Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #479 Jason Flom with Eric Brown

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#479 Jason Flom with Eric Brown · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: On August twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four, sixteen year old
0:06
Speaker 1: New Orleans native Eric Brown spent the night at his
0:09
Speaker 1: friend Carmelo's apartment along with some mutual friends. Early the
0:15
Speaker 1: next morning, Eric drove home in Carmelo's car, which wouldn't
0:19
Speaker 1: have seemed out of the ordinary until one of their
0:22
Speaker 1: mutual friends reported that Carmelo had fatally shot and that
0:27
Speaker 1: his safe had been stolen. In addition, she told police
0:32
Speaker 1: that Eric was still there when she left for work,
0:35
Speaker 1: implying that he and he alone had the opportunity. Then
0:41
Speaker 1: the missing safe was discovered near the home of two
0:43
Speaker 1: other mutual friends, who also implicated Eric, sending him away
0:49
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. But this is wrongful conviction.
1:00
Speaker 2: Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
1:03
Speaker 2: and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call us
1:07
Speaker 2: at eight three three two oh seven four six sixty
1:10
Speaker 2: six and tell us how these stories make you feel
1:13
Speaker 2: and what you've done to help the cause, even if
1:15
Speaker 2: it's something as simple as telling a friend or sharing
1:18
Speaker 2: on social media, and you might just hear yourself in
1:22
Speaker 2: a future episode. Call Us eight three three two oh
1:25
Speaker 2: seven four.
1:26
Speaker 1: Six sixty six. Welcome back to wrongful conviction for yet
1:39
Speaker 1: another case out of Louisiana, this time involving a child
1:43
Speaker 1: tried as an adult, convicted by a non unanimous jury
1:46
Speaker 1: verdict in a state that wasn't and isn't to this day,
1:52
Speaker 1: trying to hide the direct connection and the transition from
1:56
Speaker 1: plantation to penitentiary. And the man who's so somehow survived
2:01
Speaker 1: this harrowing ordeal is joining us today, Eric Brown, thank
2:06
Speaker 1: you for being here and sharing your story with me today.
2:10
Speaker 3: Thank you, Veram.
2:11
Speaker 1: Would you say all that's accurate?
2:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Prison is a big business, especially in Louisiana. As
2:15
Speaker 3: one of the sheriffs said, they called prisons their honey holes.
2:18
Speaker 3: When Louisiana told these full profit prison facilities that if
2:23
Speaker 3: they build their prison in Louisiana, they would give them
2:26
Speaker 3: tax breaks, etc. And they will guarantee that they would
2:30
Speaker 3: keep their bids eighty five to ninety percent field to capacity.
2:34
Speaker 3: How do you make a guarantee like that if you're
2:36
Speaker 3: not infringed upon people's rights.
2:38
Speaker 1: Those non unanimous jury verdicts have wrecked havoc in Louisiana
2:43
Speaker 1: since the era of reconstruction, all the way until twenty eighteen.
2:48
Speaker 1: Or even later.
2:48
Speaker 3: I believe that now unanimous Jewry vertical law was only
2:52
Speaker 3: enacted in the eighteen hundreds explicitly assided to perpetuate Slater.
2:57
Speaker 3: Louisiana and Oregan was the only two states out there
3:00
Speaker 3: union that allowed this.
3:01
Speaker 1: And we're glad to finally have that law off the books.
3:04
Speaker 1: I mean, all a prosecutor would need to do was
3:07
Speaker 1: eliminate enough black jurors to make a conviction and near certainty,
3:12
Speaker 1: you know, with what the fact it's still an all
3:14
Speaker 1: white jury, and that hadn't changed much even as late
3:18
Speaker 1: as nineteen ninety four when Eric was just a sixteen
3:21
Speaker 1: year old kid.
3:23
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a native of New Orleans. We stayed in
3:25
Speaker 3: various different parts of New Orleans, across the river, Kenner,
3:30
Speaker 3: Jefferson Parish, et cetera, et cetera. My upbringing was pretty moderate.
3:34
Speaker 3: I had a father in my life taught me the
3:36
Speaker 3: essence and the definition of a man. Taught me about
3:39
Speaker 3: having principles and morals and honor, dignity, integrity, keeping your word.
3:43
Speaker 3: I had a great mother, she's still with us today.
3:46
Speaker 3: They did their best to raise me right. However, as
3:50
Speaker 3: kids become mischievous, sometimes I had an incident when I
3:53
Speaker 3: was thirteen years old. Three years prior to this crime,
3:55
Speaker 3: there was a guy that was shooting dice and I
3:59
Speaker 3: want his jet come to find out. He went home
4:02
Speaker 3: and told his daddy, who was a police officer, that
4:05
Speaker 3: I robbed him for his jacket, and they arrested me
4:08
Speaker 3: for armed robbery. So they made a big scene, came
4:10
Speaker 3: arrested me in front the whole school and everything. And
4:13
Speaker 3: my dad had just bought me one of those staughter jacks,
4:16
Speaker 3: so I had enough brand new and so it was
4:17
Speaker 3: no need for me to rob. They searched my home,
4:20
Speaker 3: didn't find any gun, didn't find any weapons. I got
4:23
Speaker 3: adjudicated for armed robbery. They gave me six years probation.
4:27
Speaker 3: So when I come home, you know our officers are
4:30
Speaker 3: they they have this pride about themselves. Whether he believed
4:33
Speaker 3: the son or whether he knew the truth, I was
4:35
Speaker 3: public in him. A number one my brothers, they had
4:38
Speaker 3: run INDs with officers as well, went to prison. So
4:42
Speaker 3: I guess it was like he's going to follow in
4:44
Speaker 3: their footstep, He's going to be the same way, etcetera, etcetera.
4:46
Speaker 3: One of those officers that arrested me in that case,
4:49
Speaker 3: was one of the lead investigators in this case.
4:52
Speaker 1: In addition, at the time of the crime, Eric had
4:55
Speaker 1: begun selling weed for a guy named Carmelo Salmonin, who
4:59
Speaker 1: it turned out was the grandson of a well connected
5:02
Speaker 1: organized crime boss named Carlos Marcello, and Carmelo, the grandson,
5:07
Speaker 1: became the victim in this case.
5:09
Speaker 3: He was a good few years older than me, pretty
5:12
Speaker 3: much meant to a mutual friend. He was looking for
5:14
Speaker 3: a way to supply we the things of the nature
5:18
Speaker 3: into the neighborhood, and so a lot of people knew
5:21
Speaker 3: me and respected me in the neighborhood, so he recruited me.
5:25
Speaker 3: That's why I said, kids could be mischievous sometimes, but
5:28
Speaker 3: that don't lead to the capital punishment, you know what
5:31
Speaker 3: I mean.
5:32
Speaker 1: So Carmelo and Eric sold weed together along with a
5:35
Speaker 1: young lady named Valencia Peabody and two brothers, Charles Pitts
5:40
Speaker 1: who was also sixteen years old and William Griffin who
5:42
Speaker 1: was a little over eighteen, and their group were all
5:45
Speaker 1: at Carmelo's house on the faithful night of August twenty fourth,
5:50
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four.
5:51
Speaker 3: It's something that we've done many times with smoke weed,
5:54
Speaker 3: get high and pass out. And then in that morning
5:56
Speaker 3: I get up and lead. It was a normal thing.
5:59
Speaker 3: And when I do lead, I take the vehicle, I
6:01
Speaker 3: go drop off things of that nature. And so it
6:04
Speaker 3: was real early when I left. Hours later, I wake
6:07
Speaker 3: up my sister's coming and talking about hey man, the
6:10
Speaker 3: police looking for you to talk about Carmelo's dead, this,
6:12
Speaker 3: and then like what.
6:14
Speaker 1: At this point, on August twenty fifth, police had already
6:16
Speaker 1: spoken to a neighbor named Ruth McKennis, who told them
6:19
Speaker 1: that she hadn't seen or heard anything, as well as
6:22
Speaker 1: Valencia Peabody, who had alleged that Eric and the car
6:25
Speaker 1: were still at Carmelo's when she left for work, but
6:27
Speaker 1: when she returned on her lunch break, she allegedly discovered
6:30
Speaker 1: Carmelo's body, saw that Carmelo's car and the safe were gone,
6:34
Speaker 1: and called the police.
6:36
Speaker 3: She just started saying my name automatically. Every did everything
6:39
Speaker 3: like what Me and Camello. We never had augument, We
6:42
Speaker 3: didn't have a disagreement, We didn't have a falling out
6:44
Speaker 3: of anything, she said. She came home from work, she
6:47
Speaker 3: said she noticed the top lock of the bottom lock
6:50
Speaker 3: was unlocked up like that. Then she said she noticed
6:53
Speaker 3: something about the sliding glass door was opened or whatever.
6:56
Speaker 3: So she said, she's calling his name, she don't hear anything.
6:59
Speaker 3: She goes up the stairs, gets in the bed with him,
7:02
Speaker 3: and then that's when she notices blood coming out of
7:05
Speaker 3: his head, his ears and stuff like that. Right, However,
7:07
Speaker 3: when you look at the photographs that the police took
7:11
Speaker 3: of the crime scene, you're gonna see blood splat on
7:13
Speaker 3: the headboard, you gonna see blood all over the pillow.
7:16
Speaker 3: How does she get in the bed when photographs of
7:19
Speaker 3: the crime scene gruesomely shoes what's going on? We're standing
7:23
Speaker 3: at that door.
7:24
Speaker 1: Valencia, Peabody's supervisor at work, also said that he hadn't
7:27
Speaker 1: seen her that morning, but the police were unaware of
7:30
Speaker 1: that detail or any of the other holes in Valencia's
7:34
Speaker 1: story when they went and arrested Eric and began looking
7:37
Speaker 1: for the murder weapon and Carmelo's missing safe.
7:40
Speaker 3: Because of this guy's connections, who is grandfather or whatever
7:44
Speaker 3: the bloodline was with them, law enforcement shook down that
7:47
Speaker 3: whole area. While I'm in jail, people telling me, man,
7:50
Speaker 3: they're all in the sewers, drain dumpsters and stuff like
7:52
Speaker 3: that looking for the safe and things that you mentioned
7:55
Speaker 3: right now. There's two other guys. They're two brothers. One
7:59
Speaker 3: was a juvenile Charles Pitts and the other one was
8:01
Speaker 3: an adult William Griffin. So they found his safe in
8:05
Speaker 3: the dumbster in front one of those guys house. There
8:08
Speaker 3: are two brothers. Guy said he got the safe from me.
8:11
Speaker 1: At some point, for some unknown reason, the police reinterviewed
8:16
Speaker 1: the neighbor, Ruth McKennis.
8:18
Speaker 3: Ruth McKinney's has the IQ of sixty, equivalent to a
8:21
Speaker 3: six year old child, so on the scene, she said
8:25
Speaker 3: she didn't see anything, didn't hear anything. Two weeks later,
8:29
Speaker 3: after talking with Valencia Peabody, all of a sudden, she
8:34
Speaker 3: mysteriously remembers me coming out of the apartment. As later
8:37
Speaker 3: they don't know me from Adam and Eve. I don't
8:39
Speaker 3: know her. All of a sudden, now she knows me.
8:41
Speaker 3: But the whole collusion was those two guys in Valencia Peabody.
8:47
Speaker 1: And we're not sure if the police recognized Valencia's potential
8:50
Speaker 1: involvement or how convenient it was that Ruth McKennis had
8:54
Speaker 1: a sudden realization. But something certainly seems off with how
8:58
Speaker 1: they so readily accepted pitt and Griffin's explanation for the safe.
9:04
Speaker 3: The William Griffin guy. He said in the statement, bro,
9:07
Speaker 3: I'm just saying what y'all want me to say to
9:09
Speaker 3: get out of here. So then they said, well, look
9:10
Speaker 3: we need you to take the sting. Like what you mean?
9:12
Speaker 3: I already said what you wanted me to say? You saying,
9:15
Speaker 3: did Eric did? He say?
9:16
Speaker 1: I don't know, never mind how the sausage was made.
9:19
Speaker 1: They had four people implicating Eric, who awaited trial for
9:23
Speaker 1: nearly two long years in jail, and.
9:26
Speaker 3: I couldn't afford the attorney. I had to go with
9:28
Speaker 3: the state attorney, which is just a prosecutor and defense
9:32
Speaker 3: attorney clothing. He kept trying to get me to take
9:34
Speaker 3: thirty years forty years, and I'm like, I'm not taking
9:38
Speaker 3: her thirty years or now forty year for something I
9:40
Speaker 3: didn't do.
9:40
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, as Eric said, his older brother was already in prison.
9:44
Speaker 1: He had been convicted of armed robbery, a crime he
9:47
Speaker 1: actually did commit, and he reached out with some advice.
9:50
Speaker 3: It was a blessing and occurse to actually have a
9:53
Speaker 3: brother that was inside the institution. He already knew what
9:56
Speaker 3: the fight was going to be for me, so he
9:59
Speaker 3: was the right middle in the jail, say error, go
10:01
Speaker 3: to the law library, read this case. Go read this case,
10:05
Speaker 3: go read that. Go shepherdize this sort to teach me
10:07
Speaker 3: about what shepherdized me with different legal turnsment, I've been
10:10
Speaker 3: studying law even before my conviction, because the first motion
10:13
Speaker 3: that I filed my motion for a bond reduction. When
10:16
Speaker 3: they first arrested me, they had me on the first
10:18
Speaker 3: degree murder, so you don't have a bond, but we
10:20
Speaker 3: don't have no murder weapon like witnesses. We don't have
10:22
Speaker 3: to nate, no powder, burn, no fingerprints. So there was like, well,
10:26
Speaker 3: we got to reduce the charge to second degree murder.
10:28
Speaker 3: Then now they had to give me a bond. So
10:30
Speaker 3: the DA said, okay, a million for the murder and
10:32
Speaker 3: five hundred thouars for the own rap. So he tried
10:34
Speaker 3: to set a bond at one point five million dollars.
10:36
Speaker 3: So what the judge did was he said, well, I'm
10:38
Speaker 3: not even going to hit his motion and I'm not
10:40
Speaker 3: even going to set the bond because mister Brown has
10:42
Speaker 3: an attorney and his attorney was supposed to file this.
10:45
Speaker 3: So I'm like, obviously, why havn't my attorney filed this yet?
10:49
Speaker 3: For me.
10:49
Speaker 1: It appears he was just too busy communicating plea deals
10:53
Speaker 1: for thirty to forty years rather than building a defense
10:56
Speaker 1: like investigating Valencia Peabody.
10:58
Speaker 3: I had my attorney so peanup her record and they
11:01
Speaker 3: said that hell supervisor never even seen it at work
11:04
Speaker 3: all that day. So requested to have the supervisor come
11:07
Speaker 3: take the stand. They had the manager come, like what
11:10
Speaker 3: you're sitting in The manager is the supervisor that's in
11:13
Speaker 3: this report, and the manager wasn't able to provide us
11:16
Speaker 3: with any information.
11:17
Speaker 1: Peabody's alibi appears just as shady as Ruth mckinnis's memory
11:22
Speaker 1: of who she said she saw that morning.
11:24
Speaker 3: Now, at the Motion for Discovery, they tell her do
11:28
Speaker 3: not come in this courtroom until we call you. So
11:30
Speaker 3: I'm sitting in an orange jumpsuit with all the other prisoners.
11:33
Speaker 3: She came into that courtroom three times when they looked
11:37
Speaker 3: in the box. So finally when they called for it
11:38
Speaker 3: to stand, my atturny asked her, do you see the
11:41
Speaker 3: person that you claim that you've seen coming out of
11:43
Speaker 3: the house. So she's looking around and still couldn't identify. She's, oh, yeah,
11:48
Speaker 3: that's him right there. I see him. My Atturny asks, well,
11:51
Speaker 3: is this the first time you seen him since that?
11:53
Speaker 3: She said yeah, She said, now you sure that's what
11:55
Speaker 3: you want? To continue with that statement, didn't we tell
11:58
Speaker 3: you not to come in here? And didn't you come
11:59
Speaker 3: in three times prior to you get on his stand?
12:03
Speaker 1: It seems like she was trying to figure out who
12:06
Speaker 1: to identify, since she didn't appear to be too familiar
12:09
Speaker 1: with what Eric actually looked like. Nevertheless, Eric Brown was
12:13
Speaker 1: taking a trial for second degree murder in April of
12:16
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six.
12:17
Speaker 3: Once Day syduced to charge the second degree murdered, it
12:20
Speaker 3: was easier for the prosecutor to convict me because now
12:23
Speaker 3: he don't have to present those of it. He could
12:25
Speaker 3: just present a theory. And whoever does the best magic
12:28
Speaker 3: trick in court is going to win. And you see
12:30
Speaker 3: who I got as attorney repositional, he's a bad magician.
12:33
Speaker 3: He's not going to perform well.
12:35
Speaker 1: But when the autopsy evidence was presented that Carmelo had
12:39
Speaker 1: in fact been shot in the back of the head
12:41
Speaker 1: at very close range, from two to five inches away,
12:44
Speaker 1: Eric's attorney did point out that Carmelo was laying on
12:49
Speaker 1: his side facing the wall near the opposite side of
12:53
Speaker 1: a king sized mattress from where the shooter must have
12:56
Speaker 1: been standing. While Eric, who stood five foot one one
13:00
Speaker 1: at the time, okay, he did not have the reach
13:03
Speaker 1: to get within too the five inches of Carmelo's head
13:06
Speaker 1: without leaning onto the mattress, potentially alerting Carmelo.
13:10
Speaker 3: So he was kind of making a valid point on that.
13:12
Speaker 3: But when he was saying that, the DA literally jumped
13:16
Speaker 3: on top of the desk in front of me. Put
13:18
Speaker 3: your finger in my head, mister Brown, put your finger
13:20
Speaker 3: to my head like trying to get me to show that, oh,
13:23
Speaker 3: I could reach this fall. But yet he wasn't in
13:26
Speaker 3: the actual range and the bed is a king sized bed.
13:29
Speaker 3: It wasn't making sense. And that was another thing that
13:32
Speaker 3: there was no powder burns on me on my clothing,
13:35
Speaker 3: the same clothing that Blinsa said she seen me in
13:37
Speaker 3: that day, with the same clothes that they arrested me in.
13:39
Speaker 1: Which brings us to our star witness, Valencia Peabody and
13:43
Speaker 1: another performance from the DA.
13:46
Speaker 3: He showed her photograph of father way then nearer and
13:50
Speaker 3: then closer, and every time he did this, he said,
13:53
Speaker 3: you identify this picture here, and she was like, yeah,
13:55
Speaker 3: that's him. I almost I don't see them more. So
13:57
Speaker 3: that was just cue. Then he showed another one, and
13:59
Speaker 3: then he showed another. She literally jumped up out the chair,
14:02
Speaker 3: not the chair, over in front the whole entire court
14:05
Speaker 3: room and ran out the courtroom hollering a scream and
14:08
Speaker 3: how to get out of here? My trial was who
14:10
Speaker 3: put on the best performance?
14:12
Speaker 1: And it didn't stop with to Lindsaya Peabody. They brought
14:15
Speaker 1: in an assault rifle that had been pulled from a
14:18
Speaker 1: lake that didn't appear to have any relevance or connection
14:21
Speaker 1: to this case at all.
14:22
Speaker 3: This particular assault rifle, it was so rusty they couldn't
14:25
Speaker 3: check the serial numbers and anything to see that. It
14:27
Speaker 3: was just even actually camellous because he owned all kind
14:31
Speaker 3: of guns. So when they found this particular weapon in
14:33
Speaker 3: the water, to us a story saad a mother and
14:37
Speaker 3: a child was walking to the child almost stepped on
14:40
Speaker 3: the gun. But they already concluded that it's not the
14:43
Speaker 3: word of weapons. So it's like, what is this weapon
14:45
Speaker 3: even being presented for? But just to inflame the jury.
14:49
Speaker 1: Yet not all the theatrics played out so well. Since
14:52
Speaker 1: William griff had appeared to have given his statement under duress.
14:55
Speaker 1: The only one they could put on the stand was
14:57
Speaker 1: the juvenile Charles Pitts.
14:59
Speaker 3: Charles Pitts, I told the people that he got the
15:01
Speaker 3: safe from me in nineteen ninety five. So that was
15:04
Speaker 3: impossible because I had been in court for Rader since
15:07
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four. And so then the DA realized, like,
15:09
Speaker 3: hold on, man, that's not looking good for his case.
15:12
Speaker 3: So the DA he got up and scared him and
15:16
Speaker 3: it was not at Ford did you say? Nine at
15:18
Speaker 3: fod Oh, I got it in ninety four. So he
15:22
Speaker 3: prompt him into saying he's seen the safe over in
15:24
Speaker 3: my police over the midy Times.
15:26
Speaker 1: But the safe was stolen on the exact same day
15:29
Speaker 1: that Eric was arrested.
15:31
Speaker 3: The same day, just a few hours later. Not only that,
15:35
Speaker 3: he said that I gave it to him so he
15:37
Speaker 3: could collect baseball cars. But my attorney didn't properly a
15:41
Speaker 3: fully cross examiner.
15:42
Speaker 1: Now, perhaps since Pitts and the DA had embarrassed themselves
15:46
Speaker 1: so effectively and thoroughly with this exchange, he felt like
15:50
Speaker 1: he didn't even have to, even though he probably should
15:53
Speaker 1: have pointed out the glaring inconsistency to the jury, let
15:56
Speaker 1: alone that Pitts's explanation didn't effectively deflect playing away from
16:00
Speaker 1: him and his brother, and then Eric's attorney once again
16:04
Speaker 1: failed to point out how Ruth mckinnis had changed her
16:07
Speaker 1: story from her original statement to say that she had
16:10
Speaker 1: seen you leaving the house. But what sticks out even
16:14
Speaker 1: more than the inconsistency's improvable falsehoods was that fabricated as
16:19
Speaker 1: it was, no one went so far as to definitively
16:22
Speaker 1: say that you were the assailant.
16:24
Speaker 3: Nobody that took the stand really gave any type of
16:28
Speaker 3: factual evidence to put me there at the time of
16:31
Speaker 3: the murder or to say that they seen me do
16:34
Speaker 3: the murder. And the DA told the jury, we don't
16:38
Speaker 3: have no other physical evidence against mister Brown. But y'all
16:41
Speaker 3: got to use common sense, Like I wish I could
16:45
Speaker 3: add some more stuff and highten it up and make
16:47
Speaker 3: it seem more But the reality of it is to
16:49
Speaker 3: show you how the lack of evidence they have, man,
16:52
Speaker 3: they could still throw you away for the rest of
16:54
Speaker 3: your life or something that they knew you didn't do.
16:57
Speaker 3: If I would have been in any other state in America,
16:59
Speaker 3: I never would have been convicted. It was two jurors
17:01
Speaker 3: that found me not guilty and no word of weapon,
17:03
Speaker 3: no eyewitnesses, no DNA, no fingerprints, and two juris found
17:07
Speaker 3: me not guilty to get out still sentence to life
17:10
Speaker 3: of our parole plus thirty years at sixteen years old.
17:23
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17:39
Speaker 3: Just getting on that bus, shackled up on that bus,
17:42
Speaker 3: it had to have those hot jumpsuits on in the
17:44
Speaker 3: middle of summer like that. It was so hot, man,
17:46
Speaker 3: it was packed in like sardines on their bus because
17:49
Speaker 3: everybody that shallowed up is money for them. They had
17:53
Speaker 3: us working in the field in over one hundred plus
17:55
Speaker 3: degree heat, whether the horses was falling out or the
17:59
Speaker 3: horses are shaking. Gun gard because you had gun guards
18:01
Speaker 3: where they had to sit on the horse back with
18:03
Speaker 3: guns and they called it the gun line. If you
18:05
Speaker 3: go outside their gun line, they'll shoot you. And now
18:08
Speaker 3: the only you think of a complete year prior to
18:10
Speaker 3: me going to Angola, they shot and killed my brother
18:13
Speaker 3: in front of Angola, shot him in the bat. We'll
18:17
Speaker 3: never really know the full truth of what happened. They
18:21
Speaker 3: say he tried to escape. So there was a saying
18:24
Speaker 3: throughout the institution, if you're black, you don't come back.
18:26
Speaker 3: So if a white guy escapes, they bring him back.
18:29
Speaker 3: If a black guy escapes, they kill him. Immediately when
18:33
Speaker 3: I got there, people started like hearing my name. It
18:36
Speaker 3: was like, hold up, man, that was your brothers that
18:38
Speaker 3: they killed. Man, And so a lot of people was
18:41
Speaker 3: messed up about that. That was inside, even some of
18:43
Speaker 3: the guards. You gotta remember a golda with me. When
18:47
Speaker 3: I got there. It was considered by National headline news
18:50
Speaker 3: the blood is prison in America at that time. So
18:53
Speaker 3: you couldn't just go there and just be happy, go lucky,
18:56
Speaker 3: he or you couldn't just go there and just be
18:57
Speaker 3: a key. I had to grow up fast. So I
18:59
Speaker 3: had to conduct myself in a certain manner to earn
19:03
Speaker 3: my respect in that place. And so by doing that,
19:06
Speaker 3: some people they observed me, and they've seen that, and
19:09
Speaker 3: they gravitated toward like, man, if I can help you,
19:11
Speaker 3: look man, he bro no, this is information or this
19:13
Speaker 3: is how you get to the law libarial And so
19:15
Speaker 3: from day one, I just started reading just reading law.
19:18
Speaker 3: Just reading it might sound corny in it, but studying
19:22
Speaker 3: law and educate myself is what kept me sane throughout
19:25
Speaker 3: them whole nine and twenty five days.
19:29
Speaker 1: After relying on state appoint to the Pellet Council, his
19:32
Speaker 1: initial appeals were denied, and now he began to apply
19:35
Speaker 1: what he'd been learning in the law library, leading to
19:38
Speaker 1: the discovery of a great deal of the state's witnesses
19:41
Speaker 1: provably inconsistent statements.
19:43
Speaker 3: I found out that the prosecutor allowed witnesses to take
19:47
Speaker 3: the stand and say something other than what they said
19:50
Speaker 3: in their original statements. And if I would have had
19:52
Speaker 3: that information, I would have been able to properly cross
19:55
Speaker 3: examine them and show the jury that they lied. What
19:58
Speaker 3: they're saying shouldn't be taken at. Some of it I
20:01
Speaker 3: tried to present on my own because I had no help,
20:03
Speaker 3: no attorneys, so I had to present it on my own,
20:05
Speaker 3: and they refused me a right to a hearing.
20:08
Speaker 1: Eric was relentless in his pursuit of freedom, but he
20:11
Speaker 1: was thwarted by procedural issues and time bars, which kept
20:14
Speaker 1: the full weight of his innocence claim from ever being heard.
20:17
Speaker 3: Were talking twenty five years of filing and everything wasn't
20:21
Speaker 3: discovered at one time because I didn't have money for
20:23
Speaker 3: investigators all the time. So I used to do some time.
20:26
Speaker 3: I used to do free work for attorneys and they'll
20:28
Speaker 3: lend me some help with an investigator, things that nature
20:30
Speaker 3: to give me able to look. I'll get my investigator
20:33
Speaker 3: or help you out for a few hours or something
20:35
Speaker 3: like that, right for free, and I'll prepare a brief
20:38
Speaker 3: or do some research for one of the attorneys and
20:40
Speaker 3: things that I nature. So one hand washed the other.
20:42
Speaker 3: So they'll help me out like that, And that's what
20:45
Speaker 3: really started getting me attention. That's what really started getting
20:48
Speaker 3: a lot of support when people saw how dedicated I
20:51
Speaker 3: was to my case. They saw how motivated and driven
20:53
Speaker 3: I was to help other prisoners. Once I learned something
20:56
Speaker 3: about the law, even if this information can't help me
20:59
Speaker 3: per se, I wanted to at least try to help
21:02
Speaker 3: somebody else that I feel is wrongfully convicted, because you
21:06
Speaker 3: meet a lot of people, man, and I'm working in
21:08
Speaker 3: the law library at this time, and I'm seeing a
21:10
Speaker 3: lot of cases that you could clearly see that, man,
21:13
Speaker 3: this guy didn't do this.
21:15
Speaker 1: Eric's involvement in the law library also helped him build community.
21:19
Speaker 3: There was a few guys in there that was juveniles
21:22
Speaker 3: as well, so we decided to come together and start
21:25
Speaker 3: a club called the Youth Development Program to start helping
21:29
Speaker 3: the juveniles who were wrongfully incarcerated or if there was
21:32
Speaker 3: properly incarcerated still to try to help us educate ourselves
21:36
Speaker 3: and just become better people. From there, I got involved
21:39
Speaker 3: with the Life's Association. From there, I got involved with
21:42
Speaker 3: the Angola Special Civics Project. From there, I got involved
21:45
Speaker 3: with Toast Masters public Speaking that became the president of
21:49
Speaker 3: toast Masters, became the Secretary of Life this organization. I
21:52
Speaker 3: got involved with the CPR team teaching life saving skills
21:55
Speaker 3: to the prison population. So with doing that, they had
21:59
Speaker 3: other organizations. We used to have what you call functions.
22:01
Speaker 3: A bank was where we were allowed to invite people
22:04
Speaker 3: from society to come in to these functions and share
22:07
Speaker 3: with information that we were trying to share with them.
22:09
Speaker 1: It was Eric's community with other juveniles, his knowledge of
22:13
Speaker 1: the law and their cases, as well as this connection
22:15
Speaker 1: to like minded folks on the outside that eventually brought
22:18
Speaker 1: him into contact with none other than Brian Stevenson. And
22:22
Speaker 1: if you're not aware. Brian and other attorneys across the
22:25
Speaker 1: country sought out cases in which children have been tried
22:28
Speaker 1: and sentenced as adults. We brought that all the way
22:31
Speaker 1: to the US Supreme Court with the aim of proving
22:35
Speaker 1: that the sentences constituted a violation of our Eighth Amendment
22:38
Speaker 1: protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The first of what
22:42
Speaker 1: ended up being landmarks Godis decisions was Roper versus Simmons
22:48
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, in which the death penalty
22:50
Speaker 1: for juveniles was found to be unconstitutional. But the quest
22:54
Speaker 1: to attack juvenile over sentencing didn't stop there. They just
22:57
Speaker 1: had to find the right cases first.
23:00
Speaker 3: So Brian Stevens said, I want to talk to you
23:02
Speaker 3: guys about the strategy that I have with this and
23:07
Speaker 3: what we need to do. So I figured out how
23:09
Speaker 3: to get him inside the institution. I figured out to
23:11
Speaker 3: get everybody that was under the age of eighteen, and
23:14
Speaker 3: there was hundreds of us inside the institution. I got
23:17
Speaker 3: all them into the visitor shared area, which we call
23:19
Speaker 3: the A building and the GOOLDA. I got hundreds of
23:21
Speaker 3: those guys in there. I got all their names when
23:24
Speaker 3: they able to cast the rate, how old they were
23:26
Speaker 3: what they charges were. I got all of them in
23:28
Speaker 3: there so Brian Stevens could come and speak with us
23:31
Speaker 3: and disseminate his strategy to us. And he told us
23:34
Speaker 3: he have to separate it. If we try to present
23:36
Speaker 3: it as a whole, you're going to lose. So he
23:39
Speaker 3: figured out the way. He said he's going to push
23:40
Speaker 3: for peagibility for juveniles who didn't commit a homicide. For
23:43
Speaker 3: non homicide juveniles. It was the Gram case.
23:46
Speaker 1: So he prevailed on Graham versus Florida in twenty ten,
23:50
Speaker 1: juveniles could not receive life without parole in non homicide cases.
23:54
Speaker 1: Then in twenty twelve, Supreme Court the United States ruled
23:57
Speaker 1: in Miller versus Alabama the same for homa site cases
24:00
Speaker 1: as well. Brian Stevenson and was able to chip away
24:04
Speaker 1: at a great deal of conviction, setting so many like
24:07
Speaker 1: Eric on a path to re sentencing from a living
24:09
Speaker 1: death sentence imposed on them when they were just children.
24:13
Speaker 1: And it was all predicated on an argument that you've
24:16
Speaker 1: heard me repeatedly make on this show.
24:20
Speaker 3: I think it was the Roper case. We were saying
24:21
Speaker 3: about the pre frontel cortex or the front a little
24:24
Speaker 3: bit of brain is not fully developed. Until the age
24:26
Speaker 3: of twenty five, and therefore a child is more prone
24:30
Speaker 3: to act out instead of thinking before they act. So
24:33
Speaker 3: with that said, when they said that they couldn't kill
24:36
Speaker 3: someone who's mentally disable because of that reason, then the
24:39
Speaker 3: same reason must apply that you can't give them a
24:41
Speaker 3: virtual death sentence by giving them life. For the oparole,
24:44
Speaker 3: children will grow and develop and change. It won't be
24:46
Speaker 3: the same as chiev as child will meet you or not.
24:48
Speaker 3: Are not the same achieving child that we were coming
24:51
Speaker 3: up and growing up because we've we've grown now. And
24:54
Speaker 3: so mister Brian Stevenson prevailed and so I was just
24:57
Speaker 3: blessed and thankful to have that opportunity to get him
24:59
Speaker 3: inside the institution. And he told me this, he said,
25:03
Speaker 3: I've been to many institutions throughout this country. He said,
25:08
Speaker 3: you have this facility here, the best organized out of
25:11
Speaker 3: all of them that I've been going. And I really
25:13
Speaker 3: appreciate your help. I said, man, it's an honor to
25:15
Speaker 3: be able to do that for somebody like that. And
25:17
Speaker 3: then he went on to win these cases for us,
25:20
Speaker 3: and that helped open the door to get me home today.
25:22
Speaker 3: So much love and respect for mister Brian Stevens, you
25:40
Speaker 3: finally got this opportunity man to have some type of
25:43
Speaker 3: relief from this life, since that's when they had this
25:46
Speaker 3: thing about parole as ability and things of that nature day
25:49
Speaker 3: and people saw dollar signs. And now we're trying to
25:52
Speaker 3: say that the Miller verse Alabama's not retroactive. So we're
25:55
Speaker 3: about to get into another argument in a fight about
25:58
Speaker 3: something that we already wanted. So that go back up
26:00
Speaker 3: there and prove to them that Mill was ritually active
26:04
Speaker 3: and show you how shist didy are because Toka was
26:08
Speaker 3: up there first. Toka was actually innocent. The state didn't
26:12
Speaker 3: want the US Supreme Court to be ruling on the
26:14
Speaker 3: case that put the rail road and took the life
26:16
Speaker 3: of a fifteen sixteen year old child and rail roaded
26:19
Speaker 3: into prison. That would looked bad on them.
26:21
Speaker 1: Eric is referring to George Toka, whose case we've covered
26:24
Speaker 1: here and we're gonna link to it in the episode
26:26
Speaker 1: description check it out. But the US Supreme Court had
26:29
Speaker 1: actually chosen Eric's friends, George George Toka his case for Sergeierrari,
26:34
Speaker 1: but to keep this extremely sympathetic case out of the
26:38
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, the da Leon Conezzaro offered George a plea
26:43
Speaker 1: deal which amounted to being released that day, and George
26:46
Speaker 1: reluctantly accepted freedom over the justice he richly deserved.
26:50
Speaker 3: So they took the Montgomery case, a guy who was
26:53
Speaker 3: convicted of killing a cop. So they wanted the worst
26:55
Speaker 3: case scenario to go up there and for the us
26:58
Speaker 3: of priso, So they were just doing that's so dirty, man.
27:01
Speaker 1: Even with taking the Montgomery case to the Supreme Court,
27:04
Speaker 1: Skotis still ruled that. And I'm paraphrasing here, Yes, U assholes,
27:09
Speaker 1: it is retroactive. I guess you're just gonna have to
27:12
Speaker 1: re sentence and release a sizable chunk of your free labor.
27:15
Speaker 1: For so Louisiana was forced to make a path to
27:19
Speaker 1: freedom for Eric and so many others to be re
27:22
Speaker 1: sentenced and come home.
27:23
Speaker 3: In another case, State versus Sugaski, it stated that the
27:27
Speaker 3: law in effick of the time of the crime and
27:28
Speaker 3: Louisiana always prevailed. That's been a president for one hundred
27:32
Speaker 3: years in Louisiana. However, when I was arrested, there was
27:34
Speaker 3: no such thing as preregibility on life sentences, So you
27:37
Speaker 3: can't give me parole eligibility on a life since what
27:40
Speaker 3: you're supposed to do is amend your charge and it
27:42
Speaker 3: resentence you under the next lesson responsibility, which is in
27:45
Speaker 3: my case, would have been manslaughter, which they knew that
27:48
Speaker 3: I was completed the maximum sentence on it, so I
27:50
Speaker 3: would have been released with no parole anything. That's not
27:53
Speaker 3: what they wanted. They wanted to have some type of
27:55
Speaker 3: rope around my neck. It was a strategy all alone.
27:57
Speaker 3: Plus they get paid off parole fees, etc. Etc. So
28:01
Speaker 3: they compelled everybody to go up under this new law
28:05
Speaker 3: with the pegibility. So they make the laws and did
28:08
Speaker 3: he break their own laws at the same time.
28:10
Speaker 1: Fuckery aside. Now, Eric finally faced the parole board as
28:14
Speaker 1: an innocent man who should have never been asked about
28:17
Speaker 1: guilt or innocence. Instead, they were supposed to focus on
28:20
Speaker 1: all of his many accomplishments on the inside, which was
28:23
Speaker 1: respected by all but one parole board member.
28:26
Speaker 3: So he said, well, I want to know why he
28:28
Speaker 3: did it. So my lawyer objected, she got involved. So
28:32
Speaker 3: this is what he said. You're right, this is the law.
28:34
Speaker 3: He don't have to answer that on this board, he said,
28:36
Speaker 3: But if he don't, he might not like my route.
28:38
Speaker 3: So he threatened me a little bit, and me being
28:41
Speaker 3: who I am, It's like, man, I already knew I'm
28:43
Speaker 3: not about to admit to somebody didn't do so I
28:45
Speaker 3: just politely scooted my chair and I looked him in
28:48
Speaker 3: his eyes and I said, Sir, I didn't commit this crime.
28:51
Speaker 3: And I told him just like that, I didn't do
28:52
Speaker 3: this crime. If you look at the evidence, it's going
28:55
Speaker 3: to show you that I didn't commit this crime. I said. However,
28:58
Speaker 3: that does not mean that I don't sympathize with the
29:02
Speaker 3: victim family, because members of my family too have been
29:05
Speaker 3: victimized by since the violence. My hog goes out to them,
29:08
Speaker 3: but no, I didn't care. They loved one.
29:11
Speaker 1: Eric was finally released on August twenty six, twenty nineteen,
29:15
Speaker 1: exactly twenty five years from his arrest nine thousand, one
29:20
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five days.
29:22
Speaker 3: Once they granted me the parole, my family had been
29:25
Speaker 3: out here in Texas since Hurricane Katrina, and so they
29:28
Speaker 3: were like, hey, man, come stay out here. And I
29:30
Speaker 3: get to hug my eighty four year old mother without
29:32
Speaker 3: being in no change between those balls, and I get
29:35
Speaker 3: to take her out to dinner and we get our
29:37
Speaker 3: favorite meals, our New Orleans style seafood, gumboll pool boys
29:41
Speaker 3: and shrimp stuff like that, man, And to see the
29:43
Speaker 3: smile on that lady face, to see her baby boy
29:47
Speaker 3: made it home alive and free. That's the best thing
29:50
Speaker 3: I could ask for. My father was there for me
29:52
Speaker 3: until he passed away, but he never would come visit
29:55
Speaker 3: me because he said he never want to see his
29:57
Speaker 3: child locked up like a animal. But he excepted my
29:59
Speaker 3: phone calls and put money on my books, you know,
30:01
Speaker 3: helped me out any way that I can. But I
30:04
Speaker 3: was a child when I went in that place, and
30:06
Speaker 3: so for him not to see the man that I've
30:08
Speaker 3: become the day because of his teachings and his principles
30:10
Speaker 3: and morals, that's kind of like a hurt and feeling.
30:13
Speaker 3: But I do appreciate the fact that I do have
30:16
Speaker 3: a mother that's still alive and she sees what I'm
30:19
Speaker 3: doing today, you know, because I have so many friends
30:21
Speaker 3: their mothers passed away that they they're not able to
30:24
Speaker 3: do what I'm able to do today. And so man,
30:26
Speaker 3: I just cherish every moment of it, and they live
30:28
Speaker 3: vicariously through me by seeing me do that.
30:31
Speaker 1: A lot of the guys that Eric is talking about
30:32
Speaker 1: are men who we profiled here, Vincent Simmons, Sullivan, Walter,
30:37
Speaker 1: George Toka, and many of these guys we saw at
30:40
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty three Innostance Network conference in Arizona, where
30:44
Speaker 1: we met Eric in person for the very first time.
30:47
Speaker 3: Last time I seeing those guys. We all were incarcerated,
30:50
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how we was going to prove
30:52
Speaker 3: our innocence and get out of that place, right and
30:54
Speaker 3: then here it is man. The Innocence Conference was held
30:56
Speaker 3: in Phoenix, and Jason we were like, hey, Man, come
30:59
Speaker 3: on out, I said, man, And that was my first
31:01
Speaker 3: time reuniting with those guys in the outside world. Man.
31:05
Speaker 3: That was a self speechless.
31:07
Speaker 1: But release on parole is not going to be the
31:10
Speaker 1: end of Eric story.
31:12
Speaker 3: As of right now, have an attorney. You're still pushing
31:15
Speaker 3: about the ten to two issue with the fifteen hundred
31:17
Speaker 3: of us that was wrong full incarcerated, with the nine
31:19
Speaker 3: anima uri verdicts. We're still fighting for the retroactivity of debt.
31:23
Speaker 3: So now we're trying to use that evidence that I
31:26
Speaker 3: discovered that was Brady material about the prosecutor allowed witnesses
31:31
Speaker 3: to say something other than what they said in their
31:34
Speaker 3: original statements, and it's compounded with the fact that two
31:37
Speaker 3: Jewis found me not guilty. And so that's what we're
31:40
Speaker 3: pushing for right now, hoping that soon down the line
31:42
Speaker 3: that we'll get some justice, which you'll afford me an
31:44
Speaker 3: opportunity to go back to try and fully get exonerated.
31:48
Speaker 1: Amen to that. And in the meantime, I understand you've
31:50
Speaker 1: got a bunch of creative projects in the works.
31:53
Speaker 3: Well, right now, I'm trying to get this documentary off
31:55
Speaker 3: the ground, man, twenty five days. I've been looking for
31:58
Speaker 3: more support on that for some editors. I wrote a
32:00
Speaker 3: book called Crimes for Dummies, The Embarrassing Side of Crime
32:04
Speaker 3: and Punishment. That book is completed. I also have a
32:06
Speaker 3: curriculum called Crimes for Dummies, The Embarrassing Side of Crime
32:09
Speaker 3: and Punishment for young dummies all the way up to
32:11
Speaker 3: old Foods to learn from this book. And then I
32:13
Speaker 3: have my memoirs and my autobiography that I'm about to
32:16
Speaker 3: get done. So if anybody wants to help me with that, man,
32:19
Speaker 3: I'm open to that too.
32:20
Speaker 1: Man.
32:20
Speaker 3: I appreciate any support I can get with that.
32:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we're going to link to Eric's instagram in
32:24
Speaker 1: the episode of description as well, so people can reach
32:27
Speaker 1: out to him or just follow for updates on the many,
32:29
Speaker 1: many different irons he's got in the fire. And with
32:33
Speaker 1: that we go to closing arguments, where I'm just going
32:37
Speaker 1: to turn my microphone off and kick back in my
32:39
Speaker 1: chair with my headphones on and listen, there's anything else
32:42
Speaker 1: you want to share it with me and our wonderful audience.
32:46
Speaker 3: The last thing I really want to say is that
32:48
Speaker 3: I understand the need and the purpose for prisons and
32:50
Speaker 3: things of the nature that for law and order. I
32:52
Speaker 3: have an aid for you, mother. I wouldnt want nobody
32:54
Speaker 3: to buy lead up, so I understand that completely. But
32:58
Speaker 3: room for convictions is a is a disease. It's only
33:02
Speaker 3: because of people like you, Jason, the Innocent's Project that
33:05
Speaker 3: is starting to get more and more exposure that it
33:07
Speaker 3: really deserves to let people know that this could happen
33:10
Speaker 3: to you as well. Don't think that or it never
33:12
Speaker 3: happened to you. No, it can't happen to you, white
33:15
Speaker 3: or black. And in conclusion, I just want to say this,
33:17
Speaker 3: the experience of imprisonment would undo a lifetime of learning.
33:21
Speaker 3: Human values can be suspended, human concepts will be challenged
33:26
Speaker 3: in the most ugliest of basic pathological side of human
33:29
Speaker 3: nature can surface. So I just want to say to
33:33
Speaker 3: the guys, my comrades who've been exonerated, man, don't allow
33:37
Speaker 3: what happened to us in our past to bring to
33:39
Speaker 3: the worst out of us. User to bring the best
33:41
Speaker 3: out of us and show society that he Man. We
33:44
Speaker 3: was in that place, but we wasn't of that place.
33:46
Speaker 3: We could come out here and we could function that
33:48
Speaker 3: we could be assets in our liability to society.
33:57
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
33:59
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
34:02
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
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Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank
34:08
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well
34:11
Speaker 1: as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and
34:15
Speaker 1: Jeff Cleiburn. The music in this production was supplied by
34:17
Speaker 1: three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to
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