Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #335 Maggie Freleng with Charles Jackson

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#335 Maggie Freleng with Charles Jackson · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Charles Jackson and his nephew, Houston Foster, were born just
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: two years apart, and they grew up together in the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: same house in Cleveland, as close as any two brothers
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: could be. Even into their fifties, they still talked by
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: phone several times a week, sometimes for hours, about everything
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: under the sun. Houston had been diagnosed with stage four
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: kidney failure, so he was undergoing dialysis three times a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: week and waiting hoping for a kidney transplant. He was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: on the list, but as he told his uncle Charles,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the weight could be up to five years.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Who said, I had that loan to you know, live,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: So by the grace of God, Charles came out. He said,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: you know what, I'm all positive, nephew. I'm going to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: give you one of my kidneys.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: But there was a problem.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Charles was in prison for murder and had been for
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: nearly thirty years.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: My name is Charles Jackson. I served twenty seven years,
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: six months in twenty day for a crime I didn't.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Commit from lava for good.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Charles Jackson
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Charles Jackson, Junior, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January seventh,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, to Elizabeth Foster and Charles Jackson Senior.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: And they had a big family as sisters.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: I had five sisters and three more brothers, you know,
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: But I'm the baby out the whole bunch. They was
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: like teenagers, you know what I'm saying. So they were bigger,
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: and a couple of them was grown.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And it was because of this age difference with some
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of his siblings that Charles became closest with his nephew, Houston.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Charles and Houston did everything together, and everyone in their
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: family adored Charles. Houston remembers how his uncle even earned
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: himself a nickname.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I think my grandmother. I think my grandmother she one
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: name from sweet Man, and I think that's where it
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: actually came from. Just called him sweet and that's what
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: everybody knew him by, a sweet man.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: But Charles describes himself another way.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: What's your personality?
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: My personality, I'm silly as hell and all my friends
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: and I just kept everybody laughing, everybody around me.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: When he was about nine years old, Charles's parents divorced.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Charles decided to live with his dad, and for a while,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it was just the two of them, but occasionally Charles's
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: sister and her son, Houston, came to live with them.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Charles and Houston had always been like brothers, but living
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: together they were inseparable.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And we used to run home from after school because
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: he was in a grade higher than me, and I
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: go to get home from after school, you know, do
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: our homework and then go watch Batman and Robin. So
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: they started calling us Batman and Robin.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Who was Batman?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Who was Robbin? Well, you know, Charles had to be Batman.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: He would never let me be Batman.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Charles was like a typical older brother, but by the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: time he got to junior high school, things began to change.
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: I fought a lot, I was overweight, chubby, got bullied
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: on that next year I came to school, I slimmed down.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Nobody even knew me. That's when I started, I guess,
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: maturing and growing up, you know what I'm saying. And
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: that's when like my life turned like different.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I started learning how to play cars, and then I
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: had a lot of time on my hands because you know,
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: just me and my father. He'd be at work. So
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: I get out of school and you know what I'm saying,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: so I got to do pretty much what.
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: I wanted to do.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: When he was around eighteen, Charles's son, Christopher was born.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: He was married by then, and he and his wife
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: at the time went on to have two more kids, twins,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Terry and Sherry.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I cooked and took care of the kids, you know
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying, Like, come from a big family, you
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: you know, you're always in the kitchen and somebody's always
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: running through the house. And so I had all that too,
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: How'd you support your family at the time.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: Well, I was illegal sometimes, but I didn't kill anyone,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Whatever I did, you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: hustled or murder wasn't even in the picture.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of April seventh, nineteen ninety one,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the body of twenty nine year old Joe Travis was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: found in the hallway of his apartment complex, dead from
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: a single gunshot wound to the head. There had been
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: an altercation earlier at the complex between rival drug dealers
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Charlie Dog Davis and Omelia Tucker. Tucker had allegedly shot
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: at Davis, and as he left the complex, Davis yelled, quote,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you shot me, i'll be back. About forty five minutes later,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: two men arrived and two shots were fired. The men
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: then vanished, leaving Joe Travis dead. Just over two weeks later,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: twenty three year old Ronald Lacey was arrested on drug charges.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Lacey lived at the apartment complex, and he told police
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: he had witnessed the gunman shoot Travis in the head
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: over a drug altercation. He said that the shooter was
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a regular in the neighborhood and that he drove a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight or nineteen seventy nine brown or maroon
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Monte Carlo with chrome wheels and lower rider tires. As
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it happened, twenty seven year old Charles Jackson also drove
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a Monte Carlo and had recently had a run.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: In with the police.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: So I guess this is the same car that ron
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: Lacey said that I was driving, and the police had
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: pulled me over maybe a month or two before the end,
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: and I had a traffic ticket and I went to jail.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: So when I went to jail, they took mudshots on me.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Police had suspected Charles of carrying drugs that night, but
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: finding nothing on him, they arrested him on a traffic violation. Instead,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the cop showed Lacey the mugshot they took that night,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and Lacey said, quote, that's definitely him. You don't forget
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: someone that tries to kill you. A month after the shooting,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: on May eighth, nineteen ninety one, Charles was arrested while
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: sitting in a neighborhood bar.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: They put their guns on me, They asked me for
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: my driver's license. They saw my name, I guess, just
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: him and locked me up. So I ain't had none
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: to word about because I didn't do anything. And three
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: four days later, you know, I was charged with murder.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Charles when he got arrested, and what he went
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: down for, I was, you know, I missed my buddy
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: because he was gone.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: You know, Charles's nephew, Houston was devastated when Charles was
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: taken into custody.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: I mean it was wow. That just bring back some
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: memories there. But it's touching. But I missed him so much,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and what he went down for really touched me because
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I knew my uncle would never, you know, commit no
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: crime like that, because he'd never do nothing like that.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: But that was my uncle, and.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Wow, Charles.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, was racking his brain to remember what he was
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: doing the night of that shooting.
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: Wondering like where was I.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, alibi, what was I doing?
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: And at the time, my girlfriend she had kept a
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: little little diary, you know what I'm saying, a little journal,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: and she used right in there and she had told
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: me like that night, that was the night that we
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: had went to a party.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: And then it started coming back.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: And I ran the streets that night and I was
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: out late. I ran for the police the same night.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: So I guess if I would and ran for the police,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: I would have been in jail the night that Joe
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: Travis was murdered.
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: But I decided to run from the police.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: In Charles's mind, if he hadn't run from the police
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: that night, he would have never been a suspect in
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the shooting. Before trial, Charles was assigned to Public Defenders
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Edward Wade and Howard Manager. Charles still remembers his lawyer's
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: advice every way.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: He was just chatting me like cop out, because you know,
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: I've been a lawyer all these years and all this stuff,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: like they're saying this and that, and you know, I
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: said I ain't doing anything, so why should I cop
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: out to something I ain't do?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So instead of taking a plea bargain from the get go,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Charles went to trial in December of nineteen ninety one.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. The case against
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Charles relied solely on the witness testimonies of Ronald Lacey
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and O'melia Tucker. The prosecutors were Winston Gray and Thomas Rain.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: They called Lacy to the stand first. Lacey, the man
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: who identified Charles's mugshot, repeated what he had told the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: police that he saw Charles shoot dro Travis in the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: head during an argument over drugs. The other witness was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Amelia Tucker, who remember had had a separate altercation that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: night with Charlie dog Davis on the stand. Tucker said
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: she heard the shots and when she looked out the window,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: she saw the gunman running away.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: And she also said it was Charles.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Now sitting there just in this time me just don't
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: show no emotion in it and noun sitting there just
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: like exploding on the inside, you know what I'm saying,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Like she's lying. I'm going crazy.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Charles's defense did the best they could with these two eyewitnesses,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: whose testimonies were the only evidence presented against Charles. They
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: countered with Charles's alibi at the time of the shooting
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: he was at a party with his girlfriend, but they
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: could have done more.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: It turns out.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: While Charles was in jail awaiting trial, he met a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: guy from the neighborhood named Vincent. Vincent told Charles he
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: knew who shot Travis. He said it was a guy
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: named Jimmy. This turned out to be James Morris, the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: nephew of Charlie Dog Davis, and this scenario would make sense.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: His nephew might have wanted to get back at Tucker
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: for shooting at Charlie dogg and Joe Travis.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: He could have just been caught in the crossfire arms.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: With this new information and a plausible scenario, Charles immediately
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: went to his lawyers.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: I told Edy Way immediately that it's a guy in
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: here that say saw everything, and he said it's not me.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: They did it.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: But at trial, Charles's defense did not call Vincent to testify. Instead,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: they presented photos of James, and in the pictures, James
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: looked nearly identical to Charles Jackson.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: So when Ronald Lacey was on the witness stand, so
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: we cut time to cross examinum at a wayhead that
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: one picture of James. And he showed this picture to
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Ronald Lacey and said who is just on this picture?
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: And Ronald Lacy looked at the picture and he didn't hesitate.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: He said, this is a picture of sweet Man.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Sweet Man the child took nickname Charles was still known
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: by but many of the people in the courtroom knew
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the picture was of James.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: And I'm thinking, like, oh, nothing to go home now,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: you know, if it had just be fire worse because
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: of this picture, and it wasn't nothing like that, It's
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: just it was like quiet.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The alibi and mistaken identity was not enough. After only
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a few days of trial and deliberation, Charles was convicted
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of murder and attempted murder with a firearm. He was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: sentenced to seven to twenty five years for attempted murder,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: three years for possession of a firearm, and twenty years
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to life for the murder of Joe Travis. As Charles
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: settled into prison life, he started resigning himself to the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: reality of being locked away forever. He knew too many
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: other people who had faced the same situation.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: The only thing about prison is like it just seemed
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: like a ris of passage. Like in my neighborhood growing up,
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Like I saw so many guys that I haven't saw
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: that I thought was dead or moved away, and they
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: were in prison for years, you know what I mean.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: And it's just like A knew people there, and they
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: waiting on me, you know what I'm saying. They was
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: gonna take care of me. I was gonna be all right.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: So I went in there with surviving on my mind.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Charles knew though, that in order to survive inside he
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: had to put up a pretty hard front.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: And what a surviving mean?
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Just I'm not gonna tell everybody I'm innocent, because they
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: don't want to hear that because they're doing all this time,
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: in fact, make them think like I'm not like them,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: Then how can I survive? You know what I'm saying.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: So I should have went in there trying to find
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: my way out, you know what I'm saying. I should
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: have went in there going to the library. Like I said,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I had a bad attitude. I was angry, you know,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: and I felt like the took my life, you know.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: So I'm just gonna be like no respect for no
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: type of authority. And for like the first ten years.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, I ain't even recognize myself
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: no more because I was turning to an animal.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: While Charles was in prison, his fourth child, a daughter,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: was born. Her name was Siarra.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: Were you able to be a dad from prison?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: It's crazy because like first, like she little and she
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: don't know you. She like the whole visiting day is
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: spent her trying to like not be scared of me,
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: just sit on my lap or play with me. Then
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: by at the end of the day she'd be more
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: to play. Nice time for her to go. Then I
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: don't know when this time I'm gonna see her, and
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: I see her again. She a little bit bigger, got
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: her personality in the change, you know what I'm saying,
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: And I just watched her grow up like that, you know.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: And then it got to a part to where her
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: mom like wasn't in my life, so she wasn't encouraging her.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And Charles knew that without any encouragement, no twelve or
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: thirteen year olds would want to spend their summers visiting
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: someone in prison. So his visits with Siarra ended. As
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the years passed, things just kept getting worse.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: I started getting older, and like I said, I ain't
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: recognize who I was. And then my relatives started passing away,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, And my mom died. And
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: that was like when like my life like turned around.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Because I felt I couldn't like I was living no more.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: You know, Charles realized he needed to change his mindset
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: in order to change his life.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: You know what, I've been here so long. I'd wake
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: up in the middle of the night and come up
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: with a way to get out. I need somebody to
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: listen till you help me, you know what I'm saying.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: One thing that continued to sustain Charles during those years
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: was his connection to his nephew, Houston, the robin to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: his batman. Houston was now a deacon living in Jacksonville, Florida,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and they talked by phone several times a week. But
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Houston was going through challenges of his own. At the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: age of fifty.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Three, he learned that he had stage four kidney failure.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And I told him I was all positive and I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: needed a kitten, and I was gonna get on the
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: transplant list. But this Mike took two or three five
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: years to get a kitten. Who said, I had that
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: loan to, you know, live.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: So he started off Dallas is like once a week,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: and then it got so bad to he was in
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: like three times a week, and I'll be talking to
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: him why he beat her? And I said, man, I'm
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: gonna get up out of here. Man, I'm gonna give
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: you a kidney man and his airding going to be good,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: you know. And not knowing what's going to.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Happen me, Charles knew he had to find a way
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: to get out of prison his nephew's life depended on it.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Determined to fight for his exoneration, Charles wrote to the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Ohio Innocence Project to ask them to review his case,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and when they.
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: Did pretty quickly, we knew at the very least that
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: the government's case against Charles back at the time of
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: trial was really, really weak, so we started to look
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: at it more.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: This is Donald Caster.
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: I'm a professor of clinical law with the Ohio Innocence
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: Project at the University of Cincinnati.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: He's also Charles's attorney.
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: The police seized on this theory that Charles might have
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: been the guy because Charles' car was somewhere near the area.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't actually Charles's car. Remember, he drove him
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: on Carlo similar to the one used.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: By the shooter.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: The state also said that they had a credible witness.
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: And we'll put quotes around witness named Ron Lacey who
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: was there at the time and who said that he
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: saw the fatal shot being fired, and you know, put
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: a single picture in front of mister Lacy, and mister
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: Lacy says, yeah, that's the guy, and that's that's how
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: the police come to believe that it's Charles Jackson.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: Is that even legal to just do one photo and
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: not a lineup?
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: It's not now, it's not now. At the time that
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: Charles was convicted. There were no standards at least, you know,
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: sort of by statute for what kind of lineup you
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: can do. Now, Ohio has a statute that says, if
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: you're going to do a lineup, this is the way
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: that you have to do it.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Charles's team continued to dig into his case. In twenty seventeen,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: they were finally able to get a hold of previously
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: undisclosed police reports and what they learned was huge.
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: So these are all things that should have been turned
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: over to Charles's defense at the time of trial. That
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: would have made a huge difference, That would have saved
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: Charles all these years in prison.
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: So we're talking about Brady violations.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: We are talking about Brady violations.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Brady violations are exactly that when the prosecution hides or
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: fails to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant. And the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: reports revealed plenty of this. The first piece of evidence.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: Well, Miss Tucker said one thing at trial. She had
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: said a very different thing the night of the shooting
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: and the day after the shooting to the police, and
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: what she had told the police was that she couldn't
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: see the face of the person who did the shooting,
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: that she wasn't going to be able to identify the shooter.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Remember, O'melia Tucker was the rival drug dealer who was
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: in the initial altercation. Her first statement to police said
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that she looked out her window and saw a man
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: wearing a bulky jacket get into the rear passenger seat
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of a gray car. His back was to her and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: she did not see his face. In a second interview,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: she repeated the same thing to police, that she did
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: not see a face.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Yet when she.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Testified at trial, she said she saw the shooter's face
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and that it was Charles.
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: And obviously you'd want to know that. Their key eyewitness
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: said twice within thirty six hours of the shooting, I
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: didn't see the person's face. I can't tell you who
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: did it. You'd want to be able to ask that
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: person about those statements in front of jury, and Charles
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: never got that chance.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: The second piece of evidence.
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: Miss t Lacey had made the statement that the shooter
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: had shot the decendent on the wrong side of the head,
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: that he identified the shot is going one place, the
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: corner identified, the shot is going the other. The defense
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: at the time of Charles's trial never knew these things.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Not only that there were more eyewitnesses to the crime
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that were never called to testify. One of them was
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a man named Thomas Salvano.
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: Mister Salvano saw it, He saw what happened, and there
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: was a statement in the records by him, but he
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: never he never gets called. He never. Nobody on Charles's
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: side knows what Salvano knows, which is that he saw
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: it and it wasn't Charles. And then we had a
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: private investigator go and talked to Selvano, who was amazingly
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: eager to help out. You know, he didn't have any
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: reason personally to want to help Charles, but he really
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: was stunned that the wrong person had been in prison
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: for that whole time, and he really felt like he
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: had a duty to help out.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: When Charles's attorneys presented him with all this information, he
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: finally felt vindicated.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: They bled me, you didn't do this, you know, saying
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: when somebody just believing you. You know, I said, we
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: already thought you didn't do it, but now we know
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: you didn't do it. That's not I was like, okay, cool,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: if I died that night, you know what I'm saying.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: I knew that someone knew that I you know, I
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: wasn't alone no more.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: I had a voice again.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Charles was granted a hearing to present
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: all this newly discovered evidence to a judge. Judge Robert
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: McClelland felt the evidence was compelling enough to sign an
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: order vacating Charles's convictions.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: He ruled that Charles should get a new trial.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Months later, Donald Caster was driving to Cleveland for a
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: hearing in Charles's case when he got a call.
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: The prosecutor called me on my cell phone. So I
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: had to pull over because I'm starting to cry.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: He immediately called the rest of the team, who were
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: also on their way to the hearing, So, okay, you guys.
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: Need to pull over before I tell you this. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: then I said, you know they're going to concede. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: it's because Lacey's backed away from his story.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: At the time of trial, Ronald Lacy, the star witness
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and first person to implicate Charles, was suddenly changing his story.
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: And he said that they had reinterviewed mister Lacey and
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: that mister Lacey had backed away from saying that he
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: saw the fatal shot being.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Fired without Lacy. The state didn't have a case. Tucker
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: had been discredited by this time, and there was never
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: any physical evidence to begin with. On twenty seventh, twenty eighteen,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: fifty five year old Charles Jackson was released after almost
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: twenty eight years in prison. Though at first officials got
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the right name, but the wrong person.
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: They brought the wrong They brought the wrong Charles out.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: At first, right, they brought the wrong Charles Jackson out.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Not only was like, you know, imagia for somebody do wait?
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Were was this guy like, oh, I guess it's my time.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: And we had to tell we were like, wait, we
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: don't know. This is not our Charles.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: It's funny when it ain't funny. But you know what
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: I'm saying, They got the wrong money, and I they
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: tried to get the wrong one out. I mean, come on.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: After the snafu and after the right Charles Jackson was released,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the day was joyous for everyone, but Houston was still
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: in need of a kidney, and Charles, now a freeman,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: was on a mission. Once it was confirmed that he
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was a match, he headed down to Florida, where his
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: nephew was waiting, and.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: H He gave me, you couldn't and everything, But I
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: thank God for him because I don't know, you know
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: where I beat. I might have been been hearing today,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: but one for the blessing that he gave me was it.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: You know, he was more than like my brother. He
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: was like he was like a hero because even though
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: they said he took a life, but he didn't take
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: no life. He helped save a life. So to me,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: that's a hero to me, he was just a blessing
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Excuse today.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Charles lives in a quiet suburb of Cleveland in a
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: communal house known as the exon Maree Home.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: So it started off like it was just a house,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Now you know it's more
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: of a home now.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: So what is that like to live with other Exoneries.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: Do you feel like they understand you better than other people? Might?
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: They definitely do, because everybody else, like you know, being
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: in jail for so long, didn't come out here. It's
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: like it's you dropped me from I came could have
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: been from another planet or something, so nobody understand what
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: you went through except for another person who've been through
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: exact same thing. So that's with fore that brotherhood, you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: Johonnerees like we a different kind. We take care of
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: each other.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: When Charles first got to the ex Hoondinary Home, he
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: took special care of one of his older housemaates. Isaiah Andrews,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted of murder ineighteen seventy four. He was
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: exonerated in twenty twenty one at the age of eighty four,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and he died less than a year later, right after
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: he was awarded compensation by the City of Cleveland for
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: his wrongful imprisonment. These days, Charles spends a lot of
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: his time advocating for the wrongfully incarcerated and cooking for
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: his friends and housemates at the Exonery Home. He's just
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: completed a culinary training course and has ambitions to open
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: his own food truck, although, as his nephew Houston tells it,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Charles wasn't always a foodie.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: When me and Charles was coming up, Charles wouldn't eat anything.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. He had If my grandmother
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: cooks the home cooked meal, Charles had to go to
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: McDonald's a burger king because he wouldn't eat necesside. Charles
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: was but me, I should watch my mother and my
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: grandmother and them cook all the time.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Houston even comes and helps out in the kitchen at
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the Exonery Home.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say I can cook better than Charles,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: but I get Charles to run for with money. I'll
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: leave it at that. It ain't all about who can
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: cook better than who you right, But I gotta tell
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: them I said, Robin can cook better than Betman. You
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: might can do something better than me, but I can
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: cook bet yes, ma'am.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, we cook. We definitely cold. You can definitely
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: get something to eat at the designer.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Of your house.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: If you want to donate to the Exonay Home, go
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: to x Dash Freedom Studio dot org. You'll find that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: link in our bio, along with other ways to help
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: support Charles. Next time un Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Amelia byrd did you ever ask Chad to kill your parents?
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: I wanted my gradually by mam alone and me alone
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: by Idie William Dad.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: support your local innocence organizations and go to the links
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: in our bio to see how you can help I'd
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: like to thank our executive producers, Jason Flamm and Kevin Wordis,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: as well as our senior producer, Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at Wrong Conviction, as
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: well as at Lava for Good.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: On all three platforms, you.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter at
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal come
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Phony Number one