#309 Jason Flom with Jace Washington

confirmed that that gun was the murder weapon. The investigation led to seventeen year old Glen Carter, who confessed to the crime and exchanged for leniency, saying that his accomplice was a guy named E. Police approached one of Carter's known associates, Edred Cooper, who offered a trade information about two more assailants for leniency. But in the crime involving only two assailants, wouldn't such lies just be ignored, especially when those lies change repeatedly to adapt a new evidence.

When two different sets of facts were needed to convict the actual purpose and these other two guys, a judge would never let that slide right, you would think, but this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we're headed to the incarceration capital of the most incarcerated nation in the world, and of course I'm talking about Louisiana. And today's case evolves four men convicted separately for the

same crime. Two are admittedly guilty, while the other two were wrongfully convicted, and each conviction involved a slightly or entirely different set of quote unquote facts. And we hope for justice to be served for both of the wrongly convicted men. One of them is with us today, Jase Washington, Thank you so much for joining us. All yeah, we appreciate it. And with him his peers advocate. Is he a free a who was alerted to this insane in justice as well during COVID taking a break from law

school writing articles about the criminal legal system. Now, she just passed the bar, but instead of following the corporate law route that she had originally charted and planned for herself, she's diving into her very first criminal case pro bono. So is he welcome to the show? Thank you? So, Jay's before we launch into everything that's wrong with the criminal legal system in Louisiana, especially in St. Timany Parish, and your case in particular, we'd like to get to

know you a bit well. I was born in in probably Louisiana. My mother and my father separating when I was younger. Soul I had kind of been going back and forth between them, and we have to see permanent with my father, we're playing a lot of sports baseball, basketball, football, or they don't want I got a skateboard, so you were living a very active lifestyle and Slidell Louisiana with your dad. And to make better sense of this story, our audience might want to take a look at slide

Dell on a map. Now, most people are familiar with New Orleans, of course, which is on the south side of Lake Poncha train. Slide Dell, on the other hand, is just across the lake to the northeast from New Orleans at another fifteen minutes east to Long I Tent brings you right into Mississippi. If you go west over the north side of Lake Ponta train, you go further into Louisiana where Jay's used to go to a skate park. So skateboarding was big for you, as was basketball. Right,

How tall are you? I'm about six so six three four, definitely not around five nine, along with a number of other physical characteristics that should have disqualified you as a suspect in this crime, and also as evidenced by your squeaky clean record prior to this, if I understand correctly, you had never been in trouble with the law in a place where I understand it's a difficult maze to navigate for a young black man just to emerge unscathed, right,

I say it, out of trouble that wasn't might face Being in Saint cam de Tardine in the Guisiana is a very very peculious situation for young black people, especially young black males. You have higher chance of being disadvantaged by the system coming out and scaged. It's rather hard whether you're a terrible person, a troublemaker, or you're not. No, you were not not even a smudge on your record. You are a great student athlete who simply had one

unfortunate acquaintance. And we're gonna get to that in a minute, But first in Louisiana, from the post reconstruction Europe straight on through to a valid initiship of the past. In two thousand eighteen, Jason and so many others, countless others were or could have been convicted by a non unanimous jury. First by a jury of get this nine out of twelve, then they changed it to eventually they changed it to

ten out of twelve. And the reason I don't want to insult anybody's innis because you probably already figured it out so they could disenfranchise black jurors and to make use of the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole as punishment for a crime, whether the person was guilty or not. Now, in covering this case, I came upon a person who helped to organize that two thousand eighteen ballot initiative. She's very active in St. Tammany and remembers Jason's trial. Well,

my name is Belinda Parker Brown. I'm with Louisiana United International. We are civil constitutional human rights organization that focus on the injustice in the criminal justice system. Our organization is responsible for nicknaming this racist, unconstitutional Jim Crow law, this non unanimous jury verdict. We nickname it tint to. You know, I was so happy to see that happened during the

mid terms. But here we are just after mid terms in which there were ballot and issues all over the country where the voters were given the opportunity to end the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole in their states. But and that measure was approved by the way and all of the other states that voted on it except for one, Louisiana. But Louisiana is not alone, far from it and still

benefiting from slave labor. And it needs to stop in every state, especially when you have entire parishes or counties in this country seemingly devoted to pumping out one wrongful conviction after another. And of course, no one is more vulnerable to the machinery of our criminal legal system than the poor. They wind up taking a plea to things

that they did not do. And that's what they were doing here in St. Tammany, forcing, threatening, badgering young black men to take please to things that they did not do, just because they could not afford attorney. And because of that, the lead district attorney, Walter Reid nickname this parish St. Tammany sat Slammony, and that became something that they celebrated here in this parish especially when the re elections and

all of that stuff would come around. You know, they was tough on crime, and you know if you come over here with your cheewees and your your dread locks, and you know we're gonna get you, We're gonna lock you up and throw the key away. Right. I read the quote that I believe you're referring to, and at first I couldn't believe it was real because of just

the naked racism of it. It was from the Sat. Tammany Sheriff Sheriff Jack Strain, and this is the guy who had been empowered there since he was running for re election in two thousand and ten, just after Jason's conviction, and on the campaign trail he said, and this is a direct quote, he said, for some reason, New Orleans chooses to caddle criminals in that area that tend to get away with a great deal. End quote. And first off, No Orleans Parish between Harry Conic Senor and Leon Cannazaro

was notorious. But back to the quote, he said, quote, we will not coddle that trash in St. Tammany Parish. If you're going to walk the streets with dreadlocks and cheewie hairstyles. Then you can expect to get a visit from a sheriff's deputy. Everybody knew who he was talking about. It was the most profound racial sickness that can come out of a person's mouth that really, you know, inspired me to begin to protest against the sheriff's jail. It's

like a god forsake and hail whole. You know, people were being beat and raped and committing so called suicide. And he had something that we nicknamed them the squirrel cages. These squirrel cages were these three by three or four by four ft cells. I mean they were like phone boats basically nowhere to move, just you could just stand still pretty much, and of course no plumbing in these world cages. They would defecate on themselves. They would put

them in their butt naked for weeks. You know. People would just say, okay, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll say it, you know, I just want to get this over with. And using torture tactics like these pretty much insured that law enforce will get whatever statement they want to fix a rig a case. So add to that to nine unanimous jury verdicts and you've got a system fixed to maintain conviction rate. These are the tactics that they used in Jason's case, and we'll

get to that in a bit. So, Linda, after Jason had already gone to prisident Sheriff Strain had made these comments while campaigning, your organization had taken to the streets to protest, doing the protests on public property. They came out and told us to get off of their land. And at that particular time, my youngest son, because he was videotaping for us at that protest, they arrested him and put him inside of one of those squirrel cages. And literally that put the gasoline on my fire to

go after these people for the wrongdoing. So, if you take nothing else away from this story, is that you shouldn't funk with Belinda. So, the two people most responsible for Jason's wrongful conviction and countless others, the d A. Walter Reid, got convicted of a number of financial crimes, and from what I understand, those are the ones that the FBI can make sticks. But the sheriff, well, I'm gonna let you tell it, Jack Strange, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. This sheriff was

just a very sick, sick man. You know. As an organizer, you know, people would come to me with these stories and I would like try to vet what they're saying. After we dug up everything that we possibly could on him. And it was over thirty three witnesses that was coming forth saying that the sheriff was raped, been people inside of the jail. He was charged with incests, raping and molesting his own family members. It's an absolute horror show,

and it somehow gets worse. This sheriff was also brought up on bribery charges. They were privatizing the work release program basically slave trading under a different name, and he was getting kickbacks from those contending to take it private. Just it's unreal. Meanwhile, of course he was out there putting these people in squirrel cages, in these literal torture

cages to supply fresh bodies for the slave trade. You know, I don't know if the people are aware that the state and the federal government gives so much money to the jails and prison and you got to be at least at occupancy before you can receive the federal and

state funding. So not only did this uh Sheriff Strain have his own the various incentive to keep convictions up, as of course that the d a seeking reelection, but there's literally also a financial incentive from the state and federal government to keep up the supply of fresh bodies in a center. Not that same vile and perverse incentive leads many municipalities all over this country to operate this way, torturing or coursing statements from not only the quote unquote suspects,

but witnesses as well. Jack Halstead was one of the corrupt prosecutors and that prosecuted Jayce that was known for badgering and threatening witnesses and tell him say if you don't say what it is we want you to say. You know, you're gonna get your kids taken away from you. You're not going to be able to get a job. They literally made the people lives miserable. You know, we got people that would testify to that their doors and stuff were kicked in. Again, you've heard these tactics before

on the show. And if police have never threatened you or coursed you this way, maybe you'd be inclined to believe the things they say. In court and find yourself among the ten at its wall who consistently voted to convict.

And so as we begin to talk about this case in which there were two assailants, you'll see how these two now disgraced former elected officials, along with the Jim Crow era practice of non unanimous juries, we're all integral to Jason's conviction, as well as the perverse and centives locally for the sheriff of course, and from the state

of federal government. And how and why these various actors in Stimmany Parish would decide to prosecute four young men in a case in which there were only two assailants. The two actual admitted assailants were Glenn Carter and Edric Cooper. Grant Gathers and our guest Jayce Washington were in addition to what was even called for now, Jason, you didn't even know Glenn, right, but I understand that you did know Grant and Edric the fool together, you know, create

basketball and school together. Being Grant were a little a little more than acquaintance is now closer than and from what I understand, they both had a criminal record. Edric has admitted to making a habit of trading false or real information for freedom and his general occupation of petty theft and grant had been convicted once before, but his experience with the system in Sat Tammany played into his decision once they came after him for this. So that

brings us to April twenty nine, two thousand seven. This crime happened in Slide L, Louisiana, just on the north side of Lake Concert Trade from New Orleans, where five or six undocumented workers were living in the trailer as a home base for their day labor jobs in New Orleans. Now being undocumented, these guys carried cash and we're not likely to go to law enforce, but if they were robbed,

which made them easy targets. So, according to the initial statements from the victim's friends, two gunmen came into the trailer demanding money. The victim, Jose Carlos Martinez Carpio, had trouble understanding with the language barrier and attacked the gunmen with a kitchen knife or something, and he was fatally shot. The assailants then fled, leaving the rest of the men and the trailers stunned and grieving. As well as in almost impossibly precarious predicament. So some time went by before

they called the police. The first nine one one call was at m It was a yeah, there a god thing next door to them. Ended up calling nomen one. That's what he explained that another twow that Minic had passed, Tom had passed from the time of the shots by and be not with one call. Was trying to figure out what to do, and I want to bring Izzy

in here now. Some of the witnesses in the trailer that night were interviewed by the police, right, yes, I think all of them were actually interviewed, But there were some of them that said that they heard the gunshot. They closed their doors and did not come outside at all. But there were two people who said that they described seeing two people, the gunmen, enter the mobile home. They had their faces covered, but their arms were there, and

they could tell that they were black men. The taller of the two men went into the kitchen area and then they hurried gunshots coming from the kitchen area, and the shorter gunman who was at the door, he was nervous and so he fired his weapon onto the floor and then he also fled the area. So the gunman fled. The two witnesses are Echo, Gooyan and Avola. They said that one gunman was taller than the other, but not

by much. They said that they were similar to their height, which was about five eight and five tin foot tall. Jay's stands about six four ft tall, and Carter and Cooper is about five eight five ten feet tall. Now, Jay's is a black man, but he is extremely light skinned. Carter is a little darker. The witnesses that were inside the home saw the arms of the assailants, said, no, they didn't have any tattoos. But if you look at

Jay's he has clearly visible tattoos on both arms. So that's three major features right there that don't match the witness's descriptions that should have been right there. These are things that are not subject to the pitfalls of misidentification. You can't really mistake no tattoos for tattoos, dramatic contrast, and skin tone and six four for five eight. The two people that they saw in the mobile home did not match the description of Jace Washington or Grant Gathers

for that matter. No, they matched the description of Cooper and Carter. Right. But at this point the cops just had two black men five eight and five ten, dark skin, no tattoos, both with guns, faces recovered. I believe they mentioned a Chevy Tahoe according to a report written by one of the detectives in this case, a detective Calendar. Other witnesses reported the Chevy Tahoe as well. Right a p. Thirty there was an eyewitness that reported to black males

in a car very close to the crime area. One of the black males exit the car and appeared to be hiding a weapon in the bushes. The officers they were able to retrieve the gun and then trace the gun to one of the guns that was used in that robbery, and that's what led officer to arrest Carter in the first place. So they zeroed in on seventeen year old Glen Carter a few days later on May three, when he was thrown into a squirrel cage, and I believe he was facing the death penalty, so it's not

a hard decision to cooperate. He confessed to the crime, giving a very similar story as the witnesses and gave up the name E for the initial E as his accomplice. Now, the police were already familiar with eighteen year old Edric Cooper as a known associate of Glenn Carter from previous running. So this was basically all the corroboration they needed to go scoop him up. Who were he was wanted by the detectives already a week earlier, they had been looking

for him. That was the way they were able to identify who Glenn Carter was talking about its accompanied. So on May five, Edric Cooper, he also confessed, but he told the officers said there are two other people who were with him, Jay's Washington and Grant Gathers by Carter implicating him have already been wanted. Kind of pulled two names out the air to try to relieve some of the trouble that he was in. It could have been anybody that's paper were from other witnesses that was interviewed

by detectives. They said he added four or three other names. You know, if the detectives knew Cooper was not telling the truth, because there were things that they already knew that Cooper did not realize they knew. Right, and as I mentioned earlier, this was Cooper's emma to trade false information for freedom. Samet Tammany police knew that from previous interactions, but they were more than happy to work with him anyway.

In the unrelated crime, the same thing happened. I witnesses the descriptions that s been Carter and Cooper called a toll on Cooper again, and when detectives asked Cooper about it, he complicated a third party, and I witnesses descriptions that they gave did not hit this third party. All the numbers are sailists, the number of stuff that that were seen in this other unrelated problem. Yep, deja vu all

over again. And as we spoke about already, Samet Tammany E d the sheriff, the d A, they all had their own list of incentives to work with Cooper, and none of them were truth, justice or public safety. So what we're gonna see unfold here is the prosecution of Glen Carter on the basis of the witness statements from the trailer and his own confession. Then Edric Cooper fled guilty under the same set of facts, and then Jace

gets prosecuted under a totally different narrative. The jury was kept completely in the dark and Cooper was allowed to change the details and manipulate the narrative over time in order to implicate two more young men, Jason Grant, in a crime in which there were only two assailants. So let's talk about the ever changing false narrative of Edric Cooper. The initial statement that he gave, he said all four of them wrote to the crime scene in Carter's vehicle.

He said that he had a black nine millimeter luger, Jas had a thirty eight, and Carter had a forty five. He said Jason Carter entered the trailer and Cooper and Grant stood outside as the lookouts. And so when they heard the gunshot, that's when they all started running and they drove out of the crime scene, all four of them in Carter's car. That's the story that he told

the officers. Glenn Carter, and the trailer witnesses said that Carter, the taller of the two gunmen, went into the kitchen while the shorter gunmen stayed in the front by the door. First of all, if James was one of the gunmen, then he most certainly would have been the taller one by far. Jace being six four is an irreconcilable truth on its face, as are the tattoos. Then you have the witnesses that reported seeing the gun drop outside the tahoe.

And just like Glenn Carter and the witnesses from the trailer, they also only reported seeing two men. So despite what detectives with any sort of moral compass should have done, they got in the rest warrant for Jason and the search warrant for Jason's father's house. Now, remember we have Glenn Carter with the murder weapon of forty five, then Jay's allegedly with the thirty eight, and Edrek Cooper outside with a nine millimeter Luger. So Jason's father legally owned

a nine millimeter Ruger handgun. So when they found that gun, Cooper changed his statement to say Ruger, so Ruger not Luger. And then he also changed his statement to say that it wasn't him, it was Chase that had that gun. Okay. So now with Jase's plausible access to his father's Ruger not Luger Ruger, Cooper has not only to change the brand of gun, but also to switch gun placements between him and Jay's. So in this version of events, Cooper

was allegedly outside now with the thirty eight. Now didn't the trailer witnesses say that the gunman by the front door had fired his weapon into the floor. Yes, the thirty eight gun was actually fired in the trailer, So Cooper changed the statement to include him and Grant Gathers all in the trailer, four people in the trailer instead

of just two people that he had initially said. So the only thing from his initial statement that remained the same, and but the only thing that was consistent with glen Carter's statement was that Glen Carter used to forty five.

Other than that, the brand of nine milliminter changed, as did who was holding it in order to match what the police had found at Jason's father's house, And then the number of people in the trailer had to change in order to make room for the fact that the thirty eight had been fired, as well as the change of who was holding what gun Jason allegedly with his father's ruger and Cooper firing the thirty eight into the ground.

As the witnesses in the trailer had said, and as you had mentioned earlier, a lot of those people that lived inside the home were immigrants that did not have the proper authorization to remain in the United States. So right after the incident happened, they were all arrested and detained. They already detained until December of that same year, when who I believe is the current d A of St. Tammany Parish filed a petition with the cord and said that these guys were victims and so did not deserve

to be detained and they had to be released. After they were released, one of those people also started change in history. The Currencier is war in Montgomery and he worked with the Public Defender's Office at the time. Now, one of the undocumented workers, either at Cogoyan or Avelo, changed their story to maybe possibly include a third or fourth assailant to give the state the wiggle room they

needed to eventually prosecute Jason Grant. But back to the immediate aftermath, So both you and Grant were about to be arrested. They end up coming to you from my home the next day. You don't have enough money for an attorney. It took us a long time to figure out what was being saying and who said so, no money for an attorney means no money for bail, and you've got no information about why you're even there. I can't even imagine what must have been going through your mind.

They take shock world change the fool. Some of them have two people that someone still have handcuffs on, you know, nineteen years old to process what's going all. They put me right into one of those world keys and I'm still trying to figure out how did I get here. 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. Flour was set in two four Black Bodies and as as things we revealed that work against the detective in the stage theory, all the game was initiated change and this could have been remedied from the beginning if TETs, Calendar Technogi Candidadil had done their job, and it seems they might have been doing their job. It's just not the job that

they pretended is in public. So you were stuck in jail awaiting trial with one piece of information, a report from Detective Calendar about the investigation. Meanwhile, they were out there trying to fix the case against you. So they tried to corroborate Edric Cooper's narrative and they had to change it several times by now already just to fIF

the facts. And then DNA evidence was also conducted because he had said that they rode in an out in Carter's car, and he said Carter gave them certain items from his car, like a bandanna and items to cover their faces. They seized Carter's car, tested it thoroughly for DNA evidence. There is not a single instant where Jason's or Grant Gather's DNA was found in any of the items that were found in Carter's car or anything in Carter's car, which had they been in there, finding neither

of their DNA. That's not plausible, maybe not even possible. Yes, So Cooper then changes the story to say that Grant and Jays were in one car and he and Carter were in Carter's car. That's convenient, so okay boom, a new non existent, nondescript car gets introduced. What's odd, though, is that this narrative is only president in Jason's case. Great Gathers, on the other hand, had a prior and had he gone to trial, he could have got life.

So he played guilty in exchange for leniency, understandably in his plea though, he copped to being in the Chevy Tahoe, but because he didn't fight it, the fact that DNA testing excluded him from the Tahoe didn't matter. He just took the seven years or whatever they gave him to get out of his squirrel cage, and Jays would have been out in like the latest had he done the same. They never in a million years expecting me to go to trial and fighting. They were expecting me guilty. From

the moment that he was arrested. All that they wanted him to do was just say you're guilty. Just say you did it, so then we gave you a man's a lot of charge and you probably get like ten years. And he kept insisting that he's not going to bleed guilty to something that he hadn't done, and they tried to in the next three or four times after I asked for an a turn, which is a constitutional to take the states, they would sin try to sing different people in there too to give me to make a succession.

At one point, you can tell me when I asked from my attorney, oh, well, you're gonna have a public depended the cublic. Disfinder doesn't care about you, so it's your best interests to just go ahead. And I'm like, man, I'm all my lord. You know at this point to kind of get aditated, I'm all my lord. So after a while that they finally kicked me in the process and on my way out, the former Sheriff Jack Strain made it tell me that this is in New Orleans. You know at this time I had the chip straight

lock testile. Sheriff Strain was very clear about his views in his re election campaign in twos ten. He equated the cheewie dreadlock hairstyle with criminal behavior, and it's probably why he operated the way he did. So the squirrel cage didn't work on you. Reasoning with you about how you're going to get terrible representation hadn't worked. What happened next, I was taking out of the world cage, and I was placed in the whole nay day, couldn't see the news.

I had to ask someone print of mine to see me getting the print out of an article to just kind of get an understanding of what exactly they were saying what's going on, because we still don't know what's going on. I don't think they knew what was going on because they hadn't decided on the narrative that they were going to frame you with yet. So you got out of the whole after ninety days, met with your public defender, and finally got to see a report from

Detective Stacy Calendar. But years later we find out that a lot of the stuff she put in that through investigative calls intigating and fabricating. She sabricated witnesses statements evident, She changes the descriptions to go out witnesses guils, She changes things that Cooper tells her. She just changes things throughout her investigative report to make their investigations seem tighter. And what she's saying in her report and the investigations

done by the tact is not match at all. And like you said, you didn't find this out until years later, Unfortunately, you did not have the benefit of effective counsel or the opportunity to review those materials to make that comparison yourself. Certainly, neither your first public defender, James Tally, or your second, Melissa Brink, were able to develop a defense outlining the discrepancies between detective calendars report and the actual investigation. Maybe

a year and a half. The only thing I had was her investigated before just restricted her words. I had no witness transness for witness statement or anything like that, so I'm trying to build a disinth. Awful was in this report. And then maybe a two months before trial, doll In the nine did come back. And now all

of a sudden that changed. You know, I got up an open court and I explained to Judge Richard Swart what was taking place, and the answer he gave me was less of breaking hand to me and that that assessment turned out to be very, very, very incorrect. Yeah, she was handling what like three seventy cases. I mean, I gotta pause there again, that's crazy when she should have had I mean, even a hundred and fifty would have been an incredible strain on anyone. The ineffective council

was virtually guaranteed. As it is with so many indigent defendants all over the country, the constitutional violation is built right in. So Glenn Carter went to out first, followed by Edric Cooper, then you, then Grant, and all four of you were found guilty separately, and I mean very separately. And can you explain what I'm talking about? Well? First,

Glenn Carter was fried August two thousand and eight. He was convicted with evidence of only him and Edrek Cooper committing his prime right, so consistent with the original witness statements and his own admission right, there was no evidence presented by the state of three and four other people. The next day, after Lin Carter was convicted, ed Cooper played guilty, but under the factional basis that it was

only him and Carter who committed the crime. So everything that Glenn Carter and Andrew Cooper copped at their proceedings exonerated deal you earned even mentioned in those proceedings. What about his statement that was eventually used against you. The next day, after pleading guilty, the detectives took him for attorney's office to another slow location. No one's turned and nobody knows where they were to re interview him, and all of a sudden, miraculously, the second statement comes up,

and it seeks to validate the initial investigation. That it's not a repeal. So Cooper's initial statement, which served as the probable cause to arrest you and search your father's house, in which he admitted to his involvement, that was not even brought up at his proceedings, probably because it was so wildly and completely out of step with reality. But now they needed a new statement that wasn't so obviously false,

that included you and Grant Gathers. And the only thing about this new statement that even vaguely resembled the initial statement was that you two were there and the carter used a forty five. They also now had one of the trailer witnesses allegedly giving them that wiggle room of well, maybe there was a third or fourth assailant. Who knows if this change was just the translator taking some sort of creative license, and it could have been, But how did the judge he even allow this to go on.

We're talking about the narrative of a crime that have just appeared twice in front of the court. Judge Curius, the judge that did Carters trial, and the Cooper was flee once he took the plea from Predrick. Cooper said an open court on the record that he was recognizing

these as sticulated facts. Basically, he used the legal term he was taking judicial notice, which is he's saying he's taking these facts that he's been watching throughout the Carter proceedings and now at this Cooper proceedings, he's saying, Okay, this is what y'all are saying happened in this crime. These are the facts of the case. So Judge Curius was not going to excel up the facts that were

presented at my trial. And what happened was I was miraculously taking out a Judge Burius court basing entirely different set action where a different set of facts were consinting to a different judge saying that hey, to completely irreconscilable things happened in this case. Yeah, you just can't have to contradicting the artives of the same crime. So even though they switched you to a different judge, Judge Schwartz, I mean, wouldn't he just see the same thing that Bursted.

The state must have recognized that this was weak footing. Jason's trial was in October twelve, two thousand and nine. October nine, they were presenting him with a plea deal to testify against Grant Gethers, and he said he can't testify against Grant because he wasn't there. So you're sticking to your innocence to the better end. Did your public

defender try to encourage you to take a play? Yes, every day until October fourteen without an Obviously the day I was found guilty, and I keep telling her the same thing over and over and over again, and I'm not too guilty. Is something that I didn't do, and just out of curiosity. What did they offer is ten years That was ultimately grand Gathers decision into eight years.

I was found guilty of a lesser charge. Grand Gathers would have been going to trial for a second to he murdered, which in Louisiana mandatory life citizens no parole. So it was decision between eight years mandatory life with no parole. That's pretty easy math to do. And I guess he didn't know about the DNA evidence that excluded him from ever having entered Glen Carter Chevy Tahoe. That

was a part of the narrative of his proceedings. And what about the evidence presented in Carter and Cooper's proceedings. You think your attorney would be a little more confident and you would have fared a lot better at trial. But what happened. Tried to get cause of confessions that it's not a razing, introduced a trial so security to hear the shot it down. He said it it wasn't trustworth, wasn't trustworthy. They just used it to send two men away,

one for life. It didn't make any sense, and we never heard that the twelve people had much while still don't know to this date that this succession existed. And if they had a reasonable likelihoods that I would have got not guilty burden. I mean, what else are we supposed to conclude about this? Judge, he saw the evidence from the other two proceedings which impeached the testimony of the state start witness against you, and he excluded it.

So now the jury only here is the narrative of Edric Cooper, and they have no idea how many times it changed or how fundamental those changes were. And as we've mentioned, U until this point the impeachment evidence for Cooper's testimony had not been developed very well by Jason's attorney. The prosecution, you know, they had the burden, but their burden was very simple, was just really getting Cooper to tell the most recent version of events. The defense's job

was probably harder. That she needed to be extremely organized to list all those statements that Cooper had said that we're in true and then actually also do the extra work to show that even if we're supposed to believe the last statement that he's given and disregard all the prior statements that he's saying, this last statement that he's saying cannot even be true. And she didn't do that.

She didn't have the time to do all the investigation, or probably didn't have the resources to do the investigations that she needed to do, and so she went to trial unprepared and the jury could not follow. She didn't effectively demonstrate the whole cluster fuck around the narrative change in between Cooper outside the trailer with a nine millimeter luger and Jay's inside with a thirty eight to then Jason with a nine millimeter ruger, and all four of

them inside the trailer. Then you have one witness like likely threatened with deportation or worse, changing their story to include the possibility of more sales than the original two, then going from one car to two cars because DNA evidence excluded Jay's How this issue wasn't raised It just baffles and infuriates me. But then there's this phone record evidence that was introduced to draw connection between Jason Glenn Carter, but it could have easily been used to impeach Cooper's

ever changing narrative. Cooper had made statements about how he Jason Grant went to Mississippi earlier in the day, when the phone records show that Jason Grant had never left Louisiana. She could have connected those dots. Are called an expert to extrapolate a clear vision of Cooper's lives from the phone record, but again she was just overwhelmed and not prepared to do that, which could have been a game changer.

So Cooper had initially told officers that he and Jays and Grant they had been in Mississippi and then they returned to Slydale on Sunday, which was the day of the incident, about five or so. What is interesting was that Jay's had a purchase receipt that showed that he was already in Louisiana around three pm. So at trial, Cooper changed the testimony again to say that they arrived in Slydale at ten am. So this appears to just more of the police and Andrew Cooper perfecting his statement

to align with reality. And that's what you have to do with lies. So how did they try to connect Jase with Glenn Carter? Cooper said that when he got to Slideale, he called Carter on Jason's phone. He said that that's when they all got together with Carter, and

that's when they planned the robbery together. And then he also said that after the robbery, when they were fleeing the area, he said that Jay's called Carter on Carter's phone and Carter did not answer, So they asked him how many times did he call and he said he called just once. When all four of them were initially arrested,

there were two numbers that were listed for Carter. One number, the officers found out quickly was not Carter's number, so they proceeded with just the remaining number, and so that number that they proceeded through before Jays's trial as Carter's number. That number never appeared on Jas's phone, so not at either time to Cooper alleged ten am or nine pm. So how did they had to make it look like

Jason Carter spoke on the phone. About a week before Jason's trial, the prosecution goes into Jays's phone, there was a phone call from Jayce's number at eight so the prosecution presented this number as Carter's number. So the prosecution just took whatever number Jay's called around the time of the crime and just told the jury that that was Carter's number to match up with Cooper's latest version of events.

So let's try to unravel this one. Cooper said that when Jay's called Carter that Carter did not answer, But the number that Jay's called around nine eighteen, it shows that the person actually answered and there was a conversation, and it shows that a few minutes or so after, Jay's called that number again and the person also answered.

And so I'm sure our audience won't be surprised to find out that the number that they presented as Carter's during trial only appeared in the evening, not at ten am, as Cooper had said, thereby exposing get another one of this guy's lives. After trial, Jay's, this attorney filed a writ with a Cord for a subpoena to get that phone record to verify if that number was Carter's number. The number that Cooper had testified at trial to be Carter's number, and that number turned out not to be

Carter's number. If you read the Court of Appeals opinion on Jesu's case, it appears that that's something that they consider to be important that the state was able to establish that connection between Jay's and Carter using that phone record. But the phone record that they presented was in Carter's phone number, And what the prosecution did was they just presented the number and showed it to Cooper at trial and said that whose number is this? And then Cooper goes,

this is Jase's number. Whose number is this? And then he goes, that's Carter's number. Who's the number calling this number? And it's like Jas's number calling Carter's number. Then they bring Carter's girlfriend to the stand. Carter's girlfriend. This is two years later, two years after this incident had happened. Carter's girlfriend comes to the stand and then the prosecution asked her back in April of two thousand and seven, was Glenn Carter your boyfriend? And she says yes, sir.

And the prosecution goes and Glen's Carters being convicted of murder? Is that correct? She goes, yes, sir, in April of two thousand, what was Glenn Carter's phone number? Then she lists the number that Jay's dialed on the night of the incident. She lists that as Carter's number for memory. Two years, two years she remembered that number like that from memory. And this is the part where I just felt so disappointed in Jays's attorney at the time, because

she just basically said, I have no questions. She did not cross examined this witness to even understand how she remembered Carter's number. She did not cross examine Cooper to even find out how he remembered that to be Carter's number. Two years after the incident happened. She did find out that this was not in fact Carter's number, that both of these witnesses perjured themselves, but too little, too late.

I've got to imagine that having the memorize a number off of Jas's phone that wasn't their friend Glenn Carter's had to have been the prosecution's idea. But if I were on the jury, I mean, after hearing Cooper's testimony, not knowing all the inconsistencies with prior statements or how it was contradicted by witness statements, and having that testimony corroborated by the phone records, I can see how the

jury was fooled. And even with that, there was at least one person on the jury that said that they didn't believe what the state was saying. They had that testimony from Cooper. Cooper's credibility wasn't properly impeached by Jaycee's attorney, and they ended up buying his story over the story that Jaycee's attorney. Because I don't even know what story she was trying to tell, she didn't put up that defense. There were so many other people who are willing to

testify about Jessee's whereabouts. There were so many other witnesses that she just didn't call. In the beginning, all that she wanted to do was for Jay's to plead guilty, So she wasn't preparing for a trial other than the inadequate and disorganized cross examination. I think she put your dad on the stand to say that you didn't have access to his gun and that you were home at the time of the crime. Unfortunately, alibi defense from family rarely does the track. So other than that, did your

attorney present any defense at all? She called no witnesses, She presented none of the evidence, none of the fall records, no expert for the fall records, nothing. She did. Nothing. She she put together, no the fit to actively test the theory. And they find a lot of timeline of

etty Poble and the state. All of the evidence that I have now proving what I'm saying, all of it was ad by the state, stuff that they call open discovery, stuff that she could have pulled, looked at, and been able to sit the pool, which just points out that the state had to have known what they were doing. This was their information and they simply used it to guide the actual guilty party to frame an innocent man. I'm mean, did you have any hope after shooting through

this sham trial? Yes? Because Cooper admitted to Lyne the day after he took that guilty plead. You know, he was asked the question and he was like, Okay, y'all lied then too, but I'm not lying right now. And I think that was one of the biggest things that made me believe that I mean to come out of this all right. You know, he wasn't a unanimous bird. He was non unanimous. Knowing that jury polled. You had

one white lady. You could see that she was rather perturbed by the fact that the other eleven jurors could not see pass them saying I committed a crime the one that youry posed. She was physically angry that this was happening because she was able to see for the state of saying with Edrid Coogler saying doesn't make any sense. So he was acquitted of the second degree murder, and then they found him guilty of the manslaughter. In that moment, trying to wrap my head around what was going on

and how it had taken place. It wasn't very secretive. They're not even sweeping it under the rug anymore. They just dunking it on the ground and leaving it there. In that moment, I kind of realized what I was dealing with. That gifted Bernie came. I realized I'm dealing with a monster. I was sentenced to twenty five years twenty five Paul Laver Dick and ditches the can hold surrounded by a white guys on a horse with rifles and dign't you're you're pulling vegetables? I mean call a label.

And since the day wasn't a day, you know that's that's not slavery. And I don't know what it is. It is quite literally slavery according to the thirteenth Amendment, and then according to voters in mid terms of voter to keep slavery as a punishment for a crime in Louisiana.

I mean between all of the official and prosecutor misconduct, the incentives to keep the jail in prison population up, and how woefully overworked and underfunded the public defender's offices, it's almost like this is what the legislature has planned for poor people across Louisiana, let alone all over our country. Having a public defender who could not possibly organize or present an adequate defense is not the exception, it's the

rule for indigent defendants. It's a built in constitutional violation of the right to effective assistance of council. So there's a that was I want to SAY fund, US Department of Justice, the American University of Washington, BC, and the findings of the report established that in the Descendants and SAY time, the parish are routinely depride their constitutional rights

and their new process. There was a sixty minute sex and the two thousand and seventeen with Anison Cooper and several public defenders from Louisiana were interviewed and they were

explaining that it's like an assembly line in Louisiana. There's an abject underfunding the state Legislator of the Public Defenders Office in Louisiana, and they're basically operating on a budget where they cannot give the constitutionally required representations to defendants, and they spent no remedies, and no one is addressing

the people who are being objected. The dominantly lack of mirror as it affected you and continues to affects other folks, and you have not been taking this line down between stints out in the fields, you and studying the law and aggressively filing pro SAY emotions as well as having some legal help along the way. But unfortunately you're being denied where it seems pretty clear that you should not be especially on the very basic ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

And you know what that last motion she filed, she talked about things she should have done prior to trial, and she just kind of laid it all out so that I could come back and fighting or post adgtional collateral attack. She even made the comment to me that I should get some kind of relief from not being able to use called a statement and trial. She was in the belief that Okay, hey, that was so big that it's going to get the case overturns. But just

every time it comes back the same name, Nahna. All the other appeals that he filed for the court have also been denied because the standard of review on appealed, especially if you challenge the insufficient and see of evidence, is that the court just holds the position that if the jury believed these things to be true, then we're also going to believe it to be true. So Cooper's version of events, that's what the Court of appeals take

to be true. And so when the court finds that a reasonable jury could come to that conclusion based on these facts, then the court will affirm the person's conviction. Cooper's testimony is what is following Jay's With every appeal that he files, his appeals get denied. But what Jay's has been challenging is that the testimonies, the evidence of

the prosecution presented to the jury were not true. Right, They presented false evidence, and one can surmise easily that they had to know that they were doing so, considering how they helped Cooper shape and mold his statements over time to drag two innocent people into this situation contrary to the initial witnessed statements and the factual basis presented

at both Carter's and Cooper's proceedings. But shortly after your conviction, between conviction and sentencing, I believe Rick Cooper gave a recantation that is believed to have been made before trial.

Is that right? Is he? Yes? This is August twenty so if I'm reading the date right, this was probably before Jason's trial on August two thousand and nine, where Cooper signed an affidavit that he was ready to present to the court to say that he had lied about the whole thing, that every statement that he had provided was a lie, and that he was scared eighteen year old boy that he knew James had never been in any type of criminal trouble, and so because of that,

he implicated James. Because he knew that Jas wasn't going to get convicted, well, clearly he didn't understand what he was dealing with in St. Tammany Parish. So he wrote this prior to Jason's trial, but no one was aware of it until between Jase's conviction and his sentencing. What happens was, I go to Calle the Cidency, and Jack hoff stands. Attorney's office prints him purjury if he goes through with can Grant Davis, he did recantation, explaining that

he was falkennificated in the crime. Grant said that he wasn't there either, and that whatever it is that he said about Jaycee's involvement, it's not true. All of this is taken and once again manipulated in the States favor, like Cooper was forced to make those he can't taste, or same thing with grand Gethers. And they're making me look like I'm the wolf, you know, like I'm this a big bad guy that trying to force things into his fable and the whole time it's the opposite. Classic projection.

All of these witnesses that they called credible at your trial, whom they had coerced into line. They then threatened them with perjury for trying to say something they knew to be true from their own investigation. So they got Cooper and Grant to keep quiet. What about Glenn Carter? Carter actually wrote me a letter that I have and he's playing in another that piece were awful that I end

up getting caught up in all it. So Carter wrote a letter to jas in which he said a number of things, but the most important here that he said is that but when all of this is over, you could send somebody at me to sign the papers for you. Since E which is Dric and Grant not gonna do it. I don't feel like you should be in here anyway. You didn't do anything, So, like I said, let me get my ship situated and I might do that for you.

I know who was there, and I didn't see you, and I took that and I said, maybe as well get a new trial. Just watched that Dad now and as well without even addressing the significance of that letter in cooperations everything there I was saying before in doing the trial letters from all three of them have been

shot down saying basically, did they hold no credibility? It's funny how they will find recantations not credible, but that doesn't drag into question any previous statements made in court by the same person, like did they recently learned how to become a liar? Is that the basic theory. The only metric they're using for credibility seems to be if it maintains a conviction and suits their narrative. And in your case, the state had the evidence that discredited the

statements made against you a trial. But somehow these recantations are the incredible statements, so incredible in fact, that when Jace received these recantation letters, his cell got tossed. Do I have that right, Jason? Yeah? That was in two thousand and ten. I had the letters from Grant and at what happened was they came to all of myself and a lot of my early pictures. I've never seen it again after that date. And in that bag, in that stuff were the recantations. Thankfully I had sit home

and I sitting in someone else's name. I'm glad I did that. I can't imagine how defeated, you would have felt so. At least you have a record of the other two recantations while you await Carter's help. What did you have to wait for to get his help? So I don't know what he has going on. Legally, they promised him a parole date because he now had parole under the juvenile law, because right because he was a juvenile. That falls under two very important Scotis decisions Miller versus

Alabama and Montgomery versus Louisiana. Between the two, it makes the mandatory life without parole sentence except in cases of permanent incarriage ability, it makes that sentence for a juvenile unconstitutional, and that decision was made retroactive. So he was resentenced and probably wants to wait until those proceedings are through

before upsetting his own apple cart by helping you. Since it seems they were hell bent on ignoring the science pointing to your innocence and that has not changed ever since your conviction. I think this needs to go to a new trial, if not a new venue, because there is certainly new evidence and I don't see how you could ever be convicted it with that new evidence being presented. So I have Cooper statement where he recanted everything and said he liked I have grant where he said he

liked I have Carter's leutter. You also have the subpoena phone records for the number passed off as Carter's phone in court, which established collusion between Jason Glenn Carter. However, that key piece of evidence turned out to be bogus. That subpoena is not in jas's official filings, so it's new evidence. So given the opportunity, you could subpoena the phone company again to submit that as new evidence, and you also did all the work that his attorney never did,

thereby destroying Cooper's morass of lies. For me, what I'm hoping comes out of this is that somebody goes like, Okay, let's look into this. Not even take my word for it, let's look at the paperwork. The statements that were presented to the jury were false, and the prosecutor's office knew or should have known, that those statements were fault. Cooper changed and was allowed to change those testimonies with no

consequences of perjury. And so he constantly keeps changing the stories over and over again until it got to a point where the prosecution could sell that story to a jury. And as we had said earlier, even with all of this, there was at least one person in that jury that said that they did not believe what the prosecution was selling them, which in any other state except Oregon at the time would have meant a hung jury. And this brings us to the very important development of Louisiana no

longer accepting non unanimous jury verdicts. They did away with this Jim Crow era practice in two thousand and eighteen by ballot initiative, but when this new law was taken to the Supreme Court, rather than making it retroactive, they led it up to the state of Louisiana to decide. To me, that's like telling the fox that's garten a inn house to do something about what you did that you know was wrong. So Louisiana stand, They're not gonna let the people go here. Within our organization, we know

that it's over eight thousand people. It's over seventeen hundred or more here in St. Tammany Parish, with Jason on the top of the list be Linda Parker Brown. She and her organization have now filed a lawsuit against the State of Louisiana, and in this lawsuit they planned to challenge the State of Louisiana once again on the issue

of these non unitedmous jury verdicts. They they was caught the highest court in the land, the United States Supreme Court, rule what they did here was unconstitutional, and I'm saying it was criminal. So I'm saying that if it was unconstitutional and the United States Supreme Court, along with the people voting sixty, let these people go, let them go free.

If we got to organize some type of facilitation on how we want to release the people, that's fine, but it's not right for them to hold them hostage, kidnap because they got it wrong. And we're gonna have action steps linked in the bio for Belinda's organization and to help Jace. So I put together a petition for Ja's We're hoping to create awareness and we also want the new district Attorney who is in St. Tammany Parish. He

has the power to reopen Jase's case. All the support and documents, all the inconsistent statements, Jason's phone records, Carter's phone records, Grant Gather's phone records, all of that information is available, it's for him to give Jay's a second opportunity for his case to be reviewed. Go to the bio now and we can all work together to right this wrong. And now we're going to turn to my favorite part of the show, closing arguments, where I thank

both of you again. I mean you just you inspire me to want to work harder and smarter, and we're going to keep fighting for you and for everyone that we can possibly help that's been roughly convicted. So closing arguments works like this is he We're gonna start with you. I'm gonna turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair with my headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything else you want to share with our audience, and then hand the microphone off to Jason. He'll take

us off into the sunset. April two thousand and seven, another human being, Jose Martinez Carpio lost his life. He had a family, he had people who loved and cared for him. He was an innocent man. He deserves justice, His family deserves justice. But if you have a situation where there's somebody else who had absolutely nothing to do with what unfortunately happened, to Jose Martinez, if you have that person servant time in prison, then you're not delivering

any justice to the victim. You're not serving society any good, and in what may have been the state's good intention, the state ended up victimizing another person and his family. Jayson's conviction was a mistake and it's a mistake that needs to be corrected. It's been fifteen years overdue. And

that's all that I like to say. We have social problems going on all over the world, all over the country, social problems affecting predominant lead black people a lot of times or not giving the sources and not giving the president Joe Bidel political leagus. But it's resting a lot of social problems. But with being left out a lot of times, is it criminal justice system and the way that you can handle black people on the need to

date judges in the courts. They are not taking seriously the litigation done by indigent, They're not taking seriously the litigation done for who are are mostly poor. This has tanked this. You can't continue to run a system, operate and escape as a country. As the nation, you can't continue to operate with historically agreeable for people who are being adversity affective by the workings in the working bureaucratic inside of the system. 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 Flom.

Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one