Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #261 Jason Flom with Clay Chabot

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#261 Jason Flom with Clay Chabot · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: The Innocence Network is a loose affiliation of independent innocence organizations,
0:04
Speaker 1: and each year, members of these organizations, as well as
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Speaker 1: the hundreds of exanneries who they've helped free, gather for
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Speaker 1: the Innocence Network Conference, and it's a beautiful thing. For
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Speaker 1: one weekend. The ex hoonarees can all count on the
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Speaker 1: fact that there are other people around who share their experience,
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Speaker 1: and our team was honored to join them for their
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two gathering in Arizona. We recorded a number
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Speaker 1: of interviews and the damage that these stories due to
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Speaker 1: your faith in humanity is only then restored by the
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Speaker 1: amazing people telling those stories. Clay Shabeau and his friend
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Speaker 1: Doug Graham were bikers who dealt some drugs in Garland, Texas.
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Speaker 1: Clay's brother in law, Jerry Papps, was a customer with
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Speaker 1: a newborn son. Clay was beginning to leave that life
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Speaker 1: behind when on April nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, Doug Graham's
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Speaker 1: common law wife was found in her home having been
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Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and shot down when Paps returned a gun
1:02
Speaker 1: that he'd taken from his sister. He told her husband
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Speaker 1: Clay about how he was at Doug's that morning to
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Speaker 1: buy drugs, heard gunshots and fled. Witnesses had seen PAP's
1:12
Speaker 1: card there, and he was later found wearing bloody clothing. However,
1:15
Speaker 1: even with all of this evidence pointing towards PAPS, he
1:19
Speaker 1: was able to redirect detectives towards his rough looking brother
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Speaker 1: in law, Clay Chabau. A rape kit was performed, but
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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, the DNA testing that would one
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Speaker 1: day exclude Clay was not available. Curiously, no blood type
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Speaker 1: evidence was presented. Instead of simply using the evidence that
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Speaker 1: implicated PAPS, detectives decided that they needed a statement from Clay.
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Speaker 1: When Clay refused to testify to something that he didn't know,
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Speaker 1: detectives chose to ignore all evidence and the inconsistent statements
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Speaker 1: from PAPS to focus their efforts squarely on Clay, using
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Speaker 1: PAPS as their star witness and the implicit bias against bikers.
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Speaker 1: Clay Chabeau was sentenced to life and prison. It took
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Speaker 1: the evolution of DNA testing, the post conviction statutes allowing it,
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Speaker 1: and the dedicated team at the Innosis project to finally
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Speaker 1: prove what seemed to be evident to the prosecutor at
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Speaker 1: Clay's original trial. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction today's episode. How can I say this? If
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Speaker 1: I was going to teach a third grade class how
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Speaker 1: to solve a crime, I might present them with the
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Speaker 1: evidence that was available and abundant in this case, and
2:48
Speaker 1: they would solve this case. I would say within an
2:51
Speaker 1: hour at the most. I mean, this one came with instructions,
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Speaker 1: and yet the authorities managed to not only lock up
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Speaker 1: an NCMA, but let the obvious suspect remain free. And
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Speaker 1: of course I'm talking about the case of Clay Shabou. Clay,
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry for everything you went through. So thank you
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Speaker 1: for being here today. Thank you for having me and
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Speaker 1: with Clay one of his attorneys, Jason Craig from the
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Speaker 1: Innocence Project in New York. Jason, I think this is
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Speaker 1: your first time on the show, but hopefully not the last.
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Speaker 1: It is.
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Speaker 2: I'm happy to be here and so thanks for having me.
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Speaker 1: All right, So, Clay, you were born a couple of
3:26
Speaker 1: years before I was, and grew up in Texas, no Ohio, Ohio.
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Speaker 1: So tell us about that. What was your childhood like?
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Speaker 3: My father was a truck driver mother.
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Speaker 4: You know, home care had a lot of kids, and
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Speaker 4: my parents boke up when I was eight years old.
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Speaker 4: I got shuttled for one family members to the other
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Speaker 4: for about seven years or so till I was about fifteen,
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Speaker 4: and decided to just take off my own so I
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Speaker 4: started cross country, hitchecking across country. Wound up in California
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Speaker 4: for a few years, got married that lasted about a year,
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Speaker 4: got divorced, went back to Ohio, and decided to join
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Speaker 4: the military.
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Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty one. I was on an aircraft carrier.
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Speaker 4: There was a large ship with a five thousand guys
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Speaker 4: and we all could find a small spaces and under authority.
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Speaker 4: So I think it gave me the strength and the fortitude.
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Speaker 3: To endure whatever went through later in life. Wow served
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Speaker 3: about three three.
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Speaker 4: And a half years of the military and I got
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Speaker 4: run over by hit and run drug driver on my motorcycle.
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Speaker 4: So I got discharged and went back to Ohio.
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Speaker 1: And we're here at the INNOCENTCE Network conference. I'm so
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Speaker 1: happy to be recording live and in person again. And
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Speaker 1: you can't see Clay, but I can. And the way
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Speaker 1: he dresses today, he looks like being a corporate boardroom somewhere.
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Speaker 1: But you were a tough guy back then, right, And
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Speaker 1: no judgment here. You were involved in some let's just say,
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Speaker 1: extra legal activities.
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Speaker 4: Right absolutely where I was raised in Ohio, you know, impoverished.
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Speaker 4: There's actually the Hell's Angels club to house, so a
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Speaker 4: lot of people there indulging mind altering drugs. We can't
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Speaker 4: afford to go to bail for skiing trips, so we
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Speaker 4: take ours locally.
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Speaker 1: Internally, yes, I understand. And by the way, like I said,
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Speaker 1: no judgment here. I mean when I was a kid,
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Speaker 1: we probably could compare our old photos because I had
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Speaker 1: so much hair I couldn't even see. I looked like
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Speaker 1: cousin it. And I used to smoke weed from sun
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Speaker 1: up to sundown, and I was involved in some stuff
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Speaker 1: I definitely shouldn't have been involved in it. So anyway,
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Speaker 1: so you were into motorcycles, the Hell's Angels, drugs, You
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Speaker 1: did some dealing, and you moved to Texas at some point.
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Speaker 1: You got married, had a son, Harley, a few months
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Speaker 1: before all this happened, and he's here with us today.
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Speaker 1: And Harley's uncle, your brother in law, Jerry Paps. He
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Speaker 1: lived nearby with his wife and he used to come
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Speaker 1: to you and a friend of yours, Doug Graham, for drugs. Now,
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Speaker 1: from what I understand, Paps was into speed and coke
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Speaker 1: and was led to believe that Doug had cut a
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Speaker 1: batch of whatever he was taking with too much baking
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Speaker 1: soda or some other substance, even though it was you,
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Speaker 1: Clay who did the cutting, and Doug was aware of this,
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Speaker 1: And that leads us up to April nineteen, nineteen eighty six, Garland, Texas.
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Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to Clay Paths had taken a gun from his sister,
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Speaker 1: Clay's wife, and later that day, Doug Graham's common law wife,
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Speaker 1: who was twenty eight years old, her body was found
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Speaker 1: in their home. And this is just awful, so brace yourself.
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Speaker 1: But she had been tied, gagged, shot three times, and
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Speaker 1: she had been raped. A rape kit was performed, but
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Speaker 1: that evidence, unfortunately wasn't useful, or perhaps the blood type
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Speaker 1: evidence wasn't useful to the state, because you got to
6:21
Speaker 1: imagine if it was, they would have brought it up.
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Speaker 1: But we don't know either way. And however, the biological
6:27
Speaker 1: evidence didn't become useful to Clay and really all of
6:29
Speaker 1: us until DNA testing became available. Many years later. And
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Speaker 1: I want to turn to Jason here, because this really
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Speaker 1: was a horrific crime.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's absolutely true, and that did get attention immediately,
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Speaker 2: even on the local news. And it just so happened
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Speaker 2: to be someone who Clay knew of.
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Speaker 4: The victim's husband. They weren't really legally married. Doug Graham
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Speaker 4: was really one of my best friends, and I mean
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Speaker 4: we associated on Christmas, we played cards, we hung out
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Speaker 4: together for several years.
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Speaker 2: And so that was the initial nexus that even started
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Speaker 2: any interest in Clay for any reason.
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Speaker 1: There was no physical evidence connecting Clay to the crime.
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Speaker 1: That wasn't the case for his brother in law.
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Speaker 2: That's absolutely right when you said in the introduction that
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Speaker 2: most elementary school children could have solved this case within
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Speaker 2: a few hours and actually identified the actual perpetrator.
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Speaker 1: You're right.
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Speaker 2: The police they had one individual, Gerald Papps, who was
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Speaker 2: telling a series of different stories over and over again.
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Speaker 2: A person who had been found with blood on his
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Speaker 2: shirt within hours of this homicide. A person who had
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Speaker 2: proceeds from the victim's home, person who had pawned some
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Speaker 2: items that were taken there, whose car had been at
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Speaker 2: the victim's home earlier. In that day. None of this
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Speaker 2: information was dependent on anyone else's statement. This was actual
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Speaker 2: physical evidence linking him to the crime. What the detectives
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Speaker 2: also had was someone else, Clay, who was actually helping,
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Speaker 2: who actually reached out and said there might be some
8:00
Speaker 2: to what had just happened when his brother in law
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Speaker 2: had shown back up to return this gun.
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Speaker 4: Correct, they came to my house, asked me a few questions,
8:08
Speaker 4: and I told him all about how my brother in
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Speaker 4: law had taken the gun from his sister's purse prior
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Speaker 4: to this. And he was standing at the door and
8:15
Speaker 4: I said, come on in. He said no, no, I got
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Speaker 4: to go, I said, And he handed me the gun
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Speaker 4: and I said, what are you doing with this? He said, well,
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Speaker 4: I ported this morning for Sandy's purse. I looked and
8:24
Speaker 4: I said, where's the clip? He said, oh yeah, and
8:26
Speaker 4: he hand me the clip and I noticed the clip
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Speaker 4: was empty. I said, were it's the bullet?
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Speaker 3: He said.
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Speaker 4: I threw him out. I said, what are you talking about?
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Speaker 4: Him in here? So he came in and he tells
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Speaker 4: me the story. He claimed he was supposed to meet
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Speaker 4: the victim's husband, Doug Graham, but he said he got
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Speaker 4: over there and before he could even get out of
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Speaker 4: his car and go in, he saw two men pull
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Speaker 4: up in a car and they went inside and he
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Speaker 4: heard gunshots. So he got scared and left. So he
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Speaker 4: came back to my house and he returned this gun.
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Speaker 4: He left my house, and I'm thinking that I didn't
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Speaker 4: know anybody had been hurt at the time, so thinking,
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Speaker 4: you know, he's just been up all night on speeding.
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Speaker 4: So I didn't pay much attention to it. And later
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Speaker 4: that afternoon, I was supposed to meet Doug for another
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Speaker 4: deal we're going to do, but and I wasn't even
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Speaker 4: paying attention to the TV. It's almost like it played
9:10
Speaker 4: and then I heard it and I had to replay
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Speaker 4: it in my mind to say, what did they just say?
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Speaker 4: And my wife, she knew the victims, and she said
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Speaker 4: that's her.
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Speaker 1: I said, what And for some reason in your mind,
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Speaker 1: you didn't leap to that conclusion.
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Speaker 4: I just couldn't believe that he could do something like that.
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Speaker 4: It'd be like somebody trying to tell you your brother
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Speaker 4: or your mother or something, which cape I mean, I
9:33
Speaker 4: knew the guy for several years. I'd been married to
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Speaker 4: his sister for several years, and I just couldn't conceive it.
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Speaker 4: That's just so far out of my realm and world
9:40
Speaker 4: of you know. Like I said, I've never really heard
9:42
Speaker 4: anybody about myself through my own abuse of things.
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Speaker 3: So I believed his story.
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Speaker 4: I believed that he was there, saw a couple people,
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Speaker 4: and I really wanted him to just try to lead
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Speaker 4: them to help solve the situation itself. I got to
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Speaker 4: tell you, I pondered over it. I didn't call Doug
9:56
Speaker 4: until like the next day, because I tried to reach
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Speaker 4: Doug that night because I was supposed to meet and
10:00
Speaker 4: somebody strange answered his house phone, and I thought, oh,
10:04
Speaker 4: I don't know who that is. I said, well, who
10:06
Speaker 4: are you trying to get ahold of? What do you
10:07
Speaker 4: want for it? So I hung up? So I said, man,
10:09
Speaker 4: something's really gone wrong over there. So I went back
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Speaker 4: down to Jerry's house and I said, Jerry, I'm going
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Speaker 4: to drive over to Dougs.
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Speaker 3: You want to go with me?
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Speaker 4: He said, oh, no, no, no, man, I don't want
10:17
Speaker 4: to go anywhere near the place. And then I started
10:20
Speaker 4: getting little more larry and worried. And now I'm in
10:21
Speaker 4: a situation note where you know, if I do do this,
10:24
Speaker 4: I got to live with this sister, you know, And
10:27
Speaker 4: how do you live with your wife when you reported
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Speaker 4: her brother.
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Speaker 3: For something like that.
10:31
Speaker 4: I mean, just the conflict in that my head and
10:33
Speaker 4: heart was. I thought to myself, you know what, if
10:35
Speaker 4: this was my sister, my wife, I'd want somebody help me.
10:39
Speaker 4: And the next day is when I decided to call
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Speaker 4: Doug and tell him how I think I had information.
10:58
Speaker 4: He had just been born, he was five months old,
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Speaker 4: and I was trying to knock off the stupid stuff,
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Speaker 4: straighten myself up, because he was finally something more important to.
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Speaker 1: Me and for our listeners. Clays Son Harley's here with
11:10
Speaker 1: us now. He's about twice the size of his father,
11:14
Speaker 1: and he's now thirty six years old.
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Speaker 4: And I just turned you know, like twenty five, you know,
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Speaker 4: and they say the prefront, the cortex and mails doesn't
11:21
Speaker 4: develop until twenty five when you start having huge consequences.
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Speaker 3: And so I think it was just a matter of you.
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Speaker 4: Know, age, and plus like I said, him being born,
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Speaker 4: and it was my friend.
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Speaker 3: And so I wanted to do the right thing.
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Speaker 1: But we see too often people like you who come
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Speaker 1: forward trying to help and wanted to be you know,
11:37
Speaker 1: good citizens and believed in the system as you did,
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Speaker 1: and it ends up putting them in the crosshairs.
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Speaker 4: Let me say this, in fairness of things, I kind
11:48
Speaker 4: of created this whole scenario in a way for myself.
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Speaker 4: Jerry wanted more drugs. I didn't want get him to him.
11:54
Speaker 4: I told him he should call my friend Doug. I
11:56
Speaker 4: just wanted him to get out of my house and leave,
11:58
Speaker 4: So that's what led him to go over to Doug's house.
12:00
Speaker 4: Later though, Jerry would tell a story about how the
12:03
Speaker 4: drugs I had had had gotten from Doug earlier were inadequate. Well,
12:08
Speaker 4: quite frankly, it was my own doing. I had put
12:11
Speaker 4: too much cut on the drugs. So there was no
12:13
Speaker 4: animosity between me and Doug because Doug didn't do anything wrong.
12:16
Speaker 4: But I had told Jerry that just to get him
12:20
Speaker 4: out of my house. I said, Man, this does' still good.
12:21
Speaker 4: You wanted this, So in fairness man, I sort of
12:25
Speaker 4: set the stage that led the police to believe that
12:28
Speaker 4: I had a reason that I was angry with Doug
12:31
Speaker 4: over it, but they didn't really look at the smaller facts,
12:34
Speaker 4: like Doug knew that wasn't true. Doug knew that I
12:36
Speaker 4: was supposed to meet him again that night to do
12:38
Speaker 4: another deal. I mean, so when they left my house
12:40
Speaker 4: that afternoon, they asked her if they could have the gun.
12:42
Speaker 4: They asked if I had any more of the same
12:43
Speaker 4: kind of bullets, and I happily rented and given to him.
12:46
Speaker 4: They left, and within a few hours my brother in
12:49
Speaker 4: law's wife came to the house screening about how the
12:50
Speaker 4: police had showed up arrested him. And as I understood it,
12:53
Speaker 4: by then, they had already had a witness that positive
12:56
Speaker 4: identified his cart to see the crime. They called him
12:58
Speaker 4: with blood on his clothes, on tickets for stolen merchandise
13:01
Speaker 4: and maybe some stole merchandise. So I don't know, you know,
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Speaker 4: like I said, it was clean cut. I was a
13:05
Speaker 4: rough looking guy, and so he gave him the story.
13:07
Speaker 4: But I had borrowed his car, and then he didn't
13:09
Speaker 4: go there, and they allowed him to just change his
13:10
Speaker 4: story every time his facts proved wrong. They just let
13:13
Speaker 4: him change his story because they didn't see why Jerry
13:16
Speaker 4: would do something like that. You know, they were looking
13:18
Speaker 4: for the motive. And I'll tell you this, the detectives
13:21
Speaker 4: simply didn't want to believe that I had handed them
13:23
Speaker 4: the solution to this case on a silver platter. They
13:26
Speaker 4: were like, no word, detectives. There's gotta be more to this.
13:29
Speaker 4: It's got to be more complicated, you know, something for
13:30
Speaker 4: us to unravel and figure. I just don't think they
13:33
Speaker 4: could accept the fact that this would have been so
13:35
Speaker 4: simple had they just looked at the evidence as it stood.
13:38
Speaker 3: So they came back and arrested me.
13:40
Speaker 1: So you're arrested, taking to jail. Were you in jail
13:43
Speaker 1: awaiting trial? Didn't bail out?
13:46
Speaker 3: No?
13:46
Speaker 4: Well, they had me on a I think a quarter
13:48
Speaker 4: main and how long did you think about eight months?
13:50
Speaker 4: Eventually just rolled out to where they came to me
13:53
Speaker 4: and they said, look, we don't think you're actually there,
13:56
Speaker 4: but we need somebody to testify. If you'll testify against
13:59
Speaker 4: your brother, will let you go.
14:01
Speaker 2: This was a situation where the state felt they needed
14:05
Speaker 2: a confession, someone who could turn into a witness who
14:08
Speaker 2: was actually there and one person had information because there
14:13
Speaker 2: was only one person there, Gerald Pepps, and Clay was
14:16
Speaker 2: not there, was not involved, and so he had no
14:19
Speaker 2: ability to offer what the state wanted, what the state
14:23
Speaker 2: felt they needed to prove a case.
14:25
Speaker 4: I believed in the just system, who hardly I just
14:27
Speaker 4: come out of the military. I'd never been in a
14:29
Speaker 4: re Serich trouble with any kind off and so I said, listen,
14:32
Speaker 4: I can't do that. You want me to lie to
14:34
Speaker 4: possibly send this guy to death row for something I
14:35
Speaker 4: don't know he did or not.
14:37
Speaker 3: It was okay.
14:38
Speaker 4: Well, they went to Jerry, my brother in law, and
14:40
Speaker 4: said same thing, and she got the standpoint of the
14:43
Speaker 4: figure said yeah, we're both there. He pulled the trigger.
14:46
Speaker 4: They let him go, and they gave me a life sentence.
14:48
Speaker 2: So he gave the state what they needed and he
14:50
Speaker 2: got a benefit and immediate benefit that lasted for him
14:53
Speaker 2: a couple decades.
14:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, there's that saying a body for a body, right,
14:59
Speaker 1: and we know that sadly, in too many cases, the
15:02
Speaker 1: authorities are happy to just get somebody, close the case
15:05
Speaker 1: and move on. And then the idea that in this
15:08
Speaker 1: case they had every reason to know, they may even
15:12
Speaker 1: have known that the guy who was weaving these bizarre tales.
15:19
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody could possibly believe that, but they did,
15:22
Speaker 1: or at least the jury did.
15:23
Speaker 2: There's a very telling note that we uncovered in the
15:26
Speaker 2: prosecutor's file years later when we're looking into the case,
15:30
Speaker 2: acknowledging that pass he was found within ours bloody T shirt.
15:35
Speaker 2: And the quote is you know something like this is
15:38
Speaker 2: a problem for us. Well, yeah, it's a big problem
15:41
Speaker 2: for us. You literally had the person who was connected
15:44
Speaker 2: to the crime physically with physical evidence. Who is your
15:47
Speaker 2: star witness. That's a huge problem for the state. And
15:50
Speaker 2: we can never know exactly what was in the prosecutor's
15:53
Speaker 2: mind when she wrote that note, but the context clues
15:56
Speaker 2: are fairly clear she understood that the person that they
15:59
Speaker 2: were relying on to solve this homicide was someone who
16:02
Speaker 2: was actually involved in the homicide. And of course now
16:06
Speaker 2: we know that with certainty based on the DNA testing
16:09
Speaker 2: that was done years later, but even at the time
16:11
Speaker 2: of trial, the contemporaneous notes that the prosecutor had recognized
16:16
Speaker 2: that they had a problem because perhaps their star witness
16:20
Speaker 2: was the person who was found with blood. And of
16:22
Speaker 2: course this is the person who initially said he had
16:24
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the crime at all, wasn't even there,
16:26
Speaker 2: and then puts himself there. Eventually it changes the story
16:30
Speaker 2: that way, and then changes the story a little bit more,
16:32
Speaker 2: puts himself there and then changes the story a little
16:34
Speaker 2: bit more, and all a sudden, he's now inside the house,
16:36
Speaker 2: but never willing to say what we now know he
16:39
Speaker 2: actually did.
16:40
Speaker 1: One of the things that really stuck out to me
16:41
Speaker 1: when I was reading about the trial was the idea that,
16:44
Speaker 1: and I think this should be a red flag in
16:46
Speaker 1: every case, is when Jerry said that you forced him
16:51
Speaker 1: at gunpoint to tie up the victim. That's not a
16:54
Speaker 1: thing that happens except maybe in some weird TV show
16:58
Speaker 1: or movie.
16:58
Speaker 3: Right, supposed to be your criminal partner? Yeah, and you're
17:01
Speaker 3: pointing to God at him.
17:01
Speaker 4: Now, did I put a gun in and making carre
17:04
Speaker 4: of the TV out to Jason?
17:05
Speaker 1: Unless there was something else presented, I don't even understand
17:09
Speaker 1: how a Jerry could get this one wrong.
17:10
Speaker 2: So what did they hear? They have a witness who
17:13
Speaker 2: claims to have been there during the entire crime, who
17:17
Speaker 2: is now backed by the state, called by the state,
17:20
Speaker 2: who's walking them through what we now know is and
17:23
Speaker 2: what Clay obviously knew then was a fictitious story about
17:26
Speaker 2: what happened. And they're hearing it blow by blow from
17:29
Speaker 2: this witness as the state solicits information from him, and
17:33
Speaker 2: then the state calls other witnesses to vouch for Jerry,
17:37
Speaker 2: to present Jerry as this person who was overwhelmed by
17:40
Speaker 2: the ringleader. Who's the defendant there, Clay, but Jerry, of course,
17:45
Speaker 2: in the state's eyes, was this person who wasn't a
17:48
Speaker 2: violent person, hadn't done other bad things, didn't look like
17:51
Speaker 2: Clay looked at the time.
17:53
Speaker 4: So what they presented was me as a criminal in general,
17:56
Speaker 4: wrote Harley Davison's carried John's did drugs? Looked like Charles Manson.
18:00
Speaker 1: And so, Clay, what was the evidence that was presented
18:04
Speaker 1: in your defense at the trial?
18:06
Speaker 4: Unfortunately? I mean my defense was, Look, I was at
18:09
Speaker 4: home sleeping. I mean, how do you approve that? So
18:11
Speaker 4: the only person that was able to testify in my
18:14
Speaker 4: behalf was my wife, which was the sister of the
18:17
Speaker 4: witness against me, And so they just claimed she was
18:21
Speaker 4: a liar to protect me, not considering that, how do
18:24
Speaker 4: you think she could get up there and say, you know, look,
18:26
Speaker 4: he didn't do it, in directly implicating her own brother.
18:29
Speaker 2: I think the failure is that the prosecutor, they knew
18:32
Speaker 2: the limitations of what they knew. They didn't need DNA
18:35
Speaker 2: testing in nineteen eighty six to know the limitations of
18:37
Speaker 2: their case. They wrote about it in their notes and
18:40
Speaker 2: They should have been the ones who check the beyond
18:42
Speaker 2: a reasonable doubt standard before they put someone's life at stake.
18:46
Speaker 1: The jury goes out, how long did they deliverate Clay.
18:50
Speaker 4: I didn't have time to smoke a cigarette before they
18:52
Speaker 4: send the jury is back?
18:53
Speaker 1: Wow, so as minutes. Yeah, if you could take us
18:58
Speaker 1: back to that moment.
19:00
Speaker 4: I just went into a sort of shock state because
19:02
Speaker 4: they really didn't impact me or hit me until they
19:05
Speaker 4: immediately conducted the penalty phase. And my wife at the time,
19:09
Speaker 4: Harley's mother, had got up and went to the bathroom
19:13
Speaker 4: and they ran a penalty's face so fast. By the
19:15
Speaker 4: time she came back from the bathroom, they were already
19:17
Speaker 4: an ounce of life.
19:19
Speaker 3: You know.
19:19
Speaker 4: As soon as they do that, they should stand up
19:21
Speaker 4: and I drag you the back, and I remember asking
19:23
Speaker 4: if they would put me in a private cell because
19:25
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be in with the crowd of
19:26
Speaker 4: you know, other people being transport around, and I just
19:30
Speaker 4: wanted to scream and tear and I did. In my mind,
19:45
Speaker 4: prison is ninety percent boreder punctuated by ten percent cheer
19:50
Speaker 4: stark terror. You just after the over the years, you
19:54
Speaker 4: adapt you have to. When I went in Texas Francis.
19:58
Speaker 4: It was a run by what they call the building
19:59
Speaker 4: ten or system. Inmates were running it. There was only
20:02
Speaker 4: a handful of guards through three thousand inmates. The inmates
20:06
Speaker 4: were empowered with authority weapons to maintain the for the system.
20:10
Speaker 3: It was brutal, absolutely brutal.
20:13
Speaker 4: You know, it's odd even though he was run by
20:15
Speaker 4: prisoners and it's brutal if you followed the rules with them,
20:18
Speaker 4: there was a lot more internal freedom and it was
20:20
Speaker 4: more of a physical thing. In fact, it wasn't until
20:24
Speaker 4: some years to follow that a large lawsuit Federal brought
20:28
Speaker 4: in special masters and they brought the guards in and
20:30
Speaker 4: they took the building tenders out. Became more of a
20:34
Speaker 4: mental pressure. But I had to say again, because I
20:38
Speaker 4: was a little older, I think, and I had gone
20:40
Speaker 4: through the military, and I used my head the gang
20:43
Speaker 4: members and things. I taught him how to do things
20:45
Speaker 4: that they weren't doing that made it profitable for them.
20:48
Speaker 4: So I became an asset, and so they would say
20:54
Speaker 4: leave him alone. So I tried to stay, you know,
20:57
Speaker 4: just actively involved with either education or something to keep
21:00
Speaker 4: my mind off of, you know, the day to day mundane.
21:03
Speaker 1: And was there a lowest and the highest point for
21:06
Speaker 1: you while you were in there.
21:07
Speaker 4: I had a number of them, the one in the
21:09
Speaker 4: first when I pother died, and at those points I
21:12
Speaker 4: considered suicide, but that's not in my dnay. I even
21:20
Speaker 4: had it all figured out several ways to do it.
21:23
Speaker 4: But quite frankly, I knew this. I see my mind
21:26
Speaker 4: strip away everything else. My mind knew it didn't do
21:29
Speaker 4: what it was being punished for, and it just needed
21:34
Speaker 4: to know it had a way out if it had
21:36
Speaker 4: to at all last resort. So once I had that
21:39
Speaker 4: option of suicide, knowing that I do have the option
21:42
Speaker 4: to get out of this if I have to, it
21:44
Speaker 4: gave me the strength to go on. Finally, when you know,
21:48
Speaker 4: after the years and years of Dallas telling me that
21:49
Speaker 4: they'd lost the evidence, I knew they had to be
21:51
Speaker 4: a lie, and I fought it for ten twelve years
21:53
Speaker 4: and finally found it. And then the high point would
21:55
Speaker 4: have been on a little step was when Texas finally
21:58
Speaker 4: passed a law whatever that said, you know, if you
22:01
Speaker 4: want to apply for DNA testing. That gave me some hope.
22:04
Speaker 4: But this would have been when DNA testing proved that
22:07
Speaker 4: Jerry paps Semens recovered from the rape kit, his DNA
22:11
Speaker 4: was on her hands, DNA the fingernails, and then I
22:15
Speaker 4: knew that, you know, we probably had a pretty good
22:16
Speaker 4: shot of at least, you know.
22:18
Speaker 3: Convincing them that they had it wrong and might want
22:20
Speaker 3: to look at it.
22:21
Speaker 2: Again, identifying perhaps DNA and the extremely probative items of evidence.
22:26
Speaker 2: As Clay recounted, it was the key that turned the story.
22:30
Speaker 2: And at that point in time, I think Clay's perception
22:32
Speaker 2: is as accurate. Even the people who were absolutely convinced
22:36
Speaker 2: that the prosecutor might have been on the right path
22:38
Speaker 2: from the get go, even those individuals had to start
22:41
Speaker 2: opening their eyes and wonder, now, what was going on.
22:44
Speaker 1: While this case came with instructions from the very beginning,
22:49
Speaker 1: now twenty years later or so, it came with scientific certainty.
22:55
Speaker 1: The actual perpetrator was identified.
22:57
Speaker 2: The state located him. He had gone back to Ohio
23:00
Speaker 2: by that point in time, and eventually was arrested for
23:04
Speaker 2: the crime. Now this is the state's star witness, but
23:07
Speaker 2: they did, with the DNA evidence testing that was done,
23:09
Speaker 2: identify him and ultimately convict him. After Clay's conviction was overturned.
23:14
Speaker 1: Jason, I think most people in the audience are probably
23:16
Speaker 1: thinking now, well, amen, right, finally justice, exoneration, compensation, and
23:23
Speaker 1: in this case.
23:24
Speaker 2: That's not the story of Clay's case right now. So tragically,
23:28
Speaker 2: after the DNA evidence identified Paps, the state decided to
23:32
Speaker 2: re prosecute Clay. They knew that they had been lied to,
23:37
Speaker 2: that they allowed someone to lie to the jury, they
23:40
Speaker 2: knew the actual perpetrator who had been convicted. They decided
23:44
Speaker 2: to re prosecute Clay, and it gets worse. By that
23:48
Speaker 2: important time. Clay was fortunate that some of the physical
23:52
Speaker 2: evidence was retained the evidence that identified Paps, but much
23:56
Speaker 2: of the physical evidence had been lost by that point
23:59
Speaker 2: in time. So the state's plan was to just run
24:02
Speaker 2: it back now recognizing that the person who they had
24:07
Speaker 2: put all their faith in the first time was the
24:09
Speaker 2: actual perpetrator, but unwilling to recognize that the case had
24:14
Speaker 2: no legs to stand on against Clay, and Clay was
24:18
Speaker 2: forced to contemplate going to trial again without even the
24:21
Speaker 2: ability to examine and retest some of the other evidence
24:25
Speaker 2: that the state at this point had lost. So, for example,
24:28
Speaker 2: the purported murder weapon we mentioned earlier, Jerry Papps, when
24:31
Speaker 2: he was arrested, had a bloody T shirt that had
24:35
Speaker 2: been lost. We couldn't demonstrate that even perhaps fourth or
24:38
Speaker 2: fifth or eighth version of events wasn't accurate had we
24:42
Speaker 2: been able to identify the victim's blood on his T shirt,
24:45
Speaker 2: for example. And I have to say I was actually
24:48
Speaker 2: hopeful that we would be able to convince the judge
24:51
Speaker 2: once we knew we couldn't convince the prosecutor to just
24:54
Speaker 2: dismiss it against Clay, because the misconduct in this case
24:56
Speaker 2: was so deep. We tried from all angles, both negotiating
25:00
Speaker 2: with the prosecutor, we tried with the judge, and we
25:03
Speaker 2: weren't successful. And ultimately that left Clay once again in
25:08
Speaker 2: the moment where he's posed with a question that he
25:10
Speaker 2: should have never had to face. What to do when
25:13
Speaker 2: the prosecutor comes to him. Now, you can walk out
25:16
Speaker 2: time served, but on one condition, you have to plead guilty.
25:21
Speaker 1: It's hard to figure out what master they're serving at
25:23
Speaker 1: this point in time, too. Right, they have the guy.
25:25
Speaker 1: The guys they got him the right guy. Now finally
25:29
Speaker 1: he got the right guy. Even though you guys did
25:31
Speaker 1: everything you possibly could to fuck this up as bad
25:33
Speaker 1: as you possibly could. Now the right guy's in prison.
25:36
Speaker 2: And that was extremely frustrating, and so, as Clay mentioned,
25:40
Speaker 2: you know, he had been failed by the system before
25:42
Speaker 2: he had seen that happen. He'd seen what jurors did
25:46
Speaker 2: very quickly at the original trial. And I don't fault
25:49
Speaker 2: Clay for a second for making the decision that allowed
25:53
Speaker 2: him to walk out and be with us today.
25:55
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned earlier, Clay's son, Harley is here
25:59
Speaker 1: with us right now, so we wanted to give him
26:02
Speaker 1: a chance to talk about his memories and what the
26:05
Speaker 1: day his father was freed, what that time was like
26:08
Speaker 1: for him.
26:10
Speaker 5: I don't know how to explain happiness and anger at
26:13
Speaker 5: the same time. His brother is the one that brought
26:16
Speaker 5: him home, and I remember, I remember it. It was
26:18
Speaker 5: a silver Dodge ram that turned a corner. I remember
26:22
Speaker 5: saying it in the front yard. I was so excited
26:24
Speaker 5: to do some home jumping on it down, obviously crying
26:27
Speaker 5: as soon as you got out of the truck. Happy, happy,
26:30
Speaker 5: and mad. I don't know how to explain it, happy
26:33
Speaker 5: and mad at the same time. You know, I hugged
26:35
Speaker 5: him and told him I love him, and then I
26:38
Speaker 5: have to share because him taking that guilty plea was
26:41
Speaker 5: partly my decision. He had called me when they offered
26:46
Speaker 5: him that, and he said, what do I do?
26:48
Speaker 3: Man? He said, I can.
26:51
Speaker 5: I can come home now, but I'm gonna they're gonna
26:53
Speaker 5: leave it on my record and they're gonna call.
26:54
Speaker 4: Me a murder or.
26:57
Speaker 5: I can fight this, and I didn't do this hardly.
27:00
Speaker 5: I know I didn't do it, So I know I
27:01
Speaker 5: can fight him. I could probably get some money on us.
27:04
Speaker 5: You know, well we'll both be fighting. You know, everybody
27:06
Speaker 5: will be fighting. Yeah, I said that, Who fucking cares
27:11
Speaker 5: if they call you a murderer?
27:13
Speaker 3: Are you? He said, no, Harley, it's grew it.
27:16
Speaker 2: Man.
27:18
Speaker 5: He already gave him twenty three years. They're gonna look
27:20
Speaker 5: for every reason they can't. I love the gamble. I
27:23
Speaker 5: already gave you twenty three years for nothing. Odds are
27:26
Speaker 5: clearly not in my favor. I'll go home. That affected
27:29
Speaker 5: me for twenty three years. That affected all of his family,
27:32
Speaker 5: my mother or asking her mom. You know, she stayed
27:34
Speaker 5: married to him til I was about nineteen. She was
27:36
Speaker 5: in a pretty brutal place as well. You know, it's
27:39
Speaker 5: your brother and your husband. She never called him the
27:41
Speaker 5: dad guilty and she never defended Jerry, So it makes
27:44
Speaker 5: me feel like she knew more, but she was just
27:46
Speaker 5: in a hard place. And it always kind of barked
27:49
Speaker 5: me because Jerry was around her family. I almost feel
27:52
Speaker 5: like a bad human for saying it sometimes, and I'm
27:53
Speaker 5: glad that everything happened and happened, you know, he passed
27:56
Speaker 5: away in prison, which is perfect in my mind. I
28:00
Speaker 5: think I'm allowed to feel that way. But it ripped
28:02
Speaker 5: our paint apart. But we can do this to humans
28:06
Speaker 5: and throw them in prison and it there not be
28:08
Speaker 5: a lot of recourse, you know, the prosecutor. I actually
28:11
Speaker 5: learned some of the day that I didn't know this
28:13
Speaker 5: could be a problem for us. You were aware of that,
28:15
Speaker 5: even you destroy a life. Oh well, sorry, well no,
28:19
Speaker 5: you owe me more than that. I don't want money.
28:22
Speaker 5: You go to prison, now, you know that's what you
28:24
Speaker 5: should too. How many other people did you do this to?
28:26
Speaker 5: Was this the only one you got caught in? And
28:30
Speaker 5: that's just one, one time era, one prosecutor in one city.
28:36
Speaker 5: How often does this happen all over the United States,
28:39
Speaker 5: over the world. This is the first time since conference
28:41
Speaker 5: that I've been to I was shocked by how many
28:44
Speaker 5: ANX reeves there are. I thought it was only a couple,
28:48
Speaker 5: you know, or like ten or fifteen, which is still
28:50
Speaker 5: that's still too many. You know, if this was an airline,
28:53
Speaker 5: statistically speaking, if this was an airline they had planes crashing,
28:58
Speaker 5: they would shut it down and fix it immediately. There'd
29:01
Speaker 5: be outrage everywhere. Something has to change, This has got
29:06
Speaker 5: to be fixed.
29:09
Speaker 1: I also want to point out that these people who
29:12
Speaker 1: were making these decisions to reprosecute, or at least we're
29:17
Speaker 1: threatening to reprosecute the Clay. We're more than happy to
29:20
Speaker 1: spend countless more tax dollars on a ridiculous sham trial,
29:24
Speaker 1: a second ridiculous sham trial, but we're somehow so protective
29:28
Speaker 1: of the idea that we wouldn't want to use those
29:31
Speaker 1: same tax dollars to compensate this man.
29:33
Speaker 4: It's a little more complicated for one reason, and that's
29:36
Speaker 4: something we've kind of missed over in that it's my
29:38
Speaker 4: original prosecutor. See, as you've known, they have various laws
29:41
Speaker 4: for set amounts of compensation when someone's determined wrongfully convicted,
29:45
Speaker 4: and you can't prosecute a prosecutor if they're just doing
29:48
Speaker 4: their job within the limits of the law. But if
29:52
Speaker 4: they violate the law, you can take that out and
29:55
Speaker 4: sue for untold amounts. And that's what we proved. My
29:58
Speaker 4: original prosecutor broke the law by withholding evidence that presenting
30:01
Speaker 4: testimony that she knew was false. So we had special earrings,
30:05
Speaker 4: went to the bar. She was found guilty, but I
30:08
Speaker 4: can't hand the bar protect themselves and they they have
30:10
Speaker 4: her punishment, but it was considered what they call a
30:13
Speaker 4: private sense or something that they wouldn't tell.
30:15
Speaker 3: Us what they did to her.
30:16
Speaker 4: She still remained a current DA in another county at
30:19
Speaker 4: that time.
30:20
Speaker 1: Listen whether or not they want to put it in
30:23
Speaker 1: a legal document. I don't think there's any sane or
30:27
Speaker 1: rational person that believes you had anything to do with
30:31
Speaker 1: this crime. The good news is you're here. You're never
30:36
Speaker 1: going back, and I'm glad that we're here to put
30:40
Speaker 1: a sort of a stamp on it and tell this
30:43
Speaker 1: story in the way that you've told it today. Okay,
30:47
Speaker 1: and now we have a tradition it's called closing arguments.
30:51
Speaker 1: First of all, I think both of you again, Jason
30:54
Speaker 1: Craig from the Innocence Project, Clay Chabeau, Dona Ree for
30:58
Speaker 1: being here and sharing your story. And then I'm going
31:02
Speaker 1: to turn off my microphone, kick back in my chair,
31:06
Speaker 1: and turn it over to you guys for any final
31:10
Speaker 1: thoughts you want to share with me and our audience.
31:12
Speaker 1: As is also traditional, Jason, We're going to let you
31:15
Speaker 1: go first and then have the man himself take us out.
31:18
Speaker 2: Excellent, Jason, thank you, and thank you for your team
31:21
Speaker 2: for doing the podcast. I think it's super important to
31:24
Speaker 2: share these stories, So I guess i'd just say this
31:27
Speaker 2: when I see Clay, or particularly when I'm here at
31:30
Speaker 2: these annual conferences and see hundreds of people who have
31:34
Speaker 2: overcome similar challenges, I'm reminded by some of the people
31:38
Speaker 2: who didn't have the same strength to get to the end,
31:42
Speaker 2: or didn't have the same time because their life just
31:45
Speaker 2: ended in prison or gave up. Had Clay not had
31:47
Speaker 2: the fortitude to keep fighting, to write the next letter,
31:51
Speaker 2: to just say no, I'm not going to stop right now,
31:54
Speaker 2: so Clay, just like everyone who's here at this conference,
32:00
Speaker 2: they're the strongest people.
32:03
Speaker 1: Who we know.
32:06
Speaker 2: If Clay couldn't keep going, if Clay couldn't figure out
32:09
Speaker 2: how to live the next day in prison, just like
32:11
Speaker 2: everyone who's here at the conference now, had they not
32:14
Speaker 2: had the fortitude to keep going, we wouldn't know their story,
32:17
Speaker 2: we wouldn't be able to tell their story. And so
32:19
Speaker 2: I guess the closing thought that I wanted to see is,
32:21
Speaker 2: you know, when I see Clay sitting here, I see
32:23
Speaker 2: the hundreds or thousands of additional people who some of
32:26
Speaker 2: us know them very well because we worked on their
32:28
Speaker 2: cases and we could never get them to the innocent
32:31
Speaker 2: finish line. They still are in prison or tragically they
32:35
Speaker 2: died in prison.
32:36
Speaker 3: And I think that.
32:37
Speaker 2: Seeing Clay here everyone else here is absolutely wonderful and energizing,
32:45
Speaker 2: and it's a reminder of the additional work we can
32:48
Speaker 2: do and some of the work that we can't do
32:50
Speaker 2: because those cases will never be identified. We'll just never
32:53
Speaker 2: know about thousands of people who have the same tragedy,
32:58
Speaker 2: but we won't know their names.
33:00
Speaker 3: Mine would be.
33:03
Speaker 4: For the public society people to wake up and recognize that,
33:07
Speaker 4: you know, they have the power to assess the evidence
33:09
Speaker 4: as it's presented to them, not just accept what the
33:11
Speaker 4: prosecutors tell them. And just keep this in mind because
33:15
Speaker 4: these things, at least they're coming more to like because
33:17
Speaker 4: of scientific DNA evidence has made it conclusive, fully proven,
33:20
Speaker 4: But just remember this, it could be your brother, your sister,
33:23
Speaker 4: your mother, your father. That's on that stand next time
33:26
Speaker 4: being accused. You know, if you think you just walk
33:28
Speaker 4: in there and you want to go home, you don't
33:30
Speaker 4: really want to delve into it, just remember, let's could
33:33
Speaker 4: be you next time.
33:40
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
33:43
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis,
33:47
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
33:50
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
33:54
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