Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #109 Jason Flom with Perry Lott

Transcript

#109 Jason Flom with Perry Lott · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On November two, nineteen eighty seven, at one point fifteen
0:05
Speaker 1: am and eighta, Oklahoma. The victim felt a gun at
0:08
Speaker 1: the back of her head as she unlocked the door
0:10
Speaker 1: to her home. She was pushed inside, robbed and raped
0:13
Speaker 1: by a black man who was described as between five
0:15
Speaker 1: seven and six two, wearing a hat, a jacket, and
0:18
Speaker 1: perhaps a gold tooth. Detectives filmed a crime Stoppers re
0:21
Speaker 1: enactment video about the robbery and rape, and they approached
0:24
Speaker 1: Perry Lot, who was parked nearby. While they asked him
0:27
Speaker 1: a few questions about his whereabouts during the incident, they
0:30
Speaker 1: noticed that he had a gold tooth and Perry, a
0:32
Speaker 1: bit of a lady's man, explained that he was in
0:35
Speaker 1: the area to see his girlfriend, but had been with
0:37
Speaker 1: his fiancee from three thirty pm on November first through
0:40
Speaker 1: six thirty am the following morning. Despite his alibi, police
0:45
Speaker 1: brought him in for further questioning. There they put him
0:48
Speaker 1: into a lineup and the rest of the men were
0:50
Speaker 1: given get this gold foil from a nearby florist to
0:54
Speaker 1: simulate having a gold tooth. The victim not surprisingly identified
0:59
Speaker 1: Perry Lot that in there as her attacker. A rape
1:02
Speaker 1: kit had been done the morning of the incident, but
1:04
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, DNA technology was not yet available
1:07
Speaker 1: to exclude mister Lott as it later would, and Perry
1:11
Speaker 1: Lott tragically was sentenced to three hundred years for rape, robbery, burglary,
1:17
Speaker 1: and making a bomb threat related to the incident. In
1:20
Speaker 1: this episode, which was recorded at an art show opening
1:23
Speaker 1: featuring the work of an innocent man on death row
1:25
Speaker 1: in Texas, rob Will, we interviewed Perry Lott and Eric Cullin,
1:30
Speaker 1: the private investigator that was originally tasked with taking Perry's
1:33
Speaker 1: DNA swap, only to end up becoming one of his
1:36
Speaker 1: fiercest and most loyal advocates. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
1:50
Speaker 1: back to wrongful Conviction. We have two incredible gentlemen in
1:54
Speaker 1: the studio with me today, and the studio is not
1:56
Speaker 1: even a studio, But I'll tell you more about that later.
2:00
Speaker 1: First of all, I'll save the best for last. We
2:02
Speaker 1: have Eric Cullen, private investigator who has played an active
2:07
Speaker 1: role in more reversals now that I can count on
2:10
Speaker 1: probably both hands. It's great to have you here. Welcome
2:12
Speaker 1: to the show.
2:12
Speaker 2: Thank you, good to be here.
2:14
Speaker 1: And with Eric is a gentleman who he was instrumental
2:19
Speaker 1: in helping to free an individual who served three decades
2:24
Speaker 1: thirty one years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
2:28
Speaker 1: DNA proved it. Perry, Welcome the show. I'm really honored
2:32
Speaker 1: to have you here.
2:33
Speaker 3: Greetings, Jason is very exciting to be here at Also,
2:36
Speaker 3: I've been looking forward to this for some months now.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's awesome. And after thirty one years in prison
2:42
Speaker 1: and this is your first first ever, it's very excited.
2:45
Speaker 1: So we can call this the exclusive interview with very lot. Yeah, Perry,
2:49
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. First of all, your
2:52
Speaker 1: case took place in Ada, Oklahoma, and Aida has become
2:55
Speaker 1: synonymous with wrongful convictions. Yes, sir, because John Grisha exposed
3:00
Speaker 1: the fact that there were six wrongful convictions in the
3:03
Speaker 1: space of just over a year in this tiny town,
3:07
Speaker 1: and those were profiled in his book An Innocent Manner,
3:09
Speaker 1: Four of them were and you happen to fall into
3:12
Speaker 1: that town not knowing that it was I mean a trap, right,
3:17
Speaker 1: And you were a young man at the time, twenty
3:20
Speaker 1: four years old. Twenty four years old. You still look
3:22
Speaker 1: pretty young for what it's worth.
3:24
Speaker 3: Thank you. I grew old and didn't know it.
3:27
Speaker 1: In this case, it has a lot of the common
3:30
Speaker 1: factors that we see in wrongful conviction cases. Of course,
3:35
Speaker 1: as the most common factor, I witness miss identification across
3:38
Speaker 1: racial eye witness misidentification, which we know are even more
3:42
Speaker 1: unreliable than same race, and those are notoriously unreliable, and they
3:47
Speaker 1: played a factor in the higher percentage of wrongful conviction
3:49
Speaker 1: cases than anything else. So let's go back to when
3:54
Speaker 1: this happened and how it happened. Because you were teaching
3:56
Speaker 1: school at the time.
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Speaker 3: Right, and moved to Aden in Wisconsin. And in nineteen
4:01
Speaker 3: eighty six, around Christmas time, I get a call from
4:04
Speaker 3: an old girlfriend in a Toka, Oklahoma, and I was
4:09
Speaker 3: between jobs, you know, feeling kind of bad about my surroundings,
4:13
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of negativity that I didn't want to
4:15
Speaker 3: get involved with. So relocating Oklahoma was my option, my
4:20
Speaker 3: best option, and that's what I did. I went to Oklahoma,
4:24
Speaker 3: ended up in a Toka, worked there for a couple
4:26
Speaker 3: of weeks, found a better job in Ada, and moved
4:30
Speaker 3: to Ada. And that was the beginning of my sorrows.
4:34
Speaker 1: That's a very eloquent way of putting it. Eric I
4:37
Speaker 1: want to turn to you for a second, So can
4:39
Speaker 1: you take us back to this case. I mean, this
4:41
Speaker 1: was a horrible crime. The local woman in Ada had
4:44
Speaker 1: her home broken into after one in the morning. The
4:48
Speaker 1: assailant pushed her into her house, stole money from her purse,
4:51
Speaker 1: and did unspeakable things to her.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the victor always contended to police and testified
4:59
Speaker 2: the trial that she received several prank calls at her home,
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Speaker 2: harassing calls.
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Speaker 3: I think she might have stated.
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Speaker 2: Then she goes to work, which is basically across the street,
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Speaker 2: to a restaurant she managed called Arby's. There she works
5:16
Speaker 2: her complete shift or just about her complete shift, and
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Speaker 2: she claims that a bomb threat was levied by the
5:23
Speaker 2: same voice that had been calling her harassing at her
5:27
Speaker 2: home all day.
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Speaker 1: Now, sound like a horror movie, right.
5:30
Speaker 2: Right, And so she clears her store, calls the police,
5:35
Speaker 2: no bomb. They go ahead and close the store down,
5:39
Speaker 2: and she claims again that the same caller calls the
5:43
Speaker 2: store again and asked why she closed the store down.
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Speaker 2: I told you I was going to blow the place
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Speaker 2: up if you didn't close.
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Speaker 3: The store down.
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Speaker 2: Of course, the building never blew up. That's what she
5:54
Speaker 2: contended all the way through trial. Then she goes at
5:57
Speaker 2: approximately one one thirty home back across the street. That's
6:03
Speaker 2: where she testified that one Blackmail had pushed her in
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Speaker 2: her home, put a condom on and raped her and
6:13
Speaker 2: then took upwards of two hundred dollars from her purse.
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Speaker 2: And then she also claims, of course she lost deposit
6:19
Speaker 2: receipts from the RB's close out cash.
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Speaker 1: To right, and he did other disgusting things. There was
6:27
Speaker 1: a picture of her daughter in the house that he
6:30
Speaker 1: apparently yes, had sort of you know, did sexual things
6:34
Speaker 1: to the photograph and like very very bizarre character. Whoever
6:38
Speaker 1: this guy was correct, That's what she testified to Perry.
6:42
Speaker 1: Did you know anything about this crime? He is a
6:44
Speaker 1: small community. Did it get the word get around?
6:47
Speaker 3: I did not know anything about the crime when I
6:49
Speaker 3: was first approached by Officer Crosby. I was in that
6:54
Speaker 3: area of the crime scene, but I had no idea
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Speaker 3: crime had been committed. I had no idea who this
7:00
Speaker 3: woman was.
7:01
Speaker 1: And remember that name Crosby, everyone who's listening, because that's
7:04
Speaker 1: going to be a crazy development as we go on
7:07
Speaker 1: with this story. So in this case, we know that
7:11
Speaker 1: the eyewitness misidentification was not inadvertence, right, it wasn't an accident.
7:17
Speaker 1: She was steered as probably too light of a word
7:20
Speaker 1: to describe how they ended up convincing her to identify you.
7:25
Speaker 1: And we know that the mind is not a camera.
7:27
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think that you see something,
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Speaker 1: you recognize it, you remember it. That's not the way
7:31
Speaker 1: it works at all. And of course, again in the
7:34
Speaker 1: cross racial situation, it's even more prone to mistakes. But
7:39
Speaker 1: the victim had described that her assailant had a gold
7:44
Speaker 1: tooth or half a gold tooth, right.
7:47
Speaker 3: That's what they say personally. I don't believe she ever
7:50
Speaker 3: mentioned the gold tooth in her initial description of her assailant,
7:55
Speaker 3: mainly because of this. I seen the police report where
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Speaker 3: the victim, it was a description at the very end
8:03
Speaker 3: was a gold tooth like it had been added on.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't able to identify his hair color or tighte
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Speaker 1: because he wore a hat, and he wore a jacket
8:13
Speaker 1: and things like that. And her description was so general
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Speaker 1: that she said that it was just a black male
8:19
Speaker 1: between five seven and six two. That describes most people, right.
8:23
Speaker 3: That describes entirely the whole black community mostly.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did it get from there to where Perry
8:30
Speaker 1: ends up in a lineup. He had an alibi on
8:32
Speaker 1: top of everything else, a very solid alibi, right, Yeah,
8:36
Speaker 1: they didn't care about that. No.
8:38
Speaker 2: How they landed on Perry was they were doing a
8:43
Speaker 2: recreation of the crime for a show called Crime Stoppers
8:47
Speaker 2: down there at the time, they would run on unsolved
8:50
Speaker 2: crimes or you know, fresh crimes even and they were
8:53
Speaker 2: filming that day. Perry had been in the neighborhood visiting
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Speaker 2: someone just a block away. He goes, turns the corner
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Speaker 2: and sees these camera crews up there and he stops
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Speaker 2: on the side of the road to watch. Detective Crosby
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Speaker 2: goes and approaches Ferry at the car, notices the gold tooth,
9:12
Speaker 2: and it's all downhill from there.
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Speaker 1: Yes, you voluntarily went into the police station, and I
9:18
Speaker 1: imagine when you went in there you probably thought, well,
9:20
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just going in and tell them what
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Speaker 1: I know and go home.
9:23
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, like I said, mister Crosby came and approached
9:27
Speaker 3: me that night. They questioned me for hours at the
9:30
Speaker 3: police station, search my car, search my home, took me
9:34
Speaker 3: back to the police station, released me with the words
9:38
Speaker 3: you can go home, but don't leave town. So I
9:41
Speaker 3: went home and my fiance was there, and evidently they
9:48
Speaker 3: had questioned her while they were questioning me, And we
9:52
Speaker 3: had a lot of tizzy, a little bit of a
9:54
Speaker 3: spot because I just recently came to her home from Wisconsin,
10:01
Speaker 3: and now she's hearing that, Hey, your boyfriend might be
10:04
Speaker 3: a rapist, you know, so of course she's going to
10:08
Speaker 3: be on age somewhat. That next morning, at work, I
10:11
Speaker 3: was approached by Crosby again, would you mind helping us out?
10:15
Speaker 3: We need to need you to be in a lineup.
10:18
Speaker 3: Like you know, I'm just doing what any average citizen
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Speaker 3: would do, doing what my dad had always taught me
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Speaker 3: to do, is obey the police, cooperate, don't get disrespectful.
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Speaker 3: So I'll go to the police station with them and
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Speaker 3: participate in his lineup.
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Speaker 1: Right, And then it's almost comical to think that they
10:37
Speaker 1: had this said. There's nothing funny about it. They took
10:39
Speaker 1: the other man that they put in a lineup and
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Speaker 1: put aluminum foil as if to simulate a gold tooth
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Speaker 1: in their mouth. But you were the only one that
10:47
Speaker 1: actually had a gold tooth, that's right. Plus they had
10:50
Speaker 1: you say the words that she said she had.
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Speaker 3: Heard and after the lineup he comes with a shit
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Speaker 3: eat and green on his face. Yeah she picked you out,
11:01
Speaker 3: said what she picked me? Yeah, she picked you, And
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Speaker 3: I'm right there. I'm just in a whirlpool of confusion.
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Speaker 3: So I'm in the city jail for a couple of weeks,
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Speaker 3: you know, screaming, Hey, I didn't do this, you guys
11:20
Speaker 3: making a mistake. Nobody heard that, nobody wanted to hear that.
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Speaker 3: They moved me across the street to the county jail,
11:28
Speaker 3: and I stayed there for a couple of months at
11:31
Speaker 3: least the quarter point of attorney never came to see me,
11:37
Speaker 3: never knew who I was until just right before time
11:40
Speaker 3: for appearances in court. His name was Frank Baber, and
11:46
Speaker 3: me being so naive since I didn't do this, I'm
11:49
Speaker 3: thinking this is the easiest flipping over a pancake to
11:52
Speaker 3: get me out of this situation. It's so much that
11:55
Speaker 3: he allowed to go on that I now know he
11:59
Speaker 3: should have been object I think it's like, hey, are
12:04
Speaker 3: you on my side or are you on their side?
12:06
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking in my head because at
12:09
Speaker 3: the time, even being totally unaware of what the law says,
12:16
Speaker 3: you get a feeling as a defendant, if someone is
12:20
Speaker 3: vigorously trying to defend you, I didn't get that feeling.
12:24
Speaker 1: Sounds like it was more processing you than defending your processing.
12:27
Speaker 3: That's right.
12:28
Speaker 1: Did you hold out any hope that they were going
12:30
Speaker 1: to find you innocent?
12:31
Speaker 3: Or I had always thought they would find me innocent
12:34
Speaker 3: because I knew that they had no evidence of me
12:38
Speaker 3: doing anything. I knew that I had not done anything.
12:43
Speaker 3: I'm thinking that this is gone all the way up
12:46
Speaker 3: into picking the jewelry, and you guys still think I
12:48
Speaker 3: did this. How can you think I did this? What
12:52
Speaker 3: I did not know at the time was that eye
12:54
Speaker 3: witnessed testimony was considered evidence. That's what me. I'm sitting
13:01
Speaker 3: there thinking, Okay, where's the rake kit, where's the fingerprints,
13:05
Speaker 3: where's the picture that you say was taken out of
13:08
Speaker 3: the home? Where's the money that you say was missing.
13:12
Speaker 3: I was flat broke at the time. Hell, when they
13:15
Speaker 3: searched my house, they found a twenty dollar bill that
13:18
Speaker 3: my fiance had hidden in her dresser and it floated
13:22
Speaker 3: to the floor. Now I asked Jeff Crosby, I said,
13:24
Speaker 3: can I have that? And he says, yeah, you can
13:27
Speaker 3: have that. So I picked up that twenty dollar bill
13:29
Speaker 3: and put it in my pocket. I didn't know better,
13:34
Speaker 3: so I ended up in prison. And the trial lasted
13:41
Speaker 3: all of eight hours.
13:45
Speaker 1: Eight hours.
13:47
Speaker 3: The trial lasted less than a.
13:49
Speaker 1: Working day, and you were sentenced to three hundred years three.
13:54
Speaker 3: Years consecutive sentences, four charges, four different sentences, one hundred,
13:58
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty and fifty for rape, robbery, burglary,
14:02
Speaker 3: and bomb threatening.
14:06
Speaker 1: Three hundred years. It's such a preposterous concept. I mean,
14:11
Speaker 1: it's the idea that we even do that in this country.
14:14
Speaker 1: Here the sense is a thousand years, and Oklahoma is
14:17
Speaker 1: notorious for these and again I'm not minimizing the nature
14:21
Speaker 1: of the crime. But Jesus Christ anyway, Eric.
14:25
Speaker 2: An interesting side note free trial. I think it's interested
14:30
Speaker 2: back to how they were doing things in pot of
14:32
Speaker 2: Talk County. Eight of Williamson and Fritz were in jail
14:36
Speaker 2: with Perrys.
14:38
Speaker 1: And Williamson and Fritz were two of the men that
14:40
Speaker 1: were profiled in the John Grisham, the only nonfiction book
14:43
Speaker 1: that John has ever written, The Innocent Man, and John
14:46
Speaker 1: told me John was on wrongful conviction. He said that
14:51
Speaker 1: when he wrote that book, he had to write it
14:53
Speaker 1: as nonfiction, he says, because when I write fiction, I
14:56
Speaker 1: have to make it believable, and he goes the story.
15:00
Speaker 1: The audience is not going to follow. Al I'm going
15:02
Speaker 1: to lose my readers because this doesn't make any logical sense.
15:05
Speaker 1: And Williamson and Fretz such an unbelievably tragic case of
15:09
Speaker 1: two men wrongfully convicted and one of whom lost his
15:11
Speaker 1: mind in prison and just months after he was released
15:14
Speaker 1: ended up dead, really really sad, and he had been
15:17
Speaker 1: an open age pitching prospect, he had his life ahead
15:20
Speaker 1: of him. And the whole thing is a tragedy on
15:23
Speaker 1: top of a tragedy, not to mention that there was
15:25
Speaker 1: no justice for the victim, which was a rape and
15:27
Speaker 1: murder case. And I want to go back to this
15:31
Speaker 1: eye witness identification. If you, the listener, end up on
15:35
Speaker 1: a jury and you have a pery lot in front
15:38
Speaker 1: of you, you're in a criminal case and there's no
15:40
Speaker 1: evidence except eyewitness identification. You should keep this in mind.
15:45
Speaker 1: And I'm quoting from the amazing book Convicting the Innocent
15:49
Speaker 1: by Brandon Garrett, which is sort of like the Bible
15:53
Speaker 1: of wrongful conviction. Causes and practices that lead to them,
15:58
Speaker 1: he said it. Many DNA ex on cases involving mistaken
16:01
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses involved the use of suggestive identification procedures. A study
16:07
Speaker 1: of the first two hundred and fifty DNA exonerations revealed
16:09
Speaker 1: that an incredible eighty eight percent of the mistaken witness
16:13
Speaker 1: exonerations involved either factors that are known to affect the
16:16
Speaker 1: reliability of the identification, some suggestiveness in the identification procedure,
16:22
Speaker 1: or both, And in this case it was both. So
16:25
Speaker 1: the jury comes in.
16:28
Speaker 3: It was the most surreal moment of my life. When
16:33
Speaker 3: the jury came back and they found me guilty, all
16:35
Speaker 3: I could do was stare in the space. I was
16:38
Speaker 3: just sitting there in shock. And when they started reading
16:43
Speaker 3: off the terms one hundred years, one hundred years, I
16:48
Speaker 3: was paralyzed, wondering, what how can they be allowed to
16:52
Speaker 3: count more than a person can actually live? If I
16:56
Speaker 3: die in prison, you're still going to make me do time,
17:00
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, it's like you said, it just
17:03
Speaker 3: don't make sense to give a person more time than
17:06
Speaker 3: a lifespan, you know what I mean?
17:08
Speaker 1: Right? And in case you come back to life, maybe
17:10
Speaker 1: they want to back and then you have to come
17:13
Speaker 1: back to life of these a couple of times and
17:14
Speaker 1: still live a long life. Each thing is ridiculous.
17:17
Speaker 3: I had a discussion with Eric just last night. I said,
17:22
Speaker 3: you know, they should take the sentence and portion of
17:24
Speaker 3: the trial out of the jury's hands because they are citizens.
17:30
Speaker 3: They get emotional, They are angry when they get the
17:34
Speaker 3: details of these crimes. Whether it's coherst or whether it's fabricated,
17:41
Speaker 3: or whether it's just plain fact. These people have emotional
17:45
Speaker 3: attachments to that, and that's why they give people these
17:50
Speaker 3: ex financial amounts of time. When you know, one hundred
17:54
Speaker 3: years is enough to see a person die in prison,
17:57
Speaker 3: but you want to.
17:58
Speaker 1: Go overkill and even the just breaking it down to
18:01
Speaker 1: the granular level, just the idea that they sends you
18:03
Speaker 1: to fifty years for robbery and the robbery was one
18:05
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty dollars, right or whatever it was, two
18:07
Speaker 1: hundred dolls like that, I mean.
18:09
Speaker 2: In fifty for the bumb threat. Additionally fifty the.
18:12
Speaker 1: Bumb threat as well. Yeah, and we know, of course
18:15
Speaker 1: that these threats went on, and there were other cases
18:18
Speaker 1: after Perry was arrested and convicted, where whoever the actual
18:21
Speaker 1: perpetrator was continued with the same memo, which should be
18:24
Speaker 1: not even a red flag should be a flashing red
18:26
Speaker 1: light where they go, hold up, this is we got
18:30
Speaker 1: were bucked up, you know what I mean. But that's
18:33
Speaker 1: not what happened. So you get take into prison.
18:36
Speaker 3: Yes, prison life. After sitting in the county jail for
18:39
Speaker 3: four or five months, you're kind of glad to go
18:42
Speaker 3: to prison. So it's a real messed up thing in
18:47
Speaker 3: the mind.
18:48
Speaker 1: You know.
18:48
Speaker 3: It's like they say, the eyes will play tricks on you.
18:53
Speaker 3: After a certain amount of time, with a traumatic situation
18:55
Speaker 3: or unfamiliar situation, the mind will start playing tricks on
18:59
Speaker 3: you to you hear things, you see things, you imagine things.
19:05
Speaker 3: So once I did get in the doc system, I
19:10
Speaker 3: was glad to have a bed. I was glad to
19:12
Speaker 3: have fresh clothes, a shower, movement of the things you
19:17
Speaker 3: don't get in the counter jail. So that took a
19:20
Speaker 3: lot of pressure off of what I was going through
19:23
Speaker 3: at the time.
19:24
Speaker 1: Then I think most people don't realize, but I hear
19:28
Speaker 1: from so many of the exogneries that jails are worse
19:32
Speaker 1: than the prisons, and it's actually logical when you think
19:35
Speaker 1: about it. I think people if they're the word jail,
19:37
Speaker 1: they think of like the classic thing in the movies
19:39
Speaker 1: where it's like a country place and they.
19:41
Speaker 3: Ain't like Barney and Andy like that.
19:43
Speaker 1: So you know, like that, it's true all over the country.
19:46
Speaker 1: In jails, it's just a powder cake because everybody's in
19:48
Speaker 1: the cell together. There's no recreation, there's no education, there's
19:51
Speaker 1: no release of anything, there's no outdoors, there's nothing so
19:55
Speaker 1: and as you said, no clean clothes. I mean, it's
19:57
Speaker 1: really and it's designed to break people and actually make
20:00
Speaker 1: them confess the crimes that didn't commit just to go home.
20:04
Speaker 1: These places are dirty, they're incubators of disease.
20:07
Speaker 3: They wouldn't worship on my worst ending.
20:08
Speaker 2: A lot of informant Joie Howson snitch stuff comes out
20:12
Speaker 2: of that environment too.
20:14
Speaker 1: But now you went to the prison and your sentenced
20:16
Speaker 1: to well life because three hundred years, you know you
20:21
Speaker 1: weren't going to live that long. It's a miracle you
20:23
Speaker 1: lived through this whole experience in the first place.
20:25
Speaker 3: It surely is. I went in at twenty four years old,
20:30
Speaker 3: waited three or four years for the direct appeal. Once
20:34
Speaker 3: that was affirmed, I had no idea how the hell they.
20:38
Speaker 1: Affirmed that affirmed your conviction.
20:41
Speaker 3: How do you do that with the facts all laid out,
20:45
Speaker 3: I should have been home after three or four. I
20:49
Speaker 3: knew enough about law to know that what the jury
20:51
Speaker 3: says is what the jury says. However, that's what the
20:55
Speaker 3: appeal process is for, correctly, to rectify what the jury
20:59
Speaker 3: in the courtroom allowed that should never been allowed. When
21:05
Speaker 3: I was affirmed, I knew that I had a war
21:10
Speaker 3: on my hands. I had to become my own attorney
21:15
Speaker 3: because my family could not afford to help me. They
21:18
Speaker 3: were so far away in Wisconsin. I was basically by
21:21
Speaker 3: myself against the state. I like to point out the
21:27
Speaker 3: people when I talk to them about this, when it
21:29
Speaker 3: says lot versus state, it's just like Oklahoma versus Texas.
21:35
Speaker 3: You're at war. I had to learn as quick as possible,
21:42
Speaker 3: as much as possible about what avenues is going to
21:46
Speaker 3: get me set free, because now I am here and
21:53
Speaker 3: it doesn't have a back door. Well, once I got
22:15
Speaker 3: to about twelve fifteen years in, I started losing it.
22:21
Speaker 3: I started losing hope. I started thinking I just might
22:25
Speaker 3: die in here. And two thousand and two was the
22:29
Speaker 3: first time I went up for parole. Nothing changed. In
22:34
Speaker 3: two thousand and five, I had a near death experience
22:37
Speaker 3: with staff infection. That's why I am partially disabled now.
22:42
Speaker 3: Staff infection had gotten into my system. I didn't even
22:47
Speaker 3: know what staff was, so it lingered in my body,
22:52
Speaker 3: actually got into my blood and mercered and attached to
22:56
Speaker 3: my spinal cord in my neck. It was eating through
23:02
Speaker 3: the vertebrae in my net, exposed a few nerves, and
23:08
Speaker 3: I'm lucky to be alive. So two thousand and five
23:12
Speaker 3: I was hospitalized. So they skipped over my parole hearing. Yes, yes,
23:19
Speaker 3: they totally skipped over my parole hearing, so I had
23:22
Speaker 3: to wait until two thousand and eight. That was probably
23:26
Speaker 3: the only time I ever considered dying in prison, and
23:33
Speaker 3: that was two thousand and five. Between two thousand and
23:36
Speaker 3: five and two thousand and eight, I saw and I
23:40
Speaker 3: sensed that I wasn't ever going to be released by
23:43
Speaker 3: this parole board.
23:44
Speaker 1: Ouse they probably wanted you to admit guil right.
23:46
Speaker 3: I wrote a letter, thinking that if I admit to
23:50
Speaker 3: this crime, they just may give me some relief, because
23:54
Speaker 3: in prison, you are under the impression that they want
23:58
Speaker 3: some kind of remorse, they want some kind of confession,
24:03
Speaker 3: They want to see you broke down, especially when you've
24:07
Speaker 3: been claiming to be innocent. So I'm thinking I'm going
24:10
Speaker 3: to give them what they want. I'm going to manipulate
24:12
Speaker 3: my way out of here. That's after so many years
24:15
Speaker 3: of being in you start thinking like this, Well, the
24:18
Speaker 3: truth isn't working, so now I'm going to lie and
24:20
Speaker 3: see if that'll do anything. Well. Between two thousand and
24:23
Speaker 3: eight and twenty eleven, the Innocence Project took my case.
24:27
Speaker 3: The first thing I did was told my attorneys, hey,
24:31
Speaker 3: look we got an issue. I've already confessed to these crimes.
24:35
Speaker 3: I didn't do them, but I confessed to them trying
24:38
Speaker 3: to manipulate and got the letters retracted, and we explained
24:43
Speaker 3: why I did that. It was kind of like a duress,
24:46
Speaker 3: and that was probably the last time I had given
24:50
Speaker 3: up hope. But prior to that, I had already started
24:55
Speaker 3: feeling like it's hopeless against this. There's no way I'm
25:00
Speaker 3: going to be a I mean, I have done a
25:02
Speaker 3: stack of briefs like this on my case, and good
25:05
Speaker 3: good law work, proslit againt law work, and nothing ever worked.
25:10
Speaker 3: I said, damn, you know the law is written. Why
25:14
Speaker 3: aren't you guys giving me some relief?
25:17
Speaker 1: Why aren't you actually paying attention to the laws that.
25:18
Speaker 3: Were Everything in the law says that I should be
25:21
Speaker 3: getting some kind of relief from the state. You guys
25:25
Speaker 3: never really proved anything here. Why am I in prison?
25:29
Speaker 3: What connection do you have other than this high witness testimony?
25:36
Speaker 3: Being denied so many times was detrimental because when you
25:44
Speaker 3: feel like you have no hope of ever reaching anybody
25:47
Speaker 3: with the truth, you become something different. And if you
25:51
Speaker 3: don't have good people around you to help you get
25:54
Speaker 3: your mind right, you're going to become part of that
25:57
Speaker 3: prison and you're never going to leave. It's kind of
26:00
Speaker 3: like the soft Shank prediction where the guy says, these
26:03
Speaker 3: walls do something to you. They do.
26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that movie had a profound effect on me and
26:11
Speaker 1: so many other people. Nobody's listening. The Innocence Project gets involved,
26:15
Speaker 1: that's obviously a huge development.
26:16
Speaker 3: That's the only time I regained hope.
26:19
Speaker 1: Yep.
26:19
Speaker 3: Actually I took my hands off the wheel when I knew.
26:23
Speaker 3: When you hear the word Innocence Project in prison, you
26:25
Speaker 3: know you got the kind of help you need. That
26:29
Speaker 3: place is synonymous with God when you're an innocent person,
26:34
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project, when you hear that name, you you
26:39
Speaker 3: know you're going home.
26:40
Speaker 1: Wow, that's heavy. It's great to hear. Having been there
26:43
Speaker 1: myself for twenty five twenty six years, it's amazing. I
26:47
Speaker 1: never heard it put that way before, but it's great
26:51
Speaker 1: to hear. That obviously means a lot. So instance project
26:55
Speaker 1: gets involved. How did you get involved, Erek, and how
26:57
Speaker 1: did you help to resolve this? And how the hell
26:59
Speaker 1: is he here instead of serving another two hundred and
27:02
Speaker 1: seventy something years or two hundred and sixty eight to
27:06
Speaker 1: be exact.
27:06
Speaker 3: That's my champion right there. Man.
27:09
Speaker 2: So I was working on some other post conviction cases
27:14
Speaker 2: and Karen Thompson had reached out to me on a
27:19
Speaker 2: referral from some lawyers that I was working with on
27:22
Speaker 2: those cases. So in twenty thirteen, Karen wanted me to
27:26
Speaker 2: simply go meet Perry at Dick Connor in prison and
27:30
Speaker 2: take his DNA sample and then of course to get
27:33
Speaker 2: that sample to sell Mark, which is who the Innocence
27:37
Speaker 2: Project uses to test their.
27:38
Speaker 1: DNA by the DNA lab very fast lab.
27:41
Speaker 2: They're the best. And in the meantime Karen winahead and
27:45
Speaker 2: assigned me some other duties. One of those things was
27:48
Speaker 2: to find an alternate suspect and find the individual who
27:53
Speaker 2: actually did this. Well, I spent a lot of time
27:58
Speaker 2: doing that and doing my own covert methods of obtaining DNA,
28:03
Speaker 2: such as posing as somebody from a casino with you know,
28:07
Speaker 2: I've pulled this guy's trash that I thought, you know,
28:09
Speaker 2: I've done it, and he's a big casino guy. I
28:11
Speaker 2: show up the gift guard, Hey, lick this envelope. We
28:14
Speaker 2: actually went that far, you know, tested it in the
28:16
Speaker 2: whole bit and a gift card trick.
28:18
Speaker 1: That's good, yeah, yeah, and.
28:21
Speaker 2: So but it was very disheartening. Uh, this guy been
28:24
Speaker 2: acquitted of two rapes I think one one dismissal and
28:28
Speaker 2: one a quttle, all within this somewhat of a similar
28:31
Speaker 2: mL and man, we were pretty confident it was him,
28:35
Speaker 2: and of course a little heartbroken to find out it was.
28:38
Speaker 2: And but then again, we don't want to be part
28:40
Speaker 2: of wrongfully accusing people either, so that we moved on
28:43
Speaker 2: from this guy, and so we continue to move along
28:49
Speaker 2: the whole time, though in the mean meantime, Karen is
28:53
Speaker 2: constantly trying to get the DA from Potna Talk County.
28:58
Speaker 2: Who's this guy that's been there since the Williamson Frint
29:01
Speaker 2: Fontinea Award days. They're just so stuck, I mean, in
29:06
Speaker 2: their ways, and Karen trying to budget him just to cooperate. Well,
29:10
Speaker 2: let's at least let my investigator interview this victim. And so,
29:16
Speaker 2: long story short, Finally Detective Crosby, who's still there as well,
29:22
Speaker 2: finds the victim and it was agreed upon that he
29:26
Speaker 2: and I would go interview her together.
29:30
Speaker 1: And this is where shit gets real and he gets
29:32
Speaker 1: real real. So tell us about that.
29:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we agreed that he would go first and
29:38
Speaker 2: I wouldn't interrupt him, and I would go last and
29:41
Speaker 2: he wouldn't interrupt me. We get in there, the victim
29:45
Speaker 2: says that going along with a whole bit, everything's the same,
29:50
Speaker 2: nothing's really changed today as I sit here, and then
29:53
Speaker 2: at some point, of course, me being in the room,
29:57
Speaker 2: I've done no telling how many interviews have individuals, from
30:01
Speaker 2: defendants to suspects. You just get the body language. Part two.
30:05
Speaker 2: You can't really read in the transcript. I could see
30:07
Speaker 2: something change in her body language that was very much
30:11
Speaker 2: in line, and the energy was that she was ready
30:13
Speaker 2: to get this off of chess and tired of carrying
30:16
Speaker 2: this around. And in fact, in the transcript you can
30:19
Speaker 2: read in there. He actually asked her if she's okay
30:21
Speaker 2: during his questioning of her. It was really light, you know,
30:25
Speaker 2: and she.
30:25
Speaker 1: Had to get a drink of water.
30:26
Speaker 2: Her mouth was dry, and she stuttering things like that.
30:31
Speaker 2: And then it was my turn. And then in the
30:33
Speaker 2: beginning of my interview with her, she was definitive that
30:37
Speaker 2: it was still Pairy. She was definitive that it was
30:40
Speaker 2: his voice and that that voice is what carried her
30:44
Speaker 2: through her certainty it was Parry. And then the best
30:51
Speaker 2: thing I had to do, and I've done this many times,
30:54
Speaker 2: was and again I knew she had other things to say, Okay.
30:58
Speaker 3: Well I'm ready.
31:00
Speaker 1: Is that all you have?
31:01
Speaker 2: No? Yeah, okay, well I'm okay. Well let's wrap it up.
31:04
Speaker 2: I appreciate your time, and this has been tough. And
31:07
Speaker 2: then she tells me more, I do that about three times.
31:13
Speaker 2: She ends up telling me that she identified Perry on
31:19
Speaker 2: a hunch, that on a hunch, that she did not
31:25
Speaker 2: receive multiple calls that day at her home, that she
31:30
Speaker 2: only received one call at the Arby's at her work,
31:36
Speaker 2: that there were two men there, not one, and the
31:42
Speaker 2: koupdo gral was is that it wasn't even his voice.
31:46
Speaker 1: So this was a I see you smiling now, I
31:48
Speaker 1: mean that was a Eureka moment for you.
31:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:51
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I was so stunned that I didn't even
31:58
Speaker 2: realize she had said that. And two men in the
32:02
Speaker 2: interview as we sat there as this was unraveling, and
32:05
Speaker 2: at this point, Detective Crosby starts to interrupt, interject and
32:11
Speaker 2: sway her, even to the point of telling her that
32:17
Speaker 2: deep into her confession, so to speak, that he still
32:22
Speaker 2: thinks Perry's the guy that did that to her.
32:26
Speaker 3: Her story totally flipped when Eric got in front of him.
32:30
Speaker 2: I read the transcripts attached the post conviction relieve filing.
32:33
Speaker 3: I mean you could.
32:34
Speaker 2: See I was ready to leave her home three times,
32:37
Speaker 2: and she wasn't ready for me to leave. She wanted
32:40
Speaker 2: to get this off her.
32:40
Speaker 1: Chest, right, And then then things start to really roll.
32:45
Speaker 1: And then so at what point did you know you
32:48
Speaker 1: were going home?
32:49
Speaker 3: Like I said, the Innocence Project took my case in
32:52
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, and it was a couple of years after
32:57
Speaker 3: that fourteen when you got involved, when they came and
33:00
Speaker 3: got my DNA inside the prison. I think that was
33:05
Speaker 3: the moment I knew I was going home.
33:08
Speaker 1: Eric, can you just explain the DNA findings in this
33:11
Speaker 1: case and how they impacted the outcome.
33:14
Speaker 2: Yes, so there were two contributors found in the victims
33:19
Speaker 2: canal per the rape kit done in nineteen eighty seven.
33:23
Speaker 2: Her ex husband was generous enough to meet with me
33:27
Speaker 2: and allowed me to collect his DNA as well, and
33:30
Speaker 2: that was one of the matches. The other match is
33:33
Speaker 2: still unknown. I have my thoughts on who it is
33:37
Speaker 2: as I sit here, But Perry.
33:40
Speaker 1: Was excluded, that didn't do it. Those are the magic words.
33:46
Speaker 1: Perry was excluded.
33:47
Speaker 2: Yes, Karen and I are obviously very excited, the projects excited,
33:53
Speaker 2: but Ada being Ada, none of this was good enough.
33:59
Speaker 2: That still wasn't going They're still going to fight it.
34:01
Speaker 2: They're still going to fight the DNA. They're still going
34:03
Speaker 2: to fight basically a confession from the victim and then
34:06
Speaker 2: so they're forcing this the state all the way to
34:09
Speaker 2: a post conviction relief hearing. And so July ninth of
34:12
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, that was one of what would probably be
34:16
Speaker 2: two to three hearings. Jeff Crosby is slated to testify
34:21
Speaker 2: on July ninth, and of course I'll let Perry tell
34:25
Speaker 2: the audience tell you what would happened on the ninth.
34:28
Speaker 2: But on the seventh, unbeknownst to Perry and the team detached,
34:35
Speaker 2: Crosby had taken his own life.
34:40
Speaker 3: So two days before this Saturday and Sunday, I was
34:44
Speaker 3: appearing in court that Monday.
34:47
Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously we'll never know, but do you
34:49
Speaker 1: have any theory as to why he did that? I mean,
34:50
Speaker 1: the timing is not coincidental.
34:53
Speaker 3: That would be my only thought.
34:54
Speaker 2: I'm an investigator. I'm not a fan of coincidence, so
34:57
Speaker 2: I didn't find it coincidental at all. He was getting
35:01
Speaker 2: ready to get chopped up on the stand on Monday.
35:16
Speaker 1: I think people at home are probably wondering, why in
35:19
Speaker 1: the world, with DNA scientifically proving that Perry had nothing
35:27
Speaker 1: to do with this crime, and with the victim herself
35:31
Speaker 1: recanting her testimony, and with no evidence whatsoever connecting him
35:37
Speaker 1: to it, why is he on probation.
35:41
Speaker 2: Well, first off, that was something that Perry had to
35:45
Speaker 2: discuss with his two attorneys at the time. I wasn't
35:48
Speaker 2: part of that conversation, but I know enough that I
35:50
Speaker 2: can speak about it. The risk out of that county
35:54
Speaker 2: because it's a district judge that here's this. They transitioned
35:57
Speaker 2: to a new DA, but it's still the same type
36:00
Speaker 2: a mindset in that county. So the risk, with all
36:04
Speaker 2: of this being put before a judge of still losing
36:08
Speaker 2: was still there, believe it or not, And so Perry
36:11
Speaker 2: and his attorneys had to decide do we want to
36:15
Speaker 2: take that risk or do you want to go home
36:17
Speaker 2: today and live to fight another day. In almost any
36:20
Speaker 2: other circumstance anywhere else, you would just put this up
36:23
Speaker 2: in front of a judge, put your evidence you're hearing on.
36:26
Speaker 2: Judge takes some time for finding the facts in law,
36:28
Speaker 2: and you'd get your ruling bactual innocence. It makes no sense,
36:32
Speaker 2: and it truly is a sophie's choice.
36:35
Speaker 3: I'd spent now twenty something years, twenty five years or
36:39
Speaker 3: so wondering how the hell do these people got me
36:43
Speaker 3: in prison and how come I can't get myself out
36:45
Speaker 3: of this. Karen helped me figure that out by helping
36:50
Speaker 3: me see that all of the things that we think
36:54
Speaker 3: should go right, when other people in power don't want
36:58
Speaker 3: it to go right, they have the power to make
37:00
Speaker 3: it go wrong. So she kept asking me, she said,
37:05
Speaker 3: how do you do it? How do you do it,
37:08
Speaker 3: and it's talking about keeping a smile and a good
37:11
Speaker 3: attitude with all of this other stuff. How are you
37:15
Speaker 3: always in such a good mood, I said, It's just
37:18
Speaker 3: I love people. I cannot let this situation change me.
37:24
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, that's one of the things that I
37:26
Speaker 3: decided at that when I told you I was sitting
37:29
Speaker 3: at the defendant table in shock, I knew at that
37:32
Speaker 3: moment I had to remain in that state of mind
37:36
Speaker 3: of who I was. I had to really get a
37:40
Speaker 3: tight grip on my identity and hold on to that
37:45
Speaker 3: for dear life, because I knew that this experience was
37:49
Speaker 3: going to do everything in its power to make me
37:52
Speaker 3: something I was not. Beginning with a rapist. Never in
37:57
Speaker 3: my life would I even considered attacking a woman when
38:01
Speaker 3: you can you know pretty much, I've called myself a
38:05
Speaker 3: player back in them days. You know you don't Back
38:11
Speaker 3: in them days, when you got it like I had it,
38:13
Speaker 3: you didn't have to take anything from a woman. You
38:16
Speaker 3: could ask, and you ask what a certain amount of finess.
38:21
Speaker 3: I'm not saying, you know, you don't have to.
38:25
Speaker 1: Say anything else. You got it.
38:27
Speaker 3: You get the impression I'm trying to make, So you know,
38:30
Speaker 3: The thing is, I will always appreciate hearing in my
38:35
Speaker 3: life because she helped me understand something I never could
38:39
Speaker 3: figure out in twenty five years, as how am I
38:43
Speaker 3: doing this? What is it that's keeping me bolstered? And
38:48
Speaker 3: I realized it was a mixture of family, church, good
38:55
Speaker 3: friends around me that had their mind on right. She says. Finally,
39:01
Speaker 3: after she had worked on my case a little while,
39:03
Speaker 3: she said, mister Lott, I think I got you figured out.
39:05
Speaker 3: I said, oh, yeah, we're to me. She said, I
39:08
Speaker 3: know how you do it. And this is after I've
39:10
Speaker 3: been disabled. And I said, oh yeah, what do you think?
39:14
Speaker 3: She said, you do it one step at a time,
39:17
Speaker 3: day by day. And the lights came on up in
39:19
Speaker 3: my head. I said, damn, you got it figured out.
39:22
Speaker 1: Now.
39:24
Speaker 3: That's when I knew I was going home by continually
39:27
Speaker 3: walking day by day, one day at a time, and
39:31
Speaker 3: one step at a time. See, at that time, I
39:34
Speaker 3: was taking little bitty baby steps. The disability I had,
39:39
Speaker 3: I was prognosed to never walk again, to never get
39:42
Speaker 3: out of the bed again. But I struggled and struggled,
39:45
Speaker 3: and I began walking in little bitty baby steps, and
39:50
Speaker 3: then I started really pushing myself. I can take a
39:54
Speaker 3: full stride now with just a little bit of pain,
39:58
Speaker 3: and back in that time, I could a little bitty
40:00
Speaker 3: baby step like that and it would hurt like hell.
40:04
Speaker 3: That's how it is.
40:05
Speaker 1: You know, Well, you answered the question before I asked it.
40:07
Speaker 1: I was going to ask whether you're better, and I
40:09
Speaker 1: don't have to ask that anymore.
40:11
Speaker 3: Penitentiary will do two things to a person. It will
40:14
Speaker 3: make them better or to make them better. And it's
40:18
Speaker 3: a choice that you have to make before you go
40:22
Speaker 3: in that institution, before we.
40:25
Speaker 1: Go to what I call our closing arguments, and I'll
40:27
Speaker 1: explain to you what that is. Just talk a little
40:29
Speaker 1: bit about what you're doing now, because you're actually working
40:33
Speaker 1: with this guy, right awesome.
40:34
Speaker 3: Yes, Eric approached me about a job and I said, well,
40:38
Speaker 3: give me time to think about it. I was disabled,
40:42
Speaker 3: not really confident in my abilities, not knowing that I
40:45
Speaker 3: had abilities. A couple of months went by and said, hey,
40:49
Speaker 3: I need an answer, that's okay, And he told me
40:53
Speaker 3: that I could earn so much money, which is like
40:57
Speaker 3: twice as much as I would get on disability. And
41:01
Speaker 3: I didn't feel right on disability anyway. So when I
41:04
Speaker 3: had the job, opportunity. I wanted to jump at it,
41:07
Speaker 3: but I was hesitating because of my state of mind.
41:11
Speaker 3: You know, what can I do? I'm thirty years missing
41:16
Speaker 3: in action, no record of work history, no record of
41:19
Speaker 3: medical history. I didn't know I had any ability at all.
41:23
Speaker 3: So when Eric offered me the job, I said, Man,
41:26
Speaker 3: give me time to think about that, and I'm just
41:28
Speaker 3: trying to figure out a way to tell him new
41:31
Speaker 3: and eventually, Man, he made an argument with me. I
41:36
Speaker 3: couldn't deny that I could probably do this job in prison.
41:40
Speaker 3: I did this for twenty five years trying to get
41:43
Speaker 3: out of prison. I call it combing the records. You
41:46
Speaker 3: know how they have a rake kit and they combed
41:49
Speaker 3: the pubics. They're looking for whatever doesn't belong in those pubics.
41:53
Speaker 3: When I combed the records, I look word for word,
41:57
Speaker 3: line for line, looking for what doesn't belong here. It's
42:00
Speaker 3: missing from here. And it's a skill that you develop
42:05
Speaker 3: without knowing that you're actually developing it. You know, because
42:08
Speaker 3: when you work on your own case daily for twenty
42:11
Speaker 3: five years, you don't realize it, but you grow old
42:15
Speaker 3: and you grow knowledge of the law and how it
42:20
Speaker 3: should be applied.
42:21
Speaker 2: Perry works for another five oh one C three, another
42:24
Speaker 2: Chance Justice Project, and then we work on wrongful convictions
42:27
Speaker 2: and excessive sentencing and some commutation there. But my private
42:32
Speaker 2: firm is calling and Associates. Perry is employed through the project's.
42:37
Speaker 1: Calling and associates. Yeah, we should shout that out a
42:40
Speaker 1: little bit. And of course, one of my favorite human
42:42
Speaker 1: beings who has also been on the show, Michelle Murphy
42:45
Speaker 1: served twenty years, was exonerated with DNA, the only female
42:50
Speaker 1: DNA exignery from Oklahoma. I encourage people to listen to
42:53
Speaker 1: that episode. It's an incredible episode of wrongful conviction with
42:57
Speaker 1: Michelle Murphy. But she's working with you as well, So
42:59
Speaker 1: you have Yeah, I mean, it's actually perfectly logical. You're
43:02
Speaker 1: taking people who have actually the most profound experience and
43:06
Speaker 1: the most knowledge from having to out of necessity, from
43:09
Speaker 1: having to do all this research to get themselves free
43:12
Speaker 1: and to help others inside. Yeah, tentry, So you've got
43:16
Speaker 1: You've got the dream team with Perry and Michelle. I
43:18
Speaker 1: love it, you know that. So you know I always
43:23
Speaker 1: say on the show, you know, I'm happy you're here,
43:26
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry you're here. I mean, I'm sorry you
43:28
Speaker 1: had to go through what you had to go through
43:29
Speaker 1: to get here. But it means an awful lot that
43:32
Speaker 1: you came in and came to New York, all the
43:34
Speaker 1: way from Oklahoma to share your incredible story, your spirit,
43:39
Speaker 1: your wisdom, your outlook. We got the whole Perry lot.
43:43
Speaker 3: When I found out I was going to be here,
43:45
Speaker 3: that I just wanted to see you again.
43:47
Speaker 1: Man, Well, what can I say? I'm just about to
43:50
Speaker 1: melt into a puddle over here, whereas the old say goes,
43:53
Speaker 1: knock me down with a feather. One of the reasons
43:57
Speaker 1: why today's episode is unique is because we are recording
44:02
Speaker 1: this in the middle of an art exhibit by an
44:06
Speaker 1: innocent man on death row in Texas, a guy named
44:09
Speaker 1: Rob Will who has created this remarkable collection of work
44:13
Speaker 1: from his tiny cell. I can't not mention that it's
44:20
Speaker 1: sort of a heavy day as well, because as we
44:23
Speaker 1: sit here, Texas is probably in the process in the
44:27
Speaker 1: last couple hours before they carry out another execution of
44:30
Speaker 1: an innocent man. Larry Sweringen is going to be executed today,
44:35
Speaker 1: almost certainly in spite of evidence of his actual innocence.
44:39
Speaker 1: So we just have a moment of silence for Larry. Okay,
44:54
Speaker 1: So this is the part of the show where again
44:58
Speaker 1: this is my favorite part the show. I think it's
45:01
Speaker 1: a lot of people's favorite part of the show. We
45:03
Speaker 1: get feedback online, etc. Where I get to once again
45:08
Speaker 1: thank you to outstanding freedom fighters for coming and being
45:13
Speaker 1: on rawful conviction with me. Eric. I know we'll be
45:17
Speaker 1: doing more of these in the future, and we're working
45:18
Speaker 1: together on various cases and I'm a huge fan of
45:22
Speaker 1: your work. I think you're one of the top people
45:25
Speaker 1: in the country at what you do and we need
45:28
Speaker 1: more of you. So Eric Cullin, thank you again for
45:31
Speaker 1: being here my pleasure, and Perry again, I thank you before,
45:36
Speaker 1: I'll thank you again, and I'm looking forward to working
45:38
Speaker 1: with you in the future and spending more time together.
45:41
Speaker 1: And now, like I said, this is what we call
45:43
Speaker 1: closing arguments. So this is where I get to turn
45:45
Speaker 1: my microphone off, I kind of kick back rock back
45:48
Speaker 1: in my chair and just listen and turn the microphones
45:52
Speaker 1: over to you for your closing thoughts. I call it
45:55
Speaker 1: closing arguments. It was really closing thoughts on anything you
45:58
Speaker 1: want to say, anything we may have left that out,
46:00
Speaker 1: or anything at all. And again we'll save the best
46:03
Speaker 1: for last. No offense are. I know, but the start
46:07
Speaker 1: of the show is Perry. So but first, Eric, you're
46:11
Speaker 1: closing thoughts.
46:12
Speaker 2: Perry's case is just a shining example again, you covered
46:17
Speaker 2: it of the eyewitness identification problem. It's also a shining
46:22
Speaker 2: example of why Oklahoma is number one in incarcerating African
46:26
Speaker 2: American males in the world. And then of course on
46:30
Speaker 2: the side twenty eight years in a row for females,
46:32
Speaker 2: which is a whole other topic. But there's no surprise
46:35
Speaker 2: as to why we're here. When you hear Perry's story,
46:38
Speaker 2: when you hear Michelle's story, when you hear Williams and Fritz,
46:41
Speaker 2: all these different ones from Oklahoma. It's horrifying. I think
46:46
Speaker 2: we're at a point now where it's becoming bipartisan this issue.
46:50
Speaker 2: You know, I think the eyes are open. You'd have
46:53
Speaker 2: to be a real fool to say that ron fold
46:56
Speaker 2: convictions don't exists now. We're just several years ago, it
47:00
Speaker 2: wasn't quite there. That's what my closing earner would be,
47:03
Speaker 2: And I would add one other thing. We're not done
47:06
Speaker 2: with Arry's case. We're going to work on this till
47:09
Speaker 2: we get him fully exonerated.
47:12
Speaker 3: Very yes, sir, I heard you called me the start
47:18
Speaker 3: of the show. Well, you guys are the stars of
47:20
Speaker 3: my show. You know, without you guys in my life,
47:24
Speaker 3: I would probably be dead in prison, still in prison.
47:30
Speaker 3: So I want to thank you and honor you for
47:32
Speaker 3: that and your audience. I want to honor you for
47:35
Speaker 3: being attentive. And I want to admonish everyone under the
47:40
Speaker 3: sound of my voice to get involved with this awareness,
47:44
Speaker 3: to get involved with the injustice, the police brutality. The
47:50
Speaker 3: only way evil like this prevails is when good people
47:53
Speaker 3: say nothing. A lot of people will see crime and
47:57
Speaker 3: close their windows, close their doors, turn their back. And
48:01
Speaker 3: that's why we're in the state that we're in right now.
48:03
Speaker 3: We have to be courageous enough to say I saw this.
48:08
Speaker 3: I want to say something and the truth. You know.
48:12
Speaker 3: Of being in prison for thirty one years, I came
48:18
Speaker 3: out very battle weary, not too much confidence in my abilities.
48:25
Speaker 3: As I said before, overwhelmed with the stimulus of the
48:30
Speaker 3: free world. I still right now today have not cooked
48:34
Speaker 3: my own first meal. After being out of prison for
48:37
Speaker 3: it a year and some months, I don't have the
48:41
Speaker 3: confidence to cook a meal. I don't really go into
48:48
Speaker 3: big shopping malls anymore. There's too many choices. I'm not
48:52
Speaker 3: used to that. I am enjoying the freedom of going
48:57
Speaker 3: back and forth under limits being on parole or probation.
49:03
Speaker 3: But it feels good to be able to go here
49:05
Speaker 3: and there without having to ask permission. So to speak.
49:10
Speaker 3: Life is good, man, and it's getting better. You know.
49:13
Speaker 3: I have a whole lot to be thankful for, even
49:16
Speaker 3: though this misfortune happened to me and took away a
49:20
Speaker 3: lot of my life. I tell people all the time,
49:24
Speaker 3: I got a whole lot more yesterday's than I do tomorrow.
49:27
Speaker 3: So I'm going to make the most of it. And
49:30
Speaker 3: all I really want to do now is just be
49:32
Speaker 3: the best me that I can be, not only for
49:35
Speaker 3: myself but for anyone who's watching me, because someone's always
49:40
Speaker 3: watching and you never know what they're going to pick
49:43
Speaker 3: up from you. So I do my best to just
49:46
Speaker 3: be the best example I can. I'm not perfect. I
49:49
Speaker 3: have a ways to go. I'm not perfect, but I'm
49:51
Speaker 3: pretty close to it. That's a joke, no, but honestly,
49:58
Speaker 3: you know, heart goes out to the youth of America.
50:02
Speaker 3: You know, the violence, the games, the influences. Find other
50:08
Speaker 3: things to spend your time with. I really don't want
50:13
Speaker 3: to be preachy, but these are the things I've learned
50:16
Speaker 3: the hard way, you know, is ask questions, don't take
50:21
Speaker 3: anyone's word, find your own truth, seek clarity, you know,
50:28
Speaker 3: just be true to yourself. It's very important.
50:33
Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening. Thank you everyone at home.
50:53
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
50:56
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
51:00
Speaker 1: owner to the Ennisis Project, and I really hope you'll
51:02
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
51:06
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
51:10
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
51:12
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
51:16
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
51:18
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
51:21
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
51:26
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
51:29
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one