Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #190 Jason Flom with Joann Parks

Transcript

#190 Jason Flom with Joann Parks · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Joanne and Ron Parks lived with their three children, Ronald, Roanne,
0:06
Speaker 1: and Jessica, in a three bedroom rental house that had
0:09
Speaker 1: been converted from a garage on the back half of
0:11
Speaker 1: a piece of property in Bell, California. Joanne and Ron's
0:15
Speaker 1: bedroom had an exterior door. On the night of April ninth,
0:19
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Ron was at work and Joanne had
0:22
Speaker 1: put the kids and herself to bed. Then just after midnight,
0:26
Speaker 1: Joanne woke to the piercing screams of her children and
0:29
Speaker 1: the flames of a fire that had suddenly engulfed her home.
0:33
Speaker 1: The fire drove Joanne from the house, looking for help
0:37
Speaker 1: that couldn't come soon enough to save the children. The
0:40
Speaker 1: fire was initially ruled to be accidental, and Joanne and
0:43
Speaker 1: Ron moved to Saint Louis to try to rebuild their
0:46
Speaker 1: shattered lives. Over the course of the next four years,
0:49
Speaker 1: rumors and pressure mounted in Bell, California, urging authorities to
0:54
Speaker 1: answer somehow for this inexplicable and horrific tragedy, and investigators
0:59
Speaker 1: who had been trained in the old, totally unscientific methods
1:03
Speaker 1: of arson investigation would change their theory and blame Joanne
1:07
Speaker 1: for the deaths of her children. Since nineteen eighty nine,
1:10
Speaker 1: bass strides have been made in fire science and investigations,
1:14
Speaker 1: but none of that will ever make up for the
1:16
Speaker 1: twenty nine years Joanne spent in prison, and absolutely nothing
1:20
Speaker 1: will ever replace her children. This is Wrongful Conviction with
1:25
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
1:42
Speaker 1: That's me, of course, I'm your host. I want to
1:44
Speaker 1: introduce to two amazing women that we have on the
1:48
Speaker 1: show today. The first one Raquel Cohen. Raquel is an
1:53
Speaker 1: attorney with the California Innocence Project and she is a
1:57
Speaker 1: certified badass. And I'm Miquel. I'm just really excited to
2:02
Speaker 1: have you here. Welcome to the show.
2:04
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
2:06
Speaker 1: And the woman of the hour, I'm so excited to
2:09
Speaker 1: have her in the free world and on the air
2:12
Speaker 1: with us now. A woman who has endured the most extraordinary,
2:16
Speaker 1: terrifying saga imaginable and who stayed strong and is here
2:20
Speaker 1: to tell about it is Joanne Parks. Joanne, I'm sorry
2:24
Speaker 1: for what you went through, but I'm happy you're here.
2:26
Speaker 3: Me too, I'm happy to be here with both of you.
2:29
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up. Let's start with that.
2:31
Speaker 3: My mom brought me out to California at the age
2:34
Speaker 3: of three, and I grew up in Highland Park, California.
2:39
Speaker 3: Life was okay as a child. I didn't know anything different.
2:43
Speaker 3: I met my husband at the age of sixteen.
2:47
Speaker 1: And then ultimately you ended up moving to bell California. Right,
2:51
Speaker 1: you marry this guy. You have three kids, Ronald, Roanne
2:55
Speaker 1: and Jessica. They're all little little kids at the time
2:58
Speaker 1: of this awful tragedy. And we're talking, of course, about
3:01
Speaker 1: April ninth, nineteen eighty nine. That's a long long time ago,
3:06
Speaker 1: and it hurts me to think about all those years
3:09
Speaker 1: lost in prison and also the tragedy that befail you
3:13
Speaker 1: in your family. Joanne, this is obviously the worst nightmare
3:17
Speaker 1: that any mom, any parent can endure, but you lived it.
3:21
Speaker 1: Can you explain what that horrible night was like.
3:27
Speaker 3: I put my children down for the night. They had
3:30
Speaker 3: just finished watching a movie that they like, Harry and Henderson,
3:37
Speaker 3: and Jessica took her for steps. That night, we had
3:41
Speaker 3: just moved in. We had lived there about seven days
3:45
Speaker 3: before the fire happened, and I was unpacking a few
3:49
Speaker 3: boxes and so I got sleepy and I went to sleep,
3:56
Speaker 3: and around midnight I heard this blood curling screened from
4:00
Speaker 3: my son, and when I opened up the bedroom door,
4:05
Speaker 3: there was nothing but fire and smoke. So I ran
4:11
Speaker 3: out to the front house and was knocking on the
4:16
Speaker 3: door for help, and I went in with the neighbor,
4:24
Speaker 3: Shirley Robinson, and we called nine one one and her
4:28
Speaker 3: husband went out to try to get in the house
4:32
Speaker 3: to get the kids, and there was no success. They
4:40
Speaker 3: put me and miss Robinson across the street and they
4:43
Speaker 3: had us sitting on a curb at first, and I
4:45
Speaker 3: kept asking for my kids, and they kept telling me
4:48
Speaker 3: it was gonna be okay. It was gonna be okay,
4:50
Speaker 3: They're gonna be okay. And I believed them. I believed
4:54
Speaker 3: that everything was gonna be okay. But part of me
4:59
Speaker 3: deep down.
4:59
Speaker 4: Inside because I didn't see anybody come out, Yeah, that
5:04
Speaker 4: wasn't gonna be okay. And I found out later they
5:08
Speaker 4: thought my son had gotten out because they couldn't find him.
5:13
Speaker 4: So they were asking for a diagram of the house
5:16
Speaker 4: where they were sleeping, and they said they were searching
5:20
Speaker 4: the neighborhood from and come to find out that he
5:23
Speaker 4: went into the closet to hie.
5:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically what happened that night.
5:31
Speaker 1: It's incomprehensible, all of it. And Raquela, I mean, this
5:35
Speaker 1: is way I got to turn to you and say,
5:38
Speaker 1: how did it go so far wrong?
5:40
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, how I asked myself that all the time.
5:45
Speaker 5: So back in nineteen eighty nine, when her house went
5:48
Speaker 5: up in flames, fire investigation really wasn't anything scientific. There
5:54
Speaker 5: was no findings. Fire investigators at the time were trained
5:59
Speaker 5: by their superior so if their superiors or training them wrong,
6:02
Speaker 5: they were investigating fires wrong, and they were very opinionated
6:08
Speaker 5: without anything to support it. The investigators originally came into
6:12
Speaker 5: the house, looked around, and said that it was an accident,
6:15
Speaker 5: just a bad tragedy, and then as time went on,
6:19
Speaker 5: they changed their opinion. They had the same evidence, same
6:23
Speaker 5: physical evidence, same burn patterns, same chords, same information, except
6:28
Speaker 5: they started getting some outside information that led them to
6:32
Speaker 5: believe that Joanne was a monster, that she started these
6:36
Speaker 5: fires for whatever reason. They believed it was financial gain
6:40
Speaker 5: because she didn't want her children, which is absurd. I mean,
6:44
Speaker 5: if you look back at her probation officer's report and
6:47
Speaker 5: you look at the people who testified for her. She
6:49
Speaker 5: was a very loving mother. The investigator learned that she
6:52
Speaker 5: had a fire in her house prior to the nineteen
6:54
Speaker 5: eighty nine fire, and all of a sudden, they believed
6:58
Speaker 5: somewhere that they had this obligation to solve this fire
7:03
Speaker 5: and make it a crime so that a community had answers.
7:07
Speaker 5: So they had tunnel vision and they went in and
7:09
Speaker 5: they looked at this evidence at the time and they said,
7:11
Speaker 5: the only explanation is that the person who was home,
7:15
Speaker 5: Joe Ann, started two separate fires, locked one of her
7:19
Speaker 5: children in a closet, and then left the house. Today
7:23
Speaker 5: we know that's not true. And my biggest problem with
7:26
Speaker 5: this case is knowing that the science does not support
7:30
Speaker 5: that conclusion.
7:31
Speaker 2: What is their goal? Now, that's a question that keeps
7:33
Speaker 2: me up at night.
7:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not just illegal, it's a moral failing across
7:38
Speaker 1: the board. And in many ways the law can be
7:42
Speaker 1: the enemy of science. But it's really true in arson
7:45
Speaker 1: cases because for the longest time it was all just
7:49
Speaker 1: myth and superstition. And you know, I got a feeling
7:52
Speaker 1: and somebody told me once that if glass has cracked
7:55
Speaker 1: a certain way, or there's a certain chipping, pattern on
7:57
Speaker 1: the concrete, or if there's an alligator pattern on the wall,
8:01
Speaker 1: it's an indication of an accelerant, and this and that,
8:04
Speaker 1: and none of this was ever ever rooted in science.
8:07
Speaker 1: In fact, many of these people that claimed to be
8:09
Speaker 1: science experts have a high school diploma if that, and
8:12
Speaker 1: they may have trained for forty hours to become a
8:15
Speaker 1: quote unquote expert, and yet they're allowed to testify at trials. So, Joanne,
8:21
Speaker 1: you'd now lost everything and gone through something that it's unspeakable,
8:27
Speaker 1: as unimaginable for anyone, and then things inexplicably somehow managed
8:32
Speaker 1: to still get worse. When did you realize that they
8:34
Speaker 1: were actually suspecting that you had set this fire? And
8:38
Speaker 1: when did you get arrested? And what was that like?
8:42
Speaker 3: I didn't know that they suspected me of the fire.
8:46
Speaker 3: They had questioned us, I even had I think it
8:50
Speaker 3: was Leicester Frazelle tell me that the fire was accidental.
8:55
Speaker 3: So I never thought in a million years I was
8:58
Speaker 3: going to be arrested. I went on with my life
9:03
Speaker 3: the best that I could. I was working in the
9:07
Speaker 3: nursing field as a nurse's aide. My husband moved us
9:11
Speaker 3: from here to Saint Louis because he wanted to be
9:13
Speaker 3: closer to his family. So all of a sudden, one
9:17
Speaker 3: day I was told that there was some officers downstairs.
9:21
Speaker 3: I told him to send them up. I didn't know
9:23
Speaker 3: what they were there for, and they came up. I
9:26
Speaker 3: went in the hallway to meet them, and they arrested me.
9:32
Speaker 3: I couldn't understand what was going on. I couldn't comprehend,
9:39
Speaker 3: and then they extra died me back out here to
9:41
Speaker 3: California and we went through trial. My attorney told me
9:46
Speaker 3: to sit in court and look straight ahead, don't make
9:50
Speaker 3: no eye contact with the jury, don't make no eye
9:53
Speaker 3: contact with the witnesses. Just sip forward and keep quiet.
10:00
Speaker 3: And I did because I didn't know anything different. I
10:04
Speaker 3: didn't know that city like that or acting like that
10:09
Speaker 3: was gonna be bad for me and show that I
10:14
Speaker 3: had no feelings that I didn't care.
10:17
Speaker 1: I mean, that's always an aspect of this stuff that
10:19
Speaker 1: is so shameful when people say that a grieving mother
10:23
Speaker 1: or someone who has just experienced trauma like that is
10:26
Speaker 1: acting too upset or not upset enough, or you know,
10:30
Speaker 1: is too stoic, or it's like just shut the fuck up.
10:33
Speaker 1: Nobody can tell anyone how they're supposed to act, and
10:37
Speaker 1: no one knows how you are going to act, or
10:39
Speaker 1: anyone's going to act if they go through something so extreme.
10:42
Speaker 1: But this is now four years after the fire. Raquel
10:47
Speaker 1: what happened at the trial.
10:48
Speaker 5: I've read these transcripts a few times. It's about six
10:51
Speaker 5: thousand pages. The big thing that convicted her was her
10:54
Speaker 5: child was in the closet. So they spent an enormous
10:57
Speaker 5: amount of time on whether the door was open unclosed,
11:01
Speaker 5: And the prosecution's theory was that the closet door where
11:04
Speaker 5: Donald was found was not only closed, but that it
11:07
Speaker 5: was barricaded with a closed hamper and a pet dish.
11:11
Speaker 5: And they did this entire reconstruction of the area. They
11:15
Speaker 5: brought in like the actual door and this hamper that
11:17
Speaker 5: they found, which by the way, wasn't even in the room.
11:20
Speaker 5: It had been thrown out in overhaul. It was found
11:22
Speaker 5: somewhere outside, and they cleaned the carpet in front of there,
11:25
Speaker 5: and they made this like pattern that didn't exist until
11:29
Speaker 5: they cleaned the carpet, and they put all these puzzle
11:31
Speaker 5: pieces together and they were like, we got it. The
11:34
Speaker 5: door was barricaded with a closed hamper, By the way,
11:37
Speaker 5: Ronnie was four. My kids are now five and eight.
11:40
Speaker 5: A four year old can open a door with a
11:41
Speaker 5: closed hamper in front of it, so I already think
11:43
Speaker 5: that's bullshit. Nevertheless, they focused on that. Then you have
11:48
Speaker 5: the two areas of origin. The prosecution came in and
11:51
Speaker 5: said that there was two areas of origin, which is
11:54
Speaker 5: oftentimes an indicator of an ursen, the first area being
11:58
Speaker 5: in the front living room under the north window, and
12:01
Speaker 5: the second being in the girl's room. The defence came
12:04
Speaker 5: in and said, you can't say that because this house
12:07
Speaker 5: had flashed over, or specifically, the girl's bedroom had flashed over,
12:11
Speaker 5: and that pattern is more consistent with flashover. And the
12:15
Speaker 5: prosecution came in and was like, flashover didn't happen. There's
12:18
Speaker 5: no way it happened. Don't listen to this guy. They
12:22
Speaker 5: mocked the defense expert saying, oh man, all he's so
12:25
Speaker 5: concerned with flashover, flashover, flashover. You can't trust anything. He says,
12:29
Speaker 5: he's trying to confuse you with this concept of flashover. Well,
12:32
Speaker 5: fast forward twenty years and sure shit, the house flashed over.
12:36
Speaker 1: Andy, can you explain flash over real quick?
12:38
Speaker 5: So when you have a fire in a house. Let's
12:41
Speaker 5: say it starts on a chair in the corner. What's
12:44
Speaker 5: going to happen is all the smoke is going to
12:46
Speaker 5: go up, and it's going to be like an upside
12:47
Speaker 5: down bathtub. The smoke is going to fill up from
12:49
Speaker 5: the top down. But the smoke gets so hot that
12:52
Speaker 5: it ignites everything in the room, and so it becomes
12:56
Speaker 5: from a fire in a room to a room on fire,
12:59
Speaker 5: and it's an instant thing where everything that's combustible just ignites.
13:03
Speaker 5: At the same time, if you put that fire out
13:06
Speaker 5: before it flashes over, it's going to be very obvious
13:08
Speaker 5: where the fire started. Those are simple fires, and I
13:11
Speaker 5: think that fire investigators are very good at figuring that out.
13:14
Speaker 5: But once it goes to flashover, patterns are being made
13:17
Speaker 5: that look like origin patterns, Ventilation coming in in the
13:20
Speaker 5: house or causing patterns to either be skewed, destroyed, or created,
13:24
Speaker 5: and so now that's when your fire investigation becomes non scientific.
13:30
Speaker 5: The defense expert at the trial also brought up the
13:33
Speaker 5: fact that there was at zena television that brand had
13:37
Speaker 5: been known to start fires, but the problem with investigating
13:42
Speaker 5: that television set was that the prosecution threw it out
13:45
Speaker 5: when they were investigating the fire to begin with, and
13:48
Speaker 5: so no one was able to analyze that television. So
13:51
Speaker 5: today we argue, well, we have research that this television,
13:55
Speaker 5: this zenith, has been known to start a bunch of
13:57
Speaker 5: fires during all these years. It was introduced at trial
14:00
Speaker 5: because they threw the television set out, We'll never know.
14:03
Speaker 5: And so even though the defense expert was on the
14:05
Speaker 5: right track, he was ahead of his time in the field,
14:09
Speaker 5: but he just didn't present it well and he was
14:11
Speaker 5: up against a prosecution that was determined and successful at
14:16
Speaker 5: just destroying his credibility when it came to explaining that
14:20
Speaker 5: second area of origin.
14:22
Speaker 1: And when the jury went out, do you remember thinking
14:27
Speaker 1: that they were finally going to see that you were
14:30
Speaker 1: a victim, not a monster.
14:33
Speaker 3: I was hoping that what they were going to see.
14:36
Speaker 3: I was hoping that they were going to come back
14:38
Speaker 3: and say not guilty. Then my attorney had came to
14:42
Speaker 3: me with a deal life without the possibility of pearl.
14:46
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything. I'm not taking that deal. And
14:51
Speaker 3: the jury came back with a guilty verdict, came back
14:54
Speaker 3: with guilty verdict, and that I was thought I was
14:56
Speaker 3: going through another trial to whether I'm going to get
15:01
Speaker 3: since to death or life without possibility of parole.
15:13
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by the AIG pro Bono Program.
15:17
Speaker 1: AIG is a leading global insurance company, and for over
15:21
Speaker 1: a decade, the AIG pro Bono Program has provided thousands
15:24
Speaker 1: of hours of free legal services and other support to
15:28
Speaker 1: nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the
15:32
Speaker 1: program added criminal and social justice reform as a key
15:36
Speaker 1: pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you
15:40
Speaker 1: by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated
15:45
Speaker 1: to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years,
15:48
Speaker 1: Stand Together and its partners have been on the front
15:50
Speaker 1: lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action,
15:55
Speaker 1: supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the
15:59
Speaker 1: root cause is the problems in our communities and empowers
16:02
Speaker 1: those closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like
16:06
Speaker 1: reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step Act, empowering
16:10
Speaker 1: community based programs and help people re enter society, and
16:13
Speaker 1: now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn
16:17
Speaker 1: how you may get involved, visit standtogether dot org, slash conviction. Ultimately,
16:28
Speaker 1: we know that they did sence you to life without
16:30
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole.
16:32
Speaker 3: I was twenty seven years old, never been arrested before
16:37
Speaker 3: for anything. You go in there, and I've been all
16:43
Speaker 3: over the news, and the first thing you're told is
16:46
Speaker 3: don't talk about your kate because childcases are strongly frowned upon,
16:56
Speaker 3: and things happen to you when you're in prison those
17:00
Speaker 3: type of cases. After I got to prison, I got
17:04
Speaker 3: a letter from mister Lowe, who was the investigator on
17:08
Speaker 3: my case, and he told me that I should have
17:11
Speaker 3: never gotten found guilty and that when my appeal was
17:15
Speaker 3: over with, if I got denied, to get in contact
17:19
Speaker 3: with him and deal Winters because they weren't going to
17:22
Speaker 3: leave me in prison for the rest of my life.
17:25
Speaker 3: And so I think it was in like ninety six
17:28
Speaker 3: or something my appeal was denied and I reached out
17:33
Speaker 3: to mister low and he investigated my case. He dug
17:40
Speaker 3: into my background, dug into my husband, Ron's background. He
17:45
Speaker 3: did everything he could do to help me. Him and
17:49
Speaker 3: his daughter Mary Ross. I was in contact with her
17:54
Speaker 3: a lot by phone, and she was like, write the
17:59
Speaker 3: Innocent Project, and so I did, and they finally took
18:02
Speaker 3: my case on. But prison's hard. I was called baby killer.
18:08
Speaker 3: I had it written across my sheets. It was really
18:11
Speaker 3: hard until my best friend came into my life, Denise
18:17
Speaker 3: Sugar Moore. She taught me that I was worth loving
18:24
Speaker 3: and I was worth fighting for, and that my kids
18:30
Speaker 3: didn't blame me. We're not saving them, and that I
18:37
Speaker 3: needed to fight for them and honor them and don't
18:44
Speaker 3: let prison me the last place I'd be. From that
18:47
Speaker 3: point on, every advantage that prison gave I jumped on.
18:52
Speaker 3: I got my AA in Arts and Humanities. I got
18:57
Speaker 3: different trades so that if I ever was to be released,
19:01
Speaker 3: I could be able to get a job. I did
19:04
Speaker 3: everything I possibly could to turn around a negative into
19:09
Speaker 3: a positive experience for myself in honor of my children.
19:16
Speaker 1: Wow, that's powerful. I mean she was almost like a
19:20
Speaker 1: guardian angel, I guess. And she wasn't the only one,
19:24
Speaker 1: of course, the one who's on the air with us
19:26
Speaker 1: right now. Raquel, when did you get involved in the case,
19:30
Speaker 1: And then obviously this became sort of your driving passion,
19:33
Speaker 1: right I know how you feel about joe Anne about
19:35
Speaker 1: this case.
19:36
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Joe Anne's the person for me. I owe
19:39
Speaker 5: her so much in so many ways. I believe Joanne
19:42
Speaker 5: first wrote the California Innocence Project in two thousand and two.
19:46
Speaker 2: I was still in college then.
19:47
Speaker 5: At that point, not only did CIP not have the resources,
19:52
Speaker 5: the changes in the science just weren't quite there yet.
19:55
Speaker 2: There was ways to help her, but it didn't have
19:57
Speaker 2: legs yet.
19:58
Speaker 5: And then in two thousand and seven, I was actually
20:01
Speaker 5: a clinical intern in the California Innocence Project when her
20:04
Speaker 5: case came back, it wasn't actually assigned to me, It
20:07
Speaker 5: was assigned to one of my fellow students who began
20:09
Speaker 5: working on it, and his name was Matt Benninger. He
20:12
Speaker 5: actually reached out to John Lentini, who had started the
20:15
Speaker 5: Arson Review Panel and had Joanne's case submitted to him
20:19
Speaker 5: for review.
20:20
Speaker 1: And John Lentini, you know, we did an episode of
20:23
Speaker 1: the Wrongful Conviction Junk Science podcast in which Josh Duben
20:27
Speaker 1: and Barry Scheck discussed the John Lentini origin story. And
20:31
Speaker 1: John was a prosecution expert in a case in Florida
20:34
Speaker 1: where he went in to confirm that the fire that
20:36
Speaker 1: had burned down and someone had been killed was intentionally
20:39
Speaker 1: set and it just so happened at a stroke of luck.
20:42
Speaker 1: That was a house next door that was the exact
20:43
Speaker 1: same construction, and he had this idea, well, why don't
20:46
Speaker 1: we just put the same furniture because it was abandoned
20:48
Speaker 1: or empty at the time. So he had this idea
20:50
Speaker 1: that they would recreate the exact same furniture and everything
20:53
Speaker 1: else in the other house. And I think they left
20:55
Speaker 1: a cigarette on the chair or a couch or something.
20:57
Speaker 1: The house burned down, they examined it and it was
20:59
Speaker 1: exus exactly the same as the house next door, and
21:03
Speaker 1: at that point he realized that this was not an
21:05
Speaker 1: arson fire, that this was an accidental fire. And in
21:08
Speaker 1: study after study, it's been proved again and again that
21:11
Speaker 1: this arson quote unquote science is absolute horseshit. And Cameron
21:16
Speaker 1: Todd Willingham is a focus of that episode as well,
21:18
Speaker 1: who was executed by the State of Texas for a
21:21
Speaker 1: very similar situation to Joanne's where he lost his three
21:24
Speaker 1: kids and of course was just as innocent as she is.
21:28
Speaker 1: And so rest in peace, Cameron Todd Willingham. So back
21:31
Speaker 1: to this, So I.
21:33
Speaker 5: Became a staff attorney at the California Andison's Project in
21:36
Speaker 5: twenty eleven, and around that time, maybe then in twenty twelve,
21:41
Speaker 5: I began supervising the students who were responsible for Joanne's
21:45
Speaker 5: case and to be the best advocate I can be
21:47
Speaker 5: for Joanne. I have immersed myself in the fire investigation field.
21:51
Speaker 5: I've pretty much pushed my way into their conferences. I
21:55
Speaker 5: now trained their fire investigators on how to properly write
22:00
Speaker 5: reports and come to proper scientifically sound conclusions if they can.
22:05
Speaker 5: And it has been another driving force and passion because
22:08
Speaker 5: I never want this to happen to somebody else. Her case, though,
22:12
Speaker 5: was a false scientific evidence case, and in twenty twelve,
22:15
Speaker 5: the California Supreme Court made a ruling that pretty much
22:19
Speaker 5: precluded Joanne for bringing her case to court. They said
22:23
Speaker 5: experts can't have false opinions. That was based on the
22:26
Speaker 5: Bill Richards case, a bitemarket case which we all know
22:29
Speaker 5: where bitemark evidence stands. And in twenty fifteen our office
22:34
Speaker 5: we had the false scientific evidence law change so that
22:37
Speaker 5: experts can have false opinions. And it was that same
22:40
Speaker 5: year that I filed her case. I filed it in
22:43
Speaker 5: the Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that the experts at
22:46
Speaker 5: trial falsely testified flashover had not occurred. And that was
22:51
Speaker 5: very important because based on the research that we know
22:53
Speaker 5: today that changes the entire investigation.
22:57
Speaker 1: So we're up to twenty seventeen. Now, how did we
23:00
Speaker 1: get to the present? What happened between twenty seventeen and
23:03
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one.
23:04
Speaker 5: So we filed the case in twenty fifteen and we
23:07
Speaker 5: got a hearing. So twenty seventeen rolls around. But what
23:11
Speaker 5: happened was I thought, slam dunk, we're going to get
23:13
Speaker 5: a deal. Joe Anne's going to walk home because they
23:15
Speaker 5: admit flashover happened. So based on all of this research,
23:18
Speaker 5: they have to admit that this case doesn't hold water, right,
23:22
Speaker 5: And instead they said, no, we're going to bring in
23:26
Speaker 5: some pattern experts and we're going to show that you
23:29
Speaker 5: can still have the same findings. At the time, I
23:31
Speaker 5: was working with Paul Bieber, who was a big advocate
23:34
Speaker 5: for the defense and moving this science forward, and he said,
23:38
Speaker 5: you need Gregory Gorbett on your team, and they just
23:41
Speaker 5: won a case in Kentucky, the Robert Yell case, with
23:44
Speaker 5: the same issues as Joanne's. I reached out to greg
23:48
Speaker 5: and he took a look at the case and he
23:50
Speaker 5: became our star witness to testify to show that the
23:54
Speaker 5: burn patterns were shit science and that there's nothing to
23:58
Speaker 5: support the prosecution theory. I thought we were gonna win.
24:02
Speaker 5: I thought the judge could see through the prosecution experts bullshit.
24:07
Speaker 5: The prosecution's expert, Brian Hobak, testified at the evidentiary hearing
24:11
Speaker 5: that the way he was able to differentiate the pattern
24:14
Speaker 5: from an origin and ventilation driven pattern was because he
24:18
Speaker 5: looked very closely. I don't understand, but nevertheless, at the
24:24
Speaker 5: end of the hearing, ninety plus days we got the
24:26
Speaker 5: written decision and the Superior Court said, yes, false evidence
24:30
Speaker 5: was introduced at her trial, not flash over, but it
24:33
Speaker 5: was immaterial because this case comes down to a battle
24:37
Speaker 5: of the experts. That the tryout was a battle of
24:39
Speaker 5: the experts, and here it's the battle of the experts.
24:42
Speaker 5: And I got that. I was sitting at a dinner
24:45
Speaker 5: table with the other attorneys from the California Innocence Project,
24:48
Speaker 5: Justin Brooks, Alec Simpson, I think, Audrey mcgainn, Alyssa Biircle,
24:52
Speaker 5: We were all sitting there. The decision came down and
24:57
Speaker 5: I just broke down and I left, and that I
25:00
Speaker 5: had to tell Joanne, and it was pretty much a horrible,
25:06
Speaker 5: horrible day. Her case is not over. We're currently still
25:22
Speaker 5: litigating the case. Even if we lose now and I
25:25
Speaker 5: hope the prosecution team is listening, we're going to change
25:29
Speaker 5: the lot and we're going to refile.
25:31
Speaker 2: We will get her conviction overturned one day.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, we had to find another way to bring
25:36
Speaker 1: Joanne home, and fortunately we did the California Innis's project
25:42
Speaker 1: that Justin Brooks, the Fearless Leader. He marched seven hundred
25:45
Speaker 1: and twelve miles right from San Diego to Sacramento with
25:48
Speaker 1: a squad to deliver these clemency petitions to Governor Brown.
25:52
Speaker 1: Of course, that still wasn't enough. The good news is
25:55
Speaker 1: that Governor k Newsome granted Joanne clemency and commuted her
25:59
Speaker 1: life without parole term to be eligible for parole immediately.
26:04
Speaker 1: But like you said, we're never going to stop fighting
26:07
Speaker 1: for you, Joanne, because this is not going to stand.
26:11
Speaker 1: But the good news is you're home, You're free. And
26:15
Speaker 1: I want to know what that was like when you
26:17
Speaker 1: found out about the governor finally taking action.
26:22
Speaker 3: Well, we had just went on lockdown because of COVID,
26:28
Speaker 3: and we had been on lockdown for about a week,
26:33
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden I called to the cop
26:35
Speaker 3: shop and they're like, Lieutenant Norman wants to see you.
26:38
Speaker 3: He calls me in and he says, I'm acting captain today,
26:42
Speaker 3: and I said, okay. He's like, I just got a
26:47
Speaker 3: call from the Governor's office. You've been commuted to twenty
26:49
Speaker 3: seventh life. My instinct was to hug him because he
26:55
Speaker 3: gave me the best news ever. But you can't because
27:00
Speaker 3: he's an officer. So now I've got six months to
27:05
Speaker 3: get prepared to go in front of the board to
27:08
Speaker 3: find out if I can be found suitable to go home.
27:13
Speaker 3: You have to get your support letters in a relapsed
27:17
Speaker 3: prevention plan, you have to get a program that's willing
27:20
Speaker 3: to accept you. Even though I didn't show my kids
27:26
Speaker 3: and I didn't start that fire, i still had to
27:30
Speaker 3: show them that I've grown, I'm different, and I got
27:35
Speaker 3: to come home. And I'm so grateful to Raquel for
27:43
Speaker 3: never giving up, for the fight, for Justin, for Alex,
27:48
Speaker 3: for Mike, for Lisa, for everyone, for you, everybody. That's
27:56
Speaker 3: the support I have. I can't even it's just beyond words, Mary, Carol,
28:03
Speaker 3: my whole new family, everything I have. I'm just so
28:08
Speaker 3: so blessed and I'm so so grateful. I came out
28:13
Speaker 3: better than going in.
28:16
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a hell of a statement, Raquel. What was
28:22
Speaker 1: it like for you the day she got out and
28:25
Speaker 1: what happens now?
28:28
Speaker 2: Oh man?
28:29
Speaker 5: Okay, So when she came out that night, just driving
28:33
Speaker 5: up there, I drove up there by myself because of COVID,
28:35
Speaker 5: and I stood there and she came out, and she
28:39
Speaker 5: just looked so beautiful, and we both just started crying.
28:43
Speaker 5: And I finally got to hug her because we're not
28:45
Speaker 5: allowed to hug in one way go on her visits,
28:48
Speaker 5: and we just cried and hugged and it was better
28:52
Speaker 5: than I've ever even imagined. It was just so great
28:54
Speaker 5: to get her and drive her out of there, flip
28:57
Speaker 5: off the prison on the way out, and just just
29:03
Speaker 5: get her going. And her transition has been beautiful. She
29:06
Speaker 5: is confident and comfortable and just doing really great and
29:12
Speaker 5: I just really love watching her enjoy her new freedom.
29:16
Speaker 1: All I can say, Joeanne, is you are an inspiration.
29:20
Speaker 1: I want to apologize to you for what happened on
29:23
Speaker 1: behalf of the entire human race, but you're here now
29:27
Speaker 1: and that's what matters. And now this is a part
29:29
Speaker 1: of the show that I call closing arguments, and here's
29:32
Speaker 1: how it works. Basically, I just think both of you again,
29:36
Speaker 1: MIKEL Cohen, California and Project staff attorney Joe Anne Parks
29:41
Speaker 1: Xanna Ree. I'm going to call you what it is, superhero,
29:44
Speaker 1: and then I turned my mic off, kick back in
29:48
Speaker 1: my chair, and I'm going to turn over to Raquel.
29:51
Speaker 1: She's going to say whatever she wants, and then she's
29:55
Speaker 1: going to hand the mic to you, and you can
29:57
Speaker 1: close out the episode without closing arguments. Raquel Cohen, thank
30:02
Speaker 1: you so much.
30:03
Speaker 2: Jason.
30:04
Speaker 5: I've been dreaming to be on this podcast and dying
30:06
Speaker 5: because I knew the moment I was allowed to be
30:09
Speaker 5: on this podcast, Joanne would be free. So being here
30:11
Speaker 5: is very unreal for me. But I thought a lot
30:14
Speaker 5: about what to say, and so here we go. We know,
30:17
Speaker 5: and I know your listeners know that our prison system
30:20
Speaker 5: is overwhelmed and overpopulated period. We also know that that
30:25
Speaker 5: population involves way too many innocent people. We also know
30:31
Speaker 5: that the leading cause of these wrongful conviction, at least
30:34
Speaker 5: one of the leading causes, is bad forensic sciences, just
30:37
Speaker 5: junk sciences.
30:39
Speaker 2: And this is.
30:39
Speaker 5: Because experts have a very powerful presence in court jurys
30:44
Speaker 5: want to believe them because they have impressive experience and
30:47
Speaker 5: their resume and they've devoted their careers to these subject matters.
30:51
Speaker 5: Science and the law do not match. The law is
30:54
Speaker 5: always looking backward and looking at precedent. What did we
30:57
Speaker 5: do before, and what if it's working, Let's keep doing
31:00
Speaker 5: it while science keeps moving forward. Let's make it better,
31:03
Speaker 5: let's understand it better. And the two don't come together.
31:08
Speaker 5: But there are legislative changes, especially one here in California
31:11
Speaker 5: SB two forty three, where we are going to start
31:15
Speaker 5: holding experts to a higher standard. We are going to
31:18
Speaker 5: start to have experts testify based on the research and
31:21
Speaker 5: data to support their conclusions. And the days of because
31:24
Speaker 5: I said so, and because I have this expertise and
31:27
Speaker 5: because I look twice are over. I want to take
31:31
Speaker 5: this moment, though, specifically to talk to the fire investigation community.
31:35
Speaker 5: If you're listening, please listen and listen closely. I've immersed
31:39
Speaker 5: myself in your community so that I can be the
31:41
Speaker 5: best advocate for Joanne and any others in her situation.
31:45
Speaker 5: I want to continue to be part of your community
31:48
Speaker 5: so that we can work together and make it stronger
31:50
Speaker 5: to the fire investigators who are moving the field forward,
31:53
Speaker 5: who are doing the research, who are collecting the data.
31:57
Speaker 2: I see you. I love working with you, and let's
31:59
Speaker 2: keep doing it.
32:01
Speaker 5: Keep moving this field so that it becomes scientifically sound.
32:06
Speaker 5: Keep testifying based on the research and data, even if
32:09
Speaker 5: you're getting pushed back from the old believers because of you,
32:14
Speaker 5: because you testify, because you do the research, and because you.
32:19
Speaker 2: Question what you believe.
32:21
Speaker 5: Now over seventy people with arson charges have been exonerated
32:25
Speaker 5: in our nation. But to the fire investigators who are
32:28
Speaker 5: resistant to the change, to the ones who continue to
32:31
Speaker 5: overstate their abilities and their opinions, to the ones who
32:35
Speaker 5: come to conclusions that have no scientific evidence or support.
32:39
Speaker 5: I know it's hard. I know change is hard, and
32:42
Speaker 5: I know it's hard to admit that you have been wrong.
32:44
Speaker 5: But your words and your opinions hold a lot of weight.
32:47
Speaker 5: You have actual people's lives in your hands. So if
32:51
Speaker 5: you wouldn't be comfortable using your own methodologies on a
32:55
Speaker 5: fire that happened in your house, please stop doing it
32:57
Speaker 5: to others. Your gut and your feelings and your biases
33:01
Speaker 5: have no place in the courtroom, and you should know better.
33:05
Speaker 2: Either way.
33:05
Speaker 5: Your days of testifying are coming to an end and
33:08
Speaker 5: are very limited. The law is going to change and
33:10
Speaker 5: you will be required for your opinions to be supported
33:13
Speaker 5: by the data and research. And until then, I hope
33:15
Speaker 5: to see you in court to hold you to that standard.
33:18
Speaker 5: And finally, to joe Ann my heart, thank you for
33:21
Speaker 5: putting your trust in CIP and me. I know trusting
33:24
Speaker 5: lawyers or the law or anything to do in a
33:26
Speaker 5: courtroom is nearly impossible for you, but we've been through
33:29
Speaker 5: a lot together.
33:30
Speaker 2: I love you.
33:31
Speaker 5: I will always fight for you, and one day we
33:33
Speaker 5: will prove your innocence and silence the disbelievers. Jason, thank
33:37
Speaker 5: you so much for having us. I really hope her
33:39
Speaker 5: story gets told, and I really hope that we don't
33:42
Speaker 5: have to be here again talking about another case like
33:44
Speaker 5: this thirty years down the road.
33:46
Speaker 6: Amen, and over to you Joanne, thank you Jason for
33:50
Speaker 6: giving me this opportunity, for telling my story in hopes
33:55
Speaker 6: that it will help somebody else down the road.
33:58
Speaker 3: To all my attorneys, especially Raquel, I love you. You
34:03
Speaker 3: become a dear, dear friend of mine. But these investigators
34:09
Speaker 3: who investigate these fires.
34:12
Speaker 7: Need to stick to the data and the science instead
34:17
Speaker 7: of what they think because they're ruining people's lives. They're
34:23
Speaker 7: setting people to prison for crimes that they didn't even commit,
34:28
Speaker 7: for fires they didn't even start. Nobody should have to
34:32
Speaker 7: sit in prison for twenty nine years for something that
34:34
Speaker 7: they didn't even do, for a fire they didn't even start.
34:39
Speaker 3: So let's not continue the practices that you used on
34:45
Speaker 3: my case on all the other cases that are out there.
34:50
Speaker 3: Let's put it into it. Thank you for the opportunity
34:57
Speaker 3: for being heard.
35:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm.
35:07
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
35:10
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
35:13
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn,
35:16
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show, as always,
35:20
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
35:23
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
35:27
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
35:31
Speaker 1: Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
35:33
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one