On November six, Eric Riddick was hanging out in front of his friend's house at West Philadelphia. At the same time, just two blocks away, Eric's childhood friend, William Catlett, was fatally shot in what police believed was a drug dispute, and all eyewitnesses implicated a man named Edward Peanut Johnson. But this was Philadelphia in the nineties, where official misconduct was the norm and one shouldn't have expected investigations to
follow the actual evidence. So despite all the signs pointing toward Peanut Johnson and a rock solid alibi, and Eric was charged with the unmotivated murder of his friend solely on a coerced statement from a man named Shaun Stevenson. So when none of the alibi witnesses were even called to testify, the trial reached a predictable outcome, sending Eric
away for life in prison. In Stevenson finally recanted his bogus testimony, stating that he had been under pressure from both the victim's friends and the district attorney to maintain the lie. However, Eric was not even alerted to the recantation until two thousand and three. The time elapsed made this earth shattering evidence inadmissible. With the key to his
freedom rendered useless. Eric's appeals were repeatedly denied. It took the support of meek Mill students at Georgetown, the election of a new district attorney with a real conviction integrity unit, and almost an additional two decades to finally set Eric Rennick free. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course, I'm your host, and today, well, if there's a heaviness in my voice, it's because this is a heavy story.
We're about to tell you the story of Eric Riddick's wrongful conviction. And one of the reasons I've wanted to tell it is because so many people that I respect have for years made this a priority. This case stands out, and this person stands out. And so, without further ado, Eric Riddick, as I often say, I'm happy you're here, but I'm sorry you're here because of what it took to get you here. Thank you for having me right
off the back. I want to definitely thank you personally, you and your network for giving voice to the voiceless, bringing light to these issues. So thank you on behalf of myself and those that are still fighting for freedom. No, that means the world to me and you know, for our listeners, I'm true that you won't be surprised to
hear that this is a Philadelphia case. There is an incredible pull quote in the article about Tony Rights wrong for conviction case in Rolling Stone mag gazine where it said that in the nineties a black man had a better chance of getting justice in Philadelphia, Mississippi than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But just quickly before this happened. What was your life like?
I was a young guy in the streets of South wast Philadelphia, but I lived all my life I was living in poverty in an impoverished area of area that was it was a lot of good things, a lot of beautiful things, but it was also a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of mental health issues for me. Because I had both parents in the house,
I was being taught and educated from two perspectives. My parents always told me to do the right thing, always told me to go to school, but I chose to also hang out with the guys in the streets, hockey school, all those things that made me susceptible to being wrongly accused. The fact is you didn't do this crime, and it should have been really obvious to everyone from the beginning that you didn't do it. But your case has so many of the hallmarks that we see in wrongful conviction cases.
It's incompetent defense, lying witness. I mean, there was only one accuser and no evidence and no alibi witnesses called, even though there were alibi witnesses and official misconduct. Let's go back to it. So this crime was your friend William Catlett, who was fatally shot in West Philadelphia November. So take us back to that terrible night when this happened, well, November six, proximately, like between five thirty and six thirty. I was on fifty and Trinity Street, two blocks away
from where the tragedy happened on Fidief in Belmar. During the course of that week, it was a lot of things going on with different individuals in that area dealing with the drug activities around there. We was on fifty in Trinity Street myself, I got named Lewis Jordan's, Jeff Dawson and Justine Johnson and to mark with Jordan's all of whom was my alibi, our witnesses that I gave to the homicide detective, and as I told him in my statement, once we heard the gunshots, myself, Lewis Jordan's
and Jeff Dawson begin to walk towards where the gunshot. Said. When we got to Belmore, we've seen that it was a crowd on a corner for theiefan Bellmore and that William Catley was shot. Okay, So the police begin their investigation and many of the eye witnesses were talking about this guy Edward Peanut Johnson right, which was a lead
that they inexplicably ignored. I still can't understand why. But when they connected with Seawan Stevenson, he went on to say that he saw the shoot her up on a balcony about fifteen feet above William Catlet, and he described the shooter as a skinny black male in his early twenties with a leather jacket like Eric Riddicks, but he
didn't see the shooter's face. A day later, though, in a second interview, he says that you were the shooter and that you were the guy that shot William Catlet from the fire escape where the rifle that was about two ft long. Now, it came out much later that he was under pressure from both friends of the victim and from the v A to implicate you in the shooting. But we'll get to that in a little while. So
what happens next? To make a long story short, On the eighth, I heard that the homicide detective was looking for me, So my mother and my father they drove me down to the homicide detective Efan Reese, and I gave a statement basically stating that I had nothing to do with the crime. I was two blocks away, and here's the people that getting confirmed where I was at at the exact time we actually was on the portion we heard the gunshots. A detective named Paul Rich again
to try to manipulate me. He said that he knew I didn't do it. He said that he knew who did it. He named the individuals who he said did it, but he was saying that beings doing I know them that he wanted me to say that I knew that they did it. Basically, I was like, no, I'm not gonna put myself somewhere where I wasn't. So then he got hostile. He started saying that he's going to charge me with the murder. This after he acknowledged that he knew I didn't had nothing to do with it. So
we went back and forth. He tried to use a termination and every time he did that, he stopped recording, he stopped writing down the things that I was saying when I was coming to give the steament. So after that didn't work, I signed my statement stadium where I was that stating the people that can verify where I'm at, and they let me go, but let me rewind back first.
One of the things that Detective Paul Rich said when he was getting hostile that I wasn't saying what he wanted me to say, and he said, before us all over, I'm gonna charge you with this murder. He said, I don't care about the individual. God like he said, I just need a body for body. This is exact words to me. You're gonna get convicted, You're gonna peel it, but by the time your case is overturned, you're gonna
be old gray and broke down. You know that's that's just really freaking centister, And you know it's I mean, it's gonna stick away for a long time. The body for a body that line. It's as if they're saying, yeah, just anybody will do right. It's like, this is what gets me right. Why wouldn't we want the person who actually committed the murder of your friend to be brought to justice if for no other reason than that, so
they don't go and kill somebody else, right. I mean everyone kept saying like the same name, right, Edward Peanut Johnson. But they followed through on their threat to you, and sure enough you were arrested January. I was arrested on a corner fifty Trinity Street. They took me to homicile
detectives and they charged me with murder. And so we get to the trial, and I just want to give a brief summary, which I think should shock everybody and frankly should piss everybody off because the prosecution's case, they, let's face it, they had no case. So what they do. They relied solely on Stevenson's eyewitness testimony, which by the way, had changed a number of times and then was eventually recanted.
Stevenson said he saw you fire a rival from a fire escape, but the medical examers ballistic report with the auto which breaks down each bullet wound and the trajectory of each bullet says clearly that none of them traveled in a downward direction. So Eric, I don't know if you're a magician, but you'd have to be in order to shoot someone who's on ground level from fifteen feet up and not have the bullets traveling downward. I mean, it's obviously impossible. Did your lawyer bring that up at all?
Go on trial? He didn't present the physical evidence dealing with the ballistics. He crossed examined that evidence, but he didn't pull out or extrapolate the sculpratory elements within the ballistics with the course called incontrovertible evidence, which a scientific evidence that's proven this one accusation to be scientifically implausible. You know, he never brought that out. But also the greater tragedy and my lawyer was his ineffectiveness regarding the
Alibira witnesses and his openest statement. Three times he promised the jury that he was going to present three elibi witnesses to refute the state's one witness. So through the whole trial, the fact finders is waiting for him to keep his promise because opening statements are important. You set in the stage for your defense. And he told the jury in three places in his opening statement that he
was gonna present three all of our witnesses statement. And I was elsewhere at the that time of the crime. And when the trial was over and meet him argued because he was saying he wasn't gonna present a case, and I told him to present my all Abu witnesses he was there waiting to testify. After meeting him arguing about it, he turned to me and said, okay, okay, I'm gonna do it, and then he looked at the
judge and said, your honna we rest. I'm sitting there listening and I heard him say it, but I didn't really understand until I was handcuffed and taking back to the holding cell, and then it hit me. He just disregarded when I told him to do. I mean, this guy and he literally just sent you down the river, just processed you in like your life didn't matter at all. And it's like, in a certain way, he bears as much blame to people who framed you in the first place,
because it was up to him. So now he rest his case. He throws you to the wolves. The jury goes out. What were you thinking when they went out? Did you still think that there was still a chance that justice would be served. I did, and my mind and my naive mind at the time, I was saying to myself, there's no way in the world that they're gonna convict me on a crime that I did not do. But I didn't know the depths of the defects and
a criminal justice system. But also I didn't understand the language, because I actually was listening to my lawyer, and I remember going back to the holding cell, said my lawyer, you know he killing it because I didn't understand the language. And I still was saying to myself, it's nowhere in the world that they're going to convict me, not just for a crime that I didn't commit, but a friend of mine. I couldn't fathom that person body deliberate. For three d s they came back in the city, was
deadlocked and he couldn't come to a conviction. Judge Paul Ribner turned around and gave them the most corrupt instructions in his own record. He put a burden on them outside of the effects, and he said, listen, we've been here three days deliberating on his case. If y'all cannot come to an agreement, then it's going to cost the taxpayers more money. It's gonna cost them more time, and the courts, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Ten minutes later, he came
back with the first re murder conviction. Wow. This episode is underwritten by A i G, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Working to reform the criminal justice system is a key pillar of the A i G pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. As part of Accenture's commitment to racial and
so justice. Accentri's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. This is very heavy to hold and wake cover with a life sentence on your back, To use the bathroom with that life sense on your back, to go to the shower, to walk around every day all day for decades with that weight on your back. It's the heaviest feeling that a person
can imagine for me. I never experienced that personally because I never thought that I was not coming home. I said to myself, I'm gonna fighting. I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna fight. You know, it fueled me. I was blessed to have strong parents, and they passed that strength off to me to be able to survive in those arduous situations, hard situations. So that's what I did. I occupied my mind, I stayed in physical shape and made a decision to
learn everything that I can learn. That turned my incarceration into like a university, right. I was educated by a lot of powerful lifers that have rehability to reform themselves, and they taught me the law. They taught me how to be a man. But I was angry and I got into fights and I wanted to hurt people, just like these young guys out here now. And it was lifers that could still speak the language that I understood
that taught me how to deal with it rationally. They gave me another option, and they taught me the law. They taught me how to understand the politics that the law was functioning. And you know, I learned the law and I fought for thirty years. Every day when I had self, may say said I used to wake up in the middle of my sleep talking about commonwealth versus Santana states that when incontrovertible evidence is repugnant to human testimony, you rejected human testimony they said I used to wake
up in my sleep. Literally gains so much potential. Every time I visited a prison, you know, I always come out feeling like there's more humanity inside those walls than I see out here. Oh Jesus, Troy Coleman is calling me on the other phone. Let me actually picked this up while we're talking. Don't put him on speaker. Hold on. I don't know how I can do this. Re created individual at s CI Summerset did it. It will be recorded and maybe monitored. Hey, Troy, I'm actually recording a
podcast with Eric Riddick right now. We were talking about you earlier, so we got you on the speaker phone through the microphone, but he can't He can hear you, but he can't talk back to but he says, hello, he's thinking about you. We all are, and uh, do you do what you do? Okay, got to call me later.
I mean, what the funk? Right, that's amazing. And I know you know Troy really well and worked on his case while you were still inside, and we actually covered his case recently, and we're we're just hoping for justice for Troy Coleman. Can I say something real quick or
just the thing? Even with Dick case right there, Troy Coleman, keys the victim and his keys, Kevin Jones, who was a friend of mine, I grew up with the whole family, very close friends of mine, and just me even offer assistance is testimony to the injustice of even that case. Some of the family probably wouldn't even like the fact that I'm helping. But at the end of the day,
right is right and wrong is wrong. Absolutely. And you know another guy that you knew inside, who we also had the privilege of interviewing here, who had spoken very highly of you in the past. It's Meek mel I was just talking to me earlier when he came to prison. He was with me for those five months. He said, when I go home, I promise you I'm gonna talk about you in case, I'm gonna advocate for you. And when he went home, he did everything that he could.
George Town dealt with me because he was sitting on the podcast about his case and he brought up my keys. Then Sepien and NBC, they was introduced to my case. Desiree Prayer. She took me through the whole rock Nation. All of these individuals is like family to me. Now based on Meek Mill introducing my case and the egregiousness
of it to them. You know, he's an artist here, he financially stable, but he stepped out of his comfort zone and reached back, and just his case opened the door for a lot of other cases dealing with the corrupt cars. It wasn't just my keys. So then let's get to the post conviction litigation. Because, first of all, all the way back in that's a long time ago,
the prosecution's only eyewitnessed Stevenson recanted his statement. In an affid David, he stated that he was under pressure from friends of the victim and from the district attorney to identify you. Now, at the time, Pennsylvania law, the Post Conviction Relief Act, required that new evidence get ready for this be filed within sixty days to be considered on the field. That's insane, and you didn't physically receive a copy of the recantation Affidavid for another four years after
that was two thousand three. So of course this meant that by the time you filed for post pronviction relief, it was way too late and it couldn't even be included. Again, what the hell where is justice? And that? Okay, So his recantation continued to be inadmissible, which meant that your repeated attempts to prove your innocence in the following years were routinely denied. The phr a statue is literally an obstruction of justice. No statue have the power to subvert
the concept of justice. The foundation of the judicial system is in the preamed order the United States country, we the people to form a more perfect union and to establish justice. So now any statue that come after that is supposed to actualize justice, not subordinate justice. The legislation cannot pass a statue that obstruct evidence from coming in that can proves innocence, because they surely wouldn't do it
if it proved guilt. The politics of corruption, culture of corruption is nullifying those foundational principles that really can be justified. But that's what happens. That's why people was in prison under wrong for convictions. And that's what makes Larry Krafts administrations so damned powerful, Larry Krass and the Patricia Cummins for him to get over there and identify a cultural corruption. And I'm gonna say this from being imprisoned and seeing
it with my own eyes. I'm telling you today here on the record that there are thousands of individuals in prison that can prove today that their convictions is wrongly convictions, but they can't get the evidence in that the courts know exists and then listen to it because they're filed in pc ads. But the course have the hypocritical audacity looking people faces and say, well, we see the evidence have merit, but we don't have jurisdiction to entertain it.
Because it's time. Barn with me. When I was pro sedalitigating, I argued I gave the judge there both the office when they said my evidence was Tom Barn and I'm saying no, you have the inherent power of the court to adjudicate any matter that served the enter the justice. So let's go back to the post conviction litigation and how you ended up out here today, because it's kind of a miracle, really now I'm going to rewind a
little bit. During the initial investigation, as we mentioned, most of the eyewitnesses told police that the actual perpetrator was Edward who went by the name Peanut Johnson, but that lead was never followed up on and Johnson himself was murdered. So get this, everybody. In two thousand and five, Peanut Johnson's father, Bruce Reese, submitted a fucking half of David, confirming that his son and a friend were responsible for William Catlin's death for his own. Dad had to do that.
It's so freaking heavy and and Reese, the dad wrote, and I quote this is a quote direct quote. My son had always expressed regret that Mr. Riddick has sat at prison for a crime that he had nothing to do with, and quote and back in two thousand nineteen, all those years later to other witnesses also signed affter David saying that they saw Johnson shoot Williams. So that
brings us almost to the president. What happens next. So as we're litigating the court and we wound up going to the conviction integrit Unit, we had a pcr A pending. My lawyer, Mecca Igwi, came on board and worked with Georgetown professor Mark Howard and at three Georgetown students who
making the axonary teller, ken Do and Alex. They also worked with Desiree Perez Team, Jordan's Seed from Rock Nation and refirm On Powerful Attorney and they just extended all their resources to work with my attorney in Mecca, Igwi,
and we found the petition in the CiU unit. They shouted down initiatly, we re argued it because they acknowledged that I was innocent, but they were saying, well, we still feel that you may have entered into a conspiracy to commit this crown, so we're not going to entertain your petition. Larry Kras and the Patricia Cummins, they're still dealing with relics of that culture corruption. Sometimes. Patricia Cummins
took on the case herself. When they turned over the files, we found out that a firearm was found in the alley way. I can't make this up. A broken rifle was found in the alley way connected to the balcony way I was accused of being and the d A tested it back then found that it didn't work and that none of the projectiles came from his rifle, so they hed the evidence. They never turned it over to the defense. So when we found that, we admended it. And that was the means in which Patricia comes in
the DA's office agreed to release me under. I mean, it's amazing, but it's not shocking, right because it's the same damn thing we see over and over again. Until we fix the system is gonna keep happening, you know. And it's deep. Like with the pcr A statue. For example, Councilman David oh who wounded up being one of my greatest supporters from Philadelphia, he passed two resolutions regard my keys overwhelmingly one two addressed the time limitations that the
PC already put on presenting evidence. But also he passed the resolution request and government wolf the part in me they stilling to record being saturated with evidence of in incence. Listen, there's so many villains in this case, but there are even more heroes at the end of the day. You got the Georgetown students, you got Meek Mill, you got
Patricia Cummins, you got to the Rock Nation. Oh listen, I mean, what little I had to do with it, but thank you for saying that but Dan Sleppian, I mean you went from having the D team to the A team, right, and as a result of course, justice has finally been done, delayed, but not denied, and that's a miracle. So okay, thirty years you finally step out the breathe free air. What was that moment? Like? Oh, man, well, I haven't yet to found a word to explain when
I felt. The greatest moment was seeing my mother's fees. You know, that woman has been on the front line. She did everything from going in front of the legislation Harrisburg, in front of the d's offer with boll horns, organizing and protesting NonStop. When they told me that I was going home and a half hour, that was the greatest moment seeing her face that felt greater than the actual feeling of me going home, and since I've been home,
just seeing her enjoy the moment. What people don't know is that the burden that I had to carry all these years was that my father, which was one of the greatest men I've met in my life, my situation actually took his life. He always was able to protect his family, and my mother spoke about that on an interview, how his heart couldn't take it once they convicted me, and there was nothing that he could do for the
first time to protect his children. She actually see him deteriorate after he watched his son get rare rooted in court and he died shortly after that. He had a heart attack that took his life. Wow. I think anyone who has a father or is a father can probably relate. And that's literally heartbreaking. I mean, it sounds like he was a great man. And all I can say is rest and power, and if you and your family can take any solace, it's in the fact that you're out
here now and you've really hit the ground running. And what I mean by that is your work with the Emergency Response Foundation or the e R Foundation for short. Can you tell us about the amazing work that you're doing.
So I've been home three months. I'm sitting right now during his interview, sitting in my office the office of the Emergency Response Foundation, which is an organization that I created while I was in prison, and it's geared to address the most critical issues in two areas, criminal justice reform, stash reborn, and community development. It's amazing that nineties a guard was sitting in the cell, and today I'm sitting in the office with three rooms and law books. I'm
looking at the law books right now. And the main people that's gonna be working in here is axonorees On the Horton Brothers that was commutated by Fetterman. They hit the ground running, and that's the most beautiful thing about it. Everybody's coming home. We all either on the front line helping to get other we're only convicted is out or
just living normal lives. So the Emergency Response Foundation, it's so many incredible people working to help other amazing people get the justice that they're seeking, that they deserve and that they've been waiting for for decades and decades. There's gonna be I'm sure a number of our listeners reaching out for help, and there's also gonna be people reaching out who want to help, who can help, and who
want to support the work of the foundation. So the best way to reach out or get involved is through the website, which is e ER Foundation one nine dot com. So it's e R Foundation nine team dot com. But it'll be linked in our bio as well. So now we have a tradition on wrongful conviction, which is called closing arguments, and it's the part of the show that I look forward to each and every week because it
works very simply just like this. First of all, I thank you again, Eric Riddick for just being who you are and for being an inspiration to me and so many other people both out here and on the inside. Thank you for just being here and sharing your thoughts and your incredible story. And now I'm just gonna kick back in my chair, turn off my microphone, leave my headphones on, and listen to whatever else you want to
share for the closing arguments of our show. So when I walked out of the courtroom, I basically said that my freedom is a further testimony that justice is in season. Me being on this show is testimony that justice is in season. Rock Nation, Meek Mill getting involved in the cases, Criminal justice Reform is testimony that justice is in season.
George Town University, the people at the grassroom becoming dissatisfied with the institutions that's supposed to serve the people, like the judicial system, the police department, advocating dissatisfaction and automatically compels change. So these are testimonies that justice is in season. I'm gonna continue to fight on the front line as a vanguard with all those entities that I just mentioned.
I want to thank everybody that was involved. I want to thank my attorney in mecha Igny again, but I want to thank the grassroot and the EUR Foundation. Emergency Response Foundation is going to do everything in our power to help assist in liberating those that's wrongly convicted and fighting for issues that's worthy of fighting for. Our foundation
is going to create documentaries on these issues. You have many men and women that's in prisoners, wrongly convicted, totally actually innocent of any degree of guilt, but you have some that's innocence of the degree of culpability that they're
convicted for. So the EUR Foundation has created what it's called an Alternative Resolution service where we find those cases, we point out the evidence that mitigate the degree of culpability, and we take it to the D's office, the conviction Integrity Units, and we find an alternative resolution, many of which may be a plea to a lesser degree, because that's just as much of an egregious injustice as someone
that's actually complete the innocent. So we're gonna try to address all the issues of injustice, and we're gonna build the foundation as we go along. I want to salute again the Jason Flum Show and other shows and networks like this, because we always had a voice in prison, but we didn't have those outlets. So today that Jason Flum Show and other shows this testimony that justice is in season. And the beauty about it is the universe has bent towards justice, so we always knew that these
moments was gonna come. I want to thank the craft and the Ministry Asian for their courage. I was set on the panel discussion with Crafts and I and it. Mike came to me and I said, I never thought that I would be sitting comfortably next to the Philadelphia d A. But then I looked at him and I said, this is not the d A. This is the will of the people being manifested. You know, when the people is dissatisfied, the people is gonna start networking and it's
gonna bring about change. I want to thank everybody, all the names that we don't know, for being vanguards on the frontline, fighting for justice, fighting for community development and all of those things. And I'm available any time if you call on the E R Foundation if our help is needed, we are here. Any advice that people that's listening or that's involved I want to give to the EUR Foundation. We are open for any suggestions and any assistance and any help. So again, thank you for having me.
Everybody have a blessed day. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio now to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our amazing production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. The music on this 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