#190 Jason Flom with Joann Parks

The fire drove Joanne from the house, looking for help that couldn't come soon enough to save the children. The fire was initially ruled to be accidental, and Joanne and Ron moved to St. Louis to try to rebuild their

shattered lives. Over the course of the next four years, rumors and pressure mounted in Bell, California, urging authorities to answer somehow for this inexplicable and horrific tragedy, and investigators who had been trained in the old, totally unscientific methods of arson investigation would change their theory and blame Joanne

for the deaths of her children. Since bass strides have been made in fire science and investigations, but none of that will ever make up for the twenty nine years Joanne spent in prison, and absolutely nothing will ever replace her children. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, of course, I'm your host. I want to introduce the two amazing women that we have on the show today. The first

one Raquel Cohen. Raquel is an attorney with the California Innocence Project and she is a certified badass and I Raquel, I'm I'm just really excited to have you here. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. And the woman of the hour, I'm so excited to have her in the free world and on the air with us now. A woman who has endured the most extraordinary, terrifying saga imaginable, and who stayed strong and it's here

to tell about it is Joanne Parks. Joanne, I'm sorry for what you went through, but I'm happy you're here. Me too, I'm happy to be here with both of you. Where did you grow up? Let's start with that. My mom brought me out to California at the age of three, and I grew up in Highland Park, California. Life was okay as a child that I didn't know anything different. I met my husband at the age of sixteen, and then ultimately you ended up moving to bell California. Right,

you marry this guy. You three kids, Ronald, Roanne and Jessica, they're all a little, little little kids at the time of this awful tragedy. And we're talking, of course, about April nine nine. That's a long long time ago, and it hurts me to think about all those years lost in prison and also the tragedy that p value in your family. Joanne, this is obviously the worst nightmare that any mom, any parent can endure, but you lived it. Can you explain what that horrible night was like. I

put my children down for the night. They had just finished watching a movie that they liked, Harry and and Henderson, and um Jessica took her for steps at night. We had just moved in. We had lived there about seven days before the fire happened, and I was unpacking a few boxes until I got sleepy and I went to sleep, and around midnight I heard this blood curling scream from my son, and when I opened up the bedroom door,

there was nothing but fire and smoke. So I ran out to the front house and was knocking on the door for help, and I went in with the the neighbor, Shirley Robinson, and we called nine one one and her husband went out to try to get in the house to get the kids, and there wasn't no success. They put me in Ms. Robinson across the street and they had a sitting on a curb at first, and I kept asking for my kids, and they kept telling me it was gonna be okay. It was gonna be okay,

They're gonna be okay. And I believe them. I believe that everything was gonna be okay. But part of me, deep down, and because I didn't see anybody come out, I knew that wasn't going to be okay. And I found out later they thought my son had gotten out because they couldn't find him. So they were asking for a diagram of the house where they were sleeping, and they said they were searching the neighborhood front and come to find out that he went into the closet t high.

But yeah, that's basically what happened that night. It's incomprehensible, um, all of it. And Raquel, I mean, this is where I got to turn to you and say, how did it go so far wrong? I mean, yeah, how I asked myself that all the time. So back in when her house went up in flames, fire investigation really wasn't

anything scientific. There was no findings. Fire investigators at the time were trained by their superior so if their superiors were training them wrong, they were investigating fires wrong, and they were very opinionated without anything to support it. The investigators originally came into the house, looked around and said that it was an accident, just a bad tragedy, and

then as time went on, they changed their opinion. They had the same evidence, same physical evidence, same burn patterns, same cords, same information, except they started getting some outside information that led them to believe that Joanne was a monster, that she started these fires for whatever reason. They believed it was financial gain because she didn't want her children,

which is absurd. I mean, if you look back at her probation officers report, and you look at the people who testified for her, she was a very loving mother. The investigator learned that she had a fire in her house prior to the nineteen fire, and all of a sudden, they believed somewhere that they had this obligation to solve this fire and make it a crime so that a

community had answers. So they had tunnel vision and they went in and they looked at this evidence at the time, and they said, the only explanation is that the person who was home Joanne, started two separate fires, locked one of her children in a closet, and then left the house. Today we know that's not true. And my biggest problem with this case is knowing that the science does not support that conclusion. What is their goal? Now that's a question that keeps me up at night. Yeah, it's not

just illegal, it's a moral failing across the board. And in many ways the law can be the enemy of science. But it's really true in Arson cases because for the longest time, it was all just myth and superstition, and and you know, I got a feeling and somebody told me once that if glasses cracked a certain way, or there's a certain chipping pattern on the concrete, or if there's an ali gator pattern on the wall, it's an indication of an accelerant, and this and that, and none

of this was ever ever rooted in science. In fact, many of these people that claimed to be science experts have a high school diploma if that, and they may have trained for forty hours to become a quote unquote expert, and yet they're allowed to testify at trials. So, Joanne, you've now lost everything um and gone through something that it's unspeakable, is unimaginable for anyone, and then things inexplicably

somehow managed to still get worse. When did you realize that they were actually suspecting that you had set this fire? And when did you get arrested? And what was that like? I didn't know that they suspected me of the fire. They had questioned us, I even had I think it was Leicester Fizelle tell me that the fire was accidental, So I never thought in a million years I was going to be arrested. I went on with my life the best that I could. I was working in the

nursing field as a nurse's aid. My husband moved us from here to St. Louis because he wanted to be closer to his family. So all of a sudden. One day, I was told that there was some officers downstairs, and I told him to send them up. I didn't know what they were there for. And they came up. I went in the hallway to meet them, and they arrested me. They couldn't understand what was going on. I couldn't comprehend, and then they extradited me back out here to California,

and um we went to trial. My attorney told me to sit in court and look straight ahead, don't make no eye contact with the jury, don't make no eye contact with the witnesses. Just sit forward and keep quiet. And I did because I didn't know anything different. I didn't know that sitting like that or acting like that was gonna be bad for me and show that I had no feelings that I didn't care. I mean, that's always an aspect of this stuff that is so shameful.

When people say that a grieving mother or someone who has just experienced trauma like that is acting too upset or not upset enough, or you know, it's too stoic, or is do that. It's like, just shut the funk up. Nobody can tell anyone how they're supposed to act and no one knows how you're going to act, or anyone's gonna act if they go through something so extreme. But this is now four years after the fire. Raquel what happened at the trial. I've read these transcripts a few times.

It's about six thousand pages. The big thing that convicted her was her child was in the closet. So they spent an enormous amount of time on whether the door was open unclosed, And the prosecution's theory was that the closet door where Monald was found was not only closed, but that it was barricaded with a close hamper and a pet dish. And they did this entire reconstruction of the area. They brought in like the actual door and this hamper that they found, which by the way, wasn't

even in the room. It had been thrown out and overhaul. It was found somewhere outside. And they cleaned the carpet in front of their and they made this like pattern that didn't exist until they cleaned the carpet, and they put all these puzzle pieces together and they were like, we got it. The door was barricaded with a close hamper. By the way, Ronnie was four, My kids are now five and eight. A four year old can open a door with a close hamper in front of it, so

I already think that's bullshit. Nevertheless, they focused on that. Then you have the two areas of origin. The prosecution came in and said that there was two areas of origin, which is oftentimes an indicator of an arsen the first area being in the front living room under the north window,

and the second being in the girl's room. The defence came in and said, you can't say that because this house had flashed over, or specifically the girl's bedroom had flashed over, and that pattern is more consistent with flashover. And the prosecution came in and was like, flashover didn't happen. There's no way it happened. Don't listen to this guy. They mocked the defense experts saying, oh man, all he's

so concerned with flashover, flash over, flashover. You can't trust anything, he says, he's trying to confuse you with this concept of flash over. Well, fast forward twenty years and sure ship, the house flashed over. Can you explain flash over real quick? So when you have a fire in a house, let's say it starts on a chair, in the corner. What's gonna happen is all the smoke is going to go up, and it's going to be like an upside down bathtub. The smoke is going to fill up from the top down.

But the smoke gets so hot that it ignites everything in the room, and so it becomes from a fire in a room to a room on fire, and it's an instant thing where everything that's combustible just ignites at the same time. If you put that fire out before it flashes over, it's going to be very obvious where the fire started. Those are simple fires, and I think that fire investigators are very good at figuring that out. But once it goes to flashover, patterns are being made

that look like origin patterns. Ventilation coming in in the house or causing patterns to either be skewed, destroyed, or created. And so now that's when your fire investigation becomes non scientific. The defense expert at the trial also brought up the fact that there was at zena television that brand had been known to start fires, but the problem with investigating that television set was at the prosecution threw it out when they were investigating the fire to begin with, and

so no one was able to analyze that television. So today we argue, where we have research that this television, this zenith has been known to start a bunch of fires during all these years. It was introduced at trial because they threw the television set out, We'll never know.

And so even though the defense expert was on the right track, he was ahead of his time in the field, but he just didn't present it well and he was up against a prosecution that was determined and successful at just destroying his credibility when it came to explaining that second area of origin. So and when the jury went out, do you remember thinking that they were finally going to see that you were a victim, not a monster. I

was hoping that's what they were going to see. I was hoping that they were going to come back and say not guilty. Then my attorney had came to me with a deal life without the possibility of pearl. I didn't do anything. I'm not taking that deal. And the jury came back with a guilty verdict, came back with guilty verdic in that astard, I was going through another trial to determine whether I was going to get since to death life without possibility of parole. This episode is

underwritten by the A i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you by Stand Together. Stand Together is a

philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses. Stand Together tackles the root cause there's the problems in our communities and empowers those closest to the problems to

drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step Act, empowering community based programs and help people re enter society, and now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how you may get involved, visit stand together dot org slash conviction. Ultimately, we know that they did send you to life without the possibility of parole. I was twenty seven years old. I've never been arrested

before for anything. You go in there and I've been all over the news, and the first thing you're told is don't talk about your case because child cases are strongly frowned upon and things happened to you when you're

in prison or have in those type of cases. After I got to prison, I got a letter from Mr Lowe, who was the investigator on my case, and he told me that I should have never gotten found guilty and that when my appeal was over with, if I God denied to get in contact with him and dal Winners because they weren't going to leave me in prison for the rest of my life. And so I think it was in like nineties six or something my appeal was denied and I reached out two Mr Lowe and he

investigated my case. He dug into my background, dug into my husband, Ron's background. He did everything he could do to help me. Him and his daughter, Mary Roth. I was in contact with her a lot by phone, and she was like, write the Innocent Project, and so I did, and they finally took my case on. But prisons hard. I was called baby killer. I had it written across my sheets. It was really hard until my best friend

came into my life, didn't sugar more. She taught me that I was worth loving and I was worth fighting for, and that my kids didn't join me, We're not saving them, and that I needed to fight for them and honor them and don't let prison me the last place I'd be. From that point on, every advantage that prison gave I jumped on. I got my a A in arts and humanities. I got different trades so that if I ever was to be released, I could be able to get a job.

I did everything I possibly could to turn around a negative into a positive experience for myself and honor of my children. Wow, that's powerful. I mean she she was almost like a guardian angel, I guess. And she wasn't the only one, of course, the one who's on the air with us right now. Raquel, when did you get involved in the case, And then obviously this became sort of your driving passion, right I know how you feel about joe Anne about this case. Oh yeah, Joe Anne's

the person for me. I owe her so much in so many ways. I believe Joanne first wrote the California Innocence Project in two thousand two. I was still in college then. At that point, not only did c i P not have the resources, the changes in the science just weren't quite there yet. There was ways to help her, but it didn't have legs yet. And then in two thousands seven in I was actually a clinical intern in

the California Innocence Project. When her case came back, it wasn't actually assigned to me, It was assigned to one of my fellow students who began working on it, and his name is Matt Benninger. He actually reached out to John Lentini, who had started the Artson Review Panel and had Joe Anne's case submitted to him for review. And John Lentini, you know, we did an episode of the Wrongful Conviction Junk Science podcast in which Josh Dubin and

Barry Scheck discussed the John Lantine origin story. And John was a prosecution expert in a case in Florida where he went in to confirm that the fire that had burned down and someone had been killed was intentionally set and it just so happened at a stroke of luck that was a house next door that was the exact same construction, and he had this idea, well, why don't we just put the same front because it was abandoned

more empty at the time. So he had this idea that they would recreate the exact same furniture and everything else in the other house. And I think they left a cigarette on the chair, a couch or something. The house burned down, they examined it and it was actually the same as the house next door, and at that point he realized that this was not an arson fire, that this was an accidental fire. And in study after study, it's been proved again and again that this arson quote

unquote science is absolute horseshit. And Cameron Todd Willingham is a focus of that episode as well, who was executed by the State of Texas for a very similar situation to Joann's where he lost his three kids and of course was just as innocent as she is. And so

rest in peace, Cameron Todd Willingham. So back to this, So I became a staff attorney at the California Innison's Project in two thousand and eleven, and around that time, maybe then in two thousand and twelve, I began supervising the students who were responsible for Joanne's case and to be the best advocate I can be for Joanne. I have immersed myself in the fire investigation field. I've pretty

much pushed my way into their conferences. I now trained their fire investigators on how to properly write reports and come to proper scientifically sound conclusions if they can. And it has been another driving force in passion because I never want this to happen to somebody else. Her case, though, was a false scientific evidence case, and in two thousand and twelve, the California Supreme Court made a ruling that pretty much precluded Joanne for bringing her case to court.

They said experts can't have false opinions. That was based on the Bill Richards case, a bite market case which we all know we're bite mark evidence stands. And in two thousand fifteen our office we had the false scientific evidence law changed so that experts can have false opinions. And it was that same year that I filed her case. I filed it in the Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that the experts at trial falsely testified flashover had not occurred.

And that was very important because based on the research that we know today, that changes the entire investigation. So we're up to two thousand seventeen. Now, how did we get to the present? What happened between two thousand seventeen and two thousand twenty one. So we filed the case in two thousand fifteen and we got a hearing. So two thousand seventeen rolls around. But what happened was I thought, slam dunk, we're going to get a deal. Joe EN's

gonna walk home because they admit flashover happened. So based on all of this research, they have to admit that this case doesn't hold water, right, And instead they said, no, we're going to bring in some pattern experts and we're going to show that you can still have the same findings.

At the time, I was working with Paul Bieber, who was a big advocate for the defense and moving this science forward, and he said, you need Gregory Orbit on your team, and they just want a case in Kentucky, the Robert L case with the same issues as Joanne's. I reached out to greg and he took a look at the case and he became our star witness to testify to show that the burn patterns were shipped science and that there's nothing to support the prosecution theory. I

thought we were gonna win. I thought the judge could see through the prosecution experts bullshit. The prosecution's expert, Brian Hoback, testified at the evidentiary hearing that the way he was able to differentiate the pattern from an origin and ventilation

driven pattern was because he looked very closely. I don't understand, but nevertheless, at the end of the hearing, ninety plus days we got the written decision and the Superior Court said, yes, false evidence was introduced at her trial, not flashover, but it was immaterial because this case comes down to a battle of the experts. At the trial, it was a battle of the experts, and here it's the battle of

the experts. And I got that. I was sitting at a dinner table with other attorneys from the California Innocence Project, Justin Brooks, Alex Simpson, UM, I think, Audrey m Again, Elissa Bericle, We're all sitting there. The decision came down and I just broke down and I left, and I you that I had to tell Joanne and UM it was pretty much a horrible, horrible day. Her case is not over. We're currently still litigating the case. Even if we lose now and I hope the prosecution team is listening.

We're going to change the lot and we're going to refile. We will get her convictional returned one day. Yeah, Well, we had to find another way to bring Joanne home, and fortunately we did the California Insis Project. Justin Brooks, the Fearless Leader. He marched twelve miles right from San Diego to Sacramento with a squad to deliver these clemency petitions to Governor Brown. Of course, that still wasn't enough.

The good news is that Governor Knews granted Joyanne clemency and commuted her life without parole term to be eligible for parole immediately. But like you said, we're never going to stop fighting for you, Joanne, because this this is not going to stand. But the good news is your home. You're free. And I want to know what that was

like when you found out about the governor finally taking action. Well, we had just went on lockdown because of COVID, and we had been on lockdown for about a week, and all of a sudden I called to the cop shop and they're like, Lieutenant Norman wants to see you. And he calls me in and he says, I'm acting captain today, and I said, okay. He's like, I just got a call from the Governor's office. You've been commuted to twice seven life. My instinct was to hug him because he

gave me the best news ever. But you can't because he's an officer. So now I've got six months to get prepared to go in front of the board to find out if I can be found suitable to go home. You have to get your support letters in a relapse prevention plan, you have to get a program that's willing to accept you. Even though I didn't show my kids and I didn't start that fire, i still had to show them that I've grown, I'm different, and I got

to come home. And I'm so grateful to Retell for never giving up, for the fight, for Justin, for Alex, for my for Listen, for everyone, for you, everybody. That's the support I have. I can't even it's just beyond words, Mary, Carol, my whole new family, everything I have. I'm just so so blessed and I'm so so grateful. I came out better than going in. Wow, that's a hell of a statement. Um, Raquel, what was it like for you the day she got out?

And what happens now? Oh man? Okay, So when she came out that night, just driving up, they drove up there by myself because of COVID, and I stood there and she came out and she just looked so beautiful, and we both just started crying. And I finally got to hug her because we're not allowed to hug and when we go down to visits, and we just cried and hugged and it was better than I've ever even imagined.

It was just so great to get her and drive her out of there, flip off the prison on the way out, and does get just get her, get her going. And her transition has been beautiful. She is confident and comfortable and um just doing really great and I just really love watching her enjoy her new freedom. All I can say, Joanne is you are an inspiration. I want to apologize to you for what happened on behalf of the entire human race, but you're here now and that's

what matters. And now this is a part of the show that I call closing arguments, and here's how it works. Basically, I just think both of you again with Calicohen California Instance Project staff attorney Joanne Parks ex Honoree. I'm gonna call you what it is, superhero, and then I turned my mike off, kick back in my chair, and I'm gonna turn it over to Raquel. She's gonna say whatever she wants, and then she's going to hand the mike to you, and you can close out the episode without

for there ado closing arguments. Quel Cohen, thank you so much. Jason. I've been dreaming to be on this podcast and dying because I knew the moment I was allowed to be on this podcast, Joan would be free. So being here is very unreal for me. But I thought a lot about what to say, and so here we go. We know, and I know your listeners know that our prison system is overwhelmed and overpopulated period um. We also know that

that population involves way too many innocent people. We also know that the leading cause of these wrongful convictions, at least one of the leading causes, is bad forensic sciences, just junk sciences. And this is because experts have a very powerful presence in court. Juries want to believe them because they have impressive experience and their resume, and they've devoted their careers to these subject matters. Science and the law do not match. The law is always looking backward

and looking at precedent. What did we do before, and what if it's working, Let's keep doing it while science keeps moving forward. Let's make it better, let's understand it better. And the two don't come together. But there are legislative changes, especially one here in California SP to forty three, where we are going to start holding experts to a higher standard. We're going to start to have experts testify based on

the research and data to support their conclusions. And the days of because I said so, and because I have this expertise and because I look twice are over. I want to take this moment, though, specifically to talk to the fire investigation community. If you're listening, please listen and listen closely. I've immersed myself in your community so that I can be the best advocate for Joanne and any

others in her situation. I want to continue to be part of your community so that we can work together and make it stronger to the fire investigators who are moving the field forward, who are doing the research, who are collecting the data. I see you. I love working with you, and let's keep doing going it. Keep moving

this field so that it becomes scientifically sound. Keep testifying based on the research and data, even if you're getting pushed back from the old believers because of you, because you testify, because you do the research, and because you question what you believe. Now over seventy people with ors

and charges have been exonerated in our nation. But to the fire investigators who are resistant to the change, to the ones who continue to overstate their abilities and their opinions, to the ones who come to conclusions that have no scientific evidence or support. I know it's hard. I know change is hard, and I know it's hard to admit that you have been wrong. But your words and your opinions hold a lot of weight. You have actual people's

lives in your hands. So if you wouldn't be comfortable using your own methodologies on a fire that happened in your house, please stop doing it to others. Your gut and your feelings and your biases have no place in the courtroom, and you should know better. Either way, your days of testifying are coming to an end and are

very limited. The law is going to change and you will be required for your opinions to be supported by the data in research, and until then, I hope to see you in court to hold you to that standard. And finally, to joe An my heart, thank you for putting your trust in c I, P and me. I know trusting lawyers or the law or anything to do in a courtroom is nearly impossible for you, but we've been through a lot together. I love you. I will always fight for you, and one day we will prove

your innocence and silence the disbelievers. Jason, thank you so much for having us. I really hope her story gets told, and I really hope that we don't have to be here again talking about another case like this thirty years down the road. Amen, and over to you Joan, Thank you Jason Um for giving me this opportunity, for telling my story in hopes that it will help somebody else down the road. To all my attorneys, especially with cow, I love you. You've become a dear, dear friend of mine.

But these investigators who investigate these fires need to stick to the data and the science instead of what they think, because they're ruining people's lives. They're setting people to prison for crimes that they didn't even commit, for fires they didn't even start. Nobody should have to sit in prison for twenty nine years for something that they didn't even do, for a fire they didn't even start. So let's not continue the practices that you used on my case on

all the other cases that are out there. Let's put it into it. Thank you for the opportunity for being heard. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. Please support your local innocence projects and go to the link in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show, as always,

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 in association with Signal Company Number one