Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #312 Guest Host Laura Nirider with Davontae Sanford

Transcript

#312 Guest Host Laura Nirider with Davontae Sanford · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flamm, you know. At Wrongful Conviction. We're so
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Speaker 1: proud to be a part of the evergrowing landscape of
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Speaker 1: true crime shows that revealed just how our criminal legal
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Speaker 1: system works and just how often it fails, and how
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Speaker 1: grotesquely in some cases it just collapses on people who
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Speaker 1: are innocent. And this week I've invited a colleague from
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Speaker 1: another podcast, a podcast that I really love, to bring
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Speaker 1: their own unique style to our coverage of yet another
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Speaker 1: insane wrongful conviction case.
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Speaker 2: Late at night on September seventeenth, two thousand and seven,
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Speaker 2: five people on Detroit's East Side were at a house
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Speaker 2: party watching a football game on TV. Without warning, two
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Speaker 2: men burst into the house and shot the place up.
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Speaker 2: They killed four of the five people, but one woman
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Speaker 2: survived by hiding under a bed. One of the gunmen
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Speaker 2: found her there and told her to play dead. A
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Speaker 2: few blocks away, neighbors were gathering on the street, including
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Speaker 2: fourteen year old Davante Sandford. When police talked to DeVante,
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Speaker 2: he told them that his aunt's boyfriend was a retired
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Speaker 2: homicide cop. So police asked Davante to help them with
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Speaker 2: the investigation, to tell them what he knew about the
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Speaker 2: people in the neighborhood. But in the end police forced
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Speaker 2: Davante to confess to this brutal quadruple homicide. He was
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Speaker 2: tried and convicted, then sentenced to thirty seven to ninety
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Speaker 2: years in prison. And remember he was only fourteen. In
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Speaker 2: this case, it would take a truly unexpected turn of
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Speaker 2: events for DeVante's innocence to come to light. This is
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Speaker 2: wrongful conviction. Hey guys, it's Laura and I writer and
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Speaker 2: I'm honored to be guest hosting this episode of Wrongful Conviction.
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Speaker 2: I'm the co director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions
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Speaker 2: at Northwestern Universe. And if my voice sounds familiar, it's
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Speaker 2: because I've guest hosted other episodes of this podcast, and
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Speaker 2: I co host another series on this feed called False Confessions.
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Speaker 2: Today's episode is one of the most important and shocking
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Speaker 2: cases of wrongful conviction that I know of, and I
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Speaker 2: am so honored to tell you the story. I'm here
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Speaker 2: with two very special guests, Meghan Crane and DeVante Sandford.
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Speaker 3: I'm Meghan Crane, I'm an attorney, and I'm the co
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Speaker 3: director of the Missouri office of the MacArthur Justice Center.
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Speaker 2: We are so excited to have you, and there's no
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Speaker 2: one in this world like DeVante Sandford. Davante, we are
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Speaker 2: so happy to have you here. Do you mind introducing
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Speaker 2: yourself to.
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Speaker 4: How you doing. My name is DeVante Sandford. I'm a zannerie,
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Speaker 4: I'm a son, I'm a father, entrepreneur and.
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Speaker 2: All around amazing human being. We are so grateful to
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Speaker 2: have you here, Davante. You know your case. When I
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Speaker 2: think about all of the wrongful conviction cases that I've
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Speaker 2: worked on, that people like Megan, who's one of my heroes,
3:02
Speaker 2: have worked on, that all of us in this entire
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Speaker 2: space have worked on, yours is always the first one
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Speaker 2: that comes to my mind as one of the most
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Speaker 2: difficult examples of just sheer injustice. And it starts when
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Speaker 2: you're a fourteen year old kid living in Detroit, Michigan,
3:22
Speaker 2: on the East side of Detroit on Belin Street. What
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Speaker 2: was life like for you back in the day?
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Speaker 5: Back in the day, it was it was kind of hard.
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Speaker 4: You know, I was going through a lot mentally, spiritually, emotionally,
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Speaker 4: like the family dynamic was really wasn't there as far
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Speaker 4: as like a lot of support, you know, my mother,
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Speaker 4: like she was dealing with a drug abuse issue, So
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Speaker 4: like I had like a lot going on.
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Speaker 2: Or Honesty, So you're living on Bilin Street. It's a
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Speaker 2: tough life. You're there with your mom and siblings. There's
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Speaker 2: drugs in the house. This is a in a tough
4:01
Speaker 2: block in a tough part of Detroit. When do you
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Speaker 2: think back DeVante to yourself at fourteen, what did you
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Speaker 2: think your future.
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Speaker 4: Was going to be growing up? Like, I didn't hear
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Speaker 4: as often as I hear it now. I didn't hear
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Speaker 4: the word opportunity. I didn't hear a word growth. I
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Speaker 4: didn't hear a word future. I didn't I didn't hear
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Speaker 4: those type of words. You know, somebody would have asked
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Speaker 4: me what your future looked like when I was fourteen,
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Speaker 4: I wouldn't have been able to even answer that.
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Speaker 5: I can answer it now, but not back then.
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Speaker 2: So you grew up not hearing words like future and opportunity.
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Speaker 2: What words did you hear instead?
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Speaker 4: Get rich and die trying, you know, hustle and no luck.
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Speaker 4: The East side of Detroit is like one of the
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Speaker 4: worstest parts of Detroit. Or Honesty, like very high crime rate,
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Speaker 4: very very high crime rate, very high poverty rate, very
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Speaker 4: low rates when it comes to reading and education amongst
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Speaker 4: like the youth.
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Speaker 2: And you know you're you're growing up at that and
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Speaker 2: you had a couple of extra obstacles, one in particular
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Speaker 2: that not every kid had grown up on the East
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Speaker 2: side of Detroit. I want to ask you if it's
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Speaker 2: okay about your site, because I know you've had some
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Speaker 2: issues with your site. Can you tell us about that.
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Speaker 4: I'm partially blind in like one of my eyes. That
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Speaker 4: happened when I was maybe fourth fifth grade, and I
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Speaker 4: actually I had to scar corneal so I had to
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Speaker 4: get like I used to have to get surgeries.
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Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 4: At the time, I just felt like it was just
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Speaker 4: different things they was trying on me to see if
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Speaker 4: someone was going to work.
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Speaker 5: You know. It caused me a lot of like trauma.
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Speaker 4: Just had the simple fact, you know, being in grade school,
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Speaker 4: I then to go with where like eypatches, kids making
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Speaker 4: like jokes and stuff for you and stuff like that.
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Speaker 4: So like that was very like traumatizing.
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Speaker 2: I just got to ask you one other question about
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Speaker 2: who you were before this case happened to you. How'd
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Speaker 2: you spend your time when you want to have fun?
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Speaker 2: What'd you do for fun?
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Speaker 4: I was too busy trying to like look for food
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Speaker 4: to eat because I probably ain't eating like two days.
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Speaker 4: You know, I didn't really know too much of like
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Speaker 4: fun or enjoying myself or honestly outside and maybe going
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Speaker 4: to like a neighborhood like basement party. But it's like
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Speaker 4: looks coming dece even look at now, Like I didn't
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Speaker 4: know about opportunity. I know everything about opportunity now, I
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Speaker 4: didn't know about what a future looked like you asking
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Speaker 4: me that question.
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Speaker 5: Now, my future is very bright.
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Speaker 2: Your future is bright, and I want to hear so
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Speaker 2: much more about that. But first I want to talk
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Speaker 2: about what you had to go through to get to
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Speaker 2: that future, right, what you had to go through to
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Speaker 2: get from being that fourteen year old kid on Beeland
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Speaker 2: Street to the man you are.
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Speaker 5: Now.
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Speaker 2: This is where I'm going to bring in your lawyer,
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Speaker 2: Meghan Crane. Megan, it's fantastic to have you here. Can
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Speaker 2: you take us back to the night of September seventeenth,
6:54
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, which is when something pretty horrible
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Speaker 2: happened right around the corner from where Defonte lived at
7:01
Speaker 2: the time that set a whole chain of events into motion,
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Speaker 2: almost unstoppably from the beginning.
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Speaker 3: So it's a Monday night, September seventeenth, two thousand and seven.
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Speaker 3: It's around eleven thirty at night. I think it was
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Speaker 3: a Monday night football night. So a football game had
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Speaker 3: gone late and was wrapping up, and there are five
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Speaker 3: people inside nineteen seven forty one Runyon Street watching the
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Speaker 3: end of the game when two adult men multiple witnesses
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Speaker 3: report they're around six feet tall skinny, approach the house
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Speaker 3: with two guns. They start firing a lot of bullets
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Speaker 3: from the outside of the house into the front window,
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Speaker 3: and then they bombard through the screen and front door
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Speaker 3: of this house and just shoot up the living room.
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Speaker 3: They shoot all five adults sitting in that room, killing
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Speaker 3: four of them, including the owner of the house, Michael Robinson,
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Speaker 3: a thirty three year old man who we now know
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Speaker 3: to have been a local marijuana grower and dealer in
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Speaker 3: the community, and four of his friends. Three of his
8:00
Speaker 3: friends pass away, but one of them is shot a
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Speaker 3: couple times but escapes to a back bedroom. In that
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Speaker 3: back bedroom, Michael Robinson's seven year old son happens to
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Speaker 3: be asleep at the time, and the surviving victim hides
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Speaker 3: under his bed. She later reports that one of the
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Speaker 3: shooters comes into the bedroom and actually says play dead,
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Speaker 3: be quiet, and so she survives, maybe thanks to those
8:22
Speaker 3: words of that shooter. And as she's hiding in that bedroom,
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Speaker 3: she hears someone in the basement of the house moving around, rustling,
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Speaker 3: a lot of activity down there, and then they say
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Speaker 3: let's get out of here, and they both flee the scene.
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Speaker 3: Multiple witnesses report only two people. One of those witnesses
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Speaker 3: is a man named Jesse King who lived across the street.
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Speaker 3: He was a chaplain actually for the Detroit Police. He
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Speaker 3: had firearms in his house, partially because of his professional position,
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Speaker 3: and he fired back because he had heard the shots
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Speaker 3: and he saw these shooters fleeing the scene, and he
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Speaker 3: exchanges fire with the shooters. He definitively says these were
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Speaker 3: two men, and he describes their physical build, their height
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Speaker 3: in some detail, and the attire they were wearing. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 3: as all this is going on, Davante lives just around
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Speaker 3: the corner from nineteen seventy forty one Runyon Street. As
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Speaker 3: he said, on Beelin Street, Davante had heard the commotion.
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Speaker 3: He heard that something was happening around the corner. So
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Speaker 3: it's late at night, he's in his pajamas. He comes
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Speaker 3: outside to see what's going on.
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Speaker 2: So I just want to be clear. So what you've
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Speaker 2: got here is a horrific act of bloodshed, but it
9:31
Speaker 2: has witnesses and they all said the same thing, right,
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Speaker 2: They said it was two adult men, which is a
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Speaker 2: pretty good lead to go on. But the police goes
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Speaker 2: somewhere a little different with this. They go around the
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Speaker 2: corner to Beelin Street. How do the police get there
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Speaker 2: and how does this go down? When they start talking
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Speaker 2: to Davante.
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Speaker 3: My understand is the police were just canvassing the neighborhood.
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Speaker 3: There are a couple different officers out going down different
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Speaker 3: streets looking for anyone who has something to say, and
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Speaker 3: so as part of that canvas, they're walking by DeVante's
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Speaker 3: and they approach him to say, did you see anything?
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Speaker 3: Do you know what's going on? But things quickly evolve
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Speaker 3: from there and become much different than from that casual conversation.
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Speaker 2: Now, Davante, you are outside your house when this happens.
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Speaker 2: You're in your pajama pants, right, You're a fourteen year
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Speaker 2: old kid who heard the commotion, comes out like all
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Speaker 2: the other neighbors did, to see what's going on, and
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Speaker 2: the Detroit police approach you. What's going through your head
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Speaker 2: as they start to.
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Speaker 4: Talk to you, not really like understanding what was going on.
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Speaker 4: That whole little ordeal. It changed my life or honesty,
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Speaker 4: I'll never forget it. And like they was asking me questions,
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Speaker 4: where I live, where I'm from, did I hear anything,
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Speaker 4: did I see anything? I believe I had told him
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Speaker 4: I had just came from being with my auntie's boyfriend.
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Speaker 4: He was a retired detective for the head of homicide.
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Speaker 4: They actually knew him, so they hopped on the phone
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Speaker 4: and they called them.
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Speaker 5: He was like, yeah, you know, he just came from
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Speaker 5: being with me. I guess.
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Speaker 4: They explained to him what had like the case they
11:06
Speaker 4: was working on, the different things like that, and they
11:09
Speaker 4: handed me the phone and he was like, look, these
11:13
Speaker 4: is my guys, man, So if you know some helped
11:16
Speaker 4: them out. I don't know nothing, but I They proceeded
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Speaker 4: to take me home and they had my grandmother signed
11:23
Speaker 4: a waiver. She signed a waiver. From there, they took
11:27
Speaker 4: me to back to the crime scene. But I'm not mistaken,
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Speaker 4: and they gave me a gun shop ballistics test.
11:34
Speaker 2: So Megan, I just want to make some sense of
11:36
Speaker 2: what's going on here. These police somehow come across the
11:39
Speaker 2: fourteen year old kid in the pajama pants right, who's
11:42
Speaker 2: just as confused as everybody else in the neighborhood, and
11:44
Speaker 2: ended up taking him into the police station for questioning
11:48
Speaker 2: what's going on here? How did they settle on DeVante?
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Speaker 3: I'll be honest, I find it pretty hard to explain
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Speaker 3: even today, a decade more than a decade after this
11:57
Speaker 3: and after spend many years working on this case, is
12:00
Speaker 3: my best understanding of how this went down. I think
12:04
Speaker 3: the police officers were doing this canvas of the neighborhood.
12:07
Speaker 3: They come upon Davante, they're kind of just asking him
12:09
Speaker 3: the same general questions as anyone else. But when they
12:12
Speaker 3: realize this Bill Rice connection and they get Bill on
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Speaker 3: the phone with Davante, and Bill encourages Davante to help
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Speaker 3: him out, cooperate, do what he can. That kind of
12:21
Speaker 3: is the first domino to go that sets this sets
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Speaker 3: things in motion. At that point, they are looking for
12:27
Speaker 3: someone who can kind of like tell them what's up
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Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, like who in this neighborhood has guns,
12:31
Speaker 3: who in this neighborhood's involved with drugs? Who do you
12:34
Speaker 3: think might be involved in this? And so Davante, because
12:37
Speaker 3: he's just been encouraged to cooperate, says, sure, I can
12:40
Speaker 3: kind of tell you who I know who has guns
12:42
Speaker 3: or who's involved with trouble. You know, he was used
12:45
Speaker 3: to being picked on and someone that when he got
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Speaker 3: positive attention it felt good and had a powerful effect
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Speaker 3: like any fourteen year old kid. So it felt good
12:55
Speaker 3: to be needed by these police officers. And so they say,
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Speaker 3: can you show us? Can you give us a tour?
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Speaker 3: And so Davante gets in the car and kind of
13:05
Speaker 3: shows them the way around the neighborhood. Things transpire from there.
13:08
Speaker 3: They take him to the high school. They sit in
13:10
Speaker 3: the parking lot in the high school for a while
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Speaker 3: and try to get information out of Davante. They take
13:15
Speaker 3: Davante to get some fast food. Davante just told us
13:18
Speaker 3: sometimes he'd go two days without eating. They buy him
13:21
Speaker 3: a burger and fries to entice him to share more.
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Speaker 3: Give us more, tell us anything you can, and the
13:27
Speaker 3: more juicy stuff, the more relevant information he can give
13:30
Speaker 3: about drugs, guns crimes, the better. Maybe the more burgers,
13:34
Speaker 3: the more fries you'll get.
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Speaker 2: Right, be a hero. This quadruple hamas, I just went
13:39
Speaker 2: down in your neighborhood, be a hero. But the thing is,
13:42
Speaker 2: you know, Davante, they took you around the area, they
13:44
Speaker 2: brought you the burger, they brought you back to the station.
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Speaker 2: But at some point the tables turned right. They were
13:51
Speaker 2: no longer looking for information. They were looking for you
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Speaker 2: to confess. Can you tell us how it came about
13:58
Speaker 2: that you ended up confessing to committing this quadruple homicide.
14:02
Speaker 5: Honest answer. I wanted to go home. I was scared.
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Speaker 4: They can't promise me that if I was hurry up
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Speaker 4: and get this over with, that's the quicker I can
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Speaker 4: go home. I was at a point I just I
14:18
Speaker 4: wanted to be anywhere except for their.
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Speaker 5: I'm fourteen, barely like experienced anything for real.
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Speaker 4: And you know the promise was if I basically apply,
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Speaker 4: and you know, I go through with this, you know
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Speaker 4: my reward was going home.
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Speaker 2: Megan, Can you tell us a little bit more about
14:58
Speaker 2: the interrogation when you've looked at it real eyes? How
15:01
Speaker 2: long did it last? What kind of techniques were they
15:03
Speaker 2: using against somebody as young and vulnerable as Davante in
15:06
Speaker 2: order to get this confession?
15:08
Speaker 3: Well, first, I think it's important to note that, I
15:10
Speaker 3: mean this starts in the middle of the night. So
15:12
Speaker 3: they have Davante, whether it's in the car, in the
15:16
Speaker 3: parking lot of high school, or in the police station,
15:18
Speaker 3: from one am through up until some point the next
15:22
Speaker 3: day eight to twelve hours for round one, and that's
15:25
Speaker 3: only round one of multiple rounds that are to come
15:28
Speaker 3: over the next twenty four to forty eight hours. In
15:30
Speaker 3: that first round, they are playing the friend. They're buying
15:34
Speaker 3: him the burger, they're buying him the fries. He goes
15:36
Speaker 3: to the police station. He's playing on the computer. He's
15:38
Speaker 3: looking on social media to help them find people to
15:42
Speaker 3: show them pictures of the guns of the people in
15:44
Speaker 3: the neighborhood who might have done this. And that's making
15:46
Speaker 3: him feel important, and he has access to computer that
15:49
Speaker 3: he doesn't always have access to at home. And at
15:51
Speaker 3: the end of that, by the mid day the next day,
15:54
Speaker 3: when they bring Davante home, he has signed a handwritten
15:58
Speaker 3: statement saying five kids from the neighborhood did this. He
16:02
Speaker 3: names them Tone Tone, Tone loose. They did it with
16:06
Speaker 3: five guns. He names those five guns a Mini fourteen,
16:09
Speaker 3: a handgun, a thirty eight caliber, an assault style weapon,
16:13
Speaker 3: and he tells a story that they met up at
16:15
Speaker 3: a fast food restaurant earlier that day Coney Island to
16:18
Speaker 3: talk about this. Davante was with them leading up to it,
16:22
Speaker 3: but he freaked out and he didn't stick around. He
16:24
Speaker 3: went home and didn't go to this to run in
16:26
Speaker 3: street with them, but he knows what happened.
16:29
Speaker 2: Do the police check out Davante's story.
16:32
Speaker 3: They do check out some of it, some of it
16:34
Speaker 3: doesn't match, and they kind of proceed full steam ahead. Inexplicably.
16:38
Speaker 3: They have five perpetrators versus the witnesses that Tay Too
16:41
Speaker 3: h Okay, who cares ballistics from the scene, show definitively
16:46
Speaker 3: that this gun was an AK forty seven and a
16:49
Speaker 3: forty five pistol. There's no question about that. The ballistics
16:53
Speaker 3: are not from a Mini fourteen, they're not from a
16:55
Speaker 3: thirty five caliber, They're not from a handgun. They go
16:57
Speaker 3: check out this fast food restaurant they supposedly met up
17:00
Speaker 3: at the Coney Island that Coney Island is closed for
17:03
Speaker 3: construction and has been for months. They check out the
17:06
Speaker 3: people Davante has named Tone Tone Loas they go pick
17:09
Speaker 3: up multiple of them, they question them that night. That morning,
17:13
Speaker 3: they're cleared by Alibis and they're let go, but it
17:16
Speaker 3: doesn't take their sites off Davante.
17:19
Speaker 2: The story is by this point riddled with errors. Right,
17:22
Speaker 2: it's the wrong people, the wrong guns, the wrong place,
17:25
Speaker 2: at this Coney Island restaurant that's closed. Nothing there makes sense.
17:29
Speaker 2: But the police still have you in their sights, Davante.
17:33
Speaker 2: They come back and get you right, and they bring
17:35
Speaker 2: you back to the station, and that's when things start
17:38
Speaker 2: to get even worse.
17:39
Speaker 5: Megan.
17:39
Speaker 2: They question Davante again and tell us about the confession
17:42
Speaker 2: that results after the second round.
17:44
Speaker 3: So they do take Davante home briefly. I think during
17:47
Speaker 3: that time they're picking up Tone Tone loas the other
17:50
Speaker 3: guys they're questioning them, and when they clear them and
17:53
Speaker 3: they realize, huh, this isn't making much sense, they decide
17:56
Speaker 3: we got to go get Davante again, so they go
17:58
Speaker 3: pick up Davante's mom is home at the time. They
18:02
Speaker 3: tell her, you know, we don't think your son's telling
18:04
Speaker 3: us the truth. We need to bring him back in
18:06
Speaker 3: and talk to him about this homicide. His mom says okay,
18:10
Speaker 3: and she, as a mom, is you know, socialized to
18:14
Speaker 3: do that encourages Davante to tell the truth, to tell
18:16
Speaker 3: the police, and from what Davante has always told me,
18:20
Speaker 3: things were dramatically changed from there. They had been his friends,
18:23
Speaker 3: they'd been helpful, they'd been encouraging before that. As soon
18:26
Speaker 3: as he's back in the car, they are aggressive. They're
18:28
Speaker 3: confronting him, they're yelling at him, they're telling him, we
18:31
Speaker 3: know you're lying. And at this point there is a
18:34
Speaker 3: very common tactic of lying to DeVante and using false evidence.
18:38
Speaker 3: They had taken his shoes earlier when they had him
18:40
Speaker 3: at the police station. They said, we tested your shoes.
18:43
Speaker 3: You have blood on your shoes, so we now know
18:46
Speaker 3: you were there. We know you did this, and we
18:49
Speaker 3: know you're lying to us. So we don't want to
18:51
Speaker 3: hear anything else. We just want to hear the truth.
18:55
Speaker 3: Tell us what happened.
18:57
Speaker 2: Wow, So I mean, Devonte, I'm just picture the mental
19:01
Speaker 2: whirlwind that you must have been experiencing at this time.
19:05
Speaker 2: After being picked up off the street in the middle
19:06
Speaker 2: of the night, right after the shooting. What was it
19:09
Speaker 2: like to realize that all of a sudden, these officers
19:12
Speaker 2: who just a few hours earlier had been to your friends.
19:15
Speaker 2: What was it like to realize that they were coming
19:16
Speaker 2: for you.
19:17
Speaker 4: It was hell. It was very stressful, very traumatizing. You
19:25
Speaker 4: feel hopeless in situations like that, right, because it's like,
19:29
Speaker 4: how did I get to this point?
19:30
Speaker 5: Right?
19:31
Speaker 4: I went from walking down the street to them showing
19:34
Speaker 4: me pictures of like the deceased people, people who was once.
19:37
Speaker 5: Alive, not these people are deceased.
19:39
Speaker 4: Right, And on top of that, like everything was just
19:42
Speaker 4: like happening so fast.
19:44
Speaker 5: So it was you know.
19:46
Speaker 2: It was stuff that we shouldn't expect even the most
19:51
Speaker 2: experienced adult to withstand, let alone a fourteen year old
19:57
Speaker 2: kid who's by himself and scared. You end up changing
20:02
Speaker 2: your story to try and please these guys, to try
20:05
Speaker 2: and get out of there, to try and go home,
20:08
Speaker 2: like you were saying. And the story that it becomes
20:13
Speaker 2: clear they want is a story where you were involved, where.
20:18
Speaker 5: You did this.
20:19
Speaker 2: Can you tell us, Megan, what the final story was?
20:23
Speaker 2: In DeVante's final confession.
20:25
Speaker 3: The final story Davante tells isn't that much different than
20:28
Speaker 3: the original story he told that didn't make much sense
20:31
Speaker 3: and didn't match most of the facts, except that it
20:34
Speaker 3: now includes Davante as an active participant and as a shooter.
20:39
Speaker 3: So it has these four other people from the neighborhood
20:42
Speaker 3: who we now know. Some of those names were given
20:44
Speaker 3: to police by a witness that during that canvas that night.
20:48
Speaker 3: It has these five guns that don't match the ballistics
20:52
Speaker 3: of the scene, but it has Davante going in, It
20:55
Speaker 3: has Davante doing the shooting, and then it has Davante
20:58
Speaker 3: running away on foot from this scene to his house,
21:01
Speaker 3: which also doesn't match the evidence. And DeVante told police
21:04
Speaker 3: he threw his Mini fourteen, which was the gun he
21:07
Speaker 3: fired at the scene, into a vacant field on AT
21:11
Speaker 3: and T property. Afterwards, police went and checked that field.
21:15
Speaker 3: They did not find any gun. And this usually is
21:18
Speaker 3: like a real red flag of an unreliable confession. If
21:22
Speaker 3: a suspect gives you a new fact that police don't
21:25
Speaker 3: already know, and you conduct follow up investigation and you
21:29
Speaker 3: prove it true, well then that's the gold star standard
21:32
Speaker 3: of a reliable confession. But if you don't prove it true,
21:35
Speaker 3: that's a red flag and you need to question this
21:38
Speaker 3: confession and this suspect.
21:40
Speaker 2: It's a perfect storm, right, It's an unfortunately perfect recipe
21:45
Speaker 2: for how to get a false confession. From the sleep
21:47
Speaker 2: deprivation to the interrogation techniques that we used. You mentioned
21:50
Speaker 2: the lies about the evidence, right, the lack of council,
21:53
Speaker 2: lack of parent for somebody as young as Davante in
21:55
Speaker 2: that room, and once Davante gave that confession that they
22:00
Speaker 2: were driving for that they were coming to get during
22:04
Speaker 2: those thirty six hours of often on interrogation DeVante's church
22:08
Speaker 2: as an adult, and you get a lawyer DeVante whose name,
22:14
Speaker 2: unfortunately is pretty notorious in the world of wrongful conviction.
22:18
Speaker 2: His name is Robert Slamica. Megan, can you educate us
22:22
Speaker 2: about just who Robert Slamica is.
22:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, Robert Slamica was a private attorney in Detroit who
22:31
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was well known at that time,
22:33
Speaker 3: but at this point is now notorious for misconduct and
22:38
Speaker 3: doing essentially a really, a really bad job at being
22:42
Speaker 3: a defense attorney. He was reprimanded formally by bar association
22:48
Speaker 3: at least six times, including in one other exoneration case
22:52
Speaker 3: where he helped helped essentially get an innocent man convicted
22:57
Speaker 3: and sent away for life. And since then, in more
23:00
Speaker 3: recent years, he has actually been disbarred for misconduct and
23:04
Speaker 3: criminal conduct. And I think we'll hear a bit more
23:06
Speaker 3: from Davante about what he did or didn't do for
23:08
Speaker 3: Devantee's case, But Davante essentially received no defense from this man.
23:14
Speaker 4: So my whole time I and juvenile, I was in
23:17
Speaker 4: the juvenile detention facility for around eight months fighting four
23:20
Speaker 4: council first degree murder, four council felaity murder, on robbery
23:25
Speaker 4: sought with attentive murder and felaty firearm.
23:27
Speaker 5: My attorney on he came and seen me what four times?
23:31
Speaker 2: Wow?
23:32
Speaker 5: If that what? Ten many visits?
23:34
Speaker 4: It never brought any paperwork with him, no files, never,
23:38
Speaker 4: no nothing, no sense of come on, like, let's try
23:42
Speaker 4: to build a defense. He didn't try to put up
23:44
Speaker 4: no type of fight, no effort. No, I don't even
23:47
Speaker 4: think he even called the witness He didn't call any
23:49
Speaker 4: character witnesses, nothing like. He didn't try whatsoever you know
23:53
Speaker 4: for him. I felt as if like it was just
23:56
Speaker 4: all about the money and like degreed. You know, he
23:59
Speaker 4: saw my family was a knee desperate need trying a
24:02
Speaker 4: best to like you know, be there and protect me
24:05
Speaker 4: and to try to help figure it out with me.
24:07
Speaker 4: He knew that he took advantage of that.
24:09
Speaker 2: So is there charging your family money while he's only
24:12
Speaker 2: visiting you four times, you know, short visits each one,
24:16
Speaker 2: and providing you with essentially no help. So what goes
24:19
Speaker 2: down at trial, Megan with Slamica at the helm of
24:23
Speaker 2: this so called defense of this innocent kid.
24:27
Speaker 3: Well, at first they just want to point out what
24:29
Speaker 3: goes down or doesn't go down before trial. Slamica, essentially,
24:33
Speaker 3: I mean not essentially, he does no investigation of this case.
24:37
Speaker 3: And as we've already discussed, from all of the glaring
24:40
Speaker 3: inconsistencies or latent differences between the facts of the crime
24:44
Speaker 3: and DeVante's confession, there was a lot to investigate. There
24:47
Speaker 3: was a lot to look into, a lot to disprove
24:49
Speaker 3: he did nothing. One thing that happens in between that
24:52
Speaker 3: time nothing to do with Slamica. But there's a state
24:54
Speaker 3: ordered forensic psychological evaluation a couple months after the crime.
24:59
Speaker 3: In that DeVante recants his confession. He tells the psychologist
25:03
Speaker 3: exactly what happened in that interrogation room. He tells him
25:06
Speaker 3: this was false. He tells him he didn't do this,
25:09
Speaker 3: and he tells him why he falsely confessed. Slamica does
25:13
Speaker 3: nothing with that. He doesn't admit that at trial so
25:16
Speaker 3: what happens at trial? The state puts on a parade
25:19
Speaker 3: of very compelling witnesses. They put on the detectives to
25:22
Speaker 3: talk about the horrific facts of this tragic crime. They
25:25
Speaker 3: put on the surviving victim to describe her experience of
25:29
Speaker 3: laying under this bed seeing her friend shot and killed,
25:32
Speaker 3: thinking she's gonna be killed. And then they have her
25:35
Speaker 3: have Davante stand up and say a couple words, and
25:38
Speaker 3: they say, does that sound like the voice you heard
25:41
Speaker 3: at the crime scene? And she says, sounds like it.
25:44
Speaker 3: We now know, we should have known then. But voice
25:47
Speaker 3: comparisons are not a reliable form of evidence. It's meaningless.
25:52
Speaker 3: At that point, though, Slamica takes Davante's side and says,
25:56
Speaker 3: there's really nothing I can do here. You confessed this way,
26:00
Speaker 3: and it says your voice matches the shooter, so you're
26:03
Speaker 3: going to get convicted. I think you should plead guilty.
26:06
Speaker 3: And that's what happens.
26:08
Speaker 2: This is unreal, right, I mean, what was it like,
26:12
Speaker 2: despite the fact that there could have been such a
26:13
Speaker 2: robust defense, to have your lawyer bring you into that
26:17
Speaker 2: backroom and tell you that you should plead guilty to
26:21
Speaker 2: a quadruple homicide.
26:23
Speaker 5: It was, it was very it was.
26:27
Speaker 4: It was a mess, you know at the time, Like
26:30
Speaker 4: I didn't even know how to like read and write write.
26:32
Speaker 4: So he got the plea deal from the prosecutor, brought
26:37
Speaker 4: the plea deal to me, like I didn't even understand
26:40
Speaker 4: what is a guideline score or what is gear three
26:46
Speaker 4: G And I didn't understand none of that. And he
26:48
Speaker 4: just handed me the paper and a pen and walked
26:52
Speaker 4: away from the table and was like sign this, went
26:55
Speaker 4: over and was doing something in court talking to somebody,
26:59
Speaker 4: came back and got it.
27:00
Speaker 2: From unbelievable railroaded from beginning to what turned out to
27:06
Speaker 2: be the end of your trial. You entered those pleas
27:09
Speaker 2: of guilty barely knowing what it was you were doing.
27:11
Speaker 2: You signed a piece of paper in which you pled
27:14
Speaker 2: guilty to four homicides you didn't commit, and you were
27:18
Speaker 2: sentenced to thirty seven to ninety years in prison at
27:21
Speaker 2: age fifteen. This is a story that shocks the conscience.
27:29
Speaker 2: It should shock anyone who hears it. But here's the thing, DeVante,
27:34
Speaker 2: even as you're being shipped off at age fifteen to
27:37
Speaker 2: start serving that thirty seven to ninety years, the story
27:40
Speaker 2: doesn't instead, it takes a twist. What is the twist
28:00
Speaker 2: that happens? Megan? Not long after DeVante enters that guilty plea,
28:03
Speaker 2: get sentenced, and goes off to start serving his time.
28:06
Speaker 3: Exactly two weeks to the day from the day Davante
28:10
Speaker 3: is sentenced to that thirty seven to ninety year sentence
28:13
Speaker 3: as a fifteen year old kid. Exactly two weeks of
28:16
Speaker 3: that day, a man named Vincent's Smothers is arrested at
28:19
Speaker 3: his home for a series of unrelated shooting. The Detroit
28:24
Speaker 3: Police Department, say police department that had Davante, that interrogated him,
28:28
Speaker 3: that charged him, that convicted him. Brings mothers in and
28:31
Speaker 3: they interrogate him about an unrelated shooting. Smothers because he's
28:35
Speaker 3: recently had an infant and has a family to protect,
28:39
Speaker 3: he does roll over and he admits some things. He
28:42
Speaker 3: admits a lot of things. He confesses to a series
28:46
Speaker 3: of twelve murders. Turns out Vincent's Smothers is an assassin,
28:50
Speaker 3: a hired hitman, and he works for local Detroit drug dealers.
28:55
Speaker 3: He confesses to these twelve murders in detail on video.
29:00
Speaker 3: Unlike DeVante's interrogations, they video tape the entire course of
29:04
Speaker 3: Vincent's mother's interrogation and confessions for those twelve murders, well,
29:09
Speaker 3: for those twelve murders are the nineteen seven forty one
29:12
Speaker 3: Runyon murders. Smothers confesses to them in detail on video.
29:17
Speaker 3: And you know what, those details match the crime scene
29:20
Speaker 3: facts perfectly. He tells the accomplice he did it with.
29:24
Speaker 3: There are two men. There are an AK forty seven
29:28
Speaker 3: and a forty five caliber pistol, the two guns that
29:30
Speaker 3: perfectly match the ballistics at the crime scene. He can
29:34
Speaker 3: describe the house, the layout of that living room where
29:38
Speaker 3: the bodies fell when they shot them, and he can
29:41
Speaker 3: describe the conversation that he himself had with that surviving
29:45
Speaker 3: victim in the back bedroom as she lay under the
29:48
Speaker 3: bed while a kid slept. That's not it. Smothers then
29:52
Speaker 3: tells them where they can find the gun he used.
29:55
Speaker 3: They go to that address, they get the gun and
29:57
Speaker 3: it is a match. It's a confirmed. It is the
30:00
Speaker 3: gun that was used at this crime scene. So this
30:03
Speaker 3: is two weeks after they put Davante away for life,
30:06
Speaker 3: and yet nothing happens, nothing changes.
30:11
Speaker 2: Please tell me that the second this serial hit man
30:15
Speaker 2: confesses in accurate detail to the run Yuan Street shootings.
30:18
Speaker 2: Please tell me that someone in the Detroit Police Department,
30:22
Speaker 2: or in the Prosecutor's office, or anyone who knew anything
30:26
Speaker 2: about this went to Davante or his family or his
30:31
Speaker 2: lawyer and said, oh my god, we got the wrong person.
30:37
Speaker 2: It's Smothers, not DeVante Sandford. It's the hit man, not
30:42
Speaker 2: the kid.
30:43
Speaker 3: I'm appalled to tell you, Laura, that not a single
30:46
Speaker 3: one of those things happened. I would say the Detroit
30:49
Speaker 3: police did nothing about it, but actually they did something
30:52
Speaker 3: about it because the detective who took Smothers to the
30:56
Speaker 3: bathroom in the middle of his interrogation was one of
30:59
Speaker 3: the detects actives who interrogated Davante, and so he did
31:02
Speaker 3: something about it. He told Smothers, you know what, we
31:05
Speaker 3: already got the guy who did those Runyan Street murders,
31:08
Speaker 3: and Smothers said, well, you've got the wrong guy then.
31:11
Speaker 3: And what they did was they hid it. They hid
31:14
Speaker 3: smothers confession.
31:16
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, unbelievable. So Smothers confesses to twelve murders. They end
31:22
Speaker 2: up charging him with eight. Right, they don't charge him
31:25
Speaker 2: with the quadruple homicide. On Running Street that Dafante had
31:28
Speaker 2: just pled out to. They convicts mothers on those eight
31:33
Speaker 2: and it's like his confession to the Runyan Street homicides.
31:37
Speaker 2: They it's like it never happened.
31:39
Speaker 3: And we later heard some information that he may have
31:42
Speaker 3: even been offered a sweeter plea deal premised on the
31:46
Speaker 3: fact that he would never mention or testify to the
31:49
Speaker 3: fact that he did the Runyan Street murders.
31:52
Speaker 4: He was offered a plea deal not to come testify
31:54
Speaker 4: for me because at the time, like my lawyers was
31:56
Speaker 4: trying to get him to testify multiple times, and the prosecutor,
32:01
Speaker 4: because he was still fighting multiple murder cases as well,
32:06
Speaker 4: and the prosecutors reached out to him and basically I've
32:10
Speaker 4: tried to offer him a deal where he wouldn't come
32:12
Speaker 4: to court Inlandi's testimony and fight for my innocence.
32:16
Speaker 2: Wow, it's one of the worst cover ups I have
32:19
Speaker 2: seen in fourteen years of doing wrongful conviction work. Who
32:25
Speaker 2: was it that actually exposed this unbelievable cover up?
32:29
Speaker 3: It was media. The only reason this ever came to
32:33
Speaker 3: light was a reporter who heard that there was another
32:36
Speaker 3: person detained at the jail talking about that he actually
32:39
Speaker 3: did the Runyan Stream murders and talking about that he
32:42
Speaker 3: did the murders that this kid was in prison for.
32:45
Speaker 3: And at the time this is like, I think, a
32:48
Speaker 3: year after Davante's sentenced. So Davante has a host conviction
32:52
Speaker 3: attorney and she hears Thank goodness, a reporter reaches out
32:56
Speaker 3: there and says, hey, I've got something you need to know.
33:00
Speaker 2: This comes to light. It's you're a year in Davante.
33:03
Speaker 2: What's prison life been like for you during that year.
33:06
Speaker 2: I can only say that if I were in that
33:07
Speaker 2: position at age fifteen, I'd be scared out of my mind.
33:12
Speaker 5: I was. I was more than just scared. I was terrified.
33:16
Speaker 5: I was all in one. You know.
33:21
Speaker 4: I never went through none of any of that before,
33:24
Speaker 4: So to have all that coming at me and all
33:27
Speaker 4: that coming at me at one time, it.
33:28
Speaker 2: Was just Yeah, I'm trying to put myself in your position,
33:36
Speaker 2: trying to imagine the emotions that anyone would feel hearing that.
33:40
Speaker 2: Some mothers confessed, you know, I can imagine you went
33:44
Speaker 2: through anger, you went through sadness, you went through who
33:47
Speaker 2: is this guy?
33:49
Speaker 5: I didn't even have no anger towards him.
33:51
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not into judging people because I hate
33:54
Speaker 4: when I get judged, you know, so I'm in like,
33:58
Speaker 4: I'm not into judging people. But where I am, I'm
34:02
Speaker 4: thankful for Vince's mothers. Vince's mother is the reason why
34:05
Speaker 4: I got these headphones on and I'm able to do
34:08
Speaker 4: this sit here in my home and talk to you guys.
34:10
Speaker 5: You know, it took.
34:14
Speaker 4: A quote unquote hitman to save my life, not the
34:17
Speaker 4: Detroit Police, not you know, Dwayne County prosecutor office, you know,
34:24
Speaker 4: essentially a hitman in a team of lawyers.
34:28
Speaker 3: Smothers tried hard once he knew what the injustice that
34:33
Speaker 3: had been done to Davante, to right this wrong. He
34:36
Speaker 3: confessed to this crime at least eight to ten times
34:40
Speaker 3: that first time, to police, to his lawyer, to multiple
34:44
Speaker 3: rounds of DeVante's lawyer, to the media. He wanted to
34:47
Speaker 3: go to the court. He signed multiple sworn affidavits under
34:51
Speaker 3: the penalty of perjury. I think Vincent Smothers is kind
34:54
Speaker 3: of the portrait of that even the people who have
34:57
Speaker 3: done some of the worst things, some of the most
34:59
Speaker 3: horrible thing things, still have humanity. And he was the
35:03
Speaker 3: only one at that point willing to fight to right
35:06
Speaker 3: that wrong.
35:07
Speaker 2: How does DeVante's case and this crazy situation of the
35:11
Speaker 2: hitman trying to help the kid, how does this come
35:13
Speaker 2: to you, Megan?
35:14
Speaker 3: As we had mentioned, when Smother's confession came to light,
35:18
Speaker 3: it was about a year after and he was in
35:19
Speaker 3: post conviction in Michigan State Court, represented by the Michigan
35:23
Speaker 3: State Public defender system. While you would think, Okay, we
35:27
Speaker 3: have the reliable, corroborated, confirmed, ballistically confirmed confession from the
35:33
Speaker 3: true perpetrator, we should be able to get this undone right,
35:37
Speaker 3: it proved true that No, that's not how the system works,
35:41
Speaker 3: not in Michigan and not in most states and court
35:43
Speaker 3: systems across our country. So DeVante's case ended up working
35:47
Speaker 3: its way through the Michigan court system for another seven
35:51
Speaker 3: eight years, and that's how it came to us. He
35:54
Speaker 3: had a public defender for a while. It went all
35:59
Speaker 3: the way up to Michigan's court, but he lost, and
36:02
Speaker 3: he lost because of a technicality. It was all the
36:06
Speaker 3: evidence was there. Smothers was there. It was crystal clear
36:09
Speaker 3: Smothers did this. DeVante Sanford did not do this. But
36:13
Speaker 3: the Michigan Supreme Court said, okay, we see your evidence,
36:16
Speaker 3: but it's in the wrong motion.
36:18
Speaker 2: What does that mean? The wrong motion?
36:19
Speaker 3: It the form of document that was filed in the
36:25
Speaker 3: court that presented this crystal clear evidence that a kid
36:29
Speaker 3: was wrongfully in prison for life. It had the wrong
36:32
Speaker 3: title on it. And instead of just saying, okay, we'll
36:35
Speaker 3: treat this as the right motion, or instead of letting
36:39
Speaker 3: you refile in our court and come back to us
36:41
Speaker 3: in a month, they said, you need to go back
36:44
Speaker 3: to the beginning, and at a minimum that's going to
36:47
Speaker 3: take years.
36:49
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Davante, you're a teenager, right, and you're going from
36:52
Speaker 2: You've gone from fourteen to fifteen already, you're going fifteen
36:54
Speaker 2: to sixteen, seventeen eighteen. These are some of the most
36:57
Speaker 2: important years of life. These are the years of growing up,
37:00
Speaker 2: of learning how to move as an adult, learning who
37:04
Speaker 2: you are and who you want to be as an
37:06
Speaker 2: adult in this world. Right as you're watching your case
37:11
Speaker 2: wade through the morass of the Michigan court bureaucracy, what's
37:16
Speaker 2: it feel like to be sitting there as the minutes
37:18
Speaker 2: and the hours and the days tick by, when the
37:21
Speaker 2: proof is so clear that you're innocent.
37:24
Speaker 5: It was like a roller coaster.
37:26
Speaker 4: And not only was I like fighting for my freedom,
37:29
Speaker 4: like I was also in prison and like literally have
37:31
Speaker 4: to fight for my life at times. Seriously, you know,
37:34
Speaker 4: I was at war on like two fronts, right, and
37:37
Speaker 4: at times I felt as if, Okay, I'm not I'm
37:40
Speaker 4: not gonna win one of these, So which one? You know,
37:43
Speaker 4: which which one? This is the one worth losing? You
37:46
Speaker 4: get what I'm saying. So it was stressful. It was
37:51
Speaker 4: It was times where I had all the hope in
37:53
Speaker 4: the world. Then it was times I'm like, man, I
37:55
Speaker 4: might fuck around and die in prison, you know, so uh,
38:00
Speaker 4: sorry for my language, but it was times I didn't
38:02
Speaker 4: see this, I couldn't picture this, but it happened. So
38:08
Speaker 4: I'm faver grateful and thankful for that.
38:10
Speaker 2: Were there times that you let yourself hope when you
38:13
Speaker 2: were in prison?
38:16
Speaker 5: Yeah?
38:16
Speaker 2: Did that make it easier or harder to wait to
38:19
Speaker 2: have that hope?
38:21
Speaker 5: Harder? Way? Harder, way harder?
38:24
Speaker 4: You would do whatever it takes to get about that place.
38:28
Speaker 4: You didn't want to be there more than thirty minutes,
38:30
Speaker 4: let alone, you know, multiple years. You know, I'm fever
38:36
Speaker 4: grateful that I had the support. And my support wasn't
38:42
Speaker 4: just regular support. My support came with a lot of
38:45
Speaker 4: a lot of strength, a lot of like well grounded people,
38:50
Speaker 4: and that's what got me through. You know, times like
38:54
Speaker 4: I would be having conversations with my attorneys and I
38:56
Speaker 4: would be telling them like and I don't know how
38:59
Speaker 4: to like how I keep doing this? Like I just
39:01
Speaker 4: feel like giving up. They had said about emotion or
39:04
Speaker 4: court day, or maybe we was waiting for a report.
39:07
Speaker 4: I remember one time we was waiting for like the
39:09
Speaker 4: Michigan State Police report. Man, that report took forever.
39:15
Speaker 5: But I had them people around me. Man who who who?
39:19
Speaker 4: They held my hand at times when I ain't want
39:22
Speaker 4: to even get up at that and probably ran twenty miles.
39:26
Speaker 5: They come and come home. Get up. We gotta go
39:27
Speaker 5: to Fantee. We gotta you know, you gotta be on it.
39:29
Speaker 5: You know.
39:31
Speaker 4: My legal team is the ones who like gave me
39:34
Speaker 4: like and my supporters the ones gave me like that hope,
39:37
Speaker 4: like you know, you're gonna make it up out of this.
39:39
Speaker 5: You're gonna make it up out of this because you ain't.
39:42
Speaker 5: You ain't gotta worry about you. We got you. Just
39:45
Speaker 5: you know, keep your head up.
39:48
Speaker 2: I don't know how anyone could to be expected to
39:50
Speaker 2: get through anything remotely like this without an army of
39:54
Speaker 2: people behind you. One of those people was you, Megan,
39:58
Speaker 2: a pretty important person. You took DeVante's case. It can
40:03
Speaker 2: be impossible so many times to ondo a wrongful conviction,
40:07
Speaker 2: but you made the impossible possible in this case. Tell
40:10
Speaker 2: me what you had to do, who you had to
40:12
Speaker 2: get involved ultimately to free DeVante Sandford.
40:16
Speaker 3: Thankfully, we didn't have to wait the years that it
40:20
Speaker 3: would have taken for that motion to work its way
40:22
Speaker 3: through the court system again because an unusual thing happened.
40:27
Speaker 3: But a Michigan State Police officer, a law enforcement body
40:30
Speaker 3: in Michigan that had never previously been involved in DeVante's case,
40:34
Speaker 3: they read our motion and they called a member of
40:37
Speaker 3: our team and they said, this is one of the
40:39
Speaker 3: most shocking cases I've ever seen and one of the
40:42
Speaker 3: most compelling packages of evidence we've ever seen. We want
40:46
Speaker 3: to look into this case because we think an injustice
40:48
Speaker 3: has been done. And thank God for that call. And
40:52
Speaker 3: we often talk about working with kind of odd beldfellows
40:56
Speaker 3: or finding partners in this work that you don't expect.
40:59
Speaker 3: We certainly didn't expect to kind of partner with the
41:02
Speaker 3: Michigan State Police, but they did they kicked off, and
41:05
Speaker 3: as Davante said, it took a long time, a year
41:07
Speaker 3: long reinvestigation of this case. It was a painful wait.
41:11
Speaker 3: But it shows the lengths they were willing to go
41:14
Speaker 3: do because they put a multi officer team on this
41:18
Speaker 3: case and they reinterviewed everybody, and they turned up evidence
41:22
Speaker 3: that made it impossible for the state to keep turning
41:26
Speaker 3: a blind eye.
41:28
Speaker 2: And is that what finally pushed Davante's case over the
41:34
Speaker 2: finish line?
41:35
Speaker 3: It is the Michigan State Police pulls all this together
41:40
Speaker 3: into a lengthy final report and the judge, the trial
41:44
Speaker 3: judge on his case, vacates his conviction and thankfully orders
41:49
Speaker 3: Davante's immediate release from prison. And I'm smiling because I'm
41:53
Speaker 3: just picturing Davante walking out that day. And it's still
41:57
Speaker 3: surreal because after all that weight, this stuff happened pretty
42:02
Speaker 3: fast once that report was turned over, that order got signed,
42:06
Speaker 3: and he was walking out.
42:08
Speaker 2: What was it like those first first few minutes and
42:11
Speaker 2: hours of freedom?
42:12
Speaker 5: Hopeful? It's crazy.
42:14
Speaker 4: I had to go through all that to get a future,
42:16
Speaker 4: but I came home with a future, you know, planing, aspirations, goals, visions,
42:22
Speaker 4: and to this day, you know, I tried my best,
42:26
Speaker 4: one day, one step at a time to accomplish everything
42:29
Speaker 4: you know that I start out to.
42:32
Speaker 5: Do from in prison.
42:34
Speaker 2: That future is your present day, it's your now, and
42:38
Speaker 2: you got a lot of future ahead of you too.
42:41
Speaker 2: So what's what's life like now?
42:43
Speaker 4: I think for me, the most amazing part of my
42:48
Speaker 4: life it wasn't even getting out, Like the most amazing
42:51
Speaker 4: part of my life is my son. My son is
42:54
Speaker 4: like everything you know I wish I had the chance
43:00
Speaker 4: to be like, which was a kid, like that freedom
43:04
Speaker 4: of growing and yeah, just being a dad, you know,
43:11
Speaker 4: Spending quality tie with my son, my son, I'm supposed
43:15
Speaker 4: to be here. My son is a blessing, So that's
43:19
Speaker 4: how I treat them as such, you know, Spending quality
43:23
Speaker 4: tie with him, working on my nonprofit, giving back to
43:27
Speaker 4: the community, doing my motivational speaking work, lending my ear,
43:32
Speaker 4: like not my ear, but my voice whenever like someone
43:37
Speaker 4: may need it, you know, when it comes to like
43:39
Speaker 4: criminal justice, reform, gain prevention, violence, adventure and inner cities.
43:44
Speaker 4: I just want to give back and try to help
43:47
Speaker 4: as many people as I can, not having to go
43:50
Speaker 4: through some of the things I have gone through, and
43:52
Speaker 4: if they are facing some of the things that I'm facing,
43:55
Speaker 4: maybe getting some type of inspiration and you know too,
44:00
Speaker 4: don't give up, but don't give in.
44:01
Speaker 2: You know, I'm curious if there's anything you want to
44:05
Speaker 2: say to Vincent's mothers.
44:08
Speaker 5: Thank you that man saved my life. That man say
44:14
Speaker 5: like literally like say, I don't know too many people
44:17
Speaker 5: you know who.
44:20
Speaker 4: Live those type of lifestyles and go through them type
44:22
Speaker 4: of things who will be willing to like stand up
44:25
Speaker 4: in a sept responsibility. You know, I got friends and
44:29
Speaker 4: I know people that's in prison for crimes they didn't commit.
44:32
Speaker 4: You know, only reason why they sitting in prison is
44:34
Speaker 4: because they're no snitching rule. I'm not gonna snitch. I
44:37
Speaker 4: know my cousin did this or I know my friend
44:39
Speaker 4: did this, but I'm not gonna say anything, right, and
44:43
Speaker 4: I don't hold none against them people. You know, what
44:46
Speaker 4: you believe in is what you believe in, right, But
44:49
Speaker 4: like some of those people in prison are living in
44:53
Speaker 4: some of the worst conditions like possible, no no money,
44:57
Speaker 4: no food, no letters, no anything. You basically just sitting
45:01
Speaker 4: in prison for something you didn't do and because you
45:03
Speaker 4: didn't want to tell. Get what I'm saying it for
45:05
Speaker 4: that man to want to come and step up to
45:07
Speaker 4: the plate and take four responsible for his actions.
45:12
Speaker 5: To me, that's the true definition of a man. You know,
45:16
Speaker 5: he didn't have to do that, but he did.
45:20
Speaker 2: Megan, if you could change one thing about the system
45:23
Speaker 2: so that it does not happen again, what should we
45:26
Speaker 2: be doing, What reform should we be pushing right? What
45:29
Speaker 2: needs to be changed?
45:31
Speaker 3: Davante was only convicted because of his confession, one that
45:37
Speaker 3: has a fourteen year old sleep deprived kid. It was inevitable.
45:41
Speaker 3: Youth as we have long known, need special protections in
45:45
Speaker 3: the interrogation room, and one that I know you're working
45:49
Speaker 3: on every day, Laura, but is banning deception and interrogations
45:54
Speaker 3: for kids. And it has now passed in multiple states.
45:58
Speaker 3: There's no reason that law can't be paid in every state.
46:01
Speaker 3: And that is what the turning point in DeVante's interrogation was.
46:05
Speaker 3: When the police lied to him about the evidence and
46:08
Speaker 3: said we now know you did this because we found
46:11
Speaker 3: blood on your shoes. That was the turning point. That's
46:14
Speaker 3: what broke him down to that point of hopelessness where
46:17
Speaker 3: he would say anything to go home. And so if
46:20
Speaker 3: we can ban deception, I think that is a big
46:23
Speaker 3: starting point that can change how things are playing out
46:27
Speaker 3: for kids in the interrogation room.
46:30
Speaker 2: As we get to the end of this conversation, I
46:33
Speaker 2: am sitting on Jason Floum's chair. I'm lucky to be
46:35
Speaker 2: here talking to you both today. He always ends this
46:38
Speaker 2: podcast with a segment he calls closing arguments, where he
46:42
Speaker 2: turns off his mic and sits back and let's the
46:46
Speaker 2: person in your position, Davante, talk about whatever it is
46:51
Speaker 2: you want to talk about. I'm going to stay quiet.
46:53
Speaker 2: I'm going to thank you both for being here and
46:56
Speaker 2: sharing your stories and your wisdom, and Davante, this is
47:00
Speaker 2: your closing argument.
47:02
Speaker 5: I just think common sense need to be used in
47:05
Speaker 5: some of these cases, just basic common sense. I understand.
47:09
Speaker 4: You know, people be having jobs to do, and those
47:12
Speaker 4: jobs comes a lot of stress. You gotta think a homicide,
47:15
Speaker 4: that's somebody that's lost their lives, someone is no longer
47:17
Speaker 4: with us. But at the end of the day, you know,
47:20
Speaker 4: people need to step back and look at the whole
47:23
Speaker 4: picture versus just looking at just one little box. You
47:27
Speaker 4: get what I'm saying, because like when you go back
47:31
Speaker 4: and you just speak on my case, even the average
47:35
Speaker 4: person with no type of law background, no type of anything,
47:40
Speaker 4: scratch they head. How Like when I go out and
47:43
Speaker 4: I meet people, they you was fourteen?
47:46
Speaker 5: How you know?
47:48
Speaker 4: Like how so if they coming up with that conclusion,
47:53
Speaker 4: how come these professional, these detectives, people college degrees and
48:00
Speaker 4: different things like that can come up with that type
48:02
Speaker 4: of conclusion like hold on, wait, something is off here,
48:06
Speaker 4: you know, like it's we missing something instead of having
48:11
Speaker 4: aw gas no breaks, you know, if that makes any sense.
48:22
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
48:25
Speaker 2: Laura and I Writer. I'd like to thank our executive
48:28
Speaker 2: producers Jason Flumm and Kevin Wartis. The Senior producer for
48:31
Speaker 2: this episode is Jackie Polly, and our producers are Lila
48:35
Speaker 2: Robinson and Jeff Cliburn. Our editor is Lexandra Greedy. The
48:40
Speaker 2: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
48:44
Speaker 2: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
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Speaker 2: on Twitter at wrong Conviction as well as at.
48:57
Speaker 1: Lava for Good.
48:58
Speaker 2: On all three platforms, you can follow me on Instagram
49:02
Speaker 2: and Twitter at Laura and I Writer. Wrongful Conviction is
49:06
Speaker 2: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
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Speaker 2: Signal Company Number one.
49:16
Speaker 1: Next week, on the guest hosted episodes of Wrongful Conviction,
49:19
Speaker 1: Kembus Smith will talk with Joyce Watkins, a woman who
49:22
Speaker 1: has lit up the world with not only her story
49:26
Speaker 1: but her incredible spirit of perseverance. Joyce was imprisoned for
49:31
Speaker 1: twenty eight long years after her great niece died in
49:35
Speaker 1: her care, even though anyone looking even a little bit
49:40
Speaker 1: closer at the details would have and should have known
49:44
Speaker 1: right away that Joyce deserved none of the blame. This
49:48
Speaker 1: is a Musslesten episode and it's going to be right
49:51
Speaker 1: here next Monday in the Wrongful Conviction podcast Feed