In the spring of nineteen ninety six, Antoine Qby, a rising basketball start from the sumburbs of Chicago, had a bright future with offers to play college ball as well as professional basketball abroad.
One night, his friend Jeremy.
Bruder asked him to accompany him to a part of town that Antoine knew well for a hookup on some new tires and rims. Antoine's friend's younger brother, Kevin Jackson, asked if he could tag along and get a ride to the liquor store. 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 Bruder went out of Antoine's sight and gunshots rang out. Antoine didn't know who had 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. I think that the field report logging the inventory of Antoine's patdown 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 wat 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'd 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 Mode for Conviction. At QB 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 Kencilla. You might recall that firm, of course, from a previous guest, Ron Safer. Well, this is Joe Harrah'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 and Argue of Guards Project. That's originally where my mother, Darlene Qby's from and her side of the family. My father, he's from the West Side of Chicago. They separated not so long after my birth. My mother was able to get us out of the projects, and eventually, you know, she also made sacrifices to get us to the suburbs, which was oh Park, until we eventually ended 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 in 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. 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 was a starter on the varsity all four years. I was All Conference, All Area, All State, All American, got nominated to the All American McDonald's 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 taken from me. But during that time, it was very promising. You know.
Antoine had a great mom and a solid 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 nineteen ninety 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 nineteen ninety six, Antoine Koobi 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 PD and their predatory practices.
Nineteen ninety six, of course.
Was just three years after Marcus Wiggins's mother won a civil suit against the city when John Burges's Midnight crew had beaten an electrocuted him. It was a thirteen year old child at the time, but they tortured him into making a false statement incriminating himself. Nineteen ninety six 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 linked in the episode bio, and I hope you'll listen to it. But what we'll see here is that oak Park PD was still very, very capable of similar tactics, even though the relationship with oak Park PD was a bit more
cozy with this around the community. In fact, on that note, Anteline, you knew one of these cops before all this happened, because oak Park PD used to sometimes provide security for sporting events, including your basketball games.
Yes, I don't want to necessarily a security for the game, but they would be there, their presence was there. This one particular officer Eddie Harris, he's been knowing me since I would say, grammar school, you know, my name 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 stood 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 true in 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 is 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 hit in comment, 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 O Park, if you limit yourself to only black friends, you might not have that many friends at all. What about Jeremy Brewder.
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 at school and eventually, you know, it laid out of school from time to 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 nineteen ninety six.
You were wrapping up your senior year of high school and about to start college in the fall, play basketball somewhere. Who knows where life was going to take you. At this point, you came to own a few cars, and Jeremy Brewder 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 cari key, and I had rams on mine, and he wanted some rims 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. He didn't tell me when, he didn't tell me how or who the guy was. So the conversation pretended to the rims and tires really didn't go anywhere at that moment.
Until the faithful night of June first, nineteen ninety six, 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 it before cell phones again, but you got a few pages from an unfamiliar number.
I called the number back and it was Jeremy. He just came up on a hookup on some rims and tires for his jeep, and can I take him to oh Park? At first I said no, and he begged me to take him out there, so I said, okay.
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 locked, so you know, we knocked on a 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. Waited 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 in which he stayed maybe about ten minutes away in Chicago, and you know, every weekend, you know, Jamie will throw a get together. You know, people was 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 were upstairs, you obviously saw Jamie Jackson and Kevin Jackson was living there at the time as well.
Kevin asked me what I was doing out there, and I told him, you know, I came out here to bring my friend to 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.
It's the apartment building diagonal to the back of the rim 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 a door, banged on the window, no response, so we banged on 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 pager 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. I 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 gunshots.
And I'm reading that David take it from Kia bank right now, signed under penalty of perjury. In twenty 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 gunshots in the background. The gunshots did not sound like they were immediately next to the phone, and I did not hear anything said by anyone in connection with the gunshots.
End quote.
So from the only other actual witness to some degree to this crime, the gunshots 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 that bitch lefts go. So I immediately start the car and I put it in drive. As I make a left hand turn facing Madison Street, I ride past 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 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 cans blocking the walkway, so I just start walking. That's when the Forest Park police initially put the spotlight on us and told us to take our hands out of our pocket and walk towards them, and the Oak 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 EMTs had already shown up on the scene.
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 patting you down while EMTs were working on Jeremy not too far away at the tire shop. Now, importantly, they did not find a gun or a giant wad 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, he finds it in a garbage can where the towel wrap around it and also submerged in water.
So any fingerprints, DNA, etc. From the gun were no longer viable. What happened next.
They put me in a car and they put him in another car. I remember them taking us back to the scene of the current where it 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 them. 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 QB. Now, this was touted as a dying declaration, but when the amts 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 point thirty am, 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 of 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 Antoine's name came out is foggy, to say the least, but no paramedic heard or saw what Officer Harris later claimed the trial. That's critical or we're going to get back to it an a bit. 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 ahead, 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 shores, but they identify Kevin both times. After that last show up, they took us to the police station and they automatically did a gunshot residue 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 nineteen ninety six, 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 handled a gun or ammo fired a gun, or were in fact a gunshot victim. Please check out our coverage of gunshot residue, unrawful conviction
junk science with our host Josh Duben. We're going to have a linked in the bio. 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 call touch transfer just from being in sitting in the back of a squad car something like 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 gunshot residue tests administered to them. Now, Antoine says that his hands were swabbed right away, even though the police reports say 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's 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 analyze right away. They actually sit on them for two and a half months. But when the results come back for Antoine, they come back completely negative. So 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 of the hands, because if the hands are washed, the test is invalid. But I 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 GSR tests came back negative. However, Antoine's was the only ballid 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 in exchange for cooperating. And don't forget Illinois still had the death pneally at 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 book?
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, an officer came in with a brown paper bag. It was a big brown paper bag and he set 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 cow, the gun and some money inside of the bag. Said this belongs to him too.
I don't think anyone needs to spelled out for them, but inventory should be removed from your person and logged. You can't just introduce new items from Cognos where there was already a field report done logging what had been found on his person. And we already mentioned that the gun in towel had been found in a trash can by Officer Romero. Now it's just given to Antoine and the money, Where the hell did that come from? Why was that not found on Antoine during the patdown?
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 for shooting the gun, so he does a full pat
down in the field. He finds Antoine's wallet with his ID in it, but that's all. When they get back to the police station, he claims that they had to do another pat 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 and four dollars. It's eighty separate bills in a big wad. How could Officer Tesca miss a wad as big as what Antoine Kobe allegedly had in his right front pocket.
Now, the right front pocket is not a place you just skim over. It's the main pocket for the majority of humans. He's the right to the left front pocket, and he wasn't going to miss a wad of eighty bills.
That's a big wad. That would cause a serious bulge.
Not only was there no wad of cash found on him, but there was also no gun or wet towel. But now this bag of evidence is just claimed to be antoine. So what else do you remember?
I remember them putting me in this cell. It was I think it was right in front of the entrance door, because every officer or 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 much time had passed. They came and got me out of the room and put me inside of an interrogation room and handcuffed me behind my back. As I sat in the chair, they kept asking me, you know, so what took place? And I kept telling them I just
want to use the phone. I was a little sarcastic with them, you know, I wasn't answering that questions. I told them I didn't have anything to say to them. And every time they less out of the room, a little while later, they'll come back, not knowing that when they were going back and forth they were talking to Kevin, and then they'll come and talk to me and they'll say, oh, okay, well, this is what we know took place, and this is what we know happened. And I told them, 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 Jervison 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 came in. They were just hitting me all over my body.
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I sat there with my head down for a while. My body it was hurting. They came in with the phone, they said it on the desk, plugged it up, and a blank piece of paper and I remember this piece of paper, same 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 what. I know. Sometime 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, I never made a confession. I didn't do that made I never talked to anybody. So she showed me the paper. It was tight and 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've got this piece of paper that was born when you signed it and is now being passed off as a signed 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 behind because he has to urinate in some bushes, and then he doesn't see what actually happens. But here's an exchange between Antoine and Jeremy, and then he hears 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's 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. Liked the detail about Kevin allegendly 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.
Mister Mack, 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 start crying. 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 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 can visit me in the county jail. After that, I was getting transported to the county jail. It was me Kevin, and there was another guy named Anthony Ferguson who got arrested that night for domestic violence. We were all in the paddy wagon and I just start spitting up blood. Anthony Ferguson say, man, was that you who I heard in the other rooms? 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, and that details everything that mister Ferguson could 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, Maywood, Illinois.
I thought you were tried separately.
That was just a regular court date.
Oh okay, so you were both at court for your own proceedings. Was this his bench trial and just at 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 lawyer is telling him, Okay, when we go in there, this is what's going to happen. But he was talking so low to where I really couldn't hear him. So Kevin and his lawyer went out, and immediately the Bayliffs came
in to the bullpen. 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 sold. He bangs on the door and he tells the baylorff that he has to us to wash room, and the baylorf's
let him out. I never saw Kevin again until he came home in twenty seventeen, at.
Which point he said he was going to give you a sign out the David. That never came to pruation. 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 rite. There were facts in the statement that are totally contradicted by the unchallenged facts like the statement says there were four shots and there were actually eight shots. There are four
different versions. There were parts that were totally inconsistent version to version, like whose money was involved Jeremis, where is it Antoine's? 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? These versions are very much inconsistent.
And wild contradictions and inconsistencies like these are hallmarks of false confessions. From this case, they're taking wild stabs at a plausible version of event that's consistent with their incentivized defendant in order to nabb 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 nineteen ninety five and into nineteen ninety six for neglecting his cases. This is a time when there
was still a death penalty in Illinois. And George Howard looked at Antoine's case and he immediately told him, he said, look it, 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 order 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 mental 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 mental hospital you don't know who you're dealing with. And then the medicines that they hid me on at that time were spiratal held dog doors Kojiton. Those are the things I had to deal with because I was only impression because that's what was going to get me home.
He took his lawyer's advice. He 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, layfact witnesses, people who saw the car parked, 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 in the States did the interrogations.
And we've been over all the most damning evidence already. They placed the cash among Antline'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 I'm not mistaken, I think he says something to the effect of open arguments. My client didn't do this, and there's no evidence to prove that he did it. But if he did do it, the end, 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.
Why because the state is fabricating all their evidence and your attorney is fabricating an 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 pleading 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 pat down, and of course the EMTs who would have refuted the officer's testimony about the dying declaration. In light of all 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 ES 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 that the time and 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 shit 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 your only sources are ok Park PD or the EMTs, I'd go with the EMTs.
Right.
They don't have a motivation to lie, and they didn't equivocate.
They were sure that they hadn't heard Harris ask a 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 nineteen ninety nine, 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, had no interactions with Jeremy that was anything close to supporting the possibility that he shoot 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 the Illinois court and they needed to have the Illinois
standards supplied. So his testimony was rejected. So that's how this case went to the jury.
So the States 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 sentence him to death. So he was spared the death penalty but told that he essentially would die in prison.
They gave me a natural life without the possibility of parole for the murder, and then they gave me thirty years for the armed robbery. I remember them saying guilty, and everything else went 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 Jiliette, which was annex 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 IDEALC uniform. I stayed in Juliet for a few days and they told me I was going to the Pit. You know, that was the nickname for Minard, And you know that's right there on 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. 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 triggery. Anything be triggery.
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 in nineteen ninety nine. By two thousand and one, his direct appeal had been denied. Antoine also pursued a habeas petition in federal court in two thousand and one, but that was also quickly denied.
And you think that making the case for ineffective assistants might not be that hard considering the defense or lack of defense that you had, But with the evidence presented accepted as truth in this case, and knowing what we know about our impellt system, is understandable that he was met with denials.
What about his post conviction petition?
He did not file a post conviction petition until two thousand and six, and then it was amended later in two thousand and nine to include actual innocence claims, at one point supported by affidavits right.
Affid Davids 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 second, nineteen ninety six, 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 end quote.
Also in two thousand and eight, a man named Robert Walker, who did time with Kevin Jackson at Danville Correctional from two thousand and three to two thousand and 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 QB got the time for the case
that he should have got end quote. There were also affid Davids from Antoine's mother and aunt who swore to his injured condition when they visited him at Oak Park, and then in twenty ten they caught up with Anthony Ferguson, who swore to seeing Antoine before and after his night of horror and torture at the oak Ark 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 twenty thirteen that he was too late, and so they threw his case out. So in this intermediate period of time between twenty thirteen and 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, examined 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 signed statement that the police used as confession and the way in which Antoine actually speaks it writes.
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 on 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 against Antoine at his trial. This report was done back in twenty fourteen. Now, in twenty seventeen, as were referred to earlier, Kevin Jackson was released.
I actually talked to him over the phone. A mutual friend of ours, you know, connected us, 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 him 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, you know, he kept saying that he was going to give me an affid 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 mckin Silla picked up Antoine's case pro bono in twenty eighteen, and they have also gotten the same run around from Kevin Jackson. But that's not to say other avenues are not being explored to solidify 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 twenty ten. Now, since twenty eighteen, both his junior high basketball coach who visited him at the police station, and his ex girlfriend, Tia Banks have both come forward signing out the Davids, corroborating what Antoine and his GSR test has been saying all along, that Kevin Jackson shot Jeremy Bruder, that Antoine was completely unaware of Kevin Jackson's plans, as evidenced by
his behavior in the aftermath. I mean, why the help would a guilty person return 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 eleven hundred dollars.
Oh, you don't have to be Sherlock 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, then 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 linked in the bio, including a 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 think.
Each of you, both of you for joining us today and courageously sharing Antoine and your story. And now I'm just going to turn my mic 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 a upbride kid, a super talented athlete like Antoine QB, 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 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 and 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 only test that they did that
GSR 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 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. Where we find ourselves is Antoine has 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, situations like Antoine's are not unusual, and 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 doing 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 be home because I miss 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 I just want to thank everybody for being an advocate for a man, supporting me.
Thank you for listening to Rabel Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Wadis, with research by Lyla 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 Flam.
Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcast and association with Signal Company Number one