Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #212 Jason Flom with Curtis Flowers

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#212 Jason Flom with Curtis Flowers · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Curtis Flowers lived in the small town of Winona, Mississippi,
0:05
Speaker 1: and began a job at Tarti Furniture, but while transporting
0:08
Speaker 1: some car batteries, two of them fell off his truck,
0:11
Speaker 1: and store owner Bertha Tarti said that the damages might
0:14
Speaker 1: have to come out of his paycheck. After a full
0:16
Speaker 1: day of work, Curtis decided to cut his losses and
0:19
Speaker 1: move on. On the morning of July sixteenth, nineteen ninety six,
0:23
Speaker 1: the bodies of Bertha Tarti and three employees were found shot.
0:27
Speaker 1: One was still alive rushed to the hospital, but later
0:30
Speaker 1: pronounced dead. After hearing about the allegedly disgruntled Curtis Flowers,
0:35
Speaker 1: police used a toxic mix of a cash reward and
0:38
Speaker 1: intimidation to extract witness statements, widely varying in detail. They
0:42
Speaker 1: pieced together a ridiculous narrative of Curtis's whereabouts, including a
0:47
Speaker 1: dubious story about a gun that his uncle had reported missing.
0:50
Speaker 1: With this flimsy motive and even flimsier evidence, along with
0:54
Speaker 1: racially discriminatory jury selection, Curtis Flowers was first tried and
0:59
Speaker 1: convicted of attorney's murder. While that conviction was being thrown out.
1:03
Speaker 1: He was convicted for the murder of one of the
1:05
Speaker 1: other employees, and when the second conviction was thrown out,
1:09
Speaker 1: they tried him again for all four murders. After six
1:13
Speaker 1: trials and a trip to the Supreme Court, this farce
1:15
Speaker 1: would finally come to an end when American Public Media
1:18
Speaker 1: made a podcast called in the Dark Shining Up Bright
1:21
Speaker 1: Light on Curtis's case and the racist district attorney driving it.
1:25
Speaker 1: After twenty three long years on death row and another
1:28
Speaker 1: trip to the Supreme Court, district Attorney Doug Evans finally
1:32
Speaker 1: stepped off the case. Upon review, the Attorney General of
1:35
Speaker 1: Mississippi dropped all charges. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
1:53
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. And I'm
1:57
Speaker 1: going to throw a few numbers at you before I
1:59
Speaker 1: introduce our guests. So Curtis Flowers was wrongfully convicted six times,
2:04
Speaker 1: spent twenty three years on death row for four murders
2:08
Speaker 1: that he didn't commit. Curtis Flowers, Welcome to wrongful Conviction.
2:11
Speaker 1: Good to be here. So let's go back to the beginning.
2:14
Speaker 1: You grew up in a small town in Mississippi, right.
2:17
Speaker 2: Yes, one only is about eighty four miles north of Jacksonssissippi,
2:22
Speaker 2: a small town about the population of five thousand, over
2:27
Speaker 2: forty five percent black.
2:28
Speaker 1: Did you have a happy childhood? Yes, I did. Brothers, sisters, brothers.
2:33
Speaker 2: I have four sisters, one brother. I'm the I guess
2:37
Speaker 2: you'd call the middle child.
2:38
Speaker 1: So everything was pretty much fine, I guess up until
2:44
Speaker 1: would seemed like a very minor incident at a store
2:48
Speaker 1: that you only worked at for a few days. I'm
2:50
Speaker 1: talking about Tardy Furniture, which should have come and went
2:54
Speaker 1: and never been a subject of even one little minor discussion. True. Nonetheless,
3:01
Speaker 1: since it was the incident that started this crazy chain
3:04
Speaker 1: of events going, can you just tell us what happened
3:06
Speaker 1: at Tarti Furniture.
3:08
Speaker 2: Well, I went to work at Tarti's one morning and
3:11
Speaker 2: she asked me to pull around back so then the
3:14
Speaker 2: business next door could load some batteries onto the truck
3:17
Speaker 2: and leaving. I pulled off, and two of the batteries
3:21
Speaker 2: slid off the truck. I got back to the store,
3:23
Speaker 2: I told her about them. She said, we'll take them
3:25
Speaker 2: back around there and let me see if they can
3:27
Speaker 2: replace them.
3:28
Speaker 1: Because if they.
3:29
Speaker 2: Can't, then you don't have to pay for them, because
3:31
Speaker 2: she should have tied them down. And I said, okay,
3:34
Speaker 2: So I took them back. Mister Jimmy Sanders, who worked there,
3:38
Speaker 2: told me that we'll work it out. So I went
3:41
Speaker 2: back and told her everything was good. You know, she
3:44
Speaker 2: sent me home to deliver furniture all day that day,
3:47
Speaker 2: you know, by me just starting. You know, she even
3:49
Speaker 2: advanced me. I think it was thirty dollars.
3:52
Speaker 1: You didn't go back to work at the store after that, No,
3:54
Speaker 1: I didn't. It's okay, fine, whatever.
3:56
Speaker 2: And later it became a motive, right, like this little
4:00
Speaker 2: minor incident was going to cause you to go back
4:03
Speaker 2: and shoot four people in the head.
4:04
Speaker 1: So now, unbeknownst to you, a terrible, terrible thing happens
4:10
Speaker 1: right at Tarti Furnish On the morning of July sixteenth,
4:13
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. Sam Jones Junior, a retired employee of
4:17
Speaker 1: Tarti Furniture Company, reported that the owner of Bertha Tarti,
4:20
Speaker 1: who was fifty nine, had called him at nine am,
4:22
Speaker 1: asking him to come into the store to train a
4:24
Speaker 1: couple of new employees. A guy named Derek Bobo Stewart
4:27
Speaker 1: of sixteen and Robert Golden, a forty two yar old man.
4:30
Speaker 1: Jones arrived an hour later and found a horror scene.
4:34
Speaker 1: He found that Tarti, Stuart, Golden, and another employee named
4:38
Speaker 1: Carmen Rigby, a forty five year old woman, had all
4:41
Speaker 1: been shot and killed. Well one of them, sixteen year
4:43
Speaker 1: old mister Stuart, was the only one still alive, but
4:46
Speaker 1: he died in the hospital a few days later, and
4:48
Speaker 1: supposedly two hundred and eighty seven dollars was missing from
4:51
Speaker 1: the cash reder. So that gives me the chills because
4:53
Speaker 1: it's just what's the price of a life? And may
4:54
Speaker 1: they rest in peace. So it's just this crazy coincidence.
4:57
Speaker 1: The smallest town like that, you know that you happened
5:00
Speaker 1: to previously work and even the fact that you worked
5:04
Speaker 1: there at one time really shouldn't have set off too
5:07
Speaker 1: many alarm bells. Maybe somebody would have quickly looked into
5:10
Speaker 1: it and ruled you out exactly, But this wasn't just anybody, right.
5:15
Speaker 1: What we're talking about is you ran into the crosshairs
5:19
Speaker 1: of District Attorney Doug Evans. Then they covered this in
5:22
Speaker 1: this fantastic podcast, which I'm sure some of our listeners
5:25
Speaker 1: have heard called in the Dark. Thought it was brilliantly done.
5:27
Speaker 1: Let me just say that one of the things that
5:29
Speaker 1: jumps out to me from the podcast about Doug Evans
5:33
Speaker 1: was that an analysis by APM for the podcast discovered
5:37
Speaker 1: that Evans and his assistant DA's over the course of
5:40
Speaker 1: twenty six years struck black prospective jurors at nearly four
5:45
Speaker 1: and a half times the rate they struck white ones.
5:47
Speaker 1: And of course we know that's one of the main
5:49
Speaker 1: reasons why your conviction kept getting overturned, because he kept
5:52
Speaker 1: excluding black jurors from the jurys, which is of course
5:55
Speaker 1: a violation of the fourteenth Amendment. This is a guy
5:58
Speaker 1: who was elected again in November twenty nineteen, so he's
6:01
Speaker 1: been in there forever still the DA, but numerous civil
6:05
Speaker 1: rights lawsuits have been filed against him. But according to
6:09
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Bar Association, it's hard to believe he's received
6:12
Speaker 1: no public sanction and remains a lawyer in good standing.
6:16
Speaker 1: So let's let's go back. Let's go back. Hold on,
6:19
Speaker 1: So the crime took place on July sixteenth, nineteen ninety six,
6:23
Speaker 1: When did you even hear about it?
6:25
Speaker 2: The same day they come by the house, want to
6:28
Speaker 2: know if they could talk with me. They say to
6:30
Speaker 2: her that I used to work there and maybe I
6:32
Speaker 2: could help them. You know, maybe I've seen something and
6:34
Speaker 2: don't realize us I saw it, and I said sure.
6:37
Speaker 2: I went down with him until you know, every time
6:40
Speaker 2: I left. You know what we talked about here today,
6:43
Speaker 2: don't don't tell anyone else. And we would just want
6:45
Speaker 2: you to know you're not a suspect. We just we
6:48
Speaker 2: just thought maybe you could help.
6:49
Speaker 1: You know.
6:50
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, But everyone on the street was
6:52
Speaker 2: telling me that when they talked with him, they said
6:54
Speaker 2: I was a suspect.
6:56
Speaker 1: They tested your hands for gunshot wresid.
6:58
Speaker 2: Testing my hands for gunshot rest to do the morning
7:01
Speaker 2: they picked me up, I wanted to question me. They
7:03
Speaker 2: wanted to rule me out, so he said, and I agreed,
7:11
Speaker 2: and I agreed to a gunshot residue tests and they
7:14
Speaker 2: gave it to me. And later they come back and
7:17
Speaker 2: said they I think one particle of gunshot residue. You know,
7:21
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about residue. But my lawyer argued
7:25
Speaker 2: that there are three elements to gunshot residue. You can't
7:28
Speaker 2: have one without the other two. And he asked them, well,
7:34
Speaker 2: how did miss Flower get to the police station and
7:37
Speaker 2: I got down there, would stayed true, he says, in't
7:38
Speaker 2: it true? They fired their weapons every morning and miss
7:41
Speaker 2: Flowers shook hands with them, so he could have picked
7:43
Speaker 2: up that particle just.
7:45
Speaker 1: Like that, or could have come from a firework. No,
7:47
Speaker 1: And we have a whole episode of our show for
7:50
Speaker 1: conviction John Science devoted to a gunshot residue issue out
7:54
Speaker 1: There are literally dozens of substances that could, you know,
7:57
Speaker 1: sort of fool the test, you know, and that all
8:00
Speaker 1: has to be independently corroborated or else it's just junk science.
8:03
Speaker 2: Yes, and I even heard that you could get that
8:06
Speaker 2: from just just messing with a car battery.
8:09
Speaker 1: Car battery, cigarette, ash drive urine.
8:12
Speaker 2: Or also giving you a gunshot of rether do tests
8:14
Speaker 2: and he don't have one gloves right, and he's handling
8:17
Speaker 2: your hands while he's doing it.
8:19
Speaker 1: Sure it's transferable. Yeah, So that's the flimsiest of flimsy
8:23
Speaker 1: evidence that you could have not evident is the wrong word,
8:26
Speaker 1: but they call it evidence. I call it bullshit. Okay,
8:30
Speaker 1: So your prints were not found at the crime scene,
8:34
Speaker 1: and your clothes they took your clothes, right, clothes went
8:38
Speaker 1: to the crime lab and turned up nothing, nothing right,
8:42
Speaker 1: So are you a ghost? You don't see what? Not
8:47
Speaker 1: a ghost? Okay? So at that point maybe reasonable people
8:51
Speaker 1: could agree that they could have started looking for the
8:53
Speaker 1: actual perpetrator, but they continued on. Now at the scene,
8:57
Speaker 1: three footprints from size ten and a half feel a
9:00
Speaker 1: gym shoes were later discovered. And don't even get me
9:03
Speaker 1: started on footprint analysis because that's a whole other junk science.
9:07
Speaker 1: And there was no paper money, only changing the cashhers again,
9:10
Speaker 1: supposedly two hundred eighty seven dollars was missing. At least
9:12
Speaker 1: found five shellcasings at the scene, which were from a
9:15
Speaker 1: three eighty caliber semi automatic pistol. They also found two
9:19
Speaker 1: spent bullets, two bullet fragments, and one live bullet. Now
9:22
Speaker 1: have you ever owned a three eighty caliber semi automatic pistol? Okay?
9:25
Speaker 1: So now enter Doyle Simpson. Doyle Simpson was your uncle.
9:29
Speaker 1: He reported that a pistol of this same type in
9:33
Speaker 1: caliber had been stolen from his car in the parking
9:36
Speaker 1: lot of the Angelica Garment factory where he worked. So
9:39
Speaker 1: he now came under suspicion. On July twenty second, nineteen
9:43
Speaker 1: ninety six, Simpson took a polygraph test that revealed deception
9:47
Speaker 1: when he said that his gun had been stolen from
9:49
Speaker 1: his car and when he said he knew nothing about
9:50
Speaker 1: the murders. Again, we know polygraphs are not super accurate,
9:54
Speaker 1: but they can give you some indication. But we should
9:58
Speaker 1: not take a polygraph as just gospel, because it's not.
10:02
Speaker 1: But according to the polygraph and the poligapher, he lied
10:05
Speaker 1: about where he got the gun, and police later discovered
10:07
Speaker 1: that he called his brother asking him to lie to
10:10
Speaker 1: the police as well, telling them that he had sold
10:13
Speaker 1: the gun to Simpson, but the brother refused.
10:16
Speaker 2: It was later found out that he did a lot
10:18
Speaker 2: about his swhere about that morning of those murder dog
10:21
Speaker 2: claimed he was at work all morning. His own sister
10:23
Speaker 2: said she saw his car we out on eighty two.
10:27
Speaker 2: She saw him drive by that morning.
10:28
Speaker 1: Well, I can think of a couple of reasons why
10:30
Speaker 1: that could be. One would be that he wanted to
10:32
Speaker 1: deflect this vision away from him because he was actually guilty.
10:35
Speaker 1: Or the other would be that he just was trying
10:37
Speaker 1: to like not be any part of this and so
10:39
Speaker 1: was making up a story that he was at work
10:41
Speaker 1: just to try to throw the police off even looking
10:44
Speaker 1: further into him. That was my first thought. So Simpson
10:47
Speaker 1: went on to tell the cops that he practiced shooting
10:50
Speaker 1: this gun in a rural spot. But a detective went
10:53
Speaker 1: to that location and pulled the spent plug from a post,
10:56
Speaker 1: and according to firearms expert for the Michigan State Police,
10:59
Speaker 1: David Bolish, testified that he determined that the bullet from
11:02
Speaker 1: the post actually did have marking similar to the bullets
11:06
Speaker 1: recovered from the crime scene. In August of ninety six,
11:09
Speaker 1: detectives led by the DA investigator John Johnson questioned mister
11:13
Speaker 1: Simpson about their findings, but again he denied his involvement
11:17
Speaker 1: and maintained that the gun had been stolen from the
11:19
Speaker 1: car that morning. So despite the fact that there are
11:23
Speaker 1: like flashing arrows now pointing towards Simpson right, they continued
11:28
Speaker 1: to focus on you. And now they discovered a box
11:33
Speaker 1: of size ten and a half Feel of shoes at
11:36
Speaker 1: your girlfriend, Connie's house.
11:38
Speaker 2: I later found out that my girlfriend at the time, Connie,
11:42
Speaker 2: had bought her son Marcus, a pair of Feel of
11:46
Speaker 2: shoes size ten and a half, And then that's how
11:48
Speaker 2: they led up to me wearing a pair of ten
11:51
Speaker 2: and a half Fela.
11:52
Speaker 1: Do you wear a size ten and a half feel
11:54
Speaker 1: a shoe.
11:54
Speaker 2: Most shoes, I wear eleven and a half your shoe,
11:57
Speaker 2: but in gym shoes, I can't wear eleven.
12:00
Speaker 1: Well, anybody who's ever worn a shoe that's a half
12:02
Speaker 1: to a full size too small can report that is
12:04
Speaker 1: not very uncomfortable. So I think it's unlikely that those
12:09
Speaker 1: were your shoes under any circumstances. And I'm going to
12:12
Speaker 1: say too that feelers were pretty stylish back in the
12:15
Speaker 1: late nineties. They were okay. So most of the people
12:20
Speaker 1: who were questioned later on reported, and this will surprise
12:23
Speaker 1: exactly no one, they reported that they were afraid of
12:27
Speaker 1: being arrested themselves unless they cooperated with the police, and
12:31
Speaker 1: some said that rewards of up to thirty thousand dollars
12:35
Speaker 1: were dangled in front of them if they agreed to cooperate.
12:38
Speaker 1: So they were using the carrot and tostick. So they eventually,
12:41
Speaker 1: not surprisingly, got statements from a dozen different witnesses who
12:44
Speaker 1: said they saw you in various locations in and around
12:48
Speaker 1: why Nona on the morning of the crime. And based
12:50
Speaker 1: on these statements, which were almost certainly fabricated and coerced,
12:57
Speaker 1: and rewarded. Right when you put the third down dollar
13:00
Speaker 1: reward out.
13:00
Speaker 2: People that didn't even know me knew me then, and
13:02
Speaker 2: everybody saw me here and there. I'd have to be
13:05
Speaker 2: superman to be in all those places around the same
13:08
Speaker 2: time and dressed differently, right, yes, each witness described me
13:12
Speaker 2: wearing something.
13:13
Speaker 1: Different, but based on all these crazy statements that they
13:17
Speaker 1: had to try to piece together. And I've seen the
13:19
Speaker 1: map that shows your movements on that morning, like I
13:22
Speaker 1: think I saw it in sixty minutes or something. It's like,
13:25
Speaker 1: it's so ridiculous. You were zigzagging all over town, according
13:27
Speaker 1: to in all different clothes. So they developed this crazy
13:31
Speaker 1: theory that motivated by the anger of this loss of
13:34
Speaker 1: this fantastic tardy furniture delivery job that you had, that
13:39
Speaker 1: you had walked all over town, stole Simpson's gun, walked home,
13:44
Speaker 1: walked back across town, shot it, killed the four victims,
13:48
Speaker 1: robbed the cash register, and then just tootled your way
13:52
Speaker 1: back home, my way. Not a care, not a cure
13:55
Speaker 1: in the world. Right now, we have to fast forward
13:57
Speaker 1: all the way. Sid January third teenth, nineteen ninety seven, Plano, Texas.
14:02
Speaker 1: So you moved to Plano Texas right yes, with your
14:05
Speaker 1: girlfriend MSUs Connie Moore. What happened that the time I.
14:09
Speaker 2: Was working from three to eleven and I got up
14:12
Speaker 2: to fix myself some lunch. There was a knock at
14:15
Speaker 2: the door, and right before I grabbed the door, I
14:17
Speaker 2: saw a movement you know, out the pat of your door.
14:20
Speaker 2: And you know it's what they call runners, you know
14:22
Speaker 2: who just in case you run. You know, they got
14:24
Speaker 2: guys set up to chase. So I opened the door
14:27
Speaker 2: and he said how are you doing? I said, I'm
14:30
Speaker 2: doing okay.
14:30
Speaker 1: How are you, sir?
14:32
Speaker 2: And he said I'm looking for Curtis Flowers. I said
14:35
Speaker 2: that would be me, And before I could say anything else,
14:38
Speaker 2: I was all against the wall.
14:40
Speaker 1: I'm talking about sheet.
14:41
Speaker 2: Rock mood upside my full head being cuffed and I said,
14:45
Speaker 2: may I ask why am I being arrested? He said, well,
14:48
Speaker 2: we have a warrant for your arrest back in Mississippi
14:51
Speaker 2: for four counts of captain murder.
15:01
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
15:05
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
15:09
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful pro bono legal assistance
15:13
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
15:16
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
15:20
Speaker 1: criminal justice area.
15:29
Speaker 2: They took me back to the Mississippi where I was
15:32
Speaker 2: put in jail in Lafour County, and that's where I
15:35
Speaker 2: sat until I went to trial in October of ninety seven.
15:38
Speaker 1: So you get charged with four counts of capital murder.
15:41
Speaker 1: Let's go to trial number one. Hard to believe that
15:44
Speaker 1: you had six damn trials. I mean, that's not a
15:47
Speaker 1: record that I think you ever wanted to hold or set.
15:49
Speaker 1: And it was not the winning So the first trial,
15:52
Speaker 1: they only tried you for one of the murder's birth Attartey,
15:55
Speaker 1: So I know your attorney had tried to combine them
15:57
Speaker 1: right into one case, but of course that was denied.
16:00
Speaker 1: Everything he tried was denied pretty much. So the trial
16:03
Speaker 1: was moved to Lee County and the jury was get
16:07
Speaker 1: ready all wait. Now, from what I understand, it was
16:11
Speaker 1: moved to Lee County because of extensive media coverage. Is
16:14
Speaker 1: that your understanding? That's what I heard.
16:15
Speaker 2: And then they claimed that I couldn't get a fair
16:18
Speaker 2: trial in my own hometown. Keep in mind, I went
16:21
Speaker 2: on it is forty five black What about Lee. I
16:25
Speaker 2: don't know the population there, but the blacks that were there,
16:29
Speaker 2: they didn't get on the juror. So it's due in
16:32
Speaker 2: his trial tactics, you know, right.
16:34
Speaker 1: And those are called peremptory challenges, right, which is the
16:37
Speaker 1: technical term for defendants or lawyer's objection to a proposed juror,
16:41
Speaker 1: which is made without needing to give a reason. But
16:44
Speaker 1: it is illegal to exclude jurors because of their race. Yes,
16:48
Speaker 1: so they had plenty of black jurors to choose from,
16:51
Speaker 1: they just didn't choose to put any of them on
16:53
Speaker 1: your jury exactly. So now magically the prosecution had found
16:57
Speaker 1: two more witnesses, and we hear this again and again
17:00
Speaker 1: right on this show. These are incentivized jail house nitches,
17:04
Speaker 1: Frederick Veal and Maurice Hawkins. And they both testified that
17:09
Speaker 1: you were their cellmate while you were waiting trial, and
17:12
Speaker 1: that you admitted to committing the crime. So jail house nitches,
17:16
Speaker 1: they are the most unreliable witnesses of all because they're
17:20
Speaker 1: all incentivized, and sometimes they lie about being incentivized while
17:23
Speaker 1: they're lying about overhearing these magical confessions. Right. So both
17:26
Speaker 1: of these two guys later recanted, We're just going to
17:29
Speaker 1: speculate that they may have gotten whatever they were going
17:32
Speaker 1: to get, they got reduced senses that got rewarded in
17:34
Speaker 1: some way. So now we get to Patricia Hallman, who
17:37
Speaker 1: was a neighbor of yours, and she testified that on
17:41
Speaker 1: the morning of the crime, around seven thirty am, she
17:44
Speaker 1: saw you going into your house in a rage. I
17:47
Speaker 1: can just picture her making up this story, okay. And
17:49
Speaker 1: other witnesses testified to seeing you at various times that morning,
17:53
Speaker 1: including Catherine Snow, who claimed that she saw you leaning
17:57
Speaker 1: against the car outside the factory where Simpson worked. Clemmy
18:01
Speaker 1: Fleming testified that she got a ride home from Roy
18:05
Speaker 1: Harris to go make a payment at Tardy Furniture, but
18:07
Speaker 1: she said she didn't go in because she was pregnant
18:09
Speaker 1: and feeling sick, so Harris drove her home. Now, why
18:12
Speaker 1: does that matter, because she said she saw you running
18:14
Speaker 1: away from the store, and Harris said he also saw
18:18
Speaker 1: someone running but only thought it was you because Fleming said,
18:22
Speaker 1: so this web is getting deep and deeper. So now
18:27
Speaker 1: comes Jack Matthews, an investigator for the Mississippi Highway State Patrol,
18:30
Speaker 1: who testified that based on a ledger sheet at Tardy Furniture,
18:34
Speaker 1: two hundred eighty seven dollars was missing from the cash straw. Now,
18:37
Speaker 1: they then came up with a theory, the two hundred
18:39
Speaker 1: and fifty five dollars that was found in Connie's home
18:42
Speaker 1: your girlfriend was the same money that was missing for
18:44
Speaker 1: the furniture store. Amazing, because no one else had two
18:47
Speaker 1: hundred dollars in it must have been the same two
18:50
Speaker 1: hundred dollars.
18:51
Speaker 2: And I thought that was so crazy. Is she not
18:53
Speaker 2: allowed to save money?
18:55
Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine most people in town had a little
18:58
Speaker 1: bit of cash in their house, like they could have said, hey, thing,
19:00
Speaker 1: I agree, could have been twenty dollars. Oh, here's the
19:02
Speaker 1: twenty from the store. What do you know? Amazing. I'm
19:08
Speaker 1: glad you could laugh about it because I'm about to cry.
19:10
Speaker 1: A forensic sometimes you have the lad keep him crying, Okay. Well,
19:14
Speaker 1: so then there was a forensic analyst who conducted the
19:18
Speaker 1: gunshot residue test on your hands, which magically produced one particle,
19:23
Speaker 1: who testified that the residue certainly had to be from
19:27
Speaker 1: handling a gun and not anything else. So this is
19:30
Speaker 1: a guy who didn't know what the fuck he was
19:31
Speaker 1: talking about, because we know that that's not true. True.
19:35
Speaker 1: Then Ballish testified, remember him from before, one hundred percent
19:39
Speaker 1: positive that the bullets recovered from the scene had been
19:41
Speaker 1: fired from Simpson's gun. But when testified about the ten
19:44
Speaker 1: and a half size feel a box found in her home,
19:46
Speaker 1: your girlfriend told the story that you had said right,
19:49
Speaker 1: She had purchased for her son in November of ninety five,
19:52
Speaker 1: and that her son took them when he moved to
19:54
Speaker 1: his father's in ninety six. They could have verified that
19:56
Speaker 1: if they cared exactly, you testified that he would start
20:00
Speaker 1: working at Tardi or July ninety six. What was your
20:03
Speaker 1: testimony with the batteries about, Like I.
20:05
Speaker 2: Told them, she sent me around to I think it
20:07
Speaker 2: was a tasko at the time who sold her the batteries. Now,
20:11
Speaker 2: my job was to just pick the batteries up and
20:13
Speaker 2: take them out to the country club, and they were
20:16
Speaker 2: going to put them on the golf carts. But you know,
20:18
Speaker 2: pulling off from a tasko to the battery slid out.
20:22
Speaker 2: He hit the payment and one was leaking the other one.
20:26
Speaker 2: There was nothing wrong with the battery other than you know,
20:28
Speaker 2: the ages got danged up on the concrete, and she said, well,
20:31
Speaker 2: just take them back around there and I'm gonna call
20:34
Speaker 2: and see if they give me some type of deal
20:35
Speaker 2: on them or replace them. If they can't, then you debt.
20:38
Speaker 2: I have to come out of your pain. I said,
20:40
Speaker 2: I have no problem with that, because I was you right.
20:43
Speaker 2: I spoke to time down no offense. But that's a
20:46
Speaker 2: boring ass story. I mean, yes it is.
20:50
Speaker 1: And it wasn't the only boring part of your day,
20:52
Speaker 1: because on the day of the crime, you also testified
20:55
Speaker 1: about getting up at nine cooking a little breakfast yeah,
20:58
Speaker 1: hand on a can of short yeah, the sister's house
21:01
Speaker 1: to get some bandages, and convenience store to buy some
21:03
Speaker 1: beer and chips. It really sounds like a very average,
21:06
Speaker 1: average day, average day. And you told them that you
21:09
Speaker 1: hadn't committed the crime, they hadn't stolen the gun, and
21:12
Speaker 1: that you hadn't been running near the store at ten am. True.
21:16
Speaker 1: You also told them, which was again easily verifiable, that
21:18
Speaker 1: you wore size eleven Nike shoes, and that you shot
21:22
Speaker 1: off fireworks the day before the murders and handled the
21:24
Speaker 1: lead car battery. I working on the truck, which you
21:27
Speaker 1: know you're not a scientist, but even you could figure
21:29
Speaker 1: out that these things could cause this, you know, confusion
21:32
Speaker 1: to the testing.
21:35
Speaker 2: Well, I later found that out. You know, I'm just
21:37
Speaker 2: being honest about what I did.
21:39
Speaker 1: And what about alibi witnesses? Do you have any alibi?
21:42
Speaker 2: But just at the first trial, only the keys, and
21:44
Speaker 2: they brewed that they didn't want to bring the keys
21:46
Speaker 2: in it because they were so young, you know, and
21:49
Speaker 2: dramatism or anything like that. But there was a few
21:52
Speaker 2: people wo knew my where about them. My cousin even
21:54
Speaker 2: come by the house and told me what was going on.
21:57
Speaker 2: He said, when I first heard it, all I thought
21:59
Speaker 2: about was you. I thought you got killed down there,
22:01
Speaker 2: so I can't over here to check on you.
22:03
Speaker 1: And then the jury deliberated for one whole hour, one
22:08
Speaker 1: whole hour, one hour. I can't imagine what that conversation
22:12
Speaker 1: was like. The all white jury convicted you in an hour,
22:16
Speaker 1: and later that day they went ahead and imposed the
22:18
Speaker 1: death penalty.
22:20
Speaker 2: Oh man, my word was turned upside down. Put it
22:24
Speaker 2: in this whole and parchment is I cannot describe portion
22:30
Speaker 2: to you. If you didn't have someone on the outside
22:37
Speaker 2: who love and support you, it was hard to maintain
22:41
Speaker 2: in there. Them guys just taking sheets and taking their
22:44
Speaker 2: own live and I've experienced that a lot while I
22:48
Speaker 2: was there. It's a bad place.
23:12
Speaker 1: So between Trot one and two the jail house niche
23:15
Speaker 1: mister Veale recanted his testimony, saying that he had been
23:18
Speaker 1: coerced by the prosecution and promised a piece of the reward.
23:21
Speaker 1: But Hawkins stood by his testimony. But when your attorney
23:25
Speaker 1: confronted him with the transcript of an interview he had
23:28
Speaker 1: done during which he never talked about you. In the transcript,
23:33
Speaker 1: he said that he testified quote to protect myself from
23:37
Speaker 1: doing time and getting killed end quote. In exchange for
23:40
Speaker 1: his testimony, very important, Hawkins's cocaine charge was dropped and
23:44
Speaker 1: he got house arrests for burglary. I guess that mister
23:48
Speaker 1: Hawkins was a black man. Did they typically give black
23:51
Speaker 1: men house arrest for burglary in Mississippi? No, I need
23:55
Speaker 1: to answer that question. I just wanted to hear you
23:57
Speaker 1: say it, okay. So while the first conviction was being appealed,
24:02
Speaker 1: a second trial occurred and it was moved to Harrison County,
24:06
Speaker 1: and this second trial was for the murder of Derek
24:08
Speaker 1: Bobo Stewart. This time the jury was made up of
24:12
Speaker 1: eleven white jurors and one black juror, so they managed
24:16
Speaker 1: to get one on there this time, but that didn't
24:18
Speaker 1: help either. But in this trial, Roy Harris, the guy
24:22
Speaker 1: who allegedly took Connie Fleming, remember her by the Tarti's
24:26
Speaker 1: Furniture store. Yes, he testified again, but this time he
24:30
Speaker 1: said that he saw a man running in downtown Winona
24:32
Speaker 1: at nine am instead of ten am, and it Miss
24:35
Speaker 1: Fleming was not with him, which was a totally different
24:38
Speaker 1: story than he had told the first time. Well, so
24:41
Speaker 1: he was trying to have in trouble remembering his own lie,
24:43
Speaker 1: so he said that an hour later. It is hard
24:45
Speaker 1: when you lie to remember them sometimes, so he said
24:50
Speaker 1: that an hour later, around ten, Fleming had asked him
24:52
Speaker 1: to take her to Tardi Furniture, but she changed her mind.
24:54
Speaker 1: They turned around before even arriving, another change, so nothing
24:58
Speaker 1: was consistent. So Cleming flemings is cousins Latarsha Blissett and
25:01
Speaker 1: Stacy Wright both testified that Fleming admitted to them that
25:05
Speaker 1: she had not seen you running from the store. Fleming's
25:08
Speaker 1: sister Mary Ella also testified, saying that Fleming came to
25:12
Speaker 1: her house on the morning of the murders, and a
25:14
Speaker 1: friend stopped over to tell them that Bertha Tarti had
25:16
Speaker 1: been killed. Mary Ella testified that she and Fleming went
25:19
Speaker 1: to Tardi Furniture, but that Fleming never mentioned seeing you
25:22
Speaker 1: that morning. There's so many holes in this like Swiss cheese.
25:27
Speaker 1: A few pieces defense also called your defense called O'Dell
25:30
Speaker 1: Homman Junior, who was the brother of Patricia Hammond who
25:33
Speaker 1: testified in the first trial, and Odell mister Holman Junior,
25:36
Speaker 1: who was imprisoned on a provation violation for aggravated assault,
25:39
Speaker 1: testified that Patricia was lying, doing so at his suggestion
25:43
Speaker 1: in an attempt to cash in on the reward. The
25:45
Speaker 1: pieces are just falling off this puzzle, you know they are. Nonetheless,
25:50
Speaker 1: you were convicted again on March thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine,
25:53
Speaker 1: convicted of capital murder and got death penalty again. So
25:57
Speaker 1: now we get to the reversals. In December of two thousand,
26:00
Speaker 1: the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed your first conviction in ordered
26:05
Speaker 1: a new trial. Now, no mention was made of the
26:07
Speaker 1: racially biased jury selection, which is odd, but they did
26:11
Speaker 1: hold that your trial was unfair because the prosecution presented
26:15
Speaker 1: evidence of all four murders when you were only being
26:18
Speaker 1: tried for the murder of Miss Tardy. This led to
26:21
Speaker 1: the jury's exposure to inflammatory and prejudicial evidence. Sure, they
26:25
Speaker 1: thought you were like a mass killer, right, they were
26:28
Speaker 1: probably scared to you. The court also noted that Evans's
26:32
Speaker 1: cross examination included questions that had no basis in fact
26:35
Speaker 1: and that were in poor faith. Evans also presented information
26:39
Speaker 1: that was never in evidence. Now for the Mississippi Supreme
26:42
Speaker 1: Court to say, it's pretty strong. So in April two
26:45
Speaker 1: thousand and three, now, the Mississippi Supreme Court also reversed
26:49
Speaker 1: your conviction for mister Stewart's murder. The court found the
26:52
Speaker 1: same issues in the first trial, naturally because it was
26:54
Speaker 1: the same prosecutor. They're in the same dirty tricks, emphasizing
26:57
Speaker 1: that your right to a fair trial was impossible due
26:59
Speaker 1: to the prosecution including evidence from the other murders. But
27:01
Speaker 1: still they didn't mention the racially biased jury selection, which
27:04
Speaker 1: would seem to be the most obvious thing of all.
27:07
Speaker 1: But at least they got it right for the Well,
27:09
Speaker 1: they didn't get all the reasons, but they got it
27:11
Speaker 1: right for one of the reasons or two of the reason,
27:13
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But due to these two reversals, the
27:17
Speaker 1: prosecution now decided they would do what your defense larder
27:19
Speaker 1: to ask for all his years ago, which was to
27:21
Speaker 1: consolidate the four cases. So trial three February two thousand
27:24
Speaker 1: and four. Now you're being tried for all four murders.
27:26
Speaker 1: This trial was held, was held. This was held in
27:31
Speaker 1: Montgomery County. Now why is it? Why are we laughing?
27:33
Speaker 2: Because that's when it started. They moved it out of
27:36
Speaker 2: one owner and it brought it back to one on them.
27:39
Speaker 2: So now all of a sudden, it's okay to try
27:40
Speaker 2: you back? And why knowing okay?
27:42
Speaker 1: During jury selection, the prosecution used seven of their challenges
27:47
Speaker 1: to get rid of black jurors. The defense objected correctly,
27:50
Speaker 1: contending that it was racially motivated, could have been a coincidence,
27:54
Speaker 1: but sure liked. The prosecution then used its remaining five
27:58
Speaker 1: run three challenges black people as well. The jury was
28:02
Speaker 1: ultimately composed, you guessed it, eleven white jurors and one
28:07
Speaker 1: black juror. Yes, And the one black person that managed
28:11
Speaker 1: to get on this jury was only selected because again,
28:15
Speaker 1: I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, because you're going
28:17
Speaker 1: to know this before I say it, But it's because
28:20
Speaker 1: they ran out of parentory challenges. The prosecution couldn't get
28:23
Speaker 1: rid of the last black person, so that person was
28:28
Speaker 1: put on the jury, and the court ruled that this
28:32
Speaker 1: was not racially discriminatory, that they just happened to use
28:34
Speaker 1: all twelve of their challenges to get rid of black people.
28:37
Speaker 1: Crazy coincidence, though, say, and this trial was similar to
28:43
Speaker 1: the first two, but this time mister Hammond Junior, remember
28:46
Speaker 1: Odell Hollmon Junior, testified for the prosecution. He said that
28:49
Speaker 1: while he was in prison, you confessed to him that
28:51
Speaker 1: you committed the murders. And it wasn't until much later
28:55
Speaker 1: that we found out what his little deal was. Right, Yes,
28:59
Speaker 1: and it's crazy, right because everybody that watches TV knows
29:03
Speaker 1: you can't bribe a witness, right you go to jail
29:06
Speaker 1: for that shit you do. But they don't. They can
29:08
Speaker 1: drive all the witnesses they want, all they want, and
29:11
Speaker 1: they got better bribes than anybody the outside could possibly have.
29:13
Speaker 1: I don't care if you go to somebody who say
29:14
Speaker 1: I give you a million knowledge, testify the way I
29:17
Speaker 1: want you to, they can say I'll let you out
29:19
Speaker 1: of prison. Exactly in his case. That's what happened. Oh boy. Okay,
29:23
Speaker 1: So February two thousand and four, the jury convicted you
29:27
Speaker 1: of all four council capital murder and your sentenced to
29:30
Speaker 1: death again. Harder believe you're sitting here as many times
29:32
Speaker 1: you even sends to death here. You strike me as
29:35
Speaker 1: easy to love and hard to kill. But that's just me, okay. Anyway,
29:41
Speaker 1: Three years later, on February first, two thousand and seven,
29:45
Speaker 1: here goes again. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the convictions
29:48
Speaker 1: again and order the new trial. The court found that
29:51
Speaker 1: prosecution was racially discriminatory in jury selection, this time, noting
29:54
Speaker 1: that the case was and I quote, as strong as
29:57
Speaker 1: a prima facie case of racial discriminated as we have
30:00
Speaker 1: ever seen. That's powerful in Mississippi or anywhere. But that's crazy.
30:05
Speaker 1: So okay, now they try you again. Call me kookie,
30:08
Speaker 1: But I don't think the same prosecutor should be allowed
30:10
Speaker 1: to just keep trying the same personal true again. I
30:12
Speaker 1: think that might be some way you want to take
30:14
Speaker 1: a look at. But age this time, the jury consisted
30:16
Speaker 1: of seven white and five black jurors.
30:18
Speaker 2: They gave me a little hope.
30:19
Speaker 1: Now, December fifth, two thousand and seven, a mistrial was
30:22
Speaker 1: declared as the jury could not reach a verdict and
30:25
Speaker 1: get ready for another shocker surprise ending seven white members
30:30
Speaker 1: of the jury voted to convict and the five black
30:33
Speaker 1: members voted to a quit. I don't even have the
30:35
Speaker 1: right words for that. So here comes trial number five
30:38
Speaker 1: September two thousand and eight. This time the jury was
30:41
Speaker 1: made up of nine white and three black members. The
30:45
Speaker 1: jury ended up in another mistrial, this time voting eleven
30:49
Speaker 1: to one to convict. The one dissenting person was a
30:52
Speaker 1: black person. And comes trial number six in summer of
30:54
Speaker 1: twenty ten, and this time the jury was composed of
30:58
Speaker 1: eleven white and one black member, and they found you
31:02
Speaker 1: guilty on all four counts of capital murder again on
31:06
Speaker 1: June eighteenth to twenty ten, and sentenced you to death again.
31:10
Speaker 1: And now we get to the post post post post post.
31:16
Speaker 1: It took me a long time just to say everything.
31:18
Speaker 1: You had to live its conviction litigation. So you were
31:21
Speaker 1: represented now by ker Weeble and Jerry Lynn Johnson from
31:26
Speaker 1: the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Clinic, and they appealed
31:28
Speaker 1: your conviction. In twenty fourteen, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld
31:33
Speaker 1: the convictions and death sentences it The team sought review
31:37
Speaker 1: in the US Supreme Court, and in twenty sixteen, they
31:42
Speaker 1: ordered the Mississippi Supreme Court to review the possibly racially
31:46
Speaker 1: discriminatory jury selection. In November twenty seventeen, it was ruled
31:51
Speaker 1: I'm getting the chills again. It was ruled by a
31:53
Speaker 1: five to four vote that there was no discrimination. True,
32:00
Speaker 1: the most polite way I can think of to say,
32:03
Speaker 1: this is, what the fuck are they talking about? Well,
32:10
Speaker 1: I think I did say it that way. You would
32:12
Speaker 1: out for hear that, you know, sayd it really is.
32:17
Speaker 1: But your team appealed to the US Supreme Court again,
32:21
Speaker 1: and this is when American Public Media APM started their investigation.
32:26
Speaker 1: And they did as we talked about the podcast in
32:28
Speaker 1: the Dark, And this podcast began in May twenty eighteen,
32:34
Speaker 1: and it was a big hit, a big, big hit,
32:36
Speaker 1: big hit, and the things they uncovered are shocking. Fleming
32:42
Speaker 1: now said her testimonies and all of the trial were liies.
32:45
Speaker 1: She confessed that quote the whole this is her quote.
32:48
Speaker 1: The whole time I've been telling them, I don't remember
32:50
Speaker 1: the day. The whole time I've been telling them. I
32:52
Speaker 1: don't remember the day. I've been confused of the day
32:55
Speaker 1: from the beginning. I just didn't know how to say it.
32:57
Speaker 1: I was scared I was going to jail. Wow okay.
33:04
Speaker 1: Odell Hallman also recanting, saying that everything was all make
33:08
Speaker 1: believe on his part, and he also said that Evans
33:11
Speaker 1: dropped the drug charges penning against him and offered him
33:15
Speaker 1: other legal assistants. Roy Harris, who was the friend and
33:18
Speaker 1: driver of Clemmy Fleming, told the podcast that police had
33:22
Speaker 1: showed him a photo of you, and Harris said that
33:25
Speaker 1: the man he saw running away was not you exactly,
33:30
Speaker 1: and eventually he thought he was going to get arrested
33:33
Speaker 1: if he didn't say it was you, so he did.
33:35
Speaker 1: Edward McChristian also recanted his testimony that he was sitting
33:39
Speaker 1: on the porch at seven thirty eight am when you
33:41
Speaker 1: supposedly allegedly walked past his house from dear uncle Doyle
33:45
Speaker 1: Simpson's workplace, the garment factory, where the testimony had tied
33:50
Speaker 1: you to the alleged stolen gun. So all those lies
33:53
Speaker 1: are now unraveling. So in June twenty nineteen, the US
33:58
Speaker 1: Supreme Court reversed your convictions and death SeNSS by a
34:02
Speaker 1: vote of seven to two, seven to two. That's amazing.
34:06
Speaker 1: It ruled that the prosecution had engaged in racially discriminatory
34:10
Speaker 1: jury selection because they had struck forty one of the
34:14
Speaker 1: forty two black prospective jurors in the sixth trials combined.
34:18
Speaker 1: So Sherry Lynn Johnson had made the argument that led
34:21
Speaker 1: to the US Supreme Court decision to reverse. She argued
34:24
Speaker 1: that your case should be dismissed and not brought to
34:26
Speaker 1: a seventh trial. Should be obvious to anybody as you
34:29
Speaker 1: had already spent over twenty years now on death row,
34:34
Speaker 1: and that the evidence against you was basically advantished. It
34:37
Speaker 1: was non existent. It never had existed. But that is
34:41
Speaker 1: just proven that it had never existed. The Washington DC
34:43
Speaker 1: law firm of Hogan Lovel's, as well as the friend
34:46
Speaker 1: of the show, the director of the Mississippi Innocence Project,
34:49
Speaker 1: Tucker Carrington, the Mississippi Office of Post Conviction Council got involved,
34:53
Speaker 1: as well as attorney's Rob McDuff we know him, and
34:55
Speaker 1: Henderson Hill. They all began preparing for a possible retroal.
35:00
Speaker 1: Now you had the Dream Team training team Avengers. Yes,
35:04
Speaker 1: and on December sixteenth, twenty nineteen, you were finally released
35:08
Speaker 1: the home confinement to wait for your seventh trial. This
35:12
Speaker 1: had been almost twenty three years in prison, right right
35:15
Speaker 1: in twenty three. What do you remember about that day?
35:17
Speaker 2: I was nervous, you know, you know, I'd have been
35:20
Speaker 2: so close to home out of all the years and
35:22
Speaker 2: never made it, you know. And at that time, I
35:25
Speaker 2: was like, I don't see him giving me bail by
35:28
Speaker 2: letting me go home, you know, until they decide what
35:31
Speaker 2: they want to do, whether they want to have a
35:32
Speaker 2: seventh trial or not. But we got in the courtroom,
35:36
Speaker 2: you know, and Doug Gibson didn't even show up that day.
35:38
Speaker 2: He sent his assistant judge Lober talking, and he got
35:42
Speaker 2: started in about Doug the DA not showing up. You know,
35:46
Speaker 2: I would expect him to be here, you know. And
35:49
Speaker 2: and the more he talked, the better I felt. The
35:52
Speaker 2: more he talked about Doug. And then he said, you know,
35:56
Speaker 2: at this time, you know, I am going to grant Ball.
35:59
Speaker 1: Where'd you're going? Tex? Back to the plane on plane on
36:01
Speaker 1: to your sisters. Yes, what was your first meal when
36:04
Speaker 1: you got out? Oh? Man?
36:06
Speaker 2: So I had fried fish, catfish, hush puppet French fried
36:11
Speaker 2: cold saw and he was a funny thing too, because
36:15
Speaker 2: we were in the restroom, me and my brother in law.
36:17
Speaker 2: It has been like seven to eight other guys. So
36:20
Speaker 2: I'm standing at the urinal and you know, related myself.
36:23
Speaker 2: So I get through, I'm looking for the handle, and
36:28
Speaker 2: everybody was saying, just just walk away. I said, no,
36:30
Speaker 2: that's rude. You don't leak in a urinar and just
36:32
Speaker 2: walk away. I said, leat it on that start smelling,
36:34
Speaker 2: you know, everybody, hey, just walk away.
36:37
Speaker 1: I stepped back.
36:37
Speaker 2: He flushed itself and I had to walk back up
36:40
Speaker 2: to it and look at it, you know. And one
36:42
Speaker 2: of the guys in there, the white guy, he said,
36:44
Speaker 2: I don't know where you being, but you've been going
36:46
Speaker 2: for a long time. I said, yes, I have, and
36:51
Speaker 2: I'm washing my hand. And as my brother in law
36:54
Speaker 2: walked back through the restaurant drive my hands and everything,
36:57
Speaker 2: people were just stopping me. It's gonna be okay. And
37:00
Speaker 2: I guess they went back got and told their wives
37:02
Speaker 2: and everything about what happened in the bathroom, you know,
37:05
Speaker 2: and people were just telling me it's gonna be okay. Yes,
37:09
Speaker 2: I mean, it was funny and emotion at the same time.
37:13
Speaker 1: On December sixteenth, twenty nineteen, you were released to home
37:17
Speaker 1: confinement waiting for the seventh trial, like we talked about.
37:21
Speaker 1: And then in January twenty twenty, Evans stepped off the
37:26
Speaker 1: case and the Attorney General's office began reviewing it. So
37:31
Speaker 1: and sure enough, on September fourth, twenty twenty, Mississippi Attorney
37:35
Speaker 1: General Lynn Fitch announced that the charges were going to
37:37
Speaker 1: be dismissed, and you stated, I'm now I'm going to
37:40
Speaker 1: quote you, even though you're sitting right here in front
37:42
Speaker 1: of me. Today, I am finally free from the injustice
37:45
Speaker 1: that left me locked in a box for twenty three years.
37:50
Speaker 2: I felt like doing flips, and you know, big guy
37:53
Speaker 2: like me shouldn't be doing flips. But it happened, as
37:58
Speaker 2: I can't even describe here. George Loeper say, you know
38:04
Speaker 2: I dismissed this case with prejudice. Yes, and you know,
38:09
Speaker 2: and at the time the words didn't even wring on me.
38:11
Speaker 2: And someone told me, he said, when he said with prejudice,
38:15
Speaker 2: that means that they can never try you again.
38:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's beautiful, And it's funny because prejudice is usually
38:22
Speaker 1: a bad word. Only instance I could think of when
38:24
Speaker 1: it's a good word. Yes. So in the meantime, it's
38:27
Speaker 1: great to see you out here living your best life married,
38:31
Speaker 1: you know, traveling. What can our listeners do to show support.
38:35
Speaker 2: I do have a gofund me out there, so.
38:37
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll have it linked in the bio. So now,
38:40
Speaker 1: mister Flowers, we have a segment of our show that
38:45
Speaker 1: I love the most, which is called Closing Arguments. It
38:49
Speaker 1: works like this. First of all, I again thank you
38:52
Speaker 1: for just being you and being here in the studio
38:56
Speaker 1: with me. And then I turned my microphone off, kick
38:59
Speaker 1: back in my chair and sometimes I close my eyes
39:02
Speaker 1: and just listen to anything else you have to say.
39:05
Speaker 1: It's called closing arguments, and you have the mic and
39:08
Speaker 1: you can just talk about anything you think you want
39:11
Speaker 1: to share.
39:12
Speaker 2: Well, I would first like to thank you all for
39:14
Speaker 2: having me, and I think you also got all right.
39:17
Speaker 2: I really do and look forward to hanging out with you.
39:20
Speaker 2: So all the listeners are I asked that we strive
39:26
Speaker 2: for change, you know, and make this a better place.
39:30
Speaker 2: I think we all should get along and love one
39:34
Speaker 2: another and not hate for no reason at all. You know,
39:42
Speaker 2: I'm a laid back guy. I'm easy to get it along.
39:44
Speaker 2: With I would like to send shout out to all
39:48
Speaker 2: the victim's family and I hope one day soon that
39:54
Speaker 2: they find the real guy.
40:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm.
40:08
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
40:11
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
40:13
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
40:16
Speaker 1: Clyburn and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show, as always,
40:20
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
40:24
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
40:27
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
40:31
Speaker 1: Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
40:34
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one