Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #219 Jason Flom with Patrick Pursley

Transcript

#219 Jason Flom with Patrick Pursley · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Since the initial release of Patrick Pursley's story, he has
0:03
Speaker 1: been fighting for his certificate of actual innocence. Without it,
0:07
Speaker 1: he cannot file for state compensation or file a federal
0:10
Speaker 1: civil suit. After so much delay, the state has been dragged,
0:14
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming to a hearing for Patrick's certificate of
0:17
Speaker 1: actual innocence occurring August twenty seventh, twenty twenty one. The
0:22
Speaker 1: state has been desperately trying to throw Patrick's innocence into question,
0:26
Speaker 1: to no avail, and for no other reason than to
0:29
Speaker 1: not admit that they were wrong, and thereby gray and
0:33
Speaker 1: Patrick the right to pursue the compensation that he so
0:36
Speaker 1: rightly deserves. At ten pm on a snowy April second,
0:43
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, twenty two year old Andrew Asher and
0:46
Speaker 1: Becky George sat in a parked car in front of
0:48
Speaker 1: her brother's apartment on Silent Road in Rockford, Illinois. A
0:52
Speaker 1: black man approached the car in a blue scheme mask
0:54
Speaker 1: in a hoodie, and he opened the driver's side door,
0:56
Speaker 1: announcing a stick up. While Becky fished around in her
0:59
Speaker 1: person tried to offer the gunman the sixty dollars she had,
1:02
Speaker 1: he shot Andrew Asher twice.
1:04
Speaker 2: Becky ran to her brother's apartment to.
1:06
Speaker 1: Call the police, and the two bullets and their casings
1:08
Speaker 1: were retrieved from the crime scene and during the autopsy.
1:12
Speaker 1: Through the use of incentivized eyewitness testimony, the coercion of
1:15
Speaker 1: a false confession, and grand jury testimony from Patrick Persley's girlfriend,
1:18
Speaker 1: Samantha Crabtree, testimony she later recanted a trial, and conflicting
1:23
Speaker 1: and misleading ballistics expert testimony. Patrick was convicted of first
1:27
Speaker 1: degree murder and sentenced to life without parole, with an
1:31
Speaker 1: epic appeals process that included Patrick getting a law change
1:35
Speaker 1: from prison in order to get new ballistics testing done
1:38
Speaker 1: that would ultimately set him free. Patrick Parsley suffered for
1:42
Speaker 1: over twenty five years for a crime he simply didn't commit.
1:47
Speaker 1: In March twenty seventeen, Patrick's conviction was finally.
1:50
Speaker 2: Vacated and he was released on bond.
1:53
Speaker 1: He was formally acquitted at his retrial on January sixteenth,
1:56
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. It's Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm Welcome Back
2:17
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction. This episode was recorded at Complex Con
2:21
Speaker 1: Chicago twenty nineteen, a culture, fashion, art and music hybrid
2:25
Speaker 1: event described as a streetwear fans, kind of world's fair
2:28
Speaker 1: featuring limited edition brand collaborations, performances, and even the occasional
2:32
Speaker 1: live podcast recording like this one. We only had thirty
2:36
Speaker 1: minutes though, to tell Patrick's story, so I'll be fleshing
2:38
Speaker 1: out some of the details along the way. Patrick Persley,
2:42
Speaker 1: this is going to be extraordinary because, frankly because of you.
2:46
Speaker 2: Because Patrick is my new friend.
2:48
Speaker 1: I've just got to know him, his unbelievable spirit and intellect.
2:51
Speaker 1: But Patrick, I want to say that I'm happy you're here.
2:54
Speaker 2: I'm sorry you're.
2:55
Speaker 1: Here because you should never even have to be having
2:57
Speaker 1: this conversation.
2:58
Speaker 2: But I'm happier here.
3:00
Speaker 1: Case has so many of the hallmarks, so many of
3:02
Speaker 1: the common factors that we see.
3:04
Speaker 2: In wrongful convictions over and over again.
3:06
Speaker 1: You had incentivized lying witnesses, coerced threatened witnesses. You had
3:13
Speaker 1: bad ballistics, terrible ballistics, right. You had people in positions
3:16
Speaker 1: of authority who broke rules, broke laws in order to
3:21
Speaker 1: railroad you. Tunnel vision is another factor, right, And by
3:23
Speaker 1: tunnel vision, what I mean by that is once a
3:26
Speaker 1: suspect is identified. In many cases, we see that the
3:30
Speaker 1: police and prosecutors start to build a narrative, either consciously
3:34
Speaker 1: or subconsciously, and they managed to ignore or they subconsciously
3:38
Speaker 1: ignore evidence that points away, as it did in your case.
3:41
Speaker 3: Yes, i'll term to suspects, crime scene evidence, clothing, everything,
3:45
Speaker 3: Everything was contradicted.
3:46
Speaker 1: So Patrick Pursley was wrongfully convicted of a brutal crime,
3:50
Speaker 1: a robbery of two people in a car where the
3:53
Speaker 1: robber shot the guy sitting in the car twice and
3:57
Speaker 1: ran and then things went downhill from.
4:01
Speaker 2: There very quickly.
4:03
Speaker 1: And Patrick, this was Rockford, Illinois, Rockford. But you didn't
4:07
Speaker 1: know the people, You didn't know anything about the.
4:09
Speaker 4: Crime, didn't even know it happened.
4:11
Speaker 2: You were home with your girlfriend when this happened.
4:13
Speaker 3: Yes, I was doing a lated birthday party for my
4:16
Speaker 3: son and he came from Wisconsin. His birthday was on
4:19
Speaker 3: the twenty ninth, and we were celebrating on the night
4:22
Speaker 3: of the crime, which was four to ninety three, and
4:25
Speaker 3: had a chemistry set for him and we were just
4:28
Speaker 3: tinkering around and have no idea of these events happening
4:33
Speaker 3: just a few miles away.
4:34
Speaker 5: Now.
4:34
Speaker 1: I Meanwhile, there's another aspect of this that's important to recognize,
4:37
Speaker 1: which is crime stoppers, right and theory. Crime stoppers great thing, right,
4:40
Speaker 1: people call up, they talk about a crime, They're gonna
4:42
Speaker 1: make us all safer to get a reward. But in
4:44
Speaker 1: your case, except when they do it like when Patrick's case,
4:47
Speaker 1: where someone called up and knew nothing about the crime
4:50
Speaker 1: and just gave up his name in order to get
4:53
Speaker 1: two thousand, six hundred.
4:54
Speaker 4: And fifty dollars the price of life.
4:56
Speaker 1: Right, about one hundred dollars a year for the time
4:58
Speaker 1: you were in the Price of life. So all of
5:01
Speaker 1: this must have come as a tremendous shock to you
5:04
Speaker 1: when it happened in stages right when you first first
5:07
Speaker 1: you became aware that you were a suspect.
5:08
Speaker 2: Can you get into that aspect of this whole thing.
5:10
Speaker 3: I was taking my daughter and my son to a
5:13
Speaker 3: birthday party and the police tried to for him me,
5:18
Speaker 3: and unfortunately I was ghettle bred, so I fled, And
5:24
Speaker 3: that's how it started.
5:29
Speaker 1: That was June tenth, nineteen ninety three, about ten weeks
5:32
Speaker 1: after the crime. Two days earlier, on June eighth, Marvin Wyndham,
5:36
Speaker 1: a man Patrick knew from a few small time weed
5:38
Speaker 1: deals around Rockford, was the first one to point the
5:41
Speaker 1: finger at him in a call he made to crime stoppers.
5:44
Speaker 1: It was later revealed a trial that not only did
5:46
Speaker 1: Marvin have eyes for Samantha Crabtree, Patrick's girlfriend, but he
5:50
Speaker 1: also received leniency on a number of charges that he
5:52
Speaker 1: faced in exchange for his testimony not to mention the
5:55
Speaker 1: two thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars reward. With Wyndham's
5:58
Speaker 1: hot tip, the police now we're able to get a
6:01
Speaker 1: search warrant for Patrick and Samantha's apartment, where they recovered
6:05
Speaker 1: a Taurus nine millimeter that Samantha kept for protection. Notably,
6:08
Speaker 1: she always stored it out of reach of her small children.
6:12
Speaker 1: While Patrick fled on foot and the cops rated the apartment,
6:15
Speaker 1: they brought Samantha in for some aggressive interrogation.
6:19
Speaker 2: And I'm putting that mildly.
6:22
Speaker 3: Dan Argergate and my girlfriend for like twelve hours she
6:25
Speaker 3: was pregnant, you know, just basically force fed a narrative
6:31
Speaker 3: to her while disregarding glaring contradictions.
6:36
Speaker 2: And so your girlfriend was the pregnant mother.
6:38
Speaker 4: Of two or three, never been in trouble, three kids.
6:40
Speaker 2: Three kids, pregnant mother.
6:42
Speaker 1: So she's a target for twelve hours and the police
6:43
Speaker 1: tell her that if she doesn't tell them exactly what
6:47
Speaker 1: they want to hear.
6:48
Speaker 4: She won't see her children till she's forty.
6:51
Speaker 2: So here's how this unraveled.
6:53
Speaker 1: So they take her from directly from the interrogation room
6:55
Speaker 1: to a grand jury where they make her repeat the
6:58
Speaker 1: story right now.
6:59
Speaker 3: She's under oath, right, get her own record, get it
7:02
Speaker 3: under you know, as substantiates evidence come in later.
7:05
Speaker 1: So she tells them what they want to hear, and
7:07
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, to her everlasting.
7:10
Speaker 4: Credit, stood strong, took it back.
7:12
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?
7:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as soon as she was out of custody,
7:16
Speaker 3: she filed an affidavit with my attorneys and said she
7:19
Speaker 3: was coursed, basically took back her statement. When elnoi idea
7:24
Speaker 3: is no takebacks.
7:25
Speaker 2: Right now, It's called perjury.
7:27
Speaker 3: It's called perjury. It's called come in that trial substantial evidence.
7:31
Speaker 3: Didn you say this under oath and comes in as
7:34
Speaker 3: evidence of guilt.
7:35
Speaker 2: Your girlfriend ended up spending two years in prison.
7:38
Speaker 4: Because she didn't go along with the narrative and took
7:40
Speaker 4: it back.
7:44
Speaker 1: The narrative of her terror ride, spoon fed and patently
7:48
Speaker 1: false confession, and her grand jury testimony was that she
7:52
Speaker 1: and Patrick were having financial trouble and on the night
7:54
Speaker 1: of the murder, they were driving around in search of
7:56
Speaker 1: a house to rob when Patrick told her to stop
7:58
Speaker 1: on silent road, hopped out of the car, put on
8:00
Speaker 1: a blue ski mask, told her to keep the engine running,
8:03
Speaker 1: and ran off toward the apartment buildings. Then a few
8:06
Speaker 1: minutes later she heard two gun shots and Patrick returned
8:09
Speaker 1: to the car carrying a Taurus nine millimeter. Hours before
8:13
Speaker 1: being threatened with a life separated from her children and
8:16
Speaker 1: regurgitating this narrative for her false confession, Samantha's apartment was
8:20
Speaker 1: being searched by the police where photos were actually staged.
8:24
Speaker 2: There was stage.
8:24
Speaker 1: Photos of her tourist nine millimeters being stored in plain
8:27
Speaker 1: sight for ease of use.
8:30
Speaker 3: The whole gun situation as far as like pictures of
8:34
Speaker 3: where the gun was, It's like I had children in
8:36
Speaker 3: my house. I'm not going to have a gun in
8:38
Speaker 3: plain view where a ten year old could get it.
8:39
Speaker 4: It just wasn't.
8:41
Speaker 3: The whole narrative of how it was put together was
8:43
Speaker 3: so far socle it was. It's just crazy.
8:45
Speaker 1: But early on you it you had a lawyer who
8:47
Speaker 1: actually made one move.
8:49
Speaker 2: That one move saved your life.
8:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, So every defendant, I think in the course of
8:54
Speaker 3: America says I didn't do it. I had a young
8:57
Speaker 3: lawyer who was beginning his career and I'm his first
9:00
Speaker 3: death penalty case. And then I had the older lawyer
9:04
Speaker 3: who kind of just like, I'm out of here. So
9:07
Speaker 3: the young lawyer and his pushback, right, you know you
9:09
Speaker 3: didn't do it. Well, we'll test a gun. Really, you
9:15
Speaker 3: can do that, Yes, please test the gun. Test a gun.
9:18
Speaker 3: That's how it all started, That's what got me here.
9:25
Speaker 1: Ballistic testing is very important to this story. Ballistics is
9:29
Speaker 1: the study of the dynamics of projectiles or of the
9:32
Speaker 1: internal action of firearms. It can tell us what type
9:35
Speaker 1: of firearm was used, where it was fired, from how
9:37
Speaker 1: many shots were fired, and most importantly for this case,
9:40
Speaker 1: it can be used to identify a firearm by the
9:43
Speaker 1: markings left on bullets and bullet casings after firing. So,
9:48
Speaker 1: after both the state's crime lab and the defense's independent
9:51
Speaker 1: lab test fire Crabtrees nine millimeters and compare the bullets
9:55
Speaker 1: and casings from both the test firing and the murder,
9:58
Speaker 1: the prosecutions expert testified that the gun used in the
10:01
Speaker 1: murder was Crabtrees Tourist nine millimeter and this is a
10:03
Speaker 1: direct quote to the exclusion of all others. Powerful testimony,
10:08
Speaker 1: false but powerful. While the defense's expert testified that the
10:12
Speaker 1: murder weapon was likely a tourist nine millimere, but not
10:16
Speaker 1: crab Trees, however, the expert hired by the defense could
10:20
Speaker 1: not conclusively exclude the gun.
10:23
Speaker 2: So think about this.
10:24
Speaker 1: You now have the state testifying with absolute certainty and
10:28
Speaker 1: the defense inconclusive in their exclusion of Patrick. This, along
10:34
Speaker 1: with Marvin Wyndham's incentivized testimony and Samantha Crabtree's initial false confession,
10:41
Speaker 1: brings us to where we know this part of the
10:42
Speaker 1: story tragically went. However, the ballistics testing becomes crucial again
10:49
Speaker 1: many years down the road. When the jury went out,
10:54
Speaker 1: You've now seen a bunch of dirty tricks. You've been
10:56
Speaker 1: around the system. You grew up, as you said, in
10:59
Speaker 1: the streets, so you know what can happen. You're a
11:02
Speaker 1: young black man at this point in the clutches of
11:05
Speaker 1: a system that is designed to chew you up and
11:07
Speaker 1: spit you out.
11:08
Speaker 3: I think Lupez called it planned convalescence. I think Lupeco
11:11
Speaker 3: called it that.
11:12
Speaker 2: Well.
11:13
Speaker 1: That being said, when the jury went out, did you
11:16
Speaker 1: have hope.
11:17
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I knew I didn't do it. I know
11:20
Speaker 4: it was going home.
11:21
Speaker 3: And so when they returned a guilty verdict, I just
11:24
Speaker 3: I really don't even remember how I got back to
11:26
Speaker 3: my cell because I guess the blood drained off my
11:31
Speaker 3: body or something. I just went body numb, and uh,
11:35
Speaker 3: you know, I couldn't believe it. I just I couldn't
11:37
Speaker 3: believe it. It floored me.
11:39
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody here can possibly begin to understand
11:42
Speaker 1: nless someone else here has been through, and you've been through,
11:45
Speaker 1: and now you're facing the death penalty. Yes, so you
11:48
Speaker 1: come back for sentencing, and the judge says.
11:51
Speaker 3: Because of the inconsistencies of the evidence, I'm not going
11:54
Speaker 3: to give you the death penalty.
11:55
Speaker 4: However, I will give you natural life. I find you'll
11:57
Speaker 4: be a ministers.
11:59
Speaker 3: And this is at a time where people were actually
12:01
Speaker 3: picketing for me to get a new trial. It was
12:03
Speaker 3: very strange, a very strange correlation what was going on.
12:06
Speaker 2: And that's just facaic. We're not going to kill you quickly,
12:08
Speaker 2: but we are going to kill you slowly. Right.
12:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm having mercy on you because I see the
12:12
Speaker 3: bs and evidence, but you're still going buddy, you're gone.
12:15
Speaker 3: There was a cry in the courtroom when he announced
12:17
Speaker 3: that my daughters were there.
12:20
Speaker 4: It was something else.
12:35
Speaker 2: You were said to some of the worst, well one
12:37
Speaker 2: of the worst prisons.
12:38
Speaker 3: Yes, stay built, and uh, I'm one got job in
12:41
Speaker 3: the law library. I tried to play past the game
12:43
Speaker 3: banging and the dice games and try to educate myself.
12:47
Speaker 3: I got a grant to correspondence classes in law.
12:50
Speaker 2: Is it as bad as everyone thinks it is?
12:53
Speaker 3: I'm a natural life survivor right so, right now in
12:56
Speaker 3: the wintertime, although locks are cut off the windows, so
13:00
Speaker 3: the natives don't make knives.
13:01
Speaker 4: However, what that does that allows your cell to have
13:04
Speaker 4: enough ice on you can make a snow cone right
13:07
Speaker 4: off the bars and freezing temperatures, mice, roaches, so many roaches.
13:12
Speaker 3: You put a potato chip back in the corner of
13:13
Speaker 3: your segregation cell and the roaches going there and they
13:16
Speaker 3: can't get out, and so you hear kind of like
13:18
Speaker 3: the scraping, And that was the roach motel and f
13:21
Speaker 3: house Panoptacon.
13:23
Speaker 4: They actually it's a landmark. It's a landmark.
13:27
Speaker 1: And of the two point two million people in prison,
13:29
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them who don't have air conditioning,
13:33
Speaker 1: and I don't know. A guy who died recently in
13:36
Speaker 1: Texas prison, he told his brother that.
13:37
Speaker 2: His brother said, why don't you have any sodas?
13:39
Speaker 1: You love soda. You can't keep sodas in your cell?
13:41
Speaker 1: He said, I can't because they explode because it's too hot. Like,
13:44
Speaker 1: what the fuck even is that?
13:45
Speaker 4: Well, ice is the commodity.
13:47
Speaker 3: They might get one cup of ice in the morning,
13:48
Speaker 3: one cup of ice at night.
13:50
Speaker 4: Ice is a commodity.
13:51
Speaker 3: So you will deal with the elements, and right around
13:55
Speaker 3: April fifteenth they will turn off the heat every year
13:57
Speaker 3: like clockwork, despite the elements.
14:01
Speaker 1: Right in Chicago. You got some elements here, Yes, God
14:05
Speaker 1: knows so. And I'm always fascinated and amazed by people
14:10
Speaker 1: like yourself who managed to, you know, go through this
14:13
Speaker 1: ordeal as an innocent person, and the extra psychological damage
14:16
Speaker 1: that that must do to a person who's undergoing the
14:20
Speaker 1: extreme physical hardships, h and the loneliness and all the
14:23
Speaker 1: rest of it. The violence in the prison, we talked
14:25
Speaker 1: about it, the terrible food, et cetera. Set the cold
14:27
Speaker 1: to heat, and then you are there, you know, innocent, innocent.
14:33
Speaker 4: I was done, All my appeals were done.
14:36
Speaker 1: I was done in court, was over with that being said,
14:39
Speaker 1: you found this something, this inner strength, perseverance, whatever you
14:45
Speaker 1: however you describe it, and you not only didn't you
14:47
Speaker 1: give up, but you had and first of all, you
14:50
Speaker 1: had every reason to give up. Motion after motion after motion, denied, denied, denied.
14:55
Speaker 4: I needed was one yes, I needed one yes. That's it.
14:59
Speaker 1: And how you got to that is a really incredible
15:01
Speaker 1: part of the story.
15:02
Speaker 2: So deny denied.
15:04
Speaker 1: Now, as I understand that the law in Illinois at
15:08
Speaker 1: the time allowed for post conviction testing of fingerprints in DNA,
15:12
Speaker 1: but not ballistics exactly.
15:14
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and I asked for the testing.
15:17
Speaker 3: I've seen an article and a tribune about Illinois State
15:20
Speaker 3: Police now starts using the IBIS system Integated Ballistic Identification System,
15:25
Speaker 3: which uses algorithms to connect ballistics to crime scenes.
15:29
Speaker 4: So I was like, that can free me. I knew
15:31
Speaker 4: it could free me. It was just that simple.
15:34
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, because the law didn't allow for it in
15:37
Speaker 3: two thousand and two thousand and one, yis for it.
15:39
Speaker 3: The courts was like, no, the law would have to
15:41
Speaker 3: be amended, the law would have to be a change
15:44
Speaker 3: in order to grant me the gun testing, which would
15:47
Speaker 3: potentially desonerate me. And that was two thousand and one.
15:50
Speaker 1: Right, So you were stuck on a technicality, right because
15:54
Speaker 1: you knew that you had this evidence because your lawyer
15:56
Speaker 1: had tested. We go back to that, right. Your lawyer
15:58
Speaker 1: had had the sense to go and get the testing dependent.
16:01
Speaker 3: Testing, independent lab, independent lab. This lab had only testified
16:05
Speaker 3: for defendants four times.
16:06
Speaker 1: So now a lot of people would say, Okay, here
16:08
Speaker 1: you are in the segregation unit of one of the
16:10
Speaker 1: worst prisons in America. Not a great education. You'd have
16:14
Speaker 1: a law degree, you don't have a science degree. It
16:17
Speaker 1: would seem to be hopeless. But somehow or other you
16:21
Speaker 1: managed to actually get the law changed from inside yourself.
16:27
Speaker 3: So so long, long story short, it's two thousand and six.
16:38
Speaker 4: I'm in chowhall.
16:39
Speaker 3: There's an a warden, I would say, a Southern gentleman,
16:41
Speaker 3: maybe in past life he had slave ships. He sees
16:44
Speaker 3: my prayer beads and he says, are you allowed to
16:47
Speaker 3: have him, sir, and me, being the sarcastic bastard, I am.
16:50
Speaker 3: I buck up and say yes sir. So he looks
16:53
Speaker 3: at me and he says, are you sure you're allowed
16:55
Speaker 3: to have him? I don't like your attitude. He sees
16:58
Speaker 3: the energy coming off me.
16:59
Speaker 4: I say so.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, And so he gets a little closer in
17:03
Speaker 3: my personal space than the tar man's out with the gun.
17:05
Speaker 3: It's about two hundred inmates, and he says, I don't
17:09
Speaker 3: like your attitude. I said, we don't like your attitude either, sir.
17:13
Speaker 3: You brought much misery and suffering to the land. As
17:16
Speaker 3: a result, I went straight to segregation six months in
17:19
Speaker 3: some of the worst conditions in the United States. But
17:22
Speaker 3: while there I had epiphany and I wrote an article
17:25
Speaker 3: that became a state law.
17:27
Speaker 2: And what is that law? Yeah, exactly, here we go.
17:32
Speaker 4: So the law is seven to twenty five.
17:34
Speaker 3: I'llc has five one, sixteen dash three as a minute
17:36
Speaker 3: October twenty seven, two thousand and seven, signed by Governor Blagoyevitch.
17:41
Speaker 3: I should probably send him some money for commissary because
17:44
Speaker 3: he actually he helped me.
17:46
Speaker 4: No, really, he helped me. I just it slips my
17:49
Speaker 4: mind sometimes, but he helped me.
17:52
Speaker 2: He really did.
17:53
Speaker 4: He signed my idea to law.
17:55
Speaker 1: If you remember, back in two thousand and nine, Illinois
17:58
Speaker 1: Governor Rod Blagoyevitch was indicted on corruption charges that included
18:02
Speaker 1: the alleged solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for Barack
18:05
Speaker 1: Obama's recently vacated US Senate seat. As I remember that well.
18:10
Speaker 1: It was a bizarre episode anyway. He was later found
18:14
Speaker 1: guilty of seventeen different charges, including wire fraud, attempted extortion,
18:18
Speaker 1: and conspiracy to solicit bribes, and sentenced to fourteen years
18:21
Speaker 1: behind bars. But before he left office, he did sign
18:25
Speaker 1: Patrick's amendment into law. Now back to the law. Bill
18:29
Speaker 1: Ryan worked for the Department of Children and Family Services
18:32
Speaker 1: as an advocate for long term offenders. He had a
18:35
Speaker 1: newsletter that was circulated throughout prisons as well as to
18:38
Speaker 1: families of inmates, to law professors and colleges, and even
18:41
Speaker 1: legislators and politicians. Mister Ryan published the article that Patrick
18:45
Speaker 1: wrote about amending the law to include post conviction ballistics
18:49
Speaker 1: testing through the Integrated Ballistics Identification System also known as IBIS.
18:54
Speaker 1: In turn, Illinois State Representative Arthur Turner Senior sponsored the legislator.
19:02
Speaker 3: You can imagine the letters that come from prison and
19:05
Speaker 3: so Bill Ryan are a long term advocate, explained to me,
19:10
Speaker 3: and Michelle says Patrick, you just.
19:13
Speaker 4: Don't get it.
19:13
Speaker 3: I had a table full of letters I reached down
19:17
Speaker 3: to grab one letter.
19:19
Speaker 4: Open it up. You asked me to give it to
19:20
Speaker 4: the senators, and I did so.
19:23
Speaker 3: It's completely by the grace of the creator, completely fortuitous, anomalist, whatever.
19:29
Speaker 2: You think, it was all just luck, right, No, I mean.
19:32
Speaker 5: The stars lined up, words, genetics, as a commader, it's
19:35
Speaker 5: all above. It's a combination of everything. And so ultimately
19:40
Speaker 5: the lag gets changed. They opened the jail doors, they
19:45
Speaker 5: let you out right.
19:45
Speaker 4: No, it's never not exactly. So the log has changed.
19:49
Speaker 3: Illinois becomes the first state in the country to have
19:52
Speaker 3: this law in order to grant me the gun testing.
19:56
Speaker 3: So the log has changed in general, block which we're
19:58
Speaker 3: in the shadow of my attorneys over there on Clark Street,
20:01
Speaker 3: who spent like four point five million dollars over ten
20:05
Speaker 3: years to get me a signerate.
20:07
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, let's not leave out there are
20:09
Speaker 1: a lot of heroes in your story, right, a lot
20:12
Speaker 1: north none bigger than you, by the way, And two
20:15
Speaker 1: of them are in the room, and I want to
20:16
Speaker 1: recognize Steve Drizzen and Laura and I Ryder from the
20:19
Speaker 1: Northwestern Center on Ronfel Convictions, who have been steadfast support
20:24
Speaker 1: as they still are your biggest fans.
20:26
Speaker 2: I mean, you'd be embarrassed if you heard something things
20:28
Speaker 2: they say.
20:28
Speaker 3: But anyway, so Rockford fought every step of the way.
20:32
Speaker 3: There was no like welcoming Reese for the conquering hero.
20:35
Speaker 4: It was none of that.
20:37
Speaker 3: It was more like my cousin Vinnie, we don't take
20:39
Speaker 3: too kind of your kind around here. So it was
20:43
Speaker 3: a long fight. It was a very long fight. About
20:45
Speaker 3: five rounds of gun testing showed the gun didn't match,
20:48
Speaker 3: and of course no one knits mistakes in this world,
20:54
Speaker 3: so we had to fight new trial.
20:57
Speaker 2: New trial. But meanwhile, now you're hitting your stride.
21:00
Speaker 4: I'm hitting my stride. We were winning motion after motion.
21:03
Speaker 4: It was just amazing. It was a momentum. If you
21:06
Speaker 4: could imagine ten fifteen years of representing myself or you know,
21:11
Speaker 4: just trying to navigate the system, and.
21:14
Speaker 2: You're just starting to look like a lawyer. Did anybody
21:16
Speaker 2: tell you that.
21:17
Speaker 4: I do hear that I take my cues from Steve Drizzen.
21:21
Speaker 2: I confess.
21:23
Speaker 1: So, as you know, the wheels of justice turned painfully slowly.
21:28
Speaker 1: Even after getting the law changed in order to request
21:31
Speaker 1: new ballistics testing through the IBIS system in two thousand
21:34
Speaker 1: and seven, it took a tremendous amount of fighting in
21:37
Speaker 1: order for Patrick's lawyers to finally be able to present
21:39
Speaker 1: the new evidence from two different ballistics experts, excluding as
21:43
Speaker 1: the murder weapon the tourist nine millimeter, that same tourist
21:46
Speaker 1: nine millimeter that was seized at Patrick's apartment. This all
21:49
Speaker 1: happened finally in December of twenty sixteen, and then at
21:57
Speaker 1: last his conviction was vacated and a new trial was
22:01
Speaker 1: granted March of twenty seventeen, and Patrick Persley was released
22:05
Speaker 1: on bond that very April, and there he began to
22:08
Speaker 1: fight the new trial from the outside. In November twenty eighteen,
22:14
Speaker 1: Patrick's lawyers filed a motion for dismissal in light of
22:17
Speaker 1: a new bit of information that was not disclosed by
22:19
Speaker 1: the prosecution after eighteen months, a story from Lois Asher,
22:23
Speaker 1: the victim's mother, that alluded to conscious wrongdoing by police
22:26
Speaker 1: in regards to the gun, even though at a December
22:29
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen hearing she admitted that the story came to
22:32
Speaker 1: her second hand through her now deceased husband. It's still
22:35
Speaker 1: worth hearing, but did not result in a dismissal. There's
22:44
Speaker 1: another aspect of this case that needs to be mentioned,
22:47
Speaker 1: which is the story of the gun.
22:49
Speaker 3: So basically, the state's attorneys once came to realize that
22:53
Speaker 3: the gun didn't match.
22:55
Speaker 4: Even the mother of the victim right had came forward
22:59
Speaker 4: and was like, look back in two thousand, the detectives
23:01
Speaker 4: told me and my husband that back in nineteen ninety
23:04
Speaker 4: four that they couldn't find a gun that killed their sons.
23:07
Speaker 4: So they just put Patrick's gun into evidence.
23:10
Speaker 3: And when she asked, her and her husband asked, are
23:13
Speaker 3: you sure you have the right person?
23:14
Speaker 4: And they responded, well, we got one anyway.
23:18
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of victims in this case.
23:22
Speaker 1: The parents of the victim right, your girlfriend ended up
23:25
Speaker 1: spending two years in prison.
23:27
Speaker 4: My children.
23:28
Speaker 3: I can't explain watching what they went through, you know,
23:32
Speaker 3: all through my children, you know, because every step of
23:34
Speaker 3: the way, they were my guiding light.
23:37
Speaker 4: They were my guiding light.
23:40
Speaker 1: So finally the retrial is on. In January twenty nineteen,
23:43
Speaker 1: despite the evidence pointing to the contrary, the state's ballistics
23:46
Speaker 1: expert continued to connect the Taurus nine millimeter seized that
23:50
Speaker 1: Patrick's apartment with the murder weapon. Meanwhile, the defense hired
23:54
Speaker 1: two of the leading forensic firearm and tul mark experts
23:58
Speaker 1: in the country, Chris Coleman and Johnadok, who worked independently
24:01
Speaker 1: of one another. That's important and arrived at the same conclusion.
24:05
Speaker 1: The markings made on test bullets in nineteen ninety three
24:08
Speaker 1: and twenty eleven by the tourist nine millimeters seized from
24:11
Speaker 1: Patrick's apartment all matched and showed distinct similarities.
24:14
Speaker 2: However, the test.
24:16
Speaker 1: Bullets did not match the bullets and casings recovered from
24:19
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety three crime scene. Therefore, the inescapable and
24:24
Speaker 1: for the authorities in this case, the inconvenient truth was
24:28
Speaker 1: that the tourist nine millimeter did not could not have
24:31
Speaker 1: fired the bullets that killed Andrew Asher. Finally, your day comes,
24:39
Speaker 1: your day in court, right, how good was that day
24:42
Speaker 1: of vindication? Did you float out of the courtroom like, well.
24:47
Speaker 4: It's really strange because.
24:50
Speaker 3: As I'm caught up in these events, I realized all
24:53
Speaker 3: that this is bigger than myself. But I had to
24:55
Speaker 3: sit for a second trial, and even though I knew
24:59
Speaker 3: I knew I was gonna be found innocent, I really
25:01
Speaker 3: believed it that everything came out the judge it was
25:04
Speaker 3: very meticulous, he was very fair, right, but it was
25:07
Speaker 3: still very much like dangling your feet over hell fire
25:10
Speaker 3: because he could say guilty and you go back. So
25:13
Speaker 3: that's in the back of my head. So when I'm
25:15
Speaker 3: actually exonerated, when I lead the courtroom, I still have
25:18
Speaker 3: that goofy look on my face, like.
25:20
Speaker 4: Right, So I still was numb.
25:23
Speaker 3: You know, it's like end to end because you really
25:26
Speaker 3: can't believe the gravity of the circumstances that you're.
25:30
Speaker 4: Caught up in.
25:43
Speaker 1: The questions I get asked most requently what happened to
25:46
Speaker 1: the people that did this to you? And we know
25:49
Speaker 1: your answer to that is nothing almost always karma. Karma's
25:53
Speaker 1: always there.
25:53
Speaker 2: Karma is the thing. And two do you get compensation?
25:57
Speaker 1: That question gets asked by everybody, and people just assume.
26:01
Speaker 1: So when he walks out, tell me he got paid, right,
26:03
Speaker 1: the state makes it up to him.
26:05
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I mean, Illinois has the statue, But
26:09
Speaker 3: you have to basically go through another fight called a
26:12
Speaker 3: certificate of innocence, and then after that is another fight
26:16
Speaker 3: for the federal level for federal civil rights violations, which
26:19
Speaker 3: would be a wrongful conviction suit.
26:21
Speaker 4: So it's a process.
26:22
Speaker 3: No one you know, Like I said, there's no reas
26:24
Speaker 3: for the conquering hero. It doesn't work like that. They
26:27
Speaker 3: fight fight, fight, fight, fight, because you're messing with people's careers.
26:31
Speaker 4: It doesn't happen like that.
26:32
Speaker 1: But it's so crazy because it's a tax payer money.
26:34
Speaker 1: It's not like they're paying it themselves. In Illinois, there's
26:37
Speaker 1: a cap on how much you can get as well,
26:39
Speaker 1: unless you can prove a civil rights violation, right right,
26:41
Speaker 1: But even then, the cap is I think going to
26:44
Speaker 1: surprise a lot of people how low it is.
26:45
Speaker 2: And Illinois is not the worst state by far right,
26:48
Speaker 2: but the cap here is what.
26:48
Speaker 4: It's under two hundred.
26:50
Speaker 1: Under two hundred thousand dollars for twenty five years and
26:52
Speaker 1: seven files in prison, right, and that's after you fight, fight, fight,
26:55
Speaker 1: fight fight.
26:57
Speaker 2: The good news is we're moving.
26:58
Speaker 1: The Instant Project has been really moving in on getting
27:01
Speaker 1: laws passed state after state compensation laws. We're now up
27:04
Speaker 1: to thirty five states that have in their fifteen states
27:06
Speaker 1: that have no laws whatsoever.
27:08
Speaker 2: There's some states that have a match.
27:09
Speaker 1: I think Misconsol right next door has a cap of
27:11
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars. So now you're out right making
27:16
Speaker 1: speeches and anyone who has heard Patrick's story today, if
27:20
Speaker 1: you know, another organization, corporate or otherwise that's interested in
27:26
Speaker 1: having him come and speak. That's how you're supporting yourself.
27:28
Speaker 4: I'll run my mouth for a living. That's what I do.
27:31
Speaker 2: You run your mouth for them.
27:32
Speaker 4: I can't do much else.
27:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you could do that. So that's number one.
27:35
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is, you know, we're just
27:38
Speaker 1: out here trying to educate everyone. I mean, I'll ask
27:41
Speaker 1: everybody that's here to ask everyone you know to serve
27:45
Speaker 1: on a jury. Remember the things that you're hearing now
27:48
Speaker 1: when you're in that jury box. We know the research
27:50
Speaker 1: has now shown the jurors are predisposed to think that
27:53
Speaker 1: a person in defend this box is guilty just because
27:55
Speaker 1: they're there eighty percent to twenty percent. So remember Patrick,
28:00
Speaker 1: Remember what happened to him, and how what you're watching
28:04
Speaker 1: unfold in front of you as you're holding somebody's life
28:06
Speaker 1: in your hands may not be what you're being told
28:09
Speaker 1: that it is.
28:10
Speaker 2: So they're supposed to be a.
28:12
Speaker 1: Reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt right, and there's supposed to be
28:15
Speaker 1: a presumption of innocence.
28:17
Speaker 2: None of that worked.
28:18
Speaker 3: No, it's a credibility deficit. There's a credibility deficit for
28:22
Speaker 3: a defendant walking the door, period. And if you're poor,
28:25
Speaker 3: there's a credibility deficit. And if you're behind bars and
28:28
Speaker 3: you fighting the case, you're not going nowhere unless you
28:30
Speaker 3: have an attorney.
28:31
Speaker 4: So pro say gets no play.
28:33
Speaker 2: Pro say gets no play.
28:34
Speaker 1: I want to ask you this question as we wind down,
28:37
Speaker 1: and I have one more question after this.
28:40
Speaker 2: Are you bitter?
28:41
Speaker 4: No? No, I thought that was a good question. No,
28:44
Speaker 4: it's no.
28:46
Speaker 3: I'm hurt. I'm very hurt. You know, I have reservoirs
28:50
Speaker 3: of hurt. So seeing what this has done to my children,
28:53
Speaker 3: you know, it's like stepping outside of a time machine
28:56
Speaker 3: and not really connecting with nothing out here because I'm
28:59
Speaker 3: the analog man from nineteen ninety three, you know. So
29:02
Speaker 3: it's really a very strange, you know, just surreal existence.
29:07
Speaker 3: But we make the best of it. We make the
29:09
Speaker 3: best of it, you know. I amkidculture dot org. So
29:13
Speaker 3: I reduced gun and game violence promote higher education on
29:15
Speaker 3: the organization I found it while.
29:18
Speaker 1: That I amkidculture dot org. And of course you're on
29:20
Speaker 1: all social media now too. You hit the ground running.
29:23
Speaker 1: I mean you've only been el since January, you got.
29:24
Speaker 3: I was on social media before I got out that
29:26
Speaker 3: was that was my thing. I was a writer and
29:30
Speaker 3: Michelle helped propagate the stories. And we had professors coming
29:34
Speaker 3: in and out of Stateville for years who was taking
29:37
Speaker 3: our material They were you know, volunteers, and they were
29:40
Speaker 3: taking our materials to game peace circles, high schools, colleges.
29:43
Speaker 3: Kit Culture actually was born in Stateville, where I had
29:47
Speaker 3: a natural life sentence. Also, I have a book on Amazon, also,
29:51
Speaker 3: the Adventures of Kid Culture in the World Explorers. We
29:54
Speaker 3: got t shirts on I amkidculture dot org. Please support
29:58
Speaker 3: support support because we are trying to connect to stop
30:01
Speaker 3: the violence movement across the country, show culture to culture.
30:05
Speaker 1: And one more thing, I got to ask this more
30:06
Speaker 1: question before I get to the last part. So you
30:09
Speaker 1: did talk very beautifully earlier about the programs that you
30:12
Speaker 1: sponsored in prison and about the importance of education.
30:15
Speaker 3: Yes, so basically everyone knows how the grants got took
30:20
Speaker 3: in our prisons. Well, we led a fight to reverse that.
30:23
Speaker 3: We had did charities in prison.
30:26
Speaker 2: Police left.
30:27
Speaker 3: We said we're going to do hats for the homeless.
30:29
Speaker 3: So every time we tried to do something positive, people
30:33
Speaker 3: kind of like, ah, right, Well we still did it.
30:36
Speaker 3: So there was very much that persistence and also try
30:39
Speaker 3: to reach out to the community at large to show,
30:42
Speaker 3: you know, not just to stare the kids away from
30:46
Speaker 3: crime and educate college kids that were volunteering to come
30:49
Speaker 3: into state bill.
30:50
Speaker 4: Also educate the public at large.
30:52
Speaker 3: There's a lot of mismanagement and gross waste of money
30:55
Speaker 3: in the prison system.
30:57
Speaker 2: Well said again.
30:59
Speaker 1: And I now I'll come to my favorite part of
31:01
Speaker 1: the show, which is when I get to thank you
31:05
Speaker 1: Patrick Pursley for coming and sharing your story, and you know,
31:10
Speaker 1: just for being here and being such a great example
31:12
Speaker 1: for everybody of the power of the human spirit. And
31:15
Speaker 1: thank the audience here for being here and listening of
31:19
Speaker 1: course Laura and Steve again for everything you're doing, and
31:22
Speaker 1: all the great activists in the room. And this part
31:26
Speaker 1: of the show I call it closing argument. This is
31:28
Speaker 1: where I actually get to turn my mic off. Thank
31:31
Speaker 1: you once again. Thanks to everybody at home or on
31:34
Speaker 1: your device wherever you're listening to Wrongful.
31:35
Speaker 2: Conviction, please check out the other episodes.
31:38
Speaker 1: One story is crazier than the other and you can
31:41
Speaker 1: learn something from each one of them. So now I'm
31:44
Speaker 1: signing off and leaving your microphone on, and I'm just
31:47
Speaker 1: going to kick back and listen right.
31:49
Speaker 3: Close and arguments. Remember, people, everything isn't always is seems.
31:54
Speaker 3: Everyone has intrinsiing value. Every one of us has value.
32:00
Speaker 3: That has to be our mission to be able to
32:02
Speaker 3: teach compassion and love. Right, So, facing the worst possible conditions,
32:09
Speaker 3: you can still move mountains. And that is very much
32:12
Speaker 3: a testament to the spirit. And I have to thank Northwestern,
32:17
Speaker 3: I have to thank you. I have to thank General Block, Prison,
32:19
Speaker 3: Neighborhood Arts Project, Michelle, everyone that's been there every.
32:22
Speaker 4: Step of the way. Because I'm a mess. I will
32:24
Speaker 4: tell you I'm a mess.
32:25
Speaker 3: Don't let anyone tell you otherwise that doing hard time
32:30
Speaker 3: and inhuman conditions, that.
32:31
Speaker 4: Would be against the law for you to leave your
32:33
Speaker 4: dog in see think like that. So I always keep
32:38
Speaker 4: a part of me in the cellhouse.
32:40
Speaker 3: Right so right now, let's see they're back from child.
32:44
Speaker 3: You know that you have birds flying over their heads,
32:46
Speaker 3: you have spiders, you have mice, you have people who
32:50
Speaker 3: are loved, you know, loved ones and prisoners who are
32:53
Speaker 3: basically kind of get the scarlet letter for loving a prisoner,
32:57
Speaker 3: you see what I'm saying. So basically you have loved
33:00
Speaker 3: ones behind bars. Write them holered us at Wrongful Conviction Consultants.
33:05
Speaker 3: We trying to do something. We got a lot of
33:07
Speaker 3: prisoners talk to us, hollers. I amkidculture dot org five
33:11
Speaker 3: O one C three reducing gun and game violence.
33:15
Speaker 4: We did a mixtape.
33:16
Speaker 3: Imagine that fifty three year old man come out prison,
33:18
Speaker 3: do a mixtape and no, I'm not rapping. It just
33:21
Speaker 3: tells the story of the wrongful conviction as well as
33:25
Speaker 3: the violence in Rockford, but also the hope and always
33:28
Speaker 3: work for love, Always work for love. It is the
33:31
Speaker 3: highest vibration of human spirit. And that's my clothes and arguments.
33:34
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
33:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
33:47
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
33:50
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
33:52
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
33:55
Speaker 1: Cliburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show as
33:59
Speaker 1: always is by three ever time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
34:02
Speaker 2: Be sure to.
34:03
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook
34:07
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is
34:11
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
34:14
Speaker 1: signal Company number one