Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #094 Jason Flom with Messiah Johnson

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#094 Jason Flom with Messiah Johnson · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
0:03
Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording.
0:07
Speaker 2: Impact ere and it hasn't been easy.
0:18
Speaker 3: One hundred years. That's man.
0:21
Speaker 4: I'm a kid.
0:21
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
0:25
Speaker 1: that was Ah, that was real painful, man, No, because
0:29
Speaker 1: my life was discarded as if you know, like I
0:32
Speaker 1: was a piece of trash or something, you know, one
0:34
Speaker 1: hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted to
0:37
Speaker 1: do things I wouldn't.
0:38
Speaker 3: Commit in crimes. You know.
0:40
Speaker 1: I was a very good young man.
0:42
Speaker 5: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops
0:45
Speaker 5: have a hunch because they're so smart at the scene,
0:49
Speaker 5: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
0:52
Speaker 5: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
0:55
Speaker 5: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
0:58
Speaker 5: many of these wrongful convictions.
1:00
Speaker 6: They open it to cell door and I'll walk downstairs.
1:04
Speaker 2: And I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
1:08
Speaker 2: very strange to be, like I said, to be walking
1:11
Speaker 2: without those shackles on my feet. I thought it was
1:14
Speaker 2: a dream. But then again it wasn't a dream.
1:17
Speaker 7: This is wrong for conviction. Welcome back to wrong for conviction.
1:30
Speaker 7: My guest this week is Messiah Johnson. And Messiah, first
1:35
Speaker 7: of all, welcome to the show.
1:36
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure being here.
1:38
Speaker 3: So Messiah, this case and let's go back. It's a
1:43
Speaker 3: Virginia case.
1:44
Speaker 4: It is.
1:46
Speaker 3: You came from Norfolk.
1:48
Speaker 7: Yes, and this goes back to late nineties, right, Yes,
1:53
Speaker 7: it goes back.
1:53
Speaker 6: To December nineteenth, nineteen ninety seven. The crime actually happened
1:58
Speaker 6: on December fifth, nineteen ninety seven.
2:00
Speaker 4: The nineteenth was the day of my rest.
2:03
Speaker 7: This was an arm robbery of a hair salon in
2:06
Speaker 7: Norfolk in which nobody was hurt. That doesn't make it right,
2:11
Speaker 7: Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of armed
2:13
Speaker 7: robberies by any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, this
2:17
Speaker 7: is a robbery that you had nothing to do with.
2:19
Speaker 7: You had alibis, there was no physical evidence connecting you
2:22
Speaker 7: to it. And first of all, set the table for
2:25
Speaker 7: us here. How old were you at the time, what
2:27
Speaker 7: were you doing, and how was your life.
2:30
Speaker 4: I was twenty four years old at the time.
2:34
Speaker 6: I was working for a government funded program.
2:38
Speaker 4: It was a letterbatement program.
2:40
Speaker 6: I happened to be one of the people who were
2:42
Speaker 6: educated in the field very early on.
2:45
Speaker 3: So you were helping to get lead out of housing.
2:48
Speaker 6: Housing and I got a biochemical certificate from ODU in
2:53
Speaker 6: this field, and at the time of my arrest, I
2:56
Speaker 6: was actually writing a proposal to hud Homes for like
2:58
Speaker 6: five million dollars to kind of extend our licenses to
3:01
Speaker 6: other states and kind of setting myself up for.
3:04
Speaker 4: My career in this field.
3:08
Speaker 6: And then of course this happened and it kind of
3:11
Speaker 6: just obliviated everything that I had planned for my life.
3:15
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here with you now. We had dinner last night.
3:18
Speaker 7: Here you are in a blue suit, you know, with
3:20
Speaker 7: a tie and looking the part of somebody who would
3:23
Speaker 7: be doing exactly what you described like doing actually very
3:26
Speaker 7: good work helping people. And you know, if people want
3:30
Speaker 7: to go to my Instagram, it's at it's Jason Fomm
3:32
Speaker 7: you'll see pictures that I posted with Messiah and you'll
3:34
Speaker 7: see what I mean. You know, you look like an
3:37
Speaker 7: upstanding citizen like anybody else. And yet if you've been
3:41
Speaker 7: through this unbelievable or deal twenty years in prison. It's
3:44
Speaker 7: so strange because aside from the fact that there was
3:47
Speaker 7: no evidence taking physical appearances aside, you just wouldn't seem
3:52
Speaker 7: to fit any sort of profile of somebody that would
3:57
Speaker 7: commit an arm robbery when you've got this whole other life.
4:00
Speaker 7: I mean, that's not a thing. It's just not a thing.
4:03
Speaker 3: But okay, let's go back to it.
4:05
Speaker 7: So this robbery takes place, yes, and they're out obviously
4:10
Speaker 7: looking for suspects. And how did it end up that
4:14
Speaker 7: you even got on the radar.
4:16
Speaker 6: That's a good question, because I didn't really understand it
4:18
Speaker 6: until I actually went to trial in August the following year.
4:23
Speaker 6: I try to take you back to the day I
4:24
Speaker 6: was arrested on the nineteenth of December. It really was
4:28
Speaker 6: a typical day in the life of any young man
4:30
Speaker 6: my age from where I'm from. A couple of friends
4:33
Speaker 6: hanging out. It was on a Friday, early in the day.
4:36
Speaker 6: I had you made arrangements to see a friend of mine,
4:38
Speaker 6: a lady friend of mine, later on in the night.
4:42
Speaker 6: But prior to that, another friend of mine, he and
4:45
Speaker 6: I decided to go up to shoot pool conversed with
4:47
Speaker 6: some other friends, and we were doing that and it
4:50
Speaker 6: kind of got to the time where I was about
4:52
Speaker 6: to go to see this lady friend, and so I
4:55
Speaker 6: made a phone call.
4:55
Speaker 4: While I was in the club. It was a little
4:57
Speaker 4: bit too noisy. She couldn't hear me.
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Speaker 6: So I said, look, I'm gonna step outside across the
5:01
Speaker 6: street and make this phone call so you can hear me,
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Speaker 6: you know, just to let her know I was on
5:04
Speaker 6: my way. And then he and I were gonna part ways.
5:06
Speaker 6: And so as I was walking out of the club,
5:09
Speaker 6: it was several officers coming in and the phone booth
5:13
Speaker 6: was directly across the street.
5:14
Speaker 4: We walked across the street. I didn't see any.
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Speaker 6: Cops, so they must have been hiding around the building
5:19
Speaker 6: and the dark or something like that, because, you know,
5:21
Speaker 6: as soon as I picked up the phone, you know,
5:24
Speaker 6: everything about my life kind of changed in an instance,
5:26
Speaker 6: because all I could hear was screeching tires, flashing lights
5:30
Speaker 6: and sirens, and in that moment.
5:33
Speaker 4: It was difficult the process was what was happening.
5:36
Speaker 6: But from behind the lights, you know, before my eyes
5:38
Speaker 6: really had a chance to adjust, you could really hear
5:40
Speaker 6: the demands of put your hands up, and so you
5:44
Speaker 6: don't really have time to process that. So I just complied,
5:47
Speaker 6: not really knowing what was going on, and I did
5:49
Speaker 6: so because you know, once my eyes were able to adjudge.
5:51
Speaker 4: It was three or four guns in my face.
5:55
Speaker 6: I remained calm because I didn't want to do anything
5:57
Speaker 6: that would cause me to be possibly shit anything like that.
6:01
Speaker 6: And so we were asked to put our hands up,
6:03
Speaker 6: which we did, and we were placed in handcuffs, this friend,
6:07
Speaker 6: me and one other friend. And you know, I didn't
6:10
Speaker 6: realize at the time, only after studying the law that
6:13
Speaker 6: this is where the miscourage of justice began to make
6:16
Speaker 6: manifest against me, because I was sat down on the
6:20
Speaker 6: curve with handcuffs on, in between two police cars and
6:24
Speaker 6: the Neil versus bigg As. If you understand you know
6:26
Speaker 6: the citation law, it tells you that any person that
6:29
Speaker 6: is singly displayed in handcuffs is presumed to be the
6:32
Speaker 6: person who did the crime of when you're doing a
6:35
Speaker 6: show up. And so we finally got a chance to
6:37
Speaker 6: look at the case later on and realized that the
6:40
Speaker 6: person who initially I didn't know he was with the
6:42
Speaker 6: officers as we were leaving out.
6:43
Speaker 3: Of the club.
6:44
Speaker 6: He was with them. Oh, and so once they put
6:48
Speaker 6: us in handcuffs, he told the police that, you know, well,
6:51
Speaker 6: one of the other victims that I work with is
6:53
Speaker 6: at his shop and so instead of the police just
6:56
Speaker 6: going back to get him to do a show up,
6:59
Speaker 6: he actually took the person who initially identified me back
7:02
Speaker 6: there with him and allowed them to ride in the
7:04
Speaker 6: car together. As they were riding in the car together,
7:07
Speaker 6: it's easy for him to say that he is right there, right, so.
7:10
Speaker 7: They could share the information set already seen you, Yeah,
7:12
Speaker 7: and we've seen this time and again. Of course, that's
7:15
Speaker 7: going to increase exponentially the percentage of people who are
7:20
Speaker 7: going to identify that suspect. We know from research, even
7:23
Speaker 7: when somebody sees a person in the defendant's box, just
7:27
Speaker 7: a normal person off the street who's now adjure that
7:29
Speaker 7: eighty percent of people have a natural proclivity to think
7:33
Speaker 7: that that person must be guilty, because otherwise what would they.
7:35
Speaker 3: Be doing there.
7:36
Speaker 7: But then when you take that, and then you add
7:39
Speaker 7: to it someone who's been a victim and a person
7:42
Speaker 7: in handcuffs on the street with the police, it's almost
7:46
Speaker 7: like a fata complete Like it would be strange for
7:48
Speaker 7: them not to identify you. They would have to be like,
7:52
Speaker 7: I don't know, it have to be something bizarrely, you'd
7:54
Speaker 7: have to be the wrong race or something. Anyway, there's
7:57
Speaker 7: a lot of factors that go to that.
7:59
Speaker 3: So it at this.
8:00
Speaker 7: Point did you realize how dire the situation was or
8:03
Speaker 7: did you feel like they just made a mistake and
8:05
Speaker 7: I'm going to go home after this gets sorted out.
8:08
Speaker 3: No.
8:08
Speaker 6: Prior to the show up, you know, there was a
8:10
Speaker 6: moment where one of the officers, I was like, yeah,
8:12
Speaker 6: I'm a little confused, officer, what is this about? And
8:14
Speaker 6: he was cordial, Well, you're a suspect and of crime.
8:18
Speaker 6: What crime could that have been? We've been here the
8:21
Speaker 6: majority of the night, the day and night, so what
8:24
Speaker 6: are you talking about? And he was like, well, I
8:26
Speaker 6: let the detectives share that with you when you go downtown.
8:29
Speaker 6: So it was already they had already made a decision.
8:32
Speaker 6: It was a predetermined idea that I was going downtown regardless,
8:35
Speaker 6: you know, even prior to the show up. At least
8:36
Speaker 6: that's what it seemed like to me.
8:38
Speaker 7: So now they take you downtown, and they brought your friends.
8:40
Speaker 7: What was your friend's name? His name was Mondelle, And
8:43
Speaker 7: so you and Mondel both got taken downtown. We did
8:45
Speaker 7: interrogate it separately as soon, of.
8:47
Speaker 6: Course, you know it's the whole you know, we're going
8:50
Speaker 6: to put him in this very cold cell. And those
8:54
Speaker 6: of us who have been locked up, you always know,
8:56
Speaker 6: you always put in a very ice cold cell and
8:59
Speaker 6: it's so cold that you're in the fetal position just.
9:01
Speaker 4: To keep warm.
9:02
Speaker 6: And so I've studied a lot of cases, and I
9:04
Speaker 6: can always see why people really just want to just
9:07
Speaker 6: get away from the police station and they just kind
9:10
Speaker 6: of just say, you know, I did it just to
9:12
Speaker 6: get away from the circumstances because of the process. It's
9:16
Speaker 6: very harsh on a person when you're in that very
9:19
Speaker 6: cold sale and then they bring you out and.
9:21
Speaker 3: They held you in this freezing cell for how long?
9:24
Speaker 4: A few hours?
9:25
Speaker 3: Wow? Then you're going to be interrogated. Yes, but you
9:28
Speaker 3: never confessed.
9:30
Speaker 4: I didn't have any knowledge of what they were talking about.
9:32
Speaker 7: Right, But we know that a lot of people do
9:33
Speaker 7: confess in those circumstances, as you just said, just to
9:35
Speaker 7: go home, even if.
9:36
Speaker 3: They don't know what they're talking about. Yes, yes, but
9:38
Speaker 3: you did not know.
9:40
Speaker 6: They bought me out after that and began the good cop,
9:43
Speaker 6: bad cop thing. And the first thing I said was, look,
9:46
Speaker 6: before you ask me any questions, I want to make
9:48
Speaker 6: a phone call to an attorney. A practitioner of Islam
9:52
Speaker 6: and a righteous and I'm civilized. So whatever you accuse
9:54
Speaker 6: me of, you know you have the wrong person. I
9:57
Speaker 6: don't know anything about a robbery or any other crime,
10:00
Speaker 6: and so I didn't know it was dire until, you know,
10:04
Speaker 6: he got very upset. I think the fact that he
10:07
Speaker 6: automatically thought I was a Muslim. He began to talk
10:09
Speaker 6: about being a Muslim to me, and that's not what
10:12
Speaker 6: I am. I was a practice of Islam. My culture
10:14
Speaker 6: is a five percent nation of gods and earths. And
10:18
Speaker 6: I didn't really want to get into a dialogue with
10:19
Speaker 6: him about that. But then he said, well, you don't
10:22
Speaker 6: have to talk to me. You're gonna end up with
10:24
Speaker 6: fifty felonies. And then that's when it kind of began
10:29
Speaker 6: to that tense stuff.
10:30
Speaker 4: I was, you know, concerned. Then I said, what do
10:33
Speaker 4: you mean.
10:34
Speaker 6: He said, yeah, we're gonna be typing up about fifty
10:37
Speaker 6: felonies against you. And in the state of Virginia, that's
10:40
Speaker 6: one of the states that can stack charges. So for
10:43
Speaker 6: every individual robbery, I got an abduction charge, a firearm
10:48
Speaker 6: for deduction, and a firearm for the robbery. So I
10:51
Speaker 6: ended up with forty three felonies. Most of them current
10:54
Speaker 6: life sentences.
10:55
Speaker 7: Based on the one crime that they suspected you of
10:58
Speaker 7: doing exactly. I don't even know what to say about
11:03
Speaker 7: that I turned one of the forty three. That math
11:06
Speaker 7: is just as fuzzy as.
11:08
Speaker 3: It could be. So how long were you interrogated for?
11:10
Speaker 6: You know, the records show that I was brought out
11:13
Speaker 6: to be interrogated and not said that I didn't know anything,
11:16
Speaker 6: and then I was taken right back to my cell,
11:18
Speaker 6: which is not the truth. You know, you would have
11:21
Speaker 6: to look at the time frame. You know, from the
11:23
Speaker 6: time I was down at the police operation Center until
11:26
Speaker 6: the time I was actually taken to the jail, which
11:28
Speaker 6: was about seven to eight hours, and so I was
11:31
Speaker 6: taken out of that cell on three different occasions to
11:34
Speaker 6: the interrogation room.
11:35
Speaker 3: Did you get your phone call?
11:37
Speaker 4: I never got the phone call.
11:38
Speaker 6: And actually, if you look at my pre trial records,
11:41
Speaker 6: it will tell you that Messiah requests a phone call
11:44
Speaker 6: and we tell him a phone call is not one
11:46
Speaker 6: of his rights. But he left out the fact that
11:47
Speaker 6: I requested a phone call to talk to an attorney.
11:50
Speaker 7: So I'm guessing that you probably should have said I
11:53
Speaker 7: want an attorney and then they stop questioning you. Right,
11:56
Speaker 7: if you say I want to call an attorney, that's
11:58
Speaker 7: not the same saying I want an attorney present.
12:00
Speaker 6: They did stop questioning me, and once I requested that,
12:04
Speaker 6: they stopped questioning me and took me back to the
12:06
Speaker 6: cell of the final time.
12:08
Speaker 3: And then you were held for almost a year before
12:10
Speaker 3: your trial, Is that right?
12:12
Speaker 6: Just about nine months exactly. And I went to my
12:15
Speaker 6: first trial in August.
12:16
Speaker 7: And tell me about that. Because you didn't have a
12:19
Speaker 7: quarter pointed attorney.
12:20
Speaker 6: I did initially, which was the foundation of the injustice.
12:24
Speaker 6: Once I got into the courtroom, I had an attorney
12:27
Speaker 6: by the name of Andrew Sebbak. And during preliminary hearing
12:30
Speaker 6: in the cells, it's verly packed. Everybody's waiting to go
12:33
Speaker 6: for their hearing, and so several lawyers are coming talking.
12:36
Speaker 6: He comes in to speak to me, and you know,
12:39
Speaker 6: the first thing he says was, my name is Andrew Sabbak,
12:41
Speaker 6: so forth and so on. He said, now, look, what
12:44
Speaker 6: can you tell me about this crime, which was perplexing
12:47
Speaker 6: to me. And I was like, look, I don't know
12:49
Speaker 6: anything about this crime. I'm not guilty of it, but
12:51
Speaker 6: I want to make sure that when you go in here,
12:53
Speaker 6: you separate the witnesses and you, you know, make sure
12:56
Speaker 6: that they understand that I have anything to.
12:57
Speaker 4: Do with this.
12:57
Speaker 3: Okay.
12:58
Speaker 4: He leaves, comes back.
13:00
Speaker 6: And it's as if he didn't hear anything I said.
13:03
Speaker 6: You know again, he was asking me. He said, well,
13:05
Speaker 6: when you and your friend committed this crime, and then
13:07
Speaker 6: my antennas went up immediately, what are you talking about?
13:10
Speaker 6: I just told you I didn't have anything to do
13:12
Speaker 6: with this crime. And so this man actually went into
13:16
Speaker 6: this courtroom without a stenographer, which was one of my
13:19
Speaker 6: first requests because I figured that something was wrong. And
13:22
Speaker 6: when I walked into the courtroom, there was no sonographer.
13:25
Speaker 6: So my initial reaction to him was where's the sonographer?
13:28
Speaker 6: This guy told me, well, it's too late to get
13:30
Speaker 6: one now we're already in here. And so I was frustrated,
13:34
Speaker 6: and I was speaking kind of loud, and the deputy
13:36
Speaker 6: was saying, look, you have.
13:38
Speaker 4: To keep it down.
13:39
Speaker 6: We're about to courts givery be in sessions. So I said, okay.
13:41
Speaker 6: He separated the witnesses. These witnesses described two different people.
13:46
Speaker 6: One said this guy had on camouflage from head to toe.
13:49
Speaker 6: Once said he had on a blue jacket. It was
13:51
Speaker 6: the kind of evidence that you simply just get up
13:54
Speaker 6: and say you're on are based on the evidence, asked
13:56
Speaker 6: for the charge to be dismissed. But at the end
13:58
Speaker 6: of everything, you know, simply said that's all I have, Yanna.
14:04
Speaker 4: The courtroom was dumbfounded.
14:05
Speaker 6: The judge had to look over top of his glass
14:07
Speaker 6: and say that's it. And he said, oh, other than
14:10
Speaker 6: the fact that we asked for a bond.
14:12
Speaker 7: Obviously, now you're extremely knowledgeable about the law, but at
14:15
Speaker 7: the time you weren't.
14:17
Speaker 3: I'm assuming right.
14:18
Speaker 4: No, I wasn't knowledgeable the law. But you know, when
14:21
Speaker 4: you're being wrong?
14:22
Speaker 3: What was your reaction? Did you like elbow im like yo?
14:24
Speaker 6: I actually did, And the deputy had to step in
14:27
Speaker 6: again and say, look, you have to relax, like I'm
14:29
Speaker 6: saying to him, what are you doing?
14:31
Speaker 2: Man?
14:31
Speaker 4: What happened?
14:33
Speaker 6: And so I didn't want to put up a fuss
14:35
Speaker 6: in the courtroom. I knew that the judge knew that
14:37
Speaker 6: something was wrong, but I made a phone call to
14:39
Speaker 6: him when I got back to the jail.
14:41
Speaker 4: We got on the phone, I said, look, what did
14:42
Speaker 4: you do to me in courtroom today? Man?
14:44
Speaker 6: You didn't have a sonographer? I said, are you working
14:46
Speaker 6: with the Commonwealth or something, and you know, he said,
14:49
Speaker 6: there's other people that feel like you may have committed
14:51
Speaker 6: this crime. And so my suggestion to you is you
14:53
Speaker 6: don't want me on your case, I would suggest you
14:56
Speaker 6: get me off. And that basically told me that he
14:59
Speaker 6: was somehow working and with the police department or the
15:01
Speaker 6: Commonwealth attorney. And we found out years later that he
15:06
Speaker 6: was actually this barred because he was dealing with a
15:08
Speaker 6: mental deficiency.
15:10
Speaker 3: Wow.
15:12
Speaker 6: And so when I went to court to get him
15:14
Speaker 6: off for my case, the judge gave me a five
15:16
Speaker 6: minute speeches in the transcripts about how this is a
15:18
Speaker 6: good attorney, and I said, you're honest. He told me
15:21
Speaker 6: he was working with the Commonwealth in so many words,
15:23
Speaker 6: and then he asked the attorney like, do you what
15:26
Speaker 6: do you say to this man who's accusing you of
15:28
Speaker 6: working with the comonwealth. He said, well, am I getting
15:29
Speaker 6: a check from the Commonwealth, And the judge that that's
15:31
Speaker 6: not what I'm asking you. He actually speak to him
15:33
Speaker 6: and his chambers and removed them offrom my case. It
15:36
Speaker 6: was then that I hired an attorney.
15:38
Speaker 7: But at this point this was still part of the
15:40
Speaker 7: initial phase, or had you already been convicted.
15:42
Speaker 4: No, this was preliminary hearing.
15:44
Speaker 3: So okay.
15:45
Speaker 7: So now we're dealing with an attorney who is mentally impaired. Yes,
15:50
Speaker 7: doesn't have a stenographer in the courtroom, which alone should
15:53
Speaker 7: be impossible. I mean, that can't happen. And then you
15:56
Speaker 7: have a judge who's looking over his glasses at him
15:59
Speaker 7: and going on really, dude, like really, And then they
16:03
Speaker 7: have been working with the commonwealth against your best interest.
16:07
Speaker 7: And above all, you had an attorney who is coming
16:11
Speaker 7: to you ignoring everything you're saying time and time again,
16:14
Speaker 7: and going tell me how about how you robbed this
16:16
Speaker 7: place and who'd you do it with and all this
16:17
Speaker 7: other stuff. And you had to be looking forward to
16:20
Speaker 7: having your day in court and having an attorney who's
16:22
Speaker 7: got your back, who's going to go up there and
16:24
Speaker 7: tell the truth and make this go away.
16:27
Speaker 4: You know.
16:28
Speaker 6: My family and now decided that we didn't have a
16:30
Speaker 6: lot of money. We decided that we would get an attorney.
16:33
Speaker 6: We considered a seasoned attorney who had a name for
16:36
Speaker 6: himself and who had been, you know, practicing.
16:38
Speaker 4: Law for some time.
16:39
Speaker 3: And then what happened.
16:40
Speaker 6: We went into court on August nineteenth, nineteen ninety eight, Now, initially,
16:44
Speaker 6: before we even went in, several people who were victims said, look,
16:48
Speaker 6: I can't identify anybody. These guys had on a mask,
16:52
Speaker 6: they were covered up completely. There's no way I can
16:55
Speaker 6: come in here and identify anybody. And so for every
16:59
Speaker 6: person that came in and it said that those charges
17:01
Speaker 6: were dropped. And then we went through the trial and
17:05
Speaker 6: one of the things that he asked when one of
17:06
Speaker 6: the witnesses got on stand was did you see any photographs?
17:10
Speaker 6: And the witnesses said yes. The detective came by my
17:13
Speaker 6: place of residence and showed me some photographs. He said, well,
17:15
Speaker 6: how many food residents you see? He said, well, she said,
17:18
Speaker 6: I saw a book of about sixty photographs where I
17:21
Speaker 6: picked out a person that I thought may have been
17:23
Speaker 6: the person. And then my lawyer immediately asked for a
17:25
Speaker 6: mistrial because we hadn't seen any photographs, and the Commonwealth
17:28
Speaker 6: claimed she didn't know anything about it, and so the
17:31
Speaker 6: next day the mistrial was granted. And I really didn't
17:34
Speaker 6: want the mistrial. I wanted to go through with this
17:36
Speaker 6: trial because I felt like I had a jury of
17:38
Speaker 6: my peers. And what I mean by that is that
17:41
Speaker 6: the majority of the jury was black, which is unusual,
17:46
Speaker 6: you know, and of a certain age, closer to my age.
17:49
Speaker 6: And while I was sitting in the cellar loane, my
17:52
Speaker 6: lawyer came back and said, look, they're offering you a
17:54
Speaker 6: plea deal. I said, well, why are you bringing it
17:57
Speaker 6: to me? I'm innocent. There's no way I'm taking a
18:01
Speaker 6: plea deal.
18:01
Speaker 3: What was the play?
18:03
Speaker 4: Three years?
18:04
Speaker 3: Three years? You know.
18:06
Speaker 6: Once I didn't take that plea deal, this became about
18:09
Speaker 6: malicious prosecution, and she knew it was really no evidence,
18:13
Speaker 6: you know, reliable evidence, which we found out later on.
18:15
Speaker 6: I'm locked up because I wear glasses.
18:19
Speaker 3: Because of the one of the robbers had glasses on.
18:21
Speaker 7: That's it, yeah, because I mean, how can you possibly
18:24
Speaker 7: have my witness identification when you mean it's hard enough
18:27
Speaker 7: in this situation, a violent, chaotic situation to identify anybody
18:31
Speaker 7: if they don't have a mask but wear a mask,
18:33
Speaker 7: Come on, I mean that's crazy. But now you've refused
18:37
Speaker 7: the plea deal. Now they're out for blood because you
18:40
Speaker 7: had the audacity to reject the plea deal for crimeun
18:42
Speaker 7: and commits exactly, So it goes to trial. And how
18:48
Speaker 7: did it end up going so wrong?
18:50
Speaker 6: I testified my witness testified my alibi witnesses.
18:54
Speaker 4: There were no contradictions.
18:56
Speaker 6: And it's hard to explain my lawyer, you know, it
18:59
Speaker 6: was really no pretrial investigation by him where I expected
19:04
Speaker 6: for him to give me one hundred percent. It was
19:07
Speaker 6: as if I was only getting like ninety percent from him,
19:10
Speaker 6: just enough for him to be able to say to
19:12
Speaker 6: the ball I did my job.
19:14
Speaker 4: But when you look at it.
19:15
Speaker 6: More closely, you understand that there were a lot of
19:18
Speaker 6: things that he didn't do that he could have done.
19:21
Speaker 6: I know that by the time the evidence, this was
19:23
Speaker 6: what really stood out to my attorneys. By the time
19:26
Speaker 6: they had heard two days a trial, when they were
19:28
Speaker 6: time to go in and make a decision, a question
19:31
Speaker 6: came out from the jury. That question was who positively
19:34
Speaker 6: identified Massiah went and where this was? After all the
19:37
Speaker 6: evidence was presented to them. The case was just that
19:41
Speaker 6: confusing that they couldn't remember who identified me positively went
19:45
Speaker 6: and where. And the judge just said, you have to
19:47
Speaker 6: go from your own recollection. I can't tell you that,
19:50
Speaker 6: And so they went in. They went in there for
19:52
Speaker 6: about forty five minutes, not long My lawyer came back
19:56
Speaker 6: to tell me, he said, look.
19:57
Speaker 4: It's not good. They found you guilty, and I was
20:03
Speaker 4: I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. Man, it was.
20:10
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's sort of
20:13
Speaker 6: a haze. And as I was sitting there, you know,
20:15
Speaker 6: at the jury began reading off how much time for
20:18
Speaker 6: each charge that I was convicted of, and they were saying,
20:23
Speaker 6: you know, seven seven, five, five five, And it was
20:26
Speaker 6: a moment where my attorney looked at me.
20:27
Speaker 4: And said, well, how much is that?
20:28
Speaker 6: And I was just like, man, you have the penning paper,
20:31
Speaker 6: you're not adding this up. I after the first five years,
20:36
Speaker 6: you know, I didn't hear anything else.
20:39
Speaker 3: And so how many charges were you convicted of?
20:42
Speaker 4: Twenty six charges?
20:43
Speaker 7: Twenty six charges for allegedly walking into a beauty salon,
20:48
Speaker 7: holding up the place, and not even whoever it was
20:51
Speaker 7: that did this didn't actually hurt anybody, right, No, I
20:54
Speaker 7: mean it's a violent crime because there was a weapon involved,
20:57
Speaker 7: so act you know, legally speaking, it's a violent crime.
21:00
Speaker 7: But I do think there's an important distinction when no
21:02
Speaker 7: one was hurt. Obviously, it's traumatic for the victims in
21:05
Speaker 7: this case to have gone through this, and there's I
21:07
Speaker 7: don't want to diminish that in any way. But at
21:10
Speaker 7: the same time, it's bizarre when you know that murderers
21:14
Speaker 7: get fifteen years, right, and around the world the most
21:18
Speaker 7: you can get in most civilized countries is fifteen years
21:20
Speaker 7: no matter what you've done, right.
21:22
Speaker 3: But here you have a crime.
21:23
Speaker 7: In which nobody was hurt and forgetting the fact that
21:26
Speaker 7: for a second that you were innocent. So they convicted
21:28
Speaker 7: you on twenty six counts, but they ended up sentencing
21:31
Speaker 7: you when they edded up the fives and the sevens
21:33
Speaker 7: and everything else.
21:34
Speaker 4: One hundred and thirty two years, one hundred and thirty
21:37
Speaker 4: two years.
21:38
Speaker 6: So and in Virginia, for those who don't know, you know,
21:42
Speaker 6: and you know, nineteen ninety five, it took away the
21:45
Speaker 6: ability to have parole available to you. In addition to
21:49
Speaker 6: that in that statue, there's an additional statute that says
21:53
Speaker 6: you also have to serve eighty five percent of your time.
21:55
Speaker 6: So what I received was equivalent to the deathcinis. Well, yeah,
22:00
Speaker 6: to live the rest of your life in prison and
22:01
Speaker 6: then die there.
22:02
Speaker 7: Yeah, they abolished parl in nineteen ninety five in Virginia,
22:05
Speaker 7: which is incomprehensible to me. But the idea that they
22:10
Speaker 7: sentenced you to life in prison.
22:13
Speaker 3: After offering you three years.
22:14
Speaker 7: Also, like, how was there even a universe in which
22:17
Speaker 7: you could say, well, as a society, we were good
22:19
Speaker 7: with you doing three years for this, but because you
22:23
Speaker 7: exercised your constitutional right to a trial, you get one
22:26
Speaker 7: hundred and thirty two years.
22:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:28
Speaker 6: It was devastating for me and my family. And I
22:32
Speaker 6: can tell you that it was a moment where I
22:35
Speaker 6: was at the jail after I happened sentenced, and my
22:38
Speaker 6: oldest daughter, who was about seven at the time, she
22:40
Speaker 6: came to see me, and you know, she's an intelligent
22:44
Speaker 6: young lady, and she asked me, she said, Dad, oh,
22:46
Speaker 6: do you really have one hundred and thirty two years
22:49
Speaker 6: or do in prison? And I said yes, And you know,
22:52
Speaker 6: her response was, you can't even live that one. There
23:03
Speaker 6: was a moment, you know, which was really important to
23:05
Speaker 6: me while I was being sentenced. I didn't drop my head,
23:10
Speaker 6: but I think one of my family friends must have
23:14
Speaker 6: noticed that maybe I was about to. She actually stood
23:17
Speaker 6: up in court, you know, and said, look, hold your
23:20
Speaker 6: head up, We're not going to give up. And it
23:25
Speaker 6: was in that moment that very early for me. In
23:27
Speaker 6: that moment that I realized that I was going to
23:30
Speaker 6: have to continue fighting.
23:32
Speaker 4: And so.
23:34
Speaker 6: After that, I just knew it was time for me
23:36
Speaker 6: to get back to business of fighting for my freedom.
23:40
Speaker 6: When you get in prison, when you really understand that
23:42
Speaker 6: they've decided that they want to take your life.
23:45
Speaker 4: Because everything about my life changed. The way I walk, talk, you.
23:50
Speaker 6: Know, everything, the movements, how long got that be on
23:53
Speaker 6: the phone? Who I can call, what kind of foods
23:55
Speaker 6: to eat, what kind of medical care? Everything changed completely,
24:01
Speaker 6: and so I decided that I didn't want that to
24:03
Speaker 6: be my life. And so what I did was I
24:05
Speaker 6: looked at the contrast to myself in prison, and the
24:10
Speaker 6: contrast is most of us have who are doing time
24:13
Speaker 6: with that has that amount, have fallen into despair and
24:17
Speaker 6: given up because Virginia has made it extremely difficult for
24:20
Speaker 6: you to get out of prison. Once you're in prison,
24:23
Speaker 6: everything is contingent on newly discovered evidence, but a lot
24:26
Speaker 6: of people are not aware of the anti terrorism effected.
24:28
Speaker 4: Definitely. I speak about this all the time.
24:30
Speaker 6: That Bill Clinton acted basically is telling you that once
24:33
Speaker 6: your direct appeal is over where you have representation, that
24:36
Speaker 6: you are required to file a HAB's corpus within a year.
24:39
Speaker 6: So you're expected a law student. How long does it
24:42
Speaker 6: take that person to graduate? Eight years well, including college
24:47
Speaker 6: yees seven or whatever. You're required to have that knowledge
24:52
Speaker 6: and represent yourself pro se with inadequate information and materials.
24:58
Speaker 4: And if you don't, then after that.
24:59
Speaker 6: Year, you judicially bought from being able to present legitimate
25:04
Speaker 6: claims your custuals vice being vilid.
25:07
Speaker 4: It's just ridiculous.
25:08
Speaker 7: The idea that we would want to keep anybody in
25:11
Speaker 7: prison one day after we find out that they're innocent,
25:14
Speaker 7: regardless of whatever procedural you know, it's nuts, right, And
25:18
Speaker 7: the fact that we want to deny somebody like yourself
25:20
Speaker 7: the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence is completely illogical too.
25:25
Speaker 7: And you really said it best. I mean when you
25:27
Speaker 7: talk about the idea that, yeah, you're right, you're given
25:29
Speaker 7: a year for a lot of people who hadn't been
25:31
Speaker 7: to college to learn everything you would have learned in
25:33
Speaker 7: college plus law school. Not everything, but all the most
25:36
Speaker 7: important things are going to help you in your defense.
25:38
Speaker 7: Then figure out how to file these papers and find
25:41
Speaker 7: the evidence that's been hidden from you in the first place.
25:43
Speaker 7: That would have been much easier to find an original trial,
25:45
Speaker 7: And then file it, and then it's much harder for
25:48
Speaker 7: a pro say emotion to succeed in a motion that's
25:50
Speaker 7: filed by an attorney in.
25:51
Speaker 3: The free world.
25:52
Speaker 7: So it's really a shame that that law has prevented
25:57
Speaker 7: so many other people from getting out that deserve to
25:59
Speaker 7: get out.
26:00
Speaker 4: I will say this.
26:01
Speaker 6: I know I hear the terminology mass incarceration quite often,
26:04
Speaker 6: but with this law, and especially with the laws in
26:08
Speaker 6: the state of Virginia, you know, this is more along
26:12
Speaker 6: the lines of judicial genocide. This is not mass incarceration.
26:18
Speaker 6: You're talking about taking away generations of individuals and never
26:22
Speaker 6: giving them a second chance back out of society. And
26:24
Speaker 6: it's targeted with disenfranchised, mainly blacks and Latinos.
26:29
Speaker 7: Yeah, they make it easy to get in and really
26:31
Speaker 7: hard to get out, I mean almost impossible.
26:35
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, I began to study the law. You know, I
26:39
Speaker 6: did a lot of research on my own case, and
26:42
Speaker 6: you know, when I come through the transcripts just to
26:45
Speaker 6: see how many because I could remember all these contradictions,
26:48
Speaker 6: I ended up with nine pages of conflicting testimony was
26:51
Speaker 6: just mind blowing to me. It was one of the
26:54
Speaker 6: things I presented to the Innocent Project and to other organizations.
26:58
Speaker 6: I did a lot of research and I painted a
27:01
Speaker 6: very clear picture of my innocence with all the research
27:04
Speaker 6: I had done, and began presenting it, and I was
27:07
Speaker 6: turned down by quite a few post conviction organizations. And
27:11
Speaker 6: then the innocence projects began to materialize.
27:15
Speaker 7: And we're talking about the University of Virginia in It's
27:17
Speaker 7: this project to do incredible work they do. Yeah, and
27:20
Speaker 7: I've been down there and I know the people there,
27:23
Speaker 7: and I encourage anyone listening to support them. You can
27:26
Speaker 7: just google University of Virginia in It's Project. It's a
27:28
Speaker 7: great organization to hear more about that.
27:30
Speaker 6: One of the people that I had a pleasure of
27:32
Speaker 6: speaking to was did your in Right? And I'm smiling
27:35
Speaker 6: now because I think about the first time I met
27:37
Speaker 6: Deddre in Right, and she and I had a conversation
27:42
Speaker 6: and even though we were having a conversation about my case,
27:45
Speaker 6: it was a personal conversation too, about character and family
27:50
Speaker 6: and you know, just my how much loss I had
27:54
Speaker 6: endured and.
27:55
Speaker 3: So how many years have you been there by this.
27:58
Speaker 4: Point fourteen fifteen years?
28:00
Speaker 3: And Deirdre is the director right of this.
28:02
Speaker 6: She is director of the Innocent Project at UVA School
28:04
Speaker 6: of Law and runs the pro bono clinic.
28:07
Speaker 7: So for you, that's when things started to take a
28:10
Speaker 7: turn in the right direction.
28:11
Speaker 4: It did.
28:11
Speaker 6: She understood immediately once I presented those things to her,
28:15
Speaker 6: and she's impeccable in her investigation skills. She knew exactly
28:19
Speaker 6: how she wanted to, you know, go about getting the
28:22
Speaker 6: necessary information. Her and her students went out. They utilized
28:26
Speaker 6: the Freedom Information Act and found out that this guy
28:29
Speaker 6: had committed all these robbers around the same time that
28:32
Speaker 6: I was arrested. And this is what led them to
28:34
Speaker 6: the person who actually committed the crime. They went to
28:37
Speaker 6: see him and he basically five minutes into the conversation
28:41
Speaker 6: and he was like, I know why you're here. You know,
28:44
Speaker 6: they mentioned that, you know, this beauty salon got robbed,
28:47
Speaker 6: and he basically said, look, I know what you want.
28:50
Speaker 6: I'm the person who did this. He said he didn't
28:53
Speaker 6: know that anybody was actually locked up for the crime,
28:55
Speaker 6: and had spoke to his spiritual advisors and family member
29:00
Speaker 6: was and you know, he wanted to just come clean
29:03
Speaker 6: about it.
29:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's amazing.
29:04
Speaker 7: It's really dramatic because they went to see him and
29:06
Speaker 7: they were only given twenty five minutes to talk to him.
29:08
Speaker 3: That's correct.
29:08
Speaker 7: And in those twenty five minutes they had to somehow
29:10
Speaker 7: other earn his trust and get him to confess to
29:12
Speaker 7: a crime that you were in prison for.
29:15
Speaker 3: And they did.
29:16
Speaker 6: And then from there we began to build a case,
29:19
Speaker 6: not forward. We started from the back. Once we got
29:22
Speaker 6: the confession in Virginia, you know, you don't take it
29:24
Speaker 6: directly to the commonwealth because then they're going to go
29:27
Speaker 6: to all the witnesses involved. Everybody wants to say, look,
29:30
Speaker 6: this guy is trying to say that he didn't have
29:31
Speaker 6: anything to do with it. They're going to get out
29:33
Speaker 6: for Davis from those people. But we did that, and
29:35
Speaker 6: by the time we presented that to the courts, we
29:38
Speaker 6: got denied by the same judge who initially refused to
29:41
Speaker 6: give me a sentence reduction.
29:42
Speaker 4: But he was still on the bench. I think he's
29:44
Speaker 4: still present now.
29:45
Speaker 6: Because of Virginia law after that year, you're not allowed
29:48
Speaker 6: to file a habeas corpus second and success of Hay's corpus.
29:51
Speaker 6: So he denied us, and so mcculloff was in office
29:54
Speaker 6: at the time, right And.
29:55
Speaker 7: This gets a really interesting part of the story too,
29:58
Speaker 7: because Governor mccauliffe, who I've become very friendly with. To
30:03
Speaker 7: his credit, he had this sense of outrage when I
30:06
Speaker 7: was talking to him about these crazy sentences that Virginia
30:10
Speaker 7: was handing out to people. You know, we talked about
30:12
Speaker 7: Travion Blount, and we talked about Letting Singleton, and we
30:15
Speaker 7: talked about some of these other people that were doing
30:18
Speaker 7: these literally like mind blowing sentences, and you were certainly
30:22
Speaker 7: one of them. I mean, like, your sentence is so nuts.
30:26
Speaker 7: And he fortunately was in a position to do something
30:29
Speaker 7: about it. So how did that come down?
30:31
Speaker 6: So to me, he was very forward thinking governor, and
30:34
Speaker 6: he had made public comments about how far behind gen
30:37
Speaker 6: you was compared to other states in the criminal justice system.
30:40
Speaker 6: And so we as a whole thought that it was
30:42
Speaker 6: best for us to put together a petition for clemency
30:46
Speaker 6: while he was in office, before he left, and so
30:48
Speaker 6: we did that.
30:49
Speaker 3: And that's basically like buying a lottery t it is.
30:52
Speaker 3: It is.
30:52
Speaker 4: I say that all the time.
30:54
Speaker 6: It is very difficult because they usually deal with those
30:56
Speaker 6: things after you've exhausted all your remedies. And because we
31:00
Speaker 6: had this newly discovered evidence, we were able to still
31:02
Speaker 6: go to the federal courts, which we're getting ready to
31:04
Speaker 6: do now because we're still pending. And so on the
31:07
Speaker 6: day that he was leaving, on the day before, we
31:10
Speaker 6: were asking, you know, has he ruled on the side
31:12
Speaker 6: his petition yet, and he's like, no, but he's getting
31:16
Speaker 6: to it and he'll get to it before he leaves.
31:18
Speaker 4: And you know, Diezer was.
31:21
Speaker 6: Calling periodically every hour. You know, I think we're going
31:25
Speaker 6: to get it. We're not sure yet. You know, I
31:27
Speaker 6: tried to call this person. They said, yeah, they're looking
31:30
Speaker 6: at it right now. So the day of I think,
31:34
Speaker 6: no more than an hour after he was supposed to
31:36
Speaker 6: be leaving office, we get the call, you know, and
31:41
Speaker 6: they said, you've been granted a conditional pardon with the
31:44
Speaker 6: absolute aspect of the part and still pending. You know,
31:49
Speaker 6: the outcome of the investigation. That was a wonderful feeling.
31:52
Speaker 6: Man to hear that.
31:53
Speaker 3: Who called it recalled me right.
31:56
Speaker 4: We were just related. We were overjoyed, you said.
31:59
Speaker 6: We Deirdre and the whole team, everybody, you know, the
32:03
Speaker 6: jigu and right and Jennifer Gibvens who was another attorney there,
32:06
Speaker 6: also a director. They had been coming to the prison
32:09
Speaker 6: regularly and calling for me. They assisted me and aided
32:12
Speaker 6: me in ways, you know. And anybody who who's represented
32:16
Speaker 6: by them will tell you they go above and beyond
32:18
Speaker 6: with their representation and helping you not only with the
32:22
Speaker 6: legal aspect, but personal things that you be going through
32:24
Speaker 6: in prison.
32:25
Speaker 4: It's rare you see somebody who does that, you know.
32:28
Speaker 6: With all the way pro say throughout you know, but
32:32
Speaker 6: this was a collective effort of all of us.
32:47
Speaker 3: What was the reaction in the prison when you got
32:50
Speaker 3: this news? Were people wow, jealous? Were they happy? What
32:53
Speaker 3: was the reaction of the other char The majority.
32:56
Speaker 6: Of people who were happy because they understood my struggle.
33:01
Speaker 4: They saw me working.
33:03
Speaker 6: There's two different types of people in prison, those who
33:05
Speaker 6: working to get out on those who's just waiting for
33:07
Speaker 6: something to happen. And while I was in prison, I
33:09
Speaker 6: helped a lot of people along the way. Digit and
33:12
Speaker 6: Writing Jennifer Gills will tell you, I've read people's cases.
33:14
Speaker 4: I've read multiple cases.
33:16
Speaker 6: I've done research myself and helped them with their cases,
33:19
Speaker 6: file emotions for them.
33:20
Speaker 4: But I've also introduced them.
33:21
Speaker 6: To Digit and Right and Jennifer Givens and so those
33:24
Speaker 6: people and a lot of people I've made quite a
33:27
Speaker 6: few friends you can imagine after twenty years, you make
33:29
Speaker 6: some friends.
33:30
Speaker 4: They were just delated.
33:32
Speaker 3: How long did it take you to get out after
33:34
Speaker 3: the call?
33:34
Speaker 6: They wanted to make you do five months? I did
33:36
Speaker 6: four from January to April, right, because they have that
33:39
Speaker 6: re entry the reentry program. But I stayed on top
33:42
Speaker 6: of the people every day, like, look, you gotta let
33:43
Speaker 6: me get this program.
33:44
Speaker 3: Man.
33:45
Speaker 6: Everything is contingent on me getting out as me complete
33:47
Speaker 6: these programs. So they put me to the top of
33:49
Speaker 6: the list.
33:50
Speaker 7: And you know, so you had one hundred and twelve
33:52
Speaker 7: years left to go, and now it turns to four months.
33:55
Speaker 3: How did those four months go by? Faster? Slow?
33:57
Speaker 6: It went by the same for me. I put myself
34:00
Speaker 6: in that kind of mind frame that I don't really
34:02
Speaker 6: believe until it actually happens. You know, even though I
34:05
Speaker 6: got the pardon with a discretionary release date, you still
34:09
Speaker 6: don't believe it till it actually happens. Anybody, I think
34:11
Speaker 6: everybody will tell you this. Until you actually cross that threshold,
34:16
Speaker 6: you just don't believe it.
34:17
Speaker 3: Man.
34:17
Speaker 7: And I've seen the video of you walking out of
34:19
Speaker 7: prison into the arms of your family and the attorneys
34:22
Speaker 7: from the Virginia Insis Project it's a very powerful moving
34:26
Speaker 7: thing to see going back to prison for a second
34:30
Speaker 7: sometimes like to ask what was the best and the
34:33
Speaker 7: worst thing to happen. Was there a moment, even in
34:36
Speaker 7: the darkest of times, when there was like a ray.
34:39
Speaker 6: Of light or hope mentally and emotionally, you know, there's
34:41
Speaker 6: valleys and peaks. You know, you're trying to make sense
34:45
Speaker 6: of everything that's happening to you. You know, you want
34:48
Speaker 6: to stay within the realm of reality, but that reality
34:52
Speaker 6: maybe something that's for the rest of your life. And
34:54
Speaker 6: so for me, there was some few dark moments and
34:59
Speaker 6: I reached out to you know, Nikki Giovanni. You know,
35:02
Speaker 6: she's a renown black activist, scholar, poet, and educator, because
35:06
Speaker 6: she had a poem that resonated with me called Quilt
35:08
Speaker 6: in the Black Ip And I couldn't find a book anywhere,
35:11
Speaker 6: and so I wrote her, and she wrote me back
35:15
Speaker 6: and sent me to autograph books, and that kind of
35:20
Speaker 6: gave me that there's people out here that still really
35:22
Speaker 6: do care, you know. And so there were moments like
35:26
Speaker 6: that that really continue to inspire me to, you know,
35:31
Speaker 6: fight for my freedom. But I have to say this,
35:34
Speaker 6: all of who I am today is a reflection of
35:37
Speaker 6: that which has been shaped and moted by my circumstance
35:39
Speaker 6: of the last twenty years.
35:40
Speaker 4: So I developed a very profound perspective.
35:42
Speaker 6: About life that has allowed me to know my purpose,
35:47
Speaker 6: and within that purpose, it's really about helping others. And
35:50
Speaker 6: so at some point I want to be able to
35:52
Speaker 6: develop a nonprofit which i've you know, really developed, and
35:57
Speaker 6: it's called the Lion Initiative Liberating Individuals Oppression Now and
36:01
Speaker 6: it will have several programs, and they want about educating
36:04
Speaker 6: the community about laws and how they can affect change
36:08
Speaker 6: through their legislators, people who are supposed to represent them.
36:11
Speaker 6: But I learned that a lot of elders in the communities,
36:14
Speaker 6: they don't have the education. They want to be educated
36:17
Speaker 6: about the law and how they can effectively make change.
36:20
Speaker 6: And so that incarceration and prevention with the youth, and
36:25
Speaker 6: investigative practices for those who are in prison who don't
36:27
Speaker 6: have the money and can't find the resources. Because everything
36:31
Speaker 6: in Virginia is based on post conviction investigation, you really
36:35
Speaker 6: need that in order for you to even find newly
36:39
Speaker 6: discovered evidence.
36:40
Speaker 7: Now, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is
36:42
Speaker 7: truly what the Virginia Innos's project did. In your case,
36:45
Speaker 7: they wasn't really reinvestigated the case. It was never investigated.
36:49
Speaker 3: Properly in the first place, exactly.
36:51
Speaker 7: And you know, if we had a fair or system,
36:53
Speaker 7: we would have defense attorneys, even public defenders, who were
36:57
Speaker 7: given enough time to work on each individual case that
37:01
Speaker 7: they could at least mount some sort of effective investigation. Obviously,
37:05
Speaker 7: they're not going to be able to do, you know
37:07
Speaker 7: what a private attorney who is working on just a
37:11
Speaker 7: few cases can do, because.
37:12
Speaker 3: They're always going to be overwork.
37:14
Speaker 7: But we need to reduce that burden because some of
37:16
Speaker 7: these guys are working on one hundred cases at the time,
37:19
Speaker 7: and there's just no way even the best attorney in
37:22
Speaker 7: that situation can't possibly do the most effective job for
37:26
Speaker 7: their client.
37:27
Speaker 3: And in your case, it was literally your life that
37:29
Speaker 3: was hanging in the balance.
37:31
Speaker 7: And so forgetting the fact that you had this you know,
37:34
Speaker 7: half crazy and competent guy in the first place, I mean, you.
37:38
Speaker 3: Had really hit the jackpot of me.
37:40
Speaker 7: Between the mistake and eye witnesses and the official misconduct
37:44
Speaker 7: and effective assistance of council to show up the I
37:47
Speaker 7: mean everything, it's really it's the reverse jackpot. I mean,
37:51
Speaker 7: everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, and we
37:54
Speaker 7: know what the end result was, and the end result
37:56
Speaker 7: of it in some man in prison for twenty years,
37:58
Speaker 7: and even then, it's a mereracle that you're here now
38:01
Speaker 7: and still fighting, which is great, and I want to
38:04
Speaker 7: talk about that too, because you are fighting your case.
38:07
Speaker 7: I believe you will prevail, even though it's the tedious
38:10
Speaker 7: process and has made it so difficult for federal judges
38:13
Speaker 7: to overturn state convictions even when they know it's wrong.
38:16
Speaker 7: But that being said, you're also you know, it seems
38:20
Speaker 7: to me like you're hitting the ground running, you know,
38:22
Speaker 7: not missing a beat. I know you're working now, but
38:25
Speaker 7: you have a skill. That's that I want to talk
38:27
Speaker 7: about because you know, we don't know who's listening. It
38:30
Speaker 7: might be somebody listening who might need some of your talents,
38:33
Speaker 7: you know, and talking about graphic design and you know,
38:36
Speaker 7: talk about some of that stuff.
38:38
Speaker 6: That it was a trade that was available at substage
38:41
Speaker 6: to state prison communication. Graphic loss and design is the
38:44
Speaker 6: re entry process. And so I finally made it into
38:48
Speaker 6: the class and became proficient, but I'm still a feeling
38:51
Speaker 6: and so every time I go to fill out applications,
38:53
Speaker 6: so forth and so on.
38:55
Speaker 3: You gotta check the box.
38:55
Speaker 4: You check the box.
38:56
Speaker 7: But if people want to, if they need somebody to
38:59
Speaker 7: do some design work for them or something like that,
39:01
Speaker 7: whether they're in Virginia or even something you could do
39:03
Speaker 7: on the web, how could they reach out to you?
39:05
Speaker 6: My Gmail is los Sean three sixty s l O
39:08
Speaker 6: R D s h I n E.
39:09
Speaker 3: It's l O R D s h I n E
39:12
Speaker 3: three sixty at gmail dot com.
39:14
Speaker 4: That's correct. I'm on Facebook, Instagram.
39:17
Speaker 3: What's your Instagram?
39:18
Speaker 4: Oh, Messiah Alidah, So.
39:20
Speaker 3: It's Messiah Emmy s s I A H.
39:23
Speaker 4: A L A D A R L A space and
39:25
Speaker 4: then Johnson.
39:26
Speaker 7: Okay, Messiah, it's easy, I think once you type in
39:30
Speaker 7: Messiah and then A A L A D A R
39:33
Speaker 7: and then underscore Johnson. So, Messiah, I want to, of
39:39
Speaker 7: course thank you for coming and being here and compare
39:42
Speaker 7: this insane story. And I think a lot of people
39:45
Speaker 7: are going to take something out of it that's going
39:47
Speaker 7: to be meaningful to them, not least to which is
39:49
Speaker 7: your spirit, which remains, you know, just so positive and
39:52
Speaker 7: it's quite remarkable. I want to make sure we ask you,
39:56
Speaker 7: is there anyone else that you want to thank, Do
39:58
Speaker 7: you want to shout out your girls?
40:00
Speaker 6: Yes, I couldn't be here today without all the love
40:02
Speaker 6: and support that I received from my family and friends.
40:06
Speaker 6: It was an arduous journey and it still is because
40:09
Speaker 6: I'm still fighting for exoneration. I need to be vindicated
40:12
Speaker 6: for all the stuff that you know I've been through.
40:15
Speaker 6: But they have truly been an inspiration to me, and
40:19
Speaker 6: I just couldn't have done it without them and all
40:22
Speaker 6: of the students that help work on this case. Of course,
40:24
Speaker 6: did your in right, her family, Jennifer Givens, her family,
40:28
Speaker 6: the media who eventually began reporting the true story, and
40:33
Speaker 6: I don't know the list I can go on forever.
40:35
Speaker 6: Yourself for having me here today and allowing me to
40:38
Speaker 6: share this story and this truth, because ultimately, I hope
40:42
Speaker 6: that this inspires somebody, whether you're a prisoner in prison
40:45
Speaker 6: and feel like you're hopeless, these stories and I've listened
40:49
Speaker 6: to a lot of your podcasts.
40:51
Speaker 4: They are inspiring.
40:52
Speaker 6: Even though I've gone through my own set of circumstances,
40:54
Speaker 6: those podcasts are still inspiring to me. For me to
40:58
Speaker 6: continue fighting for myself from others.
41:00
Speaker 3: That means a lot.
41:01
Speaker 4: I mean, no you're You're genuine.
41:03
Speaker 6: I met you a few months back, and I always
41:06
Speaker 6: want to know if somebody is genuine, you know, especially
41:10
Speaker 6: if you haven't gone through these set of circumstances. And
41:14
Speaker 6: you are the real deal man, And I appreciate everything
41:19
Speaker 6: that you're doing because you could be doing so many
41:21
Speaker 6: other things, but to have somebody at some point inspire
41:25
Speaker 6: you and then for you to take on this cause. Man,
41:27
Speaker 6: it's truly important man, for society. And I'm with you, man, well,
41:33
Speaker 6: thank you man.
41:33
Speaker 3: That means a lot.
41:34
Speaker 7: And now after I collect myself, I want to honor
41:40
Speaker 7: our tradition here at Wrongful Conviction, and our listeners know
41:44
Speaker 7: this is the part of the show where I get
41:46
Speaker 7: to uh to basically sign off. But before I do that,
41:51
Speaker 7: and what I mean by that, I don't mean sign off,
41:53
Speaker 7: So don't don't true now because it's the best part
41:55
Speaker 7: of the show. But I want to, of course thank
41:58
Speaker 7: you again Messiah Johnson for coming in and sharing your
42:02
Speaker 7: story with us. I want to apologize to you for
42:06
Speaker 7: what society America, Virginia you know, put you through. But
42:11
Speaker 7: I know the best has yet to come for you,
42:13
Speaker 7: and I'm looking forward to a friendship and watching you,
42:16
Speaker 7: you know, succeed beyond everybody's wildest expectations.
42:20
Speaker 3: So I get to.
42:22
Speaker 7: Turn the microphone, my microphone off and leave yours on
42:25
Speaker 7: for any closing thoughts that you have.
42:28
Speaker 6: I don't know if you know Melvin Van Peebles, Mario
42:30
Speaker 6: van People's father, well, he said he had a friend
42:34
Speaker 6: that had three partners. They all went out to a
42:37
Speaker 6: club one day and all three of them got locked up.
42:40
Speaker 6: Two of them got out on bail, went home. His
42:42
Speaker 6: friend got out the next day, and by the time
42:44
Speaker 6: he got there, his friends had split up his property
42:46
Speaker 6: in his house as if he was never coming back.
42:49
Speaker 6: And he said, this is basically the mentality of society
42:53
Speaker 6: about prisoners. And so you have to know that that
42:57
Speaker 6: mentality won't bring about a change. You know, you have
43:00
Speaker 6: to know that these laws can affect you, either directly
43:05
Speaker 6: or indirectly in some form of fashion if.
43:08
Speaker 4: You're not involved.
43:09
Speaker 6: I hope that me coming here today, like I said,
43:12
Speaker 6: inspires others to continue fighting for themselves and others. It
43:16
Speaker 6: is truly a necessity that we begin to educate ourselves.
43:19
Speaker 6: So my plea to everybody is begin educating yourself, begin
43:24
Speaker 6: getting behind these causes of criminal justice. Reform so we
43:28
Speaker 6: can bring about a true balance back in society.
43:32
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening.
43:33
Speaker 7: This has been an amazing experience for me and I
43:36
Speaker 7: hope for you too. We'll see you next week. I'm
43:38
Speaker 7: wrong for Conviction. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
43:51
Speaker 7: Wherever you get your podcasts.
43:52
Speaker 3: It really helps.
43:54
Speaker 7: And I'm a proud donor to the Enesis Project, and
43:57
Speaker 7: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
44:00
Speaker 7: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
44:03
Speaker 7: to Innocentsproject dot org to learn how to donate and
44:07
Speaker 7: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
44:10
Speaker 7: Hall and Kevin Wortis. The music in the show is
44:12
Speaker 7: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
44:16
Speaker 7: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
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44:24
Speaker 7: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
44:27
Speaker 7: with Signal Company Number one