Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / #570 Guest Host John Huffington with Elmer Daniels
Transcript
- 00:00:03 Speaker 1: January fifteenth, nineteen eighty was Martin Luther King Day. As the young folks with the day all from school in Wilmington, Delaware through a party. At about five pm, two white fifteen year olds, a male and a female, left the party and headed towards some train tracks. There are some discrepancies between their accounts, but according to both of them, a black man in tan pants and a green jacket chased the young man away before raping the young woman. The young man said that the assailant was a former classmate named Elmer, and the young woman identified eighteen year old Elmer Daniels from a photo array. Then the search of Elmer's home turned up a tampair of pants and a green jacket in addition to the ID and the items of clothing. An FBI agent testified a trial about hairs found on Elmer's pants and a young woman's undergarments. They constituted what he called a double match. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. I'm John Huffington, former guests, and we'll have my episode linked in the bio. I spent thirty two years in the Maryland Department of Correction. Ten of those years were on death row. During that time, an FBI whistleblower exposed a fellow agent for testifying beyond the limits of science. In my case and many others, one of which we will be covering today, I'm so honored to be filling in for my dear friend Jason flumm As we welcome Elmer Daniels. Can you introduce yourself to the audience. 00:01:45 Speaker 2: My name is Elmer Daniels, and I'm a twenty eighteen exonery convicted in nineteen eighty for a rape that never happened. 00:01:53 Speaker 1: And before we unpack all that, I just want to introduce your attorneys also joining us, Amica Igway. Welcome to the show. Thank you so Elmer. Before any of this happened to you, I just kind of want to hear a little bit about your life growing up in Wilmington, Delaware. 00:02:06 Speaker 3: Okay. I came from a two parent household. 00:02:09 Speaker 2: Now, I had my great grandparents, my grandparents, mom and dad, big family. I wasn't a bad kid, and I knew right from wrong, and I based all my decisions on not getting ass whooping. That's for real, I'm being honest. And that was the sixties and seventies kid growing up. 00:02:25 Speaker 1: But you did stray from that guiding principle at least on one occasion. It did something well, you know, it was kind of commonplace in the sixties and seventies, right, joy riding. 00:02:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, I went for a joey ride, all right. That was the only thing that I actually was as a minor convicted of. It was on my record, and it was in Ellesmere. I was a young kid and bumped into the van. The keys fell and my light went on, Oh there's a van, you know, let's see how far you can go in it before you get cart I got caught. 00:02:52 Speaker 1: Now, when you got caught for that, did you do a juvie time? 00:02:55 Speaker 3: Yeah? I went to Bridge House. 00:02:57 Speaker 2: I stayed at Bridge House for ninety maybe ninety because you could just go and then your parents come get you, you know. So she let me bake for a while, you know, and let me see how it was, and actually that that was enough. 00:03:10 Speaker 1: So a little tough love, you know, steered your way from the petty crime. I mean, obviously joey riding is certainly not a violent crime. But that incident is why the police had your mugshot in January of nineteen eighty when the alleged rape occurred, Emica, can you fill us in a little bit on the details. 00:03:25 Speaker 4: The underlying crime was an alleged rape of a fifteen year old white female who left a party on January fifteenth, nineteen eighty, with another fifteen year old white male. They went to some nearby railroad tracks. When they get there, their stories differ. According to the fifteen year old male, he engaged in sexual intercourse with the fifteen year old white female. The white female denies that she ever had sexual intercourse with the male. Nonetheless, the female claims that while they were talking on railroad tracks, a black male came up to them. The fifteen year old male ran away, and after he ran away, the black mail allegedly held her down and raped her for two and a half minutes. The black mail allegedly had his hands on her neck. 00:04:13 Speaker 1: And both the alleged victim, who will refer to as GS, and the young man who will call case. Both of them said that the alleged of saund was wearing khaki pants and a green jacket, and GS described the alleged sailing as having a big news and nails that were bitten down. As far as they could go. So what happened Next? 00:04:32 Speaker 4: She goes back to the party and tells people that she had been raped. The police are called. And when the police come, naturally they want to speak to the fifteen year old male and questioned him on what occurred, and he gives about four different accounts and the first time he says some male named Jack Smith came up. The police followed that lead find out that it's false. After about three or four stories that are inconsistent and contradictory and turn out to be false, the police turn around and charged this fifteen year od Mail with hindering prosecution. They also threatened to charge him with the actual rape itself unless he tells them what really happened. And under that durest, the fifteen year old Mail says, there was some guy named Elmer. I don't know his last name, but I was in the same eighth grade math class with him. That's going to turn out to be significant because the name of the middle school was called Bayered Middle School. Elma had in fact attended by a middle school. But back in nineteen seventy eight, when this fifteen year old Mail was in middle school, Elma was in the tenth grade at nearby high School. There was a three year age difference between him. He was fifteen, Alma was eighteen. They won in the same eighth grade math class together. 00:05:41 Speaker 1: I'm curious, did you even know Casey? 00:05:43 Speaker 2: Never met him before, never met the girl until I walked into the court room. Wow, as the first time I actually seen both of them. 00:05:50 Speaker 1: So now they go looking for a kid named Elmer that attended Bayern Middle School. But the three year difference between Elmer and case should have been enough for the police to the case he had lied again, this time for the very obvious benefit of not being charged in the rape himself. But instead they pulled Elmer's mugshot, And at this point GS had already seen upwards of three hundred mug shots, and who knows how suggestive this identification process was. In addition, we know from study after study the cross re shoal identifications are less accurate than guessing. But nonetheless, that's what we have here, And they got an arrest warrant for Elmer. 00:06:29 Speaker 2: Thirty five days into my eighteenth birthday, a knock on my door six eighteen North Harston Street, City, Wilmington. 00:06:36 Speaker 3: Our brother opens the door. 00:06:37 Speaker 2: Police entered say they were looking for me because they were charging me with the crime of rape. At that time, not knowing what that was, I had to ask a question, what is that? After being explained what that was by my sister, I was like, you know, I didn't know what to think, but I did know I'm going to jail. 00:06:54 Speaker 1: Sir Elmer, you weren't even there. Where were you when this happened? 00:06:58 Speaker 3: Yeah? I wasn't there. 00:06:59 Speaker 2: I was playing basketball at church cross the street from my house. You had to sign in, and people that I was with their names were on there, and all the childhood friends and neighborhood all their names was on there. But there had a problem with me because my name was on the bottom of the list. 00:07:13 Speaker 3: But it's on the list. Where regards that? 00:07:16 Speaker 1: Now? This church basketball court was well over a mile from where the incident occurred. 00:07:20 Speaker 2: Yes, but police said I could run from where I lived to where the crime happened in two minutes. I mean sixty seconds there went the crime is sixty seconds back. And he said he drove it and he got there in two minutes. So if I was running, there's no way I'm gonna get there in two minutes. 00:07:38 Speaker 1: And then do an assault That last summer was three minutes. 00:07:40 Speaker 3: And come back, so we got a total of seven minutes, so. 00:07:44 Speaker 1: Basically you were running a mile under a minute, So that's impossible. Now, this was the pre DNA, but a rape kit was performed and physical evidence had been collected. So what can you tell us about that? 00:07:56 Speaker 4: There was blood, there was seamen, and there was hair evidence. They were able to match the blood type to Elmer. They had seamen DNA didn't exist, but there was nothing they could use to match that to Elmer. 00:08:09 Speaker 1: And I'm sure had there been a blood type president in the semen that matched Elmer, they would have made huge smoke about that. But Secrete's status isn't even mentioned. So we've got the impossible on foot round trip. The blood type didn't match the three year age difference. As for the hair evidence, there were hairs collected from Elmer's pants as well as hair is collected from Gs's undergarments, and we'll get to that in just a bit. But first, when they tossed your house, they found items of clothing khaki pants and a green jacket. This is what the alleged sound was supposed to have been wearing. 00:08:43 Speaker 2: They actually found the pants in a third bedroom closet. There were a pair of khakis, but they were old, you know how you put clothes away and pack them. They went through the house and they found those. They found jacket in my brother's bedroom on the second floor, which was his jacket. Had his name on it, but they tried to say it belonged to me. 00:09:01 Speaker 4: So there was a notebook that was inside the jacket. Fingerprints were lifted from that notebook. There was an FBI agent who testified that he could not exclude Elmer, but he couldn't include him either, And when we got involved, we had them retest those fingerprints, and those fingerprints were negative for Elma's fingerprints. So that goes to show the lack of evidence that that jacket belonged to Elmer, in addition to having another name engraved on the inside. 00:09:30 Speaker 1: So they were really just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. 00:09:33 Speaker 4: From the very beginning, the police were eager to find someone. There had been two previous rapes by alleged blackmails of white women back in nineteen eighty and the police wanted to find out if Elmer was a serial rapist, and they actually tried to link him to the previous two rapes, and that came out to be not true, so they dropped that and proceeded to want to prosecute Elmer. We believed send a message and to appease the community that we can't hang them like we used to back in the sixties, but we can send a message by giving an eighteen year old mail a life sentence. 00:10:11 Speaker 1: There was a no bail situation. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: I'm assuming bail was actually five thousand dollars. 00:10:15 Speaker 1: Wow, and did you post that bill? No? 00:10:18 Speaker 3: I didn't. I wasn't in financial fortitude to post a bail. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: So while you were stuck in jail from January until trial in May of nineteen eighty, I understand that the Court of appointed a psychologist to make a recommendation on your mental state, and in interviewing you, he raised a red flag, saying, among other things, that HEYJS has said that her saleing had a big nose and nails that were bitten down to the nub. That wasn't the case with you. 00:10:44 Speaker 2: I went in, in my natural sense its self in state. It was comfortable, and he and I had a conversation, But at the same time he was observing the things that they said were part of me that weren't, and he made that assertation in his notes. 00:10:59 Speaker 4: Matt Quarter appointed psychologists actually took the time. He states in this letter, I tried not to play detective, but I have to write your honor to state that I believe Elma Daniels is innocent. And we have that letter. He c ced the district attorney and Elmer's public defender, and he goes on to lists why he believes that Elmer is in fact innocent. 00:11:22 Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a public defender. How often did you even talk to did you meet? 00:11:27 Speaker 3: Well? 00:11:27 Speaker 2: I met defense attorney edbra Pankowski. By the time I got to try, I had only seen him twice. But the first thing that he offered me when I met him was a deal. And I'm like, deal for what you know? He said, well, you know, judging that they got all the evidence that I see against you, because he had ran all over to all the evidence with me that he felt was making me guilty. The first deal was five to fifteenth to life. That was for second degree. I'm like, well, we're going to We're gonna try, right, They're gonna try if they're gonna get me, they're gona get because I'm an go down fighting. 00:12:00 Speaker 1: So the jury was going to hear from Gs to Casey as well as this puff of smoke from the FBI at fingerprint analysis about the notebook in the green jacket. And then our favorite the FBI agent who also testified in my case, special agent Michael P. Malone, and he's going to testify about hair is allegedly found on Gs's undergarmers and these khaki pants that have been packed away in a third bedroom clause at Elmer's house. 00:12:26 Speaker 4: I always say that I don't blame the jury for convicting Elmer because the hair analysis would have had a tremendous impact on anyone. They had this FBI agent who supposedly had all the credentials as an expert and was a prolific testifier on behalf of the FBI. He testified, as you know, all across the country. He appears, and he says in Elma's case that there was a double match. What do we mean by a double match? He said, there was hair that was found on the pants when Elmo was arrested that belonged to Caucasian individual. And there was hair found on the underwear of the victim that belonged to an African American individual, and he testified to the jury that there was a microscopic match between the hair and the victims underwear that belonged to Elmer and the hair that was found on Elma's pants was belonged to the victim. And he said it was a double match. That this is something he's never even come across. You can imagine the impact that that would have had on a jury. Back then there wasn't any DNA, but that kind of testimony is equivalent to DNA identification. 00:13:36 Speaker 1: Okay, I get the definition of double match, but guess what if neither one of them is the right hair, then you've matched nothing. You just have two hairs in two different places or three different places that actually aren't the same hairs? Am I right in just that basic assumption? 00:13:53 Speaker 4: Absolutely? And that's one of the things when we fast forward when we send the transcripts to the FBI, they had to admit. The Special Counsel from the US Department of Justice wrote to the Attorney General of Delaware admitting their agent testified, as they put it, beyond the means of science aka also known as he lied. 00:14:11 Speaker 1: And you know he used that phrase to elevate it to some extreme like I've never hardy ever seen this, or you know this is a double match, and you get this catchphrase that, like you said, twelve people like you and I are hearing this when you have an FBI agent suit and tie Jaeger Hoover. We're all taught to believe in the infallibility of their work, because I had a similar thing. Agent Michael Malone in my case was to a ninety eight point nine percent certainty, but we learned later that one he probably didn't even do the test himself, and DNA conclusively proved that he was lying. So I get what you're saying as far as that goes. So everything stacked against Selmer. We've got these junk sciences going on. Did your lawyer contact the people that played basketball with. 00:14:59 Speaker 2: You, the guy that ran the director he actually testified, he signed in. I knew he was there, know all his friends, even some of our friends testified. 00:15:07 Speaker 1: But since these people knew you, obviously the prosecution just shot holes in your alibi by attacking their credibility on that angle. But what about the age discrepancy between you and kse I mean, obviously, you guys were not in the same year school. 00:15:21 Speaker 4: The prosecutor presented a middle school teacher to say that Elmer was in eighth grade math class. We believed that teacher did in fact teach Elmer, but this year's prior and Elma also to make it more confused, and Elma also had brothers who had that same teacher. 00:15:37 Speaker 3: And his sister. 00:15:38 Speaker 4: Yes, we all had him for home room, all had him. So but Elmer then takes a stand and tells a jury, no, I was not in the same eighth grade math class as Casey. The prosecution then calls us a rebuttal witness, a detective who is a name defendant in the lawsuit that we have going on now and he's still alive, who says Elma was in the same eighth grade math class as case. So you can see how the jury would say, well, if he's going to lie to us about being the same eighth grade math class as KC. Case testified to it, the teacher testified to it, and this rebuttal witness came and testified to it, it must be true. And where we follow the prosecutor is just like we pulled the transcripts he's an agent of the state. The school districts are agents of the state. He could have easily pulled those transcripts, but they had a narrative and they were going to follow through that narrative that Elma was in fact doing us. 00:16:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, that is definitely improper. Did you just take the stand in this case? 00:16:41 Speaker 4: She was one of the first witnesses. 00:16:42 Speaker 1: What's your analysis of the cross examination? 00:16:46 Speaker 4: Unfortunately, there was several things that he could have certainly explored contradictions not just in her testimony, but the testimony of KC. One of the big ones was Casey's claim that he had sexual intercourse that should have been explored. There was some other evidence that we don't need to get into that shows that she did in fact have sexual intercourse, but none if that was explored. 00:17:07 Speaker 1: I ask Elmer, It's one thing to have, you know, fbi ages and folk up there and they're describing evidence and talking about things. It's another thing when it gets personal. How did you feel when you sat there and listened to Gs's testimony. 00:17:23 Speaker 2: I basically sitting there as an eighteen year old kid, is she's lying? 00:17:26 Speaker 3: Literally, she's lying? And what could I do about it? 00:17:28 Speaker 1: Right? 00:17:29 Speaker 2: I have people protecting her interests and nobody protected mind. So I sit there, watch listen. I can't explode because it makes it worse, so I had to sit there and swallow it. But at the same time, you can't understand why someone would do that. 00:17:44 Speaker 1: So between GS identifying you and Special Agent Malone making his double match, any of the other defense efforts were doomed to fall short when. 00:17:53 Speaker 2: They found me guilty a month later that they sentenced me. I never forget it on my sister's birthday. So they give me forty five years to life with the possibility up role. But the thing about it is they convicted me, sentenced me, offered me a deal in the process before trial, after trial, gave me time, pulled me back into court eighteen months later, offered me a deal. 00:18:15 Speaker 1: Paul's there for a second. I gotta keep up with you on that part of the story. 00:18:19 Speaker 3: Eighteen months they come back with this deal. 00:18:22 Speaker 2: Now, common sense tell me when they did that, because they did it before trial, during trial, and then you convict me and give me the time, and then you're coming back to offer me the deal, you know what I mean. But then they blamed it on the fact that because I had no real serious criminal history, and due to the lack of physical trauma to the victim, then they didn't feel it was conducive to give me what you gave me, and so all those flags went up. 00:18:47 Speaker 3: Something's wrong. 00:18:48 Speaker 2: And that's what I just kept saying to myself, something's wrong. Why would you come back and offer me a deal? You knocked me in my head, said that's what I deserved. Somebody in there knew something was wrong, but that somebody couldn't do anymore than they were doing. When I went into the penitentiary, it only held five hundred people, okay, and you could scratch it at seven. Imagine seeing three penitentiaries built, you know, and asking you do you want to build or be a part? And I'm like, I'm not building anything. You're gonna put me in, you know. I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. Early into being in calls, Rade, I wanted to fight you at every cause first I'm scared. Second, I'm not gonna let you do anything to me, you know. And I learned real earlier because of a guy that was familiar with my family and knew my father kind of pulled me to the side and he let me know. 00:19:45 Speaker 3: He said, listen, you're angry, but you know if you don't. 00:19:48 Speaker 2: Change, somebody's gonna kill you, or you're gonna kill somebody because you're angry. And he said, let me ask you something. I said what he said, had all the guys is in here who did something to you? And that made sense to me because they were there before I got there. And so there's a code of ethic, there's inmate code of ethic, and. 00:20:08 Speaker 3: Then there's the code ethic for the officers because they want to go home. 00:20:11 Speaker 2: So what you see, you see, but you don't see it, and the penitentiary all you have is your word. 00:20:17 Speaker 3: I found out that. 00:20:19 Speaker 2: Over the course of time, the most important quality that we have as a human being, to be able to communicate with people, becomes stagnated. We're around the same people every day. We do the same thing twenty three twenty four hours a day, and didn't turn around repeat it tomorrow. It's just like getting up going to work. I guess that's why I like going to work. It's a process. But for me to see all those things, and I'm not gonna get into all the violent parts of that because I don't need that to steer my emotions because it does. But I never not thought that I wasn't gonna see the other side of the fence. That never entertained my mind. But I knew I was gonna be here for a while. My whole mindset was that since I'm gonna be here, I might as well go ahead and do what I gotta do. I got my high school diploma, started dabbling in everything else that I could closed myself in that eight by ten, and I started opening up those books called law and rules and codes of ethic, and I started finding out what specific words meant. Not even know what layman terms meant until I got back into the courtroom and I used the terminology. And I don't know where he's speaking. He's speaking lingal language. I need to know what he's saying. And that's when I learned to have a judge have them explained to you so you can understand. 00:21:28 Speaker 1: So you set yourself on the positive path and got involved in your own legal fight. But what happened in his initial appeal. 00:21:36 Speaker 4: So after he was convicted, he had an ineffective assistance claim. They appointed him attorney there, but they appointed him another attorney out of the public Defender's office. So that's yeah, of course it's a conflict of interesting like a private firm or another associate, you know, going after you know, another attorney. You know, that's that's what happened. But anyway, after that was quickly shot down by the judge Elmer, who you know, at the time had a tenth grade education and had a life sentence. Even though he requested to have a pellate council, he was denied a Pellt council and he was forced to fight this case on his own pro se for the next thirty six years. You know, Elma's official sentence was thirty years to life. After he hit thirty years, he petitioned for parole. He kept getting denied. 00:22:25 Speaker 2: They want you to admit your crime, and that when you do that, you can't take it back. And so that was my biggest issue going through all this is I wanted something that was rightfully mine, but would I sell my soul get it back? 00:22:39 Speaker 4: Finally, after thirty five thirty six years, there was a sympathetic African American female on the parole board who seemed to really listen to what Elmer was presenting to show. In fact, he was innocent, and we believe she advocated for him to be released on parole. 00:22:56 Speaker 2: I was parole November twenty fifteen and had met a Mecca on January twenty sixth, twenty sixteen. I had an expungement some of that up on the church on fifth and Clayton Street. If you were convicted of a crime, and your crime is like five years old or older, you can have those things removed from your record because that is one of the things that is hindering you from being gainfully employed. And so he got up and spoke my life into existence. Everything that came out of his mouth was literally me. He said, just imagine for a moment that you are a young man and you go to prison, you're eighteen nineteen years old, and you come out as a fifty six, fifty seven, fifty eight. 00:23:38 Speaker 3: Year old man. 00:23:39 Speaker 2: I'm somewhere around there at fifty four or somewhere like that, and I'm shaking my head. And he said, then, you know, after you come out, your life is basically over. Now you got to get it back together. But you don't know what to do because the one thing that's hindering you is what you actually went to prison for. And so I still didn't wait to talk with him, and when I got the opportunity to say what I need to say, my first question to him was, you know you smoke my life just now up here, and I just did thirty five years in peditentiary, and I have evidence that proved I've never committed a. 00:24:08 Speaker 3: Crime at all. I have it right here in my hands. 00:24:10 Speaker 2: And I remember the young lady coming to tell him, Mistermka, your seats ready, and people were in line waiting on you, and he said, come on, and so I went from the end of his line to the front of his line, got his last card, and all he said was, Okay, I'm going. 00:24:25 Speaker 3: To help you. It cost you nothing. And we've been here ever since. 00:24:29 Speaker 4: You know, Elma was convicted in May of nineteen eighty and I was born in August of nineteen eighty. So I feel one of my life missions, reason I'm here on earth was to cross paths with Elmer and help write the injustice that was done to him. 00:24:43 Speaker 1: But unfortunately, you know, instead of being able to just focus solely on clearing his name, your efforts were split because Elmer got sent back to prisoner on a parole violation. 00:24:52 Speaker 4: When he was released, he was given two conditions. Number one he had to obtain and maintain employment, and number two was because he was a convicted sex offender, he had to take certain classes in order to be rehabilitated. So, on the first condition, Elmer obtains employment at a local barbecue restaurant, and three weeks into working there, that restaurant gets a call from the state police stating that Elmer is a convicted sex offender and they were coming out the next day to put posters in the restaurant to notify patrons that Elmer was a convicted sex offender. So you can imagine what happens next. The next day, Elma is brought in and it's told hunfortunately he has to be let go. So despite the fact that they cause Elmer to lose his employment, that was cited as the first violation. The second condition was to take these classes, which Elma takes all the classes, and upon completing all the classes, he said, in order to get a certificate of completion, he had to admit guilt. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: And my whole thing was, I'm willing to participate, but if you ask me if I did it, I'm going to say no, You're repunishing me. That's because I'm simply saying no, but you're not listening to why I'm saying no. 00:26:04 Speaker 4: He has a constitutional right to maintain his innocence, but he was told we're going to find that it's a second violation. So after tasting freedom for eight months, after being locked up continuously for thirty six years, he was sent back to prison with a clear message that unless you're willing to admit guil, you're not going to see the light of day again. 00:26:31 Speaker 1: So Emmaicon uncovered for you basically the same thing that happened in my case. And if it's all right with you, I just want to do a little bit of a rundown of that history right now and make sure you know everything that was going on at that time. Rhead so Agent Michael Malone, the FBI, who was their premier hair microscopic examiner, who also became the center in the hub of an international scandal that basically took the FBI lab down where they don't do microscope hair examinations anymore. But this actually started in August of nineteen eighty nine. There was the guy that ran the metallurgical lab was named William Tobin, and he raised concerns about Agent Michael Malone's testimony in a different case because he knew he was lying, and he brought it up then. And then fast forward a little bit, there was the Oklahoma City bombing case. I'm sure you've heard about that. After that case, a whistle blur came out of the FBI lab, doctor Frederick Whitehurst, and he wrote letters. He made a lot of allegations. Basically, he was saying that the FBI Lab is being coerced into always presenting evidence favorable to the state. They were trying to tell him how to do it. They weren't following best practices, and he raised a lot of issues about agent Michael Malone. Well, Inspector General's Office, which is above the FBI, launched a big investigation and in nineteen ninety seven they issued a report and they named the agent Michael Malone and said that he consistently misrepresents evidence and testifies outside of his area of expertise. I think, as Emmica said earlier, Lave in terms, it sounds like you just called him a liar. So I have a copy of that report. I know about it, but I can't do anything with it. It's not enough to go up against an FBI agent and say he lied in my case. You know, it just wasn't enough. Now what nobody knew. Right after that report came out, the FBI themselves launched a new investigation, and they brought an outside forensic scientist to look at every case that maloone had touched. Mine was in that mix. I'm sure yours was, but they never made it public. So the FBI they sent that to my prosecutor with a letter saying, hey, there's something wrong with the Helpington case, and my prosecutor covered that up for the next fourteen years. I would not have known about it if it wasn't for Spencer Shoe at the Washington Post in twenty fifteen. Spencer wrote the article that exposed it was the whole scandal that was going on with the FBI lab. And at that point they start scrambling. They know that report was coming out. In my case, they ended up DNA testing the hair and they were not my hairs. And that's how I want a rid of actual innocence. But not to get off into that, I'm just saying this started in nineteen eighty nine, really coalesceding formulated in nineteen ninety seven to ninety nine, and you weren't contacted. They didn't tell you. It wasn't until I think twenty fifteen after the article came out, where the Innostance Project got involved with the DOJ Department of Justice, and at that point they started making some notifications to some defense lawyers. But you and I both it cost us probably an extra fifteen years in prison because they were withholding this information from us. 00:29:48 Speaker 3: No that first I heard, I would have. 00:29:49 Speaker 1: Turned to Mecca, who I'm sure knows pretty much everything. I just said, you're coming on board. It's twenty fifteen, the articles come out. You've got not only hair their evidence is questionable, but you have the agent in question. The guide is at the heart of the whole storm. Michael P. Malone. 00:30:07 Speaker 4: So we saw, you know, the Inspector General's report, all the documentation on what was going on. So we knew we had a serious issue. So we sent the trial transcripts to the FBI. They pointed a special counsel who was looking at this case, and he wrote a letter to the Attorney General of Delaware stated as we said earlier, that the agent had testified beyond the means of science in Elma's case, and that was cited along with what we talked about earlier with the transcripts showing Elma was not in the same eighth grade math class as KC. 00:30:41 Speaker 1: Not to mention all the other reasons that should have kept them from pursuing Elmer at all. But now, unfortunately the biological evidence in this case had been destroyed, so it was never going to be a slam dunk on the exoneration through DNA testing. But how did Delaware react to the evidence that you had amassed? 00:30:58 Speaker 4: So the Attorney General's office too finale to not release Elmer and to give him alternate solutions. And this is a consistent theme that I've seen in a number of wrongful conviction cases. Even if they're going to let you go, the next thing they do is try to mitigate or totally eliminate any potential civil liability that were resulting you getting compensated. And one of the ways they do that is never totally exonerate you. They offered him a commutation, which is you're guilty, but we're just going to cut short your sentence. So I want your audience to think about this. If you're guilty. You're going to jump at that. But Elma was willing to spend the rest of his life in jail in order not to admit to a crime that he knew he didn't commit, and so he turned that down. And so only after we backed them in the corner and they had no choice did they finally say, Okay, we'll agree to overturn the indictment, remove the charges, but we're still not going to say you're completely innocent. And if you're going to get compensated, you're going to have to fight tooth and nel again to get compensated, because Stellaware is one of I think twelve states has left that doesn't have any compensation for people who have been roughly convicted and incarcerated. 00:32:16 Speaker 1: Well, we'll get the compensation in a minute, but first, I really just want to acknowledge what you were willing to do with what you had on the line. I'm just happy for you that you were able to force their hand and win your freedom. What was that day? Like? I mean, how'd you feel? 00:32:30 Speaker 2: They ask me how I feel about it? When he told me, he said that too, how you feel? And my response was, I don't know. Just this day came and it's here. You know, you thought you would react one way in your mind because it ain't hadn't happened, You're going to do all these things. But when he literally told me and asked me how I felt, I just simply said, I don't. 00:32:51 Speaker 1: Know that I can relate to trust feeling that. 00:32:53 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I got a whole lot of aren't you happy? Was that? Yeah? 00:32:56 Speaker 2: I am, But I don't grab that they took celibratory away from me. It's just another day. It's another Christmas. I noticed significance. It is just another day. 00:33:05 Speaker 1: It's very eerie to have this conversation and you express the exact same sentiment I did, because I've never talked about that on my release date to anybody, and you just said that. I was like, nailed it. You're saying exactly. I felt. Everybody's looking for your your feelings and you don't have. 00:33:21 Speaker 2: Them, right, You don't have them, and because you had become immune to it, people think that something's wrong. 00:33:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know inside and I think you could probably relate. Like I didn't celebrate holidays, birthdays, any of that, and when I came home, I still don't. I really don't do much for holidays or birthdays. What I started doing was celebrating what I call my freedom day to day. I came home July twenty second, and I was doing it for a number of years. But when I came home, I wasn't fully exonerated. I had to take an out for pleague that carried on for ten years. It took me ten years after being home. I just got mine straight this year. So this year is the first year I've ever been a whole. But I had made a statement to a friend of mine last year. I said, I'm never I'm not going to celebrate my freedom Day anymore because all I did was trade one prison cell for a bigger one. I still have the stigma. I still am not fully clear. And then this year I was. I was fully cleared, and I actually got to spend it with you know, our mutual friend here, Jason Flum, and celebrated the way it should be celebrated as an honestly free person. And that does mean something. And I know it's important day to you, and your battle's not over there. You never got compensated. 00:34:38 Speaker 2: No, no, no, So right now December thirteenth of me five years, you know, and December twelfth is my birthday, So December, I say, I'll celebrate two birthdays. So I'm like you, I'm waiting to get to that point where I don't want to celebrate that. 00:34:51 Speaker 3: But it keeps me humble. 00:34:52 Speaker 2: It keeps me conscious of the possibility of it can happen to you again, you know, So I'm conscious of that. 00:35:00 Speaker 1: We at least you have Emica by your side. So, like you said, your freedom day is December the thirteenth, twenty eighteen. They removed the charges, but didn't recognize your innocence to mitigate their civil liability. So are you suing? 00:35:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, we sued the FBI, which is United States government, and we sued the city of Wilmington and that police department. The United States was dismissed from the case after they filed emotion claiming immunity, and the federal judge, to his credit, even though he said, you know, I have to follow the law on immunity, he made the attorneys for the United States apologize on the record to Elmer. But nevertheless, despite the fact that they recognized it was a tragedy, they were not willing to compensate him even a dime. 00:35:43 Speaker 1: And neither his delaware. Now I know that no amount of money could ever make up for what they took from you, but the very least it could help you live out the rest of your life, which you still get to do thanks to Amica. 00:35:55 Speaker 2: In the beginning of all this, Like I said to ey Mecca when I met his wife, Mary Jane, I told him there's not an ocean wide or deep enough for me to even begin to tell him what he has really done for me. 00:36:07 Speaker 3: And I never cried over this. 00:36:09 Speaker 2: But it's been five years. Some of it's been hard, it's really been hard. But for me, I just finding a way to stand up, just stand there and walk. And I know how I'm doing it, but I'm doing it. And if I could get a couple of men together and I can help them straighten out their life, I'll go forward in a heartbeat because they need people like us to really give them insight on what you're facing, what you're going to be dealing with. If I help one, I did something, If I helped many, then I'm doing a whole lot of something. 00:36:39 Speaker 3: Someone opened the door for me to come back through. 00:36:42 Speaker 2: It would be real unfair for me not to try to pay that forward. 00:36:47 Speaker 1: You know, I feel that same obligation because I had a great law firm that got involved in my case, Ropson Gray, and they got me out. And the only way to repay any of these folk is to live the best life we can live and to pay it forward. Like you just said, I know what you're saying. There's a weight on our shoulders right now to pay that forward so that they feel good about what they did. When they point to you, Amica points to you and talks about Amoris, like, look what Elmer's out here doing. He's taking care of all this business. And that's gonna make it. That's gonna make it all worth it. And people believe in you and people support you for sure. 00:37:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I hadn't. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: I hadn't had a chance to look at that reflection you just gave me that. I'm sitting here and I did all this. I call it crap because it's really the media, but I'm. 00:37:33 Speaker 1: Doing it because it does mean something. You know you're doing the right thing, just like you knew you were doing the right thing, fighting for your life, never giving up, never surrendering your integrity, your name, your character, your humanists. You know you hung onto that and you're here today to give back and you're gonna find your way and that's how it's gonna work. But what can our audience do to help? I know, you got to go fund me and they can certainly help you out, and we're gonna make sure we put a link for your GoFundMe at the end of this podcast. But overall, either Elmer or Emica, what can we do as a community here where do we need to step up? 00:38:10 Speaker 4: Well, one of the things is we need to get a bill in Delaware to help those who have been wrongfully convicted in incarcerated to get compensated. Elmer was instrumental in getting a bill drafted. We got it through a committee in the State House of Delaware, but the bill was never put on the floor. So we want to put pressure on Governor John Carney, the leaders of the Delaware Senate and the Delaware House of Representatives to say Delaware should join the majority of states and having a wrongful conviction and incarceration bill. So that's one of the things that we can do to help make sure someone like Elmer is treated fairly. You know, when Elmer was released, he was just released with a shirt on his back in the middle of winter, given three days worth of diabetic medicine, to the point where once that medication ran out, it went to a diabetic shock. And no resources have been provided for him, no one's checking on them. So we want all of that to change. And Elmer is an advocate for that, He's a warrior. 00:39:15 Speaker 1: Well, I gotta say, folks, this has been an honor for me to be a part of this conversation, to meet both of you all. Elmer, you're my hero. I want to thank well for conviction and Jason and Connor and everybody for letting me do this at this point in time. We always like to give our guests that last word. Whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, wrap it up for us, tell me what you think. 00:39:39 Speaker 4: Thank you guys for giving us a platform to talk about this important issues because unfortunately that many other Elmer's out there across prisons across America, and by casting light on the injustice that goes on, hopefully we can make a change. Hopefully we can make a change in laws to say that there should never be a time bar procedural time bar if someone is innocent that has evidence to show that the innocent. They shouldn't be precluded from presenting that in court, which is what happens a lot of times the merits never get heard. States should not be allowed to destroy evidence, like helping in Elma's case, where someone who's facing the life sentence has forensic evidence destroyed so they cannot scientifically exonerate themselves. So by casting a light on cases like Elmer and the other cases that you're doing, you're making a difference and causing people to really think that we can make a change in our criminal justice system. 00:40:31 Speaker 2: Okay, I think given a little bit more time, I know that I'm gonna be okay. It's nice to meet you, John. This is the kind of thing that I inspired. You want to always do, be able to talk about it. I'm down because I know that I'm a voice. I know that they can't change you know what has been done, but I can change prevent it from happening to someone else. So with that, I want no more victims. I don't want no more guys going. 00:40:56 Speaker 3: If we can get one thing right, that's the one thing we need to get right. 00:40:59 Speaker 2: You know, it's easy to put me there, but it makes it hard for me to get myself out when you don't give the whole truth, give it, give. 00:41:07 Speaker 3: It up truth. 00:41:08 Speaker 2: If I'm judged by a jury of my peers, I've never seen one of those people that I grew up in my neighborhood sitting at jury Pool. Those are jury of my peers. I have to go back to that neighborhood. So those are the people that I have to go back to. Those are the people that have to deal with me. But I didn't see those people because those people knew who that young man was. 00:41:24 Speaker 3: That's what we deal with. 00:41:31 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host, John Huffington. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flomm, Jeff Kempler, Jeff Clipburne, and Kevin Watis, as well as the production staff Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink. With research by Shelby Sorels. The music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow Wrongful Conviction across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can find me on it, Instagram and Twitter, at Huffington John and You can find my book Innocent and I've Seen Miscarriage and Justice at John Huffington dot com or wherever books are sold. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one