Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #035 Jason Flom with Lucinda Hites-Clabaugh

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#035 Jason Flom with Lucinda Hites-Clabaugh · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
0:07
Speaker 2: I was naive enough to believe that I would be
0:10
Speaker 2: able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence,
0:13
Speaker 2: that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't
0:15
Speaker 2: be going to prison because I was a good person.
0:17
Speaker 2: I hadn't do anything wrong.
0:19
Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, you say, well, when
0:21
Speaker 1: we go to a hearing or we go to court,
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Speaker 1: the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one
0:26
Speaker 1: knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected
0:30
Speaker 1: from the lower courts all the way up to the
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Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court.
0:36
Speaker 3: You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really,
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Speaker 3: in that moment, unchecked authority.
0:44
Speaker 2: Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them
0:47
Speaker 2: on TV, because it may just be a dirty da
0:50
Speaker 2: that is trying to rise upward.
0:57
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:17
Speaker 3: Jason Flamm. Today we have a very unique and extraordinary guest,
1:23
Speaker 3: Lucinda Heights claybaw Lucinda, welcome to the show. Thank you
1:27
Speaker 3: very much, and Lucinda, you are such an interesting person,
1:32
Speaker 3: so strong and yet so little all right, and so
1:36
Speaker 3: tough and you've been through such a crazy saga. This
1:41
Speaker 3: is going to be I think the only episode of
1:45
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction ever that features a transgender marine coming to
1:52
Speaker 3: the rescue. And he'll have Mary Poppins making an appearance
1:57
Speaker 3: as well as a big assist from the Nation. So
2:01
Speaker 3: fasten your seat belts because you're in for an interesting
2:04
Speaker 3: ride today. So, Liscinda, where were you from Originally?
2:09
Speaker 2: Well, I was actually born in Columbus, Ohio. My dad
2:12
Speaker 2: was in medical school to become a doctor, and my
2:14
Speaker 2: mom was a registered nurse. They took off for Colorado
2:18
Speaker 2: when I was a little toddler. So I grew up
2:20
Speaker 2: in Colorado.
2:21
Speaker 3: How nice where.
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Speaker 2: Until I was fourth grade, going fifth grade in Cortes, Colorado,
2:27
Speaker 2: the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation, right, So I grew
2:31
Speaker 2: up as a little kid skiing, and I also grew
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Speaker 2: up watching the Ute kids come in and be forced
2:37
Speaker 2: to speak English when they were just preschoolers. And even
2:41
Speaker 2: when I was six years old, I thought, Gee, that's
2:43
Speaker 2: just wrong for them to slap the hands of those
2:45
Speaker 2: kids and make them cry just because they're speaking Ute.
2:47
Speaker 2: And so I became a bilingual educator because I got
2:50
Speaker 2: that that wasn't okay, that they were hurting kids when
2:54
Speaker 2: they were trying to speak their primary language.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that would definitely have an impact on someone, especially
3:01
Speaker 3: when you're young. So you channeled it into life and education,
3:05
Speaker 3: which is I happened to think, one of the most
3:08
Speaker 3: noble professions. So you eventually made your way from Colorado
3:13
Speaker 3: to the Pacific Northwest.
3:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to Read College.
3:17
Speaker 3: Great liberal arts school, right, very much so. So you
3:20
Speaker 3: end up at Read College in the Northwest and you
3:23
Speaker 3: settle up there, and what happened.
3:25
Speaker 2: Well, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, then
3:28
Speaker 2: thought I wanted to be a lawyer. And then I
3:31
Speaker 2: stopped a nuclear power plant for a little while from
3:34
Speaker 2: coming online. I worked for Ralph Nader's Readers. My job
3:37
Speaker 2: was to stop the Trojan nuclear power plant from coming online,
3:40
Speaker 2: and I was not successful. But I thought that that
3:43
Speaker 2: was a personal failure on my part, that I had
3:45
Speaker 2: not been able to stop it, and so I was
3:48
Speaker 2: really stressed out. I'd been stressed out going to Read
3:51
Speaker 2: because it's a real stressful environment. And I came to
3:54
Speaker 2: the conclusion that maybe what I needed to do instead
3:57
Speaker 2: of trying to change politics go into law, maybe I
4:01
Speaker 2: needed to work on one on one changing the hearts
4:03
Speaker 2: of human beings and the minds of human beings. And
4:06
Speaker 2: so I thought, I'll become a counselor, and I will
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Speaker 2: do something with the arts, because I love the arts,
4:13
Speaker 2: and there must be a way to make that work
4:15
Speaker 2: with therapy and become a real good counselor. So I
4:20
Speaker 2: put together a program for performing arts therapy, and then
4:23
Speaker 2: I ended up going to New York. So in seventy
4:26
Speaker 2: six seventy seven, I came to New York, and I've
4:29
Speaker 2: lived in a feminist artist collective, took dance classes with
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Speaker 2: different dance companies, and choreographed and auditioned all over Broadway.
4:37
Speaker 2: And so I got to choreograph, and I got to sing,
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Speaker 2: and I got to dance, I got to act a
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Speaker 2: little bit.
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Speaker 3: I wouldn't give away your age, but by the story
4:44
Speaker 3: that you're telling, obviously you were running around New York
4:47
Speaker 3: in the seventies, so you're not as young as you
4:49
Speaker 3: once were. But yet she has told me earlier that
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Speaker 3: she was out dancing until four o'clock in the morning
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Speaker 3: in New York last night. So it's nice to see
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Speaker 3: that this entire ordeal has not dimmed your spirit anyway,
5:00
Speaker 3: nor your dancing feet. This is an amazing life that
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Speaker 3: you led. It's got a little bit of the Great
5:07
Speaker 3: American novel, traveling all around, going to different places, hitchhiking Broadway,
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Speaker 3: teaching dancing. Ultimately you end up back in the Pacific Northwest.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I studied at the Dance Notation Bureau here in
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Speaker 2: New York. And one of the things I was trained
5:23
Speaker 2: in back then, they were using a technique which is
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Speaker 2: really old, ancient Tibetan chigong. Today they call it tapping.
5:31
Speaker 2: There's the tapping solution. They call it EFT emotional freedom technique.
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Speaker 2: But you use your middle index finger in most of
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Speaker 2: the original technique, and you use the chalker points to
5:43
Speaker 2: tap for one and a half seconds. You do a
5:45
Speaker 2: double tap, and it's just on the part that reverberates
5:49
Speaker 2: throughout your whole chest and its affecting your lungs. When
5:53
Speaker 2: you tap on that spot. People who have PTSD hold
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Speaker 2: their energy, they hold their fear anger, and they hold
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Speaker 2: that breath and they could be holding that breath for
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Speaker 2: years and that thought that goes with it and all
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Speaker 2: the emotions to go with it, and when you tap,
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Speaker 2: it grounds the person and then suddenly it lets go
6:15
Speaker 2: and you are connected again.
6:17
Speaker 3: Wow.
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Speaker 2: And it's a healing technique that's been used for thousands
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Speaker 2: of years by about a third of the world's population
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Speaker 2: that understand Eastern medicine.
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Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm someone who has benefited from Eastern medicine.
6:29
Speaker 3: I was a skeptic and I became a believer. It's
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Speaker 3: quite extraordinary because I am somebody who's considered myself rooted
6:36
Speaker 3: in science and that does come back.
6:38
Speaker 2: To comes back.
6:41
Speaker 3: Exact you. So you were a healer in various different ways,
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Speaker 3: and one of those was a technique, this Eastern technique
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Speaker 3: of tapping. It was just demonstrating the studio. You can't
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Speaker 3: see it, but sort of tapping below the throat and
6:55
Speaker 3: different places and showing me, which is something I didn't
6:57
Speaker 3: know about. So it's interesting to learn. But I want
6:59
Speaker 3: to get into what happened that took you on such
7:04
Speaker 3: a terrible turn in your life. How old were you
7:08
Speaker 3: when this all happened.
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Speaker 2: I was fifty fifty one.
7:11
Speaker 3: So let's jump forward to the time of this incident
7:15
Speaker 3: that led to your being wrongfully convicted and sent to prison.
7:18
Speaker 3: So what was the school you were teaching at the time.
7:21
Speaker 2: I was at Woodburn and I was in an elementary
7:24
Speaker 2: school that was a bilingual program, and I am credentialed
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Speaker 2: as a bilingual teacher in Spanish and fluent, and I
7:31
Speaker 2: was substituting, but I'd taken a position I didn't really
7:35
Speaker 2: want to take. They'd called me and said, no, no,
7:37
Speaker 2: you can't teach music. You have to go teach this
7:39
Speaker 2: other classroom. We can't find anyone else who will take
7:42
Speaker 2: that class. And I thought, oh my god, what is
7:44
Speaker 2: wrong with that class that they won't take this class?
7:48
Speaker 3: The third graders?
7:48
Speaker 2: Right, they were a third fourth grade combination.
7:51
Speaker 3: So how bad could it really be?
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Speaker 2: I guess, well, you'd think not. But the fact that
7:56
Speaker 2: no other substitute, you know, if nobody else is willing
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Speaker 2: to do it, there's something. And so that was kind
8:02
Speaker 2: of a red flag. I wish that i'd never had
8:05
Speaker 2: taken that class that day. So I went in and
8:09
Speaker 2: sure enough, there was a kid who was really horrible
8:11
Speaker 2: with his behavior. Everybody knew this kid, everybody dealt with
8:16
Speaker 2: him all the time. He made life difficult. The poor
8:20
Speaker 2: kid had always been kicked out of the classroom for
8:23
Speaker 2: his behavior, so he'd never learned to read. And I
8:25
Speaker 2: was a language development specialist, so I thought, Okay, i've
8:27
Speaker 2: had these reading classes. I'll diagnose what's wrong. I'll analyze
8:30
Speaker 2: what's wrong, and i'll write it up for the teacher,
8:33
Speaker 2: and I'll help this kid out. So I spent some
8:35
Speaker 2: time helping this kid, and my focus was pretty much
8:38
Speaker 2: on him. And most of the other kids were being
8:41
Speaker 2: pretty good, except for this one girl who was like
8:44
Speaker 2: a puppy dog fan of this other kid, and she
8:47
Speaker 2: would copy everything that he did like an echo, and
8:50
Speaker 2: if he misbehaved, then she would do the same thing too,
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Speaker 2: And she was defying my authority because he was defying
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Speaker 2: my authority. Within the first fifteen minutes of the school day,
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Speaker 2: she had falsely accused some boys of doing some things
9:02
Speaker 2: hitting and kicking, and was trying to get him into
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Speaker 2: trouble deliberately, and the boys were in tears. When it
9:08
Speaker 2: came to be recess time, I kept nine kids in
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Speaker 2: because they hadn't showed me any work and they'd been
9:13
Speaker 2: playing around, and she was one of them, and she
9:18
Speaker 2: was mad that she couldn't go to recess, and so
9:20
Speaker 2: she was defiant. She refused to do any work. She
9:24
Speaker 2: stuck out her powdy lip and you stop, stomp, stomp,
9:28
Speaker 2: and she started chanting. My training kicked in. It was
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Speaker 2: like oh, And then I realized I had to make
9:34
Speaker 2: a commitment. This kid has always been passed on, and
9:38
Speaker 2: nobody's dealt with her, and nobody's dealt with these other issues.
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Speaker 3: So what'd you do? So what happened?
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Speaker 2: Well after she'd done these things over and over to
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Speaker 2: these other kids, I got down on my knees because
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Speaker 2: she was sitting at her desk chanting to herself, and
9:51
Speaker 2: I just tried to counsel her about being kinder to
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Speaker 2: the other students, and she was just chanting and rocking.
9:57
Speaker 2: And so I went ahead and I said, with my
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Speaker 2: finger tapping her on her manubrium, the upper part of
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Speaker 2: this jurnam for one and a half seconds, I said,
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Speaker 2: you need to change your heart. And she did take
10:10
Speaker 2: a breath, as I thought she might. She did, and
10:14
Speaker 2: in that split second she took another breath. And then
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Speaker 2: that's when you go ahead, and then you tap on
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Speaker 2: the forehead for one and a half seconds again on
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Speaker 2: the chalker to integrate the mind, and I said, you
10:28
Speaker 2: need to change your mind, because she needed to know
10:30
Speaker 2: that she had control over her own healing, and that
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Speaker 2: she had control of choice. In doing this, and no
10:37
Speaker 2: sooner had she done that, But then she went back
10:40
Speaker 2: to rocking and chanting again.
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Speaker 3: When was it that you were first accosted by the authorities?
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Speaker 2: Two days later. Two days later, I was in a
10:47
Speaker 2: kindergarten classroom in that same school and the regular teacher
10:50
Speaker 2: had finally come back. Unfortunately I had not. I'd gone
10:53
Speaker 2: to the liaison to get the address and phone number
10:56
Speaker 2: so I could go on a home visit, because my
10:58
Speaker 2: intention that very first when I had tapped her, was
11:01
Speaker 2: to go on the home visit, say hi, I was
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Speaker 2: the teacher for your child. Today she had a substitute,
11:06
Speaker 2: and I just want you to know this is what
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Speaker 2: her behavior was today, and this is how I responded
11:11
Speaker 2: to it. But I didn't have that opportunity because the
11:14
Speaker 2: laison was gone for two days, she was absent, the
11:16
Speaker 2: office closed early, so I never went on the home
11:19
Speaker 2: visit and had not had the opportunity to go talk
11:21
Speaker 2: to them. Meanwhile, the kid had gone home, and I
11:24
Speaker 2: don't know what she said to her mom or her
11:27
Speaker 2: dad exactly, but mom had called DHS, the Department of
11:32
Speaker 2: Health and Human Services, and said my child has been touched,
11:37
Speaker 2: and that was interpreted misinterpreted as sexual abuse. It wasn't
11:43
Speaker 2: the case, but that's what they said. The girl, when
11:46
Speaker 2: the regular teacher came back, had gone on the playground
11:48
Speaker 2: and said, the teacher touched me, and that teacher also
11:52
Speaker 2: jumped to conclusions and presumed all kinds of things, and
11:56
Speaker 2: people did not interpret the gesture accurately. The principal had
12:01
Speaker 2: called the counselor and said, I want you to talk
12:04
Speaker 2: to this girl, and so the girl had gone to
12:07
Speaker 2: the counselor. Counselor said, what happened. Can you tell me
12:09
Speaker 2: what happened? She said, yes, the teacher touched me like this,
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Speaker 2: and she showed a very rapid chigong tap. So she
12:19
Speaker 2: went back and the counselor said to the principal, there's
12:22
Speaker 2: nothing sexual, there's nothing intimate, there's nothing reportable, there's nothing here.
12:26
Speaker 2: The kid's fine, and the counselor conveyed that, but the
12:31
Speaker 2: principle didn't like me, so she said, well, I want
12:35
Speaker 2: you to go back and talk to her again. And
12:37
Speaker 2: so she called the student in again and said, the
12:41
Speaker 2: principal wanted me to talk to you again. Can you
12:43
Speaker 2: tell me what happened? And again she showed her the
12:45
Speaker 2: chigong tap. So three times now she showed her the
12:47
Speaker 2: same thing and then she said, can you explain that again?
12:52
Speaker 2: And she said, yeah, the teacher hit me like this,
12:55
Speaker 2: and again she showed the same tap, but she used
12:57
Speaker 2: the word hit, and well, how do you feel about that?
13:01
Speaker 2: And it is like the fourth time she's been told
13:04
Speaker 2: to think about it again? Are you sure?
13:05
Speaker 3: You know?
13:06
Speaker 2: So they're tainting this witness's testimony, you know, they're starting
13:10
Speaker 2: to shape it. It's not being recorded. So her story
13:13
Speaker 2: had changed just a little bit by being asked four
13:15
Speaker 2: times and being real, are you sure? Are you sure?
13:18
Speaker 3: And we know that any witness will change their story
13:20
Speaker 3: if there ask something enough times under enough pressure, But
13:23
Speaker 3: when it's a young, impressionable mind like a third grader,
13:26
Speaker 3: especially in this particular situation, who has been known to
13:29
Speaker 3: be an instigator, a troublemaker, or someone who makes up stories,
13:33
Speaker 3: that's a recipe for disaster. So ultimately she changed her
13:38
Speaker 3: story to one in which she was touched inappropriately.
13:43
Speaker 2: Right, that only came about I think once the DA
13:47
Speaker 2: had started leading her towards that, or the police had
13:49
Speaker 2: started leading her towards that. That was never made clear
13:52
Speaker 2: because she had said nothing she had just gestured. She
13:56
Speaker 2: did not say a word originally, she just pointed with
13:59
Speaker 2: her just string and that then the gesture was misinterpreted
14:03
Speaker 2: as a point towards her lower part of her body,
14:06
Speaker 2: and they say the part that was covered by a
14:08
Speaker 2: swimsuit on the bottom of her body, and that then
14:12
Speaker 2: was misinterpreted and the DA grabbed that, you know, and
14:16
Speaker 2: flew with and said do you mean this? And she
14:18
Speaker 2: was different that she was nodding all the time to
14:21
Speaker 2: whatever the DA said, whatever the police said. She just
14:23
Speaker 2: kept nodding her head.
14:24
Speaker 3: Those of us who grew up in the seventies remember
14:27
Speaker 3: that there was a whole wave of hysteria that swept
14:32
Speaker 3: the country where there were numerous cases of schools, daycare
14:37
Speaker 3: centers and schools for young children where there were reported
14:42
Speaker 3: mass sexual abuse or serial sexual abusees and sometimes with
14:46
Speaker 3: a satanic overtone. And it turned out that none of
14:49
Speaker 3: those things were true, but dozens of people went to
14:51
Speaker 3: prison for these horrible incidents, and so we thought that
14:55
Speaker 3: that had been you know, I think the general feeling
14:57
Speaker 3: when the public was that that had been something that
14:59
Speaker 3: was in era, But obviously it's something that has persisted.
15:03
Speaker 3: And you're a perfect example of that. So ultimately they
15:07
Speaker 3: came and arrested you.
15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, they came to the school and they started to
15:12
Speaker 2: interrogate me, and I had never been treated like that
15:16
Speaker 2: in my life. And they'd use the read technique where
15:18
Speaker 2: the ones on the far side of your peripheral vision
15:21
Speaker 2: on one side and the other ones on the other
15:22
Speaker 2: side of your purfle vision, and they literally make you dizzy,
15:25
Speaker 2: going back and forth so quickly with harsh questions that
15:29
Speaker 2: you start to answer and then the other one comes
15:31
Speaker 2: in and interrupts and they really disorient you. It was
15:37
Speaker 2: really upsetting. You know, I'm being treated really horribly, and
15:41
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine where these people are coming from.
15:43
Speaker 2: And then it saiding, no, no, you are being accused,
15:46
Speaker 2: and I went what And my jaw dropped, and I said,
15:49
Speaker 2: you've got to be kidding, You've got you know. I
15:51
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it. They weren't kidding, No, they weren't. And
15:54
Speaker 2: that's the thing is, you go, oh my gosh, these
15:55
Speaker 2: guys are serious.
15:57
Speaker 3: So ultimately, these things we know, gained a certain terrifying
16:01
Speaker 3: momentum of their own, and once you get caught in
16:05
Speaker 3: the system, even someone like you who's highly educated and
16:08
Speaker 3: able to understand what's going on. Even still, once the
16:12
Speaker 3: gears start turning and someone's caught in them, there's really
16:16
Speaker 3: very little chance of getting out. I mean, we weren't
16:19
Speaker 3: a wealthy person who could hire, you know, the dream team.
16:22
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, you were perfectly capable of understanding the situation
16:25
Speaker 3: and defending yourself, and you knew that this was an
16:27
Speaker 3: absurd situation. But nonetheless, you go to trial. You were
16:33
Speaker 3: offered a plea, which I think is an important part
16:35
Speaker 3: of the story, right.
16:36
Speaker 2: I mean, well, they offered it, but I said no,
16:37
Speaker 2: I I was a quicker, and I said, I'm not
16:40
Speaker 2: about to say I did something I didn't do. So
16:42
Speaker 2: I went to prison.
16:44
Speaker 3: So they offered you a plea. It's important to note
16:47
Speaker 3: that in America, ninety five or ninety six percent of
16:52
Speaker 3: felony convictions are the results of plea bargains, because people
16:56
Speaker 3: in your situation look at it and go, well, especially
16:59
Speaker 3: if you're get you're gonna go, well, I'm gonna take
17:01
Speaker 3: the best deal I can get, and the best thing
17:02
Speaker 3: you can get is a lot better than the worst one,
17:05
Speaker 3: And they make that very clear to you. And if
17:08
Speaker 3: you're innocent. Even still, many people in your situation would
17:12
Speaker 3: have taken the deal because you can see what's going on.
17:15
Speaker 3: You can see you're being railroaded. You can see that
17:17
Speaker 3: your chances of winning when everybody's suddenly out to get
17:20
Speaker 3: you are slim to none. So a lot of innocent people,
17:23
Speaker 3: tragically in this country end up taking a plea. So
17:26
Speaker 3: it says something, not everything, but it says something when
17:30
Speaker 3: somebody in your situation says, I'm going to take a
17:32
Speaker 3: chance on a seventy five month sentence instead of taking
17:35
Speaker 3: what let's call it a relatively light sentence, because you
17:38
Speaker 3: wanted to stand up for what you knew was true,
17:41
Speaker 3: which is that you were innocent.
17:42
Speaker 2: Actually, it's because of my naivete though. I just didn't
17:45
Speaker 2: know what the system was like when you're in it,
17:48
Speaker 2: and I think most people in America think it's like
17:50
Speaker 2: Law and Order on TV or something. But the reality
17:53
Speaker 2: was I was naive enough to believe that I would
17:56
Speaker 2: be able to just present all of my proof of
17:58
Speaker 2: actual innocence, that they would investigate adequately, which they did not,
18:02
Speaker 2: and that I would be able to have all the
18:04
Speaker 2: proof of my innocence just right there, and so that
18:06
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a
18:08
Speaker 2: good person. I hadn't done anything wrong, and I didn't
18:10
Speaker 2: think that they would actually be able to do anything
18:13
Speaker 2: because I knew I hadn't done a thing that was criminal.
18:16
Speaker 3: Not only that, but there was also a total lack
18:18
Speaker 3: of any physical evidence against you. And basically you're so,
18:24
Speaker 3: I mean, you were convicted on the testimony, which isn't
18:27
Speaker 3: even really testimony, but you were convicted on a wild
18:29
Speaker 3: accusation made by a third grader. That's basically it. And
18:32
Speaker 3: then these uh, over, let's be polite and call it
18:36
Speaker 3: over zealous law enforcement people who decided to just take
18:39
Speaker 3: that theory which they had actually coerced from this child,
18:43
Speaker 3: and then turned it into a case that some of
18:46
Speaker 3: them maybe could make their reputation on or else they
18:49
Speaker 3: just were who knows, they're just doing their jobs, right,
18:52
Speaker 3: So no.
18:52
Speaker 2: I think that she was overly ambitious. The Dada was
18:55
Speaker 2: extremely overly ambitious.
18:57
Speaker 3: So let's go to the trial. So you go to trial, well,
19:00
Speaker 3: and at this point it must be becoming more and
19:04
Speaker 3: more surreal. This whole experience. You who's lived a would
19:09
Speaker 3: call it a virtuous life, helping people in so many
19:11
Speaker 3: different ways. SKI Patrol teaching counselings, mission work, and now
19:18
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're being accused of a crime
19:20
Speaker 3: that is, you know, certainly one of the last things
19:23
Speaker 3: in the world that anybody would ever want to be
19:25
Speaker 3: accused of. So you go to trial. Did you believe
19:28
Speaker 3: when you went to trial that the truth would come out?
19:30
Speaker 2: And I did. I was notive enough to believe that,
19:33
Speaker 2: And all of my friends were also naive enough to
19:36
Speaker 2: believe that, and they kept believing in the system. Everybody
19:39
Speaker 2: wants to believe in the system. We are taught to
19:41
Speaker 2: believe in the system. We want to believe it works
19:43
Speaker 2: for us. I still do well. And the problem is
19:46
Speaker 2: the problem is is that you can't count if the
19:48
Speaker 2: d's are being trained to come out of law school
19:51
Speaker 2: and go in to be deceitful, and they see that
19:55
Speaker 2: the goal is not to seek the truth, the whole truth,
19:57
Speaker 2: and nothing but the truth will help you God. But
19:59
Speaker 2: they actually think that it's an adversarial system. And that
20:03
Speaker 2: was brought home because the counselor, bless her, the counselor
20:07
Speaker 2: went to the DA. Later on, she went to the
20:10
Speaker 2: DA's office and she heard that the ten to two verdict,
20:14
Speaker 2: you know, was against me that I was going to
20:16
Speaker 2: go to prison. So she went to the DA and said,
20:18
Speaker 2: I have information about this kid that didn't get to
20:21
Speaker 2: be heard by the court. Nobody had ever heard what
20:24
Speaker 2: had happened that I just told you about, you know,
20:26
Speaker 2: the tapping. Nobody had heard that because the DA had maneuvered.
20:30
Speaker 2: So nobody got to hear a whole classroom of kids
20:32
Speaker 2: as affidavit witnesses alby witnesses that nothing had happened. Nobody
20:36
Speaker 2: got to hear the licensed investigator for the licensure who
20:41
Speaker 2: had heard that the kid hadn't said a word. All
20:44
Speaker 2: this was covered up by the DA. The DA was
20:46
Speaker 2: so despicable that she had the Assistant Attorney General for
20:49
Speaker 2: the State of Oregon put a quash to suppress the
20:53
Speaker 2: investigator from testifying as a witness. Why would she do
20:56
Speaker 2: that except she was covering her own rear end And
20:59
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe that she would do that. She would
21:01
Speaker 2: be so despicable as to not seek truth. That it
21:04
Speaker 2: was supposed to be a seeking process, I thought. And
21:07
Speaker 2: in reality, we've deteriorated to a point where there isn't justice.
21:11
Speaker 2: All you get is people wanting to have a conviction
21:14
Speaker 2: and wanting to do whatever it takes to get that conviction,
21:17
Speaker 2: to help with the truth. You know, they didn't care,
21:20
Speaker 2: and the DA's office said to the counselor, I'm sorry,
21:22
Speaker 2: we aren't interested in taking your information. We're the ones
21:25
Speaker 2: trying to convict her. The counselor, I had to go
21:28
Speaker 2: the judge directly, and that changed the course of everything
21:32
Speaker 2: for me, because suddenly there was new evidence. There was
21:36
Speaker 2: evidence of my actual innocence. I'd already been convicted ten
21:40
Speaker 2: to two. And this woman was finally coming forward because
21:45
Speaker 2: she'd been told by the school district not to go
21:47
Speaker 2: and talk to anybody, not to say anything. That they
21:49
Speaker 2: didn't ask her. Well, I had such an inept attorney
21:53
Speaker 2: that incompetent that they had not asked the questions. I said,
21:56
Speaker 2: you need to ask you this question, but they didn't.
21:58
Speaker 2: So finally she was coming forward on her own. The
22:01
Speaker 2: DA wouldn't take her statement. She went to the judge
22:04
Speaker 2: and she wrote out a statement. She's talked to him
22:07
Speaker 2: for an hour and said, yes, I swear that this
22:09
Speaker 2: is you know I will speak.
22:10
Speaker 3: This is after you were convicted, after.
22:12
Speaker 2: I was convicted, tend to do so.
22:14
Speaker 3: This is during the sentencing phase. Yes, let's go back
22:16
Speaker 3: to this second. First of all, this tragic wul happened
22:19
Speaker 3: to you, But it's also sad because this child, who
22:22
Speaker 3: was obviously a troubled child in the first place, also
22:24
Speaker 3: is now caught up in this. I mean, who knows
22:27
Speaker 3: what she ends up believing, whether this actually happened or
22:29
Speaker 3: not or whatever. And who wants to go through that
22:32
Speaker 3: process and be a subject of such a highly publicized
22:37
Speaker 3: and politicized event around your own sexuality when you're a child.
22:41
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just it's all very distasteful and disgusting
22:45
Speaker 3: if you think about it. So you're convicted ultimately and sentenced.
23:03
Speaker 2: To what mandatory minimum in Oregon is six years, three months.
23:08
Speaker 3: Seventy five months in prison, right, seventy five months. That's
23:13
Speaker 3: that's a long time.
23:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you actually hadn't done anything.
23:18
Speaker 3: Done anything. I hadn't done anything ever.
23:21
Speaker 2: And also was trying to help, you know, because I
23:24
Speaker 2: was I was trying to help a kid. I understood,
23:26
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm sure other people you know, served
23:29
Speaker 2: a lot longer, but you know, I went in I
23:32
Speaker 2: was a girl scout, I was a goodie two shoes,
23:36
Speaker 2: I was a Quaker and.
23:38
Speaker 3: You were in your fifties and you were.
23:39
Speaker 2: A mom, and I was an old, grandma, aged person. Yeah,
23:42
Speaker 2: so yeah, it was It was not the lifestyle I
23:46
Speaker 2: was used to.
23:47
Speaker 3: So let's let's talk about that, because you have a
23:50
Speaker 3: remarkable story of having survived in a what would look
23:56
Speaker 3: to be an impossible situation when you went to prison.
24:00
Speaker 3: Here you are, You're a fish out of water to
24:02
Speaker 3: start with, and on top of that, you're a convicted
24:06
Speaker 3: sex offender, which is a terrible thing to be in
24:10
Speaker 3: that environment. So how did you get through it? I mean,
24:14
Speaker 3: you're you're not a big strong woman, right.
24:17
Speaker 2: That was the second smallest woman in prison, right, I
24:20
Speaker 2: weigh ninety five pounds wet. Yeah. So I went in
24:24
Speaker 2: and I knew that God knew that I was innocent,
24:29
Speaker 2: and I knew eventually, I wasn't sure why I was there.
24:32
Speaker 2: At first I was upset, but then it was like, no, no, no,
24:34
Speaker 2: I'm here not because God put me here. I'm here
24:36
Speaker 2: because a little girl was very confused and lied and
24:39
Speaker 2: has real mental troubles and emotional troubles. So I just
24:43
Speaker 2: prayed to have some direction, to try to see beauty
24:47
Speaker 2: every day, try to see goodness, try to see some
24:50
Speaker 2: kindness and try to be that for other people. I
24:54
Speaker 2: came to that realization that I had to be that
24:56
Speaker 2: for other people. I couldn't just want it for myself,
24:58
Speaker 2: because it's a real hell hole when you're put in
25:00
Speaker 2: prison and people have no idea that could be a
25:02
Speaker 2: whole program onto itself. It's a hell hole. So you
25:06
Speaker 2: have to create God within there. You have to be
25:09
Speaker 2: God within there. You have to be the goodness. You
25:11
Speaker 2: have to be the beauty. You have to be the kindness.
25:14
Speaker 2: You have to live it, you have to emanate it,
25:17
Speaker 2: you have to create it.
25:19
Speaker 3: But ultimately you need more than that.
25:21
Speaker 2: Well, in the miracles, in the form of my marine,
25:24
Speaker 2: I was in choir. I chose to go to every
25:26
Speaker 2: church service that existed that they would let me get
25:29
Speaker 2: into my schedule. So I went to the Mormon choir
25:31
Speaker 2: for women. And behind me, sitting in the Mormon choir
25:35
Speaker 2: was this base voice. And I turned around and it
25:38
Speaker 2: was a transgendered marine six foot three or four size
25:43
Speaker 2: thirteen shoe big fellow who was now a woman, and
25:48
Speaker 2: she protected me. She had been in the military, and
25:51
Speaker 2: she would walk around the yard with me and growl,
25:55
Speaker 2: people who are giving me our time, and she was wonderful.
25:59
Speaker 2: She's still writes me every week to this day.
26:02
Speaker 3: I'm picturing this tiny little Lucinda walking around with the
26:06
Speaker 3: transgender marine, growling at people, and the whole scene is
26:10
Speaker 3: sort of surreal. Of getting a great visual here. So
26:13
Speaker 3: you found your protector.
26:14
Speaker 2: I found somebody who took care of me between a
26:17
Speaker 2: year and a half two years that I was in there,
26:19
Speaker 2: and that was really wonderful. When she left, she was released,
26:23
Speaker 2: I really had to really pray then that I would
26:26
Speaker 2: have the armor of God for protection, that there would
26:28
Speaker 2: be guardian angels to protect me, that somehow that I
26:31
Speaker 2: could be protected.
26:33
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Mary Poppins, because Mary Poppins is not
26:37
Speaker 3: part of a lot of wrongful conviction stories.
26:40
Speaker 2: The reason I was singing Mary Poppins in the county
26:42
Speaker 2: jail when I was first arrested. I had never been
26:46
Speaker 2: in prison in my life, and so I had no
26:48
Speaker 2: idea what to expect. And it was a long time.
26:51
Speaker 2: You're in there for six hours and more, you know,
26:54
Speaker 2: just waiting, you know, for my bail to come through
26:57
Speaker 2: that very first time, and I realized that I needed
27:02
Speaker 2: to just start doing something positive so I wouldn't feel
27:04
Speaker 2: so depressed, and so I started singing all of the
27:07
Speaker 2: songs from Mary Poppins because I knew him by heart.
27:10
Speaker 2: And this a woman came in who was in there
27:12
Speaker 2: for drug charges, and you know, she was kind of
27:14
Speaker 2: out of it for a while, and then she said,
27:16
Speaker 2: she said, honey, you need to not do that anymore.
27:20
Speaker 2: I said what, And she goes, you have a nice voice,
27:22
Speaker 2: you know, but but you need to not sing like that.
27:27
Speaker 2: And I said why, I don't understand, and she goes, well,
27:31
Speaker 2: you're too happy. You're too damn happy. People in prisoner
27:35
Speaker 2: are kind of unhappy and messed up, and they're going
27:38
Speaker 2: to want to kill you if you sing any more
27:41
Speaker 2: of those you know, a spoonful of sugar.
27:43
Speaker 3: So you survived with your faith and you're a guardian angel.
27:50
Speaker 3: What was your marine.
27:52
Speaker 2: Friend's name, Sandra Soho?
27:55
Speaker 3: So, Sandra Soho So.
27:56
Speaker 2: She's now Reverend Sandra Soho.
27:59
Speaker 3: After sand Soho was released, How did you manage to
28:04
Speaker 3: build up this armor and steal yourself against these people
28:08
Speaker 3: who are out to get really out to get you.
28:10
Speaker 2: Well, before I was put in prison, I was an
28:12
Speaker 2: AVP Alternatives to Violence Project facilitator that's a Quaker program
28:18
Speaker 2: where they put half guards and have inmates together and
28:22
Speaker 2: teach about transformational power. They teach about love and being
28:27
Speaker 2: willing to be vulnerable and surrender and by breathing through
28:31
Speaker 2: not being afraid, breathing through fear, that you get through
28:35
Speaker 2: fear and then you are vulnerable. But there actually is
28:38
Speaker 2: a certain amount of miraculous power, transformational power that can
28:42
Speaker 2: come to you. And sometimes I had that experience. Other
28:46
Speaker 2: times no, but I did have people coming up to
28:49
Speaker 2: me ready to punch me and stab me and things,
28:53
Speaker 2: and I would pray and say, you know, friend, I
28:56
Speaker 2: have absolutely no ill will towards you. You are welcome
28:59
Speaker 2: to read my affidavits. My attorney says, you can read
29:02
Speaker 2: all about my case so you can see that for
29:05
Speaker 2: yourself that I'm innocent, that I never would ever harm anyone,
29:09
Speaker 2: and am I have no desire to harm you, and
29:11
Speaker 2: I have no desire to do anything that it would
29:13
Speaker 2: be disrespectful to you. And in one case, the woman
29:17
Speaker 2: just stopped in her tracks about three and a half
29:19
Speaker 2: feet from me, and you could just see her body
29:22
Speaker 2: expression and her body relax and she sat down and
29:27
Speaker 2: she I said, would you like to read my affidavit?
29:30
Speaker 2: She said, I don't need to.
29:32
Speaker 3: So that was a very serendipitous. Yeah, situation, the fact
29:37
Speaker 3: that you had this training in defusing exactly the situation
29:40
Speaker 3: that ironically found yourself in. So there was a you
29:44
Speaker 3: had more than one guardian angel, as it turns out.
29:46
Speaker 3: And how important was the support of the Quaker community.
29:50
Speaker 3: Were you getting letters, were you getting positive affirmation from people?
29:54
Speaker 3: And what did that mean to you?
29:55
Speaker 2: Laring this time, Well, everybody who's out in the outside
29:59
Speaker 2: world should right to end inmate. I don't think people
30:03
Speaker 2: appreciate how important it is. It's like Christmas, you realize
30:08
Speaker 2: that people care about you. It's a connection to the
30:10
Speaker 2: outside world. It's surreal in there, it's a hellhole, and
30:14
Speaker 2: people don't know how critical it is to have that
30:18
Speaker 2: connection to the real world where people are kinder and
30:23
Speaker 2: are more loving and are not as violent. I was
30:26
Speaker 2: lucky because I had three different church groups. I had
30:30
Speaker 2: the United Methodist Church, I had my Quaker meeting, and
30:34
Speaker 2: I had the UCC Unitarian Universalists. I was involved with
30:38
Speaker 2: all those congregations, with helping hopeless people and helping immigrants
30:43
Speaker 2: and all these different things I did in for mission
30:45
Speaker 2: work before I went into prison, and so all those
30:48
Speaker 2: people came and visited me. Good friends that I'd known
30:52
Speaker 2: for years came to visit me. And some of them
30:55
Speaker 2: came every week, faithfully, every single week. And I was
31:00
Speaker 2: really fortunate because there were women that never got a visit.
31:04
Speaker 3: Can you remember? Would you want to talk about what
31:07
Speaker 3: was the worst and the best moment that you had,
31:11
Speaker 3: if there even was the best one, and it sounds
31:13
Speaker 3: like there was when you were in prison, Well.
31:15
Speaker 2: I'll give you one of the worst ones was a
31:18
Speaker 2: woman who had thought that the label on me was
31:22
Speaker 2: true and didn't know me. I was in the kitchen
31:25
Speaker 2: working and she came up and took the bucket of
31:29
Speaker 2: caustic floor cleaner like draino, you know, bad bad pH
31:34
Speaker 2: and threw it in my eyes and face while I
31:38
Speaker 2: was working on the floor crew and that immediately caused
31:43
Speaker 2: a chemical burn on my eyeballs, my face and arms
31:46
Speaker 2: and stuff that were hit by a little of it
31:48
Speaker 2: that wasn't as bad, it was just it hit my eyes. Well,
31:53
Speaker 2: I do have only fifty two percent of my vision
31:55
Speaker 2: now in my left eye. It ate away at the
31:58
Speaker 2: sclere of my eyes. Whites of my eyes were brought down.
32:02
Speaker 2: A couple of tissue layers, so all my blood vessels
32:05
Speaker 2: were exposed, and my eyes were really very red, and
32:08
Speaker 2: oh god, it hurt, It really hurt. And I had
32:12
Speaker 2: never had anything hurt that much in my life, and
32:13
Speaker 2: I'd had childbirth. So I just was crying and they
32:18
Speaker 2: would not let me have medical treatment for my eyes.
32:22
Speaker 2: All they would do is they give me an ice
32:24
Speaker 2: pack and told me to go back to my unit.
32:27
Speaker 2: And so I walked down the hall from the clinic
32:30
Speaker 2: the infirmary with this ice pack on my eyes, and
32:34
Speaker 2: I had not even gone a hundred feet and they
32:36
Speaker 2: took my ice pack away from me. I had not
32:40
Speaker 2: even gone a hundred feet. For Pete's sake, people die
32:43
Speaker 2: in prison because they aren't getting proper medical treatment. People
32:46
Speaker 2: die because there's no protection. People die because there isn't
32:50
Speaker 2: adequate care.
32:52
Speaker 3: We need to treat people in our presence as human
32:54
Speaker 3: beings somehow or other that that's been lost. What was
32:58
Speaker 3: the happiest moment.
33:00
Speaker 2: I honestly, oh, okay, I can't think of something happy.
33:05
Speaker 2: I didn't think I could for a minute. There on
33:07
Speaker 2: my birthday, they had the Red Hat Society and I
33:11
Speaker 2: was invited and they sang Happy Birthday to me and
33:16
Speaker 2: they had a positive, inspiring message, and they were volunteers
33:19
Speaker 2: from the community who were so sweet and so kind.
33:23
Speaker 2: The people that are kind to you in prison you
33:25
Speaker 2: can count on one hand, and the rest of the
33:28
Speaker 2: guards and the rest of the people that are in there,
33:30
Speaker 2: you know, are pretty sadistic and damaging and hurtful to people.
33:37
Speaker 2: I think we had cake and ice cream and they
33:39
Speaker 2: sang Happy Birthday to me and they made me the
33:41
Speaker 2: queen of the day and I got to wear a
33:43
Speaker 2: little crown. I mean that sounds really stupid, you know,
33:47
Speaker 2: but I just it was a moment that was so
33:50
Speaker 2: out of character for everything that was going on. It
33:52
Speaker 2: was almost surreal, and it just it just tickled my
33:55
Speaker 2: heart to know that there were people in the world
33:57
Speaker 2: who loved me and cared about me out there enough
33:59
Speaker 2: that they were trying to communicate to.
34:00
Speaker 3: Me light in the darkness. It's amazing. You told me
34:05
Speaker 3: earlier about this incredible statistic about the percentage of sex
34:10
Speaker 3: abuse claims that actually turned out to be real.
34:14
Speaker 2: Of sex abuse accusations.
34:16
Speaker 3: Right, sex abuse excusations. So whatever you're thinking out there,
34:19
Speaker 3: whatever the lowest number you're thinking as a percentage could
34:22
Speaker 3: possibly be, it's lower I believe, so, Zinda, can you
34:25
Speaker 3: just tell us from your research what that is.
34:28
Speaker 2: Well, when I was first wrongfully charged, I had started
34:32
Speaker 2: doing research on teachers and false accusations to see what
34:36
Speaker 2: kinds of things people have done and that might help me,
34:39
Speaker 2: you know, to figure out what to do next. And
34:42
Speaker 2: I popped up with information on teachers in India and
34:47
Speaker 2: then also closer to home, people in the Welsh National
34:51
Speaker 2: Teachers Union. Out of all the students who were falsely
34:54
Speaker 2: accusing teachers, they had discovered that it was three point
34:58
Speaker 2: two percent or actually real cases of sexual abuse, and
35:04
Speaker 2: all of the rest were false accusations. And so they
35:06
Speaker 2: had gone to the Parliament and demanded that when students
35:11
Speaker 2: would dare to do this to a human being, a teacher,
35:15
Speaker 2: that there needed to be this person on a list
35:20
Speaker 2: of people that were falsely accusing and damaging people's lives,
35:25
Speaker 2: ruining totally destroying their careers and destroying their families and
35:30
Speaker 2: their financial retirement and just everything. I remembered that, and
35:34
Speaker 2: then they did research not that long ago. Mark Gotsey
35:37
Speaker 2: had a great chapter in his book referring to the
35:40
Speaker 2: recidivism and that all that research on sex abuse recidivism
35:45
Speaker 2: had gone back to an article that had been misinterpreted.
35:48
Speaker 2: The research actually said between thirty percent and eighty percent
35:52
Speaker 2: recidivism rate depending upon the type of person. They have
35:56
Speaker 2: done research more recently than that nineteen eighty six Psychology
36:00
Speaker 2: Today article, and that more recent research in what almost
36:05
Speaker 2: fifty states now they have one point seven to a
36:09
Speaker 2: maximum of three point eight recidivism, So, in other words,
36:14
Speaker 2: that's lower. Sex offenders actually recidivate at a lower rate
36:19
Speaker 2: than murderers or any other crimes. They are one of
36:24
Speaker 2: the lowest of all of the crimes for recident. So
36:29
Speaker 2: all of this highly dangerous fear mongering which had gone
36:34
Speaker 2: into federal legislation and state legislations everywhere, that, oh, you've
36:38
Speaker 2: got to protect people, you can't let them be so
36:41
Speaker 2: many feep within a school, you can't let people be close,
36:45
Speaker 2: is not based on research.
36:46
Speaker 3: It's so out of controls. There's almost a million people
36:49
Speaker 3: in the sex offender registry in the United States, I
36:51
Speaker 3: think the estimates. I read this article in The Economists
36:55
Speaker 3: which said that about fifty thousand of them actually are
36:58
Speaker 3: of any danger to end right, and some of them
37:01
Speaker 3: are people who were kids when they were having an
37:04
Speaker 3: affair with another kid, and then you know every state
37:07
Speaker 3: has different laws, and you know, it's like it could
37:10
Speaker 3: be a seventeen year old with a fifteen year old
37:12
Speaker 3: or a six And by the way, listen, I'm a father,
37:14
Speaker 3: and I think that everybody needs to be responsible and
37:16
Speaker 3: we need to take care of our children. But those
37:18
Speaker 3: laws were designed to protect children from predators, from adult predators,
37:22
Speaker 3: and they've been so badly misused and abused, and there's
37:26
Speaker 3: so many people in the system now and then it's
37:28
Speaker 3: very very important for people to remember exactly what you
37:31
Speaker 3: just said, So I'm going to repeat it, which is
37:32
Speaker 3: that almost ninety seven percent of cases in which a
37:37
Speaker 3: teacher has been accused of sexually abusing a student have
37:41
Speaker 3: turned out to be completely demonstrably false. So if you
37:45
Speaker 3: end up on a jury and you end up in
37:48
Speaker 3: a courtroom, you need to understand this right because the
37:51
Speaker 3: next Lucinda is out there, probably standing trial somewhere in
37:55
Speaker 3: America right now, and it's because of most likely and
37:59
Speaker 3: there are some obviously, there's some that are guilty, but
38:03
Speaker 3: it's overwhelmingly likely ninety seven percent chance that what you're
38:07
Speaker 3: hearing in that courtroom is absolute horseshit, and you need
38:11
Speaker 3: to be aware, and you need to really dive into it,
38:15
Speaker 3: and you need to look at the facts that you
38:16
Speaker 3: need to understand that you have somebody's life in your hands,
38:18
Speaker 3: and that what you're hearing is overwhelmingly likely to be false,
38:23
Speaker 3: not true.
38:25
Speaker 2: And I blame a lot of it on the over
38:27
Speaker 2: ambitious goals of DAS and DDAs and the lack of
38:33
Speaker 2: willingness on the part of police to investigate. Everybody who
38:37
Speaker 2: has a responsibility for investigation in this sort of a
38:40
Speaker 2: thing needs to actually investigate, and they need to be
38:42
Speaker 2: worth their salt as investigators. I mean, the police force
38:45
Speaker 2: that I dealt with would bear in police department. They
38:47
Speaker 2: were absolutely lousy at their jobs and they didn't do
38:51
Speaker 2: a good job.
38:52
Speaker 3: They were lousy, and they were lazy, and they were careless,
38:55
Speaker 3: and they were cavalier about destroying somebody's life. Actually more
38:58
Speaker 3: than one person's life, Your life, life of your loved ones,
39:01
Speaker 3: the lives of other people that you could have been
39:03
Speaker 3: helping in the community, the life of the child who
39:06
Speaker 3: was at the center of this case. Let's talk about
39:15
Speaker 3: your exoneration and how that felt after this madness, this
39:20
Speaker 3: ordeal that you had been through. Yeah, ultimately how did
39:23
Speaker 3: you get exonerated?
39:24
Speaker 2: They had taken away my organ teaching credential when I
39:27
Speaker 2: was in prison, and then that went on too a
39:29
Speaker 2: national consortium Washington State suddenly sent a letter saying, we
39:33
Speaker 2: are going to start revoking your teaching credential because Oregon
39:36
Speaker 2: says you're a sex offender. Well I wasn't. I knew
39:39
Speaker 2: that that was a wrongful label. And I begged the
39:42
Speaker 2: people in Washington to let me win my appeal, to
39:45
Speaker 2: take all of the evidence, review all of the evidence.
39:48
Speaker 2: I had affidavits that proved my actual innocence, and to
39:50
Speaker 2: take all that and I was confident that they would
39:53
Speaker 2: not revoke my credential. And they did. And the woman
39:57
Speaker 2: who was the administrative lod judge said that I was
40:01
Speaker 2: of good moral character, that I was fit to teach,
40:03
Speaker 2: that the DA had acted on her own personal opinion
40:06
Speaker 2: and no substantiate evidence existed, and that the judge and
40:10
Speaker 2: Oregon had not followed the law. And those set me
40:14
Speaker 2: in the perfect position now to go to the Oregon
40:16
Speaker 2: State Bar and to have those people looked into the
40:19
Speaker 2: complaint for disbarment, which is the first step towards proscatorial
40:23
Speaker 2: misconduct in the state of Oregon. Nobody's ever had the
40:26
Speaker 2: guts to go against the DA in the state of Oregon.
40:29
Speaker 2: And my minister told me that I needed to do
40:31
Speaker 2: it because nobody else would do it, because everybody else
40:33
Speaker 2: was afraid. And I've been afraid for five years. I've
40:37
Speaker 2: been out now and I've been afraid. But I realized
40:41
Speaker 2: that if I don't that she will continue to hurt people.
40:43
Speaker 2: And she has. She's continued to hurt other families. She's
40:46
Speaker 2: continued to destroy other lives. And it's time for a
40:50
Speaker 2: law to be passed on proscatorial misconduct in Oregon. It's
40:53
Speaker 2: time for a compensation package for people such as myself
40:56
Speaker 2: who needed to have compensation because they took away our livelihoods.
41:00
Speaker 2: And it's time to be able to get a lot
41:01
Speaker 2: of the other pieces of support systems that are needed
41:04
Speaker 2: for exoneries and people that are actually innocent.
41:06
Speaker 3: But wait, we skipped over one step. Your conviction was
41:09
Speaker 3: overturned after how long and how did it actually take place?
41:15
Speaker 2: I won my appeal. I had been in prison waiting
41:18
Speaker 2: for justice to happen by having my appeal, and July
41:23
Speaker 2: eighteenth of twenty twelve, I won my appeal. The conviction
41:26
Speaker 2: was reversed. The sad part about that was that at
41:29
Speaker 2: that point that, in spite of the fact that the
41:32
Speaker 2: state was not going to take it to the Supreme Court,
41:34
Speaker 2: the DA was not willing to let go and admit
41:36
Speaker 2: that she'd made a mistake because she knew that she
41:37
Speaker 2: would get in some real trouble in admitting anything, so
41:41
Speaker 2: she wasn't going to let me go. So I was
41:42
Speaker 2: in prison and I was being told you've won a
41:46
Speaker 2: new trial, You've got your chance. And then my friends
41:49
Speaker 2: came to me and said, we don't have the money
41:51
Speaker 2: for a second trial. We're sorry, they cried, We're so sorry.
41:55
Speaker 2: We couldn't get enough money for you for a good
41:57
Speaker 2: attorney the first time around. We don't have the money
42:00
Speaker 2: to do it a second time. And that's the problem
42:03
Speaker 2: with the ninety nine percent. When we're poor, there is
42:05
Speaker 2: no justice. There is no innocence commission or a free
42:10
Speaker 2: People's court or a Desmond to to Reconciliation commission where
42:14
Speaker 2: you can come in and say I need to have
42:17
Speaker 2: all the evidence presented to clear my name. There's no
42:20
Speaker 2: way to do that, and our system is so screwed up.
42:23
Speaker 2: Right now, I am sorry, I have absolutely no faith
42:25
Speaker 2: in the system anymore. I've seen that it's all arbitrary.
42:29
Speaker 2: But I was in prison. I wasn't going to last
42:32
Speaker 2: I was going to die and there waiting to be
42:34
Speaker 2: proven innocent. And my son came and he cried. He said, Mom,
42:37
Speaker 2: everybody knows you, knows you're innocent. Please come home. And
42:43
Speaker 2: so the conviction was reversed, the charge was dismissed. But
42:47
Speaker 2: then they said that they wanted me to do a
42:49
Speaker 2: no contest plea. I would not say that I was guilty.
42:53
Speaker 2: I refused to do that. They said, no, if you
42:55
Speaker 2: say no contest, it means that the DA could come
42:59
Speaker 2: up with some evidence against you for a misdemeanor harassment
43:04
Speaker 2: because you touched that kid, you tapped her in She
43:07
Speaker 2: said that she was a little bit bothered by it, right,
43:10
Speaker 2: which is so, and so that's really overcharging hypercriminalization. Stretching
43:14
Speaker 2: the meaning of harassment doesn't fit any of the categories.
43:17
Speaker 3: It is worth noting that the Oregon Court of Appeals
43:21
Speaker 3: reversed the wrongful conviction based on the fact that the
43:25
Speaker 3: trial court had refused to allow the testimony of your
43:28
Speaker 3: expert witness, doctor McGovern, which goes back to what you
43:30
Speaker 3: were saying before she should have been allowed to testify,
43:33
Speaker 3: and had she testify, you never would have been convicted
43:35
Speaker 3: because she knew the truth and nobody would listen. It's insane.
43:38
Speaker 3: And then ultimately they give you this, this sort of
43:42
Speaker 3: Sophie's choice where we had to plead no contest to
43:44
Speaker 3: a class BE misdemeanor an unrelated incident, because they have
43:47
Speaker 3: to have their little pound of flesh right, they have
43:50
Speaker 3: to still get their little They didn't get enough out
43:52
Speaker 3: of you, right, they didn't hurt you enough, They got
43:55
Speaker 3: to give you this extra little kick in the in
43:58
Speaker 3: the in the in the behind.
44:00
Speaker 2: I knew that I would ultimately be able to bring
44:03
Speaker 2: the truth of that to bear because her prosecutorial misconduct
44:07
Speaker 2: of saying I had to please something that she wasn't
44:09
Speaker 2: willing to go with the truth, that she would let
44:12
Speaker 2: me die in there instead. I knew that eventually something
44:15
Speaker 2: would happen, and sure enough, the Washington State Court judge
44:19
Speaker 2: ruled that there was not any crime, that harassment was
44:24
Speaker 2: absolute garbage. But it took going to another state because
44:27
Speaker 2: Oregon was so corrupt. Nobody has ever fought those das.
44:33
Speaker 2: And it's because I don't blame them their milk toast
44:36
Speaker 2: because they have to go every day into court and
44:39
Speaker 2: deal with those same das for their other clients. They
44:41
Speaker 2: aren't willing to put themselves on the line because once
44:43
Speaker 2: they do go for an innocence case and actually defend
44:47
Speaker 2: somebody and advocate for somebody, they'll never be able to
44:50
Speaker 2: work in the state again because their career's over. They
44:54
Speaker 2: had to be willing to destroy their careers for me,
44:58
Speaker 2: and that was a lot of task someone I had
45:00
Speaker 2: to go a different route.
45:01
Speaker 3: Well, Lucinda, I'm sort of at a loss for words
45:04
Speaker 3: to express how much I appreciate and those of us
45:07
Speaker 3: in the innocence movement appreciate your courage and your willingness
45:11
Speaker 3: to put yourself on the line to bring these things
45:15
Speaker 3: to light and to ultimately go back to what you
45:18
Speaker 3: were doing all along, which is helping other people. You
45:21
Speaker 3: found yourself in a situation you didn't want, no one
45:23
Speaker 3: ever wanted to be in. But now you're turning it around.
45:26
Speaker 3: You're channeling it into a positive message, into a fight
45:29
Speaker 3: that few people be willing to take on, and I
45:33
Speaker 3: salute you for that. So we have a tradition here
45:36
Speaker 3: on wrongful conviction, which is that we like to turn
45:41
Speaker 3: the mic over to close the show to you for
45:44
Speaker 3: any last words that you want to share.
45:47
Speaker 2: Okay, don't presume that people are guilty when you see
45:53
Speaker 2: them on TV. Don't presume when you hear about a case.
45:57
Speaker 2: Don't write that person off is about person. Don't presume
46:02
Speaker 2: that they're guilty of anything, because it may just be
46:05
Speaker 2: a dirty da that is trying to rise upward. Don't presume.
46:09
Speaker 2: Always keep an open mind and try to listen with
46:12
Speaker 2: an open mind and open heart.
46:20
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
46:22
Speaker 3: get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud
46:26
Speaker 3: donor to the Nisnce Project and I really hope you'll
46:29
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
46:32
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to innisonsproject dot org
46:36
Speaker 3: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
46:39
Speaker 3: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
46:42
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
46:45
Speaker 3: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
46:48
Speaker 3: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
46:53
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
46:56
Speaker 3: for Good podcasts and association with signal company Number one