1
00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:05,080
Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If

2
00:00:05,080 --> 00:00:08,200
Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.

3
00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:11,040
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.

4
00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:18,440
Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,

5
00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:21,800
Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have

6
00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:24,680
Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but

7
00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:25,800
Speaker 2: they're breaking the lord.

8
00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:30,360
Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty

9
00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:32,479
Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then

10
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:34,559
Speaker 1: hear my family break down behind me and not be

11
00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:37,600
Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the

12
00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:38,640
Speaker 1: crushing weight that was.

13
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:42,680
Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.

14
00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:46,840
Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something

15
00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:48,920
Speaker 2: happen to somebody and that's the first thing.

16
00:00:48,840 --> 00:00:52,600
Speaker 3: We said, that could never happen to me, but they can.

17
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:17,080
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's

18
00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:21,800
Speaker 4: guest is an extraordinary person who has been through something

19
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:26,000
Speaker 4: that nobody should ever go through. Leroy Harris, Welcome to

20
00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:26,440
Speaker 4: the show.

21
00:01:26,959 --> 00:01:27,880
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.

22
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,679
Speaker 4: There's so many crazy aspects of your case, but I

23
00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:34,039
Speaker 4: think we should probably start at the beginning. First of all,

24
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:34,959
Speaker 4: where did you grow up?

25
00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:37,400
Speaker 3: I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

26
00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:40,839
Speaker 4: And how was that. Did you have a nice family situation?

27
00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:42,479
Speaker 4: I mean, was it a tough childhood?

28
00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 3: Well?

29
00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:46,600
Speaker 2: No, we had a close knit family. I mean we

30
00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:51,400
Speaker 2: was very supportive of each other and brothers, sisters, Yeah, brothers.

31
00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:57,880
Speaker 2: My mother she was a single parent. She raised fourteen children.

32
00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,560
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, my mother had seven sons and seven daughters.

33
00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:04,000
Speaker 4: Wow, that's amazing.

34
00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:07,760
Speaker 2: And you know my father he well at the time

35
00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 2: he worked as a truck driver, so he was in

36
00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 2: and out. But you know, he was supportive of the

37
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,720
Speaker 2: family too, but he just a lot of times he

38
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:22,320
Speaker 2: just couldn't really provide as much as he wanted to

39
00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 2: because the family was so big.

40
00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:26,360
Speaker 4: How big was your apartment that you lived in?

41
00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:27,480
Speaker 3: We lived in the house.

42
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 2: You know, we went from eastern New York to Flatbush

43
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:32,760
Speaker 2: and at that time in Flatbush, you know, was a

44
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:38,440
Speaker 2: lot of different families, different nationalities coming in and so

45
00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:42,280
Speaker 2: it was pretty integrated. It was a good community that

46
00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,440
Speaker 2: I lived in. And you know, so the family just

47
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:47,680
Speaker 2: growing up, it was it was it was a good

48
00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:48,520
Speaker 2: wholesome family.

49
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:50,799
Speaker 4: Were you the oldest, youngest, Well, I.

50
00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:52,480
Speaker 3: Was one of the middles.

51
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:56,519
Speaker 4: Before this criminal justice nightmare hit you like a ton

52
00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 4: of bricks. Did you have when you were twenty two

53
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,080
Speaker 4: years older? Yes, I was before that. Did you have

54
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:02,919
Speaker 4: any interaction with the justices?

55
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:07,880
Speaker 2: No, I didn't really have no encounters with the police.

56
00:03:08,919 --> 00:03:11,280
Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't a bad kid if you consider

57
00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:14,519
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit of every now and then,

58
00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 2: you know, growing up, a little beer or something, you know,

59
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,880
Speaker 2: as a kid, you know, growing up younger twenty one,

60
00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:23,160
Speaker 2: twenty two, I took a drink here.

61
00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:24,200
Speaker 3: Nil or you know.

62
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:26,240
Speaker 4: Okay, so you were a regular kid.

63
00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. That's it. I was a regular kid.

64
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 3: I mean, nothing other than that little beer here and there.

65
00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:31,640
Speaker 3: That was it. You know.

66
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:36,640
Speaker 4: So this part of the story starts in nineteen eighty three, Yeah,

67
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:41,640
Speaker 4: just a long time ago. I mean, that's like I'm

68
00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 4: trying to think back of I mean, like when I

69
00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 4: watched the movie of My life backwards. If I think

70
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,120
Speaker 4: about the last thirty five years and thinking about you

71
00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:56,480
Speaker 4: spending it incarcerated, it really is. That's just it's an

72
00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:59,920
Speaker 4: enormous amount of time, and none of it ever made

73
00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:03,400
Speaker 4: any sense. You originally picked up on a.

74
00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:06,840
Speaker 3: Warrant nineteen eighty four, and I knew nothing about it.

75
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:09,560
Speaker 4: And this was in Connecticut in Connecticut in new Haven,

76
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:12,280
Speaker 4: so they pick you up on a warrant. Now most

77
00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 4: people are probably saying, okay, so what was the warrant for?

78
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:15,760
Speaker 4: And you didn't know.

79
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:18,000
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, I'm from Brooklyn.

80
00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:20,920
Speaker 2: My mother she lived in New Haven at this time,

81
00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:23,800
Speaker 2: so I'm out of town. They picked me up and

82
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,719
Speaker 2: locked me up, and that's all I know. At that point,

83
00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:29,599
Speaker 2: I'm waiting to see a judge, you know, get the court.

84
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,040
Speaker 2: I'm locked up four months. I finally come to court

85
00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:37,400
Speaker 2: September eighteenth, eighty four, and I'm asking him, where's the lawyer?

86
00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:39,280
Speaker 2: Can you call my lawyer down?

87
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:42,760
Speaker 4: So you have not at this point ever even met

88
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:43,679
Speaker 4: your lawyer yet.

89
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:44,919
Speaker 3: Nobody, So you don't have a lawyer.

90
00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 2: I don't have any but I know I'm coming to court,

91
00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:49,839
Speaker 2: so they have to have the Public Defender's office have

92
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,400
Speaker 2: somebody come down to see me before I go up

93
00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:55,440
Speaker 2: to see the judge. So I'm asking where's the lawyer

94
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:57,440
Speaker 2: because I know you have to get a lawyer.

95
00:04:57,440 --> 00:04:58,320
Speaker 3: I don't have no money.

96
00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:01,440
Speaker 4: But the logical thing mind is going to say, but

97
00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:03,640
Speaker 4: wait a minute, you must have seen a lawyer while

98
00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 4: you were in jail. Everyone's entitled to a lawyer. It

99
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:07,800
Speaker 4: says that in the constitution, how were they You were

100
00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:09,320
Speaker 4: in jail for four months and you didn't even know

101
00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:10,719
Speaker 4: what was going on and you didn't see a lawyer.

102
00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:13,880
Speaker 2: Well, they you know, sometimes people do what they want

103
00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:17,120
Speaker 2: to do. I mean, just because a person is a

104
00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:22,280
Speaker 2: prosecutor or a person is a police officer, it doesn't

105
00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:25,040
Speaker 2: mean that they are following the letter of the law.

106
00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:28,920
Speaker 2: So we need to make that clear because if they

107
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:30,560
Speaker 2: were following the letter of the law, I would have

108
00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:33,640
Speaker 2: seen a lawyer day one when they arrested me.

109
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,119
Speaker 4: And then most likely none of this ever would have happened,

110
00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 4: because you would have been able to prove that whatever

111
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 4: it was that they were charging you with, they had

112
00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:42,440
Speaker 4: the wrong guy. Right now, you can't see him, but

113
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,480
Speaker 4: Leroy is a very dapper dresser. He's all decked out today.

114
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 4: And that's actually an important point because it plays a

115
00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:51,520
Speaker 4: role in the next part of the story. Right, so

116
00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,680
Speaker 4: you show up in court dressed to kill, yes, no

117
00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:57,960
Speaker 4: pun intended. And what happens next.

118
00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:02,800
Speaker 2: Well, they called me the court that day. I get

119
00:06:02,839 --> 00:06:06,840
Speaker 2: to the courthouse, I'm down in the lock up. I'm

120
00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:10,680
Speaker 2: asking the sheriff, where's the lawyer? Can I see a lawyer.

121
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:15,560
Speaker 2: Who's my lawyer? He goes upstairs to the Public Defender's office.

122
00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:19,440
Speaker 2: We got Leroy Harris downstairs. He's asking who is his lawyer?

123
00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:23,880
Speaker 2: This dad and he comes back down maybe twenty five

124
00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:28,840
Speaker 2: minutes later and says, I don't know. Then the doorbell

125
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 2: to the lock up gets the buzz that someone comes in.

126
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:36,159
Speaker 2: He says, mister Harris. He says, they're here for you. Now,

127
00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:38,279
Speaker 2: I said they're here for me. Now, what do you mean?

128
00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:43,839
Speaker 2: He says, there's a cop officer Lemon. He wants to

129
00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:46,240
Speaker 2: speak to you. The officer said, asking.

130
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:51,480
Speaker 3: Me, are you Leroy Harris. I says yes, I am.

131
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:54,640
Speaker 2: He says it is your date of birth ten twenty

132
00:06:54,720 --> 00:06:59,040
Speaker 2: five sixty. I says yes it is, and he says,

133
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:04,839
Speaker 2: well turned around Yon Durest. I said for what he said,

134
00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:11,680
Speaker 2: for robbery and sexual assault. He says this happened May

135
00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:15,920
Speaker 2: twenty first, nineteen eighty three. Now this is another warrant.

136
00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:22,800
Speaker 2: So they take me from de Locaup to one Union Avenue,

137
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:27,520
Speaker 2: which is the police headquarters, process me and put me

138
00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:30,560
Speaker 2: in the van, bring me back to another court for

139
00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:34,760
Speaker 2: arrangement for this new warrant. So when I get to

140
00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:39,320
Speaker 2: the court. I'm sitting there waiting to be arranged, and

141
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:44,800
Speaker 2: pandemonium erupted in the courthouse, and one of the sheriffs

142
00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:47,680
Speaker 2: ran over and said, hey, come on, get out of here.

143
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 2: And I didn't ask any questions. I got up and

144
00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:52,800
Speaker 2: I walked out.

145
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:56,120
Speaker 4: So wait, when you say pandemonia erupted, what do you mean?

146
00:07:56,440 --> 00:07:58,720
Speaker 3: It was a lot of excitement in the courthouse.

147
00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:02,280
Speaker 2: People were yelling over here, so he was just trying

148
00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:05,320
Speaker 2: to clear everything out. And he told me, hey, get up.

149
00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:08,560
Speaker 2: And because the way I looked, he didn't think that

150
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:10,560
Speaker 2: I was a prisoner.

151
00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:12,080
Speaker 4: Did he think you were a lawyer?

152
00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:15,200
Speaker 3: I guess he did, because that was inside the transcripts.

153
00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:15,920
Speaker 3: He said, well, he did.

154
00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:19,800
Speaker 2: The clothes he was wearing, the suit, the way he looked,

155
00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:22,520
Speaker 2: look at the pictures, no one knew you know, that

156
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:23,560
Speaker 2: was Leroy.

157
00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:25,440
Speaker 4: I mean, you do look more like a lawyer or

158
00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:28,320
Speaker 4: a college professor than somebody who's been in prison. Even now.

159
00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:31,120
Speaker 4: I mean, and this is something that's just totally surreal.

160
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:34,400
Speaker 4: Like here you are with two warrants, one of you

161
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:36,320
Speaker 4: still don't know what it is, the other one you

162
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:38,880
Speaker 4: don't know what the hell they're talking about, right, you know,

163
00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:41,040
Speaker 4: what it is, but it doesn't make any sense to you.

164
00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:45,040
Speaker 4: You walk out of the courtroom into the fresh air. Yes,

165
00:08:45,559 --> 00:08:46,480
Speaker 4: because they told you to.

166
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:48,680
Speaker 3: They told me, go ahead, get out of here.

167
00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:52,080
Speaker 4: Which sounds like it all sounds so crazy, right, So

168
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 4: you walk out and then what happens.

169
00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:56,040
Speaker 2: Well, I walked out, and I got on the train

170
00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:59,920
Speaker 2: and I went home to Brooklyn and I was then

171
00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:04,560
Speaker 2: Brooklyn for maybe a year and a half before I

172
00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:09,760
Speaker 2: was picked up and brought back to New Haven and

173
00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,880
Speaker 2: they charged me with escape from custody. Now I got

174
00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:16,280
Speaker 2: an escape from custody and I got three cases. I

175
00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:19,560
Speaker 2: don't really didn't really have nothing from the beginning. I

176
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:22,320
Speaker 2: didn't know what was going on. And they take me

177
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:28,800
Speaker 2: to trial in eighty six, November twenty, nineteen eighty six,

178
00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:32,559
Speaker 2: they take me to trial for escape.

179
00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:35,280
Speaker 4: And by the way, this is the most elegant escape

180
00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:37,320
Speaker 4: I've ever heard of. Right, they actually told you to

181
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:39,800
Speaker 4: walk out, So this is the most peaceful escape in

182
00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:43,720
Speaker 4: the history of escapes. Just like, off you go, like,

183
00:09:43,840 --> 00:09:45,760
Speaker 4: take a walk, see you later, get on the trade,

184
00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:48,040
Speaker 4: go home, Thank you very much. Okay, So now they're

185
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:51,680
Speaker 4: charging you with escape. The previous warrant. They still didn't

186
00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:52,320
Speaker 4: tell you what it is.

187
00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:55,600
Speaker 3: I later found out there was lossity in the second.

188
00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:58,719
Speaker 4: Degree, okay, larcening in the second degree, okay, so another thing.

189
00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:01,000
Speaker 4: So they brought you to trial out and they charge

190
00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:02,960
Speaker 4: you with all three crimes.

191
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:05,040
Speaker 3: Just escape. That's later.

192
00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:08,040
Speaker 2: We talked about eighty six right now. So they charged

193
00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:13,600
Speaker 2: me with escape. So now they convict me. Now you

194
00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:15,800
Speaker 2: had a lawyer, right well, yeah, I had a lawyer,

195
00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:18,719
Speaker 2: but it wasn't Sometimes you say bootleg, and I think

196
00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:21,760
Speaker 2: that's what this was. This was the bootleg of fleet Market,

197
00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:25,480
Speaker 2: you know, the fleet Market lawyer. He wasn't in my

198
00:10:25,559 --> 00:10:28,440
Speaker 2: best interest at all. What was going on. I guess,

199
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:31,880
Speaker 2: like I said, if the system want to take you

200
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:38,240
Speaker 2: out of society for whatever reason, they will do it

201
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:41,120
Speaker 2: no matter what laws they have to break, saying that

202
00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,920
Speaker 2: they are enforcing the laws, but they're breaking the laws.

203
00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:47,440
Speaker 4: Because it would seem like a relatively simple argument for

204
00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:50,480
Speaker 4: a lawyer to make to say, well, the sheriff told

205
00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:53,480
Speaker 4: my client to leave and he left, doesn't seem to

206
00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 4: meet the definition of escape, but that he didn't even

207
00:10:56,520 --> 00:10:57,800
Speaker 4: bother him out that argument.

208
00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:00,400
Speaker 2: They charged me with escape from custody. And this is

209
00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:04,200
Speaker 2: the part where I did escape.

210
00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:05,840
Speaker 4: Right, because there's a real escape.

211
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:08,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the escape. This is now, this is

212
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:12,080
Speaker 2: the escape. Once they did that. Once they did that

213
00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:15,360
Speaker 2: from walking out and they told me to walk out

214
00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:20,760
Speaker 2: that day November twentieth, nineteen eighty six, the prosecutor said

215
00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 2: to me, now you're convicted.

216
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:27,319
Speaker 3: What I'm gonna do. I'm gonna have.

217
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:33,080
Speaker 2: You charged as a serious persistent felon the offender. I

218
00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:35,280
Speaker 2: had no cases, I had no charges, I had no

219
00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:37,640
Speaker 2: felon needs except the escape that you just.

220
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:38,959
Speaker 3: Convicted me on.

221
00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:43,239
Speaker 2: He says, I'm gonna charge you as a serious persistent

222
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:48,280
Speaker 2: felon the offender. And you're going downstairs in the lock up.

223
00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:52,439
Speaker 2: And this was before one o'clock that day I was convicted,

224
00:11:53,080 --> 00:11:56,760
Speaker 2: and at two o'clock you're coming back upstairs and we're

225
00:11:56,760 --> 00:12:01,000
Speaker 2: gonna pick another jury. And all that jury has to

226
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:07,200
Speaker 2: do just say that you're guilty as a persistent fella

227
00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 2: in the offender.

228
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:11,079
Speaker 3: And the sheriff right here that within the.

229
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:15,439
Speaker 2: Courtroom during the trial, he's a witness, and the sinographer

230
00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:18,880
Speaker 2: that's sitting right there, she's a witness that you just

231
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,120
Speaker 2: was convicted and you got another felony.

232
00:12:22,480 --> 00:12:24,240
Speaker 3: They're gonna testify to that and.

233
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,360
Speaker 2: If the jury sees that, they can double up and

234
00:12:27,400 --> 00:12:30,040
Speaker 2: give you instead of ten years for walking out for

235
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:33,200
Speaker 2: the escape, twenty that's when I escaped.

236
00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:47,160
Speaker 4: And then how did you escape this time? Because it's

237
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:49,920
Speaker 4: really amazing because I'm sitting here thinking, well, if they're

238
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,320
Speaker 4: going to charge me with an escape, and I'm going

239
00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:54,079
Speaker 4: to show him what escape looks and ask.

240
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:54,520
Speaker 3: What I did.

241
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:59,480
Speaker 2: And that day, when I went downstairs, I left how

242
00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:02,840
Speaker 2: I went through. I went.

243
00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:06,000
Speaker 3: I just went through the control room.

244
00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:10,840
Speaker 2: I opened up the door, I walked out the fence,

245
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:15,640
Speaker 2: I walked up the driveway. I walked onto the New

246
00:13:15,679 --> 00:13:20,520
Speaker 2: Haven Green and I sat there for a minute. Took

247
00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:23,719
Speaker 2: off my suit and I had my shorts onto that

248
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:26,040
Speaker 2: because I was on trial, so I had I was stap.

249
00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:28,559
Speaker 2: I had a dress suit on and I had gym

250
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:32,080
Speaker 2: shorts underneath that. So I just took that off, took

251
00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:33,920
Speaker 2: my shoe over, left it through it in the garbage,

252
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:37,559
Speaker 2: and I just walked down to Elm Street and I

253
00:13:37,679 --> 00:13:40,920
Speaker 2: seen somebody with a car and they gave me a

254
00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:43,320
Speaker 2: ride to the train station and I got on the

255
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:48,160
Speaker 2: train and I went back to Brooklyn. And when I

256
00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:52,800
Speaker 2: got back in Brooklyn, I was again charged with escape

257
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:59,359
Speaker 2: from custody until I was picked up on March fifteenth,

258
00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:00,720
Speaker 2: nine teen eighty eight.

259
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:02,360
Speaker 3: Now, and that's just where this comes in at.

260
00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:08,000
Speaker 4: So March fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Now, wow, and here

261
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:10,679
Speaker 4: we are in twenty eighteen. It's not hard to do

262
00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 4: the math on that one. And then you never saw

263
00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:17,280
Speaker 4: daylight again from that point until twenty seventeen.

264
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:23,560
Speaker 2: Until right until November twenty first, two thy seventeen. That

265
00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:28,080
Speaker 2: was when I seen freedom as I known it to be.

266
00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:34,200
Speaker 4: So it's so recent too. It's really just started processing

267
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:39,600
Speaker 4: this right now. You eventually ended up getting picked up

268
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:44,360
Speaker 4: this now third time, charged with an escape that was

269
00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:46,480
Speaker 4: an actual escape. And it's interesting listening to you talk

270
00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:48,240
Speaker 4: about it because you make it sound like it was

271
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:50,440
Speaker 4: so easy, but it couldn't have been that easy. I mean,

272
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:51,800
Speaker 4: they make it serious.

273
00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:55,280
Speaker 3: I was just furious, become furious. I mean what they did,

274
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:58,760
Speaker 3: what they did, I was just so furious. I just left.

275
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:01,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, you left, but I mean again, like it doesn't

276
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:04,280
Speaker 4: people can't just leave me. No, you had to put

277
00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:06,840
Speaker 4: some I don't know how you did it. It's still

278
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:08,760
Speaker 4: sort of missing me. I'm trying to picture the different

279
00:15:08,760 --> 00:15:11,560
Speaker 4: doors and walls and things. But you got out, so

280
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:16,200
Speaker 4: now here it is nineteen eighty eight, you're back in custody,

281
00:15:16,280 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 4: and this time they're going to try you for this

282
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:23,120
Speaker 4: sexual assault and robbery that you know nothing about. And

283
00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:26,840
Speaker 4: now you have another public defender. And was this guy

284
00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:28,080
Speaker 4: any better than the other guy?

285
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:32,080
Speaker 3: No, this wasn't him. This was her, Patricia buck Wolf.

286
00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:36,000
Speaker 2: She was an advocate for battered women, for women of

287
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:40,840
Speaker 2: sexual assass for sheltered women, and women in crisis and

288
00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:43,960
Speaker 2: everything else. So I didn't have no defense at all.

289
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:46,440
Speaker 2: I just sat there during the whole trial, and the

290
00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:49,920
Speaker 2: state put on their case. It was my five hundred

291
00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:54,480
Speaker 2: and twenty pages in the transcript and nothing with me.

292
00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 4: So she was from the picture that you're painting. It

293
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:02,240
Speaker 4: sounded like she didn't have a lot of interest in

294
00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:05,920
Speaker 4: that because she was looking at it like if they're

295
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:08,320
Speaker 4: charging you, you must be guilty, and she's wants to

296
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,560
Speaker 4: take the side of the woman. And it was a

297
00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,880
Speaker 4: terrible case. Yeah, nobody would you know whatever, want this

298
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,880
Speaker 4: to happen to anybody. But that doesn't mean that you

299
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:19,760
Speaker 4: don't deserve a fair trial, and it doesn't mean that

300
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:21,640
Speaker 4: we should convict the wrong guy, which is exactly what

301
00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:24,920
Speaker 4: happened is what happens too frequently in this country, and people,

302
00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:27,440
Speaker 4: I think would expect that there would be a system

303
00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:30,320
Speaker 4: of justice that wouldn't totally break down in the way

304
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:32,840
Speaker 4: that it did in your case over and over again.

305
00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:36,120
Speaker 4: It's not like there was one time, and I mean like,

306
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:40,320
Speaker 4: you had multiple opportunities for the justice system to work

307
00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:43,240
Speaker 4: in your favor, as just a regular law abiding citizen

308
00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:46,960
Speaker 4: deserves and would expect, and every single time it almost

309
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,640
Speaker 4: got worse. I mean here, they basically sounds like and

310
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 4: I don't know whether they did it on purpose, but

311
00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:55,920
Speaker 4: they probably stuck you with a lawyer that was the

312
00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:58,880
Speaker 4: least likely one to want to really mount an aggressive

313
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,560
Speaker 4: defense for you in this case. How long did the

314
00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:02,080
Speaker 4: child take?

315
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,000
Speaker 2: When the trial went from the fourth to the tenth,

316
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:09,359
Speaker 2: the eleventh. The next day they sit in to me

317
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,760
Speaker 2: nine o'clock in the morning. But I didn't find out

318
00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:20,760
Speaker 2: about Patricia buck Wolf until two thousand and eight. It

319
00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:24,560
Speaker 2: was a prejudice did because of the case and what

320
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,320
Speaker 2: she represented, and I didn't know that. I found that

321
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:29,880
Speaker 2: out years later, most twenty years later. Yeah, I found

322
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 2: that out.

323
00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:32,440
Speaker 4: And you know what's ironic about that, Leroy, is that

324
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:38,080
Speaker 4: you can't escape the fact that in doing what she did,

325
00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:41,399
Speaker 4: which was not defending you and not getting to the truth,

326
00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:47,760
Speaker 4: what she actually did is allowed the actual perpetrator to

327
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,960
Speaker 4: remain free to abuse more women. She broke the law, well,

328
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,280
Speaker 4: she broke the law. But also if her goal which

329
00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:56,720
Speaker 4: we can agree with, which is to help battered women

330
00:17:56,800 --> 00:17:59,280
Speaker 4: and to be an advocate for women who are in

331
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:03,200
Speaker 4: suffering and abused, if that was her goal, she actually

332
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:06,480
Speaker 4: accomplished the opposite thing, because not only did she do

333
00:18:06,520 --> 00:18:11,040
Speaker 4: a grave injustice to you, but also any other woman

334
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:15,840
Speaker 4: that the actual perpetrator went and abused. Those women would

335
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:18,600
Speaker 4: never have been victimized if the system would have worked,

336
00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,280
Speaker 4: and if she and the other people would have done

337
00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:22,639
Speaker 4: their job, and they would have actually figured out that

338
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:24,880
Speaker 4: you were innocent and gone and found the guy who's

339
00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:26,879
Speaker 4: a bad guy and should be off the streets and

340
00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:30,720
Speaker 4: should be in prison. So she actually did a terrible

341
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:35,480
Speaker 4: disservice to women by using this twisted logic that she

342
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 4: had in just disregarding your guilt or innocence and throwing

343
00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:42,719
Speaker 4: you to the well, throwing you to the wolves, right,

344
00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:44,439
Speaker 4: her name was wolves. She threw you to the wolves.

345
00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:50,240
Speaker 4: You end up getting sentenced to eighty years eighty years

346
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:55,199
Speaker 4: in prison. I mean, how did you even manage to

347
00:18:55,280 --> 00:19:00,600
Speaker 4: deal with that? You've already been wrongfully arrested multiple times,

348
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:04,600
Speaker 4: charged wrongly multiple times, in and out of prison escapes,

349
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:08,920
Speaker 4: You've already had like a nightmarish journey, and now comes

350
00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:13,280
Speaker 4: the ultimate, which is an eighty year sentence. I mean,

351
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:15,679
Speaker 4: you had at this point, you had a wife and

352
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:18,639
Speaker 4: a child and a life that you were supposed to

353
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,240
Speaker 4: be living absolutely and you're being pulled away from all

354
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:23,919
Speaker 4: of that and basically sentenced to die in prison. You

355
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:25,240
Speaker 4: weren't going to live another eighty years.

356
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:28,440
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't, but I knew that I had to

357
00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:35,480
Speaker 2: fight this. April eleventh, nineteen eighty nine, they gave me

358
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:40,200
Speaker 2: eighty a sentence, and I said, from that day.

359
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:43,000
Speaker 3: I gotta fight him.

360
00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 4: And let's go back for a second, le Roy and

361
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 4: talk about this case, because this was a terrible crime. Right.

362
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,159
Speaker 4: There were three guys who stole the car and some

363
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:57,879
Speaker 4: money from somebody, and then there were two young ladies

364
00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:01,280
Speaker 4: in the car who ended up and a terrible twist

365
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:03,080
Speaker 4: of faith, they ended up making a wrong turn, getting

366
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:05,960
Speaker 4: stuck on a dead end and then running basically into

367
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,000
Speaker 4: a more or less a roadblock that these guys who

368
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,560
Speaker 4: had just stolen this other car were able to sort

369
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,639
Speaker 4: of box them in, and so they were sexually assaulted

370
00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 4: and robbed. They knew they had three perpetrators, right, and

371
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:22,240
Speaker 4: they had two of them. They had caught two of them,

372
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:23,000
Speaker 4: Is that right?

373
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:26,960
Speaker 3: No, they had a whole lot of suspects.

374
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:32,840
Speaker 2: James Pooky, Round Trees, Smith, Shepherd, Blingold. They had a

375
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:38,040
Speaker 2: whole lot of people that they thought that was a

376
00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:43,280
Speaker 2: potential suspect that never came out because they wanted, I guess,

377
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,960
Speaker 2: to punish me, and so I was punished for that.

378
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:50,879
Speaker 2: And today, as I said before you, I have proven

379
00:20:50,920 --> 00:20:55,520
Speaker 2: that November twenty first, even prior to that, that it

380
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:58,960
Speaker 2: wasn't me and everything that they knew, all of them years,

381
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 2: it was because of a prosecutor named James Clark.

382
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:03,480
Speaker 3: He was being vindictive.

383
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 2: He was mad because I left the first time, and

384
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,880
Speaker 2: then after they try to get double up and give

385
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:12,800
Speaker 2: me twenty years for walking out the door.

386
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,280
Speaker 3: He was mad about that.

387
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 2: That's when I escaped and they gave me to ten

388
00:21:18,359 --> 00:21:22,480
Speaker 2: years in absentia. When they brought me back in custy,

389
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 2: I was sentenced to ten years so he did that

390
00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 2: while I was on the run, and so it.

391
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:32,360
Speaker 3: Was just being vengeful.

392
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,359
Speaker 2: He just wanted to hurt me, just to hurt me,

393
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,199
Speaker 2: you know, because I left, and showing me that he

394
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:39,119
Speaker 2: got the power.

395
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 3: I got the power, so I'm gonna take it life,

396
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:42,160
Speaker 3: I don't care. I'm to take it.

397
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 2: And that's what he did, even though he knew and

398
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 2: all the evidence at the time from day one showed

399
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 2: that I had nothing to do with it, that I

400
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 2: wasn't there, you know, I wasn't even supposed to have been

401
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:58,880
Speaker 2: a suspect. He knew that from day one. He knew

402
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:04,920
Speaker 2: that from eighty three, and all the documentation shows that clearly,

403
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 2: all the evidence. But he took me to trial in

404
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:11,400
Speaker 2: eighty nine and had me suffer for twenty nine years,

405
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 2: taking that our die in prison because this conversation around

406
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 2: the water fountain was he'll be catching up the mats

407
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 2: and when he get out, he'll be doing this.

408
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:25,639
Speaker 3: He'll be doing that for nothing. So this was a

409
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 3: vicious person.

410
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's really hard to figure out how people

411
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 4: can go so far wrong that they can just sendence

412
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 4: somebody like you to spend the rest of their life

413
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 4: in prison. Then go home and have a nice dinner,

414
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 4: coach lead, you know, just go on with their lives

415
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,960
Speaker 4: like nothing happened. But as unfortunately, there's a lot of

416
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 4: people out there like that. There are good people in

417
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 4: the justice system, and I always say that, and we

418
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 4: need a justice system, and we need when you're in trouble,

419
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:54,280
Speaker 4: you need to be able to call somebody, need to

420
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 4: be able to call a cop. Absolutely no, we need

421
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 4: prosecutes that, we need judges, but they are just too

422
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 4: damn many of these people like this guy, who have

423
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 4: no conscience and have no and really have no interest

424
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:09,479
Speaker 4: in justice at all. Because again, and I make this

425
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,159
Speaker 4: point over and over again, when they lock up the

426
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 4: wrong guy, they don't lock up the right guy, and

427
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 4: that guy's free to go out and terrorize the community.

428
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 4: And your case was proven with DNA that you were innocent,

429
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 4: but they also had other evidence. They knew that the

430
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 4: witnesses had said that they didn't know you. That the body,

431
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 4: I mean, there was nobody that placed you had to

432
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 4: see the crowd, there was nobody even knew who you were.

433
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:32,920
Speaker 3: Even the victims told him that.

434
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 2: In September twenty seven, nineteen eighty three, when they arrested

435
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 2: me the eighteenth, nineteen eighty four. The documentation that I

436
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 2: have that says that when they ask the victims, is this.

437
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 3: The guy, they said, no, case, he had nothing to

438
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:48,360
Speaker 3: do with it.

439
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 2: But in eighty nine everybody comes parading in there because

440
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 2: the clock.

441
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 3: Do you see the man?

442
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 4: Do you know Lee Ray Harris?

443
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,679
Speaker 3: Nope? From the witness, do you see the man in

444
00:23:58,720 --> 00:23:59,439
Speaker 3: the courtroom?

445
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 2: Let the record reflect that their victim just made an

446
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 2: identification of the defendant. Okay, you may step down, Come

447
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 2: on next with do you know Leroy Harritt?

448
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 4: No?

449
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 3: You ever seen them before? No, tell us what happened?

450
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 3: Do you see the person in court?

451
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 2: Let the record reflect that the victim just made the

452
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 2: identification of the defendant.

453
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 3: Okay, step down, call the next person.

454
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 4: And we know now that the Supreme Court of Connecticut

455
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 4: has outlawed those type of practices. Right, so under today's rules,

456
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 4: they would not have been able to do that, because

457
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:35,239
Speaker 4: obviously that's a suggestive identification technique and it's been in

458
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,880
Speaker 4: use for a long time. But luckily now no one

459
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 4: else will be able to be wrongfully identified as you

460
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 4: were in that courtroom that day using those same tactics.

461
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 4: And why do you think that those witnesses changed their

462
00:24:58,640 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 4: story six years later.

463
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:04,479
Speaker 2: Well, I think that Clark told them that because they

464
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 2: said it in a habeas trial that we came to court,

465
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 2: because you come to court to identify a person, and

466
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 2: Clark told them it was me.

467
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 3: He's the prosecutor. This or documented.

468
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 2: He put them in the room on the side and

469
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 2: said that looking there, that's him right there.

470
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:33,439
Speaker 3: It is all documented.

471
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 4: And by the way, we also know that so many

472
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 4: different studies have shown how memory works. Right, First of all,

473
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 4: you look different six years later. Everybody looks different six

474
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 4: years later. The memory of an event that happened six

475
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 4: years earlier is going to be foggy at best. Right,

476
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 4: people can't even make a correct identification, you know, a

477
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,959
Speaker 4: day later in most cases, in many cases, right in

478
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 4: your case here it is all these years later, and

479
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 4: these suggestive techniques, a borderline course of techniques that were

480
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 4: used could cause a person to either who knows whether

481
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 4: they knew at the time that they were actually identifying

482
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 4: an innocent person and maybe they were threatened if they

483
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 4: didn't do that. Well, I don't know if we'll ever

484
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 4: know the answer to that one, or whether they just

485
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 4: were mistaken. But the fact is, going back to nineteen

486
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 4: eighty three, they should have never proceeded past that point

487
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 4: because they knew, and later on DNA proved it, and

488
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 4: the witnesses have also come clean and said that they

489
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 4: knew that you weren't the guy. So it's really it's

490
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 4: a fucking tragedy, is what it is. I like to

491
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 4: talk about how you know, when people are listening, most

492
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 4: people's reactions are going to be, well, that could never

493
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 4: happen to me. What would you say to that.

494
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that it couldn't happen because it couldn't

495
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 2: happen to anybody. It happened to me. I mean a

496
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 2: lot of times we look and we see something happen

497
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,239
Speaker 2: to somebody and that's the first thing we said, that

498
00:26:58,280 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 2: could never happen to me.

499
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 4: But it can, right, And that's one reason that it's

500
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 4: important that we talked about your background, because the fact

501
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 4: that you came from a good family, that you were

502
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 4: a law abiding citizen who had never been in trouble.

503
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people jumped the conclusions they think, well,

504
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 4: if this guy was convicted, he must have done something right.

505
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 4: A lot I hear that from people, sometimes even people

506
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 4: that you know, you think are good, you know, good

507
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 4: hearted people, but they have a negative preconception that's been

508
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 4: caused by years of press or different things. But it's

509
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 4: important that people be educated to the fact that that's

510
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 4: not the way it is, and it happens to so

511
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 4: many people. A big percentage of our clients at the

512
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 4: Innocence Project are people like you who had no prior record.

513
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 4: They just got caught up in the wrong place at

514
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 4: the wrong time, or mistakenly arrested as you were in

515
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 4: the first place. And then once the justice system gets

516
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 4: you in, it's grasped. It just grinds you up and

517
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 4: spits you out. In too many cases when you were

518
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 4: in prison, can you talk about what was the best

519
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 4: and what was the worst thing that happened in those

520
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 4: twenty nine years.

521
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 2: Well, I think the saddest part for me was just

522
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 2: being in the cell, because you know, you learn a

523
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 2: lot in the cell. You learn about yourself, and you

524
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 2: learn that that cell can mint out a hell of

525
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 2: a punishment if you're not strong, and what I mean

526
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:35,439
Speaker 2: by that if you don't have a purpose. And my

527
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 2: purpose was getting my life back. So what I did

528
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: while I was confined was started to improve myself, learning

529
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 2: the law, helping people that couldn't read or write. LBA

530
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 2: Literacy Volunteers of America. I was one of the tutorers

531
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 2: for that, getting involved with all type of educational and

532
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 2: vocational skills to just keep my mind focused and try

533
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: to have some type of normacy in there and not

534
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 2: just going with the flow with the prison antics or

535
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 2: just the common flow in prison, gambling, running around, smoking,

536
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 2: you know to some people prune o, getting high. No,

537
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing those things. My focus was getting my

538
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 2: life back. So I stayed in the library, read thousands

539
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 2: of cases, wrote a couple of books, put organizations together.

540
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 2: I made sure kept briefs and stuff in the court's face,

541
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 2: letting them know, hey, you know what you did, and

542
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 2: I'm not going away and I'm not going away. And

543
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 2: this is where Karen and them come in. Vanessa and

544
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: them come in in twenty fourteen. But I've been fighting

545
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 2: them for years and you know, arguing, fighting, and they

546
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 2: came in and seeing that, well, what the hell is this?

547
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 4: And so the Innis Project took your case in twenty fourteen.

548
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 4: And how did you receive the news that the NISS

549
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 4: Project was taking your case, because that's got to be

550
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 4: a big day.

551
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big day. I received that through

552
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 2: Mendy Jeremount. She came up to see me and we

553
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 2: talked and she told me this is what's going on,

554
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 2: and me, I was pro se, so they wouldn't give

555
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 2: it to me, but I didn't want it to go nowhere.

556
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 2: So when she came up, she went and made sure

557
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 2: everything was we're supposed to be and sealed it up.

558
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 3: And that brings us to where we at right now today.

559
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 4: We know that at the Innocence Project, it does take

560
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 4: even after we take a case. It's not like there's

561
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 4: no magic, you know, like it's still a lot of work.

562
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 4: It's still hundreds thousands of hours of legal work. And

563
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 4: in your case, it took three years. Let's talk about

564
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 4: how this thing ended up because the justice system still

565
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 4: had one more one more way that they really wanted

566
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 4: to fuck you. Right and forgive my language, but I

567
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 4: can't think of another word that fits the situation. So yeah,

568
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 4: here it is three years go by, the innsis Project

569
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 4: is working on your case. You have now from going

570
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 4: from having some of the worst legal representation anybody's ever had,

571
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 4: now you have some of the best legal representation anybody's

572
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 4: ever had. So now you've got hope and the day

573
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 4: comes when finally the DNA is found, it's proven that

574
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 4: you're innocent. But the justice system's got one more trick

575
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 4: up at sleeve. Talk about that because you ultimately were

576
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 4: forced to take an alphad plea right, yes, and which

577
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 4: is not a common thing. I mean, people hear about

578
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 4: it on the show, but only six percent of cases

579
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 4: end up with alfhad please, so still too big of

580
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 4: a number. But it's not like it's an everyday thing.

581
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 4: It's reserved for very special circumstances. And the offer plea,

582
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 4: in a nutshell, allows the prosecutors to maintain their conviction,

583
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 4: if you want to call it that right to sort

584
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 4: of not admit that they were wrong, while you can

585
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 4: be freed. Right, that's the best part of it, and

586
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 4: you can go out there and say I'm innocent, But

587
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 4: in terms of the eyes of the law, it forces

588
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 4: you to plead guilty to a lesser crime in order

589
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 4: to be freed. Is that that's fair?

590
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, But what I believe is that in

591
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 2: this situation here, they dismissed the case, they gave me

592
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 2: the opportunity to plead under the Alpha doction.

593
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 3: But to me, it was like.

594
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 2: Rather than stay and can you to go through the nonsense,

595
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 2: because that's what it was all of them years. When

596
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 2: they knew they had to turn me loose, they wanted

597
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 2: to still keep a conviction that they know.

598
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 3: Doesn't even really exist.

599
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,239
Speaker 2: So they dismissed the rapes, they dismissed the robberies, and

600
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 2: they gave me a kidnap. They said, plead guilty to

601
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 2: a kidnap and we're gonna let you go home. What

602
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 2: type of fiction is that you've been in twenty nine

603
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 2: years for this? Were dismissing that right now, the twenty first,

604
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 2: all of that, but take kidnap and we're gonna let

605
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 2: you go home or else or else. You stay in

606
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 2: another fifteen years until we decide to think about doing something.

607
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 4: But the conviction had already been They.

608
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 3: Just dismissed it on the twenty first of November.

609
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 4: So they dismissed it only after you agreed to take

610
00:33:58,480 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 4: the offer.

611
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: Right, They dismissed everything, and then they told me this

612
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 2: is what it's going to be.

613
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 3: It was all dismissed.

614
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 4: Wait wait, wait, I don't think we're making it clear here.

615
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 4: So on November twenty First, what happened.

616
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 2: On November twenty First, I went in the courtroom and

617
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 2: it was a hearing. They said, well, in this hearing,

618
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 2: you know, they just talked about the case and we're

619
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 2: going to dismiss it today, but you're going to plead

620
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 2: under the alpha doctrine the kidnap, but the robberies and

621
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 2: the sexual assaults are dismissed.

622
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 3: Dismissed. Now we're going to put you to.

623
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 4: Plea because otherwise they're going to keep you.

624
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 2: Otherwise you're going to stay in until we decide ten

625
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 2: twenty more.

626
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 4: Years under the kidnapping charge.

627
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wasn't never no kidnap.

628
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 4: So the yeah, it's real.

629
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is that.

630
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 2: They put me to plea on a fiction, on something

631
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 2: that never happened.

632
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 3: First they dismissed all the.

633
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 2: Charges, and then a half an hour later they tell

634
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 2: me plead to kidnap and you can go home.

635
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 4: But if I'm listening to this at home, I'm saying

636
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 4: to myself, well, if they dismissed all the charges, there's nothing.

637
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 4: And by now the Interests Project had proven with science,

638
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 4: everybody was there that you weren't the guy. So it's

639
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 4: so it's so crazy like that they could just pull

640
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 4: this kidnap out of thin air. I don't even understand that.

641
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 3: I mean, either I do this for me neither. Wow,

642
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 3: But I'm here. But that's that's what it is, right now. Kidnap.

643
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: You got to kidnap.

644
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 2: You got a kidnap from I don't know where, but

645
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 2: we gave it to you, like we gave you the robbery,

646
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 2: we gave you to sex yourself, we gave you a warrant,

647
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 2: we gave you this.

648
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 3: Now we're going to give you a kidnap.

649
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 4: Right And this is a kidnapp when you say it's

650
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 4: a kidnapp that not only you weren't involved with, but

651
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 4: it's a kidnapp that never even happened.

652
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 2: The warrant never happened. This we prove never happened. The escape,

653
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: the first one never happened. You told me to leave,

654
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 2: the second one I did. But now here's got something

655
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: else that we're giving you.

656
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 4: Oh, was this an actual real kidnapping of a human

657
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 4: pers it's just to just pull them out of here.

658
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 4: We're just gonna charge you with can.

659
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 2: You give me a kidnap? You go home today? But

660
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 2: We're gonna give you a kidnap, so you got your state.

661
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: You still got a felony now, but it's kidnapped.

662
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 4: So did you kidnap the Lindburg baby or Patty Hurst?

663
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 3: I don't know who.

664
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 4: They don't even tell you.

665
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: I don't know who that was. Just that's the fiction.

666
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 3: That's the fiction.

667
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 2: And I'm here today because I truly believe fifty of something.

668
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 2: It's better than one hundred percent than nothing. And I

669
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 2: did not want to sit in jail another ten fifteen

670
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 2: years fight and when they already knew from day one

671
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: it's already proven now in two thousand, more than seventeen

672
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: prior to that has been proven within this in project.

673
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 2: Everything's clear, not just through DNA, but through everything, documents,

674
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 2: the evidence that everything, the victims of everything, it's already

675
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 2: been clear. But this is what we're gonna do. We

676
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 2: gave you everything else, We're going to give you this

677
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 2: to walk with that.

678
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 4: So and the practical effect to that is that you

679
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 4: now have to live with a conviction on your record.

680
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 4: You're convicted felling that never happened, and you have to

681
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 4: live with the stigma of having participated in the fictional

682
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 4: kidnapping of a fictional person that was made up by

683
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 4: somebody with a crazy, vindictive imagination. And the reason why

684
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 4: they want to do that is because it means.

685
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,439
Speaker 3: That you can't see would That's what they say.

686
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons. And that's

687
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 4: just another thing that's really so difficult to accept, the

688
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 4: idea that society owes you a huge debt and they

689
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 4: want to pull the rug out from under you instead

690
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 4: one more time and say we're not going to allow

691
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 4: you to sue. But good luck, you know, goodbye and

692
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 4: good luck or they don't even say that, but you

693
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Now, on the other hand, you

694
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 4: got a lot of life left to live, right, you

695
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 4: do have a beautiful family. You are able to just

696
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 4: carry on and you're here now. Actually it was your

697
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 4: beautiful wife. And that's an amazing story. Just switching subjects

698
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 4: for a second. So your story is actually a love story,

699
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 4: and it's remarkable in that I don't know if I've

700
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 4: ever heard of anything quite like it before, because you

701
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 4: were married when when this nightmare started, and you're still

702
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 4: married to the same person, yes, and you have grandchildren

703
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 4: now grandchildren, and your wife Gwendolyn who's here in the studio,

704
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 4: who looks a little like a rock star. She waited

705
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 4: for you the whole time you're in prison. Let's just

706
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 4: take a moment and think about that. I mean that

707
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 4: is that is an extraordinary person that would do that,

708
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 4: and what how much did that mean to you?

709
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 2: That meant the world to me because I wasn't looking

710
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 2: for that because I was in prison and I figured that,

711
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't want to see nobody suffered the

712
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: way I would have to suffer. And I think that that,

713
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 2: to me was a form of imprisonment. And I didn't

714
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 2: want her to feel that she had to stay with

715
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: me because I was confined. I wanted her to go

716
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 2: on with her life because I can understand. But she

717
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 2: chose to be there and to hold on with me,

718
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm grateful for that. And it was

719
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 2: only by the grace of God that it happened. And I,

720
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 2: you know, I respect that and our love her.

721
00:39:58,960 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 3: With all my heart.

722
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 4: That's beautiful. And tell me about your You have a daughter, yes, Cadija, Yeah,

723
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 4: and then she has two children.

724
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandson Trap he's fifteen to twenty second of

725
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 2: this month. February and my granddaughter Jule, she just turned

726
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: eight to seventeen for last month, their mother. She's an

727
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 2: amazing woman, that's my daughter.

728
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of her.

729
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 4: I see that, and that's really a blessing. You know

730
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 4: the fact that you had this support system while you

731
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 4: were inside, and I see when you talk about it,

732
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 4: obviously that was a part of your survival.

733
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 3: Really, yes, it was.

734
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 4: Obviously you have the support system with the NSIS Project,

735
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 4: and you have your family, which is great because many

736
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 4: many people who come out in your circumstance come out

737
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 4: to nobody and nothing. But still there's a lot that

738
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 4: you're going to need to really get to where you

739
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 4: deserve to be. People listening say I want to do

740
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 4: something for this guy. What could people do? How could

741
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 4: they help?

742
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,280
Speaker 2: Well, my organization is called to Help the Needy Foundation,

743
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 2: and that's something that I established from prison. You know,

744
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 2: it's to put people back on track. Our mission on

745
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 2: our model is to be peaceful, be respectful, enjoy yourself.

746
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 2: So it's just helping those in need, homeless, helping the

747
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 2: youth get back on track with vocational and educational training

748
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 2: to try to help them build their self esteem. You know,

749
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 2: it's just it helped me. I'm an example of that.

750
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 2: This is what got me and this is why I'm

751
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: who I am today. And you can email me at

752
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 2: Leroy Harris sixty at yahoo dot com.

753
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 3: That's my email address.

754
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 4: So Lee, right before we sign off, we have a

755
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 4: tradition here Wrong for Conviction, which is at the end

756
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 4: of the show, I like to turn the microphone and

757
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 4: let you share anything else that's on your mind that

758
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 4: you want to talk about, anything at all.

759
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:01,840
Speaker 2: Well, just you know, being here today is an honor

760
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 2: and just being out and back into the hustle and

761
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 2: bustle have an enormacy once again seeing life as I am,

762
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 2: knowing it to be family, friends unleashed. You know, it's amazing.

763
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 2: Ain't no better feeling after twenty nine years in a cage.

764
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 2: There's no better feeling than this. It gets no better

765
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 2: than this.

766
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you

767
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 4: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud

768
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 4: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll

769
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 4: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping

770
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project. Dot

771
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,359
Speaker 4: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd

772
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 4: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.

773
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 4: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR

774
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 4: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on

775
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 4: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.

776
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava

777
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 4: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one