Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #049 Jason Flom with Leroy Harris

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#049 Jason Flom with Leroy Harris · 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,
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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
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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.
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Speaker 3: I'm not anti police, I'm just anti corruption.
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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.
0:48
Speaker 3: We said, that could never happen to me, but they can.
0:57
Speaker 4: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's
1:17
Speaker 4: guest is an extraordinary person who has been through something
1:21
Speaker 4: that nobody should ever go through. Leroy Harris, Welcome to
1:26
Speaker 4: the show.
1:26
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
1:28
Speaker 4: There's so many crazy aspects of your case, but I
1:31
Speaker 4: think we should probably start at the beginning. First of all,
1:34
Speaker 4: where did you grow up?
1:35
Speaker 3: I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
1:37
Speaker 4: And how was that. Did you have a nice family situation?
1:41
Speaker 4: I mean, was it a tough childhood?
1:42
Speaker 3: Well?
1:43
Speaker 2: No, we had a close knit family. I mean we
1:46
Speaker 2: was very supportive of each other and brothers, sisters, Yeah, brothers.
1:51
Speaker 2: My mother she was a single parent. She raised fourteen children.
1:58
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, my mother had seven sons and seven daughters.
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Speaker 4: Wow, that's amazing.
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Speaker 2: And you know my father he well at the time
2:08
Speaker 2: he worked as a truck driver, so he was in
2:11
Speaker 2: and out. But you know, he was supportive of the
2:13
Speaker 2: family too, but he just a lot of times he
2:16
Speaker 2: just couldn't really provide as much as he wanted to
2:22
Speaker 2: because the family was so big.
2:24
Speaker 4: How big was your apartment that you lived in?
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Speaker 3: We lived in the house.
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Speaker 2: You know, we went from eastern New York to Flatbush
2:30
Speaker 2: and at that time in Flatbush, you know, was a
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Speaker 2: lot of different families, different nationalities coming in and so
2:38
Speaker 2: it was pretty integrated. It was a good community that
2:42
Speaker 2: I lived in. And you know, so the family just
2:45
Speaker 2: growing up, it was it was it was a good
2:47
Speaker 2: wholesome family.
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Speaker 4: Were you the oldest, youngest, Well, I.
2:50
Speaker 3: Was one of the middles.
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Speaker 4: Before this criminal justice nightmare hit you like a ton
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Speaker 4: of bricks. Did you have when you were twenty two
2:58
Speaker 4: years older? Yes, I was before that. Did you have
3:01
Speaker 4: any interaction with the justices?
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Speaker 2: No, I didn't really have no encounters with the police.
3:08
Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't a bad kid if you consider
3:11
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit of every now and then,
3:14
Speaker 2: you know, growing up, a little beer or something, you know,
3:17
Speaker 2: as a kid, you know, growing up younger twenty one,
3:20
Speaker 2: twenty two, I took a drink here.
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Speaker 3: Nil or you know.
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Speaker 4: Okay, so you were a regular kid.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. That's it. I was a regular kid.
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Speaker 3: I mean, nothing other than that little beer here and there.
3:30
Speaker 3: That was it. You know.
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Speaker 4: So this part of the story starts in nineteen eighty three, Yeah,
3:36
Speaker 4: just a long time ago. I mean, that's like I'm
3:41
Speaker 4: trying to think back of I mean, like when I
3:43
Speaker 4: watched the movie of My life backwards. If I think
3:45
Speaker 4: about the last thirty five years and thinking about you
3:49
Speaker 4: spending it incarcerated, it really is. That's just it's an
3:56
Speaker 4: enormous amount of time, and none of it ever made
4:00
Speaker 4: any sense. You originally picked up on a.
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Speaker 3: Warrant nineteen eighty four, and I knew nothing about it.
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Speaker 4: And this was in Connecticut in Connecticut in new Haven,
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Speaker 4: so they pick you up on a warrant. Now most
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Speaker 4: people are probably saying, okay, so what was the warrant for?
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Speaker 4: And you didn't know.
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Speaker 3: Well, like I said, I'm from Brooklyn.
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Speaker 2: My mother she lived in New Haven at this time,
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Speaker 2: so I'm out of town. They picked me up and
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Speaker 2: locked me up, and that's all I know. At that point,
4:26
Speaker 2: I'm waiting to see a judge, you know, get the court.
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Speaker 2: I'm locked up four months. I finally come to court
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Speaker 2: September eighteenth, eighty four, and I'm asking him, where's the lawyer?
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Speaker 2: Can you call my lawyer down?
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Speaker 4: So you have not at this point ever even met
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Speaker 4: your lawyer yet.
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Speaker 3: Nobody, So you don't have a lawyer.
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Speaker 2: I don't have any but I know I'm coming to court,
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Speaker 2: so they have to have the Public Defender's office have
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Speaker 2: somebody come down to see me before I go up
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Speaker 2: to see the judge. So I'm asking where's the lawyer
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Speaker 2: because I know you have to get a lawyer.
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Speaker 3: I don't have no money.
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Speaker 4: But the logical thing mind is going to say, but
5:01
Speaker 4: wait a minute, you must have seen a lawyer while
5:03
Speaker 4: you were in jail. Everyone's entitled to a lawyer. It
5:05
Speaker 4: says that in the constitution, how were they You were
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Speaker 4: in jail for four months and you didn't even know
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Speaker 4: what was going on and you didn't see a lawyer.
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Speaker 2: Well, they you know, sometimes people do what they want
5:13
Speaker 2: to do. I mean, just because a person is a
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Speaker 2: prosecutor or a person is a police officer, it doesn't
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Speaker 2: mean that they are following the letter of the law.
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Speaker 2: So we need to make that clear because if they
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Speaker 2: were following the letter of the law, I would have
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Speaker 2: seen a lawyer day one when they arrested me.
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Speaker 4: And then most likely none of this ever would have happened,
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Speaker 4: because you would have been able to prove that whatever
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Speaker 4: it was that they were charging you with, they had
5:40
Speaker 4: the wrong guy. Right now, you can't see him, but
5:43
Speaker 4: Leroy is a very dapper dresser. He's all decked out today.
5:47
Speaker 4: And that's actually an important point because it plays a
5:49
Speaker 4: role in the next part of the story. Right, so
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Speaker 4: you show up in court dressed to kill, yes, no
5:55
Speaker 4: pun intended. And what happens next.
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Speaker 2: Well, they called me the court that day. I get
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Speaker 2: to the courthouse, I'm down in the lock up. I'm
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Speaker 2: asking the sheriff, where's the lawyer? Can I see a lawyer.
6:10
Speaker 2: Who's my lawyer? He goes upstairs to the Public Defender's office.
6:15
Speaker 2: We got Leroy Harris downstairs. He's asking who is his lawyer?
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Speaker 2: This dad and he comes back down maybe twenty five
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Speaker 2: minutes later and says, I don't know. Then the doorbell
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Speaker 2: to the lock up gets the buzz that someone comes in.
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Speaker 2: He says, mister Harris. He says, they're here for you. Now,
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Speaker 2: I said they're here for me. Now, what do you mean?
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Speaker 2: He says, there's a cop officer Lemon. He wants to
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Speaker 2: speak to you. The officer said, asking.
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Speaker 3: Me, are you Leroy Harris. I says yes, I am.
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Speaker 2: He says it is your date of birth ten twenty
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Speaker 2: five sixty. I says yes it is, and he says,
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Speaker 2: well turned around Yon Durest. I said for what he said,
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Speaker 2: for robbery and sexual assault. He says this happened May
7:11
Speaker 2: twenty first, nineteen eighty three. Now this is another warrant.
7:16
Speaker 2: So they take me from de Locaup to one Union Avenue,
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Speaker 2: which is the police headquarters, process me and put me
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Speaker 2: in the van, bring me back to another court for
7:30
Speaker 2: arrangement for this new warrant. So when I get to
7:34
Speaker 2: the court. I'm sitting there waiting to be arranged, and
7:39
Speaker 2: pandemonium erupted in the courthouse, and one of the sheriffs
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Speaker 2: ran over and said, hey, come on, get out of here.
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Speaker 2: And I didn't ask any questions. I got up and
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Speaker 2: I walked out.
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Speaker 4: So wait, when you say pandemonia erupted, what do you mean?
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Speaker 3: It was a lot of excitement in the courthouse.
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Speaker 2: People were yelling over here, so he was just trying
8:02
Speaker 2: to clear everything out. And he told me, hey, get up.
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Speaker 2: And because the way I looked, he didn't think that
8:08
Speaker 2: I was a prisoner.
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Speaker 4: Did he think you were a lawyer?
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Speaker 3: I guess he did, because that was inside the transcripts.
8:15
Speaker 3: He said, well, he did.
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Speaker 2: The clothes he was wearing, the suit, the way he looked,
8:19
Speaker 2: look at the pictures, no one knew you know, that
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Speaker 2: was Leroy.
8:23
Speaker 4: I mean, you do look more like a lawyer or
8:25
Speaker 4: a college professor than somebody who's been in prison. Even now.
8:28
Speaker 4: I mean, and this is something that's just totally surreal.
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Speaker 4: Like here you are with two warrants, one of you
8:34
Speaker 4: still don't know what it is, the other one you
8:36
Speaker 4: don't know what the hell they're talking about, right, you know,
8:38
Speaker 4: what it is, but it doesn't make any sense to you.
8:41
Speaker 4: You walk out of the courtroom into the fresh air. Yes,
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Speaker 4: because they told you to.
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Speaker 3: They told me, go ahead, get out of here.
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Speaker 4: Which sounds like it all sounds so crazy, right, So
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Speaker 4: you walk out and then what happens.
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Speaker 2: Well, I walked out, and I got on the train
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Speaker 2: and I went home to Brooklyn and I was then
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Speaker 2: Brooklyn for maybe a year and a half before I
9:04
Speaker 2: was picked up and brought back to New Haven and
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Speaker 2: they charged me with escape from custody. Now I got
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Speaker 2: an escape from custody and I got three cases. I
9:16
Speaker 2: don't really didn't really have nothing from the beginning. I
9:19
Speaker 2: didn't know what was going on. And they take me
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Speaker 2: to trial in eighty six, November twenty, nineteen eighty six,
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Speaker 2: they take me to trial for escape.
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Speaker 4: And by the way, this is the most elegant escape
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Speaker 4: I've ever heard of. Right, they actually told you to
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Speaker 4: walk out, So this is the most peaceful escape in
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Speaker 4: the history of escapes. Just like, off you go, like,
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Speaker 4: take a walk, see you later, get on the trade,
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Speaker 4: go home, Thank you very much. Okay, So now they're
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Speaker 4: charging you with escape. The previous warrant. They still didn't
9:51
Speaker 4: tell you what it is.
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Speaker 3: I later found out there was lossity in the second.
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Speaker 4: Degree, okay, larcening in the second degree, okay, so another thing.
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Speaker 4: So they brought you to trial out and they charge
10:01
Speaker 4: you with all three crimes.
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Speaker 3: Just escape. That's later.
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Speaker 2: We talked about eighty six right now. So they charged
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Speaker 2: me with escape. So now they convict me. Now you
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Speaker 2: had a lawyer, right well, yeah, I had a lawyer,
10:15
Speaker 2: but it wasn't Sometimes you say bootleg, and I think
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Speaker 2: that's what this was. This was the bootleg of fleet Market,
10:22
Speaker 2: you know, the fleet Market lawyer. He wasn't in my
10:25
Speaker 2: best interest at all. What was going on. I guess,
10:28
Speaker 2: like I said, if the system want to take you
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Speaker 2: out of society for whatever reason, they will do it
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Speaker 2: no matter what laws they have to break, saying that
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Speaker 2: they are enforcing the laws, but they're breaking the laws.
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Speaker 4: Because it would seem like a relatively simple argument for
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Speaker 4: a lawyer to make to say, well, the sheriff told
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Speaker 4: my client to leave and he left, doesn't seem to
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Speaker 4: meet the definition of escape, but that he didn't even
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Speaker 4: bother him out that argument.
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Speaker 2: They charged me with escape from custody. And this is
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Speaker 2: the part where I did escape.
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Speaker 4: Right, because there's a real escape.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the escape. This is now, this is
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Speaker 2: the escape. Once they did that. Once they did that
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Speaker 2: from walking out and they told me to walk out
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Speaker 2: that day November twentieth, nineteen eighty six, the prosecutor said
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Speaker 2: to me, now you're convicted.
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Speaker 3: What I'm gonna do. I'm gonna have.
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Speaker 2: You charged as a serious persistent felon the offender. I
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Speaker 2: had no cases, I had no charges, I had no
11:35
Speaker 2: felon needs except the escape that you just.
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Speaker 3: Convicted me on.
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Speaker 2: He says, I'm gonna charge you as a serious persistent
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Speaker 2: felon the offender. And you're going downstairs in the lock up.
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Speaker 2: And this was before one o'clock that day I was convicted,
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Speaker 2: and at two o'clock you're coming back upstairs and we're
11:56
Speaker 2: gonna pick another jury. And all that jury has to
12:01
Speaker 2: do just say that you're guilty as a persistent fella
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Speaker 2: in the offender.
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Speaker 3: And the sheriff right here that within the.
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Speaker 2: Courtroom during the trial, he's a witness, and the sinographer
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Speaker 2: that's sitting right there, she's a witness that you just
12:19
Speaker 2: was convicted and you got another felony.
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Speaker 3: They're gonna testify to that and.
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Speaker 2: If the jury sees that, they can double up and
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Speaker 2: give you instead of ten years for walking out for
12:30
Speaker 2: the escape, twenty that's when I escaped.
12:43
Speaker 4: And then how did you escape this time? Because it's
12:47
Speaker 4: really amazing because I'm sitting here thinking, well, if they're
12:49
Speaker 4: going to charge me with an escape, and I'm going
12:52
Speaker 4: to show him what escape looks and ask.
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Speaker 3: What I did.
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Speaker 2: And that day, when I went downstairs, I left how
13:01
Speaker 2: I went through. I went.
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Speaker 3: I just went through the control room.
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Speaker 2: I opened up the door, I walked out the fence,
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Speaker 2: I walked up the driveway. I walked onto the New
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Speaker 2: Haven Green and I sat there for a minute. Took
13:20
Speaker 2: off my suit and I had my shorts onto that
13:23
Speaker 2: because I was on trial, so I had I was stap.
13:26
Speaker 2: I had a dress suit on and I had gym
13:28
Speaker 2: shorts underneath that. So I just took that off, took
13:32
Speaker 2: my shoe over, left it through it in the garbage,
13:34
Speaker 2: and I just walked down to Elm Street and I
13:37
Speaker 2: seen somebody with a car and they gave me a
13:41
Speaker 2: ride to the train station and I got on the
13:43
Speaker 2: train and I went back to Brooklyn. And when I
13:48
Speaker 2: got back in Brooklyn, I was again charged with escape
13:52
Speaker 2: from custody until I was picked up on March fifteenth,
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Speaker 2: nine teen eighty eight.
14:00
Speaker 3: Now, and that's just where this comes in at.
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Speaker 4: So March fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Now, wow, and here
14:08
Speaker 4: we are in twenty eighteen. It's not hard to do
14:10
Speaker 4: the math on that one. And then you never saw
14:13
Speaker 4: daylight again from that point until twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Until right until November twenty first, two thy seventeen. That
14:23
Speaker 2: was when I seen freedom as I known it to be.
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Speaker 4: So it's so recent too. It's really just started processing
14:34
Speaker 4: this right now. You eventually ended up getting picked up
14:39
Speaker 4: this now third time, charged with an escape that was
14:44
Speaker 4: an actual escape. And it's interesting listening to you talk
14:46
Speaker 4: about it because you make it sound like it was
14:48
Speaker 4: so easy, but it couldn't have been that easy. I mean,
14:50
Speaker 4: they make it serious.
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Speaker 3: I was just furious, become furious. I mean what they did,
14:55
Speaker 3: what they did, I was just so furious. I just left.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you left, but I mean again, like it doesn't
15:02
Speaker 4: people can't just leave me. No, you had to put
15:04
Speaker 4: some I don't know how you did it. It's still
15:06
Speaker 4: sort of missing me. I'm trying to picture the different
15:08
Speaker 4: doors and walls and things. But you got out, so
15:11
Speaker 4: now here it is nineteen eighty eight, you're back in custody,
15:16
Speaker 4: and this time they're going to try you for this
15:18
Speaker 4: sexual assault and robbery that you know nothing about. And
15:23
Speaker 4: now you have another public defender. And was this guy
15:26
Speaker 4: any better than the other guy?
15:28
Speaker 3: No, this wasn't him. This was her, Patricia buck Wolf.
15:32
Speaker 2: She was an advocate for battered women, for women of
15:36
Speaker 2: sexual assass for sheltered women, and women in crisis and
15:40
Speaker 2: everything else. So I didn't have no defense at all.
15:44
Speaker 2: I just sat there during the whole trial, and the
15:46
Speaker 2: state put on their case. It was my five hundred
15:49
Speaker 2: and twenty pages in the transcript and nothing with me.
15:55
Speaker 4: So she was from the picture that you're painting. It
15:59
Speaker 4: sounded like she didn't have a lot of interest in
16:02
Speaker 4: that because she was looking at it like if they're
16:06
Speaker 4: charging you, you must be guilty, and she's wants to
16:08
Speaker 4: take the side of the woman. And it was a
16:11
Speaker 4: terrible case. Yeah, nobody would you know whatever, want this
16:14
Speaker 4: to happen to anybody. But that doesn't mean that you
16:17
Speaker 4: don't deserve a fair trial, and it doesn't mean that
16:19
Speaker 4: we should convict the wrong guy, which is exactly what
16:21
Speaker 4: happened is what happens too frequently in this country, and people,
16:24
Speaker 4: I think would expect that there would be a system
16:27
Speaker 4: of justice that wouldn't totally break down in the way
16:30
Speaker 4: that it did in your case over and over again.
16:33
Speaker 4: It's not like there was one time, and I mean like,
16:36
Speaker 4: you had multiple opportunities for the justice system to work
16:40
Speaker 4: in your favor, as just a regular law abiding citizen
16:43
Speaker 4: deserves and would expect, and every single time it almost
16:47
Speaker 4: got worse. I mean here, they basically sounds like and
16:50
Speaker 4: I don't know whether they did it on purpose, but
16:52
Speaker 4: they probably stuck you with a lawyer that was the
16:56
Speaker 4: least likely one to want to really mount an aggressive
16:58
Speaker 4: defense for you in this case. How long did the
17:01
Speaker 4: child take?
17:02
Speaker 2: When the trial went from the fourth to the tenth,
17:06
Speaker 2: the eleventh. The next day they sit in to me
17:09
Speaker 2: nine o'clock in the morning. But I didn't find out
17:13
Speaker 2: about Patricia buck Wolf until two thousand and eight. It
17:20
Speaker 2: was a prejudice did because of the case and what
17:24
Speaker 2: she represented, and I didn't know that. I found that
17:27
Speaker 2: out years later, most twenty years later. Yeah, I found
17:29
Speaker 2: that out.
17:30
Speaker 4: And you know what's ironic about that, Leroy, is that
17:32
Speaker 4: you can't escape the fact that in doing what she did,
17:38
Speaker 4: which was not defending you and not getting to the truth,
17:41
Speaker 4: what she actually did is allowed the actual perpetrator to
17:47
Speaker 4: remain free to abuse more women. She broke the law, well,
17:52
Speaker 4: she broke the law. But also if her goal which
17:54
Speaker 4: we can agree with, which is to help battered women
17:56
Speaker 4: and to be an advocate for women who are in
17:59
Speaker 4: suffering and abused, if that was her goal, she actually
18:03
Speaker 4: accomplished the opposite thing, because not only did she do
18:06
Speaker 4: a grave injustice to you, but also any other woman
18:11
Speaker 4: that the actual perpetrator went and abused. Those women would
18:15
Speaker 4: never have been victimized if the system would have worked,
18:18
Speaker 4: and if she and the other people would have done
18:20
Speaker 4: their job, and they would have actually figured out that
18:22
Speaker 4: you were innocent and gone and found the guy who's
18:24
Speaker 4: a bad guy and should be off the streets and
18:26
Speaker 4: should be in prison. So she actually did a terrible
18:30
Speaker 4: disservice to women by using this twisted logic that she
18:35
Speaker 4: had in just disregarding your guilt or innocence and throwing
18:40
Speaker 4: you to the well, throwing you to the wolves, right,
18:42
Speaker 4: her name was wolves. She threw you to the wolves.
18:45
Speaker 4: You end up getting sentenced to eighty years eighty years
18:50
Speaker 4: in prison. I mean, how did you even manage to
18:55
Speaker 4: deal with that? You've already been wrongfully arrested multiple times,
19:00
Speaker 4: charged wrongly multiple times, in and out of prison escapes,
19:04
Speaker 4: You've already had like a nightmarish journey, and now comes
19:09
Speaker 4: the ultimate, which is an eighty year sentence. I mean,
19:13
Speaker 4: you had at this point, you had a wife and
19:15
Speaker 4: a child and a life that you were supposed to
19:18
Speaker 4: be living absolutely and you're being pulled away from all
19:21
Speaker 4: of that and basically sentenced to die in prison. You
19:23
Speaker 4: weren't going to live another eighty years.
19:25
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't, but I knew that I had to
19:28
Speaker 2: fight this. April eleventh, nineteen eighty nine, they gave me
19:35
Speaker 2: eighty a sentence, and I said, from that day.
19:42
Speaker 3: I gotta fight him.
19:43
Speaker 4: And let's go back for a second, le Roy and
19:45
Speaker 4: talk about this case, because this was a terrible crime. Right.
19:49
Speaker 4: There were three guys who stole the car and some
19:53
Speaker 4: money from somebody, and then there were two young ladies
19:57
Speaker 4: in the car who ended up and a terrible twist
20:01
Speaker 4: of faith, they ended up making a wrong turn, getting
20:03
Speaker 4: stuck on a dead end and then running basically into
20:06
Speaker 4: a more or less a roadblock that these guys who
20:08
Speaker 4: had just stolen this other car were able to sort
20:11
Speaker 4: of box them in, and so they were sexually assaulted
20:16
Speaker 4: and robbed. They knew they had three perpetrators, right, and
20:20
Speaker 4: they had two of them. They had caught two of them,
20:22
Speaker 4: Is that right?
20:23
Speaker 3: No, they had a whole lot of suspects.
20:27
Speaker 2: James Pooky, Round Trees, Smith, Shepherd, Blingold. They had a
20:32
Speaker 2: whole lot of people that they thought that was a
20:38
Speaker 2: potential suspect that never came out because they wanted, I guess,
20:43
Speaker 2: to punish me, and so I was punished for that.
20:47
Speaker 2: And today, as I said before you, I have proven
20:50
Speaker 2: that November twenty first, even prior to that, that it
20:55
Speaker 2: wasn't me and everything that they knew, all of them years,
20:59
Speaker 2: it was because of a prosecutor named James Clark.
21:02
Speaker 3: He was being vindictive.
21:03
Speaker 2: He was mad because I left the first time, and
21:06
Speaker 2: then after they try to get double up and give
21:09
Speaker 2: me twenty years for walking out the door.
21:14
Speaker 3: He was mad about that.
21:15
Speaker 2: That's when I escaped and they gave me to ten
21:18
Speaker 2: years in absentia. When they brought me back in custy,
21:22
Speaker 2: I was sentenced to ten years so he did that
21:27
Speaker 2: while I was on the run, and so it.
21:30
Speaker 3: Was just being vengeful.
21:33
Speaker 2: He just wanted to hurt me, just to hurt me,
21:36
Speaker 2: you know, because I left, and showing me that he
21:38
Speaker 2: got the power.
21:39
Speaker 3: I got the power, so I'm gonna take it life,
21:41
Speaker 3: I don't care. I'm to take it.
21:42
Speaker 2: And that's what he did, even though he knew and
21:45
Speaker 2: all the evidence at the time from day one showed
21:50
Speaker 2: that I had nothing to do with it, that I
21:52
Speaker 2: wasn't there, you know, I wasn't even supposed to have been
21:54
Speaker 2: a suspect. He knew that from day one. He knew
21:58
Speaker 2: that from eighty three, and all the documentation shows that clearly,
22:04
Speaker 2: all the evidence. But he took me to trial in
22:07
Speaker 2: eighty nine and had me suffer for twenty nine years,
22:12
Speaker 2: taking that our die in prison because this conversation around
22:15
Speaker 2: the water fountain was he'll be catching up the mats
22:18
Speaker 2: and when he get out, he'll be doing this.
22:21
Speaker 3: He'll be doing that for nothing. So this was a
22:25
Speaker 3: vicious person.
22:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's really hard to figure out how people
22:32
Speaker 4: can go so far wrong that they can just sendence
22:35
Speaker 4: somebody like you to spend the rest of their life
22:37
Speaker 4: in prison. Then go home and have a nice dinner,
22:40
Speaker 4: coach lead, you know, just go on with their lives
22:43
Speaker 4: like nothing happened. But as unfortunately, there's a lot of
22:45
Speaker 4: people out there like that. There are good people in
22:48
Speaker 4: the justice system, and I always say that, and we
22:50
Speaker 4: need a justice system, and we need when you're in trouble,
22:52
Speaker 4: you need to be able to call somebody, need to
22:54
Speaker 4: be able to call a cop. Absolutely no, we need
22:56
Speaker 4: prosecutes that, we need judges, but they are just too
22:59
Speaker 4: damn many of these people like this guy, who have
23:03
Speaker 4: no conscience and have no and really have no interest
23:07
Speaker 4: in justice at all. Because again, and I make this
23:09
Speaker 4: point over and over again, when they lock up the
23:11
Speaker 4: wrong guy, they don't lock up the right guy, and
23:13
Speaker 4: that guy's free to go out and terrorize the community.
23:17
Speaker 4: And your case was proven with DNA that you were innocent,
23:21
Speaker 4: but they also had other evidence. They knew that the
23:23
Speaker 4: witnesses had said that they didn't know you. That the body,
23:27
Speaker 4: I mean, there was nobody that placed you had to
23:29
Speaker 4: see the crowd, there was nobody even knew who you were.
23:31
Speaker 3: Even the victims told him that.
23:33
Speaker 2: In September twenty seven, nineteen eighty three, when they arrested
23:36
Speaker 2: me the eighteenth, nineteen eighty four. The documentation that I
23:40
Speaker 2: have that says that when they ask the victims, is this.
23:44
Speaker 3: The guy, they said, no, case, he had nothing to
23:47
Speaker 3: do with it.
23:48
Speaker 2: But in eighty nine everybody comes parading in there because
23:52
Speaker 2: the clock.
23:53
Speaker 3: Do you see the man?
23:54
Speaker 4: Do you know Lee Ray Harris?
23:55
Speaker 3: Nope? From the witness, do you see the man in
23:58
Speaker 3: the courtroom?
24:00
Speaker 2: Let the record reflect that their victim just made an
24:03
Speaker 2: identification of the defendant. Okay, you may step down, Come
24:06
Speaker 2: on next with do you know Leroy Harritt?
24:08
Speaker 4: No?
24:08
Speaker 3: You ever seen them before? No, tell us what happened?
24:12
Speaker 3: Do you see the person in court?
24:14
Speaker 2: Let the record reflect that the victim just made the
24:16
Speaker 2: identification of the defendant.
24:18
Speaker 3: Okay, step down, call the next person.
24:20
Speaker 4: And we know now that the Supreme Court of Connecticut
24:23
Speaker 4: has outlawed those type of practices. Right, so under today's rules,
24:28
Speaker 4: they would not have been able to do that, because
24:30
Speaker 4: obviously that's a suggestive identification technique and it's been in
24:35
Speaker 4: use for a long time. But luckily now no one
24:37
Speaker 4: else will be able to be wrongfully identified as you
24:41
Speaker 4: were in that courtroom that day using those same tactics.
24:54
Speaker 4: And why do you think that those witnesses changed their
24:58
Speaker 4: story six years later.
25:00
Speaker 2: Well, I think that Clark told them that because they
25:04
Speaker 2: said it in a habeas trial that we came to court,
25:09
Speaker 2: because you come to court to identify a person, and
25:14
Speaker 2: Clark told them it was me.
25:18
Speaker 3: He's the prosecutor. This or documented.
25:22
Speaker 2: He put them in the room on the side and
25:25
Speaker 2: said that looking there, that's him right there.
25:32
Speaker 3: It is all documented.
25:33
Speaker 4: And by the way, we also know that so many
25:36
Speaker 4: different studies have shown how memory works. Right, First of all,
25:40
Speaker 4: you look different six years later. Everybody looks different six
25:43
Speaker 4: years later. The memory of an event that happened six
25:47
Speaker 4: years earlier is going to be foggy at best. Right,
25:51
Speaker 4: people can't even make a correct identification, you know, a
25:55
Speaker 4: day later in most cases, in many cases, right in
25:58
Speaker 4: your case here it is all these years later, and
26:00
Speaker 4: these suggestive techniques, a borderline course of techniques that were
26:04
Speaker 4: used could cause a person to either who knows whether
26:08
Speaker 4: they knew at the time that they were actually identifying
26:10
Speaker 4: an innocent person and maybe they were threatened if they
26:13
Speaker 4: didn't do that. Well, I don't know if we'll ever
26:15
Speaker 4: know the answer to that one, or whether they just
26:17
Speaker 4: were mistaken. But the fact is, going back to nineteen
26:20
Speaker 4: eighty three, they should have never proceeded past that point
26:24
Speaker 4: because they knew, and later on DNA proved it, and
26:27
Speaker 4: the witnesses have also come clean and said that they
26:30
Speaker 4: knew that you weren't the guy. So it's really it's
26:36
Speaker 4: a fucking tragedy, is what it is. I like to
26:38
Speaker 4: talk about how you know, when people are listening, most
26:43
Speaker 4: people's reactions are going to be, well, that could never
26:45
Speaker 4: happen to me. What would you say to that.
26:47
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that it couldn't happen because it couldn't
26:50
Speaker 2: happen to anybody. It happened to me. I mean a
26:53
Speaker 2: lot of times we look and we see something happen
26:55
Speaker 2: to somebody and that's the first thing we said, that
26:58
Speaker 2: could never happen to me.
26:59
Speaker 4: But it can, right, And that's one reason that it's
27:03
Speaker 4: important that we talked about your background, because the fact
27:06
Speaker 4: that you came from a good family, that you were
27:09
Speaker 4: a law abiding citizen who had never been in trouble.
27:12
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people jumped the conclusions they think, well,
27:15
Speaker 4: if this guy was convicted, he must have done something right.
27:18
Speaker 4: A lot I hear that from people, sometimes even people
27:20
Speaker 4: that you know, you think are good, you know, good
27:22
Speaker 4: hearted people, but they have a negative preconception that's been
27:25
Speaker 4: caused by years of press or different things. But it's
27:28
Speaker 4: important that people be educated to the fact that that's
27:32
Speaker 4: not the way it is, and it happens to so
27:34
Speaker 4: many people. A big percentage of our clients at the
27:37
Speaker 4: Innocence Project are people like you who had no prior record.
27:40
Speaker 4: They just got caught up in the wrong place at
27:42
Speaker 4: the wrong time, or mistakenly arrested as you were in
27:45
Speaker 4: the first place. And then once the justice system gets
27:47
Speaker 4: you in, it's grasped. It just grinds you up and
27:50
Speaker 4: spits you out. In too many cases when you were
27:54
Speaker 4: in prison, can you talk about what was the best
27:58
Speaker 4: and what was the worst thing that happened in those
28:00
Speaker 4: twenty nine years.
28:01
Speaker 2: Well, I think the saddest part for me was just
28:08
Speaker 2: being in the cell, because you know, you learn a
28:14
Speaker 2: lot in the cell. You learn about yourself, and you
28:19
Speaker 2: learn that that cell can mint out a hell of
28:23
Speaker 2: a punishment if you're not strong, and what I mean
28:30
Speaker 2: by that if you don't have a purpose. And my
28:35
Speaker 2: purpose was getting my life back. So what I did
28:41
Speaker 2: while I was confined was started to improve myself, learning
28:48
Speaker 2: the law, helping people that couldn't read or write. LBA
28:54
Speaker 2: Literacy Volunteers of America. I was one of the tutorers
28:58
Speaker 2: for that, getting involved with all type of educational and
29:02
Speaker 2: vocational skills to just keep my mind focused and try
29:08
Speaker 2: to have some type of normacy in there and not
29:11
Speaker 2: just going with the flow with the prison antics or
29:15
Speaker 2: just the common flow in prison, gambling, running around, smoking,
29:21
Speaker 2: you know to some people prune o, getting high. No,
29:24
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing those things. My focus was getting my
29:29
Speaker 2: life back. So I stayed in the library, read thousands
29:33
Speaker 2: of cases, wrote a couple of books, put organizations together.
29:38
Speaker 2: I made sure kept briefs and stuff in the court's face,
29:42
Speaker 2: letting them know, hey, you know what you did, and
29:46
Speaker 2: I'm not going away and I'm not going away. And
29:50
Speaker 2: this is where Karen and them come in. Vanessa and
29:54
Speaker 2: them come in in twenty fourteen. But I've been fighting
29:58
Speaker 2: them for years and you know, arguing, fighting, and they
30:03
Speaker 2: came in and seeing that, well, what the hell is this?
30:07
Speaker 4: And so the Innis Project took your case in twenty fourteen.
30:10
Speaker 4: And how did you receive the news that the NISS
30:12
Speaker 4: Project was taking your case, because that's got to be
30:15
Speaker 4: a big day.
30:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big day. I received that through
30:19
Speaker 2: Mendy Jeremount. She came up to see me and we
30:23
Speaker 2: talked and she told me this is what's going on,
30:26
Speaker 2: and me, I was pro se, so they wouldn't give
30:29
Speaker 2: it to me, but I didn't want it to go nowhere.
30:32
Speaker 2: So when she came up, she went and made sure
30:34
Speaker 2: everything was we're supposed to be and sealed it up.
30:37
Speaker 3: And that brings us to where we at right now today.
30:41
Speaker 4: We know that at the Innocence Project, it does take
30:45
Speaker 4: even after we take a case. It's not like there's
30:48
Speaker 4: no magic, you know, like it's still a lot of work.
30:51
Speaker 4: It's still hundreds thousands of hours of legal work. And
30:55
Speaker 4: in your case, it took three years. Let's talk about
30:58
Speaker 4: how this thing ended up because the justice system still
31:03
Speaker 4: had one more one more way that they really wanted
31:08
Speaker 4: to fuck you. Right and forgive my language, but I
31:12
Speaker 4: can't think of another word that fits the situation. So yeah,
31:17
Speaker 4: here it is three years go by, the innsis Project
31:20
Speaker 4: is working on your case. You have now from going
31:24
Speaker 4: from having some of the worst legal representation anybody's ever had,
31:28
Speaker 4: now you have some of the best legal representation anybody's
31:31
Speaker 4: ever had. So now you've got hope and the day
31:35
Speaker 4: comes when finally the DNA is found, it's proven that
31:41
Speaker 4: you're innocent. But the justice system's got one more trick
31:45
Speaker 4: up at sleeve. Talk about that because you ultimately were
31:49
Speaker 4: forced to take an alphad plea right, yes, and which
31:51
Speaker 4: is not a common thing. I mean, people hear about
31:53
Speaker 4: it on the show, but only six percent of cases
31:57
Speaker 4: end up with alfhad please, so still too big of
32:01
Speaker 4: a number. But it's not like it's an everyday thing.
32:05
Speaker 4: It's reserved for very special circumstances. And the offer plea,
32:10
Speaker 4: in a nutshell, allows the prosecutors to maintain their conviction,
32:16
Speaker 4: if you want to call it that right to sort
32:18
Speaker 4: of not admit that they were wrong, while you can
32:22
Speaker 4: be freed. Right, that's the best part of it, and
32:26
Speaker 4: you can go out there and say I'm innocent, But
32:29
Speaker 4: in terms of the eyes of the law, it forces
32:32
Speaker 4: you to plead guilty to a lesser crime in order
32:36
Speaker 4: to be freed. Is that that's fair?
32:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, But what I believe is that in
32:43
Speaker 2: this situation here, they dismissed the case, they gave me
32:49
Speaker 2: the opportunity to plead under the Alpha doction.
32:53
Speaker 3: But to me, it was like.
32:56
Speaker 2: Rather than stay and can you to go through the nonsense,
33:03
Speaker 2: because that's what it was all of them years. When
33:07
Speaker 2: they knew they had to turn me loose, they wanted
33:11
Speaker 2: to still keep a conviction that they know.
33:15
Speaker 3: Doesn't even really exist.
33:18
Speaker 2: So they dismissed the rapes, they dismissed the robberies, and
33:22
Speaker 2: they gave me a kidnap. They said, plead guilty to
33:25
Speaker 2: a kidnap and we're gonna let you go home. What
33:30
Speaker 2: type of fiction is that you've been in twenty nine
33:33
Speaker 2: years for this? Were dismissing that right now, the twenty first,
33:38
Speaker 2: all of that, but take kidnap and we're gonna let
33:42
Speaker 2: you go home or else or else. You stay in
33:45
Speaker 2: another fifteen years until we decide to think about doing something.
33:52
Speaker 4: But the conviction had already been They.
33:54
Speaker 3: Just dismissed it on the twenty first of November.
33:56
Speaker 4: So they dismissed it only after you agreed to take
33:58
Speaker 4: the offer.
33:59
Speaker 2: Right, They dismissed everything, and then they told me this
34:02
Speaker 2: is what it's going to be.
34:04
Speaker 3: It was all dismissed.
34:06
Speaker 4: Wait wait, wait, I don't think we're making it clear here.
34:08
Speaker 4: So on November twenty First, what happened.
34:11
Speaker 2: On November twenty First, I went in the courtroom and
34:16
Speaker 2: it was a hearing. They said, well, in this hearing,
34:18
Speaker 2: you know, they just talked about the case and we're
34:23
Speaker 2: going to dismiss it today, but you're going to plead
34:27
Speaker 2: under the alpha doctrine the kidnap, but the robberies and
34:33
Speaker 2: the sexual assaults are dismissed.
34:37
Speaker 3: Dismissed. Now we're going to put you to.
34:39
Speaker 4: Plea because otherwise they're going to keep you.
34:41
Speaker 2: Otherwise you're going to stay in until we decide ten
34:45
Speaker 2: twenty more.
34:46
Speaker 4: Years under the kidnapping charge.
34:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wasn't never no kidnap.
34:51
Speaker 4: So the yeah, it's real.
34:53
Speaker 3: What I'm saying is that.
34:56
Speaker 2: They put me to plea on a fiction, on something
35:03
Speaker 2: that never happened.
35:06
Speaker 3: First they dismissed all the.
35:07
Speaker 2: Charges, and then a half an hour later they tell
35:13
Speaker 2: me plead to kidnap and you can go home.
35:17
Speaker 4: But if I'm listening to this at home, I'm saying
35:19
Speaker 4: to myself, well, if they dismissed all the charges, there's nothing.
35:23
Speaker 4: And by now the Interests Project had proven with science,
35:26
Speaker 4: everybody was there that you weren't the guy. So it's
35:29
Speaker 4: so it's so crazy like that they could just pull
35:31
Speaker 4: this kidnap out of thin air. I don't even understand that.
35:34
Speaker 3: I mean, either I do this for me neither. Wow,
35:38
Speaker 3: But I'm here. But that's that's what it is, right now. Kidnap.
35:42
Speaker 3: You got to kidnap.
35:43
Speaker 2: You got a kidnap from I don't know where, but
35:46
Speaker 2: we gave it to you, like we gave you the robbery,
35:48
Speaker 2: we gave you to sex yourself, we gave you a warrant,
35:50
Speaker 2: we gave you this.
35:51
Speaker 3: Now we're going to give you a kidnap.
35:54
Speaker 4: Right And this is a kidnapp when you say it's
35:55
Speaker 4: a kidnapp that not only you weren't involved with, but
35:57
Speaker 4: it's a kidnapp that never even happened.
36:01
Speaker 2: The warrant never happened. This we prove never happened. The escape,
36:06
Speaker 2: the first one never happened. You told me to leave,
36:08
Speaker 2: the second one I did. But now here's got something
36:11
Speaker 2: else that we're giving you.
36:13
Speaker 4: Oh, was this an actual real kidnapping of a human
36:16
Speaker 4: pers it's just to just pull them out of here.
36:18
Speaker 4: We're just gonna charge you with can.
36:19
Speaker 2: You give me a kidnap? You go home today? But
36:21
Speaker 2: We're gonna give you a kidnap, so you got your state.
36:23
Speaker 2: You still got a felony now, but it's kidnapped.
36:26
Speaker 4: So did you kidnap the Lindburg baby or Patty Hurst?
36:29
Speaker 3: I don't know who.
36:31
Speaker 4: They don't even tell you.
36:32
Speaker 3: I don't know who that was. Just that's the fiction.
36:36
Speaker 3: That's the fiction.
36:37
Speaker 2: And I'm here today because I truly believe fifty of something.
36:43
Speaker 2: It's better than one hundred percent than nothing. And I
36:46
Speaker 2: did not want to sit in jail another ten fifteen
36:50
Speaker 2: years fight and when they already knew from day one
36:56
Speaker 2: it's already proven now in two thousand, more than seventeen
37:01
Speaker 2: prior to that has been proven within this in project.
37:04
Speaker 2: Everything's clear, not just through DNA, but through everything, documents,
37:09
Speaker 2: the evidence that everything, the victims of everything, it's already
37:15
Speaker 2: been clear. But this is what we're gonna do. We
37:19
Speaker 2: gave you everything else, We're going to give you this
37:21
Speaker 2: to walk with that.
37:23
Speaker 4: So and the practical effect to that is that you
37:27
Speaker 4: now have to live with a conviction on your record.
37:29
Speaker 4: You're convicted felling that never happened, and you have to
37:33
Speaker 4: live with the stigma of having participated in the fictional
37:36
Speaker 4: kidnapping of a fictional person that was made up by
37:39
Speaker 4: somebody with a crazy, vindictive imagination. And the reason why
37:44
Speaker 4: they want to do that is because it means.
37:47
Speaker 3: That you can't see would That's what they say.
37:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons. And that's
37:53
Speaker 4: just another thing that's really so difficult to accept, the
37:59
Speaker 4: idea that society owes you a huge debt and they
38:03
Speaker 4: want to pull the rug out from under you instead
38:05
Speaker 4: one more time and say we're not going to allow
38:07
Speaker 4: you to sue. But good luck, you know, goodbye and
38:09
Speaker 4: good luck or they don't even say that, but you
38:11
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Now, on the other hand, you
38:14
Speaker 4: got a lot of life left to live, right, you
38:16
Speaker 4: do have a beautiful family. You are able to just
38:20
Speaker 4: carry on and you're here now. Actually it was your
38:24
Speaker 4: beautiful wife. And that's an amazing story. Just switching subjects
38:27
Speaker 4: for a second. So your story is actually a love story,
38:32
Speaker 4: and it's remarkable in that I don't know if I've
38:38
Speaker 4: ever heard of anything quite like it before, because you
38:41
Speaker 4: were married when when this nightmare started, and you're still
38:47
Speaker 4: married to the same person, yes, and you have grandchildren
38:51
Speaker 4: now grandchildren, and your wife Gwendolyn who's here in the studio,
38:56
Speaker 4: who looks a little like a rock star. She waited
38:59
Speaker 4: for you the whole time you're in prison. Let's just
39:02
Speaker 4: take a moment and think about that. I mean that
39:05
Speaker 4: is that is an extraordinary person that would do that,
39:09
Speaker 4: and what how much did that mean to you?
39:11
Speaker 2: That meant the world to me because I wasn't looking
39:15
Speaker 2: for that because I was in prison and I figured that,
39:20
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't want to see nobody suffered the
39:25
Speaker 2: way I would have to suffer. And I think that that,
39:29
Speaker 2: to me was a form of imprisonment. And I didn't
39:34
Speaker 2: want her to feel that she had to stay with
39:38
Speaker 2: me because I was confined. I wanted her to go
39:41
Speaker 2: on with her life because I can understand. But she
39:46
Speaker 2: chose to be there and to hold on with me,
39:49
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm grateful for that. And it was
39:52
Speaker 2: only by the grace of God that it happened. And I,
39:56
Speaker 2: you know, I respect that and our love her.
39:58
Speaker 3: With all my heart.
40:00
Speaker 4: That's beautiful. And tell me about your You have a daughter, yes, Cadija, Yeah,
40:06
Speaker 4: and then she has two children.
40:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandson Trap he's fifteen to twenty second of
40:13
Speaker 2: this month. February and my granddaughter Jule, she just turned
40:17
Speaker 2: eight to seventeen for last month, their mother. She's an
40:22
Speaker 2: amazing woman, that's my daughter.
40:24
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of her.
40:26
Speaker 4: I see that, and that's really a blessing. You know
40:29
Speaker 4: the fact that you had this support system while you
40:32
Speaker 4: were inside, and I see when you talk about it,
40:34
Speaker 4: obviously that was a part of your survival.
40:37
Speaker 3: Really, yes, it was.
40:38
Speaker 4: Obviously you have the support system with the NSIS Project,
40:41
Speaker 4: and you have your family, which is great because many
40:43
Speaker 4: many people who come out in your circumstance come out
40:45
Speaker 4: to nobody and nothing. But still there's a lot that
40:49
Speaker 4: you're going to need to really get to where you
40:51
Speaker 4: deserve to be. People listening say I want to do
40:53
Speaker 4: something for this guy. What could people do? How could
40:55
Speaker 4: they help?
40:56
Speaker 2: Well, my organization is called to Help the Needy Foundation,
40:59
Speaker 2: and that's something that I established from prison. You know,
41:03
Speaker 2: it's to put people back on track. Our mission on
41:07
Speaker 2: our model is to be peaceful, be respectful, enjoy yourself.
41:13
Speaker 2: So it's just helping those in need, homeless, helping the
41:19
Speaker 2: youth get back on track with vocational and educational training
41:24
Speaker 2: to try to help them build their self esteem. You know,
41:27
Speaker 2: it's just it helped me. I'm an example of that.
41:30
Speaker 2: This is what got me and this is why I'm
41:33
Speaker 2: who I am today. And you can email me at
41:36
Speaker 2: Leroy Harris sixty at yahoo dot com.
41:42
Speaker 3: That's my email address.
41:43
Speaker 4: So Lee, right before we sign off, we have a
41:47
Speaker 4: tradition here Wrong for Conviction, which is at the end
41:50
Speaker 4: of the show, I like to turn the microphone and
41:52
Speaker 4: let you share anything else that's on your mind that
41:55
Speaker 4: you want to talk about, anything at all.
41:57
Speaker 2: Well, just you know, being here today is an honor
42:02
Speaker 2: and just being out and back into the hustle and
42:08
Speaker 2: bustle have an enormacy once again seeing life as I am,
42:14
Speaker 2: knowing it to be family, friends unleashed. You know, it's amazing.
42:26
Speaker 2: Ain't no better feeling after twenty nine years in a cage.
42:30
Speaker 2: There's no better feeling than this. It gets no better
42:33
Speaker 2: than this.
42:40
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
42:42
Speaker 4: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
42:46
Speaker 4: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
42:49
Speaker 4: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
42:52
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project. Dot
42:56
Speaker 4: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
42:59
Speaker 4: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
43:02
Speaker 4: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
43:05
Speaker 4: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
43:08
Speaker 4: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
43:13
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
43:16
Speaker 4: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one