Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #223 Jason Flom with Joe D'Ambrosio
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: On Saturday, September twenty fourth, nineteen eighty eight, the body
- 0:05Speaker 1: of nineteen year old Anthony Clan was discovered on the
- 0:07Speaker 1: east side of Cleveland, Ohio, in Rockefeller Parkstone Creek. He
- 0:11Speaker 1: had been stabbed in the chest three times and his
- 0:14Speaker 1: throat was slit on the verge of decapitation. The ground
- 0:18Speaker 1: around him was undisturbed, suggesting that.
- 0:20Speaker 2: The murder occurred elsewhere.
- 0:23Speaker 1: One of the three men who came to identify the
- 0:25Speaker 1: body on Monday, September twenty sixth, and thus began to
- 0:27Speaker 1: control the narrative, had arguably the most to gain from
- 0:31Speaker 1: doing so, a convicted rapist and drug dealer named Paul
- 0:34Speaker 1: Stony Lewis, whom Anthony Clan had once identified in another rape.
- 0:39Speaker 1: The two other men supported Stoney's narrative at trial. During
- 0:43Speaker 1: the investigation of fourth man emerged the victims cuckoled Edward Espinoza,
- 0:47Speaker 1: who joined the narrative and received leniency for the part
- 0:50Speaker 1: he played in the murder in exchange for his false
- 0:53Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony against his employer Michael Keenan and his co
- 0:57Speaker 1: worker Joji abroshow some elements of the story were real
- 1:02Speaker 1: and occurred on Thursday September twenty second, but had little
- 1:06Speaker 1: to do with the actual night of Anthony Clan's murder Friday,
- 1:10Speaker 1: September twenty third. Both Michael Keenan and Joe de Ambrosio's
- 1:14Speaker 1: whereabouts on Friday night were known, and despite Espinoza's two
- 1:18Speaker 1: separate and contradictory affidavits and knowing about the discrepancy between
- 1:24Speaker 1: the two nights, the prosecution nevertheless forged ahead, hiding a
- 1:29Speaker 1: mountain of exculpatory evidence and sending Joe de Ambrosio and
- 1:34Speaker 1: Michael Keenan.
- 1:35Speaker 2: Straight to death row. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
- 1:53Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today you're
- 1:57Speaker 1: going to hear the story of Joe d Ambrose, who
- 2:01Speaker 1: is the sixth person to be exonerated from Ohio's Death Throw,
- 2:05Speaker 1: one hundred and fortieth in America to be exonerated. Joe,
- 2:09Speaker 1: this story is, I mean, it's got so many twists
- 2:13Speaker 1: and turns. But let me just for the audience's sake,
- 2:15Speaker 1: before I even introduce you, let me just say this
- 2:17Speaker 1: involves a group of cops that were so corrupted. Forty
- 2:21Speaker 1: four of them were charged with taking money and protecting
- 2:24Speaker 1: cocaine operations in Cleveland and northern Ohio. This goes back
- 2:27Speaker 1: to the nineteen eighties. Of course, it involves a date
- 2:31Speaker 1: that was changed in order to make the case fit
- 2:34Speaker 1: the facts instead of the other way around. It involves
- 2:38Speaker 1: a dead body found in Dones Creek that had been
- 2:43Speaker 1: stabbed and split throat and everything. I mean, this thing,
- 2:47Speaker 1: I'm not even scratching the surface. I hate to say it,
- 2:49Speaker 1: but you lived it. So Joe, I'm sorry for what
- 2:52Speaker 1: you went through, but I'm very very grateful and honor
- 2:55Speaker 1: that you're here on the show with us today.
- 2:56Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
- 2:58Speaker 1: And with us is a very you unique individual with
- 3:02Speaker 1: a unique name as well. We have Neil Kakutha, who
- 3:06Speaker 1: was one of the great heroes in this story, but
- 3:08Speaker 1: who was also When I say the unique individual, here's
- 3:11Speaker 1: a guy who's a nurse, a lawyer, and a priest.
- 3:15Speaker 1: I mean it almost sounds like the punchline and a
- 3:16Speaker 1: joke or the setup to a joke, right, a nurse,
- 3:19Speaker 1: a lawyer, and a priest walking a bar. But then
- 3:21Speaker 1: it was only one guy. Hey, and here he is,
- 3:23Speaker 1: so Neil Kakuthe. Thank you for being here with us today.
- 3:27Speaker 3: It's good to be with you.
- 3:29Speaker 1: And Joe, you were a guy who served in the
- 3:32Speaker 1: US Army, right You achieved the rank of sergeant.
- 3:34Speaker 3: Is that correct?
- 3:35Speaker 1: Yes, and we're honorably discharged. But were you a guy
- 3:38Speaker 1: who had had a lot of trouble with the law
- 3:41Speaker 1: before this crazy thing happened. Tell us a little bit
- 3:43Speaker 1: about your background, your upbringing.
- 3:45Speaker 3: I grew up just outside of Cleveland in the suburbs,
- 3:48Speaker 3: a little town called North Royalton, and the only thing
- 3:52Speaker 3: that was in that place was bars and gas stations
- 3:55Speaker 3: and farms. So I kind of a country boy, and
- 3:59Speaker 3: I didn't on a stay and be one of those
- 4:02Speaker 3: three things. So I joined the military as soon as
- 4:05Speaker 3: I got out of high school. I did my four
- 4:08Speaker 3: years in the military, and then I got out, honorably discharged,
- 4:11Speaker 3: sergeant out of the military, and then this thing comes
- 4:15Speaker 3: out of the blue.
- 4:17Speaker 1: I mean, is it fair to say that this could
- 4:18Speaker 1: happen to you? It could happen to anyone.
- 4:20Speaker 3: Oh, exactly, I'm the most common Joe there could be. Truly.
- 4:23Speaker 3: All it takes is one person, no other evidence, one
- 4:27Speaker 3: person to point their finger at you and say they
- 4:30Speaker 3: stood there and watched why you killed this person? And
- 4:34Speaker 3: there you go.
- 4:35Speaker 1: It's so nuts that you could have ended up on
- 4:38Speaker 1: death row just because of one person with a lot
- 4:41Speaker 1: to gain by saying so, right, an incentivized person.
- 4:45Speaker 3: Right.
- 4:45Speaker 1: So I'd like to set this stage a bit here.
- 4:48Speaker 1: This is the late eighties and liter Lily on the
- 4:50Speaker 1: east side of Cleveland, Ohio, very reminiscent of Tony I.
- 4:53Speaker 1: Panovitch's story. Actually, you know, bar culture, lots of partying
- 4:57Speaker 1: going on, and in this case there's coke drinking and
- 5:00Speaker 1: a group of friends and acquaintances, some of whom Joe
- 5:03Speaker 1: worked with doing landscaping. And then there's a bit of
- 5:06Speaker 1: crossover from that group into the drug business of a
- 5:09Speaker 1: guy named Paul Stony Lewis.
- 5:12Speaker 4: So Stony was just your local two bit drug dealer
- 5:16Speaker 4: down in the little Italy neighborhood on the east side
- 5:20Speaker 4: of Cleveland. And Anthony Klan was one of these guys
- 5:24Speaker 4: that frequented Stony, as was a number of the other guys.
- 5:28Speaker 4: Michael Keenan in this case, at Espinoza and others hung
- 5:33Speaker 4: around together.
- 5:34Speaker 1: Right, And something that needs to be pointed out here
- 5:37Speaker 1: was that months before this murder occurred, back in May
- 5:41Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Stoney allegedly raped Anthony Clan's roommate Chris Longenecker,
- 5:47Speaker 1: and Anthony and Chris were both scheduled to testify against
- 5:50Speaker 1: Tony Lewis, but Chris Longenecker was legally blind and misread
- 5:55Speaker 1: when they were supposed to appear in court, so Stony
- 5:58Speaker 1: was released, leaving Clan and Longeneck are in danger. Now
- 6:02Speaker 1: you mentioned before Mike Keenan and Edward Espinoza, who, from
- 6:05Speaker 1: what I understand, had a landscaping business. Mike Keenan Joe's
- 6:09Speaker 1: kind of co defended in this whole mess. He was
- 6:12Speaker 1: the owner and Espinosa was his foreman. And Joe around
- 6:16Speaker 1: the end of August nineteen eighty eight, you were going
- 6:19Speaker 1: to go back into the military, but you needed to
- 6:21Speaker 1: wait on your discharge paperwork to be reissued. And while
- 6:25Speaker 1: you waited, you worked for Mike Keenan. Do I have
- 6:27Speaker 1: that right?
- 6:28Speaker 3: Well, I needed a job to hold me over, and
- 6:31Speaker 3: I grew up in the country cutting grasses like in
- 6:33Speaker 3: my blood, So yeah, I got hired on September first,
- 6:36Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight. September twenty sixth, I'm sitting in jail,
- 6:40Speaker 3: accused the most tenous crime in.
- 6:41Speaker 1: The world right. But before we even get to that,
- 6:44Speaker 1: I want to talk about Thursday night, September twenty second,
- 6:47Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, a day before this murder occurred. It
- 6:50Speaker 1: was the events of that night that were used to
- 6:53Speaker 1: predicate the narrative that was used against you and Michael
- 6:56Speaker 1: Keenan at both of your trials, while all along people
- 7:00Speaker 1: had seen the victim here, Anthony Clan alive the following night, Friday,
- 7:06Speaker 1: September twenty third, one of whom even gave him camp
- 7:09Speaker 1: Fair home. But we'll get to that later. So let's
- 7:12Speaker 1: go back to Thursday the twenty second.
- 7:14Speaker 4: On Thursday night of this week, all of these people,
- 7:18Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza, Mike Keenan, with Mike Keenan's girlfriend, Anthony Clan, Joe,
- 7:24Speaker 4: Dan Brosio, Paul Stony Lewis, they were on a pub
- 7:28Speaker 4: call through the Coventry area of Little Italy, and so
- 7:32Speaker 4: they were all drinking that night. And Joe admittedly was
- 7:35Speaker 4: part of this drinking group on Thursday night at these
- 7:38Speaker 4: different bars, and at one of the bars, Joe, where
- 7:42Speaker 4: was it where they got into the restroom fight?
- 7:44Speaker 3: That was Coconut Joe's.
- 7:45Speaker 4: So Anthony Clan and Eddie Espinoza got into a somewhat
- 7:51Speaker 4: violent or at least racous altercation in the men's room
- 7:56Speaker 4: of the bar. There is some suspicion that Anthony Clan
- 8:01Speaker 4: was having a sexual relationship with Eddie Espinoza's girlfriend. Anyway,
- 8:06Speaker 4: that racus scene at the bar caused the bouncer to
- 8:11Speaker 4: throw them out, and Eddie Espinoza takes a beer bottle,
- 8:16Speaker 4: slams it against the bar, breaks it in half, and
- 8:19Speaker 4: starts threatening people. And so they're thrown out and the
- 8:24Speaker 4: night moves on, the police come, everybody assures them that
- 8:28Speaker 4: they're calmed down, there won't be any problem, and they
- 8:30Speaker 4: go home. So we've got Eddie Espinoza, who's already in
- 8:34Speaker 4: conflict with Tony Klan over something which we suspect as
- 8:40Speaker 4: a triangular romantic relationship. And we got Paul Stony Lewis,
- 8:46Speaker 4: who's involved with Anthony Clan because Anthony Klan is a
- 8:49Speaker 4: witness to this rape with Christopher Longenecker. And you've got
- 8:54Speaker 4: both of those people who are involved with Anthony Klan
- 8:57Speaker 4: from different perspectives.
- 9:00Speaker 1: So we're going to come back to Thursday night and
- 9:02Speaker 1: what eventually becomes the narrative of the case against Joe
- 9:04Speaker 1: and Mike Keenan in a minute, But first let's talk
- 9:07Speaker 1: about what we know. On Saturday, September twenty third, nineteen
- 9:11Speaker 1: eighty eight, nineteen year old Anthony Klan's body was found
- 9:14Speaker 1: by a jogger on the east side of Cleveland and
- 9:15Speaker 1: Rockefeller Parks Doan Brook or Doan Creek, depending on who
- 9:18Speaker 1: you're talking to, they have different names for it. He
- 9:20Speaker 1: had sustained multiple stabounds to the chest and his throat
- 9:24Speaker 1: had been slit so deeply that he had nearly been decapitated. Now,
- 9:29Speaker 1: no murder weapon was ever found, and the body went
- 9:32Speaker 1: unclaimed until Monday the twenty sixth.
- 9:35Speaker 3: That Monday, an anonymous caller called in to the morgue
- 9:40Speaker 3: and asked if there was a nineteen year old kid.
- 9:45Speaker 3: Does he have this color hair, these color eyes, these
- 9:48Speaker 3: tattoos and these marks on his hands and wrists? And
- 9:55Speaker 3: the detective got on the phone and the Detective's like, yes,
- 9:58Speaker 3: we have him. Can you come down and please identify him?
- 10:01Speaker 3: The guy he wouldn't identify himself, and then he hung up. Wow. Well.
- 10:07Speaker 3: Shortly after that, Stony Foot and Adam Flannick all went
- 10:12Speaker 3: down to the morgue and identified Anthony. But the thing is,
- 10:17Speaker 3: how did Stony know about the defensive wounds on Anthony's
- 10:21Speaker 3: hands and arms? All who was in the paper was
- 10:26Speaker 3: a little blurb that an unidentified white male was found
- 10:29Speaker 3: in Dome Creek and that was it.
- 10:32Speaker 1: Right, So at least it appears that the person on
- 10:34Speaker 1: the phone knew things that only someone involved could have
- 10:37Speaker 1: possibly known. And then, surprise, surprise, right after the Carter's
- 10:41Speaker 1: office got this anonymous call, who shows up but Paul Stony, Lewis,
- 10:45Speaker 1: James Russell, or as Joe called him, Foot and Adam Flannick,
- 10:50Speaker 1: three of the witnesses that helped with Joe and Mike
- 10:53Speaker 1: Keenan on death row. Now these three men identify the body,
- 10:56Speaker 1: and the narrative began to build that the murder happened
- 10:59Speaker 1: on the night you were all out together at the bar,
- 11:02Speaker 1: which was Thursday, which is when Stny went home early. However,
- 11:07Speaker 1: the murder actually occurred on Friday. Eventually, investigators caught up
- 11:13Speaker 1: with the guy who had fought with Clan on Thursday,
- 11:16Speaker 1: Tony Clan's cuckled, Edward Espinoza, who gave police a false
- 11:21Speaker 1: eyewitness account claiming to have witnessed Joe and Mike Keenan
- 11:24Speaker 1: commit the murder.
- 11:25Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza refers to him as little Tony, and supposedly
- 11:30Speaker 4: little Tony is his best buddy and he's going to
- 11:33Speaker 4: do everything he can to protect little Tony all along
- 11:37Speaker 4: the way. And so Eddie Espinoza gets arrested and taken
- 11:41Speaker 4: down to the station and he swears out an affidavit
- 11:46Speaker 4: that lists all of the dates, times, places, people and everything.
- 11:52Speaker 4: And then when the police come in and look at this,
- 11:56Speaker 4: they realize that what Eddie Espinoza has put down in
- 11:59Speaker 4: his the David does not fit the narrative that they
- 12:03Speaker 4: want to paint of this case, and so they have
- 12:08Speaker 4: him swear out another aff the davit that literally gives
- 12:13Speaker 4: different day, different times, different places, so that the police
- 12:19Speaker 4: can paint their narrative. And both of those Affi davits,
- 12:23Speaker 4: to this very day, they exist in the file and
- 12:26Speaker 4: you can put them side by side and you can
- 12:29Speaker 4: see that somebody coached Eddie Espinoza to change his story up.
- 12:35Speaker 1: Wow. They were like, no, no, that one's not so great?
- 12:38Speaker 1: Am I doing that over? We'll just give you a
- 12:39Speaker 1: little bit of a right.
- 12:42Speaker 4: Within forty eight hours of each other, two distinct aff
- 12:45Speaker 4: the Davits sworn out by Eddie Espinoza.
- 12:47Speaker 1: And then how in the world can anybody take anything
- 12:50Speaker 1: that guy says seriously? After that, well, you know, when
- 12:52Speaker 1: they want to get somebody, they get somebody.
- 12:54Speaker 4: And Eddie Espinoza has a violent history. He was also
- 12:58Speaker 4: in the service, dishonorably discharged for drugs and for violent behavior.
- 13:04Speaker 1: So you got a guy with a violent history and
- 13:07Speaker 1: a motive to kill as the spurned, cuckolded boyfriend of
- 13:11Speaker 1: the woman with whom Anthony Klan was having an affair,
- 13:14Speaker 1: and in his narraive events. After his fight with Anthony
- 13:17Speaker 1: Klan at the bar, he and Joe headed back to
- 13:19Speaker 1: Joe's apartment around one thirty am, at which point Mike
- 13:23Speaker 1: Keenan drove up and told them that Stony had stolen
- 13:26Speaker 1: drugs from him. Espinoza grabbed a bat, Joe grabbed a knife,
- 13:30Speaker 1: and the three of them drove around looking for Paul
- 13:32Speaker 1: Stony Lewis Now again, what about this so far is true?
- 13:36Speaker 3: Guess what?
- 13:37Speaker 1: None of this shit even fucking matters because this is
- 13:39Speaker 1: Thursday night, not the night of the murder, which was Friday,
- 13:44Speaker 1: so lies truth. It's utterly meaningless to even debated. Now,
- 13:49Speaker 1: another two witnesses supported this narrative, Carolyn Roselle and her
- 13:53Speaker 1: friend you'll remember him, James Russell. You know his dictum
- 13:56Speaker 1: was Foot said that the three men knocked on Rosell's
- 13:59Speaker 1: door looked looking for Stony at around three am. After
- 14:02Speaker 1: this encounter, Espinosa's narrative continues, saying that while driving along,
- 14:07Speaker 1: they eventually saw Anthony Clan walk on the side of
- 14:09Speaker 1: the road, forced him into the back seat, interrogated him
- 14:12Speaker 1: about Stoney's whereabouts, and after Espinoza hit him with a bat,
- 14:16Speaker 1: Clan told them Stony's address, and the men proceed to
- 14:18Speaker 1: Stony's apartment building. Now, according to Stony's neighbor, you'll remember him,
- 14:23Speaker 1: of course, Adam Flannick, he first heard the group yelling
- 14:25Speaker 1: at and banging on Stoney's door, saying I want my
- 14:29Speaker 1: dope or I want my coke. So Flanet continued to
- 14:32Speaker 1: claim to be able to see down into the car
- 14:34Speaker 1: where you Joe were allegedly pointing a knife up to
- 14:38Speaker 1: Anthony Clan's jaw, a view that would be totally impossible
- 14:43Speaker 1: from any vantage point because of how the back seats
- 14:46Speaker 1: and Kenyan's pick up face one Another but we still
- 14:49Speaker 1: don't know what Planet had to gain from saying that
- 14:52Speaker 1: maybe he was involved, maybe he was coerced, who knows,
- 14:56Speaker 1: maybe he was even confused. But what we do know
- 14:58Speaker 1: is that again, it really just doesn't fucking matter, because
- 15:03Speaker 1: Anthony Clan was not murdered that night, but the following night. Anyway,
- 15:08Speaker 1: back to Espinosa's narrative, the three men went back to Roselle's,
- 15:12Speaker 1: where they issued a warning for Roselle to deliver to
- 15:15Speaker 1: Stony that there was a quote contract out on him
- 15:18Speaker 1: and that they had Clan in the car who was
- 15:21Speaker 1: quote dead meat. Espinosa goes on to say that Clan
- 15:24Speaker 1: eventually escaped from the car. Keenan allegedly then told Joe
- 15:28Speaker 1: to finish him off, and then Joe allegedly ran after Clan.
- 15:32Speaker 1: Clan begged for his life while Joe allegedly killed him
- 15:36Speaker 1: with a knife. Again, this is a bogus recollection of
- 15:40Speaker 1: Thursday night, and we know this because we later found
- 15:42Speaker 1: out that Clan was seen alive again at Coconut Joe's
- 15:46Speaker 1: on Friday night. He got drunk and was given capfair
- 15:49Speaker 1: by the barmaid. So that was Friday night, the night
- 15:53Speaker 1: after this alleged Stony Lewis search party happened, and Joe,
- 15:57Speaker 1: on Friday, your whereabouts were totally accounted for, correct, right.
- 16:03Speaker 3: I was getting near being able to go back into
- 16:05Speaker 3: the military and I was getting evicted. So I was
- 16:09Speaker 3: having an eviction party that night, and there was a
- 16:13Speaker 3: bunch of people that were over all night long. But
- 16:15Speaker 3: the problem was I'm terrible with names.
- 16:19Speaker 4: Later, when we were able to identify some of the
- 16:21Speaker 4: names that Joe was talking about people who were indeed
- 16:24Speaker 4: at that inviction party, one of them mentioned to me
- 16:28Speaker 4: that on that Friday night, they were all gathered at
- 16:32Speaker 4: Joe's apartment and they were watching a football game, and
- 16:36Speaker 4: so I'm like, who's got a Friday night football game?
- 16:39Speaker 4: I'm doing this ten years later. So I literally ended
- 16:43Speaker 4: up doing some research at the Cuyahoga County Public Library
- 16:46Speaker 4: for old editions of the Cleveland Plane Dealer, and I
- 16:50Speaker 4: was looking through the high school games that were being
- 16:54Speaker 4: played on Friday night, and one of them was Brush
- 16:58Speaker 4: High School on the east side of Cleveland, and names
- 17:02Speaker 4: that we literally discovered later were there. And remember watching
- 17:07Speaker 4: that particular.
- 17:08Speaker 1: Game, and that's the night that the murder actually took place,
- 17:11Speaker 1: not the Knight that was sort of substituted. So you
- 17:14Speaker 1: had all these people that could exonerate you, but you
- 17:16Speaker 1: had no way to subpoena them to testify because you
- 17:18Speaker 1: didn't have full names and numbers, nor did you have
- 17:22Speaker 1: lawyers who were even particularly interested. And then you've got
- 17:26Speaker 1: these guys who you've been working or just partying with
- 17:29Speaker 1: for about the last month, who are all spinning a
- 17:31Speaker 1: narrative together to close this case for the authorities on
- 17:34Speaker 1: you and your boss, Mike Keenan. And of course I'm
- 17:37Speaker 1: talking about Espinosa and Stony Lewis, who would probably have
- 17:39Speaker 1: thrown their own mother under the bus in order to
- 17:41Speaker 1: save themselves from death row.
- 17:43Speaker 3: Exactly so, because I barely knew any of these people,
- 17:48Speaker 3: I think myself that it was Paul, Stony Lewis and
- 17:53Speaker 3: Espinoza together killed Anthony because they both knew facts that
- 17:59Speaker 3: only the murder or would know, and then they were
- 18:01Speaker 3: able to point their finger elsewhere.
- 18:05Speaker 1: So three men ultimately were charged with this gruesome murder,
- 18:10Speaker 1: Michael Keenan, Edward Espinoza, and you, Joe. And it's important
- 18:14Speaker 1: again to note that in exchange for his testimony against
- 18:18Speaker 1: you and Keenan, who were tried separately. Espinoza pleaded guilty
- 18:23Speaker 1: to manslaughter and was given the lesser sentence of fifteen
- 18:26Speaker 1: to seventy five years in prison. So we know what
- 18:29Speaker 1: his motivation was. And this is a guy who we
- 18:31Speaker 1: know is a liar. You don't have to say he's
- 18:33Speaker 1: a liar. You can't sign two sworn affidavits that are
- 18:36Speaker 1: totally different within forty eight hours of each other and
- 18:38Speaker 1: not be lying. Okay, let's get to the trial. Tell
- 18:41Speaker 1: us a little about your representation.
- 18:44Speaker 3: It should be lack thereof representation. If my attorneys would
- 18:49Speaker 3: have believed me and did a little bit of investigation,
- 18:55Speaker 3: I never would have been convicted because father Neil, ten
- 19:00Speaker 3: years after the fact, was finding all this evidence with
- 19:04Speaker 3: little work. So my attorneys did very little. One was
- 19:08Speaker 3: running for mayor of a little town at the time
- 19:11Speaker 3: and couldn't be bothered, and the other one just didn't
- 19:14Speaker 3: want anything to do with me because they didn't believe
- 19:17Speaker 3: me from day one that I had nothing to do
- 19:19Speaker 3: with this, because they were the ones that talked to
- 19:22Speaker 3: me into going with a three judge panel because I
- 19:25Speaker 3: didn't know no better. You have to do very little
- 19:27Speaker 3: work as an attorney for a three judge panel case.
- 19:31Speaker 1: So the trial took place on February sixth, nineteen eighty nine,
- 19:34Speaker 1: in the Cayahoga Court of Common Please, as you said,
- 19:37Speaker 1: in front of a three judge panel. The prosecutor was
- 19:41Speaker 1: Carmen Marino. Now important to note that no murder weapon
- 19:46Speaker 1: was ever found in this case, right, So, how the
- 19:49Speaker 1: hell do you send a guy much less too to
- 19:52Speaker 1: death row with no murder weapon and no physical evidence.
- 19:56Speaker 3: Well, back then, I used to hunt and fish, and
- 20:00Speaker 3: I had my hunting knives. So when they came and
- 20:03Speaker 3: illegally entered my house and arrested me, they took my knives,
- 20:08Speaker 3: and all three of my knives tested negative for blood.
- 20:12Speaker 3: Yet throughout the whole trial they waved them around and
- 20:15Speaker 3: called them the murder weapons.
- 20:17Speaker 1: So they're parading around false evidence. What the hell else
- 20:22Speaker 1: was presented against you?
- 20:23Speaker 3: Most of the time on the stand was covered by
- 20:27Speaker 3: Espinoza and Paul Stony Lewis. You know when the two
- 20:31Speaker 3: real murderers are taking the stand and they're backed up
- 20:34Speaker 3: by the prosecutor, and then you throw in this joke
- 20:39Speaker 3: of a coroner we had that all she ever did
- 20:42Speaker 3: was rubber stamp. Whatever the cops said that was their
- 20:45Speaker 3: whole prosecution that Espinosa said he stood there and watched
- 20:50Speaker 3: why me and Mike Keenan killed Anthony clan Stony says,
- 20:56Speaker 3: the knight that Anthony was killed was the knight that
- 20:58Speaker 3: we were in the bars.
- 21:00Speaker 1: A very very important problem with this is that he
- 21:03Speaker 1: mixed up September twenty third as September twenty second.
- 21:06Speaker 3: Exactly what it was is they wouldn't say dates. All
- 21:10Speaker 3: they kept saying is on the night when we went
- 21:13Speaker 3: to the bar, when we were there, when we were
- 21:15Speaker 3: all together, nobody used a date.
- 21:18Speaker 1: And were you elbowing your lawyer going hey, hey, hey,
- 21:21Speaker 1: that's the wrong Oh you bet.
- 21:22Speaker 4: They did bring up the idea that the state was
- 21:25Speaker 4: painting the wrong day because the day that you were
- 21:28Speaker 4: at the bar was tequila Knite, right, And so tequila
- 21:32Speaker 4: Knight was Thursday not Friday. And you even had the
- 21:36Speaker 4: proprietor of the bar, Stephen Gaines I believe was his name. Yes,
- 21:41Speaker 4: Stephen Gaines, literally came and took the stand and said
- 21:45Speaker 4: these men were there on tequila knite Thursday, not Friday.
- 21:51Speaker 1: So this discrepancy was actually clearly pointed out. And I mean,
- 21:54Speaker 1: do you even have any theory whatsoever about how this
- 21:57Speaker 1: three junge panel could have been so blind and gotten
- 22:00Speaker 1: this so totally wrong.
- 22:02Speaker 4: You know, you've got anybody that might have been put
- 22:04Speaker 4: on the stand for Joe's case, we're not available at
- 22:08Speaker 4: the time of the trial to establish that alibi for Joe,
- 22:11Speaker 4: or to even be there as a character witness. And
- 22:14Speaker 4: so you put that up against Eddie Espinoza as suspect
- 22:17Speaker 4: as he may be, but he's claiming to be an
- 22:21Speaker 4: eye witness to this, and it literally becomes you know,
- 22:25Speaker 4: where's the greater way of the evidence and the credibility?
- 22:29Speaker 4: And you know, the three judge panel, who were all
- 22:32Speaker 4: former prosecutors, have that prosecutorial bent and they're going to
- 22:36Speaker 4: lean that way to begin with.
- 22:38Speaker 3: See, the one thing that I made my attorneys do
- 22:42Speaker 3: is let me testify. And I figured if I could
- 22:45Speaker 3: get up there and tell the truth, the judges would
- 22:48Speaker 3: be like, come on, this this case is just wrong,
- 22:52Speaker 3: you know, and release me. So my attorneys threw me
- 22:56Speaker 3: up their cold They didn't give me any preparation, they
- 22:59Speaker 3: didn't have checked when the prosecutor just tore me to pieces,
- 23:04Speaker 3: they kept telling me I'm lying, I'm just saying all
- 23:07Speaker 3: this to save my life. But the sad part is
- 23:10Speaker 3: they had evidence that proved that everything I said was true,
- 23:17Speaker 3: and they hid it from me. In a blink of
- 23:20Speaker 3: an eye. My trial's over with. I have the shortest
- 23:24Speaker 3: penalty trial in the state of Ohio history, two and
- 23:27Speaker 3: three quarter days from let's start to you die. You
- 23:31Speaker 3: know you hear that they're going to pass thirty thousand
- 23:34Speaker 3: volts through your body until you are dead for something
- 23:38Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with.
- 23:53Speaker 4: So I was ordained in nineteen ninety five and I
- 23:58Speaker 4: was reading a cat flake newsweek called National Catholic Reporter,
- 24:03Speaker 4: and in that there was a brother, Patrick Byrd from
- 24:06Speaker 4: Texas who had his own death row pen Pale ministry,
- 24:11Speaker 4: and he was looking for people to join him in
- 24:14Speaker 4: writing to death row inmates. I eventually started writing to many, many,
- 24:19Speaker 4: many of the inmates and became penpales with them, including Joe.
- 24:23Speaker 4: And in December of nineteen ninety eight, Dorothy Dan Brosio,
- 24:27Speaker 4: Joe's mother, passed away here in Cleveland. I found out
- 24:31Speaker 4: about it through the obituaries in the newspaper, and so
- 24:35Speaker 4: on Joe's behalf. I went to the funeral home to
- 24:39Speaker 4: pay my respects and then The next day, I actually
- 24:43Speaker 4: went to the church to con celebrate his mother's funeral mass.
- 24:48Speaker 3: And then the.
- 24:49Speaker 4: Next time I was down on death row, I asked
- 24:52Speaker 4: the corrections officers if I could have just a few
- 24:56Speaker 4: minutes of Joe's time to express my condolence, says and
- 25:01Speaker 4: paint a picture of his mother's funeral for him.
- 25:04Speaker 3: At this point, I was writing everybody, every law school,
- 25:09Speaker 3: every journalism school, all the news media. I was writing everybody,
- 25:14Speaker 3: trying to get somebody to help me. But now I
- 25:16Speaker 3: have a human being in my cell and he can't
- 25:20Speaker 3: run away because he's locked in there with me. So
- 25:23Speaker 3: he's sitting there trying to explain my mother's funeral to me,
- 25:28Speaker 3: and I'm thanking him profusely, but I'm like, but you
- 25:31Speaker 3: don't understand. You have to help me. I didn't do
- 25:34Speaker 3: what they said I did. And he's like, no, no.
- 25:37Speaker 3: He would go back to talking about my mom's funeral,
- 25:40Speaker 3: and then I would thank him again, you know, and
- 25:43Speaker 3: be like, you know, I appreciate and everything, but you
- 25:46Speaker 3: don't understand. They're trying to put me where she's at.
- 25:49Speaker 3: They're trying to murder me for something I had nothing
- 25:51Speaker 3: to do. And that's when the attorney of him kicked in,
- 25:55Speaker 3: because he's not only a priest, he's an attorney and
- 25:59Speaker 3: a registered nurse, and he had to be all three
- 26:02Speaker 3: things to do what he did for me.
- 26:04Speaker 4: And so I took the trial transcript home and I
- 26:07Speaker 4: read it from cover to cover the first night, and
- 26:10Speaker 4: I knew that there was at least something wrong because
- 26:14Speaker 4: I was reading the coroner's testimony and she was describing
- 26:18Speaker 4: Anthony Clan's wounds. Now, Anthony Klan was sliced ear to
- 26:23Speaker 4: ear and then stabbed three times in the chest. He
- 26:26Speaker 4: was almost decapitated. And so she testifies that after these
- 26:31Speaker 4: massive holes are created in the trachea that, based on
- 26:35Speaker 4: Eddie Espinoza's testimony, Anthony is running away from his perpetrators,
- 26:41Speaker 4: literally screaming for his life. Don't kill me, don't kill me, Please,
- 26:45Speaker 4: don't kill me. Now, you don't have to be a
- 26:48Speaker 4: nurse to understand that when your airway is compromised, especially
- 26:53Speaker 4: as severely as his was, that you're not whispering, let
- 26:58Speaker 4: alone screaming any And not only that, but they all
- 27:02Speaker 4: testified that he had six hundred and fifty milliters of
- 27:05Speaker 4: blood in his chest cavity and if you saw these wounds,
- 27:10Speaker 4: you would know without question that he wasn't running at all,
- 27:13Speaker 4: that he would never have been able to speak, and
- 27:16Speaker 4: he would have been drowning in his own secretions. And
- 27:18Speaker 4: I'm like, somebody got away with this testimony, either lying
- 27:23Speaker 4: or the cross examination just was totally nonexistent or totally ineffective.
- 27:29Speaker 4: And I began to ask myself, what else could be
- 27:32Speaker 4: wrong in this case?
- 27:33Speaker 1: Tell us about what you found and how it led
- 27:36Speaker 1: to where we are today.
- 27:38Speaker 4: So I went down to the records room of the
- 27:41Speaker 4: Cuyahoga County Justice Center and I started pulling the microfish
- 27:46Speaker 4: files of all the major names in this case. And then,
- 27:50Speaker 4: just as a fluke, I decided to pull Anthony Klan's
- 27:55Speaker 4: microfish file and came across a notation from a police
- 27:59Speaker 4: report that Anthony had witnessed a rape in May nineteen
- 28:05Speaker 4: eighty eight. And then you find out that the rapist
- 28:09Speaker 4: is one Paul Stoney Lewis. And then in the records
- 28:13Speaker 4: they gave the name of the rape victim, a guy
- 28:16Speaker 4: by the name of Christopher Longeneker. Christopher is blind and
- 28:19Speaker 4: suffers from cerebral palsy, but he can read in just
- 28:23Speaker 4: a very small sliver. And so Christopher Longeneker gets this
- 28:27Speaker 4: notice that he needs to appear in court for a
- 28:29Speaker 4: pre trial, and he does. He shows up at the
- 28:32Speaker 4: courthouse on August eleventh, but he had misread it. He
- 28:37Speaker 4: was supposed to be there on August first. And because
- 28:41Speaker 4: the only witness didn't show up, they released Paul stony Lewis,
- 28:45Speaker 4: who had been in jail down there since May. And
- 28:48Speaker 4: now you've got a previous rapist just out on his
- 28:52Speaker 4: own recognizance, and there's one guy out there that can
- 28:55Speaker 4: testify him and put him in back in jail for
- 28:57Speaker 4: a long, long, long long time, and that's Anthony Clan.
- 29:02Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, Anthony Klan ends up dead
- 29:05Speaker 4: in Don't Creek. And the guy that points his finger
- 29:07Speaker 4: to Joe is Paul stony Lewis, the guy who has
- 29:11Speaker 4: the most to do to save his neck. So that
- 29:15Speaker 4: rape was the seminole thing that got us back into
- 29:19Speaker 4: federal court. And Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the District Court
- 29:24Speaker 4: here in Cuyahoga County, the sixth District Federal Court, gave
- 29:28Speaker 4: us sweeping discovery which literally said we had full access
- 29:33Speaker 4: to the police files. The coroner's files the prosecutor's files,
- 29:38Speaker 4: almost nothing could be withheld from.
- 29:40Speaker 1: Us, so in July two thousand and four, at an
- 29:42Speaker 1: evidentiary hearing, they presented the following evidence, none of which
- 29:48Speaker 1: was given to the defense before Joe's initial trial.
- 29:52Speaker 3: So.
- 29:52Speaker 1: Two former Cleveland police detectives testified that because no grass
- 29:56Speaker 1: or weeds were disturbed in the area where Clan's body
- 29:58Speaker 1: had been found, they believed he was killed elsewhere, dumped
- 30:01Speaker 1: in the creek. Clan's ex roommate, Chris Longenecker, testified that
- 30:05Speaker 1: Lewis had raped him shortly before Clan was killed. Longnecker
- 30:10Speaker 1: said that after hearing of Clan's murder, Longenecker called the
- 30:14Speaker 1: police to say that he believed Clan was killed because
- 30:17Speaker 1: he was likely aware of the rape. The records showing
- 30:20Speaker 1: that at one time police had had an order or
- 30:22Speaker 1: recording of a statement from a man named Angelo Crimini,
- 30:26Speaker 1: who also implicated others in the murder. At the same
- 30:30Speaker 1: July two thousand and four hearing, Joe's trial lawyer testified
- 30:34Speaker 1: that during a pre trial conference with Marino, he was
- 30:36Speaker 1: not allowed to see any police reports. He was allowed
- 30:39Speaker 1: to take notes as Marino read selected portions. Huh yeah, okay,
- 30:44Speaker 1: one of which ones they selected, and then the alibi
- 30:47Speaker 1: finally right the alibi. Other witnesses now testified that on
- 30:50Speaker 1: the night of September twenty third, nineteen eighty eight, Joe
- 30:53Speaker 1: was not a Coconut Joe's, but rather was hosting a
- 30:55Speaker 1: party at his own apartment because he was being evicted.
- 30:58Speaker 1: The one witness who was pregnant and therefore not drinking,
- 31:01Speaker 1: recalled that Joe had passed out on his bed. It's
- 31:03Speaker 1: really hard. I don't know. I've never stabbed anyone, but
- 31:05Speaker 1: I don't think I could do it while it was
- 31:07Speaker 1: passed out, even if I wanted to.
- 31:08Speaker 4: So there was another piece of evidence that came to
- 31:11Speaker 4: light for us was we have a witness by the
- 31:13Speaker 4: name of Linda Deblasio, who was a bar maid at
- 31:16Speaker 4: Coconut Joe's, who testified that Anthony Clan came to her
- 31:21Speaker 4: bar on Friday night. This would have been now twenty
- 31:25Speaker 4: four hours after the state said that he was dead,
- 31:28Speaker 4: and she served Anthony Clan alcohol, served him and realized
- 31:33Speaker 4: that he was not in any kind of shape to
- 31:35Speaker 4: get home on his own, so literally gave him money
- 31:38Speaker 4: for a cab so that he could get home.
- 31:40Speaker 1: So finally, on March twenty four, two thousand and six, Judg.
- 31:43Speaker 1: O'Malley granted the writ because of the failure to turn
- 31:45Speaker 1: over exculpatory evidence, that conviction was vacated and the new
- 31:49Speaker 1: trial was ordered. The US Court of Appeals for the
- 31:51Speaker 1: Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling, saying that the withheld evidence
- 31:55Speaker 1: would have quote substantially increased reasonable jurors to doubt of
- 31:59Speaker 1: the Ambrosio's guilt. The court said the evidence not only
- 32:03Speaker 1: contradicted or weakened Espinosa's testimony and he was, of course
- 32:06Speaker 1: the only eyewitness for the prosecution, but also demonstrated a
- 32:09Speaker 1: motive for Lewis to kill Clan. And of course the
- 32:13Speaker 1: state fought to retry you despite the evidence of your
- 32:15Speaker 1: innocence that they've been withholding since the investigation, and your
- 32:19Speaker 1: team sought to bar the prosecution from retrying you. And
- 32:23Speaker 1: then something whirred.
- 32:24Speaker 3: It happens.
- 32:25Speaker 1: One day before O'Malley ruled not to bar retrial, Edward Espinoza,
- 32:31Speaker 1: who had been released after serving twelve years, was found
- 32:34Speaker 1: dead in a Chicago suburb. Now, who knows if this
- 32:37Speaker 1: is a coincidence or not, but anyway, your team renewed
- 32:41Speaker 1: their motion to borrow retrial, arguing that they would not
- 32:43Speaker 1: be able to cross examine the only eyewitness against Joe
- 32:46Speaker 1: with all the newly discovered evidence. The motion was granted,
- 32:50Speaker 1: and after the state's appeal was ultimately denied, your nightmare
- 32:54Speaker 1: was finally over. Can you tell us about your first
- 32:58Speaker 1: taste of freedom?
- 33:00Speaker 3: Well, the first time I was actually out, I was
- 33:04Speaker 3: out on bond, and so that was like the first
- 33:06Speaker 3: time that I was actually out in fresh air without
- 33:09Speaker 3: bars around me. I was on that for exactly one
- 33:13Speaker 3: year before Judge Sindenberg dismissed the case and refused to
- 33:19Speaker 3: allow him to retry me.
- 33:20Speaker 4: But Joe, where was the first place your lawyers took
- 33:23Speaker 4: you on the day that you were freed?
- 33:27Speaker 3: They took me across the street from the Justice Center
- 33:30Speaker 3: to a bar to have a drink.
- 33:33Speaker 4: And who was having a fit?
- 33:35Speaker 3: You were having a fis because He's like, really, he
- 33:40Speaker 3: was in this because he was at bars, and now
- 33:43Speaker 3: you're going to take him to a bar and give
- 33:46Speaker 3: him alcohol. And they were like, yes, yes, we are.
- 33:51Speaker 5: Give him whatever you want at that point, exactly right,
- 33:55Speaker 5: And Jesus, I feel like I need a drink after
- 33:57Speaker 5: hearing your story.
- 34:09Speaker 4: There's a part that you guys don't know and never
- 34:13Speaker 4: made it into the trial records or trial transcripts. But
- 34:16Speaker 4: it's the smoking gun, and the smoking gun is Teresa Farinacci.
- 34:21Speaker 4: So Teresa Farinacci is a woman who lived in Little
- 34:26Speaker 4: Italy at the time of the murder. Teresa Farinacci knows
- 34:31Speaker 4: dates and times because she anchors everything that she does
- 34:35Speaker 4: around her niece's wedding. So on Friday night, Teresa Farinacci
- 34:41Speaker 4: is at her niece's wedding rehearsal and dinner, comes home
- 34:48Speaker 4: on Friday night early Saturday morning, where she hears a
- 34:53Speaker 4: violent altercation taking place in the home next to her.
- 34:58Speaker 4: This is Little Italy. They are set rated by just
- 35:00Speaker 4: little alleyways that maybe one or two people side by
- 35:03Speaker 4: side can walk through. And she hears this violent altercation
- 35:07Speaker 4: taking place and calls the police, and the police logs
- 35:12Speaker 4: still in existence indicate that the police responded to her call,
- 35:16Speaker 4: but when they arrived everything's calm, and so rather than investigate,
- 35:22Speaker 4: the police just say, well, whatever it is, it's over with.
- 35:27Speaker 4: Now comes Saturday morning and Teresa Farinacci is going to
- 35:32Speaker 4: her niece's wedding and she's being picked up, and as
- 35:35Speaker 4: she walks out of the house, she glances at the
- 35:38Speaker 4: street next to her, where Mike Keenan's truck is parked,
- 35:43Speaker 4: because Eddie Espinoza was Mike Keenan's foreman for his Sunshine
- 35:48Speaker 4: Landscaping company, and so Eddie Espinoza often borrowed Mike Keenan's
- 35:54Speaker 4: truck for his own personal use with Mike Keenan's permission.
- 35:58Speaker 4: And Anthony Klnn is in the bed of the truck
- 36:02Speaker 4: and she calls out to Anthony Klan and he does
- 36:06Speaker 4: not respond. She thinks that he's sleeping off a drunk,
- 36:12Speaker 4: and so she calls out to Anthony Clan again with
- 36:17Speaker 4: no response, and she says, you know, because the US
- 36:22Speaker 4: Marshals interviewed her in Joe's retrial proceedings, that she wishes
- 36:27Speaker 4: she had gone over to literally check on him because
- 36:31Speaker 4: she would have found out that he was dead in
- 36:34Speaker 4: the bed of that truck on Saturday. But she was
- 36:36Speaker 4: going to be late if she didn't. So she gets
- 36:38Speaker 4: in the car and she goes off to the wedding
- 36:41Speaker 4: and there's Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck
- 36:45Speaker 4: and the US marshals say to her, so you think
- 36:49Speaker 4: you saw Anthony Klan in the bed of that truck,
- 36:52Speaker 4: And she says, you're not listening to me. She said,
- 36:54Speaker 4: I know I saw Anthony Klan in the bed of
- 36:58Speaker 4: that truck was Saturday as she was going to her
- 37:02Speaker 4: niece's wedding. But because we never got to a retrial,
- 37:06Speaker 4: that's not out there.
- 37:08Speaker 3: Oh well wait, wait, you didn't hear the best part.
- 37:12Speaker 3: Guess who lives in the apartment next to.
- 37:14Speaker 4: Her where the commotion was taking place.
- 37:17Speaker 1: Tell me Paul Stony Lewis saw that coming.
- 37:22Speaker 4: On that very same night, Friday night to Saturday morning.
- 37:26Speaker 4: There is an affidavit from a married couple that lived
- 37:30Speaker 4: in that same complex. This man and woman swore out
- 37:35Speaker 4: an affidavit that that very same night they heard someone
- 37:39Speaker 4: say we need to dump the body in the basement.
- 37:45Speaker 4: And so we believe that is where Anthony Clan was murdered.
- 37:50Speaker 4: We believe he was murdered by Paul Lewis and Eddie
- 37:53Speaker 4: Espinoza in concert with each other. We believe that he
- 37:57Speaker 4: was later taken from that basement, thrown in the bed
- 38:00Speaker 4: of that truck and dropped off at Don's Creak. Sometime
- 38:04Speaker 4: Saturday morning early afternoon.
- 38:07Speaker 1: Joe, have you ever received any compensation?
- 38:10Speaker 3: We struck a deal with the state of Ohio to
- 38:14Speaker 3: get me compensation nowhere near anything I should have gotten,
- 38:20Speaker 3: and I could have gotten if I continued to fight
- 38:24Speaker 3: it in the courts. But I'm getting too old. I
- 38:28Speaker 3: needed something to retire on.
- 38:31Speaker 1: Well, listen, I wish you nothing but the best of everything.
- 38:37Speaker 1: Thank you, And of course now we turn to our
- 38:41Speaker 1: closing of our show, which is appropriately called Closing Arguments.
- 38:45Speaker 1: First of all, I thank you once again. I really
- 38:48Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the podcast today, and now closing
- 38:52Speaker 1: Arguments works like this, I turn off my microphone, kicked
- 38:56Speaker 1: back in my chair and just listen. You get to
- 39:00Speaker 1: say whatever do you want. Father, With all due respect,
- 39:04Speaker 1: We're going to save the best for last. The star
- 39:06Speaker 1: of our show courses Joe. But it's so great to
- 39:09Speaker 1: have you here. And Joe, if you wouldn't mind going first,
- 39:11Speaker 1: Father and Neil Kokuth.
- 39:13Speaker 4: So I would just say, when it comes to the
- 39:16Speaker 4: matter of sentencing people to death, to be very very
- 39:20Speaker 4: very careful. People's lives are at stake here, and you
- 39:25Speaker 4: know a lot of people will tell me I'm the
- 39:27Speaker 4: liberal priest that believes everything that the death row innate says,
- 39:33Speaker 4: and that is not the truth. And Joe would be
- 39:36Speaker 4: the first one to tell you that. I get letters
- 39:39Speaker 4: from around the country and sometimes around the world, and
- 39:44Speaker 4: many of them from guys right here on Ohio's death
- 39:47Speaker 4: Row saying you need to do for me what you
- 39:50Speaker 4: did for Joe, and I say to them, I didn't
- 39:54Speaker 4: do anything for Joe. The evidence freed Joe, and we
- 40:00Speaker 4: just needed to find it, and we just needed somebody
- 40:02Speaker 4: to present it. People think you got away with murder
- 40:05Speaker 4: on a technicality, and that is not the case. This
- 40:09Speaker 4: went through district court, federal court, Supreme Court with some
- 40:13Speaker 4: of the finest jurists in the country, and literally the
- 40:16Speaker 4: evidence freedom. So don't take things at face value, go
- 40:22Speaker 4: deep and look and then ask yourself some serious questions.
- 40:27Speaker 4: And one of those questions for me would be this,
- 40:30Speaker 4: do we really want to give our government the power
- 40:35Speaker 4: and the authority to take someone's life from them when
- 40:41Speaker 4: the system is so screwed up?
- 40:46Speaker 3: Joe, The thing that people have to understand is that
- 40:51Speaker 3: they're murdering in your name. You're paying to have this done.
- 40:59Speaker 3: To have the death penalty is so ludicrous places like
- 41:05Speaker 3: Russia abolish their death penalty and we still hang on
- 41:11Speaker 3: to it because all it is is revenge, and our
- 41:17Speaker 3: justice system should not be about revenge. It's not supposed
- 41:23Speaker 3: to be. So if you even think for a second
- 41:28Speaker 3: that the system is so perfect that you're willing to
- 41:34Speaker 3: bet somebody's life and it could be your own, then
- 41:37Speaker 3: don't do anything about it, because, like we started out saying,
- 41:42Speaker 3: if this could happen to me, this could happen to
- 41:44Speaker 3: you very easily. But I think you need to stand
- 41:48Speaker 3: up right now. In Ohio, we have two bills that
- 41:50Speaker 3: are trying to get the death penalty abolished in Ohio,
- 41:54Speaker 3: and this is the time to do it. People need
- 41:58Speaker 3: to stand up and say that you don't kill in
- 42:01Speaker 3: my name and just stop this stupidity that's going on
- 42:06Speaker 3: with the duck penalty.
- 42:15Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
- 42:18Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
- 42:22Speaker 1: links in our bio now to see how you can help.
- 42:24Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our amazing production team Connor Hall,
- 42:28Speaker 1: Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Wardis. The music on
- 42:32Speaker 1: this show, as always is by three Time Oscar nominated
- 42:35Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
- 42:39Speaker 1: at Wronful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast.
- 42:43Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
- 42:47Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one