WEBVTT - #311 Jason Flom with Dennis and Lee Horton 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.320 When we first recorded our interview with Dennis and Lee Horton, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.640 they had just gotten out of prison on a sentence 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:13.600 commutation less than a year prior, and that happened in 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.560 large part because of the incredible efforts of John Fetterman. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.800 After losing the twenty sixteen Democratic Senate primary, John set 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.040 his sights on winning the Lieutenant governorship, which put him 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:28.520 on the Pardons and Parole Board. He then campaigned his 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.560 fellow board members for the Horton's clemency, and despite a 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.199 denial in twenty nineteen, John never gave up on the Hortons. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.720 By the time we recorded this episode, Dennis and Lee 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.199 were already hard at work campaigning for John on his 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.159 twenty twenty two Senate race. It was truly surreal to 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.640 see Dennis and Lee reacting to the win on social media. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.400 What a turn of faith from wrongfully convicted to having 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.680 a true friend in the United States Senate. We're re 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.400 releasing this episode to congratulate our great friends Dennis, Lee 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:10.000 and John. On May thirty first, nineteen ninety three, Dennis 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.680 Horton went to his brother Lee's home for a Memorial 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.800 Day weekend cookout. Later in the day, they visited their 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.200 father in North Philadelphia, as well as their childhood friend, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.480 Robert Leif. Unbeknownst to the Hortons, Robert Leaf had committed 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.440 an armed robbery earlier that day, in which two women 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.360 were injured and one man was fatally shot. The Hortons 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.680 pulled up to their friend Robert Leaf on the street 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.560 and made plans to watch a basketball game back at Lee's. 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.040 Robert asked the brothers to meet him one block up, 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:42.200 where he got into their car with a gun. Police 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.919 had been following Robert and immediately pulled them over, where 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.360 all three men were arrested. The two injured women, who 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.080 initially had said that there were only two arm robbers, 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.160 gave a shaky idea of all three men, sending them 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.240 to trial together. Robert Leaf's attorney used confusion amongst the 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.640 witnesses over them the identities of the three men to 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.680 change the narrative from Robert Leaf as the shooter to Dennis, 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.440 delivering a lighter sentence to the actual culprit, while the 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.480 Hortons were sentenced to life without parole. Years later, a 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.800 statement by Robert Leaf admitting his role and excluding the 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.120 Horton brothers was unearthed along with the fact that police 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.720 had identified Robert Leaf as the shooter from the very start. However, 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.359 with this new evidence being ruled inadmissible on purely procedural grounds, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.240 it took the tireless advocacy of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.160 Fetterman to win a commutation and release for the brothers 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:43.040 after nearly three long decades in prison. This is wrongful conviction. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.160 Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Best advice to you right 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.480 now is fasten your seatbelt because this is going to 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.840 be a crazy ride that you're about to go on. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.359 But before I introduced the two brothers who were wrongful 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.800 convicted of the same crime together and ended up serving 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.360 almost twenty seven years together in the same cell for 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.840 the crime that didn't commit. I just want to say 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:24.480 that this is Philadelphia in the nineties. You've heard stories 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.560 on here before about Philadelphia in the nineties, and it 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.040 was it was the time and place where a black 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.919 man had a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.800 Mississippi than in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And this is another example 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:42.080 of that. So, without further ado, let me introduce to you. 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.440 I'm so excited to have these guys on the show 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.560 today because there's such inspiring people. Lee and Dennis Horton, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.400 the brothers Horton. Welcome to Ronful Conviction. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.480 All right, good afternoon. How's everybody doing out there. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.880 I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting us on. 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.680 So let's get right into it. First of all, I 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.280 want to say to both of you guys that while 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.520 I am obviously delighted to have you on this show, 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:06.720 I'm sorry that you're here because of what you had 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.680 to go through and it should have never happened. So 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.640 let's go back to the beginning. I'm talking about how 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.240 was childhood for you guys growing up together while you 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.000 moved to Philly in seventy seven, right, but give us 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.440 a quick look at what your childhood was like. 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.800 So when we was young growing up, we lived uneventful 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:26.920 but a wonderful life. 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:27.240 You know. 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.040 My mom and my father was married in the early sixties. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.560 Four of us four kids. We grew up in some 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.680 of the roughest places in the city. But our family, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:41.040 my mom, my grandmother, my father always instilled in us 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.119 that you had to work for what you wanted their life, 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.159 and so we started working at an early age. My 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.680 mom and father. Unfortunately they split up in nineteen seventy two. 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:51.840 My mom, she was trying to take care of four 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.839 kids on our own. We wind up moving to the projects, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.680 which was at the time East Falls Projects. I was 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.080 around twelve years old, my brother was at the time. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.520 So the projects was a rough project. You know, you 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.240 had to prove the people up there that you was 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.000 willing to fight in order for you to be able 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.920 to stay, or they chased you out the projects. That's 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.000 how it was. And so I had got into a 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.279 fight with an individual and I wanted to fight. That 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.719 was a blessing to some degree, but it was also 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.719 a curse because now I was at eyes with a 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.679 lot of guys my age twelve or thirteen year olds 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.080 in the projects. And one day I wound up on 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.799 the wrong side of the projects when we was approached 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.680 by a group of individuals and it was maybe about 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.480 twenty something thirty guys, and they approached us and they 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.279 wanted me to fight a guy. And you know, there 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.560 was a bunch of guys that was about to jump us, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.280 and then these other guys came out of nowhere and 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.400 came to our rescue. And it was only a few 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.599 of them, but they were like the neighborhood tough guys 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.720 to some degree. One of these guys who would become 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:55.840 a really good friend of mine was an individual named 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.000 Rob Relief. And so I fell in with these guys 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.400 and we became good friends. He came to my house, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.440 stayed at my house, slept at my house, ate at 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.200 my house. My mom to somebody, rebecame his mom. And 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.760 then in nineteen eight three, we moved out of the projects. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.320 By that time we kind of veered off a little bit, 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.880 although I would go see my friends who were still 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.960 living in the projects and some living in North Philadelphia, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:21.840 from town to town. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.040 And so now we move up towards the time of 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.839 the actual crime, and I'm talking about Memorial Day weekend, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.040 May thirty first, nineteen ninety three. So there was an 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.840 arm robbery at Toledo's Bar. Now, initial descriptions say it 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.480 was two men, but later it was changed to three. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.240 One man with a twenty two caliber semi automatic rifle 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.960 and another with a black pistol robbed the bar and 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.760 its patrons. Samuel Alimo, six foot three and over two 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.960 hundred pounds, wrestled with the gunman for the gun, but 0:06:55.160 --> 0:07:00.560 was overpowered and was shot and killed. Blues our Cella 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.200 and Louis Martinez were injured, but both recovered, and a 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.560 witness described chasing after the pleaing assailants who saw them 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.160 in a small blue car and supplied police with a 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.640 partial license plate number. And again, remember this is Philadelphia 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.960 in the nineties, So we'll get to the myriad problems 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.680 with the state story, but first let's hear your story. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.720 So it's Memorial Day weekend, May thirty first, nineteen ninety three. Lee. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.160 You had four kids, right, including a two week old baby, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.560 and at the time, Dennis, you were just recently engaged 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.840 to be married, and had also recently been badly injured 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.320 at work. And we're recovering, right, so you were in 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.960 absolutely no condition to be engaging in hand to hand 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.520 combat wrestling right with a very large man, right strong man. 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.200 So can you take us through that day, the day 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.720 that this armed robbery and murder, this whole tragedy happened. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.640 So Lee and his wife invited me and my fiancee 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.680 over to his house. So of course I went to 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.080 Lee's house, had a cookout with him and his wife 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.920 and his kids, and later on that evening we decided 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:10.560 we was going to take a ride. You know, we've 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.840 been in the house all day. Stopped by my father's 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.680 house see him, and then Lee was going to stop 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.240 by just see a few guys that he knew, and 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.960 we headed for North Philadelphia, where my father lived at 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.360 the time, and we swung by his house, but his 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.520 light was out so he was sleep So Lee said, okay, 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.240 let's stop around Leaf's house. So, you know, we drove 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.840 around Leaf's house. He was standing out on the corner 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.520 with some other guys and Lee beat the horn and 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.560 Leif came over to the car, letting him and Lee 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.200 talk for a little bit. So Robert Leif was supposed 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:40.920 to come back to Lee's house. We was going to 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.000 watch the basketball game. So Leif said, pull up a 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.120 block and I'll be there. And I got to just 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.760 take care of something real quick, and we pulled up 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.520 to the block and Leif came maybe about ten to 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.560 fifteen minutes later, got in the car, and then we 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.200 pulled off, and about a couple of blocks later, we 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.880 saw sirens and we pulled over and the police jumped 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.720 out of their vans and cars with guns drawn and 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:05.680 told us to get out. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:06.920 Of the car and we got out of the car 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:07.680 and they. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.120 Handcuffed us and they put us into the paddy wagon 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.480 and they took us to the hospital when identification to 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.679 take place, and all I remember is that the van 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.520 doors opened up, and next thing you know, I've seen it. 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.000 I think two ladies point to rob Belief and say, yeah, 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.040 that's the guy right there. And then they said, well, 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.520 what about these other guys and they said, yeah, them too, 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.920 They were with them too, And then they shut the 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:30.400 doors back and then that was it. 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:32.480 And next thing you know, we were. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.679 Down the roundhouse where they charged you for a homicide. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.559 So, okay, right away we see problems emerge with what 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.160 the witnesses are describing. Right the alleged number of individuals 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.000 involved in the robbery went from went up fifty percent, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.319 right from two to three. And when you're there at 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.679 the hospital in the police paddy wagon right outside the hospital, 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.160 with the witnesses saying yeah them too. Also, one of 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.920 the witnesses described a blue and gave a partial plate number, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.560 So did that match your own vehicles? 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.080 The only witness who claimed to see the car said 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.520 it was a blue small car. It was a suppos 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.520 been a Chevy Chavette. He said the name of the 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:12.720 car in his statement. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.560 Now Lee's car is a Priest Classic. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.160 A four door large car. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:20.840 Two tones, two different colors. 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.319 But this witness, for some reason, we could never find 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.040 him and never bring him the trial. The person the 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.760 police put down is giving out this partial plate number. 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.600 When we got the witness on the stand, she said, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:33.520 right then there, I never gave a police anything. I 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.640 never saw a car, So how could I have ever 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.920 given him The name is on this paper though they 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.320 said you gave it to him, she said, it's impossible. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:42.559 I didn't see a car. I didn't give him anything. 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.600 And the thing about the officers who did this first thing, 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.000 you got to give you a context to who these 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.560 officers are. The first officer was somebody who had strangled 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.840 a guy to the early on, and then later, right 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.160 after we was arrested, he shot a guy unarmed in 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.040 a car. The second officer, she was involved in internal 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.160 fears of investigation about a law quantity of drugs being 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.880 found in the police station and them suspecting it or 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.199 connected it to her. As you start appeeling the layers away, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.240 you start seeing that it's more to this than just 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.360 the police picking up some guys and they were involved. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.520 So I have to ask, do you think that they 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.800 knew from the beginning that you guys had nothing to 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:18.120 do with this. 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.520 That's a really good question, and our heart of hearts, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.840 we believe in the beginning maybe they wasn't sure, but 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.959 as things begin to unfold, they had to be clear 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.400 that we wasn't involved in it, just didn't care. And 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.960 the reason why we know is because the prosecuted them 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.680 came to us with the deal. It was like five 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.800 to ten years, and we were like, we're innocent, We're 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.240 not taking any deal. Why should we take any deal 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.480 to go to jail when we didn't do anything? And 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.439 now it was sort of like, okay, you won't take 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.880 the deal, all right, Well, the chip's going to forward. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.160 They made right, And it's very uncommon that in the 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.880 crime as serious as this one armed robbery where someone 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.280 was killed, right, that they're going to offer someone two 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.439 guys in this case five years. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:01.719 Right. 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.080 You know, you don't have to be a legal scholar 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.440 to figure this one out. So now we get to 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.120 the trial and all three of you, Lee, Dennis, and 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.599 Robert Leaf are tried together and they have three witnesses. 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.760 Now I'm going to put witnesses in quotation marks here. 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.960 Three of them came to trial, and they eventually identified 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.839 Dennis as the shooter. But did they have any physical 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:27.680 evidence at all, any fingerprints, any security footage. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.839 There were no security footage. But they had was they 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.520 actually had the gun, they said with the murdered weapon. 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.520 They never actually could trace it to any bullets they 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.880 got out of the body. They didn't match. But this 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.560 is the gun that Leif had on him. He left 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.800 the gun in the car. The cops retrieved it and 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.079 when they checked it, it had fingerprints. But we've been always 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.640 trying to get these fingerprints checked because they could never 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.680 trace them to any of us. They took all of 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.480 our fingerprints, they didn't fit any of us. Now, the 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.200 way that my brother got to become the shooter is 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.760 a clear case of mistaken identific Initially in the case, 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.880 they all identified Robert Leeve as the shooter. And this 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.760 where the whole case turns. If this don't ever happen, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.280 we probably would have walked. The one witness would identify 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.439 different person every hearing. When she identified Robert leave Robert 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.040 Leaf's attorney, he would read the noose some testimony of 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.880 her identifying my brother, until it got to the point 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.360 where when the judge asked her, well, who are you 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.320 saying did this? She said, I'm going to say it's 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.000 the one right there, and she was identifying me, and 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.800 we had already told the court that they was identified 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.600 as base where we were sitting at, so we switched seats. 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.960 So when we switched seats, she was identified based on 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.800 who the witness before her told her to identify, and 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:43.319 then she thought that the person was sitting in that seat, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.120 but it wound up being me Lee Prton. When she 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.560 heard my name, she said, hold it, what's the name? 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:50.840 And the jadge said, why do you want to know 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:56.319 the name? Because, uh, Dennis did it. It's Dennis. He 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.360 said Dennis, and then she said, yeah, I heard him. 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.199 They was calling Dennis. And then after that we were 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.080 in the case and they knew that this woman just 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:05.959 had made this up out of the sky just right 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.240 then and there. Everybody refused to pull back and they 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.040 could have corrected that right then and there and said, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.560 well hold up, Yonner, she's wrong. Mister Leaf was wearing 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.960 a red jacket. We know that for sure. That's a fact. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.120 They identified him as a shooter. That's a fact. They 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.880 didn't say any of that. They just let the witnesses 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.680 go on and on and on with these wrong identifications. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.320 And this woman had identified every last one of us 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:29.760 as a shooter at one given time. 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.200 This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.120 and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.200 capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Working to reform the 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.680 criminal justice system is a key pillar of the AIG 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.040 pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.520 support to men, nonprofit organizations, and individuals most in need 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.040 as part of Accentsure's commitment to racial and civil justice. 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:11.280 Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.320 partnership with more than forty organizations bringing meaningful change to 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.520 people and communities worldwide. 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.600 Three weeks prior to our arrest, I had injured my 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.400 leg on my job in such a fashion that I 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.160 needed to acl repair. The holiday was on a Monday. 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:36.920 I was supposed to go talk about the day that 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.240 week I was going to have the surgery done. I 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.920 just came off the crutches, so when we were arrested, 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.160 it was impossible for me to be able to wrestle 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:45.840 with this guy. 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:48.120 I think they said he was like sixty four sixty 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:49.040 three something like that. 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.440 I was supposed to have overpowered him, wrestled all the 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.080 way to the ground with this guy, overpowered the gun 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.960 out of his hand, and then after I was supposed 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.080 to have shot him, I was supposed to ran away 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.880 at us as I could. There was no way I 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.560 could run on it laid at all, and my medical 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.360 records and all that would have shown that would have 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.160 proved that, and this would have disqualified me from even 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:13.320 remotely possibly being the shooter. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.720 And the thing is they knew this, but nobody cared. 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.720 So you both had different lawyers, So two people who 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.240 were supposed to be working on your behalf, what were 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:29.440 they doing with all of this information? At trial, we. 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.640 Made the mistake of a friend of my mom's told 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.240 her that their son could be a good lawyer for us, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.680 and we accepted that, but he wasn't a criminal defense attorney. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.960 He had not tried one criminal case, and he wound 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.040 up being a person putting our defense together. My lawyer 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.800 had been retired, and he was kind of older, and 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:51.760 he was a little out of step. Were just not 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.040 prepared for a capital case. Now, the difference is Robert 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.480 Leef was prepared. He knew the system and he knew 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.200 how to work the system. Were naive. We thought that 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.000 we were innocent and it was going to be shown 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:03.040 and it never was. 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.560 Like literally, if you put this in the movie, you say, well, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.320 one guy's represented by a friend of a friend who 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.200 never tried a criminal case before this capital murder we're 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.320 talking about it. And the other guys tried by a 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.119 guy that they literally pulled out a retirement and wheeled 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.920 them into the courtroom. You guys didn't even know that 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.679 you're doomed. You're thinking, hey, we go in tell the truth. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.200 You were the only guys in the courtroom telling the truth. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.480 That's the only problem, right, and that doesn't work. 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:30.480 And that's the thing that you know, even now gets 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.440 to me a little bit because I spent twenty seven 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.120 years in prison when this be nipping of it early on, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.920 and I didn't have to never go to prison after 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.360 twenty seven years. You know, sometimes in your mind you think, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.520 well you should have took there, But what would we 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.760 have said. We didn't commit the crime, We didn't know 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.880 anything about it. Took us twenty eight years to learn 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.159 enough about this case to be able to talk about it. 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.440 Where though we knew some of the facts that happened, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.800 we had to find in the police file. They went 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.600 to court knowing that these witnesses was identifying my brother, 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.800 but they had determined that Leif was the shooter. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.359 The prosecutors knew this, the detectives knew this. But this 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.280 is the problem with the system. Nobody cared about the truth. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:14.960 It was about let's get the conviction at all costs. 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520 Okay, So they knew you weren't involved from the jump, 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:23.399 but since you wouldn't plead to lesser charges that you 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.920 knew and I think they knew were false, they threw 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.560 you into this kangaroo court situation tied to Robert Leif, 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.639 who was the actual culprit here, and they let the 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:35.800 chips fall where they may. That's how they put it, right. 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.479 So then you were represented by people who had no 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.520 business whatsoever really even being in this courtroom, right, I 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.639 mean definitely not as lawyers in a capital murder case, 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.520 and you're literally on trial for your lives. So what 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:54.280 was that like? 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:56.760 I can tell you what it was like. Robert Leif's 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.000 attorney communicated with our attorneys and they spold the head 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.560 a joint defense, and right towards the time the jury 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.280 was going out the deliberation, I remember my attorney looking 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:09.480 back and saying, I don't think that his attorney was 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.520 with us, And I said, do you think like he 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.480 was doing everything in his power to get his client 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.879 the best possible verdict he could get. He used the 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.640 defense to paint a picture so that we would wind 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.240 up with the most out of this and his client would, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.000 if not walk free, get the least. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.720 So the jury goes out, they come back in four 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.520 or five hours later. Did you guys have hope that 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.439 they were going to actually see the light that you 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:39.600 were going to be vindicated. 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.199 I mean, it was just a blur of a moment. 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.080 Of course, you hold out hope that the system is 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.440 going to do the right thing. I mean we were 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:52.160 raised like everybody else, watching police shows and court shows, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.440 and from what they show on TV, it always seemed 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.880 like the system does the right thing, everything would turn 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.800 out right, even though everything was looking wrong. 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.320 We leave the system to the point where I had 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.960 put an application to the police force prior to being arrested, 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:08.160 Like around the time when I got convicted, my wife 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.600 received the letter saying that I was accepted to go 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:12.520 to the next phase. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.280 Jesus Christ. I mean, it's like you had this was 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:21.880 like an alternate reality, the life that should have been right. 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:26.800 But okay, so the jury comes back in and the 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.600 verdict is guilty. I mean, can you tell us about 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:36.320 that moment. It's I mean, it's obviously horrible for anyone 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.960 who experiences it, but here it's worse because one brother 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.040 had to hear the other brother being declared guilty, followed 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.320 by being declared guilty himself. 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.359 I gotta tell you, being the oldest, I probably was 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.280 the weakest. When I heard the verdict. It was like 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.360