#209 Jason Flom with Ronnie Long

ultimately he overpowered and raped her. She described her assailant as a light skinned black man with no mention of facial hair, wearing a dark leather coat and a beanie hat. A rape kit was done and the police carefully collected a mountain of forensic evidence. Meanwhile, across town, nineteen year old Ronnie Long was at home with his mother, on the phone with the mother of his own two year

old son till ten PM. A few days later, Ronnie received a court summons for trespassing in the park after hours. He was wearing a dark leather coat at the time. Police would ask the rape victim to be present in court to see if her attacker was present. On the day, Ronnie the owner of a dark leather coat, was scheduled to appear disguised. She sat in the gallery for two hours in Ronnie's presence, only to identify him as her

attacker when his name was called. The state would present a case without any of the collected forensic or biological evidence, solely resting their case upon this extremely unorthodox and totally unreliable cross racial identification and Ronnie's unscratched leather coat. For that, Ronnie has been in prison for forty four years. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flomer, Welcome back to wrongful Conviction. Today's case, will Um. It's going to upset you. I'm

gonna tell you right now. This is a grotesque injustice that was inflicted and is still being inflicted on an amazing man named Ronnie Long. And we're hoping to hear from Ronnie during the recording. We'll be calling in from prison where he has been since nineteen seventies six for a crime he didn't commit. In this time of COVID, there's all sorts of complications, so we're going to try to make it work with us now as well is Jamie Law. Jamie is an attorney at Duke University's Wrongful

Convictions Clinic. And Jamie, thank you for joining us on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm want to do something unusual here. I actually want to start at the end. We we almost ever do that. But there's a quote from a judge named James Wynn, who's a circuit court judge in the fourth District Court. So this

is a serious guy. And Judge Wynn said, and I quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense counsel in the world, not only in but in the history of this country would have wanted or needed, and which should have been supplied, and yet we did not provide it. He goes on to say, what is it about us that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail when we know evidence may exist that might lead to a different conclusion.

Why is that so offensive to us now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? What's the harm of looking at the new evidence? He said? When did justice leave the process? So we let our rules blind us to what we all can see. Wow. Well, during the course of argument, it made us optimistic that after forty four years, um end maybe near to the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case. It's been an incredible difficult journey through the courts to get his case to

where it was. On May seven of this year, you said we'll start at the end, and the end at this point in time was an argument on May seven in front of the full four Circuit Court of Appeals, which is fifteen active judges, all have been appointed by a President judge when was making that quote in response to arguments from the State of North Carolina that more or less was asking the court to disregard all the evidence that is now known about in this case that

was hid from Ronnie at the time of his trial in nineteen seventy six. And Judge win also discussed sort of the circumstances of nineteen seventy six and the conditions of black males, particularly in the South in nineteen seventy six,

and how they were wrongfully convicted in great numbers. So at the moment Judge Wynn offered his viewpoints during the course of the stakes argument, we knew that we had succeeded in conveying to the court the seriousness and the magnitude of the injustice that occurred in Ronnie's case has promised. We got a phone call from Ronnie, and I must warn you that there was a poor connection with the prison. So ron is a little hard to hear. But what he has to say needs to be heard, so please

bear with us. You know how to play paid call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from and in mad End album Le Correctional Institution. This call will be monitored and recorded. To accept this call, Prince Stive now to decline this call. Hang up. Thank you for using global tie link. Hi Ronnie, thanks for calling me. I know we have a limited time, so let's get right into it now. You grew up in

conquered North Carolina, right, seven brothers and sisters. Can you tell me a little bit about your life before all of this horrible stuff happened? Pretty sports? When I was in how school? Wait, I learned how to leave. That's care of work I was doing with my dad. I'll go to work with him sometimes big money with young still a lot of time with my phone him his model.

Thank you's a little cool in the game. The game when I never treat it with three Now I read about this one time before you had your son way before the incident that lands you in prison, there was an encounter that you once had with some police officers. They pulled up on you, harassed you a bit, Hey, you know what you're doing around here? Boy type of thing, and you responded, isn't this America? Aren't I free to walk on this sidewalk? That right? I was coming from

a girl house? How coming from the girl house one night? The area that was in it was only this area, so I'll come at all one night, the two white cups pull behind me, Ada, what are you coming from? What are you doing in this area here? Pally? Did you walk side walk here? They took me to me to be down, I stated, a pay about to round not also came up tops ago. You can leave. I just gotta walk up with all all. And that's it seems to be how he got to be on the

radar of the local authorities. And then on the faithful day of Sunday six around pm, a wealthy white, fifty four year old widow of a Cannon Mills executive was burglarized and raped. Awful, awful crime. And Cannon Mills was a major employer in the area. And that name is going to come to play a big role in this. In this story, the victim said that while she was preparing food for a beach trip the following day, a black man snuck into her home and grabbed her from behind.

She said the intruder told her that he only had fifteen minutes as his friends were waiting for him outside like a horror movie, and he proceeded to rape her. She later described her attacker as quote yellow looking and quote again not blue black, maybe wearing gloves, a beanie hat, no mention of any facial hair, and a dark leather coat. She also described the violent struggle where she scratched her attacker so hard that her fingernails bent backward, which would

definitely have left the mark on that leather coat. The victim said that whenever she tried to move, he would slam her head against the ground. Then the phone rang, startling the attacker, who gathered his things and left through the front door. The victim then rushed over to her neighbors naked, where she was able to call the police,

and they arrived around ten pm. The victim has since passed away um, but that being said, she was rushed to the hospital for a rape kit and the doctor performed all the tests and collected all the biological evidence

and everything else. What happened next is that Detective Eisenhower of the Concord Police Department arrived at the victim's home around ten thirty, photographed the house, and began collecting evidence, including latent fingerprints, carpet samples, suspect hair paint samples, as well as pieces of the victim's clothing and partially burned matches, and he later brought them to the State Bureau of Investigation office at Raleigh for examination. He also lifted a

latent shoe print from a column near the porch. Now this is important. Later has nothing but the shoe print was ever discussed at trial. And before we go any further, we need to state clearly that Ronnie had a solid alibi. And remember the crime took place at Ronnie at around nine thirty. You were at home with your mother, waiting on your father to get back with the car so you could head out to a party in Charlotte. You were on the phone with the mother of your child.

Your mom hopped on the phone a few times to say hello to her grandson. Right, yes, on the phone too. But you can't all understand what you say, but he's trying to talk and says that he on the phone to my mom, was on the phone. I'll stay on the phone. I'm gonna stays on the phone, and I'm waiting on my dad to come back with your card. I'm trying to cross one or two party and shout.

So Jamie, can you take us back to how Ronnie came to be implicated in it and how he could have possibly been convicted in spite of no evidence at all, none zero. Yeah. Ronnie, very much like other young black men in nineteen seventy six and still today, was harassed by law enforcement officers. That harassment directly led to what ultimately becomes this forty four year old wrongful conviction. On April,

the victim is assaulted and raped in her home. A few days after that, Ronnie receives a trespassing charge at the local park that was adjacent to his home when he shouldn't have been there, and during that time it appears that he was observed wearing a black leather coat.

The officer who stopped him recalled that the person who was described by the victim had been wearing a dark leather coat on the night of April when she gave a description to law enforce it, and despite Ronnie not matching other very prominent features that were included in her description, the officer decided that perhaps he was the individual who had assaulted the victim. I mean it was significant the disparities between her description of her assailant and Ronnie. She

described her assailant as a yellow black male. In the South at the time, to describe somebody as a yellow black male meant a light skinned black person of mixed origin. She never mentioned her assailant having facial hair. Ronnie had facial hair, and disputed that he had facial hair on April nineteen seventy six when she was assaulted. So despite him having a different complexion having facial hair, where she

never described facial hair, he becomes a suspect. Officers then go to her home and says, we have reason to believe that the individual who had assaulted you will be in the courtroom on this date fifteen days later, May tenth nine, and we'd like you to come down to the courtroom to see if you can identify the person

who attacked you there. So immediately in her mind she thinks they've done some investigation and have identified a likely suspect, but all they had done is made the connect um to the fact that Ronnie had a black leather coat,

similar to what she described. The real curious thing with respect to law enforcement asking the victim to go to the courthouse to try and make identification is they had a picture of Long that they could have shown her when they went to her and asked her to come to the courthouse, And they could have did it in a fair procedure, or as fair as these identification procedures can be, with the inclusion of fillers to ensure that she's selecting him from memory and not because he looks

most like the attacker or because she's being presented a suspect in a very suggestive way. They elected to forego that. So she's out to the courthouse dressed in a disguise because she's fearful that if her attacker was there, he'd recognize her. She describes during her testimony being terrified. She six in the courtroom for an hour and a half in Long's presence and fails to identify him, and only when his name is called and he walks up to

resolve the trespassing charge, which was dismissed that day. Did she say he's the one? But it's telling because we later learned during her testimony at trial that there were only twelve black males in the courtroom. She quickly eliminated several of them because they had afros where they were older. She described one as being old and hunched over, and she says that he was the only one that looked

remotely similar to her attacker. And identification evidence is already flawed and highlighting reliable, but here you can just take her words that she's just picking the person that's most likely to be her attacker, that's president in the courtroom, so she can in the experience where she's traumatized and terrified, so that in essence becomes the only evidence against Long. And here we are, forty four years later, trying to

undo that identification. And I'm glad you brought that up, Jamie, because we know the most unreliable eye witness identification as cross racial. This fits exactly into that category. And then, of course there's still room for it to get worse. So Ronnie, take us back to the day that you were in court for the misdemeanor trespassing charge when you had no idea. You couldn't have had any idea that there was a rape victim in the gallery who was being led to believe that her attacker was in the

courtroom that day. And the craziest thing is that you two were in each other's presence for nearly two hours before she idd you right, yeah, they misdemeanor just passing black go downtown. You know I'm sitting there for the nun o'clock lived day. When you called my name, I stood up. We'll walk down front me and my dad. This is when the polony said, when they say that she had the same two detectives there was on this tape that did on this case the whole time they

were sitting in the jury box. She's testified that it was exact me, twelve black an import room. There's not an eat people here looking like me. She's supposed to be looking for a young black head that I saw this her, but she distinctly stated that she's looked around and looked around and looked around it to the trash group, and I didn't see nobody. I want you home king to think about me, she said. She said in the court room there for all on her heads, looking around,

and she still didn't see anymore the people want. She didn't see any one. You'll still said, because of the scriptures that she gave the polies with the light skinned black man with no hand on his face. I'm sitting up in there and you understanding, says god skinned but hand on my face. So I didn't ask another the description your stun said that she were looking for. That's why she couldn't pick me out. When she picked me out here, say said. When they called my name, run

alone or to the front, run alone? Uh, if you ain't court I said, yeah, we come down front. And that's when she said, she's looking down. She didn't recognize me. She's looking down my name. You go, number one. How are you gonna sit in the courtroom, you know, says a whole hour to head they're living. It ain't a twelve blocks in them people sitting there for a whole hour and a half. You don't see this young black

man that you're looking for the reading. You don't see it because she's not Yeah he got he got held it the court acts. This woman could pot eat the part that I told you to pick and run alone. See they could have I don't know. That's in the trash. They could have. I don't know. The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode of Ronval Conviction with Jason Flam and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and

permanently re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations that are dedicated primarily to helping young people and students. For more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile program, please visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Last Mile dot org. This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss, Rifkin, Horton and Garrison, a leading

international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society and in support of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal justice area. So the victim makes this shaky identification, tells the detectives, but you've got no idea that any of this is going on. You're there for this misdemeanor charge, which gets dismissed, and then you go home. But that was not the

last you'd see of law enforcement that day. We went home with the ill wake up a while. When Ronnie was picked up, he was not told that he was suspected of this brain Instead, he arrived at the station at PM, was read his rights, and the police claimed that they asked permission to search his car, but they hadn't, and then they testified to finding gloves, matchbooks, and a beanie in the car. Ronnie maintains at the loves her heads, but the penie was not. I followed the police downtown.

I used to drive with gloves on, but when I get out of cars my clothes off. I speak to my home and my sons. Val I tried to call a locked though I got on reflect me of the jacket. Yeah, I'll go there they kill me. I'm on suspecting of ripon bager kids. I'll take the keys up and they take the keys up in front out to go with the same to the kids that there was in the court room that morning. Yo, man with all going with my keys, bring my keys that killed. They're just want

to look in your car. You ain't gotten in the hide now, but yin gave you permission to look at my car either. So they go down look at my car. They come back again. They got mom. She took my other jacket off of menkid, just the mother stuff. I had my glove. They had lime green to barget that I had never seen a dead my life. And for anyone who doesn't know, it's a bog and I didn't know a toboggan is a hat like the one described

by the victim in this case. So the police come back with what they claim to have found in your car. Go ahead, Ronnie, they say, the guy just got your car. If you won't be back when we take some investigation, sign your name my head. Got look on the people for me to sunda. Sign your name my head. You won't beat him. Okay, I love my jacket. Back my jacket on my glue. But I don't know who he is. But I don't know what my jacket blue. So I

sund on the tree. Time to sign us to consent for So they tricked you in order to make it seem like you consented, and that way it would have made the search technically legal. They planted the lime green hatter Toboggan. Now the police got a live lead to bogg And saying that this is the hand of the perpetrator. I'm telling how long and then also where that you and I ain't never hear that. How long it gets the head inside out? It's it's red is looking a

hand and read his head in the head. You gotta live. We read area when I had it, I like to say, I definitely help. I got black hand even longer, said you see it's mad as night. Yeah, I know what's going to be young. The States would never let me DNA test that head. I want to have a hand

DNA dest They didn't. Never, they didn't never would never let So we now come to the conclusion that the police planted this beanie in the car so that they could have another you know, well really know that there is no other evidence, so that they could have something that they could use against him. And I say something they could use against him because remember all of that

evidence detective Eyes and hard collected from the crime scene. Well, if the red hairs that they found in the beanie that are clearly not Ronnie's hair, bother you just wait because It's about to get way worse again. The crime scene evidence comes back from the State Peo of Investigation

in Raleigh, and none of it matches Ronnie. But since the rich white widow of an executive of one of the biggest employers in town just ideed him as her rapist rather than just doing the right thing, the just thing, the evidence never even made it to the prosecutor's office, let alone the defense. So the police withheld the evidence

from both the defense and the prosecution. Let me just repeat that the police withheld the evidence not just from the defense, but from the prosecution, just in case the prosecution might have decided, hey, wait a minute, we got the wrong guy. That the police decided to play judge jury, and I mean they might as well played executioner, because poor Ronnie has been in prison for four four fucking years. I mean this is um yeah, I mean, just when they think I've heard it all, um, and Jamie, you're

living this day in and day out. Now, I mean, what what can you add to that? Because it gets worse from there? Right, So, they not only tested this evidence and it didn't match long. When it didn't match Long, they made the decision that they wouldn't turn it over

to the defense or the prosecution, which we contending. We argued this at the May seventh hearing that we had in this case, that there's a possibility that the prosecutor could have decided not to go forward with this case at all had he known that all the forensic test

results pointed away from Ronny and towards another suspect. There was suspect hair collected brought to Ralie, examined by the crime lab, determined by the crime lab to be in the parlanks of the lab report of Negroid or Mongolian origin, meaning that it came from a person who was either Asian or black. And we know that that hair that was collected that was suspect hair didn't match along. If it didn't match along, then the suspect, the person who

should have been incarcerated for forty four years. There's the evidence of who that person's identity is. And it's remarkable in the fact that they believe this would be probative. They collected because they thought it would be probative. All indications are they did come from the suspect, but when it didn't match long they kept it from everybody so the prosecutor would go forward on the basis of this

completely unheard of identification procedure. And I have to tell you, Jason, I'm very skeptical whenever any client offers a suggestion that evidence may be planted. But as you look at this case and what officers did keeping evidence away from the prosecutor, it really makes you stopping say, oh, my good, no, this is completely consistent with the behaviors of the officers

in this case. And then when Long says those are my gloves, but I've never seen that beanie in my life, you think, why would he acknowledge owning one but not the other. And the only explanation is because the officers in this case set out to ensure Long was convicted. That included lying, hiding, and with the beanie, manufacturing evidence to ensure that he would spend the rest of his

life incarcerating convicted for this crime. And for whatever reason, the state of North Carolina is just willing to ignore that all together and continue to argue that Long is guilty of this crime. Crazy right, And there's no evidence that he ever owned a beanie, there's no photographs of him at a beanie, there's no, nobody knew about any beanie. There's also the fact that the victim has fought her attacker with all of her strength, and she had scratched

attacker so hard that her own nails bent back. Do you know who, dude, did you take a love of check? Did you spread? Did you look at it? I'm on a microscope. Ain't know when will you can add that stretto media, because yeah, I had my coat look upon the microscope. But yet still she's saying, that's the coat, that's the jack, that's the perpetrated world. And when those sages all meaning when those sects exact, well, there's a good explanation for there being no scratches on you, your face,

your leather coat. It's painfully simple. It's because you weren't there that night. But she idd you. They were trying to make the square fit the circle, and they were willing to bend the rules pen break the rules. They planted evidence in your car and tried everything they could to make sure that they got a conviction in this case.

And people were out in the street protesting as well. Right, So, but when they arrested you, they offered you a plea deal, so they can make all of that public outcry just go away. Now they love me, and when they love me, or they offered me or seven years three, they offered me a seven years three told me that I would be back home in three years. And it made it explicitly clear that I didn't take the plea if you

were trying for my life. So I mean, I got people in the street in the stream, I got my family, I did the street. I got people in the street deals that's supportful. I knew exactly what they wanted, and they wanted to me to keep beat out to that charge so they could put it in on front page. Oh let us long to do it. A great job. So always you only got Holland and gether and going three then going, But I knew I couldn't do that to called number one, my dad said, and it really

so so you did something, you didn't do it? I turned down to So I will fix it, topsta. I wish it the serious way to do. He took me the same year see stay in North Canomoboisilky. But then we get to the trial itself, and this is gonna shock exactly no one. This is an all white jury conquered North Carolina. The jury was handpicked by the Cabas County Sheriff. And get this, three of the members of the jury worked for Cannon Mills. And you'll remember that

the victims husband worked at Cannon Mills as well. So the jury chairperson at the time created a master list of jurors. To get us summons for jury duty, you had to be on that list. And prior to Long's trial, he brought that list of mass the jurors first to the sheriff and allowed the sheriff to strike through any person on that list that the sheriff deemed unfit for

jury duty. He then brought the list to the conquered police department, and testimony is that the chief of police and some of his deputies sat there and did the same. So law enforcement, the very people who investigated this case, end up lying about this case. About the evidence collected in this case, played a role in the selection of the jurors who ultimately found Mr. Long guilty. And in this trial, every single witness that testified for the State

of North Carolina was white. Every single witness that testified on behalf of Ronnie Long to demonstrate his innocence, to prove his alibi, to show that he was nowhere near

the victim's home on the night this attack occurred. Was black, and by selecting an all white jury in segregated Concord, North Carolina in nine, ultimately what we had was a circumstance where the jurors were being asked to decide between finding their neighbors truthful or finding the people from the other side of the tracks, the black side of town. They would have had to find them truthful over the officers who were their neighbors, who are the people who

lived in their community, their side of town. That's what it would have taken to find Long not guilty. And of course we all know how it played out. And this courtroom, there was a racially divided court with blacks on one side and whites on the other um And of course, now the really awful result, but predictable result of this sham trial was that on October first, nine, with his whole life in front of him, Ronnie Long was convicted and sentenced to two life terms. His mother

fainted and a riot nearly ensued. Um Long himself has called his conviction a quote modernized lynching. Sanctioned by law. When they found me guilty, they started in the court room. I started, my molester, she said to ham Me. She grabbing up a bill, said who will make it up to fronto Jellis holds it. They're right there. Get that. I wanted to Ronnie tonight and listen to this. So

after Long's conviction, concord bubbled over with fury. The next day, hundreds of protesters descended on the city's downtown, staging a demonstration in front of the courthouse, and for days fifty or more police officers in full riot gear stationed themselves at a nearby park, and the police chief warned protesters violence would be met with force. So I mean nothing

has changed. And the and the bravery, the courage of these people who protested, putting themselves in grave danger from the same police force that had just framed their friend,

their neighbor, their fellow human. I had spoke with his trial counsel, Jim Fuller prior to the May seventh arguments, and he said, Jamie, I've only been maced one time in my life, and it was after the verdict when outbursts occurred in the courtroom and law enforcement decided to clear out all the supporters of Long, and he said officers were beating a young man and he tried to pull the officers away, and they turned and sprayed him

Long's trial attorney in the face with mace. Nothing has changed. Um, it's really uh, it's really hard to you know. It's I mean, I'm trying to be optimistic, and you know, I think we are on the verge of change, and but it's it's remarkable how much things are as they were forty four years later. See post conviction lidication history. Can you walk us through that, Jamie, because it's quite extraordinary in and of itself. It's been a long process.

So it began in the nineties. After he was convicted. He filed his first what we call here in North Carolina motions for Appropriate Relief. They're the post conviction review petitions that initiate uh post conviction proceedings, and it was related to the jury he was ruled against or in

the course of those proceedings. That was then appealed in federal court, arguing the same things, that he didn't commit the crime and that his trial was unfair, in part because of the way in which the jury was seated and he was ruled against in federal court. Over the years, he tried to get people to help him, and then in two thousand five, the Innocence Project at the University of North Carolina took interest in the case, and the

present litigation began. They found an attorney to work with Ronnie. That attorney did all the work necessary to uncover not just the lies, but the evidence that was withheld from Long at the time of his trial, and they went into state court and held an evidentiary hearing where the

judgtured testimony related to the withholding of this evidence. That's a real interesting proceeding because the prosecutor, the individual who tried running along back in nineteen seventy six, took the stand in testified for Long that he didn't have copies of these reports. He didn't know that this testing was done. Had he known that it was done, he would have

required that had been turned over. He also talked about a sexual assault kit that we haven't even talked about, that they collected one from the victim and then it subsequently disappeared. Yeah, so he testified for long, but despite all that, the judging State court ruled against Long. And found that he hadn't proven that his rights were violated. The case then went to the North Carolina Supreme Court. There are seven justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court.

One set out the decision, and as a result, the Supreme Court split three three. So TI went to the state. Ronnie's conviction was upheld and he was still incarcerated. It then went to an organization in North Carolina called the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. They reviewed the case and their focused was trying to find the sexual assault kit that was collected and disappeared. They did not find it, but they actually discovered that in two thousand and eight.

During the course of those proceedings, officers light again by saying that they had no physical evidence remaining in the case. In their custody winning fact, they had all the latent fingerprints that had been collected from the crime scene. That's when I got involved and the other attorneys I worked with at the Wrongful Convictions Clinic, we worked to file another habeas petition on Ronnie's behalf. It was dismissed because the district court said that we had failed to bring

the fingerprint related evidence in state court. Prior to filing our habeas petition. Of course, it would have been brought in state court had it not been hit during the time that the state post conviction litigation was ongoing. Now we appealed that dismissal. The Fourth Circuit reversed and sent it back to the District Court. Then the District Court once again unted a dismissal on behalf of the state.

The district Court said that while we had shown that evidence was withheld, that it was favorable too Long, but that the state court was reasonable in determining that the evidence was immaterial to the outcome of his trial. So it was dismissed again, and we appealed that decision, which came in July of The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

heard oral arguments in May of twenty nineteen. A panel entered a decision two to one saying that Long had failed to demonstrate the materiality of the evidence of the state court again was reasonable. That decision came down in January of We then asked for full court review called a petition for rehearing embunk and what that triggers is that full fifteen judge review of the case. The Court agreed to hear it while sitting in bunk, and that's

the argument we had in May seven. So it's been it's been a long fight to get to the point where we know that the judges are at least, you know, seeing the injustices here that we saw as evidence by the statement of Judge wind during the course of those oral arguments, Judge Winn said, quote, prosecutors clearly had evidence that any defense counsel in the world, not only in six but in the history of this country would have wanted or needed, and which should have been supplied, and

yet we did not provide it. What is it about us that we want to prosecute and keep people in jail when we know evidence may exist that might lead to a different outcome. Why is that so offensive to us now that we want to protect illegal activity from forty four years ago? End quote? And of course he was referring to the illegal activity on the part of

law enforcement in this case. So the fifteen judge panel for the on Bound Carry in the Fourth Circuit heard Rynie's case in May, and finally in August they voted nine to six in Ronnie's favor to reverse the dismissal of his petition. Then the U. S District Court granted Ronnie's habeas writ setting him free on August after forty four long years, and the very next day, the Cabras County District Attorney dismissed the charges. I mean, I will

never forget watching the live stream of your release. It was really emotional for me, so I can't imagine what it must have been like for you. I'm sitting on my bunk side going to meet him as they are harry up. They brought to them clothed right now. I said, man, what's this? When we go on the court, he said, nah, Man, they told me release you just that quick. When that man told me they're your clue. Right now, the wife

is out there waiting on you. I come listen. If you look down him and shoot, my shoes ain't tired. My socks is in my back. I walked out on my wife birthday. You're talking about me late. Meant to walk out that gate after for the four years and turn around and look at it. I told myself when I looked at it, I would never ever go behind another ball, another lock and key. They would never ever lock me up again. Yeah, you're fucking a right about that. I mean, so what did you do with the rest

of the day. I mean, it was your wife, Ashley's birthday, as fate would have it, on top of everything else, So a pretty nice gift for her, was you? I mean, can you walk us through that magical day? Talk to the media? Oh, kis mar this is Nehew kiss my wife. They have been about ninety days since I've seen that because of the COVID thing. Man, So me and my lawyers, my wife, a couple of friends with the restaurant State Bocar own in cheese. Wasn't spin of anything? Man, game

and man always men. I'm sitting around, we're talking, matt a the doulation being able man to breed. Yeah, breathing free air after an amount of time that is incomprehensible to any of us riding. I can't express how happy I am for you. And not long after your release, you filed for a pardon of innocence from Governor Cooper, who agreed to it in December, and in March you restive state compensation, which amounts to it's actually shockingly low,

but nothing and nothing would ever be enough. It works out to about seventeen thousand dollars a year, which feels like a bit of a slap in the face. But there's really nothing. There's no amount that could replace all of that lost time. You can't get it back. I can't go back to May Tim not consid So I mean, what can they give me? I would, though, like understand why. I mean, what type of person, what type of mentality? New heir? We know you send an innocent person to

the gas change. Yeah, there's there's no answer to how someone could do that and just go home and sleep at night. And I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me and never will. Is there anything though that our audience can do to help you or any of the things you're trying to achieve? Yeah? Yeah, since I've been out man struggle, I gotta go fund me paid man, whatever it is you can help me with. I want

you to know that I appreciate this. Yeah. Well, we'll definitely have that link to our bio, so please if you can scroll down and click the link and get involved, listen. I want to let you know man that I appreciate having a platform for me to speak farm Jason. I want to thank you in your network. Man, y'all stay and saying for what you did for me and my calls. Yeah, Ronnie, look, I mean when I heard about your situation, all of us here at ron Conviction Podcast we had to do

whatever we could. You know, there's a lot of people that helped. I'm honored that we were a part of helping you to win your freedom, and I hope we stay friends for a long long time. I know we will. So now we turn to the closing of our show. First of all, I just want to thank you, Ronnie for your courage, your strength, your grace. And now I'm gonna turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick back in my chair, close my eyes and just listen

to whatever you want to share with me and our audience. Man, it's look at what they free to put me in that sale. And my mind started racing. And the only thing that I could keep telling myself, well, you got to be strong, you got to be strong. You got me strong, got me strong. I took him. Built on the fact that, man, I knew they had been a deal. I built on the fact that then it was kind of Lize in my family name, It was kind of

lies in my lane did a lit on me. When I say that a lied on me, man, I'm talking about corruption, corruption, a lie. Only man, don't put me in the penitentiary. And I knew that I could not let them get away with this ship. Be strong, Be strong, be strong, health, faith, health, faith, and no that you could overcome any obstacle, any barrier, any hurdles in life

if you apply yourself the mind. When they say the man is the terrible thing in the way, being bullshit, it is you sit around for fortful years and not do anything to utilize your mythic capacity. Next day, you know, man, you understand saying you walk around on psychotic drugs and everything because you cannot deal with the tension and the stress. This hell. It's hard, I'm telling you. But your mind

is the key in your heart. It's your determination. Thank you for listening to Ron Fucking Action with Jason Flom. 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 Warness. 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