7: The only thing that's not typical about is that most

486
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 7: of the peopleople that are wrongfully convicted are represented by

487
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 7: public defenders. In this case, you had to pay for

488
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 7: the privilege of this guy acting like a prosecutor, which

489
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 7: is beyond reprehensible. It's disgusting. Ultimately, the jury goes out,

490
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 7: what were you feeling? I mean when they how long

491
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 7: did they deliberate for?

492
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 6: I think it was like two hours, an hour and

493
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,160
Speaker 6: a half something like that. They didn't they didn't deliberate

494
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 6: a real long time.

495
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: No, that's a very short time.

496
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 7: So again, it's an unimaginable circumstance to anybody on the outside.

497
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 7: What did you think when they came back in? Did

498
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 7: you think you were going to be exonerate? You knew

499
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 7: you were innocent.

500
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 6: I thought I was going to be found guilty because

501
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 6: of the way the lawyer represented me. Even though the

502
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 6: court office was saying, you're going to get found guilty.

503
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 6: I didn't feel that way because my lawyer was so horrible.

504
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 6: You know, I had visions of going to prison, being stabbed,

505
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 6: being raped, being beat up because it was a sex.

506
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 7: Offense, and you knew that those you know, typically those

507
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:00,479
Speaker 7: will land you in real hot water once you get

508
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 7: on the inside. Yeah, so they come back and sure

509
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 7: enough they find you guilty.

510
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 6: I was. I was pissed, you know, and I stood

511
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 6: up in the courtroom. Well, after you get found guilty,

512
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 6: they asked if you have anything to say. You know,

513
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 6: I was a soldier, you know, I was a defender

514
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 6: of my country, and they want to say that I

515
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 6: did this. So I got up and after the judge

516
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 6: asked if anything to say, of course I did. I said,

517
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 6: your honor, if you call this justice, I think you

518
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 6: when you hold judicial system or a crock of shit.

519
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 6: And he doubled my sentence to twenty to thirty years. Wow,

520
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 6: because the DA years later told me that he was

521
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 6: going to give me a ten to fifteen. Then I

522
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 6: said that, and he said to the clerk, did you

523
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 6: sign that ye? And he goes no, he said double

524
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 6: the sentence.

525
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: In front of you.

526
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 6: Yeah.

527
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 1: Oh shit.

528
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 6: I didn't hear him say that, but the DA did,

529
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 6: and he told me later on that he heard tell

530
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 6: the clerk to double the sentence.

531
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 7: And we know now that the DA had his own

532
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 7: doubts about this right yes, and that I mean, I

533
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 7: want to get into the prison experience. But your case

534
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,400
Speaker 7: is unusual for another reason, which is that you actually,

535
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:18,679
Speaker 7: ultimately twenty something years later, received an apology from the

536
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 7: person who actually put you in there. It seems like

537
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 7: this was a guy. And it's hard to say based

538
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 7: on what we've just heard, but it seems like the

539
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 7: guy who actually had a conscience, well, it is a guy.

540
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 7: At least he has one now, right, because he tried

541
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 7: to make amends to you, which is impossible to do,

542
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 7: but he tried, right, And this was the first case

543
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 7: that this guy had tried as a prosecutor, right.

544
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 6: See. I believe it was his first case as a prosecutor.

545
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 1: Right, which is another factor, right, Alex, I mean as

546
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 1: the first case.

547
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 3: Even in the criminal realm.

548
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 2: I think for this to be your first case as

549
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 2: a prosecutor is a tricky want.

550
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 7: Now you get taken off to prison. Where were you

551
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 7: in prison? The first off was an an mci walpole.

552
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 7: It's called cate of Junction now, but it smacked some

553
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 7: security and I went in there to be booked and.

554
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 6: Then they transfer me from there to Conckered. That's where

555
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 6: they decide where they're going to send you where I

556
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 6: had a twenty to thirty, I would be behind the walls,

557
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 6: because anything over eighteen years you've got to do time

558
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 6: behind the walls. They call it behind the walls, being

559
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 6: maximum security. Right.

560
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 7: So on top of the fact that your sentence was doubled,

561
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 7: and we know typically in a rape case, you know,

562
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 7: fifteen years would be the general guideline that I've seen.

563
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 7: But because you trying to stand up for yourself and

564
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 7: say something, which after what you'd been through, I guess

565
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 7: it's hard to follow you for wanting to actually speak

566
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 7: your mind. So this had another negative consequence, not only

567
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 7: doubling your sense, but putting you in a more dangerous

568
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 7: and worse in every imaginable way facility than you would

569
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 7: have been in otherwise. So you end up in Walpole. Walpole,

570
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 7: What can you tell us about that? Because was it

571
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 7: as bad as you expected it to be?

572
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 6: Was it? Well? When you first walk into the prison,

573
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 6: you get on a long hallway and you go through

574
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 6: this big door and the door slams behind you, and

575
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 6: you're in a it's probably twelve by twelve with a

576
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 6: god up the top with a rifle in his hand,

577
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 6: with a shotgun in his hand, until you go through

578
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 6: the next which takes you through the wall and you

579
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 6: get into the prison itself. And then as you go

580
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 6: into the prison you could smell the fear in the building.

581
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 6: Most prisons strive on fear, you know, fear that well,

582
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 6: someone's going to raip me, someone's going to stab me,

583
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 6: and that if I do it first, then no one's

584
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 6: going to do it to me. And that's the way

585
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 6: prison works, a lot of it, you know. And then

586
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 6: I was going in there as a sex offender and

587
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 6: I didn't know what was going to happen. I would

588
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 6: go walk in the yard and see other people getting

589
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 6: beat up that was sex offenders and stuff. And then

590
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 6: I was only there a couple of days and then

591
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 6: they took me to conquer it, which was less stressful

592
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 6: than Wallpole. But then when I got my life sentence,

593
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 6: I went back to Wallpole and was going to ended

594
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 6: up doing almost a year there. Right before I got

595
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 6: back there, there was a riot where they broke through

596
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,479
Speaker 6: one of the walls, and for orientation, you go in

597
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 6: and it's gas. You could smell the gas still in

598
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 6: the air from when they had gassed the inmates. And

599
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 6: they put me on an essex Blocks, which was for

600
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 6: people who were prone to violence. They broke it down

601
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 6: into Essex, Bristol, and Suffolk, which was Essex would be

602
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 6: for the ones who rarely acted up, Bristol would be

603
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 6: for the lesser ones, and then Suffolk would be even

604
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 6: for lesser than that. So while I was on Essex,

605
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 6: I got cut. I got three stitches hare and fourteen

606
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 6: stitches across the back of my neck because I was

607
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 6: a sexophone. I did really nothing wrong, but that's the

608
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:44,719
Speaker 6: way it was. You know. The guy called me down.

609
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 6: I was talking to him and he reached out and

610
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 6: grabbed me. I had hair down to my shoulders and

611
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 6: he grabbed me by my hair and pulled me up

612
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 6: against the jail bars and with a razor blade he

613
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 6: cut me hair. And then I ducked down to get

614
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 6: out of the way, and he sliced me across the

615
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 6: back of the neck. So I went back up into

616
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 6: my cell and I pushed the skin back in and

617
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 6: I reached behind my neck and my finger went inside,

618
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 6: and I says, well, I got to go to the hospital.

619
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 6: So I went downstairs and I said to the CEO.

620
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 6: I says, yeah, I got to go down to the hospital.

621
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 6: He goes why, I says, I caught myself shaven. He

622
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 6: didn't know that I had to cut that was bleeding

623
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 6: on the back of my neck. He just knew I

624
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 6: had the one here. And so I went down there

625
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 6: and they said what happened. I said, well, I caught

626
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 6: myself shaven. He says, well, we're not going to do

627
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 6: anything till you tell us what happened, you know, And

628
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 6: I'm saying, you know, I got this huge cot on

629
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 6: the back of my neck. So I told him. I says, yeah,

630
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 6: the guy caught me. And then he stitched up my

631
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 6: face with no no anesthesia or nothing, just I could

632
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 6: feel the thread going through my skin and the needle

633
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 6: going through my skin. He used anesthesia on the back

634
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 6: because it was so long. I did another probably five

635
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 6: months there, and there were fights all the time, people

636
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 6: getting stabbed. Christmas Eve, there was a racial fight on

637
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 6: the block between like ten people. Early in January there

638
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 6: was Blacks and the Muslims. They hate each other in prison,

639
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 6: and I walk into chow hall, they run around on

640
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 6: the table stabbing each other. And so you just lean

641
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 6: up against the wall and hold your steel tray in

642
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 6: front of you so that you can't get stabbed the

643
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 6: day shield. Yeah, so the day that I was supposed

644
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 6: to leave there, there were shots fight in the od

645
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 6: because there was going to be another race riot in

646
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 6: the prison. And finally I went to Gardner, which they

647
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 6: called skin a Mountain because all the sex offenders were there,

648
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 6: and so there it was less stressful and I could

649
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 6: do more things. I started lifting weights, and then while

650
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 6: I was there there was almost another race riot between

651
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 6: the blacks and the Porto rics. There was like one

652
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty Puerto Ricans on top of the hill

653
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 6: and run the same amount of Blacks that were going

654
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 6: to fight. They evacuated the prison. Nothing happened. But and

655
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 6: then from there I went to the treatment center where

656
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 6: I got one day to natural life civil commitment, which

657
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 6: was just people supposedly in treatment. But while there they

658
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 6: brought people from the prison system down and one of them,

659
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 6: who was just about ready to get out, I mean

660
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 6: he was going to get he was going to minimum,

661
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 6: he would have been out within two months, he brutally

662
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 6: raped a woman, and which was horrible, you know, because

663
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 6: I worked in a staff kitchen, so I dealt with

664
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 6: all the staff and she was a really nice person.

665
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: Oh, he raped someone in the prison.

666
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 6: He raped a staff member in the prison.

667
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 4: Wow.

668
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 6: You know, but in the prison people would get raped.

669
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 6: Not all the time, but you know, at least once

670
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 6: a twe a month someone would get raped by another guy.

671
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 6: You know. I didn't because I lifted. By then, I

672
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 6: was benching three point fifty and squatting five hundred pounds

673
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 6: and nobody bothered me, you know. And I treated everyone good,

674
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 6: you know, And I kept my job in the staff

675
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 6: kitchen so I could eat good. And when I left

676
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 6: the staff kitchen, they were disappointed because I was leaving,

677
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 6: because who was going to cook for him?

678
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: Wow.

679
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 7: It takes a minute to process all that. Let's get

680
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 7: to the good part of the story. Let's call it

681
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 7: right where things start to turn around.

682
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 6: Well, in nineteen ninety four, I left work and was

683
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 6: heading back to the block and someone said, Dennis put

684
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 6: on the Phil Donahue Show, and Barryshek was on there.

685
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 6: He had like six or seven ex honorees at that time,

686
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 6: it was either ninety three or ninety four, and he

687
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 6: was talking about how he had used DNA to prove

688
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 6: their innocence. And I knew the only way that I

689
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 6: was going to be proven innocent was through the use

690
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 6: of DNA. So my friend Bob Cameron, who has since died,

691
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 6: helped me find the address to Yeshiva University in a

692
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 6: Kadoza School of Law, and I wrote them a letter

693
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 6: asking for help. And I got a twenty six page

694
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 6: questionnaire back from them, and I filled all that out

695
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 6: and sent it back and I got another questionairback the

696
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 6: same thing. I guess they were going to compare it

697
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 6: to see if they were both the same, if I

698
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 6: was just making up stories. And then I got a

699
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 6: letter back from them asking for all my transcripts. Now

700
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 6: you got to imagine I hadn't had a lawyer since

701
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty five.

702
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: Nine years earlier.

703
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I wanted to keep things going on in

704
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 6: the court. Well, first, my lawyer got the spot when

705
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 6: I was at Walpole, so I had to learn how

706
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 6: to do a motion for appointment of counsel and motion

707
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 6: for indigency and whatever else I had to do to

708
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 6: get an appeals lawyer. So I got an appeals lawyer

709
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 6: and he didn't represent me the way I wanted him

710
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 6: to do. I wanted him to raise illegal search and

711
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 6: seizure because they went and broke into my car and

712
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,399
Speaker 6: took evidence, but he wouldn't, so he just raised that

713
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 6: the two cases shouldn't have been tried together, and a

714
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,720
Speaker 6: bunch of crap. And so I didn't have a lawyer

715
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 6: after that, so I learned to file things on my own.

716
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 6: I filed Rule thirties and whatever I could. I filed

717
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 6: emotion for a paternity test, just to see if there

718
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 6: was evidence that they could match against me. But everything

719
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 6: I ever filed had to go in front of my

720
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 6: sentence and judge, who didn't think kindly of me because

721
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 6: I told him him and this whole judicial system were

722
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 6: a crocod shit and he was a former marine. So

723
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 6: I send all the stuff to the Innocence Project, which

724
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 6: was probably twelve hundred pages of information between appeals and

725
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 6: motions and stuff like that, and they started looking for evidence,

726
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,760
Speaker 6: and they called the police department, and they called the

727
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 6: courthouse asking for evidence, and they're telling him the evidence

728
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 6: is lost, the evidence is destroyed. And this goes on

729
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 6: for like three years, because you know that the Innocence Project,

730
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 6: the students come in and they work on the cases

731
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,360
Speaker 6: and they try and find the evidence. So in nineteen

732
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 6: ninety seven, Barry had an attorney in Boston file emotion

733
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 6: for DNA testing in front of my sentence and judge

734
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,800
Speaker 6: who denied it without a hearing, like had denied everything

735
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:33,320
Speaker 6: else without a hearing. So at that time I was hopeless.

736
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 6: You know, I made peace with myself that I was

737
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 6: going to die in prison as an innocent man. And

738
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 6: then out of the blue, a reporter from the Boston

739
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 6: Globe named John Elleman asked if he could come interview me,

740
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 6: so just as a piece of hope. So I said, yeah, okay,

741
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 6: you can interview me. And we started talking about it,

742
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 6: and finally I said to him, I said, who's saying?

743
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 6: He goes, oh, you know who sent me. I says, no,

744
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 6: I don't, and he says, well, I was at Boston

745
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 6: Superior Court and I saw J. W. Connie. Now this

746
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 6: is the person who prosecuted me back in nineteen eighty four,

747
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,640
Speaker 6: and I said, Jay, you know, give me someone to

748
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 6: do an article on He goes, Now, at this time,

749
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 6: Jay was a private attorney, and he had represented the

750
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 6: guy who shot up an abortion clinic in Boston and

751
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 6: another guy who killed his wife. And he says, I'll

752
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 6: tell you what if I believe this is right, and

753
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 6: you do the article on this guy, you may get

754
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:41,399
Speaker 6: a Pulitzer prize out of it. So he sent him

755
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 6: to interview me, and so we were talking and he says,

756
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 6: here's a piece of news I'm going to give you.

757
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 6: Your judge's retiring in six months. The day he retired,

758
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 6: I called the New York Innocence Project and asked if

759
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 6: they could help me again, and he said, I really

760
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 6: shouldn't take this phone call, but I will. What you

761
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 6: need to do is contact the New England Innosence Project

762
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 6: at Testa, Herroitz and Tebow. So I did that, and

763
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,919
Speaker 6: I contacted Neepe and they sent me the twenty six

764
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 6: page questionnaire, which I had to fill out again. And

765
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 6: then they asked me for all my things I've ever filed,

766
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 6: so I got to send them another twelve hundred pages

767
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 6: of stuff. And then all of a sudden, the lawyer

768
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 6: shows up and well, I heading back to the walk

769
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 6: and the lawyer says, may her, you haven't an attorney

770
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 6: visit He said, I haven't had an attorney in fifteen

771
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 6: sixteen years. He says, well you do now. So I

772
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 6: went up and I met with Elisa Kaplan and Karen Burns.

773
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 6: As you can imagine. I was quite emotional because this

774
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 6: is my hopes and dreams coming together. And so we

775
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 6: start talking and introducing ourselves and then Eliza says to me,

776
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 6: who's the copp the traps. I don't know why. She says, well,

777
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 6: when we came in, he asked who we were. We

778
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 6: told him Elisa Kaplan and Karen Burns. He goes, where

779
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 6: are you from? And we said the New England Innocence

780
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 6: Project and he goes, who are you here to see?

781
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 6: And they said Dennis Mayor, And the god said it's

782
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 6: about time. If anyone in here was innocent, it's Dennis.

783
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:39,320
Speaker 6: So that was her introduction to me. So they accepted

784
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 6: the case and they start looking for evidance and Karen's

785
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,759
Speaker 6: calling the courthouse and she's calling the police station. They

786
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 6: tell him that the evidence has been destroyed or lost.

787
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:50,479
Speaker 6: She says, well, do you have records of this being

788
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 6: destroyed a lost? And they said no. So Karen got

789
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 6: really frustrated at Cambridge Courthouse and she went knocking on

790
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 6: doors asking for help, and she found a clerk to

791
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 6: help her. Now, this clerk went down into the evidence

792
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 6: room and found the evidence. And so Eliza calls me

793
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 6: and says, we found the evidence. And she says, well,

794
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 6: you're not too excited. I says, well, I've had so

795
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 6: many downs that if something really good happens, then I'll

796
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 6: get excited. But we're sending it to doctor Blake out

797
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 6: in California, who's one of the foremost forensic scientists in

798
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 6: the country, but he's not accepted by the government because

799
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 6: he hates the government. And so they sent that to him.

800
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 6: And then they came in to take my blood. So

801
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 6: they bring me down to HSU and they start talking

802
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 6: to me, and then in walks someone from the DA's office,

803
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 6: someone from the AG's office, an attorney for me, Karen Burns,

804
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 6: the superintendent of the prison, in a perimeterive security people

805
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 6: in a phlebotomus. So they did the chain of evidence.

806
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 6: They took my blood, took pictures of it, took a

807
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 6: mouth swab, took pictures of that, handed the evidence to

808
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 6: a state trooper who went back to the police lab,

809
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 6: handed it to the chemist who got on a plane

810
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,959
Speaker 6: and hand delivered it to doctor Blake because she didn't

811
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 6: want to do the testing because the evidence was so

812
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,879
Speaker 6: old and the Lowell cases and so now I have

813
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 6: to wait so on Christmas Eve two thousand and two,

814
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 6: Eliza said to call her. So I called her. Now

815
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 6: she had moved from the New England Innocence Project to

816
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 6: New York. I called her about twenty five times and

817
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,239
Speaker 6: there was no answer, and so I went outside to

818
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 6: cool off, you know, because she told me to call

819
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 6: her on Christmas Eve. And so I went back in

820
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,760
Speaker 6: and the block office says, may her call your attorney.

821
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 6: I said, I've been calling her all day. So finally

822
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 6: I call her and I get a hold of her

823
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 6: and I said, where have you been. She says, oh,

824
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 6: we were out celebrating. I said, why, She goes, we

825
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,720
Speaker 6: got two test results back today and the DNA's didn't match.

826
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 6: But they had to talk to the victims because they

827
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 6: had to find out if the victim had sex with

828
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 6: their boyfriend or whatever the night before. So now Matha

829
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 6: Cockley's got to go talk to the victim after nineteen

830
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:11,879
Speaker 6: years until her she may have sent an innocent man

831
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 6: to prison. So they went and talked and she was

832
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 6: freaked out, which I don't blame it. You know, nineteen

833
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 6: years you on top of being raped, now you're being

834
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 6: told you may have sent an innocent and to prison.

835
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,879
Speaker 6: That's got to be devastating. So they went and saw

836
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,359
Speaker 6: her a second tang and she was still freaked out,

837
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 6: but she gave him permission to get the hospital wreckage,

838
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 6: which can only be gotten through a court order or

839
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 6: permission from the victim. So they gave her a permission

840
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 6: and that ended up that she was a virgin when

841
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 6: she was raped. So now I'm cleared of the Lowell cases.

842
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 6: My twenty to thirtyer sentence is going to be gone,

843
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 6: and I have the air case. So they start looking

844
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 6: for the air evidence and they're getting the same run around.

845
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 6: We don't know where the evidence is. The evidence has

846
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 6: been destroyed, the evidence has been lost. So Matha Cokeley

847
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 6: called Elizer and said, do you want to make a deal.

848
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 6: We'll give them time served, and Eliza says no and

849
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 6: had some choice words for Matha Cochley that we're going

850
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 6: to prove he's innocent. And all of a sudden, a

851
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,720
Speaker 6: slide shows up on Matha Cochley's desk from the case

852
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 6: that they've been looking for. So they sent the slide

853
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 6: to Maryland to be tested. So I called Eliza on

854
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 6: April Fool's Day and I says hi and she says,

855
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 6: when do you want to go home? This is April

856
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:33,359
Speaker 6: Fool's Day.

857
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 7: Yeah, the universe has a strange sense of humor, so

858
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 7: go ahead.

859
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 6: She says, no, when do you want to go home?

860
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 6: The test came back and they were two different DNAs

861
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 6: on it, and neither one of them was yours. I says, wow.

862
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 6: I says, well, you better make it Thursday because it's

863
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 6: going to take my parents at least a day to adjust.

864
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 6: And so I called my parents and told them. My

865
00:42:58,280 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 6: mother says, I'm not going to be in the car room.

866
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 6: So I called back later on and she says, I

867
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 6: might be in the court room. And then I called

868
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 6: her the night before I was going to court and said,

869
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 6: and she goes, I'll be there. So on April third,

870
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 6: two thousand and three, I got my last strip search

871
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 6: went to Cambridge Courthouse in Boston. Now this Zakembridge had

872
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 6: just opened. Traffic was a nightmare because all the roads

873
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 6: were dirt and everything else. We get to the courthouse.

874
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 6: They put me in a two man cell and they

875
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 6: had the tank on the right side, and there's a

876
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:30,399
Speaker 6: guy in there whining ned he's getting a three to five.

877
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 6: So I told him, well, we just shut up. I'm

878
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 6: going home after doing nineteen years and I'm proven innocent.

879
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 6: I never heard another peep out of her. So I

880
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,320
Speaker 6: went up to the courtroom. Aliza reads her motion. I

881
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:43,800
Speaker 6: had told her, I said, you need to file a

882
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 6: motion to get rid of the civil sentence. She says why,

883
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:50,240
Speaker 6: I said, just do it. So she files all the motions.

884
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 6: Martha Cokeley says we're not going to oppose this, and

885
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 6: Judge says, all I have to do is sign this

886
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 6: and he can go home. And he said yeah. She says,

887
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 6: well I'm signing he can leave. So I went back in.

888
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 6: They took the ankle chains off, they took the waist

889
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 6: chains off, and they let me go. I walked out

890
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 6: the first door and met with my parents, went to

891
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 6: the second door and met with my brothers and friends.

892
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 6: Walked out the third door into five TV cameras, about

893
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 6: fifteen microphones, and of course their first question was how

894
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 6: do you feel? You want to say, how do you

895
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 6: think I feel? And here comes a leizer and she says, well,

896
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 6: there's going to be a press conference at Tester Hurwitz

897
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 6: and Tbow at noontime and we'll see us all there.

898
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 6: And then I as I was leaving the Senior Court office,

899
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 6: comes over and says, JW. Connie would like to speak

900
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 6: with you.

901
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:40,840
Speaker 1: That's the prosecutor.

902
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 6: Yeah, the former prosecutor. And so we met in the

903
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 6: hallway and he apologized and asked for forgiveness. So I

904
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 6: forgave him, which had a huge effect on me because

905
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 6: I'm not angry, you know, I'm not bitter. Afterwards, Jay

906
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 6: told me that if I didn't forgive him, he might

907
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 6: have stopped being a lawyer, and it still affects him

908
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 6: to this day because he told me he was in

909
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 6: his office one day and Barryshak called him and said,

910
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 6: Dennis May has just been clad and lowell. He said,

911
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 6: So I sat at my desk and cried, and he

912
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,800
Speaker 6: told me that he called him again and said, Dennis

913
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 6: May has gone home Thursday. What I didn't know is

914
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 6: that before I got there, he went and apologized to

915
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 6: my parents and my brothers, which was my brother is

916
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 6: still angry. And that's when I went home.

917
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 7: Alex, it's hard to say anything after hearing that story,

918
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,000
Speaker 7: But since we have you here, you can't get a

919
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 7: better spokesman for the cause than Dennis. For people listening,

920
00:45:57,920 --> 00:45:59,399
Speaker 7: what kind of insight can you bring.

921
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I'll start at the end, which

922
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 2: is with the prosecutor. You know, I think this is

923
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,760
Speaker 2: a very good case example, because I think we've become

924
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:10,279
Speaker 2: too focused on the rogue actor, or focusing on that

925
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 2: there are bad players in the system, because.

926
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 3: Those variables affect all systems and all walks of life.

927
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 2: The prosecutor in this case clearly did the honorable thing,

928
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 2: and I think that prosecutors by and large are honorable

929
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 2: and are trying to do the right thing. And if

930
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 2: you start with that premise rather than the premise of

931
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 2: this is good versus evil in one direction or another,

932
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: you start to be able to unwind. Where are the

933
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 2: implicit biases in the system, Where are the false positives?

934
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 3: Where are the errors?

935
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 2: And this is a good example of that because I

936
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 2: don't think he, knowing what I know, did this on purpose.

937
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 2: And if you can get past that, I think you

938
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 2: can look at it with a deeper lens. My other reaction,

939
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 2: initial reaction is this man is a hero, and that

940
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 2: the work that the Innocence Project is remarkable not just

941
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 2: for setting people free, but because it creates a system

942
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 2: of t and balances and creates good law and creates

943
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 2: people asking the hard questions. But then at the end

944
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 2: of the day, I go back to being a trial lawyer,

945
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 2: and I look at the facts of this case, and

946
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 2: there's only DNA in so many cases, and only so

947
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 2: many letters get read, and only so many people can

948
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 2: get exonerated. If everybody in the first instance would fight

949
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 2: smart and hard for everybody accused of crimes, I think

950
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 2: that that would create the best checks in the system.

951
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 3: And you know, hearing this case and.

952
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:29,959
Speaker 2: Going back, and I'll start with the man that mister

953
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 2: Mayor is. You know, he's You can just tell that

954
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 2: he's a good person by being around him. And he

955
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 2: was a family man at the time, still living with

956
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 2: his parents when most twenty year olds weren't. He was

957
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 2: a soldier when most of us wouldn't be. He had

958
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 2: never been in trouble before when many of us had been.

959
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 2: And I don't know if the story of him as

960
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: a person was told, because when you think about it,

961
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 2: he makes an awfully unlikely suspect if you really get

962
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 2: into his humanity, and to the lawyers defending people and

963
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,920
Speaker 2: advocating on the ground, you have to look at that

964
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: alibi and not just throw it into a courtroom, but

965
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: really firm it up, because that could have just like

966
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 2: DNA can now essentially prove innocence because of the metaphysical

967
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:10,839
Speaker 2: comment you made earlier, and I.

968
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 3: Would have called other soldiers.

969
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,319
Speaker 2: I would have impressed the fact that while Vlahm might

970
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:17,919
Speaker 2: have a meeting where he shows up around five, when

971
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 2: military folks say that he didn't leave the base until

972
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 2: seventeen twenty, that means five twenty, and it means precisely

973
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 2: five to twenty.

974
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 3: And there's probably a.

975
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 2: Logbook that could have been used to show what time

976
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 2: he actually physically checked out. And then the next thing

977
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 2: you know, it's not all the resources and the tiers

978
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 2: and the decades behind bars.

979
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 3: It's an acquittal because he couldn't have done it.

980
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 2: And so those are the things I focus on and

981
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 2: that I come back to in the end.

982
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: But what do we do?

983
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 7: Because I've always said that I believe most cops are

984
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 7: good cops, and most prosecutors are good prosecutors. But the

985
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 7: ones that aren't they wreck a path of destruction that

986
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:56,320
Speaker 7: is wide and big and devastating to so many people.

987
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 7: But there are a number of systemic problems, right, I mean,

988
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 7: it's easy for us to sit here and say this

989
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:01,879
Speaker 7: is what should have been done, this is what could

990
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 7: have been done. The system is stacked against Dennis, right,

991
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 7: It was stacked against Dennis. It's stacked against guys like Dennis. Today.

992
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 7: Somebody's being wrongfully convicted in America. Hopefully it's only one person, right.

993
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 7: What can we do? What can people listening do to

994
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 7: help prevent these things from happening, to prevent the next

995
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,239
Speaker 7: Dennis Mayor from ever having to go through this?

996
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 3: To me, it all goes back to the role of

997
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 3: the prosecutor.

998
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 2: There are tens of thousands of NYPD officers. You're going

999
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 2: to have good ones, you're going to have bad ones.

1000
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,840
Speaker 2: But the office that oversees them, which is a politically

1001
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 2: accountable office, or the offices of the district attorney. And

1002
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 2: when I say politically accountable, I don't mean to suggest

1003
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 2: that any of them are doing anything wrong. It's just

1004
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 2: they are political positions, and the will of the public

1005
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 2: and what people think and concerns people have certainly do

1006
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:50,799
Speaker 2: influence those offices. And those offices have to serve as

1007
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 2: checks and balances not only on the police department, but

1008
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 2: on themselves. And it's very easy to put a lot

1009
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 2: into a case. The adversary process is competitive. You do

1010
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 2: want to win, you do think you are on the

1011
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 2: right side of things, and so it's easy to get

1012
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 2: caught up on that and not pause and say, are

1013
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 2: we sure not pause, especially after a jury says he's guilty,

1014
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 2: to not go back and look at it, and it

1015
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 2: can create a wall, a wall between accountability and the prosecutors,

1016
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 2: in a wall in the person's own mind that doesn't

1017
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 2: allow them to sort of self assess and learn from

1018
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 2: these mistakes.

1019
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:27,800
Speaker 7: But there's so much more awareness now. It's at a peak.

1020
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:31,320
Speaker 7: Right now, we see the rise of conviction integrity units.

1021
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,840
Speaker 7: We're starting to see some public activism in terms of

1022
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 7: throwing bad prosecutors out of office, right because ultimately you

1023
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 7: can vote, and I think that's one sort of activism

1024
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 7: that's very simple. That is before we sign off, And

1025
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 7: this is for you too, Hannah. You've spoken so eloquently

1026
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:51,880
Speaker 7: and so powerfully about your experience, the tragedy, ultimately the triumph,

1027
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 7: the grace that you've shown is just sort of mind

1028
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:58,360
Speaker 7: blowing to me and I'm sure to everyone who's listening.

1029
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:00,920
Speaker 7: Is there anything else that either of you would like

1030
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 7: to share?

1031
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: With our audience.

1032
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 4: Sure, the vast majority of prosecutors and police are just human.

1033
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 4: You know, this is a human system. Like any other

1034
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 4: human system, there is going to be fault. And I

1035
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 4: find it really interesting that with other human run systems,

1036
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 4: Aviation and medicine are good examples, people expect mistakes to happen. So,

1037
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 4: you know, at a hospital, if a patient dies in

1038
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 4: somebody's care, they're going to have an M and M conference.

1039
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 4: They have all the people who worked on the case

1040
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,760
Speaker 4: get together and they pinpoint where a mistake was made.

1041
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 4: It's not blaming, it's saying, you're a human, you did

1042
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 4: your best, something went wrong. We're going to use this

1043
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 4: as a learning moment. And because of these things, the

1044
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 4: aviation field the medical field have improved hugely. We don't

1045
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 4: really have something like that in the legal field right now.

1046
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 4: And Alex maybe you can attest to this, but that

1047
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:57,399
Speaker 4: lawyers and especially people who are going to go into

1048
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 4: prosecution are told you're going to run fully convict someone.

1049
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 4: You know, they're expected somehow to not be human, to

1050
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 4: not make mistakes, and when they do make mistakes, they're

1051
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 4: often covered up. It's seen as shameful. The incentives justice

1052
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 4: is a moving target, and it's kind of an ethereal concept.

1053
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 4: Whereas a conviction is something that you can count, it

1054
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 4: actually takes a pretty rare case to have enough evidence

1055
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 4: to be really fool proof. You know, we forget that

1056
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 4: obviously it's innocent until proven guilty. A lot of people

1057
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 4: think that even if you get to the point of

1058
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 4: a trial, like they must have done something to get there.

1059
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,359
Speaker 4: And I think the fact that most cases don't have

1060
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 4: DNA like we talked about, you know, the vast majority

1061
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 4: of wrongful convictions are probably people who are forced to

1062
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 4: take guilty please at a misdemeanor level.

1063
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 7: Right with Dennis, I don't know that there's really what

1064
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 7: could somebody add to what you've already said, but I

1065
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:50,879
Speaker 7: want to turn it over to you to.

1066
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: Wrap up this episode of wrongful conviction.

1067
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 6: Well, for us, I want to say hi to my

1068
00:52:54,880 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 6: kids with my wife names Melissa, Joshua and Eliza. She's

1069
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 6: named after the women who got me out.

1070
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: Wow.

1071
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 6: What can people do to help? There are a lot

1072
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 6: of bills and there's different states that are trying to

1073
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:14,359
Speaker 6: get passed. They can call the a politician, or they

1074
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 6: can go on the state house website and look up

1075
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 6: the bills and talk about that and tell them that

1076
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 6: they want to get behind it so that their senators

1077
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 6: or representatives would vote to make changes. You know, there's

1078
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 6: preserving evidence. We already changed witness identification in Massachusetts, which

1079
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 6: I was involved with, and things like that that can help.

1080
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 7: You know.

1081
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 6: I do a lot of public speaking. I speak at colleges.

1082
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 6: I'm going to go speak at a high school next week.

1083
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 7: How could people reach you if they want you to

1084
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 7: come and speak? Do you have a website? Do you

1085
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:45,800
Speaker 7: have a contact that you want to share with the audience?

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Speaker 4: Honestly, if you want to have dnnis come to anything,

1087
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 4: you can email me directly because I would love to

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00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:51,240
Speaker 4: make that happen.

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Speaker 1: What's your email?

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Speaker 4: Hiley at New England Innocence dot org.

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Speaker 7: And that's ri I l e y okay, Dennis. Well,

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00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:02,359
Speaker 7: all I can say is I really appreciate you being here.

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00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 7: Same for you Alex and Hannah. It's been an extraordinary

1094
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 7: experience being with you. All I can tell you is

1095
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 7: we'll never stop fighting. You give us just more and

1096
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:17,399
Speaker 7: more inspiration from just being yourself, So keep being you.

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00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you

1098
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:27,399
Speaker 5: get your podcasts.

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00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 6: It really helps.

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00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 7: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennessis Project and

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00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:34,439
Speaker 7: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very

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00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 7: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go

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00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 7: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and

1104
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,760
Speaker 7: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor

1105
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 7: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is

1106
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 7: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure

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00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 7: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on

1108
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 7: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm

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00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 7: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association

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Speaker 7: with Signal Company Number one