#317 Jason Flom with Elvis Brooks

of the pair from the neighborhood. They grabbed the cans of beer and then forced their way in a gunpoint, demanding money from the register as well as from the intoxicated patrons, one of whom Cecil Lloyd, was fatally shot. The assailants set their beer cans down on the bar,

leaving their fingerprints behind. The police began their investigation, casting a white net, considering all the local black men as potential suspects, including a young man named Elvis Brooks, who had previously been wrongfully arrested for a nineteen seventy four

robbery and attempted murder. When three of the surviving witnesses identified Elvis from a photo array and again in court, it must have seemed to the jury that his parade of thirteen alibi witnesses were perjuring themselves to save Elvins from prison. But this is wrongful conviction. We'll be right

back after this. Welcome back to Ronal conviction. Today, I have a case out of New Orleans and it's a case of cross racial misidentification, which, as you know and study after study has been found and proven to be even less accurate than guessing. And with us to discuss the case is the man himself, Elvis Brooks, who did over four decades and then Gold Up Penitentiary. Elvis, Welcome to Ronthal Conviction. Thank you, Mrs Jason, and joining Elvis

is one of his post conviction attorneys. She's the supervising attorney for Case Development innis Is Project New Orleans, also known as hypno Cherrelle Arnold. Welcome to rawful conviction. Thank you for having me. So. This is Orleans Parish in n seventies. We've covered several other cases from this era, both in Orleans Parish and elsewhere and surrounding areas Bobby Jean Johnson, Vincent Simmons, Malcolm Alexander, where it seems like the state was running more of a kidnapping racket than

anything resembling justice or public safety. Orleans Parish has been really challenged for a long time in terms of the administration of the criminal legal system, how Orleans Parish has treated people of color and particularly it's black residents. In nineteen seven, Mr Brooks lived in an area that was primarily white. His family was one of the only black families who lived there. Honestly, that was part of the

reason that he was targeted for this crime. This was an area that was very like white working class back then. The Lower ninth Ward, of course, would become an area that was largely black area. Obviously by the time Hurricane Katrina came, So this was an area that was really kind of on the cusp of Frankly, I think many white residents believed something dangerous, but in actuality was an area where black families would eventually become homeowners and grow

a really vibrant neighborhood. So many of the witnesses I imagined in this case, or people who lived around there, would later be part of the white flight of white residents of Orleans Parish who left to the suburbs. And this is a phenomenon we saw all over the country in this era, with white residents fleeing to suburbia talking Brooklyn, Detroit, and of course New Orleans and Elvis. You grew up in that fraud time. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood. I was one of twelve kids,

five boy, the seven girls, oh, the Miller boy. You know I hate a normal kid life. You know, I went to school and I had two of the best parents in the world. Yeah, they'd have to be. I mean, twelve kids is no small feat. I can't even imagine that's in some superhero category. And it must have been hard for them to keep you all in line. That

was the bed the key. No, my daddy, he said, had to come to school quite a bit for me and my better young teenagers, you know, acting crazy, you're no fighting Joe ride, you know, shooting hook and all that. We never heard anyone, you know. Now. Joy riding was a bit of a raucous teenage trend back then, where you'd steal a car for a short period of time with the attention of returning it or abandon it unnoticed. Which it's foolishness for sure, but it's certainly not murder.

But I can also imagine that the joy rides at least kissed people off right. I think he could have been upsetting some people. I think these were crimes that frankly, white teenagers were committing that people did just call joy rides, right, and they weren't getting arrested, or they weren't getting through being my partner better. Would be hanging out there, you know, just hanging out, you know, and the police come threatened aice,

you know, you know, y'all get off the screen. We're gonna rish y'all, you know, but put some charging on y'all. You know we would, Being young, we didn't take him serious, you know. So since you had this reputation as a troublemaker, they would threaten you with bogus charges to enforce some sort of an unofficial curfew that they made just for you. And it turns out that you should have taken those

threats seriously. Now, this wasn't the detective in the case we're here to discuss today, but this guy did do something that put you in jeopardy for this case. There was a robbery turned homicide in your neighborhood at a bakery and one night he made his usual threat to get you off the street. That you didn't take that seriously, but this time it got a bit more real for you. Right, Yes, the nineties center forward the detect to put a robbery and a tip murder charge on me. I was seven team.

I ain't even know what the riberry happened. You know. It happened on St. Claude and uh treacle that was about seven blocks away from where I lived, you know, and uh he he stopped me three times altogether. He told me if he ever catched me on the street again, he's gonna bring me up to jail for that, for that charge. You know. Third time he saw me out there, he arrested me, you know, and brought me to my parents house and told my parents. You know, I knew

he always didn't have anything to do with this. I gotta teach him a lesson. I'm going to arrest him. I'm gonna book him, I'm gonna put him on the line up. He ain't gonna get identified that he didn't do this here, but I gotta teach him a lesson. I was franker printed and I had him up, you know, mug shot. You know. I went on the line up and I was out when they arrest me on this case here. That's all they talked about with that nineteen

SENTI folk, you know. So this detective trying to show you tough love, as if that was in his job description, put you permanently on the docket, ready to be sold off and shipped off to Angola. So three years later, that's exactly what happened. Charrell. Can you describe the events of July one at a bar in the ninth Ward called the Welcome In that resulted in the fail shooting death of a man named Cecil Lloyd? Sure? So this cribe.

I believe. It was a Friday night, but it was just the start of basically the fourth of July weekend, and the bar was a small neighborhood bar, tiny place, not a lot of room to move around. There was a few patrons left, and I think one or two people working the bar. As far as we can tell, these patrons had been drinking all day right, They were having a good time, enjoying the weekend too. Black men come to the door. And this was a bar that I think was primarily a white bar, but everyone who

worked there was white. The owner was white. As far as I'm aware, the patrons were all white. Two black men come to the door and the owner says that they asked for beers to go, and she says that she opened the door to get them the beers because she recognized one of the men from the neighborhood. She hands them the beers and then they push in the door. But importantly to Mr Brooks's case, they set their beer on the bar top just a couple of steps inside

the bar, and they basically commence a robbery. So they empty the cash register. They demand everyone get down on the ground. They're sort of a lead robber and kind of the supporting robber. One of them is armed with a gun, or at least one of them is the one who fires the fatal shot. I believe only one shot is fired, and sadly Mr Lloyd is killed, seemingly for no reason. Mr Lloyd complied just like everyone else, so this must have scared the living ship out of

everyone in that bar. Lloyd complied and still got killed. So all bets are off. But these two men leave, and of course the cops are called in What did the victims say to the police? They take witness statements from everybody. We now know that these statements differed quite a bit from one another in many ways. By the time of trial, the statements would become remarkably more consistent. But that night, the witnesses give sort of general descriptions

of the men. We know they were both black. They give a variety of different clothing descriptions, a variety of hair descriptions. We know that one is short and one is tall. Mr Brooks was eventually convicted of being the shorter of the two robbers. Who is the shooter? Right, It's my understanding that the shorter of the two assailants was about five four full full by our five by the hundred forty something pound, and you see he had

he is short hair. What I had a big where the shorter robber I think it may have also technically betted afro. But Mr Brooks's hair was like much bigger, you know, Mr Brooks, he could be described as short. But the hairstyles that the witnesses described just didn't match Mr Brooks. So we're seeing a market difference in height as well as length of hair. So how does Elvis even get dragged into the consciousness of these victims? The bar owner Ms. Caruso, the woman who chose to let

the men into the bar. She believes that she recognized the shorter robber from the neighborhood. And in the end, this is really the only connection that Mr Brooks has to this case is that his family was a black family who lived in the neighborhood. Beyond that, police have nothing to go on. So what detectives do, and we know this from the police files that we've been able to obtain, is that they basically just started getting lists of black men who lived in theighborhood Jesus Christ and

so there are just lists and lists. Frankly a men who could have been wrongfully convicted for this crime. Right if it wasn't Mr Brooks, you most certainly would have been somewhat else on one of these lists. Interestingly, when police create these lists, Elvis Brooks isn't on them. We don't know exactly what police did with these lists. It seems as though they may have gotten photos of some of these people and tried to show the robbery victims

these photos. We don't know for sure. There's not great documentation on this, but for several weeks, police don't have a suspect in this case. They are basically all they have to go on is a black man who maybe lives in the neighborhood or has been in the neighborhood at some point, and so this is how randomly right coincidentally, despite having gotten these lists of people, Mr Brooks's name

isn't on them. Suddenly, from reading the police report, one of the police officers would have you believe that he suddenly came came to bund to suspect that matched the description who lived in the neighborhood, and that was Elvis Brooks. It sounds like a sinister game of any meny miny mo, right. And this is why we must remind people that black

lives matter, because to these people, they simply don't. So even though he's four inches taller than the shooter, has a big afro unlike the shooter, they still put Elvis's photo in an array to show to the victims. I don't know that it's even like multiple photos on one piece of paper. They just have photos. And one of those photos is of Elvis Brooks. But it's not a photo from nineteen seventy seven. It's a photo from several years before, right when Mr Brooks had been arrested previously.

And so they take this old photo where his hair looks differently, right, because it was two years previously. His hair is much shorter in this photo that his hair was in nineteen seventy seven. He hadn't cut his hair in between because it was an afro that he was letting grow out. And so they take this old photo to the witnesses from the bar. But because it's the same photo, when a witness signed the back of it, right, Sometimes when you sign things, you can tell that there's

writing on the back of something. So it's certainly possible that as they're showing the photo to the witnesses from the bar, it's very obvious which photo has been identified. So not only is the photo lineup suggestive because of the signature on the back, but also the photo of Elvis from four more closely met the description of the actual assailant in than Elvis did in that same year.

This is also a situation where you have three fully traumatized victims, so not exactly a room full of people with clear heads, and the victims were white, the assailants were black. And we have to go back to this important point, which is that study after study has shown that cross racial identification it's less accurate than guessing. So they got three cross racial identifications from two patrons, Mr Nodo, Miss Gibriani and the bar owner, Miss Caruso, But they

didn't have to go down the identification route, right. What about the fingerprints, they're right there on the beer cans. Correct. The police got to the scene and they knew exactly what would be probative to finger print in this scene. This isn't a case where they were figure printing the ceiling or something like that. They knew that the robbers had touched these beer cans and that they had then

set those beer cans on the bar top. And so they collected those Kansas evidence and they were able to get usable prints that they could compare to Mr Brooks's prints. And what we now know and what police and what the district attorney in ninety seven new as they were trying to kill Mr brook right to prosecute him capitally, was that the figure prints saw those beer cans didn't match Elvis Brooks. We don't know who's they were, but

we know they didn't belong to Mr Brooks. So they got these fingerprints, they knew that they didn't match Elvis, but yet they decided to go ahead and pursue the death penalty. Anyway, let's just marinate on that for a second. That sounds like state sanctioned attempted murder. Needless to say, if these folks were civilians, they'd be charged and punished accordingly. But our system has decided that these people have special privileges, including the right to kill for the advance of their

careers with no recompense. And this was the notorious Harry Conic senior era, so this sort of behavior was the norm, even from the junior a t A who was trying the case. So they ignored the beer canned fingerprints that they knew to be from the actual assailants, no question about it, and they got into restaurant for Elvis instead. And I was at work that day. You know, when I got home, my sister say to Polly, will look like you for you? I see it for what they said,

you kill somebody. I said, kill somebody. I ain't ever killed nobody. Then I went to the phone book called the phil Priests, and you know Acton was he looking for all the books. And they said, yeah, let's see where you are. I said, my on paid final Saint Claude and Falster. Then when he came and got me right there. You know, we'll be right back after this. 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 is reform, the A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. I had

to go to get ball set. That's the first thing I went to, which I didn't have any ball because the first degree murial. So after that it went into the emoting for identification. Brought me the coda. So I feel like I know I didn't do it, I said she. She said, these people here ain't gonna say I've done it, because if I knew I didn't do it, I see

they got the wrong person. You know. When I go in the code room for emotional for identification, one of them saying he potive it wasn't me, you know, because the d A came in private me. See this ain't the man, you said, now my pot to that ain't the man. And uh, the two ladies, you know, they said it was me, you know. But when okave back the trial and man, it changed man, you know, and

she was me, you know. So Joseph Noo when he went to court for the motion to suppress identifications, he essentially couldn't recognize if the man he had identified in the photo, if that was the same man who was in court. Someone who can't even look at a photo and say if it's the same person as someone sitting in front of them shouldn't be considered to be reliable evidence against someone. Yet somehow something helped him come around

by the time of trial to make the identification. At trial, the evidence against Mr Brooks is three cross racial stranger identifications. At least two of the witnesses were quite a bit older than Mr Brooks. It can be more difficult to identify someone who's of a different age than you are. We most recognize people who look more like us. It's just easier for people to remember. And then also, these people had been drinking for hours in a dark bar.

They were terrified they were being told to lie down on the ground. Someone had just been shot seemingly randomly, And this is a very quick situation, and so they've had only a few minutes to look at a person they've never seen before and to identify them after they've been drinking, some of them seemingly for hours. And then there's a fourth witness presented a trial in addition to

the other three we've already mentioned. The fourth person is actually he's the he's he's the victim who can't identify anyone. He describes the circumstances of the crime and agrees, you know, in many ways with the other witnesses, but he could never make an identification of Mr Brooks. And so this was the evidence against Elvis Brooks. No physical evidence ever tied him to the crime, and in fact, the finger prints right made it very clear that he was not

one of the robbers. So what the hell is this? How is it that the defense did not bring this up? His lawyer didn't mention the fingerprints because he wasn't told about the fingerprints the police, right, they had gathered the evidence, they had tested the evidence, They knew about the evidence. We know that the assistant district attorney in this case knew about the evidence because of notes we would later find in the d A file. Mr Brooks's attorney was

never told that there were fingerprints exonerating his client. But in this trial that lasted only a few hours, Mr Brooks's attorney fought. He presented witness after witness after witness, all demonstrating Elvis Brooks's alibi for that night. Mr Brooks also testified on his own behalf right. He told the jury that he was innocent, that he didn't do this.

In total, the jury chose to believe for white witnesses who had been drinking in a dimly lit bar, oh for thirteen black witnesses, who described almost to a t, the alibi that Mr Brooks had that night. They all explained how they had come to be at the Brooks house that evening, what they were doing, the time periods they were there, what they saw Elvis doing. These were people who, yes, many of them were related to Mr Brooks,

though not all of them. But these were also people who just frankly, they corroborated one another, not in a perfect way, right, not everyone had been there for the exact same time period that night, but they were clear as to what Mr Brooks had been wearing, which wasn't the clothing described as the robber was wearing, what his hair had looked like, and what he had been doing.

And they were all clear that in this small shotgun style house, which right, it's a house that it has what entrance and what exit, it's very clear when someone leaves the shotgun house, you can't sneak out. They knew that Mr Brooks had been there all night, he couldn't possibly be the robber, and yet these black voices were ignored.

I had my brother, he come overever his friend, and my sister she come overever with her boyfriend, and she had but three kids with I'm the one to open the door for them, you know, four to July was coming up, and uh, they wanted to come visit my mom, my daddy. You know, No, I might have been a bad little kid, but my mom and dad. It was very honest people. You know, even if it meant I had to have the depth pen, it wasn't gonna laugh

for me. You know. After this very short proceeding, three cross racial misidentifications were made, but thirteen alibi witnesses swore that you were with them instead. In your life was literally hanging in the balance. Did you still hold out hope that the jury was going to believe your parents and your family? You know what, at that time, I was young, Like I said, I didn't take life serious, damn, you know. But I was saying to myself, I didn't do this. To me, I'm I'm not gonna get convicted

because I didn't do it. You know. But when I got convicted, I learned the hard way just how much people hate out of people. You want to get somebody, to get the right person that's done it, you know, don't come just national anybody that just made me look at people different. I learned the hard way. I never forget it, though. We'll be right back. After a quick break. A week later, they uh sends me to life and

fifty years and they go. And after that a few months later, I was then ain't golden For the next farty years. They put you in the field, you know, working like a sleeve, picking cutton, digging dishes, picking colm, doing called grains, cutting grass, you know, stuff like that. I really weren't familiar with those things that, you know, so I just had to get used to it. When

I face went there I will get right us. No. So when Mr Brooks was sentenced to life in prison, the sentence he only got because his mother begged the jurors to spare her son from the death penalty. He was sent to Angola Peditentiary, right the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he got reprimands for essentially not doing hard labor fast enough or with sufficient enthusiasm for the hard labor.

He was assigned lucky in a hole in the dungeon yourself back then, Uh, they give your extra duty, you know, something you gotta do on the weekends, going to field on the weekends, or they might give you a higholation time which is ten days, you know, without a matches than all that, they never even tried to hide the fact that mass incarceration was just what slavery morphed into

after the Civil War, and they still aren't. Louisiana just did have the opportunity as four other states did, who all passed it to remove the slavery loophole of the Thirteenth Amendment from the state constitution by ballot initiative that was in November two, but they voted to keep it. Yeah, and it was the voters voted this way by a comfortable margin, which is um. I don't have the right words for it. Anyway, it wasn't bad enough for your mom to lose you, but your brother was in Angola

with you. Yeah, he looked up up. Then they go with me, you got killed, you know name with the Brooks killed. I'm sorry to hear that. So I understand. They tried to get a friend of yours too to shoot him in for the taller shooter in V. Eight and this was a guy named Alvin Keller. Keller. They said the second man was something like six ft or six one. Keller was saying high as me. You know. They tried to arrest but kills a man. I was. I was locked up when that happened, you know, did

they check and see it was? Really? Didn't They let him go? But no, they ain't never arrested anyone else, you know. So luckily for him, he was able to use their own words against them to escape being another statistic, another wrongfully convicted black man in Louisiana at the time, and then being forced onto that horrible conveyor belt of free labor that fuels this system. You were making two

to four cents an hour in the fields. It's an amount of money that makes it impossible to save up so that if you wanted, like Mr Brooks did, to try to get information about his case, Postage cost money, right, envelopes, paper cost money. In prison documents certainly cost money. And when you're talking about making that little and having a family that though they supported him as best they could, they just weren't in a position to support him financially

like that. And so it leads to a situation where people are desperate to try to get information about their cases, right, and they have virtually no tools to do so. And so for years Mr Brooks struggled right to try to litigate his case pro say, meeting without a lawyer, because in Louisiana, once he wasn't given a death sentence, he was no longer entitled. He wasn't entitled to some sort

of post conviction counsel. Right, he did get to take it out of time appeal it was denied, but those sorts of things, that's not going to reveal any new evidence, that just going to review what occurred actually at the trial itself. And so for years Mr Brooks was just left alone to try to manage as best he could to try to scrape together the body to get documents, to try to get information about right what he always

knew that he wasn't the robber. He knew he didn't do that crime, and he was certain that there would be something in those files to prove it. But he just couldn't get to them. But you got crafty right when you weren't out in the fields. I understand you actually started making belts, like with your own hands, from scratch. They had a police take called the hobby shop. Bills were my person all items you know, we ought own.

Let we make our own products and sell them, you know, so that well I've gotten the hobby shop, I would make him bills, have to sell bills in support myself. So you worked on your appeals pro se and so on your own using the belt business in order to make enough money just to get postage and pay for documents and try to fight the state in post conviction. Of course you're fighting against them with their unlimited resources. Yes, sir,

and all of them got denied. But we really helped me and a bunch of other people when uh the d A files, when they made it uh possible for us to have you know, the Supreme co see we were entirer to it has opened a lot of dolls for people because when you get there, you get the information that could help you something that you weren't it tighter to it one time, the d A Files as I found out about the Bill Cans Frank of Prince

d A Files who that was way later and the teens. Wow, so you went in nineteen seventy seven and didn't find out about the fingerprints until well after two thousand twelve. So when did the Innocence Project of New Orleans get involved? And how did this thing turn around? Basically, as soon as he heard about KNOW, which we were founded in two thousand one, he wrote to us and asked for help. But so did the thousands of other people. And right, we're only one office, and so as best we can, right,

we work through cases. And unfortunately, and I'm I'm so sad that Mr Brooks had to wait even longer for Inpo's help, but we were finally able to start looking at the case around I believe twenty sixteen was what I first wrote to him. And hypno and this is progenials of course is an incredible organization, and they have done a ton of good in a place that has an insane backlog, and it's just a tortured history of these kind of cases. We're talking, of course, about the

most incarcerated state in the country. Almost always sometimes Oklahoma takes their place, they flip flop, but Louisiana it's the most incarcerated state in the most incarcerated country in the world. So the task that they face, the uphill battle that they fight every day, no matter year, it's daunting, to

say the least. So if you listeners can help them with a dollar, a hundred dollars, a hundred million dollars, whatever you got laying around, we'll have a link in the bio to YPNO, and I hope our audience will be driven to get involved and help other people like Mr Brooks. So when IPNO finally did get involved, what

did that investigation look like. So in the post conviction process, one of the things we do to investigate is use the public records laws and request documents, and we were able to write, go look at them, pick them up, pay for them, decide what you want to pay for what you don't. That's something that people who are incarcerated

often can't do that. In Mr Brooks's case, he actually had a sister who was really moved by what happened to her brother, and she wanted to join the police force to make sure that didn't happen to another black family, and she unfortunately was injured and so had to eventually resign the force. But during the time that she was there at p D, she tried to look in the record for documents about her brother's case, and she couldn't find them. She was told that they were too old,

that they probably didn't have them anymore. So this is something where even someone who should be an insider right who's trying to help her brother, trying to do these things, and even as an p D officer, was being told that these documents didn't exist. But as you've heard before, this fingerprint evidence that should have stopped this train before it even left the station did actually exist. Unfortunately, in this case, we were actually never able to find the

physical fingerprints. It seems as though they were lost or frankly possibly destroyed. We found handwritten notes that, it turns out we learned were written by the assistant district attorney saying Prince not Elvis Brooks. Right. That was written on a notation next to a discussion of the fingerprints on the beer cancer. And so when we saw that, we thought, wow, what you know, what do you mean, let's find these fingerprints?

Whose fingerprints are? And unfortunately, because of how n p D conducted it's figure printing back then, if they didn't find a match, if they didn't get an i D

to someone, they just didn't record it. Right back in nineteen seventies, if ed p D tested someone's fingerprints, compared the fingerprints and it wasn't that person, often they just didn't write a report because they thought, well, this is of no use, right They thought, if it wasn't their suspect, what good would it do the same with if they showed a photo to someone and they didn't make an identification, very often they would not write a report documenting that

because it wasn't helpful to their case. And so in this case, there was no fingerprint report to find. There was just these notes that happened to document that the prince did not belong to Elvis Brooks. So we conducted an extensive search for these prints down in like the bowels of the op D building, right, looking for this evidence, and despite many, many hours of searching, we weren't actually able to find their figure prints, which is sad because

we could have found out who the real robbers were. Right, we could have actually solved this case and gotten a little justice for Mr. Lloyd, and unfortunately, because of the evidence retention practices, we just weren't able to do that either. But we were able to file on Mr Brooks's behalf

based on some of this new evidence. There was also some other undisclosed evidence about another crime committed that night by people who seemed to match the description, and it was committed right around the corner that Mr Brooks was

also never told about his lawyers never learned about. And so unfortunately, what we know about what happened the night the welcome it was robbed is probably only a sliver of what investigators actually found out back then, But because they didn't document it, were left to sort of follow the bread crumbs, and those bread crumbs led to two conclusions that they had prosecuted Elvis knowing that he was innocent, and that Elvis needed to be released a s a P.

So how did the state respond? We were met with procedural objections by the state. It's not enough to find new evidence in your case. Before you could get any court to listen to your new evidence to consider the merits of your claims, you have to prove that you basically meet the procedural hurdles. We had to demonstrate that

this information had been withheld from Mr Brooks and his attorney. Unfortunately, Mr Brooks's attorney was deceased, and so we had to try to come up with other ways to show that he obviously didn't know this information about the fingerprints. That had he known, right this attorney who put on thirteen witnesses, which was just unheard of in nineteen seventy seven, that had he known that the fingerprints on critical items didn't match his client, he obviously would have mentioned that to

the jury. And once the state was forced to look at Elvis's case, they must have realized what had happened. And this was the Leon Kannazaro administration. Still, so instead of doing the right thing, on the eve of in October fifteenth, two thousand nineteen hearing, they brought Elvis a deal. They were asking that you plead guilty to a lesser charge and avoid a potentially very lengthy procedural battle, which would have cost you much more time, might have even

led to you dying in prison. But was that decision a struggle for you? Yeah, struggle with it. Could always see I ain't gonna never see guilty to this year. You know that I didn't do it. I'm not gonna never plead guilty. But I went to taking when I was offered the deal, I said, man, you gotta use kind of sitisten time. You knew, because you may not ever get out of you. I just wanted to get out, you know, did I know? I didn't do it? And I feel like forty two plus year was long enough.

You know, I just made a decision, you know that. Uh, I'm gonna plead guilty to the list of child and get out. You know it was tough. But oh, my whole family say I did the right thing. You know, they want to see me out. This is why I went on and took the plea. I mean, we call it a choice, but in some ways that's not really a fair assessment. It turns out later and we found out that the state was also aware at the time they offered him right that supposed choice, that they knew

that the trial prosecutor hadn't turned over those prints. They do that because he told them, frankly, probably to avoid liability, that I could only guess as to their motives. But they found that out in a meeting with the trial prosecutor, and shortly thereafter, within days, they offered Mr Brooks a plea. So, despite the sour taste in your mouth over having to plead guilty to get out, you were still free and back into the arms of your family. How did that

feel after all these years? WHOA, it felt great, you know. I really couldn't believe it. You know, I feel really great to be out. You know, you're around my family and my kids, my grandkids. But Burt, sisters, nephew, nieces, oh dam mimss my parish you know, the d d C now. So, but it was it's a wonderful feeling to beginning out. It ain't going especially everybody telling me congratulation, you know, and I would leave. It was a good feeling there, you know. So he was out, but that

was not the end of it. And I can't stress this enough. Elections matter, folks, Okay, especially the local ones. The Conic and Connasarro era has left a harmful legacy in their wake. And even though the young Condazarro was not seeking re election, Jason Williams was elected to the Arms Parish das office, and we interviewed Jason on my

other podcast, Righteous Convictions. We're gonna have that episode linked in the bio by the way, that having a man of his caliber, I'm going to say it now, a great man like Jason Williams in that office means people like Elvis can finally get justice and have their names cleared.

He has cleared his name. Earlier this year, Mr Brooks, represented by a different attorney at a different office, did file another application for post conviction relief, seeking to withdraw his guilty plea and seeking to have his conviction overturned. And so that was granted this year, meaning that at this point Mr Brooks is fully exonerated as much as

you can be in the criminal legal system. And in fact, the day that Mr Brooks was able to go into court and that was decided, the a d A at that time made it very clear and apologized to him for all those years that were taken from him wrongfully and acknowledged his innocence. The attorneys did admit to Ron thought, you know, to see they he and Elvia Din. You know it could have clear my name years ago, you know, you know, uh they asked me how long I was to I see for the two plus years you know,

I was locked up. You know, it was great to get that done. You know, like I said, I would want to vote away from the tip. They took my whole youth from me. It took the best years of my life, you know, and nothing could ever replace it. You have my deepest sympathies for that, and we'll have action steps for our audience if they'd like to help you. By that, I mean there's an Amazon wish list and a Freedom Fund, So if you've got the wherewithal to do it, then please do help. It means a lot.

And with that, we now turned to the closing of our show, which of course is called closing Arguments. And it's the part of the show that I always look forward to. It's where I get to turn off my mic. That's not why I look forward to, It's because of what we're about to hear. Because when I turned my mic off, I'm gonna leave your mics on so that you can share any closing thoughts that's why it's called closing arguments with me and our audience. Thank you again, Cherrell.

Why don't we start with you first, and then Elvis please take us out into the sunset. You know, I really appreciate you having us and for letting Mr Brooks share a little bit of what happened to him. And I think in some ways this case is extraordinary, and that every time I look at a new file, I hope that we're going to find something as sort of earth shattering as the physical evidence. In Mr Brooks's case, it's fingerprints, But in many ways it's more a kid

almost to a DNA exoneration. Right, this isn't just as he said. She said, This is this tangible evidence didn't match, and they do it didn't match, and they framed Elvis Brooks anyways, and they did it because they could. And it's a system where could they do it again today? Sure? I think I think they could. And so a lot of it is just about to me how little thought anyone gave to what they were doing. They did it because they could, They did it because it was easy.

Maybe they thought Mr Brooks was a troublemaker. Maybe they didn't. I don't know. I don't care. Frankly, it doesn't make it right. He was a poor black boy who didn't have the means to defend himself, and they did it because they could. I'm just I'm just so happy to be a month the free people again. You know me, I had to forty two plus years. You know, my help not really good right now, but you know I'm alive.

You know, I'm mam here with my family. You know, like I said, all the people are missing with my mom and dad because they pass, you know. But everything else it's good. No, No, I appreciate whatever y'all could do, you know, prayer to know that you know, we need it. You know, look at this wait is world coming to right now? It's ridiculous, you know. Well, I'd like to just thank y'all, thank the and some project. Thank gave it body, Thank you, thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.

I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wordis. With research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Ja 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 Ravul.

Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one h