Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / 537: #537 Jason Flom with Johnny Berry
Transcript
- 00:00:03 Speaker 1: On August tenth, nineteen ninety four, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, seventy eight year old Leonard Jones and twenty seven year old Michelle Brooks sat in a parked car when one male blocked the passenger door and another demanded that Jones get out before shooting and killing him. The two males fled. Michelle Brooks initially chose sixteen year old Johnny Barry from a photo lineup, but when she rescinded that idea at a preliminary hearing, the charges were dropped. Within a few weeks, Johnny was inexplicably rearrested for the crime of which he had just been cleared, and while in juvenile detention, he met fifteen year old Taheed Lloyd, who admitted that he was one of the two attackers in the Jones killing, but when he wouldn't agree to clear Johnny's name, the two boys fought. Lloyd was later arrested on an unrelated charge, and a gun in his possession was linked to the Jones murder. However, Lloyd mistakenly believed that Johnny had implicated him, and as retribution, falsely named Johnny Berry as his accomplice and Jones's shooter. At trial, Michelle Brooks' testimony was shaky at best, but with Lloyd's testimony, Johnny was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Years later, Lloyd admitted his lies, but at a hearing when the prosecution threatened to charge Lloyd with perjury and retry him for the murder, Lloyd refused to officially recant. It took a slew of Supreme Court rulings on juvenile life sentences and a review by Philadelphia's Conviction Integrity Unit to finally set Johnny Barry free after nearly twenty five long years behind bars. This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your host, Jason Flahman. This episode is probably going to that's with your perceptions of justice. I mean, there are so many things wrong with this case. You're gonna feel like you need a chiropractic from your head spinning around. It's an incredible story of an incredible man named Johnny Berry, and it goes all the way to the United States Supreme Court decisions, to lying witnesses, and a corrupt system that really ignored what should have been absolutely crystal clear from day one. So without further ado, Johnny Berry, welcome to wrongful Conviction. 00:02:30 Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you very much. Jason. 00:02:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, I'm so sorry you're here because of what you had to go through, But I'm obviously on the flip side, I'm super happy that you're free and out and have been totally exonerated and vindicated and are now living your best life. So okay, what was your life like before all of this insanity? 00:02:53 Speaker 2: Growing up in Philadelphia, Wes Philadelphia, life was simple. It was fun. I am the eldest of five children. My father was active member in the military. My mother was a stay at home mom. We were poor, definitely didn't have much, but what we did have was love, dedication to one another, and we did our best to make things work. 00:03:14 Speaker 1: It sounds like people living that kind of life all over the country, right, just struggling to get by day to day, but having good parents and lots of love in the household. And so you were sixteen years old at the time of this horrible crime went on August tenth, nineteen ninety four. Leonard Jones, who was seventy eight years old and Michelle Brooks, who was just twenty seven, were sitting in a van in the Parkside neighborhood at Philadelphia, when two very young men approached the van. Right one of them blocked the passenger side door from opening, preventing Michelle from getting out, and then the other one approached mister Jones with a handgun and yelled at him to get out, but before he could even comply. I don't forget he was not a young guy, seventy eight years old. He was shot and killed and then both of the men fled. And before we dive in to the investigation, it's important to note that you, Johnny, had had some brushures with the law prior to this. 00:04:07 Speaker 2: Is that right, Yes? Unfortunately, Yeah, I was specifically involved with and I'm not proud of the selling of drugs and things of that nature. 00:04:16 Speaker 1: Right, So you weren't exactly a choir boy. But that also doesn't make you a murderer. And it is relevant though, because it means that you were known to the police. And so as the investigation got underway, Michelle Brooks, the twenty seven year old woman from the van, She described the man who had held her door shut and said he had a chipped front tooth, and then police showed her a photographic lineup, and from that lineup she picked you, and at that time you did have a slightly chipped front tooth, so police arrested you. But on August thirty first, nineteen ninety four, Michelle Brooks came to the preliminary hearing and when she saw you, she told police that you were not the person who had held the door shut. You're just not the guy. So naturally the charges were dismissed and you were freed, and that should have been the end of it for you right there, you know, But a few weeks later you were rearrested for the same crime and sent back to juvie. So, Johnny, this is crazy, right, I mean, pill us In, do you have any idea why they rearrested you. 00:05:15 Speaker 2: I have a theory. It was a time period where Philadelphia was being plagued with crime, and politicians and public officials were like their feet held to fire, like, hey, we got to do something about this. I was a known individual to authorities. I was in the streets, I was involved with gang activity, I sold drugs, and I believe that the police specifically honed in on me. They had me. They didn't have any other individual at that particular time, and they wanted me and they were stuck on me. And that's why we don't have any or never came up with any type of evidence as to why I was rearrested. 00:05:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's not completely out of the realm of possibilities. It was Philadelphia in the nineties, after all, when both crime and police miscond were just rampant. I mean, but what happens next is even crazier. So there you are back in juvenile detention and you hear about a fifteen year old kid named tay Heed Lloyd who had been a juvie on an unrelated charge during your last short stint. Now he was still there and some guys but ahead and't told you what he had said after you had left the last time. 00:06:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was incarcerated in the juvenile facility, and once there, the individuals who were there and had been introduced to me, so to speak from my time prior, the whole thing was hey, what are you doing here? Why are you back? And I'm like, I have no idea. They say, okay, well, by the way, do you know this guy over here indicating Tayhi Lloyd? And I'm like, no, I don't know him, never met him before, you know, what's up with him? They're like, hey, when you left, he told us that he and his friend had committed the murder and not you, and that you really didn't do it. So, hearing that, I approached him and I was like, hey, I'm hearing that you had something to do with this homicide that I'm here for. I didn't do it. You know I didn't do it. Can you help me with it? His exact words to me was, I know who did it. I didn't do it, but I'm not saying anything. And at that point I said, or you're not saying anything? Oh no, you bought this. We got into a physical altercation. We started to fight, and the officers in that vicinity came and they broke the fight up, separated us, but we had bad blood between us from that point on because I was so bent on. Man, I'm in this freaking hell hole for something you and your friend or whoever it was, did and I'm not supposed to be here. 00:07:41 Speaker 1: And do you remember did Lloyd have chip teeth like the witness Michelle Brooks had mentioned. 00:07:47 Speaker 2: TYI, Lloyd had a very very identifiable two front chip teeth. I could have actually taken the tip of your pinky finger and stuck it through that chip in front of his two teeth. 00:08:00 Speaker 1: Well, I don't know that anybody in your situation would have acted any differently. I mean, got every reason to be angry and to want to try to do what you could do in that situation to extricate yourself. Right, And here's this guy who holds the key, and he's right in front of you, and then he actually turned in the complete opposite direction. What I'm talking about is Lloyd was arrested several months later and they found him in possession of a handgun that was linked to the murder. Ballistics confirmed this, and he thought that you had implicated him because you had known that he had done it from the talk inside the prison, and so he went ahead and implicated you in the crime, almost like street justice or something like that. Right, And as happens in these cases time and time again, he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a fifteenth to thirty seven year sentence for a murder that he did commit. So he saved himself from a life sentence changed for lying and presenting false testimony against you. Well, now what happens next is predictable, right, You get charged with murder, robbery, conspiracy, and possessing instruments of crime. So now you're facing the worst imaginable scenario. What was going through your mind when you found out you were being charged with all these terrible crimes. 00:09:20 Speaker 2: When I realized that I was being charged for this murder and that he was bearing testimony against me, I was horrified. I still remained optimistic that I was going to go to trial and beat the case because I didn't do it. 00:09:33 Speaker 1: Until let's go to the trial. So this is September nineteen ninety five. He had already spent the year in jail awaiting trial. And then Michelle Brooks. So Michelle Brooks, remember was the witness who was in this vehicle at the time of the murder. Now her testimony was conflicting and confusing. She identified you as the person who held the door shut during the robbery, but then she also identified you as the gunman, which of course they couldn't both be true. And she also said that she had told the police previously that you weren't involved in the crime, and then she restated that in her testimony. So if I'm on the jury, I'm going wait a minute, there's three totally different stories here. But I think the nail in your coffin, so to speak, was that Lloyd testified saying that you and he had committed the crime. He knew full well who had committed the crime with him, and that guy, his actual co conspirator, remained on the streets as a result of them taking you in his place. So who was your attorney and did they mount any kind of a defense for you. 00:10:42 Speaker 2: My attorney at the time was Donald Michael Podova. I will say that he did his best. He was quote appointed, overworked, underpaid, and he tried his best to save this young boy's life. And it was so much that he could have done with a so called co defendant who pointed the finger and said, hey, yeah, I was a part of this crime, but he done it with me. Give me a deal, you know. 00:11:06 Speaker 1: So predictably, you were convicted of murder, robbery, possessing instruments of a crime, and conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. What was that awful moment like when the jury came back in with the verdict. 00:11:21 Speaker 2: When I was convicted and they handed down that life sentence, tears came down my eyes like a baby. I looked back at my mother at the time it was living and I cried because I couldn't believe that the system had felt my family and my community and me, and at that point I just felt absolutely helpless. 00:11:49 Speaker 3: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and secure Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key pillar of the AIG pro Bono program, which provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. As part of Eccentsure's commitment to racial and civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. 00:12:35 Speaker 2: When I first got to prison, they sent me to state correctional institution Gratifford. That place was like another world. When I was eighteen at the time. When I first entered into grat Afford, it was like halways full of people, full of people, like close jury, loud, and I thought, who are all these people? Wow, there's a lot of counselors that were here, because I saw very few people who had on the state issued clothing. Well what it was, were all inmates, and at that particular time, we were allowed to wear our street clothing. So the hallways was filled with inmates or residents as I like to call them. At that time, prison was a lot more ran by the residents, more so than it is now. At that time, the residents had more control over the institutions, and there was a lot more liberties, more freedom. It was more volatile than it is now. But on the other hand, it had like a balance to the police. The residents kind of ran it, but they maintained a balance, so people didn't just do anything. You know, there were texts and balances if you've done something. You know. Administration kind of worked hand to hand with some of the residents and we kind of figured it out. That didn't mean that some stuff didn't happen sometimes, but it was a lot more easier. And I'm telling you five six seven years went by like nothing. 00:14:00 Speaker 1: So six seven years later, two thousand and two, after your convictions had already been upheld on appeal. You received a letter that must have rocked your world. Tell us about that. 00:14:12 Speaker 2: I received under the door and myself a recantation letter from Tyi Lloyd, basically saying, hey, here's a long awaited piece of information that you've been waiting for. He wanted to come clean, wanted to clear my name, and so he did that. He talked about the fact of him having known me prior to being incarcerated at the juvenile facility. He talked about his incentives or motive for Lyon, and he also saw it as a means to receive less time. And I do remember that he was pretty insistent on he wasn't recanting for me. He more so was concerned about my mother and things of that nature. So for me, it was like a bittersweet sort of thing at a time because I was so elated. I was so blown away by receiving that recantation, but at the same time I was dealing with the loss of my mother. That was hard, you know, I don't really talk about that. 00:15:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it's hard to imagine being stuck inside and getting the worst news that you could get like that, and what a crazy whirlwind of events, right if you get that worst news, and then you get this letter that you'd probably been maybe not even allowing yourself to hope would come, but it came. So this guy who had literally put you in prison for the rest of your life not only sent this letter, but he also signed an after David under oath saying that he had falsely implicated you because he thought that you had told the prosecution about Lloyd admitting in the juvenile detention center that he had taken part of the crime. So then your lawyer, Robert Gamberg filed a post conviction petition for a new trial and was granted the hearing. Now he had collected a significant amount of evidence to defend your innocence, statements from two different people who were in the juvenile detention center back in ninety four who overheard Lloyd say that he was going to falsely accuse and implicate you, and this lawyer Gamberg obtained a statement from a prison inmate, Bryant Miles, who said that Russell Q. Wilson admitted that he and Lloyd had committed the crime and that Lloyd was the gunman. Bingo, right, this is powerful stuff. This is where it takes a crazy turn. In two thousand and seven. Lloyd was prepared to testify by a video conference, but the prosecution had some dirty tricks a DOA prosecutor threatened to charge Lloyd with perjury and retry him for the murder if he persisted in his recantation, and the judge conducting the hearing became concerned that Lloyd was opening himself up to a perjury prosecution, which he was, so he appointed a lawyer to represent Lloyd and continued the hearing, and then the prosecutor got just what they wanted, right. The hearing resumed two thousand and eight, but Lloyd took the Fifth Amendment and you were sent back to prison. 00:17:05 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:17:05 Speaker 1: What freaking turn of events that is. And just so people understand, if he had lost, if they had gone and done what they said they were going to do and follow through on their threat, he could have gone back to prison for the rest of his life instead of fifteen to thirty seven. Am I right? 00:17:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, because that was part of his agreement with the distric Attorney's office, is that it turned out that he testified falsely, perject testimony anything like that, the dealers off the table and he would have been prosecuted to the full assistant of the law. But the problem with that is, as I see the District Attorney's office in Pennsylvania, they have immunity, and so when they utilize his agreement as a threat to him, which it was, it takes away the power of the balance of justice and the scales of justice because now even though he wanted to do the right thing and tell the truth, he's concluded from doing that because it's like, hey, I'm not going to go to jail and exchange for helping this guy to get out. They didn't leave him any real room to do the right thing. And thisic attorney, who were instrumental in seeing to that he plied the fifth. Their feet aren't held to the fire or anything like that because they have immunity. 00:18:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, here's this guy, Lloyd, who finally found his moral compass or his some kind of courage to come forward and tell the truth. And the prosecutor is like, Nope, we don't want the truth. Yep, we're not interested in no kind of truth. We're happy the way things are. And this takes us to February of twenty eighteen. So now you've been in for what twenty three years. 00:18:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, approximately. Yeah, And so there have. 00:18:40 Speaker 1: Been a number of Supreme Court decisions in the past couple decades that have had a significant positive impact on juvenile justice, and I want to just break those down for a second. They include that back in two thousand and five Roper versus Simmons, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional for juveniles, and then in two twenty ten, with Graham versus Florida, the US Supreme Court invalidated life without parole sentences for juveniles and non homicide incidents. In twenty twelve, in Miller versus Alabama, the US Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life without parole sentences imposed on juveniles were unconstitutional in all cases. And then in twenty sixteen, in Montgomery versus Louisiana, the US Supreme Court made the holding they made in Miller retroactive, and so due to that very ruling, you received a reduced sentence that made you immediately eligible for parole and common Please Court Judge Barbara McDermott's fantastic you love her, right love her, and Judge McDermott, if you're listening, we're sending you a big shout out and our respect for having done what you did. It's important that we recognize when people in positions of power do what's good and right. So she noted that you could quote continue to fight on the street instead of in prison end quote. She met, of course, fight to prove your innocence. But on August fourteenth to twenty eighteen, you finally came home. What was that like when you just walked out the door. Was there a big crowd to meet you? What did you do? 00:20:16 Speaker 2: Oh man, Well, at the time, there was one very significant, very special person there to meet me, as my wife. She was right there, walked out with a box in my hand, gave her a big hug, and I kind of like troted as fast as I could in the direction away from the prison because in my mind, I felt like, at any moment, they're going to say, hey, Johnny, listen, we made a mistake. Man, you gotta come back. So I wanted to get the hell out of here. She said, hey, man, you moving kind of quickly, and I'm like, well, you know, if you want to get with me, you better come on. But yeah, man, for me, that moment was like a breath of fresh air and a burning building. I felt like I had absolutely won when I walked out those doors and I got in that car with those prison attire and we drove down that route. 00:21:12 Speaker 1: Let's not forget that even though you were free, you weren't really free, right, you were still a convicted murderer and all the things that go with that. But in another good turn of events, there was a new DA in town. His name was Larry Krasner, and Larry Krasner was a friend of mine and a great man. He had by this time established one of the most robust conviction integrity units, run by Patricia Cummings in the country. And they reviewed your case, and they found all the statements that corroborated your innocence. And so June twenty fourth, twenty nineteen, less than a year after you were freed, all the convictions were vacated and all the charges were dismissed. How did that feel? 00:21:56 Speaker 2: Well? Let me start off first by saying to Patricia Cummins, phenomenal woman, and to Larry Krasner, shout out to them virtual hugs. I love those two individuals. I love the work that they are doing. I take my head off to them on that particular day where I was exonerated. First, it took about maybe fifteen minutes. The judge said a few words, told me I was exonerated. I accepted it, and the court went on with its normal daily proceeding. And I'm like, wow, twenty three years and some change versus fifteen minutes, and I walked out of the courtroom a freeman. I just felt like I got me back. I had felt empowered, and I felt like I could then begin my new life. 00:22:41 Speaker 1: And the Ada tom Gata actually told Judge McDermott that had the prosecution allowed Lloyd to testify at the post conviction hearing in two thousand and eight, without the threat of being prosecuted for perjury, you would have been granted a new trial. Those are powerful words that you don't hear often enough from people like him. 00:23:03 Speaker 2: Yep, I actually know him very well, very very decent person with courage beyond description. So I'm glad that he has been in addition to that office and changing the trajectory of the way in which that office had been running for past thirty or some odd years. 00:23:23 Speaker 1: Amen to that as well, and so as many villains as there are in this story, it feels like there's almost an equal number of heroes, and I'm glad we're recognizing them here and now. And then in August of twenty nineteen, you filed a federal civil rights loss. It's seeking damages from the city of Philadelphia. And I have to say, in all the years I've been doing this work, one of the questions that I'm asked the most is people they always want to know that the person who was wrongfully convicted, like, surely they got compensation that millions of dollars and like an apology, right, And unfortunately that's not what happens in far too many of these cases. Actually, in the large majority of these cases, and yours is one of them. Am I right? 00:24:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, a lot of cases do not become successful on civil wrongful conviction suit. They just aren't successful. And it's a year after year process fighting tooth and nail to be compensated. 00:24:18 Speaker 1: So Pennsylvania is one of the states that doesn't have a compensation statue, you know, and the Innocents Project has been leading the charge to pass compensation statutes and laws around the country. I think they're now thirty two or thirty three states that have them, even then they vary widely and some of them provide very very little no matter what you went through. But Pennsylvania doesn't have a law, and so you haven't received any compensation whatsoever for your twenty three years in prison. 00:24:47 Speaker 2: No civil lawsuits are still on the way, but as far as the state saying, hey, look, we apologize, we acknowledge you've been wrongfully convicted, and as a gester of you being able to kid on your out here, no, that hasn't happened. 00:25:02 Speaker 1: Well, listen, hopefully it's not too far off, and hopefully you will be successful in one of these civil suits, so you definitely deserve it. In the meantime, though, I'm happy to say that you have welcomed the baby boy into the world. 00:25:15 Speaker 2: Right, yep, it's my baby boy. His name is Yusuf. He's just turned two. He's so advanced. Man, it's so smart. 00:25:23 Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's a beautiful scene. And you have a cleaning business now as well. 00:25:28 Speaker 2: Right. I work alongside of another individual, and what we do is we can clean commercial and residential properties and then we also do clean outs, so individuals weren't like debris and things like that moved and then sense of the dumpster and things like that. We do our best to provide that service. 00:25:47 Speaker 1: And so, Johnny, for people who are listening out there, who are wanting to help, and we know how expensive it is raising a little kid. Is there a way that people can reach out to you about your cleaning business if they're in the Philadelphia area, or to make a speech to help, you know, to help cover your expenses while you're waiting for what we hope will be a successful outcome of a civil case eventually. Is there a way for people to contact you? 00:26:10 Speaker 2: You can contact me directly. My email is my name backwards Barry Johnny eleven eleven at gmail dot com. 00:26:18 Speaker 1: All right, so if anyone can help, has the ability to help, and is willing to help, please go to the link in the bio. We're gonna have Johnny's contact info there to help Johnny and his family. Of course, now we have the part of our show that I love the most and I think our audience does too. We call it, of course, closing arguments, and Johnny, here's how it works. It's very very simple. First of all, I thank you again for being here with us today courageously sharing your insane story and your experience in the service of others. And now I'm just going to kick back, turn off my microphone, leave my headphones on, and of course leave your microphone on so you can share with us any other thoughts that you want to impart to our large and growing audience. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, and I do appreciate being here. The one thing that I'm focusing on right now here in Pennsylvania is hopefully getting the legislatures to realize the importance of enacting a law which would allow for parole eligibility for people who are serving life sentences and deserve to see the parole board. I think it's important for a number of reasons. One because to me, if you really do the numbers, it's cost efficient. It costs about in upwards of maybe thirty seven to forty thousand dollars the house and inmate annually, and if the intimate or resident is geriatric or in some other type of state where they need assistance, it can run you up with some hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's cost efficient. Also, if you really look at these statistics for an individual who has been commuted after serving a life sentence or has been pardoned or has been released on parole, or some other type of situation like that. The recidivism break for that type of individual is less than one percent. So statistics have shown that these type of individuals, this class of people mostly do not reoffend. The statistics show is less than one percent. So I'll call on the legislature. I call on their constituents. It makes sense, man do the sensible thing, and that a legislation to say parole eligibility. That means an individual would have a chance to see the parole board and then leave it to the parole board to make that decision based on that individual's case and then also what that person has been doing while in cons of it. And I put that number in maybe twenty five years. So that's what I would say, Support a bill for parole eligibility. 00:28:55 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to rafel Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one