#211 Jason Flom with Marcus Wiggins

Vietnam and Korean War veteran John Burge joined Chicago PD in nineteen seventy, a detective in nineteen seventy two, and eventually Detective commander of Area two and later Area three. During his career, Haines acts of brutality and torture were carried out by him or at his direction, fixing cases with coerce confessions and false witness statements alike. He and his brethren were known as the Midnight Crew before his termination in Disgrace in nineteen ninety three and his eventual

Thank you, Jason.

And then a guy with his own amazing story, but we're going to tell it in a different episode. But today we have Jared Adams. Jared was wrongfully convicted himself since almost three decades in prison and basically became a lawyer in prison, got himself out, passed the bar, worked at the Innocence Project for a couple of years as an attorney, is now in private practice. I'm super happy to have you on here this time as an attorney representing an innocent man.

I appreciate the opportunery.

Great to have you here. And of course, Marcus Wiggins, as I always say, I'm happier here, but I'm sorry you're here because of the reason why you're here. But anyway, welcome to Wronful Conviction.

I appreciate you, man.

So let's get right into it, because this story, it's a Chicago story, and of course Chicago has a miserable history of law enforcement, having tortured hundreds of black men, specifically black men in a literal torture chamber. It was an off site warehouse. And I know it sounds insane, but it's all true. It's all been documented, and hundreds

At school?

Want to be a firefighter, a seeker, service agent, you know, just being a kid, come home from school, do my homework, dele get cartoons, you know, just a normal kid life.

A normal kid life. But this nightmare began when you were just thirteen years old.

So Marcus gets picked up in ninety one for homicide, along with several other people and he's beaten with a flashlight over the head, electrocuted, taken in the precinct, tortured some more along with other people. And from my understanding is is that people actually heard screams in the police station. And all the while that this was going on, there was a witness that could exonerate Marcus. That did exonerate

I'm just shocking that a person, as a citizen of his country, was alleged shock something that this guy learned.

I think I read some at V.

And R in Korea.

Yeah yeah, and came over here man and used in tactics.

And it's not outrage. Yeah, that's like man blowing to me.

Like the State's Attorney's office, every body that who was evolved didn't say, enough is enough, man, we can't allow this to happen to our citizens.

I mean, I imagine with what you went through, you would have confessed to killing Abraham Lincoln. Am I right?

Man?

You know people going to that type of torture, you know what I'm saying, anything just to get from under that pressure and that pain that you're going.

Through, especially at thirteen years old, I.

Mean thirteen and then the thirteen years.

The thing about it too, You know when you think about birds, Jason, you don't get decorated in Korean Wars and Vietnam Wars if you don't get trauma. You understand

Right, every confession was the same, and every one of the victims would basically described the same treatment.

That lawsuit that Marcus's mom spearheaded, it really unearthed exactly how they were doing what they were doing, right, because it's one thing for people to just say, hey, they beating me, they kicking me. They found out in several different other circumstances that they were doing the same type of technics. They were smacking people with phone books so

This was the Alfredo Hernandez murder, right, And ultimately they couldn't pin that on you. Now we get to the second framing, right, which is the murder of Rodney Collins, right, And so they do no investigation whatsoever.

Right now, which homicide didn't they do any investigation on? They did no investigation on all of them. They rely on terrible, wholly unreliable witnesses. I mean, Marcus's name in Rodney Collins gets thrown in there, and they list him as a gang member in the Alfredo Hernandez, the different gang member in Rodney Collins, and then I think a different gang member in Theopolis tig which we haven't gotten to yet, which is nineteen ninety eight.

So we did a little research Marcus on you, because I went back thinking, well, why would he be targeted by the cops in this way in the first place? And all I could find about your background is that you were described as sweet, caring, good hearted, funny like people had nothing but good things to say about young Marcus. And I mean, were you ever in a gang or

Right, the same detectives that arrested and tortured Marcus and knew about Sean Tyler as an exculpatory witness, then go after Sean Tyler for the Rodney Collins murder. He's another bird victim, so is his brother. There were several others that were convicted in this murder, and Sean, I think he was beaten into he vomited blood. Sean Tyler ends up getting fifty eight years in prison and his post

Would have gone down for he would have been Yeah, he would be convicted.

Okay, So now we get to the crux of this situation. Why Marcus spent twenty three years Ron Fleet incarcerated the murder of Theopolis Teague on February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight. This is the story of the crime that the police and State's Attorney's office used to convict Marcus. But I believe we can all see a pattern forming here that leans towards this being a total fabrication from Berg and

Yeah, Marcus, please clarify about calling you Stutter and stuff like that, Like where it came from.

It came from after the torture.

Like my friend, my friends and my cousin knows when I talk, I stutter, So given the name because I know I stuttered after the torture.

So that's important, Jason, because they put that shit in the witness's mouth. Man, that's intimate knowledge from somebody that you know, soooed you want wow.

The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode of Wrongful Convision 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

Up the mechanic. That information only comes out three years after his conviction. So it's documented that that car was in the shop. And get this, the police take the car out of the shop destroy it right away.

Now here's another crazy thing about this case. The victim, Theopolis Tigue, his body was discovered clothed only in a T shirt and boxers in the dead of Chicago winter.

So during this time, in this era, when people were robbed, they would make them undress almost right, So that was a big detail. It was glossed over, right. So it's more likely than not how the body was found, like you said, with a T shirt with the boxes, that he was robbed, being shot and killed, and it had nothing to do with the scenario that they made up to get their.

Target Marcus or he was dropped there.

That as well. Those are the options, but the option of back into the car. I went to go check the damage, I was shot and ran away. It's nonsense and it's never been credible.

So we now have the car. He didn't known the gun, he never owned the gang that he was never in, because they said this was a gang related shooting, which again would point away from Marcus. Everyone knew he was never in a gang. In fact, he used to be tormented by gang members because he wasn't in a gang. So ultimately Marcus is charged with murder. Atlanta Johnson his attorney through the initial trial, and the state utilized that

And he fully recanted it. He was interviewed by Kenneth Boudreau, who was a person that Marcus sues in nineteen ninety three.

To say, Kenneth Boudreau was a hands on interviewer.

Totally hands on. People want to make Chicago only look like confessions are what these guys were obtaining through torture. They were getting everything through torture. All the witnesses in this case were the type of guys that you want to flip, And how do you flip them?

Force it to go to move?

Was it right? Well, they weren't doing any investigating, so I guess what else you've got?

They do no canvas in this case. What police do when they find a body in the neighborhood, what do they do? They go door to door to talk to people. What independent witnesses do we have? They don't do that. No shellcasings, no door to door. You arrest a guy three hours later, and Jason three hours after the crime. In the nineties and even till today, it is standard to do gunshot residue testing on clothing hands that the

Of very kind.

It's kind the lies, the fabrication, and all the witnesses say when they're in the police station they're talking about Marcus Wiggins.

They were aggressively disinterested in who actually committed this crime, which of course is just more bad.

Safety issue, right of course.

You know for folks like Marcus, you know, even like myself back then, you can't afford a fucking attorney man like you can't even like somebody like justin back then, with those facts, fucking hamram Man. The guys found damn near neked in the winter time, if he was running, when did he time time to take his call?

What you investigate?

Yeah?

They if they would have called the cops in this case in front of a Chicago jury, the jury would have heard that these cops were sued by this kid five years prior and they tried to frame them in ninety four like this all would have caught. And I hate to slam them because they cross examine one the witnesses. One of the witnesses recants, but then they don't call their own investigator. But they get out of the witness

All three of them later recanted their testimony. Right. Two of them, Farley and Stokes, signed affid David's admitting that their testimonies were false. That's very brave, right, considering what they had been through. When you say, well, what happened to the third witness, I'm glad you asked. The third witness was fatally shot in the mouth on the day that he planned to sign a similar document. That's got

What a coincidence.

Jesus Christ's that's a mafia.

And he recanted to three different people. He recanted on the witness stand in the trial. He recanted to Marcus's appellet attorney, and then he recanted to another woman, Tracy Ross, who gave a sworn affidavit as well. So Url Mayhan. He recanted three separate times before he was killed.

And if that wasn't enough, people are probably pulling their hair outs in the home listen to this or in their car. Melinda Chavers also reported what she knew about the case and assigned affidavit that she was sitting on her porch when Tigue, a member of the Blackstones. Tige was the victim came up to her and said that he saw a murder by other Blackstone members and that they were going to come after him and kill him. So this is powerful, right, because those witnesses were never

Man oh Man, I had a conversation with them, but she was unimpression that she didn't need to call witness because m Mayhem and changed his.

Statement and that was going to be the winning tickets.

You know, I listen all too familiar, and yeah, and I mean and it's the same thing that I went through where it is where a lawyer court appointed. Oh this is a slam dunk. You don't have to worry about that. I've never heard of a patient saying, look, that's okay. You gave me half the antibiotics, you can keep the rest. I think this half will probably work. It doesn't make any sense.

Right, doctors take half of my appendix out? I think that'll work?

Makes no sense.

But you know, there was no chance. This was a show trial because Marcus was never going to get a fair ruling as long as the presiding judge was then as Turnback because Turnback was known at the time as being a part of Burges's go to team when he had worked in the state's attorney's office and he had a history of accepting confessions despite knowing that they were coerced and given under torture.

Sick name Thurnback. He allowed the state to have their weight, and then Mark turned on to Johnson, couldn't do this, couldn't do that. He gave his state a lot of league.

Way later when I found out who don about was, I ain't stand a chance anyway.

So September nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Marcus, I mean, you had a lot of bad days in your life leading up to this, But can you take us back to that miserable day when you were found guilty at first degree murder? And since the forty six years in prison? What was that moment?

Like I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't no, you know, killed you and then he gave me forty six years no prison is It's what.

Like the soldiers when they leave from overseas and come back home, they have post trump stress.

I have that, you know what I'm saying. Because of the torture, the jails, the penitentiaries, there's not a place nobody want to be. You have to constantly be on guard. You got to defend yourself.

The officers, you know, they come in with a baggage on top of everything else that's going on in our jails.

So it's a nightmare, man. You know what I'm saying. Don't nobody want to leave at nightmare? I don't want to leave a nightmare no more.

Man.

Two thousand and two, Marcus filed approchate motion with detailing about the destruction of the car, detailing that the car was in the shop. You know, it's amazing. The car's in the shop. Car gets destroyed by the police, the piece of evidence that they needed to prove their case that there was a car accident gone right. Marcus's alibis all detailed in his pro say motion in two thousand and two. It was a very good motion. It should

Right.

Would you want one person judging you or would you want twelve people judging you?

Right? Man, you want twelve exactly.

You definitely don't want to judge if you're a defendant. The code defendant in Marcus's case goes bench and gets acquitted. Wow, that's crazy, Okay, And he's still so scared to talk because of retaliation. Every witness that's Rickannon, Kelly Stokes, Ricannon fearful retaliation, Cedric Farley, Recannon fearful retaliation. Lavelle Adams, who was the co defendant, refuses to talk because he said his lawyer said, don't speak because the Chicago Police Department will come after you.

Yeah, we're talking about folks impoverished areas, no protection, no protection, there's no I'm just gonna get up and move. That's not an option. Yeah, Jason, where you're going? Where the money? Yet? You know it's not an option, just hostage in their own place.

And where's WITSEC for the civilians in Chicago?

Right right?

Where's with this protection against the police.

In case anyone thought we were exaggerating any part of the torture as a practice of the Chicago Police Department, a not insignificant number of police officers in the Chicago PDE who were doing this systematically. There was an investigation which resulted in Birds himself going to prison for three years, which, don't even get me started, three years for framing and torturing hundreds of people while he collected pension, collected pension,

Yeah, and I want, I want to be real clear about this because this was a thirty year conspiracy, because it starts in ninety one, right, Yeah, But Marcus has testified in other cases right credibly where he's identified these officers because being around these men for so long, he was able to identify them, and courts have found him credible. I mean, this is something that is firmly established. And it's unfortunate that Marcus had the languish in prison for twenty three years and for me.

To stad it come home from the jails back until sady, where everybody want to play politics, nobody want to step up and do the right thing, which is that's what you was put in these positions for any way, is to do the right thing.

Yeah, and I think State's Attorney Kimpbox is the kind of person that will do the right thing. You know, we had her on Righteous Convictions just a few months ago. We asked her about your case, and although she couldn't comment on the ongoing proceedings, she expressed her hopes for getting to the truth and righting the wrongs of the past.

If the Cook County State's Attorney's office is not willing right now to say Marcus Wiggins is actually innocent like me and Justin, and forget me and Justin. Just look at the evidence says. If they not aren't willing to do that, then then Jason, what's wrong with being able to admit that this man didn't receive a fair trial?

Well, don't ask me, because obviously nothing but Marcus, October thirtieth, twenty twenty, you walked out of prison. You were paroled. You should have been exonerated. You will be exonerated. October thirty you walked out of prison. What was that like?

Hey, it's like a feeling that I can't describe, man, But I was so happy. I was I was humble, I was peaceful. It was just feel so good man, to actually have your feet the hit of the payments and walk around and just feel that feel that freedom, feel that wind, feel that space. It was amazing man.

And you and we know you passed your driving tests. Obviously you had to get a cell phone, computer. I know I know you FaceTime because we've spoken on FaceTime a bunch of times. All this new stuff that happened while you were locked up, right, how is it getting used to it? Starting to feel comfortable with some of this new technology and stuff.

Yeah, well, I'm I'm still learning how to work my phone, my laptop, I'm still having to learn that too.

That's a lot of new stuff googogle going on out here. I'm trying to get familiating.

And we're going to put links in the bio to learn more about Marcus's case to be able to support him. And now we turn to the part of our show, which I call closing arguments. First of all, I thank each of you for being here, and then turn off my mic, kick back in my chair and just sit and listen and learn from whatever you want to share, anything we might have left out, or anything you want to say at all about anything. I don't care if you want to talk about the weather. So let's do this.

Justice requires us to stop waiting for things to become a hashtag before we stand up and do something. You know, as we think about the one year anniversary of us watching George Floyd lose his life, you know, we as a society have to say to ourselves We've come a long way, but there's so much work to do, and I want to close my comments by saying this, there is power in people's voices.

You know.

People become jurors, people become judges, people are voters. People can make a difference. And I want people to think about this when they are faced with things that challenge them doing the right thing and speaking up. If your life was to be depicted in a book where the only reader would be someone that means the world to you, would they read that book and walk away impressed right now about you for what is right, calling out.

Things that are wrong.

If you can't answer that question definitively, there's more work to do, Jason. I can't answer that question definitively, So I get up and I work every day, and so I'm just calling on folks to not allow the norms and the depictions and narratives of folks to ever stop their moral compass from doing the right thing. I want to thank you, my friend, for having me on the show.

Okay.

So I thank you, guys man again for his opportunity, and it's always a pleasure to be around you all.

I appreciate you to us.

Justin h definitely Carolyn Johnson's strong woman has spoken her many, many many times. So would you want somebody that you sued to investigate you for a homicide? Successfully sued? I mean, I think that's like, I think this is a common sense case just to get the man a new trial. We don't even need to get to the witnesses. We could just stop it. Would you want somebody that you sued to be the person that investigated you for a homicide? The answer is no, Okay. I mean, and these guys

What I did.

And it's believable because it's happened. How I mean at this point that we don't have two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight hands we got I don't know, there's so many hands that you'd have to have to count the fingers that this has happened. It's just it's unbelievable. And Marcus case is clear. There was no case against Marcus. This is a complete, utter fabrication and it's the clearest case I've ever seen of retaliation in my life.

All Right, Marcus, saving the best for last over to you, Well, Well, we.

Know, we know, and we see what's going on all around the country, fars dealing with the police, how they fabricate they police reports, and then all of a sudden, our video comes out, obviously from what they filed in the reports, so we know what's going around to see. We know what's going on these officers, especially in the city of Icago, where I feel like I'm up against a giant and don't nobody want to do the right

It frustrates me so much. It just frustrats me so much. But on a broader note, y'all have been a blessing to me, man, since I've been out. Man, y'all truly been a blessing all y'all. You know what I'm saying, all three of y'all. You know, I just want to continue to strive for what I'm doing, and I feel

Man.

And I'm just hoping, I hopeing Kim Fox do the right thing.

See how full acknowledge of what's going on in our commune, how four not as going on with our birds in the Midnight crew.

I just hope everybody just do the right thing, man.

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamer. 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 Cliber and Kevin Warnis. 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