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From Wrongful Conviction to Freedom: Duane Williams' Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:11
  nightmares to set yourself free. We're going to be exploring this
• 0:14
  topic with guys that was in Leavenworth with and others who
• 0:17
  survived their own nightmare. These stories can be inspiring,
• 0:21
  sometimes sad. There's some humor, but
• 0:25
  hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something that'll
• 0:27
  help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
• 0:30
  mind. All right, welcome back.
• 0:34
  Now I'm a success in and out. Listeners, this is where you
• 0:36
  come from. What happens when your worst
• 0:38
  fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:40
  overcome, set yourself free? Hey, folks, don't forget to
• 0:43
  subscribe and follow and share and all that good stuff.
• 0:46
  It helps the show. OK, so I've got one of those
• 0:51
  stories that, you know, takes your breath away, I think.
• 0:54
  And I was just telling my guest, Dwayne Williams, that I, I think
• 0:58
  it's everybody's worst nightmare because what happened to Dwayne
• 1:03
  is something he didn't do. And it changed his whole life.
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  And I'm going to, I'm going to lead you through what I just
• 1:10
  took out in the Metro Times. And I thought their lead in was,
• 1:15
  was good just to take you through a nightmare that
• 1:17
  happened to somebody in their home.
• 1:20
  He woke up craving a smoke. It was about 2:00 AM.
• 1:24
  March 5th, 2013, when Dwayne Williams opened his eyes to the
• 1:30
  darkness of the home he shared with his wife and family.
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  In his grogginess he grabbed a cigarette, then searched for a
• 1:37
  lighter but never found one. Out of fatigue and frustration
• 1:41
  he decided to go back to sleep. Next thing he knew heard a bunch
• 1:45
  of people in the house calling his name.
• 1:48
  He was pretty sure the voices belonged to police, but he
• 1:51
  didn't know why they were there. Hearing officers walk in One
• 1:55
  Direction, then another, he he soon saw all the guns on him.
• 2:01
  His wife, Kathy, stirred awake, barely comprehending what in the
• 2:05
  world was going on behind the side of deadly weapons.
• 2:08
  Williams says that he surrendered politely, asking the
• 2:11
  officers to take him from the house, hoping to keep Kathy out
• 2:13
  of harm's way. At that moment, Dwayne Williams
• 2:18
  had no idea what was going on in his life.
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  I was getting ready to change his whole life.
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  He gets handcuffed, he gets taken out.
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  There's barricades, there's everything.
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  So as it all goes, this is a Michigan story and I've had
• 2:31
  people on here that there's a, there's a, it's called the Wayne
• 2:38
  County Prosecutor's Office Integrity Unit.
• 2:42
  And I think they've freed over like 3536 people.
• 2:46
  And I could be wrong on that, but that's, that's the last
• 2:48
  number I I know. And the reason why they they
• 2:51
  started that unit is because they had a bunch of problem
• 2:53
  cases that they wanted to go back and look at with old
• 2:57
  investigators, attorneys and just more or less reinvestigate
• 3:05
  these cases to see if they've made mistakes.
• 3:07
  And out of those, there was 343536 people that freed.
• 3:11
  Dwayne Williams is one of those people.
• 3:13
  And with the help of the Integrity Unit, the Cooley
• 3:18
  Innocence Project, clemency investigations, the state
• 3:23
  appellant defender's office, he got freed in June.
• 3:30
  He's still standing on the fact that you know that he's his his
• 3:34
  case has he's out, but he's still having his set on the fact
• 3:39
  that the prosecutors could try to retry him and he's going to
• 3:42
  find out. He's supposed to find out today.
• 3:45
  He has another hearing September 16th.
• 3:47
  But the case, you know, what's interesting about this case is
• 3:50
  because there's all, there's always like a common thread that
• 3:52
  runs through it. And you know what?
• 3:55
  The evidence that was used to convict Dwayne featured the all
• 4:01
  too common things that happened in wrong, wrongful convictions,
• 4:06
  like an unreliable jailhouse informant.
• 4:09
  Those are never I, I there's so many times that that's just
• 4:12
  never a good thing. Also, this jailhouse informant
• 4:16
  ends up to lessen his, his, the pain of his sentence.
• 4:22
  He gets paid $5000. As this all comes about, there
• 4:28
  was evidence that wasn't wasn't given over to the defense.
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  And this, this is one of those topics that I and we always talk
• 4:35
  about. There should be something where
• 4:38
  all the evidence is open, where everybody can review everything
• 4:42
  that everybody has. Not that you rely on one side to
• 4:45
  give the other side what they have because there's just too
• 4:48
  much that can happen in that. And so many times when you have
• 4:51
  these wrongful convictions, that is what happens.
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  The right information doesn't get over into the right hands.
• 4:57
  It gets held back. But in the other thing was, is
• 5:00
  the medical examiner said this is an accident, that this was
• 5:04
  somebody that was smoking on a on a couch, sofa and a caught
• 5:07
  fire. And then that person changed his
• 5:10
  testimony after they talked to the prosecutors.
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  And this, there's just time after time, there are things
• 5:15
  that happened in this that make for a a wrongful conviction.
• 5:21
  I can't wait to jump into all this and talk to Dwayne Williams
• 5:25
  about this before we do when we recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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  Auto Plaza Direct. Tell them Brent from Nightmare
• 6:01
  Success sent you Dwayne Williams man, have you been on a journey
• 6:05
  lately? You you got released.
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  What was the date in June you got released?
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  Uh, June 18th. June 18th.
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  So we're really only talking about weeks.
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  Really. Yeah, it did.
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  It hasn't. Been and you were in, you were
• 6:18
  in for 11 years, is that correct?
• 6:21
  Yeah, if you count county jail time I was in.
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  I would count county jail time because that's one of the worst
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  time. That's right.
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  So, so that put me at, uh, 12 years, three months.
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  Wow, what a ride. What a ride.
• 6:37
  Well, I wanted, I wanted to kind of lead up to this moment, but
• 6:44
  take us back a little bit, Dwayne.
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  What? What was going, how in your
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  world growing up? What was your life growing up as
• 6:50
  a kid? I mean, I grew up in Detroit.
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  I don't know if if that's I'll explain what that means.
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  I mean, it means it, it's kind of a, a rough city to some
• 7:04
  degree. A lot of times, even when you're
• 7:07
  younger, you start to like, I guess when I was younger
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  stealing cars, but more more more so selling drugs and things
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  like that. Just typical urban.
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  Well, I guess it's typical urban living, and I mean, I never.
• 7:28
  Don't you think, Dwayne? I mean, I've talked to a lot of
• 7:30
  guys that are in that world, you know, that that neighborhood,
• 7:35
  You know, I think from what I've understood about growing up in
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  that world as a kid, a young kid, you're impressionable.
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  You see people that you admire and those people who you admire
• 7:45
  that the older kids, they're doing things and you kind of get
• 7:51
  into the same things that they're doing because that is
• 7:53
  kind of what the cool older kids are doing and actually don't
• 7:58
  know much different because that is your neighborhood, that is
• 8:00
  your block, that is your world. And I think that's part of, you
• 8:06
  know, what do you know, as a like at your age, when did you
• 8:11
  start seeing things that you thought maybe might not be the
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  right things? I mean, maybe I don't know where
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  when I could really recognize maybe five or six.
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  But in two you got to throw in the fact that when you you see
• 8:24
  and all that stuff, you don't really know what to do.
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  But then again to some of that stuff might put a little bit of
• 8:29
  money in your pocket so that that even pushes you further in
• 8:33
  that direction. Yeah, so.
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  Siblings, mom, dad. What was that like?
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  I grew up, I really, I live with my with my grandmother.
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  My father wasn't really around my mother, she kind of like had
• 8:48
  a well has a drinking problem. So I didn't leave.
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  No, no siblings were there because it was just I was just
• 8:56
  with my grandparents, but they tried to do it when I tried to.
• 9:01
  They did a lot for me, raised me right.
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  Unfortunately, I guess I just kind of went in the wrong
• 9:05
  direction. But I think too, it might have
• 9:07
  had something to do with the fact that some of the things
• 9:12
  that were going on with my mother and father not being
• 9:14
  there. So I probably had a lot of stuff
• 9:16
  built in. They tried to do the right thing
• 9:18
  and raise me right. But I think that because being a
• 9:21
  kid, not knowing how to handle those feelings or whatever,
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  maybe, you know, get in trouble. Yeah, no, I mean, I could
• 9:27
  definitely see that. I mean, if you got mom and dad
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  and you don't have a normal relationship with mom and dad,
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  there's all kinds of feelings that go into that as a kid.
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  I mean, kid doesn't know anything except, hey, mom and
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  dad's not around, you know, I've, how do I figure?
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  How do I figure that out? I mean, you, you don't know how
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  to figure it out. You just deal with it.
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  So what, what was your school life like?
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  Were you, did you, did you have like a normal like grade school,
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  high school? Did you drop out?
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  What, what? What happened in that world?
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  I think up until about the 6th, 7th grade, I got good grades.
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  So yeah, around the 8th grade, this is when I kind of started
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  hanging with the wrong crowd. But I, you know, of course, I
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  finished the 8th grade. So I, I, I went to 9th grade for
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  a while, but then, you know, started doing other things and
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  that was that. But now I got to say this
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  though, if I talk about the past and it was bad, now I got some
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  college. I was just before I left prison
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  was enrolled in the Calvin College program.
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  So even though it it started off bad, it's ending good.
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  Yeah, that's good. I mean, it's good.
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  You can find that too. And I, I read, Dwayne, that you
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  kind of got into rapping. What?
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  What when was, when did was that in like your teenage years?
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  Like what? What?
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  When did all that happen? Well, I guess.
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  Are you always doing it? Yeah, there you go.
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  That's what I was about to say. The thing with that is that God
• 11:01
  gave me a talent. So what?
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  Even when I was young, I would write poems and like poetry.
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  And so then all of a sudden I figured I learned that I could
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  rap. And from the time I was 13 till,
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  I guess you could say now, even though I don't do a lot of
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  rapping now, but I mean, it's just a talent that God gave me.
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  So I realized that I could do it kind of young.
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  I started like really trying to do it like writing songs
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  together. I actually recorded the first
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  thing I recorded. I was either 13 or 14.
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  I was in a boys home and one of the staff members there did
• 11:37
  music he brought. I don't even, I guess you would
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  call it some type of studio way back then.
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  It was totally different than what you would need now.
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  But anyway, he brought that in and I recorded the song.
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  And then over the years, I kind of would be in and out of the
• 11:53
  music thing, meet a few people. And eventually what ended up
• 11:57
  happening was I connected with a, a, a manager and through some
• 12:05
  of his business dealings, I ended up starting to do shows
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  all over America. I.
• 12:13
  Saw that? Yep, doing songs with people
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  like Lupe Fiasco, Swift from Luke Well and then eventually.
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  You were Diablo, right? That's right.
• 12:23
  That's right. But in eventually T Pain's
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  brother started to help manage me.
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  So. OK, so then what was that?
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  You know, for those, for those who don't know, what is that
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  like out there? Like what, what is that What,
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  you know, getting into that world, the rap world, the, the,
• 12:39
  the music world, What, what's that like as a as a younger guy?
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  It's, it's, it's, it's kind of wild, really.
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  Yeah, like the one thing man, I got a water over there.
• 12:53
  Sorry about that. That's all right.
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  Yeah, I don't know what I did with it.
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  Oh, I got it. But I think it's kind of wild.
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  And the one thing that I can always understand now, I can
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  understand when you hear about the entertainer, like passing
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  out on the stage because they having ate or slept, it's kind
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  of like just a party. You go to one city and when you
• 13:21
  get to that city, everybody wants to smoke with you, drink
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  with you. Not necessarily.
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  Well, yeah, me too, but everybody want to smoke with
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  you, drink with you. Then you go to do the
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  performance. Then it's an after party and by
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  the time you leave that city, you haven't really slept.
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  Then you get to the next city and then start over again.
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  So it used to be times where I would just forget to eat.
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  So I understand when somebody passes out or something is just
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  so, so hectic and so much part. They haven't eaten, they haven't
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  slept and they're just, they just collapse.
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  Yeah, so the answer is why but. That sounds wild and fun.
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  So, so you were kind of in and out of that.
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  You're kind of in and out of that.
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  So would that lead you through the time in your 20s?
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  Was that something? Yeah.
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  Well, actually, and then when, believe it or not, when things
• 14:21
  started taking off for me, it was I was a little older and one
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  of the problems that that, that, that that I had was I was on
• 14:33
  parole and you couldn't leave. I can't leave the state of
• 14:36
  course what I have. I read this.
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  Yeah, I had to leave the state to make money, so I never
• 14:42
  committed any crime. I had to violate parole only to
• 14:45
  make money. I never could leave.
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  I mean, I never committed a crime, never did anything wrong,
• 14:50
  never around any criminals being a upstanding citizen, except for
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  I can't make my money unless I leave.
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  So I will eventually. Of course, like always, they
• 15:01
  caught me. How did they, how did that
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  happen, Dwayne? Like, so let's say you had a
• 15:08
  gig, you went, you went to Oklahoma or you whatever,
• 15:10
  wherever you went, you went to do your job.
• 15:15
  I'm assuming you weren't like on a ankle monitor.
• 15:19
  Just I'm just assuming that how did they track that down?
• 15:23
  I'm always curious about like how how did they know that you
• 15:26
  were out of state? Well, to.
• 15:29
  Violate you? Yeah, yeah.
• 15:30
  Actually they didn't know what happened, but all they with the
• 15:33
  violation was basically because I stopped reporting.
• 15:36
  It never came back. They didn't have any idea where
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  I was. But it was funny because I had
• 15:41
  just got back from, I think Colorado.
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  I was about to go to Florida and I remember I was happy because I
• 15:48
  had my first California. So I was doing a, a, a All Star
• 15:52
  game for for some sponsors celebrity All Star game.
• 15:58
  That's what it was performing. So my first time in California,
• 16:03
  I stopped somewhere not doing nothing wrong, right, right.
• 16:07
  And the police pull up and my manager had like 2530 thousand.
• 16:13
  If not, the problem is we in some projects in the city close
• 16:17
  to Detroit, but I'm just stopping there to pick up a
• 16:20
  shirt, a shirt that I didn't even really need but make a long
• 16:23
  story story. The police pull up, my manager
• 16:26
  got like 25,000 cash in his pocket.
• 16:29
  So now this is a problem. And now they want to know my
• 16:32
  name too. And so that was that.
• 16:35
  It was out of my name. It was all over with so.
• 16:38
  Wow, so how how long did you have to go in with the
• 16:41
  violation? Well, I went in, luckily I only
• 16:45
  did seven months, but when I got out, I decided that instead of
• 16:51
  running, I was going to try to do it the right way.
• 16:53
  So I went to my parole officer, let him know what I do, have
• 16:56
  some people come in and meet with them that MDLC gave me
• 16:59
  permission to do so, but my parole officer had to approve it
• 17:03
  when I had a parole officer who didn't like me, never approved
• 17:07
  anything. So basically I for two years I
• 17:10
  couldn't do so which like. He basically shut down your
• 17:14
  business. Exactly, Cute, cute, cute.
• 17:16
  Everything I was doing as far as like the way I would make my
• 17:19
  money, but and I just got off of that parole like right before
• 17:23
  this happened right before. That's what I read.
• 17:27
  I mean, the, the timing of all this is is crazy that that's
• 17:33
  what it looked like you had gotten off parole.
• 17:36
  You're doing your thing, taking the kids to school, kind of
• 17:39
  living the, the dad married life and boom, walk us through the
• 17:50
  nightmare. Dwayne, how in the world is what
• 17:53
  I mean? I, I read a little bit about
• 17:55
  this. I, I, but tell me what was going
• 17:57
  through your mind when this happened?
• 17:59
  They come in your house. It's the middle of the night.
• 18:01
  It was 2:00 in the morning. You have no idea that there's
• 18:05
  any investigation going on whatsoever.
• 18:07
  The one thing I didn't add was is that the person who died in
• 18:10
  the in the house, I think his name was Sims.
• 18:15
  He was dating your mom, is that was that the connection?
• 18:20
  It was, it was actually, it was two people and the other, the
• 18:24
  other gentleman, Mr. Cross, was dating my mother.
• 18:27
  Was dating your mom OK, so there was a connection of just that
• 18:31
  that they if they were trying to make any connection whatsoever,
• 18:36
  you were connected because your mom was dating someone that was
• 18:39
  in that house. Right, right.
• 18:41
  But an investigation have been going on for about a year that
• 18:44
  happened about a year before they they invaded your house,
• 18:47
  correct? Yeah, well, actually there was
• 18:50
  no investigation going on because the fire wasn't
• 18:53
  classified as a crime in the deaths were accidents.
• 18:56
  So there was no investigation going on.
• 19:01
  Seven months, six months later, when Jennings comes forward and
• 19:05
  sees what he says, this is what causes them.
• 19:08
  Unfortunately, he, he, the police officers that he talked
• 19:11
  to was crooked. Let's just say I'm just going to
• 19:15
  say that he was crooked. And so this is a guy who wanted
• 19:17
  to make a case out of nothing and he moved forward with,
• 19:21
  Jennings said. Even though he knows there's no
• 19:22
  reason to. OK, so they they you get this
• 19:27
  surprise invasion of the house, guns drawn, take you out of the
• 19:32
  house, take you to the police station.
• 19:36
  What happens? I get to the police that I
• 19:41
  remember that the US Marshals, that's who arrested me, I
• 19:45
  remember they wouldn't talk to me.
• 19:46
  When I got to the police station, the detective came in
• 19:49
  and once he started asking me questions, I knew what the
• 19:51
  situation was about. So basically I just told him the
• 19:54
  truth. I told him where I was.
• 19:59
  Did I? I didn't know anything about the
• 20:01
  fire. I wasn't there.
• 20:02
  I told him where I was. I didn't have no reason.
• 20:05
  Not. To I think you said you're at
• 20:07
  home watching videos, movies or something with the family or the
• 20:11
  kids or something like that. Was that what the situation was?
• 20:14
  No, no, no, no. I was, I was kind of like in
• 20:17
  transit going from one place to another, OK, But it was people
• 20:21
  who when I left the one place, people when I got to the other
• 20:24
  place. But the problem came in and
• 20:27
  after I talked to this investigator, I asked him, I
• 20:30
  said, so you know what? You think you going to go?
• 20:33
  You're going to go make sure, verify my story.
• 20:35
  And he told me no. And, and he meant it, I guess,
• 20:39
  when he said no, he said he meant no.
• 20:42
  And so they didn't verify my story.
• 20:44
  They didn't verify Jenny's story because again, they were just
• 20:48
  focused on the conviction. And they had me in that room and
• 20:52
  they they was going to make it work one way or the other.
• 20:55
  Did you ever think in that moment that maybe I shouldn't
• 20:59
  say anything? And I had, I asked for an
• 21:01
  attorney because these guys are coming down on me.
• 21:03
  But you felt like that What the, the, because they don't like
• 21:08
  that when you ask for an attorney, they want to keep you
• 21:11
  talking and so they can get all that down.
• 21:13
  Did did any of that ever happen when you were in there being
• 21:16
  interrogated? I think I better say this then
• 21:22
  they always say it's best not to talk to the police.
• 21:25
  And I'm going to push that too, because I I believe that it is
• 21:29
  best. Now, I told them the truth and
• 21:32
  my statement didn't hurt me at all.
• 21:35
  As a matter of fact, they didn't even like in my trial, they
• 21:38
  didn't even show the interrogation.
• 21:41
  And but with that, with that allowed to happen, was for the
• 21:44
  officer to get on the stand and lie and say that it said I said
• 21:49
  a lot of incorporatory things that I never said.
• 21:52
  But yeah, I would, I would advise people not to talk to the
• 21:55
  police even when you tell them the truth, you know, talk to
• 21:58
  your lawyer. So yeah.
• 22:00
  Yeah. Well, because you don't know,
• 22:02
  you know, you just, you just don't know.
• 22:04
  And especially if they're if they're fingering you as the
• 22:07
  person, you're going to need a lot of help because of what you
• 22:12
  say, what you do might not be what you need at that moment.
• 22:16
  As far as that attorney gathering information about what
• 22:19
  they know, how they know it, when they knew it, who they knew
• 22:23
  it from all those things. And and you didn't know any of
• 22:26
  that at the moment that you were, so you get interrogated.
• 22:32
  What's the next step that happens to you?
• 22:37
  The next thing I, I went to the county Jay.
• 22:39
  Well, actually it's kind of funny.
• 22:42
  I'm, I'm just sitting in the, in the precinct and I'm, I'm, I'm
• 22:47
  waiting to leave and I well, well, I'm waiting to see what's
• 22:50
  going on. And I remember I had been there
• 22:54
  maybe four days and I remember the the uniformed officers
• 22:59
  because the homicide at this time, the Detroit Police
• 23:03
  Department had their homicide unit in the second precinct.
• 23:06
  So supervisor for the regular patrol officers, he made a round
• 23:11
  through the lock up part. And I remember him making around
• 23:14
  and looking at me and telling and saying, hey, you still here?
• 23:17
  I told him, yeah, I'm still here.
• 23:19
  He said, well, hold on a minute because I'm about to listen.
• 23:21
  I guess the, the time period that he could hold me, but
• 23:24
  actually it was no, it was already expired, already
• 23:27
  expired. And he, he told me when I'm
• 23:31
  about to go to talk to the, the, the supervisor homicide and find
• 23:35
  out what's going on with you because I got to let you go.
• 23:37
  And he came back with a funny look on his face, like telling
• 23:41
  me that they were going to arraign me.
• 23:43
  And they still didn't arraign me for another day.
• 23:46
  But so I get arraigned, go to the county jail, have my prelim
• 23:51
  at my prelim. This is because up until now, I
• 23:55
  don't really know what's going on.
• 23:57
  I don't know that anybody is lying on me.
• 23:59
  At some point, I do get my discovery and his names in the
• 24:03
  discovery, but I don't know the names.
• 24:06
  So once I get to my prelim and I see this particular name that
• 24:11
  I've been seeing in the paperwork and I see who it is, I
• 24:14
  see that it's Jennings because I, you know, I caught him by a
• 24:17
  street name. I never knew his real name.
• 24:20
  Well, I just couldn't. Believe it, when I saw this guy
• 24:22
  walk up on the stand and then even worse to listen to him say
• 24:26
  that I I, I told him some things that I didn't say and.
• 24:32
  This Jennings was a guy that you knew from.
• 24:35
  Was he also kind of in the rap world?
• 24:38
  Yeah, I guess, yeah. Yeah.
• 24:41
  He will record, record music. But he in his depositions with
• 24:50
  the prosecutor in court, he made it sound like, for instance, he
• 24:55
  told him that we he met me in the studio.
• 24:58
  I've never been in the studio with him.
• 25:00
  I met him like if you like you. Yeah.
• 25:03
  Obviously you saw the bench of Times, excuse me, the Metro
• 25:06
  Times article. I met him in A at a magazine
• 25:08
  release party. But in under, oh, in a soaring
• 25:11
  statement, which again, you it says clearly in the in, in in
• 25:15
  the transcript that if you lie, you face life in prison.
• 25:19
  He went. And I mean, I know this might
• 25:20
  not be material, but it's just the point.
• 25:22
  He's telling them that that we've been in the studio
• 25:24
  together five or six times and I've never been in the studio
• 25:27
  with this guy. But yeah, the way that I met him
• 25:29
  was like music related to at a party, right?
• 25:34
  How long does it take, Dwayne, from the time that all this
• 25:37
  happens? You get arraigned, they charge
• 25:40
  you to the point where you you're at a trial.
• 25:44
  Actually, I was surprised when I got arrested.
• 25:47
  I expected to be in the county probably 2 years at least.
• 25:51
  But they got me to trial basically pretty much in six
• 25:53
  months. So that's quick.
• 25:55
  Should be passed. Yeah, Yeah.
• 25:58
  What was? Your what kind of defense
• 26:03
  attorney did you have? Where did that come from?
• 26:06
  Well. He was court appointed but I had
• 26:10
  I had aunt who was going to give me a lawyer and she said that
• 26:15
  every time she asked around and people would ask who I had and
• 26:18
  they said and they told him who I had they would say well keep
• 26:21
  him. So she came back to me like they
• 26:23
  said he good, which so the problem with him was I think
• 26:29
  that he didn't listen to me. It took a, a, a while to, to to
• 26:35
  see it, but he basically wouldn't listen to me.
• 26:38
  He wouldn't he wouldn't talk to nobody.
• 26:42
  I, I really remember knowing it was a problem and he told me,
• 26:45
  I'm not talking to anybody in your family, but these are the
• 26:48
  people you need to talk to because we can tell you what
• 26:52
  happened. And also there were two other
• 26:55
  people who were important and he wouldn't, he never would go talk
• 26:59
  to them. So I pretty much knew I was in
• 27:01
  trouble with then, you know? Wow, that's.
• 27:05
  Your attorney, you are exactly, exactly.
• 27:08
  That's the guy that's. Defending you so you get into
• 27:11
  trial. I mean, your life is on the
• 27:14
  line. How's how?
• 27:17
  First of all, how long is the trial go?
• 27:20
  The trial was supposed to be the judge told the jury the trial
• 27:23
  would be two or three days. The trial ended up being maybe
• 27:28
  5-6 days over like 2 1/2 weeks so.
• 27:34
  It. Was.
• 27:36
  What were you thinking while the trial was going on?
• 27:39
  To tell you the truth, my problem was that after a while,
• 27:44
  it was so many lies being told. And I would write a question
• 27:48
  down to my attorney and I'll push it to him and he'll push it
• 27:51
  back. And so at a certain point, I
• 27:54
  kind of just stopped paying attention.
• 27:56
  I'm not, well, I'm not going to say I wasn't paying attention,
• 28:00
  but I kind of turned my back. I wasn't facing the witnesses
• 28:02
  anymore and I just was like frustration.
• 28:07
  Yeah, it's. Nothing is there's nothing I can
• 28:09
  do here. These people telling lies,
• 28:12
  nobody's challenging it. This guy isn't listening to me.
• 28:16
  The prosecutor, the lies that these people are telling are
• 28:21
  they fit a narrative that the prosecutor is is putting forth
• 28:26
  to the courtroom and that never happened.
• 28:30
  So really in my mind, I'm thinking it.
• 28:32
  So now here I am sitting in a, in a courtroom and in a trial
• 28:37
  for a double murder and in an arson.
• 28:40
  And the story that these people are telling never happened.
• 28:45
  So is it? And then there's other people
• 28:47
  now who are getting up on the stand and saying things and
• 28:50
  they, they're matching this narrative.
• 28:51
  And the more and more it went on, it was just like, I can't, I
• 28:55
  don't know what to do. How do you challenge something?
• 28:57
  And it sounds easy, but how do you challenge something that
• 29:00
  never happened? That's.
• 29:01
  Trying to prove a negative no. And I guess did they try to make
• 29:06
  a big deal and I'm assuming they this is probably was part of
• 29:09
  their motivation of the cases that you and the other guy, not
• 29:14
  Sims, got into some type of argument a day or two before.
• 29:19
  Was was that the big thing that they tried to to land on that
• 29:23
  somehow that was the big key that broke everything and and
• 29:27
  you just had to be the guy. Yeah, that was part.
• 29:29
  That was that was that was part of that false narrative.
• 29:32
  Actually, we the disagreement that we had was like small and
• 29:38
  silly and there were some confusing going on, but it
• 29:42
  wasn't me and him. But with the prosecutor doing
• 29:44
  was they took that that little second right, twisted it and and
• 29:50
  then added some more stuff to it and just came up with a story
• 29:52
  that was pretty much unbelievable to me at the time.
• 29:55
  It still is so the. Everything goes through.
• 29:58
  You're frustrated as hell. Your your, your attorney's.
• 30:03
  He's never listened to you, so he's definitely got not going to
• 30:05
  listen to you. In the trial room, the
• 30:07
  courtroom, the jury comes back in.
• 30:11
  You stand up and they read the verdict.
• 30:14
  What? What?
• 30:15
  What goes through your mind? Man, I, I, I kind of, well, I'm
• 30:24
  going to tell you I just, I just, I had to go back to that
• 30:27
  moment for a minute. I remember first the jury sent
• 30:30
  out a note saying, and they, they asked for documents from
• 30:35
  the fire investigator and the judge didn't give them, give
• 30:39
  them to them. They went back in to deliberate.
• 30:41
  They sent out another note saying that they was dead like
• 30:44
  and couldn't reach a decision. And the judge sent them back.
• 30:47
  And when they, when she sent them back, one of the jurors
• 30:51
  stood up and like sighed like, like she was just tired of being
• 30:55
  there. So right there I remember saying
• 30:58
  to myself, come on now, don't give up on me now.
• 31:00
  And not too long after that, they came back with the with
• 31:03
  the, with the guilty verdict. So I just remember thinking it,
• 31:07
  they would, they just wanted to go home that they, they, they
• 31:11
  said, they just said to know what I'm saying.
• 31:12
  We can't make a decision if I was a juror and and the problem
• 31:17
  with jurors is they don't know the law.
• 31:19
  So if I was the juror, it would I could see me assuming it.
• 31:22
  OK. We just said we can't make a
• 31:24
  decision. We was because it was people on
• 31:27
  a jury who was telling the judge that, hey, look, I'm employed or
• 31:30
  I'm self-employed and I can't get out of here.
• 31:33
  Right, and here. We are now going on the third
• 31:35
  week, so I can see where they just warm down and they just
• 31:40
  didn't care. I don't know, see it, forget it
• 31:42
  because it seemed like it was the only way for them to get out
• 31:44
  of it. So you.
• 31:47
  You get this verdict and and it's your life.
• 31:50
  You know, you're convicted of murder, you're taken away.
• 31:56
  It starts the whole process of I think you went to, was it Iona
• 32:01
  prison? Yeah, Yeah, I went to.
• 32:03
  Michigan reform tuning in Iona your first place online.
• 32:07
  What do? You, Dwayne.
• 32:09
  What? What goes through a guy's mind
• 32:11
  that gets drug out of bed, run through the system and hurries
• 32:17
  up a jury trial and and nobody listens to anything you have to
• 32:21
  say about what you where you were, what you're doing, how
• 32:23
  you're doing it, and you get convicted for murder.
• 32:25
  What what are you thinking? I think my first.
• 32:30
  At first I was mad, and so when I got to the reception center, I
• 32:35
  kind of was what would be the word.
• 32:39
  I wasn't following the rules because I was mad in then when I
• 32:44
  got to the reformatory, then I was kind of, I wouldn't say the,
• 32:48
  well, I guess depressed. Yeah, I wouldn't think you'd be.
• 32:50
  Depressed, I spent a lot of time just.
• 32:53
  Sitting on my bunk and not doing nothing.
• 32:57
  I bought ATV, but I never watched the TV and one day and,
• 33:03
  and, and I, I was paying in my because I didn't know anything
• 33:06
  about the law. So I was paying inmate to do my
• 33:09
  legal work. And I remember I got some some
• 33:12
  paperwork back and I'm looking at what he did and I was
• 33:17
  thinking if this is all he did, I could have did that, but he
• 33:21
  was able to talk to me. I paid him some more money and
• 33:25
  basically my appeal got shot down.
• 33:27
  So what I realized that at that. How far along were you?
• 33:30
  How far along were you then in that process when your appeal
• 33:33
  got turned down? When I that, that, that was it,
• 33:37
  it was the end. Basically, it was the end.
• 33:40
  I was he, that was the Michigan Supreme Court.
• 33:43
  So I went through the, the regular Court of Appeal and then
• 33:46
  we moved on to the, the Supreme Court.
• 33:49
  That's when I paid him again. And once I got sat down and I
• 33:53
  thought about what he did reading it, I, I said to myself
• 33:57
  that I can stay well, if I have to stay in prison for the rest
• 34:01
  of my life, do it if I kept myself there, but I can't stay
• 34:06
  in prison and with any kind of peace if I was so stupid that I
• 34:11
  pay somebody. I mean, my, my comprehension
• 34:13
  level is, is decent, so I can read things, I can comprehend, I
• 34:17
  can understand. So I'm paying somebody to do
• 34:21
  what I can do myself. All I have to do is learn.
• 34:23
  So I made the decision if anybody, if I was going to stay
• 34:27
  in prison and somebody was going to keep me there and then I
• 34:30
  would prefer it to be me doing something.
• 34:32
  You're going to be the guy. You're.
• 34:33
  Going to take it out of your shoulders.
• 34:35
  That's right. Well, I, I want to start talking
• 34:37
  about how this started stepping the other way in the right way.
• 34:40
  But before we do, I want to recognize nightmare success
• 34:43
  podcast sponsored by the white collar support group.
• 34:45
  It's the world's first support group devoted to people
• 34:48
  navigating the white collar criminal justice system.
• 34:51
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• 34:53
  that there's a bunch of people who help each other through the
• 34:55
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  through to the other side, this is a great space for you.
• 35:02
  You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 4:00 PM
• 35:05
  Pacific. For information, go to
• 35:07
  prisonist.org. That's prisonist.org.
• 35:09
  Start here. So.
• 35:12
  As you're. As you're stepping through this,
• 35:14
  Dwayne, and you take it on yourself, hey, I'm going to
• 35:17
  start figuring this stuff out myself.
• 35:18
  I got to figure out, you know, if I'm going to be in here, I'm
• 35:21
  going to educate myself. How far along were you in the in
• 35:25
  the in your sentence that you got this mindset that you were
• 35:30
  going to take this on yourself? I think I was.
• 35:32
  About it was probably right around the going toward the end
• 35:37
  of 2015, beginning the 16th. So almost three years, a little
• 35:42
  three years. Right.
• 35:43
  Yeah. So I guess I go ahead.
• 35:46
  Well, I'm. Curious because sometimes, you
• 35:49
  know, people get really frustrated because they reach
• 35:51
  out to people and they try to, you know, find all different
• 35:54
  ways to, to get people to help them.
• 35:56
  All these different groups that came from Cooley to the
• 36:00
  integrity unit to all these how, how did they find you?
• 36:03
  What? What was?
• 36:04
  How did the what? What started that connection
• 36:07
  well. First of all I got to say that I
• 36:10
  wrote like 70,000 letters probably, but when you were
• 36:17
  writing letters? To to the Innocence Project, to
• 36:20
  all these different places, to just the president.
• 36:23
  The, the president, the mayor, the chief of police in Detroit,
• 36:28
  state reps, state senators, any and everybody.
• 36:33
  But what happened was the first people I got in contact with was
• 36:37
  the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic.
• 36:39
  And eventually they got back with me.
• 36:42
  And what they, what they did was they provided an expert report
• 36:47
  from me. So EU of M got the first, got
• 36:51
  the first expert report. And although they, they didn't
• 36:56
  keep my case, that expert report became like super valuable.
• 37:01
  So then what all went under? The expert report what how did
• 37:05
  like for those listeners out there that don't know what what
• 37:07
  went into your expert report Michigan what he saw.
• 37:13
  Was that the fire investigation? The methodology used wasn't
• 37:18
  proper for fire investigations. So when you look at the report,
• 37:23
  you just keep looking and just keep saying not accurate, not
• 37:26
  accurate, not accurate, not accurate in a SO.
• 37:30
  And I think the way to explain that is was that the fire was an
• 37:34
  accident and then when they tried to twist it, it didn't.
• 37:38
  Once you tried, it didn't fit. Right.
• 37:40
  Now, exactly. Now it doesn't fit the standards
• 37:43
  for the NFP or National Fire Protection and Prevention
• 37:47
  Association, but I forgot the question, so they so they.
• 37:52
  Turn it over to Did they turn it over to Cooley?
• 37:56
  Is that where it goes or is it how does?
• 38:00
  Who's the next? Who did they turn it over to?
• 38:03
  Well, actually. They, they, they, they dropped
• 38:05
  it. They've never officially told me
• 38:07
  they turned it over to Cooley, but it was kind of a, a, a, a
• 38:10
  funny thing. I go to pick up legal mail.
• 38:13
  I get the letter from U of M and I'm reading it and I'm, I'm
• 38:16
  about to walk away and they tell me you got another letter.
• 38:18
  And I had a letter from Cooley to, they're saying to send them
• 38:21
  everything. But now Cooley works in in
• 38:24
  cooperation with the CIU because the CIU and Wayne County, they
• 38:28
  got like now thousands of applications is impossible for
• 38:31
  them to review them all. So Cody has a grant with the CIU
• 38:35
  to review everything. So we're basically the CIU
• 38:38
  conducted their review and right when they were finished.
• 38:45
  Clemency. Investigations came into play in
• 38:47
  a basically what I wanted. I got into the day out of
• 38:50
  Louisville, KY actually, Denny Denver Butler, the head of
• 38:55
  clemency investigations, was here this morning for the
• 38:57
  hearing and just left. But uh.
• 39:00
  What I wanted? From him was he, he's he's an
• 39:04
  expert in federal and state courts in police practices.
• 39:08
  So I had my lawyer contact him to get a a expert report on the
• 39:13
  practices of the law enforcement officers in my situation.
• 39:17
  And once he read and saw what happened to me, he told my
• 39:21
  attorney that he wanted to meet with me and then he would work
• 39:23
  on my case for free. And so that's exactly what he
• 39:27
  paid for a polygraph and and and because his background is a he
• 39:33
  was a homicide detective in Louisville, KY every night and
• 39:36
  then you'll see him on the first 48.
• 39:38
  But anyway, he was a homicide Sergeant in Louisville, retired
• 39:41
  from the Louisville Police Department in the Kentucky State
• 39:44
  Legislature helped write the the manual, so to speak, or the
• 39:50
  rules dealing with police miscon.
• 39:52
  He's a pro, he's. An expert?
• 39:53
  Exactly. Exactly so.
• 39:55
  And he conducted the investigation into my case with
• 39:58
  the gentleman who the week before he they started the
• 40:02
  investigation, he retired from being a federal prosecutor.
• 40:05
  And the reason this is important is because the CIU had never
• 40:09
  like, if you, you can investigate the case, of course,
• 40:12
  but the CIU never cooperated, but because this was a homicide
• 40:17
  detective in a federal process. The CIU actually allowed them to
• 40:22
  conduct an investigation and what that did was it was it
• 40:26
  allowed them to receive all the documents quicker.
• 40:29
  Otherwise, like say if somebody hired a private investigator or
• 40:32
  something, the private investigator has to do with
• 40:34
  Freedom of Information Act request and they're going to
• 40:36
  send you what they might want to send you.
• 40:38
  Well, going through the CIU, the the police and the prosecutor,
• 40:44
  they can't withhold anything. They, the CIU can just go get
• 40:47
  it. So the CIU gave clemency
• 40:50
  investigations, all the files they went through them,
• 40:53
  conducted an investigation, went back to the CIU with their
• 40:56
  findings. The CIU then conducted their own
• 41:00
  investigation. And finally, in August the 23
• 41:05
  they determined that I should be released.
• 41:09
  Well, so, so this started more or less than 15 you, you take on
• 41:15
  yourself that you're going to this whole new mindset that
• 41:18
  you're going to start reaching out and trying to be all you can
• 41:21
  be to, to set yourself free. So we're really.
• 41:25
  Talking about it took you roughly eight years and when,
• 41:31
  when did you start feeling like Dwayne, that you were getting
• 41:33
  close to this was catching traction that that like you're
• 41:37
  in prison, I mean, you're getting this stuff fed back to
• 41:40
  you. Are they visiting you in prison
• 41:43
  or is this all coming by mail and all that?
• 41:46
  Are you actually able to meet with the people in the prison?
• 41:50
  Well. Like intimacy investigations
• 41:53
  came and met with me. They paid for somebody to come
• 41:56
  give me a polygraph exam. My lawyer from Stato from the
• 42:00
  state appellate defenders office, Maya Menlo, she came in,
• 42:04
  she came in and visited me once. But Zoom this this technology
• 42:08
  now is incredible. So I had like countless zoom
• 42:11
  meetings with her. So that's that was and with the
• 42:15
  other people. So that's how I really, that's
• 42:17
  how most of the communication was when did.
• 42:19
  You start thinking that that you had a chance.
• 42:24
  Let's see, I knew that. Well, this is the moment that I
• 42:32
  was talking about last night when I just when I saw that the
• 42:36
  lines were missing in the fire report and that there was
• 42:39
  actually something there, the lighter, I knew then it did.
• 42:44
  Something had to happen. I didn't know, wasn't sure
• 42:47
  exactly how. And once I started showing
• 42:49
  people, I started, OK, now I'm going to get somewhere.
• 42:54
  So, so how long did it take from the time that you thought we're
• 43:00
  going to get somewhere to they start coming back to you and
• 43:04
  saying, hey, Dwayne, I think, I think you've got a chance that
• 43:07
  you're going to get out of here. And then how did that process
• 43:09
  work? OK.
• 43:12
  Well, I think, I can't remember, I think maybe it was 2020 when I
• 43:20
  found it. I think I started letting the
• 43:25
  lawyers know at at see the, the, the, the process happened so
• 43:33
  weird with me. But actually, I guess I let them
• 43:38
  know about the lighter and once I let them know about the
• 43:40
  lighter, Pete, I think that kind of, I mean, no.
• 43:44
  Well, let's talk about the. Lighter because the lighter, the
• 43:46
  lighter wasn't turned over to your defense team and we knew
• 43:49
  that. And that's a big deal because
• 43:54
  they they had it, they had the lighter and and it wasn't it's
• 43:58
  exculpatory evidence. So they didn't, they did not and
• 44:01
  give it over to it's a huge deal, right?
• 44:05
  So in 2020, you start thinking that that the momentum of things
• 44:08
  is coming your way, but what has to happen?
• 44:10
  What are the steps that happen? What are the what courts do you
• 44:15
  get into to have to be in to say, hey, Dwayne, you're out,
• 44:21
  you're good. What what?
• 44:22
  What happened I guess. Well, what happened with me was,
• 44:26
  and again, my situation was a little bit different because I
• 44:28
  had so many people involved. But basically what needs to
• 44:33
  happen in general in Michigan is the CIU conducts the
• 44:38
  investigation. They make a recommendation into
• 44:41
  Kym Worthy, the prosecutor. The prosecutor makes a decision
• 44:44
  whether or not to be released from prison or not.
• 44:47
  OK, in my in my particular situation, that's what happened.
• 44:51
  But it was probably a few more steps added because so many
• 44:55
  people kept coming in, Clemency investigations came in, I had to
• 44:58
  take the polygraph. And so these are things that
• 45:00
  helped me, but it made it take more time.
• 45:03
  Maybe it would take more time. Because there were more people
• 45:05
  involved. You had coolly involved, you had
• 45:08
  the Wayne and Integrity Unit involved.
• 45:10
  You had clemency investigation. Yeah.
• 45:13
  So it it. So this. 2023 so you get before
• 45:21
  the judge in Well, this was in June, right?
• 45:26
  Yep. Born the 25th this June. 2024,
• 45:31
  yeah. So much with what I call a
• 45:33
  momentum, huh? Yeah.
• 45:36
  So, OK, so you, you don't, you're not at the proceeding,
• 45:41
  right? You're are you, are you in
• 45:43
  prison? And then they're going on your
• 45:44
  behalf to the hearings for you. Or are you actually at the at
• 45:49
  the courthouse and hearing what they're saying?
• 45:52
  What? Or is that all just coming back
• 45:54
  to you through a phone call or through a Zoom?
• 45:56
  Well, well. Yeah, once my, my court hearing,
• 46:01
  I was, I was, I was in the courtroom via Zoom.
• 46:04
  So I was I was actually there, but before that, I mean, no, we
• 46:12
  would be coming back letters Zoom meetings, but my actual
• 46:16
  court hearing that I I was released.
• 46:17
  I I was there via Zoom. OK, so in that.
• 46:20
  Court hearing, you know, because you had a bad court hearing when
• 46:24
  you got sentenced and, and you went to trial.
• 46:27
  So now you're in there in a Zoom, you got some real good
• 46:31
  people on your side that are they're fighting for you.
• 46:37
  Did you get a feeling from the judge where this thing was going
• 46:41
  as they were arguing your case? But you know, actually.
• 46:45
  I did because what my lawyer was telling me was that I wasn't
• 46:48
  going to be released. She was telling me that the
• 46:50
  convictions were going to be vacated, but I would go to the
• 46:53
  county jail, that the judge probably wouldn't.
• 46:56
  They basically the judge wouldn't grant bond, so I would
• 46:59
  have to go to the county jail and and wait again.
• 47:02
  Well, she was going to ask for it.
• 47:04
  The judge went granted the prosecution was wasn't going to
• 47:07
  say anything and she was saying that the judge would want to
• 47:10
  hear from the prosecution. So what he would most likely say
• 47:13
  is to tell the prosecution, you give me a a response to this,
• 47:17
  this, this motion for bail and we'll come back.
• 47:20
  So I went into the hearing thinking that I'm I'm not
• 47:23
  getting out of jail. I mean, I'm leaving prison, but
• 47:26
  I'm going to the county jail and my convictions are vacated.
• 47:29
  But once the hearing started, then I think one of the things
• 47:33
  that probably always remember that stood out to me was I
• 47:38
  remember Valerie Newman, the head of the Wayne County
• 47:40
  Conviction Integrity Unit, telling the judge that.
• 47:44
  In most. Cases, when she comes before the
• 47:46
  court, she puts all the misconduct on the record.
• 47:50
  But she told him that in my particular situation that it
• 47:53
  would be impossible to put the misconduct on the order, the
• 47:56
  misconduct on the record. So as she went through the facts
• 48:01
  and explained them to the judge, I saw that, that he was
• 48:06
  attentive and I just watched some of his, his reactions.
• 48:11
  And so I, I knew that they were going to he, he was, he was for
• 48:15
  sure going to vacate the conviction because I knew that
• 48:18
  once the facts were explained to him, I could tell that he had a
• 48:21
  problem with the things that occurred.
• 48:25
  And then so once the conviction was vacated, they moved on to,
• 48:28
  to, to Vine. Now remember I'm I'm I'm already
• 48:31
  in my mind and I'm not getting it.
• 48:33
  But what were your thoughts when they?
• 48:36
  Said What were your thoughts, Dwayne, when the judge said your
• 48:39
  convictions were vacated and you're just sitting there on
• 48:42
  Zoom? You've been sitting there 11
• 48:44
  years, right? Right it.
• 48:46
  Was it was it was it was a it was a weight lifting off of me.
• 48:50
  I ain't gonna lie, it was a weight lifting off of me.
• 48:52
  So I, it just feel I couldn't believe that after all of those
• 48:55
  years of fighting that finally it really happened.
• 48:58
  There was. Yeah, there.
• 49:00
  Was and then my SO my lawyer moved on to bond and she was I
• 49:05
  had two plans. One of them was to come to
• 49:08
  Detroit with my family and the other one was to go to Grand
• 49:11
  Rapids, MI because I was attending Calvin University and
• 49:15
  they had re entry plan set up for me.
• 49:18
  So as when my lawyer got to the second re entry plan, the judge
• 49:23
  kind of stopped her and he said what I want to know about this
• 49:26
  person and the person that he was asking about was somebody
• 49:29
  related to the first re entry plan.
• 49:31
  So when he said that, I said, well, wait a minute.
• 49:34
  He he thinking about letting me out if he wants to know more
• 49:37
  about this person. He thinking about letting me out
• 49:40
  and when he in any eventually granted me bond.
• 49:45
  And now that was something because like I said, I didn't
• 49:49
  expect it. I expected to go to the county
• 49:51
  jail. I didn't expect to be free that
• 49:53
  day. So then it was like, yeah, you
• 49:56
  got to touch all. Bases you hit a home run right,
• 49:59
  right, right. OK, so, so just so everybody
• 50:03
  knows what this means. So you, he he grants the bond,
• 50:07
  so you get released, but you're still released to the county
• 50:10
  jail, right? And.
• 50:13
  And I think that's when you ran into Daryl Woods.
• 50:15
  Exactly. Who was on this?
• 50:17
  Show who served or 28 years in prison and now is, I think the
• 50:22
  chairman of the Police Commission so.
• 50:24
  He's an incredible. Human being.
• 50:26
  So you get out who all's there when you get out?
• 50:29
  Like you get out after 11 years, your your convictions vacated,
• 50:34
  you walk out of there, what happens?
• 50:36
  Yeah, well. Like I said that that that
• 50:40
  everything went wrong with the whole process.
• 50:42
  So by the time I get out of the county jail was 10:30 at night.
• 50:48
  Yeah, like I said, Darrell Woods, first person I saw and I
• 50:52
  never met him before, but I saw that I remember somebody in jail
• 50:56
  who knew him. I remember talking about the
• 50:58
  gold bags. And I saw the guy had a gold
• 51:00
  bags on. And he walked up.
• 51:02
  He asked me my name and I told him.
• 51:04
  He told me who he would. And he and he just told me that
• 51:07
  that that he was happy that I was home.
• 51:09
  And it the the every. See, I got it.
• 51:15
  I almost teared up for a minute is I can imagine.
• 51:18
  No, no, Dwayne, I can only imagine the emotions.
• 51:22
  Yeah, but it was just like to notice somebody.
• 51:28
  And then later on I found out that he he, he made the phone
• 51:31
  calls to make sure that I got out of the county that night.
• 51:35
  So. Big deal anyway.
• 51:38
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, anyway.
• 51:41
  Well, let's, let's talk about because all this is wonderful
• 51:45
  and, and I'm reading this article because I, I knew you
• 51:50
  had this hearing and it was today, because what you've got
• 51:55
  to deal with when all this happens is if, if they want to
• 51:58
  retry this. And you know, because some
• 52:02
  people get confused with double jeopardy and all these type of
• 52:04
  things. But these, these guys in the
• 52:08
  same, this is what's so confusing about they're in the
• 52:11
  same office, the same people who freed you or the same people
• 52:14
  that on the other side are saying if they, if they want to
• 52:17
  try retry the case and the judges Rev the judges vacated
• 52:21
  your conviction. You've had three, four of these
• 52:25
  different Innocence Project people that are in this world of
• 52:28
  yours that have gone through all the facts.
• 52:31
  Exposed. All the, the issues and today
• 52:36
  they said they needed more time to decide.
• 52:41
  And So what you thought might end it today where you're
• 52:44
  totally, you wake up and you're, you don't have to worry about
• 52:48
  anything you've got till September 16th.
• 52:52
  And hopefully that date is that they, they, they see that
• 52:56
  everyone else is on this side and there's only one person on
• 52:59
  this side. And and there's got to be other
• 53:01
  better things to do in life. Yeah.
• 53:05
  Today was, I guess it was unfortunate, but my attorney
• 53:09
  yesterday let me know that it was a chance that it could turn
• 53:13
  on like this. I think that I think that first
• 53:19
  of all, I know what to do. First, I'd like to thank Kim
• 53:22
  Worthy, the Wayne County Prosecutor, for the part she's
• 53:27
  playing me being free. I like to thank Valerie Newman
• 53:31
  from the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office Conviction
• 53:33
  Integrity Unit, But also I think that the prosecutor's office, in
• 53:45
  the Police Department. People need to do the right
• 53:48
  thing. People.
• 53:51
  It's about, especially in those positions, it's about integrity
• 53:55
  and honesty and and and just and facts.
• 54:01
  Yeah. And I.
• 54:02
  And I do think that a law needs to be universal, that one side
• 54:10
  shouldn't have all the information and choose to get
• 54:13
  the information over their side. It should be an open file.
• 54:16
  Everybody looks at the exact same thing, sees all the same
• 54:20
  things. It's all tagged.
• 54:23
  Everybody knows what everybody's looking at.
• 54:25
  So there's no question whatsoever that that human error
• 54:28
  or human ego or anything like that can get involved with
• 54:32
  somebody's freedom. And there's no reason why that
• 54:37
  shouldn't be part of our justice system.
• 54:39
  There just isn't a reason because everything can be
• 54:41
  tagged, everything can be copied, everything can be done
• 54:45
  so that everybody looks at the exact same thing.
• 54:48
  And if that would have happened in this case?
• 54:51
  You could reverse. 11 years of your life back because it would
• 54:54
  have never have gone to conviction, because they
• 54:57
  wouldn't have had the ability to do what they did at the trial.
• 55:01
  That's right. So Dwayne, I, I what, what,
• 55:04
  what's it been like being back? You know, you've, you've, you've
• 55:07
  been back out for a few weeks since the end of June.
• 55:10
  What's what's life been like for you?
• 55:13
  The. Crazy.
• 55:15
  It's been crazy, right? But.
• 55:16
  But fun. Yeah, yeah, well, it's been
• 55:18
  crazy fun and hard. You, you, you, you think that
• 55:25
  that when you get out of prison, like like I remember I would
• 55:29
  have Zoom meetings with like Ken Nixon and people from the
• 55:33
  organization of Exonna Reeves because they would like, if I
• 55:37
  started like panicking because it was taking too long.
• 55:39
  And then they'll have me meet with them and they'll tell me
• 55:42
  today, just trust the fact that everything is working and Ken's
• 55:45
  a. Cool cat.
• 55:47
  He's he was another he's another nightmare success.
• 55:51
  I've off the top of my head, I can't think of his episode, but
• 55:54
  listeners out there go check out Ken Nixon's episode too.
• 55:56
  He's he's A and he does great work.
• 55:59
  He's very passionate about the exonerary program as as is Daryl
• 56:04
  Woods, as is Marvin Cotton Junior, who've all been on this
• 56:07
  show. And it's interesting too,
• 56:09
  because a lot of this is happening in Michigan.
• 56:12
  There's a lot of movement in Michigan to to try to get to do
• 56:17
  the right thing, but a lot of that happens from the, from the
• 56:20
  grass roots movement of these guys that don't just come back.
• 56:24
  They, they become part of the movement to make sure that
• 56:27
  people like you, Dwayne, can get to the resources that you need
• 56:32
  to be heard. And you know, what would have
• 56:36
  happened if you hadn't had Cooley and the, the integrity
• 56:39
  unit and, and all those different people that came into
• 56:43
  your world that, that believed in, you believed in your case
• 56:46
  and, and took it to the right people so that you could be
• 56:48
  heard. It's so crazy to, to think that
• 56:55
  you went through all this. I, you know, for everybody
• 56:58
  that's listed, I, I always ask people this question.
• 57:00
  I'm curious what your answer is. What, what, what do you think's
• 57:03
  your biggest take away through all this that you've been
• 57:05
  through? Well, I I.
• 57:08
  Think the common answer would be I appreciate everything.
• 57:13
  You know, I, I, I sometime I see here I go again.
• 57:19
  Sometime I, I, I, I sometime I walk down the street and I'm,
• 57:24
  I'm just walking and I just think like, whoa, I'm looking at
• 57:28
  buildings and trees and birds and I'm, I'm free.
• 57:33
  I, I wasn't, they said I'd never be free and I'm free the other
• 57:37
  day. Well, yesterday I was, I was
• 57:40
  walking, we got a river walk here in Detroit and I was
• 57:43
  walking around down, down the river walk and I, I stopped and
• 57:47
  just thought like I. Don't know.
• 57:52
  But I get. It Dwight, I mean, I, I would
• 57:55
  be, I'd be a mess. I mean you, you and I, I can
• 58:00
  and, and your vulnerability and, and your humbleness of how you
• 58:05
  have handled this. I think everybody can feel that
• 58:08
  out there. Your gratitude of, of, of all of
• 58:11
  a sudden living freedom again has to be overwhelming.
• 58:15
  I can't imagine I, I would be a crying mess every day that I
• 58:19
  woke up. I can't believe I'm here And I,
• 58:22
  I, you know, I, I say that because I just have a small
• 58:25
  sprinkle of you, you know, I, I had three years in prison and I
• 58:31
  hope it never leaves me because that gratitude of being back in
• 58:36
  the world, you know, and I see this a lot.
• 58:39
  There's moments and times that don't really mean the same
• 58:42
  things that they mean to a lot of people.
• 58:44
  But I, I will sit and think, I'm just glad I'm here, You know,
• 58:48
  we're, we're the family got together today.
• 58:50
  We had a BBQ and there were times that I wasn't there.
• 58:56
  So you, you, whatever that is, Dwayne, I, I feel that.
• 59:02
  I feel what you're feeling. You're walking around thinking
• 59:05
  because you, when you go in, you can feel it shedding off your
• 59:07
  skin, that freedom, you know, and when you get it back, it's
• 59:10
  like your life goes into color. You know, you go from black and
• 59:13
  white to color and, and you're experiencing that right now.
• 59:15
  And you're experiencing it real time.
• 59:17
  I mean, you're, you're just, you know, few weeks away from, from
• 59:21
  being locked up and, and I can't imagine, man, I'm glad you, I'm
• 59:25
  glad that you had. And I think one of the real
• 59:29
  moments in your story is, is that you took the
• 59:33
  responsibility, accountability on yourself and said, I'm going
• 59:36
  to do this. I'm not going to have this guy
• 59:39
  or that guy in here do this. I'm going to, I'm smart.
• 59:42
  I can, I can read, I can write, I'm going to get after this.
• 59:45
  And you did. And man, that's why you're
• 59:48
  walking and, and looking at the buildings and the and the trees,
• 59:52
  because you did it. And that's resilience, man.
• 59:55
  That is, that's full on resilience.
• 59:58
  Well, I. I thank you and I, I thank you
• 1:00:00
  for having me on and giving me a chance to tell my story.
• 1:00:04
  And I want to say too that that. Integrity, honesty.
• 1:00:11
  The problem here in Wayne County and in Detroit is that just get
• 1:00:14
  rid of the bad apples. You know, I'm saying I'm not
• 1:00:17
  against police is the police Commission.
• 1:00:22
  I'm not against police, but you got to get rid of the bad
• 1:00:25
  police, the prosecutors. And I want to say too, that when
• 1:00:29
  you talk to when you when you talked about all of those
• 1:00:31
  organizations that helped me what I was in.
• 1:00:33
  I just want to emphasize how much help the organization of
• 1:00:36
  designer Reeves has been since I'm out because you see, I'm
• 1:00:39
  emotional wreck and they yeah, no and.
• 1:00:42
  That's a that's a real community, Dwayne.
• 1:00:45
  So yeah. And they and, and I'm sure
• 1:00:47
  you'll become part of that and, and an impactful voice of that
• 1:00:50
  also. And that's, that's what's so
• 1:00:52
  cool about you guys in Michigan, man.
• 1:00:54
  You, you guys are Detroit strong.
• 1:00:57
  The last thing I want to say that's right and the last thing
• 1:01:00
  I want to say too is a, I just want to mention the organization
• 1:01:03
  that I work for now, Firefly advocates.
• 1:01:06
  It's a it's a new innocence organization and the gentleman
• 1:01:10
  who runs it and the lady who where the gentleman and the lady
• 1:01:15
  who run it, Doris Houchins and Shia Bomb that got into it from
• 1:01:20
  just simply sitting in a courtroom and watching people
• 1:01:22
  who are about to lose their jobs because they couldn't pay fines.
• 1:01:25
  And he started paying fines. And from there it has morphed
• 1:01:29
  into an innocence organization where he provides lawyers for
• 1:01:33
  people. If it if we think you, because I
• 1:01:36
  worked there not so I can say if I get your letter and we think
• 1:01:41
  you innocent, then we'll be there to see you for self.
• 1:01:43
  So I got I got to mention them because they they're incredible
• 1:01:46
  because you don't find people who use their own money.
• 1:01:49
  He's using his own money. And we don't find people who who
• 1:01:52
  care enough about strangers and do things like that.
• 1:01:55
  So that Wayne, I love that. And that's where you're at now,
• 1:01:58
  firefight. Man, I love that.
• 1:01:59
  That's a great way to end it too, for people out there.
• 1:02:03
  I've talked about being grateful.
• 1:02:05
  I I get to use this podcast room with Homestead Financial with
• 1:02:08
  all this fancy equipment. I so much appreciate that.
• 1:02:12
  If you need home mortgage needs, Greg Afdev is your guy.
• 1:02:15
  If you're looking for a book out there, I've got one, it's on
• 1:02:18
  Nightmare success called Nightmare Success on Amazon or
• 1:02:22
  Barnes and Noble. If you got time, please leave me
• 1:02:26
  a review. Those are great things for the
• 1:02:28
  show. Just go to Apple and and and it
• 1:02:31
  says write a review and there it is.
• 1:02:33
  I just got a brand new website. Check it out at
• 1:02:35
  sprintcassie.com. I spell it wrong, Ty, Not a DY.
• 1:02:42
  And as I used to say when I was writing my emails back and forth
• 1:02:45
  from Leavenworth, stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:02:47
  Dwayne Williams, all the best to you, man.
• 1:02:49
  All the best to you. I know you're going to go out
• 1:02:51
  and do some great things. Hey, I appreciate.
• 1:02:54
  It man and you keep this platform, keep doing what you
• 1:02:58
  doing and know that they did not just I appreciate you we all do
• 1:03:02
  I appreciate. That, Dwayne, I'm your success
• 1:03:04
  in and out.