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#365 Jason Flom with Clarence Jones · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: On August twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, Clarence Jones was
0:07
Speaker 1: caring for his infant son, Colin. According to Clarence, he
0:10
Speaker 1: had fed Colin a bottle, laid him down for a nap,
0:13
Speaker 1: and later discovered him sputtering formula from his mouth. Clarence
0:17
Speaker 1: rushed him to Sinai Hospital. Colin was in respiratory distress
0:20
Speaker 1: with an erratic heartbeat, and doctors concluded that the hemorrhages
0:24
Speaker 1: that were discovered in the coverings of Colin's brain and retina,
0:27
Speaker 1: coupled with no external injuries, could only mean that the
0:30
Speaker 1: nine week old infant was the victim of violence shaking.
0:34
Speaker 1: While Clarence denied the allegations, Colin succumbed to his complication
0:38
Speaker 1: six days later, on August thirty first. At trial, medical
0:42
Speaker 1: experts testified that retinal hemorrhaging defined child abuse and that
0:46
Speaker 1: the bleeding in Colin's retinas were the most severe they
0:48
Speaker 1: had ever seen. These same experts confidently ruled out any
0:52
Speaker 1: other potential causes of Colin's death, placing the blame squarely
0:56
Speaker 1: on Clarence Jones.
0:58
Speaker 2: But this is wrongful conviction.
1:18
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful conviction. I'm going to start this
1:21
Speaker 1: episode with a question, what would be the worst thing
1:24
Speaker 1: that you could imagine happening to you? Now, if you're
1:28
Speaker 1: a parent, and I am, it would probably be the
1:30
Speaker 1: loss of a child. There's nothing worse than anybody can imagine,
1:34
Speaker 1: except there is what if you lost a child and
1:37
Speaker 1: then we're wrongfully accused of causing the death of your
1:40
Speaker 1: own child, and since the thirty years in prison for
1:44
Speaker 1: a crime that never even happened, Well, today we're covering
1:50
Speaker 1: the extraordinary saga of the man himself, Clarence Jones, the
1:55
Speaker 1: third who's with us right now. Clarence, welcome to the show.
2:00
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
2:02
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. And joining him today is his civil
2:04
Speaker 1: attorney who has joined his continued fight for justice, Lauren
2:08
Speaker 1: kellaher welcome, Thanks, Jason. So this case revolves around shaking
2:14
Speaker 1: baby syndrome, which is really, to me, one of the
2:17
Speaker 1: most sickening aspects of junk science, which leads to some
2:22
Speaker 1: of the most awful miscarriages of justice in our entire
2:25
Speaker 1: criminal legal system. Claris, have you ever heard of shaking
2:28
Speaker 1: baby syndrome before this awful, awful day when your child
2:34
Speaker 1: was taken to the hospital.
2:35
Speaker 3: I had never heard of no such thing. In fact,
2:38
Speaker 3: when he was saying that, I had to look it
2:40
Speaker 3: up and find out actually what was the talking about.
2:44
Speaker 3: Then that day that the detectives had showed up to
2:46
Speaker 3: my door, then I said, Oh, they going to charge
2:49
Speaker 3: me with a crime, that's what they're trying to do.
2:53
Speaker 4: To be honest, before I worked on this case, I
2:56
Speaker 4: was not particularly familiar with the concept of shaking baby syndrome,
3:00
Speaker 4: although in nineteen ninety eight, my understanding is that there
3:03
Speaker 4: was quite a hysteria about shake and baby syndrome, and
3:05
Speaker 4: there was this idea that is exhausted and burnt out
3:10
Speaker 4: as they were parents of young babies were getting so
3:12
Speaker 4: frustrated to the point of injuring them in these severe ways.
3:16
Speaker 4: But as the scientific understanding of SBS has progressed, there
3:21
Speaker 4: are all of these natural disease processes that occur very
3:25
Speaker 4: tragically in babies like Colin that fully explain the presentation
3:28
Speaker 4: with what folks in the SPS community will be familiar
3:33
Speaker 4: with as the triad, which is intercranial bleeding, brain smelling,
3:38
Speaker 4: and retinal hemorrhaging.
3:39
Speaker 1: And you know, back when this case occurred in nineteen
3:43
Speaker 1: ninety eight. The only way people really looked at it
3:45
Speaker 1: was that violence shaking could be the only cause of
3:47
Speaker 1: this triad of findings. But they never tested it. They
3:50
Speaker 1: just assumed it. And I'm really glad we're here to
3:53
Speaker 1: talk about it. We're going to have later on the show.
3:55
Speaker 1: Kate Judson one of my personal heroes. She's the executive
3:59
Speaker 1: director of the Set for Integrity and Forensic Sciences, and
4:02
Speaker 1: she'll dive deeper into this. So, Clarence, before your life
4:06
Speaker 1: got turned upside down by people who should have known better,
4:10
Speaker 1: What was it like. Did you grow up in Baltimore?
4:13
Speaker 3: Well, I did grow up in Baltimore, but I moved
4:16
Speaker 3: out into the county area.
4:18
Speaker 1: And how did you meet your wife Jennifer? Tell us
4:21
Speaker 1: a little about when things were better.
4:24
Speaker 3: I had met Jennifer doing one of the building that
4:27
Speaker 3: she had lived in. I was a security officer at
4:29
Speaker 3: the time, and basically that's how her and I got
4:33
Speaker 3: to know one another. And I've always been into security work,
4:38
Speaker 3: law enforcement work. In fact, I had my application trying
4:41
Speaker 3: to become a Baltimore County Police office at the time
4:44
Speaker 3: as it occurred.
4:46
Speaker 1: Wow, So if this could happen to you and you
4:49
Speaker 1: were working in and around law enforcement, a law abiding citizen.
4:53
Speaker 1: Then would you agree that this could happen to anybody.
4:56
Speaker 3: Yes, this could happen to anybody. You know the way
4:59
Speaker 3: it came upon me. I didn't know that they was
5:02
Speaker 3: trying to arrest me for something like this when I
5:04
Speaker 3: was a kid. Loving father, very supportive.
5:08
Speaker 1: So okay, So it seemed like he had everything going
5:11
Speaker 1: in a very positive direction. You're married to the love
5:15
Speaker 1: of your life, Jennifer, And was this your first child?
5:19
Speaker 3: No, I have three other children. This one my son, Colin.
5:24
Speaker 3: He was born with a condition called normalcytopenia PAPA or ITTP,
5:30
Speaker 3: and just like his mother, Jennifer, she would could bleed easily.
5:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:34
Speaker 1: ITP is a blood disorder in which your immune system
5:37
Speaker 1: attacks to platelets, the red blood cells that are responsible
5:40
Speaker 1: for clotting. So the result is easy bruising, as well
5:44
Speaker 1: as potential internal bleeding and even intracranial hemorrhaging. One of
5:48
Speaker 1: the three findings, if not the main finding associated with
5:51
Speaker 1: sbs ITP, can be acute, clearing up spontaneously in six
5:55
Speaker 1: months or less, or chronic like your wife, Jennifers. Now,
5:58
Speaker 1: Colin had only lived to be just about ten weeks old.
6:01
Speaker 1: It was such a short medical history, it's not clear
6:04
Speaker 1: which form he had. And this wasn't the only cause
6:07
Speaker 1: for concern. Upon Colin's birth, he had a pretty dramatic delivery,
6:11
Speaker 1: to say the least.
6:12
Speaker 3: Right, he had aspirated some maconium which his newborn stool.
6:17
Speaker 3: He was in respiratory distress, all these things and he
6:21
Speaker 3: had to stay and say you behind it. Then we
6:24
Speaker 3: picked them Colin up and he had another episode that occurred,
6:29
Speaker 3: which was July of ninety eight, which he had bleeding
6:34
Speaker 3: in the lungs. What they characterized and diagnosed was pneumonia
6:39
Speaker 3: at the time.
6:41
Speaker 4: The thing about the diagnosis of pneumonia is pneumonia was
6:43
Speaker 4: essentially the best guess about what was going on with Colin.
6:46
Speaker 4: During his July hospitalization, they gave him a pretty heavy
6:50
Speaker 4: duty course of antibiotics that they would have expected to
6:53
Speaker 4: clear up the pneumonia if it had been pneumonia in fact,
6:56
Speaker 4: and they didn't work within the timeframe, and Colin just
6:59
Speaker 4: sort of appeared to be getting better on his own.
7:02
Speaker 1: But unfortunately he was not actually getting better. Rather, his
7:06
Speaker 1: medical issues appear to have gone undiagnosed and improperly treated
7:10
Speaker 1: until it was just too late.
7:12
Speaker 4: When you look at Collins medical files, and even if
7:16
Speaker 4: you just look at his final hospitalization in August of
7:18
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety eight, immediately upon arrival, it was noted that
7:22
Speaker 4: he had symptoms that were consistent with sepsis and a
7:27
Speaker 4: bleeding disorder, which includes bleeding around the brain. But I
7:31
Speaker 4: think the underlying thing here is like, no one can
7:34
Speaker 4: look at the fact that he spent more than twenty
7:36
Speaker 4: five percent of his short life in the hospital and
7:39
Speaker 4: conclude anything other than this was a really sick kid
7:42
Speaker 4: with a number of unresolved conditions that kept cropping back up.
7:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, this poor kid really didn't have a shot because
7:48
Speaker 1: with all those problems and such a little tiny body.
7:52
Speaker 1: You know, how does I mean anyway, So Clarence, this day,
7:58
Speaker 1: what time did you, Jennifer go to work that day?
8:01
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, you were targeted
8:03
Speaker 1: because you were the one that was home. And that's
8:05
Speaker 1: we see that again and again in these cases.
8:07
Speaker 3: Right Well, you know, being and I worked at night,
8:10
Speaker 3: I took care at Colin in the daytime, and Jennifer
8:14
Speaker 3: took care of them at night. Jennifer, she left about
8:17
Speaker 3: one point fifty two o'clock that.
8:19
Speaker 4: Day, Clarence and Colin had by all accounts, a pretty
8:22
Speaker 4: normal afternoon. Like Clarence mentioned, he worked at night. He'd
8:25
Speaker 4: come home in the morning, he'd sleep for a little
8:28
Speaker 4: bit because he was working all night. He'd get up
8:31
Speaker 4: when Jennifer had to go to work at the hair
8:32
Speaker 4: cuttery at the Rotunda Mall, I believe right, Clarence, like
8:35
Speaker 4: you just described, and then he'd be responsible for watching
8:40
Speaker 4: Colin for the rest of the afternoon. He'd feed him,
8:43
Speaker 4: he'd burb him, he'd change his diaper. Colin had a
8:46
Speaker 4: little swing that he loved to spend time in that
8:48
Speaker 4: Clarence had set up for him, and he worked out that.
8:52
Speaker 4: Colin took a shower and then laid back down for
8:55
Speaker 4: more sleep. And when he woke up, he went to
8:57
Speaker 4: check on Colin and found him the state that costs
9:01
Speaker 4: to bring him to the hospital.
9:03
Speaker 2: That's correct.
9:04
Speaker 3: He was sputtering wing with formula coming out of aspirrating
9:07
Speaker 3: from his nose and mouth, and I immediately got my son,
9:11
Speaker 3: placed him in his car seat and rushed them to
9:13
Speaker 3: the hospital. And there being that this is inner city
9:16
Speaker 3: hospital with all this kind of negative stuff going on
9:20
Speaker 3: with parents that do do these child to be things,
9:23
Speaker 3: and they automatically looked at me and say, oh my god,
9:26
Speaker 3: he's a big guy. He had to have done this.
9:28
Speaker 3: And they just didn't even consider the history of what
9:32
Speaker 3: my son was born with. They didn't even in fact,
9:35
Speaker 3: looked at it. They just looked at me as a
9:36
Speaker 3: person and went on and started making their assumptions about SBS.
9:43
Speaker 1: And we haven't mentioned this, but Clarence, you're a black man.
9:46
Speaker 1: Jennifer is white, and this is America, So who knows
9:51
Speaker 1: how race played into this whole scenario. And Lauren, did
9:54
Speaker 1: the investigation reveal anything unusual that could have corroborated those
9:58
Speaker 1: initial assumptions about SBS.
10:00
Speaker 4: Well, according to the prosecutor during the trial back in
10:04
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine, the fact that Clarence drank a protein shake, which,
10:07
Speaker 4: as she said, could have been laced with steroids was
10:09
Speaker 4: apparently something weird that could have been going on at
10:12
Speaker 4: that time.
10:13
Speaker 2: That's correct.
10:13
Speaker 3: You know, I'd got my own weight set so I
10:15
Speaker 3: could be home and work out and keep my eye
10:19
Speaker 3: on my son, and it just all of that backfire
10:22
Speaker 3: for me trying to be a healthy man. I mean,
10:24
Speaker 3: I never drank, smoke, did narcotics, No marijuana, none of
10:28
Speaker 3: those things. And for them to take something as healthy
10:31
Speaker 3: as working out with weights and said it was a
10:34
Speaker 3: steroid drink or some things in that nature. And I'm saying,
10:38
Speaker 3: if that was true, everybody that you see in these
10:40
Speaker 3: health fitness clubs would be on steroids and they are not.
10:44
Speaker 4: But cynicism about that commentary aside. You know, if you
10:49
Speaker 4: look at collins medical files from when he was admitted
10:51
Speaker 4: to Sinai Hospital at seven forty five pm on August
10:55
Speaker 4: twenty fifth, nineteen ninety eight, in a matter of hours
10:58
Speaker 4: after he was admitted, Mind you, those hours included suctioning
11:02
Speaker 4: formula from his airways, getting him intubated because this was
11:06
Speaker 4: a baby in severe respiratory distress who was not able
11:09
Speaker 4: to breathe on his own. After that was all done,
11:12
Speaker 4: not much more time elapsed, and you see the first
11:14
Speaker 4: reference to SBS shaken Baby syndrome in Colin's medical file
11:19
Speaker 4: based on the fact that at that point they had
11:22
Speaker 4: identified the presence of really just one symptom of the
11:28
Speaker 4: triad and the related symptom, which was the intracranial bleeding,
11:31
Speaker 4: based on the CT scan Colin received not long after
11:34
Speaker 4: he got to the hospital in that note, Interestingly, there's
11:37
Speaker 4: a reference to what else needs to be ruled out
11:41
Speaker 4: as an alternate explanation for what Colin was presenting with,
11:45
Speaker 4: specifically a bleeding disorder, and blood studies were run for him,
11:50
Speaker 4: and actually in the admission note, I was looking through
11:52
Speaker 4: this just yesterday. The very first thing in Colin's file
11:56
Speaker 4: also says rule out sepsis, which, if you know anything
11:59
Speaker 4: about steps switch to be frank. I didn't know too
12:01
Speaker 4: much when I started working on this case, but it
12:03
Speaker 4: is a really common cause of death among infants in hospitals.
12:07
Speaker 4: It wreaks havoc on the body, It destroys the organs,
12:11
Speaker 4: It causes respiratory distress what Colin was experiencing when he
12:15
Speaker 4: was hospitalized, and it also causes your blood clotting system
12:19
Speaker 4: to go haywire and for your body to bleed indiscriminately
12:23
Speaker 4: and in places it shouldn't, including around the brain.
12:26
Speaker 1: But instead of considering this confluence of medical issues, they
12:30
Speaker 1: just forged right ahead with their SBS diagnosis.
12:34
Speaker 4: I mean, Colin was labeled pretty early on as being
12:38
Speaker 4: a victim of SBS, and this sort of automatic diagnosis
12:42
Speaker 4: of SBS, there's no understating how much immediate and certain weight.
12:46
Speaker 4: It was given by the medical community and then as
12:49
Speaker 4: a result by the law enforcement who were investigating this
12:52
Speaker 4: case back in nineteen ninety eight.
13:00
Speaker 3: The detectives came to the hospital and the next day
13:03
Speaker 3: they got in touch with Jennifer and I. We was
13:06
Speaker 3: preparing to go up to see Colin. We were, in fact,
13:09
Speaker 3: we was gathering up a lot of materials that we need.
13:12
Speaker 2: Because we were going to camp up the hospital and
13:14
Speaker 2: stay there.
13:15
Speaker 3: And this is early in the morning. The detective had
13:17
Speaker 3: not on our door. I let him in, of course,
13:20
Speaker 3: and I didn't even know what it was about. I
13:23
Speaker 3: didn't had no clue. And they said, we wanted to
13:25
Speaker 3: talk to you about your son.
13:28
Speaker 2: You know.
13:29
Speaker 3: I was saying, please to myself, I hope my son
13:31
Speaker 3: ain't passed, and they said, no, can you follow us
13:35
Speaker 3: to the station. So we followed them all the way
13:39
Speaker 3: down to the station, and they put Jennifer in one
13:41
Speaker 3: room and put myself in another room, and they used
13:46
Speaker 3: Jennifer as a witness and used me as a suspect.
13:51
Speaker 4: And in the course of questioning him, as Clarence has
13:54
Speaker 4: recounted for us multiple times, they kept saying to him
13:58
Speaker 4: and Claren's correct me if I'm getting this wrong. But
14:00
Speaker 4: the doctors aren't lying.
14:01
Speaker 5: The doctors aren't lying.
14:02
Speaker 4: This is what the doctors are saying.
14:06
Speaker 3: They just kept asking me, did I drop my son?
14:09
Speaker 3: Did I hit my son in the head? And they
14:11
Speaker 3: was getting to the point they was getting so upset.
14:13
Speaker 3: They were saying, Clarence, sometimes I.
14:16
Speaker 2: Get so mad.
14:17
Speaker 3: Did I want to grant my child? And I want
14:19
Speaker 3: to say, I say, that's what you would do to
14:21
Speaker 3: your child. I said, not me, I wouldn't do. I
14:23
Speaker 3: love my I was telling them. It was just a
14:26
Speaker 3: back and forth thing. And then at the end, ultimately
14:29
Speaker 3: they said, well you under rest for child abuse.
14:48
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Speaker 1: Only happens by design.
15:38
Speaker 3: And they took me out in handcuffs. Jennifer comes running
15:42
Speaker 3: up to me trying to hug me. They didn't even
15:44
Speaker 3: want Jennifer near me, and they took me to the
15:48
Speaker 3: Baltimore County's Attention Center from net where I had to
15:52
Speaker 3: see a commissioner to make bail. In fact, Jennifer's mom,
15:56
Speaker 3: Missus Crocker, Oh, she was like a mother in itself
16:00
Speaker 3: to me. Also, she had putting up her property, her
16:03
Speaker 3: home for me to get out on bail.
16:06
Speaker 1: And let's pause on that for a second. This was
16:11
Speaker 1: your mother in law, right who was grieving with her
16:15
Speaker 1: daughter over Colin, her nine week old grandson, who was
16:19
Speaker 1: struggling in the hospital to survive. And in spite of
16:22
Speaker 1: all that, neither her nor your wife Jennifer ever wavered
16:25
Speaker 1: in their support, their steadfast belief that you could never
16:30
Speaker 1: and would have never done anything to hurt this little child.
16:35
Speaker 1: But their grief was just about to multiply in more
16:39
Speaker 1: ways than one. Six days after Colin had been admitted
16:44
Speaker 1: to the hospital.
16:45
Speaker 3: That's right, Colin, my dear son, had passed on the
16:48
Speaker 3: thirty first of that August nineteen ninety eight, and they
16:52
Speaker 3: upgraded the charges to homicide.
16:55
Speaker 1: So not only had they lost Colin, but now you're
16:58
Speaker 1: facing trial for murder as.
16:59
Speaker 3: Well, and you don't get a bail on murder. But she,
17:03
Speaker 3: miss Crocker, she came to court and she told the
17:07
Speaker 3: judge why I should have bail, And she asked the
17:10
Speaker 3: judge because she put the same deed her property up
17:14
Speaker 3: to reinstate my bail, and the judge went for it,
17:18
Speaker 3: and he gave me bail, and I went.
17:22
Speaker 2: Right back to work.
17:23
Speaker 3: In fact, my boss, they was all at that hearing,
17:26
Speaker 3: telling them what kind of employee I was pending that
17:29
Speaker 3: hearing that I would always have a job. So they
17:33
Speaker 3: gave me my job back and I went back to
17:36
Speaker 3: work after all.
17:37
Speaker 1: Of that on bail, and missus Crocker's generosity didn't stop there.
17:42
Speaker 1: She and Jennifer hired your attorney, Donald Diaman as well,
17:45
Speaker 1: and this went to trial on March first, nineteen ninety nine.
17:48
Speaker 1: And was this a jury or a bench trial.
17:52
Speaker 4: It was a bench trial. It lasted just a few
17:54
Speaker 4: days this state. The prosecutor was Susan has for the
18:00
Speaker 4: Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office, and the testifying experts were
18:07
Speaker 4: one of collins doctors who treated him at the hospital,
18:10
Speaker 4: and the medical examiner and the detectives in the case.
18:14
Speaker 1: And to get a clearer picture of what was being
18:16
Speaker 1: presented against Clarence back in nineteen ninety nine, I reached
18:19
Speaker 1: out to the executive director of the Center for Integrity
18:21
Speaker 1: and Forensic Sciences, none other than Kate Judson.
18:27
Speaker 5: When Clarence Jones went to trial in nineteen ninety nine,
18:30
Speaker 5: most of the challenges to SBS had only just begun,
18:34
Speaker 5: so the medical establishment was firmly behind the faulty SPS hypothesis,
18:39
Speaker 5: and the state's panel of five experts, which included Maryland's
18:43
Speaker 5: chief medical examiner, doctor Dennis Chute, were no exception. Doctor
18:47
Speaker 5: Shute performed Colin's autopsy and testified to the presence of
18:51
Speaker 5: the findings associated with SBS, as well as a lack
18:54
Speaker 5: of external or spinal injuries. Biomechanical studies have since shown
18:59
Speaker 5: that without those injuries, shaking is an unlikely cause for
19:03
Speaker 5: the injuries often associated with it. Additionally, Colin's treating physicians
19:09
Speaker 5: at the hospital, doctor Aaron Zuckerberg and doctor Timothy Polk,
19:12
Speaker 5: testified that retinal hemorrhaging defines child abuse and acceleration deceleration injuries,
19:18
Speaker 5: and doctor Polk said that the retinal hemorrhaging in this
19:21
Speaker 5: case was the most severe he had ever seen. Then,
19:24
Speaker 5: doctor Polk ignored Colin's bleeding disorder history and ruled out
19:29
Speaker 5: sepsis as the cause of the retinal hemorrhaging. His reasoning
19:32
Speaker 5: was that sepsis would cause more quote moderate and localized bleeding.
19:37
Speaker 5: You know, even setting aside Colin's previous bleeding disorder throm
19:40
Speaker 5: beside apenia, we know that sepsis can lead to another
19:43
Speaker 5: bleeding disorder, disseminated intravascular coagulation or DC, which initially consumes
19:49
Speaker 5: all the blood's clotting factors and results in not only
19:52
Speaker 5: potential inappropriate clotting, but also uncontrolled internal bleeding. Doctor Poke's
19:57
Speaker 5: conclusory claimed that the bleeding from sepsis would be moderate
20:00
Speaker 5: and localized. It's just not something he could accurately predict,
20:03
Speaker 5: which then sheds dout and everything. Poke believed logically followed
20:07
Speaker 5: that he could quote imagine no possible cause of Colin's
20:11
Speaker 5: injuries other than violent shaking, and that's what the judge heard,
20:15
Speaker 5: not knowing that Pok had ignored sepsis and the bleeding
20:18
Speaker 5: disorder DIC for the speculative conclusion that this had been
20:22
Speaker 5: violent shaking.
20:28
Speaker 4: Quite honestly, reading through the transcript, it's so clear the
20:32
Speaker 4: thing was a moving train from the start, this moving
20:35
Speaker 4: train of SBS, and it was impossible to get off
20:37
Speaker 4: of and everyone had bought into it, hook line and sinker,
20:42
Speaker 4: and given sort of the understanding of the medical evidence
20:45
Speaker 4: at the time, you know, Clarence's defense was just kind
20:48
Speaker 4: of nibbling around the edges of it. It was really
20:51
Speaker 4: really hard, if not altogether impossible in nineteen ninety nine
20:55
Speaker 4: when the trial took place to really take on SBS,
20:58
Speaker 4: you know, head on, because it was it was so
21:00
Speaker 4: widely understood and accepted as a cause for these types
21:04
Speaker 4: of injuries and babies.
21:06
Speaker 1: Right, it appears that even the defense's medical expert conceded
21:10
Speaker 1: that SBS had some part in Colin's death, saying, quote,
21:14
Speaker 1: I thought it was shaking baby syndrome. But looking over
21:17
Speaker 1: the history there are so many other medical problems that
21:20
Speaker 1: I began to wonder if I could really separate the
21:24
Speaker 1: medical problems from the pure traumatic part. And I don't
21:27
Speaker 1: think I can. Unquote wow, So not even your own
21:33
Speaker 1: expert was ready to competently defend you. Then the detective
21:37
Speaker 1: Philip Marl testified about how upset you got when pressed
21:40
Speaker 1: about hurting Colin when he said to you, the doctors
21:44
Speaker 1: aren't lying, they're not making this up. I mean, you
21:48
Speaker 1: never really had a chance, let's face it. So how
21:51
Speaker 1: long did this awful sinister charade go on for?
21:55
Speaker 3: The trial was three days? The fourth day I was
21:58
Speaker 3: found guilty March nineteen ninety nine. The state's attorney, Susan
22:03
Speaker 3: Haslet she was going on in her closing testimony being
22:08
Speaker 3: really harsh. She don't even know me, was saying things
22:11
Speaker 3: that didn't make any sense. And then the judge went
22:14
Speaker 3: on and when the case was rested, Judge Grayson Turnbull,
22:21
Speaker 3: he said that the eye doctor, doctor Timothy Pope, that
22:25
Speaker 3: his testimony had the greatest amount of significance to it,
22:29
Speaker 3: and he wrote those words down and that's what inflamed
22:34
Speaker 3: him the most to make him come up with his decision.
22:38
Speaker 3: Then he convicted me right then and there.
22:42
Speaker 1: Now, the conviction was for both child abuse and murder.
22:45
Speaker 1: And I understand that the state's attorney, Susan Haslet she
22:47
Speaker 1: wanted to throw the book at you.
22:49
Speaker 3: She wanted twenty years for the child abuse, and the
22:53
Speaker 3: judge said, wait, Manue, it's not twenty years, it's fifteen
22:55
Speaker 3: for that. They were just writing these numbers down like
22:58
Speaker 3: it was just a yo. This man could do. This
23:00
Speaker 3: is nothing I'm going to give. Okay, I'm going to
23:03
Speaker 3: take the first degree and drop it to second degree murder.
23:07
Speaker 3: So I'm going to sentence him to thirty years for
23:09
Speaker 3: the murder and fifteen years for the child of you
23:12
Speaker 3: that I'm going to run that concurrently. And I'm looking
23:15
Speaker 3: at this and my family is in the courtroom. My
23:17
Speaker 3: mom is in there, and my mom is wild. It's
23:20
Speaker 3: falling apart, and she wasn't in the best of health.
23:23
Speaker 3: And he just sentenced me to all that time. And
23:26
Speaker 3: it's like it was like.
23:27
Speaker 2: The Twilight he zon like, you know, am I hearing this?
23:53
Speaker 3: They took me way up to the first institution, which
23:56
Speaker 3: was w CI Western Correctional Institution up in Western Maryland.
24:01
Speaker 2: The end of the stop you call it uh and
24:04
Speaker 2: it was horrible from me.
24:05
Speaker 3: It was just a bad experience to go and live
24:07
Speaker 3: in such a small cell. It was hot, it was dingy,
24:11
Speaker 3: dirty fights, arguments that you know, you got to remember
24:15
Speaker 3: from being married from a I'm living with a nice
24:19
Speaker 3: wife femininity and then moving into a high testisal of
24:25
Speaker 3: guys wanting to fight, stealing from each other, all types
24:29
Speaker 3: of gang members, something that I wasn't used to.
24:32
Speaker 2: It was a hard show, you.
24:37
Speaker 3: Know, because it's times I wanted I thought of suicide.
24:40
Speaker 3: I said, wait a minute, I can't. You know, my
24:42
Speaker 3: grandmother raised me up in church and you you know,
24:45
Speaker 3: to my understanding, the Lord don't forgive you for suicide.
24:49
Speaker 3: I was saying, Wow, this is a nightmare. That's what
24:52
Speaker 3: kept me from wanting to be that type of person
24:54
Speaker 3: to kill yourself. You know, I said, Wow, this is
24:56
Speaker 3: really happening, and I had to.
24:59
Speaker 2: Get with the program. I had to toughen up and
25:02
Speaker 2: just keep studying.
25:03
Speaker 3: When I found out that they had a law library,
25:06
Speaker 3: that they had all medical books, then that's when I
25:09
Speaker 3: started doing my research.
25:11
Speaker 1: And this was at a time when the challenges to SBS.
25:14
Speaker 1: The studies were just being done. The papers were just
25:18
Speaker 1: being written at that time, and in two thousand euro
25:20
Speaker 1: appeal was denied, as was a petition for post conviction
25:25
Speaker 1: relief eight years later in two thousand and eight. So
25:27
Speaker 1: then you reached out to the mid Atlantic Innocence Project.
25:30
Speaker 3: I told them to look up my transcripts and I
25:32
Speaker 3: started corresponding back and forth, sending them different information about
25:37
Speaker 3: my son, what it happened. And they went deep and
25:40
Speaker 3: deep and deep in than they knew they had wronged me.
25:43
Speaker 3: But you know, I did, Innocence projects strengthened me. They
25:47
Speaker 3: were sending constantly. I was getting legal mail mostly every month.
25:52
Speaker 3: They was like they was in it with me, and
25:54
Speaker 3: they had different law students coming in. But in twenty thirteen,
26:00
Speaker 3: this is when I met Francis.
26:02
Speaker 1: And by Francis, you mean Francis Walter is one of
26:04
Speaker 1: the attorneys at the mid Atlantic Iainists Project.
26:06
Speaker 3: Right, that's correct, Francis. That come up of October twenty thirteen.
26:10
Speaker 3: And matter of fact, I was in the gym in
26:13
Speaker 3: the prison, working out and they.
26:16
Speaker 2: Jones, report to your housing units.
26:19
Speaker 3: And I goes up to the visiting room and little
26:22
Speaker 3: Francis she's standing there, and Francis looked at me and
26:25
Speaker 3: she said, mister Jones, I'm gonna get you out. We
26:29
Speaker 3: know what's going on. I'm gonna stay with you from
26:32
Speaker 3: this time all the way till you get home.
26:34
Speaker 1: And she did, Yes, she did, and she fought for
26:37
Speaker 1: you in two different ways, both to clear your name
26:41
Speaker 1: as well as with the parole board where you had
26:43
Speaker 1: been repeatedly denied. And we know that they usually are
26:46
Speaker 1: almost always wanted admission of guilt.
26:49
Speaker 3: I went up, must have went up for parole about
26:50
Speaker 3: five times, and every time they wanted me to milk guilt.
26:54
Speaker 3: I said, I'm not gonna I said, I'll die. I'll
26:57
Speaker 3: die in here because I said, I'm not going to
26:59
Speaker 3: tell you I didn't do. I say, well, I mean,
27:02
Speaker 3: where's the that's I can't live with myself. I'm telling
27:05
Speaker 3: you only the truth. So they denied me parole. I
27:08
Speaker 3: come up again, and I told them again and again,
27:11
Speaker 3: and it kept denying me. But with Francis through the
27:14
Speaker 3: mid Atlantic Innocent Project, had wrote them telling them that
27:18
Speaker 3: they represented me, sent them medical reports, all these things
27:23
Speaker 3: in the nature about my son, and they kind of
27:26
Speaker 3: believed it. At the time, I had taken up a
27:29
Speaker 3: trade to become an electrician, graduated and then got my
27:33
Speaker 3: NCCI card. They were just telling all good things that
27:36
Speaker 3: the parole hearing about me, But I still didn't omit
27:40
Speaker 3: any guilt to them, and they just gave me a
27:42
Speaker 3: parole date.
27:43
Speaker 2: What was that?
27:44
Speaker 3: I told her the eleventh, twenty seventeen when they released me.
27:47
Speaker 2: That felt so good.
27:49
Speaker 3: That was a real, real good high day for me
27:52
Speaker 3: being released out in the public.
27:54
Speaker 2: And then but the bad was where do I go
27:56
Speaker 2: from here? What do I do? When they paroleed me.
28:00
Speaker 3: I didn't have no Social Security card, I didn't have
28:02
Speaker 3: a birth certificate card, I didn't have a driver's license,
28:06
Speaker 3: I didn't have no money in my pocket.
28:08
Speaker 2: They just threw me out.
28:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's something that I've been deeply concerned with and
28:15
Speaker 1: involved in, is trying to figure out how to establish
28:18
Speaker 1: better ways to help people coming home. I mean, obviously
28:21
Speaker 1: we want to stop them from going in in the
28:23
Speaker 1: first place, but let's face it, we probably have one
28:25
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand or more Clarence Jones in this
28:28
Speaker 1: country right now that are serving time for crimes that
28:31
Speaker 1: didn't commit and they have to We really should be
28:34
Speaker 1: building ramps for people, and instead it seems like we
28:36
Speaker 1: put up walls for people coming home and it's in
28:38
Speaker 1: or guilty and it doesn't make any sense. It's not
28:43
Speaker 1: good for them, it's not good for their families, it's
28:44
Speaker 1: not good for their communities, it's not good for society.
28:47
Speaker 3: And luckily I had my sister, Lynette. My sister has
28:51
Speaker 3: been really strong in my life, coming to see me
28:54
Speaker 3: every week, along with.
28:56
Speaker 2: Her girlfriend who we fell in love, Peggy Peggy, between
29:01
Speaker 2: Peggy and Linnet.
29:02
Speaker 3: They took care of me because I had nothing, Just
29:05
Speaker 3: like you dropped me off on a planet and I'm
29:09
Speaker 3: with aliens.
29:10
Speaker 2: That's how I feel.
29:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a completely different world from nineteen ninety nine,
29:14
Speaker 1: and clearing your name could go a long way to
29:16
Speaker 1: helping you reacclimate. So, Lauren, what did Francis Walters and
29:21
Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic Innocescet Project do next?
29:23
Speaker 4: So, the mid Atlantic Innocence Project file this petition for
29:27
Speaker 4: rid of actual innocence in Baltimore City Circuit Court, which
29:30
Speaker 4: is essentially trial court in Maryland State court system, with
29:33
Speaker 4: the assistance of.
29:34
Speaker 1: Don Saltzman, the Great Don Salzman, who is the senior
29:38
Speaker 1: roboo partner and attorney at the Law Great Law Firm
29:42
Speaker 1: of Skadnarp, slat Mar and Flom. And if that name
29:46
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, it's because it was a firm that my dad,
29:49
Speaker 1: rest in peace, was the senior partner of for many
29:53
Speaker 1: many years, and the pro bono program was one of
29:55
Speaker 1: his one of the things he was most proud of.
29:57
Speaker 1: And so I know that Dad is viling down on
30:01
Speaker 1: us from somewhere and is so happy that you're home.
30:04
Speaker 1: So Dad, I guess we're going to dedicate this episode
30:07
Speaker 1: to you, if that's okay with you, guys, And of
30:10
Speaker 1: course to the Mid Atlanta A Gainnis's project, and all
30:12
Speaker 1: the other lawyers who worked such long hours. They worked hard,
30:15
Speaker 1: and they worked smart on your case, or you wouldn't
30:17
Speaker 1: be here with us on the microphone today.
30:20
Speaker 4: I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about how
30:23
Speaker 4: quickly Colin was diagnosed and how much longer it took
30:28
Speaker 4: to know how many minds had to be brought to
30:30
Speaker 4: bear on a decision that was made relatively quickly so
30:34
Speaker 4: many years ago in this case, So they filed this
30:38
Speaker 4: petition for rid of actual innocence based on this theory
30:41
Speaker 4: that you had. The court had all the medical evidence
30:46
Speaker 4: of today to look at and to consider back when
30:49
Speaker 4: Clarence was convicted, there's a substantial possibility that things would
30:53
Speaker 4: have gone the other way. The team amassed all of
30:56
Speaker 4: these doctors, these specialists, these forensic pathologists. They had like
31:00
Speaker 4: a biomechanical engineer who explained how the forces of shaking
31:05
Speaker 4: could not feasibly be possible for presentation of these types
31:09
Speaker 4: of injuries. They had a pediatric infectious disease specialist to
31:13
Speaker 4: talk about all the bacterial infections that Colin had when
31:18
Speaker 4: he came into the hospital that caused the sepsis that
31:21
Speaker 4: ultimately killed him. The trial court initially denied Clarence's petition.
31:27
Speaker 1: Now it appears that Judge Turnbull had moved on to
31:30
Speaker 1: be the Circuit and County administrative judge by twenty nineteen,
31:35
Speaker 1: so this decision came from Judge Colleen Cavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh
31:39
Speaker 1: ruled that the defense hadn't even presented new evidence and
31:42
Speaker 1: that there was a low likelihood of acquittal upon retrial.
31:44
Speaker 1: Now I'm not sure how that's possible, but okay, so
31:49
Speaker 1: you appeal that up to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.
31:52
Speaker 1: What happened there?
31:53
Speaker 4: The Court of Special Appeals in this case, and I
31:56
Speaker 4: think in most cases it was a three judge panel,
31:59
Speaker 4: and they reversed Judge Kavanaugh and remanded with instructions for
32:03
Speaker 4: her to grant Clarence the rid of actual innocence, which
32:06
Speaker 4: she did on June twenty fifth, twenty twenty one.
32:10
Speaker 2: Right, CJ, that's correct, that's correct.
32:12
Speaker 1: So CJ, let's talk about that, because we've talked about
32:14
Speaker 1: a lot of miserable stuff that happened that day. What
32:18
Speaker 1: do you remember about that day.
32:20
Speaker 3: In the courtroom when she granted me the petition for
32:23
Speaker 3: the rid of actual innocence and setting aside the convictions.
32:27
Speaker 2: Oh, I felt. So it was a big relief, a
32:30
Speaker 2: big relief for me.
32:31
Speaker 3: They ended up even going back acting what they reconsider
32:35
Speaker 3: but they said no and they kept them mat at
32:37
Speaker 3: the same and then Judge Colleen did it and signed
32:40
Speaker 3: it and said this court has done So that was
32:43
Speaker 3: a real, real, big happy moment of my life.
32:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, amen to that. And you know, fortunately you'll now
32:50
Speaker 1: be entitled to compensation. Even that takes too long, you know,
32:53
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of cold comfort, but it's certainly better
32:57
Speaker 1: that we do compensate you. It's the least we as
33:00
Speaker 1: a society can do. And there are too many men
33:03
Speaker 1: and women like yourself who've suffered this unimaginable you know,
33:08
Speaker 1: fate and come home and get nothing, and that's just
33:12
Speaker 1: adding insult to injury.
33:14
Speaker 3: But you know, nothing ever, ever could replace I look
33:18
Speaker 3: at my son and I train a lot of guys
33:21
Speaker 3: would have been his age twenty four in a gym today,
33:23
Speaker 3: and a lot of them are biracial kids. And I look,
33:27
Speaker 3: and I'd be wondering saying, Wow, my son would have
33:29
Speaker 3: looked like that or whatever.
33:31
Speaker 2: You know, it just it. It's so hard.
33:34
Speaker 3: No amount of compensation and all this could fix that
33:38
Speaker 3: with the death of losing the child, my son.
33:41
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing.
33:43
Speaker 1: You know, It's something that no one can No one
33:45
Speaker 1: can fathom unless they've walked a mile in your shoes.
33:49
Speaker 1: And to hear from you makes me want to work
33:52
Speaker 1: harder and smarter for you and everyone who's been through
33:55
Speaker 1: similar hardships, as I'm sure it does for the lawyers
33:59
Speaker 1: work at the mid Atlantic and It's is Project and
34:01
Speaker 1: other great organizations like it. They need our support, so
34:04
Speaker 1: we'll have them linked in the bio. And now this
34:07
Speaker 1: brings us to my favorite part of the show, closing arguments.
34:10
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn my microphone off, kick back in
34:13
Speaker 1: my chair with my headphones on, and just listen. Lauren.
34:17
Speaker 1: Let's let you start. You could say anything that you
34:20
Speaker 1: think has been left unsaid. Then just hand the mic
34:23
Speaker 1: off to mister Clarence Jones the third and Clarence, you
34:27
Speaker 1: take us off into the sunset. I think one thing.
34:30
Speaker 4: You know what you said at the outset Jason about
34:32
Speaker 4: imagining the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to you.
34:37
Speaker 4: I'm a parent of a little baby too, and it's
34:39
Speaker 4: funny you said that because exactly how I describe this
34:42
Speaker 4: case to anyone I tell about it. Imagine the worst
34:44
Speaker 4: thing that could happen to you, And now imagine that
34:46
Speaker 4: everyone is saying it's your fault, and you have to
34:49
Speaker 4: sit in a courtroom and listen to them say terrible
34:52
Speaker 4: things about you and what kind of person you are
34:54
Speaker 4: and what kind of father you were. And then imagine
34:56
Speaker 4: spending eighteen years in prison. Imagine not only that, but
35:00
Speaker 4: you're not able to see your baby for a large
35:02
Speaker 4: portion of the time he's in the hospital for the
35:04
Speaker 4: last time because the police have told you you're not
35:06
Speaker 4: allowed to go there. And then after your kid has
35:09
Speaker 4: taken off life support, you're given a couple moments and
35:11
Speaker 4: then you're handcuffed and you're taken away. And that's what
35:13
Speaker 4: happened to Clarence. Here and here he is all these
35:17
Speaker 4: years on, and he is still in the process of fighting,
35:21
Speaker 4: and we're still in the process of fighting to get
35:23
Speaker 4: him compensation, to get just a little bit of acknowledgment
35:27
Speaker 4: from the state that what happened to him was wrong
35:29
Speaker 4: and that he deserves some more relief and remedy for it.
35:32
Speaker 4: But Clarence, as you can see, is an amazing and
35:34
Speaker 4: inspiring person. He's an incredibly good man with a very
35:38
Speaker 4: big heart. So thank you for the opportunity to share
35:40
Speaker 4: his story, and I'll let him take it away from here.
35:43
Speaker 3: Okay, listeners, You know it frightens me that any parents
35:50
Speaker 3: today's up and coming parent that does something happened to
35:54
Speaker 3: your child, that when you go into a medical facility
35:58
Speaker 3: to get treatment or whatever.
36:00
Speaker 2: It is a scary thing for me. Anyway.
36:03
Speaker 3: You know, I have grandchildren that and my fiance her grandsons,
36:09
Speaker 3: four of them. They love me and I wouldn't want
36:11
Speaker 3: to be around them by myself at all because little
36:14
Speaker 3: boys play rough and if I per se us out
36:18
Speaker 3: playing with one of them and say one of them
36:20
Speaker 3: would by theirselves and they fell off a swing or
36:24
Speaker 3: got hit by a baseball in their head. What am
36:26
Speaker 3: I to do go over the same scenario. Doctors need
36:30
Speaker 3: to consider the medical.
36:33
Speaker 2: History examine instead of rushing to judgment.
36:37
Speaker 3: You got to look at all the different facets of
36:40
Speaker 3: how they fit together before you can just go out
36:43
Speaker 3: and just accuse someone just because it happens. And I'm
36:48
Speaker 3: just a person trying to pick up and keep my
36:50
Speaker 3: head above water, doing the right things as I always
36:54
Speaker 3: and like I say, I uphold the lot. I try
36:56
Speaker 3: to live in the boundaries of doing the right things.
37:00
Speaker 3: Just watch your children, love them, kiss them, be with
37:04
Speaker 3: them at all times.
37:05
Speaker 2: Make sure you have people.
37:06
Speaker 3: Around you at all times, knowing where you're going, because
37:10
Speaker 3: once you get caught up in something like this, the
37:13
Speaker 3: other side never retreats. So it's a hurtful thing. If
37:18
Speaker 3: it happened to me, it can happen to you. Say
37:21
Speaker 3: your prayers, be true to your family. God bless everyone.
37:25
Speaker 3: That's my word to you.
37:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. I want to
37:37
Speaker 1: thank our production team, Connor Hall, Anni, Chelsea, Lyla Robinson,
37:41
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Wats. The music in this production
37:45
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
37:49
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
37:52
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
37:56
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
37:59
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on Instagram
38:02
Speaker 1: at it's Jason flam Ravel. Conviction is a production of
38:06
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
38:09
Speaker 1: one