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584: #584 Jason Flom with Tysheem Crocker · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:04 Speaker 1: Hey, it's Connor Hall, senior producer for Wrongful Conviction, back with another case update and more behind the scenes insights. And this time we're talking about Taysheim Crocker and more broadly about post conviction procedure in Pennsylvania. Now, Taysheim's story reminds me a bit of the guy who brought us his case, another previous guest, and somebody I'm lucky to call a friend, Lorenzo Johnson. Both of these guys and their friends were just kids who were fleeing the late Crack epidemic era in the Bronx for what they were hoping were safe for pastures in Pennsylvania, only to find new threats to their lives and freedom. I'll link Lorenzo's story in the episode description where in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Lorenzo and the other new arrivals from the Bronx were well aware of how the local law met felt about them. And then there was certainly added racial motivation in his story when Lorenzo's co defendant, Corey, happened to be dating the daughter of the investigator in their case. Yeah, that's exactly how it sounds. And then in Tyshiem's case, when shots rang out at an October nineteen ninety seven dice game in York, Pennsylvania. The murder of Raymond skip Clark seems to have become an opportunity to again take down as many kids from the Bronx as possible, when the likely shooter, Danny Steele, became the state's star witness, saying that he had planned the shooting at a motel with four or five others, including Tyshiem, Crocker and Melvin Bethune, who were alleged to have attended the motel meeting, pointed guns at a guy named Ken du Smith at the dice game, but their guns jammed, and then after everyone scattered, a fictional character named Corleone and a few others chased and shot Raymond skip Clark a few blocks away, and that testimony got Danny Steele two to five years instead of life like Melvin and Tyshem got for their role in the alleged conspiracy and accomplished liability to that murder. But in two thousand and three Tayshim discovered the deal made with Danny Steele which would have impeached him, and then Danny Steele recanted. In two thousand and five, but that was deemed not credible, only to be corroborated ten years later by Ken Duce Smith, who said that Taysheem and Melvin never pointed guns at him or anyone at the dice game, but there was still another witness who had held that position. Another five years down the road, Taysheem's team found the motel clerk who had checked them in, importantly, about an hour after the shooting, so this conspiracy meeting narrative fell apart. There was also a phone call from their room to Melvin's girlfriend Tucker Redman, allegedly made before the shooting. It was allegedly overheard by another girl named Nicki Rhoades. The prosecution said in opening and closing statements that Melvin had relayed the alleged plot over the phone before the shooting. Neither of the girls wherever called to the stand, but the existence of this phone call was raised in court. It seems purposely without a time stamped call log, which would have shown a time for after the shooting when they were checked into this motel. Now, since our coverage in twenty twenty three, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project has taken over Taishiem's case, and both women have sworn statements that the prosecution's assertions but the phone call were lies, as corroborated by the motel clerk and the time of the check in. Additionally, the remaining witness who claimed to see Tayshim and Melvin with guns has also now recanted, saying that he received a deal for himself and a girlfriend in unrelated charges for that testimony. Then another alleged witness, an ear witness, has also recanted, saying that he had caved to pressure from police and his family to say that he could identify Taysheim at the scene from the sound of his voice. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, who should have ever given a shit about that last one? As well as why the hell are Taishiem and Melvin still in prison? The case for their innocence had already been laid out in court over time, but in Pennsylvania post conviction timing is everything when it comes to newly discovered evidence. For starters in Pennsylvania to be considered newly discovered evidence and open an avenue to a new trial, the evidence could not have been discoverable with due diligence at the time of trial. So if something was in the public record or even in the universe at the time of trial, say a witness like Kendu Smith or a motel clerk's timesheet, but know that evidence was just simply not investigated, discovered, and or raised, well, that can't be considered newly discovered evidence, no matter how earth shattering it is. So okay, that's the defense attorney's fault, right, And in most states one could claim ineffective assistance of trial council and they open up an avenue for a new trial. But in Pennsylvania, if that isn't raised on direct appeal, well, then the defendant's only option is to then claim ineffective assistance of appellate council in their first post conviction motion. And if they don't do that the ineffective assistance avenue, that's closed. Again. No matter how earth shattering the evidence, the issue cannot be raised on a successive post conviction motion, even if said evidence was only discovered so many years after their first post conviction motion. And then to diminish the avenues further up until twenty eighteen, any evidence that passed the other qualification for newly discovered evidence had to be filed within sixty days of discovery. Now you have a whole year. But even with the increased window of three hundred and five whole days, often evidence of innocence is more impactful in the context of other evidence that only comes to light so many years later, like ken Do Smith's testimony supporting Danny Steele's recantation. Without ken Do, it's pretty easy to just call your own witness, Danny Steele, a liar, especially after he changed his story from what he had sworn in court. But what if can do Smith, the motel clerk, and now two more witnesses from the scene, as well as Tucker Redman, Nicky Rhodes and telephone call logs that would show that the prosecution at the very least didn't know what they were talking about when they said that these phone calls happened before the shooting, All of those things together supporting the recantation of their star witness. What if that could finally be heard at one evidentiary hearing, like in other states, where you can file a post conviction motion based on actual innocence, and if granted, then the procedural time bars are lifted and the court can finally hear the preponderance of evidence of a defendant's innocence. Well, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it doesn't have anything like that yet. I think Virginia's pretty much in the same boat. So guys like Taishim Melvin, in way too many others to name, just out of options and their cases reach a point of legal finality. Now, we've been talking about pardoning power being the fail safe, but that can be quite a long shot when you throw a career minded governor in with a population plagued by misinformation or just low information. So when you hear Taisheim and Melvin's story, I want you to think about whether the concept of finality is more important than bringing the right person to justice. I guess that one's kind of obvious. And again, whether we can trust career minded politicians to be the fail safe when law enforcement and the courts reach finality without the deserving party and custody. I'm not the praying type, so it's strange for me that prayer feels like the only option for Taisheim and Melvin for some kind of intervention. And I'm just not sure what that even looks like, but it feels like someone or something he's gonna have to summon unusual courage. 00:08:16 Speaker 2: In October nineteen ninety seven, two overlapping groups of friends from New York, one known as the Cream Team and the other is the Gods, were living in York, Pennsylvania. Three of these young men were Danny Steele, Melvin Bethune, and Tysheen Crocker. On October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, at a corner dice game, Melvin and Taysheem spoke to another New York guy about a previous beef when gunshots rang out and the crowd dispersed, but no one was hurt until about five minutes later and two blocks away, when a young man named Raymond Clark had been fatally shot. When the investigation of the murder led to Danny Steele, he told the police that Raymond's death was part of a larger organized action involving a disagreement between rival New York gangs. At the dice game, that Melbourne and Taishim had rounded up some muscle from back in New York, including Steel and three others, to confront the opposing gang, the Gods. In the lead up to this confrontation, they allegedly checked into a motel and hatched a plan that allegedly resulted in the death of Raymond Clarke. Clearly, local law enforcement had only one choice to believe Danny Steele and do their part on the front lines of America's war on drugs by taking as many of these New York gangsters off their streets as they possibly could. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to raeful conviction. Today, we're going to cover a case in which the soul assailant who is responsible for the murder got off with less than three years for giving false testimony against two innocent men. And I'm going to introduce one of those men now. He's calling in from a maxim security. President in Pennsylvania tayshim, Crocker, even though I hate the reason why you're at where you're at, but I got to say, I'm really happy and honor to have you. 00:10:11 Speaker 3: I'm glad i'm here. Thank you, Thank you for having me. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: You're most welcome, and with him is his post conviction pro bono attorney Latsia Shaviz Free Latsia, welcome to the show. 00:10:22 Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. 00:10:23 Speaker 2: Jason, You're also very welcome, So tayshim, This crime happened in Pennsylvania, but you're not from there, originally from the Bronx, right, So tell me a little bit about your childhood. 00:10:32 Speaker 3: I was born to a teenage mother. My mom was sixteen, you know, she wasn't ready to be a mother year, so she picked me in forced to kid and I spent my first four years out in Queens. It was like eighty one. She decided she wanted to be back. I moved back to the Bronx. It was rough, we were we were pull. I was pretty much terrified at my mom. That was like the only person I was scared around. The Asian twelve. I was back and forced to kid out of a presidence. I just became a. 00:11:04 Speaker 4: Sweet kid, so tayshim. He had a pretty hard life and was living in the Bronx. You know, this is at the height of the crack epidemic. Friends of his are literally dying. 00:11:15 Speaker 3: I went off the Yoka because my best friend had just got cute. I was fourteen, he was fifteen when he got cute. The next day, another one of my closest friends got cute, and I was all for the opportunity to go to York. So I jumped on the bus and went out there. 00:11:33 Speaker 2: What did you do to support yourself to survive out there? 00:11:35 Speaker 3: I started askling. I started taking pass from people older dues. 00:11:39 Speaker 2: So this is the sort of thing where you did the dirty work for the older guys, because in theory, at least a miner wouldn't get into that much trouble, right, that's how it goes. 00:11:47 Speaker 4: So it's my understanding that he's a pretty low level drug dealer, him and a lot of the kids. He also runs with a group of young people known as like the Cream Team. And you know, there's several groups, but two of them are called the Gods and the other ones the Cream Team. The District Attorney's office tried to paint this as some gang, but really Cream just means cash rules everything around me. 00:12:12 Speaker 2: So they were Wu Tang fans, yes, And I mean anyone who's aware of Wu Tang Cash rules everything around me is probably there could be their most iconic song and terms like gods and earths. Some of the members of Wu Tang are really into the theories of the five percent nation where those terms come from, and we could get into all of that on a totally different podcast. But Wu Tang had just come out with their debut album, Entered the thirty six Chambers in nineteen ninety three. So guys like Tayshim and Melbourne that was the soundtrack of their childhood. 00:12:40 Speaker 3: The Cream Team and the guys were once the kids from the block. We was rolling up together, we know, to the same school, eat party together, and we ended up in Pennsylvania. 00:12:51 Speaker 2: The Hustler, So were you on the radar of the York Police before all of this happened? 00:12:56 Speaker 3: I talked about a week in prison for a couple of bags in marijuana that was like eight up there. It was like. 00:13:01 Speaker 2: Fortyrand forty fucking grand for some weed. Jesus well, I mean, this was the nineties when the War on drugs was in full swing. It still is, unfortunately to a large extent. And if you're listening to us right now, you might want to check out our new series called The War on Drugs. We're gonna have it linked in the bio. Check it out the War on Drugs podcast. And back then, as we've seen time and again on this program, even involving a low level drug deal and could make that person a target for a wrongful conviction. So let's get to early October nineteen ninety seven and the lead up to this dice game and the shooting. There was some actual beef that had started a few days before between your co defendant, Melvin Bethune and a friend of this guy, can Do Smith, and this served as an allegend motive for what happened later. But this was kind of like a small time beef, right. 00:13:49 Speaker 3: There was no conflict that rules to the level of one and take. 00:13:53 Speaker 2: A life, right, and Kendo Smith wasn't the victim anyway, but rather a guy named Raymond skip Clark, who I'm guessing was one of the gods as well. 00:14:02 Speaker 3: No, he wasn't a member of the Gods. He wasn't even friends with Smith that I know of that night. No guys were at this dice game, makes sense, can Do Smith. 00:14:12 Speaker 2: So the states theory about a beef between the Gods and the Cream team is not holding up so far. It's full of holes. But this beef, however, inconsequential, was something you intended to bring up with ken Do Smith when you saw him at the dice game. This was October fifth, nineteen ninety seven, on the corner of Maple and Duke in New York, Pennsylvania, where there was a regular dice game. Ken do Smith was there as well as Melvin Bethune Danny Steele. You had just got back from the Bronx and a bit before eleven pm you arrived at the game, and Raymond Clarke was there as well. 00:14:42 Speaker 3: I never saw Raymond Clark that that, but according to court documents, he was at the dice game. He was playing games. I got to the dice game and I told the work I needed to talk to him. Before we could talk, a shot was fired. He ran and I dug No one knows who fired that shot. It came from behind me when I ducked in a land you know. It was more shotsified. No one was injured. Approximately five to seven minutes later than two blocks away. According to the shots Rush Gript, more shots we fire. That is who Raymond Clark was shot at, not as the Dunce game. 00:15:20 Speaker 2: So not only had you not even seen the victim at the dice game, but at this point you had no idea that anyone had even gotten hurt. So shots were fired, everyone scattered, total chaos. Did you have a clue? Did anyone have a clue why this was even happening. 00:15:34 Speaker 4: There was essentially no serious beef at the time where they feel like they should be targeted for any reason. But they're taking off because there's gunfire and they know what gunfire. 00:15:45 Speaker 3: Can do, so when they got a hotel. 00:15:48 Speaker 2: But according to the state's theory, you checked into the hotel before going to the dice game before Raymond Clark's death, sometime between like ten and eleven PM. 00:15:57 Speaker 3: That is what they wanted the jewry and the quote they believe I kept him to the Super Eighth at about twelve thirty one in the morning. I let Mel know where I was going, I let Danny know where I was going, and they spent the night with me. 00:16:12 Speaker 2: And at that point, not only did you not know that Skip Clark was dead, but you also didn't know that your boy Danny Steele was about to use a shared room at the Super eight as a premise for a false statement, which really ends up being the basis of the state's entire case. And we'll get to that in a bit. But first, letitia, what did we know about the initial investigation, Like how did they even end up coming upon Danny? 00:16:34 Speaker 4: So we have no idea exactly what happened Tyshim's lawyer, the person who would have gotten the box of evidence or whatever he's passed when we go to Melvin's attorney. This is over twenty plus years ago. He doesn't have that. 00:16:49 Speaker 2: Box, so the usual trough of information was not available. But what we do know about this incident is that there were a thought of witnesses, some of whom spoke with you and your lead investigator, Kitty Haley Way later in twenty twenty one. 00:17:02 Speaker 4: Well, what we find out later is that Raymond Clark, he's found with drugs on his person, and it is noted that he apparently owed Danny Steele some money. 00:17:14 Speaker 3: Turns out maybe, I think like a week after that, Danny was interrogated in. 00:17:19 Speaker 2: The lasting and at least four people have testified both the trial and in post conviction that Danny Steele was the shooter. So that should have been it, but instead a story and a strategy was being concocted with Danny Steele in order to drag more people down the rabbit hole with him turning this tragedy into an opportunity for the authorities to sweep the streets from those they considered undesirable namely Melvin and Taysheen, who for months went about their lives, eventually hearing about Raymond Clark's death and having no idea that one of their friends, Danny, was saving himself from life in prison at their expense by creating this phony narrative in which members of the Cream team met at the Super eight Motel and conspired tired to confront the gods at this dice game about the beef with Melvin, and This group allegedly included Taishim, Melvin, Danny, and three other men from New York, one of whom was named Corleone. 00:18:10 Speaker 3: Coleon was a made up figure. Danny still made up Coolion so he could tend this homicide on somebody. He made Coleon a shooter. 00:18:19 Speaker 4: It's like they sat around and watched The Godfather and then went and tried a case. That's how it feels. Some guy named Corleone who's never been identified, and some other guys from New York, they all go to the Super eight Motel and they want blood for what happened to Melvin yesterday. Melvin was disrespected or something, and they want blood. So they're all going to get guns from a friend's house. And then they're going to go down there and shoot up the gods at a dice game. 00:18:45 Speaker 2: Now, the theory continued that in order to arrive at the dice game before the shootings took place around eleven thirty pm, this alleged crew of Muscle from the Bronx had to have checked into the Super eight Motel by ten thirty pm or earlier in order to have time for thirty to sixty minute plotting session as well as picking up the guns. But when they arrived at the dice game, Taysheem allegedly pointed a gun at Ken Do Smith had tried to shoot him, but the gun allegedly malfunctioned and didn't fire, so the rest of this alleged cream team hit squad open fire, and everyone at the dice game ran for their lives. No one was hurt, and Ken Du Smith has since gone on the record saying that Taysheen never pulled a gun on him. Other eyewitnesses also corroborated that the only evidence of this version events is Danny Steele's statement, which continued saying that then he another man and this fictitious guy named Corleone chased Raymond Skip Clark, and this fictional Corleone guy, not Danny Steele, allegedly shot and killed Clark. So that's how Steele shifted total blame from himself and alleged that he was just a co conspirator, not the loan shooter. 00:19:49 Speaker 4: Now, Danny Steele, this is important. He is charged with the exact same crimes as Melvin and Tysheen, so you would think he'd get the exact same punishment were close. For murder, for conspiracy to commit murder, he did two years in the county jail, presumably because he couldn't go to state prison because you know, he was a known snitch. 00:20:13 Speaker 2: From what I understand, he had also been convicted of perjury twice before. So this is the guy on whom the entirety of the state's case rests and what they used to issue arrest warrants for both Melbourne and Taysheem. And at the time, Melvin had just pled guilty to some unrelated drug charges. 00:20:29 Speaker 4: Right, he takes a plea and he's getting ready to go to prison, and the police come to let him know that he's been indicted on these charges, and he's just shocked. There's no conversation they don't take him down to the police station and interview him. 00:20:46 Speaker 2: They had all the information they wanted from Danny Steele. Now, tysheim, you were back in New York at the time, and during a routine traffic stop, NYPD discovered that you were wanted in New York Pennsylvania. 00:21:00 Speaker 3: I did that. I was a fugitive. I got picked up January nineteen ninety eight, pull door one, one hundred and forty fifty with twenty seventh and eighth avenual. I was arrested and I haven't been on the street since. And while PD picks me up, I'm extradited down to York where I was charged. 00:21:19 Speaker 4: When he gets to York and he's in the county jail, there's no interview. The information and the story has already been told by Danny Steele. But there's literally a fifteen minute drive at one point from one drop up location to the jail with the police officer. 00:21:40 Speaker 3: Dennis Williams was the arresting detective. While he's driving me to the York County prison, he said, I know you didn't kill Rainey Club, but I don't know you're part of the clean team. I can get you with deal if you cooperate, and I told him I didn't know nothing annosing For a few months after that, they offered me another deal popped in and I turned that down. Did they trout thought that they offered me another deal They were going to dismiss all degrees of homicide about played guilties and I completed his so I turned that down. Dennis Williams offered me the the deal that DNA deal ended up huting. 00:22:37 Speaker 2: Danny Steele did less than three years in the county jail. That's jail, right, not president, and that was part of his deal to avoid running into other people who he had flipped on previously. And so no one was ever charged with being skipped Clark Shooter Corleone certainly wasn't. It's hard to charge a ghost after all. And now all three of you had been charged with murder, but only by way of conspiracy and a compless liability. And this is why your arrival time at the Super eight motel is so important to the state's theory, as is the part of Danny Steele's testilize where he alleged that you drew a gun on Kendo Smith that never did fire. 00:23:11 Speaker 4: So conspiracy liability requires proof of an agreement or a common design to commit the unlawful act for which the person is convicted. So person cannot be convicted of conspiracy from merely being present during the commission of a crime. There has to be some step taken, some proof of the agreement, you know, and then obviously the crime. For accomplass liability, it requires more than mere presence during the commission of a criminal act, even if the accused knew that the crime was to be committed. So we see like accomplass liability like after the fact, you know, someone who's helping to conceal or clean something up. So these are really what tayshim as well as Melvin were convicted under. Also, you know, a lot of that prosecutorial caselied on something called transferred intent, which basically means if I pull out a gun and I'm trying to shoot you, but I accidentally shoot your friend or someone standing next to you, you know, it would have been attempted murder because I purposefully knowingly was aiming at you. But it's still first degree murderer even though I had no intention of killing your friend, because the intention had already formed. And so throughout the trial, we'll hear of transferred intent in those transcripts. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: So because you were alleged to have met beforehand establishing the intent, and then followed through with your part of the supposed conspiracy by allegedly pulling a gun on Ken du Smith, that then made you in turn responsible in some degree for the murder of Skip Clark, the alleged end result of this alleged organized confrontation. 00:24:54 Speaker 3: I didn't realize what conspiracy laws accomplished liability was. I didn't realize what you moved P on the chessboard to Alanna the way you want it to be seen. You can make something look like something that it wasn't. We were kids, you know. In our adversary were chrome men, seasoned, you know, politicians, prosecutors, and I did not realize what was going on until it was. 00:25:17 Speaker 2: Too late, that they had fabricated a narrative with Danny Steele to convict you through these conspiracy and accomplished liability laws that you were unaware of. So Melvin was already in prison for the unrelated drug charges, so he didn't bond out, but neither did you. You both were being held separately from Danny Steele. But at this point you didn't even know about what he had done, right, So when did you first realize what he was doing to you? 00:25:41 Speaker 3: The first time I see him is at my preliminary here and he testifying against me. You know, he's saying, I'm the leader of the Cream team that prior to the Dice Game shooting that we met at a motel and agreed to kill someone. Actually at the preliminary here when he said we agreed to step to these guys to try to squash this beef. With the proceedings, his testimony, you know, would constantly change and get more dramatic and more incriminated. 00:26:07 Speaker 4: There were a lot of inconsistencies in the telling of these various stories by Danny Steele, But there wasn't necessarily a rigorous, vigorous defense from Taishim's counsel. Melvin's council, when looking at the transcript, tended to do a better job. 00:26:28 Speaker 2: Right. Both families had hired counsel prior to the January ninety nine trial, but only Melvin's family was able to pay and maintain counsel. 00:26:35 Speaker 3: So this attorney that was represented me at the time, Alla Smith, you know, he was never paid him full and he thought the motion to withdrawals counsel. I didn't know that. I could have still been getting counsel by the state, which probably would have been a bad attorney anyway, as bad as he was. But he never did nothing after that, after the judge told him the motion was denied, we continue to proceed to trial without an investigation of what going on. 00:27:02 Speaker 2: So it sounds like you didn't even have an attorney. 00:27:05 Speaker 3: Absolutely attorney. I didn't have a suit shoods, I didn't have a family an attorney. 00:27:10 Speaker 4: Tayshiem would come to the courthouse not in a suit, but in an orange jumpsuit. So this was not, you know, someone being able to put forth their best defense. 00:27:21 Speaker 2: And in order to combat the state, especially with what we now know that they were willing to hide, you were going to need a vigorous investigation from zealous attorneys and the whole team that would have done things like caul Ken do Smith to the stand. He has since gone on the record that you did not, in fact, point to gun at him, which directly contradicts the state's narratives. Now, how your counsel didn't at least contact can do is just it's irresponsible in desire. It's it's disgusting actually. But even more bizarre is how Danny Steele did something on the stand that even I've never heard of before. 00:27:52 Speaker 4: Throughout the trial, he kept mentioning that, you know, he was incentivized, that he's hoping, he's hope that the prosecutors do right by him and only give him two to five years in the county. And that's exactly what they give him. 00:28:08 Speaker 2: He literally told the judge and jury why his own statement was unreliable. He's like, I'm receiving a benefit for lying here. He's spelling it out. 00:28:17 Speaker 3: Now. 00:28:17 Speaker 2: How are they supposed to trust anything he said? But they did. I can't get over this, and we already went over what Steele said before the shooting At the dice game. He plays Taisheem Melvin, himself and three other guys, including this Corleone character, at the Super eight motel between ten and eleven PM for this conspiracy meeting, and the manager of the Super eight, guy named Alfred Milburn, corroborated this. Why we're not sure because the clerk who actually checked Taysheim into the hotel, the person who actually knew this information was a woman named Terry Flinch boss Siler, and what she told police directly and totally contradicted Albert Milburn's phony narrative. 00:28:56 Speaker 4: She's the one who checks Tayshi Minh. She knows this now. Raymond Clark dies at eleven thirty pm that night. That's when he shot. 00:29:03 Speaker 2: We know this for a fact. 00:29:05 Speaker 4: She doesn't come on until eleven pm. 00:29:08 Speaker 3: Right. 00:29:08 Speaker 2: The States spoke to her, but they didn't want to hear about how Tayshiim checked in at twelve thirty one o'clock in the morning, and that this conspiracy meeting in fact never took place. 00:29:16 Speaker 4: She tried to offer help and they didn't want to hear it. She had documents, you know, where he signed, as well as any telephone calls he would have made out of that room because it's the nineties, and they could have turned that over to Tayshim's lawyers, and that never happened. 00:29:34 Speaker 2: And perhaps these documents the telephone records may have also been timestamped. 00:29:38 Speaker 4: Miss Flinch boss Siler says that the records she maintained for the hotel have a bottom section which indicates the exact times the calls made from each room, so it's not known if the police are prosecutors were in possession of that part of the document, but the documents used at trial were the only ones that she was a asked to review that she was asked to talk about. And they don't have the exact times the calls made. 00:30:08 Speaker 2: And no one from the defense went looking for call logs. It's totally irresponsible. I mean, it would have been helpful to know what time the calls were made, but that specifically wasn't in the documents used by the state of trial. And from what I understand, they deliberately limited Terry Flinch boss Siler's testimony. 00:30:26 Speaker 4: She was told by the prosecutors, you're not allowed to speak. You're going to answer yes or no to my questions. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: Right. They were merely trying to establish that a phone call had taken place, but they specifically did not want to know when, and they definitely didn't want to know when her shift started or when Tayshiim Melvin and Danny were checked in because that would have blown up their case. They knew about Terry and these phone records, so it looks like they knew that they were presenting false testimony. Now, the phone call was important to them because it corroborated Melvin's presence at the alleged conspiracy meeting. It was alleged that he had called his girlfriend at the time, named Tucker Redmond, and told her what his intention was, which was to go down to the dice game and shoot up the gods. It was also alleged that a fourteen year old girl named Nicki Rhodes overheard this conversation. The state made a number of false statements during opening and closing that they never backed up by calling these alleged witnesses, Ducker and Nicki. 00:31:17 Speaker 4: Our investigator was able to speak with Tucker, so she was dating Melvin. She did speak with him that night. She never told the prosecutor or the police that Melvin was interested in hurting or shooting up the young men on the corner plane craps. When she discovered what the prosecutor, specifically Prosecutor Kelly, had said in open court, she was not present at the time, but she became incensed to learn that he claimed she came to court willingly, she was subpoenaed to come to court, and that he had lied about what she had heard and said that evening. When she discovered that the prosecutor during a sidebar, had told the judge that her conversation she was overheard and passed along by Nicki Rhodes. She proclaimed that also to be alive. Nikki confirmed that she had no knowledge of the interaction between Melvin Bethiune and Taker Redman on the night of the shooting and of Skip Clark. She was adamant that she was a younger at the time with no knowledge of anything related to the crime. She did not testify, and she was not asked to testify. 00:32:24 Speaker 2: I guess the state strategy was, if you're gonna lie, go big, and they were able to hide those lines from these alleged witnesses because witnesses aren't typically allowed to sit in court to watch the proceedings, But here it seems this rule was a convenient way to hide them from what was being said about them, Like Kalanda Chance, who had told the police that she had been at the scene earlier in the evening but left prior to the shooting. I knew nothing about it. Now, what did she tell your investigator? Kitty Hayley In twenty twenty. 00:32:51 Speaker 4: One, Holanda Chance, she was provided with a copy of the trial transcript and was upset to read that the prosecutor was attempting to her into a web of lies about Melboyn wanting to shoot up men on the corner. She never knew about the plan to use her as a link between Taker Redman's conversation and the actual shooting. She further claimed that the prosecutors were trying to make two groups of friends, the Cream Team and the Guards, look like a hardened criminal gang, even though. 00:33:21 Speaker 2: That was not so. But even if you want to believe that these two groups will hardened criminal organizations help bent on destroying the otherwise decent, hardworking town of York, Pennsylvania, the evidence simply doesn't support the state's theory. Terry flinch Buss Siler was the clerk who checked Taishim into the Super eight, and her shift started at eleven pm, So even if he was waiting there for her shift to start before he checked in, there's just not enough time to check in. The Cream Team have a thirty minute to an hour long meeting to conspire about confronting the Gods. Go to another dress to pick up the guns, go to the dice game, shoot up the place, and then chase down and kill Raven Skip Clark by eleven thirty do all that shit in thirty minutes. 00:34:00 Speaker 3: And they knew it was impossible, but they weren't with the theory, and the judge told the jury that it Ty wasn't at that motel prior to the shooting. TI cannot be farn Gailty has an accomplished or a co construmity in this case. But while I was on trial, I didn't have the information I'm in possession from now right. They did, though, and. 00:34:22 Speaker 2: The state used testimony that they knew was false in order to trick the jury into believing that this alleged conspiracy meeting was both plausible and real, and I'm sure Danny's admission to his involvement acted as a stamp of legitimacy. Then they alluded to this alleged phone confession for Melvin that was never actually confirmed or corroborated, and the jury bought at Lockstock and Barrel. They convicted you both and sentenced you to life in prison. 00:34:47 Speaker 3: I watched Melvine cry after we was devicted. Cried. I couldn't believe it. I was in disbelief. I didn't even know we could get life because we didn't kill anybody. No I'm not telling this story yet. Living this story. Prison there's something different than anybody. You know. It's like a hospital, it's like a hotel. It's like a hideout. It's like a hangout. It's like a hostage situation. To the words so being awfully convicted, it's about it's fun. It's falling off to the story building. It's send a struggle when I go up in prison as a smarting little kid. I hate it here today as much as I did the first day. You never get used to it. There's nothing more than in freedom. You know what I'm saying, I'm gonna look at myself like a hostage. They give back. 00:36:00 Speaker 4: Among my memory, Melvin's trying to make peace with the fact that he has a son he'll never watch grow up, that he's going to be spending the rest of his life in a prison for a crime he didn't commit. I don't believe Melvin has ever received legal help. Maybe one time for a post conviction relief. I don't know that he learned to use the law library and advocate for himself like tayshim did. 00:36:26 Speaker 3: Every Wigod moment on fire from my life, he was giving me the worst attorneys you know, my first attorney was sleeping in the same prison I was in for the US when he dropped the ball. They gave me another lawyer. She was helpful, but she was in over her head because her expertise was social security claims. So it was really me. I had to learn the law of myself. 00:36:49 Speaker 2: So you've taught yourself the law, as we often see as absolutely necessary for our guests to do, and you also saw it outside help like investigators and lawyers, and you've been funding that by writing and self books. Who are you, dude? That's amazing. I mean, I see you've written eight books. 00:37:05 Speaker 3: I've written fifteen books, eight published. They're all available for purchase. 00:37:12 Speaker 2: I just received, by the way, your latest book. It's called It Could Happen to any of us, and that's like a mantra of mine. So I'm really looking forward to reading it. And we're going to make sure to link your books in the bio. This is how you've been funding your fight for freedom, and I hope our audience will show their support. So let's talk about that fight. You mentioned that you had some Mappella attorneys that were about as useless as your own as your original trialer and in Pennsylvania post conviction, I'm not so sure it matters if the lawyers are better or not, since the post conviction statutes make the fight even more difficult than usual. Now, if I understand this correctly, you can find new evidence, even Brady material, But if that evidence could have possibly been found, that means it was available to you, and therefore it cannot be considered new evidence. For example, since the Super eight clerk Terry Flinch Boss Siler was alive and available to be questioned, what she has to say is not considered new evidence. And the fact that the state didn't share it doesn't make it a Brady violation because you could have discovered it on your own or your lawyer could have, which sounds fucking absurd. And then in this case, since they were co defendants, if Melvin had an attorney who litigated something already, the issue can't be raised. So options run out very quickly, and doors keep closing, and you've been met with denial after denial, even though you've amassed a formidable case for actual incense. 00:38:29 Speaker 3: And in two thousand and three I found out that Danny still had a secret deal with the Commonwealth. The two and a half to five. So I found my first PCRA on my own in two thousand and three. I was unsuccessfully because they said that this information was in the public domain, and then I could have voted in the first pcl the council PCLA with the attorney they gave me, who never read the record, never interviewed me, never try to interview anybody. 00:38:58 Speaker 2: See, this is the kind of bulls I'm talking about. Since the information was in the public domain, meaning that it existed among all the information in the world and wasn't being kept under lock and key, then it was technically in the public domain during his first post conviction motion and his council didn't find it and build a motion around it. So then the issue cannot be raised again. I don't even know what to say. And then there's only a certain amount of time that it can be raised. 00:39:24 Speaker 3: The judge felt like this information was in the public domain between the time of need film it and the twindow closing on my first. 00:39:33 Speaker 2: Pc ulredy, And in Pennsylvania back then you'd only get sixty days since legislation. 00:39:40 Speaker 3: You know, it's three hundred and sixty five days now. 00:39:42 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's really fucking generous. I mean, who does legislation like that serve or punished? Think about it. It's not like people who are dead to rights guilty are making credible cases for actual innocence, or at least not likely. So shutting the door on these post conviction motions pretty much solely kept the innocent incarcerated. Since that time, though that has changed. 00:40:01 Speaker 3: The presumption and knowledge is no longer a reason to foreclose your post conviction motion twenty years ago it. 00:40:08 Speaker 2: Was today it's not so much good it does for you though. 00:40:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can't go back, there's no retroactivity. You can't go back and seat, which already happened. 00:40:17 Speaker 2: So after appealing your denials in two thousand and three in the state courts, you went federal go challenge my. 00:40:22 Speaker 3: Conviction on the federal level because of our constitutional rights. I mean, you know. The two major issues was that the trial court gave the wrong jury instruction as it applied to accomplished liability, and the second issue was an effective assistic council for fail to investigate. Those were my two strongest issues, and after two and a half years, three years, I filed my own hate too. But it was eventually denied. 00:40:48 Speaker 2: He then filed your fourth PCRA petition in twenty twelve because Danny Steele recanted his trial testimony. Yeah, you heard that right. Danny Steele was finally doing the right thing. 00:40:57 Speaker 3: He sent me after David and that he had been prushing to give false testimony that he had witnessed be for the gun to do Work's head and pull the trigger. He also testified about the fake motel meeting, and he was ultimately found to be incredible because he was no longer in jeopardy from the Commonwealth, but he was still allegedly in jeopardy. 00:41:22 Speaker 2: From his codefendants you and Melvin, who were both locked up for life while he's out there doing whatever he's doing, living the dream. You know what I find incredible, The fucking balls on these judges. I mean, unfucking believable. The only evidence in the case, besides the Super eight manager who we know didn't know his ass from his elbow, the only evidence is Danny Steele's word, which apparently no longer matters. I guess if anyone could be a good judge of Danny's credibility, though, it'd be the guys who cooked up the lines with him to begin with. 00:41:50 Speaker 3: Both of the prosecutors also testified that they didn't understand that they had said if he testified falsely, it was something he chose to do. They didn't encourage him to do it. Oh, he found them to be more credible than Danny Steele. 00:42:04 Speaker 2: So now you find a way to bolster the recantation. You got in touch with Ken Do Smith, like your trial attorney should have done in the first place, and he was finally ready to corroborate Danny Steele's recantation. So that was the focus of your last of your PCRRA petitions filed in August twenty fifteen, and evidentiary hearing was held in August twenty seventeen. 00:42:23 Speaker 3: And at this evidence he here Jim Delle Smith shows up and he testifies on the old debt, Chad never put a machine gun in my head and pulled the trigger. And I don't know why Danny Steel made that up. Had it happened, I wouldn't be headed day saying it didn't happen. 00:42:38 Speaker 2: Right, Why would he be standing up for his attempted murderer in court. So this adds legitimacy to his testimony, which transfers legitimacy to Danny Steele's recantation, and this would qualify as new evidence in other states, but not in Pennsylvania. This was denied as untimely because this witness was available at the time of trial. It's like running into a brick wall over and over again. Now, while at this time a chain of events began involving Melvioyn's son. Now this must have been right after this evidentiary hearing, maybe twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, something really bad happened, and then that thing was almost made even worse the TCIA. 00:43:13 Speaker 4: Can you explain guess who gets found shot multiple times in his car? Danny Steele. I mean, he's just riddled with bullets. York County decides that Melvin Bethune's own son, who grew up without his father, was the person who killed Danny Steele, that he was so angry about him allegedly perjuring himself naming his father, that he decided to lie in wait and kill Danny Steele. Well, Melvin Bethune's son decided to take the single trial, and he prevailed. He was found not guilty, and Danny Steele is dead, which which is very sad, of course, but there are many people who may have harbored very bad feelings towards Danny Steele. 00:44:08 Speaker 2: I mean, I wouldn't blame Melvin's son if he was angry with Danny Steele. How I'm angry with Danny Steele, even posthumously, But that doesn't mean that Melvin's son murdered anybody. I mean, I don't know all the details, so I won't comment on the investigation of the prosecution. I do hope that things have changed significantly in your county since the time they wrongfully convicted Melbourne. But at the very least, I'm glad one of the Bethunes appears to have had a competent attorney, which was also on the horizon for Melvin and Taishim. One of your advocates, Omar Jannette, was instrumental in getting you the competent attorney who we have with us today, Ptsia Chaviz Freed And apparently it started off as a change dot org petition that put you on the radar of the NIS's Project of Pennsylvania. When Letsia just happened to be looking for some pro bono work and reached out to them, and so. 00:44:53 Speaker 4: I contacted Innison's Project and they gave me this case. I collected every record I possibly could, and of course I realized that Melvin Bethune was also behind bars for the same crime as tayshim. And that is about the time where I hire Kitty Haley. She went back in time. Essentially, she spent weeks and weeks in York and talked to you know, people who knew all of the players involved Kendo, you know, Bethune's girlfriend, the victim, Raymond Clark's mother. Kitty Haley went to New York and went and sat with this woman on more than one occasion and talked to her about her son and what he meant to her. And we have an alpha David. She literally said that the prosecutors and she named them, told her that Danny Steele was responsible for the murder of her son. But they won as many gang members as possible off these streets, and so they're going to get all three of them. And they're not given Danny Steele a deal. They're not doing that. He's going to get the same amount of time as the others. Well, that's not what happened. 00:46:00 Speaker 2: You know, I didn't think there was room for these prosecutors to get any less likable, but trust me, there is even more room. And as we've already discussed, Kitty Haley spoke to all the women who the prosecutors lied about a trial, Tucker Redmond, Kalanda Chance, and of course the fourteen year old girl Nikki Rhoades. Then she spoke with Terry flinch bos Syler, and we know that she discovered that Terry began her shift at eleven pm and checked Taishim into the Super eight well after Skip Clark had already died, which means this entire case just fell apart. 00:46:30 Speaker 3: So I'll meet Kitty Haley to beginning a twenty twenty one and it was drilling for me when she said, you know, he've been telling the same story for twenty years. It felt good. But Kitty Haley gets out there in the field. She speaks to Terry and the motel clerk from the Superby hotel, and she adamantly says that she told the prostitution that this theory was flawed, that I could not have been there any time prior to eleven pm. They said, up they at ten pm, but you know where I was at at ten pm. All my way back from New York. I was on the highway at ten pm. And she also made one distinct statement in the feature. She said that the evidence that they presented at my trial, something was missing and it had the d detached, that it was ripped off. The ripped DOLF piece is called the bottom of a folio, a folio that contains information they would have told whoever wanted to see it, exactly what time the room was rent it, if and when any calls were made, how long the calls were, and where they went to. The jury never got an opportunity to see this. The defense was never in possession of this, and I didn't even know it existed until Kitty Hally furnished the legal team with her conclusions in these statements. 00:47:52 Speaker 4: And so presumably those documents are sitting in the District Attorney's office today and that's what we're fighting for to get. But also, this woman has sign an AUF of David. She's willing to come in. And this woman doesn't know anybody, she has no skin in the game. 00:48:08 Speaker 3: Uninsarsted objective pauty witness is telling you that this serious flawed, and you decide to perpetuate this throg and allow for it to go uncorrected for twenty something years. Based on my studies, this would be considered deliberate and willful deception. 00:48:28 Speaker 2: No words could do this injustice, any justice. So now that we've heard everything that Kitty dug up, you all were able to petition the courts based on this evidence, and they said that this was litigated by Melvin back in two thousand and seven and it was denied back then as untimely because Terry Flinchboss Silo was available to testify at trial, so this couldn't be considered new evidence and most certainly was past the deadline. And I mean what we're seeing in this case over and over again is ineffective assistance at trial. 00:48:57 Speaker 3: Absolutely, it all comes down to the beginning this stage's trial. So at trial, I had a lawyer who had checked out on me. But the beautiful thing is he did file a Brady. He wrote some passion for everything that was open, so we know today that they without some information that was requested. 00:49:16 Speaker 2: I mean, there's always been a solid case for Brady violations and ineffective assistance here, But so far, I don't think it's a stretch to say that you have been failed not only by your attorneys along the way, but by the entire judicial system. I understand you have plans to file with the York County Fiction Integrity Units, so we hope that they will be able to provide the relief that you have so rightfully deserved. But if not, I'm afraid your only option might be clemency. You know you have my full support, in the support of our whole team, and right now I'm going to ask for our audience to lend their support as well. So we're going to have a lot of things linked in to bio, but the number one call to action is to sign the petition to support your release. I'm literally begging our audience please join us on this one. Just go there right now and sign the petition. I'll take you a minute and a half. And now we go to my favorite part of the show, which is called closing arguments, where first I thank both of you incredible people for being here, and now I'm just going to kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off, and just listen to any final thoughts that you may have. So let's start with Altisia and then Taishim. Please take us out into the sunset for you and for Melbourn. 00:50:22 Speaker 4: America as a country, and our court system has largely been steeped like a tea bag in racism, and some people are considered worthy and some people are not considered worthy. And I would offer that back in the nineties, two young black men from New York are really considered outsiders and their lives were not worth a lot. I will never know what the prosecutor was thinking. I don't know the prosecutor, but I know that the hat was hung on somebody who had more multiple convictions for perjury, who was highly incentivized, who pled guilty to the same crime, and who served less than three years out of county jail. You know that in and of itself is a crime. We know that these two young men did not commit this crime. And what I can say to Tayshim as well as Melvin, is I'm not giving up until they walk out. 00:51:26 Speaker 3: Just support this is a great cause. I fought hard for my freedom for twenty plus years. I've been accarcerated almost a quarter century. I'm innocent. I was awfully convicted. You can go to change that or assign this petition that was initiated by DJ Coco Chanel. You can visit my website. I want my life back, I want to be free. I want to turn my books into movies. I want to help other people who awfully convicted. I want to one day start my own innocence projects and be able to help people regain their freedom in their voices back and be returned to their family. 00:52:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:52:08 Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. 00:52:44 Speaker 1: We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good