WEBVTT - #087 Jason Flom with Fred Clay 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.800 This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:05.400 to monitoring and recording. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:17.960 I can put athlete eleven and it hasn't been. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.120 Easy a hundred years. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:21.040 That's man. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.720 I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.440 you know that was a that was real painful, man, 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:32.320 you know, because my life was discarded as if you know, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.320 like I was a piece of trash or something, you know, 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.400 one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.279 to do things. I wasn't committing crimes, you know. I 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.159 was a very good young man. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.159 That is what happens in so many cases. The cops 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.240 have a hunch, because they're so smart at the scene, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.960 they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.440 they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.080 marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so 0:00:58.200 --> 0:00:59.680 many of these wrongful convictions. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.200 The opening to sell door and I'll walk down stif 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.440 and I actually walked down stairs to be outside. It 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.520 felt very strange to be, like I said, to be 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.200 walking without no shackles on my feet. I thought it 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.440 was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:30.920 This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. This 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.920 is Jason Flamm. I'm your host, and today we have 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:39.640 an extraordinary episode. I mean, I am I don't even 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.560 I'm at a loss for words, but I'm going to 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.280 introduce our guests right now. Fred Clay was wrongfully imprisoned 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.639 at the age of sixteen and served thirty eight years 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.320 for a murder he didn't commit. Fred, Welcome to the show. 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.480 Thank you very much, very long. I appreciate it very much. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.160 I always say I'm glad, I'm sorry you're here, but 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.160 I'm glad you're here, and I want to start off 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.520 by apologizing to you on behalf of the human race 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:10.040 and America and people and just there's nothing that can 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.840 be said, but let me just put that out there 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.960 for starters and with us. Today is Chris Barrell. Chris 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.480 Barrell is an investigative reporter with the nonprofit New England 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:28.160 Center for Investigative Reporting, a WGBH News partner who does 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.720 work on well, he's worked on your case. You're telling 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.040 your story and as many others well as many others. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:35.760 So Chris, welcome, Glad you're here. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:37.640 Thanks very much, glad to be here. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.840 Chris, how did you first come across this story and 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.400 why did it impact you so much that you wanted 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.040 to do an article about it. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:46.799 Yeah, well, I work for the New England Center for 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.639 Investigative Reporting. We've done several stories on wrongful conviction cases 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:57.239 and specifically this issue of you know, what happens afterwards, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:58.880 because we do know there's a fair amount of media 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.240 attention when this happen and somebody's served a long amount 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.080 of time for a crime that they that they didn't 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.680 do and they're released and it's you know, a lot 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:09.960 of applause and a lot of TV cameras. So I 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:11.680 was there the day he got out, as was a 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.280 lot of other media. But the question came up, well, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.919 what is what is life really like? You know, once 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.800 this kind of once the applause fades, what is what 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.640 is what is a person's life really like? So initially 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.560 Fred was not that keen on me proffering this idea 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.080 of following him around at different points over the course 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.760 of about a year, but I met with him on 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.640 a couple occasions and he seemed open to it, and 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.720 so we just struck up this this intervals of trying 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:43.760 to meet up and I wanted to see him in 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:49.560 different situations, trying to navigate again the basic survival, the blocks, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.120 the basic blocks of survival. How do you, how do 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.120 you find shelter, how do you how do you feed yourself? 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.880 And so for the first few months he didn't he 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.400 didn't have a job. He had a little bit of 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.320 money from from a go fund Me site and he 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.680 had food stamps. And his first job was working for UPS, 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.160 which was very uneven work. He'd show up for a 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.160 shift and they'd tell him, well, we've only got a 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.480 couple hours work instead of a full shift, and he'd 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.119 walk home through the snow in the street because people 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:19.880 didn't show their sidewalks, and we get a lot of 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:25.000 snow up in northern Massachusetts. And it wasn't until sometime 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:29.280 late winter, early spring that he got this job precision 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:35.080 grinding aviation parts, grinding metal, and he seemed really grateful 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.600 to have that work. But as everybody knows, rent in 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.600 most cities in America is really high, and the most 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.880 he could afford was basically a room and a basement. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.640 And he said at least once that that room kind 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.400 of reminded him, reminded him of prison. All it had 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.040 was a tiny window, not a whole lot of light 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.320 coming into it. And that was the best that his 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:00.719 circumstance this can allow. 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:05.680 So, Frederick, this is such an insane story because even 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.800 though we're in our eighth season of Wrongful Conviction, we've 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.920 told over seventy stories already. H and Just and I've 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.760 been working for twenty five years in this struggle. I'm 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.400 the founding board member of the Innocence Project. I thought 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:25.159 I heard everything until I heard your story. And you know, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.320 seeing the pictures of you as a sixteen year old 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.520 child really just scared out of your mind faced with 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.080 this nightmare situation. It almost it almost reminded me of 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.159 Emmett Till or something. It was just so it just 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.080 hurts my heart. But let's go back to that time. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.159 You were living in a foster home. 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.400 At that time, right, Yes, I was living a foster home. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.560 I was placed in it by DYS. I have some 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.520 juvenile cases and I got convicted too. I got sentenced 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.920 to like to DYS and he sent me to Boys 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.560 into Center and stay there for a little while month 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.960 from there to a program stay of football six months, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.599 I believe, and they decided that I need to be 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.679 in a falseter home. So I was in a fossil 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:13.160 home at that. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.839 Time, and you were not a big guy either. You 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.040 were like I mean, I remember reading that when this happened, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.000 you were like five four, about one hundred pounds. You 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.560 were obviously ill prepared for any type of scenario, Like 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.520 there's no one's prepared for it. But let's go back 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.719 to it and Chris jump in anytime. I mean, how 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:33.880 did this happen? 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:34.479 Was? 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.760 Why was Fred targeted for? This was the murder of 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.599 a taxi driver in Massachusetts? Right? And can you give 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:42.960 us a little background on that? 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.279 Yeah, yeah, I mean, the way I understand it is. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.719 Fred was arrested just a few weeks after turning sixteen, 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.280 charged with the murder of a cab driver. The really 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.680 crazy part of the story was that one of another 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:00.800 cab driver who saw three young Africa American men get 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.640 into a cab, said he was able to id one 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.080 of them another the second person he couldn't id, and 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.200 the police used the practice they used back then of 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.120 hypnotizing a witness in a case, believing that the brain 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.760 functioned a lot like a videotape and that you could 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.240 put a witness under hypnosis and ask them to rewind 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.640 to a certain date and time, and suddenly your brain 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.160 would see things that hadn't recalled before. And that was 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:32.080 one of the pieces that led police to arrest and 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.400 charge Fred and ultimately for prosecutors to convict him. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.080 But this Fred, this witness, how did he come to 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.640 identify you? Were you anywhere near the scene at the time? 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:43.720 Did you know these people? 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.640 I was not in the scene. I was in a 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.120 Foster home and sleeping in the bed. I really don't 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.560 know how he became to identify me. I really can't 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:59.560 answer that question. He claims he saw the picture of 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.320 the cab driver of the cab in the front page 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.520 of the Boston Globe, and he recognized the cap number. 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.040 I guess one of his friends used to break that 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:15.400 cap and he thought, he's, uh, the perpetrators get into 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.800 the cab the previous night, and I guess he just 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.960 went to the police station and tried to cooperate with 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:28.320 the police. There was hypnosis involved. I think he was 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.880 showing my picture a few times, like four or five, 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.119 six times, and when they hypnotized them, instead of him 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.720 actually placing it, you know, actually viewing the people, the 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.400 perpetrator at the scene of crime. He's sort of like mugshot. 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.840 Sort of my faith from the mugshot. 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.280 Was in his mind, right, So yeah, I mean what 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.839 we know that hypnosis, Going back to what Chris was saying, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.400 hypnosis will make you see things you haven't seen before, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.480 but they will may not have any collection to reality. Right, 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:58.240 that's the problem. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:00.600 I don't think. I don't think the hypnosi had anything 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.720 to do with when someone shows you a photograph five 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.480 or six times, that face is somewhat imprinted in your mind. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.480 Of course. I mean, that's one thing we do know 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.000 about the mind is if you keep getting repeated the 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.960 same image repeated over and over again, it's going to 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:18.320 play tricks on your mind, and your mind will start 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:19.200 to go in that place. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.200 And was this That's why I think what happened. He 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.120 just does your mind played his mind played tricks on something. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.480 I really can't I really can't answer that question how 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:28.720 he picked me out? But he did. 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:30.920 Was there was this robbery at night? 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.000 Yes, it's four o'clock in the morning, four. 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.040 O'clock in the morning, so it's pitch dark outside, right, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.000 and this guy supposedly saw the robbery, right, But we 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:39.960 know how I mean, and we also know that the 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.400 brain when you witness a violent crime I wouldn't identification 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.000 is notoriously unreliable in the first place. If somebody busts 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.040 into the studio now and attacks one of us, and 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.319 then they put us in a lineup, there's almost just 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.800 as much chance that someone who wasn't here will identify 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.640 the correct perpetrator or not get the wrong perpetrator the 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.160 same way that we will, which is a crazy and 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:01.840 people listening going, that's not true, but it has been 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:07.800 proven over and over again. But it's the brain goes crazy, 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.800 so to speak, because of adrenaline and other factors when 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.520 you're in the presence when you're actually in danger. Right, So, 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.040 when you're either the victim or when you're witness to 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.319 a violent crime, as this one was, we know that 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:27.440 your senses are altered because of the fact that you're 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.760 just scared out of your brain literally. So and this 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.040 was one of those cases, right, this was a shooting. 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.640 Yeah, there's two. I'll jump in here to help clarify this. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.720 So the witness we're talking about, who was hypnotized by police, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.360 had claimed that he'd seen these these young African American 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.160 males get into this cab. Then the cab goes or 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.200 allegedly goes to a housing project a little bit south 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.360 of the city in Roslindale. And then there was another 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.480 witness that also had pretty serious question marks around how 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.440 the police interacted with this witness, and this other witness 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.280 claimed that he did actually see the shooting out of 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.880 a window of an apartment in the housing project. What 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.000 Fred's attorneys later found out and really stressed and trying 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.160 to re engage with this case and prove that Fred 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:21.120 didn't do it, was see that this witness was I 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.280 think a teenager. He had pretty severe developmental, you know, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:30.160 cognitive issues, and that police furthermore told him and his 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:35.320 family that if they testified against Fred, that they would 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.880 be moved out of this project housing project which was 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.319 mostly African American, into a housing project which was mostly white. 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.360 And again this witness was white. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:50.520 Wow, so you talk about coercion or you know, And 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.880 isn't that a crazy thing to Chris and Fred is 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:57.439 that everyone, even the most casual TV watcher right who 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.000 watched his crime shows, knows that you cannot bribe a witness. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.240 You go to prison for riving witness in America. Right, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.400 but the government is able to offer the best bribe 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:08.320 that there is. I mean, in this case, it was 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.520 a new home. Right, It's almost like a game show. 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.880 Here's a new home. Just testify the way we want 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.360 you to. Or they can threaten you. Or they can 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:17.880 threaten you, and they do that very often, will take 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.760 your kids away, will lock you up for some prior 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.480 thing whatever. Or they can also agree to vacate charges 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.800 or reduce charges that they have against you. So it's 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.000 amazing that the weapons that they have in there are 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:30.880 so it's really not a fair fight whatsoever. But what 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.040 were you going to say? Fred? 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.959 Also the witness that Chris was talking about, they happened 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.960 to Ros and their projects. This witness I sort of 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.319 I didn't know him personally, but we've seen each other 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.880 from time to time in the projects, so he was 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.480 familiar with my faith. That's another thing that was really 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.280 that was really not really mentioned a little bit, but 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.680 it wasn't really focused on. So when someone recognized your 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.600 face and they see your your picture in the in 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:06.480 the photo array, then they're not really picking out the perpetrated. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.720 They're picking out a familiar face. So just because he 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.240 was familiar with by face. He sort of just placed 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.880 me at the scene of crime based on the fact 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:16.760 that he was familiar with my face, not because he 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.079 saw me at the scene the crime. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.839 So we have a couple of factors here that are 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.400 very common and wrong for convictions. We have police misconduct, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.240 we have wrong flight witness identification, two of those in fact, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.520 and then it gets worse. So you were were you 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:37.760 at home when you were arrested? How did this all 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.720 go down? And how long did you have to wait 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.760 for trial? Who was your I assume you had a 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.200 public defender. Can you fill in some of those blanks 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:44.480 for us? 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.600 Fred, Yes, I was at the foster home when I 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.880 got it. I was actually when I went, I was 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.599 on probation because I had some juvenile cases, so I 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.360 had some issuons with the foster parent. I really didn't. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.600 And she claims I ran away, but I never really 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.240 ran away. I just you know, vanished from time to 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.120 time and came back. But anyway, I showed up on 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.640 November fifteen through her house and I didn't know that, 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.559 but she had previously reported me for running. So when 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.840 I showed up on November fifteen, she informed me that 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.120 I can stay that night, but at the same time, 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.800 she didn't want me to do the next morning. I 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.840 had to leave the next morning. So the next morning 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:33.640 came and she told me I had to leave because 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:35.520 she reported me running. She didn't want the police that 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.520 are out, so I left, and I was on probation, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.360 so I went to the probation officer and sort of 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.560 told her what was going on, and based on that, 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.840 they sent me back to another facility that I was 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.720 previously held at before, a juvenile facility, and I was 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:55.920 there for a few for about a little over a 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.160 couple of weeks, I believe, and to playing cozy touches. 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.480 Came in one evening and they went up to the 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.560 main desk to talk to the council of work there, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.480 and maybe about two minutes after that, they called my 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.880 name and I went up to the desk and they 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:11.880 asked me my name. I told my name is Frederick Clay. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.400 They told me they needed to speak with me, so 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.000 they took me to like a little room off to 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.960 the side, and in that room they informed me that 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.920 David was arrested me for murder. So I really didn't 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.560 know anything about the murder until it actually they came 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.320 there and arrest me for it, and my attorney at 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.640 the time when I went to trial was Thomas Saperro. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:39.480 So it's kind of crazy how I was somewhat informed 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:40.320 about the murder. 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.320 How long were you in jail awaiting trial, because I'm 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.480 assuming that there was either new years two years waiting. Wow, 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.360 So that whole thing about it in the constitution. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.440 Arrested November seventy nine and I didn't go to trial 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:53.640 until nineteen eighty one. 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.040 Right, that whole thing in the constitution about your right 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.040 to a speedy trial, we really don't see that very 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.120 often in this country. It's kind of weird. I don't 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.440 know how that can be so routinely ignored or violated, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:09.200 but it is, and your case is sadly not atypical 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.880 in that sense. So you're in jail for two years 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:18.400 awaiting trial, and let's go to the trial, because it's 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.120 always I think for our listeners and even for me 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.640 an eye opener, to hear how these things go, especially 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.600 in a case as serious as this one where you 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.400 were facing life in prison. Tell us what you can 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.880 remember about the trial? For instance, did you think if 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.040 you can remember and again, you were in prison, for 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.720 so long. I mean, it's actually crazy. You went to 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.800 prison at sixteen, and you were in for thirty eight years, 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.080 which means you were in prison for almost two and 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.000 a half times as long as you had been alive, right, 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.440 and your life experience as a sixteen year old, Let's 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.000 face it, the first three or four years, we're not 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.920 even really sentient beings. We're kind of just stumbling around, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.920 eating animal crackers or doing whatever we're doing right, and 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:00.600 playing with toys and having I'm gonna read us a 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.560 book and hug us or if we're lucky. So you know, 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.159 for you, your life experience was so brief before you 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:08.959 entered the system, and you had already been in and 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.760 out of the system. So here you are at trial, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:19.560 and did you, if you can recall, did you feel 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.000 like when the jury went out that you were going 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.680 to be convicted or did you still have hope that 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:26.639 you did justice would be done. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.560 Well, I wasn't really sure there was a fifty to 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:31.640 fifty chance that I was going to get convicted. I thought, 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.600 once I get understand and tell the truth and so 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.760 sort of present my case and present the evidence that 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.399 actually prove that I was innocent and have E present 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.040 my olibi. I thought, I was I might have a 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.320 chance of being found not guilty, so I was I 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:53.919 was hoping that I was going to be found not guilty. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.120 But at the back of my mind, according to my attorneys, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.440 you know, there was a possible chance that I could 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.679 get convicted. So I was positive, hopefully that I was 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.800 going to get found not guilty. But at the same time, 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.280 I was concerned that I will be found guilty. So 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:13.280 I had a fifty to fifty chance. 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.679 And just backtracking for a second, the witnesses against you, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:18.879 were they white or black? 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.720 Well, a couple of them was black, I mean white, 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.520 and one of them was black, But the one was 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.800 black really didn't really really didn't really hurt me that much. 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.560 But the two name was that, yes, they was white. 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.400 And the reason I raised that question is because we 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:40.280 know from decades of experience, research, studies, et cetera, that 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:47.720 cross racial identifications are just notoriously unreliable, much more so 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.440 than when people are, you know, trying to identify someone 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.679 of their own race. I think there's a lot of 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:55.280 reasons for that. We don't have to get into all 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.359 of them, but it's worth knowing because everyone that's listening 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.399 right now. As I always say on this, always a 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.399 potential juror, and someday they may be faced with a 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.439 situation like yours, where there will be I mean, there 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:09.280 was no evidence against you, so it was only the 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.600 witness's word. And if it is a cross racial identification, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.840 and it doesn't matter whether that's why white person testifying 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.680 against a black person, a Hispanic person testifying against a 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.760 white person, whatever it might be, it's just not reliable. 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.360 And so your case is an important one to highlight 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.040 that particular factor because again, the reason why I do 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:32.960 this show, Fred is because I want to help to 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.679 prevent these things from happening to other people in the future, 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:36.640 as I'm sure you do. 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.359 I'm not sure if there was a well known fact 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:43.159 back in nineteen eighty one the cross racial identification issue, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.240 but it's a well known fact now. 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.679 Right, and I'm glad you brought that up. So the 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.480 jury comes back and it had to be the worst 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.480 feeling in the world, and you were sentenced to life 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.440 in prison, which is again a bizarre. 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.240 Yeah, a natural life, not just a life, a natural life. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.600 Life sort of means like a second degree life, but 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.879 natural means a first to be life sentence with the 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.880 chance of no parole, which means like a you got'spen 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:14.600 investing in your life in prison, you go and die 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:15.040 in prison. 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.200 And Chris, let's talk about that. I mean, I mean, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.040 what kind of a system do we have where we 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.439 can sent in someone who was really a child an 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:30.080 adolescent when this happened, a young teenager to life in prison. Yeah, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:31.080 I mean it is. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.520 It's just shocking. And you know, thankfully there were later, 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:39.399 much later, the Supreme Court decisions that tried to undo 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.680 some of that. So it did at a very much 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.480 later stage, did make Fred eligible for parole. But we're 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.600 talking again, decades later that there was some understanding of 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:54.000 just how wrong that is. That obviously, to charge someone 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.719 at sixteen, put and put them to adult trial raises 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.520 a lot of really serious quesnessions, but then to make 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:08.240 that same person prone to being convicted and sentenced to 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.760 life without any chance of parole is all the more shocking. 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:18.680 Yeah, just think about it, judge telling you, a sixteen 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.120 year old kid that you are incapable of changing, so 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.240 therefore you need to spend the rest of your life 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.560 in adults prison. You know, and often think about that 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.439 and they took me out of a bad situation, and 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.000 they put me in even a worse situation because a 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.080 lot of people don't survive prison, and I was thinking 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.600 about a lot of that stuff and how I was 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.040 going to survive that, whether I was going to end 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.959 up being murdered, raped, killed, whatever. So just to have 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.720