#407 Jason Flom with Jerome Dixon

On July twenty fifth, nineteen ninety, a man named Curtis Durden was with three friends in front of his apartment building in Oakland, California, when armed men approached demanding money. Despite the victim's compliance, the assailants pistol whipped one man and fatally shot Curtis Durton before fleeing the scene. The police quickly found seventeen year old Jerome Dixon about a block and a half away in the street, flagging down a ride. When brought to the scene to be identified

Thank you, thank you for having me and.

With him, civil rights attorney atcle but Narsky and lit Ben Shaw. Ben, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having us.

Now, this happened in Oakland, California, right.

That is correct, Oakland, California.

Can you tell us a bit about growing up there? Sure?

I come from a big family. There's eight in all, six sisters, one brother, and I'm the baby with the twin sister. I came up in the air when mc hammer was topping the charts. I dressed like EMC Hammer. My hairstyle was like EMC Hammer. I remember having a honey blonde gummay cut with a streak that just went from the tip of my forehead to the back. And I just knew that I was the man. I was little, mister mc hammer.

So forgive me in advance. But is it safe to say that you were too legit to quit?

Too legit to quit?

But all jokes aside, though the emc hammer you're also coincided with the era of the epidemic, and this was the late eighties into the early nineties.

Correct in retrospect, I saw the devastation of a lot of communities, people of color. Crack was just taking its toll on a lot of families in so many dire ways.

And Oakland was no stranger to that devastation and the heavy handed policing that came with the crack era.

It was not a good atmosphere for people of color. You were always targeted and it was just a bad environment in all law enforcement where they were not friends.

Right, And so that's the backdrop, right. This was the summer of nineteen nineties, July twenty fifth, to be exactly. And the victim in this case, Curtis Durton, was hanging out in front of his apartment building with his friend Jeff Simmons, and two young women and armed men approached them. Now, Ben, what can you tell us about the crime itself.

It was basically a robbery as best we could tell, where a few young men sort of come up up, they demand that everybody get down on the ground. Two of the young women who are there kind of take off and go running into the apartment complex. One young man hands over his money, and during the course of the robbery, the other young man is killed. He's shot and killed, and the assailants sort of take off and get into a car and drive away.

So Curtis Durton was fatally shot, and I understand that one of the assailants pistol whip the guy who survived, Jeff Simmons.

That's right. And because of sort of the environment in the neighborhood, the police just make an assumption that this is part of a drug turf war, regardless of the fact that this is not somebody who's dealing drugs, and there's no factual grounding for this assumption.

Now, Jerome, you were in front of your friend Kevin's apartment building about a football fields length away from where this crime occurred right a block and a half away. Did you hear the gunshot?

It was close enough to hear, but again, you hear gunshots in the area all the time, so you don't even give a second thought to it. And you know again. I was at my friends Kevin's house. We'd been hanging out all morning into the night, and I had made arrangements for my friend Randy to come back to the apartment complex to pick me up to take me home

Now they were looking for someone in a puppy jacket and denim jeans. There was a description of the suspect as well, did any of it match Jerome?

The person that the police believe Jerome is in this group is described as being in his early to mid twenties, about five six to five eight and stocky, and Jerome, of course at the time, is seventeen, well over six feet tall and very slim. And yeah, he's wearing you know, sweatpants and this letterman's jacket. So he's also not matching

So Jerome didn't match the description. Was found in the wrong direction without a weapon. And I'd like our audience to take a second and imagine you're imagining your seventeen year old self just waiting on a ride from a friend to continue on with whatever the night had in store for you, and you're basically kidnapped by people with guns and badges.

I was kidnapped by law enforcement, and as I was driven to the crime scene, still in the back of the patrol car, I was met by another patrol officer. He basically said, you know, I had a lot of explaining to do about that dead body, and I could see that there was a body laying on the ground with a white sheet over it. And I had told the officer exactly what I was doing, where I was at, and how my friends are still there right up the street right.

This shooting had just happened. Not only were your alibi witnesses right up the street, but the robbery victims were right there next to the I recently deceased.

Friend, and a police officer shines a light through the window of a police car and asks the eyewitnesses if they can identify Jerome as being one of the group of young men that had committed this robbery. And despite how suggestive that identification procedure is, none of them identified Jerome as being among the group that they committed this robbery and murder man.

We've seen that suggestive tactic go the way it was intended to go before, but it didn't work. Jerome was not identified, So this madness should have ended right then. And there, but as we know, it didn't.

From there, I was taken to the police station downtown and they began to question me about the crime, and I was truthful with the officers. I told him exactly what I was doing, where I was at, and who I was with. But that wasn't enough, and I remained there for twenty five hours. Well the first seven hours of the interrogation, I really thought that they were on my side, that they were seen where I was at with this incident, but their whole demeanor changed.

And let's not forget you're seventeen years old, just a kid. Did your mother know where you were at this time?

During that time? My mother thought that I was by my friend Kevin's apartment, but I was actually downtown being questioned by investigating officers about a murder that I had no knowledge thereof.

And at some point that morning, the interview transitioned from uniformed officers to detectives, Sergeants Roth and Paniagua, who began to apply more pressure, saying that Jerome story, that your story wasn't adding up.

And when they asked me if I I wanted to take a polygraph examination, I was like, yes, let's do it. I have nothing to hide. As they gave me the polygraph, they said that I had failed the examination.

Yeah, big shocker there. I could have told you they were going to say that. I mean, they used to do it every day, all day when polygraphs were still admissible as evidence. They'd give you the test, they tell you that you failed, and then they'd hope that that would be one of the things that would help to chip away at your resolve.

And they're questioning became a lot more harsh. But they were telling me things like, you know what they do to little kids like you. You're not telling the truth. We have witnesses that could put you at the crime scene.

Everything that Jerome is describing is consistent with the factors that we know can produce false confessions. Jerome is deprived of sleep. They're using false and exaggerated evidence ploise, both in terms of telling him that other people are placing him at the scene when he wasn't there and be identified even through the incredibly coercive show up that they did through the police car window, but they're also telling

The read technique is an interrogation method that was developed in the nineteen fifties by a Chicago Police Department polygraph examiner named John E. Reid, and the method begins by sharing alleged details of the investigation that point to the suspect's guilt. This is called an evidence ploy and can legally be a blatant falsehood still in forty seven states, by the way, to this day. For example, they could say we found your DNA at the crime scene, whether

A polygraph is a police created instrument that can't actually tell if somebody is telling the truth. I mean, this is described to Jerome as something that will tell you if you're telling the truth or not. But it's actually an inherent fall seven ins bloy because it's not capable of spitting out reliable information.

Yeah, it's a cudgel.

Exactly when they told me that I failed, like I I was just empty inside. I didn't know what else to do.

Once sharing this alleged detail, the investigation creates a high pressure situation for the suspect, the read technique continues, where the interrogator offers socially acceptable justifications for the suspect's alleged behavior, followed by an offer of leniency. If the suspect confesses.

The police say, Okay, we know you didn't pull the trigger, but we know that you're there now. Legally, there's no difference between being there at the scene of murder and participating or pulling the trigger right.

Right in many states, California being one of them. In the commission of a felony, for example, a robbery, if someone dies, then everyone who participate paid it in that robbery can be prosecuted for murder, even if the person was killed by the police exactly.

Again, that's a technique of minimization. They also made him feel like he could leave as soon as he told them what they wanted to know. And so it's this implicit threat of we're gonna hold you here forever until we get what we want.

Going into that twenty fourth hour, that twenty fifth hour, I was becoming nothing more but this empty shell of a child, and I didn't know what else to do. But they were telling me, you're not telling the truth, You're a liar. It made me feel like maybe I'm not telling the truth. They got so deep into my mind where I started to believe the opposite.

There are three types of false confessions, voluntary, compliant, and persuaded. This sounds a lot like the latter, where after a lengthy, exhausting interrogation, the subject may actually begin to believe in their own guilt. For example, an interrogator might say, maybe your actions were so hateous that you simply blocked them out. Do you think you know you run a blackout or something?

In those final hours, I remember them getting so deep into my head to where I felt like I was hopeless, And I remember I put my head on the table and I raised my head and I was like, whatever you guys want to know, I'll tell you. And at that point the investigating officer he slammed his hands on the table and said, finally we're going to get somewhere.

This episode is sponsored by marshmallo in the world's leading professional services firm in the areas of Risk Strategy and People. It's Legal and Compliance Department provides pro bono legal assistance and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.

The police have this idea that there's a turf war between these rifle gangs who are selling drugs, despite the fact that according to all the eyewitnesses, nobody involved as selling drugs. The victim didn't sell drugs. This was a group of people who are just hanging out in front

They painted a scenario they believed happened, and they fed that information to me, and they said, why don't you put yourself into that equation. And that equation was I had.

A UZI man that somebody he's with shoots the victim with a sawt off shotgun, and then after that, Jerome fires this gun in the air and then they take off.

I had incorporated into my statement that after I heard the gun shot and fired the UZI I ran to the upward part of the block where I was detained at. I told them, in the process of running to that area, I jumped over a fence and ran into a creek area and that's where I left the gun at. Obviously, none of that was true.

No gun was ever recovered. There's no physical, forensic, or circumstantial evidence that's recovered that connects with Jerome in any way.

But in my mind, I was like, if I tell them what they wanted to hear, I probably can go home. I probably can get out of this situation.

But that was not the truth, and they sort of get him to put himself in the equation. They get this false confession. Then at eleven forty eight PM, a deputy DA comes in and they do like a full taped one that we have a transcript of. When it's like many of the false confessions that you see, where this district attorney is speaking in full paragraphs about what happened, and then Jerome saying like yes, and then it's like another full paragraph yes.

Now, the hallmark of most false confessions is that while there'll be some truthful information there, that the statements also end up being inconsistent with the facts of the crime. Besides this crime not being part of a drug turf war, what else stood out about this particular false confession.

The narrative that the police had come up with was that they were going to take retribution on a guy named Phil But according to eyewitnesses who actually knew this person, he wasn't there. And when Jerome is giving this confession, he's repeatedly talking about him being there, but then later says, oh, well, maybe he wasn't there. In this confession, he's talking about, well, there are three women and three or four men, but

So they got the number of people wrong for starters six or seven instead of four. Not a little wrong, a lot rob Then the police included both a person who wasn't there named Phil, as well as a non existent weapon, the Tech nine, But then they forgot to

At the end of this questioning, I finally was allowed to call my mom home. And when I did finally get that call, I said, Mom, they have me downtown for murder. And my mother was in disbelief, and I remember hearing on the phone. She said to my sister, I know this voice on the other line, but this is not Jerome. She handed the phone to my sister and said, find out who this is. This does not sound like Jerome. My sister Leah picked the phone up she said, hello, who is this and I said, it's Jerome.

And in nineteen ninety one at the time that you were being processed, was really essentially a fool's Errand to even try to convince a jury that anybody, under any circumstances would confess to something that they hadn't done, even if your public defender managed to point out all of the wild inconsistencies really between your statement and the facts of the crime.

My public defender never suggested that I do go to trial so that all that information could be presented. The conversation from start to finish was I have a guaranteed deal for you, and I'm advising you to take it because you gave a confession, and there's no way that you could win a case based on the confession that

Considering the alternative, you'd be looking at a life sentence. So six years in juvie or life.

Being released before my twenty fifth birthday was was insight. It was in my vision, and again I believed that what my public defender was telling me was the best call, and so I took the deal.

And just to sort of provide context, just because it's so bizarre, at the proceeding where you know, Jerome first enters into this agreement, the judge says, all right, so you'll go to the California Youth Authority. You'll be there until you're twenty five, and then you'll be released. This is assuming that the California Youth Authority accepts you. Given the reports that I've seen, I believe that they will.

And so six months into that deal, I was brought back to court it was vacated, at which point I was told that the District Attorney's office felt like I should cooperate with the office by giving up the names of the individuals that were involved in this crime. And by not giving up the names, I would go to trial and I would receive the mach sentence of fifty

And so, after having taken the original deal for six years, in Julie, that would be a hard thing for anyone to swallow as an innocent person, since you had already pleaded guilty. Though then you were faced with a choice between fifty to life or eighteen to life. You know, my.

Faith in God was shattered. I didn't believe that there was a god. What kind of god would put a child through something like this. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me. There was no one in authority that stood up to the plate and said, wait a minute, something is not right here. It was the summer of nineteen ninety six that I was transferred from the Youth Authority to the Department of Corrections prison. In the Youth Authority,

I guess you can't get dragged into any more drama if you're just running and don't engage with anyone.

Or you could try running with me and try to have a conversation, but that that wasn't gonna happen. For the first couple of years that I was incarcerated, I was in a dark place where I just wouldn't say anything to anybody. The last thing that I wanted to do was be judged again and again, especially for a crime I didn't do. I didn't want to be mocked and scorned by my peers. When they asked me what I was in there for, I would say, I'm in it for murder. Some of the things that I did

What are a few lessons you learned? If you could tell us pick like the first three to come to mind.

Number one, I would say I had to be honest with myself in understanding why I confess to a crime I didn't do. Reliving that episode was very traumatic, but I had to come to terms with it, and I had to accept it. With that being said, I had to talk with that seventeen year old kid, and I had to become that seventeen year old kid's protector, his man, and I had to always speak for that seventeen year

Yeah, you know that support. Not everyone has it, but it goes a long way if you do. We hear time and again on the show and even just doing the work, and I understand that in addition to the hospice care, which, by the way, my hat's off to you, but you also finished high school inside behind the bars, and you did your time get this with zero disciplinary infractions. It's almost unheard of.

It's hard to do. And you know what I never wanted to represent where I was at. I didn't want to become a product of that system. Again, I'm not speaking for every but I'm only speaking for self. The last thing that I wanted to do, for example, was call my mom and say, hey, Mom, guess what, I'm

I mean, when I got Jerome's c file, which is the file that they assemble for you in this CDCR. Normally you go through these files and it's like disciplinary hearing after disciplinary hearing after disciplinary hearing. And that's because no matter what your intentions are, and no matter the level of your self control, it's next to impossible to spend time in prison, particularly in a maximum security institution. Right, even if you're not looking for trouble, a lot of

Yeah, it's incredible. And I also understand that the very little bit of money that you were able to make in there, because you were making ninety five cents an hour in the print shop, that you donated to charity.

I just wanted to feel some type of connection to the real world, and I felt like by donating the money that I made in there to charitable causes in society would give me some type of connection to the free world.

And so while you're in there living this honorable, even heroic existence, you're avings for relief and post conviction were not promising at all with the guilty plate, and then you were repeatedly denied at the parole board in two thousand and two, two thousand and five, in two thousand.

And eight, initial stance while appearing before the parole board was I'm not going to talk about the life crime. If anything, I'll talk about what I've been doing since I've been incarcerated and what I plan to do upon my release, and that was doing more harm than good because I wasn't providing any insight.

And then at your two thousand and eight hearing, as I understand it, you started claiming your actual innocence.

There was a statement that was made by the district attorney and she basically said that I was taking steps back because I was saying that I didn't commit the crime. Fast forward, going into my twenty eleven hearing, I wrote out a statement explaining how a seventeen year old kid was put in an adult situation, who was forced to confess to a crime he didn't do, who was now a thirty eight year old man fighting for his freedom.

Date, which was October seventeenth, twenty eleven. Tell us about that.

It was very special in so many ways. I didn't believe that it would happen, but it happened. I was met by my sisters. I wish my dad would have been there to see me walk out. All I wanted him to do was to see me walk out of there strong and singing. But I made it out with my sanity. That was key was walking out of there with my sanity. They wrote me off. There were some that said that I wouldn't make it out alive. I proved them wrong.

Yes you did. And now you're out on parole and you were going to be under supervision for another five years, though with plenty of pitfalls in your path, all sorts of obstacles and the hoops you had to jump through, but you didn't let that stop you.

When I first came home, I had a job offer at a law firm, and I walked into the law firm my second day home, and I didn't have a suit and tie, and they purchased me five suits, and they said that I was required to wear one to work every day. They said that they opened the office at nine o'clock. I was there at eight o'clock. And from there I transitioned to becoming a project manager for

That's amazing. So this isn't just California, this is federal juvenile Miranda rights. So what can our audience do to help?

Number One, you can google the Anti Recidivism Coalition and as well as Congressman Tony Cardinas as well as Representative Sidney kamlagger Dove to get more information on the Juvenile Miranda Right bill package.

So we'll have any recidivism dot org as well as other action steps linked in the bio. Now, before we go to closing arguments, I've heard you've also gotten married since you've been out.

Yeah. I got married to a beautiful wife. Her name is Raha. She is the apple of my eye. I'm just now understanding puppy love. It was something that I should have taken on when I was fifteen or sixteen. I waited until I was fifty to understand the philosophy of love, and it truly is a beautiful experience. We just purchased a nice home like I couldn't ask for anything more considering where I came from.

Hell, Yeah, thank you. And I want to turn to Ben because he also has a call to action for what he's working on now, and there's a number of us working on this, which is to finally and permanently clear Jerome's name.

So after wrongful conviction like that, normally you think about a habeas petition. But since Jerome served his sentence and wasn't even on parole anymore because it had been terminated so quickly because he was a mono parole, the best avenue for doing that would be to seek a gumnaorial pardon from Gavin Newsom's office. And so we've undertaken an investigation just going back thirty three years to win this

All right, well, we're going to add that to the action steps as well. And now we've come to my favorite part of the show, where I first of all get to thank you both for joining us, and Jerome, thank you again for sharing your incredible story. Your journey is absolutely amazing. And now I'm going to kick back in my chair, lit my headphones on, turn my microphone off, close my eyes, and just listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. So let's start off

What happened to Jerome was an outrage. It isn't unique. It's what happens when assumptions about black communities and the people who live there, combined with the policing that does nothing to advance public safety and actually affirmatively endangerous people by taking them away from the people who love them,

I have to agree with Ben one hundred percent. My case is not unique. I am not a unicorn. I was an individual, one of many who was forced to confess to a crime that they didn't do, and it should not have happened and it needs to stop. I wish I could say that I'm the last of many who has went through something as horrible as confession to a crime that they didn't do. But I'm not. We notice it's going to happen again and again and again,

Thank you for listening to wrongful conviction. You can listen to this and all the lava for Good Podcasts one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR