Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #421 Jason Flom with James Gibson

Transcript

#421 Jason Flom with James Gibson · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: On December twenty second, nineteen eighty nine, in the South
0:06
Speaker 1: Side of Chicago, a neighborhood insurance broker visited an auto
0:09
Speaker 1: repair shop owner to collect his premium, but to visit
0:12
Speaker 1: ended with both men fatally shot. Investigators allegedly received an
0:18
Speaker 1: anonymous tip that a man known as Peter Gunn and
0:20
Speaker 1: his brother may have been involved, which led investigators to
0:23
Speaker 1: a young man with that nickname, James Gibson and his
0:26
Speaker 1: brother Harold. But Harold had an insurmountable alibi where James
0:32
Speaker 1: did not. A lengthy interrogation produced a statement naming two
0:36
Speaker 1: other men, Eric Johnson and Fernando Webb, who were also
0:39
Speaker 1: brought in for questioning, producing two new statements indicating that
0:43
Speaker 1: James Gibson had hired Eric Johnson as a lookout for
0:46
Speaker 1: a robbery gone wrong. The courts must have thought that
0:50
Speaker 1: allegations of police brutality and coerce confessions were just vain
0:54
Speaker 1: attempts to get away with a double murder. But this
0:59
Speaker 1: is wrong for conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction where
1:14
Speaker 1: today we're going once again to Cook County, for he
1:18
Speaker 1: had another tragic encounter with John Burge and his midnight
1:23
Speaker 1: crew and their unique brand of evil. And although we
1:26
Speaker 1: obviously hate what our guests went through to be here,
1:29
Speaker 1: we're just absolutely honored to have him here with us.
1:32
Speaker 1: James Gibson, Welcome to the show. Thank you, And of
1:35
Speaker 1: course with him is a civil rights attorney from Action
1:39
Speaker 1: Injury Logroo ab out of Chicago, Andrew M. Stroth. Andrew,
1:43
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
1:44
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:45
Speaker 1: Now we've covered Midnight Crew cases before, Marcus Wiggins, Sean Tyler,
1:50
Speaker 1: Reggie Henderson, but they don't even begin to scratch the
1:53
Speaker 1: service of the depravity and pure evil that was taking
1:57
Speaker 1: place under the watch of Detective Commander John Burge, who
2:01
Speaker 1: had come off the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam and
2:04
Speaker 1: brought with him torture tactics to the streets of Chicago,
2:09
Speaker 1: and he was brutalizing suspects and witnesses alike from the
2:13
Speaker 1: early seventies through his termination in nineteen ninety three. But
2:17
Speaker 1: the torture didn't stop there. It continued on through his cohorts,
2:23
Speaker 1: detectives Foley Hallerin Palladino, Boudreau, O'Brien, Maslanka and many many
2:31
Speaker 1: others as well as they're enablers in the judiciary and
2:34
Speaker 1: the state's attorney's office, and when a crime occurred, they
2:38
Speaker 1: kidnapped black children and young men off the streets, seemingly random,
2:43
Speaker 1: without any rhyme or reason, and then they'd take him
2:45
Speaker 1: to this warehouse torture chamber where they'd beat, electrocute, starve them,
2:52
Speaker 1: suffocate them or worse until false statements again would send
2:57
Speaker 1: another innocent person to prison. Of course, the real perpetrator
3:01
Speaker 1: would get away with the crime. But James, before you
3:03
Speaker 1: had the misfortune of meeting these dirt bags. You grew
3:07
Speaker 1: up in Chicago, right, So what was your childhood like?
3:10
Speaker 2: I grew up in a house of silence. My mother
3:12
Speaker 2: was deaf and she did the best that she could
3:15
Speaker 2: with the decks that was dealt to her as I
3:17
Speaker 2: had to cap African American woman, single parent.
3:20
Speaker 1: And you were one of five siblings, right.
3:23
Speaker 2: Two of my siblings they passed away before I was born,
3:25
Speaker 2: So yes, it would be like five siblings just my
3:27
Speaker 2: mother's mediate kids.
3:28
Speaker 1: Yes, Wow, that must have been really tough on the family,
3:31
Speaker 1: losing two children, I mean one is hard, like impossible
3:36
Speaker 1: to get over. Too is too much? Now, what were
3:39
Speaker 1: you up to and the lead up to the time
3:41
Speaker 1: that this crime occurred.
3:43
Speaker 2: I graduated of high school with honors and later went
3:45
Speaker 2: on to Walie College in Marshall, Texas. I was young,
3:48
Speaker 2: dating a young lady. We had a baby on the way.
3:51
Speaker 2: She was in the military, and it was around the
3:53
Speaker 2: holiday season in nineteen eighty nine, and I was on
3:56
Speaker 2: a break, trying to get my finances together, trying to
3:59
Speaker 2: get my housing together and figure out my next move
4:03
Speaker 2: in life.
4:03
Speaker 1: Oh, so your girlfriend was in the military, as was
4:06
Speaker 1: your sister. So now you're back in Chicago with family,
4:09
Speaker 1: getting things ready for your new baby and the holidays.
4:12
Speaker 1: Now I want to turn to Andrew to get the
4:14
Speaker 1: facts of what happened here these two older gentlemen, as
4:17
Speaker 1: I understand it, Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash just around
4:20
Speaker 1: the block from James's childhood home at an autobody shop
4:24
Speaker 1: that I understand was mister WASH's place of business.
4:26
Speaker 3: You're right, mister Wash operated an automobile repair shop and garage.
4:32
Speaker 3: His nickname around the neighborhood was Smiley. And then Lloyd Benjamin,
4:36
Speaker 3: who everybody knew in the neighborhood, was called the insurance
4:41
Speaker 3: man because he sold insurance to the folks in the
4:45
Speaker 3: community and collected the premiums, and on December twenty second,
4:51
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine, he was in the area collecting premiums
4:55
Speaker 3: and Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash were murder.
5:00
Speaker 1: Right, fatally shot, and it's assumed that the assailant or
5:04
Speaker 1: assailants were after those premiums. However, nothing was reported to
5:09
Speaker 1: be taken from either victim. And then there's this extra
5:13
Speaker 1: added racial dynamic where mister Benjamin was a white guy
5:16
Speaker 1: murdered in a predominantly black area. Now, were there any witnesses, leads,
5:22
Speaker 1: anything at all.
5:23
Speaker 3: There's no witnesses that we believe with any credibility that
5:27
Speaker 3: came to the police and said they saw the actual murder,
5:32
Speaker 3: No affirmative DNA or other objective evidence.
5:37
Speaker 1: So not a lot to go on. But again, this
5:39
Speaker 1: was the Midnight Crew, where the pattern in practice was
5:42
Speaker 1: to write their own narratives and just coerce it's too
5:46
Speaker 1: nice for word, torture people into saying whatever lies they
5:50
Speaker 1: wrote down in order to close the case. So somehow
5:53
Speaker 1: or another, James's nickname Peter Gunn got thrown into the mix.
5:57
Speaker 2: But they said on a record today was anonymous off
6:00
Speaker 2: from a female who did not identify theyself, and then
6:03
Speaker 2: they said it was somebody on the street that had
6:04
Speaker 2: spread rumors that a god named Peter Gunn and his
6:07
Speaker 2: brother had did a crime. And so our detectives had
6:10
Speaker 2: entered in my mother's home in South Side Chicago and
6:13
Speaker 2: raided the house and arrested my brother, my eldest brother,
6:17
Speaker 2: Harold Gibson, and several other guys in the neighborhood.
6:20
Speaker 1: So, according to the Midnight Crew, a nameless, faceless source
6:24
Speaker 1: and quote unquote word on the street is what led
6:28
Speaker 1: them to you and your brother Harold, in addition to
6:31
Speaker 1: two other guys, Eric Johnson and Fernando Webb. So when
6:35
Speaker 1: and how did you end up in this nightmare?
6:38
Speaker 2: I got contacted and so I headed back to my
6:40
Speaker 2: mother's home. Once I entered into her home, I noticed
6:44
Speaker 2: that my great grandmother at the time, was on the
6:45
Speaker 2: floor and the house was in dis ray. Keep in
6:48
Speaker 2: mind that my mother cannot hear, so my mother was
6:51
Speaker 2: trying to explain or talk the best she could and
6:53
Speaker 2: languagees she had. She points over towards a card. The
6:57
Speaker 2: card had on it phone numbers and thenify his detectives o'
7:01
Speaker 2: myers and Collins. When I called a number on the card.
7:05
Speaker 2: At first I thought it was John Burgess, but it
7:07
Speaker 2: was Sods and Burn. I get those names kind of
7:10
Speaker 2: confused sometimes because I never encountered these people until this moment.
7:14
Speaker 2: And they transferred me to whatever they did how they
7:16
Speaker 2: did it back then. And they was talking back and forth,
7:18
Speaker 2: and I get a knock at the door my mother's house.
7:21
Speaker 2: When I opened the door, the door was flooded with
7:23
Speaker 2: guns and officers, you know what I'm saying. And so
7:26
Speaker 2: they came in and they asked me a few questions.
7:29
Speaker 2: I identified myself. They asked me about my nickname, Peter gun.
7:33
Speaker 2: I said, yes, my name is Peter Gunn. You know
7:34
Speaker 2: my nickname is Peter gun. They said, come with us,
7:36
Speaker 2: and they took me to this place on California, somewhere
7:40
Speaker 2: in Chicago, and they put me in the room. I
7:42
Speaker 2: later learned that it was called Area three, Era three
7:45
Speaker 2: a homicide.
7:46
Speaker 3: James and his brother were taken into custody and beaten.
7:50
Speaker 3: He was kicked, he was slapped by these officers, John
7:54
Speaker 3: Burge and the Midnight Crew. He was held overnight. He
7:57
Speaker 3: was handcuffed to a chair, not able to sleep, not
8:00
Speaker 3: giving any food or drink, nor was he even.
8:03
Speaker 2: Allowed to use the washroom.
8:05
Speaker 3: James was then put into three different lineups by officers
8:10
Speaker 3: O'Mara Collins, Maslanka Palladino, and McCann and he was not
8:16
Speaker 3: identified in any of these lineups.
8:19
Speaker 1: Right, and it's not hard to imagine that that happened
8:22
Speaker 1: even with the most suggestive tactics at the midnight cou
8:25
Speaker 1: could muster.
8:26
Speaker 2: It was ninet eight hours. They had me in these rooms,
8:28
Speaker 2: different rooms, and custody beating on me and slapping on
8:31
Speaker 2: me and broke my ribs, burnt me and played all
8:34
Speaker 2: in my balls and slapped me around and all that.
8:37
Speaker 2: But I had been knocked out a few times. I
8:39
Speaker 2: didn't realize that it had been four days, ninety eight
8:42
Speaker 2: hours that I had been beat on and towuched and
8:44
Speaker 2: all this other stuff.
8:45
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, if we can go to like a split screen here,
8:48
Speaker 1: you're getting moved from room to room beaten. And your
8:51
Speaker 1: sister and her husband were just arriving in town from
8:54
Speaker 1: the military at Midway Airport.
8:56
Speaker 2: My sister she was doing a transfer from Washington d
9:00
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure she's going to career journey. But
9:03
Speaker 2: it was ten hours or twelve hour layover before she
9:06
Speaker 2: leaded country, and so by my mother, living a few
9:08
Speaker 2: blocks from airports, she came in and found out that
9:11
Speaker 2: both of her brothers was in custody.
9:13
Speaker 1: But your brother, Harold had such an air tight, convincing
9:17
Speaker 1: and provable alibi that they had no choice but to
9:21
Speaker 1: eventually drop the charges against him. However, it seems they
9:25
Speaker 1: found your alibi to be penetrable enough to continue on
9:30
Speaker 1: with this horrible frame job. And meanwhile, unbeknownst to you,
9:35
Speaker 1: your sister and her husband were on their way to
9:38
Speaker 1: Area three in full uniform. So then what happened?
9:41
Speaker 2: They had taken me into a room. It was two
9:43
Speaker 2: States attorney one I was a female, the other male,
9:46
Speaker 2: and the two detectives Foley fol e Y and another
9:50
Speaker 2: guy not quite sure.
9:52
Speaker 1: And our audience will remember detective Foley from the awful
9:56
Speaker 1: case of Sean Tyler and Reggie Henderson. So what happened
10:00
Speaker 1: in this room?
10:01
Speaker 2: To stop the beatings, in the torture, after being burned
10:04
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, I agreed to make a statement.
10:07
Speaker 2: And so they was preparing the statement. They said, we're
10:09
Speaker 2: going we want you to put your initiues jag on
10:13
Speaker 2: each sentence that we complete, and then we're gonna turn
10:15
Speaker 2: it into the state's attorney to stop this ass whooping.
10:18
Speaker 2: So at the ninety eighth hour, they going over prepping
10:21
Speaker 2: me with the statement to sign. The door bust open
10:24
Speaker 2: and with sodge and burned. He busted into the room
10:27
Speaker 2: and he whispered something to the state's attorney leers that
10:30
Speaker 2: this nigga got the military downstairs, and they asked a
10:33
Speaker 2: lot of questions. There was my sister and a husband
10:36
Speaker 2: with their uniforms on, and I later found out that
10:39
Speaker 2: they was talking to John Burds at the time, and
10:41
Speaker 2: so man Alaska and Panadeno, I think that's the name
10:44
Speaker 2: that if I promound them right that came in. She
10:46
Speaker 2: told him get his ass out of here and take
10:49
Speaker 2: him down the other way and get him out of here,
10:50
Speaker 2: and boomlegs for me find to sign the double murdered
10:53
Speaker 2: confessions to stop the beating to snatching my ass up
10:56
Speaker 2: and running me down the back stepth and throwing me
10:59
Speaker 2: in the backseat of a car.
11:00
Speaker 1: Which doesn't really sound like standard operating procedure for a
11:04
Speaker 1: suspect and a double murder. Right, had as much sarcasm
11:07
Speaker 1: to that as you possibly can, because I hope it
11:09
Speaker 1: was dripping with it, and then I understand they just
11:13
Speaker 1: took you home that.
11:15
Speaker 2: They was like, we're gonna drop you off, so and
11:16
Speaker 2: I told them it would take me in an alley, man,
11:18
Speaker 2: drop me off in the back. I don't want no
11:20
Speaker 2: motherfucker seeing me with y'all man, y'all be in and
11:22
Speaker 2: there beating on me and shit. And now you're gonna
11:24
Speaker 2: drop me off in front of my house, like y'all
11:25
Speaker 2: my friend and shit, they might think I'm telling something.
11:27
Speaker 2: So they dropped me off in the back of the house.
11:29
Speaker 2: And as I was coming in the side dope at
11:31
Speaker 2: my mother's house, my sister's coming in the front dough
11:35
Speaker 2: and all of the kids in them. They read to
11:36
Speaker 2: try to embrace me, but I had injuries I didn't
11:39
Speaker 2: know I had on my body. So when they went
11:41
Speaker 2: to grab me out, I broke down and my sister's like,
11:45
Speaker 2: what's going on? Is wrong with you? And so that's
11:47
Speaker 2: when me and my sister had a conversation about many
11:50
Speaker 2: this is what they did to me, And so she
11:52
Speaker 2: before I know it, she grabbed the phone and started
11:54
Speaker 2: calling some military people and stuff, and they gave her
11:56
Speaker 2: a phone number. The call she ended up calling down
11:58
Speaker 2: into ops.
11:59
Speaker 1: And OPS stands for Office of Professional Standards, which was
12:03
Speaker 1: founded in the nineteen seventies to carry out independent investigations
12:06
Speaker 1: of mounting allegations of police brutality.
12:09
Speaker 2: I didn't notice at that time you can call the police.
12:12
Speaker 2: On the police. My sister was like, man, they did this,
12:14
Speaker 2: it's a gainst the law. I'm locking the ass up.
12:16
Speaker 2: OPS ended up getting in the phone car. His name
12:19
Speaker 2: was Ortiz or something like that. I say, man, they
12:21
Speaker 2: beat my head of it. They say, man, can you identify?
12:23
Speaker 2: I tell him on the name on the card, and
12:24
Speaker 2: that what happened? Say, man, hold On almost sent a
12:26
Speaker 2: cop to get.
12:27
Speaker 1: You tomorrow, but as I understand it, there was another
12:30
Speaker 1: car coming for you that night. It turns out that
12:33
Speaker 1: the Midnight crew had also been working on Fernando Webb
12:35
Speaker 1: and Eric Johnson, who had probably been made aware of
12:38
Speaker 1: your alleged statement. What was in that statement.
12:42
Speaker 2: The contest of the false statement after the ninety eight
12:44
Speaker 2: hours a torture me and beat me and burning me
12:46
Speaker 2: was that I was outside of the garage and seeing
12:49
Speaker 2: Eric Johnson hand the gun to Bodine which is Falander
12:52
Speaker 2: Web and committed the crime.
12:54
Speaker 1: So the statement placed you as a witness even though
12:57
Speaker 1: you hadn't seen anything, and it looked like Webb was
13:00
Speaker 1: actually their target, at least at the time that you
13:03
Speaker 1: gave your statement.
13:04
Speaker 3: It's our perspective, based on the evidence that we reviewed,
13:08
Speaker 3: that Fernando Webb, who was a heroin addict, had a
13:12
Speaker 3: history of weapon offenses, a history of armed robberies, attempted murder,
13:16
Speaker 3: and other violent crimes, was the person that committed this
13:21
Speaker 3: double murder.
13:22
Speaker 1: And as we so often see, somebody who's in a
13:25
Speaker 1: position like Web was maybe tempted to trade false information
13:29
Speaker 1: for leniency or even freedom. So what did his statement say?
13:33
Speaker 2: That he was shooting heron and he was walking his
13:36
Speaker 2: dog to go get him another fix a heron and
13:39
Speaker 2: that he walked up to a guy with a gun
13:41
Speaker 2: in his hand and he asked this guy with the
13:44
Speaker 2: gun in his hand, man, what's up? And then he
13:46
Speaker 2: got three blocks away in her gun shots? Did they
13:49
Speaker 2: turn out identified the guy that he asked, what's up
13:51
Speaker 2: with the gun in his hands? Peter Gun?
13:54
Speaker 1: And it's unclear when this statement was made. Perhaps Webb
13:57
Speaker 1: was even the original source of your nickname. Either way,
14:00
Speaker 1: his false statement made James the shooter and completely removed
14:04
Speaker 1: Web from culpability. No mention of Eric Johnson, by the way,
14:08
Speaker 1: So what was in his statement?
14:10
Speaker 3: Johnson made a statement to police that James Gibson told
14:16
Speaker 3: him about his plans to rob Lloyd Benjamin, and that
14:19
Speaker 3: James paid him fifty dollars to be on the lookout.
14:24
Speaker 3: Johnson also said he saw James shoot and kill Benjamin.
14:30
Speaker 3: This statement was false also because Johnson was tortured, threatened,
14:34
Speaker 3: and beaten by Officer McCann, Caesar Bresca, Rusnick, Maslanka Palladino, and.
14:38
Speaker 1: Burn Right, so obviously unreliable. But this false statement made
14:43
Speaker 1: James the shooter once again, while keeping Johnson closely involved
14:47
Speaker 1: enough to identify him.
14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said this the cats though, just the cats.
14:51
Speaker 2: I want you to get this, he said. I paid
14:54
Speaker 2: him to wats me to do a stick up because
14:58
Speaker 2: I needed money to fix one of my disc able vehicles.
15:01
Speaker 1: Right, if you needed to rob for that money, how
15:04
Speaker 1: could you have paid him anything? It makes no sense. Plus,
15:09
Speaker 1: nothing had been reported as taken from the victims. But
15:11
Speaker 1: now they had two statements saying that you were the
15:13
Speaker 1: shooter and Eric Johnson had allegedly named himself as your
15:17
Speaker 1: accomplice and eventually Johnson's sisters, Carlos Smith and Janis Johnson
15:21
Speaker 1: were dragged into this as well, so the midnight creup
15:24
Speaker 1: came back to get you before ops could.
15:26
Speaker 2: They came back and rearrested me a couple hours later,
15:29
Speaker 2: once the complaints was fouled. When they came back and
15:31
Speaker 2: got me the second time, they took me up to
15:34
Speaker 2: another place on the third floor and they put me
15:37
Speaker 2: in like a cage set in the middle of all
15:39
Speaker 2: of their desses. And then I've seen them bringing in
15:42
Speaker 2: Colin Smith and Janis Johnson and all the other stuff.
15:44
Speaker 3: The officers used intimidation and lies in order to get
15:49
Speaker 3: these two sisters to corroborate the story that Gibson killed
15:55
Speaker 3: mister Benjamin and mister Wash And what the officers told
15:57
Speaker 3: them based on what we know, is that they would
16:00
Speaker 3: be light on their brother if they went along with
16:03
Speaker 3: the story.
16:04
Speaker 2: Janis Johnson said, I broke into the house and start
16:07
Speaker 2: immediately sharing a robbery playing with our whole family.
16:12
Speaker 3: So no witnesses from our perspective had any credibility, And.
16:16
Speaker 2: Then ended up at the county jail in front of
16:18
Speaker 2: the judge basket on the chief judge. They told me
16:21
Speaker 2: you get out front of judge. Man, keep your motherfucking
16:23
Speaker 2: hands behind your back. So when I went out in
16:25
Speaker 2: front of the judge, I put my hands behind my
16:28
Speaker 2: back and my left bridcase popped out of my chest.
16:32
Speaker 2: When it popped out of my chest, I fell down
16:34
Speaker 2: to the ground. Chef Judge basted on. He looked over
16:37
Speaker 2: the bench and he said, what's going on? And out
16:39
Speaker 2: of anger, I said, the motherfuckers they kicked me in
16:41
Speaker 2: my chest, saithing wrong on my chest. I can't breathe
16:44
Speaker 2: like what? And then the chief Judge turned over to
16:46
Speaker 2: the bailiff the police. He said, where y'all just bring
16:49
Speaker 2: it from? And then the turn he said, I bought
16:51
Speaker 2: every three brought to me. He said what every three?
16:53
Speaker 2: He told turn get the police, closed the door, lock
16:56
Speaker 2: all the dopes and told the public finers, bring them
16:58
Speaker 2: back in the back to my chamber. So when I
17:00
Speaker 2: got back to the back of the chamber, there was
17:02
Speaker 2: a lot of motions and arguing and shit going back
17:05
Speaker 2: with the chief Judge and the public defending. The state's
17:07
Speaker 2: attorney telling man, get your supervisor in and you get
17:10
Speaker 2: your order, and you get a photography and and you
17:12
Speaker 2: get them people to bring them in here and having
17:14
Speaker 2: me shipped to Sirmac Hospital, et cetera.
17:18
Speaker 1: Wow, So the abuse was actually going to be documented.
17:22
Speaker 1: It seems like this judge Bastone might have actually been
17:25
Speaker 1: a decent person.
17:27
Speaker 2: I mean, if you say a decent person, uh.
17:30
Speaker 1: I mean decency seems really hard to come by in
17:33
Speaker 1: a story like yours.
17:34
Speaker 2: Does bast don't save my life?
17:36
Speaker 1: Man?
17:36
Speaker 2: I'm different and different him recording and taking those photographs
17:41
Speaker 2: of those injuries because they tried to destroy them, and
17:44
Speaker 2: discovery he kept a copy if you want for us.
17:47
Speaker 2: Bast don't having the courage the order to sign all
17:50
Speaker 2: the photographs with his BADS number his next the photos
18:06
Speaker 2: wasn't revealed. From nineteen eighty nine to twenty fifteen, every
18:09
Speaker 2: time I went in front of the judge, I was
18:11
Speaker 2: actually my defense attorney about the police reports, the photographs,
18:15
Speaker 2: the statements, the evidence, and he was telling me there
18:18
Speaker 2: was no evidence, there was no statement, there was no
18:20
Speaker 2: none of that.
18:21
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, your trial was not going to be held
18:23
Speaker 1: in front of Judge bass Stone, but instead a judge
18:26
Speaker 1: named Nevills. So one can surmise that the photographic proof
18:30
Speaker 1: of this brutality was now being hidden. But your public
18:34
Speaker 1: defender Paul Stroker, he didn't raise the issue.
18:37
Speaker 2: No, no, my public offender was in on the fix,
18:40
Speaker 2: as well as the judge, Neviles, and the state's attorney
18:43
Speaker 2: and all the rest of them. But we got into
18:44
Speaker 2: a dialogue about the pictures and the photos with the
18:47
Speaker 2: judge and the trial to Spain, well, no, I'm not
18:48
Speaker 2: the judge that would die there, etcetera, etcetera. And what
18:51
Speaker 2: pictures you talk about and they never came into the trial.
18:54
Speaker 1: I mean, your lawyer, you think he'd reach out to
18:56
Speaker 1: Judge bass Stone, but that's just not what happened. And you, James,
19:00
Speaker 1: most of our guests wait until after they're convicted to
19:03
Speaker 1: learn the law, but you started in pre trial.
19:06
Speaker 2: All the motions that was filed before trial and after trial,
19:09
Speaker 2: and in trial, they was all motions that I found
19:11
Speaker 2: pro saye. Every time I went in front of the judge,
19:14
Speaker 2: I would Backdome, my lawyer, because we would have conversations
19:17
Speaker 2: before we go in front of the judge about certain
19:19
Speaker 2: issues and he would tell me from bullshit, and then
19:21
Speaker 2: we get out front of the judge. I would put
19:23
Speaker 2: him on the front street and then the judge would
19:25
Speaker 2: try to tell me some stuff, and then the state's
19:27
Speaker 2: attorney tried to tempts up, but I had motions already
19:29
Speaker 2: prepared to file on myself. But because I wasn't skilled
19:33
Speaker 2: in the expertise and criminal science of law at that time,
19:36
Speaker 2: I was trying to perfect and bring in my issues
19:38
Speaker 2: as best I could.
19:40
Speaker 1: But obviously you weren't going to be skilled enough yet
19:42
Speaker 1: for the monster that you were trying to do battle with.
19:46
Speaker 1: Right it was David versus Goliath for what we were
19:49
Speaker 1: up against.
19:49
Speaker 2: So I ended up having a conversation with attorney Timothy Nash,
19:53
Speaker 2: which was a paid attorney for Eric Johnson, to try
19:55
Speaker 2: to preserve some of those issues, and we ended up
19:58
Speaker 2: having the motion hearing watch the rest is press to
20:01
Speaker 2: Evanson's statement separately but together.
20:03
Speaker 1: Meaning that both you and Eric Johnson had both been
20:06
Speaker 1: severely beaten, that the statements were therefore clearly unreliable and
20:10
Speaker 1: should have been thrown out immediately, all while your lawyer was,
20:15
Speaker 1: I don't know, taking a nap.
20:16
Speaker 2: And so what they did was they brought in all
20:18
Speaker 2: these declarated officers with their bags and their uniform zone
20:22
Speaker 2: and they puaded them in one by one to get
20:24
Speaker 2: on the stand and say these guys aligned and we
20:26
Speaker 2: never did a Y and Z, and so they denied
20:29
Speaker 2: Eric Johnson motion as being tortured, and they denied my motion, etc.
20:33
Speaker 2: Then they split up the trial and rude that it
20:35
Speaker 2: was antagonized defense because Eric Johnson never testified against me
20:39
Speaker 2: at trial.
20:40
Speaker 1: All made possible by the ineffective assistance of your own lawyer,
20:44
Speaker 1: whose strategy, from what I understand, was that since your statement,
20:48
Speaker 1: although false, wasn't incumplatory to you, but only the Eric Johnson,
20:52
Speaker 1: he wasn't trying to contest it, but you were morally
20:55
Speaker 1: bound to not falsely accuse Eric Johnson as well as
20:59
Speaker 1: exposed with these officers were doing so much good it
21:02
Speaker 1: did at the time. Now, you took a bench trial, right,
21:05
Speaker 1: So that was your attorney's idea. Huh.
21:08
Speaker 2: It was something that my attorney had convinced me, he said,
21:11
Speaker 2: Man did he said, and they said, a white man
21:12
Speaker 2: got killed. Man. Do you take a jury trial? Man?
21:14
Speaker 2: They gonna put your ass on death roll? Man, He say, Man,
21:17
Speaker 2: take a bitch trial, man, you can beat this man.
21:18
Speaker 2: He tried to convince me that judge never was a
21:21
Speaker 2: law judge and that there was no physical, scientific evidence
21:24
Speaker 2: to connect me to the case. There was no DNA,
21:26
Speaker 2: firemans and no murder weapon, et cetera, et cetera, no statement,
21:29
Speaker 2: and none of that stuff. And so it was like
21:31
Speaker 2: inlihood that once I tell the judge I'm not gonna
21:33
Speaker 2: take a jury trial, he gonna throw the case out. Well,
21:35
Speaker 2: just the catch, if I took a jury trial, the
21:38
Speaker 2: judge would throw the case out right there, because there
21:40
Speaker 2: would have been none to take to the jury to deliberate.
21:43
Speaker 3: Emotion to suppress would have been filed, and the evidence
21:46
Speaker 3: would have never made it into trial.
21:47
Speaker 2: But I was so confused, cause my lawyer tell me, man,
21:49
Speaker 2: take a bitch trial. A white boy got killed and
21:51
Speaker 2: all that shit. Boy, you're gonna go to death row.
21:53
Speaker 2: I got scared in that moment, and I fumbled the
21:55
Speaker 2: ball and took a bench trial.
21:56
Speaker 1: And your trial began on October seventh, nineteen and even
22:01
Speaker 1: though Eric Johnson refused to testify, it didn't matter. His
22:04
Speaker 1: statement implicating you was read into the record. In addition,
22:08
Speaker 1: despite Eric Johnson's refusal, the state was still able to
22:11
Speaker 1: get his sisters, Carla Smith and Janis Johnson to testify
22:15
Speaker 1: that you had told them that you were going to
22:17
Speaker 1: stick up the insurance man to get money to fix
22:19
Speaker 1: your car.
22:20
Speaker 2: They told me, if y'all will continue to lie and
22:22
Speaker 2: say what y'all said against Dad Giffin, we'd lock in
22:24
Speaker 2: y'all last up for obstructing to Justin Perdon. So once
22:26
Speaker 2: they started lying, they had to keep lying. But all
22:28
Speaker 2: the time Kyla not never had been over to her house.
22:31
Speaker 2: Janis Johnson at the time that she said I was
22:34
Speaker 2: on the back of her house. She had punched it.
22:36
Speaker 2: She was at work.
22:37
Speaker 1: And then they brought in Fernando Webb, who was at
22:40
Speaker 1: that time serving a sentence for armed robbery in another case,
22:44
Speaker 1: and admitted that the prosecution had promised to free him
22:47
Speaker 1: in exchange for his testimony.
22:48
Speaker 3: These statements given by Eric Johnson, Fernando Webb, Carla, and
22:54
Speaker 3: Janis were procured by torture, by intimidation, lies and false promise,
23:00
Speaker 3: says buy the Chicago police.
23:02
Speaker 1: And let's not forget about James's own alleged statement, which
23:06
Speaker 1: was not inculpatory. I mean, essentially it's a false witness
23:09
Speaker 1: statement implicating Eric Johnson. So in a last ditch effort
23:12
Speaker 1: to seal the deal, the state presented an officer named Moser.
23:16
Speaker 2: The States brought in officer Mosa to testify to a
23:19
Speaker 2: statement that I Leslie made to him. But then I objected,
23:23
Speaker 2: and the judge say, wait, you objective for I say,
23:25
Speaker 2: because my lawyer ain't objected. Objection on He say, well,
23:27
Speaker 2: what we objective? I say, because the State's goin to
23:29
Speaker 2: bring out officer to testify AFT something they ain't got
23:32
Speaker 2: no record of it. But now we're in the middle
23:33
Speaker 2: of trial and you want to bring in a statement
23:34
Speaker 2: from the office. Before we went to trial, we tried
23:36
Speaker 2: to challenge these issues, but you want to let us
23:38
Speaker 2: challenge it. My lawyer and filed me most of the chalices,
23:41
Speaker 2: so just hold it. Wait, man, we're in the middle
23:42
Speaker 2: of trial and you're gonna file most of the limited
23:44
Speaker 2: to exclude the off test to the judge rule that
23:47
Speaker 2: since I ain't never heard and nobody never challenged it,
23:49
Speaker 2: I can't deal with it in a vacuum. So I'm
23:51
Speaker 2: gonna have to hear what they say, and then I
23:53
Speaker 2: determined if I'll allowed it in or not after I
23:54
Speaker 2: hear what it's saying.
23:55
Speaker 1: So even though the original statement that they beat out
23:58
Speaker 1: of you and tortured out of you was exculed, Platoria
24:00
Speaker 1: Chicago PD produced one more false statement, the word of
24:03
Speaker 1: this officer, no record of it in which you allegedly
24:07
Speaker 1: incriminated yourself. Wow.
24:10
Speaker 2: Just Nevers said on record, he said he didn't believe
24:13
Speaker 2: that Filander were was telling the truth, that Janet Johnson
24:16
Speaker 2: was telling the truth, the color whatever name is with
24:19
Speaker 2: tending the truth, or even Air Johnson. That he didn't
24:22
Speaker 2: believe no testimony or nobody other than that statement they
24:26
Speaker 2: said that Leslie made. And without that statement, he couldn't
24:30
Speaker 2: find me guilty. But he had to find me guilty
24:32
Speaker 2: because the police said I made that statement. He find
24:34
Speaker 2: the police credible and gave me natural life. I've been
24:50
Speaker 2: educating myself from the criminal law for thirty four years.
24:53
Speaker 2: I know everybody. I've worked on all the cases in
24:57
Speaker 2: Stateville Panakamna. I was the warden's port. I used to
25:01
Speaker 2: have to control in the run of the whole prison,
25:03
Speaker 2: so I was able to file and maneuver for everybody.
25:07
Speaker 2: And then when I was in the waters port, I
25:09
Speaker 2: was the groundskeepers where the helicopters come in and all that.
25:11
Speaker 2: When I wasn't that, I was the officer's kits and
25:13
Speaker 2: worker cooked for the people. And then I was accounting,
25:17
Speaker 2: so I had assets that other inmates couldn't have. I
25:20
Speaker 2: had been fileding motions for Black's, vif's, Puerto Ricans, bdzones
25:24
Speaker 2: vice laws.
25:25
Speaker 3: James knows more about the law than ninety percent of
25:28
Speaker 3: the lawyers that I know, and stayed safe in four
25:32
Speaker 3: max prisons back then huge gang populations. You weren't safe
25:37
Speaker 3: in those prisons. James was able to navigate those prisons
25:41
Speaker 3: for one reason. Even though he feared for his life
25:45
Speaker 3: every day, he was a legal resource. He worked with
25:48
Speaker 3: the different factions in the prison, and that made him
25:52
Speaker 3: a protected person. He didn't see the Michael Jordan years,
25:55
Speaker 3: he didn't see the Oprah win for years. He didn't
25:58
Speaker 3: see the election of Barack Obama. James Gibson spent his
26:03
Speaker 3: time in the law library. Not only did James handle
26:07
Speaker 3: his own appeals, James has helped hundreds of inmates in
26:13
Speaker 3: Illinois and outside of Illinois with their cases.
26:16
Speaker 2: I had been filed in motions for other guys, and
26:19
Speaker 2: I started to come to understand that this is a
26:21
Speaker 2: powder of the practice. I'm not the only one.
26:23
Speaker 1: So with your knowledge of the law being such an
26:25
Speaker 1: asset to everyone, you got to see kind of a
26:27
Speaker 1: bird's eye view of the system, at least in Illinois,
26:30
Speaker 1: while still keeping your eye on the prize in your
26:32
Speaker 1: own case, Andrew, can you give us a bit of
26:34
Speaker 1: a rundown on his appellate history.
26:36
Speaker 3: He did file a timely appeal from the verdict. His
26:39
Speaker 3: conviction was then affirmed by the appellate court, then denied
26:43
Speaker 3: leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, as well
26:48
Speaker 3: as petition of cerciority to the United States Supreme Court.
26:52
Speaker 3: Later in court, as a jailhouse lawyer, filed several post
26:56
Speaker 3: conviction petitions and a habeas corpus petition, all of which were.
27:02
Speaker 1: Denied, which is obviously maddening considering all of the issues
27:06
Speaker 1: we've raised. But in addition to his legal and social maneuvering,
27:10
Speaker 1: James started a media campaign.
27:12
Speaker 2: I was doing satellite radio from prison. I had wrote
27:15
Speaker 2: ten thousand letters to the nation, and I had got
27:17
Speaker 2: some momentum after Hugh Heffrom, the Great Hugh Heffrom the
27:20
Speaker 2: Playboy magazine. They had did a story about us in
27:22
Speaker 2: area too, and I had got a story ran with
27:24
Speaker 2: Stevie j and Benzino at Hip Hop Weekly, and so
27:27
Speaker 2: it started catching momentum. Once I wrote to the United
27:30
Speaker 2: Nations and the United Nations responded, people started talking about
27:33
Speaker 2: it all over the world. They formed into law the
27:35
Speaker 2: Illinois Torture Relief Commission.
27:37
Speaker 3: And this was an investigation around credible evidence related to
27:42
Speaker 3: the allegations against John Burge and the Midnight Crew, and
27:45
Speaker 3: they basically knew a lot of individuals black men were tortured, beaten,
27:51
Speaker 3: made to confess the crimes they didn't commit.
27:54
Speaker 2: And when they voted on the general symboli and the
27:56
Speaker 2: letistations on the floor, they mentioned the James Gifton case
27:59
Speaker 2: as the poet with the child for why we need
28:01
Speaker 2: to go and investigate all these other cases.
28:03
Speaker 1: So when you finally got around to review, what did
28:06
Speaker 1: the commission find?
28:07
Speaker 2: The initial summary was that they found that I had
28:10
Speaker 2: been tortured and collaborated and sustained and substatinate those allegations.
28:14
Speaker 3: And so James was given the opportunity by the Torture
28:18
Speaker 3: Commission to have his case reviewed by the Circuit Court
28:23
Speaker 3: of Cook County for what's called judicial review. And basically
28:27
Speaker 3: James submitted forty six exhibits and over nine hundred and
28:31
Speaker 3: fifty pages in support of his case. So he went
28:34
Speaker 3: through that whole process which ultimately led to the judge
28:39
Speaker 3: granting his Turk evidentiary hearing.
28:42
Speaker 2: And then I found with the Torture Relief Commission saying
28:45
Speaker 2: that man for decade, the CI Chicago, the governor, the mayor,
28:50
Speaker 2: the state's attorney, the lawyers, the judges, the hospital, all
28:55
Speaker 2: of them is paterck practice. They've been denying us basic
28:58
Speaker 2: rights to do process the law. I don't want no money.
29:01
Speaker 2: I just want my dead court, as a citizen of
29:04
Speaker 2: the United States, to approve a Y and Z once
29:07
Speaker 2: and all.
29:08
Speaker 1: So what did you present? I mean, back in nineteen
29:11
Speaker 1: ninety one, the court had taken this officer Moser's word
29:14
Speaker 1: for it and set on record that all of the
29:15
Speaker 1: other evidence was not credible. Then every appellate court had
29:19
Speaker 1: upheld this conviction. So what finally turned the tide.
29:24
Speaker 2: Well, what laid back to getting back in course was
29:26
Speaker 2: John Burdens had called me in nineteen ninety in the
29:28
Speaker 2: county jail after the complaints was fouled, and John Burgess
29:31
Speaker 2: thought that he had intercepted and destroyed all of the communications.
29:36
Speaker 2: So he was calling me to rub it in my
29:38
Speaker 2: face and tell me, yeah, nigga, you ain't never getting
29:40
Speaker 2: out of jail. No, complaints you fouled, nigga. Ain't no
29:42
Speaker 2: motherfucker gonna believe that shit. I'm the commander. That shit
29:44
Speaker 2: gone and you have a nice life, you lucky, and
29:46
Speaker 2: get your asster death penny by, and he hung the
29:49
Speaker 2: phone up. But he didn't know that one of the
29:51
Speaker 2: motherfucker's ris complaints had got out in the mill. Ortiz
29:53
Speaker 2: gave me that reference number. He mailed to fifty seven
29:56
Speaker 2: thirty four South five and d to my mother's house.
29:59
Speaker 2: Do you know what did? She put the letters in
30:01
Speaker 2: a briefcase because she could identified and they found the
30:04
Speaker 2: briefcase with the original complaints twenty some years later.
30:08
Speaker 1: So birds thought he had destroyed all other copies and
30:11
Speaker 1: evidence of your torture before calling you in jail to
30:13
Speaker 1: kind of dunk on you and shove it in your face.
30:16
Speaker 2: Bitch ass nigga, that's what he did. He said, Now
30:18
Speaker 2: you're gonna try to take me down, bitch. I run
30:21
Speaker 2: the hospital. He had got the photographs, he had got discovery,
30:24
Speaker 2: he had got to the drugs, he got to the
30:26
Speaker 2: States Attorney, got to the lawyers. But that one letter,
30:29
Speaker 2: it made it out.
30:30
Speaker 1: So wait, how did you manage to prove that this
30:33
Speaker 1: phone call took place when.
30:34
Speaker 2: I was going through my investigation. I told him about
30:36
Speaker 2: the conversation. They told me we had the ability to
30:38
Speaker 2: go back and get any phone call that came for
30:41
Speaker 2: a messipality or a city official or a federal facility
30:45
Speaker 2: for the last one hundred years. And I said what
30:48
Speaker 2: I said, Well, that's a beautiful thing, and check it out.
30:50
Speaker 2: He didn't call from his department. He went into the
30:53
Speaker 2: OPS department to make that call. And that's what he
30:56
Speaker 2: failed to realize as as smart ass didn't know that
30:59
Speaker 2: he made the phone call ready, he made it from
31:00
Speaker 2: his office or enough office. He made it inside this building,
31:03
Speaker 2: and they're not going to destroy that call. I didn't
31:06
Speaker 2: know all that. So they actually went back and got
31:08
Speaker 2: the original call once I told him around the date
31:11
Speaker 2: and month didn't happen. They told me that slick shit out.
31:14
Speaker 2: They might. Yeah, they thought they had me.
31:16
Speaker 3: Then they thought James was lying when he talked about
31:19
Speaker 3: the call from John Burge, and they went back and
31:22
Speaker 3: checked the records and saw that that call was placed
31:26
Speaker 3: and mister Gibson was being truthful.
31:28
Speaker 1: So they're finally starting to come around. There was proof
31:31
Speaker 1: of the complaint to OPS as well. As the phone
31:34
Speaker 1: call from Birge. What about Judge Bastone's photographs that never
31:38
Speaker 1: made it to trial?
31:39
Speaker 2: Thank god for best One. He had kept a copy
31:41
Speaker 2: and sign it and he had his archives as working
31:44
Speaker 2: shit right on top of him filing the proper paperwork,
31:47
Speaker 2: and they massed the signatures in his bass no more
31:49
Speaker 2: on each one of the photographs. And that then they
31:51
Speaker 2: was like what the hell is going on?
31:54
Speaker 1: You know?
31:54
Speaker 2: They on the other side, they're like, this kid is
31:56
Speaker 2: really telling the truth. And that's when I started founding
31:59
Speaker 2: out about hospital. Right for twenty five years, Sir mac hospital,
32:02
Speaker 2: it was writing me back, Talbot, somebody misplaced your fil
32:05
Speaker 2: somebody changed your file, somebody took this out through file.
32:08
Speaker 2: They was writing me back with their smart self, telling
32:11
Speaker 2: me in folds. For twenty years, I kept all that shit,
32:14
Speaker 2: and I finally presented all my evidence to the court.
32:17
Speaker 2: Of course they man, oh my god, they said, oh,
32:19
Speaker 2: we ain't got to hit no move.
32:20
Speaker 1: So Burges's medieval torture tactics had finally been exposed. But
32:26
Speaker 1: what about all of his lackeys? Did they get dragged
32:29
Speaker 1: in front of the Torture Relief Commission?
32:31
Speaker 2: Is you reading in the summary report of the TRC.
32:33
Speaker 2: The officers when they was asked about it, they threw
32:36
Speaker 2: John Burdens under the bus and signed off. They told
32:38
Speaker 2: Don Burdens said, told to do a.
32:40
Speaker 1: Y and Z. So they admitted it. And then you
32:42
Speaker 1: made your way back into the depellate process where you
32:45
Speaker 1: were fighting an appointed special prosecutor in front of Judge
32:48
Speaker 1: near A Walsh. So what did they do in an
32:50
Speaker 1: actual court of law?
32:51
Speaker 2: In my first hearing? And they pleaded the fifth They
32:55
Speaker 2: wouldn't testify to anything. Did you arrest day GiB not
32:58
Speaker 2: plead the fifth? Did you torch the day goptil? I
33:00
Speaker 2: used the cogopoyis opting to fil So they went asking
33:03
Speaker 2: the questions and it just found that credible.
33:05
Speaker 1: So, despite the explosive revelations of the Torture Relief Commission,
33:09
Speaker 1: this judge still denied you, saying that there was quote
33:13
Speaker 1: sufficient evidence to support that no torture occurred quote it's
33:20
Speaker 1: unfucking real.
33:20
Speaker 2: And then the pedicote overturned that shit again.
33:22
Speaker 1: Send me back right. That was twenty eighteen when the
33:25
Speaker 1: appellate court said that the officers could not rebut your
33:28
Speaker 1: allegations in any meaningful way.
33:30
Speaker 2: They had sent me back instructor Neil Wass to draw
33:33
Speaker 2: an adverse in fearence and did reconsider all the evidence
33:36
Speaker 2: as a whole, and she would open up the courtroom
33:38
Speaker 2: to reconsider it.
33:39
Speaker 1: So, get this, Walsh gave these reasons for her refusal,
33:43
Speaker 1: that you had invented your torture claims to piggyback on
33:47
Speaker 1: Eric Johnson's claims, which, by the way, ern Johnson a
33:50
Speaker 1: new trial back in twenty twelve. And she made that
33:53
Speaker 1: ruling with the knowledge that you had filed your complaint
33:57
Speaker 1: on the night that you were released from custody back
33:59
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine. Just moronic. But she continued by
34:03
Speaker 1: explaining away the pictures of your injuries that they could
34:06
Speaker 1: have been made while you're in jail, or get this,
34:10
Speaker 1: that they could have been self inflicted.
34:12
Speaker 2: And then they instructed the Chief Jail to remove her,
34:15
Speaker 2: order a new trial and throw out the statement, whether
34:17
Speaker 2: it convicted me or not.
34:18
Speaker 1: So finally, in March twenty nineteen, the Appellate Court called
34:22
Speaker 1: Wash manifestly wrong while vacating your conviction.
34:25
Speaker 2: Then the Supreme Court affirmed it with no dissension.
34:28
Speaker 1: So then comes April twenty six, twenty nineteen, you had
34:32
Speaker 1: a hearing about whether or not the state would retry you.
34:34
Speaker 2: Well, I go in front of the jidgs. The lawyer's
34:37
Speaker 2: coming in the back saying, man, you might get a
34:38
Speaker 2: million dollar bond, but we don't know. After we had
34:40
Speaker 2: to hear it, that jig said, mister Gibson, I'm so
34:43
Speaker 2: sorry for this tragedy. Special prosecutor didn't wasted enough time.
34:48
Speaker 2: Mister Gibson, how much money can you pay you? I say,
34:49
Speaker 2: when I've been working inside the prison. He said, two
34:52
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. I bond myself out the county jail. And
34:55
Speaker 2: then two days later I got a call from special Prosecutor.
34:58
Speaker 2: I dropped the child is in a cup of Hey,
35:00
Speaker 2: if you don't challenge your certificate innocence.
35:03
Speaker 1: And in Illinois, that's what you filed for to get
35:04
Speaker 1: state compensation and pursue civil litigation. So really they were
35:08
Speaker 1: just trying to minimize the financial damage, right.
35:10
Speaker 2: So I told him that I'm gonna see you in
35:12
Speaker 2: court tomorrow. I got a court He said, we got
35:14
Speaker 2: good news and we got bad news. Which one do
35:16
Speaker 2: you want to hear? And then I said, man, I
35:18
Speaker 2: don't care what y'all got. Man, I'm ready to go
35:19
Speaker 2: to court, let's do this, and they'd like be dropping
35:21
Speaker 2: the charges and I said, that's good news because I
35:23
Speaker 2: got a emotion for you, and they said, what motion
35:26
Speaker 2: is that I got emotion? I'm gonna be ruing in
35:27
Speaker 2: front of jugs after that to remove you. Then State's
35:30
Speaker 2: Attorney Kim Fox was appointed, and then she did challenge
35:33
Speaker 2: my certificate incence and I was granting a certificate insert right.
35:35
Speaker 1: So between the time that these proceedings started in twenty nineteen,
35:39
Speaker 1: Kim Fox, much needed new blood, was elected to the
35:43
Speaker 1: State's Attorney's office in Cook County. So the charges were
35:46
Speaker 1: finally dropped and you got your certificate of actual innocence
35:50
Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty.
35:51
Speaker 2: I mean, like I had been fighting and fighting and
35:53
Speaker 2: fighting and fight, and that was my moment in twenty fifteen.
35:56
Speaker 2: I knew I was coming up out of there, but
35:58
Speaker 2: it just didn't. I didn't think it was take me
36:00
Speaker 2: that long after I got my first reversal. What I'm saying,
36:03
Speaker 2: I thought the issue was cutting dry. But this judge,
36:06
Speaker 2: Neil Wasp, she took me through a bunch of exra
36:08
Speaker 2: mode years for nothing.
36:09
Speaker 1: Which is just absolutely unforgivable. Just as unforgivable as the
36:14
Speaker 1: obstinates you're now facing in civil litigation.
36:17
Speaker 3: Mister Gibson filed the federal civil rights lawsuit that's been
36:21
Speaker 3: pending against the City of Chicago and the officers who
36:25
Speaker 3: beat tortured him, I mean James Gibson. They took him
36:28
Speaker 3: at twenty three. He didn't come out till he was
36:30
Speaker 3: fifty three years old, and they're still fighting him today.
36:34
Speaker 3: The City of Chicago and the law firms representing the
36:37
Speaker 3: City of Chicago, their entire approach for the past four
36:40
Speaker 3: years has been relitigating the criminal case and pointed to
36:45
Speaker 3: James as a murderer, and what does a certificate of
36:48
Speaker 3: innocence mean? He is factually innocent by every single tribunal.
36:53
Speaker 3: The certificate of innocence is a significant review of the evidence,
36:56
Speaker 3: the facts, the law. And so to me, the notion
37:00
Speaker 3: that the city fights plaintiffs whose lives have been ruined
37:05
Speaker 3: when they have a certificate of innocence is it's unimaginable.
37:08
Speaker 3: James is still waiting for his day in court on
37:11
Speaker 3: the civil case, and after four years of costly litigation
37:15
Speaker 3: of city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to
37:19
Speaker 3: outside defense law firms litigating on behalf of the City
37:22
Speaker 3: of Chicago and officers, whether it's John Burge, Ron d Watts,
37:28
Speaker 3: Rinaldo Guevera, racist officers who took away the lives and
37:32
Speaker 3: liberty of black men, Hispanic men who have been tortured, convicted,
37:39
Speaker 3: spent decades in custody, and the City of Chicago, even
37:42
Speaker 3: under the current Mayor, Brandon Johnston, are still relitigating the
37:46
Speaker 3: underlying criminal case and wasting taxpayer money and torturing again
37:52
Speaker 3: in the litigation system, people like James Gibson.
37:55
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes exactly zero fucking sense. Whose face
37:59
Speaker 1: are they saving? The individual officers, those scumbags, the state,
38:05
Speaker 1: the system, the cats out of the bag. And it's
38:08
Speaker 1: not like they're saving money when they're paying all of
38:11
Speaker 1: these private defense firms way more than a settlement could
38:14
Speaker 1: even cost, right, but yet they continue.
38:17
Speaker 3: James Gibson is going to be a catalyst for change.
38:20
Speaker 3: James Gibson has the only case that is currently pending
38:24
Speaker 3: that has what's called a non bifurcated maneal claim a
38:27
Speaker 3: monell claim, as you know, is a pattern in practice.
38:30
Speaker 3: So James's case is not just about the injuries to
38:33
Speaker 3: him and the wrongful conviction and the torture and the beatings.
38:36
Speaker 3: James Gibson's case has manel allegations that prove that the
38:41
Speaker 3: city of Chicago had a pattern and practice of abusing
38:46
Speaker 3: black men for decades. And so as we move forward
38:51
Speaker 3: towards trial in twenty twenty four, James Gibson is not
38:55
Speaker 3: just fighting for himself. He's fighting for justice for every
38:58
Speaker 3: other black and a space man or woman who sustained
39:02
Speaker 3: abuse by the Chicago police.
39:05
Speaker 1: And that might very well be the motivation in fighting
39:08
Speaker 1: him so hard. So God speed now, James. While you've
39:11
Speaker 1: been home fighting your civil case, you've also been continuing
39:14
Speaker 1: the work you were doing inside.
39:15
Speaker 2: I still been continuing my advocacy, working my foundation, Clarence
39:20
Speaker 2: James Gets the Foundation, James Grant Consulting. I've been up
39:23
Speaker 2: to bringing my brother's home for prison commutations, post convictions.
39:27
Speaker 2: If for please time cuts. I just brought a guy
39:30
Speaker 2: home last week after twenty one years I've been working
39:32
Speaker 2: in this case, James Freeman. I brought home dozens of guys.
39:35
Speaker 2: That's what I do to see Chicago since two thousand
39:38
Speaker 2: and five, one point nine billion thousand settlements of five
39:41
Speaker 2: right now sitting with twenty one cases pending in the
39:44
Speaker 2: federal court lawsuits.
39:46
Speaker 1: That's what I do, and that's not all you do.
39:48
Speaker 2: Since I've been home, I formed my own publishing company
39:50
Speaker 2: because I got a book deal in the movie deal.
39:52
Speaker 2: I got this music studio in Skokie, Illinois called three
39:55
Speaker 2: Z Music House, and I brought in a bunch of
39:57
Speaker 2: people to help me build silent rooms, soundproof rooms and designs.
40:01
Speaker 2: You could go on my websits and see it. And
40:03
Speaker 2: so what I do is I bring in all other
40:05
Speaker 2: young people went to my studio and they found out
40:07
Speaker 2: they read my stress. They make you your mother was deaf,
40:09
Speaker 2: And so I tell him, yes, I share a lot
40:11
Speaker 2: of letters. And so they take my letters and they
40:15
Speaker 2: rewrite them, and then they go on to the booth.
40:17
Speaker 2: And it might be a rap song, it might be
40:19
Speaker 2: a country stong, it might be an R and B song.
40:21
Speaker 2: My number one song right now has broke the top
40:24
Speaker 2: forty chart. The song is a letter to my mother, Mama,
40:26
Speaker 2: can you hear me? And there's a promise that I
40:28
Speaker 2: keep to her. Every year I go to a different
40:30
Speaker 2: notion around the world and I meet with her for
40:32
Speaker 2: five minutes. I'm just having a conversation with my mother
40:34
Speaker 2: if I could.
40:35
Speaker 1: Well, that's beautiful. So how can our audience follow along
40:39
Speaker 1: with everything you're doing.
40:40
Speaker 2: You can log on by I am James Gibson dot
40:43
Speaker 2: com on Instagram to James Gibson six thirty five, or
40:47
Speaker 2: you can go on James Gibson Facebook page, or you
40:50
Speaker 2: can go into my YouTube channel where I go around
40:53
Speaker 2: the world and I fight inj justicis and I highlight
40:56
Speaker 2: all my consultant and publishing work. It's called James Gibson
41:00
Speaker 2: on the Land.
41:02
Speaker 1: All right, well, we're gonna have all that length to
41:04
Speaker 1: check it out and get involved follow this incredible man's journey.
41:08
Speaker 1: And now I want to turn to closing arguments, my
41:10
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show. So let's start with Andrew. Andrew,
41:13
Speaker 1: just feel free to just spout off on anything you
41:17
Speaker 1: think may have been left unsaid, and then hand the
41:19
Speaker 1: microphone off to James, and James you take us off
41:22
Speaker 1: into the sunset.
41:23
Speaker 3: You know, I spent twenty years representing pro athletes. I
41:26
Speaker 3: started Action ten years ago to serve black and brown
41:29
Speaker 3: people whose rights have been violated by the police. I'm
41:32
Speaker 3: humbled in honor to represent James Gibson because of what
41:35
Speaker 3: he endured and listen, I can't imagine thirty years in
41:38
Speaker 3: prison and most people would not persevere. James Gibson has
41:42
Speaker 3: turned his pain, his faith in God into true purpose
41:47
Speaker 3: in advancing civil rights in America, especially for black and
41:51
Speaker 3: brown individuals. And James Gibson's going to change the game.
41:54
Speaker 3: He's going to change the game for wrongfully convicted people
41:57
Speaker 3: across the country.
41:58
Speaker 2: Well, I was the first twenty twenty three, and I
42:00
Speaker 2: officially closed my case man, after thirty four years, man,
42:03
Speaker 2: and none that's left to be said, Man, bring closure.
42:05
Speaker 2: I just want to say that I believe that man,
42:07
Speaker 2: it's okay to be different. Man. You know what I'm saying.
42:09
Speaker 2: I believe that we're living in a time that man,
42:11
Speaker 2: that was written about long ago, man, and to where
42:14
Speaker 2: the people learned to love that which created love, and
42:16
Speaker 2: then we'll get out of this mess in which weed.
42:25
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
42:28
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
42:30
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
42:33
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor
42:36
Speaker 1: Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
42:39
Speaker 1: producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music
42:43
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
42:46
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
42:49
Speaker 1: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrong
42:52
Speaker 1: for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
42:55
Speaker 1: it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
42:58
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one