I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket, you know what I mean.
I was brought up with cops are the good guys.
I didn't know what was going to happen, but I do know that everything was stacked against me.
Everything like everything.
This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do with this. How is this possible?
I grew up trusting the systems. I've grew up believing that every human being should do the right thing. And that's why, even though I knew I was dealing with corerough people, I wasn't going to break anyone to get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I break my way out of my wife's death.
I'm not innocent, too proven guilty. I'm guilty until I prove my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me.
Our system.
Since I've been out ten years, it has come a little ways, but it's still broken.
I totally lost trusting humanity after what's happened to me.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm that's me, and today we have a great program. I'm really really excited because one of the people who I really look up to in the innocence movement is here. Justin Brooks is the founder and director of the California Innocence Project. And so Justin welcome to the show.
Thank you very much.
And on the phone, we have an extraordinary person named Guy Miles, who served over eighteen years in prison for a crime that happened in California while he was in Las Vegas. And I know that sounds crazy, and it is, but when you hear the story, it's just going to get crazier.
Miles was convicted of a nineteen ninety eight armed robbery and Fullerton. He had an alibi, but an eyewitness.
Identify him in court.
Years later, the real robbers confessed and said Miles, this guy had nothing to do with it.
So Guy, welcome to the show. As I always say, I'm I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here.
Thank you very much, appreciate it.
Okay, so Justin take us back because this case, you know, even after twenty five years of working in this field, when I read this case, I was trying to you know, my head was kind of spinning. But can you take us through the circumstances of this case and then we'll get with guy and walk through the whole situation.
Sure, so this is a you know, I find myself saying this often, as I'm sure you do that this is a crazy case. But when you look at the facts of this case, it would be literally comical if it didn't have such tragic results for guy. This guy, Bernard Teamer, was paying his car off at a Savings and Loan and every time he went in there he saw that they had a lot of cash. So he gets a couple of his buddies together and says, let's
go rob this place. But they know me in there, so I'll wait outside in the car and you guys go in and rob it. So they pull up in front of the Savings and Loan and Bernard has such a short attention span that he actually gets bored while they're doing the robbery, and he sees an auto parts store, so he decides to do a little shopping, so he gets out of his car, locks the car, goes in the autoparts store and starts asking about parts for a rare car that he has. The guys come back who've
committed the robbery. They can't get in the car, and the actual guy who's working the autoparts store points out the window and says, hey, I think your boys are waiting for you out there. So he runs out, unlocks the car, they get in, they drive away. So now the alarms go off. Everybody goes outside. The people from the bank are outside, the guy from the autoparts star
is outside. They say, oh, we just got robbed, and he says, oh, I just saw those guys, and one of them was in here looking for these parts for this rare car. It so takes them about five minutes to catch Bernard, who is one hundred percent guilty of this crime, and then they start trying to piece together who are the other two.
Robbers because Bernard's not giving it up.
He's not telling them anything. And so the way they do it is this officer puts together photo rays, but instead of using the descriptions that are given of the robbers, he instead just puts a bunch of people who live in the same neighborhood as Bernard Teamer and they don't match the descriptions at all. As you go through the photos, there's really heavy people, really skinny people, light skinned people,
dark skinned people, people with long dreadlocks, bald people. It's the most ridiculous set of photo rays you've ever seen. In it it's not based on anything except for their associated with Bernard Teamer. Only one person vaguely matches the description and the photo rays, and that's Guy Miles.
So they went through these photographs of the people in the neighborhood, but they actually managed to somehow forget to put in the photos of the guys who were in the neighborhood who were the actual perpetrators, who could have been identified by any number of these people that were at the time.
And to match the descriptions that are given by the witnesses. And so we had experts actually go through the photos and they said, based on the description given, the only person that would be picked here is Guy Miles, because they didn't put other people in the photo rays that matched the description. And so they violated the most fundamental
thing of putting a photo ray together. And as you know, there's already enough problems with identifications without following any of the basic procedures and the basic procedure is you have fillers that match the description given by the witnesses and on in there that fit that description. They were all very specific to people in the neighborhood, right.
And so the way memory works is that your mind, especially as more time goes by, and your mind goes towards the one who most resembles. And we know that memory is you know, some people think it's like a camera, but it's the farthest thing from it, and it's easily everyone is easily influenced. And this is why mistake and eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions.
And in this case, one of the witnesses when she came in, she couldn't identify him anyway. When Guy Miles was right in front of her, she couldn't identify him. And the shocking thing that I've seen now in a number of cases is they take a recess, they go out in the hallway, the witness talks to the district attorney, and the next thing you know, they're making the identification. Guy goes off to prison for the rest of his life.
Yeah, it's pretty easy to see what could go wrong there. And we're going to get into more of this, the fact that there was there were nine alibi witnesses who could have who could have and well some of them did play a guy in Las Vegas, right, six of them testified. I mean as you said, I mean, and there is a very comical element to that, right, the idea that the guys in the autopart store board and then that's to come out of the cars lock. I mean,
it's literally like that's the beginning of a movie that start. Yeah, you put Robert Donney Jr. In there, you got a hit, So put robertized Junior or anything. But that's beside the point. So let's go back to you guy, because I want to get a sense of what your life was like before this this tragedy happened that turns your life upside down.
Well, if I grew up in Carson, California, raised by both my mother and father Christian people, good people you know inher died and instill good values in me, you know, I was I'm not going to say I was an angel. I did get in a little trouble, played a lot of sports, got married, head kids.
So yeah, so you sort of it sounds like sort of a typical childhood. Actually right, nothing crazy.
He does have unusual parents, and that both of them are ministers. And every single court hearing, I've never had a client's family quite like this. The entire courtroom was filled with well dressed, well behaved people, polite to the da, polite to the judge, even though he'd gone through this total travesty.
Wow, yeah, that is an unusual I haven't heard that either, and it sort of adds a real interesting element to this. So then fast forward to it was at June twenty ninth, nineteen ninety eight, a long time ago, that faithful day when Fidelity Financial Institution at Fullord in California was robbed by these band of idiots. It's really like a clown show. And how did you first find out that you were
a suspect? What happened? And what day was it? Was it the day of or it was it was afterwards that you first got arrested?
Right, right, it was No, it was actually a couple of weeks after the robbery took place. You know, I got a call from my sister that the police were looking for me, wanted to talk to me. I came down from Las Vegas, h came in, talked to the officers. They arrested me, right, They had like seven or eight Orange County police officers there, and you know, I was it was kind of strange to me because I'm like,
why is Orange County wanted to talk to me? I thought maybe somebody in cards and wanted to talk to me. They arrested me and told me that I was being booked for a robbery in Orange County, and I'm like, in Orange County. I've even been to Orange County. You know, I was just I was confused, really didn't know what was going on at that point.
Did they read you your rights and stuff?
They read me my rights and told me that I was being arrested for Orange County robbery and that they were going to come to my house and do a raid to see if they can find evidence that links me to the robbery. And so they actually drove me back to the house rated my house. Of course, they found none because it was nothing to be found, whisked me off to Orange County jail, booked me, and from there that's where the nightmare started.
When did you first get to see a lawyer? Did you request a lawyer? Did you give an interview voluntarily. How did that roll out?
So I wasn't even thinking about a lawyer because I knew I didn't do nothing wrong. So that was the last thing on my mind, is requesting the.
Lawyer, right, And that's something in justin you wait in here, whatever you want. That's something that I talk about on the show frequently, is that if you do get wrongfully arrested, because there's enough people instance that there's enough people listening to this show right now, that somebody is going to have this experience. Unfortunately, probably several people who are listeners
at some point. You don't think it can happen to you, but I think, guy, you'd probably agree it could hapen anyway one, right.
Yeah, right, I agree, I definitely agree.
And people think they can straighten things out often and their words get twisted. I thought this would all be cleared up. I wanted to clear it up and go home, right, And so innocent people almost always give statements because they've got nothing to hide, and often those times those are twisted.
And justin you know, I think you'll agree, but feel free to correct me because you're in the front lines, on the front lines every day. But my advice is give your name, your address. And then the next thing you say is I want a lawyer. Absolutely, and that's it, because they're not your friends. They're not there to help you, and nothing you say is going to be is going
to help you. Right, there's nothing you can say that literally, of all the billions of words in the English language, none of them are good except for I want a lawyer. Innocent people come in and are much more forthcoming than guilty people.
Sure, they're going to be totally cooperative because they think I've got nothing to hide.
And like most people, like I grew up thinking that, and prosecutors in the system is fair and it works, and it will. It's there to protect you and to protect and serve. That's what it says on the side of the thing, right, so on the side of the cars. But in fact, you know, in many cases, not always, but in many cases they have a different agenda, and that agenda is just to get you, and and they don't let and guys yours is really a terrible but
perfect example of that. They didn't want to let the fact that there was no evidence connecting you to the to the thing, and that the witnesses weren't certain and that you had alibi, and they didn't want to let any of that get in the way of a perfectly good conviction. So you're in there and you're thinking you're going home in twenty or thirty minutes, and you're giving
them these statements. You're you're accused of a crime in a place that you've never been to that happened when you were in a different state, correct, Yeah, and where? And this one, really, when you think about it, came with instructions, right, because this is a crime, and many crimes there's no witnesses, right. In this case, you had lots of witnesses who got very very good views of it. There wasn't time, They weren't hundreds of yards away like
we see in some cases. They were right there, right, I mean, and you had the I mean, the probably the perfect witness would have been the guy in the in the auto shop or the whatever, the thing that the crazy idiot went into, right, because he was not under duress.
Right.
And we know that witnesses how much harder time identifying people when they're at the actual crime scene because they're so stressed out and there adrenaline is going crazy. But this guy was just trying to sell them some stuff for his fancy car or whatever, and so he would have had no stress. It was just a typical transaction.
And that's why Bernard got caught. I mean, Bernard was was in this thing without a doubt, right, But when it came to the other IDs, you know, you had guns in people's faces. There was violence within the Savings and Loan. They were cross racial. It had all the indsha that you've talked about on this show that create for bad identifications.
Right of course. So did you get to see your lawyer.
I'll see my lawyer the first day at court because we were looking for a lawyer. They gave me a public a defender, and public defender came and talked to me. He was really talking about nothing. Seems like he was working with them. So my mother and then was like, no, we're going to find a lawyer. Finally found a lawyer by the name of Frank Williams, and he came down and talked to me and we went into court pleaded not guilty, and that's when the case commenced.
But how about this Frank Williams guy. Was he He's.
A terrible lawyer, terrible terrible. We actually hired him because he was a family friend, you know, he kind of grew up with us, so my mom felt comfortable, you know, hire him. But he came with all kind of sets and problems. His conduct was definitely suspicions. So he used to come see me two o'clock in the morning, late for court, never prepared, didn't go talk to any other witnesses out of state, and it was just, I mean, it was crazy. His whole investigation was bizarre and unprofessional.
Was he even a criminal lawyer?
Yeah, he was a criminal lawyer. He's just born. Now.
Oh there's a criminal lawyer and a criminal well.
And we see that a lot. It's you know, it's always a smell test when you're looking through that. We get six thousand letters a year seeking assistance, so there's always a smell test with you know, which of the cases we think we got an innocent person here and we can do something about. And it's breathtaking the number of people who we look up the lawyer in thecowbar dot org website and find that they're disbonded.
So let's go back to the courtroom. You know, you've painted a picture which is really again, feels like a movie to think about your parents being you know, distinguished members of the community, your friends being there, their friends being there, and yet they're like the only distinguished people in the courtroom. As it turns out, the rest of the system is broken. So how did it? How long did the trial take? And I want to get to what the moment was like, which I'm guessing was probably
the worst moment of your life. It's probably a pretty good guess when when you found out that you were going to be spending basically the rest of your life in prison.
Well, the trial took actually to get to get to the point of trial, it took like almost two years. I fought the cave for almost two years before I actually went to trial. Once I got to trial, it was probably like maybe four weeks, four to six weeks before the actual verdict came down.
It's a long trial, and they deliberated for a long time. Wasn't it five days? They deliberated for seven days?
Seven days deliberation.
So I mean only you need to hear is that to know that there's problems with a case If citizens are willing to sit in a room for seven days and argue about it. How is there not reasonable doubt.
After a four to six week trial? Right, So these are people who've been want to go home. Yeah, they want to go back to work, they want to go see their you know, whatever the hell they're doing is better than this.
Yes, he actually came at one point, came with a hung jury and the judge sent them back in there to redliberate and see if they can come to some kind of you know, agreement.
And you were being held in custody this whole time.
The whole time, where were you We're guilty until proven more guilty?
Oh yeah, I never heard that before. I'm glad you could laugh about it now. So you were guilty until proven more guilty? And where were you being guilty at? Where were they holding you?
Orange County Jail, Orange County, California, Santa Hanah Court. That's the court I went to.
So the moment comes to hung jury has been sent back and back and whatever, and they're sitting there in days, they're turning into weeks, and finally they come back in. Uh, they tell you they've got a verdict. What were you thinking? Did you think that after all of this? I'm sure you had lost a lot of faith in the system by now, But did you still think you were going to be exonerated?
I did, and I didn't. But let me rewind a little bit before that, uh, that deliberation, before that verdict came down, I was. I was in there doing everything I could to get noticed to this court. I wrote the mayor of Orange County. I even wrote the witness, the victim in the case and told hers, you have a right to you know, really investigate this this this case and see if I'm really the guy who did it. Of course, that letter was returned because they said I
couldn't write to a victim. I even wrote numerous letters to the district attorney. We sat down, had a long conversation, and she told me in front of him, she said, I don't believe you did this case, but you're good for it. And I couldn't believe. She told me that right there in front of my attorney.
That was an assistant DA.
That was Karen walk and she was in a deputy district attorney.
So she came in. I'm just processing this now. So she came in and said.
What exactly She told me to my face, I don't believe you did this the pieces to the puzzle doesn't fit, but you're good for it. You've been in trouble before, so hey, you're good for it. And they even tried to get my attorney to have me go in the room with Bernard Teamer or somebody else and wear a wire and all kind of crazy stuff she was they were trying to set up. That never even came out,
but all that stuff was being set up. I even stood up at the council table while the witness while the victim was on the stand, stood up and asked her if she can get off the stand, come look at me closely. And first du the DA rejected, and then she let her come down. The victim came down and said, hey, that's not him, that's not the guy right there. The DA rushed, take a recess. Rushing, well, it was already in recess. Take the victim outside, talk
to her. She come back. They bring the jury back in and she points me out and say, yeah, that's the guy. And they say, well, what change your mind from that time?
Excuse me, I mean, I'm just just like that.
So they asked my lawyer asked her, what change your mind from the time you said it wasn't him till the time the DA took youther so well, she showed me a picture and I said, that's the guy on the picture right, and it looks like him, and you know, maybe he cut his hair or something. It went on this long tangem about me cutting my hair or whatever. So yeah, so.
They go, so they go back to the they go back to the photo that she id'd from, and this is the classic sourcing error for an identification where the witness now is completely confused because they're saying, no, no, this is the person you identified. See this is him. And now they're matching the photo with guy and of course it is him. He's in the photo that they did the ID from. And now your sourcing is so difficult. You don't know whether your ID in them from the
crime scene, your idnum from the photo. You're being reinforced by them saying this is the person who committed the crime.
Wow.
And you see this happens over and over and over again. This is not a rare instance.
Unfortunately, the DA saying I know it's not you. You have the witness going I know it's not you, yeah, I and eyewitnesses saying I know it's not right nine alibi witnesses going away more than nine?
Only nine was accepted.
Oh right, only nine came to court, and I think six were allowed to testify, but you had.
That's another frustrating thing about this judge. The judge says this is redundant testimony.
Well how is it?
And he limited the number of alibi witnesses. It just doesn't make it. And how is it redundant testimony when each individual is a separate credibility determination by the jury where they might believe one I won't believe another. There are different circumstances. The judge just was tired of it. Let's move on. Okay, A bunch of you say he wasn't there?
Yeah, half a Las Vegas ready to testify for you, right, basically, Yeah, Steve Winn rolled out on the stand.
I mean it's like, that's the first time I've ever seen that in a case where judge said alibi witnesses were redundant testimony.
Yeah, I mean, why let an alibi witness get in the way of a perfectly get in fiction, right, or a perfectly bad conviction in this case? Oh my god.
And a little interesting rock and roll tidbit you'll appreciate is one of the witnesses described one of the suspects as looking like Warren G. And that becomes important later on when we find the guy who does in fact look like Warren g And bring him into court and we're looking over him saying, this guy does look like Warren G. Guy Miles doesn't look anything like Warrang g And, but this elderly white judge didn't seem to be able to make any of those distinctions between not a wrap.
So I'm not good at a cross racial identification either he was. He was as bad or worse at it than the witnesses.
And while we're on that subject, you know, because we're dropping a lot of knowledge here, which I'm glad that you know. Having you here is really great because of the fact that we can get into some of these topics and the way that we do. But we know now from study after study that as as prone to error as I would say identification is, and it's wildly prone to error, we know that cross racial identification is much worse, much less reliable. It's the worst, it's the worst.
Half the people I've walked out of prison have been as a result, they were convicted as a result of cross racial identifications. Because when you work in southern California, we have we're a mixing pot and it's constant. It's whites and Latinos and blacks and Asians, and they're almost always wrong.
So bear that in mind those of you out there who are listening. You know, if you're on a jury and you're looking at somebody in a case where a you know that's the centerpiece of the prosecution is an eyewitness identification, be aware that they're extremely unreliable. And then if it happens to be a cross racial identification, you can basically just throw it out the window, because you know, there have been studies that show that you actually have
a better chance of being right just by guessing. Yep. And there's a classic study you could look it up from I think it was the eighteen nineties in England and it's been done over and over again where they took people who didn't witness the crime and they got it right more often than people who did. And that's due to a number of factors, including the adrenaline and you know, pressures of all different kinds and psychological factors and so yeah, so that.
Just starts, by the way, with it's the first four years of our life where we code how to do facial recognition. So if your mom is white, your dad is white, your brother's white, your sisters are white, you actually can't develop that skill to do facial recognition as well with other races for the rest of your life. If you come from a multi racial family and those first few years you get a lot of exposure to a lot of races, you get better at it. But
it's just as simple as that. It's a human thing that all human beings need to develop facial recognition, and it happens in the first few years of their lives.
So back to you, guy, OK, So, now the moment comes is spending an unbelievable ordeal already and now you've dealt with this trial that's gone on for a month and a half or whatever it is. The jury shuffles back in. Did you think at that moment that you were going to be found guilty or innocent?
I really didn't know. I had a bad vibe looking at the jury how they wouldn't look at me, And I don't know I was I guess I was hopeful that I wouldn't be found guilty, but I don't know. I just had that eerie feeling that those twelve people in there were going to find me guilty, especially after the judge sent them all back in. So, you know, I was more on the I'm gonna get found guilty than I would not being found guilty, I mean being found innocent.
And then the moment comes, and then the moment.
Comes and they stand up and find me guilty on all counts.
And what can you describe that moment? I mean, I'm sure it's painful to even talk about it, but you know, was it? I mean the courtroom must have erupted. I'm sure there were tears, and I mean, how did you even process this?
At that point. I wasn't even worried about myself. I was looking at my mother. I was watching how she broke down. I knew there was gonna be complications to her health. I just seen the tears. I just seen her tears just coming down, and I knew then that it was gonna be a tough robe. Man. I just just put my head down and just just said, I'm gonna have to deal with it whichever way it comes.
I'm just gonna have to deal with it. But I was more concerned about my mother than anything else at that moment.
Well, that says a lot about your character too, And you know, and you're here, I think as a result of your character and of your you know, the strength that you found to withstand something and persevere through something that I think almost anybody else would have you know, given up, given in, and you know, died in prison because you were sentenced to seventy five years to life. And now you find yourself in this dangerous, hostile environment with no way out where. How can you explain that.
It was a hard journey I had. I had to And I tell this story frequently. I tell adjusting them this all the time. I had to basically just trick my mind into believing that I was going to get out tomorrow, the next day soon. But I knew in my hearts of heart that that wasn't going to happen. But I had to kind of like trick my mind to believe in that. I had to, you know, have long talks with myself. I have to had to walk back and forth, you know, in a cell and just
tell myself that it's you know, it's it's gonna get better. Later, you're gonna be out, They're gonna find it true, you're gonna go home, and all this is gonna be a distant memory after three or four years. You know, I'm still playing the same game with my mind. I'm praying a lot. I'm uh you know, I'm talking to my mom and father. They're keeping me strong. Like I said, as Justin said, they was at every court day, they were at every accepted, every phone call, came to every
visit they could. They even made sure that my kids got there. They brought them so I saw them fight for me, so I couldn't let them down. I had to fight for myself too, and that's what I did. But again, at the same time, I had to play with my mind a little bit and make myself really believe that I was getting out the next day or the day after that, or the week after that, but in some near future out with coming home.
Guy's spirit was incredible, and I deal with hundreds of people in prison, every single student who went to see him. Every time I saw him, he'd keep his spirits up. We'd call him smiley Guy. You know, he never felt sorry for himself. He just kept committed towards you know, thinking I'm getting out of here, I'm getting out of this nightmare. And I think you're right, Jason's there's a certain kind of special person You've had a lot of them on this show that to survive that situation, like
you don't know if you'd do it. I don't know if i'd do it. And it's hard to believe where people can must up that kind of strength to be in prison for something you didn't commit. Every morning you wake up, it's a surrealistic nightmare. And yet there are these special people who survive it like I.
And so justin how many times did you visit guy in prison? Can you even count?
We had a lot of visits, a lot of time in San Quentin. I spent a lot of time up there. I every Christmas, I do my Christmas tour and I drive all over the state of California and try to see all my clients who are locked up because that's the hardest time of the year for them. So I definitely see a guy every Christmas. In fact, I just said to him yesterday, I'm glad I'm not going to see you next Christmas in prison.
Amazing and it would seem like, you know, getting the California UNISONCE Project involved. I mean, you literally went from the outhouse to the penthouse in terms of legal representation to go from. And by the way, I'm going to put in a plug right now for people to support the California Innis's project and how do they do that?
Justin go to California Innocence Project dot org and they can see Guy mile story there and all the clients that we freed.
That's California Innocence Project dot org. And we're going to get into more of that in a minute. But so it took fifteen years, even with the best team of lawyers you could want or have. And it's interesting too, and we're going to get to the happy part of the story in a minute, but before we get there, because I saw that amazing video of you getting out and justin greeting you and driving you, and it's so much joy and that it's just really hard to explain.
And people can watch that too if you Google it, or you go to California Innisons Project dot or you'll find this remarkable video. It's been viewed millions of times, which is so great. Before we get to the the you know the best part of the story, which is
the moment when you were actually declared innocent. Is there going back if you could tell us, was there a time you could identify or moments you could identify as the happiest if there was a happy moment in prison, and was there a moment when which was really the darkest time that you had?
Well, I say the darkest, darkest time was finding out my mother had cancer. That's when I felt like, oh man, how would I get through this? If something happened to my mother? How would I get through this? It was always that fear of getting a phone call or sliding the letter under the door saying you need to go see the chaplain. You know, I live with that every day when she was in the hospital. But luckily she
pulled through and she overcame the cancer. My happiest days was writing that letter to the California Innison's Project and they finally accepted me as a client. I knew then that there was hope, and you know, I heard so much about the organization, but it was just like I can never get in that. You know, everybody tries to get to the Innosis Project and get turned down or
they don't have enough resources to handle their case. So you know, in my mind, hey, I'm probably not going to make it either, but I'm sure of going to try. And I wrote letter after letter after letter, and they responded back to me and told me that they will review my case. It took like maybe six seven months for them to review the case. Man, I was overjoyed there. It was like, hey, light at the end of the tunnel, but it.
Was a long tunnel. It was a long legal tunnel. Another way this case is extraordinary is we got a habeas hearing, but as often happens in California and other states, it was assigned back to the trial judge. So the trial judge already had his own personal biases about the case and he'd heard it, and he kind of went through the motions of that hearing and we lost. So
we presented all the problems with the identification. I cross examined the original office who did the ID and in fact, by the time I was done my cross examination and showed him all the mistakes he'd made, he actually came over to me and said, I didn't do any of this intentionally, and if it's my mistake that led to your guy being wrongfully convicted. I really hope you win. So he realized he wasn't even intentionally doing these photo rays the way he did it, just wasn't trained. Well,
this was who they said that. This was the investigating officer who did the identification procedure when I showed him saying yeah, when I showed him like, you don't put photos of people who don't match the description. And I took him through all the procedure manuals and how you put them together. So we go through the whole hearing, we show all the problems with the IDs, we bring in the alibi witnesses, we put the whole thing back
on and we lose. And then a list of beercle who's an amazing lawyer in my office, doesn't give up easily. She appealed that decision, and then we went back and did it a second time and.
We lost with in the same judge again yes.
And then we went back up to the Court of Appeal and there as a matter of law, reverse the decision, saying that we had brought in sufficient evidence that this conviction should be reversed. And then we came up against another obstacle, which I think is an interesting thing to explore, in that the District Attorney's office, after this whole journey, said we're we prosecuting. So I sat in a jail with guy. I'm sure he'll remember because it was a year and two days ago, and I said, here's what
we're looking at. Man, You've been exonerated, but they can always reprosecute. And they say they're reprosecuting, And in fact, ALYSSA put together a whole stack of pretrial motions just to see if they were bluffing, and they weren't. They were going back to trial. Best case scenario, you get exonerated at trial, but that means you're going to sit here in jail until that's over, and I don't know how long that's going to be. Worst case scenario, a
jury convicts you again, because who knows. I don't think that will happen, but I'm sure you didn't think that was going to happen the first time round. Right, If you take this deal now and plee out, they'll walk you out here today. And what do you do in that situation? And how do you advise your client? I just got to lay it out to them, that's the honest truth. I think I'm going to win this retrial.
I think I'll get you exonerated, but I can't give any guarantee of that this will get you out today. So plea bargains are now defining the entire system. And this wasn't true ten fifteen years ago. When we get an exoneration, everyone would walk away. And now I'm seeing two paths happen across the United States. There's some vari astute district attorneys who are getting ahead of these stories, creating conviction review units and getting in on the exonerations.
And there's other ones that are digging their heels in and fighting these things to the bitter end because they don't want to lose, they don't want to be sued, they don't want these stories in the news. And it's really terrible because in California, even in Bakersfield, even in San Bornadino, they didn't used to fight exonerations once we won, and now they are.
And it's crazy because you know, you know, the public really needs to be made aware that this is your tax dollars at work. Right You have prosecutors who've been proven wrong, who've had a higher court tell them, huh uh, nope,
you screwed this up. This wasn't your guy, And they're going to come in and instead of doing their jobs, they're going to go and spend more weeks and months and overtime and this and that and everything else, and then they're going all in the hope of reconvicting an innocent guy who's then going to go back to prison, where we're going to continue to pay for that, right, And the cost of incarceration in America are staggering, right, I mean, just you know, just in terms of on
a very basic mundane level, just the money that the taxpayers pay to keep people innocent people, but everybody.
They even do it, by the way, Jason, they do it in cases where there's no time left. Another one of my clients, Bill Richards, they threatened to reprosecute him and had he they successfully won that reprosecution. He was already on parole. So they were willing to spend county money going through an entire murder trial again where at the end of that result would be no incarceration anyway,
So what could that possibly be about? So we filed a motion that they were using their office irresponsibly and it was prosecutorial misconduct, and then they dropped the case when that was picked up by the media. You're absolutely right. These are our resources. We only have a limited number of resources for criminal justice, and they're just not being allocated correctly because a lot of times people's egos derived
those decisions. You said something, by the way, heartbreaking to me that day, guy, and lawyers aren't supposed to cry, but it made me cry. And you said to me me that you didn't want to let me down by taking a play. And I've talked to other lawyers about that in our movement because I think it's an important message that lawyers remember that sometimes the clients think they're letting us down. And I said to you, you know,
this is your life, man. You got to do what's best for your life, and I'm glad you did that.
You know, they fought so hard since they took my case. I mean it was nitty gritty, they got down and dirty. They really got out there and got the evidence. I mean they fought tooth and nail. We had, Like I said, to evident, you're a hearing another hearing in the Pellic court. It was like never giving up. So I told Justin that because you know, I just watched the dedication in him to fight him, and it was just like, man, me copping out. It was like letting them down after
all they did for me, you know. And that's why I told you, Man, I just I just I just feel bad, you know, like basically bailing out on him. And that's why I told him that.
So you ended up making the decision that I think almost anyone would make face with that impossible choice, and I had and you had to plead down. You plead it down or do you have to plead guilty to the crime in.
The first lead no contest to the charges, right.
So it's like an Alfred Plate. Yeah, so you pleaded no contest. I had to be another bit of pill to swallow. And now you have to live the rest of your life as a convicted felon, as if they didn't do enough.
And we were trying to and we at the same time we're fighting for clemency for guy. This guy is part of what we call the California twelve, which are twelve clients we identified now it's five six years ago as being great cases for clemency from Governor Jerry Brown, and the governor has the power to at any time give any one and clemency he wants to give in
the state prison system. Unfortunately, most governors use it in you know, to give it to people or connected to power, or someone who happens to work in the governor's mansion in the garden. It's very random. And so we identified these twelve cases and we actually walked clemency petitions from my office in San Diego. I walked all the way to Sacramento with those clemency petitions, seven hundred and twelve miles. Guy's family walked a good portion of that with us.
And how long did that take?
It took fifty days. It was walking the entire way up the coasts, all in the highways.
That's as far as Gump shit right there.
It was. I had far If you go on YouTube and say justin Brooks mile four fifty Innocence March, you can see how I looked at mile four fifty. I looked like far As Gump. And we had hundreds of people with us by the time we got to Sacramento and we presented those twelve clemency petitions to the governor. He has still not acted on any of them. Is now five years later, and in that time we've released five of those twelve. There's still seven left in prison.
The governor now has one hundred and I think eighty some days left in office, who's counting, And during that time he could give clemency to these final seven. And so I've been every day on social media asking people to call the governor, write the governor, ask him to grant clemency to the California twelve. And if anyone can follow me on Twitter at Justin O Brooks every single day that can retweet to the governor and he gets these messages, but he hasn't done anything about it yet.
And in Guy's case, we're sitting there with a plea offer, the possibility of clemency, and it's this very high stakes poker that you're playing, and we find to make the decision to play in the card of him taking this deal so he can move on with his life, which is of course Guy's decision.
There's a rumor going on around that you're going to do another walk.
Yeah, I'm gonna do the final hundred miles, which is actually some of the most brutal part of it because I'm going to walk from San Francisco to Sacramento and in September a part of it. You're definitely coming and walking my brother.
Yeah, Yeah, sounds like I better get my sneakers out too. I love that it'll be.
The last hundred on the He'll have one hundred days left in October, and so on that day we're going to walk the last hundred miles and it'll take about five days, doing about twenty miles a day, and we'll go to Sacramento and try to get his attention again to these final seven cases. It's just heartbreaking. They are compelling cases, strong evidence of innocence, every one of them. And you can see them on our website at California Inniston's Project dot org.
And can people sign up to do the walk there too?
Yeah, then get information about the walk and we'll tell them what the rallies are and if they follow me on Twitter, I'll be tweeting about it between now and then.
And that's justin Obrooks on Twitter. Why are the last one hundred miles the most brutal.
Because it's so hot and you're just crossing California. I mean a lot of people said to me, why didn't Why didn't you guys walk up the five. It's like, if you walk up the five, you be dead. It goes through the desert the whole way. So we did the coastal walk and Big Star is very beautiful. It's not as fun when you're walking in and going up and down those hills, but at least it's not brutally hot. But when you cut inland and we hit there at
around June, it was insanely hot. That last hundred miles when you're walking to Sacramento.
That's a lot of walk And that's an incredible, incredible story, and I'm glad you told it. So yeah, I think, Look, I'm very optimistic that this governor will do the right thing. He's certainly been actively pursuing cases for clemency. He's granted I think more clemencies for lifers than any previous governor or.
Probably he's granted a lot of clemencies, but most of them have been out of custody people, right, people with old drug charges. But yeah, this governor's been on the right side of a lot of issues, a lot of progressive issues, which is why I was willing to walk seven hundred and twelve miles because I thought, this guy'll do.
This, and I think it's important for people to realize that that stigma is gone. You know, President Obama granted seventeen hundred and sixty something clemencies in the last days in office, and there wasn't a peep from anybody, like and by the way, I was advocating for much many more than that, but nobody said a word. Right, there was a one article written, hey, wait, what's going on here? I mean, like, it's not a thing anymore. So you know, it's like it's just not a thing.
Right, So pendulum always swings right.
So guy, before we get to the closing of the show, I did want to ask you about that moment when the High Court the Court of Appeals reverse your conviction, because it has to be just the opposite of the devastation that you felt when you were wrongfully convicted in the first place. Can you describe that moment?
I was excited when I got the word that the Pellic court had reversed my conviction.
How'd you find out?
I found Actually I found out through my daughter. She told me. She's like, hey, Dad, Hey dad. I happened to call my daughter and she was like, hey, Dad, did you hear what happened? I was like what. She was like, you know, you coming home? I was like, huh, what are you talking about? And she said that we just got word that the pelicourt reversed your conviction and they letting you come home. I was like what. I
guess she had it all wrong. She heard reverse and she thought it just immediately I come home that day, so I was excited. I instantly called Justin and them and they confirmed what she had told me that the pellicourt had reversed my conviction. But there was still a process that we needed to go through to see if the district attorney was going to retry me or just decide to let the case go. We got word that the Supreme Court wanted to look at the case, and
so here the agony again. We're now waiting on a Supreme Court to review the appellic Court's decision. But anyway, they elected to leave the case as it was. But I believe they What was that Justin?
Yeah, we passed a new evidence law in California. California had actually the toughest new evidence law in the country. And I know this because I wrote a lat of your article on topic and read every one of them. And in California, you had to have new evidence that completely undermined every element of the prosecution's case.
Wow.
And so unless you have overwhelming evidence of innocence really anything short of DNA, and you're going to have trouble winning a case in California. And we got a new law passed in California that mimics the rest of the states that just basically says, if you have evidence that you wouldn't have been convicted at trial, had the jury
heard it, they wouldn't have convicted you, that's sufficient. And because we had that new evidence law in California, we well surpassed that standard in Guy Miles case.
So, Guy, you know, it's after talking to you and after seeing the video of you on the way home, I feel like I know you already, which is great. I'm looking forward to getting to know you in person. Maybe we'll be doing some walking together. So but we have we've come to the point in the show which is my favorite part and I think probably the audience's favorite part, which is the part when I stopped talking.
And the tradition here is at the end of each episode, I turned it over to our distinguished guests and let you have the last word, and you can literally say whatever you want about whatever you want. I think everybody is me most of all. It's really interested to hear what you have to say. But we're going to save the best for last, and we're going to let Justin go first. So Justin, I'm going to turn it over to you.
You know, this is our collective criminal justice system, right so I don't think we can just sit back and do nothing about all the failings of it, because it's our failings. And that's why I love this show. I love the work that you do. I love our community
because we're trying constantly to make the system better. We know we can't perfect it, we know we'll never hit one hundred percent, but there's a lot of changes that can be made so that innocent people don't go to prison and so the innocent people get out of prison. And Guy Miles is another example of things that can be done to make the system better. Improve identification procedures.
Let's stop with the sentences that are so high that people are forced into plead guilty to things they didn't commit. There's a lot of reforms that we can make, and so I think we learned something about every one of these cases, and we learned something that we need to do. So i'd ask your audience to, you know, take action and get involved. You know, go to our website Californiasanceproject dot org see things that you can do, and just
get involved. Do jury duty, get involved in your community, be part of the solution, or you're really part of the problem.
Guy. Hey, we'll turn it over to you now for last words.
First of all, I just want to thank the California Nison's Project for even accepting my case and have to accepting my case, going the distance to find what was needed to show the judge, the justice system, and everybody else around that there are actual innocent people in jail. My daughter Taja, the hardest part being away from her was her first pregnancy, having my grandson. I remember her
telling me. I know it was hard for her to tell me that she was pregnant at a young age, and you know, I wasn't there to kind of help her through that time, so that was kind of hard for me. But I want her to know that I love her and I don't judge her, and you know she's always gonna be my little baby guy, Charles, you
know the same to them. You know, those are my boys, and I know it was hard for them while I was away, but I also loved them, and you know I'm home now we can put all that behind us and just move forward and just thank God that we're able to, you know, reunite and just you know, be a family and continue doing what we're doing, and that's
having fun, talking and enjoying each other's company. And a special thanks to my mother and father definitely for not wavering, being there for me every step of the way, never turning their back on me. Like I said, when I got out, they knew I was innocent coming in. They knew I was innocent coming out. They continue to fight for me, even when it looks like things were bad and I wasn't coming home. They never gave up, and they continue their fight with Justin Ulyssa and the rest
of the gang at the California Innocence Project. To everybody else out there who's going through the similar or the same thing that I'm going through, continue to fight, continue to keep hope alized, just stay strong and believe Not every da is bad, not every judge is bad, not every lawyer is bad. But we just have to pray and ask God to just continue giving us strength that we do find the good ones. And that's all I want to say. Thank you.
Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you here. And like I said, I'm looking forward to getting together with you and doing some walking and I will see you in California and hopefully someday we'll get you to New York and we'll put the red carpet off for you again. Thanks for being part of it.
It's a pleasure.
Give my love to your parents.
Guy, I will, I will, all right, see you later. 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 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
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 Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with s NO Company Number one