#324 Jason Flom with Peter Pringle

at their home in Clinic Moren Costello, County, Galway. Peter devoted himself tirelessly to his family, to his beloved animals, and most of all to helping other axonorees get back on their feet and find their footing through meditation, yoga, diet. He just was a guy who never stopped giving back. And I'm honored to have known you, Peter, and I hope you're in a better place. He survived by his wife's Sonny, daughter Anna, and sons Thomas and John, as

well as their twelve grandchildren. Rest in peace and power, Peter Pringle. With the police banging on the door, open up the choice to be in that lineup was the last choice I made as a free man. A year later, I ended up writing the system. I'm going to be one of those people who everyone in the world is going to think as a monster or suspect as a monster for the rest of my life, and I'm just

gonna have to come to peace with that. Somebody was able to look at my picture in a database and say that I was somewhere where I definitely was it. I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they might have to play in my hanging. They had been told that two prison officers would have to participate in my execution. Now I walked back inside that prison for the last time, all hell broke los. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam.

Today's guest is a dear friend of mine and an extraordinary person, Peter Pringle. Pringle was accused of participating in a murder of two police officers following a bank robbery in Ireland. After his conviction, he was sentenced to death by hanging, and the police officer who had lied to get me convicted was now a retired detective superintendent. He had been promoted up to the top. Just days before

the news was to be tied around his neck. Peter learned that Oreland's president had committed his since to forty years without for all good face, to farty years, which wasn't a possibility for me at the time. I could feel myself, which at the time was a reasonable Peter. Was an extraordinary story. So happy to have you here. You're also the first guest on wrongful conviction who's not born in America. Thank you. It's annor to be here.

Thank you very much. Yeah, I was just saying, it's it's exciting that you're here because, as I said, we're taking it international now right, your as Irish as Irish can be. So Peter, let's go back to the we're talking.

This is a very interesting time right when things were going sort of crazy in your home country, right, So bring us back to what what was give us the climate and the what happened was in night there was a bank roberty in Ireland which the police save us carried up by two men three men rather and the getaway car traveling across country, small country roads, collided with a police car at a small cross roads. It sounds

like a movie. Yeah. Well, and this is now the police version of events because it goes I wasn't there, and so I really can't give you the the I can give you what I think is the accurate event of what happened because of my later investigations. But there was the two cars collided, there was an exchange of going far and two police officers were killed, and the three raiders escaped a cross country with three bank croppers. Yea, and where did this happen? In a town called Balhadrine

and County rosscommon in Ireland. But at the time you were far away. I was in a different region, different country altogether, and whatever. That's an important detail. Yeah. So that evening one man was arrested not too far away and he had a bullet wound in his chest. And the following morning a second man was arrested and the

third man escaped cross country. And two days after the crime, a police officer managed to catch the man that were chasing, actually caught hold of him and was the only police officer to see the man when the man wasn't wearing

a mask. But the man struggled and got away from the police officer and ran away across the fields in stole a car and escaped again, and apparently he passed through the town where I was and got away again from the police, and twelve days after the crime, they arrested me, brought me in and framed me up for the crime I hadn't committed. Now there was there's a backstory there too, right, there was a reason there's they

wanted you. Right, you were known to the cops and they were a person that they would have liked to pin something on. And this was sort of a ki. Yeah, well, I was known in the context that I was a political activist. I had been a political activist from the time I was sixteen years of age, and I've been involved with the i ra A and I had been

interned when I was eighteen years of age. From nineteen fifty seven to fifty nine, I was in imprisoned in a prison camp on the Coral in Ireland without interment. It means that you're imprisoned without any charge or trial on suspicion. So they had this background. They classified me as a subversive, so it was handy for them to get me off the streets. That's the way they saw it. But at the time at the crime happened, I I had a very serious alcohol problem and I was on

a binge. I was drinking. I've been drinking with buddies for days and days and days. And then they told me that they thought the police might be looking for me. I said for what. So I decided, well, you know, I'd have to come off the drink and go on go to the police and find out what this is all about. But before that happened, I had come off the drink. But before I could go to them, they found me in the house of a friend and arrested

me and took me in. They found you in the house of friends that you were on this this binge, knowing you you're you're someone who's prone to extremes, right, some days, I've been drinking. That's a lot of drinking. Yeah, um, and I imagine this is um, this is not casual drinking. This isn't no, this is this was serious alcoholic drinking. Yes. And and I've been a fisherman, you see, I see, which probably saved me, because when you're going to see

in a trawler, you don't drink. There's no drinking a boat. So I only drank when when I got ashore, which was a different story. And at the time of my arrest, I was a skipper of a boat carrying cargo out to the Urn Islands, which are three islands off the west coast of Ireland, Callaway off Callaway Bay, inhabited islands. So my job was to carry different cargoes on the ship boat out of the islands, landed safely and bring the boat back safely. That that was my job at

the time. Not just to give some context, Peter looks like the skipper of a boat. He's very tall and strong and very well built, and he's got long flowing hair. You know, for someone like me who grew up in Manhattan, what would I know about skippers of boats? Right? We have rowboats in Central Park here. That's about it. But in any case, yes, he very much looks the part.

So you were so this was your job at the time, that was my job, And as luck would have it, I I took the day off work the day that the robbery happened. I went on a binge and they used that against me, as as I had taken the

day off work to gone committed. Robbery hadn't happened, But Anyway, when I was arrested and I was taken to the police station, and that's a funny thing about that too, because after twelve days on the bit on drinking, you know, I was entering into detox because this was the first day I hadn't drank. And when the arrest and took me into the police card to protectives each side of me, I had to shiver it and they said I was shivering because of fear, because of guilt, gilt. I was

shivering him because I was after binge. But when they got me into the police station, they first thing they did us strip me naked and a team of detectives walked around inspected my body, which I found to be very weird, uh, And they all looked very disappointed, and I didn't know why. I later discovered they were disappointed because I didn't have a bullet wound. Because remember the guy that they arrested I had been shot told him that his friend had also been shot, so they were

looking to see how the bullet wound. And when I didn't have a bullet wound, that looked pretty disappointed. But that didn't stop them framing me up. So I was arrested at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and at four o'clock they commenced interrogations. And I was interrogated from four pm Saturday afternoon until four thirty a m. On

Sunday morning, twelve and a half hours. Yeah, there was a break when I had a visit, two breaks when I had two short visits with my lawyers in the middle, but that was twelve and twelve hours basically to see you and two detectives in the room we had that may and a team of detectives. They were coming in relays of twos and trees and and interrogating and you know, with the occasional beating in the drown in for good measure because two colleagues have been killed. And they were

very very angry. And so then at four am in the morning, I was brought down into a dirty cell and put into a dirty cell, and a police officer was outside with a baton and it's the solid door, and they closed the door and then he was outside banging on the metal door with his baton so that

I couldn't fall asleep. And then at eight am they took me out of the cell and at eight thirty recommenced interrogations and I was interrogated from eight thirty am on Sunday morning right through till four thirty am on Monday morning. Wow, so that's another twenty hours. And during that day it's very interesting actually in the afternoon that was on the Sunday, the what we're known in Ireland as the Heavy Gang. These were the Serious Crime Squad

who had a terrible reputation. They took over the police station and they allowed they let all the local police go off to a football match or something, and so the only people in the police station with me on Sunday afternoon where the Serious Crime Squad and Special Branch.

And at one point in the afternoon I was being interrogated and I was they when they beat you, they make sure not to leave marks, so you get kidney punches that they I'd be standing while they'd be questioning me and one would come behind me with his pistol and you know, whack you in the in the kidneys,

which is very very painful. And are they take their boots and rasp them down along my shins, you know, on the shin bone, along the skin to tear the skins and stuff like that you wouldn't think about our our stamp on your toes. These are big, heavy men, you know, and you're you're wearing a pair of canvas shoes that they've given me. Um. And at one point that I I knew I needed a break. This was, you know, I knew I was. I was getting very

tired of this. So I said I wanted to use the toilet, and they said you're not going to use the toilet. You're not going to use the toilet, you know, because they use fierce language, you know. And I waited a little while and then I said to the inspector who was conducting matters, I said, it's like this now, I said, if you don't let me use the toilet, I said, I'm going to pistol the floor here in this office. They went PI there and he said, well he would too, he would too to be you know.

So with that they left the room and they called into other detectives and they left the room, and after about ten minutes they were told they could take me out of the toilet. So the two detectives took me out. I was in front, walked out the door, down the corridor and turned right along a long corridor, and about halfway down this corridor there's an alcove to a staircase going stairs where he's going up, and the men's room was on the left, near the opposite that that's alcove.

And at the end of the corridor, the door was open out onto the car park on the street. And I'm walking now, but you know, you can imagine I'm sort of hypertense because of all that's happening, and I'm walking down along the corridor, and I had the door open because they wanted me to make a run for it so they could see. And when I got just at this alcohol, a detective standing in the alcohol that I couldn't see put his foot out to trip me.

But I was so hypertense I saw it and I lifted I stepped over his foot, and the detective behind he says, ah, you won't catch peether like that. And with that, the guy that had tried to trip me says, I'll fucking catch him, he says, and he cocked a

newsy submchine on. He said, I'll kill the bastard. And I got an a merciful push in my back and I was propelled through the door of the men's room and up against the wall to the side, and the detective behind me, who was a special Branch detective, shielded my body, put his hands up right that sheeted my body and said into my ears, say nothing, say nothing, Say nothing. And he said to his call he shut the war and they shut the door, and there was a big we're already gone on out in the hallway.

The guy with the gun was wanting to get at me. And the next thing we heard an a torrative voice saying, what's going on here? And then hand me that weapon and then to somebody as take care of that weapon, and he says, you to my office, and I gather what happened WHI was. The superintendent came in and saw

what was going on and stopped it. But in the toilet, the detective that was protecting me still covered my back, covered me with his body, which is a very brave thing to do because I know the lunatic was going

to shoot me. And and then when when everything here quieting down, he says to me, I need to have a pain now too, he says, after all that, and so that was it, and I was brought back and the interrogations continued, I mean, we've heard these stories from people who were wrongfully arrested and subjected to awful interrogations in America. And we don't really know much about the audience here because we haven't covered it in any detail what goes on overseas, but it sounds every bit as

bad as anything that goes on in America. And of course we do know that, as you pointed out, when police officers are killed, they get crazy. Um, they get into an irrational state, and they probably do things that there they wouldn't normally do normally do And and uh so you you were subject to I mean from I'm just trying to do the math, like almost forty hours of interrogation as far, and I'm guessing that there was what we know that you didn't get any sleep. I'm

sure you weren't given anything to eat. Well, no, they were bringing on our coup or something like that, you know, maybe a sound with you know, right, so they Okay, so at least you had that going for yourself. But that which is better than you you would have thought based on the way they're treating you. Right, But then again they like to do that, right, They like to pull you in a little bit and then put you back out and do that whole like psychological torture thing

as well. And I was put into the cell down on Monday morning at four thirty am on Monday morning. I was taken out again at eight o'clock and I was interrogated into noon on Monday and then I was taken on the armed desk cort of police to Dublin to the and brought before the Special Criminal Court where I was charged with capital morderan robbery. And you never confessed the absolutely not. I should tell you this one. My father was a policeman. My father had been a

police officer. Yeah, and at the time when I was a young man, and he knew of my involvement with the Republican movement, and he tried to talk me out of it, of course, and he said to me at one stage he said to me, are you if you're going to stay with these people that you're involved in now? He said, I want to tell you to give you some advice. He says, if you're ever arrested by that crowd, And I said, fun crowd. He said that crowd in

the castle. Dublin Castle was the center for the special branch, and he was referring to a special branch. He said, if they deal with political matters, he says, if every you're arrested, don't answer any questions. He said, give them your name, address, and data bart and say nothing else. And I said why that, He says, because no matter what you say, they'll twist it and use it against you.

So when I was arrested, and that was my policy when I had been arrested many times before, because if anything happened in the area that I was in, they would you do a sort of round up the usual suspects, anything political happened, I mean, And and they pulled me in and they questioned me, and I'd say nothing, and they'd released me and that was the end of it. So I knew about the procedures when I was arrested.

But they brought me before the Special Criminal Court which was established for the trial of political offenses, which is a tribunal of three judges, no jury, and there I was charged and remanded in custody to the maximum security prison where I was put And in truth, when I got to the maximum security prison, that even on the Monday evening, and I was that was kind of interesting too, because when I was brought into what they called reception

in the prison, I was stripped, of course, they stripped seratin going into the prison, and there was a senior chief officer what they called a chief officer there jailer, and they handed me prison clothes. I said that, aren't They said you have to put them one. You have to wear prison clothes. I said no, I'm I'm a political prisoner. I don't wear prison clothes. And they said, but you have to, that's it. No. I said, I'm

not wearing my own clothes. Back and I said, if you don't give me my own clothes, I'll go naked. They respond to that, and they said, why, well, some of them want to beat me up again. You see, wanther to beat me up. And the chief said, no, no, not that, don't do that. He said, are you serious? I said, of course, I'm serious. I said, I'm a politic, good prisoner. I'm not wearing prison clothes. And he said,

give me his fucking clothes. So I got my clothes and I was brought into the prison wing where I was where everybody else was not wearing their own clothes too, because it was a political wing. You see, I was put into a cell, and I can tell you this much. To get into that prison cell with a clean bed, even though it's a narrow, army type of bed, take off my clothes and get into the bed and sleep.

It was such a relief after forty eight harrowing hours and me I was detoxing during all this time that I was in the police station, and there I was. And then three months later I was given a copy of the book of evidence, and I saw in the book of evidence where one detective sergeant was claiming that on the Monday morning that would have been after thirty four hours of interrogation, I had supposedly suddenly blurted out

these words. I know that you know I was involved, but on the advice of my solicitor, I'm saying nothing, and you'll have to and you'll have to prove it all the way. I'd never spoken those words, because, as I said, all I gave was my name, addressed data bed and if I wanted to use the toilet, I said, don't want to use the toilet. So for thirty four hours of them interrogating you and alternately beating you and waching people and going in and out and depriving you

of sleep and everything else. All you gave them was your name address and to say to them, I am innocent of what you're accusing me of. So you your dad's advice really stuck with you absolutely because he knew I mean, he was a police officer, right, which is an ironic twist, right, the fact that your dad was a police officer and you end up being accused of killing two police officers and then tortured by police officers.

It's very strange. Life is very strange, and your story is particularly insane, um so, and what an odd thing to just reflect for a second on the fact that you were just expressing how you felt a sense of relief and you almost sounded joyful at the idea that you were being put into a cell in a maximum security prison just because you had just been through this unbelievable ordeal. Because I was away from the ardal, you see, right, I was safe from it. That's why I could relax,

I know. But you gotta understand, like for anyone else you know who's in society to hear that or me right now, to go to think of how that could be that you could actually feel happy about being an innocent person put into a tiny cell with a hard cot. But then again, there was the best thing you had seen in at least, yes, right, you get some sleep, So my mind didn't go to that fact that I was in the maximum security prisoner or that I was accused wrongly. At that stage in my exhaustion, all I

wanted was rest. And then a funny thing happened the following morning. I woke up at seven o'clock on the following morning. The cell I was in was on the ground floor, and I woke up the following morning at seven o'clock to hear a voice outside the cell in the prison yard, outside the cell screaming, Jesus helped me, help me, help me, Oh, Jesus Christ helped me. Like I heard a scream, and I thought, oh my god, what's going on here? Because I didn't know. I thought

maybe some prisoner was being battled or something. And then I heard otherwise saying come on, come on, come on, cut that down, come on, And there was a whole schommercial going on outside in the prison yard, and I didn't know what it was, and I thought, really, I'm in a right hell hall here. This is this is a prisoner being battered. You know. It was only afterwards when the cell door opened I heard that actually it was a prison officer had had a nervous breakdown the

yard and they were trying to take them away. That was their first morning. That was my first morning experience in the maximum security prison. What was the name of the prison, Portlicia Prison. It was in the Midlands, So, yeah, welcome to Portlicia, which it was known it's known colloquially as the Bark. Yeah. So at this point, had you already been sentenced? No, no, just accused. They've thrown you into this prison while you await your trial, that's right.

And I was sawn. There was no such thing as put me in with other people on remand I was put in with people that had already been convicted. It was a political wing, so the way it worked there, in one way, it was a tough place to be. So let's go forward to the trial and the conviction, because there's so much more to your story. So the trial takes how long does it take to get to

the trial? Okay, Well, three months after I was arrested, I got a copy of the Book of Evidence and when I read the book of evidence, I saw where the tanctive sergeant was claiming that after thirty four hours of interrogation, I had suddenly blurted out these words until I said, Tom, already I know you know, yeah, which I never said. And the first time I came across these words was when I read the book of evidence, and that was the principal evidence against me. You're so

called confession, my so called oral confession. So when we went to try, now the two other people had been arrested, the three of us were tried together, right, So the trial took twenty three court days over six weeks, and for the first twelve days of the trial, my name wasn't even mentioned, apart from the fact they charges were read out to me. After that, my name wasn't mentioned

for twelve days. So I'm sitting in the dock. It's surreal as if I'm one of the audience, because they're talking about stuff about these other guys and nothing about me. And then after twelve days they went to my case, and when my case was then open, they opened the case against me. The police officer who had captured the guy they were chasing, whom they claimed was me went into the witness box and he was asked he see the man again, and he said, yes, he's in the

court and can you point him out? And he said, yes, I'm sitting in the docks. So he pointed to a man in the public gallery, standing in the public gallery and he says, that's him standing up there. And it was really bizarre because all of the public gallery in the court was packed, but all the people standing beside this man moved away from him and somehow found space, and he was left standing like this in his own like something you see in the movies, you know, And

the whole courtroom started laughing. It seemed so funny. But I was convicted. They never stopped that man, they never arrested him, They allowed him leave the court. Is he your believe that was actually the guy? Oh well, he did. Police officer who had caught him in spoke to him, said that was actually the guy, and he had the and he knew I was in the dock. He knew

I was the accused. And it's it's interesting, in in bizarre that we've seen this before, that the actual killer would come to the courtroom to watch the proceedings, right apparently he did. Yeah, that is a phenomenon that happened. It's a weird and and so he was allowed to leave the court. And I was convicted on the evidence of the detective sergeant that had spoken those wards I told you about that. I never said, and that was

the evidence of one which I was convicted. And sense death, did your attorney bring up the fact that the other defendant had said that you had? He said to me afterwards, what that evening? He said to me, Now I should explain the situation in the special trimming court. Not like in America. I was the accused is not allowed sippy side the lawyers. Okay, So you have the the tribunal, the registrar, the solicitors, the barristers, the journalists, and then

behind unar raised slight be elevated the dock. I'm sitting in the dock, so I am about I suppose I'm about the equivalent of about six rows of seats behind my lawyers, and they're facing the opposite direction from me. They're facing the court as I am, So I can only see their backs, and I can't consult with them. And the only time I can consult with them is

when the trial that day is over. So when I raised the matter with my lawyers at the time, they told me, oh, well, you can't be convicted now, as the detective has said the police officers made out of identification. There's no way you can be convicted. And I thought, okay, I knew nothing about the law at the time. Well it seems logical though, understand it says, yeah, the guys here,

there he is, and you're going okay, yeah, good. But the thing about it is, if that had happened in the North of Ireland, if my lawyers had been any good, they would have asked for a mistrial straightaway. They would ask for the dismissal straight away. But they didn't. And actually, my senior counsel who didn't even turn around to look at this man and didn't even turn around to look right the police officer pointed to. He said to the police officer, so you've identified the defendant as the man,

and the police officer said yes. And then the prosecution council stood up and he said, in fairness to the accused, my lord, he said, I have to point out he said that this witness was shown a photograph of the accused before the trial and don't not allowed to do that, you see, So then that meant that his evidence was disallowed. Oh so his evidence of having pointed out the actual killer, who we believe was the actual killer, was disallowed because

of that, But not your false confession. Were you able to testify in your defense? No, my lawyers said it no evidence against me, and that if I went into the witness box it would mitigate against me, and that the state would put me, put me apart. And I wasn't afraid to go into the witness box, and fact I wanted to go into the witness box, but my lawyers misdirected me and say, no, there's no evidence against you, so there's no need for you to go into the

witness box. So again another common factor that we see a couple of common factors that we see in these wrongful convictions. You're a victim of police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, and incompetent defense attorneys, and ultimately you're convicted and sentenced to death. Let's talk about that moment, and then let's move forward to the craziness that happens on the eve

of your execution. Right. Yeah, Well, when the case was over, when the prosecution case in the defense case was finished, the court reserve judgment to the following day, and we were brought back to the prison to be brought up the following day to hear our judgment when we were convicted and so so you had been convicted and not sentenced. No, I hadn't been convicted. Oh, so you had to go. You had to go back to the prison. And the wonder off the court as to whether they were going

to convict or not. That's a long night and it was. It was pretty clear that they were going to convict the other two guys because there was evidence against them, but there was not. The only evidence against me was this the word of this police officer which I had disputed, and plus the fact that the other police officer I had identified the actual culprit who was not me. So when we went up the following day, anyway, they convicted me and they sentenced me to death. And the sentence

meant like this. The presiding member of the court said you should be taken from this court to the place in which you were last held. And this was now on the twenty seven November, and on the nineteen day of November nine in the year of a Lord nineteen eighty you should be made to suffer debt by execution in the manner prescribed by law. And then and you're also sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for the robbery. My

inner response at the time was, this is crazy. If I'm going to be executed in three weeks time, I can't save the fifteen years. And if I'm going to serve the fifteen years, I can't be execution three weeks time. And that was the way my head was around the whole time. And then I was taken down underneath the court room to the cells. I was put in the cell, and then my lawyers come down to see me in this alcove that was there, and I was brought out to the alcove to me with my lawyers. But the

senior lawyer hadn't yet come. And when he came in a few moments later and he came up to me, he was weeping. He was crying, he was in tears. And I found myself in this bizarre situation that I was standing up with my arm around His name is Shamus Egan, the lawyer. My arm was around him, and I said, it's okay, it's okay, don't worry, which we haven't appealed. Don't worry. And he's crying his eyes out, and I think myself, this is weird. Go backwards, this

is this, this is about face. Yeah, he should be consoling me and I, you know, whereas I'm consoling him. And and so I was brought back to the prison. Now, when I was brought back to the prison, now I'm a sentence, a condemned prisoner, right, so I'm putting in a debt cell. And at first actually didn't put me in the debt cell, to put me in a in an isolation area. And they put me in an ordinary sell in an isolation area with two jailers in the

style sall with me. And that night there was no sleep because these guys were sitting reading papers, rustling, talking, you know, and I couldn't get to sleep until eventually during the night I sat up and I said to them, and I said, now listen, here to meet you guys. The chief has told me that in this situation that I mean, I can have whatever jailer's I want with me.

And unless you pair be totally quiet, I'm going to ask for you every night, and they went, oh Jesus, dont to that, And there was as quite as lambs and I got through the night. But then the father was a very good reverse psychology there. Yeah, it's almost it's it's sort of like an active rebellion, I guess in a certain way. And also I'm a bit rebellious and an element of controlling your own situation which is

completely out of your control. Yeah, And then I protested the following day and they put us into a they created what they called the death cell, which was a larger cell, and the three condemned prisoners were put in there. And I hadn't bed down again the wall. You and the other two the actual bankruppers, Yeah, yeah, you didn't know until that point, right, No, Well, I knew one of them previously because I knew him from drinking, but

otherwise I didn't know them. And of course it's often asked to me, why didn't they say you weren't with them? And the fact that the matter is each of them were conducting a defense of not guilty. They were pleading not guilty, and if they had said that I wasn't with them, that would prove that they were guilty. And the charge carried a mandatory death sentence. They had nothing to lose, they weren't going to They were just trying to save their own necks. And I understood that. But anyway,

in that condemned cell that was we went in. I was in there on the November and about a week

before Christmas of that year. In the nine eighty the way the rule was, the condemned prisoner wasn't allowed to speak to any other prisoners, and the jailers were told not to speak to condemned prisoner for their own protection, because if a jailer, like a prison guard, gets to like a condemned prisoner or have respect for condemned prisoner, it would be very difficult for them to participate in cold bloodedly taking that person's life, which is logically true.

But on this particular occasion, about a week before Christmas, I overheard three of the jailers discussing what part they might have to play my hanging. Now. They were sitting as close as I am to you, Jason, and they were discussing this as if I wasn't there, as if

I wasn't a human being. They had been told that two prison officers would have to participate in my execution, and they were very concerned to know would bonus they would receive for doing this job, because of course it was outside of their normal work, and what role they

would have to play. And the role they would have to play, they said, was that when my body would go down to the trapdoor of the gallows, there would be two prison officers on the knees and each one would have to pull on one of my legs to make sure my neck was broken. You know, I'm almost never at a loss for words, but I don't even know what to say about that whole Well, I didn't know what to say about it either, but I was

already angry over what they had done to me. But this made me enraged, but in a funny kind of way, and it was our kind of way. It helped me because it forced me to face the reality straight in front of me that I was likely to be hanged. How old were you? Forty one? And facing that reality, to my surprise, I discovered that I wasn't afraid to die, but what I was afraid of was that I might

not be able to die with dignity. I was terribly afraid that they might succeed in taking away my human dignity, and I determined I wouldn't a lew him do that. Now they had imprisoned me physically, but they couldn't imprison my mind, or my heart or my spirit. And so I determined that it was within those realms of myself I would exist while I was in that situation. And that's what I did, in the mind, the heart, in the spirit. Yeah, and so you came within eleven days

of being executed, that's correct. But before that, my my lawyer has made an application for leave to appeal, which put a stay on the execution. But then the appeal court refused my application for leave to appeal, so I got no appeal and they said a new day from the execution, which was the eighth of June. And about two weeks after the new day was set, my lawyers going on to visit me in the prison and they wanted me to allow them to put in a plea for clemency on my behalf, and I refused. I said

no way. And the senior counsel, the guy who had been trying after the trial, he was in tears again, you know, very emotional man, and he's it but they might hang you, Peter Well, I said, if they do, it wouldn't be the first innocent person they've hanged. But I will not plea for clemency for something I didn't do. And I actually asked for a piece of paper and I wrote, gave them written instructions to that effect, because I was afraid they would actually go and do it anyway.

Oh yes. The reason I said this was that government cabinet had met and discussed whether I would be executed or not and couldn't come to an agreement about it. And they were concerned that the following week the cabinet was going to meet again and the cabinet might decide to execute me. So they went away very upset, and I went back to my cell. And the following week when the cabinet met, I later learned that the Prime ministers before any discussion would happen and said we're not

we're not executing Pringle. It would be political suicide. And then they instructed the President to commute the sentence. And the President commuted sentence from debt to forty years penal servitude without any possibility of parole or mission, and I was put out into the general prison population where I could talk to people and I could exercise in the yard. So it's almost like a I mean, I mean better than being executed, I guess, but not by a whole lot,

because essentially it's a death sense. You're forty one years old, You've got forty years in prison. You're gonna die in prison, right, But that's not what happened, No, because at the time I I knew I had three options. You know, I could face the farty years, which wasn't a possibility for me at the time. I could kill myself, which at the time was a reasonable proposition, not let them refuse, to allow them to probably keep me for farty years. But then I realized if I did that, they'd say

I had done it out of Germors. So I couldn't allow that. So I determined I was going to try and prove my innocence, and ultimately you did fifteen years later. So let's let's walk through that because I want to get to the next phase of your life, which is so extraordinary. Well, I should also tell you that there was no law labory in the prison, So how did

you go about for being here innocence? I had a friend who worked in the university outside and she had access to the law libra in the university, and I arranged with her the photocopy sections of law books and find out which were the best criminal law books and constitution law books and follow copy sections of them. You had plenty of time to study, but like Shan, I

couldn't study. You see, I left school when I was thirteen years of age, and it worked all my life, and I know form of education, and my anger was such that I just couldn't read the documents understandable. So I determined I had to try and learn how to relax. So I got a friend to leave me in a little book on yoga with illustrations of the postures, and I began to teach myself yoga in the cell on

my own, and teach myself meditation. And as I mastered those two disciplines, my anger got less and I was able to study. And I spent my time studying. And then what happened was other guys in the prison would come to me with their documents, with their cases and asked me what I look at their cases, and I said, yeah, sure, and I would because it was helping them. Was also helping me, and so that's why I did most of

my time in the jail. I in the prison, I studied law as best I could, and eventually in January two, I opened my own case on my own behalf in the High Court in Dublin under the Irish Constitution. Now I know money, I know lawyers, so I had to prepare the case myself, file it myself, and conduct the

case myself. So that which meant that they had to take me on their armed escort of military and police up to the court where I represented myself against the top lawyers of the state and the case ran from January until May when my conviction was overturned. But in July two I want an order for discovery in the High Court and that that that's another I'll tell you there's there's reams to this story that it's kind of

important to say this one to you. One of the cars used in the crime had been stolen and goal away on the second of July. The crime happened the seventh. It was stolen on the second of July between eleven p m and eleven forty five p m from the from the car park of a hotel right and the evidence of the stealing of that car was allowed into the trial because that court ruled that the stealing of the car formed part of the res geste of the offense, which meant that the person who stole the car had

done the killing right. Okay, but on the date of the car was stolen. At the time the car was stolen, I was delivering four thousand concrete blocks on the Ardon Islands with fifty more or more witnesses there now. I delivered the concrete block about five years after I had

been I was imprisoned. I got a letter from my former boss, the guy who owned a little company that owned the boat that I was scrippling, asking me if I had been paid for the delivery and for the blocks to the value of six hundred pounds, which I didn't know about because that wasn't my role. My role was simply to be the scriport to take the cargo out. I didn't even know what the what the cost. I wrote back and told him that, and he said, no,

we believe you, We understand that. But he said, the man that you delivered to has refused to pay his bill. And five years later, when the threatened court action to get the money. He told them that he had paid me the money because I'm imprisoned. You see, I'm imprisoned doing forty years for murder, capital warden m robbery. So he was going to blame me. So I wrote him out of a letter saying that of course i'd never

ha done it. And when the case came for court, the man never appeared in court, and the court ruled against him and accepted my account, and the matter was finished.

But I went into the book of evidence, and I saw that my boss supposedly had made a statement of the book of evidence saying I sailed at eleven o'clock in the morning and come back at eleven o'clock that night, which would have meant I had the possibility of Steve in the car, okay, Whereas I sail at four o'clock in the afternoon and didn't get back to goa till two am the following morning. Now I knew he had a peuter, and I knew as a charge of the

accountant he kept all records. So I wrote him and said, if you were a record of the sailing on that day, and he said he had you sail at four o'clock in the afternoon and you got back at two am in the morning. So I wrote to him again, as ever, then tell me this, why did you make this statement, this false statement. I never made a statement. Oh, they made it up. They made it up. He never made a state your conviction to try and get me convicted. He never made a statement, and he was never even

asked to make a statement. And so later when I got a lot more discovery, I discovered there were actually twenty three prosecution witnesses in the case had never made any statements, although there were statements in the book of evidence attributed to them, and had he He told me that if he had been asked to make a statement, he would have told the truth. And had he been asked to made his statement and told the truth, I couldn't have been convicted. So I asked him would he

make an affidavits. When he swearing afidavits at that night, drafted us and Affidavid sent it out to him. He got it notarize and swore it and sent it back into me. So when I heard in the court and the High Court and looked for an order of discovery and the lawyers for the statement saying no he's only fishing. He hasn't got anything. I said, yes, I have, when

I produced two copies of this Affiday. But I said, I have here the sworn Affiday with a prosecution witness stating clearly that he not only did he not make the statement attributed to him, but he was never even asked to make a statement. And I offered it to the court and the judge wasn't accepted. And I offered it to the state lawyers, and they wouldn't accept it, because of course if they had accepted it, they would have had to deal with it. But wouldn't the judge

want to deal with it? You would think, no, no, do don't forget. He wasn't being I mean, he was looking at me as if I was a piece of dirt. So what happened there? So I won my order for discovery? And then when I got my order for discovery, didn't I get a photo copy of the notebook of the detective who had claimed I'd spoken those words in a particular period of interrogation and he has warned us on note and that he had recorded the interrogation and recorded

these words. And when I got his notebook, I saw in the notebook. It's very clear he wrote the words in before the period of interrogation and which he claimed. I said, that's tricky, but they take nothing against me, and they decided this was what I want to do. I mean, it's a very organized and very insidious, very coordinated.

I mean that the lengths that they went to to to get the conviction, to protect the conviction, to to basically run rough shot over the truth are extraordinary to still out of by the way, which I'll tell you about as we get on through this. But in January

of a human rights lawyer offered me his help. When I took it, we got a legal team, we went to the Court of Criminal Appeal on the new legislation, and the case ran from And the police officerhood lied to get me convicted was now a retired detective superintendent. He had been promoted up to the top. By the way, the cops who lied in the trial were all promoted, and the cop who saved my life and who refused to lie in the trial was never promoted. I am I not surprised. I mean, this is such a web

of absolutely lies and bad actors and everything else. So your convictions thrown out your your freed right, and then you told me a great story about your first day on the outside, or your first was the first thing

you did when you got out. Well, when I was released out of the special coin record, out on the street, I was met with a plethora of media people with microphones and cameras and ours took my face, drong questions at me, and I didn't have time to sort of realize that I was free, if you know what I mean. I didn't have time to let it sink in. And then I was taken by my lawyer to the TV station,

the national TV station where I was. We were interviewed for the news that evening, and then my friends organized a party. A bunch of people had set up at the fence committee for me outside, and they took a floor of a pub and organized a big party. And there was a huge, big party going on, and we went to that and that went on all that evening and everybody got drunk except me. I wasn't drinking. And I stayed with two friends that night in their house.

And the following morning, when I got up, I was the first one up. I went down to the kitchen and I went out to the back garden, which was a lovely long back garden, and the sun was shine, was a beautiful day. There were no big walls around me. There was flowers and trees and bushes. And I walked down the garden and at the bottom of the garden there was a big old apple tree, really big, old, gnarled do you know that they'd become gnarled apple tree? And I could hear in the distance the sound, the

background noises of the city. But I went to this tree and I stood with the three and I realized that and all the time I had been in jail, and all the time the trouble I had gone through, this tree was growing in this garden on its own, with nature, producing its fruit and shedding its leaves every year, year and year out, doing its own thing, and immune from the corruption, the greed, and the rat race, the

injustices and everything else. And I put my arms around the trunk of the tree, and I wept, and I released, And that's when I knew for certain I was free. That was in So that's twenty one years ago. And then another extraordinary thing happened in your life, which is something I'm very well aware of. Well, something or someone. Yeah, well, three years after I got out. And it was difficult times for a while ago after I got out, because it's very difficult to fit into society again when you're

locked up. But I had yoga meditation and I used that and a little bit of prayer. And three years after, one day, I got a phone call from an American lady who told me her name was Sunny Jacobs. And she told me she was speaking at a meeting three days later where I was, and invited me to come in here and talk. And I said, what are you going to talk about? And she said the death penalty and I said, yes, I'm interested in that. I'll come along. And I brought two friends and I went along and

it was a room above a public course. At one o'clock on a Friday, I went up to the room. There was nobody there, and after a few minutes, the door opened on the fire side of the room and this little woman walked in and I walked over to her and I said, you must be Sunny Jacobs, and she looked up at me with a big smile, and that's how we met. And I listened to her story and I was hugely emotionally upset by listening to it,

and I knew I had to talk with her. And I said to her, I need to talk with you, and she said, got to be good. I need to talk with you too, And but she said, I'm leaving in an hour. This was on a Friday. So where are you going? She says, I have to go to Cork for the annual General Meeting of Amnesty into the Irish section of an inst International. I should be there at eight o'cok tomorrow evening. I said, stay over with me. I said, on I guardantee, I'll get you down there.

And so she went how far away with Cork four for hours drive and she went to Mary Lawler, who was the General Secretary of Amnesty at the time, and asked Mary, because of course she was unsure about whether she should go with the stranger in a strange country. And Mary knew me and knew in my story, and she said, oh, that's wonderful, thank you, Peter. Yeah, yeah, great. So we transferred Sunday's case from her car into my

audioloppy and she stayed in my house that night. In the following morning, we went to my friend on the cafe and go away. We went to his place for breakfast. He asked us to come for breakfast and he said to me, are you driving her down the Cork? And I said yeah. He says, you can't go drive something to car conductor loppy. He said here, and he reaches hand in his pocket and he gave me the keys of his Mercedes. He said, just get it back to me tomorrow morning. So we drove sunny down to Cork

in the Mercedes. We traveled in style. And as we were on the car Ferny crossing the river, Shannon eating a pack lunch which he had made up for us, she said to me, what's your interest in all of this? And I told her that I too had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. And she said, you see it got through very well, She said, and how did you get through so easy, so well? And I said, yoga and meditation first of all. By the way, this is a hell of a first date. I gotta give

it up to you. For a guy who had been in prison for fifty news, you got game, okay, and so so that. Yeah, it's extraordinary. As I keep using that work because I don't know what else other words to use the fact that Sonny, of course, had also been sensed that that for a similar crime that happened a continent away five six thousand miles from where you were charged and convicted. She was charged and convicted. But both of you were actually and absolutely innocent, and you

served similar amounts of time in prison. She actually a little bit longer than you, and both of you had more in common than that, right, We both were committed to a lifestyle of meditation and yoga. We're vegetarians, right, So it's sort of the universe organizing itself in a way. That is, it was inevitable that we should come together, if you think about serendipity, synchronicity and everyone to cause metaphysics. So then you drive her there. We drive her there

and the cork to car. Now, honestly, had got us two rooms in a hotel across from the hotel of what the convention was, and each of us lay on a bed separately, and for three and a half hours

we discussed forgiveness. Well that was the key forgiveness. And then I brought her back to her room and she said to me, would I call her when as I leave at six in the morning, would I call her in the morning, I said yes, So on the morning, I knocked at the door and she got up, and we said good bye to each other and we'd keep in touch. I had got my friend's card and dropped back to go away. Did you guys kiss or was there any physical interaction? Old hands? Exactly what happened was

a perfect gentleman. He said to me, I don't want you to think I'm not attracted to but I'm in a kind of a relationship and I like to try to leave an honorable life. And that's what clicked in my mind, because at that point in my life I had no time for bs, you know, And so that impressed me. How long have you been out of prison? By this time, I was out three years, so almost a yeah, he was out right, so you've been not sex and he'd not three Okay, fine, that's not the

most joke. And say, you see that she's five years older than me, right, I got it five years out before me, and anyway, okay, So then that was what happened. And then we hadn't made any arrangement. But when he got home he called me, and that's and I knew that it had clicked for him too, so then you ultimately were married, which is my favorite part of this

story actually. But what we actually did was about ten years ago, we decided that we were going to exchange vows with each other, and we bought two clatter of rings and on the winter salts that's the shore to stay of the year, because Sunny said we should do it on the shorter stay of the year because we

don't want to have a long engagement. We gave rings to each other in the morning, and we were engaged in the evening, and we went down to the seashore with our dogs and we exchanged vows on the seashore in the evening time, and the sun and the moon were both in the sky at the same time, which we taught was very auspicious. And then what happened. We were having some difficulty when we leave the country coming back because we're given Sunny hassle about whether she could

come back into the country or not. And this was because she was with me, you see. So we decided we're going to get married. But getting married in Ireland is much more amocratically difficult than it is in America. And we found out that you could apply in New York and get a license and get married the next day. So we had no money to come to New York. So now at that stage, by the way I was, we were existing on my state pension, which is like very small. So the theater that had put on The

Exonerated the film called contacted us. They were doing a producers weekend and they wanted us to come and speak at two dinners that they were hosting. And Sunny says, oh, we wanted to go to New York to get married, and they said, you gotta get married in New York. We'll host the wedding. So they hosted the wedding. They brought us to New York and they follow us up in the hotel and they hosted the wedding. So they were about a hundred and twenty and thirty people at

the wedding. We only knew six or seven of them. None of our family were there. It was so funny. It was hilarious. Brookshields, Amy Irving, Marlotte Thomas, and Stockard Channing were at the wedding. There were four people actress is who have played Sunny in the play The ex Extraordinary Play, Yeah, and sunny story is one of six that are profiled in this remarkable play in which so many incredible actresses have portrayed you. Um, and so they

showed up at the wedding. So you have this sort of celebrity wedding which adds a certain element of strangeness to the whole thing. The best part of it was that when Sonny was asked do you take this man to be your awfully weather husband, the four actresses stepped forward. I said, with Sonny, we do hilarious. That's amazing, Oh my god. Fun. So you may actually be married to five women at this point. Hard to say, um, and I'm not judging you. I'm just saying you might want

to have somebody look into it. Um. So the there's a wonderful announcement if you google Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacob's wedding. My belief I can't prove this is that you're the only two Death row exonorees who have ever been married after exonerations, because there are very few women who have been sentenced to death and even many fewer who have been exonerated. So you really, you really hit

the jackpot. And so I do want to put in a plug because now Sonny and Peter operate a phenomenal organization called the Sunny Sanctuary and it is sort of a haven or whatever you want to call it where they bring a newly exonerated people over to the coast of Ireland and help them reintegrate, right it's probably the best word, and get their get their lives back, and get their their spirits back, so to speak. Right, Yeah,

it's kind of healing from the inside out. We helped them to release the anger and business that they hardy over what was done to them and paint the picture of the Sunny Sanctuary for people out there who can't really visualize, well we we managed. We managed to rent a three bedroom house on four teen acres on the side of a hill overlooking a lake and there's there's hazel woods down to the lake and each bedroom is on sweet so that every person who comes as their

own bathroom and toilet. And it's on the coast. It's four miles from the sea, but it's it's only just above the lake and it's in a very it's at the end of the road. The nearest store is six miles away. There's more than a few animals there right, Oh, yes, we have let a see. Now we have three cats and four dogs, four hens and five goats and the partridge in a pear tree something like that. I jokingly

call it the menagerie. Sometimes we melt the goats and sunny process of the milk and sunny makes wonderful goats cheese, three different types of gold cheese. So we also have what they call a poly tunnel, which is the equivalent of a greenhouse, where we grow on vegetables. So when people come to us, we feed him on organic food and organic free range of eggs, and they have of milk and cheese, homemade goat cheese, organic goat cheese. And do you teach them meditation yoga? Yes, as we share

with them. We don't conduct therapies as such. But what what happens is that when they come at first, they will tell us what has happened to them, They release the things they need to release, and then we can share with them how we dealt with the issues that are causing them problems and open the way for them to the realization that actually they're more than just an exonary. They're not just a person who's been in prison. They're

more than that. The fact that they were wrongfully imprisoned just an episode in their life, and it's an episode they can put behind them now. It always travels with them, but they don't have to live in the past, and they have an opportunity of realize themselves as full human beings. And we bring them out and socialize with our friends, and we go to events and and to the theater, and so they they get a chance to mingle with

people as as hard and already people. It's so inspiring to me and to many of us who work in the Innocence movement that a very large percentage of Axonorees are driven to help others who have gone through a

similar ordeal. And so it's UH. I think the most powerful thing I've witnessed, and I was asked this question yesterday, is the coming together of Axonore's and the sharing of the experiences and the healing that comes from that, uh, and from being with others who are the only people alive who can possibly begin to understand what you've been through.

Even though every situation is unique and every story is unique, but still the experience is more similar than not, and it's so wonderfully inspiring to hear the stories, both of your stories and the fact that they're now one and and what you've done and how you've turned this unimaginable set of circumstances into such a force for positivity and change and good is something that I think everyone who's listening and and so many others are going to be

affected by. And it's inspiring me and so many others to want to do more and help more, or as many as we possibly can. I should before we have to wrap this up if any of you are listening now and haven't heard the Sunny Jacob's episode, but I strongly encourage everyone to check out the Sunny Jacob's episode. But before we sign off, Peter, are there any last words that you'd like to share with the audience. Learn not to carry anger. Anger is a natural, national, natural phenomenon.

We get angry, I get angry, everybody gets angry. But don't hold it. Don't hold it. Don't hate because hate consumes the hater. An anger consumes the angry person. That doesn't consume the person you're angry against, and its damage your held. Let it go and try and be into spirit of forgiveness, because that's where your real strength is. Our real strength is in the fact that we decided we would move towards healing and forgiveness and det go

of all those negative emotions. And I wish everyone the best. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburne and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at

wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flom. Ravul Conviction is a product action of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one h