The Innocence Network is a loose affiliation of independent innocence organizations, and each year, members of these organizations, as well as the hundreds of xanneries who they've helped free, gather for the Innocence Network Conference, and our team was honored to join them for their twenty twenty two gathering in Arizona. On May twenty third, nineteen ninety one, in the Roxbury section of Boston, two men entered Kenneth Maclean's home to settle a drug dispute. When he escaped, one of the
men fatually shot him in the street. Two teenage witnesses, neither of whom had seen the assailant's faces, described the men as black, and that the shooter had a lock of hair growing down the nape of his neck. One of the witnesses, Derek Hobson, considered the victim to be like an uncle to him. When he viewed a photo lineup in front of the grieving family, only one of the men pictured, Robert Foxworth, had hair that fit Derek's
description of the shooter. Robert was not in the area at the time of the crime and had no connections to the victim. Was a known entity of the police as a drug dealer. After Derek tried to recant his identification at a pre trial hearing, the state knew that they needed to strengthen their case. They picked up a drug dealer named Troy Logan, who had been bragging about being the actual shooter. Logan agreed to give a statement implicating Robert instead, and they were tried together along with
the third man, Ronnie Christian. With Logan's statement at Derek Hobson's coerce identification, the other men were acquitted and Robert was sent away for life. A few years later, one of Logan's co conspirators gave a detailed description of the crime, exonerating Robert in front of members of the prosecutor's office and federal agents. Yet the fight for Robert's freedom had only just begun. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to
wrongful Conviction. Today's episode is a searing indictment of a system that I think we all grew up thinking and hoping was better than it is. And when I say that, this is a grotesque example of just how easy it is to send a man away forever on the flimsiest of evidence, I came and call it evidence with a callous disregard for the rights, the hopes and dreams of that individual. Has happened in Massachusetts, and we have the
man here himself in person. We're here at the Innocence Network conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and all the way from Boston, Massachusetts is Robert Foxworth.
So Robert, welcome, Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
I would say I'm sorry you're here because of what it took for you to be here, but I am very happy and honored that you're here to share your story and with him his attorney, Amy Belger. Amy is a sole practitioner and a post conviction attorney. Welcome, thank you for being here. Thank you, and Robert. We always like to start with a little background. Where did you grow up and did you have a happy childhood?
Oh?
Yeah, I had a good childhood. I had her you know, my dad had his own barber shop in my mom was in the medical field, and.
Area was good. It was a good place to grow up.
I did have a solid family like that, A lot of love did. But at some point I guess I took the wrong turn in life and started running the streets selling drugs.
But you're not going to get any judgment here about drug use or dealing. I mean, we here at wrongful conviction on myself personally. We believe that everyone should be free to do with their own body whatever they choose, as long as they're not causing harm to other fully self sufficient exuter o living humans and certainly using our Dealing drugs is not murder, which is the crime that we're here to discuss. However, it was drug feeling that
made you a known nenty of police. In fact, you were even known to the detective in this very case, Detective Flynn, who it's fair to say probably was not so fond of you, which is really the only motive I've been able to surmise for why you were targeted for a crime you were not in the area to even commit if you had wanted to, and had no connection to whatsoever. I mean, did you even know the victim?
I never met this dude a day in his life. I would have never known if I met him.
Okay, so Amy, can you give us the details of this horrible scenario. I mean, it starts off with two men and one driver. They pulled up to the house of Kenneth MacLean. The two were let into the home by his eight year old daughter, so they may have known her. And it appears that this was drug related.
From all that we can tell from the investigation, it was a drug related dispute between the deceased man whose name was Kenneth McLean and the traders of this crime. And this eight year old child, you know, witnessed this unfold before her eyes, and those men took vengeance on her father and at first abused him in an upstairs part of the house, and he escaped and came running out onto the street unclothed with electrical tape near his mouth and his wrists, and they shot him in broad daylight.
Yeah, it's like something out of a Tarantino movie.
Right.
They stripped this man of everything but his sweatshirt, bound him with tape, and somehow or other he was able to break free and make a run for his very life. But of course he had very little chance as these men were armed, and tragically he was killed. Robert, had you been made aware of this crime? Was it big news in the area.
It's from another part of It's from Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchous and rocks from Manipins and Roxbury's to the other end. But it was on the news and everyone heard about it.
They made a shoulder. They had him labeled as a drug dealer.
So and the Boston Police put out an APB. They were looking for three black men. A quote that I read was one black, dark skin no further descriptions. Number two black male six foot to six foot, one hundred and forty pounds, about twenty five years old, with medium curly hair and a long curl down the center of his hair, down the nape of his neck. That remember that detail, the long curl that's going to come into play shortly. Wearing a red sweatshirt, a red shirt and
blue jeans. He was the one that fired the shots. According to a witness, they're in a red Toyota or red Ford Escort, four doors being operated by a dark skin black male. Now, these descriptions came from some neighborhood kids.
Yes, his name was on Derek Hobson.
Their description. Initially they had said, if I'm not mistaken, that they couldn't see the faces of the individuals that were running away as they were walking to go play basketball whatever they were doing, and of course that changed over time, and that should give everybody pause. And these kids were friends of the man who was murdered.
Yes, they were close friends and I think distant family members with he said, yes.
He's like an uncle Tom.
Okay, So they have these descriptions and the hairstyle. How did that play into your misidentification or, as we find out later, coerced false identification.
Well, my hairstyle at the time I got curly here I used to leave it was a tail. The popular hairstyle everyone was So you have a tail in the back of end that do you can braid?
So okay. So this was a popular hairstyle at the time. So not exactly a defining characteristic, right, It's not like a birthmark or a lazy eye or something, right, But you were known to police and had that hairstyle. So then a few weeks go by and then there's this alleged tip from a confidential informant that names you along with three others.
The fact that it was a documented anonymous call that put Robert's name in the case, we were never able to source that anywhere. And now that we know what we know about the way the Boston Police detectives gathered evidence or put a case together to convict him. You know, we don't believe that ever took place. We don't believe that phone call ever came.
It seems like they were doing what was unfortunately prevalent in the nineteen nineties of police departments all across this country and the quote unquote tough on crime era. And as in many cases, it's hard to discern what is real and what is fabricated, as it means to another end when we consider the source. Now. Nevertheless, this alleged confidential informat tip seemed to contain at least some credible information.
It named Ronnie Christian, one of Roberts's co defendants who's believed to have at least known the victim in this case, another guy named Stevin Seeey, as well as a guy named Whosy Joyner whose name will definitely come up later, so remember that name. But before we got ahead of ourselves, it was this alleged tip that police claimed at the time informed their decision to put Robert's picture into a photo lineup for the fifteen year old with this Derek Hobson to view.
They brought him inside the victim's house with the victim's family and showed them pitches in me and told him that I was the one that did it.
You were the only one in the lineup with it. Dea right, So here's the one identifying factor that the kids seemed to be sure of, and they're going to put you in there with the only thing that they have to cling on to them.
And Derek was fifteen years old when they did that. They pulled him off the street into a home, you know, of the grieving victim's family and directed him to identify Robert.
We see suggestive lineups and show ups and photo arrays all the time, but this would fall into the category of extremely suggestive.
Fair and even the fifteen year old child witness was trying to message to the detectives, I'm only able to identify the hairstyle in the beginning. He did the best he could as a child to do the right thing in that situation, but as you've probably read, with future efforts by the police, his will was overborn.
Yeah, so Hobson was shown another photo of Rare week or so later. This time, though, Roberts is the only photo present from the first photo lineup, as well as again being the only person in the lineup with that hairstyle,
so super suggestive. And we don't know anything else about this interaction, but if the first time was any indication, never mind what we know happened later at pre trial and at trial and what Derek later said as an adult, there was probably a lot of pressure and suggestion going on, and Derek hobbs that again identified Robert and you were arrested on July eleventh. That's six weeks after the crime and almost a month after Dark's initial id in front
of the victim's family. So it doesn't seem like they were in a big hurry here. If they were really convinced that you were credible for at the public safety, they might have moved a little more quickly. No, I mean, I don't mean to make light of it, but it seems ridiculous. Did you hear that they were looking for you? Did they just bust down the door one day?
I was sitting down watching TV and boom boom, boom, boom boom. I turned so my girl at the time opened the door and they ran in and they said, put your hands behind it back.
They cuffed me and put me in the.
Cor and thus begins almost thirty years saga.
When we went to the motion to suppress hearing and this witness got up there and told the judge and all of them listen, it's not him. I can't all I know is curly hearing the tail. They said, you see the guy in court. He says, no, I don't. So it was getting the ruling on it in the morning, and I swore I was going to win that motion.
Yeah.
He had faith that we had a criminal legal system that was going to straighten this out. You know, if we can just get into court, if we just get in front of a judge and that judge understands that this witness is only saying that he's recognizing a hairstyle, and you know the legal standard has been explained to Robert right, that it was argued correctly to the judge right. He had faith that this was going to get straightened out.
Now, I remember losing it always sat with me wrong. It wasn't until Amy and John and them came along and finally told that they had a hearing without my lawyers present, and it was a judge, the DA, the police and the witness, and then it that's where they told him that I had asked a witness and that's why he testified like he did it.
The motion to suppress.
The argument of the prosecutor was that Robert and people associated with Robert were the ones who had intimidated the witness into not identifying him.
Right, I mean, talk about projection or gas lighting or whatever you want to call it. And because as was found out later from Derek as an adult, that's precisely what they had been doing at this very hearing to him when he was just a fifteen year old child.
Yes, so you had this escalating pattern of the child's witness not testifying definitively against Robert, being taken out into the hallway or you know, into the back and being threatened, and then coming back in and you know, giving more definitive testimony.
And when I came in in a mourning motion to suppress, Aaron just threw that out.
I knew I was going to jail in.
You know, all these years later, on our motion for a new trial that we filed in twenty twenty, he came forward and spoke to the die's office and explained all of what happened from his perspective, now as a grown man, and they credited that that this had happened, that these cops did do this, and that the prosecutor, the trial prosecutor from their office engaged in this misconduct as well.
I mean, wow, I wish I'd felt surprised by this, but being surrounded by all of these people at the Innocence Network conference, men and women with very similar stories, it just puts a very exhausting and depressing byingpoint on how common and not surprising this all is. In fact, that they recognized Derek's statement as credible, now that's the
surprising part. It shouldn't be, but it is so now that they've had so much trouble with their only evidence against Robert, this misidentification that Derek Copson was so desperately trying to rescind, they knew that they had to gather something else against Robert to make dis charge stick instead of, you know, maybe finding the real perpetrator, like what they're paid to do. And it would be funny if it wasn't so sick, because that's exactly what they did. And
of course I'm talking about Troy Logan. They also picked up Ronnie Christian who were not sure if he had any involvement, but they were picked up in September. The police said that Logan identified you from a photo lineup and gave a statement, and according to Logan, you accompanied him and another man to Kenneth McLean's house to buy cope. Now, you and McLean supposedly argued about a previous deal in
which McLean allegedly sold you a bad batch. Logan said that he left when the fighting started, but that he saw you go back inside with a gun and he allegedly heard gunshots. So this all sounds like a typical course or it said, to buy a statement where a witness cops to being there, right because he has to under this pressure, but not enough to incriminate himself, right, just a safe distance, so to speak. So I mean, did you even know this Troy Logan character?
I never met the guy, but I don't know he's from He's a New York gang member from the paperwork I see. I never met him a day in my life.
Okay, And I was getting crazier. I mean, the state filed continuance to delay your trial, Robert, because they wanted to try the three of you together.
But my whole thing is I was ready for trial. They were already scheduled the trial date and Logan at that point he makes a statement to him saying this that, and they preclude my trial basically to try us jointly. But there's other evidence that they withheld because it would have killed logan statement. There's a statement from his stepfather who we lived with, that outline that he told the stepfather that he was the one that did it.
So they hit that pot from.
Me, Amy, looks like you're about to jump out of your skin.
So we didn't get that statement from Troy Logan's stepfather until twenty seventeen either, So they buried it, and they buried a lot of exculpatory evidence that incriminated Troy Logan. Right because Troy Logan's false statement that he gave to the police that implicated Robert was necessary to the case. This isn't even disputed.
Right.
Much of the incriminating evidence against Troy Logan was never turned over, but a portion of it, the most important, I think, was a report that the Anti Gang Violence unit put together where they got information that Troy Logan was actually the shooter, and if Toy Logan was the shooter, they're trying the case to the jury saying Robert's the shooter. They have this police report saying that they have a confidential informant who has given them information, and they verified
the confidential informant through other information. It was considered a reliable informant who said, you know, Troy Logan is the shooter. He's bragging about it all over the streets of Dorchester. He shot Kenny McLain. And they didn't turn that over, and their motive for doing that appeared to be that Troy was compromised. Troy had given them information about the murder implicated Robert, and they didn't have anything on Robert
except the fifteen year olds with the hairstyle. So it wasn't until twenty seventeen that evidence came out that they had buried.
All of that.
Right, And when we go back to the beginning of the show, when I was talking about the flimsiest of evidence, like literally, there's a strand of hair, right, and not a strand of hair on her microscope, just a hair style, right, this was the evidence. Yes, Now let's talk about the attorneys. So many of the people we've had on our show had attorneys that were not up to the task. And that's being kind. But your family hired one of the top guys, is that right?
Yeah? And I had Willie Davis who tried me the cases before, and.
So you had Willie Davis and then Troy Logan. You had another guy named William White, correct, and then White actually joined Davis's firm.
Correct.
And the judge ordered you to get a new attorney because of this new partnership that these.
Guys had forged.
The conflict, Yeah, the conflict that that created.
When they conflicted him. Ount He didn't give us back, no money, He just recommended us to another attorney.
Okay, So the trial itself, there's this guy you never laid eyes on in your life, not even from the same city, who's out bragging all over town about having done this, and you're being put on trial with him, right.
Yes, they put me in one area up theirs and put him in the other. They brought me down, sat me at one table, Ronnie in there, and then the Logan over there.
And you know, ultimately that was a legal issue in a legal error, right, you know, trying Robert along with Troy Logan.
Right, since they had this statement for the Logan. Naming Robert as a shooter. Admitting that into evidence would have opened Logan up to cross examination. But since he's a co defendant, forcing him to take the standard trial would
be a clear violation of his Fifth Amendment right. So in order to protect everyone's right to a fair trial, the prosecution came up with what they probably thought was an elegant solution, but in reality it just trampled on Robert's rights and it involved using the name mister X. Oh my god, can you elaborate on that.
Amy Troy Logan's statement to the police where he was naming Robert, you know, as the shooter, the DA's office proposed to redact Robert's name and call him mister X in the statement, you know, for the jury. So the statement reads, Troy Logan said that, you know, mister X took a gun, went upstairs shot this victim. Mister X is the one who did this, and Troy Logan saw it. And then the jury was told mister X is not Ronnie Christian. So by deduction, okay, there's only one other
person mister X can be. And their theory of the case is Robert is the shooter. So the judicial system decides that a fair trial for Robert is well, we're going to redact your name out and we're going to say mister X, so we don't violate your rights. Right, But there isn't anybody else possibly you could ever deduce was mister X except for Robert, And at the time Robert was tried that was considered a fair trial. There wasn't any kind of care and attention systemically to Robert's rights.
Robert didn't have the advocacy and the representation at the time of trial that he should have had. But ultimately the argument was put to the judge who certainly knew what the law was and didn't do the right thing.
So the trial itself, how long did it last?
About a week?
It's hard to believe they managed to waste a week on this what's literally nothing to talk about, this crazy mister X, which is like from a bad script. And then the witness I think courageously doing his best to backtrack and saying that he was only eighty percent sure in his identification.
The way they got him to testify against Robert is over the lunch break between the morning and the afternoon sessions of trial. They put the kid into a holding cell at the courthouse, and they said to him, you either testify that that guy sitting there on trial is the guy you saw as the shooter, or we're going to put you in a cell with the three defendants on trial who are murderers. And this is a young boy.
Yeah, he saw no way out other than to tell the lies that he was told to tell, right right. So yeah, as far as the defense goes, Robert, did you have an alibi? Did you have witnesses to testify on your behalf?
I would have gotten on the stand, but the problem was my loy said it would have hurt me more to let them hear my pass and my conviction, so I didn't get up there. I didn't get on understand so I didn't really present no trial defense. I just went on misidentification in an alibi defense. My family members in all them came, but at that point I was kind of stuck.
And on March thirty first, nineteen ninety two, predictably, unfortunately, the jury convicted you of second degree murder and sentence you to life in prison. To add insult to injury, Logan was acquitted and Christian received a directed verdict of not guilty after the state closed its case. So they got it exactly wrong. I mean, it's incredible how they how they do this and lock up the innocent man and let the guilty one go, and then all of
us remain in danger. And that's exactly what happened here. So that moment when you were convicted.
I didn't know it. I really didn't know it. I was a last verdict, they said. I didn't know it. Ronnie Fishing got generated I think earlier that day or the next day, I can't remember. And then when they came back, they read Logan's verdict first and they said not guilty. So if my mom was sitting in the front row, so when they started saying my name, I'm looking around at that it's that I'm not paying attention
because I just know I'm not going to jail. And when I turned around, I seen the mails be like, yeah, you gotta turn around. The cuff up back, I said, for what they told me, And I know that was a horrible ride in.
The back of that meat wagon. That was a horrible ride.
When I finally got up there, they bring me to a unit called the AA unit, and that's basically a segregation unit. So when I walked in, this is this is straight on it right here. They had trash in the middle of the unit's probably halfway to your.
Calf, mice running around everywhere.
You got to kick through it and go to yourself and lock yourself. And I couldn't believe this. Which prison was that?
Walpole? Walpole?
Yeah, it's infamous.
I remember in ninety three, I think I was upstate, probably about sixteen fifteen, eighteen months somewhere, we got a letter from the federal authorities on the Freedom Information Rack request, and the letter outline that I wasn't the one that did it. I went earl when the lawyer brought me this letter, I said, oh, I'm going home. I remember that, I saying shit. I was so happy. And then when the judge denied to U thirty, he didn't put nothing
behind it. But the letter didn't have an affidavit supporting it, but originally was from the United States Attorney's Office outlining who did it and how they did it.
Yeah, there was a federal debriefing of somebody who was involved in this murder. You know, a person that was never a suspect and never brought to trial, he was a federal informant, and through that debriefing process, the federal agents, you know, will say, do you have any other information you know, in any other cases, right that you want to give us, because they're sitting there in this profit session with them and they have immunity. And so the
guy says, yeah, that Kenneth maclein murder. You guys, you convicted the wrong guy, Okay, And the reason I know you did is because I was there for the planning of it. I was involved in this, right, And that was in ninety three, right, And they turned it over to Earl Howard, your trial attorney, who didn't make effective use of it. Right, And then years later, you know, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office didn't do anything about it.
You know, they've already declared that person to be a reliable and formant because they're using his testimony to you know, convict other people. Right, they've already decided he's reliable. But they did not act.
And they knew it was true.
And they knew it was true.
Because everything in that statement that he made matched the evidence from the gun to the person who were in the car, the people that were named in prior proceedings. Everything that he gave in that rundown outlined who did it and they hate He said they had a thirty six tech nine millimeter ballistics of the States said, that's what it was.
They said, with three dudes that got in the car.
And these are the dudes, both of them, dudes t Lovell, who no one ever knew, and he sent formant said they were in the car. Now, he gave all this to the state without knowing anything about my case at the time. So it just took that from the state and matched it to this point. Because I didn't appeal my case in ninety three. I didn't appeal my case then, so there was nothing on the books for you to read or understand anything. He just gave a statement and
outline how his involved wasn't who would have acted. And when we got that statement, that's when we started comparing it and it matched up.
And that guy's name was Hughesy join us.
Yeah, And you know there were Boston Police detectives and an ADA from Suffolk County who were sitting there in the room, the two agencies that were responsible for convicting him, and they didn't turn that information over.
You were let down to, betrayed and screwed over by not just the people that were against you, but the people that were supposed to be protecting you.
I thought the same thing.
Actually, my same attorney that sold me out a trial, I had the same attorney on appeal.
I got the wrong end of the stick by him all day.
Robert's trial attorney did not perfect his appellate rights and did not exhaust all of his claims in the state court before the time ran out for him to do so. It was his attorney dropped the ball, and so Robert's first post conviction lawyers John and Linda Thompson, who had the case for twenty years, right, I only came in at the tail end the last five years. They had the case for twenty years. So they're trying to exhaust his state claims and bring it up to federal court,
but it took years to do that. By the time they do that they bring it up to federal court, the law had changed and made statements like the mister X statement inadmissible to convict somebody with evidence like that.
I think the district court judge in federal court who actually heard this the first time on the habeas petition did say that that was insufficient evidence to convictor Robert, and she let Robert out honest day, right then, and she did vacate the conviction, saying that evidence is insufficient to have convicted him of this murder. But unfortunately the first Circuit Court of Appeals reversed her decision and put the conviction back, and then, of course our sjac Massachusetts
let that stand. Our Supreme Judicial Court ruled that because the law at the time of Robert's trial was that that was good evidence, that that was good evidence, and that they weren't going to overturn his conviction even though he had suffered this injustice of not having his appellate rights perfected when they should have been, and if he had, he would have had the benefit of that law. It
was just another gross injustice. John and Linda Thompson, you know, they got him out and then they watched him return to prison.
I never forget that time. I never I was out. It seemed like eighteen months later. I just got off for boom boom boom, boom boom, and I opened it and the US my ancius said you're going I never forget that there.
It's unreal it is And John and Linda they they fought the case all those years. Even after they didn't give up, they were resolved to have him come back out again, and thank god he did so.
With a little break in the middle. You endured almost three decades, but ultimately justice delayed was not denied. How did you get him? How was he here? How did you do it?
As I said before, John and Linda never gave up on the case, trying to get the DA's office to give them access to discovery that they knew was there, that was withheld because the informant who'sy joiners that I sat down, I told them they have all the paperwork.
You know.
They were trying trying to get the discovery, trying to get the information, and it just got tiring. John Thompson wrote me a letter in January of twenty sixteen. I knew of him by reputation, and he knew me sort of the same way, and he said, I have an innocent client, and I know you have a heart for innocence work. And John Thompson is one of the top,
if not the top, appellate practitioner in Massachusetts. And you know as soon as I saw the return address on the envelope of the letter, I'm like, whatever he wants for me, I'm going.
To do it right.
So you know, that's how I became involved in the case. He didn't really need my legal mind, right, he needed my support, and he needed somebody to come in, you know, to sort of be aggressive about the fact that they weren't turning over the discovery, actually calling it what it is. This is prosecutorial misconduct, this is an ethical violation that you haven't turned it over, and I'm going to tell
everybody if you don't give it to me. And then finally, once we had it, we were able to put the claim together and between John's efforts and my efforts, you know, to try to get the information that went on for twelve years, right when they had the documents the whole time and they weren't turning them over.
I talked to John, I remember he said, he asked me if I knew Aimy. I said no, He's I'm want to reach out this then, and I said, okay, since she came in, and it's yeah, I've seen documents that I would have never got a lot of them, documents and I know that for a fact.
And you would have probably died in prison.
I uh certain point. You know, that's a that's the pillar size of a basketball.
And anybody who's got a lot of time and they'll tell you it took years to get that pill down. When you know, you take a regular pill, you swallow it, that's it. But when you're swallowing that pill that you know what, I'm never going home. This is where I'm going to be for the rest of my life. Every day you're trying to take a little gulp to get it down and then after finally sat down in here, Okay, this is me.
It's where I'm gonna be at. So when the.
Lawyers come on board and they litigated and they get you that relief and they pulled that ball out of this like you go on in life, but you always feel it down there. Nothing's going to ever fill out spot where that ball was at.
Wow.
I mean, that's that's heavy. It's powerful, and I don't think anyone who doesn't know that on the level that you do could ever truly understand it. And look, thankfully you're on the other side of that basketball sized pill in no small part through the work of Amy John and Linda Thompson, your own hard work and perseverance most of all, and courage. And I also have to mention my empathy in all of this. For Derek Hobson, I mean, he was coerced as a terrified child to play a
part in your wrongful conviction. And I've got to imagine that he was carrying around a huge amount of guilt, even considering how much he pushed back under tremendous pressure. I mean, he really did try.
Yeah, he tried.
And I think, you know what, I think that bothered him a lot, because since I've been out, I took him, went out to eat me and him and his wife and me and my girl, and and he just told me, he's all like this bothered me for a long time, even before the district attorney called him forward and asked him about the case. He said, when they called him forward and asked them about the case, after almost thirty years, he said, do you want the same story or you
want the truth? And they said, no, we want the truth. That's when he told him the truth when I was let out. But he told me he was seeing a psych service person for many years over that because he couldn't sleep and there was nothing he could do.
Yeah, it's the hell of a thing to carry around with you. And it's beautiful actually that you connected with him. You know that says a lot about your character, because I think a lot of people would hold a grudge and be easy to understand why they would. So on December eighteenth and twenty twenty, prosecutor's father response in self superior court that supported a new trial and your immediate
release from prison. It's said, and this is powerful, and this is a quote in summary, the single identification witnesses credible recantation of his identification testimony, the substantial likelihood that the unnecess scessoroly suggestive identification procedure could have resulted in a misidentification of the defendant, and the prejudicial impact of the manner in which the co defended statement was presented to the jury cast real doubt on the justice of
the conviction end quote. So District Attorney Rachel Rollins then filed an emergency petition on December twenty second, twenty twenty, with the state's Supreme Judicial Court, and on December twenty third, the very next day after hearing from the state and your attorney's associate Justice got Kafker ordered your release from prison that very day. And here's an incredible quote from
mister Thompson to a great attorney. He said, a tremendous amount of government resources goes into convicting people of serious crimes, as it should, but there are almost no resources available to people who've been wrongfully convicted. We know there are many people who been in this situation, and has been his character and determination that have made the difference. Wow, Okay, so the day, what was that moment?
Like, well, I was happy, I came home.
I came home in the middle of COVID, wasn't no jobs, everything was shut down. And you know, even though the state they let you out after almost thirty years, they just out the door.
We made a mistake here, they'd leave out the door. They don't give you no type of competence.
I mean, if you put someone there wrong for link, you admit it and you open the door for them, you can't send them home with nothing. Just that some people I had a family, so I went there, but some people don't have that.
You know, That's that's a very important point and it's something that's troubled me for a long long time, and it's been a significant out of my energy trying to, you know, help to build ramps for people coming out who don't have that access like you did it, you know, because it's it's insane like and it's actoutely insane. So we close our show every week the exact same way. This is where I first of all, thank you again.
I'm going to turn my microphone off, leave yours on, and just kick back in my chair and let Amy Wyce you go first, and let Robert take us out for any final thoughts you want to share with me and our audience.
I'm grateful that at long last, the DA's office did the right thing and met their obligations and turned over the exculpatory evidence that they turned over in Robert's case that got us back into court. And I have hope going forward that we can have more conviction integrity and learn from the wrongful convictions across the nation and recognize the flaws and the system for what they are and
fix them. And if it were not for people opening up their minds and deciding that they're going to do the right thing, I'm not sure Robert would be here right now. Very tenacious advocates. But you need all system actors to be honest about the past and honest about what needs to be done in the present. And so I move forward, you know, from Robert's conviction and exoneration, with great hope that the same relief can come to others.
And for me, I'm happy to be here. I love Amy, I love John, I love Linda. It came into my life and change it for the better. I come down here, I was talking to all these men women down here that went through similar trials and tribulations, and you get a sense of understanding that it's kind of like a unique class because you got the advocates.
Yah, you got the media.
Here, you got the family here, so it was just one big happy enjoy is. It's like one big family here. So I noticed this and I told Amy this today. This field, as far as litigating post conviction appeals and actual inn's exig reason, all is well dominated by females.
And you know, we as men have.
To take our hats off to them, and they say, thank you very much. There's a lot of males, but then you know it's dominated by females. That's because there's no Manchire listening one. When it comes to females, they just want to get the job accomplished.
And they have. That's why it's so packed down. Here is here.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cliburn and Kevin Wardis 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 plom Rawful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one