Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #375 Guest Hosts Clayton English and Greg Glod with Louie Garcia

Transcript

#375 Guest Hosts Clayton English and Greg Glod with Louie Garcia · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: One hot August afternoon in twenty seventeen, Louis Garcia was
0:07
Speaker 1: helping his friend John K built a wheelchair ran for
0:10
Speaker 1: John's girlfriend Rexina at their house in San Antonio.
0:13
Speaker 2: Suddenly, Bear County police showed up with a search warrant.
0:17
Speaker 2: They took Louis and John inside, cuffed them, and quickly
0:20
Speaker 2: found a stash of drugs that were hidden in the house.
0:23
Speaker 1: Bodycam footage later showed more drugs on the floor near
0:26
Speaker 1: Louie's feet.
0:27
Speaker 2: John, Rixina, and Louis were all arrested in charge with
0:30
Speaker 2: drug possession and trafficking. Louie insisted he knew nothing about it.
0:35
Speaker 2: Those drugs on the floor didn't belong to him.
0:38
Speaker 3: This wasn't even his house, But.
0:40
Speaker 2: His lawyer said it didn't look good. If they went
0:42
Speaker 2: to trial and the jury saw that footage, Louie could
0:44
Speaker 2: be facing twenty five years to life. Reluctantly, he pled
0:48
Speaker 2: guilty and got a lighter sentence.
0:50
Speaker 3: I mean, after all, the drugs were right there on camera.
0:54
Speaker 2: But this is wrong for conviction, all right, Welcome back
1:18
Speaker 2: to wrongful conviction. We are guest hosting Dave.
1:20
Speaker 3: My name is Greg Glatt and English.
1:23
Speaker 2: You might recognize our voices from the War on Drugs
1:25
Speaker 2: podcast that Clayton and I co host, and you know,
1:27
Speaker 2: we're really excited to share the story that we have
1:29
Speaker 2: for you today on wrongful conviction because I really think
1:32
Speaker 2: it aligns to a lot of things that we're talking
1:34
Speaker 2: about there, you know, perverse incentives within the criminal justice system,
1:38
Speaker 2: within the drug war that lead to devastating consequences, and
1:41
Speaker 2: in the case that we have today, an actual wrongful conviction.
1:45
Speaker 2: There really isn't a greater example than Louis Garcia, who
1:48
Speaker 2: was the subject and victim of wrongful conviction in the
1:51
Speaker 2: San Antonio of Texas. So we have Louis here and
1:55
Speaker 2: we also have his attorney, Dana Jones. Guys, thank you
1:57
Speaker 2: so much for being on the Wrongful Conviction podcast.
1:59
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you so much for having us.
2:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's just kind of get into it a
2:04
Speaker 2: little bit. Louis, let's talk about prior to the incident here,
2:08
Speaker 2: back in twenty seventeen. You know, where were you born,
2:11
Speaker 2: where'd you grow up?
2:13
Speaker 5: I was born in San Antonio. I went to school,
2:15
Speaker 5: I played ball, I lifted a lot of weights, and uh,
2:19
Speaker 5: you know, I was just enjoying myself dating off.
2:22
Speaker 2: And on any minor run ins with the law things
2:24
Speaker 2: like that.
2:24
Speaker 5: I've had run into with the law before, and it's
2:27
Speaker 5: it's just you know, like when you're in your early
2:29
Speaker 5: twenties and you started drinking alcohol. So I've had some
2:33
Speaker 5: run into with the authorities and yeah, you know I've yeah,
2:39
Speaker 5: I cauld say I've learned some of my lessons.
2:41
Speaker 1: Typical stuff for being a young for being a young adult.
2:44
Speaker 1: Like you said, you start drinking, you get you know,
2:47
Speaker 1: you're irresponsible at that age. You get pulled over for
2:49
Speaker 1: tail lights tags, and then something else goes on. But
2:52
Speaker 1: it's not like this was your life or you were
2:55
Speaker 1: in and out of the system before.
2:57
Speaker 5: No, I was, that's just electrician. I had a real
2:59
Speaker 5: good job. I was running jobs, I was I was
3:02
Speaker 5: doing everything, you know, I was going down a good path.
3:06
Speaker 1: Right, So when all of this went down August of
3:10
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, you were like, what forty five years old. Yeah,
3:13
Speaker 1: you were living in San Antonio working, you know, doing
3:16
Speaker 1: your thing, electrician work, and you were friends with a
3:19
Speaker 1: couple of your neighbors, John Kate and Rexina Lenon Wadez
3:23
Speaker 1: who lived across the street.
3:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, my neighbors are great sometimes I have barbecue, sometimes
3:28
Speaker 5: they do, and we'll send plates back and forth. I'm
3:31
Speaker 5: the kind of guy that you invite to the barbecue
3:33
Speaker 5: and bring your tools, right, So I'm like, okay, So
3:37
Speaker 5: I'm always out there, you know, having a good time.
3:39
Speaker 2: Gotcha. And Mexina, who also went by Mona. You helped
3:42
Speaker 2: her out a lot. You know, she had lost her
3:44
Speaker 2: legs to diabetes. She was in a wheelchair, and in fact,
3:47
Speaker 2: this one day, you'd actually seen her fall off her
3:50
Speaker 2: ramp to get into her house because the ramp was
3:52
Speaker 2: in you know, pretty rough shape, right.
3:55
Speaker 5: Yeah. Then I go across the street and start helping
3:57
Speaker 5: her up, and I started looking at this little just
4:01
Speaker 5: you know, whatever you want to call it that was built.
4:03
Speaker 5: It was just a bunch of scrap would put together.
4:06
Speaker 5: And I looked around and I told her, you know, Mona,
4:09
Speaker 5: I'll help you build all this up and clean your
4:11
Speaker 5: fence up.
4:12
Speaker 1: And you were like, hey, let me get this together
4:14
Speaker 1: so this won't happen again.
4:16
Speaker 5: And yeah, So I had extra plywood two by fours
4:19
Speaker 5: and a lot of stuff out there that we could have.
4:22
Speaker 5: We were going to build her a better round, and
4:25
Speaker 5: she she was excited about it, but she keept on
4:27
Speaker 5: telling me, I can't pay you. I can't pay you.
4:29
Speaker 5: And I told her, you know, well, on the first
4:31
Speaker 5: of the month when you get your food stamp. So
4:33
Speaker 5: you know, I'm a real sucker for some chicken mole.
4:36
Speaker 5: She goes, oh, I can make that. I can say.
4:39
Speaker 1: We'll be good man. Listen, home cooked meal. Sometimes that's
4:42
Speaker 1: more than enough for a hard day's work. So that's
4:45
Speaker 1: what you and Mona's boyfriend, John Cape were up to
4:48
Speaker 1: that day, August tenth, twenty seventeen.
4:50
Speaker 3: You're out in front of their house.
4:52
Speaker 1: You're building a new wheelchair ramp, and Mona had gone
4:55
Speaker 1: off to the dollar store to you know, grab some
4:57
Speaker 1: snacks and some gatorade for you guys.
4:58
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, And while we were, you know, putting everything together.
5:03
Speaker 5: I don't know who the guy was, but uh this, uh,
5:06
Speaker 5: you know, John was communicating with him and he told
5:09
Speaker 5: him that, hey, do you mind if my daughter uses
5:12
Speaker 5: the restroom. She had a pink backpack with her and
5:15
Speaker 5: they go inside. John comes right back out with me
5:18
Speaker 5: and we're taking stuff apart and they leave. And another
5:23
Speaker 5: thing that caught my eyes. She didn't have a backpack
5:26
Speaker 5: this time.
5:26
Speaker 2: So this guy who you didn't know, and daughter has
5:29
Speaker 2: a backpack, come up and say, hey, just need to
5:31
Speaker 2: use the rest room. You guys are just being good
5:33
Speaker 2: host and let them in. Daughter comes back out, no
5:36
Speaker 2: backpack on her.
5:37
Speaker 5: No backpack on the way back out.
5:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:39
Speaker 5: And as soon as you hear their car take off
5:42
Speaker 5: of the block, and I looked up and I just
5:44
Speaker 5: see a Bear County Sheriff sticker on the side of
5:47
Speaker 5: a vent and everybody starts jumping out. And I told John, Amen,
5:51
Speaker 5: we're in the RAI dude.
5:53
Speaker 2: So Dane, let me throw it to you for some
5:55
Speaker 2: background here. Can you kind of run through the facts
5:57
Speaker 2: of the case, Like what's going on at this point?
6:00
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the listener like, why are the
6:02
Speaker 2: cops even here?
6:04
Speaker 4: So Bear County Narcotics Division it goes and gets a
6:08
Speaker 4: search warrant for the house where Louis happened to be.
6:11
Speaker 4: Louie did not live there at all. They relied on
6:14
Speaker 4: a confidential informant to get into this particular house with
6:18
Speaker 4: really nothing corroborating the confidential informance information at all. This
6:23
Speaker 4: confidential informant had never been relied on before. How they
6:26
Speaker 4: made this person credible in the FI David was that
6:29
Speaker 4: they had conducted a controlled buy for the officer. The
6:32
Speaker 4: officer says he met with the informant, gave the informant
6:35
Speaker 4: an undisclosed amount of US currency, dropped the informant off
6:38
Speaker 4: down the road, and observe the informant go into a location.
6:41
Speaker 4: Then they later picked up the informant and he had drugs.
6:44
Speaker 5: Wow.
6:45
Speaker 1: No, I'm just saying that the informant had never been
6:50
Speaker 1: used as a CI or anything before first time, and
6:53
Speaker 1: they're just going off somebody's word. Who essentially, you dropped
6:57
Speaker 1: them off somewhere, you saw him go in a place
6:59
Speaker 1: in later on they had drugs, and you will equate
7:02
Speaker 1: that to them being credible.
7:03
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
7:04
Speaker 4: I mean, that doesn't even prove that the person knows
7:06
Speaker 4: what drugs are. They just went in there and said,
7:08
Speaker 4: here's money, give me, give me meth. And then they're like,
7:11
Speaker 4: they came back with meth, they must know what it is.
7:13
Speaker 4: But that's essentially what it was. That's the credibility there.
7:17
Speaker 4: That information got police lawfully into a house. I mean
7:21
Speaker 4: lawfully in the sense of that's the paperwork the judge
7:24
Speaker 4: signed off on. This got them into a house, took
7:26
Speaker 4: people down, searched their house made a rest base on that,
7:29
Speaker 4: and you.
7:30
Speaker 2: Know, this is the kind of problem that we see
7:32
Speaker 2: with a lot of these warrants, and Clayton, I'm sure
7:34
Speaker 2: you're thinking what I'm thinking. We did an episode of
7:36
Speaker 2: the War on Drugs podcast called The War at Your
7:38
Speaker 2: Door on no knock warrants, and this is not a
7:41
Speaker 2: no knock warrant, but it has a lot of those
7:43
Speaker 2: similarities to it. It kind of has that same feel.
7:45
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, no, it definitely has that no knock feel.
7:48
Speaker 1: It reminds me of what Radley Balco talked about on
7:52
Speaker 1: our episode that we had.
7:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it feels exactly like that. And really,
7:57
Speaker 2: you know, judges are supposed to be this check a
8:00
Speaker 2: lot of these warrants and they just the kind of
8:02
Speaker 2: rubber stant them quite a bit. And you really look
8:04
Speaker 2: at a lot of the evidence that comes to allow
8:05
Speaker 2: the government just to barrel into your door not announcing themselves,
8:09
Speaker 2: and how shoddy and minor that is. And then you
8:11
Speaker 2: look at a case like this and you're using an untested, untrained,
8:15
Speaker 2: confidential format has all the incentive of the world to
8:18
Speaker 2: essentially do things to get themselves off, and you're rubber
8:21
Speaker 2: stamping these things and the consequences of that. I think
8:24
Speaker 2: it's just it's a pretty scary, scary circumstances one that
8:27
Speaker 2: you know, we could all find ourselves there. You know,
8:30
Speaker 2: Louis was just doing a good deed for a neighbor
8:32
Speaker 2: and look at the circumstances that he found himself.
8:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, justice being served out in the name of a
8:36
Speaker 1: lie is scary anyway, exactly, all right, So Louis, let's
8:40
Speaker 1: wind it back a minute. You and John are building
8:43
Speaker 1: the ram. The guy and his daughter come in use
8:46
Speaker 1: the bathroom and take off, and police show up in
8:49
Speaker 1: a hot second with his warrant.
8:50
Speaker 3: What happened next?
8:51
Speaker 5: They started cuffing us up and they secured the location.
8:55
Speaker 5: And uh, I have been from the back like everybody
8:59
Speaker 5: else does, and I already on the floor. Well I
9:02
Speaker 5: look up and I just an officer comes and he
9:04
Speaker 5: jumps on top of me and he messes up my
9:08
Speaker 5: right shoulder and you know, I can't lift it up
9:10
Speaker 5: over my shoulders right now. And I was like, man,
9:12
Speaker 5: what did you do that for?
9:13
Speaker 4: Man? So almost immediately they go back to the bathroom
9:17
Speaker 4: and they come back and they're like, what's this With
9:19
Speaker 4: a huge, large quantity of drugs and that's exactly where
9:24
Speaker 4: this guy and his little girl with the backpack had
9:26
Speaker 4: just gone and they supposedly found it between like there
9:29
Speaker 4: was like a loose board in the wall and like
9:31
Speaker 4: in a hole and that's where they found it.
9:33
Speaker 1: Wow, So was this We don't know about these people?
9:38
Speaker 1: Are they because I'm gonna say what it looks like
9:41
Speaker 1: and what it sounds like is this.
9:43
Speaker 3: Dude came in with his daughter and planet drugs in there.
9:46
Speaker 5: So I'm just sitting there and everything, and then they
9:49
Speaker 5: pointed me out and said, hey, get your drugs on
9:51
Speaker 5: the floor. And you guys been looking at me the
9:54
Speaker 5: whole time. My hands have been handcuffed, and so they
9:58
Speaker 5: they jump on me again and they some some narcotics
10:01
Speaker 5: that were found on the floor and they were saying
10:03
Speaker 5: it's fine. I was like, I said, no, it's not one.
10:06
Speaker 5: That's that.
10:07
Speaker 4: What he's talking about is when they handcuffed him, they
10:09
Speaker 4: took they led them in its on body camp into
10:11
Speaker 4: it inside to sit on a couch and you can
10:14
Speaker 4: kind of see the general area. There's an officer sitting
10:16
Speaker 4: with them. The entire time. You don't see anything on
10:18
Speaker 4: the ground. He's handcuffed the entire time, and when they
10:21
Speaker 4: stand him up to leave, there's all of a sudden,
10:24
Speaker 4: like a little bit of drugs sitting on the floor
10:26
Speaker 4: next to him that was not there before. I don't
10:29
Speaker 4: know how he could be sitting on a couch with
10:31
Speaker 4: his hands behind him and next next to a police
10:35
Speaker 4: officer and somehow get I mean, the implication to me
10:37
Speaker 4: when I was reading the reports was he somehow pulled
10:40
Speaker 4: these out of his pockets or something. But they were
10:42
Speaker 4: accusing him of having this small quantity sitting next to
10:44
Speaker 4: on the floor. Oh wow, that wasn't there when he
10:46
Speaker 4: sat him down, Okay.
10:47
Speaker 2: And then right about then, that's when Xina came back
10:50
Speaker 2: to the dollar store and saw everything that was going
10:52
Speaker 2: on her.
10:52
Speaker 3: So she came back to the race.
10:54
Speaker 5: She came back in the middle of the race.
10:55
Speaker 3: She came back police there, you win, coach.
10:57
Speaker 5: And she sees like she starts cussing them out. What
11:00
Speaker 5: the hell are y'all doing in my house? Is that?
11:01
Speaker 5: You know, she might be in a wheelchair, but she's
11:03
Speaker 5: gonna stand the ground sure, And she telling me, you
11:06
Speaker 5: get the hell out of my house. I don't know
11:07
Speaker 5: who y'all are. We're Bear County sheriff and hand know
11:10
Speaker 5: the warrant and she knows she's in cups.
11:34
Speaker 4: They were Bear County Narcotics Division, where the officers, interesting enough,
11:38
Speaker 4: just a side piece of information is this is not
11:41
Speaker 4: my first case overturning a Bear County narcotics case. Like
11:45
Speaker 4: years ago, the same division they had some lying officers
11:48
Speaker 4: who were in trouble and the same unit who were
11:50
Speaker 4: just kind of making up information and on search warrants.
11:53
Speaker 5: And God, I was.
11:53
Speaker 3: Gonna ask that.
11:54
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, like they have a little bit
11:58
Speaker 1: of history of being.
11:58
Speaker 4: Dirty, at least with me, they do. I mean, not
12:01
Speaker 4: every officer is bad. I can put that out there,
12:04
Speaker 4: but I haven't had a good, really positive experience in
12:08
Speaker 4: my career with that particular.
12:10
Speaker 2: Unit, right, And there's been a history, like you said,
12:13
Speaker 2: within Bear County. I know, back in what March twenty ten,
12:17
Speaker 2: there was you know, I think two hundred and thirty
12:20
Speaker 2: nine warnings of defensive hernees whose cases evolved to narcotics
12:24
Speaker 2: deputies when they're accused of pocketing money that was supposed
12:27
Speaker 2: to be paid to see is. And like you said,
12:29
Speaker 2: there's been other cases there and so this is something
12:32
Speaker 2: I don't know if the term systemic. But there has
12:34
Speaker 2: been a routine within Bear County of this type of
12:37
Speaker 2: stuff going on within their narcotics division. Correct, Yeah, okay.
12:40
Speaker 4: So each one of them was charged with four to
12:43
Speaker 4: two hundred grams, I believe is what the ultimate charge
12:45
Speaker 4: ended up being with the intent to deliver, which in
12:48
Speaker 4: Texas that elevates it up to another offense level range
12:52
Speaker 4: of punishment. Everything.
12:53
Speaker 5: So I wait to go see the lawyer, and that's
12:56
Speaker 5: told the racina. She gave me an affidavit stating that
13:01
Speaker 5: it's her house. Everything is found on the property is
13:04
Speaker 5: she's solely responsible for. He looked at that thing and
13:07
Speaker 5: he was like, you don't live there. They searched your stuff,
13:10
Speaker 5: there was nothing found on your person. He goes, I'm
13:12
Speaker 5: taking this all the way to trial, and this is
13:14
Speaker 5: immediately dismissal. Oh man, I just that was a quarter
13:18
Speaker 5: pointed telling me this man, I'm high five of him.
13:20
Speaker 5: He goes, man, keep your nose clean. Stead He goes,
13:23
Speaker 5: you're gonna beat your case. So I went hopping home,
13:27
Speaker 5: skipping happy them go back to working again and helping
13:31
Speaker 5: out and stuff like that. And there wasn't It wasn't
13:35
Speaker 5: the same. When I went to court.
13:37
Speaker 4: Eventually your bond got revoked and you were back in
13:39
Speaker 4: jail waiting for these charges. And somehow, I don't know,
13:43
Speaker 4: nobody can figure out, but his lawyers like switched and
13:46
Speaker 4: he didn't have the same lawyer anymore, and he got
13:48
Speaker 4: a new quarter appointed a lawyer.
13:51
Speaker 5: He's already telling me, man, they don't look good.
13:53
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, man, whoa we go from?
13:55
Speaker 1: This trial's about to get thrown The case gonna get
13:58
Speaker 1: thrown out, So it doesn't look good.
14:00
Speaker 5: They were ten years and I was like, what are
14:03
Speaker 5: you serious? Ten years from having all this confidence about
14:07
Speaker 5: me getting this case dismissed to this guy looking at
14:10
Speaker 5: me like, swell, what can you say? You've been in
14:13
Speaker 5: trouble before. And I'm just but this isn't mine. Wow,
14:18
Speaker 5: in the eyes of the court, you're guilty and you're
14:22
Speaker 5: gonna have to sign for something today.
14:23
Speaker 3: So they immediately wanted you to take a plea yes.
14:27
Speaker 5: And I just put my head down and just that's
14:30
Speaker 5: when I started like thinking, like, maybe I need to
14:34
Speaker 5: do this. Maybe I knew that maybe. And it wasn't
14:36
Speaker 5: until this case got opened up about me having these
14:40
Speaker 5: drugs that were found come to find out all these
14:45
Speaker 5: police officers. None of them are credible in court. That's
14:50
Speaker 5: the reason why they didn't want me to take this trial.
14:53
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, okay, So this goes just going back to
14:57
Speaker 1: what you were saying. They were trying to get you
14:59
Speaker 1: to admit to those drugs in the house when they
15:04
Speaker 1: put their knee on your chest and everything. They were
15:06
Speaker 1: trying to get a mission then and then when you
15:08
Speaker 1: got the first one saw it for what it was,
15:11
Speaker 1: that it should be thrown out or whatever, then they
15:13
Speaker 1: switched it to somebody that told you to take the plea.
15:15
Speaker 3: And it just sounds like what we've talked.
15:17
Speaker 1: About Greg on our podcast, with that whole system of
15:21
Speaker 1: trying to get people to get through the system as
15:25
Speaker 1: fast as possible, get them the plea, Like it's almost
15:27
Speaker 1: shock and all, like we're trying to scare you into.
15:29
Speaker 4: This, Like you know, I think there's also something to
15:33
Speaker 4: be said there that when somebody is in custody already,
15:37
Speaker 4: like his bond got revoked, he's in custody, the balance
15:41
Speaker 4: of well, okay, if I just take the plea and
15:43
Speaker 4: do a little bit of time, I can get out.
15:45
Speaker 4: It's a lot easier to fight charges when you're actually
15:47
Speaker 4: out of jail, you're working with your lawyer, you can
15:50
Speaker 4: have better meetings with them. There's a lot more discussion
15:53
Speaker 4: that way. But when sometimes when you're in custody and
15:56
Speaker 4: you have a lawyer who's like, look, not fighting for you,
15:59
Speaker 4: but they're also not meeting with you. Because they're not,
16:00
Speaker 4: you're not able to call their office and talk with them.
16:03
Speaker 4: I think Louie and I have talked about this before,
16:05
Speaker 4: just the okay, well if they want me to do
16:07
Speaker 4: ten and he ended up getting eight years ultimately, But
16:10
Speaker 4: you start running through I could do. I've been in
16:12
Speaker 4: here a little bit of time already, I'm facing life
16:15
Speaker 4: in prison for this amount of drugs. The reality is
16:18
Speaker 4: you never know what a jury's going to do if
16:20
Speaker 4: you can't get your case dismissed, and you start kind
16:22
Speaker 4: of justifying to yourself, Okay, I can maybe make parole
16:26
Speaker 4: in a couple of years, and those thoughts start going
16:28
Speaker 4: through your mind.
16:29
Speaker 2: So Louis, now we're over a year and a half
16:32
Speaker 2: out from the actual arrest. You're initially thinking that this
16:35
Speaker 2: is going to get dismissed. Those hopes that kind of
16:37
Speaker 2: just start to dwindle, and then you have to accept
16:40
Speaker 2: a plea deal on something that you know in your
16:42
Speaker 2: heart you had nothing.
16:44
Speaker 5: I was so twenty five to life if I take
16:46
Speaker 5: this trial, and I'm like, you know, what do you say?
16:52
Speaker 5: It's hard? And uh You're like, okay, I might beat
16:55
Speaker 5: this one, but this one's over your opinion and what
16:57
Speaker 5: are the chances? And you just put your and just
17:00
Speaker 5: you know, I have to take this. I have to
17:03
Speaker 5: take what they're offering me twenty five to life each case.
17:06
Speaker 5: And it was like, I know I have a history,
17:09
Speaker 5: it's it's you know, I've learned from the mistakes. I
17:11
Speaker 5: have been making mistakes. And it's just like you totally couch.
17:15
Speaker 5: If you get a cashp catch, you don't don't do
17:17
Speaker 5: it this way.
17:18
Speaker 2: Okay. So Louis pled out to serve eight years in prison,
17:22
Speaker 2: and there was time served and all that. What about
17:25
Speaker 2: the other two defendants, Mona and John?
17:28
Speaker 4: So John ended up taking time in prison. I think
17:33
Speaker 4: he got ten years on his case. And then they
17:36
Speaker 4: call her Mona. Her official name is Rexina. Rexina was
17:38
Speaker 4: very very ill. So John actually took a little bit
17:41
Speaker 4: more time on his sentence so that Rexina could get probation.
17:44
Speaker 4: That's kind of also another reason that these plea. Bargains
17:47
Speaker 4: were all offered so that Rexina could get out because
17:50
Speaker 4: of her health problems, and Louis and John recognized that.
17:53
Speaker 4: So Rexina got out, she served her probation, and John
17:57
Speaker 4: and Louis went off to start their sentences.
18:00
Speaker 5: You get there, you already kind of got your mindset
18:02
Speaker 5: on you know how, You're just going to tread through.
18:05
Speaker 5: You don't want to get involved, you don't want to
18:07
Speaker 5: stay out of the way, Go to the library, read books,
18:10
Speaker 5: do this, and that's what you're mostly focused on. You
18:14
Speaker 5: can't sit there and tell yourself that you know what
18:17
Speaker 5: you do is wrong. You sold yourself out. You know
18:21
Speaker 5: you had nothing to do with this. You know why
18:23
Speaker 5: did you do what you did. I'm just here to
18:25
Speaker 5: do my time. That's all in my mind for it.
18:27
Speaker 5: There's a lot of disordering, chaos that goes on in there,
18:31
Speaker 5: and you just don't want no part of it. You
18:35
Speaker 5: don't conversate with certain people. You just leave all this
18:38
Speaker 5: stuff alone. And every now and then you're gonna have
18:42
Speaker 5: a class with these groups or with this or with that,
18:46
Speaker 5: and it's how you deal it. You just got to
18:47
Speaker 5: keep moving forward. I had a real tough time in there,
18:50
Speaker 5: because I had a silly and you know, he was
18:55
Speaker 5: five years older than I was, and we would talk
18:58
Speaker 5: and next thing, I know, the more he's there and
19:00
Speaker 5: we were just talking, talk and talk. Well he had
19:04
Speaker 5: he was making some hooch when I was at the
19:07
Speaker 5: library and they fought for the bottle or whatever it was,
19:12
Speaker 5: and uh, you know my my CELLI you know he
19:15
Speaker 5: was he died. He beating the death and uh, he
19:21
Speaker 5: still bothers. It still bothers me today. But hey, do you.
19:25
Speaker 4: Want me to tell this part?
19:26
Speaker 5: Louis? Okay?
19:28
Speaker 4: So they I've heard him tell this before and it's
19:30
Speaker 4: really heartbreaking. But they basically brought him like a bucket
19:33
Speaker 4: of water and told him to clean up the blood
19:35
Speaker 4: that was in his cell himself. So it's his friend's
19:39
Speaker 4: blood and he had to clean it all up.
19:42
Speaker 5: I told him, I, I don't want to go in there.
19:44
Speaker 5: I don't want to go in there. And they said,
19:46
Speaker 5: aren't you coming up for parol? You know, I'm giving
19:51
Speaker 5: you a direct order to get inside your cell. And
19:53
Speaker 5: do you just do that? You know you don't want
19:55
Speaker 5: to get in there, you know, Okay, you lose your
19:58
Speaker 5: pearl nexture, you know, following year. So I put my
20:02
Speaker 5: head down and I cleaned up the blood.
20:27
Speaker 2: So, Dana, you get involved in this case in twenty nineteen,
20:30
Speaker 2: can you know there's a parallel case to this that
20:34
Speaker 2: is really tied into Louis. Can you kind of talk
20:36
Speaker 2: about what you discovered between Louis case and obviously the
20:41
Speaker 2: other case of Ruby Sandoval and which happened in October
20:44
Speaker 2: that same year in San Antonio, Texas.
20:46
Speaker 5: Yeah.
20:46
Speaker 4: So, when I was asked by the Conviction Integrity Union
20:49
Speaker 4: and then appointed by the judge to represent them, I
20:51
Speaker 4: did reach out to Louis and John. I just wanted
20:53
Speaker 4: to know what was going on, what their thoughts on
20:55
Speaker 4: their own case were, and saying I'm looking into this.
20:59
Speaker 4: This is what I've been told so far, but I
21:00
Speaker 4: need to get some information. And both of their letters
21:04
Speaker 4: back finally were kind of the same thing. We've always
21:08
Speaker 4: said that this guy came into the house and he
21:10
Speaker 4: must have planted the drugs because they weren't ours, and
21:13
Speaker 4: it was a really weird situation and nobody believed us,
21:16
Speaker 4: which it matched up with with Ruby's case as well.
21:19
Speaker 4: So what I find out later is somebody had messaged
21:24
Speaker 4: her or talked to her about storing like a box
21:27
Speaker 4: or a bag, leaving it at her house for a
21:29
Speaker 4: little while. She said, sure, that's fine. She had a
21:32
Speaker 4: lot of text messages with this person. The person was like,
21:35
Speaker 4: when are you going to be home? When are you
21:36
Speaker 4: going to be home? You know that kind of stuff.
21:38
Speaker 4: And as soon as she gets home, cops raid her
21:41
Speaker 4: house with the search warrant and they find drugs in
21:44
Speaker 4: this bag that this person asked to leave at her house.
21:46
Speaker 4: So based on that, she starts immediately fighting her case.
21:50
Speaker 4: And it takes her quite a while to prove to
21:53
Speaker 4: the prosecutor and to everyone you know, with her lawyer,
21:56
Speaker 4: get her text messages and everything in line to show
21:58
Speaker 4: this person us have left the drugs here.
22:01
Speaker 5: The state now.
22:02
Speaker 4: Feels comfortable enough that that's what happened in her case.
22:06
Speaker 4: So that prosecutor in her case went to a conviction
22:09
Speaker 4: integrity unit that the DA's office has. They immediately pulled
22:14
Speaker 4: every case that this confidential informant had worked on previously,
22:18
Speaker 4: and it was Louis, Rexina and John's case. They sent
22:21
Speaker 4: me a memorandum explaining everything that went on and why
22:24
Speaker 4: they think that you know, what happened in John and
22:27
Speaker 4: Louise case and Rexina's case might have happened just like
22:30
Speaker 4: it happened in this other woman's case.
22:32
Speaker 1: Wow, so the same informant, So the same playbook of
22:38
Speaker 1: somebody comes by and leave something there and then the
22:40
Speaker 1: police come the same county.
22:42
Speaker 2: Well, no, it was.
22:43
Speaker 4: It was the same informant, the same situation, same informant. Thankfully,
22:47
Speaker 4: in her case, she had a bunch of text messages
22:49
Speaker 4: from the individual and she was able to establish all
22:52
Speaker 4: of that.
22:53
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha? Okay? What was the between Roxine and the
22:56
Speaker 2: confidential informant? Like, was there a connection? Why would he
23:00
Speaker 2: drawn to this house even plant things? Or was it
23:03
Speaker 2: completely random?
23:04
Speaker 4: I think that he knew John and Rexina just from
23:07
Speaker 4: the neighborhood, is my understanding. They knew who he was,
23:11
Speaker 4: but that was kind of the extent of it. Louie
23:14
Speaker 4: didn't know who he was at all.
23:16
Speaker 3: No, no, no, and that person used their daughter.
23:21
Speaker 4: It just shows the lengths that confidential informants go to
23:25
Speaker 4: to work off their own cases.
23:26
Speaker 2: Gotcha, So was it readily apparent when you were kind
23:30
Speaker 2: of reading through this and going through What were some
23:33
Speaker 2: of the things that you feel could have nipped us
23:35
Speaker 2: in the bud earlier? What was the kind of the
23:37
Speaker 2: things that stood out to you. The most red.
23:39
Speaker 4: Flag Number one to me was reading this search warrant,
23:41
Speaker 4: that this is the first time they've ever used this
23:43
Speaker 4: confidential informant. I don't think that they had enough to
23:45
Speaker 4: get a search warrant based on that. I would have
23:48
Speaker 4: challenged that the bodycam footage that what I had said earlier,
23:52
Speaker 4: that they're trying to say that these drugs that are
23:55
Speaker 4: near Louis but they weren't there before.
23:57
Speaker 5: It isn't if you see the video, there's turn the
24:02
Speaker 5: camera on and snaked your name and what's your address,
24:05
Speaker 5: and then he turned it back off, then he turned
24:07
Speaker 5: it back on, is that these drugs were found right here.
24:10
Speaker 4: Officers that turn on and off their cameras or mute
24:12
Speaker 4: their mics always red flag for me. It just all
24:16
Speaker 4: seemed weird, and when something seems weird or off, there's
24:19
Speaker 4: usually some problems there is, in my opinion, So there's
24:23
Speaker 4: definitely was a lot to work with.
24:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Okay, So you talked about Dana a lot
24:29
Speaker 2: of the work that the Bear County Conviction Integrity Union
24:32
Speaker 2: has done and the good work that they've done, and
24:34
Speaker 2: they've actually been, you know, a really big bright spot
24:36
Speaker 2: within the Prostitorial's office there can you talk about, you know,
24:40
Speaker 2: what their involvement throughout this process with Louis once you
24:43
Speaker 2: got into the case and how that looked.
24:45
Speaker 4: So initially it was the chief of that office. She's
24:48
Speaker 4: not there anymore. She works for a different court, but
24:51
Speaker 4: Matt Howard is now the chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit.
24:54
Speaker 4: I work with Matt quite a bit. I can't I
24:57
Speaker 4: can't ever say that he and I always are going
24:59
Speaker 4: to agree on every case, but I can assure you
25:01
Speaker 4: that he gives everything a thorough review, and if it's
25:04
Speaker 4: a wrongful conviction, he will stand up and say it's
25:06
Speaker 4: a wrongful conviction. He's not afraid to do it. So
25:08
Speaker 4: I really do commend the work our das Jo Gonzalez.
25:12
Speaker 4: He didn't start the Conviction Integrity Unit, but he's kept
25:14
Speaker 4: it going and really built on it, and they do
25:16
Speaker 4: a great job of overturning wrongful convictions when the proof
25:20
Speaker 4: is there. So in my work, when I file the claims,
25:23
Speaker 4: I got every claim together that I could possibly file
25:26
Speaker 4: for Louis and John and Rexina, and then I file
25:30
Speaker 4: them in the writ, application and memorandum of law. From there,
25:35
Speaker 4: I worked with the conviction Integrity Unit on what facts
25:38
Speaker 4: and details we're going to agree to, and we put
25:41
Speaker 4: those agreed orders together and we get those in front
25:44
Speaker 4: of the judge. And we also had a great judge,
25:46
Speaker 4: Judge Mesa here in town. She agreed on a lot
25:49
Speaker 4: of this. She actually went even further than what the
25:52
Speaker 4: Court of Criminal Appeals was willing to do. Judge Mesa
25:55
Speaker 4: recommended that all three of them are actually innocent of
25:58
Speaker 4: the charges. That's kind of the process when, especially when
26:02
Speaker 4: we have agreed facts and agreed relief. The DA's office
26:06
Speaker 4: here is willing to get on board and we file
26:09
Speaker 4: a lot of agreed stuff together, which is unique. As
26:12
Speaker 4: a defense attorney, it does feel weird to give so
26:15
Speaker 4: much credit, but every DA's office, because of situations like this,
26:19
Speaker 4: need conviction integrity units and true ones that are willing
26:23
Speaker 4: to say our das messed up, our sheriffs messed up.
26:28
Speaker 4: So they are they're willing to make those hard calls.
26:31
Speaker 4: And the convection Integrity Unit here and I appreciate the
26:34
Speaker 4: work that they do, especially on this case.
26:36
Speaker 1: Oh Man, a conviction integrity unit, I think that that
26:39
Speaker 1: needs to be implemented everywhere.
26:41
Speaker 3: Man likes that's something that.
26:46
Speaker 1: It's a resource I think that can hopefully get a
26:48
Speaker 1: lot more cases overturned.
26:50
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, Clayton, I totally agree, and you know
26:52
Speaker 2: we're seeing them pop up a lot more and more,
26:55
Speaker 2: and yeah, to your point, we definitely need more oversight
26:57
Speaker 2: on these things.
26:58
Speaker 5: All right.
26:59
Speaker 2: So, Dana, as you said, Judge Mesa recommended that Louis
27:02
Speaker 2: and John's convictions be overturned and they should be found innocent.
27:05
Speaker 2: But then it went up to the Texas Court of
27:07
Speaker 2: Criminal Appeals. Can you explain what happened next?
27:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Court of Criminal Appeals for John and Louie
27:12
Speaker 4: said no, that they should their case is overturned, but
27:16
Speaker 4: they're not actually innocent, which it's it's a really high
27:19
Speaker 4: difficult burden to prove with actual innocence. So I can
27:23
Speaker 4: go into why they didn't. There were because in John's
27:26
Speaker 4: house there was some little minor amounts of drugs that
27:28
Speaker 4: were found, like personal use, small amounts like that, and
27:31
Speaker 4: because they said that that's a lesser included of the
27:33
Speaker 4: greater amount, they're not going to give them an actual
27:36
Speaker 4: innocence finding. That's why they went that route. But Louie
27:39
Speaker 4: didn't live there, and there was nothing directly linked to Louis.
27:42
Speaker 4: I really felt like, at least in Louie's case, he
27:44
Speaker 4: should have had the actual innocence finding in this case.
27:47
Speaker 4: So since they don't get an actual innocence, it gets
27:49
Speaker 4: sent back down to the trial court level, and the
27:51
Speaker 4: DA's office immediately filed dismissals and all the cases just
27:55
Speaker 4: to make it official that it's overturned and now dismissed officially.
27:59
Speaker 4: So they don't have a conviction on their record for
28:02
Speaker 4: these cases.
28:03
Speaker 2: And because they are not found actually innocent, Texas law
28:07
Speaker 2: does not allow them to be entitled a compensation because
28:10
Speaker 2: of that.
28:10
Speaker 3: Correct.
28:11
Speaker 2: Correct, Have anyone, any officers or anyone else been disciplined
28:16
Speaker 2: that were connected.
28:16
Speaker 4: To this case, Not that I'm aware of.
28:19
Speaker 2: Was the informant ever charged with anything about lying.
28:22
Speaker 3: In this case?
28:23
Speaker 4: No, not that I'm aware of.
28:25
Speaker 2: Okay, And so we're now looking into what August twenty twenty,
28:32
Speaker 2: Judge Maza finally finds for wrongful conviction and then Louis
28:36
Speaker 2: you're released at the same time as John on bond
28:40
Speaker 2: in September twenty twenty.
28:42
Speaker 1: Yes, you had like kind of a turn, because you
28:44
Speaker 1: sound like you kind of gave up and just like said,
28:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my head down and do my time
28:49
Speaker 1: into be walking free.
28:52
Speaker 3: Man. What was that like?
28:54
Speaker 5: It was the meeting my little grand baby, playing with
28:59
Speaker 5: her is just I just started smiling, like be there
29:03
Speaker 5: for my parents. You know, I'm the only son, I'm
29:07
Speaker 5: big little brother, and so it's kind of, you know,
29:11
Speaker 5: gonna go do what I'm'm supposed to be doing.
29:13
Speaker 4: One other little kind of piece of sad part of
29:16
Speaker 4: this whole case is the whole time that I represented Rexina,
29:19
Speaker 4: she was on hospice care because of her illness, and
29:22
Speaker 4: the day that the judge signed these orders for them,
29:27
Speaker 4: like for her case to be overturned, it didn't need
29:28
Speaker 4: to go up to the Quarter of Criminal Appeals, but
29:30
Speaker 4: the day she signed it. I called the next day
29:33
Speaker 4: after I got the order, and she had passed away
29:35
Speaker 4: the night before, so I never got a chance to
29:37
Speaker 4: tell Rexina her case was overturned.
29:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.
29:41
Speaker 4: The first thing that John and Louis did was they
29:43
Speaker 4: were pall bearers at Rexina's funeral.
29:45
Speaker 5: Yeah. Her sister had told us that she knew, you
29:48
Speaker 5: know that young guys are going to get out. She
29:51
Speaker 5: was happy we got out. I think about a year
29:55
Speaker 5: into my sentence she wrote me a letter I know
29:59
Speaker 5: with her it is that probably took a lot out
30:01
Speaker 5: of her. Even when I was incarcerated, we still kept
30:05
Speaker 5: in touch what little she could say, because it was like, Hi,
30:10
Speaker 5: thinking about you, how have you been? And pretty much
30:13
Speaker 5: is it? You know, I still keep in touch with John.
30:17
Speaker 5: I still keep in touch with Delma Rexina's sister. Yeah,
30:23
Speaker 5: we're still, like, I guess, easing our way through this
30:26
Speaker 5: and just slowly turning pages and moving forward. Wow.
30:31
Speaker 2: Just an unbelievable story. I think this, this case really
30:36
Speaker 2: does exemplify so much that's wrong with our criminal justice
30:41
Speaker 2: system and the war on drugs and how these negative
30:45
Speaker 2: incentives can really, you know, impact people's lives in such
30:50
Speaker 2: a dramatic fashion that you know, you see where these
30:53
Speaker 2: negative sentences can lie with the confidential informant and where
30:56
Speaker 2: his incentives are are drawn from the detectives to garner
31:00
Speaker 2: or two more convictions kind of fairly easily without kind of,
31:03
Speaker 2: you know, really respecting someone's constitutional rights. It's such an
31:08
Speaker 2: exemplification of all the negative that we see within the
31:11
Speaker 2: criminal justice and the fact that we have, you know,
31:13
Speaker 2: somewhat of a happy ending with Louis and how many
31:15
Speaker 2: other thousands of people have probably gone through similar things
31:19
Speaker 2: and never got this opportunity to actually be you know,
31:23
Speaker 2: have their cases dismissed because there wasn't this commission integrity
31:26
Speaker 2: or there's wasn't this piece of evidence. And so yeah,
31:28
Speaker 2: I just want to thank you Louis for coming on
31:31
Speaker 2: today and discuss this case.
31:32
Speaker 1: Well that's one thing with our podcast, we don't have
31:35
Speaker 1: a lot of happy ending. Yeah, so to have somebody
31:39
Speaker 1: who's actually been through everything and come out the other
31:42
Speaker 1: side and it's great.
31:43
Speaker 3: So thank you, Thank you both, Louis.
31:47
Speaker 2: Is there any call to action? Is there a go
31:50
Speaker 2: fundme page? Is there a number for people can reach
31:53
Speaker 2: out about you know you and your your your skills
31:56
Speaker 2: as an electrician, anything else with that that we can
31:59
Speaker 2: we can plug for you.
32:00
Speaker 5: If anybody needs to help, we need some work or
32:02
Speaker 5: stuff like that, you can go through Dana. It's all
32:05
Speaker 5: right with her.
32:05
Speaker 4: I'll be your secretary, Louis.
32:07
Speaker 5: But I mean you need you need plumbing in the
32:10
Speaker 5: electrical you need to fix your fence, and I ain't
32:13
Speaker 5: gonna wash your dogs, but you know all that other
32:14
Speaker 5: stuff like anything to keep uself busy, keep myself moving,
32:19
Speaker 5: keep some guess it in the truck and a little
32:22
Speaker 5: change in my bucket. I'm fine.
32:23
Speaker 2: I'm looking at some curtains right now that are crooked
32:25
Speaker 2: because I couldn't do that. You look at the whole
32:27
Speaker 2: fucking house by yourself. God damn worthless.
32:30
Speaker 1: Man, Come on, you gotta get your skills up. No,
32:33
Speaker 1: I take that back. We got to get our skills,
32:35
Speaker 1: that's what we think. We gotta get our skills up.
32:39
Speaker 5: Yeah.
32:39
Speaker 1: Man, Look, we've come to this segment of our show
32:41
Speaker 1: called closing Arguments. Louis and Dana, thank you so much
32:45
Speaker 1: for being here with us today. This is the last
32:47
Speaker 1: segment of the show, so we turn it over to
32:51
Speaker 1: YouTube for any final thoughts that you may have for
32:55
Speaker 1: your closing arguments. So, Dana, why don't you start us off.
33:00
Speaker 4: I always say that I would love to not do
33:02
Speaker 4: this job anymore, only because I would love that there's
33:04
Speaker 4: never another wrongful conviction ever. But there's always going to
33:07
Speaker 4: be this job because humans are involved in this process,
33:10
Speaker 4: in this system, the use of confidential informants really needs
33:13
Speaker 4: to be questioned in every single case. If they're going
33:15
Speaker 4: to do it, I don't personally think they should be
33:17
Speaker 4: doing it, but that's I'm not a law enforcement officer.
33:19
Speaker 4: Judges who review search Warren Affi Davids and arrest Warren
33:23
Speaker 4: Affi Davids. I mean the whole process. Everybody needs to
33:26
Speaker 4: have better training so that we can catch these things
33:29
Speaker 4: on the front end and prevent them from ever even happening.
33:32
Speaker 4: I just think, I hope and I love podcasts like
33:34
Speaker 4: this where we're getting the word out that wrongful convictions
33:38
Speaker 4: do happen. They absolutely do happen, and we can't just
33:42
Speaker 4: incarcerate somebody and turn a blind eye anymore. That we
33:46
Speaker 4: need to start working. So if there's any local organizations
33:49
Speaker 4: innocence projects in your state or local community, get involved,
33:53
Speaker 4: if you can donate. If you ever get called on
33:56
Speaker 4: jury duty, really take it serious because you could be
33:58
Speaker 4: deciding somebody's fate.
34:01
Speaker 5: Keep your head up and keep going. You get enough
34:04
Speaker 5: wrong two you're out there, you're doing right. So yeah,
34:08
Speaker 5: I've had enough wrong done to me. So now it's just,
34:11
Speaker 5: you know, I go out there and help out all
34:13
Speaker 5: I can, and I don't hold any negativity, any grudge
34:18
Speaker 5: or nothing like that. You know, I still have a
34:20
Speaker 5: lot of respect for the law, and I still respect,
34:22
Speaker 5: you know, these people that are doing a hell of
34:24
Speaker 5: a job out there. And it wasn't until I was
34:27
Speaker 5: released and I saw all the effort that DAYA and
34:31
Speaker 5: the judge mess It put into getting me out. It's
34:34
Speaker 5: like these people already they didn't know me for any date,
34:37
Speaker 5: they didn't owe me anything, but they fought hard to
34:40
Speaker 5: get me out. They fought hard to where I'm at.
34:43
Speaker 5: And so that's you know, I guess check marks on
34:46
Speaker 5: my side. You know, you do have people looking out
34:49
Speaker 5: at you now. Everybody's there to hang in.
34:59
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. We are your
35:01
Speaker 1: guest hosts Clayton English.
35:03
Speaker 2: And I'm Greg Glott, and.
35:04
Speaker 1: We'd like to give a shout out to executive producers
35:07
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm and Kevin Wadis.
35:09
Speaker 2: Plus everybody on the Wrongful Conviction production team Connor Hall, Anny, Chelsea,
35:14
Speaker 2: Lyla Robinson and Jeff Cliber.
35:16
Speaker 1: The music in the production comes from three time OSCAR
35:19
Speaker 1: nominated composer shave Rout.
35:21
Speaker 2: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
35:24
Speaker 2: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
35:27
Speaker 2: wrong Conviction, as well as Lava for Good on all
35:30
Speaker 2: three platforms, so.
35:31
Speaker 1: You can find us online too, I'm Clayton English on
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Speaker 1: Instagram and.
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Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter at greg Glott.
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Speaker 1: And For more about the state of drug criminalization in
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Speaker 1: your society, listen to the War on Drugs podcast wherever
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.
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Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
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Speaker 2: and association with Signal Company Number one