I came from a beautiful neighborhood. I had a beautiful life. I went to sleep because September seventh was the first day of my high school year. I was going to be a senior.
At twenty two, I was set to start college.
I woke up and my life was never the same again.
Cops came out with guns drawn, and I never saw freedom ever since after that.
It's like roach Mota. Once you get in, you and I can't now, this is wrongful conviction with Jason Flummer today, I'm honored, and I don't use that word lightly to have as our guest, Derek Hamilton. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Glad you're here. Derek. Your story is extraordinary in so many ways, and I don't even know where to begin, but I guess we should really take it back to the beginning and we'll save the reveal like they do in Hollywood, to what you're doing now and what you've accomplished in your life over extraordinary obstacles that are almost unimaginable obstacles. But let's go back to the beginning and talk about how this began. You're a New Yorker born
and bred like me Brooklyn from Brooklyn. Okay, Brooklyn in the house, that's right, all right.
Bephie Stubbins in neighborhood with violence was know, you know, it was very tough housing project. I grew up in Lafia Gardens where it was kind of like one block with eighty thousand people on it, you know, in a housing project. And if you got a basketball, you had to go outside and fight for your basketball. If your mother father bought your pet sneakers, you had to fight
for your sneakers. It was very depressant. And every little kid wants what the next little kid has, and if your family don't has it, avotate to try to take it. So it was tough stuff.
And you had some early scraps with the law. Why don't you talk about it?
Absolutely. I was a young kid about sixteen and seventeen and got into a life of crime, attempted to rob someone with the prison for that. Ultimately I was released and I was out. Some older guys had committed robbery of a bread truck and actually killed the truck driver. I was outside that day when the crime happened.
Did you see it?
I seen the action. I actually seen it, and actually the guys that asked me to look out for them if the cops came, just whistle or something of that sort. The next day, walking down the block, the police officers picked me up and they don't question me about the crime, but they just take a picture of me and asked me at my Derek Haunton and I said they knew me previously from the incident that I had attempted robbery, so I took none of it. I left out the precinct.
One week later, they arrested me for the murder of James Wolf, and it just stunned me because I know I didn't kill mister Wolf. I know I wasn't involved in the crime. But what I learned is that one of the older guys who actually committed the crime, who car was identified as the car seen fleeing from the scene, was able to convince the police officers that he loaned the car to me, a seventeen year old kid with no license with anything, and the cops actually believed that story.
And we've seen this in the number of cases where the actual killer is and you could say here being smart, right, they know that their way out is dependent on somebody else.
Well, first of all, I was from the housing project right where the crime happened. He wasn't, so it seemed more obvious that I was likely suspect to get But in the event, I go to a trial and during the course of the trial, my lawyer tells me that there's a witness outside in the hallway who called her out and explaining to my lawyer that she would refuse
to testify. Her name was Patricia Lee. She said the cops had forced her to go into grand jury and identify me as someone she saw outside the housing project who spoke to her after the murder happened and said, I panicked and I thought I shocked the guy in the arm. She said she would refuse to testify. She couldn't get up on the stand and tell that lie.
My lawyer came back in and reported this to the court and said to the court there's a witness in the hallway that we never knew existed who said this to me. And then the court said, well, let's bring the witness. And the witness comes in and the prosecutor asks for something called a Soroyis hearing in New York,
and the Sorois hearing is people versus Croys. And what this hearing does is that it puts the burden a proof on the prosecutor to prove by clean, convincing evidence that I waived my right to confront the witness a trial if me or someone acting for me made the witness of law for refuse to testify. So the judge held this Croys hearing, and the witness testified that it was the cops who in fact threatened her and made her lie to grand jury, that me and nobody acting
for me ever had any involvement with her whatsoever. In fact, we never knew she testified in the grand jury.
So the judge those hearings are seek right.
So the judge ruled that day that he could not allow the prosecutor to use this witness grand jury testimony against me as evidence in chief. In fact, he had heard not one iota of evidence that me or anybody acting for me did anything wrong.
Right, because the case was hinged on the eyewitness testimony, which we know is one of the most powerful things in the criminal justice system.
Absolutely right.
So now you're feeling like, okay, can I go home now? Right day?
And they drenched for one day, and he said you got to tomorrow to come up with something and released this guy. We returned to court the next day and the judge said his previous ruling the day before troubled him all night, that he felt that the only one that would benefit from the witness refusal to testify is me or somebody acting for me, and that because of that, he wouldn't allow the prosecutor to use the grand jury testimony against me as evidence in chief and find that
I weighed my right to confrontation. At that moment, the lawyer that I had candas Curt, very nice lady, asked me, did I understand what was going on in the proceedings? I said somewhat, And she says, kid, it is time for you to learn what's going on. And she gave me two cases and said you need to read those overnight.
But in the event, she told the judge that she would have to testify and become a witness, and she would have to take the stand to explain what the witness told her in the hallway, in the bathroom, or whatever the conversation happened, and had to, you know, show that there's no evidence that me and anybody did anything wrong. The judge reopened hearing, my lawyer testified, and he still stuck by his decision. I was convicted based on the
grandjury testimonies of Patricia Lee. I was sentence to twenty five years of life in prison for murder I did
not commit. And five years later the Appel Division second apartment in the case ruled that the lower court was wrong, that they violated my right to confrontation by admitting the grand jury testimony as evidence achieved against me, that I never forfeited my right, that there was no evidence whatsoever that means need by Tampa, with the witness and every verse occasion, we managed it back down for a new trial.
Anyone listening is gonna be going just like I'm going, Well, okay, now you go free. Right, Yes, except that's not what happened.
Not exactly, because I was somewhat coerced to take a plea, an outfit plead, because I started a second trial. When the Pel Division reverses, they ordered a new trial. They prosecuted and instructed the judge to jury, actually in an open insummation, that they should find me guilty of attention to murder and the second degree, a crime in which I was acquitted of at the first trial.
Sounds like that with jeopardy, right.
I spoke to my lawyer about it, and I said, I just was acquitted that he brought it to the court's attention after the jury stepped out of the room and the judge macker was who was at the time she deceased, now indicated that well it was a mistake, well not giving you a mistrial. Um, yes, the prosecutor was wrong, Yes she was acquitted of it. But we're going to dispose of this case one way another. And my lawyer pulled me to the side and said, look,
as you see, they're not trying to be fair. And you know I had a conviction for a weapon at that time as also, so he said, you got five years for the weapon. You're not going to run for man. You see they trying to railroad you. They're willing to give you outfit plead. And for the people that don' understand, well, you're United States Supreme Court in Alphit versus North Carolina, rendered that a plea can be took where a person doesn't have to be allocuted, It doesn't have to talk
about the underlying factors of the case. You say because there's a likelihood I may be convicted, not because I'm guilty. I accept the conditions of this plea.
Right, So you're not admitting guilt, but the government is not admitting innocence. Yes, right, So you're basically in like a sort of a gray area, so to speak. Right, but basically you're allowed. You can go home, yes, which is what everybody wants. Yes, but you can never sue the government. You cannot sue the state. You cannot. You have no recourse, no recourse at all, right, because they never admitting that they were wrong. Right, Okay, so now
you're out, Yeah, I'm out. And what happened? So now you're twenty, I'm at.
That point, probably about twenty three.
Twenty three back to Bedstock, Yes, back to It's still crazy out there.
Still, it's crazier than when I left. I mean when I left in eighty three, the drug game wasn't as crack cocaine never was in the community at that time. I mean that hit my community in a very very hard way. It was like being a different community. I mean, you came home, there were mothers who were shrung out on crack. There was whole families who were shrunk out on crack. There was individual now who were drugsars, who was running the neighborhood. It was just a different environment.
This is eighty this is nineteen eighty nine.
My father was killed in Bepe Staveson a year before. So I'm coming home with that. I mean, there was a lot of different Your father was killed, Yeah, he was shouting, killed in stuyvesant On a year before that. So I'm coming home with, you know, the idea of getting my life back together, getting my family back together. I was a mechanic help at the being in garage. I'm probably going to prison. And at a young age, I used to always work at a gas station on
Franklin and Clifton and Brooklyn. And the nickname I had was Amaco Junior because I love cars so much, and I worked with grease monkey type of stuff. So when I came home, Benjamin Oliver, my previous employer, gave me a job and I was working with him, you know, changing all doing little things around the shop.
So things are looking up.
I was looking up, and my father left me some money to invest a got from his insurance policy to invest in beauty shalon. So I opened that in new Haven, Connecticut, and I'm moving along with my life. I'm being known to me that there was a detective and members of the District Attorney's office.
By the way, it's an interesting combination working on cars and doing beauty.
Right, So you got a little ultimate apparents Unisex alone man.
You got hairst I got a whole thank on it, Okay, thanks of looking up right.
And you know, i got two children, a six year old son and a six year old daughter with a tw different woman. So I'm trying to be the best father i can, taking them to school, picking them up. And I'm being knownst to me that there was some individuals and law enforcement who had me on their radar, who felt that the system had failed them, who still believed that I was guilty for the death of James Wolf, the young man that was killed, and there was some
cops that was very upset about it. In nineteen ninety one January of nineteen ninety one, a friend of mine by the name of Daniel Cash was shot and killed
in Brooklyn outside his home in Bepuestaves. Yes, I was in New Haven, Connecticut that particular day, having stayed over the night before for going away party for a friend of mine, got a phone call Eddy Cayton, actually nath Daniel's cash child mother received a phone call from a mother who indicated him to the cash for shot and killed in Brooklyn, and that some detectives that came by a house looking for me said this Derek.
Hid and you weren't there because you weren't connected.
I was in Connecticut, and you know, I took it as just talk. When I first heard that the cows was looking for me for this murder, I didn't believe it, you know, I said, people just saying that. But my mother called me and said, the cops have been at my house.
How long have you been out at this point?
At this point, I've been out probably probably six months, because probably about six months a New York City detective by the name of Louis Garseller comes to New Haven, Connecticut, in the store that the owner and operated that the Bautachelon told you about.
Now let me stop there for a second. Lewis Carseller is infamous, and that's a very nice.
Way of saying very much so.
Right. Lewis Garsella is probably responsible for as many or more wrongful convictions than any detective in the history of this country.
I believe nine people so far have been as my number.
Is correct, but there's dozens of cases that have been reopened because it's come out that there was I mean, for just one example, there were six different murder cases where he used the same witness who was a crackhead, where he was applying drugs to who he was I mean, So this woman was so lucky that she witnessed six different murders. I mean, that's impossible, and he was he was bribing her, coercing her, probably not the most reliable witness ever, and maybe on the fifth one you'd go
and nobody could get that lucky. I mean. But anyway, that's just one example of what he was up to. So he was the last guy in the world you wanted to be involved with if you were in the criminal justice system, because he was going to get a conviction and he didn't care whatsoever. That was the facts of the case. He was interested in convictions, not truth. Yes, So, okay, so Scarcell is looking for you. You didn't know who he was though at this point I.
Didn't know who he was at this point, never heard of him. And he walks into the unisextionaland that I own kissed me on the side of my face and says Lafayette Gardens, motherfucker, excuse my vernacular, and automatically it tells me that this guy is from Brooklyn and he says that I'm under the rest. At that time, he said it was for a parole violation. I mean it took me to on the side of my cheek.
I mean, you know, okay, just what Derek, But yeah, I mean that's like something strange, like he thought he was in the movie type of thing.
He think he's the mafia figure. He has this biggie you know, he looks like Joe Pessi, a taller Joe Pessy, and I think he took on that character. But if you ever see him testify or see his granddaughter, he just has that you know, big Italiano Mafio so looking. I think he just started playing that role at some point.
But he came in and kissed me on the cheek, arrested me, took me to the Union Avenue station in New Haven, Connecticut, and told me there that I was being arrested for the definite Daniel Cash that he had five woodnantses who couldn't identify me and say I killed
this young man. I told him I was innocent and that, yes, absolutely, that was He said he had five witnesses that disagreed, and that he was arresting me for I was transported back to Brooklyn and reigned on the indictment pledge not guilty, and we began the process. And you know the criminal justice system, here we go again, and yes, here we
go again. The sole witness fuck that accused me of the murder came to my lawyer four days after my arrest explained to my lawyer that she never saw the crime.
So there wasn't five witnesses, there was one.
There was one. There was a single witness who had told the cops immediately at the crime scene she didn't see it, that she was at the store when she came back, her boyfriend was shot and killed. She was beat up at the scene the crime. Took to the precinct with the technive Scots that have told her that if she didn't implicate me in the murder, that she herself would go to jail for the crime. She was
on parole. She had kids too, She had two children, and they told us they would lock her up because her boyfriend was a felon who had just got out of prison himself, and she had no business being with them. So they said because you.
In which case she would lose custody of her cats.
She would lose custy.
We see this over and over again with women. It's one of the strongest threats that you can make to a mother is listen, you're gonna testify the way we want to. And they'll probably tell her too, and listen, by the way, this guy's a bad guy. If he didn't do this, he did some other stuff you're doing society favorite. They tell him whatever the hell they want to tell him. But mostly the only thing a woman in that situation is gonna hear is you're gonna lose custody of your kids.
And what she said was that, you know, it was either her or meet in her mind that they told her, if you don't say this, you're going to jail, and she wasn't going to jail like you said. She had kids, so she just went along with the statement. Deskar celebrabate it with which indicated that she saw me come to the building and some young man passed me a gun and I got the gun and I shot down you cash shovel times inside the vest of of the building.
But which doesn't match very well with the original story that she gave where she wasn't there when the crime was committed, right, so that story changed.
Yes, nor doesn't match with the science or the ballistics evidence in the case. The guy was shot with two different weapons and he was shot outside the vessel with the building in the street, with an ultimate shot that killed him which she never saw, which she was inaccurate and saying he was shot in the building by one gun. The fact that they learned this before the trial, the fact that they knew that her story was totally inaccurate with science. No one ever went to her and said, hey,
you're lying. You know you saw it. How did you miss this? They didn't care, And what they actually did was force her even though she told them and she
didn't want to come to the trial to testify. They locked it up on the maturity witness order, brought it before the judge who was ever rapaport in Brooklyn, and told her that she would go to jail, which is on the record, if she didn't come in and cooperate fully with the prosecutor, not truthfully, but fully, whatever the prosecutor tells you to do, that's what you better do.
Derek. One of the things I find so fascinating. One of the reasons I said I was honored to have you here is because Derek became a very accomplished jailhouse lawyer. If that's I don't know if that's the right way of saying it. So in your second stay in prison, right, which was twenty one years, so here it is, Derek's fifty one years old, spent twenty seven years in prison between the two different wrongful convictions. So that's more than about sixty percent of your life, yes, in prison, right.
And this is one of the things that I find so inspiring. You said something along the lines of I didn't have time to work out and it's funny because you look like I mean, he's a big, big strong guy. I mean he kuy of looks like Mike Tyson honestly, But you didn't have time to work out of them.
Because why, my whole life was spent on getting out. I was an avid student of a law library. I must spend all my working hours there if I could, And when I didn't, you would find me probably in the cell reading a book and educate myself on the criminal justice system, the processes that take took a convicted person to a pill and post previction. I had to master that. I mean, if I was able to level the playing field, then I had to be the most
intelligent person in the court. And that was my goal to study, to walk in the courtroom, to be able to understand the process. And I just read everything they had in the law library. I just studied everything.
But it wasn't just that you had a team, right, Oh, I mean.
Your team came later. But I'll tell you about my great team.
Because I look at it. It was like a law firm in prison.
Right and right it was. It was a very good team. In two thousand and nine, I arrived at the Auburn Corrections Facility MAXIM maximum security prison. I was in segregation at the time. I was a very dark woman of mine in conservation because I had began going to the parole board in two thousand and nine. And when I began going to the parole board, I had a dilemma where they wanted you to meet the guilt and I couldn't make guilt. And I felt.
That is a glimma. We see it over and over again with guys in your situation who are faced with You got to admit guilt if you want to have any chance to get out. So, actually, when you have a twenty five years a life sentences, it's a life sentence unless you're going to admit to a crime that you didn't commit. Otherwise it's life because the parole board is never going to say, yeah, let this guy go unless you come in and go I'm so sorry. I
never should have done this. I feel guilt, I feel remorse, I feel every but it's hard to feel remorse for something you didn't do.
It didn't do. So I'm at this dilemma temps suicide if facillity no mercy says I faked the suicide attempt, and throw me in a box twenty three hours a day and you have one hour with about the size of the day in a cage, a dog kennel type of cage. If you can imagine, yeah, like TV right, and you are I mean, you're just subjected to some of the most horrendous treatment in the world because you're around a lot of mentally ill prisons that bang and throw feces and urine and you're subjected to a very
degrading time. So I'm there and I get to say a letter from a law library because the cops bring two books today you're allowed and special housing. And the letter says, hey man, I'm glad you're here from a god in law library. We waiting for you, you know, to get out and we look forward to working for you. And it's Dannyrincoar. And when I get out of the box, a friend of mine say, hey, Danny.
Has a group and the group is called.
Actional Innocence and these guys want you to come work with the Law Library and know you're smart, they know you know what you're doing, and they need you to come out here and lead the group. And at that time they have Furnish Baccall, who's another scot seller victim who's out now as well, is working as a clerk. And I convince Shabaka to come to the Law Library and we developed we drain actually the actual instance team that Danny has, and we beat for the up. We beef it up with knowledge, so.
It's like a law from like Ring country. Baka on Hamilton and he got Richie Vazzario.
Okay, we got him in there to come with us. He was a part of our team. And we got a nice team of guys who was serious about their innocence. Cal Harris, who ultimately just beat his beat his his wife's murdered up the state. He was in prison for killing his wife that he didn't do, had three trials with Justice honor. He was a part of a team and we would get to the law library and we would study each other cases, help each other out and
help people in the population out. But what we would do was be the most biggest critic on each other's case. And if we thought that there was a question ask to a witness credibility, we would bring it up. And we thought they was a floor. And what I brought to the teams, I said, look, here's the problem I'm having is that pr we need to get public relations, public media involved in letting society know that we exist. And you know, they thought I was crazy at the time.
I said, I'm gonna get my family to go do a rally outside of the Brooklyn Supreme Court. And I had a motion at the time, and I sent my family down to do a rally and it wound up on the front page, well on big page whatever it was, in the daily news, and it says inmates would go free if the court here is witnesses. And having that article around the Dairy News for the AI team was
a whole different level of organizing. Now Here are guys who were downtrodden, who had been beat up by the criminal justice system motion denied Tony, and they knew they was innocent. There was no doubt that were innocent. There was overwhelming evidence in each of our cases to prove that.
But we were being treated, as you know, as if we didn't exist, that we didn't count, that the law didn't apply to us, because society thought we were bad people, that we wasn't human beings who deserve to be treated fair. And when that article came out, it showed the team how much power we have if we can organize our families or in society to make noise. And we did that.
So now you're organizing insight and outside.
All right, So what we decided to strategize why to contact Lonnie Sorry, who was a PR guy that worked through the Marty tanklerf case. I reached out to Lonnie and I sent them five hundred dollars, and I said, Lonnie, look it's all I got man, and guy's my commentsary money. Hey, I need the eight but we need you. And my wife called Lonnie and said, Lonnie, well, Derek says you're organizing a rally outside the city hall. And he says, I didn't tell Derek I was organized in a rally
outside city Hall. And then I said, have everybody family called him. So Lonnie was getting a phone calls from all our families and friends, and he told my wife, what are Derek doing to me? He got people calling me saying I'm giving a rally. But he was convinced to give the rally and it was our first one. We
was all in prison. Lonnie went out there with our family about fifty people, and we was able to see the pitches and see the news and the way he made of it, and he empowered us, let us know that you know, people did care about the wrong he convicted because we was on the steps of city Hall and had a nice turnout. So that began us really high in a sense of power, noring what we can do with with just you know, our families and educating people on what's happening to us? So I mean doing
that process. I began to write lawyers asking for help. Lonnie was helping me. He was very much an advocate of mind at this time, helping me. And Jonathan Ellistein from Elstein and Grossman began wrote me back and said that he was sickened about what happened to me, being a lawyer for seventeen years. Think he said. He said that he was really troubled how the course was strong, my evidence of instance in the garbage, and he said, I think you should go to the media with this.
And I sent them a check for fifteen hundred dollars and said this is all I got left. Would you be my lawyer? Said, I'm sending you your check back because I can't take your money. Your emotion is immaculate. But what I will do is write a friende to the court brief and asks to court the grant you hearing on your evidence of innocent said.
Your emotion is immaculate. Yes, you must have felt pretty good about that I did. I did? And what kind of education did you have before this? G. D.
Blackstone School of Law, even the college courses they had, You know, I just couldn't see myself spending all my work when I was in college when I had to actually learn law, and it wasn't teaching law courses there, so I had no interest in going to college. I had to be in the law library. But and at that point, when mister Elistein wrote me back, I felt great.
And the judge denied my motion. He found that there was a law of court and jurisdiction that he couldn't overturn the previous judges who denied previous four forties and three thirty point thirty, So he was kind in the buying that he would not reverse conviction. At that point, Jonathan Nelstein became my attorney. He said that he would file leave to the Tell Division on my behalf free of charge, and he also decided to write a letter
to the Parole boar on my behalf. And he wrote a very touching letter to the parole Board and basically told the parole board that society has no interest and keep an innocent man in prison. So he said, this man is not a risk of society because he's innocent, and he outlined all the evidents that we had to prove that I was innocent, and he basically invited them to take a look. The parole board released me based on a letter, amongst other things, and wished me good
luck and prove my innocence. This is what year we in, twenty eleven, December.
Twenty eleven, So you'd been in for twenty one years on the second wrongful conviction at this point, right, a total of twenty seven. Yeah, there's only three cases I know of in the hundreds of exonerations that we've had Innocence Project and other projects where there's been somebody who's been wrongfully convicted twice, there's only three.
So I'm home and I'm busting my butt to find a job. Contact Scott brut Snyd. I'm a previous lawyers. Hit, I'm home. You know, I got a para legal degree and I think post conviction is the place to go. There's a lot of guys left in it as innocent. We should work in these cases, and we started working. My wife contacts me one day and say she gets an email. We'll share emails, and some investigat or detective contacted it and said they wanted to get in touch
with you. I said, I'm going to Canada now, I'm out of here. What do you mean they want to get in touch with me? I don't want to speak to nobody, but didn't want to talk to me about now me. I'm thinking that. So I'm scared and I call a guy and he says, no, I work for a lawyer, a boy the name of p Assessment. He says, uh, Pierre wants to speak to you about Louis Scott Seller. And I says, okay, what do you want to meet me at? He says, up in the bronx by the courthouse.
I go up and meet this guy. And you know, I looks up, you know, I'm across the street, you know, checking it out the scenario seeing me first, and I see a guy and I called. He picks up the phone, so I'm on my waist is when I'm over here waiting. He looks like a hipster, you know, he got a trench coat on. I said, well, you don't too much look like a cop because he got you know, hippie kind of looked with him. Said maybe I can trust
this guy. So I'll go over and introduce myself. And he tells me that he has a prison inmate who will be released in two weeks and that the DA's office in King's County agreed that Lewis Scott Teller framed this guy. And for me, it's like wow, like somebody was finally able to establish that this cop has been doing the things we've been arguing for a long time.
While I say we, I am thinking about Chabaka, Alvin, Jeannette, Robert Hill, Jarard Austin, all these guys, Nelson Cruz, these guys who I know that he framed personally know that he's framed, and I'm saying, wow, we have an opportunity.
So in the course of this, he asked me about my case and I said, I have a lawyer, but I introduced him to Jeanette Hill in Austin, who he has gotten zonerated as of now they've been as HONERATD And I tell him about those guys in Teresa goldmanz how Scar Seller used hunting six different homicides and he was surprised to even hear that because he didn't know
about that at the time. And he says, okay, well, I can't tell you the name of my client that's going to be released, but in two weeks they're gonna release and please you know, contact me again. In two weeks David rant was released. The first guy who was ever able to establish the scar seller had told the witness to pick out the guy with the hook nose, which was how he identified Ranta and then established what we've been saying, that this is the tactics and the
strategy this cop used to convict innocent people. So after having learned this and David Ranta's release, I run into a reporter by the name of Francis Robus from a New York Times and Robus is investigating Julio Assevedo case and she calling us to learn more about Acevedo. Acevedo was a guy that was accused of killing the real fifty he sent originally who fifty cent got his name from.
And I got Acevedo out of prison on the four to forty motion got his judgment vacated and released because he was kidnapped by drug dealers made to kill the fifty cent It was under duress, and once the judge charged the jury, if he can prove he did it underressed, they had to find him not guilty. I got the evidence, got the guy to prison. So Robers wanted to know who was Assevedo, and he had a car accident in Brooklyn. Three ascetic jews had died. His face was all over
the news recently at that time. And I got him to surrender himself, come in and deal with the case, don't run, because it wasn't his best interest. And she asked what Why would he be afraid of the cops. Why would this guy be so afraid of the cops. And I said, look, here's a guy that was arrested proviows he told the cops the truth, how he was kidnapped, Pistolhooper made the committed murder. They didn't believe him. He spent ten years in prison. Had I not got him,
might he probably would have still been there? I said, is a guy that's a fright me. I'm a guy, big guy, but I'm afraid of the cops. Cops framed me twice.
And you would be afraid of the cops if they frame you once? I mean absolutely.
And I said, look, I was just informed by a lawyer that in two weeks the cop that framed me and others is for the first time going to be revealed as being that type of cop. I said, if it happens. Get in touch with me. I'll give you the evidence to establish that there's others. And we made
a deal, and in two weeks Ranter was released. I got a call from Francis Rovers and says, hey, you got that evidence that you was just talking basically, And I introduced her to Jeanette and she she did a very good investigation, and the New York Times got the King's County Die's officer on the charles Es then to agree to look at fifty five of scar Seller cases fifty five at that time.
Fifty five people. I mean, when you think you know and everything is it's so hard to imagine. I mean, even what one person could go through, but fifty five is such a huge number. Yes, one person could cause that much destruction and damage to so many people's lives.
Ironians identification, false confessions, fail to turn over discovery. This is our criminal justice system, man. When you deal with the ones that we can fix, like Ironians identifications, there have been studies that you know about and I know about that says that we can fix Eronianus identifications by
having something called double blind lineups. Well, the cops doesn't know who the suspect is, so there's no fear that they will sugges to pick out number three or pick out the guy with the hook nose.
I want to go back that for a seconds. I'm glad you brought that up. So the Supreme Court actually took on this issue. Yes, and I'm reading from a book I consider like the Bible. It's just called Convicting the Innocent by Brandon Garrett. Shout out to him, Shout out, Brandon. So. In Manson versus Breathway, a case involving a prison custodian Naemanson, not the famous serial, the US Supreme Court noted the
dangers of suggestive identification procedures. The Court had long recognized quote the vagaries of eyewitness identification where the annals quote the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistake and identification. And in that decision, the Court affirmed that the due process clause of the Constitution, which everybody's familiar with, embraces the right to be free from unduly suggestive eyewitness identification procedures. Okay, now we're on the right track,
Thank you, Supremes. Right, Okay, such as showing the eyewitness a single photograph of the suspect or telling the witness whom to identify in a lineup, yes, which we know has happened over and over again, including in some ways in your case.
Yes.
However, and this is where it all falls apart. However, the Court and Manson, in the same rule added a caveat that undercut the power of that holding, because they found that even if the police engage in suggestive procedures so potentially suggestive that they violate due process, the identification may still be admitted at trial if it is otherwise quote reliable. Yes, I mean that is just I mean okay, So so they said you can't do this, but it's okay if you do.
Yes.
Basically that's what they said, right, yes.
Yes, basically because who determines reliability number one? And they didn't set for for tests to determine the reliability. But they says, if there's an independent source. So now what they do is they instruct the witness, Hey, hey, you've seen a guy before, right, it was seen before. Yeah, I've seen him once or twice in the supermarket with his mother, and they make that the independent source. However, if the person could have identified you, then when the
cops first accident who committed the crime. He should have said, Hey, a guy that I saw on the supermarket with his mother, you know, was a guy that committed his crime. That's the problem. A lot of times when they say something suggestive, they allow them to use a reason that they believe is reliable that no reasonable person would find to be.
Liiable, which they can invent. And we all know, so basically that that's a that's a ruling that has to be amended. Yes, because it's so, it's so, it's really such a terrible missed opportunity where the Supreme Court recognized this problem that has been responsible for so many wrongful convictions, including yours. Yes, but then they undercut their own decision and made it basically toothless and meaningless. Yes, and so so then we wind up in the situation that we're in.
I think that the audience should work on with us putting prosecutors in office to understand the dangers of wrong for conviction. In Brooklyn, we had a prosecutor run on that platform. We need you know what I mean, shout out to him. One of the best there ever was twenty something wrong for convictions and overturns. Yes, over turn in two years. We need prosecutors who are willing to understand that a part of their job, a part of their role, it's quasi jd issue, you know, candid to
the court, fitess to the queues. And we get that, then we can change the system all around the country. We just need prosecutors who just don't believe in locking them up, throwing the key away, but in justice.
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcast. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
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