Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #089 Jason Flom with Darnell Phillips

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#089 Jason Flom with Darnell Phillips · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Darnell Phillips in the spring of twenty nineteen,
0:09
Speaker 1: it was actually a heard interview for me to do
0:12
Speaker 1: this gentle giant of a man who had never been
0:16
Speaker 1: in trouble. I was studying to be a minister, was
0:20
Speaker 1: just starting his life as a teenage young man. Was
0:24
Speaker 1: wrong for the convicted since to one hundred and seven
0:26
Speaker 1: years in prison, he was released conditional release even after
0:33
Speaker 1: he proved his innocence with DNA, still restricted in his movements,
0:39
Speaker 1: and yet he has not let any of this hold
0:42
Speaker 1: him back. Just this year he started his dream business,
0:47
Speaker 1: a mobile auto detailing business called Redemption Auto Detailing LLC.
0:51
Speaker 1: Redemption Auto Detailing. Yet he's a minister. It's incredible. When
0:54
Speaker 1: I heard that name, I almost fell on the floor.
0:57
Speaker 1: Darnell is a pro at taking people's beat up looking
1:02
Speaker 1: cars and making them look like brand new. Therefore Redemption
1:07
Speaker 1: Auto Detailing, and he has a sort of a joy
1:10
Speaker 1: about the way he goes about life, but also just
1:15
Speaker 1: the way that he approaches his job. And as a result,
1:17
Speaker 1: the business is growing and flourishing. It's in Virginia. Look
1:21
Speaker 1: him up. His Instagram is at darn phill nineteen that's
1:24
Speaker 1: dar and Phil the number nineteen. Follow Darnell and you
1:30
Speaker 1: will be inspired because he is hitting it out of
1:33
Speaker 1: the park. He got engaged to a wonderful woman. What
1:38
Speaker 1: can you say about a guy who served almost three
1:41
Speaker 1: decades in prison of one hundred and something year sentence
1:44
Speaker 1: for a crime everybody knew he didn't commit. That victim
1:47
Speaker 1: came forward, everybody came forward, and yet spent not a
1:51
Speaker 1: minute of time feeling sorry for himself and is living
1:54
Speaker 1: his best life. Darnell, if you're listening, you have all
1:57
Speaker 1: my respect and for all you wrongful conviction listeners, I'm
2:01
Speaker 1: super excited for you to hear this episode.
2:14
Speaker 2: This Paul is from a correction facility.
2:16
Speaker 3: And it's subject to monitoring and recording.
2:21
Speaker 4: Fact eleven embarism, Okay, and it hasn't been easy.
2:32
Speaker 5: One hundred years, that's man. I'm a kid. I didn't
2:35
Speaker 5: do anything, you know, and uh you know that was ah,
2:40
Speaker 5: that was real painful, man. No, because my life was
2:44
Speaker 5: discarded as if you know, like I was a piece
2:46
Speaker 5: of trash or something, you know. One hundred years and
2:49
Speaker 5: I had dreams and I wanted to do things. I
2:51
Speaker 5: wasn't committing crimes, you know, I was a very good
2:55
Speaker 5: young man.
2:56
Speaker 6: That is what happened in so many cases. The cops
2:59
Speaker 6: have a hunch because are so smart at the scene,
3:02
Speaker 6: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
3:06
Speaker 6: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
3:09
Speaker 6: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
3:11
Speaker 6: many of these wrongful convictions.
3:13
Speaker 2: They open it to sell door and I walk down
3:17
Speaker 2: stif and I actually walked down stairs to be outside.
3:22
Speaker 2: It felt very strange to be, like I said, to
3:25
Speaker 2: be walking without no shackles on my feet. I thought
3:27
Speaker 2: it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream.
3:31
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
3:38
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm that's me. I'm your host, and today we
3:41
Speaker 1: have Darnelle Phillips, wrongfully in prison for twenty eight years
3:45
Speaker 1: and only released back on September twenty fifth. Welcome, Glad
3:49
Speaker 1: you're here.
3:50
Speaker 5: Thank you.
3:50
Speaker 1: I always say I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy
3:53
Speaker 1: you're here. And with him, Lisa SPE's is here and
3:56
Speaker 1: she runs Virginians for Judicial Reform. And Lisa and I
3:59
Speaker 1: have been working closely together for a while now on
4:02
Speaker 1: some Virginia cases. So I'm glad you're here as well.
4:05
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
4:07
Speaker 1: So, Darnell, your case is troubling in so many ways. Yes,
4:13
Speaker 1: the fact that you were ever prosecuted for this case
4:16
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense.
4:17
Speaker 5: And let's go back.
4:18
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a really brutal case. It's a
4:21
Speaker 1: violent rape of a ten year old girl, white girl,
4:25
Speaker 1: and Darnell is larger than life blackmail, and we know
4:30
Speaker 1: the cross racial identifications are incredibly unreliable. But let's not
4:33
Speaker 1: even go there yet. How did this ever come to
4:37
Speaker 1: pass in the first place? You didn't match the description.
4:39
Speaker 1: There's so much misconduct and so many mistakes both I
4:44
Speaker 1: think deliberate and accidental in your case. But let's go
4:48
Speaker 1: back to where did this happen? How did this happen?
4:51
Speaker 1: How did you first get wrapped up in it at all?
4:54
Speaker 5: In Virginia Beach in August nineteen ninety, I was in
4:58
Speaker 5: the process of trying to to do something like you
5:01
Speaker 5: do with music. You know, I was a young guy.
5:03
Speaker 5: You know, you want to make money, you want to
5:04
Speaker 5: try to, you know, go after your dreams. It just
5:06
Speaker 5: so happened to meet a young man from New York
5:09
Speaker 5: at the gym where he used to box at and
5:11
Speaker 5: so I saw that he was interested in music. When
5:14
Speaker 5: I said, well, you know what, I have another friend
5:16
Speaker 5: who goes to Norfolk State, the DJ. We can get together,
5:20
Speaker 5: maybe we can get this demo. We wanted to try
5:21
Speaker 5: to do it for this rap group called Public Enemy,
5:24
Speaker 5: and you know, in the early nineties. And so one
5:26
Speaker 5: of the days that I was over Michael's house, it
5:30
Speaker 5: was raining outside. When the rain began to settle down,
5:32
Speaker 5: we went back outside. We were laughing, just doing things,
5:36
Speaker 5: smoking a cigar, just talking futuristic things. You know. We
5:39
Speaker 5: had man, I would love to, you know, be a
5:41
Speaker 5: music producer, and you know he's talking about y'all I
5:43
Speaker 5: love to rap. And so when we got I'm not
5:46
Speaker 5: even ten steps outside of his house, there was a
5:48
Speaker 5: guy walking by and he asked could I have a light?
5:51
Speaker 5: Gave him a light and everything. So we went walked
5:53
Speaker 5: around the corner. That just so happened. Police they rolled up.
5:56
Speaker 5: And when they rolled up, we were like, well, what's
5:59
Speaker 5: going on, officer? He said, well, young girl had just
6:01
Speaker 5: been raped. We're like, whoa, We said, somebody just walked
6:03
Speaker 5: by us. We told him. They went that way back
6:06
Speaker 5: towards a place called corporate apartments. It was a military
6:08
Speaker 5: housing unit, and so he said, well, will you be
6:11
Speaker 5: around because in case we need to talk to you.
6:13
Speaker 5: He said, what, sure, but we didn't say anything. About
6:16
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes later, the auser came back through. He spoke
6:19
Speaker 5: with us. I was eighteen, Michael was sixteen. Spoke with
6:22
Speaker 5: Michael about, you know, where had he been and but
6:25
Speaker 5: Michael really didn't fit the description. So I was like, well,
6:27
Speaker 5: he's been with me, so there's no way in the
6:29
Speaker 5: world he could have been doing a type of crime.
6:31
Speaker 5: I had an all brown and black. They were looking
6:33
Speaker 5: for a man that had great shorts on white and
6:35
Speaker 5: green with the number forty two on the jersey. So
6:38
Speaker 5: you know, obviously I didn't fit the description. I wasn't
6:40
Speaker 5: the person's hired or anything. But nevertheless, they said, well
6:43
Speaker 5: can you try this hat on? But I was like, well,
6:46
Speaker 5: I didn't wants to try a hat on or whatever. Right,
6:48
Speaker 5: I had a hat I guess similar to the person
6:50
Speaker 5: who did the crime. It's like a Chicago Bulls hat.
6:53
Speaker 5: So Michael put the hat on. They snapped a picture.
6:56
Speaker 5: Then they asked me willingly. I said, yeah, sure, no problem.
6:59
Speaker 5: I put the hat on him. They snapped the picture
7:02
Speaker 5: the officer. He drove me home that night. That Friday,
7:05
Speaker 5: I was arrested. When I was arrested, they didn't tell
7:07
Speaker 5: me what I was arrested for. And it took some hours.
7:10
Speaker 5: Got down to the police station and spoke to a
7:12
Speaker 5: few detectives, you know, for like four hours probably. Then
7:16
Speaker 5: there was another detective came in, you know, unlike the
7:19
Speaker 5: other ones. And I grew up around police officers, you know,
7:22
Speaker 5: they were kind to us. Then they come through the neighborhood.
7:24
Speaker 5: We would speak with him. And when I spoke to
7:27
Speaker 5: the detective, he automatically started just belittling me. He moved
7:32
Speaker 5: your you know, you did the crime. I'm like, well,
7:35
Speaker 5: what are you trying to damage my life? Man? You know,
7:38
Speaker 5: like you're trying to hurt me. What are you doing?
7:40
Speaker 5: And so he just kept getting in my face and
7:43
Speaker 5: arguing at me and trying to get me to confess.
7:45
Speaker 5: He was trying to leave me on questions. I was
7:47
Speaker 5: smart enough, even though I was eighteen years old, I
7:49
Speaker 5: was smart enough to know that he was trying to
7:51
Speaker 5: pull me into a trap. I said, look, man, I said,
7:54
Speaker 5: I don't know what your situation is, but look, you
7:57
Speaker 5: got the wrong, man. I said, I have alibis and everything.
7:59
Speaker 5: Why while you doing this? He just said, well, look
8:02
Speaker 5: you told me. I said, I didn't tell you anything.
8:04
Speaker 5: I said, well, I'm not gonna sign anything. I said,
8:06
Speaker 5: you know, I didn't know. I said, I'm not signing anything.
8:07
Speaker 5: He's like, well, he said, that's make any difference. He said,
8:10
Speaker 5: who you think they're gonna believe me over you? He said,
8:12
Speaker 5: I'll take that young girl. He said, when I put
8:14
Speaker 5: in pig tails, and they'll look at you like an animal.
8:17
Speaker 5: I said, why are you doing so me? I put
8:18
Speaker 5: my head down because I said, I just want to
8:20
Speaker 5: go home, maybe my family, you know. And he told me,
8:23
Speaker 5: he said, well You're never going home. And so that
8:25
Speaker 5: right there he broke my heart. But nevertheless I still
8:28
Speaker 5: didn't't giving him what he wanted. He wanted me to
8:30
Speaker 5: just outright tell him I did it. I said, man,
8:33
Speaker 5: I just can't do that. Man. And after that was
8:35
Speaker 5: in jail that thirty Saturday morning. That Monday, I went
8:38
Speaker 5: to court. Next you know, I'm hearing I confessed and
8:41
Speaker 5: I had brutally raped this girl. And so I'm I'm
8:45
Speaker 5: caught up like what because I had an alibi witness
8:48
Speaker 5: I had a preacher's wife. She was in the house,
8:50
Speaker 5: her son, guy named Michael Northfleet, and a host of
8:54
Speaker 5: other guys who saw me that day that knew they
8:57
Speaker 5: I all had on all brown and black. I hadn't
8:59
Speaker 5: been out, and so I was a bit fuddled because
9:02
Speaker 5: the only move I made that they was to get
9:04
Speaker 5: to his house stay in his house. And when we
9:07
Speaker 5: saw the police later on, that was it.
9:09
Speaker 1: Well, Lisa, there were all these signs. I mean, they
9:12
Speaker 1: weren't just ignored. They were I mean, his rights were
9:15
Speaker 1: trampled on. We know that because I mean when you
9:17
Speaker 1: get an officer actually lying about a confession, we know
9:20
Speaker 1: about false confessions. This wasn't even that, this was a
9:23
Speaker 1: non confession that they then just made up a story.
9:27
Speaker 1: He told you he was going to do it, and
9:28
Speaker 1: he did do it right, Which is interesting too because
9:30
Speaker 1: he actually told you upfront, here's what I'm going to
9:32
Speaker 1: do to you. What would anybody feel in that situation
9:35
Speaker 1: other than why are you doing this to me? I'm
9:38
Speaker 1: not that guy. Like it's such a horrifying scenario, and
9:42
Speaker 1: especially like he said, as you did, as I did,
9:44
Speaker 1: I'm sure as Lisa did. We all grow up respecting
9:46
Speaker 1: authority figures expecting the uniform. We know that they're there
9:50
Speaker 1: to serve and protect and that they're the people you
9:52
Speaker 1: call if you're in trouble. Now all of a sudden,
9:54
Speaker 1: they are the people are trying to put you in trouble.
9:56
Speaker 1: So Lisa helped me out here because this is a
9:59
Speaker 1: bad one.
10:00
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know how much I can help you
10:01
Speaker 3: out with it. I mean, it reminds me of so
10:03
Speaker 3: many other cases that we've heard about, the Central Park
10:05
Speaker 3: five and Jeff Daskovic and Andy Kreebeck, And I think
10:08
Speaker 3: the difference is that Darnell had the state of mind
10:10
Speaker 3: at the time that he just was not going to
10:13
Speaker 3: give a false confession, and clearly that officer knew that
10:15
Speaker 3: and he didn't care, and he was going to say
10:17
Speaker 3: that he did it anyway. And that's, you know, the
10:19
Speaker 3: story that they continue to say that Darnell confessed, and
10:22
Speaker 3: that's what they've stuck to for twenty eight years. So
10:25
Speaker 3: in the recent court decision, it still continues to state that,
10:28
Speaker 3: you know, Darnell confessed, which we just know is patently false.
10:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get to that later because there's
10:33
Speaker 1: a whole long tail on this story, right you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: he's still being persecuted by the state, even after having
10:39
Speaker 1: been proven innocent, and even after the victim coming forward
10:42
Speaker 1: repeatedly and really begging the authorities to reverse this and
10:47
Speaker 1: realizing that she had made a mistake. And we can
10:49
Speaker 1: get into that too, and how she was really coerced
10:51
Speaker 1: into implicating you. Obviously, when someone endures a traumatic experience,
10:56
Speaker 1: which hers can't be more traumatic than what this poor
10:58
Speaker 1: girl went through, they're going to be prone to misidentifying
11:02
Speaker 1: someone or making mistakes, even if everybody does their job
11:05
Speaker 1: the way they're supposed to. That's not what happened here.
11:07
Speaker 1: But what they're probably not going to make a mistake
11:09
Speaker 1: on is identifying the color of the clothes, right, facial characteristics, height, Right,
11:14
Speaker 1: she's not sitting there with you know, a grass to
11:16
Speaker 1: be able to show how tall you are, how much
11:18
Speaker 1: you weigh. They could be off by twenty thirty fifty
11:20
Speaker 1: pounds even who knows. But they're not going to make
11:23
Speaker 1: a mistake on the color of the clothes, not that
11:25
Speaker 1: big of a mistake. It's not like it was gray
11:28
Speaker 1: or you know, light black, or you know what I mean,
11:30
Speaker 1: Like you were wearing completely different clothes, brown.
11:32
Speaker 5: And black Paisley black pants, brown and black Paisley shirt.
11:36
Speaker 5: Chicago Bulls had person they were looking at had a
11:39
Speaker 5: white and green jersey with the numbers forty two. She
11:43
Speaker 5: described that person is being a little older, out of shape.
11:46
Speaker 5: At the time, I used to run every morning, so
11:49
Speaker 5: I was like one hundred and seventy pounds. I should
11:51
Speaker 5: train with my cousin, you know, go boxing and everything.
11:54
Speaker 5: So you know, I was slim and trim, you know.
11:57
Speaker 5: And the sad part about it was that that brown
12:00
Speaker 5: and black garment. They paraded it around in court as
12:03
Speaker 5: if that was the white and green shirt, as if
12:05
Speaker 5: they implicated me with guilt. And I'm like, are they
12:08
Speaker 5: seeing this? The jury, I'm like, are you seeing this?
12:10
Speaker 5: This is a brown and black shirt, then someone with
12:12
Speaker 5: white and green.
12:13
Speaker 1: This is not like that thing that went around on
12:14
Speaker 1: the internet a while ago where it was a dress
12:17
Speaker 1: gold or is it blue? Right, and there was this
12:18
Speaker 1: whole This is not that. This is cut and dry.
12:21
Speaker 1: Anybody with eyes can tell the difference between those colors.
12:24
Speaker 1: It's not tricky. But speaking of tricky, I mean, the
12:27
Speaker 1: only word I can think of for it is disgusting
12:29
Speaker 1: on a number of levels, which is what they did
12:31
Speaker 1: to influence this young girl to implicate you, right, they
12:36
Speaker 1: were willing to go to extreme lengths to let's just
12:39
Speaker 1: call it, get this case off their desk, Lisa, Can
12:41
Speaker 1: you talk about some of the things that they did
12:43
Speaker 1: to influence this young girl who was so impressionable at
12:46
Speaker 1: this point and so damaged and so upset.
12:48
Speaker 3: So the victim in this case was a ten year
12:50
Speaker 3: old female who had been brutally sexually assaulted. She could
12:54
Speaker 3: not identify anyone when they came to speak with her,
12:56
Speaker 3: and they influenced her by telling her that Darnell had
13:00
Speaker 3: in fact confessed, but that they couldn't use the confession
13:02
Speaker 3: against him. They told her that her blood was found
13:06
Speaker 3: on Darnell's underwear. They told her that Darnell had committed
13:09
Speaker 3: similar crimes and been in trouble in the past, all
13:12
Speaker 3: of which were absolutely false, and they told her this
13:15
Speaker 3: to influence her to give an identification of Darnell to
13:18
Speaker 3: maintain the charge and also to get a conviction in
13:21
Speaker 3: a trial. Yeah, I mean disgusting. I don't even think
13:23
Speaker 3: begins to cover doing that to someone, because not only
13:26
Speaker 3: are you doing this to Darnell, who they knew was innocent,
13:29
Speaker 3: it's not a mistake. It's not an innocent mistake. In
13:31
Speaker 3: this case, they knew he was innocent. And it's not
13:34
Speaker 3: just leaving a predator on the street who's most likely
13:37
Speaker 3: going to commit another crime like this, but you're also
13:40
Speaker 3: committing a fraud on a ten year old victim who
13:42
Speaker 3: was sexually assaulted and her family who all had to
13:46
Speaker 3: go through that, and then twenty eight years later she
13:49
Speaker 3: finds out that it's all been a lie. And think
13:53
Speaker 3: about what kind of wrapping your mind around that would
13:55
Speaker 3: do to you after going through that kind of an
13:57
Speaker 3: experience as a child, and now having a wrap your
14:00
Speaker 3: mind around that you know you were part of this
14:02
Speaker 3: fraud as well, I mean unknowingly didn't do anything wrong
14:05
Speaker 3: on her own. She was told this, and of course
14:07
Speaker 3: we all believe the police. When you're ten and you
14:09
Speaker 3: go through something like that, all of us would believe that.
14:12
Speaker 1: And when it comes to the girl, I was getting
14:14
Speaker 1: the chills while you were talking, because I was thinking,
14:16
Speaker 1: who's to say that this guy who's still out on
14:18
Speaker 1: the streets wasn't going to go back and rape her again?
14:21
Speaker 2: Right?
14:22
Speaker 1: She was in danger, and look, maybe they couldn't have
14:25
Speaker 1: caught him anyway. Maybe he had disappeared into thin air
14:27
Speaker 1: or gone to Canada or who knows right, but if
14:31
Speaker 1: he was around, there was a way to find him.
14:33
Speaker 1: I mean, this is Virginia Beach too, This is not
14:35
Speaker 1: a tiny little town. They have resources, right, They have
14:39
Speaker 1: trained professionals that could have gone and done the hard
14:42
Speaker 1: work to go find this guy.
14:44
Speaker 3: Well, the tourism industry in Virginia Beach is very strong,
14:47
Speaker 3: as well as the military community, and I think for
14:49
Speaker 3: both of those things, you know, you would want to
14:50
Speaker 3: find the actual perpetrator rather than just lock somebody up and,
14:54
Speaker 3: like you said, get the file off their.
14:56
Speaker 1: Desk and give the public the false impression that everything's
14:59
Speaker 1: safe now and you can go out and do your thing,
15:02
Speaker 1: when in fact they should have been telling people to
15:04
Speaker 1: keep a careful eye on their kids while we're continuing
15:06
Speaker 1: this investigation. Don't let them go anywhere by themselves. I'm
15:09
Speaker 1: sure kids were just right back to riding their bikes
15:11
Speaker 1: and doing whatever they did in Virginia Beach back then,
15:13
Speaker 1: twenty eight years ago. Tarnell, let's talk about the trial.
15:17
Speaker 1: There you are with alibi witnesses, credible alibi witnesses. As
15:21
Speaker 1: you said, the preacher's daughter, and this and that, and
15:24
Speaker 1: like your friends, and you had an almost air tight case.
15:27
Speaker 1: How long were you in jail awaiting trial.
15:29
Speaker 5: I stayed in jail for like five months and I
15:32
Speaker 5: made bond. Here's how far the injustice goes, Jason. When
15:37
Speaker 5: I was in jail, my lawyer told me, I said, Darnelle, look,
15:39
Speaker 5: you don't have a record, and there are certain things
15:42
Speaker 5: in this case that he said, don't line up, he said,
15:44
Speaker 5: but they have to give you a record. I said,
15:46
Speaker 5: give me a record like what he said, They're going
15:48
Speaker 5: to open a book up on you. They can give
15:50
Speaker 5: you a robbery charge. I said, a robbery charge. So
15:53
Speaker 5: they gave me. It was two cases. But because this
15:55
Speaker 5: rate charge was so heavy, they gave me a robbery
15:59
Speaker 5: charge when I had witnesses. I was at work. I
16:02
Speaker 5: couldn't have been there, right, I didn't drive at the time, Jason.
16:05
Speaker 1: So so they invented a prior robbery just.
16:08
Speaker 5: So they could just to give me a criminal record.
16:11
Speaker 1: So they had an open robbery case and they just decided.
16:14
Speaker 5: He told me they were gonna dump it, and they
16:16
Speaker 5: gave a description of the man at the time. You know,
16:18
Speaker 5: when I saw the guy on the photos I saw,
16:20
Speaker 5: it was like he was like a larger, light skinned guy,
16:22
Speaker 5: had bald head at the time, and my ID picture
16:25
Speaker 5: I had full headed hair, you know this summertime. I
16:28
Speaker 5: was you know, dark brown.
16:30
Speaker 1: So they had like a surveillance photo of the guy
16:31
Speaker 1: or somewhere.
16:32
Speaker 5: But the guy had an ear ring in his ear.
16:35
Speaker 5: Now here's the thing about it. I had an ear
16:37
Speaker 5: ring in my ear when I was fourteen. It became
16:39
Speaker 5: infected because my brother friend did it. But by the
16:42
Speaker 5: time trial came along four years later, the victim had
16:46
Speaker 5: said the guy had an earring, but a plastic surgeon
16:48
Speaker 5: came and told him that it's no way in the
16:50
Speaker 5: world his ear could have been opened at that time.
16:52
Speaker 5: He says, this is a fully heeled ear. He said,
16:55
Speaker 5: it's no way in the world possible. And so I
16:57
Speaker 5: didn't look like the guy. I had alibi witnesses, so
17:00
Speaker 5: they give me another false charge. But the other case,
17:04
Speaker 5: I was facing three life sentences in thirty years, So
17:07
Speaker 5: really I wasn't thinking about that too much, right, and
17:10
Speaker 5: so they were just pretty much dumping everything on me.
17:12
Speaker 5: So when I got out on bond Man, I was
17:15
Speaker 5: a very fearful person because my outlook on the police office.
17:19
Speaker 5: They weren't the same anymore.
17:21
Speaker 1: It's a good thing they caught the guy that killed
17:22
Speaker 1: Ay Blinket. They might have tried to pin that on
17:24
Speaker 1: you too, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, you know,
17:26
Speaker 1: we got an open case here. They was this guy.
17:28
Speaker 1: We were in the theater back in eighteen sixty whatever,
17:30
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, no, yeah, this guy, this is
17:32
Speaker 1: the guy right here. You know what I mean. We
17:34
Speaker 1: can laugh about it now, Well you're laughing about it,
17:36
Speaker 1: but like it's actually it's preposterous. So back to the trial.
17:41
Speaker 5: So I got out on bond. No remember the fifth
17:43
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety. I went to trial in June nineteen ninety.
17:47
Speaker 5: I saw my first day, my lawyer told me to
17:49
Speaker 5: go to the back of the courtroom. I was like, well,
17:51
Speaker 5: why do you tell me to go to the back
17:52
Speaker 5: of the courtroom. For they saw the prosecutor walking the
17:55
Speaker 5: victim down the aisle and they stopped on my aisle.
17:58
Speaker 5: And she didn't point me out, but what she did
18:01
Speaker 5: she stopped by my eye and I'm like, what in
18:03
Speaker 5: the world is going on? But later on we found
18:06
Speaker 5: out that they coached her. She said that they coached her,
18:09
Speaker 5: that Look, he's going to be sitting at that table.
18:12
Speaker 5: This is what he got on. Don't change your story.
18:14
Speaker 5: So she was coached, not only by police officer, was
18:17
Speaker 5: coached by prosecutors. Came time for trial to you know,
18:21
Speaker 5: the victim pointed me out from that. I found that
18:25
Speaker 5: out maybe like a year ago, you know what I mean.
18:27
Speaker 5: So keep mind twenty seven years past. I'm finding this out.
18:30
Speaker 5: I'm like, that's what's going on. Because I was often puzzled,
18:34
Speaker 5: why didn't they just stop her where the row I
18:37
Speaker 5: was at? And so I said, that's why the prosecutors
18:40
Speaker 5: did that.
18:40
Speaker 1: Were there any rumors around because you were out for
18:43
Speaker 1: this period of time before the trial, were there rumors
18:46
Speaker 1: around the neighborhood about somebody else that might have done it?
18:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, the name was mentioned by one of the victim's
18:52
Speaker 5: family friends. Is what ass I believe the victim's father
18:55
Speaker 5: about some man named Omar because one of the victim's
18:59
Speaker 5: friend she said that when she was walking on the
19:03
Speaker 5: path and saw the girl with the bike, she said
19:06
Speaker 5: she saw also so a guy with a black hat,
19:08
Speaker 5: very popular Michael, like a bulls hat at the time.
19:11
Speaker 5: You know, he was toiling in his hands and she
19:13
Speaker 5: said he had on similar type clothing, you know, white,
19:16
Speaker 5: white and green and stuff. She said, well, he was
19:18
Speaker 5: toiling the hat and then when she looked, he just
19:21
Speaker 5: took off running and she said, oh, they looked just
19:24
Speaker 5: like Omar. In court when I heard that, I said, okay,
19:27
Speaker 5: so evidently maybe you know, they'll find this Omar guy
19:30
Speaker 5: saw be in the clear. But they never really looked for.
19:34
Speaker 1: Omar, you know, so they weren't really interested in No more.
19:38
Speaker 5: They weren't interested Omar. They were interested in Darnell.
19:41
Speaker 3: But at that point also it's important to remember that
19:45
Speaker 3: not only was their misconduct by the police and Darnell's
19:48
Speaker 3: original questioning, but there was continued misconduct by pointing Darnell
19:53
Speaker 3: out to the victim in the courtroom and coaching her
19:55
Speaker 3: and telling her these false things about Darnell from the
19:58
Speaker 3: first place, so really from the Star throughout the trial
20:01
Speaker 3: with the prosecutors, there was continued sheenanigans to nail it
20:04
Speaker 3: on him. And I don't really think they were interested
20:06
Speaker 3: in anybody else.
20:07
Speaker 1: Clearly they weren't interesting.
20:08
Speaker 3: But they clearly knew that he didn't do it, too,
20:10
Speaker 3: because if he did it, you don't have to go
20:12
Speaker 3: about it.
20:12
Speaker 5: This way that's true.
20:13
Speaker 1: But I mean we do have obviously cases of tunnel vision,
20:16
Speaker 1: where you have prosecutors and police who believe that they
20:19
Speaker 1: have the right guy and then they just sort of,
20:21
Speaker 1: you know, they get into this sort of vortex where
20:23
Speaker 1: they shape and shift the narrative in order to fit
20:26
Speaker 1: what they believed to be true. And that's a thing
20:29
Speaker 1: that happens. This doesn't seem like that was the case
20:31
Speaker 1: at all. They knew you didn't confess, they knew you
20:33
Speaker 1: weren't wearing the right clothes, they knew you had an alibi,
20:35
Speaker 1: they knew you had never been in trouble. There was
20:36
Speaker 1: not one little thing that would have indicated to anybody
20:40
Speaker 1: that was actually you. So this cannot be swept under
20:43
Speaker 1: the rug and called it, you know, a mistake and
20:46
Speaker 1: in a case of tunnel vision, because that's clearly not
20:48
Speaker 1: what it was. I mean, what this was was a
20:51
Speaker 1: lynching for back of a better word. And so you
20:55
Speaker 1: go to trial. How long did the trial last?
20:57
Speaker 5: Three day? Trial?
20:58
Speaker 1: Did you testify?
20:59
Speaker 5: Yes? I did? And what was that like? Well, to me,
21:03
Speaker 5: eighteen you know, you don't have the same verbiage azz.
21:06
Speaker 5: You know, I'm a toure prosecutor you know, and so
21:10
Speaker 5: even though you can stand your grounds, you really can't
21:12
Speaker 5: protect yourself because you don't know any of the legal terminology.
21:16
Speaker 5: And so every time you're trying to say, no, I
21:18
Speaker 5: was here with my friend, well this and that, and
21:21
Speaker 5: it didn't trick me up. I just couldn't express myself
21:24
Speaker 5: as well as I can now, because you know, the
21:27
Speaker 5: eighteen year old down there in the forty seven year
21:29
Speaker 5: old donaire a large difference, you know. And so to
21:32
Speaker 5: me it was hard fying because I'm like, can't they
21:37
Speaker 5: can't they see what's going on? I mean, they about
21:40
Speaker 5: to take my life. I said, they're not considering this,
21:42
Speaker 5: and I'm looking at the prosecutors and they were dead
21:45
Speaker 5: set on me going to prison for the rest of
21:48
Speaker 5: my life. I'm looking at the police officer. I'm like,
21:51
Speaker 5: I'm looking at them fabricating a story because I know
21:55
Speaker 5: I was in the house that day, and so I
21:58
Speaker 5: couldn't have been out raping someone. I was trying to
22:00
Speaker 5: tell them this what I was watching on TV. If
22:02
Speaker 5: you go back and look at this on TV, you'll
22:04
Speaker 5: see I'm correct. There's no way I know where I
22:06
Speaker 5: could have been on the crime scene. If I'm watching TV.
22:09
Speaker 5: I was trying to tell them about my friend's mother.
22:10
Speaker 5: She had told them, but they would not let her
22:12
Speaker 5: testify in court because at that moment she had brain
22:15
Speaker 5: cancer and the months that I was out, she began
22:18
Speaker 5: to lose her sight. But she said she still remember
22:22
Speaker 5: that man did not have on white and green. That
22:24
Speaker 5: man held him all brown and black, and he was
22:26
Speaker 5: right here on this couch with me. So they never
22:27
Speaker 5: let her testify that day. To me, it was horrible.
22:32
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't have a juror of my peers.
22:34
Speaker 5: You know, I think the closest I they came to
22:37
Speaker 5: a dur on my peers was a person that was
22:39
Speaker 5: she's probably about twenty eight. I don't know whether she
22:41
Speaker 5: was Chinese, I don't know what she was.
22:43
Speaker 1: But no black people on the Jersey Nah, oh boy,
22:46
Speaker 1: you know. And so you know, I had lunch the
22:48
Speaker 1: other day with a friend of mine who was doing
22:51
Speaker 1: great things and criminal justice perform and she was telling
22:53
Speaker 1: me before she became this performer, you know, now, I
22:56
Speaker 1: don't think anbody woul put her on a jury, but
22:57
Speaker 1: she was on the jury. And she said she was
22:59
Speaker 1: on this case. It was a serious criminal case. And
23:02
Speaker 1: she said the third day of deliberations, the jury start saying,
23:04
Speaker 1: you know what, I really don't care anymore whether the
23:06
Speaker 1: guy's guilty or not. I'm going home like I've had it,
23:09
Speaker 1: Like I got things to do. I can't be bothered
23:11
Speaker 1: with this anymore. Like people were just breaking down, all right, guilty,
23:15
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like people were just caving.
23:17
Speaker 1: And I'm making that point because I don't know what
23:19
Speaker 1: went on in your jury room, but after three days,
23:23
Speaker 1: you know, you could kind of understand how jurors could
23:25
Speaker 1: become so stressed out and everybody wants to go home.
23:29
Speaker 1: But I think when you're listening to Darnella and you
23:31
Speaker 1: hear the pain, and you know that he's just one
23:33
Speaker 1: of millions that have gone through this, so many of
23:36
Speaker 1: whom were innocent. You know, I'm just asking people to
23:39
Speaker 1: keep that in mind when you're in that jury room
23:42
Speaker 1: and it's an inconvenience, you know what, We got to
23:45
Speaker 1: work together to prevent these things from happening. And it's
23:47
Speaker 1: not going to happen if people are going to be
23:49
Speaker 1: susceptible to their own personal needs at a time when
23:51
Speaker 1: they hold somebody's life in their hands, as it was
23:54
Speaker 1: in your case. Because I got to believe that there
23:55
Speaker 1: were jurors in that room that we're sitting there going
23:58
Speaker 1: wait a minute, though the thing didn't match the description
24:02
Speaker 1: that this that that I mean, you know, because there
24:04
Speaker 1: was no forensic evidence. I mean, they made up a
24:06
Speaker 1: story about a hair, right, one hair on a blanket, right,
24:10
Speaker 1: that was another thing.
24:11
Speaker 5: Right, they said the man, he's eighty something now, but
24:14
Speaker 5: he told them, well, you know, that was what they
24:17
Speaker 5: called junk science. But at the time he said that
24:20
Speaker 5: it had like fourteen particulars that kind of they were
24:24
Speaker 5: similar to mine. But when they tested it in two
24:27
Speaker 5: thousand and one, it shows it wasn't mine at all.
24:29
Speaker 5: As a matter of fact, whoever it was the mother
24:31
Speaker 5: had Caucasian. It was a mine, the man from the
24:34
Speaker 5: Department of Defense, they tested it.
24:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was junk science involved on top of
24:38
Speaker 1: all the other stuff. That was the only physical evidence
24:40
Speaker 1: was one hair on a blanket that was found with
24:43
Speaker 1: the girl near the girl, which of course now we
24:45
Speaker 1: know wasn't your hair anyway. So if they needed another
24:49
Speaker 1: story to make up, there there it was. And how
24:51
Speaker 1: long did the jury deliberate.
24:53
Speaker 5: Deliberate it like three days on the third day of
24:56
Speaker 5: the trial, about eight o'clock at night, they rendered the
24:58
Speaker 5: decision and they told me, you know, guilty. I'm like, guilty.
25:02
Speaker 5: I know what guilty means. But I'm thinking they made
25:05
Speaker 5: a mistake because how could you incarcerate somebody who's innocent?
25:09
Speaker 5: And so I'm thinking that maybe I didn't hear this right,
25:12
Speaker 5: and they were reading off the jurors, you know, suggestions,
25:15
Speaker 5: and you know, I'm looking at my lawyer. I'm saying, say,
25:17
Speaker 5: am I going home tonight? And he looks at me,
25:19
Speaker 5: say he said no. I'm like, what's going on? You know,
25:23
Speaker 5: He's like, man, you see you're going to prison. Man,
25:25
Speaker 5: I said, I'm going to prison. Man told him I
25:28
Speaker 5: was facing one hundred seven years, but they did. They
25:30
Speaker 5: gave me one hundred years, right, and then with that robbery,
25:34
Speaker 5: they gave me a seven year sentence. Ye hundred years
25:37
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, and I'm like, a hundred years,
25:40
Speaker 5: I said, man, I'm a kid. I didn't do anything
25:43
Speaker 5: that was real painful man, you know, because my life
25:48
Speaker 5: was discarded as if, you know, like I was a
25:52
Speaker 5: piece of trash or something. You know, you know, a
25:55
Speaker 5: hundred years I had dreams and I wanted to do
25:58
Speaker 5: things I wouldn't committing. You know, I was a very
26:03
Speaker 5: good young man. I just wanted to help people with
26:05
Speaker 5: my life, and here they are, they want to.
26:09
Speaker 1: Take my life. So there you go to prison. You're
26:19
Speaker 1: stuck there for decades. And as you said, you were
26:22
Speaker 1: a young man with dreams and hopes like anybody would
26:25
Speaker 1: be at eighteen. How did you manage to never lose
26:28
Speaker 1: hope in this situation?
26:30
Speaker 5: You know, I was personally. I had just came into
26:32
Speaker 5: my faith and I said, you know, regardless of how
26:34
Speaker 5: long I have to stay there, I said, I'm not
26:35
Speaker 5: going to allow that place to cause me to succumb
26:39
Speaker 5: to its environment. The court system had already failed me.
26:43
Speaker 5: So and I just believed that one day the truth
26:46
Speaker 5: will come out. You know. That's just something that was
26:48
Speaker 5: a conviction in me. Outside of that, the only thing
26:53
Speaker 5: that got me through my faith. Man, I'm gonna be
26:55
Speaker 5: honest with you, writing, you know, reading the Bible and
26:57
Speaker 5: studying and praying. And because I want to go into industry,
27:00
Speaker 5: so I studied for that because I wanted to help people.
27:04
Speaker 5: And so I said, well, if I can't help people
27:06
Speaker 5: on the outside, I can help people on the inside.
27:08
Speaker 5: And so that's what I started doing teaching and preaching
27:11
Speaker 5: and writing. You know, I said, wrote several manuscripts with books,
27:15
Speaker 5: just teaching myself a lot of things. Man, studying business.
27:18
Speaker 5: I studied law because I did it some of the
27:20
Speaker 5: pro sal on my own case before I worked. You know,
27:23
Speaker 5: I did everything I could man to keep my head
27:25
Speaker 5: above waters.
27:26
Speaker 4: Man.
27:26
Speaker 5: But mostly I would say my faith, man, and helping people. Man.
27:30
Speaker 5: I found relief in helping others, you know, because everything else, Man,
27:34
Speaker 5: it had failed me.
27:35
Speaker 1: So ultimately we know now that you're here, this is
27:40
Speaker 1: the good part of the story. How did you first
27:43
Speaker 1: get in touch with the Virginia Innocence Project? What did
27:45
Speaker 1: that mean to you when they agreed to represent you?
27:48
Speaker 1: And then how did things develop from there?
27:50
Speaker 5: Well, I was the teacher's aid at Southampton Correctional Center
27:53
Speaker 5: for several years, and I had a boss there that
27:56
Speaker 5: he sent something to the New York Innocence Project because
27:59
Speaker 5: he said, bhavior was kind of strange. He said, I
28:01
Speaker 5: kind of stood out for the other inmates, and he said,
28:04
Speaker 5: you don't belong here. He said something wrong. So I
28:06
Speaker 5: broke down and I told him the story, and he said,
28:08
Speaker 5: don He said, I put something into the New York
28:10
Speaker 5: Innocence Project, he said, I don't know whether or not
28:12
Speaker 5: they got it, he said, but I put it in.
28:14
Speaker 5: And so several years later, I was at Green Rock
28:18
Speaker 5: Correctional Center. I think New York had sent me back
28:22
Speaker 5: some paperwork said that they were opening up Virginia chapter
28:25
Speaker 5: of the Innocence Project. And so one of the students
28:28
Speaker 5: came and visited me. And this is right after my
28:29
Speaker 5: father had died in two thousand and nine. You know.
28:31
Speaker 5: They visited me and told me he said, Man, I
28:33
Speaker 5: don't know whether or not I'll be able to help
28:34
Speaker 5: you before I leave, he said, but I'm gonna give
28:36
Speaker 5: it my best shot, try to get you out of
28:37
Speaker 5: there before I graduated. I said, that's cool. So I
28:41
Speaker 5: met that one student he graduated. I hadn't heard anything for,
28:45
Speaker 5: you know, several years, and so finally my older sister
28:48
Speaker 5: one morning, she said, you know what, I have to
28:50
Speaker 5: do something. So she drove up. She had never been
28:52
Speaker 5: to Charlottesville. She drove up to Charlottesville and she had
28:56
Speaker 5: my paperwork. When she went there, she didn't know whether
28:58
Speaker 5: or not university was open what, but she asked when
29:01
Speaker 5: with the that was dear Jen right once she be there.
29:04
Speaker 5: So she brought in, you know, the boxes and everything,
29:07
Speaker 5: and ultimately, and this is project, they really started looking
29:11
Speaker 5: more intent. One thing that touched me. I'm gonna tell
29:13
Speaker 5: you what touched me. Jennifer Gibbons had told me. She said,
29:15
Speaker 5: you know, Donelle, even if we don't find DNA, you
29:18
Speaker 5: know, because they would look for DNA, the say they couldn't
29:20
Speaker 5: find any DNA because the Prosecutor City had been destroyed
29:23
Speaker 5: in two thousand and five. So she said, you know,
29:26
Speaker 5: we're gonna fight this even if we don't find DNA.
29:28
Speaker 5: I finally felt like I was being heard. I went
29:31
Speaker 5: through so many decades without being heard, and now finally
29:36
Speaker 5: I didn't know how to take it. Someone talking to
29:38
Speaker 5: you like a human didn't give them the time and
29:40
Speaker 5: the energy. And they talked to me. They were very kind,
29:43
Speaker 5: and so I was like, man, I said, I'm actually
29:45
Speaker 5: going to get some help now. I had been praying
29:46
Speaker 5: about this for years. I said, man, I'm really going
29:48
Speaker 5: to get some help. I said, I have to give
29:50
Speaker 5: it up to the Inner Project. You know, they were
29:51
Speaker 5: more than lawyers. They were like family to me.
29:54
Speaker 1: Well they were lawyers, they were family. They were also
29:57
Speaker 1: private investigators. They were doing.
29:59
Speaker 5: Yes, they did. They started looking around, combing around for evidence,
30:03
Speaker 5: and in twenty sixteen they had found some evidence, you know,
30:06
Speaker 5: and I'm like, okay, now, let's see what this did.
30:09
Speaker 5: They going to show up and clear me. You know,
30:11
Speaker 5: I had no problem testing because knew I didn't do anything.
30:14
Speaker 5: So they went try to get it tested, the clothing
30:17
Speaker 5: because some of the other stuff had been destroyed deliberately,
30:21
Speaker 5: in my opinion, they tested it. They said that Virginia
30:25
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything, so they went to an external lab.
30:28
Speaker 5: In that lab in California, they found some DNA.
30:31
Speaker 1: And let's not skip over too quickly the fact that,
30:35
Speaker 1: as if they hadn't done enough, they also lied to
30:38
Speaker 1: you about the existence of the evidence, right, They covered
30:41
Speaker 1: it up for a decade. For a decade they said
30:44
Speaker 1: there's no evidence, but there was evidence. And we've seen
30:47
Speaker 1: this again and again in Alan Newton's case, Kurk Bloodsworth's case,
30:50
Speaker 1: so many cases where they say the evidence is not here,
30:53
Speaker 1: but it's here. Somebody just has to go look for it.
30:54
Speaker 1: But they just keep moving the gold posts and trying
30:56
Speaker 1: to hope that the maybe they're trying to get the
30:58
Speaker 1: lawyers to give up. I mean, every time I try
31:00
Speaker 1: to figure it out or understand it, I just I
31:02
Speaker 1: don't understand why they Why would anybody not want to
31:06
Speaker 1: get to the truth, except for they want to protect
31:10
Speaker 1: somebody's reputation. And this goes on and it's still going
31:13
Speaker 1: on to this day in your case, which you know,
31:16
Speaker 1: hopefully it will get resolved because we know now that
31:19
Speaker 1: your outfie, you're still not even really free. So that's
31:23
Speaker 1: another thing that has to get addressed. And when we
31:24
Speaker 1: get to that part of the story. So they found
31:26
Speaker 1: the DNA, they got it tested in California. How did
31:30
Speaker 1: you find out that the results came back that showed
31:33
Speaker 1: that you weren't the.
31:34
Speaker 5: Guy I was on the ballpark because this was like
31:36
Speaker 5: the third go round because as Virginia tested it, they
31:39
Speaker 5: couldn't find anything. But the guy in California, he said
31:42
Speaker 5: he tested right where they were testing and he found it.
31:46
Speaker 5: I'm like, how does that work? Because Virginia's they're very flawed,
31:52
Speaker 5: they're very behind on technology when it comes to DNA.
31:55
Speaker 5: But yet when you present it to the courtrooms, they
31:57
Speaker 5: don't want to receive it because it's not from Virginia.
32:00
Speaker 5: But yet Virginia they have a very flawed forensic science laboratory.
32:04
Speaker 5: You know, I have to say that because if it wasn't,
32:07
Speaker 5: you know, I wouldn't be here. Years later, so I
32:10
Speaker 5: was outside on the yard. An officer told me, look,
32:14
Speaker 5: someone wants to talk to you, so I call my lawyer.
32:16
Speaker 5: So when I talked to him, Deringja and Wright asked me.
32:18
Speaker 5: She said, donall you you're sitting down. I said, well,
32:21
Speaker 5: what is it, Derja? She said, are you sitting down?
32:24
Speaker 5: I'm like I said, yeah, yeah, she said. A man
32:26
Speaker 5: called from the laboratory in California. He said it wasn't yours.
32:29
Speaker 5: And they said, now here's something that people get confused about.
32:33
Speaker 5: Whoever it was in the DNA had three markers similar
32:36
Speaker 5: to mine. Scientifically, one in ten African American men have
32:40
Speaker 5: three markers of the same But then when you get
32:42
Speaker 5: to the rest of the markers, it shows O, this
32:45
Speaker 5: is a totally different person. One in twenty three individuals
32:48
Speaker 5: have the same three markers. And so the man told
32:52
Speaker 5: them that when you look on the outside, he said,
32:54
Speaker 5: you see the person had similar markers three but when
32:57
Speaker 5: you get to the rest of them, to which they
32:59
Speaker 5: didn't want to test, he said, it shows you it's
33:01
Speaker 5: not donell He says, it's not him. It's not him.
33:04
Speaker 5: So these labs outside of Virginia they saw the truth,
33:10
Speaker 5: but when we brought it back over Virginia side, they
33:13
Speaker 5: didn't want to process it because they didn't do it.
33:17
Speaker 5: So go figure, Go figure, man.
33:21
Speaker 1: I didn't know that science only worked inside the state lines.
33:25
Speaker 1: You know, science is science.
33:27
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, you know, no one really pushed that law yet,
33:30
Speaker 5: you know, pushed it through. Man, But you know, you
33:32
Speaker 5: have a lot of innocent guys being overlooked. They have proof,
33:36
Speaker 5: but because sometimes the labs didn't come through Virginia, the
33:40
Speaker 5: testing income through Virginia, they just can't get anything done.
33:45
Speaker 5: And some of these guys I talked to Saturday, I said,
33:47
Speaker 5: it's beautiful you call me because I'm going to New York.
33:50
Speaker 5: I said, Man, you know I can never forget you,
33:52
Speaker 5: and I'm not going to forget you. You know, I said,
33:55
Speaker 5: I wish I was totally clear. Man, I can really
33:58
Speaker 5: do some things to help you, you know, but like
34:01
Speaker 5: I say, you know, unfortunate. I'm not in that position yet.
34:03
Speaker 1: But which is an interesting thing because you were paroled
34:08
Speaker 1: without admitting guilt, which almost never happens. And I know
34:12
Speaker 1: the audience is probably thinking, wait a minute, but now
34:13
Speaker 1: the DNA, wouldn't the case just be overturned and thrown out,
34:17
Speaker 1: But they still fought that, and you had to go
34:20
Speaker 1: out sort of through the almost through the back door,
34:23
Speaker 1: so to speak, right by getting paroled, but still being
34:26
Speaker 1: forced to register and you know, be punished again on
34:32
Speaker 1: the outside because in your case, Virginia just doesn't want
34:35
Speaker 1: to admit that they're wrong. What we were talking about before,
34:45
Speaker 1: which is so profound, is the victim herself, right, who's
34:49
Speaker 1: now a grown woman. I mean, this is twenty eight
34:52
Speaker 1: years ago, so she's thirty eight, thirty nine years old,
34:55
Speaker 1: and talk about what her advocacy for you has mat
35:00
Speaker 1: how they have prevented her, Like she wanted to actually
35:03
Speaker 1: come and greet you and hug you and apologize or
35:07
Speaker 1: whatever it was that was on her mind as you
35:09
Speaker 1: were coming out the prison gates, and they wouldn't even
35:12
Speaker 1: allow her to do that.
35:14
Speaker 5: She had requested it, because she was the one who
35:16
Speaker 5: went and testified on my behalf, you know once my lawyers.
35:19
Speaker 5: Of course, I've never spoken to her outside of that
35:23
Speaker 5: at all, but my lawyers when they talk to us,
35:25
Speaker 5: she's like, well, look, you know, I want to do
35:27
Speaker 5: whatever I can to help get Darnell exonerated. She went
35:29
Speaker 5: to the parole board herself. So she asked my lawyers.
35:32
Speaker 5: She said, well, you know, can I go and see
35:33
Speaker 5: Darnelle law They're like, well, you know, I can't do
35:36
Speaker 5: that because you know, like I said, the system. You know,
35:39
Speaker 5: she still want to meet me to this day, I
35:41
Speaker 5: can't meet her. I don't know. Man. I appreciate her because,
35:45
Speaker 5: you know, she could have kept in her mind, she
35:46
Speaker 5: would have went to a grade with it. But she
35:48
Speaker 5: was a bold woman. To me, that was a profound
35:51
Speaker 5: because she's done more than a lot of times than
35:52
Speaker 5: many of the legal people have done for me, you know,
35:55
Speaker 5: because she came forth with the truth. She filled in
35:58
Speaker 5: a lot of blanks that I didn't know, my lawyers
36:01
Speaker 5: didn't know as to why things were going on, you know,
36:04
Speaker 5: like an undercurrent, and she filled them blanks in. So
36:06
Speaker 5: for that, I'll ever be grateful to her.
36:08
Speaker 1: And so you walked out of prison after twenty eight years.
36:12
Speaker 5: Well, I was ecstatic then, Jason, because one, you know,
36:16
Speaker 5: you're you're an ambitious man, Lisa, You're a very ambitious woman.
36:19
Speaker 5: You know, you had an opportunity to work in your passions.
36:22
Speaker 5: Well me, even though a lot of times I worked
36:25
Speaker 5: on my passion in prison. Now I'm like, I can
36:28
Speaker 5: finally come out and do this because those fires never
36:31
Speaker 5: died in me and so I'm like, man, I'm gonna
36:33
Speaker 5: be able to do this now. That's all I wanted
36:35
Speaker 5: to do. I wanted to feel like what my purpose
36:38
Speaker 5: was that was going to ministry, to get in the business,
36:41
Speaker 5: to marry. My fiancee would have been with me for
36:42
Speaker 5: eighteen years fighting alongside me. I'm like, man, I'm gonna
36:45
Speaker 5: be able to get married now, I'm gonna be able
36:47
Speaker 5: to go to in the ministry. I'm gonna be able
36:48
Speaker 5: to start a business. I'm gonna be able to be
36:49
Speaker 5: around my mother and to close that chapter of my life,
36:53
Speaker 5: so to speak.
36:53
Speaker 1: What is it like now, Like, how's your day to day?
36:57
Speaker 1: Been out for four months now?
37:00
Speaker 5: When people do recognize me, they're very empathetic, you know,
37:02
Speaker 5: sympathetic towards me. But when it comes time to work, now,
37:07
Speaker 5: like keep mind, like I'm forty seven years old, man,
37:09
Speaker 5: pretty much have to start like a person who's sixteen
37:11
Speaker 5: years old. The jobs I go for, I go for
37:14
Speaker 5: like sales jobs or I go for any other type
37:17
Speaker 5: of job. I mean, I'm broken down to warehouse or whatever.
37:20
Speaker 5: I just wanted some employment. Sometimes even though they're not
37:24
Speaker 5: supposed to discriminate, and even though they believe you, and
37:27
Speaker 5: even though they took me, I recognize your case. But
37:29
Speaker 5: one of the jobs I had went to the man said,
37:31
Speaker 5: you know, he said, man, you have to be cleared
37:34
Speaker 5: when I do the background chase. He said, you have
37:35
Speaker 5: to be cleared for this job. He said, I understand
37:37
Speaker 5: your situation, but you have to be cleared, and so
37:40
Speaker 5: that I couldn't get the job. Personally, I understood because
37:43
Speaker 5: I know that he has to represent his business. But
37:47
Speaker 5: in my heart and mind, I'm like, man, I'm still
37:49
Speaker 5: paying for something I didn't do. So I have to
37:53
Speaker 5: depend on other people for money when that is not
37:56
Speaker 5: my nature at all. All I want to do is
37:58
Speaker 5: be able to provide for myself, get married, you know,
38:01
Speaker 5: get a vehicle. I have to depend on people for
38:03
Speaker 5: rides because I can't even get a cheap vehicle. And
38:06
Speaker 5: so even though I'm glad to be out, you know,
38:09
Speaker 5: I'm grateful, but I still have to suffer day to day.
38:13
Speaker 5: I want to start my own business. I wanna start
38:15
Speaker 5: all those detailing business But if I could work, I
38:19
Speaker 5: could get the little money that it costs a little
38:22
Speaker 5: six thousand dollar that shouldn't a struggle. But you can't work,
38:25
Speaker 5: so you can't get the money. And so I'm not
38:28
Speaker 5: a criminal, So I'm not gonna commit crimes. I'm not
38:30
Speaker 5: gonna sell drugs. I'm not gonna ride. That's not my nature.
38:33
Speaker 5: The only thing I can do, man is prey man
38:35
Speaker 5: look for opportunity to come man.
38:37
Speaker 1: People that are listening, maybe they live in or know
38:40
Speaker 1: about opportunities in the area of Virginia Beach area. How
38:43
Speaker 1: would they contact you? Do you have a website or
38:46
Speaker 1: an email address or something like that you wanna share.
38:48
Speaker 5: I have an email d ar n p h I
38:52
Speaker 5: L nineteen at yahoo dot com.
38:54
Speaker 1: Darnfeld d A r n p h I L nineteen
38:58
Speaker 1: the number nineteen at Yahoo. If people want to reach
39:01
Speaker 1: out to you for speaking gigs maybe or anything else
39:03
Speaker 1: like that.
39:03
Speaker 3: We actually set up a GoFundMe to try to give
39:06
Speaker 3: him more opportunities. Now you know, in the meantime of
39:08
Speaker 3: being fully exonerated.
39:10
Speaker 1: How do people access to GoFundMe so they.
39:12
Speaker 3: Can google Darnell Phillips go fund me, or they can
39:14
Speaker 3: go to the website V four jr dot org and
39:19
Speaker 3: there's a link on our website to the go fundme
39:21
Speaker 3: account v as in Victor the number four j r
39:25
Speaker 3: dot org. Or they can look us up Virginians for
39:28
Speaker 3: Judicial Reform on Facebook and there are links to it
39:31
Speaker 3: on our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well.
39:34
Speaker 1: So before we wrap up, my question for you is,
39:38
Speaker 1: are you better.
39:40
Speaker 5: No, I'm gonna be honest with you, Jason. That would
39:42
Speaker 5: sound crazy, but when I said that I wouldn't let
39:46
Speaker 5: that place, I wouldn't let this situation change me. I
39:50
Speaker 5: meit that. I vowed that to myself and I vowed
39:52
Speaker 5: it to God. I said, I will not allow that
39:53
Speaker 5: to change me because it will make me like them,
39:58
Speaker 5: you know. And I'm not talking about inmate. It would
40:01
Speaker 5: make me like the wickedness that people perform to get
40:04
Speaker 5: me in there, you know. So I'm not bitter. I
40:08
Speaker 5: did not like what happened to me, but I'm not
40:12
Speaker 5: bitter because the people I met, the experiences I went
40:15
Speaker 5: through outside of the legal system. Now, the individuals I met,
40:19
Speaker 5: it opened my eyes up to you know that their
40:21
Speaker 5: cause is bigger than myself and my only thing is
40:24
Speaker 5: how do I get involved to help them? You know,
40:26
Speaker 5: because it's all about helping people. It's all about helping
40:29
Speaker 5: people get to the next level in their life, you know.
40:32
Speaker 5: And you have to live your life or calls outside
40:34
Speaker 5: of yourself, you know, like like you, you know you
40:37
Speaker 5: you're a great producer, but you find the time to
40:40
Speaker 5: help guys in situations like mine, you know what I mean.
40:43
Speaker 5: There's two different things. But nevertheless, that's a passion of yours,
40:47
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. That's a God's send for
40:49
Speaker 5: guys like me. Man, you don't really know how how
40:52
Speaker 5: strongly you know you affect us. Man, You really affect
40:55
Speaker 5: us to a degree, man, to our core, because you
40:57
Speaker 5: actually hear guys, You actually take the time. I remember
41:00
Speaker 5: when I called you on the phone. I was shocked.
41:02
Speaker 5: I thought I was gonn get a secretary of So
41:03
Speaker 5: I said, I just got answered his phone. I mean
41:06
Speaker 5: for real, I said, he this guy answered his phone.
41:09
Speaker 5: I said, just got cared for real. And so you
41:11
Speaker 5: don't find many people like you, man, So I would
41:13
Speaker 5: just sit there and continue what you're doing, man, you know,
41:15
Speaker 5: and pray after it. One day, Man, I'll be able
41:17
Speaker 5: to help people just like that.
41:19
Speaker 1: You definitely will. And you know, for me, it's a
41:22
Speaker 1: duty but also a privilege to be able to be
41:24
Speaker 1: around people like yourself who have been to hell and
41:29
Speaker 1: back and come out with a smiling face and a
41:32
Speaker 1: bouncing your step. It's an unbelievable thing. I mean, it's
41:34
Speaker 1: really a selfish thing that I do, you know, because
41:37
Speaker 1: it makes my life better, you know, knowing you people
41:40
Speaker 1: like Lisa that are involved in the fight. The other
41:43
Speaker 1: Xigneries really the finest people that I've had the chance
41:47
Speaker 1: to come across, most of them are Exigneries. It's crazy,
41:51
Speaker 1: so I don't really understand it, but it is what
41:53
Speaker 1: it is. So this is the part of the show
41:57
Speaker 1: which is my favorite part of the show because this
41:58
Speaker 1: is a part of the show where I get to
41:59
Speaker 1: stop talking and listen. And you know, first of all,
42:04
Speaker 1: I want to thank both of you for coming. It's
42:08
Speaker 1: been an honor for me to tape this show with you.
42:10
Speaker 1: So thanks again Darnell Philips for coming in and sharing
42:14
Speaker 1: your thoughts. And Lisa Speeds. Keep fighting the good fight,
42:19
Speaker 1: you know, We'll keep working together and the winds are
42:21
Speaker 1: few and far between, and the frustrations a lot, but
42:24
Speaker 1: we just keep fighting.
42:25
Speaker 3: So but the ones are worth it.
42:26
Speaker 1: That's right. So now I'm gonna turn it over to
42:28
Speaker 1: you just for some brief final thoughts. Lisa, you can
42:31
Speaker 1: go first, because we're going to save the best for last.
42:33
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. I think Darnell's case
42:37
Speaker 3: is just kind of interesting to me because I learned
42:39
Speaker 3: about him from another wrongfully convicted person that's still in prison.
42:43
Speaker 3: And when I would email with Darnell has emails to
42:46
Speaker 3: me while he was still in prison. We're so like
42:49
Speaker 3: uplifting and it just was like a breath of fresh
42:52
Speaker 3: air into my day. So seeing him be on the
42:54
Speaker 3: outside and meeting him in person today was an incredible experience.
42:58
Speaker 3: We have some real problems with the criminal justice system
43:01
Speaker 3: in Virginia. We don't have parole, jury's recommend sentences. The
43:06
Speaker 3: way our rid of actual innocence is designed is, you know,
43:09
Speaker 3: to kind of circumvent actual justice. Ignoring DNA evidence because
43:13
Speaker 3: it didn't come from Virginia lab is wrong. And so
43:16
Speaker 3: you know, we would love for more people to get involved,
43:18
Speaker 3: and I know Darnelle wants to get involved and trying
43:21
Speaker 3: to change the system there to truly seek out justice
43:25
Speaker 3: for all of us and make it better. So thanks
43:28
Speaker 3: for having me.
43:28
Speaker 5: What I would like to say, I would like to
43:30
Speaker 5: speak to those who are presently incarcerated. You know, if
43:33
Speaker 5: they can hear me, that there is always hope, you know,
43:36
Speaker 5: never give up, you know, never let go of your
43:39
Speaker 5: dream of being released from prison. Especially for the false incarcerated.
43:45
Speaker 5: Know that there are groups and people who will hear you,
43:48
Speaker 5: can hear you, and can feel what you're feeling. From
43:51
Speaker 5: one innoc and man to another, I said, man, keep
43:54
Speaker 5: your faith, don't give up. This is twenty eight years later.
43:57
Speaker 5: As long as we have good people like the Innocence Project,
43:59
Speaker 5: Jays flam Messa Speeds, these people out here to help us.
44:04
Speaker 5: So don't give up. You know, sometimes it's easy to
44:06
Speaker 5: you know, to stop writing people, to just succumb to
44:09
Speaker 5: the system, you know, figuring you know you're losing hope
44:12
Speaker 5: and figuring that, hey, look, no one wants to hear
44:15
Speaker 5: no one wants to get involved in my situation. Don't
44:19
Speaker 5: fall prey to the lie. Reach out. There's someone who
44:22
Speaker 5: will help you.
44:23
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction and tune in
44:27
Speaker 1: next week. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
44:40
Speaker 1: Wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps, and I'm
44:44
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44:47
Speaker 1: hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
44:50
Speaker 1: and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
44:54
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44:57
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45:00
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45:03
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