#313 Jason Flom with Antwaun Cubie

While waiting for Jeremy's contact at the tire shop, Antoine received a phone call from a girlfriend. While they spoke about their plans to meet up later, Kevin Jackson and Jeremy Brewder went out of Antoine's site and gunshots rang out. Antoine didn't know who ad fired the shots, but Kevin came racing back to the car, telling him to drive. When Antoine began to drive to safety, he noticed Jeremy

struggling to survive. He stopped the car, demanding answers from Kevin and began to walk back over to the tire shop. When police arrived, One think that the field report logging the inventory of Antoine's pat town would match the inventory of items locked when he arrived at oak Park PD, that the officer unseen could not have possibly missed a large wad of bills alleged to belong to Jeremy Bruder.

One would think you might also believe that a teenager might not need medical attention after a night spent in the interrogation room. We certainly hope so, But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today we have a story from oak Park, Illinois. Now this is a nice suburb just outside of Chicago, but still within the limits of Cook County, and unfortunately for our guests today, this story features a lot of the hallmarks of Chicago

style powerful conviction. Aunt On Qubi had and still has so much athletic and intellectual talent, but the time and opportunity for him to excel at life was robbed from him. He joins us from Stateville Penitentiary, Antoine, Welcome to ron for conviction. Thank you. I appreciate you having me and we appreciate you being here, even though I hate the reason why you're here in the first place. And with him today is his attorney from Riley's Safer Homes at

ken Silla. You might recall that firm, of course from a previous guest, Roun Safer. Well, this is Joe Harris's first appearance, and we hope it's not the last. So Joe, welcome to the show. Jason, thank you very much. All right, So let's start out in the usual place by getting to know Antoine a bit well. Originally from the South side, the far south side of Chicago, Argue of Guards project. That's originally where my mother, darlne Qubis from and her

side of the family. My father, he's from the West side of Chicago. They separated not too long after my birth. My mother was able to get us of the projects, and eventually, you know, she also made sacrifices to get us to the suburbs, which was oh Park until we uh eventually end up moving to the further west suburbs, which was Westmont. Went to school, stay active in sports, had a lot of friends, never really got into any trouble. You know. I fell in love with the game of basketball.

I think that's what mostly kept me out of trouble all those years. Yeah, the elephant in the room is that you were an amazing basketball player, like you had that thing right that high schools were checking you out in junior high colleges were scouting you out as early as your freshman year, like you had that kind of special talent. Yeah, I um. I was a starter on the varsity all four years. I was All Conference, All Area, All State, All Americans, got nominated to the All American

McDonald Game scholarships. To go to college, I didn't. I couldn't complain. I couldn't complain during those times. You know. Unfortunately, you know, that opportunity had, you know, taken from me. But during that time, it was very promising. You know. Antoine had a great mom and a salad upbringing, and he was a good kid and he didn't have any

behavioral problems at all or no criminal record. He finished his high school career in n six at a school called Donners Grove South, and he had his sights set on a variety of options, but the one that he was really kind of most focused on was going to the University of Illinois. He wanted to play basketball and study business and political science. So in June of ninety six, Antoine Koube had pretty much everything to look forward to.

It sounds like it and it's ironic because your mom got you out of Chicago, away from not only violent crime, but also away from the Chicago p D and their predatory practices. Of course, was just three years after Marcus Wiggins mother won a civil suit against the city when John Burge's Midnight crew had beaten and electrocuted him. There was a eighteen year old child at the time, but they tortured him into making a false statement incriminating himself.

Is also two years before that same department made its third and unfortunately their first successful attempt at framing Marcus. If you haven't heard his story, we're gonna have it lengked in the episode bio, and I hope you'll listen to it. But what we'll see here is that oak Park p D was still very, very capable of similar tactics, even though the relationship with the oak Park p D was a bit more cozy with this around the community. In fact, on that note, Antoine, you knew one of

these cops. But before all this happened because oak Park p D used to sometimes provide security for sporting events, including your basketball games. Yes, I don't want to necessarist a security for the game, but they would be there, their presence was there. This one particular officerite eighty years. He's been norm need since I would say, grammar school. You know, my name was was ranking since then, and he used to do security at the games. I remember

him speaking to me from time to time. You know, he was a black officer in that town, and you know he kind of spood out amongst the rest of them, which puts a fine point on a dynamic at play in this story that you and Officer Harris are just two of the very few black people in this very homogeneous suburb. Well, Oak Park, It's a predominantly white suburb of Chicago. It is very close to the city limits.

It's known as a very progressive area. I mean, the entire Chicago area is certainly not without its racial tensions. It's obviously also chewing the suburbs of Chicago, right, and as we see all over this country, especially when you have a white victim and perceived black assailants, the ham fisted police violence available in Chicago was ready to be deployed here as well, even with Officer Harris's participation in your eventual prosecution. Now, typically on this show, if we're

bringing up a previous relationship with the officer. It's usually because our guests had been arrest said before, maybe by that same officer, but you had no criminal record whatsoever. So here we're talking about an officer who knows about your talents, and he knew about your promising future, but he still had no qualms about letting this wrongful conviction happen. And it appears that his fluid relationship with the truth was what ultimately brought his career to an end, thankfully.

But before we get to that, let's shift away from the full grown men who were aware of you to the guys you knew in high school. And let's start with the Jackson's Jamie and Kevin, who also grew up in Oak Park. Jamie is older than Kevin and I, but me and Jamie were closer because the things that we had in common, you know, especially when it came to you know, basketball and girls and you know, things of that nature. You know, we called each other cousins,

you know, because we were so close. Kevin never really hung around us, you know, he was always off doing his own thing with a different crowd of people. So Kevin was only in your life by virtue of his brother Jamie. But in the town oak Park, if you limit yourself to only black friends, you might not have that many friends at all. What about Jeremy Brewer. Me and Jeremy we were lab partners, and you know when your lab partners, you know, you get close. You know

you talk every day. That's cool. And eventually, you know, it layed out of school from kind of time. You know, he would come to my house. You know, we play video games and just hang out. And this brings us to late spring n You were wrapping up your senior year of high school and about to start college in the fall, played basketball somewhere. Who knows where life was going to take you. At this point, you came to own a few cars, and Jeremy Brewer had just gotten

a Jeep and had taken notice of one of your cars. Right, I had a couple of cars, and I had a Jeep chair key, and I had rams on mine, and he wanted some rams because he had just got a jeep. So, you know, Jeremy was always telling me about a guy that he met at the car wash where he was working at It was a guy who was going to you know, hook him up with some rams. And tires. You, oh, he didn't tell me when he didn't tell me how

or who the guy was. So the conversation pretending to the rims and tires really didn't go anywhere at that moment until the faithful night of June one, when you were with your newborn son and his mother at her place in Villa Park, Illinois. And you've got a few pages for people don't remember pages. That's when we used to some people used to carry pages because before cell phones. Again, but you've got a few pages from an unfamiliar number.

I called the number back and it was Jeremy. He just came up on a hook up on some rams and tires for his jeep and cannot take him to Oa Park. At first I said no, and he bade me to take him out there, so I said okay, And he just wanted somebody to ride with him. So you drove your girlfriend's car to meet up with Jeremy, and you drove in separate cars to this tire shop

in Oak Park. It was pitch black in there. The doors was lied, so you know, we knocked on the door, we banged on the window, No one came, so we walked around to the back to the garage door and we banged on the door, await a couple of minutes. He said he was early, so I was like, okay, well, since we're a little early, you know, we can go

waste some time. So I was like, man, we can go to my cousin's house, which I was speaking of Jamie, which he stayed maybe about ten minutes away in Chicago, and uh, you know every weekend, you know, Jamie, you throw a get together, you know, people is always at his house. Once we got there, Jeremy didn't want to go up, so he stayed down. I told him I'll be right back. And while you're upstairs, you obviously saw Jamie Jackson and Kevin Jackson was living there at the

time as well. Kevin asked me to what I was doing out there, and I told him, you know, I came out here to bring my friend up buy some rims and tires for his jeep. So he asked me, do you think you could take me to the liquor store, and I told him I can probably take you. Once we're done. Since I'm on this side of town, I might as well hang out, So yeah, you can ride with me now. All three of you headed back to

the tire shop in your girlfriend's car. Apartment building diagonal to the back of the ram shop, so we parked facing the garage door of the ram shop. All three of us got out. We went back to the front of the ram shop, knocked on the door, banged on the window, no response, so we banged doing the garage door as well. So instead of us leaving, we just hung out for about maybe ten fifteen minutes or so. As we're sitting there talking and waiting, my patron goes off.

It was a friend of mine named Kia. I went back to the car to use the phone and give her a call to get in the driver's seat with the door open, and I can see Kevin and Jeremy walking towards Madison Street to the front of the ram shop. They eventually got out of my sight and as I'm still talking on the phone, a few seconds a minute later or a couple of minutes later, I hear a gunshot and I'm reading after David taking from Kia bank

right now signed under penalty of perjury. In two thousand and eighteen, she said, and I quote Antoine and I were arguing about whether we would meet up that night, and then suddenly I heard multiple gun shots in the background. The gun shots did not sound like they were immediately next to the phone, and I did not hear anything said by anyone in connection with the gun shots. And quote so from the only other actual witness to some degree to this crime. The gun shots were in the background,

away from the phone and away from Antoine. Now what happened next? I see Kevin running towards the car, and I'm waiting on Jeremy to follow behind him. But Kevin jumps in the passenger seat. He says, I got the bitch, let's go. So I immediately started the car and I put it in dry. As I make a left hand turn facing Madison Street, arride passed and I see Jeremy laying in the bushes. So once I get to Madison Street,

I immediately stop on the next block. I don't keep going to Harlem to get on the expressway and try and get away. I immediately pull over on the next block, asked Kevin, like what happened, and before he had a chance to respond, I just lost it. I don't I don't remember if I hit him, or if I grabbed him or if I I don't remember exactly what I did, but I want to say I hit him. I can't remember. I told him I'm going back to the scene. I'm

going back, so we get out the car. I immediately tried to cut through someone's backyard to get straight to the alley, and the fence was locked. I went to the next entrance that I saw, and it was some big green garbage kids blocking the walkway, so I just started walking. That's when the Forest Park police initially put the spotlight on us and told us to take our hands out our pocket and walked towards them, and the park police came. At this point, you had no idea

why Kevin did what he did. Before you even had time to work through this scenario in your head, two police departments and a bunch of E m T s had already shown up on the scene, and this was a congested neighborhood. There were lots of people living in the vicinity and the shots were easily heard, so there were a number of call ins to the police department.

The Oak Park police start to preserve the scene, interview witnesses, and essentially they do everything that they need to prosecute both Kevin Jackson and Antoine inside the first twelve hours, and that started with padding you down while E. M. T s were working on Jeremy not too far away at the tire shop. Now, importantly, they did not find a gun or a giant watter of cash on you. The initial report reflects that, but the placement of the giant a wad of cash mysteriously changed later in a

subsequent report. I'm sure you can guess why. But okay, let's get back to the immediate aftermath. Did they find the gun? An Officer Romero actually does find a gun in a garbage can. Unfortunately finds it in a garbage can where the towel wrap around it and also submerged in water, so any fingerprints DNA et cetera from the gun were no longer viable. What happened next? They put me in the car and they put him in another car. I remember them taking us back to the scene of

the crime. What happened when I got out the car, I remember the first person in voice that I heard was Officer Harris. He's like, Oh, that's Antoine QB. That's the basketball star. And they walked me towards Jeremy as the pyramidics was working on him. I guess they were trying to get him to identify me. At this point, however, Jeremy is unconscious and is not able to attempt to identify either Kevin or Antoine. Now I need to point out that later on there was a report from Officer

Harris saying that Jeremy named Antoine Qubi. Now this was touted as a dying declaration, but when the a m T s on the scene, the ones who had been on the scene were asked to corroborate this alleged dying declaration. They did not. Interestingly, this is not from a report

that Eddie Harris prepares himself. It's from a report prepared by another police officer, supposedly taken from an interview that occurred at three thirty a m. Which was after Kevin Jackson had been interviewed by the police and had claimed that he had nothing to do with this and that

it was Antoine. Right after they had figured out what the narrative the crime would be, this alleged dying declaration made its first appearance, but Antoine's name had gone out over the dispatch, so police had Antoine's name early on, perhaps from Jeremy. However, the context of how ants once then came out is bothering to say the least. But no paramedic heard or saw what Officer Harris later claimed at trial. That's critical. We're gonna get back to an event.

So back to the scene. Jeremy was unconscious, unable to make an id. Then what they took us on the next block for show up, put the spotlight on us the head, I guess people in the area, and they did this two times. Come to find out later on that no one identified me in the two shots, but they identified Kevin both times. After that last show up, they took us to the police station and they automatically did a gunshot resident test on me. And I really didn't know what that was at the time. I know

they was just swapping my hands right. Why would you have known? Gunshot residue testing or GSR testing is not something on any lay person's radar in even not to this day, I would say, but definitely not back and now. At the time, it was believed that the presence of the elements associated with gunfire could only mean one of three things. Either you handle a gun or Ammo fired a gun or were in fact a gunshot victim. Please check out our coverage of gunshot residue, un rawerful conviction

junk science with our host Josh Tubin. We're gonna have a linked in the bile. But what is now known is that the elements associated with gunfire can be deposited by a number of other accessible sources, things like cigarette ash, dried urine, brake pads. Not to mention, GSR can also be found all over police stations and in police vehicles, which means you can easily get what they called touch transfer just from being in sitting in the back of

a squad cors that. So, the truth is that the only probative and useful result of a GSR test is a negative one in which the subject hadn't been given an opportunity to wash their hands, which you were not. So, in other words, without having been able to wash your hands, the absence of any of those elements on your hands or clothing would have been should have ruled you out completely as a potential shooter. And the gun that was

used to shoot Jeremy was fired eight times. He was only hit six times, but it was fired eight times. It was a nine millimeter handgun, so they both have the gun shot residue tests administered to them. Now, Antoine says that his hands were swabbed right away, even though the police reports said that evidence wasn't collected until after I think it was three am. Interesting that this information was recorded around the same time as Officer harris Is

alleged statement about the uncorroborated dying declarations. So what were the results? Now, what's very interesting is that the police actually don't bother to have these test results analyzed right away. They actually sit on them for a two and a half months. But when the when the results come back for Antoine, they come back completely negative. So if if if he had this gun and he shot at eight times,

they're not finding any of these particulates. And Antoine never washed his hands before he was swabbed to do the gunshot residue test, and the form is very specific about whether there's been washing in the hands, because if the hands are washed, the test is invalid. But you mean, we'll talk about this a little later. But the lawyer for Antoine, George Howard, doesn't use them in Antoine's defense

at trial, so that's not part of the story. But there is another part of the story, as you suggested, because the same test was performed on Kevin Jackson. Now, the police report said that those tests weren't done until like four hours later than Antoine's, like seven in the morning. But Kevin Jackson was permitted to wash his hands twice before the test, so before he was being fingerprinted, he washed his hands and after, so it invalidated the test entirely.

So Antoine did not wash his hands. Kevin washed his hands twice, so both sr test came back negative. However, Antoine's was the only ballot test of the two. Why in the world was Kevin allowed to wash his hands twice before before the test? Perhaps just a mistake, or maybe just maybe it was because he agreed to trade testimony against Antoine for leniency. I mean, he had everything to gain an exchange for cooperating. And don't forget Illinois still had the death penalty of the time, so he

had everything at stake. And we'll get to the interview process in a bit. But first, Antoine, what else do you remember from your booking? They put me in this real skinny room, you know, they took my clothes, all my belongings. They gave me this real thin paper suit and shoes to put on. As I was in their room and it was going through the inventory, the officer came in with a brown paper bag. It was a big brown paper bag and he said, it on top of the counter and he said, man, this belongs to

him as well. So when she opened it up and lifted up it was a cowed the gun and some money inside of the bag and said it just belongs to him too. I don't think anyone needs dispelled out for them, but inventory should be removed from your person and logged. You can't just introduce new items from cottonos where there was already a field report done. Logging would have been found on his person. And we already mentioned that the gun and towel have been found in a

trash can Bay Officer Romero. Now it's just given to Antone. And the money, where the hell did that come from? Why was that not found on Antoine during the path down? I mean it would be a key fact issue in a robbery case, like who has the money after the robbery and the key police officer and all. This is an Oak Park officer named Tesca. It was Tesca who personally took custody of Antoine. The first report out from the police radio is that there's been shots fired, so

he knows there's a gun involved. He knows that he has one of the kids that might have been responsible shooting the gun, so he does a full pat down in the field. He finds Antoine's wallet with his idea in it, but that's all. When they get back to the police station, he claims that they had to do another path down, and supposedly now he finds something brand new that he didn't find in the field, and that is a wad of bills. It's eleven hundred and four dollars.

It's eighty separate bills in a big wad. How could Officer Testcut miss a wad as big as what Antoine Kobe allegedly had in his right front pocket. The right front pocket is not a place you just skim over. It's the main pocket for the majority of humans, the right of the left front pocket. And he wasn't gonna miss a load of eighty bills. That's a big wad that would cause a serious bulge. Not only was there no lot of cash found on him, but there was also no gun or wet towel. But now this bag

of evidence, it's just claimed. So what else do you remember? I remember them putting me in this cell. It was I think it was right in front of a the entrance door, because every officer detective that came in they stopped. They banged on the door. They called me stupid, said I blew my life away. And I don't know how how much time had passed. They came and gat me out of the room and put me inside of an

interrogation room and handcuffed me behind my back. As I said in the chair, They kept asking me, you know, so what took place? And I kept telling him I just want to use the phone. I was a little sarcastic with him, you know, I wasn't answering that questions. I told him I didn't have anything to say to him.

And every time they left out of the room a little while later they had come back, not knowing that when they were going back and forth, they were talking to Kevin and then they had come and talk to me and they say, okay, well this is what we know took place, and this is what we know happened. And I told him Okay, well, if you know, just let me use the phone. I don't have nothing else to say to you. They did this maybe like two

or three times. So the last time when they came in, detective Munching and Jergenson kind of got frustrated with me, the detectives and they walked out, and I was still handcuffed in the chair. I was facing the door. It was a piece of paper over the window of the door, so you couldn't see in. I remember the door cracking open. I could just see the light from the crack, and I saw a hand hit the light inside of the room.

A few seconds later, the door pushed open. People were like rushed in and I couldn't see their faces, but I could see the silhouette of them coming in. I don't know if it was one or two who was behind me who was holding my shoulder and arms as I sat in the chair. The other ones that came in, they were just hitting me all over my body. 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 ai G pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. I sat there with

my head down for a while. My body was it was hurting. They came in with the phone, they said it on the death, plugged it up, and a blank piece of paper. And I remember this piece of paper saying time and signature, and it was like, okay, this is a new protocol that we used to prove that we allowed you to use the phone. We need you to sign here. And he looked at his watch, and when I did it, he took the phone and he

took the piece of paper and he walked out. I didn't know if he was coming back or or what. I know. Some time later, the state's attorney walked in and then she wanted to go over my confession with me, and I told her. I was like that I never made a confession. I didn't do that. I never made I never talked to anybody. So she showed me the paper. It was tight and I hit my signature and I told her I didn't I didn't make this statement, and she walked out. That was the last time I saw her.

So now the money and gun magically were declared to be in your possession. They got this piece of paper that was when you signed it and is now being passed off as assigned confession. And of course Kevin Jackson's cooperation was also working against you. Now, there are so many things wrong with both your alleged confession and Jackson's statement. So let's just start with what did Kevin Jackson say. Well, he says that he's recruited by Antoine to take part

in this robbery. You know that they go off in the car together, and then because he has to separate himself from the actual pulling of the trigger, he says that when they're proceeding down the alley, he lags bhind because he has to urinate in some bushes, and then he doesn't see what actually happens. But he here's an inn exchange between Antoine and Jeremy, and then he here's the shots. And as opposed to Kevin Jackson running back to the car, it's Antoine running back to the car.

And of course, when given the opportunity to essentially right antoine statement for him, they aligned some things from Antoine's alleged statement with Kevin's to make it seem like the two statements were corroborating one another, like the detail about Kevin allegedly stopping to pee in the bushes. Now, the police might take issue with you or Antoine saying that this alleged confession was anything but above board, But there's both no evidence that it actually is, but rather there

is evidence to the contrary. There's no video, no audio recording, no stenographer, and they're not even contemporaneous notes from the police officers. And we know that abuse did occur. Right those who came to see him saw that he got really badly beat up by the cops. And because he was denied a phone call, the first person who did see him was not his mother or his lawyer, Mr Mac who was my junior high basketball coach. Somehow he

knew I was there. They let him visit me. He was okay, and I told him, no, I'll st our client. I him I was hurting. He immediately said that he's going to let my mom know. Because no one knew where I was at when my mom and my aunt came. When they saw the condition I was in, they lost it. They went off on the detectives and and every other police officer they saw that was in the station, and they told him they had to leave and that they wanted to visit me. They con visit me in the

county jail. After that, I was getting transported to the county jail. It was me, Kevin, and it was another guy named Anthony Ferguson who got arrested that night for domestic violence. We were all in the Patti wagon and I just started spitting up blood. Anthony Ferguson say, man, was that you who are heard in the other room? And I was like yeah. He said, man, I heard everything that they've done to you. This is my name, this is my number. You know, if your lawyers want

to talk to me, give him my information. And that was the last that I heard of him until years later when I was able to get an affidator from him. Everything that Mr Ferguson, because you are happening to Antoine corroborating to some degree what we've all heard here. Now at this point, you had no idea Kevin Jackson had flipped the situation to his advantage, and this obviously took

the heat off of Kevin Jackson. Kevin Jackson was tried first under a theory that he was responsible for the killings in part because he didn't stop what was going on, and he actually supposedly drove the getaway car, and he was sentenced to forty years in prison. He is now released. Did you know that Kevin was doing this to you? I didn't know this until we went to court in Maybrook, me would Illinois. I thought you were tried separately. That was just a regular court date, okay, so you were

both at court for your own proceedings. Was this his bench trial and just a pre trial hearing for you? Exactly? That was the pre trial. And all the bailiffs knew me. So it was one day in court and his lawyer comes in to the bullpen and it's like me, Kevin and like other guys and his lawyer because lawyers telling okay, when we're go in there, this is what's going to happen. But he was talking so low to her I really couldn't hear him. So Kevin and his lawyer went out

and immediately the bailiffs came in to the bullpend. He was like, QB, he's out there saying that you did this, like he had nothing to do with it. So I was like, no, that's not true. So Kevin came back, so I asked him. I say, I said, what just happened out there? And he says nothing. So now it's starting to make sense. Kevin saw how I said I was getting so he bangs on the door and he tells the bailor that he has to use the washroom,

and the bailor's let him out. I never saw Kevin again until he came home in twenties seventeen, at which point he said he was going to give you a sign after David. That never came to crouation. But Kevin never even testified at your trial. He didn't have to confession evidence in your case. A complete fabrication was all

the state really needed. This confession turns into the centerpiece of the state's case, but there are a number of features of this so called confession that just make it obvious that it's not a trustworthy description of what actually happened. The statement reads nothing like the way Antoine would talk. Are right, there were facts in the statement that are totally contradicted by the unchallenged facts, like the statement says there were four shots and there are actually eight shots.

There are four different versions. There were parts that were totally inconsistent version diversion, like whose money was involved, Jeremy's where is it Antoine? Whose gun was involved? Was it Jeremy's gun? Did Antoine get the gun? When does Antoine actually supposedly take possession of the gun before that night or does it get it that night? There are these versions are very much inconsistent and wild contradictions and inconsistencies

like these are hallmarks of false confessions. In this case, they're taking wild stabs and a plausible version of its consistent with their incentivized defendant in order to nap both young men. So Antoine didn't go to trial for almost three years. Part of that time he was in the notorious Cook County jail, and his family hired an attorney, a reputable guy at the time, George Howard, at this time had a fairly distinguished record. He was an African

American criminal defense lawyer in Chicago. You know, he had been a speaker at a lot of the area law schools tried a lot of cases. But here's the problem. What they don't know is that he's already clearly overburdened. He had been suspended actually in and into NIX for neglecting his cases. This is a time when there were still death penalty in Illinois. And George Howard look at Antoine's case and and he immediately told him, he said, look at they say, you killed a white boy in

oak Park. He doesn't think there's any way to defend Antoine given the evidence that he is aware of, and he goes, I'm here to save your life. So George Howard decides he's going to insert an insanity defense, and incredibly, he coaches Antoine and his family to fake mental illness. He told me how to act in front of the judge when I go see the psychiatrists and psychologists. I literally had to teach myself like I had to look at other people behavior who was mentally ill or who

was insane. I mimicked them basically because this is what my lawyer told me that I needed to do in her to come home. I think I did it well because they end up sending me to Elgin Mental Hospital. So it was like three times, I was found unfit to stand trial. I stayed in the mineral institution for a few months, at least the county jail. I knew what I was dealing with. As far as the violence, I knew, I knew the environment, but the middle hospital,

you don't know who you're dealing with. And then the medicines that they hit me on at that time were spirit all hell, dog thors, the Those are the things that I had to deal with because I was only impresson because that's what was going to get me home. He took his lawyer's advice. He was obviously was successful at it for a while, but he couldn't sustain it, and eventually the state is able to prove that this is just a sham and Antoine is forced to go

to trial. This was a four day trial. The state called seventeen witnesses, lay fact witnesses, people who saw the car park, people who saw the car pull away, the person who found the body. They have medical experts obviously to talk about the cause of death, and forensic people who talk about the gun. The gun was actually was a stolen gun, and they couldn't get prints off the gun. They certainly didn't have any fingerprints or DNA of Antoine's.

And then they also called some police supervisors and one of the detectives, and the states that Jarney, you did the interrogations and we've been over all the most damning evidence already. They placed the cash among Antoine's possessions. Kevin Jackson placed himself at the scene and implicated Antoine, although Kevin did not testify at Antoine's trial. There's also this fabricated confession and an alleged dying declaration. But George Howard

was not fighting the state's evidence. He didn't develop anything to combat it. No defense, but the insanity defense. If almost thinking, I think he said something to the effect of open argument. My client didn't do this, and there's no evidence to prove that he did it, but if he did do it, being he was insane during the time, so I wishy washy insanity play on top of the evidence that the state did actually present, fabricated as it was. It's so crazy way because the state is fabricating all

their evidence, and your attorney is fabricating and insanity. You weren't insane, and the jury officer was going to see through that but there was a lot he could have done instead of leading insanity, including calling your middle school

coach who could have corroborated that you'd been beaten. Or he could have just pointed out all the glaring inconsistencies and contradictions between statements, not to mention the inconsistent reports about Antoine's possessions, namely the lot of cash that wasn't found in his right front pocket during the initial path town and of course the E M T s who would have refused the officer's testimony about the dying declaration. In light of all of that, Officer Harris's testimony a

trial was particularly devastating. Officer Harris says, what he gets to the scene and Jeremy is still conscious that he asks him a question, specifically who shot you? And Harris says that Jeremy allegedly said it was Antoine QB. The question is what exactly did Harris ask? We do know that Antoine's name went out over the police radio, so Antoine's name came from somewhere and probably came from Jeremy. But the is what question was he answering? And here's

an important piece of evidence. The paramedics were there in two minutes from when they were called. So they get there very shortly, if not exactly, at the time when the police show and there are five paramedics on the scene, not one of them corroborates Harris's story. No one other than the police officers say that Jeremy identified Antoine as

a shooter. Right. We're talking about the same police department that developed an alternate slate of Antoine's personal effects, that beat the ship out of him and gave him a blank piece of paper to sign, then filled it out with an alleged confession. So pretty close to zero credibility to go around here. So when you're only sources are Oak Park p D or the e m T S, I'd go with the e m T S. Right. They don't have it, They don't have a motivation to lie,

and they didn't equivocate. They were sure that they hadn't heard Harris asked the question who shot you? One thing we do know for sure is that Eddie Harris was fired by the Old Park Police Department shortly after what happened here, in part for lying in the course of his duties. So there's incredible doubt that Eddie Harris told the truth about what question he asked Jeremy Bruder as he lay dying. But that's the story that Eddie Harris told the jury, and George Howard didn't call a single

paramedic to talk to the contrary. There's so much that he did not do. He did not develop the defense that Antoine had no motive to shoot Jeremy, that Antoine had no special need for that kind of money at knowing her actions with Jeremy, that was anything close to supporting the possibility that he showed him. He was on the phone with his girlfriend when this happened. But George Howard doesn't develop that no phone records, He didn't put

his girlfriend on the stand. You know that Antoine actually stopped the car, got out and went back to the scene when he knows that people have heard the shots, he knows that the police are coming, and he's going right back there. You know, when George Howard doesn't do anything with the gunshot residue tests, and you know, he doesn't attack the supposed dying declaration, the claim that Antoine had the money on him after the shooting. He doesn't

attack Antoine's alleged confession. He doesn't do these things, and why do any of that when your strategy was insanity. George Howard called one witness, a psychiatrist from Michigan, who came and testified that Antoine qb. Didn't have a sufficient mental state to understand what he was doing, that he

essentially was insane. The problem was, or one of the problems, was that he was testifying based on Michigan standards for insanity, and the fact of the matter is they were in Illinois court and they needed to have the Illinois standards supplied. So his testimoney was rejected. So that's how this case went to the jury. So the state's case went completely

unrebutted and the only defense was rejected. The only thing that George Howard did that worked was to convince the judge that because Antoine had no prior criminal history, it would be cruel to sence him to death. So he was spared the death penalty, but told that he essentially would die in prison. They gave me natural life without the possibility of the role for the murder, and then

they gave me thirty years for the armed robbery. I remember him saying guilty, and everything else went to blank, like literally quiet, and I heard one person, my mom. I heard my mother cry, and I didn't hear anything else. I didn't hear no one else talking. I didn't hear anything but my mother, you know, leaving the county jail, going to UM Joliette, which was annexed, you know, that was the receiving. I think that was the scariest ride ever.

You know, you get in, you know they strip you and make you take the shower, and you know, throw the powder on you and put you in the I DLC uniform. I stayed in Juliette for a few days and they told me I was going to the pit. You know, that was the nickname for Menard. And you know that's right there in the Mississippi River, like eight hours away from home. When I got down there, it was so racist. You know, it was literally separated, you know, blacks against whites. You know, you had a lot of

race rides down there. Um. You know, people literally dying on the regular. I've seen everything from murders to rape. I've seen people die right in front of me. I've seen people get beat over over packer cookies. It can be anything, anything can trigger anything be triggering, you know, We hear about the conditions in our prisons every week,

but no one who hasn't been there can imagine. Unfortunately, your post conviction proceedings were and are very similar to things we hear on this show every week as well. His trial was by two thousand one, his direct appeal had been denied. Antoine also pursued a habeas petition in federal court in two thousand months, but that was also

quickly denied. And you think that making the case for ineffective assistance might not be that hard considering the defense or lack of defense that you had, but with the evidence presented, accepted its truth in this case, and knowing what we know about our impellate system, is understandable that he was met with the Niles. What about his post

conviction petition. He did not file a post conviction petition until two thousand six, and then it was amended it later in two thousand nine to include actual innocence claims

at one point supported by affidavits. Right, You've got a few who affi David's in two thousand and eight, one from an ex girlfriend of Jamie Jackson who said that Kevin was living with Jamie at the time, and when she called Jamie the day after the shooting this would be June two, that Jamie was upset that some money and shoes, along with a nine millimeter pistol were missing.

When she asked Jamie about Antoine's arrest, he told her that quote, Antoine would not be in trouble because Kevin Jackson would tell the police what really happened that night

and quote. Also in two thousand eight, man named Robert Walker, who did time with Kevin Jackson at Danville Correctional from two thousand three to two thousand five, also swore that Kevin had admitted to the crime multiple times over that period, in addition to saying that Antoine was not responsible for it, saying and I quote Kevin Jackson say that Antoine QBI got the time for the case that he should have

got end quote. There were also afid David's from Antoine's mother and aunt who swore to his injured condition when they visited him at Oak Park p D. And then in two thousand and ten that caught up with Anthony Ferguson, who swore to seeing Antoine before and after his night of horror and torture at the Oak Park Police Station injury free the night before, followed by spitting up blood

in the patty Way. The state eventually made a motion to dismiss the original post conviction petition because it was too late. Unfortunately for Antoine, the appellate court decided in two thousand thirteen that he was too late, and so they threw his case out. So in this intermediate period of time between two thousand thirteen in the present, there have been a number of different efforts, primarily by Antoine himself,

to try to develop evidence of his innocence. One of those efforts was having a linguistics expert, Richard Leonard, examine the language used in the alleged confession and compared to Antoine's known writings and speech, and the conclusion of this expert was that there was no similarity between the language that was used in the sign statement that the police used as confession and the way in which Antoine actually

speaks and rights. In fact, they found that the language more accurately reflected the writing of the detective who allegedly took the statement. For example, quote I met Jeremy at cass Avenue at sixty third Street in westmont at an unknown time. That is definitely cop talk. Another example was the use of the word then, as in I then told Jeremy to move his jeep to the end of the alley. We both then went into the building after ringing Jamie's bell. Every time the word then was used

in the alleged confession, it followed the sentences subject. Now, compared to other known writings of Antoine, he always put the word then first. For example, then I went here that I did this, that I did that right. And what's more alarming still is that the use of the word then closely resembles the writings of the detective testifying as Antoine at his trial. This report was done back to two thousand fourteen. Now, in two thousand seventeen, as

we referred to earlier, Kevin Jackson was released. I actually talked to him over the phone. A mutual friend of ours, you know, connected us and gave me his number. I wanted him to do the right thing. I wanted him to tell people that I didn't do it. And I called him. You know, he was talking to me like like nothing happened, Like he didn't just sit there and tell them that I did this. But I asked him I said, I needed you to talk to my lawyers and tell him I didn't do this. I need you

to be honest and tell him the truth. And he said he would. When they did try to set up meetings and appointments with him, he wouldn't show, so, uh, you know, he kept saying that he was going to give me an after David telling the truth, but he never followed through. So that's where I'm at now. And this happened just before Joe's firm, Riley Safer Holmes and Ken Silla picked up Antoine's case pro bono in two thousand eighteen, and they have also gotten the same run

around from Kevin Jackson. If that's not to say other avenues are not being explored to solidified Antoine's claim of actual innocence. So those efforts include efforts to explore Kevin Jackson's willingness to tell the truth what Kevin Jackson said to other people about what happened that night. Certain individuals have been identified who say that Kevin Jackson has said

explicitly that Antoine was not personally involved. So more people who corroborate what Robert Walker said in two thousand ten. Now since two thousand eighteen. Both his junior high basketball coach who visit him at the police station, and his ex girlfriend, Kia Banks, have both come forward, signing after Davis corroborating with Antoine and his GSR test has been saying all along that Kevin Jackson shot Jeremy Bruder, that Antoine completely unaware of Kevin Jackson's plans, as evidenced by

his behavior in the aftermath. I mean, why the help with a guilty person returned to the scene to essentially turn himself in. You know, why would a bright, super talented high school basketball star with college offers all over America and no history of criminal behavior, no history of violent behavior shoot one of his best friends eight times for you don't have to be sure a lot Holmes to figure this out. So, is there anything that our

audience can do to help? If anybody who's listening to this podcast has any information that they think might be valuable to us in terms of what it is that we're trying to do for Antoine, that I would sincerely ask that they contact our office. My name is Joe O'Hara and the firm is Riley Safer Homes and Cancilla we'll have action steps lenked in the bio, including the change dot org petition asking for relief in his case. And that brings us to the best part of the show.

Let's face it, it's my favorite part, and it's called closing arguments. And this is the part where I thank each of you, both of you for joining us today and courageously sharing Antoine and your story. Um, and now I'm just gonna turn my mike off, leave my headphones on, and kick back on my chair to listen to your closing thoughts. Let's start with Joe and finish up with Antoine. You know, the criminal justice system has failed Antoine horribly.

You always have to come back to that question, which is why would hop bright kid, a super talented athlete like Antoine Cub with no history, no history at all of criminal behavior, violent behavior, why would he do something like this? The state's case against Antoine had big holes from the beginning, and and they knew it because there

was no good motive. He wasn't a kid from the streets who had done anything like this before, and they didn't have any witness except for somebody who was involved in a very biased witness, Kevin Jackson, and they didn't have any forensic evidence or physical evidence of any kind, you know, they didn't have any gun evidence, or blood evidence, or fingerprint evidence or DNA evidence or the The only test that they did that g SR was was negative.

So the state had to do something and they filled the holes in the case with the evidence that was manufactured by the police, and that was essentially the supposed dying identification of Antoine by Jeremy, the possession of the robbery money that was planted on Antoine, and then the the alleged confession, and all of this was exacerbated by the fact that George Howard decided to rely only on an insanity defense to try to save Antoine from the

death penalty. So me where we find ourselves as Antoine is endured over you know, over twenty five years at this point of incarceration as a result of these failures of the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, and particularly in Cook County, UH, situations like Antoine's are not unusual. UH. It is very important for the public to support the efforts of those in public service, including the people who run this Wrongful

Conviction podcast. They need your support, they need your encouragement to continue to identify and rectify some of the horrible things that have resulted because the system doesn't work the right way. I want to first thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak the truth. A lot of people didn't know about a lot of these things that took place during my arrest, before and after, and I'm

glad you gave me this platform to do so. I just asked that, you know, people not make assumptions, just use the black and white evidence in front of you. And I just hope that in the near future that I'd be home because I missed being a father, I missed out being a grandfather, and you know, being a son. All that was taken away from me, including my potential future. You know, who knows what could have came of it, But I am grateful and I'm going to continue to fight,

and I just want to thank you. So I know my time is wrapping up now. So um, I just want to thank everybody for being an advocate for me and supporting me. Thank you for listening to Ron for 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