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#463 Jason Flom with Ashunte & Willie Smith · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: In February of nineteen ninety five, on the East side
0:05
Speaker 1: of Cleveland, sixteen year old William Marshall survived in arm robbery.
0:12
Speaker 1: Rumors swirled about a usual suspect named Reggie Lewis. On
0:18
Speaker 1: March twenty eighth, nineteen ninety five, the victim's cousins, Willie
0:22
Speaker 1: and Ashante Smith, ran into Reggie, who denied involvement, offering
0:26
Speaker 1: to go with them to their cousins and clear his name.
0:31
Speaker 2: Over a week.
0:31
Speaker 1: Later, Reggie Lewis's body was found in a wooded area,
0:35
Speaker 1: and eventually William Marshall blamed Willie and Ashante.
0:39
Speaker 2: But this is wrongful conviction.
0:49
Speaker 1: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
0:53
Speaker 1: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
0:56
Speaker 1: at eight three three two o seven four and tell
1:00
Speaker 1: us how these stories make you feel and what you've
1:03
Speaker 1: done to help the cause, even if it's something as
1:05
Speaker 1: simple as telling a friend or sharing on social media,
1:09
Speaker 1: and you might just hear yourself in a future episode.
1:12
Speaker 1: Call us A three three two seven four six sixty six.
1:26
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we have a Cleveland
1:29
Speaker 1: family that was ripped apart, literally ripped apart by the
1:33
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction of Ashante and Willie Smith. But before we
1:38
Speaker 1: introduce them, I want to welcome back their appella, attorney
1:41
Speaker 1: Kim Carral, thank you for having me, and of course
1:45
Speaker 1: the two men who continue to endure the effects of
1:50
Speaker 1: their own cousins lie, both of whom are calling in
1:54
Speaker 1: from correctional facilities in Ohio. First, the younger of the two,
1:59
Speaker 1: Ashante Smith, thank you for having me. And his older
2:02
Speaker 1: brother Willie, thank you guys both.
2:04
Speaker 2: For joining us.
2:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely no problem.
2:07
Speaker 1: And this goes back to mid nineties nineteen ninety five,
2:11
Speaker 1: when so called tough on crime politicians had been elected
2:15
Speaker 1: around the country to prosecute the war on drugs, which
2:18
Speaker 1: was really just a war on people, the American people,
2:22
Speaker 1: when what we had was a humanitarian crisis which became
2:28
Speaker 1: known as the crack epidemic.
2:30
Speaker 4: Not only were we talking about tough on crime politicians
2:33
Speaker 4: in the nineties, but we were talking about like these
2:35
Speaker 4: super criminals, particularly juveniles, and so that kind of sets
2:40
Speaker 4: a tone for this case. Because Willy and a Shanty
2:42
Speaker 4: were fifteen and nineteen. And when I say that, as
2:44
Speaker 4: Shanty was like, there're a fifteen year old who looked
2:46
Speaker 4: like adults and fifteen year old who look like ten
2:48
Speaker 4: year olds. That's how I would describe as shanty at
2:50
Speaker 4: that time. I mean he was fifteen, but he was
2:52
Speaker 4: very young.
2:53
Speaker 5: I was furteen years old when I left, so I
2:56
Speaker 5: didn't experience much like My mother was a single parent,
2:58
Speaker 5: grady four children. My parents divorced when I was I
3:01
Speaker 5: was just about four or five years old.
3:02
Speaker 3: My father, he was kind of a fusive dude. We
3:05
Speaker 3: would be eating at the table and he might come
3:07
Speaker 3: in and just flip the whole God damn playball, you
3:09
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Food everywhere. And my mother eventually divorced.
3:13
Speaker 3: We were living on Kingsmen when I stayed across from
3:15
Speaker 3: my grandmother. That's before the divorce, and we were moved
3:19
Speaker 3: down to the projects project.
3:21
Speaker 5: Housing called Longwood Estates and they basically got settled on
3:25
Speaker 5: East time of the Firs Street. In you, it's fourth
3:27
Speaker 5: of us. I was a third child. My second brother
3:29
Speaker 5: is right. She and my sister Satan.
3:32
Speaker 3: And where I'm the oldest of three other siblings. My
3:35
Speaker 3: mother comes from a big family, so she had her
3:38
Speaker 3: sisters Andretta kid Agatha and one of her sisters who
3:42
Speaker 3: was murdered collect Marshall, being you had her brother who
3:45
Speaker 3: had committed suicide back before I was born.
3:49
Speaker 4: My understanding is Lucretia Ashantine, Willie's mom. She basically was
3:54
Speaker 4: the one to find him and that further solidified her
3:58
Speaker 4: position as I the black sheep in the family. So
4:03
Speaker 4: Lucretia and her sisters all have children, but really her
4:09
Speaker 4: children are other than some of the other cousins. And
4:12
Speaker 4: when one of Lucretia's sisters dies, Grandma takes that child in.
4:18
Speaker 4: That's William Marshall.
4:20
Speaker 3: There was always a different type of treatment towards us
4:24
Speaker 3: being sneels versus how my other cousins was treated by
4:29
Speaker 3: my grandmother.
4:30
Speaker 4: But William Marshall really is the golden boy in this
4:33
Speaker 4: group of cousins to Grandma.
4:37
Speaker 5: And our cousins came around, you know, we spent time
4:39
Speaker 5: with them, and we're all relatively in the same age bracket.
4:42
Speaker 5: My one cousin, William, one year older than me, and
4:45
Speaker 5: then my older cousin Laney, is a few years older
4:48
Speaker 5: than my.
4:48
Speaker 1: Brother, Sean Laney, and his mother and Dretta William Marshall
4:52
Speaker 1: and his grandma Sarah Marshall, and then Kit Laster who
4:56
Speaker 1: married Don laster. They all lived close to each other,
4:59
Speaker 1: while the Smiths lived about five miles away near the
5:02
Speaker 1: victim in this case, Reggie Lewis.
5:05
Speaker 5: I didn't know. I've seen you around the neighborhood. He
5:07
Speaker 5: was definitely a reputation because at around his time, guys
5:10
Speaker 5: in the neighborhoods with robbing people, stars jackets, Chicago bulls, jackets, raiders, jackets,
5:16
Speaker 5: or they were robbing and shooting and killing people for him. So,
5:19
Speaker 5: mister Lewis, he was grappling with a drug addiction, which
5:21
Speaker 5: I believe that led him out into the streets to
5:24
Speaker 5: rob people to feed his addiction.
5:27
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen a wire?
5:28
Speaker 2: Yeah?
5:29
Speaker 3: Not trying to, you know, disparage him, but I would
5:32
Speaker 3: describe Reggie as being like what Omar was. He was
5:36
Speaker 3: a terror.
5:36
Speaker 5: He was on drugs and he.
5:38
Speaker 3: Was calls in habit, making a lot of enemies and
5:41
Speaker 3: doing a lot.
5:42
Speaker 1: Then in February nineteen ninety five, William Marshall was in
5:45
Speaker 1: the Smith's neighborhood when a masked gunman attacked.
5:49
Speaker 4: I believe it was over like a Mooney Tunes jacket.
5:52
Speaker 5: He got shot in his back and I think he
5:53
Speaker 5: came out his neck. He went through surgery. It was serious.
5:56
Speaker 5: He almost lost his life.
5:57
Speaker 4: And so a kid gets rob a gunpoint. No one's
5:59
Speaker 4: trying to figure out who did it or what happened,
6:01
Speaker 4: except for the other members of the family, the sort
6:04
Speaker 4: of cousin group who's trying to protect their own.
6:06
Speaker 3: The Knight of William shooting Sean. Ronnie Johnson, the friend
6:12
Speaker 3: of Sean Laney and a few other guys went through
6:16
Speaker 3: my neighborhood and they jumped out on a few guys
6:19
Speaker 3: in rough house a little bit, and they came up
6:21
Speaker 3: with Reggie Lewis name.
6:23
Speaker 1: And then on March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, Willie
6:26
Speaker 1: and Ashante were driving around with their friends Rasheen Bledsoe
6:30
Speaker 1: and Clarence Brown, and they ran into Reggie in front
6:32
Speaker 1: of their friend Chanel Owens' house.
6:35
Speaker 3: Chanela Owens comes to the car and basically expresses that
6:38
Speaker 3: another drug addict named Scott lad Rocket had just jumped
6:42
Speaker 3: on Reggie beat him up a little bit, and she
6:44
Speaker 3: was like, I want Reggie Lewis by my jar and
6:46
Speaker 3: he won't leave. Everybody jumped out the car, but I
6:49
Speaker 3: remember the name. I said, ain't you the one supposed
6:52
Speaker 3: to be? And he says, I didn't shoot nobody. You
6:54
Speaker 3: got me le fed up and we got to fighting.
6:58
Speaker 3: And then the course of us fighting, he basically like,
7:01
Speaker 3: I didn't do it, but I know who did. And
7:03
Speaker 3: base vlase you could take me to your cousin. He
7:06
Speaker 3: is seated. I ain't the one that shot in. I
7:07
Speaker 3: don't know why everybody put my name in that shit.
7:10
Speaker 3: I ain't had nothing to do with it. It was somebody else.
7:13
Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, well let's go. So we get
7:16
Speaker 3: it to the car. He's not being restrained, he's not
7:19
Speaker 3: being pushed into the no damn car, none of that.
7:22
Speaker 4: And we roll out and Chanelle Owen's immediate statement to
7:25
Speaker 4: the police is that he goes Willingly with Willie and
7:29
Speaker 4: Ashanti and their two friends. Later, she testifies that they
7:34
Speaker 4: all get into a fight and they kidnap him.
7:37
Speaker 3: It was doing today. So I'm assuming that William is
7:40
Speaker 3: at school or wherever the hell he's supposed to be,
7:42
Speaker 3: but he's nowhere around. I go to the van various
7:45
Speaker 3: station Warrensville to go run down on my cousin Sean.
7:50
Speaker 3: He walks up to the car. He said, that's Reggie.
7:53
Speaker 3: I say it's Reggie, right, here. He said, he didn't
7:55
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with that. Why is y'all putting
7:57
Speaker 3: his name in it? And he basically like, oh right, well, look,
7:59
Speaker 3: we're gonna find out ben. So he gets in the
8:01
Speaker 3: car and we all go to my uncle's house, Donald
8:05
Speaker 3: Lasser's house in Kid Marshall's house down the street from
8:09
Speaker 3: my grandmother's house, Sarah Marshall. So we rolled up in there,
8:13
Speaker 3: me and the chante and Sean proceeded to my aunt's house.
8:18
Speaker 3: You know, he wasn't gonna walk up in there with
8:20
Speaker 3: all these people. She had a fit. And as soon
8:22
Speaker 3: as we get up in the house, the whole tone
8:26
Speaker 3: changed with Sean like, that's the dude, who did it?
8:29
Speaker 3: Why did you bring you down? Now? He no where
8:32
Speaker 3: our aunt's day. My aunt chimes in. Kid laughs and
8:36
Speaker 3: chimes in at the time like yeah, if he shoot him,
8:39
Speaker 3: he has shoot us. And you know, I'm saying, hold on, man,
8:42
Speaker 3: the man said he didn't do it, So you know
8:44
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, I'm not about to do nothing to
8:46
Speaker 3: this duty. And I asked him, I say, look, man,
8:49
Speaker 3: go and check it out with Williams. If he didn't
8:51
Speaker 3: do it, he cool. Sean says, well, I'll take care
8:55
Speaker 3: of her from here.
8:55
Speaker 5: Man and Missus Lewis got the car with Sean Leney,
9:00
Speaker 5: Missus Johnson's the food truck, my brother, myself and our
9:03
Speaker 5: two friends. We left. We didn't see what it. We
9:05
Speaker 5: didn't even see them leave, and so.
9:07
Speaker 4: That is the end of their engagement with what turns
9:11
Speaker 4: out to be a murder.
9:21
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9:24
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9:27
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts.
9:39
Speaker 5: Of Horse we ate my grandmother. My brother and I
9:41
Speaker 5: did see her at a hall restore around three thirty
9:45
Speaker 5: four o'clock of the evening with our two friends, to say,
9:47
Speaker 5: two frands, the same white car. We dripped driving these
9:49
Speaker 5: all day.
9:51
Speaker 4: Actually she saw them on the other side of town before.
9:53
Speaker 1: She goes home, which corroborated Willie and Chante's version of events.
9:58
Speaker 1: They saw their grandmother shortly after leaving Reggie Lewis with
10:01
Speaker 1: their cousins. Meanwhile, as that day turned into the next,
10:05
Speaker 1: Reggie's mother began to wonder where her son was.
10:08
Speaker 5: His mother said at trial that we need to hear
10:11
Speaker 5: from me clawed down to the police department and found
10:14
Speaker 5: police before and he said a few days later the
10:17
Speaker 5: body was recovering.
10:19
Speaker 4: It's April eighth, nineteen ninety five. A kindergarten class is
10:22
Speaker 4: walking through a public park in Warrensville, which is about
10:26
Speaker 4: twenty minutes from where the crime occurred, and in the
10:29
Speaker 4: ravine they find a pretty decomposed human body. Kindergarteners and
10:35
Speaker 4: so this gets a ton of attention. So once they're
10:38
Speaker 4: able to identify that it's Reggie Lewis, they start like
10:40
Speaker 4: a backwards investigation of like, who doesn't like Reggie Lewis,
10:45
Speaker 4: And they become aware that he's in a fight in
10:47
Speaker 4: Chanelle Owen's yard. And when they first talked to Shanelle Owens,
10:50
Speaker 4: she says, yes, he was in a fight in my
10:52
Speaker 4: yard with this person. And then he was in a
10:54
Speaker 4: fight my yard with Willie Nashanti Smith and their two friends,
10:58
Speaker 4: and he got in the car with that and then
11:00
Speaker 4: they drove off.
11:01
Speaker 1: On April nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, despite Chanelle's initial statement
11:04
Speaker 1: that Reggie had gotten into the car Willingly, both Willie
11:07
Speaker 1: and Ashante were arrested for kidnapping and had an additional
11:12
Speaker 1: assault charge attacked on.
11:14
Speaker 5: The kick during about six thirty seven o'clock in the morning.
11:17
Speaker 5: Our team ran in the house and masked on machine guns.
11:20
Speaker 5: Was terrified and told me and my brother was were arrested.
11:23
Speaker 5: Our questions and I was fifteen years old at the time,
11:25
Speaker 5: but they questioned me anyway before my mother even got there.
11:27
Speaker 5: But I didn't have that to offer other than the
11:29
Speaker 5: fact that he got in a fight and we dropped
11:30
Speaker 5: the guy off, and that was the truth.
11:32
Speaker 3: I walked through the door. The interrogation wrong that check
11:35
Speaker 3: this Spira says, slid out. We know you didn't kill him,
11:39
Speaker 3: we know you just dropped him off. The first one
11:42
Speaker 3: to talk is this one to get the deal. So
11:45
Speaker 3: what are you saying? If I don't talk, you're going
11:47
Speaker 3: to put a case on me.
11:49
Speaker 5: We didn't completely come out and say who we dropped
11:52
Speaker 5: him off to. That's true. We didn't do that, And
11:55
Speaker 5: maybe we should have said we saw mister Lewis leave
11:58
Speaker 5: with our cousin and his friend and become a listen
12:01
Speaker 5: and dead. You know one plus two equals what it does, right.
12:04
Speaker 3: I told them, I said, well, shit, it seemed like
12:07
Speaker 3: you already know everything. So if you know I dropped
12:10
Speaker 3: him off. Then you know he was alive, and well,
12:13
Speaker 3: then what am I here for? You talking to the
12:17
Speaker 3: wrong dude, And it was like, well that's not like
12:20
Speaker 3: hot his words, And my mother and my grandfather on
12:23
Speaker 3: my father's side of the family happened to come in
12:27
Speaker 3: and sit down and see seeing where it was going,
12:30
Speaker 3: and told me not to say another word. And I
12:33
Speaker 3: have not said another word into this interview today.
12:36
Speaker 4: Now they do a search in a Chante's room. They
12:38
Speaker 4: find a gun, but it doesn't match the bullets that
12:43
Speaker 4: shot Reggie.
12:44
Speaker 3: At that time, Me and a Chante are only charged
12:48
Speaker 3: with kidnapping it, and Shant has an additional charge of assault.
12:53
Speaker 5: I was you and now out of county jail. They
12:55
Speaker 5: had me the most their adultter height once until they
12:57
Speaker 5: found out I was you and now and a salemate
13:01
Speaker 5: who was about will was about like twenty eight years old.
13:04
Speaker 3: William Marshall has not been involved or picked up or
13:09
Speaker 3: charged yet.
13:10
Speaker 1: An alleged anonymous tip led Detective Sparra to William Marshall.
13:15
Speaker 5: Whoever made the tip said that they witnessed the murder
13:20
Speaker 5: in the basement of William's homes that he lived with
13:24
Speaker 5: from a grandmother and he identified to Sean Laney, William
13:27
Speaker 5: Marshall and my uncle's and this would led them to
13:30
Speaker 5: execute the warrant at the home.
13:32
Speaker 4: They searched William Marshall's house and find blood bullets. I mean,
13:38
Speaker 4: the house has been cleaned, but there's still remnants of
13:41
Speaker 4: blood all over the basement, all over.
13:44
Speaker 1: A nine millimeter bullet was collected and the prology came
13:47
Speaker 1: back consistent with Reggie Lewis's blood, leading to William Marshall's arrest,
13:51
Speaker 1: as well as a renewed offer to a Chante and
13:55
Speaker 1: Willie catcha Sparah.
13:57
Speaker 5: Was told me he had told my mother that he
13:59
Speaker 5: knew that me and my brother did not commit this crime.
14:02
Speaker 5: He said he knew that we were not there, but
14:04
Speaker 5: he told me he could not help us if we
14:07
Speaker 5: could not help him. He implied to me that if
14:11
Speaker 5: I put myself there and say I saw what happened,
14:14
Speaker 5: he could help me and my brother. But neither I
14:17
Speaker 5: nor my brother was willing to put ourselves in that
14:18
Speaker 5: basement and say that we saw something that we didn't see.
14:21
Speaker 5: WILLI was willing to do it.
14:23
Speaker 4: And they basically tell William Marshall they think it had
14:27
Speaker 4: to have been William Ashanti and they tell William Marshall,
14:30
Speaker 4: you are going to get raped in prison. Your asshole
14:33
Speaker 4: will be the size of a grapefruit. We cannot protect
14:36
Speaker 4: you in adult prison. If you agree to this one
14:39
Speaker 4: year deal in the juvenile detention center and testify against
14:43
Speaker 4: your cousins, you can be done with this. And there's
14:46
Speaker 4: like the family dynamic here. Grandma wants to protect William Marshall,
14:51
Speaker 4: who she is raising. Meanwhile, we sort of have black
14:54
Speaker 4: sheep Lucretia's two sons, and his grandma tells him take
14:58
Speaker 4: the deal.
14:59
Speaker 3: Donald Last and Sarah Marshall were having visits with him,
15:02
Speaker 3: and we're not having visits with a chante, and they
15:05
Speaker 3: were prepping him on what to say and what not
15:07
Speaker 3: to say, and they were getting ready to put the
15:09
Speaker 3: screws and fuck us all the way around.
15:11
Speaker 1: And the statement was carefully crafted to kind of make
15:14
Speaker 1: William into a passive observer. That Willy and a Shante
15:18
Speaker 1: dragged Reggie Lewis into their grandma's basement, ordered William to
15:22
Speaker 1: find some twine. William then gave them phone court and
15:27
Speaker 1: then went upstairs to be a lookout. They tied Reggie up,
15:30
Speaker 1: shot him, ordered William to get some sheets to wrap
15:33
Speaker 1: the body, and then Willie and a shunte dragged the
15:37
Speaker 1: body out to the trunk of a car and William
15:39
Speaker 1: cleaned up the basement that day.
15:42
Speaker 3: I had never ever saw William Marshall. William Marshall never
15:47
Speaker 3: saw me. The only person that saw me that day
15:51
Speaker 3: was Sean Lanny, Ronnie Johnson hit Laster, and my grandmother,
15:59
Speaker 3: Sarah Marshall, who saw us for when she was coming
16:02
Speaker 3: out of the hardware store, which inadvertently solidify my alibi.
16:08
Speaker 3: I feel because if you saw us with these two guys,
16:12
Speaker 3: and my aunt saw us at her house with these
16:14
Speaker 3: two guys, that was with us when we dropped this
16:17
Speaker 3: man off alive, and well, why am I going to trial?
16:22
Speaker 4: Willie is tried first, And that's largely because Willy is
16:26
Speaker 4: an adult and ashunty first had to go through the
16:28
Speaker 4: bindover program. He'd be bound over from juvenile court to
16:31
Speaker 4: adult court. William Marshall, because he takes this deal, never
16:35
Speaker 4: gets bound over. He gets a one year sentence for
16:38
Speaker 4: his role in a murder and then he's done. But
16:41
Speaker 4: unfortunately for Willie, he didn't have much of a defense.
16:46
Speaker 3: Oh No, the streets and the other suspects. Was getting
16:49
Speaker 3: teed that I was convicted of his crime by making
16:52
Speaker 3: sure that nobody, no witnesses, came up at my trial.
16:56
Speaker 3: I was naive to believe that you got a subpoena.
16:59
Speaker 3: Ay no, not come in the court. Oh excuse me, shit,
17:02
Speaker 3: because I said, subpoenas out to kid laughter Raa Sheen Blasso,
17:06
Speaker 3: Clarence Brown. In my mind, it was time to list
17:09
Speaker 3: ey voice to sing, and you know, nobody showed.
17:12
Speaker 1: Up without an alibi. William Marshall's statement went unchallenged. Rather,
17:17
Speaker 1: it was supported by Chanelle Owens, who had changed her
17:20
Speaker 1: story to say that Reggie had not gone with the
17:22
Speaker 1: Smiths willingly. So Willie was convicted in September nineteen ninety five.
17:27
Speaker 3: You got to put yourself at the time when all
17:30
Speaker 3: this is going on too. So it was a little
17:32
Speaker 3: bit of hostility going on because of the oj situation,
17:36
Speaker 3: you know, and his verdict that it just transpired three
17:39
Speaker 3: days prior to my verdict. You got you know, CEOs
17:42
Speaker 3: Deputy Shares making comments, even got the judge chiming in
17:46
Speaker 3: about that. Basically everybody felt like he got away with something.
17:50
Speaker 3: So I'm hearing, you know, with this one won't you
17:53
Speaker 3: know when the jury came back and said that I
17:55
Speaker 3: was guilty of kidnapping, I knew that it was a lie.
17:58
Speaker 3: When they said I was not guilty of the first
18:00
Speaker 3: kind of aggravated murder, I was relieved. And then when
18:03
Speaker 3: he went to the third kind of aggravated murder and
18:06
Speaker 3: said I was not guilty of prior calculation and design,
18:10
Speaker 3: not guilty of the gun specification, and not guilty of
18:13
Speaker 3: being the principal offender, I was like, whoa hold on,
18:17
Speaker 3: that's a lot of not guilty. And then they turned
18:19
Speaker 3: around and went to having a weapon under disability charge
18:24
Speaker 3: and found me not guilty as that as well, and
18:27
Speaker 3: an argument ensued with my attorneys with the judge. They
18:32
Speaker 3: was like, hold on, the state's theory was that this
18:34
Speaker 3: guy was executed by this guy, and the jury just
18:38
Speaker 3: said that he didn't have a gun. He's not the
18:41
Speaker 3: main guy. Did I did not commit this crime with
18:45
Speaker 3: prior calculation of design, but yet I ended up with
18:47
Speaker 3: a thirty the life sentence. I ended up going to
18:50
Speaker 3: jail for a crime that I didn't commit, and that
18:53
Speaker 3: basically a jury of my peers took the gun out
18:56
Speaker 3: of my hand. That William Marshall was so willing to put.
18:59
Speaker 2: In my hand.
19:00
Speaker 1: It sounds like there was a conflict among jurors who
19:04
Speaker 1: reached a compromise. But hell of a compromise it was.
19:08
Speaker 1: The result was still thirty the life. And then Ashante
19:12
Speaker 1: went to trial the following spring of nineteen ninety six.
19:15
Speaker 5: I was petrified, but I got to be honest with you.
19:17
Speaker 5: I was going to lie and trying to take a deal.
19:20
Speaker 5: I was thinking about doing it just to save myself,
19:22
Speaker 5: because people do this every single day in this system,
19:25
Speaker 5: just to save themselves. This is how cool the system is. Well,
19:28
Speaker 5: I went to trial for my brother to know that
19:30
Speaker 5: the truth can get out because I was thinking I
19:32
Speaker 5: was under disillusion that if you told the truth and
19:36
Speaker 5: it's staying.
19:37
Speaker 1: By the time Ashante went to trial, his family and
19:40
Speaker 1: other alibi witnesses were now willing to testify.
19:43
Speaker 4: Maybe they thought Willy would be fine because he didn't
19:46
Speaker 4: do it and they didn't need to put themselves out there,
19:49
Speaker 4: and so they didn't show up for him. But then
19:50
Speaker 4: when Willy was convicted, they were like, Oh, this is
19:53
Speaker 4: our come to Jesus moment. We need to show up
19:55
Speaker 4: for a Shanti. I don't know what happened but could
19:57
Speaker 4: be attributable to like more time went by and the
20:00
Speaker 4: family had some time to process what was happening. But
20:02
Speaker 4: by the time as Shunty goes to trial, he has
20:05
Speaker 4: uncle don Kit has all of these people coming in
20:08
Speaker 4: to testify that Shunty and Willie were with Reggie Lewis,
20:12
Speaker 4: but that they laughed.
20:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, both of our friends was with us the entire time.
20:17
Speaker 5: They testified to this. At my trial, they testified that
20:21
Speaker 5: they witnessed mister Lewis get out of the white car
20:25
Speaker 5: and get into the Booch truck with our cousin and
20:27
Speaker 5: his friend. I'm thinking to myself that okay, if the
20:29
Speaker 5: truth is here, they have to see it now. I'm
20:32
Speaker 5: going to be found not guilty, and I'm thinking that
20:36
Speaker 5: they would have some positive ramification for my brother as
20:38
Speaker 5: well too. Though the opposite happened. The prosecutor played it
20:43
Speaker 5: as they said, if our two friends. This is seeming
20:45
Speaker 5: to the bar imagination, despite the fact that six additional
20:48
Speaker 5: witnesses is saying the same thing that testified at the trial.
20:53
Speaker 4: And Grandma trying to play the middle ground. She did
20:55
Speaker 4: if actually she saw them on the other side of
20:57
Speaker 4: town before she goes home. She testifies she sees him
21:01
Speaker 4: on the other side of town, so it couldn't have
21:02
Speaker 4: been them. But the state comes in with their star witness,
21:06
Speaker 4: William Marshall, who has been given the sweetheart deal of
21:10
Speaker 4: a lifetime.
21:11
Speaker 5: He gets upon the stand and he tells a story
21:13
Speaker 5: that makes absolutely no sense.
21:16
Speaker 4: William Marshall testifies that he and Willian Ashanti brought Reggie
21:22
Speaker 4: Lewis over to his grandma's house, took him into the basement,
21:26
Speaker 4: tied him up, shot him, killed him, and then took
21:29
Speaker 4: his body to Warrensville. Now, how that all was feasible,
21:32
Speaker 4: how it all went down, There's a thousand gaps and
21:35
Speaker 4: holes in his testimony.
21:37
Speaker 5: There was no physical evidence that links me and my
21:40
Speaker 5: brother to that basement or two victims. We get to the
21:44
Speaker 5: victim's clothes and the victim's body, no hair fiber, no
21:48
Speaker 5: finger prints in nothing, But.
21:50
Speaker 4: It was just treated as true. William and Shunty were
21:53
Speaker 4: convicted and it's essentially been thirty years.
21:56
Speaker 5: Did you come back in and they say guiltill no charges?
22:00
Speaker 5: And I heard my mother and I heard my sister
22:04
Speaker 5: behind me, and they were stopping. I heard house. My
22:07
Speaker 5: mother kept saying it's not there. It's not there. It's
22:11
Speaker 5: just not there. And then I had to kick me.
22:15
Speaker 5: When I knew that my life was a value, I
22:19
Speaker 5: knew that the system did not care at all.
22:22
Speaker 3: I knew the truth.
22:22
Speaker 5: But it's not necessary. Ain't thinking about a conviction? Who
22:26
Speaker 5: get it in that.
22:42
Speaker 3: I'm sitting in the Lorraine Correctional Institution, which is reception
22:46
Speaker 3: when you come to prison. I'm waiting to be classed
22:48
Speaker 3: and see what prison I'm gonna go to. And then
22:51
Speaker 3: you know, they woke me up in the middle of
22:52
Speaker 3: the night and told me I was going to s OCF.
22:55
Speaker 3: And I've seen all the older guys ship their head
22:57
Speaker 3: from undercovers because they knew where that was the time.
23:01
Speaker 2: That's Lucasville.
23:02
Speaker 3: So I'm I'm going maximum security, and you know, you
23:07
Speaker 3: gotta do what you gotta do to survive. You know,
23:10
Speaker 3: my brother he had to go to Madison because I
23:13
Speaker 3: think that was where they was housing the juveniles at
23:16
Speaker 3: the time.
23:17
Speaker 5: I stayed in to Madison until I was eighteen years old,
23:20
Speaker 5: and then they sent me to Lucas Hill.
23:22
Speaker 3: I guess after they gave him enough milk, it was
23:25
Speaker 3: time to send him to the big house too.
23:29
Speaker 5: I wat to a place that was petrifying, sir. I'm
23:31
Speaker 5: talking about I walked to the place that looked like
23:33
Speaker 5: it was just one of those old if you look
23:36
Speaker 5: at yourself on PEV with the bars and the towers
23:40
Speaker 5: and the mean faceguards and then you know, with the
23:42
Speaker 5: glee clubs in the hand, and you know, don't talk,
23:44
Speaker 5: don't say nothing, you just keep the high forty they speak,
23:48
Speaker 5: you don't speak in I just that's that's what. That's
23:50
Speaker 5: what was my first in its.
23:51
Speaker 3: Experience, we saw each other. And I'm so proud of
23:55
Speaker 3: my brother because I saw a lot of guys his
23:58
Speaker 3: age come in and be destroyed, you know, basically lose
24:02
Speaker 3: their mind. And my brother, you know, he educated hisself
24:05
Speaker 3: and he basically became the man that he is today.
24:08
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean, in a situation like this,
24:12
Speaker 3: I hate to be in it with anybody, but if
24:14
Speaker 3: I had to go through it, I'd ready to go
24:15
Speaker 3: through it with one of the strongest people I know.
24:19
Speaker 1: But Shunte has even written a book.
24:21
Speaker 5: Well the book is called A Life Portrayed and it's
24:24
Speaker 5: about me and my brother, and it chroniclizes so my
24:27
Speaker 5: childhood and my early experiences in the home is just
24:30
Speaker 5: growing up the neighborhood and going to school, my struggles
24:33
Speaker 5: at school, and my discoveries about myself as far as
24:36
Speaker 5: his case went forward, and how I went to prison.
24:38
Speaker 5: I taught myself how to read and tap myself how
24:40
Speaker 5: to write, and began to read books. I became a
24:42
Speaker 5: voracious reader and began to write and study. Found my voice.
24:47
Speaker 5: And that's what book is about. And I've been trying
24:50
Speaker 5: to rEFInd it a little bit, to get it together
24:52
Speaker 5: in the manuscript form so I can get it out
24:53
Speaker 5: here to the puppet.
24:55
Speaker 1: If anyone would like to help in that process. We're
24:57
Speaker 1: going to have ways to reach a Shante linked in
24:59
Speaker 1: the description. And you know, there's even more to their
25:02
Speaker 1: story that we have time to cover while getting the
25:04
Speaker 1: word out about their innocence, which of course they've been
25:08
Speaker 1: fighting to do that ever since their initial appeals about
25:12
Speaker 1: the insufficiency of the evidence, which is almost impossibly high bar.
25:17
Speaker 1: After a jury's verdict and they were denied, then Willie
25:21
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to get the alibi witnesses available to
25:24
Speaker 1: a Shunte on the record. But it appears kit Laster
25:27
Speaker 1: had even more to say.
25:29
Speaker 3: I was calling home and my mother was confiding to
25:33
Speaker 3: me that her sister's kit Laster was having nightmares and
25:38
Speaker 3: could not get a good night's sleep knowing everything that
25:42
Speaker 3: had just happened. It destroyed the family any trust or
25:45
Speaker 3: any love for each other. But she did have a
25:49
Speaker 3: conscious where a lot of people did not have a
25:51
Speaker 3: conscious in this situation. And it was to the point
25:55
Speaker 3: where she kept calling my mother and she's like, I
25:57
Speaker 3: got to do something. This shit ain't right. My mother
26:00
Speaker 3: was basically well, order Alfa David, come forward, tell them
26:04
Speaker 3: what you know, and she did, and she even convinced
26:08
Speaker 3: her husband to come forward.
26:11
Speaker 4: So in nineteen ninety nine, Willie files a post conviction.
26:16
Speaker 4: He got a hearing on it.
26:18
Speaker 3: My evidentiary hearing that happened in January third of two thousand.
26:22
Speaker 3: Alpha Davis were presented from Lachine and Clarence basically attested
26:28
Speaker 3: today was threatened and you know that's why they didn't
26:31
Speaker 3: come to court. They came down there and admitted who
26:34
Speaker 3: threatened them. Kit Laster testified to the fact that the
26:38
Speaker 3: knight of the murder that her husband Don Laster, had
26:43
Speaker 3: confided in her and told her that Residad Lewis was
26:46
Speaker 3: in fact dead. When they hadn't solved the body and
26:49
Speaker 3: said April.
26:51
Speaker 1: An open court, you have testimony of witness tampering and
26:55
Speaker 1: that Don Laster knew about Reggie's death before the body
26:59
Speaker 1: was discovered.
27:00
Speaker 3: It's kind of like in that situation, but it's like
27:02
Speaker 3: a fark. Once you throw it in the room, you
27:05
Speaker 3: can't act like you don't smell it.
27:07
Speaker 4: And then it was denied. The quick summary of it is,
27:11
Speaker 4: it wasn't enough to change the outcome of a Shanty's
27:14
Speaker 4: case when it was available to him, So you can't
27:15
Speaker 4: show here that it would be enough to change outcome
27:17
Speaker 4: of your.
27:18
Speaker 1: Case, even though that evidence far exceeded what was available
27:22
Speaker 1: to a Shunta a trial. And then, unfortunately and unsurprisingly,
27:27
Speaker 1: that hearing was the last positive thing to happen in
27:30
Speaker 1: this story for quite some time. After twenty one years,
27:34
Speaker 1: Willie was flopped at the parole board for another eight
27:38
Speaker 1: long years, and then Kim signed on to help a
27:41
Speaker 1: Shuntay with his parole.
27:43
Speaker 4: So in twenty eighteen, a Shanty started to reach out
27:47
Speaker 4: to me to do a parole packet for him. And
27:49
Speaker 4: he is a profoundly impressive person who went into the
27:53
Speaker 4: system at age fifteen. He could barely read and write,
27:56
Speaker 4: but now he's written for the Call and post for
27:59
Speaker 4: the Plane Dsler. He has developed and initiated and promoted
28:04
Speaker 4: and produced programs within the prison system. If there were
28:08
Speaker 4: a person who exhibited and arguably he didn't need rehabilitation
28:11
Speaker 4: because he was innocent of this crime, but who has
28:13
Speaker 4: exhibited the rehability function of prison, it would be a shunty.
28:17
Speaker 4: I didn't even lead with their innocent because the Pearl
28:19
Speaker 4: board never wants to hear that I talked about. They
28:22
Speaker 4: deny involvement, and there's the lack of evidentce your support
28:25
Speaker 4: of their involvement, but they do take responsibility for what
28:28
Speaker 4: role he did play in terms of the fight and
28:31
Speaker 4: thinking there's zero chances man is not getting parole. And
28:35
Speaker 4: then they were basically like, well, you admitted to beating
28:37
Speaker 4: up and kidnapping that man, and now you're denying that
28:39
Speaker 4: you did this.
28:40
Speaker 2: Even though they never admitted the kidnapping.
28:43
Speaker 4: They think the States theories the kidnapping happens on Chanelle
28:46
Speaker 4: Owen's lawn.
28:47
Speaker 1: Even though their statements and Chanell Owens' initial statement all
28:50
Speaker 1: said that Reggie Lewis went with them willingly anyway.
28:54
Speaker 4: Pearl denied, but by then I had sunk in my
28:57
Speaker 4: teeth into the case and I couldn't let it go.
29:00
Speaker 4: It took some time to really develop family relationships, get
29:04
Speaker 4: to understand how this all works together, and William Marshall
29:08
Speaker 4: eventually came forward.
29:09
Speaker 3: Sean's mother died and that's when William had saw my
29:15
Speaker 3: mother for the first time since the trials and broke
29:18
Speaker 3: down and started crying and sobbed and what have you.
29:22
Speaker 3: After that, he I guess he probably couldn't sleep, and
29:25
Speaker 3: that's when he came forward.
29:26
Speaker 4: William Marshall wrote an AffA David telling us the truth that
29:30
Speaker 4: he had always known as Shanty and Willie weren't involved,
29:32
Speaker 4: that they didn't come with him back to his grandmother's
29:35
Speaker 4: house with Reggie Lewis, and that he had been bullied
29:38
Speaker 4: and pressured into saying it was them, because basically the
29:41
Speaker 4: police were like, you will be gang raped every day,
29:45
Speaker 4: best of luck to you. We're not going to protect
29:47
Speaker 4: you from that. They use the term your asshole will
29:50
Speaker 4: be as big as a grapefruit, and this was something
29:52
Speaker 4: that as a child he was terrified of. Then he
29:55
Speaker 4: had family members coming and saying, like his grandmother, you
29:58
Speaker 4: need to take that deal to protect yourself. So he
30:00
Speaker 4: lied against Ashanti and Willie, which I think is obvious
30:03
Speaker 4: without him admitting it, But now with him admitting it,
30:05
Speaker 4: that's the new evidence you need to go forward.
30:08
Speaker 1: He added that was Uncle Don's brother Al who ultimately
30:12
Speaker 1: shot Reggie Lewis. It's not lost on us that he
30:15
Speaker 1: was lying back then, and what would stop him from
30:18
Speaker 1: lying again now? The point is he never was credible,
30:23
Speaker 1: but there's one big difference this time his word was
30:26
Speaker 1: corroborated by everyone else.
30:27
Speaker 4: And so we filed that. I filed it for a Shanty,
30:30
Speaker 4: and the state came back and there were a couple
30:33
Speaker 4: of defenses, all of them equally preposterous. Well, this affidavit
30:37
Speaker 4: is not believable one because it's possible William Marshall is
30:43
Speaker 4: involved in the murder. Therefore he's not credible. He was
30:46
Speaker 4: credible when he was being bought with his life, which
30:49
Speaker 4: is nowhere in their whole response. They say Willie and
30:53
Speaker 4: a Shanty are responsible for the murder, which to me
30:55
Speaker 4: is the point we should just win on that. If
30:57
Speaker 4: the state is not confident writing that down, then they
31:00
Speaker 4: know what we know, which is that they're innocent. Number two,
31:02
Speaker 4: they said this Affidavid's not believable because there's another defendant
31:06
Speaker 4: in this case, Willy Smith, and he didn't file this
31:08
Speaker 4: APPA David, which means it's not believable. I respond and say,
31:12
Speaker 4: Willi Smith doesn't have counsel. I will happily represent him.
31:16
Speaker 4: I sent a letter to Willie Smith saying do you
31:18
Speaker 4: mind if I represent you in your innocent's claim. Of
31:21
Speaker 4: course he is no, I do not mind. Thank you,
31:23
Speaker 4: thank you, thank you, And we start to represent him,
31:26
Speaker 4: and then the state suddenly is you have a conflict.
31:28
Speaker 4: You can't represent both of these people and called us
31:31
Speaker 4: in like literally, this prosecutor gets in my face about
31:35
Speaker 4: this conflict, and I'm like, it's not your conflict to raise.
31:38
Speaker 4: You don't have standing to raise it. I don't know
31:40
Speaker 4: why we're here in court. I don't know what your
31:43
Speaker 4: point is, but you don't have standing to raise it.
31:45
Speaker 4: Willy can raise it a shunt, he can raise it.
31:48
Speaker 4: But they didn't. They waived it, and here we are.
31:50
Speaker 4: And so both of them were denied without a reason,
31:54
Speaker 4: just flat out denied by the court, and we took
31:56
Speaker 4: it to the Court of Appeals, and one that appeal
32:00
Speaker 4: we were all doing quite literally a happy dance in
32:03
Speaker 4: our office. When we got to call them both, the
32:05
Speaker 4: state filed for reconsideration, those were dismissed, and now we're
32:09
Speaker 4: looking forward to having our day in court and bringing
32:11
Speaker 4: these guys home.
32:12
Speaker 1: The state still needs to exhaust all of their appeals
32:14
Speaker 1: in order to have a hearing in which the state's
32:16
Speaker 1: only evidence is no longer available.
32:20
Speaker 4: How these prosecutors could literally read a case where the
32:25
Speaker 4: only evidence is now being recanted and say it doesn't
32:29
Speaker 4: even warrant a two hour hearing.
32:32
Speaker 1: Right unless they persist in continuing to disingenuously posit that
32:37
Speaker 1: these men admitted to kidnapping Reggie Lewis on Janelle Owens's lawn,
32:41
Speaker 1: which they simply did not do. So with that, we're
32:46
Speaker 1: going to go to closing arguments, where, first of all,
32:48
Speaker 1: I'm just going to tell you guys, I appreciate you
32:51
Speaker 1: so much for sharing this story. I know it's not
32:53
Speaker 1: easy and we're all just hoping for justice in this case.
32:56
Speaker 1: And now I'm going to turn my microphone off and
33:00
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair and just listen anything else
33:03
Speaker 1: you want to say. Kim, let's kick it off with
33:06
Speaker 1: you and then a shunte and Willie, if you could
33:10
Speaker 1: take us off into the sunset.
33:12
Speaker 4: My final thoughts on the matter are that we're getting
33:15
Speaker 4: our day in court. Finally, we would love to fill
33:20
Speaker 4: the court room with support. Hit me up on my
33:22
Speaker 4: Instagram at Kim Law Krim Law if you have any
33:24
Speaker 4: information about this, if you want to show support in
33:26
Speaker 4: some way. But it's important that we engage the community
33:30
Speaker 4: so that we can let these elected officials know that
33:33
Speaker 4: we both are entitled to and expect that justice and
33:37
Speaker 4: due process be served.
33:39
Speaker 5: I have to say that this has been taxing, sir.
33:43
Speaker 5: Never in my wowdest imagination what I ever thought I
33:46
Speaker 5: would be in a situation like this. Also, to have
33:50
Speaker 5: my relatives to be the people that will be inspired,
33:54
Speaker 5: they get the system. You know, it's heart wrenching, truly
33:58
Speaker 5: was it is. And I'm telling you to be in here,
34:01
Speaker 5: thrown away since I was fifteen years old in this place,
34:05
Speaker 5: this experience has tried to strip me of everything sacred,
34:11
Speaker 5: which is my humanity, which is my decency, which is
34:15
Speaker 5: my self respect. And I watch every day people lose that.
34:19
Speaker 5: I watch the men and lose themselves every single day.
34:22
Speaker 5: And I've been fighting and resisting it. And I'm tired,
34:25
Speaker 5: and my brother's tired, and my mother's tired, and it's
34:27
Speaker 5: time for justice. Time for truth and justice. That's what
34:29
Speaker 5: we're fighting for. That's what we're striving for, the truth
34:32
Speaker 5: and justice. I will pray and hope that anyone that
34:36
Speaker 5: is decent and kind and that wants to live in
34:39
Speaker 5: a society that's just an equitable, fair, who wants to
34:42
Speaker 5: participate in this process to help me and my brother.
34:45
Speaker 5: We claim our freedom because it's just our right. We
34:49
Speaker 5: should have never lost it to begin with. That's all
34:52
Speaker 5: I have to say for to day.
34:54
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I'm gonna quote Doctor King injustice anyway.
35:00
Speaker 5: Where is a threat to justice everywhere.
35:03
Speaker 3: A huge injustice is taking place in this case between
35:07
Speaker 3: me and my brother, and you know, I know it's
35:11
Speaker 3: covered in shit. Somebody got to be brave enough to
35:15
Speaker 3: work to shovel. And I'll leave you with that.
35:27
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to.
35:30
Speaker 1: This and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week
35:32
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35:35
Speaker 2: On Apple Podcasts.
35:36
Speaker 1: I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
35:39
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler,
35:42
Speaker 1: Kevin Wartis and Jeff Clibern. The music in this production
35:45
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
35:49
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35:52
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
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35:58
Speaker 1: Conviction is a production of Life Ober for Good Podcasts
36:01
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one