Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / 549: #549 Lauren Bright Pacheco with James Soto

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549: #549 Lauren Bright Pacheco with James Soto · Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

• 00:00:04 Speaker 1: Hey, it's Lauren brad Pacheco, and I am so excited to be back in the host chair for Wrongful Conviction. The new season drops November thirteenth with brand new episodes and more unbelievable stories of people who refuse to let injustice to find them. But while we gear up for launch, I want to take you back to one of my all time favorite conversations from last season. It's with the incredibly inspiring and absolutely unstoppable Jimmy Soto. Jemmy spent forty two years behind bars, making his case the longest wrongful conviction in Illinois history. You'll also hear from his close friend, fellow ex honoree and former cellmate Robert Almodovar. Together, these two are absolutely unforgettable. I mean, dynamic duo doesn't even begin to cover it. I hope you'll enjoy spending time with them as much as I did, and I'll be back in two weeks with more unforgettable profiles of people who turned in justice into strength and hope into freedom. Tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the US have been wrongfully convicted and are being held in captivity for crimes even as they adamantly maintain their innocence. What's it like to be one of those imprisoned people, and what's it like to be their ally, the one outside committed to fighting for their freedom. I'm Lauren Bride Pacheco, and this is wrongful conviction. When he was just twenty years old, an act of violence would change James Soto's life forever and the trajectory for the next four decades. At about nine pm on August sixteenth, nineteen eighty one, shots rang out in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, killing two people and injuring a third. Although eyewitnesses initially pointed to other suspects, police ultimately arrested a few members of the two sixth Street gang, which controlled the territory, including James Soto. Despite no physical evidence tying him to the crime and plenty of defense witnesses, James was convicted of the shooting and sentenced to life without parole. Soto and his cousin David Ayala, would spend forty two years in prison, the longest served wrongful conviction sentences in Illinois history, until they were exonerated in December of twenty twenty three. James Soto is joining me today with a man who's been a tremendous support to him and shares much in common with James as well. In addition to also having been rightfully convicted and exonerated, Robert Almodovar is not only a close friend to James, but the two men were actually cellmates while in prison. Both now share the same passion for raising awareness for criminal justice reform. We have so much to cover. Thank you both for joining me, Jimmy and Robert, well. 00:03:21 Speaker 2: Thank you for hosting us and having us here. 00:03:24 Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you. 00:03:25 Speaker 1: So Just Jimmy to go back to the very beginning. You know you're now in your sixties, but take me back to the young man you were before all this happened in nineteen eighty one. Where did you grow up and what was your upbringing? 00:03:39 Speaker 3: Like? 00:03:41 Speaker 2: All right, Well, I grew up in the Pullman area, which is on the far south side of Chicago on ninety eighth in Avalon. I've learned later in life that the neighborhoods that we grew up in in our formative years really make us who we are. So I will always be a Southsider from Chicago and the people as youicgo because we're so segregated. We're very proud from whatever section of the city that we come from. But yeah, I grew up there. I had a fondness for sports. Baseball was my number one thing. I was on the Avalon Cubs, which at a young age made me a Cup fan, and I am a Cup fan for life, and I was so glad when they won the World Series. Fortunately I was locked up when that happened, but I'll take it. So the summer of my fourteenth birthday, we moved to the Brighton Park area, which is on the southwest side of Chicago, and I stayed there for most of high school. Then in nineteen eighty one, my uncle was murdered by gun violence in the Little Village area, and that was my cousin and co defendant, David Yalla's father, I'll Fonso, and they had her house in Westchester anyway, in the western suburbs, and I wound up going to live with David shortly thereafter. It was a very nice urban home, had a built in swimming pool, It had a mini gym, a greenhouse, five bedrooms, two and a half bats basement, fully furnished so you can imagine David was eighteen and I was twenty. I wouldn't say young men. We were more like late adolescents, teenagers more so. Living in a nice house. And yeah, I mean Dave had some money that his father left them. There was a life insurance policy, so he didn't have to work at the time. I was working at United Parcel Service as a sorterer. But to say that we weren't enjoying ourselves living pretty lavishly would be an understatement. So having all that naturally made the Chicago Police Department CPD seeing us driving luxury, fancy cars, Lincoln Cadillacs, those are the cars of that time period, you. 00:05:55 Speaker 1: Know, Oh, that's it. So they made the assumption that they knew how you were bankrolling all that. 00:06:02 Speaker 2: Yeah, the assumption was that it was coming from, you know, illicit drug sales, but that was not the truth. The truth was it was just some things that were left over to David and I'm working. I actually was paying car notes, so my car was being financed. So had they dug a little deeper, they would have realized my car particular was not paid off. 00:06:22 Speaker 1: Coming from the neighborhoods that you did was gang activity very much on your radar on a daily basis throughout high school. 00:06:31 Speaker 2: No, absolutely not, it was not. It wasn't really until nineteen seventy nine when David's brother Alfonso the third gets killed by gun violence. It was very hard for me because it was my brother, David's oldest brother Tyrone. Then it's me and then Alfonso and then David, and we're all one year apart. So I would spend a lot of summers at David's house when they were living in little village. And so that's how I wound up getting involved in any gang was because my cousin had been killed. You know, I took it pretty hard, and as a young he was seventeen, so I would have been eighteen. As a young eighteen year old to have to deal with that, you know, there was no one that gave me any therapy for the trauma I was dealing with, and the loss of I consider more like a brother than a cousin, and so to know that he was killed in that way, I misguidingly wanted to be part of the same thing that he was involved in, to seek some type of revenge. But it wasn't like I was out looking for revenge it was just a way in his honor that I thought, I need to be a part of this, I need to do something. Yeah. 00:07:49 Speaker 1: And there's also a huge social component of that too. Of course, it's belonging in friendship and camaraderie. 00:07:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, but I would not defined myself as a hardcore game member. I was what people would label as a marginal gang member. I was on the fringes. I was not someone because I'm working, I don't have no time to go hang out and do whatever. 00:08:14 Speaker 1: So had you ever been on law enforcement radar before the incident in the time leading up to it, had you ever had trouble with the law? 00:08:25 Speaker 2: No? Well, yeah, I was arrested one time for what's called a uu W unlawful use of a weapon. Some detectives that pulled me over and found a gun, unregistered gun in my car and charged me. But when it came down to the problem cause of why they stopped me, it was simply because I was in a Lincoln Continental and I was just I guess you would say, profiled. And my lawyer was able to get the case thrown out pretty easily because of the illegal stop, and the judge threw it out so that was on my criminal record. I had no other runs with law enforcement. When there would be various shootings. Once they knew I was part of a game, I was taken in several times and questioned about it. I just, you know, said I want a lawyer, and they pretty much left me alone. 00:09:16 Speaker 1: And at the time, so you're employed for two years at that point with you said, ups, what were your thoughts or plans for the future. 00:09:24 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I had a girlfriend at the time. I just learned, maybe two weeks before I was arrested on this case, that she was pregnant. So in my mind, I'm like, okay, she's going to have a baby. When I learned she was pregnant, my thought was, I'm going to settle down. I'm going to have to get my own place and start a little family. 00:09:45 Speaker 1: So take me to the night of the incident. So it was August sixteenth, nineteen eighty one, around nine pm on the southwest side of Chicago. Where were you at the time. 00:10:01 Speaker 2: I was in Westchester. It was me, my cousin David, his girlfriend, my girlfriend, and my oldest sister with two of her kids were at the house, and my sister had prepared a meal for us, and I remember that I just got my two plates and I went up to my bedroom with my girlfriend and we were watching some movies on the VCR, so long ago. Those things are now no longer in existence. And yeah, she left later in the evening, at around ten o'clock. So they had the story on the ten o'clock news about, you know, two people being shot killed and one third one being injured at an incident in Petrowski or a Keiler park. 00:10:46 Speaker 1: So, for somebody who's not familiar with the geography, how far were you physically away from where the shooting occurred. 00:10:55 Speaker 2: I would say that was a distance of about thirty miles at least. 00:11:00 Speaker 1: Thirty miles away. And unfortunately, yes, three people were shot to fatally wounded, a sixteen year old Julie Limas who was aspiring to be a police officer, and an eighteen year old Hector Valeriano, who was on leave from the US Marine Corps at the time. So it's a tragic incident, but you're thirty miles away from it at the time. 00:11:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, my thought was, you know, that's a terrible thing that happened in the neighborhood of the gang or organization that we were part of, but I didn't give it a second thought to think who might have had any involvement in it. I figured, oh, they're going to get somebody for this, But little did I know they would eventually try to point the finger at me. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: So yeah, the investigation ends up focusing on gang rivalries, and even though eyewitness accounts identified entirely different people, the investigation then starts focusing on the two six gang that you're affiliated with, but just on the fringe. When did you find out that you were on the investigators radar? 00:12:14 Speaker 2: To my knowledge, my name doesn't really come up until the month of October. I believe that's when they finally start saying, well, okay, because they thought they was involved. They said, okay, well this other guy has to be involved as well. But it was never really founded on, like you said, on any eyewitness identifying me. It was just they now said, okay, if David's involved, this other guy got to be involved as well. 00:12:40 Speaker 1: So they just bundled you with your cousin and neither of you were there, correct, So how were you arrested? How did that go down? Where were you? Who were you with? 00:12:51 Speaker 2: So I got arrested on October fifteenth, Once again, I was in Westchester with my girlfriend, and ironically my sister was there as well, the oldest, so that would be later be my alibi. She was there. She made another homemade meal, I remember it. It was spaghetti with homemade meatballs and Italian sausage and a garlic bread. And I was just beginning my plate to take it upstairs with me and my girl to share, when we hear the knock on the door, boom boom, and then there's a pounding on the back door, boom boom. I'm like, what's going on? So we look out the window and we see all these lights and policemen running up to the thing. We open the door and they come in and cuple us up. They just said they had a warrant. They didn't say it was an unrest warrant. They didn't say whether it was a search warrant. Yeah, So they went about the house searching it, obviously not coming up with anything, and they took us into custody. And when I get to the police station is when I first learned that. They tell me you're under arrest for two murders and a tent murder and this is a capital of fence and you better say something now if you want to save yourself. 00:14:00 Speaker 1: Well, Jimmy, what was going through your mind? You must have thought, all right, stupid mistake. It's going to be corrected. 00:14:08 Speaker 2: That's exactly what's going through my mind. I'm like, this can't be right, you know. Fortunately, there was an attorney that was at the police station who would later become my trial attorney. And he came and spoke with me and said, they said they have witnesses, and he said, I don't have any of the paperwork. He asked me, point blank, did you have anything to do with it? Of course I told him no, And he's like, well, don't worry about it. If you didn't have nothing to do with it, it'll work out. Just don't say anything. And that was it. So in my mind, I'm thinking, Okay, it's a mistake, and you know, they could be cleared up fairly soon and I'll be out. But that wasn't the case. 00:14:44 Speaker 1: From that moment on. You're held until your trial. 00:14:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. I was held with no bond in the Cook County jail. I was there for probably a year before I went to trial. I went to September of nineteen eighty two to trial, but leading up to it, I would eventually find out some pieces of like that they only had one witness who would be best termed an accomplished witness. He was a young teenager as well, and he made a statement that David and I were supposedly conspiring prior to the shooting with a group of other individuals to attack a rival group. That David gets a phone call and David then provides the key to a custom blue van and gives us weapons, and we go out to the park and me and another co defendant supposedly walk down the gangway and shoot at the people. And you know there was three victims as a result. 00:15:41 Speaker 1: But that seems like a very convenient theory. 00:15:45 Speaker 2: Well it was for them. Yeah, I didn't know that they had rounded up again to the Colaster trial, that they rounded up twenty five people with the West warrants, and that out of the twenty five, at least maybe ten or maybe twelve of them made statements which collaborated in some sense what this individual was saying. But you have to bear in mind that there was probably only out of the twenty five people, maybe five were over the age of seventeen. Everybody else was fifteen and sixteen year olds, and I was really mad that, you know, these individuals who were supposed to be part of a group that I was involved in, would break down and make this false narrative. And so my reaction was as a young man that these guys are punks, they're chumps, they're snitches. But as I became more mature and I was doing my studies, I realized that they were just as much victims and or even more so than anyone else other than those that lost their lives and the other that got shot. Because they were held for three days. Imagine you a fifteen year old held three days in custody. Some of them urinated on themselves, being choked, getting nothing to eat, denied water, I mean, the sleep deprivation. I had to look at it. Putting myself in their shoes, I probably would have broke down and said anything they wanted me to say at that point. So, you know, the police officers, law enforcement have techniques that they could make a grown man who was innocent telling themselves, so, let alone a juveniles. So that started to make sense to me as in the following years after my conviction. What really was going on? 00:17:23 Speaker 1: I'm trying just to get my mindset wrapped around. You're living your life, have a steady job, have a steady girlfriend, have a baby on the way. You're twenty years old, and your life is just interrupted, taken away from you. What was that year like for you being held in the Cook County jail. 00:17:50 Speaker 2: I mean, it was probably one of the worst and hardest years of my life because my girlfriend would eventually lose the baby. She had a miscare. It was due to squarely to stress. She wasn't eating right because she's worried about me. I'm locked up. My car gets repossessed. You know, expensive rims on my car. I had a nice sound system. When they repossess it, it's not like they're going to give it back. They take all that with it. So I lost that. I was upset with that. 00:18:17 Speaker 1: But are you in contact at all with your cousin David at this point? Is he being held at the same facility. 00:18:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with him for the most part. For I would say at least half of that time, or maybe seven months we were held together. There was periods where we would be split up. You know, That's how the jail is oftentimes you're moving to another section of the jail and they don't really give you any reasons why. It's just it's disruptive. The jail is not nice, it's super violent, and you're going to get in fights. It's just part of what's going on there. And we're packed in there. There was overcrowding problem. It was people sleeping on the floor in the dayroom. So you got this group of people and you don't have so much time. It was always fights over the phone if nothing else. So yeah, Dad, in TV, what show you're gonna watch, what channel you're gonna watch on TV? I would always wind up be in a fight. 00:19:10 Speaker 1: So in terms of you and David, your mindset heading into that trial, how would you categorize the trial in general? And were you at all confident? 00:19:22 Speaker 2: I didn't. I don't know much about the law of the legal system. It's process, and so my attorney puts on an alibi defense, and I told you, the only evidence that really comes up that indicates either David or I is this so called accomplished witness, and he had implicated two people in this conspiracy as being part of this meeting that led up to the shooting. One was in the hospital in a coma told state after being hit by a car. So he's in Mother Cabreinging hospital on the West Side in a coma. Mind you, this guy testifies before the grand jury that he's evolved with the case. The second individual was in juvenile custody and he had to plcase him as well. So this individual locked up ten days before this crimer, maybe even longer. And I'm thinking, Okay, we're showing that he clearly lied before the grand jury. And here's another fact. The accomplished witness says that David owned a Blue Custom van. No Blue Custom band was ever recovered. They never showed David owned one. Now one person says he owns this band, that he ever had a van, There's no weapons ever recovered. And then they said there's a phone call that happens from Home Run and Pizza to David's house in Westchester slightly probably a half hour before the shooting happens, supposedly from two young women who say that they alert David that there's a rival group in there. Well day subpoena the Illinois Bell telephone records, which showed no phone call was made from home run in that entire night. Today its house. So again these things I'm hearing during trial, and I'm thinking, oh, well, there's no way they're going to find me guilty if they're hearing dead And so I'm thinking in my mind, as my lawyer told me, you're going to beat this case. You're going home whenever the jury comes back. There's no way they're going to find you guilty. So I'm thinking, yeah, I'm going home. 00:21:21 Speaker 1: Because you have multiple witnesses who attest your alibi and innocence being told by your defense that you should be confident. Take me to the moment that the jury announces their verdict. 00:21:37 Speaker 2: It was maybe close to nine and a half hours at a period of two days, the first evening into the next day that the jury is deliberating, and they send a note down and tell the judge that they're struggling to come up with a verdict and they think that they might be a hung jury because they cannot come to a unanimous decision on this case. And so my lawyer said, well, that's a good thing. That means they're struggling. Well, the judge just tells the jury go back. He wouldn't accept them saying that they were hung. About a half hour later, they come in guilty of all charges. So when I hear that verdict, when you know you got to stand up to hear it, the reaction was, you can hear of some gasp. The state's attorneys were jubilant. They were high five in each other, and I'm looking at them. Then I turn around to look at my family and just see them all breaking down in tears. To see my father, who was the rock, the foundation of our family, broken down crying. My sister's crying, my girlfriend crying. It made me furious. I looked at my attorney. I said, I thought you said we're going to beat this. What happened. I looked at the judge, I looked at the jury, looked them in the eye, and I'm like, how could this happen? How could you come up with a guilty verdict based on such flimsy evidence. So when I do talk to my lawyer once again in the bullpen, he comes to see me. He's seeing the how upset I was, and he was like, no, you got to hang in there. You got to be strong. I said, it's easy for you to say, and I said, so, what are we looking at and he's telling me that, well, unfortunately, the laws in Illinois are that if you're found guilty of two or more murders, you've got to mandatorily get natural life. And I'm like, so what does that mean. He's like, it means what it means. And I'm like really, and he said, no, don't worry, We're going to go on appeal. We're going to do the appeal. There's a lot of things they're done wrong. 00:23:36 Speaker 1: So months turned to years turned to decades. 00:23:41 Speaker 2: What was the. 00:23:42 Speaker 1: Biggest hurdle for you transitioning to life in prison. 00:23:48 Speaker 2: The most difficult thing is being away from family, hearing the family milestones, graduations, baptisms, communions, weddings. I wasn't there to see people have their you know, the birth of a child that's such a celebration, and so many families when a new life comes in there and I'm not there, it was difficult for me to deal with. And then of course trying to maintain a relationship that certainly was very hard. They got to come visit, you got to make phone calls, et cetera, and so forth. 00:24:17 Speaker 1: Well, there's so many layers to that. Onion, and also in terms of you know, you're missing those events with your family, but your family is missing them with you. 00:24:29 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I would always want to put on the strong front. I'm okay, don't worry about me, you know. And as I started studying the law, I was able to articulate to them some of the things that were wrong. Hey, listen, my attorney didn't do this, or the prosecution did this. And so when I was able to do that, I guess they would see the hope emanating from me, and so it would make them feel a little bit more at ease. But there was times it wasn't easy. Prisons in the eighties and early nineties was in Illinois were particularly violent. State Bill was very violent. I mean murders occurring there. There was a lot of things that, you know, a lot of stabbings, a lot of assaults. 00:25:05 Speaker 1: That's a question that I have for you because even though your affiliation with a gang ended up getting you on the radar of the police in a way, did that affiliation protect you at all once you were in the inside. 00:25:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, you had to be. I was definitely affiliated with the gangs in there. But the downside of that is that when other individuals would do, you know, do things like, for example, somebody would gamble and then not be able to pay. Now this individual is going to get into a fighter. I have problems with another group, another person from another group, which then involves everybody, and now here it is we're fighting in there over somebody who should have never been gambling because he didn't have the money to pay in the first place. At some point in the mid nineties, I said, this isn't getting me anywhere. You know, I was smart enough to know that this behavior is viewed as a negative, and I didn't want to be in that light. And so I'm no longer. I don't want to be a part of it, no long no more. I'm sure people looked at me like he's flaking out, he's he can't handle it, But I didn't care. I think that was one of the best choices in my life. That happened around ninety six. And yeah, I mean, well. 00:26:15 Speaker 1: You know what, it's maturity too, But you were doing what you needed to do to survive through your younger twenties. How long did you and your girlfriend stay together? 00:26:27 Speaker 2: We were probably together for the first ten years of my incarceration, and in retrospect, I look at it. We're arguing about really simple things like how come you to pick up my phone call? Where were you at? You know, Accusations that she might be cheating on me, and those type of things eventually deteriorated us and she wound up having a relationship with someone else. But she would period I'm in and out of my life over my incarceration, and in the end for the last like you know, seven years, I would say she was there for me. But yeah, it makes it easier to have a love interest in prison, knowing that somebody cares about you. I never really doubted the fact that she didn't have feelings for me or her loved me. 00:27:06 Speaker 1: It's hard to maintain a relationship exactly. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: The physical absence is hard. 00:27:12 Speaker 1: As you mentioned, you began spending a chunk of your time in the law library. 00:27:18 Speaker 2: Well. As I became more and more proficient in the tenants and the operation of the law procedures, etc. I began to have success winning particularly at first just sensed reductions for a lot of individuals, and eventually I wont some new trials. I began to get more new trials, more sentence reductions, and so I was also doing civil complaints. Guys would eventually went on that. 00:27:43 Speaker 1: So you became what they call a jail house lawyer. 00:27:48 Speaker 2: Yeah. I never did particularly like that term. I like to call myself a prisoner advocate, but yeah, that's definitely what that was termed. 00:27:55 Speaker 1: But I think that's so admirable. 00:27:57 Speaker 2: Jimmy. 00:27:58 Speaker 1: What was the turning point for you? Because I can't imagine the anger and the frustration your life's been taken away from you and decades at this point, where did you turn that into I'm going to figure out enough to help not only myself, but to help other people. 00:28:18 Speaker 2: My thought process was this that if I could be proficient or do adequate work for other individuals, it would just make me a better litigator and I could hone my skills that way work it through others. Again, looking back, my early attempts was by trial and error, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I will admit that, and so I said I could do this. But I always kept education at the forefront. I was always involved in some type of classes or some type of program, and a lot of it sometimes with self taught. I would just bother to use the materials there with the law library. 00:28:52 Speaker 1: So now we're getting to the point where you crossed paths with our other wonderful esteemed guests. Robert, we've talked about this. I'm not gonna dive too heavily into the specifics, but in a nutshell, you and a co defendant were convicted in nineteen ninety five of a double homicide the year before, and at the time you were a young father, working long hours and attending night school, and when you were rested, you had no previous convictions. You were twenty when you were convicted, which is something that you two gentlemen share in common. And the case against you rested on eyewitness reports obtained by a rather notorious now retired Chicago police detective named Rinaldo Guervera. He's since come under fire over allegations he coerced witnesses and framed innocent people in dozens of other investigations. But you two are in prison. You're both wrongfully convicted. Take me to the first moment you're has crossed, and Robert, why don't you tell me about meeting mister Soto for the first time. 00:30:06 Speaker 3: Jimmy Soto. I heard of him. 00:30:08 Speaker 4: You know his name is under like a legend in prison basically because everybody know who he was. Everybody knows all the work he did and how he helped a lot of people. So I knew of him before I ever met him. So he was in state Ville, he didn't getting trampied to Minar. When he got to Thenar, you know, believe or not, everybody was like static because this guy who helped a lot of people is now in Minar. So everybody wanted to reach out to him, contact him, some type of way to get his assistant something, because he a type of prison you know, his reputation receives him as far as he's an up, upstanding guy. 00:30:45 Speaker 1: So you arrived at Minard with a fan club in place, Yes he did. 00:30:49 Speaker 4: He's really shy about that, I guess, but this is who he is. This is reputation. 00:30:54 Speaker 1: Then do you remember the first time you met him? 00:30:57 Speaker 4: Yes, I was in the same set house as he was Soft Flowers in Minar. He was on two, I was on four and I think his SETI was in up going home or something like that. 00:31:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, he got parole, Yeah, he. 00:31:10 Speaker 4: Got parole and he was looking for the sally And one of the gadded workers asked me what your life is, Jimmie Soler SELLI. 00:31:16 Speaker 3: I was like, hell, yeah, why wouldn't that be? 00:31:20 Speaker 4: So they end up moving me to his cell at the time, he was in the yard. So I'm gonna sell by myself. I got my property in there, I got situated, and when he came in to cell, I went to induce myself my name is you know with Berta Amovar. 00:31:35 Speaker 3: He like, I know who you are? Ready? Like how you know me already? How the hell you know who I am? Said? I know your uncle. 00:31:42 Speaker 4: I was a lot with your uncle in Stateville, and hesld me everything about your case, everything bout you, And I was like, whoa. 00:31:48 Speaker 3: I was surprised. 00:31:49 Speaker 1: I loved the nicknamed Sally for sale made. It's very much an Illinois thing too. I've never met anybody who spent time in Illinois who didn't use selly. But how does that impact on a day to day if you've got a good cell mate or a bad cellmate? Because just describe the space that you two were sharing. 00:32:12 Speaker 4: Oh my god, to sell like what how big was? This was a spall sl six by nine, six by nine, bumpits and sinking Tobb in the back of the room. Real small compact cell. And as far as Sally's, it make a big difference. You've got a good SETI or a bad seting. It can you know, it can make your time hard or easy. And so we do get a good seting. You want to keep them far long as you can. 00:32:37 Speaker 1: So you guys were seal mates for four years? 00:32:41 Speaker 3: About four three years? 00:32:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, more likely? All right? 00:32:44 Speaker 1: So what made you guys good sale mates? 00:32:47 Speaker 3: We just jail real quickly. 00:32:48 Speaker 4: I mean, so you walk in the cell, you you could tell you right away by the first couple of second is you two will get along with that right there and then. And we never had no arguments. We never had no disagreement. We just jail. We cooked together, we ate together. We had common ground as far as our cases go. I look at to him like a big brother, like a father figure. I mean he showed me and taught me a little about the law and just the case we did separated. He basically taught me what I wrote that note, so what I need to do just case get separated, And that's way I know what to do with my legal stuff. He became family, you know, because being at cell like twenty three to one, most of the time, you know, the cell is so small. You get you know, there's nothing to do but top and you know each other backgrounds, family stuff, so it got real personal. He probably know me better than my own family. To be honest with. 00:33:46 Speaker 1: You, I can imagine that any bad character trait the other person has is like magnified, you know, put on volume ten. Absolutely so neither one of you had annoying habits that bothered the other one. 00:34:00 Speaker 2: Come on, I mean he came in, he didn't have a lot of hair on his face, but he would take a long time to shave. In fact, he probably won't admit this, but one of the things I did do was Robert got locked up fairly young too, and I would later learn that his father wasn't in his life when he came into purbity. When his hair is coming in, so Robert was shaving against the grain, and I would tell him, you got to go with the grain in order not to have irritation, because sometimes he would have it. Roberts has very sensitive skin, and so I would tell him you got to go with it, so, you know, to show him how to shave. 00:34:32 Speaker 1: I love that you taught him how to shave correctly. 00:34:35 Speaker 2: No more razor, the right way to she knew how to shave right. 00:34:41 Speaker 1: And Robert Jimmy didn't do anything that that ever got on your nerves. 00:34:46 Speaker 2: I mean it was now and then he would play some music a bit loud when I was doing legal work, but I would just with my own headphones on the list to my own music, you know. I mean, there was ways in which we could avoid being in each other's space. We did eventually get separated, and I would eventually wind up going to another unit, North one, and he remained in the South House. 00:35:06 Speaker 4: But due at the time though, he was able to still stay able to communicate with Yeah. Yes, and the way we did that we wrote kites and ky started just like letters basically keep him up today, what's going on with my family? Was going on my case and vice versa or sometimes and we meet up at church and we talk about certain things and stuff like that at church. 00:35:26 Speaker 1: So, you guys, it very much sounds like Jimmy, you took Robert under your way. 00:35:31 Speaker 2: Yes he did well, Yeah, I mean, but it was reciprocal. It wasn't all that stad. He would look out for me, make sure I was straight. You need anything, if you need something, let me know. You know. So there was times that one unit might go on lockdown. The other wooden man, you know, send me some summer sausages and send me this. He would gladly send it. Tuna. I love tuna, so he would send me tune. 00:35:51 Speaker 3: He's a big It was the same way. 00:35:52 Speaker 2: If he needed something, I would look out for him. 00:35:54 Speaker 3: But not just that. 00:35:55 Speaker 4: Jimmy fortunately be across in crosserted for Solan that he knows a lot of people he got connect and sue. As far as politics and stuff like that, he can't taught me at that politics game. In prison, you know, have to govern around things also, and like I usually get what onions, tomatoes, you know, eased to buy them off the gay green peppers, you know, ice cream, ice cream suits get ice cream, you know. 00:36:19 Speaker 1: So there were ways you could maneuver better, better food choices. 00:36:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been locked up longer. So going to Minard, I knew a lot of individuals that were down there already. I had done legal work for some of them. They were so glad to see me, they wanted to send me stuff. I would never tell somebody give me, you know, expert doing work. Why you know, you get it you know this for that, but they would gladly say the same thing. Robert would say, are you okay? So there was a lot of people would often has to be you need something, I'm over in the kitchen. I need someone over here while I get some ice cream. Mode. 00:36:51 Speaker 1: So that kind of support must be so important just in terms of your emotional and mental state. 00:36:59 Speaker 3: Mental state, Yeah, absolutely, But. 00:37:01 Speaker 1: How did you guys? Do you remember any time, particularly for the one another, where you guys hit a tough patch where you showed up for the other person. 00:37:12 Speaker 2: For him, I understood, you know, he was away from his daughter, so she was going up, or she would the family would set a visit and were able to come, and vice versa. My family would set a visit, they wouldn't come, so we would pick each other up. You are right, or you know, we'd make a special meal, or he did most of the cooking, to be honest, because I'm not a very good chef. But yeah, he made a good piece of puff. I'll tell you that I caught it hot pockets. Yeah, well it's a piece of puff. But anyway, No, the thing is that you know, if you're really in there with somebody like this, in a small space, you could pick up on the energies and sometimes just not talking to somebody isn't enough. Just give them their space because they're in their thoughts and I would do that or he would do that for me, and we would know not to bother the other person. So it's just that type of sense makes it much more companion. 00:38:01 Speaker 4: Also also just also for like the birthdays, Christmas and stuff like that, because we are so far. The Menar is like six to eight hours for the city, so to get visits and stuffing that is very hard. My family, I didn't see my fan for a while. You know, they come for first to once every three months, once every six months, once a year. They went so once every three years. Then it's just you know it away. 00:38:24 Speaker 1: Again it's that passing of time. And so so you know, Robert, you were in there for over two decades and then in twenty seventeen life changed for you big time. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Lauren Bright Pacheco. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and adfree by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. So when you found out you were getting out. How did you tell Jimmy? Do you remember? 00:39:18 Speaker 3: Well? 00:39:19 Speaker 4: I was a menar for I think about twenty one years, twenty one and a half years, and during my twenty first year, they asked. 00:39:26 Speaker 3: Me, I want to go to Gailsburg. I'm like, sure, no problem, why not? 00:39:32 Speaker 4: But the thing is, I tell him about the news that you know, there's some stuff going on in my case, but I really know what's going to happen. I was in Gailsburg for about two to three weeks and that's when I get the phone call from my lawyer talking about, man, I got some good. 00:39:45 Speaker 3: News for you. You basically coming home tomorrow Friday. 00:39:49 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:39:49 Speaker 3: I'm like, it was just so so real. I just couldn't. 00:39:53 Speaker 4: I was just shocked, you know, because you think about this day, you dream about that day, you just already fantasy about it. 00:40:00 Speaker 3: When it do come, you're just like, is it really happening? Is it a dream? 00:40:03 Speaker 4: I was a static and coming home of course, being reunited with my daughter and my family. You know. 00:40:09 Speaker 1: So Robert take me to after you get out, how does your friendship change? How do you continue staying in touch and do you have almost survivors guilt. Do you feel that pressure to get Jimmy out? 00:40:24 Speaker 4: The thing is Jimmy and I just Jimmy, but all the friends I made with in prison, they become family, you know. I didn't feel with Morris, but I feel like I need to do something to help the guys out any way I can. So basically through you know, I going to courts, supporting the other guys, shawing my support, my lawyer Jennifer Byji, who also know other lawyers. Eventually, you know, I know these other lawyers basically networking, and like I tried to help other guys when I can so far as like with Jimmy. Jimmy asked me, do I know a lawyer named Lauren. So at the time like, yeah, I know Lauren. 00:41:05 Speaker 3: She's my girl. She's cool with me. Were tight. He's like, man, I need you to talk to her. See she could take my case. I got you, I got you. 00:41:13 Speaker 4: So I end up talking to Lauren, and so Lauren, yeah, you know. And my friend Jimmie, he's a good guy. They did him wrong, and I wondered if you look at his case, and she's like, sure, send it to me. So I sent her in the paperwork and she reviewed it and she said, oh my gosh, she's this case. 00:41:29 Speaker 3: They did him wrong. 00:41:31 Speaker 4: Yeah, and so she started looking into it. She talked to her boss like yes, and she got into it too. So anyway back to Jimmy. Jimmy called me, asked me, you talked to Lauren. I said, yeah, I talked to Lauren Man. She says she got to She's like, wait a minute. I talked to Lauren and she said, you didn't talk to her. 00:41:47 Speaker 3: I said, what do you mean. So there's two Laurence. Yes, I didn't know. 00:41:51 Speaker 1: Yes, there is a Lauren at the Illinois Innocence Project, Lauren Keseberg. And then there's the Lauren that we are speaking of, who is Lauren Meerskoff Mueller. And she's with the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, and she joined on Jimmy's team filing a clemency petition, and from. 00:42:16 Speaker 3: There he basically ended again in the Dream Team. 00:42:18 Speaker 1: Lauren gets involved in twenty twenty and in May of twenty twenty three, Governor Pritzker commutes your sentence Jimmy to parole eligible, and then December fourteenth, twenty twenty three, the Cook County States Attorney's Office agreed that the charges against you, Jemmy, and your cousin David should be vacated, and the charges were dismissed. Robert, what was your feeling leading up to that date? 00:42:49 Speaker 4: So the day before I find out that he was coming home, I was just like ecstatic, this is finding's going to happen. After forty two years, finally Jimmy going to have his day. He helped so many other people come home, and now he's coming home. 00:43:06 Speaker 3: And I was in tears. I did lie. 00:43:07 Speaker 4: I was just so happy for him, just running up and down my apartment like, yes, this is happening. 00:43:13 Speaker 1: So by the time Jimmy, you and David got out, you had spent forty two years. 00:43:22 Speaker 2: Well, no, I spent forty two years, two months, and two days. 00:43:27 Speaker 1: That's the longest wrong incarceration in Illinois history. If I'm not mistaken, No, you're right. 00:43:33 Speaker 2: That is the National Registry based Michigan officially said we were the longest serving axuneries in Illinois state history. It's not a badge of honor, it's a title I would gladly relinquish. I would not wish that on anybody, but Unfortunately, that's what it is. 00:43:52 Speaker 4: And this is the club we're in, you know, Unfortunately, this is a club that nobody want to be in, but we are. 00:43:58 Speaker 3: You know. 00:43:59 Speaker 1: Now, I've seen the video of when you got out, Jimmy, but tell me the moment you remember catching one another's eye when you walked out. 00:44:08 Speaker 2: Okay, I get out from the gatehouse, which is the first entry point when you're going into Stateville Prison. So now I'm exiting it. I changed my clothes and I jump in a vehicle and one of the officers say, see that those lights down there at the end of this little road. I said, yeah, he said, that's all for you. He said, the press is down there to talk to you. So we drive down there and I get out the car and I see Robert. I see Robert dressed and a camouflage outfit jacket and pants, and I see him with his glasses and he got a grin from ear to ear, and so yeah, I mean the first ones I hug, naturally is one of my other sisters. And then after that, I think Robert was the second one that came. He hugged me, and they're like, man, you know, we just hugged it. Was an emotional moment. 00:44:55 Speaker 4: Yeah we did it, you know, and food circle, and I was so happy for him. This squeeze, I'm so tight, and now we're home. 00:45:03 Speaker 2: You know, it was very surreal to be on the other side of the wall with somebody that you had forged a bond of relationship with and to see that our past life's journey had crossed and now it was once again coming to cross, but in a good way where you know, I was now a free person, free man. 00:45:24 Speaker 1: I mean, you guys share such a strong bond, and you have so much in common and have well over a combined sixty years spent in prison for crimes you did not commit. What does it mean to have one another in your lives in these big transitions. 00:45:46 Speaker 2: Well, to me, I could tell you it means a lot. Because, of course, he was released years before me. He was released in twenty seventeen, and here I am. I'm released in twenty twenty three, so there's a you know, that gap. But uh, to know that he was able to transition into quote unquote uh the real world before me, he already learned how to navigate it, and so he was very helpful in telling me the things I need to do, for example, going to get my state of Illinois, I d getting me used to going to drive a car again. 00:46:20 Speaker 3: A little bit with the phone too, But. 00:46:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, he helped me and Daddy and I thank him. I thank God to have him there to be able to tell me, you know, some of these things and how to navigate them myself. 00:46:32 Speaker 4: The thing is, though, I feel like, you know, he was able to help me, but then when I was incarcerated, now not able to pay it for and help him out regard to how smart it is. It just feels so good to help him in any way I can. And he's my brother. I'll do anything for him. At the end of the day. 00:46:48 Speaker 3: That's my brother, and thank you for having me. 00:46:50 Speaker 2: Thank you. That's my little that's my little son. Now that's my brother. 00:46:57 Speaker 1: While he was incarcerated, Jimmy Soto earned a Bachelors of Science and Sociology from the Northwestern Prison Education Program. He graduated magna cum Laudie and is now studying for his LSAT to go to law school. I know he is absolutely going to ace that test. He is also part of Parole Illinois, an organization fighting to bring back parole to a state that has effectively had no parole program since nineteen seventy eight. To support James in his continuing fight for justice and in his goal for earning a law degree, you can donate to his gofund me, which is linked at the end in the episode description. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in the episode description to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wardis, as well as our producers Annie Chelsea, Kathleen Fink, and Jackie Pauley. This series is produced, edited and hosted by me Lauren Bright Pacheco. Our senior producer is Kara Kornhaber. Story editing by Hannah Bial, research by Shelby Sorels, mixing and sound design by Nick Massetti, with additional production by Jeff Clyborne. Our theme music is by Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on all platforms at Lauren Bright Pacheco Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with signal Company Number one