#335 Maggie Freleng with Charles Jackson

Charles Jackson and his nephew, Houston Foster, were born just two years apart, and they grew up together in the same house in Cleveland, as close as any two brothers could be. Even into their fifties, they still talked by phone several times a week, sometimes for hours, about everything under the sun. Houston had been diagnosed with stage four kidney failure, so he was undergoing dialysis three times a

Who said, I had that loan to you know, live, So by the grace of God, Charles came out. He said, you know what, I'm all positive, nephew. I'm going to give you one of my kidneys.

But there was a problem.

Charles was in prison for murder and had been for nearly thirty years.

My name is Charles Jackson. I served twenty seven years, six months in twenty day for a crime I didn't.

Commit from lava for good.

This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today, Charles Jackson Charles Jackson, Junior, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January seventh, nineteen sixty four, to Elizabeth Foster and Charles Jackson Senior.

And they had a big family as sisters.

I had five sisters and three more brothers, you know, But I'm the baby out the whole bunch. They was like teenagers, you know what I'm saying. So they were bigger, and a couple of them was grown.

And it was because of this age difference with some of his siblings that Charles became closest with his nephew, Houston. Charles and Houston did everything together, and everyone in their family adored Charles. Houston remembers how his uncle even earned himself a nickname.

I think my grandmother. I think my grandmother she one name from sweet Man, and I think that's where it actually came from. Just called him sweet and that's what everybody knew him by, a sweet man.

But Charles describes himself another way.

What's your personality?

My personality, I'm silly as hell and all my friends and I just kept everybody laughing, everybody around me.

When he was about nine years old, Charles's parents divorced. Charles decided to live with his dad, and for a while, it was just the two of them, but occasionally Charles's sister and her son, Houston, came to live with them. Charles and Houston had always been like brothers, but living together they were inseparable.

And we used to run home from after school because he was in a grade higher than me, and I go to get home from after school, you know, do our homework and then go watch Batman and Robin. So they started calling us Batman and Robin.

Who was Batman?

Who was Robbin? Well, you know, Charles had to be Batman. He would never let me be Batman.

Charles was like a typical older brother, but by the time he got to junior high school, things began to change.

I fought a lot, I was overweight, chubby, got bullied on that next year I came to school, I slimmed down. Nobody even knew me. That's when I started, I guess, maturing and growing up, you know what I'm saying. And that's when like my life turned like different.

I guess.

I started learning how to play cars, and then I had a lot of time on my hands because you know, just me and my father. He'd be at work. So I get out of school and you know what I'm saying, so I got to do pretty much what.

I wanted to do.

When he was around eighteen, Charles's son, Christopher was born. He was married by then, and he and his wife at the time went on to have two more kids, twins, Terry and Sherry.

I cooked and took care of the kids, you know what I'm saying, Like, come from a big family, you you know, you're always in the kitchen and somebody's always running through the house. And so I had all that too, you know what I mean.

How'd you support your family at the time.

Well, I was illegal sometimes, but I didn't kill anyone, you know what I'm saying. Whatever I did, you know, hustled or murder wasn't even in the picture.

In the early morning hours of April seventh, nineteen ninety one, the body of twenty nine year old Joe Travis was found in the hallway of his apartment complex, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. There had been an altercation earlier at the complex between rival drug dealers Charlie Dog Davis and Omelia Tucker. Tucker had allegedly shot at Davis, and as he left the complex, Davis yelled, quote, you shot me, i'll be back. About forty five minutes later,

In with the police.

So I guess this is the same car that ron Lacey said that I was driving, and the police had pulled me over maybe a month or two before the end, and I had a traffic ticket and I went to jail. So when I went to jail, they took mudshots on me.

Police had suspected Charles of carrying drugs that night, but finding nothing on him, they arrested him on a traffic violation. Instead, the cop showed Lacey the mugshot they took that night, and Lacey said, quote, that's definitely him. You don't forget someone that tries to kill you. A month after the shooting, on May eighth, nineteen ninety one, Charles was arrested while sitting in a neighborhood bar.

They put their guns on me, They asked me for my driver's license. They saw my name, I guess, just him and locked me up. So I ain't had none to word about because I didn't do anything. And three four days later, you know, I was charged with murder.

Yeah, Charles when he got arrested, and what he went down for, I was, you know, I missed my buddy because he was gone.

You know, Charles's nephew, Houston was devastated when Charles was taken into custody.

I mean it was wow. That just bring back some memories there. But it's touching. But I missed him so much, and what he went down for really touched me because I knew my uncle would never, you know, commit no crime like that, because he'd never do nothing like that. But that was my uncle, and.

Wow, Charles.

Meanwhile, was racking his brain to remember what he was doing the night of that shooting.

Wondering like where was I.

You know what I'm saying, alibi, what was I doing? And at the time, my girlfriend she had kept a little little diary, you know what I'm saying, a little journal, and she used right in there and she had told me like that night, that was the night that we had went to a party.

And then it started coming back.

And I ran the streets that night and I was out late. I ran for the police the same night. So I guess if I would and ran for the police, I would have been in jail the night that Joe Travis was murdered.

You know.

But I decided to run from the police.

In Charles's mind, if he hadn't run from the police that night, he would have never been a suspect in the shooting. Before trial, Charles was assigned to Public Defenders Edward Wade and Howard Manager. Charles still remembers his lawyer's advice every way.

He was just chatting me like cop out, because you know, I've been a lawyer all these years and all this stuff, like they're saying this and that, and you know, I said I ain't doing anything, so why should I cop out to something I ain't do?

So instead of taking a plea bargain from the get go, Charles went to trial in December of nineteen ninety one. This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company. AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and to making a positive difference in the lives of its employees and

And she also said it was Charles.

Now sitting there just in this time me just don't show no emotion in it and noun sitting there just like exploding on the inside, you know what I'm saying, Like she's lying. I'm going crazy.

Charles's defense did the best they could with these two eyewitnesses, whose testimonies were the only evidence presented against Charles. They countered with Charles's alibi at the time of the shooting he was at a party with his girlfriend, but they could have done more.

It turns out.

While Charles was in jail awaiting trial, he met a guy from the neighborhood named Vincent. Vincent told Charles he knew who shot Travis. He said it was a guy named Jimmy. This turned out to be James Morris, the nephew of Charlie Dog Davis, and this scenario would make sense. His nephew might have wanted to get back at Tucker for shooting at Charlie dogg and Joe Travis.

He could have just been caught in the crossfire arms.

With this new information and a plausible scenario, Charles immediately went to his lawyers.

I told Edy Way immediately that it's a guy in here that say saw everything, and he said it's not me. They did it.

But at trial, Charles's defense did not call Vincent to testify. Instead, they presented photos of James, and in the pictures, James looked nearly identical to Charles Jackson.

So when Ronald Lacey was on the witness stand, so we cut time to cross examinum at a wayhead that one picture of James. And he showed this picture to Ronald Lacey and said who is just on this picture? And Ronald Lacy looked at the picture and he didn't hesitate. He said, this is a picture of sweet Man.

Sweet Man the child took nickname Charles was still known by but many of the people in the courtroom knew the picture was of James.

And I'm thinking, like, oh, nothing to go home now, you know, if it had just be fire worse because of this picture, and it wasn't nothing like that, It's just it was like quiet.

The alibi and mistaken identity was not enough. After only a few days of trial and deliberation, Charles was convicted of murder and attempted murder with a firearm. He was sentenced to seven to twenty five years for attempted murder, three years for possession of a firearm, and twenty years to life for the murder of Joe Travis. As Charles settled into prison life, he started resigning himself to the

The only thing about prison is like it just seemed like a ris of passage. Like in my neighborhood growing up, Like I saw so many guys that I haven't saw that I thought was dead or moved away, and they were in prison for years, you know what I mean. And it's just like A knew people there, and they waiting on me, you know what I'm saying. They was gonna take care of me. I was gonna be all right. So I went in there with surviving on my mind.

Charles knew though, that in order to survive inside he had to put up a pretty hard front.

And what a surviving mean?

Just I'm not gonna tell everybody I'm innocent, because they don't want to hear that because they're doing all this time, in fact, make them think like I'm not like them, Then how can I survive? You know what I'm saying. So I should have went in there trying to find my way out, you know what I'm saying. I should have went in there going to the library. Like I said, I had a bad attitude. I was angry, you know, and I felt like the took my life, you know. So I'm just gonna be like no respect for no

While Charles was in prison, his fourth child, a daughter, was born. Her name was Siarra.

Were you able to be a dad from prison?

It's crazy because like first, like she little and she don't know you. She like the whole visiting day is spent her trying to like not be scared of me, just sit on my lap or play with me. Then by at the end of the day she'd be more to play. Nice time for her to go. Then I don't know when this time I'm gonna see her, and I see her again. She a little bit bigger, got her personality in the change, you know what I'm saying, And I just watched her grow up like that, you know.

And Charles knew that without any encouragement, no twelve or thirteen year olds would want to spend their summers visiting someone in prison. So his visits with Siarra ended. As the years passed, things just kept getting worse.

I started getting older, and like I said, I ain't recognize who I was. And then my relatives started passing away, you know what I'm saying, And my mom died. And that was like when like my life like turned around. Because I felt I couldn't like I was living no more.

You know, Charles realized he needed to change his mindset in order to change his life.

You know what, I've been here so long. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and come up with a way to get out. I need somebody to listen till you help me, you know what I'm saying.

One thing that continued to sustain Charles during those years was his connection to his nephew, Houston, the robin to his batman. Houston was now a deacon living in Jacksonville, Florida, and they talked by phone several times a week. But Houston was going through challenges of his own. At the age of fifty.

Three, he learned that he had stage four kidney failure.

And I told him I was all positive and I needed a kitten, and I was gonna get on the transplant list. But this Mike took two or three five years to get a kitten. Who said, I had that loan to, you know, live.

So he started off Dallas is like once a week, and then it got so bad to he was in like three times a week, and I'll be talking to him why he beat her? And I said, man, I'm gonna get up out of here. Man, I'm gonna give you a kidney man and his airding going to be good, you know. And not knowing what's going to.

Happen me, Charles knew he had to find a way to get out of prison his nephew's life depended on it. Determined to fight for his exoneration, Charles wrote to the Ohio Innocence Project to ask them to review his case, and when they.

Did pretty quickly, we knew at the very least that the government's case against Charles back at the time of trial was really, really weak, so we started to look at it more.

This is Donald Caster.

I'm a professor of clinical law with the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati.

He's also Charles's attorney.

The police seized on this theory that Charles might have been the guy because Charles' car was somewhere near the area.

But it wasn't actually Charles's car. Remember, he drove him on Carlo similar to the one used.

By the shooter.

The state also said that they had a credible witness.

And we'll put quotes around witness named Ron Lacey who was there at the time and who said that he saw the fatal shot being fired, and you know, put a single picture in front of mister Lacy, and mister Lacy says, yeah, that's the guy, and that's that's how the police come to believe that it's Charles Jackson.

Is that even legal to just do one photo and not a lineup?

It's not now, it's not now. At the time that Charles was convicted. There were no standards at least, you know, sort of by statute for what kind of lineup you can do. Now, Ohio has a statute that says, if you're going to do a lineup, this is the way that you have to do it.

Charles's team continued to dig into his case. In twenty seventeen, they were finally able to get a hold of previously undisclosed police reports and what they learned was huge.

So these are all things that should have been turned over to Charles's defense at the time of trial. That would have made a huge difference, That would have saved Charles all these years in prison.

So we're talking about Brady violations.

We are talking about Brady violations.

Brady violations are exactly that when the prosecution hides or fails to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant. And the reports revealed plenty of this. The first piece of evidence.

Well, Miss Tucker said one thing at trial. She had said a very different thing the night of the shooting and the day after the shooting to the police, and what she had told the police was that she couldn't see the face of the person who did the shooting, that she wasn't going to be able to identify the shooter.

Remember, O'melia Tucker was the rival drug dealer who was in the initial altercation. Her first statement to police said that she looked out her window and saw a man wearing a bulky jacket get into the rear passenger seat of a gray car. His back was to her and she did not see his face. In a second interview, she repeated the same thing to police, that she did not see a face.

Yet when she.

Testified at trial, she said she saw the shooter's face and that it was Charles.

And obviously you'd want to know that. Their key eyewitness said twice within thirty six hours of the shooting, I didn't see the person's face. I can't tell you who did it. You'd want to be able to ask that person about those statements in front of jury, and Charles never got that chance.

The second piece of evidence.

Miss t Lacey had made the statement that the shooter had shot the decendent on the wrong side of the head, that he identified the shot is going one place, the corner identified, the shot is going the other. The defense at the time of Charles's trial never knew these things.

Not only that there were more eyewitnesses to the crime that were never called to testify. One of them was a man named Thomas Salvano.

Mister Salvano saw it, He saw what happened, and there was a statement in the records by him, but he never he never gets called. He never. Nobody on Charles's side knows what Salvano knows, which is that he saw it and it wasn't Charles. And then we had a private investigator go and talked to Selvano, who was amazingly

When Charles's attorneys presented him with all this information, he finally felt vindicated.

Man.

It was.

They bled me, you didn't do this, you know, saying when somebody just believing you. You know, I said, we already thought you didn't do it, but now we know you didn't do it. That's not I was like, okay, cool, if I died that night, you know what I'm saying. I knew that someone knew that I you know, I wasn't alone no more.

You know what I'm saying.

I had a voice again.

In twenty eighteen, Charles was granted a hearing to present all this newly discovered evidence to a judge. Judge Robert McClelland felt the evidence was compelling enough to sign an order vacating Charles's convictions.

He ruled that Charles should get a new trial.

Months later, Donald Caster was driving to Cleveland for a hearing in Charles's case when he got a call.

The prosecutor called me on my cell phone. So I had to pull over because I'm starting to cry.

He immediately called the rest of the team, who were also on their way to the hearing, So, okay, you guys.

Need to pull over before I tell you this. And then I said, you know they're going to concede. And it's because Lacey's backed away from his story.

At the time of trial, Ronald Lacy, the star witness and first person to implicate Charles, was suddenly changing his story.

And he said that they had reinterviewed mister Lacey and that mister Lacey had backed away from saying that he saw the fatal shot being.

Fired without Lacy. The state didn't have a case. Tucker had been discredited by this time, and there was never any physical evidence to begin with. On twenty seventh, twenty eighteen, fifty five year old Charles Jackson was released after almost twenty eight years in prison. Though at first officials got the right name, but the wrong person.

They brought the wrong They brought the wrong Charles out.

At first, right, they brought the wrong Charles Jackson out.

Not only was like, you know, imagia for somebody do wait?

Were was this guy like, oh, I guess it's my time.

And we had to tell we were like, wait, we don't know. This is not our Charles.

It's funny when it ain't funny. But you know what I'm saying, They got the wrong money, and I they tried to get the wrong one out. I mean, come on.

After the snafu and after the right Charles Jackson was released, the day was joyous for everyone, but Houston was still in need of a kidney, and Charles, now a freeman, was on a mission. Once it was confirmed that he was a match, he headed down to Florida, where his nephew was waiting, and.

H He gave me, you couldn't and everything, But I thank God for him because I don't know, you know where I beat. I might have been been hearing today, but one for the blessing that he gave me was it. You know, he was more than like my brother. He was like he was like a hero because even though they said he took a life, but he didn't take no life. He helped save a life. So to me, that's a hero to me, he was just a blessing to me.

Excuse today.

Charles lives in a quiet suburb of Cleveland in a communal house known as the exon Maree Home.

So it started off like it was just a house, you know what I'm saying. Now you know it's more of a home now.

So what is that like to live with other Exoneries. Do you feel like they understand you better than other people? Might?

They definitely do, because everybody else, like you know, being in jail for so long, didn't come out here. It's like it's you dropped me from I came could have been from another planet or something, so nobody understand what you went through except for another person who've been through exact same thing. So that's with fore that brotherhood, you know, Johonnerees like we a different kind. We take care of each other.

You know.

When Charles first got to the ex Hoondinary Home, he took special care of one of his older housemaates. Isaiah Andrews, was wrongfully convicted of murder ineighteen seventy four. He was exonerated in twenty twenty one at the age of eighty four, and he died less than a year later, right after he was awarded compensation by the City of Cleveland for his wrongful imprisonment. These days, Charles spends a lot of his time advocating for the wrongfully incarcerated and cooking for

When me and Charles was coming up, Charles wouldn't eat anything. You know what I'm saying. He had If my grandmother cooks the home cooked meal, Charles had to go to McDonald's a burger king because he wouldn't eat necesside. Charles was but me, I should watch my mother and my grandmother and them cook all the time.

Houston even comes and helps out in the kitchen at the Exonery Home.

I'm not gonna say I can cook better than Charles, but I get Charles to run for with money. I'll leave it at that. It ain't all about who can cook better than who you right, But I gotta tell them I said, Robin can cook better than Betman. You might can do something better than me, but I can cook bet yes, ma'am.

Oh yeah, we cook. We definitely cold. You can definitely get something to eat at the designer.

Of your house.

If you want to donate to the Exonay Home, go to x Dash Freedom Studio dot org. You'll find that link in our bio, along with other ways to help support Charles. Next time un Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling Amelia byrd did you ever ask Chad to kill your parents?

I wanted my gradually by mam alone and me alone by Idie William Dad.

Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the links in our bio to see how you can help I'd like to thank our executive producers, Jason Flamm and Kevin Wordis, as well as our senior producer, Annie Chelsea, producer Lyla Robinson, and story editor Sonia Paul. The show is edited and mixed by Annie Chelsea, with additional production by Jeff Cliburn and Connor Hall. The music in this production is by

On all three platforms, you.

Can also follow me on both Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal come Phony Number one