Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #063 Jason Flom and Ron Kuby with Shabaka Shakur

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#063 Jason Flom and Ron Kuby with Shabaka Shakur · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't
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Speaker 1: even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 1: I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
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Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going to happen, but I
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Speaker 2: do know that everything was stacked against me.
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Speaker 1: Everything like everything.
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Speaker 3: This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I
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Speaker 3: know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do
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Speaker 3: with this. How is this possible?
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Speaker 4: I grew up trusting systems. I've grew up believing that
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Speaker 4: every human being should do the right thing. And that's why,
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Speaker 4: even though I knew I was dealing with corp people,
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Speaker 4: I wasn't going to break anyone to get me out
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Speaker 4: of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that
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Speaker 4: I break my way out of my wife's death.
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Speaker 1: I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I
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Speaker 1: prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
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Speaker 1: Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it has
0:53
Speaker 1: come a little ways, but it's still broken.
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Speaker 4: I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
1:02
Speaker 5: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with
1:18
Speaker 5: Jason flamm that's me and today we have a very
1:24
Speaker 5: interesting and unusual show planned for you. Our two guests
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Speaker 5: today are Shabaka Shakur, who served twenty seven years in
1:32
Speaker 5: prison for a double murder that he had nothing to
1:35
Speaker 5: do with. And Chabaca. Welcome to the show.
1:39
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for having me.
1:41
Speaker 5: And with him is his attorney, who has had a
1:46
Speaker 5: very colorful history, to say the least. It's been involved
1:50
Speaker 5: in some of the most controversial and interesting cases of
1:53
Speaker 5: the last generation. And I'm really excited to hear from
1:59
Speaker 5: you today. Ron Kooby, welcome to the show.
2:01
Speaker 6: Thank you.
2:02
Speaker 5: Jason, Ponytail and all still there. He's still a hippy.
2:05
Speaker 5: It's unbelievable. We got Ron who's got as much hair
2:10
Speaker 5: as you can imagine, and Chabacca who's got absolutely none.
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Speaker 5: So I'm just giving everybody a visual, so thank you.
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Speaker 5: I want to mention quickly the fact that you are
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Speaker 5: a TV star now right you have your own show
2:24
Speaker 5: on Stars.
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Speaker 6: I wouldn't go that far, but Stars is doing a
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Speaker 6: fantastic series called Wrong Man, directed and produced by Joe Berlinger,
2:33
Speaker 6: who had been the Paradise Loss series, and basically they
2:36
Speaker 6: take three cases of people all homicides around the country
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Speaker 6: who claim they were innocent, have done many years in prison,
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Speaker 6: and they put resources into the case. They hire me
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Speaker 6: detective's former States attorney, Detroit homicide detective, FBI cold case consultant,
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Speaker 6: and they have us reinvestigate these cases scratch.
3:00
Speaker 5: So they're doing this right.
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Speaker 6: They're absolutely right. They're providing the resources that defense lawyers
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Speaker 6: didn't have originally and most of us don't have now
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Speaker 6: to go through the case from the beginning and to
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Speaker 6: determine whether or not it indeed is the wrong Man.
3:16
Speaker 6: Six episodes, three cases, One Question, Wrong Man on Stars
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Speaker 6: every Sunday night at nine pm and available for downloading
3:25
Speaker 6: on these Stars.
3:26
Speaker 5: App All right. Shout out to Jeff Hirsch, my friend
3:29
Speaker 5: at Stars, and the whole crew and Joanna who's here.
3:32
Speaker 5: That's the show that I'm going to be watching and
3:34
Speaker 5: I hope everyone else will too, and I'm looking forward
3:37
Speaker 5: to learning more about these cases. Thanks Shebaka. This story
3:44
Speaker 5: is as terrifying as it is typical. And what I
3:49
Speaker 5: mean by that, and we'll get into it, is that
3:51
Speaker 5: you were a victim of someone who was detective who
3:54
Speaker 5: was one of the most notorious detectives in terms of
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Speaker 5: framing people in the history of our country, the world.
4:01
Speaker 5: It's a very dubious distinction, and we'll get into all
4:04
Speaker 5: of that, but let's go back to the beginning. Did
4:10
Speaker 5: you grow up in Brooklyn?
4:11
Speaker 2: Yes, I was born and raised in Brooklyn, lived most
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Speaker 2: of my earlier life in Brownsville and Bedford Stuvestant areas
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Speaker 2: of Brooklyn.
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Speaker 5: And Shabaka Shakur is not your birth name.
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Speaker 1: No, I was named after my father, Lou Holmes.
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Speaker 5: But going back to your childhood, so did you have
4:34
Speaker 5: a traditional family situation. Was it a crazy neighborhood you
4:38
Speaker 5: grew up in? Can you paint the picture, because this
4:39
Speaker 5: was crazy times when you were growing up.
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Speaker 1: Yes, well, I lived in browns but I lived in
4:43
Speaker 1: the projects.
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Speaker 2: I grew up in the projects, lived in the projects
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Speaker 2: mostly all my life. But I did have both my
4:50
Speaker 2: mother and my father. You know, we lived in a
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Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't a single parent house or the
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Speaker 2: normal you know routine that they try to say. I
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Speaker 2: had parents, I went to good schools, have brothers and sisters.
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Speaker 1: We were a solid family.
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Speaker 5: So you grew up around this environment that's you know,
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Speaker 5: well known to anyone who's you know, familiar with New York.
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Speaker 5: And it's interesting because the time we live in now,
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Speaker 5: you know, contrary to what people would have you believe,
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Speaker 5: is a we're hitting historic lows in terms of crime rates.
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Speaker 5: And I think that back then we were probably pretty
5:29
Speaker 5: close to the high I'm a New Yorker born and bred,
5:32
Speaker 5: so I remember it was, you know, it was well
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Speaker 5: known that this stuff was. It was crazy in those times.
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Speaker 5: And then one day in nineteen eighty eight, everything went haywire.
5:47
Speaker 5: Your world got turned well, got turned completely upside down
5:50
Speaker 5: sometime between eighty eight and eighty nine, right when you
5:53
Speaker 5: were wrongfully convicted. But in nineteen eighty eight, there was
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Speaker 5: a double murder in your neighborhood. And it was a
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Speaker 5: couple guys that you knew right right.
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Speaker 2: It was guys that I had known them for almost
6:04
Speaker 2: a decade. I had went to school with one of them,
6:07
Speaker 2: but I knew both of them. They were close friends
6:09
Speaker 2: who hung out all together, so I met one through
6:11
Speaker 2: the other. But Stephen Hewitt was a guy that I
6:15
Speaker 2: went to high school with, and I knew him from
6:19
Speaker 2: my first year in high school and we went through
6:21
Speaker 2: high school together. And Fitzgerald Clark what we called c
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Speaker 2: was Steven's best friend and they lived in Flatbush, but
6:30
Speaker 2: we went to school downtown for a green area, and
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Speaker 2: we knew each other, so we hung out during school
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Speaker 2: and even after school.
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Speaker 1: They were they were close friends of.
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Speaker 5: Mines and they were they were in the game. They
6:43
Speaker 5: were yeah, drug game.
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Speaker 1: They were drug dealers. Uh.
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Speaker 2: At the time that we're talking about, this was during
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Speaker 2: the crack academic So not only was it high in crime,
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Speaker 2: but you know, the city was being devastated by crack
6:59
Speaker 2: and there was a call for aggressive police because with
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Speaker 2: crack came not only the destruction of people physically from
7:12
Speaker 2: the drug, but also an increase of violence. You know,
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Speaker 2: Crack was one of the most lucrative drug trades at
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Speaker 2: the time, and people were killing for neighborhoods, you know.
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Speaker 5: Right. And it's interesting when we're going back to this
7:26
Speaker 5: because I've spent you know, twenty five years working to
7:29
Speaker 5: decriminalize drugs and you know, restore some sanity to our
7:33
Speaker 5: drug policy. And the only distinction I want to make
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Speaker 5: there is that crack didn't make people violent. The money
7:40
Speaker 5: made people violence, right. They people who were committing the
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Speaker 5: violence weren't high, they were they were they were ones
7:45
Speaker 5: who weren't high. They were ones who wanted to get
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Speaker 5: everybody else high, and they were competing and fighting and
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Speaker 5: killing for the right to have that that income stream.
7:53
Speaker 5: So I just want to make that clear to our
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Speaker 5: audience who may not be as familiar, since it shows,
7:59
Speaker 5: you know, we don't spend a lot of time talking
8:00
Speaker 5: about drugs. But that being said, so these two guys
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Speaker 5: get murdered in what seems like it was a drug hit, right, yes,
8:09
Speaker 5: And how did they end up focusing on you? You know?
8:14
Speaker 5: Was it just laziness? Was it?
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Speaker 2: Well, it was it was partly laziness and it was partly,
8:23
Speaker 2: I would say, a tunnel vision by the police. Once
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Speaker 2: I became a suspect, they they zeroed in on me
8:31
Speaker 2: and they ignored everything else. So I knew these guys
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Speaker 2: and we had a really close relationship. So at that
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Speaker 2: time I had driven one of them over to the
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Speaker 2: block where we were selling drugs and Gates Avenue and
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Speaker 2: in the Busherk section of Brooklyn, and we was having
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Speaker 2: a conversation about a car. So I was trying to
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Speaker 2: sell them my car because at the time I was
9:01
Speaker 2: working in Queen's Queen's County Register's department, and I was
9:05
Speaker 2: trying to have a more calm life when I at
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Speaker 2: one point, to be honest with you, I was selling
9:12
Speaker 2: drugs with them. You know what I'm saying. I needed money.
9:16
Speaker 2: They they you know, came to me. They said, listen,
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Speaker 2: help us out with this, and I made runs. I
9:23
Speaker 2: did errane. I did do the work for them to
9:26
Speaker 2: make money for myself. But it got to the point
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Speaker 2: where I had a decent job. I really didn't want
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Speaker 2: to do it no more. I didn't want to take
9:33
Speaker 2: a chance on going to prison, so I was backing
9:35
Speaker 2: away from that. But I still had a good report
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Speaker 2: with them, So I went around there. I had met
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Speaker 2: a girl that I was dealing with that lived in
9:43
Speaker 2: that neighborhood, so I went around there to where the
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Speaker 2: drug spot was. Their brother who didn't live in New York,
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Speaker 2: who actually lived in Florida. He was the brother of
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Speaker 2: Fitzgerald Clark, the guy that we used to call See and.
10:00
Speaker 1: He was the older brother. He didn't know us, he
10:03
Speaker 1: didn't know me.
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Speaker 2: He had just barely he had just met us because
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Speaker 2: he didn't live in New York. And he started becoming
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Speaker 2: involved in their drug trade, bringing drugs from Florida to
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Speaker 2: New York. So this is like one of the few
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Speaker 2: interactions that he had with with me personally. That night,
10:25
Speaker 2: me and Steve had made an agreement about the car.
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Speaker 2: He wanted to buy my car. He was gonna give
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Speaker 2: me a certain amount of money. He wanted to give
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Speaker 2: me some money from their drug spot that night and
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Speaker 2: then owe me the rest. See who was his friend
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Speaker 2: and mins, But we used to always argue. We we just
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Speaker 2: had that type of relationship where we was always arguing
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Speaker 2: about everything, but not a violent relationship or aggressive relationship
10:51
Speaker 2: to each other. We just grew up together and we
10:54
Speaker 2: was always on opposite sides of everything. So me and
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Speaker 2: him were arguing about the car, and SE's brother witnessed
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Speaker 2: this argument. So later on, when she and Stephen were murdered,
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Speaker 2: his brother, recalling that I was arguing with his brother,
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Speaker 2: went to the police and implicated me in the murder,
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Speaker 2: and the police.
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Speaker 1: Arrested me, came and get me to take me to
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Speaker 1: the priest and to question me.
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Speaker 2: I answered all the questions, told him where I was,
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Speaker 2: told him I wasn't nowhere in Brooklyn at that time,
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Speaker 2: explained to him the whole situation. Gave him the name
11:38
Speaker 2: of alibi witnesses that they could contact right there. They
11:41
Speaker 2: contacted him that same night and verified my alibi. But
11:48
Speaker 2: when they went to Detective Scarsella and said, we got
11:51
Speaker 2: a guy that was pointed out by the brother of
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Speaker 2: the deceased, but the guy has an alibi and he's
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Speaker 2: saying he wasn't there, and we really don't have anything,
12:00
Speaker 2: Scarcella took it upon himself to join into the interrogation
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Speaker 2: and then fabricated a confession against.
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Speaker 5: Me, right, and that's you know, it is interesting. You know,
12:14
Speaker 5: you talk about how you had alibi witnesses, more than one.
12:19
Speaker 5: There was no physical evidence connecting you to the crime.
12:23
Speaker 5: They found the gun that was used, but it didn't
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Speaker 5: trace back to you in any way. There were no fingerprints,
12:28
Speaker 5: there was no there was nothing for them to go on.
12:30
Speaker 5: There's nothing to point the finger at you. But they
12:32
Speaker 5: didn't care. And Scarcella, people who are fans of the
12:36
Speaker 5: show listen to the show, have heard his name before
12:39
Speaker 5: because we've had other exoneries on who were framed by
12:43
Speaker 5: the same guy. And you know, Ron, this is where
12:47
Speaker 5: I want to turn to you, because you have probably
12:49
Speaker 5: as much experience as anyone in the country. Going after
12:54
Speaker 5: police who are on the wrong side of the law.
12:58
Speaker 5: So I'd love to get your take on this part
13:00
Speaker 5: of the story because obviously you have intimate knowledge of it,
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Speaker 5: as well as knowledge of the entire world of you
13:08
Speaker 5: know that that blue wall, so to speak.
13:11
Speaker 6: So I had first met Detective Scarcela in the nineteen
13:15
Speaker 6: nineties when he was still working as a detective, still
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Speaker 6: doing the things that we know now that he did,
13:23
Speaker 6: and I had cross examined him in a very high
13:26
Speaker 6: profile case, which itself is now under no This was
13:30
Speaker 6: the token booth bombing case. And he amazed me at
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Speaker 6: just how good he was at lying, how charming, how avuncular,
13:44
Speaker 6: or how we would look at the jury and bond
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Speaker 6: with them. And I knew he was lying because I
13:49
Speaker 6: knew the facts of the particular case, but it didn't matter.
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Speaker 6: People really liked Luis Scarcela. Jurys liked him, Judges loved him.
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Speaker 6: Prosecutors thought he would, you know, the greatest thing on
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Speaker 6: earth because he would literally make their cases. So I
14:05
Speaker 6: had a lot of experience with him from that time
14:08
Speaker 6: before he became famous in the public with the Rantic case.
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Speaker 6: Shabaka had written to me he had done his own
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Speaker 6: post conviction motion was all put together, and the singular
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Speaker 6: witness against him was the Scarcella confession. And this was
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Speaker 6: a remarkable confession because it was not witnessed by anybody else.
14:32
Speaker 6: Scarcella was not the case detective. There was no audio
14:36
Speaker 6: tape made, there was no video tape made, there was
14:39
Speaker 6: no signature of Sabacca's. The whole confession existed only out
14:45
Speaker 6: of Scarcella's mouth, and it was almost a stereotypical conviction.
14:49
Speaker 6: It started out, like so many of Scarcella's convictions did,
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Speaker 6: and the confessions he obtained, with a shout out to
14:56
Speaker 6: the cleverness of Scarcella. That is to say, in Shebacca's confession,
15:03
Speaker 6: Scarcella had Shabacca saying, you know what's going on, you
15:08
Speaker 6: know the story. Other cases, you got it right, I
15:13
Speaker 6: was there, I mean this that. Phrases like that come
15:17
Speaker 6: up in close to a dozen different cases. So the
15:20
Speaker 6: confession always starts out with congratulations, mister detective, you're such
15:25
Speaker 6: a smart guy.
15:26
Speaker 5: You got me.
15:28
Speaker 6: And in this case there was no corroboration, which is
15:33
Speaker 6: unheard of, especially since Scarcella was not even the case detective.
15:37
Speaker 6: The case detective questioned Sheabaka for hours and all he
15:40
Speaker 6: got was Shabacca's alibi, which by the way, proved to
15:44
Speaker 6: be completely correct. Eventually get him out of prison. Eventually
15:47
Speaker 6: comes you know, twenty eight years later though, And so
15:50
Speaker 6: Scarcella walks into the cell and then walks out twenty
15:55
Speaker 6: minutes later with this confession and didn't even call the
15:58
Speaker 6: case detective and say, hey, hey, hey, detective, Mahoney, come
16:02
Speaker 6: on in. This guy's got something to say. Nothing. It's
16:05
Speaker 6: the only place this confession occurred. And the paperwork showed
16:12
Speaker 6: that Scarcelo really wanted Mahoney, who was the case detective,
16:15
Speaker 6: to take responsibility for the confession. He was willing to
16:18
Speaker 6: give it up. Mahoney could say that he got it.
16:20
Speaker 6: Mahoney didn't trust it, so Mahoney wrote the statement down
16:25
Speaker 6: but never attributed to anybody in any fashion, and that,
16:29
Speaker 6: you know what we call the orphan statement, Like Mahoney
16:32
Speaker 6: could remember where it came from. Who said that he
16:34
Speaker 6: knows that Shebacca didn't say that to him, And that
16:38
Speaker 6: was the key piece of evidence that got Shebacca convicted.
16:41
Speaker 5: Let's go back to that conviction, because you were arrested,
16:47
Speaker 5: I'm assuming on that day after Scarcela came in and
16:51
Speaker 5: magically produced this confession in twenty minutes that this other
16:55
Speaker 5: experienced detective couldn't get from you in hours and hours
16:57
Speaker 5: of questioning.
16:58
Speaker 2: Well, I was The murder happened one night. The next day,
17:02
Speaker 2: I was at work and they came to get me
17:06
Speaker 2: at work to tell me that they wanted to take
17:08
Speaker 2: me to the preescint to ask me questions. Now, of
17:12
Speaker 2: course I didn't know about the murder at the time,
17:15
Speaker 2: so I went to the precinct and I answered the
17:18
Speaker 2: questions because I didn't know what was going on. They
17:20
Speaker 2: didn't take take me to the priest and say, oh,
17:23
Speaker 2: we want to talk to you about a murder. They
17:25
Speaker 2: just said we want to ask you some questions about
17:26
Speaker 2: where you were last night. So I'm answering the questions
17:32
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to get in trouble.
17:33
Speaker 5: Were you thinking that they knew something about your past
17:35
Speaker 5: drug stuff or.
17:38
Speaker 2: On the way to the preescint, one of the cops
17:40
Speaker 2: asked me if I owned a green BMW, which I
17:44
Speaker 2: did right, So that was the car that I had
17:48
Speaker 2: given to Steve the night before. So I knew who
17:52
Speaker 2: had the car, and I know that they were drug dealers.
17:55
Speaker 2: So in my mind, I'm thinking, did they get caught
17:58
Speaker 2: with drugs in the car? And now it's coming back
18:00
Speaker 2: to me, you know, I'm trying to figure out what
18:02
Speaker 2: it is, but I don't want to lie. So I'm
18:06
Speaker 2: going to the priests, and when they're asking me, do
18:07
Speaker 2: you know these guys, I'm saying, yeah, I know these guys.
18:10
Speaker 2: Is this your car? I'm saying, yeah, that is my car.
18:14
Speaker 2: But I didn't have my car last night. I wasn't
18:16
Speaker 2: with them last night. I was in Queen's. I was
18:20
Speaker 2: with this person. I was with that person. So I
18:23
Speaker 2: didn't want to lie, but I'm telling them exactly where
18:26
Speaker 2: I'm at so that they would realize that whatever happened,
18:29
Speaker 2: I wasn't involved.
18:31
Speaker 1: It wasn't until the.
18:32
Speaker 2: End of nearly nearing the end of that conversation with
18:37
Speaker 2: Detective Mahoney that he tells me about their murders. So
18:40
Speaker 2: now I'm like, Okay, I don't know nothing about that.
18:44
Speaker 2: I had nothing to do with nobody being murdered. I
18:47
Speaker 2: already told you where I was, and that was the
18:50
Speaker 2: gist of my conversation with Detective Mahoney. I had no
18:54
Speaker 2: previous knowledge prior to him telling me about what was
18:57
Speaker 2: going on when detectives Scott Sella came in, like Ron said,
19:02
Speaker 2: he had nothing to do with my case. He wasn't
19:04
Speaker 2: assigned to my case. He was just in the prisint
19:09
Speaker 2: And when he came in, they came to him and said, look,
19:14
Speaker 2: we got a guy who was saying he wasn't there,
19:17
Speaker 2: but he's the only suspect that we have.
19:20
Speaker 1: And remember I was like, I got this, I'll take
19:22
Speaker 1: care of this, right, And that's exactly.
19:23
Speaker 5: What he did.
19:24
Speaker 1: He came in and he said, okay.
19:25
Speaker 2: I got it, I'll handle this, and he came in
19:28
Speaker 2: there to talk to me. But as soon as he
19:31
Speaker 2: came in there, he came in there aggressively accusing me.
19:36
Speaker 2: I know you did it. I know who you are.
19:38
Speaker 2: You were selling drugs with these guys. These guys are
19:40
Speaker 2: drug dealers, all of y'all involved. You murdered them so
19:45
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't have to share the block with them
19:48
Speaker 2: or whatever.
19:49
Speaker 1: Right. So I looked at him and I said, you
19:51
Speaker 1: know why, I don't even want.
19:52
Speaker 2: To talk to you, you know, and he got aggressive,
19:55
Speaker 2: started banging on the table. I'm trying to help you,
19:58
Speaker 2: but instead you're going to go up north for a
20:01
Speaker 2: long time.
20:02
Speaker 1: You're going to go down for these murders.
20:04
Speaker 2: So I was telling them, you know, very politely, go
20:10
Speaker 2: f yourself because I didn't want to deal with that,
20:13
Speaker 2: and he left. At that point, I had no idea
20:18
Speaker 2: that he was going to fabricate a confession. I thought
20:21
Speaker 2: that was the end of the conversation. I didn't even
20:24
Speaker 2: know about the confession until I was arrested and I
20:29
Speaker 2: was given a quarter pointed attorney and the quarter point
20:33
Speaker 2: attorney tells me, you confessed, And I said, are you crazy?
20:37
Speaker 2: I didn't confess. I told the people where I was,
20:39
Speaker 2: I gave them the alibi witnesses. They verified my alibi witnesses,
20:43
Speaker 2: and the quarter pointed said, yeah, that's what you told
20:45
Speaker 2: this detective, but you confessed to the other detective. And
20:49
Speaker 2: that's when I realized that this guy had fabricated a confession.
20:53
Speaker 5: And this is an important time to mention that the
20:55
Speaker 5: confession is the most powerful evidence that there can be.
21:01
Speaker 5: It's really hard for any jury or jurist or juror,
21:06
Speaker 5: I should say, it's hard for any juror to understand
21:09
Speaker 5: why someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit.
21:12
Speaker 5: And you know, as people listen to the show and
21:15
Speaker 5: they hear these stories over and over again, they start
21:17
Speaker 5: to understand many cases are coerse confessions. In your case,
21:20
Speaker 5: there was no confession. And let's not forget this. Scarcella
21:22
Speaker 5: was a guy who used the same witness in six
21:26
Speaker 5: different murder cases, who was a drug addict, part time prostitute.
21:30
Speaker 5: I think who he was supplying with drugs and was
21:33
Speaker 5: you know? And he was so lucky that she having
21:36
Speaker 5: no witness six different murders. I mean, that's kind of
21:38
Speaker 5: a miracle. I do want to take this opportunity because
21:55
Speaker 5: Ron's here too, and maybe he can ask me this.
21:58
Speaker 5: But I often tell people on the show, and Shabaka
22:03
Speaker 5: would have benefited from this advice. I think right that
22:05
Speaker 5: if you get arrested for something you didn't do, and
22:08
Speaker 5: you get taken in the only thing you should say
22:12
Speaker 5: is your name, your address and I want a lawyer.
22:15
Speaker 5: Would you agree with that without a doubt?
22:17
Speaker 6: And whenever I debate with cops about this, I always say,
22:21
Speaker 6: let me ask you this. If your son called you
22:25
Speaker 6: from a precinct and said, Dad, I've just been arrested.
22:28
Speaker 6: What should I do? What are you going to tell?
22:30
Speaker 6: And the cops invariably say I said, don't say anything,
22:33
Speaker 6: We'll get you a lawyer. Don't say we're without a lawyer.
22:36
Speaker 6: And we know that's true. Now, Shabaka had some experience
22:39
Speaker 6: in the criminal justice system, so and he knew he
22:43
Speaker 6: didn't do anything, so he felt comfortable giving his alibi,
22:48
Speaker 6: which was ultimately born out decades later, and he felt
22:53
Speaker 6: comfortable telling Scarcela, get the f out of here, I'm
22:56
Speaker 6: not going to talk to you. What nobody anticipated was
23:00
Speaker 6: that Scarcella would simply make up a confession. So you've
23:06
Speaker 6: got the made up confession. You have the brother of
23:10
Speaker 6: the dead guy, originally telling a muddled story but thinking
23:15
Speaker 6: Schabacca was involved. But through a period of time with Scarcela,
23:18
Speaker 6: his story.
23:19
Speaker 7: Changes, evolves, morphs, until he saw Shabaka shoot both of them,
23:27
Speaker 7: you know, one in the back and another in the
23:29
Speaker 7: back as he was running things that he could not
23:31
Speaker 7: have seen because physically impossible.
23:34
Speaker 6: Because he wasn't there, well he wasn't there, had he
23:37
Speaker 6: been there, just the location of the bodies was all wrong.
23:41
Speaker 6: But okay, so now you've got your eyewitness kind of,
23:45
Speaker 6: you've got your confession, not really, and you stop looking
23:50
Speaker 6: for anybody else now had they spent all another day
23:54
Speaker 6: or two, they would have discovered that one of the
23:57
Speaker 6: guys who got made dead at night had been the
24:02
Speaker 6: subject of a previous murder attempt just two months earlier
24:07
Speaker 6: by the Rankers.
24:09
Speaker 1: Actually both of.
24:10
Speaker 6: Them, right yeah, both of them, right right, yes, yes.
24:12
Speaker 5: Steve, Okay, let's just pass this. So this one came
24:15
Speaker 5: with instructions, right right.
24:17
Speaker 6: Right right, It's like, Okay, they missed the first time.
24:20
Speaker 6: I mean, they shot up the club, but they missed
24:22
Speaker 6: the guys the first time. So and everybody knew it
24:26
Speaker 6: was the Rankers, which is a Jamaican drug dealing group,
24:29
Speaker 6: particularly violent even by the standards of the time, and
24:33
Speaker 6: they're not sort of forgiven for that kind of people.
24:35
Speaker 6: They weren't like, oh okay, well we missed them the
24:37
Speaker 6: first time. We'll give you a pass. There was every
24:40
Speaker 6: reason to think that they had fallen into conflict with
24:42
Speaker 6: the Rankers over drug turf and that that's what this
24:46
Speaker 6: murder was, but nobody cared at the time. I will
24:50
Speaker 6: note that they continued to look at the Rankers after
24:54
Speaker 6: Shabaka was convicted. After he was convicted, given his forty
24:57
Speaker 6: life and sent up state, there was still other detectives
25:01
Speaker 6: who weren't entirely comfortable and were pursuing those leads which
25:04
Speaker 6: ultimately went nowhere. But had they done it at the beginning,
25:07
Speaker 6: this whole thing would have been different.
25:09
Speaker 8: Like Ron said, the the confession, the alleged confession, nobody,
25:17
Speaker 8: nobody would have predicted that, you know what I'm saying.
25:22
Speaker 2: It was It was just beyond my thinking that this
25:26
Speaker 2: guy was going to say that I confess to something.
25:30
Speaker 2: The situation around it was suspicious from the get go
25:35
Speaker 2: because you're in a precinct with at least thirty forty
25:38
Speaker 2: police officers and not one, not one police officer heard
25:43
Speaker 2: the confession. Right, There's no notes, there's no there's nothing,
25:48
Speaker 2: there's no proof of it. There's no you know, anytime
25:51
Speaker 2: you take a confession, anytime you see a police officer
25:54
Speaker 2: interview anybody, they write it down. There was nothing written there.
25:58
Speaker 2: There was no signing of the confession. They didn't even
26:01
Speaker 2: call the prosecutor and say this guy just confessed. They
26:04
Speaker 2: didn't take a video tape. There was absolutely no proof
26:08
Speaker 2: of a confession other than that Detective Scartsella just saying
26:13
Speaker 2: it out of his mouth. Even though we're in a
26:15
Speaker 2: priestinct full of people, so there was no proof that
26:17
Speaker 2: a confession ever existed. Now what Ron said about the
26:24
Speaker 2: previous attack on these people. Two months prior to that,
26:28
Speaker 2: there was an attempt on both of these same guys.
26:31
Speaker 2: So what's the odds that somebody tries to kill two
26:34
Speaker 2: guys and then two months later those same two guys
26:37
Speaker 2: actually get killed.
26:39
Speaker 5: It must have been really unpopular.
26:41
Speaker 6: I mean, look, it's happened, but those would be the
26:46
Speaker 6: likely suspects to begin with. So so what you have here, Okay,
26:51
Speaker 6: you've got a bad detective, no question about it, but
26:55
Speaker 6: he's not the only person involved. You have an allegedly
26:58
Speaker 6: not bad detective, the actual case detective, who does nothing.
27:02
Speaker 6: You have a prosecutor who decides to go ahead and
27:07
Speaker 6: believe this stuff or at least put it in front
27:10
Speaker 6: of the jury. You have a judge who who has
27:13
Speaker 6: seen Scarcella before and will see Scarcella again and allows
27:19
Speaker 6: this whole case to go forward. And ultimately you have
27:22
Speaker 6: a jury that has never seen Scarcela before. But gosh,
27:25
Speaker 6: you know, he seems like a much you know that dude.
27:29
Speaker 6: Then the black guy here and convicts, and appeals court
27:33
Speaker 6: after appeals court after Appeals Court affirms. And this has
27:37
Speaker 6: been the pattern, not just in Schabacca's case, but in
27:42
Speaker 6: over a dozen other cases that this detective got involved in.
27:46
Speaker 5: And I want to point out that the only winners
27:48
Speaker 5: in this scenario were the rankers, right, which is, uh,
27:53
Speaker 5: society loses obviously, Sabacca gets his life taken away from
27:58
Speaker 5: or you know, most of it, and you know, the
28:02
Speaker 5: victims don't get justice, and these guys are free to
28:06
Speaker 5: go out there and shoot the next guy that crosses
28:08
Speaker 5: their path.
28:09
Speaker 2: Those guys actually ended up going to federal prisident for
28:13
Speaker 2: I believe, like twelve different murders. But the amazing thing
28:18
Speaker 2: is that how they discover this. One of the guys
28:23
Speaker 2: in my case, Fitzgerald Clark, had got arrested in a
28:27
Speaker 2: shootout with a machine gun against the Rinkers during that
28:31
Speaker 2: previous attempt. So when he ends up dead from the
28:35
Speaker 2: case that I'm in jail for, he has an open
28:38
Speaker 2: case that he doesn't show up for. When he doesn't
28:41
Speaker 2: show up, the judge acts is, okay, where is he at?
28:44
Speaker 2: So the family has to go and say, oh, he's dead.
28:46
Speaker 2: He's no longer alive. So the judge actses for well,
28:50
Speaker 2: let me see some type of proof. You can't just
28:51
Speaker 2: come in here and say he's dead. So the proof
28:54
Speaker 2: that they give him was the death certificate in my case.
28:58
Speaker 2: So at that point, the District Attorney's office has connected
29:02
Speaker 2: the two cases.
29:04
Speaker 1: Right, They know that this guy had.
29:06
Speaker 2: A previous attempt on him and then he's dead. They
29:08
Speaker 2: know who did the previous attempt. Yet their tunnel vision
29:12
Speaker 2: prevented them from investigating that this is a suspect. You know,
29:17
Speaker 2: here's a story that the brother's saying, Oh, this guy
29:20
Speaker 2: had arguing with my brother.
29:21
Speaker 1: But here's a guy who here's.
29:23
Speaker 2: Some guys who actually attempted to kill him just recently.
29:27
Speaker 1: So their suspects.
29:29
Speaker 2: But because of the tunnel vision or the police and
29:31
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, they ignored that evidence. If they had searched
29:35
Speaker 2: just a little bit, they would have found out that
29:39
Speaker 2: the attorney who bailed out Fitzgerald Clark, the guy who
29:44
Speaker 2: got killed in my case, was the same attorney who
29:48
Speaker 2: worked for the Rankers who got disbarred for fraud in
29:52
Speaker 2: working with the Rankers in fraudulent paperwork that he did
29:55
Speaker 2: for them. Like, the connections are all there.
29:57
Speaker 6: So there was a lot of stuff there that could
30:00
Speaker 6: have been investigated that should have been investigated, but Scarcella,
30:06
Speaker 6: like so many of his colleagues, decided to short circuit
30:09
Speaker 6: this entire process because he was convinced Shebaca was guilty.
30:14
Speaker 6: I have actually never known accoup who went out and
30:18
Speaker 6: deliberately framed a person who he knew was innocence, planted
30:23
Speaker 6: evidence and somebody he believed to be innocent, or lied
30:25
Speaker 6: about a person he believed to be innocent uniformly. Uniformly,
30:28
Speaker 6: when the police engage in this kind of activity, it's
30:31
Speaker 6: because they think the person is guilty, and that guilty
30:34
Speaker 6: person they think is going to get off because there's
30:37
Speaker 6: not enough evidence against him. So it falls to the
30:41
Speaker 6: Scarcellas of the world, of whom there were many and
30:45
Speaker 6: remain many. He was just better at it than anybody else.
30:47
Speaker 6: It falls to them to put some extra frosting on
30:51
Speaker 6: the cake to make sure that the guilty guy gets convicted.
30:56
Speaker 5: Stay tuned, will be right back. So you go to
31:03
Speaker 5: trial with your public defender having been held in jail.
31:07
Speaker 5: I'm assuming pre trial for what for about a year?
31:11
Speaker 1: For I think it was fourteen months.
31:14
Speaker 5: Did you how first of all, how long was the trial?
31:16
Speaker 1: The trial was like two days, a day and a
31:18
Speaker 1: half something like that.
31:20
Speaker 5: That's a pretty question.
31:24
Speaker 1: You don't have any evidence, right, you.
31:26
Speaker 5: Have your alibi witnesses, and they if they.
31:29
Speaker 1: Were never caught.
31:30
Speaker 2: What happened was I had a public defender who did
31:37
Speaker 2: not believe I was innocent, and like you said, he
31:42
Speaker 2: just like most people thought, this guy confessed he's guilty.
31:45
Speaker 2: So he came to me and tried to say and
31:48
Speaker 2: told me I'm going to get you a good plea.
31:50
Speaker 2: And I told him I don't want to plea. I'm
31:53
Speaker 2: going to go to trial. I didn't commit this murder.
31:56
Speaker 2: And he said, listen, you can't win a trial. I'm
31:59
Speaker 2: going to get your good plead. So he never investigated
32:03
Speaker 2: my case at all. I wrote to the judge. Six
32:07
Speaker 2: months in, I wrote to the judge and told the judge, listen,
32:12
Speaker 2: I need a new lawyer. This guy does not believe
32:14
Speaker 2: him in his saying, he's not doing any investigative work.
32:17
Speaker 2: He's not going to be able to prove my innocence.
32:20
Speaker 2: The judge ignored it. Six months later, a year in,
32:25
Speaker 2: I write to the judge again and file of motion
32:28
Speaker 2: to have him dismissed as my as my attorney because
32:32
Speaker 2: he's done no investigation. I've given him the name of
32:34
Speaker 2: alibi witnesses. I've given him everything that I can give him.
32:38
Speaker 2: You know, I've told him people that I remember that
32:41
Speaker 2: live on that block who he could go.
32:44
Speaker 1: Interview. He does none of this.
32:46
Speaker 2: So right before I'm getting ready to go to trial,
32:48
Speaker 2: I go back to the judge, and the judge on
32:51
Speaker 2: record tells me I'm not going to get rid of
32:54
Speaker 2: your lawyer. Now you're getting ready to start trial. But
32:58
Speaker 2: I'm telling the judge he he hasn't investigated anything. Today
33:03
Speaker 2: I start trial, I have to write a summary of
33:07
Speaker 2: the facts because he didn't even know the facts of
33:09
Speaker 2: the case.
33:10
Speaker 5: Did he ever visit you in jail?
33:12
Speaker 1: He never visited me.
33:13
Speaker 2: He after court court dates, he would go in the
33:17
Speaker 2: back and talk to me and we would argue because
33:20
Speaker 2: I told him, you're not investigating. I'm innocent. He tried
33:24
Speaker 2: to get me to take a plea. When I wouldn't
33:28
Speaker 2: take the plea, and I kept pushing.
33:30
Speaker 1: To go to trial. He said, Okay, we're going to
33:32
Speaker 1: go to trial.
33:33
Speaker 2: Like I said, I had to write him a summary
33:34
Speaker 2: of the facts because he didn't know the facts of
33:36
Speaker 2: my case. We went to trial and he did terrible
33:40
Speaker 2: because he hadn't he hadn't investigated, he hadn't talked to
33:43
Speaker 2: none of the alibi witnesses.
33:45
Speaker 1: I had to get on the phone and call one
33:47
Speaker 1: of my alibi.
33:48
Speaker 2: Witnesses and tell him come to court because the lawyer
33:52
Speaker 2: had never reached out to her.
33:54
Speaker 1: And she came to court.
33:56
Speaker 2: And when she came to court, she stepped in the
33:58
Speaker 2: courtroom and told basically the judge, I'm the alibi witnesses. No,
34:04
Speaker 2: and he still did not use the alibi witness at try.
34:07
Speaker 5: I've heard that story more times than I would like
34:09
Speaker 5: to have heard it.
34:10
Speaker 6: So take a quick pause here. What are the elements
34:13
Speaker 6: we have so far? We have a corrupt detective. We
34:17
Speaker 6: have a system that believes Shakur is guilty and is
34:22
Speaker 6: not looking at any other suspects. We have a prosecutor
34:25
Speaker 6: who's more than willing to put a highly dubious story
34:29
Speaker 6: before a jury, and we have a judge who's willing
34:31
Speaker 6: to allow it. And now sort of the last piece
34:34
Speaker 6: of this is in place an utterly incompetent defense lawyer
34:39
Speaker 6: who not only doesn't believe his client is innocent, but
34:43
Speaker 6: is unwilling to even prepare a defense for the client
34:47
Speaker 6: he believes is guilty. All he wants is a plea.
34:49
Speaker 6: He hasn't done any work, he's underpaid, and just doesn't care.
34:54
Speaker 6: So this is the storm.
34:56
Speaker 5: And I was going to say that if you didn't already.
34:57
Speaker 5: I mean, the worst part of it, really, the most
35:00
Speaker 5: excusable part, is that he doesn't care. I mean, you know,
35:05
Speaker 5: he's sitting there and I think everyone listening is probably
35:09
Speaker 5: feeling the same way. I'm feeling that the feeling of
35:13
Speaker 5: helplessness that you must have had as a person who's
35:17
Speaker 5: literally facing spending the rest of your life in prison
35:22
Speaker 5: and nobody's helping you.
35:23
Speaker 2: That that word is exactly how I felt helpless because
35:28
Speaker 2: I brought it to the judge's attention and the judge said, no,
35:33
Speaker 2: you have to go on with this attorney, even though
35:36
Speaker 2: I'm telling the judge he's not doing anything. He's not
35:40
Speaker 2: investigating the case. He hasn't spoken to any of the witnesses.
35:43
Speaker 2: There are gaping holes in this story, right. The brother
35:48
Speaker 2: of fitz Gerald Clark, his initial statement to the police
35:53
Speaker 2: was I know who did this, right, He never said
35:57
Speaker 2: I saw it. And then in his statement that night
36:03
Speaker 2: in the precinct, when he did speak in detail to
36:06
Speaker 2: the police. He still didn't say he saw me commit
36:09
Speaker 2: the crime. A year later, he's not saying, oh I
36:12
Speaker 2: know who did this because he had an argument.
36:14
Speaker 1: He's saying, I actually saw the murder.
36:17
Speaker 2: I seen Shebacca sneak up behind my brother and shoot
36:21
Speaker 2: my brother twice in the back.
36:23
Speaker 5: Amazing how the memory comes back. Here's the thing.
36:26
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.
36:28
Speaker 2: His brother died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
36:33
Speaker 2: So the account that he gave a trial didn't even match.
36:38
Speaker 1: The ballistics or the autopsy or anything.
36:41
Speaker 5: It wasn't even close.
36:42
Speaker 6: No, right, And after we got the case and we
36:45
Speaker 6: did some reinvestigation. I mean this, the witness had long
36:49
Speaker 6: since died, but we did speak to his brother, and
36:54
Speaker 6: his brother was convinced that he was convinced that Shabak
36:58
Speaker 6: had done it. It's not though he got on the
37:01
Speaker 6: witness stand deciding to implicate somebody he thought was innocent.
37:06
Speaker 6: He got on the witness stand with the encouragement of
37:09
Speaker 6: Scarsella and the district attorney and the judge and embellished
37:14
Speaker 6: a story again because he thought the guy was guilty.
37:19
Speaker 6: And if I don't tell these things the way I'm
37:23
Speaker 6: supposed to tell them this guilty guy is going to
37:25
Speaker 6: get off.
37:26
Speaker 5: So you were fucked. I mean, basically, the odds. If
37:30
Speaker 5: I was a bookie and I was watching this proceeding,
37:34
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have taken any money from anybody who wanted
37:37
Speaker 5: to bet guilty. There would have been no odds that
37:39
Speaker 5: I would have accepted because it was a lock. I mean,
37:41
Speaker 5: you were done, right. What jury is possibly going to
37:45
Speaker 5: watch that proceeding and come up with any other conclusion
37:49
Speaker 5: other than that You're getting to.
37:50
Speaker 1: Want to hear some funny.
37:51
Speaker 2: The jury took longer in deliberation than the trial. Wow,
37:56
Speaker 2: the jury took two and a half days of deliberation.
38:00
Speaker 2: The trial was only a day and a half. The
38:03
Speaker 2: jury even hearing these stories and having no defense because
38:08
Speaker 2: no alibi was presented, no defense at all, the jury
38:12
Speaker 2: had problems because they kept saying, this confession doesn't make
38:17
Speaker 2: sense and this guy's story doesn't make sense. So they
38:21
Speaker 2: took two and a half days of deliberation before they
38:27
Speaker 2: found me guilty.
38:28
Speaker 5: So they come back in and obviously they found you guilty. Yes,
38:34
Speaker 5: and that moment. Can you paint a picture of that moment?
38:38
Speaker 5: Like was the courthouse? Was it a hot day? A
38:40
Speaker 5: cold day. Well, who was there? Was it? Noisy?
38:43
Speaker 1: Was it?
38:43
Speaker 5: This? Was it?
38:44
Speaker 1: That my mother was dead?
38:47
Speaker 2: That's what I remember, because I remember turning around and
38:51
Speaker 2: looking at her, and she had tears in her eyes.
38:53
Speaker 2: And I just kept thinking to myself, like, wow, I
38:56
Speaker 2: can't believe, you know that this is actually happening. It's
39:02
Speaker 2: funny because to a certain extent, you know, even then,
39:08
Speaker 2: I considered myself like conscious, like understanding that the system
39:13
Speaker 2: doesn't work, but I still have some faith that it
39:16
Speaker 2: was gonna work. I figured they can't find me guilty.
39:20
Speaker 2: They How can somebody say they saw me shoot somebody
39:23
Speaker 2: in the back and he was never shot in the back.
39:26
Speaker 2: You know, How can somebody say, Okay, he confessed and
39:29
Speaker 2: they don't even have the confession, you know, they have
39:32
Speaker 2: nothing but his word. So all of these things was
39:36
Speaker 2: running through my mind, and I'm saying, there's no way
39:38
Speaker 2: that these guys can't realize that this is a setup.
39:44
Speaker 1: And I was praying for.
39:46
Speaker 2: The best, and then I was just praying that it
39:48
Speaker 2: would be manslaughter. And when they convicted me of murder,
39:54
Speaker 2: I remember the judge. I don't know if it was
39:57
Speaker 2: then or my senses, but I remember the judge giving
39:59
Speaker 2: me an opportunity to say something, and my lawyer basically.
40:02
Speaker 1: Saying to be remorseful, you know, And.
40:07
Speaker 2: I remember me telling the judge I started to say,
40:10
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sorry about these guys' deaths. And I
40:13
Speaker 2: remember I said, I'm sorry about these guys' deaths, but
40:18
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
40:19
Speaker 1: That's all I can say.
40:20
Speaker 2: I said, I really didn't do it, and that was
40:24
Speaker 2: all I can say it, you know, Like my lawyer
40:27
Speaker 2: was kind of like pushing me say something, be remorseful,
40:30
Speaker 2: try to, you know, but I just I was stuck
40:33
Speaker 2: because all I kept telling was I didn't do it,
40:36
Speaker 2: and that was it.
40:48
Speaker 5: You know. It's shocking to me that I don't think
40:52
Speaker 5: any maybe there's one state that has mandatory videotaping of
40:55
Speaker 5: witness statements, right, because the witnesses, as you said, can
40:59
Speaker 5: be led very easily. They can be influenced, they could
41:02
Speaker 5: be fed information, and eyewitness identification is such a tremendous factor.
41:08
Speaker 5: It's the number one cause of wrongful company.
41:10
Speaker 6: Right because even though we know how frequently witnesses eyewitnesses
41:16
Speaker 6: are wrong, even though we have a zillion studies that
41:19
Speaker 6: has shown this, when somebody gets it up there in
41:22
Speaker 6: the courtroom and looks at the defendant and points at
41:25
Speaker 6: the defendant and said, it's him. I'll never forget his
41:27
Speaker 6: face as long as he lives. People believe that, just
41:31
Speaker 6: like people believe that only guilty people make confessions, and
41:37
Speaker 6: so they believe the false confessions. They believe the bad
41:41
Speaker 6: eyewitness identification. So that's what I think people should. And obviously,
41:44
Speaker 6: if you have no forensic evidence, especially these days where
41:48
Speaker 6: you know there's DNA, there's cell phones, cell phone towers,
41:52
Speaker 6: Google searches, we all leave these electronic signatures. If all
41:56
Speaker 6: of that is kind of missing, then you should be
42:00
Speaker 6: really skeptical about this.
42:03
Speaker 5: In this country, if I was redoing the justice system,
42:07
Speaker 5: I might put in a rule that says that if
42:10
Speaker 5: there's no corroborating evidence other than a cross racial identification,
42:16
Speaker 5: the case is not going well.
42:18
Speaker 6: At least a cross racial identification of a stranger. Yeah,
42:21
Speaker 6: I mean, if it happens to be your wife or something,
42:23
Speaker 6: then that's.
42:23
Speaker 5: Right, fair enough, But that's that's not the that's not
42:26
Speaker 5: the common.
42:28
Speaker 2: Let me say also that I think that there has
42:31
Speaker 2: to be open discovery also because in my case specifically,
42:39
Speaker 2: like I said, the prosecutor knew that a previous attempt
42:42
Speaker 2: had been made on these guys. They knewice a month
42:46
Speaker 2: after my arrest, you know, so.
42:50
Speaker 1: They if they had.
42:52
Speaker 2: Turned that information over to the defense, you know, and
42:56
Speaker 2: assuming that the defense lawyer would have investigated, because he
42:59
Speaker 2: did invested anything else, but assuming that he had that information,
43:03
Speaker 2: he would investigate it.
43:04
Speaker 1: That was reasonable doubt. That's what I needed.
43:07
Speaker 6: And people don't realize that even in place like New York,
43:10
Speaker 6: which is fancied as a progressive state, we have trial
43:15
Speaker 6: by ambush. And by that I mean you don't get
43:18
Speaker 6: the witness statements against you until the day of jury selection,
43:25
Speaker 6: or maybe a day earlier, just so we don't have
43:28
Speaker 6: to disrupt jury selection. All of that material, all of
43:32
Speaker 6: the things the witnesses said they saw you do, you
43:35
Speaker 6: don't get that until your trial is just about to begin,
43:39
Speaker 6: which of course makes taking an intelligent plea impossible because
43:43
Speaker 6: you have no idea what it is they have against you.
43:45
Speaker 6: It makes investigation impossible, especially if you're innocent, you don't
43:49
Speaker 6: have any idea who the witnesses are. If you're guilty,
43:52
Speaker 6: it's easier because oh yeah, yeah, Joe and Snappy they
43:55
Speaker 6: were there. You know, I can tell you all about them,
43:57
Speaker 6: what's wrong with them. But if you're totally innocent, you
43:58
Speaker 6: have no idea who these people are, then there's no
44:01
Speaker 6: investigation that can take place.
44:03
Speaker 5: Right. Trial by ambushers dates back to hundreds of years
44:06
Speaker 5: ago in England where they used to think that, you know,
44:09
Speaker 5: this was the best way to get to the truth
44:11
Speaker 5: was by ambushing people so they wouldn't have time to
44:13
Speaker 5: get a defense together. So, Shabaka, you end up getting sentenced.
44:17
Speaker 2: To forty years two sentences of twenty to life running consecutively.
44:24
Speaker 5: Forty years life. You were twenty two years old at
44:26
Speaker 5: the time, right, so we know that when you hear
44:29
Speaker 5: these census fifteen to life, twenty to life, forty to life,
44:31
Speaker 5: it really means life unless you're willing to take a
44:34
Speaker 5: plea to something you didn't do. So because the parole
44:36
Speaker 5: board doesn't want to hear that same story you told
44:38
Speaker 5: in the courtroom, I'm innocent, I didn't do it. I'm sorry,
44:40
Speaker 5: these people are dead. Nobody wants to hear that shit.
44:42
Speaker 5: So you go to prison. Which prison were you sent to?
44:48
Speaker 1: First prison I was sent to was sing sing.
44:51
Speaker 5: And sing sing back then? Was? I mean, it's still
44:54
Speaker 5: a very intimidating place just to visit, and to go
44:59
Speaker 5: there as young man at twenty two years old, you
45:03
Speaker 5: must have been scared out of your wits.
45:05
Speaker 2: I think that at the beginning, I went through a
45:07
Speaker 2: whole transition of emotions at the beginning, Like I said,
45:10
Speaker 2: it was my failure to accept what had happened. I
45:13
Speaker 2: just kept believing that the best outcome was gonna happen.
45:17
Speaker 2: When my appeals started getting denied, there was a time
45:22
Speaker 2: of anger in which, you know, I ended up getting
45:25
Speaker 2: in trouble going to the box solitary confinement for years,
45:29
Speaker 2: you know, because I was just so angry that my
45:32
Speaker 2: mind was thinking, you know, these guys put me in here,
45:35
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give them hell, you know. And it wasn't
45:38
Speaker 2: until I think I was in solitary confinement that I
45:42
Speaker 2: met other brothers in there that had been in there
45:45
Speaker 2: for years, and they would ask me, you know, what
45:49
Speaker 2: are you here for? And I would say, I'm innocent,
45:53
Speaker 2: but I've been charged with two murders and they would
45:56
Speaker 2: tell me, you can't.
45:57
Speaker 1: Give up, you know.
45:59
Speaker 2: And I started to see guys that I had came
46:03
Speaker 2: to prison with who were doing five years, ten years,
46:07
Speaker 2: and they were going home, and it started to dawn
46:10
Speaker 2: on me that I would never go home, that this
46:13
Speaker 2: was going to.
46:14
Speaker 1: Be my life from now on unless I.
46:17
Speaker 2: Seriously got into trying to find a way out. And
46:23
Speaker 2: it became a revelation that it wasn't going to be
46:26
Speaker 2: through somebody else helping me, that it had to be me.
46:29
Speaker 2: So I started to go to school. I went to college,
46:33
Speaker 2: I got a college degree. I started to learn law,
46:37
Speaker 2: started taking law classes. At the time, Cornell was giving
46:41
Speaker 2: law classes inside the prison, so I started signing up
46:43
Speaker 2: for law classes. I got a job in the law library,
46:48
Speaker 2: started learning by working through with other people's cases, helping
46:51
Speaker 2: them with their cases, and it happened to be the
46:55
Speaker 2: best thing that could have ever happened to me, because
46:58
Speaker 2: working in the law library, I kept running into cases.
47:02
Speaker 1: That had to do with Detective Scarseller. You know.
47:05
Speaker 2: So as I'm reading people's cases and I'm saying, this
47:08
Speaker 2: is the same detective in my case, and I'm asking
47:11
Speaker 2: them questions about their case, and he said, yeah, he
47:14
Speaker 2: set me up. And then I'm saying, yeah, he set
47:17
Speaker 2: me up too. But then when it became like two people,
47:20
Speaker 2: three people, four people, I started to see the pattern
47:24
Speaker 2: and I said, wow, he didn't just do this to me,
47:27
Speaker 2: He did it to.
47:28
Speaker 1: A lot of people, you know.
47:30
Speaker 2: And I started to formulate in my own mind that
47:35
Speaker 2: the only way I was going to get.
47:38
Speaker 1: Out was to expose Scarsella.
47:40
Speaker 2: We had to show that this guy was a crooked cop,
47:45
Speaker 2: I think it was.
47:48
Speaker 1: I had started working on my motion.
47:51
Speaker 2: And I met up with Derek Hamilton, who was also
47:55
Speaker 2: a scar Seller case.
47:57
Speaker 1: He had already put in his motion.
48:00
Speaker 2: He was waiting for his response, and I told him,
48:04
Speaker 2: I said, look, we need to expose this guy. We
48:06
Speaker 2: need to really concentrate on Scarseller. He's the key, you know.
48:11
Speaker 2: I told him, I said I know about three or
48:12
Speaker 2: four guys who he set up, and he told me, well,
48:15
Speaker 2: I know about three or four guys too, and we
48:16
Speaker 2: started comparing our notes. So, like I said, he had
48:21
Speaker 2: already pushed his motion. So in my motion, I started
48:26
Speaker 2: focusing on Scarseller. Even though I started arguing the actual
48:29
Speaker 2: innocence claim, a portion of it was saying that Scarsella
48:34
Speaker 2: should not be believed because of his suspicious actions in
48:38
Speaker 2: all these cases. And I started enumerting cases in which
48:43
Speaker 2: it was very suspicious of confessions and evidence that, you know.
48:48
Speaker 2: So as I did that we happened to look up
48:51
Speaker 2: that Derek was paroled, and because he was paroled, he
48:56
Speaker 2: was outside.
48:57
Speaker 1: And by then we had started.
48:59
Speaker 2: Gathering people, me and him and Danny Mincom, who was
49:03
Speaker 2: another guy that was innocent. We all worked in the
49:05
Speaker 2: law library and we started working together as a group,
49:08
Speaker 2: and we formed our own group which we call AI,
49:11
Speaker 2: which was to us, meant the actual innocence guys, and
49:14
Speaker 2: we would work on actual innocence cases. Like if somebody
49:17
Speaker 2: came and said we're innocent, we would sit down with
49:20
Speaker 2: them and really grill them to see, if you know,
49:23
Speaker 2: go over their evidence, go over their case to see
49:25
Speaker 2: if they were really innocent, and if we believed it,
49:28
Speaker 2: we would take them in and we would work with
49:30
Speaker 2: their case too.
49:31
Speaker 5: Now you actually had a law firm in prison, Yes,
49:33
Speaker 5: which is pretty incredible.
49:35
Speaker 2: You know, all three of us were law clerks and
49:37
Speaker 2: we knew the law, but our specialty was really that
49:41
Speaker 2: actual innocence. So we started working on people's cases like that.
49:46
Speaker 5: It's incredible. I mean, just visualizing the law firm in prison,
49:49
Speaker 5: it's just so. And I know Derek very well, you know,
49:52
Speaker 5: I know Derek, and he's he's a brilliant guy. I
49:54
Speaker 5: mean an incredible, incredible legal mind, and his story is amazing.
50:01
Speaker 5: Of course he's been on the podcast as well on
50:03
Speaker 5: wrongful conviction. So that was your moment where you actually
50:06
Speaker 5: sort of found this, you know, inner strength and this
50:08
Speaker 5: desire to better yourself and in the process find a
50:12
Speaker 5: way to get yourself out, which you did the same
50:15
Speaker 5: for a number of other guys that are still in there.
50:18
Speaker 5: And that's you know, and that's so inspiring to people
50:21
Speaker 5: like me who are in this movement. Realize that we
50:24
Speaker 5: don't have endless amounts of time. I do want to
50:26
Speaker 5: get to the conclusion, and Ron I want to get
50:28
Speaker 5: back to you, and then we're going to finish up
50:29
Speaker 5: with you. So you get involved. And what was the
50:35
Speaker 5: magic bullet? What was the silver bullet here? How did
50:38
Speaker 5: you manage to help Shebaka find his way out of
50:43
Speaker 5: this morass? Twenty seven years later?
50:46
Speaker 6: There wasn't a magic bullet. There were a lot of
50:49
Speaker 6: numerous small, non magic bullets that eventually perforated the target sufficiently.
50:58
Speaker 6: Shebacca has sent me hist of papers, and you know,
51:02
Speaker 6: it was an amazing set of papers. It was the
51:05
Speaker 6: amazing if a lawyer had done it was even more
51:07
Speaker 6: impressive that it was. It came from people who have
51:10
Speaker 6: the fewest resources and the least formal legal education, although
51:16
Speaker 6: they did have a lot of time and they had
51:18
Speaker 6: a lot of motivation. And I recognized Scarcella from the
51:21
Speaker 6: earlier days and recognized this is exactly the kind of
51:25
Speaker 6: stuff he did, and I felt we could win this,
51:30
Speaker 6: and so I agreed to take the case. Shebaka made
51:32
Speaker 6: it very clear that Okay, he's happy that I'm taking
51:36
Speaker 6: the case, but he remains in control of strategic decisions.
51:40
Speaker 6: He had had enough lawyers telling him what was best
51:43
Speaker 6: for him, and I agreed with that and agreed to
51:47
Speaker 6: work under those conditions. And then it just became a
51:51
Speaker 6: very long process. The judge granted a hearing. Before we
51:55
Speaker 6: went to hearing, all of the stuff about Scarcella emerged.
52:00
Speaker 6: The new information was found. Shabaka had managed to find
52:03
Speaker 6: a couple of witnesses who were there with Harley Young,
52:10
Speaker 6: the star eye witness, who were in the building with
52:12
Speaker 6: him at the time the shooting took place. They came
52:15
Speaker 6: forward the alibi witnesses whoever the lawyer saw back then,
52:21
Speaker 6: the young women he saw back then that he didn't
52:24
Speaker 6: want to put on the stand. The middle aged women
52:27
Speaker 6: right now were extremely impressive, regular citizens, hard working, smart,
52:34
Speaker 6: very very persuasive, and over a series of I guess
52:40
Speaker 6: about a year of hearings, finally the judge wrote a
52:46
Speaker 6: very strong decision vacating his conviction and stating for the
52:52
Speaker 6: record that there was a significant likelihood that Scarcela had
52:55
Speaker 6: fabricated the confession. And at that point the DA's office,
52:58
Speaker 6: under new leadership now under Ken Thompson, called me and
53:02
Speaker 6: said we're done, We're not appealing, we're not retrying. Charges
53:05
Speaker 6: will be dismissed, and Shabaka walked out. In June of
53:10
Speaker 6: twenty fifteen.
53:11
Speaker 5: Yes, how did you get the news that the conviction
53:15
Speaker 5: was being vacated after this crazy ordeal? Where were you?
53:19
Speaker 2: I was in prison in Shriwanka Correctional Facility. At my
53:24
Speaker 2: job I used to work at that point, I was
53:27
Speaker 2: working at the Grievance Department because they would no longer
53:31
Speaker 2: let me work in the law library. So I was
53:35
Speaker 2: working at the grievance department and the officer came and said,
53:39
Speaker 2: you got a phone call from your wife.
53:43
Speaker 1: So I went and got a call and I called
53:48
Speaker 1: her and she said they reversed your case. So initially
53:53
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
53:54
Speaker 2: Sure if she was correct, because you know, she could
53:57
Speaker 2: have got it confused and wanted to hear from somebody officially.
54:01
Speaker 2: So I hung up and I called Leah Busby, who
54:05
Speaker 2: is the attorney with Ron Cooby on my case. And
54:09
Speaker 2: Leah was like excited. She said, they reversed your case
54:13
Speaker 2: and you're gonna come home, you know, And I was shocked.
54:19
Speaker 1: But my first question, like, when is now tomorrow? When?
54:25
Speaker 2: So they was like, as soon as the paperwork clear,
54:28
Speaker 2: you're getting out. And it took a few days, but no,
54:32
Speaker 2: it was the shortest time ever because I knew I
54:35
Speaker 2: was getting out soon.
54:36
Speaker 5: Did you sleep during those three days?
54:38
Speaker 2: Yes, everybody thought, and that's a question that people always ask,
54:44
Speaker 2: the anxiety of those last few days, But to be
54:48
Speaker 2: honest with you, it was the most common days of
54:51
Speaker 2: the whole bit. The anxiety comes when you don't know
54:54
Speaker 2: what's happened, but when you know, okay, I'm getting out
54:58
Speaker 2: of here in the next couple of days, like all
55:00
Speaker 2: my stress was gone.
55:02
Speaker 5: I was wondering about that because there's people people follow
55:04
Speaker 5: me on Instagram, which I'm at. It's Jason Flommer, of course,
55:07
Speaker 5: but people follow me know that. Yesterday I walked a
55:08
Speaker 5: guy out of prison in Virginia, Lenny Singleton, after twenty
55:12
Speaker 5: three years, and I was wondering. I forgot to ask
55:14
Speaker 5: him that, but I was wondering whether he had got
55:15
Speaker 5: any sleep the night before, knowing that he was going
55:17
Speaker 5: to get out the next day. But yeah, I guess
55:19
Speaker 5: it's one of the others. You don't sleep at all.
55:20
Speaker 5: You sleep like a baby. And now shabaka. The best
55:24
Speaker 5: part of the show every week is when everyone stops
55:28
Speaker 5: talking and lets you well in this case you, but
55:32
Speaker 5: whoever the featured guest on the show is just have
55:37
Speaker 5: the mic to say whatever it is you want. One
55:41
Speaker 5: thing I am interested in knowing is whether you feel
55:44
Speaker 5: bitter about what happened to you and what and how
55:47
Speaker 5: you're how you're processing all this and moving forward. But uh,
55:51
Speaker 5: this is this is that time, So the mic is yours.
55:56
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't feel bitter. I feel.
56:03
Speaker 2: I feel sad that the people haven't taken that there's
56:07
Speaker 2: been no accountability, you know, like he said that Scarcella
56:11
Speaker 2: is still basically has gotten away with what he's done.
56:15
Speaker 2: He's ruined lives, not just minds, but noumerous others, and
56:19
Speaker 2: then people don't even realize that it's not just a defendant,
56:22
Speaker 2: it's the families.
56:24
Speaker 1: It's my mother and my father.
56:26
Speaker 2: My mother died while I was in prison, and I
56:28
Speaker 2: never got a chance to spend no time with her.
56:31
Speaker 2: My father died within the year of me coming home,
56:34
Speaker 2: and even when I came home, he was suffering from
56:37
Speaker 2: dementia and didn't even know I was home, so they
56:41
Speaker 2: never got to see me as a free man. It's
56:46
Speaker 2: families that get destroyed because of the situation that he created.
56:50
Speaker 2: And it's and like I said, it's not just me,
56:52
Speaker 2: it's doesn't so far. That saddens me because they were
56:58
Speaker 2: people who could have stopped it. Not only Detective Scarseller,
57:02
Speaker 2: but everybody who allowed it to go on is complicit,
57:06
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. The district attorneys, the other
57:08
Speaker 2: police officers, the judges who looked at this case and
57:13
Speaker 2: seeing all of these gaping holes in the story, continue
57:17
Speaker 2: to allow it. Everybody's responsible for this, and until we
57:21
Speaker 2: actually take personal responsibility to say, Okay, I'm gonna do
57:25
Speaker 2: something to not let this go on, it's going to continue.
57:28
Speaker 2: Because that's the way the criminal justice system has been
57:30
Speaker 2: created to protect people like Detective Scarseller. That's like I said,
57:38
Speaker 2: I'm not bitter, I'm just saden that we haven't realized
57:41
Speaker 2: that and done something more about that situation. Since I've
57:46
Speaker 2: been home now, I continue to work with certain cases.
57:51
Speaker 2: You know, Danny wyn Kong's one, Stephen Brathway is another,
57:57
Speaker 2: James Jenkins. These are people who I know are and
58:00
Speaker 2: a centing who are incarcerated, and continue to work with them.
58:04
Speaker 2: I've been able to put my life back in order
58:06
Speaker 2: to some extent, as far as you know, to reconnect
58:10
Speaker 2: with my family, my brothers, my sisters, my nephews, my nieces,
58:15
Speaker 2: people who you know, I have nephews and nieces who
58:17
Speaker 2: never even saw me. You know, they was raised hearing
58:20
Speaker 2: about their uncle, but never having the opportunity to see me.
58:23
Speaker 2: So it gives me a time to put back my family.
58:29
Speaker 2: I'm working now. I own a restaurant in Brooklyn and
58:32
Speaker 2: Bedstine seven one eight Live eleven fourteen Forton Street and
58:37
Speaker 2: definitely come there and eat with us and enjoy it
58:41
Speaker 2: because not only is he a restaurant, but it's an
58:44
Speaker 2: event space where we do things to give back to
58:46
Speaker 2: the community. Like we're always having some type of event
58:51
Speaker 2: in which we interact with the community and we try
58:54
Speaker 2: to give back. You know, I spent most of my
58:57
Speaker 2: life in prison, so I want to be able to
59:01
Speaker 2: really interact with the world now that I'm home, and
59:05
Speaker 2: to be some type of example for that. Even in prison,
59:12
Speaker 2: you can come out and do something positive that because
59:15
Speaker 2: there's a fear of guys in prison, and the fear
59:18
Speaker 2: is purposely promoted so that people can do what they
59:24
Speaker 2: want to do without anybody having any empathy for those
59:26
Speaker 2: guys in prison.
59:28
Speaker 5: Well, I'm really happy to see you out here doing
59:34
Speaker 5: good things. If people want to reach out to you,
59:36
Speaker 5: if they want to learn more about these cases that
59:39
Speaker 5: you just talked about, if they want to get involved
59:41
Speaker 5: in help, how can they do that? Do you do Facebook?
59:45
Speaker 5: Because you want to get paid at.
59:48
Speaker 1: My Facebook page is shabakakor they can go up there.
59:52
Speaker 2: I'm always posting stuff about these cases and about stuff
59:55
Speaker 2: that we're involved in and stuff that we're doing.
59:58
Speaker 1: So if you follow me on Facebook, you can catch
1:00:01
Speaker 1: up on everything that we're doing.
1:00:02
Speaker 5: Okaybacca Shakur and of course that's s h A b
1:00:06
Speaker 5: A k A and Shakour like Tupac Shakur. Everybody knows
1:00:10
Speaker 5: how to spell that, So yeah, I please do get involved,
1:00:16
Speaker 5: follow Shabaka and let's get these other guys home and
1:00:21
Speaker 5: keep this momentum going. So I want to thank both
1:00:25
Speaker 5: of you for coming and dropping some knowledge with everybody
1:00:29
Speaker 5: here on Wrong for Conviction. Ron, thank you, Thank you, Ron,
1:00:32
Speaker 5: Kooby stars the wrong Man is the show and Shabacca
1:00:37
Speaker 5: Shakur is the right man for the job, and he's
1:00:41
Speaker 5: going to go get these other guys out and I'm
1:00:43
Speaker 5: going to help him. Everybody get involved. So Shabaka, thank
1:00:46
Speaker 5: you so much for being here.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
1:00:59
Speaker 5: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
1:01:02
Speaker 5: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
1:01:05
Speaker 5: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
1:01:08
Speaker 5: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
1:01:11
Speaker 5: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
1:01:16
Speaker 5: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
1:01:18
Speaker 5: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
1:01:22
Speaker 5: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
1:01:24
Speaker 5: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
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1:01:32
Speaker 5: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava
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Speaker 5: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one