Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #407 Jason Flom with Jerome Dixon

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#407 Jason Flom with Jerome Dixon · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On July twenty fifth, nineteen ninety, a man named Curtis
0:06
Speaker 1: Durden was with three friends in front of his apartment
0:08
Speaker 1: building in Oakland, California, when armed men approached demanding money.
0:14
Speaker 1: Despite the victim's compliance, the assailants pistol whipped one man
0:17
Speaker 1: and fatally shot Curtis Durton before fleeing the scene. The
0:22
Speaker 1: police quickly found seventeen year old Jerome Dixon about a
0:25
Speaker 1: block and a half away in the street, flagging down
0:28
Speaker 1: a ride. When brought to the scene to be identified
0:31
Speaker 1: by the victims, none of them recognized Jerome. Nevertheless, after
0:35
Speaker 1: a lengthy interrogation, he admitted to being one of the assailants.
0:40
Speaker 1: What would be stronger evidence in the mind of a jury,
0:43
Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony or a confession. Jerome's attorney advised him to
0:49
Speaker 1: be smart and take a plea deal. But this is
0:53
Speaker 1: wrawful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction where today we
1:08
Speaker 1: have a juvenile false confession case. And you know it
1:13
Speaker 1: hurts my heart to number of these that we've seen before.
1:17
Speaker 1: So many names come to mind, Thomas Cogdell, Sean Tyler,
1:22
Speaker 1: Marcus Wiggins, the West Memphis three. The list is too
1:25
Speaker 1: long and too tragic to complete. And you can hear
1:29
Speaker 1: these type of stories, so many more of them, every
1:32
Speaker 1: one of them different, every one of them insane, but
1:34
Speaker 1: all involving false confessions. On our show at lead titled
1:37
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction, False Confessions, it's going to be linked at
1:40
Speaker 1: our bio. And this story is no less terrifying than
1:44
Speaker 1: any of those. But our guest today, Jerome Dixon, Well
1:47
Speaker 1: he's come out the other side, survived an unbelievable ordeal,
1:50
Speaker 1: and he's come out thriving. And Jerome, we're happy and
1:54
Speaker 1: honored to have you here.
1:55
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me and.
1:57
Speaker 1: With him, civil rights attorney at PC but Narsky and
2:01
Speaker 1: lit Ben Shaw. Ben, welcome to the show.
2:04
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having us.
2:05
Speaker 1: Now, this happened in Oakland, California, right.
2:09
Speaker 2: That is correct, Oakland, California.
2:11
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a bit about growing up there? Sure?
2:14
Speaker 2: I come from a big family. There's eight in all,
2:17
Speaker 2: six sisters, one brother, and I'm the baby with the
2:21
Speaker 2: twin sister. I came up in the air when mc
2:25
Speaker 2: hammer was topping the charts. I dressed like EMC Hammer.
2:28
Speaker 2: My hairstyle was like EMC Hammer. I remember having a
2:31
Speaker 2: honey blonde gummay cut with a streak that just went
2:37
Speaker 2: from the tip of my forehead to the back. And
2:41
Speaker 2: I just knew that I was the man. I was little,
2:45
Speaker 2: mister mc hammer.
2:46
Speaker 1: So forgive me in advance. But is it safe to
2:49
Speaker 1: say that you were too legit to quit?
2:54
Speaker 2: Too legit to quit?
2:55
Speaker 1: But all jokes aside, though the emc hammer you're also
2:58
Speaker 1: coincided with the era of the epidemic, and this was
3:01
Speaker 1: the late eighties into the early nineties.
3:03
Speaker 2: Correct in retrospect, I saw the devastation of a lot
3:06
Speaker 2: of communities, people of color. Crack was just taking its
3:11
Speaker 2: toll on a lot of families in so many dire ways.
3:16
Speaker 1: And Oakland was no stranger to that devastation and the
3:19
Speaker 1: heavy handed policing that came with the crack era.
3:24
Speaker 2: It was not a good atmosphere for people of color.
3:27
Speaker 2: You were always targeted and it was just a bad
3:33
Speaker 2: environment in all law enforcement where they were not friends.
3:37
Speaker 1: Right, And so that's the backdrop, right. This was the
3:39
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen nineties, July twenty fifth, to be exactly.
3:42
Speaker 1: And the victim in this case, Curtis Durton, was hanging
3:45
Speaker 1: out in front of his apartment building with his friend
3:46
Speaker 1: Jeff Simmons, and two young women and armed men approached them. Now, Ben,
3:51
Speaker 1: what can you tell us about the crime itself.
3:54
Speaker 3: It was basically a robbery as best we could tell,
3:57
Speaker 3: where a few young men sort of come up up,
4:00
Speaker 3: they demand that everybody get down on the ground. Two
4:03
Speaker 3: of the young women who were there kind of take
4:06
Speaker 3: off and go running into the apartment complex. One young
4:10
Speaker 3: man hands over his money, and during the course of
4:13
Speaker 3: the robbery, the other young man is killed. He's shot
4:16
Speaker 3: and killed, and the assailants sort of take off and
4:21
Speaker 3: get into a car and drive away.
4:23
Speaker 1: So Curtis Durton was fatally shot, and I understand that
4:26
Speaker 1: one of the assailants pistol whip the guy who survived,
4:29
Speaker 1: Jeff Simmons.
4:30
Speaker 3: That's right. And because of sort of the environment in
4:33
Speaker 3: the neighborhood, the police just make an assumption that this
4:37
Speaker 3: is part of a drug turf war, regardless of the
4:41
Speaker 3: fact that this is not somebody who's dealing drugs, and
4:44
Speaker 3: there's no factual grounding for this assumption.
4:48
Speaker 1: Now, Jerome, you were in front of your friend Kevin's
4:51
Speaker 1: apartment building about a football fields length away from where
4:54
Speaker 1: this crime occurred right a block and a half away.
4:57
Speaker 1: Did you hear the gunshot?
4:59
Speaker 2: It was close enough to hear, but again, you hear
5:01
Speaker 2: gunshots in the area all the time, so you don't
5:04
Speaker 2: even give a second thought to it. And you know again.
5:08
Speaker 2: I was at my friends Kevin's house. We'd been hanging
5:10
Speaker 2: out all morning into the night, and I had made
5:14
Speaker 2: arrangements for my friend Randy to come back to the
5:18
Speaker 2: apartment complex to pick me up to take me home
5:20
Speaker 2: since that was on his way home. And as I
5:24
Speaker 2: was sitting in the parking lot with my friends Kai
5:26
Speaker 2: and Harvey, I was sitting in the backseat of the
5:29
Speaker 2: car and I saw Randy drive by, and I got
5:33
Speaker 2: out of the car and ran into the middle of
5:36
Speaker 2: the street to flag him down. And as I am
5:39
Speaker 2: in the middle of the street flagging Randy down, the
5:43
Speaker 2: patrol car is coming down the avenue thirty eighth Avenue,
5:46
Speaker 2: and he asked me what I was doing, and I said,
5:50
Speaker 2: I'm trying to flag down my friend Randy, who is
5:53
Speaker 2: right down there. The patrol officer stopped the car, put
5:56
Speaker 2: me in the back of the patrol car, and drove
5:59
Speaker 2: me to the crime scene, which was probably about a
6:02
Speaker 2: block and a half away.
6:03
Speaker 1: Now they were looking for someone in a puppy jacket
6:06
Speaker 1: and denim jeans. There was a description of the suspect
6:09
Speaker 1: as well, did any of it match Jerome?
6:11
Speaker 3: The person that the police believe Jerome is in this
6:15
Speaker 3: group is described as being in his early to mid twenties,
6:20
Speaker 3: about five six to five eight and stocky, and Jerome,
6:25
Speaker 3: of course at the time, is seventeen, well over six
6:29
Speaker 3: feet tall and very slim. And yeah, he's wearing you know,
6:33
Speaker 3: sweatpants and this letterman's jacket. So he's also not matching
6:38
Speaker 3: the description of the clothing. And not only does nothing
6:42
Speaker 3: sort of stick out about Jerome, he's picked up on
6:46
Speaker 3: thirty eighth Avenue in the opposite sort of direction from
6:49
Speaker 3: the crime scene that witnesses described the perpetrators fleeing.
6:53
Speaker 1: So Jerome didn't match the description. Was found in the
6:56
Speaker 1: wrong direction without a weapon. And I'd like our audience
7:01
Speaker 1: to take a second and imagine you're imagining your seventeen
7:04
Speaker 1: year old self just waiting on a ride from a
7:07
Speaker 1: friend to continue on with whatever the night had in
7:10
Speaker 1: store for you, and you're basically kidnapped by people with
7:16
Speaker 1: guns and badges.
7:18
Speaker 2: I was kidnapped by law enforcement, and as I was
7:23
Speaker 2: driven to the crime scene, still in the back of
7:26
Speaker 2: the patrol car, I was met by another patrol officer.
7:30
Speaker 2: He basically said, you know, I had a lot of
7:33
Speaker 2: explaining to do about that dead body, and I could
7:36
Speaker 2: see that there was a body laying on the ground
7:39
Speaker 2: with a white sheet over it. And I had told
7:43
Speaker 2: the officer exactly what I was doing, where I was at,
7:46
Speaker 2: and how my friends are still there right up the
7:50
Speaker 2: street right.
7:51
Speaker 1: This shooting had just happened. Not only were your alibi
7:55
Speaker 1: witnesses right up the street, but the robbery victims were
7:58
Speaker 1: right there next to the I recently deceased.
8:00
Speaker 3: Friend, and a police officer shines a light through the
8:04
Speaker 3: window of a police car and asks the eyewitnesses if
8:08
Speaker 3: they can identify Jerome as being one of the group
8:11
Speaker 3: of young men that had committed this robbery. And despite
8:15
Speaker 3: how suggestive that identification procedure is, none of them identified
8:21
Speaker 3: Jerome as being among the group that they committed this
8:24
Speaker 3: robbery and murder man.
8:27
Speaker 1: We've seen that suggestive tactic go the way it was
8:29
Speaker 1: intended to go before, but it didn't work. Jerome was
8:34
Speaker 1: not identified, So this madness should have ended right then.
8:40
Speaker 1: And there, but as we know, it didn't.
8:45
Speaker 2: From there, I was taken to the police station downtown
8:49
Speaker 2: and they began to question me about the crime, and
8:54
Speaker 2: I was truthful with the officers. I told him exactly
8:57
Speaker 2: what I was doing, where I was at, and who
9:00
Speaker 2: I was with. But that wasn't enough, and I remained
9:06
Speaker 2: there for twenty five hours. Well the first seven hours
9:10
Speaker 2: of the interrogation, I really thought that they were on
9:13
Speaker 2: my side, that they were seen where I was at
9:16
Speaker 2: with this incident, but their whole demeanor changed.
9:21
Speaker 1: And let's not forget you're seventeen years old, just a kid.
9:26
Speaker 1: Did your mother know where you were at this time?
9:30
Speaker 2: During that time? My mother thought that I was by
9:32
Speaker 2: my friend Kevin's apartment, but I was actually downtown being
9:36
Speaker 2: questioned by investigating officers about a murder that I had
9:40
Speaker 2: no knowledge thereof.
9:42
Speaker 1: And at some point that morning, the interview transitioned from
9:45
Speaker 1: uniformed officers to detectives, Sergeants Roth and Paniagua, who began
9:51
Speaker 1: to apply more pressure, saying that Jerome story, that your
9:56
Speaker 1: story wasn't adding up.
9:57
Speaker 2: And when they asked me if I I wanted to
10:00
Speaker 2: take a polygraph examination, I was like, yes, let's do it.
10:03
Speaker 2: I have nothing to hide. As they gave me the polygraph,
10:07
Speaker 2: they said that I had failed the examination.
10:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, big shocker there. I could have told you they
10:13
Speaker 1: were going to say that. I mean, they used to
10:14
Speaker 1: do it every day, all day when polygraphs were still
10:17
Speaker 1: admissible as evidence. They'd give you the test, they tell
10:20
Speaker 1: you that you failed, and then they'd hope that that
10:23
Speaker 1: would be one of the things that would help to
10:25
Speaker 1: chip away at your resolve.
10:27
Speaker 2: And they're questioning became a lot more harsh. But they
10:32
Speaker 2: were telling me things like, you know what they do
10:34
Speaker 2: to little kids like you. You're not telling the truth. We
10:38
Speaker 2: have witnesses that could put you at the crime scene.
10:41
Speaker 3: Everything that Jerome is describing is consistent with the factors
10:46
Speaker 3: that we know can produce false confessions. Jerome is deprived
10:49
Speaker 3: of sleep. They're using false and exaggerated evidence ploise, both
10:53
Speaker 3: in terms of telling him that other people are placing
10:56
Speaker 3: him at the scene when he wasn't there and could
11:00
Speaker 3: be identified even through the incredibly coercive show up that
11:04
Speaker 3: they did through the police car window, but they're also
11:06
Speaker 3: telling him that he failed a polygraph. The detectives are
11:10
Speaker 3: using the read method, which as your listeners are familiar
11:13
Speaker 3: with is just a guilt presumptive form of interrogation.
11:18
Speaker 1: The read technique is an interrogation method that was developed
11:22
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties by a Chicago Police Department polygraph
11:25
Speaker 1: examiner named John E. Reid, and the method begins by
11:29
Speaker 1: sharing alleged details of the investigation that point to the
11:32
Speaker 1: suspect's guilt. This is called an evidence ploy and can
11:37
Speaker 1: legally be a blatant falsehood still in forty seven states,
11:41
Speaker 1: by the way, to this day. For example, they could
11:43
Speaker 1: say we found your DNA at the crime scene, whether
11:46
Speaker 1: it's true or not. In this case, they told Jerome
11:50
Speaker 1: that he had failed a polygraph.
11:51
Speaker 3: A polygraph is a police created instrument that can't actually
11:55
Speaker 3: tell if somebody is telling the truth. I mean, this
11:58
Speaker 3: is described to Jerome as something that will tell you
12:01
Speaker 3: if you're telling the truth or not. But it's actually
12:03
Speaker 3: an inherent fall sevenis boy because it's not capable of
12:06
Speaker 3: spitting out reliable information.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a cudgel.
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Speaker 2: Exactly when they told me that I failed, like I
12:16
Speaker 2: I was just empty inside. I didn't know what else
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Speaker 2: to do.
12:21
Speaker 1: Once sharing this alleged detail, the investigation creates a high
12:25
Speaker 1: pressure situation for the suspect, the read technique continues, where
12:29
Speaker 1: the interrogator offers socially acceptable justifications for the suspect's alleged behavior,
12:35
Speaker 1: followed by an offer of leniency. If the suspect confesses.
12:39
Speaker 3: The police say, Okay, we know you didn't pull the trigger,
12:42
Speaker 3: but we know that you're there now. Legally, there's no
12:46
Speaker 3: difference between being there at the scene of murder and
12:49
Speaker 3: participating or pulling the trigger right.
12:51
Speaker 1: Right in many states, California being one of them. In
12:54
Speaker 1: the commission of a felony, for example, a robbery, if
12:57
Speaker 1: someone dies, then everyone who participate paid it in that
13:00
Speaker 1: robbery can be prosecuted for murder, even if the person
13:03
Speaker 1: was killed by the police exactly.
13:06
Speaker 3: Again, that's a technique of minimization. They also made him
13:09
Speaker 3: feel like he could leave as soon as he told
13:11
Speaker 3: them what they wanted to know. And so it's this
13:14
Speaker 3: implicit threat of we're gonna hold you here forever until
13:17
Speaker 3: we get what we want.
13:18
Speaker 2: Going into that twenty fourth hour, that twenty fifth hour,
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Speaker 2: I was becoming nothing more but this empty shell of
13:25
Speaker 2: a child, and I didn't know what else to do.
13:28
Speaker 2: But they were telling me, you're not telling the truth,
13:31
Speaker 2: You're a liar. It made me feel like maybe I'm
13:36
Speaker 2: not telling the truth. They got so deep into my
13:40
Speaker 2: mind where I started to believe the opposite.
13:44
Speaker 1: There are three types of false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and persuaded.
13:50
Speaker 1: This sounds a lot like the latter, where after a lengthy,
13:54
Speaker 1: exhausting interrogation, the subject may actually begin to believe in
13:59
Speaker 1: their own guilt. For example, an interrogator might say, maybe
14:04
Speaker 1: your actions were so hateous that you simply blocked them out.
14:07
Speaker 1: Do you think you know you run a blackout or something?
14:09
Speaker 1: Do you think that's possible? And then if the subject
14:12
Speaker 1: entertains that thought, that can be perceived as an admission
14:16
Speaker 1: of guilt.
14:17
Speaker 2: In those final hours, I remember them getting so deep
14:23
Speaker 2: into my head to where I felt like I was hopeless,
14:28
Speaker 2: And I remember I put my head on the table
14:33
Speaker 2: and I raised my head and I was like, whatever
14:36
Speaker 2: you guys want to know, I'll tell you. And at
14:40
Speaker 2: that point the investigating officer he slammed his hands on
14:44
Speaker 2: the table and said, finally we're going to get somewhere.
14:58
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by marshmallo in the world's leading
15:01
Speaker 1: professional services firm in the areas of Risk Strategy and People.
15:05
Speaker 1: It's Legal and Compliance Department provides pro bono legal assistance
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Speaker 1: and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
15:18
Speaker 3: The police have this idea that there's a turf war
15:21
Speaker 3: between these rifle gangs who are selling drugs, despite the
15:25
Speaker 3: fact that according to all the eyewitnesses, nobody involved as
15:29
Speaker 3: selling drugs. The victim didn't sell drugs. This was a
15:33
Speaker 3: group of people who are just hanging out in front
15:35
Speaker 3: of their apartment building. But the police have this idea
15:38
Speaker 3: that there had been disagreements over whose turf people were
15:44
Speaker 3: selling drugs on and that Jerome got everyone together, they
15:48
Speaker 3: get guns, they go over and they basically exact this
15:53
Speaker 3: retribution that they tell people to give up the cash
15:57
Speaker 3: and give up the drugs.
15:58
Speaker 2: They painted a scenario they believed happened, and they fed
16:03
Speaker 2: that information to me, and they said, why don't you
16:05
Speaker 2: put yourself into that equation. And that equation was I had.
16:09
Speaker 3: A UZI man that somebody he's with shoots the victim
16:13
Speaker 3: with a sawt off shotgun, and then after that, Jerome
16:17
Speaker 3: fires this gun in the air and then they take off.
16:21
Speaker 2: I had incorporated into my statement that after I heard
16:25
Speaker 2: the gun shot and fired the UZI I ran to
16:28
Speaker 2: the upward part of the block where I was detained at.
16:31
Speaker 2: I told them, in the process of running to that area,
16:35
Speaker 2: I jumped over a fence and ran into a creek
16:37
Speaker 2: area and that's where I left the gun at. Obviously,
16:40
Speaker 2: none of that was true.
16:41
Speaker 3: No gun was ever recovered. There's no physical, forensic, or
16:44
Speaker 3: circumstantial evidence that's recovered that connects with Jerome in any way.
16:49
Speaker 2: But in my mind, I was like, if I tell
16:52
Speaker 2: them what they wanted to hear, I probably can go home.
16:55
Speaker 2: I probably can get out of this situation.
16:58
Speaker 3: But that was not the truth, and they sort of
17:00
Speaker 3: get him to put himself in the equation. They get
17:02
Speaker 3: this false confession. Then at eleven forty eight PM, a
17:07
Speaker 3: deputy DA comes in and they do like a full
17:09
Speaker 3: taped one that we have a transcript of. When it's
17:12
Speaker 3: like many of the false confessions that you see, where
17:14
Speaker 3: this district attorney is speaking in full paragraphs about what happened,
17:20
Speaker 3: and then Jerome saying like yes, and then it's like
17:22
Speaker 3: another full paragraph yes.
17:24
Speaker 1: Now, the hallmark of most false confessions is that while
17:27
Speaker 1: there'll be some truthful information there, that the statements also
17:31
Speaker 1: end up being inconsistent with the facts of the crime.
17:34
Speaker 1: Besides this crime not being part of a drug turf war,
17:37
Speaker 1: what else stood out about this particular false confession.
17:40
Speaker 3: The narrative that the police had come up with was
17:43
Speaker 3: that they were going to take retribution on a guy
17:47
Speaker 3: named Phil But according to eyewitnesses who actually knew this person,
17:51
Speaker 3: he wasn't there. And when Jerome is giving this confession,
17:54
Speaker 3: he's repeatedly talking about him being there, but then later says, oh, well,
17:58
Speaker 3: maybe he wasn't there. In this confession, he's talking about, well,
18:02
Speaker 3: there are three women and three or four men, but
18:04
Speaker 3: actually there are two men and two women there. At
18:07
Speaker 3: one point he talks about pointing an uzi at one
18:10
Speaker 3: of the young men who's there. Well, that person gave
18:13
Speaker 3: money to somebody with a Tech nine that's also pointed
18:16
Speaker 3: at him. But the eyewitness only describes being robbed by
18:19
Speaker 3: somebody with an uzi and he says he was hit
18:22
Speaker 3: with an uzi on the head, But the police scripted
18:26
Speaker 3: confession doesn't mention that. It also talks about Jerome firing
18:29
Speaker 3: an uzi in the air to scare off witnesses, but
18:33
Speaker 3: not a single eyewitness to this mentioned that at all.
18:36
Speaker 3: And then Jerome also describes throwing this weapon down as
18:39
Speaker 3: he ran away, but no gun was ever recovered.
18:42
Speaker 1: So they got the number of people wrong for starters
18:46
Speaker 1: six or seven instead of four. Not a little wrong,
18:50
Speaker 1: a lot rob Then the police included both a person
18:53
Speaker 1: who wasn't there named Phil, as well as a non
18:57
Speaker 1: existent weapon, the Tech nine, But then they forgot to
19:00
Speaker 1: include the pistol whipping with the Uzi. Followed by making
19:04
Speaker 1: up the whole thing about the Uzi being fired into
19:08
Speaker 1: the air, and they conjured up this entire story, compounding
19:12
Speaker 1: the tragedy of an actual murder by victimizing Jerome and
19:17
Speaker 1: literally taking his life away, and he was just a
19:19
Speaker 1: seventeen year old kid.
19:20
Speaker 2: At the end of this questioning, I finally was allowed
19:25
Speaker 2: to call my mom home. And when I did finally
19:30
Speaker 2: get that call, I said, Mom, they have me downtown
19:35
Speaker 2: for murder. And my mother was in disbelief, and I
19:40
Speaker 2: remember hearing on the phone. She said to my sister,
19:46
Speaker 2: I know this voice on the other line, but this
19:49
Speaker 2: is not Jerome. She handed the phone to my sister
19:52
Speaker 2: and said, find out who this is. This does not
19:55
Speaker 2: sound like Jerome. My sister Leah picked the phone up
19:59
Speaker 2: she said, hello, who is this and I said, it's Jerome.
20:02
Speaker 2: They got me downtown for murder. So the initial charges
20:08
Speaker 2: were first degree murder, three counts of robbery, and assault
20:13
Speaker 2: with a deadly weapon. My public defender came to me
20:16
Speaker 2: and said, based on my confession, I have the best
20:20
Speaker 2: deal for you, and that was a six year deal
20:23
Speaker 2: in the California Youth Authority.
20:25
Speaker 1: And in nineteen ninety one at the time that you
20:28
Speaker 1: were being processed, was really essentially a fool's Errand to
20:32
Speaker 1: even try to convince a jury that anybody, under any
20:35
Speaker 1: circumstances would confess to something that they hadn't done, even
20:39
Speaker 1: if your public defender managed to point out all of
20:42
Speaker 1: the wild inconsistencies really between your statement and the facts
20:47
Speaker 1: of the crime.
20:47
Speaker 2: My public defender never suggested that I do go to
20:52
Speaker 2: trial so that all that information could be presented. The
20:55
Speaker 2: conversation from start to finish was I have a guaranteed
20:59
Speaker 2: deal for you, and I'm advising you to take it
21:04
Speaker 2: because you gave a confession, and there's no way that
21:07
Speaker 2: you could win a case based on the confession that
21:09
Speaker 2: you've given. And so my only option, based on what
21:14
Speaker 2: my public defender was telling me was to take this
21:17
Speaker 2: guaranteed six year deal to the California Youth Authority for
21:21
Speaker 2: first degree murder through counts of robbery and assault with
21:23
Speaker 2: a deadly weapon, and that by taking this deal I
21:27
Speaker 2: would be released before my twenty fifth birthday.
21:31
Speaker 1: Considering the alternative, you'd be looking at a life sentence.
21:34
Speaker 1: So six years in juvie or life.
21:38
Speaker 2: Being released before my twenty fifth birthday was was insight.
21:43
Speaker 2: It was in my vision, and again I believed that
21:47
Speaker 2: what my public defender was telling me was the best call,
21:50
Speaker 2: and so I took the deal.
21:53
Speaker 3: And just to sort of provide context, just because it's
21:57
Speaker 3: so bizarre, at the proceeding where you know, Jerome first
22:02
Speaker 3: enters into this agreement, the judge says, all right, so
22:05
Speaker 3: you'll go to the California Youth Authority. You'll be there
22:08
Speaker 3: until you're twenty five, and then you'll be released. This
22:12
Speaker 3: is assuming that the California Youth Authority accepts you. Given
22:16
Speaker 3: the reports that I've seen, I believe that they will.
22:19
Speaker 3: And so there's a body, the Youthful Funder Parole Board,
22:24
Speaker 3: who determines whether or not somebody is eligible to be
22:27
Speaker 3: at the CYA. The board flat out rejects Jerome because
22:33
Speaker 3: of the circumstances of the crime.
22:35
Speaker 2: And so six months into that deal, I was brought
22:39
Speaker 2: back to court it was vacated, at which point I
22:43
Speaker 2: was told that the District Attorney's office felt like I
22:47
Speaker 2: should cooperate with the office by giving up the names
22:50
Speaker 2: of the individuals that were involved in this crime. And
22:55
Speaker 2: by not giving up the names, I would go to
22:58
Speaker 2: trial and I would receive the mach sentence of fifty
23:01
Speaker 2: years to life in prison. But if I don't go
23:04
Speaker 2: to trial, I could plead to a lesser and receive
23:08
Speaker 2: rather than fifty years, I could receive an eighteen year
23:11
Speaker 2: to life sentence. And I didn't have names. I never did,
23:15
Speaker 2: And so the next phase was to vacate the original
23:21
Speaker 2: sentence and plead to the lesser charge, which would be
23:26
Speaker 2: second degree murder.
23:28
Speaker 1: And so, after having taken the original deal for six years,
23:32
Speaker 1: in Julie, that would be a hard thing for anyone
23:34
Speaker 1: to swallow as an innocent person, since you had already
23:36
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty. Though then you were faced with a choice
23:39
Speaker 1: between fifty to life or eighteen to life. You know, my.
23:46
Speaker 2: Faith in God was shattered. I didn't believe that there
23:50
Speaker 2: was a god. What kind of god would put a
23:53
Speaker 2: child through something like this. I couldn't believe that this
23:58
Speaker 2: was happening to me. There was no one in authority
24:02
Speaker 2: that stood up to the plate and said, wait a minute,
24:06
Speaker 2: something is not right here. It was the summer of
24:27
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six that I was transferred from the Youth
24:30
Speaker 2: Authority to the Department of Corrections prison. In the Youth Authority,
24:37
Speaker 2: the mindset is different. It's about rehabilitation therapy. When you
24:42
Speaker 2: get to prison, it's none of that. It's a dark
24:45
Speaker 2: world and I had to grow up really quick. And
24:49
Speaker 2: I remember when I first hit the prison yard. I
24:53
Speaker 2: was met by an individual and he said to me, youngster,
24:59
Speaker 2: if you want to survive, there's three things that you
25:03
Speaker 2: should do. Don't fuck with punks, don't gamble, and don't
25:08
Speaker 2: click up. I e being a gang member. He said,
25:10
Speaker 2: if you take those three things, you survived this madness.
25:14
Speaker 2: That's all he said. And for twenty one years I
25:16
Speaker 2: never clicked up, didn't mess with punks. And it was
25:20
Speaker 2: difficult because I was ostracized in so many different ways.
25:23
Speaker 2: I had a mark on my biack because I wasn't
25:27
Speaker 2: part of a gang. I didn't click up. The only
25:29
Speaker 2: neutral zone save zone that I could exist on was
25:33
Speaker 2: the track, so I ran four hours a day. Every
25:37
Speaker 2: time they opened the yard, I would just go to
25:39
Speaker 2: the yard and run.
25:40
Speaker 1: I guess you can't get dragged into any more drama
25:43
Speaker 1: if you're just running and don't engage with anyone.
25:46
Speaker 2: Or you could try running with me and try to
25:48
Speaker 2: have a conversation, but that that wasn't gonna happen. For
25:53
Speaker 2: the first couple of years that I was incarcerated, I
25:56
Speaker 2: was in a dark place where I just wouldn't say
25:59
Speaker 2: anything to anybody. The last thing that I wanted to
26:02
Speaker 2: do was be judged again and again, especially for a
26:05
Speaker 2: crime I didn't do. I didn't want to be mocked
26:07
Speaker 2: and scorned by my peers. When they asked me what
26:10
Speaker 2: I was in there for, I would say, I'm in
26:12
Speaker 2: here for murder. Some of the things that I did
26:15
Speaker 2: in prison for starters. I always use this analogy, how
26:19
Speaker 2: did I stay sane going through all of that? And
26:23
Speaker 2: if I could paint the picture of you holding a
26:25
Speaker 2: live grenade, it would be just imagine your eighteenth birthday,
26:29
Speaker 2: all the milestones, your twenty first, twenty fifth, thirtieth, my
26:33
Speaker 2: nieces and nephew's being born, my siblings being married, my dad,
26:38
Speaker 2: even my dad passed away a year to the date
26:40
Speaker 2: that I came home on. All of this was in
26:43
Speaker 2: capsualized in this live grenade that I had to hold
26:45
Speaker 2: on to, and that live grenade represent my sanity, and
26:48
Speaker 2: I knew that the moment that I would let that
26:50
Speaker 2: live grenade go would be the moment I would explode
26:52
Speaker 2: or implode. While in prison, I also did hospice care.
26:55
Speaker 2: That was an eye opening for me. Is to sit
26:58
Speaker 2: with terminally ill payats just to know these individuals, not
27:03
Speaker 2: to know them from their criminal past, but just to
27:06
Speaker 2: know them as an individual, and they would always give
27:08
Speaker 2: me insight. You're young, you have your whole life ahead
27:11
Speaker 2: of you. Don't make the mistakes like I did. I
27:13
Speaker 2: took all of that into consideration. I learned some good
27:16
Speaker 2: things in prison. I learned some bad things in prison.
27:19
Speaker 1: What are a few lessons you learned? If you could
27:22
Speaker 1: tell us pick like the first three to come to mind.
27:26
Speaker 2: Number one, I would say I had to be honest
27:30
Speaker 2: with myself in understanding why I confess to a crime
27:35
Speaker 2: I didn't do. Reliving that episode was very traumatic, but
27:40
Speaker 2: I had to come to terms with it, and I
27:42
Speaker 2: had to accept it. With that being said, I had
27:45
Speaker 2: to talk with that seventeen year old kid, and I
27:49
Speaker 2: had to become that seventeen year old kid's protector, his man,
27:55
Speaker 2: and I had to always speak for that seventeen year
27:58
Speaker 2: old kid because nobody's vote for him. Number Two, I
28:02
Speaker 2: had to learn how to respect myself at all times.
28:07
Speaker 2: When you respect yourself at all times, the people around
28:10
Speaker 2: you would see that respect and they would honor that.
28:12
Speaker 2: It's not like that for everybody, but it was like
28:14
Speaker 2: that for me, And I would say. The third thing
28:17
Speaker 2: would be to honor the people that kept me saying
28:21
Speaker 2: while I was in there, Ie, my family. My family
28:24
Speaker 2: was my mainstay from start to finish of my incarceration.
28:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that support. Not everyone has it, but
28:31
Speaker 1: it goes a long way if you do. We hear
28:34
Speaker 1: time and again on the show and even just doing
28:37
Speaker 1: the work, and I understand that in addition to the
28:40
Speaker 1: hospice care, which, by the way, my hat's off to you,
28:43
Speaker 1: but you also finished high school inside behind the bars,
28:46
Speaker 1: and you did your time get this with zero disciplinary infractions.
28:51
Speaker 1: It's almost unheard of.
28:53
Speaker 2: It's hard to do. And you know what I never
28:56
Speaker 2: wanted to represent where I was at. I didn't want
28:59
Speaker 2: to become a product of that system. Again, I'm not
29:02
Speaker 2: speaking for every but I'm only speaking for self. The
29:04
Speaker 2: last thing that I wanted to do, for example, was
29:06
Speaker 2: call my mom and say, hey, Mom, guess what, I'm
29:09
Speaker 2: a gang member now. So yes, it was a fine
29:14
Speaker 2: line that I had to walk, but it was something
29:16
Speaker 2: that was necessary for me because I was not a
29:19
Speaker 2: murderer and I did not want to act like I
29:21
Speaker 2: was a murderer by being a product of that system.
29:25
Speaker 2: So I remained disciplinary free for twenty one and a
29:28
Speaker 2: half years.
29:29
Speaker 3: I mean, when I got Jerome's c file, which is
29:32
Speaker 3: the file that they assemble for you in this CDCR.
29:37
Speaker 3: Normally you go through these files and it's like disciplinary
29:40
Speaker 3: hearing after disciplinary hearing after disciplinary hearing. And that's because
29:44
Speaker 3: no matter what your intentions are, and no matter the
29:46
Speaker 3: level of your self control, it's next to impossible to
29:50
Speaker 3: spend time in prison, particularly in a maximum security institution. Right,
29:55
Speaker 3: even if you're not looking for trouble, a lot of
29:56
Speaker 3: times trouble is going to find you. And so I mean,
29:59
Speaker 3: it's it's just a testament to the incredible force of
30:04
Speaker 3: will that Jerome had that he was able to stay
30:07
Speaker 3: discipline free, and instead it was just like a bunch
30:10
Speaker 3: of laudatory statements. I mean, I told him when I
30:12
Speaker 3: first reviewed this, I was like, Jerome, you could take
30:14
Speaker 3: this CE file and apply to college.
30:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible. And I also understand that the very
30:20
Speaker 1: little bit of money that you were able to make
30:22
Speaker 1: in there, because you were making ninety five cents an
30:25
Speaker 1: hour in the print shop, that you donated to charity.
30:28
Speaker 2: I just wanted to feel some type of connection to
30:32
Speaker 2: the real world, and I felt like by donating the
30:35
Speaker 2: money that I made in there to charitable causes in
30:39
Speaker 2: society would give me some type of connection to the
30:42
Speaker 2: free world.
30:43
Speaker 1: And so while you're in there living this honorable, even
30:46
Speaker 1: heroic existence, your avenues for relief and post conviction were
30:50
Speaker 1: not promising at all with the guilty plate. And then
30:53
Speaker 1: you were repeatedly denied at the parole board in two
30:55
Speaker 1: thousand and two, two thousand and five, in two thousand.
30:59
Speaker 2: And eight, initial stance while appearing before the parole board
31:03
Speaker 2: was I'm not going to talk about the life crime.
31:06
Speaker 2: If anything, I'll talk about what I've been doing since
31:09
Speaker 2: I've been incarcerated. And what I plan to do upon
31:11
Speaker 2: my release, and that was doing more harm than good
31:14
Speaker 2: because I wasn't providing any insight.
31:16
Speaker 1: And then at your two thousand and eight hearing, as
31:19
Speaker 1: I understand it, you started claiming your actual innocence.
31:22
Speaker 2: There was a statement that was made by the district
31:25
Speaker 2: attorney and she basically said that I was taking steps
31:29
Speaker 2: back because I was saying that I didn't commit the crime.
31:35
Speaker 2: Fast forward, going into my twenty eleven hearing, I wrote
31:39
Speaker 2: out a statement explaining how a seventeen year old kid
31:42
Speaker 2: was put in an adult situation, who was forced to
31:45
Speaker 2: confess to a crime he didn't do, who was now
31:49
Speaker 2: a thirty eight year old man fighting for his freedom.
31:52
Speaker 2: Their response was that they believed my story and they
31:57
Speaker 2: gave me a release.
31:58
Speaker 1: Date, which was October seventeenth, twenty eleven. Tell us about that.
32:04
Speaker 2: It was very special in so many ways. I didn't
32:11
Speaker 2: believe that it would happen, but it happened. I was
32:17
Speaker 2: met by my sisters. I wish my dad would have
32:20
Speaker 2: been there to see me walk out. All I wanted
32:23
Speaker 2: him to do was to see me walk out of
32:25
Speaker 2: there strong and singing. But I made it out with
32:28
Speaker 2: my sanity that was key was walking out of there
32:32
Speaker 2: with my sanity. They wrote me off. There were some
32:35
Speaker 2: that said that I wouldn't make it out alive. I
32:39
Speaker 2: proved them wrong.
32:40
Speaker 1: Yes you did. And now you're out on parole and
32:43
Speaker 1: you were going to be under supervision for another five years,
32:47
Speaker 1: though with plenty of pitfalls in your path, all sorts
32:50
Speaker 1: of obstacles and the hoops you had to jump through,
32:53
Speaker 1: but you didn't let that stop you.
32:55
Speaker 2: When I first came home, I had a job offer
32:58
Speaker 2: at a law firm, and I walked into the law
33:00
Speaker 2: firm my second day home, and I didn't have a
33:04
Speaker 2: suit and tie, and they purchased me five suits, and
33:08
Speaker 2: they said that I was required to wear one to
33:10
Speaker 2: work every day. They said that they opened the office
33:12
Speaker 2: at nine o'clock. I was there at eight o'clock. And
33:15
Speaker 2: from there I transitioned to becoming a project manager for
33:18
Speaker 2: a construction company. I stayed with the construction company for
33:21
Speaker 2: about eight years, and then I transitioned to becoming an
33:24
Speaker 2: active member of an organization called the Anti Recitivism Coalition,
33:28
Speaker 2: which I am now vice chairman of the board. We
33:31
Speaker 2: do a lot of policy work and advocacy work, which
33:34
Speaker 2: brought me to this place now of speaking on behalf
33:38
Speaker 2: of all the children out there who have been duped
33:42
Speaker 2: into confessions that they didn't do. And so I'm on
33:45
Speaker 2: a campaign now to get child Miranda rights across the board.
33:49
Speaker 2: I'm working with two congress personnel, Congressman Tony Cardinas and
33:55
Speaker 2: Representative Sydney cam lagger Dove on federalizing juvenile Miranda rights
34:01
Speaker 2: across the board.
34:02
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So this isn't just California, this is federal
34:06
Speaker 1: juvenile Miranda rights. So what can our audience do to help?
34:09
Speaker 2: Number One, you can google the Anti Recidivism Coalition and
34:13
Speaker 2: as well as Congressman Tony Cardinas as well as Representative
34:18
Speaker 2: Sidney kamlagger Dove to get more information on the Juvenile
34:23
Speaker 2: Miranda Right bill package.
34:25
Speaker 1: So we'll have any recidivism dot org as well as
34:27
Speaker 1: other action steps linked in the bio. Now, before we
34:29
Speaker 1: go to closing arguments, I've heard you've also gotten married
34:33
Speaker 1: since you've been out.
34:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. I got married to a beautiful wife. Her name
34:37
Speaker 2: is Raha. She is the apple of my eye. I'm
34:41
Speaker 2: just now understanding puppy love. It was something that I
34:45
Speaker 2: should have taken on when I was fifteen or sixteen.
34:49
Speaker 2: I waited until I was fifty to understand the philosophy
34:53
Speaker 2: of love, and it truly is a beautiful experience. We
34:57
Speaker 2: just purchased a nice home like I couldn't ask for
35:01
Speaker 2: anything more considering where I came from.
35:03
Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, thank you. And I want to turn to
35:05
Speaker 1: Ben because he also has a call to action for
35:07
Speaker 1: what he's working on now, and there's a number of
35:10
Speaker 1: us working on this, which is to finally and permanently
35:14
Speaker 1: clear Jerome's name.
35:16
Speaker 3: So after wrongful conviction like that, normally you think about
35:19
Speaker 3: a habeas petition. But since Jerome served his sentence and
35:23
Speaker 3: wasn't even on parole anymore because it had been terminated
35:27
Speaker 3: so quickly because he was a mono parole, the best
35:30
Speaker 3: avenue for doing that would be to seek a gumnatorial
35:34
Speaker 3: pardon from Gavin Newsom's office. And so we've undertaken an
35:38
Speaker 3: investigation just going back thirty three years to win this
35:43
Speaker 3: crime occurred. And we've got a great private investigator who's
35:46
Speaker 3: gone around and interviewed eyewitnesses, interviewed alibi witnesses, people who
35:51
Speaker 3: were around the scene of the crime. We have statements
35:54
Speaker 3: from all of them. We got doctor Richard Leo, who
35:57
Speaker 3: was your listeners know, was one of the foremost experts
36:00
Speaker 3: it's in the field who put together a report about
36:03
Speaker 3: Jerome's false confession, and he details all of the risk
36:06
Speaker 3: factors that were present and all the indish of unreliability.
36:10
Speaker 3: And so we've sent that to the Governor's office. Now
36:13
Speaker 3: we're at the point where we're supplementing it with letters,
36:15
Speaker 3: and so people who know Jerome are writing the governor.
36:19
Speaker 3: And also just if anyone who's listening to this is moved,
36:23
Speaker 3: they can do that as well.
36:24
Speaker 1: All right, well, we're going to add that to the
36:26
Speaker 1: action steps as well. And now we've come to my
36:29
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, where I first of all
36:31
Speaker 1: get to thank you both for joining us, and Jerome,
36:34
Speaker 1: thank you again for sharing your incredible story. Your journey
36:38
Speaker 1: is absolutely amazing. And now I'm going to kick back
36:42
Speaker 1: in my chair, lit my headphones on, turn my microphone off,
36:46
Speaker 1: close my eyes, and just listen to anything else you
36:49
Speaker 1: feel is left to be said. So let's start off
36:51
Speaker 1: with Ben and then Jerome. You take us out into
36:54
Speaker 1: the sunset.
36:56
Speaker 3: What happened to Jerome was an outrage. It isn't unique.
37:01
Speaker 3: It's what happens when assumptions about black communities and the
37:06
Speaker 3: people who live there, combined with the policing that does
37:10
Speaker 3: nothing to advance public safety and actually affirmatively endangerous people
37:15
Speaker 3: by taking them away from the people who love them,
37:18
Speaker 3: in this case, for twenty one years. And so clearing
37:21
Speaker 3: Jerome's name is important not just because it's the right
37:25
Speaker 3: thing to do, but also because it'll make him a
37:28
Speaker 3: more effective advocate in trying to stop this from happening
37:32
Speaker 3: to other children.
37:33
Speaker 2: I have to agree with Ben one hundred percent. My
37:36
Speaker 2: case is not unique. I am not a unicorn. I
37:42
Speaker 2: was an individual, one of many who was forced to
37:45
Speaker 2: confess to a crime that they didn't do, and it
37:49
Speaker 2: should not have happened and it needs to stop. I
37:52
Speaker 2: wish I could say that I'm the last of many
37:55
Speaker 2: who has went through something as horrible as confession to
37:58
Speaker 2: a crime that they didn't do. But I'm not. We
38:00
Speaker 2: notice it's going to happen again and again and again,
38:04
Speaker 2: and I want to be made whole. I want my
38:07
Speaker 2: name back, and I need to be cleared from all charges.
38:17
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
38:20
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts. One
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Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall,
38:29
Speaker 1: Any Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
38:32
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
38:36
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
38:39
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
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Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
38:45
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
38:48
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava
38:51
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one