Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #295 Jason Flom with Ricky Kidd

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#295 Jason Flom with Ricky Kidd · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Late in the morning on February sixth, nineteen ninety six,
0:05
Speaker 1: George Bryant and Oscar Bridges were at Bryan's Kansas City home.
0:09
Speaker 1: According to four year old Kayla Bryant, her father invited
0:12
Speaker 1: in three men dressed in black, whom she had seen
0:14
Speaker 1: at the house two days earlier. It's believed that they
0:17
Speaker 1: were there for a drug deal. While the men were
0:20
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, Kayla hurt a gunshot, her father fell,
0:24
Speaker 1: and Oscar Bridges ran into the basement, where he was
0:26
Speaker 1: later discovered bound, gagged, and shot twice in the head.
0:30
Speaker 1: While the men searched the house, George tried to run,
0:33
Speaker 1: was shot and bled out in the snow. The three
0:37
Speaker 1: men sped off in a white Oldsmobile. Police received anonymous
0:41
Speaker 1: tips naming ten men as suspects, including men who knew
0:44
Speaker 1: George Bryant, Gary Goodspeed Senior and Junior, Marcus Merrill, and
0:48
Speaker 1: Ricky Kidd, with an alibi that included a trip to
0:52
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office and not being identified by Kayla. Ricky
0:56
Speaker 1: was released after recording a video lineup. Weeks later, allience
1:00
Speaker 1: neighbor Richard Harris was arrested while on parole in exchange
1:03
Speaker 1: for leniency, he offered a description of the crime that
1:06
Speaker 1: was inconsistent with all other witnesses, along with an ever
1:09
Speaker 1: growing confidence in his identification of Ricky Kidd. Despite evidence
1:14
Speaker 1: that mostly pointed toward Merrill and both Good Speeds, authorities
1:18
Speaker 1: decided to prosecute Ricky on the strength of an incentivized
1:21
Speaker 1: informant and against the protest of the four year old witness,
1:25
Speaker 1: sending Ricky away for life without parole. This is wrongful conviction.
1:43
Speaker 1: Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. Today. You are going to
1:47
Speaker 1: hear from a guy who I'm really actually in awe of.
1:52
Speaker 1: I've heard him on the radio, on podcasts, I've heard
1:56
Speaker 1: him on different platforms. I've read about him. He's somebody
2:01
Speaker 1: that everyone in the innocence movement respects and admires. He
2:06
Speaker 1: carries himself in a way that I think is just inspiring.
2:11
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to say it. And I'm
2:14
Speaker 1: going to introduce the man right now, and so Ricky Kid,
2:17
Speaker 1: welcome to Rafel Conviction.
2:19
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason, appreciate it.
2:21
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here. Of course, I'm sorry you're
2:23
Speaker 1: here because the reason you're here is the miserable nightmare
2:27
Speaker 1: you had to live through. But before we get into
2:29
Speaker 1: all of that, Ricky, let's go back like they do
2:31
Speaker 1: in the movies when it gets all foggy and it
2:33
Speaker 1: was time traveled back. What was your life like growing up?
2:36
Speaker 1: What do you call it? A happy childhood?
2:37
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, like many of the individuals who find themselves on
2:41
Speaker 2: the wrong side of the law, wrongfully convicted, there was
2:44
Speaker 2: some poverty issues. I grew up smart. I was always
2:48
Speaker 2: two grades above and reading and math. I was innocent
2:52
Speaker 2: of the woes of the world, the eels, the injustices
2:55
Speaker 2: of the world at that time, and I was a
2:57
Speaker 2: mama's boy. My name is Ricky, my mother's name is Vicky,
3:00
Speaker 2: and my sister name is Nicki, so it was Nicky,
3:03
Speaker 2: Ricky and Vicki. My father never showed up, Jason. He
3:06
Speaker 2: for one reason or another, he decided not to participate
3:10
Speaker 2: in my life. And then in nineteen eighty eight nineteen
3:13
Speaker 2: eighty nine, my mother fell into crack cocaine addiction, and
3:17
Speaker 2: my sister, who had different fathers, so she went and
3:19
Speaker 2: stayed with her father's family, and my mother went into
3:23
Speaker 2: her addiction in the streets, and I was left essentially homeless.
3:27
Speaker 1: Well that's actually quite the opposite of a happy childhood.
3:30
Speaker 1: And it's my understanding of the situation you found yourself
3:33
Speaker 1: and led you to come to know both the eventual
3:35
Speaker 1: victims and the assailants in this case. In fact, you
3:39
Speaker 1: knew the good Speed so well that people confused you
3:42
Speaker 1: for family.
3:43
Speaker 2: I grew up next door to Gary Goodspeed junior. We
3:46
Speaker 2: became friends and did start calling each other's cousins. As
3:49
Speaker 2: we got older. Then I would call his mother auntie.
3:51
Speaker 2: I will call his daddy uncle. Essentially, when my mother
3:55
Speaker 2: went a wall and went into her addiction, his family
3:58
Speaker 2: actually took me in. I had an ultimatum from the
4:03
Speaker 2: good Speech was you're gonna have to find a way
4:06
Speaker 2: to pay your way. So at a young age, I
4:08
Speaker 2: was introduced to selling crack cocaine, and the older guys
4:12
Speaker 2: would give me one hundred dollars pack five twenty dollar rocks,
4:16
Speaker 2: and if I sold all one hundred of them, I
4:18
Speaker 2: could to keep twenty. The idea was, little Ricky, if
4:21
Speaker 2: you get caught, see you a juvenile, you can't get
4:24
Speaker 2: into any trouble. So it just made sense to me,
4:27
Speaker 2: with the cards that my life had dealt me at
4:29
Speaker 2: that time, to do so thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, I
4:34
Speaker 2: was still this, you know, small time drug dealer. As
4:37
Speaker 2: we became older and I began to find my own
4:40
Speaker 2: way in this world, our passways began to go in
4:44
Speaker 2: different directions. When it came to February sixth, nineteen ninety six,
4:49
Speaker 2: the good speech would not have been considered friends. They
4:52
Speaker 2: would not really have even been considered associates.
4:55
Speaker 1: And earlier on, your connection to drugs put you in
4:58
Speaker 1: touch with the victim in this case, George Bryant, who
5:01
Speaker 1: was also involved in that same lifestyle. And while your
5:05
Speaker 1: path diverged from the good speeds, you had three children, Jasmine,
5:10
Speaker 1: Raven and Austin. Now you were supplementing your income still
5:14
Speaker 1: selling drugs, and eventually that put you on the radar
5:17
Speaker 1: of the local police.
5:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would have been known to the police. So
5:20
Speaker 2: the idea that you can be a street guy, the hustler,
5:24
Speaker 2: it was good enough for them to say, you might
5:27
Speaker 2: as well be a murder. It's all the same to them.
5:30
Speaker 2: That's what you do, right, you sell drugs, you kill
5:33
Speaker 2: each other, you Robin, But that just wasn't the case.
5:36
Speaker 2: I wasn't violent at all. I had a drug conviction.
5:40
Speaker 2: I was arrested in October of nineteen ninety five. Drugs
5:45
Speaker 2: was found in a rental car, and so I popped
5:47
Speaker 2: on the radar there just months before the commission of
5:52
Speaker 2: the homicide in February of nineteen ninety six.
5:55
Speaker 1: Just in time, of course, for your mugshot to be
5:57
Speaker 1: available for a photo lineup. So let's talk about the
6:01
Speaker 1: crime itself. So, like you said, it's February sixth, nineteen
6:05
Speaker 1: ninety six. This happened just before noon, and from the
6:08
Speaker 1: account of George's daughter Kayla, who was watching TV and
6:11
Speaker 1: having a happy meal. Ironically, it looks like George had
6:16
Speaker 1: invited three men into the house. We believe to make
6:20
Speaker 1: some sort of a drug deal. Kayla had seen the
6:22
Speaker 1: men though two days before, when they had come by
6:25
Speaker 1: the house. She described one as fat and another skinny. Now,
6:29
Speaker 1: on the day of the crime, the men had come
6:31
Speaker 1: through the garage. They were dressed in black, and now
6:33
Speaker 1: they were all in the kitchen with George and a
6:35
Speaker 1: guy named Oscar Bridges. Kayla heard a gun go off
6:39
Speaker 1: and her father fell to the ground. Then Oscar ran
6:42
Speaker 1: down to the basement. One of the men followed Oscar,
6:44
Speaker 1: whose body was later discovered bound, gagged and shot twice
6:48
Speaker 1: in the head. The other two men searched George's pockets,
6:52
Speaker 1: and while they searched the rest of the house, George
6:54
Speaker 1: tried to run but was shot. He tragically bled out,
7:00
Speaker 1: laying in the snow outside like a horror scene. Kayla
7:04
Speaker 1: said the quote. Fat one came back in and told
7:06
Speaker 1: her it was going to be all right. Then the
7:08
Speaker 1: three men got into a white sedan and peeled off.
7:12
Speaker 1: Police arrived at eleven fifty am and found Kayla still
7:15
Speaker 1: on the phone with the nine one one dispatcher. Police
7:17
Speaker 1: received various anonymous tips naming ten different suspects, including Marcus
7:23
Speaker 1: Merrill and then also Darry Goodspeed Senior and Junior, and
7:26
Speaker 1: then of course you, Ricky. So investigators put together a
7:31
Speaker 1: photo lineup for Kayla that included you, Meryll and good
7:35
Speaker 1: Speed Junior. And get this, Kayla only picked out Meryl. Now,
7:40
Speaker 1: like you said, you were no longer associated with these guys,
7:43
Speaker 1: but you were still listed with the police as known associates.
7:46
Speaker 2: And so when the double homicide had taken place, unbenoath
7:51
Speaker 2: to my lawyers and I at the time that the
7:54
Speaker 2: real killers good Speed Senor Junior and Merrow had not
7:58
Speaker 2: only committed the crime and fled, but to buy them
8:01
Speaker 2: some time in some space. They called Chips hotline and
8:05
Speaker 2: said that Ricky Kidd had something to do with this homicide.
8:08
Speaker 2: And so that's how I ended up popping up on
8:10
Speaker 2: their radar in the first place. They picked me up
8:14
Speaker 2: on February fourteenth, nineteen ninety six, interrogated me for about
8:20
Speaker 2: five or six hours. I participated in a photo lineup,
8:24
Speaker 2: a video lineup, and.
8:26
Speaker 1: They arrested Monica, your girlfriend at that time, as well.
8:28
Speaker 1: They separated you and interrogated you both, and your stories
8:32
Speaker 1: matched perfectly correct and the stories are pretty compelling. They
8:37
Speaker 1: could have easily verified these stories right, Which was that
8:40
Speaker 1: on the morning of the crime, you had agreed to
8:43
Speaker 1: watch your nephew, right well, your sister was at work.
8:46
Speaker 1: And then that same morning that this crime took place,
8:49
Speaker 1: you and Monica and the little guy DJ had gone
8:52
Speaker 1: to Nikki's office to pick up your car and then
8:55
Speaker 1: stopped at McDonald's and went to the Jackson County Sheriff's office.
8:59
Speaker 2: Imagine that, I mean, how.
9:01
Speaker 1: Good of an alibi do you need? And this is
9:03
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office at Late Jakomo where you applied for
9:06
Speaker 1: a gun permit, so I mean it. That's it, right.
9:10
Speaker 1: No more investigation is necessary than to just do those
9:13
Speaker 1: very basic things and go check the videotape at McDonald's.
9:16
Speaker 1: Go check and see if in fact you were at
9:18
Speaker 1: the sheriff's office. They would have a record of that. Obviously,
9:20
Speaker 1: if you applied for a gun permit. Now you agreed
9:22
Speaker 1: to stand at a videotape lineup, allowed police to search
9:25
Speaker 1: the car and belongings. And I got to go back
9:27
Speaker 1: to the fact that you and your and Monica, your
9:29
Speaker 1: story's matched exactly. Now, if you were lying since you
9:31
Speaker 1: were separated, there's no chance that those stories would.
9:35
Speaker 2: Have matched none at all.
9:36
Speaker 1: It seems like initially when they first arrested you, they
9:38
Speaker 1: basically acknowledged that you weren't the.
9:40
Speaker 2: Guy and they had let me go. They said it
9:44
Speaker 2: at the time, it appeared that somebody was throwing my
9:47
Speaker 2: name in a hat, trying to shuffle things around, and
9:50
Speaker 2: they released me February fifteenth. In my mind, there was
9:53
Speaker 2: no frame of reference at that time, in nineteen ninety
9:56
Speaker 2: six for me to even understand that I was in trouble. Ay,
9:59
Speaker 2: I'm in it. You can clearly go verify that I'm
10:04
Speaker 2: in a set and might whereabouts at the time of
10:06
Speaker 2: the crime. And they did not pursue that.
10:09
Speaker 1: Now they go and they decided they're going to test
10:12
Speaker 1: six pairs of your shoes, and they compared them to
10:15
Speaker 1: shoeprints that were found in the kitchen. There was one
10:19
Speaker 1: shoeprint that was found on a piece of bread, and
10:22
Speaker 1: the other one was in blood on linoleum. And your
10:25
Speaker 1: shoes as well as the shoes of the victims were
10:28
Speaker 1: excluded as the source of the prince. You don't have
10:31
Speaker 1: to be Sherlock Holmes here, ladies and gentlemen, right. So
10:35
Speaker 1: they also, at the same time, though, began to investigate Meryl,
10:38
Speaker 1: Goodspeed Junior, and Good Speed Senior. All of them, interestingly enough,
10:42
Speaker 1: lived in Georgia, where Meryll and Good Speed Junior shared
10:46
Speaker 1: an apartment. Now get this. Airline records showed that the
10:49
Speaker 1: three men had flown from Atlanta to Kansas City a
10:52
Speaker 1: few days prior to the murders and stated that Adams
10:54
Speaker 1: Marcotel before returning to Georgia after the murders Alamo rent
10:59
Speaker 1: the car records showed the Good Speed Senior rented a
11:02
Speaker 1: You guess that a white Oldsmobile which fit the description,
11:05
Speaker 1: the real descriptions of the getaway car and good speed.
11:09
Speaker 1: Senior's fingerprint was found on a Carmex lip bomb wrapper
11:12
Speaker 1: with a price tag from a good to ghost store,
11:15
Speaker 1: one of which was a block and a half from
11:17
Speaker 1: Brian's home. Again, these are clues that are starting to
11:20
Speaker 1: really add up. I mean, that would be a crazy
11:22
Speaker 1: set of coincidences could happen. But okay, So then on
11:26
Speaker 1: March eleventh, nineteen ninety six, Richard Harris, who lived near
11:29
Speaker 1: mister Bryant, was arrested on a parole violation. I want
11:31
Speaker 1: to take us through this part, Ricky.
11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, this individual you're talking about, Richard Harris, was an
11:38
Speaker 2: alleged witness to the commission of the crime and he
11:41
Speaker 2: had a parole violation. He was brought in and detectives
11:46
Speaker 2: had already received a call that he might have some
11:49
Speaker 2: information as it related to the double homicide. And so
11:53
Speaker 2: when he go into the police station for his parole violation,
11:56
Speaker 2: homicide brings him down. They began to enter it him
12:01
Speaker 2: and that's where they received their first cooperating or what
12:06
Speaker 2: I like to call cohersed witness. And so the opportunity
12:11
Speaker 2: was ripe for him to receive some type of favor
12:15
Speaker 2: in exchange for information, even if it was inaccurate information,
12:20
Speaker 2: to get himself back out of the trouble that he
12:22
Speaker 2: found himself in. And so what detectives done to help
12:27
Speaker 2: facilitate that was they showed Richard Harris a single photo
12:31
Speaker 2: of me first, and Richard Harris said, I cannot say
12:34
Speaker 2: that was him. Then they showed him a five man
12:37
Speaker 2: photo spread and lo and behold, who's the fifth man?
12:40
Speaker 2: And the five man photo spread the same guy he
12:43
Speaker 2: just saw on a single photo. So then he said,
12:47
Speaker 2: I think I think that's the guy. They said, but
12:49
Speaker 2: you can't be sure. He said, no, I can't be sure.
12:52
Speaker 2: So they said, okay, let's go into this other room
12:55
Speaker 2: where they show him the video lineup. All the faces
12:58
Speaker 2: changed except up for Ricky Kidd. So at this stage
13:03
Speaker 2: he went from the single polar warid, I'm not sure,
13:06
Speaker 2: the five man photo spread it maybe number five, to
13:10
Speaker 2: the video lineup. He became two thousand and one percent
13:13
Speaker 2: sure that Ricky Kidd was the guy that he saw,
13:17
Speaker 2: despite describing everything contrary to what the police began to
13:23
Speaker 2: collect or report on the evidence. For example, all witnesses
13:27
Speaker 2: said that there was three men. They hopped in a
13:30
Speaker 2: white late model OS mobile. They backed down the street.
13:33
Speaker 2: That they all had on ski masks and black trench coats.
13:37
Speaker 2: Richard Harris described one of them without a coat on
13:40
Speaker 2: at all, one with a brown coat, and that they
13:43
Speaker 2: didn't back up, they actually went forward. And they was
13:46
Speaker 2: not in a late model osmobile. They was in a
13:49
Speaker 2: Nissan Stanza. And so early on, he's getting key facts wrong.
13:54
Speaker 1: This guy obviously didn't see it. But nonetheless, on May
13:57
Speaker 1: twenty second, nineteen ninety six, a few months after this
14:00
Speaker 1: awful crime, were arrested again.
14:01
Speaker 2: They came and they pulled their guns as I was
14:05
Speaker 2: driving away from my apartment, made me stop the car.
14:09
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by squad and police and detectives. My girlfriend,
14:13
Speaker 2: Monica Gray at the time, she was with me, made
14:16
Speaker 2: us put our hands up and they slapped those cold
14:19
Speaker 2: handcuffs on us and took us down to the police station.
14:22
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, in my mind, what didn't they understand
14:26
Speaker 2: the first time? It's gonna be yet another inconvenience because
14:31
Speaker 2: I'm moving, you're gonna make I'm just gonna be late.
14:33
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be late. I'm not gonna go to prison.
14:35
Speaker 2: Innocent people don't go to prison. I'm just about to
14:38
Speaker 2: be hastled, let go, and they once again realized that
14:43
Speaker 2: they have the wrong person. I had no previous experience
14:46
Speaker 2: with our justice system.
14:48
Speaker 1: You told Detective Jay Pruding that you were with Monica
14:53
Speaker 1: all day and that whoever identified you must have confused
14:56
Speaker 1: you with somebody else, quite possibly your uncle, Gary Goodspeed Senior.
15:01
Speaker 1: But nonetheless you and Merrill were charged with the murders.
15:05
Speaker 1: Take us to what happens over the next month. When
15:08
Speaker 1: you reached out to this detective, right.
15:10
Speaker 2: I was letting them know through the whole time that
15:14
Speaker 2: I was in the county jail. I had no bond,
15:17
Speaker 2: that I was innocent. First, I did not know why
15:21
Speaker 2: they would think I would be guilty, so I had
15:24
Speaker 2: to wait for my discovery. Once I was able to
15:27
Speaker 2: receive the police reports, about six hundred pages, maybe one
15:32
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty of them was keeping everything that they
15:34
Speaker 2: collected together. Maybe about fifty or sixty pages was related
15:40
Speaker 2: to me, but the rest of the six hundred pages
15:42
Speaker 2: were all related to the good Speed and those clues
15:45
Speaker 2: and the dots that connected them to being involved in
15:48
Speaker 2: the commission of this crime, and so as I received
15:50
Speaker 2: my discovery in the county jail, I was smart enough
15:54
Speaker 2: as a novus, as a regular citizen, to see that
15:57
Speaker 2: you are barking up the wrong tree, and how can
15:59
Speaker 2: you possibly not see this, as seasoned detectives unless you
16:05
Speaker 2: are purposely trying to send the wrong person to prison.
16:09
Speaker 2: So I would reach out, my sister would reach out.
16:12
Speaker 2: I would get on the phone. My lawyers would tell me,
16:15
Speaker 2: might I advise you don't talk to the detectives? And
16:18
Speaker 2: I heard her. I was smart enough to understand the
16:20
Speaker 2: basis of that. But in my mind, I'm thinking an
16:23
Speaker 2: innocent man could never get itself in any trouble. He's innocent.
16:27
Speaker 2: So I would not listen, and I would call the
16:30
Speaker 2: detectives and I would wrestle with them over the phone
16:33
Speaker 2: till they one day came and picked me up and
16:35
Speaker 2: brought me over to headquarters, and I had about twenty
16:39
Speaker 2: five thirty minutes to articulate their case back to them.
16:45
Speaker 2: And man, you are to seen they I wish that
16:47
Speaker 2: was recorded. You are have seen their faces. I mean,
16:49
Speaker 2: I was a young Perry Mason, if you will, and
16:53
Speaker 2: I'm kind of being funny but serious, I was really
16:56
Speaker 2: laying out like this is how you're making a mistake,
16:59
Speaker 2: and answer why this and why that. Gary Goodspeed Junior
17:03
Speaker 2: was picked up by the detectives and asked what time
17:08
Speaker 2: did George Bryant die? And Gary Goodspeed Junior says, in
17:14
Speaker 2: this police report he died at eleven forty seven or
17:18
Speaker 2: eleven forty six. Who else would know that other than
17:23
Speaker 2: the killer? It was never reported in papers, It was
17:27
Speaker 2: never reported in the news, It was never reported anywhere else.
17:31
Speaker 2: In fact, the detective asked them, how do you know that,
17:34
Speaker 2: good Speed Junior, he said, my dad told me so.
17:39
Speaker 2: He would have been better off saying I read it
17:42
Speaker 2: in the newspaper, and we could try to find that
17:43
Speaker 2: newspaper that did not exist. But the news at that
17:47
Speaker 2: time had not reported the time of death, so how
17:50
Speaker 2: would you know? So it was these things. It was
17:52
Speaker 2: these glaring facts that I was challenging the detectives with,
17:56
Speaker 2: and they got so frustrated. You know, usually they put
17:58
Speaker 2: us in a pigeon box to speak when they get
18:00
Speaker 2: us in there. But I had them in the pigeon
18:02
Speaker 2: box so much so that they called it off. One
18:06
Speaker 2: of the leadings Sargeant said, get him out of here.
18:09
Speaker 2: And don't bring you back over here again.
18:20
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18:55
Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Amy McGowan, wanted to talk to Gary Goodspeed
18:58
Speaker 2: Senior and wanted to talk to Gary Goodspeed Junior. I
19:02
Speaker 2: was making too much of a fuss that I was
19:04
Speaker 2: innocent and that they were guilty according to the evidence
19:07
Speaker 2: that they have in their possession. And so the prosecutor's
19:11
Speaker 2: office worked to get Gary Goodspeed Senior and Gary Goodspeed
19:14
Speaker 2: Junior too participate in sworn depositions. And by the way,
19:18
Speaker 2: Gary Goodspeed Senior and Gary Goodspeed Junior was Marcus Murrell's
19:23
Speaker 2: alibi witness. Marcus Merrill and I were charged. Marcus Merrill
19:27
Speaker 2: is saying I was not with Ricky Kidd. I was
19:30
Speaker 2: with Gary Goodspeed Senior, and I was with Gary Goodspeed Junior.
19:33
Speaker 2: And Gary Goodspeed Senior and Junior is saying, yeah what
19:36
Speaker 2: Marcus Merrill said, We was with him and we were
19:38
Speaker 2: not with Ricky Kidd. And so they reported to Amy
19:42
Speaker 2: McGowan's office for a sworn deposition. Marcus Merrell Lawyers was there.
19:47
Speaker 2: Detectives were summons to be there to read them their
19:51
Speaker 2: Miranda rights. Why would you be reading these law abiding
19:54
Speaker 2: citizens of them Miranda rights if you did not have
19:57
Speaker 2: an indication that these were your guilty men? And so
20:02
Speaker 2: everybody was there except for Ricky kidds representation Teresa Andison. Now,
20:08
Speaker 2: by law, since this was a joint trial, all parties
20:11
Speaker 2: must be summons together. You cannot take a deposition outside
20:15
Speaker 2: of the presence of the other parties of individuals that
20:18
Speaker 2: was involved. We was unaware that good Speech Senior and
20:21
Speaker 2: Junior were being deposed of in Amy the Prosecutor's office.
20:25
Speaker 2: During the deposition, they swore under oath that they was
20:28
Speaker 2: not with Ricky Kidd, further proof that I was innocent,
20:31
Speaker 2: and that they were indeed with Marcus Merrill and with
20:34
Speaker 2: each other, And they further went to collaborate evidence that
20:38
Speaker 2: suggested they did it. So police already had this five
20:42
Speaker 2: hundred page of police reports that some of the spots
20:46
Speaker 2: and dots were already there. And what these two individuals
20:49
Speaker 2: did in a sworn deposition in the prosecutor's office is
20:53
Speaker 2: basically connect themselves to those spots and dots. What happened
20:57
Speaker 2: was Amy McGowan. She would have had to realize that she, indeed,
21:01
Speaker 2: at this point emphatically is holding the wrong person in
21:06
Speaker 2: the Jackson County jail across the street, and the real
21:09
Speaker 2: killers is sitting in her office. What did she decide
21:12
Speaker 2: to do? She'd said, escort these individuals out of here
21:16
Speaker 2: and let them go and proceed it knowing that she
21:20
Speaker 2: was sending the wrong person to prison. And just one
21:23
Speaker 2: more little caveat to add to that, not only did
21:26
Speaker 2: she not invite my legal team to the depositions, but
21:29
Speaker 2: she also hid the fact that it even existed in
21:33
Speaker 2: the first place. Those transcripts of those depositions were printed,
21:37
Speaker 2: were created, and they was buried, buried as if it
21:41
Speaker 2: never exists. It was only years later that Professor Sean
21:44
Speaker 2: O'Brien in the Midwest Centistnce Project was able to find
21:47
Speaker 2: those hitting and buried depositions, and we was able to
21:51
Speaker 2: present them to a court and prove emphatically to the
21:53
Speaker 2: court that Amy McGowan with hell key evidence and she
21:56
Speaker 2: did it maliciously.
21:58
Speaker 1: What the fuck is wrong with you people? You're absolute right.
22:01
Speaker 1: They should have put the cuffs on them right there.
22:03
Speaker 1: They should have assigned somebody to go across the street
22:04
Speaker 1: and say we're sorry, mister kidd. This was a big misunderstanding.
22:08
Speaker 1: We wish you well. At a minimum, that's what they
22:11
Speaker 1: should have done. Yeah, but they were like, Nah, let
22:14
Speaker 1: these guys go and hope they don't go and murder
22:17
Speaker 1: anybody else.
22:18
Speaker 2: Imagine that.
22:19
Speaker 1: That's a level of evil that I think is hard
22:22
Speaker 1: for most people with any sort of a conscience to understand.
22:26
Speaker 1: But it's real because you're here to tell this story,
22:29
Speaker 1: which is a miracle in itself. You know.
22:30
Speaker 2: The National Registry of Exoneration have noted in their report
22:34
Speaker 2: that fifty four percent of wrongful convictions has a direct
22:37
Speaker 2: correlation with police and prosecutorial misconduct. Fifty four percent.
22:43
Speaker 1: I believe.
22:43
Speaker 2: One of the last studies I read was that about
22:46
Speaker 2: four percent ever have any inquiry period, no matter how
22:50
Speaker 2: egregious it is. Amy McGowan's behavior that we're talking about
22:54
Speaker 2: today was so egregious, so egregious that nobody has come
22:59
Speaker 2: to her defense except for her lawyer. It is actually
23:02
Speaker 2: before the Missouri Supreme Court is hardly ever gone this far.
23:06
Speaker 2: This case is so serious, her behavior so serious that
23:10
Speaker 2: the Missouri Supreme Court, which is a very conservative court
23:13
Speaker 2: here in this region, said no, no, no, we're going
23:15
Speaker 2: to take this case up and we're going to decide
23:17
Speaker 2: what type of punishment she deserves for this Injustice Act
23:21
Speaker 2: that she participated in.
23:23
Speaker 1: I wish I had more confidence that they're going to
23:26
Speaker 1: do the right thing. The right thing really would be
23:28
Speaker 1: to put her where you were for twenty three.
23:31
Speaker 2: Years, correct, correct?
23:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not an eye for an eye person
23:35
Speaker 1: by any stretchy imagination, but you don't have to be
23:38
Speaker 1: to understand that in less and until there's real accountability,
23:42
Speaker 1: not just losing your law license, and that almost never
23:44
Speaker 1: happens either. There's only been five prosecutors in the history
23:47
Speaker 1: of this vast wrongful conviction universe that goes back now
23:53
Speaker 1: hundreds of years in America. There's only been five prosecutors disbarred,
23:57
Speaker 1: and you know one was recent in on Huffington case
24:01
Speaker 1: in Maryland, but only five this barred, and only two
24:04
Speaker 1: have ever gone to jail. Only two the Duke Lacrosse
24:07
Speaker 1: Mike Nifong, he went to jail for one day. And
24:11
Speaker 1: in the Michael Morton case in Texas, a guy named
24:14
Speaker 1: Anderson went to jail for three days after putting Michael
24:18
Speaker 1: in prison for twenty four years and seven months for
24:20
Speaker 1: a crime that it was proven he knew, he knew,
24:23
Speaker 1: just like they knew in your case, he didn't commit it.
24:26
Speaker 1: So here comes the trial Jackson County. So you went
24:30
Speaker 1: to trial with Merrill, Right, Mister Merrill and his attorneys
24:34
Speaker 1: pointed the finger at you and said that you committed
24:37
Speaker 1: the crime with the good speeds. And of course your
24:39
Speaker 1: defense was that Meryll defense. Your defense was the truth,
24:44
Speaker 1: which was that Meryll committed the crime with the good speeds.
24:47
Speaker 1: But truth had no place in this proceeding or this courtroom.
24:53
Speaker 1: And of course we know how this plays out, but
24:56
Speaker 1: it still took another couple of twists and turns. I'm
24:58
Speaker 1: talking about little Kayla, right, who's now maybe five years
25:02
Speaker 1: old at this point. Right, This poor little child, a
25:05
Speaker 1: baby who's been through an experience that she probably bless
25:08
Speaker 1: her heart, has probably never will recover from it, certainly
25:10
Speaker 1: had recovered from at this point. So she got on
25:13
Speaker 1: the witness stand, tell us about this. It must have
25:15
Speaker 1: been a surreal moment for you.
25:17
Speaker 2: It was, and it was sad what happened. They showed
25:20
Speaker 2: her a five man photo spread and said, can you
25:23
Speaker 2: identify the individuals that you saw at your house that day?
25:29
Speaker 2: And she pointed to number three, Marcus Merrell, and they said, okay, okay,
25:33
Speaker 2: good job. Now, now can you point to the other
25:37
Speaker 2: person you said you saw in the house that day
25:41
Speaker 2: And she said, no, I only saw one. I told
25:45
Speaker 2: you I only saw one. And so they would ask
25:49
Speaker 2: the judge, can we approach she's she's tired, she's hungry,
25:53
Speaker 2: she's this, that and the other. So they tried to
25:55
Speaker 2: go back over there and rehabilitate her or get her
25:58
Speaker 2: to look around the court and see if you can
26:00
Speaker 2: identify any of those individuals that you saw in your
26:04
Speaker 2: home that day, and she could not. When they further
26:07
Speaker 2: pressed her on the stand, she became even more frazzled
26:11
Speaker 2: and frustrated, and she said, I forgot, I forgot the story.
26:16
Speaker 2: I forgot the whole story. Now, given that a five
26:22
Speaker 2: year old can miss speak as they're learning full of sentences,
26:27
Speaker 2: but as adults, when people use that type of language,
26:31
Speaker 2: story it's something that's made up, it's something that's told
26:34
Speaker 2: to them, and so we don't just say that loosely.
26:37
Speaker 2: There's other evidence that support that she was told a story.
26:41
Speaker 2: Her mother admits that she was told things, that she
26:44
Speaker 2: told her daughter things. And so the idea that it's
26:47
Speaker 2: coming out in trial that they are trying to get
26:50
Speaker 2: this little girl to send an innocent person in prison
26:53
Speaker 2: based on what she was told, not based on what
26:56
Speaker 2: she actually may know, at least in full their case,
27:01
Speaker 2: rightfully so was weak and so they had to figure out,
27:06
Speaker 2: yannor can we take a quick break, And they had
27:09
Speaker 2: to figure out how do I shore up this case?
27:12
Speaker 2: And so after they took a little ten minute break,
27:14
Speaker 2: some wise guy on the prosecutor side said, Hey, let's
27:17
Speaker 2: call the detectives who said that she said that to
27:21
Speaker 2: them and have them to say that to the jury.
27:25
Speaker 2: And that's what they did, Jason. They brought in the
27:28
Speaker 2: homicide detectives. Violated a hearsay rule where I had to
27:33
Speaker 2: write to confront my witness. But my witness had said
27:36
Speaker 2: what she said, so, they said, let's bring the detectives in.
27:39
Speaker 2: They came in, about two or three of them took
27:41
Speaker 2: the stand and said, yeah, we know what she wasn't
27:44
Speaker 2: able to do today. But they looked to the jury,
27:46
Speaker 2: They looked to the court, They looked to the judge
27:48
Speaker 2: and said, but that's what she told us. They said
27:51
Speaker 2: that this is what happened at headquarters. She came in,
27:54
Speaker 2: We got her calm, we got her chill, and then
27:57
Speaker 2: we began to proceed with the identification. Prop says that
28:00
Speaker 2: she couldn't identify him in the photo spread, but when
28:03
Speaker 2: we showed her the video, she started shaking real bad.
28:08
Speaker 2: She had to be consulted and controlled that. She began
28:11
Speaker 2: to cry and say, that's him, that guy right there,
28:15
Speaker 2: that's who killed my daddy, says the police. You have recordings,
28:21
Speaker 2: you have in fact transcribed these recordings, and nothing nowhere
28:26
Speaker 2: near on paper suggests that she identified me at all. Furthermore,
28:35
Speaker 2: once police said that this is what she did and trial,
28:38
Speaker 2: they testified to that what happened at police headquarters, They said, well,
28:41
Speaker 2: then what did you do next? They said, well, we
28:44
Speaker 2: took her in the video recording room and we video
28:47
Speaker 2: recorded a statement from her. They played the video recorded statement.
28:55
Speaker 2: Not a question asked about Ricky kit. It's hard to believe.
29:01
Speaker 2: Not a question asked, not even a question looking don't
29:06
Speaker 2: they didn't have to. Okay, maybe we didn't go into
29:09
Speaker 2: the weeds of it. You didn't even you have an
29:11
Speaker 2: opportunity to memorialize a sensitive interview of a four and
29:15
Speaker 2: a half or five year old child. You say in
29:19
Speaker 2: the other room, this is all that she said. But
29:21
Speaker 2: when you get a chance to video record and memorialize it,
29:24
Speaker 2: you don't do it. Why don't you do it? Because
29:30
Speaker 2: it didn't happen. That's why they didn't do it. But
29:33
Speaker 2: they took those police detectives' words as a credible.
29:37
Speaker 1: So this little five year old, this brave, little fatherless child,
29:42
Speaker 1: tried to do the right thing, even though she probably
29:45
Speaker 1: desperately wanted to listen and had been influenced by these
29:49
Speaker 1: people who are trying everything they could, and she must
29:52
Speaker 1: have desperately wanted to help find and bring to justice
29:56
Speaker 1: the person who killed her daddy, and the other man
29:59
Speaker 1: in the house said day and even then, even under
30:03
Speaker 1: all that pressure, she stood up. And their response is
30:07
Speaker 1: to go conspire, to put lies upon lies and it
30:13
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like hearsay as well, right, because they're
30:15
Speaker 1: coming in when going well no, but she said at a
30:17
Speaker 1: different time, I mean, this is how that's admissible. I
30:20
Speaker 1: you know, I'm at a loss. I mean, I don't
30:22
Speaker 1: even know why we have perjury laws if we're not
30:24
Speaker 1: going to hold these people to account for what is
30:26
Speaker 1: the most one of the most obvious cases of perjury
30:29
Speaker 1: that anybody's ever seen. But like you said, it happens
30:31
Speaker 1: every day, all day and twice on Sunday. So then
30:34
Speaker 1: comes Richard Harris.
30:35
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the state witness, Richard Harris
30:38
Speaker 2: let me context that there's no physical evidence connecting me
30:42
Speaker 2: to the crime. So all they had was Caleb Bryant,
30:47
Speaker 2: who we just talked about, and then what they had
30:49
Speaker 2: left was Richard Harris, this neighbor guy who was into trouble,
30:54
Speaker 2: who was looking to save his own soul. He testifies
30:59
Speaker 2: that he is two thousand and one percent sure that
31:03
Speaker 2: it was Ricky Kidd who he saw committing the crime
31:07
Speaker 2: on that day. To help bolster his memory, I don't
31:11
Speaker 2: know if they worked with him on this. He called
31:15
Speaker 2: me the terminator. How do you know so much? Because
31:19
Speaker 2: he walked like a terminator. I guess I don't know, robot.
31:24
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure, but I just think it was
31:27
Speaker 2: designed to boaster his identification that he was accurate. The
31:32
Speaker 2: problem was I didn't walk like no terminator. I didn't
31:36
Speaker 2: have any walk like a terrainator. But they didn't say, ricky, kid,
31:40
Speaker 2: you get up and you walk, can you demonstrate to
31:42
Speaker 2: the jury? So on the surface, it sounds like he
31:45
Speaker 2: gotta be right because he was able to distinguish how
31:49
Speaker 2: this guy walks. It was designed to boaster a false testimony.
31:55
Speaker 2: He gives me a beard. I'm twenty two years of
31:57
Speaker 2: age at that time. I did not have a beerd
32:00
Speaker 2: he put a beard on me. My lawyer tried to
32:03
Speaker 2: impeach him there. She did a real terrible job doing that.
32:06
Speaker 2: All photos had shown that I was clean faced, like
32:08
Speaker 2: I couldn't have had a beard. I think they had
32:10
Speaker 2: got a photo of me just weeks before the nd
32:13
Speaker 2: But this guy came in and testified that he was
32:15
Speaker 2: two thousand and one percent sure that I was the guy,
32:19
Speaker 2: despite getting everything else wrong about the commission of the crime.
32:24
Speaker 2: And listen to me, he didn't get one thing. Oh,
32:27
Speaker 2: I can see how he got a couple of things wrong,
32:29
Speaker 2: but he got a couple of things right. This state
32:31
Speaker 2: witness Richard Harris, didn't get one thing right that all
32:35
Speaker 2: other independent neighbors were saying about what happened before and
32:40
Speaker 2: after the gunfire. But they found this guy credible.
32:45
Speaker 1: He lied, and he had I mean, I'm not excusing
32:49
Speaker 1: it by any means, but he had a hell of
32:52
Speaker 1: a choice, right. He had the choice of either going
32:54
Speaker 1: back to jail, which they were threatened to throw him
32:56
Speaker 1: back to jail on the parle violation, which he obviously
32:58
Speaker 1: didn't want to do, or saying nothing, in which case
33:01
Speaker 1: they would have put him back in jail, or implicating
33:03
Speaker 1: the actual killers and he knew exactly who they were
33:05
Speaker 1: and putting his own life in very real danger, or
33:08
Speaker 1: pinning it on an innocent guy and walking free and
33:11
Speaker 1: just having to live with his own conscience. And he
33:13
Speaker 1: chose the easy way out, Ricky. This trial, unlike some
33:17
Speaker 1: other Rowful convictions that we've covered, where they didn't even
33:21
Speaker 1: bother or present halibi witnesses or anything like that, due
33:25
Speaker 1: to either the fact that they may not have been
33:27
Speaker 1: any because maybe the person was just home a sleep
33:29
Speaker 1: at the time, or the fact that the attorney was
33:31
Speaker 1: just incompetent or didn't care or whatever. But in your case,
33:34
Speaker 1: you had credible alibi witnesses to refute the ridiculous false
33:40
Speaker 1: narrative that mister Harris was putting forward. So tell us
33:42
Speaker 1: a little about who testified in your defense.
33:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jason, we had my stepfather testify that he came
33:50
Speaker 2: down early that morning and gave me a jumpstart. My
33:53
Speaker 2: sister testified that she stayed at my house, that she
33:56
Speaker 2: took my new core, that I came to her job
33:59
Speaker 2: to pick up that new car. Two of her co
34:02
Speaker 2: workers testified that I came to her job that day
34:06
Speaker 2: as well, that they was the one who greeted me
34:09
Speaker 2: and escorted me over to my sister to pick up
34:12
Speaker 2: the keys. My daughter, Jasmine, her mother Kelly, she testified
34:17
Speaker 2: that I came out to her house as well. And
34:21
Speaker 2: then my girlfriend at the time, Monica Gray, testified to
34:25
Speaker 2: the fullness of all of that because she was with
34:28
Speaker 2: me all day, so she was the base of all
34:31
Speaker 2: of those added testimonies of where I was throughout the
34:35
Speaker 2: fullness of the day the gun permitted. I was at
34:38
Speaker 2: the Jackson County Sheriff's Department applying for a legal handgun
34:42
Speaker 2: at the time, but they brought in a sergeant in Buffalo.
34:45
Speaker 2: He was a prosecutor's witness who did not handle the
34:49
Speaker 2: screening for that that was not his job, and he
34:51
Speaker 2: testified this, yeah, this could have been mailed in, faxed in,
34:54
Speaker 2: could have been brought in by somebody else, and so
34:57
Speaker 2: he cast serious doubt of the fact that I would
35:00
Speaker 2: have been at the Sheriff's department, when in fact he
35:03
Speaker 2: was wrong. It couldn't have been brought in by someone
35:05
Speaker 2: else because they require ID, it couldn't have been faxed
35:09
Speaker 2: in because it would have had a fact number at
35:11
Speaker 2: the top, and it couldn't have been mailed in because
35:13
Speaker 2: the individual wouldn't know the accuracy of the mailing system
35:17
Speaker 2: to be able to get that done. We had to
35:19
Speaker 2: later find Susan Jordan, the lady who actually did process
35:25
Speaker 2: that application, and she later testified in my appeals that
35:29
Speaker 2: it indeed happened the way Ricky's legal team said it happened.
35:33
Speaker 2: But back to the trial, this is the evidence that
35:36
Speaker 2: we was able to put on, and unfortunately the jury
35:39
Speaker 2: decided to side with the state.
35:41
Speaker 1: And with the one guy who was far from credible
35:45
Speaker 1: against all these people who were credible and whose stories
35:47
Speaker 1: all matched up together. But okay, so now comes a
35:50
Speaker 1: moment where the jury goes out. How long would they
35:54
Speaker 1: out for?
35:55
Speaker 2: I think an hour? Forty an hour?
35:57
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wow, okay, so they come back after forty five
36:01
Speaker 1: minutes to an hour. Did you still hold out any hope?
36:04
Speaker 2: I thought that I was going home still. I just
36:07
Speaker 2: did not believe, even through all what I was saying,
36:10
Speaker 2: I did not believe that innocent people go to prison.
36:14
Speaker 2: The judge told them to all rise. The verdict was
36:17
Speaker 2: read that it was guilty. It was guilty on all counts.
36:21
Speaker 2: Just imagine, because many of us have not lived through
36:24
Speaker 2: an earthquake. I have not, at least not the type
36:27
Speaker 2: of earthquake I'm talking about that's underneath the earth. But
36:31
Speaker 2: it felt like an earthquake. It just I felt my
36:34
Speaker 2: knees buckling, I felt my body shaken, and everything slowed down.
36:39
Speaker 2: And when they started seeing life without the possibility, tears
36:46
Speaker 2: were so intense streaming down my face that I could
36:49
Speaker 2: not see. I fell to my seat and I sobbed.
36:53
Speaker 2: I sobbed so hard, it was so loud, my nose
36:57
Speaker 2: was rhyming. Every part of my fiber in my being
37:01
Speaker 2: was devastated. So off the prison I went March twenty fourth,
37:22
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, Potosi Correctional Center, Maximum level five prison
37:27
Speaker 2: here in the state of Missouri, where they housed death
37:29
Speaker 2: row inmates, and I remember getting off that bus, shackled
37:32
Speaker 2: to about half a dozen to a dozen of other individuals,
37:36
Speaker 2: and the officer greeting us with a salutation of gentlemen,
37:39
Speaker 2: welcome to hell. In hell, it was the cold stairs,
37:43
Speaker 2: the whistles, the stale environment. I did not know how
37:47
Speaker 2: I was gonna survive. I did not have a friend,
37:50
Speaker 2: an uncle, a brother. I did not know a person
37:54
Speaker 2: in prison. And so these fifteen hundred men, most of
37:58
Speaker 2: them on the yard, it was recreation. I'm thinking, uh,
38:02
Speaker 2: I'm in trouble. So I had to think real fast.
38:05
Speaker 2: I know, I didn't have the muscle that these other
38:08
Speaker 2: individuals have. I didn't have the friends and the click
38:12
Speaker 2: that these other individuals would run with. I just had myself.
38:15
Speaker 2: One of the first things I did was not play tough,
38:18
Speaker 2: as to not to invite trouble and to really use
38:21
Speaker 2: my head. When I saw lures and traps of you know,
38:24
Speaker 2: come over here, meet me over here, I would decide
38:26
Speaker 2: not to. I did meet a couple of friends early on.
38:29
Speaker 2: Our associates who seem to be good guys who made
38:33
Speaker 2: bad decisions, saw the goodness in me and pulled me
38:35
Speaker 2: up earlier and gave me the five or six seven
38:38
Speaker 2: pointers to avoid to make sure that I can have
38:41
Speaker 2: a successful bit that I could do this time with
38:44
Speaker 2: as little amount of trouble as possible. I saw violence,
38:48
Speaker 2: I saw assaults, I saw stabbings. I mean, you name it,
38:51
Speaker 2: I saw it, and I just would use my head.
38:54
Speaker 2: I would often tell myself intelligence over emotion, so I
38:57
Speaker 2: would try not to respond emotionally, even when I was
39:00
Speaker 2: being punked. A couple of times, which they were call
39:02
Speaker 2: punk punked out of my seat, told to get up
39:05
Speaker 2: from having breakfast because this was they table, but they
39:09
Speaker 2: were sitting at the table over the day before. They
39:12
Speaker 2: said well, we want this table today, and so you're
39:15
Speaker 2: forced to either confront that or get up and stand
39:19
Speaker 2: by the island where you get your trade from and
39:21
Speaker 2: eat at the island. I did that for a couple
39:23
Speaker 2: of days until a couple again be good friends came
39:26
Speaker 2: or associated came and said no, you could sit at
39:29
Speaker 2: our table. Overall through the twenty three years, it was
39:32
Speaker 2: my faith that I survived off of. It was the
39:36
Speaker 2: idea that I was innocent that I survived of. It
39:40
Speaker 2: was the idea my family who I left behind, my kids,
39:44
Speaker 2: who I left behind. I wanted to commit suicide. I
39:46
Speaker 2: contemplated suicide on many occasions, but what halted those actions
39:51
Speaker 2: and behavior was seeing my family on the outside, still
39:55
Speaker 2: needing me and wanting me to be there. There's less
39:58
Speaker 2: than a one percent chance ever been successful on appeal
40:01
Speaker 2: when you're fighting wrong for convictions and people will tell
40:04
Speaker 2: me to give it up, Ricky, it's a one percent chance,
40:07
Speaker 2: And I say, yeah, but you didn't say there was
40:08
Speaker 2: a no percent chance. So I did not want to
40:12
Speaker 2: understand as much how the ninety nine percent loss. I
40:15
Speaker 2: wanted to understand more of how did the one percent win?
40:18
Speaker 2: And that's what I would be guided by for those
40:20
Speaker 2: twenty three years until we was successful in becoming among
40:25
Speaker 2: that one percent and winning.
40:27
Speaker 1: Wow, there was absolutely no you had a much better
40:30
Speaker 1: than one percent chance of being killed while you're in prison. Yeah,
40:33
Speaker 1: it's a miracle that you never did decide to take
40:35
Speaker 1: your own life, as so many people do in those facilities,
40:38
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted or even people who were not wrong, convicted,
40:41
Speaker 1: but you stood strong. Somehow or other, you found the
40:46
Speaker 1: will to live, to learn, and to fight, and fight
40:52
Speaker 1: you did, and fortunately you were able to get the
40:56
Speaker 1: attention of the people that could help you. And of
40:58
Speaker 1: course now I'm talking about the Midwest Innocence Project. Oh yeah,
41:03
Speaker 1: because Tricia Bushnell. I mean google this, google her because
41:10
Speaker 1: if you, I think, if you look up, doesn't fuck around,
41:14
Speaker 1: you know, hers might be one of the first names
41:16
Speaker 1: that comes up. I mean, when she gets involved, this
41:20
Speaker 1: is when things can really turn. And I encourage people
41:23
Speaker 1: to join me in supporting the Midwest Innocence Project. They
41:27
Speaker 1: are one of the oh yeah, best in the country,
41:30
Speaker 1: best in class. Will put a link in the bio
41:33
Speaker 1: of the episode where people want to donate. So Tricia
41:35
Speaker 1: bush down racial Western.
41:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm a professor. Sean O'Brien, who was also
41:39
Speaker 2: a great part of the legal team, often led the
41:41
Speaker 2: legal team.
41:42
Speaker 1: Like the freaking Avengers came in right, and yeah it's
41:47
Speaker 1: a miracle that they did.
41:48
Speaker 2: I lost eleven times before I won my very last appeal.
41:52
Speaker 2: Appeal after appeal after appeal, everyone is good as the
41:56
Speaker 2: next during the appeals process that whole twenty three years,
42:00
Speaker 2: my lawyer stayed on this guy, Richard Harris, and they
42:03
Speaker 2: was successful in being able to get this witness to
42:08
Speaker 2: expose his lies. I mean, riddle, riddle, every time they
42:12
Speaker 2: talked to him it was something different, and they said, Ricky,
42:14
Speaker 2: we got him. He comes to court and any blind
42:18
Speaker 2: jurists a judge will be able to see that this
42:21
Speaker 2: guy is not credible and that the conviction should not stand,
42:24
Speaker 2: particularly since your conviction was solely based on this loan
42:28
Speaker 2: eyewitness testimony. And so my final appeal, that twelfth appeal,
42:34
Speaker 2: in April of twenty nineteen, this Richard Harris came to court.
42:37
Speaker 1: So you're at this hearing, Richard Harris is getting ready
42:40
Speaker 1: to be torn to shreds by your well dream team,
42:44
Speaker 1: and then something totally unexpected happens.
42:46
Speaker 2: We was prepared to just show all the inocuracies and
42:51
Speaker 2: straight out lives. We had a chart fifteen inconsistencies, eight
42:55
Speaker 2: straight out lies, and we had the chart to match
42:58
Speaker 2: on this page and this deposition, and he was toast.
43:02
Speaker 2: But before we can really even get to that, he
43:05
Speaker 2: had a conscious and he came clean. He testified that
43:08
Speaker 2: he lied and that it wasn't me. He testified that
43:13
Speaker 2: he knew it was the good Speeds and that he
43:17
Speaker 2: picked me because there was no harm. But if he
43:20
Speaker 2: identified the good Speeds, they would come after him and
43:23
Speaker 2: get him. So he was willing to lie. When the
43:26
Speaker 2: state attorneys general tried to get up and rehabilitate his testimony,
43:31
Speaker 2: Richard Hare, it was in the movies.
43:32
Speaker 1: It's like a movie.
43:34
Speaker 2: He snapped, I'm sick of this. You're not scaring me.
43:38
Speaker 2: I'm not scared of you anymore. And he stood up
43:40
Speaker 2: to Hi, I'm doing the right thing today and I'm
43:42
Speaker 2: adding some words in, but it was it was a flare.
43:46
Speaker 2: Everybody in the courtroom was looking, including the judge. He's
43:49
Speaker 2: innocent and y'all should let him go now. I'm done
43:52
Speaker 2: with this. And he began to break down and cry
43:55
Speaker 2: and he looked over at me and he said, I'm sorry,
43:58
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm so sor and he got up and
44:01
Speaker 2: rate didn't even get dismissed from the witness box, and
44:04
Speaker 2: he just got up and ran out of the courtroom.
44:06
Speaker 1: So wow, that is super dramatic. And by the way,
44:11
Speaker 1: it's hard not to think about the fact that this
44:14
Speaker 1: guy who led a hard life, I'm sure, and you know,
44:19
Speaker 1: had to stay alive that almost quarter century man or
44:23
Speaker 1: he finally came clean. If he would have died or man,
44:27
Speaker 1: you know, or something else happened to him, or become
44:29
Speaker 1: incapacitated somehow, or moved away where they couldn't find him,
44:33
Speaker 1: then you would be still in prison now and for
44:35
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. It all hung on that
44:37
Speaker 1: little thread, right, Yeah, it.
44:39
Speaker 2: Is a very strong likelihood. Yeah, yeah, And I was
44:42
Speaker 2: always nervous about that. Fortunate for me in our legal team,
44:47
Speaker 2: that wasn't the case and we didn't have to suffer
44:49
Speaker 2: such a devastating blow.
44:51
Speaker 1: And in the end, Judge Atkins ruled that the evidence,
44:55
Speaker 1: and this is a direct quote from the judge, established
44:58
Speaker 1: his innocence from multiple as end quote, Mike Drop. The evidence,
45:03
Speaker 1: he said, showed that you were not involved, that your
45:05
Speaker 1: alibi was truthful, and that the inescapable conclusion was exactly
45:10
Speaker 1: what was known from the very beginning, which was that
45:13
Speaker 1: Briant and Bridges were murdered by the good Speeds and
45:15
Speaker 1: by Merrill.
45:16
Speaker 2: When I got the legal call, there was an indication
45:18
Speaker 2: that the judge was going to rule in our favor
45:22
Speaker 2: just by the questions he was asking both parties as
45:24
Speaker 2: he was preparing his ruling. The emails he would send them.
45:28
Speaker 2: He has to send it to both sides, and so
45:30
Speaker 2: we was reading the tea leaves. If he was going
45:33
Speaker 2: to say no, he wouldn't be asking us for this.
45:35
Speaker 2: If he was going to say yes, he would be
45:37
Speaker 2: asking us for this. He's asking us for this. But
45:39
Speaker 2: we never fully knew, and so I was working out
45:42
Speaker 2: that day. On August fourteenth, twenty nineteen, they said, you
45:46
Speaker 2: have a legal call. I called my lawyers and Trisha
45:49
Speaker 2: and Rachel was on that phone. When two or more
45:52
Speaker 2: lawyers on the phone, it usually has been bad news.
45:56
Speaker 2: Only talked to one when it's just an update or
45:58
Speaker 2: some brief. So I did not know, oh, what's going here.
46:02
Speaker 2: And so they was like, hey, buddy, how's it going.
46:04
Speaker 2: And sometimes they'll do that too to prepare me for
46:07
Speaker 2: the shocking news or the bad news. And I said,
46:09
Speaker 2: I'm doing five. I said, tell me what's going on?
46:11
Speaker 2: They said, well, hold on, let me get the rest
46:13
Speaker 2: of the lawyers on the phone as well. That made
46:15
Speaker 2: me kind of feel up beat. I said, the rest
46:17
Speaker 2: of the lawyers. She said, yeah, we're waiting for Cindy,
46:19
Speaker 2: Cindy Dodge and Sean O'Brien. I said, oh, this is
46:22
Speaker 2: good news in my mind. And so they all got
46:24
Speaker 2: on the call, all four of them, me and nobody
46:27
Speaker 2: wanted to lead, so I just I said, hey, somebody
46:31
Speaker 2: tell me please, what's going on? And Sean O'Brien said, Ricky,
46:36
Speaker 2: you know what's going on? And Cindy Dodge broke out,
46:39
Speaker 2: You're free. You're a free the judge has ordered you
46:42
Speaker 2: to go free. You're free, Ricky, and I just started crying.
46:46
Speaker 2: I just started crying the whole twenty minutes. They was
46:49
Speaker 2: telling me everything that was gonna happen next and I
46:52
Speaker 2: didn't hear none of it. I didn't hear that of it.
46:55
Speaker 2: I was crying so hard. But it was a whole
46:59
Speaker 2: different type of crime, Jason, and that was the highlight.
47:03
Speaker 2: That was the highlight of my twenty three year roll
47:05
Speaker 2: for conviction, knowing that that was the day that I
47:08
Speaker 2: was about to be Freekin, that's.
47:10
Speaker 1: A beautiful, beautiful thing. What a beautiful description of an
47:13
Speaker 1: incredible moment, and what a profound experience for those lawyers
47:17
Speaker 1: and for lawyers who are listening. We had a lot
47:18
Speaker 1: of lawyers that listen to this show. Shout out to
47:21
Speaker 1: all of you and if any of you were thinking, hey,
47:23
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about taking a pro bono case, you
47:25
Speaker 1: know what, let's go because there's a lot of rickey
47:29
Speaker 1: kids out there, and I'm sure you know where some
47:31
Speaker 1: of them are too ricky. And if people want to
47:33
Speaker 1: if people want to reach out to you, how can
47:35
Speaker 1: they contact you? If they do want to get in
47:37
Speaker 1: touch with you for it any number of reasons. You
47:40
Speaker 1: have an email or something else or Instagram I do.
47:43
Speaker 2: I have a website Resiliencemode dot com, where they can
47:48
Speaker 2: find me there. I also have a link tree with
47:50
Speaker 2: a bunch of stuff that they can get a quick
47:52
Speaker 2: glance at who I am, what I've been up to.
47:54
Speaker 1: We'll put a link into the episode bio of if.
47:57
Speaker 2: I could just say I actually went from being a
47:59
Speaker 2: client of the Mid Innocence Project, I'm now in a
48:02
Speaker 2: colleague of Chrisia bush Nil. I love Tricia bush Neil.
48:05
Speaker 2: I am our community engagement manager. I've also been elevated
48:10
Speaker 2: through my work to serve on the Innocence Network Executive Board.
48:14
Speaker 2: I'm on the District Attorney's Advisory Board here in Kansas City,
48:19
Speaker 2: and I just was recently assigned to the X Hoonery
48:22
Speaker 2: Policy Council up in New York with Rebecca Brown and
48:26
Speaker 2: Olivia Bournes, and so I went from being underneath the
48:30
Speaker 2: problem to trying to be a part of the solution.
48:33
Speaker 2: I speak all across the country sharing my cautionary tale.
48:37
Speaker 2: I just started training prosecutors last year, last October. We're
48:42
Speaker 2: planning to take that and expand it even more where
48:45
Speaker 2: other prosecutors could learn the pitfalls of wrongful convictions and
48:49
Speaker 2: have some proximity to innocence. A lot of prosecutors do
48:52
Speaker 2: not have proximity to innocence, and we want them to
48:55
Speaker 2: have that experience with the idea that perhaps it would
48:58
Speaker 2: influence or change their opinion as to how they do
49:02
Speaker 2: business when it comes to these cases that come before them.
49:06
Speaker 2: So I'm happy to be home, and I love collaborating,
49:10
Speaker 2: and you could just reach out and say hey, let's
49:12
Speaker 2: collab I'm always open to that. So I'm very passionate
49:15
Speaker 2: about this work.
49:16
Speaker 1: Incredible. Well, I know I speak for everyone in our
49:20
Speaker 1: audience and our staff on our team here, Wrong for
49:23
Speaker 1: Conviction Podcasts and the whole Lava for Good team and
49:27
Speaker 1: everyone in the instance move. Just wishing you every blessing
49:31
Speaker 1: in the world. It is inspiring to see you doing
49:34
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So now we turn to our closing
49:37
Speaker 1: of the show, which is appropriately called closing Arguments. This
49:41
Speaker 1: is the part where I turned my microphone off, kick
49:46
Speaker 1: back in my chair with my headphones on, turn the
49:49
Speaker 1: volume up a little bit, and just listen to anything
49:52
Speaker 1: else you want to share with me and our incredible audience.
49:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that, Jason, First and foremost special shout
50:01
Speaker 2: out to the entire Like you said, the entire Roleful
50:04
Speaker 2: Conviction podcast team who's doing this work raising awareness about
50:08
Speaker 2: wrongful convictions is so important. We need this podcast. The
50:14
Speaker 2: world need this podcast one hundred percent because people are
50:16
Speaker 2: not aware enough about the issues surrounding roleful convictions. That
50:21
Speaker 2: has become my life work. Since I came home. I
50:24
Speaker 2: hit the ground running, raising my voice for those who
50:26
Speaker 2: is voiceless to raise awareness about wrongful convictions. I've testified
50:30
Speaker 2: before policymakers twice again, participating in various councils, committees, executive boards,
50:37
Speaker 2: social media. I quickly learned how to use social media
50:40
Speaker 2: and began to create content that was designed to raise awareness.
50:44
Speaker 2: I've been to twenty fourth state since I've been home.
50:46
Speaker 2: In three years. As we travel across the country, what
50:48
Speaker 2: I'm constantly learning is people are not aware of wrongful convictions.
50:54
Speaker 2: They have not heard enough about the issue. Anytime we
50:58
Speaker 2: get to get in this space actually educate ourselves about
51:02
Speaker 2: the different type of issues surrounding wrongful convictions, the different
51:05
Speaker 2: type of cases surrounding wrongful convictions, and any time we
51:08
Speaker 2: can leave, hopefully today the audience will leave feel un inspired,
51:12
Speaker 2: moved and motivated to do more, to get more involved
51:16
Speaker 2: than we're doing our job, and we get to do
51:18
Speaker 2: it together. So that's what I would say to the audience,
51:21
Speaker 2: and once again, thank you Jason Connor the rest of
51:23
Speaker 2: the team for having this platform that we can come
51:26
Speaker 2: on here and then we get to educate and inspire together.
51:37
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
51:40
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wardis.
51:44
Speaker 1: With research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
51:47
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
51:51
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
51:54
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at
51:58
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on
52:01
Speaker 1: all three platforms. You can also follow me on both
52:04
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason flam Ravel Conviction is
52:09
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52:11
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one