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#162 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Henry McCollum and Leon Brown · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer,
0:05
Speaker 1: and I'm Steve Drison. In today's episode, the crime is
0:09
Speaker 1: bad about as bad as it gets. But the way
0:12
Speaker 1: police and prosecutors mishandled this case and condemned two innocent
0:16
Speaker 1: men to death, that's a crime unto itself. Henry McCollum
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Speaker 1: and his younger brother, Leon Brown survived a decades long
0:24
Speaker 1: fight for the truth from behind bars. Henry and Leon
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Speaker 1: are living proof that false confessions can send innocent people
0:31
Speaker 1: to death row.
0:42
Speaker 2: Twenty years ago, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, which Laura
0:46
Speaker 2: and I co direct, was deeply involved in exonerating men
0:51
Speaker 2: off of death row in Illinois. The numbers kept ticking up.
0:56
Speaker 2: It went up to twenty people who had been wrongfully sentenced.
1:00
Speaker 1: To death, twenty innocent people. Eventually, Illinois lost confidence that
1:04
Speaker 1: the people on death row were actually guilty, and so
1:06
Speaker 1: we got rid of the death penalty.
1:08
Speaker 2: When the death penalty was abolished in Illinois ten years ago,
1:12
Speaker 2: there were some prosecutors who claimed that the sky would fall,
1:17
Speaker 2: that crime rates would rise, that the system would miss
1:23
Speaker 2: the ability and the power to use the death penalty
1:29
Speaker 2: to right wrongs, and that hasn't happened. We've moved on,
1:34
Speaker 2: we've evolved, and it's time for the rest of the
1:37
Speaker 2: country to follow suit.
1:39
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. The death penalty is supposed to be
1:41
Speaker 1: reserved for the worst of the worst, but way too
1:44
Speaker 1: often those are the cases where wrongful convictions happen.
1:47
Speaker 2: These are the crimes where there is so much pressure
1:50
Speaker 2: on law enforcement to come up with quick answers that
1:54
Speaker 2: there are rushes to judgment.
1:57
Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 1: That's the problem with the death penalty. People can get
1:59
Speaker 1: so blinded with the horrificness of a crime that moral
2:03
Speaker 1: outrage can distort the search for the truth. And that's
2:07
Speaker 1: what happened in this case. Henry McCollum and his brother
2:09
Speaker 1: Leon Brown paid a terrible price for the police's rush
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Speaker 1: to judgment.
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Speaker 2: The facts of the crime often don't tell the whole story,
2:20
Speaker 2: and sometimes tell a false story. So while on paper
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Speaker 2: this case looks like one that is deserving of the
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Speaker 2: ultimate punishment, in practice, it sent two innocent men to
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Speaker 2: prison for more than thirty years.
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Speaker 1: Today's story starts in Robison County, North Carolina. It's a
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Speaker 1: rural area on the state's southern border, eighty miles inland
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Speaker 1: from the Atlantic coast. Since the eighteenth century, Robison County
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Speaker 1: has been known for social strata and racial strife. It's
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Speaker 1: a place where a small group of elite white men
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Speaker 1: descended from colonial landowners, dominate everything from the lumber business
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Speaker 1: to the illegal drug trade to the courtrooms. Meanwhile Native Americans,
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Speaker 1: poor whites, and black people get the scraps. On September
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Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, Ronnie Lee Buwie came home
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Speaker 1: to his tiny house in one of Robinson County's predominantly
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Speaker 1: black communities. It was a little after twelve am. He'd
3:23
Speaker 1: just finished working the midnight shift. Within minutes, he noticed
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Speaker 1: that his eleven year old daughter, Sabrina, was missing from
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Speaker 1: her room. Sabrina's family calls the police. As the sunrises
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Speaker 1: and words spreads, Friends and neighbors fan out to search
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Speaker 1: for her, but there's no sign of Sabrina until the
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Speaker 1: next afternoon, September twenty sixth. That's when Sabrina Buoy is found,
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Speaker 1: and it's one of the worst discoveries imaginable. Sabrina is
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Speaker 1: lying in a soybean field, dead, surrounded by empty beer
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Speaker 1: cans and cigarette butts. She's been beaten and raped. She
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Speaker 1: isn't wearing anything except for a bra that's been pushed
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Speaker 1: up around her neck. And her cause of death Sabrina
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Speaker 1: had been suffocated by her own underwear. Someone had pushed
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Speaker 1: them into her throat with a stick.
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Speaker 2: Now, when I read about this crime, it just gutted me.
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Speaker 2: My reaction was visceral. There's a level of depravity here
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Speaker 2: that shocks the conscience.
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Speaker 1: Police couldn't bring themselves to believe that someone from their
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Speaker 1: own community would have done this, so they started investigating outsiders.
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Speaker 1: Pretty soon, police caught wind of a rumor about a
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Speaker 1: nineteen year old who just arrived in Robison County to
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Speaker 1: visit his mom. The local high schoolers thought this new
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Speaker 1: kid might have killed Zabrina because, according to them, he
4:39
Speaker 1: looked weird. That new kid's name was Henry McCollum. Even
4:44
Speaker 1: though his mom lived in Robison County, Henry had grown
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Speaker 1: up in New Jersey with his grandma. Henry had been
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Speaker 1: diagnosed with intellectual disability when he was really young. For years,
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Speaker 1: he attended a special school, but he failed a bunch
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Speaker 1: of grades anyway and eventually dropped out. School wasn't Henry's
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Speaker 1: strong suit, but obedience to authority was he'd never been
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Speaker 1: associated with any kind of crime. With nothing more to
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Speaker 1: go on than a high school rumor, police go to
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Speaker 1: Henry's mom's house and on the evening of September twenty eighth,
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Speaker 1: they bring Henry in for interrogation. Three police officers question
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Speaker 1: him for more than four hours, all off camera. So
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Speaker 1: we don't know everything that happened in that room. What
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Speaker 1: we do know is that some of Henry's interrogators were
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Speaker 1: familiar with the crime scene. They knew all the information
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Speaker 1: that a killer would be expected to describe. Sometime around
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Speaker 1: two am, the interrogators emerged from the room with a
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Speaker 1: confession that named Henry as one of Sabrina's assailants. It
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Speaker 1: had been written out by the cops. Henry had signed
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Speaker 1: it at the end in oversized letters that looked like
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Speaker 1: a child's handwriting. According to Henry, as soon as he
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Speaker 1: wrote his name on the last page, he looked up
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Speaker 1: at his interrogators and said, can I go home now?
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Speaker 4: I think Henry is a very kind person. He's a
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Speaker 4: very thoughtful person.
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Speaker 1: That's Representative Vernetta Alston. She's a member of the North
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Speaker 1: Carolina State Legislature. But before that she was a death
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Speaker 1: penalty lawyer who worked on Henry's case.
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Speaker 4: From the first time I met Henry in twenty twelve.
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Speaker 4: It's my impression that his deficits were very obvious. I
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Speaker 4: think anyone talking to him now, or five years ago
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Speaker 4: or thirty years ago would have noticed, and so as
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Speaker 4: a result of his deficits, he signed the statement. Now,
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Speaker 4: I think most folks in that circumstance would understand that
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Speaker 4: if they signed a confession to murder that they wouldn't
6:38
Speaker 4: be allowed to walk out the front door of a
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Speaker 4: police station. But the statement used language that Henry was
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Speaker 4: very unlikely to have understood, and so he didn't know
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Speaker 4: what was happening at all.
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Speaker 1: While Henry's confession was light on details, its story tracked
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Speaker 1: exactly what an investigator who'd been at the scene would know,
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Speaker 1: everything from the pattern on Sabrina's shirt to the brand
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Speaker 1: of cigarettes left behind.
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Speaker 2: Here's the thing, Henry could not lead the police to
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Speaker 2: any evidence that they didn't already know about. His confession
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Speaker 2: only contained details that the police already knew. That's a
7:15
Speaker 2: red flag. You have to wonder, is this the suspect's
7:19
Speaker 2: confession or a confession that was scripted by law enforcement
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Speaker 2: to ensure that this suspect was going to get convicted.
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Speaker 1: Henry's confession didn't just implicate him. The story was that
7:32
Speaker 1: he'd attacked Sabrina along with four other teenagers. Now, three
7:36
Speaker 1: of those teens turned out to have strong alibis. One
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Speaker 1: of them had even been out of state at the
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Speaker 1: time of Sabrina's death. Prosecutors never filed charges against those three,
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Speaker 1: But the fourth person named it was Leon Brown, Henry
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Speaker 1: McCollum's fifteen year old brother. And while Henry was disabled,
7:53
Speaker 1: Leon's limitations were far more profound. His IQ was in
7:58
Speaker 1: the forties, on the border line between moderately and severely disabled,
8:02
Speaker 1: and he was completely illiterate.
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Speaker 4: Both of these men, who were at that time boys,
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Speaker 4: their intellectual disabilities were exploited. Folks who have cognitive deficits
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Speaker 4: that make it difficult or complicated for them to make
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Speaker 4: everyday decisions to get dressed, to loan as schedule, to
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Speaker 4: make food for themselves, to drive cars, to learn in
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Speaker 4: school at a level that's consistent with their age. Folks
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Speaker 4: who are unable to do those things, we shouldn't be
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Speaker 4: holding them to the same standard in our criminal justice system.
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Speaker 4: And certainly not in our death penalty system.
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Speaker 1: When Henry implicated Leon in his confession, it turned out
8:40
Speaker 1: the timing was pretty bad. While Henry was being questioned,
8:43
Speaker 1: the boy's mom arrived at the police station, begging to
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Speaker 1: see Henry. Police told her she'd have to wait until
8:49
Speaker 1: he confessed. But here's the thing. Henry's mom brought Leon
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Speaker 1: with her to the station. He was almost surely too
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Speaker 1: disabled to be left home alone. So after Henry confessed
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Speaker 1: and the police came looking for Leon, they didn't have
9:02
Speaker 1: to go any farther than their own lobby. Police put
9:07
Speaker 1: Leon into an interrogation room, then marched his big brother
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Speaker 1: in to show him what to do. Within minutes, Leon
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Speaker 1: was signing a written out confession of his own, scratching
9:16
Speaker 1: his name as best he could on the bottom of
9:18
Speaker 1: a statement he couldn't even read. Based on their confessions,
9:23
Speaker 1: the two brothers were arrested and charged with rape and
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Speaker 1: capital murder.
9:34
Speaker 3: This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
9:38
Speaker 3: and Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
9:42
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9:46
Speaker 3: services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals
9:51
Speaker 3: most in need, and recently they announced that working to
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Speaker 3: of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has law had an
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Speaker 3: unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to
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Speaker 3: the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
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Speaker 3: of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
10:11
Speaker 3: justice area.
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Speaker 1: The question of who killed Sabrina Buie gripped Robinson County.
10:23
Speaker 1: The crime was terrible and the community wanted justice, so
10:26
Speaker 1: the county's top prosecutor took over the case. The district
10:30
Speaker 1: attorney himself, Joe Freeman Britt, was six foot six, a
10:35
Speaker 1: seasoned trial lawyer known for dramatic courtroom flourishes like pounding
10:39
Speaker 1: bibles in front of the jury. But he was more
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Speaker 1: than just a flashy attorney. By the time Henry and
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Speaker 1: Leon's cases crossed his desk, Joe Freeman Britt had become
10:49
Speaker 1: infamous nationwide for his success at obtaining the death penalty.
10:55
Speaker 1: Over his career, Britt sent more than forty seven people
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Speaker 1: to death row. At one point, he obtained two dozen
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Speaker 1: death sentences in only twenty eight months. Britt was so
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Speaker 1: prolific that He even ended up in the Guinness Book
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Speaker 1: of World Records, which called him the deadliest prosecutor.
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Speaker 2: Some prosecutors believe deeply in the eye for an eye mentality.
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Speaker 2: For some, it's almost a biblical calling, like religious fervor
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Speaker 2: that animates them.
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Speaker 1: Forty seven people, I mean, if he weren't a prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: he'd be one of the most prolific serial killers in
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Speaker 1: the United States.
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Speaker 2: Forty seven people, that's unthinkable.
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Speaker 1: It seems like Britt leaned into his hard ass reputation.
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Speaker 1: He'd run training conferences for other prosecutors where he taught
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Speaker 1: them to quote, rip that jugular out. When he felt
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Speaker 1: like waxing poetic. Britt would say, within each of us
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Speaker 1: burns a flame that constantly whispers, preserve life at any cost.
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Speaker 1: It's the prosecutor's job, he would add to extinguish that flame.
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Speaker 4: I think that that sums up he was as a
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Speaker 4: person and as a district attorney. Joe Freeman, Britt was
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Speaker 4: frankly a terror. He was a large, commanding presence, and
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Speaker 4: I think really leaned into that persona. I know that
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Speaker 4: he was very from what I've read, he was very
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Speaker 4: much into the theater of a courtroom and really played
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Speaker 4: into that to secure convictions.
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Speaker 1: Joe Freeman Britt was in full form, gearing up to
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Speaker 1: try Henry and Leon for Sabrina's murder and seeking the
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Speaker 1: death penalty for them both. But before trial, two major
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Speaker 1: problems emerged with Britt's case against the brothers. First of all,
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Speaker 1: Henry and Leon's confessions didn't match each other on several
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Speaker 1: important details, who was involved, how they met up with Sabrina,
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Speaker 1: and the details of the rape and murder. And of
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Speaker 1: course there was the matter of the three other boys
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Speaker 1: named in Henry's confession, all of whom were definitely innocent.
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Speaker 2: Leon or Henry. There was nothing other than their words
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Speaker 2: that linked them to this crime.
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Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 2: And Henry and Leon were not the kinds of people
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Speaker 2: that would have committed a perfect crime.
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Speaker 1: Even the way in which the confessions were written didn't
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Speaker 1: ring true.
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Speaker 4: In a statement used language that Henry was very unlikely
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Speaker 4: to have understood, and I think that's a product of
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Speaker 4: his age and most certainly a product of his intellectual disabilities.
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Speaker 4: And Leon's is similar. If you look at Leon's statement
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Speaker 4: is written in penmanship that Leon was incapable of because
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Speaker 4: of his deficits, and again used language in detail and
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Speaker 4: just sentence structure that Leon would have been incapable of creating.
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Speaker 1: The second problem, there was a pretty obvious alternative suspect,
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Speaker 1: a man named Roscoe Artists. Artists lived near the field
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Speaker 1: where Sabrina's body was found, and he had a disturbing history.
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Speaker 1: Only a few weeks after Henry and Leon were arrested,
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Speaker 1: Roscoe Artists had murdered an eighteen year old girl in
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Speaker 1: an attack eagerily similar to the attack on Sabrina. Both
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Speaker 1: victims were raped and asphyxiated. Both of them were also
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Speaker 1: found in fields wearing nothing but bras pushed up around
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Speaker 1: their necks. It gets worse. Roscoe Artist was also a
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Speaker 1: suspect in another rate murder case from nineteen eighty. In
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Speaker 1: that case, the victim was found with an object shoved
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Speaker 1: in her throat, another similarity that should have been impossible
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Speaker 1: to miss.
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Speaker 2: Henry McCollum and Leon Brown did not have the kind
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Speaker 2: of background that suggested they were capable of the horrific
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Speaker 2: nature of this crime. This was the work of a
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Speaker 2: sexual predator, probably a single sexual predator. Because of the
14:38
Speaker 2: way the crime scene presented itself. This is not some
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Speaker 2: huge community that is beset by violent crime, and the
14:49
Speaker 2: first thing that police officers should have done is focus
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Speaker 2: on men in their own community who had a proclivity
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Speaker 2: for committing these kinds of crimes. Risco Artists showed a
15:01
Speaker 2: history of doing this over and over again, and his
15:05
Speaker 2: home was very close to where the body was found.
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Speaker 1: Now here's the really crazy thing about Roscoe Artists. One
15:12
Speaker 1: month before Henry and Leon went to trial, Artists was
15:15
Speaker 1: tried and convicted for the attack on the eighteen year
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Speaker 1: old girl. He was sentenced to death. And that fact
15:21
Speaker 1: almost gives away the punchline, because sure enough, Roscoe Artists
15:25
Speaker 1: was prosecuted by Joe Freeman Britt himself for a crime
15:29
Speaker 1: nearly identical to the one Britt was prosecuting Henry and Leon.
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Speaker 2: Four.
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Speaker 1: The similarities between Artists's other murders and Sabrina's death should
15:37
Speaker 1: have been unmistakable.
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Speaker 2: Those are a warning signs, stop lights to say, hey,
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Speaker 2: wait a minute, let's see what really happened here. Let's
15:47
Speaker 2: look at people who more fit the profile.
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Speaker 1: Well, Roscoe Artists was no stranger to law enforcement. That's
15:52
Speaker 1: what's so mind boggling about this case. It was all
15:55
Speaker 1: there ready to be done right done, so wrong.
16:01
Speaker 2: So wrong. This horrible, tragic nightmare could have been averted
16:05
Speaker 2: from the very get go, and the woman who Rascal
16:09
Speaker 2: Artists killed less than a month after Sabrina Buie was killed,
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Speaker 2: her life might have been saved.
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Speaker 1: Not everyone overlooked the similarities between these murders. We know
16:20
Speaker 1: this because of what happened with a piece of forensic
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Speaker 1: evidence in the case, a single unidentified fingerprint found on
16:26
Speaker 1: one of the beer cans near Sabrina's body. Three days
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Speaker 1: before Henry and Leon's trial started. The police sent a
16:33
Speaker 1: request to the state crime Lab to compare that beer
16:36
Speaker 1: can fingerprint to the fingerprints of Roscoe Artists. But Joe
16:43
Speaker 1: Freeman Britt, even before the crime lab had time to
16:46
Speaker 1: do the testing. Britt charged ahead with Henry and Leon's trial,
16:50
Speaker 1: and that trial was hardly a fair fight. You've got
16:53
Speaker 1: the deadliest da facing off against two disabled teenagers.
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Speaker 2: Never stood a chance. It's going to be their word
17:02
Speaker 2: against the word of the police when this case goes
17:04
Speaker 2: to trial. How's somebody with a fifty six IQ or
17:08
Speaker 2: a forty nine IQ supposed to try to match their
17:12
Speaker 2: wits with a prosecutor like Joe Freeman Brett.
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Speaker 1: The heartbreaker was when Henry McCollum took the stand in
17:19
Speaker 1: his own defense with his typical flare. Joe Freeman Britt
17:23
Speaker 1: handled that cross examination himself. Didn't that touch your soul
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Speaker 1: at all? Britt asked, when that little girl was down
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Speaker 1: on the ground hollering, it didn't touch my soul. Henry answered,
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Speaker 1: because I didn't kill nobody. He added, I want to
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Speaker 1: tell you something, Joe Freeman, God got your judgment right
17:41
Speaker 1: in hell waiting for you. It wasn't enough. The jury
17:48
Speaker 1: convicted both Henry and Leon based on the confessions. After
17:52
Speaker 1: the verdict came back that fingerprint testing appears to have
17:55
Speaker 1: been canceled.
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Speaker 4: Joe Freeman Brett was much more concern and laser focus
18:01
Speaker 4: on pursuing the death penalty against Tarry McCollum and Leon
18:04
Speaker 4: Brown that he was in finding the real killer. They
18:08
Speaker 4: failed to pursue a fingerprint examination that I tend to
18:12
Speaker 4: think would have been very much determinative in this case,
18:16
Speaker 4: and I have to imagine that Jof Freeman Britt was
18:18
Speaker 4: part of that decision making process.
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Speaker 1: The defense was never even told that police had requested
18:23
Speaker 1: fingerprint testing. Instead, that information remained hidden, and Henry and
18:28
Speaker 1: Leon were sent to North Carolina's death Row, right alongside
18:31
Speaker 1: Roscoe artists. A few years later, in nineteen eighty eight,
18:35
Speaker 1: a court overturned Henry and Leon's convictions, but Britt retried
18:39
Speaker 1: them both separately. In nineteen ninety one, at Leon's second trial,
18:44
Speaker 1: the judge dismissed the murder charges against him, so Leon
18:47
Speaker 1: was convicted only of rape and sentenced to life in prison,
18:51
Speaker 1: not death. But Henry still faced murder charges and he
18:55
Speaker 1: was soon convicted again. His attorneys hoped that at least
18:58
Speaker 1: they might be able to save his life this time,
19:01
Speaker 1: but they were wrong. When Henry's sentence was read, he
19:04
Speaker 1: sat silently with his head down on the table, like
19:07
Speaker 1: a scared child. He had to go back to death row.
19:22
Speaker 1: The case of Sabrina Buoi's murder was closed, but not forgotten.
19:26
Speaker 1: That disabled kid who became a murder suspect because some
19:29
Speaker 1: high schoolers thought he looked weird was soon being singled
19:32
Speaker 1: out by a justice on the United States Supreme Court.
19:35
Speaker 1: But Henry McCollum's case was getting attention for all the
19:38
Speaker 1: wrong reasons. It was nineteen ninety four and the Supreme
19:42
Speaker 1: Court was debating whether the United States should still have
19:45
Speaker 1: the death penalty. In a case from Texas one, Justice
19:49
Speaker 1: Harry Blackman wrote that the death penalty should be ruled unconstitutional.
19:54
Speaker 1: Justice Blackman described how lethal injection works, how one human
19:58
Speaker 1: being injects drug into another human's body in front of
20:02
Speaker 1: an audience, until the condemned person dies in front of them.
20:06
Speaker 1: The justice wrote about his experience of trying for twenty
20:09
Speaker 1: years to develop rules that would ensure a perfect death
20:12
Speaker 1: penalty process. After nearly two decades, he declared the task impossible.
20:18
Speaker 1: No set of rules would be able to guarantee that
20:20
Speaker 1: we only execute the guilty and only after the guilty
20:24
Speaker 1: receive a fair process. From this day forward, Justice Blackman wrote,
20:29
Speaker 1: I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death.
20:34
Speaker 1: Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a scathing rebuttal, and this is
20:38
Speaker 1: where Henry and his brother Leon come in. Lethal injection,
20:42
Speaker 1: Justice Scalia wrote, looks pretty desirable compared to some of
20:45
Speaker 1: the worst murder cases. He urged readers to consider the
20:49
Speaker 1: case of the eleven year old girl killed by stuffing
20:52
Speaker 1: her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death
20:56
Speaker 1: by lethal injection compared with that. Justice Skala was talking
21:00
Speaker 1: about the case of Sabrina Buie.
21:03
Speaker 4: Justice Scalia said, if there's ever a case that warranted
21:06
Speaker 4: the death penalty, it's this one. Knowing what we know
21:09
Speaker 4: now about Henry Lyon's innocence, I think it completely undermines
21:14
Speaker 4: any legal or moral argument behind that statement, because if
21:17
Speaker 4: this case could be held up as the poster case
21:21
Speaker 4: for the death penalty, and now we've discovered what an
21:24
Speaker 4: absolute mess of negligence and railroading it involved, then that
21:30
Speaker 4: means the entire system is undermined.
21:32
Speaker 1: The years ticked by and that railroading started coming to
21:35
Speaker 1: light as the record of Joe Freeman Britt started getting
21:38
Speaker 1: some scrutiny. According to a report by Harvard Law School's
21:42
Speaker 1: Fair Punishment Project, Britt committed misconduct in fourteen cases. In
21:47
Speaker 1: Henry McCollum's case, the report said, he failed to notify
21:51
Speaker 1: the defense not only about the beer can fingerprint, but
21:55
Speaker 1: also about a cigarette butt found near Sabrina's body. In
21:59
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, more than twenty years after Sabrina died,
22:03
Speaker 1: Henry's post conviction lawyers asked for DNA testing on the
22:07
Speaker 1: traces of saliva left on the cigarette butt. That testing
22:10
Speaker 1: found a single male profile and it didn't belong to
22:13
Speaker 1: Henry or Leon. That evidence should have been enough to
22:17
Speaker 1: exonerate them right then and there.
22:19
Speaker 4: The testing wasn't sophisticated enough at that point to match
22:23
Speaker 4: it to someone else. Basically, we knew that it wasn't Henry's.
22:26
Speaker 4: We knew that it wasn't Leon's, but that's all that
22:27
Speaker 4: we knew.
22:28
Speaker 1: The profile couldn't be run through the national DNA database,
22:32
Speaker 1: and so Henry and Leon were denied exoneration because their
22:36
Speaker 1: lawyers couldn't tell the state whose DNA it really was.
22:39
Speaker 1: It took nearly nine years for the case to regain momentum.
22:43
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, with.
22:45
Speaker 4: The help of another inmate, Leon wrote to the North
22:48
Speaker 4: Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission and asked them to look into
22:50
Speaker 4: his case.
22:51
Speaker 2: The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission is an independent state
22:59
Speaker 2: agency charged with investigating claims of actual innocence. But the
23:06
Speaker 2: Commission doesn't have an agenda. It's not here to prove
23:10
Speaker 2: that the defendants did not commit this crime. It's here
23:15
Speaker 2: to find the truth, and it's the only statewide agency
23:19
Speaker 2: like it in the country.
23:20
Speaker 4: As the Sincree Commission could say, we want to test
23:23
Speaker 4: the sevidence. We want access to these records, We want
23:25
Speaker 4: access to these boxes of evidence that it has been
23:27
Speaker 4: sitting on your shelf for thirty years. Hand them over
23:30
Speaker 4: to us right now. So that's an extraordinary power to have.
23:32
Speaker 2: There was no stone left unturned. They tested every hair,
23:38
Speaker 2: they tested wrappers found at the crime scene. They tested
23:41
Speaker 2: beer cans. They tested all of her clothing, her blouse,
23:46
Speaker 2: her shoes, her socks, her underpants. They tested cigarette butts.
23:53
Speaker 1: This time, with more sophisticated testing, the cigarette butt DNA
23:57
Speaker 1: was able to be identified.
23:59
Speaker 4: It wasn't Henry's, it wasn't Leon's.
24:01
Speaker 2: When they ran it through the North Carolina database, they
24:04
Speaker 2: got a hit. They got a hit to Roscoe artists.
24:08
Speaker 4: We knew of Roscoe artists, we knew how early similar
24:12
Speaker 4: their crimes were.
24:13
Speaker 2: Roscoe artists who was living in the very same community,
24:17
Speaker 2: and a month later committed a very similar crime.
24:22
Speaker 1: That was enough. Henry and Leon's lawyers, including Representative Alston,
24:27
Speaker 1: asked the court to throw out their convictions based on
24:30
Speaker 1: DNA evidence of the real killer, and on September second,
24:34
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were exonerated in
24:39
Speaker 1: a Robinson County courtroom as the burden of wrongful conviction
24:44
Speaker 1: was lifted from him. Leon Brown smiled big, but all
24:48
Speaker 1: Henry McCollum could do was sit back in his chair,
24:51
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, and close his eyes. Both men
24:55
Speaker 1: had served nearly thirty one years in prison. Now find
25:00
Speaker 1: they were going home.
25:05
Speaker 2: Await day, y'allo?
25:08
Speaker 1: No, what's my name's name?
25:12
Speaker 4: That's rights?
25:18
Speaker 1: Yea love y'all y'all do you think to make a
25:23
Speaker 1: doubly official? Both Henry and Leon received pardons from the
25:26
Speaker 1: North Carolina governor in June twenty fifteen. Joe Freeman Britt
25:30
Speaker 1: remained a firm believer in their guilt. When he heard
25:33
Speaker 1: about the pardons, Britt called the governor a damn fool. Today,
25:38
Speaker 1: Rosco Artist remains behind bars in North Carolina. On appeal,
25:42
Speaker 1: his death sentence was converted to life in prison.
25:45
Speaker 2: For his part.
25:46
Speaker 1: Joe Freeman Britt died in twenty sixteen. So here's the thing.
25:54
Speaker 1: During the thirty one years that Henry spent on death row,
25:57
Speaker 1: he went through two capital trials. Twenty four jurors evaluated
26:02
Speaker 1: the evidence against him, and they all voted to convict.
26:05
Speaker 1: Over the years, more than twenty judges reviewed the case
26:08
Speaker 1: against him and said they found nothing wrong. Twelve defense
26:11
Speaker 1: attorneys represented him over the years. They all did their
26:15
Speaker 1: jobs just as the system expects them to. If it
26:18
Speaker 1: weren't for the Innocence Inquiry Commission, Henry would probably be
26:21
Speaker 1: dead today, executed by lethal injection. But North Carolina is
26:26
Speaker 1: the only state with a commission like that, even though
26:29
Speaker 1: twenty seven other states have the death penalty, and the
26:32
Speaker 1: commission can only take a tiny fraction of the cases
26:35
Speaker 1: that are brought to it. So I have to agree
26:38
Speaker 1: with Supreme Court Justice Blackman. We can have the best
26:42
Speaker 1: process in the world, but there is no such thing
26:45
Speaker 1: as a perfect death penalty.
26:47
Speaker 2: They're going to be errors in the fact that in
26:49
Speaker 2: some parts of a state the death penalty is sought
26:52
Speaker 2: more frequently than in other parts of the state. There
26:55
Speaker 2: are going to be errors in the kinds of cases,
26:58
Speaker 2: whether their high publicity cases or not, or in the
27:02
Speaker 2: race of the victim. They are going to be disparities
27:05
Speaker 2: in the way these decisions are made. It's a human endeavor,
27:10
Speaker 2: so there are going to be errors.
27:13
Speaker 1: Henry McCollums not alone. To date, one hundred and seventy
27:18
Speaker 1: two people have been exonerated off death rows nationwide, including
27:23
Speaker 1: at least nine in North Carolina. Have we saved every
27:26
Speaker 1: innocent person sentenced to death? There's no way. We haven't
27:30
Speaker 1: executed an innocent person, and it'll happen again until we
27:35
Speaker 1: abolish the death penalty for good.
27:37
Speaker 4: You know, someone hadn't written a letter on Leon's behalf
27:40
Speaker 4: to the Ineces Inquiry Commission, we would not be here
27:42
Speaker 4: having this conversation. Henry and Leon would not have been released.
27:47
Speaker 4: And our criminal justice system, and our death penalty system
27:50
Speaker 4: in particular, shouldn't and can't, rely on luck to protect
27:54
Speaker 4: innocent people.
27:55
Speaker 1: Thanks to luck, perseverance, and good lawyering, Henry and Leon
27:59
Speaker 1: are surviving instead of living on death row. They can
28:03
Speaker 1: finally just live.
28:08
Speaker 5: I try to stay busy every day.
28:10
Speaker 2: That's Henry, my preaching wife. You know, she makes my days.
28:14
Speaker 4: She's sweet.
28:15
Speaker 2: When I get up in the morning, like.
28:18
Speaker 4: Five o'clock in the morning.
28:19
Speaker 5: You know, I make her coffee which she drinks thee cafee.
28:23
Speaker 5: I drink mine's black with no sugar.
28:26
Speaker 2: It's a lot of food that I enjoy eating.
28:29
Speaker 5: I like turn up greens, collar greens, and I say
28:33
Speaker 5: my lady is the best one. Knew how to fix
28:37
Speaker 5: that baked chicken. For me, it feel good to breathe
28:41
Speaker 5: this air out here. It's good to have my freedom again.
28:47
Speaker 1: And here's Leon.
28:48
Speaker 6: My favorite thing to do is really listen to the radio,
28:52
Speaker 6: ODIEES and R and B classes its seventies and eighties
28:57
Speaker 6: and nineties, some of tholse whoses so that they don't
29:02
Speaker 6: make no mope. And here the group home. You know,
29:06
Speaker 6: I try to treat everybody the way I would want
29:08
Speaker 6: to be treated. I guess that's why they like me
29:11
Speaker 6: the way they do. They keep me going, keep me laughing,
29:14
Speaker 6: and you know, night be here before you know it.
29:17
Speaker 2: The way the day be going. Man, it's always something
29:19
Speaker 2: to do.
29:33
Speaker 1: This episode is dedicated to Henry and Leon and to
29:36
Speaker 1: all the brave lawyers fighting to abolish the death penalty.
29:39
Speaker 1: Steve and I salute you. That's the story of Henry
29:46
Speaker 1: McCollum and Leon Brown. Join us next week when we
29:49
Speaker 1: tell you about Tyra Patterson. Tyra was just nineteen when
29:53
Speaker 1: she falsely confessed to stealing a necklace, but because of
29:56
Speaker 1: an arcane legal rule, that confession to stealing was into
30:00
Speaker 1: a conviction for murder. Wrongful conviction, false confessions is a
30:07
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal
30:11
Speaker 1: Company Number one Special thanks to our executive producers Jason
30:15
Speaker 1: Flamm and Kevin Wardis. Our production team is headed by
30:19
Speaker 1: Senior producer and Pope, along with producers Joshi Hammer and
30:22
Speaker 1: Jess Shane. Our show is mixed by Genie Montalvo. John
30:26
Speaker 1: Colbert is our intrepid intern. Our music was composed by
30:29
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter
30:33
Speaker 1: at Laura and I Wrider.
30:35
Speaker 2: And you can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
30:38
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast
30:41
Speaker 1: dot com.
30:42
Speaker 3: Be sure to
30:43
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook
30:47
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction