Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #205 Jason Flom with James Davis

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#205 Jason Flom with James Davis · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: Since our initial release of James Davis's story, there have
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Speaker 1: been some incredible developments. This is a re release of
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Speaker 1: that story with new content outlining the great news. On
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Speaker 1: January twenty fourth, two thousand and four, James J. Davis
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Speaker 1: went to a big party at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple
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Speaker 1: to celebrate his little brother, Daniel's birthday. James's night was
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Speaker 1: cut short when he drank too much and vomited several times.
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Speaker 1: Daniel put him in a cab to meet with his
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Speaker 1: girlfriend Kneed Johnson. Two hours later, a big fight broke
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Speaker 1: out in the club, resulting in their friend Jamel Black,
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Speaker 1: being stabbed and another man, Blake Harper, being shot and killed.
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Speaker 1: Police would interview people at the scene to get a
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Speaker 1: description of the shooter, a light skinned black man with braids,
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Speaker 1: but James didn't have braids at the time. He had
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Speaker 1: short hair with waves. Police then called stabbing victim Jammel
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Speaker 1: Black's home and spoke to his sister, who happened to
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Speaker 1: be James's spurned ex, Tina Black, who casually named James
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Speaker 1: as the shooter, even though she had never even been
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Speaker 1: at the party in the first place. Police found Jamel
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Speaker 1: at the hospital, who told them the identity of the
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Speaker 1: real shooter Tay Hall, so was it Tay or Jay?
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Speaker 1: Two weeks later, Jose Machakote, who was at the club
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Speaker 1: that night, would enter the precinct and second Tina Black's identification.
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Speaker 1: About six weeks after that, James found himself the target
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Speaker 1: of an interrogation, a sham lineup, and a murder charge.
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Speaker 1: Only after his case was picked up by the Legal
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Speaker 1: Aid Society was it revealed that Jose Machakote was actually
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Speaker 1: one of the most dangerous drug dealers in Brooklyn and
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Speaker 1: the subject of a joint FBI NYPD investigation. Machakote was
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Speaker 1: murdered five months after his false testimony that sent James
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Speaker 1: to prison for the rest of his life. This is
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flammer. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
2:01
Speaker 1: with Jason flamm That's me. I'm your host, and today
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Speaker 1: you're going to hear a story that when they write
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Speaker 1: the History of Wrongful Convictions they could put this on
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Speaker 1: the cover, because this story is so outrageous that well,
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Speaker 1: you're just going to have to hear it for yourself.
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Speaker 2: Hello, Lucy is a prepaid correct call from Sure an
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Speaker 2: inmate ed New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
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Speaker 1: This call the subject of recording and monitoring.
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Speaker 3: To accept charges, Press one to refuse charges, Press two
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Speaker 3: if you would like, thank you for using Securius. You
2:35
Speaker 3: may start the conversation now.
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Speaker 1: On the phone from prison where he's been for almost
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Speaker 1: twenty years, we have James J. Davis. Hello, Jay, thanks
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Speaker 1: for calling in and I hope that we'll be able
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Speaker 1: to make a difference. And with us today we have
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Felber, who is the supervising attorney in the Wrongful
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Speaker 1: Conviction Unit of the Legal Aid Society.
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Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.
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Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. James, you had a
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Speaker 1: rough child a growing up in Brownsville and Brooklyn, right, Yeah, very.
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Speaker 4: My mother and my father weren't really in my life.
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Speaker 4: It was small. My grandmother and my brother. My father
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Speaker 4: died when I was in fourth grade. Roughly two years later,
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Speaker 4: my mother passed away. The year before that, my brother
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Speaker 4: father passed away, so both of us had no parent
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Speaker 4: by the time I reached sixth grade. I had to
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Speaker 4: keep people from picking on him outside as well as
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Speaker 4: keep people from picking on me and bullying me. So
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Speaker 4: that's when the fight started happening. I started getting into
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Speaker 4: a lot of trouble. I was doing a lot of
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Speaker 4: stupid stuff. I was young. I was robbing people, I
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Speaker 4: was selling weed.
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Speaker 1: And that's when you ended up in juvie.
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Speaker 4: Yes, when I make it the juvie. I'm going to
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Speaker 4: school and I met this teacher, a guy named mister Bliss,
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Speaker 4: and he convinced me to take my TV and I
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Speaker 4: ended up passing. After I passed, he was like, you
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Speaker 4: can go to community college and get going to high
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Speaker 4: school now for re education.
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Speaker 1: So I understand you accepted the CAPE for your community
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Speaker 1: college in North Carolina, near where your aunt lived, no
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Speaker 1: small feat considering your record, but your probation officer wouldn't
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Speaker 1: transfer your supervision out of state, so you were trying
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Speaker 1: to get yourself into some computer science classes locally.
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Speaker 4: Around that time, I found out that my brother was
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Speaker 4: into the streets, and that's pretty much where I got
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Speaker 4: back involved in the streets, selling weed and being there
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Speaker 4: for this case.
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth, take us back to January twenty fourth, two thousand
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Speaker 1: and four. What happened that faithful night?
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Speaker 3: Okay, So January twenty fourth was his brother Daniel's birthday,
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Speaker 3: and Daniel wanted to go to a party that was
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Speaker 3: being held at a Masonic temple lodge where they hosted events.
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Speaker 3: It was a party for people with January birthdays.
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Speaker 4: We all grew up in the projects. Bio is an
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Speaker 4: older guy from the neighborhood that he's like a well
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Speaker 4: like god. He does parties. He knew my brother as well.
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Speaker 4: My brother he been talking about his birthday for a
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Speaker 4: long time, so they put him on the fly I
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Speaker 4: guess on my brother birthday. My plan was to like,
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Speaker 4: we just going chill, maybe call up some girls to
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Speaker 4: come hang out at the projects with us. He was
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Speaker 4: bent throwing going to the party because his name was
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Speaker 4: on the flyers. So it comes to be almost twelve
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Speaker 4: o'clock and I wanted to surprise my brother, so I
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Speaker 4: walked to the liquor store before it closed to get
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Speaker 4: a bottle on my weet and a bottle of Hennessy.
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Speaker 4: And when I got back, my brother was like, oh,
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Speaker 4: I forgot the party.
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Speaker 3: So by the time he got to the party, he
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Speaker 3: had had a few already, and then he proceeded to
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Speaker 3: have a few more drinks in the bathroom because they
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Speaker 3: told him, okay, you can have your own drink, but
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Speaker 3: you have to put some shade on.
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Speaker 4: It before you know it. I was trying to rush
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Speaker 4: my drinks so that we can actually get out the bathroom.
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Speaker 4: I wanted to see what the party was really like
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Speaker 4: in the Hennessy, and the moat turned my stomach over.
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Speaker 4: That was the start of the end of the night.
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Speaker 4: I threw up maybe once or twice in the bathroom,
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Speaker 4: and before I know it, through the laughing, I hear
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Speaker 4: my brother pretty much like, come on, man, now, I
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Speaker 4: got to take you back home. We just got here.
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Speaker 4: We ain't even fully been in the club long enough.
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Speaker 4: Through negotiation, I just told them I just woke me outside,
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Speaker 4: I catch a cab and I go to my girlfriend house.
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Speaker 3: So they went outside. They got a cab and James
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Speaker 3: called his girlfriend, Canine Johnson, and took the cab to
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Speaker 3: her place and she met him outside. Her mother didn't
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Speaker 3: like James, so they would stay with her aunt.
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Speaker 4: I got there two forty five maybe three. So when
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Speaker 4: I got there, she's sitting on the steps already. I
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Speaker 4: step out the cab.
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Speaker 1: They I threw up in.
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Speaker 4: Between cars before I even tested the sidewalk. She came
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Speaker 4: running down the steps, rubbed my back I think, and
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Speaker 4: walked to our house, stop at the store and went.
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Speaker 3: Into our house, so he was long gone before anything happened.
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Speaker 3: At the party, which was around four in the morning,
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Speaker 3: a fight broke out and somebody was seriously stabbed. We
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Speaker 3: now know that was Jammel Black and Blake Harper was
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Speaker 3: shot and killed. A couple other people were shot, but
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Speaker 3: not seriously. James had already left the party hours earlier.
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Speaker 1: So you wake up the next morning at your girlfriend
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Speaker 1: Kneen's her aunt's house. Really, and one of the guys
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Speaker 1: you were with, Jamel Black, had been stabbed the night before.
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Speaker 1: How did you hear that news?
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Speaker 4: Well, both of us up. The news is on. It's
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Speaker 4: about the Masonic temple. Immediately I called my house on
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Speaker 4: the landline in my aunt is like it Jamel got
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Speaker 4: stabbed and somebody got killed, but nobody knew who the
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Speaker 4: guy was that got killed. So I'm like, I'm coming
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Speaker 4: over there. I got there. My brother pretty much told
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Speaker 4: me I wasn't really involved in it, but it was
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Speaker 4: crazy in it, a fight broke out, people shooting, girls screaming,
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Speaker 4: and everybody run in.
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Speaker 1: Police had responded to the scene and they interviewed a
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Speaker 1: number of people at the club, and no one that
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Speaker 1: they interviewed knew the identity of the shooter. But he
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Speaker 1: was described as a young, light skinned Blackmail with braids
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Speaker 1: on the back of his head. Now, James, is that
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Speaker 1: an accurate description of you at that time?
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Speaker 4: No, I actually did have raids at the time. I
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Speaker 4: had a low season like waves.
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Speaker 1: So police have already interviewed witnesses at the scene the
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Speaker 1: night before. You're a friend who has stabbed Jamel Black.
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Speaker 1: They call his house, but they get his sister on
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Speaker 1: the phone.
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Speaker 4: Instead, Tina Black, like the first girlfriend I ever had.
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Speaker 3: What we learned was that Tina Black still harbored a
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Speaker 3: flame for him and was hugely jealous when she found
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Speaker 3: out that he had a new girlfriend, and out of spite,
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Speaker 3: she told the police that James did the shooting, even
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Speaker 3: though you can tell by the only police record on
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Speaker 3: her she wasn't at the party that night. She was
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Speaker 3: very sick with juvenile diabete, too sick to go to
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Speaker 3: a party. The police should have known that she wasn't
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Speaker 3: at the party, and yet they just focused on him.
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Speaker 3: The second page of the detective notebook says Purp James
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Speaker 3: Davis Jay, So it's just tunnel vision from then on out.
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Speaker 1: Right, So the people that were there couldn't identify the suspect.
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Speaker 1: The woman who wasn't there does identify a suspect, And
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Speaker 1: of course we know that Tina later on confessed to
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Speaker 1: her mother and to others as she had lied to
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Speaker 1: the police. Now we're up to the park where the
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Speaker 1: detectives went to the hospital, right, and the interviewed Jammel Black.
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Speaker 3: So the detectives actually went to the hospital the day
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Speaker 3: of the incident and they were told he was just
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Speaker 3: coming out of surgery. He was too out of it.
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Speaker 3: The doctors wouldn't let him interview Jamel. Jammel testified out
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Speaker 3: her hearing and he told the court that what happened
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Speaker 3: was those detectives came back later and Jammel told them
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Speaker 3: he had been stabbed by the guy who was subsequently
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Speaker 3: killed and this guy named Tay Hall was helping him
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Speaker 3: out of the party when he says, oh shit, pushes
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Speaker 3: Jamel to the ground and you hear shots fired. Jamel
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Speaker 3: looks up and he sees Tay putting a gun back
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Speaker 3: in his pocket and saying, I got to get out
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Speaker 3: of here. The police are coming. But there was no
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Speaker 3: written report about that conversation and it never came out.
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Speaker 3: At the hearing, the judge said, Oh, it's just not
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Speaker 3: credible that they wouldn't have a report about it. Well,
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Speaker 3: it's also not credible that you wouldn't interview the person
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Speaker 3: who was stabbed, because they would most likely have the
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Speaker 3: most relevant information.
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Speaker 1: So let's fast forward then to a couple of months
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Speaker 1: after the shooting, right, and that's when the warrant squad came.
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Speaker 1: They were actually looking for your younger brother when they
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Speaker 1: arrested you, and you weren't even aware that they were
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Speaker 1: looking for you because you knew that you didn't have
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Speaker 1: anything to do with this and there was no reason
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Speaker 1: to suspect you of anything other than being drunk and
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Speaker 1: throwing up on the sidewalk.
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Speaker 4: They took me from my house under the guys that
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Speaker 4: I had a warrant, which I did. I did have
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Speaker 4: a warrant for disorderly conducting do community service, But they
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Speaker 4: never took me to the court building, took me down
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Speaker 4: to like homicide headquarters where I'm at Detective Hutchinson for
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Speaker 4: the first time before they took me to the precinct.
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Speaker 4: At the precinct, they pretty much was asking me do
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Speaker 4: I know Jamail Black? And do I know what happened
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Speaker 4: to Jamail Black? So I explained to them the same
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Speaker 4: thing that I just was telling you about getting drunk
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Speaker 4: and leaving. Who actually walked me to the door, whatever
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Speaker 4: where I went after I left the party. From there,
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Speaker 4: I don't remember exactly the rest of the questions, but
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Speaker 4: it was pretty much all about the shooting there. So
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Speaker 4: I'm like, when am I going to court? I'm supposed
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Speaker 4: to be going to court. They're like, no, what we're
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Speaker 4: going to do is we're going to put you in
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Speaker 4: the lineup. I'm like, a lineup. I need a lawyer.
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Speaker 4: It's like, do you have a lawyer? I'm like, no,
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Speaker 4: I don't have a lawyer, but I have a lawyer
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Speaker 4: in my family who can come and represent me. But
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Speaker 4: he tells me if I don't have a number for him,
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Speaker 4: then he can't call him. Then they just took me
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Speaker 4: back to the room, left me in the room, and
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Speaker 4: from there it went to the lineup and he came
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Speaker 4: back with four guys. Three of them is dog skinned,
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Speaker 4: two of them have He said, nobody looks like me,
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Speaker 4: Nobody favors me in no way, shape or form, But
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Speaker 4: I'm like, this can't be Did he bring two more
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Speaker 4: guys in, like Indian looking guys. I'm like, nah, this
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Speaker 4: is a six.
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Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about this lineup
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Speaker 1: and how things went so wrong?
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Speaker 3: So the lineup in itself was already suggestive, but there
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Speaker 3: were three people who viewed the lineup. One of them
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Speaker 3: was jose Machakodi. He was the first witness that they
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Speaker 3: brought into view a photo spread about six weeks earlier,
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Speaker 3: and it was unclear why he was called. He was
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Speaker 3: the brother in law of the man who died, but
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Speaker 3: he was not one of the people that had been
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Speaker 3: originally interviewed. It's pretty common knowledge that when you've picked
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Speaker 3: someone out of a photograph, you pick them again in
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Speaker 3: the lineup because you recognize them as the person. But
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Speaker 3: the lineup happened six weeks later. At the lineup, the
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Speaker 3: two other witnesses, Harold Poe and Sean Velton. They were
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Speaker 3: brought there by the mother of the deceased, and according
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Speaker 3: to their testimony, she called them and said, they have
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Speaker 3: the guy they think did it at the precinct, and
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Speaker 3: they want you to just come to see if you
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Speaker 3: can you identify him or something. To that effect that's
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Speaker 3: already contaminating the lineup because there's a pressure put on
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Speaker 3: them that this is the person they have, the person
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Speaker 3: they feel compelled to pick one person, especially especially when
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Speaker 3: the mother of the deceased has chauffeur driven you to
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Speaker 3: the precincts. So they picked James. But one of them
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Speaker 3: said always from the beginning, well he resembles him except
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Speaker 3: for the braids, because when James got arrested, his hair
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Speaker 3: was short. And the other guy, Sean Velton, Now originally
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Speaker 3: he had said I didn't see anything when the police
13:43
Speaker 3: spoke to him. Now he said, oh, I just said
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Speaker 3: that because I was afraid. But the description he gave
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Speaker 3: before he viewed him was someone wearing a Scully cap
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Speaker 3: and that's nowhere in any description. And also five ten
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Speaker 3: and James was like five seven, so we didn't even
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Speaker 3: describe someone that looked like James. So that's how they
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Speaker 3: picked him. There was a fourth person at the lineup
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Speaker 3: who did not testify at the trial or the hearings,
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Speaker 3: and what Detective Hutchinson said about him was, oh, he
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Speaker 3: picked him out. He just wouldn't sign the sheet saying
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Speaker 3: he had again, you know some things just your alarm
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Speaker 3: goes off. That smells fishy, So we caught up with him.
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Speaker 3: He did not want to be involved. He made that
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Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty percent clear. But what he told
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Speaker 3: us was Noah, I never said that was the guy.
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Speaker 3: That's why I wouldn't sign. And what I said to
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Speaker 3: them was if you say that's the guy, that's the guy.
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Speaker 3: So to me, that says they were being prompted to
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Speaker 3: pick James, and I should just add that. Sean Belton
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Speaker 3: at the second trial recanted again and said I just
14:41
Speaker 3: glanced at him. He gave four separate statements, so that
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Speaker 3: was him, and the other guy always only said he
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Speaker 3: resembled him. So essentially it really came down to hosely
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Speaker 3: matcha cody.
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Speaker 4: When you think about the convenience of Tina Black Junior
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Speaker 4: given my name to the detective, and then a week later,
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Speaker 4: jose Machakodi, the drug building, violent robber who's a humble bober,
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Speaker 4: now just happens to walk into the precinct. Though he
15:09
Speaker 4: didn't stay at the crime scene when everything happened, he
15:13
Speaker 4: fled the crime scene. He walks into the precinct and
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Speaker 4: he picks my picture. He's the only one that goes
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Speaker 4: to the precinct and it just so happens that he's
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Speaker 4: known in this neighborhood. To me, the whole case is
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Speaker 4: weird from beginning to end. I think that this was
15:31
Speaker 4: a misunderstanding, maybe from speaking to Jamel Black and him
15:37
Speaker 4: telling them the story he told him about Kay send
15:40
Speaker 4: them asking his sister about pay and she telling them Shane,
15:48
Speaker 4: and they just went from there with the easiest thing
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Speaker 4: that they could do to close the case, and it
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Speaker 4: just so happened to be that I was convenience for them.
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Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison.
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Speaker 1: A leading international law fer. Paul Weiss has long had
16:11
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
16:16
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
16:18
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
16:22
Speaker 1: criminal justice area.
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Speaker 4: After the line up, they told me I was being
16:33
Speaker 4: charged with murder, and he offered me a deal pretty
16:37
Speaker 4: much to take the questions and asked me to tell
16:41
Speaker 4: him that I did it because he already heard about
16:44
Speaker 4: the story of what happened. Somebody told him that two
16:48
Speaker 4: groups of guys was fighting and the guy in one
16:51
Speaker 4: of the groups had a knife, and the guy and
16:53
Speaker 4: the other group had a gun, and he shot the
16:55
Speaker 4: guy with the knife to defend himself. But I can
16:58
Speaker 4: tell me that I can help you. I speak to
17:01
Speaker 4: the daight. I'm like, what the hell kind of shit
17:03
Speaker 4: is there? Why the fuck would I tell you I
17:05
Speaker 4: did that. I'm telling you I wasn't even aware of
17:08
Speaker 4: I wasn't there for it. He's like, you know, if
17:11
Speaker 4: I was you, I would have did the same thing.
17:12
Speaker 4: If it was me a guy comes at me with
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Speaker 4: a knife and I got a gun, I would have
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Speaker 4: shot him too. You ain't doing nothing wrong. I was like,
17:19
Speaker 4: but you want me to admit to something I didn't do.
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Speaker 1: That's wrong?
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Speaker 4: Right there, the fingerprinted me and put me in a
17:25
Speaker 4: holding cell for the rest of the night.
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Speaker 1: Now things go from bad to worse right the trial.
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Speaker 1: There's a number of problems at both trials, although the
17:36
Speaker 1: first trial, amazingly, in spite of the fact that you
17:40
Speaker 1: had substandard defense, you still ended up with an eleven
17:45
Speaker 1: to one hungury in favor of a quittle.
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Speaker 4: You have this this one guy, Jose Machikoti, who's laying
17:53
Speaker 4: the cause of this fight on his brother in law. Well,
17:56
Speaker 4: the two prosecutors witnesses beside him, I say and that
18:00
Speaker 4: he started the whole fight, and he's saying that I
18:03
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with it. I'm a humble barber.
18:05
Speaker 4: I never committed a crime again after I was locked
18:09
Speaker 4: up all of those years ago. You have a conflict
18:12
Speaker 4: between your own witnesses.
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Speaker 3: Canein Johnson. His girlfriend did testify at the first trial.
18:18
Speaker 4: She's explaining to them how I came to her aunt's
18:21
Speaker 4: place while we didn't stay at her mother's house because
18:23
Speaker 4: some of us was like a CEO or x CEO
18:27
Speaker 4: at the time. I guess she didn't think I was
18:29
Speaker 4: good enough for her daughter.
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Speaker 3: I think that, in part was part of what led
18:33
Speaker 3: to the eleven to one Equila that she was a
18:35
Speaker 3: very persuasive witness.
18:37
Speaker 4: But at the second trial, the DA is saying that
18:41
Speaker 4: I threatened. One of the witnesses. Sean Belton recants, but
18:46
Speaker 4: it's I can't really consider that recanting because he went
18:50
Speaker 4: back to the initial statement that he never seen anything.
18:53
Speaker 4: Havel Poe. We had his testimony read into the record
18:57
Speaker 4: because throughout the whole thing he never identified me. He
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Speaker 4: only referred to me as looking similar to one of
19:04
Speaker 4: the guys. The other person that they say picked me
19:07
Speaker 4: out of a photo or Ratey never signed on none
19:09
Speaker 4: of the pictures. But the detective is saying I made
19:12
Speaker 4: a mank next to the picture that he picked out
19:15
Speaker 4: because he wouldn't sign it. It's like that don't even
19:19
Speaker 4: make sense. The only only witness that they had was
19:22
Speaker 4: jose Manchakoti that actually positively picked.
19:26
Speaker 1: Me out of a lineup, And all you needed was
19:29
Speaker 1: your star witness Kenean Johnson to show up and counter Machakot,
19:33
Speaker 1: just like she did at the first trial.
19:35
Speaker 4: But at the second trial, I'm not with my girlfriend anymore,
19:40
Speaker 4: so our contact is kind of really touching. Go is
19:44
Speaker 4: you know that I'm only calling to notify her court
19:47
Speaker 4: dates and what's going on with my life, which she's
19:50
Speaker 4: trying to avoid. I guess I don't know. My lawyers
19:53
Speaker 4: said he spoke to her and she was supposed to
19:55
Speaker 4: be coming in and then she didn't show up, but
19:58
Speaker 4: she was still being nice to him on the phone.
20:01
Speaker 4: He called her again and then she cursed him out.
20:05
Speaker 4: She told him that he sent police to her house
20:08
Speaker 4: that like one in the morning. But we learned that
20:11
Speaker 4: day in the courtroom that it wasn't actually my lawyer
20:15
Speaker 4: that sent the police, that it was the district attorney
20:18
Speaker 4: who subpoenaed her, even though in court she said, I
20:23
Speaker 4: never planned on calling this girl as a witness because
20:25
Speaker 4: I don't know what she's gonna say, even though she
20:28
Speaker 4: heard what my witness said at the first trial. But
20:31
Speaker 4: they still mistubpoened at her and sent police to her
20:36
Speaker 4: house at one in the morning, which actually infuriated her
20:40
Speaker 4: mother and caused her mother to kick her out. That
20:45
Speaker 4: right there pretty much stealed the deal as far as
20:48
Speaker 4: her coming to court and tell me guilty.
20:54
Speaker 1: Anyone who's listening is probably wondering right now, Well, if
20:58
Speaker 1: I was representing him back then, I would have checked
21:02
Speaker 1: to cell phone records, or I would have checked the
21:05
Speaker 1: cab records. You could have gotten hold of a cab
21:07
Speaker 1: company and see if anybody because you took a cab right,
21:10
Speaker 1: And none of that stuff was done right.
21:14
Speaker 4: The weird thing is, out of all of the easy
21:16
Speaker 4: stuff that we think of that could have been done,
21:19
Speaker 4: my attorney at the time hired a chiropractor or child
21:23
Speaker 4: doctor to do medical examine or work. And I've never
21:27
Speaker 4: even seen the medical examine, the work, or any paperwork
21:31
Speaker 4: that he had done. But he didn't go and check
21:33
Speaker 4: a cab. He didn't go and speak to none of
21:36
Speaker 4: these witnesses. That's in the DD files from the police reports.
21:39
Speaker 4: But you found an adopted the player as a medical
21:42
Speaker 4: examiner from your office building. It's sad to say, but
21:47
Speaker 4: if you don't have money to actually pay for a lawyer,
21:51
Speaker 4: then the justice system doesn't really work for you. It's
21:54
Speaker 4: rare that it does.
21:55
Speaker 1: So meanwhile, the story goes on. Mister Machacote was murdered
22:00
Speaker 1: by a drug dealer five months after James's second trial. Yes,
22:04
Speaker 1: after he was trying to rob the drug deal there
22:06
Speaker 1: for the second time in a month. So yeah, he
22:10
Speaker 1: was tortured and killed. And I mean, this is some
22:12
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino stuff now, but this is the guy that
22:15
Speaker 1: the authorities were painting to be a wonderful citizen who
22:18
Speaker 1: was bravely coming forward and now he's a simple barber
22:21
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. So that's all out the window.
22:23
Speaker 3: So we learned this as the hearing was going on,
22:26
Speaker 3: the actual innocence hearing that we litigated last summer, and
22:29
Speaker 3: we're appealing now. During our hearing, I reached out to
22:32
Speaker 3: the assistant US attorney because people were prosecuted federally for
22:37
Speaker 3: killing Machakodi and through it, I met the FBI agent
22:41
Speaker 3: who told me that at the time of the trial,
22:43
Speaker 3: Jose Machakoti was under their investigation. It was a joint
22:47
Speaker 3: NYPD FBI investigation into drug dealing, major drug dealing in
22:52
Speaker 3: Brownsville and lo and Behold. In the spring, which was
22:55
Speaker 3: when the second trial was happening, a confidential informant was
22:58
Speaker 3: buying huge quantity of heroin and cocaine from Machakodi. Now
23:03
Speaker 3: we don't know if the assistant district attorney knew that,
23:07
Speaker 3: but it's hard to believe that the detective who used
23:11
Speaker 3: to be a narcotics detective in Brownsville did not know
23:15
Speaker 3: that this man was a one of the major most
23:18
Speaker 3: violent drug dealers in Brooklyn and be under investigation by
23:23
Speaker 3: the FBI. So that was never disclosed.
23:25
Speaker 1: No, that would have been an inconvenient fact to bring
23:28
Speaker 1: up as they were trying to present him as the
23:30
Speaker 1: perfect witness, right.
23:31
Speaker 3: And what was in it for Matchakodi? You know, I
23:33
Speaker 3: don't want to go down too deep a rabbit hole
23:35
Speaker 3: of conspiracy theories, but he was on parole. The night
23:39
Speaker 3: of this murder, he had violated parole by being out
23:42
Speaker 3: past his curfew. And the fight that Jay was referring to,
23:46
Speaker 3: a lot of the police reports say a Spanish guy
23:49
Speaker 3: wearing a fur coat grabbed a bottle within a fight
23:53
Speaker 3: on the floor that was Macha code, So that was
23:55
Speaker 3: also a violation of paroles. So I don't know whether
23:58
Speaker 3: they threatened him with having him locked up, whether there
24:02
Speaker 3: was something corrupt going on. You know, it was the
24:04
Speaker 3: seventy fifth Precinct, which is notorious. And all we do
24:08
Speaker 3: know is that when the prosecutor got up in summation
24:10
Speaker 3: and said, he's such a credible witness, and you know
24:13
Speaker 3: he's credible because he was so honest about his past
24:17
Speaker 3: and now he's a barber. Well he might have been
24:19
Speaker 3: honest about his past, but he wasn't really honest about
24:22
Speaker 3: his present. So, you know, in addition to the problems
24:25
Speaker 3: with you know, ide evidence, in a situation like that,
24:28
Speaker 3: you also have this unsavory character pretending to be someone
24:32
Speaker 3: that he's not.
24:33
Speaker 1: It's almost like an exclamation point on the whole thing.
24:36
Speaker 1: You know, he ends up in like a scene from
24:39
Speaker 1: Reservoir Dogs being tortured to death by a guy who
24:42
Speaker 1: he was trying to rob for a second time, a
24:44
Speaker 1: drug dealer. I mean, nice witness.
24:48
Speaker 3: Right, and the first time he entered at gunpoint and
24:51
Speaker 3: tied them up and robbed them. So it wasn't his
24:54
Speaker 3: first rodeo.
24:55
Speaker 1: No, And it sounds like they turned the tables on him,
24:57
Speaker 1: and then he took this false testimony presented to the
25:01
Speaker 1: grave with him.
25:02
Speaker 4: Yes, I didn't know the justice system actually takes this long,
25:15
Speaker 4: but I thought, maybe, no, two years, I'll be back home,
25:19
Speaker 4: they'd fix this whole thing, and I'll be home. Two
25:23
Speaker 4: years turned to seventeen and I'm still fighting and trying
25:28
Speaker 4: to convince them that they actually locked up the wrong person.
25:32
Speaker 1: And then, to compound this tragedy again, the little brother
25:36
Speaker 1: that you felt so responsible for was murdered in twenty twelve.
25:40
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't possibly begin to imagine your pain.
25:45
Speaker 1: But your grandmother's still here, my.
25:48
Speaker 4: Brother, my grandmother is like my oldest friends in the world.
25:53
Speaker 4: My grandmother been there for as long as I knew.
25:56
Speaker 4: I know she know my pain, and my brother was
25:59
Speaker 4: there with me through everything. So it's like I lost
26:02
Speaker 4: out on with little I was able to spend his
26:05
Speaker 4: life with him in seventeen years and my grandmother's like
26:09
Speaker 4: she was sixty three. I dismissed all of these birthdays
26:12
Speaker 4: and times to spend with her. I think that was
26:15
Speaker 4: my first Christmas ever, actually really buying my grandmother my
26:20
Speaker 4: own gift, and she was so happy for that. Then. Yeah,
26:25
Speaker 4: every year, since it's something I didn't even do, I
26:29
Speaker 4: pray for her every night. I need her to be
26:31
Speaker 4: strong for me. That's one of the reasons that I
26:34
Speaker 4: lived for my grandmother. My mother was murdered two weeks
26:39
Speaker 4: or yeah, a week and some change at the Mother's Day,
26:42
Speaker 4: which was hard for my grandmother, and then my brother
26:46
Speaker 4: on Father's Day right before her birthday. So it's like
26:50
Speaker 4: I've had a real, real rough journey. Her journey is
26:54
Speaker 4: just as rough. So this is why that's like my
26:56
Speaker 4: closest friend right there outside of my brother that passed away.
27:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine. We need to do everything we
27:03
Speaker 1: can to bring you home, James. Yes, So now you
27:07
Speaker 1: know we get to the post conviction investigation, and of
27:11
Speaker 1: course you had a meeting with the conviction review unit
27:14
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn.
27:14
Speaker 3: That was actually before I became involved in the case.
27:17
Speaker 3: Susan Epstein, who did the appeal and did a phenomenal investigation,
27:21
Speaker 3: brought the witnesses to the Conviction Review Unit. They had
27:25
Speaker 3: the case incredibly for five years. It's not exactly clear
27:30
Speaker 3: what happened, but one refrain that is throughout the transcripts
27:34
Speaker 3: of those interviews is why didn't you come forward sooner?
27:38
Speaker 1: And there's lots of them, right, It's not like this
27:40
Speaker 1: is one person. These are people who are, you know,
27:43
Speaker 1: members of the community, who are not kids anymore either.
27:46
Speaker 3: I don't know why they dragged their feet and they
27:49
Speaker 3: never came right out and said we don't believe you,
27:52
Speaker 3: we think he's guilty. Even after we brought the motion
27:55
Speaker 3: and started the hearing, they said to the press, you know,
27:57
Speaker 3: we're still looking into it, or something to that effect.
27:59
Speaker 3: For some reason, they just were unpersuaded.
28:03
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the hearing we've been referring
28:05
Speaker 1: to this entire time. You and Susan filed a four
28:08
Speaker 1: to forty motion, which is New York legal leese, for
28:11
Speaker 1: a motion to set aside the judgment that was in
28:14
Speaker 1: September twenty eighteen, and you argued for James's actual innocence
28:18
Speaker 1: as well as ineffective assistant of counsel and newly discovered
28:22
Speaker 1: evidence at this hearing back in June of twenty nineteen.
28:26
Speaker 3: Yes, we were pretty optimistic going into it, so we
28:29
Speaker 3: had eight witnesses, including James. James went first, so he
28:34
Speaker 3: told the story that you heard about leaving because he
28:37
Speaker 3: was intoxicated. And then Jammel Black came in and he
28:41
Speaker 3: had initially refused to cooperate and sent a letter to
28:44
Speaker 3: Susan saying he ruined my life because James had slept
28:50
Speaker 3: with his girlfriend when he was locked up at Rikers
28:52
Speaker 3: and he held a grudge. But he came in and
28:55
Speaker 3: he told the whole story. First of all, he helped
28:57
Speaker 3: walk James out to the car, but then they started
28:59
Speaker 3: to get into a fight about this girlfriend again and
29:02
Speaker 3: he went inside and he met up with Tay, the shooter.
29:05
Speaker 3: So he told the whole story about how the stabbing happened,
29:08
Speaker 3: and how the shooting happened, and how it was Tay,
29:11
Speaker 3: and then how he told this to the police. We
29:13
Speaker 3: also had the woman who cut his hair and that
29:16
Speaker 3: the last time she saw him his hair was short.
29:19
Speaker 3: And you had Corey Hines, who was at the party
29:22
Speaker 3: in the bathroom laughing at him as he was throwing up.
29:26
Speaker 3: His brother had signed an affid David saying I put
29:29
Speaker 3: him in a cab and send him to his girlfriend's house.
29:31
Speaker 3: I'm sadly he was murdered in twenty twelve, so we
29:36
Speaker 3: didn't have him as a witness. We had his affidavit
29:39
Speaker 3: and we believed the judge should have allowed that into evidence,
29:42
Speaker 3: and he didn't. And we had Caneen Johnson, the girlfriend
29:46
Speaker 3: who didn't show up at the second trial. We actually
29:48
Speaker 3: had to do what's called a material witness order to
29:50
Speaker 3: have her arrested to bring her in, which I really
29:53
Speaker 3: didn't want to do. So when that happens, they assigned
29:55
Speaker 3: an attorney to you, and the attorney came in and
29:57
Speaker 3: said to the judge, she's willing to testify, but she's
30:00
Speaker 3: terrified of the family. And what came out on the
30:04
Speaker 3: witness stand is that after she testified at the first trial,
30:08
Speaker 3: friends and family of the deceased followed her not just
30:10
Speaker 3: out of the courtroom, but out of the courthouse, calling
30:13
Speaker 3: her names, threatening her if we're going to find out
30:16
Speaker 3: where you live, if we see you on the street.
30:18
Speaker 3: And it was so bad that James's attorney put her
30:21
Speaker 3: in a cab because he was afraid of her having
30:23
Speaker 3: to take public transportation home. So here she hasn't seen
30:26
Speaker 3: James since the first trial, and she essentially says exactly
30:30
Speaker 3: what she testified to years before, that he got out
30:33
Speaker 3: of the car, threw up, and she got him a
30:35
Speaker 3: ginger ale out of bodega and they walked through his hands.
30:37
Speaker 3: So she told that entire story. The two new witnesses
30:41
Speaker 3: that I found also particularly compelling. One was Bo. His
30:45
Speaker 3: real name is Ernest. Ernest was one of the promoters,
30:48
Speaker 3: and we asked him, well, how is it that you
30:50
Speaker 3: remember that he was there, and he said, so, I
30:54
Speaker 3: remember when he came in and I was joking about
30:56
Speaker 3: whose waves were better. So, unprompted, he basically said he
31:00
Speaker 3: had short hair at the time. And he also said
31:03
Speaker 3: somebody had thrown up by the bar, and he asked
31:05
Speaker 3: the bouncer what happened here, and he said, oh, you
31:07
Speaker 3: know those two brothers. One of them was drunk and
31:09
Speaker 3: I told they had to leave. So that was information
31:12
Speaker 3: we didn't even know about.
31:13
Speaker 1: I think it's also worthwhile to mention Tina Black, a
31:16
Speaker 1: young woman who named James in the first place, is
31:19
Speaker 1: sadly no longer with us. In twenty thirteen, she died
31:23
Speaker 1: of complications related to the very diabetes that had kept
31:26
Speaker 1: her from the party that faithful night all the way
31:29
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and four.
31:30
Speaker 3: And then lastly, and maybe the most emotionally compelling witness
31:34
Speaker 3: was Tina Black Senior, the mother. So she came in,
31:38
Speaker 3: you know, with the cane. She's like crippled by arthritis.
31:41
Speaker 3: She basically was racked with guilt that her daughter eventually
31:45
Speaker 3: confessed to her and that she had set James up
31:48
Speaker 3: and that he was never coming home, and that she
31:50
Speaker 3: was still in love with him. So that was extremely
31:53
Speaker 3: compelling testimony. So that was essentially our case.
31:56
Speaker 1: Then January twenty four to twenty twenty, sixteen years to
31:59
Speaker 1: the after Blake Harper was tragically murdered, the judge denied
32:04
Speaker 1: James Davis's wrongful conviction motion in its entirety. I remember
32:08
Speaker 1: reading that the first time, we're going, oh god.
32:11
Speaker 3: Right, we were stunned. And then we asked the judge
32:15
Speaker 3: to reopen the hearings so that we could call this
32:18
Speaker 3: FBI agent, so that we could show that they would
32:21
Speaker 3: have known about this evidence that Matchi Coodi was not
32:24
Speaker 3: just a humble barber, but he was a major drug
32:28
Speaker 3: dealer in Brooklyn, and the judge refused to reopen the hearing.
32:32
Speaker 3: And now there's really literally one stop left on this.
32:36
Speaker 3: You don't get to appeal a four to forty as
32:38
Speaker 3: a matter of right, you have to ask permission. He's
32:41
Speaker 3: called seeking leave to appeal, and we did get permission
32:43
Speaker 3: to appeal. So we are in the process of writing
32:46
Speaker 3: a brief and this is the last stop. We are
32:49
Speaker 3: going to the second apartment at Pellet Division and asking
32:52
Speaker 3: them first and foremost to find him innocent and dismiss
32:56
Speaker 3: these charges.
33:02
Speaker 1: So it turns out that the last stop in the
33:04
Speaker 1: second department of Pellet Division, Jay and Elizabeth Hail Mary
33:08
Speaker 1: pass was a great success. And I have with me
33:11
Speaker 1: right now, James J. Davis. Jay, welcome back to wrongful conviction,
33:16
Speaker 1: finally breathing free.
33:18
Speaker 5: Hey man, thank you, Jason, thank you for having me back.
33:21
Speaker 5: It feels good to actually be doing this from my
33:25
Speaker 5: own cell phone, ins out of a jail phone.
33:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, obviously this should have never happened. It
33:30
Speaker 1: would have been better if you never had to go
33:31
Speaker 1: through this in the first place. But now, from what
33:34
Speaker 1: I understand, Elizabeth was able to finally prove that your
33:37
Speaker 1: trial counsel was ineffective because he failed to present any
33:42
Speaker 1: of the laundry list of alibi witnesses that would have
33:45
Speaker 1: easily and certainly cast reasonable doubt and proven your innocence
33:50
Speaker 1: at the original trial. Do you have, like if you
33:53
Speaker 1: could say anything to them, because they're probably listening, let's
33:56
Speaker 1: face it, do you have a message for Elizabeth and
33:59
Speaker 1: all her great people at the Legal Aid Society.
34:02
Speaker 5: I gotta think Susan and Elizabeth and the rest of
34:06
Speaker 5: the Legal Aid Society for the help that they gave me.
34:09
Speaker 2: Is without them, I wouldn't be here right now.
34:12
Speaker 1: So that's the great news. But the truth is we're
34:14
Speaker 1: not completely out of the woods yet because after all,
34:17
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn DA has the choice to either appeal the decision,
34:20
Speaker 1: retry you, or dismiss the charges, and we're all hoping
34:23
Speaker 1: and so many of us are praying that they choose
34:26
Speaker 1: the latter, because, as we've outlined here, out of the
34:29
Speaker 1: three who originally identified you, there's Sean Belton who recanted,
34:32
Speaker 1: and Harold Poe who didn't testify at the second trial
34:35
Speaker 1: and always only said James resemble the shooter. So that
34:39
Speaker 1: leaves the dead drug dealer who lied to the jury
34:42
Speaker 1: about his true identity, a lie the prosecutor capitalized on
34:46
Speaker 1: in her summation. The likely incentivized witness, Jose Machacote is
34:52
Speaker 1: the only person left identifying you. Meanwhile, the person who
34:57
Speaker 1: was stabbed and saw Tay Hall kill Black Harper. Of course,
35:01
Speaker 1: I'm referring to Jamal Black, a guy who, despite his
35:05
Speaker 1: own personal grudge against you, testify to your innocence and
35:09
Speaker 1: today Hall's guilt. So if the Brooklyn DA's Office chooses
35:13
Speaker 1: to continue to charge you, it's definitely not any interest
35:17
Speaker 1: of justice. Please don't let us down here. And that said, Jay,
35:21
Speaker 1: what have you been up to since you released in
35:23
Speaker 1: May twenty twenty one.
35:24
Speaker 2: I've been trying to spend time with my family. Men, you,
35:26
Speaker 2: my grandmother, me.
35:28
Speaker 5: And have been talking one on one about creating new
35:31
Speaker 5: memories because, as I told you before, my mother was
35:36
Speaker 5: murdered at the Mother's Day and my brother was murdered
35:38
Speaker 5: right at the Father's Day. So we've been putting positive
35:42
Speaker 5: energy into the universe to create new memories for them.
35:45
Speaker 2: Two occasions and me coming home started it off.
35:50
Speaker 5: So we're trying to continue try to do something nice
35:54
Speaker 5: for our birthday, create some better memories, cover up the
35:57
Speaker 5: old ones, just have some happy moments, Man, enjoy the
36:03
Speaker 5: rest of our time together.
36:04
Speaker 1: And is there any way that our wonderful audience can
36:08
Speaker 1: show you their support.
36:09
Speaker 5: There's a go fundme base that my family is running
36:12
Speaker 5: for me right now, and I'm trying to get me
36:14
Speaker 5: be adjusted back to society. Anything that the audience can
36:18
Speaker 5: do to help would be great.
36:19
Speaker 1: Man.
36:20
Speaker 2: I'm just happy to be here and have this opportunity.
36:22
Speaker 1: We will absolutely definitely have that link in our bios
36:25
Speaker 1: so our listeners can help. And I can honestly say,
36:29
Speaker 1: and everyone who knows me knows this. Nothing makes me
36:31
Speaker 1: happier than news like yours. So thank you again for
36:36
Speaker 1: talking with us. And with that, I'd like to give
36:39
Speaker 1: your closing an argument and update. And what I mean
36:41
Speaker 1: now again is I'm just gonna kick back in my chair,
36:45
Speaker 1: turn off my microphone and just listen to whatever you
36:49
Speaker 1: have to.
36:49
Speaker 2: Say, Jason, Man, I just want to say thank you. Man.
36:53
Speaker 5: I want to thank you again, thank Susan Epstein, Elizabeth
36:57
Speaker 5: Felber and the Legal Aid Society for the help that
37:00
Speaker 5: they've given me.
37:01
Speaker 1: Man.
37:02
Speaker 2: I don't want to thank God. Man is without him
37:04
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here.
37:11
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm.
37:15
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
37:18
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
37:20
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
37:23
Speaker 1: Clyburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
37:27
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
37:31
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37:34
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
37:38
Speaker 1: Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
37:41
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