Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #455 Jason Flom with Darrell Siggers at the 2024 Innocence Conference

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#455 Jason Flom with Darrell Siggers at the 2024 Innocence Conference · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: The following interview was recorded in person at the twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty four Innocent Network conference in New Orleans. On February sixteenth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, a fight broke out at a party
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Speaker 1: in Detroit, Michigan, and three young men were told to leave.
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Speaker 1: About a block and a half away, a gunman opened
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Speaker 1: fire on them, fatally shooting twenty five year old James Montgomery.
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Speaker 1: The police focused on those who attended the party, including
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Speaker 1: twenty year old Daryl Singers, even though the shots came
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Speaker 1: from about one hundred feet away in the dark. The
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Speaker 1: two survivors identified Daryl as a shooter. Then the police
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Speaker 1: sergeant testified that bullets found near Darrell's apartment matched bullets
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Speaker 1: pulled from the body. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful
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Speaker 1: conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
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Speaker 1: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
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Speaker 1: at eight three three two o seven four six sixty
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Speaker 1: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
1:07
Speaker 1: and what you've done to help the cause, even if
1:09
Speaker 1: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
1:12
Speaker 1: on social media, and you might just hear yourself in
1:16
Speaker 1: a future episode. Call Us eight three three two oh
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Speaker 1: seven four six sixty six. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
1:33
Speaker 1: Today's episode. Well, if you're not angry by the end
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Speaker 1: of this, you weren't paying attention. You should probably rewind
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Speaker 1: and do it again. And this is a story that
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Speaker 1: comes out of Detroit, Michigan that probably will surprise no
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Speaker 1: one who listens.
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Speaker 2: To the show.
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Speaker 1: So here to tell the story is the man himself,
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Speaker 1: Darryl Siggers, who lived through this thirty four year nightmare
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Speaker 1: of wrongful conviction. Darryl, glad you're here. Yes, thank you,
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Speaker 1: thanks for being here with him to present this incredible story.
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Speaker 1: Is his attorney, Wolfgang Mueller. Go by Wolf right Wolf,
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Speaker 1: and I love Wolf because Wolf was just flying upside down.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So Darryl, before we get into this crime, what
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Speaker 1: was your life like growing up?
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Speaker 2: Did you grow up in Detroit? Yes, East Satura, Detroit.
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Speaker 2: It's real rough, but my mother and father it tried
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Speaker 2: to do the best that it could to keep a
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Speaker 2: handle on us. At the age of sixteen, some things changed.
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Speaker 2: I'm began to smoke weed, I start having sex and
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Speaker 2: going to dance parties, and I had a real direction.
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Speaker 2: I'm just finding myself at this point.
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Speaker 1: Sounds about like my life too, you know what I mean,
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Speaker 1: except when we grew up in very different zip codes,
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Speaker 1: And I'm very aware that the color of my skin
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Speaker 1: and the place and neighborhood I grew up and had
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Speaker 1: a lot to do with me not ending up where
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Speaker 1: you ended.
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Speaker 2: Up in my neighborhood. They had all these type of
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Speaker 2: different police units. They had STRESS.
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Speaker 3: The Detroit police in the late sixties and early seventies
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Speaker 3: had a unit. STRESS was the acronym Stop the Robberies
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Speaker 3: and enjoys Safe Streets. It was a bunch of big
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Speaker 3: white who would abuse black men.
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Speaker 2: It was doing horrible stuff to guys in the hood.
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Speaker 2: Every time anybody in my neighborhood spoke with the police,
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Speaker 2: it was not a good.
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Speaker 3: Outcome, including planting evidence on them that one cop was
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Speaker 3: charge of planting a knife on a person he shot.
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Speaker 3: So there was such abuse of black people, black men,
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Speaker 3: particularly in that timeframe. They ended up disbanding the STRESS
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Speaker 3: unit because of that abuse. And so when Darryl talks
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Speaker 3: about in his neighborhood, if the police are coming, it
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Speaker 3: is not going to be a good outcome. It's because
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Speaker 3: they had that historical perspective.
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Speaker 1: And Detroit was is no different from so many jurisdictions
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Speaker 1: across the country where we see co werced and incentivized witnesses,
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Speaker 1: junk science, cops or experts test the lying, all of
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Speaker 1: which appeared to have been a factor in this case,
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Speaker 1: which started in nineteen eighty four when Daryl was twenty
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Speaker 1: years old. He had two children with his ex girlfriend, Christine,
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Speaker 1: who threw a party on February sixteenth, nineteen eighty four,
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Speaker 1: attended by the victims in this case, Derek Lawson, Renard Jackson,
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Speaker 1: and James Montgomery.
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Speaker 3: There were a lot of people at the party, Daryl
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Speaker 3: being one of them and being eighteen nineteen, twenty years old,
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Speaker 3: a lot of testosterone mixed with alcohol, I think, and
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Speaker 3: somebody dating Daryl's baby mama and he's in the house.
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Speaker 3: Things got to be a little heated. There was a
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Speaker 3: fight that broke out and a guy who was at
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Speaker 3: the party named Toby Red real light skinned guy, black
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Speaker 3: guy who passed for white, reddish hair. How he got
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Speaker 3: the name. He leaves the party after getting in a
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Speaker 3: brawl with one of these guys and he walks out
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Speaker 3: of the house threatening I'll be back. I got something
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Speaker 3: for your ass. Several minutes later, the three guys who
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Speaker 3: were ultimately the victims who got shot at one of
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Speaker 3: whom Montgomery got killed. They leave the house. About a
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Speaker 3: block and a half away, somebody comes out between two
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Speaker 3: houses with a rifle and shoots Montgomery gets killed to
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Speaker 3: the other guy as they run away, and the police
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Speaker 3: end up finding out that there was this party. The
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Speaker 3: interview everybody at the party. They interview a guy named
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Speaker 3: Gary Kelly, who lives a block in a half down
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Speaker 3: where the shooting happened. Kelly ends up telling the lead detective,
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Speaker 3: Joseph Alex, there was a light skin guy. I thought
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Speaker 3: it was my white neighbor. He was wearing a light
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Speaker 3: blue shirt. This is February, it's cold, but he's wearing
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Speaker 3: a light blue shirt. He's carrying a long gun walking
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Speaker 3: past his garage. Alex interviews that neighbor. That guy says
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Speaker 3: it wasn't me, and so Alex now closes this alternate
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Speaker 3: suspect issue.
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Speaker 1: There was another neighbor who not only saw, but spoke
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Speaker 1: with this light skin man and gave a lot more detail,
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Speaker 1: But it appears Detective Alex may have chosen to keep
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Speaker 1: that information to himself instead. Daryl's name came up, and
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Speaker 1: we're not sure who was the initial source or why
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Speaker 1: he was mentioned, but the shooting survivors, Lawson and Jackson,
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Speaker 1: a few days after the shooting, eventually claimed to have
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Speaker 1: recognized Daryl as the shooter from one hundred feet away
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Speaker 1: in the dark.
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Speaker 3: The evidence against Darryl came down to a kid who
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Speaker 3: was drunk and hi who said it was Darryl Siggers.
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Speaker 3: They call him little Man. He was the guy who
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Speaker 3: shot us. As soon as they got somebody, the expediency
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Speaker 3: of it makes them not look at anybody else and
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Speaker 3: ignore all of the other evidence that might suggest it's
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Speaker 3: not who they think it is, and they just focused
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Speaker 3: on him.
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Speaker 2: I didn't know at that time. Somebody got killed. Well,
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Speaker 2: a couple days after the party, my son and daughter's mother, Christine,
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Speaker 2: calls me. She said, the police came back. They want
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Speaker 2: to talk to you. A guy got killed. She said, well,
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Speaker 2: I gave them your father's number, so they called. So
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Speaker 2: my father convinced me. He said, listen, if you ain't
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Speaker 2: got none to hi, woay talk to these people. So
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Speaker 2: I agree to talk to him. I come back home.
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Speaker 2: As soon as I walked in the door, he said,
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Speaker 2: you're under arrested first v murdered, slapped the cuffs on me.
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Speaker 2: After they arrest me, they take me to thirteen hundred
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Speaker 2: bogiin Detroit downtown. I'm on the ninth floor, and then
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Speaker 2: they bring me back down to the fifth floor, which
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Speaker 2: is homicide. They put you in this little bitty chair
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Speaker 2: and they leave you there for hours, this little iron chair,
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Speaker 2: and they begin this good cop, bad cop routine. Good
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Speaker 2: cop comes and hey, would you like some water? Would
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Speaker 2: you like some coffee? I say yes. He go back
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Speaker 2: out me and cop comes back in. We know you
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Speaker 2: did this. You're gonna tell us you did this. And
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Speaker 2: they go on and on back and forth with this,
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Speaker 2: and they keep you there for hours to their way down,
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Speaker 2: trying to get me to confess. I don't, so he
7:18
Speaker 2: gets frustrated with me after this long ordeal. I keep
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Speaker 2: telling this guy, you got the wrong guy. I don't
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Speaker 2: know who did this. I don't know nothing about this case.
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Speaker 2: And he says, listen, I'm gonna go get a pen
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Speaker 2: and a piece of paper and you're gonna tell me
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Speaker 2: that you did this or I'm gonna knock the shit
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Speaker 2: out of you.
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Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 2: I'm scared to death. I'm twenty years old, never been
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Speaker 2: in trouble, and here's a big white cop screaming and hollering.
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Speaker 2: So I look over. I see a window. I don't know,
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Speaker 2: I'm just high up. I run jump out the window,
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Speaker 2: five stories halfway down. I thought to myself this was
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Speaker 2: not a good idea, but it was nothing I could do.
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Speaker 2: I couldn't go back up, so I falled three stories
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Speaker 2: down on the landing boom roll over. And at this
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Speaker 2: point I'm an autopilot, So at this point I would
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Speaker 2: have liked to went back up, but I wasn't going
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Speaker 2: to sign a statement confessing to something that I didn't do.
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Speaker 2: So I felt like that was the only option. So
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Speaker 2: I jumped another two stories, hit a car, jumped on
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Speaker 2: the car, fell off, the car rolled over, hop broke
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Speaker 2: my ankle, broke my wrists, hobbled away. I got maybe
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Speaker 2: a couple of blocks away, thirty cops around me, They
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Speaker 2: got the George Floyd knee on my neck, thirty guns
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Speaker 2: pointed at me, and I'm an extreme pain. They get
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Speaker 2: me up, throw me in the car, take me to
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Speaker 2: the hospital, patch up my arm, patch up my leg,
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Speaker 2: and then take me to the county jail.
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Speaker 1: One minute you're talking to your father, everything's normal. Next
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Speaker 1: minute you're like living in this alternate reality. These cops
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Speaker 1: are threatening to beat you up or worse, and you
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Speaker 1: jump out the fucking window and you literally didn't know
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Speaker 1: what floyd you were on.
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Speaker 2: They were terrorize me, and Who's I gonna call the police?
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Speaker 2: They were the ones who was cheerizing. There's nothing I
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Speaker 2: can do.
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Speaker 1: That's a miracle you lived through that.
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Speaker 2: You know, there was only one other guy had done that,
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Speaker 2: and he did die. He broke his neck.
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Speaker 1: He broke out that same window.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he broke his neck.
9:22
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9:32
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. So now you're taken to jail and
9:40
Speaker 1: held there for how long we're waiting trial?
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Speaker 2: Six months? Wayne County Jail, which is horrible, just horrible.
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Speaker 2: When I first got there, I got cast on my leg,
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Speaker 2: cast on my arm. I'm in his bullpin and it's alcoholics,
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Speaker 2: it's drug addicts. Is people laying all over the floor.
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Speaker 2: The stench is horrible. This room is built for maybe
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Speaker 2: like twenty five people. They got fifty in it. There's
10:03
Speaker 2: nowhere if you can sit. And the full of was
10:05
Speaker 2: just full of grime and dirt. It was just the nastiest,
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Speaker 2: funkiest And in my mind, I'm saying to myself, I'm
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Speaker 2: not finna sit on this nasty, dirty floor. There's people
10:15
Speaker 2: laying all on the benches. So I stood for maybe
10:17
Speaker 2: like two hours, but my leg is injured. I can't
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Speaker 2: stand no more. So I got to sit on this floor.
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Speaker 2: I sit on the floor. They wake you up for
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Speaker 2: any court seeing at four thirty in the morning, they
10:26
Speaker 2: seem you to another bullpen. You wait a couple hours dead,
10:28
Speaker 2: they seems to another bull You're ready a couple hours there.
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Speaker 2: It's all part of the processing. You just go from
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Speaker 2: bullpen to bullpen and you get to the court where
10:35
Speaker 2: you're gonna go to the bullpen that's behind the court
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Speaker 2: room where you're about to go to trial. And that
10:40
Speaker 2: said like eight thirty, never on time. When these county
10:43
Speaker 2: jails are cold, and so all I got on this
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Speaker 2: little jail uniform and it's and I'm freezing every day.
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Speaker 2: This is how it is every day.
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Speaker 1: How are you supposed to think straight when you're coming
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Speaker 1: out of an environment like that, sleep deprived, hungry, freezing,
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Speaker 1: you know, and then you supposed to present like somebody
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Speaker 1: who looks like an upstanding citizen, right that the jury's
11:03
Speaker 1: going to look at and go, yeah, I know, he
11:05
Speaker 1: like you look now, you know.
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Speaker 2: I think it's a really under.
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Speaker 1: Reported aspect of the way our system works, the dehumanization
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Speaker 1: that's designed to drive people crazy before.
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Speaker 2: They get to the court.
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Speaker 1: I mean, my exaggerating is you're in the midst of it.
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Speaker 3: You are one hundred percent correct. You come in and
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Speaker 3: disheveled wreck. My clients have told me the Wayne County
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Speaker 3: jail is designed to get you to plead guilty.
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Speaker 1: And then here comes to trial.
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Speaker 2: I was represented by an attorney called Timothy Murphy. He
11:36
Speaker 2: did the best that he could, but the deck was
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Speaker 2: stacked even before we got there.
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Speaker 1: So the two other guys who were shot at Lawson
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Speaker 1: and Jackson, they identified you as a gunman. It's pretty
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Speaker 1: ridiculous to think that someone is going to make a
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Speaker 1: positive identification in the dark from one hundred feet away
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Speaker 1: in a situation that's chaotic and violent and dangerous. You know,
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Speaker 1: if you're one hundred feet away from a shoot, you're
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Speaker 1: going to be running or turned the other way, or
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Speaker 1: you know you can't help it, You're going to be
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Speaker 1: your instinct right. But eyouldness identification is a very powerful
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Speaker 1: thing in the court of law.
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Speaker 2: One of the things we didn't know was these guys
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Speaker 2: was in jail also with me. They let these guys collaborate,
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Speaker 2: talk to each other so that they could get their
12:19
Speaker 2: stories together.
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Speaker 1: However, the crazy circumstances of the ideas made these witnesses
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Speaker 1: impeachable on cross examination. So police Sergeant Claude Houseworth, an
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Speaker 1: alleged ballistics expert, came in to testify about a bullet
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Speaker 1: that was allegedly found in an apartment that was neighboring
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Speaker 1: Daryl's apartment.
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Speaker 2: This expert gets up there and he's with all these
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Speaker 2: nice professional words, and he tells the jury he's been
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Speaker 2: in the Detroit crime lab for six years. Later on
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Speaker 2: I filed the Freedom of a masonach request for his personnel.
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Speaker 2: We found out this guy an expert. The report showed
12:56
Speaker 2: he had been in a Detroit crime lab for less
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Speaker 2: than three hundred and six ft four days, not the
13:02
Speaker 2: two years that was required to even give testimony, and
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Speaker 2: not the six years that he claimed he had been
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Speaker 2: in the Detroit crime Lab. All lies so under oath.
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Speaker 2: Under oath, this so called expert claimed that a bullet
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Speaker 2: allegedly found at my home matched a bullet that was
13:22
Speaker 2: found in the deceased body and according to him, in
13:24
Speaker 2: it identical lands and grooves. Now, I don't know nothing
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Speaker 2: about ballistic identification at this time. I'm twenty years old.
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Speaker 2: I'm a city kid. I don't know nothing about hunting
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Speaker 2: guns and none of that type of stuff. But I'm
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Speaker 2: telling my lawyer it's not true.
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Speaker 1: Ballistics evidence has covered on the tool mark Identification episode
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Speaker 1: of Wrong for Conviction Junk Science, and we'll have it
13:41
Speaker 1: linked in the episode description. A ballistics evidence is only
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Speaker 1: capable and only really meant to rule a gun out.
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Speaker 1: It's not able to identify a weapon to the exclusion
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Speaker 1: of all others. But that's what Sergeant Houseworth did at
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Speaker 1: Dalls trial.
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Speaker 3: If you have a weak witness, if you throw on forensics,
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Speaker 3: and that supports the testimony cases over because I don't
14:03
Speaker 3: have to believe these guys. Maybe they were a little
14:05
Speaker 3: bit drunk and high and maybe they didn't see what
14:08
Speaker 3: they saw, but there was a bullet came out of
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Speaker 3: an apartment next to Darryl Siggers, and it matches the body,
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Speaker 3: then he did it. Now it strengthens the identification, and
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Speaker 3: everybody knows who's in the business. Eyewitness identifications are notoriously
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Speaker 3: the courts know it are notoriously unreliable, but juris don't.
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Speaker 3: And why would this person say he did it if
14:28
Speaker 3: he didn't, And that's what convicted him.
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Speaker 2: When I heard the jury say guilty, it was like
14:32
Speaker 2: somebody hit me in the head with a brick because
14:34
Speaker 2: I was dizzy.
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Speaker 1: So you're convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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Speaker 2: Yes, without the possibility pull. It was a sensing on
14:42
Speaker 2: death rope. I didn't have a date to go to
14:44
Speaker 2: the gas chamber. That's how I looked at it. That's
14:47
Speaker 2: just the true facts.
14:48
Speaker 1: Of their living death sentence.
14:49
Speaker 2: Yes, what they do is they put chains around your waist,
14:53
Speaker 2: chains on your wrists, chains on your legs, and then
14:56
Speaker 2: they march you out and you got a duck or
14:58
Speaker 2: they chain me to twenty other guys, and I feel
15:00
Speaker 2: like a slave. First. When I got there, I'm seeing
15:17
Speaker 2: all types of crazy stuff. You know what I'm saying.
15:19
Speaker 2: It stabby rapes, you know, I've seen guys hang themselves,
15:23
Speaker 2: all types of stuff, drugs, gangs, gambling. So I'm walking
15:28
Speaker 2: the yard and an older gentleman sees me. His name
15:31
Speaker 2: is Madrick Bonnard. He said, listen, young fellas, you walking
15:34
Speaker 2: around there acting tough, you need to be in a
15:36
Speaker 2: law library so you can learn the law and get
15:38
Speaker 2: your bod out of here. He takes me to the
15:40
Speaker 2: law library and he begins to teach me the law.
15:43
Speaker 2: And as I began to learn this stuff, I felt
15:46
Speaker 2: in powered. The more I learned, the more I wanted
15:48
Speaker 2: to learn. The more I read, the more I wanted
15:50
Speaker 2: to read. And so now I'm understanding how they got
15:54
Speaker 2: me here, At least from a legal standpoint, I was
15:56
Speaker 2: laser focused on being in a law library learning the
16:00
Speaker 2: law so I could get out. Had children and family,
16:03
Speaker 2: mother and father out there, but I wanted to get
16:05
Speaker 2: back to and they were my motivating force and inspiration
16:09
Speaker 2: to keep going until I could prove that I was innocent.
16:13
Speaker 2: And that was the key factor that I knew I
16:15
Speaker 2: was innocent. I was not going to just surrender my
16:17
Speaker 2: liberty like a coward and just give up. I couldn't
16:20
Speaker 2: do it.
16:21
Speaker 1: With his growing knowledge of the law, Daryl was very
16:24
Speaker 1: active in post conviction, but nonetheless he was denied throughout
16:28
Speaker 1: his state and federal proceedings. He really needed a team
16:31
Speaker 1: on the outside to reinvestigate the case.
16:34
Speaker 2: Every day I wrote somebody, I got piles of letters
16:39
Speaker 2: denying my requests for saying we couldn't help you. I
16:42
Speaker 2: remained undeterred, and I just kept writing. In two thousand
16:45
Speaker 2: and two, University of Michigan appointed me four law students,
16:48
Speaker 2: two professors. They came worked the case up, researched it,
16:53
Speaker 2: and they were the ones who ultimately discovered the identification gaps.
16:58
Speaker 2: Where these guys couldn't see what they said he saw
17:01
Speaker 2: from where they said he seen it from. It was impossible,
17:03
Speaker 2: physically impossible. They found out all type of evidence.
17:06
Speaker 1: In addition, Ernard Jackson's cousin came forward saying that Jackson
17:10
Speaker 1: admitted to testifying Paulsey against Darrel under threats from the police.
17:14
Speaker 1: Then evidence of the hidden alternate suspect came to light.
17:17
Speaker 1: If you remember, the neighbor Gary Kelly, had seen a
17:19
Speaker 1: light skinned man or potentially his white neighbor, with a
17:22
Speaker 1: long gun near the scene that night, But it appears
17:25
Speaker 1: Kelly wasn't the only person who mentioned this alternate suspect
17:28
Speaker 1: to Detective Alex.
17:30
Speaker 3: There was a friend of christineau Daryll's baby mama. His
17:32
Speaker 3: name was Fuka. He lived about Kitty corner behind the
17:36
Speaker 3: house of the party. He said there was this guy
17:38
Speaker 3: Toby Read, who he knew, came to his house with
17:41
Speaker 3: a long gun looking for one of the guys at
17:43
Speaker 3: the party. Fuka wouldn't let him in his house and
17:47
Speaker 3: Toby Red left. So we have two identifications. One who
17:50
Speaker 3: says Toby Red has a long gun right after the
17:53
Speaker 3: party comes to Fuchal's house a block and a half away.
17:56
Speaker 3: You have a neighbor with no connection to any of
17:58
Speaker 3: these people, interested witness and he says there's a light
18:01
Speaker 3: skin guy. Well, when they eliminated the white neighbor, that
18:05
Speaker 3: left a light skin guy with a long gun out there.
18:09
Speaker 3: He put two and two together. That's Toby Red.
18:11
Speaker 1: They ignored two very credible witnesses, and not only Daryll
18:17
Speaker 1: not fit the description, not even by a stretch, right,
18:20
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody's going to mistake him for a light
18:23
Speaker 1: skin guy with reddish hair. That's ridiculous. If you remember,
18:27
Speaker 1: Toby Red had left the party after the fight, saying
18:30
Speaker 1: some menacing words on the way out. The Jack Bucher
18:33
Speaker 1: Brady violation didn't come out until civil litigation, but the
18:36
Speaker 1: Michigan law students found two other witnesses who said that
18:39
Speaker 1: Toby Red admitted to being the shooter, and one man,
18:42
Speaker 1: Daryl Doolan, claimed to have seen Toby Red shoot James Montgomery.
18:46
Speaker 1: But despite this evidence of actual innocence, Darrel's motion for
18:50
Speaker 1: a neutrial was denied. The judge ruled that the witnesses
18:53
Speaker 1: were not credible, so Daryl moved on to the ballistics evidence.
18:58
Speaker 2: Joseph Alex was the officer in charge of the case.
19:01
Speaker 2: He testified that he had found a bullet in my home,
19:04
Speaker 2: but he himself signed a return wants for my home
19:07
Speaker 2: saying nothing taking dry hole results negative. He didn't get
19:10
Speaker 2: anything from my home. None of that stuff came out
19:13
Speaker 2: at trial.
19:13
Speaker 1: They claimed they found the bullet in the wall, right, yes, right,
19:16
Speaker 1: like you were shooting guns in your own house.
19:19
Speaker 2: Yes, next door was what guys who used as a
19:21
Speaker 2: shooting gud and so guys in the hood would come
19:25
Speaker 2: in fire weapons in the next door apartment, and so
19:29
Speaker 2: this is where they found this bullet.
19:32
Speaker 1: But it gets deeper.
19:33
Speaker 2: The bullet that they found in the wall that they
19:35
Speaker 2: claimed matched. The bullet that was from the deceased body
19:39
Speaker 2: had four lands and grooves. The bullet that they got
19:42
Speaker 2: from the deceased body had twelve lands and groups, so
19:44
Speaker 2: it was impossible for them to match, and even the
19:47
Speaker 2: first year of cadets should have known this.
19:50
Speaker 3: Fortunately, Darryl obtained an examination by a guy named Dave
19:55
Speaker 3: Baalas who was retired in Michigan State Police firearms expert.
19:59
Speaker 3: He is the one who busted the DPD crime lab.
20:02
Speaker 3: The crime lab was shut down in two thousand and
20:04
Speaker 3: eight at the order basically of Kim Worthy who was
20:07
Speaker 3: the prosecutor at the time, Wayne Kunty prosecutor, because a
20:09
Speaker 3: defense lawyer had Ballish look at some identification issue and
20:13
Speaker 3: it was completely wrong. And when Baalish exposed this, the
20:16
Speaker 3: MSP did an audit of all of their cases, two
20:19
Speaker 3: hundred cases. Ten percent of them were inaccurate. You multiply
20:22
Speaker 3: that now on a number of cases that firearms identification
20:25
Speaker 3: is important, you have all kinds of potential for WRON provisions.
20:30
Speaker 1: So in the aftermath of the demise of the Detroit
20:32
Speaker 1: PD crime lab, Daryl got this report shredding his ballistics
20:36
Speaker 1: evidence and tried to use the new evidence both in
20:38
Speaker 1: the newly formed Wayne County Conviction Integrity Unit as well
20:42
Speaker 1: as in court. First came an evidentiary hearing in twenty seventeen.
20:47
Speaker 3: At this hearing, it's in front of a notorious judge.
20:50
Speaker 3: As soon as you see that the judge's name, you're
20:52
Speaker 3: not going to get relief. They came to this hearing
20:56
Speaker 3: and the expert was out of town, and as he's
20:58
Speaker 3: supposed to get up on the TV, there was a glitch.
21:01
Speaker 2: The zoom says, it don't work.
21:03
Speaker 3: And because of that glitch, they postponed the hearing and
21:06
Speaker 3: they adjourned it, and in that gap of time, the
21:09
Speaker 3: newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit says, we'll take a look
21:12
Speaker 3: at the case.
21:13
Speaker 1: Wow, even an atheists like me can see that's a miracle.
21:17
Speaker 3: You would never be out. I wouldn't even know you.
21:19
Speaker 3: But this happened a glitch, And the CiU said, we're
21:23
Speaker 3: not interested in just finality. We're interested in truth and
21:26
Speaker 3: making sure that if you are innocent and you can
21:29
Speaker 3: prove it, then we will help.
21:31
Speaker 2: And it'shed by a wonderful person, Valerie Newman. She's the
21:34
Speaker 2: director of the k Wayne Kiny Conviction Integrity Union and
21:37
Speaker 2: kim Worthy, who was Wayne Kinky prosecutor, and so they
21:40
Speaker 2: got to look at any case. And that's how this
21:42
Speaker 2: whole thing began to unravel, and I ultimately got out
21:47
Speaker 2: of prison.
21:48
Speaker 1: Because in another jurisdiction, without a Kim Worthy, without a
21:51
Speaker 1: Valerie Newman, without a conviction and Integrity unit, and most
21:54
Speaker 1: places don't have them, you'd probably still be in prison
21:56
Speaker 1: and he would have died there, right, Yes, So these
21:58
Speaker 1: people deserve their flowers.
22:00
Speaker 3: They're the ones who took the information that Daryl was
22:03
Speaker 3: lucky enough to get of this police firearms expert. In
22:06
Speaker 3: combination with everything else, Daryl get exonerated. And then we
22:10
Speaker 3: were able to discover in the civil lawsuit of the
22:12
Speaker 3: Brady violations that the lead detective had that kind of
22:15
Speaker 3: broke the case opening from a civil standpoint.
22:17
Speaker 1: So now finally the tide has turned. Tell us about
22:21
Speaker 1: that I.
22:22
Speaker 2: Had an attorney from the State of Public Finis office
22:24
Speaker 2: named Michael Waldo. And so now I've been denied so
22:27
Speaker 2: many times, and the course I'm expecting and denial, so
22:31
Speaker 2: office comes down in my room. So Daryl, you have
22:33
Speaker 2: a phone call the lawyer wants to talk to you.
22:35
Speaker 2: I get on the phone. The first words out of
22:37
Speaker 2: his mouth was, Daryl, they granted they vacated your conviction.
22:40
Speaker 2: Imagine walking around every day with a life sentence for
22:44
Speaker 2: a crime you didn't commit. I was so filled with
22:48
Speaker 2: elation and emotion I could barely say anything else. So
22:52
Speaker 2: he kept talking. I didn't hear anything else, and it
22:54
Speaker 2: was like I was just floating on air. Officer comes
22:58
Speaker 2: back down to the room, sitting cigars. You're no longer
23:01
Speaker 2: under the Mission Department of Correction jurisdiction. You got to
23:03
Speaker 2: be gone by twelve o'clock. What time was it that
23:05
Speaker 2: he said that? About eleven? And I told we can
23:08
Speaker 2: go now, you know, we can go now. And I
23:10
Speaker 2: had all this stuff he wanted me to pack up,
23:12
Speaker 2: you know, because I had foot lockers and at this
23:14
Speaker 2: time cassette players and you know something that young people
23:16
Speaker 2: don't even know what it is now when you put
23:18
Speaker 2: these little tapes in. And I had to pack up
23:20
Speaker 2: all my books, all my paper, all the stuff that
23:22
Speaker 2: I had accumulated for thirty four years. So I pushed
23:25
Speaker 2: all that stuff out into the middle of the hallway
23:28
Speaker 2: and say, hey, anybody wants some free stuff. Them guys
23:30
Speaker 2: came and grabbed it. He said, mister Cigares, that's not
23:32
Speaker 2: what I had. Now, I said it was gone. Something
23:34
Speaker 2: went to the court. It was August tenth, twenty eighteen,
23:37
Speaker 2: and the judge said, mister Siggers, the convictions bake. Heeadd
23:41
Speaker 2: case dismissed. Free to go. My son was there, my
23:44
Speaker 2: daughter was there, Wolf was there, Another lawyer was there,
23:48
Speaker 2: my sister was there. Just the most beautiful experience of
23:51
Speaker 2: my life, just to be able to breathe some fresh
23:54
Speaker 2: air and not be locked in a cage being told
23:57
Speaker 2: what to do.
23:58
Speaker 3: You know, we had a funny story a couple of
24:00
Speaker 3: days after he got out, and this puts in perspective
24:03
Speaker 3: of us who live on the outside and are wrapped
24:06
Speaker 3: up in our own worlds and our own things that
24:08
Speaker 3: we consider important. A couple of days after he got out,
24:11
Speaker 3: we went to a mall. I wanted to get him
24:12
Speaker 3: some clothes. Mid afternoon, we go to a little restaurant
24:15
Speaker 3: and he has a salad and then Darryl tells, me,
24:18
Speaker 3: oh my god, this tomato is so good. I haven't
24:20
Speaker 3: had a tomato in thirty five years. And that puts
24:24
Speaker 3: into perspective, Well, you really got to get past yourself foul,
24:28
Speaker 3: because we don't realize our lives on the outside and
24:32
Speaker 3: the strength it takes for somebody like him to do
24:35
Speaker 3: thirty five years in hell. Guys like him, that's why
24:39
Speaker 3: they're so inspiring.
24:40
Speaker 1: Oh well, put the tomato is a powerful symbol in
24:43
Speaker 1: this case, you know, And we've had different people talk
24:46
Speaker 1: about that. For Jason Strong, it was an orange, you know.
24:49
Speaker 2: I mean, even now, most of my dreams is still
24:52
Speaker 2: about prison because you go through that for so many years.
24:55
Speaker 2: And I've been in prison where I dreamed many times
24:59
Speaker 2: that I was free, only to wake up I'm still
25:01
Speaker 2: in prison, And so again, even now sometimes I had
25:04
Speaker 2: to say to myself, is this real? Are you really out?
25:08
Speaker 2: And my dreaming it's just the most wonderful feeling in
25:11
Speaker 2: the world to be free after all of that stuff.
25:15
Speaker 1: Amidst this incredibly joyous moment. As if the Cigarets family
25:19
Speaker 1: hadn't experience enough already, tragedy struck once again.
25:23
Speaker 2: My daughter passed and nothing in life could have prepared
25:26
Speaker 2: me for that, because I had fought so many years
25:29
Speaker 2: to get out just to be with her and my grandchildren,
25:31
Speaker 2: and then for her to pass I didn't get a
25:33
Speaker 2: chance to really spend no time with her. So I've
25:35
Speaker 2: lost all my family while I was in prison. I
25:37
Speaker 2: lost my mother, my father, my oldest brother, youngest sister,
25:40
Speaker 2: visually all my family. And so to lose her after
25:43
Speaker 2: getting out was a punch in the gut. But you
25:46
Speaker 2: go on, what else can you do?
25:48
Speaker 1: Well?
25:49
Speaker 2: Rest in peace.
25:50
Speaker 1: But you have a bunch of grandchildren now right, yes, eight,
25:53
Speaker 1: So you get to be a great grandfather, not a
25:56
Speaker 1: great grandfather, but a great grandfather. Yeah, and that's beautiful.
26:00
Speaker 2: And so now I'm living life on all terms and
26:03
Speaker 2: I'm having a book.
26:05
Speaker 1: Now we get to come to my favorite part of
26:07
Speaker 1: the show, and this part of the show is called
26:09
Speaker 1: closing arguments. This is a part of the show where
26:12
Speaker 1: first of all, I thank both of you guys, and
26:15
Speaker 1: then what I'm going to do is turn my microphone
26:18
Speaker 1: off and just kick back in my chair and listen
26:22
Speaker 1: to anything else that you think we may have left out,
26:24
Speaker 1: that needs to be said, or that you want to say,
26:27
Speaker 1: and that literally could be anything. That floor is yours.
26:29
Speaker 1: So we always save our most honored guests for last.
26:33
Speaker 1: So Darryl, let's turn it over to Wolf. Let him
26:36
Speaker 1: share his thoughts and then pick us off into the sunset.
26:39
Speaker 3: I think the biggest lesson that can be learned in
26:41
Speaker 3: this case is that, fortunately, since the advent of the
26:44
Speaker 3: smartphone and videos on phones, we don't put the police
26:48
Speaker 3: on such a highest pedestal anymore. We need to look
26:51
Speaker 3: at them with the human frailties that everybody else has,
26:54
Speaker 3: and they are in such a position of power. With
26:56
Speaker 3: power comes at great responsibility, and when you abuse that power,
27:01
Speaker 3: you have to be held accountable, just like the rest
27:03
Speaker 3: of us. And we went through five years of civil
27:06
Speaker 3: litigation before we're able to have a successful result. The
27:10
Speaker 3: wheels of justice turn slowly, but when people have the
27:14
Speaker 3: strength to be an agent for their own change, his
27:18
Speaker 3: story is like so many others that these good things
27:22
Speaker 3: can happen, but you have to help fight for yourself.
27:26
Speaker 3: You can't just rely on the system. The system is
27:30
Speaker 3: not going to do it by itself. And that's why
27:33
Speaker 3: guys like Darryl you are such agents for change. And
27:36
Speaker 3: then you have to look past yourself, and Darryl understands
27:39
Speaker 3: and these other guys. There are so many innocent people
27:42
Speaker 3: in prison. Five percent is a conservative number who are
27:45
Speaker 3: wrongfully convicted in prison. Most of which are murders, most
27:49
Speaker 3: of whom are going to die, either in states that
27:51
Speaker 3: have a death penalty or like Michigan without a death penalty,
27:54
Speaker 3: but it's still you're on death row because just no
27:58
Speaker 3: date certain.
27:59
Speaker 2: But that's what they they have.
28:01
Speaker 3: The system is not designed to look once you've been
28:05
Speaker 3: convicted at whether you were guilty or innocence. And that's
28:07
Speaker 3: why it's so important that these innocence projects exist, that
28:11
Speaker 3: these conviction integrity units exist to get it right, because
28:15
Speaker 3: it's just too important. Freedom is on the line, the
28:18
Speaker 3: Constitution is on the line, and that's why it starts
28:21
Speaker 3: with the integrity of the police. And if we don't
28:23
Speaker 3: do a better job of policing the police, it doesn't
28:26
Speaker 3: get better.
28:28
Speaker 2: One of the things that I've learned, and it's a
28:30
Speaker 2: real sad commentary, is the law really isn't blind. Them
28:34
Speaker 2: skills are justice. It really isn't blind. There's so much discrimination, racism, classism,
28:41
Speaker 2: and our judicial system. And I've lived with guys who
28:44
Speaker 2: I know are innocent, but they didn't have the mental
28:47
Speaker 2: acuity to learn the law. And the law is a
28:50
Speaker 2: very complex language or science in and of it self.
28:54
Speaker 2: Just like you go to a doctor, and if you
28:57
Speaker 2: look at all these long terms that they use and
28:59
Speaker 2: the medications or whatever. It's the same with law, and
29:02
Speaker 2: some guys just give up. It's just too hard. And
29:05
Speaker 2: so for me it was just a matter of staying
29:08
Speaker 2: with it, learning it, seeing successes. And I didn't try
29:12
Speaker 2: to learn all the law. I only wanted to learn
29:14
Speaker 2: what was pertaining to me. But the saddest commentary is
29:19
Speaker 2: you could look at the judge, see who appointed them,
29:21
Speaker 2: and know whether your case is going to be granted
29:24
Speaker 2: or do not. If you get a Trump appointee, you
29:27
Speaker 2: know your chances are very, very slim. If you get
29:31
Speaker 2: somebody who's appointed by Obama, you got a better shot
29:33
Speaker 2: because they're going to be more fair. And that's very
29:36
Speaker 2: sad because when you submit a brief or emotion, it's
29:40
Speaker 2: supposed to be decided based on the facts in that motion,
29:44
Speaker 2: not on all these procedures or not how whether you're
29:46
Speaker 2: a conservative or liberal, or whether you're a Republican or
29:50
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be like that. Well, great lawyer, I've learned
29:54
Speaker 2: so much from him. We filed our lawsuit solid issues,
29:57
Speaker 2: go to the United States Court of Appeals. We get
30:00
Speaker 2: two Trump appointees and a Bush appointee, and they butcher
30:05
Speaker 2: to appeal. They reduce it than not want of the claims.
30:08
Speaker 2: They've bent over backwards to violate their own law just
30:11
Speaker 2: to dey be. That's one of the things that surprises
30:13
Speaker 2: me more than anything else. That's why I have no
30:16
Speaker 2: faith in the law. I don't believe it. I think
30:18
Speaker 2: it's all bs because the real law are the judges.
30:21
Speaker 2: They just use the law as a tool to settle
30:24
Speaker 2: your lawsuit. But whatever it is, anyway they choose.
30:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ron for Conviction. You can
30:36
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
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Speaker 1: one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
30:42
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team,
30:45
Speaker 1: Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
30:48
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The
30:51
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
30:54
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
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Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
31:00
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at
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Speaker 1: It's Jason Vlamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava
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Speaker 1: for Good podcasts and association with signal Company Number one