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#465 Jason Flom with David Ayala · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: On August sixteenth, nineteen eighty one, gunshots sprayed into Chicago's
0:07
Speaker 1: Petrowsky Park. Three young people were hit and two of
0:11
Speaker 1: them died. The victims were affiliated with the Latin Kings,
0:17
Speaker 1: and witnesses identified two alleged members of the two.
0:20
Speaker 2: Sixth Street gang, But.
0:22
Speaker 1: When one went missing and the other was to be
0:25
Speaker 1: tried as a juvenile, the police targeted the alleged gang leadership,
0:30
Speaker 1: amassing witness testimony about an alleged meeting held by eighteen
0:33
Speaker 1: year old David Ayala and his cousin Jimmy Soto, who
0:36
Speaker 1: were both sent away for life. But this is wrongful conviction.
0:49
Speaker 1: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
0:52
Speaker 1: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
0:56
Speaker 1: at eight three three two oh seven four six sixty six.
1:00
Speaker 2: Tell us how these.
1:00
Speaker 1: Stories make you feel and what you've done to help
1:03
Speaker 1: the cause, even if it's something as simple as telling
1:06
Speaker 1: a friend or sharing on social media, and you might
1:09
Speaker 1: just hear yourself in a future episode. Call us A
1:13
Speaker 1: three three two oh seven four.
1:14
Speaker 2: Six sixty six.
1:25
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today we're interviewing David Ayala,
1:30
Speaker 1: who served more time than anyone else wrongfully convicted in
1:36
Speaker 1: the history of the state that probably has more wrongful
1:39
Speaker 1: convictions than any other state in this crazy country of ours.
1:42
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Illinois. Forty two years in prison for
1:46
Speaker 1: a crime. I think they should have known at a
1:49
Speaker 1: minimum from the beginning that he had nothing to do
1:52
Speaker 1: with it. And before we get into the story, first
1:55
Speaker 1: of all, I want to introduce the man himself, a
1:58
Speaker 1: hero of mine and so many other people.
2:01
Speaker 2: David Ayala, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
2:04
Speaker 3: Thank you for the warm welcome.
2:05
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad you're here. And I'm so glad
2:08
Speaker 1: you're free, finally free. It's sort of a miracle. And
2:11
Speaker 1: the miracle is in those small part due to our
2:14
Speaker 1: other guests today I name people who are fans of
2:18
Speaker 1: the show or just fans of justice. Will recognize Jennifer
2:22
Speaker 1: boninga bojin Lag group. Jennifer, welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
2:26
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me back.
2:27
Speaker 1: And I know you're excited to be here to talk
2:29
Speaker 1: about this guy, right yeah. So, David, I want to
2:33
Speaker 1: get to know you first though, before we talk about
2:35
Speaker 1: what happened to you. You grew up in the Chicago area,
2:39
Speaker 1: right yeah.
2:40
Speaker 5: I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago, an
2:43
Speaker 5: area known as Little Village, predominantly Mexican American working class.
2:48
Speaker 5: My home was my parents, three brothers, and my sister.
2:51
Speaker 5: We went to Catholic grade school and then at the
2:53
Speaker 5: age of nine, my parents divorced and my siblings chose
2:57
Speaker 5: to go with my mother. And I was always especially
3:00
Speaker 5: close to my father, so I decided to go to
3:02
Speaker 5: my father. So we relocated to another part of Little Village.
3:07
Speaker 5: It's good neighborhood. There was also gangs there, unfortunately, but
3:11
Speaker 5: other than that, it was sort of a normal childhood.
3:14
Speaker 1: But a normal childhood during this time in Chicago meant
3:17
Speaker 1: gang affiliation based on location, regardless of involvement, and for David,
3:21
Speaker 1: that was the two sixth Street gang. In our experience,
3:24
Speaker 1: gang affiliation has served as more than enough motivation for
3:26
Speaker 1: Cook County Police. The target young man like David and
3:29
Speaker 1: his cousin Jimmy Soto, but David stood out even more.
3:33
Speaker 5: My best friend was dating the daughter of the police
3:37
Speaker 5: commander of that local police district who didn't like who
3:40
Speaker 5: his daughter was dating, and he was like my best friend.
3:42
Speaker 5: He was always with me, and so that commander put
3:45
Speaker 5: the word out. We see these guys give them the treatment.
3:47
Speaker 5: The treatment consists of pulling you over without probable call,
3:51
Speaker 5: searching your car. Twice, they took me to the rival
3:54
Speaker 5: neighborhood land King neighborhood, left me there a block away
3:58
Speaker 5: from the groups of these land Kings and told them
4:01
Speaker 5: you got one down the block and I had to
4:02
Speaker 5: run away, so twice they put my life in jeopardy.
4:04
Speaker 5: They will harassed me so much. I fillowed a complaint
4:07
Speaker 5: with the Office of Professional Standards and I was coming
4:11
Speaker 5: back from that actual police station where I registered my
4:14
Speaker 5: complaint and the same group officers pulled me over. I
4:17
Speaker 5: had the papers that I had to sign registering the
4:19
Speaker 5: complaint and they're all passing that paperwork around and they
4:23
Speaker 5: hated me from that point on. They're like, Okay, you're
4:25
Speaker 5: gonna file a complaint on us watch and they actually
4:28
Speaker 5: used that word watch and I didn't have to wait
4:30
Speaker 5: very long to watch.
4:31
Speaker 3: Picked me up for anything.
4:33
Speaker 5: You're standing in front of your house, disorader conduct and
4:36
Speaker 5: you're not even drinking anything. And it was just constant harassment.
4:39
Speaker 5: After being harassed, I was cocky with them. Don't you
4:42
Speaker 5: guys got anything better to do than harass me. Every
4:45
Speaker 5: single time go saw some crimes, I would advise it
4:48
Speaker 5: strongly not to be that way with the officers. One
4:50
Speaker 5: thing I learned about the police officers in Chicago you
4:53
Speaker 5: never want to route of their cage.
4:54
Speaker 3: You will become a target.
4:56
Speaker 1: And since David and his cousin Jimmy were often seeing together,
4:59
Speaker 1: they both were targets. Which brings us to August sixteenth,
5:02
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one Petrowski Park, which was allegedly the territory
5:06
Speaker 1: of the two sixth Street gang rivals of the Latin Kings,
5:09
Speaker 1: and shots were fired into the park from a walkway,
5:12
Speaker 1: hitting three young people, sixteen year old Julie Limis, eighteen
5:16
Speaker 1: year old Hector Valleriano, and nineteen year old Wan Padilla. Tragically,
5:20
Speaker 1: one was the only one who survived out of the gate.
5:23
Speaker 4: The Chicago Police Department assumed, and not necessarily unjustly, that
5:30
Speaker 4: this was a gang related shooting. The victims were associated
5:34
Speaker 4: purportedly with the Latin King Street gang.
5:36
Speaker 1: And according to the surviving victim, Juan Padia and his
5:39
Speaker 1: friend Mario Abarca, shortly before the shooting, a Chicago Animal
5:44
Speaker 1: Control van flashed its lights into the park and an
5:47
Speaker 1: employee of that agency. Twenty year old JJ Rojas was
5:50
Speaker 1: identified as was his friend sixteen year old Victor Rodriguez,
5:54
Speaker 1: and later on the name Wally Cruz was thrown in
5:57
Speaker 1: the mix, but initially it was just the Jeuve Rodriguez
6:00
Speaker 1: and JJ Rojas.
6:02
Speaker 5: Moments before this shooting happened, numerous witness identified JJ Rojas
6:08
Speaker 5: in the van flashing his light on the crowd, and
6:11
Speaker 5: after the shooting happened, Lo and behold, he doesn't report
6:14
Speaker 5: to work the next day, He's off the face of
6:17
Speaker 5: the map and is gone.
6:18
Speaker 3: And it's still gone to this very day.
6:20
Speaker 1: Rodriguez, who was arrested on October fifth, about a month
6:24
Speaker 1: and a half after the crime, rejuvenile court judge for
6:28
Speaker 1: some reason refused to grant the prosecution motion to move
6:31
Speaker 1: his case to adult court, and he was released.
6:34
Speaker 2: I don't know.
6:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just going to speculate and say, maybe
6:37
Speaker 1: they wanted a bigger fish.
6:38
Speaker 2: He was a sixteen year old kid.
6:40
Speaker 1: They probably wouldn't have been able to get him for
6:42
Speaker 1: life or death sentence or whatever they were trying to
6:45
Speaker 1: get out of this case.
6:46
Speaker 4: So instead of saying it's possible that Victor Rodriguez JJ
6:51
Speaker 4: Rojas or Wally Cruz on their own committed a crime.
6:56
Speaker 4: They decided, no, it's not important enough to get the
6:59
Speaker 4: right people. They decided, we're going to use it as
7:02
Speaker 4: an opportunity to frame two people who we believe are
7:08
Speaker 4: high ranking gang members in the two six Streak gang.
7:11
Speaker 4: And they had their eyes on David Ayala. David was
7:14
Speaker 4: only eighteen himself. He was in their crosshairs and his
7:18
Speaker 4: cousin was Jimmy Soto, who they perceived as this right
7:22
Speaker 4: hand man, so they became the prime suspects. Now they
7:26
Speaker 4: knew that David Iyola was nowhere near the seam, so
7:29
Speaker 4: they could only get him if he was calling the shots.
7:33
Speaker 4: And the way they did it was like rounding up
7:36
Speaker 4: juveniles then coercing them to regurgitate the narrative that was
7:40
Speaker 4: being fed to them.
7:42
Speaker 5: And my particular case happened during aorial election and one
7:46
Speaker 5: of the platforms of the candidates was to make crime.
7:49
Speaker 5: You know, their platform, they're going to solve this case.
7:51
Speaker 5: And young people were abused, physically abused, mental abuse, They
7:56
Speaker 5: were deny their rights, deny their parents, they were lied to.
8:00
Speaker 3: This was a terrible abuse of our civil rights.
8:03
Speaker 4: They went so far as to in some cases charged
8:06
Speaker 4: them with obstruction of justice, and in order to essentially
8:11
Speaker 4: get their obstruction of justice charge dismissed, they had to
8:15
Speaker 4: get on the bandwagon of the story that the Chicago
8:17
Speaker 4: Police Department wanted them to tell, and the story was
8:21
Speaker 4: that there had been some gang meeting at David Ayala's
8:25
Speaker 4: house earlier that they were all present for.
8:30
Speaker 1: Ultimately, nine young men who were allegedly affiliated with the
8:33
Speaker 1: two six Street gang were indicted, including the four that
8:35
Speaker 1: were brought to trial, David and Jimmy, as well as
8:38
Speaker 1: David's cousin Reuben Palomo and eighteen year old Wally Gator Cruz,
8:42
Speaker 1: the last of whom ended up testifying against his co
8:45
Speaker 1: defendants in exchange for you guests at leniency. This narrative
8:49
Speaker 1: continued that by about six pm, all but the four
8:53
Speaker 1: co defendants had left David's house when a phone call
8:56
Speaker 1: alerted them that the Latin Kings were in Petrovsky Park.
9:00
Speaker 1: Cruise said that he was ordered to start David's dark
9:02
Speaker 1: blue band.
9:04
Speaker 5: I've never owned a dark blue van in my life.
9:06
Speaker 5: And here's the funny part about it. The police went
9:08
Speaker 5: and asked my neighbors does David have a van? Have
9:11
Speaker 5: you ever seen a van here? And the neighbors confirmed,
9:13
Speaker 5: I've never had a van. They've never seen a van.
9:15
Speaker 5: The only event that really came up conclusively was the
9:18
Speaker 5: animal control van, but we were taking into custody October fifteen,
9:22
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty one.
9:33
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
9:36
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9:39
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9:43
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. The state's narrative continued that Cruz allegedly's
9:53
Speaker 1: roven armed Jimmy Soto and Ruben Palomo to Petrowsky Park,
9:57
Speaker 1: where they first encountered two young women, Isabelle gone Mez
10:00
Speaker 1: and Lisa Suarez, who told them that the Latin Kings
10:02
Speaker 1: were still in the park. Then they spoke againic allegedly
10:06
Speaker 1: with JJ Rojas and Victor Rodriguez, before pulling into an
10:09
Speaker 1: alley near the park, where Jimmy and Rubin allegedly exited
10:13
Speaker 1: the van with a rifle and a handgun, and Cruise
10:16
Speaker 1: heard gunshots. Then the pair returned to the van saying quote,
10:20
Speaker 1: we might have hit somebody, and the three sped back
10:23
Speaker 1: to David's house, where David allegedly received a phone call
10:26
Speaker 1: confirming two fatalities, and they were put on trial in
10:29
Speaker 1: September nineteen eighty two, where the state supported cruise with
10:33
Speaker 1: a parade of witnesses.
10:35
Speaker 4: Well, there were a parade of witnesses that didn't have
10:39
Speaker 4: really even that much to say. Frankly, there were witnesses
10:43
Speaker 4: who testified about the shooting what they saw, but not
10:48
Speaker 4: any identification testimony, nothing that would suggest that these defendants
10:52
Speaker 4: were the people responsible. There was a lot of time
10:55
Speaker 4: spent on the crime itself, which was clearly horrific, but
10:59
Speaker 4: designed to a flame the passions of the jury, and
11:02
Speaker 4: that's all fair game, but when it came down to
11:04
Speaker 4: the actual evidence, it was scammed.
11:06
Speaker 1: But let's just talk about one Isabelle Gomez, right, She
11:10
Speaker 1: testified she was in the park with her friend Suarez
11:13
Speaker 1: prior to the shooting. She recalled that one of those
11:15
Speaker 1: president was a guy named Mario Abarca who was a
11:18
Speaker 1: member of the Latin King. She said that she and
11:21
Speaker 1: Suarez left and she saw Suarez make a phone call
11:25
Speaker 1: that Suarez said she had called Ayala's home. Now it
11:29
Speaker 1: goes on that they saw Cruz and Palomo. She said
11:33
Speaker 1: Cruz was driving a dark blue van and Palomo was
11:35
Speaker 1: in the pastor seat. She couldn't see if anyone else
11:37
Speaker 1: was in the rear seat. Goma said that Palomo asked
11:40
Speaker 1: who was in the park, and she told him that
11:41
Speaker 1: Ebarca was there. She said the cruise drove off toward
11:44
Speaker 1: the park and she later heard gunshots. Now, during cross examination,
11:47
Speaker 1: get this this is the key, right. So she said
11:51
Speaker 1: that about two or three weeks after the shooting, police
11:53
Speaker 1: came to her home to interview her. The detectives came
11:57
Speaker 1: every two or three days, and she said the officers
12:00
Speaker 1: threatened her. They told her, quote, we are going to
12:03
Speaker 1: take you to the park. We are going to tell
12:05
Speaker 1: all the people there that you'd set them up, so
12:09
Speaker 1: similar to what they were doing to you before, David.
12:11
Speaker 1: They were going to drop her off in a place
12:13
Speaker 1: where she would likely be killed or who knows what.
12:17
Speaker 5: They're going to take her to the Lang King so
12:19
Speaker 5: she get raped. So I wasn't angry with her because
12:23
Speaker 5: her experience of what she had to endure as a
12:26
Speaker 5: young girl should never have happened.
12:28
Speaker 1: In addition, Isabelle Gomez said that she and Suarez had
12:32
Speaker 1: initially been charged with the murders, but those charges were
12:35
Speaker 1: swapped for obstruction of justice charges that would remain until
12:38
Speaker 1: after they testified. The state also put on a guy
12:41
Speaker 1: named John Erosco, who testified about seeing the animal control
12:45
Speaker 1: van that he knew Rojas usually drove, but that he
12:49
Speaker 1: said he thought it was a different dark blue van
12:53
Speaker 1: that rolled up at the time of the shooting. He
12:56
Speaker 1: and the surviving victim, want Padia, testified that they hadn't
12:59
Speaker 1: seen the gunman.
13:00
Speaker 4: When push came to shove. The only witness who ultimately
13:04
Speaker 4: implicated David and Jimmy was this highly incentivized co defendant,
13:10
Speaker 4: Wally Cruz, who had negotiated a deal with the state
13:14
Speaker 4: to testify against them in exchange for a five year sentence.
13:19
Speaker 4: Maybe he was actually involved, Maybe he was just afraid
13:21
Speaker 4: that they would falsely accuse him. It's unclear why he
13:25
Speaker 4: did this, but we do know that the testimony was
13:27
Speaker 4: false and he got a sweetheart deal because of it.
13:30
Speaker 5: He says, we had this gang meeting at my house,
13:32
Speaker 5: and he names these people being there, and we were
13:35
Speaker 5: able to show it's impossible for these people to have
13:37
Speaker 5: been at this meeting as he indicated.
13:40
Speaker 4: The defense did a very good job of showing this
13:42
Speaker 4: gang meeting never happened. One kid that initially said was
13:46
Speaker 4: at the gang meeting was actually in a juvenile facility
13:49
Speaker 4: locked up at the time of the alleged gang meeting.
13:51
Speaker 4: So if that's not evidence of coercion, I don't know
13:53
Speaker 4: what is. Another kid was in the hospital. There were
13:56
Speaker 4: medical records showing he was literally in the hospital at
13:59
Speaker 4: the time the alleged meeting took place.
14:02
Speaker 1: Now Alex Gomez was the one who was in Jeuvie
14:05
Speaker 1: and Robert Ba Gomez was the one at the hospital.
14:08
Speaker 1: Javier Yakez was at home, Tyrone Ayala was at his mother's.
14:13
Speaker 1: Jimmy Sodo's sister Martha, and his girlfriend Diana were at
14:16
Speaker 1: David's house that night and they testified that no gang
14:19
Speaker 1: meeting took place and neither David nor Jimmy ever left
14:21
Speaker 1: the home. In addition, there was Elisa Orosco and Carol
14:25
Speaker 1: Choppa who both testified the Cruz told them that he
14:28
Speaker 1: planned to falsely testify a trial, but.
14:32
Speaker 4: The prosecutions just like they're all gang members and they're
14:35
Speaker 4: all liars. You can't believe any of them, but you
14:38
Speaker 4: can believe this one gang member Wally Cruz, who we
14:41
Speaker 4: just gave a kiss to in exchange for participating in
14:44
Speaker 4: this murder. So it really did turn on Cruz's testimony,
14:48
Speaker 4: which again was highly incentivized.
14:51
Speaker 5: What point of our trial when the jury was excused,
14:54
Speaker 5: the state attorney turned syrus.
14:55
Speaker 3: He gave me the middle finger.
14:57
Speaker 5: I was naive to think that justice would prevent because
15:01
Speaker 5: of evidence. But they were not emphasizing the evidence. They
15:04
Speaker 5: were emphasizing the gang factor. If you want the gangs
15:07
Speaker 5: to run your city streets, find these men innocent. If
15:11
Speaker 5: you want a secure neighborhood, they have to be found guilty.
15:15
Speaker 1: So finally, September thirtieth, nineteen eighty two, after eight hours
15:19
Speaker 1: of deliberation, the jury came back and reported that they
15:22
Speaker 1: were deadlocked on all but one charge against you and
15:26
Speaker 1: your cousin, Jimmy Soto.
15:27
Speaker 4: Judges have a way of coercing verdicts, shall we say,
15:34
Speaker 4: They have a way of signaling through instructions, through all
15:37
Speaker 4: types of means. Go back, keep deliberating, keep deliberating, bring
15:41
Speaker 4: us back a verdict. And jurors of human beings, they
15:44
Speaker 4: get fatigued. They read the tea leaves. They get the
15:48
Speaker 4: impression that their job is to come back, and in
15:50
Speaker 4: this case, to come back and convict I think deadlocked
15:53
Speaker 4: or not. There was probably fewer people on the not
15:58
Speaker 4: guilty side than the guilty side, which is typically the case.
16:02
Speaker 5: The bailiff was a pretty nice guy. He seen what
16:05
Speaker 5: was happening in our court room. He kind of empathized
16:08
Speaker 5: with us, and he told me the air ventilation in
16:10
Speaker 5: the jury room is malfunctioning. There's miserable conditions in that
16:13
Speaker 5: jury room. And so when the jury foreman told the
16:16
Speaker 5: judge that he couldn't reach a verdict their deadlocked, the
16:19
Speaker 5: judge and tone to them, well, you're going to go
16:21
Speaker 5: back and I'm sure you're going.
16:23
Speaker 3: To reach a verdict, or you could keep deliberating.
16:25
Speaker 5: And then all of a sudden, miraculously, forty five minutes
16:28
Speaker 5: later or whatever it was, they reached a vertict you
16:31
Speaker 5: not misus verdict. They all averted their eyes, every single
16:34
Speaker 5: one of them had their eyes down.
16:35
Speaker 4: And so ultimately David Aila and Jimmy Soto are convicted
16:40
Speaker 4: in this grave miscarriage of justice in which they both
16:44
Speaker 4: are sentenced to mandatory life sentences.
16:47
Speaker 5: My brain like blew a gasket. I wasn't like shouting out, Oh,
16:51
Speaker 5: how did this happen? I was just like stupefied, How
16:54
Speaker 5: could this possibly happen? The whole spirit inside of me
16:58
Speaker 5: was just like vacuumed out. My attorney came back and said,
17:01
Speaker 5: we're going to feel this.
17:02
Speaker 3: And forty two years.
17:04
Speaker 4: Past, David Ayala, for no reason other than his perceived status,
17:26
Speaker 4: not because he was a difficult prisoner or had a
17:29
Speaker 4: bad disciplinary history or anything of that nature, was shipped
17:32
Speaker 4: off the TAMS the minute it was opened, which was
17:35
Speaker 4: the supermax facility that has since been shut down as
17:38
Speaker 4: human rights violation, violation of Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual conditions,
17:43
Speaker 4: where he spent literally seven years in isolation, seventeen years
17:47
Speaker 4: without a phone call, no human contact.
17:50
Speaker 5: We went literally years with the same people on the
17:54
Speaker 5: tie they call it, and it's five sales upstairs, five
17:57
Speaker 5: sales downstairs. Were I never saw that person face, I
18:01
Speaker 5: heard his voice. I had no idea what he could
18:03
Speaker 5: look like. They always put a mentally ild person on
18:06
Speaker 5: Earth Tier, and instead of them getting a treatment, they
18:09
Speaker 5: were locked in their cells and made it worse. And
18:12
Speaker 5: so now they're hearing voices and everything. And he'd make
18:14
Speaker 5: noise all night, and I noticed there was a recipe
18:18
Speaker 5: for coping with it, and there was a recipe for disaster,
18:21
Speaker 5: a recipe for maintaining your sanity. I found what was
18:25
Speaker 5: working for me and others was seeing sleep hours, meditate, prey,
18:30
Speaker 5: have an exercise routine. The yard is a misnomer. It
18:34
Speaker 5: was not a yard. I went seventeen years without stepping
18:37
Speaker 5: on earth or seeing a blade of grass. It was
18:39
Speaker 5: a concrete box that you couldn't even run laps the
18:43
Speaker 5: stay in shape because you run three steps, you have
18:45
Speaker 5: to turn. That's how small that area was. But at
18:47
Speaker 5: least you could have fresh air. They had these high
18:49
Speaker 5: concrete walls. All you saw was concrete walls. Your other
18:53
Speaker 5: view was to look at the sky and see at
18:55
Speaker 5: barbed wire and chaining fence. So everything was a reminder
18:58
Speaker 5: you're in prison. And the people that weren't doing those
19:01
Speaker 5: things were the people that were the most frustrated, screaming out,
19:04
Speaker 5: lashing out, they losing their minds.
19:07
Speaker 4: I have one other client who spent a lot of
19:09
Speaker 4: time there. It is not anything that any of us
19:12
Speaker 4: can wrap our heads around. But as far as I know, David,
19:16
Speaker 4: I was there the day it was opened and the
19:17
Speaker 4: day it was closed he, I think, not only has
19:20
Speaker 4: the unfortunate circumstance of being one of the men who
19:24
Speaker 4: has served the longest wrongful conviction in the history of Illinois,
19:27
Speaker 4: but also served the longest time at TAM's supermacs in
19:33
Speaker 4: complete isolation, which frankly, I don't know how he even
19:36
Speaker 4: functions to this day.
19:38
Speaker 5: I would like to think that I overcame my conditions,
19:40
Speaker 5: but I really didn't, because to this day there's triggers,
19:44
Speaker 5: tears come out just remembering the horrible experience. And so
19:50
Speaker 5: when there was a movement to close TAMS based on
19:53
Speaker 5: the effects that was having, the mental deterioration of the inmates,
19:57
Speaker 5: the cost, and there was a movement to close the prison,
20:00
Speaker 5: the local officer union threatened the judge. They put a
20:04
Speaker 5: court injunction to keep the prison open, and they told
20:07
Speaker 5: the judge, listen, you were your constituents. In six months,
20:11
Speaker 5: you're for reelection. If you closed this prison, we're going
20:15
Speaker 5: to vote you out office. But he had no recourse
20:17
Speaker 5: to keep that prison open when the governor of the
20:20
Speaker 5: state of Illinois and the prison director said that prison
20:24
Speaker 5: has to be closed.
20:25
Speaker 3: The prison has to be closed.
20:26
Speaker 1: In those nearly first two long decades, David's cousin, Jimmy Soto,
20:31
Speaker 1: became a legendary jailhouse lawyer at Stateville Penitentiary, and he
20:37
Speaker 1: was responsible for sending so many other innocent men home.
20:40
Speaker 1: But somehow though, he couldn't develop that kind of traction
20:43
Speaker 1: for himself and for David, whose cases were, let's face it,
20:47
Speaker 1: inextectably lengthd Meanwhile, in the years following the closure of
20:51
Speaker 1: the TAMS facility, David was not reunited with Jimmy.
20:54
Speaker 4: Illinois has a agreement with other states that if we
20:58
Speaker 4: have a high profile prisoner or someone that we believe
21:01
Speaker 4: should be outside the state doing their time because of
21:04
Speaker 4: some reason, they will have them doing time elsewhere. And
21:08
Speaker 4: David fell into that category because the Illinois Department of Corrections,
21:13
Speaker 4: whether it was justified or not, whether it was based
21:17
Speaker 4: in fact or not, had designated David as high ranking
21:23
Speaker 4: a chief. You know, they have all types of labels,
21:26
Speaker 4: and once they have put that label on you, you are
21:29
Speaker 4: stuck with it. So he did all of his time
21:31
Speaker 4: in Utah. It was extraordinarily difficult, not just for his
21:35
Speaker 4: mental state, but also just being able to, for instance,
21:39
Speaker 4: keep up with your appeals and access to courts in
21:43
Speaker 4: Illinois was so difficult. He's either in isolation or out
21:46
Speaker 4: well outside the state of Illinois, communication, etc. So over
21:50
Speaker 4: the forty two years that he was fighting this case,
21:53
Speaker 4: he had additional challenges that even other prisoners would.
21:58
Speaker 1: Not have, so appeal after appeal were denied. First denied
22:02
Speaker 1: in eighty six by the First District of ILLINOI Appellate Court.
22:05
Speaker 1: In ninety one, Jimmy acting without a lawyer while the
22:08
Speaker 1: post conviction pro se petition legend his child defense attorney
22:12
Speaker 1: pridate inadequate legal defense. The lawyer had failed to call
22:16
Speaker 1: six other witnesses who would have testified the cruise live,
22:18
Speaker 1: but they said they were at your house for the
22:20
Speaker 1: gang meeting. Petition will go do other things. But nonetheless
22:25
Speaker 1: the petition was dismissed.
22:26
Speaker 4: And I'm familiar with Jimmy's case too, the way that
22:29
Speaker 4: the system handled his post conviction petitions. They lingered on
22:33
Speaker 4: for decades, up and down the courts, back and up
22:35
Speaker 4: to the appellate court, back down, judge screws up again,
22:39
Speaker 4: goes up. I mean, we're talking decades of just colossal mistakes.
22:44
Speaker 4: But eventually David and Jimmy find themselves. In twenty fifteen,
22:49
Speaker 4: back in the circuit court on a post conviction petition
22:52
Speaker 4: on claims of actual innocence. Perge your testimony in effective
22:56
Speaker 4: assistance a council, and there's a strong body of support
23:01
Speaker 4: for these claims.
23:03
Speaker 1: The petitions contained numerous affidavits from witnesses identifying the actual
23:06
Speaker 1: gunman as here we go again, Victor Rodriguez and JJ Rojas.
23:11
Speaker 1: Some of them recounted that police officers had slapped and
23:15
Speaker 1: hit them until they agreed to say that this meeting,
23:18
Speaker 1: this phantom meeting, had taken place. Robert jack Quiz, for instance,
23:22
Speaker 1: said police told him that unless he signed a statement,
23:25
Speaker 1: he would go to jail for the rest of his life.
23:26
Speaker 1: He also said that he had spoken with Cruise after
23:28
Speaker 1: Cruise was released from prison, that Cruise admitted to him
23:31
Speaker 1: that he had falsely implicated you guys.
23:34
Speaker 2: It goes on and on.
23:35
Speaker 1: Isabelle Gomez wrote an affid David that the prosecutor had
23:38
Speaker 1: told her exactly what to say to the grand jury,
23:41
Speaker 1: and she said that the detectives told me if I
23:43
Speaker 1: didn't cooperate, I would be charged with murder. She went
23:47
Speaker 1: on to say, this is a quote. The detectives told me.
23:50
Speaker 1: If I didn't cooperate, they would drop me off by
23:52
Speaker 1: the Latin Kings so they could rape me. At this point,
23:55
Speaker 1: I was so frightened and confused that I felt I
23:58
Speaker 1: had no choice but to testify as to what I
23:59
Speaker 1: was told. I didn't want to be charged with murder
24:03
Speaker 1: or harmed by the Latin Kings end quote.
24:07
Speaker 4: And the judge ultimately denies them an evidentiary hearing, which
24:12
Speaker 4: was I'm sure a low point for David. I'm sure
24:15
Speaker 4: it was a low point for Jimmy. And then they
24:18
Speaker 4: had to go back up to the appellate court. God
24:20
Speaker 4: knows how many times it was at this juncture. I
24:23
Speaker 4: stepped into the case. At that point, with my colleagues
24:26
Speaker 4: over there at Lov and Lov, who now represent Jimmy,
24:30
Speaker 4: we were able to get the case reversed and sent
24:34
Speaker 4: back to the judge for an evidentiary hearing, both on
24:37
Speaker 4: actual innocence and in effective assistance a council.
24:40
Speaker 5: Jennifer told me, she said, listen, the state is indicating
24:43
Speaker 5: that they're not going to contest our petition and they
24:47
Speaker 5: just have to go through the procedures to the levels
24:49
Speaker 5: of the state's attorney's office. And so we had, like
24:52
Speaker 5: I don't know four, maybe five continuances.
24:54
Speaker 4: We were sweating it out to the last minute, right.
24:55
Speaker 5: David test to understatement, He's really an understatement. It was
24:59
Speaker 5: a emotional, mental, spiritual roller coaster. I made the rookie
25:04
Speaker 5: mistake of a prisoner where you count down the days
25:07
Speaker 5: and you say to yourself, this is going to be
25:09
Speaker 5: the final day. And my friends that were touching with
25:12
Speaker 5: my family, they were like, well, we want to take
25:14
Speaker 5: you to this comedy event on this date here.
25:17
Speaker 3: My court day was a week before that.
25:19
Speaker 5: I daydreamed and I fantasized in my mind, I'm going
25:22
Speaker 5: to be at that event. Well, we went to court
25:25
Speaker 5: another continuance. So that night when I was counting on
25:28
Speaker 5: going to that event, I was listing to my cell
25:31
Speaker 5: looking at the ceiling, saying, okay, well, this is going
25:34
Speaker 5: to be clear by the next time. The next time,
25:36
Speaker 5: I was saying, I want to be out there for
25:38
Speaker 5: my daughter's birthday.
25:39
Speaker 3: I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to have a father
25:41
Speaker 3: daughter dance. And it hadn't cleared yet.
25:44
Speaker 4: And the good part of the story is that eventually,
25:48
Speaker 4: although they made us sweat it out for a very
25:50
Speaker 4: long time, the Cook County State's Attorney's office ultimately threw
25:54
Speaker 4: in the towel, could not proceed in good faith after
25:58
Speaker 4: all of these years, and agree that David and Jimmy
26:01
Speaker 4: were both entitled to post conviction relief, and then ultimately
26:04
Speaker 4: dismissed all charges against them. And even then the judge
26:08
Speaker 4: almost didn't want to do it.
26:10
Speaker 5: The judge was given like this long spill of what
26:13
Speaker 5: was presented before him. He doesn't have to rubber stamp anything,
26:16
Speaker 5: and this and that, And after this long spill, he said,
26:19
Speaker 5: in light of the state's attorney position, or vacate the
26:21
Speaker 5: sentence and then it's over with.
26:23
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, did this really just happen.
26:27
Speaker 5: When you go to court, you have supporters there and
26:29
Speaker 5: the jubilant and they want to scream and they want
26:32
Speaker 5: to reach you to Heaven, pump the fish in the air.
26:34
Speaker 5: But when you're dealing with a cantigerous judge, you can't
26:37
Speaker 5: even express an outburst of joy because you get reprimanded.
26:41
Speaker 5: You just imagine, after forty two years of wrong for imprisonment,
26:45
Speaker 5: you awarded your freedom and you can't even scream out
26:48
Speaker 5: a joyous exclamation.
26:50
Speaker 3: But I felt it. I felt it in my spirit.
26:53
Speaker 4: So when they finally vacated his convictions and he's going
26:56
Speaker 4: to be released. That night he came to my law
27:00
Speaker 4: from this Christmas party.
27:01
Speaker 1: I was lucky to meet you at that wonderful celebration
27:04
Speaker 1: we had in Chicago. I was just looking at the
27:07
Speaker 1: picture on my phone that we took. I think you
27:10
Speaker 1: were wearing a Bonging Law Group long sleeved t shirt
27:13
Speaker 1: because it was December in Chicago, and yeah it with
27:17
Speaker 1: a big smile.
27:17
Speaker 2: On your face, and oh yeah, yeah.
27:19
Speaker 1: It was just so great to be with you and
27:21
Speaker 1: Jimmy and Jennifer and the whole team. It's a moment
27:24
Speaker 1: I won't forget. So what was it like when you
27:27
Speaker 1: finally breathed free air?
27:30
Speaker 5: Well, when I was finally released, everything was wondrous to me.
27:34
Speaker 5: Everything was wondrous, just looking on the street and seeing
27:37
Speaker 5: lights and everything and people walking, pedestrians walking. And after
27:41
Speaker 5: I got out of prison about a month later, my
27:44
Speaker 5: brother in law, my sister and him have two dogs
27:46
Speaker 5: and they asked me if I can walk the dog.
27:48
Speaker 5: Seeing the dogs stiff on the ground, I was thinking
27:50
Speaker 5: to myself, I wonder what that dog's thinking, and my
27:52
Speaker 5: brother and dog's just trying to rush. He wanted to
27:54
Speaker 5: get home by I'm like, let's take a second, let
27:56
Speaker 5: me enjoy this here, and he said, okay, he got it.
27:59
Speaker 5: He finally understood. I seen the squirrels running round. And
28:02
Speaker 5: you know when we went to New Orleans as part
28:04
Speaker 5: of the Innocence Conference and we're on a boat and
28:06
Speaker 5: I was looking at the moon like these things touched
28:09
Speaker 5: me deeply to see a moon because for years in prison,
28:14
Speaker 5: I didn't see a move.
28:17
Speaker 3: So there are blessings now after that experience.
28:21
Speaker 2: I imagine everything is just I can't imagine. I can't
28:25
Speaker 2: even say can imagine. I can't imagine. It's it's just
28:28
Speaker 2: I'm just so happy that you're here.
28:30
Speaker 1: I wish you all the best of everything now, today, tomorrow,
28:35
Speaker 1: and for the rest of your life. And we're going
28:37
Speaker 1: to have a link in the episode description to a
28:40
Speaker 1: GoFundMe that was set up for David. I hope that
28:45
Speaker 1: our listeners will join me in donating to help him
28:48
Speaker 1: get back on his feet. And with that, I want
28:51
Speaker 1: to turn to my favorite part of the show, which
28:54
Speaker 1: is called closing arguments, and it works like this. First
28:59
Speaker 1: of all, thank you Jennifer David. And now I'm going
29:02
Speaker 1: to pick back in my chair, and close my eyes
29:05
Speaker 1: and just listen to anything that you think is left unset.
29:09
Speaker 2: So Jennifer, tradition holds you go first.
29:12
Speaker 1: And then this is David's show, and I want him
29:15
Speaker 1: to take us off into the sunset.
29:16
Speaker 2: So Jennifer, over to you.
29:19
Speaker 4: David is an incredible person. I've really enjoyed getting to
29:23
Speaker 4: know him and what he's endured. I can't even wrap
29:27
Speaker 4: my head around. And after he was released from Cook
29:30
Speaker 4: County Jail, he had this beautiful gift made for me,
29:34
Speaker 4: which is the T shirt that David was wearing when
29:37
Speaker 4: he got released from prison from Cook County Jail. He
29:40
Speaker 4: had it framed and on it it says to Jennifer Bonjeing,
29:45
Speaker 4: I wore this Cook County Jail T shirt as part
29:48
Speaker 4: of my Cook County Jail uniform while facing Judge Joyce
29:51
Speaker 4: on December fourteenth, twenty twenty three, the day you secured
29:55
Speaker 4: my freedom. You and your excellent law group put an
29:57
Speaker 4: end of forty two years of wrongful imprisonment. I am
30:00
Speaker 4: eternally grateful to you with my love and admiration. David Ayala,
30:04
Speaker 4: So even in the mix of it all, even though
30:07
Speaker 4: he had no need to do something so special, it
30:11
Speaker 4: really is special to me. So that's why it's hanging
30:13
Speaker 4: on my office wall.
30:15
Speaker 5: For me now after this horrible experience, Like people ask me,
30:19
Speaker 5: am I bitter?
30:20
Speaker 3: Am I resentful?
30:21
Speaker 5: No, because like my mind is taking in new experiences
30:25
Speaker 5: like walking the dog was a new experience, having an
30:27
Speaker 5: umbrella in the rain. Tomato sister put a tomato on
30:30
Speaker 5: the table and I was like, this is beautiful tomato.
30:34
Speaker 5: She's like, it's a tomato, Dude. To you, it's a tomato.
30:37
Speaker 5: You go years in prison. I seeing a full tomato.
30:40
Speaker 5: You're so grateful for these things. I recently started working.
30:43
Speaker 5: I work twelve hour shifts from six o'clock in the
30:46
Speaker 5: morning six o'clock at night. I have friends that are
30:48
Speaker 5: retiring at this age. I'll be sixty one next month.
30:52
Speaker 5: I should have had a nestache, but when I got
30:53
Speaker 5: my paycheck, I felt proud. This is something ironed as
30:57
Speaker 5: a man, and so these things that everybody else so
31:00
Speaker 5: you won't think twice of it.
31:01
Speaker 3: It's like it's an incredible experience for me.
31:04
Speaker 5: And I think, if there's any blessing in this, I
31:07
Speaker 5: was given this deep sense of gratitude.
31:11
Speaker 3: It's just it's wondrous to me.
31:12
Speaker 5: It's just like I have a deep sense of gratitude
31:15
Speaker 5: to have my freedom now after losing all those decades
31:19
Speaker 5: in prison.
31:27
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
31:30
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
31:32
Speaker 1: week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on
31:35
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor
31:39
Speaker 1: Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive
31:42
Speaker 1: producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Watis, and Jeff Cliber. The music
31:45
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
31:48
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all
31:51
Speaker 1: social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction.
31:55
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm.
31:58
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is auction of Lava for Good Podcasts in
32:01
Speaker 1: association with Signal Company Number one