Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #057 Jason Flom with Andre Hatchett

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#057 Jason Flom with Andre Hatchett · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: America has two point two million people in prison. If
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: just one percent is wrong, that's twenty two thousand people.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of people's lives destroyed.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: If the system want to take you out of society,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: they will do it no matter what laws they have
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: to break, saying that they are enforcing the laws, but
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: they're breaking the lord.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Having to hear those people say that I was guilty
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of a crime that I did not commit, and then
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: hear my family break down behind me and not be
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: able to do anything about it. I can't describe the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: crushing weight that was.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of times we look and we see something
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: happen to somebody, and that's the first thing we said,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: that could never happen to me, but.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: They can.
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: Jason Flamm today. I'm very excited to have an amazing
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: group of guests, and I'm going to save our star
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: for the last introduction, But first of all, I want
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: to introduce Sema Safey, who is an attorney with the
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: Innocence Project in New York. Sema, welcome to the show.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me Jason.
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: And today we have a first on wrongful conviction. We
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: have the brother of the exonery here to help tell
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: the story and to keep an eye on his little
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: brother as well. Right, so, Jerry Hatchett, welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me here.
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: And like I said, the best for last. So the
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: star of our show is Andre Hatchett, who served twenty
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: five years in prison, not including a year in jail
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: waiting for trial for a crime he did not commit.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: When you hear Andre, Sikiel noticed that his voice is
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: very low, and that's because of the fact that he
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: had been shot in the neck prior to even having
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: any of this stuff happen in the first place.
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: Andre Hatchett enjoying his first real taste of freedom after
• 2:13
  Speaker 6: more than two decades in prison. A judge overturned his
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: nineteen ninety two murder conviction and the beating death of
• 2:18
  Speaker 6: a woman whose body was found in a Bedford Stuyvesant park.
• 2:21
  Speaker 6: The only evidence in the case the eyewitness testimony of
• 2:24
  Speaker 6: a man who first told police someone else killed the victim,
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: and who fingered hatchet when comps found out that first
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: suspect was in jail at the time of the killing
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: and couldn't have done it. The Brooklyn District Attorney's Conviction
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: Integrity Unit cooperating with lawyers from the Innocence Project, who
• 2:39
  Speaker 6: say Hatchett was also recovering from gunshot wounds at the
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: time and was physically unable to carry out the murder.
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: Attorney Barry Scheck says Hatche's case shows that pending legislation
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: on witness questioning should be passed. Hatchett was twenty four
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: years old when this all started. He turns fifty in May. Now,
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: Hatchett is surrounded by relatives who say they never lost
• 2:59
  Speaker 6: faith even as he became a victim of the system.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: Andre, Welcome to Wrong for Conviction. Thank you, Andre. Let's
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: go back. This was early nineties we're talking about, but
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: even before that, Where did you grow up? How did
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: you grow up? How was your family life? Tell me
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: a little back.
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: All right, First, we came from down South. We moved
• 3:19
  Speaker 7: in Wrong Island, fergust in early seventy five, me and
• 3:23
  Speaker 7: my mother and my three brothers and my stepfather.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: So you moved up here when you were a kid.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Basically I was young. I was young.
• 3:32
  Speaker 7: My mother used to work in the buiicycle shop. I'm
• 3:35
  Speaker 7: talking about my mother. First, I missed because she passed
• 3:37
  Speaker 7: away while I was in jail. I missed.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: I got ps PETE TSD.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I got that right now.
• 3:43
  Speaker 7: And so so we grew up and my mother used
• 3:46
  Speaker 7: to we should make money trying to help my mother.
• 3:48
  Speaker 7: Cause my mother used to she was single parents because
• 3:51
  Speaker 7: she came up here, bringing us up here. So she
• 3:54
  Speaker 7: always tell us, you ever get in trouble, son, you
• 3:57
  Speaker 7: and you know I don't go to jail. I don't
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: the job. She got clothes folks, she don't have no money,
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: and she for five for us. You know, don't do that.
• 4:06
  Speaker 7: So I never did nothing get in trouble. I used
• 4:08
  Speaker 7: to listen to my mother. You know, I always been
• 4:11
  Speaker 7: slow education. You know I can't read to right. That
• 4:14
  Speaker 7: guy still abong working.
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: On the tree. So growing up, I mean, it sounds
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: like you had a pretty happy child that obviously you
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: had some some learning disabilities I still do right, and
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: some difficulties, but the fact is you were doing okay.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Things were all right. You have your family and your brother.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: And then we moved to Brooklyn.
• 4:31
  Speaker 7: As I got big, we used to pack bag at
• 4:33
  Speaker 7: key food shovel snow anything to help my mother.
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: So you've grown up, you're getting along making.
• 4:39
  Speaker 7: I used to pack bags at Key Food. As I
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: got bigger, I went to the ice company. I was
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: so strong, right, I was so strong that ice. They
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: used to call me animal there.
• 4:49
  Speaker 8: You remember these times, Yeah, we we was kids like
• 4:52
  Speaker 8: summer jobs. We would go there and help at the
• 4:54
  Speaker 8: ice company because my stepfather drove the truck for the
• 4:58
  Speaker 8: ice company. So we used to go there in the
• 5:00
  Speaker 8: summertime and help out around there and work with them,
• 5:04
  Speaker 8: you know, work on the truck and helping everything. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 8: I left, but Andre stayed around because I moved to
• 5:11
  Speaker 8: Long Island and we got a real job, you know.
• 5:15
  Speaker 8: But he stayed on the ice cruck working with my
• 5:17
  Speaker 8: stepfathering him.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: So before this crime ever even happened, you were a
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: victim of a terrible crime yourself.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: I got shot. I don't know who something today with
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: the brother I was going through the store. I don't
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: know who something. I got hit in the neck and
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: growing in the leg, in the throat.
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: And that's an important point. And Seema, jump in here
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: for a second, because this is what's so crazy about
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: your case. Right, We're talking about a crime that was
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: committed on February eighteenth, nineteen ninety one. The victim was
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: a woman named Meta make Carter. And it is really
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: a gruesome crime. It's like something off of a True
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: Detective or one of those shows on TV. And you know,
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: if you can jump in and tell us a little
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: bit about the crime and why it's so preposterous that
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: anyone could have ever identified or prosecuted or convicted Andrea
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: of a crime that it is physically impossible. Forget the
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: fact that the alby witnesses and everything else, but it
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: was also physically impossible that he would have committed this crime.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: So the victim was, like you said, a thirty eight
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: year old woman. Her body was found in a park
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: in Brooklyn, and it was eleven o'clock at night. It
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: was a drizzly, rainy scene, and it was this is
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: going to be pretty graphic. But her body was found,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: her skull was exposed because of how badly bludgeoned she
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: was in the head. Her teeth were knocked out of
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: her gums. Her body had been dragged across a distance.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Her clothes were found strewn across the park. Her vulva
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: had been ruptured when she was examined at autopsy, and
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: her body was placed in a position that the DA's
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: office ultimately when they exonerated Andrea, described it as sort
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: of like it was deliberately placed in sort of a
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: crucifix style position. And so whoever committed this crime had
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: to inflict a significant amount of force to have done this.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: And there were three metal pipes found in the vicinity
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: of her body which were believed to have been the
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: murder weapon that was used to bludgeon and sodomize her.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: Andrea was in a cast and two crutches on the
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: night of the crime. The victim's own mother testified that
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: he was using crutches on the night of the crime
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: because earlier that night he was with the victim because
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: his aunt lived in the same rooming house as the
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: victim and the victim's mother, so he would visit his
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: aunt almost every day and occasionally he would chat with
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: the victim, watch TV, borrow her mother's records, and so
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: they were acquainted. And so later that night, the victim
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: went out, I think she went to buy some drugs.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: She never came back home. Andre left. He had an
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: alibi for the rest of the night, even when the
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: comps inner viewed him, they let him go because he
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: had a solid alibi. Now, what was chilling is that
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: there was such grave defense counsel incompetence in this case
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: that his first defense counsel was deemed ineffective by that
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: trial judge. And so the trial judge said, you were
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: so incompetent, I'm going to give this man a second
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: trial because he didn't even present his alibi, he didn't
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: cross examine witnesses, he had a hearing impediment, so he
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: gave him a second trial. His second lawyer was someone
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: who was suspended from the practice of law for a
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: period of time in the eighties. Neither lawyer ordered Andre's
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: medical records to show that it would have been physically
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: impossible with his condition to have committed this crime, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: all they needed to do was make that clear to
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: the jury.
• 8:41
  Speaker 9: They never did.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 8:43
  Speaker 8: Going back to his first attorney, me and my mother
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: was in a Supreme court downtown Brooklyn, and like I said,
• 8:50
  Speaker 8: we never been in trouble before, so we didn't know
• 8:52
  Speaker 8: what lawyer to get for no case. Me being the oldest,
• 8:55
  Speaker 8: I'm trying to do anything to help my mother because she.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: High blood pressure help proproblems.
• 9:00
  Speaker 8: So you see a guy in the Supreme Court and
• 9:03
  Speaker 8: he say he's a lawyer. I'm like, how much I
• 9:06
  Speaker 8: paid for his first lawyer, right, mister Panzer. I paid
• 9:10
  Speaker 8: him I think a couple of thousand dollars down to
• 9:13
  Speaker 8: try to help my mother out. We get in court,
• 9:16
  Speaker 8: like he said, the judges just I'm in court me
• 9:19
  Speaker 8: saying he didn't do it. Check his medical records.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I'm telling me.
• 9:23
  Speaker 8: His brother's telling the judge this, check his medical records.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: It isn't impossible.
• 9:27
  Speaker 8: And they didn't even listen to me. They was like, oh,
• 9:30
  Speaker 8: you got to go to the boss association to get
• 9:32
  Speaker 8: your money back. And I told the judge I paid
• 9:34
  Speaker 8: this guy, and the judge like, you paid him.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: He was a legal aid.
• 9:37
  Speaker 8: But I didn't even know that the first lawyer was
• 9:39
  Speaker 8: a legal aid, that he wasn't supposed to charge me.
• 9:41
  Speaker 8: I'm trying to do anything to help my brother and
• 9:44
  Speaker 8: my mother, you know, out, So I didn't know.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: Let me go back a minute, So when were you shot?
• 9:50
  Speaker 7: Hundred I was shot at nineteen ninety it was going
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: into the wintertime.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: So you were shot not long before this terrible crime happened.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: And this crime is as terrible as it gets.
• 10:02
  Speaker 8: And when he was shot, he got shot in his
• 10:05
  Speaker 8: leg and he had to take a bone out of
• 10:07
  Speaker 8: his hip and put in his leg, and he had
• 10:10
  Speaker 8: screws in his.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Leg timrod like a table.
• 10:13
  Speaker 8: So when the cops questioned him, he actually had to
• 10:16
  Speaker 8: cast on his leg.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: What was the circumstances? Where were you going? It just
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: came out of nowhere.
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: I was going to the store, just going to the store,
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: passer like a block and they just start shooting somebody,
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: dogs got killed, all the people got shot.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know who shot me back to the day.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: And that's one of the things with this case that
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: troubled me so much from the first time I became
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: aware of it, is the idea that it's unusual that
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: you have a case that's seemingly so totally open and
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: shot that literally a sixth grader could have represented you
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: and said, your honor, this can't be. This is not possible. Right,
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: You cannot drag somebody as his body was dragged. You
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: could not have committed this crime in any of the
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: things that were said. As we'll find out later, the
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: whole system failed you. So you were shot, and then
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: how did they end up even coming to the idea
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: that maybe you could have been the one that did this.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: She lived in my aunt building. She lived in my
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: aunt building because I go there because my aunt lived there.
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: She passed away to my aunt named Angie Angie Atchie.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, this is my head is spinning every time
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: I think I've heard it all, I hear a story
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: like Andrea's and I'm like, okay, this is just I mean,
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: as you described that crime, and it's as gruesome of
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: a crime as there could be. And the idea that
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: they would willfully prosecute somebody who they knew were innocent
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: because anybody would have known he was innocent, and leave
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: that guy who's a true monster on the streets to
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: potentially do this type of thing to another innocent person.
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: I mean, what am I missing here? This is insane.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: So Andre and the victim were acquaintances. As Andre mentioned,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: she lived in the same rooming house as Andrea's aunt.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: When Andre would visit his aunt, he would sometimes talk
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: to or watch TV with the victim, and he was
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: with the victim earlier in the evening that night, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: the victim asked Andre to borrow a couple dollars, so
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: he gave her three dollars. She went, she bought some drugs.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: She came back smoked in the house. She borrowed a
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: few more dollars, left again, never came back.
• 12:27
  Speaker 9: Andre didn't see her.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Andre waited for her with her mother, and then after
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: about half an hour, Andre left again. And then he
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: had gone home, spent some time with his cousin, watched
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: some TV. He remembered the TV show he watched, went
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: to bed, and then her body was found later that night. Now,
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: the mother was interviewed by police. She said, the last
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: person I saw my daughter with was Andre Hatchett. Police
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: interviewed him the next day. He had a solid, detailed alibi.
• 12:54
  Speaker 9: They let him go.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: Eight days later, a man named Jerry Williams gets arrested
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: for an unrelated burglary. Now, Jerry Williams is in the
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: bullpen at the precinct and he tells cops, hey, I
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: have some information about that high profile murder that took
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: place in the park in Brooklyn, and he described the person.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: He said, I knew him from the neighborhood. I knew
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: him from soup kitchens. Now, Andrea had never been to
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: a soup kitchen because he was on SSI he didn't
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: need to go to soup kitchens. And then he starts
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: describing the person. He says, I saw this crime from
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: a distance of forty feet. It was a rainy night.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: He said, I heard someone make a deep scream. I
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: was with my friend named Popeye. So he said, then
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Popeye yells out, are you okay? Because they see a
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: shadow of someone with something in his hand, swinging his
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: arm on the ground to a body on the ground,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: and so Popeye screams out, are you okay? And they
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: said that a man screamedback, stepped the f off in
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: a very distinctive voice that could be heard from a
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: distance of forty feet. So then this guy, Jerry Williams said,
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: and I think the guy is someone you know.
• 14:01
  Speaker 9: I think he was a suspect. He has crutches.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: So he knew that Andrea had already been cleared by police,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: and he started to describe this person as in a
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: way that was very consistent with Andre, because Andre had crutches.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: So Jerry Williams had a very distinct reason to want
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: to be helpful to the police, right because he was
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: a suspect in a Berkeley had been arrested for a Bergley, right,
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: So he's sitting there going, hey, I got an idea.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: This is a crime everybody's talking about in the neighborhood.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: If I can be helpful to them, they'll be helpful
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: to me. He doesn't care about you, Andre, So he's like, yeah,
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: let me just try to give up some bogus information
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: and tell a story that they're going to want to hear,
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: and then maybe they'll let me go home.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: And what's interesting is right after that description, police go
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: and get Andre to conduct a lineup. Andre voluntarily goes
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: back to the police station. They do a lineup, Jerry
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Williams identifies Andre. Andre wasn't arrested, And what we later
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: found out, which was presented a trial, was that the
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: DA directed the cops not to arrest Andre even though
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: he had just been identified in a lineup, and the
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: document that we retrieved said, according to the DA's office,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: there was insufficient evidence to support an arrest. So clearly
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: there was some concern about this man's reliability. Now, this
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: man was the star witness for the prosecution at trial.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams was a crack addicted drug dealer with thirty
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: prior arrests, that is the only witness. So what happens
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: after this lineup where Andre gets to go home. Jerry Williams,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: who has this burglary arrest, is released the next day
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: and he voluntarily offers to help police find Popeye, this
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: other witness that he claims witness this crime. So, after
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: many efforts, they find Popeye. Popeye comes in, they bring
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: Andre into do a second lineup again. Andre voluntarily comes
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: in and Popeye identifies Andre in the lineup and he
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: is ultimately arrested.
• 16:01
  Speaker 9: Now, what is again not.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Addressed a trial is the fact that Popeye had initially
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: chosen someone else out of the lineup, not Andre. Now,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: Popeye never testifies at Andre's first trial, never testifies at
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: his second trial. The only person who testifies is Jerry Williams.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: Who's the guy who has the motivation to want to
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: lie because he walked out on his thirty first arrest. Yeah, Jerry,
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: you obviously remember this like it was yesterday.
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: Yeah, because they didn't arrest him. He was going back
• 16:29
  Speaker 8: and forth to the precinct. But by the time he
• 16:32
  Speaker 8: did go to trial, they made sure that he didn't
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: have a cash on his leg so in front of jury,
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: like this guy was never shot or never heard anything.
• 16:41
  Speaker 8: And when the guy said he screamed, he got shot
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: in his neck and his voice box. He couldn't even
• 16:46
  Speaker 8: he couldn't even barely talk. So it was impossible for
• 16:49
  Speaker 8: him to scream.
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: It's impossible for him. The scream was impossible for him
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: to commit. The murder, was impossible for to drag the body.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: All of it was impossible.
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: So Fergus the police name. He kept going, I'm gonna
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: give you a lot of tech detests. I'm gonna give
• 17:02
  Speaker 7: you a lot of tech detests. He never gave it
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: to me. He talked about don't skip town. He asked me,
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: don't skip Tom Judge. Study, going back to the precinct study,
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: going back then. He said to one me, look at
• 17:12
  Speaker 7: a muck shop book. Right said, you know him, I'll
• 17:16
  Speaker 7: let you go. But he never did. He never did
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: show me a work. He tried to make me pick
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: somebody of the muck shop but trying to do the
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: same thing to me what they did to him. Cause
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: then they cussed him. Oh, I picked him out of
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: the muck shop book. He said, they'll let me go
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: while I went in and I said, I didn't do thathing,
• 17:31
  Speaker 7: I didn't do nothing.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: So I kept on.
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: Going there, go on there, don't skip time, mister acher.
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: They came, came, got me. Did I come back from
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: from my friend from a walk to my mother house?
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: From Shirley House?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: So the corse ran up on me, locked me up again.
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: He said, you're on the rest. You about to shoot
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: me from in the back, Furgus said, And I said
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: for what for the same case. They let me go,
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: and then they came back and gave me thirty days
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: lady for son n ain't do now.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: One of the main questions at trial was what happened
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: to Jerry Williams's burglary charge exactly? Now. Jerry Williams was,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: by any sane estimate, a clearly unreliable witness. He had
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: thirty prior arrests, He had twenty prior convictions. He went
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: through every single disposition of every prior conviction he had
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: from the seventies up until the day he testified. He
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: remembered the disposition of every single prior arrest except that burglary.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: So the judge asked the assistant district attorney, what happened
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: to that burglary charge, and she claimed that he was
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: arraigned on it and she would check during the recess
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: to figure out what happened to the charge. There was
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: nothing on the record to show that she ever checked,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: and so there was a question as to whether he
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: got a deal in exchange for testifying for the state
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: in this high profile murder, and he testified a trial.
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: He never got a deal.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: What was uncovered by one of our Cardozo law students
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: after the Innocence Project took on Andre's case is that
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: that arrest for that burglary was what's called three forty three.
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: Now we don't really know what three forty three means,
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: but there was some decision made by somebody not to
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: go forward with that arrest. And so when we went
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: to the conviction Review Unit at the Brooklyn DIA's office,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: that was one of the things we wanted them to
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: look up. What they ultimately ended up finding was something
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: very different that was withheld from Andrea's attorney. But that
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: was a very significant loophole or gap at the trial
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: is what happened to that burglary charge. Because this man
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: could not, from a distance of forty feet have seen
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: someone commit this crime. And certainly to claim that he
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: heard Andre, a man that he conceded he never had
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: a conversation with, to claim that he screamed from a
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: distance of forty feet step the f off makes hardly
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: any sense when Andre could barely speak at his own
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: trial because he had just been recently shot in the
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: throat and was recovering from a gunshot wound. And so
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams claimed that he recognized Andre by his voice
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: even though he had never once spoken to him, and
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: that he could hear him scream from a distance of
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: forty feet even though Andre was barely audible at his
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: own trial a year later.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: These are things that you would think you would hear
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: about in a third world country, and this is New
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: York City.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: It is frightening how easy it is to convict an
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: innocent person in the United States.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, it doesn't get much worse than this. So
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: let's go to the trial because this is, first of all,
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: it's so troubling because your entire life is at stake
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: in this trial, and the government's entire case rests on
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: one witness because there is no other evidence, there's no
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: physical evidence connecting you to the crime. Tell me about that.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I love the Sworders, God form my life.
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: I didn't even know he knew how he said he
• 20:51
  Speaker 7: used our lookout, he'd do girls in the Dulstein all that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams is who Andre's talking about. And Jerry Williams
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: even at the he testified that he had all these
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: prior convictions and one of them included throwing a girl
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: in the dumpster.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: This guy, Jerry Williams, is a terrible, terrible character. He's
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: a blight on society, right, I mean, thirty arrests. It's
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: almost comical to think of somebody being arrested that in
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: twenty convictions, and here he was on number thirty one
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: and one of them included throwing a woman in a dumpster.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: And he also claimed to have seen Andre, a man
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: that he admitted he just knew from the neighborhood. But
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: he did not recognize that the woman on the ground
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: was his friend who he had used in five prior
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: burglaries as a lookout. So how is that conceivable?
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Andre, dad, have you seen you will go speak
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: to the police.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: And say asinom yeah, And once.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: You get caught with a burglary and put it on.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: Now, what's weird about this too, is that it would
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: seem like this crime would be solvable, right when you
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: have a crime of this extreme violent nature. This is
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: a crime that's so personal and so vicious that it's
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: not on alow likely that the perpetrator knew the victim,
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: because otherwise who would do something like this? I mean,
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: this is a very rare situation.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: And the question as to who would do something like this,
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: There is a viable claim that Jerry Williams was the
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: real perpetrator. The victim was actually known to exchange sex
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: for drugs that was presented at trial. Jerry Williams was
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: a crack addict and he could be as good for
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: this crime as anyone else.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: And they say he knew people in the dumpster, that
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: would be a tip off. I mean, as an American,
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: as a human being, all I can do is apologize
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: to you, Andre and to your family for what was
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: done to you, because it just defies the imagination how
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: people who we're paying with our tax dollars to do
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: their jobs could fail you so totally on every level,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: and fail society too, because this guy was allowed to
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: remain free to prey on somebody else's sister, mother, daughter, brother,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: what anybody right, Jerry?
• 23:00
  Speaker 8: Yeah, And then I think when they off you fourty seven,
• 23:03
  Speaker 8: they offered me a forty nine year, they offer him
• 23:05
  Speaker 8: a forty nine for a murder case. And I remember
• 23:09
  Speaker 8: my mother in court was like, because he had spent
• 23:12
  Speaker 8: that year, he actually did twenty six years in jail,
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: because he had spent one year on Rackets Island with
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: two trials, and he did twenty five.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Years up north.
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: And I remember my mother was like, orangre, you've been
• 23:23
  Speaker 8: in here almost a year. Just take the four to nine,
• 23:27
  Speaker 8: she said, because I'm not gonna be living in twenty
• 23:29
  Speaker 8: five years when you get home. He looked at my mother,
• 23:31
  Speaker 8: he said, Ma, I did not do it.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: And see, let's talk about that for a second too,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: because there's no prosecutor that's gonna look at this case,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: which is so violent and so vile, what was done
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: to this for a woman, and say, you know what,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: we let this guy out in a few years, we're
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: gonna give you a good deal. Nobody's giving you a
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: good deal if they think you actually did it. That's
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: offensive as well.
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I said, mom, I hate to say the K
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: door and I think that's why I got PTSD today
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: because I think about one. My mother told me and
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: she wasn't living when I came home. But I wasn't
• 24:03
  Speaker 7: no take, I said, Mom, Sally, you doing that bothered
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: me reck to the day.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: So the trial finally comes. E've been in Riker's Island,
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: which is hell on earth for a year and finally
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: your day in court. And how long did the trial last?
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Did the second one? It didn't last?
• 24:33
  Speaker 9: Wrong, It was just a couple of days.
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: A couple of days and a speedy Trialevernue courtland. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: think I don't know speak.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: I never been to jail.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: The witnesses were the prosecutions one and only claimed witness,
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams, the detective, the victim's mother who wasn't there,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: didn't witness the crime. And you have his defense attorneys
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: who even the Brooklyn DA's office, the chief of the
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: Conviction Review Unit got up in open court on the
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: day of exoneration and said the fact that they did
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: not order and present his medical records was unconscionable.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: It is unconscionable. And so Andre when the jury went out, right,
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: and were you thinking at that time, well, they're going
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: to see the obvious truth, and they're going to know
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: I'm innocent, and they're going to come back in and
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: call me innocent and declare me innocent.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I always knew I was coming home. I
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: never give up. I never give up.
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: The police try to get me sign a statement, Ferguson,
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: I never did.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: My mother said, boy, I don'tkay what you do. You
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: don't sign that. You don't know how to read it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: Right. When every system and every agency that you come
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: into contact with fails you, which is the prosecution, the police,
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: and your own defense attorneys, who you put your life
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: in their hands, how do you expect the jury to quit.
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: So the jury convicted you, and you were sentenced to
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: life twenty five years of life, which is really a
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: life sentence because unless you admit guilt, you're not coming
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: home anyway. That's a crazy thing in our system. You
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: plead innocent, they send you prison, you put guilty, they
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: send you home, right. I mean that's an oversimplification, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: it's kind of a crazy paradox. So you got convicted.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: I mean that moment must have been the worst moment
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: of your life.
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: Oh man, yes, it was, you know, I just can
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: hardly cry. I couldn't cry because I couldn't bleed.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: It lied to me.
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: I told him the judge, I'll be back because I
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: didn'tdure it. They said you got any things to say?
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: I said, I'll be back. I didn't do it. At
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: the end of the court.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: And the judge was actually trying to assist at the
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: trial because his own defense attorneys were doing such a
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: shitty job.
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: I was in court when the judge said twenty five
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: years of life. My brother said I didn't do it,
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: and it judge looked at him and said.
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: I didn't do it neither. The judge said.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Judge said I didn't do it neither.
• 26:45
  Speaker 8: What the hell I swear if my brother told the
• 26:47
  Speaker 8: judge he said, Yahn, I didn't do this.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: He said, well, I didn't do it, just like that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: That sounds insane. So Andre, you're in prison for decades
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: for a crime he didn't commit. Dealing with all the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: difficulties related to your physical issues and other things, you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: they haven't been shot, you have your your disabilities learning otherwise.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: I'm just trying to understand because I'm always amazed by
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: people like yourself and how you manage to go through
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: this unbelievable ordeal and still come out on top and
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: still maintain, like I said, just survive in prison. I
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: know you were stabbed in prison right right behind the ear.
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: I got it sorted a lot by police because of
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: my cads. I can't read it right. They put me
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: the box for that. And one time they beat me
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: so bad. I hate to say that. I never told
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: her that. In Clinton, I doodo all on myself because
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna call them daddy, the police daddy.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't call them daddy. I said, you have to
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: kill me. You know you have to kill me.
• 27:44
  Speaker 7: I'm not calling you daddy. They beat me so bad.
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: I doodo all over myself in Clinton, Jesus, they gave
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: me Greenhaven. They sought me everywhere and win. I got
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: a sort by police because I couldn't. I ain't let
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: them talk to me any kind of way, because they
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: do respect me.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 28:00
  Speaker 7: They beat me up so bad. Stat beat me up.
• 28:04
  Speaker 7: And one day when son died, right Lord Andree twenty fourteen, Right,
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: I was crying. You know what they did. They gave
• 28:11
  Speaker 7: me a hound dog shot because I was crying. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 7: wasn't violent in that and it almost paralyzed me.
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: What the hell is a hound dog shot?
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: A psyche madge, the strongest one they had a hound dog.
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: I wanted to see all it some goods, you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: he said, once't you just take me back to hisself?
• 28:27
  Speaker 7: He he what you do if your son died? Once
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: he all stepped up on me, but the others overrule
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: him and they gave me a hound dog shot. Oh man,
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: it just it's just sad man, because I never did
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: because I can read it right, you know, I couldn't
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: write no grievents and that, and you know they put
• 28:44
  Speaker 7: me in a box, kept on putting me in a box,
• 28:47
  Speaker 7: you know, just just being on me.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it was difficult for Andre to express himself
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: in writing and write any.
• 28:52
  Speaker 9: Grievances in the prison.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: It, and so it led to a lot of altercations
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: with guards because he wasn't able to file grievances. He
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: wasn't able to express himself in writing because of his
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: limited abilities to write, and so it led to a
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: lot of altercations with guards who were horrible to him.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: I mean, it just is really, I mean, here you are,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: your son died. Probably the worst thing that anybody could experience, ever,
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: would be to have your son die and you're in
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: prison for a crime you didn't commit. I mean, that's
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: where my head is actually exploding from this information. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: then instead of like actually having a human bone in
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: their body and being like, let's give this guy a
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: little bit of space or a little bit of kindness,
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: something where any human being would feel empathy for somebody
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: who lost their child, and instead they're gonna I mean,
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: I just I'm stuck for an answer.
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: Then in nineteen ninety two he was in there for
• 29:49
  Speaker 8: a couple of years. My younger brother he passed away
• 29:52
  Speaker 8: and can't cool Mexico on vacation, he drowned undertow took him.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: And then in two.
• 29:59
  Speaker 8: Thousand and one our father passed away, and then in
• 30:02
  Speaker 8: two thousand and five our mother passed away, and in
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: twenty fourteen he lost his son. So when he got out,
• 30:09
  Speaker 8: all my father, brothers and sister passed on my father's side,
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: all my mother sisters passed except one.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: A lot of the family was born while.
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: He was in jail, right, so you had to get
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: to know your own family exactly, all new people and
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: everything else. But Andre, so the good part of the
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: story is that you're here, right, and I want to
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: talk about how that happened and the role that the
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: Innocence Project played. It was as hopeless as it could be,
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: and then things turned around. Can you explain to me
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: how that happened?
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: My friend?
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: You know, I couldn't read the right He used to
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: always write my letter. He said, he just fell out
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: the application. He said, you always talked about I know
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: you ain't doing it. I'll tell him whatever happened to me,
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: And he did the applications, showed me how to get
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: there to the end of the project. You know, I
• 30:54
  Speaker 7: forgot his name.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: His name is actually very ironic. His name was da
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Andre Williams, and de Andre Williams wrote a letter to
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: the Innocence Project I believe it was two thousand and two, saying,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: on behalf of my fellow prisoner. He can't read, he
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: can't write his family, and I would really appreciate if
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: you would look into his case. There is DNA evidence
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: that can prove his innocence. Will you please take his case?
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm actually looking at the letter right now and
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: it's giving me chills to think that this guy came
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: to your aid when you most needed it, and ultimately
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: the Innson's Project did take your case. So Siman talk
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: about the evidence that came out and how this led
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: to what should have been a very obvious conclusion twenty
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: five years earlier.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: So when the Brooklyn DA's Office is Conviction and Review
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Unit undertook this reinvestigation. This was after we had searched
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: for and I say we, but it was my predecessor,
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Jason Craig at the Nison's Project, who searched for DNA evidence.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: DNA was tested under the victim's fingernails. It didn't pan
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: out because no mail DNA was found. Those metal pipes
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: were for no one could find the metal pipes, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: so this became a non DNA investigation. And the Innocence
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: Project takes on cases, as you know, where there's DNA
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: and DNA can prove innocence. But Jason truly believed in
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: Andrea's innocence and he said, we can't close this case,
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: and he wanted to bring in a big law firm.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: So the head of the department agreed to bring in
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Paul Weiss, which is a fantastic Manhattan law firm. They
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: ended up doing an investigation. They did a Foyer, which
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: is a Public Act records request for the DA's file
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: and the police file. And ultimately what happened is when
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit reviewed this case, they found
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: a document and it was a document that we received
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: in the Foyer production. But the Foyer production showed just
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: that on the night Jerry Williams was arrested, he saw
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: a man in the bullpen in the precinct and he said,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: that's the guy who did that Monroe Street Park murder.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: Andre wasn't in the precinct. Now, what the Foyer production
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: didn't give us was the cover page of that memo.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: The DA's office found that cover page in their file
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: from nineteen ninety two. That cover page said that there
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: was a person who was called the defendant in the
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: bullpen and Jerry Williams identified him to the cop as
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: the real perp. Now, the defendant is sometimes listed as
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: unknown or in the case if the suspect is Andre Hatchet,
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: it would say Andra Hatchett, it said James Pringle. There
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: was a man in the bullpen named James Pringle, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams pointed him out and said he did the crime.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: So police looked up James Pringle, and we had the
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Foyer document, but it was redacted so it didn't tell
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: us what happened. The DA's office had that document and
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: it showed that James Pringle, his incarceration records were searched
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: by the cops. He had a solid alibi because he
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: was in prison on the night of the crime. So
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: Jerry Williams points out another man as the real purp
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: of this crime who couldn't have done it because he
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: was in prison, and that was never disclosed to the defense.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: That would have shot the man's credibility, And the DA's
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: office said even the morons who represented Andre would have
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: used that evidence to show that this man is not
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: credible because of that fact, as well as another piece
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: of evidence showing that Jerry Williams admitted that he was
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: on crack the night of the crime, which also wasn't
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: disclosed and would have showed that he committed perjury at
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: trial because he claimed that he was not on crack
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: in the night of the crime. Because of those two
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: pieces of evidence, which were not disclosed to the defense,
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: which would have cast incredible doubt on Jerry Williams's testimony,
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: this conviction was overturned because when you have a single
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: witness ID, which is the only basis for someone's conviction,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: credibility is everything.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just the whole thing is unreal. And I've
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: been doing this stuff. I mean, I've been involved in
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: this fight for almost twenty five years. And like I said,
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: when I think I've seen everything, I've run into somebody
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: like Andre and hear this story and it's just my
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: my heart hurts and it's uh, it's horrible. But Andrea,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: so how did the exoneration happen? And what was that like?
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: Because like I said, I remember seeing your face and it.
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: Was like it was like it was like it was
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: like it was like gold because I got out of hell.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: I got out of hell for Sunday. A dude and
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: this again that dude.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: He passed away in the cell and green h avy DeAndre.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: He passed away.
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: I used always criet to him and he said, man,
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna get you on. He took all my paperwork
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: my minutes. I gave all my paperwork I had because
• 35:34
  Speaker 7: I went through all the pills. Well, Deloyd, they said
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: no merit, so that means they raised no law. I
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: do know that he rained that to me all my pills.
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: I went through all of them, they said, with no
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: merit on my pills, no merit.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: No law.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Andre's release from this hell is the result of a
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: collaboration of so many people who came together on his behalf,
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: starting with Andre, who never gave up because he knew
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the truth would.
• 36:00
  Speaker 9: One day come out.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: And his friend de Andre Williams, who is the one
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: who wrote to us pleading for us to take his
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: case on behalf of Andre, and then he himself dies
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: in prison.
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's that's a cruel irony. So let's fast
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: forward Andre to the day when you were actually freed
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: and released and declared innocent by the courts. And I
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: mean it's twenty six years, as Jerry said, your year
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: in jail. We can't forget that, but twenty five years
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: in prison after your conviction. So to talk about that
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: day you got your hearing and you were obviously there,
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, you were its lawyer.
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: So yes, that day she kept on telling me, she
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: kept on talking with any for sure, yet they knew
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: the court, but they wentn't tell me though I knew
• 36:42
  Speaker 7: I was coming home because I always told my brother
• 36:44
  Speaker 7: no and my mother, no, and my daughter and my brother.
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: I'll be home one day. Bro, I all nowhere, I'm
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: coming home. I know how they't do it. I know
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: I'm coming home one day, and I know I'm gonna
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: be free. And I told them I'm gonna get z
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: already one day. I always told they won't find not
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: they do. Mama, I told you that you still my
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: brother that every time on the phone, just send me money.
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: Y'all got to come and visit me. I'll ball right.
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: I used to tell him that, just send me money.
• 37:10
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna be all right in there. And that's why
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: I used to tell him I was going through it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 7: Going through They knew I was all right, guy, I
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: got to spend all come and see me. I'm gonna
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: be all right.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: We told Andre, please keep this quiet, because we were
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: explicitly told by the Conviction Review Unit that they were
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: very worried that this would leak. And we said, look,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: we have to tell Andre. Of course, we have to
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: tell his family. And so we didn't have a particular
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: day and we said, Andre, do not tell anyone in prison. Meanwhile,
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: I get a call from a corrections officer and she said,
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: Andre Hatchett is going around saying you can't touch me,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: you can't touch me. I'm getting out. I'm getting out,
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: and he's creating a lot of disturbance. So I said, oh,
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: what is he doing? And she said, he's just telling
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: people I'm getting out. And I'm thinking, how is that
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: creating disturbance? And so she was describing it as he
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: was being insubordinate when he's actually not. And then she
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: whispers on the phone is he getting out?
• 37:59
  Speaker 9: And I couldn't say anything.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: And then my colleague said, well, you may want to
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: actually tell her because she probably thinks he's crazy, thinking
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: he's gonna get out, and she doesn't actually know that
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: he is. And so I said, Andre, didn't we discuss
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: not to say anything? And he said, don't worry, I
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: won't say anything no more. And I was like, what
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: do you mean no more? You shouldn't have told it?
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: He said, who was it? Is it that lady who's
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: really nosy? Why is she all up in my business?
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: So this was just, you know, a lot of excitement.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: He couldn't sleep the night before, he couldn't sleep the
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: week before, and it was supposed to be his first
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: time on a plane.
• 38:31
  Speaker 9: I think they were concerned.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: So they ended up bringing him on a bus because
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: they were worried what if he doesn't get on the plane,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: what if this doesn't happen? And so you know, the
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Brooklyn Conviction Review Units sent a couple of their star officers,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: I think someone they have nicknamed the Angel of Mercy,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: to go pick up Andre, bring him on a bus
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: and finally be on freedom's doorstep.
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: Yeah, because about a week and a half before he
• 38:55
  Speaker 8: was getting ready to get out, I knew, and he
• 38:57
  Speaker 8: called me every night what day it is? What days
• 39:02
  Speaker 8: I couldn't tell him.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: I don't even think he slept the last week he
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: was in jail. I still can't sleep. That still good
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: to be free.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: Because you can't get that smile off your face.
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: I always smile at every picture I went to because
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: I always told him I'll be home one day. And
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: you see my mug shopping on picture. I smile since
• 39:20
  Speaker 7: the day one I've been there. The police beat me up.
• 39:23
  Speaker 7: You get my own d I report. I smiled him
• 39:25
  Speaker 7: every dingy.
• 39:27
  Speaker 9: They could never rob him of his smile. You saw the.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Smile and the bloody, and I was bloody.
• 39:32
  Speaker 7: My sister got pictures of me, meant to the day
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: at a house that I'll sit home when they beat
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: me up, sought me, I was smiling.
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: So the day in the court twenty sixteen is not
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: that long ago, right, And even from your perspective, like
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: what did that mean to you? You'd worked on this
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: case for years, right, And obviously you got to know Andre.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: He's such a lovely guy. His spirit is unbroken in
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: spite of the fact that he's been through everything human
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: being can go through, like a Greek tragedy or something.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: So what was that day, like you, the exoneration day?
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, the courtroom was packed, and what I loved
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: about it is that the judge when he looked at Andre,
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Andre stood up and you can see pictures being taken
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: where people are sort of smiling, and then as Andre's speaking,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: there's bigger smiles, and as he continues to speak, the
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: smiles get larger, and the judge was so moved himself.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: I think that there was, you know, clapping throughout the
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: courtroom before it even finished. And then the prosecutors came
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: over to greet Andrea and to hug Andrea because they
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: were just so appalled by this. When we presented the
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: case to the Conviction Review Unit. We didn't even need
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: to sit there for more than twenty minutes, if that,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: and we presented everything we discussed today and they were
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: deeply disturbed. They said, we're going to put this case
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: on the fast track because they knew how concerning this
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: case was. But that moment, I have to say, Andre
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: was twenty five years old and he was convicted of
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: this crime. He was released one or two months before
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: his fiftieth birthday, so he spent half his life in
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: prison for a crime he didn't commit.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: It's astonishing, and it's just so great that you're here
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: and that you're getting your life back. And tell me
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: about that now, like, how what's going on now? What's
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: your family situation? What are you doing day to day?
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I go to home to Federation, meant to help CircUse.
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: I got what's that PTSD?
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah, espress on my drama. Well, I went through my losses.
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: You know, I could never get it back. I think
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: about it all the time, though, but that not to do.
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: I got to live more and I go every you know,
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: three days a week.
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: And how are you living, where you're living, who you're
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: living with.
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: I live with my brother Jerry Chevy Hatchett. I talked
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: to Martege. You know, holly kids, I got one thirty three, Wow,
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: want to be thirty four?
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And Everca's like twenty nine.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: Might as well shout him out. What are their names?
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: Arica elk Along Stack, Keisha Love, Kristen Spears, Lauren for
• 42:06
  Speaker 7: he passed away.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: Do you have any grandchildren? Yes?
• 42:09
  Speaker 7: Wow, I got four grandkids, my son and the one
• 42:11
  Speaker 7: passed away and looking for his daughter. And I got
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: four grands My oldest is Swan, he'd be eighteen.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: And I got my daughter. E got two twins, a
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: girl and the boy.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: I was asking Andre the names because all of them came,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: or most of them came to the exoneration. Yeah, And
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: I said, what's this guy's name? And he said, Pooky,
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: what's the other guy's name?
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: He's like, yeah, I don't know that.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: They all new to me. You know, all my grandkids
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: is knew, everybody new to the getting the norm.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: So you got a big family. He's surrounded by a
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: lot of love. Now, so I'm really stuck on thinking
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: about this exoneration with like so it sounds like these
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: rolling waves of excitement and enthusiasm and clapping and smiling
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: and just a celebration. Right.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: We had to get the ceremonial courtroom because so many
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: people wanted to attend, and it was it was just
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: a triumph. It's a triumph of Andre's spirit, is a
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: triumph of a man against the system.
• 43:09
  Speaker 8: After the Designeration, we was leaving the court, everybody was
• 43:12
  Speaker 8: blowing in a cars. Remember everybody was blowing as we
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: was walking down the street because Bbq's sponsored the Designeration.
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: So everybody went to Bbq's and they sponsored everybody food
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: and everything.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: That's great. Andre. We have a tradition here at Wrong
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: for Conviction, which is that at the end of the show,
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: I like to turn the microphone over to you for
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: any final thoughts that you have, anything you want to
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: share with the audience, just whatever is on your mind.
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, Like I was saying all the time, all the times,
• 43:40
  Speaker 7: I'll be good to anybody. Anybody need a dollar, sorry,
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: I'll give it to them. I don't care who he is.
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: You know, my mother raised like that. You see somebody
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: home your freedom, you know, I mean, I got to
• 43:48
  Speaker 7: know you. I get no help. Anybody always been like
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: their free audum. My mother used to always tell me,
• 43:55
  Speaker 7: you too, free hearty, you help too many people, you
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: know me, stuff like that. She s used to always
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: tell me that when I was a kid.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 44:03
  Speaker 7: Then then I went to you know, I went went
• 44:05
  Speaker 7: to prison for Sunday. Ain't you know anything I do.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: I own up to it. If I did it, I
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: did it. That's me.
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: I never lied to my mother or nobody, you know
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: what I mean. I don't do that a lot to people.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: And in the court room, Mandra even said, I told
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: everyone I didn't do this, and I told you I'd
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: be coming home one day.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: And you told everybody.
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: I always tell my brother every day, my whole family,
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: I'll be home one day. I'll be home one day.
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: I didn't I'll be home one day. Out know where.
• 44:33
  Speaker 7: She said, I'm coming to see you. I said, you
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: ain't got to come to see me, a mor You
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: ain't got this drivel all the way up here, just
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: spending of money. Send it to me, you know, I'm
• 44:42
  Speaker 7: all right. Just send me pictures. Just send me pictures.
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: Well, all I can say to you is welcome home,
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: thank you were glad you're here.
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: And can I think and I like to thank Zeima.
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: Jason Craig Barby Shack lies of Natalie believe in me,
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: ain't it no? And it helped me, I think.
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: And I'd like to also get any closing thoughts, Jerry,
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: is there anything else you want to share? Because I
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: know you went through this with your brother, your little brother,
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: like it's got to be it's got to be hard
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: on you too. Yeah.
• 45:13
  Speaker 8: It was being that I'm the oldest and ra after him.
• 45:18
  Speaker 8: I had to deal with Berry and my brother that
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: was coming back from Mexico and dealing with his situation,
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: then trying to keep an eye on my mother, dealing
• 45:26
  Speaker 8: with his funeral, thinking about Andre, dealing with him, and
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: looking out for my mother. So it was it was
• 45:33
  Speaker 8: a lot just to try to for one person and
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: try to deal with so so much stuff, you know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: But because I knew it was impossible, my mother knew,
• 45:42
  Speaker 8: and before my mother passed away, she said, look out
• 45:47
  Speaker 8: for Andre because God knows he didn't commit that crime.
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: Same, what about you, Let's we're going to give you
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: the last word here.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: You shouldn't have to pull your hair out and kick
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: and scream to get an innocent person out of prison
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: in this country, And like Barry Schek once said, our
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: system is disabled by the impact of class, race, and money.
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: If you are the right color, if you have money,
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: if you're from the right socioeconomic status, you get better
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: results from the system. If you're the wrong color and
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: you're poor, you don't. And that is just a fact
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: of life in our criminal justice system, in the Land
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: of the Free.
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: I think it's a lot of innocent people in jail
• 46:27
  Speaker 7: like me because I hear a lot of stories, a
• 46:29
  Speaker 7: lot of stories day and Joy, I know there's a
• 46:31
  Speaker 7: lot of innocent people in jail.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: I know it is one of them.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: There are, and we're going to keep fighting until our
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: last breath to make sure that we get as many
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: of them out as we can. So I just want
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: to thank all of you for being here and sharing
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: your story. Seem As Safety and senior staff attorney at
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: the Innocence Project, thank you.
• 46:50
  Speaker 9: Thank you, and.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Jerry Hatchett, older brother and protector, and thank you for
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: coming in and sharing your thoughts and Andre. What can
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: I say, Man, it's great to see you here and
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: we're just so happy you're home, and we're going to
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: keep fighting and that's all we can do. Don't forget
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
• 47:49
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• 47:56
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• 47:59
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