WEBVTT - #590 Jason Flom with Jens Soering 0:00:04.930 --> 0:00:09.120 This is Jason Flom with an update on Jens Ziering's case. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.799 In 1990, Jens and his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, were convicted 0:00:12.820 --> 0:00:15.900 of murdering her parents in their Bedford County, Virginia home. 0:00:16.739 --> 0:00:20.390 After 33 years, four months, and seven days in prison, 0:00:21.070 --> 0:00:24.790 Jens was finally paroled and deported back to Germany in 2019. 0:00:24.790 --> 0:00:30.700 On February 17th of this year, Jens' legal team filed 0:00:30.820 --> 0:00:35.240 a new actual innocence petition citing DNA analysis that they 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:40.820 say excludes him and identifies two unknown male profiles. 0:00:41.500 --> 0:00:42.980 The petition also. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.169 Includes information from the victim's granddaughter, Sheena Hasem, and has 0:00:47.250 --> 0:00:52.010 raised questions about other family members and inconsistencies in the case. 0:00:53.310 --> 0:00:58.510 The DNA tests are reliable. It's not Jens Ziering. It 0:00:58.590 --> 0:01:01.730 is most likely two other people, one with blood group O, 0:01:02.110 --> 0:01:05.149 one with blood group AB. And now comes Sheena Hasen 0:01:05.730 --> 0:01:10.950 and does the familial DNA. And that shows that her 0:01:11.350 --> 0:01:17.030 male relatives cannot be excluded. So the jury hears Yen 0:01:17.050 --> 0:01:25.530 Tsering is excluded, but Sheena's male relatives cannot be excluded. 0:01:25.550 --> 0:01:29.130 That doesn't mean they did it. The question is only, 0:01:29.170 --> 0:01:32.550 the legal question is, if a jury were to hear 0:01:32.750 --> 0:01:36.170 all of this, would that not lead to a reasonable doubt? 0:01:37.410 --> 0:01:41.090 On August 6th, the court ordered the Attorney General to respond. 0:01:41.830 --> 0:01:45.289 What that response could mean for Jens' four-decade-long fight to 0:01:45.330 --> 0:01:45.970 clear his name? 0:01:46.610 --> 0:01:50.310 Well, that remains to be seen, but we remain hopeful. 0:01:52.090 --> 0:01:56.200 I'm looking forward to the process as it unfolds in 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.660 the coming months. And I'm hopeful that my case get 0:02:00.780 --> 0:02:06.140 the consideration it deserves after actually now 40 years since 0:02:06.180 --> 0:02:10.450 my arrest and 41 years since the crime. I think 0:02:10.490 --> 0:02:14.489 this is now actually my best chance yet of getting justice. 0:02:15.270 --> 0:02:18.150 And I'm really excited about that. And I'm thankful to 0:02:18.250 --> 0:02:20.790 Sheena Hasem, who's had a lot of courage to go 0:02:20.850 --> 0:02:24.370 public with this. And I'm thankful to Elliot Harding, my 0:02:24.410 --> 0:02:26.570 new attorney, and all the other people who've supported me 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.970 For ages. I'm grateful to all of these people for 0:02:30.990 --> 0:02:31.329 helping me. 0:02:31.340 --> 0:02:42.470 Hello. 0:02:42.870 --> 0:02:46.590 This is a prepaid debit call from... Yes, Zerling. 0:02:47.770 --> 0:02:51.769 An inmate at Virginia Department of Corrections, Buckingham Correctional. 0:02:52.770 --> 0:02:56.959 To accept this call, press zero. To refuse this call... 0:02:57.500 --> 0:02:58.480 This call is from. 0:02:58.380 --> 0:03:01.900 A correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:04.440 Thank you for using GTL. 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.160 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. 0:03:08.380 --> 0:03:09.520 That's me. I'm your host. 0:03:09.740 --> 0:03:13.700 And today we have an episode that is going to 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.570 rock your world. We have three guests today. I'm going 0:03:18.590 --> 0:03:20.970 to save the best for last. But we have John 0:03:21.010 --> 0:03:22.930 Grisham in the studio with us. John, welcome. 0:03:23.350 --> 0:03:24.089 Delighted to be here. 0:03:24.610 --> 0:03:26.950 And Sheriff Chip Harding of Albemarle County. 0:03:27.260 --> 0:03:27.579 Yes, sir. 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.120 Good to be here. Virginia. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.420 And on the phone is Jens Soering, one of the 0:03:32.500 --> 0:03:36.300 most remarkable people I know, and one of the most 0:03:36.420 --> 0:03:40.680 extraordinary cases of injustice that we've ever covered on this show. 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.410 So Jens, as I always say, I'm happy you're here, 0:03:44.430 --> 0:03:45.270 but I'm sorry you're here. 0:03:45.290 --> 0:03:49.790 Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this, Jason. 0:03:49.950 --> 0:03:51.790 And thanks to Chip and John as well. 0:03:52.550 --> 0:03:55.840 So this is a A case that takes us back 0:03:55.900 --> 0:03:59.660 to the 80s, believe it or not. A case that 0:03:59.740 --> 0:04:03.380 has all the makings of a John Grisham novel, actually. 0:04:04.710 --> 0:04:08.350 Because this goes back to Jens, when you were first 0:04:09.570 --> 0:04:12.790 an exchange student from Germany, a brilliant young scholar from 0:04:12.850 --> 0:04:15.690 everything I'm told. This is a Jefferson scholar, a freshman 0:04:15.790 --> 0:04:18.590 at the University of Virginia. Jens, do you want to 0:04:18.630 --> 0:04:22.130 take us back there and tell us how this started? 0:04:25.380 --> 0:04:30.650 Sure. This was in 1984, in the fall. I arrived 0:04:30.810 --> 0:04:34.150 at the University of Virginia as a freshman. They called 0:04:34.190 --> 0:04:39.050 first-year students there. And I met a young woman there 0:04:39.450 --> 0:04:41.570 who was two and a half years older than I was, 0:04:41.589 --> 0:04:47.550 Elizabeth Hayson. And we were both in the same dormitory. 0:04:47.570 --> 0:04:50.670 She had entered the university late because she had had 0:04:50.730 --> 0:04:56.170 an adventurous... youth. She had gone to an English boarding 0:04:56.190 --> 0:04:59.120 school and run away with her girlfriend to Europe, things 0:04:59.140 --> 0:05:03.560 like that. And so she came to UVA quite a 0:05:03.580 --> 0:05:05.480 bit older than the rest of us in that dormitory. 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.339 And I was. 0:05:09.540 --> 0:05:12.950 Not an American citizen. My father was a German diplomat. 0:05:13.570 --> 0:05:15.890 That's why I was living in the United States. And 0:05:16.630 --> 0:05:21.510 her family came from South Africa and from Canada. So 0:05:21.970 --> 0:05:28.750 we were drawn to each other as being foreigners, you know, 0:05:28.870 --> 0:05:32.890 not Americans. And in the course of that fall semester 0:05:32.910 --> 0:05:39.080 in 1984, we fell in love. And, you know, it 0:05:39.100 --> 0:05:41.500 was quite a surprise to everybody else in the dormitory 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:47.099 because she was very experienced and very mature. And I was, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.659 I guess, a nerd, an uber-nerd. 0:05:51.430 --> 0:05:52.650 And virgin to boot. 0:05:52.950 --> 0:05:54.450 So she was my very first girlfriend. 0:05:55.029 --> 0:05:58.700 You're a German Uber version nerd. It's quite a combination, Jens. 0:05:58.779 --> 0:06:01.839 And she was a beautiful young woman, a striking woman, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.640 who anyone in your situation would have probably fallen head 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.440 over heels for, considering the circumstances. But it was, of course, 0:06:09.460 --> 0:06:11.860 a fateful, star-crossed love affair. 0:06:12.500 --> 0:06:15.950 Yes, and it was a very short-lived love affair as well. 0:06:16.830 --> 0:06:19.870 Three months after we started dating, or maybe four months, 0:06:20.390 --> 0:06:23.190 We went to Washington, D.C. to spend a weekend together, 0:06:23.610 --> 0:06:27.630 and in the course of that weekend, she told me 0:06:27.670 --> 0:06:32.529 that she was still using drugs, which she had previously 0:06:32.570 --> 0:06:35.430 told me she had stopped doing, and that she needed 0:06:35.470 --> 0:06:40.570 to use our rental car to run some drugs from Washington, D.C. 0:06:40.650 --> 0:06:44.270 to her dealer, who was also a university student back 0:06:44.330 --> 0:06:50.040 in Charlottesville. And I wanted to come along, But she 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.240 wouldn't let me because she said that I was such 0:06:52.300 --> 0:06:55.320 a nerd. No drug dealer would want to do business 0:06:55.380 --> 0:06:58.820 around me. So she drove off in the car by 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.620 herself and came back eight hours later and told me 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.850 she had killed her parents. And she said that the 0:07:07.890 --> 0:07:10.710 drugs had made her do it and they had deserved 0:07:10.730 --> 0:07:16.150 it anyway. And if I didn't help her, she would 0:07:16.170 --> 0:07:19.010 be executed. She would be back then they used a 0:07:19.050 --> 0:07:22.120 lecture chair. She said that they would fry her. And 0:07:22.150 --> 0:07:25.180 she said that I should be her alibi and tell 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.240 the police that she was with me in Washington. And 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.739 I told her that that would never, ever work because 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.320 the police never believed boyfriends or husbands or wives, people 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:41.530 like that. So I came up with this brilliant idea, um, 0:07:42.330 --> 0:07:46.310 based on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, of 0:07:46.390 --> 0:07:49.790 all things, um, I would take the blame for her. 0:07:49.850 --> 0:07:53.910 I would take the rap for her and save her life. 0:07:55.090 --> 0:07:58.870 That was based on a character in the Charles Dickens novel. 0:07:59.870 --> 0:08:03.940 Sidney Carton did that in this novel. The difference was 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.040 that in the novel, that particular character actually did get executed, 0:08:08.660 --> 0:08:13.660 whereas my father was a German diplomat. I thought I 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:19.440 had diplomatic immunity. I thought that I could take the 0:08:19.500 --> 0:08:23.020 blame for her crime, and all that would happen with 0:08:23.100 --> 0:08:26.240 me was that I would be sent back to Germany 0:08:26.860 --> 0:08:32.040 and put in prison there, in a juvenile prison, for 0:08:32.220 --> 0:08:35.689 about 10 years. And I thought that giving 10 years 0:08:35.730 --> 0:08:41.050 of my life was worth saving her life from the electric, too. 0:08:41.070 --> 0:08:42.530 Yeah. 0:08:44.530 --> 0:08:44.709 Yeah. 0:08:45.380 --> 0:08:49.120 It's sort of a twisted nobility. People do crazy things 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.060 for love all the time. And we were talking about 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:53.860 this earlier, Jens, and I said that it's such a 0:08:53.980 --> 0:08:56.730 strange fate that you happen to have only been with 0:08:56.870 --> 0:08:58.830 one woman and she turned out to be the devil. 0:08:59.330 --> 0:09:03.949 You know, calling her the devil is a little oversimplified. 0:09:04.090 --> 0:09:09.410 She was later diagnosed with a very severe personality disorder. 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:14.940 So she actually had serious mental health issues. And, of course, 0:09:15.140 --> 0:09:19.650 she claimed that her mother had sexually abused her with 0:09:19.710 --> 0:09:24.069 the knowledge and cooperation of her father. And, you know, 0:09:24.130 --> 0:09:29.370 there's some indications that may have actually been true. Of course, 0:09:29.410 --> 0:09:31.860 we'll never know for sure now. But she was a 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:32.790 troubled young woman. 0:09:33.540 --> 0:09:37.180 As things developed, you initially were not suspects, but then 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.880 at some point you decided to make a getaway. And 0:09:41.900 --> 0:09:44.329 this is back in the days when For people who 0:09:44.350 --> 0:09:46.150 don't remember, in the 80s, you could sort of travel 0:09:46.170 --> 0:09:48.150 the world under a different name, and it wasn't so 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.080 tightly monitored or regulated. And so you guys went around 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.839 the world and ultimately ended up in England. And that's 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.189 when things began to go wrong, right, because you were 0:09:57.470 --> 0:10:00.640 ultimately arrested for passing bad checks. and then we get 0:10:00.660 --> 0:10:04.160 to the point where the false confessions come in, or 0:10:04.179 --> 0:10:05.140 your false confessions. 0:10:05.940 --> 0:10:10.459 So the police took both Elizabeth and me back from 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.849 the jail to the police station, and they actually wrote 0:10:15.090 --> 0:10:18.330 into the police station logbook that I was to be 0:10:18.370 --> 0:10:21.550 held incommunicado. In other words, I was to be isolated 0:10:21.570 --> 0:10:25.200 from the outside world and not given access to my lawyer. 0:10:25.940 --> 0:10:30.059 And that's exactly what they did. For four days, they 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:35.180 interrogated me. Four days. Many, many hours. Dozens and dozens 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.040 and dozens of hours. And then finally, on the fourth day, 0:10:38.059 --> 0:10:43.390 I decided to keep my promise to Elizabeth that I 0:10:43.410 --> 0:10:47.679 had made 15 months earlier, and I decided to take 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.930 the blame for what she did. And that's what I did. 0:10:52.790 --> 0:10:54.689 I told them the story that she and I had 0:10:54.770 --> 0:11:00.230 cooked up. And, of course, that false confession contained many 0:11:00.290 --> 0:11:03.699 mistakes that the real killer would not have made. I 0:11:05.300 --> 0:11:11.100 described the clothing of one victim incorrectly. And I placed 0:11:11.540 --> 0:11:14.040 the other victim in the wrong room. And there were 0:11:14.460 --> 0:11:18.920 numerous mistakes like that, which... I should have alerted the 0:11:19.020 --> 0:11:22.740 police to the fact that I might not be telling 0:11:22.780 --> 0:11:26.470 the truth. In addition to that, of course, at that time, 0:11:27.309 --> 0:11:32.070 the police who were interrogating me were in possession of 0:11:32.270 --> 0:11:36.699 an FBI crime scene profile by one of the people 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:41.960 who invented crime scene profiling, one of the leading special agents. 0:11:42.540 --> 0:11:45.959 And that profile said that the crime. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:46.340 Had been committed. 0:11:47.230 --> 0:11:50.610 by a woman in a close relationship to the victims. 0:11:51.710 --> 0:11:53.890 And of course, I was a man, and I didn't 0:11:53.910 --> 0:11:56.330 know the victims at the one time for 20 minutes. 0:11:57.770 --> 0:12:00.010 So they should have known that the story I was 0:12:00.110 --> 0:12:03.150 telling them was not true. And then, of course, the 0:12:03.190 --> 0:12:06.349 other thing that happened is that just a couple of 0:12:06.390 --> 0:12:09.770 hours after I told the police that I did it, 0:12:10.429 --> 0:12:14.300 Elizabeth told the police that she did it. She said, 0:12:14.580 --> 0:12:17.730 I did it myself. I got off on it. And 0:12:17.750 --> 0:12:21.089 I did it myself. I got off on it. I 0:12:21.090 --> 0:12:24.600 did it myself. I got off on it. But by 0:12:24.620 --> 0:12:27.160 that stage, the police had decided that I was the 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.240 guilty one. So they actually let her withdraw that confession, 0:12:31.820 --> 0:12:36.850 which is hilarious in a way, because they found her 0:12:36.870 --> 0:12:41.949 fingerprints at the crime scene and not mine. And, you know, 0:12:42.030 --> 0:12:45.369 it's quite incredible. 0:12:45.950 --> 0:12:47.829 That they let her withdraw that confession. 0:12:47.890 --> 0:12:51.270 But they did. And so they ended up charging me 0:12:51.929 --> 0:12:55.089 with being the killer, and they charged her with being 0:12:55.110 --> 0:12:59.650 the accomplice. And in 1990, they put me on trial 0:13:00.610 --> 0:13:02.910 and convicted me of something that I did not do. 0:13:03.530 --> 0:13:06.520 And I do want to bring John and Chip into 0:13:06.540 --> 0:13:10.860 the conversation now, too, just to talk about this scenario 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.500 that took place in England and the immediate aftermath of it. John, 0:13:14.990 --> 0:13:18.170 You were a criminal defense lawyer in your younger years. 0:13:18.730 --> 0:13:22.809 Yeah, it goes back to a confession, false confession. There's 0:13:22.850 --> 0:13:26.770 no other proof to convict Jens of the murder. So 0:13:26.910 --> 0:13:29.650 all they have is a false confession. And with any 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.160 false confession case, what you would hope that the authorities 0:13:33.220 --> 0:13:39.040 do is once they manage to extract the confession, whatever 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.540 tactics they use to do that, is that they will 0:13:41.580 --> 0:13:44.210 match it up to the physical evidence. to see if 0:13:44.260 --> 0:13:49.150 it in fact matches. And false confessions virtually never match 0:13:49.230 --> 0:13:51.790 up because there are too many details or specifics in 0:13:51.830 --> 0:13:55.750 the murder, the method of murder, the place, the blood, 0:13:55.830 --> 0:13:58.630 the blood splatter, the clothing, the room, whatever. There's a 0:13:58.690 --> 0:14:02.810 whole fingerprints, footprints. There's a long list of items that, 0:14:02.830 --> 0:14:07.170 you know, police go through in any investigation. And with 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.740 a false confession, it's usually fairly simple to realize once 0:14:11.780 --> 0:14:16.020 you start matching the confession, given by somebody who wasn't there, 0:14:16.140 --> 0:14:18.860 it's impossible for them to remember all the details that 0:14:18.900 --> 0:14:21.600 the real killer would actually know. Where he left the bodies, 0:14:21.780 --> 0:14:25.200 how he killed them, who did what, what was on 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.440 the kitchen table, what was knocked over, what was spilled. 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:32.640 These are all fairly common sense. In Yen's case, there 0:14:32.660 --> 0:14:37.370 were so many discrepancies between his confession and the actual 0:14:37.430 --> 0:14:41.410 physical crime scene, you just want to scream and say, 0:14:41.490 --> 0:14:45.570 why didn't somebody put these together, match them up. And 0:14:46.010 --> 0:14:48.510 what frustrates me is when you get to trial and 0:14:48.550 --> 0:14:51.790 you have what you think should be a competent defense 0:14:51.860 --> 0:14:56.300 lawyer who cannot walk through the confession step by step 0:14:56.460 --> 0:14:59.740 by step and show the discrepancies between the confession and 0:14:59.780 --> 0:15:02.020 the actual crime scene. I'm not sure if this was 0:15:02.100 --> 0:15:05.380 done or attempted in Yen's case, but it certainly was 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.930 not effective. And so that's That's where we always start 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.500 in a false confession case is let's match it up 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.500 with the proof, and it never matches up. 0:15:15.300 --> 0:15:17.180 It never does, and this was a crazy case because 0:15:17.260 --> 0:15:19.400 on top of all the other factors that led to 0:15:19.460 --> 0:15:22.960 his wrongful conviction, I think there was an inherent bias. 0:15:23.300 --> 0:15:25.260 I can't prove this because of the fact that it 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.560 was Bedford County, which ironically is the county that lost 0:15:28.660 --> 0:15:31.280 more soldiers in World War II to the Germans per 0:15:31.300 --> 0:15:33.080 capita than anywhere else in the United States. It's why 0:15:33.100 --> 0:15:35.930 the World War II memorial is there. And so I 0:15:35.990 --> 0:15:38.210 think that there's at least an argument that the odds 0:15:38.230 --> 0:15:40.950 were stacked against Jens from the beginning. I want to 0:15:40.970 --> 0:15:45.290 bring Sheriff Harding into the conversation. Sheriff Harding, you've been 0:15:45.310 --> 0:15:48.650 in law enforcement for several decades, four decades, right? I mean, 0:15:48.670 --> 0:15:51.380 his resume is nuts when you look at the number 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.880 of accreditations he has and the number of awards he's won. 0:15:54.940 --> 0:15:58.680 And he's one of the most accomplished people in law 0:15:58.700 --> 0:16:01.140 enforcement in the United States. And you've dived into this 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.520 case with all guns blazing, so to speak, and You've 0:16:04.540 --> 0:16:08.740 examined this evidence 18 ways till Sunday. Is it theoretically 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.540 possible that Jens committed this crime? Is it possible? 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.460 I mean, he could have been dropped down from a 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.980 spaceship and done it. But is it logical he was 0:16:17.060 --> 0:16:20.940 there when these murders occurred? Extremely unlikely he was there. 0:16:20.980 --> 0:16:23.820 There's nothing that puts him there other than this false confession. 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.040 And as John was saying earlier, the confession didn't match 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:29.720 the crime scene when you look at it. I mean, 0:16:29.740 --> 0:16:33.790 there was some huge discrepancies that weren't followed up. You 0:16:33.810 --> 0:16:38.330 had a young investigator, his first homicide case he'd ever investigated. 0:16:38.570 --> 0:16:40.790 And I'm reading a transcript going, you've got to be 0:16:40.820 --> 0:16:43.460 kidding me. You didn't do any follow-up. Plus, they didn't 0:16:43.500 --> 0:16:47.280 tape the confession. So when he gets to court, very skillfully, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:52.140 the prosecutor only asked questions that were consistent with the 0:16:52.180 --> 0:16:57.060 crime scene and the event and omitted the inconsistencies. And 0:16:57.140 --> 0:16:59.220 as John was pointing out, he had a very, very 0:16:59.300 --> 0:17:02.560 ineffective defense attorney that didn't bring that to the attention 0:17:02.580 --> 0:17:02.980 of the jury. 0:17:03.590 --> 0:17:09.189 As far as details that corroborate the confession, at the 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:14.220 time of the trial, the prosecutor pointed out to the 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:20.100 jury 26 times that the police found. 0:17:19.700 --> 0:17:24.580 Some O-type blood at the crime scene, and that I 0:17:24.619 --> 0:17:28.280 was the only person involved in the case who had 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.810 type O blood. The victims did not have typo blood, 0:17:32.130 --> 0:17:34.170 and my girlfriend did not have typo blood. 0:17:34.650 --> 0:17:38.209 The only person involved in the case with typo blood 0:17:38.250 --> 0:17:41.810 was me, is what the prosecutor told the jury 26 times. 0:17:42.830 --> 0:17:46.270 And it would take another two and a half decades 0:17:47.350 --> 0:17:51.350 to find out, through DNA testing, that indeed that was 0:17:51.390 --> 0:17:56.170 typo blood that was left by somebody else. So the 0:17:56.250 --> 0:17:59.770 fact that seemed to corroborate the confessions at the time 0:17:59.790 --> 0:18:05.690 of the trial, is now shown to actually disprove the confession. 0:18:05.710 --> 0:18:07.270 Skip can talk more about that. 0:18:07.310 --> 0:18:10.110 Sheriff Harding, what percentage of the population has this type 0:18:10.150 --> 0:18:12.250 of blood? I think it's about 45%, isn't it? Yeah, 0:18:12.270 --> 0:18:12.830 it's pretty high. 0:18:13.130 --> 0:18:13.330 Right. 0:18:13.410 --> 0:18:15.490 So, I mean, that really is, I mean, it's a 0:18:15.530 --> 0:18:17.669 ridiculous thing to try to pin anything on, but yet 0:18:17.690 --> 0:18:21.030 the prosecutor mentioned it 26 times. It's also worth mentioning 0:18:21.650 --> 0:18:25.510 that Jens' lead trial lawyer was disbarred a few years 0:18:25.750 --> 0:18:28.369 after your wrongful conviction. And he was disbarred because of 0:18:28.430 --> 0:18:31.090 mental illness. Drugs were a factor in all of this. 0:18:31.430 --> 0:18:34.590 And it was shown that he was suffering from this 0:18:34.869 --> 0:18:38.090 during the time of your trial. So that's just another 0:18:38.590 --> 0:18:42.190 important thing to recognize. This is a nightmare that no 0:18:42.270 --> 0:18:45.670 one can imagine living through. You had been in jail 0:18:45.710 --> 0:18:47.690 in England for quite some time before you even came 0:18:47.730 --> 0:18:50.470 to trial. You had nothing in your life experience that 0:18:50.490 --> 0:18:51.860 would prepare you for any of this. 0:18:52.390 --> 0:18:52.540 And. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.859 Now here you are in the grip of the justice 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:01.430 system in Virginia. It's sort of an arch-villain, right? And 0:19:02.190 --> 0:19:04.290 what was this like for you to go through this? 0:19:05.770 --> 0:19:08.649 At that stage in 1990, I had already been in 0:19:08.690 --> 0:19:13.840 prison for four years, fighting extradition from England to the 0:19:13.859 --> 0:19:18.740 United States. For most of those four years, I was convinced, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.939 and all my lawyers were convinced, and everybody thought that 0:19:22.020 --> 0:19:26.260 I would definitely be sentenced to death. So I spent 0:19:26.300 --> 0:19:31.680 four years in prison, in effect, psychologically, on death row. Everybody, 0:19:31.700 --> 0:19:35.270 including my own team, told me that I had no 0:19:35.290 --> 0:19:39.330 chance of avoiding the electric, too. And then at the 0:19:39.350 --> 0:19:42.649 last minute, that was avoided. We won an appeal at 0:19:42.670 --> 0:19:44.710 the European Court of Human Rights, and I was brought 0:19:44.750 --> 0:19:45.570 back to America. 0:19:46.369 --> 0:19:46.510 And. 0:19:47.530 --> 0:19:49.910 That sort of thing has an effect on you psychologically. 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:55.179 living in prison for four years believing that you're going 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.899 to die pretty gruesomely in the electric tube then I 0:19:59.940 --> 0:20:04.970 got brought back to Virginia everybody hated me everybody was 0:20:05.010 --> 0:20:08.490 convinced I was guilty and it was really it was 0:20:08.510 --> 0:20:11.230 scary And I did not handle it well. I did 0:20:11.270 --> 0:20:15.090 not handle it well. But, again, you have to look 0:20:15.150 --> 0:20:17.629 at this against the background of my having just spent 0:20:17.820 --> 0:20:21.740 three years under imminent threat of death, then coming into 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:26.560 this new atmosphere, and having to see Elizabeth Hasen, the 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.879 woman that I had sacrificed myself for, get up on 0:20:30.900 --> 0:20:34.770 the stand and torture herself and tell all these lies 0:20:34.830 --> 0:20:37.800 to put me away in prison. And when I say 0:20:37.820 --> 0:20:40.340 that she perjured herself, that's not just a claim I make. 0:20:40.340 --> 0:20:47.870 26 years later, she actually admitted that in a newspaper interview. 0:20:47.890 --> 0:20:50.990 She admitted that she perjured herself at that trial. But 0:20:51.170 --> 0:20:55.050 at that time, nobody knew that, and nobody cared. They 0:20:55.090 --> 0:20:58.090 just wanted a witness to point the finger at me, 0:20:58.390 --> 0:21:01.070 and she did that job. She pointed the finger at me, 0:21:01.670 --> 0:21:07.270 and that, and my own false confession... And the type 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.199 of blood, that's what did me in. 0:21:10.140 --> 0:21:12.400 And the sock print, of course, was a ridiculous piece 0:21:12.420 --> 0:21:15.660 of evidence that no serious person should have ever even, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:17.540 it shouldn't have been allowed in court, and it shouldn't 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:18.800 have been, and the way that it was done was 0:21:18.820 --> 0:21:21.899 very devious. And Sheriff Harding, I want to talk to 0:21:21.940 --> 0:21:24.660 you because it's interesting to me that, you know, Jens 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.190 has assembled this remarkable team, and it's a great credit 0:21:27.230 --> 0:21:30.590 to him. And you're an interesting character in this because 0:21:30.609 --> 0:21:33.690 you're a conservative guy, a guy who's obviously a law 0:21:33.710 --> 0:21:36.760 and order guy. And yet you have devoted yourself selflessly 0:21:37.300 --> 0:21:39.780 and spent time that you could have been doing anything 0:21:39.900 --> 0:21:44.890 else to hundreds of hours to this case. So can 0:21:44.930 --> 0:21:46.290 you talk about that? And then can you talk about 0:21:46.310 --> 0:21:48.950 the actual forensic evidence? 0:21:49.210 --> 0:21:49.350 Right. 0:21:49.369 --> 0:21:51.570 Well, his attorney, Stephen Rosenfield, asked me to take a 0:21:51.590 --> 0:21:53.590 look at part of the pardon petition to see if 0:21:53.650 --> 0:21:55.169 I could find a way to strengthen it or to 0:21:55.210 --> 0:21:58.280 see if he's missed something in it. And I told 0:21:58.340 --> 0:22:00.459 Steve at the beginning, I felt like Yens was guilty 0:22:00.540 --> 0:22:03.250 based on everything I'd seen. I know Governor Kaine had 0:22:03.270 --> 0:22:05.490 tried to send him back to Germany. I was opposed 0:22:05.510 --> 0:22:08.359 to that because I felt like he was guilty. He 0:22:08.380 --> 0:22:12.040 shouldn't have been given any special consideration just because he 0:22:12.060 --> 0:22:14.800 was a German. So Steve gave me the case. He 0:22:14.820 --> 0:22:16.220 said it won't take but a couple hours. Well, I 0:22:16.260 --> 0:22:18.100 ended up taking a bunch of stuff home at night. 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:19.869 My wife thought I lost my mind because I spent 0:22:20.380 --> 0:22:23.250 basically the whole weekend at the dining room table covered 0:22:23.350 --> 0:22:25.720 with material that Steve gave me. And I said, oh, 0:22:25.730 --> 0:22:30.209 my God, this is nothing like what was representative. In conclusion, 0:22:30.830 --> 0:22:32.990 I ended up writing a 19-page letter to the governor 0:22:33.090 --> 0:22:35.730 breaking down the closing arguments of the case. That's the 0:22:35.770 --> 0:22:38.810 strength of the government's case, last bite. 0:22:38.650 --> 0:22:40.130 At the apple. 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:42.660 I broke that down, and then after that was published, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.980 I had another investigator work with me for 25 years, said, 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.620 let me help a former FBI agent that I know 0:22:48.700 --> 0:22:52.359 that I worked another case with, jumped in. One of 0:22:52.380 --> 0:22:55.460 the original Bedford investigators said he felt like Jens had 0:22:56.030 --> 0:22:58.190 been railroaded, and was innocent also. So the four of 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:00.760 us have been working it collectively. We've given a couple 0:23:00.820 --> 0:23:04.980 thousand hours. And you want to talk briefly about the forensics. 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.540 The old blood was very powerful, as was mentioned. And 0:23:09.580 --> 0:23:11.300 I will say, if I was on that jury, I 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.399 would have convicted him based on the way the evidence 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.060 was represented so skillfully by the prosecutor. 0:23:17.980 --> 0:23:19.560 The old blood now we know absolutely. 0:23:19.700 --> 0:23:21.640 No one can test the fact that it's not Yinser 0:23:21.660 --> 0:23:24.240 and he's not been detected in the crime scene but 0:23:24.300 --> 0:23:27.199 two other males. One with AB blood and one with 0:23:27.260 --> 0:23:29.600 O blood had been detected in the crime scene, and 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:32.600 we have not identified those people. In my opinion, Bedford 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.280 County should consider having an open homicide investigation. Then you 0:23:36.300 --> 0:23:39.680 look at the next piece of evidence that was pretty powerful. 0:23:40.300 --> 0:23:45.260 The Commonwealth originally got a certificate of analysis from the 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:48.050 State Bureau of Forensics saying that the shoe and sock 0:23:48.090 --> 0:23:49.770 size was consistent with a 6 1⁄2 to 7 1⁄2 0:23:49.770 --> 0:23:54.300 woman's shoe or a man's 5 or 6 shoe. Well, 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:56.780