Speaker 1: On a Saturday afternoon in July of nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: a young woman was walking home in Ashland, Virginia, when
Speaker 1: she was approached by a man on a bicycle. He
Speaker 1: offered to walk her home. She said no and kept walking,
Speaker 1: but a few minutes later she saw the man again.
Speaker 1: He attacked her and dragged her to a secluded wooded area,
Speaker 1: then beat and raped her over and over. The woman
Speaker 1: later described her attacker to police as a light skinned
Speaker 1: black man with short, kinky hair. She also told them
Speaker 1: something he'd said while assaulting her that he had had
Speaker 1: quote other white girls. Officer Roy Anderson knew of only
Speaker 1: one black man in town with a white girlfriend, eighteen
Speaker 1: year old Marvin Anderson. When police picked Marvin up a
Speaker 1: few days later, he insisted he hadn't attacked that woman.
Speaker 1: He had an alibi, and his mother and girlfriend backed
Speaker 1: him up. But the victim picked out Marvin I'm a
Speaker 1: bunch of photos police presented to her, and she also
Speaker 1: identified him in a live lineup of other suspects. All
Speaker 1: of that sealed Marvin's fate with a jury who sent
Speaker 1: him to prison for an unbelievable two hundred and ten years.
Speaker 1: But this is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'm Ashley Fontce, sitting in for Jason Flahm. I'm an
Speaker 1: investigative reporter who's cover crime and police misconduct for decades.
Speaker 1: I've also reported extensively on police bungling rape investigations, and
Speaker 1: so I was very interested in this extraordinary and outrageous
Speaker 1: story you're about to hear. I'd love for you guys
Speaker 1: to introduce yourselves. Marvin, can you introduce yourself please?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for having me. My name is Marvin Anderson.
Speaker 2: I was born and raised in Hanover County, Virginia, and
Speaker 2: I spent fifteen years incarcerated and five years on parole
Speaker 2: for a crime and did not committee.
Speaker 1: Thanks Marvin. Vanessa can you introduce yourself please.
Speaker 3: My name is Vanessa Podcain. I'm the director of Special
Speaker 3: Litigation at the Innocence Project in New York City, and
Speaker 3: over the course of the past two decades, I've helped
Speaker 3: exonerate over forty people nationwide.
Speaker 1: That's extraordinary, Vanessa. Thank you. Marvin. I've never been to
Speaker 1: Hanover County. Take me back to your childhood in Hanover County.
Speaker 2: It was a close knit community and African American people.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone knew everyone. You know, my grandmother and
Speaker 2: my great grandmother, all of them and my cousins were
Speaker 2: all was you know, in the same community. And then
Speaker 2: of course my mom and dad. I have three sisters.
Speaker 2: I had one brother who had died in an accident
Speaker 2: car accident when I was incarcerated. We all was close.
Speaker 2: You know. We had a nice big yard, but we
Speaker 2: could run around and play. We had dogs, chickens. A
Speaker 2: lot of things that we did growing up was like,
Speaker 2: you know, playing sports.
Speaker 1: And what sport did you play?
Speaker 2: Marvin, baseball, football, basketball, softball, a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: You know, what sport didn't you play?
Speaker 2: Marvin didn't play volleyball too much. I did run track,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't much that I didn't really do. And
Speaker 2: at the time I didn't live too far from a
Speaker 2: volunteer fire department, so I spent a lot of my
Speaker 2: time there. At the age of ten, I was always
Speaker 2: at the fire station, you know, doing something, washing trucks,
Speaker 2: watching the guys train. Not only was I learning something,
Speaker 2: but it was a means of keeping me out of trouble.
Speaker 2: So from that time I was able to join the
Speaker 2: fire service. At the age of thirteen. As a junior farreman,
Speaker 2: I was able to train. I was to receive the
Speaker 2: first set of five year I was able to ride
Speaker 2: the trucks, learn how to pump the trucks, basically do
Speaker 2: everything that a dart farmer would do. The only thing
Speaker 2: that I couldn't do was go into a burning building.
Speaker 1: What do you think drew you to want to be
Speaker 1: a firefighter? It's a very specific and demanding job.
Speaker 2: My mom, my dad, my grandparents. You know, they taught
Speaker 2: us if there's someone out there in need or help,
Speaker 2: always give help in hand, regardless what color they were.
Speaker 2: If you can help them, you help them. And for
Speaker 2: the fire service, that was for me was a way
Speaker 2: of helping people.
Speaker 1: The fire station. You had black people who worked there,
Speaker 1: white people who worked there, a mixture of different ethnicities.
Speaker 1: And what do you think that taught you as well?
Speaker 2: That we all are equal? Back then, racism existed, but
Speaker 2: I never really felt what it was until I got
Speaker 2: arrested for my crime. You know, most African American child
Speaker 2: to grow up knowing who they can be around. When
Speaker 2: it came to racism, I just knew people that didn't
Speaker 2: like my kind. But I knew to stay away from them.
Speaker 2: I've respected them, Whether they respected me, that was on them.
Speaker 1: According to census data, around fifty thousand people lived in
Speaker 1: Hanover County in the early eighties. Out of those, forty
Speaker 1: three thousand were white and less than seven thousand were black. So, Vanessa,
Speaker 1: I want to turn to you now. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us more about the racial climate in Hanover County at
Speaker 1: this time?
Speaker 3: Well, I think in general, it's important for people to understand,
Speaker 3: you know, we're talking about nineteen eighty two, and if
Speaker 3: we just go back twenty thirty years, we are in
Speaker 3: the fifties and the sixties Virginia, and we are in
Speaker 3: a period of racial segregation. This is before the Voting
Speaker 3: Writes Act, or just within a decade and a half
Speaker 3: of the assassination of Martin Luther King, and so it
Speaker 3: may seem like, you know, that's far in America's history.
Speaker 3: That was just a very brief period of time from
Speaker 3: when we're talking about you know, when Marvin was eighteen
Speaker 3: years old in Hanover, Virginia.
Speaker 2: You had certain parts of the town where there's mostly
Speaker 2: you know, African American people live in a certain part
Speaker 2: of the town where it just only white people lived
Speaker 2: at but I had to say this. I stood out
Speaker 2: in Nashville because during that time my fiance was a
Speaker 2: white woman, so that wasn't something that was well known
Speaker 2: or for most white people during that time to get
Speaker 2: used to seeing a black man with a white woman.
Speaker 2: Then look, they would give us. It would burn a
Speaker 2: hole through a wall. You know, how dare you? But
Speaker 2: as far as my people, it's just two people dating.
Speaker 2: They accepted it more than most white people did. So
Speaker 2: kind of kept my distance, but try to live a
Speaker 2: normal life as best as I could.
Speaker 1: So at this point, you're eighteen years old, You and
Speaker 1: your fiance have just moved from Richmond to Ashland, and
Speaker 1: you're about to pursue your dream of becoming a full
Speaker 1: fledged fireman. You must have felt like everything was going
Speaker 1: your way more than.
Speaker 2: The counter had just started the first fire program, Well
Speaker 2: you could become a professional fireman, and I had just
Speaker 2: signed up for it. It was supposed to start it that fall.
Speaker 1: And then on July seventeenth, nineteen eighty two, this incredibly
Speaker 1: horrific crime happened in Ashland. Vanessa, What do we know
Speaker 1: about what happened that day?
Speaker 3: The victim in this case was walking home. She was
Speaker 3: taking a shortcut through wooded area of rural over County
Speaker 3: and was approached by a man who rode up to
Speaker 3: her on a bicycle, threatened her with a gun, and
Speaker 3: proceeded to sexually assault her. And it was a very
Speaker 3: brutal attack that lasted over the course of a significant
Speaker 3: period of time, and when it was over, she was
Speaker 3: taken to the hospital, a rape kit was collected, her
Speaker 3: clothing was collected. The victim in this case was a
Speaker 3: white woman, and she described the assailant as a light
Speaker 3: skinned black man with a medium frame, short hair mustache,
Speaker 3: and there weren't a lot of clues as to who
Speaker 3: this person might be, but at some point she related
Speaker 3: that the man who attacked her said that he quote
Speaker 3: had a white girl, And so the officer started to think, hmm,
Speaker 3: who in town could it be that's black that we
Speaker 3: know that is in a relationship or involved with somebody
Speaker 3: who's white. And there was only one black man in
Speaker 3: town that the officer knew who was involved with a
Speaker 3: white woman, and that was Marvin Anderson.
Speaker 1: Marvin, Ashland was a pretty small, tight knit community, Like
Speaker 1: you said, at the time, did you hear anything about
Speaker 1: what had happened?
Speaker 2: The crime actually took place on a Saturday, and that
Speaker 2: Sunday I had a softball game, so some of the
Speaker 2: teammates of minds. They was talking about what had happened,
Speaker 2: and during that time, a few of my teammates knew
Speaker 2: the perpetrator that committed this crime.
Speaker 3: People knew about the crime itself because it had made
Speaker 3: the news. But I think you know what's so remarkable
Speaker 3: about Marvin's case is that from the beginning, the community
Speaker 3: was aware of who really had committed the crime.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that more and who that person
Speaker 1: was a little bit later, but first, Marvin, can you
Speaker 1: tell us about the moment that you realized you were
Speaker 1: a suspect in the case.
Speaker 2: I was at work at the time. I worked at
Speaker 2: Kingsmain par of my amusement park, and one of my
Speaker 2: supervisors came down to my posts and said they needed
Speaker 2: to see me an administration. And when I entered a room,
Speaker 2: there was the officer that I knew, and I actually
Speaker 2: called him by his first name. I said, Hey, Roy,
Speaker 2: how you doing you know? And he didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: And this officer was someone you knew pretty well.
Speaker 2: Knew him so well that I've actually had eaten dinner
Speaker 2: at his dinner table with his kids. When I was
Speaker 2: growing up, Roy kids plays sports, so of course we
Speaker 2: met playing sports. So it wasn't like he didn't know me.
Speaker 2: He knew me.
Speaker 1: So these two officers, Roy Anderson and Marshall Bailey are
Speaker 1: questioning you.
Speaker 2: The other officer mostly did all the talking. And that's
Speaker 2: when he started to questioning about, you know, where was
Speaker 2: I at on the seventeenth of July around six thirty
Speaker 2: seven o'clock that afternoon. And I gave him my honest
Speaker 2: answer and I said, hey, I could have been anywhere,
Speaker 2: which is true. I could have been playing sports. I
Speaker 2: could have been at the fire station, you know, I
Speaker 2: just could have been anywhere. And he was asking about,
Speaker 2: you know, would you be willing to take a polograph test?
Speaker 2: And the course I agree to do.
Speaker 1: So, Marvin, throughout all of that experience where you're being questioned,
Speaker 1: you're cooperating with them. Did you ever think I should
Speaker 1: get a lawyer?
Speaker 2: No, you know, not once doing that entire question and
Speaker 2: even going down to the county lockup, did I think
Speaker 2: about a lawyer? You know, because I knew I didn't
Speaker 2: do what they said had happened.
Speaker 3: You know in cases like this, you know, you have Marvin,
Speaker 3: he's eighteen years old. They're law enforcement from his community.
Speaker 3: So they're people who you know, he's been raised to
Speaker 3: give a certain amount of deference to, and people that
Speaker 3: he knows, and they're coming at him from a perspective of,
Speaker 3: you know, we need your help in this investigation. And
Speaker 3: so he's not thinking that people are out to get
Speaker 3: him or that he is going to be railroaded for
Speaker 3: something that he didn't do. And we see this in
Speaker 3: wrongful conviction cases where people trust in the police, they
Speaker 3: trust in the system, they trust in the process, and
Speaker 3: are totally betrayed by it.
Speaker 1: Vanessa, what do we know about Royan Marshall's training at
Speaker 1: that time? Are they beat cops? How big was Ashlan
Speaker 1: Police Department?
Speaker 3: I don't really have the answers to that, but I
Speaker 3: think that it's helpful to contextualize that. You know, we're
Speaker 3: talking about very small towns, you know, a population of
Speaker 3: around seven thousand, eight thousand people, you know, and when
Speaker 3: you consider police forces in more rural areas, they're not
Speaker 3: really trained or have experience often times in handling serious crimes.
Speaker 3: And so when something like a rape or a murder
Speaker 3: happens a lot of times. We see in wrongful conviction
Speaker 3: cases that you have forces that just don't have the
Speaker 3: training or experience to really go about these more serious investigations.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's get back to that day. They didn't
Speaker 1: end up doing the polygraph test, but there was a
Speaker 1: photo array and a live lineup.
Speaker 2: And in front of thing about it. When I first
Speaker 2: walked into that room, I saw a picture, a photo
Speaker 2: of me in a photo and I knew I'd never
Speaker 2: been in trouble, so I was just curious, how did
Speaker 2: he get this photo of me? That photo was my
Speaker 2: job ID photo.
Speaker 3: His picture was the only color photograph among other black
Speaker 3: and white photographs that were mug shots, and so it's
Speaker 3: a standout. While it's a photo array that has many choices,
Speaker 3: in reality, because of the suggestiveness, there's only one right
Speaker 3: choice of who the suspect is, and once that identification
Speaker 3: was made from the photo ray, he's then put in
Speaker 3: an in person lineup. And what's so problematic about this
Speaker 3: is that he's the only person from the photo array
Speaker 3: who's repeated in the in person lineup, and so it's
Speaker 3: it's obvious who the suspect is when she sees the lineup,
Speaker 3: and this is referred to in cases as unconscious transference.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't know at this point is she
Speaker 3: recognizing Marvin from the lineup or from the incident.
Speaker 2: You know, my thought after the fact is that you know,
Speaker 2: if someone has shown you a photo of a person,
Speaker 2: regardless who that person may be, and within ten minutes
Speaker 2: you see that same person standing directly at front you,
Speaker 2: you're going to remember that phase of that photo. And
Speaker 2: that's what happened, Vanessa.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the rape kit for a moment. Where
Speaker 1: was the rape kit tested and the significance of the zerology.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is a era before we get to DNA.
Speaker 3: At that time in sexual assault cases, the type of
Speaker 3: testing that was used was called ABO blood typing, and
Speaker 3: all it could do was include an individual among a
Speaker 3: large relatively large percentage of the population that could have
Speaker 3: been the source of biological evidence at a scene. So
Speaker 3: it was flight years far less precise than DNA testing.
Speaker 3: The victim in this case, after the sexual assault was
Speaker 3: taken to the hospital, a rape kit was collected, Zeman
Speaker 3: was recovered, and the evidence went to the Virginia Division
Speaker 3: of Forensic Sciences, which is the State Crime Laboratory for
Speaker 3: zerological testing, and an analyst there, Mary Jane Burton, did
Speaker 3: a forensic testing and that testing was unable to exclude
Speaker 3: Marvin as the assailant.
Speaker 1: And just a note for everybody listening, remember that name
Speaker 1: Mary Jane Burton, because she'll be very important to this
Speaker 1: case later on. So then, Marvin, on January twentieth, you
Speaker 1: get arrested.
Speaker 2: Of course, they took their first mug shot of me,
Speaker 2: fingerprinted me, and read me my charges that I was
Speaker 2: charged with rap, satomy, robbery, introduction and I was locked
Speaker 2: up that night, and that's when everything happened that kind
Speaker 2: of destroyed my youth. By this time, the community is
Speaker 2: really talking about what happened. They got the wrong person,
Speaker 2: this who did it?
Speaker 3: And all this From the very beginning, the community knew
Speaker 3: because Otis Lincoln had stolen a bicycle earlier that day,
Speaker 3: and that was the bicycle that was used in the attack.
Speaker 2: One of the guys that paid on my team said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Pop stole my bike. There was a name
Speaker 2: that they called him, Pop Lincoln. He was referring to
Speaker 2: stole his bicycle, went off in the direction of where
Speaker 2: the crime had taken place and.
Speaker 3: People immediately made this connection between Otis Lincoln and the crime,
Speaker 3: but of course it was too lat because police had
Speaker 3: already focused erroneously based on this suggestive identification on Marvin.
Speaker 2: So we went to my attorney and informed him what
Speaker 2: the community is saying. They're saying that this John Pop
Speaker 2: Lincoln is the person they committed this crime. And my
Speaker 2: attorney sais well, I knew him. I represented him some
Speaker 2: years ago on a temporary rape on a female. So
Speaker 2: at that time, I'm thinking to myself that hey, okay,
Speaker 2: I got someone that's on my side now, someone that
Speaker 2: knows this man is capable of doing these things. So
Speaker 2: we'd hired him and met with him several times, and
Speaker 2: each time we met with him, we was bringing him
Speaker 2: new information about what happened that day. You know, we
Speaker 2: brought in more witnesses that testify that I was at
Speaker 2: a certain place, certain time. One of the witnesses that
Speaker 2: testified in my behalf was that Lincoln said that day
Speaker 2: that if he found a white woman and if they
Speaker 2: didn't want to give him any he would take it.
Speaker 2: And it's just sad to say it, but that's what
Speaker 2: he did that day. So fast forward, we went to
Speaker 2: our first put him in their hearing, and the victim
Speaker 2: came in and she described her attacker as a very
Speaker 2: very light, skinny complexing person, straight, white teeth, short kink
Speaker 2: of hair, maybe one hundred and fifty pounds, maybe five
Speaker 2: sixty five seven. Okay, Well, as you can see me today,
Speaker 2: I am not very very light skinny complexing person. And
Speaker 2: at that time I worked at kingsmani amusement park out
Speaker 2: in the sun all day long, so there's no way
Speaker 2: I could be a light skinned complexing person. That's not me. However,
Speaker 2: the person and she described was Johna's Lincoln, but yet
Speaker 2: she identified me as her attacker.
Speaker 1: So the trial began in December of nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: before Judge Richard Taylor. Your attorney was Donald White. Take
Speaker 1: us back to that day, Marvin, if you can.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there, I had my family behind me, my mom, dad, grandparents,
Speaker 2: and I look over at my jury. You know, It's
Speaker 2: consisted of eight women, four men, all white, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm going to prison. No matter what happens, I'm going
Speaker 2: to prison. So they come off turning. Then called the
Speaker 2: victim O Ones to stand to testify, and he asked
Speaker 2: you know what happened. She said. I was returning from
Speaker 2: a restaurant, had a bucket of chicken in my hand.
Speaker 2: This black person approached me on the bicycle. He asked
Speaker 2: her if he could walk me home, and I said no,
Speaker 2: I don't live too far. He proceeded up the path,
Speaker 2: and when I approached him for the second time, he's
Speaker 2: laying on the side holding his knee like he hurt himself.
Speaker 2: And when I stopped to assist him, that's when he
Speaker 2: grabbed me. He dragged me in the woods, beat me,
Speaker 2: raped me, and he told me that you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't his first white woman, that he had a white
Speaker 2: girlfriend and all of that, and he dragged me further
Speaker 2: into the woods and he beat me and raped me again,
Speaker 2: and then he left me there. So when it came
Speaker 2: to my attorney to question her, you know, he basically
Speaker 2: asked the same question that the cor attorney did. What happened?
Speaker 2: Is the person that you know did this to you?
Speaker 2: In his courtroom? She said yes, once again, she identified
Speaker 2: me as her attacker. So I'm still looking at the jury,
Speaker 2: you know, and every time it was almost like every
Speaker 2: word that came out of her mouth, they knew she
Speaker 2: was telling the truth. No matter who my attorney put
Speaker 2: on the stand was testified, what was gonna be a lie.
Speaker 2: I had my fiance testified that I picked her up
Speaker 2: from work one time, I went to my mother's house
Speaker 2: and washed the car. Return home, We ate dinner, We
Speaker 2: watched Fantasy Islands and The Love Boat that night, and
Speaker 2: we went to bed. I had my mother neighbors testified
Speaker 2: that I was there washing the car. And not only that,
Speaker 2: I had the two witnesses that overWe heard John's Lincoln
Speaker 2: at the car wash saying what he would do to
Speaker 2: a white woman if they didn't want to give him
Speaker 2: any So I'm thinking all of this in my favor.
Speaker 2: And once my attorney put Lincoln on the stand to
Speaker 2: testify that somehow it would tricker her memory of what happened,
Speaker 2: just by seeing him and hearing his voice. Well, my
Speaker 2: attorney didn't do that. He did not put Lincoln on
Speaker 2: the stand. And when I heard the judge ask my
Speaker 2: attorney if you had any more further questions, he said no,
Speaker 2: you're hona. I turned to my attorney and go, hey,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, what about me? I want to testify?
Speaker 2: When am I gonna testify his words? Were, Oh, everything's good,
Speaker 2: we don't need you to testify. He refused to put
Speaker 2: make it on stand, nor did he put me on stand.
Speaker 1: Marvin. I can't even imagine how frustrating that was for you.
Speaker 1: Frustrating is just not really a strong enough word to
Speaker 1: capture that. But as you would learn many years later,
Speaker 1: your attorney had his own reasons for not calling Lincoln
Speaker 1: to testify.
Speaker 3: Donald White represented John Otis Lincoln in connection with another
Speaker 3: assault that Lincoln was accused of, and that was a
Speaker 3: conflict because Marvin's defense at his trial was I'm not
Speaker 3: the person who committed this crime. This crime was committed
Speaker 3: by someone else. That someone else was a mystery at
Speaker 3: the time of trial. But of course Donald White could
Speaker 3: have presented evidence that that person was John Otis Lincoln,
Speaker 3: and he chose not to.
Speaker 1: Wow, Vanessa, that is just unbelievable. Rather than disclose that
Speaker 1: he had a conflict of interest, which would have disqualified
Speaker 1: him as Marvin's attorney, Donald White just left John Otis
Speaker 1: Lincoln out of the trial totally. So pretty much all
Speaker 1: the jury had to go on was the victim's identification
Speaker 1: of you, Marvin.
Speaker 2: The jury went out for deliberation in about thirty to
Speaker 2: forty five minutes, came back guilty for two cancer rates, stotomy,
Speaker 2: robbery in aduction, and just ask them, do you have
Speaker 2: a recommendation for sentenzen They say yes, we'anna we do
Speaker 2: two hundred and ten years in prison. Everything in the
Speaker 2: courtroom went blank, went dark. I could hear everyone in
Speaker 2: the court room, but I couldn't see noone. My family
Speaker 2: were sitting directly behind me, and I turned around to
Speaker 2: look at my mom and dad, and I could not
Speaker 2: see them. It's like I had fell in a dark
Speaker 2: hole and there was no light anywhere. I could hear
Speaker 2: them talking to me, saying, you know, everything's gonna be
Speaker 2: all right. We're gonna get you out. I could feel
Speaker 2: that the officers putting sackles on round my wrists, round
Speaker 2: my waist and ran my ankles, but I couldn't see them.
Speaker 2: Everything was dark. That first week, I cried myself to
Speaker 2: sleep every night. I had no appetite, couldn't eat. After
Speaker 2: maybe four or five months later, that's when I was
Speaker 2: transferred to the state penitentiary. My first day in this
Speaker 2: state penitentiary, seven guys approached me in another nubie and
Speaker 2: they wanted to fight us all because he moved a
Speaker 2: jacket from out of his seat and put it on.
Speaker 2: I picked the table that was in the hall, and
Speaker 2: they wanted to fight us. You know. So my first
Speaker 2: day was basically preparing myself for what to come being
Speaker 2: in prison?
Speaker 1: Marvin, how did you survive? How did you protect yourself
Speaker 1: in there?
Speaker 2: You pick your friends wisely. The people's incarcerated. You can
Speaker 2: see who's trying to do better for themselves while they're there,
Speaker 2: and you just pick your friends wisely. One of my
Speaker 2: best friends that I met when I was there, I
Speaker 2: never asked him why he was incarcerated, why he was
Speaker 2: locked up, and he never asked me. But we became
Speaker 2: good friends, almost like brothers, and we kind of looked
Speaker 2: out for one another.
Speaker 1: And what about your fiance? Did she stay in your life.
Speaker 2: Doing my incarceration. I did married my fiance. We remained
Speaker 2: at married for over ten years. We mutually agreed to
Speaker 2: have a divorce because we both had discussed about having
Speaker 2: children before all this happened, and I was not going
Speaker 2: to deny her that privileged to be a mother, and
Speaker 2: we got a divorce. She did have a baby girl.
Speaker 2: She was still visit me when she came to visit me,
Speaker 2: she would bring her daughter.
Speaker 1: So you went to prison in nineteen eighty three, and
Speaker 1: then five years later, something pretty remarkable happened, Vanessa. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight, Wenn at that time had been
Speaker 3: convicted and was in prison for another crime and decided
Speaker 3: to come forward and actually confessed to having been the
Speaker 3: actual assailant for the crime for which Marvin was wrongfully convicted,
Speaker 3: and he agreed to testify.
Speaker 1: Which he did at a state court hearing before the
Speaker 1: same judge as the first trial, Richard Taylor.
Speaker 3: And the judge said, I don't find him credible. I
Speaker 3: don't believe him, and dismiss the evidence. And Marvin stayed
Speaker 3: in prison for another nine years after that before his
Speaker 3: release on parole. And this is something that we've seen
Speaker 3: in other wrongful conviction cases, where there's the true perpetrator
Speaker 3: confesses and courts dismiss it until there's forensic evidence like
Speaker 3: DNA to corroborate it. The confession of the actual assailant
Speaker 3: is just not believed.
Speaker 1: So here we have another jaw dropping, unbelievable moment in
Speaker 1: this story, Vanessa, When did the Innocence Project get involved
Speaker 1: in Marvin's case.
Speaker 3: Marvin wrote to the Nisence Project in the early nineties.
Speaker 3: We took on his case in nineteen ninety four and
Speaker 3: for the next five six years looked for the evidence
Speaker 3: from his case.
Speaker 1: And did you have any idea what you were looking for?
Speaker 3: The Innocence Project was searching for the rape kit itself
Speaker 3: to subject to DNA testing, and we couldn't find it.
Speaker 3: D Nnison's Project is a law clinic at Cardozo School
Speaker 3: of Law, so there were many law students who worked
Speaker 3: on Marvin's case. They were calling police departments, court clerks,
Speaker 3: the lab. Nobody could find the kid. It was gone.
Speaker 3: And this is the worst circumstance that we could have
Speaker 3: at the Nisonce Project. When we take on a case
Speaker 3: for DNA testing, our goal is to find the evidence
Speaker 3: to test it, and so to not be able to
Speaker 3: find the evidence, and this happens in about twenty five
Speaker 3: percent of our cases at the Innocence Project. We never
Speaker 3: get to testing. We have to close out the case
Speaker 3: for all purposes. Marvin's case should have been closed, but
Speaker 3: we had a dogged law student on his case, Bridget Burns,
Speaker 3: and she wouldn't give up. She said, you know, you
Speaker 3: can't close it out. And so at that time, Peter Nufel,
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project co director, knew the head of the
Speaker 3: Virginia Division of Forensic SCI's Crime laboratory, and so as
Speaker 3: a last ditch effort, he called the director just to say, hey,
Speaker 3: could you pull the case file from storage and take
Speaker 3: a look and maybe there's some type of notation, some
Speaker 3: type of paperwork in the file that could help us
Speaker 3: figure out if this evidence still exists and where it is.
Speaker 3: So the director pulled the case file, opened up Marvin's
Speaker 3: file and made a startling discovery.
Speaker 1: And that brings us back to Mary Jane Burton, the
Speaker 1: forensic analyst who performed those original sorology tests back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. Mary Jane, it turns out, wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: doing things by the book.
Speaker 3: So Mary Jane Burton, when her testing was complete, to
Speaker 3: cut off some of the tips of cotton swabs containing
Speaker 3: the evidence that was collected during the rape examination and
Speaker 3: taped those cotton tip swabs inside of her notebook. And
Speaker 3: that evidence that was saved inside of her notebook went
Speaker 3: off to storage with closed cases and was in a
Speaker 3: box in a file room for years to come.
Speaker 1: And when you had those swaps tested, what did they
Speaker 1: tell you?
Speaker 3: The test results came back and demonstrated that he was
Speaker 3: absolutely innocent, and the DNA was run through the DNA
Speaker 3: database and there was a hit. There was a match
Speaker 3: in the convicted offender database, and the person at match
Speaker 3: was John Otis Lincoln, the person who everyone knew from
Speaker 3: the start and who had even confessed to being involved
Speaker 3: twenty years before.
Speaker 1: Marvin. You had been granted parole in nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: and released, So by this time you were out of prison,
Speaker 1: but you were still living under the shadow of a
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. And now in two thousand and one, thanks
Speaker 1: to that DNA test, your name was finally cleared. So
Speaker 1: what came next for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I went through the fire academy, I graduated top
Speaker 2: of my class, and within a year or so, I
Speaker 2: became a lieutenant. Two three years down the road, moved
Speaker 2: up ranks again. I just retired maybe two years ago
Speaker 2: from being the chief of the very sane fire department
Speaker 2: that I had joined when I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 2: And I'm still heavily involved in the fire service out
Speaker 2: there in that county. But yeah, I was able to
Speaker 2: achieve a dream that I had becoming a professional fireman
Speaker 2: after I got my name clear.
Speaker 1: So thinking about that officer, Roy, was he still around
Speaker 1: when you were fully exonerated.
Speaker 2: Yes, he never spoke to me. I would see him,
Speaker 2: you know, in restaurants or at the gas stations, and
Speaker 2: if he saw me coming across the parking lot, he
Speaker 2: would walk the opposite direction. Maybe his conscience had been
Speaker 2: eating at it over there that period of time, but
Speaker 2: he would never speak to me, or apologize or acknowledge
Speaker 2: what happened between.
Speaker 1: Us, Vanessa, Were there any consequences for anyone, including that officer,
Speaker 1: for the way that this case was handled.
Speaker 3: No, And unfortunately that's not unusual in wrongful conviction cases.
Speaker 3: Almost never is anyone held accountable, not the officers that
Speaker 3: were involved, the prosecutors or defense attorneys. Like in this case.
Speaker 3: I mean, Marvin's defense attorney had an obvious conflict having
Speaker 3: represented the person who actually committed the crime and was
Speaker 3: the alternate suspect. I mean, that is a conflict. That
Speaker 3: evidence should have been presented to the jury, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know, Vanessa, there's one thing that I do want
Speaker 1: to bring up here, Marvin's innocence case hinged on DNA testing,
Speaker 1: which wouldn't have been possible if Mary Jane Burton hadn't
Speaker 1: broken the rules at her job. In fact, her action
Speaker 1: of saving those samples has actually resulted in the exoneration
Speaker 1: of a dozen other wrongfully convicted men at this point,
Speaker 1: But there are other cases I believe where her playing
Speaker 1: fast and loose with policy may have caused some harm.
Speaker 1: So what should we think about Mary Jane Burton?
Speaker 3: Is she heroic? Is this visionary? Does that mean that
Speaker 3: there isn't any part of her work that could come
Speaker 3: under scrutiny? And so I think it's just, you know,
Speaker 3: an interesting thing about our society that doesn't see nuance
Speaker 3: or can't see that people can both do something great
Speaker 3: like save evidence that leads to the exoneration of many
Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted people, but also have flaws in her work
Speaker 3: at the same time, and it seems like those two
Speaker 3: truths might coexist.
Speaker 1: Thank you both Marvin and Vanessa for being here telling
Speaker 1: your story on wrongful conviction and what put a link
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project in our bio in case our
Speaker 1: listeners want to help support the great work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: And now we've come to the part of the show
Speaker 1: that we call closing arguments. This is a chance for
Speaker 1: you both to say anything that's on your mind, whatever
Speaker 1: you'd like listeners to take away from your story.
Speaker 3: Towards the beginning, you would ask the questions about the
Speaker 3: racial dynamics of Handover or Ashland specifically. And I just,
Speaker 3: you know, wanted to add that Loving versus Virginia is
Speaker 3: a landmark case in the United States which held that
Speaker 3: laws that were banning in a racial marriage were unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: That is in nineteen sixty seven, so we're just talking
Speaker 3: about fifteen years before the incident that led to Marvin's
Speaker 3: wrongful conviction. And there have been thousands of wrongful convictions
Speaker 3: catalog by the National Registry of Exonerations which starts at
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine. But wrongful conviction didn't just start in
Speaker 3: this country in the nineteen eighties, right, And we could
Speaker 3: go back to the thirties and look at the Scottsboro Boys, right,
Speaker 3: who were young black teenage males who were wrongfully accused
Speaker 3: and convicted of raping white women in Alabama. And this
Speaker 3: nation has had a long history of wrongful conviction when
Speaker 3: it comes to black men who are accused convicted have
Speaker 3: been lynched of purported sexual assaults involving white women. And
Speaker 3: that's a context that exists in Marvin's case. He's convicted
Speaker 3: and tried by an all white jerry, and just the
Speaker 3: amount of process that went into this investigation and the
Speaker 3: sentence that he was given a life sentence right two
Speaker 3: hundred and ten years and so race pervaded his wrongful
Speaker 3: conviction in ways that have deep roots in American history.
Speaker 2: A lot of people ask me how to die. You know,
Speaker 2: I should be angry, I should be angry at the victim.
Speaker 2: And my response is, I can't be angry at the victim.
Speaker 2: For the separate fact what happened did happen. Everything that
Speaker 2: she described that happened to her that day, it did happen,
Speaker 2: But it wasn't me who did these things to her.
Speaker 2: While I was incarcerated, tried to take advantage of the
Speaker 2: system as far as you know, completing my education, going
Speaker 2: to college, taking up trades and all of this to
Speaker 2: keep moving forward. And if I were to go through
Speaker 2: that time period being angry and mad at the world,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be where I'm at today because I've seen
Speaker 2: what anger can do to people. While I was there,
Speaker 2: you know, I chose to better myself, to move forward
Speaker 2: and to help those that I need, to be a
Speaker 2: voice for what happened. And once again, you know, what
Speaker 2: happened to me happens every day. We as a society,
Speaker 2: it has to be aware and accept that there are
Speaker 2: innocent people, men and women who are incarcerated for something
Speaker 2: or crimes they did not commit and we need to
Speaker 2: help and that is my goal to help change these
Speaker 2: laws and policy so we can have a better place
Speaker 2: for everyone.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
Speaker 1: early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wartiz for inviting me to sit in today,
Speaker 1: and thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea,
Speaker 1: Lila Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction, and you
Speaker 1: can follow me by going to my website Ashley Fonts
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Ashley A s H L E y
Speaker 1: F A n t z dot com. Wrongful Conviction is
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one