Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #307 Jason Flom with John Jerome White

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#307 Jason Flom with John Jerome White · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of August eleventh, nineteen seventy nine,
0:06
Speaker 1: a seventy four year old woman was asleep in her
0:08
Speaker 1: den when she awoke to find a black man had
0:10
Speaker 1: broken in through the window by the light of her television.
0:14
Speaker 1: He brutalized and raped her for over an hour after
0:19
Speaker 1: stealing seventy dollars. The assailant pulled the telephone court out
0:23
Speaker 1: of the wall and fled through the back door. When
0:26
Speaker 1: the victim finally was able to contact the police, she
0:29
Speaker 1: was taken to the hospital, but in her bloodied state,
0:32
Speaker 1: they decided against performing a rape kit. However, other biological
0:37
Speaker 1: evidence was collected from the scene. The victim helped that
0:40
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigation develop a composite sketche and immediately
0:44
Speaker 1: one of the investigators said that it looked like a
0:46
Speaker 1: young man named John Jerome White, who was a person
0:49
Speaker 1: of interest in a string of burglaries. They arrested John
0:52
Speaker 1: and collected physical samples from him, as well as his
0:55
Speaker 1: driver's license. Even though none of the physical evidence was
0:58
Speaker 1: a match for John, the victim I to fight them
1:00
Speaker 1: at first in a photo array and then again at
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Speaker 1: a live lineup, and after all that, how could anyone
1:06
Speaker 1: deny her gut wrench in courtroom identification? So they didn't.
1:13
Speaker 1: This is wrawful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction today.
1:30
Speaker 1: We have a unique story, but not rare, and it's
1:34
Speaker 1: just as tragic every time something like this happens when
1:37
Speaker 1: a black man is misidentified by a white victim. So
1:40
Speaker 1: there's this double victimization that happens. And it was much
1:43
Speaker 1: easier for these things to happen before the dawn of
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Speaker 1: DNA testing. Not that they don't still happen today, because
1:48
Speaker 1: they do. But here to discuss the matter. As the
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Speaker 1: former executive director of the Georgia Andasis Project, she's now
1:55
Speaker 1: with the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit. So Amy Maxwell
1:59
Speaker 1: without two, thank you for joining us here again on
2:03
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction.
2:04
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
2:05
Speaker 1: And now the man she represented, mister John Jerome White.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry for the reason why you're here
2:12
Speaker 1: joining us today, but we are really honored to have you.
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Speaker 3: Thank you.
2:17
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. So John, as we like to do here,
2:20
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of almost a tradition. Now, we'd
2:22
Speaker 1: like to spend some time getting to know you a
2:24
Speaker 1: bit like our audience get to know you a bit,
2:27
Speaker 1: so can you tell us a little bit about what
2:29
Speaker 1: your life was like prior to all this insanity.
2:32
Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm from the small what we like to call
2:35
Speaker 3: it a railroad town, uh and matt Chester, Georgia. That's
2:39
Speaker 3: in South Georgia. I'm the only boy, six girls. I
2:43
Speaker 3: was raised by my grandmother, just a love to do
2:45
Speaker 3: things for my grandmother, you know, cutwood and working in
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Speaker 3: guardens and things of that nature. You know. Growed up
2:53
Speaker 3: and got a chance to experience you know, what we
2:57
Speaker 3: like to call Crosstown as you know, that city of Manchester,
3:01
Speaker 3: you know. And I kind of got away from my grandmama,
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Speaker 3: you know, hold on it, you know, making sure I
3:07
Speaker 3: was doing the right thing and thing. And during the
3:10
Speaker 3: time all this occurred, you know, I had started to
3:14
Speaker 3: do little mount of burgers and things of that nature
3:17
Speaker 3: here around Manchauter convenience stores and merchant stores like that.
3:21
Speaker 3: I were going in the wrong direction. They were going
3:24
Speaker 3: totally against the way I was brought up. You know.
3:26
Speaker 3: I all happened to me, you know, and the way
3:28
Speaker 3: things happen, I feel like it regard's way of putting
3:31
Speaker 3: that putting that roadblock in my path.
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Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like one way of taking responsibility for
3:37
Speaker 1: the actual wrong that you've admitted to doing in the past.
3:40
Speaker 1: And I suppose thinking of your wrongful conviction like that
3:43
Speaker 1: is a way to make peace with it. But I mean,
3:46
Speaker 1: sometimes on this show we speak with folks that are
3:49
Speaker 1: pulled completely out of obscurity to be tried for a
3:51
Speaker 1: crime that had absolutely nothing to do with But in
3:54
Speaker 1: your case, and this doesn't make it right by any means,
3:57
Speaker 1: but you were known the entity the police because of
3:59
Speaker 1: those burglaries down in Manchester. But the crime in question
4:03
Speaker 1: wasn't burglary. It was rape. And you had never exhibited
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Speaker 1: any sort of violence and certainly no sexual violence before.
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Speaker 1: So it's really a hell of a label to get
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Speaker 1: saddled with.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't believe it. You know, I always been
4:17
Speaker 3: the type that you know, I respected women. You know,
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Speaker 3: I was raided by my grandmother, you know, all my
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Speaker 3: live that you know, that's all I've been around, you know, women,
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Speaker 3: And it was kind of hard to believe that, you know,
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Speaker 3: I would be in charge with, you know, the whole
4:30
Speaker 3: type crime.
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Speaker 1: Nevertheless, the burglaries had you on the radar of the
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Speaker 1: local police when this terrible crime occurred, and it was
4:39
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of August eleventh, nineteen seventy nine,
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Speaker 1: when a man broke into the Manchester, Georgia home of
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Speaker 1: a seventy four year old woman.
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Speaker 2: Well, what we know is that she was in the den.
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Speaker 2: She was asleep on her couch, and she had her
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Speaker 2: sheets on the couch, and she did have the light
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Speaker 2: on in the kitchen, and she had her television on,
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Speaker 2: so that was the only available to her. She also
5:02
Speaker 2: wore prescription glasses and she didn't have her glasses on
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Speaker 2: and someone broke in through a window in the den.
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Speaker 2: He attacked her, He raped her, He brutalized her for
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Speaker 2: over an hour. Then he ripped out the telephone cords
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Speaker 2: out of the wall and went out the back door.
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Speaker 1: He also stole seventy dollars in cash from her purse. Now,
5:24
Speaker 1: she eventually called the cops and was taken to the hospital.
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Speaker 1: But do I have this right that no rape kit
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Speaker 1: was collected.
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Speaker 2: No rape kit was collected, They said because she was
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Speaker 2: so damaged during the rape, The rape was so brutal
5:40
Speaker 2: and there was just so much blood. They made a
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Speaker 2: determination that they couldn't get any viable evidence. And you know,
5:49
Speaker 2: you got to remember back then they were only able
5:51
Speaker 2: to do blood typing, So I think that their thought
5:56
Speaker 2: process may have been, there's so much of her blood,
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Speaker 2: his blood type is going to just get all mixed
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Speaker 2: up in there. They may also have not wanted to
6:05
Speaker 2: got to remember, this is a small town, right They
6:09
Speaker 2: might have been concerned that she was already so traumatized
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Speaker 2: that they didn't want to do any more of an examination.
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Speaker 2: You know, she was seventy four years old, and I
6:19
Speaker 2: can't even imagine how how she was presenting to the doctors.
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Speaker 2: Obviously they should have done a sexual assault kit. They
6:27
Speaker 2: certainly would today, but they did not.
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Speaker 1: And since there was no rape kit, there's no seminal evidence.
6:34
Speaker 1: But there was other blood and biological evidence at the scene,
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Speaker 1: which we'll get into in a bit. But in nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy nine, as Amy mentioned, all we had was serology,
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Speaker 1: which had its own limitations. DNA testing, of course, was
6:49
Speaker 1: not available yet, and I can't imagine collecting a rape
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Speaker 1: kit would have been an easy thing to do with
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Speaker 1: this poor seventy four year old woman in the state
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Speaker 1: that she was in. But the fact is she did
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Speaker 1: somehow survive. She must have been some tough lady. So
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Speaker 1: what happened next in this investigation.
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Speaker 2: Well, I should point out that this is such a
7:08
Speaker 2: small town that their local police didn't do the investigation.
7:11
Speaker 2: They brought in the state police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
7:15
Speaker 2: And when they were collecting evidence, they collected the bed
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Speaker 2: sheet that was on the couch, and the bed sheet
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Speaker 2: had hairs. Now, I will say that at trial they
7:27
Speaker 2: only thought there was one hair. Turned out there were
7:31
Speaker 2: several hairs on that bed sheet, and they preserved that. Now,
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Speaker 2: I will say that at trial, the hares were discussed,
7:41
Speaker 2: to use the parlance at the time, they were negroid hares,
7:45
Speaker 2: and that's pretty much all they could say about them.
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Speaker 2: They did a microscopic examination of them, and they said
7:53
Speaker 2: that they looked almost exactly alike, that they were almost
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Speaker 2: positive that they were from the same person. Of course,
8:00
Speaker 2: what that is is a human eye is looking at
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Speaker 2: two hairs and their pubic hair, so they're very small hairs, right,
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Speaker 2: and saying, oh, yeah, they look alike, you know, And
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Speaker 2: back then that was good evidence, right, Not so much.
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Speaker 1: Now, yeah, definitely not. We did a whole episode by
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Speaker 1: the way of a wrongful conviction junk science that Josh
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Speaker 1: Duben hosted about hair microscopy, and we're going to link
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Speaker 1: to it in the episode Bio. But to think that
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Speaker 1: someone could compare hairs from a suspect and a crime
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Speaker 1: scene just by looking and match them to the exclusion
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Speaker 1: by the way of all other potential suspects everybody else,
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Speaker 1: all other people on the whole planet, is absolutely bonkers. Now,
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Speaker 1: remember they used to do that all the damn time. Now,
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Speaker 1: they mentioned that these hairs were from a black man,
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Speaker 1: as the victim had already told them, But what about
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Speaker 1: this piece of skin that I read about.
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Speaker 2: Yes, so apparently when the man came in through the window,
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Speaker 2: he cut himself on his hand, and there was literally
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Speaker 2: like a triangular piece of his palm that was also
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Speaker 2: recovered from the scene.
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Speaker 1: And it's unclear whether or not they did seriological testing
9:13
Speaker 1: on that either. But we're going to come back to
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Speaker 1: the piece of skin in a bit. But at this
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Speaker 1: point they moved on to relying on cross racial identification. Now,
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Speaker 1: study after study has shown these are studies which they
9:29
Speaker 1: used a control group that has not seen the crime,
9:32
Speaker 1: that that control group tends to be more accurate than
9:36
Speaker 1: victims or witnesses. So get this. Cross racial identification has
9:43
Speaker 1: been proven to be less accurate than guessing. So if
9:50
Speaker 1: you actually didn't even witness the crime and were shown
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Speaker 1: a lineup, you'd have a better chance of picking the
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Speaker 1: person just by guessing than someone who did. Mister crime.
10:00
Speaker 1: It's an amazing thing, but it's true. Look it up.
10:03
Speaker 1: I encourage you.
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Speaker 2: So they do a composite sketch of her attacker that
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Speaker 2: she saw in the dark, the only light from the
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Speaker 2: kitchen and the television while she's being traumatized. Right, So
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Speaker 2: she does do a composite sketch, and there is a
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Speaker 2: GBI agent who was part of the investigation. He says, hey,
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Speaker 2: that looks a lot like John White. And then everything,
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Speaker 2: of course, is often running at that point.
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Speaker 1: So John, this wasn't a big town. So I'm sure
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Speaker 1: word traveled fast at that point. Had you heard about
10:35
Speaker 1: what had happened?
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Speaker 3: We heard that, you know, this particular lady had got right.
10:39
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't think much of it. I really didn't,
10:42
Speaker 3: you know. And when all this occurred, they would suspect
10:46
Speaker 3: me of doing those mount of burgers around town and
10:50
Speaker 3: come to find out that they were looking for me.
10:52
Speaker 3: So I decided to just up and leave Manchester. You know,
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Speaker 3: I was at the age nineteen then, and I went
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Speaker 3: to a little small town and the cordial the way.
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Speaker 3: I had some people, you know, some cousins, and I
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Speaker 3: to stay in.
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Speaker 1: So this crime happened on August eleventh, and they finally
11:06
Speaker 1: caught up with you in Decre, Georgia and drove you
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Speaker 1: back to Meriweather County around September twenty first.
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Speaker 3: On the ride back, they kept on asking me questions
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Speaker 3: about this here tick little crime involved in the seventy
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Speaker 3: something the year old lady and I had a venera
11:22
Speaker 3: disease they called gongria, and you know, being a little
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Speaker 3: smart addict like I was, you know, I didn't answer
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Speaker 3: the question directly. You know. When they kept on asking me,
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Speaker 3: I said, well, if I did it, she got Gongarria.
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Speaker 3: They took that, and I like to say they ran
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Speaker 3: with it.
11:46
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11:50
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Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and
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12:21
Speaker 3: When they got me back to a County, Jay, they
12:23
Speaker 3: took the house and apples being a princes an apple
12:28
Speaker 3: blood from me, and they took my driving license and
12:30
Speaker 3: a social Security car and everything, and you know, they
12:34
Speaker 3: locked me up.
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Speaker 1: So they took those samples in order to run tests
12:37
Speaker 1: on all the physical evidence that they had tried to
12:39
Speaker 1: match the hair. Like we already mentioned, they probably did
12:43
Speaker 1: some seriological testing with the patchers skin in your blood.
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Speaker 1: We don't know that for sure, but that would seem
12:48
Speaker 1: like it would have been the least thing they could
12:50
Speaker 1: have done, and had any of it matched you, they
12:52
Speaker 1: would have been shouting it from the rooftops. Now they
12:55
Speaker 1: already had this composite sketch that they thought looked like you.
12:59
Speaker 1: You know, they had to jump with you a few
13:00
Speaker 1: times away and you were being held for the burglaries.
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Speaker 3: My grandma came to get me out the next day
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Speaker 3: after you know, they had brought me back to Milweather County.
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Speaker 3: That's when she was in on that I was be
13:12
Speaker 3: in charge with, you know, ray Rod reaggravated thaw and murdering.
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Speaker 1: Curiously, she got that news before they had even taken
13:20
Speaker 1: your driver's license to be viewed by the victim in
13:22
Speaker 1: an alleged photo array.
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Speaker 3: I don't know if they took my driving license or
13:27
Speaker 3: they took many pictures. They say they took a photo
13:30
Speaker 3: array to her apartment, but I'm assuming they took my
13:33
Speaker 3: driver license.
13:35
Speaker 2: We don't know much about it because, of course, you know,
13:38
Speaker 2: they didn't record a lot of information. They certainly didn't
13:40
Speaker 2: record the photo of Ray and I don't believe we
13:43
Speaker 2: ever found that photo array did with John. I don't
13:46
Speaker 2: think we've ever seen those photos, so we don't know
13:49
Speaker 2: who else was in the photo and how well they
13:52
Speaker 2: matched either the composite or John.
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Speaker 1: Now, maybe this composite sketch looked enough like you that
13:59
Speaker 1: your likeness was already imprinted in her mind, So photo
14:04
Speaker 1: array or not, she had been primed to pick you
14:07
Speaker 1: with that composite in mind. And it's also possible that
14:10
Speaker 1: they only brought along your driver's license rather than a
14:12
Speaker 1: number of other photos that favored your features. We don't know,
14:16
Speaker 1: but now you had been chosen from this alleged photo array,
14:19
Speaker 1: and things started going down how fast?
14:21
Speaker 3: A few you know, weeks after they did all this year,
14:24
Speaker 3: they performed the line up. It was just us on
14:27
Speaker 3: the room and me standing about ten feet from her,
14:31
Speaker 3: along with a few other guys. And I couldn't believe,
14:34
Speaker 3: you know, it was tick with it because they brought another
14:37
Speaker 3: person up there of a place I had robbed, and
14:40
Speaker 3: she didn't pick me out, but they bringed this old
14:43
Speaker 3: lady nine, and she picked me out. Like I said,
14:46
Speaker 3: I'm quite sure they any take now one of no
14:48
Speaker 3: other guy pictures that was in that line up to her,
14:50
Speaker 3: and I'm the only somebody she had seen recently on
14:53
Speaker 3: a photo.
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Speaker 1: Again, we're not sure what happened at that alleged photo lineup,
14:57
Speaker 1: as no documentation has ever been found. But I want
15:01
Speaker 1: our audience to note that I witnessed misidentification is a
15:04
Speaker 1: contributing factor in sixty nine percent of all known wrongful convictions,
15:08
Speaker 1: and in this case, we have a cross racial misidentification. So,
15:13
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, in study after study, cross racial
15:18
Speaker 1: identifications are actually less accurate than guessing. But what about
15:23
Speaker 1: the robbery victim also white, and that would have been
15:27
Speaker 1: the correct identification. It's crazy, but okay, So cross racial
15:32
Speaker 1: or not, she had already been primed to pick you
15:35
Speaker 1: out of the lineup by seeing your driver's license, in
15:38
Speaker 1: addition potentially to a composite sketch that may have favored
15:41
Speaker 1: you or you know, pointed towards you. I mean, nineteen seventies, Georgia,
15:46
Speaker 1: you were already known to police, and then an old
15:48
Speaker 1: white lady who had been brutally attacked identified you. I
15:52
Speaker 1: hate to say it, but I think your fate was
15:55
Speaker 1: pretty much sealed. Did you have a court appointed or attorney?
16:01
Speaker 3: At first they gave me a quarter point of attorney.
16:03
Speaker 3: But my mom and them, you know, they raised some
16:05
Speaker 3: money and they hired you know, sound for Bishop.
16:08
Speaker 1: And he's now a US representative, right.
16:10
Speaker 3: He was a part of the legislature back you know,
16:13
Speaker 3: when I was going to trial. They took me to trial.
16:15
Speaker 3: You know, they picked a jury which was mainly all white.
16:18
Speaker 3: They presented the evidence. The finger pressed they said they
16:22
Speaker 3: collected at the scene of the crime. They said all
16:24
Speaker 3: of them were sponged to the point that they couldn't
16:27
Speaker 3: get no kind of identification off of them. They say,
16:30
Speaker 3: the blood test came back negative. I don't know what
16:33
Speaker 3: they had tested. I don't know they tested the skin,
16:36
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was. But the crime left
16:38
Speaker 3: investigator said the house table could be mine. I know
16:41
Speaker 3: they brought up the pigmentation of a black person's hair
16:44
Speaker 3: and they said it was all of it was similar.
16:46
Speaker 1: Which really this technician was testifying that the hair was
16:49
Speaker 1: a black person's and you were also black, which is
16:51
Speaker 1: just not that probative. And what was it that they
16:55
Speaker 1: tested your blood against.
16:57
Speaker 2: I don't really remember what it was they tested with
16:59
Speaker 2: the blood. I have to be honest with you. But also,
17:02
Speaker 2: you know we talked about the piece of skin, right
17:04
Speaker 2: that there was the cut, and when they picked John
17:07
Speaker 2: up five weeks later, he had a cut on his palm,
17:12
Speaker 2: and so that was another.
17:14
Speaker 1: Piece, right. But the item that they tested for blood,
17:17
Speaker 1: which the skin, was more than likely the item it
17:20
Speaker 1: excluded him. But I suppose none of this matters when
17:23
Speaker 1: you have the word of a seventy year old white
17:27
Speaker 1: lady who was a victim of a brutal assault.
17:30
Speaker 3: They actually to peak me out in court why she
17:33
Speaker 3: was only stand.
17:34
Speaker 2: The problem with eyewitness identification is it's unreliable, but it's
17:39
Speaker 2: incredibly powerful in court. You have a now seventy five
17:45
Speaker 2: year old woman who is so traumatized the er didn't
17:49
Speaker 2: even want to do an examination of her. Get on
17:52
Speaker 2: the stand and say that's the man that did that
17:56
Speaker 2: to me. You know, the jury at that point is
18:00
Speaker 2: done right. If there's a few little things that they
18:04
Speaker 2: can put together, like oh, that hair might be the
18:06
Speaker 2: same or oh and he had a cut too, that
18:10
Speaker 2: was enough.
18:11
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you combat that even pointing out
18:13
Speaker 1: that she wore glasses, that it was dark in there.
18:16
Speaker 1: It's debatable whether that helps or hurts your client. When
18:19
Speaker 1: you have an emotionally charged moment like that, how are
18:22
Speaker 1: you going to try to contradict her the victim?
18:25
Speaker 3: Right?
18:25
Speaker 1: John, at that point, did you have any hope that
18:27
Speaker 1: the jury might actually still get this right?
18:30
Speaker 3: You know, me, knowing that I didn't do it, I
18:32
Speaker 3: didn't have no doubt in my mind that I was
18:34
Speaker 3: going home. I was that young and I was so
18:36
Speaker 3: inexperienced that I thought I was going home.
18:40
Speaker 1: Can you take us back to that awful moment when
18:42
Speaker 1: they read the verdict that.
18:44
Speaker 3: It broke down and started crying. You know, I will convicted.
18:49
Speaker 3: The rate robbery aggravated thought and two council burgery. And
18:55
Speaker 3: they asked me, did I have anything to say. I
18:57
Speaker 3: just said I didn't do it. When it took me
18:59
Speaker 3: back to the holding, said I know, I broke down
19:01
Speaker 3: and started crying. I was corresponding with a cousin of mind.
19:20
Speaker 3: You know. He just told me, you know, you know,
19:22
Speaker 3: God got his reasons for everything. You know what I'm saying.
19:25
Speaker 3: And he said it was a reason behind it, you
19:27
Speaker 3: know for me, you know, it was a reason behind
19:29
Speaker 3: and I thought, I just thought that reason behind it.
19:33
Speaker 3: You know, I just accepted it that God will and
19:36
Speaker 3: I moved forward. I couldn't go through that time, all
19:41
Speaker 3: that time that they gave me feeling some type of way,
19:45
Speaker 3: and I just had to learn how to how to
19:47
Speaker 3: survive inside the penitent I found what they called jail
19:51
Speaker 3: house attorney, and we tried, you know, by filing ahabor
19:55
Speaker 3: corpus against my lawyer that he didn't represent me, right.
19:59
Speaker 3: We they requested, you know, from my transcript and all
20:02
Speaker 3: that everything that will pertaining into my trial. But they,
20:06
Speaker 3: you know, the kind of mayor whether they didn't send
20:07
Speaker 3: me anything but a transcript. They said, didn't have nothing
20:10
Speaker 3: else to send me and we buy ourselves assistant accounting,
20:14
Speaker 3: and they denied that. So I pretty much lay down
20:18
Speaker 3: on it from that point on.
20:19
Speaker 1: So at that time, it was much easier to be
20:21
Speaker 1: granted parole, even with a sentence like yours, which was
20:24
Speaker 1: life plus sixty years. And usually, let's face it, they're
20:29
Speaker 1: not going to grant you parole without an admission of
20:30
Speaker 1: guilt and a show of remorse, even if you didn't
20:34
Speaker 1: commit the crime. That that's that's a detail, it gets
20:37
Speaker 1: washed away, but it appears that they may have actually
20:40
Speaker 1: believed in your innocence.
20:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, after I want to say, eleven years, I came
20:46
Speaker 3: up a parole. They told me, in order to make
20:49
Speaker 3: parole that I would have to do some type of
20:51
Speaker 3: sex offlinal program. And I told the lady that, you know,
20:56
Speaker 3: I didn't do it. Must white. Unless you'd get in
20:58
Speaker 3: some sex offenal program, you ain't gonna get out of jail.
21:02
Speaker 3: So they sent me to Metro up here in Atlanta, Georgia,
21:05
Speaker 3: where they had the programs at and my mama came
21:09
Speaker 3: up to see, Tay, go on, get in this program
21:11
Speaker 3: if it gonna help you get out, even you had
21:13
Speaker 3: to tell a lie, and they told me to cry
21:15
Speaker 3: till you for getting into safe Defending program which you
21:18
Speaker 3: had to describe what to play during the crime. And
21:21
Speaker 3: so I told him, man, you know I can't do that.
21:23
Speaker 3: I say, I can't imagine what took play doing it
21:26
Speaker 3: said crime. You know I couldn't make that lie up.
21:28
Speaker 3: So I basically just just gave it up again, you know.
21:31
Speaker 3: And uh So one day I came in from work
21:34
Speaker 3: and the warden called me to his office at me,
21:36
Speaker 3: he ad me why I was at his institution, and
21:38
Speaker 3: I told him that they had sent me there participate
21:41
Speaker 3: in the safe Spherical program and that I couldn't, you know,
21:43
Speaker 3: participlate in because I couldn't describe the crime. So he
21:46
Speaker 3: sing on back to the dormitor and some strange things
21:50
Speaker 3: occurred there, told me to pack my stuff up, that
21:52
Speaker 3: I was going to hospital lie and Augusta, Georgia for
21:55
Speaker 3: a year. Proud I had opposcopic survey then on my knee.
21:59
Speaker 3: So the inmates that was coming in from work having
22:02
Speaker 3: to notice a piece of paper that had all the
22:05
Speaker 3: transfers on and everything. And he told me that, said John,
22:09
Speaker 3: you wasn't going to Augusta Medical Hospital, Say you going
22:14
Speaker 3: to constantly on halfway house. And it totally shocked me
22:19
Speaker 3: that they're all finn to get out of prison.
22:21
Speaker 1: Had the pro board cut you a brake or was
22:24
Speaker 1: it the warden points of strings?
22:26
Speaker 3: I don't know.
22:27
Speaker 1: And no one told you.
22:28
Speaker 3: Nobody told them.
22:29
Speaker 1: Okay, that's weird. So you got paroled, I guess. And
22:33
Speaker 1: now you were starting out on a tough road to
22:36
Speaker 1: reacclimate into society. There are a lot of obstacles to
22:38
Speaker 1: employment and getting IDs and things like that, and those
22:42
Speaker 1: are some of the many reasons why recidivism rates can
22:45
Speaker 1: be as high as they are in some places. Not
22:47
Speaker 1: to mention that you turned to burglary in the past,
22:51
Speaker 1: and so where and how did you start that journey?
22:54
Speaker 3: When I first got out, I was up in the
22:56
Speaker 3: Atlanta in the halfwhouse. I parode out down to a
23:01
Speaker 3: room and house. I got tired of the room and
23:03
Speaker 3: house and I moved to moved to Manchester.
23:06
Speaker 1: Did you move back in with your mom or your grandma?
23:09
Speaker 2: My mom?
23:09
Speaker 3: My grandma had passed while I was incarcerated.
23:13
Speaker 1: Sorry to hear that, but luckily you still had some family,
23:16
Speaker 1: right Were your sisters around now?
23:18
Speaker 3: Most of them had, they had married. They moved on
23:21
Speaker 3: it was most of just me and my mom and
23:23
Speaker 3: my dad was still living at the time, and my niece.
23:27
Speaker 2: You know, John got the opportunity to come out on parole,
23:30
Speaker 2: but he came out as a sex offender, right who
23:33
Speaker 2: hires a sex offender? You know, it was a struggle
23:36
Speaker 2: when he.
23:37
Speaker 1: Was out on parole. So what did you do for work?
23:39
Speaker 1: And I understand you eventually went back to prison.
23:42
Speaker 3: When I was dining back down here, I was doing
23:44
Speaker 3: odds and then work. And one day I was at
23:48
Speaker 3: McDonald's and seeing this guy and he pulled his wallet
23:51
Speaker 3: out and he had a lot of money in it,
23:55
Speaker 3: and me and another guy follow him and robbing. The
24:00
Speaker 3: guy got caught up some kind of way and he told,
24:04
Speaker 3: you know what, that albumed And I turned myself in
24:07
Speaker 3: again and I revoked my parole and sent me back.
24:12
Speaker 3: I talked with the DA. He gave me ten years
24:15
Speaker 3: ran into what I already had, and that he wouldn't
24:18
Speaker 3: have no kind of negative recommendation towards if I was
24:21
Speaker 3: to come up with a role again.
24:22
Speaker 1: Well, I can't say a lot of people are going
24:24
Speaker 1: to have a ton of sympathy for you on that situation.
24:27
Speaker 1: But it's like you said, earlier about how you made
24:30
Speaker 1: peace with your wrongful conviction. You kind of felt deserving
24:33
Speaker 1: of it because of the wrong that you had done.
24:35
Speaker 1: And I want to point out that in nabbing the
24:38
Speaker 1: wrong guy for that ultra violent rape and robber all
24:40
Speaker 1: those years ago, this did a really terrible disservice the
24:44
Speaker 1: entire community, not least of which to the victim, because
24:48
Speaker 1: the real perpetrator was still free. So now it's nineteen
24:51
Speaker 1: ninety seven year back to serve out this new sentence
24:54
Speaker 1: and your old one. And it's not until about four
24:56
Speaker 1: years later when the amazing Amy Maxwell became the founding
24:59
Speaker 1: executive director of Georgia AND's project. Can you run through
25:02
Speaker 1: how you all came upon John's case?
25:05
Speaker 2: The Georgia Ennison's Project started in two thousand and one. Obviously,
25:09
Speaker 2: we got cases coming to us fairly quickly. But as
25:12
Speaker 2: we were working on the cases, I started thinking, well,
25:17
Speaker 2: what about all those people who don't know that we
25:20
Speaker 2: could look at the cases? What about those people who've
25:22
Speaker 2: not heard that we exist? So in two thousand and four,
25:27
Speaker 2: first of all, we tried to go through the prison
25:29
Speaker 2: hierarchy and try to get notices posted in prison, and
25:33
Speaker 2: they wouldn't do that. So what we did is we
25:37
Speaker 2: went through the Department of Corrections website and found everybody
25:41
Speaker 2: who was in prison for rape and sent them a letter.
25:45
Speaker 2: We sent about twelve hundred letters and we got about
25:48
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty, so we got about ten percent
25:51
Speaker 2: return on our letter. And John was actually one of them.
25:56
Speaker 3: I didn't I really didn't even know what to write,
25:58
Speaker 3: but I wrote it won a week with soold, I mean,
26:00
Speaker 3: I'm gonna respond.
26:01
Speaker 2: We looked at his evidence and the hair evidence. They
26:06
Speaker 2: only really talked about one hair that they compared, and
26:09
Speaker 2: so we were under the impression from the crime lab
26:12
Speaker 2: report and from the testimony that there was only the
26:15
Speaker 2: one hair. But most importantly, we were trying to find
26:17
Speaker 2: that piece of flesh. In fact, we called it the
26:19
Speaker 2: piece of flesh case right, because it was such an
26:21
Speaker 2: unusual piece of evidence. You know, this was a straight
26:25
Speaker 2: up If we could find this evidence, we would know
26:27
Speaker 2: who the perpetrator was. So I had an intern that
26:30
Speaker 2: went down to Meriweather County looking for that piece of flesh. Right,
26:34
Speaker 2: we just could not find it. We couldn't find it
26:36
Speaker 2: at the GBI, we couldn't find it anywhere, and so
26:38
Speaker 2: we just just kept on. It's hard people tell you
26:43
Speaker 2: that the evidence doesn't exist, or.
26:45
Speaker 1: They just haven't looked at all because either they didn't
26:47
Speaker 1: care or they were instructed to ignore such requests.
26:50
Speaker 2: Well, there might be that. So finally we went in
26:55
Speaker 2: person to the clerk's office and what they ended up
26:59
Speaker 2: finding was not the piece of flesh, but there were
27:02
Speaker 2: several of their hairs from the crime scene. Now, let
27:07
Speaker 2: me just say that hairs are they're good evidence.
27:09
Speaker 1: If they're good evidence, right, if the hairs are pulled
27:12
Speaker 1: out from the root, then a DNA profile can be developed, right,
27:15
Speaker 1: if they can.
27:15
Speaker 2: Give us information. But there's also I mean, there could
27:19
Speaker 2: be other reasons hairs were there. There was another Georgia
27:23
Speaker 2: case that involved hairs, and the theory was that she
27:27
Speaker 2: did her wash at the laundromat and she might have
27:30
Speaker 2: picked up some random hairs there, which, of course, these
27:34
Speaker 2: are pubic hairs, right, Why are you picking up pubic
27:37
Speaker 2: hairs at the laundry. So anyway, but we were concerned,
27:40
Speaker 2: you know, if these hairs didn't match John, that helped us,
27:44
Speaker 2: but it might not walk him out of prison. So
27:47
Speaker 2: we had to tell John, we've got these hairs. We're
27:50
Speaker 2: going to test on. But so we sent those hairs
27:54
Speaker 2: for DNA testing and we find out that the hairs
27:59
Speaker 2: don't match John, and we all pile in the car
28:02
Speaker 2: to staff members and our intern, Cliff Williams. Cliff had
28:06
Speaker 2: been working on the case almost from the beginning. I
28:10
Speaker 2: can't where were you, John, I can't even remember where
28:12
Speaker 2: you were.
28:12
Speaker 3: Macon Stay Prison.
28:14
Speaker 2: So it's like two hours away. We get there and
28:17
Speaker 2: we're getting all we're putting all of our stuff in
28:19
Speaker 2: the trunk because you know, you can't take anything into
28:20
Speaker 2: the prison with you. And I get a call from
28:22
Speaker 2: the GBI and they tell me that there's been a
28:26
Speaker 2: CODIS match and I'm standing in the parking lot going,
28:30
Speaker 2: oh my gosh. We were just going down to tell
28:33
Speaker 2: him we got the DNA but to hold on. And
28:36
Speaker 2: I thought, oh my god, we're going to get to
28:37
Speaker 2: go in and tell him he's coming home. And I said,
28:40
Speaker 2: who did it match? He goes, oh, it matched a
28:44
Speaker 2: man named James Parhum. And at that point my intern goes,
28:49
Speaker 2: James Parham, I think he was a suspect in this case.
28:55
Speaker 2: So he pulls out the box, you know, because we
28:58
Speaker 2: of course carry John's White's box all the way to
29:01
Speaker 2: the prison with us, you know, his file, and he's
29:04
Speaker 2: going through the file and he pulls out the photo
29:08
Speaker 2: of the live lineup, turns it over and James Parham
29:13
Speaker 2: is actually in the lineup where she picks John White
29:17
Speaker 2: instead of James Parum. So we don't even know what
29:22
Speaker 2: to do with all this, right, So we get to
29:25
Speaker 2: go in and tell John all of this information. And
29:28
Speaker 2: I'm like John, and don't know how quickly you're coming home,
29:31
Speaker 2: but you're coming home.
29:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at the photo right now, and we're
29:34
Speaker 1: going to link to it from the bio. I mean,
29:36
Speaker 1: oh my god, Like John is in the number three spot,
29:40
Speaker 1: of course because he was the target. And James Parham
29:44
Speaker 1: sure enough, is right there in number five right.
29:48
Speaker 3: Oh, actually you know ed al Susan, Now was there? Men? Know,
29:54
Speaker 3: a roommates that a suit that.
29:58
Speaker 2: What?
29:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god. I'm rarely at a loss for words,
30:03
Speaker 1: but that's insane.
30:04
Speaker 3: It was the strange thing happened throughout that my whole
30:07
Speaker 3: journey concerned that he was in the same room up
30:09
Speaker 3: with me. And I ended up with his Bible. When
30:12
Speaker 3: I got out, it had the name on it. I
30:15
Speaker 3: gave it back to his sister to get him. But yeah,
30:18
Speaker 3: Amy came down and told me about I was getting out.
30:22
Speaker 3: And when they did come to get me out, they
30:24
Speaker 3: came back. They rushed back there because they didn't want
30:26
Speaker 3: no media out at the institution. They rushed me in.
30:29
Speaker 3: Wanted to know it was anybody to come get me,
30:31
Speaker 3: and they went downtown and bought me some clothes and
30:35
Speaker 3: made sure I was dressed. And when my mom and
30:37
Speaker 3: them came to get me and they they me on
30:41
Speaker 3: the way as quick as they can get me away
30:42
Speaker 3: from there.
30:43
Speaker 1: So, Amy, what were the machinations that you had to
30:46
Speaker 1: go through to finish the job and get him home?
30:49
Speaker 2: Well, it was so quick. So you know, we get
30:51
Speaker 2: all the information, but so does the district's attorney. And
30:54
Speaker 2: so of course when the district's attorney, and at that
30:56
Speaker 2: time it was Pete Scandalacus, who is now the head
30:59
Speaker 2: of the Prosecuting Attorney's Council here in Georgia, and he
31:03
Speaker 2: saw what we saw, and of course I'm on the
31:06
Speaker 2: phone with him, and on the way back from the prison,
31:08
Speaker 2: I'm like, Pete, they got a codis match.
31:10
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do?
31:12
Speaker 2: And he contacted the prison and honestly, John John's family
31:16
Speaker 2: got the notice to come pick him up, but literally
31:19
Speaker 2: four days later his folks are on the way down
31:22
Speaker 2: to Oglethort, Georgia to pick him up. So John was
31:26
Speaker 2: hum So.
31:27
Speaker 1: John, what was your first meal? Where did you go?
31:30
Speaker 1: What did you what did you do?
31:32
Speaker 3: It was like a blur. It was like a blur.
31:35
Speaker 3: I can't remember too much of the only thing I
31:39
Speaker 3: can remember looking back, when we passed the Prills and
31:42
Speaker 3: going out, I think I went to sleep. I think
31:46
Speaker 3: I went to sleep because somebody were happening. We went
31:49
Speaker 3: by some my sister house, and then we went straight
31:52
Speaker 3: to Atlanta, but press conferences and sayings of that nature.
31:56
Speaker 3: And I had me some frid greade tomatoes, had some
32:01
Speaker 3: some ochre. I've had been worn, it's all. And I
32:08
Speaker 3: remembered that night that I got up and I walked.
32:13
Speaker 3: I walked up to a restaurant, and this guy's a
32:17
Speaker 3: chance just look up at the sky, you know, and
32:20
Speaker 3: look at the stalls and things, and just it's well,
32:24
Speaker 3: I could just see beyond that, you know, I could
32:28
Speaker 3: get a chance to see the sky, you know, and
32:30
Speaker 3: the stall and in the moon. Some of you didn't
32:34
Speaker 3: very often, you didn't get to see too much of
32:36
Speaker 3: why you was inde penal attention.
32:38
Speaker 1: So James Parham played guilty. Who since the twenty years
32:41
Speaker 1: in prison on this rape right. And then in two
32:43
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, the Georgia legislature authorized the payment of
32:45
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars in compensation to you. Now, no
32:49
Speaker 1: amount of money would ever be enough, and that's not
32:52
Speaker 1: even I mean, that's that number is tiny compared to
32:58
Speaker 1: what it should be.
32:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, Joe or you don't have a
33:00
Speaker 3: conversation law, And I got five hundred thousand dollars a
33:05
Speaker 3: conversation with prescriptions that I gotta maintain some type of employment.
33:11
Speaker 3: I got submit to drug tests and every so often
33:15
Speaker 3: I can't catch another fella there though I'll lose my conversation.
33:20
Speaker 3: I believe they put those stipulations in it because they
33:22
Speaker 3: don't want to get it. They didn't want to give
33:23
Speaker 3: me any money, and that it was done for me
33:26
Speaker 3: to fail. You know, we asked for a million and something.
33:30
Speaker 3: They got it down to seven undred and fifty thousand.
33:33
Speaker 3: It passed one body of our legislature. Then it went
33:36
Speaker 3: to the other body of our legislation and they they
33:39
Speaker 3: rejected it. They revised it, and they agreed to all
33:42
Speaker 3: these sipulations.
33:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's just crazy to me that anybody
33:45
Speaker 1: could look at someone in your shoes and not have
33:47
Speaker 1: an instinct to immediately want to help, but rather their
33:51
Speaker 1: first instinct is I'm gonna fight this. I'm gonna I'm
33:54
Speaker 1: gonna fight to not write this wrong, to keep this
33:57
Speaker 1: wrong as wrong as it could be. Is there any
34:00
Speaker 1: thing our audience can do for you, you know, right now?
34:04
Speaker 3: Give them this opportunity to say what I'm about to say,
34:08
Speaker 3: I never you know, go vote. You know what I'm saying,
34:11
Speaker 3: Get these unsimpensated people that that's a part of our
34:14
Speaker 3: legislation wave up there, so we can't get some of
34:18
Speaker 3: the bill pass that would that a and us getting
34:22
Speaker 3: you know, the support we need not only me, but
34:24
Speaker 3: other people that's in then you know, the similar situations. Yeah,
34:30
Speaker 3: you know, I you know, I'm gonna look out for me,
34:34
Speaker 3: but that's what we need. We need voters. We need
34:38
Speaker 3: those people that's in office that that's that's voting against
34:42
Speaker 3: this is a change to be removed.
34:45
Speaker 1: I hope our audience really takes those words to heart.
34:47
Speaker 1: And what about you, Amy, any call to action for
34:50
Speaker 1: our audience.
34:51
Speaker 2: Well, I think folks can obviously follow the Georgia Innocence Project,
34:55
Speaker 2: particularly about the legislation, but there is also an Axigonnery,
35:00
Speaker 2: So if folks wanted to donate to the Georgia Edison's project,
35:04
Speaker 2: they could donate and specify that it's for the exoner refund.
35:08
Speaker 2: That would be great.
35:09
Speaker 1: Okay, So we'll have those action steps linked in the bio,
35:12
Speaker 1: which brings us to my favorite part of the show.
35:14
Speaker 1: It's called, of course, closing arguments, and this is the
35:17
Speaker 1: part of the show where I thank you both for
35:19
Speaker 1: being here and just sharing this unbelievable, horrible story. And
35:25
Speaker 1: with that, I'm going to kick back in my chair,
35:28
Speaker 1: turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, and close
35:33
Speaker 1: my eyes and just listen for anything else you want
35:35
Speaker 1: to share it with me and our amazing audience.
35:40
Speaker 2: I would highly recommend people google the live lineup photo
35:45
Speaker 2: in John's case. When you get a chance to look
35:48
Speaker 2: at the live lineup, you're going to see how different
35:53
Speaker 2: James Parham looked from everybody else in that lineup. And
35:57
Speaker 2: it just goes to show how incredibly difficult it is
36:03
Speaker 2: to deal with eyewitness identification. I mean, the actual perpetrator
36:07
Speaker 2: was there live in front of her, and she still
36:10
Speaker 2: picked the wrong man. So I think that we all
36:13
Speaker 2: need to be very cautious because, as we said earlier,
36:18
Speaker 2: when the Eyewinness takes the standard trial and says that's
36:21
Speaker 2: the person, it is incredibly powerful. But we need to
36:24
Speaker 2: be very careful. The other thing is how really hard
36:28
Speaker 2: it is to come out of prison. You know, even
36:30
Speaker 2: though he comes out of prison an innocent man, prison
36:33
Speaker 2: does a number on you. Prison physically changes you, you
36:37
Speaker 2: and mentally for sure changes you. And there's really no
36:41
Speaker 2: support other than the people who rally around him. So
36:46
Speaker 2: you know, we've got to got to do better because
36:49
Speaker 2: people are going to come out of prison and we
36:52
Speaker 2: want them to be able to succeed or they're going
36:55
Speaker 2: to What's going to happen is their struggle and they
36:58
Speaker 2: end up committing a crime because they're struggling.
37:01
Speaker 3: I'm thankful, I'm thankful aiming she know our love and
37:06
Speaker 3: her determination to start to NSER project. My experience being
37:12
Speaker 3: incost rated is it's like PGSD soldiers. I don't have
37:18
Speaker 3: too much trust for nobody. I'm pretty much a loner.
37:20
Speaker 3: I don't you know. I don't deal with a whole
37:22
Speaker 3: lot of people. It's hard. It's hard, and I just
37:29
Speaker 3: want the government to step up to the plate and
37:32
Speaker 3: establish our social security benefits, our medical benefits and make
37:36
Speaker 3: these things are possible so we can, you know, at
37:39
Speaker 3: least live, you know, when we do get sick or
37:42
Speaker 3: something like that, that we can go see a doctor.
37:45
Speaker 3: We constantly being denied either easier benefit because we were
37:49
Speaker 3: wrongly convicted. We weren't given an opportunity to build up,
37:52
Speaker 3: to eat, you know, to have no kind of social
37:54
Speaker 3: security in our benefits built up, it would take them
37:57
Speaker 3: from us. So it should be giving back to us.
38:00
Speaker 3: That's what I want.
38:08
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
38:11
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Kleibern, and Kevin Wardis,
38:15
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
38:18
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
38:22
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38:26
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38:29
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