On April thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, a man in a nylon stocking mass broke into a twenty eight year old woman's home in Michigan while she slept. He blindfolded and raped her over the course of several hours before leaving. Since the victim was blindfold and it had only caught a few glimpses of her attacker, the composite sketch she created with investigators was deemed only sixty percent accurate when
the sketch hit the media. A bowling alley manager named Ken win Nemko was named by a disgruntled X as a potential culprit. Ken had recently ejected an off duty cop from his bowling alley for being drunken disorderly, which was not taken kindly by the officer's friends on the force. With this grudge looming, and despite Ken not matching the physical description, detectives acted on this dubious tip and manipulated a lineup to produce his identification. DNA testing was available,
but not done yet. Even the rology testing of the biological evidence from the attack was again not a match for Ken. However, while Can awaited trial in jail, the assistant prosecutor offered his cell made a deal to join the lead detective in giving false testimony that Ken had
confessed to the rape. His hastily appointed defense attorney did not have time to prepare, and between the false testimony, the shaky composite sketch, and the bogus lineup, the jury ignored the exculpatory roology and sent Ken away to prison for forty to sixty years. With the help of the Cooley Innocence Project in Michigan, Ken was finally able to obtain the biological evidence, including an unopened rape kit, to find out who had really committed this horrific crime nearly
a decade prior. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's story is one that I've heard whispered about ever since it happened, in hush tones in the innocence community, where people talk about how this was one of the worst examples of our criminal legal system. And also people have talked to me for a long time about this man and the incredible work that he's done evil from inside the walls of prison. You got to
hear this story to believe it. And I'm talking about the man who's on the air with us right now, Ken way Namko, thank you for being here. Welcome to Wronful Conviction.
Jason, it is my pleasure. Thank you for inviting.
Us, and with him is an awesome character in her own right. Gail Palmakoff, attorney with the Kooli Innocence Project based out of Michigan, where this horrible crime happened. Gail, first of all, thank you for all the incredible work you're doing, and welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here.
Oh, thank you for having me.
So this case goes all the way back to the early mid nineties. But Ken, what was your life like before you got wrapped up in this well.
I started with GM right after high school. I was working with my two brothers and my dad were all skilled trade workers. I was married from nineteen seventy five to nineteen eighty and my father in law owned a nightclub and a bowling center in Detroit. It's called Falcon Lanes. So I was working for a GM during the day and I was working at the bowling yelly in nightclub
at night. Then I went out on my own and I was just managing bowling Centers, and I was managing at center at the time at Kingswood Lane's in Macomb County, Michigan, and that's how this whole incident started.
So it sounds like you've got a good thing going there, managing this bowling alley, a good peaceful life. But here's where the seed of this story is planted with you and the police, right, so please take us through this.
It was on a Friday night. We had a family bowling night. Okay, the parents would bringing their kids in. We get free pizza everyone, and the place was jammed. So I was sitting in my office. One of my waitresses, Kelly, came into my office and she says, Kenny, there's a guy bowling on Lane twelve. She thought he was drunk, and she said that she noticed that the guy had two bowling bags. One he had two bowling balls in and the other bag he had cans of Miller Lite.
So I came out of my office and there was a father, mother, and two kids on Leane eleven and this guy was getting an argument with him. So I walked down there and I said, excuse me, do these two bags belong to you? He says, who the hell are you. I said, my name is Kenny. I'm the manager's place. I said what's your name? And he said my name is John. So I said, well, John, I said, do you mind if I take a look into the second bag over here? He said why, what's the problem.
I said, that's my right, I'm doing my job. Opened up the second bag. He hit eleven cans of Miller Lite in that bag. So I said, John, do yourself a favor. I said, take your bulling shoes back to the counter, get your refunder. You're all done bullings for tonight. You brought this beer into my establishment, and that's illegal. He said, I bought that beer here. I said, John, I know you're lying to me because we don't sell canned beer. All the beer that we sell are in bottles.
And I grabbed the bag with the beer in it. He said, where you go? And that's you know, that's mine. I said, well, you come back and talk to me tomorrow. John. The place is packed. I don't want to argue with you. So I got the bag, took any office with me, put it on our floor. About ten minutes later, this guy comes in the office. He said, what do you say your name was? I said, my name is ken One. He said, well, can I just want you to know that I'm not leaving here until I get my beer bag.
And his voice started getting louder and louder. I said, look, John, I told you I'm not going to argue with you tonight. One way or another. You're leaving this building. If you don't want to leave on your own, I'll throw you out. And he said you can't throw me out of here, and he reached in his pocket and he pulled out a putting down to police bands. And I said, you should know better that you cannot bring alcohol into establishment that has a LOOKU license. He said, I'm not leaving
until I get that beer. So I got up, got him in a headlocked and he's still holding on to this bag with his bowling balls in it, and I started dragging him towards the front door, two double glass doors and a vestibule leading out in the parking lot. And as I'm dragging him up, he takes the bag with a bullying balls and he shatters the glass doors, dragged him outside, threw him out of parking lot. I told him I'll see you later. So on the way back, I told one of my porters to get a broom
and sleep up the glass. I go back in the office. About twenty minutes after that, carry the counterman comes in. He says, Kenny, there's two uniform cops out here whant to talk to you. So they come in and asked me, I heard you had a problem over here about a half hour ago. So I told him the same thing I just told you. I tried to be as nice as I could to him, but he didn't want to listen, and I repeated to them the same thing I told John.
If he was a cop, you know better than to bring alcohol and to establishment that has a liquor license. His partner says, is your liquor license up to date? I said, yes, it is. I said it's posted on the wall behind our bar, where it's supposed to be by law. And he said, well, do you matter if I take a look at it. I said no, as a matter of fact, I'll take a walk with you. So we walked inside the bar. I pulled a license
off the wall and our shoulder to him. In meantime, his partner started walking around the whole bar, up and down the lanes, looking around, and he finally came back, says everything okay, officer, And he said, well, Kenny, to be honest with you, and we'll come back to check on your five or six months down the road, make sure you're okay. Is that some kind of a threat his partnership. We don't make threats. We keep promises. And he walked out the door. So that's how this whole
thing began. I believe.
Wow, that's such a sinister scenario. Just I mean, I don't think anybody who wanted to be in your shoes at that point. And Gail, I want to turn to you now. Can you take us back to the crime itself and how they managed to get anyone in their right mind to believe that Ken was involved.
The basic facts are is that on April thirtieth of nineteen ninety four, the woman the complainant, had been at a party earlier in the day. She came home, She went to bed at about two am. Later in the morning, closer to five, she wakes up and there's a masked man in her room. He had a nylon over his head. He went and got underwear out of her drawer, put panties over her head, and then over the course of the next couple of hours engaged in multiple full acts
of sexual penetration. She never really saw the perpetrator. She said that when he took his mask off, she couldn't see him, and that when he lifted the mask at all, she only got glimpses of him. He left, he had secured her hands to the bed. She was able to get herself extricated. She went to the neighbors sought help. She was taken to the hospital. A rape kip was performed.
The police got involved in investigation, and on the day that this occurred, they took her statements, and she told the officers that she really did not get a good look at this perpetrator. He was masked, she was masked. They said, can you help with the composite. She didn't think that she would be very helpful because she didn't see the man.
She said. At one point, the guy's mask had risen above his chin. She said he had a deep cleft chin. She could tell he was a smoker at times he had thought she heard and an inhaler, and she estimated that he was about six one six foot two, about two hundred and twenty and thirty pounds. I was five foot eleven, one hundred and eighty five pounds, never had a cleft chain in my life. Didn't smoke back then, okay, And so I smoke until I got to Jackson Prison. Now those are the facts.
So she gave a composite, and on the composite it's a sixty percent accurate. She was not able to identify critical features. He was masked with a nylon. She was blindfolded with panties that were later secured with a necktie. But the composite was out in the media and one of Ken's ex girlfriend, a very disgruntled ex girlfriend, thought the composite looked like Ken. Contacted the Clinton Township Police Department, and that's how Ken gets involved is through the composite.
This is July fourteenth. I'm home in bed, sleeping by eight thirty in the morning, and there's a knockout my front door. So I got up to answer the door and there's a young lady setting in my porch and I said, can I help you? And she said, is your name Kenny? I said, yes it is. What can I do for you? Well? She moved on a side. Four playing clothes officers rushed me, attacking me toy threw me down on the floor in my living room and handcuffed me behind my back, and I'm rolling around saying,
what the hell's going up? This woman was a detective and she told me that they have a warrant for my arrest. I'm going to be taken down to the Mcomb County Jail to be placed in the lineup because I'm suspected of being the person that committed to Bee I'm Robbie in a rape back in April, and I said, what the hell are you talking about? So they took me down to the McComb County Jail and Detective Oastin was the lead detective at the time. He told me
how was we replaced in a lineup? Because they had received an anonymous phone call that Ken, when im Goo, the manager at Kingsworth lanees looks like a deposit that was issued in the paper about this woman who was robbed in a rape.
So at that point the detectives bring Ken in, they put them in a lineup. They bring in the complainant in the rape case and she's in the lineup room. She looks at the six folks is unable to identify Ken, goes out speaks with members of the prospect Tuter's office. Comes back in the people in the lineup rass to say, I don't remember what the words are, Ken, you probably do.
What time does your husband come home? Right? There are six of us, and there are all five guys had mustaches. I'd never had a mustache in my life. And when they first put us in the lineup together, I was in number six position. They took her out to talk to the prosecutor and her assistant and Detective Osten. During that time, an officer brought in a riser like a three inch high riser had a wood. They brought it in.
They put it under the number two spot. They moved the guy that was a number two spot to the number six spot. They moved me and made me stand in that riser in number two position.
And after that she says Ken is the one, and that's how Ken gets roped into this whole thing.
This episode is under it by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making a positive difference in the lives of its employees and in the communities where we work and live. In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform, The AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
The complainant reported in her written statements that the perpetrator ejaculated three times, one of which was oral, and with respect to the oral ejaculation, you wiped her mouth out with a pair of panties and they were left at the scene. The point is is that there was an enormous amount of biological evidence, including a ratekit, that was collected after this crime at the hospital that day.
Some of it was tested, some of it wasn't. But the biological evidence that was tested was tested using techniques that were not the best techniques available sorology testing I'm talking about. They didn't use DNA, and furthermore, the testing that was done didn't help their case at all because it didn't match ken.
Yeah.
In fact, there was nothing at all that tied came to this rape except that composite.
This composite sketch, which even the victim said was only sixty percent accurate, and no one could have created an accurate sketch from this for the reason we've already talked about, and of course this bogus lineup which they tried to use every thirty trick in the book in order to get hurt to identify you in the lineup.
Well, they released me. After the lineup was done, I had called my dad to come and pick me up, you know from the gail. My dad was seventy six years old. Who went back to my house and pulled in a driveway in. I could see all the lights around. Their doors were open, and I'm thinking, what the hell is going on? So walk inside the house. It looked like a tornado had gone through my house. Everything was tossed and turned. The cops were so arrogant. They went
inside my refrigerator. I had jars of pickles and peppers, and they broke the jars on my kitchen floor. My dad started crying, and guy said, Dad, I said, don't worry, go home and try to get some sleep. I'll clean up. So I stayed up mostly I trying to put everything back together. Got up next morning and I went to Myers to buy some of the stuff that the cops had broken. Come back home, pulling the driveway and Oastin and his partner Bart Myrlett, they pulled in behind my
rear bumper like to try to block me off. So I get out of the car and I'm holding one bag the grocer's on my left hand, and Oastin says, one, I'm going to put that bag on a ground, put your hands on top of the car. So I put the bag on a driveway, put my hand on top of the car, and handcuffed me behind my back. And I said, you want to tell me what's going on now? He said, well, I'm under arrest for this bee armed robbery and the rape because I was identified the day
before in that lineup. And I said, look, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm not stupid. If I was identified in that lineup, you guys would never let me go. You do arrest of me running on a spot, and I'll never forget this line as long as I live. Olsen said, you know what, one I'm going by the time I get done fucking with you, is going to cost you a million dollars to get your ass out of prison. Quote unquote.
It's really sick thing. I mean, who are you supposed to call when the cops are the criminals. So here you are. You've never been in trouble a day in your life. Now you're sent into a jail. What was that experience? Like?
That was hell step below prison, that's for sure. But I wouldn't wish that on anyone. You know. I had a quote opponent attorney. His name is Lawrence Peppler. Guy wouldn't take my phone calls. So I filed a grievance against him to try to get another attorney. We have a hearing on a Friday afternoon in front of Judge Schwartz, and Judge Schwartz said that he's not in the habit of changing attorneys, and he told me that he's going to give me a new Attorney's name is Albert Markowski.
And if I don't like him, I could defend myself. And I told him Grunner, I don't know the first thing about the law. But he's says, come Monday morning, we're picking a jury. So what that means is this, mister Markowski is going to have Saturday and Sunday to prepare for a case. Fifteen counts of CSC. What kind of b what kind of I'm robbery.
Gail, you got a way in on this. I mean, did judge really appointed attorney on Friday who starts the case on Monday, and explain CSC in these initials as well? If you could.
A CSC one case, which is a criminal sexual assault case first degree, involves acts of penetration, it's a life offense. Anyone would need a lot of time to prepare for that, particularly in this case because the rape itself was factually complex, and then the process and procedure afterwards required a lot of analysis. So two days a week doesn't matter, is just totally insufficient.
So you go to trial, if you can even call it that, it's a show trial in effect, right, I mean, they gave you no hope in hell. I don't know what was on the judge his mind, but one would have hoped that the judge would have been an arbiter in this and would have actually wanted to see justice done, even though it seems like nobody else on that side did or had any interest in it. But nonetheless, you're
now screwed. You've got this attorney who you've just met, who hasn't had any time to do any investigation or preparation of any kind, and now you go to trial. So how long did the trial take? And did anyone do anything to help you during this process?
No, mister Barkowski, I think I talked to him twice. They picked a jury on Monday afternoon. The trial lasted the rest of the week. The following week, jury came back on Wednesday.
So, despite the victim's uncertainty regarding the composite sketch and her glimpses of the attacker, the composite sketch was admitted into evidence and the prosecution's case was centered on this composite sketch because remember, Ken wasn't right, so there was no forensic evidence connecting him to the crime, and of course the zerology testing didn't connect into it either, So the composite sketch, they realized, wasn't going to be enough on its own, which brings us to this character named
Glenn McCormick. Gail, please tell us who this guy was and the role that he played.
Glenn McCormick shared a cell with Ken for a little while when he was in the Macomb County Jail. He was released, he was contacted by Detective Oustin. He was asked to come to the Clinton Township Police Department, and he was told by Linda Davis, the prosecutor, that he was in a world of hurt. He was charged with armed robbery obstructing a police officer. He was a fourth habitual so he had potentially a life sentence and that if he would testify against Ken, you know, something could
be worked out with respect to his charges. And the deal was his charges would be changed to attempt unarmed robbery with It's a recommendation for a year in the county jail, which is a whole lot different than a potential life offense.
He was told by Lynda Davis and Ostin that if he didn't testify to what they had in their reports, Linda Davis guaranteed him that he would not see the lighted date.
McCormick was in an interview room this discussion occurred, the police report was placed in front of him. Linda Davis and Detective Oston left the room. McCormick had an opportunity to read the police report and that's how he learned the facts of Ken's case. They came back into the room and they did a recording of him. He testified at trial that Ken said that, yeah, I did it. They ain't got shit on me. I hit all the evidence and so on. McCormick lied under oath during the trial.
It was pretty egregious.
So everybody knows you can't bribe a witness, right, you get five years or more for bribing a witness. But the government comes along and says to this guy, he's very simple. You could choose door one, door number two. Door number one you spend the the rest of your life in prison, or door number two, which you might
find more pleasurable. You can simply lie in exactly the ways that we tell you to, and we'll leave you this document as we just sort of slink out of the room, so you can learn about this case that you know absolutely nothing about, and then you can lie on the stand and then only spend about a year in county jail. I mean, you make the decision, and this guy, who was apparently not a terrific guy to start with, was a very easy decision for him to make, and so he got up on the stand and lied
under oath. Another crime. So the crimes just keep piling up, but none of them are yours. It's amazing. So the jury goes out, how long did they deliberate for?
They got the case on Friday afternoon, game back Wednesday, November ninth. They're guilty in all counts.
So that moment when they came back and declared you guilty and ultimately sends you to forty to sixty years in prison, So a life sentenced because you weren't a young man. I was forty three, right, A living death send I mean, can you take us back to that probably worst one way of your life.
I can. I can remember my dad was sitting right behind me when it furdicure was announced and I could hear my dad said no, no. He started crying and I tried to get up to give him a hug, and the court officers were stating right behind me. He pushed me back down in the chair. I'll never forget that day as long as I live. That moment. That's one of the things that motivates me to do what I've been doing for the last eighteen years, and I'll never stop. When they put me in my first cell, Jason,
I was scared to that. I was shaking, I was crying, and I sat down my bunk. I started to tear the bed sheets into strips. I was going to hang myself. That's how desponded I felt. I remember getting down on my knees and praying, Lord, please show me the weight. Please told me what to do. And as God is my witness, I swear this is the truth. I could feel like a hand touch my right shoulder and I heard her voice say, Genny, You're going to be just fine.
And when I heard those words, something came over me. I stood up and I just made my mind out. I'm going to do whatever I have to do with God's help to prove my innocence.
Well, you had God and Gail right so, and you needed both.
Not only got in Gail, I had catch a sweatloaf from the Innocence Project Kim Shine, who is a reporter from the Detroit News. You know I've been blessed with three angels and Gail.
We know it's so easy to get wrongfully convicted, and the barriers to getting an innocent person out are incredibly high. How did you get involved in the case, How did you win it against all these obstacles? And this was the first exoneration for the Coolie Center at the Michigan Instance Project right it was.
What happened was is I had gone to a Criminal Defense Attorney of Michigan conference to hear Barry Shock speak and the people from the Innisonce Project were there. So I went out. I signed up and I said, you know, you get a case in McComb County, call me. I'd be happy to do it, and they did so. In April or May of two thousand and two, I went to the Cooley Law School, I picked up the file.
I read it over the summer. I met Ken and decided to file the motion in November, and when I was putting the motion together, it became pretty glaring that something terribly wrong had happened. The identification was so bad that it's hard to imagine that it formed the basis for Ken's involvement and ultimate conviction because there wasn't anything else to work with. Frankly, and at the time of trial.
What happens is is that the complainant points to Ken and says, I'm one hundred percent sure he's the perpetrator. So you have that, you have the snitch witness, and you know it's pretty compelling testimony. So I filed the motion to get the biological evidence tested, the court granted it. The detective Ouston was vehemently opposed to the testing and
said so on the record. Judge Serveto said he was going to have the evidence tested, and I went to the Clinton Chownship Police Department with the Assistant prosecutor and Detective Oustin was there. We went through all the biological evidence. There was an enormous amount. The rape kit had never been opened, and so we did a chain of evidence on all that. It was sent up to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab and then we waited for the results.
And then on June eleventh, I got a phone call from the county prosecutor that the DNA results are coming in and they looked favorable to Ken. And when they came in, indeed they were. A cigarette butt at the scene showed salava from an unknown donor, a fingernail scraping from the complainant showed an unknown donor. And then there was semen a extracted from a pantyhose that was used to secure her that also showed semen from an unknown donor.
So there were three pieces of evidence that corroborated that Ken was factually not the perpetrator and innocent.
Yeah, when you got this evidence, you must have been jumping for joy. I was how did you get the message to Ken? And what was that moment like for both? Did you call him? Did you go visit him?
You know, it happened like late in the afternoon when I got the call, and I couldn't even believe it. I was so excited, so I got in my car to drive down to the prison. You know, I wanted him to hear it directly from me. And as I was driving to the prison, I started to get so sad because almost ten years of his life was gone. His dad had died, his son had grown up. You know, families are blown apart by these things. It's hard to repair all the things that happened and all this time, so,
you know, those thoughts are going through my mind. I finally get through security at the prison and I meet Ken, and I think my face was such that Ken was afraid I was bringing bad news instead of good news.
You know, Jason, I can remember that moment like it was yesterday. I was in my bunk and the guards came to get me and he said, you have to get up front right away. Your attorney's waiting for you up front, and I'm thinking my dad had passed away and my mom wasn't doing very well herself. So when the guards telling me I have to get up there asap, I'm thinking, geez, don't tell me that my mom passed away, because I had a rough time losing my dad and
not being allowed to go to the funeral. And I remember when Gail walked in and she had this look on her face and said, Gale, what's the matter. And she said, Kenny, I don't know how to tell you this. I said, Gail, please don't tell me something happened to my mother. And Gail said, Kenny, I just talked to your mom about a hour ago. She's real happy. I said, then, what's going on? Why are you here? And she said that she got word from the prosecutor's office. I am
an innocent man, and Parrel Melinga wants me released. And I don't know if you remember this, Gail. I got up and I picked you up by your waist and I was swinging around Jason. I said, what happened? What happened? And she said, Ken, if you put my ass down, I'll tell you what happened. And the rest is history. I why, I'll tell you what. That's one moment that I'll never forget as long as I've lived. Never And then he.
Was released on June seventeen, two thousand and three.
So after you were released, Glenn McCormick recanted his testimony and then a sworn affidavit told the story of his coercion by Linda Davis and Detective Oaston, and later you file the federal civil rights lawsuit that was eventually settled for three point seven million. Now we got to talk
about the work that you're doing. I think it's one of the reasons why people in the innocence community can have so much respect for you, and why I've really been looking forward to this podcast, not because of your amazing sense of humor, but more because what's that great saying? This applies right to you. You ready, Yep? The saying
is from somebody they've Stephanie Sparkles. She said, I love when people that have been through hell walked out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire. Can that is you to a t You could be doing anything at all. No one would fault you if you wanted to go be out on an island somewhere with your toes in the sand and a drink in each hand. You know, but that's not
the reality at all. You have hit the ground running that have been making an impact on not just individual cases, but on the macro issues that have already effected and are going to continue effect even long after you're gone people in Michigan and even in the broader movement. So talk to us about the work that you've been doing. And would I mean seal.
Well, I meet myself an agenda. I was still locked up, but I knew it was just a matter of time before the truth would come out. And one thing I wanted to do. I wanted to have a wrawful compensation build passed here in Michigan because we didn't have one at the time. And as a matter of fact, in the state of Michigan, if you were in prison for a crime that you did commit and your release from prison, state will help you get housing, job, trading clothing, food stamps, Okay,
you have to get your back on your feet. If you are someone like myself or my fellow of Eanna rees who are totally innocent and released from prison, you don't get a penny. That's just ridiculous. So I worked twelve and a half years to have that bill passed and another bill that I worked on. There are so many unsolved, untested rate cases in the state of Michigan, especially in Wayne County in the Detroit area. I had this idea that before someone can be released from prison
on parole, they have to submit a DNA sample. That DNA sample will go into the National Code system and maybe they get one hit they take. It's all one rape of one murder. It'll be good. It's a good thing. So that bill is passed in the middle of two thousand and eight, and ironically, that was how they caught the actual rapist in my case because of that bill. Wow, the actual rapist his name is Craig Gonzer. He was about to be released from prison. He gave a DNA sample.
That's how he was found. Now, one thing I want to make perfectly clear how bad wrongful misidentifications are. The victim said, you know, she never saw guy's face. She thought he was sixty two or sixty three, two hundred and twenty two hundred and thirty pounds deep left chin At the time, I was five foot eleven, one hundred and eighty five pounds. Okay, mister Gonzer. The actual rapist is six foot six, two hundred and ninety pounds. Wow, So I was only eight inches off in height and one
hundred and five pounds in weight. You know. To me, that shows more definite proof that the police knew that they were framing an innocent man. So I'm happy about doing that. I'm working on something the last three or four years about the qualified immunity issue that has to go. This testimony has to go, and I don't care how long is that take me. I'll get it done.
So there's some new development as we're speaking now that I know you were so excited about. Tell us quickly about that.
Well. The good news is this deals direct with Gail, and I'm so proud of her. She is the most remarkable w and I've ever met in my life. We have a new prosecutor Mcoon County's name is Pete Licito, and you know more about it than I do.
Pete has started and gotten the budget to start up what's known as a Conviction Integrity Unit, and the idea is is once it's up and running, it will review cases to determine whether or not innocent people are in prison.
The good thing is the good news is Pete Licito has named Gail the director of the mcleoon County CiU. Gail told me the news about that that could be a miracle in itself.
The whole idea is the fair administration of justice, and that exists on both ends, both on the prosecutorial and on the side of innocence and wrongful convictions to right those wrongs. And Pete has a definite interest in making sure that the right people are in prison.
The prosecutor, in my opinion, should be not only the sort of justice he or she has to be the shield of justice.
Also well said, and Ken, if people want to know more about you or your story, you have a book now right You have a book that's available right now. How can our audience find that?
In case anyone would like to read my book, my book is called Deliberate Injustice, the run Full Conviction of Ken Whinemko. You can go online. The website is Deliberate injusticethebook dot com. You can also watch a story about my case on Netflix. The series is called The Innocence Files. My episode is number nine is called the Million Dollar Man.
We'll have that link in the bio. And now we go to the closing of our show, which is always my favorite part. We call it closing Arguments, where first of all, I think are two incredible guests. Of course, Ken, Whyemko You are a hero, and I'm so proud of you and all the work you've done, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work together to make the system
fairer and better for everyone. And of course, Gil Palm a coff, I know how much this case meant to you, so it's so great that you're here to share this sort of triumphant retelling of this awful saga and of course a good that came from it. So how this segment of the show works is very very simple. I'm going to turn off my microphone, kick back in my chair, leave my headphones on, and probably close my eyes, and then closing arguments. Basically, you could just say anything else
you want to say anything. We haven't covered anything you want to share with our audience. GAILI you start with all due respect to you, but to save the best for last, well.
Thank you so much for inviting me and Ken to talk on your show. This is a really important subject and from the standpoint of a lawyer, it's an exciting area to be in. It's also in heartbreaking area to work in. Just to give your listeners some context in terms of the degree of the problem, the Department of Justice reports that in twenty nineteen, there were two million, eighty six thousand people in prison in the United States.
The Innocence Project of West Virginia says that between three and six percent of those in prison are wrongfully convicted. Three percent is sixty two thousand, five hundred and eighty people and six percent are one hundred and twenty five thousand, one hundred and sixty people at any given time. And the truth is, I don't think anybody really knows the
real numbers. These are extrapolations of these different programs. The National Registry of Exoneration and keeps tracks of all the exonerations in the United States reports that since nineteen eighty nine, there have best two nine hundred and thirty seven ex generations. Think about that, when at any moment in time, there's up to one hundred and twenty five thousand people wrongfully
convicted in prison. It's an astounding problem. People think that those in prison they're guilty, and people that make claims of innocent are just blowing smoke. It's not true. The wrongfully convicted, in the innocent are truly sitting in prisons. So I hope that your audience takes away that this does happen, can happen to you. It can happen to your neighbor, your son, your father, your daughter, or your mother. It happens, and it's a tragedy. It's almost an irreparable tragedy.
In Ken's case, he lost almost ten years of his life. He is out, and he has done an amazing job over these almost twenty years. He's an extraordinary human, but he lost a lot too. And so I hope that your audience takes away the large scope of the problem and can also contribute locally and nationally in terms of pressing politicians to create more conviction integrity units, support innocence projects, support criminal justice reform, and that type of thing.
Thank you, Thank you, Gail. She is the epitome of what an attorney should be. Jason, thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell my story. It's only due to people like you that AXA to reseuch as myself, can't share their stories with the entire country with the hopes of enlightening people to the truth. Wrongful convictions happen every day in this country. They have to stop. They must stop. I don't consider myself a hero, and I'm just a good guy who wants to do the right thing.
And I don't want anyone to have to go through what I or my family had to go through. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not the way America is supposed to be. We can change it. It takes all of us to change it, each and every one of us. Again, I want to thank you, Jason Gail. I love you both. Let's keep up to fight. God bless you, God bless everyone, and make God bless America.
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Cliburn, and Kevin Wartis. With research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter. At Wrong Conviction as well as at
Lava for Good on all three platforms. You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at it's Jason flam Ravel. Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one