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#350 Guest Host Lauren Bright Pacheco with Lamar Johnson · Wrongful Conviction

0:07
Speaker 1: At nine pm on October thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, Marcus
0:10
Speaker 1: Boyd and Greg Elking were on Marcus's porch in Saint
0:14
Speaker 1: Louis when two men approached them. Both were carrying guns
0:18
Speaker 1: and wearing masks that covered all but their eyes. Greg
0:21
Speaker 1: Elking ran off as shots rang out and Marcus was killed.
0:26
Speaker 1: Marcus's girlfriend was upstairs and was immediately available to the
0:29
Speaker 1: police when they asked who might have done it. She
0:31
Speaker 1: claimed that Marcus may have had a drug dispute with
0:34
Speaker 1: his friend, Lamar Johnson. After the only eyewitness, Greg Elkin,
0:40
Speaker 1: viewed a photo lineup, a man named Philip Campbell, along
0:43
Speaker 1: with Lamar Johnson were arrested, and Elking identified both men
0:47
Speaker 1: in a live lineup. Lamar maintained that he had been
0:50
Speaker 1: miles away at the time of the crime, but at trial,
0:53
Speaker 1: the lead detective testified that a round trip to the
0:56
Speaker 1: scene of the crime could have taken Lamar less than
0:59
Speaker 1: five minutes, making his guilt plausible. A jailhouse informant also
1:04
Speaker 1: said that he had overheard Lamar confessing to the murder,
1:08
Speaker 1: but the most incriminating testimony of all came from Greg Elkin.
1:12
Speaker 1: Although he didn't see the shooters faces behind their masks.
1:16
Speaker 1: Elking said he recognized Lamar easily because of a distinctive
1:20
Speaker 1: lazy eye. The eyewitness testimony was damning. After all, there
1:25
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be any incentive for someone to make up
1:28
Speaker 1: something like that. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back
1:47
Speaker 1: to wrongful conviction. I'm Lauren Bret Pacheco, broadcast journalist and
1:51
Speaker 1: host of the podcast's Murder in Oregon, Murder in Illinois,
1:54
Speaker 1: and Murder in Miami, and I am so excited to
1:57
Speaker 1: be filling in for Jason Flahm in today's case. Irrefutable
2:01
Speaker 1: evidence of innocence, as well as an eventual confession from
2:05
Speaker 1: both of the actual assailants were not enough to receive
2:08
Speaker 1: a new trial. It took twenty eight years a new
2:11
Speaker 1: legislation for justice to finally be done in the Missouri
2:15
Speaker 1: appellate system. And we are honored to be joined by
2:18
Speaker 1: its survivor, Lamar Johnson.
2:20
Speaker 2: Welcome Heah, thank you for having us.
2:23
Speaker 1: It's an honor. And the other half of us refers
2:26
Speaker 1: to Lamar's attorney from Morgan Pilot in Kansas City, who's
2:29
Speaker 1: also on the board of the Midwest Innocence Project. Lindsay Rynolds,
2:33
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
2:34
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
2:36
Speaker 1: So, Lamar, if we can just go back. I know
2:39
Speaker 1: that you are forty nine now correct, Yes, and this
2:44
Speaker 1: happened when you were twenty, So just explain a little
2:49
Speaker 1: bit about who you were at the age of twenty,
2:52
Speaker 1: where you were living, what you were doing, and what
2:55
Speaker 1: you were about at that point in your life.
2:57
Speaker 2: I was kind of like a lot of people from
2:59
Speaker 2: the in his cities at that age. I was, I
3:02
Speaker 2: was working, I was in school, but I was also,
3:05
Speaker 2: you know, trying to hustle a little bit because that
3:08
Speaker 2: was the probably the height of the cracker and so,
3:12
Speaker 2: like a lot of kids in the neighborhood, I was
3:14
Speaker 2: trying to make a little money on the side, and
3:17
Speaker 2: of course that you know, puts me in the crosshourds
3:20
Speaker 2: of some police officers in my neighborhood. Yeah.
3:23
Speaker 3: The detective that was leading this investigation, Detective Joseph Nickerson,
3:28
Speaker 3: you know, a long time veteran by the time he
3:31
Speaker 3: retired of the Saint Louis City Police Department. He knew
3:35
Speaker 3: Lamar before. There was this group of young men, the
3:40
Speaker 3: usual suspects for anything that happened within that neighborhood. They
3:44
Speaker 3: were brought in, called down to the police station over anything,
3:48
Speaker 3: whether or not they were even just because they were
3:53
Speaker 3: a group of you know, young black men from the
3:55
Speaker 3: wrong part of town.
3:57
Speaker 1: And our audience may recall the name Joseph Nickerson from
4:00
Speaker 1: the wrongful conviction of Billy Allen, who continues to languish
4:03
Speaker 1: on federal death row, will have his episode linked in
4:06
Speaker 1: the bio so they can further acquaint themselves with Detective Nickerson,
4:10
Speaker 1: who is actually on the Saint Louis DIA's do not
4:13
Speaker 1: testify list due to credibility issues. And just like Marcus
4:18
Speaker 1: and Lamar, Billy Allen was also dealing drugs, so it
4:21
Speaker 1: seems like Nickerson had a type now, Lamar, I understand
4:25
Speaker 1: it was easy for Nickerson to make a connection between
4:28
Speaker 1: you and the victim in this case, Marcus Boyd. Not
4:30
Speaker 1: only were you guys both selling drugs at the time,
4:33
Speaker 1: but you were really close friends. In fact, you were
4:35
Speaker 1: almost like family through a woman named Leslie Williams, who
4:39
Speaker 1: was the mother of Marcus's child.
4:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was dating Leslie Williams, the cousin of Pamela Williams,
4:47
Speaker 2: and I have a daughter by Pamela Williams. Pam and
4:50
Speaker 2: Leslie lived together, so that's how we met, probably about
4:53
Speaker 2: five years before then. We just really good, came close.
4:58
Speaker 1: Did you have a falling out of sorts? Before he
5:00
Speaker 1: was murdered?
5:02
Speaker 2: Marcus and I never had a fallen out on an argument, never.
5:06
Speaker 1: Yet an alleged rift between you two over drugs was
5:09
Speaker 1: eventually used as a motive for what happened on October thirtieth,
5:14
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, at around nine pm. At this time,
5:17
Speaker 1: Leslie Williams was in the apartment that she shared with
5:19
Speaker 1: Marcus Boyd bathing their baby, while Marcus was downstairs on
5:23
Speaker 1: their porch on Louisiana Avenue, and a man named Greg
5:27
Speaker 1: Elkin was there to repay Marcus for some crack. So
5:31
Speaker 1: they were talking when two armed men approached in black
5:33
Speaker 1: ski masks that covered everything but their eyes. One ordered
5:37
Speaker 1: Greg off the porch. They fatally shot Marcus and ran off,
5:42
Speaker 1: and obviously Leslie came running down to the porch, and.
5:46
Speaker 2: Once the shooting store, she ran downstairs and she was
5:49
Speaker 2: able to see the gunman on the porch shooting, but
5:51
Speaker 2: she couldn't make out who they were. And you know,
5:54
Speaker 2: I guess the routine question that officers ask say, well,
5:57
Speaker 2: you know, who do you think might have something to
5:59
Speaker 2: do with and she just, you know, she just said Lamars.
6:02
Speaker 2: She couldn't think of anybody else. She didn' couldn't think
6:04
Speaker 2: of any reason. And she was asked about that, well,
6:07
Speaker 2: why did you think that I didn't have any reason?
6:10
Speaker 2: They didn't owe each other any money or drugs or
6:12
Speaker 2: anything like that. So I just think that this in
6:15
Speaker 2: my name that came to her mind.
6:16
Speaker 1: And it would have been very difficult to identify you
6:19
Speaker 1: because both of the gunmen were wearing masks.
6:23
Speaker 2: That's true.
6:23
Speaker 1: Plus you were almost three miles away at the time
6:27
Speaker 1: with your youngest daughter and her mother, Erica Barrow, while
6:30
Speaker 1: also handling some business of your own.
6:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a call from a guy I had
6:37
Speaker 2: just met, and he wanted to purchase some crime, and
6:42
Speaker 2: I arranged to meet him at a corner of thirty
6:46
Speaker 2: ninth and Lafayette. And it just happens that at that
6:49
Speaker 2: corner of a friend of ours lived at that apartment too,
6:53
Speaker 2: and so I just told Erica to come with us,
6:55
Speaker 2: her and a baby to come with us, and we
6:57
Speaker 2: went to that apartment and so that I could kind
6:59
Speaker 2: of visit the friend and also meet with this person.
7:03
Speaker 1: And it was during this five minute span where your
7:07
Speaker 1: whereabouts could not be accounted for by Erica Barrow, that
7:10
Speaker 1: the state eventually alleged that you had sped from Lafayette
7:14
Speaker 1: and thirty ninth Street, picked up the actual other assailant
7:18
Speaker 1: in the case, Philip Campbell, changed into dark clothing, put
7:21
Speaker 1: on masks, pulled up at Marcus's, and killed him in
7:24
Speaker 1: front of his apartment at thirty nine ten, Louisiana, which
7:28
Speaker 1: was what like two point seven miles away?
7:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, two to three miles away.
7:33
Speaker 1: And so how long would it have actually taken you
7:36
Speaker 1: to get there and get back? Realistically?
7:40
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
7:41
Speaker 2: I know that Lindsley and I don't have driven at distance.
7:43
Speaker 2: I know the Prosecutor's office has driven. In fact, I
7:45
Speaker 2: mean the Attorney General's office even drove it a different
7:49
Speaker 2: and I know that you couldn't have done it in
7:51
Speaker 2: five minutes, let alone to two to three minutes that
7:53
Speaker 2: Detective Nicholson testified a trial that it could have been driven.
7:57
Speaker 1: Right, simple Google search sets distance at two point seven miles,
8:02
Speaker 1: taking at least ten minutes by car, making a twenty
8:06
Speaker 1: minute round trip so pure math, this is impossible. Now, Lamar,
8:10
Speaker 1: this was your really close friend who had just been shot.
8:14
Speaker 1: And I understand you found out about it right away.
8:17
Speaker 2: Well, I learned after I went out and met with
8:19
Speaker 2: this person and made the deal and came back in,
8:21
Speaker 2: I received the call from my oldest daughter's mother and
8:23
Speaker 2: she told me that Marcus had been a shot. She
8:26
Speaker 2: also said that Marcus's girlfriend had said that she thought
8:29
Speaker 2: that maybe I had something to do with it. So
8:32
Speaker 2: I actually, I said, well, what happened to Marcus? And
8:33
Speaker 2: she said he was outside with the white guy and
8:35
Speaker 2: he got shot. And then I said, I asked, well,
8:38
Speaker 2: did you think I had something to do with him?
8:40
Speaker 2: When she said yeah, I said why did you think that?
8:42
Speaker 2: And she said, well, I couldn't think of anybody else, so.
8:44
Speaker 1: She didn't see what happened, but for whatever reason, she
8:48
Speaker 1: decided that there was some kind of an issue between
8:51
Speaker 1: you and Marcus, and that started this chain of events. Basically, essentially,
8:57
Speaker 1: that's what happened, and you were all ready a known
9:00
Speaker 1: entity to the lead detective on this case, Joe Nickerson,
9:04
Speaker 1: so that's all he needed to hear.
9:06
Speaker 3: I mean, the investigation for what it was was started
9:10
Speaker 3: and ended at the scene that night. Honestly, Lamar Johnson's name,
9:14
Speaker 3: you know, is in that first police report from the scene,
9:17
Speaker 3: before the eyewitness had even been identified, let alone found
9:21
Speaker 3: and interviewed. And so when a single eyewitness in a
9:24
Speaker 3: case hasn't even been identified by name, and they have
9:27
Speaker 3: their suspect, I mean, that's not an investigation designed to
9:31
Speaker 3: find facts, in my view.
9:33
Speaker 1: And when they located Greg Elkin, the eyewitness a couple
9:37
Speaker 1: of days later, what did he say?
9:39
Speaker 3: He says what would be expected knowing the facts of
9:42
Speaker 3: this case, which is, I couldn't identify anybody. I couldn't
9:45
Speaker 3: see I didn't recognize them. They were masked. I can't
9:49
Speaker 3: help That's what he's saying when he's first contacted, which
9:52
Speaker 3: makes perfect sense.
9:53
Speaker 1: But then later that day Elkin and his wife met
9:56
Speaker 1: Nickerson at a diner and he was shown in array
9:59
Speaker 1: which included and Philip Campbell, but according to Elking, he
10:03
Speaker 1: made no identification. As it came out later, they had
10:06
Speaker 1: a discussion that somehow changed Elkin's mind about what he'd seen.
10:11
Speaker 1: That evening November third, nineteen ninety four, Lamar and Philip
10:14
Speaker 1: Campbell were both picked up. Now, during this time, Lamar
10:17
Speaker 1: waved his Miranda rights, spoke to Nickerson, told him where
10:21
Speaker 1: he was across town, and it was impossible for him
10:24
Speaker 1: to have committed the crime. And it was during this
10:27
Speaker 1: time Lamar was alleged to have spoken to another detective,
10:31
Speaker 1: the detective Campbell, but Lamar was completely unaware of this
10:36
Speaker 1: alleged conversation until trial. Lamar knew he was innocent, so
10:40
Speaker 1: he agreed to be in the lineup.
10:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, they bring Greg Elking down to the station and
10:45
Speaker 3: Lamar's in one of the lineups. There's three fillers just pulled,
10:49
Speaker 3: you know, from the jail to be put into that lineup,
10:52
Speaker 3: and Greg Elking views it at least three times. First time,
10:56
Speaker 3: he can't identify anybody, the second time identify anybody. The
11:02
Speaker 3: third time he identifies a filler from the jail, who,
11:05
Speaker 3: of course everyone knows, and not a suspect and is
11:09
Speaker 3: got the world's greatest alifi right he's in custody. The
11:13
Speaker 3: lineup containing Philip Campbell, the co defendant and an actual
11:16
Speaker 3: perpetrator in this case. He couldn't identify anyone, didn't recognize
11:21
Speaker 3: anyone from that lineup, and of course within that lineup
11:24
Speaker 3: is somebody that was actually on that porch with Greg Elking.
11:27
Speaker 3: There was no identification made, and not only no identification
11:31
Speaker 3: and identification of someone else, and it should have been
11:34
Speaker 3: the end of.
11:34
Speaker 1: It, but that, of course wasn't the end of it.
11:38
Speaker 1: We now know that Greg was told who to identify,
11:42
Speaker 1: and later he did. But take us to what happened
11:46
Speaker 1: immediately after this live lineup.
11:48
Speaker 2: So when I left out of the out lineup room,
11:51
Speaker 2: Detective Nickoson was kind of leaning over a table, and
11:55
Speaker 2: I could tell that he was frustrated, and I remember
11:59
Speaker 2: telling him, see, I told you I didn't do this,
12:03
Speaker 2: And I remember the way that he looked up at
12:04
Speaker 2: me like he had atred in his eyes. That's the
12:06
Speaker 2: only way that I know how to describe it. But
12:09
Speaker 2: I'd left there knowing that I hadn't been identified, And
12:12
Speaker 2: when they came back later and said, well you've been identified,
12:17
Speaker 2: I knew then that something was going on, that something
12:20
Speaker 2: was wrong.
12:21
Speaker 3: Greg Elkin's testimony on this is clear. He was told
12:25
Speaker 3: the numbers of the lineup. You know, it's three and
12:28
Speaker 3: it's four. Three, of course was la Mar's position, and
12:30
Speaker 3: four was Philip Campbell's position. And you know the train
12:34
Speaker 3: left the station right then.
12:45
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13:34
Speaker 2: So they took me in Philip down to the booking area,
13:37
Speaker 2: which was the central holdover, and there's a twenty hour
13:41
Speaker 2: period where the Circuit Attorney's office makes a decision on
13:45
Speaker 2: whether or not to actually charge you, and the jailer
13:50
Speaker 2: came that next day and said that charges had been issued, and.
13:56
Speaker 1: While you and Philip Campbell were in that holding area,
14:00
Speaker 1: enter in jailhouse snitch named William. Can you tell me
14:05
Speaker 1: a little bit, Lindsey about William Mock.
14:09
Speaker 3: Well, William Mock had been an informant before. But you
14:13
Speaker 3: know the tall tale that he told in Lamar's case
14:17
Speaker 3: was that while he was in custody in this city
14:20
Speaker 3: holdover area, and that's that place in the jail where
14:23
Speaker 3: people are held before charges are issued. It's a long
14:27
Speaker 3: line of more than ten cells housing up to you know,
14:30
Speaker 3: fifteen folks, loud folks, people coming off of drugs, and
14:35
Speaker 3: that's where they were at this particular period. They're never
14:38
Speaker 3: selled together. And William Mock claims to hear Lamar and
14:43
Speaker 3: Philip yelling to each other through this holding area, basically
14:48
Speaker 3: confessing to this, saying things like, you know, we shouldn't
14:51
Speaker 3: let the white guy live, and you know we got to,
14:54
Speaker 3: you know, hide the gun. And you know he's claiming,
14:57
Speaker 3: he Mock, that he's hearing this and hearing Lamar yelling
15:01
Speaker 3: out not only hey, I'm Lamar Johnson. My name is Lamar,
15:05
Speaker 3: and here's my information to a Lamont.
15:09
Speaker 1: It's so absurd, it's so absurd.
15:11
Speaker 3: It's absurd, even if you know this Lamont person had
15:15
Speaker 3: been in there, right, But there's not a Lamont in
15:17
Speaker 3: that jail. When William Mock is in there talking about
15:20
Speaker 3: these instances, they knew Lamont wasn't in there. Lamar's lawyer
15:24
Speaker 3: brings it up at trial.
15:25
Speaker 1: And that his testimony was incentivized.
15:29
Speaker 3: Of course, as they are right. I mean, jailhouse snitches
15:33
Speaker 3: don't work for free, and this particular one certainly did it.
15:38
Speaker 3: But Lamar's jury, Lamar, no one knew that William Mock
15:41
Speaker 3: had a history of doing this exact same thing just
15:45
Speaker 3: two years before he did it in this case.
15:47
Speaker 1: Since then, letters that Mock wrote to Nickerson and the
15:50
Speaker 1: prosecutor have been obtained. Letters that were written from prison
15:54
Speaker 1: after his own probation had been revoked, in which he
15:57
Speaker 1: was offering his services in exchange for free. And not
16:01
Speaker 1: only were his motivations for testifying exposed in his letters
16:03
Speaker 1: to the prosecutor, but also in his letters to Nickerson,
16:07
Speaker 1: Mock's overt racism was on full display.
16:10
Speaker 3: Yes, he's writing his letters as again as snitches do,
16:16
Speaker 3: saying this is what I want and calling Lamar and
16:19
Speaker 3: Phil his co defendant, you know, to bt Inward and
16:24
Speaker 3: a number of other comments. And that's important because it shows,
16:28
Speaker 3: of course his bias his motivation for doing some of this,
16:31
Speaker 3: which is why under the rules that would have to
16:34
Speaker 3: be disclosed so that the jury can test that bias.
16:37
Speaker 3: And you know, that was one of our strongest Brady
16:39
Speaker 3: claims in the case that these letters weren't disclosed to
16:42
Speaker 3: Lamar or the jury.
16:45
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the trial, which began July tenth,
16:48
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, in Saint Louis County Circuit Court. The
16:52
Speaker 1: prosecutor was Assistant Circuit Attorney Dwight Warrant, and Lamar, your
16:57
Speaker 1: public defender was David Bruns. One of the key points
17:01
Speaker 1: brought up a trial was Greg Elkins's eyewitness identification in
17:06
Speaker 1: which he said that he recognized you in the lineup
17:09
Speaker 1: because of your quote lazy eye. That's true, which is
17:13
Speaker 1: bizarre because I'm looking right at you, sir, and you
17:16
Speaker 1: do not have a lazy eye. So what was all
17:20
Speaker 1: of that about.
17:21
Speaker 2: Well, so that's confusing because he doesn't verify identification in
17:26
Speaker 2: the photo spread. He actually identifies somebody else in the lineup,
17:31
Speaker 2: and it's only after he had spent some time along
17:33
Speaker 2: with Detective Niggers and that he suddenly said, oh, I
17:36
Speaker 2: know who did it. It was number three or number four.
17:39
Speaker 2: And then in the police before he says that he's
17:41
Speaker 2: got to identify me based on a lazy or crooked eye.
17:45
Speaker 2: I don't know where that came from. I've never heard
17:48
Speaker 2: that before my entire life. That's the first time that
17:51
Speaker 2: it's mentioned, which is of course when he needs some
17:53
Speaker 2: sort of means of justifying an identification.
17:57
Speaker 3: I'm sure they knew that this case is weak. Were
18:00
Speaker 3: going to have to explain how somebody makes an identification
18:03
Speaker 3: of fully masked black men at dark you know. And
18:08
Speaker 3: Dwight Warren said that at the hearing right, there was
18:11
Speaker 3: no case without this identification because, as Lamar said, no
18:15
Speaker 3: physical evidence, no motive was ever investigated or presented, because
18:20
Speaker 3: there was no motive for Lamar to kill Marcus. So
18:24
Speaker 3: Greg Elking's identification was central. And so when he pointed
18:29
Speaker 3: to Lamar in front of that jury and said, that's
18:31
Speaker 3: the guy I was on the porch and that's him,
18:34
Speaker 3: I mean, it was the key.
18:36
Speaker 1: But you found out much later after your conviction that
18:41
Speaker 1: Elking had been incentivized to lie about identifying you, and
18:45
Speaker 1: that after the trial he'd even tried to come forward
18:49
Speaker 1: with the truth.
18:51
Speaker 2: Well, I eventually was able to get in contact with
18:56
Speaker 2: Greg and he by then he had already written his
18:59
Speaker 2: pastor been trying to come forward. He just wanted to
19:02
Speaker 2: do the right thing, and he just wrote out everything
19:04
Speaker 2: that had occurred. He told that him and his family
19:07
Speaker 2: was suffering financially and that as an assentive he had
19:11
Speaker 2: received money new apartment and they had utilities that was
19:15
Speaker 2: taken care of. And I mean everything that he said
19:18
Speaker 2: is eventually we was able to cooperate all the way
19:21
Speaker 2: down to their taking care of traffic tickets van. That's
19:25
Speaker 2: just how detailed it was.
19:27
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, no one was aware of Greg Elkins's motivation as
19:31
Speaker 1: a trial, nor was anyone besides the prosecutor aware of
19:35
Speaker 1: William Mock's motivations, which were not only racist, but were
19:39
Speaker 1: also entirely motivated by gaining his freedom.
19:43
Speaker 2: Mack had also claimed, in addition to me supposedly talking
19:47
Speaker 2: with this Lamont about killing a white witness in this case,
19:50
Speaker 2: I supposed to have also robbed and killed some other
19:53
Speaker 2: white guy. And it just split the trial up and
19:57
Speaker 2: for most of that whole second day because of this
20:00
Speaker 2: false other case that Mack had came up with. This
20:03
Speaker 2: just began to talk about the imaginary case, which police
20:06
Speaker 2: had to eventually admit that they looked for this case
20:09
Speaker 2: and it never even happened.
20:11
Speaker 3: They're being asked on the stand in front of the jury, well,
20:14
Speaker 3: did you investigate this other supposed robbery and homicide of
20:18
Speaker 3: a white guy on the south Side. Yeah, we did.
20:21
Speaker 3: What'd you find? There's no case. So here we are
20:25
Speaker 3: yet again that they have a very big important fact
20:28
Speaker 3: that William Mack is pretending to have overheard that they
20:31
Speaker 3: know it doesn't exist. The case is not real.
20:34
Speaker 1: And that wasn't the only false testimony that was submitted.
20:38
Speaker 1: There was also an alleged confession from Lamar on the
20:41
Speaker 1: day he was arrested before the lineup to a detective
20:44
Speaker 1: Ralph Campbell, no relation to Philip Campbell, in which he
20:47
Speaker 1: was alleged to say, I shouldn't have let the white
20:50
Speaker 1: guy live. Another conversation that never took place, and the
20:54
Speaker 1: fabrications and misinformation don't end there a trial, a ski
20:58
Speaker 1: mask was introduced that actually had been found in Lamar's
21:02
Speaker 1: car during a traffic stop. But the problem with this
21:04
Speaker 1: ski mask was when it was found in Lamar's car.
21:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was two months before Marcus was killed, and
21:16
Speaker 2: that mass was put in my car by a friend
21:19
Speaker 2: of mine, guy that I knew, Yeah.
21:20
Speaker 3: At one of the many times he was curbed as
21:22
Speaker 3: they call it, you know, Saint Louis or to pull
21:25
Speaker 3: up on you and search your car. That happened in August.
21:29
Speaker 3: You know, they came. They took it from the trunk
21:32
Speaker 3: of Lamar's car, along with a number of other items,
21:34
Speaker 3: and packaged and put into police custody down in the
21:37
Speaker 3: property lockers in August of nineteen ninety four, where it
21:41
Speaker 3: sat and where it was on the night of October thirtieth,
21:44
Speaker 3: so they knew it could never have been used. And
21:47
Speaker 3: it's sitting there on council table as an exhibit for
21:51
Speaker 3: all to see. And you know, it's one of the many,
21:54
Speaker 3: in my view, really intentionally prejudicial things. It's completely irrelevant
21:59
Speaker 3: to this case, is.
22:00
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Now. Your trial attorney, David Bruns did
22:04
Speaker 1: point that out, as well as the fact that you
22:07
Speaker 1: did not have a lazy eye. Your girlfriend, Erica Barrow,
22:09
Speaker 1: testified you were almost three miles away from the scene,
22:12
Speaker 1: adding that you were only out of her site for
22:14
Speaker 1: five minutes. But Detective Nickerson rebutted your alibi, testifying that
22:19
Speaker 1: he had driven that route twenty to fifty times, saying
22:23
Speaker 1: that Lamar could have made the trip in no more
22:25
Speaker 1: than five minutes. This testimony was left unchecked, so your
22:29
Speaker 1: alibi was rebutted. They've got Elkin's identification, Mock's overheard confession,
22:34
Speaker 1: and Detective Campbell offering an alleged confession as well. So
22:39
Speaker 1: how long did the jury deliberate?
22:41
Speaker 2: They delivered for an hour and a half. They came
22:43
Speaker 2: back in and as most people know, if the jury
22:46
Speaker 2: is not looking at you, that's a bad sign. And
22:48
Speaker 2: none of them looked at me, And I think it
22:51
Speaker 2: was the clerk that read the verdict. Everything was kind
22:54
Speaker 2: of a blur back then, and they said I was
22:57
Speaker 2: guilty first recree murder and on Crome action.
23:01
Speaker 1: What what went through your body? What went through your head?
23:04
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to react. It was I just
23:07
Speaker 2: couldn't believe that a jury would believe that, you know,
23:10
Speaker 2: it just it was no motive. It re presented, no
23:13
Speaker 2: physical evidence for it. So I was stunt. I was stunt.
23:19
Speaker 1: Now this is what really got me, because between the
23:24
Speaker 1: time of your conviction and sentencing, something insane happens and Lindsey,
23:31
Speaker 1: can you address that.
23:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, the verdict came down on July fifth of nineteen
23:36
Speaker 3: ninety five, and Phil Campbell knows, of course that Lamar
23:41
Speaker 3: had nothing to do with this, and they start writing
23:45
Speaker 3: letters back and forth to each other Lamar and Phil Campbell,
23:48
Speaker 3: and Phil Campbell is saying, I know you didn't do this.
23:51
Speaker 3: It's really screwed up that you got convicted when it
23:54
Speaker 3: was me and BA James Howard his nickname, and I'm sorry, man,
23:59
Speaker 3: but you know that's how the game goes. And we
24:01
Speaker 3: can't tell on BA our friend, and Lamar writing back saying,
24:05
Speaker 3: you know, you guys got to help me tell the
24:07
Speaker 3: truth on this. Lamar finally writes to Judge Shaw, his
24:11
Speaker 3: trial judge and the judg who's getting ready to sentence him.
24:14
Speaker 3: He says, I'm getting these letters from my co defendant.
24:17
Speaker 3: I didn't do this. Somebody helped me, basically asking for
24:21
Speaker 3: help in the way that he knows how to do it.
24:23
Speaker 3: Dwight Warren, the prosecutor in this case, applies for a
24:28
Speaker 3: search warrant LO and behold, here are all the letters
24:30
Speaker 3: that Lamar's been talking about. They're filed on the court docket.
24:35
Speaker 3: They're put into the record. They're the basis of motion
24:38
Speaker 3: for a new trial, and it is completely and utterly
24:42
Speaker 3: ignored by everybody.
25:06
Speaker 1: Not only did Campbell acknowledge that you had nothing to
25:10
Speaker 1: do with it, he cut a deal for seven years.
25:13
Speaker 1: They knew that he was guilty, and he's serving less
25:16
Speaker 1: time than you are, and they know you're wrongfully convicted.
25:20
Speaker 1: But if I'm not mistaken, Campbell had two affi Davids,
25:25
Speaker 1: one in ninety six and then another one shortly before
25:29
Speaker 1: he died in two thousand and nine. Correct, and James
25:33
Speaker 1: Howard or Ba, the man Campbell named as his accomplice,
25:37
Speaker 1: also signed AffA David stating that Lamar was innocent. In fact,
25:42
Speaker 1: he did so on three different occasions between two thousand
25:45
Speaker 1: and two and two thousand and nine.
25:47
Speaker 2: So that's why you've got multiple Affi Davis over the years.
25:50
Speaker 2: And I was constantly trying to present those to the
25:52
Speaker 2: course and they just weren't hurt.
25:54
Speaker 1: So now we know that two people, the people who
26:00
Speaker 1: were actually responsible for the murder, came forward, not once,
26:05
Speaker 1: but multiple times and confessed to it and said you
26:08
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. I cannot imagine how
26:13
Speaker 1: you must have felt like punching air, thinking that every
26:17
Speaker 1: single time you can prove your innocence, and it's falling
26:22
Speaker 1: not just on deaf ears, but it's being completely ignored. Right,
26:28
Speaker 1: And you're twenty when you went in. You were sentenced
26:31
Speaker 1: to life without parole, and you had two young daughters.
26:35
Speaker 1: And months turned to years, which turned into decades.
26:39
Speaker 2: Decades.
26:40
Speaker 1: Yes, you gave an interview that actually broke my heart.
26:44
Speaker 1: You said that you had never been to the beach,
26:48
Speaker 1: and you had never been on a plane. What was
26:53
Speaker 1: it like watching the time that you had spent in
26:56
Speaker 1: prison exceed the time that you had lived outside.
27:01
Speaker 2: The biggest thing was just the relationships with my daughters
27:04
Speaker 2: that I lost. You know, I wasn't able to develop
27:08
Speaker 2: that type of bond with them that you know most
27:10
Speaker 2: fathers have with their daughters. I guess just the relationship
27:15
Speaker 2: with family than children. That's the thing that hurts the most.
27:19
Speaker 1: What kept you going the truth?
27:22
Speaker 2: I knew that if ever I could be heard, I
27:26
Speaker 2: believe that any any foreign impartial person would they would
27:30
Speaker 2: They would have any choice to find that I was
27:33
Speaker 2: at least didn't receive it for a trial. But I
27:35
Speaker 2: knew that they couldn't find that I was actually innocent,
27:38
Speaker 2: because to deny you would have to step over a
27:41
Speaker 2: lot of things. You'd have to ignore a lot of stuff.
27:44
Speaker 2: You'd have to ignore the confessions, you'd have to ignore
27:45
Speaker 2: the trial I received, You'd have to ignore that what
27:48
Speaker 2: we knew about Mock. I mean, when you've got one
27:51
Speaker 2: thing after another after another, it's just hard to say
27:55
Speaker 2: that none of this is the truth.
27:57
Speaker 1: So, lindsay, let's fast forward to twenty fourteen, which I
28:01
Speaker 1: believe is around the time you and your firm, Morgan
28:04
Speaker 1: Pilot got involved in Lamar's case along with the Midwest
28:07
Speaker 1: Innocence Project. And one of the things you were trying
28:10
Speaker 1: to do is to verify what Lamar had heard from
28:14
Speaker 1: Greg Elking that he received financial compensation from Saint Louis
28:19
Speaker 1: for giving false testimony, and so you were trying to
28:22
Speaker 1: confirm the existence of those payments.
28:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was telling Lamar and through his letters, they
28:28
Speaker 3: paid me. They did this, they did that. And Lamar
28:31
Speaker 3: was requesting of the Attorney General's Office, the Circuit Attorney's office,
28:36
Speaker 3: the Saint Louis City Police Department, the Victim's Crime Fund.
28:39
Speaker 3: We were writing and asking where are the documents showing
28:42
Speaker 3: compensation to this particular witness, and the response is overwhelmingly
28:47
Speaker 3: were there are no records, what you're asking for does
28:51
Speaker 3: not exist, or ignored us and didn't respond at all.
28:57
Speaker 1: But then in twenty seventeen, Kimberly Gardner became the new
29:01
Speaker 1: Saint Louis Circuit Attorney and a year later she forms
29:06
Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Conviction Integrity Unit. What happened when you
29:10
Speaker 1: brought your request to them?
29:12
Speaker 3: She directed them to investigate, and in February of twenty nineteen,
29:17
Speaker 3: Tony Box, one of her employees, found the documents, sixty
29:21
Speaker 3: plus pages of them showing more than four thousand, nineteen
29:26
Speaker 3: ninety four dollars of compensation to Greg Elking and his family.
29:31
Speaker 3: So it wasn't until right before the filing of the
29:34
Speaker 3: motion for new trial in the City of Saint Louis
29:37
Speaker 3: that the actual documents were produced that corroborated mister Elking.
29:42
Speaker 1: And in July of twenty nineteen, Circuit Attorney Gardner filed
29:46
Speaker 1: a motion for a new trial. All of this evidence
29:49
Speaker 1: is presented, the affidavids from Campbell and Howard, the compensation
29:52
Speaker 1: to Elking, proof of William Mock's unreliability, and at that
29:56
Speaker 1: hearing Kim Gardner recommends that Lamar began to the new
30:00
Speaker 1: trial that should have been the turning point for you.
30:04
Speaker 2: Lamar, Yeah, I mean I was hopeful that that would
30:08
Speaker 2: be enough. I mean, I don't know what else you
30:09
Speaker 2: could what else you could have that would justify relief
30:13
Speaker 2: in this case, But unfortunately the judge that it was
30:19
Speaker 2: assigned to had a different position or belief. Decidi you
30:23
Speaker 2: didn't have any authority to act in the case except to.
30:25
Speaker 1: Deny because at that time, Missouri law said that outside
30:29
Speaker 1: of the initial appeal what is known as a twenty
30:32
Speaker 1: nine to fifteen in Missouri, which happens within ninety days
30:36
Speaker 1: of trial, where you can raise any issues in effective assistance, breedy, violations,
30:41
Speaker 1: new evidence, et cetera. After that period, neither the prosecutor
30:46
Speaker 1: nor the trial court has the authority to challenge the conviction. So,
30:50
Speaker 1: I mean, Lamar, even with the circuit attorney and virtually
30:53
Speaker 1: all the evidence on your side, the system still failed you.
30:57
Speaker 1: But rather than the end of the road, you and
31:00
Speaker 1: your team saw this as a challenge and you made
31:03
Speaker 1: the decision to take this fight all the way to
31:05
Speaker 1: the Missouri Supreme Court. Lindsay, what made you want to
31:09
Speaker 1: take this case forward, did you feel like you could
31:13
Speaker 1: actually win?
31:15
Speaker 3: So we knew it was going to be an uphill battle.
31:18
Speaker 3: But Circuit Attorney Gardner was, you know, at that time,
31:21
Speaker 3: the only prosecutor that was willing to test the bounds
31:27
Speaker 3: of this and highlight the real gap in Missouri law here.
31:33
Speaker 3: And we had long conversations about that with mister Johnson,
31:38
Speaker 3: you know, saying test litigation is important, but can be
31:43
Speaker 3: real pain in it because you know, sometimes you must
31:46
Speaker 3: lose in a very public way before things can change.
31:52
Speaker 3: His case was chosen because of the strength of these facts.
31:57
Speaker 3: This innocence case is unimpeachable, like it has it all
32:01
Speaker 3: at every level where there was supposed to be some
32:03
Speaker 3: protection for an accused person, the system fell apart in
32:07
Speaker 3: this case. Nonetheless, the questions before the Supreme Court had
32:11
Speaker 3: nothing to do with those those amazing facts. It was
32:15
Speaker 3: is he too late for justice? Whatever that means? And
32:20
Speaker 3: is Missouri law big enough to recognize that a prosecutor,
32:24
Speaker 3: no matter when she comes into information credible, reliable, and cooperated,
32:31
Speaker 3: that a conviction obtained by her office is false, does
32:34
Speaker 3: she have the authority and the duty to do something
32:36
Speaker 3: about it? Those were the questions, and.
32:39
Speaker 1: When it came time to decide those questions.
32:41
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court, in a gutting decision, said no, under
32:45
Speaker 3: Missouri law today, there is no such mechanism, and for
32:49
Speaker 3: that reason, and that reason alone, Lamar Johnson's motion and
32:53
Speaker 3: petition for a new trial are denied. However, in this opinion,
32:58
Speaker 3: you know they called on the legislation. We agree with
33:02
Speaker 3: mister Johnson and Miss Gardner. This is unfortunate. It's worse
33:07
Speaker 3: than that. But Lamar Johnson's case had garnered so much
33:11
Speaker 3: national attention that people were having the reaction that you had,
33:15
Speaker 3: which is, how does this happen in the United States
33:18
Speaker 3: of America that a prosecutor goes to court says, this
33:21
Speaker 3: person's innocent, yet here he sits in custody. All that
33:25
Speaker 3: mattered because the legislature that had been unwilling, uninterested, passed
33:30
Speaker 3: legislation in record speed. That opinion came down on March second,
33:35
Speaker 3: two and twenty one, and with six weeks left of session,
33:40
Speaker 3: it was past. But it was because of the way
33:43
Speaker 3: we lost, in my view.
33:45
Speaker 1: And then on August twenty eighth, twenty twenty one, please
33:50
Speaker 1: tell me what law was enacted in Missouri.
33:55
Speaker 3: The Johnson Fix was signed by Governor Parson in one
34:00
Speaker 3: of the reddest of red states in all the land.
34:03
Speaker 3: And now a prosecutor in Missouri, whether in the city
34:08
Speaker 3: of Saint Louis or in an outstate rural county, can
34:11
Speaker 3: go to court at any time, whether it's ten years
34:15
Speaker 3: or twenty five or twenty eight, and go to court
34:18
Speaker 3: and say our office made a mistake. I'm here to
34:22
Speaker 3: fix it.
34:23
Speaker 1: And I believe one of the first to be exonerated
34:26
Speaker 1: under the Johnson Fix was Kevin Strickland, right, whose wrongful
34:30
Speaker 1: conviction was overturned in November of twenty twenty one after
34:35
Speaker 1: he had spent forty three years in prison.
34:38
Speaker 3: And there's others pending. He will not be the last,
34:42
Speaker 3: There's no doubt. And what a legacy for Lamar to leave.
34:47
Speaker 3: And we were so happy that it would help others.
34:50
Speaker 3: That was the whole point of it.
34:51
Speaker 1: And we've seen this same issue in another case that
34:54
Speaker 1: we've covered on this podcast, Ken Middleton. His trial judge
34:59
Speaker 1: edith Iss granted him a new trial in twenty four
35:02
Speaker 1: but this issue halted that new trial on appeal. Now,
35:05
Speaker 1: his current district attorney, Jean Peters Baker, who has acknowledged
35:10
Speaker 1: Ken's innocence. Even with this new statute refuses to act
35:14
Speaker 1: we'll have his episode linked in the bio. So with
35:18
Speaker 1: this lawn place, Kim Gardner filed a new motion repeating
35:23
Speaker 1: the claims made in the previous filing, and Judge David
35:27
Speaker 1: Mason held five days of hearings in December of twenty
35:30
Speaker 1: twenty two. And there is this wonderful moment from those
35:34
Speaker 1: hearings where Judge Mason is questioning Detective Nickerson about your
35:39
Speaker 1: non existent lazy eye, Lamar. I want to quote from
35:43
Speaker 1: it because it's just a masterclass in dismantling a witness
35:47
Speaker 1: on the stand. So basically, the judge was asking whether
35:51
Speaker 1: this lazy eye identification was enough that even if Nickerson
35:56
Speaker 1: thought that you know, Lamar, you had a lazy eye,
35:58
Speaker 1: which you do, not that this is this is the
36:02
Speaker 1: exact quote from that exchange, Judge Mason, you didn't think
36:06
Speaker 1: you needed to dig any further Nickerson, dig into what,
36:10
Speaker 1: Judge Mason, maybe a little more corroboration, something that could
36:15
Speaker 1: corroborate a little more than just the eye Nickerson. Well,
36:19
Speaker 1: mister Johnson matched the height, weight and age of what
36:22
Speaker 1: the witness had given and Judge Mason says that gentleman
36:26
Speaker 1: back there does too you want to arrest him. I mean,
36:30
Speaker 1: I probably didn't do it justice, but it really is
36:33
Speaker 1: worth watching. It's epic. You can find it on YouTube.
36:35
Speaker 1: In fact, we will link to it in the bio.
36:38
Speaker 1: And then on February fourteenth, twenty twenty three, Valentine's Day,
36:44
Speaker 1: Judge Mason found you factually innocent and vacated the conviction.
36:49
Speaker 1: You walked out of the courtroom that day a free man.
36:52
Speaker 2: Take me to that moment, it just felt like a
36:56
Speaker 2: heavy weight was being lifted. It's just the weight of
37:01
Speaker 2: like losing a close friend of mine, the weight of
37:04
Speaker 2: everything I'd lost over the last twenty eight years. It
37:08
Speaker 2: was just slowly lifting, and I was coming to believe
37:13
Speaker 2: that it actually was true. So that was that's how
37:17
Speaker 2: I felt.
37:20
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about your life today.
37:24
Speaker 2: Well, it's been fast, the Innocence Project, working with a
37:29
Speaker 2: very generous firm and people who kind of loan me
37:32
Speaker 2: an apartment to try to, you know, get me started,
37:36
Speaker 2: and I can actually take some time and decide what
37:39
Speaker 2: I want to do and how I can best use
37:41
Speaker 2: this experience to try to, you know, help others who
37:44
Speaker 2: are are either going through it or help them to
37:46
Speaker 2: avoid going through it. And that's ultimately what I want
37:49
Speaker 2: to do, is to just do my part and trying
37:52
Speaker 2: to make the system better, because it can be better.
37:55
Speaker 1: And have you been connecting with your daughters.
38:00
Speaker 2: Absolutely. My daughter is going to get married next month
38:03
Speaker 2: and she wants me to walk her down now, and
38:06
Speaker 2: I think that's something that every father looks forward to doing,
38:10
Speaker 2: so I'm very grateful at the timing. Oh and my
38:13
Speaker 2: other daughter she's engaged too, so I get a double
38:17
Speaker 2: a double daddy duty.
38:19
Speaker 1: That's wonderful. And if any of our listeners want to
38:24
Speaker 1: help support you in getting your life restarted, I know
38:27
Speaker 1: that the Midwest Innocence Project has set up a GoFundMe
38:30
Speaker 1: page for you, and we'll have links to that in
38:32
Speaker 1: the episode bio. So at this point, we have something
38:36
Speaker 1: on that podcast called Closing Arguments. And first of all,
38:40
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much both of you
38:43
Speaker 1: for spending this time with me. It's just a mind blowing,
38:48
Speaker 1: heartbreaking and yet very inspiring story. And I commend both
38:52
Speaker 1: of you for your perseverance and your resilience and your fight. Really,
39:00
Speaker 1: if I could ask you guys to make your closing
39:04
Speaker 1: arguments in terms of what your takeaway is from your experience,
39:09
Speaker 1: and I'll ask you, Lindsey, to go first.
39:13
Speaker 3: You know, the motto of the Johnson team, which included
39:19
Speaker 3: so many incredible advocates at the Midwest Innocence Project and
39:22
Speaker 3: Lathrope and our little you know army, I guess, would
39:25
Speaker 3: continually would tell the press, tell ourselves the truth always
39:29
Speaker 3: finds a way, you know. And there were moments where
39:32
Speaker 3: we were amongst ourselves wondering if that was really true,
39:37
Speaker 3: if our mantra was going to be proven. You know,
39:41
Speaker 3: you know this was going to be right. And the
39:43
Speaker 3: deep relief that I have that it has has restored
39:48
Speaker 3: some of that old faith and fire that I had before.
39:51
Speaker 3: Because this system is a brilliant and beautiful system that
39:55
Speaker 3: we have. The Constitution provides everything that we need to
40:00
Speaker 3: ensure reliability, to ensure fairness, to conduct trials in a
40:06
Speaker 3: way that honors this uniquely American idea that is a
40:12
Speaker 3: really beautiful thing to be proud of. But the things
40:16
Speaker 3: that freed Lamar Johnson existed in nineteen ninety four for him,
40:24
Speaker 3: the Sixth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment. All
40:27
Speaker 3: of those things that are just brilliant protectors of these
40:31
Speaker 3: life and liberty and fairness and against overreach. Those things existed,
40:36
Speaker 3: but the levers weren't working. The people in charge weren't
40:42
Speaker 3: doing their job. This case couldn't have gone worse. At
40:46
Speaker 3: every single stop along the road. It failed. Every check,
40:52
Speaker 3: every safety valve that's built into this system failed in
40:55
Speaker 3: this case.
40:56
Speaker 1: And.
40:58
Speaker 3: On the on the second time around. It took too long,
41:03
Speaker 3: but it did work, and what happened out of it
41:06
Speaker 3: was the shining the crown jewel of the American system,
41:10
Speaker 3: which is it is touchstone of due process, truth, fairness
41:15
Speaker 3: and all of that righteousness. It took too long, it
41:18
Speaker 3: took too much. We should be ashamed, we should be angry,
41:21
Speaker 3: we should be motivated, but we should be proud still
41:25
Speaker 3: of this system that it can do it if we
41:29
Speaker 3: demand it, and we need folks to get in the
41:32
Speaker 3: game and demand it of their elected officials, of their prosecutors,
41:36
Speaker 3: of their state officials. I mean, it's the voters that
41:39
Speaker 3: demand the stuff. And this system's worth fighting for. It
41:42
Speaker 3: can get it right, it can do great things, and
41:44
Speaker 3: it did it in this case.
41:46
Speaker 2: Finally, Oh, I would start by repeating what Lindsay said.
41:50
Speaker 2: It is troubly the truth. We'll find a way in
41:54
Speaker 2: then it. You know that people can lie about it,
41:56
Speaker 2: deny it, or try to hide it, but it's there.
41:59
Speaker 2: It's going to them out. What I guess what I
42:01
Speaker 2: would add is that is gratitude. I mean, in spite
42:05
Speaker 2: of all that has happened and all the bad things
42:08
Speaker 2: that happened, there's still a lot to be grateful for
42:10
Speaker 2: in the end, and that's what I choose to hold
42:14
Speaker 2: on to at this point in my life. No, I mean,
42:17
Speaker 2: I've always said that just holding on to that anger
42:21
Speaker 2: is just trading one prison for another. And I've given
42:25
Speaker 2: too much of my time to that. And I would
42:28
Speaker 2: anybody who's going through that struggle of what I went through,
42:31
Speaker 2: there's hope they should be comforted in that and that
42:35
Speaker 2: my case is a testament of what can happen.
42:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm your guest host,
42:46
Speaker 1: Lauren Bright Pacheco. I'd like to thank executive producers Jason
42:49
Speaker 1: Flamm and Kevin Wardis for inviting me to be here.
42:52
Speaker 1: Special thanks also to our wonderful production team Connor Hall, Annie, Chelsea,
42:57
Speaker 1: Lyla Robinson and Jeff Cliburn. The music in this production
43:01
Speaker 1: comes from three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
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Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on
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Speaker 1: Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction,
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Speaker 1: as well as Lava for Good. On all three platforms,
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Speaker 1: you can find me online at Lauren Bright Pacheco, and
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Speaker 1: you can find my podcasts Murder and Oregon, Murder and Illinois,
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Speaker 1: and my latest Murder Miami wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
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Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one