Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #080 Jason Flom with Crystal Weimer - RE-RELEASE

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#080 Jason Flom with Crystal Weimer - RE-RELEASE · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.
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Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement it.
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Speaker 3: They get lost along the way and.
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Speaker 1: Forget what the job really is.
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Speaker 2: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
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Speaker 2: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
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Speaker 2: it was for my body to be found in any
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Speaker 2: alley of New York City.
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Speaker 1: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
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Speaker 1: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
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Speaker 1: They do that.
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Speaker 4: They'll give a guy a life sentence and go home
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Speaker 4: in East Spaghetti like it was nothing.
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Speaker 2: And anybody that said, well, why would you confess to
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Speaker 2: something that you didn't do? My question to them will
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Speaker 2: be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill
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Speaker 2: your life?
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Speaker 3: The judge, he said, how you feel? I said, I'm okay.
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Speaker 3: He said, well the day as you're lucky, day you
0:54
Speaker 3: go home.
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Speaker 1: This is wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:16
Speaker 1: Jason Flomm. Today we have a very special episode. We
1:20
Speaker 1: have two fabulous Pennsylvania ladies. Our very special guest is
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Speaker 1: Krystal Weimer, who is an ax hoonery from Western Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 5: January two thousand and one, someone killed Curtis Hath outside
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Speaker 5: his Fayette County home. He had been beaten and shocked
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Speaker 5: after being convicted of plotting the murder that spanned three
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Speaker 5: towns in Fayette County. Crystal was behind bars for twelve
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Speaker 5: years at the time. They said her teeth led.
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Speaker 1: Them to her.
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Speaker 5: A dental impression was taken over teeth, and they were
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Speaker 5: compared to a picture of a bite mark on the
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Speaker 5: victim's body, which we're found to be a match. Actually,
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Speaker 5: that's not true. Scientific expert who testified to all of
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Speaker 5: that in court later said it was junk science and
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Speaker 5: he was wrong.
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Speaker 6: At today's post conviction relief Act, doctor Constantine car Zulas
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Speaker 6: testified that a bitemarked fan on the victim's hand was
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Speaker 6: Weimer's due to a bitemark analysis that he now considers
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Speaker 6: to be junk science. After doctor Carzulas testified and without
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Speaker 6: hearing any further testimony, President Judge John Wagner granted a
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Speaker 6: retrial for Wimer.
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Speaker 5: It was Crystal who started her own path to freedom,
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Speaker 5: acting as her own attorney, filing paperwork. The Pennsylvania Innocence
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Speaker 5: Project and the Jones Day Law Firm got involved. They
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Speaker 5: found other problems with the police investigation and the prosecution
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Speaker 5: and convinced to judge she is not the killer. Weimer's
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Speaker 5: attorneys believe the real killer has never been caught.
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Speaker 1: Crystal, Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 3: Thank you.
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Speaker 1: And with Crystal is her fabulous lawyer, Neila M. Sangvie,
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Speaker 1: who is the legal director of the Pennsylvania Innists Project,
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Speaker 1: and really looking forward to hearing from you and learning
3:01
Speaker 1: from the first time we've had some from the Pennsylvanian
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Speaker 1: Instance Project on the show. So welcome, Thanks for happy
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Speaker 1: to be here. So, Crystal, your story is insane, even
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Speaker 1: by our very lofty standards of insanity. Here at wrongful conviction.
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Speaker 1: You had the whole pot pirie of causes of wrongful conviction.
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Speaker 1: I mean, your case involved false confession by a co defendant,
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Speaker 1: It involved police and prosecutoral misconduct. It involved bitemark evidence,
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Speaker 1: which we know is put it politely, horseshit right. And
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Speaker 1: there's more. It's a fascinating study and terrifying study into
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Speaker 1: just how many things can go wrong. So let's go
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Speaker 1: back to two thousand and one and even before you
3:44
Speaker 1: grew up in Pennsylvania. Yes, and what was that like?
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Speaker 1: What was your We always like to spend a few
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Speaker 1: minutes talking about what life was like before this catastrophe happened.
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Speaker 3: It was good.
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Speaker 4: I used to work at a plan in newsday and
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Speaker 4: assembling TVs and radios and things of that nature.
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Speaker 3: And I was working three on, three.
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Speaker 4: Off, two one two off days, twelve hour shifts. I
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Speaker 4: was a single mother, raising my children by myself.
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Speaker 1: What are their names?
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Speaker 4: My oldest is Rose, she was ten, Miranda was seven,
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Speaker 4: and the baby was Bridget and she was four. The
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Speaker 4: high life of my life was them raising them and
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Speaker 4: making sure they were off to school and went to work,
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Speaker 4: and was living life on an everyday basis.
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Speaker 1: Not an easy life by any stretch, right, working a
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Speaker 1: difficult job, but a good job, and still raising three kids.
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Speaker 1: And I have so much respect for single moms everywhere
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Speaker 1: I see the amount of work that goes into raising children.
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Speaker 1: It's incredible. So the idea that you were able to
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Speaker 1: hold it together, you know, while working, is really my
4:46
Speaker 1: hat's off to you. So how could this have possibly happened?
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Speaker 1: How could you sort of, I guess you could call
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Speaker 1: a typical American, right, working, raising children, living sort of
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Speaker 1: a regular type of place, right, How could you become
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Speaker 1: ensnared in this craziest possible situation.
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Speaker 4: I don't even have the answers. I don't know how
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Speaker 4: to even say how it all began.
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Speaker 1: Or let me give some details to the audience and then, Neil,
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Speaker 1: if you could jump in any time you want. So,
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Speaker 1: this was a case where a guy named Curtis Hayth
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Speaker 1: was murdered outside his apartment building around four am on
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Speaker 1: January twenty seventh of two thousand and one. And I
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Speaker 1: guess the only reason that it even any attention was
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Speaker 1: paid to you in the first place was because that
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Speaker 1: night you had been at a party with him, right,
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Speaker 1: with a lot of other people. Yes, attending a party
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Speaker 1: with somebody and murdering them or very different legally.
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Speaker 7: Speaking, right, I mean, I think what the police did
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Speaker 7: made sense because when this man died, they wanted to know, okay,
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Speaker 7: who else saw him, what was he doing? So it
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Speaker 7: actually kind of made sense as a starting point for
5:54
Speaker 7: the investigation to talk to everybody he'd been with. But
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Speaker 7: then obviously things took a wrong turn from that point on.
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Speaker 1: Right, So, Crystal, you and a friend had given him
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Speaker 1: a ride home from the party around ten o'clock.
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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it was me and my cousin.
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Speaker 1: God could, yes, but then you went back to the party.
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Speaker 3: I went back to uniont where I was.
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Speaker 1: Right, and he was murdered six hours later or so,
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Speaker 1: at four o'clock in the morning. And by that time,
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Speaker 1: I'm assuming you were home asleep with your kids. Right,
6:22
Speaker 1: So how did this start to go wrong? Because it
6:26
Speaker 1: took a long time. I mean, this kid, this was
6:27
Speaker 1: a cold case, right, you know? Right?
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Speaker 7: They investigated for about a year after mister Hayes murder
6:34
Speaker 7: and really didn't have any leads. They questioned Crystal and
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Speaker 7: a lot of other people, but didn't really have any leads.
6:39
Speaker 7: And then about a year into it, they brought in
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Speaker 7: a Pennsylvania State trooper from the Cold Case Squad to
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Speaker 7: try to investigate more. Because this is a relatively small
6:47
Speaker 7: town and an unsolved Thomas side is kind of big news,
6:50
Speaker 7: So they brought in the cold case squad and it's
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Speaker 7: at that point that they started looking into the potential
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Speaker 7: bitemark evidence that really became a lynchpin of the case
6:58
Speaker 7: against Crystal as things went.
6:59
Speaker 1: For so the victim had been bitten.
7:02
Speaker 7: Well supposedly, we don't based on what we know now,
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Speaker 7: are not even sure whether it was a human bitemark.
7:07
Speaker 7: There was an oval shaped bruise on the victim's hand
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Speaker 7: that was not identified as a bitemark during the autopsy.
7:14
Speaker 7: But when this person from the cold case squad came
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Speaker 7: in and was looking at the autopsy photographs, she saw
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Speaker 7: it and said, well, I think this is a bitemark,
7:21
Speaker 7: even though she was not a dentist or an odentologist
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Speaker 7: by training, and then started looking at it from that angle.
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Speaker 1: So the trained mortician or corner right, the.
7:32
Speaker 7: Forensic pathologist right that did the autopsy.
7:35
Speaker 1: Wasn't able to see a bitemark and clearly was looking
7:37
Speaker 1: for any signs that they could find because it was
7:39
Speaker 1: a murder, right right.
7:40
Speaker 7: And we looked into this when we were investigating the case.
7:43
Speaker 7: What do you look for in an autopsy? And if
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Speaker 7: you're a forensic pathologist, bite marks are one of the things,
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Speaker 7: even at that time, that you were supposed to look
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Speaker 7: for and account for and preserve in a certain way
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Speaker 7: if you saw it. And the pathologist did none of
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Speaker 7: those things, right.
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Speaker 1: So, what I'm trying to wrap myself around here is
7:58
Speaker 1: and this is just the first of so many I mean,
8:01
Speaker 1: whacky is a weird way to put it, but so
8:03
Speaker 1: many whacky things about this case. But I'm trying to
8:05
Speaker 1: wrap myself around to the idea that you have a
8:08
Speaker 1: trained pathologist forensic pathologist who is examining the body and
8:12
Speaker 1: looking with a fine tooth comb or microscope what everyone
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Speaker 1: to call it, for any signs of foul play, but
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Speaker 1: yet does not see or report anything to do with
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Speaker 1: any bite marks. But yet a state trooper. Right, there's
8:27
Speaker 1: no training in this area, Right, A lay person is
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Speaker 1: going to look at a photograph one dimensional a year
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Speaker 1: later and go, I got this. I figured it out
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Speaker 1: like some sort of Sherlock Holmes moment and say, oh,
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Speaker 1: that's a bite mark. And we know, from having examined
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Speaker 1: and uncovered and had to undo cases around the country
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Speaker 1: related to bitemark evidence, it is probably the junkiest form
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Speaker 1: of science that there is. I mean, there's so many
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Speaker 1: cases that we've seen where they don't know whether it's
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Speaker 1: a human bitemark, it could be an animal, it could
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Speaker 1: be totally something, totally right exactly. So this was the
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Speaker 1: beginning of what became a real life nightmare for Crystal.
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Speaker 1: So then things start getting really tangled, right, and really complicated,
9:12
Speaker 1: because there's a whole cast of characters here that are
9:15
Speaker 1: all out for themselves and are all working across purposes
9:19
Speaker 1: and all working at trying to well save their own asses, right, right,
9:23
Speaker 1: This is where the incentivized witness thing comes into play, right.
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Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about that a little.
9:27
Speaker 7: Bit now, Yeah, So, the incentivized witnesses in this case,
9:30
Speaker 7: it's interesting, actually didn't start even coming forward until Crystal
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Speaker 7: had already been arrested and charged with the murder. So
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Speaker 7: after this BikeE mark story comes out, they're talking to
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Speaker 7: other people and there's a guy in the county jail
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Speaker 7: named Joey Stenger who offers to give the police some
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Speaker 7: information about Crystal and about this murder, and he's got
9:51
Speaker 7: a bunch of charges, so I think he was hoping
9:52
Speaker 7: for something, but at this point he wasn't promised anything,
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Speaker 7: so it wasn't really incentivized at that point. But he
9:59
Speaker 7: essentially confesses to committing the murder and implicates Crystal in
10:03
Speaker 7: it with him. So they move forward based on this
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Speaker 7: spiite mark evidence, based on this witness Joey Stenger, and
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Speaker 7: some other things they had cobbled together. And then years
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Speaker 7: after Curtis's deaths in two thousand and four and two
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Speaker 7: thousand and five, when Crystal's in the County jail. You
10:19
Speaker 7: get other prisoners coming out of the woodwork saying they've
10:23
Speaker 7: heard Crystal confess to them, which just seems ludicrous given
10:27
Speaker 7: the you know, in particular, the amount of time that
10:29
Speaker 7: had passed since the murder, and they, as it turns out,
10:33
Speaker 7: we found out much later, we're all asking for deals
10:36
Speaker 7: in exchange for implicating Crystal.
10:38
Speaker 1: Again, we're supposed to believe that you, in an effort
10:42
Speaker 1: to purge your soul, are going up to total strangers
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Speaker 1: in the jail and telling each of them your story
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Speaker 1: about how you murdered Curtis haythe one night in January
10:54
Speaker 1: of two thousand and one.
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Speaker 4: Well, the sad part was, I didn't even know a
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Speaker 4: lot of the people. I just met them through testimony
11:01
Speaker 4: or paperwork and stuff to that nature. I didn't I
11:04
Speaker 4: never even met him, like want a face to face basis,
11:08
Speaker 4: So I didn't even know who most.
11:10
Speaker 3: Of them were.
11:10
Speaker 1: So what happened here, it sounds to me like is
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Speaker 1: going back fifteen years to when all this stuff was
11:16
Speaker 1: taking place. Is that, as we see time and again,
11:21
Speaker 1: the police and prosecutor came up with a theory and
11:25
Speaker 1: then in the absence of any physical evidence, because it
11:27
Speaker 1: wasn't any They had to figure out a way to
11:30
Speaker 1: convince a jury that you were this cold blooded killer.
11:35
Speaker 1: Did you have prior violent arrests in your past? No,
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Speaker 1: you never murdered anybody else, never like it can blow
11:44
Speaker 1: up anything record. No, No, you weren't like a You
11:48
Speaker 1: weren't like a mugger karthif I's kidding, I mean.
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Speaker 3: Like I said, you find sense of humor and all
11:53
Speaker 3: this madness.
11:55
Speaker 1: I tried to because otherwise it's just too depressing. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: they would have had without having gone to these lengths
12:02
Speaker 1: that they did to fabricate evidence against you. Very hard
12:06
Speaker 1: to imagine that the jury would have convicted you, because
12:08
Speaker 1: what would they have said, Here's this woman who was
12:11
Speaker 1: raising three children, working a job, respectable citizen, with no
12:16
Speaker 1: prior history of violence. One day just up and murdered
12:21
Speaker 1: this guy at four o'clock in the morning, and we
12:23
Speaker 1: have no evidence to show you, but you should take
12:26
Speaker 1: our word for it. That basically would have been the
12:27
Speaker 1: case a judgment. I mean, somebody would have thrown that
12:29
Speaker 1: thing out. Our jury would have said, they would have
12:31
Speaker 1: taken ten minutes and they would have said, this is ridiculous,
12:32
Speaker 1: We're going home. Right.
12:34
Speaker 7: And actually the charges against Crystal were thrown out the
12:36
Speaker 7: very first time they tried to bring them. This is
12:38
Speaker 7: when the additional informants and people start coming in, and
12:41
Speaker 7: they charged her again, and it was the second time
12:43
Speaker 7: that the charges stuck. So what you're saying actually did
12:47
Speaker 7: happen essentially the first time around.
12:50
Speaker 1: Yes, that's in two thousand and four, right, which is
12:52
Speaker 1: already more than three years after the crime was committed.
12:56
Speaker 1: The case was dismissed against you because Beale recanted his
12:59
Speaker 1: earlier that you the murder, and he refused to testify.
13:02
Speaker 4: He was the very first one that recanted. Joey's singer
13:05
Speaker 4: was the second one that recanted his statement. So whenever
13:08
Speaker 4: Bill recanted, they released me. But they never released me
13:14
Speaker 4: because of prejudice. They just released me and the judge
13:17
Speaker 4: gave them the option to refel charges against me for
13:21
Speaker 4: the second arrest. So I was begging to go back
13:24
Speaker 4: to prison, which is absurd, knowing that they were going
13:28
Speaker 4: to do this again to me, just to have a
13:31
Speaker 4: trial so I didn't have to go through all this
13:33
Speaker 4: again the second time.
13:34
Speaker 1: And then who's taking care of your children this well.
13:36
Speaker 4: My two oldest daughters were with their grandmother. Whenever all
13:40
Speaker 4: this took place, she was putting them off to school
13:43
Speaker 4: and making sure they were okay. Well that year, whenever
13:46
Speaker 4: I got released, I had three different apartments, Like I
13:49
Speaker 4: was trying to come out and get myself back together,
13:51
Speaker 4: and here they come again.
13:53
Speaker 3: It was just crazy.
13:55
Speaker 4: So I couldn't get myself together and make sure I
13:58
Speaker 4: was taking care of them, not knowing what they were going.
14:01
Speaker 3: To do to me again.
14:03
Speaker 4: So I wanted to make sure they were in a
14:04
Speaker 4: stable environment, which I left them with their grandparents, not
14:08
Speaker 4: knowing if they were going to come rearrest me again
14:11
Speaker 4: for the second time, or what was going to occur.
14:15
Speaker 4: So I wanted them in a safe environment.
14:17
Speaker 3: That's why I left them where they were.
14:19
Speaker 1: But even still, the idea, I mean, what is that
14:22
Speaker 1: like being locked up for something you didn't do and
14:25
Speaker 1: then not being able to tuck your kids in or
14:28
Speaker 1: read them a story or you know. I mean, especially
14:31
Speaker 1: as they're sort of their only parent and as a mom, like,
14:33
Speaker 1: how how did you deal with that when you're in prison?
14:35
Speaker 1: How did you keep your sanity?
14:38
Speaker 3: It was extremely hard.
14:39
Speaker 4: I mean, as far as being depressed and crying all
14:42
Speaker 4: the time, emotional. I would go see a therapist and
14:46
Speaker 4: the counsel all the time. I tried to go to
14:49
Speaker 4: a church. It was just so hard on a daily basis.
14:53
Speaker 4: A part of you just gone. Your baby's just gone.
14:57
Speaker 4: And no words can even describe that feeling.
15:00
Speaker 3: That's horrible. That's the worst feeling in the world. Like
15:03
Speaker 3: the babies that.
15:03
Speaker 4: You bore, that you were supposed to be secure and
15:06
Speaker 4: love and neuturing and mom and make sure their needs
15:10
Speaker 4: are met and just quality time, security time, just everything
15:14
Speaker 4: just being ripped apart and away from Oh, it is
15:19
Speaker 4: this horrible, horrible in my heart and my mind, my emotions.
15:24
Speaker 4: I don't even know how I cope and dealt with it.
15:26
Speaker 3: I just.
15:28
Speaker 7: I don't know.
15:29
Speaker 4: I just try one day at a time. I just
15:31
Speaker 4: kept praying. I didn't know what else to do. But
15:33
Speaker 4: it pushed me to be persistent. Knowing I was innocent
15:37
Speaker 4: and I was wrong. Then I was coming home, So
15:40
Speaker 4: it pushed me even more so to fight and take
15:44
Speaker 4: a stand for what I believe in. And I knew
15:46
Speaker 4: in my heart I was going to come home. I
15:48
Speaker 4: just didn't know when or how long.
15:50
Speaker 1: Well I'm getting the chills thinking about this. So you
15:53
Speaker 1: were rearrested in September of two thousand and four, and
15:56
Speaker 1: you went to trial. Yes, and you were represented by
15:59
Speaker 1: a public deffect at the time. Yes, right. They have
16:02
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for lawyers in general. But we
16:04
Speaker 1: do know that the public defender situation in this country
16:08
Speaker 1: is a crisis, nothing less than a crisis. We have
16:10
Speaker 1: a situation, I think in every state where they are underpaid,
16:14
Speaker 1: they're overburdened, they're overworked. Some of them are incompetent, but
16:18
Speaker 1: many of them are very competent, but they have an
16:21
Speaker 1: impossible task. So if you're in this situation and don't
16:25
Speaker 1: have money to defend yourself, and sometimes even if you do,
16:29
Speaker 1: you have really a snowballs chance in hell of getting justice,
16:33
Speaker 1: and you now go to trial, it must have seemed
16:36
Speaker 1: like a circus.
16:37
Speaker 3: It was a circus.
16:38
Speaker 4: I was just in awe with all these people coming
16:41
Speaker 4: on and stand and testifying, and I was just like,
16:45
Speaker 4: what where did this come from? I'm shaking my head
16:48
Speaker 4: and looking like wow.
16:50
Speaker 1: And Neilon. Not only were they coming in and saying
16:52
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that wasn't true, but they were
16:54
Speaker 1: also changing their lives. There were different lives on different days,
16:58
Speaker 1: right from the same person. The stinger guy changed his
17:01
Speaker 1: story again and again, I mean doesn't at some point
17:04
Speaker 1: somebody go, wait a minute, this guy is totally full
17:07
Speaker 1: of shit, right, I mean that forgive my language, but
17:10
Speaker 1: I mean he just kept coming up with new lies.
17:12
Speaker 7: Yeah. By our account, by the time we got through
17:15
Speaker 7: the trial, the post conviction procedure and we're looking at
17:18
Speaker 7: a potential new trial, Stanger had given about fifteen different
17:22
Speaker 7: accounts of the events, and there were changes every time.
17:26
Speaker 7: So you wonder how the jury could believe this guy,
17:30
Speaker 7: which they really had to do because he was the
17:32
Speaker 7: only evidence that claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Crystal
17:36
Speaker 7: being at the scene, which of.
17:37
Speaker 5: Course was not true.
17:38
Speaker 7: But the jury really had to believe him, and they did,
17:40
Speaker 7: which I think just shows you that if it's the
17:43
Speaker 7: prosecution putting up the witness, sometimes that's really all you
17:46
Speaker 7: need and it doesn't matter that much what they say.
17:49
Speaker 1: He admitted that he was coached by the police, right,
17:52
Speaker 1: which is again it's a fact. I think most people
17:54
Speaker 1: sit there and go, well, that can't happen. That's not allowed.
17:57
Speaker 1: And he admitted that the police told him what to say.
17:59
Speaker 7: Yeah, he recanted. He said that they fed him the
18:02
Speaker 7: information basically.
18:03
Speaker 1: Right, And that's done in ways, both subtle and not
18:07
Speaker 1: so subtle. Right. You know. The fact is we see
18:09
Speaker 1: in so many of these wrongful convictions police that feed
18:14
Speaker 1: information either like I said, sort of artfully right by
18:19
Speaker 1: in a suggestive in a roundabout way. In this case,
18:23
Speaker 1: it was much more blatant. Right, They just told them
18:26
Speaker 1: what they wanted him to say. But jury's I mean,
18:29
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't hear that. Sometimes they don't know. If
18:31
Speaker 1: it's not videotape, it should be. Videotips should always be videotaped.
18:34
Speaker 1: That's one of the things we are working so hard
18:37
Speaker 1: on at innocence projects around the country, especially one in
18:40
Speaker 1: New York as the mandatory videotaping of interrogation. Strangely enough,
18:45
Speaker 1: New York State doesn't have it.
18:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, in Pennsylvania we don't have it. A couple of
18:48
Speaker 7: counties have started doing it just within the last.
18:50
Speaker 4: Year or so.
18:52
Speaker 7: In this case, it's interesting one of Joey's statements to
18:55
Speaker 7: police was videotaped, but they didn't start the tape until
18:59
Speaker 7: after they'd alreadyn talked tucking him for a few hours,
19:01
Speaker 7: So by the time he's on the tape, there's a
19:03
Speaker 7: relatively for lack of a better word, canned story coming
19:08
Speaker 7: from him, so we didn't get to see what went
19:11
Speaker 7: into it, which really you want to see the whole
19:12
Speaker 7: thing obviously, to see how it unfolded.
19:14
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me go to my soapbox here for
19:16
Speaker 1: a second. So, Crystal, one of the reasons that I'm
19:19
Speaker 1: so happier here is because you literally represent everybody in America.
19:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's fair to say that if
19:26
Speaker 1: this could happen to you, it could happen to anyone,
19:28
Speaker 1: because you just don't fit the profile of somebody who
19:31
Speaker 1: would get picked up, you know. And I think there
19:33
Speaker 1: are some people who say, well, they must have been
19:35
Speaker 1: involved with something else, And people have this different attitudes
19:38
Speaker 1: about exonnaies. We know that half of our exanneries had
19:41
Speaker 1: no prior record before they were wrongfully arrested and convicted.
19:45
Speaker 1: But the fact is that everyone should be concerned and
19:49
Speaker 1: everyone should be angry as I am now at the
19:52
Speaker 1: idea that we don't have mandatory videotaping of interrogations. It
19:56
Speaker 1: is preposterous. What could possibly be the reason why we
20:02
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be able to see what goes on
20:04
Speaker 1: inside that interrogation room and know that the person is
20:09
Speaker 1: actually the right person. Right. None of us want murderers
20:13
Speaker 1: walking the streets. But the idea that we forget as
20:17
Speaker 1: a society upon basically arrest and certainly upon incarceration, we
20:22
Speaker 1: forget that you are one of us. Right, You're an American,
20:25
Speaker 1: you're a person, you're a human, you're a woman. All
20:27
Speaker 1: that's gone out the window. You're just somebody to be
20:31
Speaker 1: chewed up and spit out by the system once you're
20:34
Speaker 1: in it. And I don't get that. I don't. I don't.
20:37
Speaker 1: I'm not okay with it, and I'm going to continue
20:40
Speaker 1: to do everything I can fix it. Okay, So I'm
20:42
Speaker 1: gonna get off myself bucks now. So Anyway, when you
20:56
Speaker 1: were a trial and you're watching this crazy circus unfold
21:00
Speaker 1: in front of you and you're unfortunately stuck in the
21:04
Speaker 1: middle of it, did you think that this was still
21:07
Speaker 1: going to be okay, that the jury was gonna make
21:09
Speaker 1: the right decision, that you were going to go home.
21:11
Speaker 3: I believed in my heart that the tchurth was gonna
21:14
Speaker 3: send me for it. I was confident. I felt really
21:17
Speaker 3: good about everything.
21:18
Speaker 4: And I knew that I was innocent, So I felt
21:22
Speaker 4: like I was going to walk out.
21:23
Speaker 3: That courtroom and go home where I should have been.
21:26
Speaker 3: But when they came back and.
21:28
Speaker 4: After they gave the verdict it was guilty, guilty, guilty.
21:31
Speaker 4: I was just an awe, Like what where did that
21:34
Speaker 4: come from?
21:35
Speaker 1: Can you describe that scene? Because nobody can imagine going
21:39
Speaker 1: through that, like the pressure of being in that situation
21:43
Speaker 1: and the idea that they're coming back in and they're
21:45
Speaker 1: going to decide your fate literally with a life in
21:48
Speaker 1: that situation, and so how it was a.
21:51
Speaker 4: Murder charge to at that and I'm like, what what
21:54
Speaker 4: are we talking about? Like a murder trial? And then
21:58
Speaker 4: you're sitting there and you're waiting for all leads people
22:00
Speaker 4: to decide your future.
22:03
Speaker 3: What's going to happen to you? It just it's like.
22:07
Speaker 4: Your heart wants to stop, like your throat and everything.
22:10
Speaker 4: Everything's just like ah, you want to scream and it's
22:15
Speaker 4: just like all bottled inside of you because you don't
22:18
Speaker 4: know what they're going to say. But yet on the
22:20
Speaker 4: same note, on the good side of your head, you're like, oh,
22:24
Speaker 4: well you're fine, you're getting ready to go home, and hey,
22:27
Speaker 4: you're happy. But then there's another side like what's going
22:31
Speaker 4: to happen? So it's like a mixed emotion thing going
22:36
Speaker 4: on inside of you, just waiting to hear what they say,
22:39
Speaker 4: guilty or not guilty.
22:41
Speaker 1: And imagine that. So I mean and I think that
22:43
Speaker 1: people again have a tendency to be able to distance
22:47
Speaker 1: themselves when they're serving on a jewelry from that emotion
22:51
Speaker 1: from that person that is sitting in front of them,
22:54
Speaker 1: And they have a tendency to trust the system and
22:58
Speaker 1: want to believe people in positions of authority who are
23:00
Speaker 1: telling them this woman is a murderer, she's terrible, she's
23:04
Speaker 1: all these things they're saying about you, right, And I
23:06
Speaker 1: always say that people have to take an extra hard
23:10
Speaker 1: look at what's being shown to them when they're on
23:12
Speaker 1: that jury and realize that there's a lot of bad
23:16
Speaker 1: actors in the system, there's a lot of good ones,
23:18
Speaker 1: there's a lot of bad actors in the system, and
23:19
Speaker 1: that people like you get caught up in the crosshairs,
23:21
Speaker 1: and that in fact, those roles could be reversed one day.
23:24
Speaker 3: I highly believe that.
23:25
Speaker 4: I believe that them being in the position that they're in,
23:29
Speaker 4: some people have more heartfelt and are educated in that area,
23:34
Speaker 4: but they also need to be mindful as well, that
23:38
Speaker 4: it's not always good, The system isn't always for you,
23:42
Speaker 4: and there is people out there that do corruption and
23:45
Speaker 4: do do bad things and harmful things.
23:47
Speaker 1: How about this logic, right, So, if you're on a jury,
23:49
Speaker 1: and especially in a small town like yours, right, and
23:52
Speaker 1: you actually are witnessing and unfortunately playing an unwitting part
23:57
Speaker 1: in a terrible deception and a prosecution, not only are
24:01
Speaker 1: you then subject to being victimized by the actual murder
24:04
Speaker 1: who's still walking in the streets, but also those people,
24:07
Speaker 1: those the farious, corrupt people, police and prosecutors who are
24:12
Speaker 1: perpetrating this terrible act on you and in fact on
24:14
Speaker 1: the public while I'm going to do it again because
24:18
Speaker 1: it's convenient, they get away with it, and that could
24:19
Speaker 1: be you, dur number seven sitting in the jury box.
24:22
Speaker 1: That could be you or somebody you love right that
24:25
Speaker 1: next time could get caught up just because they can't
24:27
Speaker 1: solve the case and they need they need somebody because
24:28
Speaker 1: they need to get it off their desk, and they
24:30
Speaker 1: want to keep moving up the ranks. And we see
24:32
Speaker 1: that people get promoted even when it's exposed that they
24:34
Speaker 1: were responsible to these wrongflmakers. So you get found guilty
24:38
Speaker 1: and the worst moment of your life, I'm assuming, right.
24:41
Speaker 4: Sh Yeah, it was a shock. It was just unbelievable.
24:45
Speaker 1: And then you get taken away in handcuffs, yeah, and
24:49
Speaker 1: taken to well back to jail, but then ultimately to prison.
24:52
Speaker 6: Right.
24:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
24:53
Speaker 4: Well they had to escort like my sister out of
24:56
Speaker 4: the court room because my dad, he had to walk
24:58
Speaker 4: out and calm her down, because she was with me
25:01
Speaker 4: that night. And of course your sister can lie for you,
25:05
Speaker 4: but there's the difference whenever you see her with your
25:07
Speaker 4: own eyes with you. So she was so determined to
25:13
Speaker 4: try to help me, to get me to the truth,
25:17
Speaker 4: to give me freed, and when they say guilty, she
25:21
Speaker 4: just like it was just a mess in that whole
25:24
Speaker 4: courtroom that day.
25:26
Speaker 1: Right, that's a crazy thing because for her, I I'm
25:29
Speaker 1: just trying to put myself in her shoes, and you're
25:31
Speaker 1: sitting there going, not only do I believe that my sister,
25:34
Speaker 1: my son, whatever it is, is innocent. She knew you
25:37
Speaker 1: were right, right, I Mean, you can't be in two
25:39
Speaker 1: places at once.
25:40
Speaker 4: That's why she was like so determined. She was like,
25:43
Speaker 4: I'm not going to give up fighting for you. I'm
25:45
Speaker 4: going to do everything in my willpower just to get
25:47
Speaker 4: you freed. There's no reason why they should have did
25:50
Speaker 4: this to you. It was just like she was mindset
25:55
Speaker 4: and of course like yeah, your family, my tell.
25:58
Speaker 3: Little fib or little story here or there.
26:00
Speaker 4: But whenever you know with that is shadow of doubt
26:03
Speaker 4: with your own personal wise, and it's a total different story.
26:08
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about the experience that you
26:11
Speaker 1: had in prison? Was every day the same? Were there
26:14
Speaker 1: any bright spots? Was there somebody that inspired you? Just
26:18
Speaker 1: give us a sense of what that was like.
26:20
Speaker 3: It was really difficult.
26:22
Speaker 4: Like whenever I first went in, there was only five
26:24
Speaker 4: hundred and maybe five eighty individuals women incarcerated. Towards the
26:31
Speaker 4: end there was over like twelve hundred women, so the
26:35
Speaker 4: prison population increased like over half. As far as survival,
26:40
Speaker 4: on an everyday basis, I would have a routine. I
26:43
Speaker 4: would try to walk, jall, go to the yard a lot.
26:47
Speaker 4: There was a lot of spiritual churches and services. I
26:50
Speaker 4: would always go to them to try to help me
26:53
Speaker 4: to get through it all. There was people that would
26:56
Speaker 4: visit me through the prison society. They would come and
27:01
Speaker 4: see me. They were like men and nights. They would
27:03
Speaker 4: come and visit me. That helped and inspired me as well.
27:07
Speaker 4: There was definitely support as far as church and stuff
27:10
Speaker 4: like that, but it's just hard being surrounded by people
27:15
Speaker 4: from all different nationalities cult roles.
27:18
Speaker 3: You just don't know these people.
27:20
Speaker 4: They're just strangers and you're just thrown in this cell
27:25
Speaker 4: with these different people. But you do grow close to
27:29
Speaker 4: some of the individuals and you really find out who
27:32
Speaker 4: is loyal and who is really honest and genuine and
27:36
Speaker 4: every person an individual would find like their sense of
27:41
Speaker 4: group and they're fitting in and belonging. That's all I
27:44
Speaker 4: could do, just on a daily basis, just try to
27:46
Speaker 4: maintain and journal and keep myself mentally going.
27:52
Speaker 1: Well, it's remarkable and of all my respect for having
27:56
Speaker 1: persevered through this and actually found a way out, And
27:59
Speaker 1: I want to get to that now. How did the
28:02
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Innocence Project first hear about the case? Why did
28:05
Speaker 1: you decide to take this particular case, and how did
28:07
Speaker 1: you unravel this web of lies and deceit?
28:11
Speaker 7: So Crystal wrote to us, that's how we get all
28:13
Speaker 7: of our cases. We won't even start to look at
28:15
Speaker 7: a case until a person writes us a letter. So
28:17
Speaker 7: that's how she first got into our process, and Crystal's
28:21
Speaker 7: letters were really compelling, you know, going back to what
28:23
Speaker 7: we were talking about earlier with her being a single mom.
28:26
Speaker 7: A refrain in all of her letters was I'm single
28:29
Speaker 7: mom of three girls and I just want to get
28:31
Speaker 7: home to them, which doesn't speak to innocence necessarily, but
28:34
Speaker 7: it was really personally compelling. So she went through our
28:38
Speaker 7: review process, which takes years. She was sometimes patient, sometimes
28:42
Speaker 7: not with that, but we really vet the cases through
28:46
Speaker 7: a multi step process.
28:47
Speaker 3: We read every piece.
28:48
Speaker 7: Of paper we could find, every trial transcript, We talked
28:51
Speaker 7: to prior lawyers, we meet with the with the person
28:54
Speaker 7: to really assure ourselves this is an innocence case. And
28:58
Speaker 7: just from you know, talking, you've seen how complicated Crystal's
29:01
Speaker 7: case was. So it took us a long time to
29:03
Speaker 7: try to even figure out what the heck was the
29:05
Speaker 7: prosecution's theory, what the heck actually may have happened, Who
29:10
Speaker 7: are all these players. There's so many different strands to
29:13
Speaker 7: it that it took a lot of time just to
29:14
Speaker 7: figure out what a coherent narrative of the case might
29:18
Speaker 7: have been. But Crystal really did a lot of the
29:20
Speaker 7: work herself. She lost her first couple of state court appeals,
29:24
Speaker 7: and so she went to federal court on her own
29:27
Speaker 7: to ask for a new trial.
29:28
Speaker 3: There after, she'd already.
29:30
Speaker 7: Written to us and we were reviewing the case, and
29:33
Speaker 7: the federal judge appointed a lawyer for her from the
29:36
Speaker 7: Federal Defender's Office in Western Pennsylvania, and they started investigating
29:41
Speaker 7: the case. They talked to Joey Stenger. He recanted his
29:44
Speaker 7: testimony and said everything he said was a lie. They
29:47
Speaker 7: knew we were looking at the case, and they knew
29:49
Speaker 7: we'd have to go back to state court. So we
29:52
Speaker 7: ended up partnering together with them, and that's when we
29:54
Speaker 7: really started getting actively involved and representing Crystal because we
29:58
Speaker 7: determined by that point it was an innocent's case. She
30:01
Speaker 7: met all of our criteria. So we started working together
30:04
Speaker 7: with the federal lawyers and developed more about what was
30:09
Speaker 7: wrong with Stenger's testimony. We went back with them and
30:12
Speaker 7: then again on our own to interview this dentist that
30:15
Speaker 7: had testified against her, claiming she bit the victim, and
30:17
Speaker 7: he said everything he'd said at trial was complete junk
30:21
Speaker 7: based on advancements in the field since then. So we
30:25
Speaker 7: went through every piece of evidence that they put on
30:27
Speaker 7: and tried to see was there any validity to it,
30:30
Speaker 7: and it turned out we could debunk every single piece
30:33
Speaker 7: of it, and so we went back into state court
30:34
Speaker 7: based on that task for a new trial.
30:37
Speaker 1: And I want to just take a second here to say,
30:38
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned something very important, which is the
30:41
Speaker 1: length of time it takes for the Pennsylvanians, this project,
30:45
Speaker 1: or anything in this project to get to these cases.
30:47
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so important that people who are
30:49
Speaker 1: listening out there donate money. I mean, time is great too,
30:53
Speaker 1: but money is important because very simply if you donate
30:56
Speaker 1: to the Pennsylvanian Project, what is the website, by the way,
31:00
Speaker 1: projectpa dot org, Innocence projectpa dot org, because then they
31:04
Speaker 1: can hire more lawyer lawyers or lawyers or paralegals, more
31:09
Speaker 1: more office space for students law students to come in
31:12
Speaker 1: and take more cases like crystals in a more expeditious
31:16
Speaker 1: manner and get more innocent people out because unfortunately, we
31:19
Speaker 1: know from the best social science estimates that over one
31:21
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people in President of America are innocent, and
31:25
Speaker 1: that's a lot. And every one of those hundred thousand
31:26
Speaker 1: people has a story, not all as crazy as crystals,
31:30
Speaker 1: but they all have a story, and they all have families,
31:32
Speaker 1: and they all have hopes and dreams that are being
31:34
Speaker 1: taken away from them. So yes, donate Innocence PROJECTPA dot org.
31:48
Speaker 1: So now things have gone full circle. You went from
31:51
Speaker 1: hitting the jackpot of all the causes of wrongful conviction,
31:54
Speaker 1: not all of them, but so many of the causes
31:56
Speaker 1: of wrongful convictions. It went from that to having this
31:59
Speaker 1: wonderful team of lawyers representing you and to having them
32:04
Speaker 1: not just debunk one theory of the prosecution, but all
32:08
Speaker 1: of them. Right, I mean, that's that's pretty unusual too.
32:11
Speaker 1: I mean to be able to come back at the
32:13
Speaker 1: court and go, not only was this piece of evidence wrong,
32:16
Speaker 1: it's all wrong and we could prove it. And I
32:18
Speaker 1: see you starting to break out in a big, warm
32:20
Speaker 1: smile there thinking about it, because, Yeah, how incredible is
32:24
Speaker 1: that victory?
32:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, after fighting all the years and being persistent and
32:29
Speaker 4: just getting turned down States, Superior, State, Supreme and just
32:33
Speaker 4: all these different nos and just fighting and just keep going.
32:37
Speaker 1: So you go back to court feeling very confident.
32:40
Speaker 7: I guess right, you know, we felt pretty confident. And
32:44
Speaker 7: Crystal Bay this point had the Federal Defender's office. She
32:46
Speaker 7: had every attorney in my office, which at that point
32:49
Speaker 7: was just three were not very big, and also this
32:52
Speaker 7: private team of lawyers from the Jones Day Law firm.
32:54
Speaker 7: So we felt like we had put together the best
32:57
Speaker 7: case we possibly could. So we felt confident, and we
33:00
Speaker 7: were prepared to put on a three or four day
33:03
Speaker 7: hearing with multiple pieces of evidence witnesses. But in Pennsylvania
33:07
Speaker 7: we have one of the most restrictive post conviction laws
33:10
Speaker 7: in the country. So we had put together, we thought
33:13
Speaker 7: the strongest case we could. We were nervous because in Pennsylvania,
33:18
Speaker 7: the judge can't even listen to your request for a
33:20
Speaker 7: new trial, can't even hear those witnesses if he determines
33:24
Speaker 7: that you didn't file your petition on time. So the
33:26
Speaker 7: das always argue like, well, this is great, you have
33:29
Speaker 7: all this new evidence. You should have found it sooner.
33:31
Speaker 7: You're too late. Doesn't matter what the evidence is, and
33:34
Speaker 7: we were really worried about that aspect, whether we could
33:37
Speaker 7: even get over that initial hurdle and have the judge
33:40
Speaker 7: listen to what we had to say. So we were
33:42
Speaker 7: confident on the one hand, but we also knew the
33:44
Speaker 7: legal landscape that we were facing is incredibly tough.
33:48
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? By the way, neither
33:49
Speaker 1: one of you can answer this. The idea that it's
33:51
Speaker 1: I guess it's called the sunset clause, right, The idea
33:53
Speaker 1: that the courts can say, well, sorry but or not
33:57
Speaker 1: even sorry, but you know what, you may be innocent,
34:00
Speaker 1: but we don't care because you didn't get the s
34:03
Speaker 1: you didn't get the information to us on time. I mean,
34:07
Speaker 1: it's like the Twilight Zone, right, I mean, how can
34:09
Speaker 1: that be personally?
34:11
Speaker 4: I think sometimes the system just wants to wrap cases up.
34:15
Speaker 4: They don't care if it's right, if it's wrong, if
34:17
Speaker 4: it's indifferent, if it's personal, if it's biased. Not always,
34:21
Speaker 4: but a lot of times, when they get in this
34:24
Speaker 4: little hump and they have no other way out, they
34:27
Speaker 4: have no other choice. It's just wrapping that case and
34:31
Speaker 4: that whole outcome and that situation up.
34:33
Speaker 1: How is it that we are able as human beings
34:37
Speaker 1: to say that we no longer care about you mean,
34:41
Speaker 1: we don't care, right, because we have to feed the system. Right,
34:45
Speaker 1: The system has to go on, the machine has to
34:47
Speaker 1: go on, and we've seen it over and over again.
34:48
Speaker 1: I remember Florida years ago tried to pass the sunset
34:51
Speaker 1: clause where they were saying, And some states have this
34:53
Speaker 1: right where even if you had DNA evidence of your innocence,
34:57
Speaker 1: you had to present it within like a month after
34:59
Speaker 1: your try. Otherwise they weren't going to look at it. Now,
35:02
Speaker 1: who the hell's going to have it a month after
35:03
Speaker 1: their trial? But there are states that have that. In
35:05
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania's one of them.
35:06
Speaker 7: Yeah, in Pennsylvania, it's pretty draconian. Once your conviction is final,
35:10
Speaker 7: you have a year to seek a new trial, which
35:13
Speaker 7: is not that long, especially if witnesses, you know, they
35:16
Speaker 7: just testified against you not that long before. Are they
35:19
Speaker 7: really going to be prepared to tell the truth now?
35:21
Speaker 7: After that year, if you file that new trial motion
35:25
Speaker 7: and you lose, you're presumptively barred from ever seeking relief again,
35:28
Speaker 7: with a few exceptions. So if you find new evidence
35:32
Speaker 7: of innocence, like in Crystal's case, we had a witness recantation,
35:35
Speaker 7: we had this fite mark expert disavowing its testimony, et cetera,
35:39
Speaker 7: you only have two months. You have sixty days to
35:41
Speaker 7: go back to court, and even if you get in
35:43
Speaker 7: within the sixty days, that doesn't mean the judge is
35:45
Speaker 7: going to find that your petition was filed on time.
35:49
Speaker 7: It means that he's going to look at Okay, while
35:51
Speaker 7: you got in with sixty days, but could you have
35:53
Speaker 7: found that evidence even earlier sixty days from what sixty
35:57
Speaker 7: days from? Basically when you get in, inkling that the
36:00
Speaker 7: person might be willing to recant or you have a
36:02
Speaker 7: new expert opinion, whatever new evidence is. So it's a
36:05
Speaker 7: really short period of time, particularly if you don't have
36:08
Speaker 7: a lawyer. But it also isn't the end of the game.
36:10
Speaker 7: Because you get in within sixty days, that's just the
36:13
Speaker 7: start of the process. The judge then has to see
36:16
Speaker 7: whether that literally was the first time you could have
36:19
Speaker 7: brought this evidence, or if you could have found it
36:21
Speaker 7: sooner somehow, And the das will always say, well, they
36:24
Speaker 7: could have talked to this person a year ago, six
36:27
Speaker 7: months ago, whatever it is. In my job, this is
36:30
Speaker 7: what makes me bang my head against the desk the most.
36:32
Speaker 3: Are you talking about the PCR?
36:34
Speaker 7: A PCR okay, And it's what we call a jurisdictional requirement.
36:38
Speaker 7: So if you don't meet these things, the judge, even
36:40
Speaker 7: if he or she wanted to, has no authority to
36:42
Speaker 7: hear the actual evidence.
36:44
Speaker 1: It's so maddening. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
36:48
Speaker 1: So then the day comes you're back in court. At
36:51
Speaker 1: this point, you'd been through everything. How do you resign
36:54
Speaker 1: yourself like oh, they're just going to screw me again,
36:56
Speaker 1: or like what was your before before?
37:00
Speaker 4: We have been through so much like my good days,
37:02
Speaker 4: my good times. I'd done fired her one time and
37:06
Speaker 4: then rehired her the same day. But it was just
37:12
Speaker 4: all from anger, frustration, perseverance, just everything bottled up in me.
37:18
Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't her personally, it was the fact
37:20
Speaker 4: about the system, what happened to me and what's been done,
37:26
Speaker 4: And here she is trying to assist and help me,
37:29
Speaker 4: but yet I'm firing her and hiring her back in
37:31
Speaker 4: the same day.
37:33
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's been real interesting.
37:36
Speaker 4: I mean, I was just so grateful though here comes
37:39
Speaker 4: my whole team and I'm soon to get victory. I
37:42
Speaker 4: was happy, but on the same note, I was like, oh,
37:46
Speaker 4: they're not.
37:46
Speaker 3: Going to help me. It's going to be the same stuff.
37:48
Speaker 4: Over crap, I'm saying in my mind over and over
37:51
Speaker 4: because I wasn't getting nowhere, it seemed like. But then
37:54
Speaker 4: all these doors started opening so fast. It was just
37:58
Speaker 4: like one court date. Here we go, Oh, another court
38:01
Speaker 4: date scheduled.
38:02
Speaker 1: You know.
38:02
Speaker 4: Here, I'm going back to the county. Here they're coming
38:04
Speaker 4: to see me every day. I'm getting visits and getting
38:06
Speaker 4: out of my room and out of my cell, and
38:09
Speaker 4: I'm all excited because I know it's getting closer. Here
38:12
Speaker 4: comes the big day. So when the big day came
38:16
Speaker 4: and they said we're releasing her. October first, twenty fifteen
38:22
Speaker 4: was the very special day. Very next day, they just
38:25
Speaker 4: opened the doors and just released me right to the street.
38:29
Speaker 4: Here it is freezing outside in the middle of rain,
38:31
Speaker 4: and you know, we have jackets and different possessions and
38:35
Speaker 4: properties and things like that. After being there for what
38:38
Speaker 4: ten twelve years, so you accumulate a lot of belongings
38:42
Speaker 4: and things being in there. And it was just unbelievable.
38:46
Speaker 4: Here I am just being released to the streets. I
38:48
Speaker 4: didn't even get to go back to my home prison
38:50
Speaker 4: to collect what a little bit of belongings I had.
38:53
Speaker 4: So I was just released right from the county Joel,
38:57
Speaker 4: and you know, I had to get my self shipped
38:59
Speaker 4: to me.
39:00
Speaker 3: So it was just shock.
39:01
Speaker 4: I was just in all with everything and how they
39:04
Speaker 4: went about doing the results of everything. I mean, totally
39:08
Speaker 4: unbelievable twelve years and here you just throw somebody out
39:11
Speaker 4: on the street and don't give them their a little
39:13
Speaker 4: bit of belongings and possessions and let them have transportation
39:17
Speaker 4: and have everything in order. They could care less, it
39:20
Speaker 4: didn't matter to them.
39:22
Speaker 1: So it is full circle because you went into the
39:23
Speaker 1: first trial thinking that justice was going to be done
39:26
Speaker 1: and it wasn't. And then you went into the second
39:28
Speaker 1: trial thinking that justice wasn't going to be done, and
39:30
Speaker 1: it was. And then all of a sudden, here you
39:32
Speaker 1: are like a baby being born right out back into
39:35
Speaker 1: the world, like you said, like what the hell do
39:37
Speaker 1: I do now? Type of thing. Right, But the good
39:40
Speaker 1: news is you're free. At that point, you're exonerated, formally exonerated.
39:45
Speaker 4: We didn't get I got exonerated October one, twenty fifteen,
39:50
Speaker 4: was my hearing. That's whenever I got freed. They put
39:54
Speaker 4: a GPS monitor and was still dangle with me for
39:58
Speaker 4: nine months. So from October to June twenty seventh, twenty sixteen,
40:05
Speaker 4: last year, I had a bracelet one that was my
40:09
Speaker 4: fully exoneration day. When they were they took that bracelet
40:12
Speaker 4: off and released me.
40:14
Speaker 7: From that point, yeah, So in Pennsylvania, when somebody's innocent,
40:17
Speaker 7: you can't you know, some states you can ask for
40:19
Speaker 7: like a certificate of innocence, and that leads to an exoneration.
40:22
Speaker 7: All we can get is a new trial. So in
40:24
Speaker 7: October of twenty fifteen, we were lucky enough to be
40:27
Speaker 7: able to get Crystal the new trial. But all that
40:30
Speaker 7: that meant was that the d could appeal if they
40:32
Speaker 7: wanted to, They could retry her if they wanted to. Luckily,
40:35
Speaker 7: they didn't appeal, but they did say they were going
40:38
Speaker 7: to proceed a trial. So she was out on bail
40:40
Speaker 7: as if she'd never been convicted, and it was back
40:43
Speaker 7: as if she'd been before the first trial, and she
40:45
Speaker 7: was on this electronic monitoring, and the judge said a
40:48
Speaker 7: really aggressive trial schedule. We got a pre trial order
40:51
Speaker 7: saying you're going to trial in December or January, and
40:55
Speaker 7: so we hit the ground running and did pre trial
40:57
Speaker 7: work for Crystal. In the course of that, more information
41:01
Speaker 7: about incentivized witnesses came out that we hadn't been able
41:04
Speaker 7: to get during the post conviction process, and we filed
41:07
Speaker 7: motions to have all the charges dismissed with prejudice, meaning
41:11
Speaker 7: they could never charge her again, and ultimately, after a
41:14
Speaker 7: bunch of hearings on that, that was finally granted in
41:17
Speaker 7: June of twenty sixteen. So it wasn't over with the release.
41:21
Speaker 7: That took another good nine months of lawyering and of
41:24
Speaker 7: Crystal hanging in there being on this electronic monitor before
41:28
Speaker 7: she could be truly free.
41:29
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that drives me crazy too.
41:31
Speaker 1: What people don't understand is that the indictment, the original indictment,
41:33
Speaker 1: still stands, even though the conviction has been overturned. The
41:35
Speaker 1: basically what the court saying is that your trial was wrong,
41:39
Speaker 1: the result was wrong, but the original indictmentsill stands and
41:41
Speaker 1: they can still try you. We talked about that moment
41:44
Speaker 1: when you were convicted something you didn't do, in the
41:48
Speaker 1: horror and shock of that with your sister and your
41:52
Speaker 1: dad and the whole terrible scene in the courtroom. What
41:54
Speaker 1: was a moment like when you were exonerated?
41:58
Speaker 4: Oh so wonderful, Oh man, happy tears again. I always
42:06
Speaker 4: call them a moment because I always.
42:08
Speaker 3: Cry, you know, emost one tear eye just thinking of it.
42:12
Speaker 4: It's just like the victory after like persevering and fighting
42:17
Speaker 4: and just everything for so long and so hard, and
42:20
Speaker 4: you know, want to give up hope and you know,
42:23
Speaker 4: throw the toweling.
42:25
Speaker 3: You just got to keep going. And then it's just.
42:27
Speaker 4: Like all that weight is finally off you. You're just like,
42:31
Speaker 4: oh wow, you're in awe. It's like awe moment. I
42:36
Speaker 4: call it a awe moment, but it's just relief, just
42:40
Speaker 4: like ten thousand things off your chest, your heart, your mind.
42:45
Speaker 3: You'll know how to start, where to begin, but you know.
42:47
Speaker 4: You're ready and you're doing something somehow, some way.
42:52
Speaker 3: So it's just amazing. It's amazing.
42:56
Speaker 4: Like I'm so grateful and thankful just small things that
42:58
Speaker 4: people take maybe for granted on a daily bisis. I
43:02
Speaker 4: just I'm just grateful and thank god just to be
43:05
Speaker 4: out because I could have still been in there, and
43:08
Speaker 4: you know, they might have tried to put me through
43:10
Speaker 4: a trial again and gave me a life sentence and say,
43:13
Speaker 4: oh death row sentence.
43:15
Speaker 3: Who's to say, you never know?
43:17
Speaker 4: With all this being said, you know, I'm just so
43:20
Speaker 4: happy and grateful that all this is just now it's
43:23
Speaker 4: behind me and I can move forward to my future
43:26
Speaker 4: and what lies ahead. And I'm just grateful to my
43:30
Speaker 4: team and all the ones that did all the work
43:32
Speaker 4: and put up with all my naughtiness and my good
43:35
Speaker 4: days and bad days and moments and times, and you know,
43:39
Speaker 4: and here I am today and I'm so grateful to
43:41
Speaker 4: meet you and be here and spend this time with you.
43:46
Speaker 3: Is a blessing. Well, I mean, I'm.
43:49
Speaker 1: Honored people who listen to the show. No, I'm really
43:51
Speaker 1: at a loss for words, but this is one of
43:53
Speaker 1: those moments. I do know that when we're done talking
43:55
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna give you a big hug. So the
43:59
Speaker 1: and when you meet Chris, it's the first thing you think,
44:01
Speaker 1: is this, I want to give this person a hug
44:02
Speaker 1: If you don't know so anyway, But you know, I
44:07
Speaker 1: think you may have already done this. But at the
44:09
Speaker 1: end of each episode, we have a tradition here at
44:12
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction where I like to ask if there's any
44:15
Speaker 1: last words you'd like to share. I feel like you
44:17
Speaker 1: may have already just done that. So in this case,
44:19
Speaker 1: we'll do it differently, and we will turn it over
44:22
Speaker 1: to your distinguished attorney Neil m and see if there's
44:25
Speaker 1: anything Is there anything you'd like to leave with the audience,
44:27
Speaker 1: or any final thoughts.
44:29
Speaker 4: That you have, Oh, I'm just grateful that you have
44:32
Speaker 4: shows like this to get this in the public eye,
44:34
Speaker 4: to help people to be more aware of their surroundings
44:37
Speaker 4: and what occurs out there in the world in our society,
44:40
Speaker 4: to make change and make a difference for good and better.
44:43
Speaker 7: Well said, I'm just so happy that you invited us
44:47
Speaker 7: here and that it gives Crystal a chance to give
44:49
Speaker 7: voice to her story and also the other women anxigneries.
44:53
Speaker 7: You know, there's a lot more men in prison. We've
44:55
Speaker 7: only had two female clients in our office, but I
44:58
Speaker 7: think the challenges are really different, and it's a story
45:00
Speaker 7: that's not told as much as it needs to. Be
45:03
Speaker 7: so grateful that we have the opportunity to be here
45:05
Speaker 7: and have Crystal give kind of the women's perspective on
45:08
Speaker 7: this problem and a mom's perspective as well well.
45:11
Speaker 1: This has been an extraordinary experience talking to both of
45:15
Speaker 1: you and learning thank you from you, and you are
45:18
Speaker 1: a perfect example of why those of us in this
45:21
Speaker 1: innocence movement are so passionately devoted to doing what we do.
45:25
Speaker 1: Now you're home and with your children and your grandchildren
45:28
Speaker 1: and able to get on with your life, which is great.
45:31
Speaker 1: I want to thank both of you, Crystal and Neilam
45:35
Speaker 1: for joining us and tracking all the way here from Pennsylvania. Yes,
45:38
Speaker 1: thank you, and thank you everyone for listening. This has
45:41
Speaker 1: been a very special episode of Wrongful Conviction.
45:44
Speaker 3: Than thank you.
45:52
Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
45:55
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
45:59
Speaker 1: donor to the Nisis project and I really hope you'll
46:01
Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
46:05
Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innison's project dot
46:09
Speaker 1: org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd
46:12
Speaker 1: like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
46:15
Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
46:17
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
46:21
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
46:26
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
46:29
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one