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#026 Jason Flom with Daniel Tapia · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system. It's just
0:06
Speaker 1: the people that implement they get lost along the way
0:09
Speaker 1: and forget what their job really is.
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Speaker 2: He just kept on trying to remind me that who
0:15
Speaker 2: was in authority, who was in control, and how easy
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Speaker 2: it was for my body to be found in any
0:23
Speaker 2: alley of New York City.
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Speaker 3: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
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Speaker 3: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
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Speaker 1: They do that. They'll give a guy a life sentence
0:35
Speaker 1: and go home in eat spaghetti like it was nothing.
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Speaker 2: And anybody that said, well, why would you confess to
0:41
Speaker 2: something that you didn't do? My question to them will
0:44
Speaker 2: be why wouldn't you confess when somebody's threatening to kill
0:46
Speaker 2: your life?
0:48
Speaker 1: The judge, he said, how you feel?
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Speaker 2: I said, I'm okay. He said, well, the days you're
0:52
Speaker 2: lucky day you're going home.
0:56
Speaker 3: This is Wrongful Conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:15
Speaker 3: Jason Flamm. Today we are recording from New Orleans with
1:19
Speaker 3: a very special individual. My friend Daniel Tapia is here today. Daniel,
1:24
Speaker 3: welcome to the show.
1:25
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.
1:27
Speaker 3: Well let's start with this. We're in New Orleans, which
1:29
Speaker 3: is the epicenter of the problem with the criminal justice
1:33
Speaker 3: system or the world. Actually, America locks up more people
1:37
Speaker 3: per capita than any place in the world, five times
1:39
Speaker 3: as many people per capita as the rest of the
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Speaker 3: Western world, fourteen times as many as Japan, which is insane.
1:46
Speaker 3: Louisiana locks up twice as many people per capita as
1:50
Speaker 3: the rest of the United States, and New Orleans locks
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Speaker 3: up more people than any other county or city in Louisiana, sir.
1:59
Speaker 3: So overall, it's really not that shocking that somebody like
2:04
Speaker 3: you could be wrongfully convicted in a place like this.
2:06
Speaker 1: That happens way too often.
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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's really troubling. Daniel was forced to take a
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Speaker 3: plea even though he's innocent, because had he not done that,
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Speaker 3: he'd probably be in prison for the rest of his life.
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Speaker 3: Is that fair, Yes, sir, because the way things roll
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Speaker 3: down here, and to be fair, in most of the
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Speaker 3: rest of the country, a huge number of people are
2:27
Speaker 3: faced with the same sort of Sophie's choice that you had,
2:32
Speaker 3: which is either plead guilty and sort of have that
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Speaker 3: scarlet letter, or try to fight for your innocence and
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Speaker 3: run the risk of the very likely scenario that you're
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Speaker 3: going to spend the rest of your life in prison.
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Speaker 3: So let's go back to your case, because it's like
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Speaker 3: something out of a movie.
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Speaker 1: It absolutely is. That's the only way I know how
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Speaker 1: to go a bad movie.
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Speaker 3: So walk us through that. What happened? Where were you?
2:52
Speaker 3: How did you get caught up in this?
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Speaker 1: Okay? I used to live in the Calio Projects in
2:57
Speaker 1: New Waters, That's where this incident occurred. That so on
3:01
Speaker 1: the day that it occurred, I was with a friend
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Speaker 1: of mine. Let me say this. I had just bought
3:05
Speaker 1: my first call. I was a teenager. I was eighteen
3:07
Speaker 1: years old, just bought my first call, and basically all
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Speaker 1: I was doing was everybody I knew, all my friends, anybody, Hey,
3:14
Speaker 1: you need to ride, Let's go this place, Let's go
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Speaker 1: to that place.
3:16
Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 1: We just were riding around everywhere, typical of most teenagers
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Speaker 1: when they buy their first vehicle, especially when you're the
3:22
Speaker 1: only one out of your friends who has one at
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Speaker 1: the time. You know, the data incident happened. I was
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Speaker 1: outside talking to another friend of mine. Me and one
3:29
Speaker 1: of my friends were getting ready to leave, and he
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Speaker 1: was like, where y'all about to go? I said, we
3:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go pass by my girlfriend and then we
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Speaker 1: probably gonna go downtown, which was you know, I lived uptown.
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Speaker 1: So he said, all right, well just drop me off
3:39
Speaker 1: on your way over there. So I said, all right.
3:40
Speaker 1: So I dropped him off, and a friend of mine
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Speaker 1: had recently been another guy that I knew. He had
3:46
Speaker 1: recently been shot by another individual, and you know, he
3:50
Speaker 1: was my friend who I was dropping off. Was going
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Speaker 1: to check on him because he lived upstairs where I
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Speaker 1: was dropping him off, fat in the projects on the
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Speaker 1: other side. So as I dropped him off, he gets out,
4:00
Speaker 1: he goes in there. I pulled off. I pull up
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Speaker 1: way I was going to. My girlfriend was probably approximately
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Speaker 1: maybe two to three blocks away. She lived in another driveway.
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Speaker 1: And if I'm going that way, I started hearing gunshots.
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Speaker 1: And when I started hearing gunshots, my friend who was
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Speaker 1: in the vehicle with me, he's like, man, you know
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Speaker 1: that's coming from where we just dropped off with my
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Speaker 1: other two friends. So I look back. I can't see
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Speaker 1: anything because the way the buildings are you can't see
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Speaker 1: over to what's going on. All I hear is gunshots.
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Speaker 1: And then I start hearing gunshots getting rapid succession like
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Speaker 1: a semi automatic, you know, like assault rifle. You can
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Speaker 1: you know the difference between a sault rifle and a
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Speaker 1: pistol going off? I mean, it's shot after shot, it's
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Speaker 1: just relentless shot after shot. At that time, probably less
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Speaker 1: than a minute later, my friend and his friend come running,
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Speaker 1: and as they're running, somebody's behind them shooting at them
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Speaker 1: with the assault rifle.
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Speaker 4: Over whatever.
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Speaker 3: It sounds like a video game, yes, sir, but it
4:54
Speaker 3: was crazy.
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Speaker 1: No, it's real life. It's split second. You gotta make
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Speaker 1: a decision. What are you gonna do? So, as he's running,
5:00
Speaker 1: he's running towards me, and I see him, so I
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Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking. I get back in my car
5:05
Speaker 1: and he comes running towards my car. Pull up, he
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Speaker 1: jumps in my car. I take off. I'm like, man,
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Speaker 1: what happened? He's like, man, just go, just go, just go. So,
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Speaker 1: I know somebody's shooting at him. You know, I don't
5:14
Speaker 1: know exactly what went on, but I see someone shooting
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Speaker 1: at him.
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Speaker 3: Well, someone shoot at him. They' shooting at ut exactly now.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's no time to sit around and think
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Speaker 1: about what happened or what might have happened. What's the
5:23
Speaker 1: right decision? Was not the right decision. So I pull
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Speaker 1: off and I pull out of the driveway, and I
5:27
Speaker 1: mean less than maybe two blocks. There's cops coming from everywhere.
5:32
Speaker 1: So I stopped. I didn't do anything, you know, I stopped.
5:35
Speaker 1: I pull over to the side of the road. And
5:37
Speaker 1: as I pull over to the side of the road,
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Speaker 1: they come pulling up on us. So, you know, I
5:41
Speaker 1: put my hands up, get out the car. Whatever. I
5:43
Speaker 1: know something happened, but I don't know what happened. I know,
5:46
Speaker 1: you know, there was a shooting going on. I don't
5:47
Speaker 1: know what happened, though, So we get out. They pull
5:50
Speaker 1: us all out, They separate all of us, put us
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Speaker 1: in different places. Four of you, four of us, Yes, sir,
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Speaker 1: it was four of us. And this is where the
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Speaker 1: story gets crazy. This is where it starts not making
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Speaker 1: sense at all.
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Speaker 3: Pretty crazy so far.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I'm gonna
6:02
Speaker 1: just say, you know, this is when the corruption starts.
6:04
Speaker 1: Let me put it like that. So as we get stopped,
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Speaker 1: we get pulled out. So I don't know what the
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Speaker 1: cops are telling the other guy. But there's a black
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Speaker 1: car that pulls is a black Cadillac with tinted windows
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Speaker 1: and rims in it. And a guy pulls in front
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Speaker 1: and gets out, and he comes straight to where I'm
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Speaker 1: at and he comes back there and he opens the
6:20
Speaker 1: door and he tells me he's a police officer. He
6:23
Speaker 1: just saw everything that happened, and he knows I didn't
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Speaker 1: have anything to do with it, but he needs to
6:27
Speaker 1: know what's going on because it's the second murder in
6:30
Speaker 1: the neighborhood within that week. That was someone who was
6:32
Speaker 1: killed maybe a block away from where this incident happened,
6:35
Speaker 1: about five days before that, the Calio Projects in New Orleans.
6:37
Speaker 1: There was a lot of murders, a lot of stuff
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Speaker 1: going on. It's a really bad neighborhood to grow up
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Speaker 1: in and living. And so I told him, I said, look,
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Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. I don't know anything about
6:45
Speaker 1: the shooting. I said, man, I was just over here
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Speaker 1: and I heard some shots. So he punched me. He
6:50
Speaker 1: hit me. He said, you're trying to take up for him.
6:52
Speaker 1: I said, look, well, look I want to talk to
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Speaker 1: a lawyer.
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Speaker 4: Man.
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Speaker 1: You know, I ain't got nothing else to say to y'all.
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Speaker 1: Y'all sitting here punching on me saying I'm lying. I
6:58
Speaker 1: ain't got nothing to say, so then he slams the door.
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Speaker 1: So then one after one, cops start coming up to
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Speaker 1: the car and they open the back door, and they
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Speaker 1: keep asking me what my race is. I'm like, what
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Speaker 1: my race is? What the what does that have to
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Speaker 1: do with anything? Why y'all keep why? Why are these
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Speaker 1: cops so interesting if I'm black or white? And so
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Speaker 1: I don't think anything of it. I'm just, you know whatever,
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Speaker 1: the stupid cops. You know, I'm not thinking anything. Well,
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Speaker 1: the captain of the sixth District comes and he tells me,
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Speaker 1: because I want to take up for them, he's gonna
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Speaker 1: make sure I get the death penalty win him after,
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Speaker 1: you know alone whatever. We've been sitting out there, maybe
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Speaker 1: two three hours now.
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Speaker 3: Right, The problem being that you don't actually know.
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Speaker 1: What I don't know what happened.
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Speaker 3: So even if you wanted to tell him that, you
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Speaker 3: certainly would not if you couldn't live in that neighborhood
7:41
Speaker 3: on exactly, but there was no snitching, you would have
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Speaker 3: to just make up a story out of thin air.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I really legitimately don't know what happened for real,
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Speaker 1: because I couldn't see over it that I couldn't see
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Speaker 1: what was going on. But I know in my heart,
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Speaker 1: I'm like, I didn't I didn't have anything to do
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Speaker 1: with this. So I'm not even worrying about if I'm
7:56
Speaker 1: gonna go to jail or if you know, because I'm like,
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Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. I stopped, y'all, I stopped, I
8:01
Speaker 1: got out. I don't know, y'all. Tell y'all are telling
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Speaker 1: me what happened. I don't know what happened. Y'all are
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Speaker 1: telling me that somebody got shot and all this type
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Speaker 1: of stuff. So I go to jail and they let
8:12
Speaker 1: the guy who was with me, my friend who was
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Speaker 1: with me, they let him go that same night, and
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Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of my head like this, this is crazy, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, like what this is the guy who came running
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Speaker 3: into the car.
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Speaker 1: No, this was another guy, the guy who was with
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Speaker 1: me at the time when the other guys came running
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Speaker 1: to the car. There was two guys who ran to
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Speaker 1: the car, and it was me and another friend of
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Speaker 1: mine who were in the car at the time already.
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Speaker 1: And they let him go, but they didn't let me go.
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Speaker 1: So I'm like, man, you know why they taking me
8:37
Speaker 1: and and let him go. It's like, you know, but
8:39
Speaker 1: I still don't know what's going on. I didn't actually
8:41
Speaker 1: find out what was going when it actually happened until
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Speaker 1: when I was in jail, had been processed about three
8:47
Speaker 1: days later, because I didn't even see myself on a
8:49
Speaker 1: news I got a newspaper article from somebody. They let
8:53
Speaker 1: me see the newspaper when I got up on the
8:55
Speaker 1: til I was going on, and I read what happened,
8:57
Speaker 1: and I was like, what, holy shit. And then I
9:00
Speaker 1: start reading how they trying to involve me in and
9:02
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, that's not even what happened. But I mean,
9:05
Speaker 1: what can I say? What can I do about it?
9:06
Speaker 1: I'm in jail now, So the first thing I'm thinking is,
9:08
Speaker 1: all right, this is gonna get played out in court.
9:10
Speaker 1: You know, I'll go to court. It'll be over. You know,
9:13
Speaker 1: they'll see Because the cops telling me he saw everything
9:15
Speaker 1: that happened and he knows I didn't have anything to
9:18
Speaker 1: do with it, and he told me because he thinks
9:20
Speaker 1: I'm trying to take up for them, that he's gonna
9:22
Speaker 1: mess over me. But I'm like, this guy is't really
9:24
Speaker 1: gonna go through this and really come in here and
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Speaker 1: lie in court and say, you know that I had
9:29
Speaker 1: something to do with something I didn't, but he did.
9:32
Speaker 1: And what's crazy is that even as they played the
9:35
Speaker 1: dispatch tape of him calling in the shooting that he
9:38
Speaker 1: allegedly witnessed, it doesn't even line up with what he
9:42
Speaker 1: testified to in court, Like it doesn't even make.
9:44
Speaker 3: Sense because he called in and said it was three
9:46
Speaker 3: black men.
9:47
Speaker 1: He called in and said it was three black males,
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Speaker 1: which obviously I have no melody. I don't have a
9:50
Speaker 1: drop of it in my skin. That's all I can. Yeah,
9:54
Speaker 1: that's it, you know, especially in that neighborhood. I'm one
9:56
Speaker 1: of the only white people in that neighborhood period.
10:00
Speaker 3: Actually, if he did witness the shooting, it would have
10:03
Speaker 3: been really easy for him to identify it.
10:04
Speaker 1: Just spotted me a mile away.
10:05
Speaker 3: If I had something, it would have been, yeah, that's
10:07
Speaker 3: the white guy from the name right exactly.
10:09
Speaker 1: And you said it was three black males. But when
10:12
Speaker 1: you stopped us, you stopped three black males and meet
10:14
Speaker 1: and you let one of them go, which he didn't
10:17
Speaker 1: have anything to do with it either. But it's just
10:18
Speaker 1: a thought like where is all this going? Like how
10:21
Speaker 1: does this even make sense to y'all to actually prosecute this.
10:25
Speaker 1: It took over two years and I was eventually convicted
10:28
Speaker 1: the second agree murder.
10:29
Speaker 3: It took two years for the trial to resolve. So
10:32
Speaker 3: you were in jail for two years waiting.
10:33
Speaker 1: To go to trial, yes, sir, thinking I was going
10:35
Speaker 1: to go home, and I didn't. They convicted me, and
10:38
Speaker 1: it was it was the most surreal feeling I ever
10:40
Speaker 1: felt in my life.
10:41
Speaker 3: And the crime happened in two thousand and three.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, April eleven, two thousand and three.
10:46
Speaker 3: And Hurricane Katrina has a role in this whole crazy
10:49
Speaker 3: saga of your life as well. Definitely, So let's talk
10:53
Speaker 3: about that.
10:55
Speaker 1: So in August two thousand and five, Hurricane Katrina comes true.
10:59
Speaker 1: So in the day leading up to Katrina, they basically
11:02
Speaker 1: just it was like nothing was gonna happen, no big deal.
11:05
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this giant storm coming our way, but
11:07
Speaker 1: there's no preparations being made. They're not moving us out
11:10
Speaker 1: of the line of fire. They're not taking us to
11:12
Speaker 1: another prison up north or something where we're out of
11:14
Speaker 1: the way of the storm and out of horms way.
11:16
Speaker 1: They just left us there. Friday, Hurricane Katrina hitting Sunday
11:22
Speaker 1: that Friday. They turned the phones off inside the jail,
11:25
Speaker 1: so nobody can make a phone call outside to talk
11:27
Speaker 1: to their family, anything like that, or let them know
11:28
Speaker 1: that we were still in there.
11:30
Speaker 3: Which jail was it again?
11:31
Speaker 1: Orleans Paris Prison?
11:32
Speaker 3: And what does that look like? Is it a tall building?
11:34
Speaker 3: Is it a flat?
11:35
Speaker 1: It's four stories tall.
11:36
Speaker 3: So it's not tall at all. Not when you have Hurricane.
11:38
Speaker 1: Katrina coming, not at all, Not at all.
11:41
Speaker 3: And if you're on the first the second floor, if.
11:42
Speaker 1: You're on the first floor, you'd have been dead because
11:45
Speaker 1: I was on the second floor and we were standing
11:46
Speaker 1: in water.
11:48
Speaker 3: So let me just get this straight. Hurricane Katrina's coming
11:52
Speaker 3: one of the biggest storms in the history of this country. Yes, sir,
11:55
Speaker 3: didn't take anybody by surprise. No, everybody saw that thing.
12:00
Speaker 3: He's coming a mile away, days away. There's one time
12:03
Speaker 3: the weather men actually.
12:04
Speaker 4: Got it right. Yeah.
12:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, they couldn't mess that one up.
12:06
Speaker 3: So they decided that the appropriate response would be to
12:10
Speaker 3: abandon you there because they want to go protect their
12:13
Speaker 3: own asses. Yes, and turn off the phones.
12:16
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly what they did.
12:18
Speaker 3: So the storm comes, you were on the second.
12:20
Speaker 1: Floor, I was on the second floor.
12:22
Speaker 3: What was the vibe? What was everybody saying and doing?
12:24
Speaker 3: I mean, like it just just when you think things
12:27
Speaker 3: can't get worse.
12:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what happened was we were all on a
12:30
Speaker 1: tib and of course, you know the power went out.
12:33
Speaker 1: When the power goes out before the deputies basically locked
12:37
Speaker 1: us in there. Left We can see out the window
12:39
Speaker 1: onto the fourth floor, which is the highest level inside
12:42
Speaker 1: of the building. Up there, that's where the deputies have
12:44
Speaker 1: stationed themselves at. They removed the inmates who were up
12:48
Speaker 1: there on the fourth floor and put them at lower floors.
12:51
Speaker 1: And they were up there and they had like some
12:52
Speaker 1: of their family members and stuff in there up on
12:54
Speaker 1: the fourth floor, and they were up there cooking, and
12:58
Speaker 1: you know, you could see they had like a barbecue
13:00
Speaker 1: and they had all the food that was left. They
13:02
Speaker 1: took it up there with them. So they locked us
13:04
Speaker 1: inside of our tears, which is your cell blocks of
13:06
Speaker 1: your domes, and we had no food. Once the storm
13:10
Speaker 1: comes to you, we have no running water, we have no
13:12
Speaker 1: clean water, we have nothing. We can barely even breathe
13:14
Speaker 1: in there because it's stifling from the lack of air
13:17
Speaker 1: and circulation going on inside there, and you've got on
13:20
Speaker 1: a particular tier I was on. There's enough beds for
13:24
Speaker 1: forty two people. We had about sixty four at the
13:27
Speaker 1: time up there, and like I said, with nothing else,
13:30
Speaker 1: not even enough beds for everybody to be in. Obviously,
13:33
Speaker 1: being in prison, you around other people who are maybe
13:37
Speaker 1: not so nice individuals and who have different beefs and
13:39
Speaker 1: stuff from the street, and so when the lights go out,
13:42
Speaker 1: nobody wants to be that guy, because I mean you
13:44
Speaker 1: literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face
13:46
Speaker 1: when the power was out in there. So you had
13:49
Speaker 1: guys that started lighting fires inside of there and stuff
13:52
Speaker 1: like that, and there's no air, there's no circulation, there's
13:55
Speaker 1: no windows, there's no anyway for this smoke to get out.
13:58
Speaker 1: So you got these idiots who started a fire on
14:01
Speaker 1: the other side, and there's smoke going all through the
14:04
Speaker 1: inside of the dome where we at. So we had
14:07
Speaker 1: to break windows in order for the smoke to get out,
14:09
Speaker 1: just so we could breathe and everybody didn't suffocate up there.
14:12
Speaker 3: How did you break a window?
14:13
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they have bars around them and it's
14:16
Speaker 1: reinforced glass. But we had like a big iron metal
14:20
Speaker 1: bar that goes across the shower, and we ended up
14:22
Speaker 1: breaking that down out of the wall and use that
14:25
Speaker 1: along with a broom and a mopstick that was up
14:27
Speaker 1: there to just beat on a glass until it put
14:30
Speaker 1: a hole in it. And once it put a hole
14:32
Speaker 1: in it, we just chipped the way at it and
14:33
Speaker 1: broke it out. So the bars were still intact, like
14:36
Speaker 1: we couldn't get out of the window, but the glass
14:38
Speaker 1: itself was broken where we could. Air was able to
14:41
Speaker 1: come in and go out.
14:43
Speaker 3: So that saved everybody's life right there. Literally, you're painting
14:47
Speaker 3: a picture of literally the worst imaginable scenario that anybody
14:51
Speaker 3: could be in. It's dark, it's stifling heat, there's no air.
14:57
Speaker 1: No food, no food, no water over all of.
15:00
Speaker 3: Them, and a storm coming in that just might kill
15:03
Speaker 3: you all.
15:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, by this time the storm had passed when
15:06
Speaker 1: the part of the lights and everything went off, the
15:08
Speaker 1: storm had passed. Now, with Hurricane Katrina, it wasn't the
15:10
Speaker 1: storm itself that caused the flooded. That's why we were
15:14
Speaker 1: so lost. Because the storm came, the wind came through,
15:17
Speaker 1: the rain came through, the power went out, and then
15:20
Speaker 1: it passed and the sun was shining outside. Well, all
15:22
Speaker 1: of a sudden, now we're seeing water just coming up
15:25
Speaker 1: and up and up and up and up and up,
15:26
Speaker 1: and we're looking out the wind and we're like, man,
15:27
Speaker 1: where's all this fucking water coming from? You know, it
15:30
Speaker 1: just keeps pouring, raising up and up closer to where
15:32
Speaker 1: we are, until eventually it's to the second floor where
15:35
Speaker 1: we're at. Well, at the time, the building where I
15:38
Speaker 1: was at, we were right next to the coroner's office.
15:41
Speaker 1: We didn't process this at the time because you know,
15:43
Speaker 1: you're just not thinking about what it could potentially be.
15:46
Speaker 1: We look outside the winter and it's dead bodies floating
15:50
Speaker 1: right right around the window right where we are, right
15:53
Speaker 1: next to us. There was at least seven dead bodies
15:56
Speaker 1: that were floating around out there. So we're like, man,
15:58
Speaker 1: this fucking water's coming up. There's no guards, no help,
16:01
Speaker 1: no food, no water, and we got dead blodies floating
16:04
Speaker 1: around in the window next to us. But there came
16:06
Speaker 1: from the corner's office. Because the corner's office, which was
16:08
Speaker 1: on the first floor, was completely submerged in water and
16:11
Speaker 1: floated up. We didn't realize that until after everything was over.
16:14
Speaker 1: We just in panicked. Now everybody's panicking there's fucking water's
16:17
Speaker 1: coming up, there's nobody here with us. We're locked inside
16:20
Speaker 1: of here, literally can't get out. There's dead bodies floating
16:23
Speaker 1: around the fucking window next to us, and we don't
16:26
Speaker 1: even know if anybody even knows we're here more or
16:29
Speaker 1: les's gonna come rescue us and get us out of here.
16:31
Speaker 3: What happened to the people on the first floor?
16:34
Speaker 1: They had got moved. Oh, that was the one thing
16:36
Speaker 1: I give them credit that they were smart enough to do,
16:39
Speaker 1: is they moved the people off of the first floor.
16:41
Speaker 1: There's a lot of rumors about some people were left
16:43
Speaker 1: down there and stuff like that. I'll never know the
16:45
Speaker 1: truth on that, because some of the guys who were
16:47
Speaker 1: on the first floor edded up on the second floor
16:49
Speaker 1: with me where I was at, and they just moved
16:52
Speaker 1: them and kind of separated them on different tears. Like
16:54
Speaker 1: I said, they to the guys who were off the
16:56
Speaker 1: fourth floor and put them down lower so that they
16:59
Speaker 1: can go station themselves on the fourth floor and be
17:02
Speaker 1: at the highest point.
17:03
Speaker 3: So there were actually cards there with there, they just
17:05
Speaker 3: weren't coming us. Because so if I'm I'm going to
17:09
Speaker 3: just make an assumption that they probably lived in houses
17:14
Speaker 3: that they couldn't stay in because you can't. New Orleans
17:17
Speaker 3: is under sea level and we all know, we've all
17:20
Speaker 3: seen the pictures of what happened. So had they stayed home.
17:23
Speaker 1: They probably would have been flooded out.
17:25
Speaker 3: They were using this as a shelter, exactly the building.
17:27
Speaker 3: I'm sure the building is built pretty well.
17:29
Speaker 1: That building is not going and it.
17:30
Speaker 3: Was no matter what storm comes.
17:32
Speaker 1: So they had their family members of You could see
17:34
Speaker 1: their family members were up there with them, like you
17:36
Speaker 1: saw kids. You saw women who weren't offices and stuff
17:39
Speaker 1: like that were all staying up there on the force.
17:41
Speaker 3: An emergency shelters. So how long were you stuck in
17:44
Speaker 3: this situation? On Friday is when everybody left.
17:47
Speaker 1: Sunday they left the Sunday left us down on Sunday.
17:50
Speaker 1: Wednesday evening is when we finally were taken out of there.
17:54
Speaker 3: And so what did you drink?
17:57
Speaker 1: You didn't drink anything. You didn't have anything to drink.
17:59
Speaker 3: You certainly couldn't drink the water you had the sewage
18:02
Speaker 3: in it, right, you had dead bodies floating around.
18:05
Speaker 1: So we were all severely dehydrated.
18:07
Speaker 3: I mean, and water was up to what was it
18:09
Speaker 3: up to your ankles.
18:10
Speaker 1: It was about it our ankles. It was about it
18:12
Speaker 1: our ankles on the second floor. When it finally stopped,
18:16
Speaker 1: it was almost a sigh of relief because we didn't
18:18
Speaker 1: know if it was just gonna keep coming up, would
18:20
Speaker 1: just drowned. Yeah, because we couldn't go anywhere, and we tried.
18:24
Speaker 1: I mean, we ripped down the air conditioning ventilation, there
18:26
Speaker 1: were bars in the wall, we ripped the toilets out
18:29
Speaker 1: of the ground, there were bars in the floor. We
18:31
Speaker 1: tried to chip through the shop. I mean, that place
18:34
Speaker 1: is a real fortress. Like you're not getting out of
18:36
Speaker 1: there unless you're going through the guards with keys.
18:40
Speaker 3: So seventy two hours of sheer, terror, uncertainty, hunger, thirst.
18:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely. You had guys started fighting. They had two guys
18:49
Speaker 1: had a knife fight, just because everybody was so stressed
18:52
Speaker 1: out and so on high red alert. Every little thing
18:55
Speaker 1: was taking them off. I actually had taken a sheet
18:59
Speaker 1: and rolled on it with a ma because we can
19:00
Speaker 1: hear the helicopters flying around and see the helicopters flying
19:02
Speaker 1: around outside, and like I said, we didn't even know
19:04
Speaker 1: if anybody knew we were in there. So I had
19:07
Speaker 1: taken a sheet and rolle on that you know, people
19:09
Speaker 1: in here need help, and tried to hang it outside
19:12
Speaker 1: the balls because you know, we had broken the glass
19:13
Speaker 1: and tried to hang it out there, and the officers
19:15
Speaker 1: started shooting at us because we were sticking our hands
19:18
Speaker 1: out the balls trying to put a flag out there.
19:20
Speaker 1: They started taking potshots.
19:21
Speaker 3: At Okay, so there's another thing.
19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that that was the end of us trying
19:25
Speaker 1: to send a flag. So now the idea is start
19:28
Speaker 1: another fire, because now we got the winners over. So
19:31
Speaker 1: now you've got guys who are gonna lit another fire
19:33
Speaker 1: and throwing flames like lit a mattress on fire and
19:38
Speaker 1: sticking it, hanging it out the balls to try and
19:40
Speaker 1: get the attention of the helicopters going around trying to
19:43
Speaker 1: just get anybody to come help us.
19:58
Speaker 3: It's taking me a minute to price says this. Okay,
20:01
Speaker 3: So now I'm sure everybody else that's listening and scratching
20:05
Speaker 3: their head like I am and going what Yeah, So
20:11
Speaker 3: you didn't drown? No, thank that it was a miracle
20:15
Speaker 3: and you you survived this ordeal and ultimately you end
20:19
Speaker 3: up getting convicted of second degree murder, yes, sir, and
20:22
Speaker 3: sense to life in prison. And you were twenty years
20:26
Speaker 3: old at the time.
20:27
Speaker 1: I was twenty when I was convicted. I was eighteen
20:28
Speaker 1: when I was arrested.
20:29
Speaker 3: Right, and you get sent to Angola, Yes, I mean
20:32
Speaker 3: it's hard to say what the worst prison is in America,
20:35
Speaker 3: but I think a lot of people who are knowledgeable
20:38
Speaker 3: in this field would say that's that strong consideration.
20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's won't be.
20:43
Speaker 3: Angola is a plantation in the middle of nowhere in
20:47
Speaker 3: Louisiana which is named Angola because it originally was a
20:52
Speaker 3: slave plantation and the slaves that worked the fields there
20:55
Speaker 3: were from Angola, And so it certainly at the time
20:59
Speaker 3: you were there, and I would say probably true to
21:02
Speaker 3: this day. It still operates basically like a slave plantation.
21:06
Speaker 1: Exactly like a slave plantation.
21:08
Speaker 3: You know, it's so far removed from sight, and people
21:13
Speaker 3: go there to die.
21:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's its own world.
21:15
Speaker 3: Most of the people, I think I read some of
21:17
Speaker 3: the eighty five percent of people that go there die there.
21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:20
Speaker 3: So I mean you got all kinds of people we
21:22
Speaker 3: were talking about before. They've been there. Since the seventies eighties.
21:24
Speaker 1: You have about three average, two and a half to
21:26
Speaker 1: three people a month die.
21:28
Speaker 3: It ain't golden, right, and I was told that during
21:31
Speaker 3: one particular flood, the Army Corps of Engineers came down
21:35
Speaker 3: there and wanted to build some dams or whatever, do
21:39
Speaker 3: some dig up some stuff, and they wouldn't let them
21:41
Speaker 3: in because they had to move some of the bodies
21:43
Speaker 3: that they had buried first, because they didn't want to,
21:45
Speaker 3: you know, because those people didn't necessarily die of natural causes.
21:48
Speaker 3: So here you are, in one of the worst places
21:51
Speaker 3: on earth, and with basically no hope of ever going home.
21:57
Speaker 1: One thing I can say, though, is that's one thing
21:59
Speaker 1: I can't say. I never gave up my hope. I
22:01
Speaker 1: never gave up my hope. I think when I was
22:04
Speaker 1: convicted and the jury walked past me. When I was convicted, literally,
22:08
Speaker 1: and this is in my minutes, this is in my transcripts.
22:11
Speaker 1: I told my judge, Judge Camille Burris, I told her
22:14
Speaker 1: I'd rather have a death penalty then spend the rest
22:17
Speaker 1: of my life it ain't golden. And I even made
22:19
Speaker 1: a statement, I said, Yana, all due respect, that was
22:22
Speaker 1: exactly what I told her. I'd rather had a death penndy,
22:24
Speaker 1: I said, I'd rather y'all kill me. They sent me
22:27
Speaker 1: up there to wait another fifty sixty years to die.
22:31
Speaker 1: She just put her head down and kind of, you know,
22:34
Speaker 1: motion to the bailiff to get me out of the
22:35
Speaker 1: court room. And they took me out of that because
22:37
Speaker 1: I was just like, man, there's no way. And after that,
22:41
Speaker 1: probably that first night, I was down on myself, and
22:43
Speaker 1: then after that I was like, man, I gotta get
22:45
Speaker 1: out of here. This is crazy, this isn't fair, but
22:50
Speaker 1: this is my life, and I got to figure out
22:52
Speaker 1: a way to get out of here.
22:53
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting you sit there and you say, well,
22:56
Speaker 3: I had hope, but I'm getting the chill was thinking
23:00
Speaker 3: about it. But I think most people would lose hope absolutely.
23:05
Speaker 3: I mean, it's nobody's vouching for you at this point. Yeah,
23:08
Speaker 3: you're on your own.
23:08
Speaker 1: I'm on my own, man. It's it's total mental gymnastics,
23:11
Speaker 1: because you want to have hope and you want to
23:14
Speaker 1: believe that the right thing is going to happen and
23:16
Speaker 1: that these people are going to realize that they made
23:18
Speaker 1: a mistake and they're gonna realize that you're innocent. But
23:20
Speaker 1: every day you're waking up next to guys who've been
23:24
Speaker 1: in prison since before my mother was born, before your
23:27
Speaker 1: mother was before my mother was born. You know, you
23:29
Speaker 1: got guys that's been up there forty to fifty sumi years.
23:32
Speaker 3: Right, and some of them not guilty in the first place,
23:35
Speaker 3: and some of them, like you said, for minor crimes.
23:37
Speaker 3: I mean in Louisiana. Some of the things, some of
23:40
Speaker 3: the stories that you hear really just twist your mind around.
23:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, the justice system here is just I don't even
23:47
Speaker 1: know how to describe it. It's it's very inhuman. It's
23:50
Speaker 1: it's all about winning and locking people up. It's not
23:54
Speaker 1: about actual justice. It's not about finding out the truth.
23:57
Speaker 1: There's more of a pursuit of so that people can say, look,
24:02
Speaker 1: I punished this guy. I punished this guy. You know,
24:04
Speaker 1: we found it, we solved it, and there's no in
24:07
Speaker 1: my opinion, real thought to you know, it's like they
24:10
Speaker 1: do that. They'll give a guy a life sentence and
24:13
Speaker 1: go home in eat spaghetti like it was nothing, you know,
24:15
Speaker 1: and not think about it. Man, maybe I really sent
24:17
Speaker 1: the wrong person to prison for the rest of their life.
24:20
Speaker 3: But then this is another very interesting thing about your case,
24:25
Speaker 3: cause you ended up in a scenario where you found
24:30
Speaker 3: a way, you found a crack, right, and talk about
24:35
Speaker 3: that and how you ended up being here. You're sentenced
24:37
Speaker 3: to life in prison. You're not supposed to be here
24:39
Speaker 3: right now.
24:39
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, I'm not. After I was convicted, I think
24:42
Speaker 1: i've really I filed my attorney who I had. I
24:45
Speaker 1: had another attorney who was working on my appeal. The
24:48
Speaker 1: first thing that her and I spoke about, I told her,
24:51
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I know you probably don't believe I'm innocent.
24:54
Speaker 1: I don't think my last lawyer believed I was innocent.
24:56
Speaker 1: I said, but if you listen to what I'm going
24:59
Speaker 1: to tell you, and you help me investigate this like
25:01
Speaker 1: it should have been investigated, I'll prove to you that
25:03
Speaker 1: I am. And so she said, listen, it's not my
25:06
Speaker 1: job to figure out if you're innocent or not. It's
25:08
Speaker 1: my job to get you out. I said, all right,
25:10
Speaker 1: that might not be your job, but it's important to
25:11
Speaker 1: me that you know that I am. So I started
25:14
Speaker 1: talking to people and doing my own kind of investigating
25:17
Speaker 1: and being I guess you could call my own kind
25:18
Speaker 1: of jailhouse lawyer and investigator, just finding out everything I
25:21
Speaker 1: could find out about it, because there were just certain
25:23
Speaker 1: things that didn't make sense about what the police officer said,
25:26
Speaker 1: with my case. For one, he said that he was
25:29
Speaker 1: there to meet up with a confidential informant. My first
25:34
Speaker 1: thought is, why would you go there to meet up
25:36
Speaker 1: with a confidential informant Because everything that you know about
25:39
Speaker 1: me with a confidential informant is that you want to
25:41
Speaker 1: keep it confidential. You don't want people around to know.
25:44
Speaker 1: So if you're meeting with a confidential informant in an
25:47
Speaker 1: area where there's big time heroin being sealed and there's
25:50
Speaker 1: all kinds of people outside, if you're a copy and
25:52
Speaker 1: gonna pull up and pick this guy up and go
25:54
Speaker 1: sit down and have a talk, why would you go there.
25:56
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you meet him anywhere else in the city
25:58
Speaker 1: that you could meet him at. Why would you go
26:00
Speaker 1: right to the dope set and meet up with an
26:02
Speaker 1: informant and sit down and talk. That just doesn't make sense.
26:05
Speaker 1: So then I told my turn, I said, we need
26:07
Speaker 1: to find out who that informant was, because that's a
26:09
Speaker 1: potential witness. So we filed it was called the subpoena
26:12
Speaker 1: induceers tech them get the police officer's confidence and informancist.
26:15
Speaker 1: As soon as we filed that, they went crazy. They
26:19
Speaker 1: did not want to turn that over. They did not
26:21
Speaker 1: want to hand it over. I said, listen, I don't
26:22
Speaker 1: even need to see it. I don't want to see
26:24
Speaker 1: it for any reason. Just show it to my lawyer.
26:26
Speaker 1: Because this is a potential witness. This is someone who
26:29
Speaker 1: they must have been out there. Why aren't they named
26:32
Speaker 1: in this as a witness. If this cop was sitting
26:34
Speaker 1: out here and say he saw all so all this
26:36
Speaker 1: stuff go on, why isn't the informant who he was
26:39
Speaker 1: sitting out there with a witness. Also, if this cop,
26:42
Speaker 1: we've poked holes in his story so many times, and
26:44
Speaker 1: it's so many things about his story, it don't make sense.
26:46
Speaker 1: He described me as a black male. The way they
26:48
Speaker 1: made the scene was I was there when the murder happened,
26:50
Speaker 1: almost like I sent the guys to do it. I
26:52
Speaker 1: was out there to make sure it went right and
26:54
Speaker 1: all this type of stuff. Because the guy was shot
26:56
Speaker 1: with two different guns. I didn't have any gunpowder of
26:58
Speaker 1: residues on me. There was only two guns that were found,
27:01
Speaker 1: because that's, you know, all it was. But then there
27:03
Speaker 1: was another thing that came up that I saw in
27:05
Speaker 1: my police report. Because this was a shootout, I didn't
27:08
Speaker 1: see it with my own two eyes. But from what
27:09
Speaker 1: I've been told by my code defendant from other guys,
27:12
Speaker 1: it was a shootout. You heard it, Yeah, you could
27:14
Speaker 1: hear all the shots going on this guy had. He
27:18
Speaker 1: was shot with a forty five caliber gun and a
27:20
Speaker 1: thirty eight. All around his body exactly where he's laying,
27:25
Speaker 1: there are nine millimeter casings all around his body. He
27:29
Speaker 1: wasn't shot with a nine milimeter. He had a nine
27:31
Speaker 1: milimeter that he was shooting at my codefendants with and
27:35
Speaker 1: they were shooting at each other, and then someone else
27:37
Speaker 1: came and was shooting at them with the assault rifle
27:40
Speaker 1: who was one of his friends. This cop claims that
27:42
Speaker 1: this guy never had a gun. It wasn't a shootout,
27:44
Speaker 1: it was a hit. It was an execution, a broad
27:46
Speaker 1: day murder, all this type of stuff that they try
27:48
Speaker 1: and make, you know, try to tie it in the beat.
27:50
Speaker 1: But where did these shellcasings come from? Literally, if I'm
27:54
Speaker 1: standing here shooting the shellcass, that's where they fall around
27:57
Speaker 1: where I'm shooting from. There's shellcass all around where he's at,
28:00
Speaker 1: But it's not from a gun that he was shot with.
28:02
Speaker 1: It just didn't make sense. So now we started investigating
28:05
Speaker 1: the where the gun could have possibly been. But this
28:07
Speaker 1: happened in the middle of the projects where there's a
28:09
Speaker 1: bunch of people outside, and so of course nobody wants
28:11
Speaker 1: to come to court and be the witness. But if
28:13
Speaker 1: there's a gun laying on the ground, somebody's gonna pick
28:15
Speaker 1: it up. I'm not just gonna leave it out there.
28:18
Speaker 1: So this is just some of the things that didn't
28:19
Speaker 1: make sense about my case that I think when the
28:21
Speaker 1: attorney that high started looking into it, she started saying, Okay,
28:25
Speaker 1: maybe there's something here, maybe this guy really is innocent.
28:27
Speaker 1: Then he comes to my co defendant. He and I
28:30
Speaker 1: had the severance, which means we got separate trials. He
28:32
Speaker 1: went to trial, he was convicted. I went to trial.
28:35
Speaker 1: I was convicted, but it was a separate times. When
28:37
Speaker 1: he found out I had been convicted, he sent a
28:40
Speaker 1: letter to my mother, who turned it over to my
28:42
Speaker 1: attorney and told her that, you know, listen, I just
28:46
Speaker 1: don't feel right with this. Dang. He didn't have anything
28:48
Speaker 1: to do with this. He wasn't even there when it happened.
28:50
Speaker 1: He didn't even know me and this guy with beef,
28:51
Speaker 1: and he had no idea any of this could have
28:53
Speaker 1: went on. He's literally just was in the wrong place
28:56
Speaker 1: at the wrong time. I can't live with imagining him
28:58
Speaker 1: doing the rest of his life in prison and knowing
29:00
Speaker 1: that he didn't even have anything to do with this.
29:03
Speaker 1: So my attorney presents it to the judge they called
29:05
Speaker 1: my co defendant, and he gets on the stand, testifies,
29:08
Speaker 1: tells him exactly what I just said, that I didn't
29:10
Speaker 1: have anything to do with it. It was him and
29:11
Speaker 1: the other guy that got into a shootout with the guy.
29:14
Speaker 1: I didn't know that they were even beefing with this
29:16
Speaker 1: guy more or less because I had just literally I
29:18
Speaker 1: was with another friend and he walked up to me
29:21
Speaker 1: and then just like, oh, you're going that way, let
29:22
Speaker 1: me get a ride. I'm not thinking anything of it.
29:24
Speaker 1: I always you know, I've been giving everybody a ride.
29:26
Speaker 1: You know. I just bought my first call. So he
29:30
Speaker 1: testifies to that judge orders me a new trial. She
29:34
Speaker 1: vacates my conviction, orders me a new trial because she
29:37
Speaker 1: presided over my case. You know, And this is a judge,
29:39
Speaker 1: and Camille burrys, you can do the research. She doesn't
29:42
Speaker 1: overturn convictions. If a jerry finds you guilty, you got
29:45
Speaker 1: to take that up with the appellate court. She is
29:47
Speaker 1: not big on granted post conviction relief. She's very conservative.
29:51
Speaker 1: I have nothing negative to say about her, but she's
29:53
Speaker 1: a very conservative judge, and she takes jury convictions very seriously.
29:59
Speaker 1: She vacates my com the district attorney at the time
30:02
Speaker 1: appeals it to the appellate court. The appellate court overturns
30:06
Speaker 1: her and reinstates my conviction. So now I went from
30:08
Speaker 1: life sentence, no life sentence, life sentence again. So you
30:12
Speaker 1: want to talk about mental gymnastics and trying to keep
30:15
Speaker 1: your mind right, you know, trying to stay focused. I'm
30:18
Speaker 1: literally being twisted and pulled upside down. I got my
30:20
Speaker 1: hopes up. Now my conviction's been overturned. It looks like
30:23
Speaker 1: I'm going home. He came in there and told him
30:25
Speaker 1: it was him. It wasn't me. I got to be
30:27
Speaker 1: about to go home now, right, Yeah. No, No, they
30:32
Speaker 1: overturned it. They say I should have got him to
30:33
Speaker 1: testify before I went to trial or at my trial.
30:36
Speaker 1: I didn't practice due diligence, so therefore it doesn't count.
30:40
Speaker 3: Right. That's sort of like how there used to be
30:42
Speaker 3: these laws. Like in Virginia, there was a twenty one
30:45
Speaker 3: day rule, you know by that, whichpecially meant that after
30:47
Speaker 3: twenty two days, if the dead guy walked in the
30:50
Speaker 3: courtroom and was like, hey, wait a minute, you guys
30:52
Speaker 3: made a mistake. I'm still alive, didn't matter because you're
30:56
Speaker 3: too late. So that's basically what they were saying. They
30:59
Speaker 3: wanted you to be basically Clarence Darrow, you know, and
31:02
Speaker 3: Colombo mixed up in one and produce a witness before
31:05
Speaker 3: the trial when he was still hoping that he was
31:08
Speaker 3: going to exact it.
31:08
Speaker 1: I mean, who can he's hoping that he's going to
31:11
Speaker 1: get out too. How How am I going to know
31:13
Speaker 1: that he's going to testify and get up there and
31:15
Speaker 1: tell them I didn't have anything to do with it.
31:17
Speaker 1: I mean, what what what co defendant? That doesn't happen
31:20
Speaker 1: very often. It was me, it wasn't him. Yeah, especially
31:22
Speaker 1: when it's the rest of his life in prison exact
31:25
Speaker 1: that he's facing for saying that exactly.
31:27
Speaker 3: I mean, friends are friends. But that's that's a little much, right,
31:30
Speaker 3: So on a technicality, they said to you, we don't
31:34
Speaker 3: really give a fuck.
31:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, go spend the rest of your life in prison anyway.
31:38
Speaker 3: And next time this happens to you, make sure you
31:41
Speaker 3: get to us a little bit earlier. Yeah, basically, right,
31:43
Speaker 3: So now you got that, So then what happens so
31:46
Speaker 3: because you're here?
31:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I appealed it to the Supreme Court.
31:51
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court deniy me, so my conviction is reinstated.
31:54
Speaker 1: So this is the craziest story I'm about to tell you, Jason.
31:57
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you're a spiritual person. I
31:58
Speaker 1: don't know if anybody listening is spiritual person. But this is,
32:02
Speaker 1: honest to God, exactly what happened. And the tattoo on
32:06
Speaker 1: my right arm right here that you're looking at Code
32:08
Speaker 1: of Criminal Procedure Article eight fifty one point five with
32:11
Speaker 1: the angel wings, that's my angel. That was my sent
32:14
Speaker 1: from God right there. I'm in prison. I'm in the
32:16
Speaker 1: whole for a knife fight. I had a fight with
32:19
Speaker 1: a guy. He pulled a knife out on man stab me.
32:21
Speaker 1: So I'm in the hole in a cell by myself.
32:24
Speaker 1: Get the letter from the Supreme Court saying that basically
32:28
Speaker 1: you're fucked. We've reviewed it. We felt that the appellate
32:31
Speaker 1: Court made the right decision. You didn't practice due diligence.
32:34
Speaker 1: Your convictions reinstated. You got to go spend the rest
32:36
Speaker 1: of your life in prison. That's basically what they told
32:38
Speaker 1: me upon getting that letter. I'm in the whole. I
32:41
Speaker 1: have nothing. I have no books, i have no none
32:44
Speaker 1: of my legal work with me. I'm just in there,
32:46
Speaker 1: basically with myself and in a cell. And I got
32:49
Speaker 1: down on my knees and I started praying, and I said, God,
32:53
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're trying to get out of me.
32:55
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're real, I don't know if
32:57
Speaker 1: you're listening to me. I don't know anything. All I
33:00
Speaker 1: know is I don't know how much longer I can
33:02
Speaker 1: make it like this because I did everything I could do.
33:05
Speaker 1: You know, my heart, you know I didn't do this.
33:08
Speaker 1: You knew I didn't have anything to do with this.
33:10
Speaker 1: I need some help, please. As I'm on my knees
33:14
Speaker 1: praying that I had read this auto called the law before.
33:17
Speaker 1: Just you know, when you're in jail, that's one of
33:18
Speaker 1: the things you do, especially when you're trying to work
33:20
Speaker 1: on your case. You read all kinds of stuff in
33:21
Speaker 1: the law and stuff like that. But I didn't have
33:23
Speaker 1: a law book in front of me. But for some reason,
33:25
Speaker 1: this just just kept replaying in my mind over and
33:28
Speaker 1: over again. And I'm not trying to sound like because
33:31
Speaker 1: I'm not some super holy religious person anything like that.
33:34
Speaker 1: I believe in God. I believe in spiritual life and stuff,
33:37
Speaker 1: but man, I'm, you know, far from a preacher anything
33:40
Speaker 1: like that. But I'm telling you, I believe in my
33:42
Speaker 1: whole heart that was God speaking to me in my
33:45
Speaker 1: head about this allticulored law right here. So I go
33:48
Speaker 1: to court for my hearing to put everything on the
33:50
Speaker 1: record to state, you know, basically on the record with
33:53
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court had said, and they're ruling and they're
33:55
Speaker 1: going to reinstate my conviction and send me back to
33:57
Speaker 1: Angola for the rest of my life. As I go
33:59
Speaker 1: in there, my attorney I bring it up to her.
34:02
Speaker 1: I said, you know, are you familiar with Cote of
34:04
Speaker 1: Criminal Procedure Article eight fifty one five And she's like, no,
34:07
Speaker 1: not really. And this is a woman who's been an
34:09
Speaker 1: attorney for over twenty five years. At the time, she
34:12
Speaker 1: was not only an assistant district attorney who prosecuted people.
34:15
Speaker 1: Then she went and she was an attorney, a defense attorney,
34:18
Speaker 1: worked all kind of federal cases. Lourd White's she's now
34:20
Speaker 1: chief judge of criminal court. She knows as shit. She
34:23
Speaker 1: knows the law right, She wasn't familiar with it. She said,
34:28
Speaker 1: tell me what it says.
34:29
Speaker 3: And your education at this point was what eighth grade.
34:32
Speaker 3: I had a ged okay, okay, bring it to that.
34:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. I bring it to her, and she's like, well,
34:40
Speaker 1: I mean all she could do is say, I mean what,
34:43
Speaker 1: they're going to give your life anyway, there's nothing else
34:45
Speaker 1: they can do. We might as well try it. So
34:46
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, just go up to her and talk
34:48
Speaker 1: to her and see what she'll do. So she has
34:50
Speaker 1: to tell the assistant district attorney that she's going to
34:53
Speaker 1: go to the judge and ask for continuing so that
34:55
Speaker 1: she can file a formal motion based upon this order
34:58
Speaker 1: called the law. The prosecutor at the turns and looks
35:01
Speaker 1: at me when she says it. She turned it and looked
35:04
Speaker 1: at me in my face and started laughing in my face,
35:07
Speaker 1: basically trying to make me feel like, you idiot, What
35:09
Speaker 1: do you know about the law? You know, because I
35:11
Speaker 1: guess she had told you, my client wants me to
35:13
Speaker 1: raise this issue. What whatever. She goes up there, talks
35:15
Speaker 1: to the judge to judge says, you know what, I
35:17
Speaker 1: want to hear more about that that sounds intriguing. Grants
35:20
Speaker 1: me a continuance. We filed emotion. The state opposers at YadA, YadA, YadA.
35:24
Speaker 1: We go back, we rule, she grants me another neutrial.
35:27
Speaker 1: A judge who I can't name, one other person she's
35:30
Speaker 1: granted a new trial for grants me a second neutrial,
35:33
Speaker 1: this time based upon this order called a law right here.
35:36
Speaker 1: So now, as bad as I want to get my
35:38
Speaker 1: hopes up, like okay, this might really be it, I'm thinking,
35:41
Speaker 1: you know what, I went through this before and the
35:43
Speaker 1: appellate court shot me down and they reinstated it. Let
35:46
Speaker 1: me see how this is going to play out. Goes
35:48
Speaker 1: back in front the same Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
35:51
Speaker 1: What happens. They uphold it, They say, yes, you have
35:55
Speaker 1: to give them a new trial. They appeal it to
35:57
Speaker 1: the same Supreme Court that upheld it before and that
36:00
Speaker 1: I had to go do life. The Supreme Court comes
36:02
Speaker 1: back and says, we uphold it, you have to grant
36:05
Speaker 1: them a new trial. So they finally grant me a
36:08
Speaker 1: new trial. So I get a new trial, and I'm thinking,
36:11
Speaker 1: all right, this is it. You know, I got a
36:13
Speaker 1: new trial. My co defendant confessed, said I didn't have
36:16
Speaker 1: anything to do with it. They gotta be about to
36:18
Speaker 1: let me go home now, right. This is two thousand
36:20
Speaker 1: and eight.
36:21
Speaker 3: By the way, people that listened to the show, No,
36:22
Speaker 3: I've never he this quiet for this long. But I'm
36:24
Speaker 3: just sitting here like my eyes blazed over, like the
36:27
Speaker 3: yeah story is this?
36:29
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, so and you can read about this.
36:31
Speaker 1: This is fact. This is on my docketmaster. You can
36:34
Speaker 1: read about this. So they changed the prosecutors on my
36:37
Speaker 1: case because that's what they do every so often. So
36:40
Speaker 1: I get two new prosecutors on my case, one of
36:43
Speaker 1: whom as I'm in one of my hearings, because they
36:46
Speaker 1: saying they're gonna take me to trial again. This is
36:47
Speaker 1: after my appeal has been granted. I get a new trial.
36:50
Speaker 1: They still won't just drop it. They saying they have
36:52
Speaker 1: you know, they might bring me to trial. They deciding
36:54
Speaker 1: what they're going to do. So I'm sitting in prison
36:55
Speaker 1: all this time waiting. She goes to my mother and
36:58
Speaker 1: tells my mother, ma'am, I know you've been through a
37:02
Speaker 1: lot with this. We're gonna drop it. The worst thing
37:05
Speaker 1: might happen is we're gonna give him credit for time
37:06
Speaker 1: serve and he plead to all lesser charge and will
37:08
Speaker 1: let him out. Tells that to my mother, the district attorney,
37:12
Speaker 1: not my lawyer or not someone who works for the state.
37:14
Speaker 1: The lady who's prosecuting me, goes and tells that to
37:17
Speaker 1: my mother. This is in September two thousand and eight,
37:19
Speaker 1: when I'm about to go to court. So I'm like,
37:21
Speaker 1: this is it. You know, I'm gone. I'm about to
37:23
Speaker 1: get out the day before I'm about to go to
37:25
Speaker 1: court for that. I'm on my tier in my cell
37:29
Speaker 1: right at the time, I was called a tear rep
37:31
Speaker 1: in a prison, which is basically I'm in charge of,
37:33
Speaker 1: you know, stuff on a tier, making sure everything goes right.
37:36
Speaker 1: They had two officers that came down there. They had
37:38
Speaker 1: a guy that yelled something out the gate. And I
37:41
Speaker 1: had been talking to one of the officers because he
37:42
Speaker 1: used to work in my court section, and He's asking
37:45
Speaker 1: me what's going on my case, and so I'm telling
37:47
Speaker 1: him like, yeah, man, I'm about to get out. I
37:48
Speaker 1: go to court tomorrow. They saying they're gonna drop and
37:50
Speaker 1: give me credit for time serve. I'm about to go home. Well,
37:52
Speaker 1: the other officer hears him saying that. He comes over
37:55
Speaker 1: there and calls me to come back there. Ask me
37:58
Speaker 1: who was the guy who just yells I, man, I
38:00
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, you don't tell on people. You know,
38:02
Speaker 1: that's that's just a rule. It's just you know, you're
38:04
Speaker 1: not supposed to tell on another man. So he takes
38:07
Speaker 1: me out. They bring me in a closet and lock
38:09
Speaker 1: me in there, beat the dog shit out of me.
38:12
Speaker 1: Says I know you're supposed to go home tomorrow. I
38:15
Speaker 1: want you to hit me back so I can rebook you.
38:16
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure you're never go home. In my mind,
38:19
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like this is my test. I'm like, you
38:21
Speaker 1: know what I said, I don't even want to hit
38:23
Speaker 1: you. You're not even worth it. I said, you don't even
38:25
Speaker 1: hit hard enough to make me hit you. All I
38:27
Speaker 1: want is my freedom. I don't care what you do
38:29
Speaker 1: to me. I'm going home tomorrow. Beat the dog shit
38:32
Speaker 1: out of me. It's in my medical you know, they
38:34
Speaker 1: send me to medical or whatever. I didn't have any
38:36
Speaker 1: right up. I didn't even do anything wrong. They just
38:37
Speaker 1: did it because they thought I was about to get out,
38:39
Speaker 1: and they were trying to get me to get another charge.
38:41
Speaker 1: I go to court the next day. They changed prosecutors again,
38:45
Speaker 1: and this time the one that comes on my case says,
38:46
Speaker 1: no deals, We're taking them to trial again. So now
38:50
Speaker 1: I got my hopes up again. This is September two
38:54
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and now I'm just like but I'm like,
38:59
Speaker 1: I can't give up because I feel like, I know
39:01
Speaker 1: this conviction didn't get overturned for nothing. So in my mind,
39:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, well we're gonna go to trialing
39:06
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna call my code defendant and understand this
39:09
Speaker 1: time he's gonna come testifying front the jury. And they
39:11
Speaker 1: got this same police officer who's saying he's gonna, you know,
39:14
Speaker 1: he's gonna testify and say what he saw. So I'm
39:17
Speaker 1: getting ready preparations to go to trial again. I was
39:19
Speaker 1: supposed to go to trial November of two thousand and eight.
39:22
Speaker 1: Two days before I'm supposed to go to trial, I
39:25
Speaker 1: have a meet with my attorney. She's literally in tears
39:32
Speaker 1: begging me to take a plea Barkin, and I'm telling him,
39:36
Speaker 1: you know, man, I just I just I don't want
39:38
Speaker 1: to give up. You know, I feel like we fought
39:40
Speaker 1: all this, you know, we got it going. I'm innocent.
39:42
Speaker 1: She's like, I know you're an innocent thing. She's like,
39:44
Speaker 1: but I'm telling you right now it's your word and
39:46
Speaker 1: your friend's word against a cop, and I don't believe
39:49
Speaker 1: that they're gonna believe y'all. She's like, listen, I've been
39:51
Speaker 1: doing this a long time. She's like, I'm just telling you.
39:54
Speaker 1: It's a gut instinct. I have them. She's like, if
39:56
Speaker 1: you go to trial again, I think you're gonna get
39:58
Speaker 1: convicted again. She's like, you need to take this plea.
40:00
Speaker 1: Please take this plea. So I thought about it. I
40:03
Speaker 1: thought he about it. I fought with it. I said,
40:05
Speaker 1: all right, I take the plea. The plea bargain they
40:07
Speaker 1: offered me was I plead guilty to manslaughter. Right. They
40:11
Speaker 1: put a cap on it at fifteen years, and leave
40:13
Speaker 1: it up to my judge to sentence me to say,
40:16
Speaker 1: you know what she's gonna sentence me to. They're gonna
40:19
Speaker 1: do a pre sentenced investigation, you know, look into my background,
40:22
Speaker 1: looking to my housing, you know, talk to me. The
40:24
Speaker 1: probation people, come talk to me all this and leave
40:26
Speaker 1: it up to the judge who's giving me two new
40:28
Speaker 1: trials on what she's gonna give me. So I'm thinking, okay,
40:31
Speaker 1: you know I should be all right, I should at
40:33
Speaker 1: least get out on this right go to court. When
40:37
Speaker 1: I go to court from my sentence and they have
40:39
Speaker 1: a man in there who they're saying, is that the
40:41
Speaker 1: guy who was killed? They're saying it was his father.
40:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you about this. This is crazy. I
40:46
Speaker 1: still to this day don't believe this was this guy's dad.
40:49
Speaker 3: Actor.
40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have the same name. I don't even
40:53
Speaker 1: believe he could tell you what the guy looks like.
40:54
Speaker 1: They put him on the stand. He gets up there
40:57
Speaker 1: and says, I've had two heart attacks and a stroke
40:59
Speaker 1: since my un died. The family can't get over it.
41:01
Speaker 1: We're so hurt, heartbroken. He needs to be in prison
41:05
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. Why are y'all considering
41:07
Speaker 1: letting him out?
41:08
Speaker 3: He didn't say, we really miss a convicted murdering major
41:12
Speaker 3: heroin dealing.
41:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so check this out.
41:17
Speaker 3: He say that he made it sound like it was
41:18
Speaker 3: a choir boy exactly.
41:20
Speaker 1: So my attorney says, well, sir, all due respect to
41:24
Speaker 1: you and your family. All due respect to what y'all lost.
41:26
Speaker 1: Your son was convicted of manslaughter. Also, he served six years.
41:31
Speaker 1: You felt like that was an adequate sentence for him.
41:34
Speaker 1: Why are you so opposed to this man getting the
41:36
Speaker 1: same amount of time for the time that your son
41:38
Speaker 1: did for the same crime. My son's never been in
41:41
Speaker 1: jail before in his life. Everybody looks, even the DA
41:44
Speaker 1: looks like they're like, oh shit, we're busted. My son's
41:47
Speaker 1: never been in jail before. I don't know what y'all
41:49
Speaker 1: talking about. You don't know your son was in prison
41:51
Speaker 1: for six years. You don't know your son was arrested
41:53
Speaker 1: for murder. Do you know who they even talking about
41:56
Speaker 1: right now? Who the fuck are you, dude? What are
41:58
Speaker 1: you even doing here? So the judge gets mad, She says,
42:00
Speaker 1: you know what, We're not going to go through this
42:02
Speaker 1: line of question. You're badgering this witness. They stayed objects
42:04
Speaker 1: to it. They say, you don't have to answer that, sir,
42:07
Speaker 1: and he's adamant. My son was never in jail. My
42:09
Speaker 1: son was never in jail. It was some crackhead looking
42:12
Speaker 1: dude off the street. I don't know if they told
42:14
Speaker 1: him that I killed his son and it was somebody else.
42:17
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was just an actor. I
42:18
Speaker 1: don't know what the story was, but this didn't make
42:20
Speaker 1: any fucking sense. Wow, he gets off the stand. The
42:25
Speaker 1: judge's mad. She gives me fifteen years. So now, even
42:29
Speaker 1: the parole officer who came and talked to me, who
42:32
Speaker 1: did the pre sense investigation, told me his recommendation was
42:35
Speaker 1: no more than ten years, but he didn't feel like
42:37
Speaker 1: it was necessary to keep me in any longer. He
42:40
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a problem with me getting credit for Tom
42:42
Speaker 1: sertin getting out. Not only did she disregard that, Now
42:46
Speaker 1: I gotta go through another seven years in prison before
42:48
Speaker 1: I can get.
42:49
Speaker 3: Out this story, ladies and gentlemen, his I don't even
42:53
Speaker 3: know what to say.
42:54
Speaker 4: I don't have the right words. You know.
43:08
Speaker 3: One of the reasons that I really wanted to have
43:12
Speaker 3: you on the show is that we are in the
43:16
Speaker 3: midst of a lot of different crises in the criminal
43:19
Speaker 3: justice system in America right now, but one of them
43:22
Speaker 3: is something called the guilty plea problem. And people don't
43:27
Speaker 3: realize that ninety five percent of the felony convictions in
43:31
Speaker 3: the United States are obtained through guilty. Police on a
43:34
Speaker 3: much more mundane level on much lesser crimes than dealing
43:38
Speaker 3: with lesser sentences. Every day, all day in all these
43:41
Speaker 3: courts in the country, tens of thousands of people every
43:44
Speaker 3: day are faced with the same problem that you had,
43:47
Speaker 3: which is their attorney. And here in New Orleans we
43:50
Speaker 3: know that last year there were fifty two public defenders
43:53
Speaker 3: who dealt with twenty thousand cases. Do the math. So
43:58
Speaker 3: a lot of those public defenders who are underpaid, overworked,
44:03
Speaker 3: that's madness, that's anarchy. So these people who are doing
44:08
Speaker 3: something that I could only say is noble, are out
44:11
Speaker 3: there every day, happened to meet with their clients, sometimes
44:14
Speaker 3: for the first time on the day of their trial
44:16
Speaker 3: and say to them, to the next Daniel, listen, the
44:19
Speaker 3: best thing for you to do is plea guilty. And
44:22
Speaker 3: that person, that kid is going but them innocent. They're going,
44:25
Speaker 3: I know, but they're going to throw the book at you.
44:28
Speaker 3: And so we are filling the prisons in jails with
44:33
Speaker 3: people who are innocent. Because of the fact that our
44:37
Speaker 3: public defender system is broken, as well as the rest
44:40
Speaker 3: of the system, the scales of justice are so tilted
44:44
Speaker 3: in the favor of the prosecution. You were playing. Actually
44:47
Speaker 3: the highest stakes game of poker than anybody ever played,
44:52
Speaker 3: other than the death sentence, because you had to either
44:56
Speaker 3: put all your cars on the table and literally bet
44:58
Speaker 3: your life, literally bet your life, and you would be
45:01
Speaker 3: betting against a dealer that you know cheats.
45:04
Speaker 4: Yeah.
45:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know they're hiding cards and there's nothing I
45:07
Speaker 1: can do about them cheating.
45:08
Speaker 3: And this was your last year.
45:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what the attorneys tell you. They told
45:11
Speaker 1: it to me, and I've heard I hear them say
45:13
Speaker 1: it all the time because I work at criminal court.
45:15
Speaker 1: Now it's like, do you want to take a chance
45:17
Speaker 1: with the rest of your life? Yeah, you may be innocent,
45:19
Speaker 1: you might not have done this crime, but look at
45:21
Speaker 1: what you're facing. If this jury doesn't happen to believe you,
45:25
Speaker 1: if they win, this is what you're gonna have. So
45:28
Speaker 1: do you want to take that chance and think you're
45:30
Speaker 1: gonna win? Or do you want to take this lesser
45:31
Speaker 1: of two evils and at least know that you're getting
45:34
Speaker 1: out one day or know what your fate.
45:37
Speaker 3: Is gonna be because the work you're doing now it's fantastic.
45:39
Speaker 3: Tell us about that.
45:40
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it's kind of twofold. I work for
45:43
Speaker 1: a criminal court now actually ironically the same criminal court
45:47
Speaker 1: where I was convicted of second agree murder, which in
45:50
Speaker 1: Louisiana is a mandatory life sentence, mandatory life, mandatory life.
45:54
Speaker 3: And that's my first degree murder.
45:55
Speaker 1: No, no, no, sir, that's second degree, second degree. I am
45:58
Speaker 1: now the one of the cases managers for a re
46:01
Speaker 1: entry program, which is a program that was instituted by
46:04
Speaker 1: Judge Lurid White. It's an alternative to long term incarceration
46:08
Speaker 1: for drug offenders and people who you know, have been
46:11
Speaker 1: convicted maybe a few times for selling drugs, burglary, stuff
46:15
Speaker 1: like that. As of now, the program has no quote
46:17
Speaker 1: unquote violent offenders in it. These guys in Louisiana. There
46:21
Speaker 1: are men right now in Louisiana State Penitentiary who've been
46:23
Speaker 1: there since the seventies and the eighties.
46:25
Speaker 3: For heroin drugs, just drugs, no violence.
46:28
Speaker 1: No violence, none whatsoever. And most of them is very
46:31
Speaker 1: small amounts of drugs, less than a gram, less than
46:34
Speaker 1: an ounce.
46:35
Speaker 3: I really admire the work that you're doing, thank you.
46:37
Speaker 3: And it's really typical of the exenrees that have been
46:41
Speaker 3: on the show and the group of exguneries' ex Hoonnery
46:44
Speaker 3: Nation at large that you are devoting yourself to helping
46:49
Speaker 3: other people. Yes, sir, it's so interesting that the group
46:52
Speaker 3: of people that you could say are the most wronged
46:54
Speaker 3: by society of anyone are the ones who are contributing
46:57
Speaker 3: almost more to society as a group than any other group.
47:01
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
47:02
Speaker 3: And now you have to wear that scarlet letter. You're
47:05
Speaker 3: not technically an exonery even though you're innocent. And in
47:11
Speaker 3: eighty four percent of the DNA exoneration plea cases, the
47:15
Speaker 3: alternate perpetrator was identified. So you had somebody who pleaded
47:20
Speaker 3: guilty and was proven innocent, and the altual perpetrator was
47:23
Speaker 3: later identified. So there's in case there was ever any
47:26
Speaker 3: doubt about the depth of the problem, the series is
47:29
Speaker 3: the problem, and about the fact that it happens. There
47:31
Speaker 3: you go and in your case, it's actually that's sort
47:34
Speaker 3: of a similar case too, even though it's not a
47:35
Speaker 3: DNA case. But the actual perpetrator was right there going, hey,
47:38
Speaker 3: look at me, I'm the guy. I mean, that would
47:40
Speaker 3: seem to be pretty strong evidence for any court to
47:43
Speaker 3: look at. But you know, look, the fact is you're here,
47:47
Speaker 3: You somehow or other survived. Let's just let's just look
47:51
Speaker 3: back at this for a second. Of what we've discussed
47:53
Speaker 3: over the last hour. You survived a shootout, a corrupt
47:58
Speaker 3: system that wanted to put you away for the rest
48:00
Speaker 3: of your life for something that they knew they you
48:01
Speaker 3: didn't do, a hurricane, a flood, almost being roasted to death,
48:06
Speaker 3: almost dying of smoke inhalation, being shot at, being stabbed,
48:11
Speaker 3: being beaten. Did we mention almost dying of thirst? I
48:14
Speaker 3: think we left that one out. Then you survived the
48:18
Speaker 3: worst prison in the worst criminal justice system in the
48:21
Speaker 3: western world, and another series of trials that were rigged
48:27
Speaker 3: against you with an eighth grade education, just to sum
48:31
Speaker 3: up one more time, and then from somewhere in the
48:36
Speaker 3: depths of your consciousness or subconscious you pulled an obscure
48:44
Speaker 3: legal doctrine right statute that I've never heard of that
48:50
Speaker 3: I would bet if we went to Stanford Law School
48:53
Speaker 3: right now and whipped that out, they'd be like, everybody
48:55
Speaker 3: be scrambling for their textbooks, Like, what the that you
49:00
Speaker 3: managed to get yourself free? What the hell can I say?
49:04
Speaker 3: You have all my respect, and I think it's incredible
49:06
Speaker 3: that you're here sharing the story, and I think there's
49:09
Speaker 3: a lot more that we have to do together. Because
49:12
Speaker 3: there's a lot of messages here. It's gonna take me
49:13
Speaker 3: a while to process this. All I can do now
49:16
Speaker 3: is ask you, is there any final thought that you
49:20
Speaker 3: would like to share with the audience before we sign on?
49:23
Speaker 1: I guess you know. My biggest thing that I tell
49:25
Speaker 1: people ever did is you never know what you can
49:26
Speaker 1: deal with until you don't have a choice, no matter
49:28
Speaker 1: what's going on in your life. You know, whether you're
49:30
Speaker 1: listening to this and you're dealing with cancer, you're dealing
49:33
Speaker 1: with incarceration, are you dealing with the loss of someone
49:35
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with, you know, a loss of a job,
49:38
Speaker 1: or there just anything in your life. It seems like
49:39
Speaker 1: it's insurmountable. If you still have breath in your body,
49:42
Speaker 1: you can still fighting and you can still win. Don't
49:45
Speaker 1: give up on.
49:46
Speaker 3: Yourself, don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever
49:54
Speaker 3: you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a
49:58
Speaker 3: proud donor to the Innocis and I really hope you'll
50:01
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
50:04
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocentsproject dot org
50:09
Speaker 3: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
50:11
Speaker 3: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
50:15
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
50:17
Speaker 3: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
50:20
Speaker 3: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
50:25
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava
50:28
Speaker 3: for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one