Speaker 1: On July tenth, nineteen ninety four, sixteen year old Raymond
Speaker 1: Allen Warren and two friends were walking down Kilmer Street
Speaker 1: in Dayton, Ohio. A car swerved up and the driver
Speaker 1: asked them for drugs, but they were not drug dealers.
Speaker 1: The trio continued on to one of the friend's houses
Speaker 1: to fix a flat tire on Raymond's motorized scooter. They
Speaker 1: heard gunshots in the distance behind them. After fixing the flat,
Speaker 1: Raymond rode back to his grandmother's on Kilmer Street, where
Speaker 1: he saw that a car had crashed into one of
Speaker 1: her neighbor's houses. The driver had been fatally shot a
Speaker 1: roll of counterfeit bills laid next to him. When questioned
Speaker 1: by cops on the scene, Raymond told them about the
Speaker 1: drug solicitation. He was then taken to the station to
Speaker 1: give a statement. After submitting to a gunshot residue test,
Speaker 1: he was released. The palm of his non dominant hand
Speaker 1: tested positive for two elements associated with gunplay. According to
Speaker 1: what was considered reliable science at the time, the presence
Speaker 1: of those elements could mean one of only three things
Speaker 1: that Raymond had either fired a gun, handled ammunition, or
Speaker 1: was the victim of gun violence. This gave police more
Speaker 1: than enough confidence to coerce the two other children with
Speaker 1: the threat of their own prosecution, to implicate their friend.
Speaker 1: The same strain of expert testimony presented at his trial
Speaker 1: had been heard by countless juries for decades, at at
Speaker 1: least a decade more thereafter, until some startling realizations about
Speaker 1: the reliability of gunshot residue testing were finally made. This
Speaker 1: is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction today. We've
Speaker 1: got a junk science case out of Ohio, gunshot residue
Speaker 1: testing case to be exact, but with the information that
Speaker 1: they had, many people, investigators in law enforcement included, probably
Speaker 1: thought they had the right guy, not like some of
Speaker 1: our other cases where there was still plenty of reasonable
Speaker 1: doubt or even noted to the contrary. And our guest
Speaker 1: was just a sixteen year old boy at the time,
Speaker 1: and he joins us now from a correctional facility in Ohio.
Speaker 1: Raymond Alan Warren, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I want to thank everyone there at the ron Convissions
Speaker 3: the podcast.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome and joining Raymond today is his fierce
Speaker 1: advocate that our listeners might remember from the Gunshot Residue
Speaker 1: episode of Wrongful Conviction Junk Science, in which they actually
Speaker 1: touched on Raymond's case while discussing the issue at large.
Speaker 1: We're going to have that episode linked in our bio.
Speaker 1: I implore you to go and check it out. It's
Speaker 1: an eye opener. She is the director of the Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction Project at the office of the Ohio Public Defender.
Speaker 1: Joanna Sanchez. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. All right. So, Raymond, you've been in prison
Speaker 1: going on well, Jesus, I hate to even say this,
Speaker 1: but you've been in prison for twelve years, longer now
Speaker 1: than you were a lot before all of this happened.
Speaker 1: That's just nuts. But can you tell us a bit
Speaker 1: about your first sixteen years of life before this tragedy.
Speaker 2: As you said, it was sixteen years old.
Speaker 3: I primarily grew up in Dayton, Ohio, back and forth
Speaker 3: from Kentucky as well. I have a lot of family
Speaker 3: down there, and we were poor, and I had a
Speaker 3: good childhood. I would say three younger brothers at the time.
Speaker 3: I have five younger brothers now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I understand you were really into like working
Speaker 1: on cars and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I grew up basically tell you some part as a
Speaker 3: kid and the older I got.
Speaker 2: I started working vehicles right before this incarceration. I maybe
Speaker 2: like a year year and a half. I had learned
Speaker 2: to paint.
Speaker 3: Car, So that was something that I was doing on
Speaker 3: a regular basis. I didn't even started to make a
Speaker 3: little money at it, and I was probably considered probably
Speaker 3: the neighborhood handy. Anybody that needed something done to their car,
Speaker 3: I was there to do it, just a kid trying
Speaker 3: to figure stuff out.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you had a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, figured out go in the right direction anyway,
Speaker 1: and you had a talent and a passion for something
Speaker 1: that could have earned you a good living. So now
Speaker 1: we get to the faithful day of July tenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, and there was a scooter you were working on.
Speaker 1: Was it your scooter or did it belong to one
Speaker 1: of your friends?
Speaker 2: Well, the scooter belonged to me.
Speaker 3: I had a flat tire. It was at my grandmother's
Speaker 3: house where I was staying. We had to take it
Speaker 3: to Antonio's house, where we basically kept all the Tuesday
Speaker 3: we'd accumulated.
Speaker 2: Chante and Antonio had arrived that.
Speaker 3: Evening to help me move it from my grandmother's house
Speaker 3: to Antonio's house.
Speaker 2: Efficient Me and Schante were basically pushing the scooter. He
Speaker 2: was steering me, and I was looking.
Speaker 3: Up the back of the scooter because as I had
Speaker 3: a flat you couldn't move it any other way. Antonio
Speaker 3: was riding alongside of the street when the car pulled up.
Speaker 3: Guying in the car asked us or someone in the
Speaker 3: car asked us we had these drugs, I said.
Speaker 2: But nothing happened and we don't got nothing.
Speaker 3: Antonio said something I don't remember exactly what, cursing.
Speaker 2: Him out, and they kept going. We continued along our
Speaker 2: path to Antonio's house.
Speaker 3: We arrived at the corner of Kilmer in Lakeview when
Speaker 3: we heard gunshots.
Speaker 2: We immediately took off run up. We were pushing the
Speaker 2: scooter and I was looking up the backup at me
Speaker 2: and shot tey.
Speaker 3: We're doing our best to bookie Alan to get to
Speaker 3: Antonio's house. And when we arrived Antonio's house, we basically
Speaker 3: dropped the scooter will after to realize was anybody shooting
Speaker 3: at us, and realized.
Speaker 2: It was safe he started working on the scooter.
Speaker 1: Right, and specifically you were fixing a flat tire.
Speaker 3: The way that the scooter is made, you have to
Speaker 3: take the brakes and the wheel off before you can
Speaker 3: get to the action tire, as well as the muffler
Speaker 3: off of the wheel wheel.
Speaker 2: It's not like tire like a car or something. It's
Speaker 2: a lot different. You have to really take all everything
Speaker 2: apart on the back of the scooter.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we were absolutely working with the break opponents,
Speaker 3: a muffler, everything that was attached to that whill.
Speaker 1: So at this point you have no idea what happened
Speaker 1: back there on Kilmer Street, but just that it was
Speaker 1: smart to not be anywhere around it and you were
Speaker 1: able to fix your flat. Now, before we get into
Speaker 1: the specific of the crime itself, I want to turn
Speaker 1: to Joanna. So, Johanna, one of the things that I
Speaker 1: found fascinating about some of the issues that you and
Speaker 1: Josh Dubin discussed on wrongful conviction junk science was that
Speaker 1: things like cigarette ash, dried urine, and so many other substances,
Speaker 1: even household substances, can cause a false positive on a
Speaker 1: gunshot residue or GSR test. Can you explain how that happens.
Speaker 4: Sure, So GSR tests don't actually test for a unique
Speaker 4: substance known as gunshot residue. What they're really testing for
Speaker 4: are elements that are known to be present in gunshot residue.
Speaker 4: And the test using Raymond's case was an atomic absorption test.
Speaker 4: It's not really used anymore because it has limited utility,
Speaker 4: but it was testing for two elements, barium and antimony,
Speaker 4: and those two elements exist in our atmosphere. They're found
Speaker 4: in things like fireworks, matches, some types of batteries, lubricating greases,
Speaker 4: and particularly relevant here in brake pad dust. So if
Speaker 4: somebody's had contact with any of those substances, they potentially
Speaker 4: could test positive for barium and antimony and give a
Speaker 4: false positive on a gunshot residue test.
Speaker 1: Right, So, as Raymond just said and his friends confirmed,
Speaker 1: so it's undisputed that they had fixed a flat that night,
Speaker 1: handled the brake pads and other components. But we haven't
Speaker 1: even gotten to why all of this matters yet. So
Speaker 1: it turns out that this guy, Wendall Simpson was driving
Speaker 1: around Kilmer Street that night, and there may or may
Speaker 1: not have been a gold Buick either following him or
Speaker 1: just cruising the area. Now it's believed that the gunshots
Speaker 1: heard earlier by Raymond and his friends had killed this guy,
Speaker 1: Wendall Simpson. His body was found in the front seat
Speaker 1: of his car, which had crashed into a house five
Speaker 1: point twenty nine Kilmer Street, just up the block from
Speaker 1: Raymond's grandmother's house. There was a crowbar on the floor
Speaker 1: as well as a role of counterfeit bills encircled by
Speaker 1: two reel dollars bills on the front seat. Three shelves
Speaker 1: were also recovered from the scene, one on the right
Speaker 1: rear floorboard, one on the right side of the driver's seat,
Speaker 1: and another new left front tire. And it appears that
Speaker 1: there were some witnesses or perhaps even potential suspects for
Speaker 1: this crime.
Speaker 4: So there are two young men who are there at
Speaker 4: the scene as well, Andre Wright and Stanley Williams, and
Speaker 4: what they indicate to the police is that they saw
Speaker 4: Wendell Simpson's car crashed into the house on Kilmer Street,
Speaker 4: and so they pull their car up and park across
Speaker 4: the street. They're driving a gold Buick and what they
Speaker 4: indicate is that they went to mister simpsons car multiple times,
Speaker 4: first to put it in park then to turn off
Speaker 4: the engine, and they planned to leave the scene, but
Speaker 4: the police got there before they could, and so they
Speaker 4: tell the police of this story. They tell them that
Speaker 4: they are just in the neighborhood kind of cruising around
Speaker 4: that night. The police take them to the station, but
Speaker 4: they don't fingerprint them, they don't test them for gunsho
Speaker 4: a residue, and then they just let them go.
Speaker 1: Now, we're not trying to implicate other potentially innocent people here,
Speaker 1: of course not. But that interaction is at the very
Speaker 1: least remarkable considering what happened to Raymond, who at this
Speaker 1: time had just fixed the flat tire, went to a
Speaker 1: nearby gas station and was heading back to grandma's house
Speaker 1: on Kilmer Street.
Speaker 2: When I arrived at.
Speaker 3: My grandmother's house, there was some kind of commotion at
Speaker 3: the top of the block, and there were police and
Speaker 3: fire trucks and all kinds of stuff out there. A
Speaker 3: detective approached me while I was putting the school on
Speaker 3: my grandmother's porch and asked me had I seen anything.
Speaker 3: I didn't really know what he was talking about. He
Speaker 3: asked me about the street. See what he was he
Speaker 3: was talking about. So I walked with him with the
Speaker 3: scooter up the street. He asked me if I had
Speaker 3: seen the vehicle and I said, I don't know. I'm sure,
Speaker 3: I said a vehicle did drive by us. We were
Speaker 3: walking to Atonus. He asked me what was what was
Speaker 3: I going? I just want to visit my switter, And
Speaker 3: he asked me if I would go downtown with him
Speaker 3: and give further detail about where I was who.
Speaker 2: I was with.
Speaker 3: So I didn't mind, I don't care. So being that
Speaker 3: I do to help, I absolutely could. They handcuff me
Speaker 3: and placed me in a back or police card.
Speaker 1: So, Okay, you were trying to help, right, and you
Speaker 1: had already explained where you had been. But maybe it
Speaker 1: was that you potentially had contact with this vehicle before
Speaker 1: the shooting. So at this point you didn't know that
Speaker 1: you had any reason to be scared. But the handcuff
Speaker 1: certainly could have been some kind of indication. So now
Speaker 1: they take you down to the station. How did that go?
Speaker 1: When you got there?
Speaker 3: It took me to a room, It took the handcuffs
Speaker 3: off of me, and I was in there for quite
Speaker 3: some time. The light was turned off and I started
Speaker 3: to nod off on the table a little bit when
Speaker 3: a detective came in the room and started asking me questions.
Speaker 3: At first it was, you know, just ask me questions
Speaker 3: about who I was with, where I was.
Speaker 2: Had I seen the vehicle?
Speaker 3: And like I said, I wasn't for sure that I
Speaker 3: had seen that particular vehicle. But I told him about
Speaker 3: the vehicle that had approached, told him about my friends
Speaker 3: that I was with and Tony on shot today as
Speaker 3: well as he going to fish the scooter anything was
Speaker 3: wrong with it.
Speaker 2: So scay his story. I told exactly where I was
Speaker 2: at and who I was with.
Speaker 4: He voluntarily waives his rights, He agrees to give a statement,
Speaker 4: and he agrees to this gunshot residue test.
Speaker 2: Why not, I haven't done anything wrong, had fired gun?
Speaker 3: Yet?
Speaker 2: Gave gun test right?
Speaker 1: Since, after all, you hadn't fired a gun, you had
Speaker 1: every reason to be confident that you wouldn't test positive
Speaker 1: because nobody, I mean, let's not forget no one at
Speaker 1: the time understood that these tests could easily result in
Speaker 1: false positives. So that night, Raymond was released to his
Speaker 1: grandma and went home thinking, probably thinking he was safe.
Speaker 4: So the gunshot residue test comes back and they detect
Speaker 4: antimony and bury him on the palm of Raymond's right hand.
Speaker 4: It's not on the back of his right hand. It's
Speaker 4: not anywhere on his left hand. It's just on the palm.
Speaker 4: Raymond is left handed, so it's on his non dominant
Speaker 4: hand that they find these two elements.
Speaker 1: This is what's weird about this. So it was only
Speaker 1: on the palm, not on the backside, where you might
Speaker 1: expect it more likely to be. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: just hold your hand up and mimic a firing motion
Speaker 1: and you'll see what I'm talking about. And on the
Speaker 1: non dominant hand.
Speaker 4: You would expect it to be on his dominant hand.
Speaker 4: And the fact that it's not, I think is indicative
Speaker 4: that it's contamination, either from the brake pads or potentially
Speaker 4: because he is handcuffed, he's in a police cruiser, he's
Speaker 4: taken down to the police station, he's in the interrogation room.
Speaker 4: Those are all surfaces that we know are contaminated with
Speaker 4: gunshot resdue.
Speaker 1: So not only had he been working with brake pads
Speaker 1: that night, there was also a tremendous amount of opportunities
Speaker 1: for touch transfer, which is why it is widely accepted
Speaker 1: now that GSR testing or more specifically, the atomic absorption
Speaker 1: test that was used in this case is almost entirely meaningless.
Speaker 1: In fact, the only reasonable use it has is in
Speaker 1: the scenario where the suspect hasn't had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: vigorously wash their hands. Then are tested and the absence
Speaker 1: of the elements associated with gun use could be exculpatory,
Speaker 1: as we've pointed out before on this show, very different
Speaker 1: than it being used as in an inculpatory manner as
Speaker 1: it was here. That's what we know now. But back then,
Speaker 1: with this positive GSR test, Raymond's fate was I hate
Speaker 1: to say it, but it was pretty much sealed at
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 4: They believe that antimony and barium are very unique to
Speaker 4: gunshot residue, So if somebody tests positive for those elements,
Speaker 4: the belief is that it means they fired a weapon,
Speaker 4: they were a victim of a shooting, or the handled ammunition.
Speaker 1: So those results were in and the police are like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: we've got our guy here. So you had mentioned Antonio
Speaker 1: and Chante and statement.
Speaker 4: So the police go to Antonio's home a few weeks
Speaker 4: after the shooting, multiple police cards, multiple police officers, and
Speaker 4: they pull up on Antonio he's in his front yard
Speaker 4: and they say, we want to take you down to
Speaker 4: the police station to talk to you about this crime.
Speaker 4: He asks to go tell his parents they're in the house,
Speaker 4: and the police won't let him. So this fourteen year
Speaker 4: old boys being escorted to the police station. His parents
Speaker 4: don't know about it. He gets there, he asks to
Speaker 4: call his mom. They say no, and what they tell
Speaker 4: him is that we'll let you go home once you
Speaker 4: make a statement. And so they interview him for a
Speaker 4: lengthy period of time. It appears without recording it. All
Speaker 4: we have is a recording of the last five to
Speaker 4: ten minutes of his statement. And what Antonio testifies to
Speaker 4: at various points during the proceedings, including in Raymond's juvenile proceedings,
Speaker 4: is that the police told him they were looking to
Speaker 4: put this crime on him if he didn't implicate Raymond.
Speaker 4: And so what he did was he gave a statement.
Speaker 4: In the record statement, you can tell that it's practiced.
Speaker 4: He seems like he's reading a script. At one point,
Speaker 4: he stops and he's in this little room. He's clearly
Speaker 4: at least two police officers there. One is sitting right
Speaker 4: up against him. They're very close to one another, and
Speaker 4: Antonio is sort of running quickly through what happened this night,
Speaker 4: and at one point stops and looks to somebody off
Speaker 4: Cameron says, oh, I messed up.
Speaker 3: As we was walking back going back home, this guy
Speaker 3: had pulled up Alan's right behind us.
Speaker 1: Before he left Allen's house, he drank a pop.
Speaker 4: So it appears that he's talked to them for a
Speaker 4: lengthy period of time, and then it was told, you know,
Speaker 4: to give this very short statement implicating Raymond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and no one really picked up on this flub.
Speaker 1: That illustrates that he was just repeating the story that
Speaker 1: they had developed. He had been coerced into doing so
Speaker 1: by the threat of his own wrongful prosecution. And Shante
Speaker 1: was faced with the same call it what it is,
Speaker 1: it's Sophie's choice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Shante. They come to his house one morning, it's
Speaker 4: six thirty in the morning. He's sleeping. He'd gone to
Speaker 4: bed late the night before, so he's not on much rest.
Speaker 4: They take him to the police station and they tell
Speaker 4: him the same thing where they'd say, you know, we're
Speaker 4: looking to talk to you about a murder we think
Speaker 4: you might have been involved in. And so ultimately what happens,
Speaker 4: is Schante. It's the police actually write out a statement,
Speaker 4: and that's the statement that Chante signs. He doesn't write
Speaker 4: it himself. It's not a recorded statement. It's a handwritten
Speaker 4: statement made by one of the police officers that he.
Speaker 1: Signs, and essentially that statement corroborated Antonio's statement. Both were
Speaker 1: towing the line for this police narrative, which was that
Speaker 1: while this is the narrative they were putting forth, was
Speaker 1: that while on the way to Antonio's house, this encounter
Speaker 1: with the victim happened. He asked for drugs Antoni. When
Speaker 1: Chante kept walking, Raymond allegedly went into an alley with
Speaker 1: the victim, who tried to pay with the counterfeit role
Speaker 1: and Raymond allegedly shot him for it. Raymond allegedly then
Speaker 1: admitted this to Antonio and Johntay. So when were you
Speaker 1: arrested and were you able to bond out?
Speaker 2: August the Knife nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 3: I was taken in juvenile custom and juvenile gusty.
Speaker 2: You don't have a bond or anything.
Speaker 1: Like that, which is backwards as hell, and.
Speaker 3: Even once bound over to the adult courts on the
Speaker 3: bond that they gave me as I said we were
Speaker 3: still for and wasn't.
Speaker 2: Able to pay it.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until these proceedings in which they magically
Speaker 1: decided that a sixteen year old was an adult. Right,
Speaker 1: That always blows my mind. Yeah, they just decided that
Speaker 1: its sixteen year old was an adult for the purpose
Speaker 1: of inflicting, you know, much more terrifying and harsh punishment.
Speaker 1: And that was when you, for the first time, you
Speaker 1: found out that your friends had even said these things.
Speaker 3: Shante wasn't part of that process, but Antonio was.
Speaker 2: He came to court and made.
Speaker 3: Some statements that literally like only why are they telling
Speaker 3: these lies?
Speaker 2: I didn't have opportunity to speak with him.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there life, like I say, on the balance
Speaker 3: of people making false statments, I really don't know.
Speaker 2: What to do.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice, reform.
Speaker 1: The AIG pro bono program provides free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So now you're
Speaker 1: set to be tried as an adult. I mean you're
Speaker 1: a child and a very adult, very real nightmare. It's
Speaker 1: March tenth, nineteen ninety five. You were assigned two public
Speaker 1: defenders from the Montgomery County Public Defender's Office.
Speaker 4: The States case really was these three pieces of evidence,
Speaker 4: the alleged gunshot residue, Antonio's testimony, and Shante's testimony. What's
Speaker 4: interesting is Antonio and Shante actually didn't show up the
Speaker 4: day they were supposed to testify. They were supposed to
Speaker 4: come down to court. They were subpoena and they didn't come.
Speaker 4: So the next day the police actually go out and
Speaker 4: they arrest them, and they bring them down to the
Speaker 4: court and they hold them in jail. And so their
Speaker 4: understanding is you can go home ones you testify. So
Speaker 4: the two of them testify against Raymond, and the story
Speaker 4: that they give is that they went to his house.
Speaker 4: They've got his scooter. They start going down Kilmer Street
Speaker 4: toward Antonio's home. Mister Simpson approaches them in his car
Speaker 4: and he's looking for drugs, and then Shante and Antonio
Speaker 4: continue on to Antonio's house, but Raymond goes into the
Speaker 4: alley with mister Simpson. They say they then hear shots,
Speaker 4: and then Raymond comes up to Antonio's house and says,
Speaker 4: I had to shoot the guy because he gave me
Speaker 4: fake money. Antonio and Chante both also testified that they
Speaker 4: saw Raymond with a gun the day before the shooting.
Speaker 4: What's interesting also is that Chante, when he's testifying, he
Speaker 4: actually initially does not testify to seeing Raymond with a
Speaker 4: gun or testify to him confessing. He only remembers those
Speaker 4: facts after the police show him the handwritten statement that
Speaker 4: they wrote, and he.
Speaker 1: Signed, right, And it's hard to remember lies, especially when
Speaker 1: you weren't even the one that initially wrote them. So
Speaker 1: they have these statements from the two kids that would
Speaker 1: have and should have been his alibi witnesses. By the way,
Speaker 1: both of them have since recanted on the record, right,
Speaker 1: But that hasn't really done anything for Raymond thus far.
Speaker 1: He's still right where he is. But back at trial,
Speaker 1: the defense did present two witnesses that shed a lot
Speaker 1: of doubt on the state's case.
Speaker 4: So there were two people who lived in the neighborhood
Speaker 4: nearby John and Patricia Morland, and the defense called them,
Speaker 4: and Patricia testified to she was kind of walking around
Speaker 4: the neighborhood at this time. She'd gone to her friend's
Speaker 4: house to get her hair done and then was coming home,
Speaker 4: and so she testified to seeing mister Simpson in his
Speaker 4: car kind of rolling around the block a few times.
Speaker 4: Her husband, John testified that he was in his home
Speaker 4: he heard the crash, so he goes outside to check
Speaker 4: it out, and at that point he sees the gold
Speaker 4: buick driven by Andre Wright and Stanley Williams, and to him,
Speaker 4: it looked like the buick had potentially been following mister
Speaker 4: Simpson's car. So he sees the buick come around and
Speaker 4: turn around and park across the street. And what mister
Speaker 4: Morland says is he actually sees three people come out
Speaker 4: of the buick. These three men get out of the
Speaker 4: gold Buick, that they go back and forth between their
Speaker 4: car and mister Simpson's car several times. And then when
Speaker 4: the police arrived, one of these three men has disappeared,
Speaker 4: and so now there's only two men left at the scene.
Speaker 1: Again, we're not saying that these individuals are guilty, but
Speaker 1: they were not ruled out by GSR testing. At the
Speaker 1: very least, they should have been more interesting to the
Speaker 1: authorities than Raymond was to the police at that time. Plus,
Speaker 1: the Morlands did not mention seeing Raymond come and go
Speaker 1: from the scene while they had watched these three men.
Speaker 1: But now here goes the quote unquote expert testimony that
Speaker 1: sounded very official, And this had law enforcement, the prosecutor's office,
Speaker 1: and everybody believing or at least putting forth the narrative
Speaker 1: that Raymond was the actual guy.
Speaker 4: So the gunshot residue analyst testified that he found barriam
Speaker 4: and antimony on Raymond's non dominant hand and that it
Speaker 4: meant one of those three things that he either shot
Speaker 4: a firearm, was a victim of a shooting, or handled
Speaker 4: contaminated ammunition.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was sitting there listening to this like
Speaker 3: Dudy's lyon, there's no way. At the same time, I
Speaker 3: don't have anything to come bad, is you know?
Speaker 2: I like it?
Speaker 3: Depending on as my lawyers at the time, they didn't.
Speaker 2: Know what the break pass and working.
Speaker 3: With vehicles and motor oil and other things like that
Speaker 3: be something that would cause these readings.
Speaker 4: I mean, the jury is they're hearing from two children
Speaker 4: who are saying, my friend did this. They're hearing from
Speaker 4: this scientific evidence, you know, back in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: This sounds like real science, and they're being told it
Speaker 4: could only be one of these three things, and two
Speaker 4: of those things are inculpatory, like the idea that he
Speaker 4: handled ammunition or fired a gun. Both of those things
Speaker 4: aren't good and certainly he wasn't a victim of a shooting.
Speaker 4: So the jury's left with very little to go on.
Speaker 4: But it's they believe Chantay and Antonio, and they believe
Speaker 4: the science.
Speaker 1: At that point, did you hold out any hope that
Speaker 1: the jury was going to get it right?
Speaker 3: I thought that as jury would see the video tape
Speaker 3: Antonio did, and though, like I say that he's being
Speaker 3: forced to say certain things, I thought that.
Speaker 2: The truth would come out.
Speaker 3: I really didn't think like I would be sitting here now.
Speaker 2: I didn't. Verdy did come back. I was dumb.
Speaker 3: Fount two of the jury remembers cried and said certain
Speaker 3: things that it's like they were kind of bulling into
Speaker 3: the verdict themselves.
Speaker 2: So I was I was still kind of dumb. Found
Speaker 2: during the whole process, Like for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: I literally said and waited like every time.
Speaker 3: Like the door would open, like I was waiting on
Speaker 3: to come get it. Tell like they made a mistake.
Speaker 2: Just as as as we discussed, I was a bound
Speaker 2: over as an adult, and back then they didn't.
Speaker 3: Have a juvenile like blocks or anything like that for
Speaker 3: individuals who were under anything. So I was thrown right
Speaker 3: into the the jungles don't to speak.
Speaker 2: At eleven nine Correctional Institution.
Speaker 3: As a kid, I was prayed up on, you know,
Speaker 3: sexually harassed by both inmates and.
Speaker 2: Guardens of life. Definitely was an updial battle.
Speaker 3: And it still tings to be the battle, and it
Speaker 3: has not been easy. And in the very beginning it was.
Speaker 2: Man, it was a fight for my life every day,
Speaker 2: like it was.
Speaker 3: Really, like I said, just trying to maneuberant, stay out
Speaker 3: of harm's way. One of the things that I've tried
Speaker 3: to make sure that I've done is to educate myself
Speaker 3: and stay prepare for what.
Speaker 2: These daughters do. I can require my degree, my.
Speaker 3: Totorist certification, and I'm also in college now. I've trying
Speaker 3: to stay busy with education as well as physical activities,
Speaker 3: working out things like that, just staying busy with a job,
Speaker 3: as well as staying active in my own legal process,
Speaker 3: reading the documents and things like that that my legal
Speaker 3: team sends me make sure that I'm abreast of.
Speaker 2: The things that are being done.
Speaker 4: So Raymond is convicted in nineteen ninety five. He has
Speaker 4: a direct appeal that's unsuccessful, and from that point forward
Speaker 4: he's really on his own, and so he's making every
Speaker 4: effort he can to find an attorney to help him
Speaker 4: challenge his conviction, which is incredibly difficult. He has no money,
Speaker 4: he's incarcerated, and he's by that point seventeen years old.
Speaker 4: So he and his brothers scrape together a little money
Speaker 4: and are able to hire an attorney. And this is
Speaker 4: around nineteen ninety nine. That attorney actually goes out and
Speaker 4: he gets a recantation from Chante Hunt. So Shantai Hunt says,
Speaker 4: this didn't happen the way I said a trial. The
Speaker 4: police terrified me. I was a kid, and I thought
Speaker 4: that they were going to charge me with a murder
Speaker 4: if I didn't implicate Raymond. What really happened is exactly
Speaker 4: what Raymond said, which is, you know, we are approached
Speaker 4: by mister Simpson. We said no, we don't have drugs,
Speaker 4: and then all three of us go to Antonio's house.
Speaker 4: We are all together when we hear the shots, and
Speaker 4: so he's saying Raymond could not have done this because
Speaker 4: he was with me when we heard the shots. My
Speaker 4: testimony was a lie. So Raymond has that affidavit now,
Speaker 4: but at this point he's run out of money, and
Speaker 4: so this attorney doesn't file it for him because he
Speaker 4: can no longer afford to pay him. So then Raymond
Speaker 4: he's trying to get a new attorney. He's writing probably
Speaker 4: over the years, hundreds and hundreds of letters. In the
Speaker 4: next fifteen years or so, Raymond works with a number
Speaker 4: of attorneys. He every once in a while was able
Speaker 4: to scrape together enough money to hire someone. In the
Speaker 4: mid two thousands, he did that and somebody filed an
Speaker 4: unsuccessful procedural motion. He's out there still trying to get
Speaker 4: Antonio and see if he's willing to recant that. Antonio
Speaker 4: is really hard to find. He's changed his last name,
Speaker 4: he's incarcerated for a period of time. So it's not
Speaker 4: until two thousand and eight that Antonio comes forward and
Speaker 4: also recants his testimony.
Speaker 3: Well, I was very fortunate enough to run into a
Speaker 3: guy who was going home who knew Antonio, and I
Speaker 3: was also in contact with the project and they were
Speaker 3: helping me as well. They were investigating my case. I
Speaker 3: related information to do how as this project, and they
Speaker 3: were able to attain an affidavit of truth from Antonio
Speaker 3: Johnson boss.
Speaker 4: And he says the same thing, which is, I was
Speaker 4: a scared kid. My testimony was not true. I thought
Speaker 4: they were going to charge me with this murder and
Speaker 4: I didn't come forward sooner because I was scared I
Speaker 4: would be charged with perjury. So Raymond now has both
Speaker 4: of these affidavits, and it's really a series of mishaps
Speaker 4: at that point. He's got one organization that's working for him,
Speaker 4: but then they lose his file and sort of don't
Speaker 4: do anything on the case for a while. They then
Speaker 4: find it and sort of reopen his case and then
Speaker 4: close it. So he's, you know, he thinks something's going
Speaker 4: to happen, and then it doesn't. They then referred his
Speaker 4: case to another attorney who basically ignores him, you know,
Speaker 4: And she would later tell us that she handled this
Speaker 4: worse than any other matter in her career.
Speaker 1: It really does take a village. So he's had Chante's
Speaker 1: AFFI David since nineteen ninety nine, and almost ten years
Speaker 1: went by before he caught up with Antonio. The clock
Speaker 1: is ticking on all of this newly discovered evidence and
Speaker 1: all of these attorneys that Raymond simply doesn't have the
Speaker 1: means to maintain. This just screws him over even more
Speaker 1: than the system already has, which is hard to believe
Speaker 1: or even imagine. But is that accurate.
Speaker 2: That's definitely the most accurate. And I have not been
Speaker 2: a that good at learning the law. I'm not an attorney,
Speaker 2: don't play one on TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that I'm not either, Raymond. A lot
Speaker 1: of people think I am, but I'm definitely not alert.
Speaker 1: I'm not even a college graduate. But anyway, it's not
Speaker 1: exactly like you had the benefit of having gone to
Speaker 1: law school. So the nightmare continued.
Speaker 2: It was literally a nightmare at the time.
Speaker 3: I really didn't know what to do with So it
Speaker 3: was just trying to understand the legal process and really
Speaker 3: put together something on my own and get it fouled myself,
Speaker 3: which I eventually did.
Speaker 2: I fouled motion for trial.
Speaker 4: So twenty thirteen, Raymond fouled his motion. At the time,
Speaker 4: there was actually an unwritten rule, but a rule that
Speaker 4: a lot of the courts had adopted that once a
Speaker 4: person discovers new evidence, they have an obligation to present
Speaker 4: it to the court within a reasonable period of time.
Speaker 4: And so when Raymond filed his motion in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 4: because he had had the affidavits for several years at
Speaker 4: that point and hadn't filed them, which the reason he
Speaker 4: hadn't filed was because he was thinking he was having
Speaker 4: all these attorneys who were going to do it for him,
Speaker 4: who ultimately did not. But the court determined that by
Speaker 4: the time he did file them in twenty thirteen, he
Speaker 4: was out of time, that like an unreasonable amount of
Speaker 4: time had passed, and so they denied his motion as untimely.
Speaker 1: And the term unreasonable seems like a like a conveniently
Speaker 1: flexible term, but it seems like if a person's freedom
Speaker 1: is at stake and they're presenting the truth, I mean,
Speaker 1: any amount of time should be within reason.
Speaker 4: That's right. There's really not at that time a lot
Speaker 4: of guidance on what is a reasonable period of time.
Speaker 4: So there's cases where five years is determined to be
Speaker 4: reasonable in cases where four months is determined to be unreasonable.
Speaker 4: So it's really hard to judge what will be deemed
Speaker 4: timely or untimely.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have these guys Antonio and Chante coming
Speaker 1: forward to their own peril and detriment, admitting to perjury,
Speaker 1: which carries a five to ten year sentence in Ohio,
Speaker 1: I believe. And yet they're going to go ahead talk
Speaker 1: about the authorities and tell an innocent man, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know nothing to see here. Too bad for you.
Speaker 1: An unreasonable amount of time has passed. Now had he
Speaker 1: also supported those recantations with the evolving science on GSR?
Speaker 1: Or was that not until you all got involved in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: When Raymond initially filed his pro se emotion, he doesn't
Speaker 4: know about the gunshot resid to evidence. He doesn't have
Speaker 4: an understanding of this evolving science, so his motion was
Speaker 4: focused just on these two recantations. We stepped in for
Speaker 4: the appeal, and we actually were successful on appeal in
Speaker 4: the sense that we were allowed to go back to
Speaker 4: the trial court because the trial court had not let
Speaker 4: Raymond file a reply once the state opposed his motion,
Speaker 4: so we were sent back down to the trial court
Speaker 4: to give us the opportunity to reply, and at that point,
Speaker 4: now he has us as counsel, we asked to amend
Speaker 4: his initial motion, and so with that amendment we added
Speaker 4: in information about gunshot residue. And what had happened in
Speaker 4: the years since his conviction is that the scientific community
Speaker 4: had really started to study gunshot residue evidence, and the
Speaker 4: FBI held a massive symposium in two thousand and five
Speaker 4: where they looked at all sorts of studies regarding contamination
Speaker 4: and alternative sources for these two elements, such as brake pads,
Speaker 4: and they came up with a lot of best practices
Speaker 4: things that should be done to make the results more reliable.
Speaker 4: But the big takeaway from the symposium was that really
Speaker 4: the probative value of gunshot residue is negligible if there's
Speaker 4: any at all, because it's so transferable, there's so much
Speaker 4: risk for contamination. The results of a gunshot residue a
Speaker 4: positive TESTERSON is truly meaningless. And as a result of
Speaker 4: that symposium, a lot of labs actually stopped doing gunshot
Speaker 4: residue testing altogether. So we amended Raymond's motion to include
Speaker 4: all of that information in addition to Antonio and Chante's recantations,
Speaker 4: and we also included a lot of information about why
Speaker 4: it took Raymond so long to present this evidence to
Speaker 4: the court. And so we went through and we got
Speaker 4: affidavits from a lot of the attorneys that had represented him,
Speaker 4: and we included a lot of information about what this
Speaker 4: delay was and what the reason was was that he
Speaker 4: was relying on counsel. So we presented all of that
Speaker 4: to the trial court. His motion was denied again.
Speaker 1: And again they ruled the delay in presenting this new
Speaker 1: evidence was unreasonable.
Speaker 4: So at that point we appealed again, and the appellate
Speaker 4: court reversed again, and what they said was that the
Speaker 4: trial court should have had hearing on Raymond's motion. So
Speaker 4: we go back to the trial court. At that point,
Speaker 4: we have a multiple day evidentiary hearing, and the focus
Speaker 4: of this hearing is actually not on the new evidence.
Speaker 4: This hearing is entirely focused on whether Raymond filed this
Speaker 4: evidence within a reasonable period of time.
Speaker 1: Right, seemingly based on an arbitrary opinion, not on any
Speaker 1: concrete metric. So never mind that all of this has
Speaker 1: to do with these lawyers and Raymond's inability to financially
Speaker 1: maintain counsel. That's not a good enough reason, so he's
Speaker 1: denied again.
Speaker 4: At that point, we appealed again, and this time we
Speaker 4: lost the appeal. So we appealed to the Ohio Supreme
Speaker 4: Court and they declined to take jurisdiction over Raymond's case.
Speaker 4: So at that point we had lost that issue. What's
Speaker 4: notable is about two years after that denial, in the
Speaker 4: Haja Supreme Court, in a different case, the court actually
Speaker 4: ruled that this reasonable time filing requirement was not anywhere
Speaker 4: in any rule or statue, and that courts shouldn't be
Speaker 4: applying it to defendants when they discover new evidence.
Speaker 1: And that was that was in March of the this year.
Speaker 1: As we're recording twenty twenty two, and typical of our system,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out on a limb and say
Speaker 1: that they will not be reconsidering cases that have already
Speaker 1: been decided, even if only several months had passed since
Speaker 1: that ruling. You know, this reminds me of how they
Speaker 1: sometimes make laws or change laws, but don't change them
Speaker 1: retroactively to correct all the injustice that has come before,
Speaker 1: which would seem like a no brainer, right, They just
Speaker 1: do it going forward. So it's like, how'd you like
Speaker 1: to be the last person convicted under an old law
Speaker 1: that now the government has said is not a correct law.
Speaker 1: It's not even a legal sentence anymore. And yet there
Speaker 1: you stay. It doesn't make any sense. It's one of
Speaker 1: the most maddening things to me about our system. But anyway,
Speaker 1: another crazy thing to realize is that you all picked
Speaker 1: up his case in twenty fourteen, and in eight years
Speaker 1: we've only resolved the question that the courts didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear his claims of innocence because of an arbitrary
Speaker 1: time a yeah, mind you. No court has ever heard
Speaker 1: the merits of his claims of innocence, which, as you've
Speaker 1: heard here today, are extremely powerful. And this is the
Speaker 1: American appellate system in action. Unfortunately, they haven't even heard
Speaker 1: the evidence.
Speaker 2: They let care about the evidence. That's something they care about.
Speaker 3: They all care about, Like I said, the fact that's
Speaker 3: it's too long a file.
Speaker 4: That's right. Due to these procedural barriers and the time
Speaker 4: limitations on filing motions, over these years, no court has
Speaker 4: ever spent the time to look at these affidavits, to
Speaker 4: look at the gunshot reside evidence and to actually determine
Speaker 4: whether it points to Raymond's innocence. And so we've spent
Speaker 4: all of this time, all of these resources, all of
Speaker 4: these years of litigation, really just focusing our energy on
Speaker 4: this timing question instead of what I think is the
Speaker 4: much more important question, which is do we have an
Speaker 4: innocent man who's been sitting there in prison for the
Speaker 4: last twenty seven years.
Speaker 1: He needs really two brain cells to rub together, and
Speaker 1: you could see this, right, So where do we go
Speaker 1: from here?
Speaker 4: What we're working on right now is we filed an
Speaker 4: application for DNA testing last year in the trial court
Speaker 4: and there was three shell casings found at the scene,
Speaker 4: two in mister Simpson's car, one just outside of the
Speaker 4: driver's side door, and so we asked for touch DNA
Speaker 4: testing on those shell casings. If that information came back
Speaker 4: and excluded Raymond as the source of the DNA on
Speaker 4: those shellcasings, or even a step further pointed to a
Speaker 4: known individual as the source of the DNA, when you
Speaker 4: couple that information with Antonio and Schante's recantations and what
Speaker 4: we now know about gunshot residue, it'd be very compelling
Speaker 4: evidence of Raymond's innocence, and so we've asked for that
Speaker 4: DNA testing. Our application was denied, and so what we're
Speaker 4: doing right now is we're appealing that denial. The other
Speaker 4: thing is that Raymond is up for parole early next year,
Speaker 4: and he's been up for parole multiple times. He's always
Speaker 4: maintained his innocence before the parole born and he's always
Speaker 4: been denied or continue and youwed for several more years.
Speaker 4: But our hope is that now that he's done twenty
Speaker 4: seven years in prison, that he will be released on
Speaker 4: parole and can continue fighting for his innocence from the outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And unfortunately, maddeningly, parole boards almost always demanded a
Speaker 1: mission of guilt, which Raymond of course has not done,
Speaker 1: even though he's been eligible now for almost ten years
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, and he has no plan of changing that.
Speaker 1: And as an innocent man, neither he nor any other
Speaker 1: innocent person should have this crazy condition right to admit
Speaker 1: guilt to a crime they didn't commit. Are there any
Speaker 1: other avenues other than where you've found denial so far?
Speaker 4: The other notable thing right now in Ohio is that
Speaker 4: over the last couple of years, the Ohio Supreme Court
Speaker 4: convened a task forced to study wrongful convictions and post
Speaker 4: conviction review and they were looking at a lot of
Speaker 4: different factors. How do we prevent wrongful convictions? You know,
Speaker 4: how do we better train police attorneys prosecutors. But one
Speaker 4: big aspect of the task force was how do we
Speaker 4: change our court rules and laws to ensure that there
Speaker 4: is a pathway to relief for innocent people, people like
Speaker 4: Raymond who have the evidence, but they're running into procedural barriers,
Speaker 4: running into timelines. And the result of that task forces
Speaker 4: work were several recommendations to amend court rules and to
Speaker 4: amend legislation. And so one of the big things that
Speaker 4: we're hoping will happen in the near future is that
Speaker 4: those recommendations are adopted so that people like Raymond have
Speaker 4: options to litigate their case and to not have what
Speaker 4: happened to him occur, which is that you have this evidence,
Speaker 4: but nobody's ever actually looked at it.
Speaker 1: So we're glad that someone really has Raymond's back here
Speaker 1: as he continues his fight. Is there anything our audience
Speaker 1: can do to help?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, the audience support me as much as possible.
Speaker 3: Anything that you see our website on the Free Ramdom
Speaker 3: and Modern website supporting our petitions side anything that they
Speaker 3: can do too to judge, to do the right thing,
Speaker 3: to let my case process through.
Speaker 2: So I just let it sit because I missed the
Speaker 2: filing deadline. Actually, I proof of my innocence shouldn't be
Speaker 2: sitting here. That's what the world should be doing with
Speaker 2: support it.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to have the action steps LinkedIn the bio,
Speaker 1: So please, whatever you're doing right now, unless you're driving,
Speaker 1: stop and scroll down sign the petition, check out his
Speaker 1: site to stay up on developments in the case, and
Speaker 1: let's keep the pressure on. And that brings us now
Speaker 1: to my favorite part of the show, where first of all,
Speaker 1: I thank you all for joining us and Raymond for
Speaker 1: sharing your story. And now I'm just going to turn
Speaker 1: my microphone off, kick back in my chair and just
Speaker 1: listen to anything you feel is left to be said.
Speaker 1: Let's kick it off with Joanna and Raymond. You take
Speaker 1: us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4: Please, Well, thank you very much for having me and
Speaker 4: Raymond here and for telling his story. I think we're
Speaker 4: at a really critical moment where the public is really
Speaker 4: paying attention to wrongful conviction. You know, they're really aware
Speaker 4: that it happens, and I think motivated to do what
Speaker 4: they can to prevent them from occurring. And a lot
Speaker 4: of these conversations center around preventing wrongful convictions, which is
Speaker 4: absolutely critical. You know, how do we reform eyewitnessed identification procedures,
Speaker 4: how do we address false confessions, Brady violation's misconduct. There's
Speaker 4: another part of this story, though, which is that after
Speaker 4: somebody is wrongfully convicted, we have this whole process that
Speaker 4: they have to follow to try to get relief, and
Speaker 4: the rules that are in place and the procedures that
Speaker 4: they have to follow often prevent them from having their
Speaker 4: cases heard and make it incredibly difficult for an innocent
Speaker 4: person to get relief. And so I encourage people to
Speaker 4: pay attention to that aspect of wrongful convictions. And when
Speaker 4: you think about those rules and those laws that govern
Speaker 4: these cases, think about the actors who control those the prosecutors,
Speaker 4: the local judges, the state legislators. Those are the people
Speaker 4: who have the power to create pathways to relief for
Speaker 4: people like Raymond Warren, particularly here in Ohio, as we
Speaker 4: are grappling with those issues right now through the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court Task Force and wrongful convictions, and our hope is
Speaker 4: that some of the reforms that we're recommended by that
Speaker 4: task force are enacted so that people like Raymond can
Speaker 4: have their freedom restored one day.
Speaker 2: First off, I want to thank you Jake Fluff allowed
Speaker 2: me to do so interview. The second, I.
Speaker 3: Want the world to know that I'm in here something
Speaker 3: I didn't do. This could happen to any of you
Speaker 3: or any of your children. Like I said, I was
Speaker 3: the child on It's happened, and not hearing my evidence
Speaker 3: and hearing the proof of my innocence does a.
Speaker 2: Mister filing them a lot.
Speaker 3: I need your help right now. The justice system has
Speaker 3: their knee on my name.
Speaker 2: I'm dying. I needs weal something I didn't do. So
Speaker 2: anybody that's listening to this support me.
Speaker 3: I like to sign up petitions, but showing up with
Speaker 3: those support roles and showing up the places I need
Speaker 3: your health. Anybody that does support me and get out
Speaker 3: the help. I want to thank you right now. I
Speaker 3: want this, you know, this nightmare to end. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of things in life, like I said, haven't got
Speaker 3: to experience it.
Speaker 2: I mean here, like you said, I was sixteen years old.
Speaker 2: People here, in this room of all of it, Washington
Speaker 2: grew up. That sucks. God it sucks as well, does
Speaker 2: be over with it?
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cleiburn, and Kevin Wartis,
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
Speaker 1: all three platforms. You can also follow me on both
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one