Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #019 Jason Flom with Franky Carrillo

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#019 Jason Flom with Franky Carrillo · Wrongful Conviction

0:05
Speaker 1: With the police banging on the door open up.
0:10
Speaker 2: The choice to be in that lineup was the last
0:12
Speaker 2: choice I made as a free man.
0:14
Speaker 1: A year later, I ended up writing the system.
0:18
Speaker 3: I'm going to be one of those people who everyone
0:20
Speaker 3: in the world is going to think as a monster
0:21
Speaker 3: or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life,
0:24
Speaker 3: and I'm just going to have to come to peace
0:25
Speaker 3: with that.
0:27
Speaker 1: Somebody was able to look at my picture in the
0:29
Speaker 1: database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't.
0:34
Speaker 1: I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they
0:37
Speaker 1: might have to play in my hanging. They had been
0:39
Speaker 1: told that two prison officers would have to participate in
0:42
Speaker 1: my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for
0:47
Speaker 1: the last time. Man, all help broke loose.
0:49
Speaker 2: But welcome to another episode of Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
1:06
Speaker 2: Today we have a very incredible person as our guest.
1:10
Speaker 2: Our featured exonery today is Frankie Correo.
1:13
Speaker 3: Korea was sixteen. In nineteen ninety one, fifteen sheriff's deputies
1:17
Speaker 3: with guns drawn storm through the front door. Korea was
1:20
Speaker 3: convicted of murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
1:23
Speaker 1: Frankie was released.
1:24
Speaker 3: From jail in downtown LA this afternoon after spending twenty
1:27
Speaker 3: years in prison. Rio was released after the court found
1:30
Speaker 3: evidence that Korea was framed through coerced testimony for a
1:34
Speaker 3: fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt LA Sheriff's
1:37
Speaker 3: deputies known as the Linwood Vikings co wer six witnesses
1:40
Speaker 3: into identifying him in a photo lineup.
1:44
Speaker 1: Frankie, welcome, Jason's good to be here.
1:47
Speaker 2: So Frankie, your story begins when you were really just
1:51
Speaker 2: a child and the baby man. Let's go back to
1:54
Speaker 2: the beginning. You grew up in La, right, that's correct,
1:58
Speaker 2: Southern California, and you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah,
2:02
Speaker 2: I would say that. Yeah, everything was going along more
2:05
Speaker 2: or less. Okay, nothing's easy about being a sixteen year
2:07
Speaker 2: old boy, that's right.
2:09
Speaker 1: Then one day it almost turned upside down. That day
2:12
Speaker 1: was January twenty fourth, nineteen ninety one. I was just
2:16
Speaker 1: a little color there. I was a high school student.
2:18
Speaker 1: I was a child of a divorce family, four siblings.
2:21
Speaker 1: My father had raised us in stage of nine, so
2:23
Speaker 1: it's a very male dominated household. Dad and two boys.
2:27
Speaker 1: It was what I'd known for the past seven years.
2:29
Speaker 2: And you had a sort of a unique situation too.
2:31
Speaker 2: It was is that your mom had did one day
2:32
Speaker 2: just decided to check out.
2:33
Speaker 1: That's it. Yeah.
2:34
Speaker 2: It wasn't like it got separated and you spent half
2:37
Speaker 2: the time.
2:37
Speaker 1: With her or she just left. That was it. Yeah,
2:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an unfortunate story, but that's what happened.
2:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you had been abandoned in a very real
2:45
Speaker 2: way and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any
2:51
Speaker 2: young man for the rest of his life. But that
2:54
Speaker 2: wasn't the worst of what was to come by far.
2:57
Speaker 2: And again, sixteen is really not a child, but you're
3:00
Speaker 2: closer to a child than an adult.
3:02
Speaker 1: Right even though it was my age, I was sixteen,
3:05
Speaker 1: Psychologically you're you're still a kid, you know, maybe operating
3:07
Speaker 1: at thirteen fourteen level, not to minimize it, but I'm
3:11
Speaker 1: a boy, I'm a kid.
3:11
Speaker 2: We were in tenth grade, tenth grader, tenth grade exactly,
3:14
Speaker 2: So I'm saying tenth grade, you're you know, yeah, you're
3:17
Speaker 2: closer to middle school than you are to college. And
3:19
Speaker 2: they hadn't been shaved.
3:20
Speaker 1: So it's like a good A good reference is that
3:22
Speaker 1: you're at the point where like facial hair is sort
3:23
Speaker 1: of developing, but you're not there yet, Frankie, like, hold
3:26
Speaker 1: off right.
3:27
Speaker 2: And then one night, fifteen cops bust in your house.
3:30
Speaker 2: What a surreal situation. You were asleep?
3:33
Speaker 1: I was asleep, just a normal night. Yeah. Actually it
3:36
Speaker 1: was early morning, so it was dark, but it was
3:38
Speaker 1: it was six in the morning. This happened, and my
3:40
Speaker 1: father and I went home and they couldn't get in.
3:42
Speaker 1: They were pounding away, and ultimately I opened the door,
3:46
Speaker 1: looked out the window and new was them. They were
3:48
Speaker 1: screaming who they were, and they stormed in, stormed in,
3:51
Speaker 1: ordered my father and I to the floor, And that's
3:53
Speaker 1: the beginning of the nightmare.
3:54
Speaker 2: Really, so they already it to the floor. Did they
3:57
Speaker 2: tell you what was going on?
3:59
Speaker 1: I wish it did? You know? It was pretty strategic
4:02
Speaker 1: in all business, so they wanted to, like ram sack.
4:04
Speaker 1: The home was their main objective. And you know, my
4:06
Speaker 1: father and I really my dad was trying to exert
4:08
Speaker 1: his position. This is my home, what are you doing here?
4:12
Speaker 1: And he was being ignored. So he's telling me, like,
4:14
Speaker 1: what's happening. I'm like I don't know, Like I have
4:16
Speaker 1: no idea whither're here? Soon after, on the ride to
4:19
Speaker 1: the sheriff station is when I learned that I had
4:21
Speaker 1: been accused and ultimately now being arrested for a murderer
4:24
Speaker 1: I hadn't committed.
4:25
Speaker 2: So you get to the sheriff's station and what happens next.
4:29
Speaker 1: Really, I was expecting my father to show up, but
4:32
Speaker 1: what happened was I was placing into an interrogation room.
4:35
Speaker 1: The people who showed up instead were these two sort
4:37
Speaker 1: of cowboy detectives ready to play the good call bad
4:40
Speaker 1: cop on me, and I played along. You know. They
4:42
Speaker 1: said what they're arrested me for and if I would
4:45
Speaker 1: willing to talk, and I said, sure, I'll talk like
4:48
Speaker 1: I have nothing to hide.
4:49
Speaker 2: Right, And so you waved your Marana, right I did.
4:52
Speaker 2: And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because I think
4:54
Speaker 2: it's hard for most people to understand why someone would
4:59
Speaker 2: wave their miranda rights when you have the right to
5:02
Speaker 2: a lawyer who is going to give that up. But
5:04
Speaker 2: the fact is in your case, I think it's fairly typical,
5:07
Speaker 2: which is that if you're innocent, and this is an
5:09
Speaker 2: ironic thing, right, if you're innocent, a lot of people
5:12
Speaker 2: go in they think, well, why do I need a lawyer.
5:14
Speaker 2: I'm just going to answer some questions, and the justice
5:16
Speaker 2: system is going to work because I'm an innocent person
5:19
Speaker 2: who abides by the law, and then they'll see that
5:22
Speaker 2: they made a mistake and then they'll go catch the
5:24
Speaker 2: real guy.
5:24
Speaker 1: Exactly right.
5:25
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, it's going to take stories like yours to help
5:29
Speaker 2: educate people so that they don't do that. You do
5:33
Speaker 2: not give up any information without getting a lawyer.
5:36
Speaker 1: But I will adjason that when you're in that code
5:38
Speaker 1: room and the power imbalance is obvious, you are in
5:43
Speaker 1: a detention facility. Basically, you're in the stronghold, you're in
5:46
Speaker 1: the sheriff's departments space, and you're there as a visitor.
5:50
Speaker 1: You're there obviously being charged with this crime, in my case,
5:52
Speaker 1: being wrongfully charged. And so to some degree, as a
5:55
Speaker 1: young boy, you want these are adults. I'm looking at
5:57
Speaker 1: these men and you want to cooperate. You want it
5:59
Speaker 1: like I'll talk to you. I have nothing to hide.
6:01
Speaker 1: It is sort of my position looking back now. Obviously
6:05
Speaker 1: I wish I wish there was a Civics class that
6:07
Speaker 1: would have said, you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever,
6:10
Speaker 1: the situation is just wait for your parents or wait
6:13
Speaker 1: for a lawyer.
6:14
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that when you're
6:17
Speaker 2: innocent and you go into the situation, you're more likely
6:20
Speaker 2: to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty, exactly,
6:22
Speaker 2: we're in that interrogation room.
6:24
Speaker 1: How long were you interrogated for?
6:25
Speaker 2: Do you even know?
6:26
Speaker 1: You know? Surprisingly, I think back of that fived him
6:28
Speaker 1: in interrogation, and I sort of left that room thinking,
6:31
Speaker 1: you know, where was the lamp? You know, where were
6:33
Speaker 1: these guys punching on me? Like, you know, you watch
6:35
Speaker 1: enough TV to understand that this is supposed to unfold
6:39
Speaker 1: a little bit differently than it did in my case.
6:40
Speaker 1: At least, they were very quick to just say, there's
6:43
Speaker 1: a young boy who witnessed a crime, who was adamant
6:45
Speaker 1: that you were the guy who did it. So we
6:47
Speaker 1: got you. Let's talk about you just confessing to it.
6:50
Speaker 1: So it was really very brief, very precise on their end,
6:54
Speaker 1: and I think I'm on a chuckle not to be
6:55
Speaker 1: silly here, but it was just like so unreal, like
6:59
Speaker 1: one you're are you sure you're talking to me? I'm
7:02
Speaker 1: adamant that it was in me obviously, and their position
7:05
Speaker 1: was like, we're beyond if you did it or not.
7:07
Speaker 1: We just want you to just come clean, just confess
7:10
Speaker 1: that you did it. And I was like, I can't
7:13
Speaker 1: do that.
7:14
Speaker 2: It ended after ten minutes.
7:15
Speaker 1: That's it. Like they weren't trying to press me and
7:18
Speaker 1: starve me out anything. They were just like, okay, well
7:21
Speaker 1: we'll see you in court, like we're going to jail now,
7:24
Speaker 1: Like that was it.
7:24
Speaker 2: Hearing that and that's an unusual interrogation, and that it
7:28
Speaker 2: went on for such a short period of time, it
7:30
Speaker 2: sounds to me like at that point they actually did
7:32
Speaker 2: think they had the right guy, because they were like, Okay,
7:34
Speaker 2: well this guy's not gonna give it up, but we
7:35
Speaker 2: got the right guy, so it's okay, We're we're gonna
7:37
Speaker 2: get him no matter what. But as things unraveled, they
7:41
Speaker 2: took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did they
7:46
Speaker 2: end up managing to convict you when you were so
7:48
Speaker 2: obviously not the guy?
7:49
Speaker 1: So you know, in Los Angeles at least, there's a
7:52
Speaker 1: very familiar story about misconduct with the LAPD SO Rampart
7:56
Speaker 1: Division scandal. It's more readily available knowledge. But my case
8:00
Speaker 1: didn't involve laped involve the li Sheriff's Department, and there's
8:04
Speaker 1: a well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings.
8:08
Speaker 1: So Lindwood is where this crime happened and where my
8:11
Speaker 1: arrest was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
8:15
Speaker 1: a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
8:18
Speaker 1: naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
8:21
Speaker 1: were abidened by the constitution and their policies in the department.
8:25
Speaker 1: Some of the people on this investigation team were these
8:27
Speaker 1: bad cops sort of fast forward in here of information
8:30
Speaker 1: I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
8:33
Speaker 1: And so when this young boy who was used to
8:36
Speaker 1: identify me, who was shown a line of photo six
8:40
Speaker 1: pack to ultimately say this is the guy who committed
8:42
Speaker 1: the crime, the case sounded pretty cut and dry. There's
8:46
Speaker 1: a witness, there's a heshoe was showing a photographic lineup.
8:49
Speaker 1: He quickly identified the shooter. We got in the rest
8:53
Speaker 1: slammed duck. And so there was a trial when I
8:55
Speaker 1: was tried as an adult and move forward to a conviction.
8:58
Speaker 1: But at some point it was discovered that this young
9:00
Speaker 1: boy wasn't as innocent as you know. He was more
9:04
Speaker 1: than just a witness. It was revealed that he was
9:06
Speaker 1: an informant for one specific law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch.
9:11
Speaker 1: And so Deputy Ditch, Ditch, Deputy of all things, Deputy Ditch. Right,
9:14
Speaker 1: I mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is the
9:16
Speaker 1: guy's name. He's now retired. The guy had this boy
9:19
Speaker 1: under his wing as an informant, and he happened to
9:22
Speaker 1: be at this crime scene, and so it was very
9:24
Speaker 1: very easy to say, I'm your go to guy here.
9:27
Speaker 1: So the story later was discovered that this young boy
9:30
Speaker 1: was showing photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by
9:34
Speaker 1: other investigators with no results. They realized Ditch had a
9:38
Speaker 1: relationship with this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The
9:41
Speaker 1: case was solved once Stitch arrived in less than eight hours,
9:44
Speaker 1: and the story that was revealed that the young boy
9:47
Speaker 1: was showing the photographs as what was in the report,
9:50
Speaker 1: and so he picks a random picture just to play along,
9:53
Speaker 1: and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
9:56
Speaker 1: right now, try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
9:59
Speaker 1: like an idiot. Point. You know, you're trying to help,
10:01
Speaker 1: You're young, you're scared, so he picks another photograph, and
10:04
Speaker 1: the deputy says, this guy's dead. What about this guy here?
10:07
Speaker 1: We think he's trying to come up in the rankings
10:09
Speaker 1: or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah, I
10:11
Speaker 1: guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's the guy.
10:14
Speaker 1: And this is the story.
10:15
Speaker 2: He was looking at six photographs.
10:17
Speaker 1: Yep, he was over too exactly.
10:18
Speaker 2: He picked he picked very badly. He picked a guy
10:21
Speaker 2: who was in jail and a guy who was dead.
10:23
Speaker 1: Right.
10:23
Speaker 2: That's yeah, really hard to make a case against those guys.
10:26
Speaker 1: Right.
10:26
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
10:28
Speaker 2: was a guy in the sixth pack who was dead.
10:30
Speaker 2: Give me a break, right, Well, I mean you would
10:32
Speaker 2: think they would take that guy out. Just I mean,
10:34
Speaker 2: let me jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie,
10:35
Speaker 2: what's up. You're coming off as this high school student,
10:38
Speaker 2: nice guy. What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like,
10:41
Speaker 2: tell us about that.
10:42
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was your next question, right, I'm getting
10:44
Speaker 1: to that what happened in this environment is so nineteen
10:47
Speaker 1: ninety nineteen ninety one is over referencing here that specific
10:50
Speaker 1: sheriff's department's policy was that if there was any anyone
10:53
Speaker 1: that you thought was a potential bad kid or bad
10:55
Speaker 1: guy or bad anything, let's do some racial profiling at
10:59
Speaker 1: this point, right, gather intel. And so the photograph was
11:02
Speaker 1: obtained in the summer between my sixth grade and seventh
11:05
Speaker 1: grade vacation block. There, me and some of my buddies
11:08
Speaker 1: just riding our BMX spikes through a local park, no
11:11
Speaker 1: big deal, summertime, and this deputy Dept. Luna, I remember
11:14
Speaker 1: the guy's name, sort of just rolls up next to us.
11:17
Speaker 1: He's it's done, the official lights on pull over. He stops,
11:20
Speaker 1: We stop, start talking about who has a girlfriend, and
11:22
Speaker 1: where do you live? And what's up with to you? Whatever? Right,
11:25
Speaker 1: just pretty cool talking to a cop, No big deal.
11:28
Speaker 1: Then the guy says, do you mind if I take
11:30
Speaker 1: your photograph to the group? I don't remember us looking
11:32
Speaker 1: around saying what do you think? Guys? We just like,
11:35
Speaker 1: I guess like you're a cop, right, Like what do
11:38
Speaker 1: we say?
11:38
Speaker 3: No?
11:39
Speaker 1: And so this is the time when you had polaroad camera.
11:41
Speaker 1: So the guy got out of his car, went into
11:43
Speaker 1: the trunk and pulled out the little manual polaroid camera,
11:46
Speaker 1: and one by one he just came to write where
11:48
Speaker 1: we were on our bike standing and just snapped a photograph.
11:52
Speaker 1: And so that photograph that was taken in a park
11:55
Speaker 1: with trees in the background and whatever else was in
11:58
Speaker 1: the background, I was smiling them picture. That photograph ended
12:02
Speaker 1: up in the sixth pack. So talk about like a
12:04
Speaker 1: chain of events here that fucks your life up, right,
12:07
Speaker 1: Oh my.
12:07
Speaker 2: God, I mean, that's really the most I've heard all
12:10
Speaker 2: types of different stories, and you're right, that is a
12:12
Speaker 2: question that people often ask, why was this picture? Now?
12:14
Speaker 2: What we know is that if you live in a
12:17
Speaker 2: poor neighborhood speticularly a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
12:21
Speaker 2: sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, and so your
12:24
Speaker 2: picture could be in there because you had a joint,
12:26
Speaker 2: or any other thing could be in there because you
12:28
Speaker 2: were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
12:31
Speaker 2: or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
12:35
Speaker 2: of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
12:38
Speaker 2: your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
12:42
Speaker 2: probably I mean, thinking back to when I was in
12:44
Speaker 2: sixth or seventh grade, if a cop would have asked
12:46
Speaker 2: to take my picture, I would have felt good, right, like, Wow,
12:48
Speaker 2: this guy wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
13:03
Speaker 2: So your picture was in the lineup because this cop had,
13:06
Speaker 2: in a sneaky way, racially profiled you as a thirteen
13:10
Speaker 2: year old boy riding his bike in the park, which
13:13
Speaker 2: is exactly as far as I can tell, what thirteen
13:15
Speaker 2: year old boys are supposed to be doing. You were
13:17
Speaker 2: identified in this insane process, right, which is literally like
13:21
Speaker 2: it would be funny, except the results are so tragic.
13:24
Speaker 2: So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
13:27
Speaker 2: that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himself
13:29
Speaker 2: to trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
13:31
Speaker 2: this is the guy we want identify him. That would
13:33
Speaker 2: have been simple, exactly. I would have saved five minutes.
13:35
Speaker 2: So you're identified, you go to trial.
13:37
Speaker 1: Well, I'm pre as an adult, I'm going to keep
13:39
Speaker 1: parking this, but I'm a kid. So there's a process
13:41
Speaker 1: here in California that determines if you're worthy of juvenile
13:44
Speaker 1: court or you have to go with the big boys. Right,
13:46
Speaker 1: And so this was a murderer and they felt that
13:49
Speaker 1: it deserved it a higher punishment, and so ultimately went
13:52
Speaker 1: to trial. Had an assigned attorney that the county who
13:55
Speaker 1: wasn't a public defenders like a panel attorney. I have
13:58
Speaker 1: to say this part here is when I walked into
13:59
Speaker 1: the court and I was chained to you know, the
14:01
Speaker 1: chain gang there everyone's ever being arraigned, all adults, and
14:04
Speaker 1: then was looking like what did you do, like steal
14:06
Speaker 1: some candy and blah blah blah, and you know, they're
14:09
Speaker 1: just ragging on me, these adults who had obviously been
14:11
Speaker 1: there before. And so I'm the last guy to be arraigned,
14:15
Speaker 1: and so everyone's freaking out like, oh shit, we weren't
14:17
Speaker 1: expecting that charge for this kid, right And prior to that,
14:20
Speaker 1: I will say that, and it's and it kind of
14:22
Speaker 1: goes to just me being so naive here is that
14:25
Speaker 1: I heard someone call my name and I'm like, I'm
14:30
Speaker 1: so little. I'm like raising my hand like I'm over here.
14:32
Speaker 1: And I looked over and I saw this good looking
14:35
Speaker 1: white man with this amazing suit on, just like tanned suit,
14:38
Speaker 1: walking towards me with the file and I was like,
14:41
Speaker 1: oh my god, David, you have signed me the best
14:43
Speaker 1: fucker in the room, man, Like this is all going
14:45
Speaker 1: to be worked out, Like this is it? I got
14:47
Speaker 1: the very sheck of the world. Sadly, it's just an
14:50
Speaker 1: example of like where my mentality was, even my perception
14:53
Speaker 1: of this new world. This courtroom was like sadly, like
14:57
Speaker 1: a white guy come into your rescue, had like such
14:59
Speaker 1: an impact from living in a society where the majority
15:02
Speaker 1: of people around you are people who look like you
15:05
Speaker 1: and who you know than the teacher or whatever, and
15:08
Speaker 1: so I thought it was a sort of funny and
15:10
Speaker 1: looking back at that moment, getting me so excited about
15:13
Speaker 1: everything's going to be okay now right obviously.
15:15
Speaker 2: Not obviously not. I mean the odds, the odds were
15:17
Speaker 2: stacked against you. The government was willing to lie to
15:21
Speaker 2: get the conviction. They were willing to use an incentivized witness,
15:25
Speaker 2: and they convicted you, they did, and now you get
15:28
Speaker 2: sent to maximum security prison.
15:30
Speaker 1: At the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it
15:32
Speaker 1: was like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I
15:34
Speaker 1: went there and the sentence was thirty years to life,
15:38
Speaker 1: with an additional six life sentences attached to that. So
15:42
Speaker 1: I'll say that when I heard those words coming to
15:43
Speaker 1: the judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceive like a
15:47
Speaker 1: week or a few months in my life. So now
15:50
Speaker 1: to imagine thirty years to life plus life, I couldn't
15:54
Speaker 1: even comprehend that. For someone wants to be sort of
15:56
Speaker 1: funny and sort of mess with me, it meant like,
15:59
Speaker 1: do thirty years to life die and then you're back
16:02
Speaker 1: in prison, like even if you ever come back, right,
16:04
Speaker 1: And it.
16:04
Speaker 2: Was like, you mean, like if you get reincarnated.
16:06
Speaker 1: I suppose, right, like you're you're setting you up for
16:10
Speaker 1: your next life. It doesn't make any sense, right, and
16:12
Speaker 1: none of this makes any sense. But that in particular
16:14
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense just in terms of the semantics
16:16
Speaker 1: of it. It's interesting too, write because there was a
16:18
Speaker 1: witness who actually wanted to come forward and who had
16:22
Speaker 1: information that could have prevented you from being convicted in
16:25
Speaker 1: the first place. There was, so he wasn't just a witness.
16:28
Speaker 1: This guy that you're referring to was the actual killer.
16:31
Speaker 1: So as a bizarre twist in this case, the investigator
16:35
Speaker 1: had discovered who the murderer was, and your instigator there is.
16:40
Speaker 1: It's a bizarre twist all this, And it's not to
16:42
Speaker 1: minimize the bad police work here, but now it's also
16:44
Speaker 1: bad defense work here. My defense attorney had an investigator
16:49
Speaker 1: who had went out and become the world's best investigator
16:52
Speaker 1: by tracking down who excumented the crime. Turns out he
16:55
Speaker 1: knew the murderer, and so there was just this conflict
16:58
Speaker 1: of interest of either get off the case or reveal
17:02
Speaker 1: that this is the guy who did it. He had
17:04
Speaker 1: this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to the crime.
17:07
Speaker 1: There's a six page confession that he took from this man.
17:10
Speaker 1: And what he tried to do. To his credit, he
17:13
Speaker 1: tried to convince this guy to come to the court
17:15
Speaker 1: and just say, look, frank didn't do it, it was me.
17:18
Speaker 1: And he arrived with an attorney. You would assume that
17:21
Speaker 1: the judge would say, well, wait a minute here, before
17:23
Speaker 1: Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's hear about this
17:26
Speaker 1: guy in the hallway. And lo and behold, the judge says,
17:29
Speaker 1: you're too late. You've been convicted by jury. All this
17:32
Speaker 1: sort of like blast information that's apparently in the hallway.
17:36
Speaker 1: Just deal with it in your appeal.
17:37
Speaker 2: So after the jury renders you guilty and the guy
17:40
Speaker 2: standing outside the doors of the courtroom exactly who's actually
17:44
Speaker 2: holding the cards to your freedom?
17:46
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it would have shed light. If someone
17:48
Speaker 1: cared about truth, right, it would have been like, well,
17:50
Speaker 1: let's bring this guy in. And so it failed me
17:52
Speaker 1: even again at that point, that's such a crazy it's
17:55
Speaker 1: a bizarre man.
17:57
Speaker 2: You were like thirty feet from freedom sort of right,
18:00
Speaker 2: the doors would have opened and this guy would have
18:01
Speaker 2: been allowed to walk in and provided he actually came clean, true,
18:04
Speaker 2: because he might have changed his mind. People do that.
18:06
Speaker 2: But you had a real opportunity to avoid this most
18:11
Speaker 2: nightmarish fate that anybody can possibly imagine. But that's not
18:15
Speaker 2: what happened. And ultimately there were six witnesses who testified
18:18
Speaker 2: against you, and the crazy thing is they all recanted, right,
18:22
Speaker 2: eventually they all recanted.
18:23
Speaker 1: They initially use this one boy, this fifty year old boy,
18:26
Speaker 1: to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
18:28
Speaker 1: six months, which is bizarre. Here everyone was under eighteen,
18:31
Speaker 1: so everyone was very young. Six months maybe even seven
18:34
Speaker 1: months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
18:37
Speaker 1: the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
18:41
Speaker 1: And we all know about memory, and there's been studies
18:43
Speaker 1: and it's been proven that this is not a recording
18:45
Speaker 1: dick you have on your phone in your mind memories
18:47
Speaker 1: recorded a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots, and
18:49
Speaker 1: as time goes on they fade and other information filters
18:53
Speaker 1: in and it gets very tainted. So it's hard to
18:55
Speaker 1: really recall, especially a dry by shooting the middle of
18:59
Speaker 1: the night. You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running, so
19:02
Speaker 1: to really capture that, it's like an immediate on the
19:05
Speaker 1: scene interview is like the best one. So we're talking
19:07
Speaker 1: about seven months later now where these boys are showing
19:10
Speaker 1: photographs for the first time ever. Wow, And sure enough,
19:14
Speaker 1: sure enough, one by one they say, yep, that's the guy.
19:16
Speaker 1: It's photograph number one. And it was obviously later determined
19:19
Speaker 1: that's this young boy. The fifteen year old boy. Made
19:22
Speaker 1: it a point to tell everyone else if they ever
19:23
Speaker 1: show you photographs, believe me, I know who did it.
19:27
Speaker 1: It was photograph number one. And so now we got
19:30
Speaker 1: six people.
19:31
Speaker 2: Right, And it's so absurd to think that seven months later,
19:35
Speaker 2: as you said, in the middle of the night, in
19:37
Speaker 2: the dark and a drive by shooting, all the factors
19:39
Speaker 2: are there for almost a guarantee of wrong fele identification,
19:43
Speaker 2: a miss identification, and that's exactly what happened. So you
19:45
Speaker 2: spent much more than half your life behind bars. You're
19:49
Speaker 2: only really a cognizant human, right maybe for ten years
19:53
Speaker 2: to a round number, so more than twice that amount
19:56
Speaker 2: of time. You're now in a cage in a violent, scary,
20:01
Speaker 2: hostile environment. How did you manage to make it through that?
20:05
Speaker 1: You know? Well, you know, when I think back about
20:13
Speaker 1: how I survived twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most
20:17
Speaker 1: about something my dad said sort of in passing or
20:20
Speaker 1: just started giving me some advice up to dinner table,
20:22
Speaker 1: which was, if there's adults around, go to them. He's
20:25
Speaker 1: sort of instilling these things about just society, they'll help you.
20:29
Speaker 1: And so I think, here, I am in a room
20:30
Speaker 1: full of adults. I'm an adult court, and I'm expecting
20:33
Speaker 1: everyone to do the right thing just because you're an adult.
20:36
Speaker 1: I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching out for
20:38
Speaker 1: the system and yourself and and everyone in the room.
20:42
Speaker 1: And so that that went haywire. That that failed me.
20:46
Speaker 1: But I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity
20:51
Speaker 1: was being born, and so I arrived in the place
20:54
Speaker 1: that was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you
20:56
Speaker 1: hear about it from the outside from the inside. It's
20:58
Speaker 1: a very somber and just a sad place where people
21:03
Speaker 1: are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
21:05
Speaker 1: the ground level here other people who don't want to
21:08
Speaker 1: be there, and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
21:11
Speaker 1: you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
21:13
Speaker 1: And so first couple of years of that, you know,
21:16
Speaker 1: you're trying to sort of find your place. It's a
21:18
Speaker 1: social dynamic there, and so you're moving in groups of
21:21
Speaker 1: your kind, and you know, you get a job and
21:23
Speaker 1: you kind of get active in what's happening there. But
21:26
Speaker 1: luckily for me, and I really thank my dad for
21:28
Speaker 1: saying that, it's instilling in this idea that whoever they are,
21:32
Speaker 1: but people are good people. And in my case, I
21:35
Speaker 1: had to be careful with who I told that I
21:37
Speaker 1: was innocent, because you know, that's back to the sort
21:39
Speaker 1: of ranking about like you're a murderer in prison has
21:43
Speaker 1: more status than if you're there for child molestation. And
21:45
Speaker 1: so even in my environment, I think innocent is probably
21:48
Speaker 1: below child molester. You don't even belong here, Like what
21:52
Speaker 1: the fuck man, Like you're you know, I mean, a criminal,
21:54
Speaker 1: Like we're all you know, we're all tough here. So
21:57
Speaker 1: I learned that I made a mistake and told the
21:59
Speaker 1: wrong guy that I was innocent, and the look he
22:01
Speaker 1: gave me was like, oh shit, maybe I shouldn't be
22:03
Speaker 1: telling people that I'm not like you, right obviously, like
22:06
Speaker 1: everyone else I read and I and I feel like
22:09
Speaker 1: I'm in sound like a natural chameleon. So I just
22:11
Speaker 1: adapted to my environment. I've been always been very diplomatic,
22:14
Speaker 1: so I was always trying to be the peacekeeper, and
22:17
Speaker 1: so that helped the pain. And also, like the hope
22:20
Speaker 1: was that like somewhere, somehow someone was going to realize
22:24
Speaker 1: that this was a huge mistake. And so the system
22:26
Speaker 1: that failed me, the criminal justice system that failed me,
22:30
Speaker 1: and everyone who makes that sort of term, you know,
22:32
Speaker 1: happen and work though it's it's supposed to work. I
22:35
Speaker 1: suppose I was expecting them to figure it out and
22:39
Speaker 1: help me. It's sort of like suspending reality and thinking,
22:42
Speaker 1: forget what just happened to you where you've been wrongly convicted,
22:45
Speaker 1: and try to hold onto the one piece that these
22:49
Speaker 1: people can do the right thing. And some expecting people
22:51
Speaker 1: to do the right thing.
22:52
Speaker 2: It's incredible that you would be expecting people to do
22:56
Speaker 2: the right thing, when, with the exception of your father,
23:00
Speaker 2: everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
23:03
Speaker 2: you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
23:06
Speaker 2: and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
23:09
Speaker 2: be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
23:14
Speaker 2: people are going to accept me for who I am,
23:15
Speaker 2: which is an innocent guy trapped in a sentence that
23:18
Speaker 2: doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot to
23:21
Speaker 2: be learned from that, right, because all of us go
23:23
Speaker 2: through little disappointments on a daily basements, right, or a
23:26
Speaker 2: weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react to those,
23:30
Speaker 2: and certainly being around you and the other exgneries, I
23:33
Speaker 2: always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude, you know,
23:35
Speaker 2: and I learned to be I think much more understanding
23:39
Speaker 2: of life's little twists and turns, because they all seem
23:42
Speaker 2: so trivial. When you deal with someone who's been through
23:46
Speaker 2: hell right and managed to maintain not just sanity, but
23:49
Speaker 2: a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's remarkable,
23:53
Speaker 2: you know.
23:53
Speaker 1: I'm going to add to also, Jason, that there was
23:55
Speaker 1: something happening that I didn't realize. This until many years later.
23:58
Speaker 1: But we're all conditioned in the way, and specifically, when
24:01
Speaker 1: we think of prison, we think of the ugliest human
24:04
Speaker 1: from his behavior, what he did, or the way he
24:06
Speaker 1: looks and the tattoos and ponytail whatever we have in
24:11
Speaker 1: our minds etched out as like what a prisoner looks like.
24:14
Speaker 1: And so imagine a guy who's great looking as I
24:17
Speaker 1: am in a prison. You might think, oh, man, this
24:19
Speaker 1: guy's vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But the reality
24:23
Speaker 1: is that pull perversion out of it. You're in a
24:25
Speaker 1: place where you're almost like a porcelain figurine in a bar,
24:30
Speaker 1: and it's almost like people want to protect you, and
24:32
Speaker 1: they're curious about, like, what's this guy with no tattoos
24:34
Speaker 1: doing amongst us? Why is he so nice? Like, you know,
24:37
Speaker 1: we're all mean and talking shit to each other, and
24:39
Speaker 1: this guy's like talking about good morning and whatever. Right.
24:42
Speaker 1: And so I learned that my humanity hadn't been detached
24:46
Speaker 1: from me. There was no guilt that made me feel
24:48
Speaker 1: like I couldn't be human. So I was just who
24:50
Speaker 1: I thought I had to be. And as time went on,
24:52
Speaker 1: I'd use it as a shield because I knew that
24:54
Speaker 1: was happening, that there was like these social conditioning that
24:57
Speaker 1: was working in my favor, even just a survival part,
25:00
Speaker 1: let alone the criminal justice be trying to get out.
25:14
Speaker 2: Now that you've been out for six years, and hearing
25:18
Speaker 2: you talk about it, you're very calm, and you paint
25:22
Speaker 2: a picture that is I think either you're in a
25:26
Speaker 2: little bit of denial. You know, like they say, denial
25:28
Speaker 2: is not a river in Egypt about how terrifying and
25:31
Speaker 2: how I know it was a brutal experience no matter
25:34
Speaker 2: all the things you're saying, notwithstanding, but I do want
25:38
Speaker 2: to turn to the happy part of this story, your
25:42
Speaker 2: exoneration and then what happened after you got out, because
25:46
Speaker 2: America loves to come back. Yeah, man, and your story
25:49
Speaker 2: is very uplifting. I mean, just the fact that you're
25:51
Speaker 2: here now has got to be inspiring to so many people.
25:54
Speaker 2: So how did you Was it the Northern California Innocent's
25:56
Speaker 2: Project that took your case?
25:57
Speaker 1: I think my exoneration is sort of twofold here, But
26:00
Speaker 1: when it came to the legal components to it, I
26:02
Speaker 1: did what many other people do. They write letters, and
26:04
Speaker 1: they bother their families and that they have a friend
26:07
Speaker 1: who they can nag about it. They do that like
26:09
Speaker 1: it's a constant scratching away at this right. And so
26:12
Speaker 1: for me, it was a fifteen year letter writing campaign
26:15
Speaker 1: that went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty
26:18
Speaker 1: twenty and forty eight hours and some row back, you know,
26:21
Speaker 1: along with Barry shk who wasn't interested in at the
26:23
Speaker 1: time with a case who wasn't involved in DNA, which
26:26
Speaker 1: I understood. But as bizarre as it was, I was.
26:28
Speaker 1: I was a folesome prisoner working as a teacher's aid.
26:32
Speaker 1: I was, you know, helping the teacher correct papers and
26:34
Speaker 1: do some algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty basic stuff, right.
26:38
Speaker 1: And Tony Carter, who was a teacher, she is about
26:41
Speaker 1: to retire, and there was like this internal policy where
26:44
Speaker 1: you can't get too close to the prisoners because they'll
26:46
Speaker 1: fire you and so on. And so I knew that,
26:47
Speaker 1: and now I want to get her in trouble. So
26:49
Speaker 1: she knew my plight, but I never never went as
26:51
Speaker 1: far as to say, hey, Tony, would he help? But
26:53
Speaker 1: now I figure she's done. You know, she's about to retire.
26:56
Speaker 1: Now is the time, right, So on the last moments
26:59
Speaker 1: she's walking away on that Friday, I say, Tony, Tony,
27:02
Speaker 1: and she looks back and she says, yeah, what's up?
27:04
Speaker 1: Did you forget to say something? And sure enough I did? Right?
27:07
Speaker 1: I said, would you help me? She's like, sure, Like,
27:10
Speaker 1: what can I do for you? Right? You know my story,
27:13
Speaker 1: if Nelliecher retired, if you're in your travels in the world,
27:15
Speaker 1: if you come across a lawyer, a reporter, anyone you
27:18
Speaker 1: think might be interested in my story, would you just
27:20
Speaker 1: mind just sharing that with them? And I think anyone
27:23
Speaker 1: would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right, you're about
27:26
Speaker 1: to leave, And so she says, sure, I can do that,
27:29
Speaker 1: and I was really relieved because a letter I can
27:32
Speaker 1: do that all day long, but face to face it's
27:34
Speaker 1: a different dynamic there. But I felt really happy that
27:37
Speaker 1: I was able to muster the guts to do that.
27:39
Speaker 1: And so turns out that six months after that conversation,
27:42
Speaker 1: she was invited to a book club in Sacramento. This
27:45
Speaker 1: guy named Bo mo'sof who's now has passed, was going
27:48
Speaker 1: to do some book signing and she had seen him before,
27:50
Speaker 1: and so she shows up and lo and behold, there's
27:52
Speaker 1: an attorney in the room. And luckily for me, she
27:56
Speaker 1: mentioned that she was a lawyer, because guess who was
27:58
Speaker 1: listening Tony who says, oh shit, I guess this is
28:02
Speaker 1: I guess this is a calling, right, So she goes
28:03
Speaker 1: over and says, I heard you're a lawyer, and you
28:06
Speaker 1: know have this guy you know, I used to be
28:07
Speaker 1: a former teacher in prison and there's a story I
28:09
Speaker 1: want to share with you. And literally that's what's triggered it.
28:12
Speaker 1: This woman was Ellen Eggers, was a public defender working
28:15
Speaker 1: on death penalty cases in California, who then got in
28:20
Speaker 1: touch with Northern California Innocence Project Morrison Forrester, and this
28:24
Speaker 1: dream came together. It took them five years, and they
28:26
Speaker 1: could have taken them ten years. I didn't care. But
28:29
Speaker 1: finally someone was going beyond the record and saying, let's
28:32
Speaker 1: listen to this guy has to say. So they turned
28:35
Speaker 1: stones over that had been ignored. They tracked down these
28:38
Speaker 1: six boys, these now men, you know, they weren't kids anymore,
28:42
Speaker 1: and one by one it was almost like if they
28:45
Speaker 1: were being freed from their own miseries. They all, from
28:48
Speaker 1: what I hear, they were all so gracious to say, like,
28:51
Speaker 1: you know what, thank you for finding me. I need
28:52
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth, as if they were living
28:54
Speaker 1: with this pain as well. There was witnesses that were
28:57
Speaker 1: brought in to clarify. All things were described that happened
28:59
Speaker 1: couldn't have happen, and so the evidence that was used
29:01
Speaker 1: against me had gone away and there was a final hearing.
29:05
Speaker 1: Luckily for me, the Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded
29:09
Speaker 1: the case, so there was ultimately no fight. They agreed
29:12
Speaker 1: that this had gone wrong and I was free to go.
29:16
Speaker 1: And so the words I've been yearning to hear all
29:18
Speaker 1: my life, well it seemed to be my entire life,
29:21
Speaker 1: the judge said them, which is basically, get out of here.
29:24
Speaker 1: They apologize. The DA's apologized in the room, which felt
29:27
Speaker 1: really good. They came over and shook my hand. I
29:29
Speaker 1: think the judge he gave more of like a philosophical
29:31
Speaker 1: response to that, but it was less about him. It
29:33
Speaker 1: was more about the DA's office. And it turned out
29:36
Speaker 1: that the corporate the bad players here were just as
29:38
Speaker 1: bad cop. I'm a big fan of law enforcement, but
29:40
Speaker 1: in this situation, it was a bad cop who was
29:43
Speaker 1: tied up with this internal gang situation and shit went
29:46
Speaker 1: bad and I had to suffer.
29:48
Speaker 2: Yes, you certainly did so you walked out of the courthouse.
29:52
Speaker 2: You walked in while you were arrested, and you can't
29:54
Speaker 2: walk in. You were taken in as a sixteen year
29:57
Speaker 2: old boy. You walk out as a thirty seven year
30:00
Speaker 2: old man. What's that like? You walk out? I mean,
30:04
Speaker 2: what is freedom taste? And your dad had died in
30:06
Speaker 2: the drum, right, so now you're an orphan yep, and
30:09
Speaker 2: you walk out into what would you do? Did you
30:13
Speaker 2: go get something to eat?
30:14
Speaker 3: Like?
30:14
Speaker 1: What did you DoD?
30:16
Speaker 2: I mean?
30:18
Speaker 1: I wish I would have been released from the court room.
30:19
Speaker 1: I was released from the Sheriff's Department's jail there the
30:21
Speaker 1: county jail, I like county jail. And it was about
30:24
Speaker 1: it was mid midweek, it was about maybe two in
30:27
Speaker 1: the afternoon, and they called me out on my cell
30:29
Speaker 1: and took me down to the street level when doors open,
30:32
Speaker 1: and there was like a TMZ moment, really, all these
30:35
Speaker 1: cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
30:38
Speaker 1: and all the mics come out before my family lawyers
30:41
Speaker 1: could get to me. And how does it feel to
30:43
Speaker 1: be free? How does it feel to be free? Right?
30:44
Speaker 1: And the big question? And I think I ignored that
30:47
Speaker 1: one because I sort of thought about that for a
30:49
Speaker 1: very long time when I was in prison, what's it
30:51
Speaker 1: going to feel like? And it sort of felt stupid,
30:54
Speaker 1: as safe, it felt as great or whatever. So but
30:56
Speaker 1: I remember thinking that it was such a bright day,
30:59
Speaker 1: the colors that just at my disposal now it seemed
31:02
Speaker 1: to be like a century overload, which is my immediate
31:04
Speaker 1: reaction was whoa the wind, the colors, the people, the attention,
31:08
Speaker 1: because you know, Jason, the reality was that at a
31:11
Speaker 1: very young age I had become like the man in
31:14
Speaker 1: the iron mask, where my voice was taken away. My
31:18
Speaker 1: existence before I had a chance to even blossom, was extinguished.
31:23
Speaker 1: There was no chance for this young life to become anything,
31:28
Speaker 1: and so I had to live with that. I lived
31:29
Speaker 1: with the fact that when I did try to make
31:31
Speaker 1: an attempt to speak up for myself, I was ignored
31:34
Speaker 1: and that was minimized. So that was a personal struggle
31:37
Speaker 1: that all kind of came together the day I was out,
31:39
Speaker 1: So from no attention to like, hey, we're all here
31:42
Speaker 1: for you, right, which was great. My attorneys were there,
31:45
Speaker 1: my family was there somewhow I hadn't seen them very
31:47
Speaker 1: long time.
31:48
Speaker 2: And so what happened, So then you're out. Yeah, where'd
31:51
Speaker 2: you go?
31:51
Speaker 1: And I was ushered into a car pretty quickly and
31:53
Speaker 1: we went to Echo Park to a friend's home who
31:56
Speaker 1: they had a good whole food sort of spread awaiting
31:58
Speaker 1: for me. Right, so I went for a cafeteria food
32:01
Speaker 1: for twenty years or prison food, which is even worse
32:04
Speaker 1: to this long table of organic almonds and dried apricots.
32:09
Speaker 2: You know.
32:09
Speaker 1: So that was pretty cool.
32:10
Speaker 2: Almonds and apricots. Find like, ahoya, man, thatunds a little biblical,
32:14
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of funny, that's right. I was
32:16
Speaker 2: thinking of you. I was thinking, you're gonna say you
32:18
Speaker 2: got like a sandwiches, and you know, I was picturing
32:21
Speaker 2: more of a you know. I mean, if they had
32:23
Speaker 2: almonds and apricots, I would have actually been pissed out
32:26
Speaker 2: of it, like come on, really, like can I get
32:29
Speaker 2: a slice? Yeah, pizza something? I mean, come on, man.
32:32
Speaker 2: So then you went home, and then you know, now
32:34
Speaker 2: here it is. You rebuilt your life. You successfully filed
32:39
Speaker 2: a lawsuit, well you had two lawsuits, right, and one
32:43
Speaker 2: was settled and the other one you won. Right, So
32:47
Speaker 2: you're now unlike many of our xonneries, there's a bright
32:51
Speaker 2: spot there because you know I talk about often, but
32:53
Speaker 2: the fact is, you know, so many exgonneries and something
32:56
Speaker 2: we're working to fix do not receive compensation. You were
32:59
Speaker 2: able to prove violations of your civil rights and other
33:02
Speaker 2: things that led to you being compensated in a meaningful way.
33:06
Speaker 2: That's going to now allow you to help fix the system.
33:09
Speaker 2: That that would be a great full circle, wouldn't it.
33:11
Speaker 1: You know, I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the
33:13
Speaker 1: money here because it makes my life very enjoyable. I
33:16
Speaker 1: think the true joyous moments for me since I've been
33:18
Speaker 1: home is that before I even got out. And this
33:21
Speaker 1: is this is I hope it can be sort of
33:22
Speaker 1: passed along to those who are who were imprisoned rightly
33:26
Speaker 1: or wrongly. But this idea that you have to before
33:29
Speaker 1: you even get out. You can't sort of prepare yourself
33:32
Speaker 1: the week to date that the week to the night before,
33:34
Speaker 1: like okay, tomorrow is my big release date. Let me
33:37
Speaker 1: kind of get my thoughts together. This has to happen
33:39
Speaker 1: long before the door opens. And so I feel that,
33:41
Speaker 1: in sort of credit to myself and those who were
33:43
Speaker 1: around me, that my transition phase happened long before the
33:47
Speaker 1: door opened, and so when the door opened, I felt
33:50
Speaker 1: very prepared to just attempt to just now really be free,
33:53
Speaker 1: because a common theme was when you got there, some
33:56
Speaker 1: older guy kind of gave you some like advice. As
33:58
Speaker 1: an example, you have five years years to do, and
34:01
Speaker 1: the advice was for the first four years, just kind
34:03
Speaker 1: of hang out, man, you know you're in prison. Just relax,
34:06
Speaker 1: just play some cards and shit, and if you know
34:08
Speaker 1: you want to play dominoes, go work out. Right. But
34:11
Speaker 1: the last year, man, like the last year, like, you know,
34:12
Speaker 1: go to church, or if you're smoking, stop smoking, get
34:15
Speaker 1: it together, right, And I thought that was pretty good advice. Shit,
34:18
Speaker 1: why not, man? What else you got to lose? Right?
34:20
Speaker 1: And at some point I realized that that even though
34:23
Speaker 1: it was a lifer, that advice applied to me, and
34:26
Speaker 1: it was against suspending complete reality here. But it was like,
34:29
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm making all these efforts to try
34:31
Speaker 1: to get my case hurt and try to get some
34:33
Speaker 1: attention here. Let me work on me too, Let me
34:36
Speaker 1: work on this idea that I need to prepare myself.
34:37
Speaker 1: And so fast forward I went a month after I
34:41
Speaker 1: got out with some good friends Scott Wooden and who
34:44
Speaker 1: ended up living with in Mannon Beach and his wife
34:46
Speaker 1: Jeanie would. I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles,
34:50
Speaker 1: Loyola Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort
34:53
Speaker 1: of funny here, but I went from one prison to
34:55
Speaker 1: another because it had all the elements that I needed,
34:58
Speaker 1: and I felt like, for a guy like me, I
35:01
Speaker 1: needed the structure that I had been accustomed to. And
35:03
Speaker 1: it's not the put down, but it was the university
35:06
Speaker 1: gave me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
35:09
Speaker 1: but shit, I had deadlines, man, I had to show up,
35:12
Speaker 1: you know. And so it went from a very negative
35:14
Speaker 1: environment that I was into a very very loving and
35:17
Speaker 1: encouraging space, which was the school right along with just
35:20
Speaker 1: sort of being active and being activism. How could I
35:23
Speaker 1: not support the Innocence Project and ways the end of
35:25
Speaker 1: death penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
35:30
Speaker 2: And that's just gotten a whole lot worse with the
35:32
Speaker 2: speed up to death penalty referendum that passed in California,
35:34
Speaker 2: which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable. That people would have
35:39
Speaker 2: been terrible because well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing that
35:44
Speaker 2: We're going to execute a lot of innocent people because
35:47
Speaker 2: the changes to the law are devastating to people who
35:51
Speaker 2: have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
35:53
Speaker 2: It's the speed up to death penalty. Yep, none of
35:55
Speaker 2: it makes any sense. But voices like yours and all
35:59
Speaker 2: the closure that is the media is really driving interest
36:04
Speaker 2: in this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of
36:07
Speaker 2: mass incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are
36:12
Speaker 2: sadly uniquely American problems because other countries are so much
36:17
Speaker 2: more evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie.
36:20
Speaker 2: We have five percent of the world's population at twenty
36:23
Speaker 2: five percent of the world's prison population. The point I'm
36:25
Speaker 2: making is that when we process people at this rate,
36:29
Speaker 2: where we just keep feeding this prison industrial complex, they're
36:32
Speaker 2: going to be mistakes. They're going to be more Frankie Correos,
36:35
Speaker 2: we have to reverse the entire way of thinking that
36:39
Speaker 2: we have and start to become a more progressive society
36:43
Speaker 2: in terms of the way we treat the people who
36:44
Speaker 2: are really the least among us, people who find themselves
36:46
Speaker 2: in the situation that you are in. Not a wealthy
36:49
Speaker 2: person by any means, and then just being ground up.
36:51
Speaker 1: By the system.
36:52
Speaker 2: I want to get to last words because I always
36:55
Speaker 2: like to give our guests the opportunity to air anything
36:59
Speaker 2: that you can think of that you want to share
37:00
Speaker 2: with our audience. You've been through so much, You've come
37:03
Speaker 2: through sounding, looking, feeling, acting like a person who knows stuff.
37:09
Speaker 2: You have such a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook.
37:13
Speaker 2: It's almost unnerving to be honest with you, you know. I mean,
37:16
Speaker 2: for a minute there you were making prison sound like
37:19
Speaker 2: it was like, yeah, you know whatever. The many years
37:22
Speaker 2: that man, I'm like, it's just.
37:24
Speaker 1: You know, thank you Jason for these final words here
37:26
Speaker 1: that I think that for many people listening, and people
37:29
Speaker 1: even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
37:32
Speaker 1: you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
37:34
Speaker 1: different level here, right, And you know, I wish that
37:37
Speaker 1: I can sort of either write a book or explain
37:39
Speaker 1: how I made it through and how these things weren't
37:41
Speaker 1: able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer I
37:44
Speaker 1: can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
37:47
Speaker 1: might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
37:50
Speaker 1: what I'd experienced as a whole about the things that
37:52
Speaker 1: were lost, about you know, all the what ifs, right
37:55
Speaker 1: and very quickly, if I made it a point to
37:58
Speaker 1: remember what anger and what revenge and what hatred does
38:03
Speaker 1: to someone, tell you even deeper here that when I
38:06
Speaker 1: was in prison, I think about those who had owned that,
38:09
Speaker 1: who had owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred,
38:13
Speaker 1: and I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
38:16
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be that. And here we
38:18
Speaker 1: are in a room full of statues, this beautiful art
38:21
Speaker 1: that predates all of us here, and I think about
38:24
Speaker 1: if that was who I'd become in prison, I would
38:26
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here one and two. If I had
38:29
Speaker 1: traces of that and I was out on some level,
38:32
Speaker 1: I would still be on the inside. I would be
38:34
Speaker 1: physically free, but the rage that would be living within
38:37
Speaker 1: me would be like a prison all to itself. And
38:40
Speaker 1: so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
38:42
Speaker 1: connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
38:45
Speaker 1: and as a move forward to my life. And speaking
38:48
Speaker 1: of that life, I'm happily married. I have three amazing children.
38:51
Speaker 1: I have theo Akiva and Frieda. My wife, ft is amazing,
38:55
Speaker 1: and life is great, and I think it's a responsibility
38:58
Speaker 1: for not only myself my family to take on this
39:01
Speaker 1: responsibility of giving people the pleasure of experiencing the cognitive dissonance,
39:06
Speaker 1: which is you are around or you hear, and you
39:10
Speaker 1: experience something that suspends you from and it shocks you
39:14
Speaker 1: into like this is not what I expected from a
39:16
Speaker 1: guy who had been in prison for all these years,
39:19
Speaker 1: And it challenges you your own beliefs, you know, things
39:21
Speaker 1: you've been carrying with you. This psychological moment says wow,
39:24
Speaker 1: like I need to change what I used to think
39:26
Speaker 1: about those who were on the inside. And so it's
39:29
Speaker 1: a responsibility for me and other exenreies, I feel that
39:32
Speaker 1: to awaken that side of all of us to say,
39:34
Speaker 1: let's not do that. Let's not do that to each other.
39:36
Speaker 1: And when someone says, and it's not a joke anymore
39:38
Speaker 1: that they are innocent, let's listen, because we know many
39:43
Speaker 1: experiences in many stories that are tragic that we've been
39:45
Speaker 1: listening to this whole weekend of if only someone really
39:48
Speaker 1: listened and cared.
39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and everybody out there has the power to make
39:52
Speaker 2: a difference. I always encourage our audience to get involved
39:56
Speaker 2: and it's great to see that many of them are
39:59
Speaker 2: I know and hearing story. For me again, it puts
40:03
Speaker 2: gratitude in my attitude. It makes all those little wham
40:06
Speaker 2: winds that we all have in life just seem so
40:09
Speaker 2: much easier to deal with and so much to surface noise,
40:13
Speaker 2: right when somebody like you can come and have this
40:16
Speaker 2: sort of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know, the
40:19
Speaker 2: fact is, to any of us in the movement and
40:22
Speaker 2: to other people on the outside, it's a source of
40:25
Speaker 2: never ending wonder and awe that every single Xonery I've
40:30
Speaker 2: ever met has some version of that type of higher
40:35
Speaker 2: consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this state
40:39
Speaker 2: of almost like a state of grace that is. It's
40:42
Speaker 2: just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I appreciate
40:46
Speaker 2: you taking the time to share your experience, strength and
40:50
Speaker 2: hope with us. And again, I'm just going to have
40:53
Speaker 2: to take a moment to process this, and then I'm
40:56
Speaker 2: going to go and get busy and get back to
40:58
Speaker 2: work on helping others.
41:00
Speaker 1: That's right.
41:01
Speaker 2: We've had a very unique experience because we've been recording
41:04
Speaker 2: the podcast in an idyllic environment. We're actually in a
41:07
Speaker 2: room in a home overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a cliff,
41:11
Speaker 2: surrounded by the most incredible African art. So I want
41:15
Speaker 2: to thank our hosts Bill LaRock and Michelle Chicarelli Lo
41:19
Speaker 2: Rock for having us here and allowing us to record
41:22
Speaker 2: in their beautiful home. Don't forget to give us a
41:30
Speaker 2: fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts.
41:33
Speaker 1: It really helps.
41:34
Speaker 2: And I'm a proud donor to the Ennisis Project, and
41:37
Speaker 2: I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very
41:40
Speaker 2: important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go
41:44
Speaker 2: to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and
41:47
Speaker 2: get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor
41:50
Speaker 2: Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
41:53
Speaker 2: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
41:56
Speaker 2: to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
41:59
Speaker 2: faceboo book at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
42:03
Speaker 2: Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
42:06
Speaker 2: association with Signal Company Number one