Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #093 Jason Flom with Gloria Killian

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#093 Jason Flom with Gloria Killian · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
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Speaker 1: to monitoring and recording.
0:08
Speaker 2: Fact ere and it hasn't been easy.
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Speaker 3: One hundred years that sad man. I'm a kid.
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Speaker 4: I didn't do anything, you know, and uh, you know
0:25
Speaker 4: that was ah, that was real painful, man, you know,
0:28
Speaker 4: because my life was discarded as if you know, like
0:32
Speaker 4: I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
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Speaker 4: one hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted
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Speaker 4: to do things I wouldn't commit in crimes.
0:39
Speaker 3: You know.
0:40
Speaker 4: I was a very good young man.
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Speaker 5: That is what happens in so many cases. The cops
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Speaker 5: have a hunch because they're so smart at the scene,
0:49
Speaker 5: they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch,
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Speaker 5: they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off
0:55
Speaker 5: marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so
0:58
Speaker 5: many of these wrongful convictions.
1:00
Speaker 3: They open it to cell door and I'll walk down
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Speaker 3: stif and I actually walked downstairs to be outside.
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Speaker 2: It felt very strange to.
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Speaker 5: Be, like I said, to be walking without no shackles
1:12
Speaker 5: on my feet.
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Speaker 2: I thought it was a dream. But then again it
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Speaker 2: wasn't a dream.
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Speaker 3: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back, to wrongful conviction. Today
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Speaker 3: I have Gloria Chillian, who served seventeen years for a
1:35
Speaker 3: murder that well, double murder that of course she had
1:39
Speaker 3: no part in. And when you hear how this all
1:42
Speaker 3: came down, you're going to be scratching your head like
1:44
Speaker 3: I am now, and with her is one of my
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Speaker 3: favorite humans. The senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project,
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Speaker 3: Nina Morrison. So, Gloria, Nina, welcome, Thank you, Hi Jason.
1:55
Speaker 3: And like I always say, I'm glad you're here, but
1:57
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you're here.
1:58
Speaker 1: So you know, here than somewhere else.
2:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. I read about your case in that amazing book,
2:06
Speaker 3: Anatomy of Innocence by Laura Caldwell, and I was dumbfounded, actually,
2:12
Speaker 3: I mean forgetting the fact that you look. I mean,
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Speaker 3: you can't judge a book by its cover, but you
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Speaker 3: look so unlike anyone that would be a double murderer
2:20
Speaker 3: that's actually sort of hard to process. I don't know
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Speaker 3: if you ever looked like a double murderer back in
2:25
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one, did you?
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Speaker 1: No?
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Speaker 3: Hardly, No, not so much. And if you don't believe me,
2:30
Speaker 3: just take a look at my Instagram and you'll see
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Speaker 3: what I mean, because I posted pictures of Gloria on there,
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Speaker 3: and then I defy you to identify her as anything
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Speaker 3: other than just what she is, just this sweet, lovely
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Speaker 3: woman that.
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Speaker 1: Was not a master criminal.
2:46
Speaker 2: No.
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Speaker 3: In fact, you were a law student. But we'll get
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Speaker 3: to that in a minute. And this is a bizarre
2:51
Speaker 3: case because on December ninth, nineteen eighty one, just to
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Speaker 3: set the stage, two men disguised as telephone repairman this
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Speaker 3: is what we know, entered the home of an elderly
3:00
Speaker 3: couple in Rosemont, California. Sounds sort of ominous. Already, Ed
3:05
Speaker 3: Davies was fatally shot, his wife, Grace was shot in
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Speaker 3: the head but survived, and six suitcases full of silver
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Speaker 3: were stolen. I mean, it's like the beginning of a
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Speaker 3: novel or something. It's weird. Okay. This was obviously a
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Speaker 3: terrible crime and raised I'm sure a lot of anxiety
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Speaker 3: in the community, which leads to pressure. But you were
3:27
Speaker 3: an unlikely suspect for a lot of reasons. I mean,
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Speaker 3: you weren't anywhere near there. So this whole situation makes
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Speaker 3: absolutely no sense to me and for you, I can't
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Speaker 3: even imagine. So can you take us back to nineteen
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Speaker 3: eighty one. Can you explain how this all happened?
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Speaker 1: Yes, back then I was going to law school. I
3:49
Speaker 1: also worked as a process server and did small investigative
3:54
Speaker 1: work in order to make enough money. I had just
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Speaker 1: gone through a divorce and it was not particularly pleasant,
4:01
Speaker 1: so we were fighting about everything. So I actually took
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Speaker 1: a semester's leave from law school so that I could
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Speaker 1: make enough money because it looked like the settlement for
4:10
Speaker 1: my divorce wasn't going to go through. I worked for
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Speaker 1: a man named Virgil Fletcher who owned a coin store.
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Speaker 1: It was called Allied Coins, and mister Davies was one
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Speaker 1: of the customers there. We found out later Virgil Fletcher
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Speaker 1: did not like mister Davies for some reason which I
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Speaker 1: didn't know at the time, which made it even more confusing.
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Speaker 1: Virgil Fletcher and his partner were splitting up, and that
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Speaker 1: also was a very acrimonious split, and he and his
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Speaker 1: partner were trying to pull everything on each other that
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Speaker 1: they could, you know. So what I was doing for
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Speaker 1: him was a lot of the accounts that had been
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Speaker 1: assigned to him. I had to go out and find
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Speaker 1: them and do things like that. But this whole case
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Speaker 1: is centered around coins and coin shop dealers and the
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Speaker 1: people that were were fully involved in that scene. At
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Speaker 1: that time, there were several robbery murders from people that
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Speaker 1: were in that particular world.
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Speaker 3: And it's interesting too reading back to the story of
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Speaker 3: how you were first arrested. I mean, it's sort of
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Speaker 3: very cinematic too. Right, you were visiting your boyfriend. I
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Speaker 3: guess he was right and preparing to have a little
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Speaker 3: afternoon delight type situation. And I'm not saying anything that
5:24
Speaker 3: the book.
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Speaker 1: Why that always comes up, I don't.
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Speaker 3: Know, but it's sort of a It sort of does
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Speaker 3: paint the picture, and then here comes a knock on
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Speaker 3: the door.
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Speaker 1: Yes, And the knock on the door, unfortunately, was the
5:34
Speaker 1: Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. And one of the things that
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Speaker 1: you mentioned was, you know, creating a problem in the community.
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Speaker 1: Sacramento County sheriffs had not solved one single homicide in
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one. Wow, so they were really pushing on
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Speaker 1: this one as well. The Sheriff's department had set up
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Speaker 1: a tip line and someone called in. It was a
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Speaker 1: woman and it was later to learned that it was
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Speaker 1: Virgil Fletcher's girlfriend. He got her to make this call,
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Speaker 1: but it's said you should check out a law student
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Speaker 1: named Gloria, And that is how the police got to me.
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Speaker 1: They had interviewed Fletcher the night before and the next
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Speaker 1: day when the knock came on the door at the
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Speaker 1: most inauspicious time, what they told me was that they
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Speaker 1: wanted to ask me some questions about Fletcher, which, okay,
6:22
Speaker 1: I didn't really get it, but I went downtown with
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Speaker 1: them and the minute they got me in a room
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Speaker 1: everything changed. That was very cinematic as well. You know,
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Speaker 1: you have the poor suspects locked up in the room
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Speaker 1: with these guys and they're accusing me of planning this crime.
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Speaker 1: They're starting from the position that they know I did
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Speaker 1: it and they can prove it. And you know, I
6:42
Speaker 1: talked to him for a little while and finally I
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Speaker 1: just said, you know, this is ridiculous. I want a lawyer.
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Speaker 3: When people get picked up as you did, who had
6:51
Speaker 3: nothing to do with and had no knowledge of a
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Speaker 3: situation a crime, they generally go in as you did,
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Speaker 3: waving their right to an attorney, expecting that everything's going
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Speaker 3: to go smoothly. And you, being a law student, you
7:05
Speaker 3: had reason to believe that the system would work. You're
7:07
Speaker 3: studying the law, and you're a smart woman, so if
7:10
Speaker 3: you just say what you got to say, you can
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Speaker 3: get home in time for the six o'clock news. But
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Speaker 3: that was not anything like what happened.
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Speaker 1: I actually ended up on the six o'clock news right
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Speaker 1: because once they stood up and arrested me and they
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Speaker 1: took me outside, I realized this had to have been
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Speaker 1: a setup. The media was everywhere. Obviously, they had been
7:29
Speaker 1: notified and it had been called, and this had been
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Speaker 1: their intention from the very beginning. One of the cops
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Speaker 1: I was wearing a long sweater coat, and he took
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Speaker 1: it and put it over my head, which was the
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Speaker 1: perfect image right there.
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Speaker 3: Right this way they could begin the process of sort
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Speaker 3: of shaping public opinion in the way that they wanted to,
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Speaker 3: which is to turn you into this master criminal, which
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Speaker 3: was again ironic, since you had no prior record of
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Speaker 3: any kind. Do you think that they actually thought that
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Speaker 3: you did it at that time?
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Speaker 1: I don't know. I do know that years later, when
8:01
Speaker 1: my investigator went to Sacramento, he interviewed Lieutenant Beyondy, who
8:07
Speaker 1: was the head of homicide at that time, and he
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Speaker 1: asked him specifically if Beyondy thought I was guilty, and
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Speaker 1: Beyondy said, quote, I don't know, I know Ray thought
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Speaker 1: she was.
8:20
Speaker 6: Sounds like sometimes in these cases there's a little thread
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Speaker 6: where they have one fact that they can't quite figure out,
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Speaker 6: or a lead, and then they run with it in
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Speaker 6: a direction that has no basis in fact, but fits
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Speaker 6: what they think they know. Was there a temporarly on
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Speaker 6: or some information that a woman had shown up to
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Speaker 6: case the house with the two actual killers at.
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Speaker 1: Some point, yes, And that made the case even more
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Speaker 1: confusing because that particular I guess pattern style of operating
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Speaker 1: had been used in Sacramento County, and one of the
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Speaker 1: victims was a woman named Elizabeth Lee. Elizabeth Lee happened
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Speaker 1: to be in the courthouse when she saw Gary Massey's
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Speaker 1: wife and she went running to the nearest dep He's saying,
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Speaker 1: that's the woman, Those are the people that robbed me,
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Speaker 1: And she ran around the courthouse in a state of panic,
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Speaker 1: and eventually she ended up talking to Christopher Cleland, who
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Speaker 1: was the district attorney who was prosecuting me, and he
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Speaker 1: told her if she didn't shut up and get out
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Speaker 1: of the courthouse, he would have her arrested. He was
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Speaker 1: not interested in anything that she had to say. If
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Speaker 1: she identified Joanne Massey as a woman who came to
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Speaker 1: her door with that same particular fact pattern, it would
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Speaker 1: just make my guilt even more dubious as far as
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Speaker 1: a jury was concerned.
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Speaker 3: Right, it would have made his job more difficult. Yeah,
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Speaker 3: that was not part of the plan.
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Speaker 2: No.
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Speaker 3: They held you in jail for almost five months awaiting trial.
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Speaker 1: They tried to get an extension. I was being prosecuted
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Speaker 1: by John o'mera at the time, but the judge who
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Speaker 1: was hearing the case ruled that there was insufficient evidence
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Speaker 1: and he ordered me released right then.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there was insufficient evidence. There was noah evidence, and
10:01
Speaker 3: you go back home, try to, I guess, rebuild, right.
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Speaker 1: I was really in a state of shock and I
10:07
Speaker 1: just kind of wandered around, both dazed and numb. But
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Speaker 1: I had a horrible feeling in the back of my
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Speaker 1: head somewhere that this wasn't over. And I don't know
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Speaker 1: why I had that feeling, but I was right, it
10:20
Speaker 1: wasn't over.
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Speaker 3: And then there's another knock on the door.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Literally about a year later they came and they
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Speaker 1: rearrested me. And this, of course was after Gary Massey
10:31
Speaker 1: had gone to trial and had made the deal that
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Speaker 1: he had made, which I knew nothing of at the time.
10:38
Speaker 3: So Massy was the killer, yes, and he had been
10:40
Speaker 3: sentenced to life in prison.
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Speaker 1: Life without the possibility of parole.
10:43
Speaker 3: And as soon as he got that sentence, he decided
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Speaker 3: he was going to try to take a little more
10:48
Speaker 3: active role than his own sort of destiny, right. He
10:51
Speaker 3: wanted to make a deal with the cops, and he
10:53
Speaker 3: immediately contacted the Sheriff's department offering the same day.
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Speaker 1: Same day, he went back to the jail and picked
11:00
Speaker 1: up the phone and called them and said, I can
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Speaker 1: help you.
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Speaker 3: And at that point it's fair to say me and
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Speaker 3: I guess he would have said anything they wanted him
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Speaker 3: to say.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, it's hard to believe he just suddenly had a
11:09
Speaker 6: crisis of conscience. On the same day he got sentenced
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Speaker 6: to life without parole. And this is again pretty common.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 6: Sometimes we see people who've committed crimes, who are arrogant,
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Speaker 6: assume they're going to get away with it. Suddenly the
11:20
Speaker 6: trial or the investigation doesn't go so well. They're facing
11:24
Speaker 6: serious time, and then they become desperate and say, what
11:27
Speaker 6: can I do to help myself. My lawyers aren't going
11:29
Speaker 6: to get me out of this. I got to help
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Speaker 6: myself and offer up somebody who had nothing to do
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Speaker 6: with the crime as a way to try to reduce
11:35
Speaker 6: their own sentence. That's perfectly legal. They can do that,
11:38
Speaker 6: they can offer cooperation, but the law says that the
11:42
Speaker 6: prosecutor has to turn that information, all discussions, all agreements,
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Speaker 6: all suggestions or promises of benefits to these witnesses over
11:51
Speaker 6: to the accused so that the jury can hear about it.
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Speaker 6: Because a jury is going to feel very differently about
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Speaker 6: someone who they think is getting a better fit to
12:00
Speaker 6: themselves from turning in another person, versus someone who claims
12:05
Speaker 6: there's nothing in it for me. I just am doing
12:07
Speaker 6: the right thing. And in Massi's case, because he'd already
12:10
Speaker 6: been sentenced, it allowed the prosecutor to say he's got
12:13
Speaker 6: nothing to gain, he's already going to prison for the
12:15
Speaker 6: rest of his life. In some ways it makes it
12:17
Speaker 6: much more believable because he's doing his time, he's going
12:21
Speaker 6: to pay the price, and he's just come and clean
12:23
Speaker 6: on what really happened, and that wasn't.
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Speaker 3: The truth, right, And if they would have asked him
12:27
Speaker 3: to identify you as the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby.
12:30
Speaker 3: That probably would have been what he would have done,
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Speaker 3: absolutely right, I mean, because at that point he really
12:34
Speaker 3: did have nothing to lose. We know that guy's not
12:36
Speaker 3: a stand up guy, and he's looking to make a
12:38
Speaker 3: deal and they've got a great offer. So he identifies
12:41
Speaker 3: you for allegedly planning this crime, and we say incentivized witness,
12:45
Speaker 3: we could say extremely incentivized witness. In this case.
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Speaker 1: Incentivized almost doesn't apply to the treatment that they gave him.
12:51
Speaker 1: They took him out to dinner in nice restaurants, They
12:55
Speaker 1: let him have sex with his wife in some of
12:58
Speaker 1: their offices. They he actually took his twelve year old
13:02
Speaker 1: son with them when they went up in the hills
13:04
Speaker 1: with Massey to reclaim the property that he had buried
13:09
Speaker 1: up there. The district Attorney Kit Cleveland gave this twelve
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Speaker 1: year old boy a coin that had come from the robbery.
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Speaker 1: It had belonged to mister Davies, and allowed him to
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Speaker 1: keep it, apparently as some sort of souvenir, which still
13:25
Speaker 1: appalled me to this day. I think that's absolutely sick.
13:28
Speaker 1: It's macabre, yes, very.
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Speaker 3: But I'm still trying to get a grip on this.
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Speaker 3: So all these perks that he was offered, this was
13:38
Speaker 3: after he was convicted.
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Speaker 6: Yes, people have been convicted of serious crimes can get
13:43
Speaker 6: a lot of benefits after they testify. I mean, we've
13:45
Speaker 6: got on the Innocent Project website examples of benefits that
13:50
Speaker 6: convicted people get while they're in jail, video games, and
13:54
Speaker 6: you know, extra visits and hotel rooms when they go
13:57
Speaker 6: travel to testify that the rest of us could never afford.
14:00
Speaker 6: You know, Thankfully, it doesn't happen in every case, or
14:02
Speaker 6: even most cases, but it does happen. And again, the
14:06
Speaker 6: rule is prosecutor's office can give people benefits within the law,
14:10
Speaker 6: depending on whatever the law is of that jurisdiction, but
14:12
Speaker 6: they've got to let the defense know. And that's really
14:15
Speaker 6: where the outrage comes in because when jurors hear about this,
14:18
Speaker 6: if they hear about this criminal getting treated like a king,
14:22
Speaker 6: they're obviously going to feel very differently about their testimony.
14:24
Speaker 6: And prosecutors know that, so they either don't give the
14:27
Speaker 6: benefits in the first place, or if they do, they
14:30
Speaker 6: have to disclose them.
14:31
Speaker 3: And the inverse is true too, Like in Sonny Jacob's case,
14:33
Speaker 3: when the real murderer wanted to confess, they kept giving
14:36
Speaker 3: him perks in prison in order to get him not
14:38
Speaker 3: to confess.
14:39
Speaker 2: Right.
14:39
Speaker 3: So that's actually the flip side of the same sort
14:42
Speaker 3: of very strange problem. And it is such a strange
14:44
Speaker 3: thing because everybody knows that you can't bribe a witness, right,
14:49
Speaker 3: All kinds of penalties come with that. Nothing good happens
14:52
Speaker 3: out of that, but they can anyway, So he identifies you,
14:56
Speaker 3: they come and arrest you, and you go to trial.
15:00
Speaker 1: Actually, when they came and arrested me, they'd charged me
15:04
Speaker 1: with the death penalty again, even though Cleland, who was
15:07
Speaker 1: now the prosecutor, knew for a fact where he'd gotten
15:11
Speaker 1: his new witness from and his new information. But fortunately
15:14
Speaker 1: for me, the California Supreme Court made a decision in
15:17
Speaker 1: People versus Carlos that took my actual charges out from
15:21
Speaker 1: underneath the death penalty. So they released me on bail.
15:24
Speaker 1: The judge let me out on twenty five thousand dollars bail,
15:27
Speaker 1: and I was out for almost three and a half years.
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Speaker 3: Crazier and crazier. I mean, I've never been a judge,
15:37
Speaker 3: but I would say that if I was a judge,
15:38
Speaker 3: and I thought that you were responsible for shooting two
15:43
Speaker 3: elderly people, killing one of them during a robbery in
15:46
Speaker 3: cold Blood. I'm not sure twenty five thousand would be
15:49
Speaker 3: the number I would choose, you know what I mean,
15:51
Speaker 3: I think it would be a high multiple of that.
15:54
Speaker 3: So you're out for three and a half years with
15:56
Speaker 3: this gigantic anvil hanging over your head. How did you
16:00
Speaker 3: function during that time?
16:02
Speaker 1: Very poorly?
16:04
Speaker 3: What did you do?
16:06
Speaker 1: Mostly have a nervous breakdown? I mean, I was really
16:09
Speaker 1: as you said, it's like having an anvil hanging over
16:12
Speaker 1: your head. It's a true sort of damocles. But I worked.
16:19
Speaker 1: It's difficult to explain, and part of it was my
16:22
Speaker 1: own state of mind. But it was almost as if
16:25
Speaker 1: I didn't have this case. I never went to court
16:28
Speaker 1: except to get an extension. Nobody seemed to be interested
16:31
Speaker 1: in me. Nobody paid any attention to me until everything
16:35
Speaker 1: else was done. The other problem was that I could
16:38
Speaker 1: no longer afford private counsel. I had hired a lawyer
16:41
Speaker 1: from my first arrest. This time I had a lawyer
16:44
Speaker 1: who was appointed from the Appellate defenders because the public
16:48
Speaker 1: defenders were already involved in Massey's case, and I guess
16:51
Speaker 1: he was just good enough to get me convicted.
16:54
Speaker 3: Well, it's good enough to process you, but not represent you. Right,
16:58
Speaker 3: it's pretty nuts that you were sentenced to thirty two
17:02
Speaker 3: years to life.
17:02
Speaker 2: Right.
17:03
Speaker 1: Oh. Yes, the prosecutor on the day that I was sentenced,
17:07
Speaker 1: and the standard sentence for this type of case would
17:09
Speaker 1: have been twenty five years to life, but mister Cleland
17:12
Speaker 1: stood up in court and he went on to this
17:15
Speaker 1: short rant about how I'd always been a model citizen,
17:18
Speaker 1: I'd never been in trouble, I was going to law school,
17:21
Speaker 1: and therefore I should get more time than anybody. And
17:24
Speaker 1: the judge granted his request and they sentenced me to
17:27
Speaker 1: thirty two years to life, despite the fact that the
17:30
Speaker 1: actual killer was already going to be sentenced to twenty
17:33
Speaker 1: five years to life.
17:35
Speaker 3: Right, So you got an extra seven years for allegedly
17:37
Speaker 3: planning this crime. Yes, and when you're experiencing that, this
17:42
Speaker 3: doesn't seem like and I don't want to come off
17:45
Speaker 3: sounding the wrong way, but this doesn't seem like the
17:46
Speaker 3: type of crime that a young woman who's on her
17:49
Speaker 3: way up in the world as a law student would
17:51
Speaker 3: participate in. Like if you were really desperate for money,
17:54
Speaker 3: would you go and rob and shoot an elderly couple
17:57
Speaker 3: to steal some silver.
17:58
Speaker 6: I mean, a lot of our clients get prosecuted on
18:01
Speaker 6: theories that make absolutely no sense, you know. And oftentimes
18:05
Speaker 6: what we find in these wrongful conviction cases is the
18:08
Speaker 6: police come up with a suspect or a theory and
18:11
Speaker 6: then come up with a motive to make it fit.
18:14
Speaker 6: So they think that somebody must have killed his spouse
18:18
Speaker 6: or girlfriend, and even though there's no history of animosity,
18:21
Speaker 6: they come up with a crazy hypothesis. Like our client
18:24
Speaker 6: Michael Morton in Texas, they said he killed his wife
18:27
Speaker 6: because she wouldn't have sex with him on his birthday
18:28
Speaker 6: because she was tired, because they had been out to
18:31
Speaker 6: dinner with their toddler son and he was disappointed they
18:34
Speaker 6: didn't have sex, which is true because he left a
18:36
Speaker 6: note along those lines, but he didn't kill her over it.
18:39
Speaker 6: And in Glorious case, there's some indications that they thought
18:43
Speaker 6: that there was a woman involved helping them case the
18:45
Speaker 6: joint and then it seems like somebody came up with
18:48
Speaker 6: this concept like, oh, maybe it's that law student who's
18:51
Speaker 6: hanging around with that coin dealer she's a smart broad,
18:54
Speaker 6: maybe she's the mastermind, and they ran with it. The
18:57
Speaker 6: problem is there was no evidence to supported except these
19:01
Speaker 6: incentivized witnesses facing criminal charges themselves, and in some cases
19:07
Speaker 6: like Glorias, they build an entire prosecution around these highly
19:10
Speaker 6: dubious witnesses and an unsupported theory.
19:12
Speaker 3: I mean, there was no evidence whatsoever except for the
19:14
Speaker 3: word of the killer. Yes, I mean it almost seems
19:17
Speaker 3: like that should be not okay, not okay.
19:21
Speaker 6: Well, state courts are free to set the parameters of
19:24
Speaker 6: what constitutes sufficient evidence to convict someone. So just because
19:28
Speaker 6: a jury says you're guilty doesn't mean the conviction stands.
19:32
Speaker 6: That's not even because of new evidence, but even just
19:34
Speaker 6: evaluating what happens at trials. A lot of times courts
19:37
Speaker 6: will undertake what's called a sufficiency review and say that's
19:40
Speaker 6: just not enough. In Texas, for example, of all places,
19:44
Speaker 6: the highest criminal court has ruled that you cannot be
19:47
Speaker 6: convicted of murder based on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.
19:52
Speaker 6: So if someone were to be charged in a situation
19:55
Speaker 6: like Gloria's, where the only evidence against them was the
19:57
Speaker 6: word of one or two people who admitted their own
20:00
Speaker 6: involvement in the crime. You couldn't be convicted without corroboration.
20:04
Speaker 6: The problem is that in a lot of places that
20:06
Speaker 6: even have those rules, almost anything counts as corroboration. So
20:10
Speaker 6: one eyewitness saying oh, I saw someone who looked like
20:13
Speaker 6: a woman with short brown hair fleeing the scene could
20:16
Speaker 6: be corroboration. Or a witness who's not an accomplice saying, oh,
20:21
Speaker 6: she said something about you know, they did something bad
20:23
Speaker 6: last week. I mean, people can interpret it pretty loosely.
20:26
Speaker 6: It really depends on the judges you're in front of.
20:28
Speaker 6: But at least there's a corroboration requirement. And I don't know.
20:30
Speaker 6: I don't practice in California now, so I don't know
20:32
Speaker 6: what the law currently is. It's hard to imagine many
20:36
Speaker 6: courts today, knowing what we know about Jeilhouse informants, would
20:39
Speaker 6: allow that testimony to be the basis for a conviction,
20:43
Speaker 6: even if the jury believed it.
20:44
Speaker 3: Right, at least all of the conviction in which I
20:46
Speaker 3: mean thirty two years to life's basically a life sentence. Yeah,
20:49
Speaker 3: in thirty two years eligibility right, So, and that doesn't
20:51
Speaker 3: mean you're walking out the door at thirty two years either.
20:53
Speaker 6: No, I mean, and as you know, Jason, and you
20:56
Speaker 6: know most parole boards, the innocent get penalized. So you
20:59
Speaker 6: get a sentence of thirty two to life. But as
21:02
Speaker 6: soon as you come up for parole, if you're not
21:04
Speaker 6: ready to quote unquote express remorse for the crime, which
21:08
Speaker 6: really means admitting guilt. You can't say I'm sorry those
21:11
Speaker 6: people died, but I had nothing to do with it.
21:13
Speaker 6: You have to say, I'm sorry they died and I
21:16
Speaker 6: did it, and I regret what I did. And if
21:17
Speaker 6: you don't show that appropriate remorse in their view, you're
21:21
Speaker 6: not going to get parole in most cases. And so
21:24
Speaker 6: in glorious case, you know, she was exonerated before I think,
21:28
Speaker 6: right before you had to go before the board.
21:30
Speaker 1: No, I still had several years left to see even
21:33
Speaker 1: though I had been in there for seventeen and a
21:34
Speaker 1: half years. But when I went for my first parole
21:37
Speaker 1: board review, which they later did away with, but the
21:41
Speaker 1: woman from the board talked to me and I told
21:44
Speaker 1: her I was innocent. I had nothing to do with this,
21:47
Speaker 1: and she actually said to me, you know, you're not
21:49
Speaker 1: going to come up for parole for a long time,
21:51
Speaker 1: but you need to realize that if you don't accept responsibility,
21:56
Speaker 1: and if you don't express your remorse and make a
21:59
Speaker 1: miss for what you did, then you are not going
22:02
Speaker 1: to get out on parole.
22:03
Speaker 3: Right. So isn't it bizarre that we have a system
22:06
Speaker 3: in which you plead innocent, you go to prison, and
22:08
Speaker 3: you plead guilty and you go home. Yes, that's truly
22:10
Speaker 3: Alice in Wonderland, right, except not the cute kids version.
22:15
Speaker 3: So we can go back to the trial, that moment
22:20
Speaker 3: in the courtroom when the jury went out, and now
22:23
Speaker 3: you're dealing with your appellate defender who's not Clarence Daryl, right,
22:27
Speaker 3: and the jury goes out. I mean, you've been now
22:30
Speaker 3: through sort of Kafka escortdeal for the last four plus
22:33
Speaker 3: years already, starting with the time that you were first
22:37
Speaker 3: you know, taken in well, yeah, before you've even arrested it,
22:40
Speaker 3: starting for the time to knock on the door. Did
22:43
Speaker 3: you think that there was still a chance that the
22:45
Speaker 3: jury would see the light and do the right thing.
22:49
Speaker 1: It's difficult for me to put that into words. At
22:53
Speaker 1: times my law school education really betrayed me, and at
22:57
Speaker 1: other times it served me well. On this particular issue,
23:01
Speaker 1: I simply decided that, you know, I hadn't done this.
23:05
Speaker 1: They couldn't possibly convict me. I mean, there wasn't anything
23:09
Speaker 1: there except for this guy on the witness stand, and
23:14
Speaker 1: I don't know the jury was out for two and
23:16
Speaker 1: a half days, if I recall it correctly. But I
23:19
Speaker 1: rocketed from one side to the other half the time.
23:23
Speaker 1: I believed that I was going to go home. When
23:26
Speaker 1: my boyfriend dropped me off at court that last time,
23:28
Speaker 1: he said, I'll pick you up for dinner. You know,
23:31
Speaker 1: we'll go out someplace nice, assuming that I would be
23:34
Speaker 1: found innocent, and so I went with that fantasy for
23:37
Speaker 1: a while. It's difficult to explain how the mind deals
23:42
Speaker 1: with some of these things that are simply impossible to
23:46
Speaker 1: deal with. I mean, you think I'm going to lose
23:49
Speaker 1: my mind. This is insane, and it is insane. And
23:54
Speaker 1: then again, somehow or other, you managed to switch over
23:57
Speaker 1: to another state of thought or of being. Most people
24:02
Speaker 1: that have been through this experience have experienced that same
24:05
Speaker 1: thing to where they're you're not even thinking logically anymore.
24:10
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time articulating it because it is
24:13
Speaker 1: that difficult to understand. Yeah, and I still don't get it.
24:17
Speaker 3: It was something you were ill prepared for, to say
24:19
Speaker 3: the least, right, based on your previous life. You know,
24:22
Speaker 3: I mean you were going to have you were on
24:24
Speaker 3: your way to having a very pleasant existence. Right. What
24:28
Speaker 3: kind of lawyer were you planning on being?
24:29
Speaker 1: By the way, actually I was interested in estates and trusts,
24:33
Speaker 1: but I also would occasionally give some thought to criminal law.
24:38
Speaker 1: But like everybody else, the only thing I knew about
24:41
Speaker 1: criminal law was what I learned in the first year
24:43
Speaker 1: of law school. You know. I didn't want to have
24:45
Speaker 1: anything to do with criminals, not those people. Well, I
24:48
Speaker 1: rapidly became one of those people and found out that
24:52
Speaker 1: those people are not at all who we think they are.
25:03
Speaker 3: You know, when I started recording these podcasts Wrongful Conviction,
25:05
Speaker 3: my main goal wasn't is that we would by telling
25:08
Speaker 3: these stories and sharing the real life situations that happen
25:12
Speaker 3: to people just like you, we would educate the audience
25:15
Speaker 3: so that when they go to serve on a jury,
25:19
Speaker 3: they are woke right and they are for lack of
25:23
Speaker 3: a better where that's a technical term, and they are
25:26
Speaker 3: you know, armed with the knowledge that these things happen,
25:30
Speaker 3: and also that you know, it's really terrifying. You know
25:33
Speaker 3: a friend of mine who is herself from a Harvard
25:36
Speaker 3: Law school graduate lawyer, she was on a jury or
25:38
Speaker 3: not that long ago, and she told me by the
25:40
Speaker 3: third day, people were like, I really don't care anymore
25:42
Speaker 3: whether they're guilty or not. I want to go home.
25:44
Speaker 3: I got stuff to do. Like so if you need
25:46
Speaker 3: me to vote guilty, so be it. Like that was
25:48
Speaker 3: literally conversations that were happening in the jury room. And
25:51
Speaker 3: we don't know what was happening in your jury room.
25:53
Speaker 3: But the fact is all I can do is say
25:56
Speaker 3: to people that are listening, you know, listen to the
25:58
Speaker 3: words of Gloria. Even though it's all that long, you
26:00
Speaker 3: can still hear the pain and you know, recognize that,
26:04
Speaker 3: you know, the extra day of your life or whatever
26:07
Speaker 3: it is. And of course then there's that saying, which
26:09
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start using a tag line of my emails.
26:10
Speaker 3: I think you know that it's better that one hundred
26:12
Speaker 3: guilty men go free than the one incent should suffer
26:14
Speaker 3: William Blakston.
26:15
Speaker 1: And people seem to literally believe that it's better and
26:19
Speaker 1: they are safer if all the innocent people go to
26:22
Speaker 1: prison just so they get the one guilty.
26:24
Speaker 3: Person, right, And then the irony of that is that,
26:27
Speaker 3: of course, we know in most cases, when the innocent
26:30
Speaker 3: person goes to prison, the guilty person remains free. In
26:34
Speaker 3: your case, if there was another perpetrator, that person was free.
26:37
Speaker 3: We know the actual killer in your case did go
26:39
Speaker 3: to prison. But in most cases, and you know we
26:41
Speaker 3: know this from the Innocence Project, there's so many cases
26:44
Speaker 3: where we have used DNA to identify an innocent person
26:48
Speaker 3: or to prove the innocence of the person who is convicted,
26:51
Speaker 3: and then whila, a hit comes up in the National
26:55
Speaker 3: Database CODIS and we are able to identify the actual
26:59
Speaker 3: perpetrator or the authorities identify the actual perpetrate.
27:02
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that all the
27:04
Speaker 6: innocents cases, the DNA cases, and the non DNA cases
27:06
Speaker 6: have shown is that this false choice we were sold
27:10
Speaker 6: in the nineties by the tough on crime crowd, that
27:13
Speaker 6: you have to choose between safety and due process or
27:16
Speaker 6: safety and justice, is a myth, because sending innocent people
27:20
Speaker 6: to prison doesn't keep us any safe, or it makes
27:23
Speaker 6: us less safe. We've you know, as you mentioned, in
27:26
Speaker 6: a number of our cases, in fact, close to half
27:28
Speaker 6: of them. One hundred and sixty out of the first
27:31
Speaker 6: three hundred and sixty four DNA exonerations. The investigation that
27:35
Speaker 6: was done to clear the innocent person also led to
27:38
Speaker 6: the apprehension of someone who had actually gone on to
27:41
Speaker 6: commit other violent crimes while the innocent person was sitting
27:44
Speaker 6: in prison. And that includes murders, that includes rapes, that
27:46
Speaker 6: includes robberies, you name it. Sometimes multiple crimes by the
27:50
Speaker 6: same person. And we created additional crime victims and additional
27:54
Speaker 6: suffering while this innocent person was sitting in prison. So
27:57
Speaker 6: you know, juror should know that by sending someone to
27:59
Speaker 6: prison in who they have some doubts about their guilt,
28:02
Speaker 6: they're not making the streets safe or they're not doing
28:03
Speaker 6: the safe thing or the right thing. They're doing a
28:05
Speaker 6: pretty reckless thing.
28:06
Speaker 3: No, they're actually making themselves left safe. Yeah, even on
28:08
Speaker 3: just a purely selfish basis. Right, And you look at
28:10
Speaker 3: probably one of the most glaring examples that would be
28:12
Speaker 3: Ronald Cotton, right, because we know when he was wrongfully
28:14
Speaker 3: convicted of rape, the actual perpetrator remained free and raped
28:17
Speaker 3: over thirty other women before he was apprehended. So, I mean,
28:20
Speaker 3: what a terrifying thought that is it's just my heart
28:24
Speaker 3: goes out to everyone involved in that situation. It's just unimaginable.
28:30
Speaker 3: So how did you manage to survive this ordeal in
28:34
Speaker 3: seventeen and a half years? And it seems like your
28:36
Speaker 3: mind is intact? Right? I mean I only know you
28:39
Speaker 3: for days. No, from what I know of you, you've
28:43
Speaker 3: accomplished amazing things since you've been out, So you can't
28:46
Speaker 3: have lost your mind completely while you were in. Can
28:49
Speaker 3: you explain that?
28:50
Speaker 2: What?
28:51
Speaker 3: How does that? No one can really understand, including me,
28:54
Speaker 3: and I've been doing this for twenty five years.
28:56
Speaker 1: Actually, it goes back to what I said earlier about
28:59
Speaker 1: having to separate states of mind. But I was also
29:02
Speaker 1: saved by a peculiar situation at that particular time. When
29:07
Speaker 1: you first go to prison, you have to appear before
29:09
Speaker 1: what's known as a classification committee, and they look over
29:13
Speaker 1: your past, your conviction, et cetera, et cetera, and they
29:16
Speaker 1: decide where you should best work. When I told them
29:21
Speaker 1: that I'd been to law school, this particular group of
29:23
Speaker 1: people laughed at me. They said I was lying, They
29:25
Speaker 1: said it was impossible, and then they assigned me the
29:28
Speaker 1: law library and I remained working there for sixteen years,
29:32
Speaker 1: and it was a strange time and place. It has
29:37
Speaker 1: never happened before with California Department of Corrections, and it
29:41
Speaker 1: will never happen again, that's for certain. But I worked
29:45
Speaker 1: for people that had absolutely no information about a law
29:49
Speaker 1: library or how to staff it, how to run it,
29:52
Speaker 1: or how to do anything else. And they quickly realized
29:56
Speaker 1: that I could help them learn this, and then I thought, oh,
30:00
Speaker 1: what the heck, We'll just let her do it. So
30:02
Speaker 1: I eventually ended up buying all the books organizing the institution,
30:07
Speaker 1: and I spent all of my days helping women, not
30:11
Speaker 1: just with their various convictions, but also with a lot
30:15
Speaker 1: of institutional stuff. And about that time, there was a
30:19
Speaker 1: senator from San Diego and she wanted to hold a
30:23
Speaker 1: hearing on battered women because it was just at that
30:26
Speaker 1: time period that people were becoming interested in battered women,
30:30
Speaker 1: and in California at that time, they were not allowed
30:33
Speaker 1: to present any evidence of abuse or violence against them
30:37
Speaker 1: in their defense, which made those convictions a definite slam dug.
30:41
Speaker 1: So anyhow, this had all they had been institution had
30:45
Speaker 1: been contacted. Chief Deputy Warden came down and he asked
30:50
Speaker 1: me to put together panel and to do some other
30:53
Speaker 1: stuff for these various interviews that were coming up, which
30:56
Speaker 1: I did, and after that they just pretty much let
30:59
Speaker 1: me do whatever I wanted to do. I ordered all
31:02
Speaker 1: the books. I instituted services across the fence, which means
31:07
Speaker 1: that there were areas of the prison where the confinement
31:10
Speaker 1: is far more restrictive. One area of the prison was
31:14
Speaker 1: simply for people who were suffering from mental illness, and
31:17
Speaker 1: so I was able to establish legal services for them.
31:22
Speaker 3: So it's fair to say that you maintained your own
31:26
Speaker 3: well being by helping other people, right.
31:28
Speaker 1: I had my little underground law practice going on there,
31:31
Speaker 1: and some very strange clients by the way, But yeah,
31:36
Speaker 1: I knew I could not figure out what had happened
31:38
Speaker 1: to me. The only thing that I seized on and
31:42
Speaker 1: I don't know why, and as it turns out, it
31:44
Speaker 1: was presciented. But I always believed in the back of
31:48
Speaker 1: my head that if the Ninth Circuit ever saw my case,
31:51
Speaker 1: they would not let it stand. And as it happened,
31:55
Speaker 1: it was the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that reversed
31:57
Speaker 1: my conviction.
31:58
Speaker 3: So I'm just going to read paragraph that I think
32:01
Speaker 3: is going to really shake people up because it shakes
32:04
Speaker 3: me up, which is that Ten years later, after a
32:07
Speaker 3: federal petition for rid of habeas corpus had been filed,
32:10
Speaker 3: defense investigators discovered evidence of Massey's agreement with the prosecution,
32:14
Speaker 3: including a letter. This is where it gets deep, right,
32:18
Speaker 3: that's me editorializing, including a letter Massy sent to the
32:21
Speaker 3: prosecutor soon after you were arrested. In the letter, brace yourself,
32:26
Speaker 3: Massey said, quote, I lied my ass off for you people.
32:31
Speaker 3: The letter, as well as two others Massey wrote that
32:33
Speaker 3: detailed the resentencing agreement, were never disclosed to the defense
32:36
Speaker 3: by the prosecution. M Nina, you want to shine a
32:41
Speaker 3: little light on this one, because that's illegal.
32:45
Speaker 6: I'm going to use my actual law.
32:47
Speaker 1: Degree to tell you that's illegal.
32:49
Speaker 6: No, it's in all seriousness. That is a textbook example
32:54
Speaker 6: of the kind of correspondence from a witness that has
32:58
Speaker 6: to immediately be turned over to the defense. Whether or
33:02
Speaker 6: not the prosecutor thinks that Massey is telling the truth,
33:06
Speaker 6: that is, did he lie his ass off?
33:07
Speaker 3: Then?
33:08
Speaker 6: Is he lying his ass off now when he says
33:10
Speaker 6: he did? Is the truth somewhere in between? The defense
33:13
Speaker 6: has to have access to that statement so that they
33:15
Speaker 6: can cross examine him on it, and obviously a witness
33:18
Speaker 6: who's telling the prosecutor I lied my ass off for
33:20
Speaker 6: you people is not going to have much credibility in
33:22
Speaker 6: the eyes of the jury. So the prosecution has to
33:25
Speaker 6: know that turning that over will be fatal to Gloria's prosecution.
33:29
Speaker 1: They still have to turn it over. At my Hebe's hearing,
33:32
Speaker 1: the district attorney when he was questioned about these letters
33:36
Speaker 1: and what he had done with them, he was asked,
33:39
Speaker 1: why didn't you turn them over to the defense at once,
33:41
Speaker 1: and he said, I didn't know where to send them. Obviously,
33:47
Speaker 1: once your conviction is final, you no longer have the
33:51
Speaker 1: same trial attorney that you had, But that doesn't mean
33:54
Speaker 1: that the guy fell off the end of the earth either.
33:57
Speaker 1: He should have turned them over immediately to him. He
33:59
Speaker 1: could have sent them to me. He could have done anything,
34:02
Speaker 1: and he knew precisely what he should have done, but
34:05
Speaker 1: he was determined enough to stand there and come up
34:09
Speaker 1: with a bald face.
34:10
Speaker 6: Lie Lauria was pretty easy to find. He could have
34:13
Speaker 6: found her. She was in the California Department of Corrections
34:16
Speaker 6: with a number attached to her name, and he knew
34:18
Speaker 6: exactly where to find her, and he could have sent
34:19
Speaker 6: the letter to her, and he certainly knew who her
34:21
Speaker 6: prior lawyers were.
34:23
Speaker 1: Yes, And the idea that he would even have a
34:26
Speaker 1: gall to say something like that, it just bothered me,
34:29
Speaker 1: and it still does. There are a few things that
34:31
Speaker 1: have been said and done in my case that just
34:34
Speaker 1: still blow my mind.
34:36
Speaker 6: And I think it says a lot about the culture
34:39
Speaker 6: of lack of accountability for the minority of prosecutors, and
34:44
Speaker 6: it is fortunately still a minority. But who commit these
34:46
Speaker 6: egregious acts of misconduct that he thought he could get
34:50
Speaker 6: away with such a ridiculous answer. You know, anybody, anybody
34:54
Speaker 6: else caught red handed hiding a letter like that, I mean,
34:58
Speaker 6: could have come up with a better excuse, a lie,
35:01
Speaker 6: a something. And the fact that he just gave this
35:05
Speaker 6: completely ridiculous explanation that doesn't hold water just shows how
35:10
Speaker 6: he thought nobody was going to care and nobody would
35:13
Speaker 6: believe him. And Gloria, you know, was the rare convicted
35:16
Speaker 6: defendant who was able to get a federal court to
35:19
Speaker 6: throw out her conviction based on undisclosed evidence. It's very
35:22
Speaker 6: hard to do these kinds of violations. By definition, stay
35:26
Speaker 6: hidden right, They're designed to stay in the shadows, and
35:30
Speaker 6: many of those letters get shredded, never to be seen again.
35:33
Speaker 6: And it's you know, as in so many of these cases, Jason,
35:35
Speaker 6: of people you talk to, they are both the unluckiest
35:38
Speaker 6: and the luckiest people in the world. The unluckiest for
35:41
Speaker 6: what happened to them, and the luckiest that the proof
35:44
Speaker 6: of their innocence and of the state's misconduct was available
35:47
Speaker 6: and that their lawyers found it.
35:48
Speaker 3: Someday and Massy, in some sort of strange attack of conscience,
35:53
Speaker 3: later admitted that much the evidancy gave was false, including
35:55
Speaker 3: all the testimony that what he said that he didn't
35:57
Speaker 3: make a deal with the prosecution in exchange for a
35:59
Speaker 3: sestimony that is nessimarily that you were the mastermind behind
36:02
Speaker 3: the robbery. You admitted all of that was false. Yes,
36:05
Speaker 3: And ultimately, as we said in two thousand and two
36:08
Speaker 3: of the Ninth Circuit Court reversed your conviction and ultimately
36:11
Speaker 3: the charges were dropped. From all the years of me
36:26
Speaker 3: working with Nina and the good people at the Innocence
36:30
Speaker 3: Project and serving on their board, the two questions I
36:34
Speaker 3: get asked most frequently are in cases like this, did
36:38
Speaker 3: somebody go after the prosecutor. And the second question I
36:41
Speaker 3: get asked the most is did this person who served
36:45
Speaker 3: seventeen this killian lady, did she get compensation? I mean,
36:48
Speaker 3: please tell me she got taken care of.
36:51
Speaker 1: He was brought up on charges by the California State
36:55
Speaker 1: Bar Association from what he had done to me. And
36:58
Speaker 1: they had fooled around with my case for apparently quite
37:02
Speaker 1: a few years. They were considering raising charges, then they did,
37:06
Speaker 1: then they didn't whatever. But eventually he had a trial
37:10
Speaker 1: at the State Bar Association. He was found guilty and
37:14
Speaker 1: he was censured. The judge said that the real problem
37:19
Speaker 1: with the case was that it was so old that
37:22
Speaker 1: he had a wonderful career except for these minor laughs.
37:27
Speaker 1: And if the case had been recent then her decision
37:30
Speaker 1: would have been very different because he had already retired,
37:35
Speaker 1: and so she censured him and that was it. It
37:38
Speaker 1: did make a difference to me because it was at
37:41
Speaker 1: least an acknowledgment by the state of California that somebody
37:44
Speaker 1: had done something wrong to me. Personally, I would have
37:47
Speaker 1: liked to have seen him locked up, even though that
37:48
Speaker 1: wasn't on the table at that particular time. But at
37:52
Speaker 1: least they acknowledged that there was an issue there other
37:54
Speaker 1: than that the whole thing was a big joke.
37:57
Speaker 6: I mean, it's extremely rare for any prosecutor caught committing
38:02
Speaker 6: misconduct ever face any accountability from the state bar in
38:06
Speaker 6: any state. And we actually have data in California. There
38:10
Speaker 6: was this study done about ten years ago by our
38:12
Speaker 6: friends at the Northern California Anison's Project and the Veritas
38:15
Speaker 6: Initiative where they tracked court findings of misconduct by prosecutors
38:20
Speaker 6: over a twelve year period, and they found more than
38:22
Speaker 6: six hundred cases where they could identify the prosecutors by
38:26
Speaker 6: name who were found by a court who have committed misconduct,
38:29
Speaker 6: and only six of them had faced any professional discipline whatsoever,
38:33
Speaker 6: So less than one percent of the ones they could find,
38:36
Speaker 6: and of those, many were what glorious prosecutor got, which
38:39
Speaker 6: was a slap on the wrist. I mean, he got
38:41
Speaker 6: a finding that he had violated the ethics rules, which
38:44
Speaker 6: is what the state bar has jurisdiction over. But all
38:47
Speaker 6: he got was a what's called an admonishment, so just
38:50
Speaker 6: don't do that again. Yeah, And she lost seventeen years
38:55
Speaker 6: of her life plus all the time she spent before
38:57
Speaker 6: she went to prison, with the hanging of her head,
39:00
Speaker 6: and then the lifelong consequences and repercustoms that she'll have
39:04
Speaker 6: to deal with for having had her life stolen and
39:05
Speaker 6: her career stolen.
39:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and society lost out too, because you
39:09
Speaker 3: could have been out here contributing and you know, doing
39:12
Speaker 3: good stuff and paying taxes and instead of us paying
39:15
Speaker 3: for you to be locked up, right for Californians to
39:17
Speaker 3: be And that's a whole other consequence of all these things.
39:20
Speaker 3: It's probably the least dire consequence, but it's still a consequence.
39:23
Speaker 3: And when you multiply it by the number of people
39:25
Speaker 3: who end up in a situation like yours, it becomes
39:28
Speaker 3: a real number. Since you got out. I mean, one
39:31
Speaker 3: of the things that I find interesting because of my
39:34
Speaker 3: you know, sort of obsession with this advocacy work on
39:38
Speaker 3: behalf of people who are formally incarcerated, is this organization
39:41
Speaker 3: that you founded, which is called the Action Committee for
39:45
Speaker 3: Women in Prison. And all I know is what I read,
39:49
Speaker 3: which is that it's an organization that works to improve
39:51
Speaker 3: conditions for female prisoners. Of course, it's worth noting that
39:55
Speaker 3: in America, many people know that we have four point
39:58
Speaker 3: four percent of the world's population twenty five percent of
40:01
Speaker 3: the world's prison population. But what people don't seem to
40:04
Speaker 3: talk about as much is the fact that we have
40:06
Speaker 3: thirty three percent of the world's female prison population. So,
40:10
Speaker 3: you know, organizations like yours are so needed, and can
40:13
Speaker 3: you talk about the organization and what led you to
40:15
Speaker 3: found it and what is due and where's it at now.
40:18
Speaker 1: I wanted to help the women that I left behind,
40:20
Speaker 1: and at the time when I was in prison, there
40:23
Speaker 1: was a lot going on in there, not just with
40:25
Speaker 1: battered women, although that was where I developed my interest
40:30
Speaker 1: in expertise and battered women because I didn't believe they
40:33
Speaker 1: should have been in prison in the first place. I mean,
40:35
Speaker 1: you know, when someone is strangling you or attempting to
40:38
Speaker 1: shoot you, I think you have the right to defend
40:40
Speaker 1: yourself or to defend your child. Other than that, there
40:43
Speaker 1: were a lot of women that I knew that deserved
40:45
Speaker 1: to get out regardless, and the parole board was a
40:49
Speaker 1: real problem at that time. There was also a tremendous
40:53
Speaker 1: problem with the medical department. They were killing us on
40:56
Speaker 1: a regular basis, and that also includes in the men's prisons,
41:00
Speaker 1: and beyond that, I wanted to do what I could
41:05
Speaker 1: to ensure that they did not feel that they were forgotten.
41:09
Speaker 1: When I first went to prison, things were a lot different.
41:11
Speaker 1: We wore our own clothes, we got various privileges, we
41:15
Speaker 1: got Christmas gifts. There was a lot that was done
41:18
Speaker 1: to try to make people feel women feel that they
41:22
Speaker 1: were not forgotten by society and that they were still
41:25
Speaker 1: decent people. That changed radically, particularly in the nineties. The
41:31
Speaker 1: composition the pro board changed totally. It was all former
41:35
Speaker 1: law enforcement basically, and I certainly didn't think that they
41:39
Speaker 1: could understand what it was like to be small, female
41:41
Speaker 1: and in fear of your life. I started a Christmas
41:44
Speaker 1: project so that people would not feel that they had
41:47
Speaker 1: been forgotten, and it still goes on to this day.
41:50
Speaker 1: Last year, my organization helped provide approximately five thousand gift
41:55
Speaker 1: bags for incarcerated women in southern California. That includes the
41:59
Speaker 1: prison and the fire camps and the jail as well.
42:04
Speaker 1: The main thing that I thought that I could do
42:06
Speaker 1: was to tell people what I had learned, which was
42:09
Speaker 1: that women in prison were not who I thought they were.
42:12
Speaker 1: They're just basically people like you and me who've made
42:17
Speaker 1: wrong choices. Or who've been in intolerable circumstances. That of
42:22
Speaker 1: course applies to people who acquired their convictions in defense
42:26
Speaker 1: of their life or in defense of their children. I
42:30
Speaker 1: thought that people in prison must be vicious, bizarre, every
42:34
Speaker 1: stereotype you could possibly think of. And I learned very
42:37
Speaker 1: quickly that that is not who those women were at all.
42:40
Speaker 1: And a lot of those women helped to save my life,
42:43
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of times when I didn't
42:45
Speaker 1: think I could make it another three and a half seconds.
42:48
Speaker 1: And there are times when it just closes in on
42:51
Speaker 1: you and you can't do this anymore. With women, it
42:54
Speaker 1: usually happens between five and seven years. It happened to
42:59
Speaker 1: me at about six years, and I had a very
43:02
Speaker 1: good friend. Her name is Janet Dixon. We're still trying
43:06
Speaker 1: to get her out. She's been in almost forty three years.
43:10
Speaker 1: But she would pick me up every night after dinner
43:12
Speaker 1: with a friend of hers, another lifer, and they would
43:15
Speaker 1: make me come out and they would just walk me
43:18
Speaker 1: around the yard for two three hours at a time.
43:21
Speaker 1: I guess the purpose was just to keep my feet
43:24
Speaker 1: moving and to keep my head from the darker places,
43:29
Speaker 1: and somehow or other, I mean, with their love and
43:32
Speaker 1: their care. I got through it. There were definitely times
43:36
Speaker 1: when I looked at the fence and thought, why isn't
43:38
Speaker 1: that stupid thing electrified? And why can't I get to it.
43:41
Speaker 1: I was devastated when they told me they didn't shoot
43:44
Speaker 1: to kill. There are times when that is exactly where
43:47
Speaker 1: you go. Suicide is an alternative to an intolerable reality.
43:54
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of times when I spent that
43:57
Speaker 1: time thinking about that, thinking about some way to end
44:01
Speaker 1: this all, when I didn't think I could stand in
44:03
Speaker 1: the pain anymore. But then I would, something would happen,
44:07
Speaker 1: and I would get interested in something else, like getting
44:09
Speaker 1: somebody out of prison, or you know, beating their one fifteens,
44:13
Speaker 1: which are disciplinary reports. And somehow I got through it.
44:17
Speaker 1: You just put one foot in front of the other
44:20
Speaker 1: day after day. I do not know how people that
44:23
Speaker 1: are sentenced to life without the possibility of parole get
44:25
Speaker 1: through a day. I don't believe that I could have
44:28
Speaker 1: done it if that had been my sentence. I'm not
44:30
Speaker 1: a stupid woman. I would not have been there. If
44:33
Speaker 1: I was facing something like that, I would have taken
44:36
Speaker 1: myself out.
44:39
Speaker 6: Can I ask you about something that you know we
44:41
Speaker 6: hear and read a lot about women in prison that
44:43
Speaker 6: there are a lot of women there who end up
44:46
Speaker 6: because they have a relationship with someone, typically but not always,
44:49
Speaker 6: a man who is kind of high up in a
44:53
Speaker 6: crime or a criminal enterprise, and the woman might have
44:56
Speaker 6: some tangential involvement, agreeing to carry something or transport something
45:00
Speaker 6: or make a phone call once, but they don't have
45:03
Speaker 6: access to information they can trade with law enforcement when
45:06
Speaker 6: they get caught. Was that something that you found to
45:08
Speaker 6: be common among the women that you met inside.
45:11
Speaker 1: Absolutely. In fact, there were cases where the women weren't
45:14
Speaker 1: even involved in the crime at all, but they were
45:18
Speaker 1: convinced by the man, usually a man that they were with,
45:21
Speaker 1: that if they would plead guilty and take the case,
45:25
Speaker 1: that you know, they'd only get like sixteen months in
45:27
Speaker 1: prison and he would love them forever and take care
45:31
Speaker 1: of them and send them boxes and whatever. And some
45:33
Speaker 1: of these women actually walked into court and did that,
45:36
Speaker 1: they took the case, and of course everything turned out
45:39
Speaker 1: totally different. They ended up getting longer sentences, like maybe
45:43
Speaker 1: ten years, and the guy was gone in the wind.
45:46
Speaker 1: Another thing is that people who were involved with crime
45:49
Speaker 1: or have been arrested or have dealt with the criminal
45:53
Speaker 1: justice system in some way know how to work the system.
45:56
Speaker 1: There are cases that I know of where women have
45:59
Speaker 1: confessed to doing something that is physically impossible for them
46:02
Speaker 1: to have done. And I'm thinking of the woman who
46:05
Speaker 1: was about my size. I'm five feet tall and if
46:08
Speaker 1: I lie about it, I weigh one hundred and thirteen pounds.
46:11
Speaker 1: This woman was convicted of strangling her six foot one
46:16
Speaker 1: husband to death manual strangulation, and it was her son
46:20
Speaker 1: who committed the crime, and the prosecution just went along
46:24
Speaker 1: with it. I mean, what do you tell him, just
46:28
Speaker 1: lie there and I'll try to make this quick. It's insane.
46:31
Speaker 1: And yet they go ahead and they accept those cases.
46:33
Speaker 1: They accept those please, and the women end up doing
46:36
Speaker 1: the time. Oftentimes the man will say something like, you know,
46:42
Speaker 1: you'll get less time, the women get more time. Or
46:46
Speaker 1: if the man says that she is the mastermind, she's
46:49
Speaker 1: the one who planned all of this, she will get
46:52
Speaker 1: a longer sentence than he will. He'll get twenty five
46:55
Speaker 1: to life, she'll get life without he'll get fifteen to life.
46:58
Speaker 1: She'll get twenty five to life. And they are held
47:02
Speaker 1: to longer terms by the parole board. It's a type
47:06
Speaker 1: of discrimination that. I mean, you think it can happen
47:10
Speaker 1: until you see it and it's right there in front
47:12
Speaker 1: of you on the paperwork. It amazes me to this
47:16
Speaker 1: day that someone would even accept a plea bargain like that.
47:20
Speaker 3: So I wanted to ask you this. I'll ask both
47:24
Speaker 3: of you this, and then we'll go to closing comments.
47:26
Speaker 3: If people are listening now and they want to get involved,
47:29
Speaker 3: and they want to help with your organization, or they
47:30
Speaker 3: want to help with women in prison in general, because
47:33
Speaker 3: I have a number of amazing women who have approached
47:36
Speaker 3: me and wanted to volunteer and wanted to do stuff,
47:37
Speaker 3: so we started to put together our own sort of
47:40
Speaker 3: impromptu group. We came up with an interim name called
47:43
Speaker 3: Women for Women who Shouldn't be in Prison. But then
47:45
Speaker 3: I found out that you've already been doing this work,
47:48
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to hear more about that and
47:50
Speaker 3: how can other people, women or otherwise get involved.
47:55
Speaker 1: I do have a website. I haven't been doing much
47:57
Speaker 1: with it lately. I've been focusing more on the exoneration
48:01
Speaker 1: issue and my work with the Exonerated Nation. But my
48:05
Speaker 1: website is acwip dot net. It's always a struggle to
48:11
Speaker 1: come up with enough gifts. We can definitely use donations
48:16
Speaker 1: and anybody who wants to get involved. I think the
48:21
Speaker 1: saddest thing about prison that is so different in the
48:25
Speaker 1: United States from other countries is that we isolate our prisoners.
48:30
Speaker 1: We demonize our prisoners. They're all murderers and maniacs, and
48:34
Speaker 1: nobody should have anything to do with them or to
48:36
Speaker 1: get involved. And that just isn't true in other countries
48:40
Speaker 1: where they have a different philosophy, they help people rehabilitate
48:45
Speaker 1: themselves and reintegrate themselves into society. We don't do that here.
48:51
Speaker 1: But visiting programs, gift programs, letter writing programs, all of
48:55
Speaker 1: those things are really important, and.
48:57
Speaker 3: People can access that information on your website.
48:59
Speaker 1: Yes they can.
49:00
Speaker 6: Maybe there'll be some web designers out there who want
49:02
Speaker 6: to take that duty over from you so you can
49:04
Speaker 6: focus on the other piece.
49:05
Speaker 1: That's a wonderful idea.
49:07
Speaker 6: You know, everyone in prison needs outside support, but for
49:10
Speaker 6: women it can be particularly lonely and isolating. Because of
49:14
Speaker 6: the way our society is structure and the way we're raised.
49:16
Speaker 6: Women are often the caretakers when a man goes to prison.
49:19
Speaker 6: They're the glue that keeps the family together, keeps the
49:21
Speaker 6: relationship together. And sadly, when women go to prison. You know,
49:25
Speaker 6: there are exceptions to every rule, but by and large,
49:27
Speaker 6: a lot of men, a lot of family members, they're
49:29
Speaker 6: overwhelmed with their own lives and they move on and
49:32
Speaker 6: the women get left behind. And that's why the support
49:34
Speaker 6: from people who are generous of heart is so critical.
49:37
Speaker 1: Women get dumped at the gate.
49:38
Speaker 3: Okay, So once again it's acwip dot net and you
49:42
Speaker 3: can go there and learn about how to get involved
49:44
Speaker 3: and write letters and volunteer or send donations. Glory, can
49:49
Speaker 3: you tell us about your book.
49:51
Speaker 1: Yes, my book is called full Circle because it begins
49:54
Speaker 1: with my arrest and it ends with my district attorney
49:57
Speaker 1: being brought up on charges, and in that sense, the
49:59
Speaker 1: circle will is closed, despite the fact that so much
50:02
Speaker 1: has continued to go on. It's available on Amazon, It's
50:07
Speaker 1: available on Barnes and Noble or any place else where
50:10
Speaker 1: you can normally buy a book. I talk about my case,
50:13
Speaker 1: but I also have about a third of the book
50:16
Speaker 1: explaining what happens in prison and what goes on behind
50:20
Speaker 1: the walls. And it actually is like a real little universe,
50:25
Speaker 1: but it's not one you'd ever want to get caught
50:27
Speaker 1: up in again. The book is full circle, like Gloria
50:30
Speaker 1: Chillian and Sandy Coburn, full.
50:32
Speaker 3: Circle like Gloria Chillian. I'm going to read it, and
50:36
Speaker 3: I hope you will too. So we have a tradition.
50:39
Speaker 3: Nina knows this, I'll tell you, Gloria at rofuel conviction,
50:42
Speaker 3: don't be scared.
50:44
Speaker 1: I don't like surprises.
50:46
Speaker 3: So the tradition is that at the end of each episode,
50:51
Speaker 3: I first of all thank you both for being here,
50:55
Speaker 3: Lauria Achillian and Nina Morrison. And then I get to
50:59
Speaker 3: stop talking, which I think you know is not something
51:02
Speaker 3: I'm great at, but I'm going to do it anyway
51:04
Speaker 3: and just listen and just leave the mic open for
51:07
Speaker 3: any final thoughts that you have. And so let's start
51:09
Speaker 3: with you, Nina, and then you will be the closer.
51:14
Speaker 3: You're the headline act.
51:15
Speaker 6: One thing you asked about earlier that I don't think
51:17
Speaker 6: we got to because our conversation was going in so
51:19
Speaker 6: many other interesting directions is whether Gloria ever got financial
51:23
Speaker 6: compensation for any of the time that she lost or
51:25
Speaker 6: what happened to her. And the answer is no, And
51:28
Speaker 6: her case highlights a glaring whole of injustice in the
51:33
Speaker 6: compensation system, which is that if your civil rights are violated,
51:38
Speaker 6: which Gloria's clearly were, in the course of a criminal case,
51:42
Speaker 6: you often can sue the law enforcement officials responsible under
51:46
Speaker 6: the federal civil rights laws or under state law. The
51:49
Speaker 6: catch is that if the prosecutor is the one responsible
51:52
Speaker 6: for those civil rights violations, they have what's called immunity.
51:55
Speaker 6: It's like those of you who read Harry Potter may
51:57
Speaker 6: remember the invisibility cloak where you can put it on
51:59
Speaker 6: and be seen. Prosecutors get the lawsuit equivalent of an
52:03
Speaker 6: invisibility cloak. By and large, were anything they do during
52:06
Speaker 6: the course of a criminal trial, no matter how egregious,
52:08
Speaker 6: they can't be sued for by order of the US
52:11
Speaker 6: Supreme Court from many years ago. And so if the
52:15
Speaker 6: letters from Massi the real killer, had been in the
52:17
Speaker 6: police file but the prosecutor had never seen them, Gloria
52:20
Speaker 6: might have had a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the state
52:23
Speaker 6: and one. However, because they were in the prosecutor's file,
52:26
Speaker 6: everyone involved gets immunity, and that's incredibly unfair.
52:29
Speaker 1: It needs to change, thank you, Nina. It's often said
52:32
Speaker 1: that you can judge a society by looking at its prisons,
52:36
Speaker 1: and if that is true, then our society is in
52:39
Speaker 1: really terrible shape. As I said earlier, we demonize our prisoners,
52:43
Speaker 1: We separate them, We do everything that we can to
52:48
Speaker 1: act as if they're not even humans, they're not part
52:51
Speaker 1: of us. I think maybe it makes people feel safer.
52:54
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I probably felt the same way
52:57
Speaker 1: decades and decades ago before I had any real experience.
53:01
Speaker 1: But we need to stop sending innocent people to prison.
53:05
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds like a no brainer, but
53:08
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. My guess is that at
53:12
Speaker 1: any given time, there are at least probably one hundred
53:15
Speaker 1: thousand people you know in prison who do not deserve
53:19
Speaker 1: to be there, who are wrongfully convicted. Most of them
53:21
Speaker 1: have short sentences. You can't even get organized to help
53:25
Speaker 1: them because it is so expensive and so time consuming
53:28
Speaker 1: to exonerate a person. I am, as we said earlier,
53:33
Speaker 1: one of the luckiest people alive, because the evidence that
53:36
Speaker 1: saved my life and that got me out of that
53:38
Speaker 1: hell hole was there for me to be able to use.
53:42
Speaker 1: But I need to help the people that I left behind.
53:46
Speaker 1: I have to believe this happened to me for a
53:49
Speaker 1: reason other than just plain ill luck. We need to
53:52
Speaker 1: take a look at what goes on in our criminal
53:54
Speaker 1: justice society. And the last thing that I can say
53:57
Speaker 1: to you is the most important thing. This could happen
54:01
Speaker 1: to you. Don't ever believe it couldn't.
54:04
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening. This has been a very special
54:07
Speaker 3: episode for me and hopefully for you too.
54:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, Gloria, thanks for coming.
54:12
Speaker 1: Thank you.
54:23
Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
54:25
Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
54:29
Speaker 3: donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll
54:32
Speaker 3: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
54:35
Speaker 3: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
54:39
Speaker 3: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
54:42
Speaker 3: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
54:46
Speaker 3: The music in the show is by three time Oscar
54:48
Speaker 3: nominade composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
54:51
Speaker 3: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast.
54:56
Speaker 3: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava
54:59
Speaker 3: for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one