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#369 Jason Flom with Kwame Ajamu · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: M On May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, a money owner
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Speaker 1: salesman named Harold Frank was leaving a Cleveland, Ohio convenience
0:08
Speaker 1: store when two men demanded his briefcase. When he resisted,
0:12
Speaker 1: they clubbed him in the head with a pipe, threw
0:14
Speaker 1: acid in his face, and fatally shot him twice in
0:18
Speaker 1: the chest. The store's co owner, Anne Robinson, saw the
0:22
Speaker 1: whole thing go down, and she suffered a bullet wound
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Speaker 1: before the men sped off in a green car with
0:27
Speaker 1: four hundred twenty five dollars. Then a busload of school
0:31
Speaker 1: children were dropped off on the corner, and one local boy,
0:34
Speaker 1: Eddie Vernon, ragged to his friends that he had seen
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Speaker 1: the murder and knew who did it, his neighbors Ricky
0:39
Speaker 1: Jackson and the Brethren brothers Wileye and Ronnie. The three
0:43
Speaker 1: young men were arrested and young Eddie Vernon identified them.
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Speaker 1: At each one of their trials, all three jurys found
0:51
Speaker 1: Eddie Vernon more credible than the wounded store owner Anne Robinson.
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Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
1:12
Speaker 1: This case is it's like a it's like a glaring
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Speaker 1: example of everything that can go wrong and that does
1:21
Speaker 1: go wrong in our criminal legal system. But before I
1:25
Speaker 1: get off on a tangent here, because this case makes
1:28
Speaker 1: me so angry, I'm going to introduce our guests we
1:31
Speaker 1: have with us today. The man himself, Kwame a Jammu,
1:35
Speaker 1: formerly known as Ronnie Bridgeman. Kwame served decades in prison
1:40
Speaker 1: for a crime he had nothing to do with, but
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Speaker 1: he's here today, standing strong. Kwame. We're very honored to
1:46
Speaker 1: have you here on the show today.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
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Speaker 1: And with him, there is a man named Terry Gilbert.
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Speaker 1: Terry is a renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney
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Speaker 1: as well as a community activist, and importantly he's a
2:01
Speaker 1: death penalty abolitionist. And I am absolutely thrilled and honored
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Speaker 1: to have you here as well. Terry, thanks for joining us.
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Speaker 2: Thanks Jason, I appreciate it.
2:12
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Kwame, I'm going to start with you. You
2:14
Speaker 1: were born Ronnie Bridgeman and grew up with your brother Wiley,
2:17
Speaker 1: as well as your childhood friend and later co defendant,
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Speaker 1: Ricky Jackson, who's been on the show before. We'll have
2:23
Speaker 1: his episode linked in the buyout. But anyway, I've invited
2:26
Speaker 1: you here to give your own unique side of this story.
2:30
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. You all grew up
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Speaker 1: on the same block, same street, right we did.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, three holes is apart.
2:37
Speaker 1: In Kuyahoga County, right.
2:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kyhoga County.
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Speaker 1: And people that listen to the show have heard so
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Speaker 1: many cases from Kuyahoga County because it's arguably the epicenter
2:46
Speaker 1: of the whole wrongful conviction world, which is there's a
2:50
Speaker 1: lot of competition for that awful distinction. But tell us
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Speaker 1: about Kyahoga County. Where is it? What's it like?
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Speaker 3: So? Kuyahoga County is more effects known as Cleveland, Ohio,
3:02
Speaker 3: and that is the city within the jurishdiction of Cuyahoga County. Cleveland,
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Speaker 3: Ohio is a cesspool, if you will. We have three
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Speaker 3: different sides to it. All of those sides are policed
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Speaker 3: very heavily, as Kerry will let you know in a
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Speaker 3: few when you talk. But I was born in nineteen
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Speaker 3: fifty seven, so my youth in Cleveland was through two riots,
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Speaker 3: sixty seven and sixty eight riots, all infused by the poor,
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Speaker 3: the disadvantaged, redlined people, people who had been segregated for
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Speaker 3: so long it just was tired of being poor.
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Speaker 4: The situation on the streets of Cleveland and the black
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Speaker 4: community were horrific in the sixties and the seventies as
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Speaker 4: it was across the country, and assassination of Martin Luther King,
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Speaker 4: Robbie Kennedy, they're so called riots that were happening in
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Speaker 4: that context. There was a war against the black community.
4:00
Speaker 4: And we had a mayor in the city of Cleveland,
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Speaker 4: the first African American mayor in the country of a
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Speaker 4: major city, named Carl Stokes, who was elected during this period.
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Speaker 4: And the police unions were not very happy about a
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Speaker 4: black mayor who was attempting to come up with some
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Speaker 4: reforms that would deal with the issues that were happening
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Speaker 4: at the time in the black community.
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Speaker 2: But those reforms never.
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Speaker 4: Took hold because of the resistance of the establishment, the
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Speaker 4: police union, the political climate.
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Speaker 3: The Cleveland police force was indeed a faction to deal
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Speaker 3: with it that particular time. They were beyond corrupt, and
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Speaker 3: as history will show, they're still corrupt to this day.
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Speaker 3: And so I come up in that, you know, I
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Speaker 3: come up in the apthampa that actually because I was
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Speaker 3: seventeen years old in nineteen seventy five, when all of
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Speaker 3: this happened to me.
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Speaker 1: So you're still really a kid, You're a teenager, and
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Speaker 1: I'm sure where you had dreams and aspirations like every
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Speaker 1: other seventeen year old kid in the country. And I
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Speaker 1: know Ricky Jackson and your brother Wiley had already both
5:07
Speaker 1: been through the military at this point. So what were
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Speaker 1: your plans for the future.
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Speaker 3: I tell people all the time that I wanted to
5:14
Speaker 3: be a cop. Wow, I had big aspirations and how
5:19
Speaker 3: do you say, ideologies of how police worked, And it
5:23
Speaker 3: was either going to be a cop or a fireman.
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Speaker 3: And in the end, in nineteen seventy five, on that
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Speaker 3: terrible day May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, and mister Harold
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Speaker 3: Franks entered our neighborhood there in fair Hill and Cedar
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Speaker 3: and lost both his liberty in his life. And I
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Speaker 3: became one of the suspects, and then one of the accused,
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Speaker 3: and then one who was sentencing convicted to die at
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Speaker 3: just seventeen years old, I had no understanding of how
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Speaker 3: these people who I supported as a child growing up
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Speaker 3: and who I wanted to emulate could do such a
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Speaker 3: thing to me.
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Speaker 1: And this particular crime fifty nine year old white guy
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Speaker 1: of Harold Franks, who was a money oral salesman, and
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Speaker 1: when he left the neighborhood grocery store on Fairhill Road,
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Speaker 1: he was confronted by two men demanding his briefcase. That's
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Speaker 1: two not three. When he resisted, they clubbed them in
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Speaker 1: the head with a pipe and splashed acid in his face.
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Speaker 1: One of the robbers then shot him twice in the
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Speaker 1: chest and fired a shot through the glass front door
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Speaker 1: of the store. Mister Franks obviously died, and fifty eight
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Speaker 1: year old Anne Robinson, who was a coalner the store,
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Speaker 1: was shot once in the neck but miraculously survived, and
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Speaker 1: the two robbers fled with the briefcase. They got away
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Speaker 1: with about four hundred and twenty five dollars. It's really
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Speaker 1: sad when you think of that. So life is so cheap.
6:37
Speaker 1: In this case, four lives were so cheap. The two
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Speaker 1: robbers they got into a green car parked down the
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Speaker 1: street and escaped. Now I'm gonna ask a stupid question, quimet,
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Speaker 1: did any of you guys have a green car?
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Speaker 3: No, my brother did own a black and white plymous Slaberine.
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Speaker 3: They did find that green car, somebody had it and
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Speaker 3: everything in the yard all that nothing came of it.
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Speaker 1: And it sounds like a very organized type of a crime,
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Speaker 1: like maybe even a professional criminal who knew that this
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Speaker 1: money order guy was going to be there through acid
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Speaker 1: in his face. What would a seventeen year old kid
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Speaker 1: who wants to be a copy doing with acid and
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Speaker 1: I mean and a gun in this case, let us
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Speaker 1: not forget this case wasn't a complicated one. They had
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Speaker 1: the green car, they had suspects. They also had Missus Robinson, right,
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Speaker 1: didn't Missus Robinson know you guys, yeah right? So here
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Speaker 1: it is. She's just been shot and she's the only
7:30
Speaker 1: one who actually saw the perpetrators. And we know I
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Speaker 1: would his identification is unreliable, but not when you know
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Speaker 1: the people, right, right, So think about it. So why
7:41
Speaker 1: don't you fill the audience in on how these guys
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Speaker 1: became the sole focus of these people who ultimately framed
7:48
Speaker 1: them for this crime.
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Speaker 4: In addition to the climate that existed at the time. Specifically,
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Speaker 4: what happened was a twelve year old boy named Eddie
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Speaker 4: Vernon who was on a bus coming home from school
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Speaker 4: at the time, and the shooting occurred. The bus was
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Speaker 4: in some proximity to the store down about a block away,
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Speaker 4: And when they got off the bus and they saw
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Speaker 4: the commotion after the shooting, they started talking and one
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Speaker 4: kid says, well, I bet you I know who did it,
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Speaker 4: and he referred to the nicknames of Ricky, Kwa Man
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Speaker 4: and Wileye. So that's stuck in this kid, Eddie Vernons
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Speaker 4: mine at twelve years old. Maybe he should tell the
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Speaker 4: cops who he thinks might have done this horror for crime.
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Speaker 3: Eddie Vernon, I've known him since he was a small kid.
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Speaker 3: My brother went to school one of his sisters, and
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Speaker 3: we knew the family. Plus he was a paperboy in
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Speaker 3: the neighborhood. Anyway, on that particular day, May nineteen, nineteen
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Speaker 3: seventy five, myself and Ricky Jackson was just down the
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Speaker 3: street at the other end of Bartot Street talking with
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Speaker 3: a guy by the name of Lynn Garrett and his girlfriend,
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Speaker 3: and we decided to walk around the corner to the store. Now,
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Speaker 3: mind you, the store that we decided to go to
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Speaker 3: is not the store in question of so, and the
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Speaker 3: way to the store we stopped at, unbelievably, Edwar Vernon's
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Speaker 3: house and his two sisters, Darlene and Susan, were sitting
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Speaker 3: on the porch upstairs, and we began to you know,
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Speaker 3: shoot the shit, talking to him, and a car pulls up.
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Speaker 3: Inside the car, of course as their father, Eddie, hisself,
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Speaker 3: and a young girl by the name of Rose Brown.
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Speaker 3: So they opened the window and tell us that hey,
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Speaker 3: it's a man up there at the store shot. So
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Speaker 3: boogey boogey boogie. We wait for the girls to come
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Speaker 3: down and we all go up to the store. Sure enough,
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Speaker 3: mister Frankens laying on the ground dead. Cops was everywhere right,
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Speaker 3: you know, asking people who had seen this, who had
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Speaker 3: seen that that anybody's seen it unbeknown to any of us.
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Speaker 3: Young aunt with Vernon, you know, raised his hand and
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Speaker 3: said I did I did you know, to which they
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Speaker 3: took him in immediately.
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Speaker 1: At this point, they were only looking for two assailants,
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Speaker 1: not three, so they took Edward down to the police
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Speaker 1: station without his parents to get a statement that was
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Speaker 1: more faithful to the crime scene. And remember, like Terry said,
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Speaker 1: Edward's pardon, this just started off as I bet you
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Speaker 1: I know who did it.
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Speaker 4: They went and started feeding him more details of the crime,
10:21
Speaker 4: creating a narrative to the point when they pushed him
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Speaker 4: to say, well, these are the guys that you saw
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Speaker 4: commit this murder, which we know now is impossible because
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Speaker 4: other people on the bus we interviewed to show that
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Speaker 4: there was no way Eddie could have seen this from
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Speaker 4: that position. So they take the kid in he's twelve
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Speaker 4: years old, They scare him, they manipulate him to sign
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Speaker 4: a statement, and about a few days later they brought
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Speaker 4: him back and they wanted him to look at a lineup,
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Speaker 4: and he's told the police, well, I don't really know who,
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Speaker 4: if they did it or not, And one of the
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Speaker 4: detectives got upset and started pounding his fist into a
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Speaker 4: table and threatened Eddie that if he did not sign
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Speaker 4: the document pointing to these young men, that they would
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Speaker 4: arrest his parents. Of course, none of this was known
11:19
Speaker 4: back then.
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Speaker 3: You know, later on we would find out that his
11:23
Speaker 3: mother had Ovarian Canton was dying, and so you know,
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Speaker 3: you asked yourself, who would you choose, guys in the
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Speaker 3: neighborhood or your mother, you know. So he came out
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Speaker 3: of that interrogation room, and obviously he wanted to say
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Speaker 3: what he thought was his mother from being put in
11:38
Speaker 3: the prison toward him, and so he went along with
11:41
Speaker 3: the details that had been written in.
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Speaker 1: So May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. They've now heard
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Speaker 1: what they wanted to hear, or they've forced Edward to
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Speaker 1: say what they wanted to hear, and they're now ready
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Speaker 1: to take this to the next level and go arrest
11:57
Speaker 1: kids who I believe they knew were innocent. They had
12:01
Speaker 1: the green car, they had suspects. Had they even wanted
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Speaker 1: to do just a tiny bit of actual police work,
12:09
Speaker 1: they probably would have landed on the two guys who
12:11
Speaker 1: actually did this.
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Speaker 4: The whole investigation took about a week. There were other
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Speaker 4: suspects that were far more viable in terms of who
12:21
Speaker 4: did this crime, suspects that were older, I think even
12:24
Speaker 4: had a green car, and that had committed other similar
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Speaker 4: crimes that was not disclosed to the defense console before
12:32
Speaker 4: the trial.
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Speaker 3: There were at least six other men who had been
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Speaker 3: simultaneously picked up, arrested, and put into Cuyahoga County jail.
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Speaker 1: But they ignored these other viable avenues and took the
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Speaker 1: easy route with a coerced twelve year old boy. And
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Speaker 1: at that point they were only looking for two assailants,
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Speaker 1: so their narrative only named Ricky and Wilie, but you
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Speaker 1: Kwame were soon written into the story after the night
13:00
Speaker 1: that they scooped all three of you up again. This
13:03
Speaker 1: was May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. The three of
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Speaker 1: you had been out that night together and Ricky was
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Speaker 1: sleeping over at your house when the cops busted his
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Speaker 1: door down, and when they didn't find Ricky, they dragged
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Speaker 1: his parents out onto the front lawn with guns to
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Speaker 1: their heads.
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Speaker 3: That's exactly what happened at my house.
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Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 3: I was sound asleep and I felt something hitting my foot.
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Speaker 3: I locked up, cops everywhere, guns pointed, But I didn't
13:26
Speaker 3: think about myself, my safety and none of that, because
13:28
Speaker 3: I knew that my mother was in the next room.
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Speaker 3: And my mother all of my life had suffered from
13:33
Speaker 3: heart trouble, which is what she died from, a massive
13:36
Speaker 3: heart attacked in nineteen ninety. But I just voted past
13:39
Speaker 3: the cops and got into the room where my mother
13:41
Speaker 3: was at There was more cops and guns, and I
13:43
Speaker 3: let them have it. Man. I was saying everything to him, right,
13:46
Speaker 3: so the guy snatched me up. I'll never forget, you know,
13:49
Speaker 3: and he said, sorry, it's what you want to do
13:51
Speaker 3: with this one, you know this one, and he said
13:54
Speaker 3: take him on down. We'd figured out later they had
13:57
Speaker 3: arrested me for obstruction police. This and on the way
14:01
Speaker 3: downtown was when they realized that I was seventeen. So
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Speaker 3: they had to divert going to the county and go
14:06
Speaker 3: over to juvenile. And it was only after that they
14:10
Speaker 3: wrote me into the story.
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Speaker 1: So, as the summer of seventy five was coming to
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Speaker 1: a close, You, Wiley, and Ricky were all tried separately.
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Speaker 1: He went in front of Judge John Angelata and the
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Speaker 1: chief prosecutor at that time, John T. Corrigan, had been
14:24
Speaker 1: in office since nineteen fifty six and also presided over
14:27
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction of Tony Ipanovitch and god knows how
14:31
Speaker 1: many others. But the trial prosecutor was Dominic del Baso.
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Speaker 1: So what did he present?
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Speaker 4: Basically, what we had is the three guys lived in
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Speaker 4: the neighborhood were young black men, no physical evidence, no
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Speaker 4: evidence other than that this twelve year old boy testified
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Speaker 4: and the jury believed him.
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Speaker 1: It's really madness when you think about they were relying
14:56
Speaker 1: on obvious lives. I mean, the kid contradicted himself. Vernon
15:01
Speaker 1: originally told police he was on the bus coming home
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Speaker 1: from school when he saw the attack. Then later on
15:05
Speaker 1: he testified that he had actually gotten off the bus
15:08
Speaker 1: already when he saw the attack. That's pretty hard to
15:11
Speaker 1: have both of those things be true. And then there
15:13
Speaker 1: was a sixteen year old neighborhood girl parents myth. She
15:16
Speaker 1: testified that she walked into the store just before the
15:19
Speaker 1: attack and saw two men, not boys, two men outside
15:22
Speaker 1: the store, and she went on to say that neither
15:26
Speaker 1: of the two men were any of you three guys.
15:29
Speaker 1: They were not Jackson, they were not the Bridgeman brothers. Also,
15:33
Speaker 1: several of Eddie Vernon's classmates testified that he was on
15:35
Speaker 1: the bus with them when they heard the gunshots, and
15:39
Speaker 1: that none of them were able to see the robbers.
15:41
Speaker 1: And the defense also presented witnesses who said that you
15:44
Speaker 1: Klaume were elsewhere at the time to crime with your
15:47
Speaker 1: brother and another friend, were wrapping up a basketball game.
15:50
Speaker 1: And then there was Anne Robinson back to her, so
15:53
Speaker 1: she testified she was shot in the neck by a
15:56
Speaker 1: bullet that went through the store's front door, but she
15:59
Speaker 1: was unable to entify the robbers even though she saw them,
16:01
Speaker 1: and even though she knew you guys.
16:03
Speaker 3: Well, she said, I know them boys backwards forwards running
16:08
Speaker 3: away because they would come and work for me and
16:10
Speaker 3: my husband in the store. She said, believe you me,
16:13
Speaker 3: I wanted to get the person responsible for killing mister
16:17
Speaker 3: Franks and shooting me in my neck. But it wasn't now,
16:20
Speaker 3: you know, And that that says a whole lot, because
16:22
Speaker 3: she could have been on that train, you know. Ultimately
16:25
Speaker 3: her husband started paying it to the Edward Vernon thing.
16:29
Speaker 3: But missus Robinson, the wife, heals fast to the fact
16:32
Speaker 3: that now and kids didn't do that.
16:34
Speaker 4: But it was the testimony of Eddie Vernon which carried
16:38
Speaker 4: the day. The jury obviously thought, well, why would this
16:42
Speaker 4: kid make it up? You know, And so that was
16:46
Speaker 4: the ticket to death row.
16:48
Speaker 3: So he would perfetuate this story not three but four
16:52
Speaker 3: times because Wiley my brother got a retrial and went
16:55
Speaker 3: back and they sunk him again and put him in
16:58
Speaker 3: the exact same sale death row that they had originally
17:02
Speaker 3: put him in.
17:02
Speaker 1: So now we go to September twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five,
17:06
Speaker 1: fatal day. Did you hold out any hope at this
17:09
Speaker 1: point you had seen a lot already, but did you
17:11
Speaker 1: have any did you think that they would still see
17:13
Speaker 1: through all of this nonsense.
17:14
Speaker 3: I gave up the ghosts. When the judge himself, he
17:18
Speaker 3: was instructing the jury. Now listen, because Edward burning up
17:23
Speaker 3: know how to spell certain words and can't differentiate east
17:28
Speaker 3: from west doesn't mean he's a liar. Doesn't mean that
17:32
Speaker 3: when he says that him and he pointed to me,
17:35
Speaker 3: is guilty, you see. So in my mind, he had
17:40
Speaker 3: already convinced that jury that I was fucking guilty, you know.
17:46
Speaker 3: So when they came in, now I'm looked up. They
17:48
Speaker 3: all looked down, you know. The women was holding their
17:51
Speaker 3: little skirt tails and you know how to do. And
17:55
Speaker 3: I say, okay, here we go, you know yeah, And
17:59
Speaker 3: when I came back to the reality of what was
18:02
Speaker 3: happening to me, I heard him say, until you are dead.
18:06
Speaker 3: That's all I fucking heard until you I did.
18:21
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19:30
Speaker 3: So that morning, you know, the ride as they call it,
19:33
Speaker 3: they came in and got me and they give me
19:36
Speaker 3: a one nine fifty three, something that is embreded in me.
19:40
Speaker 3: I'll never forget. Once I actually got to death role,
19:45
Speaker 3: it became one sale all day, every day. They stripped me,
19:49
Speaker 3: oh man, storry, calling me girl, little sweetie, and all that,
19:53
Speaker 3: making me bend over and spreading my butt cheeks. All
19:55
Speaker 3: that stuff I never you know, know nothing about. But
20:00
Speaker 3: here's one that I'll never forget either. Jason, Before we
20:03
Speaker 3: go to my cell. We go to the end of
20:05
Speaker 3: the rings and I got introduced IACSI saw the chair
20:11
Speaker 3: this shot. They gonna be waiting on you. Boy, she
20:14
Speaker 3: gonna rade you good well.
20:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, the idea that your mom lost
20:20
Speaker 1: two of her babies that were kidnapped by the police
20:25
Speaker 1: and then planned to be executed by the state is
20:28
Speaker 1: as a type of pain that I don't think anybody
20:31
Speaker 1: who's not experienced they could ever even begin to imagine,
20:34
Speaker 1: and that that is just a tragedy on the tragedy.
20:37
Speaker 1: But and here you were on death row down the
20:39
Speaker 1: hall from your own brother, like you could. Were you
20:42
Speaker 1: guys able to see each other or just hear each
20:45
Speaker 1: other or how did that even work?
20:47
Speaker 3: You know, everybody's hollering, screaming, so we could do that.
20:50
Speaker 3: We passed notes and this that, but one hour out
20:53
Speaker 3: of the twenty four hours that we weren't in the sale,
20:57
Speaker 3: and that hour, of course you got to go take
20:59
Speaker 3: a shot and walk them down the range and you know,
21:02
Speaker 3: pass messages for guys. So we got, you know, that
21:05
Speaker 3: little time to see each other in passing on the
21:07
Speaker 3: rains like that as well as.
21:09
Speaker 1: Ricky and luckily, miraculously for you, Wiley, Ricky, and all
21:14
Speaker 1: the other guys on Ohio death throughout. A critically important
21:18
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight Supreme Court decision came along.
21:21
Speaker 3: Right, So, this was that famous Sondra Lockett case where
21:26
Speaker 3: she filed against the constitutionality of how everyone was sentenced
21:30
Speaker 3: that particular time, that if you got premeditated murder, you
21:33
Speaker 3: got sentenced to die. Every judge across the state was
21:37
Speaker 3: using the same application she filed, and she won, and
21:41
Speaker 3: that released everyone that had been previously sentenced to die.
21:45
Speaker 1: Right. This case challenged what factors could be considered by
21:48
Speaker 1: the judge of jury when weighing whether or not to
21:51
Speaker 1: impose the death penalty, and so what they found unconstitutional
21:55
Speaker 1: In Layman's terms, the state had the ability to list
21:59
Speaker 1: unl un limited reasons why the death penalty should be
22:03
Speaker 1: applied in your case, but there was a very small
22:07
Speaker 1: number of mitigating factors that were allowed to be presented
22:10
Speaker 1: by the defense.
22:11
Speaker 4: The US Supreme Court struck down the Ohio death penalty
22:16
Speaker 4: law as they did in other jurisdictions, and then there
22:20
Speaker 4: was a wave of new death penalty statues that came
22:24
Speaker 4: in where there was more attention to how a jury
22:28
Speaker 4: would consider the aggravated circumstances versus mitigating factors. So they
22:33
Speaker 4: got off of death row and went into general population.
22:36
Speaker 1: Right, So each of you were re sentenced to life
22:40
Speaker 1: sentences with the possibility for parole.
22:42
Speaker 3: That happened in August of seventy eight. But yeah, there
22:46
Speaker 3: was an exception there. An exception was my brother, because
22:49
Speaker 3: this was the time that he had went back for
22:51
Speaker 3: the new trial.
22:52
Speaker 1: Right, your brother was granted a new trial, reconvicted and
22:55
Speaker 1: sent back to death row, only to await the paperwork
22:58
Speaker 1: that would see him into general population with the same
23:01
Speaker 1: sentence as the rest of you a year or so later.
23:04
Speaker 1: And Edward Vernon, fifteen years old at the time, had
23:08
Speaker 1: testified for a fourth time at that new trial. But
23:10
Speaker 1: I understand that his resolve began to waver after that,
23:14
Speaker 1: as it had at the lineup before they threatened to
23:17
Speaker 1: put his sick mother in prison.
23:19
Speaker 3: As time went on, he would go and try to
23:22
Speaker 3: recanish stirring, always to the same cops, always to the
23:26
Speaker 3: same two cops that had him hooked up in that
23:29
Speaker 3: interrogation room in the first place.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was detectives Eugene Terpe and James Farmer.
23:35
Speaker 3: And of course, they would pat him on his back
23:37
Speaker 3: and soothe it over. And long came his life where
23:40
Speaker 3: he started getting into trouble and did a prison sentence itself.
23:44
Speaker 3: And I would imagine that's long about the time that
23:46
Speaker 3: he stopped, you know, trying to be helpful in the
23:49
Speaker 3: sense of, you know, telling the.
23:50
Speaker 1: Truth, which unfortunately kept that truth hidden for far too long.
23:54
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, you were all in general population
23:58
Speaker 1: now and eventually eligible for parole, so you built a
24:02
Speaker 1: solid record inside.
24:03
Speaker 3: I was very active in sports. I can really box.
24:06
Speaker 3: But one of the things that I did in Lucasville
24:08
Speaker 3: more than anything, was barber But I got out of Lucasville.
24:12
Speaker 3: I went to Lima Correction Institution in nineteen eighty four
24:15
Speaker 3: because Lima had transitioned from being the state hospital, so
24:21
Speaker 3: so half of the joint was still medicated. It was nothing. Therefore,
24:25
Speaker 3: it was no recreation. Most of all, it was no school.
24:29
Speaker 3: And so that's where I excelled. Had a few call hosts,
24:33
Speaker 3: its about nine of us actually, and we took that
24:36
Speaker 3: proposition to the administration, and the guy, his name is
24:39
Speaker 3: David Nell, demand that would become the principal of school,
24:42
Speaker 3: and that we opened the school, and I became administrative
24:45
Speaker 3: clerk and I did that until I was actually parolled
24:49
Speaker 3: from Richland Correction Institution in two thousand and three, which
24:53
Speaker 3: is very hard to do for somebody to come from
24:56
Speaker 3: death row doing a life sentence and then go through
24:59
Speaker 3: the just a mere fact that I arbitrated education in
25:04
Speaker 3: that school to so many men, thousands of men got
25:08
Speaker 3: at least at least a ged while I was running
25:11
Speaker 3: because I wouldn't let him not get it. But now,
25:14
Speaker 3: mind you, I had got a five year and then
25:15
Speaker 3: at ten year continuance, so it an't like I just
25:18
Speaker 3: walked to it. I was doing time, but I was
25:21
Speaker 3: also doing something constructive and that was educational.
25:25
Speaker 1: So even though this was parole and not exoneration, tell
25:29
Speaker 1: us about your newfound freedom in two thousand and three.
25:33
Speaker 3: Oh great, The very first day was like I was
25:37
Speaker 3: floating to make it even sweeter. You know. Months later
25:40
Speaker 3: I would meet the greatest thing that ever happened to me,
25:43
Speaker 3: which was my wife, Lashan Ajamul, you know, and I
25:46
Speaker 3: married her a year after I got out of prison.
25:48
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Now that you were out, you were on
25:50
Speaker 1: a mission to clear all of your names in free
25:53
Speaker 1: Wiley and Ricky from prison, and Wiley had actually been
25:56
Speaker 1: paroled the year before, but was soon sent back because
26:00
Speaker 1: of none other than Eddie Vernon.
26:02
Speaker 4: Wiley was at the City Mission while he was on
26:05
Speaker 4: parole and runs into Eddie, who was working there as
26:09
Speaker 4: a I guess a security guard. They exchanged some words,
26:13
Speaker 4: no threats or anything like that. He says, man, why
26:16
Speaker 4: don't you do something about it, you know, go to
26:18
Speaker 4: the authorities. And he says, ah, you know, I'm afraid
26:22
Speaker 4: they're going to prosecute me for perjury and all this
26:25
Speaker 4: stuff is Somehow that conversation got to the parole board
26:30
Speaker 4: and they looked at it as a guy on parole
26:34
Speaker 4: intimidating a witness from his crime, so they flopped him
26:38
Speaker 4: and sent him back until twenty fourteen when he was
26:42
Speaker 4: exonerated Jesus Christ.
26:44
Speaker 1: So Eddie Vernon held on to his guilty secret for
26:48
Speaker 1: another eleven or twelve long years, right, and by now
26:52
Speaker 1: he reached out to Terry for help.
26:54
Speaker 3: I remember this talk. He said, we need to some
26:57
Speaker 3: kind of way put more light on the subject, you know,
27:00
Speaker 3: And he told me about this kid, twenty four year
27:03
Speaker 3: old kid named Kyle Swinson who wrote for the Cleveland
27:06
Speaker 3: Scene magazine. So when I met with this kid, I
27:09
Speaker 3: came back to tell my wife like, well, damn, I've
27:12
Speaker 3: been in jail on this cat been alive. But man, listen,
27:15
Speaker 3: Kyle went into that neighborhood, and to this day, I
27:19
Speaker 3: don't know how he retrieved the information that he did,
27:23
Speaker 3: but he came back to me talking about things that
27:26
Speaker 3: I'd never heard of, you know, like, for instance, the
27:29
Speaker 3: situation with Edward and his mother, and just on and
27:32
Speaker 3: on and on, you know. And so when about time
27:35
Speaker 3: we circle back around to Terry. You ever see the
27:38
Speaker 3: picture of the snowball coming down that hill, it just
27:41
Speaker 3: started getting bigger. And the next thing I know, my
27:44
Speaker 3: wife worked at a spot over here in the West Side,
27:47
Speaker 3: and one of the ladies worked there with her went
27:50
Speaker 3: to the same church with atwar Vernon, and so she
27:53
Speaker 3: told my wife, and my wife told me, and I
27:55
Speaker 3: reached out to the pastor. So he did what I
27:58
Speaker 3: guess anybody would do. Well, let me take into this
28:01
Speaker 3: and I'll get back to you, you know, And so
28:03
Speaker 3: I tell cow Man, no go, you know, So Kyle
28:06
Speaker 3: get on him. So now this is two people calling him,
28:08
Speaker 3: and this is making him like wow. In the meantime,
28:12
Speaker 3: edw Vernon had a nervous breakdown. He's in the hospital
28:17
Speaker 3: and so it's fast it goes to see him.
28:19
Speaker 4: I remember this scene at the hospital with the pastor
28:23
Speaker 4: and he said to Eddie, is there something that you
28:27
Speaker 4: want to tell me?
28:28
Speaker 2: You're in the hospital.
28:29
Speaker 4: You know, obviously we hope everything works out, but is
28:32
Speaker 4: there something on your mind?
28:33
Speaker 2: You want to get off your chest?
28:35
Speaker 4: And he then breaks down sobbing and basically admits that
28:40
Speaker 4: he had lied in the trial and he put three
28:45
Speaker 4: innocent men in prison. And you know, the Innocence Project
28:49
Speaker 4: was representing Ricky Jackson. They sent over somebody to get
28:54
Speaker 4: an affi David, which was the foundation for the motion
28:58
Speaker 4: for a new trial, which then took place in November
29:02
Speaker 4: of twenty fourteen. At the hearing before Judge mcmonagall, Eddie
29:08
Speaker 4: took the stand and was an incredible witness. The prosecutors
29:12
Speaker 4: tried to impeach him, cross examined him, and he deflected
29:16
Speaker 4: any challenge and there was a break in the hearing
29:20
Speaker 4: and the prosecutors came in and they said, Judge, we
29:25
Speaker 4: concede that he should get a new trial. And then
29:29
Speaker 4: in the same hearing they said they're dismissing the murdered indictments, right.
29:34
Speaker 1: I understand that the prosecutor in twenty fourteen, Timothy McGuinty,
29:38
Speaker 1: was not an unreasonable man.
29:39
Speaker 4: That was a different prosecutor than we have now. Now
29:43
Speaker 4: we have a prosecutor doesn't believe in wrongful incarceration. He
29:47
Speaker 4: doesn't believe that people should get compensation. But the one
29:51
Speaker 4: that we had back in twenty fourteen saw that there
29:55
Speaker 4: was no evidence that.
29:56
Speaker 2: They were the perpetrators.
29:58
Speaker 3: So Ricky actually called me that day that he got exonerate,
30:01
Speaker 3: the very moment my wife breaks that went bad on
30:04
Speaker 3: the truck. It's a friend of mine and I was
30:06
Speaker 3: changing the brakes and I'm up under the car and
30:10
Speaker 3: my phone rang, so, you know, put it on speaker
30:12
Speaker 3: and you have a collect call, you know. That's what
30:15
Speaker 3: they said. It's Ricky. So, so what's going on? Brother?
30:18
Speaker 2: You know?
30:19
Speaker 3: And he's almost incoherent, you know, because so he's so ecstatic,
30:23
Speaker 3: you know, And I said what he said? I said,
30:26
Speaker 3: I'm free.
30:27
Speaker 2: It's all over.
30:29
Speaker 3: You know, you break down and start crying. I said,
30:32
Speaker 3: what the fuck you say?
30:33
Speaker 2: You know?
30:34
Speaker 3: He said, man, it's all over, God damn you heav
30:38
Speaker 3: me you know, and uh Man almost dock the damn
30:42
Speaker 3: car down.
30:54
Speaker 2: Ricky was on a Wednesday.
30:56
Speaker 4: We didn't want Wiley to spend even one day more
30:58
Speaker 4: than he had to, and we were able to get
31:00
Speaker 4: before the judge on Friday, and Wiley was exonerated. And
31:06
Speaker 4: I'll never forget when Wiley comes out of the jail
31:09
Speaker 4: doors into the lobby. These two guys, the moment that
31:13
Speaker 4: they hugged was one of the most emotional and ratifying
31:19
Speaker 4: moments of my life as a lawyer.
31:22
Speaker 1: I'm sure that moment is etched in your mind and
31:25
Speaker 1: your soul as well.
31:27
Speaker 3: Without a doubt.
31:28
Speaker 4: And so Ricky was exonerated, then two days Wiley, and
31:32
Speaker 4: then a month later we were able to get Klombe exonerated.
31:37
Speaker 3: But thinking about both my brother Wyley and Ricky Jackson
31:42
Speaker 3: haven't spent thirty nine years. These guys had lost so
31:46
Speaker 3: much time. When I got out of prison again parole,
31:50
Speaker 3: I had an eleven year run, no matter how fucked
31:54
Speaker 3: up it was, I still had an eleven year life
31:58
Speaker 3: without them, And to this day I feel kind of
32:02
Speaker 3: bad about that. You know, had I had a wife
32:06
Speaker 3: went through seven cars, right, so as a man, as
32:09
Speaker 3: a human being, as a person. I wasn't able to
32:11
Speaker 3: make that equal, and I always feel something there, you know.
32:16
Speaker 1: Kind of like a survivor's guilt, right. And so even
32:20
Speaker 1: though no amount of money could ever replace what you
32:23
Speaker 1: all lost, you were all at least finally eligible for
32:25
Speaker 1: state compensation. You also won your civil suits against the
32:28
Speaker 1: city and the estates of the detectives. But then life
32:31
Speaker 1: took a dire turn again. Your brother Wiley had lung cancer,
32:34
Speaker 1: and if that wasn't enough, another tragedy struck.
32:38
Speaker 3: He had accident, had an auto accident, and it called
32:41
Speaker 3: someone's life. He was already in bad shape in and
32:44
Speaker 3: out of the hospital. He actually had an oxygen tank
32:47
Speaker 3: in the car with him prior to his death. He
32:49
Speaker 3: would like have caughing spells and pass out. And so
32:53
Speaker 3: I believe that that's what happened to him on the
32:55
Speaker 3: night and questioned. He was driving his car late at night,
32:58
Speaker 3: rode by a construction site, end up hitting two guys,
33:01
Speaker 3: and rolled for another four miles before you a car
33:04
Speaker 3: come to a stop. One of the guys that he
33:07
Speaker 3: hit passed away. Oh god. And the very next year
33:10
Speaker 3: he was gone, Wow.
33:12
Speaker 1: That's so much, It's just too much, and I'm so sorry,
33:15
Speaker 1: and our condolences of course to the family of that
33:18
Speaker 1: construction worker as well. So I guess if there's a
33:21
Speaker 1: silver lining to this story, it's that you two were
33:24
Speaker 1: there for each other in prison and did have a
33:26
Speaker 1: number of years of freedom together before his passing. And
33:29
Speaker 1: during that time, all three of you guys, as well
33:31
Speaker 1: as your wife, Lashawn, have been quite active in a
33:34
Speaker 1: movement that is near and dear to my heart, which
33:36
Speaker 1: is death penalty abolition.
33:38
Speaker 3: My wife is a member of the OSSI, which is
33:41
Speaker 3: Ohio Wants to Stop Executions nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight.
33:46
Speaker 3: I think it was her brother was murdered, and so
33:49
Speaker 3: she is also a family Victim's member. She do a
33:52
Speaker 3: lot of advocating for the people having family members being
33:55
Speaker 3: murdered and how the system leaves them. And I am
33:59
Speaker 3: very active with their organization OSSI, as there is with
34:02
Speaker 3: my organization, Witness to Innocence. I'm the chairman of Witness
34:06
Speaker 3: to Innocence. All of our board, with the exception of
34:08
Speaker 3: the two volunteers, are death Road exaneries and we have
34:13
Speaker 3: been key in the twenty one states that have about
34:16
Speaker 3: us still stop using capital punishment in the United States
34:21
Speaker 3: and then there's also what we're doing here to stop
34:24
Speaker 3: the capital punishment in the state of Ohio.
34:26
Speaker 1: Let me just read you something here from the Death
34:28
Speaker 1: Penalty Information Center. This is a quote. In February twenty
34:31
Speaker 1: twenty one, a special report the Innocence Epidemic found that
34:34
Speaker 1: Kyahoga ranked second among US counties, tied with Philadelphia. We
34:38
Speaker 1: know how bad that is. That's me talking now. But
34:40
Speaker 1: back to the quote. For the most exonerations of death
34:43
Speaker 1: row prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted, all of those
34:46
Speaker 1: wrongful convictions involved police or prosecutorial misconduct or both. Brian
34:50
Speaker 1: Stevenson estimates at about ten percent of people on death
34:53
Speaker 1: thrower in acent and of course most of those people
34:55
Speaker 1: end up being executed. So it's fair to say that
34:57
Speaker 1: we execute innocent people in this country one out of
35:00
Speaker 1: every ten. Now I think it's higher. So my question
35:03
Speaker 1: is for anyone who still believes in the death penalty,
35:06
Speaker 1: are you okay with executing innocent people? That's what I'm
35:09
Speaker 1: going to leave our audience with is I continue to
35:11
Speaker 1: hope that Ohio soon joins the states who have seen
35:15
Speaker 1: the wrong of having the option of capital punishment. So
35:18
Speaker 1: that said, we're going to be linking in the bio
35:20
Speaker 1: to the organizations that you mentioned, Ohions to Stop Executions
35:23
Speaker 1: or Atziotse and of course Witness to Innocence. Another thing
35:27
Speaker 1: I want to shout out for listeners is Ricky's movie.
35:29
Speaker 1: This is a mind blowing piece of film. It's called
35:33
Speaker 1: Lovely Jackson. I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.
35:36
Speaker 1: So we're going to have that linked in the bio
35:38
Speaker 1: as well. And one last thing, Terry, I understand you
35:40
Speaker 1: wrote a book.
35:41
Speaker 4: The name of the book is Trying to Trying Times,
35:46
Speaker 4: a lawyer's fifty years struggle fighting for.
35:48
Speaker 2: Rights in a world of wrongs.
35:51
Speaker 4: It goes back to the late sixties, early seventies up
35:55
Speaker 4: until twenty twenty one. It's really about inspir wh wereing
36:00
Speaker 4: younger activists and lawyers to take up the fight for
36:05
Speaker 4: people's rights.
36:06
Speaker 1: Well, I'll be linking that in the bio as well
36:08
Speaker 1: and grabbing a copy myself. So now we've come to
36:11
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the show. Of course, it's called
36:13
Speaker 1: closing arguments, and this works very simply. First of all,
36:17
Speaker 1: I'm going to thank you guys Terry Gilbert and Kwameajamu
36:20
Speaker 1: for being here and courageously sharing your story. So here's
36:24
Speaker 1: how it works. I'm going to turn my microphone off
36:27
Speaker 1: for closing arguments, kick back in my chair, and just
36:30
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you guys want to share with
36:33
Speaker 1: me and our incredible audience. Terry, let's start with you,
36:36
Speaker 1: and then Kwame, I'll take us off into the sunset.
36:39
Speaker 4: The movement has grown against wrongful imprisonment. It's important for
36:45
Speaker 4: people to be aware that the system is flawed, that
36:49
Speaker 4: trials are not the end of justice, that things go wrong,
36:53
Speaker 4: and people need to understand the nature of the criminal
36:56
Speaker 4: system and fight for what is a better avenue to
37:02
Speaker 4: achieve justice.
37:03
Speaker 2: Also, I just.
37:04
Speaker 4: Want to make a note that I don't even know
37:06
Speaker 4: if kwameans this. I mean, this is the first public
37:10
Speaker 4: mention of it. But we are starting a wrongful conviction
37:15
Speaker 4: clinic at Cleveland State University Law School in the fall.
37:20
Speaker 4: The Ohio Innocence Project has done a great job and
37:23
Speaker 4: they're located in Cincinnati, and we need one in our community.
37:27
Speaker 3: I just want to say that with Terry Gilbert, the
37:30
Speaker 3: Innocence Project, and all of the many women who stand
37:34
Speaker 3: in force to protect those who are down trodden and
37:37
Speaker 3: who have been subjugated and arbitrarily and capriciously put in
37:41
Speaker 3: prison for absolutely no reason. I am one who will
37:45
Speaker 3: stand in every corner that the fight is going on,
37:48
Speaker 3: a gang's capital punishment, wrong for incarceration and the cohots
37:52
Speaker 3: which institute that policy. So I say to you, my brother,
37:57
Speaker 3: thank you so much, thank you for having us today,
38:00
Speaker 3: and I want to remind the country that we are
38:01
Speaker 3: survivors and that just like Terry Gilbert, I will be
38:05
Speaker 3: here tomorrow to Mark's.
38:14
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I want to
38:17
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor hall Any, Chelsea, Lyla Robinson,
38:21
Speaker 1: Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Warns. The music in this production
38:25
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
38:28
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
38:32
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
38:36
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
38:39
Speaker 1: all three platforms, you can also follow me on Instagram
38:42
Speaker 1: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
38:46
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
38:49
Speaker 1: one