Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #030 Jason Flom with Angel Gonzalez

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#030 Jason Flom with Angel Gonzalez · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: I think we have the best legal system.
0:05
Speaker 2: It's just the people that implement it. They get lost
0:09
Speaker 2: along the way and forget what their job really is.
0:13
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
0:19
Speaker 2: it was for my body to be found in any
0:23
Speaker 2: alley of New York City.
0:25
Speaker 1: It's a tough prison when you have the guards going
0:28
Speaker 1: against you because they are the biggest gang in the prison.
0:33
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.
0:38
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? The judge, he said, how you feel? I said,
0:51
Speaker 2: I'm okay. He said, well, the days you're lucky day
0:54
Speaker 2: you're going home.
0:56
Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
1:17
Speaker 3: Jason Flam Today. I have a guest who I've wanted
1:20
Speaker 3: to have on the show ever since. I saw a
1:22
Speaker 3: picture of him having his first meal after he was
1:25
Speaker 3: released after twenty years in prison, and he had this
1:28
Speaker 3: smile on his face that was just pure joy. It
1:31
Speaker 3: looked like. So we'll hear more about that, and I
1:34
Speaker 3: want to welcome you.
1:35
Speaker 4: Angel Gonzalez, Wakegan man who spent the last two decades
1:38
Speaker 4: in prison, could soon be set free. New DNA evidence
1:42
Speaker 4: identifies two other men who committed the nineteen ninety four
1:45
Speaker 4: rape and kidnapping he was imprisoned for it.
1:48
Speaker 5: Sell Us exonerated by DNA evidence that showed he couldn't
1:51
Speaker 5: have been one of the two men who kidnapped and
1:53
Speaker 5: raped the woman in Walkeegan in nineteen ninety four.
1:55
Speaker 6: In two thousand and one, DNA testing identified one male
1:59
Speaker 6: profile that did not match Gonzales, and just last week,
2:02
Speaker 6: further testing pointed to an additional man.
2:05
Speaker 5: It wasn't until lawyers from an innocence project took up
2:07
Speaker 5: his case and a change in leadership in the Lake
2:09
Speaker 5: County States Attorney's Office that DNA testing was conducted.
2:13
Speaker 6: The forty one year old initially confessed to the crime
2:16
Speaker 6: after a lengthy police interrogation, and the victim identified him
2:20
Speaker 6: at the time, but Gonzalez has long maintained his innocence.
2:23
Speaker 5: His attorney say Gonzalez head in alibi and no criminal history,
2:27
Speaker 5: and after a lengthy interrogation, he signed a confession written
2:30
Speaker 5: by Wakegan police in English, despite only speaking Spanish at
2:33
Speaker 5: the time.
2:34
Speaker 7: Freedom for a Man released Brockrison after serving nearly twenty
2:37
Speaker 7: one years for a crime he did not commit. On
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Speaker 7: Hell Gonzalez walked out of the Dixon Correctional Facility.
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Speaker 5: Tonight, twenty years after entering prison. Gonzalez, he's free.
2:48
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show.
2:49
Speaker 1: Thank you for having here.
2:51
Speaker 3: And we have another special guest today, the director of
2:55
Speaker 3: post conviction litigation at the Innocence Project, Vanessa Podkin.
2:58
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me.
3:00
Speaker 3: We're here to talk about a case that is troubling
3:03
Speaker 3: in so many ways in that it has elements of misconduct,
3:09
Speaker 3: it has elements of a thing called the show up. Right,
3:12
Speaker 3: when we talk about the show up which is something
3:14
Speaker 3: we haven't really focused on the show before, and various
3:17
Speaker 3: other things, Miranda right, come into play how those were administered.
3:21
Speaker 3: But before we get into all of that, let's go
3:23
Speaker 3: back to nineteen ninety four.
3:26
Speaker 1: I was leaving at the time in waki And, Illinois,
3:29
Speaker 1: which is about forty five mins north of Chicago, Lake.
3:33
Speaker 3: County, Right, and you were how old were you at
3:35
Speaker 3: the time?
3:36
Speaker 1: I was around twenty.
3:38
Speaker 3: Right, so just getting started on your life.
3:40
Speaker 1: Just getting started planning on getting married. Well, this's American dream,
3:45
Speaker 1: finally start planning for starting a family. At the time,
3:49
Speaker 1: talk to my ex girlfriend father and mother and us
3:53
Speaker 1: if we could marry, and they have I guess, And
3:56
Speaker 1: so it was met out of time and to save
3:59
Speaker 1: a little money and find a place to move. So
4:02
Speaker 1: everything seems like it was they were supposed to be
4:05
Speaker 1: for any normal person to get married and move on
4:07
Speaker 1: in life.
4:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's actually a very honorable to go to
4:11
Speaker 3: the father and ask permission and everything else. On July
4:14
Speaker 3: tenth of nineteen ninety four, everything was sort of typical.
4:18
Speaker 3: I imagine for you you were visiting your girlfriend.
4:21
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they we went out, stopped by her friend's
4:26
Speaker 1: house and decided to go eat something, and we went
4:31
Speaker 1: out and eat on a fast food restaurant. After they
4:34
Speaker 1: we went to her sister's apartment. So we went there
4:38
Speaker 1: and watched movie Tonight. And that's what this or what
4:43
Speaker 1: crime happened.
4:44
Speaker 3: So unbeknownst to you, in the same apartment complex, something
4:50
Speaker 3: terrible was taking place, right, and Vanessa wantly turned to
4:54
Speaker 3: you for a minute, do you want to talk about
4:56
Speaker 3: the crime itself?
4:57
Speaker 8: Absolutely so. There was a woman who lived in this
5:00
Speaker 8: same kind of small apartment building who was at her house.
5:03
Speaker 8: She heard somebody buzzing her doorbell, went downstairs, and there
5:07
Speaker 8: were who she would later describe as two Latino men
5:10
Speaker 8: who abducted her into a vehicle and drove her to
5:13
Speaker 8: two different locations in the neighborhood where they sexually assaulted her.
5:18
Speaker 8: And ultimately she was able to escape, and she was
5:21
Speaker 8: very dazed and traumatized by the incident, understandably so, and
5:25
Speaker 8: ultimately made her way to seven eleven, where she was
5:28
Speaker 8: able to summon the police and they brought her back
5:31
Speaker 8: to the apartment where they started to investigate the crime,
5:35
Speaker 8: and later her boyfriend, the victim's boyfriend, came on the
5:38
Speaker 8: scene and started talking to the police and trying to
5:41
Speaker 8: see if he could be helpful in any way.
5:44
Speaker 3: Right, and that's where this starts to unravel, because you
5:49
Speaker 3: just wrong place, wrong time. Were in the apartment complex
5:53
Speaker 3: at some point you got into your car, right, presumably
5:56
Speaker 3: to go back to your place, that's correct.
5:58
Speaker 1: How do we watch a movie and we're about to
6:01
Speaker 1: wrap it up and go home, and when we walked
6:04
Speaker 1: up the apartment if you can run it correctly. There
6:07
Speaker 1: were some squad cars on the left side of the building,
6:10
Speaker 1: and you know, a small town like well, something obviously happened.
6:14
Speaker 1: Maybe who knows in the building. It's an apartment building.
6:17
Speaker 1: They didn't really are business, so we don't stay or ask.
6:21
Speaker 1: We just got in the car and decide to leave.
6:23
Speaker 1: And I drove to the gas station, put on some gas,
6:26
Speaker 1: and went on my way to drop off my girlfriend.
6:28
Speaker 1: And next thing you know, I was pull over. Right
6:31
Speaker 1: after I drop off my girlfriend now her house, I
6:34
Speaker 1: was pulled over, and I had no clue why it happened.
6:37
Speaker 3: And what we know that happened is that the victim's
6:40
Speaker 3: boyfriend saw your car, maybe out the window or whatever
6:44
Speaker 3: it was, and for some reason or other, this triggered
6:48
Speaker 3: something in him to think that this might be I
6:50
Speaker 3: don't know how he would have had any idea that
6:52
Speaker 3: this car was in some way related to her abduction
6:56
Speaker 3: and rape, but obviously he was wrong. But nonetheless, that's
7:00
Speaker 3: what led the police to go looking for you, is
7:03
Speaker 3: that he had seen the car and somehow made some
7:06
Speaker 3: assumption he saw the.
7:08
Speaker 8: Car, and the victim had given a very rough description
7:11
Speaker 8: of a large, dark sedan that was that she was
7:13
Speaker 8: abducted in and he's outside, the victim's boyfriend with the police,
7:17
Speaker 8: and from a distance sees Angel in his car, which
7:21
Speaker 8: was a dark car, driving off, and the victim's boyfriend
7:24
Speaker 8: says to the police, Hey, that car doesn't belong here.
7:27
Speaker 7: So it's one of these things that.
7:29
Speaker 8: You know, this is a car that's not usually seen
7:31
Speaker 8: in the apartment complex. And since Angel leaves, the police
7:35
Speaker 8: just write down the license plate number, and then that's
7:38
Speaker 8: why he's later stopped.
7:40
Speaker 7: You know, some time and some miles away.
7:42
Speaker 8: But of course, you know, when Angel's driving away from
7:44
Speaker 8: the scene, his girlfriend's sitting in the front seat with him.
7:47
Speaker 8: You know, he's taking his girlfriend home. They've just left
7:49
Speaker 8: the girlfriend's sister's house. And even from an investigative perspective
7:54
Speaker 8: at the time, what sense would it make for the
7:57
Speaker 8: perpetrator to return to the area an hour or two
8:00
Speaker 8: later from the same place that he just abducted somebody
8:04
Speaker 8: from when the police are around, you know, it'd make
8:06
Speaker 8: a little sense that the perpetrator would return. But nonetheless,
8:09
Speaker 8: acting only on the suspicion the boyfriend's suspicion that the
8:13
Speaker 8: car didn't belong there, they pulled the Angel over.
8:16
Speaker 3: Right he was Hispanic. That was close enough in this case,
8:19
Speaker 3: and then starts the process that we talk about a
8:23
Speaker 3: lot on the show, which is unique in this case
8:26
Speaker 3: just because of the fact that Angel was read his
8:28
Speaker 3: Miranda rights in a language he didn't speak very well
8:31
Speaker 3: at the time. Right, he was read them in English
8:34
Speaker 3: when your English was not good at that time. And
8:36
Speaker 3: now you speak fluently obviously, But did you understand at
8:40
Speaker 3: the time what they were telling you?
8:42
Speaker 1: Not at all. I don't have no no clue what
8:44
Speaker 1: was going on. When I got pulled over, it was well,
8:47
Speaker 1: some kind of traffic problem, something wrong with the car
8:50
Speaker 1: had lighter, But I don't have no clue on what
8:53
Speaker 1: was going on until they bringing temporary to the courtroom
8:56
Speaker 1: after I went for a bond hearing. There's one kind
8:59
Speaker 1: of stun to what was going on, and you kind
9:02
Speaker 1: of want to scream if it wasn't me, but you
9:05
Speaker 1: don't steal, like, well, there's got to be some kind
9:07
Speaker 1: of confusion. He's going to be meta day suntil they said, well,
9:10
Speaker 1: there's not a.
9:11
Speaker 3: Guy, because this is America, America, this isn't that don't
9:15
Speaker 3: happen in America. But so when you were read you
9:17
Speaker 3: were Miranda rights in the language that you didn't understand
9:21
Speaker 3: or speak very well, and you didn't at that time
9:23
Speaker 3: know why you were there, right, right, So let's think
9:26
Speaker 3: about that for a second. Right, if someone gets picked
9:29
Speaker 3: up and thinks that they're there for whether you speak
9:32
Speaker 3: English or not, and no matter if they read it
9:34
Speaker 3: to you in Portuguese, the fact is that if you
9:38
Speaker 3: are picked up and you think that it's just a
9:40
Speaker 3: minor violation of something that you're going to go to
9:43
Speaker 3: traffic court or whatever might be, why would you need
9:46
Speaker 3: a lawyer. I mean, you wouldn't even want a lawyer
9:48
Speaker 3: and pay for a lawyer, and you wouldn't want to
9:50
Speaker 3: wait for a lawyer. You probably want to get it
9:51
Speaker 3: done and so you could go home. But it worked
9:53
Speaker 3: the next day. So it's a very bad moment in
9:57
Speaker 3: time when you don't have that you need in order
10:01
Speaker 3: to make a decision that is actually life or death.
10:04
Speaker 3: But you're just being given totally in complete information, if
10:09
Speaker 3: any at all, and you're being read something you don't understand.
10:13
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's not set up to get to a
10:16
Speaker 3: very good conclusion. It's not set up to protect the
10:19
Speaker 3: person who's meant.
10:20
Speaker 8: To protect absolutely, and you have compounded the fact that
10:24
Speaker 8: Angel and his family recently had emigrated here, he wasn't
10:27
Speaker 8: familiar with the US system and barely spoke the language,
10:32
Speaker 8: so all of those barriers also existed, and he's not
10:37
Speaker 8: being given information as to what happened or why he's
10:40
Speaker 8: being questioned.
10:41
Speaker 7: Police did say to him, where.
10:43
Speaker 8: Were you, and he explains where he was. He says
10:46
Speaker 8: that keeps with his girlfriend, that they went to the
10:50
Speaker 8: girlfriend's sister's house. And at some point during this interrogation,
10:55
Speaker 8: which lasted many hours, police actually stopped and went out
11:01
Speaker 8: to follow up a bit on Angel's alibi.
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Speaker 7: But they didn't.
11:07
Speaker 8: Follow up on the alibi in order to see if
11:10
Speaker 8: he could be exonerated and you know, whether or not
11:12
Speaker 8: he committed the crime.
11:13
Speaker 7: They actually used it.
11:16
Speaker 8: They used it as a tool to trick him, you know,
11:20
Speaker 8: into trying to give an inculpatory statement. And so they
11:24
Speaker 8: went back to him and they lied to him and
11:26
Speaker 8: they said, we looked into your alibi and it didn't
11:29
Speaker 8: pan out. Nobody's supporting your alibi, which was just a lie.
11:33
Speaker 8: But of course, as you know, it's completely constitutional and
11:37
Speaker 8: acceptable for police to lie to a suspect and to
11:41
Speaker 8: say they have fingerprints or you know, say that they
11:43
Speaker 8: have evidence that they don't have in order to try
11:46
Speaker 8: to get the suspect to confess. We call it the
11:48
Speaker 8: false evidence ploy. It's a huge problem in false confession
11:52
Speaker 8: cases because, in a sense is a risk factor for
11:57
Speaker 8: false confessions. You think, oh, this will sort itself out later.
12:01
Speaker 8: You don't ask for the lawyer because you know you
12:03
Speaker 8: didn't do it, and you just want to You're not
12:05
Speaker 8: thinking I need to protect my rights. I just want
12:07
Speaker 8: to tell you, and once I give my side of
12:08
Speaker 8: the story, you'll understand you have the wrong person.
12:11
Speaker 7: And of course it doesn't end that way.
12:13
Speaker 3: Right, and it's it's legally acceptable but morally reprehensible. Absolutely,
12:17
Speaker 3: And he had all the information at his disposal, so
12:22
Speaker 3: he would have had every reason to believe that he
12:26
Speaker 3: would have been protected by the truth. But that's unfortunately,
12:29
Speaker 3: as we know, that's not how it works in too
12:32
Speaker 3: many cases. And his is really a perfect example that
12:35
Speaker 3: there was another factor too, which was sleep. Right, because
12:38
Speaker 3: you were there for quite a while, right, you're picked
12:40
Speaker 3: up at night, right, so you're probably a little tired, right,
12:44
Speaker 3: stressed obviously from the situation. How long did this go
12:49
Speaker 3: on for and how and what effect did that have
12:51
Speaker 3: on your ability to make you know, reasonable decisions.
12:55
Speaker 1: Well, after I got to the police station. At one
12:58
Speaker 1: point you lose track of time. I don't remember exactly
13:02
Speaker 1: how many hours, what was day or night anymore. Just
13:06
Speaker 1: do what you have to do. Let me get out
13:07
Speaker 1: of here. Some tired. I want to go sleep, I
13:10
Speaker 1: want to eat, I want to drink something. It is
13:13
Speaker 1: something they ill steal. Don't understand myself. Sometimes when you
13:17
Speaker 1: is so tired, you just want to everything wain like,
13:20
Speaker 1: do what you have to do, Just get me out
13:22
Speaker 1: of here.
13:23
Speaker 3: Right. Well, that's a common thing too, Vanessa. Right when
13:25
Speaker 3: you end up in that tiny room, you're basically trapped.
13:29
Speaker 3: You can't go anywhere, you have no access to anyone
13:32
Speaker 3: to help you, and you're overmatched, and they have everything
13:36
Speaker 3: on their side. They can lie, they can keep you
13:38
Speaker 3: awake for as long as they want. They can they
13:40
Speaker 3: can make you hungry, they can stress you out, but
13:42
Speaker 3: you're already stressed out enough. One of the other aspects
13:45
Speaker 3: of the case that I wanted to talk about is
13:46
Speaker 3: to show up because one of the reasons that Angel
13:50
Speaker 3: was wrongfully identified misidentified was because of the way that
13:56
Speaker 3: he was first viewed by the victim right or the witness,
14:00
Speaker 3: which I guess was the boyfriend. Can you talk about
14:01
Speaker 3: that little bit?
14:02
Speaker 8: Absolutely so ironically, he was basically across the street from
14:07
Speaker 8: the jail and courthouse on his way home when he
14:10
Speaker 8: was pulled over by police. And as he mentioned, he
14:14
Speaker 8: didn't know why he was being pulled over. He thought
14:16
Speaker 8: was at a traffic stop, you know, where they checking
14:18
Speaker 8: his license. He was a bit perplexed as to what
14:21
Speaker 8: was going on. And the police called back to the victim,
14:25
Speaker 8: who was at the scene with other officers back at
14:27
Speaker 8: her apartment complex, and they decided to do what's called
14:31
Speaker 8: the show up procedure, and essentially, officers brought the victim
14:35
Speaker 8: to the area where they had pulled Angel over, and
14:39
Speaker 8: the victim was seated in a patrol car, and they
14:44
Speaker 8: brought Angel in handcuffs with an officer standing next to him.
14:48
Speaker 8: And this is late at night, and so they have
14:51
Speaker 8: their headlights on and so that's the lighting. And they
14:54
Speaker 8: take Angel right in front of the car where the
14:57
Speaker 8: victim is, and while he's handcuffed and next to an officer,
15:01
Speaker 8: they say.
15:01
Speaker 7: To her, is this the man? Now?
15:04
Speaker 8: It's a highly suggestive procedure, of course, because what's the expectation.
15:09
Speaker 8: The expectation is that they caught the guy who did this,
15:12
Speaker 8: and those type of procedures show up should only be
15:16
Speaker 8: used in very exceptional circumstances, and here there was absolutely
15:21
Speaker 8: no excuse to do a show up because.
15:23
Speaker 7: They were across the street from the jail.
15:25
Speaker 8: They could, you know, if they wanted to do a
15:26
Speaker 8: lineup procedure with Angel, they could have said, will you
15:28
Speaker 8: come with us over to the jail and put together
15:31
Speaker 8: five or six people and got people who matched the
15:34
Speaker 8: victim's initial description and done a procedure that would have
15:38
Speaker 8: been fair. But they didn't do that, and they conducted
15:41
Speaker 8: this highly suggestive procedure and she said, yeah, that's him,
15:45
Speaker 8: which was almost inevitable based on the circumstances.
15:48
Speaker 3: I mean, you'd identify almost anybody at that point because
15:52
Speaker 3: it just looks like, well, wait a minute, the guy's
15:54
Speaker 3: in handcuffs, the cops got him, he's in my neighborhood.
15:57
Speaker 3: You're hispanic, good enough?
15:59
Speaker 8: Right?
15:59
Speaker 3: Who cares? I mean, so you don't look like the guy,
16:01
Speaker 3: but your mind is not right at that point anyway.
16:05
Speaker 3: And it's unbelievable that that is accepted procedure because it's
16:11
Speaker 3: just begging for mistakes to happen.
16:14
Speaker 8: To add insult to injury. They told the victim before
16:17
Speaker 8: she viewed Angel, we got somebody who matches the description
16:21
Speaker 8: of the person and driving a similar car.
16:24
Speaker 7: As you've reported. So we're going to bring you over
16:26
Speaker 7: to take.
16:26
Speaker 3: A look at him, right done. I mean you had
16:29
Speaker 3: no chance at that point in the general was totally stacked
16:32
Speaker 3: and you had no chance. In Angel's case, there were
16:35
Speaker 3: a lot of irregularities, to put it nicely, in the
16:38
Speaker 3: way that his confession was recorded and the way it
16:42
Speaker 3: was documented, and if you could just touch on that
16:44
Speaker 3: for a second, because it's important for people to know.
16:46
Speaker 3: I think people would like to think that when a
16:48
Speaker 3: confession is made, it's like the guy just sits there.
16:51
Speaker 3: He has a guilty conscience. He goes, I did it.
16:53
Speaker 3: I feel bad. I want to tell the truth. But
16:56
Speaker 3: in this case, it was fraught with problems and error.
17:00
Speaker 8: Right, So they brought Angel in. They had him there overnight.
17:03
Speaker 8: He really didn't know what he was there for. You know,
17:06
Speaker 8: the next morning, I believe it was, they start the
17:08
Speaker 8: formal interrogation process, and you know, at that time, Angel's saying,
17:13
Speaker 8: I was with my girlfriend last night. We went and
17:15
Speaker 8: saw her sister. He gives his alibi. The officer leaves
17:20
Speaker 8: at one point claiming that he's going to go try
17:22
Speaker 8: to check out Angel's alibi, and that's when he comes
17:25
Speaker 8: back and essentially lies to Angel and says, your albi
17:29
Speaker 8: doesn't check out. And you know, when you confront somebody
17:33
Speaker 8: with false evidence, people starts to feel overwhelmed and a
17:37
Speaker 8: sense of hopelessness, and let me get out of this situation.
17:40
Speaker 8: And they keep pressuring him, and basically the officer even
17:44
Speaker 8: testified at trial that they told him what happened.
17:48
Speaker 7: So they gave.
17:49
Speaker 8: Angel the facts of the crime. You know, he didn't
17:51
Speaker 8: know the facts, they gave it to him. And all
17:54
Speaker 8: this interrogation is happening, in the first instance, in English,
17:57
Speaker 8: and he doesn't speak English very well, so they're interrogating
18:01
Speaker 8: him in English, and then they ask him to write
18:04
Speaker 8: out a statement, and so he writes something out in Spanish,
18:07
Speaker 8: and though he's been given bits and pieces from the police,
18:10
Speaker 8: he doesn't he didn't do it. So he doesn't know
18:12
Speaker 8: the details of the crime. So the statement that he
18:14
Speaker 8: writes is just totally irrelevant, you know, it just wouldn't
18:17
Speaker 8: hold water. And so at that point, they bring somebody
18:20
Speaker 8: in who's Spanish speaking, and you know, interrogate him for
18:25
Speaker 8: much more time until they finally produce a statement that's
18:29
Speaker 8: written in English typewritten, I believe in English that they
18:33
Speaker 8: get him to sign without translating it into Spanish. So
18:37
Speaker 8: there's everything is wrong with this interrogation.
18:39
Speaker 9: And they didn't videotape the process at all, right, the
18:43
Speaker 9: only video that they produced was the video of him
18:45
Speaker 9: being read his Miranda rights at a time when he
18:47
Speaker 9: didn't understand what the hell they were talking about or
18:49
Speaker 9: why he was there.
18:50
Speaker 3: So, yeah, and you would hope that the courts would
18:53
Speaker 3: look at this and go, wait, there's all kinds of
18:55
Speaker 3: problems here. This is yes, it's a confession, but where's
18:59
Speaker 3: the where's the beef? You know?
19:02
Speaker 8: I think that this happened, you know, in nineteen ninety four,
19:06
Speaker 8: and here we are decades later, and we've had three
19:10
Speaker 8: hundred and fifty dnaxonerations, and the statistics are one in
19:15
Speaker 8: four of those people who were wrongfully convicted falsely confessed
19:20
Speaker 8: to crimes that they were completely innocent of. And even
19:23
Speaker 8: though we have those numbers and so much has been
19:27
Speaker 8: revealed about false confessions, there still is this attitude prevalent
19:32
Speaker 8: among courts and people in the system, and even to
19:35
Speaker 8: some extent the general public, that if you confessed, you
19:37
Speaker 8: did it, and people think.
19:40
Speaker 7: Of themselves and whatever strength or.
19:42
Speaker 8: Fortitude they think they have, and how they would respond, Oh,
19:45
Speaker 8: I would never confess to something I didn't do, even
19:47
Speaker 8: if I was interrogated.
19:49
Speaker 7: And so we still find that.
19:52
Speaker 8: People have trouble believing that somebody would admit to something
19:55
Speaker 8: that they didn't do, so they don't give it the
19:58
Speaker 8: scrutiny that you're just talking about. You know, nobody stops
20:01
Speaker 8: in the system to say, hey, this doesn't make sense.
20:03
Speaker 8: And right now, really the only screening that courts do
20:07
Speaker 8: for whether a confession should be admitted is whether or
20:10
Speaker 8: not it's voluntary. Did you get your miranda rights and
20:13
Speaker 8: knowingly waive them? Nobody looks at is this reliable? No
20:17
Speaker 8: court is doing a pre screening before trial to say,
20:21
Speaker 8: are there too many discrepancies between the facts, This is
20:24
Speaker 8: story does not make sense, and if so, we're not
20:27
Speaker 8: going to allow this evidence. In and Angel's case happened
20:31
Speaker 8: in a jurisdiction Lake County, Illinois, Waukegan that had many
20:35
Speaker 8: other wrongful convictions, Some of them false confessions, and of
20:39
Speaker 8: course it's Chicago's not too far away with the torture
20:42
Speaker 8: cases and real legacy of feeding and coercing false confessions
20:48
Speaker 8: out of people. But it doesn't need to be that
20:50
Speaker 8: type of physical coercion, you know, as we see just
20:53
Speaker 8: presenting false evidence or using some of these other techniques
20:56
Speaker 8: that police do. You know, you just pointed out if
20:58
Speaker 8: you have experienced with the system, maybe know not to
21:00
Speaker 8: talk to the police. But if you don't and you
21:03
Speaker 8: go in there and the police say, just tell me
21:05
Speaker 8: what happened, you just need to talk to me, and
21:07
Speaker 8: I'm going to help you. Some people believe that or
21:10
Speaker 8: it's not going to be as bad if you tell
21:12
Speaker 8: me now, and they start throwing out scenarios and lead
21:15
Speaker 8: people to believe if I just give them something, I
21:17
Speaker 8: can get out of this stressful situation. And because I'm innocent,
21:21
Speaker 8: people will find it out as the system goes on.
21:24
Speaker 3: So it all conspires to end up in a situation
21:30
Speaker 3: like you Angel found yourself in when in June of
21:34
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five, you ended up in court facing what
21:39
Speaker 3: ultimately might as well have been a death sentence because
21:42
Speaker 3: you were sentenced to fifty five years in prison for
21:45
Speaker 3: something you didn't have anything to do with, didn't understand,
21:48
Speaker 3: and didn't know about. What was that like?
21:50
Speaker 1: Here you are being sentenced to fifty five years in
21:54
Speaker 1: life for a crime you don't call me. You know,
21:58
Speaker 1: there's something that scare you for life. I've been accused
22:01
Speaker 1: of such a horrible crime. I used to think and say, well,
22:05
Speaker 1: I wish at least we have been accused of all
22:07
Speaker 1: the kind of crime, not a raven and kidnapping a female.
22:12
Speaker 1: And when you leave there, it's just you start learning
22:17
Speaker 1: to live like some kind of animal. The all the
22:20
Speaker 1: bigger animals want to eat. So you have to watch
22:23
Speaker 1: yourself everywhere you go, what time, who's around you. And unfortunately,
22:29
Speaker 1: to this day, as to do it sometimes always what
22:32
Speaker 1: I'm going, who I'm going with, what they're going to
22:34
Speaker 1: think of me? But is something there I don't wish
22:38
Speaker 1: up for nobody. He really messed you up mentally.
22:41
Speaker 3: And physically, I'm sure too. But the you know, the
22:44
Speaker 3: crazy irony of that situation too, is that here we
22:47
Speaker 3: have a guy right who was so honorable that he
22:50
Speaker 3: was asking his girlfriend's father, is it okay if I
22:54
Speaker 3: propose to your daughter? He wasn't sleeping with her before
22:57
Speaker 3: the wedding, right, really an old fashioned, like, you know,
22:59
Speaker 3: very honorable, there's no other way to describe it. And
23:02
Speaker 3: then to be convicted of the most dishonorable crime, right,
23:06
Speaker 3: one of them that you could be convicted of, right,
23:09
Speaker 3: other than doing it to a child. There's nothing, you know,
23:12
Speaker 3: that's probably more sort of despicable that you can think
23:16
Speaker 3: of than raping and kidnapping and raping a woman. And
23:20
Speaker 3: so it's really sort of a cruel twist of fate
23:23
Speaker 3: that this would happen to somebody like you, who is
23:25
Speaker 3: the last person in the world that would ever be
23:27
Speaker 3: involved with something like this based on what we know
23:29
Speaker 3: about about you, Angel. So it really gets interesting from
23:33
Speaker 3: a legal perspective, right, and from an innocent perspective. In
23:36
Speaker 3: two thousand and one, because after having been in now
23:40
Speaker 3: for six years, in this terrible situation, being in a
23:45
Speaker 3: maximum security prison, as someone who's been convicted of these
23:48
Speaker 3: terrible crimes, you got to break. The DNA was found
23:52
Speaker 3: and it didn't match.
23:54
Speaker 8: Right, So there was a first round of DNA testing
23:57
Speaker 8: that happened in two thousand and one, and they were
24:00
Speaker 8: able through the testing to find sperm evidence and get
24:04
Speaker 8: a DNA profile for it, and Angel was absolutely excluded
24:08
Speaker 8: as the source of that profile. But because two people
24:12
Speaker 8: had committed the crime, the state took the position, well,
24:16
Speaker 8: this sperm must come from the other person that we
24:19
Speaker 8: never caught, the second assailant, and so these DNA test
24:23
Speaker 8: results don't prove your innocence, and it would be I
24:27
Speaker 8: guess another thirteen years until that day would come.
24:30
Speaker 3: I mean, what kind of science is that, right? It
24:34
Speaker 3: seems to me. I'm not a scientist, but it seems
24:36
Speaker 3: to me that if the DNA wasn't there just because
24:40
Speaker 3: there was two assailants, your DNA would still have to
24:42
Speaker 3: be there, would it not. It might be mixed in
24:45
Speaker 3: or whatever, but there would be some traces of Angel's
24:49
Speaker 3: DNA at the scene if he had been one of
24:50
Speaker 3: the rapists.
24:52
Speaker 8: Well, I guess arguably someone would say, how do you
24:54
Speaker 8: know that the second assailant didn't wear a condom or
24:57
Speaker 8: maybe didn't ejaculate and didn't leave any of their DNA.
25:01
Speaker 8: I mean, nowadays DNA is so sensitive that if people
25:05
Speaker 8: have sexual contact or even with touch DNA there's you know,
25:08
Speaker 8: studies that are done on handshaking and after ten seconds
25:11
Speaker 8: of handshaking. You could get enough DNA just by swabbing
25:14
Speaker 8: somebody's hand who they shook hands with.
25:16
Speaker 7: So it's very sensitive today.
25:19
Speaker 8: So theoretically, was there a possibility that that semen could
25:23
Speaker 8: have belonged to the second assailant?
25:25
Speaker 3: I think so the things are mounting, right. There's all
25:28
Speaker 3: the things that we talked about with the and in fact,
25:30
Speaker 3: in your trial, Angel, there were witnesses that testified on
25:33
Speaker 3: your behalf. You know, we've seen so many INNSIS project
25:36
Speaker 3: clients where the quarter pointed attorney didn't even bother to
25:39
Speaker 3: call witnesses, or there weren't any witnesses or what else.
25:43
Speaker 3: In your case, there were witnesses who got up on
25:45
Speaker 3: the stand and said, no, he was with me, he
25:48
Speaker 3: couldn't have done this crime. So you have that, now
25:50
Speaker 3: you have the DNA six years later that emerges. That's like, well, okay,
25:53
Speaker 3: So as DNA's not there, the prosecution at that point
25:55
Speaker 3: has to know that the case is falling apart, right right.
25:58
Speaker 8: These two thousand and one DNA test results came about
26:01
Speaker 8: at a time when in Lake County there was a
26:04
Speaker 8: prosecutor named Michael murmu who was the chief of the
26:07
Speaker 8: Felony Division for many years there and he basically just
26:11
Speaker 8: didn't believe in science.
26:13
Speaker 3: So how frustrating is this angel. You're in this impossible situation,
26:19
Speaker 3: a peaceful guy stuck in the very violent prison where
26:24
Speaker 3: people don't have respect for you. They don't respect for anybody,
26:27
Speaker 3: but particularly for you because of the fact of the
26:28
Speaker 3: nature of the crime that you were convicted of. And
26:31
Speaker 3: now your hopes are raised as you're trying to survive
26:34
Speaker 3: day to day. Your hopes were raised by knowing that
26:36
Speaker 3: this testing had been done, which proved what you had
26:39
Speaker 3: been saying all along, but nobody was listening that you
26:42
Speaker 3: weren't the guy. And now you get a phone call
26:45
Speaker 3: and they say, well, even though it proves that you're innocent,
26:48
Speaker 3: you're still stuck here. I mean, how did you deal
26:50
Speaker 3: with that?
26:53
Speaker 1: What I used to prom my mind is I have
26:55
Speaker 1: to be strong for my mother, and I believe this
26:58
Speaker 1: is what keep me fighting because you always believe in me,
27:01
Speaker 1: even with a lot of the people dot it like, well,
27:04
Speaker 1: if the law systems say that you did it, well,
27:07
Speaker 1: there's the law system. We kind of have to believe them.
27:11
Speaker 1: It's just just saying you don't commit the crime. But
27:14
Speaker 1: at the end, and to this day, I look at
27:16
Speaker 1: my mom and that's what keeps me going when I
27:19
Speaker 1: have rough days like I can deal with this no more.
27:22
Speaker 1: It's just hard. But I look at my mom color
27:25
Speaker 1: and I keep moving on. When you find yourself in
27:28
Speaker 1: a situation like that, for me, it's going to prison.
27:31
Speaker 1: I don't reully convicted. It don't matter what you go
27:34
Speaker 1: through in life. You got to find something. And my
27:37
Speaker 1: kids it was my mom something to move along to
27:40
Speaker 1: keep on fighting. And sometimes you feel like you're in
27:44
Speaker 1: a war, but you don't have no weapons, so you
27:46
Speaker 1: got to find some kind of weapons. Like I said,
27:50
Speaker 1: in my case, it was my mom. I have to
27:52
Speaker 1: do it to show my mother that I don't commit
27:54
Speaker 1: this crime, even though when she told me always I
27:57
Speaker 1: know you don't commit the crime. I don't raise the
27:59
Speaker 1: kind of person.
28:17
Speaker 3: Ultimately, you, somehow or other got in touch with the
28:21
Speaker 3: Innocence Project. How did that happen? How did you find out?
28:24
Speaker 3: How did you get in touch? How did you learn
28:26
Speaker 3: that they were taking your case?
28:28
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of weird how everything evolved to find
28:32
Speaker 1: out about the Innocence Project. I kind of lost my
28:35
Speaker 1: mind for a while when I got to prison and
28:37
Speaker 1: I got in trouble. I was punished and sent to
28:40
Speaker 1: a segregation and after I finished, during the time, they
28:44
Speaker 1: moved me to another building and I meet an old man.
28:47
Speaker 1: They asked he I'm still looking for him. His name
28:51
Speaker 1: I used to call him in prison old Tea. This
28:54
Speaker 1: guy he was on his probably close to his sixties.
28:57
Speaker 1: He used to work in the low library. And we
28:59
Speaker 1: started again and asked him a little bit about the
29:02
Speaker 1: best way I could about the system and splaindly to
29:05
Speaker 1: bit what's going on. And he said, well, you have
29:08
Speaker 1: any papers, any transcripts or something that I can look at,
29:11
Speaker 1: because anybody say that, But luckily for me, I have
29:16
Speaker 1: some transcripts of the appeal if I can rema correctly.
29:20
Speaker 1: So I showed him to him, and within a couple
29:23
Speaker 1: of days probably he read them. And he told me,
29:26
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know that I see a lot
29:28
Speaker 1: of problems with your case. He said, I'm not an attorney,
29:31
Speaker 1: but I know an organization they do take cases like yours,
29:35
Speaker 1: and his name is the Innocence Project out of New York.
29:38
Speaker 1: And I said, if you want me to, we can
29:41
Speaker 1: write them a letter. Because by the time where the
29:43
Speaker 1: prison was on lockdown and we don't have access to
29:46
Speaker 1: go to the library to get the right form to
29:49
Speaker 1: fill up. So I said, sure, thank you very much,
29:51
Speaker 1: it would be good if you can do that for me.
29:54
Speaker 1: So he did. In nineteen ninety seven, I believe he
29:57
Speaker 1: wrote the letter to the Innosance Project. I remember getting
30:01
Speaker 1: like a postcard back saying they are, well, we got
30:04
Speaker 1: your letter, we got your information. Don't write alls on calls,
30:08
Speaker 1: we'd write you, we contact you. There's a lot of
30:11
Speaker 1: people waiting online. So once well, okay, well that's it,
30:16
Speaker 1: you know, But even after they always when I was
30:19
Speaker 1: fighting the case with my families helped they pay an
30:22
Speaker 1: attorney for appeals, post appeals and everything we could. In
30:26
Speaker 1: the back of my mind there was always, well, there's
30:28
Speaker 1: still hope. There's the Innocence Project. Maybe somehow, someway, one
30:32
Speaker 1: day they will help me in a The more I
30:35
Speaker 1: started understanding English, I started seeing the case about Barry
30:39
Speaker 1: Check and the organization and the DNA and all the
30:42
Speaker 1: programs on TV, so I was always like, well, hopefully
30:45
Speaker 1: one day they would come and help me out.
30:48
Speaker 3: And then one day did you get a letter? How
30:50
Speaker 3: did you find out that they had accepted the case?
30:52
Speaker 1: I got transferred to non institution. I started going went
30:54
Speaker 1: to school and I don't know where. One day, out
30:57
Speaker 1: of the blue, I got a letter from the Innocence
30:59
Speaker 1: Project like, look, your name come out and we need
31:02
Speaker 1: your transcripts. Please send your transcripts and we're going to
31:06
Speaker 1: look into your case. So we did send the transcripts
31:09
Speaker 1: around h five. I'm not a very good time, and
31:13
Speaker 1: uh it went on like that, We're probably another couple
31:16
Speaker 1: of years. And I was like, well, I'll send the
31:19
Speaker 1: transcripts and I don't hear anything. But one day I
31:22
Speaker 1: got the letter. I remember Molly saying that you we
31:27
Speaker 1: read transcripts, and I think you are you know man,
31:32
Speaker 1: that alone, you don't know what to do. I was
31:35
Speaker 1: so happy, but at the same time, you got to
31:38
Speaker 1: remember where you were. You can scream and say, well
31:40
Speaker 1: I'm innocent. They're gonna help me. So they called my
31:43
Speaker 1: mom and she was so happy and so like, Okay,
31:48
Speaker 1: now what when they're going to come and get you.
31:50
Speaker 1: I was like, well, Mom, it's a long process. It's
31:54
Speaker 1: going to be a while. Imagine for us, they got
31:58
Speaker 1: to do DNA testing, they got to go to court
32:02
Speaker 1: and so on. So it was the longest time that
32:06
Speaker 1: I didn't prison long as they's waiting for something. And
32:10
Speaker 1: I talked to Vanessa and I was so happy. I
32:14
Speaker 1: wasn't homey about life. Yes, with the simple fact that
32:17
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project is helping you and they're looking at
32:20
Speaker 1: your case and and to me there.
32:23
Speaker 3: Was big I know from talking to other formally incarcerated
32:27
Speaker 3: people that you can't run around and show all your
32:30
Speaker 3: emotion and you know you're going to get in trouble
32:33
Speaker 3: with the guards or the inmates, or something bad can happen.
32:37
Speaker 3: But did you have somebody in prison that you were
32:39
Speaker 3: close to that you could share this information? Did you
32:41
Speaker 3: just keep it to yourself and tell your mother and
32:43
Speaker 3: that was it? How did you did you have a
32:45
Speaker 3: person like one person that you trusted?
32:48
Speaker 1: I did the time. It was a old man I
32:51
Speaker 1: had met another prison many years ago, and uh, this
32:54
Speaker 1: older gentleman he's still there, unfortunately. And we become good
33:00
Speaker 1: friends because he knew about the law. He used to
33:02
Speaker 1: work in the library as well, and he knew about
33:05
Speaker 1: my case. And explained him and show him the letter.
33:08
Speaker 1: He said, oh man, that's a great news. Man, you're
33:10
Speaker 1: going home.
33:11
Speaker 3: And what about the guy who first told you about
33:13
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project in the law library. Did you get
33:15
Speaker 3: to tell him the good news?
33:17
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, we have moved around in the prison system and
33:20
Speaker 1: I don't know where and he ended up and I
33:22
Speaker 1: don't get to get his real name. And when you
33:25
Speaker 1: in prison, you move so much and they shake you down,
33:28
Speaker 1: they go through your paperwork, and sometimes it's not allowed
33:31
Speaker 1: to have all the inmates information on your property, so
33:35
Speaker 1: you can really have all the inmates information. And uh.
33:39
Speaker 1: And to this day, I'm still trying to figure out
33:41
Speaker 1: who he was. And I'm planning on probably hiring a
33:45
Speaker 1: probably detective and find out who he was and where
33:48
Speaker 1: he at.
33:48
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe somebody who's listening knows the answer.
33:51
Speaker 1: Again, his nickname was Old T old t.
33:54
Speaker 3: Okay, if anybody knows Old.
33:55
Speaker 8: T send an email to the Innocence Project, We'll make
33:59
Speaker 8: sure to get it. It's been one of our dreams
34:00
Speaker 8: to try to find Old Team.
34:03
Speaker 3: Let's find it. But what email addressed to the Inscesce
34:04
Speaker 3: project though, because you can just sell into the Innocence Project.
34:07
Speaker 8: That was just info at Innocence Project dot org.
34:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then put the subject line Angel Gonzales and
34:12
Speaker 3: then we'll this would be incredible if we could actually
34:15
Speaker 3: find him, and you know that would be an amazing moment. Ultimately, Vanessa,
34:19
Speaker 3: how did this get resolved? It took several years. Still
34:23
Speaker 3: from this point, must have trusted your patients. How did
34:26
Speaker 3: we win?
34:27
Speaker 8: So fortunately a new DA was elected, and I think
34:32
Speaker 8: that you know, when people look at elections that are
34:34
Speaker 8: going on through the country, you know, they usually look
34:36
Speaker 8: at kind of the highest levels. But these DA races
34:38
Speaker 8: are so important because what a difference a district attorney
34:42
Speaker 8: can make in terms of who's being prosecuted and post
34:45
Speaker 8: conviction just getting access to.
34:47
Speaker 7: Evidence to prove innocence.
34:48
Speaker 8: And so the old regime was out in Lake County
34:51
Speaker 8: and a new DA came in, Mike Nrheim, and that
34:55
Speaker 8: was a fortunate move for us because we've reached out
34:58
Speaker 8: to the States of Ernie Nrheim and requested that we
35:02
Speaker 8: be able to retest Angel's evidence, and under the previous administration,
35:07
Speaker 8: we would have been fighting for five years just to
35:09
Speaker 8: get access to the evidence. But he agreed we didn't
35:12
Speaker 8: have to do any litigation, and so the evidence pretty
35:14
Speaker 8: quickly went off to the lab. What took some time
35:18
Speaker 8: and was really stressful about Angel's case is that, you know,
35:20
Speaker 8: when we read his transcripts, and we looked at the confession,
35:24
Speaker 8: and we looked at how he even got caught up
35:27
Speaker 8: in this. I think Mollie was sincere when she was
35:29
Speaker 8: a law student. She said that, you know, she knew
35:31
Speaker 8: you were innocent. So what was so stressful for us
35:33
Speaker 8: is we knew that the only way we were going
35:35
Speaker 8: to be able to exonerate him was to get a
35:37
Speaker 8: second profile. And you know how they're already been testing,
35:41
Speaker 8: and so we started to look at the victims' shorts.
35:45
Speaker 8: One of the perpetrators had ripped off of her shorts
35:47
Speaker 8: and they were torn, and so the lab was able
35:50
Speaker 8: to get some male DNA from the area where the
35:54
Speaker 8: perpetrator actually tore her shorts and some other samples, and
35:58
Speaker 8: so that created the second profile in addition to the sperm,
36:02
Speaker 8: which showed, Look, we now have the genetic profile of
36:05
Speaker 8: the two men who did this crime, and neither of
36:08
Speaker 8: those people is angel And.
36:10
Speaker 7: I think once we had that proof, it was pretty quick.
36:14
Speaker 8: It was a matter of weeks before they went back
36:17
Speaker 8: and they talked to the victim. And in these cases,
36:20
Speaker 8: the victim was traumatized and a lot of times it's
36:22
Speaker 8: you know, really hard for them to accept that the
36:24
Speaker 8: innocent people went to prison and the real perpetrators are
36:27
Speaker 8: still out there. And so she said, well, maybe it's
36:29
Speaker 8: my boyfriend's DNA, and so they tested the boyfriend and
36:32
Speaker 8: he was excluded, further establishing the DNA profiles we had
36:36
Speaker 8: came from the two people who did it, and it
36:38
Speaker 8: was an Angel, And so, you know, initially we thought
36:41
Speaker 8: it was over because they prosecutor was agreeing to vacate
36:44
Speaker 8: his conviction, and we were ready to go into court,
36:46
Speaker 8: and we expected that that day his conviction was tossed.
36:50
Speaker 8: He was just going to walk out of court and
36:53
Speaker 8: into the arms of his mom and his dad was
36:55
Speaker 8: who was there and had suffered a stroke and some
36:58
Speaker 8: health complications while Angel was locked up.
37:02
Speaker 3: And what a terrible thing that this poor victim has
37:05
Speaker 3: to learn twenty years later that the people that did
37:09
Speaker 3: this to her got away with it. They literally got
37:11
Speaker 3: away with it, and they were free to go out
37:14
Speaker 3: and do the same thing to other innocent women, and
37:19
Speaker 3: that all this time she had been told a false narrative.
37:24
Speaker 3: It's such a terrible new trauma for someone to have
37:29
Speaker 3: to endure to now find out that they've misplaced their anger.
37:33
Speaker 3: And also that they've contributed to just a terrible, terrible
37:37
Speaker 3: situation that you had to endure. I mean, I can't
37:42
Speaker 3: even process that whole It's a whole mixture of hers
37:46
Speaker 3: for somebody that have to and almost to relive the
37:49
Speaker 3: whole thing again twenty years later. How did you find out?
37:53
Speaker 3: Was it in court that you found out or was
37:55
Speaker 3: it later?
37:56
Speaker 1: Well, how would you want to speak to one SI?
37:59
Speaker 1: It was on a Friday, and she said, well, look,
38:02
Speaker 1: we're going to court Monday, and uh is not over yet.
38:06
Speaker 1: Things stick can happen. You may come home to day,
38:08
Speaker 1: you may not, so on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So okay.
38:14
Speaker 1: So at the time I was like, well, I'm coming
38:17
Speaker 1: home because everything is there, like they shouldn't be nothing
38:21
Speaker 1: from them, so they can stop me. But at the
38:23
Speaker 1: same time, like, well maybe they can come out with
38:24
Speaker 1: some crazy thing they have no idea and say, well,
38:27
Speaker 1: you're not going home because of this, and uh, ironically,
38:30
Speaker 1: it's kind of what happened the day who went to
38:33
Speaker 1: court and everything went our way and they said, well, wait,
38:36
Speaker 1: you did something in prison.
38:38
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we have to talk about this. Yeah. When
38:40
Speaker 3: Angels talking about this other case, he's talking about the
38:43
Speaker 3: fact that at one point in prison he destroyed I'm
38:47
Speaker 3: talking about he like, you're not here but yet, So Angel,
38:50
Speaker 3: you it seems like, said a gentle guy. I mean,
38:53
Speaker 3: you have a breaking point too, like anybody else. And
38:55
Speaker 3: you destroyed a sink in the prison.
38:57
Speaker 1: Correct?
38:57
Speaker 3: Was that in solitary confinement?
38:59
Speaker 1: Yes?
39:00
Speaker 3: Right, so you're in solitary confinement. You have nowhere to
39:02
Speaker 3: take your aggressions out. Rather than take it out on
39:04
Speaker 3: another inmate or guard or anything else, at least you
39:06
Speaker 3: took it out on an inanimate object. I mean, the
39:09
Speaker 3: poor sink. I'm sure feelings too. But anyway, so the
39:12
Speaker 3: Angel destroyed this sink and was given an additional three
39:15
Speaker 3: year sentence for assault and battery on a sink.
39:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
39:19
Speaker 3: Is that an actual crime destruction.
39:21
Speaker 7: Of state property?
39:22
Speaker 8: Three years concurrent sentence, So an additional three years.
39:38
Speaker 3: So now here it is, you're in and you were
39:40
Speaker 3: in the courtroom. I assume Vanessa went yes.
39:43
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I was in the courtroom.
39:44
Speaker 8: You know, it's a pretty surreal experience because we're standing there,
39:47
Speaker 8: we're with the prosecutor. The prosecutor stands up and declares
39:51
Speaker 8: Angel innocent of this brutal rape that he has a
39:54
Speaker 8: fifty five year sentence for and everybody's acknowledging he's been
39:58
Speaker 8: wrongfully convicted, and they say, no, he has to go
40:02
Speaker 8: back because the conviction for destruction of state property still stands.
40:07
Speaker 8: And not only does it still stand, but he was
40:09
Speaker 8: prosecuted for.
40:10
Speaker 7: That in the town where the prison was.
40:13
Speaker 8: So we then had to try to file emotion and
40:16
Speaker 8: drive the following day to the court in the prison town,
40:21
Speaker 8: and that's when Angel appeared through video conference, and we
40:24
Speaker 8: basically we had some legal grounds to go back and
40:28
Speaker 8: overturn the conviction, but it was basically throwing our mercy
40:32
Speaker 8: on the court and saying he's been wrongfully convicted of
40:34
Speaker 8: this other crime, and please vacate this conviction so he
40:38
Speaker 8: can finally come home, which the judge did.
40:40
Speaker 3: That's a good judge, I mean, because he didn't have
40:42
Speaker 3: to do that.
40:43
Speaker 7: Yeah, right, and shielded it was a woman.
40:45
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So the judge shows no mercy on the sink,
40:51
Speaker 3: but shows mercy on you, which was certainly logical, rational
40:55
Speaker 3: and compassionate thing to do. And now you're finally, you're
40:59
Speaker 3: finally there were you on video when this was.
41:01
Speaker 1: Happening, Yes, the core was on videotape.
41:04
Speaker 3: So you were in I wasn't side person. You're back
41:07
Speaker 3: in the present. Yes, So they have a room there
41:09
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to visualize this, right, So you're in
41:11
Speaker 3: this room. Are you there with a guard? Yes, and
41:14
Speaker 3: you're watching this on video.
41:16
Speaker 1: Right, you're watching the judge in front of you.
41:19
Speaker 3: And then what now you're still inside this room. But
41:22
Speaker 3: this was your reaction? Was the guard's reaction?
41:25
Speaker 1: Well, they don't know what to do, Like, okay, now
41:28
Speaker 1: you finally all the cases are just missed, and how
41:30
Speaker 1: we process this? They were when in the halfway paperwork
41:34
Speaker 1: in the morning, but like, so we don't know if
41:36
Speaker 1: you go home, And I said, well do you know
41:39
Speaker 1: if you go home? No, So nobody knew when too,
41:43
Speaker 1: four thirty and now it was late and second ship guards,
41:47
Speaker 1: they don't know what to do. Well, how we process this?
41:51
Speaker 1: Somebody's picking you up. We just cannot let you go here,
41:54
Speaker 1: and the town lose.
41:56
Speaker 3: I don't know why.
41:57
Speaker 8: But his legal team we were in the car, are paralegals,
42:01
Speaker 8: law students driving over to get angel and then this
42:04
Speaker 8: is you know, kind of the crazy part of the
42:06
Speaker 8: innocence project job.
42:07
Speaker 7: We're on the way and We're like, what is he
42:09
Speaker 7: gonna wear? So we're like, is there a Walmart? Is
42:11
Speaker 7: there any store in this town?
42:13
Speaker 8: And so we're like, take a detour to go try
42:16
Speaker 8: to find some clothes in a Walmart?
42:18
Speaker 7: What size is he?
42:19
Speaker 8: We don't know, you know, so we're doing our best. Guest,
42:21
Speaker 8: I think we didn't you look good in the pictures?
42:23
Speaker 1: We didn't very good. It was very good. Thank you?
42:26
Speaker 3: So and this and by the way, I can't imagine. Well,
42:29
Speaker 3: first of all, I'm I'm going back for a second.
42:31
Speaker 3: So was the guard. What was the guard's reaction? He's
42:33
Speaker 3: never seen anything like this before. Did he get emotional?
42:36
Speaker 3: Did you get emotional? By this point, you were just like,
42:38
Speaker 3: what the hell? I mean?
42:39
Speaker 1: Well, I used to be housed in in a unit.
42:43
Speaker 1: They used to call it a postally living unit, so
42:46
Speaker 1: most of the people that were working on themselves to
42:50
Speaker 1: better themselves. And I used to be a volunteer in
42:54
Speaker 1: the prison for years, so I pretty much knew everybody
42:58
Speaker 1: and the building and some of the guards. I remember
43:02
Speaker 1: one of the officers I used to work for. On
43:05
Speaker 1: one day, You're gonna see me walking out of the door,
43:06
Speaker 1: and you're gonna walk me all the way to the
43:08
Speaker 1: door and gonna say good luck. I used to left
43:11
Speaker 1: about it, like why you're gonna escape, Like, no, you're
43:15
Speaker 1: gonna walk me to the door and you're gonna say
43:16
Speaker 1: good luck. But he was our second shift officer, so like, well,
43:19
Speaker 1: I don't even work in the morning, so you I'm
43:21
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. And funny enough, the day he
43:26
Speaker 1: wasn't working there in the unit, but he come and
43:28
Speaker 1: relieve another officers like, hey, I'm going home, Yes, look
43:32
Speaker 1: at me, and it's miceaid, well, I guess it was
43:34
Speaker 1: true what you was telling me, so well, good luck.
43:38
Speaker 1: By the time, and then in the particular unit and
43:40
Speaker 1: most of the prisons they already knew because the media,
43:42
Speaker 1: the news who wasn't Telemundo and all the local channels,
43:47
Speaker 1: so they kind of knew what was going on already.
43:49
Speaker 1: It was something that you free, you go home, but
43:51
Speaker 1: the door isn't.
43:52
Speaker 3: Open, and what about let's do the split screen. Now,
43:56
Speaker 3: now you are driving around trying to find a Walmart
43:59
Speaker 3: at the you know, in the nighttime and somewhere around
44:02
Speaker 3: wakegan and what was the spirit in the car? Everybody
44:05
Speaker 3: freaking out, Like the law students probably hadn't experienced this before.
44:09
Speaker 8: Right, We were very excited and I think many people
44:12
Speaker 8: had such a special connection to Angel.
44:15
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was a little psychotic.
44:16
Speaker 8: I mean, once we realized this conviction was still there,
44:20
Speaker 8: we were on the side of the road trying to
44:22
Speaker 8: draft emotion to get filed, to get him out. So
44:24
Speaker 8: it's a whirlwin of twenty four hours. And we had
44:27
Speaker 8: a law student paralegal and I was like, look, just
44:30
Speaker 8: here's your time.
44:31
Speaker 7: To step up to be lawyers.
44:33
Speaker 8: Start to do some research, find a way that we're
44:35
Speaker 8: going to vacate this conviction. And yeah, and we were
44:38
Speaker 8: picking out the clothes, but it was it was we're
44:41
Speaker 8: really excited for this moment. And we had already met
44:45
Speaker 8: Angel's mother and father and siblings and beautiful extended family
44:50
Speaker 8: at the court hearing when they were so disappointed to
44:53
Speaker 8: the day before when his conviction was vacated, but he
44:55
Speaker 8: didn't come home, and so it was excitement and just
44:59
Speaker 8: really happy that we were able to get him and
45:02
Speaker 8: bring him home that night and there was a huge
45:04
Speaker 8: party waiting for him with balloons and lots of food,
45:09
Speaker 8: great food.
45:10
Speaker 3: Right, and now, what how is their life now? I mean,
45:13
Speaker 3: you've been out for a couple of years. I know
45:16
Speaker 3: you talked about how you're still dealing with some of
45:19
Speaker 3: the psychological issues and trauma that you experienced. But what
45:23
Speaker 3: are you doing? How are you adjusting our things for
45:27
Speaker 3: you now?
45:28
Speaker 1: Well, I'm trying to still readjust to life. Some days
45:31
Speaker 1: are harder than others, definitely, But again I go and
45:35
Speaker 1: and think about what can I do positive today and
45:38
Speaker 1: especially right now. You inviter us to the show. Thank
45:41
Speaker 1: you very much, and I'll do what I can to
45:43
Speaker 1: talk about the Innocence Project to keey hope to those
45:46
Speaker 1: who still fighting their cases in prison is not easy.
45:50
Speaker 1: But as long as you keep on fighting, someday help
45:54
Speaker 1: is going to come from the Innocence Project or other organizations.
45:58
Speaker 1: Somebody somewhere, some how. I was doing the same thing
46:01
Speaker 1: for me. I feel like that's what I have to
46:04
Speaker 1: continue on doing. Spread the war. Just talk to sometimes
46:08
Speaker 1: the mothers of those wrongfully convicted. They call me and
46:11
Speaker 1: ask me about what can I do for my son?
46:14
Speaker 1: Who are those lawyers that get you out? How they
46:16
Speaker 1: get you out, how much they charge you? And all
46:19
Speaker 1: I can tell them sometimes you got to keep on fighting.
46:21
Speaker 1: And this is the information called make sure that he
46:24
Speaker 1: writes them and don't give up. And that's what I'm
46:27
Speaker 1: I'm doing right now. I have a dream. When I
46:30
Speaker 1: was inside, I take construction classes. That are when I
46:34
Speaker 1: come home, I start something to help others. And that's
46:36
Speaker 1: what I'm doing right now. I just started working on it.
46:39
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping or building a house for the purpose
46:43
Speaker 1: of when somebody's coming home he's been wrongfully convicted. We
46:47
Speaker 1: have a place to learn, a place where they can
46:50
Speaker 1: at least teach them the most basic stuff of life. Here.
46:53
Speaker 1: This is the phone. This is how you use it.
46:55
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about paying rent. You don't
46:57
Speaker 1: have to worry but paying bills for six eight months,
47:00
Speaker 1: as long as we can allow you to stay here
47:03
Speaker 1: so you can start living again, because when you come home,
47:06
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a big shot. Twenty something years for
47:10
Speaker 1: me and now everything has changed. And to this day,
47:13
Speaker 1: when they send me their tickets to flying on the
47:15
Speaker 1: phone like what I do? Now? Did you get the email?
47:18
Speaker 1: Like how I get my email? So the small things
47:21
Speaker 1: like that, I'm still learning. Yes, imagine if they take
47:25
Speaker 1: it to another planet like here you are, here's what
47:27
Speaker 1: you need, here's all the technology, but you know how
47:30
Speaker 1: to use it. We just look at it like okay, now,
47:33
Speaker 1: who's going to help me? I will leave there. And
47:35
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of places, a lot of states,
47:37
Speaker 1: we still have the need for somebody to kind of
47:40
Speaker 1: mentor you and teach you the most basic stuff. Yes,
47:44
Speaker 1: there's something as simple as going to store and then
47:46
Speaker 1: pick up toiletries, like now you have all these products?
47:50
Speaker 1: What I picked? Or how I go about it? Did
47:53
Speaker 1: I get in line? I used to go to the
47:55
Speaker 1: store and I see everybody paying with their credit cards
47:57
Speaker 1: and swipe their phone.
47:58
Speaker 3: Like okay, want to do right? And then I don't
48:02
Speaker 3: have cares they give me a card like okay. So
48:04
Speaker 3: it must be overwhelming for somebody coming back. And that's
48:07
Speaker 3: incredible that you, like so many of the other exogunderies,
48:10
Speaker 3: Almost all of the other exouneries are driven by this
48:13
Speaker 3: desire to help other people both get out of the
48:17
Speaker 3: situation that they're in and to adjust to society. And
48:20
Speaker 3: I talk about it a lot when people see the
48:23
Speaker 3: courthouse steps and the happy celebration and the whole thing.
48:26
Speaker 3: But it's a whole new series of challenges after you
48:29
Speaker 3: get out. And I think we as a society have
48:32
Speaker 3: to be much more accepting and understanding and more welcoming
48:37
Speaker 3: in terms of job opportunities, in terms of compensation, in
48:40
Speaker 3: terms of all that stuff for people who we are
48:43
Speaker 3: responsible for helping, I mean our brothers and sisters that
48:46
Speaker 3: we have horribly wrong, and then you come back and
48:48
Speaker 3: it's like, well, good luck, that's it, like the guard said,
48:51
Speaker 3: good luck. But I mean, like good luck, you need
48:53
Speaker 3: a little more than that. You need a hand, you know, Angel.
48:56
Speaker 3: We have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is that
48:59
Speaker 3: at the end of each episode, I offer to the
49:03
Speaker 3: star of our show, which is in this case you
49:06
Speaker 3: if you would like to share any last thoughts about
49:10
Speaker 3: anything at all.
49:10
Speaker 1: Well, just when I ask everybody please keep on contributing
49:15
Speaker 1: to the Innocence Project and other organizations like the Innocence
49:18
Speaker 1: Project to help those who's still fighting. It can happen
49:22
Speaker 1: to anybody. Unfortunately, I'm not against for the system, but
49:25
Speaker 1: there's a lot of problems with the legal system. I
49:27
Speaker 1: believe you need to be reviewed and make it work better,
49:31
Speaker 1: because in this case, the system not just failed me,
49:35
Speaker 1: failed the victim. I can't even imagine what you have
49:39
Speaker 1: to endure throughout all these years and not the end
49:41
Speaker 1: when I'm free, but probably she's still fighting, so please
49:45
Speaker 1: keep on giving financially. There's a lot of law of students,
49:49
Speaker 1: a lot of smart on people up there that can
49:51
Speaker 1: help to make this country better.
49:53
Speaker 3: Thank you, Angel Gonzalez, and so happy you're here and
49:58
Speaker 3: I wish you all the blessings in life and head
50:01
Speaker 3: of Folks Addiction Litigation at the Ennists Project, Vanessa Potkin,
50:05
Speaker 3: thank you for coming and joining us here on Wrongful
50:07
Speaker 3: Conviction with Jason Flammer. Thank you don't forget to give
50:15
Speaker 3: us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts, it
50:18
Speaker 3: really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennessis
50:22
Speaker 3: Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting
50:25
Speaker 3: this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
50:29
Speaker 3: Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
50:32
Speaker 3: donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team,
50:35
Speaker 3: Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show
50:38
Speaker 3: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
50:42
Speaker 3: sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
50:45
Speaker 3: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
50:49
Speaker 3: flamm Is a production of Lava for Good podcasts and
50:52
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