At around six am on October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, and twenty five year old woman was abducted by a stranger at a bus stop, assaulted, raped and sodomized, then dragged at two different locations where the assault continued. The assailant stole her wristwatch and broke her two front teeth. Miraculously, the victims survived that a rape kit was performed. However, in nineteen eighty six, DNA testing was still in its
infancy and erology offered little of probated value. The officer who eventually made the arrest approach Clarence Harrison, a man who had a previous conviction as an accessory to a robbery involving a woman at a bus stop. When asked about the victim, whom he knew from the neighborhood, Clarence said that if he heard anything, then he would forward that information to her family, not the police, an answer
that seemed to annoy the officer. While fabricating a story about a confidential informant having seen Clarence selling the victim's wristwatch, that officer included Clarence in a BOTO lineup. The assailant was a stranger, and the victim knew Clarence, but she said that the assailant looked like Clarence. After some time and perhaps a great deal of pressure, she eventually identified
Clarence and sealed his faith. With the advert of DNA testing and motions filed to finally uncover the truth, came reports that the ripe could had been destroyed. Along with it seems Clarence's hope for relief from a life plus forty years sentence for a crime he simply did not commit. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's story is the story of Clarence Harrison, sentenced to life in prison plus forty years. I always wonder about what
those extra forty years are for. Is that if you come back to life, you do another forty It's all crazy, But life plus forty years in Georgia and the state of Georgia for a crime you didn't commit, Clarence. Before, I introduce our other distinguished guest today. First of all, I just want to say welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here.
Thank you, Thank you. Van Biden.
To me and with us is Amy Maxwell. And Amy is a Senior District Attorney in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office. But before you jump to conclusions, she's actually the head of the Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit and the former executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project. And what a resume that is. Amy, Welcome to Rafel Conviction.
Hi, thanks for having me.
And I read an incredible quote from you, Clarence where you had said that, and this is a direct quote. After a year or so in prison, you get burned out, and you fall off into the system, and you lose faith and your hope, and you begin to believe you'll never get out. And that happened to me.
Well, I had been in there a few years. First few years, I got strung out on trying to prove my answer. But I got burnt out and kind of love faith in the system and God and everything, and just thought maybe with life selling twenty and plus twenty, you know, I was gonna live and die in prison, you know. And I tried to, you know, accept that's where my life gonna be. So I shipped the outside world out. I called it it's so called free world,
and I called the prison life in my life. That was the real world to me.
It's always amazing to me when when people like you were able to come out of that dark spiritual hole that you were in and how you did it is an amazing part of the story. We're going to get to that, but let's go back to the beginning. So you born in Georgia. What was your childhood like.
I am a pretty decent young man growing up. I was a cub scout, a boy scout, you know. But as I got older in high school, I started doing drinking and gama, so I became a post a gammel playing cards. I like to play poker, black jack, whatever kind of gambler war. I just liked to gammebl sadly say, I think they come from cause just don't remember I have with my father who ran a boot leg house, in a gambler house and got throwed out of school
because I wasn't doing right in school. Well, I got married early, just turned eighteen, had two daughters, and my first wife she had a daughter, so I had three girls.
That's a lot, especially for somebody at a young age. And I had my own struggles with gambling and drinking as a kid. So I can relate to that, but I was very lucky to never get into the type of serious trouble that you got into. From what I understand, some of the people you were hanging out with at the time got you into even more trouble when when you were riding around the car unaware of their intentions, and one of them popped out of the car and robbed a woman at a bus stop there.
Was in nineteen seventy eight. I didn't commit that crime a partner them, did I with him? It's same thing.
Wait, that's starting to sound like you were wrongfully convicted, not once but twice.
I ain't gonna say I was Ronald convicted because our extra with them all I know we were rad Fashion stopped the car. I said, Fashion, What you stopping the cup for? He said, ricksy elite. I said, may y'all be not being breaking nobody how He said, no, may no leak there you go back there not a little bat Rick stand to partner going there, lady's may y'all get that stupid fool. I get out the car, told Rick, get it back in the car. You partner going nay thing?
You know? All them turned state and I'm the only one went to prison.
I get that you were with them, so technically that does make you an accessory. But still you tried to stop your friend, maybe even saved that lady's life. I mean, there's a case that we made. Then your friends went and saved their own asses, turning state's witnesses and putting you in prison for almost six years and leaving you permanently on the radar of the local police. So now
we fast forward to nineteen eighty six. You were a twenty seven year old young man, and this awful crime happens in DeKalb County, Georgia, also to a young woman at a bus stop. Amy, can you fill us in on the rest of the details, And a warning to our audience, this is hard to hear.
It was the morning of October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six. It was really early in the morning, and the woman had just gotten a job at Grady Hospital, which was the large public hospital here in Fulton County in Atlanta, Georgia, and she was standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and it was dark outside and it was raining. A man walked across the street, walked past her, turned around and She didn't actually see him come up, but he came up behind her, grabbed her from the back,
drug her away from the bus stop. He ended up actually dragging her to three different locations where he assaulted her repeatedly. It was horrific, probably forty five minutes to an hour of being constantly abused. He'd abuse her one place, he'd drag her someplace else, assault her again. It was It was horrible, and he ended up hitting her in the face and knocking out some of her front teeth. He ends up leaving her. I don't know if he thought she was dead or what, but he left her,
and she's, you know, of course, completely nude. She tries to flag down a car. The first car just drives right by her, but the second car does stop and help her. She ends up going into the hospital. They took a sexual assault kit, which of course ends up
later being extremely important. And as far as how Clarence became a suspect, what the police said was that some confidential informant had told them that Clarence was trying to sell a woman's watch, and one of the very few things that the rapist took from this woman was her watch. So the police and court say that's how we got to Clarence because Clarence was trying to sell a woman's watch.
Later we find out that wasn't at all true. The police officer actually admitted that he made that whole story.
Up right, and they and they just decided it was him, right, the guy who had previously been an accessory of robbing a woman at the bus stop. So, Clarence, what were you up to on the night before and into that morning?
I was directly cross street from my home at a friend of mine's house. He ran a boot leg house. Well, we'd go over there and buy beer and stuff, and we usually play cards overout every weekend. Now playing call for a few hours there into the ear of the morning, elect to getting daybreak, and I told my heye man said, if it'd be day Brad gets up in and get ready to go home. They had to be around about five six o'clock in the morning. And that's how walking
Old Mount and opening the door. And I've seen a guy walking the street in the holler ed methad, Hey what your head? Man? He said? He said, we're going to the bus stop. I said, the bus stop, I say, man, I said, you got a couple out for the bus r on man. I said, it's the weekend. If you want to man, come over there and stand up on the poet. He said no. He said, I guess I'm going on the walk. I said, you better start running it. I looked like if in the pole down rain. I
went in the house. So next morning, my mama come in the room and wake me up and stuff and asked me to go to the store for And as I walking back from the store, I see a car that looked like a police car. And he stopped me. He say, and you cleaning her? I said yeah. He said, you living in the house right there? I said yeah. He said, did you see anyone go up there street last night? I said, I seen somebody go there this morning. He said, do you know who you were? I said, now,
I don't know. I know he ain't from around here. I said, what's up? He said, a lady got robbed or down philth Avenue victim last night with Dunk. I said, duncan. Now you got to be telling my ken and hair Dunk and them sister to wear them own the dunkeys in the area. I know everybody in the areage like that. So he said, well, if you see the guy, let me know. I say, well, if I see the guy lit ken and hair with them, though, and if they want you, they'll let you know like that. He said,
you ain't gonna tell me. I said, oh, hey, man, I don't want to have no dinner with no police. I'm gonna tell them and let them tell you that said that. They sister. He said, okay, I see as man, you're the police. You can do what you want to do. Man, I said, I'm going to go on, and I walked on. Chi hell, I got you and how. I told my sister, you know what the police had said and asked me. So, she said, well you better watch him cause you know who that is. I said, yeah, I said, Dawson's like that.
She said yeah.
And it turns out that this Dawson guy is the same cop who picked you up on that robbery back in nineteen seventy eight. Oh yeah, yeah. So what happens next?
A couple days later, come back to the how. I said, hey, he's uh, you see that guy, little man? I said, I told you, man, if I see I'm gonna lit ken and hair with them, No, you know, I said, I don't even know who that dude was. He don't love over. He said, so you're not gonna tell me? May I tell them? I ain't telling you nothing. He's all right, I'm gonna see you. I said, all right, I just told you man, you the police do what you want to do. He left again. Next time he come,
they come back with a woman. Said, had a woman from my rest for arm rabber. My sister said, can I see the one? He said, yes, look at the war and said this thing got raped, robbery and kidnapped it. I said, who what do I on raping the rod like that? And when I said that, my niece came out of the room said, claim who you know?
Ray?
I said, girl quit being said I ain't raising. Nobody left like that, and my sister said it got dunking on. She said, I said the only doctor over, that's who they got to be talking about. So she said, I'm finah calling. So she called the victim and said she asked the victoms that you said my uncle the one was supposed to rate you. And she told the police said she said that she didn't say that he raped them.
She said there was somebody that looked like him. And when my niece told him that he snatched the phone from her, when he snapped the phone her, I snapped the phone him and told him, no snap, no phone up. I said, man, you don't pay no bill. He's I told you what you come and go with me. He snapped me in, put the handcuffs on me, and took me to the police station.
So you're gonna take it away by the same guy who arrested you for the nineteen seventy eight robbery, who you haven't been all that helpful to in this incident, and the probable cause that they used for the arrest want we come to find out was a totally made up story about a confidential informant who told them about
Clarence selling the victims watch. It's too bad that it is nineteen eighty six and d theay testing is still as fledgling stages, because otherwise we may not be having this conversation and you never would have been subjected to this misery at all. So is one of the theories that it may have been this guy that Clarence saw walking down the street at five or six in the morning.
Well, that's one option. There are some other people that were in the neighborhood it could have been. Unfortunately, when ultimately the DNA is tested, it doesn't tell us who the actual perpetrator was.
Right, And as Clarence's niece heard over the phone from the victim that she said it looked like Clarence, not that it was Clarence. And this awful crime definitely happened to this poor woman, and this is definitely a stranger on stranger crime. The victim did not claim to have known the assailant, but she definitely knew Clarence. So what happens to turn this towards Clarence in the face of this overwhelming evidence of the countrary.
They ended up getting an identification from the victim. She said that she was absolutely certain it was Clarence Harrison. And from there it's snowballs.
And we know that in the heat of the moment victims of violent crimes, their perception is notoriously unreliable. Eyewitness missed identification, after all, is one of the main causes of wrongful convictions. But it's really super odd because the victim said she didn't know the assailant, but you knew her well.
But Brudnaym just fad that the victim knew me, so, but she said she didn't know the person who committed the client. I've been to her house and she'd been to Mahal with folk.
So we don't know what kind of tactics they use to make that turnaround come about. But whatever it was, it certainly feels like she was re victim. But a rape victim identifying you is pretty much all it takes, I mean, absent some sort of powerful exculpatory physical DNA evidence or something like that. And now comes the arraignment.
And unfortunately Clarence was poor, right, he didn't have the money to hire a lawyer who could jump on the case right away. After he was arraigned, the judge literally there was a lawyer that was just there in the courthouse, and the judge appointed that lawyer the case.
And the jewid told me that he was assigned him too. He said, no, you're run, I got a full case. Low, I can't Henley case. He said, well, I'm gonna send you to this case. And they were going back and forth, so a bencher the jew to sign the man representment, and they were talking to the police off were trying to tell how I become a suspect? And now he said, identified my photograph. He said, how did the big Tom identify for prior to the victim identified in the photograph?
He said, well, he went through hundreds of police truck. He said, well, prior to that, how did the defender become a suspect? Then he said somebody defender had a past similarity offense? And I told him, I said, well, indeed, kind of case where y'all saying rapiers and all this old stuff. Don't y'all for their fisical ebdence and stuff like that? There, I didn't do some type of testing thing.
So Jeorge said, so, what you requesting blood simptom? I said, I'm requesting whatever testing you need to prove my answer because they ain't dead nothing. So Jeorge said, well, I'm gonna recommend that you would do blood testings since your bone, I said, said, who are born? I said, I don't want no bond with y'all. Let me go, because I ain't dead, nohing. But I didn't. I ain't meaning to turn the bone.
Now.
I want him to know that I ain't done anything, you know. But he took that like I was denying the bone and stuff, so they denied me a bone.
So you've got a lawyer who's argued that he has a full case load and doesn't even have the time to take your case on. Well, at least he was honest about it. But it didn't matter. Your trial happened only about three months later, so there was no chance for any real investigation to bolster your defense, and none was done.
Well, you know, the sayd Poe with my lawyer, because when I first come in in the courtroom and I wassuring the lawyer, the peoples in the courtroom who was at being a house wore the one were playing cord that could testify. And lawyer told me said, well, his defense wasn't to prove my owns. His defense was allowed the state the opportunity to prove me guilty, you know. And I said, prove me guilty? I said, well, are you gonna prove me giltfu where you canna prove I
ain't do it? He said, he didn't do it an investigation to prove my owns. His investigation was allowed the state the opportunity to prove me guilty.
Wow, that's so, that's why.
The number of the people who were at the court game were called other than the one the state called.
The state also called the victims brothers, who confirmed that the assailant was supposed to have been a stranger and that you were not a stranger. Then you had the logical testing, which really your only hope there is that the actual perpetrator has a different blood type from you
and the victim. But in this case, the rology expert testified some misleading nonsense that he was able to exclude like twelve percent of people and Clarence could not be excluded, which sounds like something, but if you just take a second and rewind this, you'll realize that it simply means that Clarence was one person in eighty eight percent of the male population who could not be excluded, right, so basically almost everybody could not be excluded. It's a ridiculous statement,
but it was effective. I'm not sure how much difference it would have made with the victim having identified him.
The jury had a witness that took the stand and said that is absolutely him, and we had evidence that said, yeah, he could have been. He was in that eighty eight percent of the population. He wasn't excluded there, and that was enough for the jury.
Clarence, how long did the jury deliberate and what was going on through your mind? Now we're up. This is March eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven.
I think it was less than two hours. But I was believing in the system at time. I really believed that the system worked and that it was impossible for them to find me guilty. It wasn't about two hours. They called me back up staff. When I got up there, they said they found me guilty. And then George, something sends you the life plus twenty plus twenty. But I'm standing around. I'm looking for this hero to come and correct this air, you know, because somebody always come and
correctly when they do wrong like this. But then I turned around. When I looked back, I saw my mom crying. And when I see my mother crying, and I realized these folk one took my life away. Well, when I first entered in the prison system up, I got a letter from some uh intern from Century Ministry. They thought
I was a classic case of wrongful conviction. So they told me, said, well, there's a new study being done called DNA, and they suggested that I can tell my turning to a quest to have all the eldescemac case preserved and save future DNA testing. Well Man Turner wrote me back and said that the district Turner said that all the Eldence Macca been removed and destroyed.
Yeah, we've heard that one before, but okay for the time being. What else were you up to? Well?
Prior to that, I had been trying to work on my own case, reading them, trying going back and forth over my transcript, trying to reading and stuff. Once did I seen a guy working on another guy case and asked him what he was doing. They told me he was a chaining lawyer. Said he was pretty good. His name was Robert Burston. The guy was very good with briefs and haby corpy and asked him look at mine. He told me, if I help him, I told him, yeah, so hed him. Transcript be too. I say, man, hold
of man, I can't read that good. Now you want me to read it something? He said? I tell you what, then, if you go back to school up there and learn how to read and stuff, I'm gonna help you get out. You're like that, I said, ain't no problem, do so I ques add My counsel put me back in school. It wasn't that I couldn't read it, just as I never exercised. Because after I got back in school, I ended up getting my ged in nine months got into
a college program. During that time I was in college, I started helping him out and stuff, and he told me about para legal course that I could take through the mail, and I was reading open transfor going through the books and stuff working on the case. After all this, I learned how to shepherd the edication and stuff like the guy worked on the writing brief and stuff. And from that point on I got dog gonna learn how to try to get out. Well, that didn't help all.
I know. My mother passed. When my mother passed the DNA ben to that, I gave up. So I except that I was gonna spend the rest of my life in prison.
You know, Clarence, My understanding is that you found hope in a very unexpected and sort of serendipitous right, which was when another prisoner was talking to his girlfriend and handed you hit the phone. And this was when you were really in the dark place, as you described, right, And on the phone was the girlfriend's mother, whose name was Evonne Zeller's. I would love if you could just share a little bit about that.
Yes, I started putting down poker games in the dumb tour stuff. You know, guys play poking stuff. One of the guys that man, said, how about how I knit my mother in love? Man, she's trying to jone with. I said, hey, man, I said, ain't you know I don't have the most so called free world folks like that? He had me in the phone thing. I get on and I start. I said, what's up, little lady? I said,
what's your problem? She said, what's your problem? And I started teasing with the having phone, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, I'm talking, and she said, man, you crazy? Man. I said, ain't crazy? You crazy? You know, I'll tell you what. She said, what's your EM number? What you want my numbers? I'm gonna write you, and you're gonna write me. Well, she started sending me these Bible scriptures, and she was coming to business stuff. She
was witnessing to me. She wasn't trying to date me anything like that, but she was trying to witness to me with Bible scripture. And one day I was sitting there playing poke and stuff. Now and they had put the new dudes in the room. He was a Christian, always reading the Bible in the room stuff, and I be damned there every day. So one day I asked him what she could send me them? Scripture she wants you to reply back to. I said, how you gonna reply back to this? He said, you got to read
the Bible. I knew it was a trick somewhere, you know, So I had to do. I said, I do you reply to the things? He told me how they do and things. So I started reading a little bioul scripture and writing. All of a sudden she come and visit me and tell me about the new program they got called the George Anderson Project. She said, matter of fact, what you in for by send them a transcript? That's me who they're talking about. They said, I supposed did it.
They don't say you did that, they said, the lady said, or somebody. They don't say who did it. I said, I know they trying to say I did that. She said, Man, you know what, I'm gonna get you a lawyer. I said, now, you superwoman, you already got two jobs, always talking about your bill thing. Now you want to get another job for me? And sure, enough she got a third job washing dishes, and she had that lawyer and I told him I wanted him to find the DNA evidence in
my cake. He went on and we looked for it. He said, well, there was no evidence of the evidence being destroyer, and if there was no record the evidence ex this, well Lloyd kept looking for it. That's when I wrote the George Enson Project. When they found evidence, it was a whole new ball game.
You know, yep, a whole new ball game. It was. So I think it's safe to say that Yvonne was able to rekindle your hope and the story, your faith and focus on freedom and amy. The Georgia Innos project was brand new at that time, right, So tell us about taking Clarence's case and what it took to get him out.
Clarence was the twenty first letter we received. So he wrote us very very very early and getting it started, and every one of his letters was compelling. From the beginning. He wrote very specific, very detailed information, explaining, you know, like this is what they said, this is what was real, this is where I was, this is And then he started sending us bus schedules that he had gotten, diagrams of the scenes. I mean, this man clearly was trying
to figure out how he ended up in prison. So we started looking at the case and it was a really odd case and at many many points we could have just said no, like he had had an appeal, he had had DNA testing done. But it was weird because they said they could not test the evidence because of the way the slide had been stained, and that made no sense to us. And we asked experts and
they're like, uh, that's not a thing. You know, We've been staining slides the same way since we started stating slides. It doesn't prevent testing. So we're like, okay. And then the district's attorney had reported that the evidence had been destroyed, that it was gone. But there were things that bothered us, and we knew that there was the potential just because you say you destroyed it, you got to prove to me you've destroyed it, right, You got to have a
piece of paper show me you've destroyed it. So we just kept on and kept on, and one afternoon I sent an intern, Laura of Aducci. I'll never forget Laura. She went to the DA's office and I said, just go look and see you know what kind of documents they have, you know, just go through their file. And I get a call from her. She says, Amy, there is a brown paper bag in here and it's marked evidence.
She goes, I can't really feel and I'm not trying to do anything, but it feels like that, you know, there may be slides and things in here, and I'm like, this was my very first case, right, So I'm thinking, oh my god, they're going to try to hide this because they've already said it was destroyed. They're going to destroy it. What am I going to do? So I said, just put the lid on, don't say anything, and get
back over here quick. So she did, and we immediately typed up the motion to have it tested, and at that point the DA realized, oh my gosh, we really do have the evidence, and they did not oppose testing. We sent it to a private lab, and after they did their testing, the order said that the lab was supposed to tell both parties, and the head of the lab thought that meant he had to tell us both at the same time. So he called me and he said, I think you need to go to the DA's office.
I've got the test results, and I'm like, well, tell me what they are. He goes, no, I have to tell you both. At the same time, I'm like, oh my gosh, tell me right now, what is it? He goes, Amy, I would hurry to the DA's office. I'm like, okay, I'm on my way. So we called the DA and you know, he had his people in the office with us, and we get on the phone and the doctor said, yeah,
Clarence Harrison is absolutely excluded. And I looked over and the DA's face just dropped, and I think that, never, ever, ever, ever did he think this could happen. And he asked a thousand questions, and of course, you know, there's it's clear the DNA's not Clarence's. So this was up Tuesday, and I said, I'm going to do a press confidence
on Friday'll y'all decide what you want to do. So I get back and I don't know what's going to happen, right, So I called the folks up in New York at the Innocence Project and I said, how long is it going to take me to get him out of prison? And Clarence was one hundred and fifty first DNA exonery and they said it's going to take you anywhere between
six months and two years. And I thought, right, all right, fine, and so we went down until Clarence and I warned him it was going to take a very long time to get him out of prison. And it did not a.
Name your excitement about the resort.
You ruined it for me, Clarence, you ruined it.
Wait, so he ruined it almost if there's something that couldn't be ruined, how doubt did he ruin it?
Well, that's because Clarence ruined my big moment. So we actually convinced the Department of Corrections to let us take a video camera. So we go down and we're meeting in this lovely conference room and I said, Clarence, we got the test results back, and he goes okay, and mind you, the video cameras go in the whole time. He's like okay, and I'm like, are you ready to hear the results? And he's like yeah, And I said, well it absolutely excludes you, and he goes okay, no,
no reaction, nothing. I'm like, Clarence, do you understand it proves that you're innocent? He goes okay and I'm like, uh, and I'm thinking to myself, did I miss that? He might be like, I'm not intellectually, you know, there might be some problems. I'm like, he does he understand me? And I said, Clarence, do you understand He goes Amy, he goes that test was for you. I've always known I was innocent. So I have the world's most boring video of telling Clarence he's innocent.
Yeah.
I was happy. I would happy for you, and I would happen that now somebody knew that I hadn't committed. You know, just that alone was enough for me.
And you were just cool as a cucumber, even though you were getting the best I mean, other than maybe the birth of your kids just had to be the best news you'd ever gotten in your life.
Yeah, and the one didn't go back to my selle. When I got back to the drum and I told you, hey, y'all, I'm finglee y'all. Now, I told y'all, I'm prove it ain't com meet the crime. The whole dorm lit up and just started celebrating stuff. We had a little part in the Dumber Tour. You know, all the guy were happy for me and stuff.
You know.
But uh, I thought I was gonna wait six months to two you and thing. But on that Friday they called me and told me I had to go down to Kodak scared to break something because I didn't know what to spect on the outside world. I didn't have no time. Ain't nobody cheting me upen to get out? You know, three days, I don't even know where I'm gonna leave up to sleep.
That Thursday, without telling me, the District Attorney's office arranged to have Clarence brought back to the Cab County. So on Friday, when we had our press conference, the District Attorney's office stood next to me and said, yes, this is an innocent man. We're going to get him out of prison. Everything happened so very fast. So within seven days Clarence was out of prison.
What an amazing thing. And for such a guy as Clarence, it's really it's just awesome, and it's it's why we do this work. Let's face it, the victories are few and far between, and we know we're in for a disappointment after disappointment and the system is stacked against us. But when we win, man, it's a, it's a it's an incredible, incredible feeling. And then then then this takes a romantic twist, right yep.
When I got out standing on their coat room when they released me from from jail, I'm standing up there with all the report. They asked me what type of meal and stuff I want? Not told him I wanted me a full collar, green comb bread, fried chicken, macaron che tastes it I would name it at all. I wanted it too, and uh, they asked me something. I said, Well, as a first of all, I got to find me a job because I don't even know where I'm gonna
sleep at it. And I hope if I find you a job, it paid me a note so I can marriage a little later right here. So I started picking at her, but I was just teasing wood because we never chalked for no relationship. She was always there witnessing to me. So I said, I said, hopefully I'll make them no money. I can buy the pretty little lady on rain and she hope she are married. Well, sure enough, the republic herried that man. We got all kind of got the wind dress. The rains.
Atlanta came through for you and donated everything.
Seventeen days after I was at least I were married.
You were, and you're still married, aren't.
You're still married and crowded be mayried seventeen years, but I was locked up seventeen years and now I've been married seventeen years. Well a lot back up, wasn't.
Again, Clarence. You didn't just stop what was being declared in this You saw it for the state to make things right.
Well, my intention was I wanted to buy a lawsuit for my wronging imprisonment. I had these lawyers, and I wanted to find out how I got involved in the king because I was told that, you know, I'm about to try to prove my answer, you know, before you can buy it in type of laws, so that it was deliberate and intentionally. I said, yeah, with delivery intention how they gonna came No way had it been in the liber because you know, I wasn't at the scene.
So the lawyer, I said, got to get the victim to admit that it was a mistaken out damn case. I said, well, name senter of the case. Thing, Well, victim identifies somebody. They not gonna go back on their word because they don't live with that, just as long as I don't live with being fout to look cute. So that ain't gonna help, I said, but I want the officers. I really believe this man delivery intention that made me that suspect. And I was chelling Bill Mitchell,
who was my atturney, and I was cheering him. I said, the man heim the one who responds to me being in He said, well, not hardly with a police officer gonna be any help. I said, well, he's a police officer. And one thing about a police offer their erica. They think they can't be church. He said, what you mean, because he erico ning up and he gonna meet and say he did it. He might tell you what the attitude, but he arakor enough to do it here think so, I said, I know so, and sure enough he did it.
Seem there was no unidentified person. Say he's done that because I had a smart amount.
Because you had a smart mouth, right, and he ended up in prison all those years for basically talking back. I mean, it's unbelievable, yep.
But see the theory of that. By me having a smart amount, that the whole because when you came behind me, you already knew who I was, knew where I lived and everything, so you came looking for me that very morning, so he already had none made me a suspect because I had a pride offense for raw female of a bus stop and the victim got raped at a bus stop, and he was the police officer who arrested me back then, so he figured I was locked up for that, that
I had committed this crime, and he was gonna make me be that person.
Right. He had a with you since nineteen seventy eight in a crime where you were an unwilling accessory to a robbery, so he was already barking up your tree before you ever even talked back to him on that fateful morning of October twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six. So your presence in the photo lineup and everything that followed was all this one police officer wanting desperately to send a convicted felon back to prison, and he did for
almost eighteen long years. So you ultimately received compensation in two thousand and nine, although nothing would ever repay what this guy stole from you, and it was only a million dollars for lost wages, much of which is gone by now. So from what I understand, you've been advocating for exoneries to receive social security with Senator Osov right, incredible.
We're trying to get a be of so security because when guys get out and stuff. I see you every guy in that prison, when you go two things and now you help the bed and everything, them guys ain't in no shape to begun up and trying to work and putting no fifteen twenty years in getting overtiredment. They won't be able to, you know, because they body broke down.
But it can't get there pinching and thing because doing old year so security have a zero there of income ain't being put in there and with that should be replaced. The couse. Every inmate that's in the prison system works. It's called detail. If you don't have a detail and go out to your detail, you'll put in the whole. You'll punge for not work. So I'm gonna naby get so security. I can't get my retirement. Y'all stole me youth and now you don't want to come stay put
my oldie. You know it missed up.
It definitely is, you know, And you got me thinking i'd imagine that you could fix the social security issue through legislation. But if they just ended the loophole in the thirteenth Amendment that still allows for the enslavement of men and women who are convicted of a crime, well then they'd have to pay you for your work as well as contribute to Social Security. Right, it'd be two problems solved at once.
You hit red on the mind they would will slay labor, but a slay laborer, right.
You can definitely argue that an ex honery like yourself deserves to be taken care of through retirement for the rest of your life, as your ability to earn and pay into Social Security was. I mean, it was wrongfully stolen away through no fault of your own. But ultimately the question comes down to does the United States still support this sort of secret form of slavery or not. It's disgusting that we're still benefiting off of free labor.
Corporations are, and in some cases taxpayers are, especially considering the origins of it all. So I'm glad you have Senator asof support. So we'll be on the lookout for
developments there. In the meantime that Georgia in this project has the support fund set up for exuneries, So if our listeners would like to help men and women like Clarence, we're going to have that linked in the bio, and so please do go to the bio now, don't wait because you know we all get distracted and send some support for some exouneries, even if it's five bucks or five million bucks, whatever you got. Just I mean, it's
hard to think of a better cause. And now we turn into closing arguments, where first of all, I thank both of you for being here and sharing this remarkable story. And then of course I'm going to just shut my microphone off, keep my headphones on, and listen carefully to anything else you feel is left to be said. So Amy, let's start with you and Clarence. Please take us off into the sunset.
I think that Clarence Harrison taught me to never give up. Even though he went through dark times, he never gave up and he always, always, always tries to give back. He's always great to the new axonneries. He loves to talk to kids to try to tell them, don't go down a path that's going to lead you to being where I was. And he's always an inspiration, but I think the overriding thing with Clarences never ever give up.
That do enjoy speaking to kids things and try to encourage them, you know they're on the right help and stay away from that prison that revolve and though it is what I called it, you know, for young peoples. You know, my main thing is now focus on is uh trying to get some bills passed for other analaries for those who was incarcerated wrong with in prison that they don't want to have to go through the struggle that I had to go through while I'm out, you know,
I want them to have some type of conversation. I definitely want to try to make sure that this so security issue is resolved. We need help and we don't have it. That's my thing and that's what I'm working on now. I want to stay with it. But I've been fighting for justice ever since I've been out. Because it wasn't for them in terms being there to help try to get me out, I wouldn't be out. So I would to try to be there when them guys get out and them in turn get them out. I
want to be there. Wouldn't try to help them, you know, transition back into society because it was an Axlary that help meat transition. Cavin Johnson and my wife name because I put a lot leaning on him. You know, it went for aiming my wife. I probably would have struggled harder than I was scruggling. I'm still with the Ansom Project Seem team on eighteen years now. I still fighting Nicole.
You know. The MS Friday got more peoples out, you know, and we thank you Aim for all the support you gave us and making what it is today.
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 Flaum. Ravel Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one