Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #417 Jason Flom with Larry Walker

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#417 Jason Flom with Larry Walker · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On May second, nineteen eighty three, Clyde Coleman was fatally
0:05
Speaker 1: shot at his home in southwest Philadelphia. Multiple eyewitnesses claimed
0:10
Speaker 1: to have seen three black men fleeing the scene, the
0:13
Speaker 1: back of one of their shirts covered in blood. While
0:16
Speaker 1: one witness recognized the blood soak the sailor from a
0:19
Speaker 1: local bar, another witness said that he looked like a
0:21
Speaker 1: man who had visited with mister Coleman just two days prior. Eventually,
0:26
Speaker 1: this witness identified one of the victim's friends, Mary Walker,
0:29
Speaker 1: from a photograph. Even though the other witnesses were not
0:33
Speaker 1: convinced that the police had the right man, the jury was.
0:38
Speaker 1: But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
0:54
Speaker 1: I really hope you're in the mood to hear a
0:57
Speaker 1: remarkable story about an amazing man. Well, we have two
1:01
Speaker 1: amazing men on the show today. Actually, the person who
1:05
Speaker 1: lived through a nightmare that spent almost four decades of
1:09
Speaker 1: wrongful incarceration thirty eight years plus, Larry Walker, is here
1:14
Speaker 1: with us. Larry, first of all, I'm sorry you're here
1:17
Speaker 1: because of what you went through to get here, but
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm very honored to have you on the show.
1:21
Speaker 2: Thank you for just taking time out to interview.
1:23
Speaker 1: Me and with him is a guy I can't believe
1:26
Speaker 1: we haven't had on the show before, a luminary in
1:30
Speaker 1: the world of righting wrongs in the criminal justice world.
1:34
Speaker 1: Paul Castellerro, who is the legal director of Centurion Ministry,
1:38
Speaker 1: is a name that I'm sure you're familiar with, the
1:40
Speaker 1: very first innocence organization in the United States. Paul, I'm
1:44
Speaker 1: really really honored to humble to have you here on
1:46
Speaker 1: the show today.
1:47
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great pleasure to be here.
1:49
Speaker 1: And this incredible story was in what was certainly almost
1:53
Speaker 1: the epicenter of wrongful convictions. And I'm talking about Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
1:58
Speaker 1: especially back in the eighties, but unfortunately not just in
2:02
Speaker 1: the eighties. And this was a case that well, I'll
2:05
Speaker 1: just say this, it was so bad that even the
2:09
Speaker 1: trial DA said that it was the thinnest homicide case
2:12
Speaker 1: he ever tried. That was a quote. So before we
2:16
Speaker 1: get into all the details of the crime itself and
2:19
Speaker 1: of course of the process that led to this horrendous injustice, Larry,
2:23
Speaker 1: let's go back. What was your life like growing up?
2:26
Speaker 1: Did you grow up in Philly?
2:27
Speaker 2: Yes, I grew up in Southwest Philly. Ten siblings, five
2:30
Speaker 2: brothers and five sisters. Close knit family. I was into sports,
2:35
Speaker 2: go to church services, and active to my community. I
2:40
Speaker 2: had my children in an early age, and I was
2:44
Speaker 2: basically just trying to be a father to my children.
2:47
Speaker 1: Twenty two years old when you went away. Your kids
2:50
Speaker 1: were basically toddlers when you went to prison, right, I
2:53
Speaker 1: mean three and five years old?
2:55
Speaker 2: Yes? Correct? Yes, my daughter was three and my son
2:58
Speaker 2: was five.
2:59
Speaker 1: And how old were they when you came home?
3:01
Speaker 2: My daughter was forty and my son was forty two.
3:05
Speaker 1: That's just I mean, that really puts it in perspective.
3:09
Speaker 2: The memories, the good times that I had when I
3:12
Speaker 2: was home with my children before this happened is what
3:15
Speaker 2: basically kept me a lot. It was times we went
3:17
Speaker 2: to the zoo and a lot of birthdays I remember
3:21
Speaker 2: with them. That kept me going through autumn thirty eight
3:25
Speaker 2: years while I was incarcerated.
3:27
Speaker 1: You know, I was hardened when I read that the
3:30
Speaker 1: mother of your kids, they all stuck close to you
3:32
Speaker 1: throughout this ordeal.
3:33
Speaker 2: Right, yes, correct. Their mother was very supportive even to
3:38
Speaker 2: this day. She was the one that when I wanted
3:41
Speaker 2: to give up, she kept helping me to encourage me
3:43
Speaker 2: to go on, you know, and she was the one
3:46
Speaker 2: that was coming up in the mountains, you know, the
3:48
Speaker 2: van services, getting the kids up early in the morning.
3:52
Speaker 2: She put them through Catholic school, you know, she helped
3:55
Speaker 2: them with, you know, the education that there are successful
3:58
Speaker 2: adults today. She was the glue that kept us together.
4:02
Speaker 1: Well, I'm happy you had her, even though I wish
4:04
Speaker 1: she never would have had to show that kind of strength.
4:07
Speaker 1: So I want to get to how you were taken
4:10
Speaker 1: away from them, which started way back on May second,
4:15
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, when a friend of yours named Clyde
4:18
Speaker 1: Coleman was fatally shot. And let's turn to Paul for
4:21
Speaker 1: the details of this crime for which all accounts always
4:26
Speaker 1: pointed to three assailants, not.
4:28
Speaker 3: One, and he obviously was not any of them. And
4:31
Speaker 3: they had really very good evidence of who the perpetrator
4:37
Speaker 3: was that they said was Larry in this incident. And
4:41
Speaker 3: the case develops where fourteen or fifteen year old young
4:44
Speaker 3: man is on his way home. He lived in an
4:46
Speaker 3: attached house right next to where the victim lived. As
4:49
Speaker 3: the young man had approached the house, he saw two
4:51
Speaker 3: guys that were lingering in the area. The victim and
4:56
Speaker 3: this young man, they have a joint walkway that they shared.
4:59
Speaker 3: As he's walking up, the door opens to the victim's
5:02
Speaker 3: house and there's an unknown guy standing in the doorway.
5:05
Speaker 3: This young man he sees the victim was lying on
5:07
Speaker 3: the floor, and the victim gets up from the floor
5:10
Speaker 3: and he comes up behind the guy standing in the doorway,
5:14
Speaker 3: which they say is Larry, and he attacks him, and
5:16
Speaker 3: the victim yells to the young man to run, run, run,
5:20
Speaker 3: And it turns out the victim has been shot and
5:22
Speaker 3: is bleeding profusely, and when he grabs the perpetrator, who
5:27
Speaker 3: they say was Larry, from behind, leaving massive amounts of
5:31
Speaker 3: blood apparently on the guy's back shirt that eventually the
5:35
Speaker 3: perpetrator is able to throw off the victim and he
5:39
Speaker 3: takes off running. The young man said the guy he
5:42
Speaker 3: saw in the doorway look like a guy he had
5:45
Speaker 3: seen a couple of days earlier who was over the
5:49
Speaker 3: house visiting with the victim.
5:51
Speaker 1: And so the police had interviewed this young man, Victor Hopkins,
5:54
Speaker 1: as well as his mother, Emma Ellis, who had also
5:57
Speaker 1: seen the assailants, three black men who had just run off.
6:00
Speaker 3: The cops, and they go around the neighborhood looking. A
6:03
Speaker 3: young woman a couple of blocks away says she saw
6:07
Speaker 3: three guys going down the street and one guy was
6:10
Speaker 3: holding a gun and he had blood on the back
6:13
Speaker 3: of his shirt. And I know that guy. He hangs
6:17
Speaker 3: out in a bar where I've been. The police totally
6:22
Speaker 3: and completely ignored it.
6:23
Speaker 2: I also would like to add that one of the
6:26
Speaker 2: three men that was fleeing from the scene of crime
6:28
Speaker 2: had a cast on his hand. They should have went
6:30
Speaker 2: to maybe the nearest hospital in the community.
6:33
Speaker 1: But they never explored any of those other avenues.
6:37
Speaker 3: They made no effort none whatsoever.
6:39
Speaker 1: Instead, they focused solely on the description from the fifteen
6:43
Speaker 1: year old kid, Victor Hopkins, that the purp looked like
6:48
Speaker 1: someone who he had seen at mister Coleman's two days earlier.
6:53
Speaker 3: And that person, it turns out, was Larry. Larry knew
6:56
Speaker 3: the victim. They were friends, and Larry had been over
6:59
Speaker 3: there visiting him on a Saturday afternoon. This happened on
7:02
Speaker 3: a Monday, so he said it looked like him, and
7:05
Speaker 3: so the police try to figure out who is the
7:07
Speaker 3: person over there that Saturday that this young man says
7:10
Speaker 3: he looked like, and they identified Larry's photo and boom.
7:14
Speaker 3: Larry was in the case.
7:15
Speaker 1: And our audience has heard many times we've talked about
7:19
Speaker 1: the incredibly unreliable practice of identification procedures. So, Larry, how
7:25
Speaker 1: did you first learn about this? This is a friend
7:28
Speaker 1: of yours that got killed. So that's a terrible piece
7:31
Speaker 1: of news to get and then to be wrongfully accused
7:34
Speaker 1: and ultimately tried and convicted. How did you first find
7:39
Speaker 1: out about this murder?
7:40
Speaker 2: Jason? I basically found out through word on the street.
7:44
Speaker 2: People was talking about it. I heard it from a friend.
7:47
Speaker 1: When did the cops first come and talk to you
7:50
Speaker 1: or did they arrest you?
7:51
Speaker 2: The incident happened on the second, It was about two
7:54
Speaker 2: weeks after that round at thirteenth. They came to my home.
7:58
Speaker 1: Did they look for the bloody shirt? Did they look
8:00
Speaker 1: for the gun?
8:01
Speaker 2: Yes, they came with a warrant. They searched my home.
8:04
Speaker 3: They found nothing, no evidence whatsoever they would indicate any
8:09
Speaker 3: kind of connection to this crime or is there any
8:11
Speaker 3: other crime?
8:12
Speaker 1: So that didn't deter them at all. They went ahead
8:15
Speaker 1: and took you downtown and they interrogated you. How long
8:18
Speaker 1: did the interrogation last? Did you have an attorney?
8:21
Speaker 2: Didn't have an attorney. I just knew that I was innocent.
8:24
Speaker 2: I told him constantly over that I had nothing to
8:26
Speaker 2: do with it.
8:27
Speaker 3: He was fully cooperative with the police. He waived his
8:30
Speaker 3: rights to, you know, not speak to them. And whether
8:33
Speaker 3: they're doing this they know about this other person who's
8:37
Speaker 3: identifying the guy that is in a bar that matches
8:41
Speaker 3: the description to a t of the perpetrator. It is
8:46
Speaker 3: just mind boggling that they could persist in going after
8:50
Speaker 3: him or at the same time not investigate who this
8:54
Speaker 3: woman says is the person.
8:56
Speaker 2: I was taken to I think fifty fifth and pounds
9:00
Speaker 2: and I was locked up. I never saw the streets ever.
9:03
Speaker 1: Since nineteen eighty three to twenty and twenty one.
9:07
Speaker 2: My family paid for a paid attorney for me, and
9:10
Speaker 2: he didn't interview the witnesses. He didn't interview me before
9:14
Speaker 2: I went to trial.
9:16
Speaker 3: It's kind of frightening how you could represent somebody on
9:19
Speaker 3: a murder trial and not interview the basic witnesses in
9:22
Speaker 3: the case. He didn't interview the police officers, he didn't
9:25
Speaker 3: interview the young man who was identifying Larry. He had
9:28
Speaker 3: the report of the police officer interviewing this woman, and
9:32
Speaker 3: what the woman said about seeing these guys running away
9:36
Speaker 3: from the scene and never spoke to the woman. And
9:39
Speaker 3: then once the trial begins, he tells the judge, well,
9:42
Speaker 3: there's this witness, and we don't know where she is
9:45
Speaker 3: or anything about her. He does get the judge involved,
9:48
Speaker 3: and the judge says to the prosecutor, we'd better find
9:51
Speaker 3: this witness. There's another witness, which was the young man's mother.
9:55
Speaker 3: Initially she identifies Larry also, but when you get the
9:58
Speaker 3: trial she says, no, I'm not sure that this is
10:01
Speaker 3: the person, and so she takes away her identification. But
10:05
Speaker 3: he didn't interview any of these people.
10:07
Speaker 1: So going in to trial they had at least they
10:10
Speaker 1: thought they had two white witnesses identifying Larry, Victor Hopkins
10:13
Speaker 1: and his mom, Emma Ellis. But then on the first
10:17
Speaker 1: day of trial, with the mom recanting, it goes down
10:21
Speaker 1: to just one, the young teenage kid.
10:24
Speaker 3: And incidentally, the young man when he testifies, when he
10:27
Speaker 3: asks can you identify the person you saw at Larry's
10:31
Speaker 3: sitting at the defense table, he basically says worth the
10:34
Speaker 3: de fact, well do I have to be sure.
10:36
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, So even he was unsure, and then on
10:41
Speaker 1: the second day of trial. The third witness, the woman
10:43
Speaker 1: who had seen the three men fleeing the scene and
10:47
Speaker 1: who knew one of them from a local bar. She
10:50
Speaker 1: was subpoened and did come in to testify.
10:53
Speaker 3: The night before the second day, the police go to
10:57
Speaker 3: the hospital where this young woman was with her fiance
11:02
Speaker 3: who had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down,
11:05
Speaker 3: and they subpoena her and tell her she's got to
11:07
Speaker 3: be in court. The next day.
11:09
Speaker 2: She came and testifying and said that I wasn't one
11:11
Speaker 2: of the men, so I was very hopeful that the
11:15
Speaker 2: jewry took that into account.
11:16
Speaker 3: By the defense counsel because he doesn't know the facts
11:20
Speaker 3: of the case, where he hasn't even read the police report,
11:23
Speaker 3: he doesn't elicits the fact that the guy that saw
11:26
Speaker 3: running had blood on the back of his shirt and
11:29
Speaker 3: that I know him, which is kind of critical. I
11:32
Speaker 3: know who he was from a bar. It never gets
11:35
Speaker 3: elicited from her, and that's the testimony, And then the
11:39
Speaker 3: prosecution doesn't ask her any questions and then brings on
11:42
Speaker 3: one of the investigating cops to say, after he learned
11:45
Speaker 3: about her existence, he tried to find her, but he
11:49
Speaker 3: couldn't find her. According to this cop, there's no report
11:52
Speaker 3: or anything of him ever doing anything to find her.
11:55
Speaker 3: And then the cop says, when we went to the
11:57
Speaker 3: hospital to subpoena her, she didnied who she was. She's unreliable,
12:03
Speaker 3: you know, she can't be trusted, that kind of stuff.
12:05
Speaker 3: And that's the evidence they present.
12:07
Speaker 1: And you didn't know at the time that this investigator
12:10
Speaker 1: hadn't tried to find her, and the jury had no
12:13
Speaker 1: reason to doubt him. But something came out years later
12:17
Speaker 1: about that testimony, which we're going to get to it
12:19
Speaker 1: just a bit. But as far as his trial, the
12:22
Speaker 1: jury was left with two witnesses casting doubt on Larry's guilt,
12:26
Speaker 1: the investigator casting doubt on one of those witnesses, and
12:30
Speaker 1: then ultimately the jury sided with the young man who
12:34
Speaker 1: made a sort of a hesitant could we call it
12:37
Speaker 1: in court identification of Larry.
12:40
Speaker 2: I was really hoping that, you know, that it would
12:43
Speaker 2: have been in my favor. I couldn't believe that they
12:46
Speaker 2: came back with that verdict. I had a life sentence.
12:50
Speaker 2: It was like a nightmare. It was like an out
12:52
Speaker 2: of body experience. I was numbed, and it's just it
12:55
Speaker 2: was unreal. When I first came into prison. I went
13:11
Speaker 2: down to Greatest Ford. It was like a new world
13:14
Speaker 2: to me. I had never been incarcerated before. I heard
13:18
Speaker 2: rumors and stuff about prison. You go walk down the block,
13:21
Speaker 2: they be yelling and so forth and all. Just knowing
13:24
Speaker 2: that you're around actual murderers, I was very nervous and scared.
13:29
Speaker 2: You know. A couple old heads told me, if you
13:32
Speaker 2: stay in your lane and you just mind your business,
13:34
Speaker 2: you'll be all right. And that's what I basically did
13:37
Speaker 2: for them thirty eight years. You know, I try not
13:39
Speaker 2: to get involved in certain things that I seen. I
13:44
Speaker 2: witness some murders one time with a guy with a shank,
13:47
Speaker 2: and you know, just human nature. You want to help someone,
13:51
Speaker 2: you know, you want to let them come in your cell.
13:53
Speaker 2: But you know, people tell you that you can't get
13:56
Speaker 2: involved in them type of things because the people that
13:58
Speaker 2: are looking for that person, they would come after you.
14:01
Speaker 2: That sympathy that I have for people, you can't show
14:05
Speaker 2: them type of emotions when you're in prison you ask
14:08
Speaker 2: them for trouble. It's completely opposite to that human nature
14:13
Speaker 2: and you just basically have to try to hold on
14:16
Speaker 2: to just a little bit of it to keep you
14:20
Speaker 2: from going insane. I lost both of my parents. While
14:23
Speaker 2: since I've been down, my mother and my father always
14:26
Speaker 2: believed in my innocent. My mother was coming up to
14:30
Speaker 2: see me all the many years, and to her health
14:33
Speaker 2: prevented her from coming. And even when her and my
14:36
Speaker 2: father was called home, me being a lifer, I wasn't
14:40
Speaker 2: allowed to go to the funeral. That was one of
14:43
Speaker 2: my most darkest days. Not being there for them was
14:47
Speaker 2: really some of my roughest days. By being incarcerated for
14:50
Speaker 2: something I didn't do.
14:52
Speaker 3: One of the things rationing about his survival for thirty
14:55
Speaker 3: eight years is so much of it is I think
14:58
Speaker 3: he had the benefit of fail He had this course,
15:02
Speaker 3: this family of his, they never abandoned him. They knew
15:05
Speaker 3: he was innocent. They stuck by him through everything thirty
15:08
Speaker 3: eight years. When you think about.
15:09
Speaker 2: It, that's what kept me going, Paul, my daughter and
15:12
Speaker 2: my son. I had family. They supported me all them
15:16
Speaker 2: thirty eight years, coming up in the mountains. That's what
15:19
Speaker 2: kept me going. Besides my faith in Christ. You know
15:21
Speaker 2: when I had bad days in prisons, that's what kept
15:24
Speaker 2: me going and supported my family and my faith. Instead
15:27
Speaker 2: of being pessimistic about life, I'm more optimistic. I had
15:30
Speaker 2: faith that one of the courts would, you know, get
15:33
Speaker 2: this right, that will correct the wrong that was done
15:35
Speaker 2: to me.
15:36
Speaker 1: And so your appeals raised a number of issues. Chief
15:39
Speaker 1: among them, of course, was an effective assistance of counsel.
15:43
Speaker 3: And Larry had read this lawyery, you know, or a
15:45
Speaker 3: lawyer who did nothing but took the retainer and pocketed it.
15:49
Speaker 3: And that was it.
15:50
Speaker 1: And despite that, the appeals were repeatedly denied, and without
15:55
Speaker 1: knowledge of what had been hidden by the state about
15:57
Speaker 1: the third witness who was so badly the disparaged by
16:00
Speaker 1: the investigator, trial is unreliable. The years just continued to
16:05
Speaker 1: tick off and roll on by.
16:07
Speaker 2: After over so many years and times going from one
16:10
Speaker 2: court to another court, my faith started to you know, waiver.
16:14
Speaker 2: But I really believed that the truth was going to
16:17
Speaker 2: come out, that one of the courts would roll in
16:20
Speaker 2: my favorite to overturn my life sentence.
16:23
Speaker 3: You know.
16:23
Speaker 2: I try to reach out to different state representatives. I
16:27
Speaker 2: wrote Temple Innocent Project, I wrote Dressul Innocent Projects, but
16:32
Speaker 2: no one basically really listened to my cry until I
16:35
Speaker 2: wrote a Centurn Ministry.
16:37
Speaker 1: And Centurion ministries took over around twenty fourteen or fifteen
16:41
Speaker 1: before Paul came on as their legal director, and at
16:44
Speaker 1: that time an investigator named Alan Maymon was hard at
16:48
Speaker 1: work reinvestigating the case.
16:49
Speaker 2: I like to speak a little bit about Alan and
16:52
Speaker 2: how he tried to get my records. He went down
16:56
Speaker 2: the city Hall with my daughter and my son trying
16:59
Speaker 2: to get these records to the so forth. For many years.
17:02
Speaker 2: It wasn't just you know, going down here one time.
17:04
Speaker 1: So Alan Maymon and your family were just getting stonewalled
17:08
Speaker 1: by the previous DA Seth Williams. That name man, That
17:15
Speaker 1: was a dirty, dirty guy man. He ended up in
17:17
Speaker 1: prison himself. Meanwhile, they were reinterviewing witnesses. One of them
17:21
Speaker 1: gave them the name of a more likely alternative suspect
17:23
Speaker 1: with a rap sheet a mile long, who had been
17:26
Speaker 1: convicted of an eerily similar murder to mister Colvin's.
17:30
Speaker 3: And this is before Larry Krashner became the district attorney.
17:33
Speaker 3: They were kind of faking that they had a conviction
17:36
Speaker 3: integrity unit in the Philadelphia DA's office. And when Centurion
17:41
Speaker 3: had some evidence that some guy indicated he was involved
17:45
Speaker 3: in the murder this woman had received a statement from him,
17:48
Speaker 3: you know who, they sent out to interview the woman.
17:51
Speaker 3: They sent out the son of the investigator in Larry's
17:54
Speaker 3: case to investigate whether his father's investigation of the murder
18:00
Speaker 3: was incompetent.
18:01
Speaker 1: The sun I've heard everything. I've never heard that beare
18:03
Speaker 1: ye know.
18:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just it's mind boggling when you look
18:06
Speaker 3: at it.
18:06
Speaker 1: But fortunately Larry Krasner was elected DA and your team
18:09
Speaker 1: was finally given access to those police files in twenty nineteen.
18:13
Speaker 2: I just want to say a little bit about Larry Krasner.
18:16
Speaker 2: I just want to thank him for as creating the
18:18
Speaker 2: integrity Unit and giving the information over to Sinturnity. That's
18:21
Speaker 2: where I found out that the prosecutor, as far as
18:24
Speaker 2: the letter that he had wrote on my behalf is
18:26
Speaker 2: referring to that my case was the thinnest case that
18:29
Speaker 2: he ever prosecuted.
18:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was from a twenty twelve and a twenty
18:33
Speaker 1: fifteen letter that your trial prosecutor, Richard P. Myers wrote
18:36
Speaker 1: to then DA Seth Williams. He continued saying, quote, it
18:40
Speaker 1: is the only homicide case that I tried in which
18:43
Speaker 1: I had a doubt regarding the guilt of the accused
18:45
Speaker 1: end quote. But this was just the beginning with Larry's files.
18:49
Speaker 1: The witness who had seen the three men fleeing and
18:51
Speaker 1: testified at trial that Larry was not one of the assailants,
18:54
Speaker 1: if you remember. The lead detective god understand and said
18:58
Speaker 1: that she was first that she was unfindable, and then
19:02
Speaker 1: when they did find her, she was uncooperative and unreliable.
19:05
Speaker 3: The prosecution didn't disclose the fact that this woman who
19:09
Speaker 3: witnessed these three men running away from the scene was
19:12
Speaker 3: a witness and was cooperating with the police in another
19:17
Speaker 3: murder investigation involving her boyfriend who had been shot along
19:21
Speaker 3: with another young man who had been killed, and her
19:24
Speaker 3: boyfriend was in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down,
19:28
Speaker 3: and she was cooperating with the police in that investigation,
19:31
Speaker 3: and they present her as this unreliable person. You know.
19:35
Speaker 3: The cop actually says he tried to find her. Meanwhile,
19:39
Speaker 3: this woman's in the police station in the same homicide division,
19:43
Speaker 3: given interviews to this officer's colleagues. Isn't this other murder case?
19:47
Speaker 3: And he gets on the standing Larry's trial and says,
19:50
Speaker 3: she was uncooperative. We couldn't find her, you know, she's unreliable.
19:54
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, she seemed to have been easily locatable and
19:59
Speaker 1: reliable when she was being helpful to the state, but
20:02
Speaker 1: she quickly became a target for character smears and other
20:05
Speaker 1: dirty tricks when she began to testify to actually clear
20:09
Speaker 1: a man who was innocent.
20:10
Speaker 3: And the tragic part of the whole case, on another
20:13
Speaker 3: level of many tragic components to it, is this young woman,
20:17
Speaker 3: based on her cooperation in that other case, got murdered
20:22
Speaker 3: about three months after Larry's trial, so she was always
20:26
Speaker 3: unavailable to us and to anybody trying to reinvestigate this
20:32
Speaker 3: case because she had been killed previously. The Lord of
20:50
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania was if anything appeared in a public record, you're
20:53
Speaker 3: responsible for it. And so if it appeared in a
20:56
Speaker 3: public record in nineteen ninety two, well that's when there's
21:00
Speaker 3: that's where the limitations began to run.
21:02
Speaker 1: This is an awful and an often ignored element a
21:06
Speaker 1: post conviction for a lot of cases in Pennsylvania. If
21:08
Speaker 1: something is a matter of public record and therefore findable,
21:12
Speaker 1: the burden is and was on you and your attorney
21:15
Speaker 1: to have found it before being procedurally barred from using it,
21:20
Speaker 1: which means only six months from the date it was
21:23
Speaker 1: entered into the public record. That's all you got.
21:25
Speaker 3: The Conviction Integrity Unit. They felt that in Pennsylvania that
21:30
Speaker 3: the course would say, you should have found the fact
21:32
Speaker 3: that this woman who witnessed these three men running away
21:35
Speaker 3: from the scene was cooperating with the police in another
21:39
Speaker 3: murder investigation, that the course would say, you should have
21:42
Speaker 3: found this evidence earlier. Meanwhile, there had been a number
21:45
Speaker 3: of cases that come down from the United States Court
21:47
Speaker 3: of Appeals for the Third Circuit that basically said, no,
21:50
Speaker 3: you can't hold somebody accountable for something that's in the
21:53
Speaker 3: public record that they have no ideas in the public record.
21:55
Speaker 1: So where was it part of the public record? Where
21:58
Speaker 1: were you expected to.
21:59
Speaker 3: Affect There's a kernel in a case. It's a published
22:03
Speaker 3: case and it refers to her and being killed. But
22:07
Speaker 3: the case has no application to anything, you know, no
22:10
Speaker 3: legal principle. It wasn't anything your cite for president for
22:14
Speaker 3: any kind of legal issue. And they were saying, you
22:16
Speaker 3: should have found this case has learned that you know
22:20
Speaker 3: she was cooperating in this other case. You should have
22:23
Speaker 3: found out earlier that we suppressed evidence. The fact that
22:26
Speaker 3: you have some evidence now too bad. He stays in
22:30
Speaker 3: jail because you could have found it earlier.
22:32
Speaker 1: You'd think a conviction integrity and one of the reasons
22:34
Speaker 1: they would be created would be the circumvent these type
22:37
Speaker 1: of very stringent legal standards. So anyway, how was this
22:41
Speaker 1: ultimately resolved.
22:43
Speaker 3: They wouldn't vacate the conviction. The only way we were
22:46
Speaker 3: getting Larry out was is if he took a plea
22:48
Speaker 3: to a reduced charge. So that's what we did. We
22:52
Speaker 3: had to take a plee to a reduced charge, and
22:55
Speaker 3: he walked out based on under reduced charge. The idea
22:58
Speaker 3: that we somehow should have been able to find this
23:01
Speaker 3: evidence of their perjury at his trial, and because we
23:05
Speaker 3: didn't find it out until when they gave us access
23:08
Speaker 3: to the records, too bad. Take the plea, you can
23:11
Speaker 3: walk out, or we can litigate the issue of whether
23:14
Speaker 3: or not you should have found this earlier. And of
23:17
Speaker 3: course if we litigate it, you know where Larry is prison, Well,
23:20
Speaker 3: we litigate it. So Larry had his joy said, but
23:23
Speaker 3: fifty eight to either come out to a family he's
23:26
Speaker 3: been deprived of and a life he's been deprived of
23:29
Speaker 3: for thirty eight years, or take a plea. I go
23:32
Speaker 3: to Larry and I speak to Larry about this, and
23:35
Speaker 3: Larry says to me, Paul, could you guarantee me I'll
23:38
Speaker 3: be free in a year if we continue to fight
23:41
Speaker 3: because I'm innocent? And I said, Larry, you know I
23:44
Speaker 3: can't guarantee you what a court will do in a year.
23:47
Speaker 3: I mean we might not even be, you know, heard
23:49
Speaker 3: in the year.
23:50
Speaker 1: Look, I'm a big fan of Larry Krasner. I'd like
23:53
Speaker 1: to clone that guy and put him in offices all
23:55
Speaker 1: over the country. Nobody's perfect, though, this outcome was far
23:59
Speaker 1: from perfect. But nonetheless, Larry, I think you know, Look,
24:02
Speaker 1: no one can follow you from making that decision. What
24:05
Speaker 1: was it like to walk out into the air, into
24:09
Speaker 1: the arms of your loved ones? What did you do first?
24:11
Speaker 1: Did you go get something to eat? Did you hug
24:14
Speaker 1: a tree? Like?
24:14
Speaker 2: What did you do? Well? Jason? When I first heard that,
24:18
Speaker 2: I was, you know, found out that I was truly
24:20
Speaker 2: going home after thirty eight years or something I didn't
24:23
Speaker 2: do in prison. You know, I was overwhelmed.
24:25
Speaker 3: I was excited standing outside the prison waiting for him
24:29
Speaker 3: to come out. There was must have been what Larry
24:31
Speaker 3: fifty people and all of his family. It was just
24:34
Speaker 3: the kind of you know, jump for joy. Moment dimnity
24:37
Speaker 3: emerged from behind the doors.
24:39
Speaker 2: My family had a gathering for me at a hall.
24:42
Speaker 2: I went to go eat, and I had relatives, my
24:45
Speaker 2: sisters and brothers and cousins and so forth, and all His.
24:49
Speaker 3: Daughter Sharena arranged with the local community center to cater
24:54
Speaker 3: a little celebration lunch. It was wonderful and I.
24:57
Speaker 2: Went out to go eat with Paul and his white
25:00
Speaker 2: was there. I had a big stake for my first mail.
25:04
Speaker 3: It was really cool.
25:05
Speaker 1: Larry. We're all thrilled that you're free, that you're home,
25:09
Speaker 1: that you're here with us today. I know that there'll
25:12
Speaker 1: be people that are listening that would like to support
25:14
Speaker 1: you as well. You have a go fundme that people
25:18
Speaker 1: might be able to help you because the state obviously
25:21
Speaker 1: has never given you any compensation and they're not going to.
25:24
Speaker 1: So this is the part of the show that I
25:26
Speaker 1: always look forward to. It's called closing arguments, and it
25:30
Speaker 1: works like this. I thank each of you again for
25:33
Speaker 1: taking your time to be here today and share this
25:35
Speaker 1: remarkable story. And then I'm going to turn my microphone off,
25:40
Speaker 1: beat my headphones on, and kick back in my chair
25:43
Speaker 1: and just listen to anything else that you guys want
25:46
Speaker 1: to share.
25:47
Speaker 3: I guess what I want to share is that, you know,
25:49
Speaker 3: Larry is an extraordinary human being, and I think he's
25:53
Speaker 3: blessed by the fact that he has a wonderful family.
25:55
Speaker 3: I don't want to be negative, but these wrongful conviction
25:58
Speaker 3: cases where people can out of jail after spending thirty
26:01
Speaker 3: eight years or twenty four years or whatever period of
26:05
Speaker 3: time thirty years, it's not a victory. It's a sad
26:09
Speaker 3: comment on a system that consistently and persistently makes the
26:14
Speaker 3: same mistakes over and over and over and really does
26:20
Speaker 3: little to correct them. You know. Yet, we have a
26:23
Speaker 3: federal system that is hostile to reviewing state courts convictions.
26:28
Speaker 3: And that wasn't the case, you know, pre nineteen ninety
26:32
Speaker 3: six and the passage of the Anti Terrorism Affected Death
26:34
Speaker 3: Penalty Act, and state courts have created barriers to relitigating
26:41
Speaker 3: cases and to bringing cases of innocence forward. People have
26:45
Speaker 3: to understand that there are lots and lots of innocent
26:48
Speaker 3: people behind bars that are prevented from bringing claims based
26:53
Speaker 3: on time constraints and in access to evidence that they
26:58
Speaker 3: should be able to access. But the courts say, no,
27:01
Speaker 3: you don't have a right through it, and the problems
27:04
Speaker 3: continue to this day, over and over, and Larry's case
27:07
Speaker 3: is really illustrative of exactly that. And it's just a
27:11
Speaker 3: frightening kind of system. And you have to understand the system.
27:15
Speaker 3: It's dependent upon human beings, and human beings have to
27:18
Speaker 3: act in a certain way in order for fairness to occur,
27:21
Speaker 3: and when they don't do what they should do, you
27:24
Speaker 3: wind up with wrongful conditions.
27:26
Speaker 2: Jason, I just would like to encourage of the family
27:29
Speaker 2: that may be going through something similar like my case,
27:32
Speaker 2: that family support is very important for people that's incarcerated
27:37
Speaker 2: for something they didn't do. I just like to encourage
27:41
Speaker 2: other families to support they loved ones. And I also
27:44
Speaker 2: like to encourage the listeners to write other organizations that
27:49
Speaker 2: take cases on like minds. If it happened to me,
27:52
Speaker 2: I believe that it can happen to other people. I
27:55
Speaker 2: just like to thank some turn in ministry for believing
27:58
Speaker 2: in me and fighting for me over these many years
28:03
Speaker 2: and bringing me home to my family and my loved ones. Jason,
28:07
Speaker 2: once again, not to repeat myself, to thank you for
28:09
Speaker 2: taking his time out for you know, interviewing me and
28:12
Speaker 2: getting my story out. It means a lot to me
28:15
Speaker 2: and just want to say go equals.
28:23
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
28:26
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
28:28
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
28:31
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall,
28:35
Speaker 1: Annie Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow
28:38
Speaker 1: executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cleibern. The
28:42
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
28:44
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
28:48
Speaker 1: all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
28:51
Speaker 1: Wrong for Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
28:54
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is the production of
28:57
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signals Opening number
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Speaker 1: one