I'm Jason Flamm, host of wrongful conviction. Over the years, hundreds of exanneries have told me their stories. Sadly, with the state of our criminal legal system, we're left with far more cases than I can possibly handle alone. So I've asked some exuneries to handle some of these cases, bringing the kind of perspective to the interviews that could only come from living through their own wrongful convictions. This is one of those interviews.
In the early morning hours of January thirteenth, nineteen ninety four, Stephen Fitch, Reginald Wilson, and Felicia Lewis were in Chicago driving in Wilson's car. They stopped at a gas station so the two men could use the restroom. When Fitch walked back to the car, he saw two men hijacking it, one driving and another in the back with Wilson and Lewis. Fitch ran across the street and called the police to
report the car jacket. Later that day, the frozen bodies of twenty three year old Illinois state basketball star Wars Reginald Wilson, and his twenty year old girlfriend, Felicia Lewis, were discovered in a large garbage band in Chicago. Both had sustained multiple gunshot wounds. The stolen car was found idling in a nearby town after a chase. Two of the carjackers were identified as Scott Chambers and Stanley Hamlet. They were interviewed and admitted their involvements in the crime.
They also named three more accomplices, including a guy named Carl. Through their investigation, the police were led.
To Carl Williams.
The co defendants repeatedly said that Carl Williams wasn't involved and there was no physical evidence linking him to the carjacking and murders, but with a forced false confession, Carl Williams was found guilty of a crime he did not commit and was sentenced to natural life in prison. This is wrongful conviction. My name is Patrick Persley, also known as Free Patrick Pursley. I was previously a guest on wrongful conviction as an axignery, but today I'm honored to
be your guest host. It is a true privilege. We'll be talking to two people two Carl's actually attorney Carl Leonard, and my good friend and brother Karl Williams. This interview was recorded in April twenty twenty two. But Karl and I have known each other for a long time. We were at Staville Prison together where we both spent countless hours in the law library. We probably did what how many years you think we did together?
Oh man, at least how many years you was in Stateville?
Just twenty three?
Yeah, he's just twenty three, and then I was there about twenty three years, So at least twenty twenty three year.
A couple decades.
Yes, that's what you.
Hail from Cook County, Chicago.
I do rais Chicago born and raised.
What's that time?
What they call the lower end?
The low end got hell of a rep.
The low end definitely has a hell of a rep. But I think that the lower end gets an unfair rep.
Well, well I don't even think it exists no more. It's so it was so bad they knocked the buildings down.
Then they definitely knocked the buildings down. But the spirit and the people are still in that community, serving that community in a more productive and positive ways.
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. So going forward, right, like you catch this just this horrific, horrific case. It's a very heavy story, right, it's a very so you had to carry this. Can you like start us like at the beginning, what like what took place?
So me growing up in that community, it was a community like I said that I love, that, I value that I appreciate, and at the same time, I also made some wrong decisions in that community. I come from street hustling, which allowed me to be able to gain material wealth. And you know how this operate in those communities.
You gotta eat very true.
It brings it brings a long attention. No society good in terms of girls and things. Oh we're talking about starting from the age of like fifteen years old. And what it does is it brings you a ton of attention. Everybody knows your name, everybody wants to be connected to you.
A few months after Carl's seventeenth birthday, a terrible crime happened in his neighborhood. Here's attorney Carl Leonard who worked on Carl's case.
The evidence that the state collected was that there was carjacking confrontation at a gas station in Chicago. To individuals were kidnapped during the carjack, brought to another location. The woman was actually assaulted, and both of them ended up murdered and in a dumpster, and there were some items that were stolen from the vehicle, and the state alleged that those items were divvied up among the offenders.
The other person who had been in the car with the victims saw the carjacking and called the police. The police tracked down the vehicle in nearby town. They arrested two people running from it, Scott Chambers and Stanley Hamlin, who were both later convicted of the crime. Chambers and Hamlin then provided the police with three more names, so Rhice Johnson, Anthony Brown, and a guy named Carl. They
didn't give his last name, just Carl. It's really rare to have this mini co defendants and it's a lot to sort through, right.
This is a case that involves a lot of offenders and the police are obviously investigating. Their sort of big break is when they find the vehicle, which they had brought to a south suburb side Chicago, and that's how they made the initial arrests of who would become some of Carl's co defendants. There's an individual with them who does not end up becoming a co defendant, but who is the first one to sort of start talking and they he just starts saying names of people who were involved,
gives the first name Carl. They decide that Carl Williams is the car that this person's referring to the.
Name Carl came up being involved in his brutal cry. So with that name be coming up, then who was the most popular Carl in that area at that time? It was me based off the fact of the street hustling and the things that brought me the unworted attention. Now, the description that they was given of this Carl was six' one to sixty three with your clow hair, light skinned, full beard. I mean I was just a young kid who barely can still grow.
A beard to this day, about five to seven.
I mean, well not quite five seven, but I mean I'm about five.
Right, But you don't match the description skin tone or height or.
I was five to seven at that time, stocky, bild, short hair, never had long hair. The description definitely didn't fit me.
The police showed up at the home of Erica Wells, Carl's girlfriend at the time. The person that answered the door told the police that Karl was upstairs. The police entered the home and immediately got rough.
With him, taking me and throwing me onto the floor, slamming me onto the floor, grabbing me by the neck, putting the gun to my head, threatening to shoot me and to kill me if I move.
A lot of people don't really realize how like the tailor to Americas, like the treatment in the door.
They absolutely so.
It is so camped. The violations as far as what they would call civil rights violations. Corrects, like we basically have no civil rights and at all.
When you're at that point and feeling that and understanding it feels like it takes some of your power away.
You're powerless in that moment.
Correct. And they take me downstairs and I have on nothing but my underwear, no other clothes on whatsoever. And I'm study consistently asking and what's going on. The people in the house are asking and what's going on. They take me out in handcuffs. Now it's January, before you know how cold Chicago could be. To go outside and to step outside in the code.
It's a form of torture of itself.
But when you think about it today, is it was a deliberate.
Process of course.
So I ask you the trauma that you have already experienced from from the moment that they into the house to accuse you of a crime that you didn't commit. So the person they take me outside with the handcuffs on and just I guess for him to identify me. Now they're saying that he's identifying me, and I need to go down to the station. And this is where the rest of the trauma begins. You can feel the butterflies, you can feel the nervousness, you can feel the anxiety
because of what just happened to you. So there's still trauma that's continuing to follow you and walk with you through the same path that they're taking you on, which is a brutal path. So in them presenting you in that way, having you handcuff holding you by your arm and just jaking open the door and pushing you there and say and the person is it's such a stand.
You know this person at least like nah, And they all go and when you go to every room and they say no, it's like, oh man, I've told you, but you don't understand that at the time. They put you back in that room and you're you know, and you're like, oh man, you know that was that? That was it? But then our star to go by, or you don't know how much time going by because there's no clock, and you're like, why am I still here? Then you see one of your co defenders come to you.
They bring him back to you, and he still says no, But then they bring him back within the thirty minute or within the hour time frame, and now he's crying, and you know, and and look what's happened to him? And then he says, They ask him again and he says, yeah. Now you you know it's it's a concern and a worry.
Is that starting to lose your grasp on reality?
And imagine I couldn't explain to you that feeling.
Now, can we just be clear, because it's not it's torture. It's the breaking of the will, the breaking of the psyche.
And I'm glad that you recognized and identified it as that, because that's exactly what it is. It's no different from the mental torture that you put someone and tonam Obay through. It's no different from torture that you put someone through in Vietnam. So you're absolutely right because the tactics are.
The same, you know, the objectives are the same.
The objectives are definitely the same, just different people.
And the facts. The facts can just be collateral damage. The facts are unfortunately at the time.
The purpose is to be able to find a person, to accuse them and charge them with the crime. So so your day can be over with.
I just want to remind you here, Carl is only seventeen years old at the time when all this is going down. The police interrogate him all day, like ten or twelve hours straight trying to get him to confess.
So just going through that process hours on in, hours on in.
To where right you just want to end it.
It's just like, hey, you know what, well, we want you to sign this. If you don't, there in this process will happen again. I couldn't tell you of the fear that I probably that I felt at that time.
Well, I mean it's a very sterile picture, but the reality is those interrogation rooms are full of blood, spit urine. It is they are final.
Language on the walls saying hey the.
Right, they're hot, they're you know. They are literally stuffed with the energy of the people that were in there just a few moments before you and you can end this process if you signed this statement.
As naive as I was. I did think that.
The sense of relief, what's their sense of relief? Though after the flame.
I think that some of my anxiety kind of went away because of I didn't see them anymore, not knowing that this has this affected my entire life.
At nine o'clock that evening, Assistant state's attorney Nicholas Grapsaz wrote a handwritten confession for Carl. The statement said that he was in Anthony Brown's car when Carl and four other co defendants saw the victim Chevy Blazer at the gas station and then decided to hijacket, strip it and sell the parts and split the money. The statement said that Karl was on the lookout while the hijacking took place, and that he was in Brown's car watching while Brown
raped Forelicia Lewis. They then allegedly returned Lewis to the blazer and demanded money. The statement said that afterwards all five co defendants met up and Scott Chambers told them they shot the victims and then Carl received thirty dollars as a share of the hijacking money. After being subject to torture and relentless pressure here from the police, Carl Williams signed this false confession sealing his faith.
During that time, I was still in a state of confusion. I was still very hurt. I was also struggling in terms of defending myself here. I was, you know, early on, you're giving a PD who's not putting forth an effort to be able to actually highlight your innocence, but just shuffle you along to people to the next case. I was still you know, you hear stuff like this when the judge is a law judge, and this judge will see right through the police's nonsense and then they'll bring
your relief. Well, I actually hope that would be for me.
That hurts that that's like the loss of innocence right there, when we learn of what a freaking fairy tale that one is right.
Correct until and listen, let me go back just a little bit. The first time when I'm arraigned in front of the judge, my co defendants says still that I wasn't involved in the case, that they have the wrong person.
This is a raiment.
Yes, you would think that at some point there was want to be an investigation. This is a continuing theme.
The fair Belt right now.
But I'm things. I continued to move forward at a very rapid, fast paced and.
No one cares. So what actual evidence like was would what evidence did the state present? And what's your side?
The statement? That's it? No co defendants to come testify. No one testify against me. The co defendant who decided to testify against another, the co defendant refused to testify against me because he said to them that you don't know I was innocent and wasn't involved in the case.
As a practice in jail house lawyer for twenty three years since stay Field, I've seen this way too much. Public defenders are often referred to in prison as public pretenders because they often dropped the ball. It happens more often than the general public has any idea of. And in this case, the public defender failed to get any exculpatory evidence to help free his client.
The lawyer never went to witnesses. So that was a witness in the case. And at that time, who was coming to court for me and who was daring the audience in terms of my alibi every time.
I had a court date, and they just don't talk to him.
And they never talked, and they never spoke to him.
Oh, yeah, we'll get I've seen it. I trust me, I've seen it. As a jail house lawyer, you already know right that you know, not knocking lawyers.
Right.
However, when we're sitting inside and we're filing these complaints to the Attorney Registration Disciplinary Commission, another lawyer answers them right, And basically all these claims are basically all same as far as failures to reach out to get witnesses, failure to investigate, failures to secure evidence right maybe video surveillance to whatever, failure to get an expert to challenge any evidence. But here it is all a gap for you is
a confession. You would think that he might have stepped up and did more.
No physical evidence, no, no, nothing to connect me to the crime whatsoever.
The jury deliberated for several days and eventually came to the conclusion that Carl Williams was guilty a first degree murder.
Carl was convicted because of his you know, the so called confession, the statement that was the only evidence. And I think the police knew that they didn't have any evidence. That's why they beat you.
That's why they.
Used all that.
They need something. The only way they're closing this case against Carl Williams is if you confess, So they made sure to get a confession, correct, That's how they you convicted. But yeah, I mean from the second I met Carl, I knew he's innocent. I still believe he's innocent, no doubt about it.
The way I kind of like look at is like you know, there's Zamboni machine that the thing, right, it's like a slow like it's just running you over slow motion, right, And you're just getting to this process where you know you're being run over by the system and you can't do it. You just can't do anything about it because a lot of times if the council does not do the work, the judge does not sue a sponte on
his own. Russ, Hey, I call Radishes, right. The prosecutor is just here for the slam dunk, right, So now you you get found guilty. What is this like for myself? I just I don't even remember how I got back to my decked What is your processing?
I cried the entire way. I can remember walking back and asking them to speak to a counselor because my mind couldn't function. My mind couldn't tell you, I couldn't even figure out where I was at at the time. And I'm getting emotional about it now because I'm thinking about my young self at that time trying to walk through that tunnel.
And you know, you can't protect that.
You know what I'm saying. And you walk through that tunnel and you're and you're thinking to yourself, they just took my life. How could you reconcile with with that? When you when you believed in something, you believed in something more importantly that you trusted in the process, and then the process fails you. I sat by myself on that deck. I can remember just being in a room for days and people coming to check on me because they was afraid that, hey, you know, try to harm himself.
I'm sorry, and you know, but immediately immediately my mom. You know, my mom. May she rest in peace now, you know. She passed away this year from COVID on January the second. I can remember her calling one of my friends who was on that deck with me, and he's like, man, your mom's saying, call her, call her. And I called her and she says, you know, I can't imagine what you're going through. My heart is broken.
But we need to get focused real quick. What is it that we need to do to fight for your life. I just started to go and write letters immediately. That's where it all began for me. From nineteen ninety four, I never stopped writing letters asking for help. I've probably sent out over four thousand letters.
Good God, I actually sent so many letters out.
To send one hundred letters out in the bars.
Free for those who don't know, is free for those that don't know. Stateville Prison lost a lawsuit in part of an agreement was they had to send all of our legal mail out and.
We would take full of vengel. I would put them in colorful envelopes. I would put them in peppermint looking envelopes, pink envelopes, green envelopes, just to make them try to stand out. And you name them. I wrote them. I said, do you know do you know anyone who would be interested in looking into a role for conviction. I've written many letters, I've written many people. And Mike responded, and that changed the narrative for me.
That Mike is his lawyer, Michael Scalar, who took on the case pro bono on twenty oh seven. Before Mike got involved in the case. Carl had already filed two postconviction petitions and both were denied. Together they filed two more petitions.
He started working on the case and he said, Carl, I believe you're innocent, but this is going to be an upheel battle.
I just want to interject, right, because this is this is the turnaround, right, So you're thrown down this deep dark well, right, that's basically what it is. It's like a state Bville. It's like a little like a little hell, and time is frozen.
Right.
You have the same people reciting the same rap song that they reciting when they got locked up, right, So you're in this like this pocket universe of hell, and everything is going against you to prevent you from getting to that law library, right, getting copies, right, having any piece to read your case. Right. However, the hope comes because you see other people getting out, right, So me and you we got your witness several people, so that gives you hope, right, like even right now, like I
really feel like the exhilaration. Like one day we're going to child Hall and talking to Babystone. Right next day Babystone is out. The next day Babystone is on sixty minutes. That is a hell of a message to us.
It is, and it's very encouraging, and it's very supportive in terms of your spirit, your energy, and your peace, and your effort to continue to push for and drive the narrative of your innocence.
And when we get the lawyers right, because we know pro say gets no play. Once we get the lawyers right, it gives us such a shot in the arm. I look at it very much like I sent my words out to fight for me, and over time, other people added their words to fight for.
Me, and.
Soon it becomes an undeniable, undeniable force, and it literally sets us free.
Long before I was ever even involved, Mike had done a ton of investigation and gotten affidavits from the co defendants from a number of people attesting to Carl's innocence. Meanwhile, there's a Supreme Court case called Miller versus Alabama that was decided which talks about how it can be unconstitutional to give life sentences or de facto life sentences to juveniles. Carl falls into that category, so they file another post
conviction petition raising that issue separately. The judge dismissed both of them and went up on appeal and Mike and his team won the appeal sent it back to the trial court to have a hearing on these issues. That's the point at which I got involved, was getting ready to have that hearing.
Und leg popular opinion is very weighty on lawyers as far as you know, a lot of people give you like jeers for helping prisoners. As far as yourself and going into this process, what were some of the challenges.
I think one of the hardest parts about these cases in general is just how old they are, and like, it's terrible for you guys who were in prison for what was it, twenty four years, twenty six years, but during that time, memories fade, witnesses die, witnesses move, and so we're trying to piece back together something that happened a very long time ago, involving people who have moved on with their lives and want nothing to do with you.
So I think that tends to be one of the bigger challenges with all of these cases is that we're not the place. We can't show up with a badge and say you need to talk to us, So you're just trying to convince people that you're worth their time. So I think just the passage of time and the lack of any real power makes it really hard to
sort of reinvestigate these types of cases. Our goal is to get Carl Holme, and the way we were able to get him home the quickest was to reach an agreement with the state about the Miller claim the juvenile life without parole claim. Agreed to a sentence, and we did a sentencing hearing instead of doing an evidentiary hearing, and convinced the judge to impose a sentence that got Carl Holm pretty quickly after that.
A lot of people don't really realize how long it takes for a post conviction petition to matriculate through the circuit courts. The whole process in this case was definitely not quick. In twenty twelve, and appellate court ruled that he was entitled to a new evidentiary hearing and if he were denied a new trial after that, he should at least deserve a new sentence based on the president set by Miller versus Alabama.
It always was one thing after another and saying, oh, well, we're looking, we're waiting on these documents, or I didn't read this or she would give me these long continuances. So it went on and on and on, and it dragged out from November of twenty twelve all the way to August of twenty twenty.
Now this one one ten years. Do you see or do you believe that this using time as a weapon.
It is a household it's being used as a weapon because it wears you. Now imagine the psychological effects that that has upon you. You're going to court or you're having a court date, and then it's another continuous.
I think thinking about how much time went by there, and I think you're absolutely right that there is a strategic reason for the state to delay things and things like that. I think also, and this is much more depressing, is that the delays I don't think are necessarily because this is the way we're going to win the case. I think a lot of the times delays are you guys don't matter.
And it's very true.
There are more important things for these judges to be working on. There's more important things for the prosecutors to be working on. These guys were convicted, they don't matter.
Kyle was released from prison in twenty twenty, but not based on his innocence, but because of the new sentence that was imposed, it's a chance to get out, but it also means you won't officially be exonerated, and that's a very heavy cross to carry for someone who's actually innocent.
For me, it was very bittersweet. It's something that I was like, you know, I didn't want to do, but was forced to do. I wasn't gonna die in somebody's prison. My mom was older. I lost the son.
It's one of the things that I that I kicked myself over and have gone back over if there's anything I could have done to make this go faster. Because your son died right before you got out, I've gone back over it and wondered, is there any place I could have made this go a month faster or something like that. I am beyond grateful that you were home to be with your mom, but your the fact that your son died right before you got out, and.
I want to just make this clear, not that he died as if he died from natural causes, he was murdered in broad daylight.
I need to touch on this. How many times did you see guys our age lose sons to the streets while we were inside.
Oh man, I lost count I probably I know about forty people who's probably lost the son.
The father's not there, were locked up, right. The mother is doing her best.
Is putting the culture effort, but.
The culture is drawing them out. The culture is drawing them out.
That is very true. The culture is definitely drawing them out, reshaping their frame of mind, changing their free features. It's really hard for them to give grass, absolutely.
Because it's like speaking a foreign language.
It is. And you're still trying to be a father and a parent from from prison, which you know you wish there was a such thing.
Right, I mean, I literally like hashtag Confessions of a jail Daddy. It's an oxymoron. You're in jail. You can write all the letters and all the money, but the culture is still going to get a hold to our children.
It is. But in returning back into society, you know, I've tooken every educational course that I possibly could in that prison, only because I've always seen a better future and an opportunity for me upon my return. So in the name of my son, in the name of myself, I was definitely going to upon my return, whatever day that was going to be. I was going to do something and make something better of myself and highlight it, to do better in the community that I grew up in.
Redemption Redemption song.
I feel like I have been taking that journey. I feel like I have been walking that journey with the work that I've been doing. I now teach kids in the neighborhood who fathers were incarcerated or who mothers were incarcerated. I teach them carpentry. I own a furniture business as building custom cabinets as well as selling furniture and supply.
This is Royal Man Solutions.
And you can find that on Royalmansolutions dot com. And one of the things that I do is that I take some of these kids from the community, take them on deliveries with me, and I pay them. It's it's an opportunity for them to learn the trade and the craft, but also learn the experience of working a job to be able to provide for themselves today, tomorrow, in in the future.
I think it's really beautiful how he's carrying on with his life without the bitterness and the baggage. He's very much a radiant soul. He's given back to his community and we'll have links to Carl's work in the bile so you can flood him with love there. And now
we'll go to closing part of our show. I want to thank the listeners for having me as your guest host, and of course thanks to the two Carls, Carl Williams for allowing me the honor to tell this story and Carl Leonard for his work on behalf of the Wrongfully Convicted. This last bit of the show we call closing arguments. I'm going to step away from the mic and let Carl and Carl have the last words.
The way to avoid wrongful convictions in the first place, the way to fix the wrongful convictions that we have is for the people who are listening to the program to vote. Vote for prosecutors who are going to change the way these offices work. Vote for mayors who are going to appoint police chis who are going to change the way police departments work. It's a slow process. It doesn't help people like Carl, but hopefully it helps prevent
more people like Carl. It get the people out who are locked up wrongfully, stop sending the wrong people to prison. And I think the only way that we can do that is to vote for better leaders.
I certainly agree. I'm reaching out to different legislators making an argument about how the narrative surrounding wrongful convictions needs to change. How there need to be a calling for people being held responsible for allowing wrongful convictions and knowingly committing crimes with prosecutor and misconduct with police brutality where there be charges brought against them because they're crimes. If I committed the crime, you will bring your charge against me.
It shouldn't be no difference. The other thing is is that I thank y'all for being able to tell the stories of those who are wrongfully convicted. This allows an audience to hear the story, make a decision, and hopefully be active to change the narrative as well. It's important to inform the public so they can definitely be involved and get involved. It makes them more capable, more able, and more fit in terms of serving to change the narrative about wrongful convictions.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I like to thank our executive producers Jason Flem and Kevin Wadis. The senior producer for this episode is Jackie Polly and our producers are Lela Robinson, Conner Hall and Jeff Clive Barne. Our editor is Roxander Gweedy and special thanks to jillianforced That for help on this episode. The music and this productions 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 Lava for Good. On all three platforms. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram at free Patrick Pursley at imkid Culture two and online at imkidculture dot org. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one.
Next week, on the guest hosted episodes of Wronfel Conviction, Patrick Persley will interview Eric Blackman, a fellow Xgnery and someone he knew well inside prison. They're going to talk about the toxic criminal justice system in nineteen ninety Chicago and how Eric ended up in prison for a crime he didn't commit. I mean, he couldn't have committed it. The guy had dozens, literally dozens of alibi witnesses. Now, Patrick, by the way, is someone I mean, this guy is
such an incredible human. During his almost three decades wrongfully convicted in some of the most dangerous and deadly prisons in America, he somehow figured out how to change the law that allowed for the evidence in his case to be tested, which ultimately proved his innocence and led to his exoneration. So this is going to be an incredible conversation. Listen next Monday in the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed