Speaker 1: Joanne and Ron Parks lived with their three children, Ronald, Roanne,
Speaker 1: and Jessica, in a three bedroom rental house that had
Speaker 1: been converted from a garage on the back half of
Speaker 1: a piece of property in Bell, California. Joanne and Ron's
Speaker 1: bedroom had an exterior door. On the night of April
Speaker 1: nine nine, Ron was at work and Joanne had put
Speaker 1: the kids and herself to bed. Then just after midnight,
Speaker 1: Joanne woke to the piercing screams of her children and
Speaker 1: the flames of a fire that had suddenly engulfed her home.
Speaker 1: The fire drove Joanne from the house, looking for help
Speaker 1: that couldn't come soon enough to save the children. The
Speaker 1: fire was initially ruled to be accidental, and Joanne and
Speaker 1: Ron moved to St. Louis to try to rebuild their
Speaker 1: shattered lives. Over the course of the next four years,
Speaker 1: rumors and pressure mounted in Bell, California, urging authorities to
Speaker 1: answer somehow for this inexplicable and horrific tragedy, and investigators
Speaker 1: who had been trained in the old, totally unscientific methods
Speaker 1: of arson investigation would change their theory and blame Joanne
Speaker 1: for the deaths of her children. Since bass strides have
Speaker 1: been made in fire science and investigations, but none of
Speaker 1: that will ever make up for the twenty nine years
Speaker 1: Joanne spent in prison, and absolutely nothing will ever replace
Speaker 1: her children. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm your host. I want to introduce the two amazing
Speaker 1: women that we have on the show today. The first
Speaker 1: one Raquel Cohen. Raquel is an attorney with the California
Speaker 1: Innocence Project and she is a certified badass and I Raquel,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just really excited to have you here. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: And the woman of the hour, I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: have her in the free world and on the air
Speaker 1: with us now. A woman who has endured the most extraordinary,
Speaker 1: terrifying saga imaginable, and who stayed strong and it's here
Speaker 1: to tell about it is Joanne Parks. Joanne, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for what you went through, but I'm happy you're here.
Speaker 1: Me too, I'm happy to be here with both of you.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? Let's start with that. My
Speaker 1: mom brought me out to California at the age of three,
Speaker 1: and I grew up in Highland Park, California. Life was
Speaker 1: okay as a child that I didn't know anything different.
Speaker 1: I met my husband at the age of sixteen, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately you ended up moving to bell California. Right,
Speaker 1: you marry this guy. You three kids, Ronald, Roanne and Jessica,
Speaker 1: they're all a little, little little kids at the time
Speaker 1: of this awful tragedy. And we're talking, of course, about
Speaker 1: April nine nine. That's a long long time ago, and
Speaker 1: it hurts me to think about all those years lost
Speaker 1: in prison and also the tragedy that p value in
Speaker 1: your family. Joanne, this is obviously the worst nightmare that
Speaker 1: any mom, any parent can endure, but you lived it.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what that horrible night was like. I
Speaker 1: put my children down for the night. They had just
Speaker 1: finished watching a movie that they liked, Harry and and Henderson,
Speaker 1: and um Jessica took her for steps at night. We
Speaker 1: had just moved in. We had lived there about seven
Speaker 1: days before the fire happened, and I was unpacking a
Speaker 1: few boxes until I got sleepy and I went to sleep,
Speaker 1: and around midnight I heard this blood curling scream from
Speaker 1: my son, and when I opened up the bedroom door,
Speaker 1: there was nothing but fire and smoke. So I ran
Speaker 1: out to the front house and was knocking on the
Speaker 1: door for help, and I went in with the the neighbor,
Speaker 1: Shirley Robinson, and we called nine one one and her
Speaker 1: husband went out to try to get in the house
Speaker 1: to get the kids, and there wasn't no success. They
Speaker 1: put me in Ms. Robinson across the street and they
Speaker 1: had a sitting on a curb at first, and I
Speaker 1: kept asking for my kids, and they kept telling me
Speaker 1: it was gonna be okay. It was gonna be okay,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be okay. And I believe them. I believe
Speaker 1: that everything was gonna be okay. But part of me,
Speaker 1: deep down, and because I didn't see anybody come out,
Speaker 1: I knew that wasn't going to be okay. And I
Speaker 1: found out later they thought my son had gotten out
Speaker 1: because they couldn't find him. So they were asking for
Speaker 1: a diagram of the house where they were sleeping, and
Speaker 1: they said they were searching the neighborhood front and come
Speaker 1: to find out that he went into the closet t high.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's basically what happened that night. It's incomprehensible, um,
Speaker 1: all of it. And Raquel, I mean, this is where
Speaker 1: I got to turn to you and say, how did
Speaker 1: it go so far wrong? I mean, yeah, how I
Speaker 1: asked myself that all the time. So back in when
Speaker 1: her house went up in flames, fire investigation really wasn't
Speaker 1: anything scientific. There was no findings. Fire investigators at the
Speaker 1: time were trained by their superior so if their superiors
Speaker 1: were training them wrong, they were investigating fires wrong, and
Speaker 1: they were very opinionated without anything to support it. The
Speaker 1: investigators originally came into the house, looked around and said
Speaker 1: that it was an accident, just a bad tragedy, and
Speaker 1: then as time went on, they changed their opinion. They
Speaker 1: had the same evidence, same physical evidence, same burn patterns,
Speaker 1: same cords, same information, except they started getting some outside
Speaker 1: information that led them to believe that Joanne was a monster,
Speaker 1: that she started these fires for whatever reason. They believed
Speaker 1: it was financial gain because she didn't want her children,
Speaker 1: which is absurd. I mean, if you look back at
Speaker 1: her probation officers report, and you look at the people
Speaker 1: who testified for her, she was a very loving mother.
Speaker 1: The investigator learned that she had a fire in her
Speaker 1: house prior to the nineteen fire, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they believed somewhere that they had this obligation to solve
Speaker 1: this fire and make it a crime so that a
Speaker 1: community had answers. So they had tunnel vision and they
Speaker 1: went in and they looked at this evidence at the time,
Speaker 1: and they said, the only explanation is that the person
Speaker 1: who was home Joanne, started two separate fires, locked one
Speaker 1: of her children in a closet, and then left the house.
Speaker 1: Today we know that's not true. And my biggest problem
Speaker 1: with this case is knowing that the science does not
Speaker 1: support that conclusion. What is their goal? Now that's a
Speaker 1: question that keeps me up at night. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: just illegal, it's a moral failing across the board. And
Speaker 1: in many ways the law can be the enemy of science.
Speaker 1: But it's really true in Arson cases because for the
Speaker 1: longest time, it was all just myth and superstition, and
Speaker 1: and you know, I got a feeling and somebody told
Speaker 1: me once that if glasses cracked a certain way, or
Speaker 1: there's a certain chipping pattern on the concrete, or if
Speaker 1: there's an ali gator pattern on the wall, it's an
Speaker 1: indication of an accelerant, and this and that, and none
Speaker 1: of this was ever ever rooted in science. In fact,
Speaker 1: many of these people that claimed to be science experts
Speaker 1: have a high school diploma if that, and they may
Speaker 1: have trained for forty hours to become a quote unquote expert,
Speaker 1: and yet they're allowed to testify at trials. So, Joanne,
Speaker 1: you've now lost everything um and gone through something that
Speaker 1: it's unspeakable, is unimaginable for anyone, and then things inexplicably
Speaker 1: somehow managed to still get worse. When did you realize
Speaker 1: that they were actually suspecting that you had set this fire?
Speaker 1: And when did you get arrested? And what was that like?
Speaker 1: I didn't know that they suspected me of the fire.
Speaker 1: They had questioned us, I even had I think it
Speaker 1: was Leicester Fizelle tell me that the fire was accidental,
Speaker 1: So I never thought in a million years I was
Speaker 1: going to be arrested. I went on with my life
Speaker 1: the best that I could. I was working in the
Speaker 1: nursing field as a nurse's aid. My husband moved us
Speaker 1: from here to St. Louis because he wanted to be
Speaker 1: closer to his family. So all of a sudden. One day,
Speaker 1: I was told that there was some officers downstairs, and
Speaker 1: I told him to send them up. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what they were there for. And they came up. I
Speaker 1: went in the hallway to meet them, and they arrested me.
Speaker 1: They couldn't understand what was going on. I couldn't comprehend,
Speaker 1: and then they extradited me back out here to California,
Speaker 1: and um we went to trial. My attorney told me
Speaker 1: to sit in court and look straight ahead, don't make
Speaker 1: no eye contact with the jury, don't make no eye
Speaker 1: contact with the witnesses. Just sit forward and keep quiet.
Speaker 1: And I did because I didn't know anything different. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that sitting like that or acting like that
Speaker 1: was gonna be bad for me and show that I
Speaker 1: had no feelings that I didn't care. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: always an aspect of this stuff that is so shameful.
Speaker 1: When people say that a grieving mother or someone who
Speaker 1: has just experienced trauma like that is acting too upset
Speaker 1: or not upset enough, or you know, it's too stoic,
Speaker 1: or is do that. It's like, just shut the funk up.
Speaker 1: Nobody can tell anyone how they're supposed to act and
Speaker 1: no one knows how you're going to act, or anyone's
Speaker 1: gonna act if they go through something so extreme. But
Speaker 1: this is now four years after the fire. Raquel what
Speaker 1: happened at the trial. I've read these transcripts a few times.
Speaker 1: It's about six thousand pages. The big thing that convicted
Speaker 1: her was her child was in the closet. So they
Speaker 1: spent an enormous amount of time on whether the door
Speaker 1: was open unclosed, And the prosecution's theory was that the
Speaker 1: closet door where Monald was found was not only closed,
Speaker 1: but that it was barricaded with a close hamper and
Speaker 1: a pet dish. And they did this entire reconstruction of
Speaker 1: the area. They brought in like the actual door and
Speaker 1: this hamper that they found, which by the way, wasn't
Speaker 1: even in the room. It had been thrown out and overhaul.
Speaker 1: It was found somewhere outside. And they cleaned the carpet
Speaker 1: in front of their and they made this like pattern
Speaker 1: that didn't exist until they cleaned the carpet, and they
Speaker 1: put all these puzzle pieces together and they were like,
Speaker 1: we got it. The door was barricaded with a close hamper.
Speaker 1: By the way, Ronnie was four, My kids are now
Speaker 1: five and eight. A four year old can open a
Speaker 1: door with a close hamper in front of it, so
Speaker 1: I already think that's bullshit. Nevertheless, they focused on that.
Speaker 1: Then you have the two areas of origin. The prosecution
Speaker 1: came in and said that there was two areas of origin,
Speaker 1: which is oftentimes an indicator of an arsen the first
Speaker 1: area being in the front living room under the north window,
Speaker 1: and the second being in the girl's room. The defence
Speaker 1: came in and said, you can't say that because this
Speaker 1: house had flashed over, or specifically the girl's bedroom had
Speaker 1: flashed over, and that pattern is more consistent with flashover.
Speaker 1: And the prosecution came in and was like, flashover didn't happen.
Speaker 1: There's no way it happened. Don't listen to this guy.
Speaker 1: They mocked the defense experts saying, oh man, all he's
Speaker 1: so concerned with flashover, flash over, flashover. You can't trust anything,
Speaker 1: he says, he's trying to confuse you with this concept
Speaker 1: of flash over. Well, fast forward twenty years and sure ship,
Speaker 1: the house flashed over. Can you explain flash over real quick?
Speaker 1: So when you have a fire in a house, let's
Speaker 1: say it starts on a chair, in the corner. What's
Speaker 1: gonna happen is all the smoke is going to go up,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be like an upside down bathtub.
Speaker 1: The smoke is going to fill up from the top down.
Speaker 1: But the smoke gets so hot that it ignites everything
Speaker 1: in the room, and so it becomes from a fire
Speaker 1: in a room to a room on fire, and it's
Speaker 1: an instant thing where everything that's combustible just ignites at
Speaker 1: the same time. If you put that fire out before
Speaker 1: it flashes over, it's going to be very obvious where
Speaker 1: the fire started. Those are simple fires, and I think
Speaker 1: that fire investigators are very good at figuring that out.
Speaker 1: But once it goes to flashover, patterns are being made
Speaker 1: that look like origin patterns. Ventilation coming in in the
Speaker 1: house or causing patterns to either be skewed, destroyed, or created.
Speaker 1: And so now that's when your fire investigation becomes non scientific.
Speaker 1: The defense expert at the trial also brought up the
Speaker 1: fact that there was at zena television that brand had
Speaker 1: been known to start fires, but the problem with investigating
Speaker 1: that television set was at the prosecution threw it out
Speaker 1: when they were investigating the fire to begin with, and
Speaker 1: so no one was able to analyze that television. So
Speaker 1: today we argue, where we have research that this television,
Speaker 1: this zenith has been known to start a bunch of
Speaker 1: fires during all these years. It was introduced at trial
Speaker 1: because they threw the television set out, We'll never know.
Speaker 1: And so even though the defense expert was on the
Speaker 1: right track, he was ahead of his time in the field,
Speaker 1: but he just didn't present it well and he was
Speaker 1: up against a prosecution that was determined and successful at
Speaker 1: just destroying his credibility when it came to explaining that
Speaker 1: second area of origin. So and when the jury went out,
Speaker 1: do you remember thinking that they were finally going to
Speaker 1: see that you were a victim, not a monster. I
Speaker 1: was hoping that's what they were going to see. I
Speaker 1: was hoping that they were going to come back and
Speaker 1: say not guilty. Then my attorney had came to me
Speaker 1: with a deal life without the possibility of pearl. I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. I'm not taking that deal. And the
Speaker 1: jury came back with a guilty verdict, came back with
Speaker 1: guilty verdic in that astard, I was going through another
Speaker 1: trial to determine whether I was going to get since
Speaker 1: to death life without possibility of parole. This episode is
Speaker 1: underwritten by the A i G pro Bono Program. A
Speaker 1: i G is a leading global insurance company, and for
Speaker 1: over a decade, the a i G pro Bono Program
Speaker 1: has provided thousands of hours of free legal services and
Speaker 1: other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need.
Speaker 1: More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform
Speaker 1: as a key pillar of its mission. This episode is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Stand Together. Stand Together is a
Speaker 1: philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For
Speaker 1: more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have
Speaker 1: been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By
Speaker 1: empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses.
Speaker 1: Stand Together tackles the root cause there's the problems in
Speaker 1: our communities and empowers those closest to the problems to
Speaker 1: drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the
Speaker 1: First Step Act, empowering community based programs and help people
Speaker 1: re enter society, and now working to bridge divides in
Speaker 1: our communities. To learn how you may get involved, visit
Speaker 1: stand together dot org slash conviction. Ultimately, we know that
Speaker 1: they did send you to life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1: I was twenty seven years old. I've never been arrested
Speaker 1: before for anything. You go in there and I've been
Speaker 1: all over the news, and the first thing you're told
Speaker 1: is don't talk about your case because child cases are
Speaker 1: strongly frowned upon and things happened to you when you're
Speaker 1: in prison or have in those type of cases. After
Speaker 1: I got to prison, I got a letter from Mr Lowe,
Speaker 1: who was the investigator on my case, and he told
Speaker 1: me that I should have never gotten found guilty and
Speaker 1: that when my appeal was over with, if I God
Speaker 1: denied to get in contact with him and dal Winners
Speaker 1: because they weren't going to leave me in prison for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. And so I think it
Speaker 1: was in like nineties six or something my appeal was
Speaker 1: denied and I reached out two Mr Lowe and he
Speaker 1: investigated my case. He dug into my background, dug into
Speaker 1: my husband, Ron's background. He did everything he could do
Speaker 1: to help me. Him and his daughter, Mary Roth. I
Speaker 1: was in contact with her a lot by phone, and
Speaker 1: she was like, write the Innocent Project, and so I did,
Speaker 1: and they finally took my case on. But prisons hard.
Speaker 1: I was called baby killer. I had it written across
Speaker 1: my sheets. It was really hard until my best friend
Speaker 1: came into my life, didn't sugar more. She taught me
Speaker 1: that I was worth loving and I was worth fighting for,
Speaker 1: and that my kids didn't join me, We're not saving them,
Speaker 1: and that I needed to fight for them and honor
Speaker 1: them and don't let prison me the last place I'd be.
Speaker 1: From that point on, every advantage that prison gave I
Speaker 1: jumped on. I got my a A in arts and humanities.
Speaker 1: I got different trades so that if I ever was
Speaker 1: to be released, I could be able to get a job.
Speaker 1: I did everything I possibly could to turn around a
Speaker 1: negative into a positive experience for myself and honor of
Speaker 1: my children. Wow, that's powerful. I mean she she was
Speaker 1: almost like a guardian angel, I guess. And she wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one, of course, the one who's on the
Speaker 1: air with us right now. Raquel, when did you get
Speaker 1: involved in the case, And then obviously this became sort
Speaker 1: of your driving passion, right I know how you feel
Speaker 1: about joe Anne about this case. Oh yeah, Joe Anne's
Speaker 1: the person for me. I owe her so much in
Speaker 1: so many ways. I believe Joanne first wrote the California
Speaker 1: Innocence Project in two thousand two. I was still in
Speaker 1: college then. At that point, not only did c i
Speaker 1: P not have the resources, the changes in the science
Speaker 1: just weren't quite there yet. There was ways to help her,
Speaker 1: but it didn't have legs yet. And then in two
Speaker 1: thousands seven in I was actually a clinical intern in
Speaker 1: the California Innocence Project. When her case came back, it
Speaker 1: wasn't actually assigned to me, It was assigned to one
Speaker 1: of my fellow students who began working on it, and
Speaker 1: his name is Matt Benninger. He actually reached out to
Speaker 1: John Lentini, who had started the Artson Review Panel and
Speaker 1: had Joe Anne's case submitted to him for review. And
Speaker 1: John Lentini, you know, we did an episode of the
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Junk Science podcast in which Josh Dubin and
Speaker 1: Barry Scheck discussed the John Lantine origin story. And John
Speaker 1: was a prosecution expert in a case in Florida where
Speaker 1: he went in to confirm that the fire that had
Speaker 1: burned down and someone had been killed was intentionally set
Speaker 1: and it just so happened at a stroke of luck
Speaker 1: that was a house next door that was the exact
Speaker 1: same construction, and he had this idea, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we just put the same front because it was abandoned
Speaker 1: more empty at the time. So he had this idea
Speaker 1: that they would recreate the exact same furniture and everything
Speaker 1: else in the other house. And I think they left
Speaker 1: a cigarette on the chair, a couch or something. The
Speaker 1: house burned down, they examined it and it was actually
Speaker 1: the same as the house next door, and at that
Speaker 1: point he realized that this was not an arson fire,
Speaker 1: that this was an accidental fire. And in study after study,
Speaker 1: it's been proved again and again that this arson quote
Speaker 1: unquote science is absolute horseshit. And Cameron Todd Willingham is
Speaker 1: a focus of that episode as well, who was executed
Speaker 1: by the State of Texas for a very similar situation
Speaker 1: to Joann's where he lost his three kids and of
Speaker 1: course was just as innocent as she is. And so
Speaker 1: rest in peace, Cameron Todd Willingham. So back to this,
Speaker 1: So I became a staff attorney at the California Innison's
Speaker 1: Project in two thousand and eleven, and around that time,
Speaker 1: maybe then in two thousand and twelve, I began supervising
Speaker 1: the students who were responsible for Joanne's case and to
Speaker 1: be the best advocate I can be for Joanne. I
Speaker 1: have immersed myself in the fire investigation field. I've pretty
Speaker 1: much pushed my way into their conferences. I now trained
Speaker 1: their fire investigators on how to properly write reports and
Speaker 1: come to proper scientifically sound conclusions if they can. And
Speaker 1: it has been another driving force in passion because I
Speaker 1: never want this to happen to somebody else. Her case, though,
Speaker 1: was a false scientific evidence case, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, the California Supreme Court made a ruling that
Speaker 1: pretty much precluded Joanne for bringing her case to court.
Speaker 1: They said experts can't have false opinions. That was based
Speaker 1: on the Bill Richards case, a bite market case which
Speaker 1: we all know we're bite mark evidence stands. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen our office we had the false scientific
Speaker 1: evidence law changed so that experts can have false opinions.
Speaker 1: And it was that same year that I filed her case.
Speaker 1: I filed it in the Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming
Speaker 1: that the experts at trial falsely testified flashover had not occurred.
Speaker 1: And that was very important because based on the research
Speaker 1: that we know today, that changes the entire investigation. So
Speaker 1: we're up to two thousand seventeen. Now, how did we
Speaker 1: get to the present? What happened between two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: and two thousand twenty one. So we filed the case
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen and we got a hearing. So
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen rolls around. But what happened was I thought,
Speaker 1: slam dunk, we're going to get a deal. Joe EN's
Speaker 1: gonna walk home because they admit flashover happened. So based
Speaker 1: on all of this research, they have to admit that
Speaker 1: this case doesn't hold water, right, And instead they said, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to bring in some pattern experts and we're
Speaker 1: going to show that you can still have the same findings.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was working with Paul Bieber, who
Speaker 1: was a big advocate for the defense and moving this
Speaker 1: science forward, and he said, you need Gregory Orbit on
Speaker 1: your team, and they just want a case in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: the Robert L case with the same issues as Joanne's.
Speaker 1: I reached out to greg and he took a look
Speaker 1: at the case and he became our star witness to
Speaker 1: testify to show that the burn patterns were shipped science
Speaker 1: and that there's nothing to support the prosecution theory. I
Speaker 1: thought we were gonna win. I thought the judge could
Speaker 1: see through the prosecution experts bullshit. The prosecution's expert, Brian Hoback,
Speaker 1: testified at the evidentiary hearing that the way he was
Speaker 1: able to differentiate the pattern from an origin and ventilation
Speaker 1: driven pattern was because he looked very closely. I don't understand,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, at the end of the hearing, ninety plus
Speaker 1: days we got the written decision and the Superior Court said, yes,
Speaker 1: false evidence was introduced at her trial, not flashover, but
Speaker 1: it was immaterial because this case comes down to a
Speaker 1: battle of the experts. At the trial, it was a
Speaker 1: battle of the experts, and here it's the battle of
Speaker 1: the experts. And I got that. I was sitting at
Speaker 1: a dinner table with other attorneys from the California Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: Justin Brooks, Alex Simpson, UM, I think, Audrey m Again,
Speaker 1: Elissa Bericle, We're all sitting there. The decision came down
Speaker 1: and I just broke down and I left, and I
Speaker 1: you that I had to tell Joanne and UM it
Speaker 1: was pretty much a horrible, horrible day. Her case is
Speaker 1: not over. We're currently still litigating the case. Even if
Speaker 1: we lose now and I hope the prosecution team is listening.
Speaker 1: We're going to change the lot and we're going to refile.
Speaker 1: We will get her convictional returned one day. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: we had to find another way to bring Joanne home,
Speaker 1: and fortunately we did the California Insis Project. Justin Brooks,
Speaker 1: the Fearless Leader. He marched twelve miles right from San
Speaker 1: Diego to Sacramento with a squad to deliver these clemency
Speaker 1: petitions to Governor Brown. Of course, that still wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: The good news is that Governor Knews granted Joyanne clemency
Speaker 1: and commuted her life without parole term to be eligible
Speaker 1: for parole immediately. But like you said, we're never going
Speaker 1: to stop fighting for you, Joanne, because this this is
Speaker 1: not going to stand. But the good news is your home.
Speaker 1: You're free. And I want to know what that was
Speaker 1: like when you found out about the governor finally taking action. Well,
Speaker 1: we had just went on lockdown because of COVID, and
Speaker 1: we had been on lockdown for about a week, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden I called to the cop shop
Speaker 1: and they're like, Lieutenant Norman wants to see you. And
Speaker 1: he calls me in and he says, I'm acting captain today,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay. He's like, I just got a
Speaker 1: call from the Governor's office. You've been commuted to twice
Speaker 1: seven life. My instinct was to hug him because he
Speaker 1: gave me the best news ever. But you can't because
Speaker 1: he's an officer. So now I've got six months to
Speaker 1: get prepared to go in front of the board to
Speaker 1: find out if I can be found suitable to go home.
Speaker 1: You have to get your support letters in a relapse
Speaker 1: prevention plan, you have to get a program that's willing
Speaker 1: to accept you. Even though I didn't show my kids
Speaker 1: and I didn't start that fire, i still had to
Speaker 1: show them that I've grown, I'm different, and I got
Speaker 1: to come home. And I'm so grateful to Retell for
Speaker 1: never giving up, for the fight, for Justin, for Alex,
Speaker 1: for my for Listen, for everyone, for you, everybody. That's
Speaker 1: the support I have. I can't even it's just beyond words, Mary, Carol,
Speaker 1: my whole new family, everything I have. I'm just so
Speaker 1: so blessed and I'm so so grateful. I came out
Speaker 1: better than going in. Wow, that's a hell of a statement. Um, Raquel,
Speaker 1: what was it like for you the day she got out?
Speaker 1: And what happens now? Oh man? Okay, So when she
Speaker 1: came out that night, just driving up, they drove up
Speaker 1: there by myself because of COVID, and I stood there
Speaker 1: and she came out and she just looked so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and we both just started crying. And I finally got
Speaker 1: to hug her because we're not allowed to hug and
Speaker 1: when we go down to visits, and we just cried
Speaker 1: and hugged and it was better than I've ever even imagined.
Speaker 1: It was just so great to get her and drive
Speaker 1: her out of there, flip off the prison on the
Speaker 1: way out, and does get just get her, get her going.
Speaker 1: And her transition has been beautiful. She is confident and
Speaker 1: comfortable and um just doing really great and I just
Speaker 1: really love watching her enjoy her new freedom. All I
Speaker 1: can say, Joanne is you are an inspiration. I want
Speaker 1: to apologize to you for what happened on behalf of
Speaker 1: the entire human race, but you're here now and that's
Speaker 1: what matters. And now this is a part of the
Speaker 1: show that I call closing arguments, and here's how it works. Basically,
Speaker 1: I just think both of you again with Calicohen California
Speaker 1: Instance Project staff attorney Joanne Parks ex Honoree. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call you what it is, superhero, and then I turned
Speaker 1: my mike off, kick back in my chair, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna turn it over to Raquel. She's gonna say whatever
Speaker 1: she wants, and then she's going to hand the mike
Speaker 1: to you, and you can close out the episode without
Speaker 1: for there ado closing arguments. Quel Cohen, thank you so much. Jason.
Speaker 1: I've been dreaming to be on this podcast and dying
Speaker 1: because I knew the moment I was allowed to be
Speaker 1: on this podcast, Joan would be free. So being here
Speaker 1: is very unreal for me. But I thought a lot
Speaker 1: about what to say, and so here we go. We know,
Speaker 1: and I know your listeners know that our prison system
Speaker 1: is overwhelmed and overpopulated period um. We also know that
Speaker 1: that population involves way too many innocent people. We also
Speaker 1: know that the leading cause of these wrongful convictions, at
Speaker 1: least one of the leading causes, is bad forensic sciences,
Speaker 1: just junk sciences. And this is because experts have a
Speaker 1: very powerful presence in court. Juries want to believe them
Speaker 1: because they have impressive experience and their resume, and they've
Speaker 1: devoted their careers to these subject matters. Science and the
Speaker 1: law do not match. The law is always looking backward
Speaker 1: and looking at precedent. What did we do before, and
Speaker 1: what if it's working, Let's keep doing it while science
Speaker 1: keeps moving forward. Let's make it better, let's understand it better.
Speaker 1: And the two don't come together. But there are legislative changes,
Speaker 1: especially one here in California SP to forty three, where
Speaker 1: we are going to start holding experts to a higher standard.
Speaker 1: We're going to start to have experts testify based on
Speaker 1: the research and data to support their conclusions. And the
Speaker 1: days of because I said so, and because I have
Speaker 1: this expertise and because I look twice are over. I
Speaker 1: want to take this moment, though, specifically to talk to
Speaker 1: the fire investigation community. If you're listening, please listen and
Speaker 1: listen closely. I've immersed myself in your community so that
Speaker 1: I can be the best advocate for Joanne and any
Speaker 1: others in her situation. I want to continue to be
Speaker 1: part of your community so that we can work together
Speaker 1: and make it stronger to the fire investigators who are
Speaker 1: moving the field forward, who are doing the research, who
Speaker 1: are collecting the data. I see you. I love working
Speaker 1: with you, and let's keep doing going it. Keep moving
Speaker 1: this field so that it becomes scientifically sound. Keep testifying
Speaker 1: based on the research and data, even if you're getting
Speaker 1: pushed back from the old believers because of you, because
Speaker 1: you testify, because you do the research, and because you
Speaker 1: question what you believe. Now over seventy people with ors
Speaker 1: and charges have been exonerated in our nation. But to
Speaker 1: the fire investigators who are resistant to the change, to
Speaker 1: the ones who continue to overstate their abilities and their opinions,
Speaker 1: to the ones who come to conclusions that have no
Speaker 1: scientific evidence or support. I know it's hard. I know
Speaker 1: change is hard, and I know it's hard to admit
Speaker 1: that you have been wrong. But your words and your
Speaker 1: opinions hold a lot of weight. You have actual people's
Speaker 1: lives in your hands. So if you wouldn't be comfortable
Speaker 1: using your own methodologies on a fire that happened in
Speaker 1: your house, please stop doing it to others. Your gut
Speaker 1: and your feelings and your biases have no place in
Speaker 1: the courtroom, and you should know better. Either way, your
Speaker 1: days of testifying are coming to an end and are
Speaker 1: very limited. The law is going to change and you
Speaker 1: will be required for your opinions to be supported by
Speaker 1: the data in research, and until then, I hope to
Speaker 1: see you in court to hold you to that standard.
Speaker 1: And finally, to joe An my heart, thank you for
Speaker 1: putting your trust in c I, P and me. I
Speaker 1: know trusting lawyers or the law or anything to do
Speaker 1: in a courtroom is nearly impossible for you, but we've
Speaker 1: been through a lot together. I love you. I will
Speaker 1: always fight for you, and one day we will prove
Speaker 1: your innocence and silence the disbelievers. Jason, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having us. I really hope her story gets told,
Speaker 1: and I really hope that we don't have to be
Speaker 1: here again talking about another case like this thirty years
Speaker 1: down the road. Amen, and over to you Joan, Thank
Speaker 1: you Jason Um for giving me this opportunity, for telling
Speaker 1: my story in hopes that it will help somebody else
Speaker 1: down the road. To all my attorneys, especially with cow,
Speaker 1: I love you. You've become a dear, dear friend of mine.
Speaker 1: But these investigators who investigate these fires need to stick
Speaker 1: to the data and the science instead of what they think,
Speaker 1: because they're ruining people's lives. They're setting people to prison
Speaker 1: for crimes that they didn't even commit, for fires they
Speaker 1: didn't even start. Nobody should have to sit in prison
Speaker 1: for twenty nine years for something that they didn't even do,
Speaker 1: for a fire they didn't even start. So let's not
Speaker 1: continue the practices that you used on my case on
Speaker 1: all the other cases that are out there. Let's put
Speaker 1: it into it. Thank you for the opportunity for being heard.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show, as always,
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Speaker 1: Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one