Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #530 Ben Bowlin with Duane Williams

Transcript

#530 Ben Bowlin with Duane Williams · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On the morning of August twenty, twenty twelve, a Detroit
0:06
Speaker 1: house fire killed two men, Bobby Cross and Daryl Simms.
0:12
Speaker 1: Citing an argument from the night prior, the Cross family
0:15
Speaker 1: wondered whether Bobby Cross's girlfriend's son, Dwayne Williams, had set
0:20
Speaker 1: the blaze. However, with no evidence of arson, these deaths
0:25
Speaker 1: were ruled accidental until three months later, when someone tied
0:31
Speaker 1: to the family was looking for a way out of
0:33
Speaker 1: a jam. They claimed that Dwayne confessed to this arson,
0:37
Speaker 1: sending him away for life. This is Wrongful Conviction.
0:48
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1:06
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Ben Bullen, the host
1:10
Speaker 1: of Stuff they Don't Want You To Know, and your
1:12
Speaker 1: host here on Wrongful Conviction for the next few episodes.
1:16
Speaker 1: This story takes us to Detroit, Michigan, where we've previously
1:20
Speaker 1: covered stories involving an elaborate jailhouse snitch system. We'll link
1:25
Speaker 1: some of those in the episode description, but this one
1:28
Speaker 1: is a little different from those scenarios. And the state's
1:32
Speaker 1: alleged witness in this case was able to flip two
1:35
Speaker 1: accidental deaths into a double homicide charge. For our guest today,
1:40
Speaker 1: Dwayne Williams. Dwayne, thanks for joining us, Man, thank you
1:43
Speaker 1: for having me. We also want to welcome the co
1:46
Speaker 1: director of the Cooley Innocence Project and Garrett thanks for
1:49
Speaker 1: being here absolutely, as well as Maya Menlo from the
1:53
Speaker 1: Michigan Appellate Defender's Office.
1:55
Speaker 3: Thanks.
1:55
Speaker 1: What I think we should start off with first is
1:59
Speaker 1: to have you tell us a little bit about your
2:01
Speaker 1: childhood before the series of tragic events.
2:05
Speaker 4: I'm from a neighborhood in the trait called Brightmore. It's
2:08
Speaker 4: on the west side of the trait. If you ask
2:10
Speaker 4: them about it, it has a reputation for like selling
2:14
Speaker 4: drugs and like the neighborhood being abandoned. I would say
2:18
Speaker 4: it's considered possibly one of the worst neighborhoods on the
2:21
Speaker 4: west Side.
2:21
Speaker 3: That's the neighborhood I grew up in.
2:24
Speaker 4: I hate that I had to grow up someone like that,
2:26
Speaker 4: but it helped to make me the person who I
2:28
Speaker 4: was now. In my childhood, I lived with my mother
2:31
Speaker 4: till I was about seven.
2:33
Speaker 3: From seven to thirteen, I.
2:36
Speaker 4: Ended up having to go live with my grandmother because
2:39
Speaker 4: of physical abuse. But I think that maybe separation issues
2:44
Speaker 4: or the situation with my mother my father's not being there,
2:48
Speaker 4: I started getting into trouble hanging with the wrong people. Luckily,
2:52
Speaker 4: I always had like an interest in music, though.
2:55
Speaker 1: What's the kind of music that speaks to you rap?
2:58
Speaker 4: I think like when I was younger, where I would
3:01
Speaker 4: have problems, I would just listen to the music. That's
3:04
Speaker 4: all I did. And around that time I figured out
3:07
Speaker 4: that I could rap. I used to write poetry before that,
3:11
Speaker 4: and I just kind of put the poetry to music.
3:13
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, when I was.
3:15
Speaker 4: Like fourteen, I got locked up for stealing cars and
3:20
Speaker 4: I went to a place called Boysville of Michigan.
3:23
Speaker 1: Dwayne spent nearly four years there, but when he was released,
3:27
Speaker 1: he continued to follow his music dreams through the early nineties.
3:31
Speaker 4: I always was doing something with music, but music didn't
3:35
Speaker 4: make money, so I kind of was off and on
3:37
Speaker 4: with it. I was managed by a company called Starlight
3:40
Speaker 4: Entertainment and Limousine.
3:42
Speaker 3: They had limousine.
3:43
Speaker 4: So what we would do is if you were a
3:45
Speaker 4: permoder and you would bring in somebody big in that
3:48
Speaker 4: we would basically tell you, We'll give you the limousine
3:51
Speaker 4: to pick this guy up at the airport, take him
3:54
Speaker 4: to the shows, take him to the hotel, any promotional
3:56
Speaker 4: events that you have, but you have to put my
3:59
Speaker 4: stage with Diablo.
4:00
Speaker 3: So you have to put Diablo on the show.
4:03
Speaker 4: My name has to be on all the flyers, all
4:05
Speaker 4: the radio advertisers, and when you go to pick that
4:08
Speaker 4: artist up, I'm in the limit.
4:10
Speaker 3: You can believe that.
4:10
Speaker 1: That's a pretty brilliant move that gave.
4:12
Speaker 4: Me the ability to connect with the artist or anybody
4:16
Speaker 4: else who was with him. Besides getting rich, I did
4:19
Speaker 4: everything in the music business. I signed all the grand
4:22
Speaker 4: I toured, and like how Eminem says, you only had
4:26
Speaker 4: one hot to blow, I actually have had probably a
4:31
Speaker 4: shot at four major record deals. But at any rate,
4:34
Speaker 4: the point that I want to make was I had
4:36
Speaker 4: way more opportunities than most people to be successful in
4:41
Speaker 4: the music business. But because of my past and another
4:46
Speaker 4: wrong for convintion, it basically messed all of that up.
4:49
Speaker 1: And this isn't the first time we've had a guest
4:51
Speaker 1: with multiple wrongful convictions. Dwayne was on the receiving end
4:56
Speaker 1: of a false accusation, but with no evidence. He was
4:59
Speaker 1: still convicted of a lesser charge in two thousand and two,
5:03
Speaker 1: after which his public defender responded to his claims of
5:06
Speaker 1: innocence with and this is a quote, Well, innocent people
5:10
Speaker 1: go to jail too, end quote. Dwayne perouled in two
5:14
Speaker 1: thousand and four, and the address on record belonged to
5:17
Speaker 1: his mom's longtime boyfriend, Bobby Cross.
5:20
Speaker 4: Bobby Cross was like a bully. She was kind of
5:23
Speaker 4: a big guy. And anybody who knows and they know
5:25
Speaker 4: this is shoeing. He basically bullied everybody around him. When
5:29
Speaker 4: they was at a neighbor's house and he started telling
5:32
Speaker 4: me basically, get so sit excuse my leg gets so
5:35
Speaker 4: sick in that bitch, sit out of my house. And
5:37
Speaker 4: he was talking about my mother and neighbors. Now they
5:40
Speaker 4: want us out of the house. So when they're sending
5:44
Speaker 4: us out of the house, I'm basically telling Bobby.
5:46
Speaker 3: Hey, look, I don't want the problems. I don't want
5:48
Speaker 3: the trouble. Whatever you tell.
5:50
Speaker 4: Every time I try to walk away from him, he
5:53
Speaker 4: would like step in front of me and block me.
5:56
Speaker 4: So I told him I didn't want no physical altercation.
5:58
Speaker 4: He told me that's what he wants.
6:00
Speaker 3: It.
6:00
Speaker 4: So, to make a long story short, I hit him
6:03
Speaker 4: and I knocked him out, and so it hurts his pride.
6:06
Speaker 4: So for years and years he never brought it up.
6:09
Speaker 4: We never had problems about it, but because I know
6:13
Speaker 4: the type of person that he is, and this is
6:15
Speaker 4: really embarrassing to him. From that point on, if he
6:18
Speaker 4: was drinking, it had a good I see there for
6:20
Speaker 4: four or five minutes and I'm leaving.
6:22
Speaker 1: So it appears, as is honestly often the case, that
6:26
Speaker 1: alcohol can exacerbate personality traits as well as a quietly
6:31
Speaker 1: held grudge, and so Dwayne chose never to live at
6:34
Speaker 1: that address while continuing to pursue his music dreams with
6:38
Speaker 1: this brilliant limousine strategy.
6:41
Speaker 4: Eventually we did that a few times with Tea Pain,
6:44
Speaker 4: and when T Pain's brothers saw it that, he basically
6:47
Speaker 4: told me that it's amazing. In the midst of this,
6:50
Speaker 4: I started sending my music all over the country and
6:53
Speaker 4: clubs started booking me. So now I'm basically nobody, but well, yeah,
6:58
Speaker 4: he's nobody, but he's connect It's a Tea Pay t
7:01
Speaker 4: Pay's brother mandyism. So now they're paying me to come
7:05
Speaker 4: to different places in America to do so, but unfortunately
7:09
Speaker 4: I had a bad row officer who didn't like me.
7:13
Speaker 4: If DFC gave me permission to do so, and he
7:16
Speaker 4: would have to approve me, and he would never approve them.
7:18
Speaker 4: So because this took away my source of income. When
7:22
Speaker 4: me and my wife are married, now, I'm basically like
7:26
Speaker 4: looking for regular jobs and I'm just trying to make it.
7:29
Speaker 1: And that brings us to August twenty twelve. This is
7:32
Speaker 1: when Dwayne and his new wife spend the weekend of
7:35
Speaker 1: the eighteenth to nineteenth with Dwayne's mother and with Bobby Cross.
7:40
Speaker 1: They're following leads on a new place to live in
7:43
Speaker 1: that area, and when Sunday came, there was a barbecue
7:46
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, as well as some drinking that went
7:50
Speaker 1: late into the night.
7:51
Speaker 4: I had got some stakes for somebody to barbecue. At
7:55
Speaker 4: some point, somebody told me that Bob Cross wanted to
7:58
Speaker 4: talk to me, so I went across the street. He
8:01
Speaker 4: told me that I cooked steaks and I didn't offer one.
8:04
Speaker 4: I told him that you can have all of them.
8:06
Speaker 4: He told me that he didn't like steaks. So basically,
8:09
Speaker 4: there's nothing else to say.
8:10
Speaker 1: It appears this was just the begetting of some unnecessary drama.
8:16
Speaker 1: So the night continued on, as did the drinking, all
8:20
Speaker 1: the way until somewhere after two am.
8:22
Speaker 4: In the midst of this, an argument occurs between my wife,
8:26
Speaker 4: Bobby Cross's daughter, and Bobby Cross. This disagreement and I'm
8:31
Speaker 4: not even in it, but it got turned around to
8:34
Speaker 4: look like something else. So from two in the morning
8:37
Speaker 4: to whatever time in the morning when my mother left,
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Speaker 4: my mother and Bobby Cross basically they're arguing from room
8:43
Speaker 4: to room. The last thing my mother said to me
8:46
Speaker 4: was I'm leaving it before he kills everybody in the
8:50
Speaker 4: house and they drinking.
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Speaker 3: I ain't paid no attention to that. I went you
8:54
Speaker 3: was the bathroom.
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Speaker 4: When I came out of the bathroom, I saw Bobby
8:57
Speaker 4: Cross standing there with a shotgun. He never said anything
9:00
Speaker 4: to me, never threatened me, nothing happened, but nah, he
9:04
Speaker 4: has a good So I left.
9:06
Speaker 3: And that was four in the morning.
9:08
Speaker 1: So Dwayne left to find somewhere else to stay for
9:11
Speaker 1: the night. Bobby was sleeping it off. Around six in
9:15
Speaker 1: the morning, first responders were dispatched to a fire at
9:18
Speaker 1: Bobby Cross's house, and it's important to mention that a
9:21
Speaker 1: man named Darryl Simms stayed on the couch. This was
9:25
Speaker 1: determined to have been the origin point of the fire.
9:28
Speaker 5: Mister Simms, he did have disabilities, he was known to
9:31
Speaker 5: smoke on the couch. Initially, the fire was classified as undetermined,
9:36
Speaker 5: which means that there was no conclusion that the fire
9:40
Speaker 5: was intentionally set.
9:41
Speaker 4: Well, because the whole situation the night before that I
9:45
Speaker 4: just told you about.
9:46
Speaker 3: Remember now, me and mister Cross, we're not.
9:49
Speaker 4: Arguing, but because of that situation, I guess the family
9:52
Speaker 4: members had animosity. Jackie crossed his daughter. He ended up
9:56
Speaker 4: being one of the main people accusing me of.
9:59
Speaker 1: Star Thankfully, the investigators followed the facts at the scene
10:04
Speaker 1: and therefore the deaths were ruled accidental. This did not
10:08
Speaker 1: become a homicide investigation until three months later. A man
10:12
Speaker 1: named Gary Jennings, the boyfriend of one of Bobby Cross's relatives,
10:16
Speaker 1: Shannon Tyler. Gary Jennings is arrested for driving without a license,
10:21
Speaker 1: cannabis possession, and copying audio video recordings for.
10:25
Speaker 5: Gates, and that last one was a felony charge. He
10:27
Speaker 5: had previously been convicted of the same offense and was
10:30
Speaker 5: on probation at the time. Gary Jennings said to police,
10:34
Speaker 5: and he testified at trial that the impetus for him
10:37
Speaker 5: making contact with Dwayne was that another individual, Deshaun Seabrooks,
10:42
Speaker 5: told Gary Jennings that Dwayne had made a big mistake.
10:45
Speaker 5: He used different words, but Gary said that made me
10:50
Speaker 5: contact Dwayne, and Dwayne confessed to me.
10:52
Speaker 1: So Gary Jennings claimed that Dwayne said that he lit
10:56
Speaker 1: the blaze after this argument over rent money, which sounds
10:59
Speaker 1: like the ky narrative that might arise when perhaps an
11:02
Speaker 1: investigator looks into the addressed which Dwayne was paroled, but
11:07
Speaker 1: not where he actually lived. By the way, this statement
11:09
Speaker 1: was unrecorded.
11:11
Speaker 6: It's always a red flag when there is a so
11:14
Speaker 6: called statement or confession that's not recorded, prime opportunity to
11:20
Speaker 6: just make something up. And the fact that mister Jennings
11:24
Speaker 6: was currently in jail facing some pretty serious charges while
11:28
Speaker 6: he was already on probation and he just magically has
11:33
Speaker 6: all of this information about a quote unquote crime that
11:37
Speaker 6: had occurred, and that mister Williams was involved. All of
11:41
Speaker 6: those things also very problematic.
11:43
Speaker 1: And then from what we understand as well, I believe
11:47
Speaker 1: his felony charge is dismissed.
11:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, he got a really sweet deal out of this.
11:54
Speaker 4: Gary Tannings, So he's not a snatch, he's a liar
11:56
Speaker 4: because I never talked to him about anything.
11:58
Speaker 3: It was anything for him to talk about.
12:00
Speaker 4: But after Gary Jennings popped up and talks to the
12:04
Speaker 4: correct police officers, it comes up with a rent story.
12:07
Speaker 4: Then months later the family members come up with a
12:10
Speaker 4: rent story in a motive tube. So in the beginning
12:14
Speaker 4: this didn't exist.
12:15
Speaker 1: Despite no previous mention of this rent disagreement from the
12:19
Speaker 1: Cross family, their statements and eventual testimony become aligned with
12:24
Speaker 1: Gary Jennings statement.
12:25
Speaker 5: I think the statement itself is suspect, but what came
12:30
Speaker 5: after or what didn't come after, is arguably even more concerning,
12:34
Speaker 5: because a member of the public can go to the
12:37
Speaker 5: police and say whatever they want to, but it's on
12:39
Speaker 5: the police and other law enforcement prosecutors and the like
12:42
Speaker 5: to make sure that the statement is credible if they
12:45
Speaker 5: intend to use it, and in fact, police talk with
12:48
Speaker 5: people specifically. I have deshaun Sebrooks, who discredited mister Jennings's statement,
12:53
Speaker 5: and unfortunately that statement was never disclosed to Dwayne or
12:57
Speaker 5: to his attorney. So everything that police had wade in
13:00
Speaker 5: favor of discrediting mister Jennings, but instead they decided to
13:04
Speaker 5: credit him and cover up evidence that he was incredible
13:08
Speaker 5: and proceived with trial.
13:10
Speaker 1: But first they had to present the dubious statement to
13:13
Speaker 1: the medical examiner to have her reconsider the cause of
13:16
Speaker 1: these two deaths.
13:18
Speaker 5: The deaths were initially deemed accidents. The medical examiner changed
13:22
Speaker 5: the determination to homicide, but we actually went back and
13:25
Speaker 5: spoke with the medical examiner who told us that if
13:28
Speaker 5: she were evaluating the case now, the correct determination, if
13:32
Speaker 5: there was going to be one for manner of death,
13:33
Speaker 5: should have been undetermined.
13:35
Speaker 1: But that determination was the last stop gap between Dwayne
13:39
Speaker 1: and charges for arson and two counts of felony murder.
13:44
Speaker 4: I was at my assist in law's house and I'm
13:46
Speaker 4: in the basement asleep. All of a sudden I heard
13:50
Speaker 4: somebody called it by name, and they ended up coming down.
13:54
Speaker 4: They had goods out ay Keffy, and I remember I
13:57
Speaker 4: kept asking, what are you arresting me for? They never
14:00
Speaker 4: taught me of what was going on, but they brought
14:02
Speaker 4: me outside, took me to the station, and I remember
14:05
Speaker 4: getting there and we got in the room.
14:06
Speaker 3: They started talking about the fire.
14:08
Speaker 4: I guess I was kind of stocked and a lot
14:11
Speaker 4: of the days he's saying to me, it doesn't make sense.
14:13
Speaker 4: You know you watched TV shows. The police say, well,
14:16
Speaker 4: we already know the answer to the question. He asked
14:19
Speaker 4: me questions like had me and missus Cross ever had
14:22
Speaker 4: disputes about money? When no, I never got any money
14:27
Speaker 4: from him. He never got any money from me. But
14:29
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that he was asking this question because
14:32
Speaker 4: of the lies that Jenny told.
14:35
Speaker 1: For some reason, the prosecution had trouble locating Gary Jennings
14:40
Speaker 1: for trial as scheduled, so it was postponed until August
14:44
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, twenty thirteen. What he testified about Deshaun Sebrooks
14:48
Speaker 1: telling him about Dwayne, who then allegedly confessed to setting
14:52
Speaker 1: the house on fire over a disagreement about rent, as
14:55
Speaker 1: well as how Gary Jennings' girlfriend Shannon Tyler had told
14:58
Speaker 1: him about the fire only after this alleged confession. Strangely,
15:02
Speaker 1: neither Tyler nor Seabrooks participated, but Bobby Cross's daughter Jackie did.
15:08
Speaker 4: Then miss Cross gets understand and now she has a
15:11
Speaker 4: story about two weeks where for argument's over rent, which
15:16
Speaker 4: is what Jenny said. It made it look like me
15:19
Speaker 4: and her father were having continue as problems, and none
15:22
Speaker 4: of those things that she testified to whoever happened, and
15:25
Speaker 4: my lawyer didn't do any investigation, wouldn't talk to anybody.
15:30
Speaker 1: And had he spoken to Deshaun Seabrooks or Miss Tyler,
15:33
Speaker 1: perhaps he would have been able to impeach the state's witnesses.
15:37
Speaker 1: But most importantly, the defense neglected to even consult with
15:41
Speaker 1: a fire expert.
15:42
Speaker 5: One thing that stood out to me immediately was that
15:45
Speaker 5: only one expert testified, and that expert was the government's expert,
15:49
Speaker 5: Captain McNulty, who's now retired, who arrived at the scene
15:53
Speaker 5: hours after the fire, testified on behalf of the prosecution,
15:57
Speaker 5: but no defense expert testified to poke holes in what
16:01
Speaker 5: turned out to be a really faulty analysis.
16:04
Speaker 1: McNulty testified that no smoky materials were found near the couch,
16:08
Speaker 1: but oddly no photographic evidence was shared with the defense
16:12
Speaker 1: nor offered to the jury to corroborate that claim. McNulty
16:16
Speaker 1: also claimed that an open flame like a cigarette lighter,
16:20
Speaker 1: was a more likely cause of the blaze, and that
16:22
Speaker 1: it's extremely hard to get a couch to burn with
16:26
Speaker 1: a cigarette. This all begs the question, are all couches
16:30
Speaker 1: the same? Are all materials as flammable as others? Additionally,
16:35
Speaker 1: nothing was offered to rule out a smoldering cigarette or
16:39
Speaker 1: any other possible accidental cause.
16:42
Speaker 5: I would say in most arson cases the defense should
16:45
Speaker 5: at least consult an expert. But here we have two
16:49
Speaker 5: sets of problems, and you've pointed out some of them.
16:52
Speaker 5: We have problems with the experts testimony, even knowing what
16:56
Speaker 5: the defense and the prosecution knew at the time of trial,
16:59
Speaker 5: what was presented and unchallenged. And then we have things
17:03
Speaker 5: that we discovered in our investigation later on that blew
17:06
Speaker 5: this wide open.
17:08
Speaker 1: And we'll get to all that they hid from the
17:10
Speaker 1: defense and in just a bit. But still trial counsel
17:13
Speaker 1: failed to use what was available to him to discredit
17:17
Speaker 1: the state's case, not only lay witnesses but also their expert.
17:21
Speaker 1: Even the jury was curious enough to ask for the
17:24
Speaker 1: transcript of McNulty's testimony and other documents as they were
17:28
Speaker 1: deadlocked for some time. But ultimately Dwayne was convicted on
17:32
Speaker 1: one count of oursen, one count second degree murder, and
17:35
Speaker 1: one count felony murder, resulting in a life sentence without
17:39
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole.
17:41
Speaker 4: At that moment, cross family members, we're making faces at
17:46
Speaker 4: me like a little kid is like you stick your
17:47
Speaker 4: tongue out like that. They kept doing stuff like that
17:51
Speaker 4: to me. And what really bothered me about that word
17:54
Speaker 4: that you just said in this court room and got my.
17:56
Speaker 3: Whole life took for me. And now you back there
17:59
Speaker 3: doing that. You think this is the game.
18:16
Speaker 4: I think that until you're in a real serious situation.
18:20
Speaker 4: Maybe people think the appeal process works. There's all these
18:24
Speaker 4: mechanisms in the system that look like they work until
18:28
Speaker 4: you the.
18:28
Speaker 3: Guy stuck in the system trying to use them.
18:31
Speaker 4: As time goes on and you watch people who you
18:33
Speaker 4: know in they file briefs and you know that they
18:36
Speaker 4: should have won and they got shot down, it's hard
18:39
Speaker 4: to keep hoping. So going through the process, I was
18:44
Speaker 4: disappointed things were getting shot down, and at some point
18:49
Speaker 4: I decided that I can comprehend things, I can read well.
18:52
Speaker 4: I decided I better do my own thing can work,
18:54
Speaker 4: because at least if I stay in prison, it's my fault.
18:56
Speaker 4: I can live with that.
18:58
Speaker 1: After Dwayne's direct appeal, as that died up through the
19:01
Speaker 1: State Supreme Court as well as on federal habeas. He
19:05
Speaker 1: began writing to anyone who might be able to help,
19:07
Speaker 1: which included the newly formed Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit.
19:12
Speaker 1: This is how an guaranted the Kooley Innocence Project got involved.
19:16
Speaker 6: The Cooley Innocence Project has a partnership with the Wayne
19:20
Speaker 6: County Conviction Integrity and Cooley is primarily a DNA and
19:26
Speaker 6: forensic clinic. And in twenty twenty his case was referred
19:31
Speaker 6: to our office here at Cooley. A very sharp student
19:35
Speaker 6: came across Dwayne's file and brought it to our attention
19:39
Speaker 6: and said, something is very wrong with this man's conviction.
19:43
Speaker 6: And the student and the staff attorney went to visit
19:46
Speaker 6: Dwayne and introduced themselves.
19:48
Speaker 1: And then Dwayne's outreach also scored him help with the
19:51
Speaker 1: Michigan Appellate Defender's office. In twenty twenty one, I.
19:54
Speaker 5: Ended up on the case kind of through dumb luck.
19:57
Speaker 5: Dwayne had filed a request for and on post judgment
20:02
Speaker 5: motions like this one. It's very rare at that stage
20:05
Speaker 5: of the proceedings to get counsel appointed, but it happened
20:09
Speaker 5: that way, and it was exciting to me to work
20:12
Speaker 5: on a case with actual innocence issues, and by the
20:15
Speaker 5: time I came on the scene, he had already done
20:17
Speaker 5: so much research, so much writing, so much communication with Cooley,
20:21
Speaker 5: so he had set up the case really nicely. Shortly
20:24
Speaker 5: after we were appointed, we started peppering different law enforcement
20:29
Speaker 5: agencies with requests for records, documents, police reports, photos, and
20:33
Speaker 5: there are two big things that came out of our
20:35
Speaker 5: first and most important for your request. One was a
20:39
Speaker 5: version of the fire investigator's report that had not previously
20:42
Speaker 5: been disclosed to the defense. At the time of trial.
20:45
Speaker 5: Dwayne's trial council had a version of the fire investigator
20:49
Speaker 5: report that had most all of the information in it,
20:53
Speaker 5: but one very important fact was missing from that report,
20:56
Speaker 5: and when you look at the two side by side,
20:58
Speaker 5: it almost looks as if a piece of the report
21:01
Speaker 5: has been cut out, not exactly like white out, but
21:05
Speaker 5: almost like xcized from the version that we ultimately obtained,
21:10
Speaker 5: and that line stated that a Zippo style lighter was
21:13
Speaker 5: found in the debris near the area of origin, which
21:16
Speaker 5: was near a couch that had been consumed by the fire,
21:19
Speaker 5: but that was where the fire investigator thought the fire
21:21
Speaker 5: had originated.
21:23
Speaker 1: Which is obviously a Brady violation. It's also interesting that
21:27
Speaker 1: the same fire investigator even eschewed a smoldering cigarette as
21:32
Speaker 1: a less likely option to a lighter like the one
21:35
Speaker 1: removed from that report.
21:37
Speaker 5: So we discovered that there was this additional version of
21:39
Speaker 5: the report. We also discovered that there were fifty eight
21:42
Speaker 5: photos that had never been given to the defense, and
21:45
Speaker 5: in those photos you could see the Zippo style lighter
21:48
Speaker 5: that was indeed at the area of origin. So this
21:51
Speaker 5: mattered because the defense theory at trial and our theory
21:54
Speaker 5: now is that the fire was caused by careless smoking.
21:57
Speaker 5: It was an accident. There were people in the house
21:59
Speaker 5: who were known to smoke in the house, and one
22:01
Speaker 5: of the people who sadly died was known to smoke
22:04
Speaker 5: on the couch that was the area of origin. When
22:07
Speaker 5: the fire investigator tells the jury that there are no
22:09
Speaker 5: smoking materials at the scene, that really discredits the defense theory.
22:13
Speaker 5: But in fact, there was a smoking material. A lighter
22:16
Speaker 5: is a smoking material, and so that was something that
22:19
Speaker 5: was major and that, as I said before, really blew
22:21
Speaker 5: the case wide open for.
22:23
Speaker 1: A lot of us listening tonight. The idea of purposely
22:29
Speaker 1: excising something that pivotal feels illegal, if not highly unethical.
22:36
Speaker 5: It is illegal and unethical. I do not know who
22:39
Speaker 5: did it, and I do not know if it was
22:41
Speaker 5: done purposefully. I have to be totally honest with you.
22:45
Speaker 5: I think we can all imagine what may or may
22:49
Speaker 5: not have happened. But at this point, all I can
22:51
Speaker 5: tell you is that it's in one version and it's
22:53
Speaker 5: not in another, and both of those reports, what I
22:56
Speaker 5: call the original and then the redacted or excised version,
23:00
Speaker 5: we're both in the prosecutor's possession at the time of trial.
23:03
Speaker 1: This also leads naturally to another question. If there is
23:06
Speaker 1: this zippo lighter in the photograph, what happened to the
23:10
Speaker 1: physical object.
23:12
Speaker 5: Well, we know that the prosecution could not locate it
23:16
Speaker 5: during the course of our investigation years after trial, and
23:19
Speaker 5: there's no record of it ever having been collected and
23:22
Speaker 5: kept or tested or anything that should have happened. Our
23:26
Speaker 5: expert Mark Fennell talked with us about the importance of
23:30
Speaker 5: in a case like this, collecting any smoking materials, any
23:33
Speaker 5: implements that could have been used to start a fire,
23:35
Speaker 5: and then testing them to determine whether they actually had
23:38
Speaker 5: the capability of starting the fire. So, unfortunately that was
23:42
Speaker 5: not done. No one has come forward with the lighter,
23:46
Speaker 5: not the Detroit Police Department, not the Wayne County Prosecutor's office.
23:49
Speaker 5: So to our knowledge, their lighter does not exist, and
23:53
Speaker 5: it was never collected and certainly was not tested.
23:55
Speaker 3: Okay.
23:56
Speaker 1: And Mark Fennell also called into question and some of
24:00
Speaker 1: the earlier statements by Captain McNulty, especially the idea of
24:05
Speaker 1: flammability of couches and cigarettes, and something I thought a
24:10
Speaker 1: lot of people would have already clocked. Not all couches
24:15
Speaker 1: are made of the same material. I mean, some stuff
24:18
Speaker 1: is more flammable than other stuff, right.
24:20
Speaker 5: That's absolutely right. That's something that unfortunately the jury did
24:24
Speaker 5: not hear at the original trial, and I wish they
24:27
Speaker 5: had because Mark Fennell even provided us with a video
24:31
Speaker 5: that to this day lives rent free in my mind,
24:34
Speaker 5: because it shows just how quickly many of the couches
24:37
Speaker 5: that we may have in our homes could combust and
24:39
Speaker 5: could start an absolutely disastrous fire. So it's true that
24:44
Speaker 5: it's difficult to light a leather couch on fire, but
24:47
Speaker 5: the evidence that we have suggests that the couch that
24:50
Speaker 5: was consumed in the fire here was not leather. It
24:54
Speaker 5: was a more polyester type of couch. That is more
24:58
Speaker 5: easy to light on fire. For Captain McNulty to testify
25:01
Speaker 5: that it's incredibly difficult to get a couch to burn
25:04
Speaker 5: with a cigarette. I can't say whether he was intentionally
25:07
Speaker 5: misleading the jury. I hope he wasn't, But in fact,
25:11
Speaker 5: we know that the jury did not get a complete
25:14
Speaker 5: and full picture of what went on in this fire
25:17
Speaker 5: or what could happen in general when you hold a
25:21
Speaker 5: cigarette to a couch or you drop, for example, a
25:24
Speaker 5: cigarette in between couch cushions. That seems like a very
25:28
Speaker 5: likely story here that mister Simms, he did have disabilities,
25:32
Speaker 5: He was known to smoke on the couch that was
25:35
Speaker 5: eventually the origin of the fire. It is possible that
25:39
Speaker 5: he fell asleep and dropped a cigarette. So I just
25:42
Speaker 5: I can tell you that, even if it wasn't intentional,
25:45
Speaker 5: Captain McNulty definitely misled the jury into believing that the
25:49
Speaker 5: couch here could not have caught on fire but for
25:53
Speaker 5: an intentionally set fire.
25:57
Speaker 3: That's the lawyer answer.
25:58
Speaker 7: My answer, Yes, he knew what he was doing and
26:01
Speaker 7: he did it all part.
26:13
Speaker 1: It's difficult to maintain faith in this investigation and these people,
26:17
Speaker 1: especially when we see a Brady violation of this magnitude, I'm,
26:22
Speaker 1: of course, speaking about what appears to be an altered
26:25
Speaker 1: version of the original fire investigation report. And it becomes
26:29
Speaker 1: even more difficult to maintain faith when you consider DeShawn Seabrooks.
26:34
Speaker 5: Gary Jennings said to police and testified at trial that
26:38
Speaker 5: I got information from Deshaun and that made me contact Wayne.
26:43
Speaker 5: What the defense was never told at the time of trial,
26:46
Speaker 5: and what we didn't get our hands on until years
26:48
Speaker 5: of working on the case myself, was a statement by
26:51
Speaker 5: Deshaun Seabrooks. The Waynkenny prosecutor sent an investigator to speak
26:55
Speaker 5: with DeShawn Seabrooks. Deshaun Seabrooks told the prosecutors investigator that
27:01
Speaker 5: he did not know Gary Jennings and he did not
27:03
Speaker 5: know about any fire supposedly involving Dwayne until law enforcement
27:07
Speaker 5: told him about that. So not only hadn't they talked
27:10
Speaker 5: about the fire, but that he didn't even know Gary.
27:13
Speaker 1: But wait, there's war.
27:15
Speaker 5: Yes, there was another witness who the prosecution interviewed and
27:20
Speaker 5: whose statement was not turned over to the defense, and
27:23
Speaker 5: his name was Ron Rogers. Now, Ron Rogers' involvement in
27:28
Speaker 5: all of this is a little bit more attenuated, but
27:31
Speaker 5: we can sum it up by saying that had mister
27:34
Speaker 5: Rogers statement been turned over to the defense, the defense
27:37
Speaker 5: could have chosen to either call him as a witness
27:39
Speaker 5: or call the prosecution's investigator as a witness to discredit
27:43
Speaker 5: some of the other lay witnesses. For example, Jackie Cross
27:46
Speaker 5: told police that they got some of their information from
27:48
Speaker 5: Ron Rodgers, but when Ron Rogers talked to the prosecutor's investigator,
27:53
Speaker 5: mister Rogers said that he didn't know anything about the fire.
27:56
Speaker 5: And so again it's a bit attenuated. But you have
28:00
Speaker 5: people coming to court and testifying to things that they
28:03
Speaker 5: say are corroborated or known by other people, and then
28:07
Speaker 5: when the prosecution goes and talks with those other people,
28:09
Speaker 5: they don't know anything. And unfortunately, the jury never heard that,
28:13
Speaker 5: and the defense didn't even know about those statements or
28:16
Speaker 5: those interviews that the prosecution's investigator did. And we submitted
28:20
Speaker 5: a couple of different documents applications to the Conviction Integrity
28:24
Speaker 5: Unit summarizing all the relevant evidence. Then they did additional investigation.
28:29
Speaker 5: We did have Denver Butler, who was an investigator, an
28:32
Speaker 5: independent person who was able to do additional interviews and
28:35
Speaker 5: track down witnesses. So there was a lot of movement
28:38
Speaker 5: from a lot of different parties on this case. But
28:40
Speaker 5: ultimately the conviction Integrity Unit reviewed everything and recommended that
28:45
Speaker 5: Dwayne be granted relief. That recommendation then goes to the
28:49
Speaker 5: pad prosecutor in Wayne County, Kim Worthy, and she signed
28:52
Speaker 5: off and agreed that yes, the conviction here was wrongful
28:55
Speaker 5: and should not stand.
28:57
Speaker 1: So now all they needed was a court date to
28:59
Speaker 1: file a joint motion to vacate convictions and sentences, which
29:03
Speaker 1: happens on June seventeenth, twenty twenty four, over a decade
29:07
Speaker 1: after Dwayne's arrest to.
29:09
Speaker 4: Here to just say that my sins was vacate and
29:12
Speaker 4: the know that they finally went away after all that time,
29:15
Speaker 4: he was really gone.
29:17
Speaker 3: That was something.
29:18
Speaker 4: Walking out the prison light five o'clock that afternoon, walking
29:23
Speaker 4: through the metal detectors going out of the prison, and
29:27
Speaker 4: I remember like how some of the seels were talking
29:30
Speaker 4: to me, and I remember thinking, well, man, why didn't
29:33
Speaker 4: they talk to me like that before? But just walking
29:36
Speaker 4: out that gate and getting in, I was band and
29:38
Speaker 4: coming to Detroit, knowing that I was coming back to Detroit,
29:41
Speaker 4: I don't know how to describe it really.
29:45
Speaker 1: Now the Dwayne's out, He's been working with two nonprofits,
29:48
Speaker 1: one called Firefly Advocates, which works toward criminal legal system
29:52
Speaker 1: reform as well as supporting reintegration for system impact of folks,
29:58
Speaker 1: and the second comes to us from another Michigan based
30:01
Speaker 1: exogneri Ken Nixon. His group is called the Organization of
30:05
Speaker 1: Exogneries Will Length. Thus in the episode of description. Outside
30:09
Speaker 1: of that, Dwayne is back out there making music, meeting
30:12
Speaker 1: other artists, and we'll link ways for you to find him.
30:15
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, you gotta like YouTube dio d I a
30:19
Speaker 4: b l O white mess and I just posted on
30:22
Speaker 4: my Facebook for the first time since I've been out.
30:25
Speaker 4: I started recording. So it's like a little snippet or something.
30:29
Speaker 4: Rest It's like they didn't killed. I was probably you
30:31
Speaker 4: had a station through a cloud for the lives. Hey,
30:34
Speaker 4: get the yard, I was robbing. Even call me with
30:36
Speaker 4: a knife. I'm mother the police and your muss I
30:38
Speaker 4: got thirty red. That's a lifetime. I'm innocent. Plus I
30:42
Speaker 4: could read plus get the little library reading. K's out
30:44
Speaker 4: the Kate, tell them here, stay the fuck up my face.
30:47
Speaker 4: Get respected on the yard because I'm fighting it straight.
30:50
Speaker 4: The hunt they seem to getting first, I'm getting closer,
30:52
Speaker 4: but closer. Zum mee to turn the weeks man, the
30:54
Speaker 4: shit gonna be yo.
30:55
Speaker 3: Touchdown with the pics. You might see me your round high. Yes,
30:58
Speaker 3: I'm easy to miss.
31:00
Speaker 4: Out of town house.
31:01
Speaker 3: We probably meet you still, Holly.
31:04
Speaker 4: Who is a'm good and never hood in this dating
31:06
Speaker 4: the rapper And that was let them do what I
31:08
Speaker 4: call him the mouth hit the make a couple of times,
31:10
Speaker 4: put a.
31:10
Speaker 3: Couple hounded out for self.
31:13
Speaker 4: It's kind of interested what I'm talking about, the wrong
31:15
Speaker 4: for QB. So I just did that this born.
31:18
Speaker 1: We wish ed Wayne all the luck in the world.
31:20
Speaker 1: And with that we come to the last segment of
31:23
Speaker 1: the show, where first I'd like to thank you all
31:25
Speaker 1: for joining us today. Then I'll open the space for
31:29
Speaker 1: our guests to share and enclosing thoughts they might have.
31:32
Speaker 1: Why don't we go in alphabetical order, so we'll start
31:35
Speaker 1: with Ann, then Maya, and last but not least, we
31:38
Speaker 1: leave it to Dwayne.
31:39
Speaker 6: Dwayne's case is a case that never should have happened,
31:43
Speaker 6: A crime wasn't committed. I think that society has this
31:48
Speaker 6: false sense that it's a justice system. Look at all
31:53
Speaker 6: the people that were impacted by Dwayne's case, including Dwayne,
31:58
Speaker 6: his family, society, and it takes an absurd amount of time.
32:04
Speaker 6: I always tell people it's like unringing a bell. It's
32:07
Speaker 6: very easy in theory to put someone into this situation,
32:12
Speaker 6: but it takes a miracle to get someone out of
32:15
Speaker 6: this situation. Without the state of Pelot Defender Office and
32:20
Speaker 6: with our collaboration with the Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit,
32:23
Speaker 6: in having conviction integrity units and the determination and the
32:27
Speaker 6: persistence of the director Beal Newman, I'm not sure that
32:32
Speaker 6: we would be having this discussion right now. And Dwayne's story,
32:36
Speaker 6: sadly is not unique. If people knew that this was
32:40
Speaker 6: happening in their own communities and how it impacts everybody
32:46
Speaker 6: from an emotional standpoint, from a financial standpoint. That's the
32:50
Speaker 6: big thing that I push all the time is the
32:53
Speaker 6: education of wrongful convictions.
32:55
Speaker 5: I would also note that at the time of Dwayne's trial,
33:00
Speaker 5: he was represented by appointed council and I happen to
33:04
Speaker 5: know the attorney who represented him, and he does a
33:06
Speaker 5: lot of really great work. So this is not to
33:09
Speaker 5: slander him or to suggest that he's a bad lawyer.
33:12
Speaker 5: But I will say that the system, particularly at the
33:15
Speaker 5: time Duane was facing trial in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen,
33:19
Speaker 5: the provision of counsel to indigent people, people who are
33:23
Speaker 5: facing charges as serious as the ones Duane was facing,
33:27
Speaker 5: was not good at all, and there have been lots
33:31
Speaker 5: of improvements in Michigan since then, but I do know
33:34
Speaker 5: that in other states there are similar problems that still
33:37
Speaker 5: occur where people are not provided a lawyer who has
33:40
Speaker 5: the capacity and time to assist them properly, who has
33:44
Speaker 5: the funding requisite to hire an investigator or an expert,
33:48
Speaker 5: both of which in my view, should have been done
33:51
Speaker 5: in this case. So I would just point out that
33:53
Speaker 5: there are systemic issues that led to some of the
33:56
Speaker 5: problems here, and as I mentioned, if we were appointed
33:59
Speaker 5: by really a fluke, and so the fact that Dwayne
34:02
Speaker 5: got counsel on appeal or on a secondary appeal was
34:07
Speaker 5: also pretty unusual, and it's still unusual today. So I
34:11
Speaker 5: would just say that I do think there are lots
34:12
Speaker 5: and lots of people who are inside prison, serving time
34:15
Speaker 5: sometimes life sentences for crimes they did not commit, but
34:18
Speaker 5: they don't have lawyers to assist them.
34:20
Speaker 3: Just really did take a team.
34:22
Speaker 4: And that's one of the things that God's Christy said
34:26
Speaker 4: to me before I left. I don't have what you had,
34:28
Speaker 4: but God put all of these things in place and
34:32
Speaker 4: all of these people in place to help me. And
34:34
Speaker 4: I really realized now how hard it is and how
34:36
Speaker 4: blessed I really am. So I'm going to use the
34:39
Speaker 4: words a kind Nixon, the president of the Organization of
34:42
Speaker 4: Exigner rees Ken always se is it starts with voting.
34:45
Speaker 4: A prosecutor is a powerful position and they answer to
34:50
Speaker 4: the people in all your choices. When you vote, you
34:53
Speaker 4: need to really be careful and pay attention. It's important
34:57
Speaker 4: in education learning this system. I think they sad teachers.
35:01
Speaker 4: It's mid Love's favorite four fifth sixth amen in school.
35:04
Speaker 4: Bestally in areas where you might be more likely to
35:08
Speaker 4: have legal problems, because when you don't know anything, anything
35:12
Speaker 4: can happen to you.
35:19
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
35:22
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
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Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
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Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
35:30
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink as well as
35:33
Speaker 2: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliber.
35:37
Speaker 2: The music in this production was supplied by three time
35:39
Speaker 2: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 2: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
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Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
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Speaker 2: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of
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