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Season 1_ Sidebar 7(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to this week's Proof Sidebar. This week,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: we're discussing episode nine in our series on Lee Clark
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and Kane's story, covering the testimony of alleged eyewitnessed Charlie Childers.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We had a lot of questions from listeners this week
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: about Charlie, and some of those we'll be getting to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: in a later episode when we cover what happened when
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we found Charlie and got to speak to him for ourselves.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But we wanted to address some of those questions now,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm here with Kevin Fitzpatrick and Jaina Davis to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: talk about what we learned in episode nine.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Hi, guys, Hey Susan, Hey Susan.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So this week we heard about Charlie Childers, who was
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the star witness for the prosecution, especially as far as
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Lee Clark is concerned, and about what he had to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: say a trial, or as we heard the episode, how
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: we kind of don't get to hear a trial what
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Charlie actually has to say.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: I thought this episode to me is one of the
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: most comparing of the season because Charlie is such an
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: important character from just the beginning of the investigation. Have
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: to find Charlie in order to figure out what really happened.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: That's the only way to really get the answer as
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: to what happened.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Charlie is the only evidence against Lee.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So we have claims that there was a gang notebook
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: that lists Lee's name on it, but also the story
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: is that lists other names as well, so there's no
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: particular reason to link lead the murder based on that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And then you have Angela Bruce who says that Lee
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Clark was inside the bedroom with Brian and Cain when
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the shot went off. But the state's theory, the one
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: that they commit to fully is that Lee was outside
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the house either shot him or like moral support for
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Kin to shoot him. But they're adamant that Lee was
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: outside the house outside better window, and the only piece
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of evidence that can support that is Charlie Childers.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: We spent a lot of time looking for Charlie, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: when we realized it was going to be harder to
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: find him than we thought, it became really really important
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: to find the court appointed interpreter and also with her.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: I remember Susan, we went to her house. I think
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Kevin you were down there with us too. We went
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: to her house like three four times, and can never
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: quite catch her at home and finally connected with her
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: by phone and she you know, we arranged to go
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: meet her. But that interview with her was sort of
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: astounding in many ways. And we've had a lot of
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: people writing in about her interview and what she said
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: and feeling the frustration in her voice while she re
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: read the transcript, and also admitting someone wrote in saying,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: you know, it was really impressive that she would admit
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: how she felt like feeling inadequate, and the defense saying
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: maybe she's not good enough, and her being young at
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: the time and not having the confidence to say, listen,
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: this isn't right, we can't do this well.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: One of the things we talked about in the car
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: after you interviewed her was she didn't know that they were.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Still in Yes, that's truth.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Basically, everyone who spoke to is not closely next to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the case. The jurors thought they were all out, most
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of the witnesses thought they were both the Cane and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Lee were out. Everyone seems to assume that they have
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: been home for a decade or more now, which is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: not the case.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: And I think that moment, I mean, I wasn't doing
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: the interview with her but I think, as you guys
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: described it in the car, that moment made her interview
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: with you even more difficult because she realized it still
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: wasn't over. And I think what happened that day it
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: sort of jumped on her even more because of that.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine professionally how difficult that must have
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: been to go into a snare like that, stakes so high,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and to have a job that you feel confident and
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: trained certified to do, and then to find out that, like,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: this is not your job. What you're doing here is
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: not what you are trained for, we're supposed to be doing.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You're suddenly here trying to translate for a man who
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: does not speak the language that you're a translator for.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: He speaks just enough where you keep going. And she
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: said she told us she's like it now, I'd be like, no,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this is not doable, we can't do this. At that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: point in her career, she felt like she couldn't back out,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and she was just trying to make the best of things.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: The most difficult day at the office ever on your
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: first office.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Basically exactly that.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And she also told us that she was assured that
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: you know, this is not the only evidence against the boys,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: which is ironic because it literally is It's not even
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: just the most important, but in many ways it is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the only piece of adinist in Antlee Clark. If you
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: don't want to believe that Lee was in the bathroom,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: like Angela says, then all you've got is Charlie to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: go on.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: The thing that struck me is so bizarre about sort
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: of Charlie's testimony, sort of going over what was said
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: and what was happening in court. It seemed like the
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: prosecution and the judge kept giving like, well, let's try this,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Let's try this, like they were trying to come up
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: with a solution, you know, almost to like fix like
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: a crazy problem of not getting like a Sodia machine
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: work or something. Let's try this. It's eyewitness testimony, and
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: he just kept sort of pushing the line of how
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: to get him to communicate, And it just seems so
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: important that you shouldn't have been trying some kind of
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: patchwork in order to come up with a way to
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: get him to testify.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: It is likely scenario they had not encountered before.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's Floyd County, so maybe they have not
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: gonna say it hadn't happened previously. But this is not
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: something lawyers are trained to expect or to how to
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: deal with. So I get the sense of the transcript.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of flailing and they're like, oh God,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: how do we get out of this? This is like excruciating,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: This is really frustrating and long, and we just need
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to get through this some way or another.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And the defense was objecting.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Rex Abernathy Lee's attorney at one point several points is like,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: your honor, this can't keep going on. We've tried a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: hundred times to ask him who was there, and he
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: will not say, my client was there. And we can't
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: understand a war, he says, and the prosecutions like, don't
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: speak for me. I understand things just fine here, which
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: is clearly not the case. We had a question from
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a listener about if go La Burton's father, Mike burt
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And was able to communicate with Charlie and had history
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: with him, why did they use him at trial? And
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the answer is that under Georgia law, in order to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: translate for someone who's hard of hearing, you have to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: be certified, and Gola Burton had certifications. Her father did
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: not So even though he would have been the better
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: person in this case, because he didn't have the certifications
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that are acquired by statue, he couldn't actually translate at trial.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Whereas Gola didn't know Charlie's history, hadn't worked with him before,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: didn't know her dad had been his teacher, she did
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: have the certifications, And I.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: Think it's important to kind of paint the picture. You know,
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Gola just comes in for the day or days that
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: she's needed. She's not sitting through the court. She doesn't
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: know a lot about the case. She has to remain objective,
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: so she's literally coming in just to translate. So she's
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: thrown into the situation not knowing anything, not really knowing
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: the story, not knowing who may or may not be
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: guilty or anything. She has nothing in this There's nothing
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: at stake for her other than just translating and trying
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: to do the best job she can.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I just can't.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: I can't imagine what it was like, and, like you
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: were saying, Kevin, to find out twenty some years later
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: that both these kids are in prison. I think we
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: ruined her day, if not her week and month.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think she was damaged by that. It's a
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: difficult scenario.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: And there are good reasons to have an interpreter and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the situation come in blinds, so to speak, to not
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: have the background and not have the extremeget information that
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: can influence how they're interpreting. But in this case, it
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: severely undermined her ability to basics. If she'd had more
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: background information, she would have had a better time of
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: establishing communication with Charlie. It's not that he can't talk
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: at all. He can communicate. He has some communication ability,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: but if you don't have the context or experience with him,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get far at all.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she needed the background to be able to try
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: and understand how to best communicate with them. She didn't
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: have that. I mean, looking back in hindsight, she almost
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: needed to spend a day with them just to learn
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: how to communicate with them.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: But our decades like her father had more. So.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: On the other hand, let's say she did have that
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: background information and she knows why they're trying to get
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: him to identify Lee, and they know why they're trying
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: to say who's outside the window, That could have clouded
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: her interpretation. And I think the fact that she's very
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: clear like he does not know who Darryl is.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: He does not know Lee.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I don't know what he's talking about. Like to me,
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: that makes Charlie's testimony even more important because she's not
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: reading into.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: It the factory means that she very clearly is saying
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: even in court, I can't understand what he's saying. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: you're not interpreting testimony, then I don't know how anyone
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: can reasonably say that they can be certain that she's
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: relaying what he's communicating.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when there's no video to later go back
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and look at the episode title was hearsay, and that
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was because of how critical the hearsay rules should have
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: been in this trial, given all the troubles they had
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with interpreting and understanding Charlie. Because the jury ultimately does
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: hear the story about Lee Clark being outside the window
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: and running across the front yard, but they don't hear
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: it because of Charlie. Charlie never gets across that version
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of events. He mentions Darryl, Darryl running Dryl outside, But
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: then we'll go back and say, Cain only Kane, our
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: story only story outside and he mentions looking at a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: window and there are bits and pieces scattered through, but
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: there's never a time where Charlie's able to say anything
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like the story that the jury walks away having heard.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And the only reason they get that is because they
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hear it from Dallas Battle, who is the first one
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: to testify and gets up there and says, I talked
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to Charlie through Wayne. Wayne was able to translate, and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Charlie told me that he was looking out the window
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and he saw a boy run by, and that he'll
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: be able to identify this boy. If you take away
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that testimony, the jury doesn't hear the story, and that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: testimony was absolutely hearsay. Even a close question here, it
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: should not have been allowed, both because of Wayne, who
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: does not back up Battle's testimony. Wayne says he can't
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: really speak to Charlie, so he could not interpret for him,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and in fact, he says he didn't he let Charlie
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: write down a piece of paper what do he wanted
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: to say? Because Wayne could understand him. And then you
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: have Charlie who doesn't say anything really understandable at all,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: And yet the judge allows Battle to give the pure
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: s version of events from both Wayne and Charlie.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: It's one of the oddest scenarios of an eyewitness that
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I've ever encountered.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's strange too because the judge never really
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: explains why he ends up allowing this. Now, under Georgia law,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: there is an exception where a verbal or I guess
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: not in this case, well, an identification of someone that
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: itself is declared not hearsay under Georgia law. So if
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Battle go out there and said, yes, Charlie Childers identified
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: this picture on this lineup, that's permissible. He could have
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: said that Charlie pointed out Lee Clark on a picture.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: What he was not allowed to say is anything else
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: he said about what Charlie saw, how he saw it,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: how came about, or Wayne's ability to translate for him.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: But the judge doesn't even grapple with the defensive Jecks,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and he just as overruled and they move on.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Speaking of Dallas Battle, when listener wrote in, who I
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: think is from Rone named Casey wrote in and said,
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: you know in the episode we say that Dallas Battle
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: when he went to interview Charlie didn't even realize that
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Charlie was deaf, and so Wayne was there the interpreter
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: like you were just talking about but for anyone who
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: lived in that area, everyone knew Charlie. Charlie worked with
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: the Silver Creek, and this listener found it very, very
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: hard to believe that Dallas Battle did not know Wayne
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: and Charlie and did not know ahead of time that
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: Charlie was hard of hearing.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I'll admit I am very skeptical of that as well.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I did not speak to anyone who could confirm that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Dallas Battle did in fact know Charlie was deaf, but
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it seems somewhat unlikely based only know of Dallas Battle
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and about Charlie, who everyone knows. It seems like Charlie
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: was a well known figure in Silver Creek.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: Phill Is as we drove around asking does anybody know Charlie.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Everyone knows of Charlie, nobody knew exactly where he was.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: We've also been getting a lot of questions and comments
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: this week about what Charlie heard, the discrepancy between what
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: the Bowling family remembers hearing, which was like a thud
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: or speaker blowing out, they describe it. No one there
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: really identified it as a gunshot. Yet when we heard
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Charlie's testimony, Gola interpreted that he did hear something and
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: it scared him. So we've gotten a lot of questions
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: about what did Charlie say, and that's one of the
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: things we'll find out later. Right now, we know what
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: the bowling said they heard, and you know, they remember
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Charlie sitting there and they interpreted that as because he
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: didn't hear anything. Then we hear what Charlie said in court,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: which is he did hear something, but he stayed in
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: the living room, and eventually when we do talk to Charlie,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: we'll find out exactly what he did or didn't hear.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I think one of the confusing things are the interesting
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: things for listeners right is for me too, when I
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: first got into it is he's deaf, so how did
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: he hear anything? But I guess, as you guys sort
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: of uncovered, it's not exactly that simple.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people who are deaf do have
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: some residual hearing. It's not functional for everyday life, but
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: extremely loud noises they can hear, which could be the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: case here, or it could be the vibrations. Whatever it was,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that Charlie from his testimony things
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: tim we can understand it he does identify the sound
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of the gunshot. He knows immediately what the loud sound is,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: whereas others and the trailer seem to have not recognized
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: it before what it was. We also heard from Brooke,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a listener who's also hard of hearing, and she wrote
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: in to point out something I've actually heard before from
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: others I've talked to in the case that the idea
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: that Charlie was just sitting there in the living room
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: makes less sense, not more sense, given his deafness, because
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: when the commotion starts happening, everyone starts running around. Charlie's
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: only way of understanding what's happening is to go and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: look for himself. The natural expected inclination would not have
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to sit there and do nothing. It would be to
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: find out what's going on amid all the chaos and concern.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So it is strange if that's what Charlie did, as
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the prosecution alleges that he just sat there, and in fact,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that's actually the closing argument that the prosecutor makes is
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that user common sense, Charlie's not able to hear the gunshot,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: so therefore he would just sit there in the living
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: room doing nothing, which is why he saw Lee Clark
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and no one else did.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, so what do you guys have set up for
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: next episode that the listeners can look forward to.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Well, next week we're discussing the rest of what was
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: covered at the trial, including Lee Clark's alibi for the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: night that Brian.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: Shot I remember driving around if you guys talked about
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: that alibi, Yeah, that'll be interesting for everyone.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Proof sidebar, we're
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: back Monday with that psiode. If you have any questions
• 15:02
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• 15:07
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