Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #300 Guest Host Earlonne Woods with Caramad Conley

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#300 Guest Host Earlonne Woods with Caramad Conley · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Flahman. I'm over the top excited because this
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Speaker 1: is our three hundredth episode. Listen. I wish we never
0:07
Speaker 1: had to do any episodes at all, and I wish
0:09
Speaker 1: that these wrongful convictions weren't even a thing. But we're
0:12
Speaker 1: going to keep doing them for as long as we
0:15
Speaker 1: possibly can. Until my last breath, I'll be making these podcasts.
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Speaker 1: But this is the three hundredth one, and we are
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Speaker 1: honored and I'm humbled to have as a guest host
0:25
Speaker 1: for this episode my friend and personal hero, mister Erlon Woods.
0:30
Speaker 1: Now Erlon you probably know his name because he's the
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Speaker 1: guy who created and co hosted the groundbreaking podcast ear Hustle,
0:37
Speaker 1: which he produced while serving time in San Quentin prison.
0:41
Speaker 1: So thank you for your continued support. We still have
0:44
Speaker 1: tons more work to do and we hope you'll listen
0:47
Speaker 1: and get involved.
0:52
Speaker 2: Back in the nineteen eighties, Karam Conley was living in
0:55
Speaker 2: San Francisco, California, that was doing the crack era and
0:59
Speaker 2: police was doing everything they could to stump out gang activity.
1:03
Speaker 2: On April eight, nineteen eighty nine, there was a drive
1:06
Speaker 2: by shooting in Karamand's neighborhood. The bullets injury Levin and
1:10
Speaker 2: killed two Charles Hughes and Roshawn Johnson. Of the eight
1:14
Speaker 2: people who were allegedly involved in the crime, only one person,
1:18
Speaker 2: Paul Green, was convicted and sentenced. The pressure was building
1:23
Speaker 2: for police to find other perpetrators. About a month before
1:26
Speaker 2: this crime happened, Kara Mad had got into a fight
1:29
Speaker 2: with another kid from school and landed Karamid with an
1:32
Speaker 2: assault charge. So police created a narrative around this fight
1:36
Speaker 2: that it started a whole series of violent retaliations resulting
1:39
Speaker 2: in the drive by shooting. Yet police had no evidence
1:43
Speaker 2: beyond one witness would claim he heard Karamad bragging about
1:46
Speaker 2: his involvement. Still, Kara Mood would be convicted of two
1:49
Speaker 2: murders and ten attempted murders. He was sentenced to life
1:53
Speaker 2: in prison without the possibility of parole. This is wrongful conviction.
2:12
Speaker 2: I'm Marline Woods and I'm the co host and co
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Speaker 2: creator of podcast called Ear Hustle, which brings you the
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Speaker 2: daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it.
2:21
Speaker 2: And we also do stories from the outside post incarceration.
2:25
Speaker 2: And today I have the pleasure of guest hosting Wrongful Conviction,
2:30
Speaker 2: and I'm here with a cat named Kramat. Conley and
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Speaker 2: Kramat I would like you to introduce yourself to the people.
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Speaker 3: Hello, everybody, what's up roline? Glad to be here. I'm
2:41
Speaker 3: excited about talking about the story. My name is Caramut Conley.
2:46
Speaker 3: I'm from originally Oakland, California, born and raised, raised between
2:50
Speaker 3: there in San Francisco, California.
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Speaker 2: So, Caramut, can you describe your life prior to being arrested.
2:59
Speaker 3: I was born to a fan a nine I have
3:01
Speaker 3: five brothers, three sisters. Our neighborhood was predominantly African American
3:06
Speaker 3: working class families. Everybody in the neighborhood knew each other,
3:11
Speaker 3: you know, mothers, fathers, you know, it was a great
3:14
Speaker 3: environment to grow up in.
3:16
Speaker 2: Cool And let me ask you this. You know you
3:18
Speaker 2: grew up in San Francisco. How was like law enforcement
3:22
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood? You know, did you have any prior
3:25
Speaker 2: run ins with them or any anything leading up to Nah?
3:28
Speaker 3: And that's a great question, right. And it's interesting because
3:31
Speaker 3: my dad was in the military, so we had already
3:34
Speaker 3: kind of been in still with that kind of country duty,
3:37
Speaker 3: honor stuff. But my dream really was to be a
3:42
Speaker 3: swat officer when I was young, right back in those days,
3:45
Speaker 3: they were considered the good guys. And I've always seen
3:48
Speaker 3: police officers like that.
3:49
Speaker 2: Did anything derail you from becoming a SWAT officer?
3:53
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, when I became a teenager. So you have
3:58
Speaker 3: to tie in what they call the crack era, right,
4:00
Speaker 3: the drug era that changed everything, That changed our whole community,
4:05
Speaker 3: That changed our perceptions of like the police. That changed everything.
4:10
Speaker 3: You started seeing people in our community, in our neighborhoods,
4:14
Speaker 3: like who started kind of indulging in the selling of it.
4:18
Speaker 3: So that's when you started seeing like, wow, look at that.
4:20
Speaker 3: You know, he got a new car. You know, you
4:22
Speaker 3: start seeing all these different things you've never seen before.
4:24
Speaker 3: So that's when I started understanding like there was a
4:28
Speaker 3: shift going on in our society and particularly in our community.
4:31
Speaker 3: You started seeing, you know, police more at the schools.
4:35
Speaker 3: You started those kind of interactions. So what we didn't know,
4:41
Speaker 3: meaning like the kids in the community, teenagers, was that
4:43
Speaker 3: the police officers started creating these narratives around our community.
4:50
Speaker 3: So they started calling them turfs, right, And we definitely
4:55
Speaker 3: believed that they were trying to take a page out
4:57
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles politics, gain politics and stuff and at
5:00
Speaker 3: that there and if you from like this area, you
5:03
Speaker 3: were part of this turf and then this turf. And
5:06
Speaker 3: people used to always try to correct these officers and
5:12
Speaker 3: journalists when they used to use these turns, and people
5:14
Speaker 3: used to be like, what are y'all talking about? Like
5:16
Speaker 3: we ain't this ain't no turf.
5:18
Speaker 2: So the police are creating this narrative. But did you
5:21
Speaker 2: identify with any gangs Sunnydale or Bay Point or any
5:25
Speaker 2: of that.
5:25
Speaker 3: No, because it wasn't that type of thing. Man, Like,
5:28
Speaker 3: the only ones that created that narrative that was trying
5:31
Speaker 3: to put us in that was police officers.
5:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So I want to move into the story a
5:35
Speaker 2: little bit. In March nineteen eighty nine, you get into
5:39
Speaker 2: a fight with a friend from school named Jeff Franklin
5:41
Speaker 2: over some gossip going around. And then later on that
5:45
Speaker 2: same day, in an unrelated event, there's this other crime,
5:49
Speaker 2: a guy named Peter Lee is murdered. The police connect
5:53
Speaker 2: these two incidents, I guess because they happen on the
5:56
Speaker 2: same day or something. So tell me about your first
6:00
Speaker 2: interaction with the police. How did they connect these two
6:03
Speaker 2: separate things.
6:04
Speaker 3: This is where I could introduce Earl Sanders and Napoleon
6:08
Speaker 3: Hendrix because they were their two African American veteran homicide detectives.
6:14
Speaker 3: And they were always wearing suits and these like for
6:17
Speaker 3: Dora Brims, and they came to my house. They never
6:20
Speaker 3: called me to come down there. They came to my house.
6:22
Speaker 3: And my father was always a straight shooter, and he's like, well,
6:25
Speaker 3: you know, my son, I know he doesn't have anything
6:27
Speaker 3: to hide, so he didn't mind them talking to me.
6:30
Speaker 3: They started asking me about the situation with Jeff, like,
6:34
Speaker 3: and I said, yeah, we had an altercation and you know,
6:38
Speaker 3: we resolved it. We made peace and everything was cool.
6:40
Speaker 3: And they started alluding to Peter possibly being murdered because
6:48
Speaker 3: of the altercation I had with Jeff. Right, this was
6:51
Speaker 3: their narrative, Like, so I was like, what are you
6:53
Speaker 3: talking about? So it was like they were trying to
6:56
Speaker 3: say what you did preceded this. They started asking me
7:01
Speaker 3: about all these different people and I'm like, yeah, I
7:04
Speaker 3: don't know who you talking about. I don't know this person.
7:07
Speaker 3: I don't know that person. That's when they kind of
7:09
Speaker 3: formulated this. I don't know. I think they were pissed
7:13
Speaker 3: off that I wasn't really helping them. The narrative that
7:16
Speaker 3: the police were pushing was that this is all gang related.
7:20
Speaker 2: And then about a month later, on April eighth, nineteen
7:23
Speaker 2: eighty nine, there was a drive by shooting in Bayview
7:26
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood. Eleven people were injured and two people
7:29
Speaker 2: were killed, Charles Hughes and Rosehawn Johnson. And it's really
7:35
Speaker 2: a terrible crime. It's sad. But how did you get
7:38
Speaker 2: wrapped up in all of this?
7:39
Speaker 3: There was a lot of pressure on the police to
7:42
Speaker 3: solve these crimes. You know, people in the community were
7:44
Speaker 3: coming out and they were like fed up with this stuff,
7:47
Speaker 3: and they were you know, now the police are really
7:49
Speaker 3: just going crazy, like okay, because now they're saying that
7:53
Speaker 3: this was retaliation for Peter Lee being killed. So now
7:59
Speaker 3: they come back to me again. So they now they
8:02
Speaker 3: come in with a different energy, like they're threatening me
8:04
Speaker 3: and all this other kind of stuff. So my pops
8:06
Speaker 3: was like, look, I'm not letting him talk to y'all again,
8:09
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So that was it, and uh,
8:12
Speaker 3: but they were like, look, we're gonna we're gonna come
8:14
Speaker 3: back and get him if he doesn't help us, you know,
8:16
Speaker 3: get you know this, that and the other so but
8:18
Speaker 3: in July they came back with a warrant, so they
8:22
Speaker 3: charged me with that assault and that at that time,
8:25
Speaker 3: but they had me thinking they were charging me with
8:27
Speaker 3: murders or whatever. So I'm like, this is why y'all
8:32
Speaker 3: arrested me. I'm like, well, that was already resolved, but
8:34
Speaker 3: the district attorney had picked it up. And so what
8:36
Speaker 3: I learned later was that because I had no criminal
8:39
Speaker 3: record I had, I was not even in a system.
8:41
Speaker 3: I said, this is a way for them to get
8:43
Speaker 3: me in the system under paperwork, right, So you know,
8:47
Speaker 3: they booked me, and ultimately I pleaded totally even them.
8:51
Speaker 3: I told them, yeah, I did it. I did that.
8:53
Speaker 3: We had an issue and that's what happened, and we
8:55
Speaker 3: resolved it and I wasn't trying to hide it or
8:57
Speaker 3: nothing like that. So that's they end up giving me
9:00
Speaker 3: three years probation and I spent like thirty days in
9:03
Speaker 3: jail in the county or whatever. They gave me three
9:05
Speaker 3: years probation.
9:07
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, detective Saunders and Henders with their suits in
9:11
Speaker 2: there for door brims. They end up arresting a guy
9:14
Speaker 2: named Paul Green for the drive by shooting on April
9:16
Speaker 2: eighth and during Paul's trial in nineteen ninety two, you
9:20
Speaker 2: were called to testify.
9:22
Speaker 3: Yet it wasn't around till ninety two when Paul Green's
9:26
Speaker 3: trial started that I get a subpoena to his court.
9:30
Speaker 3: So I get an outside lawyer, Donald Bergerson, who would
9:33
Speaker 3: later become my actual attorney, but I get him to
9:36
Speaker 3: represent me on this subpoena because I'm like, I don't
9:40
Speaker 3: have nothing to say to these people.
9:42
Speaker 2: So Paul Green goes on trial, You get subpoena and
9:45
Speaker 2: hire Donald Bergerson to represent you, and then at some
9:49
Speaker 2: point you start to realize that there was more to this,
9:53
Speaker 2: that they were going to try to wrap you up
9:54
Speaker 2: in this same crime that April eight drive by shooting
9:57
Speaker 2: that killed two people. Do you remember remember how you
10:01
Speaker 2: first heard about that.
10:02
Speaker 3: The rumblings started coming, Like my lawyers started talking to
10:05
Speaker 3: me about, hey, uh, you know, they're talking about this guy,
10:08
Speaker 3: like they have some evidence against you for this, and
10:10
Speaker 3: I'm like, what this is. When Clifford Polk enters the picture,
10:15
Speaker 3: he was probably four years younger than me, But Clifford
10:18
Speaker 3: Polk was a guy who was really friends with my
10:20
Speaker 3: younger brother that he was friends we met, he was
10:22
Speaker 3: in high school. He was raised by a single mother,
10:24
Speaker 3: so we kind of took him in as a younger siblings,
10:28
Speaker 3: so to speak, because that's how my father was with
10:30
Speaker 3: the kids in the neighborhood. He would just you know,
10:32
Speaker 3: be a father figure to a lot of these kids.
10:34
Speaker 2: Clifford Pope, now he's a pretty important character in this
10:37
Speaker 2: story because it's ultimately his evidence that they used to
10:42
Speaker 2: convict you. What did he say to the police to
10:44
Speaker 2: tie you into the crime.
10:46
Speaker 3: Polk brought in another mutual friend of ours named Batist
10:50
Speaker 3: Batiste Richardson. He said that Batist loaned me a weapon,
10:55
Speaker 3: and then when Batist went to retrieve the weapon back
10:58
Speaker 3: for me, like hey, let me get that back, Cliff
11:00
Speaker 3: said that I said to Batist, oh you don't want
11:02
Speaker 3: that man that got cheap Charlie name written all over.
11:04
Speaker 2: It, and Chief Charlie, that's Charles Hughes, one of the
11:07
Speaker 2: people murdered on April eight.
11:09
Speaker 3: Cliff just made up a lot of stuff. He just
11:11
Speaker 3: started making up stuff like I was selling guns out
11:14
Speaker 3: of my house and he was just making up stuff, right,
11:16
Speaker 3: And then they investigated Batist, of course to coroborate what
11:20
Speaker 3: Cliff said, and of course Batiste was like, what you know,
11:24
Speaker 3: this is bullshit, Like this did not happen. I don't
11:26
Speaker 3: know what this dude is talking about. So my attorney
11:29
Speaker 3: told me they want you to turn yourself in, and
11:31
Speaker 3: I said, I've turned myself in for what He's like,
11:34
Speaker 3: they have a charge against you, like, they have a warrant.
11:37
Speaker 3: And it was probably two months before they finally came
11:41
Speaker 3: to the house while I was there and arrested me.
11:45
Speaker 2: Okay, so now we're getting into the trial. The prosecution's
11:49
Speaker 2: main argument was the testimony of Clifford Pope. There was
11:53
Speaker 2: some back and forth between both sides as to whether
11:55
Speaker 2: Pope was being incentivized by the police to implicate you,
11:59
Speaker 2: but Pope said on stand that he wasn't in witness
12:02
Speaker 2: protection and he wasn't getting anything in return for his testimony,
12:05
Speaker 2: and this is really important and we'll get back to
12:08
Speaker 2: that later on. So all this is going on, and
12:11
Speaker 2: you actually decide to testify in your own defense, something
12:15
Speaker 2: that you rarely see. Why did you decide to testify?
12:19
Speaker 3: So one of the primary reasons why I testify is
12:23
Speaker 3: because one, I didn't do it right, and I wasn't
12:26
Speaker 3: afraid to get up there, and I knew whatever the
12:29
Speaker 3: district Attorney was going to say about me, like I
12:34
Speaker 3: had already admitted to it, meaning like my prior saw
12:37
Speaker 3: it or whatever it was like, So I knew beyond
12:40
Speaker 3: that anything he tried to allege against me, he would
12:43
Speaker 3: be just making it up. And I felt like I
12:47
Speaker 3: wanted to I wanted to speak my peace, like I
12:49
Speaker 3: wanted to be able to say no, I didn't do this.
12:52
Speaker 2: And getting up there, I mean, how did you feel
12:54
Speaker 2: about the try? How did you gauge the jury? Did
12:57
Speaker 2: you think they was? They was listening.
12:59
Speaker 3: I just figured if they hear this information, they're gonna
13:02
Speaker 3: side with the truth. So the way that the DA
13:05
Speaker 3: spun it though he painted a very effective picture. All
13:09
Speaker 3: they see is what's on TV. And it's like, like
13:12
Speaker 3: what I want to start. Police are good? If you
13:17
Speaker 3: weren't bad, you wouldn't be coming from out of that
13:20
Speaker 3: holding tank in this orange like you would be coming
13:23
Speaker 3: from out here, Like it's all those dynamics where I play.
13:26
Speaker 2: And going through that, going through that trial, you know,
13:29
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna speak from personal, but going through a trial,
13:33
Speaker 2: you don't know what's going on, you don't know the law,
13:35
Speaker 2: you don't you have no clue on whether it's up
13:38
Speaker 2: down whatever. You just sitting there. How long did your
13:41
Speaker 2: trial last? And when you was convicted? How did the
13:43
Speaker 2: words guilty hit you?
13:45
Speaker 3: Okay, so my trial lasted, I would say, I wouldn't
13:49
Speaker 3: say it lasted longer than two weeks. They tried to
13:52
Speaker 3: offer me a deal. So my lawyer came in there
13:56
Speaker 3: and he's like, I know this is the part that
13:58
Speaker 3: you know, you don't we want to hear about, and
14:02
Speaker 3: you know, but I have to do this, you know,
14:03
Speaker 3: like I have to offer you this, and you know,
14:05
Speaker 3: jen Enny is talking about a deal here. And I
14:08
Speaker 3: said a deal like what they gonna let me go?
14:11
Speaker 3: And I don't assume what like? And he's like, well, no,
14:15
Speaker 3: you know, he said, if you willing to take thirty years,
14:19
Speaker 3: you know you could. I said, what thirty years like?
14:26
Speaker 3: So then my lawyer went down to like fifteen years, right,
14:33
Speaker 3: and then he went down to like ten and I said,
14:36
Speaker 3: I'm not taking a day like, I'm not I'm not
14:39
Speaker 3: taking a day period. And I told my lawyer, I said, man,
14:43
Speaker 3: they about to find me not guilty. And we went
14:49
Speaker 3: out there and they, you know, the foreman read the
14:52
Speaker 3: verdict or gave it to the judge and the judge
14:54
Speaker 3: said guilty. It was a surprise. It was a It
15:00
Speaker 3: was kind of surreal. So I just kind of sat
15:05
Speaker 3: with it, like, Okay, what do we do now.
15:14
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by the AIG pro Bono Program.
15:18
Speaker 1: AIG is a leading global insurance company, and the AIG
15:22
Speaker 1: pro Bono Program provides free legal services, as well as
15:25
Speaker 1: other support to many nonprofit organizations as well as individuals
15:29
Speaker 1: who are most in need, and they recently announced that
15:33
Speaker 1: working to reform the criminal justice system will become a
15:37
Speaker 1: key pillar of the program's mission.
15:48
Speaker 3: Once that happened, you know, it was just guilty on
15:52
Speaker 3: all these charges, right, So you also have your lawyer.
15:56
Speaker 3: When you hear your lawyer say your're want to put
15:58
Speaker 3: this in a record, to appeal this to do so,
16:00
Speaker 3: that means you have one last chance, which is you
16:02
Speaker 3: can go in front of the judge and then the
16:04
Speaker 3: judge can actually just do the right thing, you know,
16:08
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna ow, I don't believe that the burden
16:11
Speaker 3: of proof was met on the side of the prosecution,
16:13
Speaker 3: and that's what I was hoping for. And I really
16:16
Speaker 3: thought that that was gonna happen. And I spoke to
16:18
Speaker 3: the judge. You know, I told the judge, I said, listen,
16:21
Speaker 3: all I expected was fairness and impartiality, and I haven't
16:24
Speaker 3: gotten any of that. So I'm appealing to your fairness
16:27
Speaker 3: and your impartiality in this matter. That's what I said
16:29
Speaker 3: to him. And he gave me all these life sentences.
16:33
Speaker 2: So what was your What was your sentence?
16:36
Speaker 3: So I ended up with twelve life sentences too without parole,
16:39
Speaker 3: plus twenty six years.
16:40
Speaker 2: Damn how long? I mean? I know I might be joking,
16:43
Speaker 2: but shit, how long would it that took you to
16:44
Speaker 2: do all that time?
16:46
Speaker 3: Well, and then I would have had to die once,
16:49
Speaker 3: come back, die again, come back, die ten more times,
16:53
Speaker 3: come back, and then do twenty six years. That's what
16:57
Speaker 3: it meant.
16:58
Speaker 4: Like.
16:58
Speaker 3: The shit didn't make no sense to me. It was
17:00
Speaker 3: surreal it did. I'm like, you could have just gave
17:03
Speaker 3: me one life sentence and it would have helped me,
17:05
Speaker 3: but it essentially was a death sentence. That's basically what
17:08
Speaker 3: it was.
17:09
Speaker 4: Hey.
17:10
Speaker 2: I used to clawn with one of my partners. He
17:12
Speaker 2: had two hundred and ten years to life and shit,
17:14
Speaker 2: onder the three strikes law, and we used to be like, man,
17:15
Speaker 2: So when you get out Okay, so you you on
17:19
Speaker 2: your way to prison from the county jail, and you
17:25
Speaker 2: know it's a trip. Man. You know, I've always wondered about,
17:28
Speaker 2: you know, innocent people in prison. You know, I was
17:31
Speaker 2: pretty much guilty for the my actions, you know what
17:35
Speaker 2: I'm saying. But I always while I was in prison,
17:36
Speaker 2: I used to always wonder, what are innocent individual So
17:39
Speaker 2: I got to ask, man, what was prison like for
17:41
Speaker 2: an innocent man?
17:43
Speaker 3: Man, Look, I watched that movie before I ever went
17:46
Speaker 3: to prison, before like it was American me and I
17:49
Speaker 3: watched some other kind of penitential movies, and that shit
17:51
Speaker 3: was just like scary as fuck. Right, So I was like, god, never,
17:58
Speaker 3: I never never want to go to prison, right, And
18:01
Speaker 3: this is before any of that stuff, Like it was
18:03
Speaker 3: just that environment, that culture, right, and saying Quentin being
18:07
Speaker 3: the one place, especially back then, because when I went
18:10
Speaker 3: to San Quentin, like the inmates were like the counselor
18:13
Speaker 3: they did all the intake, you know, like it wasn't
18:15
Speaker 3: you didn't go see a counselor. They did it. They
18:17
Speaker 3: gave you your CDC number, you.
18:19
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
18:20
Speaker 3: Your picture looked like you one of them. Alcatraz Island inmates. Like,
18:24
Speaker 3: so that's what I had. That was my experience. Like
18:26
Speaker 3: they did a special transfer because I was now like
18:29
Speaker 3: essentially a death penalty kind of case with them Alwops.
18:33
Speaker 3: So I didn't have to wait for the prison bus
18:37
Speaker 3: and load up. They literally got me out of there
18:40
Speaker 3: the next day, Like I didn't get a chance to
18:43
Speaker 3: say bye to nobody, Like as soon as I was
18:45
Speaker 3: convicted the next day, I was on that butt on
18:47
Speaker 3: that van on my way to Quinton.
18:50
Speaker 2: And what was your mindset like going in with the
18:52
Speaker 2: alwop sentence, you know, life without the possibility of parole.
18:57
Speaker 3: It did I didn't. It didn't compute because it didn't
18:59
Speaker 3: make sense to me, Like I didn't understand what that meant,
19:02
Speaker 3: Like this is my first time going through something like this,
19:06
Speaker 3: So I didn't understand that it meant you gonna die
19:08
Speaker 3: in prison, You ain't never going to the board. I
19:11
Speaker 3: didn't understand any of that. I just assume at some
19:14
Speaker 3: point somebody gonna get me back, you know, my lawyer
19:18
Speaker 3: or somebody gonna find something that's And again, we had
19:21
Speaker 3: an appeal in so you hanging on those hopes like
19:24
Speaker 3: that your appeal and and uh so I just told
19:28
Speaker 3: myself immediately, I said, you know what, I'm just gonna
19:32
Speaker 3: meet this environment how it meets me. Like, that's what
19:35
Speaker 3: I'm about to do.
19:36
Speaker 2: I have to ask man, like, like, what was what
19:39
Speaker 2: was like a bad day in prison for you?
19:43
Speaker 3: Every day there's not a prison I went to I'm
19:46
Speaker 3: talking about. By the time I left prison, I had
19:50
Speaker 3: been to like ten different and all maximum security prisons
19:53
Speaker 3: because of my LWOP everywhere up north to down south
19:56
Speaker 3: by the Mexican border in between. Like I've been to
19:59
Speaker 3: all of that, and I tell you it was it
20:01
Speaker 3: was because of the type of sentence I had. It
20:06
Speaker 3: meant that I was only going to be around what
20:08
Speaker 3: they call the most violent kind of inmates, the most
20:11
Speaker 3: you know, all of that stuff. And uh and it
20:14
Speaker 3: and it lived up to every every word of that.
20:16
Speaker 3: Like two years after I was in prison, I was
20:19
Speaker 3: almost murdered in an unprovoked attack by some white supremacists.
20:24
Speaker 2: It just just real quick. What happened.
20:26
Speaker 3: Me and a friend of mine was just like walking
20:28
Speaker 3: the track and and uh it was like these five
20:30
Speaker 3: five guys, they were Nazi lowriders as they call them
20:33
Speaker 3: in LRS back then, and uh, they all had flat
20:36
Speaker 3: pieces of steel like and two of them came at
20:40
Speaker 3: my partner, like two of them, three of them came
20:42
Speaker 3: at me, and uh, thank God, like divine intervention in
20:46
Speaker 3: my fighting skills, because I did receive like some puncture wounds,
20:49
Speaker 3: Like I got about nine puncture wounds out of it
20:51
Speaker 3: because it was three of them. But uh, they didn't
20:53
Speaker 3: hit no vital Uh they wasn't able to hit vital
20:56
Speaker 3: organs because of the fact that I was fighting back
20:59
Speaker 3: and the guard were shooting and stuff like that. And
21:02
Speaker 3: in turn, you know that that put me in like
21:05
Speaker 3: a war mode mind, like when your security is breached
21:08
Speaker 3: like that, Like it's like what happened when I was
21:11
Speaker 3: on the streets, Like my perception changed from that point.
21:14
Speaker 2: So so it's safe to say you've seen a lot
21:16
Speaker 2: of violence in those level four prisons.
21:19
Speaker 4: Every day every day.
21:40
Speaker 2: I was just like you. I looked at the Court
21:43
Speaker 2: of Appeals as a way to get out. How did
21:45
Speaker 2: it work out for you and in post litigation that
21:48
Speaker 2: you win your appeals denied?
21:51
Speaker 3: I was denied all the way through around two thousand
21:56
Speaker 3: and one. Two other guys that I grew up with,
21:59
Speaker 3: John Tennyson and Anton Golf JJ and Sodapop, that's what
22:03
Speaker 3: their names were. So around two thousand and one, John's
22:08
Speaker 3: case started getting some traction in the news. A journalist
22:13
Speaker 3: by the name of A. C. Thompson who had worked
22:16
Speaker 3: for the Bay Guardian news at the time. So John
22:20
Speaker 3: Tennyson's brother Bruce always believed that his brother was falsely convicted.
22:24
Speaker 3: He decided to I guess he connected some kind of
22:27
Speaker 3: way with this journalist, told him, man, my brother is
22:30
Speaker 3: innocent in this and that, and these police are lying.
22:32
Speaker 3: And so AC Thompson decided to investigate it. He discovered
22:37
Speaker 3: that the exact same homicide detectives Earl Sanders and Napoleon
22:41
Speaker 3: Hendrix that had done that to me, had prior done
22:45
Speaker 3: it to John Tennyson and Anton Golf. In their case,
22:49
Speaker 3: there had already been a videotape confession of the person
22:52
Speaker 3: who had already killed the people that John and Anton
22:57
Speaker 3: had been convicted of. They had already had a videotape
23:00
Speaker 3: confession of the person who did it, admitted to it.
23:02
Speaker 3: They suppressed it. When a Bay Guardian newspaper came out
23:05
Speaker 3: with John Tennyson's face on the front of it and
23:08
Speaker 3: like questioning whether this man should be in prisoned. His brother,
23:13
Speaker 3: Bruce worked for this like car lot. He was a
23:16
Speaker 3: car lot intendant and next to his car lot was
23:20
Speaker 3: the law firm Kecker and Vaness. So what Bruce did
23:23
Speaker 3: was Bruce took all those Bay Guardian newspapers out that
23:26
Speaker 3: thing and he put them on their car windows. And
23:29
Speaker 3: they had happened to have a pro bono wing in
23:32
Speaker 3: their firm. So they investigated, and sure enough they found
23:38
Speaker 3: out that there was a suppressed tape and that these
23:40
Speaker 3: two guys have been framed. So at the same time
23:44
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three that they were being exonerated,
23:49
Speaker 3: I received the letter out the blue from the Innocence Project.
23:52
Speaker 3: I sent the letter to my father, and my father
23:55
Speaker 3: gathered up all my information that they were requesting and
23:59
Speaker 3: sent it to him. So the Innocence Project, once they
24:02
Speaker 3: connected the dots and seen that we had the same
24:05
Speaker 3: homicide detectives that had done all of this, they was
24:08
Speaker 3: like they started coming to visit me.
24:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a crazy kind of story. The Northern
24:14
Speaker 2: California Innocent Project ends up taking your case and they
24:17
Speaker 2: bring it to Kecker and van Neess hoping they would
24:20
Speaker 2: have some more information that could help you out. They
24:22
Speaker 2: end up talking to this lawyer, a god named Daniel Purcell,
24:26
Speaker 2: who worked on John and Antoine's case.
24:29
Speaker 3: And Daniel Purcell says to this day, he said, if
24:32
Speaker 3: it wasn't for your name, you would still be in prison.
24:36
Speaker 3: He said the name registered, and he said, like, where
24:39
Speaker 3: have I heard that name from. During the investigation of
24:42
Speaker 3: John and Anton's case, they sent an investigator. They had
24:46
Speaker 3: a motion for discovery, and I guess the city said
24:49
Speaker 3: you can go check this storage unit and these files
24:51
Speaker 3: and whatever, you know, and he had to go under,
24:53
Speaker 3: like he had to go under the debris and all
24:55
Speaker 3: of this stuff to pull these boxes out. It just
24:58
Speaker 3: so happened to have newnumerous boxes with my name and
25:02
Speaker 3: all kind of other stuff connected to it. And Dan
25:05
Speaker 3: was like, So the first thing Dan did was he
25:08
Speaker 3: contacted my old attorney, Donald Bergerson, and he's like, hey, Don, like,
25:13
Speaker 3: you know, who did tell him who he was what
25:14
Speaker 3: they were doing. He said, yeah, so we have these
25:17
Speaker 3: boxes and it has all these receipts and this and
25:19
Speaker 3: this and this, And my lawyer at the Donald was like,
25:23
Speaker 3: I knew it. I effen knew it. He was like,
25:25
Speaker 3: And then it made sense to me because back when
25:28
Speaker 3: I was in trial, this man used to file so
25:31
Speaker 3: many damn motions, right, and he always alleged that the
25:35
Speaker 3: district attorney out for j and NI was withholding information
25:38
Speaker 3: and not turning everything over so much so that we
25:41
Speaker 3: had to have a special hearing in order to resolve
25:44
Speaker 3: it once and for all. And that's when g and
25:46
Speaker 3: NI went on the record and back then and was like,
25:49
Speaker 3: you're honor, we have given. I've given and furnished mister
25:52
Speaker 3: Bergerson with everything, this, that and the other. So now
25:55
Speaker 3: we got all this suppressed evidence sitting right here.
25:59
Speaker 2: So ultimately came to light from all those boxes of
26:02
Speaker 2: suppressed evidence was that Clifford Pope not only lied when
26:06
Speaker 2: he named you, but he was actually paid to do it.
26:10
Speaker 2: In the trial, Clifford said that he wasn't in witness protection,
26:13
Speaker 2: but the evidence in those boxes proved that he was.
26:16
Speaker 2: He'd been paid a nice chunk of change to name
26:20
Speaker 2: you in this crime. And then in two thousand and five,
26:23
Speaker 2: ten years after you were sent to prison, cliff recannidate's testimony.
26:27
Speaker 2: He said that he was telling the truth now because
26:29
Speaker 2: he could no longer live with the guilt of you
26:31
Speaker 2: being in prison for a crime you didn't do. Do
26:34
Speaker 2: you hold any animosity towards him.
26:36
Speaker 3: I never saw Cliff as anything other than like a victim.
26:40
Speaker 3: As like me. Cliff is a young kid, you know,
26:45
Speaker 3: and he's scared to death of these homicide They do
26:48
Speaker 3: the same, I assume, the same thing that they tried
26:50
Speaker 3: to do to me to him, But it worked on him.
26:54
Speaker 2: And your lawyers from the Northern California Innocent Project ended
26:58
Speaker 2: up taking this suppressed evidence all the way to the
27:01
Speaker 2: California Supreme Court.
27:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, by two thousand and nine, the California Supreme Court,
27:06
Speaker 3: which I think this happens less than seven percent of
27:09
Speaker 3: the time with ELWAK cases, but they granted me an
27:11
Speaker 3: evidentiary hearing. So for the first time in all these years,
27:15
Speaker 3: I was able to come back in twenty ten for
27:18
Speaker 3: a week and we were able to depose the district
27:22
Speaker 3: attorney and I think Hendrix, the Sanders partner, had passed
27:27
Speaker 3: away in eight by this time, so they were also
27:29
Speaker 3: able to interview and depose Earl Sanders, and basically they
27:34
Speaker 3: just was blaming each other, Like al virgin Anny was saying, no,
27:37
Speaker 3: they never gave us this stuff. Sanders was saying, we
27:41
Speaker 3: gave Gnny and all this stuff and I'm just sitting
27:44
Speaker 3: back like whatever, y'all still fucked up, Like it ain't y'all.
27:48
Speaker 3: Y'all lied, period. So Judge Marla J. Miller she looked
27:53
Speaker 3: through it, and she saw through it, and she ultimately
27:56
Speaker 3: she vacated my conviction December fourteenth.
27:59
Speaker 2: I believe it was so cararaa. As you know, I
28:03
Speaker 2: was commuted by Governor Brown. My life sentence was commuted gone.
28:07
Speaker 2: And I know what I felt like, I have to
28:10
Speaker 2: ask you this, how did you find out that you
28:13
Speaker 2: were getting out.
28:14
Speaker 3: I was just in the celle like they had sent
28:16
Speaker 3: me back to prison, and I was doing what I
28:17
Speaker 3: do and one of my friends came up to me
28:21
Speaker 3: and he was like, man, you know you going home? Right?
28:24
Speaker 3: I was like what? He was like, Man, you going home?
28:27
Speaker 3: And he slid the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle to
28:30
Speaker 3: me under my door and it had my article right
28:33
Speaker 3: there on the front page, Judge vacate's conviction. Right. So
28:36
Speaker 3: I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh shit. So
28:39
Speaker 3: then you really start feeling like get me out of
28:41
Speaker 3: here right now? You know what am I doing here?
28:44
Speaker 3: Like you think you free now? Right?
28:46
Speaker 2: Yeah? Trust I know that feeling about let me out now.
28:49
Speaker 2: But the DA can hold you in there to see
28:52
Speaker 2: if the city wants to retry the case. But luckily
28:54
Speaker 2: for you, the dad's a time Kamala Harris the one
28:58
Speaker 2: that wants you to wait and see what happens with
29:00
Speaker 2: the city. She was leaving office to take a new
29:04
Speaker 2: job as the California Attorney General. She was being replaced
29:08
Speaker 2: by a new DA George Gascon.
29:11
Speaker 3: The first major order of business he did was dismissed
29:14
Speaker 3: my case outright, like just straight up, just dismissed it,
29:18
Speaker 3: and and then I would be released January twelfth. January twelfth,
29:24
Speaker 3: two thousand and eleven.
29:25
Speaker 2: To George Gascon.
29:26
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's a good thing right there.
29:29
Speaker 2: And you you have to explain, man, like what was
29:32
Speaker 2: that day like when you first walked out, Like what
29:35
Speaker 2: did you do?
29:36
Speaker 3: Of course, I was elated to be getting out, but
29:38
Speaker 3: now it's like fuck, like you know, I'm out of prison, now,
29:41
Speaker 3: what you know what I mean? Like I'm coming out
29:43
Speaker 3: of a controlled environment, extremely controlled environment to just basically
29:48
Speaker 3: be able to do what I want to do. So
29:50
Speaker 3: it was overwhelming, Like it was scary. It was I
29:52
Speaker 3: was happy about it, but it was it was just
29:55
Speaker 3: like I got to take this one day at a time.
29:58
Speaker 3: But then ultimately I just kind to you know, it's like,
30:02
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm finna take this head on out here,
30:04
Speaker 3: you know. And that's what I did. I never looked back,
30:08
Speaker 3: you know.
30:08
Speaker 2: And now that you're free, what are you doing?
30:11
Speaker 3: Well? When I first came home, like I was, I was,
30:15
Speaker 3: I was always like going to different law schools, you know,
30:17
Speaker 3: and talking talking to the first and second year law students,
30:20
Speaker 3: and I was doing this like all over the state,
30:23
Speaker 3: Like I was just going everywhere anywhere I was invited.
30:26
Speaker 3: Like I love talking about this story because it feels
30:29
Speaker 3: like it almost feels like it's not me I'm talking about,
30:32
Speaker 3: you know. And I kind of always say I was
30:35
Speaker 3: already free mentally, spiritually, I was already free. They just
30:39
Speaker 3: physically had my body. So I was very focused, like
30:43
Speaker 3: prior to getting out of prison, like, I was very
30:45
Speaker 3: focused on how I was going to live my life,
30:47
Speaker 3: what I was going to do. One of the main
30:49
Speaker 3: things was to be able to get back into prison,
30:52
Speaker 3: to be able to walk back through that visiting room
30:54
Speaker 3: as a free person, you know, with people that I
30:57
Speaker 3: literally grew up with in prison because I spent at
31:00
Speaker 3: that point, half my life in there, So that was
31:03
Speaker 3: one of the most empowering things was to be able
31:05
Speaker 3: to get approved by the CDC to come back in
31:11
Speaker 3: and visit, you know, and that's where I met you. Yep,
31:14
Speaker 3: that's exactly what happened.
31:16
Speaker 2: I was serving the life sentence and you came in
31:18
Speaker 2: and that's how I met you.
31:19
Speaker 3: Yeah. So from that point it was all about, Okay,
31:23
Speaker 3: I know all these great stories and different people in prison,
31:26
Speaker 3: and I always say prison is one of the most
31:28
Speaker 3: untapped markets for creative So in twenty sixteen, I ultimately
31:33
Speaker 3: created a production company, Lifted Clouds, and the goal there
31:38
Speaker 3: was to just bring a lot of guys content books,
31:43
Speaker 3: you know, personal stories, you know, all of this to
31:47
Speaker 3: the public, you know, because it's some amazing it's some
31:50
Speaker 3: amazing people in there.
31:52
Speaker 2: Caramel Connley, we thank you for definitely telling us your
31:55
Speaker 2: story of being I appreciate you convicted in California, man,
31:58
Speaker 2: and I'm glad you out here like doing your thing, man,
32:01
Speaker 2: and appreciate everything you're doing.
32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate y'all having me on here.
32:07
Speaker 2: So Karama, you know, I always wanted to be a lawyer.
32:10
Speaker 2: So now we're coming to what's called closing arguments. Do
32:15
Speaker 2: you have any final thoughts, any epiphanies, what would you
32:20
Speaker 2: like to share with the wrong full conviction listeners?
32:24
Speaker 3: You know, I would just say that. You know, It's
32:28
Speaker 3: like there's this this kind of myth where people say,
32:32
Speaker 3: you know, everybody in prison say always say they're innocent, right,
32:35
Speaker 3: Everybody says they're innocent when they're in prison, And that's
32:39
Speaker 3: a myth, honestly. Like there are guys, most of the
32:43
Speaker 3: guys that I was in prison with, they said they
32:46
Speaker 3: did the crime, they just didn't believe they should have
32:49
Speaker 3: got the time that they got. Like I said, essentially
32:51
Speaker 3: a life without parole since is a death sentence. But
32:53
Speaker 3: imagine if they would have gave me the death penalty
32:56
Speaker 3: and I would have actually died on death row, you know,
32:59
Speaker 3: and then you see all of it. Yeah, So that's
33:02
Speaker 3: the scary part about all of this. We think our
33:04
Speaker 3: systems are perfect, and they're not. They're not. They need
33:08
Speaker 3: to be absolutely reformed from the inside out. And I'm
33:11
Speaker 3: gonna tell you so much might come as a surprise.
33:13
Speaker 3: I'm not anti law enforcement by no mean, you.
33:17
Speaker 2: Know, so, do you still want to be a SWAT member?
33:21
Speaker 3: I am a SWAT member, just in a different way. Yeah.
33:26
Speaker 2: Also's and one thing I can say out this whole story, man,
33:31
Speaker 2: is uh, you got the best name because your name
33:35
Speaker 2: is what got you back into the game.
33:36
Speaker 3: So no doubt.
33:37
Speaker 4: Man.
33:37
Speaker 3: I thank my father and my mom for that, because
33:40
Speaker 3: growing up it was hell having that name because nobody
33:43
Speaker 3: can pronounce it right, you know. Shout out to my
33:46
Speaker 3: mom and pops, you know, for that.
33:53
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
33:57
Speaker 2: Erline Woods. I like to think of our executive producer
34:00
Speaker 2: Jason Flumm and Kevin Watis. The senior producer for this
34:04
Speaker 2: episode is Jackie Paul and our producers are Lila Robinson
34:08
Speaker 2: and Jeff Cleiburn. Our editor is Rook Sandra Guidy. The
34:11
Speaker 2: music in this production is by three time OSCAR nominated
34:14
Speaker 2: composer Jay Raff. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
34:20
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
34:25
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Rome Conviction, as well as at Lava
34:29
Speaker 2: for Good. On all three platforms, you can find me
34:32
Speaker 2: on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Erline Woods and check
34:36
Speaker 2: out ear Hustle, the podcast I co created with Nirapoor
34:40
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. We also wrote a book
34:43
Speaker 2: called This is Ear Hustle, Unflinching stories of everyday prison life.
34:48
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
34:51
Speaker 2: and association with Signal Company Number one.
35:04
Speaker 1: On next week's guest hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, my
35:07
Speaker 1: friend and personally hero ex Hoonery and musician Jimmy Dennis
35:12
Speaker 1: is going to interview Chester Holman the Third about their harrowing,
35:17
Speaker 1: tragic shared experiences of having been locked up in Philadelphia
35:20
Speaker 1: for crimes they didn't commit. Now, both men were put
35:24
Speaker 1: away by the notorious, infamous and even I'm going to say,
35:29
Speaker 1: evil prosecutor Roger King, who get this. He put more
35:33
Speaker 1: people on death row than anyone else in Pennsylvania history.
35:37
Speaker 1: And we know a bunch of them were innocent. And
35:39
Speaker 1: there's a lot of guys will never know about who
35:41
Speaker 1: we put on death row who are innocent as well.
35:44
Speaker 1: It's sickening, but it's a mustier story. It's going to
35:50
Speaker 1: be on Monday in the Ronful Conviction podcast feed