Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #525 Jason Flom with Willie "Pete" Williams

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#525 Jason Flom with Willie "Pete" Williams · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Ben Bollen again from the podcast Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: They Don't Want You to Know, and I'm back to
0:10
Speaker 1: introduce another one of my favorite episodes of Wrongful Conviction. However,
0:14
Speaker 1: before we do that, I'm here to tell you that
0:16
Speaker 1: coming up next week, there are some truly exciting things
0:20
Speaker 1: on the way from the Lava for Good team and myself,
0:23
Speaker 1: so be sure to tune in for that now. This
0:26
Speaker 1: week's release is another one that hits close to home
0:28
Speaker 1: for me. This is a story about a serial rapist
0:31
Speaker 1: that was perpetrating his crimes along a stretch of road
0:34
Speaker 1: that runs through Atlanta into a separate jurisdiction just north
0:38
Speaker 1: of the city, where only one of the police departments
0:41
Speaker 1: got it right and the other well. Their district attorney
0:44
Speaker 1: went to prison himself, so without any further ado, the
0:48
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction of Willie Pete Williams.
0:52
Speaker 2: This episode was recorded pre COVID at the Atlanta Innocence
0:56
Speaker 2: Network conference in twenty nineteen. On April fifth, nineteen eighty five,
1:02
Speaker 2: a woman was exiting her car at a parking lot
1:05
Speaker 2: just north of Atlanta when a man approached, asking about
1:08
Speaker 2: a woman named Carol. When he got close enough, he
1:11
Speaker 2: pulled a gun, forced her into the passenger seat, drove
1:14
Speaker 2: to a dead end, and proceeded to rape her. After
1:17
Speaker 2: the attack, the victim went to the hospital for a
1:19
Speaker 2: rape kit. With a well lit parking lot and over
1:22
Speaker 2: forty five minutes with her attacker, she was able to
1:25
Speaker 2: put together a composite sketch. On April tenth, a near
1:29
Speaker 2: identical incident occurred along the same stretch of road. A
1:32
Speaker 2: man approached a woman in a parking lot asking for
1:35
Speaker 2: carol before using a threat of violence to get her
1:38
Speaker 2: back into the car. However, this time the victim was
1:42
Speaker 2: able to talk the attacker into leaving.
1:44
Speaker 3: Before a rape occurred.
1:46
Speaker 2: The police showed this would be victim the composite sketch,
1:49
Speaker 2: and it appeared there was a serial rapist operating in
1:52
Speaker 2: the North Atlanta area. Then, on April twenty eighth, Willie
1:56
Speaker 2: Pete Williams, along with two of his friends, were stopped
2:00
Speaker 2: by police for suspicious behavior in the area of the attacks.
2:04
Speaker 2: Police noticed that Pete resembled the sketch and came up
2:07
Speaker 2: with a reason to arrest him, saying that he gave
2:10
Speaker 2: them false information in order to bring him in to
2:12
Speaker 2: be photographed. His photo was shown to both women for
2:16
Speaker 2: a positive ID. While Pete was locked up, three more
2:20
Speaker 2: attacks would occur with the same mom, but it was
2:23
Speaker 2: already too late. Pete Williams spent nearly twenty two years
2:28
Speaker 2: in prison before DNA testing proved that another man was
2:32
Speaker 2: responsible for all five attacks. This is Wrongful Conviction with
2:38
Speaker 2: Jason Plumm. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
2:46
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
2:49
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
2:52
Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
3:04
Speaker 2: This episode is going to be a very unique one.
3:09
Speaker 2: We have with us Pete Williams, who served twenty two
3:12
Speaker 2: years in Georgia prisons for a rape he did not commit.
3:17
Speaker 2: Two rapes, actually they did not commit. And with him
3:21
Speaker 2: is Drew Finling, who is a how can I say,
3:25
Speaker 2: enigmatic character, famous for his work representing some of the
3:28
Speaker 2: top hip hop artis in the world, and he's also
3:31
Speaker 2: now the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
3:34
Speaker 2: He got involved in criminal defense work because of Pete's case,
3:38
Speaker 2: but they never met it till today. Correct, So this
3:41
Speaker 2: is going to be a fun ride and I'm excited
3:44
Speaker 2: to be honest. So Pete, welcome, and the same to you, Drew. Absolutely,
3:48
Speaker 2: And like I always say, Pete, I'm sorry you're here,
3:51
Speaker 2: but I'm glad you're here. And I want to tell
3:54
Speaker 2: your story because I think it's an important story for
3:56
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons. I guess at the heart of
3:59
Speaker 2: it is a mistaken witness identification more than one actually,
4:03
Speaker 2: and it's a really important thing for us to talk
4:05
Speaker 2: about because it's so common. But can you take us
4:07
Speaker 2: back to I mean, this is a long time ago, right,
4:10
Speaker 2: because you were exonerating in two thousand and seven, yes,
4:13
Speaker 2: but the help of the Innocence Project. So this crime
4:15
Speaker 2: goes all the way back to the mid eighties.
4:18
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, eighty five?
4:21
Speaker 2: And what were you up to back then? What was
4:24
Speaker 2: your life like? What was going on in Pete's world?
4:28
Speaker 4: Most An was working, I had dropped out of school,
4:33
Speaker 4: really didn't have much going on other than freedom.
4:38
Speaker 2: How old were you?
4:39
Speaker 3: I just had twenty three.
4:40
Speaker 2: So you're twenty three. You got charged with originally one.
4:44
Speaker 3: Rape, right, yeah, one way right at the time.
4:47
Speaker 2: And let's talk about this awful rape which occurred on
4:50
Speaker 2: April fifth, nineteen eighty five, which is when a woman
4:52
Speaker 2: arrived at her apartment complex parking lot along Roswell Road,
4:56
Speaker 2: just north of Atlanta, got out, but she got out,
4:58
Speaker 2: a man approached, pretending that he was looking for someone,
5:01
Speaker 2: but when he got close, he pulled a gun and
5:04
Speaker 2: forced her back into the car, then drove her at
5:07
Speaker 2: gunpoint to a dead end street where he raped her.
5:10
Speaker 2: Then he drove her back to her apartment complex, and
5:14
Speaker 2: then he left on foot. So the victim then went
5:17
Speaker 2: to the police and the hospital for a rape kit,
5:20
Speaker 2: which means there was a sample of the rapist DNA,
5:23
Speaker 2: And that becomes important later because after all, there was
5:26
Speaker 2: no DNA testing back in nineteen eighty five anyway, So
5:28
Speaker 2: later on though, we're going to get to that. So
5:32
Speaker 2: by now, the victim had spent a considerable amount of
5:35
Speaker 2: time with her attacker, and as a result, she was
5:38
Speaker 2: able to help the police put together a composite sketch.
5:42
Speaker 2: And this attacker had a particular mo too. Can you
5:45
Speaker 2: talk about that, Drew.
5:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what had happened is Roswell Road is a
5:50
Speaker 5: very long stretch of road in Atlanta. I want to
5:53
Speaker 5: say it goes north and south, but I'm terrible with
5:55
Speaker 5: things like that. But the real rapist was trolling up
5:58
Speaker 5: and down and he would go to women and I
6:02
Speaker 5: think they would kind of be in their twenties and
6:04
Speaker 5: they would like blonde hair and blonde hair. And he
6:06
Speaker 5: would say the same like have you seen and I
6:09
Speaker 5: used to know the name Carol, Carol? Yeah, have you
6:12
Speaker 5: seen Carol? And then he'd take him in the car.
6:15
Speaker 2: Right. So, five days after the first rape, on April tenth,
6:18
Speaker 2: nearly the same thing occurred along Roswell Road, although this
6:21
Speaker 2: ended up being an attempted rape, but still the same, Hey,
6:25
Speaker 2: do you know Carol or where's Carol? Accept his second
6:28
Speaker 2: victim when he tried to get her to take off
6:30
Speaker 2: her clothes. I don't know how, but she was able
6:33
Speaker 2: to talk him out of raping her. She went to
6:36
Speaker 2: the police. They hear this similar MO from just five
6:39
Speaker 2: days before, and they show her the composite sketch and
6:42
Speaker 2: she agreed that this sketch resembled her would be rapist. So, Pete,
6:48
Speaker 2: you've got nothing to do with this. You had nothing
6:49
Speaker 2: to do this, but you lived in the area, So
6:51
Speaker 2: can you tell us how you were dragged into this?
6:55
Speaker 2: When you and two friends got pulled over on Roswell
6:58
Speaker 2: Road one night.
7:00
Speaker 3: I was riding out right on Roswell and it was
7:04
Speaker 3: stopping my car. It was stopped.
7:05
Speaker 4: I was passing on the car, So it was a
7:07
Speaker 4: compositive skates going around in that area. So the way
7:12
Speaker 4: that they arrested me, they told that I gave them
7:15
Speaker 4: false information. That's just to get me there and get
7:17
Speaker 4: my photograph, my picture to show the witness because I
7:22
Speaker 4: gave them information while I was staying everything adequate.
7:26
Speaker 2: Oh, you gave them accurate information.
7:28
Speaker 4: Yes, of course, yeah, And they said yeah, they said
7:30
Speaker 4: it was false. So you know, I couldn't all get
7:33
Speaker 4: the police. So you're stop by the police.
7:36
Speaker 2: They have this composite sketch in the back of their
7:38
Speaker 2: minds and they come up with a reason. They said
7:42
Speaker 2: that you gave them false information, which wasn't true, but
7:46
Speaker 2: they wanted an excuse to get your photograph to share
7:50
Speaker 2: with these two women because they thought that you looked
7:53
Speaker 2: enough like the sketch, so they arrested you.
7:56
Speaker 3: Then what I was there for a while.
7:58
Speaker 4: Wait, I was there maybe about four or five hours,
8:01
Speaker 4: but it was a relative cheap.
8:02
Speaker 3: Bomb, you know.
8:03
Speaker 4: So I was born out maybe three to four hours
8:06
Speaker 4: after I was arrested, and two weeks later I was
8:10
Speaker 4: truble was rape, accuvate uselt and accovate us solomy, and
8:14
Speaker 4: I was arrested and.
8:15
Speaker 3: I didn't know what they was talking about.
8:17
Speaker 2: Had you even heard about these?
8:19
Speaker 3: I didn't have the slightest idea.
8:21
Speaker 4: They said it was from POSSI circuling of rape was
8:24
Speaker 4: out in that area, and I resembled it.
8:26
Speaker 2: Now did that sketch actually resemble you? Yeah, it actually did, right,
8:32
Speaker 2: So so you resembled the sketch.
8:35
Speaker 3: So that was dead.
8:36
Speaker 4: I didn't, you know, I didn't. I haven't raped anybody.
8:39
Speaker 4: I just resembled it on positive sketch.
8:42
Speaker 2: The sketch resembled you. And then I'm presuming you were
8:45
Speaker 2: identified as well in the lineup on court.
8:49
Speaker 4: Oh, it was a lineup, and I was identified doing
8:53
Speaker 4: the trial as well.
8:54
Speaker 2: I mean, we know that I witness misidentification is the
8:57
Speaker 2: leading cause of runful convictions.
8:59
Speaker 5: And look, I'm just not the biggest believer in the
9:02
Speaker 5: composite sketch because the composite sketch becomes the perpetrator, not
9:06
Speaker 5: the perpetrator, and so it just happened to have favored him.
9:11
Speaker 5: And then it's the composite sketch and anybody that looks
9:14
Speaker 5: like them that replaces who the actual perpetrator is. So
9:19
Speaker 5: I'm just not a believer in the whole composite sketch thing.
9:23
Speaker 5: I just don't like where they lead, as in convictions
9:26
Speaker 5: of innocent people in cases like this.
9:28
Speaker 2: So the charges were rape, aggravated assault, and aggravated sod
9:33
Speaker 2: of me and true this is where you first entered
9:36
Speaker 2: the picture. He became aware of Pete's case, and this
9:39
Speaker 2: is at his trial where you were just a young
9:41
Speaker 2: man just out of law school pretty much right at.
9:44
Speaker 5: The time, I was twenty five years old. I was
9:47
Speaker 5: fresh out of law school, and I was an assistant
9:50
Speaker 5: public defender assigned to mister William's courtroom where his case
9:54
Speaker 5: took place. And I made it my practice then that
9:57
Speaker 5: was just watch every case I could. I got it
10:00
Speaker 5: up and I loved my job as a public defender,
10:02
Speaker 5: and I just had him to watch his case and
10:04
Speaker 5: then really started learning about it, and I watched the trial.
10:08
Speaker 5: So what had happened is Roswell Road is a very
10:12
Speaker 5: long stretch of road in Atlanta, but at some point
10:15
Speaker 5: along the road it is the city of Atlanta, and
10:19
Speaker 5: then it's no longer the city of Atlanta. Well, the
10:22
Speaker 5: real rapist because it wasn't mister Williams. Anybody that watched
10:25
Speaker 5: the trial would realize that because I watched the trial
10:28
Speaker 5: and I'll talk about that later, and it was obvious
10:30
Speaker 5: he was innocent. So, Jason, here's the crazy thing. One
10:34
Speaker 5: jurisdiction handling it was City of Atlanta police. On the
10:37
Speaker 5: other part of the road was Fulton County police. To
10:42
Speaker 5: this day, I don't know if anybody's looked into did
10:45
Speaker 5: they ever talk to one another? And in fact, if
10:47
Speaker 5: you remember, on the City of Atlanta side, the City
10:50
Speaker 5: of Atlanta police called the person the Roswell Road rapist.
10:53
Speaker 5: But yet on the other side of the sign was
10:56
Speaker 5: this case involving mister Williams. And I've apparently he got
11:00
Speaker 5: arrested and then eventually they arrested the other guy who
11:04
Speaker 5: I think pled out. Your case was on the ninth floor,
11:08
Speaker 5: His case was on the seventh floor. Was on the seven, Yeah,
11:13
Speaker 5: he was on seventh, on the eighth You're right, yeah,
11:17
Speaker 5: And he pled out during his trial and I went
11:20
Speaker 5: and watched his also, because the Public Defender's office did
11:23
Speaker 5: that case.
11:24
Speaker 2: Wait, how far apart were the two difference?
11:26
Speaker 5: I can't remember the dates they weren't too far apart.
11:29
Speaker 5: But I watched his and I read up on his
11:31
Speaker 5: and I was like, well, this guy did it, and
11:34
Speaker 5: it was astonishing, And.
11:35
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the pattern, right, because for whatever reason,
11:38
Speaker 2: the attacker always did the same damn thing. Maybe he
11:42
Speaker 2: thought that this was an effective way of him grabbing
11:45
Speaker 2: these women, was by asking about this other woman, Carol
11:49
Speaker 2: or Carolyn. Why he was fixating on that, Yeah, but
11:53
Speaker 2: that was his thing. And he also had this car
11:56
Speaker 2: that broke down a lot because a number of the
11:59
Speaker 2: women and reported that. And what's crazy is that after
12:02
Speaker 2: Pete was arrested, and three more attacks happened with the
12:06
Speaker 2: same damn mL right, with exactly the same pattern, the
12:11
Speaker 2: exact same pattern. And in fact, this man was responsible
12:15
Speaker 2: clearly for all five attacks, but he only face charges
12:19
Speaker 2: related to those three, And so the other two attacks
12:22
Speaker 2: repined on you Pete and this other guy, Kenneth Wicker.
12:25
Speaker 2: He finally got caught because his last victim heroically was
12:29
Speaker 2: able to take down her attacker's license plate number. And
12:32
Speaker 2: it turned out that Wicker lived right along Roswell Road
12:36
Speaker 2: where all of these attacks were taking place, So it
12:41
Speaker 2: would seem obvious to the casual observer that the DA
12:46
Speaker 2: would hear about these other cases and this other arrest
12:50
Speaker 2: and immediately stopped focusing on you, Pete. But that's not
12:55
Speaker 2: what happened. And later all of this was brought up
12:59
Speaker 2: in Europe, and I'm talking as early as nineteen eighty six,
13:04
Speaker 2: but the DA just didn't fucking care about it then
13:09
Speaker 2: or while he was prosecuting you in the first place.
13:12
Speaker 5: Sir Jason, Pete and I we just met downstairs and
13:16
Speaker 5: we immediately engaged in a conversation about what I'm about
13:19
Speaker 5: to bring up which has bothered him to this day,
13:21
Speaker 5: and I'm going to tell it to you. And that
13:22
Speaker 5: is our system, right relies on ethical prosecutors. Unfortunately, for
13:28
Speaker 5: Pete Williams, his prosecutor turned out to be not so ethical,
13:33
Speaker 5: as we know from several things, including the fact that
13:36
Speaker 5: he's serving a life sentence in his own murder case
13:38
Speaker 5: right now.
13:38
Speaker 2: The prosecutor.
13:39
Speaker 5: The prosecutor, oh blot twist, yes, I mean yeah, and
13:44
Speaker 5: was also eventually charged not only with that murder, which
13:48
Speaker 5: he was found guilty of, but being the lawyer for
13:51
Speaker 5: a drug operation when he was in private practice. So
13:54
Speaker 5: not the best guy in the world. And I bring
13:56
Speaker 5: that up only because you would fathom that a decent,
14:00
Speaker 5: ethical prosecutor, which there are many of out there, would
14:03
Speaker 5: have realized this having been the lead prosecutor mister Williams case,
14:06
Speaker 5: and said, uh, oh, we got problems. And that never happened.
14:11
Speaker 5: He never had the ethics of a prosecutor that realized
14:15
Speaker 5: what you just said and wanted to put an end
14:18
Speaker 5: to his illegal incarceration. It just didn't happen, and there
14:22
Speaker 5: was a real breakdown.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still trying to process this. This is a story.
14:27
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of stories and you know, doing
14:30
Speaker 2: this since the early nineties.
14:32
Speaker 5: The irony is Pete said to me outside we agreed.
14:36
Speaker 5: How come that didn't become the biggest part of the
14:38
Speaker 5: story of Pete Williams's illegal conviction and incarceration. As he said,
14:43
Speaker 5: I was serving my sentence and my prosecutor was hearting
14:46
Speaker 5: his sentence at the exact same time.
14:50
Speaker 2: Oh so he went to prison while you were in this.
14:52
Speaker 2: Well this is not the same.
14:53
Speaker 4: Prison, not the same prison, but he went doing mind cusurrection.
14:57
Speaker 2: Did you know that at the time?
14:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably it.
15:00
Speaker 5: Is on Tell me Jason was one of the biggest
15:02
Speaker 5: cases in the history of Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, I can't
15:06
Speaker 5: even think in my thirty plus years of practice of
15:08
Speaker 5: a federal case that they changed venue. It was such
15:12
Speaker 5: a big case. But they actually had to change venue
15:15
Speaker 5: to Birmingham in his federal case, his murder case, they
15:18
Speaker 5: changed venue as well, and did it somewhere in the woods.
15:20
Speaker 5: I don't know, rural Georgia, somewhere, but they actually moved
15:23
Speaker 5: his federal case to Birmingham because they just couldn't get
15:26
Speaker 5: a jury in Atlanta. Fred Tokars is his name. It
15:29
Speaker 5: was one of the biggest cases in the history of Atlanta.
15:33
Speaker 2: So I took a second to look up Fred Tokars
15:36
Speaker 2: and what I found out was batshit crazy, crazier than
15:40
Speaker 2: what Pete and Drew had said. This Georgia prosecutor went
15:44
Speaker 2: on to become a private attorney to some big time
15:47
Speaker 2: drug dealers, but besides representing them, he was also helping
15:50
Speaker 2: them hide their money in nightclubs, and eventually his wife, Sarah,
15:55
Speaker 2: threatened to blow the whistle on his illegal and the
15:58
Speaker 2: various activities, but instead of turning his life around, he
16:03
Speaker 2: plotted to have her kidnapped and killed in front of
16:06
Speaker 2: their four and six year old boys. Ricky and Mike.
16:10
Speaker 2: I mean, what the actual buck. He was convicted of
16:15
Speaker 2: racketeering in nineteen ninety four and eventually also convicted for
16:19
Speaker 2: Sarah's murder, receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
16:24
Speaker 2: He was held in secret custody as a marked man,
16:27
Speaker 2: and since this interview is recorded, despite his more treacherous
16:31
Speaker 2: than usual situation in prison, Fred Tokers died in May
16:35
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty in a Pennsylvania prison hospital due to
16:40
Speaker 2: complications related to a neurological disorder.
16:44
Speaker 5: And that was the prosecutor that put mister Williams away.
16:48
Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's just an unbelievable twist of fate,
16:51
Speaker 2: right that the guy who was responsible for ruining your
16:55
Speaker 2: life ends up in May. The Pacers Foundation is a
17:08
Speaker 2: proud supporter of this episode and of the Last Mile organization,
17:11
Speaker 2: which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals
17:16
Speaker 2: successfully and permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation
17:20
Speaker 2: is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana,
17:24
Speaker 2: supporting organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people and students.
17:29
Speaker 2: For more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation
17:32
Speaker 2: or the Last Mile program visit Pacersfoundation dot org or
17:36
Speaker 2: the Lastmile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
17:42
Speaker 2: a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
17:46
Speaker 2: and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
17:50
Speaker 2: Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
17:54
Speaker 2: many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
17:59
Speaker 2: they announced that work to reform the criminal justice system
18:01
Speaker 2: will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
18:04
Speaker 2: Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
18:09
Speaker 2: pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
18:12
Speaker 2: our society and in support of the public interest, including
18:15
Speaker 2: extensive work in the criminal justice area. You end up
18:25
Speaker 2: getting sentenced to basically a life sentence. Yeah, forty five
18:30
Speaker 2: years to life. And you were twenty four at the time. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 2: so forty five to life. And of course what I
18:36
Speaker 2: five the life really means life because ultimately it'd be
18:40
Speaker 2: sixty eight years old and they'd be asking you to
18:41
Speaker 2: lead guilty.
18:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the way to ad my sonos lined up
18:45
Speaker 4: fifteen teen and twenty do to fifteen one, I do
18:48
Speaker 4: to fifteen do to team finish the team do to twining.
18:52
Speaker 5: It was consecutive sentences.
18:55
Speaker 2: So how did you deal with this? I mean, you're
18:58
Speaker 2: behind bars, convicted rapist, looking at spending your the rest
19:02
Speaker 2: of your life there? How did you find the strength
19:05
Speaker 2: to even continue on and ultimately contact and reach out
19:08
Speaker 2: and get this incredible team behind you that led to
19:11
Speaker 2: your exoneration and you know, vindication.
19:16
Speaker 4: Mm. Well, my first ten year of priism, man, I
19:19
Speaker 4: was stayed in the whole segregation of fault all the time,
19:22
Speaker 4: in subordination because I felt like there was no hope,
19:28
Speaker 4: so I might as well be part of the prism,
19:32
Speaker 4: you know. And I met this guy after ten years.
19:36
Speaker 4: He's sung gospel and he always went to church, and
19:39
Speaker 4: he would always happen, you know, and he had more
19:41
Speaker 4: time than that. He had a life sent and some time,
19:44
Speaker 4: but he never showed it. He never showed it. And
19:48
Speaker 4: I wanted to know why, you know why. It wasn't
19:50
Speaker 4: about it, he said the church, Man, I seen in
19:51
Speaker 4: the gospel. It makes me feel better. So I used
19:54
Speaker 4: to go out and saying it first, because I really
19:56
Speaker 4: didn't know any gospels, you know what I mean. But
19:59
Speaker 4: once I got to going and listening to gospel, a
20:01
Speaker 4: few gospel songs, and I started liking it when I
20:05
Speaker 4: became part or choir for about five years, and that's
20:09
Speaker 4: where a guy was in there. He had a booklet
20:11
Speaker 4: concerning MCENT projects. So I got it and I started
20:16
Speaker 4: writing him and told him that it was I had
20:18
Speaker 4: some evidence.
20:19
Speaker 2: Was this Georgia and is project or New York and.
20:21
Speaker 3: Georgia and Georgia.
20:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, And they got concerned to what kind of evidence
20:24
Speaker 4: you had? So I was writing 'em and I told 'em,
20:27
Speaker 4: and some way they got a hold of it. They
20:29
Speaker 4: said they had destroyed it here and what eighty seven?
20:32
Speaker 4: They said they destroyed all that.
20:34
Speaker 3: But Cliff.
20:34
Speaker 4: Some way, Cliff had talked to some at the GBI,
20:37
Speaker 4: being some female, and she allowed him.
20:39
Speaker 3: Back there and lo and behold, that was my uh evidence.
20:46
Speaker 2: And the evidence at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that
20:50
Speaker 2: Pete is referring to is the real rapist DNA sample
20:53
Speaker 2: from the rape kit, and they were finally able to
20:55
Speaker 2: test it to not only exclude Pete, but they also
20:58
Speaker 2: tested against the DNA of the man who had pleaded
21:00
Speaker 2: guilty to those other rapes that had happened during the
21:03
Speaker 2: same time period. A long roswell road and sure enough, Bengo,
21:07
Speaker 2: it's him. But of course this incredible revelation did not
21:12
Speaker 2: come without roadblocks and even being told that the evidence
21:16
Speaker 2: was destroyed, which we hear a lot when fighting cases
21:20
Speaker 2: like these, And Drew, let's go back to you on this.
21:22
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it's just nuts that we don't have
21:26
Speaker 2: a nationwide standard for maintaining evidence. In fact, practices are
21:31
Speaker 2: different all over. Some are good and some are, like,
21:35
Speaker 2: let's face it, like a third world country.
21:37
Speaker 5: There's really no national consistency. And so you know when
21:42
Speaker 5: you say earlier, which I completely agree with, that we
21:45
Speaker 5: probably have well over one hundred thousand innocent people in
21:48
Speaker 5: our prison systems, and that's probably a low number. We
21:51
Speaker 5: think about if we had consistency in the preservation of evidence,
21:56
Speaker 5: what would we'd be able to do. It's really going
21:59
Speaker 5: to require a coordinated effort. But it's the only right
22:02
Speaker 5: thing to do.
22:03
Speaker 2: There's just absolutely no argument against it. There's nothing bad
22:07
Speaker 2: about preserving evidence.
22:08
Speaker 5: Well, there's nothing bad about preserving evidence. But then you
22:12
Speaker 5: hear about the Georgia Innocence Project. I went down to
22:16
Speaker 5: making on behalf of them and argued about just having
22:20
Speaker 5: somebody's testing done and prosecutors objected to testing being done.
22:24
Speaker 5: Why would you ever object to testing being done? Why
22:27
Speaker 5: would you ever object to being able to check off
22:31
Speaker 5: the list the possibility that somebody innocent is in jail
22:34
Speaker 5: for many years, if not their life. And it's that
22:36
Speaker 5: same type of flawed logic that would have some say, well,
22:41
Speaker 5: we don't need to take up the room, We don't
22:42
Speaker 5: need to do the logistics aren't there for storage. You
22:46
Speaker 5: could just fathom the arguments that are coming, you know,
22:48
Speaker 5: because prosecutors want to believe and law enforcement want to
22:51
Speaker 5: believe that once they have a conviction, it's the right conviction,
22:55
Speaker 5: and so you can always deal with that sentiment, which
22:58
Speaker 5: is wrong. Yeah, that's the sentiment. It's the same sentiment
23:02
Speaker 5: that dictates around the country when good folks are fighting
23:05
Speaker 5: a behalf of the innocents project to have testing done
23:08
Speaker 5: and they're in courtrooms at the podium facing prosecutors that
23:11
Speaker 5: don't want testing to be done.
23:14
Speaker 4: To me, why would you want to destroy ivernandek trio person.
23:20
Speaker 2: And identify the actual perpetrator like it does.
23:22
Speaker 3: I don't even know what to think of that. I
23:25
Speaker 3: don't Thank.
23:26
Speaker 2: God they hadn't actually destroyed the evidence from your case
23:29
Speaker 2: because they actually exculpated you, and it ended up causing
23:34
Speaker 2: you to be released from prison on January twenty third,
23:38
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. And subsequently it matched up to
23:42
Speaker 2: Kenneth Wicker, who had already pleaded guilty all those years ago.
23:48
Speaker 2: He was then arrested on February ninth, two thousand and
23:51
Speaker 2: seven for the April fifth and tenth incidents. Then four
23:56
Speaker 2: days later, you were granted a new trial on February
23:59
Speaker 2: thith thirteenth, and the DA subsequently dropped all charges.
24:04
Speaker 4: Dropped all the charge you know, they took the rape
24:08
Speaker 4: and everything away from my report.
24:10
Speaker 2: So you were in court when.
24:12
Speaker 3: All the charges were actually dropped.
24:14
Speaker 2: And what was that like?
24:15
Speaker 3: How?
24:15
Speaker 2: Who was there? A lot of family? Was it a
24:17
Speaker 2: hot Yeah?
24:18
Speaker 4: My family, My family there, and there was a lot
24:21
Speaker 4: of people, you know, they was happy for me, you know,
24:24
Speaker 4: even people I didn't know, you know, like even the
24:26
Speaker 4: police is. And as a matter of fact, one of
24:29
Speaker 4: the police that was used to take me back and forth,
24:32
Speaker 4: the colt, and she came down and said, I always
24:34
Speaker 4: knew you was innocent.
24:36
Speaker 2: Wow, how'd that feel?
24:39
Speaker 3: Wonderful man, wonderful.
24:41
Speaker 2: And it's worth noting that in about fifty percent of
24:45
Speaker 2: the instance project cases where DNA has has exculpated an
24:49
Speaker 2: exonerate led to the exoneration of an innocent person. It
24:52
Speaker 2: has also led to the identification of the guilty person.
24:56
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right, and in those cases, of course, that
25:00
Speaker 2: person has gone on to have committed other heinous crimes.
25:05
Speaker 3: Yes, when you.
25:06
Speaker 2: Lock up the wrong person, you stop looking for the
25:08
Speaker 2: right person, and then that person that's out there is
25:12
Speaker 2: most likely going to go and do what they did again.
25:15
Speaker 2: It's just a practical issue of we should all want
25:18
Speaker 2: to clean up these systems as best we can so
25:21
Speaker 2: that ourselves and our families are safe.
25:24
Speaker 5: I mean, well, you know, look, Jason, I think it's
25:27
Speaker 5: it's symptomatic of a larger issue. It's a symptomatic of
25:31
Speaker 5: our problem with mass incarceration of this country. I think
25:35
Speaker 5: it's all that is really tied in. We don't as
25:40
Speaker 5: defense attorneys and accuse citizens. You know, we don't control
25:43
Speaker 5: the fact that, as you well know, we represent five
25:46
Speaker 5: percent of the world's population, but closing in on twenty
25:48
Speaker 5: five percent of the world's incarcerated population. We don't dictate that.
25:52
Speaker 5: And I don't want this to be a session where
25:54
Speaker 5: I'm kind of talking about prosecutors, but they control so much.
25:58
Speaker 5: Pete's case is emblematic of the problem. You had a
26:01
Speaker 5: prosecutor with an antisocial disorder that went on to be
26:04
Speaker 5: involved in a murder himself, and as a twenty five
26:07
Speaker 5: year old, fresh out of law school kid, I watched
26:11
Speaker 5: what I thought was an unethical prosecution, and I watched
26:14
Speaker 5: a man lose his freedom because to this prosecutor, it
26:18
Speaker 5: was a game. It wasn't about justice, and that's why Peede,
26:21
Speaker 5: I made a decision that I was going to spend
26:23
Speaker 5: the rest of my life defending people because of your case.
26:25
Speaker 5: It was just a job. At that point. I didn't
26:27
Speaker 5: know anything about a public defender. I never even met
26:29
Speaker 5: a lawyer until my first law school class. I have
26:31
Speaker 5: humble beginnings, but your case dictated to me what I
26:35
Speaker 5: wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I
26:48
Speaker 5: watched that prosecutor game the system. It was just a
26:51
Speaker 5: game to him, and unfortunately, the power that being a
26:56
Speaker 5: prosecutor brings is often results in misguided prosecutions because they
27:02
Speaker 5: have the ability, if they handle ethically, to make sure
27:06
Speaker 5: to the best of their ability, that just doesn't happen
27:08
Speaker 5: to make sure that evidence is preserved, to make sure
27:11
Speaker 5: that there is proper identification procedures, and they have the
27:15
Speaker 5: ability to be that wall, that last wall of justice
27:17
Speaker 5: to say, you know, I don't I don't need a
27:20
Speaker 5: motion to suppress identification because as the prosecutor, I don't
27:24
Speaker 5: like the way this went down. We talk so much
27:26
Speaker 5: about ourselves as defense attorneys and what our job is,
27:30
Speaker 5: but we need to be spending a lot of time
27:32
Speaker 5: looking at the other side of the courtroom. And I
27:36
Speaker 5: get that there's integrity units closing up, but it needs
27:38
Speaker 5: to be a lot greater than that. It needs to
27:40
Speaker 5: be a lot better than just every once in a
27:42
Speaker 5: while a progressive prosecutor running for office. It needs to
27:45
Speaker 5: be all over the country because he has the benefit
27:49
Speaker 5: of this happening in Atlanta, But when we go to
27:52
Speaker 5: the rural South, the smaller communities in Mississippi and Alabama
27:58
Speaker 5: and Tennessee, sadly so a lot of Pete Williams that
28:02
Speaker 5: are serving life sentences from prosecutors that were as misguided
28:08
Speaker 5: and as corrupt as the one in his case.
28:10
Speaker 2: And that's why it's so important for people to get
28:13
Speaker 2: out and vote in prosecutor races because most people don't.
28:16
Speaker 2: The number of people that vote in these races is
28:19
Speaker 2: so small that if you don't think your vote makes
28:21
Speaker 2: a difference, it does. I mean we've seen races that
28:23
Speaker 2: ended up in a dead heat like Tiede. You know,
28:26
Speaker 2: like your vote is important. And if your one of
28:29
Speaker 2: these people think, oh, I'm not going to vote in
28:30
Speaker 2: the psidential election, it doesn't matter. Yes it does. It
28:32
Speaker 2: matters in the presidentialism, but it matters a lot more
28:35
Speaker 2: in your local elections where your your DA is running
28:39
Speaker 2: and you know, and electing a progressive prosecutor, which that's
28:43
Speaker 2: not even the right word, a fair prosecutor could affect
28:46
Speaker 2: your life as well, because this could happen to you,
28:48
Speaker 2: It could happen to Pete, it could happen to anybody.
28:50
Speaker 2: We see it over and over again on this show.
28:52
Speaker 2: And then let's even talk about it from a purely
28:54
Speaker 2: fiscal level, you know, for any conservatives that are listening,
28:57
Speaker 2: When we think about the amount of money that the
28:59
Speaker 2: tax of Georgia paid well upwards of a million dollars,
29:03
Speaker 2: probably closer to two million dollars to keep Pete locked up,
29:06
Speaker 2: and then any other income that he would have been
29:08
Speaker 2: able to earn and pay taxes on and you know
29:12
Speaker 2: all the rest of this stuff. That's a pretty big
29:14
Speaker 2: thing too. I just learned the other day on a
29:16
Speaker 2: tangential note, that we spend forty million dollars a day
29:20
Speaker 2: in America on pre trial detention, right just because people
29:24
Speaker 2: can't post bail. Forty million a day to lock people
29:28
Speaker 2: up who haven't been convicted of anything. That's a day.
29:31
Speaker 2: That's your tax dollars at work and mine, by the way,
29:34
Speaker 2: and whoever's listening, it's nuts. I mean, we lock up
29:37
Speaker 2: more people than Russia and China combined. Back to your
29:39
Speaker 2: previous point, we locked black people up at six times
29:42
Speaker 2: the rate of South Africa at the height of apartheid.
29:45
Speaker 2: And if you're a woman listening, then you should just
29:49
Speaker 2: process this for a second, because while you know what
29:52
Speaker 2: Drew said is certainly scary and true about us having
29:55
Speaker 2: twenty five percent of the world's prison population, we have
29:58
Speaker 2: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. That
30:01
Speaker 2: means one out of every three women in prison in
30:04
Speaker 2: the world is in America, which is such a small
30:07
Speaker 2: country when you look at the vast world that's out there,
30:10
Speaker 2: and the more we can do to get out there
30:12
Speaker 2: and spread the message. And the more you do to
30:13
Speaker 2: get out there and vote and get active and volunteer,
30:16
Speaker 2: go to Georgia Innis's project a website, you know, learn more.
30:20
Speaker 2: Contact NACDL. What is it, NACDL dot org exactly, NACDL
30:25
Speaker 2: dot org. That's National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers dot org.
30:28
Speaker 5: So I'm glad you brought up kind of where people
30:30
Speaker 5: fall on the political continuum. You should know that the
30:34
Speaker 5: term just finished and there's a new governor here. But
30:36
Speaker 5: our last governor, Nathan dial As a Republican, two term Republican,
30:40
Speaker 5: and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers gave him
30:43
Speaker 5: a Champion I gave him a Champion of Justice Award
30:46
Speaker 5: for his work on criminal justice reform. And so you
30:48
Speaker 5: hit on it. No matter where you are, left wing,
30:51
Speaker 5: right wing, no wing, we are any period of time
30:54
Speaker 5: right now where people are really focusing on criminal justice reform.
30:59
Speaker 5: And I think that you bring up all the numbers,
31:01
Speaker 5: they're startling and it can impact anybody, you know, whether
31:06
Speaker 5: it's the fact that our prison systems are warehousing the
31:08
Speaker 5: mentally ill an adult autistic population. There's so many things
31:13
Speaker 5: that attract people. The National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers.
31:18
Speaker 5: As you know, we have our foundation for criminal justice
31:21
Speaker 5: and we really embrace non lawyers to be part of it.
31:25
Speaker 5: Our long term goal is to get non lawyers into
31:28
Speaker 5: our leadership track. Let them be trustees. We need people
31:31
Speaker 5: to reach out to us. We just want everyday citizens
31:34
Speaker 5: to be involved, come to our meetings, and Jason's right,
31:38
Speaker 5: there may not be an election that may impact your
31:42
Speaker 5: life more than who your local district attorney is. Have
31:45
Speaker 5: them answer to your questions. Folks need to take these
31:49
Speaker 5: stories to heart, and which is why this podcast is
31:52
Speaker 5: so important. They need to understand that not everybody is
31:56
Speaker 5: going to be blessed with the opportunity to connect up
31:59
Speaker 5: with the Innocence Project. So listen to podcasts like this
32:02
Speaker 5: and get involved the most you can.
32:05
Speaker 2: And that is once again an ACDL dot org National
32:09
Speaker 2: Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Now we have this tradition
32:13
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction, which is my favorite part of the show,
32:17
Speaker 2: which is where I get to just sit back and
32:20
Speaker 2: listen and I leave the microphones on for you guys
32:25
Speaker 2: for any closing thoughts that you want to share. And
32:29
Speaker 2: because Pete is the honored guest here, not that you're not,
32:33
Speaker 2: but you know, he's the star of the show. I'm
32:35
Speaker 2: going to let him go last, and so drew any
32:38
Speaker 2: parting shots.
32:40
Speaker 5: Pete. I just want to wish you the best and
32:45
Speaker 5: let you know that the tragedy that occurred to you
32:49
Speaker 5: influence the course of my existence. So my family, all
32:54
Speaker 5: my clients, I want to hug you.
33:02
Speaker 2: Pete.
33:04
Speaker 3: Oh.
33:05
Speaker 4: I'm glad y'all had it broadcast to let people know
33:09
Speaker 4: that things like that actually happen. People do go to
33:12
Speaker 4: jail wrong for their convicted, and I'm just glad you
33:16
Speaker 4: all been a publan note that these things actually happen.
33:26
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
33:29
Speaker 2: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
33:31
Speaker 2: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
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Speaker 2: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
33:37
Speaker 2: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
33:40
Speaker 2: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clibern.
33:44
Speaker 2: The music in this production was supplied by three time
33:46
Speaker 2: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 2: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
33:53
Speaker 2: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
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Speaker 2: at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
33:59
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34:02
Speaker 5: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
34:05
Speaker 5: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
34:08
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34:10
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Speaker 5: Good