Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #531 Ben Bowlin with Trevor Mattis

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#531 Ben Bowlin with Trevor Mattis · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On September fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight, there was an argument
0:08
Speaker 1: inside of Philadelphia rowhouse. As one party tried to leave,
0:15
Speaker 1: the other man followed, making threats that left him fatally shot.
0:22
Speaker 1: The victim's brother only knew one man in that party,
0:26
Speaker 1: Trevor Mattis, but Trevor maintained that he was just a bystander.
0:32
Speaker 1: Then another eyewitness corroborated that story. Yet this eyewitness said
0:39
Speaker 1: something else at Trevor's trial, This is wrongful conviction.
0:53
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1:02
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts.
1:11
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Ben Bollen from The
1:15
Speaker 1: Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, and once again
1:17
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be hosting the show. In this episode,
1:21
Speaker 1: we're speaking with our guest, Trevor Matis, who was calling
1:25
Speaker 1: in from a Pennsylvania correctional facility to share a story. Trevor,
1:30
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us, Aware and folks. If we're detecting
1:34
Speaker 1: an accent here, that's because Trevor originally traveled to the
1:38
Speaker 1: US as a student from Jamaica, right.
1:41
Speaker 3: I came from a backgrown of working class single Pearan
1:45
Speaker 3: household and she had her brothers, so I had an
1:49
Speaker 3: extended family. You just run into anybody else. That's just
1:53
Speaker 3: how it is in the community that came from properties,
1:56
Speaker 3: almost like a community property. With Winni Switchers growing up
2:00
Speaker 3: as an only child, a lot of times I was
2:02
Speaker 3: with my grandmother, who was a retired teacher who I
2:06
Speaker 3: think she instilled in me from a very early age
2:09
Speaker 3: the love of knowledge, reading specifically, but I was drawn
2:15
Speaker 3: to the sciences as I grew up, specifically biology. Then
2:20
Speaker 3: I was always achieving in school without any extra.
2:25
Speaker 1: Promping, and Trevor's academic achievement continued. His high scores on
2:30
Speaker 1: placement tests put him in the best high school in
2:33
Speaker 1: all of Jamaica, and soon it came time to take
2:37
Speaker 1: the Jamaican equivalent to the SATs.
2:40
Speaker 3: I know my mom at a single appearance. She always
2:42
Speaker 3: told me to shoot for it without really being a
2:46
Speaker 3: conviction that I was achieving, and in one day sure
2:49
Speaker 3: enough came back. You have been accepted to City University
2:52
Speaker 3: and your college. So when I got accepted, I was
2:56
Speaker 3: another check caused a financial commitment that she wasn't really
3:02
Speaker 3: prepared for tuition is like twice the amount of the
3:05
Speaker 3: regular tuition when you be coming from a foreign country
3:08
Speaker 3: or whatever. Because she always told me there's one man,
3:11
Speaker 3: so she always had she said, I'm not rich, i
3:14
Speaker 3: can't leave your riches, but I'm going to make sure
3:16
Speaker 3: you get a good education. At that point in time,
3:19
Speaker 3: because the promise was made, she found that we do
3:21
Speaker 3: not miss a point with that note. This scramble was on, well,
3:25
Speaker 3: who you gonna stay with housing arrangement blah blah blah,
3:29
Speaker 3: and just extended friends and family and netwhek somewhere was
3:33
Speaker 3: found to me that was in Queen's village. So I
3:36
Speaker 3: ended up in Queen's going to your college.
3:39
Speaker 1: So at this point Trevor is a pre med biology
3:44
Speaker 1: major and he ended up graduating with honors. He is
3:48
Speaker 1: planning to become a dentist, and he can pretty much
3:52
Speaker 1: go to any school he wishes.
3:53
Speaker 3: For this after I finished, was interested in one of
3:58
Speaker 3: those schools in Philly like temp Law, University of pen
4:02
Speaker 3: and Afferent from the neighborhood. He was actually resided in
4:07
Speaker 3: Philadevasys to come back and forth. So he said, well,
4:10
Speaker 3: whenever already actually should come up with him, and then
4:12
Speaker 3: I could see with him in his apartment, and then
4:15
Speaker 3: he was part of this community of Jamaican guys, young guys,
4:20
Speaker 3: and I think it was doing his spring and the
4:22
Speaker 3: summer's like somewhere around here when the weather was nice.
4:24
Speaker 3: So usially screaming Soka dominos and as a nine young person,
4:30
Speaker 3: initially to me, it was almost like a boys camp
4:32
Speaker 3: because there are all these young guys, young Jamaicans, palier,
4:35
Speaker 3: cohesive little unit and it was just a bold, fun
4:39
Speaker 3: flirt with girls or whatever, just being a young man.
4:44
Speaker 1: For some quick context here, it was the summer of
4:47
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, and while Trevor was enjoying this coming
4:52
Speaker 1: of age experience, the crack epidemic had swept across many
4:58
Speaker 1: American cities, and this also applied to Philadelphia. It appears
5:03
Speaker 1: that some of the young men we've mentioned were involved.
5:07
Speaker 3: I got to realize that they were involved in the
5:09
Speaker 3: joke game, but was not right where we were seeing it.
5:13
Speaker 3: There was just like an old hangover spot because it
5:16
Speaker 3: was well kept. Us at one bad Jamika and elder
5:19
Speaker 3: to us, and so we used to hang upstairs. But
5:23
Speaker 3: jokes would be so from the base then, and.
5:26
Speaker 1: It was soon discovered that this house on Louis Street
5:29
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia was already under federal surveillance. The focus was
5:34
Speaker 1: on a man named Franklin Watson. He was present on
5:38
Speaker 1: the night of the incident September fourteenth into the fifteenth,
5:43
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, when the crew selling drugs out the
5:46
Speaker 1: basement included a man named Kirk Crump, as well as
5:50
Speaker 1: two brothers, Paul White and Everton Mead Johnson. Trevor showed
5:55
Speaker 1: up with a man named Mikey Donovan who was visiting
5:59
Speaker 1: from out of town.
6:00
Speaker 3: He was basically new to Philadelphia, not somebody I really
6:04
Speaker 3: had no extensive long term relationship with. We've made each
6:08
Speaker 3: other to somebody, and he said he wanted to what
6:12
Speaker 3: phil it was like. We had a good Rahore at
6:15
Speaker 3: that time.
6:16
Speaker 1: So Trevor took Mikey Donovan to this hangout spot that
6:20
Speaker 1: doubled as a drug house to see the owner of
6:22
Speaker 1: the place, Rudy, but they spoke to Kirk Crump instead.
6:27
Speaker 3: When I arrived, it was early in the morning, like
6:30
Speaker 3: twif thirty one name, and I was surprised to see
6:33
Speaker 3: a lot of the other guys upstairs in the living room.
6:36
Speaker 3: But these are guys that I know. The guy I'm with,
6:38
Speaker 3: Mike Donovan doesn't know them. So when I spoke to
6:42
Speaker 3: her indication, he said something like, oh, so many people
6:45
Speaker 3: in the house. Why so many people know? Something like that.
6:48
Speaker 3: But it was a basically generalized conversation, not about whether
6:51
Speaker 3: someone should be here or not. So Johnson in the
6:55
Speaker 3: basements and stuff her he must have phone was offended
6:59
Speaker 3: and that I don't know. And he found up the steps,
7:02
Speaker 3: was like boom, boom, boom, flung the door open. That
7:04
Speaker 3: it his lamp, and then his first words was, by
7:08
Speaker 3: the fuck you want to know? So why so much
7:10
Speaker 3: people know? Something like that very barely cooes his manner.
7:14
Speaker 3: He liked to intimidate because he was kind of big,
7:16
Speaker 3: but that's just his personality and how he acts. Mike
7:19
Speaker 3: had done but who was right beside me? He don't
7:21
Speaker 3: know the spurs and so he just basically he asked
7:24
Speaker 3: me in a low tone, he asked me, who is
7:26
Speaker 3: this guy? Why is he talking so rough? That further
7:31
Speaker 3: inside chance, So he basically was like pussue you, oh,
7:36
Speaker 3: the blue pursue you you know me and the code
7:39
Speaker 3: up the streets at that time, a remark like that
7:42
Speaker 3: basically that declaration of war, So that immediately escalated things.
7:48
Speaker 3: I could not understand where's all of that coming from.
7:51
Speaker 3: I was like, what can I be done? The deed escalated,
7:55
Speaker 3: that was my first thought. He was like stepping towards
7:58
Speaker 3: an aggressive times step. So I basically put myself in
8:02
Speaker 3: between both of them, and I was pleading, minimisea listen,
8:04
Speaker 3: calm don, what's this all about? That's uncalled for. So
8:08
Speaker 3: I basically got him to step back and take a
8:11
Speaker 3: seat on the stool. And he was in a steering
8:13
Speaker 3: countest now with Michael donabout behind me. So it's a
8:16
Speaker 3: hardcore great locked in this real tunnel vision with anger.
8:20
Speaker 3: Yeah me, it's clearing at him, and I have no
8:23
Speaker 3: clue what the reaction is going to be from Mikil
8:26
Speaker 3: Japan who is behind me. And so I looked towards
8:28
Speaker 3: the guy that was in the kitchen I was speaking
8:30
Speaker 3: to and I said that where is really just all
8:33
Speaker 3: the blue basically the giant change something? And he said
8:37
Speaker 3: he just left. He went to the bus stop to
8:40
Speaker 3: escort his daughter to work. So that basically gave me
8:44
Speaker 3: an opportunity to know to a right, let me go
8:47
Speaker 3: find him. So I'm just trying to divert that said
8:50
Speaker 3: come let's go or something to that. I'm trying to
8:52
Speaker 3: back down up and come, and took two more steps
8:55
Speaker 3: towards the front doors. If you know me, this is
8:57
Speaker 3: not big something like that. And when I look back
8:59
Speaker 3: on more than I see him like a stepped back relax.
9:03
Speaker 3: And therefore I figured that the game did worked because
9:06
Speaker 3: that looked like nothing further gong go. So I hate
9:09
Speaker 3: my step towards the front door, over the front door,
9:12
Speaker 3: and I was ahead by a couple of steps. I
9:14
Speaker 3: looked back and I was seeing Mikey Donner was just
9:17
Speaker 3: emerging on the front door. So while I'm thinking that
9:20
Speaker 3: I'm taking these steps towards the bust, I hear the
9:23
Speaker 3: screen door clang again. I mean somebody had come out
9:28
Speaker 3: by the time it shut. When I turned around on
9:30
Speaker 3: the streets, Johnson was buying his car jump and his
9:34
Speaker 3: car trunk was already opened and he was reaching in.
9:38
Speaker 3: Mike Donovan was on the sidewalk. Johnson said something. Most
9:43
Speaker 3: likely it would have been something intimidating, and the moment
9:48
Speaker 3: he said something, Mikey Donovan pulled I've gone out of
9:51
Speaker 3: his ways and hop fire immediately.
10:08
Speaker 1: Everton Meet Johnson was shot fatally. According to the autopsy report,
10:16
Speaker 1: the bullet entered from the back of his body toward
10:18
Speaker 1: the front. Perhaps Mikey Donovan didn't wait for me Johnson
10:23
Speaker 1: to turn around and fire, and since the scene of
10:27
Speaker 1: the crime was in front of a drug house, it
10:29
Speaker 1: appears no one stuck around to speak to the police,
10:33
Speaker 1: except for the victim's brother, Paul White. According to others,
10:39
Speaker 1: Paul had tried to stop his brother from following Donovan
10:43
Speaker 1: and then he ran to the basement to get help
10:46
Speaker 1: during the shooting, but he told police something else.
10:51
Speaker 3: Because he had never seen Mike Donovan in his life.
10:54
Speaker 3: He immediately told them he saw two people shoot his
10:58
Speaker 3: brother find me along with this unknown Jamaican me that
11:04
Speaker 3: you know. He said, I had a Tech nine, a
11:06
Speaker 3: big machine gun and mine and a handgun. And he
11:09
Speaker 3: said both the bos basically ambushim at the corner of
11:12
Speaker 3: the car, and I was shooting and Danavan was shooting.
11:15
Speaker 3: The seven shot fat. So that was basically what he
11:18
Speaker 3: told them at the scene of the cramp what the
11:20
Speaker 3: state is now because it happened at a joke host the
11:23
Speaker 3: state really created this narrative of a joke curve for
11:28
Speaker 3: r peer. So they took that and said, well, it
11:31
Speaker 3: was a dispute of who was supposed to sell jokes
11:34
Speaker 3: of the hose now me and just have friends from
11:37
Speaker 3: back then, you know what I mean we had. Anyways, that's
11:39
Speaker 3: not all we operate. If he wanted to sell jokes
11:42
Speaker 3: or the house he had, all right, Kirk is one
11:44
Speaker 3: selling know, so anybody could make some type of arrangement
11:47
Speaker 3: with Kirk or whatever. So it wasn't no circumstance that
11:52
Speaker 3: we would be in competition or anything like that. It
11:55
Speaker 3: just a third story. But the state basically said I
12:00
Speaker 3: took it upon myself to eliminate my arrivals.
12:03
Speaker 1: So Trevor was arrested and over time, this unknown Jamaican
12:09
Speaker 1: is eliminated from the.
12:10
Speaker 3: Narrative, so nobody could identify, nobody knew where he was.
12:15
Speaker 3: So basically, after I was made to target, the state
12:20
Speaker 3: and everyone does didn't even try to final anything. Thirred
12:24
Speaker 3: about the microdynamo that that's just how it works. They
12:27
Speaker 3: had to target that they wanted, and everything was gear
12:30
Speaker 3: to get this targeted regardless. What is my turn up?
12:34
Speaker 1: Speaking of? While Trevor sat in pre trial detention for
12:37
Speaker 1: nearly two years. The separate federal investigation of the drug
12:42
Speaker 1: house closed in on Franklin Watson, who was present on
12:46
Speaker 1: the night of the murder and tried to trade information
12:49
Speaker 1: for leniency, And this was three weeks before trial in
12:54
Speaker 1: January nineteen ninety. The Feds told the prosecution about this witness,
12:59
Speaker 1: but for reasons that we'll discuss later, the defense remained
13:04
Speaker 1: in the dark about this and a number of other things, including,
13:09
Speaker 1: for instance, why the state wanted a bench trial.
13:13
Speaker 3: When I got to the court room, I requested the
13:15
Speaker 3: jury trial, and then my lawyer got very old rage
13:19
Speaker 3: and told me that he had an agreement with the
13:23
Speaker 3: prosecute that's did not seek the head penalty if I
13:26
Speaker 3: took a non jury trial. But I still was trying
13:29
Speaker 3: to be adamant. So a couple of minutes before the
13:31
Speaker 3: trial started, my mom was there and she came to
13:34
Speaker 3: me in tears and distraughts, telling me that I should
13:38
Speaker 3: listen to the lawyer because he told her that they
13:40
Speaker 3: don't like Jamaicans in Philadelphia at that time, and I'm
13:44
Speaker 3: going to try in the electric cheer and she was
13:47
Speaker 3: so broken that that broke me. Just to see her
13:50
Speaker 3: so distraught, So I rel ended and basically went along.
13:55
Speaker 1: So perhaps the state was confident that the assigned judge
13:59
Speaker 1: would give them their desired result, as would Franklin Watson.
14:04
Speaker 3: The morning of the trial, the prosecutor announced as a
14:07
Speaker 3: surprise witness just walked into his office five minutes before
14:11
Speaker 3: the trial started and said he was there, and this
14:14
Speaker 3: is how he announced it.
14:15
Speaker 4: Rotson.
14:15
Speaker 3: So when he puts him understand, Watson testifies that he
14:20
Speaker 3: was present. What is the first person ever said that
14:23
Speaker 3: there was an argument in the house in the kitchen
14:27
Speaker 3: between Johnson and I over who should sell jokes from
14:31
Speaker 3: that location. And then he said for the first time
14:35
Speaker 3: also that I brandished a weapon in the house and
14:39
Speaker 3: had to be restrained by others. Then I walked out,
14:43
Speaker 3: Johnson followed me out. We began to fight outside for
14:47
Speaker 3: one minute by the car trump and then I got
14:50
Speaker 3: the better of Johnson, pulled the weapon and shot him
14:53
Speaker 3: multiple times from close range, and no one else was involved.
14:58
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
15:00
Speaker 1: So, in contrast to Paul White's original statement about two shooters,
15:05
Speaker 1: Watson named Trevor as the loan shooter, and on cross examination,
15:10
Speaker 1: Trevor's attorney was able to expose Watson's vulnerability.
15:14
Speaker 3: He got the fact that Watson was a federal informant.
15:17
Speaker 3: I understand, but the lawyer he never followed up the
15:20
Speaker 3: final what was happening? What did he say to defense?
15:23
Speaker 3: It was just less that that just came out. So
15:25
Speaker 3: basically that was how he impeached the credibility. And as
15:29
Speaker 3: soon as he finished testifying, the prosecutor arrested their case.
15:33
Speaker 3: They were like, well, we're not going to call the
15:35
Speaker 3: original White now no more. Werested my lawyer objective. He
15:39
Speaker 3: requested a mistrial, saying, Yeerona, it's a child by ambush.
15:43
Speaker 3: We have been waiting for this case for over two years.
15:47
Speaker 3: We have all this discovery. Nowhere in the entire discovery
15:50
Speaker 3: was a Watson mention. They brought this person at the
15:53
Speaker 3: twelfth hour claiming that he is a surprise waitness and
15:56
Speaker 3: now they want to rest the case. They had the sidebar,
16:00
Speaker 3: and then prosecutor relented and said our year and postponed
16:03
Speaker 3: the case for one day and then we will bring
16:05
Speaker 3: White the following him.
16:07
Speaker 1: Additionally, and this is absent from the record, Watson escaped
16:12
Speaker 1: a potential thirty year sentence in exchange for this testimony
16:17
Speaker 1: and then came Paul White.
16:19
Speaker 3: So the next day he brought White to the standard
16:22
Speaker 3: and the White entire testimony was radically different and it
16:26
Speaker 3: mimicked almost play by play, what Watson said. So initially
16:31
Speaker 3: White was talking about two people shooting. Now he changed
16:35
Speaker 3: and he said there was only one person and that
16:38
Speaker 3: was me. And he also added an altercation because it
16:41
Speaker 3: was never an adducation mentioned anywhere at the scene of
16:44
Speaker 3: the crime or at the preliminary year and.
16:46
Speaker 4: A year after.
16:47
Speaker 3: But at the trial he testified it was an altercation,
16:51
Speaker 3: but he said it didn't last a minute. He said
16:53
Speaker 3: it lasted a few seconds before a brandish a weapon
16:57
Speaker 3: and Shaq Johnson. So that's how his testimony changed to
17:01
Speaker 3: mimic what Watson said, but he did not repeat the
17:05
Speaker 3: allegation of it was an argument over job.
17:09
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the inconsistencies between White statements as well as how
17:14
Speaker 1: they were inconsistent with Watson's, these issues are never pointed
17:19
Speaker 1: out to the judge.
17:20
Speaker 3: Well, I him in the head with a gun. You
17:24
Speaker 3: know you hit somebody in the head with a gun.
17:26
Speaker 3: Be authors to going to show us a specific mark
17:28
Speaker 3: that I've gone with. Leave And then White after what
17:31
Speaker 3: he said the federal informant was not there to weakness,
17:35
Speaker 3: and the federal informant said White was not there. He
17:37
Speaker 3: said White was in the basement, and a federal informant
17:40
Speaker 3: said I had a chrome nine millimeter. White said first
17:44
Speaker 3: it was a Tick nine machine handgun, and then at
17:47
Speaker 3: the child testimony he said it was a nine milimeter
17:49
Speaker 3: but it was grown.
17:51
Speaker 1: So without these glaring inconsistencies pointed out or what else
17:56
Speaker 1: was hidden from the court at the time the judge
17:59
Speaker 1: made his decision on the first degree murder, criminal conspiracy,
18:03
Speaker 1: and weapons charges.
18:05
Speaker 3: He basically summarized the case and said it was a straightforward,
18:09
Speaker 3: clear cut case of joke urs dispute, and I did
18:13
Speaker 3: defend and took it upon myself to eliminate my rival
18:18
Speaker 3: once and for all by gunning him down in cold
18:21
Speaker 3: and within less than sixty seconds.
18:23
Speaker 4: I was sawing it with the automatic sendments of life,
18:28
Speaker 4: but of the passability of broad and my mom was there,
18:32
Speaker 4: so I know that basically broker Art. When I'm looking
18:48
Speaker 4: back to the whole scenario, it was basically a present
18:52
Speaker 4: with a foregun conclusion. Maybe two months after I was convicted,
18:58
Speaker 4: I received a statement that was made three weeks before
19:02
Speaker 4: matrial by what to the federal authorities, which was a
19:07
Speaker 4: part of his pleats to the federal authorities. And in
19:11
Speaker 4: the statement it was Excotory specifically stated that he was
19:15
Speaker 4: present at the chance to shooting, that Johnson was shot
19:19
Speaker 4: by Mikey Dana Vlan and I was merely a bystander,
19:24
Speaker 4: and that was just three weeks before my child. And
19:27
Speaker 4: he spoke to the faith and told him basically actual
19:31
Speaker 4: version of events, and then came into the stage and
19:34
Speaker 4: gave a own separate contra victory statement.
19:38
Speaker 3: For state prosecutor.
19:40
Speaker 1: This was clearly a Brady violation. It upended the state's case.
19:45
Speaker 1: So this one Trevor an evidentiary hearing on direct appeal.
19:50
Speaker 3: The same judge that convicted me had an evidential here
19:53
Speaker 3: in five six months after I was convicted. The federal
19:56
Speaker 3: prosecutors would understand when they carrabber the authenticity of the
20:02
Speaker 3: Watson Pree Deal statement that I had. So when they
20:05
Speaker 3: saw that I was able able to trial the case,
20:08
Speaker 3: they contacted this prosecutor and conveyed the information that he
20:13
Speaker 3: might have the wrong perpetrator. And that is how this
20:16
Speaker 3: prosecutor became aware of Franklin Watson and made arrangements to
20:20
Speaker 3: interview was one of the federal prosecutors said he specifically
20:25
Speaker 3: recall that name sax because the saxophone or something that
20:29
Speaker 3: that is saying.
20:30
Speaker 1: So it appears that Trevor's prosecutor, Richard Sachs, received this
20:34
Speaker 1: information that Trevor was indeed an innocent bystander, but somehow
20:40
Speaker 1: on the eve of the trial, Watson changed his story.
20:44
Speaker 1: This allowed Sacks to forge ahead with the prosecution anyway,
20:48
Speaker 1: in spite of the federal prosecutor's efforts.
20:51
Speaker 3: They gave it to him orally over the phone, Prosecutor
20:55
Speaker 3: Toulist and also he said he didn't receive a specific
20:59
Speaker 3: information that he might have the wrong perpetrator. So they
21:02
Speaker 3: contradicted each other. But the judge said he found both
21:06
Speaker 3: bodies to be.
21:07
Speaker 1: Truthful, even though these testimonies are indirect contradiction.
21:11
Speaker 3: And then the judge it meantal gymnastics by saying, since
21:15
Speaker 3: the federal arts or conveyed the information orally over the
21:20
Speaker 3: telephone and not in writing, the information would not amount
21:24
Speaker 3: to really because of state prosecutor had nothing physically to
21:28
Speaker 3: turn over to the defense. Wow. Yeah, But then he
21:32
Speaker 3: went even Further, I guess he knows that wouldn't pass
21:34
Speaker 3: the smell this, so he came up with this rational.
21:37
Speaker 3: He said, well, even if the document was available and
21:40
Speaker 3: turned over to the defense and the federal informal testified
21:44
Speaker 3: exactly the exculpulary statement he made in that document, he
21:48
Speaker 3: would still have found me guilty, not as a perpetrate
21:52
Speaker 3: at this time, but as a co con spirit and
21:56
Speaker 3: the laws at that time it will be sentenced exactly
22:00
Speaker 3: the same way of mandatory life with oparole.
22:03
Speaker 1: Even though the only witness, Watson, who even said anything
22:07
Speaker 1: about a criminal conspiracy, the Trevor had allegedly killed me
22:11
Speaker 1: Johnson to take out a rival dealer. That witness had
22:14
Speaker 1: just been clearly proven to lie.
22:18
Speaker 3: So I told my lawyer immediately, as we have to
22:21
Speaker 3: appeal this, and he was like, of course, So he
22:23
Speaker 3: agreed to file an appeal, and they sent me off
22:26
Speaker 3: state note and I was absolutely in the hole at
22:29
Speaker 3: that time. And weeks went by and then let us
22:32
Speaker 3: never got real response, never weeks and weeks went by,
22:34
Speaker 3: and then I reached over to my family, contact this
22:38
Speaker 3: lawyer and they find out what's going on with my appeal.
22:41
Speaker 3: He informed them that did not file an appeal within
22:44
Speaker 3: the timeframe. The thurnit the window to find the notice
22:48
Speaker 3: of appeal, so the issue became waved. According to the
22:52
Speaker 3: legal language, was basically I gave up on that issue, and.
22:57
Speaker 1: With that failure is barred from raising the issue again
23:02
Speaker 1: in state court. So he tries federal court.
23:05
Speaker 3: There's a federal magistrate that the case and he ordered
23:08
Speaker 3: that I be retried within one hundred and twenty days
23:11
Speaker 3: are re released. The state appeal his decision, and the
23:15
Speaker 3: district judge reversed the magistrates and uphel the conviction, maintaining
23:22
Speaker 3: that there was a procedural default. Therefore, the federal courts
23:26
Speaker 3: cannot entertain this issue whatsoever because the state did not
23:32
Speaker 3: get full opportunity to reverse their own mistake or their
23:36
Speaker 3: own issue. And I appeal that to the appellate court
23:40
Speaker 3: at the federal level. They ruled that they were very
23:43
Speaker 3: troubled by the circumstances of this case and they clearly
23:48
Speaker 3: articulated that they will not decide this case on the merits.
23:52
Speaker 3: Whether or not this judge is ruling that oral communication
23:56
Speaker 3: is not pretty. However, they could not welcome the procedural
24:01
Speaker 3: default the issue, but that claimed to be entertained in
24:04
Speaker 3: the federal courts. So as a result, they upheld the conviction,
24:10
Speaker 3: with the astering that they were very troubled by the circumstances.
24:15
Speaker 1: So the case breaking evidence that surfaced back in nineteen
24:19
Speaker 1: ninety has effectively been newter by the system since nineteen
24:24
Speaker 1: ninety one. The fight was fortunately revived in twenty eleven.
24:29
Speaker 1: This is when the man who was in the kitchen
24:31
Speaker 1: that night, Kurt Crump, sent Trevor an affidavit.
24:35
Speaker 3: The affidavit basically clarified that he operated residence and that
24:41
Speaker 3: it is the victim. Johnson was one of his friends.
24:44
Speaker 3: That the confrontation occurred in the kitchen between Johnson and Donovan,
24:48
Speaker 3: and I intervened calm Johnson down. I left the house
24:52
Speaker 3: with Donovan in tour and he said that Johnson was
24:54
Speaker 3: angry that he was going to get his guns, and
24:57
Speaker 3: why he tried to stop him from bard. You know,
25:00
Speaker 3: Johnson shoved White aside, and a storm goes behind Donavar
25:05
Speaker 3: and said that White ran down the basement together two
25:09
Speaker 3: other guys to curve trailed behind Johnson to the front door,
25:13
Speaker 3: and in his activity he described his saw Johnson reaching
25:16
Speaker 3: the trunk when Mike Danaban shot him multiple times, and.
25:20
Speaker 1: That version of events is corroborated by the trajectory of
25:24
Speaker 1: the bullets from the back to the front. This contradicted
25:28
Speaker 1: both trial witness testimonies, and it continued to further discredit
25:33
Speaker 1: Paul White.
25:34
Speaker 3: When the shots were fired, Curve heard White and the
25:37
Speaker 3: guy from the basement coming up behind him from the kitchen.
25:40
Speaker 3: Basically that White was not a witness because he said
25:43
Speaker 3: was behind him when the shots got fired. But they
25:46
Speaker 3: heard the shots and when he turned they as really
25:48
Speaker 3: had begun to flee back down the business. He can
25:51
Speaker 3: exit the residence to a business and that basically was it.
25:55
Speaker 3: And he actually did follow up with a sworn video
25:58
Speaker 3: deposition with the corroborreate affective and I submitted all of
26:03
Speaker 3: that to the state court and it was denied it untimely,
26:07
Speaker 3: no explanation. I appealed that to the state's unpelate courts
26:11
Speaker 3: and they ruled that this evidence was untimely, but they
26:16
Speaker 3: gave their explanation. They said it was cumulative because it
26:19
Speaker 3: produced no new facts. It basically said the same thing
26:22
Speaker 3: that the defense said. They said I should have gotten him,
26:25
Speaker 3: and basically they didn't. Said I could have gone. It
26:27
Speaker 3: didn't tell me how I was going to get him.
26:28
Speaker 3: They didn't discuss the fact that the state was looking
26:31
Speaker 3: for kirk Crumb because he was one of the persons
26:33
Speaker 3: that was in the discovery as a weakness.
26:36
Speaker 1: So you heard that, right, folks. Not even the state
26:40
Speaker 1: can find this guy, yet Trevor is expected to do so.
26:44
Speaker 1: It turned out that kirk Crump had been arrested in
26:47
Speaker 1: another state under an alias before he was deported to Jamaica,
26:52
Speaker 1: so finding him would have been nearly impossible. Yet when
26:56
Speaker 1: Trevor appealed to the federal courts, they said that these
27:00
Speaker 1: two factors made the witness unreliable and so they denied
27:04
Speaker 1: him as well.
27:05
Speaker 3: Subsequent nine two tenty twenty three, friends and family finally
27:10
Speaker 3: get the resources to hire a forensic expert, doctor Sheril
27:14
Speaker 3: leg from Pittsburgh, and he compared the trial testimony from
27:19
Speaker 3: the witnesses, and he compared it to the autos report
27:22
Speaker 3: and the ballistics evidence, and he gave a report. It's
27:26
Speaker 3: his scientific conclusion that the description given by the state
27:32
Speaker 3: witnesses were fabricated because they conflicted with the autops report
27:37
Speaker 3: and described things that were physically impossible. They described the
27:42
Speaker 3: victv shot multiple times in the chess face area, when
27:47
Speaker 3: the autopsy reports showed that all the shots were going
27:50
Speaker 3: from back to front.
27:51
Speaker 1: Bullets don't have opinions. Bullets are not eye witnesses.
27:57
Speaker 3: These are facts facing somebody face to face and shoot
28:03
Speaker 3: them in the back. On top of that, in twenty
28:05
Speaker 3: twenty four, a private investigator in Jamaica located a federal
28:10
Speaker 3: informat and what's revealed that he actually did explain the
28:16
Speaker 3: same thing to the state prosecutor when the broad him
28:19
Speaker 3: in the office, when that I was an innoc advices standard,
28:23
Speaker 3: and then at that point he said Sacks got animated
28:26
Speaker 3: and was angry and said this would be an open
28:28
Speaker 3: and shortcase if he identified me as a perpetrator, explaining
28:32
Speaker 3: to him that he would have negative implications on his
28:36
Speaker 3: upcoming federal sentencing and the pleaar agreement that he had
28:40
Speaker 3: signed feel incoporate. So this report that they investigator submitted,
28:45
Speaker 3: along with thessarily work report, those two things are currently
28:51
Speaker 3: in front the court and.
28:53
Speaker 5: Another Acire Trevor, we wish you all the luck in court,
28:57
Speaker 5: even though you shouldn't need any well wish is in
29:00
Speaker 5: the first place, it certainly feels like you do.
29:03
Speaker 1: And if anyone listening has any information or wishes to
29:08
Speaker 1: support Trevor in any way, we'll make sure to link
29:11
Speaker 1: ways to reach them. In our episode description, you'll see
29:15
Speaker 1: that he also goes by the name Anton ford On Socialist.
29:18
Speaker 1: And with that we go to our closing. You know,
29:22
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit back here and listen to anything
29:26
Speaker 1: that Trevor has left to say. Let's let you have
29:28
Speaker 1: the last word, all right, thank you.
29:31
Speaker 3: For giving me this opportunity to address your listeners. I've
29:34
Speaker 3: endored more than my full measure of injustice. As a result,
29:37
Speaker 3: I'm driven by a desire to do my part and
29:40
Speaker 3: to contribute everything I can to bend the moralogue of
29:44
Speaker 3: the universe towards more justice. I aspire to embody the
29:48
Speaker 3: virtues of revolutionary love, radical empathy, unapologetic kindness, and unconditional freedom.
29:58
Speaker 3: I was forged to leading the bowels of a castoral
30:01
Speaker 3: cauldun of oppression, where I was subjected to unspeakable trans
30:06
Speaker 3: and tribulations at the hands of manifesting justice, systemic violence,
30:13
Speaker 3: and steed inflicted torture meant to terrorize and design to dehumanize.
30:20
Speaker 3: Yet I survived. I was grown down by the millstone
30:25
Speaker 3: of oppression, tried by the fires of cruelty, and tested
30:30
Speaker 3: in the face of unmitigated brutality. Yet I persevered to emerge,
30:37
Speaker 3: a defied, purified, and sanctified. I'm now obsessed with and
30:44
Speaker 3: possessed by an urgent need to call out, condemned and
30:50
Speaker 3: deconstruct white supremacy, to love, clear, for, and nurture all
30:56
Speaker 3: and any authentic expression of humanity. To demand liberty, equity,
31:02
Speaker 3: and the humane treatment of the entire spectrum of nature.
31:06
Speaker 3: And to end in justice and all forms of exploitation.
31:12
Speaker 3: In the last seven years, Philadelphia's Conviction Integrity Units has
31:16
Speaker 3: released over fifty inmates who were wrongfully convicted, a total
31:21
Speaker 3: of more than seven hundred years sent incascerated illegally. All
31:26
Speaker 3: of these black and brown people were sentenced to deathbine
31:29
Speaker 3: casceration is sentenced ephimistically referred to as life without the
31:34
Speaker 3: possibility of parole. Note these wrongful convictions occurred in Philadelphia County,
31:41
Speaker 3: and there are many more similar cases like mine yet
31:44
Speaker 3: to be reviewed. On June nineteen, twenty twenty three, Philadelphia
31:49
Speaker 3: District Attorneys Office released their Racial Injustice Report. This report
31:55
Speaker 3: stated unequivocally that Philadelphia's criminal justice system is racists. This
32:02
Speaker 3: is a refusable proof that the wrongful convictions uncovered and documented.
32:08
Speaker 3: We're not a matter of mistakes nor the system being broken. No,
32:13
Speaker 3: this is institutional racism at work, and like all other
32:17
Speaker 3: institutional racism, it's next serious and amounts to social engineering.
32:24
Speaker 3: This is in justice by design. I argue that the
32:29
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions in Philadelphia are so pervasive that they cannot
32:33
Speaker 3: be tolerated by a civilized society, and we cannot depend
32:38
Speaker 3: on the current lethogic by drip one case at the
32:41
Speaker 3: time judicial review process to address this pervasive systemic problem.
32:47
Speaker 3: Too many cases will be missed. We need an across
32:51
Speaker 3: the board legislative fixed the remedy the cruel and unusual
32:55
Speaker 3: harms inflicted by the state sanctioned the convictions of innocent people.
33:00
Speaker 3: We need parole eligibility for lifers. There is no parole
33:05
Speaker 3: for life as in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is one of the
33:09
Speaker 3: four states in the Union that still employs the Barrick
33:13
Speaker 3: draconian sentence in scheme of mandatory life without the possibility
33:17
Speaker 3: of parole for murder. It's time to drive Pennsylvania's archaic
33:22
Speaker 3: crime code into the modern era of Greece, mercy and
33:26
Speaker 3: second chances. In February twenty sixteen, the United States Supreme Court,
33:33
Speaker 3: in the case of two co versus Louisiana, rule that
33:37
Speaker 3: sentence in juvenile offenders that is, offender seventeen years and
33:41
Speaker 3: younger to mandatory life without parole was unconstitutional. As a
33:46
Speaker 3: result of this ruling, Pennsylvania had to re sentence over
33:50
Speaker 3: five hundred juvenile lifers, many incarcerated for over twenty years.
33:55
Speaker 3: As of today, over one hundred of these juvenile lifers
33:59
Speaker 3: have been sentenced and successfully reintegrated into society. Listen, there
34:05
Speaker 3: are more than five thousands of the lifers, many incarcerated
34:09
Speaker 3: over twenty years, languishing in prison in Pennsylvania. These other
34:15
Speaker 3: five thousand lifers are no different, not by one judge,
34:19
Speaker 3: now by one iota, from the juvenile lifers who were
34:22
Speaker 3: paroled and successfully returned to the community. There is a
34:27
Speaker 3: moral imperative, if not legal, equal protection, case to be
34:31
Speaker 3: made that parole eligibility must be extended to these other
34:35
Speaker 3: five thousand lifers. These other five thousand lifers, including myself,
34:41
Speaker 3: do not have to die in prison to keep society safe.
34:46
Speaker 3: I have a vision to make parole available to all
34:48
Speaker 3: eligible lifers in Pennsylvania. I'm talking about bending the moral
34:54
Speaker 3: arc of the universe towards more justice by ending the
34:58
Speaker 3: politics of injustice. To achieve this goals, I need substantial
35:04
Speaker 3: support and access to institutional resources. I want to create
35:08
Speaker 3: a nonprofit organization, Gordon Justice und Accountability Project, to implement
35:14
Speaker 3: a comprehensive five year plan design to achieve a roles
35:17
Speaker 3: eligibility for life within Pennsylvania. I call upon all councient
35:21
Speaker 3: just people who desire to help to join me on
35:24
Speaker 3: this mission. You may contact me on the social media
35:27
Speaker 3: platform of Instagram at my fun I am twenty three
35:30
Speaker 3: page that is fun. I am twenty three a niam
35:35
Speaker 3: two three the sign up for this cause. Thank you
35:38
Speaker 3: for your time.
35:45
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction. You can
35:47
Speaker 2: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
35:50
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35:55
Speaker 2: our production team, Color Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well
35:59
Speaker 2: as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and
36:02
Speaker 2: Jeff Cliber. The music in this production was supplied by
36:04
Speaker 2: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
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