WEBVTT - #232 Jason Flom with Dennis and Lee Horton 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:06.480 On May thirty first, nineteen ninety three, Dennis Horton went 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.840 to his brother Lee's home for a Memorial Day weekend cookout. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:13.320 Later in the day, they visited their father in North Philadelphia, 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.360 as well as their childhood friend Robert Leif. Unbeknownst to 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.799 the Hortons, Robert Leaf had committed an armed robbery earlier 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.639 that day in which two women were injured and one 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.160 man was fatally shot. The Hortons pulled up to their 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.440 friend Robert Leaf on the street and made plans to 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.000 watch a basketball game back at Lee's. Robert asked the 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.600 brothers to meet him one block up, where he got 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.000 into their car with a gun. Police had been following 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.600 Robert and immediately pulled them over, where all three men 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.080 were arrested. The two injured women, who initially had said 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.120 that there were only two arm robbers, gave a shaky 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.040 idea of all three men, sending them to trial together. 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.000 Robert Leif's attorney used confusion amongst the witnesses over the 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.840 identities of the three men to change the narrative from 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.800 Robert Leaf as the shooter to Dennis delivering a lighter 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.600 sentence to the actual culprit while the Hortons were sentenced 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.400 to life without parole. Years later, a statement by Robert 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.280 Leaf admitting his role and excluding the Horton brothers was unearthed, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.559 along with the fact that police had identified Robert Leaf 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.240 as the shooter from the very start. However, with this 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.399 new evidence being ruled inadmissible on purely procedural grounds, it 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.680 took the tireless advocacy of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.680 to win a commutation and release for the brothers after 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:38.960 nearly three long decades in prison. This is wrongful conviction. 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.760 Welcome back to wrongful conviction. My best advice to you 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.280 right now is fasten your seatbelt because this is going 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.800 to be a crazy ride that you're about to go on. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.320 But before I introduced the two brothers who were wrongfully 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.720 convicted of the same crime together and ended up serving 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.280 almost twenty seven years together in the same cell for 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.760 the crime that didn't commit, I just want to say 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.400 that this is Philadelphia in the nineties. You've heard stories 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.160 on here before about Philadelphia in the nineties, and it 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.400 was the time and place where a black man had 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.680 a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, Mississippi than 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.119 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and this is another example of that. 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.280 So without further ado, let me introduce to you. I'm 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.640 so excited to have these guys on the show today 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.680 because there's such inspiring people. Lee and Dennis Horton, the 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.320 brothers Horton. Welcome to Ronful Conviction. 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.760 All right, good afternoon. How's everybody doing out there. I'm 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:52.800 glad to be here. Thank you for inviting us on. 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.680 So let's get right into it. First of all, I 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.200 want to say to both of you guys that while 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.440 I am obviously delighted to have you on the show, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.640 I'm sorry that you're here because of what you had 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.840 to go through and it should have never happened. So 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.560 let's go back to the beginning. I'm talking about how 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.160 was childhood for you guys growing up together while you 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.920 moved to Philly in seventy seven, right, but give us 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.360 a quick look at what your childhood was like. 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.720 So when we was young, growing up, we lived uneventful 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.360 but a wonderful life. You know, my mom and my 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:26.960 father was married in the early sixties. 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.320 It four of us, four kids. We grew up in 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.600 some of the roughest places in the city, but our family. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.960 My mom, my grandmother, my father always instilled in us 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.040 that you had to work for what you wanted their life, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.080 and so we started working at an early age my 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:42.880 mom and father. 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.400 Unfortunately they split up in nineteen seventy two. My mom, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.200 she was trying to take care of four kids on 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.080 our own. We wind up moving to the Projects, which 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.960 was at the time East Falls Projects. I was around 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.040 twelve years old, my brother was seven at the time. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.000 So the projects was a rough project. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:01.760 You know, you had to prove the people up there 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:03.440 that you was willing to fight in order for you 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.040 to be able to stay, or they chased you out 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:06.400 the projects. That's how it was. 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.960 And so I had got into a fight with an 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.760 individual and I wanted to fight. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.320 That was a blessing to some degree, but it was 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.479 also a curse because now I was at ies with 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.160 a lot of guys my age twelve or thirteen year 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.560 olds in the projects, and one day I wound up 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.120 on the wrong side of the projects when we was 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.239 approached by a group of individuals and it was maybe 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.240 about twenty something thirty guys, and they approached us and 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.880 they wanted me to fight a guy. And you know, 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:37.600 there was a bunch of guys that was about to 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:38.359 jump us. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.200 And then these other guys came out of nowhere and 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.320 came to our rescue. And it was only a few 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.480 of them, but they were like the neighborhood tough guys 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.640 to some degree. One of these guys who would become 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:51.760 a really good friend of mine was an individual named 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.880 Rob Relief. And so I fell in with these guys 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.279 and we became really good friends. He came to my house, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.359 stayed at my house, slept in my house, ate at 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.279 my house. My mom to somebody, we became his mom. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.680 And then in nineteen eight three, we moved out of 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:07.680 the projects. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.240 By that time we kind of veered off a little bit, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.800 although I would go see my friends who were still 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.880 living in the projects and some living in North Philadelphia 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:17.760 from town to town. 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.960 And so now we move up towards the time of 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.760 the actual crime, and I'm talking about Memorial Day weekend, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.960 May thirty first, nineteen ninety three. So there was an 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.760 arm robbery at Toledo's Bar. Now, initial descriptions say it 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.400 was two men, but later it was changed to three, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.160 one man with a twenty two caliber semi automatic rifle 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.880 and another with a black pistol robbed the bar and 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.680 its patrons. Samuel Alimo, six foot three and over two 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.880 hundred pounds, wrestled with the gunman for the gun, but 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:57.160 was overpowered and was shot and killed. Lous Archella and 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.120 Louis Martinez were injured, but both were covered, and a 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.480 witness described chasing after the fleeing assailants who saw them 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.080 in a small blue car and supplied police with a 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.600 partial license plate number. And again, remember this is Philadelphia 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.880 in the nineties. So we'll get to the myriad problems 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.600 with the state story, but first let's hear your story. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.600 So it's Memorial Day, weekend, May thirty first, nineteen ninety three. Lee, 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.080 you had four kids, right, including a two week old baby, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.480 and at the time, Dennis, you were just recently engaged 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:32.760 to be married, and had also recently been badly injured 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.240 at work and we're recovering, right, So you were in 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:40.320 absolutely no condition to be engaging in hand to hand combat, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.440 wrestling right with a very large man, right strong man. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.120 So can you take us through that day, the day 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.640 that this armed robbery and murder, this whole tragedy happened. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.640 So Lee and his wife invited me and my fiancee 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.200 at the time over to his house. So of course 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.279 I went to Lee's house, had a cookout out with 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.200 him and his wife and his kids, and later on 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.960 that evening, we decided we was going to take a ride. 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:07.960 You know, we've been in the house all day. Stopped 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.800 by my father's house see him, and then Lee was 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.320 going to stop by just see a few guys that 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.160 he knew, and we headed for North Philadelphia, where my 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.960 father lived at the time, and we swung by his house, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.000 but his light was out so he was sleep So 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.680 Lee said, okay, let's stop around Leaf's house. So, you know, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.320 we drove around Leaf's house. He was standing out on 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.960 the corner with some other guys and Lee beat the 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.200 horn and Leif came over to the car, letting him 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.640 and Lee talk for a little bit. So rober Leif 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.600 was supposed to come back to Lee's house. We was 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.600 going to watch the basketball game. So Leif said, pull 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:41.840 up a block and I'll be there. And I got 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.240 to just take care of something real quick, and we 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.960 pulled up to the block and Leif came maybe about 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.160 ten to fifteen minutes later, got in the car and 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.480 then we pulled off, and about a couple of blocks later, 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.320 we saw sirens and we pulled over and the police 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.440 jumped out of their vans and cars were gunn drawn 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:01.960 and told us to get out of the car. And 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.160 we got out of the car and they handcuffed us 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.400 and they put us into the paddy wagon and they 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.840 took us to the hospital when identification take place, and 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.600 all I remember is that the van doors opened up, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:15.720 and next thing you know, I've seen it. I think 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.080 two ladies point to rob Belief and say, yeah, that's 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.120 the guy right there. And then they said, well, what 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.400 about these other guys and they said, yeah, them too. 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.800 They were with them too, And then they shut the 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.520 doors back and then that was it. And next thing 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.160 you know, we were down the roundhouse where they charge 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:32.560 you for a homicide. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.480 So, okay, right away we see problems emerge with what 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:40.079 the witnesses are describing. Right the alleged number of individuals 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.920 involved in the robbery went from went up fifty percent, 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.240 right from two to three. And when you're there at 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.200 the hospital in the police paddy wagon right outside the 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.000 hospital with the witnesses saying yeah them too. Also one 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.920 of the witnesses described a blue car and gave a 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.439 partial plate number. So did that match your own vehicles? 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.959 The only witness who claimed to see the car said 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.520 it was a blue small car. It was as supposed 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.320 to been a Chevy Chavette. He said the name of 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.920 the car in his statement. Now Lee's car is a 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.840 Priest Classic, a four door large car, two tones, two 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:16.760 different colors. 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.240 But this witness, for some reason, we could never find 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.960 him and never bring him the trial. The person the 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.880 police put down giving out this partial plate number. When 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.719 we got the witness on the stand, she said, right 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:28.280 then there, I. 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:29.320 Never gave a police anything. 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.360 I never saw a car, so how could I have 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.679 ever given him the name is on this paper. Though 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.240 they said you gave it to him, She said, it's impossible. 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.480 I didn't see a car. I didn't give him anything. 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.520 And the thing about the officers who did this first thing, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:42.640 you got to give you a context to. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.800 Who these officers are. The first officer was somebody who 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.520 had strangled a guy to the early on, and then later, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:50.960 right after we was arrested, he shot a guy unarmed 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.560 in a car. The second officer, she was involved in 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.920 internal fears of investigation about a large quantity of drugs 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.559 being found in the police station and them suspecting it 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.240 or connect it to her. As you start appeeling the 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.679 layers away, you start seeing that it's more to this 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.480 than just the police picking up some guys and they 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:09.239 were involved. 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.439 So I have to ask, do you think that they 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.720 knew from the beginning that you guys had nothing to 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:14.040 do with this. 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.440 That's a really good question, and our heart of hearts, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.720 we believe in the beginning maybe they wasn't sure, but 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.880 as things begin to unfold, they had to be clear 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.720 that we wasn't involved, just didn't care. And the reason 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.640 why we know is because the prosecuted came to us 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.600 with the deal. It was like five to ten years, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.640 and we were like, we're innocent, We're not taking any deal. 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:37.800 Why should we take any deal to go to jail 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.200 when we didn't do anything? And now it was sort 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.800 of like, okay, you won't take the deal, all right, Well, 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:43.760 the chip's gonna forward. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.080 They made, right, And it's very uncommon that in the 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.800 crime as serious as this one armed robbery where someone 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.240 was killed, right, that they're going to offer someone two 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.240 guys in this case five years, right, you know, you 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.600 don't have to be a legal scholar to figure this 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:02.960 one out. So now we get to the trial and 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.000 all three of you, Lee, Dennis, and Robert Leaf are 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.240 tried together, and they have three witnesses. Now I'm going 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.520 to put witnesses in quotation marks here. Three of them 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.840 came to trial, and they eventually identified Dennis as the shooter. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:21.480 But did they have any physical evidence at all, any fingerprints, 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.600 any security footage. 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:25.240 There were no security footage. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.400 What they had was they actually had the gun they 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.160 said with the murdered weapon. They never actually could trace 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:32.800 it to any of the bullets they got out of 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:33.160 the body. 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.800 They didn't match. But this is the gun that Leif 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.160 had on him. He left the gun in the car. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.319 The cops retrieved it and when they checked it, it had fingerprints. 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.560 But we've been always trying to get these fingerprints checked 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:45.959 because they could never trace them to any of us. 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:47.679 If they took all of our fingerprints, they didn't fit 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:48.160 any of us. 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.760 Now, the way that my brother got to become the 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:57.280 shooter is a clear case of mistaken identification. Initially in 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.400 the case, they all identified Robert Leaf at the shooter, 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.120 and this where the whole case turns. If this don't 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.400 ever happen, we probably would have walked. The one witness 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.839 would identify different person every hearing. When she identified Robert Leave, 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.840 Robert Leaf's attorney, he would read the know some testimony 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.440 of her identifying my brother, until it got to the 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.160 point where when the judge asked her, well, who are 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.000 you saying did this? She said, I'm going to say 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.200 it's the one right there, and she was identifying me, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.120 and we had already told the court that they was 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.480 identified as base where we were sitting at, so we 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.479 switched seats. So when we switched seats, she was identified 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.160 based on who the witness before her told her to identify, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.800 and then she thought that the person was sitting in 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.560 that seat, but it wound up being me Lee Horton. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.040 When she heard my name, she said, hold it, what's 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.400 the name? And they JEG said why do you. 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.760 Want to know the name? Because, uh, Dennis did it. 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.880 It's Dennis. He said Dennis, and then she said, yeah, 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.600 I heard him. They was calling Dennis. And then after 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.160 that we were in the case and they knew that 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.320 this woman just had made this up out of the sky, 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.679 just right then and there, everybody refused to pull back, 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:06.640 and they could have corrected that right there, and they 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.080 had said, well, hold up, Yonner, she's wrong. Mister Leaf 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.120 was wearing a red jacket. We know that for sure. 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.360 That's a fact. They identified him as a shooter. That's 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:16.880 a fact. They didn't say any of that. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.680 They just let the witnesses go on and on and 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.199 on with these wrong identifications. And this woman had identified 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.079 every last one of us as a shooter at one 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:25.680 given time. 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:41.040 This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.960 and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.040 capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Working to reform the 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.520 criminal justice system is a key pillar of the AIG 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.960 pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.360 support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.880 as part of censures commitment to racial and civil justice. 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.120 Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.160 partnership with more than forty organizations bringing meaningful change to 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.080 people and communities worldwide. 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.520 Three weeks prior to our arrest, I had injured my 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.320 leg on my job in such a fashion that I 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.080 needed to acl repair. The holiday was on a Monday, 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:32.800 I was supposed to go talk about the day that 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.160 week I was going to have the surgery done. I 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.840 just came off the crutches, so when we were arrested, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.080 it was impossible for me to be able to wrestle 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.000 with this guy. I think they said he was like 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.880 sixty four sixty three something like that. I was supposed 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:47.680 to have overpowered him, wrestled all the way to the 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.760 ground with this guy, overpowered the gun out of his hand, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.560 and then after I was supposed to have shot him, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.200 I was supposed to have ran away as fast as 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.320 I could. There was no way I could run on 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.080 that leg at all. And my medical records and all 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:04.520 that would have shown that would have proved that, and 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.840 this would have disqualified me from even remotely possibly being 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.720 the shooter. And the thing is they knew this, but 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:12.640 nobody cared. 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.640 So you both had different lawyers, So two people who 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.160 were supposed to be working on your behalf, what were 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.320 they doing with all of this information? 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.960 At trial, we made the mistake of a friend of 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.240 my mom's told her that their son could be a 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.000 good lawyer for us, and we accepted that, but he 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.880 wasn't a criminal defense attorney. He had not tried one 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.040 criminal case, and he wound up being a person putting 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:44.240 our defense together. My lawyer had been retired and he 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.480 was kind of older and he was a little out 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.520 of step. Were just not prepared for a capital case. Now, 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.520 the difference is Robert Leef was prepared. He knew the 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.720 system and he knew how to work the system. We 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:55.320 were naive. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.360 We thought that we were innocent and it was going 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.760 to be shown and it never was. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.480 Literally, if you put this in the movie, you say, well, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.240 one guy's represented by a friend of a friend who 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.080 never tried a criminal case before this capital murder we're 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.480 talking about, and the other guys tried by a guy 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.200 that they literally pulled out a retirement and wheeled him 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.560 into the courtroom. You guys didn't even know that you're doomed. 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.000 You're thinking, hey, we go in tell the truth. You 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.080 were the only guys in the courtroom telling the truth. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.400 That's the only problem, right, and that doesn't work. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.400 And that's the thing that you know, even now gets 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.360 to me a little bit because I spent twenty seven 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.040 years in prison when this be nipping of it early on, 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.800 and I didn't have to never go to prison after 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.440 twenty seven years. You know, sometimes in your mind you think, well, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.920 you should have took there, But what would we have said. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.400 We didn't commit the crime, We didn't know anything about It. 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.720 Took us twenty eight years to learn enough about this 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:48.520 case to be able to talk about it. Where though 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.120 we knew some of the facts that happened, we had 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.200 to find in the police file. They went to court 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.120 knowing that these witnesses was identifying my brother, but they 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:02.600 had determined that was the shooter. The prosecutors knew this, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.199 the detectives knew this. But this is the problem with 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.880 the system. Nobody cared about the truth. It was about 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:10.919 let's get the conviction at all costs. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.399 Okay, So they knew you weren't involved from the jump, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:19.320 But since you wouldn't plead to lesser charges that you 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.840 knew and I think they knew were false, they threw 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.440 you into this kangaroo court situation tied to Robert Leaf, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.560 who was the actual culprit here, and to let the 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:31.440 chips fall where they may, that's how they put it. 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:31.720 Right. 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.359 So then you were represented by people who had no 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.439 business whatsoever really even being in this courtroom, right, I 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.560 mean definitely not as lawyers in a capital murder case 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.440 and you're literally on trial for your lives. So what 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:50.199 was that like. 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:52.680 I can tell you what it was like. Robert Leif's 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.040 attorney communicated with our attorneys and they spolly had a 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:00.600 joint defense, and right towards the time the jury was 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.400 going out the deliberation, I remember my attorney looking back 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.120 and saying, I don't think that his attorney was with us, 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.359 And I said, you think like he was doing everything 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.639 in his power to get his client the best possible 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:19.080 verdict he could get. He used the defense to paint 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.080 a picture so that we would wind up with the 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.679 most out of this and his client would, if not 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:24.920 walk free, get the least. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.640 So the jury goes out, they come back in four 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.439 or five hours later. Did you guys have hope that 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.239 they were going to actually see the light and that 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:35.520 you were going to be vindicated. 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.119 I mean it was just a blur of a moment. 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.000 Of course, you hold out hope that the system is 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.360 going to do the right thing. I mean we were 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:48.080 raised like everybody else, watching police shows and court shows, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.359 and from what they show on TV, it always seemed 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.800 like the system does the right thing, everything would turn 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.760 out right, even though everything was looking wrong. 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:58.080 We believed in the system to the point where I 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.880 had put an application to the police force to being arrested. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.080 Like around the time when I got convicted, my wife 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.520 received the letter saying that I was accepted to go 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:08.440 to the next phase. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.199 Jesus Christ. I mean, it's like you had. This was 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:17.760 like an alternate reality, the life that should have been right. 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.720 But okay, so the jury comes back in and the 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.520 verdict is guilty. I mean, can you tell us about 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:32.240 that moment. It's I mean, it's obviously horrible for anyone 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:37.879 who experiences it, but here it's worse because one brother 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.960 had to hear the other brother being declared guilty, followed 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.240 by being declared guilty himself. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.920 I gotta tell you, being oldest, I probably was the weakest. 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:50.679 When I heard the verdict. 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:52.520 It was like I was in a state of shock, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.240 and my legs buckled, and I remember I felt like 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.600 I was going down to the floor, and I remember 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.040 hearing my grandmom's voice in the back. 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.639 Saying, stand up real loud, don't you fall on that ground. 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:09.000 Stand up that part. I ain't never gonna forget when 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.000 they've been to divertict. I felt like I was in 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.520 the twilight zone, like this wasn't happening, Like somebody's going 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.840 to come in and say, we're just kidding. This is 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.639 not how it's supposed to end for us. I mean, 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.240