WEBVTT - #109 Jason Flom with Perry Lott 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.280 On November two, nineteen eighty seven, at one point fifteen 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.639 am and eighta, Oklahoma. The victim felt a gun at 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.399 the back of her head as she unlocked the door 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.480 to her home. She was pushed inside, robbed and raped 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.600 by a black man who was described as between five 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.200 seven and six two, wearing a hat, a jacket, and 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.880 perhaps a gold tooth. Detectives filmed a crime Stoppers re 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.720 enactment video about the robbery and rape, and they approached 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.760 Perry Lot, who was parked nearby. While they asked him 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.040 a few questions about his whereabouts during the incident, they 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.839 noticed that he had a gold tooth and Perry, a 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.360 bit of a lady's man, explained that he was in 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.159 the area to see his girlfriend, but had been with 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.640 his fiancee from three thirty pm on November first through 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.960 six thirty am the following morning. Despite his alibi, police 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.040 brought him in for further questioning. There they put him 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.000 into a lineup and the rest of the men were 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.320 given get this gold foil from a nearby florist to 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:59.480 simulate having a gold tooth. The victim not surprisingly identified 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.760 Perry Lot that in there as her attacker. A rape 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:04.440 kit had been done the morning of the incident, but 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.680 in nineteen eighty seven, DNA technology was not yet available 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:11.119 to exclude mister Lott as it later would, and Perry 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:17.440 Lott tragically was sentenced to three hundred years for rape, robbery, burglary, 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.560 and making a bomb threat related to the incident. In 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.280 this episode, which was recorded at an art show opening 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.600 featuring the work of an innocent man on death row 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.679 in Texas, rob Will, we interviewed Perry Lott and Eric Cullin, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.160 the private investigator that was originally tasked with taking Perry's 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.160 DNA swap, only to end up becoming one of his 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:50.160 fiercest and most loyal advocates. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.600 back to wrongful Conviction. We have two incredible gentlemen in 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:56.680 the studio with me today, and the studio is not 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.680 even a studio, But I'll tell you more about that later. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.040 First of all, I'll save the best for last. We 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:07.200 have Eric Cullen, private investigator who has played an active 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.000 role in more reversals now that I can count on 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.000 probably both hands. It's great to have you here. Welcome 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:12.440 to the show. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:13.760 Thank you, good to be here. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.959 And with Eric is a gentleman who he was instrumental 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.920 in helping to free an individual who served three decades 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.680 thirty one years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.520 DNA proved it. Perry, Welcome the show. I'm really honored 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:33.000 to have you here. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.120 Greetings, Jason is very exciting to be here at Also, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.000 I've been looking forward to this for some months now. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.680 Well, that's awesome. And after thirty one years in prison 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.160 and this is your first first ever, it's very excited. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.000 So we can call this the exclusive interview with very lot. Yeah, Perry, 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.960 let's go back to the beginning. First of all, your 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.359 case took place in Ada, Oklahoma, and Aida has become 0:02:55.480 --> 0:03:00.760 synonymous with wrongful convictions. Yes, sir, because John Grisha exposed 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.440 the fact that there were six wrongful convictions in the 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.280 space of just over a year in this tiny town, 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.560 and those were profiled in his book An Innocent Manner, 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.880 Four of them were and you happen to fall into 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.600 that town not knowing that it was I mean a trap, right, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.280 And you were a young man at the time, twenty 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.680 four years old. Twenty four years old. You still look 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:23.920 pretty young for what it's worth. 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.320 Thank you. I grew old and didn't know it. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.920 In this case, it has a lot of the common 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.080 factors that we see in wrongful conviction cases. Of course, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.520 as the most common factor, I witness miss identification across 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.920 racial eye witness misidentification, which we know are even more 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:47.400 unreliable than same race, and those are notoriously unreliable, and they 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.560 played a factor in the higher percentage of wrongful conviction 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:54.400 cases than anything else. So let's go back to when 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.760 this happened and how it happened. Because you were teaching 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:58.000 school at the time. 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.800 Right, and moved to Aden in Wisconsin. And in nineteen 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.680 eighty six, around Christmas time, I get a call from 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.120 an old girlfriend in a Toka, Oklahoma, and I was 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.440 between jobs, you know, feeling kind of bad about my surroundings, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.760 seeing a lot of negativity that I didn't want to 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.919 get involved with. So relocating Oklahoma was my option, my 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.640 best option, and that's what I did. I went to Oklahoma, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.360 ended up in a Toka, worked there for a couple 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.039 of weeks, found a better job in Ada, and moved 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.880 to Ada. And that was the beginning of my sorrows. 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.240 That's a very eloquent way of putting it. Eric I 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.680 want to turn to you for a second, So can 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:41.400 you take us back to this case. I mean, this 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.680 was a horrible crime. The local woman in Ada had 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.080 her home broken into after one in the morning. The 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.120 assailant pushed her into her house, stole money from her purse, 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:53.800 and did unspeakable things to her. 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:59.120 Yeah, So the victor always contended to police and testified 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:03.560 the trial that she received several prank calls at her home, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:05.560 harassing calls. 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:06.920 I think she might have stated. 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.880 Then she goes to work, which is basically across the street, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:16.440 to a restaurant she managed called Arby's. There she works 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.800 her complete shift or just about her complete shift, and 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.279 she claims that a bomb threat was levied by the 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:27.720 same voice that had been calling her harassing at her 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:28.440 home all day. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.040 Now, sound like a horror movie, right. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.960 Right, And so she clears her store, calls the police, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.080 no bomb. They go ahead and close the store down, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.120 and she claims again that the same caller calls the 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.600 store again and asked why she closed the store down. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.160 I told you I was going to blow the place 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.440 up if you didn't close. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:50.760 The store down. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.039 Of course, the building never blew up. That's what she 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.600 contended all the way through trial. Then she goes at 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:03.760 approximately one one thirty home back across the street. That's 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.719 where she testified that one Blackmail had pushed her in 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.920 her home, put a condom on and raped her and 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.560 then took upwards of two hundred dollars from her purse. 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.600 And then she also claims, of course she lost deposit 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.320 receipts from the RB's close out cash. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.880 To right, and he did other disgusting things. There was 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.000 a picture of her daughter in the house that he 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.120 apparently yes, had sort of you know, did sexual things 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:38.320 to the photograph and like very very bizarre character. Whoever 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.160 this guy was correct, That's what she testified to Perry. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.800 Did you know anything about this crime? He is a 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.000 small community. Did it get the word get around? 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.400 I did not know anything about the crime when I 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:54.600 was first approached by Officer Crosby. I was in that 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.200 area of the crime scene, but I had no idea 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.440 crime had been committed. I had no idea who this 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:01.160 woman was. 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.360 And remember that name Crosby, everyone who's listening, because that's 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.800 going to be a crazy development as we go on 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.000 with this story. So in this case, we know that 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:16.840 the eyewitness misidentification was not inadvertence, right, it wasn't an accident. 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.000 She was steered as probably too light of a word 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.880 to describe how they ended up convincing her to identify you. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.200 And we know that the mind is not a camera. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.400 I think a lot of people think that you see something, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.440 you recognize it, you remember it. That's not the way 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.720 it works at all. And of course, again in the 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.800 cross racial situation, it's even more prone to mistakes. But 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:44.600 the victim had described that her assailant had a gold 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.440 tooth or half a gold tooth, right. 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.480 That's what they say personally. I don't believe she ever 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:54.320 mentioned the gold tooth in her initial description of her assailant, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.360 mainly because of this. I seen the police report where 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.080 the victim, it was a description at the very end 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.520 was a gold tooth like it had been added on. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.239 She wasn't able to identify his hair color or tighte 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.920 because he wore a hat, and he wore a jacket 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.000 and things like that. And her description was so general 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:18.960 that she said that it was just a black male 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:23.160 between five seven and six two. That describes most people, right. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.360 That describes entirely the whole black community mostly. 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.520 Yeah, how did it get from there to where Perry 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.640 ends up in a lineup. He had an alibi on 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.160 top of everything else, a very solid alibi, right, Yeah, 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:37.560 they didn't care about that. No. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:43.320 How they landed on Perry was they were doing a 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.720 recreation of the crime for a show called Crime Stoppers 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.560 down there at the time, they would run on unsolved 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.840 crimes or you know, fresh crimes even and they were 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.760 filming that day. Perry had been in the neighborhood visiting 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:01.240 someone just a block away. He goes, turns the corner 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.840 and sees these camera crews up there and he stops 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.840 on the side of the road to watch. Detective Crosby 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:11.840 goes and approaches Ferry at the car, notices the gold tooth, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.800 and it's all downhill from there. 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.360 Yes, you voluntarily went into the police station, and I 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.199 imagine when you went in there you probably thought, well, 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.000 I mean, I'm just going in and tell them what 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:22.800 I know and go home. 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:27.400 Yes, sir, like I said, mister Crosby came and approached 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.400 me that night. They questioned me for hours at the 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.760 police station, search my car, search my home, took me 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.160 back to the police station, released me with the words 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.600 you can go home, but don't leave town. So I 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:48.839 went home and my fiance was there, and evidently they 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.080 had questioned her while they were questioning me, And we 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.760 had a lot of tizzy, a little bit of a 0:09:54.760 --> 0:10:00.640 spot because I just recently came to her home from Wisconsin, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.240 and now she's hearing that, Hey, your boyfriend might be 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.000 a rapist, you know, so of course she's going to 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.640 be on age somewhat. That next morning, at work, I 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.400 was approached by Crosby again, would you mind helping us out? 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.080 We need to need you to be in a lineup. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.319 Like you know, I'm just doing what any average citizen 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.400 would do, doing what my dad had always taught me 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.760 to do, is obey the police, cooperate, don't get disrespectful. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.719 So I'll go to the police station with them and 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:34.600 participate in his lineup. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.520 Right, And then it's almost comical to think that they 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.720 had this said. There's nothing funny about it. They took 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.640 the other man that they put in a lineup and 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.959 put aluminum foil as if to simulate a gold tooth 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:47.920 in their mouth. But you were the only one that 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.040 actually had a gold tooth, that's right. Plus they had 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:51.880 you say the words that she said she had. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.760 Heard and after the lineup he comes with a shit 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.400 eat and green on his face. Yeah she picked you out, 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:08.080 said what she picked me? Yeah, she picked you, And 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:13.280 I'm right there. I'm just in a whirlpool of confusion. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.760 So I'm in the city jail for a couple of weeks, 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.440 you know, screaming, Hey, I didn't do this, you guys 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.120 making a mistake. Nobody heard that, nobody wanted to hear that. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.679 They moved me across the street to the county jail, 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.280 and I stayed there for a couple of months at 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:36.200 least the quarter point of attorney never came to see me, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.680 never knew who I was until just right before time 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.520 for appearances in court. His name was Frank Baber, and 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.000 me being so naive since I didn't do this, I'm 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.120 thinking this is the easiest flipping over a pancake to 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.600 get me out of this situation. It's so much that 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.040 he allowed to go on that I now know he 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:04.120 should have been object I think it's like, hey, are 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.480 you on my side or are you on their side? 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.760 That's what I was thinking in my head because at 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:15.640 the time, even being totally unaware of what the law says, 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.920 you get a feeling as a defendant, if someone is 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.680 vigorously trying to defend you, I didn't get that feeling. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.760 Sounds like it was more processing you than defending your processing. 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:28.360 That's right. 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:30.120 Did you hold out any hope that they were going 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:30.960 to find you innocent? 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.720 Or I had always thought they would find me innocent 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.200 because I knew that they had no evidence of me 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.360 doing anything. I knew that I had not done anything. 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.280 I'm thinking that this is gone all the way up 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.760 into picking the jewelry, and you guys still think I 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.920 did this. How can you think I did this? What 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.800 I did not know at the time was that eye 0:12:54.800 --> 0:13:01.520 witnessed testimony was considered evidence. That's what me. I'm sitting 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.080 there thinking, Okay, where's the rake kit, where's the fingerprints, 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.400 where's the picture that you say was taken out of 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.480 the home? Where's the money that you say was missing. 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.120 I was flat broke at the time. Hell, when they 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.480 searched my house, they found a twenty dollar bill that 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.240 my fiance had hidden in her dresser and it floated 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.320 to the floor. Now I asked Jeff Crosby, I said, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.040 can I have that? And he says, yeah, you can 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.720 have that. So I picked up that twenty dollar bill 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:34.000 and put it in my pocket. I didn't know better, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:41.600 so I ended up in prison. And the trial lasted 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.199 all of eight hours. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:46.479 Eight hours. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.199 The trial lasted less than a. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:54.120 Working day, and you were sentenced to three hundred years three. 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.480 Years consecutive sentences, four charges, four different sentences, one hundred, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.559 one hundred and fifty and fifty for rape, robbery, burglary, 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:03.880 and bomb threatening. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:11.160 Three hundred years. It's such a preposterous concept. I mean, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.120 it's the idea that we even do that in this country. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.240 Here the sense is a thousand years, and Oklahoma is 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.160 notorious for these and again I'm not minimizing the nature 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.160 of the crime. But Jesus Christ anyway, Eric. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.840 An interesting side note free trial. I think it's interested 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:31.960 back to how they were doing things in pot of 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.040 Talk County. Eight of Williamson and Fritz were in jail 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:37.200 with Perrys. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.240 And Williamson and Fritz were two of the men that 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.600 were profiled in the John Grisham, the only nonfiction book 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.760 that John has ever written, The Innocent Man, and John 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.680 told me John was on wrongful conviction. He said that 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.240 when he wrote that book, he had to write it 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.640 as nonfiction, he says, because when I write fiction, I 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.120 have to make it believable, and he goes the story. 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:01.960 The audience is not going to follow. Al I'm going 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.360 to lose my readers because this doesn't make any logical sense. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.560 And Williamson and Fretz such an unbelievably tragic case of 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.880 two men wrongfully convicted and one of whom lost his 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.520 mind in prison and just months after he was released 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.640 ended up dead, really really sad, and he had been 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.600 an open age pitching prospect, he had his life ahead 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.240 of him. And the whole thing is a tragedy on 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.240 top of a tragedy, not to mention that there was 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.280 no justice for the victim, which was a rape and 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.160 murder case. And I want to go back to this 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.200 eye witness identification. If you, the listener, end up on 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.440 a jury and you have a pery lot in front 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:40.800 of you, you're in a criminal case and there's no 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:45.640 evidence except eyewitness identification. You should keep this in mind. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.560 And I'm quoting from the amazing book Convicting the Innocent 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.720 by Brandon Garrett, which is sort of like the Bible 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.680 of wrongful conviction. Causes and practices that lead to them, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.720 he said it. Many DNA ex on cases involving mistaken 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:07.040 eyewitnesses involved the use of suggestive identification procedures. A study 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.720 of the first two hundred and fifty DNA exonerations revealed 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.040 that an incredible eighty eight percent of the mistaken witness 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.760 exonerations involved either factors that are known to affect the 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.920 reliability of the identification, some suggestiveness in the identification procedure, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:24.960 or both, And in this case it was both. So 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:26.920 the jury comes in. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:33.080 It was the most surreal moment of my life. When 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.240 the jury came back and they found me guilty, all 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.200 I could do was stare in the space. I was 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:43.280 just sitting there in shock. And when they started reading 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:48.120 off the terms one hundred years, one hundred years, I 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:52.000 was paralyzed, wondering, what how can they be allowed to 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.720 count more than a person can actually live? If I 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.520 die in prison, you're still going to make me do time, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.320 you know, I mean, it's like you said, it just 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.720 don't make sense to give a person more time than 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:08.360 a lifespan, you know what I mean? 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.400 Right? And in case you come back to life, maybe 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.199 they want to back and then you have to come 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:14.840 back to life of these a couple of times and 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.440 still live a long life. Each thing is ridiculous. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.600 I had a discussion with Eric just last night. I said, 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.560 you know, they should take the sentence and portion of 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.480 the trial out of the jury's hands because they are citizens. 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.760 They get emotional, They are angry when they get the 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:41.160 details of these crimes. Whether it's coherst or whether it's fabricated, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.560 or whether it's just plain fact. These people have emotional 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:50.000 attachments to that, and that's why they give people these 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.960 ex financial amounts of time. When you know, one hundred 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.719 years is enough to see a person die in prison, 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:58.320 but you want to. 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.680 Go overkill and even the just breaking it down to 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.679 the granular level, just the idea that they sends you 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.679 to fifty years for robbery and the robbery was one 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.840 hundred and twenty dollars, right or whatever it was, two 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:09.439 hundred dolls like that, I mean. 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.000 In fifty for the bumb threat. Additionally fifty the. 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.280 Bumb threat as well. Yeah, and we know, of course 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.040 that these threats went on, and there were other cases 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.320 after Perry was arrested and convicted, where whoever the actual 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.280 perpetrator was continued with the same memo, which should be 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.520 not even a red flag should be a flashing red 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.600 light where they go, hold up, this is we got 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.000 were bucked up, you know what I mean. But that's 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.000 not what happened. So you get take into prison. 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.760 Yes, prison life. After sitting in the county jail for 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.080 four or five months, you're kind of glad to go 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:47.000 to prison. So it's a real messed up thing in 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:47.960 the mind. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:48.520 You know. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.080 It's like they say, the eyes will play tricks on you. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.720 After a certain amount of time, with a traumatic situation 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.680 or unfamiliar situation, the mind will start playing tricks on 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.360 you to you hear things, you see things, you imagine things. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:10.080 So once I did get in the doc system, I 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.639 was glad to have a bed. I was glad to 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:17.760 have fresh clothes, a shower, movement of the things you 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.720 don't get in the counter jail. So that took a 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.280 lot of pressure off of what I was going through 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:23.879 at the time. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.200 Then I think most people don't realize, but I hear 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.720 from so many of the exogneries that jails are worse 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.520 than the prisons, and it's actually logical when you think 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.200 about it. I think people if they're the word jail, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.720 they think of like the classic thing in the movies 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.440 where it's like a country place and they. 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.800 Ain't like Barney and Andy like that. 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.359 So you know, like that, it's true all over the country. 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.560 In jails, it's just a powder cake because everybody's in 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.320 the cell together. There's no recreation, there's no education, there's 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.920 no release of anything, there's no outdoors, there's nothing so 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.320 and as you said, no clean clothes. I mean, it's 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.600 really and it's designed to break people and actually make 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.680 them confess the crimes that didn't commit just to go home. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.440 These places are dirty, they're incubators of disease. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:08.600 They wouldn't worship on my worst ending. 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.680 A lot of informant Joie Howson snitch stuff comes out 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:13.680 of that environment too. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.680 But now you went to the prison and your sentenced 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.280 to well life because three hundred years, you know you 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:23.240 weren't going to live that long. It's a miracle you 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.000 lived through this whole experience in the first place. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.240 It surely is. I went in at twenty four years old, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.160 waited three or four years for the direct appeal. Once 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.240 that was affirmed, I had no idea how the hell they. 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.479 Affirmed that affirmed your conviction. 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.680 How do you do that with the facts all laid out, 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.919 I should have been home after three or four. I 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.719 knew enough about law to know that what the jury 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.960 says is what the jury says. However, that's what the 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.000 appeal process is for, correctly, to rectify what the jury 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:05.200 in the courtroom allowed that should never been allowed. When 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.879 I was affirmed, I knew that I had a war 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.880 on my hands. I had to become my own attorney 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.040 because my family could not afford to help me. They 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.520 were so far away in Wisconsin. I was basically by 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:27.720 myself against the state. I like to point out the 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:29.760 people when I talk to them about this, when it 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.760 says lot versus state, it's just like Oklahoma versus Texas. 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:42.880 You're at war. I had to learn as quick as possible, 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.840 as much as possible about what avenues is going to 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:53.239 get me set free, because now I am here and 0:21:53.280 --> 0:22:15.160 it doesn't have a back door. Well, once I got 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:21.479 to about twelve fifteen years in, I started losing it. 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:25.040 I started losing hope. I started thinking I just might 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:29.199 die in here. And two thousand and two was the 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:34.120 first time I went up for parole. Nothing changed. In 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.840 two thousand and five, I had a near death experience 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:42.040 with staff infection. That's why I am partially disabled now. 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:47.120 Staff infection had gotten into my system. I didn't even 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:52.159 know what staff was, so it lingered in my body, 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:56.280 actually got into my blood and mercered and attached to 0:22:56.359 --> 0:23:02.360 my spinal cord in my neck. It was eating through 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:07.200 the vertebrae in my net, exposed a few nerves, and 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:12.680 I'm lucky to be alive. So two thousand and five 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:19.359 I was hospitalized. So they skipped over my parole hearing. Yes, yes, 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:22.160 they totally skipped over my parole hearing, so I had 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.760 to wait until two thousand and eight. That was probably 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:32.680