On the night of April twenty eighth, two thousand and one, a young woman returned to her apartment in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. When two men approached. She got a brief look at one of their faces before being forced inside at gunpoint. They covered her face and both men raped her. They also stole her purse and cell phone before fleeing the scene. A rape kit was performed and the victim described the one assailant she had seen, as well as his clothing.
Two days later, investigators tracked down the cell phone to a man named Chris Smith, who had clothing that was similar to what the victim described. Even though Chris claimed that he bought the phone second hand, he was arrested
and identified. But this is wrongful conviction. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison, and now we're expanding that voice to you us at eight three, three, two oh seven, four six sixty six, and tell us how these stories make you feel and what you've done to help the cause, even if it's something as simple
as telling a friend or sharing on social media. We've really appreciated hearing from our audience so much so that we've included one of the messages at the end of this episode, So stick around for that, and if you have something to say, we definitely want to hear it, and you might just hear yourself in a future episode. Call us eight three three, two oh seven four six
sixty six. Welcome back to Ronful Conviction, where we have yet another case out of Cuyahoga County on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, where it appears that there was evidence that should have kept our guest, Chris Miller, from ever having been even brought to trial, much less convicted and sentenced to sixty years. So Chris, first, let me just say how glad I am that you're here with us today rather than back inside where you never should
have been in the first place. Thank you and joining him as a partner at FG and G and a proud member of his legal team.
Jacke one Green, absolutely a proud member. Thanks for having me here of course.
Now, Chris, let's talk about your life before prison. Where'd you grow up, what was your family life like? Give us the whole background.
I grew up in the east side of Cleveland, Saint Claire. I was raised ball women my great grandmother Auntie, my mom, and my girl cousin. My grandfather dad when I was ten years old, so he was the only man at the house. So eleven years old, I was the man at the house, you know, dealing with with women and boyfriend. And I'm fighting grown me when I was eleven years old. I had to grew up kind of fast because my grandfather when he dad, everything got tight. No, he was
the money. My grandfather was a mechanic, you know. So eleven years old, I was in the streets. Then I was in the streets some drugs.
Chris helped to keep the family afloat until about the time of this crime. He was twenty four years old, had two kids of his own and one on the way, and he and his girlfriend needed a phone for the new place they were moving into. And it appears that a chance encounter one morning with a man named Dwayne Collins had devastating effects on Chris's life. Collins approached Chris and a man named Desmond Fletcher on a street corner with a phone to trade for drugs.
It was a Sunday morning that with Fletcher. He gave him the drugs. I just gave him the money he gave it. Due to drugs. I didn't know all this was coming with it.
By it, he means the phone which belonged to a white woman who will refer to as LB. She had survived the rape the previous night in Cleveland Heights.
April twenty eight, two thousand and one.
LB.
She's out. She's returning home at the end of the night. She's got a ground floor apartment in a building with a number of units. It's a little after eleven o'clock. She comes in through this exterior door. There's like a half flight of stairs that goes down from kind of a parking area, and you know, her doors down the hall of it. So she goes to close the door to apartment and she hears some voices like up, I think on the flight of the stairs, and she turns.
She calls out. Two guys appear at the top the landing, and of course she doesn't know who they are at the time. One of them comes down, grabs her arm, holds a gun to her neck, and they force her into the apartment at gunpoint. They put something over her face during these events, so she only really saw one guy briefly of the two. Then they sectually assault her. Both of them before leaving, one of them tells her,
you know, don't report the attack. They take her purse, they take her cell phone, they take other items, and they leave. That night. LB does go to the hospital. There is an examination and a rape kit done, so there are specimens obtained for the purpose later of testing that is done. We end up learning there's a mixture. There are two contributors, and she.
Did get a brief look at one of the assailants.
There are a couple different early reports that came to light. The first description from LB is quote first mail as a black mail about five eleven, one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy pounds, eighteen to twenty two years old, no facial hair, wearing a white T shirt possibly with a black circle on the chest, blue jeans and a green coat.
Six one. When I got arrested, I was like one.
Night, so Chris is or now he's taller and he's brought her right.
I mean, it's hard to mix up one hundred and fifty and one hundred and ninety pounds man. But then somehow the clothing took on a more important role, especially the circular pattern on his shirt and we'll get back to that in a bit. As the investigators moved beyond the victim and the crime.
Scene, Detective Mark shit Schmid, I'm gonna say that again. Detective Mark Schmidt of the Cleveland Heights Police Department. He comes. He's now the lead detective on this case. And Schmidt focuses on this cell phone. And there had been some calls made from the phone overnight and then earlier in the morning to like a number stored in the phone, to a number from LB's little date book that was
in her purse. And then round eight o'clock in the morning or so, the phone starts getting used pretty steadily. And this is when Chris has the phone.
It's Sunday. I shouldn't even been on the corner anyway. They guy walk up. You got then I got a phone. I'm annoying. Hedn't found the phone down the street in the field. So the dudes was after they did what they Didaturday night, they rolled down through my neighborhood and through the phone in the field. He was one in the field to use the bathroom and heard the phone ring it so he picked it up and came up on nine nine Saint clar and sold it to me
for five dollars. So you know I was using the phone. It was charged up, had the phone for probably a day and a half.
And sometime during that day and a half, Detective Schmidt started visiting the people who had received calls from the phone, including Chris's girlfriend.
When I pull off for my mother apartment building, I look at the riview she following me. I'm like, so I pulled over. She said, the police came to my house talking about you robbed somebody for a phone. She's like, get rid of that phone. Now they don't say nothing about the rape. Then they just sayd I robbed somebody. When I got home, I just put it in sewer right front the house when in the house.
But by then, Detective Schmid had already figured out that Chris was the person who had this phone, which was enough for him to obtain an arrest warrant on April thirtieth.
So I went home. I give my son in a bath, I take a bath. I'll fall asleep a couple hours. Dad here somebody just dog in my mother Doorbill. I wake up on my sleep. I'm like, who is this? I gown there. It's just like fifty cops. I'm like, and my aunts was at the door with them and was letting them in that I was coming to open the door to see who they was. So they come in the house. He like he had a warrant, so I signed war let them search. I ain't got an
ass so I let him search. I was draws, no shirt, no socks on.
How'd you get the clothes to wear to go to the police station.
They dug him out the dirty clothes and made me put them on.
Who gave them to you?
Schmidt?
So Mark Schmitt himself is the one who gives these clothing items to Chris to wear. Remember Mark Schmidt is the person who had previously interviewed LB. We know about that later on in the story, but at this time Schmidt has information. He finds clothes for Chris to wear out of the house for the arrest.
She said, I had a white T shirt with Circle of Emotions. They went there and took a white jersey with pinky purple letters Toronto Raper's jersey, Vince Carter jersey. Yeah, made me put it on and said that's that's what I had on. Like, I ain't have on that, bro. They just found anything and just tried to put it on the Fifth Day theory.
Since Chris didn't have a green jacket like LB had described, they chose as black one. I guess they figured that's close enough. Now they've got Chris dressed up prime for identification, and they dragged him from his house for what he believes was the stolen cell phone.
At the martianistm take me out of the house and put me in the car. I'm so half sleep, I don't even know my mother and the man even in the house. My mother and Shark my daughter and walked to the corner store. So by the time they come out of the store, I'm in the backseat of the police car. The cop come to the car like, hey, turn your legs out. He said, your daughter wants you. She was five years old. I said, she comes, she gets betray my legs and she said, Dad, what's going on? Said?
They said, I robbed somebody, so I shouldn't be back. You know, they figure out when me.
You're listening to Ron for Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ed free by subscribing to Lava for Good plus on Apple podcasts.
The Night is to Happen, me and two of my friends rolled to Harvard and Lee. There used to be a restaurant there, a seafood restaurant called Dave Servant Turf. We used to come all the way across down to go there, and they had cameras in there. I got to telling her, I said, man, do is go to the day Turf. I'm on the cameras when you walk in till the clock. I told him everything I ordered, because I went in and ordered for all three of us.
However, this camera footage from the time of the crime never surfaced. Meanwhile, back at the police station, Chris was photographed in the outfit they had chosen for him, and his interrogation continued.
This goes through the nighttime. Detective Schmidt keeps coming to you, Chris right, and trying to question you, question you repeatedly over the course of the night. Every time you told me before right you were about to fall asleep, he'd come back in and pull you out to question you some more. You know, just trying to wear Chris down, trying to get him to say something, you know, that would implicate him.
I didn't have no tell him I didn't do nothing like a ball the phone.
The following day, the victim came in to make an identification, but curiously, instead of viewing a liveline, investigators chose to show her a photo array.
So the photo array contains a photograph of Chris from his arrest, wearing this shirt that Schmidt has handed to him that has this, you know, kind of design on it.
But I also think everybody else in Atlanta had on County orange.
Yeah, you look different than the other pictures. So that's another piece of the puzzle here, right. So LB looks at this array of photos for like four or five minutes, is what the record show. That's a while, you know, to look and think. Eventually she ends up picking out Chris. Chris is arrested based on the phone, but then on
the identification. This is what leads to him being charged with multiple counts of rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, kidnapping, intimidation of Filoniu's assault, the.
Saying they put me in a Cleveland Heights. It was a board outside the window, so anytime I looked up out the window, you got all my name and all them charges. I'm like, when I see what I was in there because they said robbery, I see the try I'm like man with a rape and all that come.
For this identification from Schmidt to LB is the through line to how Chris then ends up wrapped up in this criminal case he had nothing to do with.
Not only was this a cross racial misidentification, which study after study after study have shown are less accurate than guessing yeah, you heard that right, but then further suggestion was added through this careful selection of clothing by detective Shit.
Don't please, don't put that on you. That was an accident?
Was it?
I can't help my subconscious, okay, but really accident.
At this point, the case was as good as closed. Except for the rape kit. So far, we just know that there had been two contributors.
At the time. They use what was new technology is str DNA testing. That's primitive compared to what we've got available as technology at the current. So they test the samples in the rape kit. There's a mixture. There are two contributors, and only one contributor could be identified at the times with the str DNA testing. What we knew is the contributor was a single mail profile. Chris was excluded from being that particular contributor, so he's not that guy.
There is another contributor, though, right, and that second contributor was determined to have been an azospermatic contributor.
So the guy had a low sperm count.
Chris doesn't have that problem. Chris, you know, gave his DNA to write for comparison.
He was excluded from the spermatic contributor by the DNA testing and then excluded as the other contributor by logic. He didn't have a low sperm count, so this should have ended the madness right then and there, but instead they tried to square the circle.
Said they found DNA on my jersey didn't match her.
They tried to test your clothes for cat hairs, hoping they would match Elbie's cats.
Right, because my mother had cats that didn't match. Dude, I don't know this lady. He wasn't me.
You can hear about hair comparison on Wrongful Conviction Junk
Science that'll be linked in the episode description. So while they were tinkering around with fucking cat hair, Chris awaited trial from jail for a year and a half and then in Walks's public defender, who instead of trying to track down the restaurant camera footage or hiring an expert to explain that Chris was ruled out of being a contributor in the rape kit, she relayed the prosecutions deal cop out an idea, you're alleged accomplice.
She just kept trying to give me to come out to seven years. I'm like, I'm not coming on those seven years. They only give a long time. I said, well, they give me all of it. I ain't about just scoping those seven years. I ain't do I said, man, get out of here.
You were not going to stand down. And at a certain point, you know, before you're getting ready to go to trial, your lawyer puts on the record she's told you about the plea deal, right, and you've refused it. You're continuing to say you're innocent. The court talked to you right and wanted to make sure you understood the risks to go into trial.
I mean, they was trying to take my life for somebody to do something. But I'm like, I got a fight. I can't lay down like that. Man. I couldn't. Then it was too much time. I'm like, hey, and I didn't do nothing. Like, I'm not gonna see here, just copp out to something. At least if I go to trial Va Louse, I could still fight it. You know what I'm saying.
That's the fucked up math that Chris and so many other men and women are forced to do. I mean, deciding whether or not to roll the dice on what could happen as a result of taking a case to trial. And for Chris, this was a trial that should have never even happened. If he was azospermatic, maybe they could have said he was the second contributor, but he didn't have a low sperm count. Nevertheless, trial began in January two thousand and two, and this is what the state had to present.
It was made in the phone and the id ID and that was it right.
Everything they did. It wasn't nothing from my fingerprints. K here.
I really can't with this. I mean the fucking cat hair like.
So no physical evidence connecting Chris to the crime whatsoever.
Then it appears that maybe the prosecutor knew the case was weak considering how he argued the case.
I'm going to just read a quote from the prosecutor from the opening statements. He goes several days later when he's arrested with some of the same clothing on that she had described to Detective Schmidt that he had on
that night. And listen carefully. She will describe for you the clothing that he was wearing and some of that same clothing he had on a couple days later when he was arrested, and the prosecutor tells the jury that LB will talk to you very specifically about what she saw with regard to the clothing.
Up until this point, we've been referring to LB's initial description of the clothes blue jeans, white T shirt with a circular pattern in black, and a green jacket. However, this initial description was not shared with the defense, so they didn't have it in order to impeach her trial testimony.
And so in the trial, LB identifies this black jean jacket as the one that the perpetrator wore that night. LB describes the attacker who had the gun right in this duo. She describes him as having now a V
neck shirt with a half circle. The writing she testified was his half circle, and it looked to be like what she said was the state's exhibit, which was your raptor's Jersey albeit admits that she's only seen one of the attackers briefly, but she testified at the trial she was confident that her identification of Chris was right.
Yeah, she got up there and point me on. He was on top of me. I'm like wow.
But Chris was excluded by the DNA evidence as one contributor, as well as the azospermatic designation of the second.
So forensic asper testify there's no physical evidence, including Danna or figure Prince, that specifically tie Chris to this crime. Lena testifies she saw Chris at home that night.
Lena was Chris's girlfriend, and then two more alibi witnesses were presented, starting with the guy he was with when he got the phone, Desnant Fletcher.
But there were some little discrepancies in his story from what really happened.
He let the texts them scare him, like he don't remember what due had on. He had them all black, dude, you don't remember what he had on? They say that he had MUNI already knew he gonna come in here and say something like he messed up, like he don't remember alright, knew that I said, yes him Munity Rustling walked down the al I'm like, fuck, you got muney phone five piece? What is gonna plump his stomach for a five dollar piece? Of eighteen's ago.
Since the official story went that Fletcher sold Dwayne Collins crack after Colin sold Chris the phone, it appears that they were holding drug charges over Fletcher's head while he testified, and who knows what effect that had on his truthfulness or his appearance to the jury. However, they were able to locate Dwayne Collins.
I'll say, if I would have never met him, I wouldn't be here. Man. He had to fall first, so y'all should have him here. When they brought him in there, Dwayne Kylis told him that he sold me the phone and everything.
I'm going home, And it appears the jury didn't have an easy time with it. On one hand, you had a definitive identification from the victim, who also said that the clothes Chris was wearing when he was arrested with a clothes worn by the assailant. But then there was a plausible story about the phone as well as DNA testing and the AZOS pramatic contributor that excluded Chris. But maybe that was just about confusing enough for the jury to totally misunderstand.
The jury deliberated for three days in this case, it's a long time. There was clearly a struggle to determine what the outcome was going to be in this case. But eventually they came to a verdict aggravated burglary, two counts of rape with a sexually violent predator specification, as well as aggravated robbery, kidnapping flowing as salt intimidation along
with firearms specifications for all this stuff. And this too is at a time in Ohio where you hit a specific year's sentence, right, so you get what you get. It's not like you serve ten and then you get a chance to go to the parle board and see if you serve the rest. It wasn't like that at the time Chris was in prison on this sentencing regime in Ohio.
Well, you know they came back in they made like guilty. I'm like, mentally, I wasn't even there. It took me months before and realize so much time I got man forty years flet then sink in it won real to me. I had to go through the sex program with all the rapists and sex defenders all over Ohio. It was some weird motherfucker said, hear me this guy next door. I ain't no, but I kept asking the guy I was the selling, like man, why that lady on? What
you going there and sell? A couple of days the dude taught me said, just standing the door, y'alls to watch. So I stood in the door while she tearing the sail up she had was doing collides. I said, oh, this dude tripping. He was cut pits as of girls. He cut him off the paper and they underwear and all that. After the shopping sparked making colligs. That was a wake up call, cause it's a it's a dorm for the sex offender. That's for real, That's all it is.
It was guys like my age, nineteen twenty years old. It was fireman in there cocks. That was the weirdest shit I ever went through my life.
Unfortunately, violence against women finds a home in seemingly every walk of life. In fact, it turned out that the pervasionists of violence against women even became an issue with Chris's jury for post conviction.
Well, JEWR said, oh, he looked, he looked guilty. When I came in, getting kind of found out she was in the rape for Robert case herself, so she shouldn't have been on the jury. So when they bring me back from the EVERDJ here the prostitutent that got to the lady. Now that they're told on everybody, they'll mess with her. Now she don't even want to talk.
And so that issue didn't pan out for Chris after his initial denials. A bit of serendipity worked in Chris's favor. In two thousand and four.
So Ohio a Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification also known as BCI. They have this database access to DNA profiles, and they turn up a hit to one of the male DNA profiles from the LB rape kit in the Federal Code of database. It matches a guy named Richard Marlin Stadmeire.
Like with most of these cases, while the state is busy prosecuting an innocent person, the actual assailants remained free to commit more heinous acts. It's almost like the tax dollars that we pay are funding a system that protects the actual perpetrators while they go about framing innocent people. So while Detective Schmidt was putting around with cat hairs. Another rape and robbery happened in May two thousand and one.
Yeah, it was just about three weeks after the LB rape. In May two thousand and one, Stadmeire and another guy were arrested and charged with sexual assault and battery. Is about only five miles away from where Elbe's apartment was in Mayfield Hights, Ohio.
Wow.
And in that other case, the perpetrators ambush the victim, held a gun to her neck, They forced her under her car, and they sexually assaulted and robbed her. And Stadmeyer was caught quickly for that case. He was convicted in March of two thousand and two. The other man involved turned out to Stadmeyer's friend and accomplice, Charles Boyd. And Boyd in that case he pled guilty to the Mayfield Heights attack.
And he had to when they took the chick to the ATM, the camera and the ATM called his tattoo.
He got a lenient sentence in exchange for testifying against Dadmire at trial in that.
One serial predators man.
Going back to Chris's case, remember there were two DNA profiles. Stadmeire matched the one that Chris had already been excluded from right, the azospomatic contributor still remains unidentified at that point. Now, of course, Charles Boyd should have been the obvious person to go test and compare and try to see if he's that second person, given this other case from three weeks later, five miles away.
Instead, Detective Schmidt once again tried to fit that same old square peg into the round hole.
Detective Schmidt goes and interviews Stadmeyre and Boyd.
Right.
Both guys were initially not cooperative. They denied involvement in the LB attack. Schmidt shows both men pictures of Chris Miller at the time Boyd was Mansfield. He confirmed at that time that he didn't know Chris, he only recognized him as another guy in the same prison. Stadmeyer also looked at the photo array told Schmidt he couldn't identify anybody. Several weeks later, Schmidt goes back and reinterviews Boyd, and at this point in time, miraculously Boyd comes around. He
admits he's part of the attack against DELB. He can describe LB's apartment with a lot of detail, but he's adamant that he never actually went in the apartment and instead, he was just the lookout guy while Stadmeyer and Chris went in and Rade del B. Boyd claimed that he had only met Chris a few hours before the attack against Delb and that after the rape, he and stan Meyer went up to a club to split the proceeds from the robbery, and Chris simply disappeared on foot, you know,
miles away from where Chris lived.
Phantom. I'll want none of the money. I'm cool.
Yeah, it makes no sense.
He said, his friend brought me to him. You'll free of bringing me to you. You just wanna go rob somebody with me?
You won't know me. Come on, that's crazy, right.
We can only guess how Schmidt got Boyd to change his story.
Well, let me shed maybe a little bit of light on that. You can make some inferences if you want. This is something that came out in our subsequent civil case. So again, even at the time of the exoneration, nobody knew this yet. We in our civil case got an affidavit from Richard Stadmeyer about when Schmidt came to see him, and so I'm going to read you some of the things that he says. At some point in two thousand and four, two thousand and five, I met with Detecta
Schmidt in another officer. Detecta Schmidt showed me a card with two rows of photographs. I told the Tectave Schmidt that I did not know anyone in the photographs. Detective Schmidt called me a smart ass and said, are you sure you don't know C. Mills. Detective Schmidt then showed me the photographs again and pointed out a photograph of a man. I did not recognize the man in the photograph. I later learned that the man in the photograph was
Christopher Miller. Detectave Schmidt told me to quote make this easier on myself. I understood that Detective Schmidt was telling me that if I identified Chris Miller from his photograph as the rapist, then he would help me. Detective Schmidt said he knew that Christopher Miller was the rapist and asked if I was just to look out. I again told him I do not know Christopher Miller. Detectave Schmidt
became angry and frustrated. Detecta Schmidt threatened me that he was going to talk with Charles Boyd and say that Boyd would be eager to give up information. So I think there's some assumptions we could make about how his conversation with Boyd went to that come out of that. Sadmar's indicted rape, robbery, kidnapping, all of these things. He
pleads not guilty. He goes to trial. Of course, Chris testifies at the Sammar trial, basically again asserting her innocence and being like, I don't know anything about any of.
This, right, well, I don't know them. Now he goat Stallmar, he told him like, I don't know him. He went with us, the prosecutor. You get to cussing me out, like why am I trying to get you out? Why are you trying to get you out? Saying, man, I ain't Doue with bro. That's all I can tell you. I didn't do it. I don't know. I don't know them dues. And they just send me back to the pod.
Now, remember LB, and everything we've ever heard has always been consistent. There are only two guys involved in this attack. Now, Schmidt saying on the stand, even though he testified in Chris's trial about her telling him about two attackers, now it's sad Meireer's trial. He's saying, he told me there were three guys, and he's pressed about this. He says about LB quote, is not her responsibility to remember the facts of the case, which is just wild.
On June twelfth, two thousand and six, Dad Mayer got an additional forty three years. Chris's conviction was strengthened by what appears to have been perjured testimony, and Boyd took a five year sentence for his alleged role as a lookout.
And concurrent with the case he was already serving. Right. Yeah.
In two thousand and seven, Chris tried to get a new trial on the Code has Hit, but the motion was denied. Meanwhile, the Ohio in Thiss Project began investigating Chris's innocence claims.
Sometimes you can request a set of records from a place and not get anything useful or new, and you request the same set you know later on right, and you're going to get different stuff. Sometimes that's what happens. In twenty sixteen, though, when things really break, because that's when they finally they get a response to a public
records request that they've sent. It includes new police reports, new notes, handwritten notes from Schmidt written shortly after the attack on LB being disclosed for the very first time. These reports and these notes contained exculpatory evidence, and they show that Schmidt has presented false and fabricated evidence to the prosecutors and during the trial, and given false testimony throughout the course of this case.
This is when they discovered LB's initial description of the attackers close and how that changed to align with what Schmid had pulled from Chris's hamper and closet.
And this now forms the basis for new post conviction filings for Chris that his counsel, Brian Howe of the Ohio Innocence Project filed for him, and that included an application for DNA testing, a motion for new trial, and a petition for post conviction relief.
The latter two were stayed, while newer and more sensitive DNA testing for the azosbramatic contributor moved forward.
Neil Brien was just talking two or three times a week. You know, we've been waiting on the DNA.
May thirty one, twenty eighteen, BCI issues that report. Lo and Behold comes back. It's Charles Boyd.
Sort of lose a full life news on. Everybody in the dorm. Gonna wait me up, man, you're on a TV, but I got my headphones on something like what he like, stand up? So when I stood up, out my faces on everybody TV in the door, I'm like, so he turned my TV to try to wait on watching him like man, I was he got a kicking and hind the walls. I was like, whoa, that was real. Then the CEOs like they were sitting in the dudes when they blocks go get see meals, tell him come over here,
like I know you didn't do that. You ain't your character? You know? Man? That was so surreal. Then Brian come see me go in the room. Brian got his note bad I'm reading upside down. He got his questious like where I want to eat? Like I'm kind of like, I mean tears now, like you know, yeah, that was awesome. Man. That dude fought. He used to come see me on the regular. Man, I got so much love for her, like, ain't my family? You know that DNA coming back was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Amen to that. So where'd you go to eat?
Real lobster? I met all the guys, all the other things. Zanner reeves that day was like I can't believe that I was out of to this day is still like is emotional to me.
Chris was soon reunited with his children.
You know, my oldest daughter, she stayed with me. My three grandkids and my son stayed next door because I bought my mother house next door to me, So my mother and my son stayed next door, and me and my daughter and my grandkid had stayed house next door.
His eldest daughter was the five year old little girl who had run to her father handcuffed in the back of the squad car on April thirtieth, two thousand and one. There's no amount of money that could make up for that lost time, but at least the civil suit made it possible to afford the house Chris just mentioned, but not before he had to face Detective Schmidt.
You know, I can't face the face with him. I got he was in the room for two hours and didn't even say nothing.
Turn your deposition.
He was in the room with me and Sarah for two hours, shook my hand and anything. When I walked in there, when his lawyer said, yeah, my client, Mark Smith. When I heard that name, I said who, he said, Marshman, I said, where he's ad He nodded his head doing and when I looked at him, I looked at him his head and I just everything came back. All I remember he had he got the little psorias listing on his elbows and all on his heads. But the whole time in the room he looking out the window like this.
Yeah. And you know, and you you didn't recognize him at first. So and it has a party to a lawsuit, you have a right two at ten depositions. But you also have a choice about whether you come to stuff like that. And I got a lot of cases where you know, those officers don't show up. Mark Sant. He decided he was going to come to this one, you know, the social path.
Well, at least he had the good sense to look away.
I said, why you won't look at me? Dude? These a piece of ship.
Going through these lawsuits is awful. I mean, it's obviously fathomably awful to be in prison for a crime you didn't commit and then seeking vindication through civil rights cases in the aftermath. Is it keeps the wound open, and it's like rubbing salt in the wound. And then you got to sit in the room and be polite to these people who took away years and years of your life.
You know his lords won't be out of light.
No, they're not. So is there anything you'd like to ask from our audience.
Just know that this could happen to anybody. Happening. Your brother's, your sisters, your mom. You're happening, and they're you're not going to stop. So the people's jail, you know, it's still dues in there doing the rest of their life from there.
Is there anyone in particular that's coming to mind right now?
There's a lot of guys. The Anthony Johnson, he's still in there. They stole all his evidence.
Anthony Johnson. All right, well, let's talk after this about Anthony. And with that we're gonna go to my favorite part of the show. It's called closing arguments, where I first thank you both from the bottom of my heart for joining us, and then I'm just gonna kick back in my chair, close my eyes, and listen to anything else you feel is left to be said. So let's start with Jacqueline and then Chris, you take us off into the sunset.
I think the conduct of Mark Schmidt in this case, it's one of the worst kinds of police misconduct where he was so hell bent on getting and then keeping a conviction that he was willing to manipulate other people and to lie on the stand. And there's no denying that, because there's two sets of testimony that are totally different. You know, we have these records in his own handwriting
that make that clear. And it just goes to I think the really deeply rooted problems in our criminal legal system where winning is so often more important than the truth and what justice are we serving and how are we in any way serving our communities or our societies if that's what our legal system is set up to do and the players in it are attempting to do.
I'm so glad that the truth came to light in this case, but I'm also just so enraged and sad that Chris had to live through this hell you know, before that happened. You know, he's not the only one, Like he just said, there are other people. There are a lot of other people who've lived the same kind of hell. We have to demand better, we have to demand different, We have to radically change the way our legal system works or this kind of thing is going
to keep happening. So I appreciate that we got here, but we have hell a lot of work to do.
It's been a hard fight. I ain't never really been quitter never, so I don't I don't know about quitting. You know that the prosecutors they need to start getting some some you know, they need something need happen in for just sending people to jail like that. It's like just sending people jail with no evidence, no nothing, you know, like people fucked my life up. Man. You know, even though I'm finding not able to live, wonder, my life
still fucking. I got anxieties, other stuff, mental health, but I'm able to deal with it. My man never raised me later out so I can't take care of my family and try to enjoy the rest of his life. I got. You know, it's a free man, because I wasn't living I was. I wasn't living in there. I wasn't living.
Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcast us 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 Cleiburn. The music in this production was supplied by three time Oscar
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
My name is Laura Aisville. Your podcast has actually had a profound impact on my life. I happened to pawn your podcast about five years ago, and at that time, I thought, like a lot of people, that if you were in prison, you did something wrong and you're guilty. I never, in a million years thought that prosecutors and detective I just never thought they could get away with
all the stuff that they've gotten away with. And from there I started getting interested in a lot of other social issues because I think the criminal justice system really, in my mind, is kind of a snapshot of racism and classism and all those kinds of things. When I started listening to your podcast, I would probably have labeled myself a conservative. I am now a registered Democrat and someone who is very active in my community. I volunteer
in the criminal justice system. I volunteer to help put Democrat candidates in office. I don't think that anybody would have had on my BINGO card that I would have been a volunteer for any Democrat ever, and that my politics would completely completely change and the way I thought about a lot of things completely changed. So I want to thank you for opening up my eyes. I want to thank all your wonderful guests for sharing their stories
and being people who forced me to listen. Like I said, my whole outlook and everything on the whole world our country completely changed, and it started just by listening to one episode of your podcast.