Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #158 Jason Flom with Sabrina Butler

Transcript

#158 Jason Flom with Sabrina Butler · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: It was late on the night of April eleventh, nineteen
0:05
Speaker 1: eighty nine, when a single teenage mother of two, Sabrina Butler,
0:09
Speaker 1: went for a job while her two young boys slept
0:11
Speaker 1: at home. When she returned and checked on her nine
0:14
Speaker 1: month old Walter, he wasn't breathing with no phone in
0:19
Speaker 1: a new apartment building, Sabrina picked him up and banged
0:22
Speaker 1: frantically on her neighbor's doors, begging for help. Finally, a
0:26
Speaker 1: woman let her in and showed Sabrina how to perform
0:29
Speaker 1: adult CPR on her infant son. At the hospital, they
0:33
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out what was wrong with Walter, and they
0:36
Speaker 1: blamed his internal injuries on child abuse. Sabrina was aggressively
0:41
Speaker 1: interrogated well into the morning hours, and a statement was
0:44
Speaker 1: drafted for her to sign, accounting for the damage to
0:47
Speaker 1: his internal organs, a common result of performing adult CPR
0:51
Speaker 1: on an infant. Tired alone and scared, Sabrina signed underneath
0:58
Speaker 1: the dotted line as an actor protest a parade of
1:02
Speaker 1: medical professionals, and her core statement made Sabrina's not guilty
1:06
Speaker 1: ply look like a callous lie, sending her to Mississippi's
1:10
Speaker 1: Death Row. Her novice trial lawyer contacted civil rights attorney
1:15
Speaker 1: and death penalty activist Clive Stafford Smith, whose investigation discovered
1:20
Speaker 1: and confirmed why Walter had stopped breathing in the first place.
1:23
Speaker 1: He suffered from chronic nephrotic syndrome brought on by polcistic
1:28
Speaker 1: kidney disease. Sabrina Butler is the first female death row
1:33
Speaker 1: xonnai in the United States. This is wrongful conviction with
1:38
Speaker 1: Jason Flomer, Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we have
1:52
Speaker 1: Sabrina Butler Smith, who is the first woman ever to
1:57
Speaker 1: have been exonerated from death row in the United States.
2:00
Speaker 1: And the story is much deeper than that, but Sabrina welcome.
2:03
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're here.
2:04
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
2:06
Speaker 1: And we have another Smith by Skype. We have a
2:09
Speaker 1: British attorney who specializes in civil rights cases as well
2:13
Speaker 1: as overturning death penalty cases in the US.
2:16
Speaker 2: Clive Smith, thanks for being here and joining us over
2:19
Speaker 2: the phone. My pleasure, Sabrino. Let's start with you.
2:22
Speaker 1: I want to go back in time to your life,
2:27
Speaker 1: you know, as a teenager, having a child, having a baby,
2:29
Speaker 1: single mom.
2:30
Speaker 2: Right back in Mississippi. Yes, Columbus Mississippi, right, correct? And
2:35
Speaker 2: what was that like? How'd you deal with it?
2:37
Speaker 1: That's a lot of responsibility for a young kid like
2:39
Speaker 1: yourself back then.
2:41
Speaker 3: Well, actually being that young, I was kind of me
2:44
Speaker 3: and my mom didn't have a really good relationship, and
2:47
Speaker 3: so I think that led me down the path that
2:51
Speaker 3: I traveled on. And actually my son that passed he
2:55
Speaker 3: was my second child. I actually had two at that
2:59
Speaker 3: time on my own since I was fourteen, So basically
3:03
Speaker 3: trying to figure.
3:04
Speaker 1: Out life from fourteen, you have to grow up fast, Yes,
3:07
Speaker 1: I did. Sabrina was convicted, wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to
3:11
Speaker 1: death for the murder which we know was not a
3:15
Speaker 1: murder at all of her baby boy, Walter Dean Butler.
3:19
Speaker 1: So let's go back to April eleventh, nineteen eighty nine.
3:25
Speaker 1: You went out for a job, yes, and you returned
3:29
Speaker 1: to find a horrible situation.
3:32
Speaker 3: My son wasn't breathing, and I panicked, and I didn't
3:35
Speaker 3: know what to do because where I stayed at I'd
3:37
Speaker 3: only been over there a little while, didn't have a phone,
3:41
Speaker 3: I had just got the apartment through hood housing. I
3:44
Speaker 3: was a poor teenager that didn't have a job or money,
3:47
Speaker 3: and the people over there did not know me in
3:49
Speaker 3: that apartment complex, so it was kind of hard, and
3:52
Speaker 3: I didn't have a car or anything like that, and
3:54
Speaker 3: so I just grabbed him and started beating on doors
3:57
Speaker 3: trying to, you know, get someone to help me. And
3:59
Speaker 3: that was very difficult at that time of night because
4:01
Speaker 3: it was late.
4:02
Speaker 4: What time was it, almost twelve o'clock.
4:04
Speaker 3: So I did have a hard time trying to get help.
4:08
Speaker 3: The first lady that opened her door, she said that
4:10
Speaker 3: her kids were sick and she didn't have time to
4:13
Speaker 3: take me to the hospital. So that lady closed the
4:15
Speaker 3: door in my face, and when I ran downstairs, a
4:18
Speaker 3: lady from an inn apartment asked me what was wrong
4:21
Speaker 3: and grabbed my son and we took him in an apartment.
4:24
Speaker 3: She put him on the floor and started CPR. So
4:27
Speaker 3: I went next door to try to get someone else,
4:29
Speaker 3: and finally I got this couple that was willing to
4:32
Speaker 3: take me, and so when I went back in, she
4:34
Speaker 3: told me to hold his nose, blowing his mouth and
4:37
Speaker 3: pressing his stomach, but she didn't tell me the right way,
4:40
Speaker 3: so I applied adult CPR to my son all the
4:43
Speaker 3: way to the hospital, not knowing that whatever was wrong
4:46
Speaker 3: I probably was making it worse. I didn't know that though.
4:49
Speaker 3: I was just scared and I was trying to get
4:51
Speaker 3: him to breathe, but he he didn't.
4:55
Speaker 1: And we know that by the time you got to
4:58
Speaker 1: the hospital it was really too late. They attempted to
5:01
Speaker 1: resuscitate Walter at the hospital unsuccessfully, And then I have
5:05
Speaker 1: to say, there are, unfortunately, tragically a lot of cases
5:10
Speaker 1: like this where people, well meaning people like yourself, apply
5:14
Speaker 1: CPR that they've been taught to do, but they have
5:18
Speaker 1: never been taught the difference between doing it for a
5:20
Speaker 1: child or an adult. And we know that if you
5:22
Speaker 1: do it the normal CPR techniques to a child, it's
5:25
Speaker 1: virtually impossible to do that without breaking their ribs or
5:27
Speaker 1: causing some other kind of injuries.
5:29
Speaker 2: Because they're so little and so fragile.
5:31
Speaker 1: Clive, let's turn to you. How did this thing go
5:34
Speaker 1: so wrong so fast? And why was Sabrina convicted when
5:38
Speaker 1: all she was trying to do was help?
5:41
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, there are several factors. I mean, one
5:45
Speaker 5: is Sabrainer, as she says, was eighteen and panic stricken.
5:49
Speaker 5: Another is that and this was something I didn't know
5:54
Speaker 5: until I got involved in Sabrina's case. Actually that in Mississippi,
5:59
Speaker 5: which is true of all fifty states. If you go
6:02
Speaker 5: to a hospital with a child who's been injured, if
6:06
Speaker 5: the doctors and medical staff report this as child abuse,
6:11
Speaker 5: then they're absolutely immune from being sued or being prosecuted
6:14
Speaker 5: for anything. If they don't report it as child abuse,
6:18
Speaker 5: then they can be held liable themselves. So what happens
6:22
Speaker 5: when a child is brought in by a terribly panic
6:25
Speaker 5: stricken mother like Sabrina, is there's this osmotic pressure that
6:31
Speaker 5: forces the hospital to look at this and start talking
6:35
Speaker 5: about it as child abuse from the very beginning, whether
6:37
Speaker 5: that's true or false, and their insurance policy makes them
6:40
Speaker 5: do that. And obviously what that does to an eighteen
6:44
Speaker 5: year old Sabrina is make a panic even more. And
6:48
Speaker 5: then you get this other utterly bizarre thing. I mean,
6:51
Speaker 5: I've done now a lot of shaken baby cases and
6:54
Speaker 5: batter child syndrome cases. There are only two medical diagnoses.
7:00
Speaker 5: They have nothing to do with helping the child to
7:03
Speaker 5: get cured, but everything to do with prosecuting the caregiver.
7:08
Speaker 5: And that's those two diagnoses. So if you think about it,
7:10
Speaker 5: the diagnosis of that a child syndrome is it looks
7:13
Speaker 5: like the child has been abused, and then there are
7:16
Speaker 5: other elements of this diagnosis that the caregiver changes her story.
7:22
Speaker 5: And this has got nothing to do with treating the
7:24
Speaker 5: child for whatever it is, a broken rib or whatever.
7:27
Speaker 5: It's all to do with prosecuting the parents. So when
7:29
Speaker 5: someone like Sabrina says, you know, I don't know what
7:32
Speaker 5: happened the child stop breathing. I think he's sick, and
7:36
Speaker 5: then the doctors say, well, I don't think that's true.
7:40
Speaker 5: I think this is abuse. Then someone like Sabrina inevitably
7:43
Speaker 5: starts panicking and saying, well, you know, yesterday he had
7:46
Speaker 5: a little fall, or the other day something else happened.
7:50
Speaker 5: That's then a diagnostic criterion for saying that she abused
7:54
Speaker 5: that child. And then of course the police come in
7:57
Speaker 5: and start getting heavy handed at a young girl la
8:01
Speaker 5: like Sagrina.
8:02
Speaker 3: When I took my son in, I was panic and
8:05
Speaker 3: I was scared, but I thought about, oh, you're in
8:08
Speaker 3: trouble because you left him at the house by itself.
8:11
Speaker 3: That was my thing. So people were asking me, you
8:14
Speaker 3: know why were there so many statements. Well, the statements
8:16
Speaker 3: was trying to cover up the fact that I had
8:18
Speaker 3: left my son alone for those ten minutes, and so
8:21
Speaker 3: I was trying to explain that away. I knew that
8:24
Speaker 3: I should not have left him at home by myself,
8:26
Speaker 3: but I didn't kill him. I just was trying to
8:29
Speaker 3: cover that up. And so when we got an interrogation,
8:32
Speaker 3: you know, they asked me a bunch of questions, and
8:35
Speaker 3: I could just remember trying to, you know, say something
8:38
Speaker 3: to that fact.
8:39
Speaker 1: Did you have a lawyer or anyone to help you
8:42
Speaker 1: as you were there in your most panic state that
8:44
Speaker 1: anyone could ever be in having just lost your child?
8:46
Speaker 3: The only thing I had With the two detectives that
8:48
Speaker 3: were in the room, and they were dead set on saying,
8:52
Speaker 3: you stump your baby, You beat them. That's what they
8:54
Speaker 3: kept saying.
8:55
Speaker 1: But how did they finally succeed in their quest to
8:59
Speaker 1: get you to say a bunch of things that not
9:03
Speaker 1: only weren't true, but that you knew weren't true, and
9:05
Speaker 1: that they probably knew weren't true.
9:07
Speaker 3: Well, the lead investigator kept screaming at me, and when
9:11
Speaker 3: I finally started telling him what exactly what happened, he
9:16
Speaker 3: bought up everything that I had to say, and he
9:17
Speaker 3: threw that in the trash. And after so many hours
9:21
Speaker 3: of him yelling and screaming and looking like he wanted
9:23
Speaker 3: to get up and jump on me, fight me, you know,
9:26
Speaker 3: I was scared. He actually wrote out the statement and
9:29
Speaker 3: he shoved it in my face. He wrote on the
9:31
Speaker 3: statement that I had punched my son, and I just
9:34
Speaker 3: agreed to everything that they said because I wanted it
9:36
Speaker 3: to end. He kept saying, you know, this is what
9:39
Speaker 3: you did, and we need you to write sign this.
9:41
Speaker 3: You know, they kept screaming at me, and that was
9:43
Speaker 3: like four hours of interrogation with him, and I was
9:46
Speaker 3: just I was tired. I just didn't know how. I
9:50
Speaker 3: just wanted it all to end. So I didn't sign
9:52
Speaker 3: where he told me to. I signed under the line,
9:55
Speaker 3: hoping that that was my way of saying, look, I
9:58
Speaker 3: didn't do this and that someone would see that.
10:02
Speaker 1: Well, and at this point, you had been up right,
10:05
Speaker 1: because this started at midnight. This ordeal started at midnight.
10:09
Speaker 1: So now we're talking about a teenage traumatized grieving mother
10:15
Speaker 1: who hasn't slept, who is literally fighting for your life
10:20
Speaker 1: at this point, who knows how you would react. I mean,
10:23
Speaker 1: we've been talking about false confessions. We of course have
10:26
Speaker 1: our whole new season of the show False Confessions, which
10:30
Speaker 1: is very purposefully highlighting the fact that these false confessions
10:34
Speaker 1: play a role in approximately twenty five percent of wrongful convictions.
10:38
Speaker 1: In your case, the circumstances were even more grave because
10:41
Speaker 1: we know that ultimately you were sentenced to death. Yes, Clive,
10:45
Speaker 1: howe is it that they did such a ridiculously poor
10:48
Speaker 1: job investigating the medical side of this case, so much
10:53
Speaker 1: so that later on, when Sabrina was finally exonerated, that
10:57
Speaker 1: they basically acknowledge Oh, yeah, didn't really do any work
11:01
Speaker 1: on it. And the doctors were like, yeah, I guess
11:03
Speaker 1: I was wrong about that. I think most people like
11:05
Speaker 1: to think that that couldn't happen in America.
11:08
Speaker 5: Well, I tell you, when you think about what the
11:11
Speaker 5: causes are of illnesses and injuries and children, we're still
11:16
Speaker 5: pretty medieval in that, and you know we're getting better.
11:20
Speaker 5: But the other factor is that you have a GP.
11:25
Speaker 5: I have great sympathy with GPS. I don't know how
11:27
Speaker 5: on earth how some GP who's meant to know everything
11:31
Speaker 5: about everything is possibly going to be able to figure
11:35
Speaker 5: out what it is that's afflicting the person. And so
11:39
Speaker 5: you have these folk who actually are just not experts,
11:43
Speaker 5: and they're called in and they're asked to say what
11:45
Speaker 5: happened to this child? And again, all of this had
11:49
Speaker 5: been set in motion by what happened in the hospital,
11:52
Speaker 5: where the doctors had this sort of pressure to say
11:54
Speaker 5: that it was child abuse. And once they say it's
11:57
Speaker 5: child abuse, people professionals don't like to admit they made mistakes,
12:01
Speaker 5: and they really really really don't like to admit they
12:04
Speaker 5: made mistakes in cases where they contribute to an eighteen
12:09
Speaker 5: year old young woman being sent to death for something
12:12
Speaker 5: she didn't do. So when a doctor takes a position
12:15
Speaker 5: that this looks like abuse, there's this sort of human
12:19
Speaker 5: pressure to stick with it and to then start justifying
12:23
Speaker 5: it using grand delinquent Latin terms that no one else understands.
12:28
Speaker 5: And you know, in that first trial, there was no challenge,
12:32
Speaker 5: no meaningful challenge to these doctors coming in saying this
12:37
Speaker 5: was abuse, and they stated it like it was, you know,
12:40
Speaker 5: on a tablet and Moses in Mount Sinai.
12:44
Speaker 1: In this trial, from what I've read and seen about it,
12:47
Speaker 1: it's basically a joke. Not a funny joke, but a joke.
12:51
Speaker 1: I mean, this trial, no witnesses were called in your.
12:55
Speaker 3: Defense, because the disc attorney subpoened every last one of them.
12:59
Speaker 3: And one of myeries was drunk during the whole trial.
13:01
Speaker 3: He was popping cany in his mouth and he kept
13:03
Speaker 3: telling me, you know, we got this thing nipped in
13:06
Speaker 3: the bud, don't you worry about it. And so that's
13:08
Speaker 3: the way it went through the whole trial. I was
13:10
Speaker 3: just told to look at the jury. That was it.
13:12
Speaker 5: If you're a corporate lawyer in New York and you're
13:14
Speaker 5: representing someone for money, you get one thousand dollars an hour,
13:17
Speaker 5: and yet in Mississippi, for representing someone for their life,
13:21
Speaker 5: you'd get one thousand dollars for the whole case, and
13:23
Speaker 5: you get what you paid for. And there were two
13:25
Speaker 5: lawyers in Sabrina's first case, and one, as she says,
13:28
Speaker 5: I'm afraid it is absolutely true that he was just
13:30
Speaker 5: a drunk, and the other was this young guy who
13:35
Speaker 5: I have great respect for. But he had no idea
13:37
Speaker 5: what he was doing. He tried, and you know the
13:40
Speaker 5: thing I'll give him most credit for was after they
13:43
Speaker 5: had failed, Sabrina, the first thing he did was give
13:47
Speaker 5: a call to my office to get some help on
13:49
Speaker 5: the appeal. But you kind of wish that that had
13:52
Speaker 5: happened before poorse Sabrina had got sentenced to death.
13:55
Speaker 1: The trial took how long it took a week? You
13:58
Speaker 1: had now been held in jail awaiting trial for how long?
14:02
Speaker 3: Did a little bit over year before I went to
14:04
Speaker 3: try on the first trial?
14:06
Speaker 1: So you'd been in jail for a year. Obviously, that's
14:10
Speaker 1: the traumatic experience piling on top of the other, you know,
14:13
Speaker 1: awful experiences that you've had already. You've got one drunk
14:17
Speaker 1: lawyer and one lawyer who doesn't really know his way
14:20
Speaker 1: around the courtroom. But you know, you didn't do it right.
14:24
Speaker 2: So when the jury went out, how long did they
14:27
Speaker 2: deliberate for?
14:28
Speaker 3: I think about an hour or two. I just knew
14:30
Speaker 3: that they were going to come back and say I
14:32
Speaker 3: was guilty because my attorneys they didn't really, you know,
14:35
Speaker 3: stand up and do anything in my behalf. And it
14:37
Speaker 3: was like everything was solely on the district attorney. The
14:41
Speaker 3: jury was not looking at my attorneys at all. They
14:44
Speaker 3: were looking on the floor, they were looking at the ceiling,
14:46
Speaker 3: they was looking everywhere else but when my attorney spoke.
14:50
Speaker 3: But when the district attorney spoke, they were on the
14:52
Speaker 3: edge of the seats and so me looking at it
14:54
Speaker 3: at that age, I said to myself, I'm done for
14:58
Speaker 3: I mean, I knew that I just had that filming.
15:00
Speaker 5: I asked you a question on that though, because you know,
15:04
Speaker 5: if it's my son Wilh and he's died through some
15:08
Speaker 5: tragedy and I'm incredibly broken hearted about it. To then
15:13
Speaker 5: have some prosecutors stand up there and say that I'm
15:17
Speaker 5: guilty of murdering my own child, and then going one
15:20
Speaker 5: step further and being all pious and saying I'm so
15:24
Speaker 5: subhuman that I deserve to die when you know that
15:29
Speaker 5: the worst you did was maybe give out for a
15:31
Speaker 5: jog when you shouldn't have.
15:32
Speaker 3: Glad. They hurt me with every fiber of my being
15:35
Speaker 3: because I kept asking my attorneys to let me take
15:39
Speaker 3: the stand of my own defense, and they wouldn't do it.
15:41
Speaker 3: They kept saying, we got this thing, we got it
15:44
Speaker 3: nipped in the bud, we don't need you to testify.
15:46
Speaker 3: I bade them through the whole thing, and they will
15:49
Speaker 3: not let me testify it.
15:50
Speaker 2: And I try, and then they impugned your right to.
15:54
Speaker 1: Not testify her for themendment right, and then the prosecutor
15:57
Speaker 1: got up in her face.
15:58
Speaker 3: And said it looked like a right. That's what he did.
16:07
Speaker 4: The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
16:10
Speaker 4: and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
16:14
Speaker 4: tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully.
16:17
Speaker 1: And permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is
16:21
Speaker 1: committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting
16:25
Speaker 1: organizations dedicated primarily to helping young people and students. For
16:30
Speaker 1: more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation or
16:32
Speaker 1: the Last Mile Program, visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the
16:36
Speaker 1: Lastmile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG, a
16:43
Speaker 1: leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison,
16:48
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. The AIG pro Bono Program
16:51
Speaker 1: provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit
16:55
Speaker 1: organizations and individuals most in need, and recently they anounced
17:00
Speaker 1: that working to reform the criminal justice system will become
17:03
Speaker 1: a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has
17:06
Speaker 1: long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono
17:10
Speaker 1: legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society
17:13
Speaker 1: and in support of the public interest, including extensive work
17:17
Speaker 1: in the criminal Justice area.
17:23
Speaker 3: When I walked into Mississippi's death throw, I was nineteen.
17:28
Speaker 3: I had to walk down this long haul and when
17:31
Speaker 3: I first got there, they put bugs, bread in your hair.
17:34
Speaker 3: They strip you of everything that you have. I sit
17:36
Speaker 3: in this glass tank for like two hours and I'm
17:39
Speaker 3: looking at all the people going around. And they came
17:43
Speaker 3: and a fingerprinted me and they just took all of
17:45
Speaker 3: what I thought was me away. They gave me this
17:49
Speaker 3: name tag. It had murderer on it, it had my
17:52
Speaker 3: MDOC number on it, and it had death. So I
17:56
Speaker 3: had to walk with my hands shackled around my waist
17:59
Speaker 3: and I had to walk with leg guards. And I
18:02
Speaker 3: had a security guard who's walking next to me, a
18:04
Speaker 3: correction officer, and he said, you see those inmates out
18:06
Speaker 3: there in that field, He said, we tell them when
18:09
Speaker 3: to get up, He said, we tell them when to
18:11
Speaker 3: go to sleep, We tell them what to eat. He said,
18:13
Speaker 3: what you'll die here. And by the time he said that,
18:15
Speaker 3: by the time I got to Maxic Security, because we
18:17
Speaker 3: had to walk, I was crying. I couldn't think. I
18:22
Speaker 3: was trying to figure out, you know, what was happening
18:24
Speaker 3: to me. So when I got there, they put me
18:26
Speaker 3: in a six by nine cell, no bigger than your bathroom,
18:29
Speaker 3: and shut the door and left. And during that time,
18:34
Speaker 3: that was one of the hardest things to ever have
18:37
Speaker 3: to deal with, knowing that I didn't kill my son,
18:40
Speaker 3: knowing that these people are saying we're going to kill you.
18:44
Speaker 3: I had a death date at the time, was July
18:46
Speaker 3: the second of nineteen ninety, and I didn't know that
18:49
Speaker 3: the state had to exhaust all state remedies before they
18:52
Speaker 3: could actually carry out his death sentence. So when that
18:54
Speaker 3: day came, that was one of the hardest days.
18:57
Speaker 2: Man.
18:57
Speaker 3: I paced the floor. I listened for every sound I
19:02
Speaker 3: listened to all the no was his keys make because
19:05
Speaker 3: I was thinking that they were coming to take me
19:08
Speaker 3: for my depth. So that is very it was very
19:11
Speaker 3: traumatic for me.
19:13
Speaker 2: That is completely insane.
19:15
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about psychological torture beside all the physical deprivation,
19:20
Speaker 1: and for you not to even know that you weren't
19:22
Speaker 1: going to be executed, no one bothered to tell you
19:24
Speaker 1: that you.
19:25
Speaker 2: Have I mean, that's nuts.
19:26
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before, and I've been doing this
19:28
Speaker 1: stuff for almost three decades.
19:29
Speaker 2: It's insane.
19:31
Speaker 1: And the fact that you're sitting here upright again and smiling.
19:34
Speaker 1: Is I you know, now I'm starting to understand why
19:38
Speaker 1: people say all the great things they say about you.
19:40
Speaker 1: So how did you find the strength to persevere? She
19:46
Speaker 1: was the only woman on death row in Mississippi at
19:47
Speaker 1: that time.
19:48
Speaker 3: No, I was not. It was another girl on death
19:50
Speaker 3: row named Susan Baffer who helped me a lot. But
19:54
Speaker 3: I say to anyone who asked that question, my most
19:58
Speaker 3: basic strength is Clyde. Because when Clyive, Clive was the
20:01
Speaker 3: only one who came to the prison. Clive brought me artwork.
20:04
Speaker 3: He kept talking to me. He kept saying, you know,
20:06
Speaker 3: give me a chance to look at this case. We're
20:09
Speaker 3: going to fix this. That's why I feel so close
20:12
Speaker 3: to him, because he saved my life. Without Clive or
20:15
Speaker 3: Rob McDuff.
20:16
Speaker 2: The other attorney, right, correct, I.
20:19
Speaker 3: Don't think I would be sitting here because I mean
20:21
Speaker 3: he was a godsend. Clyde was a godsend. And I
20:24
Speaker 3: thank him one hundredfold for bringing out the evidence in
20:28
Speaker 3: my case. I really do.
20:29
Speaker 1: And Clyve, so you got a letter one day in
20:31
Speaker 1: the mail from one of her trial attorneys.
20:33
Speaker 2: Is that how they started?
20:35
Speaker 5: I think he called me up actually, and I remember
20:37
Speaker 5: coming to see Sabrina, and you know, I was representing
20:41
Speaker 5: Susie Belfo at the time too, And it's sad to say,
20:45
Speaker 5: not the only time that I've heard of someone on
20:48
Speaker 5: the throw whether Lewis didn't even tell him that they
20:51
Speaker 5: weren't going to get executed. And you know, I remember
20:54
Speaker 5: meeting Sabrina for the first time, and you know, she's
20:58
Speaker 5: a kid, right, Sorry about that, Sabrina, that you were
21:01
Speaker 5: a kid, You're right, and you know she's stuck there
21:05
Speaker 5: all by herself. And you know, I looked at her
21:08
Speaker 5: case and I thought this is going to get reversed.
21:10
Speaker 5: I mean versus the comment on silence, but there's all
21:13
Speaker 5: sorts of other stuff that the Mississippi Supreme Court actually
21:16
Speaker 5: didn't even reach. So I was pretty confident we were
21:19
Speaker 5: going to get a new trial. But then you know,
21:21
Speaker 5: we were going to have to go back and start again.
21:23
Speaker 5: And you were convinced you were going to get executed.
21:26
Speaker 5: I was convinced you weren't, but there was still a
21:28
Speaker 5: long road ahead of us. Yeah, the case against it
21:31
Speaker 5: was such nonsense. But nevertheless, you know, once someone's been
21:35
Speaker 5: convicted and since to death, there is a huge presumption
21:38
Speaker 5: of guilt and it's going to be really hard to
21:41
Speaker 5: get them out from under it.
21:43
Speaker 1: Sabrina on death Rout in Mississippi. I know you talk
21:48
Speaker 1: about the one other person who was there with you, Susan.
21:51
Speaker 3: Yes, Susan baff Did she give.
21:54
Speaker 2: You hope to persevere?
21:55
Speaker 1: I mean you talked about Clive and the other attorney
21:58
Speaker 1: who came to your rescue, quite literally, like the Avengers
22:01
Speaker 1: writing it out of nowhere, I guess.
22:03
Speaker 2: But were there.
22:04
Speaker 5: Any God, I'd like to be an Avenger? I appreciate it,
22:07
Speaker 5: I got it.
22:08
Speaker 1: Well, so Brina and I are going to go to
22:10
Speaker 1: a costume store and get your cake when we're done here.
22:12
Speaker 2: So all right, Yeah, I don't worry about it.
22:15
Speaker 1: But yeah, was there any Was there any particular moment
22:18
Speaker 1: that you think back on and you go, that was
22:20
Speaker 1: a moment when I found hope.
22:22
Speaker 3: Well, I can remember going through my deaf date. Before that.
22:25
Speaker 3: We used to get down on the floor and the
22:27
Speaker 3: toilets were connected between walls, and we would have that
22:30
Speaker 3: as our phone, and I started talking to her. She
22:33
Speaker 3: was older than me. I think Susan was like twenty
22:36
Speaker 3: five or twenty six when she got sentenced in the
22:39
Speaker 3: same county that I was from Columbus, Misissippi. Clyve worked
22:42
Speaker 3: on her case as well, and so we got to
22:45
Speaker 3: know each other like that, you know, And she started
22:47
Speaker 3: talking to me and was trying to explain to me
22:50
Speaker 3: about the death sentence and how it works and stuff
22:53
Speaker 3: like that after the fact. So that's how I had
22:56
Speaker 3: someone to talk to.
22:57
Speaker 2: So she communicated through the event or through.
23:00
Speaker 3: Through the vent, through the vent in the toilet. They
23:02
Speaker 3: kept us where we couldn't talk to anyone. They put
23:05
Speaker 3: us down this hall and they put a piece of
23:07
Speaker 3: tape on the floor because they didn't know where to
23:10
Speaker 3: put female death Row inmates. So we were just down
23:14
Speaker 3: a hall and I think it had no one beyond
23:17
Speaker 3: this point. And as far as me and Susan, we
23:19
Speaker 3: had to sign paper saying that we wouldn't kill each
23:21
Speaker 3: other before we could even go on yard all together.
23:24
Speaker 3: Everywhere we went we had to be shackled. We had
23:27
Speaker 3: no contact. No other inmates could come and touch us
23:30
Speaker 3: or say anything to us. We were locked down twenty
23:33
Speaker 3: three hours a day, and then when they did give
23:35
Speaker 3: us yard call, it was just stand in this bull
23:38
Speaker 3: pen like you do dogs, with no shade, no nothing.
23:41
Speaker 3: It's just standing out there that's the way they had us.
23:44
Speaker 1: I mean, it was crazy, but now we know you're here,
23:49
Speaker 1: and I want to highlight that the odds changed a
23:53
Speaker 1: lot in court with proper legal representation that everybody should have.
23:57
Speaker 2: And Clive, when.
23:58
Speaker 1: Did you that the tide really turned in the retrial.
24:02
Speaker 5: Well, you have to remember that actually no one ends
24:05
Speaker 5: up in prisoner on death row for something they didn't
24:09
Speaker 5: do without there being a semblance of evidence. First, there
24:13
Speaker 5: was the question of the injuries to little Walter. You
24:16
Speaker 5: had the injuries to his chest, which we could explain
24:21
Speaker 5: through CPR, and that also tied into the statement against Sabrina,
24:26
Speaker 5: because the police had co aster into saying she punched
24:30
Speaker 5: the child, which wasn't that far from the truth. The
24:33
Speaker 5: truth is she had done CPR to the child in
24:36
Speaker 5: a way that was almost the equivalent. But this was
24:39
Speaker 5: after the child was succumbing to other things, and so
24:42
Speaker 5: we were able to show to the jury the way
24:46
Speaker 5: that the police co asked. Most importantly I think was
24:50
Speaker 5: the medical evidence. I spent many many long hours in
24:54
Speaker 5: the medical library in you Orleans looking for what I
24:59
Speaker 5: thought the real explanation would be for what we saw
25:03
Speaker 5: in this child. And that was when I came across
25:05
Speaker 5: the chronic neuphrotic syndrome, the syndrome that Sabrina's daughter has too.
25:10
Speaker 5: You know, this seemed clearly to explain everything we were seeing,
25:14
Speaker 5: and that was one part of hope, because we were
25:18
Speaker 5: able to get our own medical examiner who could give
25:22
Speaker 5: an explanation for what really happened, but also get their
25:26
Speaker 5: medical examiner to admit what he didn't know, and their
25:30
Speaker 5: GP also to admit that they simply didn't know that
25:34
Speaker 5: there was this chronic nephrotic syndrome that could explain all
25:37
Speaker 5: of the things they saw, and they just didn't know
25:40
Speaker 5: about it because that was beyond their exploitise. And then,
25:44
Speaker 5: you know, I think the turning point in the trial
25:48
Speaker 5: was when we had their cup on the stand and
25:50
Speaker 5: I had this really ugly doll, and I wanted him
25:56
Speaker 5: to show the jury how he would do CPR on
26:00
Speaker 5: a little infant. And you know, it didn't really matter
26:03
Speaker 5: what he did because he was a police officer who
26:06
Speaker 5: was trained in CPR. So if he did it properly
26:09
Speaker 5: with two little fingers on the infant's chest, then that
26:13
Speaker 5: would demonstrate what no one else in the courtroom probably knew,
26:16
Speaker 5: which was how to do it properly. But if he
26:18
Speaker 5: got it wrong, then that was the end of that case.
26:21
Speaker 5: Because if the police officer trained like that would do
26:25
Speaker 5: CPR in the way that we said that Sabrina had
26:29
Speaker 5: done it, in a way that would crush the infant's ribs,
26:33
Speaker 5: then you know, that was an incredibly powerful argument for
26:37
Speaker 5: what had actually happened. And sure enough, he would have
26:39
Speaker 5: killed that little child the way he did CPR. He
26:42
Speaker 5: put his two hands on it, and he would have
26:44
Speaker 5: crushed the child. And then of course he went out
26:47
Speaker 5: in the hall, and I knew he was going to
26:48
Speaker 5: tell his body in the hall that we just got him.
26:51
Speaker 5: So I made an argument to the judge in front
26:54
Speaker 5: of the jury that I was afraid that he was
26:56
Speaker 5: going to tell the next police officer how to do
26:58
Speaker 5: it properly, And sure enough, that's what he did, And
27:01
Speaker 5: so we exposed that when the next guy came in,
27:04
Speaker 5: and that just showed that they were all getting together
27:07
Speaker 5: in the whole way and trying to concoct a case
27:09
Speaker 5: against Sabrina. So all of that went really well. But
27:12
Speaker 5: having said that, there were a couple of other things.
27:15
Speaker 5: Some of the other witnesses, the neighbors and so forth,
27:18
Speaker 5: who corroborated what Sabrina said, which was that she'd run
27:23
Speaker 5: around desperately trying to find people that take her to
27:26
Speaker 5: hospital and help her. You know, this just showed the
27:29
Speaker 5: truth that here was an eighteen year old who was
27:32
Speaker 5: in a massive panic, as opposed to what the prosecutor
27:36
Speaker 5: wanted to say that she was some sort of sociopath
27:39
Speaker 5: who had beaten up a little baby. Then you come
27:43
Speaker 5: to the verdict, and I've got to say, you know,
27:46
Speaker 5: capital trials, for me as a lawyer, are the greatest
27:48
Speaker 5: laxative known to humanity. If you're not nervous when you're
27:52
Speaker 5: doing those cases, then you just shouldn't be doing them.
27:56
Speaker 5: And I'm not going to admit to my knees knocking
27:59
Speaker 5: all the probably well, I was trying to hold Sabrina
28:02
Speaker 5: out there.
28:03
Speaker 3: Oh man, Clive now, I mean when we had to
28:05
Speaker 3: stand before the judge, my legs felt like spaghetti noodles
28:08
Speaker 3: and Clive now was holding me on either side. And
28:11
Speaker 3: I when the when the judge came back with that
28:14
Speaker 3: oh not guilty verdict, I just felt because I I
28:18
Speaker 3: was like, finally this is over, and I'm you know,
28:21
Speaker 3: thinking that it's you know, it's okay, I'm free, but
28:25
Speaker 3: you know that wasn't the whole thing. I wasn't. I'm
28:27
Speaker 3: still not free. I'm still working through that because after
28:31
Speaker 3: I got out and I got a chance to see
28:33
Speaker 3: my oldest son, I had to fight four more years
28:35
Speaker 3: to get him back. And then my daughter, who is
28:38
Speaker 3: seventeen years old, has the same exact disease my son
28:41
Speaker 3: died from so and it was polycistic kidney disease, and
28:45
Speaker 3: both of her kidney's are bad and they're saying that
28:48
Speaker 3: she will lose both and there's no cure. So it's
28:52
Speaker 3: the same thing. I'm fighting, the same, the same thing
28:55
Speaker 3: every day.
28:56
Speaker 6: It's hard because I've already lost one.
29:13
Speaker 5: The reason I consider my profession such a privilege is
29:18
Speaker 5: there is no greater privilege, I think, than being able
29:22
Speaker 5: to help just give someone like Sabrina her life back.
29:25
Speaker 5: It's a fantastic thing to be blessed and be able
29:30
Speaker 5: to do.
29:30
Speaker 1: It would be great if we didn't have to do
29:32
Speaker 1: these things, but those of us who work in this
29:35
Speaker 1: field movement, I couldn't have said it better myself. I mean,
29:39
Speaker 1: the happiest moments of my life putting my kids in
29:41
Speaker 1: a separate category because that is a separate category.
29:44
Speaker 5: Well, it's true, but let me say this, Well, I've
29:46
Speaker 5: got to you. I mean, I'm really grateful for you
29:49
Speaker 5: doing what you're doing. And let's just get a commitment
29:52
Speaker 5: on the air while we're here that you're going to
29:54
Speaker 5: carry on doing it for the next fifty years.
29:58
Speaker 2: What age?
29:58
Speaker 5: I'm not sure.
29:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, you will, I will, I can't stop, won't stop,
30:02
Speaker 1: not gonna stop. And just getting to now all the
30:05
Speaker 1: amazing things that Sabrina is doing. Not to spoil the surprise,
30:09
Speaker 1: but Sabrina has been a tremendous advocate for change for
30:13
Speaker 1: almost a quarter century.
30:15
Speaker 3: Now, if you go to Witness to Innocence dot org,
30:18
Speaker 3: we are deathrow survivors. And if you go to that
30:21
Speaker 3: website then you can get me and several others any
30:24
Speaker 3: other speaker that you might like to come and speak
30:26
Speaker 3: for you.
30:27
Speaker 2: Right.
30:27
Speaker 1: That's Witness to Innocence dot org. Witness to Innocence dot org,
30:31
Speaker 1: and you can find Sabrina there as well as so
30:33
Speaker 1: many other extraordinary people who I'm very fortunate to call
30:38
Speaker 1: my friends and who I'm proud to work together in
30:41
Speaker 1: this fight to abolish the death penalty. And before we
30:43
Speaker 1: get to closing arguments. One thing I did want to
30:46
Speaker 1: ask you, Clive, is I would like you to talk
30:48
Speaker 1: about what people should look for if they're on a jury,
30:52
Speaker 1: and how to make our listeners be the best jurors
30:55
Speaker 1: that they can be.
30:57
Speaker 5: There are several things you should bear in mind. The
31:01
Speaker 5: first is what does it really mean to be sure
31:04
Speaker 5: beyond a reasonable doubt? And I'm pretty horrified when I
31:09
Speaker 5: ask judges about that because when I've asked judges to
31:13
Speaker 5: put a number on it, the average judge, both in
31:16
Speaker 5: America and in Britain, and I've done this many times,
31:20
Speaker 5: that has averaged out at eighty three percent sure. That
31:24
Speaker 5: means they're aiming to be wrong one time in six
31:27
Speaker 5: and with six million Americans in the judicial system, the
31:31
Speaker 5: judges are aiming to put a million innocent people into
31:36
Speaker 5: prison when they take that as their standard. And as
31:38
Speaker 5: Robin Hurd will teach you, if you aim low, you miss.
31:41
Speaker 5: And the other thing to think about as a jura
31:43
Speaker 5: is there are twelve of you, but there's only one
31:47
Speaker 5: of you, and the one of you is the person
31:50
Speaker 5: who has responsibility for what you do. So very often
31:54
Speaker 5: there's this sort of herd mentality where everyone wants to agree,
31:58
Speaker 5: but you're not responsible for what those other people do,
32:01
Speaker 5: and as an individual juror, you have the right from
32:04
Speaker 5: beginning to end to say, respectfully, I just disagree. And
32:08
Speaker 5: one of the things we never tell jurors is how
32:11
Speaker 5: they can disagree, so they're never told that. At any moment,
32:16
Speaker 5: you as a juror, can send a note out to
32:18
Speaker 5: the judge saying, well, you know, don't really matter what
32:20
Speaker 5: these other e loving people are doing. I'm telling you
32:23
Speaker 5: we're not no agree because I think that this person
32:26
Speaker 5: is not guilty and you always have that right, and
32:29
Speaker 5: people try to bully you into not doing that.
32:32
Speaker 2: Well said, and I'm glad you brought that up.
32:34
Speaker 1: That's actually a new point I think for a lot
32:37
Speaker 1: of our listeners, and it's super important for everyone to know.
32:41
Speaker 2: That if you're on a jury, you have that right.
32:43
Speaker 1: You can just basically say, hey, this is going to
32:47
Speaker 1: end in a hung jury or an acquittal because I'm
32:50
Speaker 1: not voting guilty. And if that's how you feel, don't
32:53
Speaker 1: be bullied. I've heard too many stories, as you have,
32:56
Speaker 1: people who finally just got tired and they wanted to
32:59
Speaker 1: go home and they threw somebody life away literally because
33:04
Speaker 1: of pure pressure.
33:06
Speaker 5: And it's also because no one told them that is
33:08
Speaker 5: you're right. No one told them that you can say
33:11
Speaker 5: enough is enough now? And I think that's just very
33:15
Speaker 5: unfair on jurist that we don't say that.
33:17
Speaker 2: No. I think a lot of jurors also aren't told that.
33:19
Speaker 1: Actually therefore is the only one that really matters because
33:22
Speaker 1: we have to have unanimous jury verdicts in this country. Okay,
33:25
Speaker 1: so now comes the featured part of our show, where
33:28
Speaker 1: I thank both of you profusely for coming in and well,
33:33
Speaker 1: Sabrina for you sharing your story and your remarkable journey.
33:38
Speaker 1: And Clive, of course, thank you for calling in and
33:41
Speaker 1: for all the amazing work that you've been doing.
33:42
Speaker 2: And so now in.
33:44
Speaker 1: Order because we save the best for last, with all
33:47
Speaker 1: due respect to you, sir Clive, we're going to save
33:50
Speaker 1: Sabrina for last.
33:51
Speaker 5: All right, very good? I will. I've been doing death
33:55
Speaker 5: penalty work since I was about twenty, which is a
33:58
Speaker 5: long long time ago, and I do it because of
34:01
Speaker 5: what my mother said to me, which is, there's no
34:04
Speaker 5: point you having a law degree if you don't look
34:07
Speaker 5: at the people that we as a society most hate,
34:11
Speaker 5: and you get between them and the people doing the hating.
34:15
Speaker 5: And you know, when you think about the death penalty,
34:18
Speaker 5: it's extraordinary in theory, but in practice, when that jury
34:23
Speaker 5: and that judge came back to say to Sabrina, who
34:27
Speaker 5: I count as a dear friend and I count as
34:30
Speaker 5: a very valuable human being, when they came back and
34:34
Speaker 5: said to her that we are going to take your
34:38
Speaker 5: life away. We're going to sacrifice you on the altar
34:43
Speaker 5: to some mythological god of deterrence because we're going to
34:48
Speaker 5: do that to pretend that we're doing something meaningful about crime.
34:55
Speaker 5: That's just terrific to me. I've watched six of my
34:57
Speaker 5: clients die in the electric, the gas chamber, and the
35:02
Speaker 5: leafl injection gurny, and it's always in the middle of
35:04
Speaker 5: the night for whatever reason, and it's because I think
35:06
Speaker 5: we're deeply ashamed of what we're doing. And each time
35:10
Speaker 5: I have come out of the death chamber and I've
35:14
Speaker 5: looked up at the stars above and I've thought to myself,
35:19
Speaker 5: my God, did that really make the world a better place?
35:25
Speaker 5: And you know, the bottom line is it sure didn't.
35:28
Speaker 5: And I'm so glad that in Sabrina's case, not only
35:32
Speaker 5: did she not end up on the leafl injection gurney.
35:35
Speaker 5: But she ended up getting her life back and making
35:38
Speaker 5: so much of it, and that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing.
35:42
Speaker 2: Sabrina Well.
35:43
Speaker 3: I basically want to say that the journey was not easy.
35:46
Speaker 3: I had to do a lot of growing up going
35:48
Speaker 3: through this trial and tragedy of losing my son. Today
35:54
Speaker 3: I still fight the state of Mississippi where my son
35:58
Speaker 3: is buried. It took me two years to find him.
36:00
Speaker 3: When I did find him, he was buried on a
36:04
Speaker 3: dark gravel road in the woods, on a hill, under
36:08
Speaker 3: a tree, no marker except the little bitty marker that
36:13
Speaker 3: they have. I am trying to fight them because I
36:16
Speaker 3: found out that the death certificate still says today that
36:20
Speaker 3: he was murdered. Okay, So when I found that out,
36:23
Speaker 3: that was another blow to me as a person, because
36:28
Speaker 3: I'm trying to say, you still have this out here.
36:31
Speaker 3: I was found not guilty. The system of Mississippi paid
36:36
Speaker 3: me for wrongful conviction what they thought it was worth,
36:39
Speaker 3: but you still are convicting me in some sort of way.
36:43
Speaker 3: How could I ever be a nurse or doctor anything
36:46
Speaker 3: with death certificate that stated that. So the attorney is
36:50
Speaker 3: now working in the process of trying to get the
36:52
Speaker 3: State Examiner's office to change the death certificate in itself.
36:57
Speaker 3: They refused to do that, so now we have to
36:59
Speaker 3: go to That is another battle that I am currently
37:02
Speaker 3: in the process of trying to do. I said that
37:05
Speaker 3: in a sense to say that we are all human beings,
37:09
Speaker 3: we do not have the right as each individual to
37:11
Speaker 3: take a person's redemptive period. That's my belief. I feel
37:15
Speaker 3: that as long as God has me here, I am
37:19
Speaker 3: going to fight till I can't fight anymore, because that's
37:21
Speaker 3: what I'm here for. I feel like I can go
37:24
Speaker 3: all over the world and talk about this case until
37:26
Speaker 3: I'm blue in the face. If it changed one mind,
37:30
Speaker 3: one heart, then I feel like I'm doing my job.
37:33
Speaker 3: And I just thank God and for all the people
37:35
Speaker 3: that were involved in my case that he gave me
37:38
Speaker 3: a second chance to try to help someone else. And
37:43
Speaker 3: that's what I'm here for.
37:50
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
37:53
Speaker 4: get your podcasts.
37:54
Speaker 2: It really helps.
37:55
Speaker 1: And I'm a proud donor to the Nisis Project, and
37:58
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll join me and supporting this very
38:01
Speaker 1: important cause and helping to prevent future Wrongful Convictions. Go
38:05
Speaker 1: to innisonsproject dot org to learn how to donate and
38:08
Speaker 1: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
38:11
Speaker 1: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
38:14
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
38:18
Speaker 1: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
38:21
Speaker 1: Facebook at.
38:22
Speaker 2: Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
38:23
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
38:27
Speaker 1: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one