#217 Jason Flom with Kevin Dykes

Since our initial release of Kevin Dykes's story, there have been some new developments, and this is a re release of that story with new content. As a child in the late nineteen seventies, Kevin Dykes accidentally killed his best friend when they were playing with a gun, sending him to Juvie for involuntary manslaughter. When he got out, he turned to petty drug dealing in Compton, California. Fast forward

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Welcome back to Wrawful Conviction with Jason Flomp Today. We have an incredible story, so we're going to get right into it, and I'm going to introduce you first to Stephen K. Howser. He's a criminal defense attorney representing the star of this episode, Kevin Dike. Stephen, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.

Thank you, glad to be here.

And Kevin Dykes is on the phone with us from prison, and I hope we'll be able to do something about his situation because it is awful. Kevin. I'm sorry you're here or where you are, but I'm happy you're here with us today. So thank you for being here.

Thank you for the AVATORA.

This case goes back to Compton nineteen eighty six, and it's got so much that you'll think I'm talking about a movie script that would be too much to be believed, except for it's real. It's got gangster's name Hondo and Slim. It's got drugs, it's got snitches that ended up on sixty minutes. It's got laws that changed and victims who testified that this was not the guy who did it. It's got a guy who's in prison for three and a half decades with no evidence against him except the

Up got to pay at home in the pop Water Sport. I actually had a real good of bringing in two. I think it's actually saying I ended up actually killing my best friend. I went for as randfather, and I will.

Sit to yas and for those of you who don't know YA or CYA is the California Youth Authority.

As I understand it, your friend's death was entirely accidental, just two kids who made a big mistake playing with a gun. But they still sent your way to juvie for involuntary manslaughter. And I also understand that you harbor a lot of guilt about this, even though the family forgave you.

Yes, this family, they stayed directly across the street from my family. Even to the day, still feel on the same street. Although the family had forgiven me, written me letters will come to see me. When I got out, I saw what I did to that family, and I didn't know how to proster. Although my mother and my father and my grandmother and all kinds of people were trying to help me, I didn't know how to ask for their help that I actually need. So I got dig grig as little grid of the k.

So the guilt kind of derailed your potential, it seems. And after Juvie, you start dealing drugs and looking outside of what seemed like a supportive home for whatever it was that you felt you needed, acceptance, identity, whatever, out in the street. So fast forward to January nineteen eighty six. Some other really bad stuff happens.

January eighteenth, so I to cheating them. They try to cheat them in the front of my house. I follow them. They ran me through a brick wall and both my hit smashed my films. So I went at the hospital January eighteenth, in dollarge of May twenties. When I got out of the hospital, I was in a wheelchair and I had a walker, and I was going to a therapy.

Yes, someone tried to kidnap Kevin, so you fought them off, and they ended up hitting you with their car against a brick wall, broke your hips. Snapped your pelvis and put you in the hospital for four months. I mean, you're lucky to even be alive. And we haven't even gotten to the part that has you locked up right now. Okay,

Slim and Hondo decided that they were going to take over the local drug sales. I believe they helped Kevin and some of his friends with small amounts of cocaine to sell in the neighborhood, and they would periodically show up and I guess resupply the local sellers, including Kevin and Kevin.

You were renting a place to stay from a man named mister Bryce. You were renting a bed in this mobile home that sat in his driveway, right.

Yes, I was a fan and mister bright'shole. We had a mobile hole over. They had like six days with a shower and all that stuff inside. It was parked in the driveway. Sometimes my friends, he's supposed to stay. They had like six places well sleeping here, so all this coming sleeping.

Here and Otis is Otis Perry who occasionally stayed at mister Bryce's mobile home, and he's the one that was eventually stabbed by slimon Hondo for taking the gun that they had left in the trailer. The night that these two attempted murders occurred outside a party at mister Bryce's house.

Yes, also, my cousin Pam was inside the mobile home. I was inside the house where the party was there when they're fighting when to fight after, So I didn't know this was out there at the time. Donald Slip pulls up. They knew mister Bryce didn't allow gus in his house, but they he had a gun in the mobile home. Well, my cousin in OSTs, but I still didn't know nothing about that at that time.

Okay, so now the stage is finally set for these crimes to take place. This is we're talking June nineteenth, nineteen eighty six. There's a little party going on at mister Bryce's. Your friend Otis and your cousin Pam are in the mobile home in the driveway. Slim and Hondo, your bosses, come to hang out, but out of respect for mister Bryce, they leave their gun in the mobile home. Then your friend Ephraim is at the party and he is drunk, to say the least.

Wellm is my older homeboy. He was young, beinglligerate and uh messing with the females. I was up in there, grabbing streaks that didn't belong to him, and I said, the man, go down to the pool man, keep back. I got and he kept home. So I got pissed off and I hate him once and when I hate him, Hondo slim. Both of them attacked him because of them, here's what they see it, he said. I didn't understand why did they get involved in there? Here's what they

Oh okay, so your drug bosses are sticking up for you. But then they go way beyond what you would ever want them to do.

Yeah.

So once I stuck both of them attacking, I got them to stop, told East leave. He left, and then they chased him down the street. They caught him at the end of the corner. Once I got down there, I saw that they were actually stabbing. When I Hando leaving along Hando, he little stup and saw me. But when he saw me, he saw Miss Bradley behind me. Miss Bradley is my older almost mother. When she looked up and saw that it was her son, she tried to turn it run. He ran her down, grabbed her

So you basically saved Missus Bradley and Ephraim from being murdered by Slim and Hondo by convincing them to stop stabbing them and drive away from the scene. But this incident on June nineteenth is what becomes two charges of attempted murder that gets stuck on you. The guy confined to a wheelchair at the time. Yeah, okay, So Slim and Hondo stabbed both Ephraim and Missus Bradley. You drove them to a motel at some point your friend Otis back at the mobile home, takes the gun Slim and

June twenty thirty overs looking for Otis, like Wilson in the morning, they should come outside. I'm going to go to your oldest. I didn't know ODIs was out here in the motor hole. So when I went out to the front yard going to the motor opened, older stepped out. Hanolds cacked ODIs, say may with my gun? He said, we can go get it. He said, too late, and then cashing. They started fighting. ODIs was fighting back, but they were fighting him from the side of the mother hole.

And what would you tell anyone listening now who's wondering why you played any part in getting rid of the body with Slim and Hondo.

I did with any reasonable person not trying to die, I would have done hadn't seen what I saw. I knew I gotta do something that made myself a part of what's going on, and I wasn't physically able to do nothing to prevent myself from being killed and impressed it. That was the smartest thing that I could have done at the time for myself instead of doing nothing.

If you had done nothing at all. What do you think Slim and Hondo would have done?

I was a little bit too afraid to find out. I was in a position where something happened to my friend and hand me. You know where I stood, and I did what I'm day to do for morsel. They're not too forward.

Now.

This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Porton 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

And that's when I was trying to process whatever it just happened to show. Six thirty seven o'clock in the morning, that's when I saw the police. I told that I knew where that was. One always said come over here, and look they moved it blanket. I knew it was. I said, I know where he lives, to the little mother's house. And then when we came back to the scene, I asked my saying, look if I had any information, talk on my contract, and he gave me his car.

So you made a statement to a sergeant, Sergeant Preston, and you're going to be a witness, and Steve, maybe you can tell us about the next part of the story, which is how Kevin was picked up for cocaine possession. Sometime later, and while in the state's witness holding area of La County Jail, he eventually meets three guys who are responsible for him being in this horrible predicament today.

What happened was Kevin got arrested for a possession of cocaine charge and because he was the main witness against Slim and Hondo on a murder case, they put him in with other prosecution witnesses and it's commonly called the snitch Tank, which is a separate jail from the men's central jail. And while Kevin was in there, he told his cellmate to Willie Battle and the guy that was and the next sel over, Jesse Williams. He told them what actually happened because they asked, and that's very common

They say, we got a guy out of here bragging about chilling his guy and sad with lady telling big time, don't kill it. So I end up going from being the actual witness now mean that actual killer.

So Kevin became a defendant instead of the prosecution witness. And they moved him out of the snitch tank to another part of the jail. So Kevin's transferred over to the central jail, and then he met a very notorious snitch named Leslie White. And I get a call from Leslie White. I'd never heard of Leslie White. Leslie White says, I understand you're defending Kevin Dykes and that he has been ratted out by two snitches. And I said that's

How can you do that?

And he says, well, man's got to do what he got to do. That's what he said.

I gotta be honest. My head is spinning. And I didn't even live through this. I mean, this is Kevin. I mean, I'm so sorry that you're living this is that, this is your life we're talking about.

I didn't actually believe that what was going on was even possible. I didn't think that this sub would hold. I'm like, what old, I am an actual eye witness. These guys they don't know nothing about where illy, but nothing about what actually happened. So I didn't really believe the people could do what they were what they were doing to me. I had never even heard about that before.

I mean, this is this is like nothing. I don't think we've ever heard a story like this before. So Steven, what happens next?

When we got to court, all they had was his statement to Sergeant Preston and three snitches, and I couldn't believe that they would even want to proceed with this evidence, but they did, And just before the verdict was issued, I told Kevin, I said, now, Kevin, when you get out of here, you've got to change your ways, be a law abiding citizen and then used to society and he said, yeah, came mister Houser, I'm going to do that, came back guilty. We were both floored.

You were sentenced to twenty four years to life. Here it is now twenty twenty. You're still in Could you just take us back there, put us in that courtroom with you, if you can.

I actually could not believe the verdant. Yeah. I actually didn't a crying. I just see how it was possible. Yeah, I was after I witness, I came for I gave everything they needed, all evidence to call the weapons. The people from testify that I didn't attacking. People will stand like thirty three times and he test fighted I didn't attacking, and it test five that I didn't attack Ms Brandy, that was my friend mother. There was nobody here to stay out, okay, anybody.

But and this is something I really need to highlight here, which is that if you go in a jury box and you're presented with a case where someone's life is hanging into balance, just like Kevin's was, and there's no evidence connecting that person's at a crime except for the testimony of a snitch, you cannot vote to convict because it's crazy. I mean, these are people who are clearly incentivized. They may not tell you that at the time. But you have to understand that the defense can never bribe

Frown evidence where they get apartments, they say, oh, he's bet in my family, So the government gives him money to relocate them movement apartments. All of them ended up getting reduced to Leslie White ended up getting out at such five and gives me, I don't know if you remember this one thousands He came right back any threatened the Asian attorney. If you don't bake me back out, I'm gonna blow his whole case up.

You remember what happened was Leslie White then went on sixty minutes when he was back in again in the jail, and he showed on camera how he could work his magic and get favors from DA. And then when I saw that, I went down and talked to Leslie White. I said, well, now I know for sure you lied in Kevin's case, and he says, yeah, I did. And I said, well, I want you to sign an affidavit that you lied in Kevin's case because Kevin deserves a

And of course, you know, we have two more characters that are coming up, with Gigi Gordon, who's on the right side of this story, and Willie Battles. We can't leave him out.

Yeah, when this snitch system came out, thanks to Leslie White, believe it or not, Gigi Gordon was appointed. She's a defense lawyer see now, but she was a criminal defense lawyer friend of mine, and Jesi Gordon was appointed by i think the Supreme Court to do an independent investigation on all of the snitch cases to see if justice was done. And she spent over a year on this project,

And that happened, but they didn't do it retroactively. Am I getting that right? Because it always drives me nuts when we change a law in this country and we don't do it retroactively.

How could it be different now than it was before. It doesn't make sense. Didn't make any sense to me. That's why I appealed it. We went to the Pellate Court in California, then the Supreme Court. Actually, when we went to the Supreme Court the first time, the law had not been changed yet. But then we went back to the Supreme Court on another issue and the law

Still is wow.

And so if Kevin's case were tried now, they wouldn't have any evidence against him because the only incriminating evidence was from the snitch testimony.

If Kevin's case were to be tried now, they would have no evidence against him. And yet it's thirty four years later and he's I can't this is nuts.

I went to the district attorney with that very argument. With each new district attorney that came in, I would go talk to him, and they told me that because of his statement admitting what he did pretending to go along with what Islam and Honda were doing, because of that statement, that made him guilty. And they said, sorry, you have to present new evidence to us before we're

And what is the outlook now, I mean, is there a hope?

I think Kevin has two hopes, parole and with a new DA. I thought Jackie Lacy was very progressive and I had high hopes for Kevin when she put together her Internal Innocent project and I met with what I thought was a very ethical, fine lawyer, and I got a very unfavorable result. And I asked him during that hearing, I said, you know, as a human being, you know, do you really think that Kevin Dykes was convicted properly fairly? He wouldn't answer. He wouldn't give me an answer.

Nearly a year has gone by since we originally released this episode in September twenty twenty, and shortly thereafter in La County, George Gascon was elected DA. And Steve, last time we spoke, you said that one of the only avenues left for a leaf for Kevin was that very election victory. So you must have been really excited when it became clear that Jackie Lacy was on her way

Is correct, on January fourth, twenty twenty one, I sent a letter to George Gascon the New DA alerting him to Kevin's situation, and I was contacted shortly thereafter by

Yeah, and with good reason. I mean, let's face it, snitch testimony for the state is almost always incentivized by leniency in the snitch's charges, making that testimony as unreliable as it could be. So this deputy in Gascoon CiU wants to preserve this conviction, saying that Kevin's test some money reaches the burden of proof for criminal intent, when in reality, Kevin was essentially a hostage of Slim and

After several back and forth conversations, she was going to bring a motion for resentencing. This was apparently a new law where they could go back into the trial court and petitioned for a change of sentence. She said that if Kevin would agree to change his plea from murder to manslaughter, that they would go along with it, and that he could then be sentenced to whatever the maximum on manslaughter was, which is a lot less than thirty five years that he's been in. So we're still waiting

Only evidence they had back then was the snitch testimony, which was totally uncorroborated and therefore now inadmissible under the law that resulted from Leslie white sixty minutes and the sequent investigation, not to mention that Jesse Williams recanted, Leslie White took a perjury charge and four years to undo his damage to Kevin, and Willie Battles is presumed dead or he might have done the same. So are they gonna move forward with your habeas idea or are they

I'm not sure what's going to happen. It seems like that they're just waiting for the parole hearing.

Right, Kevin is up for parole at the beginning of twenty twenty two.

And if the DA's office does not oppose parole, he will probably get released on parole. However, he will be on parole for the rest of his life for a crime that he did not commit, as well as having served thirty five years for a crime that he did not commit. I think that George Gascon himself has not heard the evidence in this case. Once he realizes exactly what went on in this case, I'm sure that he will see that justice is done and Kevin will get released.

That's our hope as well. And anyone in our audience who feels the same way, and I hope all of you do, can scroll down to the link in the bio. There's a petition to George Cascon to do just that. He's a good man and he's a very reasonable person. I mean, really, I honestly like to clone George. He's that kind of guy. We hope that he and others in his office can come around to our view. Kevin would admit to anyone that he wasn't living with really

I know I need the right things. When I went to the police, handing them to hide throw the food in, I tow the food fir and jury. Even now, I don't regret during the right thing because it was my friend's life and it was important for his mother to know the truth what happened to her son. Maybe I wouldn't say that while I'm in jail. It cost me a lot. I've lost like seventeen family members. My mom's had a stroke a few years ago. Now, it cost me a lot, but I was still doing it even

And with that we will now go to closing arguments as they still ring true today with justice delayed in this case. I first of all, thank you both. Turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, close my eyes, and let you both talk about whatever you want for the last few minutes of the show. Kevin, We're gonna save you for last if that's okay. And Stephen, please just share whatever it is that's on your mind.

Well, Kevin, let's hope this is another step to get you out of prison. It's been a long, long road, but I won't give up ever.

And Kevin, over to you.

I'm thankful, you know, and it's just taking me a long time. But I'm like the last five years now and my life now, few have purpose and meaning fight what they've done. I owe no feel feelings, force, nobody. He is what he is all I've lost, My lost my life. I was twenty four years old, I'm six now. I've been seen over five years. So it's like there's nothing else that I can't do because I don't consult it, but I won't let what they've done to me back then the something to me.

Now.

I'm free, you know, inside, and I'm at teaching, and even if I die in here, I'll be at peace knowing I stood for the soup into woman. I need the right thing as an adult. So my parents were problem. There's nothing I can do but keep my mind focusing, Oh, what's possible, what could be possible, and how to help out.

It's a human opportunity to this god family in my community where I see them. You know, I won't let nothing take that from me. That's how I have and I appreciate everything that you guys are doing, and I appreciate support from anybody, whether the governor wherever.

It can be done to help me. It is just a hoof the absolutely in front of people, and they let them decided. So I need to be punished for what.

I needed if they say so, because I opportunate, but hey, I was worried for my life. Say it for my life at the time, but I did what I believe he was writing, and I don't really doing it.

Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. 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 Clyburn 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