On October third, nineteen ninety three, Walter Gowdy threw a party at his Indianapolis home. His half brother Romeo Lee, and their shorter friend Kiti Harvell drove one of Walter's cars to an after hours club in Anderson, Indiana. After an altercation outside, Romeo approached a car on the passenger side and Kitie was on the driver side. The driver was fatally shot and a passenger was wounded. Witnesses described
the driver side shooter as shorter than the other. Months later, Walter Gowdy was the same after hours club in the same car and picked up by Detective Rodney Cummings, who put him into a one man show up where Walter was mistaken for the passenger side shooter his half brother Romeo. Despite sixteen alibi witnesses, Walter was charged with the murder, but between Walter's overly suggestive ID and his strong alibi, the charges were dropped, which did not sit well with
Detective Cummings. When Kytie Harvell was later i indeed in a live lineup by three witnesses as the driver's side shooter, he told Cummings that Walter was the driver's side shooter, not him. While placing Romeo on the passenger side. Detective Cummings ran for District Attorney one and reindicted Walter. Despite Romeo's confession naming Kite and himself, the state still forged
ahead with a prosecution based on conflicting witnesses. Almost all misidentified Walter as his half brother on the passenger's side, except Kite, who placed Walter in his place on the driver side. Walter was sentenced to one hundred and ten years in prison. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful Conviction today's episode. This is almost like the cartoon of the Ping Pong match, where your head going back
and forth. You're like, wait, what what? Like you just got going to believe the way this case unfolded and how the system, I'm going to be generous and say, made mistake after mistake and then compounded their mistakes, and then even when the mistakes were corrected, they made sure to correct the correction to make sure the mistakes. I mean, it's I'm at a loss for words on this one.
I got to tell you, but we're here with the man who survived this ordeal, Walter Guadi Walter, I'm so sorry you're here because of why you're here, but I'm really honored that you're here to tell your story.
Appreciate it very much. So appreciate it.
And with him is his civil attorney, Richard Devorak. Richard, it's your first time on the show, and I certainly hope it's not your last. And I know you've done great work on this case in particular, and I'm really really delighted to have you on the show.
Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it.
So this is an Indiana story, which we're hearing more and more about lately, as more wrongful convictions and prosecutor must conducted police corruption are being wrecked, not only in Indiana but all over the country. But before we get into how that affects your case, Walter, I want to go back to before all of that happened. Now, you were born in Chicago, but you grew up out West. Is that right?
Okay? I grew up in Los Angeles, myself and my three siblings. My mom's up and moved moved away from our father's But I grew up in Los Angeles during the heyday of the gang banging and the drugs. That's all we had to do to get by.
You mentioned your siblings. Now two of them, Lamont and Romeo, were deeply affected by this incident. Romeo, of course, was directly involved. Can you tell us about him?
Never smoked a joint none in his life. He provided himself on that. He's a real cool guy. He's really loyal, but he gets angry really quick. Romeo is the one that you go get with us. Drama is they want to fight out here, We're going to get Romeo. Growing up, we both took martial arts, both took boxing. We both started gang banging out there. No father figure. My mail figures consist of the older guys in the streets. We didn't have the people that tells you you could be somebody.
And the guys doing well out there were selling.
Drugs exactly exactly. We see the guy with the big Cadillac. He always got the money, he got the jury, he got the girls slot there. We want to be like that. Me being the oldest, I felt in coming upon me to get out there and make something for my siblings. You know what I mean. I saw selling drugs really young, like thirteen years old. So I get a hold to Indiana.
I say, when I turned like twenty one. A friend of mine was out there telling me how much the drugs is going for, you know, So I came out there and visit and found out, yeah, yeah, more expensive Indiana than they are in California.
So you saw this as an opportunity and started taking the risk. You know, there was a lot of risk, let's face it, of transporting the drugs from California to Indiana in order to reap the reward of a higher profit margin. And despite a few arrests, including one in Saint Louis from marijuana possession that had an effect, as it turns out on this case, the risk had paid off,
at least temporarily. You made a lot of money, owned a home, had multiple cars, and we're investing in legitimate businesses. You had your own nightclub. But before we go any further, can you tell us a little bit about this one character who you met in Indiana with the interesting name Kytie Harvell.
I only had new Kittie like five months before this all this happened. Titi is okay Laurna Smith, which is my girlfriend at the time. Her brother was locked up and her brother best friend was Kitty Harvell. Me and her brother became real cool like my brother in law. He let me know one day, Man, my god, you ain't get out now, don't you look out for him? Kydie got out. I'll take him shopping. I'll take him on my under my wing. Started him hang with me
all the time. You know, we become best of friends. I felt that he really was a genuine guy. I mean, I just did. I don't know. I don't know how I got sold to seat. And that's what really the problem. My brother got me now because my brother didn't even know him. My brother just called herself having his back because he's my guy. So now he find his stuff
in prison with one hundred ten years. Now we're trying to help my guy who turned out to be a scumback, you know, I mean, for lack of a better term.
Right, I'm sure you probably feel some degree of guilt for even putting those two together. But your brother did what he did, and at least he came forward instead of lying about you like Kydi did. Now there's one more thing to cover, which bears heavily on this case. Kiti is about five to eight look and looks nothing like you and Romeo, who are both over six feet tall. And let's face it, you share a mother, your family. You guys look similar.
Yeah we do, Yeah we do. We get a lot even to this day, and were both balked now, so we really get it now.
And this is important because it really comes up the identification process in this case, because you have people identifying you in your brother Romeo's role on the passenger side of the car, and then Kitie and perhaps the police tried to create and capitalize on some confusion around there being two shooters, one short, one tall on which side
of a car. So let's get to that. The night of October third, nineteen eighty three, you were hosting a party at your home in Indianautlis Now tell us how the rest of the night played out, and Richard, feel free to jump in whatever you want.
So October third, I thow a party in Annapolis. Nice party, big party, a lot of way. He's smoking, drinking, hanging party. It no miles party. During the party, my brother in Harvelle. They left went to a club and which is like thirty forty five minutes they go there in Anderson, Indiana. Altercation occurred outside of the club. I later found out they was in one of my cars. At the time, I had like six cars. I'm ready in the cars.
The altercation occurred with Kyti and the victim, Missus McLeod shooting the curve and Rom your assistant in the shooting. It had nothing to do with a car jack and that's the story Kyte made up. I later found out through my brother and again again I had several cars and I wouldn't need to, you know, be involved, nothing like that. But they had this incident. They agreed not to tell me about it because I'll be upset. I do absolute nothing about this case.
So there was a shooting at a club called the Oasis and Anderson, Indiana. There were two shooters ran up on a car that was parked in the parking lot outside of the Oasis, and one shooter was a shorter person and he was up on the driver side and there was a taller suspect on the passenger side. The occupants of the vehicle were a Marvin McLeod who was in the driver's seat, Damon Nunn who was in the passenger seat, and then Jill Barkley who was in the
back seat. So mister McLeod, unfortunately and tragically was shot and died, and mister Nunn was shot, but he survived and ended up being a witness in this case. So there was no suspect. Originally, this went on for several months with no suspect. There was some heat from the NAACP and other organizations, and there's some pressure to solve the case. So fast forward to February of nineteen ninety four.
Walt was actually at the Oasis and there was someone in, an employee of Oasis, who said, oh, that person you know looks familiar. They thought that maybe he might have been one of the people involved. Now, that person never testified a trial, never identified him or anything. That just that's what got their attention. And obviously it'd be pretty logical to show up at the place where you did the shooting.
In the same car, no less in the same car, in the same car some of there playing pool and here comes two officers ask me, see smady, you asked some step outside sound was identified as being someone who's evolved in a shooting in October, which you will to come down to the station for a lineup.
So at this point we've already established that you knew nothing about this crime, but you did something that later really seemed to get under the skin of Detective Rodney Cummings. You gave him an alias James Benneman in order to avoid the warrant that I mentioned earlier out of Saint Louis from marijuana possession. So continue, you go down to the station for this lineup, right.
I go to the station. They put me in that room by myself. There was one way mirror glass. He come back in the area, he tells me I was identified. Possible. Impossible, they don't. I'm not arrested, but they put me in a jail suit like forty five minutes later. This time they put me in a full lineup with five people. This time me and five people, because the witness knew four of the other people it was in the lineup. The people that's identified, it's Senaport reports.
So the second lineup was basically pointless. It's almost as suggestive as the one man show up, if that's even possible. So nonetheless, the witness from the backseat, Jill Barkley, identified you as the taller passenger side shooter, which kind of makes sense since you look like your own half brother. But then you were released. Maybe they kind of knew that their lineup was overly suggestive. I don't know. I mean, why were you released at that time that caught?
Would me still be an adamant that it wasn't me willing to submit to a polygraph. I gave him all cell phone numbers. I gave him my page you number. I gave my address to well I'm located at all that. So he told me he was willing to let me go this on Friday. He's willing to let me go come back Monday when he gets some more witnesses that he can put me in more lineups. Had me agree
to come back Monday. When I agreed, I agreed. But however, I gave you aliens name because I had warrant by the Saint Louis had marijuana on the highway, so I gave him a fake name. Had they ran my princes, I wasn't going nowhere. So by Monday you knew who I was because you went on the random prince. You knew I was. Now you know I had to warrant. Yeah, you're not who you say you were. So Monday I call him, I said, I ain't got transtation, can you come pick me up? I don't worry about we be
in touch. Tuesday that came kicked the door into my girlfriend house, arrested me, did another lineup.
They tried to do an official lineup, and they do a second lineup. This one didn't involve people that she knew by that time, though. It's ridiculous because she obviously know who she picked out originally. And then to charge Walter with the murder. But Walter was at a party in Indianapolis, and he had sixteen alibi witnesses, and you.
Had, let's face it, you had no clue about what happened in Anderson. But your brother, who was locked up in Arizona unrelated charge, had found out that you are now in jail for a murder in which he played a role, and he eventually officially confessed before you went to trial. Unfortunately, that confession was never heard by your jury. But could you tell us about when you first found out about your brother's involvement.
When I first got locked up, I was in there maybe two weeks. No idea. While I'm here, this sounds crazy. I know I haven't done that much wrong in the world. I know I love a few things, but so Romeo calls my girlfriend, my daughter's mother, when she told him I was locked up for murder. He liked for murder, Like, yeah, they say he shot somebody in Andersy, like you recognize, Like he's played my lawyer. Everything happened. My Lord comes to visit me, big old smile on his face. I
know why to think it's you. I still what it was your brother in Harvel, because my brother's in Arizona locked up. I know I've been on the phone with Themorrow Morning.
Okay, so this is in maybe March of nineteen ninety four, but he doesn't officially come forward until December ninety five, which is after you were reindicted and about to go to trial. And let's be clear, Romeo gave that confession against his own self interest. He ended up with a one hundred and ten year sentence. So, I mean, talk
about just going against your own self interest. But it finally made sense of your misidentification because, like we said, you two are half brothers, and you do look alike. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. At this point, all you officially had in your defense, which was enough to drop the charges, was sixteen alibi witnesses placing you in Indianapolis, the fact that your identification was overly suggestive.
And then Jill Barkley, the backseat passenger witness, had spotted Kitie Harvel in Indianapolis and reported it the court.
To reports, Kitty was in a Value City one day in Indianapolis and the chick that was in the back seat of the car when a shoot happened. Seeing they locked eyes on each other and she watched him as he walked out and she's like, that's the guy. So this is her. In a report she mentioned that because when they gave him a lineup, she's like, that's the guy right there, I seeing the Value City, that's him. That's the shooter. That's the shooter that was on the driver's side of the car.
Right So Jill Barklay's identification of Kitie happened in March of ninety four along with two other witnesses, Jackie Barclay and Latanya Young. Latanya had at one point idd Walter as a driver's side shooter, but in March of ninety four she was positive it was Kitie. So maybe Latania impeaches herself, but Jackie and Jill have been pretty consistent, so this likely played heavily into your charges being dropped
by the prosecutor at the time, Bill Lawler. So then you were extradited to Saint Louis for the marijuana possession warrant.
Rodney Cummings and his partner Steve Navier. They did not agree with this decision to drop the charges.
He wasn't willing to let it go. He didn't want to let it go to him. To this day, he think I got away to him. I got away with murder. I don't know how I got away. I just did sixty nineve years for one but two out of had him do it at all. His beef for me was that I deceived him with the name. He felt that I played him. That's his where, that is where to use. He said, you played me, but.
Fake name or not. The prosecutor was simply following the evidence, not some personal vendetta. He was doing his job, in other words, So while Cummings continued to investigate the case, Walter remained on his mind. Now. Despite this positive id, Kiti didn't get picked up until June of ninety four on an unrelated burglary charge and an interview that was not even discovered until civil litigation, Kitie denied being involved
and gave a bogus alibi. Now, perhaps after looking into that, Cummings brought Kitie in for a videotaped live lineup in September ninety four and once again and he was positively id as the driver side shooter by the three witnesses.
Now Kitie decided to save himself, and despite the conflict between Walter's height and that of the driver side shooter's description, Kitie Harvell, who stood only five to eight, said that it wasn't him who was the shorter driver side shooter, but it was Walter, who is not five eight but again over six feet tall. Hard to make that mistake and snitched on Romeo as the taller shooter on the passenger side. But now with this statement and your charge
is being dropped. There was a dynamic created between the then prosecutor, Bill Lawler and Detective Cummings.
And Roddy Cummings happened to be a lawyer. He had gone to night school while he was a police officer to become a lawyer, and he took it upon himself to run for the prosecutor's office. It's election season, it's the fall of ninety four and lo and behold he wins. Detective Cummings now becomes Prosecutor Cummings. And what does Prosecutor Cummings do. He turns around and reindictes Walter for the
charges that the prior prosecutor dismissed. So now we have the detective becoming the prosecutor to prosecute a case where he was once the detective.
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When Cummings reindictes Walter, it's on the theory that the two shooters are Walter and his brother Romeo Lee, and Kyte was a witness.
To all this.
Part of the problem, though, is that the state witnesses, some of whom identified Walter as one of the possible shooters, had identified Kata Harvell as the shooter, and that was
something that would have completely messed up that theory. So what happens is they go to trial and Mark Mayner, the original trial attorney, suspected that he was not being given all of the police reports, and he did a motion to get the police reports and a second motion to reconsider a motion for in camera inspection of the prosecutor's file to see if there were some police reports that he wasn't getting.
Well.
The judge denied it, and Walter went to trial without knowing that the state's witnesses had identified Kite Harvel, another state's witness, as one of the shooters. But what further makes it absolutely impossible that Walter was one of the shooters was the fact that during this prosecution, before he went to trial, Romeo, his half brother, finally came forward and admitted that he was the second shooter, that he and Kyte did the shooting. So we have our two shooters.
Now.
That makes all the sense in the world, because the physical descriptions in this case were that a shorter gentleman was on the driver side and a taller gentleman was on the passenger side. Well, Walter and Romeo are both tall and they look alike. Kiti Harvel is short. So rather than go on what was the truth, and the truth is that Romeo lead to the shooting on the
passenger side and Kitie did the shooting on the driver side. Instead, the theory at Walter's trial was that Walter did it with Romeo and Kyde was just a witness.
Yeah, this one with instructions. Right, So you have this shooter, Romeo admitting, which is highly unusual before the trial, before Walter's trial, that he did it, and he not only said that Kyitie was the other shooter, but that Walter wasn't there. He's a guy with firsthand knowledge and a lot of everything to lose, right.
And unfortunately, the jury never heard the Romeo Lee confession because Maynard couldn't figure out how to get it into evidence. The confession never came in.
So one of the single most important piece of evidence in this whole freaking case, which was later used to convict Romeo, that jury never even heard it. It's insane, let's face it. And in case this wasn't enough the idea that this judge didn't feel that there was any need for the defense to see the evidence from the police files. Richard, help you.
Out, Well, this is another unique thing about this case, unique to Indiana. Under Indiana law, the Indiana Supreme Court actually ruled this and it still exists today. Police reports are considered work product and they do not have to be tendered by the state to the defense. Now you have to ask, well, they still have to comply with the United States Constitution, They have to comply with Brady,
So how do they do that? Well, I took several depositions in this case as part of the civil matter, and I asked several prosecutors, and none of them had a good answer for how that happens. I mean, how do you tender exculpatory material that's in a police report without tendering the police report. So that's another aspect of all this is that they were withheld under the fig leaf that this was work product, which actually had some
sort of legal fig leaf to cover it. Now, what's interesting is that we know from later on that withheld evidence was the viewing of the witnesses of Harvel as the other shooter, So this was a videotape. Well, under any and of law, a videotape cannot be considered work product, but police reports can. So the police reports that were exculpatory were tender to the prosecutors. They weren't Cummings because
Cummings had to recuse himself. But the trial prosecutors had the police reports, they had the exculpatory evidence, but they didn't have the videotape. And why was that Well because back in election season, in September of ninety four, before Walter was re indicted, Cummings took the videotape out of evidence, signed it out of evidence, and it was returned back to the police locker back in nineteen ninety five. And guess what the date was that that was returned back
into the evidence locker. It was the exact same afternoon that the judge denied the in camera inspection of the file. The prosecutors would not have had the fig leaf of not giving over the lineup video, but they did have the fig leaf of not giving over the police reports.
So under this work product rule, they were covered from sharing the police reports about Kitie being identified as the driver's side shooter, But the videotape of that identification procedure, which would fall under non work product evidence, was technically not hidden because Cummings, who had accused himself, had taken it out of the evidence locker. So now two of the most important critical pieces of evidence in this case that point to who actually committed this crime were out
of play. So Walter was charged with the murder as well as attempted carjacking and robbery. You know, those other two charges related to the motive that Kittie Harvell had invented, A motive that made no sense considering that Walter owned six or seven cars already and had more than enough money to buy whatever he wanted. Now, David Puckett and Paula Maris Roberts were the prosecutors in this case, and Walter was represented by Mark Maynard. So I'm almost afraid to ask what at the trial.
At the trial, the state presented the eyewitness testimony, so the incredibly suggestive eye witness identification came in against Walter. Kyde testified against Walter, and unfortunately the jury never heard the Romeo Lee confession, even though he came forward a couple months before the trial. Cummings indicted Romeo for the murder, but that happened right before Walter's trial, and when they tried to call Romeo's a witness, he took the fifth
and the confession never came in evidence. Now, that would have been incredibly helpful to Walter as well, for the jury to know that his brother, who looks like him and everyone said looks like him, confessed to doing it with Kayde the state's witness. And of course at trial, the jury also didn't know that Kye Harvell had been identified by the other state's witnesses as one of the shooters.
So the jury heard Kite identify Walter as the driver's side shooter and Romeo as the passenger side shooter. But then the rest of the state's witnesses identified Walter as the passenger side shooter because he looks like Romeo. And it's never pointed out to the jury that Kittie was identified as a driver's side shooter because the prosecution kept
that to themselves. It's too bad the evidence that would have exposed the lies and made it all make sense, all of it was either hidden or not admitted as evidence. Now now something happened outside of the trial that I need to mention here Walter's brother Lamont, who we haven't really talked about. On October third, he was at the party and Kitie pulled him into the situation in his statement to Cummings. So as soon as Lamont landed to
testify on Walter's behalf, Lamont was arrested. He never had to testify against Walter, but he was coerced into a plea bargain corroborating Kittie's statement. So this was not part of trial, but it kept his alibi testimony out of trial. What about the other alibi witnesses?
So Walter presented several alibi witnesses, you know, but this is not something where you know, he's on on video, but he was at a party with you know, friends, and one of the witnesses they did sort of trip her up in that she testified she took a flight and she was confused about which airline she took, and
there was some impeachment about that. One of the other reasons why I believe that Walter was convicted and why they didn't believe the alibi was because one of the alibi witnesses, a woman by the name of Linda Phelps, you know, happened to be friends with Kytie Harvel and before trial she came off of her statement that Walter
was at this party, which undercut his alibi defense. Well, the problem is there was a police report that was withheld from evidence that indicated that before she flipped, Kaye had a conversation with her, which then miraculously then she
comes off of her alibi. So really anything like that that can sort of chip away at an alibi when you're staring at five eyewitnesses, you know, and no confession that was introduced, no evidence that the eyewitnesses were identifying the other states witnessed kydirl and it's hard for a jury to overcome that.
Ultimately, Walter was convicted by the jury of murder, attempted murder, attempted carjacking, and attempted robbery on December twenty first, nineteen ninety five, sentenced about a month later on January seventeenth, nineteen ninety six, to one hundred and ten years in prison. So a life sentence.
Yeah, that was wow. Sheeees. Let's go to the verdict first, then we go to citizen because both of them was really painful. So they find me guilty. I'm I'm livid, to say the least. I'm very perplexed about not only did all the money I spent in it, not only the fact that you're innocent, you know, it's the fact that, like where is justice? Citizens? Like thirty days later, citizen came up. I didn't go. You just find me guilty of somebody, and I don't want to hear nothing else
to court got to say, so they said. My lawyer to the deal. He said, I need you to be in court for I can make this motion to just miss the verdict and emotion for the judge to step aside. After that, if you decide to leave, find and let the judge you know you want to leave it. So okay, I agree to that. I go over there, I walk in. The judge makes you look before the post. Citizen, is anything you like to say, mister Gaudy, yess I would Johnny. I would like to let you the court, that prosecutor
right there, my lawyer, my prime invest car, everybody here. No, I'm not gifted this crime, I said. I don't care. It doesn't matter how much time you give me. I'm gonna spent every day of it proved minuses. I said this time, I don't want to hear the verdict. I like to go back to myself. Whatever time you're gonna give me, you're gonna give me. I don't care if you gave me sixty or you gave me one hundred and ten. And I'm not good for none of it.
In sixteen years of being in prison, sixteen and a half years for me that he lived the lifestyle and I lived in all that. I didn't have not one fight in sixteen half years. In a year, not one art. My beef was not with no inmate, my beef with the system. I did my whole time Lowlai berries, digging in researching cases. Men. Loli was my second home. I didn't get into the prison politics and the things going on in prison, with the games and the playing cards
and the shoot dice and and smoking cigarettes. Man. But when they stopped smoking cigarettes in there, they gave us heads up that they was gonna quit in ninety eight. In August they told January first, no more cigarettes in Missis City Prison. Ninety eight. When they cut out the cigarettes, I saw the opportunity. Now we got the black market. What I do I took a whole bunch of cards. This dash. I dig holes everywhere. I had holes dug all around the prison. Boy had hole I had I
used to work in the kitchen, I had it. I had cartazolt in the ceiling up in the man I stashed all the way to January. And look, I didn't even break them out of January. I didn't break them out to like April or May. But when I broke them out, WHOA you talk about one hundred dollars a pack of cigarettes? You talked five for one cigarette. They take the one cigarette down and break it down in five cigarettes two dollars apiece. So that's what that's really
what I got. The bulk of my money for my attorney fees, I paid for like four attorneys in there. But the bulk of my attorney fees came from tobacco sales. Ain't lots of tobacco sales.
So tobacco sales made up the Walter Gotty defense fund. But you also did a lot of your appeals on your own pro se. And it's crazy, though not unbelievable in our system, but still crazy that with how all of the evidence had come out during your brother's trial. Even then it still took another sixteen years.
The Romeo Lee trial was the unraveling of Walter's conviction. Ultimately, although it took a long time, the state put on a case against Romeo Lee heavily reliant on his confession. And remember that confession was that Kayde and Romeo did
the shooting. But you know, they presented the same evidence that they presented against Walter, and that's with the eyewitnesses putting Walter as the passenger side shooter, even though Romeo's confession was that he was on the passenger side, so there was something for him to argue, at least at that trial. But it was during that trial that during the cross examination of Steve Napier, they learned that Kye Harvell was identified by these states witnesses as the other shooter.
So it wasn't enough to you know, cause a not guilty in Romeo's trial, but the attorney for Romeo Lee did give that evidence to Mark Maynard. I should also note that the lineups not only consisted of three of the state's witnesses identifying Kye Harvel as the shooter, but Damon Nunn, who was the attempt murder victim and was an eyewitness who identified Walter as one of the shooters. When he was shown the lineups with Kayte Harvel, he identified a filler in that lineup as one of the shooters.
So obviously that's going to destroy Nun's credibility or reliability as well when he identifies a filler as one of the shooters.
Romeo's lawyer recovered as evidence and turned it over to She recipees to Sharon Clark. Matter of fact, she didn't have to do that because she had been watching my whole child or my lawyers were really cool, so she knew very much about the case. So she's like, wait a minute, Mark never had this. This is gonna help mister Galiti.
So now Romeo Lee's attorney gives Mark Maynard these withheld police reports. Mark Maynard had been representing Walter on direct appeal as well. He tried to get this into the record on direct appeal. That didn't work.
My lawyer, he says it to his pre course and try to mend my appeal. Now, minds you, in the appeal he had lives that the prosecutor withheld eesculpatory evidence. He lies this without having a proof. Now he got the proof. Mind you, when he first got the proof, he sat on him for two weeks because he was dealing with his father's death, so he wasn't doing nothing. Yeah, and I understood that, you know, he had to do his father's death and all that. So here goes our time.
Now when you send it up to the courts. As you send it up, the decisions coming down already denied. And in the decision you deny it because you said that he's a legend that this happened, but he had no proof of it. But the proof is on your desk now, but you are denied it.
The court said no, you're going to have to a post conviction. So Walter is left alone here. He has to file a pro se post conviction petition saying that these Brady materials should give him a new trial, and he was appointed a new council public defender named Sharon Fay. Now you would think that when the original judge would hear about all the shenanigans, Walter would have been immediately
given a new trial and never prosecuted again. But no, it took six years and an evidentary hearing before the judge finally denied the post conviction petition. And then you'd think an appellate court would step in and say, well that's wrong, that didn't happen. Indiana Supreme Court denied. We'll go to federal court. Federal courts have to take this seriously, right, Nope, pro say federal habes corpus petition denied.
If you don't have a degree, they don't honor it up. Nobody like you or me just coming there and just know all the law to them, like it's a slap in the face for it was. It went to school all them years, bust a butt to get the degree, and you're gonna come here with citing all the same thing. They know, they're gonna honor it.
You know, as one of our guest host, Patrick Presley likes to say, pro say gets no play. They will rarely, not never, but rarely ever give you the time of day if you don't have a lawyer. So how does this turn around? What happened next?
His last shot is his pro se attempt to get this overturned in the Seventh Circuit, and thankfully the Seventh Circuit appointed at him counsel from a big law firm, and this attorney was able to convince the Seventh Circuit that he received an unfair trial, and the Seventh Circuit reversed his conviction after Walter did about sixteen years wrongfully in prison.
It never ceases to amaze me that a defendant could present such clear Brady violations, exculpatory materials that completely destroy the state's case at trial and prove their claims of actual innocence along with ineffective assistants of council claims. I mean Mark Maynard even told Walter to pursue that claim since he was in fact ineffective at getting that confession and the identifications of Kyitie as the driver side shooter into court. So with that evidence, no reasonable juror would
have convicted Walter. Yet every court along the way bent over backwards, fell over themselves to ignore this wrongful conviction in favor of I can only guess here the finality of judgment and the sacrosanct jury verdict not to mention covering for their colleagues in the prosecutor's office, and in fact, Cummings is currently seeking a seventh term and running unopposed in twenty twenty two. I don't know what can be
done about that, But it really is sickening. So sixteen years it took for a court to finally accept the evidence that they used to convict his brother Romeo in another trial that was shortly after his own. It's just disgusting, let's face it. There's no other word for it. But this ruling came down in May twenty ten, and your lawyer at that time was Andrew Corritis. Remember Richard is Walter civil attorney. But Walter, tell us, what do you remember about that moment when you got the news.
Oh, this is one of the best days of my life. Right here, I get a legal mail May fifth, to down ten or to come down ala who you got one hundred twenty days to give him a new trial or release him? Now. I think I'm gonna go home any day, But they still playing hardball. I'm in a honey. I mean, I'm countdown days every day. I'll wait you. I think they canna call my name any day.
Now.
I think they gonna say, you know what, let him go on one hundred and twentieth day. I gotta be going home this morning. I would have gave my phone to my neighbor. I gave my all my commissary away and gave anything design A twenty day in the trial. I asked my neighbor back for my phone quick, we'll call my lawyer. He said, be patient. I work with my mom and talks with him right now. If we fire the charges, they said, he're gonna take you this trial.
He said. He talked to the prosecutor and asked the prosecutor, what did you see in this case that you said? I didn't see nothing. That's the problem. They just handled the case, and I didn't want to just drop it.
So the Madison County prosecutor was Rodney Cummings. When this thing was reversed and sent back to the lower court for a new trial, the judge ordered that a new prosecutor's office should look at it, and so an independent prosecutor named Barry Brown from a different county looked at this and he was the one who finally decided to drop the charges. And I will say that Rodney Cummings was quoted as saying at the time that mister Brown didn't have the guts to retry Walter.
Whoa the guts right after the I don't even know how to dignify that with words. After the evidence that they had at the time of trial completely shredded this guy's theory. He's still holding onto it almost three decades later. You know, if it's not too late, I really wish somebody would run against him. You could hit him over the head with his own words all the way into the prosecutor's office this fall. But we're running out of time.
The citizens of Madison County really do deserve better. Walter certainly did so. Brown dismissed the charges in January twenty twelve.
I remember January thirteenth, two down twelve. I remember like it was yesterday. I got that phone call from Richard, let me know, all charges dismissed. We ready to go with the loss. And he found my lawsuit the very next day. He had already been paying for the lawsuit because he was the one lawyer that was willing to take my case without it being all the way resolved. He believed it the case.
So thanks to Richard, the civil suit was filed immediately. But of course these things are rarely resolved immediately. At the time, Indiana didn't even have a compensation statute. Now now they do, and there's something not so good about it because it forces innocent men and women to waive their right to civil litigation if they accept the compensation.
To me, this just adds insult to injury, and I hope that it's corrected soon, along with that ridiculous work product rule, which we should just call call it legalized or legitimize Brady violations. I believe there's movement on both sides of those issues, and we fully support that. So as far as Walter's civil suit is concerned, the US District Court denied it, but in May twenty nineteen, the Seventh Circuit stepped up again and reinstated the lawsuits. So
in April twenty twenty, Walter settled his lawsuit. But let's face it, there's no amount of money that would ever make up for the lost time with loved ones.
First, I want to say, I think it's very unfair that these prosecutors and detectives are able to pull something like this off and get away with just giving them a little bit of money. And it's old with you know. I mean like it took years. I went in prison the new father my oldest was number three years old. I came out of grandfather. I can't get the years back I don't care how much money you get me. I can't get them back kids, graduations, they birthdays, I can't.
I can't get that back to It actually destroyed my ability to be a really effective father. Their minds are made up already in life. What life means to them.
I don't even know what to say. I mean, I can only imagine through the lens of my relationship with my own kids, and it just breaks my heart. What about your brothers, I mean, Romeo is still inside. I'm sure you'll probably take this opportunity to visit them, But what about Lamont, the brother that they coerced into a plea that corroborated Kidi statement, Do you think you'd be able to put that behind you and reconnect?
Listen, Lama flew in the test FI for me and the rest of him on the spot and said that Kytie said he was involved and just had a charge on him. He said to jail when they found me guilty, and I'm the one with the money now, So he don't have a lawyer and he on no money. He didn't want to take that chance. They gave him plea bargain for five years probation to say that what Kytie said was correct, that he was there and he watched it. He didn't have testifout to this because I already convicted.
I'm already gone. Matter of fact, nobody in the family he's seen or her from Missince then, because they was all pissed off of him for doing that, like why would you do that? It's almost like you cooperating Kytie's story. But I understood his part. I haven't been able to talk to him and lave. No, dude, listen, I'm not mad at you. I understood that's a big chance to take right there, and he took the plea bargain. He since nobody in the family seen him, we don't know
where he at. Again, I just reaching out this labe. No, I wasn't matter. But I just gave up on reaching out because I don't want to think I was reaching out trying to look for you or nothing, you know what I mean, Like, it ain't that serious. I'm just happy to be home.
Wow. So Lamont or if anyone knows Lamont, please let him know. Make the most out of the time you both have left. We're gonna have Walter's socials linked in the bio reach out to him. Walter also has a podcast that we'll link to, and with that we're going to go to closing arguments. This is, of course the part of the show where I thank you both for joining us and sharing your story. And now I'm going to turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair and just listen to anything you feel is left to
be said. Richard, let's start with you and Walter take us on home.
So there's been a lot of talk about, you know, Rodney Cummings, and people may have the impression that, well, this is sort of a one bad apple situation, but the real problem here is that time and again there were numerous people involved in the judicial system who could
have stopped this. From the judge initially, who could have forced the review of the prosecutor's file so that the withholding wouldn't have happened in the first place, to the trial prosecutors going along with this withholding, to the trial judge again once they learned about this withholding not correcting this wrong. To the Indiana appellate courts who could have stopped this, To the Indiana Supreme Court who could have stopped this, the federal havieas Corpus judge could have stopped this.
We shouldn't have to rely on the second highest court in the land, a federal court, to right these wrongs. These should be corrected immediately in the lower courts, but they're not. Unfortunately, and in Indiana, not only in Walter's case, but in other Indiana cases, time and again, these wrongs
are not corrected in a timely manner. The people who come acros cross these wrongful convictions need to step up and not just allow it to happen, and they need to do it quickly to make sure it gets done in a timely matter, not sixteen years later.
I do appreciate y'all give me the opportunity now. I feel that no amount of money they give me, no amount of money they gave me, no aunt of money they give me for me on out, it's gonna take back all the years out of this my kid's life. That's the biggest thing for me, my kids life. Anything they do for me now is gonna be for my baby. Securing their futures, you know what I mean. Make sure they got the right account set up, putting insurances on
us if something happened. Make sure I got insurance. Make sure my family don't have to be out there with a bucket on the corner trying to bury me. If you know when I when I passed, I went out. If I passed, I'm gonna pass someday, but when I do, to make sure they ain't got to struggle and try to go go fund me. I done went through August in that boxing there to get out and die and can't be buried out here. You know what I mean, I know what it is. Appreciate life. I wake up,
Appreciate life. I wake uppreciate my freedom. I already do. I wake up appreciate everything about my freedom. Man, I'm free. I'll steal free. I don't care if I ain't got it right now. I got a dime in my pocket. I am free.
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 flam Raeful. Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one