#421 Jason Flom with James Gibson

On December twenty second, nineteen eighty nine, in the South Side of Chicago, a neighborhood insurance broker visited an auto repair shop owner to collect his premium, but the visit ended with both men fatally shot. Investigators allegedly received an anonymous tip that a man known as Peter Gunn and his brother may have been involved, which led investigators to a young man with that nickname, James Gibson and his brother Harold. But Harold had an insurmountable alibi where James

Thank you.

Now we've covered Midnight Crew cases before, Marcus Wiggins, Sean Tyler, Reggie Henderson, but they don't even begin to scratch the service of the depravity and pure evil that was taking place under the watch of Detective Commander John Burge, who had come off the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam and brought with him torture tactics to the streets of Chicago, and he was brutalizing suspects and witnesses alike from the early seventies through his termination in nineteen ninety three. But

I grew up in a house of silence. My mother was deaf and she did the best that she could with the decks that was dealt to her as I had to cap African American woman, single parent.

And you were one of five siblings, right.

Two of my siblings they passed away before I was born, So yes, it would be like five siblings just my mother's mediate kids.

Yes, Wow, that must have been really tough on the family, losing two children, I mean one is hard, like impossible to get over. Too is too much? Now, what were you up to and the lead up to the time that this crime occurred.

I graduated of high school with honors and later went on to Walie College in Marshall, Texas. I was young, dating a young lady. We had a baby on the way. She was in the military, and it was around the holiday season in nineteen eighty nine, and I was on a break, trying to get my finances together, trying to get my housing together and figure out my next move in life.

Oh, so your girlfriend was in the military, as was your sister. So now you're back in Chicago with family, getting things ready for your new baby and the holidays. Now I want to turn to Andrew to get the facts of what happened here these two older gentlemen, as I understand it, Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash just around the block from James's childhood home at an autobody shop that I understand was mister WASH's place of business.

You're right, mister Wash operated an automobile repair shop and garage. His nickname around the neighborhood was Smiley. And then Lloyd Benjamin, who everybody knew in the neighborhood, was called the insurance man because he sold insurance to the folks in the community and collected the premiums, and on December twenty second, nineteen eighty nine, he was in the area collecting premiums and Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash.

Were murder right, fatally shot, and it's assumed that the assailant or assailants were after those premiums. However, nothing was reported to be taken from either victim. And then there's this extra added racial dynamic where mister Benjamin was a white guy murdered in a predominantly black area. Now, were there any witnesses, leads, anything at all.

There's no witnesses that we believe with any credibility that came to the police and said they saw the actual murder, No affirmative DNA or other objective evidence.

So not a lot to go on. But again, this was the Midnight Crew, where the pattern in practice was to write their own narratives and just coerce it's too nice for word, torture people into saying whatever lies they wrote down in order to close the case. So somehow or another, James's nickname Peter Gunn got thrown into the mix.

But they said on a record today was anonymous off from a female who did not identify theyself, and then they said it was somebody on the street that had spread rumors that a god named Peter Gunn and his brother had did a crime. And so our detectives had entered in my mother's home in South Side Chicago and raided the house and arrested my brother, my eldest brother, Harold Gibson, and several other guys in the neighborhood.

So, according to the Midnight Crew, a nameless, faceless source and quote unquote word on the street is what led them to you and your brother Harold, in addition to two other guys, Eric Johnson and Fernando Webb. So when and how did you end up in this nightmare?

I got contacted and so I headed back to my mother's home. Once I entered into her home, I noticed that my great grandmother at the time, was on the floor and the house was in dis ray. Keep in mind that my mother cannot hear, so my mother was trying to explain or talk the best she could and languagees she had. She points over towards a card. The card had on it phone numbers and thenify his detectives o' myers and Collins. When I called a number on the card.

James and his brother were taken into custody and beaten. He was kicked, he was slapped by these officers, John Burge and the Midnight Crew. He was held overnight. He was handcuffed to a chair, not able to sleep, not giving any food or drink, nor was he even.

Allowed to use the washroom.

James was then put into three different lineups by officers O'Mara Collins, Maslanka Palladino, and McCann. And he was not identified in any of these lineups.

Right, and it's not hard to imagine that that happened even with the most suggestive tactics at the midnight cou could muster.

It was ninet eight hours. They had me in these rooms, different rooms, and custody beating on me and slapping on me and broke my ribs, burnt me and played all in my balls and slapped me around and all that. But I had been knocked out a few times. I didn't realize that it had been four days, ninety eight hours that I had been beat on and twuched and all this other stuff.

Meanwhile, if we can go to like a split screen here, you're getting moved from room to room beaten. And your sister and her husband were just arriving in town from the military at Midway Airport.

My sister she was doing a transfer from Washington d I'm not quite sure she's going to career journey. But it was ten hours or twelve hour layover before she leaded country, and so by my mother, living a few blocks from airports, she came in and found out that both of her brothers was in custody.

But your brother, Harold had such an air tight, convincing and provable alibi that they had no choice but to eventually drop the charges against him. However, it seems they found your alibi to be penetrable enough to continue on with this horrible frame job. And meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, your sister and her husband were on their way to Area three in full uniform. So then what happened?

They had taken me into a room. It was two States attorney one I was a female, the other male, and the two detectives Foley fol e Y and another guy not quite sure.

And our audience will remember detective Foley from the awful case of Sean Tyler and Reggie Henderson. So what happened in this room?

To stop the beatings, in the torture, after being burned and all that stuff, I agreed to make a statement. And so they was preparing the statement. They said, we're going we want you to put your initiues jag on each sentence that we complete, and then we're gonna turn it into the state's attorney to stop this ass whooping. So at the ninety eighth hour, they going over prepping

Which doesn't really sound like standard operating procedure for a suspect and a double murder. Right, had as much sarcasm to that as you possibly can, because I hope it was dripping with it, and then I understand they just took you home that.

They was like, we're gonna drop you off, so and I told them it would take me in an alley, man, drop me off in the back. I don't want no motherfucker seeing me with y'all man, y'all in and there beating on me and shit. And now you're gonna drop me off in front of my house, like y'all my friend and shit, they might think I'm telling something. So they dropped me off in the back of the house. And as I was coming in the side dope at my mother's house, my sister's coming in the front dough

And ops stands for Office of Professional Standards, which was founded in the nineteen seventies to carry out independent investigations of mounting allegations of police brutality.

I didn't notice at that time you can call the police. On the police. My sister was like, man, they did this, it's against the law. I'm locking the ass up. Ops ended up getting in the phone car. His name was Ortiz or something like that. I say, man, they beat my head of it. They say, man, can you identify? I tell him on the name on the card and that what happened. He say, man, hold on, almost sent a cop to get.

You tomorrow, but as I understand it, there was another car coming for you that night. It turns out that the Midnight crew had also been working on Fernando Webb and Eric Johnson, who had probably been made aware of your alleged statement. What was in that statement.

The contest of the false statement after the ninety eight hours a torture me and beat me and burning me was that I was outside of the garage and seeing Eric Johnson hand the gun to Bodine which is Falander Web and committed the crime.

So the statement placed you as a witness, even though you hadn't seen anything, and it looked like Webb was actually their target, at least at the time that you gave your statement.

It's our perspective, based on the evidence that we reviewed, that Fernando Webb, who was a heroin addict, had a history of weapon offenses, a history of armed robberies, attempted murder, and other violent crimes, was the person that committed this double murder.

And as we so often see, somebody who's in a position like Web was maybe tempted to trade false information for leniency or even freedom. So what did his statement say?

That he was shooting heron and he was walking his dog to go get him another fix a heron and that he walked up to a guy with a gun in his hand and he asked this guy with the gun in his hand, man, what's up? And then he got three blocks away in her gun shots? Did they turn about identified the guy that he asked what's up with the gun in his hand is Peter Gun.

And it's unclear when this statement was made. Perhaps Web was even the original source of your nickname. Either way, his false statement made James the shooter and completely removed Web from culpability no mention of Eric Johnson, by the way, So what was in his statement?

Johnson made a statement to police that James Gibson told him about his plans to rob Lloyd Benjamin, and that James paid him fifty dollars to be on the lookout. Johnson also said he saw James shoot and kill Benjamin. This statement was false also because Johnson was tortured, threatened, and beaten by officer McCann, Caesar Bresca, Rusnick, Maslanka Palladino, and.

Burn Right, so obviously unreliable. But this false statement made James the shooter once again, while keeping Johnson closely involved enough to identify him.

Yeah, he said this the cats though, this the cats. I want you to get this. He said, I paid him to wats me to do a stick up because I needed money to fix one of my disc able vehicles.

Right, if you needed to rob for that money, how could you have paid him anything? It makes no sense. Plus, nothing had been reported as taken from the victims. But now they had two statements saying that you were the shooter and Eric Johnson had allegedly named himself as your accomplice. And eventually Johnson's sisters, Carlos Smith and Janis Johnson were dragged into this as well, so the midnight creup came back to get you before ops could.

They came back and rearrested me a couple hours later, once the complaints was fouled. When they came back and got me the second time, they took me up to another place on the third floor and they put me in like a cage set in the middle of all of their desses. And then I've seen them bringing in Colin Smith and Janis Johnson and all the other stuff.

The officers used intimidation and lies in order to get these two sisters to corroborate the story that Gibson killed mister Benjamin and mister wash And what the officers told them based on what we know, is that they would be light on their brother if they went along with the story.

Janis Johnson said, I broke into the house and start immediately sharing a robbery playing with our whole family.

So no witnesses from our perspective that had any credibility, And.

Then ended up at the county jail in front of the judge basket on the chief judge. They told me you get out front of judge. Man, keep your motherfucking hands behind your back. So when I went out in front of the judge, I put my hands behind my back and my left bridcase popped out of my chest. When it popped out of my chest, I fell down to the ground. Chief Judge basted on. He looked over the bench and he said, what's going on? And out of anger, I said, the motherfuckers they kicked me in

Wow, so the abuse was actually going to be documented. It seems like this judge Bastone might have actually been a decent person.

I mean, if you say a decent person, uh.

I mean decency seems really hard to come by in a story like yours.

Does bast don't save my life?

Man?

I'm different out and different him recording and taking those photographs of those injuries because they tried to destroy them, and discovery he kept a copy if you want for us. Bast don't having the courage the order to sign all the photographs with his BADS number his next.

The photos wasn't revealed. From nineteen eighty nine to twenty fifteen, every time I went in front of the judge, I was actually my defense attorney about the possy puss, the photographs, the statements, the evidence, and he was telling me there was no evidence, there was no statement, there was no none of that.

And unfortunately, your trial was not going to be held in front of Judge bass Stone, but instead a judge named Nevills. So one can surmise that the photographic proof of this brutality was now being hidden, but your public defender Paul Stroker, he didn't raise the issue.

No, No, my public offender was in on the fix, as well as the judge, Neviles, and the state's attorney and all the rest of them. But we got into a dialogue about the pictures and the photos with the judge and the tried Spain. Well, I'm not the judge that would die there, etcetera, etcetera. And what pictures you talk about and they never came into the trial.

I mean, your lawyer, you think he'd reach out to Judge bass Stone, but that's just not what happened. And you, James, most of our guests wait until after they're convicted to learn the law, but you started in pre trial.

All the motions that was filed before trial and after trial and trial, they was all motions that I found

But obviously you weren't going to be skilled enough yet for the monster that you were trying to do battle with. Right it was David versus Goliath for what we were up against.

So I ended up having a conversation with Attorney Timothy Nash, which was a paid attorney for Eric Johnson, to try to preserve some of those issues, and we ended up having the motion hearing watch the rest is press to Evanson's statement separately but together.

Meaning that both you and Eric Johnson had both been severely beaten, that the statements were therefore clearly unreliable and should have been thrown out immediately, all while your lawyer was, I don't know, taking a nap.

And so what they did was they brought in all these declarated officers with their bats and their uniform zone and they paraded them in one by one to get on the stand and say these guys aligned and we never did a Y and Z, and so they denied Eric Johnson motion as being tortured, and they denied my motion, etc. Then they split up the trial and rude that it was antagonized defense because Eric Johnson never testified against me at trial.

All made possible by the ineffective assistance of your own lawyer, whose strategy, from what I understand, was that since your statement, although false, wasn't incumplatory to you, but only the Eric Johnson. He wasn't trying to contest it, but you were morally bound to not falsely accuse Eric Johnson as well as exposed with these officers were doing so much good it did at the time. Now, you took a bench trial, right, so that was your attorney's idea. Huh.

It was something that my attorney had convinced me, he said, Man did he said, and they said, a white man got killed. Man. Do you take a jury trial? Man? They gonna put your ass on death roll? Man, He say, Man, take a bitch trial, man, you can beat this man. He tried to convince me that judge never was a law judge and that there was no physical scientific evidence to connect me to the case. There was no DNA, firemans and no murder weapon, etc. Et cetera, no statement

Emotion to suppress would have been filed, and the evidence would have never made it into trial.

But I was so confused, cause my lawyer tell me, man, take a bitch trial. A white boy got killed and all that shit. Boy, you're gonna go to death row. I got scared in that moment, and I fumbled the ball and took a bench trial.

And your trial began on October seventh, nineteen and even though Eric Johnson refused to testify, it didn't matter. His statement implicating you was read into the record. In addition, despite Eric Johnson's refusal, the state was still able to get his sisters, Carla Smith and Janis Johnson to testify that you had told them that you were going to stick up the insurance man to get money to fix your car.

They told me, if y'all will continue to lie and say what y'all said against Dad Giffin, we'd lock in y'all last up for obstructing to Justin Perdon. So once they started lying, they had to keep lying. But all the time Kyla and not never had been over to her house. Janis Johnson at the time that she said I was on the back of her house. She had punched it. She was at work.

And then they brought in Fernando Webb, who was at that time serving a sentence for armed robbery in another case, and admitted that the prosecution had promised to free him in exchange for his testimony.

These statements given by Eric Johnson, Fernando Webb, Carla, and Janis were procured by torture, by intimidation, lies and false promise, says buy the Chicago police.

And let's not forget about James's own alleged statement, which was not inculpatory. I mean, essentially it's a false witness statement implicating Eric Johnson. So in a last ditch effort to seal the deal, the state presented an officer named Moser.

The States brought in Officer Mosa to testify to a statement that I leslie made to him. But then I objected, and the judge say, wait, you objective for I say, because my lawyer ain't objected. Objection on He say, well, what we objective? I say, because the State's goin to bring out officer the testify aft something they ain't got no record of it. But now we're in the middle of trial and you want to bring in a statement

So even though the original statement that they beat out of you and tortured out of you was exculed, Platoria Chicago PD produced one more false statement. The word of this officer, no record of it in which you allegedly incriminated yourself. Wow.

Just Nevers said on record, he said he didn't believe that Filander were was telling the truth, that Janet Johnson was telling the truth, the color whatever name is with tending the truth, or even Airic Johnson.

That he didn't believe no testimony or nobody other than that statement they said that Leslie made and without that statement, he couldn't find me guilty. But he had to find me guilty because the police said I made that statement. He find the police credible and gave me natural life. I've been educating myself from the criminal law for thirty four years. I know everybody. I've worked on all the cases in Stateville, Panaca. Mind. I was the warden's port.

James knows more about the law than ninety percent of the lawyers that I know, and stayed safe in four max prisons back then huge gang populations. You weren't safe in those prisons. James was able to navigate those prisons for one reason. Even though he feared for his life every day, he was a legal resource. He worked with the different factions in the prison, and that made him a protected person. He didn't see the Michael Jordan years, he didn't see the Oprah win for years. He didn't

I had been filed in motions for other guys, and I started to come to understand that this is a powder of the practice. I'm not the only one.

So with your knowledge of the law being such an asset to everyone, you got to see kind of a bird's eye view of the system. At least in Illinois, while still keeping your eye on the prize in your own case, Andrew, can you give us a bit of a rundown on his appellate history.

He did file a timely appeal from the verdict. His conviction was then affirmed by the appellate court, then denied leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, as well as petition of cerciority to the United States Supreme Court. Later in court, as a jailhouse lawyer, filed several post conviction petitions and a habeas corpus petition, all of which were.

Denied, which is obviously maddening considering all of the issues we've raised. But in addition to his legal and social maneuvering, James started a media campaign.

I was doing satellite radio from prison. I had wrote ten thousand letters to the nation, and I had got some momentum after Hugh Heffrom, the Great Hugh Heffrom the Playboy magazine. They had did a story about us in area too, and I had got a story ran with Stevie j and Benzino at Hip Hop Weekly, and so it started catching momentum. Once I wrote to the United Nations and the United Nations responded, people started talking about

And this was an investigation around credible evidence related to the allegations against John Burge and the Midnight Crew, and they basically knew a lot of individuals black men were tortured, beaten, made to confess the crimes they didn't commit.

And when they voted on the general simody and the letistations on the floor, they mentioned the James Gifton case as the poet with the child for why we need to go and investigate all these other cases.

So when you finally got around to review, what did the commission find?

The initial summary was that they found that I had been tortured and collaborated and sustained and substatinate those allegations.

And so James was given the opportunity by the Torture Commission to have his case reviewed by the Circuit Court of Cook County for what's called judicial review. And basically James submitted forty six exhibits and over nine hundred and fifty pages in support of his case. So he went through that whole process, which ultimately led to the judge granting his Turk evidentiary hearing, and then.

I found with the Torture Relief Commission saying that man for decade, the CI Chicago, the governor, the mayor, the state's attorney, the lawyers, the judges, the hospital, all of them is paterck practice. They've been denying us basic rights to do process the law. I don't want no money. I just want my dead court, as a citizen of the United States, to approve a Y and Z once and all.

So what did you present? I mean, back in nineteen ninety one, the court had taken this officer Moser's word for it and set on record that all of the other evidence was not credible. Then every appellate court had upheld this conviction. So what finally turned the tide.

Well, what laid back to getting back in course was John Burdens had called me in nineteen ninety in the county jail after the complaints was fouled, and John Burgess thought that he had intercepted and destroyed all of the communications. So he was calling me to rub it in my face and tell me, yeah, nigga, you ain't never getting out of jail, no complaints. You fouled, nigga, ain't no motherfucker gonna believe that shit. I'm the commander. That shit

So birds thought he had destroyed all other copies and evidence of your torture before calling you in jail to kind of dunk on you and shove it in your face.

Bitch ass nigga, that's what he did, he said, Now you're gonna try to take me down, bitch, I run the hospital. He had got the photographs, he had got discovery, he had got to the drugs, he got to the States Attorney, got to the lawyers. But that one letter, it made it out.

So wait, how did you manage to prove that this phone call took place.

When I was going through my investigation. I told him about the conversation. They told me we had the ability to go back and get any phone call that came for a messipality or a city official or a federal facility for the last one hundred years. And I said what I said, Well, that's a beautiful thing, and check it out. He didn't call from his department. He went

Then they thought James was lying when he talked about the call from John Burge, and they went back and checked the records and saw that that call was placed and mister Gibson was being truthful.

So they're finally starting to come around. There was proof of the complaint to OPS as well as the phone call from Birge. What about Judge Bastone's photographs that never made it to trial?

Thank god for his best one. He had kept a copy and sign it and he had his archives as working shit right on top of him filing the proper paperwork. And they massed the signatures in his bass no more on each one of the photographs. And that then they was like what the hell is going on? You know? They on the other side, they're like, this kid is really telling the truth. And that's when I started founding

So Burges's medieval torture tactics had finally been exposed. But what about all of his lackeys? Did they get dragged in front of the Torture Relief Commission?

Is you reading in the Summary Report of the TRC. The officers when they was asked about it, they threw John Burdens under the bus and signed off. They told Don Burdens said, told to do a Y and Z.

So they admitted it. And then you made your way back into the depellate process where you were fighting an appointed special prosecutor in front of Judge near A Walsh. So what did they do in an actual court of law?

In my first hearing? And they pleaded the fifth They wouldn't testify to anything. Did you arrest day Gift not plead the fifth? Did you torch the day goptil I used the cogopoyis opting to fil so they went asking the questions that it just found that credible.

So despite the explosive revelations of the Torture Relief Commission, this judge still denied you, saying that there was quote sufficient evidence to support that no torture occurred quote it's unfucking real.

And then the pedicote overturned that shit again.

Send me back right. That was twenty eighteen when the appellate court said that the officers could not rebut your allegations in any meaningful way.

They had sent me back instructor Neil Wass to draw an adverse in fears and did reconsider all the evidence as a whole, and she would open up the courtroom to reconsider it.

So, get this, Walsh gave these reasons for her refusal, that you had invented your torture claims to piggyback on Eric Johnson's claims, which, by the way, ern Johnson a new trial back in twenty twelve. And she made that ruling with the knowledge that you had filed your complaint on the night that you were released from custody back

And then they instructed the Chief Jail to remove her, order a new trial and throw out the statement, whether it convicted me or not.

So finally, in March twenty nineteen, the Appellate Court called Wash manifestly wrong while vacating your conviction.

Then the Supreme Court affirmed it with no dissension.

So then comes April twenty six, twenty nineteen, you had a hearing about whether or not the state would retry you.

Well, I go in front of the jidgs. The lawyer's coming in the back saying, man, you might get a million dollar bond, but we don't know. After we had to hear it, that jig said, mister Gibson, I'm so sorry for this tragedy, Special Prosecutor, you wasted enough te time. Mister Gibson, how much money can you pay? I say, when I've been working inside the prison. He said, two thousand dollars. I bond myself out the county jail. And then two days later I got a call from special Prosecutor.

And in Illinois, that's what you filed for to get state compensation and pursue civil litigation. So really they were just trying to minimize the financial damage, right.

So I told him that I'm gonna see you in court tomorrow. I got a court He said, we got good news and we got bad news. Which one do you want to hear? And then I said, man, I don't care what y'all got. Man, I'm ready to go to court, let's do this, and they'd like be dropping the charges and I said, that's good news because I got a emotion for you, and they said, what motion is that I got emotion. I'm going to be right

So between the time that these proceedings started in twenty nineteen, Kim Fox, much needed new blood, was elected to the State's Attorney's office in Cook County. So the charges were finally dropped and you got your certificate of actual innocence in February twenty twenty.

I mean, like I had been fighting and fighting and fighting and fight, and that was my moment in twenty fifteen. I knew I was coming up out of there, but it just didn't. I didn't think it was take me that long after I got my first reversal. What I'm saying, I thought the issue was cutting dry. But this judge, Neil Wasp, she took me through a bunch of exra mode years for nothing.

Which is just absolutely unforgivable. Just as unforgivable as the obstinac you're now facing in civil litigation.

Mister Gibson filed the federal civil rights lawsuit that's been pending against the City of Chicago and the officers who beat tortured him, I mean James Gibson. They took him at twenty three. He didn't come out till he was fifty three years old, and they're still fighting him today.

I mean, it makes exactly zero fucking sense. Whose face are they saving? The individual officers, those scumbags, the state, the system, the cats out of the bag. And it's not like they're saving money when they're paying all of these private defense firms way more than a settlement could even cost, right, but yet they continue.

James Gibson is going to be a catalyst for change. James Gibson has the only case that is currently pending that has what's called a non bifurcated maneal claim a monell claim, as you know, is a pattern in practice. So James's case is not just about the injuries to him and the wrongful conviction and the torture and the beatings. James Gibson's case has manel allegations that prove that the city of Chicago had a pattern and practice of abusing

And that might very well be the motivation in fighting him so hard. So God speed now, James. While you've been home fighting your civil case, you've also been continuing the work you were doing inside.

I still been continuing my advocacy, working my foundation, Clarence James Gets the Foundation, James Grant Consulting. I've been up to bringing my brother's home for prison commutations, post convictions, if for please time cuts. I just brought a guy home last week after twenty one years I've been working in this case, James Freeman, I brought home dozens of guys.

That's what I do, and that's not all you do.

Since I've been home, I formed my own publishing company because I got a book deal in the movie deal. I got his music studio in Skokie, Illinois called three Z Music House, and I brought in a bunch of people to help me build silent rooms, soundproof rooms and designs. You could go on my websits and see it. And so what I do is I bring in all other young people went to my studio, and they found out

Well, that's beautiful. So how can our audience follow along with everything you're doing.

You can log on by I am James Gibson dot com on Instagram to James Gibson six thirty five, or you can go on James Gibson Facebook page, or you can go into my YouTube channel where I go around the world and I fight inj justicis and I highlight all my consultant and publishing work. It's called James Gibson on the Land.

All right, well, we're gonna have all that length to check it out and get involved follow this incredible man's journey. And now I want to turn to closing arguments, my favorite part of the show. So let's start with Andrew. Andrew, just feel free to just spout off on anything you think may have been left unsaid, and then hand the microphone off to James, and James you take us off into the sunset.

You know, I spent twenty years representing pro athletes. I started Action ten years ago to serve black and brown people whose rights have been violated by the police. I'm humbled in honor to represent James Gibson because of what he endured and listen, I can't imagine thirty years in prison and most people would not persevere. James Gibson has turned his pain, his faith in God into true purpose in advancing civil rights in America, especially for black and

Well, I was the first twenty twenty three men, and I officially closed my case man after thirty four years, man, and none that's left to be said, Man, bring closure. I just want to say that I believe that man, it's okay to be different. Man. You know what I'm saying. I believe that we're living in a time that man, that was written about long ago, man, and to where the people learned to love that which created love. And then we'll get out of this mess in which we.

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 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 nominated