Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #271 Jason Flom with Howard Dudley

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#271 Jason Flom with Howard Dudley · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: With the rise of dual income households throughout the eighties
0:05
Speaker 1: and nineties, an unprecedented number of families were relying on
0:08
Speaker 1: near strangers for childcare. Subsequently, a wave of child sex
0:12
Speaker 1: abuse hysteria began, in which any claim at all from
0:16
Speaker 1: a child was granted credence, no matter how outlandish or
0:20
Speaker 1: probably false they were. At this time, Howard Dudley and
0:24
Speaker 1: Diane Moore were jointly raising their daughter Amy, but were
0:27
Speaker 1: never married. Eventually, Howard found her a nude sense of faith,
0:31
Speaker 1: met his wife, and had two sons. Even though Howard
0:34
Speaker 1: paid child support and maintained a presence in Amy's life,
0:36
Speaker 1: one can imagine that Howard's new willingness to settle down
0:39
Speaker 1: was not well received by the mother of his first
0:41
Speaker 1: child or her family, including Amy's babysitter, Lydia May Starkey.
0:47
Speaker 1: On October thirteenth, nineteen ninety one, Amy allegedly told miss
0:50
Speaker 1: Starkey that her father was quote nasty, already prime to
0:54
Speaker 1: believe the worst about Howard, and demanding an explanation. Starkey
0:57
Speaker 1: began a series of suggestive questions, and Amy allegedly claimed
1:02
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. To look out for Amy's best interest. During
1:05
Speaker 1: the social Services investigation. She was assigned at Guardian ad Ltam,
1:09
Speaker 1: who determined that Amy's story was untrue. Nonetheless, the trend
1:12
Speaker 1: demanded that credence be granted to the child's claims, triggering
1:16
Speaker 1: Howard's arrest. The prosecution ignored and hid the Guardian ed
1:21
Speaker 1: Lam's recommendation, and even though Amy recanted her allegations immediately
1:25
Speaker 1: after trial, Howard's been nearly twenty five years in prison
1:29
Speaker 1: as a child sex offender. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
1:46
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. I feel a deep sense of
1:49
Speaker 1: responsibility to share this story because it's unique in terms
1:53
Speaker 1: of the almost three hundred episodes we've done, but it's
1:57
Speaker 1: not unique because it was a common story at the
2:00
Speaker 1: time that it was happening. It's the story of a
2:03
Speaker 1: man named Howard Dudley who was convicted of a crime
2:07
Speaker 1: that never happened, and who spent almost three decades incarcerated
2:12
Speaker 1: because of a series of lies, superstitions, hysteria that sort
2:17
Speaker 1: of swept the nation. So before I introduce the other
2:20
Speaker 1: distinguished guest who we have on here, I want to
2:23
Speaker 1: introduce mister Dudley himself, Howard Dudley. Welcome to RAFEL conviction.
2:27
Speaker 2: Good morning, excited about being here this morning.
2:30
Speaker 1: Well, listen, I'm excited to have you here. I'm sorry
2:33
Speaker 1: you're here because of what you went through with Howard.
2:36
Speaker 1: Today is a remarkable woman named Teresa Newman. Teresa is
2:41
Speaker 1: recently retired, but she was a clinical professor of law
2:44
Speaker 1: amereta at Duke Law. So this is a serious person.
2:49
Speaker 1: You don't get that title by not being tough and smart.
2:53
Speaker 1: And you also don't get Howard Dudley out of prison
2:56
Speaker 1: without those qualities and characteristics. So Teresa, thank.
2:59
Speaker 3: You for being here, Thank you so much for having us.
3:02
Speaker 1: And this story is outrageous. Stories like this have actually
3:06
Speaker 1: kept me up at night. And I mean again, this
3:09
Speaker 1: one is this is about as bad as it gets,
3:13
Speaker 1: but it isn't unique, and that's why I think it's
3:15
Speaker 1: all the more important that we tell it. But Howard,
3:17
Speaker 1: before we get into the story itself, let's talk about
3:20
Speaker 1: your youth. You grew up in a small town in
3:23
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Is that right?
3:25
Speaker 2: That's correct, that's right, a little town called Institute. I
3:28
Speaker 2: grew up in a home mom and dad and nine siblings.
3:34
Speaker 2: And my dad had quick rules and he enforced the talk,
3:39
Speaker 2: the work they're out of trouble not to go out
3:42
Speaker 2: and disperse the family.
3:43
Speaker 1: Name. Yeah, I guess with that many kids, you'd have
3:45
Speaker 1: to have some strict rules or it'd be pure chaos.
3:47
Speaker 1: But it sounds like your parents instilled some good values
3:50
Speaker 1: in you. And I also understand that you played guitar
3:52
Speaker 1: and still do, and eventually you grew up and that
3:55
Speaker 1: a woman named Diane Moore. You had a daughter together
3:57
Speaker 1: named Amy. But it appears that you never intend on
4:00
Speaker 1: marrying Diane and weren't ready to settle down.
4:02
Speaker 2: I wasn't really a good boyfriend. I ad met to
4:05
Speaker 2: that right there. But we worked out between the court
4:08
Speaker 2: and myself and Amoy's mother that I could spend time
4:10
Speaker 2: with her. She spent weekends with me. We had a
4:12
Speaker 2: great relationship and we was on good.
4:15
Speaker 1: Terms, I thought. And while you two tolerated each other
4:18
Speaker 1: for the good of your daughter, Diane ended up becoming
4:20
Speaker 1: infected with HIV and she was very ill for a while.
4:23
Speaker 1: So a relative named Lydia may Starkey began shouldering more
4:28
Speaker 1: of Diane's into the bargain. But nonetheless, you moved on
4:31
Speaker 1: with your life.
4:31
Speaker 2: I met my wife and we got married. She would
4:34
Speaker 2: accept me as I was, and after marriage we had
4:37
Speaker 2: a son named Dennis who's a musician today, and the
4:40
Speaker 2: Adrian living a productive life. I would determine to make
4:44
Speaker 2: a good life for my children, and that was my endeavor.
4:47
Speaker 2: I worked, my wife went to college, and her last
4:51
Speaker 2: year in school she had a major squote, and so
4:55
Speaker 2: basically I was the provider for my family.
4:57
Speaker 1: So at this time, you were provided for your family,
5:00
Speaker 1: living in a trailer while paying child support for Amy,
5:03
Speaker 1: who would join you on the weekends and during the
5:05
Speaker 1: week her relative, Lydia Mace Darkey would care for her
5:08
Speaker 1: as Diane's health continued to deteriorate.
5:10
Speaker 3: The babysitter she called Howard mean because he had broken
5:14
Speaker 3: up with Diane Moore, who she later died of age
5:17
Speaker 3: she was ill, and then Howard, moving on with life,
5:19
Speaker 3: became born again. Christian got married, had these two kids.
5:22
Speaker 1: So one could easily see how some really you know,
5:27
Speaker 1: hard hurt feelings could develop, making it easy for Lydia
5:30
Speaker 1: May to believe horrible things about you, and later on
5:33
Speaker 1: maybe even to cajole young Amy into making wild accusations
5:38
Speaker 1: that she would later recant. Amy, as I understand, was
5:41
Speaker 1: a bit more susceptible to suggestion, as she had some
5:44
Speaker 1: intellectual limitations. But even before we get into the specifics
5:48
Speaker 1: of your case, I think it's important to mention that
5:51
Speaker 1: this time period, the late eighties and early nineties, was
5:54
Speaker 1: the absolute height of a wave of child sex abuse hysteria,
5:58
Speaker 1: and cases were weeping across the country, one nonsensical case
6:03
Speaker 1: after the other, and I think probably the most widely
6:05
Speaker 1: known one was the McMartin preschool, but very close by
6:08
Speaker 1: to Howard and his family in North Carolina was a
6:10
Speaker 1: Little Rascals daycare center, where the accusations were beyond absurd,
6:14
Speaker 1: I mean just absolutely outlandish things that a kid might
6:18
Speaker 1: conjure up on the spot. Now that's not to say
6:20
Speaker 1: that there perhaps weren't some real allegations among the false ones,
6:25
Speaker 1: but in that climate, social services, police and eventually juries
6:29
Speaker 1: were buying the allegations, credible or not.
6:32
Speaker 3: Absolutely. And I wasn't a lawyer when these cases were
6:37
Speaker 3: sweeping the nation and frankly internationally, but I remember, just
6:41
Speaker 3: like you, Jason, reading it and thinking these were fantasy allegations.
6:46
Speaker 3: And people have different theories about what led to this
6:50
Speaker 3: period of near hysteria, but I think many believe it
6:54
Speaker 3: was a time of two parent families. Both parents were working,
7:00
Speaker 3: children were being taken care of by strangers or near strangers,
7:04
Speaker 3: and all it takes is rumor and innuendo that something
7:10
Speaker 3: untoured is happening in these places. And the Little Rascals
7:14
Speaker 3: is a great example, and that's right here in North Carolina.
7:18
Speaker 3: The trial which was against every worker and owner at
7:22
Speaker 3: that daycare center. That trial was occurring for the owner
7:26
Speaker 3: of the center, just minutes away from where Howard Dudley lived.
7:30
Speaker 3: The stories were in the New York Times, were in
7:32
Speaker 3: the international papers, were in every local newspaper, and in
7:35
Speaker 3: that one newborn babies were being tossed to sharks off
7:39
Speaker 3: the coast of North Carolina. There were pirate ship allegations.
7:44
Speaker 3: Clearly the stories of children. But the other important piece
7:48
Speaker 3: of this period of time was that no research had
7:51
Speaker 3: really been conducted on whether young children could fabricate such stories.
7:56
Speaker 3: So if they told you a quote story, that story
8:01
Speaker 3: had to be true. Any listener who is a parent
8:04
Speaker 3: today knows that that's a crazy notion. Children make up
8:09
Speaker 3: stories all the time. They lived in fantasy. But that
8:12
Speaker 3: was that period. Today it is known that children can
8:16
Speaker 3: line that it's really important to conduct interviews of children
8:20
Speaker 3: in a certain way that the medical evidence that was
8:23
Speaker 3: believed to be dispositive abuse at the time.
8:25
Speaker 1: Is not a friend of mine named Gus Gussler. I
8:27
Speaker 1: don't know if he ever came across him, but he's
8:29
Speaker 1: a criminal defense lawyer for a long time in North
8:31
Speaker 1: Carolina and he defended one of these cases. He was
8:34
Speaker 1: actually representing a man who was a golf pro whose
8:37
Speaker 1: wife operated a day care facility, and just because he
8:41
Speaker 1: would go and pick her up from work once in
8:43
Speaker 1: a while, he got caught up in it as well.
8:45
Speaker 1: And I believe he got convicted because at the time
8:48
Speaker 1: it was just like everybody was just believing anything that
8:51
Speaker 1: anybody said. And of course these were crimes that never
8:54
Speaker 1: even happened.
8:55
Speaker 3: We represent one of the last surviving multi defendant, multi
9:00
Speaker 3: children cases from this period, and the man was convicted
9:03
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven and it absolutely nothing happened. But
9:08
Speaker 3: he was a van driver for a daycare center with
9:11
Speaker 3: some cognitively impaired adults on the van as well, and
9:15
Speaker 3: two of those adults were boyfriend and girlfriend, and they
9:19
Speaker 3: were doing as the children said, the married people were
9:21
Speaker 3: doing married people things on the bus and that's how
9:25
Speaker 3: it started. And it ended up with our client Junior
9:29
Speaker 3: Chandler in prison since nineteen eighty seven and we'll be
9:32
Speaker 3: there for the rest of his life unless we can
9:34
Speaker 3: successfully petition the cord.
9:36
Speaker 1: There are still so many people suffering in prison, like
9:40
Speaker 1: Junior Chandler, James King, whose case we've covered on the show.
9:45
Speaker 1: And if you have the opportunity, please go back and
9:47
Speaker 1: list to that one. That one it hurts my heart
9:49
Speaker 1: and we'll have it linked in the bio. And then
9:51
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe you know something, maybe there's something you
9:53
Speaker 1: can do to help. And Howard, you haven't even been
9:55
Speaker 1: home that long. It was only two thy sixteen when
9:59
Speaker 1: you got out. Let's turn to the story at hand. Here.
10:02
Speaker 1: This was October thirteenth, nineteen ninety one, which was a Sunday.
10:05
Speaker 1: Amy had just been returned to her mother and had
10:07
Speaker 1: Miss Starkey, and I understand that over the weekend you
10:10
Speaker 1: had been firm with Amy about something, as parents off
10:13
Speaker 1: and are when trying to raise their children, you know
10:16
Speaker 1: the right way, and she had a complaint that you
10:19
Speaker 1: were quote nasty, And it was at this point that
10:22
Speaker 1: Miss Starkey began a series of leading questions resulting in
10:26
Speaker 1: some very serious allegations and accusations.
10:29
Speaker 3: Well, what's really important is that the babysitter was predisposed
10:32
Speaker 3: to believing that Howard was mean and would do anything right.
10:37
Speaker 3: So when Amy said my daddy is nasty, she went
10:42
Speaker 3: straight to sexual and said does he put his mess
10:45
Speaker 3: inside of you? So at that, given Amy's other characteristics,
10:50
Speaker 3: you know, she went with it. And she had been
10:53
Speaker 3: inappropriately watching adult TV. So she had seen the Sally
10:56
Speaker 3: Jesse Raphael show where they had talked about rape.
10:59
Speaker 1: So with a head fall of adult content and being
11:03
Speaker 1: pressed for an explanation about her meaning of the word
11:06
Speaker 1: nasty by Miss Starkey with a suggestive line of questioning
11:09
Speaker 1: like does he put his mess inside you? I mean
11:12
Speaker 1: that's the first direction she went in talking about Amy's dad. Eventually,
11:16
Speaker 1: under this absurd and obscene pressure, nine year old Amy,
11:21
Speaker 1: who was even more impressionable than her contemporaries, allegedly said
11:24
Speaker 1: that Howard had quote humped her and quote had s
11:28
Speaker 1: e X with her. So the accusation was reported to
11:31
Speaker 1: Diane and then the police.
11:33
Speaker 2: Diane and Miss Starkey, I think they noted certain things
11:37
Speaker 2: that they can run down into the polls with it
11:39
Speaker 2: and they gonna come back running with handcuffs and wants.
11:42
Speaker 2: I think they you that Auto tried the Little Rascal.
11:45
Speaker 2: They you that as an opportune time to vent her
11:49
Speaker 2: ang out at me.
11:50
Speaker 1: Of course, in this incredibly fraud time period, with the
11:53
Speaker 1: Little Rascal case looming in the headlines, the Kingston Police
11:57
Speaker 1: and Leonora County DSS were primed to jump on a
11:59
Speaker 1: case like this one. But it soon should have been
12:02
Speaker 1: clear that these accusations of sexual activity on multiple occasions
12:06
Speaker 1: were totally false, because when they began to ask Amy
12:08
Speaker 1: to retell it happened. She told at least nine different
12:11
Speaker 1: stories to DSS nine, and the stories were both inconsistent
12:15
Speaker 1: and wildly implausible, if not impossible. For example, she said
12:20
Speaker 1: that on one occasion she had been stabbed and that
12:22
Speaker 1: a neighbor came and halted the alleged attack. There was
12:25
Speaker 1: no evidence, of course, that she had ever been stabbed,
12:27
Speaker 1: and no neighbor could corroborate this story. There was also
12:30
Speaker 1: a claim about him putting hot sauce on his privates
12:32
Speaker 1: and the hot sauce smelled like goats, and you know,
12:35
Speaker 1: it starts to go into really bizarre and obviously patently
12:39
Speaker 1: false territory. This was all supposed to be happening inside, remember,
12:43
Speaker 1: just a tiny trailer while Howard's wife was there nursing
12:47
Speaker 1: their newborn. Just wholly unbelievable. I mean, there was also
12:51
Speaker 1: a claim in which she was supposed to have been
12:54
Speaker 1: raped while wearing pajamas and underwear.
12:56
Speaker 3: Which she said that time with the pajamas, she was
12:59
Speaker 3: wearing her pandies and pajamas, and yet she was vaginally
13:04
Speaker 3: penetrated by her father. Well, you can't do that through pajamas.
13:09
Speaker 3: Amy was the evidence, and blessed her heart, she is
13:13
Speaker 3: the faulty evidence in the case, and it's not her fault.
13:17
Speaker 1: Remember she was a nine year old child with intellectual
13:20
Speaker 1: limitations and didn't know how things worked, including sex, and
13:24
Speaker 1: what would happen to her father with these false claims.
13:26
Speaker 1: And we know Amy immediately recanted after trial. She clearly
13:30
Speaker 1: feels guilt about that all these years later, But she
13:34
Speaker 1: was a child nine years old and the adults in
13:36
Speaker 1: her life, as well as the authorities, should have known better.
13:39
Speaker 1: And as it turned out, there was one person that
13:41
Speaker 1: did so. As his protocol in a case where there's
13:44
Speaker 1: a dispute between legal guardians and a miner's interest must
13:47
Speaker 1: be looked. After Amy was assigned a guardian ed LTAM,
13:51
Speaker 1: and this person also looked into the allegations. While Amy
13:54
Speaker 1: was being interviewed and the claims were being verified.
13:56
Speaker 3: The guardian ed Lightem read everything you know. His job
14:00
Speaker 3: is to advocate for the best interests of the child
14:04
Speaker 3: and he concluded that it was an Amy's best interest
14:07
Speaker 3: not to let her testify falsely against her father, and
14:11
Speaker 3: he decided that not from the start of his investigation.
14:14
Speaker 3: He decided at the end of his investigation, he did
14:17
Speaker 3: a full investigation. He interviewed people who knew Amy, He
14:20
Speaker 3: went to her school. He understood Amy's pensions, her limitations,
14:26
Speaker 3: her characteristics, the other actors. He read the reports. He
14:31
Speaker 3: did a full investigation, a fuller investigation, and really tried
14:37
Speaker 3: to stop the prosecution of Howard and to try to
14:41
Speaker 3: stop the substantiation of abuse by the Department of Social Services,
14:46
Speaker 3: but he was unsuccessful.
14:48
Speaker 1: So you mentioned an important word here, substantiation. The police
14:52
Speaker 1: were waiting for that to move forward with an indictment
14:55
Speaker 1: and as unclear if THESS even knew that. So even
14:58
Speaker 1: though the guardian a item could see the writing on
15:01
Speaker 1: the wall after the initial investigation in interviews, dss inexplictably
15:05
Speaker 1: continued down this course towards substantiation, and on December fifth,
15:08
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, they filed the petition in Lenor County
15:11
Speaker 1: Juvenile Court alleging abuse and neglect, and there was a
15:14
Speaker 1: hearing two weeks later in which Howard was ordered to
15:16
Speaker 1: seize contact with Amy and Diana, at which point the
15:18
Speaker 1: social workers also decided, despite the total lack of evidence
15:22
Speaker 1: to corroborate Amy's claims, that they would go with the
15:25
Speaker 1: mantra of that time that credence must be given to
15:28
Speaker 1: the child's story, thus substantiating the claim and triggering the
15:31
Speaker 1: police to act more aggressively. But something else happens here
15:34
Speaker 1: that makes absolutely no fucking sense. It's crazy, and it
15:37
Speaker 1: all goes to show that the social workers didn't really
15:39
Speaker 1: believe Amy's claims. Now, get this. The social workers agreed
15:43
Speaker 1: to a plan in which Howard could potentially regain unsupervised
15:46
Speaker 1: visits upon completing some kind of counseling for an unspecified
15:50
Speaker 1: amount of time. I mean, am I missing something here?
15:52
Speaker 3: You're not missing a thing. And they came to that
15:55
Speaker 3: conclusion after they had a team meeting how can you
15:59
Speaker 3: substantial the allegations, because if they believed them to be true,
16:03
Speaker 3: they never could have given visitation to the person who
16:07
Speaker 3: perpetrated those kinds of acts. That said, when we interviewed
16:11
Speaker 3: the lead social worker years later, I asked, do you
16:14
Speaker 3: sometimes just substantiate so you can get access to the family,
16:19
Speaker 3: in other words, do a deeper investigation? And she said yes, yes, yes,
16:27
Speaker 3: evidently without any appreciation about what substantiating the allegations would
16:32
Speaker 3: lead to, and in fact did lead to in Howard's case.
16:53
Speaker 3: The police department then charged because the Department of Social
16:56
Speaker 3: Services were substantiating, and they were substantiate largely because they
17:01
Speaker 3: had to give creence to the child, which is in
17:03
Speaker 3: their report, and also because they wanted to figure out
17:07
Speaker 3: what was going on with this family, so they had
17:09
Speaker 3: to substantiate something to get DSS access to the family,
17:13
Speaker 3: if that makes sense. Of course, couldn't have happened the
17:17
Speaker 3: way she described it, given the size of the trailer
17:20
Speaker 3: and where people were sleeping, and that Howard's wife was
17:22
Speaker 3: home with a newborn and waking up every hour throughout
17:26
Speaker 3: the night to take care of this newborn and had
17:28
Speaker 3: a two year old close by. It just didn't happen.
17:31
Speaker 3: And the guardian Atenliden, who was overridden by DSS and
17:34
Speaker 3: Kingston Police Department, he didn't succeed in stopping the train
17:39
Speaker 3: that had already headed off the station.
17:42
Speaker 1: Right, this is a crime that not only didn't happen,
17:44
Speaker 1: you also have that there was no opportunity even for
17:48
Speaker 1: Howard to have done this or anyone to have done
17:51
Speaker 1: this in the space that they cohabitated. As you just said,
17:56
Speaker 1: so Howard turned it to you during this period of
17:59
Speaker 1: time time, where were you, were you being held, were
18:02
Speaker 1: you out on bond? And what was going on in
18:06
Speaker 1: your mind? You were a guy who had no previous
18:08
Speaker 1: interaction with the criminal justice system. You were a good
18:10
Speaker 1: young man, right.
18:11
Speaker 2: That's right. I was sitting back in that count of jail.
18:14
Speaker 2: My lawyer, mister Harvey, he comes in. He started talking
18:17
Speaker 2: with me about a plea bargain. He told me said
18:19
Speaker 2: things ain't looking good for you. And I learned that
18:22
Speaker 2: the plea bargain basically saying that you were guilty, and
18:26
Speaker 2: that's all I need to hear.
18:27
Speaker 1: Right there.
18:27
Speaker 2: I said, oh no, I said, no plea bargain for me,
18:30
Speaker 2: and he got a little hystericause he said, muster dog.
18:33
Speaker 2: This is one thing that he told me was true.
18:35
Speaker 2: If you don't take the flea bog, you're gonna be
18:36
Speaker 2: gone for a long time. That's what he told me.
18:40
Speaker 2: And then it kind of hit me kind of hard.
18:42
Speaker 2: Think about my children here, wife here, how were they
18:46
Speaker 2: gonna survive? I begin to think about it. So I
18:48
Speaker 2: talked it over with my wife. She pointed at me,
18:51
Speaker 2: she said, you tell the truth, just like you've been doing.
18:54
Speaker 2: And so that's what helped me make my choice to
18:57
Speaker 2: stick with it. I don't regret it. I don't regret it.
19:00
Speaker 2: I had to leal with Howard. I got to get
19:02
Speaker 2: up here more and look at Howard in the mirror.
19:04
Speaker 2: If I would had gave them what they wanted to
19:07
Speaker 2: taken the pleete boggain, I don't think I'll be sitting
19:09
Speaker 2: here talk to y'all today. I think he took me out.
19:12
Speaker 1: I think it's easy to understand not being able to
19:14
Speaker 1: live with yourself if you had to say publicly not
19:16
Speaker 1: only something so disgusting, but also so patently untrue. Although
19:21
Speaker 1: some people are fine with things like that, I mean,
19:22
Speaker 1: consider our former president, but Howard is not like that.
19:26
Speaker 1: So you stuck to your innocence righteously and went to trial. Now,
19:30
Speaker 1: as Teresa mentioned earlier, Amy was the only evidence in
19:33
Speaker 1: this case, false evidence of course that she immediately recanted
19:36
Speaker 1: after trial. But that's all there ever was. And I
19:40
Speaker 1: want to turn to Teresa here, because when you dove
19:42
Speaker 1: into this case many years after the wrongful conviction, you
19:44
Speaker 1: did what Howard's learned really everybody else should have done
19:48
Speaker 1: in the first place, was was to appropriately assess Amy's
19:50
Speaker 1: mental state and competency to stay on trial. Now we
19:53
Speaker 1: alluded to this earlier, the fact that she had some
19:56
Speaker 1: intellectual limitations. Can you tell us what you learned.
19:58
Speaker 3: Amy has some challenge, a psychological problem, stid then does
20:03
Speaker 3: now she has some cognitive limitations more suggestible than ninety
20:11
Speaker 3: nine percent of the population. So this was a little
20:14
Speaker 3: girl who at nine probably was much younger in her
20:19
Speaker 3: affect and her intellectual attainments. There's a real question about
20:24
Speaker 3: whether she was competent to stand trial, and I think
20:28
Speaker 3: everyone will be interested in learning how they assessed her competence.
20:32
Speaker 3: They asked her if she knew her colors, if she
20:34
Speaker 3: knew her letters, if she knew a number of things,
20:38
Speaker 3: and she answered yes to each of those, without demonstrating
20:42
Speaker 3: that she in fact knew her colors knew her letters.
20:46
Speaker 3: You could ask a one and a half year old
20:49
Speaker 3: yes or no questions and they likely answer yes.
20:53
Speaker 1: I mean, this poor girl was just thrust into this
20:55
Speaker 1: situation answering questions about these vulgar, terrible ass of which
21:01
Speaker 1: she had no knowledge because at most she had heard
21:03
Speaker 1: about them from an episode of Sally Jesse, Raphael, her babysitter,
21:06
Speaker 1: or more likely the prosecutors. She should have just been
21:10
Speaker 1: in school, but instead she was in a courtroom walking
21:12
Speaker 1: through these inconsistent and implausible statements of lies let's call
21:17
Speaker 1: them what they are, that she had made up? So
21:19
Speaker 1: how did they make her sound credible to the jury?
21:21
Speaker 3: When she testified, she was asked leading questions because she
21:26
Speaker 3: was a child. You usually can't ask leading questions or witnesses.
21:30
Speaker 3: There's a prohibition, But with a child you can ask
21:33
Speaker 3: leading questions if you request it and you're the stay. So,
21:36
Speaker 3: of course, as you might imagine, the testimony was bare bones,
21:41
Speaker 3: but also quite different from the previous tellings of the
21:46
Speaker 3: story by Amy.
21:47
Speaker 1: So the prosecutor was allowed this sort of way of
21:50
Speaker 1: leading Amy through a coherent narrative. Meanwhile, I understand the
21:54
Speaker 1: DSS reports, which contained all of Amy's interviews. Now those
21:56
Speaker 1: reports were all with hell.
21:58
Speaker 3: We've been talking about the different retellings by Amy, and
22:01
Speaker 3: the wild inconsistencies among the tellings and the outlandish details,
22:08
Speaker 3: So all of that was withheld. Howard didn't know about
22:11
Speaker 3: them at the time of trial, and his defense lawyer
22:13
Speaker 3: didn't know. Now this state new. The prosecutors knew because
22:18
Speaker 3: they had access to the DSS records, and certainly the
22:20
Speaker 3: DSS social worker who led the investigation knew. Even when
22:25
Speaker 3: it's the era of one must give credence to the child,
22:28
Speaker 3: there was still one hopes it would have been a
22:31
Speaker 3: jur or two at least who would say no, no, no, no,
22:35
Speaker 3: that's crazy talk, and maybe would have hung the jury.
22:38
Speaker 3: I like to believe that the defense lawyer would have
22:40
Speaker 3: won to outright acquittal if he had had those documents
22:44
Speaker 3: and had done even a modicum of investigation of his own.
22:48
Speaker 1: And he had not, and this was a guide I'll
22:51
Speaker 1: forget who had been practicing law for only about a
22:53
Speaker 1: year and had devoted only about thirty hours of this case,
22:56
Speaker 1: including the two day trial. He filed no pretrial motions,
22:58
Speaker 1: nor conducted any of the investigation, including it to Amy's
23:02
Speaker 1: competency or the story she had told. He could have
23:04
Speaker 1: also hired an independent medical expert, who knows how helpful
23:07
Speaker 1: could have been.
23:08
Speaker 3: When children are believed to have been physically abused sexually abused,
23:12
Speaker 3: child medical evaluation report is completed in this case when
23:17
Speaker 3: was worn by DSS. I believe it was done three
23:20
Speaker 3: weeks later, which is a mistake. But they did three
23:23
Speaker 3: weeks later, and there was no physical evidence of abuse. Importantly,
23:29
Speaker 3: at trial, Howard's defense lawyer did not call an independent
23:34
Speaker 3: medical expert. He called that doctor, the one who conducted
23:38
Speaker 3: the child medical evaluation for the state, and he got
23:43
Speaker 3: that doctor to say, no, there wasn't any physical abuse.
23:46
Speaker 3: But that doctor also said, in a lot of cases
23:49
Speaker 3: of sex abuse, the exam is normal. So that was
23:54
Speaker 3: completely unhelpful.
23:56
Speaker 1: I mean to have the medical examination conducted three weeks later.
24:00
Speaker 1: Our bodies are elastic, they heal. Of course, they weren't
24:04
Speaker 1: going to find anything three weeks later unless the damage
24:06
Speaker 1: was so severe, which I don't even want to imagine,
24:08
Speaker 1: and thankfully we don't have to in this case. There
24:10
Speaker 1: was no damage even three weeks earlier, so Amy's mother,
24:14
Speaker 1: Diane and Lydia made the babysitter also took the stand. Obviously,
24:17
Speaker 1: they weren't witnesses to anything, so I'm not sure what
24:19
Speaker 1: they had to offer on And Howard, you took the
24:22
Speaker 1: stand as well, denying the charges, saying that the comment
24:24
Speaker 1: about you being nasty, this all started with you disciplining
24:27
Speaker 1: Amy for poor behavior. Your wife also testified about the
24:30
Speaker 1: size of your mobile home and how she had never
24:32
Speaker 1: heard any screams or anything unusual during Amy's visits, as
24:35
Speaker 1: well as how she was up at all hours nursing
24:38
Speaker 1: a newborn, which rendered all these claims impossible.
24:42
Speaker 2: And one more thing, I heard that a jewis said
24:46
Speaker 2: that I was believable and Amy was believable, but they
24:49
Speaker 2: said at the end of the day they had to
24:51
Speaker 2: go with the daughter.
24:53
Speaker 1: No, why not go with.
24:55
Speaker 2: The ether dance?
24:56
Speaker 1: Right? I mean, if you have two people telling completely
24:59
Speaker 1: different stories, now granted one of them as a nine
25:02
Speaker 1: year old child, go with the evidence.
25:05
Speaker 3: The problem with these cases, particularly during that period of time,
25:10
Speaker 3: was that people were told they had to believe the children.
25:16
Speaker 3: His daughter is saying it right, Why would she say
25:19
Speaker 3: that it has to be true?
25:21
Speaker 1: Ultimately, the jury went out. When they came back in,
25:24
Speaker 1: did you still have hope that finally the truth would
25:28
Speaker 1: come out and you could go back to your normal life.
25:31
Speaker 2: When you was an innocent individual. Absolutely, you look for
25:35
Speaker 2: them to come back, get this over with, f I
25:37
Speaker 2: can go home, go back with my life. As I
25:40
Speaker 2: stood that, that's what I was looking to hear. And
25:43
Speaker 2: I watched twelve jurors come out and say guilty, guilty, guilty.
25:49
Speaker 2: I say, I can't believe this is happening. It's ridiculous.
26:15
Speaker 2: You know what society sometimes saying what people in philm say,
26:19
Speaker 2: you were found guilty. I liked to use the term
26:22
Speaker 2: I was made guilty, but they had absolutely nothing to
26:27
Speaker 2: prove that I was guilty. And inside PRISM, that's a
26:31
Speaker 2: terrible case to carry inside the prison because everybody is
26:37
Speaker 2: talking have their opinion about your case or what they
26:42
Speaker 2: seen on the news. I slung hard to my relationship
26:46
Speaker 2: with God and I met other Christians that was in
26:49
Speaker 2: prison God that had made some mistakes, bad choices, and
26:53
Speaker 2: we connected and sharing my story talking to them, that's
26:58
Speaker 2: what helped me to be again to deal with my
27:01
Speaker 2: situation at hand, and it got a little better from there.
27:04
Speaker 2: And people began to believe in me. I never dropped my.
27:07
Speaker 1: Relationship with God.
27:08
Speaker 2: I kept it for the twenty four years in prison, prayer,
27:13
Speaker 2: read my Bible each and every day. That's something I
27:16
Speaker 2: did every day, repetition. That was my survival course.
27:20
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you found a way through considering what
27:22
Speaker 1: prison in life can be like for someone found or
27:24
Speaker 1: actually made guilty of a crime like the one that
27:27
Speaker 1: never happened in this case. And it must have eased
27:29
Speaker 1: your burden in your mind a bit. When your daughter
27:31
Speaker 1: Amy came forward to recant immediately after trial, can you
27:34
Speaker 1: tell us about that? Did it surprise you? I knew
27:37
Speaker 1: my daughter.
27:38
Speaker 2: It didn't surprise me. But what surprised me she did
27:42
Speaker 2: it so quickly. I knew my daughter. I knew she
27:45
Speaker 2: couldn't live with that because she and I were so close.
27:47
Speaker 2: It wouldn't have been so bad. We had a close relationship.
27:51
Speaker 2: I was a good day and I loved my daughter,
27:53
Speaker 2: still love her the day. That's why it affected her
27:55
Speaker 2: so bad when she had to live with what she
27:59
Speaker 2: had to live with, which was a lot. Right now today,
28:01
Speaker 2: she'll tell me right now today that I think I
28:04
Speaker 2: owe you an explanation I said, no, you don't owe
28:07
Speaker 2: me an explanation. I know I was a good day.
28:09
Speaker 2: I wasn't a perfect day. I definitely wasn't a perfect boyfriend.
28:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, you don't get life in
28:15
Speaker 1: prison for being a bad boyfriend. Not even in this
28:18
Speaker 1: country did Diane ever come around.
28:19
Speaker 2: Before Diane Amy's mother passed away, she was even trying
28:24
Speaker 2: to get me out of prison. We went to court
28:26
Speaker 2: and she made a statement. I didn't know Amy wood Lyne.
28:29
Speaker 2: I thought she was telling the truth. These are her words.
28:32
Speaker 1: So with these two very powerful recantations, plus support from
28:36
Speaker 1: family and your church, they hired a lawyer to mount
28:39
Speaker 1: your post conviction campaign.
28:40
Speaker 2: My family hired a seasoned lawyer in Kenston, James Perry.
28:46
Speaker 2: We thought that he would do the investigation that never
28:49
Speaker 2: occurred previously when we realized that the information that was
28:52
Speaker 2: needed to free me. He didn't get it. But he
28:55
Speaker 2: did come down to talk to me when I was
28:57
Speaker 2: in prison. But his conversation it was only about me
29:01
Speaker 2: taking a flea bark and get out of Frism. I
29:03
Speaker 2: wasn't about to say I committed a crime against my
29:05
Speaker 2: daughter just to get out of film. If I was
29:08
Speaker 2: going to do that I would never came to film
29:09
Speaker 2: because that door was open for me at the very beginning.
29:12
Speaker 3: So the reason the earlier lawyers, including mister Perry, failed
29:16
Speaker 3: is in part because they had a fundamental misunderstanding of
29:21
Speaker 3: what you needed to do to get relief in a
29:25
Speaker 3: recantation case. The recantation the case is when the principal
29:29
Speaker 3: witness or a material witness lies during the trial and
29:34
Speaker 3: then they admitted, like Amy did immediately after the trial,
29:37
Speaker 3: she was with a different babysitter. That babysitter was reading
29:41
Speaker 3: a Bible story about truth and Amy started crying and said,
29:45
Speaker 3: I lied on my daddy. So that gives you an
29:47
Speaker 3: opportunity to go back into court on a recantation claim.
29:50
Speaker 3: But what they did was just put Amy on the stand,
29:53
Speaker 3: and Amy says, okay, I lied. But they don't give
29:55
Speaker 3: the judge anything else because then the judge has, well,
29:58
Speaker 3: she told story a trial and now she's telling story
30:01
Speaker 3: b How do I decide which one is the truth?
30:05
Speaker 3: So when we got it, we said, how can we
30:08
Speaker 3: provide the judge the context to understand that Amy's recantation
30:14
Speaker 3: is true and her trial testimony is false?
30:17
Speaker 1: Right? Not only was his trial lawyer wildly ineffective, but
30:21
Speaker 1: his seasoned appellat attorney neglected to do what was necessary
30:24
Speaker 1: in a recantation case as well, so as I understand it,
30:26
Speaker 1: Howard's friend a volunteer who would come into work in
30:28
Speaker 1: the prison chapel, a guy named Lewis Alexander May he
30:31
Speaker 1: rest in peace. He advocated for Howard with the Duke
30:34
Speaker 1: Wrongful Convisions Clinic, and that really put Howard on the
30:37
Speaker 1: radar and on the path of freedom.
30:38
Speaker 3: A really important step along that path, though, was a
30:44
Speaker 3: series of articles written by a man of a journalist
30:47
Speaker 3: named Joseph Neff who's now with the Marshall Project. He
30:50
Speaker 3: worked for the Raleigh News and Observer and he wrote
30:52
Speaker 3: a series on Howard's case that really helped us, including
30:58
Speaker 3: he got an interview with the Guardian at Lightham who
31:01
Speaker 3: spoke out of turn. He realized he shouldn't have spoken
31:05
Speaker 3: to a journalist and called the journalist the next day,
31:08
Speaker 3: I believe and said, can I say now that that
31:10
Speaker 3: was all off record? And the journalist said no, And
31:15
Speaker 3: so we had what the Guardian and Lightem thought about
31:18
Speaker 3: the case. We accepted Howard's case in two thousand and eight,
31:22
Speaker 3: and we investigate fully.
31:26
Speaker 1: We had a.
31:26
Speaker 3: Remarkable expert, a woman named Sally Johnson, an MD psychiatrist,
31:32
Speaker 3: and she did testing of Howard and Amy and it
31:37
Speaker 3: was extremely helpful information. But it did take five years
31:41
Speaker 3: to file the motion for appropriate reliefs that collected all
31:45
Speaker 3: of the evidence. During that time, we were also talking
31:48
Speaker 3: to the district attorney, which is what we do in
31:50
Speaker 3: every case. We try to get the district attorney to
31:54
Speaker 3: agree with us and join us in seeking relief for
31:57
Speaker 3: our clients. But it didn't work in that case, actually
32:00
Speaker 3: lasted through that district attorney and another. We then had
32:04
Speaker 3: to go before the judge, Judge Paul Jones, who was
32:07
Speaker 3: the last person to deny relief to Howard. We had
32:11
Speaker 3: to convince him not to bar us procedurally which is
32:15
Speaker 3: a court mechanism, and to allow us to reopen the
32:18
Speaker 3: case in court, and we did. He allowed us to
32:22
Speaker 3: go forward with all of our claims and then he
32:25
Speaker 3: re accused himself, so we had a different judge.
32:28
Speaker 1: So now you Jamie Lao, who our listeners will of
32:30
Speaker 1: course remember from the Ronnie Long case, and another great
32:33
Speaker 1: lawyer of Spencer Paris, a friend of yours. Therese a
32:35
Speaker 1: tremendous trial lawyer who came out of retirement just for
32:38
Speaker 1: this case. The three of you prepared for this hearing
32:40
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen.
32:42
Speaker 3: We had seven claims. The very first claim which I
32:46
Speaker 3: was amused when I look back at it this morning.
32:48
Speaker 3: The very first claim is Howard Dudley is innocent, and
32:50
Speaker 3: then we lay out and make just an argument for
32:53
Speaker 3: his innocence. You can't win on innocence. There is no
32:57
Speaker 3: pre standing claim in North Carolina or nearly anywhere. But
33:03
Speaker 3: innocence is enough. But if you actually make a claim,
33:06
Speaker 3: a real claim of it, there's just a corresponding increased
33:10
Speaker 3: likelihood in the past cases. He looked at of relief,
33:13
Speaker 3: so I'm like, we're leading off with claim of innocence.
33:16
Speaker 3: So but then the other claims were all the context right.
33:19
Speaker 3: So it was that Amy was tested on suggestibility and
33:22
Speaker 3: she truly is more suggestible than ninety nine point nine
33:25
Speaker 3: percent of the general population. And that was done by
33:29
Speaker 3: doctor Sally Johnson. That was a real forensic evaluation that
33:33
Speaker 3: Amy has low IQ in the sixty eight range, which
33:38
Speaker 3: makes her less able in some ways to understand the
33:41
Speaker 3: ramifications of what was happening. That it arose in this
33:45
Speaker 3: period of mass hysteria, and we explained the context of
33:49
Speaker 3: the little Rascal's trial happening essentially next door. We had
33:52
Speaker 3: three claims, and in effective assistance of counsel, that explained
33:56
Speaker 3: everything that the lawyer failed to do, including getting all
33:59
Speaker 3: the documents from the department's Social services and from Paul Porter.
34:03
Speaker 3: The Guardian enlightened, so we put all of that together
34:06
Speaker 3: and that bolstered Amy's recantation. One amazing thing that happened
34:12
Speaker 3: at that hearing, though, was that when Amy was on
34:15
Speaker 3: the stand and it's difficult for her as a nine
34:18
Speaker 3: year old, as a teenager again and then as a
34:20
Speaker 3: grown woman, but the judge asked if he could speak
34:24
Speaker 3: to her directly.
34:25
Speaker 2: The judge turned it toward Amy and he said, look
34:28
Speaker 2: at me. This ain't got nothing to do with Just
34:30
Speaker 2: between me and you. He said, did your daddy do
34:32
Speaker 2: anything to you? She said, no, sir, and that was
34:35
Speaker 2: all he needed.
34:36
Speaker 1: So on March second, twenty sixteen, the Honorable Judge Parsons
34:40
Speaker 1: agreed that Amy's recantation was credible, that there was ineffective
34:43
Speaker 1: assistance of counsel, and that the prosecution failed to disclose
34:46
Speaker 1: both the Social Services report as well as the fact
34:49
Speaker 1: that the Guardian ad litem had concluded that Amy's claims
34:52
Speaker 1: were false. The prosecution would eventually dismiss all charges two
34:56
Speaker 1: months later. But what was that moment like when the
34:59
Speaker 1: judge vacated your confection and finally ordered you at least
35:02
Speaker 1: from prison and.
35:03
Speaker 2: We sit there and caught miss Newman held my arm.
35:06
Speaker 2: She would look around at my family and would a
35:08
Speaker 2: smile on and I knew it was going in our favor,
35:11
Speaker 2: but I had had so many let down so I
35:13
Speaker 2: didn't know what to believe, you know, and so when
35:16
Speaker 2: things really like to knock me out. When that judge
35:19
Speaker 2: turned around and looked at me said most of Della,
35:21
Speaker 2: you're going home today, I said to myself, did I
35:25
Speaker 2: hear what I think I heard? And I didn't tell
35:28
Speaker 2: me Nan, I was more fainted. But that was a
35:31
Speaker 2: great moment. My family, everybody started to roy in the
35:35
Speaker 2: court room, and it was just a high moment.
35:38
Speaker 3: My favorite story is, because I'm a lawyer and a
35:41
Speaker 3: rule follower, We're walking out and Howard's wearing his prison
35:44
Speaker 3: guard and he's just dropping it behind him on the ground,
35:48
Speaker 3: and I'm like, we've got to read Howard we have
35:50
Speaker 3: to return these. He looked at me like I was insane.
35:55
Speaker 3: I am not worried about returning.
36:00
Speaker 1: Close.
36:02
Speaker 3: We get outside and they're just throngs of his supporters
36:06
Speaker 3: and reporters and Joe Naffer of the series on News
36:10
Speaker 3: attended the whole hearing. He was writing more it was
36:13
Speaker 3: a truly joyous, joyous day.
36:17
Speaker 1: It was great.
36:18
Speaker 2: It was great when I walked out the door. Freedom,
36:22
Speaker 2: It was freedom. But it hit me that my wife
36:26
Speaker 2: wasn't there to see this. She worked so hard, My
36:29
Speaker 2: mama wasn't there to see this. That was a moment
36:33
Speaker 2: that called me to break down. They were hard at
36:36
Speaker 2: this pacificlar moment because they wasn't there. They worked so hard.
36:40
Speaker 2: One day my wife just fell digated my mama. I
36:44
Speaker 2: visit her the last time in Rex hospital. We sung together,
36:48
Speaker 2: we prayed together, we cried together, and I left that day.
36:52
Speaker 2: I knew that would be the last time I would
36:53
Speaker 2: see her alive. And those emotions just came on me
36:57
Speaker 2: all at once when I was walking out, and it
37:00
Speaker 2: just overtook me. But very good day, you know, a
37:03
Speaker 2: very difficult day.
37:05
Speaker 1: Bittersweet, yeah, bittersweet. So then in April twenty eighteen, you
37:11
Speaker 1: followed the federal civil rights suit against the City of Kinston,
37:13
Speaker 1: seeking compensation. They eventually settled in July twenty twenty one.
37:17
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean nothing they could ever pay
37:21
Speaker 1: you with make up for.
37:21
Speaker 2: What you lost, absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing.
37:26
Speaker 1: And then you are granted a pardon of innocence from
37:29
Speaker 1: Governor Roy Cooper. So not only did the prosecution dismiss
37:32
Speaker 1: the charges, but then you've got it officially recognized, officially.
37:36
Speaker 2: Yes, I got hanging on my wall. I'd like to
37:41
Speaker 2: say this right here, Jamie, most of special miss Newman,
37:46
Speaker 2: the Duke Law Team. I like to see it like
37:48
Speaker 2: this right here.
37:49
Speaker 1: They saved my life.
37:53
Speaker 2: They saved my life. I can't put it in no
37:56
Speaker 2: better words in that right there, all of them.
37:59
Speaker 1: Well, we'll be sure to link up to the Duke
38:02
Speaker 1: Law School Wrongful Conviction Clinic, but check the link in
38:06
Speaker 1: the bio in the episode. And now I'll turn to
38:07
Speaker 1: closing arguments. You know, it starts off with me, of course,
38:09
Speaker 1: thanking both of you for joining us, Teresa Howard, and
38:13
Speaker 1: so now we're going to turn to closing arguments. This
38:15
Speaker 1: is the part of the show where I turn my
38:17
Speaker 1: microphone off and leave both of yours on and just
38:21
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you want to share with me
38:24
Speaker 1: in our audience. So, Teresa, why don't you go first?
38:27
Speaker 1: Then hand the mic off to Howard, and Howard you
38:30
Speaker 1: can take us out into the sunset.
38:32
Speaker 3: Every time Howard and I have an opportunity to talk
38:35
Speaker 3: about this case, whether it's publicly or in private, I
38:39
Speaker 3: learn something new about Howard. And what I learned today
38:46
Speaker 3: is that Howard sees himself as sort of every man
38:52
Speaker 3: or ordinary man, just a regular person trying to live
38:57
Speaker 3: his life, when in fact, I and the people who've
39:01
Speaker 3: gotten to know him through this long journey would say
39:04
Speaker 3: he's truly extraordinary in that he refused to do what
39:11
Speaker 3: I think so many of us would do to go
39:15
Speaker 3: home to be with our families. He refused to take
39:18
Speaker 3: that early exit with the plea bargain before trial and
39:23
Speaker 3: later when it looked like maybe it was going to
39:26
Speaker 3: be offered through the previous lawyers, and he refused to
39:29
Speaker 3: do that because he is a man of truly remarkable integrity,
39:35
Speaker 3: and as he says, I wanted to be able to
39:38
Speaker 3: look in the mirror and say, you know, I could
39:41
Speaker 3: not have taken that plea and admitted to doing the
39:45
Speaker 3: things that I did not do. In that that I
39:47
Speaker 3: have lived my life in a different way from what
39:50
Speaker 3: they expect me to say. So, Howard, you're truly extraordinary.
39:54
Speaker 4: Well on my behalf, I might say that Teresa Jamie Muster, Spencer,
40:02
Speaker 4: mister Coleman, the Doke Law students like saying that they
40:06
Speaker 4: have helped to restore my integrity of the law.
40:10
Speaker 2: Didn't think they were such thing after my situation as
40:13
Speaker 2: any lawyer that had a heart, I really didn't think
40:17
Speaker 2: that until they restored it. There is some good lawyers
40:21
Speaker 2: out there. There is some that got a heart. There
40:25
Speaker 2: is some that want to do the right thing. There
40:27
Speaker 2: is some that take their work serious. There is something
40:31
Speaker 2: that out there that really really care about what they
40:35
Speaker 2: are doing people life. Like I said earlier and I
40:39
Speaker 2: continue to say this, because they saved my life.
40:43
Speaker 1: I was in a.
40:44
Speaker 2: Situation that I didn't think I would never get.
40:46
Speaker 1: Out of it.
40:46
Speaker 2: I had so many nose I didn't think it was
40:48
Speaker 2: such things. Yes, when it come down to lawyers and
40:51
Speaker 2: this was the turn, I had no idea. But I
40:53
Speaker 2: can never say enough about what they had done on
40:57
Speaker 2: my behalf, restoring my freedom back and back with my family,
41:01
Speaker 2: and children, even though they have wrong now, but I hold.
41:05
Speaker 1: It all to them. Well.
41:07
Speaker 2: Family will family, real family.
41:16
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
41:19
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn and Kevin Wardis,
41:23
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
41:26
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
41:30
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
41:33
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
41:37
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
41:40
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on both
41:43
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam. Wrongful Conviction is
41:48
Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with
41:50
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one