Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #287 Jason Flom with Vincent Simmons

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#287 Jason Flom with Vincent Simmons · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Since our previous release of Vincent Simmons' story, an amazing
0:03
Speaker 1: series of events has occurred. In addition to the work
0:06
Speaker 1: of his investigator as well as his attorney, Justin Bonus,
0:09
Speaker 1: CBS Morning's lead correspondent David Begmow did his own investigation,
0:14
Speaker 1: and as part of that, he did an interview that
0:17
Speaker 1: aired in February twenty twenty two in which he spoke
0:20
Speaker 1: with the alleged victims in this case, Karen and Sharon Sanders,
0:24
Speaker 1: who made some explosive revelations. In this re release, we
0:27
Speaker 1: will not only fill you in on the incredible developments
0:30
Speaker 1: in this case, but also you'll hear once again from
0:33
Speaker 1: the man himself, Vincent Simmons. In May of nineteen seventy seven,
0:40
Speaker 1: fourteen year old white twin sisters Karen and Sharon Sanders
0:44
Speaker 1: allegedly went to help their eighteen year old cousin, Keith
0:47
Speaker 1: la Board clean his house in of Olds Parish, Louisiana.
0:51
Speaker 1: Years later, Keith Laboord admitted to carrying on a sexual
0:54
Speaker 1: relationship with Karen Sanders, but back in May of seventy seven,
0:58
Speaker 1: when asked about a scratch on his Keith began to
1:01
Speaker 1: spin a narrative supported by the twin girls, that led
1:05
Speaker 1: in a well tread direction. According to Keith and the twins,
1:09
Speaker 1: they picked up a hitchhiking black man who allegedly pulled
1:12
Speaker 1: a gun and forced Keith and Karen into the trunk
1:15
Speaker 1: before raping Sharon, followed by Karen. Conflicting accounts and descriptions,
1:19
Speaker 1: as well as a rape kit that confirmed that Sharon
1:22
Speaker 1: was still a virgin, didn't stop the accusation of an
1:25
Speaker 1: alleged black assailant. While police officer Robert Laboord was out
1:29
Speaker 1: searching for a potential culprit on the morning of May
1:32
Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen seventy seven, his partner Floyd Juno spotted
1:35
Speaker 1: Vincent Simmons, whom he knew from previous petty crimes. Despite
1:39
Speaker 1: not matching what were already conflicting descriptions of this imaginary
1:43
Speaker 1: black man, they arrested Vincent for the alleged rapes. Both
1:47
Speaker 1: girls and Keith picked out the only handcuffed black man
1:50
Speaker 1: in the lineup, and when Vincent refused to confess, Officer
1:53
Speaker 1: Robert Leboard shot him in the chest. Miraculously, Vincent survived,
1:57
Speaker 1: but only to have all evidence, all of it exculpatory
2:01
Speaker 1: withheld from him at trial, condemning him to serve one
2:04
Speaker 1: hundred years in Angola Prison. Vincent's fight against a web
2:08
Speaker 1: of family connections lies and the worst in American racism
2:12
Speaker 1: continues to this very day. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome
2:30
Speaker 1: back to wrongful conviction. I'm Jason Flopp.
2:33
Speaker 2: Today's case is so troubling that I don't know where
2:36
Speaker 2: to start. But I will tell you this before we
2:39
Speaker 2: even get into it, and I introduce to you the
2:42
Speaker 2: man himself, Vinctent Simmons, who's still incarcerated in Angola Penitentiary
2:48
Speaker 2: for over forty four years now for a crime he
2:50
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with. I will tell you that
2:52
Speaker 2: this case has a toxic mixture of small town racism,
2:58
Speaker 2: false accusations, a total lack of evidence. A police officer
3:04
Speaker 2: who was closely related to what should have been the
3:08
Speaker 2: obvious suspect, who actually shot mister Simmons in the police
3:13
Speaker 2: station when he refused to confess in the chest by
3:15
Speaker 2: the way, narrowly missing his heart and killing him.
3:19
Speaker 1: Yes, you heard that correctly. And everybody involved basically is
3:23
Speaker 1: white except for mister Simmons, who's black. And now that's
3:26
Speaker 1: just the freaking beginning. So first of all, Vincent, I'm
3:30
Speaker 1: so honored that you're here today to talk to us.
3:32
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that you are where you are, that
3:34
Speaker 1: we're talking to you from prison, and I'm hoping that
3:36
Speaker 1: soon we'll be having a totally different conversation from the
3:40
Speaker 1: free world. So welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
3:43
Speaker 3: Thank you, I haven't me.
3:46
Speaker 1: We're very happy to have you, and we apologize to
3:48
Speaker 1: our audience in advance for the audio quality on Vincent's phone.
3:51
Speaker 1: It sounds like he's calling us from a time capsule,
3:54
Speaker 1: and in many ways he really is. And Gola Penitentiary
3:58
Speaker 1: was built on a literal plant, which couldn't put a
4:02
Speaker 1: finer point on what this case is all about. And
4:05
Speaker 1: joining us today as a man who you may be
4:07
Speaker 1: familiar with from our coverage of Nelson Cruz in Brooklyn
4:10
Speaker 1: and Marcus Wiggins in Chicago. Now today he's fighting for
4:14
Speaker 1: Vincent's case pro bono, flying back and forth from New
4:17
Speaker 1: York to Louisiana. So justin bonus, thanks for coming back
4:21
Speaker 1: to Wrongful Conviction.
4:23
Speaker 4: Not a problem, Jason. It's great to be on here
4:24
Speaker 4: again as well.
4:26
Speaker 1: So this insane saga goes all the way back to
4:30
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. So, Vincent, before this happened and your
4:35
Speaker 1: life got turned upside down and inside out, what was
4:38
Speaker 1: your life like before this insanity?
4:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was born in a bald parish, a place
4:45
Speaker 5: called man Philah Lewis there. When I was living in
4:49
Speaker 5: man Phila, I had had some involved with a bald parent.
4:56
Speaker 5: Share of DePaul I was involved with compared to crime.
5:02
Speaker 5: I moved to Houston and I got a job and
5:07
Speaker 5: I learned that my father had that and I come
5:11
Speaker 5: back to do with Yeah, I was back for out
5:15
Speaker 5: a month.
5:17
Speaker 6: I was live with my sister leave.
5:19
Speaker 7: You, and I was on my way to work and
5:24
Speaker 7: I was picked up a vol parish bodice.
5:29
Speaker 1: So you were a known entity to a Bowls Parish
5:31
Speaker 1: police before heading to Houston for work and returning when
5:34
Speaker 1: your father passed away, which made you available to be
5:38
Speaker 1: picked up for what allegedly happened to these twin girls
5:41
Speaker 1: on May nine, nineteen seventy seven. And the date, I mean,
5:43
Speaker 1: we're not even sure of that because the girls were
5:45
Speaker 1: never really clear on a date and time. But the
5:48
Speaker 1: narrative that comes out is a sadly familiar American tale,
5:52
Speaker 1: a false accusation of a black man by an alleged
5:55
Speaker 1: white victim or victims in this case, and the alleged
5:59
Speaker 1: crime that took place. The narrative that set this horrible
6:02
Speaker 1: and justice against Vincent in motion is this. On May ninth,
6:07
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, twin sisters Sharon and Karen Sanders allegedly
6:13
Speaker 1: went over to the house of their eighteen year old cousin,
6:15
Speaker 1: Keith Leboard remember that last name, to help him clean,
6:18
Speaker 1: and while driving the sisters home that night, the three
6:22
Speaker 1: allegedly stopped for gas when Vincent Simmons allegedly approached and
6:27
Speaker 1: asked the Board for a ride home, to which the
6:30
Speaker 1: Board supposedly agreed. And then the claim is that six
6:35
Speaker 1: miles outside of Marksville, on a deserted stretch of Little
6:38
Speaker 1: California Road, Vincent allegedly took out a gun, forced Keith
6:43
Speaker 1: le Board and Karen into the trunk while he allegedly
6:46
Speaker 1: raped Sharon, and then he allegedly put Sharon in the trunk,
6:51
Speaker 1: drove on for a bit before retrieving Karen to do
6:54
Speaker 1: the same to her. Now Afterwards, Vincent allegedly threatened them
6:58
Speaker 1: all before dropping himself off to catch a bus, so
7:03
Speaker 1: about two weeks after this alleged incident. May twenty second
7:07
Speaker 1: is when this narrative is first reported to the sheriff's
7:09
Speaker 1: office and the investigation, if you can even call it,
7:13
Speaker 1: that begins. Justin take us through this nightmare.
7:16
Speaker 4: So there was Karen Sanders, Sharon Sanders, and then Keith
7:20
Speaker 4: the Board that were allegedly basically kidnapped, thrown in a trunk.
7:25
Speaker 4: The two sisters were raped. That's their story. So on
7:29
Speaker 4: May twenty second, John Leboard, Keith's father, calls the sheriff
7:35
Speaker 4: because Keith's father is the parish assessor. What you have
7:38
Speaker 4: to understand about the the boards is there's like ten
7:40
Speaker 4: thousand of them in a Voles parish. This is a
7:43
Speaker 4: very strong family. He calls the chief of police and
7:47
Speaker 4: he says that my twin nieces have been raped by
7:50
Speaker 4: a black man. That's how this begins. And then the
7:54
Speaker 4: girls are brought in. The girls don't know what date
7:57
Speaker 4: it happens. The police give them a date. The girls
8:01
Speaker 4: provide their initial statements, which weren't turned over a trial.
8:05
Speaker 4: They weren't turned over till nineteen ninety three. They give
8:08
Speaker 4: completely inconsistent statements. Sharon Sanders actually calls the suspect the
8:13
Speaker 4: N word over and over again, says all blacks look alike, okay,
8:18
Speaker 4: and that's why she wouldn't be able to identify him.
8:22
Speaker 4: They don't talk to the boy Keith Leboard until after
8:26
Speaker 4: Vincent is already arrested. Neither of these girls give a
8:30
Speaker 4: description that matches Vincent. They say short and fat, well,
8:34
Speaker 4: Vincent is five nine one point fifty. Again, their descriptions conflict.
8:38
Speaker 4: You know, it's just one thing after another, and specifically
8:42
Speaker 4: with regard to Karen Sanders, she talks about being raped
8:46
Speaker 4: anally orally vaginally. When the doctor looks at her after
8:51
Speaker 4: she talks to police, there is no injuries. Sharon talks
8:56
Speaker 4: about a thirty minute rape vaginally to the point where
8:59
Speaker 4: she bled. She said that she gave her panties to
9:02
Speaker 4: her grandmother and they were washed, of course. And what's
9:06
Speaker 4: interesting about Sharon is that her hymen was intact when
9:09
Speaker 4: she was examined by the doctor in this case.
9:12
Speaker 1: So okay, Inconsistent statements, conflicting descriptions, and outright lies unsupported
9:18
Speaker 1: by physical reality. And the next day, at nine to
9:21
Speaker 1: twenty am on May twenty third, Vincent was just walking
9:24
Speaker 1: to work when he was picked up off the street,
9:27
Speaker 1: arrested and brought to the station.
9:30
Speaker 4: He was arrested on May twenty third of nineteen seventy
9:33
Speaker 4: seven on view for this crime. And what on view
9:38
Speaker 4: means is they didn't have a name Vincent Simmons, They
9:40
Speaker 4: had no probable cause to arrest him. They saw him
9:44
Speaker 4: on the side of the street. When I say they,
9:46
Speaker 4: you had mentioned a family member of one of the
9:49
Speaker 4: alleged victims, and that was Robert Leboard. And I don't
9:52
Speaker 4: know his direct relation to Keith Leboard, but I believe
9:55
Speaker 4: it could be a cousin. So really, what you have
9:58
Speaker 4: to understand with Vincent is he out of history with
10:00
Speaker 4: the Marksville Police Department and the Voles Parish Sheriff's office.
10:04
Speaker 4: And Floyd Juno was driving with Robert Leboard on the
10:08
Speaker 4: Dave Vincent got arrested on May twenty second, and he
10:11
Speaker 4: knew Vincent, he knew who he was before, and he
10:15
Speaker 4: knew he was a troublemaker. And he's the glue to this.
10:18
Speaker 4: He's the person that basically points the finger at Vincent first.
10:24
Speaker 1: Right, right right, And if you have the chance to
10:25
Speaker 1: watch one of the documentaries about Vincent's story, there's the
10:28
Speaker 1: farm and shadows of a Doubt, we'll have them linked
10:31
Speaker 1: in to buy, of course. But in Shadows of a Doubt,
10:34
Speaker 1: Floyd Juno describes this arrest in much the same way
10:37
Speaker 1: that Justin has. So that same morning, the sheriff sent
10:40
Speaker 1: deputies for the twins, who were picked up from school
10:43
Speaker 1: and brought to the station along with Keith Lebord, who
10:46
Speaker 1: was brought from work, and told them that they were
10:48
Speaker 1: going to view a lineup with the perpetrator in it.
10:51
Speaker 1: So officers picked out seven guys for the lineup, one
10:55
Speaker 1: of whom was white, Okay, a few others were well
10:59
Speaker 1: over six feet tall.
11:01
Speaker 8: I remember.
11:01
Speaker 1: The description was of this imaginary perpetrator was black, short
11:05
Speaker 1: and fat, right, And they placed Vincent in the center.
11:09
Speaker 1: And get this, Vincent is the only one who was
11:12
Speaker 1: handcuffed out of all of them. I mean, it wasn't
11:15
Speaker 1: like they were trying to be subtle here right as
11:16
Speaker 1: to who they wanted them to identify. So the twins
11:20
Speaker 1: and Keith lo and Behold all select Vincent as the perpetrator.
11:25
Speaker 7: They claimed that I was identified, and from that point
11:30
Speaker 7: they took me into another loan and that's when they
11:35
Speaker 7: told me that I had to give him a confession,
11:38
Speaker 7: and I refused to give a confession. I told him
11:42
Speaker 7: that before I confessed to a crime that I didn't do,
11:46
Speaker 7: I'll die first. And that's when they hit me. And
11:50
Speaker 7: they knocked to a cloth and started kicking me. And
11:55
Speaker 7: then when I tried to get out, he kicked me again.
11:59
Speaker 7: And when I did you to chair I was sitting
12:03
Speaker 7: in to get up Robert Lopol he d his death
12:08
Speaker 7: from his seat where he would righting to a confression
12:12
Speaker 7: and pull his weapon and shot.
12:15
Speaker 6: He shot, then a check.
12:27
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13:16
Speaker 4: I think something that I really want to bring to
13:18
Speaker 4: your attention, to your Jason, is this is that technically
13:21
Speaker 4: Vincent really should have been charged with kidnapping Keith Lebor.
13:25
Speaker 4: They didn't charge him with that. Why, well, you know,
13:29
Speaker 4: I think we know why. The other thing is the
13:32
Speaker 4: police all said that Vincent attempted to grab the gun
13:36
Speaker 4: of one of the officers and the safety was on
13:40
Speaker 4: or something like that ridiculous story. They don't ever charge
13:43
Speaker 4: Vincent with attempted murder of a police officer either.
13:46
Speaker 1: And this is weird, right because it's not like the
13:49
Speaker 1: state typically has any issue at all with piling on charges, right,
13:53
Speaker 1: But there were no gun charges here either, as that
13:55
Speaker 1: was part of the alleged kidnapping in this case as well.
13:59
Speaker 1: So at the preliminary hearing on July seventh, both twins testified,
14:04
Speaker 1: but neither the alleged kidnapping victim Keithlipboard, nor the alleged
14:08
Speaker 1: attempted murder victims the police officers participated. Yeah that's yeah, sure, okay,
14:15
Speaker 1: So during her testimony, Sharon is asked three consecutive times
14:20
Speaker 1: to identify the man from the crime, and this is
14:23
Speaker 1: the twin who states that all black people look alike.
14:27
Speaker 1: She doesn't respond until the court steps in, and this
14:31
Speaker 1: was when, for the very first time ever, she says
14:34
Speaker 1: that the man said his name was Simmons. Now, Karen
14:38
Speaker 1: also parroted this statement that the culpert told Keith his
14:42
Speaker 1: name was Simmons. But then in the same preliminary hearing,
14:45
Speaker 1: when asked why it took two weeks to come forward
14:48
Speaker 1: with this story, Karen testified that, quote, we couldn't go
14:51
Speaker 1: to the cops because we didn't know his name, unquote,
14:57
Speaker 1: So which one is it? Karen, right, which is it?
15:00
Speaker 1: Because both of those things can't be true.
15:02
Speaker 4: Everyone overlooked that. That means that their testimony and the
15:06
Speaker 4: preliminary hearing that they knew the man's name, and their
15:09
Speaker 4: testimony a trial that they knew the man's name is false.
15:14
Speaker 4: That kind of just got glossed over.
15:16
Speaker 1: So let's get to the trial. And I'm going to
15:18
Speaker 1: put trial in quotes here too. So there's no physical
15:21
Speaker 1: evidence that these rapes ever actually happened. Start with that
15:25
Speaker 1: no forensic tests were done on the twins, clothing, or
15:28
Speaker 1: the car in which the alleged rapes occurred, and police
15:31
Speaker 1: reports did not include a single lead that pointed the Vincent.
15:34
Speaker 1: Doctors didn't find any signs of injury on either of
15:37
Speaker 1: the alleged victims, including Sharon's intact hymen. She was a
15:41
Speaker 1: virgin who was, according to her statement, the victim of
15:45
Speaker 1: a bloody rape, which of course is physically impossible. So
15:51
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this now and going, well, then
15:55
Speaker 1: there's all this evidence, right, how the hell could anyone,
15:59
Speaker 1: even a black man in the Deep South in the seventies,
16:02
Speaker 1: how could anyone get convicted on the basis of this. Well,
16:06
Speaker 1: it later comes out to Vincent and his attorney received
16:09
Speaker 1: exactly none of this. They received no discovery in this case.
16:13
Speaker 1: By no, I mean zero. What I'm saying is all
16:16
Speaker 1: of that critical exculpatory evidence that you just heard wasn't
16:20
Speaker 1: revealed to him for another sixteen years. His lawyers never
16:25
Speaker 1: even knew about the shady lineup with the handcuffs, you know,
16:28
Speaker 1: which was obviously done for one reason, so that these
16:31
Speaker 1: alleged victims would know who to pick in this imaginary crime.
16:35
Speaker 1: There were pictures of that the inconsistencies and conflicts in
16:39
Speaker 1: the initial accounts and assail of descriptions and initial statements.
16:42
Speaker 1: They said they didn't know his name, but later testified
16:45
Speaker 1: that he had told Keith his name was Simmons. How
16:48
Speaker 1: Karen gave a clue to that discrepancy in her preliminary
16:51
Speaker 1: hearing testimony, all of it. So the fix was in,
16:56
Speaker 1: So justin, can you take us through what happened at
16:58
Speaker 1: this sham trial?
17:00
Speaker 4: So they take him the trial and the girls get
17:04
Speaker 4: on the witness stand and they say they know his name.
17:07
Speaker 4: They say a rape happened. And the defense attorneys don't
17:12
Speaker 4: do a great job of poking holes in there because
17:14
Speaker 4: they don't have anything to poke holes in. They don't
17:17
Speaker 4: have any cross examination material. Okay, they have three witnesses
17:21
Speaker 4: that were allegedly with this man for three hours. That's
17:26
Speaker 4: a long time to be with somebody. Mistaken identification is
17:31
Speaker 4: not really something you can argue when you're around somebody
17:34
Speaker 4: for three hours unless you saw the initial statements, right,
17:39
Speaker 4: can't really do it. I mean, the trial's a joke.
17:43
Speaker 4: Eddie Nole, who was the prosecutor, and the district attorney
17:47
Speaker 4: and his wife are the ones that tried the case,
17:50
Speaker 4: and this was a flim flam show. They actually on
17:54
Speaker 4: occasion during direct examination they would interchange when they thought
17:58
Speaker 4: the other one didn't ask enough questions, or on cross exam.
18:02
Speaker 1: I've never seen that, And they probably could have done
18:05
Speaker 1: anything they wanted because without discovery, they had nothing with
18:10
Speaker 1: which to hold the prosecution or any of the witnesses accountable.
18:14
Speaker 1: Then you have these racially charged elements, two white twin
18:18
Speaker 1: sisters under age, by the way, fourteen years old, a
18:21
Speaker 1: black guy in Louisiana in nineteen seventy seven, So they
18:28
Speaker 1: could have said that he took them in a spaceship,
18:30
Speaker 1: hit them on the head with a toaster oven, and
18:32
Speaker 1: then they went and visited, you know, talking penguins on Mars.
18:36
Speaker 1: I mean, they could have said anything, and I could
18:38
Speaker 1: actually picture in my mind the jury just sort of
18:41
Speaker 1: sitting there, you know, horrified, with their mouths open, hearing
18:43
Speaker 1: about how these two young girls were brutalizing, you know,
18:46
Speaker 1: these poor little girls. It's hard to turn away from
18:51
Speaker 1: that kind of testimony. But there were some very significant
18:55
Speaker 1: things that still should have sowed serious doubts in the
18:58
Speaker 1: minds of these jurors.
19:00
Speaker 4: I think the biggest thing here that we started to
19:04
Speaker 4: uncover as we investigated, is that the area that Vincent
19:11
Speaker 4: allegedly sees these three at a gas station in the
19:16
Speaker 4: middle of Marksville, but then he takes them allegedly or
19:20
Speaker 4: tells them to go to a part of a Voles
19:23
Speaker 4: parish that's like Clan country. So where these alleged rapes
19:31
Speaker 4: happen is in the middle of Clan country. It's not
19:35
Speaker 4: where the black community is. That's what to me should
19:40
Speaker 4: have raised alarm bells for everybody, including the white jury.
19:46
Speaker 4: This is not believable.
19:47
Speaker 1: What was alleged to be a three hour long encounter
19:51
Speaker 1: with two twin underage white girls being raped by a
19:54
Speaker 1: black man in the middle of Clan country. I would
19:58
Speaker 1: have sooner bought into the store worry about Mars and
20:01
Speaker 1: Vincent was able to present something in his defense right
20:05
Speaker 1: His attorney called him to the stand where he said
20:08
Speaker 1: that he was at a bar on May ninth and
20:10
Speaker 1: presented three alibi witnesses who all dated that he was
20:14
Speaker 1: at the bar with them.
20:15
Speaker 4: His alibi witnesses, they tried to discredit these people with
20:20
Speaker 4: traffic tickets and like petty crimes because they wanted to
20:24
Speaker 4: make the alibis look like they were not law abiding citizens,
20:28
Speaker 4: even though they basically were. I mean, one of the
20:30
Speaker 4: witnesses that testified for Vincent was a business owner, and
20:33
Speaker 4: they attacked them using like speeding tickets and parking tickets
20:37
Speaker 4: that he received.
20:37
Speaker 1: It was a joke.
20:38
Speaker 4: The trial was a joke.
20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a joke. But not a funny one though,
20:43
Speaker 1: because eleven white people and one black woman on the jury.
20:46
Speaker 1: I remember at that time in Louisiana and all the
20:48
Speaker 1: way up till twenty eighteen, they didn't need a unanimous
20:51
Speaker 1: verdict to convict. It was one of the ways that
20:54
Speaker 1: they disenfranchised black folks. You only needed ten of the
20:57
Speaker 1: twelve members on the jury to vote guilty. So black
21:00
Speaker 1: woman or not, let's just call it like it is.
21:02
Speaker 1: There was no hope in hell for Vincent. And so
21:05
Speaker 1: there you are, still trying to heal from a gunshot
21:08
Speaker 1: wound to the chest at close range and watching this
21:12
Speaker 1: ridiculous trial. Did you still have any hope that they
21:16
Speaker 1: would see the discrepancies in this crazy narrative and see
21:19
Speaker 1: that you were innocent? Oh?
21:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no hope because the greatest virror was focused.
21:28
Speaker 3: Oh what the victims were saying, there was no hope
21:33
Speaker 3: of receiving a fan trial, and you would know I
21:38
Speaker 3: was shot. They at that I was shut. There was
21:41
Speaker 3: no question answer to what happened.
21:45
Speaker 1: So vincent that moment, a lot had happened to you already.
21:49
Speaker 1: But I have to think this would be the worst
21:50
Speaker 1: moment of anybody's life to be wrongfully convicted of a
21:53
Speaker 1: crime they didn't commit. Do you remember that moment when
21:58
Speaker 1: they declared you guilty, and since you two one hundred
22:01
Speaker 1: years in prison.
22:03
Speaker 3: Yes, I did.
22:05
Speaker 7: When I heard all those lies told and the jury
22:10
Speaker 7: come back and condicted me, even with my alibi, with
22:16
Speaker 7: telling the children, the jurors still believed their lives. And
22:23
Speaker 7: it was amazing for me to believe that those people
22:27
Speaker 7: would tell that kind of lie to the juror, and
22:30
Speaker 7: the juror believed that. When I got to a gola
22:57
Speaker 7: and they slam to those behind me, it was like
23:02
Speaker 7: a shot for me. And from that moment then I
23:06
Speaker 7: was experiencing nightmares at night. When I went to sleep,
23:12
Speaker 7: or tried to go to sleep, I would have a
23:14
Speaker 7: nightmare or be a shot and beat over and over again.
23:20
Speaker 6: When I got down.
23:22
Speaker 7: Even the guys in the town, they already knew what
23:25
Speaker 7: my job was, and I went through the New Aid
23:30
Speaker 7: Experiences day, so I bought all you ship human waste.
23:37
Speaker 7: You know your torture. I've been stalled several times, you
23:43
Speaker 7: know all the skin come off my bady, But I
23:45
Speaker 7: wouldn't report it because they would call your rack heear.
23:50
Speaker 7: I had several night night falls that was from the
23:56
Speaker 7: ball town. They would make it possible for they didn't
24:01
Speaker 7: may got a home year the gods hearing of all family.
24:07
Speaker 7: They would intentionally like the remote where I would be
24:13
Speaker 7: the repartrator of the night. So from one lockdown to another,
24:19
Speaker 7: that's what caused me to be lockdown and a solitary
24:24
Speaker 7: confinement in all these years because I was being attacked
24:29
Speaker 7: and being transferred to another lockdown. I've step twenty some
24:34
Speaker 7: years in silentary confinements and I just got out in
24:42
Speaker 7: two thousand nineteen, and that's when I got the call
24:46
Speaker 7: from Justin say that he was go take my case.
24:51
Speaker 1: Forty four years wrongfully convicted, and twenty seven of those
24:55
Speaker 1: were in solitary confinement because of constant assaults from other
25:00
Speaker 1: who also found ways to believe the childish, nonsensical lie
25:05
Speaker 1: that these three backwoods redneck low lifes told to cover
25:10
Speaker 1: up their dirty, disgusting, little incest secret. And I don't
25:14
Speaker 1: even know what to say except that I'm absolutely amazed
25:17
Speaker 1: at your courage and your strength to persevere and just
25:22
Speaker 1: even be here at all. After all you've gone through, Vincent,
25:26
Speaker 1: you are a living miracle. So justin We know that
25:30
Speaker 1: the post conviction litigation started almost immediately back in nineteen
25:34
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and it went about as well as the
25:36
Speaker 1: trial did. But Vincent finally got a break of sorts
25:40
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three. Can you talk us through that.
25:42
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety three, Vincent files a man Damus, and somebody
25:47
Speaker 4: in the DA's office copies the whole file. That's how
25:50
Speaker 4: Vincent gets his file. That's when he first gets the discovery.
25:54
Speaker 4: And then Vincent got a letter from his lawyer in
25:57
Speaker 4: ninety eight saying that we've never seen these documents before.
26:00
Speaker 4: You know, and by the way, that lawyer in ninety eight,
26:03
Speaker 4: I think he was a judge by that point. I mean,
26:05
Speaker 4: these are credible people that came forward and said that
26:08
Speaker 4: they had never seen these documents before.
26:10
Speaker 1: Right, this is the discovery with the details that we
26:14
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, that if Vincent's trial attorney would have had
26:16
Speaker 1: this at the trial in nineteen seventy seven, and of
26:19
Speaker 1: course it was totally illegal for them not to share it.
26:22
Speaker 1: But if they had had this discovery, it's very possible
26:25
Speaker 1: that even that jury could have come to the right conclusion. So,
26:30
Speaker 1: in addition to that, more exculpatory evidence has developed over time. Meanwhile,
26:36
Speaker 1: Vincent has denied parole again and again and again and again.
26:40
Speaker 1: The sisters showed up at the parole hearings and said
26:44
Speaker 1: all sorts of awful racist things. I remember seeing this
26:49
Speaker 1: on the video and hearing about it on one occasion
26:51
Speaker 1: where one of the three members of the pro board
26:53
Speaker 1: was a black gentleman, and one of the sisters actually
26:56
Speaker 1: said in the parole hearing that she wouldn't feel safe
26:59
Speaker 1: alone in the room with him. And I'm talking about
27:02
Speaker 1: the guy who was on the parole board, the black
27:05
Speaker 1: guy on the parole board. Am I actually right about that?
27:08
Speaker 1: You are?
27:09
Speaker 4: You cannot make this sub.
27:10
Speaker 1: So now we're all the way at October twenty twenty
27:14
Speaker 1: and justin you've now joined Vincent's team, and Vincent has
27:18
Speaker 1: applied for post conviction relief based on several due process
27:21
Speaker 1: violations and newly discovered evidence which shows that the alleged
27:24
Speaker 1: rape was a total fabrication, and that part of the
27:28
Speaker 1: new evidence that was presented is from a family member
27:31
Speaker 1: of the alleged victims themselves. Right, So can you tell
27:34
Speaker 1: us about that?
27:35
Speaker 4: Essentially, we have a family member of the the Boards
27:38
Speaker 4: coming forward with a detailed statement about an admission that
27:43
Speaker 4: Keith gave her. I think it was in twenty eleven,
27:45
Speaker 4: twenty twelve, And actually what happened forty four years ago
27:49
Speaker 4: was she was there when Keith came into her mother's
27:53
Speaker 4: house and he had a scratch on his neck. And
27:56
Speaker 4: it appears is that Keith is the first one that
27:58
Speaker 4: drops the story that gets thrown in prison, which is
28:01
Speaker 4: that you know, he gave a black man a ride
28:03
Speaker 4: home with the girls and the black man scratched his neck,
28:07
Speaker 4: threw him in the trunk, and raped the two girls.
28:09
Speaker 4: See the problem with that, though, is if you talk
28:11
Speaker 4: to this witness, she knows Keith Leboard. He's a total psycho.
28:16
Speaker 4: Keith also, I believe I said twenty eleven, twenty twelve,
28:19
Speaker 4: he admitted that there was no black man. We actually
28:22
Speaker 4: have Facebook messages between Keith Leboard's first cousin and Karen,
28:27
Speaker 4: where Karen admitted that Keith le Board raped her. Now
28:31
Speaker 4: you have to understand this same cousin, Keith le Board,
28:35
Speaker 4: actually admitted that he had what he termed to be
28:38
Speaker 4: consensual sex with Karen and threw Sharon in the trunk.
28:42
Speaker 4: So that's why Sharon Hymen is attack because Keith threw
28:46
Speaker 4: her in the trunk because she didn't want to have
28:47
Speaker 4: sex with him. But he definitely had sex with Karen. Now,
28:50
Speaker 4: Karen says that it was a rape, Keith says it
28:53
Speaker 4: was consensual sex. But at the time of the alleged
28:57
Speaker 4: sexual act, Keith was an adult, Karen was a minor.
29:01
Speaker 1: You know.
29:02
Speaker 4: Then we have an investigative report from our investigator who
29:05
Speaker 4: spoke to Karen where Karen said she might have made
29:07
Speaker 4: a mistake, that she doesn't want to testify again in
29:10
Speaker 4: this case.
29:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I need a shower. I mean, this
29:16
Speaker 1: is even worse than I originally thought, which I didn't
29:20
Speaker 1: think was possible. So where are we now? What in
29:23
Speaker 1: the world is it going to take to bring Vincent Hope?
29:26
Speaker 4: Where are we right now? We filed the motion to
29:28
Speaker 4: vacate the conviction a post conviction relief motion in October
29:33
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty. I mean there's Affid David's newly discovered evidence.
29:37
Speaker 4: There's scientific reports in here, identification experts, doctors, obviously the
29:42
Speaker 4: previous discovery that wasn't turned over when the motion was
29:46
Speaker 4: initially filed, Carrie Sproul was the judge that was overseeing
29:52
Speaker 4: the motion and Charles Riddle was the district attorney. And
29:57
Speaker 4: essentially what happened is in more Arch of twenty twenty one,
30:01
Speaker 4: I got my hands on a document where Carrie Sprool
30:06
Speaker 4: admitted that he represented Keith Leboard's daughter in a previous
30:13
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was a custody case or
30:14
Speaker 4: a family court case. And so we had a hearing
30:18
Speaker 4: to recuse Carrie Sprool, and in that hearing to recuse
30:22
Speaker 4: Carrie Sprool, Carrie Sprool not only admitted that he had
30:26
Speaker 4: represented Keith the Board's daughter, but also that he had
30:29
Speaker 4: a close relationship with keithle Board since I guess almost childhood,
30:33
Speaker 4: and actually hired Keith the Board to work on construction
30:37
Speaker 4: projects in his house. So he had a long standing
30:39
Speaker 4: relationship with Keith the Board and his family. And then
30:43
Speaker 4: after that is when we had the motion to recuse
30:46
Speaker 4: the District Attorney's office where we took testimony from Vincent's
30:50
Speaker 4: trial attorney, Mike Kelly, where Mike Kelly testified at the
30:55
Speaker 4: hearing that the defense received no discovery, not a document.
31:01
Speaker 4: They didn't know there was a lineup, they didn't know
31:03
Speaker 4: that there was original statements made, they didn't know anything.
31:06
Speaker 4: We took testimony from a civil rights activist, Alan Holmes,
31:10
Speaker 4: who heard Charles Riddle admit that Mike Kelly didn't receive discovery,
31:14
Speaker 4: and then we took testimony from Charles Riddle himself, and
31:18
Speaker 4: Charles Riddle admitted that he believed Mike Kelly when Mike
31:22
Speaker 4: Kelly testified that they didn't have any of the discovery
31:25
Speaker 4: in this case. That caused Judge Bennett to recuse Charles
31:30
Speaker 4: Riddle because Charles Riddle refused to consent to give Vincent
31:34
Speaker 4: Simmons a new trial. Essentially that Riddle was basically condoning
31:40
Speaker 4: a constitutional violation right he knew that there was a
31:44
Speaker 4: violation and refused to remedy it. And a prosecutor has
31:48
Speaker 4: a duty to act fair and and partial, and his
31:51
Speaker 4: duties are based upon the Constitution. He has to be
31:55
Speaker 4: fair to the accused and when there's a due process
31:57
Speaker 4: violation like there is in this case. The only way
32:00
Speaker 4: he can remedy that is by giving Vincent another trial,
32:03
Speaker 4: and he refused to do it. We now have an
32:05
Speaker 4: Attorney General's office that's taken over. They're trying to vacate
32:08
Speaker 4: the refusal of Charles Riddle. They're basically trying to delay
32:12
Speaker 4: this as best as they can. No one wants to
32:14
Speaker 4: give Vincent any relief here, and that's where we are
32:19
Speaker 4: right now. We're in front of the Supreme Court battling
32:22
Speaker 4: it out over the motion to recuse a district attorney,
32:25
Speaker 4: and I'm in the process of filing something to try
32:28
Speaker 4: to compel the court to do the right thing here.
32:32
Speaker 1: After our release, Justin went to work on just that,
32:34
Speaker 1: and back in January twenty two, I got a call
32:36
Speaker 1: from Angola. It was Vincent thanking me and everyone here
32:40
Speaker 1: at the Wrongful Conviction podcast, and I didn't know what
32:43
Speaker 1: he was thanking us for. It turns out that at
32:46
Speaker 1: some point between the original release in November twenty twenty
32:49
Speaker 1: one and that January, Justin had won him a hearing
32:53
Speaker 1: set for February fourteenth and twenty twenty two, in which
32:56
Speaker 1: his motion for some rejudgment was to be decided. Either
33:00
Speaker 1: the judge would rule against him or he'd be granted
33:02
Speaker 1: a new trial, at which point the prosecutor would have
33:04
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not to go forward with this case,
33:07
Speaker 1: knowing what we know now, and Vincent had faith that
33:12
Speaker 1: this would finally set him free. Now I'm ecstatic to
33:18
Speaker 1: report that he was correct. Vincent, Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
33:24
Speaker 1: You are so welcome. You know, words will never do
33:29
Speaker 1: justice to this mixture of joy and anger that I
33:33
Speaker 1: feel about your case. But right now, I'd like to
33:36
Speaker 1: focus on that magical moment when you were set free.
33:40
Speaker 1: You know, I saw footage of it. I wanted to
33:42
Speaker 1: be there in person, but I couldn't, And I know
33:44
Speaker 1: that you knew it was coming, But there was a
33:47
Speaker 1: look of shock and surprise on your face.
33:51
Speaker 9: Yes, even though I had this vision, when did manifesent man,
33:58
Speaker 9: I was in shock free So you know I knew
34:04
Speaker 9: that based on the evidence that they had ded and
34:10
Speaker 9: look at the evidence that they have now, they had
34:14
Speaker 9: nothing dead, nothing but.
34:17
Speaker 6: The lines and then Boom. For a full year later,
34:22
Speaker 6: the family come forward and Boom revealed new evidence of
34:29
Speaker 6: what they had need all these years.
34:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean not only that cousin who had come
34:35
Speaker 1: forward talking about Keith Lebboord, all of those damning messages
34:39
Speaker 1: that we had already discussed on the podcast, not to
34:42
Speaker 1: mention that there was no discovery at all in this case.
34:46
Speaker 1: Let me say that again, there was no discovery at all.
34:49
Speaker 1: Nothing was turned over to the defense, and all of
34:52
Speaker 1: the things that could have been turned over and should
34:54
Speaker 1: have been turned over in discovery were exculpatory. Then, the
34:58
Speaker 1: two alleged victims accusers in your case, Sharon and Karen Sanders,
35:03
Speaker 1: went on CBS and had no good answers to explain
35:06
Speaker 1: the wild inconsistencies in their statements. Among others, to explain
35:11
Speaker 1: the inconsistency about when they knew your name and that
35:15
Speaker 1: they had actually known it all along, they had said
35:19
Speaker 1: that they had made a pack to not say your name,
35:23
Speaker 1: which is total horseshit. After they had identified you in
35:28
Speaker 1: the lineup, they still didn't know your name in those
35:31
Speaker 1: statements either, which totally contradicted themselves. Again, they also admitted
35:37
Speaker 1: to the racist comments that one of the sisters had said,
35:40
Speaker 1: quote unquote, all n words look alike, and how could
35:45
Speaker 1: they even have identified you anyway? If that was the case, right,
35:48
Speaker 1: I mean, there's another direct contradiction there, and let alone
35:51
Speaker 1: that you didn't even fit their bogus description that they
35:54
Speaker 1: had made up out of thin air. This case is madness.
35:59
Speaker 1: And in addition, Karen Sanders also admitted to a sexual
36:02
Speaker 1: relationship with Keith Leboard, starting as early as nine years old. Man,
36:09
Speaker 1: I mean I was watching that my job. I hit
36:13
Speaker 1: the floor. You were simply dragged into their web with
36:16
Speaker 1: sadness and lies, with neither probable cause nor having fit
36:20
Speaker 1: any description other than just being a black man. Your
36:24
Speaker 1: case is about as disgusting as any we've ever heard.
36:27
Speaker 1: So with all of this floating in the zeitgeist, along
36:30
Speaker 1: with the mountain of Brady material, the judge finally set
36:34
Speaker 1: you free after over forty four years in prison and
36:38
Speaker 1: you were reunited with your family. Can you take us
36:41
Speaker 1: back to that night? Where'd you go?
36:44
Speaker 5: What did you do?
36:46
Speaker 7: Well?
36:47
Speaker 9: I was taken all by my family and missed the
36:51
Speaker 9: bonus to a restaurant, you know, a real expensive restaurant,
36:57
Speaker 9: and I'm looking around, said wow, you know, and.
37:01
Speaker 6: You ask me what I wanted to eat? That's said everything.
37:06
Speaker 1: Everything.
37:08
Speaker 6: I won't eat everything, So you know, we had lovely meal.
37:12
Speaker 6: We talked, we laughed, we joked.
37:15
Speaker 9: That moment is very special. It's very special. You know,
37:21
Speaker 9: that chills, you know, travel to your body, all the.
37:26
Speaker 6: Love and hugs and kisses and all that.
37:32
Speaker 9: It brought a warmth to me of something special that
37:37
Speaker 9: was missing when you're coming out of somewhere where you've
37:41
Speaker 9: been kidnapped and held against your will for forty four years.
37:47
Speaker 9: I value that, you know. You know it's hard because
37:52
Speaker 9: I got to relearn everything. You know, but it don't
37:57
Speaker 9: it doesn't stop us from thinking, you know, it doesn't
38:01
Speaker 9: stop us from living, and it doesn't stop me from
38:05
Speaker 9: doing the right things to freedom minds, you know, to
38:11
Speaker 9: show them that, you know, we we have to value ourselves,
38:16
Speaker 9: you know, you have. You can't love somebody if you
38:19
Speaker 9: don't value who you are, if you don't love yourself,
38:23
Speaker 9: you know, and you come first, and then you know,
38:26
Speaker 9: you show compassion and love to others. You know just
38:30
Speaker 9: what our journis are, you know, our duties for being
38:36
Speaker 9: here on itar, you know, is to get people to
38:39
Speaker 9: understand God law, hey man, get them laws in you man.
38:43
Speaker 9: You know what I'm saying. Whatever God, you believe that,
38:46
Speaker 9: you know every wouldn't have a duty to each other
38:50
Speaker 9: as humanity, you know, But yet we fighting each other.
38:54
Speaker 9: Why I'm here to deliver that message. I'm gonna fight it.
38:58
Speaker 9: I'm gonna fight it. I'm not gonna go along.
39:02
Speaker 4: You know.
39:02
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna be around. I'm not gonna turn a
39:04
Speaker 6: blind eye to the truth.
39:10
Speaker 9: And that's what I'm fighting for. I have a big
39:13
Speaker 9: family that I live beyond black and white. I'm fighting
39:18
Speaker 9: for us. What we do, what we here for justice?
39:24
Speaker 9: You know, we here the correct That's what your job is.
39:28
Speaker 9: Your report what's going on, you know, to the public,
39:32
Speaker 9: to the people.
39:34
Speaker 1: I love you, man, We love you too, Vincent. And
39:37
Speaker 1: you know, all I can do is to continue to
39:40
Speaker 1: shine a light on these injustices and help to be
39:43
Speaker 1: part of the team that works to correct them wherever
39:47
Speaker 1: and whenever I have the power to do so. And
39:49
Speaker 1: without you sharing your story, well we wouldn't be able
39:52
Speaker 1: to do that here. So I'd like to just thank
39:55
Speaker 1: you for on behalf of everyone that works on our team,
40:01
Speaker 1: for joining us and sharing your story. And then I'm
40:04
Speaker 1: gonna turn to the closing of our show where I
40:06
Speaker 1: turned my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick back
40:10
Speaker 1: in my chair and just listen to any final messages
40:14
Speaker 1: that you have.
40:15
Speaker 6: You know, I'm gonna give it to the people. I
40:21
Speaker 6: learned it.
40:21
Speaker 8: I learned it hardly. You know, I'm gonna give it
40:25
Speaker 8: to everybody. Row your way is the only way I'm
40:31
Speaker 8: fighting for the people. We're trying to fix a system
40:36
Speaker 8: that is broken based on racism.
40:41
Speaker 6: Don't say that racism though, it's because it do and
40:45
Speaker 6: everybody don't want to deal with it.
40:48
Speaker 8: Why not?
40:51
Speaker 1: You know they.
40:51
Speaker 8: Judges and prosecutor using the shield or distinct.
40:58
Speaker 6: To do criminal activity.
41:00
Speaker 9: Is you make all kinds of laws saying that you
41:04
Speaker 9: know will against this and will against that, but you
41:07
Speaker 9: ain't punishing them.
41:11
Speaker 8: They don't have a law by the constitution that say
41:14
Speaker 8: that the prosecutor.
41:16
Speaker 3: I can use my.
41:17
Speaker 8: Influence to intimidate other people to say what I want
41:22
Speaker 8: them to say, and if they don't say it, then
41:25
Speaker 8: I'm gonna send them to prison.
41:27
Speaker 6: I'm gonna punish them. No, who are you you human
41:33
Speaker 6: like I am?
41:34
Speaker 8: You represent the people, and when you miss you your authorities.
41:39
Speaker 8: You're supposed to be pitilized by the people that goes
41:45
Speaker 8: for judgesus.
41:46
Speaker 6: Lawyers, d is whoever you may be you're a human.
41:53
Speaker 9: And you suppot to act humanly, use your powers wisely.
42:06
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
42:09
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn,
42:13
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lyla Robinson. The music
42:17
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
42:19
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
42:23
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
42:28
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
42:31
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
42:34
Speaker 1: me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason Flam.
42:38
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast
42:41
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one