Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #097 Jason Flom with Jimmy Dennis

Transcript

#097 Jason Flom with Jimmy Dennis · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: I had the privilege of interviewing Jimmy Dennis on April
0:05
Speaker 1: first of twenty nineteen, shortly after he was released from
0:09
Speaker 1: death row in Pennsylvania. He served twenty five and a
0:13
Speaker 1: half years and had two execution dates actually scheduled. I mean,
0:17
Speaker 1: I'm talking about they asked him what his last meal
0:19
Speaker 1: was going to be, where he wanted his remains to
0:22
Speaker 1: be taken. It's unbelievable. Twenty five and a half years
0:26
Speaker 1: he lived in his tiny cell on death row with
0:29
Speaker 1: the lights on. They never turned him off, and yet
0:32
Speaker 1: he came out joyful, with a bounce in his step,
0:36
Speaker 1: ready to get back, you know, as much as he
0:39
Speaker 1: could of what he had lost. And here's the incredible thing.
0:43
Speaker 1: He was a singer when he was wrongfully arrested when
0:46
Speaker 1: he was eighteen years old. He was on the verge
0:48
Speaker 1: of getting a record deal with his group. And the
0:52
Speaker 1: good news is that a few months ago he made
0:54
Speaker 1: his on stage singing debut in New York City at
0:57
Speaker 1: the Church of Rock and Roll event. At Gospel he's
1:00
Speaker 1: saying Hallelujah, and he killed it. I gotta be honest
1:02
Speaker 1: with you. Now, he's in the process of launching a
1:05
Speaker 1: dog grooming business with his wife. The business plan is
1:08
Speaker 1: set and I think they're going to make it a
1:11
Speaker 1: real success. He's also been the subject of the first
1:17
Speaker 1: Now This video documentary of the Rawful Conviction podcast and
1:21
Speaker 1: it is a beautiful, beautiful piece. He's a beautiful, beautiful guy.
1:27
Speaker 1: And Jimmy, if you're listening, I hope you're smiling and
1:31
Speaker 1: sleeping well too, because you deserve nothing but the best
1:35
Speaker 1: of everything, and we're here to share your story. Please
1:39
Speaker 1: sit back and listen to Jimmy Dennis.
1:50
Speaker 2: This Paul is from a correction facility and is subject
1:53
Speaker 2: to monitoring and recording.
2:05
Speaker 3: And a hundred years that's man.
2:10
Speaker 4: I'm a kid.
2:11
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
2:14
Speaker 3: that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know,
2:18
Speaker 3: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
2:21
Speaker 3: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
2:23
Speaker 3: one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted
2:26
Speaker 3: to do things. I wasn't committing crimes, you know. I
2:29
Speaker 3: was a very good young man.
2:31
Speaker 5: That is what happened. In so many cases, the cops
2:34
Speaker 5: have a hunch because they're so smart. At the scene,
2:38
Speaker 5: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
2:41
Speaker 5: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
2:44
Speaker 5: marching in the wrong direction, and that happens in so
2:47
Speaker 5: many of these wrongful convictions.
2:49
Speaker 6: They opened it uh to sell door, and I walked downstairs,
2:54
Speaker 6: and I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
2:58
Speaker 6: very strange, like I said, to be walking without those
3:01
Speaker 6: shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream.
3:04
Speaker 6: But then again, it wasn't a dream.
3:06
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today,
3:16
Speaker 1: I have a guest whose story has to be heard
3:19
Speaker 1: to be believed. It's a Philadelphia story. It's a death
3:23
Speaker 1: penalty story. And it's sort of a miracle actually that
3:29
Speaker 1: you're even here at all under the circumstances, much less
3:33
Speaker 1: with a smile on your face. So and he does
3:37
Speaker 1: have a big smile. So I want to welcome to
3:39
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. Jimmy Dennis.
3:41
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
3:41
Speaker 1: Jason, Oh, you're welcome. And like I always say, I'm
3:46
Speaker 1: sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here. And I
3:50
Speaker 1: want to get right into it because I think it's
3:53
Speaker 1: super important to talk about this case, not only because
3:58
Speaker 1: it was a death penalty case, but also because of
4:01
Speaker 1: the facts of your case being so bizarre and that
4:04
Speaker 1: there was never anything to connect you to this crime,
4:07
Speaker 1: not that I know about it right now.
4:09
Speaker 7: The case happened October twenty second, nineteen ninety one, in
4:14
Speaker 7: the Fern Rock station of Philadelphia.
4:16
Speaker 4: A young lady by the name A Shadell.
4:19
Speaker 7: Williams was rutally murdered for peer ear rings by three men.
4:23
Speaker 1: Four hundred and fifty dollars earrings pier.
4:25
Speaker 4: Four hundred and fifty dollars ear rings.
4:28
Speaker 1: Right, a high school girl. And when they say four
4:30
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars earrings, I'm assuming that's retails. Whoever
4:33
Speaker 1: whoever killed her for these earrings probably got maybe one hundred.
4:36
Speaker 4: Dollars for it, right at best.
4:38
Speaker 1: That's what her life was worth, a high school girl.
4:40
Speaker 7: Right when this happens, it's a high profile case. The
4:45
Speaker 7: community is outraged by so on and so forth. In Philadelphia,
4:50
Speaker 7: there's a lot of pressure in high profile cases for
4:54
Speaker 7: the cops to sib crime.
4:56
Speaker 1: So you weren't there when it happened.
4:59
Speaker 4: No, I wasn't there.
5:00
Speaker 1: In fact, you weren't even close by.
5:01
Speaker 4: I wasn't even close by.
5:02
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to that, because where were you,
5:05
Speaker 1: and how did they end up? Like it seemed so
5:08
Speaker 1: random that you were several miles away, and then yet
5:11
Speaker 1: they ended up picking you up. And then the whole
5:14
Speaker 1: thing goes sideways and backwards from there.
5:16
Speaker 7: So at the time of the crime, I was on
5:19
Speaker 7: a bus in Philadelphia called the K Bus, traveling to
5:24
Speaker 7: abbas Ford Projects, where I seen someone familiar, you know
5:29
Speaker 7: what I mean, just the acquaintance I said hi to
5:32
Speaker 7: all this was instantiated right, even the time I said
5:36
Speaker 7: that I got on the bus and got off the stop.
5:40
Speaker 7: The bus driver testified that that was correct, right, So
5:43
Speaker 7: all these things were stantiated. So the police came around.
5:47
Speaker 7: They went to every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia,
5:50
Speaker 7: and they started.
5:50
Speaker 4: Picking up stick up boys.
5:53
Speaker 7: And when they did that, a group of individuals lied
5:58
Speaker 7: and said my name for or ungodly reasons of jealousy
6:02
Speaker 7: or whatever you might.
6:03
Speaker 4: Want to call it.
6:04
Speaker 1: And you were twenty one.
6:06
Speaker 7: I was twenty one. I was barely I was a
6:09
Speaker 7: young man. I wasn't even a man. I had many
6:13
Speaker 7: aspirations of being in the music business. I would come
6:16
Speaker 7: up here to New York to the New Music Seminar
6:19
Speaker 7: every year. My group was one of the best amateur
6:23
Speaker 7: groups in Philadelphia, and we were receiving interest from.
6:27
Speaker 4: You know, music people. What group was that sensation? And
6:31
Speaker 4: we had won many talent shows.
6:33
Speaker 1: What kind of style of music was it? R and B?
6:36
Speaker 1: And you were the singer, I was the lead singer well,
6:39
Speaker 1: and so yeah, who knows, we might even cross paths
6:41
Speaker 1: at the New Music know It. But but then things
6:46
Speaker 1: obviously went took a terrible.
6:47
Speaker 7: Terror and then things just started to turn from there.
6:52
Speaker 4: You even see in the statements that.
6:54
Speaker 7: They all had talked on the phone or whatever, and
6:57
Speaker 7: then they just you know, made up this you know
6:59
Speaker 7: Storrey that I, you know, had on these clothes and
7:03
Speaker 7: that I was doing these things, and the police ran
7:06
Speaker 7: with it.
7:06
Speaker 4: But none of these people ever testified.
7:09
Speaker 1: I mean, were you caught up in the gang life
7:11
Speaker 1: or anything.
7:11
Speaker 4: I wasn't caught up.
7:12
Speaker 7: In any gang life or anything like that. I wasn't,
7:15
Speaker 7: you know, in any type kind of gangs.
7:17
Speaker 4: It really not.
7:18
Speaker 7: Really gangs in Philadelphia like that at that time, you
7:21
Speaker 7: know what I mean.
7:22
Speaker 4: So this was just people in the.
7:24
Speaker 7: Neighborhood didn't like me, you know what I mean. I
7:28
Speaker 7: had no significant criminal history whatsoever. I had a misdemeanor
7:32
Speaker 7: drug offense.
7:33
Speaker 4: On my record.
7:35
Speaker 7: Uh, and that's all I ever had on my record
7:37
Speaker 7: up until the time that I was arrested. So going
7:41
Speaker 7: back from the misdemeanor, I had a picture, you know,
7:44
Speaker 7: mugshot that the police kept in the number one spot
7:47
Speaker 7: the entire time when they were showing witnesses the photo rays.
7:51
Speaker 7: So one witness said, I think so. They said, can
7:55
Speaker 7: you be sure? They said no yet, and still they
7:58
Speaker 7: ran with that.
8:00
Speaker 1: And what was the description of the subject?
8:02
Speaker 7: Uh, five to ten to six feet tall, to one
8:05
Speaker 7: hundred and eighty to two hundred pounds, dark skin complexion.
8:08
Speaker 7: Now when they say dark skin complexion, they talk about
8:11
Speaker 7: Miles Davis or Wesley Snipes. You sitting here before me,
8:14
Speaker 7: you know, I'm brown skin. I weigh one hundred and
8:17
Speaker 7: twenty five pounds at the time, I had a diminutive
8:20
Speaker 7: frame and I'm five four in height. There's no way
8:24
Speaker 7: you're going to get five nine to five ten six
8:26
Speaker 7: foot one eighty to two hundred pounds from a hundred
8:28
Speaker 7: and twenty five and you're not going to ever mix
8:31
Speaker 7: me up with Wesley Snipes or Miles Davis.
8:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that should have been a moment that
8:40
Speaker 1: alone for everybody to go, well, Okay, let's just look
8:43
Speaker 1: and see if he's got an alibi, and if he does,
8:47
Speaker 1: we maybe wouldn't even need that, maybe would just say, well, okay,
8:49
Speaker 1: the description doesn't work. The one witness who at least
8:52
Speaker 1: is even saying anything still isn't sure. But that would
8:56
Speaker 1: have been inconvenient, yes, right, because they would have had
8:59
Speaker 1: to go back to the drawing board. And we know
9:02
Speaker 1: how these things work, especially in Philly in the early nineties.
9:05
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a time where I would say
9:08
Speaker 1: that from what I know about the history of Philadelphia,
9:11
Speaker 1: it probably would have been a time when Philadelphia was
9:13
Speaker 1: probably the wrongful conviction capital of America. They were arresting
9:18
Speaker 1: and beating up people of color, yes, and everybody. But
9:23
Speaker 1: it was basically a policy, and it came from the top.
9:26
Speaker 1: There was that infamous police chief Rizzo, who became the mayor,
9:30
Speaker 1: and he was a notoriously brutal, lawless type of a guy,
9:35
Speaker 1: an area.
9:36
Speaker 7: That I grew up in in North Philadelphia. Abbas for projects,
9:40
Speaker 7: there are literally five people that have been proven to
9:45
Speaker 7: be innocent, myself included, that have all come home. And
9:48
Speaker 7: Anthony Wright, who I believe you may have had on
9:52
Speaker 7: this show. Is one of the guys that came from
9:55
Speaker 7: North Philadelphia. Him and I have the same.
9:59
Speaker 4: Police that worked on his case, did the same thing
10:03
Speaker 4: to me.
10:05
Speaker 1: And there's an amazing I'm glad you brought that up
10:07
Speaker 1: because there's an incredible article that ran in Rolling Stone
10:10
Speaker 1: magazine about Tony Wright's case, and I'll never forget there
10:14
Speaker 1: was a pull quote in that article where it said
10:16
Speaker 1: that in whatever year that was nineteen ninety or something
10:20
Speaker 1: that he was convicted, it said a black man had
10:23
Speaker 1: a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, Mississippi than
10:27
Speaker 1: they did in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
10:29
Speaker 4: That is so true.
10:31
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm happy to see that now we have
10:33
Speaker 1: a whole different situation in Philadelphia with Larry krast.
10:37
Speaker 4: Get much better with mister Krasner.
10:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it had to change. But you
10:41
Speaker 1: were caught up in exactly the wrong place at exactly
10:44
Speaker 1: the wrong time. So at what point did they arrest you?
10:47
Speaker 1: Was it a day or two after the crowd?
10:49
Speaker 7: So as soon as I heard like this is one thing,
10:52
Speaker 7: that one other thing that people don't know, I got
10:55
Speaker 7: arrested like a month later. But as soon as I
10:58
Speaker 7: heard any rumors in the neighborhood of my name being mentioned.
11:02
Speaker 7: Actually went down to the police station and asked him
11:05
Speaker 7: did they want to speak to me? And stayed down
11:07
Speaker 7: there for over four hours, and they did not want
11:10
Speaker 7: to speak to me. Everybody has this thing about what
11:13
Speaker 7: innocent people should do.
11:15
Speaker 4: You don't run, you go to the police station, so
11:17
Speaker 4: on and so forth.
11:19
Speaker 7: So I get arrested November twenty third, nineteen ninety one.
11:23
Speaker 7: So before I get arrested, I went down there, me
11:25
Speaker 7: and my father and my brother asked him did they
11:28
Speaker 7: want to talk to me? I signed in the police
11:30
Speaker 7: law book. All this was said at trial they didn't
11:33
Speaker 7: want to talk to me. But two weeks later they
11:35
Speaker 7: came and arrested me.
11:36
Speaker 4: In a nightmare began.
11:38
Speaker 7: I did everything you supposed to do, and I still
11:41
Speaker 7: got my life stolen away.
11:43
Speaker 1: And so you go to trial when you had a
11:45
Speaker 1: quarter point lawyer, I'm assuming no.
11:47
Speaker 7: Actually, my dad and I you know, paid for my
11:53
Speaker 7: first attorney. It wasn't quarter point. My dad was a musician,
11:59
Speaker 7: He wasn't rich anything like that.
12:01
Speaker 4: We were poor. But my dad put the money together
12:04
Speaker 4: and he got me.
12:06
Speaker 7: What we thought was a you know, decent enough lawyer
12:10
Speaker 7: to represent me, but he did not.
12:11
Speaker 4: Do his job.
12:13
Speaker 1: How much time did you get to spend with him
12:14
Speaker 1: before the trial?
12:15
Speaker 4: None?
12:16
Speaker 1: None, none, He never visited.
12:18
Speaker 7: You came to see me one time to tell me
12:20
Speaker 7: that they were charging me with more cases, and that's it.
12:24
Speaker 4: Left.
12:25
Speaker 7: I would call him all the time, no answer, so
12:28
Speaker 7: on and so forth.
12:29
Speaker 4: It was that bad.
12:31
Speaker 1: Wow, And then you go to trial. Then I go
12:34
Speaker 1: to trial with an attorney you don't even know, Yeah,
12:37
Speaker 1: who doesn't really know much about your case.
12:39
Speaker 4: Right, who's really not investigating things like that? And you know,
12:43
Speaker 4: so on and so forth. It was.
12:45
Speaker 7: It was the typical nightmare that you had come to
12:49
Speaker 7: know with all the great work that you do.
12:52
Speaker 4: But it was the typical standard. Okay, don't care.
12:58
Speaker 1: I mean he wasn't really the face I think you
13:00
Speaker 1: so much as processing you at the prison.
13:02
Speaker 4: There you go.
13:03
Speaker 1: And I mean, was he alcoholic or no.
13:09
Speaker 7: There was an article at the time that set him
13:11
Speaker 7: and two other attorneys took on the most homicide cases
13:15
Speaker 7: in the city of Philadelphia.
13:17
Speaker 4: It kind of came out like in the mid nineties.
13:19
Speaker 1: But you know, so he was just taking as many
13:22
Speaker 1: cases as he could get to make as much money
13:23
Speaker 1: as he could and not really worrying about the outcome.
13:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's how I feel.
13:28
Speaker 1: So it sounds like me. I mean when you say
13:32
Speaker 1: they were trying to put other cases on you.
13:34
Speaker 4: I was charged with over nine other robbery cases.
13:38
Speaker 7: They tried to make it look like I was Jesse James,
13:40
Speaker 7: and I was nothing of the sort.
13:42
Speaker 4: If you go back in.
13:43
Speaker 7: My community and you do your own type of investigation,
13:47
Speaker 7: which my lawyers and everybody do, everybody be like, Yo,
13:50
Speaker 7: he was a good kid, you know what I mean.
13:53
Speaker 7: You know, nobody's perfect, but he ain't. No, you know,
13:55
Speaker 7: he ain't no robbery, he ain't no murdering, he ain't
13:57
Speaker 7: no stick up with you know what I mean. So
14:01
Speaker 7: I was charged with nine other cases that were later dropped,
14:05
Speaker 7: all except for.
14:05
Speaker 1: One, all except for the one the original one, or
14:09
Speaker 1: except for another one besides that.
14:11
Speaker 4: All except for another one besides that.
14:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you go to trial, right, and you charged
14:16
Speaker 1: with capital murder, which is murder in the act of
14:19
Speaker 1: committing another felony, which was robbing her of the earrings. Right, Yes,
14:23
Speaker 1: And so how long did the trial last?
14:26
Speaker 7: The trial went from September about twenty first twenty fifteen
14:30
Speaker 7: October sixteenth. I was found guilty October nineteenth, they gave
14:34
Speaker 7: me the death penalty.
14:36
Speaker 4: Each part of that trial, it was horrible.
14:39
Speaker 7: I still relived even to this day everything that I
14:43
Speaker 7: went through, because you don't think that this is.
14:45
Speaker 4: Going to happen to you.
14:47
Speaker 7: You think, even then, you believe that the truth is
14:50
Speaker 7: going to come out, that you believe in the system,
14:52
Speaker 7: that everybody can see that I'm not five ten, two
14:56
Speaker 7: hundred pounds in dark skinned complexion.
14:58
Speaker 4: But you had a prosecutor that was something of a
15:03
Speaker 4: theme on law and order, right.
15:06
Speaker 7: You had jury members going to sleep, literally going to sleep.
15:11
Speaker 4: No mistrial. It was just a nightmare from beginning to end.
15:15
Speaker 1: I mean that's a pretty long trial. And I'm assuming
15:18
Speaker 1: that your lawyer wasn't doing much. What was he doing
15:20
Speaker 1: just sitting there listening?
15:22
Speaker 7: Nah, he was he he was doing I guess you
15:27
Speaker 7: could say he was doing I don't know what he
15:31
Speaker 7: was doing, to be perfectly honest with you, Jason, I
15:34
Speaker 7: don't know what he was doing. All I know is
15:36
Speaker 7: that it was the entire thing was a nightmare from
15:41
Speaker 7: beginning and the end. There's a part in the trial
15:43
Speaker 7: like if you go back and look at the transcripts,
15:45
Speaker 7: they even took my height right, and they get out
15:49
Speaker 7: of tape measure and they take my height so they
15:51
Speaker 7: see that I'm actually you know, five to four and
15:55
Speaker 7: I'm only five to five with this one and a
15:57
Speaker 7: half inch ill on right. Yeah, I mean, none of
16:00
Speaker 7: that made a difference to the jury. The fact that
16:04
Speaker 7: this crime took place within seconds. And you know, doctor
16:09
Speaker 7: Elizabeth Loaffers say, can't nobody identify nobody in two minutes,
16:13
Speaker 7: let alone seconds?
16:15
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
16:15
Speaker 7: This is a violent crime, you know what I mean.
16:19
Speaker 7: So you know, if somebody runs into the studio right here,
16:22
Speaker 7: and you know it robs us right now, nine times
16:25
Speaker 7: out of ten, we all gonna get it wrong when
16:28
Speaker 7: it comes to the physical description.
16:29
Speaker 4: Nobody paid attention to that.
16:32
Speaker 1: Right in this crime, this took place. There was a chase.
16:36
Speaker 1: The poor girl was after her her earrings were stolen.
16:39
Speaker 1: She was shot in the throat. She was with a
16:42
Speaker 1: friend who was luckily not harmed. But we know also
16:45
Speaker 1: from decades of research that in cases in which someone
16:49
Speaker 1: is up close when the violent crime is being committed,
16:53
Speaker 1: we know that that person is much more likely to
16:56
Speaker 1: mistakenly identify someone because you're in makes sense if you
17:00
Speaker 1: think about it, right, Your adrenaline is going crazy. Your
17:03
Speaker 1: own life is threatened. It's all that fight or flight
17:06
Speaker 1: and all those reflexes and impulses and all the nerve
17:08
Speaker 1: endings are going crazy. And there have been experiments where
17:12
Speaker 1: they they've actually staged the crime, right, and then they
17:15
Speaker 1: bring in people from the outside, and they found that
17:18
Speaker 1: people who weren't there have a better chance of being right.
17:21
Speaker 1: So actually those witnesses are not even as good as guessing.
17:24
Speaker 1: So in this case, you had all of those factors, right.
17:27
Speaker 7: Yeah, So you actually had three witnesses you know, that testify,
17:32
Speaker 7: but you actually had over nine witnesses and the other
17:37
Speaker 7: six you know, didn't testify because they didn't say what
17:43
Speaker 7: the police wanted them to say. They actually said the opposite.
17:46
Speaker 1: What about the other evidence that showed that you were
17:49
Speaker 1: somewhere else?
17:49
Speaker 4: That evidence was with hell for over a.
17:52
Speaker 1: Decade, and which evidence was that? All?
17:54
Speaker 6: Right?
17:55
Speaker 7: So there was a welfare receiat from the young lady
17:59
Speaker 7: that I seen on the bus that stantiated my innocense
18:03
Speaker 7: as well that the police went to her, threatened her,
18:06
Speaker 7: and they took the welfare receipt from her. Now welfare
18:11
Speaker 7: receipts are done in military time. She had picked up
18:14
Speaker 7: her welfare receipt and then she had got on the
18:16
Speaker 7: same k bus that I was on, So the receipt
18:20
Speaker 7: said thirteen oh three. They told her that it set
18:25
Speaker 7: three h three pm because she couldn't tell military time.
18:28
Speaker 4: So when she.
18:29
Speaker 7: Takes the stand, she says exactly what they wanted her
18:32
Speaker 7: to say, that she seen me it, you know, later
18:35
Speaker 7: on that day and not the actual time that she
18:37
Speaker 7: did see me.
18:38
Speaker 1: Right, So had they not lied about that, then you
18:41
Speaker 1: couldn't have been there because they know the crime.
18:43
Speaker 7: Happened exactly, so that that stayed hidden away.
18:46
Speaker 1: That was one thing. There were there other things that
18:48
Speaker 1: were withheld as well.
18:50
Speaker 7: So the clothes that they said they took from my
18:53
Speaker 7: father's house that the police officers got on the stand
18:55
Speaker 7: and testified about.
18:57
Speaker 4: And said they were their closed that was used at
18:59
Speaker 4: the crime.
18:59
Speaker 7: Non the witnesses ever seeing these clothes, they weren't cataloged
19:04
Speaker 7: and they suddenly poof disappeared, right, and all this stuff
19:09
Speaker 7: could have helped prove my innocence, you know, going back
19:13
Speaker 7: to other evidence, there still was never two.
19:16
Speaker 4: Other people locked up.
19:17
Speaker 7: There's supposed to be three people to the crime, but
19:20
Speaker 7: only one person was ever arrested, which was me, right.
19:24
Speaker 4: So there's all these holes, you know, but it's all
19:29
Speaker 4: come from the same prosecutor and police officers.
19:33
Speaker 1: And the very real consequence of this, aside from the
19:37
Speaker 1: obvious terrible injustice that was done to you and your family,
19:42
Speaker 1: is the fact that there's no justice for Shadell Williams.
19:46
Speaker 1: Not to mention that the citizens of Philadelphia remained in
19:50
Speaker 1: danger with these two or three guys how many it
19:53
Speaker 1: was that actually committed this robbery and murder being out
19:56
Speaker 1: on the loose because you were in there instead of them.
19:59
Speaker 7: That's the har other situation that that family hasn't gotten justice.
20:05
Speaker 4: And when you lie.
20:06
Speaker 7: About something to someone, you dishonored a victim and you
20:11
Speaker 7: dishonored their family as well.
20:13
Speaker 1: So let's go back to that day of the verdict.
20:17
Speaker 1: Can you give us a picture of the courtroom that day.
20:21
Speaker 1: I mean, you had now been in the system for
20:23
Speaker 1: almost a year, but you still said you had hope
20:27
Speaker 1: and you still believe that no one could possibly convict
20:31
Speaker 1: you because you knew that you weren't there. You knew
20:33
Speaker 1: that none of the evidence match, You knew you had alibis,
20:36
Speaker 1: but you also knew that you know this trial had
20:39
Speaker 1: been sort of a you know, for lack of a
20:42
Speaker 1: better word, I'll say with a clusterfuck.
20:44
Speaker 6: Yes.
20:45
Speaker 1: But even with all of that, did you still have
20:47
Speaker 1: hope that the jury was going to do the right thing.
20:50
Speaker 7: I still had hope that the jury was going to
20:53
Speaker 7: do the right thing because I always had faith, period,
20:58
Speaker 7: ever since I was a kid. I always had that,
21:00
Speaker 7: you know, faith in God that you know, I could
21:03
Speaker 7: get through anything. So I'm sitting there and I'm praying
21:07
Speaker 7: that the right thing is going to happen, that people
21:10
Speaker 7: sitting on this jury would be able to see through
21:14
Speaker 7: all the you know, the lies and things like that,
21:17
Speaker 7: or that nature that went on in that courtroom. You know,
21:20
Speaker 7: when you look at the physical description, when you're seeing that,
21:23
Speaker 7: stuff just don't make sense, you know what I mean.
21:27
Speaker 4: And I had hope.
21:28
Speaker 7: So when they stood me up and then they read
21:32
Speaker 7: the verdict, it was like like somebody just knocked the
21:38
Speaker 7: wind out of me. It was like Tyson hitting somebody,
21:41
Speaker 7: you know. I immediately started crying. I remember my mom crying.
21:46
Speaker 7: I remember my sister rocking back and forth. I remember
21:50
Speaker 7: friends that I grew up with, men crying. Everybody broke
21:54
Speaker 7: down and just started crying because nobody could believe that
21:56
Speaker 7: this was happening, because a lot of lives would destroyed
22:01
Speaker 7: on that day, A lot of dreams were destroyed.
22:04
Speaker 4: It was a horrible scene. You know when you hear
22:07
Speaker 4: these cries and.
22:08
Speaker 7: These wells, and you you like in this moment that's
22:11
Speaker 7: so sad and like out of body, like you don't
22:14
Speaker 7: want to be in here, and you know when I'm
22:17
Speaker 7: shaking and I can't believe it.
22:20
Speaker 1: And then you said a few days later, you were
22:22
Speaker 1: sentenced to death right, which is the only thing worse
22:26
Speaker 1: that could happen to everything that's already happened. Right, And
22:29
Speaker 1: then you get taken I.
22:31
Speaker 4: Get taken to the greatest for a prison.
22:33
Speaker 7: From there you go to Camp Hill, and then you
22:35
Speaker 7: get your destination of what prison that you go to.
22:39
Speaker 7: So I wound up at huntingon death Row. After these
22:42
Speaker 7: other two stops of death row. You know what I mean,
22:44
Speaker 7: you get your first taste of death row.
22:47
Speaker 1: Can you explain what that's like for the audience?
22:51
Speaker 7: That process going on death row is your shackle Your
22:58
Speaker 7: feet and your hands are shackled. They got like a
23:00
Speaker 7: belt in a black box on you. You literally can't
23:03
Speaker 7: move and they basically strip you neckd which is a
23:09
Speaker 7: very dehumanizing process. When you come, they got the cameras
23:12
Speaker 7: on you and all that stuff, and then they throw
23:15
Speaker 7: you in the shell, you know, and then the nightmare
23:20
Speaker 7: gets even worse if you can believe it. You know,
23:25
Speaker 7: prison is such a dehumanizing place. Prison is meant to
23:30
Speaker 7: destroy families and relationships of everybody. And being on death row,
23:37
Speaker 7: you're considered the worst of the worst, less than human,
23:41
Speaker 7: and you get it from all sides, you know what
23:43
Speaker 7: I mean. Even though you got people in general population
23:47
Speaker 7: that may have worse crimes, it's a perception about people
23:50
Speaker 7: on death row like they're the worst of the worst,
23:52
Speaker 7: you know, so you catch it, catch it from all sides.
23:56
Speaker 7: What you gotta understand, you can't be in prison for
23:59
Speaker 7: nothing like that.
24:00
Speaker 4: So when I.
24:01
Speaker 7: Say that I went through hell, it's actually an understatement
24:06
Speaker 7: to describe what I went through. I got it from
24:10
Speaker 7: every side, guards, prisoners. I was basically in a fight
24:14
Speaker 7: for my life just to be whole, period.
24:19
Speaker 1: And that is because the case was such a high
24:22
Speaker 1: profile case.
24:23
Speaker 4: It was a high profile case.
24:24
Speaker 7: But back then you couldn't be in prison for nothing
24:27
Speaker 7: like this, anything that had to do with a woman
24:30
Speaker 7: or a child.
24:31
Speaker 4: You can't be in prison. This is real prison.
24:34
Speaker 7: I was in, you know, real situations where I was jumped.
24:38
Speaker 4: I was you know, had to fight, you know what
24:41
Speaker 4: I mean. I had to defend myself. You know what
24:43
Speaker 4: I mean. I was jumped, I.
24:45
Speaker 7: Was set up by guards, I was rolled on by prisoners,
24:49
Speaker 7: on and so forth. It was a living nightmare, something
24:52
Speaker 7: that you never recover from, something.
24:55
Speaker 4: That you never get over.
24:56
Speaker 7: I got teeth in my mouth right here that are
25:00
Speaker 7: broke and fixed from stuff I went through in prison.
25:05
Speaker 7: You know, the battle scars are still on me and
25:08
Speaker 7: in my soul. My situation is just like what we
25:15
Speaker 7: all know that Kylief Brouder went through.
25:17
Speaker 4: I went through a lot of that.
25:27
Speaker 1: And you were on death row for a quarter of
25:30
Speaker 1: a century.
25:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, I spent twenty five point five years in prison.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you maintain sanity? How'd you maintain hope?
25:40
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if someone want to meet you now,
25:43
Speaker 1: they would have no idea that you've been through this.
25:46
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's that saying that everyone you
25:48
Speaker 1: meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Just
25:51
Speaker 1: be kind, but this is the extreme version of that.
25:54
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's going through their stuff. You don't know
25:57
Speaker 1: what anyone's going through. It might be all heartbreak, might
25:59
Speaker 1: have just lost their job. Who knows what. You all
26:02
Speaker 1: have our stuff, But this is a different level. I mean,
26:05
Speaker 1: this is an extraordinary ordeal for anybody to go through
26:10
Speaker 1: and survive. And I'm sure there were a bunch of
26:12
Speaker 1: people that you met, a bunch of men you met
26:14
Speaker 1: on death row who didn't survive. I mean that that is.
26:19
Speaker 7: Kind of trippy because when I was in there, I've
26:23
Speaker 7: seen people kill theyself. You see the body bags come in,
26:27
Speaker 7: and you see the ambulance come in.
26:28
Speaker 4: You see people die from.
26:31
Speaker 7: Natural causes or what have your dehabilitating diseases.
26:35
Speaker 1: But how did you, like, what was it that allowed
26:39
Speaker 1: you to, you know, persevere and to not not take
26:43
Speaker 1: your own life and not go down this rabbit hole
26:45
Speaker 1: that so many of the guys went there.
26:47
Speaker 7: So when you in prison, for me to sit here
26:51
Speaker 7: and tell you that I never thought about suicide.
26:53
Speaker 4: That's a lie.
26:55
Speaker 7: Many times, even when I was in the county because
26:59
Speaker 7: like I told you, I was suffering so greatly.
27:03
Speaker 4: And nobody was hearing my crowd.
27:06
Speaker 7: Like one time I was literally gonna take my life
27:09
Speaker 7: because I just couldn't take it, you know what I mean,
27:12
Speaker 7: I'm innocent, and I'm not getting proper representation that. You know,
27:16
Speaker 7: everything is going on. You know, the cops done, you know,
27:19
Speaker 7: frame me, whatever the case may be. So for me,
27:24
Speaker 7: I once read this book by Victor E. Frankel called
27:26
Speaker 7: A Man Search for Mean And in this book he
27:29
Speaker 7: had this quote by Nietzsche. It said, he who, he
27:34
Speaker 7: who has a why, I can bear with almost anyhow.
27:37
Speaker 7: And my why has always been my daughters and my mom,
27:41
Speaker 7: you know what I mean. Like I literally connected with
27:43
Speaker 7: it so much because here it was they had no hope,
27:48
Speaker 7: and he created hope for himself, and he didn't give up.
27:51
Speaker 7: You know the stories he would tell the other people
27:54
Speaker 7: in the concentration camps about their family so.
27:57
Speaker 4: That they could live and survive and have hope with
27:59
Speaker 4: some you know.
28:01
Speaker 7: And for me, I would do the same thing. I
28:06
Speaker 7: would visualize myself home with my daughters someday.
28:13
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your daughters. What are their names?
28:15
Speaker 7: My oldest daughter's name for Team, and my youngest daughter's
28:18
Speaker 7: name Kiara.
28:19
Speaker 1: And when you went to prison, one of them wasn't
28:22
Speaker 1: even born yet.
28:23
Speaker 4: Kiara wasn't born.
28:25
Speaker 7: She was born one week after I was stolen away.
28:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you never got to see her until you
28:33
Speaker 1: got out of prison.
28:33
Speaker 7: My dad would bring her to see me a lot
28:37
Speaker 7: that the family would bring them to see me, but
28:40
Speaker 7: I never literally spent a day with them with her
28:44
Speaker 7: until I got out. So everything I went through was
28:49
Speaker 7: for them and my father, you know. And then I
28:52
Speaker 7: wanted to restore my family name.
28:55
Speaker 4: Back, you know. And for me faith, faith in God
29:00
Speaker 4: was the key in music.
29:03
Speaker 7: And so every day I would wake up, I would
29:06
Speaker 7: hear these songs in my mind. Literally because it didn't
29:11
Speaker 7: have a good radio station up there, couldn't listen to the.
29:13
Speaker 4: Music I wanted to listen to.
29:15
Speaker 7: But every day I would hear the Wantings, Trusting God,
29:19
Speaker 7: John Coltrane, Dear Lord. And then I would hear Bruce
29:22
Speaker 7: Springsteen in the East Street Band, Bruce Springsteen, as you know,
29:27
Speaker 7: he has all these wonderful ad libs, all right, come on,
29:31
Speaker 7: you know, and I would play Hungry Hard or Born
29:34
Speaker 7: and run in my head, you know what I mean.
29:36
Speaker 7: Then it would go to Stevie Wonder if It's Magic
29:39
Speaker 7: and Fleetwood Mac Don't Stop, And every day those songs
29:42
Speaker 7: would play.
29:43
Speaker 4: In secession in my head.
29:45
Speaker 7: And then I would get up, I would work on
29:47
Speaker 7: the Justice for Jimmy campaign. I would work on legal work.
29:51
Speaker 7: I would call my lawyers, I would discuss law within them,
29:54
Speaker 7: legal issues, how to you know, proceed and what we
29:58
Speaker 7: should do and things like that. And I just I
30:03
Speaker 7: think everybody has it in them, you know, to make
30:07
Speaker 7: it out of any situation if they believe. And I
30:09
Speaker 7: just knew and believe that my dead truth was going
30:13
Speaker 7: to come. On every single letter, if you would have
30:16
Speaker 7: received a letter from me in prison, and you would
30:18
Speaker 7: have opened it up on the top head of the
30:20
Speaker 7: paper said praying for the truth. And that was my model,
30:23
Speaker 7: praying for the truth. And I always believe that my
30:26
Speaker 7: dead truth was gonna come.
30:28
Speaker 1: I see you have a bracelet on it says in
30:30
Speaker 1: big letters, never ever give up, Never ever.
30:32
Speaker 4: Give up, and this one say not throwing away my shot.
30:36
Speaker 7: My lawyers from Arnold and Porter, who are liked my family,
30:41
Speaker 7: gave me these when when I came home.
30:44
Speaker 1: Now we understand how you found this extra gear, this
30:48
Speaker 1: extra this extraordinary otherworldly grace or whatever it is that
30:54
Speaker 1: allowed you to maintain yourself and maintain your sanity in
30:58
Speaker 1: an insane situation. How did you end up getting out.
31:03
Speaker 1: How'd that work?
31:04
Speaker 7: You know, for so long I labored just trying to
31:07
Speaker 7: yell out that I was innocent, over and over again,
31:11
Speaker 7: and the system felled me horridly over and over again
31:16
Speaker 7: until I got the Federal Court. On August twenty first,
31:20
Speaker 7: twenty thirteen, the Honorable Judge Nita Brody gave this forty
31:25
Speaker 7: six page legal opinion that breaks down the truth.
31:28
Speaker 4: About what happens to me.
31:30
Speaker 7: And the part that met everything to me was the
31:34
Speaker 7: first paragraph.
31:35
Speaker 4: If you read that opinion, it says.
31:37
Speaker 7: James Dennis was wrongfully convicted of this crime.
31:41
Speaker 1: And she called it a quote grave miscarriage of justice.
31:44
Speaker 1: And she's she wrote that police and prosecutors ignored, lost,
31:48
Speaker 1: or covered up evidence that was favorable to.
31:50
Speaker 7: You, and then came three years later, because nothing happens
31:55
Speaker 7: that quick. The Third Circuit, the entire panel ruled in
31:59
Speaker 7: a majority decision vote. You know that it was a
32:03
Speaker 7: great mischaracter justice that started the wills rolling to me
32:07
Speaker 7: getting home. So you know, the DA offered a deal
32:12
Speaker 7: to get me out, and it was something that I
32:16
Speaker 7: didn't want to do and something that bothers me to
32:20
Speaker 7: this day.
32:22
Speaker 4: But sometimes you got to make decisions.
32:25
Speaker 7: That's best for your family and not so much you
32:30
Speaker 7: or just to get you out, you know what I mean,
32:33
Speaker 7: because you might be in there another five years and
32:35
Speaker 7: you don't know what's going to happen, because I was
32:38
Speaker 7: literally at the end of my role. So if they
32:41
Speaker 7: appeal this decision, you go to the US Supreme.
32:43
Speaker 1: Court, and most people ask me that aren't familiar with
32:48
Speaker 1: this work, how could it be that this real judged
32:51
Speaker 1: need to Brody called this a grave mischaracter justice said
32:54
Speaker 1: you were innocent. Then the Third Circuit Court ruled, I
32:57
Speaker 1: think was nine to four strong majority.
33:00
Speaker 4: Strong majority, and it's a very scathing legal opinion.
33:05
Speaker 1: Quote evidence suppressed by the prosecution, a receipt corroborating Dennis's alibi,
33:10
Speaker 1: an inconsistent statement by the Commonwealth's key eyewitness, and documents
33:15
Speaker 1: indicating that another individual committed the murder effectively gutted the
33:19
Speaker 1: Commonwealth's case against Dennis. And she finishes by saying, I'm
33:23
Speaker 1: getting it chilled. The withholding of these pieces of evidence
33:27
Speaker 1: denied Dennis a fair trial and state court. So they
33:30
Speaker 1: ruled that you were innocent. And then people say, well,
33:33
Speaker 1: doesn't that mean in America you go home and you're innocent.
33:36
Speaker 1: But That's not the way it works sometimes, is it.
33:38
Speaker 4: No, that's not the way it worked.
33:40
Speaker 7: They were going to appeal to the US Supreme Court
33:42
Speaker 7: because no one's really trying to say we made a mistake,
33:46
Speaker 7: we did anything wrong. So that would have took more
33:48
Speaker 7: years out of my life. If you look and just
33:52
Speaker 7: ask comparison. If you look at the Anthony Right case,
33:56
Speaker 7: it took him three years to go to trial after
33:58
Speaker 7: the DNA evidence proved diminising. Then he still had to
34:01
Speaker 7: go to trial. Why do you have to go to
34:03
Speaker 7: trial and the DNA evidence? So this is Philadelphia, This
34:07
Speaker 7: is not where people.
34:09
Speaker 1: Are going to do the right thing, Johnson.
34:13
Speaker 7: There you go, and I can name other cases William
34:16
Speaker 7: niaz On and so forth, and the list goes on
34:19
Speaker 7: where they don't want.
34:20
Speaker 4: To do the right thing.
34:22
Speaker 7: So I would have spent another three to five years
34:26
Speaker 7: or more in prison, and we wouldn't even be sitting
34:29
Speaker 7: here talking.
34:31
Speaker 1: And you could have died in there too, I mean
34:33
Speaker 1: just from deprivation. You could die in there. But and
34:36
Speaker 1: then I want to go back to the you know
34:37
Speaker 1: said it was a scathing opinion.
34:39
Speaker 4: Yes, how did it.
34:40
Speaker 1: Feel to hear those words?
34:43
Speaker 7: So I'm sitting there in prison. So I just want
34:46
Speaker 7: to take you back to when the first one happened.
34:50
Speaker 7: Every day I used to walk back and forth and
34:52
Speaker 7: I'm looking for.
34:55
Speaker 4: A sign.
34:57
Speaker 7: For unit manage your account. So that runs the block
35:01
Speaker 7: to come and say you got to call your lawyers
35:03
Speaker 7: because your lawyer's called up here good news or whatever.
35:05
Speaker 7: You don't know, or it might be a family emergency.
35:08
Speaker 7: This particular day, it didn't even click in. I'm thinking
35:12
Speaker 7: something bad had happened with my mom because I had
35:15
Speaker 7: already lost my dad very tragically. You know, he died
35:22
Speaker 7: from all timer's and didn't even remember who I was.
35:25
Speaker 7: But just to let you know, when my dad found
35:29
Speaker 7: out that I was actually going to try out back
35:31
Speaker 7: in nineteen ninety two, he had a stroke sitting at
35:35
Speaker 7: the table and he never was the same again.
35:37
Speaker 1: Wo.
35:38
Speaker 7: So this is the kind of stuff that I endure.
35:40
Speaker 7: So that day they come to sell, they say, you
35:45
Speaker 7: gotta call your lawyers. I call my lawyers. A guy
35:48
Speaker 7: yells out the door. That's not bad news. Shorty is
35:52
Speaker 7: what they call me. You know what I mean, Shorty
35:54
Speaker 7: do wop because of the music thing. So they say
35:57
Speaker 7: that's not a bad call. So I pick up the
35:59
Speaker 7: phone and my lawyers say James A. Dennis, and they
36:03
Speaker 7: never set you know, my entire name, said James A. Dennis,
36:07
Speaker 7: and he said, your innocence has been proven. My two
36:12
Speaker 7: lawyers on the phone, Amy and Ryan, who are like
36:15
Speaker 7: brothers and sister to me, and they were telling me
36:17
Speaker 7: like kept saying it, but I didn't really fully get
36:21
Speaker 7: the full magnitude of it.
36:23
Speaker 4: And then when I got off.
36:24
Speaker 7: The phone, I put my tie up to the window
36:28
Speaker 7: and I broke down and cried because for me, everything
36:32
Speaker 7: that I went through in prison, I've been waiting for that.
36:35
Speaker 7: So when you read the legal opinion and you see
36:38
Speaker 7: the first words where say James A. Dennis was wrongly,
36:41
Speaker 7: that meant everything to me. That's what I waited for, period.
36:45
Speaker 7: And you don't know that you're gonna get that, but
36:47
Speaker 7: that's what I waited for my entire life that I
36:50
Speaker 7: was incarcerated. So when the second decision come, it's the
36:53
Speaker 7: same thing. I put the tie up, I put my
36:57
Speaker 7: head into the pillow and I cried. I ain't never
37:00
Speaker 7: cried before. I didn't know what was going to happen.
37:03
Speaker 7: I'm hoping and praying that they're going to do the
37:06
Speaker 7: right thing, and so when it came, it was like,
37:13
Speaker 7: you know, and the lawyers came up there and we
37:15
Speaker 7: talked and what.
37:17
Speaker 4: Does this mean?
37:18
Speaker 7: And it's a real emotional roller coaster, where, you know,
37:23
Speaker 7: did y'all call my mom, did y'all tell my mom?
37:25
Speaker 4: Did y'all tell my daughters? Did you you know what
37:27
Speaker 4: I mean?
37:28
Speaker 7: Do all these people know what just happened? So it's
37:31
Speaker 7: an emotional roller coaster.
37:33
Speaker 4: It's the best way I can explain it.
37:34
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone can possibly begin to understand that
37:37
Speaker 1: that hasn't been through it. And let's talk about the
37:40
Speaker 1: day you got out.
37:41
Speaker 7: May thirteenth, twenty seventeen. I was released from Sei Green Prison.
37:48
Speaker 7: Korby was there, My lawyers were there, A cool guy by.
37:54
Speaker 4: The name of Dan was there, and they were waiting
37:57
Speaker 4: outside for me in a van, you know.
38:00
Speaker 7: But my lawyer of Ryan came in to get me
38:04
Speaker 7: and give me a suit, and I hadn't had on
38:07
Speaker 7: a suit and twenty five years, you know, since I've
38:12
Speaker 7: been to church.
38:13
Speaker 4: Oddly enough, the last night that I.
38:15
Speaker 7: Was home, I was in church. She and I went
38:18
Speaker 7: to church and did not get arrested that morning. So
38:22
Speaker 7: it had been a long time since I put on
38:24
Speaker 7: a suit.
38:25
Speaker 4: So I put on this suit this time, and we
38:28
Speaker 4: walk out.
38:29
Speaker 7: There's hugs, things like that, and then we get on
38:33
Speaker 7: this van and then we're going and everything seems surreal,
38:36
Speaker 7: and I start making phone calls to my mom, to
38:40
Speaker 7: my daughters, to my supporters, you know, thanking everybody. And
38:44
Speaker 7: I'm on my way to Philadelphia. And we're playing Boys
38:47
Speaker 7: the Men. We're playing Meek Mills, We're playing Elton John
38:50
Speaker 7: Philadelphia Freedom. Where we're doing, you know as we come
38:55
Speaker 7: into city, you know, we're playing pay La Belle, were playing.
38:58
Speaker 4: You know, all my favorites.
39:00
Speaker 7: We're on the highway, you know, driving John Coletrane, you know,
39:04
Speaker 7: the boss in the East Street band is up in
39:06
Speaker 7: there where we're just grooving down the highway.
39:09
Speaker 4: Me I'm sitting there.
39:11
Speaker 7: There's a lot of laughter going back and forth, and
39:14
Speaker 7: I'm in the moment.
39:15
Speaker 4: I don't know what to eat.
39:16
Speaker 7: When we get to a rest stop, I can tell
39:20
Speaker 7: you that my first meal was like some French fries
39:22
Speaker 7: with some onions on it and a milkshake with some
39:26
Speaker 7: sunflower seeds.
39:27
Speaker 4: I ain't know what to eat. I didn't know, you
39:30
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
39:30
Speaker 7: I had never seen a convenience store where McDonald's and
39:34
Speaker 7: a gas station all that was in one now, you know,
39:38
Speaker 7: stuff like that. So when we get to Philadelphia, after
39:42
Speaker 7: we get down the highway, you know, my mom and
39:44
Speaker 7: daughters are at the hotel and we have this there's
39:48
Speaker 7: this moment with me and my mom's it's a beautiful
39:51
Speaker 7: moment where we just sit there and we just hold
39:54
Speaker 7: their hands and you know that it's emotional, you know.
39:59
Speaker 4: And and now I'm.
40:01
Speaker 1: Back home, and how did you meet your beautiful wife
40:06
Speaker 1: who I've just recently met myself.
40:07
Speaker 7: Right, she's my childhood's sweetheart. We actually met at Girls
40:12
Speaker 7: High High School in Philadelphia and we were singing on
40:17
Speaker 7: the District sixth Festival choir. And back then she was
40:21
Speaker 7: an alto, I was a soprano, and we had met
40:26
Speaker 7: on a choir at eleven and twelve years old.
40:30
Speaker 1: But there was twenty five and a half year gap
40:32
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, this work.
40:34
Speaker 7: So there was a petition that was started by my
40:37
Speaker 7: supporters to save my life on change doc org. So
40:42
Speaker 7: my supporters would send me in the mail the actual
40:46
Speaker 7: petition to.
40:47
Speaker 4: See how it was growing.
40:49
Speaker 7: And I was going through the names and then they
40:52
Speaker 7: were in like alphabetic order, and then when it got
40:55
Speaker 7: to c I seen Corby.
40:57
Speaker 4: And it was like, oh, whoa.
40:59
Speaker 7: You know, it's like that moment when you're like okay, okay,
41:04
Speaker 7: that's my childhood sweetheart, right, you know what I mean,
41:07
Speaker 7: and you're like okay. So then I had asked my
41:12
Speaker 7: sister Hope to ask her, you know, did she believe
41:16
Speaker 7: in my innocence? And my sister Hope asked her and
41:19
Speaker 7: she said yeah. And it was like, okay, good cause
41:23
Speaker 7: you looking for a silver line and for anybody to
41:27
Speaker 7: believe in you, but for anybody to know the truth.
41:29
Speaker 7: You want everybody, every single person that ever cared about you,
41:33
Speaker 7: to know the truth about the situation. And did she
41:35
Speaker 7: read about it? And you know, and how did she
41:39
Speaker 7: find me? Basically?
41:40
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
41:40
Speaker 7: Because I basically like it's almost like I fell off
41:43
Speaker 7: the face of the earth for so many years and
41:45
Speaker 7: we didn't have any contact. So when I seen her
41:48
Speaker 7: name on the petition, I was like blown away. So
41:53
Speaker 7: I eventually call home and my mother says, somebody's here,
41:59
Speaker 7: and I says, and she don't tell me. It's like
42:01
Speaker 7: a little game. Then she gets on the phone and
42:06
Speaker 7: we start talking. I'm still not thinking nothing of it.
42:08
Speaker 4: I don't want to.
42:09
Speaker 7: Maybe she just came to see my mother and check
42:11
Speaker 7: on me, you know. But the next Sunday I call,
42:15
Speaker 7: she's there again and again, and so then you start
42:18
Speaker 7: to feel like, okay, maybe, and then eventually she wanted
42:23
Speaker 7: to come see me.
42:23
Speaker 4: But I had shut down.
42:26
Speaker 7: I was on some I'd stopped having visits for a
42:29
Speaker 7: number of years, For over at least eight years or so,
42:33
Speaker 7: I stopped having visits. I stopped going the yard, the
42:36
Speaker 7: library I built the library, and my cell the lawyers
42:39
Speaker 7: that sent me books, and all I was doing was
42:42
Speaker 7: getting up every day studying, working on the Justice Jimmy
42:45
Speaker 7: campaign because I was already suffering from the panic and
42:48
Speaker 7: anxiety attacks and didn't know that I had the PTSD. Anyway,
42:53
Speaker 7: she came five years prior to me being released, before
42:57
Speaker 7: any of the good stuff started to happen, And it
43:00
Speaker 7: just seemed like when she came, all the good stuff
43:03
Speaker 7: started happening again, you know what I mean. You got
43:06
Speaker 7: the legal decision after that, you know, the one from
43:09
Speaker 7: the honorable judging it to Brody, and she insisted on
43:13
Speaker 7: coming to see me, and it just went from there.
43:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just went from there.
43:20
Speaker 1: It did.
43:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, you are got lucky?
43:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you did? You know you're a remarkable guy.
43:27
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always just totally in awe of people
43:34
Speaker 1: like yourself, who I get the privilege of being around
43:37
Speaker 1: on a very frequent basis. It's almost a daily basis.
43:40
Speaker 1: Actually having dinner tonight with John Huffington, who was on
43:45
Speaker 1: death row for thirty two years in Maryland. And wow,
43:49
Speaker 1: you know, I was with Damien Echles this weekend and
43:52
Speaker 1: a man story of course. You know, there's so many
43:57
Speaker 1: incredible human beings and one more or so then the next.
44:00
Speaker 1: And I'm always like, every time I meet somebody like you,
44:04
Speaker 1: I always feel like I've heard everything there is to hear.
44:06
Speaker 1: And I hear a story like yours, and I'm like,
44:09
Speaker 1: my head's just exploding again. But I have to ask,
44:14
Speaker 1: are you bitter?
44:16
Speaker 4: I guess for me as well.
44:18
Speaker 7: I want to tell you that nobody comes through the
44:20
Speaker 7: prison system unscathed.
44:23
Speaker 4: For me, I'm in therapy. I go to therapy every week.
44:28
Speaker 7: I suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, panic and anxiety attacks.
44:34
Speaker 7: My life was destroyed for something I didn't do, and
44:39
Speaker 7: it's something that when I hear sirens, I just shook up,
44:44
Speaker 7: you know, I literally don't go nowhere.
44:48
Speaker 4: You know, me coming here was a thing, you know.
44:52
Speaker 4: It took a lot of courage for me just to
44:55
Speaker 4: come here.
44:56
Speaker 7: So there's a lot of bitterness inside of me. To
44:59
Speaker 7: say that there's no would be lying. I'm hurt by
45:03
Speaker 7: what has happened to me, you know, and I'm hurt
45:06
Speaker 7: that is still happening to other people, like I know,
45:10
Speaker 7: other innocent men and women that are in prison. What
45:13
Speaker 7: I try to do with that bitterness and that hurt
45:16
Speaker 7: that I feel, I try to channel it and to
45:20
Speaker 7: doing productive things like my music or champion other people causes,
45:25
Speaker 7: like Ralph Stokes, who's an innocent man in prison at
45:29
Speaker 7: s CI Green, Willie Vessi who's locked up, who had
45:33
Speaker 7: the same police detectives and district attorney and.
45:37
Speaker 4: He's locked up.
45:38
Speaker 7: And I go to their hearings and try to be
45:40
Speaker 7: supportive to their families and stuff like that. And when
45:43
Speaker 7: I have an opportunity to speak out, I speak out,
45:47
Speaker 7: you know.
45:48
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of hurt in me.
45:52
Speaker 7: You know, what my daughters went through while I was
45:56
Speaker 7: out of their life.
45:57
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's yeah.
46:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, let's not forget them and all of
46:03
Speaker 1: this too, right, I mean to talk about an innocent victim.
46:06
Speaker 1: They were baby, well one wasn't even born yet, the
46:07
Speaker 1: other one was born.
46:09
Speaker 7: And you have to understand the ripple effects of that,
46:13
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, the lasting ripple effects of
46:16
Speaker 7: not having your father and your life for twenty five.
46:20
Speaker 4: Pointy five years.
46:22
Speaker 7: You know, when the decision was made to get me
46:24
Speaker 7: out and I was on the phone where her you know,
46:28
Speaker 7: one of the things that she said to me was
46:31
Speaker 7: I used to sit by.
46:34
Speaker 4: She said, I used to sit by the door every
46:35
Speaker 4: day and look out the window and wait for you
46:38
Speaker 4: to come home.
46:41
Speaker 7: That's that's something hard to swallow. What she said, Oh,
46:45
Speaker 7: I want you to do is to come home and
46:48
Speaker 7: have a relationship with your granddaughter. And the ripple effects
46:54
Speaker 7: are very lasting on anybody who has been in.
46:58
Speaker 4: Prison, none of us us.
47:00
Speaker 7: No matter how good it seems everyone is doing. No
47:05
Speaker 7: one comes through the system unscathed. Me having nightmares all
47:10
Speaker 7: the time, struggling out here in the world.
47:15
Speaker 4: It's real.
47:17
Speaker 7: It's not easy, you know, because oftentimes when I hear siren,
47:22
Speaker 7: I think that they coming back to still my life.
47:26
Speaker 7: I made sure that there's a locator on my phone
47:30
Speaker 7: at all times where I'm at you know, when I
47:33
Speaker 7: first came home, I was literally calling the lawyers, like
47:38
Speaker 7: every hour on the hour, calling other people, just so
47:42
Speaker 7: my whereabouts are always known.
47:45
Speaker 4: It's that deep.
47:55
Speaker 1: People that are listening, I'm sure they're thinking, what could
47:59
Speaker 1: I do to help right some of these guys that
48:02
Speaker 1: you left behind, who are innocent and stuck in the
48:05
Speaker 1: situation that you were in. What could they do to
48:08
Speaker 1: possibly help you? Do you have any kind of social media?
48:13
Speaker 1: Do you do speaking? Do you have a page where
48:16
Speaker 1: people could donate to help you with your transition? If
48:20
Speaker 1: that's even something that interests you. I don't know. I
48:22
Speaker 1: don't want to make any assumptions, but what can people
48:25
Speaker 1: do to help either the people that you left behind?
48:28
Speaker 1: Let's start with that.
48:29
Speaker 7: Ralph Stokes, he has a Facebook page in the website
48:33
Speaker 7: Ralphstokes dot org. Get in touch with his supporters there.
48:38
Speaker 7: For Willie Vessi, you can look up his case and
48:40
Speaker 7: get in touch with his supporters and you could write
48:43
Speaker 7: these men they are still in prison, Willie Vessi is
48:46
Speaker 7: doing life v A. S. E.
48:49
Speaker 4: Y and Ralph Stokes has death.
48:51
Speaker 7: At Sei Green And any one of you listening can
48:56
Speaker 7: make a difference. You can help by writing them and
49:01
Speaker 7: reaching out to them and then just start championing their
49:04
Speaker 7: calls like I'm trying to do. Get involved on their
49:08
Speaker 7: support team, and you know, help get them some type
49:11
Speaker 7: kind of justice, you know what I mean. Because everybody
49:15
Speaker 7: can make a difference, even when they think they can't.
49:17
Speaker 7: They could use their voice to make a difference through
49:20
Speaker 7: social media, through other outlets.
49:22
Speaker 1: What about what about you? What do you need? What's
49:27
Speaker 1: I don't?
49:27
Speaker 7: I don't necessarily I'm not looking for a handout, you
49:31
Speaker 7: know what I mean. I don't even want to say
49:33
Speaker 7: it that way. Maybe that's wrong enough, you know, to
49:35
Speaker 7: say it. But there is a trust fund that my lawyer,
49:38
Speaker 7: Amy Row set up Amy Row of Washington, DC, Merland
49:43
Speaker 7: and you can look it up on our Facebook page
49:46
Speaker 7: where people could donate if they wanted to. But I
49:49
Speaker 7: have a social media Instagram, Jimmy Underscore, Dennis Underscore music.
49:56
Speaker 7: I just like for people to listen to my song.
49:59
Speaker 4: You said, if.
50:01
Speaker 7: Give a listen, if you like it, you like it,
50:03
Speaker 7: you know, hopefully you'll like it, heat know what I mean.
50:06
Speaker 7: And I just really want to be a part of
50:08
Speaker 7: the music fraternity, you know, earn my keep that way
50:12
Speaker 7: you know, it's always been my dream to be in
50:17
Speaker 7: a business since I was a kid. And for me,
50:22
Speaker 7: I used to see my musical heroes Gladys Night, Bruce
50:26
Speaker 7: Springsteening all on the Grammys, and even when I was
50:30
Speaker 7: on death row. That was the one time on death
50:33
Speaker 7: row anybody could tell you that you know me. You
50:36
Speaker 7: could not call me. When the Grammys were on, I disappear.
50:39
Speaker 7: I would put on my headphones and I would watch
50:42
Speaker 7: the Grammys, and I was in New Yorker LA all
50:45
Speaker 7: the time. I would not respond to anybody. I was
50:47
Speaker 7: there watching, you know, and rooting and chairing everybody on.
50:51
Speaker 1: What's your favorite song to sing? Oh?
50:54
Speaker 7: I don't necessarily have a favorite song to sing. I
50:57
Speaker 7: just like, you know, whatever comes to my heart, you know.
51:00
Speaker 1: Or what's your What do you want to sing right now?
51:02
Speaker 1: You want to sing something right now?
51:03
Speaker 8: Yeah?
51:04
Speaker 1: The first time, Ibody, I'll say, you said, I say,
51:08
Speaker 1: you said, If you don't mind, do it?
51:11
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, Bull Through the Hurricane, went through, Firing, Ring,
51:21
Speaker 8: Fel Doll, Last Pain, Crazy, the Endsane for you, Woo.
51:30
Speaker 4: For you, Woo.
51:34
Speaker 8: Nothing Never Rider Bounce always there too, we found never
51:39
Speaker 8: once let ship down.
51:40
Speaker 1: I was there for.
51:42
Speaker 8: You woo.
51:46
Speaker 4: For you woo whoo? Who you said.
51:50
Speaker 9: You love me?
51:53
Speaker 1: Oh?
51:55
Speaker 9: True, you said love? You said.
52:15
Speaker 4: You said you love me.
52:18
Speaker 9: I'll be there for you.
52:23
Speaker 1: There.
52:24
Speaker 4: What's it's just Jimmy Dennis dot net.
52:27
Speaker 7: You could find a single you said, you said what
52:31
Speaker 7: you and then the word said?
52:33
Speaker 4: Okay?
52:33
Speaker 1: Last question? So what would you tell people? Because everyone
52:36
Speaker 1: that's listening right now someday is going to get a jury.
52:39
Speaker 1: Do you notice and you went through a really crazy
52:44
Speaker 1: situation people sleeping through a death penalty case. I mean,
52:49
Speaker 1: the word disrespect doesn't even come to mind. I mean,
52:52
Speaker 1: that's not strong enough. It's it's reprehensible, it's it's fucking terrible.
52:57
Speaker 1: But that's beside the point. What would you tell people
53:01
Speaker 1: they get called to jerry duty and they end up
53:04
Speaker 1: on a criminal trial. What advice could you give people?
53:08
Speaker 1: People listening saying I don't ever want to make a
53:09
Speaker 1: mistake like that. I don't ever want to send an
53:11
Speaker 1: innocent man to jail. What would they look out for?
53:14
Speaker 1: What would be the tips that you could give them?
53:16
Speaker 4: The first thing you shouldn't do is worry about making
53:18
Speaker 4: a mistake. You should go in.
53:19
Speaker 7: There and it has to be like twelve angry men
53:22
Speaker 7: in that room. If you take jury duty, somebody has
53:26
Speaker 7: to be Jack Lemon or Henry Fonda.
53:29
Speaker 4: Right.
53:29
Speaker 7: You have to pay attention to every single thing going on.
53:34
Speaker 7: Don't be biased, sit back and pay close attention to
53:38
Speaker 7: the evidence and weigh it.
53:41
Speaker 4: It is a.
53:43
Speaker 7: Large responsibility for anybody to take on jury duty, and
53:48
Speaker 7: you should want to because you could be the reason
53:51
Speaker 7: that somebody doesn't get real roaded like me, and that
53:55
Speaker 7: an innocent man a woman comes home. We don't need
53:58
Speaker 7: more Jimmy Dinnis, Damien Echos, William Diez, Jeff Dislicks.
54:03
Speaker 4: And the man the knocks and so on and so forth.
54:06
Speaker 7: We have to stop it somewhere, and by you sitting
54:09
Speaker 7: on the jury, paying attention to all the evidence and
54:13
Speaker 7: then weighing it properly, you can be the one voice
54:17
Speaker 7: that says this doesn't make any sense, or pay attention
54:20
Speaker 7: to this facts and not the theatrics of it all
54:24
Speaker 7: that the other side is trying to do. Because that's
54:27
Speaker 7: what happened here. A lot of theatrics from the parties
54:32
Speaker 7: that big, the DA and the police, a lot of
54:35
Speaker 7: theatrics and lies. And there was no way that anybody
54:40
Speaker 7: sat on that jury and shouldn't have been paying attention
54:43
Speaker 7: to the facts. You have to pay attention to the facts.
54:46
Speaker 7: Facts matters.
54:48
Speaker 1: That's good advice and I'm sure it's going to help
54:50
Speaker 1: people as they go into that situation, which is a
54:54
Speaker 1: difficult situation for anybody. I think, you know, being in
54:57
Speaker 1: the courtroom and it's uncomfortable, it can take a long time,
55:02
Speaker 1: but it's a responsibility we all have to each other.
55:05
Speaker 1: I mean, because this could really happen to anybody, and
55:07
Speaker 1: you're living proof, you're just a regular person. So okay,
55:10
Speaker 1: then I guess the last part now is just anybody
55:14
Speaker 1: that you want to think that maybe we haven't thought
55:16
Speaker 1: about already, and then any closing words that you have.
55:20
Speaker 1: This is a tradition that we have on wrongful conviction.
55:24
Speaker 1: At the end of the episode, I get to just
55:27
Speaker 1: sit and listen, which is what I like to do.
55:30
Speaker 1: And first I want to thank you, Jimmy. Very courageous
55:34
Speaker 1: of you to come up here and know it wasn't
55:36
Speaker 1: easy and to share your thoughts and your experience with
55:39
Speaker 1: the audience, So thank you so much for being here.
55:42
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to maintaining a friendship
55:46
Speaker 1: and I have some ideas you know you were talking
55:48
Speaker 1: before about how comfortable the bed is at the Western
55:51
Speaker 1: in New York. Well, wrongful conviction is going to get
55:54
Speaker 1: you that bed so you'll sleep good, you know, all
56:00
Speaker 1: asleep listening to your own show. Anyway, so we got
56:04
Speaker 1: that cover. But anyway, so now, like I said, I
56:07
Speaker 1: get to I get to shut down my microphone and
56:09
Speaker 1: just put my headphones, kick back and listen. So it's
56:13
Speaker 1: all up to you.
56:14
Speaker 7: I want to first thank you Jason for having me.
56:18
Speaker 7: You encountered means the world to me. Your hospitality is
56:21
Speaker 7: greatly appreciated. I just want to commend you for the
56:24
Speaker 7: work you're doing in the innocence community. It takes a
56:27
Speaker 7: lot of courage to do what you do. I want
56:30
Speaker 7: to thank Jennifer Thompson. She's been one of my biggest
56:33
Speaker 7: supporters and she's a hero of mine. I call her
56:36
Speaker 7: my SHEI ro you know what I mean. She's been
56:38
Speaker 7: there for me from day one, champion my calls. I
56:43
Speaker 7: like to thank all my supporters you know around the
56:46
Speaker 7: country that been there for me when I was in
56:49
Speaker 7: prison and since I came home.
56:52
Speaker 4: Jeff, Melanie, Uh.
56:56
Speaker 7: Kathy and Ron and everybody. I want to thank my
56:59
Speaker 7: friend my friends have been an instrumental support for me.
57:04
Speaker 7: You know, when you get get out, you need support.
57:07
Speaker 4: You know, your family, your friends.
57:09
Speaker 7: I just want to thank my friends and my wife Corby,
57:13
Speaker 7: and my friend Kasein Quade Ski and that due all
57:18
Speaker 7: for supporting me Arnold Imported Law Firm, Amy Ryan, Rebecca, Meghan, Melanie,
57:26
Speaker 7: Kitty B and James. They did a wonderful job and
57:30
Speaker 7: it's because of them that I'm sitting here there like
57:32
Speaker 7: family to me and I love them daily.
57:35
Speaker 4: And I just want to tell.
57:36
Speaker 7: People listening that if you do your due diligence and
57:41
Speaker 7: you read a case and you want to get involved,
57:44
Speaker 7: don't be scared to get involved.
57:46
Speaker 4: Reach out to that person in prison.
57:48
Speaker 7: Become their supporter and become their champion, become their voice,
57:51
Speaker 7: because a lot of people in prison have no voice.
57:54
Speaker 4: And to everybody on death.
57:55
Speaker 7: Road, to every man and woman in prison, never give
57:58
Speaker 7: up and never give up on you dream, no matter
58:00
Speaker 7: what your dreams are. For everybody in the innocent community,
58:04
Speaker 7: I don't care if you wanted to be a fisherman
58:07
Speaker 7: or a carpenter, go for it and don't give up.
58:10
Speaker 4: Never give up, never ever give up.
58:13
Speaker 1: This has been an extraordinary episode of Wrongful Conviction with
58:18
Speaker 1: death Row EXONERI, Jimmy Dennis, Jimmy, thank you, thank you,
58:32
Speaker 1: don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you
58:35
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
58:38
Speaker 1: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
58:41
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
58:44
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
58:48
Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
58:51
Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
58:55
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
58:57
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow hellow us
59:00
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful
59:04
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production
59:08
Speaker 1: of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
59:11
Speaker 1: Number one