Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #184 Jason Flom with Larry DeLisle

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#184 Jason Flom with Larry DeLisle · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On August third, nineteen eighty nine, after a long, hot
0:06
Speaker 1: summer day, Lariot Sue Delisle took their four children out
0:09
Speaker 1: for ice cream and to watch the boats pass by
0:11
Speaker 1: on the Detroit River.
0:13
Speaker 2: When Larry pulled out on the.
0:14
Speaker 1: Street that dead ended at the river, the mechanical defect
0:17
Speaker 1: in their station wagon caused the accelerator to stick. The
0:20
Speaker 1: car sped off uncontrollably, and laryer Sue's panicked efforts could
0:25
Speaker 1: not save them from launching into the Detroit River. Larry
0:29
Speaker 1: and Sue narrowly survived, but their children Brian, Melissa, Kate,
0:33
Speaker 1: and Emily tragically did not.
0:36
Speaker 2: When the water.
0:36
Speaker 1: Locked wreck was pulled from the river, the accelerator stuck
0:39
Speaker 1: again during testing, an issue raised by hundreds of others
0:44
Speaker 1: about that very make and model station wagon. It was
0:47
Speaker 1: a tragic accident, but that wasn't good enough for the police,
0:50
Speaker 1: the media, or the people of Downriver, Michigan. After eighteen
0:55
Speaker 1: hours of interrogation and the usual tricks, Larry tacitly creed
1:00
Speaker 1: to hypotheticals posed by the interrogator. This couldn't pass muster
1:04
Speaker 1: as a confession for a court of law, but it
1:07
Speaker 1: was quickly submitted to the Court of Public opinion when
1:10
Speaker 1: the police chief went on TV and said that Larry
1:12
Speaker 1: Delile had confessed, effectively poisoning the entire jury pool. Larry
1:18
Speaker 1: was convicted of four counts of murder and one count
1:21
Speaker 1: of attempted murder, despite Sue Delile's unwavering account of his
1:26
Speaker 1: actual innocence. This tragic accident stole their four children, and
1:30
Speaker 1: the state compounded that loss by stealing what has become
1:34
Speaker 1: over three long decades.
1:36
Speaker 2: Of Larry's life.
1:38
Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Welcome back to
1:57
Speaker 1: wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
2:00
Speaker 2: To me, of course, I'm your.
2:01
Speaker 1: Host, and today my heart is heavy because of the
2:05
Speaker 1: story you're about to hear and the man you're about
2:08
Speaker 1: to meet. I'm proud to call him a friend, and
2:11
Speaker 1: I'm proud to be part of the team that's helping
2:14
Speaker 1: to try to bring justice long delayed to this awful case. So,
2:21
Speaker 1: without further ado, Larry Delisle, Welcome to ronful Conviction.
2:25
Speaker 2: I'm sorry you have to be here, but I'm glad
2:27
Speaker 2: you're here.
2:29
Speaker 3: Humble and honored to be here with you today.
2:32
Speaker 1: And Larry is calling us from prison in Michigan. Where
2:37
Speaker 1: exactly are you, Larry.
2:39
Speaker 3: I'm in Coldwater, Michigan, which is a Lakeland correctional facility.
2:44
Speaker 1: And what you've gone through is surely unimaginable to almost anyone.
2:50
Speaker 1: You know, the multiple tragic aspects of this case include
2:56
Speaker 1: obviously the loss of your family, but also the persecution
3:01
Speaker 1: that was wrongfully inflicted upon you by people that really
3:05
Speaker 1: should have known better. And of course your wrongful incarceration
3:10
Speaker 1: now for over three decades is another thing that nobody
3:14
Speaker 1: could even begin to imagine. But I want to go
3:17
Speaker 1: back to the beginning. Did you grow up in Michigan.
3:21
Speaker 3: Yes, my grandparents raised me from age throughout two years
3:24
Speaker 3: of old.
3:25
Speaker 1: I mean, your childhood was haunted by a tragedy, A
3:28
Speaker 1: separate tragedy, right, I mean, I don't know how much
3:31
Speaker 1: one person is supposed to take in their life, and
3:33
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you want to talk about that,
3:35
Speaker 1: but it does come into focus with this case.
3:37
Speaker 2: As this goes on.
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Speaker 3: You're talking about my father committing suicide.
3:41
Speaker 2: Yes, of course I got a.
3:43
Speaker 3: Call in the middle of the night early eighty eight
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Speaker 3: that my father had committed suicide. He drove down somewhere
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Speaker 3: by the river and put a gun to his head.
3:53
Speaker 1: Ironically, in the same vehicle that ended up being the
3:57
Speaker 1: central figure in this awful tragedy that befell your family.
4:03
Speaker 3: Most people would not have wanted to drive the vehicle.
4:07
Speaker 3: I didn't want to drive the vehicle. But my father's wife,
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Speaker 3: she wanted to give us something because my sister and
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Speaker 3: I signed away our rights to his house because we
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Speaker 3: didn't want her to have to remortgage or have to move,
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Speaker 3: So she gave me the car the option of keeping
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Speaker 3: it or selling it. At the time, we had a
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Speaker 3: brand new nineteen eighty seven Ford Aerostarter we had just
4:30
Speaker 3: bought to go to Disneyland November of eighty seven, when
4:34
Speaker 3: my father had committed suicide, we were talking about getting
4:37
Speaker 3: rid of the aerostar, getting a cheaper vehicle so we
4:40
Speaker 3: can knock our bills down to a point where we
4:42
Speaker 3: can afford to buy a house. Well, when my father
4:47
Speaker 3: committed suicide, the place that I worked for tiremen, God
4:50
Speaker 3: bless them, they had taken the vehicle. They had it
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Speaker 3: completely cleaned on the inside. Now, when I went there
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Speaker 3: that night to drive the vehicle, I had mixed them.
5:00
Speaker 3: When I got in, I started crying right away. But
5:03
Speaker 3: after a few minutes, I felt calm because my father
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Speaker 3: had taken me everywhere with him when I was younger
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Speaker 3: and older in the station wagon. He loved station wagon.
5:15
Speaker 3: I think that was his second or third one. So
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Speaker 3: when I drove the vehicle, I felt at peace. Now
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Speaker 3: it was up to my wife. She drove it. She
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Speaker 3: loved it because it had a lot of power. It
5:28
Speaker 3: just happened to have an intrinsic value as far as
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Speaker 3: helping us to achieve our goals, which would have been
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Speaker 3: to get a house for our children, to get a
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Speaker 3: house for us.
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Speaker 1: Right, well, with four kids, you have obviously in you're
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Speaker 1: a mechanic, and Larry is known in the prison as
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Speaker 1: someone who can fix basically anything. But even still raising
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Speaker 1: four kids on that salary, it can't be an easy task.
5:51
Speaker 1: And this case was featured in the Netflix documentary series
5:55
Speaker 1: of Confession Tapes by the wonderful Kelly Laudenberg, and I encourage.
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Speaker 2: Everyone to watch that episode.
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Speaker 1: But let's go back to the night of this awful accident,
6:06
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the evening of August third, nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty nine, and a ninety degree hot summer day and
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Speaker 1: the hottest part of the summer.
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Speaker 3: This was a very, very hot day, and it was
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Speaker 3: a very busy day. I worked close to ten hours
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Speaker 3: that day, running around on my feet. I got out
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Speaker 3: of there as quickly as I could, got the kids
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Speaker 3: in the car, and away we went.
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Speaker 1: Larry and his wife and the children, Brian, Melissa, Kadie
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Speaker 1: and Emily had gone for ice cream, and we're watching
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Speaker 1: the boats along the Detroit River, which I know the
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Speaker 1: kids enjoyed doing that. You had issues with your legs.
6:40
Speaker 3: I was just not properly hydrated, and it caused my
6:43
Speaker 3: muscles to cramp up at different points. I've had problems
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Speaker 3: most of my youth with cramping in my legs.
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Speaker 1: It actually happened to me in the gym this morning
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Speaker 1: when I was stretching. So it's not an uncommon thing,
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Speaker 1: especially when you're dehydrated, like on a hot summer day.
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Speaker 2: Which was what the situation was with you.
7:02
Speaker 1: But there are a number of things that played into
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Speaker 1: this unspeakable disaster. And what really happened was as you
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Speaker 1: were leaving to go home, you were on Eureka Road,
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Speaker 1: which dead ends at the river. You stepped on the gas,
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Speaker 1: your leg cramped right up. The car shot off in pain.
7:20
Speaker 1: You reached down to pull your foot off the gas,
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Speaker 1: but the car continued to accelerate. Now you didn't know
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Speaker 1: it at the time, but there was a deep beact
7:29
Speaker 1: that caused your accelerated jam, propelling the car with the
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Speaker 1: six of you inside, terrified and screaming through the barricade
7:38
Speaker 1: at the end of Eureka Road, right into the Detroit River.
7:43
Speaker 1: I mean, you must have relived it thousands of times
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Speaker 1: in your head.
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Speaker 3: Now I try that too. It's still painful today. When
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Speaker 3: the accelerator stuck, it threw me off. I didn't know
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Speaker 3: what was stuck. I got my foot off the gas.
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Speaker 3: My foot was off. My wife even testified my foot
8:02
Speaker 3: was off. She saw that my foot was off, but
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Speaker 3: the car did not slow down. Before I could even
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Speaker 3: do anything further, she reached over in an attempt to
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Speaker 3: help me. It was an inadvertent act, but it startled
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Speaker 3: me for a second and I froze, and before I
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Speaker 3: could decide what I was going to do, we ran
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Speaker 3: out of street. The whole thing took seven to ten seconds,
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Speaker 3: according to officials, seven to ten seconds.
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Speaker 1: We're talking about a section of the street that was
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Speaker 1: three hundred and ninety six feet long. We've already talked
8:37
Speaker 1: about the fact that the car had a powerful engine
8:40
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't take any car very long to cover
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Speaker 1: its basically just a little bit further than a football field.
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Speaker 1: So add to I mean, all the other elements of
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Speaker 1: pure panic and terror, the fact that the kids are
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Speaker 1: in the car. I'm sure they're screaming, wife's grabbing a wheel,
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Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. You're staring at the water. And
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Speaker 1: on top of that, you didn't know how to swim.
9:00
Speaker 3: Right, No, I cannot. I can tread water thanks to
9:05
Speaker 3: my high school coach. But that's about it. But in
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Speaker 3: the impact itself, I was thrown forward. Half of my
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Speaker 3: head hit around the weisor area. There was a bright light,
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Speaker 3: a shot of pain from my neck all the way
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Speaker 3: down my spine. So I was disoriented. Once I was
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Speaker 3: in the water, I don't even know how I got
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Speaker 3: out of the car well.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's impossible to probably imagine. And
9:32
Speaker 1: the fact is that this particular vehicle had known issues.
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Speaker 1: There were over one hundred people who had reported the
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Speaker 1: accelerator jamming on this exact make and model station Wagon.
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Speaker 3: It was a seventy seven Ford Ltd. Station Wagon four
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Speaker 3: SIXTQB against four barrel carburetor.
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Speaker 1: There was a mechanic who examined the car, Jim Kolquell,
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Speaker 1: and he had a identified three separate defects, any one
10:03
Speaker 1: of which could have caused us uncontrolled acceleration. One was
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Speaker 1: a kink in the accelerated cable that caused the cable
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Speaker 1: to stick. Secondly, the throttle plates could be heard scraping
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Speaker 1: inside the carburetor. And thirdly, the engine mount was broken
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Speaker 1: in this vehicle, which caused the tilt of the engine,
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Speaker 1: and the tilting pulled at the accelerator cable. So the
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Speaker 1: combination of these factors turned deadly. And as it turns out,
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Speaker 1: they chose to ignore their own test because when they
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Speaker 1: tested the vehicle after it was pulled out of the river,
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Speaker 1: in one of the times when they test drove it,
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Speaker 1: the accelerator did in fact jam.
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Speaker 3: Yes, when they were testing the vehicle and the accelerator
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Speaker 3: had stuck. You had two mechanics there, one for the
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Speaker 3: state who actually was just a bus mechanic who couldn't
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Speaker 3: even start the vehicle for testing. We had an ASE
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Speaker 3: certified master mechanic for us who is the one who
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Speaker 3: found all the problems with the vehicle, had to start
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Speaker 3: it for them before they could even test it in
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Speaker 3: an engineer. They were all there today that the test
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Speaker 3: happened when the accelerator stuck. The arresting officer. He was
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Speaker 3: sitting next to the State trooper sergeant during their tests,
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Speaker 3: and they're testing it with his foot on the accelerator,
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Speaker 3: testing the brakes to see how long it would take
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Speaker 3: to stop the vehicle. And I imagine it would be
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Speaker 3: quite a long ways with only manual brakes work. And
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Speaker 3: you don't have the power assist, because when you're accelerating,
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Speaker 3: you don't have power assist. Your power brakes don't work.
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Speaker 3: You have to stand on them to get it to stop.
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Speaker 3: In the State trooper sergeant, and he had to do
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Speaker 3: that so hard he broke the seat any case, the
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Speaker 3: arresting officer he's taking notes. He wrote across the top
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Speaker 3: of his notepad in bold letters, accelerator sticking, then swore
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Speaker 3: under oath when he was up on the witness stand.
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Speaker 3: He had no idea why. He wrote that there was
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Speaker 3: nothing wrong with the car when the accelerator stuck. Mechanic
12:00
Speaker 3: to master mechanic and an engineer, they came running over
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Speaker 3: to the vehicle, according to my lawyer, and the state
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Speaker 3: trooper waved them away. He said, no, no, the problems
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Speaker 3: inside the car. You have engineers and mechanics there to
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Speaker 3: confind it. Get out of the car and let him
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Speaker 3: find out what's sticking right now. And he refused to
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Speaker 3: do it because the arresting officer probably didn't want them
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Speaker 3: to find it, because if they found a problem, it
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Speaker 3: would approve what I've been saying from the very beginning
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Speaker 3: and what my wife had been saying from the very beginning.
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Speaker 3: The accelerator stuck, because it did for you. He shut
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Speaker 3: it off. He testified that he shut it off because
12:37
Speaker 3: it startled him. He's six four to three hundred pounds
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Speaker 3: and it startled him.
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Speaker 2: You expected to remain come.
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Speaker 3: Yes, I'm expected to remain calm. He said. He was
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Speaker 3: going to start the vehicle back up and put it
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Speaker 3: in gear and see how fast it would go. At
12:50
Speaker 3: that point, all you had to do was put it
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Speaker 3: in gear. When he shut it off, avoided the test,
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Speaker 3: and they never got a chance to test it again
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Speaker 3: because by the time they gave it over to the
13:00
Speaker 3: since the engine had been sold roughly treated during their
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Speaker 3: acceleration test, that the engine blew up, end of testing,
13:10
Speaker 3: end of proving beyond reasonable doubt that there was a
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Speaker 3: problem with the station lag.
13:24
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Stand Together.
13:26
Speaker 1: Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to helping.
13:30
Speaker 2: People improve their lives.
13:31
Speaker 1: For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners
13:34
Speaker 1: have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform.
13:37
Speaker 1: By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working
13:41
Speaker 1: with businesses, Stand Together tackles the root causes of problems
13:45
Speaker 1: in our communities and empowers those closest to the problems
13:48
Speaker 1: to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through
13:52
Speaker 1: the First Step Act, empowering community based programs and help
13:56
Speaker 1: people re enter society, and now working to bridge divide
14:00
Speaker 1: in our communities. To learn how you may get involved,
14:03
Speaker 1: visit Standtogether dot org slash conviction. In a tragedy like this,
14:17
Speaker 1: community members have a very difficult time reconciling the fact
14:23
Speaker 1: that these type of tragic accidents happen. When a child
14:26
Speaker 1: is lost, it's easier psychologically for people to assign blame
14:31
Speaker 1: to someone because the randomness of it is too terrifying,
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Speaker 1: especially for people with children to imagine and in this case,
14:42
Speaker 1: I think that, as well as other sort of confirmation
14:44
Speaker 1: biases took hold. You were targeted by the media. They
14:50
Speaker 1: hounded you and basically set up camp outside the house
14:53
Speaker 1: of grieving parents until you agreed to give an interview.
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Speaker 1: And then it becomes and we've seen this in so
14:58
Speaker 1: many cases, whether it's Amanda Knox or so many others,
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Speaker 1: where the media or the authorities feel you're either too
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Speaker 1: sad or not sad enough, or too hysterical or too calm.
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Speaker 3: I don't think that people are aware of the fact
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Speaker 3: that that first interview I did in the backyard, that
15:14
Speaker 3: I had had a couple of valumes given to me
15:16
Speaker 3: by a family member, and I don't even remember the interview.
15:21
Speaker 3: All I remember was an airplane going over the top.
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Speaker 3: So if I didn't show emotion for people, it just
15:29
Speaker 3: makes me angry that they're going to point to the
15:32
Speaker 3: fact that I'm not classical as far as how I
15:36
Speaker 3: was supposed to react to losing my children being hounded
15:40
Speaker 3: by the press. I'm sorry, it's just very upsetting.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's move on from there.
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Speaker 1: This is a false confession case that has all of
15:53
Speaker 1: the hallmarks that we see again and again just to
15:56
Speaker 1: paint a picture for everyone. A week after this imaginable loss,
16:02
Speaker 1: the police picked you and Sue your wife up at
16:05
Speaker 1: seven am and interrogated you till one in the morning.
16:09
Speaker 1: So that's eighteen hours. And we know that when this
16:15
Speaker 1: process goes on interminably, eventually everybody has a breaking point.
16:21
Speaker 1: And even though you told him again and again I
16:24
Speaker 1: didn't do this, et cetera, et cetera, they just wouldn't listen.
16:27
Speaker 2: Is that right.
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Speaker 3: The continue to tell me that I wasn't telling him
16:31
Speaker 3: everything he wanted to hear, and I didn't understand what
16:35
Speaker 3: he meant at that point because I was answering all
16:38
Speaker 3: of his questions.
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Speaker 1: I can't leave alone the idea that they were expecting
16:42
Speaker 1: you to recite over and over again exactly what happened
16:46
Speaker 1: when you didn't actually know what happened. In fact, you
16:49
Speaker 1: could not have known that this car was defective, or
16:52
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have been driving the damn thing.
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Speaker 3: He was asking what could have happened? Why the accelerator
16:57
Speaker 3: had stuck? And I didn't know I had my shoes
17:00
Speaker 3: off that the shoe gets stuck in there was the
17:02
Speaker 3: accelerator sticking. Why wasn't it slowing down. Would you take
17:06
Speaker 3: your foot off the guests It's supposed to slow down. Period.
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Speaker 1: Let's face it, there was no explanation that you could
17:13
Speaker 1: have provided that would have satisfied them. Because this is
17:15
Speaker 1: a very high profile case. The media is all over it,
17:19
Speaker 1: and everyone had already come to their own conclusions that
17:22
Speaker 1: you must have done this. So then it gets to
17:24
Speaker 1: the point where they give you a polygraph. And polygraphs
17:29
Speaker 1: are wildly inaccurate anyway, but they're effective in terms of
17:32
Speaker 1: getting people to false they confess.
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Speaker 4: I'm doctor Michael Obravski. I am a clinical and forensic psychologist.
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Speaker 4: At the time of the wildcase, I was studying false
17:44
Speaker 4: confessions and I was retained by the court to examine
17:48
Speaker 4: the confession. So I was provided with the videotape of
17:52
Speaker 4: the entire interrogation, the first half an hour to forty
17:56
Speaker 4: five minutes. The police officer, Palmitteer built himself up as
18:00
Speaker 4: an expert and infallible, and he also did the same
18:04
Speaker 4: thing with a polygraph. He said the polygraph could read minds,
18:07
Speaker 4: it was infallible, it's never wrong. It gives delial the
18:11
Speaker 4: tests which only consists of a few questions, and he
18:14
Speaker 4: leaves the room and he comes back with his head
18:17
Speaker 4: shaking and says to de Liial, you know you fail
18:21
Speaker 4: the polygraph. You're lying. The technique is to make the
18:26
Speaker 4: defendant feel that their situation is totally hopeless. So basically
18:30
Speaker 4: you set up a dilemma since the polygraph is infallible,
18:34
Speaker 4: you think you're telling the truth.
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Speaker 2: It puts you into.
18:37
Speaker 4: A state of cognitive dissonance. You have to find an
18:40
Speaker 4: explanation that entails both of those things. So Palmitteer spends
18:46
Speaker 4: hours pumping him, and largely it's not asking questions, it's
18:50
Speaker 4: telling him scenarios, telling him why he did this, that oh,
18:54
Speaker 4: you're tired and families are burden, and I know how
18:58
Speaker 4: hard your life is. So he is empathic with him,
19:02
Speaker 4: tells him he understands, implies that you know you're not
19:06
Speaker 4: a bad person for this. Lots of people are under stress,
19:10
Speaker 4: they do something rash and the people will be understanding. Basically,
19:15
Speaker 4: what he's trying to do is get Larry to make
19:17
Speaker 4: incriminating statements, and the implication is always that you know
19:22
Speaker 4: you're not going to suffer a bad punishment for this.
19:25
Speaker 3: Some of the things that this man was saying we're
19:29
Speaker 3: actually disturbing to hear. He would try to convince me
19:33
Speaker 3: that he liked to scare his wife. He said he'd
19:36
Speaker 3: drive up really fast behind parked cars and slam on
19:39
Speaker 3: the brakes just to scare her. And he asked me
19:42
Speaker 3: if I ever wanted to do that. He even talked
19:44
Speaker 3: about he gets so mad at his kids he'd want
19:47
Speaker 3: to stick them in a garbage bag and throw them
19:48
Speaker 3: in a clount. He said, you ever want to do that?
19:50
Speaker 3: And I got angry at him for even suggesting something
19:54
Speaker 3: that heinous to be done to any child. I never
19:57
Speaker 3: said I wanted to do that, But then later on
19:59
Speaker 3: in his his interrogation, somehow he had me parroting him.
20:03
Speaker 3: But they were not confessions. They were brought about by
20:07
Speaker 3: this man instilling guilt in me, making me feel that
20:11
Speaker 3: I was responsible above and beyond the mechanical problems on there.
20:18
Speaker 4: Palmitteer keeps on trying scenarios where Larry will implicate himself
20:23
Speaker 4: and he doesn't, And finally he tries out a scenario
20:27
Speaker 4: that makes Larry bite. He basically says to Larry, do
20:30
Speaker 4: you know about the unconscious? And Larry does not. He
20:35
Speaker 4: tells them that unconscious means that we do certain things
20:38
Speaker 4: that we don't really know that we've done them. You know,
20:41
Speaker 4: even though you did it, you're not really responsible because
20:43
Speaker 4: you're unconscious that did it, And that starts giving Larry
20:48
Speaker 4: an explanation, and so at some point he makes an
20:51
Speaker 4: equivocal statement such as you think that could have happened,
20:54
Speaker 4: or he starts questioning Palmitteer, and he never says that
20:58
Speaker 4: he did it, but he starts questioning and implying that
21:01
Speaker 4: maybe that did happen, and then the interrogation is over
21:05
Speaker 4: because what he's done is accepted Palmeteer's theory that he
21:09
Speaker 4: did drive the car into the river and that he
21:12
Speaker 4: did want hurt someone. He just didn't know it at
21:14
Speaker 4: the time. But you know, under the law, that doesn't
21:17
Speaker 4: make any difference.
21:20
Speaker 1: The police chief himself went on the news and proclaimed
21:24
Speaker 1: that Larry Delal has confessed. At that point, they only
21:28
Speaker 1: needed trial. To his credit of the judge did actually
21:31
Speaker 1: suppress the confession, and people are probably hearing that saying,
21:34
Speaker 1: oh good. But the fact is it didn't matter at
21:36
Speaker 1: that point because they refused to change venue.
21:39
Speaker 4: So it's very important to understand the psychological atmosphere was
21:43
Speaker 4: occurring first, the news stations had a stock shot of
21:49
Speaker 4: the car being lifted out of the river by a crane,
21:52
Speaker 4: and everybody knew there were four dead children in there,
21:55
Speaker 4: and night after night that was playing. People then started
21:58
Speaker 4: gathering down by the river, demanding justice for these four kids.
22:03
Speaker 4: And then after he was questioned, they announced that he
22:07
Speaker 4: had confessed to the crime, which of course he had not.
22:11
Speaker 4: But you put that in the crowd's mind, it's almost
22:15
Speaker 4: impossible to reverse. The next thing that happened was, of course,
22:19
Speaker 4: the suppression hearing, and that's where I testified that the
22:22
Speaker 4: confession was involuntary. I described the techniques that were used
22:26
Speaker 4: and why what he said was not voluntary. Judge Colombo
22:30
Speaker 4: ruled in Delile's favor, and he threw out the confession.
22:33
Speaker 4: Except the problem was that it had already been in
22:36
Speaker 4: the newspaper, and the retractions from the newspaper said things like,
22:41
Speaker 4: Lawrence Delile's statements that he intentionally killed his family cannot
22:45
Speaker 4: be used in court against them. And when you try
22:48
Speaker 4: to tell people that it's invalid, they believe, oh no,
22:51
Speaker 4: the guy just just realized that he got himself into trouble.
22:54
Speaker 4: He's just denying it now. So They never believed the
22:57
Speaker 4: confession is false. They believe the denial of it confession
23:00
Speaker 4: as false.
23:03
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if they have caves and why.
23:04
Speaker 1: I thot that you could have found someone who didn't
23:07
Speaker 1: on the TV or read the newspaper. But short of that,
23:10
Speaker 1: you're looking at yours or unaware of the tactics that
23:13
Speaker 1: were used to elicit that confession. And who can't reconcile
23:17
Speaker 1: the idea that anyone would confess to a crime they
23:19
Speaker 1: didn't commit. But it happens all the damn time, and
23:21
Speaker 1: they charged you with four counts of murder. One kind
23:24
Speaker 1: of attempted murder. Prosecutor was a guy named Kevin Samowski.
23:27
Speaker 1: He painted you as a guy who was overwhelmed by debt.
23:30
Speaker 3: The fact of the matter is I was not overwhelmed
23:32
Speaker 3: with debt. I owned less than thirteen to five and
23:35
Speaker 3: made over thirty thousand dollars a year. I just got
23:37
Speaker 3: a house that they didn't have to make any payments
23:39
Speaker 3: on for an entire year. And I take great offense
23:43
Speaker 3: every time they keep trying to bring up, oh, he
23:45
Speaker 3: was deeply in debt. As a matter of fact, the
23:48
Speaker 3: headlines wanted to point out, oh he was trying to
23:51
Speaker 3: get rid of his burdens. Well, the police were trying
23:54
Speaker 3: to say, my debt was my burdens, but the people
23:57
Speaker 3: looked at it as my children were my burdens. That's
23:59
Speaker 3: how it were trying to convict me.
24:02
Speaker 2: And here's a very very important thing to me. Your wife, Sue.
24:08
Speaker 1: Now she's gone through the same horrendous boss that you have.
24:14
Speaker 1: And I think it's fair to say that maybe when
24:17
Speaker 1: in her position, if they had even a sneaking suspicion
24:21
Speaker 1: that you might have done it on purpose, she would
24:23
Speaker 1: have been the number one witness for the prosecution. She
24:27
Speaker 1: in fact, was the only witness to the crime, except
24:29
Speaker 1: for some woman that was out on her balcony on
24:30
Speaker 1: the eleventh floor across the street.
24:32
Speaker 2: Let's not even go there. But she didn't turn on you.
24:36
Speaker 3: She was there, She knows exactly what happened. She saw
24:40
Speaker 3: my foot off there, she tried to help. She was
24:44
Speaker 3: actually demonized by the public for years. She had to
24:48
Speaker 3: move away from down River because they were harassing her.
24:52
Speaker 3: Somebody tried to break into the house. Somebody would call
24:55
Speaker 3: on the phone leaving threatening messages. She couldn't get a
24:59
Speaker 3: job anywhere because of their last name.
25:01
Speaker 1: Well, because she wouldn't turn on you even though she
25:04
Speaker 1: was doing the right thing. So the jury deliberated for
25:08
Speaker 1: nine hours over two days.
25:10
Speaker 3: They came back originally ten to two. The judge sent
25:14
Speaker 3: them back. They came back the next day eleven to one.
25:18
Speaker 3: He's threatened to keep them through the weekend if they
25:21
Speaker 3: didn't come back with a decision.
25:23
Speaker 1: We know that in those jury rooms extreme pressure is
25:27
Speaker 1: exerted by people who want to go home. But you
25:31
Speaker 1: can send a note to the judge. You're allowed to
25:33
Speaker 1: do that and just say, your honor, I'm not budging,
25:36
Speaker 1: I'm done here. I'd say ninety nine percent people serve
25:39
Speaker 1: on juries don't even know you could do that. You
25:40
Speaker 1: just send a note to the judge and say I'm done,
25:43
Speaker 1: I'm not voted to convict, and then the judge has
25:45
Speaker 1: the decision to make the idea that so many people
25:49
Speaker 1: like you, Larry, are spending the rest of their lives
25:51
Speaker 1: in prison because somebody needed to get home.
25:53
Speaker 2: Back to their job.
25:54
Speaker 1: This is not a unique thing, and it's something that
25:57
Speaker 1: needs to be addressed. When they filed back in, what
25:59
Speaker 1: were you thought.
26:00
Speaker 3: I could tell when they came in some of them
26:03
Speaker 3: were smiling but some of them had their arms crossed,
26:06
Speaker 3: and I stood up, and when they said guilty, I
26:13
Speaker 3: couldn't stand anymore. I had to sit down or I
26:16
Speaker 3: would just pass out. I was so much shock. If
26:20
Speaker 3: this were a boxing match, we won every single day.
26:23
Speaker 3: To prosecutor helped prove our case, even when the accelerator
26:28
Speaker 3: stuck and the police officers waved the mechanics away, saying, oh, no,
26:33
Speaker 3: the problems in the car, Yeah, the problem was sitting
26:35
Speaker 3: next to you taking notes. He wrote specifically across the
26:39
Speaker 3: top of his notepad, accelerator sticking, then swore under oath,
26:43
Speaker 3: I had no idea why I wrote that there was
26:45
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with the car. Bullshit. You knew that if
26:48
Speaker 3: mechanics an engineer that was there, would have found the problem,
26:53
Speaker 3: it would have proved that I was innocent.
26:55
Speaker 1: The big mistake to me, among all the other mistakes,
26:58
Speaker 1: was judge not allowing a change of venue, because you know,
27:00
Speaker 1: maybe you could have gotten a fair trial.
27:02
Speaker 3: What was disheartening, too, is that there was a problem
27:05
Speaker 3: with that vehicle. That Ford did recall that engine, but
27:09
Speaker 3: only on the pickup trucks, not on our station wagon.
27:12
Speaker 3: For that year, my lawyer tried to enter it into
27:15
Speaker 3: trial at the time, and the judge said that because
27:18
Speaker 3: it was not the pickup truck recalled, he wouldn't allow
27:22
Speaker 3: him to enter it in evidence until the trial was
27:24
Speaker 3: over with, so the jury never got to hear it.
27:38
Speaker 1: So you've been in prison of for thirty years. I
27:41
Speaker 1: know you recently survived COVID on top of everything else,
27:44
Speaker 1: But can you explain that the prison experience.
27:49
Speaker 3: Oh that wasn't there for my wife at the funeral
27:53
Speaker 3: for our children. My grandparents who raised me passed away
27:58
Speaker 3: while I was in here. These are just the emotional
28:01
Speaker 3: ones there. This has nothing to do with the pain
28:04
Speaker 3: that I went through dealing with all these people in
28:07
Speaker 3: the beginning. I could tell you that the first ten
28:12
Speaker 3: years were horrible. Matter of fact, the first five I
28:15
Speaker 3: have had more death threats, evil stars, things thrown at
28:21
Speaker 3: me every day, NonStop for five years. I'm surprised I
28:25
Speaker 3: even survived it. And then the next five years, instead
28:29
Speaker 3: of being daily, it would be once or twice a week,
28:32
Speaker 3: and then eventually once or twice a month, and then
28:35
Speaker 3: finally down to once or twice a year. Now I
28:39
Speaker 3: can go several years before I hear a discouraging words
28:41
Speaker 3: from somebody but I have over the last two decades
28:46
Speaker 3: made a lot of good friends in here. You are
28:49
Speaker 3: the company you keep, so I try to keep company
28:52
Speaker 3: with people I would have as my friends and neighbors out.
28:54
Speaker 2: In the world.
28:55
Speaker 1: Can you describe a ray of light that you know
28:58
Speaker 1: you can identify.
29:00
Speaker 3: The best thing that's ever happened to me was getting
29:03
Speaker 3: on maintenance twenty two years ago. I've had the opportunity
29:07
Speaker 3: to learn so much about things that I never knew before,
29:11
Speaker 3: so much about repairing buildings, clients, repair heating, air conditioning,
29:15
Speaker 3: electrical I spent one hundreds of dollars on books and
29:18
Speaker 3: thousands of hours studying to get as good as I
29:20
Speaker 3: am now. I'm very good at what I do today.
29:24
Speaker 1: You've had appeals over the years, but it hasn't resulted
29:29
Speaker 1: in any relief. Can you explain why that process is
29:33
Speaker 1: dragged on for so long?
29:35
Speaker 3: Well, my lawyer, Frank Eman, did an excellent job throughout
29:39
Speaker 3: the entire process. I owe him everything. The system itself
29:43
Speaker 3: is very slow. The courts don't care if you're innocent
29:47
Speaker 3: or not. They just care did get a fair trial.
29:49
Speaker 3: I didn't get a fair trial, and I went through
29:51
Speaker 3: the federal courts where they split politically eight to seven.
29:55
Speaker 3: I don't remember if for his Democrats Republicans Republicans. Democrats
30:00
Speaker 3: sposed to be impartial. You're supposed to vote your conscious
30:03
Speaker 3: what you see. You're like a referee in a football game.
30:06
Speaker 3: You're supposed to judge everything by what you have before you.
30:10
Speaker 3: Every one of the judges said that they are disappointed
30:14
Speaker 3: in the state of Michigan for allowing suppressed evidence to
30:17
Speaker 3: be released to the media before trial. You would think
30:22
Speaker 3: that would get you to the United States Supreme Court,
30:25
Speaker 3: but it didn't. I guess some clerk putting in there
30:27
Speaker 3: in my case doesn't warrant going before the highest court
30:30
Speaker 3: in the land. My life, my constitutional rights violated, and
30:36
Speaker 3: that doesn't go before the highest court in the land.
30:39
Speaker 1: There's still one remedy left for clemency from Governor Whitmer.
30:45
Speaker 1: You've recently submitted your clemency petition. You know, clemency is
30:49
Speaker 1: to me something that I've been telling anyone who would listen,
30:53
Speaker 1: including people in power, that this is an underused power
30:57
Speaker 1: that is given very deliberately to governors and presidents because
31:02
Speaker 1: they are meant to serve as the last sort of
31:06
Speaker 1: stop gap to prevent injustices from being allowed to stand,
31:11
Speaker 1: and your case cries out for it, as I think
31:14
Speaker 1: anyone who's just listened to this podcast agrees. So is
31:19
Speaker 1: there anything people can do to help generate momentum for
31:23
Speaker 1: your clemency petition?
31:25
Speaker 3: You could write the pro board, try to contact the governor.
31:29
Speaker 3: I've got thousands of signatures on this petition begging her
31:33
Speaker 3: to hear my case to show clemency. Visit the petition
31:37
Speaker 3: website sign a petition that she can hear that people
31:41
Speaker 3: are concerned she may do something.
31:44
Speaker 1: We're going to put a link to the petition in
31:47
Speaker 1: the show notes. Please use your voice. Let's help bring
31:52
Speaker 1: Larry home together. This nightmare has gone on for far
31:55
Speaker 1: too long.
31:56
Speaker 2: Larry.
31:57
Speaker 1: We have a section of the show that is my
31:59
Speaker 1: favorite part each episode. First of all, I thank you
32:03
Speaker 1: for being here and for your courage and for sharing
32:06
Speaker 1: your story. So thank you, Larry Delile. You know our
32:09
Speaker 1: thoughts are with you, and we're going to build momentum
32:12
Speaker 1: for you with this podcast. This actually the show is
32:15
Speaker 1: called Closing Arguments, and this is where I turned my
32:19
Speaker 1: microphone off. I'm going to kick back, close my eyes
32:22
Speaker 1: and just listen to your words.
32:24
Speaker 3: First off, I would like to say that I am
32:26
Speaker 3: so proud of so many activists out there who are
32:31
Speaker 3: protesting both social and racial injustice, the protesting against wrongful convictions.
32:38
Speaker 3: You have to salute our heroes on the front line
32:42
Speaker 3: in healthcare who are taking everyone who has COVID nineteen.
32:47
Speaker 3: All these tragic deaths that are happening in everyone's family.
32:51
Speaker 3: My heart goes out to you. I would like to
32:55
Speaker 3: thank Ashley Roth and Carla Beck for everything they've done
33:01
Speaker 3: to get to this point. They have been very staunch supporters.
33:04
Speaker 3: They started a petition, they've supported a petition, and I
33:09
Speaker 3: love them to death. There are so many people that
33:12
Speaker 3: have written me since the Netflix documentary came out. Bless
33:16
Speaker 3: you all. Thank you very much. Please please stay safe
33:21
Speaker 3: out there.
33:27
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
33:30
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
33:31
Speaker 2: It really helps.
33:33
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project, and
33:36
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
33:38
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
33:42
Speaker 1: to innescenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
33:45
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
33:49
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
33:51
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
33:54
Speaker 2: Be sure to.
33:55
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook
33:59
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34:03
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