I fell into the hands of a corrupt detective.
I was naive enough to believe that I would be able to just present all of my proof of actual innocence, that they would investigate adequately, and so that I wouldn't be going to prison because I was a good person. I hadn't done anything wrong.
In the back of your mind, you say, well, when we go to a hearing or we go to court, the truth will come out. The prosecution from day one knew I was innocent and let forced testimony go uncorrected from the lower courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
You have someone with a badge with ultimate and really, in that moment, unchecked authority.
Don't presume that people are guilty when you see them on TV, because it may just be a dirty da that is trying to rise upward.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction with Jason Flamm. Today, we have an amazing cast of characters and I'm going to introduce the star of our show first, David McCollum.
It is freedom after twenty eight years lost in prison for a New York man wrongly convicted of murder.
David McCallum.
In nineteen eighty six, McCallum and another teen, Willie Stucky, were sentenced to twenty five years to life for the kidnapping and murder of a twenty year old man. The only evidence linking them to the crime was their videotape confessions, which the boys claimed were fed to them by police for nearly thirty years. McCallum insisted he was innocent. A judge agreed. Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson supported the release.
We concluded that there was no physical evidence, no DNA evidence, no testimonial evidence.
That conclusion came from Thompson's Conviction Review Unit, which was created this year to look at past cases. Out of the thirty they've examined, ten convictions have been overturned.
Welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me, and with David, we have someone who I consider to be a rock star. We have the sitting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez is here to talk about this case. Eric. Welcome, Thank you, Jason, thank you for having me. And we have a very dapper gentleman. You can't see him on the radio, but trust me, he's got a very good tailor. And he's a wonderful lawyer responsible for six exonerations of
wrongfully convicted people, including you, David. So, I want to welcome Oscar Michelin to the show.
Thank you, Jason, thanks for having me.
So, David, this case is so extraordinary, not only because of the length of time you served twenty nine years wrongfully convicted, but because of the way that you got convicted in the first place, way back in well the mid eighties, right, that's how long.
That's correct, Yes, nineteen eighty five.
So take us back to that time. You were just a child, really, I mean you were an adolescent boy at the time.
Right, that's correct. I'm sixteen years old.
Sixteen years old. You were convicted of murder. Right, that's not just murder, but other charges as well.
That's right.
Yes, it was a guy named Nathan Blenner who was abducted and murdered.
That's correct. Yes, did you.
Know this guy?
No?
I never never seen him in my entire life.
No, what were the circumstances of the crime. What happened with this Nathan Blenner guy?
Okay, So on October twenty of nineteen eighty five, I will say sometime around three twenty in the afternoon. According to postryposts, of course, mister Blenner, Nathan Blenner, was sitting in his car in front of his home. He was attempting to start the engine for whatever reason, and so as a result of that, two young African American boys approached Nathan Bunna and engaged in the conversation with him. At some point there after, these individuals got into the
Carbineatan Blenna and they drove off with mister Blenner. About the next day, on October twenty first, so Benna body was found in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, in a park called Aberdeen Park. His body was found in the back of this park with a gunshot going to the back of the head.
How did it come to pass that they picked you up in Stucky Well?
The week later, on October twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five, Missus Stukey was arrested sometime around seven point thirty. According to the information that of course I have, Missus Stukey was approached. It was he was getting on the train to go out to a basketball game and two detectives walked up to him, approached him and acts but he mind coming to the police station. Stucky agreed to go to the police station with these individuals. They went down
to the police station. They questioned Missus Stukey about this particular crime. Missus Stukey said that he was with me when his crime was committed, which in fact he was because on that day that this crime was said to have been committed, we know Willie was in a park playing hamble for my sister and their friends. So Willie Stucky said that he was with me. Missus Stucky eventually confessed to witnessing a crime and that crime was that a shot miss of Blenna while Sustuki stood by and watched.
And Oscar, you spent ten years working on this case, right, I mean, let's just reflect on that for a second. Ten years to unravel this wrongful conviction. First of all, kudos to you, because that's a hell of a commitment. And David's here is living proof of your work. What kind of a game were they playing here? And why did they do this? And how did even Stuck you get? Was he just chosen at random?
No?
No, we actually think that it was far more nefarious than that. So it all started with some excellent police work at the beginning of the case where there were two young men who witnessed these two African American males kidnapped and carjack Nathan Blenner in Queens and gave a general description. One was taller than the other. They looked
to be about in their twenties. And then the police did a canvas and they found a woman who lived around the corner who said, hey, you know that same day, just about an hour earlier, two young African American males, one taller than the other, about in their twenties, one with corn rows in his hair, approached me where I was washing my car and said, hey, that's a nice car, and it was a Buick Regal, the same car as Nathan Blenner. So they use that description. They put that
description out to try to look for people. Two African American males with carjack history, one of them in corn rows, one taller than the other, and sure enough a Queen's pricinct called the Brooklyn Detectives and said, hey, I think we got your guys. They go to find these two guys who match the description perfectly, have a history of violent crime, and one of them works in a hardware store where a kerosene can which was used to burn
the car was purchased from. So that looks that sounds great, right, Yeah, cases should be over. So what ended up happening is they let one of those two guys give them a lead about a gun being sold down the street allegedly by somebody named Supreme, and that this guy named James Johnson knows that this gun allegedly was used to commit that crime. And they turn away from these two guys and they go to James Johnson. James Johnson gives him
the name Supreme. The cameras in the neighborhood they find that Willy Stuckey goes by the name Supreme, and that's how Willy is arrested. It's from two people who were prime suspects to a rat because he got a great deal. He was a suspect in shooting up of bodega James Johnson, and in exchange for giving them information about the gun, they didn't even arrest him for this robbery and shooting
in a bodega. And they had that He said, this kid, Willy, who's known as Supreme in the neighborhood, is accused of doing this. He had a gun, he was trying to unload that he got from my aunt.
Now I want to turn too, Eric here for a second. One of the reasons I'm so happy that Eric is here not only because of the respect I have f him and the work that he's doing, but also because it's a Brooklyn case. You're the guy in Brooklyn now, and you know what I want to ask you is
this seems almost like it's not funny but almost comical. Right, you have these two guys who are obvious suspects, and it wasn't that easy for them to throw the cops off, because it's pretty clever what they did, right, Otherwise they would have been in prison for the rest of their lives. They just went, hey, there's a gun, and all of a sudden, the cops go, let's go chase down the hallway. Here it sounds like it's Beector Cluso.
Quite frankly, David had applied to have this case looked at before under a different district attorney at the time, and they denied to you know, reopen the case and re investigate the case in a serious way. And because what David said, because they had a confession, and once the police came upon Willie Stucky and he was a young boy fifth sixteen as well, and he was confessing. Then all the other evidence that would have led to
the rightful killers of Nathan Blenner. And you know, I need to say that you feel very sad for his family because they suffered along with David in a different type of way. But the criminal justice system failed, not just David, but also the blend of family and all
of us. But once they had this confession, all the other pieces of evidence that made sense, the descriptions that fit the other people, the kerosene car, anything that was inconsistent with that confession was then cast aside and not used and not presented, and really led to what we had, which was this travesty of justice, This evidence that should have been before jury, and had it been before jury, would have cast all doubts on his confession.
We talk on the show about false confessions a lot, because I think it's one of the most important things that we can educate the public too, is the idea that just because somebody confessed to a crime, everybody thinks the same way, why the hell would that guy confess? So David, So people say, well, I don't know what he confessed, why did you confess to the crimes?
Okay, So first let me just say that sometimes I think when people hear confession, they automatically assume that the person or the persons in this particular case actually committed the crime or else why would they confess to the crime. But I think what sometimes go unnoticed in the public is that things happened in the police precinct that basically forces suspects to, you know, confess the crime they didn't commit.
Such as was the case with being really stucky.
Well, I'll confessed to the crime for a number of reasons, and I think, well, one of the first ones that was physically beaten while the officers in the case, well, to be more specific, I was beat by the investigative officer, Joseph Budda at the time, also confessed because I was promised that if fact actually confessed to the crime, that I would.
Be allowed to go home.
And I think sometimes in hindsight, when I think about it now, for example, that I really think I was going home at that time, as a sixteen year old kid confessed to this heinage crime but murder, I actually thought I was going home.
They didn't make him confess to the crime. Remember, you know, people say, like, why would someone confess to the crime. Either he nor Wally ever said I took a gun, put it to the back of Nathan's head and shot him. I think if they had asked either of these two boys at that time to say that, they would just say, hey, yo, slow down a second now, because they knew that they would know they weren't going home. But they were specifically told you were just a witness. We know the other
guy shot him. So if you say you saw him shoot him, you're out here. What are you so worried about? Plus he already ratted you out, So who are you trying to protect your friend who already sold you down
the river? You're going to be a fool. And so I think you know, first obviously the physical abuse, the deception, the pressure, not having a parent there, not having a lawyer there, not knowing what the heck is going on, wondering why your friend would kill somebody number one and number two, why would your friend then rat you out of old people when you know you didn't do it.
It shouldn't be lost.
These are still children, the children sixteen years old children, and the confession, and I'm sure you're going to get into it, but the confessions don't make any sense, even when they stand up to the evidence that was known and even what was said between each other, the confessions just don't make any sense.
I mean, I would ask the audience to put themselves in your shoes. David, you were sixteen years old, you must have been scared shitless.
Absolutely, I was definitely afraid, and the fact that I was afraid was so obvious though. But before you than that, though, so when they take it down to the precinct, they played the psychological game with you.
So they played this sort.
Of good cop backup thing whereas one cop would come in and his tone of voice would be sort of subtle and very calm, and he would ask me questions like, you know, what's your name? Of course we live, and you know, do you play any sports? Who is your favorite team? That sort of thing, And then the officer, the other officer came into so Buddha and I noticed this tone was completely different from the other officers, and you know, he was very very nasty in my opinion,
and very aggressive. And I knew then that this guy was not the same guy that I spoke to obviously earlier, so the tones of the two individuals were vastly different from another.
St You're in a small windowless room, metal table, metal chair, large officer hulking over you. At one point, Detective Buddha, was now deceased, picked up a chair and held it over his head. He goes, is this how we're going to have to do this? After he'd slapped David around. But one of the things that DNA did is teach
people that innocent people confess. Because the Innocent Project has exonerated somewhere around four hundred people with the use of DNA, twenty five percent of those exonerations had a confession, and so those are people who are demonstrably proven innocent. There's no doubt the DNA shows they didn't do it, And in one out of every four DNA exonerations there's a false confession. So the police are trained to interrogate in
a certain way. They all use this technique called the read technique, which allows the deception, allows pressure, lets them make up facts, lets them pit one against the other, lots of different things. And in hindsight, I guess you would say, why would I do that? But again, until you've gone through it, it's hard to understand.
Let's look at it this way, right, you're sixteen years old. You're totally disoriented because everything is upside down. You have the police, who all of us grew up respecting and thinking they were out for our best interest. And that's the guy you go to if you're in trouble, right, That's how I grew up for sure, and I think most police that is the case. Were you a violent guy prior to this?
Oh no, no, no, not at all.
So this is all a totally crazy experience in every possible way. You had nothing to prepare you for it. You're all alone and you see no way out, and then all of a sudden, if that wasn't crazy enough, the violence, the threat of further violence. They bring your friend, or they show your friend, they say, hey told you, she said you did, and all you got to do is say he did it.
One of the interesting things in my particular case, so when I was first approached by these detectives on the streets in Brooklyn, I was with friends. We were sort of in the game where we were sort of hung outland and so one of the officers approached me you have my picture in his hand. They said, would you mind coming out to the police station for question?
That said sure.
You know, I didn't do anything, So I felt like maybe they want to come down. Maybe something happened in the neighborhood that they wanted to speak to me about. Maybe I have some information or whatever the case may have been. So I had no reason to sort of be afraid of anything.
You know.
It wasn't until I got into the police station where they placed a squad car, where they placed Hanckers on me to an extent where they were very tight. At that point, that's where the sort of the red flag went up and I knew something was something was wrong at that particular time.
So I came down to the precpt.
Like I said, I had no reason to think that I was gonna be in trouble for anything.
Did they read your Miranda rights?
No, not in a squad car on the street.
And know that I got down to the police station and at some point after some of the questions occurred, that's when they read me my rights.
But you probably, like most people who were innocent, you probably thought I don't need a lawyer because I'm just gonna answer some questions and go home because they everyone's gonna know I didn't do this because I was. I wasn't there.
Yeah, I think sometimes I'm know my particular situation, I was so afraid and intimidated really that I wasn't even thinking rationally.
I wasn't even thinking at all.
I was just kind of numb to the point of being accused of killing somebody when I know I didn't and I know that police suck. He didn't do anything either, So I think it was sort of maybe I don't know if it was shock or anything like that, but I know I was. I was sort of numb to the entire situations. So even for example, when when the Miranda warners were being read to, now, I heard what the officer was saying, but it didn't generate one way or the other.
Just back then, these interrogations were not video, and so what the jury's got to see is after the confession had been extracted and written down and sometimes talked through from the defense perspective practiced, then a video machine would be brought into the room to take a confession that
seemingly the person is confessing they're not handcuffed. The circumstances at that moment look fairly friendly, considering it's a wider, open, bigger room, there's more light, but everything that happened before that is not captured. And then you're left with the juror who's saying, I would never have confessed I was in a cent of a homicide. So all they see is then the video confession that had been caught in
Sometimes it's twelve hours later. I mean, it's a long time later, so that they've been with the police for a very long time.
These quote unquote confessions which had very little facts. David's confession statement on the videotape is about three minutes long.
That's it.
There's no details.
He's not asked what caliber weapon, he's not asked what handy.
Held the gun in.
It literally is about a series of about eight to ten questions he's asked by the prosecutor who comes down to take the confession.
Willie's was a little bit longer, about six or seven minutes.
It should have been obvious at that point that obviously someone who had committed the crime would have known a little bit more about what had happened, and it was clear that the police officer and maybe even the DA who was involved are a little bit afraid to get into much detail because it was going to show that they didn't have the knowledge of it. But the confessions left a lot more questions unanswered than they resolved.
Yeah, I've been a prosecutor for twenty two years and I've taken these videotape confessions when I was writing assistant DA. I've viewed hundreds and hundreds of these confessions. And in this case, when David's file landed on my desk, it had entered the conviction review Unit, and the district attorney at the time, Ken Thompson, said, Eric, I want you to pay attention to this case. I want you to look at the confessions and tell me what you think.
Got myself readied with all the evidence around me to take a look, and I watched the confessions. I walked in to Ken's office and I said, we have a problem here. That was a confession that did not mean anything.
It was the most.
Perfunctory confession ever. I mean, this was a case that was supposed to be a carjacking, a robbery. There was not a single question about the robbery aspect of the case. What was taken, where did the property go? There was not a single question about the gun, the type of gun, the caliber of the gun.
These are not the type.
Of confessions that you would imagine that a jury would convict on. And you have to wonder whether the racial aspects of this part case mattered because you had two, you know, young black men accused of kidnapping someone from Queens and bringing them into Brokelyn and killing them.
You know, was the victim white? Yes, you know, that's the problem. And then the other thing that Oscar pointed out before is the idea that the jury was led to believe that you guys had driven this car throughout New York City, but neither one of you had ever driven a car or had a driver's license. You were sixteen years old, so somehow or other you magically taught yourself how to drive during the course of this carjacking
and robbery and everything else. I mean, you really have to suspend a lot of layers of disbelief.
With a kidnap victim, alive kidnap victim in the back holding him down supposedly with a gun, and the other one is driving from Queens to Brooklyn, and then the police had evidence that this car had been gassed up at one in the morning with the victim's credit card at an Amico gas station. And those days you had to go give the credit card to the person. There was no pay at the pump, you know. And wouldn't they mention that I got gassed? They didn't ask them, well,
what about did you ever get guessed? I mean, there were so many details they could have asked these two boys to fill in. And it was just perfunctory is exactly the right word.
Eric. It was just bare boned. David.
I want to get back to you, but I also want to say that Ken Thompson, who was I guess your mentor right. Ken was the DA until this year when he died way too young, and he took such great pride in the Conviction Review Unit, and he was so proud of the work that he had done to get justice for you and other people. So may he rest in peace, David. So back to you. You end up going to trial, I'm assuming you couldn't make bail, right.
No, you know, to have a bell. Actually he was rematted that day.
Was he didn't see his mother out the street for twenty nine years after that.
Day.
So you were held in Rikers Yes, I was as a sixteen year old boy. What an experience that had to have been. And then you go to trial. Did you still have any hope? Did you think that the system was actually going to correct itself and that people would understand that you could not have done this?
Well? Absolutely I did.
For example, when I was on record, Islan, I never like saw my lawyer at all when I was on records, Allen, the very first time I saw my lawyer was like the first day of trial. So he came to the bullpen. And when he came to the bullpen, he just simply came to the bullpen to sort of sort of get me prepared for what would happen when I walk into the court room. So that was the very first time I've seen this attorney in almost almost almost twelve months.
Actually, Okay, hold on, let's just let's just reflect on this. So you're facing the murder charge. Your life is at stake. You've been in Rikers Island for a year and no one has come to visit you, no lawyer, nothing, No, no they have so he has basically you, he's never interviewed you.
No, So what happens when I was on Records Island. For example, I forget my court The would be a journal on a monthly basis. So I would walk into court and they every time I would actually I should say Willie and I will walk into court, and every time we walk into court, it would be one of those situations where they just sort of make the schedule for another court day for the you know. So it was never a conversation with my attorneys about anything about
in terms of the case. And you know, I mean he knew I had alibi witnesses that needed to be interviewed. I mean of the interviewed them himself.
You know.
So it was a series of things that this lay failed to do for me during the course of the case.
So, if I'm correct, you didn't even make an opening statement, you have a legal option of waiving and opening statement. His attorney decided that it wasn't even worth talking to the jury about what his theory of the case would be and what the evidence he intended to show where there was in fact a defense to be had. I mean, they were fingerprints and DNA evidence that came back to other folks when they found the vehicle. I mean the gun had not been recovered.
They had those two guys who were arrested on the APB, the old points bulletin that matched the description one of them worked at the hardware store.
This was not a mystery to his lawyer. David didn't know it. David didn't know any of that evidence. He was ever told.
But the lawyer had the police reports, and he could have offered evidence of someone else's involvement.
And start shaping the jury for what you expect to the jury to hear, because I mean here, obviously they have to contest the confession. They have to start laying the groundwork for that, and then the jury understand that there's so much other evidence that goes to David's actual innocence. And he does not even bother to make those arguments in the opening statement. He just chooses not to make it one.
And we ended up getting as part of our investigation this guy's billing records because he was what was called AT and B so where you get paid by the government on an hourly basis to do the case even though you're not legal AID legally cannot handle homicide cases in New York. So ATMB panel gets the homicide cases. So we know what he did because I have his hours, and I'll tell you people put more hours in on a shop lift, Jason. This guy never went to the
crime scene, he never interviewed witnesses. He met once with his investigator, who we ended up finding out was very diligent. He never visited Rikers, So we have the proof that he never visited David's. That's as David's word, because he built for it. And as Eric knows from experience, when you get on ateen B and you're a private lawyer, a lot of times your bill is limited. The judge
won't let you spend ten thousand dollars shoplifting case. But when you have a homicide case, that's where eighteen B lawyers make their money. A judge will never say you shouldn't have gone to the scene three times. A judge will never restrain you on a murder case from spending time on the case. So normally you see an a eighteen B bill on a homicide case, it's pages, and I'm talking pages and pages and pages long. This was one page about a third field of entries on the
case and just have never seen anything like it. It was the most disgusting, disgusting, terrible representation. Wait listen, just to put the nail in his coffin, because fortunately he's gone. I found the investigator. The guy was still alive, and
older guy's seventy six years old, Anthony Cordero. He had developed the same theory that we did, we didn't know it, which was that the police those two guys had a relationship, not above board relationship, and that's why they had to turn away from those two guys that they found in that Queen's priests because he was going to point back to the police officer involved. So he was working on that, and then he said to me, you know, I remember now, I used to pick up Murto that's his name, because
he lived in Brooklyn. I lived in a Long Island. When I would drive to court, he'd say, can you do me a favorite? Pick me up on your way in. And every morning when I picked him up, he was in his kitchen with a bottle of cheap vodka and a toll glass of ice, and he would offer me a drink and I would say, mister Murdle, it's eight
thirty in the morning. I don't drink at eight thirty in the morning, and he'd have a drink and sometimes two glasses of vodka before getting in the car and going to try David's case.
It starts to sound like a lynching.
It was a travesty, is what it was. It was a total travesty. And you know, it's not easy to say when I speak at bar groups a lot of times about rome for convictions, but bad lawyering and not having qualified attorneys represent those people who are accused of these crimes is a big cause. It's easy to blame over zealous prosecutors and all of that, but the defense bar has a lot of guilt on these wrawful convictions.
And David, you don't have any knowledge of all this stuff that's going on, that your lawyers are drunk, that he hasn't done any work, that none of this stuff that is supposed to be there to protect you is operating for you. It's all actually working against you. But yet you remained optimistic. The jury goes out and they come back and they find you guilty. I mean that moment, can you walk us through that?
Sure?
So for me leaving in the system, still believing that I had truth on my side, still believing that the jury is going to find both Willy and I not guilty. So when the verdict came in, I was sitting, of course, back into the book, and they are ready call us out to the courtroom and they read the verdicant and they said guilty. I was initially stunned, but I had to make sure that a Hilma can POI and not only for myself, but I had my mother sitting in
the back of the court room. I didn't want her to see my reaction, and I also didn't want to turn around to see hers because that would have probably got me very, very upset. So what I tried to do is I tried to sort of have a sort of even killed straight face. But I was really, really I was in disbelief because I really had my heart set on not guilty verdict. So when they actually came back into that Willie and I were actually guilty of killing this person, I was also in a state of disbelief.
But it more importantly for me, I think I was more concerned about my family at that time, who was in court on a daily basis, you know, supported me and that sort of thing. Because, for example, one thing my mother said to me the very first time she even mentioned a case for me, like when I was in a precinct. The very next day I went to court and she asked me, she said, David, you know, did you commit this crime? And I said, no, mind did not. So that that conversation or questions never came
up again throughout this whole entire experience. So that and of itself allowed me some confidence that, you know, my mom believed in me, she believed what I said to her.
So when this verdict was rare, I just couldn't find myself to turn around and look at it because I just know that, you know, she was hurting obviously, and just for me to see that that it would have got some kind of reaction out of me, not sort of in a volatile way, but in a I mean I probably would have got over emotional, and that's something they want to do at that particular time.
So I just sort of help my.
Compolsion just just you know, just walked out of the courtroom after the verdicts were read, and I was able, of course, to you know, call her on the telephone that protected that night and talk to her and sold try to calm it down and try to let her know everything was going to be fine. This thing is going to work itself out. You know, the truth is eventually going to come to light. And just to have patience, something she always told me to do. Just have patience.
So that was the best way I tried to deal with such a it what can best be described as a really tragic event.
And Willly Stucky was convicted as well, and as we know, he never got out of jail. He passed away in two thousand and one.
Yeah, and let's talk about that for a second. So Willie, you're code defendant who was equally let down by the system and a lot of the same things that you did, and unbelievably had a heart attack at thirty one years old in prison and died, never got to have his day in court and his freedom again. So it's just another tragic aspect of this horrible case.
And when we were going back to his family, his family, even when we were starting to look at the case, they were almost afraid. They were like, you know, I don't know that we want to look into this. I don't know that they were prepared to try to think about They would rather just you know, I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to think about it.
And at first that was kind of shocked by that, but almost in some way that would almost be worse for them to then find out that obviously they believed in him, but now that there was proof there, there was all this stuff that could have been done. It's like a second death when you think about how wasteful it is. And you know, the correctional facility never even really told them. If they say heart attack, but everyone dies of a heart attack, Okay, it's just cardiac arrest.
They'll tell how.
Did he die, what caused it? And they heard different stories. A bad time to let the sepsis, you know, had a heart attack in the yard. They had so many questions, and I think they were just afraid to look under the rock and see that it was such a waste of a life.
I'm going to ask you Eric a very difficult question, which is that in this particular case, so many things didn't make any sense right because of the nature of this crime, very violent, with the kidnapping and the driving all over and the holding the guy down at gunpoint in the backseat, and everything else that went on in the murder, you would have to know that a couple of kids who didn't have a history of trouble, this would not be the first crist It wouldn't be your
starter crime, right, so I would think, But I want your opinion that the prosecutor probably knew they were innocent too. Do you think the prosecutor ever had a thought, well, this doesn't really make any sense when I'm just going to go ahead and do my job anyway, and just well not even do my job. I'm just going to go ahead and get this conviction and keep it moving.
Yeah, I have to believe that the prosecutor did not. I have to believe, as the district attorney that a
person who's sworn to uphold the law. You know, one of the things that I've said publicly about prosecutors is that prosecutors have a way of trying to synthesize evidence to make things holes in their cases close and to close reasonable doubt before juries, and they become trained to think that way and sometimes the humanity of being a prosecutor and thinking about this because you know, listen, for me, I grew up in East New York and Brooklyn, roughly
maybe a year or two younger than David. But the thought of me traveling at that age into Ozelon Park under the time that we lived in New York City in the eighties is not something that a black kids would do at that time who had never been in that neighborhood before the middle They stand out and it's very important because we mentioned this, but the two gentlemen that were there in Queens did not fit the physical descriptions of either David or Willie. So you ask, how
can a prosecutor go forward on this case? And I think that you start to believe in your own theory of the case. And prosecutors and detectives, I think too often they get a suspect, they have some evidence right here, they had the confession, and so you have a prosecutor who's not thinking anything differently than an ordinary person. He's confessed, they have some evidence. You have these conversations with the detective,
and the grand jury has now indicted the case. And what I'm really critical about and what I tell my prosecutors, and this is one of the important way work of the Conviction Review Unit is that in the eighties and the nineties, I became a prosecutor in the nineties there was so much crime, and so much violent crime that often it was let the juries decide and let the jury decide whether someone is innocent or guilty. And I think that was a complete abdication of our responsibility to do justice.
If a prosecutor.
Cannot believe in their case, they have no business bringing it. And one of the things that I instruct the Brooklyn das now is if you have doubt about your case, you should not be trying that case, and let's look at the case. But when I came up as a prosecutor, I will tell you that often it says, well, there's twelve people in the box, let them decide guilty or innocence.
And so I think in some cases, and I'm not saying in David's case or Willie's case, but in some cases prosecutors just said, well, we're going to let the jury's decide it. And that's wrong, and that's not going to happen again. It can happen again, not.
Going to happen again in Brooklyn for the next four years. I know that much because we got you in there, which is great. So, David, you seem like a very composed, thoughtful, decent man, who has a From what I can tell knowing you a short time that I have a positive outlook on life. How the fuck does somebody survive twenty nine years in a maximum security prison and come out? And because when you came out you'd never been on
an airplane, you didn't know I mean a phone. The phone used to be a thing with a cord that was stuck to the wall.
Right, that's absolutely correct.
Yeah, So how the hell did you first of all, survive as an innocent man in prison for almost three decades? And then how has it been coming out? And how have you managed to become the man that you are now?
Oh wow, Well, thanks for the very kind words. And I think for me on that a lot of things fortunately working in my favor. So, for one, I always always knew that Willie and I were innocent, so the truth always believed it couldn't be compromisive for that respect. Also, I have an older sister who's disabled. You know, she has cerebal palsy. She was born without a spine. Her
name was Ella. She's been bedridden her entire life. So anytime something would happen in prison, anytime I would feel a particular way in prison, I would always think about my sister because she was she was really inspiration for someone like myself who was also going through some difficult times, but in my mind, not as difficult as she had been, so she was I drew inspiration from her, and of course my mom, who never wavered in believing in me from the very beginning to the very end, you know.
So I had those things in my favor. But then as time grew on, of course, I was able to develop a really good support system. And so what I mean by that is a really good attorney and Oscar michelind because Ruber and Hurricane Carter came into my life at a time where I really needed him the most, so when I had all the whole bulk of other friends who factored into my life as well. So I would, you know, get visits in prison this sort of thing, and I mean some of the visits that were that
I would get. We would just talk about things that would happen on the outside. Because one thing Ruben instilled in me, and he said it was very important that I think this way is sort of think outside of prison and put myself outside of prison, at least spiritually. And that's what I tried to do, and I found that once I started doing that, I started sort of like just feeling much better about a lot of different things.
And so when things of course got tough, as they often did in prison, at least in my experience, I thought about all the people that I came into my life of course by the time, and I needed them the most. And that was really beneficial for someone like me, because in prison it made so not afford the sort of a latitude and blessing that I were given. So
I never took it for granted from that regard. But again, the fact that I can see me here and be humble, I hope is really the testament of other people coming into my life, not just David McCallum himself.
David, it's an exceptional man. I was immediately touched when I met him. I know Ken Thompson was as well. We had David come to the office and talk to our young interns and make sure that our people who want to be prosecutors understood what happened to him. David is just an exceptional man, and I know that we've done it before, but as the District Attorney of Brooklyn, I apologize to you, brother for what happened to you, for how the system lets you down.
Thank you much about.
That that As a New Yorker and a human being, I'm gonna add my apologies because we let you down, I mean, everybody let you down. But you're here, yes, and that's a great thing. I mean, I'm thrilled to have you here.
Thank you.
You mentioned Ruben Hurricane Carter right, Yes, a legend not only for his boxing abilities, the former number one middleweight contender, immortalized in the Bob Dylan song. But how did he come to find out about your case and get involved and then write a letter that really helped tip the scales for you? Right?
Well, yeah, thank you for asking that question. That was actually the foundation of how really all this really began. I mean, look, I started a letter writing campaign long after my state and federal appeals were exhausted, because at that particular time of that have any able legal recourts other than the post conviction motion. Then with that, you normally have to present Newt's govern evidence, which I didn't
have that at that time obviously. So when I started my letter writing campaign, I was sitting in a place called Eastern correctional facility, and I was a law clerk in the low library and a friend of mine named Eric Coleman was reading this magazine called The Sun.
Some magazine is like a literal magazine where it has a.
Lot of like short stories and that that it may soften read in poems and stuff like that, where it may so often, you know, recite it not necesly to themselves but to other inmates for example. So what I had no real really had no real intention of reading the magazine. All I simply they wanted to do is to sort of peruse it. So because I want to go back to my house in units to get ready,
you know, for the next day. So I got this magazine and I thumbed through the pages and I came across the injin of view with Ken Klosky in Ruben Hurricane Carter. So I knew who Ruben Hurricane Carter was. I know he was a former prize fighter. I know he had spent nineteen years in prison for a triple homicide in Pattison, New Jersey, and that sort of thing.
So I wrote Ken Klosky letter hoping that he can get me in touch with Ruben so and That's pretty much how this whole story sort of evolved into basically where I'm actually sitting there now because once I was able, kin Klowski was able to get me in cont touch with Ruben. I had an opportunity to meet Ruben on several occasions. He became sort of a mentor for me. We had very intense conversations on the telephone. Ruben was
a very intense individual and that sort of thing. So once Kim was able to put me in touch with him, that really set the stage for me meeting other people that came into my life too and basically sort of prepared me. So when Ruben's were was when I actually eventually got out, not there for the movement was sort of a positive individual that way, So meeting all these people sort of set the stage for preparation for me
to get out. So when I got out, of course, I was shocked at some of the things that I saw initially, but I wasn't overly shocked about a lot of things because again, meeting all these individuals who shared their stories with me about travels and stuff like that, that allowed me to get a sense of what society would be like if got out of prison and that sort of thing. So I was kind of prepared, it's but in a lot of ways, I was not prepared.
To be honest with youself. This was also the ad points of having a really really good support system.
You're not a person that gives up easy, are you?
No?
I mean, you know, what's my state filler appills were exhausted. But I just kept thinking about my family, for example, and at that time, Uli Suckyn. Of course he was he was still among us, but we had lost communication for a while. So I just wanted to just someone to fight, not necessarily for myself, but for the both of us.
Ruben was forced to be reckoned with. I had just done my first exoneration, a guy named Angelo Martinez, and back in the in those days, it was a very rare event, so there was a lot of press, a lot.
Of media about it.
And about a week two weeks later, my secretary says, there's a phone call for you. It's Rubin Hurricane Carter on the phone. So I said, it's one of my idiot friends from the Bronx, just trying to bust my chops, you know.
I said, I said, all right, put it through. I said, so what do you want?
And he said, hello, this is doctor Carter, and I wanted to actually in the case. I want to talk to you about your next case. And I said, what are you talking about. I could have believe it was actually the hurricane like you, Jason, I mean that song, that story is.
Legend right, I mean, you know.
And he said, I'm going to send you this file. We need a lawyer in New York, and I want you to look at the file and call me when you're done and what you think about the case. So I called him back after I looked at the file. I said, this guy got the worst trial I've ever seen in my life. This guy's trial was horrific. He should never have been convicted. So Rubin said, yeah, but do you think he's innocent? And I said, I don't know. I didn't really look at it, you know, from that aspect.
He said, well, call me back when you've looked at me from an aspect, because I'm not interested in a procedural error. I want to establish this guy is innocent. So then I went back and looked over everything, and then I found some inconsistencies almost immediately in the confession, one of which was the thing that the lynchpin really to the whole wrongful conviction. And I called him and said, neither of these guys did it. And he said, okay, I'm coming down to New York. Let's go visit him.
And I said, okay. And as you could tell anybody who meets David, you know, you're five minutes into it, You're like, this guy's not a murderer.
This guy was never a murderer.
And we spent a lot of time that day with David, and then we brainstormed after it. But Rubin was the one who got his name, helped us get the leading false confession expert on the case, a guy named Steve Drizzen. He helped us get Laura Cohen from Rucers University and her students to help Dave with the parole piece, and then they became involved in the reinvestigation as well. And his letter to the Daily News moved the case to
the top of the pile. And I don't think David would have been here if Ruben hadn't gotten into his life, or frankly, David hadn't just decided to pick up the Sun magazine that day.
How many times do you think about that.
I think about that a lot, because I had plenty of opportunities to say, you know what, I'm just going to go back early tonight. You know, I'm not going to stay around. I'm not going to stick around. I didn't have any any more work to do that particular nights he worked in a law lit Yeah, so it would have been very easy for me to just sort of shut it down early, which I did at times, you know, we feeling tired, that sort of thing.
You want to kind of and then you know, in two thousand and thirteen Brooklyn elected Ken Thompson.
Well, I have a story about that.
And you have to have a prosecutor who's willing to take a case that's, you know, thirty years old and say, yeah, we're going to actually take a look at it, reinvestigate it, reopen it. Because we know that prosecutors are loath to do that across the United States, and in fact, even in the Brooklyn DA's office, the answer had been previously know.
And I'm glad he mentioned that because I remember in twenty thirteen when during the campaign, when Ken Thompson was he was campaigning, and so that time I was at a place called Otisville. So that's a medium correction for city. It's like a place like basically made up of dormitory. So I remember staying up late at night just trying to hear any sort of campaign news that I could, because, you know, I want I wanted this guy to when not because it would guarantee an any freedom or anything
like that. Well, at least we will guarantee change, and people like myself in that situation, all I really wanted was an opportunity, and all as a legal team, all we really wanted was an opportunity, a fair chance, you know, to have our case heard, because under the previous regime, we really believed that we wasn't, you know, given a fair opportunity to present our case in a way that
we that we needed to. So when Sir Thompson eventually got itighted, I know that he made some campaign promises that he would investigate wrong for convictions thoroughly and that sort of thing. And once I heard that, I really was really I was emotionally I cried a lot, because that's what you want to hear, especially someone in my position.
You just want someone to say, you know what, we're going to do this thing fairly, and however it would have turned out after that, of course I would have been disappointed, but at least I would have known that this individual delivered on a promise on the campaign promise that some individuals don't normally do under those circumstances. So when he became the attorney, I think the people of
Brooklyn can attest to this. That really change the dynamics of the I think the criminals as a system in general an impression.
We've vacated well under his tenure, twenty one cases in destroyed period of time that I've been serving as the acting DA. I've vacated two additional cases who are up to twenty three cases, and the work of our conviction review unit is ongoing and there's much more work to be done.
Well, you have a real dedicated team, right, I mean in some of these convicted review units around the country, they have one part time guy or whatever, and you have a ten detectives assigned to this.
We have full time prosecutors who only handle these reinvestigations. Currently we have nine full time prosecutors and we have full time detectives. We have full time paralegals. It's a many law firm that's working on reviewing cases of wrongful conviction.
It's simply a model.
There really is no other word for it, and no other place has replicated it. No place has tried to replicate it. And you know, I knew Ken from Gating. We were adversaries on a couple of big cases against each other. When he got elected DA, I called him and said, I got talked about this case because we had been rebuffed countless times by Joe Hines's office. We were told, come back to us when you get the real killers. And I said, I thought, that's your job.
You know I'm not here to catch the real killers. I'm here to show you that this guy and his co defender of innocent. And he said, wait till you see what we're gonna do. Okay, call me in January, call me in February. And I said, I'll give you some time, but you really got to look at this case. He said, done, just call me. And I never expected him to do the breath that he did, and him and Eric developed this unit that was second to none. The standard that Ken said was is it a conviction
I could live up to? I don't care whether he already made this argument. I don't care whether anybody else has already looked at it. I want to be able to stand by this conviction. That's the tone that Eric said. Also because he helped develop the unit with Ken, and he put him directly on David's case. And I remember telling him, I said, you were the only elected official, Ken, that I can think of in modern history who got elected promising more rights to the criminally accused. Every other
prosecutor before Ken was tough on crime. I'm going to lock them up, I'm going to stafe streets, war on drugs. And this was the first guy who said I'm going to try to reform the system, and he put his money where his mouth is. Like you said, I couldn't believe it when I went up and saw the unit.
By the way, there's nothing that helps public safety about convicting the wrong guys. In fact, that's the opposite effect. So let me ask were the real perpetrators ever caught in this case? Because if not, then that's another crime against society, right right.
I mean, one of the things that no one thinks about a wonful conviction is if the conviction was wrongful, it means that the people who actually committed this.
Crime are still out there, and the people who come.
Into this crime, unless they're in prison for other things they've done since, or who're still.
Out there, they've never been held accountable. But we believe that we know who did this crime, and there is no statute of limitations, and if the evidence can never be brought and I'm in office, I will bring that case.
Yeah, I think all of us would like to see these guys brought to justice because these are dangerous, scary individuals who committed a really terrible crime and got away with it. What was the moment when you found out that you were going home?
Sure, guiny motion was substance, So please excuse me on that one. My correction.
Counselor will see the telephone call from Oscar Michelin and Laura Colin, and I was summoned to her office to speak to them. And so when I got on the phone, Oscar pretty much said to me that you're going to be coming to court the next day. I believe it was Wednesday, as a matter of fact. And when he and Laura said that to me, it is not that I didn't believe them, it's that for me, for some I just wanted to get to court and hear the judge actually say the words that their convention is going
to be vacated. And I remember leaving my Correctional Counselor's office that afternoon, walking back up the hill to my housing unit, really crying, and in some ways really didn't know you know what I was crying about. It's because I was. I mean, I had a lot of mixed emotions. Not that I necessarily didn't think that I was going to go home, but the fact that I was going to be going to court and something big was going to happen. So from that standpoint, I was like on
pins and needles for the rest of the night. And on that particular night, for example, I didn't go to sleep because I just simply couldn't. I just kept thinking about the very next day when I was asked to pack up my stuff and I was.
Going to court.
And so for me, what I did was when I packed up my stuff and getting ready to go to court, I gave a lot of my stuf up away, not necessarily knowing specifically that I was gonna be coming back, but I just I just felt like, you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna give people stuff that I think they deserve and they need, and that's what I did. So when two investigators from the Brooklyn Districttorney's office came to pick me up and they put me in a
car and he drove off. They were playing the song The Hurricane, and so one of the investigators asked me, do you know who this guy is? Said, of course, I know who that guy is. He said, do you know what he's singing, and said, of course I know what he's singing. That's Bob Dylan and he's singing the Hurricane.
And I thought that was really cool. We had a really cool woman with these guys coming down to Brooklyn because these guys actually grew up in Brooklyn themselves, these investigators, and they were just talking to me about how things changed in Brooklyn, and so we got downtown. They was pointing out certain things to me and it even offered me some real food that I've had and had ever since I've been in concentrated and that sort of thing.
So it was sort of that kind of moment. And when I actually got into.
The courtroom, and well, actually before I got to the court room, I was taking them to the Brooklyn Districttorney's office and take upstairs and I'm not sure what floor I was on, and Ken Thompson came in and he introduced himself and he told me on certain terms that when I walked out of this building to the courthouse, that he wanted me to hold my.
Head up high.
And I really appreciated those comments because I think he was saying that I'm probably gonna do. I'm going to be a hack of but because I got hack it was on me. Don't look at yourself as as a criminal. I think that it was his message. So I did what he what he asked me to do, and I walked down to the courthouse and we went upstairs and eventually went into.
The courtroom, and I seen all.
These individuals in there, whether it was the media or a lot of a lot of people in the courtroom, of course, and as they would say, you know, the rest is history.
So yeah, and Oscar, your take on this? So when you called him the night before, did you knew what was going to happen the next time? You didn't tell him?
Well, Ken had called me and said, once you come down in Columbus day, bring one other member of your team. The office was closed except for the interview, and Laura Cohen and I met with him and we talked for a while, and he said, we're going to do it Wednesday. We're going to vacate the conviction, and we're going to vacate Willie's conviction also. And you know, it was a very very emotional obviously, and No, I called and told him.
I didn't hide anything from him. He just didn't want to believe it until he heard the judge.
That's like for years of being beaten down by the system, being told no all the time, even during my letter writing campaign, for example, so before I actually wrote Cad that letter, I wrote hundreds of letters to law firms, newspapers, New York Times, Daily News, the New York Post, I mean, all different sort of kind of publication that I wrote,
some magazine that I wrote. I'm just trying to get some help, you know, because at that time it didn't really have any So again, it was not a matter of not necessarily believe in them, because I really had
no reason not to believe them. It's just that I just I just wanted to hear this judge say that man, and this everything in my life had come to up to that point where I just sort of culminated to that one moment and the fact that when I got into the courtroom, and actually prior to me getting in the courtroom, I had a conversation with Willie Stucky's mom and I recall her very specifically saying to me, you know, you're my son now, and those words resonated me with
me in a way that I'll never forget. And so when the judge, of course, the da and Oscar was in the courtroom and the judge finally you know, of course made this decision, I just hugged her and I just looked at her. It was a very very bittersweet moment for me because at that time, I'm thinking to myself, you know, here I am going to be walking out of the courtroom very happy, but very sad at the same time, because Willie Stucky, you should have been walking out out of this very courtroom.
With me, and having sat in the first row in that courtroom.
There were a lot of wet eyes all throughout.
But it was a very emotional moment, the sense that justice was delayed for so many years, but there was at least at this moment a reckoning and the reckoning that the system had failed, and we've discussed did here. It wasn't just a prosecutor or a bad detective. It was a systemic failure of the criminal justice system. While it was bittersweet for everyone, it was finally that we've writed this wrong.
We have a tradition here on wrongful conviction, which is that I like to turn the microphone over to you, David, for closing thoughts, But in this case, because we have other special guests here, I'd like to actually do a round robin and finish with you. So let's start with Oscar. Is there anything else you want to share with our audience.
No, I just think that for folks out there who are listening that say what can I do? And I think the most important thing is to just keep an open mind when you read stories about people being arrested, serve on a jury, if you're called, demand that your criminal justice system, that your prosecutors and police live up to these standards that we've talked about today, and for those who are prosecutors to follow the model, frankly that Brooklyn has set. You know, Ken and then Eric have
followed that. I have not seen replicated throughout the country, and I just thank everybody, yourself included, because shedding light on these things is the only way that we're going to avoid these wrongful convictions in the first place. That's the goal is to develop a criminal justice system that's fair to the people, that's fair to the accused, and that gets it right more often than it currently does.
So I appreciate this opportunity to give this information out to folks, and hopefully they'll take it with them and remember that when they have the opportunity to somehow affect the criminal justice system.
We have an obligation to do justice and not just to try to secure convictions. But I also believe that part of my job is to protect the innocent, and that needs being proact and not just waiting for things to play out in the courtroom. And so much of what I've tried to do in the short period of time is I've done things like hired immigration attorneys to protect people who are accused of crimes who may have immigration issues, something that people think is not in the
role of a prosecutor. But making sure that we protect the innocent is important, and we can't lose track of that. And for David, you should know that every assistant district attorney that we've hired now gets taught on false fed facts, which were a key lachpin of on your false confession. The science of wrongful identifications and false fed facts, and
these things were things that prosecutors never trained on. And when we make these exonerations, the first thing that we go back is we do what could we have done differently, and we train on it. So I want you to know that the generation of prosecutors in my office for being trained and they learned about your case when they learned about you know, a lot of the other people we've exonerated. To make sure that this never happens again. This can't happen again.
And I'm going to say before turn over to you, David, that for everybody listening, vote, go out and vote in your district attorney's racist because you can make a difference. So, David, now the highlight of the show is just to turn it over to you for any closing thoughts.
Okay, yeah, thank you, thank you for that. You know, during my twenty nineties in prison, in prison in general, the notion is that you know, you should never trust anybody, and I guess in a lot of cases that's actually true. But for me, I didn't necessarily subscribe to that theory because I didn't feel it was appropriate for me, because I felt like I was in a position to have to trust somebody in order to get where I needed
to go, and that was home, you know. So I really put my faith in a lot of people to help me because I really needed to help. I really trust me, I really desperately needed to help. And one of the things so I do, like public speaking, every every once in a while, I'll tell people so with the word the politics come up, with all the stuff that's happening in our you know, in our country these days.
I always tell people just believing, believing people. If you don't believe in your left and officials to the extent that you don't trust him, believe in people, because it's the people that surround you who's going to make the difference.
It is going to create the change that's necessary. And I know for me, in meeting Ken Thompson, and I had the privilege of being invited to his funeral by his wife, and I can say that when I had the opportunity to speak for the time that I did, and I shared with the audience that I at that time I had to find my fuld daughter at the Quinn, and I specifically said that Ken Thompson is the reason why I have my daughter, and that was totally sincere
about that, because if this individual didn't show the courage that he showed in taking on this particular endeavor of wrongful conviction cases, a lot of people, not necessarily myself, but a lot of other people would be in the world of trouble right now. Uite, frankly would probably still be incarcerated. And I just saw dis close with this when the acres I was, you know, introduced me to
his children and his wife. That was a very touching moment for someone like me because I'm sitting there and I'm looking at his sous and I got the opportunity to meet these guys, and you know, that was doubt for me, was the privilege. And I would like to say that that that said more about the Gonzales than than it did about me.
And so I just want to thank.
You because that really struck a chord with me even after I met with you going my way.
Home, and so I felt really good good about that.
I looked at that as a as a privilege and I just wanted to, you know, for some of us, when I see the ex outs getting going, to really let him know and thank him for that, because that that touched some That touched the emotional chord for me, and it just showed me and it just really confirmed and reinforced for me what I just mentioned earlier about people, and that's important for people just to have faith in
each other. And that's simply when I what I did during my time in prison and it paid off.
Well. Thank you, David.
It's been a privilege to have met you you and to know you and to see you doing the great work that you're doing, the awareness that you bring, and to see you happy with your own family makes me very grateful.
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts, 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 Innocence Project 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
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One
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