#067 Jason Flom with Luis Vargas - podcast episode cover

#067 Jason Flom with Luis Vargas

Aug 20, 201858 minEp. 67
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Episode description

In 1999, Luis Vargas was convicted and sentenced to fifty-five years to life in prison for three sexual assaults. He was accused of being the notorious “teardrop rapist,” a methodical serial rapist that terrorized women in Los Angeles. The real “teardrop rapist” would attack over 30 victims. Luis Vargas is joined by his lawyer, Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project.

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava For Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

I've never been to trouble of my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket, and you know what I mean. I was brought up like 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 grew up believing that every human

thing should do the right thing. And that's why, even though I was dealing with corros people, I wasn't going to brave anyone to get me out of prison because I wouldn't live with the fact that I braved my way out of my wife's death. I'm not innocent to proven guilty. I'm guilty until I proved my innocence. And that's absolutely what happened to me. Our system. Since I've been out ten years, it's come a little ways, but it's still broken, a totally little trust in humanity after

what happened to me. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today, I have two extraordinary people as my guests. Justin Brooks, who many of you will recognize because he's a return guest on the podcast. Justin is the director of the California Innocence Project and a personally hero of mine. So Justin, welcome back. Thank you so much, Susan. And with him is our featured guest, who is an extraordinary person with an insane story to tell that I

think we can all learn a lot from. And I'm really excited to hear um the whole, the whole thing, um as much as we can get in. And I know it's impossible to share all your um, all your saga on this one hour format, but Luis Vargas, I'm really happy to have you here. I mean, as I always say, I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here, but welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. I am also very happy to do this, and I'm enthusiast about what's to be the result of this type

of podcast. It's a blessing to me. Well, I'm glad you say that, because I think in sharing your story, the best we can hope for is that people will get a better understanding of just how flawed our justice system is and how these mistakes can really ruin so

many people's lives. And by that I mean not just yours, but all of the victims that were, uh tragically hurt as a result of the fact that they put the wrong guy behind bars when there was a serial rapist on the loose who was out there are committing heinous acts against innocent women in California. So let's let's get right into it. M Louis, Where where did you grow up? What was your childhood? Like bring us back memory, you know, like in the movies when it gets all foggy and

you go back to back to the day. Where where were you born and where do you grow up? I was born in uh, Mexico, Dijuanavo, CA, California, Mexico. However, I migrated to California when I was about ten years old. I grew up in south central Los Angeles, you know, started going to school elementary, junior high, high school, you know, and uh, you know that's why I basically grew up at And was your childhood happy childhood? I mean, you know, I know we've had a lot of challenges being an

immigrant difficulty. You weren't in a you know, probably in those times. Growing up in the nineties in south central I'm sure it was, you know, a dangerous environment. But can you tell us a little more about that well dangerous it was. I mean I grew up in a single parent household, you know, and unfortunately, my mother had to work two jobs to be able to, uh to put food on our tables and keep us closed, you know, and do all that, you know, try to provide for us.

And as we grew up, it was pretty rough. It was. It was south central Los Angeles. I mean, it's well known for its crime and everything that happens around it. Uh. I started uh seeking, you know, outside of the home, the things that I wasn't able to get inside the home because of the fact that mother was working two jobs, not because she didn't want to give it to me,

but because she was working too jobs. She already ever came home, and when she came home, she came home so it softly that she felt, I mean, she needed to get some rest in the meantime. You know, I I along with her sister, older sister and a younger brother. You know, we grew up basically not on our own, but you know, figuring things out for the most part,

you know, on our own, you know. And the things that I was agreeing out, you know, I was doing them by searching places where I didn't really need to be, you know, got around, got around the neighborhood, started to know a few kids, you know, groupies, and and you know, before you know it, I was growing up pretty fast. Life on the highway, as they said, you know, and it was it was pretty dramatic. And you were homeless for a period of time, is that right? I was?

I was? I was. I was homeless for a period of time due to the fact that I had left home for a while. And when I left home, I was down in the San Diego area, so I was on my own. I was at my own. I was fearing things out on my own. I think about it. I mean, a teenager not really knowing, you know, what life is about, barely figuring life out, trying to make sense of things, you know, and just making doing the best he could to survive. You know, that was me.

And it was at that time that you got a time too that turned out to play a very um role. You could never have predicted that really had a devastating impact on your life down the road. But we'll get into that further as we get along in the story. So let's let's fast forward to um. This was a time when there was a lot of crime, um much

worse than it is now in America. And at the time there was a serial rapist on the loose in California called the tear drop rapist um And justin, can you talk a little bit about that and what you know, what were what what was the whole circumstance surrounding that, um? You know that that time? Sure, So there was a serial racist um in Los Angeles. All of the women

were Latin women Latina. They were all waiting at bust early in the morning, and it all occurred within a one and a half mile radius in a certain area of Los Angeles. Uh, the rapists would approach them, asked for directions, and it was a Latino man. And then all these rapes occurred. The witnesses the one defining feature, so just a tattoo was very popular during this error

those of us works of the criminal justice system. It's seen this tattoo where it's one or two tear drops and all of the victims described their attacker that way, that it was a Latino man, that he approached them first thing in the morning at the bus stop, and that the with these attacks and at this tattoo was on the attacker. And so it was very clear, based on this very specific m O that there was one

guy who was doing all these rapes. Louise ends up getting arrested and charts with three of these rapes, which when we went back in and started investigating the case, was starting his okay, why is this one guy charged with three of these attacks? And by the time we reviewed the case, there had been thirty five documented attacks with his exact same m O. How many of those had occurred after his arrest, So that's the crazy part

of the story. We went in and we were able to use DNA to match up one of the rapes that Louise Scott accused of with rapes that have occurred while he was incarcerated. And in fact, one of these rapes occurred while Luise was on trial and sitting in jail.

And just imagine that if if you know your clients on trial for life for this crime and somebody else is committing the same crime in the same city, in the same area, with the exact same m O and a diffic attorney is getting up and telling the jury, you know, whose three rapes all have the same amount of they're clearly done by the same guy. Well it was the same guy, and that same guy was still committing those crimes while Louise was on trial and after

he went to prison. And do we know for certain that the DA had that information at that time. So what we do know is that the police department had investigated it so much to the point of that they had what was called a rape book, and they had linked all these crimes together. And they didn't widely publicize this. I don't you know, for whatever reasons they had, whether they didn't want to make people scared scared or create

some kind of hysteria. But we do know that they were in possession of this information, that they had linked to this information, and yet that information was not turned over to the defense. And as you know, it's it's a clear Brady violation that the government must turn over all potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. And this was clearly exculpatory, right, I mean, this is his black and white as it can be. And meanwhile, Luis, you had alibis for at least one or more of these crimes

that you were charged with, Is that right? Yes? I did. I had albs. I mean I used to work at I used to be a manager for a Manhattan bagel store right there in North Hollywood, and uh I used to drive my baker even to work sometimes at four o'clock in the morning. So one one of the incidents where I we did present an alibia court was not admitted because the manager at that time that was working along my side, he had written it down because the

time clock machine have broken. I mean, imagine that the iron is right, one of the one of the one times that I really needed to have solid alibi. You know, the time clock happens to be broken, so he has to go in and write it down, jotted down with his his with a penningham. So you know, that's why

it wasn't at miss it wasn't admissable in court. But I did have several alibis, and unfortunately, you know, none of them seemed to be uh solid enough to be able to hold up, you know, so they still went ahead and convicted me on the just basically on hearsay, you know, well on as as Jason, you've talked about many times on this sol You're convicted based on the bad identifications made by these very frightened victims of this

horrible crime. And these identifications were not you know, from my understanding and reading about the case, these identifications were wavering.

The the the victims were We're not sure. At various times they were, um, you know, back and forth, and so even we know for for sure, And people who listened to the show have probably heard the Jennifer Thompson Ronald Cotton episode, you know, where as she was described as the perfect witness, UM, a woman who was you know, twenty two year old college students sober home alone and spent twenty five minutes doing nothing but budying her attack

or every detail because she was absolutely determined that she was going to memorize everything about his appearance. Um and uh, and she had time to do it, and she identified him with absolute certainty in a lineup in a muck shot book and at trial, and of course, eleven years

later tragically found out that she had been wrong. Um, you know, and she's becoming a tremendous advocate as as he for eyewitness identification procedure improvements and um um, you know, refinements and and and you know, there's just there's so many things that we need to do and there's a many things that we can do to improve that process. But in your case, Luise, that it wasn't even that

it wasn't even like it was a strong identification. It was uh, you know, they were they were on the fence, and so it seems so insane you had you had an alibi. The time clock thing is blowing my mind. And it's interesting too because I'm sure some people that are listening in l A, you know, maybe may have been to your bagel store at the time. They may even know you. So um, but go ahead, yeah, it was.

It's interesting because these uh, these uh uh descriptions that the young ladies gave, you know, which I do feel very sorry that it happened to them. You know, I think they were ultimately, uh not only influenced by all the factors that were surrounding them, the fear, the stress, the weapons, the weapon that was used, the chaoffs, and not to mention the fact that when they were interviewed

at the time that they were interviewed. I mean, I'm positive that they were influenced by the people that interviewed them. You know, I mean, how could you go from UH being okay during during a foto expect photo lineup? How could you go from being no, no, no, wait a minute, eighty five percent sure, okay, eighty five percent sure that I'm within the sixth pact that you were shown. Then

from eighty five you go down talking about Uh. One of the young ladies that identified me uh during the photo lineup, first she said she was eighty five percent sure. Then she came back and said seventy sure. Then ultimately during the trial, when UH the d A win and and and and asked for her identification, all of a sudden, lo and behold the jabu. You know sure that it was me the one, the one that attacked her. You know that is amazing to me. The way the way

things happened like that. I mean, everything was playing out in front of me as if there was some type of motion picture. I couldn't understand it. My mind was was baffled because of the things that were going on. I was so sure and so confident that I was going to win this trial because of the fact that I had nothing to do with it. I had nothing to do with I mean, I was looking at the at the witness is straight in the eyes because I wanted them so badly to identify me, not as the attacker,

of course, but as a person that did not have it. Now, unfortunately I was, I was dered with a blow. I was there with what at that time seen a deadly blow. Because I was, I was sent to spend the rest of my life in prison. Fifty five years to life was a sense and and just in this case has you know, so many really terribly common um earmarks of wrongful convictions. Right, you have mistaken I witness identification. You have exculpatory evidence that was withhold clear Brady violations in

other words, in legal terms. And you also had an incompetent defense attorney who didn't call witnesses to the stand that could have and very well might have, um you know, influence the jury in a way where they would have gotten it right, which is which is always like, that's that's all that always blows my mind, Like, you know, I don't understand how someone can pass the bar and then end up as a lawyer. You have to have

a you know, a certain amount of intelligence. Not easy to pass the bar, right you gotta And and then you end up in a core room and you don't do the most basic thing that anyone who watches TV knows. Call the witnesses who can say he was at a different place, He couldn't have done this. He was making bagels, fucking bagels. I mean, Jesus Christ, he was smearing cream cheese on the damn thing. You know. He was not

this woman. I mean, oh my god, So, I mean, so justin can you explain how does that even happen? Why is that a thing? I mean, well, first of all, the I D problem is really the biggest problem here. And I'll tell you something even more shocking. We are two decades later and Los Angeles is still using these procedures. Los Angeles has not changed to the best practices for

eyewitness identification. And we've changed in San Diego, we've changed in Northern California, But the biggest county in the United States is still doing this. And what are those practices? Are those best practices? So you should never use six packs? Um So, the problems with six packs photo rays are well documented and every study has shown that when you shows a victim six photos, what their brain does is make a comparative analysis of those six and they pick

out the person who most looks like the suspect. Now it does. They may not look like the suspect very much at all, but out of those six, it's the person who most looks like it. And then they start doing these statistical analysis of you know, what's their percentage of clarity, and it's all completely meaningless. You know, there's there's no way to assess in your life what your percential or what you sure of because memory is so

easily contaminated and there's so many problems with it. So the best practice is to show single photos, one at a time. And more importantly, you cannot have the officers involved in the process who know who the suspect is because they always give off tells and and even when they don't do something stupid like take a good long look at number three, they do the kind of things that we hear in this case where Louis talked about how the witness changed, how sure she was. Well, that

can happen as simple as this. You pick number, you pick letters C, and the officer thinks it's letter C. So they say things like good job, okay, great, all right, we got them, and now they're sure they have the right person. And in rape cases you get the worst ideas because you have now a victim who's is frightened, has gone to a lot of trauma, who desperately wants this person off the street. So they're going to go along with that because that that is what their psyche

wants to happen. They want to be comforted by this that they got the right person, that they're off the streets. So the problem in this country is we have no true national criminal justice policy only in the federal courts. The very small part of our criminal justice is that most of it's in the state courts. No one has

control to change national policy. So we have to fight these battles state by state and then county by county, because for example, in Los Angeles, it's up to the District Attorney's office and the chief of police as to what procedures they use. So this is going to be a battle that's going to go on for a long time. Whereas in other countries, like I just came back from the UK. In the UK, they have national criminal justice

policies that they put in place throughout the country. But we've divided our country into all these jurisdictions with all these little pockets of power, and we have cases like Louise, right. And this is an interesting thing too, because this is not a liberal or a conservative issue, or a democratic or Republican or this or that it should be in this case. Is so why I'm so appreciate that Louise is here, because this case screams out for all the people.

And we're talking about dozens of people, women who were brutally attacked in in the wake of his wrongful arrest and conviction because they stopped looking for the real guy when they got Luise. Even though these things went on and on and on. It's like, so it's or they took a beat. I mean, they must have started again at some point, but they chose to just not share that information with Louise and his team because they already had him. But they knew that this was the same guy.

There was never any question. I mean, you can't have a more uh dynamic example of a serial predator. I mean, this guy was. I mean it's unreal. I mean, especially at a one point six mile radius and that would have terrified the neighborhood. I mean. But at the same time, you know what bugs me about that is that the authorities should have made this known to everyone, because what about the how would you like to be a parent of one of these kids, or a relative or anything else?

And you see, Wow, if I had known, I never would have let her go to the bus stop by herself until this guy was lock ball. I mean, not a chance. I mean, anyone who's listening who has a daughter, which I do, Uh, it's like you would do anything you could to protect that child. Maybe you wouldn't even let them go to school until this was resolved. But no way would you expose someone to a risk that was so incredibly high and you know where it's going

to happen. And by the way, they also should have had patrols out at every bus stop for that period of time, right, I mean, how long would it have taken this one point six miles? You would have needed just a quick map, right thing, and you could have done it. I mean, you know, it's not even I don't know, it's it's it's baffling to me, the whole thing. And of course you know, Luis is one victim in this case, but there's so many others and it's, uh,

it's really it's hard to wrap yourself around it. But it's why it's so important that we're doing the work that we're doing. And again, where could the disagreement be. Why would we as a society, anyone from any sort of political persuasion or any ideology and philosophy would want to make sure that this predator, this this animal who was doing these things over and over again would be off the streets. So in order to do that, we know,

we have the information, we've had it for years. Has justin said, right, you know, we need to have what's called the double blind, which means that the person conducting with is the muck shadow of the lineup or any sort of witness identification procedure cannot must not know who the actual suspect is, because even if they have the best intentions, they're going to say things that will influence the witness in this case, the victims or any witness

to to you know, to change their opinion, and that's not a good thing. That that leads to more mistakes. And at the same time, we know too that um, mug shots. And this is the simplest thing in the world, right, and it's science. It's just fucking science. Instead of having six pictures on the page, you have one, and the mind works better that way. And I know I would be the world's worst witness because I'm that guy who

will meet somebody and I'm embarrassed to say so. I'll meet somebody, we'll go to lunch, and then I'll run it to them three days later and they're like, hey, Jason, what's happening. I'm like, hey, man, how you doing? You know what I mean? Like that, I'm like, oh god, I can't remember I mean, I can't remember names. I can only remember jokes and phone numbers. But anyway, that's that's my problems. So most people, most people are like you though, Jason. I mean, I think human beings just

really don't have that kind of capacity. And as you said, you know, the police officers are not great poker players. Uh. You know, my brother is a professional poker player. And I go watch these guys play and they wear hats and sunglasses and they look down at the table and they do anything to not give a towel of what their hand is and these guys are professional poker players. But I imagine these police officers they're giving out all kinds of signals of who they really want to get,

who the real guy is, and and it's tragic the results. Yeah, it's true. Sometimes they unwinningly go ahead and give up tell tell science, I sel a good job, or you know, to lead to kind of persuade the victim at this time. But sometimes this is the scary part that sometimes they just do it for the sake of doing it, because

they want to close the case. Yeah, I mean, uh, it's interesting to me that at this moment, when you're talking about I witness identification, I was just recalling back to one of one of the paces in my trial on February I think it was February sixteen. Uh, well, one of the young victims, uh identified me in court.

I mean this process. The d A at this time said that the victim took a long time to identify me because she was afraid, I mean a long time five minutes turned to identify someone, you know, and when she couldn't identify me because she scanned when the when the d A asked her, you know, if she'd seen me in the court room. Can she please identified me as in what I was wearing? She asked the d A question, She goes, I mean picture this you got. You have the whole progroom. Well it was standing a

standing room. You had the twelve jurors, you had the audience, and then you had me at the defensive. All that time, I had fired my my public defender because I mean, he was doing such a lousy job. I was so I was so confident that was not going to get identified, that I was not gonna get sentence that on one of the occasions, went went to one of our of our hearings. He went ahead and asked for another extension.

I got up, showing then everything. I got up and I said, your honor, I object, I do not want another extension. I want this to be over. Man. The bailiff rushed from the back and just grabbed my shoulders and set me down, you know. And then when I looked at my attorney and I told him I don't want another extension, the public vendor and he looked at me.

I mean, he straight out screened from the top of this lane, you're gonna get sentenced, And I got no, I'm not I didn't do these crimes right, and the judge just slapped slapped is uh hammer on the on the on the desk and just like order in the court. Right. So I go, okay, fine, but I told him I did not want another extension. Well, fast forward to one

of the faces in my trial. This young lady had such a hard time identifying me that she scanned when she was sold to identify the look around the court room and identifying me. She asked the d A a question from who? From them? And guess go she was pointing too. She was pointing to the jury, to the twelve jurors. She was asking the d A from who do I have to identify my attacker? From them? From the twelve jurors? No, that's when the DA said, no,

from the whole core room. Look at the whole core room. So she scanned from left or right, very slowly, left or right, all the way from the jury to the defense table. And then as I was looking, I mean I didn't lower my head for a minute, not even a second. I looked at her straight in the eyes and hoped to God that she would say, no, that's not him, that's not the bumping the notes that I remember. That's not the clearest uh the unshaven phase that I remember.

That's not the churl drop that I remember seeing or not seeing. She looked straight at me. I looked straight at her and at that not even one fraction of a second later, she went ahead and scanned the room back all the way back to the jury room, to the jury uh where the jury was sitting, and stop hesitated, didn't say nothing. The d a once again win like like prono her name, and said, can you please look at round the core room and identify the person that

attacks you? Okay, This time she didn't ask can you please tell us if the person that I take is here? This time she's saying, can you identify the person that attacked you? In other words, you know what he's definitely here or you have to do is identifying. So now the victim is over here, once again, scanning the room from left to right. I mean, they took an eternity. And she did this three times, and I'm all this time, I'm looking at her, I'm hoping, I'm praying to God

to be rid of those shackles. Well, when she did this a second time, by this time, the D A asked the judge to grant her emotions. She goes, to your honor, can I please move around the core room. Your honor goes like, what's the reason? The d A And I'm surprised by that time I had a hired attorney. I'm surprised he did not object to that. But when the judge asked her, what's the reason, she said, I just I just want to move around the portom let her know, let my witness know that she's okay, that

she's not in danger, that everything's fine, you know. So that judge goes granted. So I had an attorney that I mean, he was like about maybe at that at that time, probably a good six or four six years old maybe. Uh. He was Anglo Saxon, real tall, Harris why as snow and he was pretty like complexed, so light that on the heated day he could probably turn red because of the heat. Right. Well, anyways, the young the d A goes behind him. I mean, picture this

in the middle of a trial for someone's life. Is I mean at the precipice of being sentenced to fifty five years to life. I mean, I'm talking about my earliest chance of parole was going to be on October of twenty. Could you imagine that? I mean, I thought the whole world was eating me a life. Well, the d A goes behind my attorney and stands behind him, and she goes the young lady does this left like the person that attack you. Come on? What's she gonna say? No?

Then the d A she might as well grabs her little pointer, pulled it out, stretched it out, and fragmopped me and said, hey, this is the guy right here. Look at him, you know, I mean hispanic, possibly a gang affiliated, uh, slick hair, black, you know, commit backwards, uh tattoos. Look at them looking a little good. You don't need to think long. This is the guy. She she might as well have said that, because after she stood behind my attorney, she stands right and I knew

what this was gonna cough. I knew what's gonna happened next. As soon as I've seen her approach my attorney, I said, okay, here it comes here, it comes to the shotgun blast. Because it did feel like a shotgun blast. I felt that I was taken back by all the things that were going on. I mean, they sentenced me basically, I'm nothing but the drama that was in the court, I'm surprised to DA didn't grab a tissue and took it to the victim and said, here right your rise. You know,

let the Jewish see this. You know that you're being so affected by this. I'm surprised that didn't happen because it was Hollywood. I mean, that was basically Hollywood right there. She still right behind me and said this, this looks like the person that attacked you. Come on, what was the victim going to say? Young lady stressed out, scared, nervous, you know, influenced by all the other factors. This lady

had gone from UH and during her identification process. This lady had gone from a UH second photo lineup that they had showed her where she was not sure. Now in court she had gone from not being sure to be certain of her identification. This happened in court after the d A stood behind me and acted as a pointer and put the target on me and said, is this the person that attacks you? Take off the ifs, do not even make it a question, because you're basically saying,

this is the person that attacked you. Well, at that moment, that young lady just at that moment she just went ahead and said, yes, that's him. Oh my goodness, I felt that my whole world had fallen apart once again. And justin that, I mean, there's it sounds to me like there's no question that the judge acted improperly here too, right, he absolutely should have called at that point it's a mistrial,

isn't it. Yeah, I think at a certain point a judge has a responsibility to say this just doesn't pass the basic test. There's a basic rule of evidence that if evidence is more prejudicial than probative, it shouldn't be admitted in a courtroom. And if if she has to look around him three times and be prodded by the d A. And as Louis said this, this identification led

to his entire life being taken away from him. We just can't let people get convicted in this country and go to prison based largely on emotion and bad No, that's I mean, that's bad behavior. Doesn't even begin to

describe it. And you know, I want to I do want to make the point, and I make this often that you know, I'm a person who believes in a system of laws, and I think that we have a lot of very good police officers out there, a lot of very good prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, but the bad ones do just incredible amounts of damage. And this is an example of the system failing Luise and US as a society and the residents of l A in so

many different ways. And it's just, uh, it never it never ceases to blow my mind how this could go on in the country. You know, it's twenty Uh well, this was twentieth century. Was the end of the twentieth century. I mean, we're talking in America and this is not It's like and it became like a witch trial. Um, I mean, with her standing behind you, it's like, yeah, you're done. That's it. I mean, it's just like just

draw a circle around you. I mean it's like anyway, I can't even And it's and and it's l A's not the Deep South, right, it's Los Angeles, um so so happening to and it's happening. I mean, that's That's the thing that's so frustrating in California is even with stories like ease is even and in Louise's case, by the way, when we file the haviors petition and pointed out all these inconsistencies and how the DNA from one of the cases he was charged with matched up with

cases that happened when he was in prison. The district attorney his office conceded this case and he was declared innocent. But it's it's again. It's sort of like and now we move on, you know, it's we have to make the changes we have to. This is what I love why I love your show so much, because your show goes back and dissects these cases and says we can't just move on. We need to look at these cases

and make the changes. And what we've got to learn from Elisa's case is Los Angeles County and every county in America has to stop doing these procedures because they are victimizing the people who go to prison. They're victimizing the community and the people who have been victimized by these people, and they don't get the right person. And it's just shocking that it's still going on. I'll even

take it one step further. How how would you feel if you were one of the jurors and then later on you find out that you were tricked right, that you were actually tricked into making a decision that ruined the lives of Louise and some of his family members, but also that lead to a you know, an outcome that was tragically predictable, which is that this serial rapist

went on to commit these other horrible crimes. I mean, the jurors are in there trying to do we would hope their level best to make sure that the right outcome is reached. I think that almost anybody that goes into a jury room is you know, there will be some people who may have some inherent biases. We try

to weed them out, but it doesn't always happen. But for people who are listening now, and I talked about this often everyone who's listening as a potential juror, and someday you're gonna end up getting called for jury duty. First of all, go and second of all, when you go, be woke, think about Louise, think about what happened to him. Look for those lines in the courtroom so that if this type of stuff is going on, you're able to think about, Wait a minute, the line, how is the

lineup conductor? How is that? Or how are they behaving in the courtroom? Are they being suggestive? Are they is this a fair trial? Am I being presented with? Remember it's beyond a reasonable doubt. That's one of the bedrocks of our whole system, right, it's supposed to be beyond How can anyone listen to this story? And of course hindsight, but how could anyone listen? I think anyone listening now would say, Well, if I was on that jury, I would have I I never would have voted to convict.

I mean, but but twelve people did, and so, um, you know that's anyway. Now I'm gonna turn it back over to you, Louise. I'm sorry, We're going back to uh jury identification. Right. My son and my and my wife, they got a jury summons and one of the things that I told them was like, do you know wharning or When they showed it to me, I told him,

you know, that's duty that have to observe. So when you go, make sure that you listen to all the evidence real carefully, because remember I told him this, use my case as a sample, and they know very well what happened in my case. My case was such a high four five case that my picture was coming out on every newspaper, even including LA opinion a Mexican newspaper.

It was front cover, full size front cover. When I went to the Mexican councilor to try to get my paper, my my Mexican I d to begin my process and my birth certificate. They were requiring of me a picture. I D now remember all I had with me was my prison identification and the turning had said, do not show that unless it's absolutely necessary. So here I am in the Messican council it in front of these people trying to give my my my Mexican paperwork so I

could start my identification process. Well, when I go in there, I look at a stack of newspapers from Lapineon and guess what all of them had my picture on it. There must have been partly around maybe newspapers stacked up all together. Well, when we went in there, my mother, you know, not because she thought I was a celebrated but because she's I mean, this is something to hold, right, So she went ahead and grabbed about probably five or

six newspapers and put them in her back. Well, when we walked in there, we're in front of I mean, they gave us such a hard time to try to get our paper that we finally went into this attorney's office, okay, and and we're in front of her desk, sitting down, and we're explained to her that I have no identifications that I need to begin to get my first day tavocate and my uh Mexican uh matricula, which is I D. And the first thing she tells us as well, you

know what, you cannot get it because you have to show us a picture I D. And once again, my mother got so frustrated, Mr Jason. My mother got so frustrated Mr Brooks that what she did it was funny, This was hilarious. She went ahead and grabbed one of the newspapers with my picture right on the cover, right front cover, I'm my County Blues, and she it was the picture of the day. I got accelerated, and she

went ahead and stood up. I mean, it's like they gave her a bottom be shot, right, and she still right up, and she grabbed the paper and she slept. She literally slammed it on the attorney's desk and said, is this enough of an idea for you? In Spanish? Right, she goes, is this enough forming idea? I mean, she was mad I hadn't seen my mouth so mad, you know, forever, right, But she slammed it on the desk because she goes, is this enough for an identification for you? My son

was sentenced? And you know, the the attorney lit at me, shocked. She looked at me and she goes, is that you? Come on? She goes, is that you? I go, yes, that's me. And that's when I when I brought out my idea identification. I put it on the desk next

to the newspaper and told her that's me. And yes, they excelerated me of crimes that I had not commited back and I spent close to eighteen years of my life from prison, the convict being sentence fifty five years of life okay, no chance of of seeing life anytime soon until this miracle happened. I came into the picture and I went ahead and happy opportunity to Yes, California

and it's a project came into the picture. And had it not been, had it not been for them, there were only two two ways of me coming out of prison. Either people I seen over twenty two people killed killed in prison behind the cross that I had, you know, unfortunately for me, and thank god, you know, nothing happened to me. But anyways, going back to the story, the attorney left at me and her response, her comebact really

shocked me. It really shocked me because the first thing she said, she had such a subcere look in her face. And this is what your audience needs to keep in mind, because she said the se argas, I am so storry and I looked at her, and it battled me. At the moment. I wasn't thinking at the moment. I wasn't like like putting two and two together, but I lived her and she goes, Mr Vargus, I'm so sorry, and and I go, why is that? And then she goes, I'm sorry because a jury listened to this. Mr Jason,

Mr Brooks. When she apologized, she was apologizing for something that to me apparently she had not didn't do it. But then when she gave me the response that I needed to really hear, it costs. I mean to me, this was closer in a way. It was kind of closer to me because I finally felt that someone sympathized empathized, not sympathized empathized with what I went through. And I'm still struggling to put the pieces together. But she said,

I'm sorry because a jury of your peers. Imagine that someone that wasn't even sitting in the jury at that day. But she said, I'm sorry that a jury of your peers committed this mistake and because of that you were sent to fifty five years to life. I am so sorry. And at that moment I said to myself, within my I didn't say. All I said to her was thank you. But Eve, inside myself, I was like relishing and the fact that I was beginning to find closure because it

was difficult for me. It still is, it still is. I'm having trouble with a lot of things out here, but you know what, I'm working a lot through it. I got wonderful people such as the California Innocence Project, Justin Broke through CALCO and a Lisztabe, Joe oh Simpson, Mr Jeremy, all these wonderful people, even you guys, even your station, even this is helping me. Event. It's helping me let everything out's helping me go ahead, and you know what, forget about my past and renew my future,

because now that's actually what I have to do. I have to renew well that that means a lot for you to say that, because um, you know, I mean it's something that's been an obsession of mine, is trying to be a small part of of the recovery process or the or the healing process or the re entry process for brave uh men and women like you. So yeah, I think it's you know, you're you're a fantastic UM

role model. I think for other people who are going through not just these challenges, but other challenges in life. I think for me, I can say that just having a chance to talk with you and to be around others who have been through similar horrendous ordeals put so much gratitude in my attitude and makes uh, you know, it gives me perspective and uh so I you know, I thank you for you know, coming on. And I know it's not easy to share these experiences, but it's

so important in so many different ways. And UM, I wanted to ask you to um. In the limited time that we have left, we covered a lot of ground here already. But when you were sent to prison, as you said, there were twenty two people in there. Some were guilty, some were probably innocent like you, who were murdered because they were charged with the similar crimes like you were charged with um and you managed to survive.

And I think Justin was telling me that there's a you actually found an amazing uh sort of um a way too to protect yourself And can can you talk about that? You know what I mean? Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I had to do this on almost every six months because in in prison, the people that the people that control the prison yards, Okay, they

asked for paperwork. Okay, this paperwork has all your controlling crimes, what have you in prison and all your backgrounds, and it said whether you're charged with a rape or not. So what I had to do was that I had to Fortunately for me, I let it work, you know job in the program office where I had access to the computer. So what I was able to do at that one document that they would always ask for, that

the prison politicians would always ask for. What they would what I managed to do was that I had to type a new controlling crime. I had to type different dates, different names of the lieutenant's captains and commissioners that always appeared on the annual classifications. And I had to drop the funt. I had to lower the letter uh size exactly to the size that the original paper had. So what I had to do was that I had to carefully white out the information that said that I was

there for rape and the dates and all that. And what I did, I went ahead and typed out first degree burglary on the computer. I lowered the fronts. I went ahead and pasted them on top of the documents that they had given me, and the new dates that coincide with all the annual classifications, the new names that coincide with all the people that were at that annual pressitations.

I had to go ahead and do that almost every six months, every three months, when they would ask for paperwork, they would take it to their cell and for two or three days at a time, they would analyze it. They would scrutinize it, and they would make sure that that paper was legitimate. So what I had to do I would have to fabricate new paperwork with my information on it saying that I was there for as a struck out inmate under the three strike law, and my

prime my controlling plant was first of re Burglary. So I had to wide out all the information and paste the new information on top and after that I had to run copies, and after that I had to analyze it. I had to make sure that it was no smudges, no wrinkles, no nothing on it that would indicate that

it had been tampered with, because if not Atomer. So imagine that, Jason, that we've so given over control of our prison that the shot callers, which are other inmates who are running the yard, actually request inmate to turn their work over to them so they can review it and decide whether these guys should be killed or not. And a lot of people are realizing it's a real hierarchy in prison. Is this hierarchy in prison? And if you're in there as a child molester, you're gonna get killed.

You're there is a rapist, you're going to get killed, and you've got to answer to what in prison is a higher authority, Not the card, not the courts, but the guys who were running their guards and and Louise had to worry every day were they going to figure it out? That's unbelievable, Louise. The amount of the amount of forethought and the amount of technical ingenuity and uh and everything else that you had to to, you know,

with a person like yourself. We didn't have training in these areas, right coming in the idea that you were able to create this narrative and then prove it um, this false narrative to literally save your own life is something that I'm sure there's some people listening from Hollywood who are gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna put that in a script now, because I don't think anybody's even seen that in a movie before. I mean, it's it's

unbelievably brilliant. And in fact, if not for that, we probably very likely wouldn't be talking to you today because you would have been not only then you would have been roughly and I'm sure there were others like like you said, of those twenty two and we know now that you know, somewhere between five and ten percent of

the people in prison in America are innocent. So it stands to reason if twenty two guys were killed while you were in there, uh, for similar crimes, Let's say you know, probably two of them according to the statistics, probably two of them were innocent people who are in

prison and were victim. And it's interesting too, you know, yesterday, I want to give a shout out because yesterday I had a lunch with a guy named Nick Turner who runs the VERA Institute for Justice, who are doing incredible work and trying to reform the prison system and bring better practices and humane treatment into the prisons. And they're

doing this in a variety of ways. They're bringing correction officials and high ranking members of government to visit European prisons where they treat people completely opposite the way we do, uh, I mean, where there's respect and there's you know, and it actually leads to a better society because of the fact that when these people come out, the recidivism rates are so low because they've been treated like human beings when they were in and they've been given the tools

and the dignity to come out and succeed on the outside. Because their attitude in Europe, most places in Europe is hey, you know, when you come out, you might be living next door to me somewhere, and I'd rather have you be somebody who I treat, you know, with dignity. And and then you come out and you know, we could you know, have a meal or whatever it could be. And and some of the things that VERA is doing, and I encourage anyone who's listening to check out Vera

Institute for Justice. UM. I don't remember the website off hand, but it's easy to look up and see some of the programs that they're even doing in prisons in America which are leading to dramatic decreases in violence inside the prisons, tremendous drops and recidivism rates, which is something we all should care about. UM. And I think, you know, the good news is there's a movement underfoot. I think it's unstoppable at this point. But at the same time, we're

gonna need as many people to get involved as possible. UM. And I want to before we close, I want to encourage people to go to the California Instance Project website as well. I'm sure there are opportunities to volunteer and get involved. UM. Justin can talk more about that maybe in his closing remarks. UM, but you know, and and then UM, I want to say this is, you know, as we get ready to wrap up this uh, this episode, UM, you know, my favorite part Justin knows this, but for

Luis's is new for you. My favorite part of the show, UM is when I get to actually stop talking and just listen, and so what I like to do is turn the microphone over to you guys for final thoughts, and we're gonna save the best for Lass And that's you, Louise. So justin what can you what? What are your what are your closing remarks? It's not it's not a trial, but it might as well be closing argument. Well, I just think, you know, it's so important that people remember

that this can happen to you. Uh, you can be at work one day and the police show up and arrest you for something that you know nothing about, and you can hope for the best. But you can see through bad identification procedures, through false confessions that are obtained people just giving false information, you can be convicted of a crime in the United States of America and go to prison for the rest of your life for something you didn't do. This is all of our criminal justice system.

We all should take ownership of it. We're all responsible for it. So you need to get involved. So yeah, go and check out my website, California Infofence Project dot org. You could follow me on Twitter and here my rants every day on Twitter at Justin oh Brooks, Houstino Brooks and uh, you know, come, it's coming up to be the end of Jerry Brown's life as governor in California. He's got about a hundred and forty seven days left.

So when the day that he has a hundred days left, I'm going to walk to Sacramento for the second time and asked him to release a number of our innocent clients that we followed the clemency petitions for. So I'd asked for the support and that retweet my tweets for the governor that I tweet every single day and get involved. It's our system, We're responsible for it. So it's just Justin O. Brooks on Twitter, George Justino Brooks and and just to geek, I mean Justin's being too modest. He's

going to be walking about seven hundred miles. He's done it before and he's doing it again. That's the type of commitment that I can just sit here and and take my hat and my shoes rocked too, and say, man, that is just it's awesome. I'm hoping to join you for a part of that journey and and I'm I'm planning on it, and I hope other people will too. And you can and people can learn more about that by following Justin on Twitter Justin oh Brooks and going

to California Innocence Project dot org. Okay, Louise, I'm turning it over to you. Well, Okay, I'm thankful first of all for having this opportunity. Secondly, I like to tell everybody out there. I mean, I'm pretty sure you have wonderful audience that want to get involved. I do not

doubt that at all. During the times that I was in prison, that all the years that I was in prison, I ran into a lot of people that used to come up to me and say, uh, I'm innocent, I'm innocent of the times that they accused me of And then they would vent. I would ask them questions and they would vent, and they would tell me how their crimes went and everything that they went through, and they

would affirm I am innocent. I mean, I'm talking about people that were sentenced to twenty five years to life plus a hundred more years come on. What kind of sentences are those? And they were telling me, I'm innocent, I'm innacent oft times I have committed they accused me of. Well, I never had an opportunity. I never had the opportunity to have a shoulder to be able to band on, because then they would ask questions, why are you here for? And I couldn't tell them. But there were many people

that told me that that they were innocent. So projects such as the California In This As project and not only public involvement, but all the people that also hear these type of cases that are being spoken about. I mean I urged them to go in and get involved. If you have people, if you have someone in prison that has been wrongly convicted and you feel that it's been aroundly convicted, as I have heard many stories, people out here nowadays get involved right right the people that

you need to write to. I mean when I was in first ever letters hoping that someone would answer, and I thank god that they suggested Brooks and the California AS Project that answer. Uh that it was very important to me. They went ahead and did that. Unfortunately, I was able to come out on my own tail fee, not on a stretcher. I was able to come out and be able to speak out of here as far

as the things that are going on. So people, wonderful audience that are out to get involved, get involved because you are the one that makes a differences. As Mr Jason said, you're going to be part of a jury. You know, it's gonna be up to you to be able. You're gonna be able to hold someone's life in the balance in your hands, and it's gonna be on you whether that individual gets rightly, rightfully uh tried or not.

But you guys have the voice that we have. You guys gave me a voice, Okay, when I had no voice, when I was behind prison bars and I couldn't do anything about my situation, it was the public. It was you guys, the people that got involved that was able to help me out. And now because of you guys, I'm out here right now, I'm talking to you through these wonderful means of the radio, and and I can

feel those positive vibes. I can sense that, you know what, there is someone out there that's saying, you know what I can and I should make a difference. So get involved, get involved once again. I just want to thank you guys for for doing this and for allowing me to get involved in such programs such as these, because it's a wonderful thing to be able to contribute. They bring such self satisfaction to be able to say, you know what, I should get involved, So please get involved, Luis. Thank

you again. Um, it's really been inspiring listening to you. You're a remarkable man and I wish you all the blessings that life has to offer. Um, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you more as we travel along this road and working together to spread the word and justin um, what can I say? You're the you know you know, like I said, you're a You're a hero of mine and so many of us in the movement.

And I'm looking forward to working closely with you to YouTube for sure, and I'm looking forward to working closely with you on on as we as we turn this whole situation upside down, which is exactly what we're gonna do. So um, thanks so much brother. I really appreciate all that you do for all of us out here. Okay, well, this has been an amazing episode for me to be a part of, and I want to thank the audience for listening to Wrongful Conviction. 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 Awardis. 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 Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one

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