#305 Jason Flom with Raymond Allan Warren

distance behind them. After fixing the flat, Raymond rode back to his grandmother's on Kilmer Street, where he saw that a car had crashed into one of her neighbor's houses. The driver had been fatally shot a roll of counterfeit bills laid next to him. When questioned by cops on the scene, Raymond told them about the drug solicitation. He was then taken to the station to give a statement. After submitting to a gunshot residue test, he was released.

The palm of his non dominant hand tested positive for two elements associated with gunplay. According to what was considered reliable science at the time, the presence of those elements could mean one of only three things that Raymond had either fired a gun, handle ammunition, or was the victim of gun violence. This gave police more than enough confidence to coerce the two other children with the threat of

their own prosecution, to implicate their friend. The same strain of expert testimony presented at his trial had been heard by countless juries for decades that at least a decade more thereafter, until some startling realizations about the reliability of gunshot residue testing were finally made. This his wrongful conviction.

Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today. We've got a junk science case out of Ohio gunshot residue testing case to be exact, but with the information that they had, many people, investigators and law enforcement included, probably thought they had the right guy, not like some of our other cases where there was still plenty of reasonable doubt or even knowledge to the countrary. And our guest was just a sixteen year old boy at the time, and he joins us

now from a correctional facility in Ohio. Raymond Allen Warren, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Okay, thank you, Brad, and I a want to thank everyone there the podcast. You're very welcome, and joining Raymond today is his fierce advocate that our listeners might remember from the gunshot residue episode of Wrongful Conviction Junk Science in which they actually touched on Raymond's case while discussing the issue at large. We're gonna have that episode linked in our bio. I implore you to

go and check it out. It's an eye opener. She is the director of the Wrongful Conviction Project at the office of the Ohio Public Defender Joanna Sanchez. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. You're welcome, all right. So, Raymond, you've been in prison going on. Jesus, I hate to even say this, but you've been in prison for twelve years, longer now than you were a lot live before all of this happened. That's just nuts. But can you tell us a bit about your first sixteen years of life

before this tragedy. As you said, it was a sixteen years old. I primarily grew up in Dane, Ohio, back and forth from Kentucky as well. I have a lot of family down there and uh the Blue Report. Um, I had a good childhood. I would say three younger brothers at the time. I have five old brothers now. And I understand you were really into like working on cars and stuff like that. I grew up basically tell yourself part as a kid and the older I got.

Um I started working vehicles right before this incarceration, like maybe like a year year and a half. I had learned to paying cards, so that was something that I was doing it on a regular basis. Um I didn't even started to make a little money at and UH. I was you know, probably considered probably the neighborhood mechanic. Anybody needed something done to their car, I was there to do it. Just kids trying to figure stuff out.

So it sounds like you had a lot of stuff, you know, figured out go in the right direction anyway, and you had a talent and a passion for something that could have earned you a good living. So now we get to the faithful day of July tenth ur and there was a scooter you were working on. Was it your scooter or did it belong to one of your friends? Well, the scooter belong to me. I had a flat tire. It was at my grandmother's house where

I was staying. We had to take it to Antonio's house, where we basically kept all the tubs and we'd accumulated chant and Antonio had arrived that evening to help me moving from our grandmother's house to Antonio's house. Deficit to Me and m Chante were basically pushing the scooter. He was steering it and I was looking up the back of the scooter because as I had a flat you couldn't move it any other way. Antonio was riding alongside

of the street when the car pulled up. Um guy in the car asked us or someone in the car asked us we had these drugs, I said, but nothing happening and we don't got nothing. Antonio said something I don't remember exactly what, cursing them out, and they kept going. We continue along our path to Antonios house. We arrived at the corner of Kilmer in late View when we

heard gun shots. We immediately like took our right. We were pushing the scooter and I lived at the backup and me and say we're doing our best to book you Alan to get to Antonio's house. And when we arrived at Tonio's house, we basically dropped the scooter. We'll have to realize was anybody shooting at us and realize it was safe. Started working on the scooter right and

specifically we're fixing a flat tire. The way that the scooter is made, you have to take the breaks and the wheel off before you can get to the action tire, as well as lift of the month off of the wheel. Will. It's not like tired like a car or something. It's a lot different. You have to really take all everything apart on the back of the scooter. So yeah, we're absolutely working with the grape components, a muffler, everything that

was attached to that WILL. So at this point you have no idea what happened back there on Kilmer Street, but just that it was smart to not be anywhere around it and you were able to fix your flat. Now, before we get into the specific of the crime itself,

I want to turn to Joanna. So, Joanna, one of the things that I found fascinating about some of the issues that you and Josh Stuben discussed on wrongful Conviction junk science was that things like cigarette ash, drive urine, and so many other you know, substances, even household substances, can cause a false positive on a gunshot residue or GSR test. Can you explain how that happens? Sure, So GSR tests don't actually test for a unique substance known

as gunshot residue. What they're really testing for our elements that are known to be present in gunshot residue. And the test using Raymond's case was an atomic absorption test. It's not really used anymore because it has limited utility, but it was testing for two elements bari um and antimony, and those two elements exist in our atmosphere. They're found in things like fireworks, matches, some types of batteries, lubricating greases,

and particularly relevant here in brake pad dust. So if somebody's had contact with any of those substances, they potentially could test positive for barri um and antimony and give a false positive on a gunshot residue test. Right, So, as Raymond just said and his friends confirmed, so it's undisputed that they had fixed a flat that night, handled the brake pads and other components. But we haven't even

gotten to why all of this matters yet. So it turns out that this guy, Wendell Simpson was driving around Kilmer Street that night, and there may or may not have been a gold Buick either following him or just cruising the area. Now it's believed that the gunshots heard earlier by Raymond and his friends had killed this guy, Wendell Simpson. His body was found in the front seat of his car, which had crashed into a house five Kilmer Street, just up to block from Raymond's grandmother's house.

There was a crowbar on the floor as well as the role of counterfeit bills encircled by two real dollar bills on the front seat. Three shells were also recovered from the scene, one on the right rear floorboard, one on the right side of the driver's seat, and another new left front tire. And it appears that there were some witnesses or perhaps even potential suspects for this crime.

So there are two young men who are there at the scene as well, Andre Wright and Stanley Williams, and what they indicate to the police is that they saw Wendel Simpson's car crashed um into the house on Kilmer Street, and so they pull their car up and park across

the street. They're driving a gold Buick and what they indicate is that they went to Mr simpsons car multiple times, first to put it in park, then to turn off the engine, and they plan to leave the scene, but the police got there before they could, and so they tell the police. At this story, they tell them that they are just in the neighborhood kind of cruising around that night. The police take them to the station, but they don't fingerprint them, they don't test them for guns residue,

and then they just let them go. Now, we're not trying to implicate other potentially innocent people here, of course not. But that interaction is at the very least remarkable considering what happened to Raymond, who at this time had just fixed the flat tire, went to a nearby gas station and was heading back to Grandma's house on Kilmer Street.

When I arrived at my grandmother's house, there was some kind of commotion at the top of the block and there were policing, fire trucks and all kinds of stuff out there. Um A detective approached me while I was putting the school on my grandmother's porch and asked me had I seen anything. I didn't really know what he was talking about. He asked me about the street. See what he was he was talking about. So I walked

with him with the scooter up the street. He asked me if I had seen the vehicle, and I said I don't know. I'm sure. I said that vehicle did drive by us we were walking to and told us. He asked me what was what was I going? Um, SO was going to visit my sitter, And he asked me if I would go downtown with him and give further detail about where I was who I was with. So I didn't mind, I don't care, So being that I do to help, I absolutely good. They handcuffing and

placed me in a backup police card. So, Okay, you were trying to help, right, and you had already explained where you had been. But maybe it was that you potentially had contact with this vehicle before the shooting. So at this point you didn't know that you had any reason to be scared, but the handcuffs certainly could have been some kind of indication. So now they take you down to the station. How did that go when you

got there? Um? It took me to a room and took the handcuffs off of me, and I was in there for quite some time. The light was turned off and I started to nod off on the table a little bit when a detective came in the room and

started asking me questions. At first, it was you know, it's just asking me questions about who I was with, where I was, had I seen the vehicle, And like I said, I wasn't for sure that I had seen that particularly able, But I told you about the vehicle that had approach, told him about my friends that I was with Tony on shanty as well as you're going to face the school. Was anything was wrong with it? So gay his story. I told him exactly where I was,

who I was with. He voluntarily waves his rights, he agrees to give a statement, and he agrees to this gunshot residue test. I haven't done anything wrong with guns, it right, Since, after all, you hadn't fired a gun. You had every reason to be confident that you wouldn't test positive because nobody, I mean, let's not forget no one at the time understood that these tests could easily

result in false positives. So that night, Raymond was released to his grandma and went home thinking, probably thinking he was safe. So the gunshot residue test comes back and they detect antimony and bury him on the palm of Raymond's right hand. It's not on the back of his right hand, it's not anywhere on his left hand. It's just on the palm. Raymond is left handed, so it's on his non dominant hand that they find these two elements.

This is what's weird about this. So it was only on the palm, not on the backside, where you might expect it more likely to be. I mean, you can just hold your hand up and mimic a firing motion and you'll see what I'm talking about. And on the

non dominant hand. You would expect it to be on his dominant hand, and the fact that it's not, I think is indicative that it's contamination, either from the break pads or potentially because he has handcuffed, he's in a police cruiser, he's taken down to the police station, he's in the interrogation room. Those are all surfaces that we

know are contaminated with gunshot residue. So not only had he been working with brake pads that night, there was also a tremendous amount of opportunities for touch transfer, which is why it is widely accepted now that GSR testing, or more specifically, the atomic absorption test that was used in this case, is almost entirely meaningless. In fact, the only reasonable use it has is in the scenario where the suspect hasn't had the opportunity to vigorously wash their hands.

Then are tested and the absence of the elements associated with gun use could be exculpatory, as we've pointed out before on the show, very different than it being used as in an inculpatory manner as it was here. That's what we know now. But back then, with this positive GSR test, Raymond's fate was I hate to say it,

but it was pretty much sealed at that time. They believed that antimony and barium are very unique to gunshot residue, So if somebody tests positive for those elements, the belief is that it means they fired a weapon, they were a victim of a shooting, or they handled ammunition. So those results were in and the police are like, whoa, We've got our guy here. So you had mentioned Antonio

and Schanta and you're statement. So the police go to Antonio's home a few weeks after the shooting, multiple police cards, multiple police officers, and they pull up on Antonio. He's in his front yard and they say, we want to take you down to the police station to talk to you about this crime. He asks to go tell his parents. They're in the house and the police won't let him. So this fourteen year old boys being escorted to the police station. His parents don't know about it. He gets there,

he asks to call his mom. They say no, and what they tell him is that we'll let you go home once you make a statement. And so they interview him for a lengthy period of time. It appears without recording it. All we have is a recording of the last five to ten minutes of his statement. And what Antonio testifies to at various points during the proceedings, including in in Raymond's juvenile proceedings, is that the police told him they were looking to put this crime on him

if he didn't implicate Raymond. And so what he did was he gave a statement. In the record statement, you can tell that it's practiced. He seems like he's reading a script. At one point he stops and because in this little room, he's clearly at least two police officers there, one is sitting right up against him. They're very close to one another, and Antonia sort of running quickly through what happened this night, and at one point stops and looks to somebody off Cameron says, oh, I messed up

as I was welcome back, going back to home. Um, this guy had pulled up Allan's right behind us house. You drank a pop. So it appears that he's talked to them for a lengthy period of time and then it was told, you know, to give this very short statement implicating Raymond. Yeah, and no one really picked up on this flub. That illustrates that he was just repeating the story that they had developed. He had been coerced into doing so by the threat of his own wrongful prosecution.

And Shanty was faced with the same call it what it is, a sophie's choice. Yeah, Shanty. They come to his house one morning, it's six thirty in the morning. He's sleeping. He'd gone to bed late the night before, so he's not on much rest. They take him to the police station and they tell him the same thing where they'd say, you know, we're looking to talk to you about a murder we think you might have been

involved in. And so ultimately what happens with Shanta, it's the police actually write out a statement and that's the statement that Shanta signs. He doesn't right it himself. It's not a recorded statement. It's a handwriten statement made by one of the police officers that he signs, and essentially

that statement corroborated antonio statement. Both we're towing the line for this police narrative, which was that while this is the narrative they were putting forth was that while on the way to Antonio's house, this encounter with the victim happened. He asked for drugs antony. When Shanta kept walking, Raymond allegedly went into an alley with the victim, who tried to pay with the counterfeit role, and Raymond allegedly shot him for it. Raymond allegedly then admitted this to Antonio

and Jontay. So when were you arrested and were you able to bond out? August the nine four, I was taking the juvenile custom and juven album custo. You don't have a bond or anything like that, which is backwards as hell, and even once bound over to the adult courts, the bond that they gave me, as I said, for steal forth and wasn't able to pay it. And it wasn't until these proceedings in which they magically decided that a sixteen year old was an adult. Right. That always

blows my mind. Yeah, they just decided that it's sixteen year old was an adult for the purpose of inflicting, you know, a much more terrifying and harsh punishment. And and that was when you, for the first time you found out that your friends had even said these things. Wasn't part of that process, but an Tonio was. He came to court and made some statements that literally like, only why is they telling me a lot? I didn't

I didn't have opportunity to speak with him. I'm sitting there life, like I say, on the balance of people made of boss statements, I really don't know what to do. This episode is underwritten by A i G, a leading global insurance company. A i G is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making a positive difference in the lives of its employees and in the communities where we

work and live. In light of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance and in recognition of A I g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the A i G Pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. So now you're set to be tried as an adult. I mean, you're a child in a very adult, very real nightmare. It's March. You were assigned to public Defenders from the

Montgomery County Public Defender's Office. The States case really was these three pieces of evidence, the alleged gunshot resuue, Antonio's testimony, and Shante's testimony. What's interesting is Antonio and Shanta actually didn't show up the day they were supposed to testify. They were supposed to come down to court. They were

subpoena and they didn't come. So the next day the police actually go out and they arrest them, and they bring them down to the court and they hold them in jail, and so they're they're understanding is you can go home once to testify. So the two of them testify against Raymond, and the story that they give is that they went to his house, they got his scooter.

They start going down Kilmer Street toward Antonio's home. Mr Simpson approaches them in his car and he's looking for drugs, and then Shanta and Antonio continue onto Antonio's house, but Raymond goes into the alley with Mr. Simpson. They say that then here shots and then Raymond comes up to Antonio's house and says, I had to shoot the guy because he gave me fake money. Antonio and Shanty both also testified that they saw Raymond with a gun the

day before the shooting. What's interesting also is that Chantey, when he's testifying, he actually initially does not testify to seeing Raymond with a gun or testified him confessing. He only remembers those facts after the police show him the handwritten statement that they wrote, and he signed, right, And it's hard to remember lies, especially when you weren't even the one that initially wrote them. So they have these statements from the two kids that would have and should

have been his alibi witnesses. By the way, both of them have since recanted on the record, right, But that hasn't really done anything for Raymond thus far. He's still right where he is. But back at trial, the defense did present two witnesses that shed a lot of doubt on the stage case. So there were two people who lived in the neighborhood nearby, John and Patricia Moreland, and the defense called them and Patricia testified to she was

kind of walking around the neighborhood at this time. She'd gone to her friend's house to get her hair done and then was coming home, and so she testified to seeing Mr Simpson in his car kind of rolling around the block a few times. Her husband, John testified that he was in his home he heard the crash, so he goes outside to check it out, and at that point he sees the gold buick driven by Andre Right and Stanley Williams, and to him it looked like the

buick had potentially been following Mr Simpson's car. So he sees the buick come around and turn around and park across the street. And what Mr Moreland says is he actually sees three people come out of the buick. These three men get out of the gold Buick, that they go back and forth between their car and Mr Simpson's car several times. And then when the police arrived, one of these three men has disappeared, and so now there's

only two men left at the scene. Again, we're not saying that these individuals are guilty, but they were not ruled out by GSR testing. At the very least, they should have been more interesting to the authorities than Raymond was to the police at that time. Plus, the Morlands did not mention seeing Raymond come and go from the

scene while they had watched these three men. But now here goes the quote unquote expert testimony that sounded very official, and this had law enforcement, the prosecutor's office, and everybody believing or at least putting forth the narrative that Raymond was the actual guy. So the gunshot residue analysts testified that he found barriam and antimony on Raymond's non dominant hand and that it meant one of those three things that he either shot a firearm, was a victim of

a shooting, or handled contaminated ammunition. I mean, I'm sitting there listen to this like lion, like no way, and at the same time, I don't have anything to come bad, is you know, I like it depend on as my lawyers at the time, they didn't know to break past and working with vehicles and mottle oil and other things like that be something that would cause these readings. I mean, the jury is they're hearing from two children who are saying,

my friend did this. They're hearing from the scientific evidence you know back in the sounds like real science, and they're being told it could only be one of these three things, and two of those things are inculpatory, like the idea that he handled ammunition or fired a gun. Both of those things aren't good and certainly he wasn't a victim of a shooting. So the jury is left with very little to go on. But it's they believe

Chant and Antonio and they believe the science. At that point, did you hold out any hope that the jury was going to get it right? I thought, see the video tape Antonio did, and so like I say that he's being forced to say certain things. I thought that the truth would come out. I really didn't think like I would be sitting here now. I didn't. Verny did come back. I was jumper found to the jury members cried said certain things, didn't It's like they were kind of bullied

into the verdict themselves. So I was. I was still kind of dull found during the whole process, Like for a couple of years. I literally said and waiting like every time, like the door was open, like I was waiting on the gun gets them and they made no mistake. Just as as we discussed, I was a bound over ast an adult. Back then, they didn't have juven out like blocks or anything like that for individuals who were

under anything. So I was thought right into the the jungle going to speak at a Levan non correctional institution. As a kid, I was preyed up on, you know, uh, sexually harassed by both inmate sin guards are. Life definitely was a dal battle. One still continues to be the bout um and it has not been easy. And then the very beginning it was. Man, it was a fight for my life every day like it was really, like I said, just trying to number it, stay out of

harm's way. One of the things that I've tried to make sure that I've done this educating myself and stay prepared for when his daughters doing Um. I've required my left I just degree with Storis certification and I'm also

a college now. I was trying to stay busy with education as well as physical uh activities, working out things like that, Just staying busy with a job, as well as staying active in my own legal process, reading the documents and things like that that my legal team sends me make sure that I'm abreast of the things that are being done. Is convicted in five he has a

direct appeal um. That's unsuccessful, and from that point forward he's really on his own, and so he's making every effort he can to find an attorney to help him challenge his conviction, which is incredibly difficult. He has no money, he's incarcerated, and he's by that point seventeen years old. So he and his brother's scraped together a little money and are able to hire an attorney. And this is around n that attorney actually goes out and he gets

a recantation from Shanta Hunt. So Shante Hunt says, this didn't happen the way I said at trial. The police terrified me. I was a kid, and I thought that they were going to charge me with a murder if I didn't implicate Raymond. What really happened is exactly what Raymond said, which is, you know, we are approached by Mr Simpson, we said no, we don't have drugs, and then all three of us go to Antonio's house. We

are all together when we hear the shots. And so he's saying Raymond could not have done this because he was with me when we heard the shots. My testimony was a lie. So Raymond has that affidavit now, but at this point he's run out of money, and so this attorney doesn't file it for him because he can no longer afford to pay him. So then Raymond he's trying to get a new attorney. He's writing probably over

the years, hundreds and hundreds of letters. In the next fifteen years or so, Raymond works with a number of attorneys. He every once in a while is able to scrape together enough money to hire someone. In you know, the mid two thousands, he did that and somebody filed an unsuccessful procedural motion. He's out there still trying to get Antonio and see if he's willing to recant. But Antonio is really hard to find. He's changed his last name,

he's incarcerated for a period of time. So it's not until two thousand and eight that Antonio comes forward and also recants his testimony. Well, I was very fortunate to run into a guy who was going home New Astonio, and I was also in contact with the Project and they were helping me as well. They were investigating my case. I related information to New Hobby as a project, and they were able to obtain an affidavit or truth from Audio Johnson Ross and he says the same thing, which

is I was a scared kid. My testimony was not true. I thought they were going to charge me with this murder, and I didn't come forward sooner because I was scared I would be charged with perjury. So Raymond now has both of these affidavits, and it's really a series of mishaps at that point. He's got one organization that's working for him. But then they lose his file and sort of don't do anything on the case for a while. They then find it and sort of reopened his case

and then close it. So he's, you know, he thinks something's going to happen, and then it doesn't. They then referred his case to another attorney who basically ignores him, you know, and she would later tell us that she handled this worse than any other matter in her career. It really does take a village. So he's had Shante's affidavit since, and almost ten years went by before you caught up with Antonio. The clock is ticking on all of this newly discovered evidence and all of these attorneys

that Raymond simply doesn't have the means to maintain. This just screws him over even more than the system already has which is hard to believe or even imagine. But is that accurate. That's definitely, and I have not been a good and learned I'm not an attorney. Don't play one on TV. Yeah, I hear that I'm not either, Raymond. A lot of people think I am, but I'm definitely not alert. I'm not even a college graduate. But anyway, it's not exactly like you had the benefit of having

gone to law school. So the nightmare continued. It was literally a nightmare at the time. I really didn't know what to do with So it was just trying to understand the legal process and really put together something on my home and get filed myself, which I eventually did. I found motion. So two thousand thirteen, Raymond filed his motion.

At the time, there was that an unwritten rule, but a rule that a lot of the courts had adopted that once a person discovers new evidence, they have an obligation to present to the court within a reasonable period of time. And so when Raymond filed his motion in two thousand thirteen, because he had had the affidavits for several years at that point and hadn't filed them, which the reason he hadn't filed is because he was thinking he was having all these attorneys who are going to

do it for him, who ultimately did not. But the court determined that by the time he did file them in two thousand thirteen, he was out of time, that like an unreasonable amount of time had passed, and so they denied his motion as untimely. And the term unreasonable seems like a like a conveniently flexible term, but it seems like if a person's freedom is at stake and they're presenting the truth, I mean, any amount of time

should be within reason, that's right. There's really not at that time a lot of guidance on what is a reasonable period of time. So there's cases where five years is determined to be reasonable, in cases where four months is determined to be unreasonable. So it's really hard to

judge what will be deemed timely or untimely. I mean, you have these guys Antonio and Shante coming forward to their own peril and detriment, admitting to perjury, which carries up five to ten years sentence in Ohio, I believe, and yet they're gonna go ahead, thought about the authorities and tell an innocent man, Yeah, but you know nothing to see here. Too bad for you. An unreasonable amount of time has passed. Now, had he also supported those

recantations with the evolving science on GSR? Or was that not until you all got involved in two thousand fourteen when Raymond initially filed his pro say motion, he doesn't know about the gunshot residue evidence. He doesn't have an understanding of this evolving science, so his motion was focused

just on these two recantations. We stepped in for the appeal, and we actually were successful on appeal in the sense that we were allowed to go back to the trial court because the trial court had not let Raymond file a reply once the state opposed this motion, so we were sent back down to the trial court to give

us the opportunity to reply. And at that point, now he has us as counsel, we asked to amend his initial motion, and so without amendment, we added in information about gunshot residue And what had happened in the years since his conviction is that the scientific community had really started to study gunshot residue evidence, and the FBI held a massive symposium in two thousand five where they looked at all sorts of studies regarding contamination and alternative sources

for these two elements, such as breakpads and and they came up with a lot of best practices things that should be done to make the results more reliable. But the big takeaway from the symposium was that really the probative value of gunshot residue is negligible if there's any at all, because it's so transferable, there's so much risk for contamination. The results of a gunshot residue a positive

tester's is truly meaningless. And as a result of that symposium, a lot of labs actually stopped doing gunshot residue testing altogether. So we amended Raymond's motion to include all of that information in addition to Antonio and Shaunta's recandations, and we also included a lot of information about why it took Raymond so long to present this evidence to the court.

And so we went through and we got alfi davits from a lot of the attorneys that had represented him, and we included a lot of information about, you know, what this delay was and what the reason was was that he was relying on counsel. So we presented all of that to the trial court. His motion was denied again, and again they ruled it the delay in presenting this

new evidence was unreasonable. So at that point we appealed again, and the appellate court reversed again, and what they said was that the trial courts should have had a hearing on Raymond's motion. So we go back to the trial courts. At that point, we have a multiple day evidentiary hearing, and the focus of this hearing is actually not on

the new evidence. This hearing is entirely focused on whether Raymond filed this evidence within a reasonable period of time, right seemingly based on an arbitrary opinion, not on any concrete metric. So never mind that all of this has to do with these lawyers and Raymond's inability to financially maintain counsel. That's not a good enough reason. So he's denied again. At that point, we appealed again, and this

time we lost the appeal. So he appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court and um they declined to take jurisdiction over Raymond's case, So at that point we had lost that issue. What's notable is about two years after that denial, in the hospital court in a different case, the court actually ruled that this reasonable time filing requirement was not anywhere in any rule or statue, and that courts shouldn't be applying it to defendants when they discover new evidence.

And that was that was in March of the this year. As we're recording two and typical of our system, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they will not be reconsidering cases that have already been decided, even if only several months had passed since that ruling. You know, this reminds me of how they sometimes make laws or change laws, but don't change them retroactively to correct all the injustice that has come before, which would seem like a no brainer, right, They just do it

going forward. So it's like, how do you like to be the last person convicted under an old law that now the government has said is not a correct law. It's not it's not even a legal sentence anymore. And yet there you there, you stay. It doesn't make any sense. It's it's one of the most maddening things to me

about our system. But anyway, another crazy thing to realize is that you all picked up his case in two thousand fourteen, and in eight years, we've only resolved the question that the courts didn't want to hear his claims of innocence because of an arbitrary time are yeah, mind you, no court has ever heard the merits of his claims of innocence, which, as you've heard here today, are extremely powerful. And this is the American appellate system in action. Unfortunately,

they haven't even heard the evidence about the evidence. As I have something they care about, they don't care about, like said, the file that's right. Due to these procedural barriers and the time limitations on filing motions, over these years, no court has ever spent the time to look at these affidavits, to look at the gunshot reside evidence, and

to actually determine whether it points to Raymond's innocence. And so we've spent all of this time, all of these resources, all of these years of litigation, really just focusing our energy on this timing question instead of what I think is the much more important question, which is do we have an innocent man who's been sitting there in prison for the last twenty seven years. All you need is really two brain cells to rub together and you could see this right, So where do we go from here.

What we're working on right now is we we filed an application for DNA testing last year in the trial court and there were three shell casings found at the scene to in Mr Simpson's car, one just outside of the driver's side door, and so we asked for touch

DNA testing on those shell casings. If that information came back and excluded Raymond as the source of the DNA on those shell casings, or even a step further pointed to a known individual as the source of the DNA, when you couple that information with Antonio and Shante's recantations and what we now know about gunshot residue, would be very compelling evidence of Raymond's innocence. And so we've asked

for that DNA testing. Our application was denied, and so what we're doing right now is we're appealing that denial. The other thing is that Raymond is up for parole early next year, and he's been up for parole multiple times. He's always maintained his innocence before the parole board, and he's always been denied or continue knewed for several more years.

But our hope is that you know now that he's done twenty seven years in prison, that he will be released on parole and can continue fighting for his innocence from the outside. Yeah, And unfortunately, maddeningly, parole boards almost always demand an emission of guilt, which Raymond of course has not done, even though he's been eligible now for almost ten years, since two thousand thirteen, and he has

no plan of changing that. And as an innocent man, neither he nor any other innocent person should have this crazy condition right to admit guilt to a crime that didn't commit. Are there any other avenues other than where you found denial so far? The other notable thing right now in Ohio is that over the last couple of years, the Ohio Supreme Court convened a task force to study wrongful convictions and post conviction review and they were looking at a lot of different factors. How do we prevent

wrongful convictions? You know, how do we better train police, attorneys, prosecutors.

But one big aspect of the task force was how do we change our court rules and laws to ensure that there is a pathway to relief for innocent people, people like Raymond who have the evidence but they're running into procedural barriers, running into timelines, and the result of that task forces work were several recommendations to amend court rules and to amend legislation, and so one of the big things that we're hoping will happen in the near

future is that those recommendations are adopted so that people like Raymond have options to litigate their case and to not have what happened to him occur, which is that you have this evidence, but no one's ever actually looked at it. So we're glad that someone really has Raymonds back here as he continues his fight. Is there anything our audience can do to help? Yeah, I like the

audience and support me as much as possible. Anything that you see our website on the free raymomd website, supporting our petitions side anything they can do to pus to judge to the right thing, to letting my case process through because I miss the Actually I've proved my innocence shouldn't be sitting here. That's what the worst would be doing to support it. Well, we're going to have the

action steps linked in the bio. So please, whatever you're doing right now, unless you're driving, stop and scroll down. Sign the petition, check out his site to stay up on developments in the case, and let's keep the pressure on. And that brings us now to my favorite part of the show, where first of all, I thank you all for joining us, and Raymond for sharing your story. And now I'm just going to turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair and just listen to anything you

feel is left to be said. Let's kick it off with Jolanna and Raymond. You take us off into the sunset, please, Well, thank you very much for having me and Raymond here and for telling his story. I think we're at a really critical moment where the public is really paying attention to wrongful conviction. You know, they're really aware that it happens, and I think motivated to do what they can to prevent them from occurring. And a lot of these conversations

center around preventing wrongful convictions, which is absolutely critical. You know, how do we reform I witnessed identification procedures, how do we address false confessions, Brady violations, misconduct. There's another part of this story, though, which is that after somebody is wrongfully convicted, we have this whole process that they have

to follow. To try to get relief, and the rules that are in place and the procedures that they have to follow often prevent them from having their cases heard and make it incredibly difficult for an innocent person to get relief. And so I encourage people to pay attention to that aspect of wrongful convictions. And when you think about those rules and those laws that govern these cases, think about the actors who control those the prosecutors, the

local judges, the state legislators. Those are the people who have the power to create pathways to relief for people like Raymond Warren, particularly here in Ohio, as we are grappling with those issues right now through the Supreme Court Task Force on Wrongful Convictions, And our hope is that some of the reforms that were recommended by that task Force are enacted so that people like Raymond can have

their freedom restored one day. First off, I'm gonna thank you Jay Blow allowed me to do a sye saying, I hope the words know that I'm in here something I need to do. This can happen to any of you or any of your children, because I was a child when that's happened. You're not hearing my evidence and hearing to prove my innocence doesn't miss the filing them a lot. I need your help right now. The justice system has their knee on it. I'm dying. I need

something I didn't do. So anybody's listening to this support me, and I decided the petition for showing up at those support roles. You're showing up to the places I need your help. Anybody that does support me and get out there, HILP. I want to thank you right now and I want this. You know it's night or the end. There's a lot of things in life like it's happen. That's an experience. Like you said, I'm see seeing you old people in here in this room above Washington grew up. That sucks.

God sucks as well. Does it be over with? Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne, and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila 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 Flow. Rangful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one