#294 Guest Host Patrick Pursley with Jarvis Ballard

I'm Jason Flamm, host of Bronfel Conviction, and so far we've brought you hundreds of stories of people stolen from their lives and families for crimes they did not commit. The sheer number of cases we've covered speaks to the scale of the problem, but we've yet to even scratch the surface. To amplify this message even louder, I've invited new voices to host the show to create interviews of the system affected by the system affected. This is one of those interviews.

On January tenth, nineteen ninety eight, a sixty year old woman in the small town of Violet, Louisiana, her to knock at the door. It was two o'clock in the morning that night. She had been babysitting her three and a half year old grandson, and she opened the door thinking was her son.

To pick up the child.

Instead, two men forced their way into her home and demanded to be taken to her safe. When she insisted she didn't have one, they raped her and stole her stereo equipment and of television. The next door neighbor saw the two men walking out of the house with the stolen goods. Then they saw them get into a car with a woman at the wheel. One of those neighbors was twenty four year old Lewis Caesar, and he recognized one of the men as Ulysses Pierre, who also went

That same day.

During their interrogation, he denied taking any part in the crime, but after the police threatened and beat him, Jarvis eventually signed a false confession statement. Three men were arrested, even though the victim and the witnesses said only who had been involved. On July twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, Ulysses Pierre, Sidney Williams, and Jarvis Ballard were sentenced to life in prison.

This is wrongful conviction.

My name is Patrick Persley, also known as Free Patrick Persley. I was previously a guest on this show to tell the story of my own wrongful conviction. Today, though I'm stepping into the host role. This April, I had the honor to sit down with Jarvis Ballard and its lawyer g Park at the Incense Network conference in Phoenix, Arizona. When we spoke, Jarvis had only been out of prison for eight months. It was emotional conversation for the both of us. I want to say how grateful I am

It's very to me.

It resonated with the historical harms of Deep South attitude towards black life. It's very good for you to be here. I'm very thankful to meet you. I'm sorry for what you went through. Everyone welcomed Jarvis Ballard and his attorney G Park.

Welcome to the show.

Good to be here.

It's nice to meet you. Man.

So tell us a little bit about your past, what it's like growing up in Louisiana, what you went through, and what you experienced.

Well, I grew up with a single mother of two. My father got killed me nineteen eighty two. He was murdered, shot nineteen times, ten and the eight.

So the word how were you wouldn't go curb.

I was actually about three, but I I always knew that my daddy hung up the wrong crowd, and I learned that a lot old day as I grew up, because he was a known drug dealer and he was known for in New Orleans for having the name of killing people. And I always didn't never want to be like that cause I always played sports. But I found myself having his aggression towards other people, Like you know, it don't take much to meet me mad If I think you're a bully, you're not gonna bully nobody around me.

About how I'm thirteen years old.

That's common, and you know I'm in high school and playing bee's but actually I'll playing bees ball in football, and my sports is kind of would help me get along with have her just a little bit more than the next person, you know, and I would get away with a lot. I might get expelled from school. They'll send a teacher at the house. Just a good sports just coming practice.

And ride for you.

But I didn't care about school because like my night going in my tenth grade year was over. There was just having running in that landed me in Juvet Hall for two years. But I just had it. I just had a net for getting it. I just like this peep bad boys. You know, you know what it is you think you're bad. I want to I want I want to be the one to be throwing whatever you think you got going on.

His previous interactions with the criminal justice system put him on the police radar, and that's how Jarvis got swept up into what's about to happen next.

So in January tenth, nineteen ninety eight. A woman. She was a sixty year old white woman. In the middle of the night, there's a knock on her door. She goes to the door. There are two men who burst into her home. They rape her viciously, and then they steal things from her. And in her home was her grandson whom she was taking care of that night. And so right after this horrific incident happens to her, she

On the night of the crime, Jarvis was out at the club in New Orleans.

Well, of course, I was out partying with my friends, you know, were having a few drinks, getting high. I come home, I'm so entyxicated I my friend had to put me in my coat, which is Lowis Caesar. Later on I would learn how he the crime would be happening right next door to his house.

Louis Caesar gave Jarvis a ride home from the party. Jarvis slept at his grandmother's house, where he often spent the night.

L I get on the next morning, I see all these I'm thinking it's around up in the around up is when they come pick you up up when you say telling they covered nocadi right, So I'm like, man, So I go back inside, make a phone. I say, Man, they rounding people up for drugs something Me said No, he said, look Little Nowon which is my cousin. They just arrestident for a rape.

Later that morning, Jarvis went down the street to hang out with a friend. He noticed on the way that the police were out in front of his cousin, Tracy's house, so he asked a friend what was going on.

So he like, man, something happened last night with Little nowon Himsel, which is Juless. I already know what he talking about, cause I heard it. He said. They say he they put the stuff in her two shit. So this draws me to go walk down there because I want to know what's going on with Hall. This is my family. But as I'm walking, they didn't already took the stuff out the shade. They asking her about me, do you know where jaws better at? And she's pointing,

Now?

This next part I have to warn the listener it's very difficult to talk about and very difficult to hear. But during the interrogation, Jarvis was subject to a high level of brutality. He was sprayed with pepper spray and kicked repeatedly in the groin. The injuries he got from the police required him to have emergency surgery.

And you know, they kicked me in me pretty much. It was very clear. I knew we did that. He did it two or three times I have, and I just like, like gesaid, I don't understand why our family put people in those positions.

But you know, I think the police had no right to treat you like that, all right. I mean they didn't have to spread. I mean they don't have They didn't have to. You know, people do not They didn't have to physical.

While they were interrogating Jarvis, the police were also interrogating his cousin Ulysses and sister Kuandrika. Jarvis could actually hear his sister from the other room in the police stay because.

I hit my sister and they crying and she's like, it wasn't you know?

It was me Lenoon And.

Now you were feeling protective or vulnerable with her there as well.

I didn't want to see he'll get in no trouble because I was like, man, well she ain't got herself into it.

Finally, after all that fiscal abuse and then stink to protect the sister, Jarvis's will was completely overborne, and he relented and he signed a false confession.

Then that man told my mom that she can have her daughter. I got your son. So now I had to play save my sister and y'all beating me. I'm this wrong man, but y'all had to make a decision, and once I signed a statement, then their case was kind of sealed for them. And the only thing I could hope is that God one day would have me in this position.

RIGHTO.

So basically a trial, what was presented? What did the jury here? What's you know? How was that broke down to the jury because obviously they weren't apprized of all the facts, right.

So the state presented, I mean the state relied on three pieces of evidence. One was the positive identification of Jarvis by the complainant, by the victim and the case.

Which is all it takes, right.

I mean it for a sixty year old white woman to say in the courtroom pointing to Jarvis and saying that is the man who raped me, that's pretty powerful evidence. The second piece of evidence was co defended Ulysses Pear's statement right, implicating Jarvis, and then Jarvis's own confession that they took from him. So those were the three pieces of evidence.

That's a steep, steep, steep mountain to overcome.

It is because the physical evidence only link to Ulysses Pierre and Sidney Williams, the two guys who actually committed the cross which makes sense. And there was nothing, no physical evidence, no DNA, nothing that connected Jarvis to the scene. Yeah, And so after the police was called, after the victim gave her statement, she was taken to the hospital, right,

Right.

You need effective attorneys to investigate your cases. His attorneys didn't have an investigator, right. His attorney didn't know the discovery practices in the jurisdiction that he was practicing.

It you get the file.

Yeah, so attorneys, you would think that would be the you want a complete file, right.

Right, right, right, No, it's your obligation, it's your duty, it's your job.

And then on the flip side, you have the prosecutor.

Who also has a duty to turn over turn everything.

I feel like once they seen who it was, it was old, it didn't even matter no more about how I get this conviction. I just wanted you know, you ever elderly white woman fifty was nine at the time, sixty years old, she's rape. You knew. I understood that well what I was up against because I understood growing up down and how it was, so I knew that it was dominanted about white people.

I learned this.

I further of all, I have to learn that whatever happened, I got to know that it was wrong. What happened to the woman. I looked at the root of the problem was she got rape. Ain't nothing right about that. Now I understand that the police had to make call, make me a victim. That's when the racism come in. Look, we got this black head that he's saying that he did this to you and did this here, and we want to show you a picture. You remember seeing it

This is one day almost like suggested to her that there was three hours they did.

They did out the gate. Actually they brought this woman in front of me doing a trial session in Exa. He told me, see if this woman said you went in the house, I'm gonna let you go right now. He said, this guy right here saying that you wasn't in his house. The woman started crying. She said yes, she was you rading me? I'm like, ma'am, I don't even know you.

On July twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, after less than four hours of deliberation, the jury convicts Jarvis Ballard and Ulysses Pierre of aggravated rape. The next day, Sidney Williams was convicted of the same All three were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jarvis's case is particularly heartbreaking because it happened within a family, right. It's about family as I turned kind of against one another and that got one of their brother cousin right in prison for twenty three years. And so I think this case is incredibly heartbreaking.

It's more than a betrayal. You know, I forgive him, but I would never be able to help vie with him, right because you didn't have no reason to do that to that woman or to me to You made two victims that laid in me. Then you took something from me that you didn't have to do. So I don't I don't talk years twenty three years, six months, twenty three seven days.

And you knew him all your life.

This is my We took baths together.

You knew him all your life.

He was my He was my big cousin, but I was you know, he's like my brother because I always was much bigger than all him. But you you know, you hurt me. And I don't hate, but I just rather than not deal with him.

During his twenty three years inside, Jarvis made a few good friends. One was Jerome Morgan, now fellow axignery.

You know, and you meet people along the way, not knowing that y'all said the same, similar story, just different It mean, it's just different cases but the same situation. And I met Jerome and we become good friends, and he actually, like a man talk to me. I looked to him, you know, I watched them countless nights up two three days working on his case in a don't I'm talking. We set up in the same play sports together, and you know, he was preparing himself for this date,

Right?

Innocent Project? So you know it's people like him, and not knowing that, you know, years later, the same person that helped him get out of present would help actually take my.

Case, Jarvis wrote to the Innocence Project in New Orleans, Ipno for sure, and they eventually took his case and helped him fight for his designeration.

In terms of investigating this case, we began to collect all the documents right related to this case, file for police records, to court files, anything and everything we get our hands on. And it's challenging to get access to old records.

Right.

Sometimes they're lost, sometimes they're misplaced. Sometimes they give you copies that's heavily redacted. Sometimes they give you copies with missing pages.

Right.

And so I have to say it took us more time than we should have for us to gather, not.

Just for the audience, the time that takes investigate.

Oh my goodness. I mean there's been some sort of investigation happening since two thousand and eight, two twenty seventeen, right, I mean we're talking nine years, right, And so what we learned, So during trial, we already talked about the witness Lewis Caesar, Right, the neighbor who initially stated that he saw two men leaving the house and there's a woman in the car. Right, That was his initial statement to the police. What he testified to a trial was

And cross examined for.

Not The lawyer doesn't really know either, right.

The lawyer doesn't he doesn't get the file.

He doesn't get the file, and or he doesn't conduct the investigation. He never went and interviewed Lewis Caesar before trial. He is an eyewitness in this case, and the attorney representing Jarvis never thought it was important enough to go talk to an eyewitness in the case. So the lawyer doesn't know about this, right.

The DNA always probably be like the center of it, because we know all we need to do is get all the other pieces of evidence. Well, I could see, all right, we know Javis was innocent. And actually I didn't know this. Topno found that out recently, that they didn't test my rape kit. But he tested partial.

Parts of it, so it's certain parts that he didn't test.

But basically when he ran the test bank, everything still came back. He's I don't reading me.

Ultimately, it was a combination of things that got Jarvis out of prison. Ipno obtained affidavits from witnesses to the crime and to Jarvis's alibi, and retesting the rape could showed that none of jarvis DNA was present. After round of appeals, the district attorney released Jarvis Ballad from prison and affirmed his innocence. But before they told Jarvis he was getting out, one of his lawyers, Charill Arnold, had a bit of fun with him.

Shara was supposed to send me a business book. She never signed it, so I said, why you didn't send my book? She said, I'm gonna have to find another way to make it up to you, because she liked the Joe too. I said, yeah, well you you know you say you're gonna say it. She said, well, how can I make it up to you? I said, you can get me out there. She said, no, we're going to do that tomorrow. Brush. See what she said. They

Jarvis home since August eight months.

That's work. That's where I work at. I work in the Federal Fifth Circuit Court House, remodeling.

Irony, listen, God works, gone is good?

Put me in his fleece. I'm be they remodeling it. So I'm working with the construction people and I'm getting on the elevator with guess what judges that then probably seen my keys. But when I told one of those guys my story and he gouled it, he liked, man, congratulations, you know, And I let him know that I respect everything he stand for. I really do you know. I respect everything that Genie's stand for.

By chance, Jarvis ran into District Attorney Perry Nicosia, the man who dismissed the case allowed him to walk free after twenty three years behind bars, and they had the opportunity to talk.

You know, I met Perry and he was like, man, I'm very very very sorry. I'm like, Perry, Man, you did the right thing, and I appreciate that. That's the day you did the right thing. I say, Man, I really appreciate that.

Jerome Morgan, the one who encouraged Jarvis to reach out to IPNO in the first place. He was also there to help him cope with this transition to free world living.

But when you come in prison, man, it's a different typen atmosphere. And when you meet good people like this guy, you know, you want to hold on to them, you know, because it's very specially coming out of that place. Because the same way he smiled, and I'm been smiling the whole time. I got emotional and serious, but the whole time I always had a legitterate, happy attitude. We don't let what happened to us, you know, distraw so have us to the point where we got a lot of

Jerome was a previous guest on this podcast, and now back to talk about how he and Jarvis are teaming up to help other dexigneries coming home in New Orleans.

Thank you for having me.

I never thought that I would be back along these lines, but I appreciate how this has come about because we went through some of the similar things by being wrongfully convicted and being in prison where it don't matter if you're guilty or not, you still get the same treatment. You can't acclimate yourself to society how they operating, you know now and as they were when you was in prison. You know, so you have to, I guess self, create a way to live in that space because there's no

So we'll have the link in the bio for IPNO as well as your GoFundMe And I really really want thank you for trust me to tell your story. I really do, like I've never met you before, so this is amazing for me. It's a process for me. And just know that you can call me personally anytime. Okay, because my brother and my exignery brothers in that exoneration.

You know. IPNO has freed or exonerated forty individuals who've served over nine hundred and seventy five years in prison for crimes they did not commit. And that is just a drop in the bucket. You know, there's over five thousand and men and women in Louisiana prison is doing

And she said, I just appreciate everything, you know, even the people that don't need you know, is appreciated, you know, because like I said earlier, got a lot of people that's not going to be in this shoe. A lot of innocent people are gonna not make it because you know, if knowingly have the resources to do so many cases and hopefully before this is, you know, before I close

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 Cliveborne. Our editor is Roxander Gwedy and special thanks to Jillian Forstad for help on this episode. The music and this production

On next week's guest hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, Chris Fabricat will be talking to Gilbert Pool about the nonsensical bitemark evidence that landed Gilbert in prison for thirty two years for a crime he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Now.

Chris is a personal hero of mine and we have a deep connection because Chris is the man who kicked off and occupies the Joe Flamm Chair at the Innocence Project named after my dad, and his position as Strategic Litigation Director is so critical to our work and our mission at the Innocence Project, And of course what it means is that Chris not only helps to exonerate innocent people by shining a light on many of the junk sciences that are routinely accepted as real science in courtrooms