Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #431 Jason Flom with Tyrone Clark

Transcript

#431 Jason Flom with Tyrone Clark · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On June twenty third, nineteen seventy three, a young woman
0:05
Speaker 1: was returning to her apartment in Boston when an assailant
0:08
Speaker 1: grabbed her from behind, forced his way into the building,
0:11
Speaker 1: and dragged her upstairs. During a struggle that culminated in
0:14
Speaker 1: a rape, the young woman managed to stab her attacker
0:17
Speaker 1: on the shoulder with a kitchen knife. However, the encounter
0:21
Speaker 1: was not over. The assailant paraded her, bruised and bloodied
0:26
Speaker 1: through the streets of Boston for nearly six more hours
0:30
Speaker 1: on a bus to a restaurant, and even spoke to
0:33
Speaker 1: some of his friends. Eventually, she escaped to a Roxbury firehouse,
0:37
Speaker 1: where one of the firefighters scared off the assailant. Seminal
0:40
Speaker 1: fluid was collected at the hospital. When the survivor described
0:43
Speaker 1: the assailant as black, five ten and one hundred and
0:47
Speaker 1: sixty pounds. She also recalled that the assailant had mentioned
0:50
Speaker 1: his recent release from Concord Correctional. When shown eleven photographs
0:55
Speaker 1: of men who had recently been released, she chose Tyrone Clark,
1:00
Speaker 1: even though Tyrone was only five seven and one hundred
1:02
Speaker 1: and thirty five pounds. Five other witnesses chose Tyron as well.
1:07
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
1:24
Speaker 1: The man we're interviewing today, Tyrone Clark, served over forty
1:30
Speaker 1: eight years in prison for a crime he had absolutely
1:34
Speaker 1: nothing to do with. The story is unfathomed, but every
1:38
Speaker 1: part of it is true. So before I introduce mister
1:42
Speaker 1: Clark to you, now, I'm going to introduce his attorney,
1:45
Speaker 1: Neil Rafael. Thanks for being here on the show. Thank
1:49
Speaker 1: you for having me and Tyrone Clark man. I'm so
1:53
Speaker 1: happy and honored that you're here, and I'm looking forward
1:56
Speaker 1: to sharing your story with the world. Thank you so, Tyrone,
2:00
Speaker 1: Before we talk about the crime itself, which is a
2:03
Speaker 1: horrible crime that you had nothing to do with. Again,
2:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to point that out. Your life wasn't easy
2:09
Speaker 1: from the get go, right, Can you tell us about
2:11
Speaker 1: growing up in the well but damn you were born
2:13
Speaker 1: in the fifties, right, early mid fifties.
2:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I originally from Breesville, North Carolina. I came to
2:20
Speaker 2: Boston with my mother when I was a baby. It
2:23
Speaker 2: was like nine of us at the time. I came
2:26
Speaker 2: up like a very poor background. We was on welfare.
2:30
Speaker 2: We all basically like slept in the same bed. All
2:33
Speaker 2: of us tried to struggle the best way we can
2:36
Speaker 2: to get full clothes. My father tried to do what
2:40
Speaker 2: he can by robbing banks and stuff like that, but
2:43
Speaker 2: he went away for a long time. So I didn't
2:45
Speaker 2: really get to know my father that well because he
2:48
Speaker 2: was in prison. So my mother was just on her
2:50
Speaker 2: own trying to raise us and stuff, and I got
2:52
Speaker 2: taken away from her. They all raided the house and stuff,
2:56
Speaker 2: and they separated all of us from my mother.
3:00
Speaker 1: So you went at the foster care, not just.
3:02
Speaker 2: One foster home. I bosted through a few foster homes.
3:05
Speaker 2: I went through one that was abusive because I went
3:09
Speaker 2: to bed, so I tried to skate when they found me.
3:13
Speaker 2: I didn't know where all my other brothers and sisters went.
3:16
Speaker 2: My mother she had a breakdown. She went to a
3:18
Speaker 2: mental institution. So you know, I didn't spend a lot
3:21
Speaker 2: of time with my family, get to know them the
3:24
Speaker 2: way I was supposed to know them, like a family.
3:26
Speaker 2: Had good times with them, know, we really had Christmas,
3:30
Speaker 2: all the good holidays and stuff like that.
3:32
Speaker 1: Well, you never really had any chance to be a kid,
3:35
Speaker 1: to have a decent child at all, and you rarely
3:38
Speaker 1: didn't have much of a shot at life from the beginning.
3:42
Speaker 1: Too many kids go through similar experiences. We really should
3:47
Speaker 1: be able to do better, and we're going to get
3:48
Speaker 1: into the crime itself. You had some juvenile delinquencies, which
3:53
Speaker 1: are understandable. You're trying to make ends meet, and anybody
3:56
Speaker 1: who hasn't walked them mile in your shoes probably can't
3:58
Speaker 1: judge you for those either. These were robberies and things
4:01
Speaker 1: like that, but those probably had the effect of putting
4:05
Speaker 1: you on the radar of the police. When this very
4:09
Speaker 1: serious crime took place on Saturday, June twenty third of
4:13
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, and I'm just going to describe the crime.
4:16
Speaker 1: In the afternoon, around three o'clock, a young woman was
4:20
Speaker 1: returning to her apartment on Park Drive in Boston from
4:23
Speaker 1: a shopping trip. She approached the door to her building
4:26
Speaker 1: and an attacker grabbed her from behind and went with
4:28
Speaker 1: her into the vestibule of her building. He struck her
4:31
Speaker 1: and forced her to give him the little money she had,
4:33
Speaker 1: about thirty dollars, and then he forced her upstairs to
4:36
Speaker 1: her apartment, raped her, beat her, and dragged her through
4:39
Speaker 1: the city in a six and a half hour saga.
4:42
Speaker 1: He took her on a bus, forced her to eat
4:45
Speaker 1: a meal with him at a little Spanish restaurant. She
4:48
Speaker 1: had her speak to some of his friends. She was
4:50
Speaker 1: basically kidnapped right all the while. She tried to get
4:53
Speaker 1: somebody to help with her face bruised and bloody, and
4:56
Speaker 1: nobody helped her until she finally escaped into a Roxbury firehouse.
5:00
Speaker 1: Sailin tried to follow her in, but then he ran
5:02
Speaker 1: away when the fireman said that he was going to
5:04
Speaker 1: call the cops.
5:05
Speaker 3: She initially looked through a photo lineup book of one
5:09
Speaker 3: hundred to one hundred and fifty photos and wasn't able
5:11
Speaker 3: to identify anybody during the assault. The individual had mentioned
5:15
Speaker 3: that he or his brother had just been recently released
5:17
Speaker 3: from Concord, and so this next subsequent day they showed
5:21
Speaker 3: her ten or fifteen photos of individuals we'd been recently
5:24
Speaker 3: released from Concord. Now, Tyrone had some juvenile fenches and
5:27
Speaker 3: he had been in Conquered Reformatory school, and so he
5:30
Speaker 3: was put into that photo lineup and as a result,
5:33
Speaker 3: she identified Tyrone as being her assailant.
5:35
Speaker 1: And of course he was black and she was white, right,
5:37
Speaker 1: so it's a cross racial identification. This is a good
5:40
Speaker 1: time to point out that in study after study that
5:43
Speaker 1: has been proven that cross racial identification, even in a
5:47
Speaker 1: case like this where the victim spent such a long
5:52
Speaker 1: time with her attacker in daylight, cross racial identification has
5:56
Speaker 1: been proven to be less accurate than guessing. Didn't match
6:00
Speaker 1: the physical description either, right. She described the assailant though,
6:04
Speaker 1: as five ten, about one hundred and sixty pounds, and
6:06
Speaker 1: Tyrone was only one hundred and thirty five pounds, so
6:09
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big discrepancy there.
6:12
Speaker 3: Subsequently, the four firefighters who were at the firehouse that
6:16
Speaker 3: evening identified Tyrone as being the assailant as well. And
6:19
Speaker 3: then you mentioned that she had visited a restaurant and
6:22
Speaker 3: the waiter identified Tyrone as being the assailant.
6:25
Speaker 1: And we're not sure what happened during these other five
6:27
Speaker 1: identification procedures, but it's possible the police may have been
6:31
Speaker 1: suggestive toward the photo that the victim had chosen.
6:34
Speaker 3: There was no physical evidence indicating that Tyrone had been
6:37
Speaker 3: the assailant. There was no fingerprints, there was nothing at
6:41
Speaker 3: the scene reflecting that Tyrone had been there. She had
6:44
Speaker 3: testified that she had stabbed the individual with a knife
6:46
Speaker 3: in the back during the assault, and Tyrone didn't have
6:50
Speaker 3: any sort of markings on his back.
6:52
Speaker 1: She couldn't be mistaken about the idea that she stabbed someone, right,
6:56
Speaker 1: and to her credit, she fought back right.
6:59
Speaker 2: But if she.
6:59
Speaker 1: Stabbed, where did the stab wound go? Somebody was walking
7:03
Speaker 1: around with a stab wound and some bloody clothes and
7:05
Speaker 1: it wasn't him, So they should have said, hey, we
7:08
Speaker 1: got to keep looking because this guy doesn't have a
7:10
Speaker 1: stab wound. Am I missing something here? No? Did they
7:14
Speaker 1: do a rape kit?
7:15
Speaker 3: They did take the semen sample at the hospital, but
7:18
Speaker 3: they didn't preserve it, unfortunately. And when I first started
7:22
Speaker 3: working on the case in two thousand and two, that
7:24
Speaker 3: was the first thing we tried to locate was the
7:25
Speaker 3: rape kit from the hospital or at the quote unquote
7:28
Speaker 3: seemen sample, and they were not able to locate it.
7:30
Speaker 1: So they had the evidence. Had they really wanted to
7:34
Speaker 1: do a proper investigation, they could have even with the
7:36
Speaker 1: primitive technology they had fifty years ago in nineteen seventy three,
7:41
Speaker 1: they may have been able to eliminate him.
7:43
Speaker 3: And then the other thing that stood out to me
7:44
Speaker 3: is that this crime didn't happen in twenty minutes. This
7:46
Speaker 3: took place over six hours, and you would think there
7:49
Speaker 3: would be some sort of fingerprint evidence, either in the
7:51
Speaker 3: apartment at the restaurant or somewhere along the scene of
7:55
Speaker 3: the crime. They were on a bus, but there was
7:57
Speaker 3: never any physical evidence that linked Tyrone at all to
7:59
Speaker 3: this crime.
8:00
Speaker 2: They said I was the per portrator. They didn't do
8:03
Speaker 2: no real search background, or real thorough investigation. They just
8:07
Speaker 2: grabbed me off the street and Tyrone.
8:10
Speaker 1: You were arrested, I believe, two days after this crime happened,
8:13
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't have had time for the stabling to heal.
8:16
Speaker 1: So it's not like this was months and months later.
8:19
Speaker 1: So am I right? You were arrested two days after
8:21
Speaker 1: the crime.
8:22
Speaker 2: When I was released from Conquer Correctional Center, I was
8:25
Speaker 2: eighteen years old. I was in a halfway house. The
8:28
Speaker 2: night watchman came upstairs and told me that the Boston
8:31
Speaker 2: police want to talk to me. When I came downstairs,
8:35
Speaker 2: he asked me questions about where I was at and
8:38
Speaker 2: this certain time and told me take my shirt off.
8:41
Speaker 2: Can we look at your body? And I said yeah,
8:44
Speaker 2: I said, what's going on?
8:45
Speaker 4: Man?
8:45
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I said, I ain't know what the
8:48
Speaker 2: hell was going on? Man, It was reported that you
8:51
Speaker 2: raped a woman. I said what I said, no, man,
8:54
Speaker 2: I said, you got the wrong person. I said, I'm
8:57
Speaker 2: not no rapist. Man like that, he told me. They
9:00
Speaker 2: turned around and stuff, and they looked at me and stuff,
9:02
Speaker 2: and the next thing they cuffed me up and took
9:04
Speaker 2: me from the halfway house, brought me to headquarters and
9:08
Speaker 2: booked me. They looked at me in the police station too.
9:11
Speaker 2: Like I said, I didn't know what they were looking for.
9:13
Speaker 2: To my public defender was telling me that the person
9:17
Speaker 2: was stabbed and know concerned that this woman got raped,
9:20
Speaker 2: and they was looking for knife woms. So when they
9:23
Speaker 2: shirched me, it was nothing on my body. So I
9:26
Speaker 2: was taken away and putting to a county jail, Child
9:30
Speaker 2: Street jail, the worst jail in Massachusetts where a person
9:35
Speaker 2: like at my age that went there, I could have
9:37
Speaker 2: got killed, could have got raped. I was scared, you know.
9:40
Speaker 2: So I stayed in that county jail for lease, about
9:43
Speaker 2: like a year before I went to trial.
9:46
Speaker 3: Tyrone presented evidence at trial of alibis the two alibis
9:49
Speaker 3: for the time period. Because this was a lengthy crime
9:51
Speaker 3: it took place during the day. So Tyrone was at
9:55
Speaker 3: a party for part of the proceeding and was also
9:57
Speaker 3: at a friend's apartment for part of the proceeding and
10:00
Speaker 3: testified that he.
10:01
Speaker 1: Was with them.
10:01
Speaker 2: My mother, my witnesses, everybody was in court testified and
10:06
Speaker 2: stuff like this about my way abouts and stuff. I
10:10
Speaker 2: had about like six witnesses. Nail testified against me.
10:13
Speaker 3: You had six IDs against you, the victim, the four firefighters,
10:17
Speaker 3: and the restaurant server.
10:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. I heard all this stuff, man, and I was like, Wow,
10:22
Speaker 2: why somebody do this to me? I says, I'm not
10:24
Speaker 2: none of this what they saying I am, And all
10:27
Speaker 2: these people lying on me saying that they see me
10:30
Speaker 2: with this lady. I ain't never ever seen any of
10:34
Speaker 2: these people. Jason. Man, It's just like I seemed like
10:38
Speaker 2: I woke up to some type of nightmare and then
10:41
Speaker 2: I had all white jewelry.
10:43
Speaker 1: I mean, even with the fact that you had this
10:46
Speaker 1: eyewitness identification, there's such powerful exculpatory evidence that at least
10:53
Speaker 1: any competent legal mind would be able to mount some
10:56
Speaker 1: sort of defense. How did they end up getting away
10:58
Speaker 1: with having an all white jury.
11:00
Speaker 3: Tyrone's attorney, he was still alive when I started handling
11:03
Speaker 3: the case, and I never really got into it with him.
11:07
Speaker 3: Why the jury pool was constituted the way it was,
11:10
Speaker 3: I do think because it was the nineteen seventies in Boston.
11:13
Speaker 3: There was a lot of racism back then, obviously with
11:15
Speaker 3: the busting crisis and other things that were happening in
11:18
Speaker 3: the city. That because of that jury pool, and because
11:22
Speaker 3: all of Tyrone's witnesses were minorities and all of the
11:25
Speaker 3: state's witnesses were white, that Tyrone faced a serious uphill battle.
11:31
Speaker 3: Tyrone's attorney, he said Neil after the opening statement, given
11:34
Speaker 3: the horrific nature of the crime, and given the jury pool,
11:38
Speaker 3: they looked at Tyrone like he was the devil.
11:40
Speaker 1: So predictably, on January twenty fourth, nineteen seventy four, a
11:45
Speaker 1: Suffolk County jury convicted you, Tyrone, of rape, robbery, and
11:50
Speaker 1: kidnapping ann. You were sentenced to life in prison, as
11:53
Speaker 1: well as other sentences that they threw on top of that.
11:55
Speaker 2: My mother, Man, she was young at the time. She
11:58
Speaker 2: was so hurt. They sentenced me to life in prison
12:02
Speaker 2: twenty five to thirty five on and after in the
12:05
Speaker 2: eighth and ten concurrent my mother was so hurt and
12:09
Speaker 2: broke down. Next thing, you know, they just took me
12:11
Speaker 2: away and took them sent me up the Wallpost State
12:14
Speaker 2: Prison at the age of eighteen. Man, I came from
12:31
Speaker 2: a family. Everybody been to jail. My older brother was
12:34
Speaker 2: in prison too. When I got the wall pole in
12:37
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three, it was a news article. Everybody seen it.
12:41
Speaker 2: My older brother, you knew a lot of guys up state.
12:44
Speaker 2: You sent a letter up the wall Poles State Prison,
12:48
Speaker 2: told some of his friends. Yo, my brother man sentence man.
12:52
Speaker 2: Something he didn't do when they asked him, would they
12:55
Speaker 2: look out for me? And stuff? So when I got there,
12:58
Speaker 2: they snatched me as I got at the door and stuff.
13:00
Speaker 2: So they took me to their block and stuff. They
13:03
Speaker 2: looked out for me, gave me canteens, stuff that I needed.
13:07
Speaker 2: I didn't take no shit for nobody, you know what
13:09
Speaker 2: I'm saying. I learned how to box in prison. I
13:13
Speaker 2: put in my own work what they call put in
13:15
Speaker 2: your own work, protect myself to survive the best way
13:19
Speaker 2: I can. I don't even know how I made it,
13:21
Speaker 2: but I made it, you know, the grace of God.
13:24
Speaker 2: And I went to parole boards and handerings and stuff.
13:26
Speaker 2: I kept getting denied because I maintained my innocence, had
13:30
Speaker 2: a lot of letdowns and stuff over the years. And
13:32
Speaker 2: I found a lawyer, man by the name of Barysheck
13:35
Speaker 2: with Innocent Project. I wrote to him, I told him
13:38
Speaker 2: about my case, and he says, oh, we really don't
13:41
Speaker 2: handle Massachusetts cases and stuff, but I can refer you
13:46
Speaker 2: to the Innocent Project in Massachusetts. So he did that
13:50
Speaker 2: and they gave me an attorney, and you talking to
13:54
Speaker 2: him right now.
13:55
Speaker 1: Neil began working on the case from two angles. At
13:58
Speaker 1: the time it was two thousand and two DNA testing
14:01
Speaker 1: was available. While pursuing biological evidence to support the claims
14:05
Speaker 1: of actual innocence, Neil also fought for Tyrone's immediate release
14:09
Speaker 1: due to the guidelines for parole in nineteen seventy four,
14:12
Speaker 1: as well as his subsequent sentences after the rape. That
14:15
Speaker 1: route was unusual.
14:16
Speaker 3: So Tyrone was sentenced to life on the rape, and
14:19
Speaker 3: he was sentenced to twenty five to thirty on the
14:22
Speaker 3: robbery and concurrently eight on a kidnapping. So in nineteen
14:27
Speaker 3: eighty eight on the rape, Tyrone was paroled. Then he
14:29
Speaker 3: started serving his sentence from the robbery and the kidnapping
14:34
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three, Tyrone called me and said,
14:37
Speaker 3: I've got this letter from the Parole Board indicating that
14:40
Speaker 3: his nineteen eighty eight parole had been reversed in two
14:44
Speaker 3: thousand and two or two thousand and three. For cases
14:47
Speaker 3: that were very old, they started aggregating sentences for the
14:51
Speaker 3: purposes of parole. So they decided for Tyrone's case, because
14:55
Speaker 3: he was sentenced to life on the rape and thirty
14:58
Speaker 3: on the robbery, and concurrently eight on the kidnappings, they
15:02
Speaker 3: were going to aggregate and have one parole hearing. But
15:05
Speaker 3: the problem was Tyrone had already been parolled in nineteen
15:07
Speaker 3: eighty eight and they didn't want to release him. So
15:10
Speaker 3: what they ended up doing was quote unquote reversing his
15:14
Speaker 3: parole without a hearing or a lawyer being present. So
15:16
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three I sued the Parole Board
15:19
Speaker 3: on Tyrone's behalf, basically arguing that that was a constitutional violation.
15:24
Speaker 3: We had a hearing and the judge told them they
15:26
Speaker 3: were going to lose, and so we settled Tyrone's civil
15:30
Speaker 3: action against the Parole Board, and so he was essentially
15:34
Speaker 3: released because with good time, he had served his concurrent
15:37
Speaker 3: sentences of the robbery and the kidnapping. But he's on
15:40
Speaker 3: his eighty eight pro on his life sentence.
15:42
Speaker 1: So now you're on the streets for the first time
15:45
Speaker 1: in thirty years. Everything looks very different. I mean, imagine
15:49
Speaker 1: from seventy three to two thousand and five, everything has changed.
15:56
Speaker 4: Where did you go? What did you do?
15:58
Speaker 1: How did you survive?
16:00
Speaker 2: Parole officer found me a sober house in Boston, so
16:04
Speaker 2: I stayed there. Then I applied for Boston Housing Thority
16:08
Speaker 2: and I lived in a room in the South thend
16:11
Speaker 2: of Boston. They had me going to sex offend the program.
16:14
Speaker 2: I went through the hurdles. Man, after coming out of prison,
16:17
Speaker 2: I ain't know nowhere to go to get closed. I
16:19
Speaker 2: didn't know anything. I wasn't in a good space. Man,
16:22
Speaker 2: my triggers kicked in. I know how to hustle. So
16:25
Speaker 2: I ended up shoplifting and I stole some clothing items,
16:30
Speaker 2: violating my parole. I still today regret what I did.
16:35
Speaker 2: I got arrested, kept me for eighteen years back behind
16:38
Speaker 2: the walls for a shoplift.
16:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's eighteen years of taxpayers paying probably at
16:45
Speaker 1: least well over a million dollars to keep you behind
16:48
Speaker 1: bars for stealing four hundred dollars worth of clothes.
16:51
Speaker 3: He had pled no contest, and they revoked his parole.
16:54
Speaker 3: We would try to fight it at the pro board hearing,
16:56
Speaker 3: but because we had sued them, they were not interested
16:59
Speaker 3: in giving him any sort of parole.
17:01
Speaker 1: While this strained relationship with the Parole Board did not
17:04
Speaker 1: bode well for any future appearances, there was still Tyrone's
17:07
Speaker 1: actual innocence claim. Although there were six identifications, they were
17:11
Speaker 1: cross racial and likely suggestive processes. Tyrone didn't match the description.
17:17
Speaker 1: No physical evidence tied into the scene, no fingerprints matched him,
17:21
Speaker 1: and if they had, they would have used it. He
17:23
Speaker 1: had multiple alibi witnesses as well, and in the two thousands,
17:27
Speaker 1: DNA testing was evolving rapidly.
17:30
Speaker 3: So Massachusetts had passed post conviction DNA testing statue. And
17:34
Speaker 3: when I had worked on the case in early two
17:36
Speaker 3: thousand and two two thousand and three, we had tried
17:38
Speaker 3: to locate the semen sample that had been left at
17:41
Speaker 3: the hospital. There were male socks that had been left
17:43
Speaker 3: at the scene in a bloody towel. We hadn't been
17:45
Speaker 3: able to locate anything any physical evidence, and the case
17:48
Speaker 3: had hit a roadblock. But then in the appellate file
17:51
Speaker 3: of the Suffolk County District Attorney. We were able to
17:54
Speaker 3: locate the knife, and so Tyrone asked if I would
17:58
Speaker 3: file a motion under that statute for testing, which was
18:01
Speaker 3: eventually granted. The first round of testing was inconclusive, and
18:05
Speaker 3: at that point, because this case was primarily an identification case,
18:09
Speaker 3: we had started working with CPCs and an attorney named
18:12
Speaker 3: Lisa Kavanaugh.
18:13
Speaker 1: CPCs or Committee for Public Council Services is long for
18:18
Speaker 1: public defender in Massachusetts, and Lisa Kavanaugh spearheaded an initiative
18:22
Speaker 1: within the office to look into innocent's cases.
18:24
Speaker 3: In around twenty fifteen sixteen, I started working with a lawyer,
18:29
Speaker 3: Jeff Harris. My presumption was that the Commonwealth had been
18:32
Speaker 3: in contact with the victim because that's their legal obligation,
18:36
Speaker 3: and Jeff reached out to the victim and as a
18:39
Speaker 3: result of those conversations, it came out that she had
18:42
Speaker 3: real questions about whether her identification of Tyrone was accurate.
18:46
Speaker 2: So when I heard all this good news and stuff, man,
18:48
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, man, this is great. Man, there's
18:52
Speaker 2: light at the tunnel. I think I'm going to go home.
18:55
Speaker 2: I really felt as though that she searched so many years,
19:00
Speaker 2: she was hitten for so many years. Her conscience made
19:05
Speaker 2: her come forward. And what happened was she went to
19:10
Speaker 2: Jennifer Thompson.
19:12
Speaker 1: Jennifer Thompson survived the rape in which she studied her
19:15
Speaker 1: attacker's face, yet was also led to identify the wrong man,
19:19
Speaker 1: Ronald Cotton. I had the honor of interviewing both of
19:22
Speaker 1: them together and we're going to have that incredible episode
19:25
Speaker 1: linked in the episode description.
19:27
Speaker 2: Jennifer Thompson told the lady in my case, she don't
19:30
Speaker 2: be afraid to tell your story. No, go public with it.
19:35
Speaker 2: She went on the radio, she went on TV.
19:38
Speaker 1: Back in twenty nineteen, the victim wrote letters to the
19:44
Speaker 1: Massachusetts pro Board and the court saying that she believed
19:48
Speaker 1: that she could have identified the wrong man. She said
19:50
Speaker 1: that she was worried that she, the four fireman, and
19:53
Speaker 1: the servant at the restaurant picked the same person because
19:56
Speaker 1: he looked like the assailant without actually being the assailant,
19:59
Speaker 1: and that there were other issues that they have tainted
20:02
Speaker 1: the identification process. In her letter to the parole Board,
20:06
Speaker 1: she wrote, this is in twenty nineteen quote. If Tyrone
20:10
Speaker 1: Clark were to be tried today, given the lack of
20:12
Speaker 1: physical evidence linking him to the crime. I doubt that
20:15
Speaker 1: he would be convicted. I fear that he may also
20:18
Speaker 1: be a victim.
20:19
Speaker 4: End quote.
20:35
Speaker 2: When I heard that she was doing all this stuff,
20:37
Speaker 2: and I was in prison, and guys was calling me, Tomrone,
20:41
Speaker 2: You're on TV. Man, old victim is talking about you. Man, Oh, Tomron,
20:45
Speaker 2: You're gonna get out of prison. Man. You know, I
20:47
Speaker 2: was happy, you know what I mean, And you know
20:50
Speaker 2: saying when she came forward the way she did with
20:54
Speaker 2: the DA's office and all these people, you know, wrote
20:59
Speaker 2: story reason. This lady is an inspiration. It wasn't her fault.
21:05
Speaker 2: This could have happened to anybody what happened to me.
21:09
Speaker 2: I appreciate this lady for which she did. It wasn't
21:13
Speaker 2: for her still alive that came forward, I would have
21:17
Speaker 2: died in prison.
21:19
Speaker 1: With the support of the victim. Tyrone's attorneys saw it.
21:21
Speaker 1: Subsequent DNA testing with the latest methods revealing a male
21:25
Speaker 1: profile and a knife that simply did not match Tyrone,
21:29
Speaker 1: and they filed a motion for a new trial in twenty.
21:32
Speaker 3: Twenty, even after the victim had come forward, even after
21:35
Speaker 3: the DNA issue had been explored, even after Jeff primarily
21:40
Speaker 3: had done a lot of work on witness identifications. The
21:43
Speaker 3: motion for new trials filed in twenty twenty, it was denied,
21:47
Speaker 3: it was up on appeal, and then subsequently they changed
21:51
Speaker 3: their mind for some reason, and they agreed that they
21:54
Speaker 3: would have sent to a motion to vacate the rape
21:57
Speaker 3: conviction on the basis that they had failed to preserve
22:01
Speaker 3: the seaman sample that the hospital had drawn on the
22:04
Speaker 3: night of the crime.
22:05
Speaker 1: Wait out of the kindness of their hearts.
22:07
Speaker 3: Very good question.
22:08
Speaker 1: I mean, this kind of thing just doesn't happen.
22:11
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 3: No, it was very, very very strange because the Boston
22:14
Speaker 3: police hadn't done their job and preserved it. They then
22:17
Speaker 3: agreed to as a self imposed punishment for the Brady violation,
22:21
Speaker 3: agreed to a cent of the motion to vacate his sins.
22:24
Speaker 1: That's incredible news.
22:25
Speaker 3: So then subsequent to that, I was still working on
22:28
Speaker 3: the case. Jeff Harris needed to back off the case,
22:31
Speaker 3: so we secured another lawyer by the name of Ed
22:34
Speaker 3: Gaffney because I was no longer practicing criminal lawe I mean,
22:37
Speaker 3: Tyrone was my last criminal case. So Ed filed a
22:41
Speaker 3: motion for new trial based on the robbery and the
22:45
Speaker 3: kidnapping charges, and August of twenty twenty three, the judge
22:49
Speaker 3: agreed to vacate those charges. The Commonwealth opposed that motion,
22:55
Speaker 3: and the judge disregarded their arguments and said, well, if
22:59
Speaker 3: you agreed to essentially vacate the rape charge, why are
23:02
Speaker 3: you still have him responsible for the robbery and kidnapping.
23:06
Speaker 3: And the judge vacated those charges, and then the Commonwealth
23:09
Speaker 3: decided to no pross meeting. They're not going forward with
23:11
Speaker 3: the prosecution. And then so Tyrone was officially exonerated of
23:16
Speaker 3: all of these charges.
23:18
Speaker 1: But Tyrone was awaiting those twenty twenty three proceedings from
23:21
Speaker 1: the outside. After his release following the vacature of his
23:25
Speaker 1: rape conviction back in November twenty twenty one.
23:28
Speaker 2: I felt great when I got the news I was
23:30
Speaker 2: being released. The day that I got out, man, it
23:33
Speaker 2: was I think it was around Thanksgiving them it was.
23:36
Speaker 2: I get a phone call saying Tyrone, Man, you're being
23:40
Speaker 2: re released from prison. I said, what he said, Yeah,
23:43
Speaker 2: I'm coming to pick you up like that. That's my attorney,
23:46
Speaker 2: Jeff Harris. Great guy. You know, he really fought Bill
23:49
Speaker 2: Hayd and the crininal matter. I said, oh yeah, he said, yes, yeah,
23:53
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just saying to just be ready. So
23:55
Speaker 2: now when I go downstairs, the book and all the
23:57
Speaker 2: officers were glad. They were telling me they read about
24:01
Speaker 2: me in the paper. You know, they were happy for me. Now,
24:05
Speaker 2: when I went downstairs, I went out the door. So
24:08
Speaker 2: I got in the car. My lawyers, Jeff Harrisy showed
24:11
Speaker 2: me on the phone. He said, look look at all
24:14
Speaker 2: these people raising money for you.
24:15
Speaker 4: Man.
24:16
Speaker 2: I ain't know anything about no goal fund me or
24:19
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. I never even know these people
24:21
Speaker 2: to get the chance to thank them for generosity or
24:24
Speaker 2: support that they're giving me money to try to help
24:27
Speaker 2: me get on my feet. But the money that was
24:30
Speaker 2: raised because I didn't have nowhere to go. I slept
24:33
Speaker 2: in the hotels.
24:34
Speaker 3: So one of the bigger issues obviously is because he
24:37
Speaker 3: doesn't have a credit history or an employment history or
24:40
Speaker 3: an ID, it's very difficult to find someone like that
24:43
Speaker 3: housing and so for a significant period of time he
24:47
Speaker 3: had to stay at hotels.
24:48
Speaker 1: So that go fund me burnt out, and we're going
24:51
Speaker 1: to link to that go fund me for Tyrone in
24:54
Speaker 1: the episode description so you can help him get to
24:58
Speaker 1: where he needs to be some comfort in his life,
25:01
Speaker 1: long overdue, and because these civil cases take forever. They shouldn't,
25:06
Speaker 1: but they do. They take years and years. So I
25:09
Speaker 1: hope that our audience will be generous and supporting.
25:12
Speaker 2: I got this place through no credit. It took me
25:16
Speaker 2: a long time to even find a place. They'll tell you,
25:20
Speaker 2: you know, like I said, I lived in hotels. Someone
25:23
Speaker 2: treated me okay, but then again some I went through
25:27
Speaker 2: a little I'm not even gonna get into it, and
25:32
Speaker 2: they don't know what I'm talking about.
25:33
Speaker 3: Tyrone was letting homeless people shower in his hotel and
25:37
Speaker 3: he got in trouble for doing that. And so when
25:41
Speaker 3: that happened, I had to explain to Tyrone that the
25:43
Speaker 3: hotels generally don't like that, but he didn't understand that
25:47
Speaker 3: he was just doing that out of the kindness of
25:48
Speaker 3: his soul.
25:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, my foundation is based on homelessness. No, I go
25:55
Speaker 2: to shelters. I eating shelters. I hang out with homeless people.
26:00
Speaker 2: A lot of them. People loved me out here, man,
26:02
Speaker 2: I'm saying, because of the things that I do and
26:04
Speaker 2: how I treat them, I don't feel like, okay, they
26:09
Speaker 2: better than me. I'm better than them. I wanted to
26:12
Speaker 2: try to, like down the road to try to get
26:15
Speaker 2: a halfway house man, you know, for homelessness, because when
26:19
Speaker 2: I go out and I ride buses in our trains
26:22
Speaker 2: and I see what I see, it hurts me. Man.
26:25
Speaker 2: It's sad man. So hopefully someday, man, I can get
26:28
Speaker 2: a halfway house and get the funds or something man
26:33
Speaker 2: to try to help back me up and help people
26:36
Speaker 2: like that, people that never committed a crime, that was
26:39
Speaker 2: on death road. Bro. I have a friend named James Watson.
26:44
Speaker 2: He was upstate with me. He fought many many years,
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, and because of they changed the law back
26:50
Speaker 2: then or the death penalty, that's what saves his life.
26:54
Speaker 2: He would have went to the chair if it wasn't
26:56
Speaker 2: for that. But now he's on the street.
27:00
Speaker 1: Well, it never ceases to amaze and inspire me to
27:04
Speaker 1: see folks like you, Tyrone, who made it through hell
27:08
Speaker 1: and emerge carrying buckets of water to help those still
27:11
Speaker 1: stuck inside. And you want to do it on the
27:13
Speaker 1: outside too, So please let us know when you want
27:17
Speaker 1: to get that started, and maybe we can raise support
27:19
Speaker 1: for it as well. And with that, we're going to
27:21
Speaker 1: go to closing arguments. First of all, I thank you
27:24
Speaker 1: both again, and then I'm going to switch my microphone off,
27:27
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my headphones on, and
27:29
Speaker 1: close my eyes and just listen to anything else you
27:32
Speaker 1: want to share with me and our incredible audience. So Neil,
27:35
Speaker 1: you go first, and then just hand the mic off
27:38
Speaker 1: to Tyrone and he'll take us off into the sunset.
27:41
Speaker 4: Yeah.
27:41
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I started working on Tyrone's case in
27:43
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, and I've worked on it for
27:46
Speaker 3: over twenty years. And you know, Tyrone's case really is sad,
27:54
Speaker 3: but it's also very inspiring to me in a lot
27:57
Speaker 3: of ways.
27:58
Speaker 2: You know.
27:59
Speaker 3: When I first met Tyrone, I had sort of a
28:03
Speaker 3: jaded view of people in prison and their stories, and
28:07
Speaker 3: I was very skeptical of individuals when they were told
28:12
Speaker 3: me they were innocent or they did not do something
28:16
Speaker 3: and the state had prosecuted them. But when I started
28:20
Speaker 3: listening to Tyrone and talking to Tyrone, I sort of
28:23
Speaker 3: realized what a genuine soul he was and what a
28:25
Speaker 3: good person he was. And despite having grown up in
28:29
Speaker 3: foster homes and despite not having a strong support system,
28:34
Speaker 3: he was a very genuine person and he had never
28:39
Speaker 3: been really given a chance to succeed, unfortunately, and so
28:44
Speaker 3: when I started working on his case in two thousand
28:46
Speaker 3: and two, I sort of committed to him that I
28:49
Speaker 3: would work as hard as I could to try to
28:52
Speaker 3: make his life better. And so for the past twenty years,
28:57
Speaker 3: I've worked with him both in our law suit against
29:00
Speaker 3: the parle board in the criminal case with the DA
29:04
Speaker 3: now helping him in justice society after having served nearly
29:08
Speaker 3: fifty years in prison. While he has the right to
29:10
Speaker 3: be extremely angry, sad, and depressed about what happened to him,
29:15
Speaker 3: what I find inspiring about him is that he continues
29:18
Speaker 3: to have the same sort of affable, lovable soul that
29:21
Speaker 3: he had when I met him in two thousand and two,
29:24
Speaker 3: and that he continues to sort of be a very
29:27
Speaker 3: nice human being. He really does care about the homeless,
29:32
Speaker 3: He really does care about people who have less than him.
29:37
Speaker 3: And Tyrone's case, while it is an indictment of the
29:40
Speaker 3: criminal justice system, and it is an indictment of how
29:43
Speaker 3: minority is retreated in Boston in the nineteen seventies and
29:46
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties and even today, it's really more about the
29:50
Speaker 3: will to survive and the will to be a nice person,
29:52
Speaker 3: and so That's why I continue to work hard for
29:54
Speaker 3: him and care about him genuinely.
29:57
Speaker 2: I really appreciate being here doing this interview about my story,
30:03
Speaker 2: what happened to me, happened to the victim. I really
30:08
Speaker 2: appreciate what the victim did because I know that she
30:16
Speaker 2: didn't reach out to miss Thompson, and missus Thompson encouraged
30:21
Speaker 2: her to do what she did to come forward. I
30:26
Speaker 2: don't think that all this is what it came about.
30:30
Speaker 2: So I just want to say to the victim, even
30:32
Speaker 2: though I never met her, I just want her to
30:35
Speaker 2: know I'm so appreciated. I'm so happy that she came
30:41
Speaker 2: forward and helped me get out of prison. I probably
30:45
Speaker 2: wouldn't be here today. I know people had made bad
30:50
Speaker 2: comments after fifty years taken out of my life, but
30:55
Speaker 2: they don't really know really the circumstances behind really what
31:00
Speaker 2: happened in this case, and she was traumatized. So I
31:05
Speaker 2: just want the victim to know that I'm a man
31:07
Speaker 2: of God. I forgive her. I don't hate her. I
31:12
Speaker 2: hope man that her life is much much better. No,
31:17
Speaker 2: I want her to know that I'm okay, I'm strong,
31:20
Speaker 2: I'm healthy. She did enough for me by helping me
31:24
Speaker 2: get out of prison, which she did was right to
31:28
Speaker 2: tell the truth. I just wanted to know that I'm okay.
31:33
Speaker 2: I lost a lot, but I'm still here for a reason.
31:37
Speaker 2: She's still here for a reason. Everybody that lied back then,
31:42
Speaker 2: that testified back then on the Commonwealth side in this
31:48
Speaker 2: case is dead, So me and her is still here
31:52
Speaker 2: for a reason. I believe God saved her and saved me,
31:57
Speaker 2: and I believe that God touched her a hot man
32:02
Speaker 2: to come forward man and know and kept pull alive
32:06
Speaker 2: so I can be able man to walk out that prison.
32:09
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. So I just want to
32:10
Speaker 2: say to him, man, I appreciate you. Miss. I hope
32:13
Speaker 2: you listening, and don't be afraid to reach out to
32:16
Speaker 2: my attorney if you want to ever want to get
32:19
Speaker 2: a chance to meet me in pressing or speak to me.
32:29
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
32:32
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
32:34
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
32:37
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
32:40
Speaker 1: Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
32:43
Speaker 1: producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
32:47
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
32:50
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
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Speaker 1: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrong
32:56
Speaker 1: for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
32:59
Speaker 1: it's Jason Flat. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
33:02
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one