Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #309 Jason Flom with Jace Washington

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#309 Jason Flom with Jace Washington · Wrongful Conviction

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: On April twenty ninth, two thousand and seven, two masked
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: gunmen entered a trailer home occupied by a group of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: undocumented workers in Slide Down, Louisiana and demanded their cash.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: When Jose Carlos Martinez Carpio didn't comply, he was fatally
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: shot and a gunman fled in a Chevy Tahoe. The
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: witnesses described a gunman as two black men around five
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: eight to five ten with no tattoos. Two men were
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: reported disposing of a gun outside of a Chevy Tahoe,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and testing confirmed that that gun was the murder weapon.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: The investigation led to seventeen year old Glenn Carter, who
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: confessed to the crime in exchanged for leniency, saying that
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: his accomplice was a guy named E. Police approached one
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of Carter's known associates, Ezra Cooper, who offered a trade
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: information about two more assailants for leniency. But in a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: crime involving only two assailants, wasn't such lies just be ignored,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: especially when those lies change repeatedly to adapt a new evidence.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: When two different sets of facts were needed to convict
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the actual purpose and these other two guys, A judge
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: would never let that slide, right, you would think, but
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: we're headed to the incarceration capital of the most incarcerated
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: nation in the world, and of course I'm talking about Louisiana.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And today's case involves four men convicted separately for the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: same crime. Two were admittedly guilty, while the other two
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: were wrongfully convicted, and each conviction involved a slightly or
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: entirely different set of quote unquote facts. And we hope
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: for justice to be served for both of the wrongly
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: convicted men. One of them is with us today, Jase Washington,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. All yeah, we
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. And with him his peers advocate Izia Free,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: who was alerted to this insane injustice while during COVID
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: taking a break from law school writing articles about the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: criminal legal system. Now she just passed the bar, but
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: instead of following the corporate law route that she had
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: originally charted and planned for herself, she's diving into her
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: very first criminal case pro bono. So, Izzy, welcome to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the show. Thank you so Jase. Before we launch into
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: everything that's wrong with the criminal legal system in Louisiana,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: especially in Saint Tamminy Parish, and your case in particular,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: we'd like to get to know you a bit well.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I was born in Probley, Louisiana. My mother and my
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: father separated when I was younger, so I had kind
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: of been going back and forth between them and wait
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to see permanent my fall the Ondell and we'll playing
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of sports baseball, basketball, football, or Leydon.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And I got a skateboardings so you were living a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: very active lifestyle and Slide Dell, Louisiana with your dad.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And to make better sense of this story, our audience
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: might want to take a look at Slide Dell on
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: a map. Now, most people are familiar with New Orleans,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of course, which is on the south side of Lake
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Pontre Train. Slide Dell, on the other hand, is just
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: across the lake to the northeast from New Orleans at
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: another fifteen minutes east to Long Eye ten brings you
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: right into Mississippi. If you go west over the north
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: side of Lake Pontre Train, you go further into Louisiana,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: where Jace used to go to a skate park. So
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: skateboarding was big for you as was basketball. Right, How
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: tall are you?
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I'm about four.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So six three sixty four definitely not around five to nine.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Along with a number of other physical characteristics, I should
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: have disqualified you as a suspect in this crime, and
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: also as evidenced by your squeaky clean record prior to this,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: if I understand correctly, you had never been in trouble
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: with the law in a place where I understand it's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a difficult maze to navigate for a young black man
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: just to emerge unscathed.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Right, I've payed out of trouble that wasn't in my faith.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Being in Saint Kamney Tarandeine in Louisiana is a very
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: very peculiar situation for young black people, especially young black males.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You have higher chances of being disadvantaged by the system
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: coming out and scathed. It's rather hard whether you're a
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: terrible person, a troublemaker, or you're not. I was not.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: No, you were not not even a smudge on your record.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: You are a great student athlete who simply had one
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: unfortunate acquaintance. And we're going to get to that in
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a minute, but first, in Louisiana from the Post Reconstruction
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: era straight on through to a ballid INITIAI of the past.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Jase and so many others, countless others
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: were or could have been convicted by a non unanimous jury,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: first by a jury of get this nine out of twelve.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Then they changed it too. Eventually they changed it to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: ten out of twelve. And the reason I don't want
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to insult anybody's intelligens because you probably already figured it out.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So they could disenfranchise black jurors and to make use
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: of the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole as punishment for a crime,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: whether the person was guilty or not. Now, in covering
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: this case, I came upon a person who helped to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: organize that twenty eighteen ballot initiative. She's very active in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Saint Tammany and remembers Jason's trial.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Well, my name is Belinda Parker Brown. I'm with Louisiana
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: United International, with a civil constitutional human rights organization that
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: focus on the injustice and the criminal justice system. Our
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: organization is responsible for nicknaming this racist, unconstitutional Jim Crow law,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: this non unanimous jury verdict. Nicknamed it ten to two.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I was so happy to see that happen
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: during the twenty eighteen mid terms. But here we are,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: just after the twenty twenty two midterms, in which there
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: were ballid issues all over the country where voters were
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: given the opportunity to end the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: in their states, and that measure was approved by the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: way and all of the other states that voted on
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: it except for one, Louisiana. But Louisiana is not alone,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: far from it and still benefiting from slave labor. And
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it needs to stop in every state, especially when you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: have entire parishes or counties in this country seemingly devoted
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to pumping out one wrongful conviction after another. And of course,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: no one is more vulnerable to the machinery of our
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: criminal legal system than the poor.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: They wind up taking a plea to things that they
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: did not do. And that's what they were doing here
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: in Saint Tammany, forcing, threatening, badgering young black men to
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: take pleas to things that they did not do, just
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: because they could not afford attorney. And because of that,
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the lead district attorney, Walter Reed, nicknamed this parish Saint
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Tammany Saint slammony, and that became something that they'd celebrated
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: here in this paragh, especially when the reelections and all
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: of that stuff would come around. You know, they was
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: tough on crime. And you know if you come over
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: here with your chie wei's and your dreadlocks, and you
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: know we're gonna get you, We're gonna lock you up
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: and throw the key away.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Right. I read the quote that I believe you're referring to,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and at first I couldn't believe it was real because
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of just the naked racism of it. It was from
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the Saint Tammany Sheriff Sheriff Jack Strain, and this is
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the guy who had been in powered there since nineteen
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: ninety five. He was running for reelection in twenty ten,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: just after Jason's conviction, and on the campaign trail he said,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and this is a direct quote, he said, for some reason,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: New Orleans chooses to coddle criminals in that area that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: tend to get away with a great deal. End quote.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And first off, No Orleans Parish between Harry Connock Senior
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and Leon Canazaro was notorious. But back to the quote
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: he said, quote, we will not coddle that trash in
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Saint Tammany Parish. If you're going to walk the streets
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: with dreadlocks and chewy hairstyles, then you can expect to
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: get a visit from a sheriff's deputy.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Everybody knew who he was talking about. It was the
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: most profound racial sickness that can come out of a
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: person's mouth that really, you know, inspired me to begin
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: to protest against the sheriff's jail. It's like a god
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: forsaken hellhole.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: People were being beat and raped and committing so called suicide.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: And he had something that we nicknamed them the squirrel cages.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: These squirrel cages were these three by three or four
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: by four foot cells. I mean they were like phone boots, basically,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: nowhere to move, just you could just stand still pretty much,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and of course no plumbing.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: In these squirrel cages. They would defecate on themselves. They
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: would put them in their butt naked for weeks. You know,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: people would just say, okay, I'll do whatever you want
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: me to do. I'll say it, you know, I just
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: want to get this.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Over with, and using torture tactics like these pretty much
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: insures that law enforce will get whatever statement they want
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to fix a rig a case. So add to that
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to ninety nineimus jury verdicts, and you've got a system
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: fixed to maintain a ninety eight percent conviction rate. These
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: are the tactics that they used in Jas's case, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a bit. So, Belinda, after
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Jason had already gone to Prisident and Sheriff's strain had
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: made these comments while campaigning, your organization had taken to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the streets to protest.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Doing the protest on public property, they came out and
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: told us to get off of their land. And at
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: that particular time, my youngest son, because he was videotaping
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: for us at that protest, they the arrested him and
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: put him inside of one of those squirrel cages. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: literally that put the gasoline on my fire to go
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: after these people for the wrongdoing.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So if you take nothing else away from this story,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: it's that you shouldn't fuck with Belinda. So, the two
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: people most responsible for Jason's wrongful conviction and countless others,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the DA Walter Reid, got convicted of a number of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: financial crimes, and from what I understand, those were the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: ones that the FBI could make stick. But the sheriff, well,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you tell.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: It, Jack Strain. He would spend the rest of his
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: life in prison. This sheriff was just a very sick,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: sick man.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: As an organizer, you know, people would come to me
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: with these stories and I would like try to vet
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: what they're saying. After we dug up everything that we
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: possibly could on him. And it was over thirty three
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: witnesses that was coming forth saying that the sheriff was raped,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: been people inside of the jail. He was charged with incests,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: raping and molesting his own family members.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: It's an absolute horror show, and it somehow gets worse.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: This sheriff was also brought up on bribery charges. They
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: were privatizing the work release program basically slave trading under
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a different name, and he was getting kickbacks from those
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: contending to take it private. Just it's unreal. Meanwhile, of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: course he was out there putting these people in squirrel cages,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: in these literal torture cages to supply fresh bodies for
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: this slave trade.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if the people are aware
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: that the state and the federal government give so much
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: money to the jails and prison and you got to
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: be at least at ninety seven percent occupancy before you
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: can receive the federal and state funding.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So not only did this sheriff Strain have his own
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the various incentive to keep convictions up as of course
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to the DA seeking re election, but there's literally also
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a financial incentive from the state and federal government to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: keep up the supply of fresh bodies in a center.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Not that same vile and perverse incentive leads many municipalities
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: all over this country to operate this way, torturing or
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: coursing statements from not only the quote unquote suspects, but
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: witnesses as well.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Jack Halstead was one of the corrupt prosecutors and that
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: prosecuted Jase that was known for badgering and threatening witnesses
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: and tell them say if you don't say what it
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: is we want you to say. You know, you're gonna
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: get your kids taken away from you. You're not going
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: to be able to get a job. They literally made
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: people lives miserable. You know, we got people that would
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: testify to that their doors and stuff were kicked in.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Again, you've heard these tactics before on this show, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: if police have never threatened you or coursed you this way,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: maybe you'd be inclined to believe the things they say
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: in court and find yourself among the ten out of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: twelve who consistently voted to convict. And so as we
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: begin to talk about this case in which there were
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: two assailants, you'll see how these two now disgraced former
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: elected officials, along with the Jim Crow era practice of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: non unanimous juries, were all integral to Jace's conviction, as
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: well as the perverse incentives locally for the sheriff, of course,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and from the state of federal government. And how and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: why these nefarious actors in Saint Tammany Parish would decide
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: to prosecute four young men in a case in which
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: there were only two assailants. The two actual admitted assailants
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: were Glenn Carter and Edrick Cooper. Grant Gathers and our guest,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Jace Washington were in addition to what was even called
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: for now. Jace, you didn't even know Glenn, right, but
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I understand that you did know Grant and Edric.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: All of us went to school together, you know, create
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: basketball and school together. Grant were a little a little
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: more than a quaintance's closest.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Than ed and from what I understand, they both had
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a criminal record. Edric has admitted to making a habit
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of trading false or real information for freedom and his
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: general occupation of petty theft and grant had been convicted
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: once before, but his experience with the system in Saint
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Tammany played into his decision once they came after him
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: for this. So that brings us to April twenty nine,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. This crime happened in Slide El, Louisiana,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: just on the north side of Lake Poncher Trade from
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, where five or six undocumented workers were living
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: in the trailer as a home base for their day
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: labor jobs in New Orleans. Now being undocumented, these guys
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: carried cash and were not likely to go to law
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: enforcement if they were robbed, which made them easy targets. So,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: according to the initial statements from the victim's friends, two
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: gunmen came into the trailer demanding money. The victim, Jose
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Carlos Martinez Carpio, had trouble understanding with the language barrier
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and attacked the gunman with a kitchen knife or something
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and he was fatally shot. The assailants then fled, leaving
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of the men in the trailer stunned and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: grieving as well as in It was impossibly precarious predicament,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: so some time went by before they called the police.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: The first nine one one call was at nine to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: seventeen PM.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: It was a yap there to God think next door
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to them ended up calling nine one one. That's what
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: he explained, that another child that minutes had passed time
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: had passed from the time of the shots by and
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: been on when one called, because they were trying to
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: figure out what.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: To do, and I want to bring Izzy in here now.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Some of the witnesses in the trailer that night were
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: interviewed by the police, right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, I think all of them were actually interviewed. But
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: there were some of them that said that they heard
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: the gunshot. They closed their doors and did not come
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: outside at all. But there were two people who said
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: that they described seeing two people, the gunmen, enter the
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: mobile home. They had their faces covered, but their arms
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: were bare, and they could tell that they were black men.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: The taller of the two men went into the kitchen
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: area and then they heard gunshots coming from the kitchen area,
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: and the shorter gunman who was at the door, he
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: was nervous and so he fired his weapon onto the floor,
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: and then he also fled the area.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So the gunman fled. The two witnesses are Echo, Gooyan
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and Avola. They said that one gunman was taller than
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the other, but not by much.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: They said that they were similar to their height, which
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: was about five eight and five ten foot tall. Jayce
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: stands about six four feet tall and Carter and Cooper
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: is about five eight five ten feet tall. Now, jas
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: is a black man, but he is extremely light skinned.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: Carter is a little darker. The witnesses that were inside
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: the home saw the arms of the assailants, said no,
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: they didn't have any tattoos. But if you look at
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: Jays he has clearly visible tattoos on both arms.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So that's three major features right there that don't match
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the witness's descriptions that should have been right there. These
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: are things that are not subject to the pitfalls of misidentification.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: You can't really mistake no tattoos for tattoos, dramatic contrasted
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: skin tone and six four for five eight.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: The two people that they saw in the mobile home.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: Did not mash the description of Jace Washington.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Or Grand Gathers for that matter.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: No, they mashed the description of Cooper and Carter right.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: But at this point, the cops just had two black
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: men five eight and five ten, dark skin, no tattoos,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: both with guns, faces recovered. I believe they mentioned as
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Chevy Tahoe according to a report written by one of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the detectives in this case, a detective calendar. Other witnesses
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: reported the Chevy Tahoe as well.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Right April thirtieth, there was an eyewitness that reported two
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: black males in a car very close to the crime area.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: One of the black males exit the car and appear
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: to be hiding a weapon in the bushes. The officers
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: they were able to retrieve the gun and then trace
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: the gun to one of the guns that was used
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: in that robbery, and that's what led officers to arrest
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: Carter in the first place.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So they zeroed in on seventeen year old Glenn Carter
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a few days later on May third, when he was
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: thrown into a squirrel cage, and I believe he was
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: facing the death penalty. So it's not a hard decision
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to cooperate. He confessed to the crime, giving a very
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: similar story as to witnesses, and gave up the name
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: E for the initial E as his accomplice. Now, the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: police were already familiar with eighteen year old Edrick Cooper
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: as a known associate of Glenn Carter from previous running,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: so this was basically all the corroboration they needed to
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: go scoop him up.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Who were he was wanted by the detectives already all
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: a week earlier they had been looking for him. That
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: was the way they were able to identify who Glenn
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Carter was talking about his accompanies.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: So on May fifth, Edrick Cooper he also confessed, but
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: he told the officers that there were two other people
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: who were with him, Jason Washington and Grant Gethers.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: By Carter implicating him him already being wanted, pulled two
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: names out the air try to relieve some of the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: trouble that he was in. It could have been anybody,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: as peoplework from other witnesses that was interviewed by detectives,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: they say he added four or three other names. You know,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: if the detectives knew Cooper was not telling the truth,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: because there were things that they already knew that Cooper
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: did not realize they knew right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And as I mentioned earlier, this was Cooper's m O
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: to trade false information for freedom. Saint Tammany police knew
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that from previous interactions, but they were more than happy
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to work with him anyway.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: In the unrelated prime, the same thing happened. I witnesses
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: gave descriptions that sid Carter and Cooper called a told
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: on Cooper again, and when detectives asked Cooper about it,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: he implicated a third party, and eyewitnesses descriptions that they
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: gave did not hit this third party. All the numbers assailings,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: that number of sus that were seen in this other
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: unrelated prime.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Yep, DejaVu all over again. And as we spoke about already,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Saint Tammany, the sheriff, the DA, they all had their
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: own list of incentives to work with Cooper, and none
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of them were truth, justice or public safety. So what
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we're going to see unfold here is the prosecution of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Glenn Carter on the basis of the witness statements from
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the trailer and his own confession. Then Edrick Cooper pled
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: guilty under the same set of facts and then Jace
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: gets prosecuted under a totally different narrative. The jury was
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: kept completely in the dark, and Cooper was allowed to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: change the details and manipulate the narrative over time in
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: order to implicate two more young men, Jason Grant, in
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a crime in which there were only two assailants. So
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the ever changing false narrative of Edrick Cooper.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: The initial statement that he gave, he said all four
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: of them rode to the crime scene in Carter's vehicle.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: He said that he had a black nine millimeter luger,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: Jace had a thirty eight, and Carter had a forty five.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: He said, Jace and Carter entered the trailer and Cooper
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: and Grant stood outside as the lookouts. And so when
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: they heard the gunshot, that's when they all started running
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: and they drove out of the crime scene, all four
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: of them in Carter's car. That's the story that he
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: told the officers.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Glenn Carter, and the trailer witnesses said that Carter, the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: taller of the two gunmen, went into the kitchen, while
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the shorter gunman stayed in the front by the door.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: First of all, if Jace was one of the gunmen,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: then he most certainly would have been the taller one
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: by far. Jace being six four is an irreconcilable truth
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: on its face, as are the tattoos. Then you have
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the witnesses that reported seeing the gun drop outside the tahoe,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and just like Glenn Carter and the witnesses from the trailer,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: they also only reported seeing two men. So despite what
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: detectives with any sort of moral compass should have done,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: they got an a the rest warrant for Jase and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the search warrant for Jace's father's house. Now, remember we
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: have Glenn Carter with the murder weapon of forty five,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: then Jace allegedly with a thirty eight, and Edric Cooper
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: outside with a nine millimeter Luger.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: So Jason's father legally owned a nine millimeter Ruger handgun.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: So when they found that gun, Cooper changed his statement
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: to say.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Ruger, So Ruger not Luger.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: And then he also changed his statement to say that
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: it wasn't him, it was Jase that had that gun.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, now, with Jas's plausible access to his father's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Ruger not Luger Ruger, Cooper has not only to change
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the brand of gun, but also to switch gun placements
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: between him and jas So in this version of events,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Cooper was allegedly outside now with the thirty eight. Now,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: didn't the trailer witness to say that the gunman by
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the front door had fired his weapon into the floor.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, the thirty eight gun was actually fired in the trailer,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: So Cooper changed the statement to include him and Grant
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Gathers all in the trailer, four people in the trailer
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: instead of just two people that he had initially said.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So the only thing from his initial statement that remained
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the same, and the only thing that was consistent with
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Glenn Carter's statement, was that Glenn Carter used the forty five.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Other than that, the brand of nine millimeter changed, as
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: did who was holding it in order to match what
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the police had found at Jace's father's house, And then
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the number of people in the trailer had to change
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: in order to make room for the fact that the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: thirty eight had been fired, as well as the change
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: of who was holding what gun. Jace allegedly with his
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: father's ruger and Cooper firing the thirty eight into the ground,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: as the witnesses in the trailer had said.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: And as you had mentioned earlier, a lot of those
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: people that lived inside the home were immigrants that did
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: not have the proper authorization to remain in the United States.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: So right after the incident happened, they were all arrested
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: and detained. They were detained until December of that same year,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: when who I believe is the current DA of Saint
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Tammany Parish filed a petition with the court and said
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: that these guys were victims and so did not deserve
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: to be detained and they had to be released. After
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: they were released, one of those people also started change
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: in history.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: The current DA is Warren Montgomery, and he worked with
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the Public Defender's Office at the time. Now one of
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the undocumented workers, either at Kagoyan or Avola change their
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: story to maybe possibly include a third or fourth assailant
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to give the state the wiggle room they needed to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: eventually prosecute Jason Grant. But back to the immediate aftermath,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: So both you and Grant were about to be arrested.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: They end up coming to pick me up from my
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: home the next day. You don't have enough money for
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: an attorney. It took us a long time to figure
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: out what was being said and who's shit.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: So no money for an attorney means no money for bail,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and you've got no information about why you're even there.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what must have been going through
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: your mind.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: They take you in the shack world. Cages are full,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: some of them have two or three people in them.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Some of them still have handcuffs on. You know, I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: nineteen years old and I'm trying to proston what's going
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: on law. They put me right into one of those
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: world keys, and I'm still trying to figure out how
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: did I get here.
• 25:19
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• 25:24
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• 25:27
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• 25:30
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• 25:33
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• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Four was set It in two, Four Black Bodies Set
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: It in two, and at Seeing revealed that work against
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: the detective theories. All they did wasdiated change and this
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: could have been remedied from the beginning if Detective State Calendar,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Detective Cannon Garrow had done their job.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And it seems they might have been doing their job.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It's just not the job that they pretend it is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in public. So you were stuck in jail awaiting trial
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: with one piece of information or report from Detective Calendar
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: about the investigation. Meanwhile they were out there trying to
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: fix the case against you. So they tried to corroborate
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Edric Cooper's narrative and they had to change it several
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: times by now already just to fit the facts.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: And then DNA evidence was also conducted because he had
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: said that they rode in an out in Carter's car,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: and he said Carter gave them certain items from his car,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: like a bandana and items to cover their faces. They
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: seized Carter's car, tested it thoroughly for DNA evidence. There
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: is not a single instant where Jason's or Grant gathers
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: DNA was found in any of the items that were
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: found in Carter's car or anything in Carter's.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Car which had they been in there. Finding neither of
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: their DNA. That's not plausible, maybe not even possible.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Yes, So Cooper then changes the story to say that
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Grant and Jace were in one car, and he and
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: Carter were in Carter's car.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: That's convenient, so okay, boom, a new, non existent, nondescript
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: car gets introduced. What's odd, though, is that this narrative
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: is only present in Jas's case. Great Gathers, on the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: other hand, had a prior and had he gone to trial,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: he could have got life, so he pled guilty in
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: exchange for leniency. Understandably in his plea though, he copped
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to being in the Chevy Tahoe, but because he didn't
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: fight it, the fact that DNA testing excluded him from
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the Tahoe didn't matter. He just took the seven years
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: or whatever they gave him to get out of his
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: squirrel cage, and Jace would have been out in like
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, twenty twenty the latest had he done the same.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: They never in a million years expected me to go
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: to trial and fight. They were expecting me to be guilty.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: From the moment that he was arrested. All that they
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: wanted him to do was just say you're guilty. Just
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: say you did it, so then we give you a
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: man's a lot of charge and you probably get like
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: ten years. And he kept insisting that he's not going
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: to plead guilty to something that he hadn't done.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: They tried to at least three or four times after
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I asked for an attorney, which is unconstitutional. The Texas
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: State's Canada technique candidero. They would send try to send
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: different people in there to give me to make a succession.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: At one point, you've been telling me when I asked
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: for my attorney, oh, well, you're going to have a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: public spending. The public desfendant doesn't care about you, so
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: it is your best interest to just go ahead. And
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I'm like, man, I, oh my lord. You know, at
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: this point, I'm kind of im agitated. I want my
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: lawd So after a while of that, they finally keep
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: me in for processing. On my way out to former
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Sheriff Jack Strain made Tommy said, this is a New Orleans.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: You know at this time I had the chipy streadlocked Testyle.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's Strain was very clear about his views and his
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: reelection campaign in twenty ten. He equated the chieweed dreadlock
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Hairstyle with criminal behavior, and it's probably why he operated
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the way he did. So the squirrel cage didn't work
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: on you, reasoning with you about how you're going to
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: get terrible representation hadn't worked.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: What happened next I was taken out of the world
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: cage and I was placed in the whole phanati days,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: couldn't see the news. I had to ask someone friend
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of mine to send me internet print out of an
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: article to just kind of get an understanding of what
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: exactly they was saying was going on, because we still
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: don't know what's going on.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think they knew what was going on because
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: they hadn't decided on the narrative that they were going
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to frame me with yet. So you got out of
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the whole after ninety days, met with your public defender,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and finally got to see a report from Detective Stacey Calendar.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: What years later we find out that a lot of
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the stuff she put in that first investigative report was
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: dedignated and fabricated. She fabricated witnesses statements evidence. She changes
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the descriptions into our witnesses guilds. She changes things that
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Cooper tells her. She just changes things throughout her investigative
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: report to make their investigations seem tighter. And what she's
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: saying in her report and the investigations done by the detectives,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: it's not magic goal.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And like you said, you didn't find this out until
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: years later. Unfortunately, you did not have the benefit of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: effective counsel or the opportunity to review those materials to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: make that comparison yourself. Certainly, neither your first public defender,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: James Tally, or your second, Melissa Brink, were able to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: develop a defense outlining the discrepancies between detective calendars report
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and the actual investigation.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: For maybe a year and a half, the only thing
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I had was her investigated report. This restricted her words.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: I had no witness trances or witness statements or anything
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: like that. So I'm trying to build a defense off
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: of what's in this report. And then maybe a two
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: months before trial two thousand and nine, did come back,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and now all of a sudden, that's changed.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: I got up an open court and I explained to
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Judge Richard Schwartz what was Kaye's place, And the answer
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: he gave me was Melissa bringing handle it, and that
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: assessionly turned out to be very, very, very incorrect.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was handling what like three hundred and seventy
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: eight cases. I mean, I gotta pause there again, that's
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: crazy when she should have had I mean, even one
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty would have been an incredible strain on anyone.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: The ineffective counsel was virtually guaranteed, as it is with
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: so many indigent defendants all over the country, the constitutional
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: violation is built right in. So Glenn Carter went to
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: try out first, followed by Edrick Cooper, then you, then Grant,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and all four of you were found guilty separately, and
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I mean very separately. And can you explain what I'm
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: talking about?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Well, First, Glenn Carr was fried August two thousand and eight.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: He was convicted with evidence of only him and Edrick.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: Cooper committing his crime, right, so consistent with the original
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: witness statements and his own admission.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Right, there was no evidence presented by the state of
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: three and four other people. The next day, after Glen
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Carter was convicted, Edwick Cooper played guilty, but onder the
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: factual basis that it was only him and Carter who
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: committed the crime.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: So everything that Glenn Carter and Edrick Cooper copp to
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: at their proceedings exonerated deal you earned even mentioned in
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: those proceedings. What about his statement that was eventually used
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: against you?
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: The next day, after pleading guilty, the detectives took him
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: for the attorney's office, another slow location. No one's turned
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: and nobody knows where they went to reinterview him, And
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, miraculously, this second statement comes up,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: and it seeks to validate the initial investigation that it's
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: not a repeating.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So Cooper's initial statement, which served as the probable cause
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: to arrest you and search your father's house, in which
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: he admitted to his involvement, that was not even brought
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: up at his proceedings, probably because it was so wildly
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and completely out of step with reality. But now they
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: needed a new statement that wasn't so obviously false that
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: included you and Grant Gathers. And the only thing about
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: this new statement that even vaguely resembled the initial statement
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: was that you two were there and the Carter used
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a forty five. They also now had one of the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: trailer witnesses allegedly giving them that wiggle room of well
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: maybe there was a third or fourth assailant. Who knows
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: if this change was just a translator taking some sort
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of creative license, I mean, could have been. But how
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: did the judge even allow this to go on? We're
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: talking about the narrative of a crime that have just
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: appeared twice in front of the court.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Judge Purist, the judge that did Carters trial and the
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Coopers pleat once he took the plea from Pedrick Cooper
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: said an open court on the record that he was
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: recognizing these as stipulated facts. Basically, he used the legal
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: term he was taking judicial notice, which is he saying
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: he's taking these facts that he's been watching throughout the
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Carter proceedings and now at this Cooper proceeding, he's saying, Okay,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: this is what y'all are saying happened in this crime.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: These are the facts of the case. So Judge Juris
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: was not going to excel the facts that were presented
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: at my trial. And what happened was I was miraculously
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: taking out a judge Buris court and placed some entirely
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: different set action where a different set of facts were
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: consitting to a different judge saying that Hey, two completely
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: irreconcilable names happened in this case.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just can't have two contradicting narrators of the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: same crime. So even though they switched you to a
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: different judge, Judge Schwartz, I mean, wouldn't he just see
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the same thing that Burst did. The state must have
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: recognized that this was weak footing.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Jason's trial was in October twelve, two thousand and nine.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: October nine, they were presenting him with a plea deal
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: to testify against Grant Gethers, and he said he can't
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: testify against Grant because he wasn't there.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: So you're sticking to your innocence to the bitter end.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Did your public defender try to encourage you to take.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: A play the guilty Yes, every day up until October fourteenth,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: two thout a nine was the day I was found guilty.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: And I keep telling her the same thing over and
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: over and over again. I'm not too guilty as something
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: that I didn't do.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And just out of curiosity, what did they offer? Ten
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: years that was.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Ultimately grand Gether's decision in uilty to eight years that
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: was found with guilty of a lesser charge. Grand Gethers
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: would have been going to trial for second to he murdered,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: which in Louisiana is a mandatory life citizens no parole.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So it was a decision between eight years or mandatory
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: life with no parole.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: That's pretty easy master to do. And I guess he
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: didn't know about the DNA evidence that excluded him from
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: ever having entered Glenn Carter Chevy Tahoe. That was a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: part of the narrative of his proceedings. And what about
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the evidence presented in Carter and Cooper's proceedings. You think
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: your attorney would be a little more confident and you
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: would have fared a lot better at trial. But what happened.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: He tried to get cause of confessions that it's not
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: a ray introduced that trial so the jury to hear it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: The judge shot it down. He said that it wasn't.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Trustworthy, wasn't trustworthy. They just used it to send two
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: men away, one for life.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: It just didn't make any sense. And the dream we
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: never heard of it. The twelve people at my trial
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: still don't know to this state that this succession existed.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And if they had, there's reasonable likelihoods that I would.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Have got not guilty burden I mean, what else are
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: we supposed to conclude about this? Judge, he saw the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: evidence from the other two proceedings which impeached the testimony
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of the state star witness against you, and he excluded it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: So now the jury only hears the narrative of Edrick Cooper,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: and they have no idea how many times it changed
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: or how fundamental those changes were. And as we've mentioned,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: up until this point, the impeachment evidence for Cooper's testimony
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: had not been developed very well by Jason's attorney.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: The prosecution, you know, they had the burden, but their
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: burden was very simple, was just really getting Cooper to
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: tell the most recent version of events. The defense's job
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: was probably harder. That she needed to be extremely organized
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: to list all those statements that Cooper had said that
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: weren't true and then actually also do the extra work
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: to show that even if we're supposed to believe the
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: last statement that he's given and disregard all the prior
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: statements that he's saying, this last statement that he's saying
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: cannot even be true. And she didn't do that. She
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: didn't have the time to do all the investigation, or
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: probably didn't have the resources to do the investigations that
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: she needed to do, and so she went to trial
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: unprepared and the jury could not follow.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: She didn't effectively demonstrate the whole clusterfuck around the narrative
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: changing between Cooper outside the trailer with a nine milimeters
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: luger and Jace inside with a thirty eight to then
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Jace with a nine milimeter ruger and all four of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: them inside the trailer. Then you have one witness, likely
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: threatened with deportation or worse, changing their story to include
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the possibility of more sailance than the original two, then
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: going from one car to two cars because DNA evidence
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: excluded Jace. How this issue wasn't raised. It just baffles
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and infuriates me. But then there's this phone record evidence
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that was introduced to draw connection between Jason Glenn Carter,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: but it could have easily been used to impeach Cooper's
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: ever changing narrative. Cooper had made statements about how he, Jace,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and Grant went to Mississippi earlier in the day, when
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the phone records show that Jason Grant had never left Louisiana.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: She could have connected those dots or called an expert
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: to extrapolate a clear vision of Cooper's lives from the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: phone record, but again she was just overwhelmed and not
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: prepared to do that, which could have been a game changer.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: So Cooper had initially told officers that he and Jace
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: and Grant they had been in Mississippi and then they
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: returned to Sliddale on Sunday, which was the day of
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: the incident, about five or so. What is interesting was
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: that Jayce had a purchase receipt that showed that he
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: was already in Louisiana around three pm. So at trial,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Cooper changed the testimony again to say that they arrived
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: in Slydale at ten am.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: So this appears to be just more of the police
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and edred Cooper perfecting his statement to align with reality,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and that's what you have to do with live So
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: how did they try to connect Jas with Glenn Carter?
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Cooper said that when he got to slide Al, he
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: called Carter on Jas's phone. He said that that's when
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: they all got together with Carter and that's when they
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: planned the robbery together. And then he also said that
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: after the robbery, when they were fleeing the area, he
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: said that Jace called Carter on Carter's phone, and Carter
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: did not answer, so they asked him how many times
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: did he call, and he said he called just once.
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: When all four of them were initially arrested, there were
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: two numbers that were listed for Carter. One number, the
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: officers found out quickly was not Carter's number, so they
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: proceeded with just the remaining number, and so that number
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: that they proceeded through before Jasu's trial as Carter's number.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: That number never appeared on Jas's phone, so.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Not at either time that Cooper alleged ten am or
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: nine eighteen pm. So how did they try to make
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: it look like Jason Carter spoke on the phone.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: About a week before Jason's trial, the prosecution goes into
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Jas's phone, there was a phone call from Jase's number
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: at nine eighteen so the prosecution presented this number as
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: Carter's number.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: So the prosecution just took whatever number Jase called around
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the time of the crime and just told the jury
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that that was Carter's number to match up with Cooper's
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: latest version of events. So let's try to unravel this one.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: Cooper said that when Jace called Carter that Carter did
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: not answer, but the number that Jace called around nine eighteen.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: It shows that the person actually answered and there was
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: a conversation, and it shows that a few minutes or
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: so after, Jace called that number again and the person
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: also answered.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: And so I'm sure our audience won't be surprised to
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: find out that the number that they presented as Carter's
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: during trial only appeared in the evening, not at ten am,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: as Cooper had said, thereby exposing yet another one of
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: this guy's lives.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: After trial, Jace, this attorney filed a rid with a
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Chord for a subpoena to get that phone record to
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: verify if that number was Carter's number, the number that
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: Cooper had testified a trial to be Carter's number, and
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: that number turned out not to be Carter's number. If
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: you read the Court of Appeal's opinion on Jasu's case,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: it appears that that's something that they consider to be important.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: That the state was able to establish that connection between
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: Jas and Carter using that phone record. But the phone
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: record that they presented was in Carter's phone number, and
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: what the prosecution did was they just presented the number
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: and showed it to Cooper a trial and said that,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: whose number is this? And then Cooper goes, this is
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Jasu's number. Whose number is this? And then he goes,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: that's Carter's number. Who's the number calling this number? And
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: it's like Jasu's number calling Carter's number. Then they bring
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Carter's girlfriend to the stand. Carter's girlfriend. This is two
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: years later, two years after this incident had happened. Carter's
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: girlfriend comes to the stand and then the prosecution asked
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: her back in April of two thousand and seven, was
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Glenn Carter your boyfriend? And she says yes, sir. And
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: the prosecution goes and Glenn's Carter's being convicted of murder?
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: Is that correct? She goes, yes, sir, in April of
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: two thousand, what was Glenn Carter's phone number? Then she
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: lists the number that Jays dialed on the night of
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: the incident. She lists that as Carter's number from memory.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: Two years two years she remembered the number like that
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: from memory. And this is the part where I just
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: fell so disappointed in Jas's attorney at the time, because
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: she just basically said, I have no questions. She did
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: not cross examine this witness to even understand how she
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: remembered Carter's number. She did not cross examine Cooper to
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: even find out how he remembered that to be Carter's number.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Two years after the incident happened, she did.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Find out that this was not in fact Carter's number,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: That both of these witnesses perjured themselves, but too little,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: too late. I've got to imagine that having them memorize
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: a number off of Jason's phone that wasn't their friend
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Glenn Carter's had to have been the prosecution's idea. But
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: if I were on the jury, I mean, after hearing
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Cooper's testimony, not knowing all the inconsistencies with prior statements
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: or how it was contradicted by witness statements, and having
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: that testimony corroborated by the phone records, I can see
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: how the jury was fooled.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: And even with that, there was at least one person
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: on the jury that said that they didn't believe what
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: the state was saying. They had that testimony from Cooper.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: Cooper's credibility wasn't properly impeached by Jesson's attorney, and they
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: ended up buying his story over the story that Jas's attorney.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: Because I don't even know what story she was trying
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: to tell. She didn't put up that defense. There were
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: so many other people who are willing to testify about
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Jason's whereabouts. There were so many other witnesses that she
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: just didn't call. In the beginning, all that she wanted
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: to do was for Jase to plead guilty, So she
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: wasn't prepared for a trial.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Other than the inadequate and disorganized cross examination. I think
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: she put your dad on the stand to say that
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: you didn't have access to his gun and that you
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: were home at the time of the crime. Unfortunately, alibi
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: defense from family rarely does the trek. So other than that,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: did your attorney present any defense at all?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: She called no witnesses, She presented none of the evidence,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: none of the fall records, no expert for the Fall Reforce, nothing.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: She did nothing, and she put together no defense to
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: actually test the theory and the chinological timeline of Eddie
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Pooble and the state. All of the evidence that I
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: have now proving what I'm saying, all of it was
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: avid by the state, stuff that they call open discovery,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: stuff that she could have pulled, looked at.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And been able to sit the pool, which just points
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: out that the state had to have known what they
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: were doing. This was their information and they simply used
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it to guide the actual guilty party to frame an
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: innocent man. I mean, did you have any hope after
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: shitting through this sham trial?
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, because Cooper admitted to line the day after he
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: took that guilty please. You know, he was asked a
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: question and he was like, Okay, yeah, lie then too,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: but I'm not lying right now. And I think that
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: was one of the biggest things that made me believe that,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, come out of this all right. You know.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a unanimous very. He was non unanimous. During
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: the jury pole, he had one white lady. You could
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: see that she was rather perturbed by the fact that
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: the other eleven jurors could not see pass them saying
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: I committed a crime. During the jury pole, she was
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: physically angry that this was happening because she was able
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: to see for the status saying and what Edward Cooper
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: saying doesn't make any sense.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: So he was acquitted of the second degree murder and
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: then they found him guilty of the manslaughter.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: In that moment, I'm trying to wrap my head around
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: what was going on and how it had taken place.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: It wasn't very secretive. They're not even sweeping it under
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: the rug anymore. They just dumping it on the ground
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: and leaving it there. In that moment, I kind of
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: realized what I was dealing with. That gilt diberty came.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: I realized I'm dealing with a monster. I was sentenced
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: to twenty five years. Twenty five Paul Lady digging ditches,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: digging holes, surrounded by the white guy on a horse
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: with rifles and digging. You're pulling vegetables. I mean part
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: label and since the day, for since the day. That's
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: not slavery, and I don't know what it is.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: It is quite literally slavery according to the thirteenth Amendment,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and then according to voters in the twenty twenty two midterms,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: A voter to keep slavery as a punishment for a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: crime in Louisiana. I mean, between all of the official
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: and prosecutorial misconduct, the incentives keep the jail in prison
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: population up, and how hopefully overworked and underfunded the public
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: defender's offices, It's almost like this is what the legislature
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: has planned for poor people. Across Louisiana, let alone all
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: over our country. Having a public defender who could not
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: possibly organize or present an adequate defense is not the exception,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it's the rule for indigen defendants. It's a built in
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: constitutional violation of the right to effective assistance of counsel.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: So there's a fifty page report that was, i want
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: to say, funded by the US Department of Justice, who's
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: the American University of Washington, DC, and the findings of
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: the report established that the descendants in same family's parish
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: are routinely deprived their constitutional rights and their new process.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: There was a sixty minute sectment in twenty seventeen with
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Anderson Cooper and several public defenders from Louisiana were interviewed
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: and they were explaining that it's like an assembly line
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: in Louisiana. There's an abject underfunding by the state legislator
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: of the Public Defendant's office in Louisiana, and they're basically
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: operating on a budget where they cannot give the constitutionally
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: required representations to get into defendants and expend no remedies,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: and no one is addressing the people who are being objected.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Predominantly lack of meeral.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: As it affected you and continues to affects other folks,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: and you have not been taking this line down between
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: stints out in the fields and studying the lawn, aggressively
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: filing pro sae motions, as well as having some legal
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: help along the way. But unfortunately you're being denied where
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: it seems pretty clear that you should not be, especially
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: on the very basic and effective assistance of council claim.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And you know what that last motion she filed, she
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: talks about things that she should have done prior to trial,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: and she just kind of laid it all out so
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: that I could come back and fight it on post
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: additional collateral attack. She even made the comment to me
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: that I should get some kind of relief from not
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: being able to use called a statement a trial. She
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: was in the belief that, okay, hey, that was so
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: big that it's going to get the case overturned. But
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: it just every time it comes back to the same name,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: not not not.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: All the other appeals that he filed for the court
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: have also been denied because the standard of review on appeal,
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: especially if you challenge the insufficientcy of evidence, is that
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: the court just holds the position that if the jury
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: believed these things to be true, then we're also going
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: to believe it to be true. So Cooper's version of events,
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: that's what the Court of Appeals take to be true.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: And so when the court finds that a reasonable jury
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: could come to that conclusion based on these facts, then
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: the court will affirm the person's conviction. Cooper's testimony is
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: what is following Jays with every appeal that he files,
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: his appeals get denied. But what Jays has been challenging
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: is that the testimonies, the evidence that the prosecution presented
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: to the jury were not true.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Right, they presented false evidence, and one can surmise easily
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: that they had to know that they were doing so,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: considering how they helped Cooper's shape and mold his statements
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: over time to drag two innocent people into this situation
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: contrary to the initial witness statements and the factual basis
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: presented at both Carters and Cooper's proceedings. But shortly after
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: your conviction, between conviction and sentencing, I believe edreck Cooper
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: gave a recantation that is believed to have been made
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: before trial. Is that right?
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Is he?
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: Yes? This is August twentieth, so if I'm reading the
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: date right, this was probably before Jason's trial on August twentieth,
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: two thousand and nine, where Cooper signed an affidavit that
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: he was ready to present to the court to say
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: that he had lied about the whole thing, that every
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: statement that he had provided was a lie, and that
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: he was a scared eighteen year old boy that he
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: knew Jays had never been in any type of criminal trouble,
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: and so because of that he implicated Jace, because he
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: knew that jas wasn't going to get convicted.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Well, clearly he didn't understand what he was dealing with
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: in Saint Tammany Parish. So he wrote this prior to
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Jason's trial, but no one was aware of it until
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: between Jase's conviction and his sentencing.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: What happened was I go to courtA Citacy and Jack
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: half standard Discratorney's office wrints him with purgury if he
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: goes through with the decantation. Same thing with Grant Dealers.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: He did recantation, explaining that he was falciplicated in the crime.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: Grant said that he wasn't there either, and that whatever
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: it is that he said about Jason's involvement, it's not true.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: All of this is taken and once again manipulated in
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the state's favor, like Cooper was forced to make those
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: he can't taste, or Sam David brand Gillis, and they're
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: making me look like I'm the wolf, you know, like
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: I'm just a big, bad guy that trying to force
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: things into his favor.
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: And the whole time it's the opposite classic projection. All
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: of these witnesses that they called credible at your trial,
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: whom they had coerced into line, they then threatened them
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: with perjury for trying to say something they knew to
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: be true from their own investigation. So they got Cooper
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: and Grant to keep quiet. What about Glenn Carter.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Carter actually wrote me a letter that I have, and
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: he's playing in a letter that people were also that
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: I ended up getting caught up in all.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: So Carter wrote a letter to Jayce in which he
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: said a number of things, but the most important here
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: that he said is that but when all of this
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: is over, you could send somebody at me to sign
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: the papers for you. Since E which is Edric and
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: Grant not gonna do it. I don't feel like you
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: should be in here anyway, you didn't do anything, So,
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: like I said, let me get my shit situated and
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: I might do that for you. I know who was there,
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: and I didn't see you, and I.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Took that and I said, just watched maybe thousand as
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: well to get a new trial. Just watchhot that now
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: as well, without even addressing the significance of that letter
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: in cooperation to everything that I was saying before and
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: during the trial. Letters from all three of them have
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: been shot down saying basically, did they hold no credibility?
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: It's funny how they will find recantations not credible, but
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: that doesn't drag into question any previous statements made in
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: court by the same person, like did they recently learn
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: how to become a liar? Is that the basic theory.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: The only metric they're using for credibility seems to be
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: if it maintains a conviction and suits their narrative. And
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: in your case, the state had the evidence that this
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: credit of the statements made against you a trial. But
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: somehow these recantations are the incredible statements, so incredible in fact,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that when Jace received these recantation letters, his cell got
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: tossed do I have that right, Jason?
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was in two thousand and ten. I had
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: the letters from Grant and Buy. What happened was they
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: came to all of myself, man, a lot of my
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: early pictures. I've never seen it again after that sease,
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: and in that bag, in that self were the recantation was.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Thankfully I had it home and I sit it in
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: someone else's name. I'm glad I did that.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine how defeated you would have felt. So
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: at least you have a record of the other two
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: recantations while you await Carter's help. What did you have
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to wait for to get his help?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: So I don't know what he has going on. Legally,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: they promised him a parole d because he now had
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: parole under the juvenile law.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: He was seventeen, right, because he was a juvenile. That
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: falls under two very important Scotis decisions Miller versus Alabama
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: and Montgomery versus Louisiana. Between the two, it makes a
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: mandatory life without parole sentence except in cases of permanent incorrigibility.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: It makes that sentence for a juvenile unconstitutional. And that
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: decision was made retroactive, so he was re sentenced and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: probably wants to wait until those proceedings are through before
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: upsetting his own apple cart by helping you, since it
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: seems they were hell bent on ignoring the signs pointing
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: to your innocence, and that has not changed ever since
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: your conviction. I think this needs to go to a
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: new trial, if not a new venue, because there is
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: certainly new evidence and I don't see how you could
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: ever be convicted with that new evidence being presented.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: So I have cooper statement where he recanted everything and
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: said he liked I have grants where he said he
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: I have Carter's letter.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: You also have the subpoena phone records for the number
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: passed off as Carter's phone in court, which established collusion
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: between Jason Glenn Carter. However, that key piece of evidence
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: turned out to be bogus. That subpoena is not in
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Jason's official filings, so it's new evidence. So given the opportunity,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: you could subpoena the phone company again to submit that
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: as new evidence. And you also did all the work
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: that his attorney never did, thereby destroying Cooper's morass of lies.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: For me, what I'm hoping comes out of this is
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: that somebody goes like, Okay, let's look into this. Not
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: even take my worry for it. Let's look at the paperwork.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: The statements that were presented to the jury were false,
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: and the prosecutor's office knew or should have known, that
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: those statements were false. Cooper changed and was allowed to
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: change those testimonies with no consequences of perjury. And so
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: he constantly keeps changing the stories over and over again
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: until it got to a point where the prosecution could
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: sell that story to a jury. And as we had
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: said earlier, even with all of this, there was at
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: least one person in that jury that said that they
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: did not believe what the prosecution was selling.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Them, which in any other state except Oregon at the time,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: would have meant to hung jury. And this brings us
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: to the very important development of Louisiana no longer accepting
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: non unanimous jury verdicts. They did away with this Jim
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Crow era practice in twenty eighteen by ballot initiative, but
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: when this new law was taken to the Supreme Court,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: rather than making it retroactive, they led it up to
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the state of Louisiana to decide.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: To me, that's like telling the fox that's garden a
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: hen house to do something about what you did that
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: you know was wrong. So Louisiana staying they're not gonna
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: let the people go here. Within our organization, we know
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: that it's over eight thousand people. It's over seventeen hundred
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: or more here in Saint Tammany Parish, with jas on
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: the top of the list.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Belinda Parker Brown. She and her organization have now filed
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the State of Louisiana, and in this
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: lawsuit they planned to challenge the State of Louisiana once
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: again on the issue of these non unitedmous jury verdicts.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: They was caught the highest court in the land, the
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: United States Supreme Court rule what they did here was unconstitutional,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: and I'm saying it was criminal. So I'm saying that
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: if it was unconstitutional and the United States Supreme Court,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: along with the people voting sixty four percent, let these
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: people go.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Let them go free.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: If we got to organize some type of facilitation on
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: how we want to release the people, that's fine, But
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: it's not right for them to hold THEMN hostage kidnap
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: because they got it wrong.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: And we're going to have action steps linked in the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: bio for Belinda's organization and to help Jace.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: So I put together a petition for Jace. We're hoping
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: to create awareness, and we also want the new district
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: attorney who is in Saint Tammany Parish. He has the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: power to reopen Jason's case. All the support and documents,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: all the inconsistent statements, Jason's phone records, Carter's phone records,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Grant Gatherer's phone records, all of that information is available.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: It's for him to give jas a second opportunity for
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: his case to be reviewed.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Go to the bio now and we can all work
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: together to write this wrong. And now we're going to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: turn to my favorite part of the show, closing arguments,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: where I think both of you again, I mean you
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: just you inspire me to want to work harder and smarter,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and we're going to keep fighting for you and for
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: everyone that we can possibly help that's been rawly convicted.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: So closing arguments works like this, Isy, We're going to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: start with you. I'm going to turn my microphone off,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: kick back in my chair with my headphones on, close
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: my eyes, and just listen to anything else you want
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: to share. With our audience and then hand the microphone
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: off to Jason. He'll take us off into the sunset.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: April twenty ninth, two thousand and seven. Another human being,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: Jose Martinez Carpio, lost his life. He had a family,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: he had people who loved and cared for him. He
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: was an innocent man. He deserves justice, His family deserves justice.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: But if you have a situation where there's somebody else
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: who had absolutely nothing to do with what unfortunately happened
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: to Jose Martinez, if you have that person serving time
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: in prison, then you're not delivering any justice to the victim.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: You're not serving society any good, and in what may
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: have been the state's good intention, the state ended up
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: victimizing another person and his family. Jason's conviction was a mistake,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: and it's a mistake that needs to be corrected. It's
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: been fifteen years over you, and that's all that I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: like to say.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: We have social problems going on all over the world,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: all over the country, social problems affecting predominantly black people.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: A lot of time or not giving the resources and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: not giving the pressing a president Joe Biden christology political leaves,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: but it's wresting a lot of social problems, but it's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: being left out a lot of times. It's it's criminal
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: justice systems and the way that if you handles black
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: people on a native dating judges in the court, they're
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: not taking seriously a litigation done by indigent decent. They're
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: not taking seriously a litigation done for who are are
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: almost poor. It has changed. You can't continue to run
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: a system, operate as a state, as a country, as
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: a nation. You can't continue to operate with historically agreeable
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: for people who are being adversity affected by the workings
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: in the working bureaucratic inside of the system.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
• 1:04:14
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• 1:04:17
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• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On
• 1:04:24
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• 1:04:27
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