#304 Guest Host Gilbert King with Robert DuBoise

seemingly at random. One of the perpetrators was the infamous Ted Bundy. He was convicted for one of these murders, and among the mountain of evidence that was presented against him was a bite mark. A dentist named Dr Suvaran was called to testify against Bundy, making famous the use of bite mark evidence known as forensic odeontology. Four years after Bundy was sent to death row a young woman's body he was found with obvious signs of sexual assault

near Tampa. There was also an injury on her cheek that the medical examiner determined to be a bite mark. Given that it followed the highly televised Bundy trial, police honed in on that bite mark to the exclusion of all other evidence. They began taking bite impressions or denticians from dozens of men in the neighborhood and brought them to Dr suvan. One of those men was eighteen year

old Robert Dubois. Dr Suvaran alleged that Robert's dentician matched the bite mark on the victim, and Robert was arrested. No other physical evidence tied him to the case, but with the use of a jailhouse informant, Robert was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die by electrocution for a crime he did not commit. This is wrongful conviction.

Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. I'm Gilbert King. I'm on the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Devil in the Grove, about Third Good Marshal's representation of the young men known as the Groveland for who were just exonerated by the State of Florida last year. I'm also the writer and host of a new nine part narrative podcast called Bone Valley by Lava for Good Podcasts, and I'm honored to be

guest hosting this episode of Wrongful Conviction. Today, we have two very special guests and I'm gonna ask them both to introduce themselves before we get into the interview. So let's start out with the Robert Dubois. Well, my name is Robert Dubois. So I was just exonerated in and right now I'm sitting in my partment in Tampa, Florida. Talk to you guys. And we also have Susan Freedman. Susan, you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, thanks Philbert for having me.

My name is Susan Friedman. I'm a senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project based in New York City, and I represented Robert through his wrongful conviction. Oh, this is amazing. We have so much to talk about that because this is really going to be really fascinating. I studied the case very familiar with Tampa. Robert, the event that would change your life occurred back in Tampa. Um, you were just eighteen years old. Can you talk about who you

were and what your life was before that arrest. Well, at that time I was working in town and country at an autowapholstery shop for Noel's Outowaupholstery. So I used to ride my bike. It's like I guess about five miles, So I wrote it to town and country every day for the job. So suddenly my whole world was upside down, you know, because I'm doing my everyday thing, going back and forth to work, and then next thing, you know, I'm gonna sell wondering why now, I mean, this is

just came out of the blue for you. I mean, do you don't have any prior runnings with the law or do you have you any understanding of what was happening. I did have a prior running with the law when I was at a teenager, so it was about an empty house or car parts, just some dumb stuff. And I had moved past that and had two years probation community work hours for the Police Athletic League, which I completed. And next thing, you know, I mean jail being accused

of murder. And let's go back to that in a minute. But Susan, I just want to ask you your your experience. You're coming in, what is what is you like really understand about Tampa, Florida and this time the early eighties. You know a lot of people think of like Miami Vice, this is that era, but this is not like South Florida. This is Central Florida, Tampa. It's a little sleepier, right, Yeah.

I mean, the one thing to know is that around the time when this crime occurred that Robert was wrongly convicted of, there actually were a string of women who were sexually assaulted and murdered. Um. There wasn't a clear m O, but there were a number of women that turned up dead um, one of them obviously being the victim and Robert's case. The other thing that turns out to be really important is that Florida is the home

of the Ted Bundy case. And in the nineteen seventies, Ted Bundy eventually comes to confess to around thirty cases. And one of the really important pieces of evidence is bite mark testimony. And that's what actually puts Dr Richard Subaran on the map. And Dr Suberan testified in uh in the Ted Bundy trials, and he also lived in Florida. So this was just a very high profile time for

bite mark evidence generally in the criminal legal system. And can you just talk briefly about how that science has come to be viewed today as opposed to back in the eighties. Yeah, So, you know, we today know that

bitemark evidence has been wholly discredited. Not only has the National Academy of Sciences, who did a review of this type of evidence back in two thousand nine, even the a b FO, the group that regulates forensic odeontologists, have made significant revisions to the conclusions that they can make. In ten and so in seen after a number of research studies that they concluded that they no longer can do what's known as source attribution, mean that's say, in

a certain individual was the biter in a case? UM and so that came after years of research in this to finally debunk this type of evidence that for so long has been held up as an important piece of evidence, but that we know today has led to many, many wrongful convictions. We know of at least thirty four wrongful convictions in the United States, Robert being one of them. Susan, can we just talk about the case that UM brought Robert into trouble? Can you just talk about the facts

of the crime? Yeah. On August nine, in the early morning hours, a dentist was showing up at work. He was opening up his shop and in the back he found the victim in this case, she had been uh, she was severely beaten and she was there was certainly evidence that she had been either actually sexually assaulted or there was an attempted sexual assault. She was completely nude except for a tube top that was pushed up above her chest that exposed her breasts. So police immediately started

investigating and they canvass the neighborhood. Unfortunately, there were no eyewitnesses, and so what we know about the victim is that she worked at a local restaurant, a local fast food chain, and she had left somewhere around nine to nine fifteen in the evening after closing up. We know that someone saw her about nine PM a couple of blocks away from her home. But then she's found eight blocks south

of that, and so police started canvassing. They couldn't find anyone who had any information, and so very quickly this case focused in on the physical evidence, and that evidence came from the medical examiner's office. During the autopsy, the medical examiner concluded three things. First, that the victim was killed as a result of blunt force trauma um as

I said. She had been severely beaten. And at the crime scene they found a total of four to buy four wooden boards by her and they all had UH and a few of them had blood and hair on them, which suggested that they were the murder weapon. The emmy

also concluded that she likely was sexually assaulted. And then the third when he washed her face, he saw that there was a pattern injury on her left cheek, which he concluded even though he is not an ode ontologist or a bite mark expert, he actually concluded must have been a bite mark. How did police begin to narrow this down to certain suspects? So, because law enforcement didn't have any eyewitnesses, they really focused in on the bite mark.

And in this case, the medical examiner identified what he believed to be a bite mark on the victim's left cheek. He exercised it and put it in formal to hide, which caused it to shrink. But then the photographs of the bite mark were shared with Dr Suberan and Dr Subaron concluded that this was a human bite mark and

that he would be able to make a comparison. So Dr suber On then advised law enforcement to start collecting denticians from individuals who they believed were suspects, and to do that using these wax um And if folks are thinking about why bees wax that doesn't really make sense. You're right, because bees wax is not a good method for capturing someone's dentition, but that's what they were using.

And so Detective Saladino started going around and collecting dozens and dozens of denticians from basically any individual that they came into contact with, and they turned their attention to Robert because they interviewed a woman who had worked at the at a store about a block away from where the victim was discovered. And what's interesting about this individual is that she worked at the store back in February,

which is six months before this crime. But she alleged that she knew a couple of boys who, as she said quote, caused trouble. That's what led police to focus in on Robert and to ask him for his beeswax sdentician. So, Robert, can you just talk a little bit about your first contact with police and what you were thinking when you when you got approached. What was that like that moment? Well, I wasn't very fond of cops in general. I was a teenager, but um, when I was approached, He's like,

would you mind doing a beeswax impression? And I'm like, for what he says, Well, I we're just doing you know, everybody in the neighborhood or whatever, even though I'm not even from that neighborhood. So I went with him downtown. Were the only two in the police detective division, and he asked me to bite into a soft piece of bees wax, so I did, and he drove me back home, and he made a crazy statement on the way home. He says, there was two girls walking down the street,

so I thought it pretty weird. He says, um, which do you prefer, blonde or brunette? I said, what does it matter? You know? So he didn't say anymore, and he dropped me off their home. So then I didn't hear anymore until October twenty one three, when they came to my door at two thirty in the morning and asked me to go downtown and said that my mom

needed to see me. So, taking the consideration, my father's in a wheelchair, he's completely paralyzed, so I'm thinking, if my mom needs to see me, something's really going on here. So I go downtown. Of course my mom isn't there, and then they tell me Detective Saladino will come shortly and explain what's going on? So in the interim, I'm sitting there and a detective looks at me. He's talking about fishing, the weather, all this normal stuff, and then he says, why did you do it? I said, what

did I do? What? He said, why did you kill her? I said kill who? I said, what? Are you crazy? So I'm thinking there's some kind of sick joke. So aside from this, there's no other physical evidence that is causing police to focus in on Robert. It's just they're doing this thing with the teeth, right, Yeah, that's right. Police approach Robert and he's completely cooperative because he has nothing to hide. He knows he didn't commit this crime.

In fact, the other forensic evidence excludes Robert. And would you consider that in an example of tunnel vision, you have all this other evidence that's possibly exculpatory, is exculpatory, and yet here they are focusing on this something that we now consider junk signs. What what what happened there? That's exactly right. This is classic tunnel vision and cognitive

bias setting in. This was the case with no eye witnesses, and when police got their tip and they believe that Robert was the sort to the pipe mark, all the other evidence that was exculpatory, they found reasons to ignore, and they focused in on Robert, and we're able to explain away any fact that didn't line up with their theory of the case. And Robert, this must have been, you know, the worst day of your life to get accused of something like this and arrested. Can you just

walk through the arrest and what that was like for you? Yeah, I mean I was very angry and baffled. I mean I was very angry, angry with the police when they tried to handcuff me because I knew I had done nothing wrong, you know. And then because I'm angry when they took me to the jail, they had the nurse shoot me up with how doll, so that put me out, and when I woke up, I was strapped down to

a steel bunk with leather straps. So then the following morning, um, they take me for all these dental impressions and I'm still doped up off the how doll or whatever it was, and I was just baffled. I was just trying to get it over with because I knew I had done nothing wrong, So I was living kind of like in a bad dream I couldn't wake up for. This episode is sponsored by the A I G pro Bono Program.

A I G is a leading global insurance company, and the A I G pro Bono Program provides free legal services, as well as other support to many nonprofit organizations as well as individuals who are most in need, and they recently announced that working to reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission. And any of the time, did you ever have occurred to you like I need a lawyer at this point, No, because I knew I had done nothing wrong, So it

never even really crossed my mind. I didn't know enough about the legal system to even know I had that right. And I think one of the things that's really important about Robert just said is that a lot of times people's innocence puts them at risk, especially in interrogations and in these kinds of situations where they're interacting with law enforcement. They know that they're innocence and they believe that the

that the evidence will prove that. And so Robert went ahead and completely cooperate with law enforcement, knowing that he didn't commit this crime. He didn't bite the victim. He was never there and so he had no reason to hide on anything, and so he didn't think he needed a lawyer. Yeah, I'm always amazed by the exonaries that you talked to. They have so much faith in the justices and like, they will just clear this up together.

We'll talk this over because I didn't do it, and they they are at the most risk of anybody because they're just talking the police right off the bat. So, Susan, can you just give us a brief summary of what what Robert's trial was like? Sure? So you know, the focus of this case was the bite mark evidence, but police and prosecutors wanted to have more evidence to support

this conviction. Police alleged that someone named Claude Butler, who was no stranger to the Tampa Police Department, they were very well acquainted with him, alleged that Robert actually confessed to him while they were both incarcerated at the local

jail while Robert was awaiting trial. Claude Butler, at the time had had been arrested previously for various offenses, but at that time he also was facing charges for kidnapping, robbery with a firearm, grand theft, auto dealing in stolen property, battery on a law enforcement agent. So he was looking at multiple life sentences and so Claude was the second piece of evidence that police used. Then the third piece

of evidence was this witness named Jack. And Jack was really perplexing because there were no police reports that memorialized any interviews with Jack. He was not on the witness list. He didn't testify in the grand jury. He pops up two weeks before Robert goes to trial, and Jack alleges that he was staying at the Peter Pan Motel, which is where Robert was arrested, and that one day, he doesn't remember exactly what day it was, but there was a party going on. He walked in, he saw Robert

sitting on the bed. He looked very glum, and when he asked Robert what was going on? Again, Robert does not know this person. Robert just says, I wanted for murder. And so from there they want the jury to infer that Robert is confessing to committing this crimeer in some way corroborating the allegation that he did commit this crime.

And that's the entire case. Robert, what are you thinking when you're watching, you know, people like Jack and Claude Butler get up there on the stand and talk about you what's going through your mind when you're watching this testimony. I was sitting there and disbelief, you know, I'm just sitting there, like, how can they even believe this stuff? You know? So I just watched it like I was watching um, kind of like I was outside watching in

you know. So I said there every day they took me to the courthouse at five am, and I didn't get back to the jail to like midnight because they keep you on hold and sale for transport and all that. So I was just sitting there. I was tired, I was baffled. I just had no clue while we're sitting here, you know. And Susan, what kind of defense did Robert

have to start in this trial? One thing that's important here is that this was a capital trial, so Robert was facing the death penalty, and he had an attorney whose defense in this case was the one he put on another dentist, Dr. Norman Sperber, who said that, oh no, this is a bite mark, but it's not Robert's bite. There are too many inconsistencies here. And so it can't

be Robert's fight. And so now basically you had these two bite mark experts going at it and what we call in the legal field the battle of the experts, and it just came down to the jury obviously siding with the prosecution. And the second thing was that Robert's mother testified that Robert was home on the night of the crime. And then the third part of the case really was ving or trying to prove or trying to convince the jury that Claude Butler should not be trusted

and that he was an incentivized witness. Right he's facing multiple life sentences instead only got five years UM and to prove that that is why he cooperated with law enforcement. You know, just listening, it seems like a really hard thing for the defendant to overcome when this science is just deemed, as you know, infallible. And then you have a jailhouse snitch who's we don't even know anything about jail house snitches back then, we didn't know how often

they were being used. So these two things just must seem impossible to overcome at trial, that's right, you know. So you have this dentist who gets on he is a famous dentist. He's known for the Ted Bundy cases. He's got all of his fancy degrees, He's got lots of credentials that he's telling the jury about, and he testifies that to a reasonable degree of dental certainty, Robert is the source of the bite. How does anyone dispute that.

Who on the jury would then decide that, in fact, actually this dentist is wrong and I know better and this isn't a bite. This is something that we've seen time and time again with a lot of cases that involved the misapplication of forensics science. You have these techniques that were born out of a need for law enforcement to use them, that never are validated, that don't go through the rigorous research that we do in other areas

of science and medicine. Yet then they're used in courtrooms to convict people and to sentence them to death the way this happened in Robert's case, Right, And I imagine just coming off knowing what a storm that Wold Ted Bundy case was. I mean, he was a superstar, a superstar dentist. He's the one that basically his credentials, like I'm the one who solved it. And and enabled us to catch Ted Bundy. So you know, you go onto the next case and you have this guy testifying. That's

a lot to overcome. Robert. Can you talk about what it was like. You know, you mentioned just sort of being in a daze and being disbelieving that this was actually happening to you, which is a pretty common theme. But you know, you obviously had to wait for that

verdict to come back. Can you just walk us to that moment in your life, what you can remember of that moment when the jury has a verdict During the trial, I kind of uh detached myself, so to speak, So I wasn't worried about the verdict because I knew I had done nothing wrong. So I still had a little faith left in the system. So when they came back with the verdict, yeah, I was just amazed. But the

sentencing thing was the same way. You know, It's like the jury recommended life in prison, the judge overrode it and said, you know, sentenced me to die by electrocution. I'm just up, said and baffled about the whole thing. And now I know I'm really in a in a mess. I'm in a trap, you know, And I don't see a way out. I mean, I can't even imagine what that's like. The jury comes back, says you're guilty and and says you you're sentencing you to life, and it

gets worse. The jury the judge over overrides the jury recommendation. Do you remember going back into your cell after that and thinking I just got sentenced to death for a crime I didn't commit. Yes, So once they sentenced me to death, it's like from that moment on, I had like dirty officers around me, you know, escorting me all the way back to the jail into my sale. If I had if they let me out to use the phone, I had thirty officers surrounding me. So I think it

was only like until the next morning. They got a transport to take me the death row at two thirty in the morning. And what was that like, You're arrivaling, you know, at at this age, arriving at you know, Florida's most notorious death row. What what was that like? I mean, could you have just imagine yourself in this situation and how do you hang on to any optimism at this point? Well, I know, the ride to death row, still in a daze, and I'm wondering, how could this

be happening? You know, how did this just happen to me? Why am I going to death Row? You know? And then I arrive at death Row or Florida State Prison, and I see this big green building and it's like a filling of gloom when you see this building. And then I go up into the building. They escort me down this long hallway into a cell on death Row and they slammed the door, and that's my new home. And I'm like, man, are these guys like sitting here

waiting to die? So it was very disturbing. And you know, some of the guys already had warrant signed, so they were really afraid because they knew if their name may come up, once it comes up again, they might get killed. You know. So these things, you know, went through all of our heads. You know, is it gonna be my turn? When you hear that plane fly over the prison? You don't know? And is it true that old Sparky the Florida's Electric Chair it's right there on death Row, isn't it.

I mean? And in the eighties it was pretty active, right, Oh yeah, it was on que Wing So yeah, well, just while I was there alone. They killed Margaret Francois, Jeff Daughtry, Willie Darden, Ted Bundy, another guy only knew m as Frog, another guy named Tiny. So they killed all total while I was there like twelve. What is that like being on death row when that happens. What's

the general mood among among people on death row? It's very quiet and gloomy, you know, It's like, let me tell you, they the torture, the mental torture they use on death row, even though they may not even realize they were doing it. I thought they did though. Is a plane Whenever the governor signs a death roard, the plane flies over Florida State Prison, lands on their runway, and walks the after war into the colonel of the prison. The colonel sends his officers to death row to get

whoever it belongs to. Then they escorted them up to the colonel's office, they go to death watch, and nine times out of tail you don't see him no more. That must be just the most terrifying sound when you're in death row to hear a plane landing. Well, yeah, that And then every Wednesday at one o'clock in the afternoon, they would test the electric chair, so all the lights

on death Row with Dim Robert. Three years after your conviction, your attorney managed to get your death sentence changed to life in prison with a mandatory quarter, meaning you'd get to go see the parole board after five years served. You must have felt a bit of relief when that happened. No, not at all. So now I'm not on death row. I no longer have the right for legal representation anymore.

Now I am literally on my own. You're entitled to legal representation as long as you have a death sentence. I was not happy when my death sentence got overturned to life because I had asked the attorney over and over again to please fight the conviction, and he kept fighting the sentencing. How do I hope to prove my innocence is all if all you're doing is fighting to get a death sentence turned to life. Now I went from death row to the worst population in the state

of Florida. So FSP is the dumping ground for what they considered the worst of the worst. Okay, this is inmates. There's been at other institutions stabbed at the inmates raped? Are the inmates stabbed officers and done just numerous awful things, and they got sent here as a punishment. So it's like the wild wild West. They won't accept me to no other prison because I came from death row. That's how I ended up at FSP. FSP, by the way, is Florida State Prison. And while you were there, you

were writing a lot of letters. How did you get to be such a prolific letter writer? I had never written a letter till I went to jail, not that I remember, you know, And now that's all I'm doing. Susan, can you just give us a brief synopsis of this post conviction history that Robert had, Like what what he what he was trying to do, what, what kind of appeals he was trying to find, what areas he was

looking to explore. Probert was his own best advocate. He wrote to everybody, UM and that included lawyers, the media, really anyone who would listen, UM. And you know, after his death sentence was vacated, he continued to have hope that the truth would come to light and that he would be proven innocent. And one of the really important things that Robert did was in two thousand and six he filed a motion for access to DNA testing because he believed if we use this modern DNA testing that's

now available, it would prove that he was innocent. And what is truly remarkable here is that he was convicted in five and what we learned is that in October of nineteen ninety, just five years after he's convicted, the State of Florida destroys all of the evidence that was

admitted at his trial, including the victims rape kit. So they have an extensive hearing where the state puts on evidence that everything was destroyed and that the only evidence that's remaining are a few hairs and two cigarette butts. And so I'm just really curious the laws about you know, in a capital case, they're disposing evidence after five years, Like,

what are the laws about that? So today we have preservation laws in I believe every single state, but here in nine Robert's death sentence had been vacated, and so the court just entered an order disposing of all of the evidence. Luckily, as we learned in post conviction with

the reinvestigation, that was actually not the case. But it was shocking to see that in five short years after a death sentence, that the state destroyed all of that biological evidence, especially because in nine we did start to have DNA come online and it was started, it was being used, So that was really shocking to see in this case. Susan, how did you become involved in this case? Robert wrote to the Innocence Project the way he wrote

to many organizations. Uh, And when we review this case, there are two things that set out to us that he was convicted based on faulty forensics and a jailhouse informant, which are too leading contributing factors to wrongful conviction. And we believe that even though they said that a significant amount of the DNA evidence was destroyed, it's possible that we could still get access to some of that other evidence and do some additional retesting. And so we accepted

Robert's case and we started investigating immediately. And Robert, what was that like for you? I mean, just being in the situation and just thinking about all these years that are passing for you. Yeah, I mean, you know, I was hoping to have a wife and kids in the house and all this stuff. So that was taken from me. That didn't happen. It still hasn't happen. So I started focusing on not the things I didn't have, but be grateful for the things I do have and did have.

So I just moved forward. And as the years went by, I had three parole hearings. All three were negative. It didn't happen. Now in my mind, um, this is like the last straw, you know, this is pretty much blocks off everything I had going for me. And I'm like, you know, I just felt total hopelessness, and I just put my hands together and I said, God, send your hands. That night, they have what they call a legal call

out sheet letting you know you have legal mail. So the next day I went to get the letter and it was from Susan saying that hey, we read your case. We're taking your case, you know. And then like I think a week later, she was sitting across the table from me talking to me. When we accepted the case, I started digging into Robert's file. This was a capital case.

There were a lot of materials. While I had hope that we'd be able to do some additional DNA testing on the items that we believed still existed, I also knew that this was going to be an informing case. We had to get to the bottom of what was going on with Claude Butler, because just from a cold read of the record, it is clear that he's incentivized

and that he was testifying falsely at Robert's trial. So we started digging into him immediately, and very quickly, a lot of things surfaced about him that confirmed all of our original suspicions. The trial prosecutor in Robert's case, who elicited all kinds of testimony about the fact that Claude Butler was not receiving any benefits, he was testifying out of the goodness of his heart. He believed this was the right thing to do, to tell everybody what Robert

confessed to him. We found out that the trial prosecutor in Robert's case filed emotion to mitigate in the informants case, urging that judge to let Claude Butler walk free because Claude Butler was a key witness in Robert's case and that he was part of him securing a death sentence against Robert. The other thing that we did is we started digging into Jack because we were so surprised by Jack.

We didn't understand where he came from just like the trial defense counselor was shocked by him, So were we and what do we do? We found a criminal case where he was the star witness. And in that case, Jack alleged that someone locked on his door, he was covered in blood. This person entered the hat, entered his hotel room, that he helped him dispose of the clothes that recovered in blood. And then, as it turned out,

this person was charged with capital murder. And so Jack, who at minimum could have been an accessory after the fact in this case, is not charged at all. He becomes a star witness in this other case, and he pops up in Robert's case, and Robert has no idea who who this is. There are no police reports connecting Jack to this case, and all of a sudden, it becomes very clear that Jack is a plant. Right, Jack

is inserted into this case on the eve of Robert's trial. Susan, what did you learn about that bite mark after all these years? So one of the things that we did during the reinvestigation was we submitted all of the materials, we had photographs, testimony about the bite mark evidence to Dr Adam Freeman, who is a board certified forensic codontologist and dentist, and he examined all those materials and he made a number of conclusions about both the evidence collection

and the pattern injury itself. So first he concluded that the way that people's denticitions were collected using that beeswax was an improper way to collect to obtain denticians. He evaluated the pattern injury on the victim's cheek and specifically he was looking at measurements and concluded that this was way too big to be a human bite mark. So ultimately we found out that this was not a bite

mark at all. And one of the things that I think is really important here is that the victim was beaten so severely in the face that this may have actually been from the boards. The severe damage that she suffered. Maybe the one of the boards left an injury that appeared to be the pattern injury that the dentist obviously assumed the bite mark, But this in fact was not a bite mark on the victim at all. Yeah, I really want to get into this part of it. So

you're you're you're dealing with the thirteenth Circuit in Florida. Um, can you just talk about these conviction integatory review units how important they were to this particular case. Conviction integrity units, sometimes also called conviction review units, are specialized units within prosecutors offices that are supposed to look at cases where

an individual is factually innocent and reinvestigate. They're really important units that allow for prosecutors not only to correct wrongful convictions but also prevent them by implementing policies that they realize are important in order to prevent wronkle convictions in the future and have implement those policies in their offices.

And so, after I did as much investigating as I possibly colude on Claude, Butler and Jack and obtained all of the records that I could from the police department, I put together a memo to Teresa Hall, who was the chief at the time, the chief of the conviction review unit, and I put forward all the evidence I had that made me suspicious about the conviction, the reasons why I thought that uh, Butler and Jack didn't have any credibility, And then I put forward an investigation plan

and asked her to join me in re investigating this case. And so that was my pitch to her, and then very quickly she came back to me and we started our joint reinvestigation. But the timing was tough because it was March of and we all remember what happened in March of the world shut down as a result of the COVID nineteen pandemic. But to her credit, we pushed through and we continued to investigate, and we got a lot done despite the fact that we were all working remotely.

Right And do you recall a moment where, you know, maybe Teresa Hall sent you an email or called you on the phone and said, we're going forward with this. This is we're going to move on. This was there at one of those moments. Well, I think there were two moments that stand out to me. One was Teresa

emailing me and accepting the case. The second was when she called me and said, I think we may have vaginal swabs from the victim's rape kit, which blew my mind because there was an entire hearing about the fact that all of the evidence was destroyed, but she got a tip that there may still be UH swabs from the victim's rape kit at the medical Examiner's office. I knew that the DNA was going to be a game changer.

So when she called me and told me she thought there was even a slight possibility that this vaginal swab was still available, that was huge for us. And Robert, what was it like for you getting all this news all of a sudden, She told me, you know, they did the DNA say uh test and not only did they exclude you, but they also put it into codas and found a match. So I was like floored by all this, and she says, you will be free by Thursday morning. And what was the reaction on the phone, Robert,

what did that feel like? No, it was very special. I was very thankful for all of them. I've always told everybody I didn't do it, you know, and you know, you would get some responses such as, yeah, everybody says that, But I say, yeah, but everybody ain't telling you the truth. I said, I really am innocent. So I've had a lot of staff members from the prison contact me when I got out and they said, you know, you always said you were in this, and we always knew there

was something different about you, you know. So they still stay in touch. And so you were given your date, but freedom was at the next day, or it was Thursday was on Thursday her birthday. Oh, that's a great birthday. That's a really nice present. All right. What was it like being free, finally walking out of there? Oh? Man, undescribable, you know, to actually walk out of that prison and know that that was it. The nightmares finally over. Robert.

What has it been like since you release? It's been very challenging. Remember I went into a world I didn't know, and then in I come back into another world that I don't know anymore. You know, modern technology, cell phone, never seen one home depot, Walmart, all the different restaurants. Now there's just self checkout. As Susan and I became accustom went together, it was pretty exciting. It's been. It's been, Um, it's been an adventure. Just coming out of prison during

a pandemic. Not only you having to adjust to uh, you know, decades that have passed by while you were in prison, but now you're coming out during a pandemic. What was that like for you? Yeah? It was that was challenging as well, because you know, everywhere you went required a face mask, and you know, it's like when I was walking by an armored car wearing a face mask, I'm like, if I would have done this in three they would have shot me. So then I found out,

you know, there were obstacles, of course. So my goal when I got out was to get my voter registration card, to get my passport, which I've never had one, which I got um, to get my license. So I went over there with a night three expired license to get it renewed. It was pretty exciting seeing their face trying to figure out how I'm bringing nine license to haven't renewed. You've been driving this whole time. Actually, she's let me ask what has been the challenge here? Robert was not

eligible for compensation from the state after this exoneration. Can you talk about that? Yeah? So, you know, I think that people see an exoneration and it's so beautiful and it's so joyful, and they believe that this is the end of the journey. But this is just the beginning of the next part of an individual's journey, where they have to heal from the trauma that they have suffered

from their wrongful conviction. And although no amount of money will ever make anyone whole, certainly compensation goes a long way at helping someone get on their feet, Um, get a job right, feel some sense of security. And in Florida currently there is a stat there is a bill pending to fix Florida's compensation statute. So right now, the statute in Florida prevents anyone who had any prior convictions compensation.

And so Robert when he was a teenager, he had to minor non violent felony convictions and now because of that, he is completely barred from seeking compensation through the Florida compensation scheme, even though he spent thirty seven years wrongfully incarcerated, including three years on death row. Right, and these charges had nothing to do with the crime that he was accused of. It was something from his teenage years. Correct, So we could do the call to action. Um, Susan,

I'll start with you. Is there anything that you know our audience who's listening to this, who's just outraged by these kinds of stories, anything that you know they any specific issues that you feel need changing and that we can help as audience members listening to this. Thanks for asking about that, Gilbert. So I am going to urge the audience if they want to learn more about how

they can help us fix Florida's compensation statute. They should go to the Innocence Project web page to learn how they can join us in calling on the Florida State legislature to finally fix the broken compensation statute in Florida. There right now is a bill that is pending that

would make two critical changes. One that would allow individuals with prior convictions to see compensation, and to that would extend the very tight deadline that they had that Florida currently has of ninety days for a for a person who's been exonerated to file their request for compensation. So again I urge everyone to head over to the Innocence Project website and learn how they can support Agonores in Florida finally received the compensation that they are entitled to.

And Robert, is there anything from your point of view that could make life easier for recent agonore ees. The most challenging thing is like for me, when I went to a bank to open a bank account, or when I try to get an apartment or even try to get a job. I have no history, so they're looking at me like I'm an alien. Where did I come from? You know, what was your past employment? Prison? What was your past resident prison, you know, so you don't want to tell this to to your new employers or to

a bank or whoever. So you know, you just have to kind of explain the story. And this is why I don't have a history. Um. I'm going to enter the closing argument phase of this of this conversation today, and I think we're gonna start with Susan. Susan, I'm

going just gonna give you the floor here. What do you want to say about your work with Robert and how the importance of what the Innocence Project does, the importance of what the public can do in order to not only bring justice to these gross injustices, but also

to prevent them from happening again. The Innocence Project just had its thirtieth anniversary in August, and over these last thirty years, we have learned so touch about the criminal legal system and the significant flaws that we have that leads to wrongful convictions and also that just lead to

unfair trials that biolate people's constitutional rights. There is a role for every single person in correcting and preventing wrongful convictions and preventing just injustice in the criminal legal system. I would urge people to see what issues are impacting your communities and get out there and vote. We don't endorse anybody, but certainly get out there, educate yourself and understand the issues, because every single citizen has a role

to play in correcting are very, very flawed criminal legal system. Well, I really want to thank you because I learned so much just listening to you today about the Florida justice system, and so I really am grateful for that. Um So thank you, and Robert give you the closing argument, the real closing argument here. Anything you want to talk about,

it's all yours. I'm just happy to be where my family, and my goal really is to tell people that, you know, if they support the Innocence Project in this I'm not the only one. There's still others in there, you know, and they need help. They're in the same predicament I was when I was begging for help, you know, and they just don't see an out, you know, without the Innocence Project, and people like Susan, you know, they have no hope. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'm

your guest host, Gilbert King. I'd like to thank our executive producers Jason flam and Kevin Wurdis. The senior producer for this episode is Jackie Pauli, and our producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburne. Our editor is Lexandra Guidi. The music in this production is 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. If you're interested in more wrongful conviction stories in Florida, check out my new nine part series Bone Valley. The podcast investigates the case of Leo Schofield, a young man accused of murdering his wife and who has been in prison ever since, despite his unwavering claims of innocence. Subscribe to Bone Valley wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more information

at Lava for Good dot com. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one. Next week, on the guest hosted episodes of Wrongful Conviction, investigative reporter Beth Shelburne, We'll talk with Jeffrey Hollman about the Alabama criminal justice system and Jeffery's experience of being incarcerated for ten years for a crime he did not commit. They'll talk about the crime, Jeffrey time in prison, and the extremely rare pro sate motions

Jeffrey filed that eventually led to his release. Beth Shelburne is an Alabama native and a veteran journalist who has spent her career focused on the criminal justice system and the issue of mass incarceration, and this conversation will touch on many of the issues she's covered in her work. Listen next Monday in the Wrongful Conviction podcast Feed