Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #573 Guest Host Tiffany Reese with Patrick Brown

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#573 Guest Host Tiffany Reese with Patrick Brown · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: A warning for our listeners. This episode contains discussion of
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Speaker 1: child sexual assault and of suicide. Please listen with caution
0:09
Speaker 1: and care. In February of nineteen ninety four, a six
0:18
Speaker 1: year old girl living in New Orleans complained of pain
0:21
Speaker 1: in her abdomen and pelvic region. When she was examined
0:25
Speaker 1: at the hospital, the doctor suspected she had been sexually assaulted,
0:29
Speaker 1: and the police were alerted. The child was questioned by
0:33
Speaker 1: doctors and by the police without apparent present. According to
0:37
Speaker 1: the doctor, when he asked who had harmed her, the
0:40
Speaker 1: child named Patrick Brown, her mother's live in boyfriend. Patrick
0:45
Speaker 1: insisted that he was innocent. He would never hurt a child,
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Speaker 1: let alone someone in his own family. Without any corroborating evidence,
0:54
Speaker 1: the prosecution relied solely on the notes taken by the doctor,
0:58
Speaker 1: and after just a day an hour half of trial,
1:01
Speaker 1: the doctor's word was enough to convince the jury to convict.
1:06
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
1:29
Speaker 1: I'm Tiffany Reese, host of the podcast Something Was Wrong,
1:33
Speaker 1: sitting in for Jason Flam. I am a documentarian, survivor,
1:37
Speaker 1: and advocate, and on my audio docuseries podcast, I work
1:41
Speaker 1: with survivors of abuse and crime. Today's case tragically impacted
1:46
Speaker 1: the lives of two people, someone who was wrongfully convicted
1:49
Speaker 1: of a heinous crime and the victim of that crime
1:52
Speaker 1: who tried for decades to tell the truth that the
1:55
Speaker 1: wrong person was in prison and was not heard. Thankfully,
1:59
Speaker 1: there are two in this story, and one of them
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Speaker 1: is with us today, Patrick Brown. Patrick, thank you so
2:06
Speaker 1: much for joining us and being willing to share your
2:08
Speaker 1: story and your experience with us today. I'd like to
2:11
Speaker 1: start by just saying how sorry I am for what
2:14
Speaker 1: you've experienced. It was incredibly heartbreaking coming across your story
2:19
Speaker 1: and the story of the survivor. It was clear to
2:22
Speaker 1: me that you're both victims and survivors of so much
2:26
Speaker 1: systemic and legal abuse within this story, and I think
2:30
Speaker 1: it's really brave that you're willing to share with us
2:32
Speaker 1: after everything that you've already experienced and overcome to be
2:36
Speaker 1: here today. So thank you so so much.
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Speaker 2: You welcome, you welcome.
2:41
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. To your attorney, Kelly Orion's, who's
2:44
Speaker 1: also joining us today. Kelly, could you introduce yourself and
2:47
Speaker 1: give us a little bit about your background before we
2:49
Speaker 1: jump into Patrick's story.
2:51
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, thank you so much for having both of
2:54
Speaker 3: us here today. So I am the director of the
2:58
Speaker 3: Decarceration and Commune the re Entry Clinic at the University
3:02
Speaker 3: of Virginia School of Law. That is a mouthful in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Speaker 1: Patrick, I'd love to go back a bit and talk
3:12
Speaker 1: a bit about you and where you were born and
3:14
Speaker 1: a little bit about your background and who you were
3:16
Speaker 1: leading up to this horrific experience.
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Speaker 4: I was born in New Orles, Louisiana, raised in a
3:23
Speaker 4: Laura and I. I come from a good family, were
3:26
Speaker 4: a beautiful family. Family was full of love. So it
3:29
Speaker 4: wasn't broken at all. You know, to where my family
3:32
Speaker 4: the open armser whoever welcome and feed them, help them out.
3:37
Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 4: I wasn't no bad person, but I took a turn
3:40
Speaker 4: in my life as I was growing up. That's to
3:44
Speaker 4: become street hung out all night, hung with the fellas,
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Speaker 4: doing this, doing that, to the point to where when
3:51
Speaker 4: I met my kid mama a soldier.
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Speaker 2: You know, everybody got to have a soldier.
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Speaker 1: How did you meet Kathy? What was your reallyationship like?
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Speaker 2: Oh?
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Speaker 4: Man, I met Cathy. You know, I was just coming
4:06
Speaker 4: at the club and she was walking up and she
4:08
Speaker 4: was squirting me. So I was stopped and I say,
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Speaker 4: you know, shaw my conscience because she's a nice looking woman.
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Speaker 2: And when I talked to her, we had hooked up
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Speaker 2: and we know, we dated having.
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Speaker 4: Fun and you know, moved in with her like two weeks.
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Speaker 4: Then the relationships stuff like that, and from there to
4:29
Speaker 4: where it was a beautiful relationship. She had my daughter,
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Speaker 4: and the whole time she was pregnant, I was just
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Speaker 4: so protective of her. I don't want nobody to smoke
4:41
Speaker 4: around her. I don't want nobody doing that. Always pop
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Speaker 4: up at the house, She'll robot stomach, leave, vacuum, the screams,
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Speaker 4: didn't come back home. It was just like like no
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Speaker 4: tea for me. And she was all the way one
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Speaker 4: hundred with me. But what I was one hundred with her.
5:00
Speaker 4: I understand Somewhat I wasn't. Somewhat I wasn't because I
5:05
Speaker 4: stood in the street all night, hustling, try to provide
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Speaker 4: for my family by the streets, and really I didn't
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Speaker 4: have time for my family at home.
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Speaker 1: Do you do you think like you did the best
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Speaker 1: you could in the situation you were in at the time.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you were only twenty years old, right.
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Speaker 2: Right, nineteen?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it's tough when you want to
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Speaker 1: be able to provide for your family and you feel
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Speaker 1: like you have limited options. I think sometimes on how
5:36
Speaker 1: to do that right?
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Speaker 4: Well, you know, I really had no guidance on how
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Speaker 4: to raise a family, how to keep up with the
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Speaker 4: bills and make sure that the family had med a
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Speaker 4: care And I ain't know about all that, you know,
5:51
Speaker 4: ain't nobody really hold my hand and showed me how
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Speaker 4: to become a man to provide for family like the
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Speaker 4: man supposed to do.
5:58
Speaker 2: Because when I was.
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Speaker 4: Really young, my dad had died. I really ain't had
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Speaker 4: no fault to figure in my life. I just went
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Speaker 4: on my own, try to learn from the streets.
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Speaker 1: Did you have any previous run ins with the law?
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Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know the lifestyle, but did you have
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Speaker 1: any like did they know who you were?
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Speaker 2: When the system?
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Speaker 4: The system, they did know who I was because during
6:25
Speaker 4: the time of arresting, during the time my trial, they
6:27
Speaker 4: really gave me a figure how many times that I
6:32
Speaker 4: had been arrested and the thirty seven times that I've
6:34
Speaker 4: been arrested, was fighting, activated, battery, disturbing the peace, stuff
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Speaker 4: like that. It wasn't have really no major crime. It
6:44
Speaker 4: was like mostly missed themeanor childs.
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Speaker 1: Yes, and nothing involving violence against children to be.
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Speaker 2: Clear, No, no, nothing involved.
6:54
Speaker 1: Thank you, Patrick. We're going to talk about the events
6:57
Speaker 1: that led to your wrongful conviction. Now, I'd like to
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Speaker 1: remind the listeners that we'll be discussing some triggering topics
7:03
Speaker 1: involving a minor child. To protect the privacy of the victim,
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Speaker 1: we are not using her real name. Instead, we'll call
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Speaker 1: her Sarah Kelly. Would you mind walking us through what
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Speaker 1: we know of the case, all.
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Speaker 3: Right, So, first, I think it's important to make clear
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Speaker 3: that this is a case where someone was horrifically victimized
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Speaker 3: and survived an awful assault, and then was revictimized for
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Speaker 3: twenty years after while she tried to tell the people
7:36
Speaker 3: around her, including the district Attorney's office, that the wrong
7:39
Speaker 3: person was in prison. I think it's important to acknowledge
7:42
Speaker 3: the two ways that the victim in this case was
7:45
Speaker 3: and the survivor in this case was harmed. So the
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Speaker 3: case starts in February of nineteen ninety four, when Sarah
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Speaker 3: was six years old. It was the day after Marti
7:56
Speaker 3: Gras when she started complaining about discomfort and her abdomen
8:00
Speaker 3: and her pelvic region. So they attempted some home remedies
8:05
Speaker 3: and over the counter treatment, but that didn't work, and
8:08
Speaker 3: so then she was taken in to see doctor Ronald Wilcox.
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Speaker 3: Doctor Wilcox immediately suspected that she had been reaped and
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Speaker 3: asked doctor Maria Menna, a pediatric specialist and child sex
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Speaker 3: abuse to evaluate Sarah. And so they start talking to
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Speaker 3: Sarah about what happened to her. What's really critical to
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Speaker 3: understand about what happens next is what is actually said
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Speaker 3: in the doctor's office versus what then gets put onto
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Speaker 3: paper and given to the police and given then to
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Speaker 3: the district attorney's office. And what the difference is is
8:48
Speaker 3: you have in the doctor's office a lot of what
8:51
Speaker 3: we would call, you know, leading questions because you're dealing
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Speaker 3: with a six year old girl at the time, it
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Speaker 3: was recorded in the doctor's notes that she's said, quote
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Speaker 3: Patrick put his penis in me down there. Sarah maintains
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Speaker 3: that is not what she said, and that at the
9:08
Speaker 3: hospital she was only asked who is Patrick, to which
9:12
Speaker 3: she responded essentially that he was her family member. When
9:16
Speaker 3: NOPD detectives were called in. Sarah was also questioned without
9:20
Speaker 3: a family member present.
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Kelly. So now Patrick, could you tell us
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Speaker 1: about what your experience was when you arrived at the
9:27
Speaker 1: hospital that day with Sarah's mother.
9:30
Speaker 2: Me and Kaja rive at the hospital to get it.
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Speaker 4: And when I got there, I passed the room the
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Speaker 4: examination room, and I seen family members in the room
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Speaker 4: with Sarah to the part to where when the detectives
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Speaker 4: them came out of another room and brought me into it
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Speaker 4: was questioning me about it, and basically it just question
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Speaker 4: me about you know something that happened to the victim.
10:00
Speaker 4: And it was asked me a question by do I
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Speaker 4: know anything about it? And no, I don't know. That's
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Speaker 4: why I'm here at the hospital trying to find out
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Speaker 4: what is the problem.
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Speaker 3: At this At this time, mister Brown is completely cooperative
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Speaker 3: with the police and wants to know who hurt this
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Speaker 3: little girl that he loves and takes care of, and
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Speaker 3: so he is not at all thinking like a suspect.
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Speaker 3: He submits to various testing. He waived his rights to
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Speaker 3: an attorney and his right to remain silent, and spoke
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Speaker 3: to detectives without an attorney, where he denied allegations that
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Speaker 3: he had raped.
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Speaker 4: Sarah went out to the police station with him and
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Speaker 4: was in a room where Eric coropper with him as
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Speaker 4: to answering a lot of questions to the part to
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Speaker 4: where they asked me, did I actually do the crime?
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Speaker 4: And I think I can just tell her this, lamb,
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Speaker 4: I don't know nothing about it.
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Speaker 2: The more I know about it is what y'all telling
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Speaker 2: me right now. And I don't know nothing about it.
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Speaker 2: None of that.
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Speaker 3: However, based on the statements that Sarah made, or rather
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Speaker 3: was alleged to have made two doctors that day, mister
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Speaker 3: Brown was arrested on the charge of aggravated rape.
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Speaker 4: It was something unspeakable, you know, it's really speakable to
11:23
Speaker 4: well get you off for something that you didn't do,
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Speaker 4: that didn't actually putting this charge on me, but some
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Speaker 4: kind of way that everything parted at me for some reason.
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Speaker 4: I don't know why, because maybe I probably do know why,
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Speaker 4: because the way I was to the type of person
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Speaker 4: I would and that side.
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Speaker 2: Of the family didn't really want me to be with
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Speaker 2: their daughter.
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Speaker 4: But like I said, she was my soldier, she was
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Speaker 4: my everything.
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Speaker 2: You know. I would protect car. I would lose my
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Speaker 2: life to give her and the kids.
12:20
Speaker 4: So I never talked to nobody while I was in
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Speaker 4: jail about it, but I was going back and forth
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Speaker 4: to court with it and doing a pre trial investigation
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Speaker 4: and all that is really really kind of hurtful because
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Speaker 4: it was like, this is really actually happened. You know,
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Speaker 4: you're taking me to the trial behind something I did
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Speaker 4: not do. And where is the evidence because I ain't
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Speaker 4: seen evidence at all, because I know they're supposed to
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Speaker 4: do a rape kit and all that, and ain didn't
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Speaker 4: no rape kit and didn't no joining the blood and
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Speaker 4: that ain't did nothing to take down evidence DNA and
12:53
Speaker 4: did not that.
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Speaker 3: After he was arrested, he was given a two hundred
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Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars bond. His family could not afford
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Speaker 3: the roughly thirty thousand dollars that it would have cost
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Speaker 3: him to pay a bail bondsman, so mister Brown spent
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Speaker 3: more than nine months in jail waiting to go to trial.
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Speaker 3: His family also could not afford an attorney, so Robert Jenkins,
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Speaker 3: an attorney from the Orleans Parish Indigent Defender Panel, was
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Speaker 3: appointed to represent mister Brown.
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Speaker 1: Can you give us a rundown of the details of
13:26
Speaker 1: the trial December thirteenth, nineteen ninety four. Who was the judge,
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Speaker 1: the name of the prosecutor absolutely so.
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Speaker 3: Mister Brown went to trial in Section A of Orleans
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Speaker 3: Parish Criminal District Court in front of Judge Morris Reid.
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Speaker 3: The prosecutor on the case was David Wolfe.
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Speaker 1: And the District Attorney at the time was the notorious
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Speaker 1: Harry Connick Senior, who headed up the Orleans Parish DA's
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Speaker 1: office from nineteen seventy three to two thousand and three.
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Speaker 1: Jason's covered some of the many wrongful convictions that occurred
14:00
Speaker 1: under Connick's watch on this podcast. His office was known
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Speaker 1: for withholding and suppressing evidence. In fact, the Innocence Project
14:09
Speaker 1: of New Orleans estimates that during his tenure, favorable evidence
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Speaker 1: was withheld in the trials of one in four men
14:17
Speaker 1: sent to death row.
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Speaker 3: The trial started that evening with opening statements and it
14:23
Speaker 3: concluded the next day. We don't actually know the full
14:27
Speaker 3: extent of what happened during the trial, because, as mister
14:30
Speaker 3: Brown learned over the nearly thirty years that he fought
14:34
Speaker 3: his conviction. Since his direct appeal, no trial's transcript has
14:38
Speaker 3: actually been made available. When the case was reopened by
14:41
Speaker 3: the District Attorney's office in twenty twenty three. We still
14:45
Speaker 3: could not find a transcript despite many, many, many efforts. However,
14:50
Speaker 3: what we do know is that the whole trial lasted
14:53
Speaker 3: about a day and a half from the time of
14:56
Speaker 3: jury selection to the time a verdict was delivered, which,
15:00
Speaker 3: when you think about it, is deeply concerning considering the
15:04
Speaker 3: mandatory sentence for aggravated rape at the time and still today,
15:08
Speaker 3: is life without the possibility of parole.
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Speaker 1: Kelly who testified in the trial and whose behalf did
15:17
Speaker 1: they testify on.
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Speaker 3: Zarah was twice brought into the court to testify, and
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Speaker 3: twice her nose started to bleed as soon as she
15:25
Speaker 3: took the stand and questions began, which was something that
15:29
Speaker 3: was really common for her at the time whenever she
15:31
Speaker 3: was in a very stressful situation, and so she was dismissed.
15:37
Speaker 3: No accommodations were made for her to testify in private,
15:41
Speaker 3: and instead the state called doctor Wilcox to testify in
15:45
Speaker 3: her place, and recalled doctor Wilcox was the first physician
15:49
Speaker 3: to examine her.
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Speaker 1: The child being questioned in front of the whole court
15:55
Speaker 1: instead of the judge's chambers. Like what is your opinion
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Speaker 1: on that. I mean, it's obviously so traumatic and stressful
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Speaker 1: to the child that they're having this physical reaction after
16:06
Speaker 1: being raped. It just seems that the victim wasn't being
16:11
Speaker 1: thought of.
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Speaker 3: I completely agree. I think, you know, cases like this
16:16
Speaker 3: are really tough because we keep courtrooms public for really
16:22
Speaker 3: important reasons, to make sure that crucial decisions in our
16:26
Speaker 3: justice system that carry serious consequences that compromise people's liberty
16:31
Speaker 3: interests do not happen in private. And when witnesses testify
16:36
Speaker 3: juries are empowered to make a decision about that witness's credibility. So,
16:42
Speaker 3: to answer your question, I think there's a tension because
16:46
Speaker 3: we want to make sure that people are safe. We
16:49
Speaker 3: want to make sure that children who have been harmed
16:52
Speaker 3: are not re traumatized, but we also have to ensure
16:57
Speaker 3: that the Constitution is followed, that liberty interests are not
17:01
Speaker 3: compromised in private. That being said, I do believe that
17:06
Speaker 3: accommodations could have been made to make Sarah more comfortable
17:11
Speaker 3: and less stressed, and that is crucial here because as
17:15
Speaker 3: we know, as Sarah has told us in the decades
17:18
Speaker 3: since this happened, she did not say what doctor Wilcox
17:22
Speaker 3: alleged that she said, and so had she had the
17:25
Speaker 3: opportunity to testify, she would have been able to say
17:31
Speaker 3: the truth. She would have been able to testify that
17:34
Speaker 3: she did not accuse Patrick of rape, and that was
17:38
Speaker 3: a very crucial fact for the jury to have. Instead,
17:41
Speaker 3: adults testified for her.
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Speaker 1: And instead, what did the jury hear from doctor Wilcox.
17:48
Speaker 3: Doctor Wilcox testified to what was in what was recorded
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Speaker 3: in his notes that Sarah had told him that Patrick
17:59
Speaker 3: put his penis in me down there, a statement that
18:02
Speaker 3: we now know and knew at the time had the
18:05
Speaker 3: police disclosed it, that was not was what was actually
18:08
Speaker 3: said in the doctor's office. So they were able to
18:11
Speaker 3: introduce the doctor's report with no scrutindy with this statement
18:16
Speaker 3: that never got to be cross examined. So what happened
18:19
Speaker 3: then is she never got a chance to tell her story.
18:22
Speaker 3: So the jury convicts mister Brown of aggravated rape in Louisiana.
18:28
Speaker 3: Age of the victim as an aggravating factor, and she
18:32
Speaker 3: was six years old at the time that she was raped.
18:35
Speaker 3: So he was sentenced to Manna Story life without the
18:37
Speaker 3: possibility of parole and was sent to the Louisiana State
18:42
Speaker 3: Penitentiary at Angola.
19:07
Speaker 4: The hardest part being inculcerated is that you lose a
19:11
Speaker 4: family member while you're in now and I lost several
19:16
Speaker 4: family members.
19:18
Speaker 2: My mom, she went to three.
19:20
Speaker 4: Open house surgeries who I was incarcerated, and some people
19:26
Speaker 4: that really loved me, like my grandmother, my aunt's cousins,
19:30
Speaker 4: they passed away while I was incarcerated. And that's the
19:32
Speaker 4: hardest part to where they didn't want let you go out,
19:36
Speaker 4: to go to any funerals.
19:37
Speaker 2: Or none of that.
19:40
Speaker 4: And with the type of charge that they placed me on,
19:45
Speaker 4: you know, kind of restrict me from everything to where
19:48
Speaker 4: at a certain age I had to see my daughter
19:50
Speaker 4: once she get older, and any one of my family
19:54
Speaker 4: members they can't come in as a child. Those certain
19:58
Speaker 4: things I couldn't do. I couldn't go around certain people,
20:01
Speaker 4: certain jobs I can't have because of the charge.
20:05
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly sorry that you experienced that. That must have
20:11
Speaker 1: been so hard to be stigmatized like that and for
20:15
Speaker 1: something you did not do.
20:18
Speaker 4: From the time my clceration. You know, I had to
20:20
Speaker 4: try to make it work for me.
20:23
Speaker 2: I had to.
20:25
Speaker 4: Due to times didn't let the time do me. So
20:27
Speaker 4: at the time I was in there, you know, I
20:30
Speaker 4: educated myself. I become a better person, becomes a mentor,
20:34
Speaker 4: and I'm becoming helping a lot of people out there
20:37
Speaker 4: at a goaler, even down to from the ofenity security staff.
20:44
Speaker 2: To where I got.
20:45
Speaker 4: To know them and they got to know me, and
20:47
Speaker 4: they see that I'm not a really bad person, you know,
20:51
Speaker 4: from that part from being that goal being, it's separate
20:55
Speaker 4: criticism from a lot of dudes that's around there. Really
20:59
Speaker 4: nothing really case hurt me no more because I'm all
21:02
Speaker 4: crowd out from that and anything that's not positive, I
21:08
Speaker 4: just don't want to be around it. But on my
21:10
Speaker 4: coasure that you know, they had those there and they
21:13
Speaker 4: were going through a lot of things that they need
21:15
Speaker 4: mentor that they talked to, and especially that's what I did.
21:22
Speaker 4: At one point in time in my life. I did
21:23
Speaker 4: lost hope. I did lost I hope to where I
21:26
Speaker 4: wouldn't come home. I wasn't gonna be with my family again.
21:30
Speaker 4: And I had looted in my mind to not be
21:34
Speaker 4: a commodity to the system to where you just holding
21:38
Speaker 4: me there and collecting money off of me. And I'm
21:42
Speaker 4: doing this and doing that to keep a prison function
21:46
Speaker 4: to where dang, I ain't had the more hope because
21:49
Speaker 4: you know it ain't goal inside of prison. Contraband comes
21:52
Speaker 4: and goes in there, and the most dealy contraband that
21:57
Speaker 4: they had in there was that fit now and that
22:01
Speaker 4: fit now into the person to where I did wanted
22:05
Speaker 4: to take that just the end this life because I
22:08
Speaker 4: didn't want that type of life inside of a system
22:12
Speaker 4: behind something I.
22:13
Speaker 2: Did not do.
22:13
Speaker 4: And then you know when I got there, dude, say life,
22:16
Speaker 4: I mean lock in forever. Man, ain't no going home.
22:21
Speaker 4: The next place I would be was a party lookout,
22:24
Speaker 4: mister penitentious cemetery. That's why I was gonna be and
22:29
Speaker 4: I was still going to be incocerated.
22:32
Speaker 1: What kept you going, Patrick? What gave you hope?
22:35
Speaker 4: My family kept coming and fishing me talk to my
22:39
Speaker 4: daughter every day on the phone. My daughter was a
22:42
Speaker 4: month and eight days old when I got arrested. From
22:45
Speaker 4: that time that she would just obaby she don't know
22:48
Speaker 4: nothing about the charge. And she fought for me too.
22:51
Speaker 4: She fought to keep me well, I keep hope going.
22:57
Speaker 4: She wanted her daddy. That kept me going down with
23:00
Speaker 4: my heart. She kept me going, She kept me fight,
23:04
Speaker 4: ca me find this to be with them, so she
23:07
Speaker 4: could have a fault in our life.
23:11
Speaker 1: So if you could, Kelly speak to uh, if you
23:14
Speaker 1: recall when you first heard about mister Brown's case, what
23:18
Speaker 1: stood out to you like as a human and what
23:22
Speaker 1: drew you to essentially work on the case and kind
23:25
Speaker 1: of like how your relationship started those early days.
23:28
Speaker 3: So I got a call on March twenty fourth of
23:32
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three from the District Attorney's office, Jason William's office.
23:37
Speaker 3: It was specifically from Assistant District Attorney Emily maw who
23:41
Speaker 3: is the head of the civil rights division in the office.
23:45
Speaker 3: And I was asked if I was available to come
23:47
Speaker 3: in immediately, and I was told that a young woman
23:51
Speaker 3: had just come into their office and had essentially said
23:55
Speaker 3: that the wrong person was in prison for raping her.
23:59
Speaker 3: That's a pretty extraordinary call to get. You don't often
24:02
Speaker 3: say no when a district attorney's office calls you as
24:05
Speaker 3: a defense attorney and says, we think we have someone
24:08
Speaker 3: in prison who shouldn't be there. I didn't need much
24:10
Speaker 3: more information than that.
24:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, So what did they tell you when you
24:15
Speaker 1: got to their office.
24:17
Speaker 3: On that day? What we knew is that in two
24:20
Speaker 3: thousand and two, when Sarah was fourteen years old, was
24:25
Speaker 3: when she first attempted to get the District Attorney's office
24:28
Speaker 3: to listen to her about the fact that the wrong
24:31
Speaker 3: man was in prison for raping her. She explained that
24:34
Speaker 3: she estimated that she had written at least one hundred
24:38
Speaker 3: letters to the District Attorney's office.
24:41
Speaker 1: And the DA at that time was still Harry Conic Senior.
24:45
Speaker 3: In twenty fifteen, she submitted an affidavit to the District
24:49
Speaker 3: Attorney's office at this time led by Leon Canazero, declaring
24:53
Speaker 3: that mister Brown was not the person who raped her
24:56
Speaker 3: and identifying by name the man who did. She remembers
25:00
Speaker 3: going to the DA's office at least four times, but
25:04
Speaker 3: it wasn't until the fourth time, on March twenty fourth,
25:07
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, that someone in that office actually decided
25:10
Speaker 3: to listen to her.
25:11
Speaker 1: And that was, of course, after Leon Connazaro had been
25:16
Speaker 1: succeeded as a District attorney by Jason Williams, who was
25:19
Speaker 1: elected in twenty twenty.
25:21
Speaker 3: And they immediately began reinvestigating her case. And I think
25:27
Speaker 3: what was most important to the investigators and to myself
25:33
Speaker 3: was Sarah's incredible credibility, her ability to recall in detail
25:39
Speaker 3: the efforts that she had made over more than two
25:42
Speaker 3: decades to undo this injustice and for the truth to
25:49
Speaker 3: be accepted by the DA's office. And part of what
25:53
Speaker 3: also bolstered her credibility was how deeply deeply harmed she
26:00
Speaker 3: was by having this truth ignored.
26:03
Speaker 1: What drew me to this story or this you know,
26:07
Speaker 1: hearing about mister Brown's experiences and Sarah's experience is that
26:12
Speaker 1: it really highlights how important it is to listen to
26:15
Speaker 1: survivors and for their voices to be heard. And you know,
26:20
Speaker 1: on the other side of that, the detriment that can
26:22
Speaker 1: happen to us when we're not heard. Two and a
26:25
Speaker 1: half perpetrators out of one hundred that rape actually end
26:30
Speaker 1: up in prison. That's the current statistics. And I mean,
26:34
Speaker 1: working with survivors every day, I know that, like the
26:37
Speaker 1: trust just isn't there, that the effort will be meaningful
26:42
Speaker 1: and it won't just do more harm. And I think
26:45
Speaker 1: that's a really sad reality and a place to be,
26:50
Speaker 1: but it's one that we need to sit with because
26:52
Speaker 1: it's so important that we address it because it's absolutely
26:56
Speaker 1: not okay.
26:57
Speaker 3: It's absolutely not okay.
26:59
Speaker 1: And it's just a very heartbreaking, very heartbreaking example of
27:05
Speaker 1: the many cracks within the system. Kelly, What was the
27:10
Speaker 1: post conviction process like that led you from taking this
27:15
Speaker 1: case on to ultimately mister Brown's release.
27:20
Speaker 3: One thing that I think is very important, and I
27:21
Speaker 3: want to throw it in there, is that mister Brown
27:24
Speaker 3: litigated his case himself for two decades. In fact, the
27:28
Speaker 3: petition that was granted on May eighth was actually the
27:32
Speaker 3: one that mister Brown filed himself pro see over a
27:36
Speaker 3: year before this hearing. In it, he argued factual innocence
27:41
Speaker 3: under a very new law in Louisiana that allows you
27:44
Speaker 3: to plead factual innocence. So the DA's office actually filed
27:48
Speaker 3: their response to mister Brown's pro sae petition, and before
27:52
Speaker 3: they did this, they reviewed all of the available records.
27:56
Speaker 3: They reinterviewed witnesses, consulted with law enforcement, and spent a
28:00
Speaker 3: considerable amount of time listening to Sarah and assessing her
28:04
Speaker 3: credibility as well as verifying the details in the story
28:08
Speaker 3: that she told them. After reviewing all available records, they
28:12
Speaker 3: found clear and convincing evidence that mister Brown was factually innocent,
28:17
Speaker 3: and based on their filing their response to mister Brown's
28:20
Speaker 3: p say petition. They found a few things. Most compelling
28:25
Speaker 3: those were the fact that Sarah stated unequivocally and on
28:28
Speaker 3: multiple occasions that mister Brown was not the man who
28:31
Speaker 3: raped her. Also that in twenty fifteen, she submitted a
28:35
Speaker 3: sworn affidavit to the DA's office, in it stating that
28:39
Speaker 3: mister Brown was not the person who raped her and
28:42
Speaker 3: naming the person that did. They also considered testimony and
28:46
Speaker 3: statements from the time the case was pre trial that
28:50
Speaker 3: indicated that during a fight with the victim's mother, a
28:54
Speaker 3: man gloated about raping Sarah and about the fact that
28:57
Speaker 3: mister Brown was doing time for the crime.
29:01
Speaker 1: That sounds like it would have been a pretty major
29:03
Speaker 1: incident for the defense to explore, but somehow the jury
29:07
Speaker 1: never heard about it. Can you tell us more about
29:10
Speaker 1: that exchange and why it was not brought up a trial.
29:13
Speaker 3: So this fight occurred well before the trial, near the
29:16
Speaker 3: time that mister Brown was indicted on the charge of
29:20
Speaker 3: aggravated rape. The prosecution was aware of this fight, it
29:24
Speaker 3: is not entirely clear how accurately that evidence was provided
29:31
Speaker 3: to the defense. We know definitively that the fact that
29:35
Speaker 3: there were witnesses to this fight and witnesses to this
29:39
Speaker 3: admission that was not disclosed to the defense.
29:42
Speaker 1: And what was said during the fight that was significant.
29:46
Speaker 4: He stated, I know that your daughter has got rape
29:51
Speaker 4: and I ain't gonna be the one to do the time.
29:53
Speaker 3: For and I believe he also said, you know that
29:57
Speaker 3: mister Brown is doing time for somebody else's crime. And
30:00
Speaker 3: it's just it's almost irrefutable, right, Like that's a very
30:04
Speaker 3: relevant fact for a jury to hear and understand. This
30:09
Speaker 3: is the same man that Sarah stated raped her in
30:11
Speaker 3: the affidavit that she gave to the DA's office in
30:14
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen. They submitted this information to the court and
30:19
Speaker 3: on May eighth, an evidentiary hearing was held. And so
30:23
Speaker 3: when Sarah took the stand to testify, she was able
30:26
Speaker 3: to look at mister Brown, who was sitting at the
30:29
Speaker 3: table next to me, and she told the court about
30:34
Speaker 3: her twenty year effort to be able to sit where
30:37
Speaker 3: she was that day and tell the truth of what
30:40
Speaker 3: happened to her. At the end of that hearing, Judge
30:44
Speaker 3: Calvin Johnson delivered his ruling, and before he did, he
30:48
Speaker 3: addressed Sarah and mister Brown directly, and I'll never forget
30:52
Speaker 3: what he said, and I want to repeat it verbatim.
30:54
Speaker 3: He said the state was complicit in the harm and
30:57
Speaker 3: horror that Sarah endured. He then vacated mister Brown's conviction
31:03
Speaker 3: and granted mister Brown a new trial, and Emily maw
31:07
Speaker 3: the Chief of the Civil Rights Division, immediately revised the
31:10
Speaker 3: bill of information that was filed against him in nineteen
31:13
Speaker 3: ninety four and immediately dismissed the charges. That day, he
31:18
Speaker 3: was able to hug Sarah, he was able to hug
31:20
Speaker 3: his family, and he was able to walk out of
31:22
Speaker 3: the front steps and not have to go back to Angola.
31:26
Speaker 1: Patrick, I can't imagine what it must have felt like
31:30
Speaker 1: to be in that courtroom with Sarah and to hear
31:33
Speaker 1: her testimony, and for both of you, after almost thirty years,
31:38
Speaker 1: to finally be heard.
31:41
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was.
31:46
Speaker 4: Unbelievable. It was beautiful. I know that this person came
31:52
Speaker 4: out and being hurried you it will kind.
31:55
Speaker 2: Of helped heal me. Heal me a whole lot so well.
32:00
Speaker 4: Once she gave a testa moment she finished gaving a testiment,
32:03
Speaker 4: she came up and she hugged me. And once she
32:06
Speaker 4: hugged me in the court room. I felt her pain,
32:11
Speaker 4: she felt mine. She told me that she was sorry
32:15
Speaker 4: that I have to go through it. I told her
32:18
Speaker 4: that I was sorry too, that I wouldn't death for
32:23
Speaker 4: I got supposed.
32:23
Speaker 2: To say that she loved me.
32:31
Speaker 5: I told her that I love her back say say
32:37
Speaker 5: you never go back there. I know you never go back.
32:42
Speaker 5: I told her that I'll never leave him again. Only
32:46
Speaker 5: way that I leave this.
32:48
Speaker 1: Please, thank you so much, Oh my goodness, thank you
32:57
Speaker 1: so so much for your time and your willingness. It
33:01
Speaker 1: is incredibly brave to be this vulnerable in such a
33:05
Speaker 1: public way, and I just want to hold space and
33:10
Speaker 1: acknowledge that what you did today is an incredibly big thing,
33:16
Speaker 1: and I wish you and your family all of the
33:19
Speaker 1: best in the future. And yeah, thank you so so much.
33:24
Speaker 1: We also want to let our listeners know that there's
33:28
Speaker 1: a GoFundMe page to help you get back on your feet.
33:32
Speaker 1: So listeners, if you want to show your support for
33:34
Speaker 1: Patrick as he starts this new chapter in his life,
33:38
Speaker 1: please look for Patrick Brown on GoFundMe dot com or
33:42
Speaker 1: go to the link in our episode bio. Now, this
33:47
Speaker 1: is the part of the show that we call closing arguments.
33:50
Speaker 1: We'd like to hear your final thoughts, anything at all
33:53
Speaker 1: that you want to share with listeners or that you
33:56
Speaker 1: hope listeners will take away from hearing this story. Kelly,
33:59
Speaker 1: can we hear you're closing arguments first, and then we'll
34:02
Speaker 1: hear from Patrick.
34:03
Speaker 3: This is the first exoneration that I have ever been
34:07
Speaker 3: involved in, and I am horrified by what I've learned
34:13
Speaker 3: through this process. I also think it's really important to
34:18
Speaker 3: remember that what happened to mister Brown is a symptom
34:23
Speaker 3: of a diseased system that puts not only people who
34:28
Speaker 3: are factually innocent in prison, but puts people in prison
34:35
Speaker 3: who should not be there in the first place, people
34:38
Speaker 3: who have caused harm, but who also have a larger story,
34:43
Speaker 3: who have a story that is often rarely ever heard,
34:50
Speaker 3: usually until decades later. And so I hope that mister
34:55
Speaker 3: Brown's story will inspire us not just to look at
34:58
Speaker 3: the cases of people who are actually innocent, but the
35:01
Speaker 3: cases of all people who are in prison, to question
35:05
Speaker 3: and continue questioning is prison really an answer and an
35:09
Speaker 3: effective answer to the harm that's occurring in our community.
35:13
Speaker 3: It has been, in my experience a one hundred and
35:15
Speaker 3: fifty year experiment that has failed. It has not served
35:18
Speaker 3: people that have been harmed, It has not brought justice
35:21
Speaker 3: to victims and survivors. I know that we can do better.
35:25
Speaker 3: I believe that we can do better, and I hope
35:27
Speaker 3: that all of us will be inspired to take a
35:29
Speaker 3: second look at this system that we have become so
35:33
Speaker 3: dependent on and taken for granted, and challenge ourselves to
35:36
Speaker 3: radically reimagine what justice and safety and health look like
35:41
Speaker 3: in our communities and try to do so much better
35:44
Speaker 3: than we have done.
35:50
Speaker 4: To all the listeners, adele, be mindful what you do,
35:55
Speaker 4: because it just ain't gonna hurt that person they hurt.
35:58
Speaker 2: Out of people's.
36:00
Speaker 4: Be truthful to yourself and others to the point to
36:05
Speaker 4: where we need to stop all the nonsense and be
36:09
Speaker 4: straightforward with ourselves. That's not putting an instant person in jail.
36:14
Speaker 4: Let's stop the follows. Let's just stop all that because
36:18
Speaker 4: this ain't worth it. We all just come together, no
36:21
Speaker 4: matter and I we love no color race.
36:25
Speaker 2: Get along.
36:26
Speaker 4: It's time for us people to get along and enjoy
36:28
Speaker 4: life in charge is beautiful world that God gave us.
36:33
Speaker 4: Because if we don't have nothing, you know who else
36:36
Speaker 4: we can depend on. We basically depend on the people
36:39
Speaker 4: that's around us. You know, we don't know nobody until
36:44
Speaker 4: we open our mouth and start communicate. Want to start communicating,
36:48
Speaker 4: we start learning people, and we.
36:49
Speaker 2: Have a better world.
36:51
Speaker 4: And I really appreciate you all listening and have a
36:55
Speaker 4: good heart from your heart to life itself. Hope y'all
37:02
Speaker 4: have a good heart.
37:10
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
37:13
Speaker 1: to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
37:16
Speaker 1: early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
37:22
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler,
37:27
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis for inviting me to sit in today,
37:30
Speaker 1: and thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea,
37:34
Speaker 1: Lela Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production
37:38
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
37:43
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
37:47
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
37:50
Speaker 1: follow me Tiffany Reese at Looky Boo and listen to
37:54
Speaker 1: my podcast Something Was Wrong wherever you get your podcasts.
37:58
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a pre production of Lava for Good
38:01
Speaker 1: podcasts in association with signal company Number one