We initially released Stephen Carrington's story on June tenth, twenty twenty. Last we spoke, Stephan had been paroled while fighting to clear his name in the King's County Conviction Reviewing Unit. Finally, four years later, they concluded that we and all of you already knew that Stephan is innocent, and the DA agreed to support his motion to vacate the conviction and dismissed all charges. Here's our original coverage.
It was a new year, nineteen ninety five, and Stephen Carrington was a young man with a short criminal history who had just gotten out of prison. He had recently gotten married, a young father, was training to be an emt. After having paid his debt to society. His life was getting back on track. On the morning of January second, nineteen ninety five, Stephan's brother Mark stood outside out of a lumberyard in Brooklyn as Shannon France and another man arrived.
Mister Franz pulled the twenty five, announcing a stick up as the other man, Rob's customer, Hugh Keys, the store clerk, tries to grab mister France's weapon and was shot. Mister Franz loots the strong box and the two men fled, leaving mister Keyes alive. A confidential informant would tell the lead investigator, Detective Calabreeze, the names of three men who were seen by the lumberyard at the time of the crime,
Shannon France, Eddie West, and Mark Carrington. However, when he searched for Mark Carrington, Stephan popped up at the same address, and with his criminal record, Calabrizzi added his photo into an array. Hugh Keys gave a shaky identification, and in the absence of any physical evidence whatsoever connecting him to the crime, Stephan went to trial right next to the trigger man, Shannon France. The Carringtons hired a lawyer to protect both of their sons, but it turned out to
be to the detriment of one of them. Was never called to testify a trial, and twenty years later, finally free Stephen Carrington is out on parole but still fighting to clear his name of a crime that he simply didn't commit. This is wrongful conviction with Jason Flamm. Wrongful conviction has always given voice to innocent people in prison,
and now we're expanding that voice to you. Call 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, 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 Wrong for Conviction
with Jason Flum. That's me, I'm your host, and today we have a story and an outcome that we're gonna hope that who knows, maybe somebody out there can be helpful with because we are fighting to prove the innocence of the man who's sitting right in front of me now, Stephan Carrington. Stepan as I always say, I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy you're here.
Well, thank you, but I'm happy that I'm here having an opportunity to set the record straight and probably clear my name.
Yeah, that's what we're here for. Let's go back to that original faithful day, January second, nineteen ninety five. What happened that day in the lumber store.
Basically, all my knowledge of this saga story that took place I learned through reading trial minutes, from hearing from people in the street and things of that nature, because you know, I wasn't dead when.
It took place.
On that day, they said that two individuals into the lumber yard at a parent robbery which resulted to a homicide. One of the employees at the lumberyard try to take a weapon from this individual and subsequently this guy shot him twice and ultimately he died. Eventually he died. The two individuals fled the scene. My brother was the lookout and subsequently the person that is my co defendant, Shannon, his girlfriend best friend is the one that gave his name,
photos and everything to the police. There's a third individual who name was Eddie West. And I have to say that neither my brother or Eddie West was ever interviewed, questioned, sought after by the police department.
So Eddie West was the other guy in the store.
Now, Eddie West was one of the individuals that they mentioned that was out on the corner during the time the robbery was committed.
Okay, Shannon France though, was he had some involvement in the crime? Is that right?
They found his fingerprints on the cash box inside the lumberyard.
That's not a good sign. No, they didn't find yours.
No, they have no physical evidence or anything linking me to the crime, besides having a sibling who was mentioned to be outside with the individuals who was involved.
So these guys go, they robbed the lumberyard, and they shot a clerk named Lloyd Campbell. Yes, both in the head and in the back.
Yes.
And then they found the strong box, they looted it. The two guys fled the scene. Your brother was either there or not as a lookout whatever he was doing. He was apparently not in the store, that is correct. So how did your name come to be associated because it's sort of a leap to say, Okay, well they got your brother, now they're going to just go after you.
Well, I could tell you from the police reports the officers during the investigation when they received these names and photos of these individuals. There was an address on the photo, which was a promotional photo. At the time, I had a recording studio and we used to you know, wrench studio time out to individuals. One of the group, Shannon,
my co defendant. He was an individual who was in the rap group which my brother was affiliated with a part of, and they had promotional photos up and down the avenue, the same avenue that these guys went and committed this crime on. It so happened that they committed a crime across the street from his girlfriend's business, and his girlfriend best friend is the one that saw him out there and eventually gave his name in the photos
to the police, to the detective Calabrise. When Calabrese was doing his investigation, all he did was run the address through the police system, and my name came back because I was parole to that address. So when they discovered that I was on parole, the whole case shifted to me. Detective Calibres is quoted as saying that he had a gut feeling I was involved. He felt that I matched the description my brother was involved. He felt that if
I wasn't involved, I knew something about it. And because I had a prior and I was on parole, they came for me.
But you matched the description of the actual shooter, No or the lookout. No, whose description did you match?
He said? I matched the individual who robbed another patron of this lumber yard, mister yu Keys. I didn't know what he was talking about. In my mind, I believed that eventually, whatever they were trying to do with, you know, resolve itself. Because I didn't have I had nothing to do with any crime. This situation, you know, had me think about this one phrase, you know, and it always stuck with me that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And because of my past
is why I'm here today now. I'm not a goodie two shoe. I wasn't and that is only because I try to fit in with individuals I wanted, you know, to be down. I brought up my father's a pastor. I brought up in church. I went to church majority of my life and I wouldn't lie, you know, I hated church. I was forced to go every day. I wouldn't say a worse experience, but just not to do what normal kids do was kind of tough for me
because I was a free spirit. I like, so when I was like seventeen, I try to move out and so I started selling drugs with my best friend and that's how I got into the life of criminality and things of that nature. And subsequently I did get rested for drug seale robbery and I went to Rackas Island and I had a traumatic experience. I got jumped, got stabbed, got robbed, and as time went on, I knew that this wasn't for me. Prison wasn't something that I wanted
to do. It wasn't a lifestyle that I wanted to live. And if you know, selling drugs all these other stuff was going to lead me to prison, then I had to do away with that, and not just those activities, but also the people that I used to associate with. And that's what I did.
You were really putting your life on track at this time, which is sort of an added element of tragedy. You had gone through some training to be an EMT right, Yes, that's correct, your young father, that's correct, and basically married, recently married. Yeah, so you had your whole life in front of you.
I had changed my life. I'd cut off all my friends. You know. I had a newborn, my daughter. She was only seven months when they took me from home.
It's sickening, I mean, and let's set the record straight by talking about your alibi, which is a bit of a sensitive topic. I mean, you were a married man, but your alibi involves another woman, right.
Sad to saying, unfortunately, the day that they accused me of committing this crime, I was in the hospital with my wife, and I was also with another female friend before I was in the hospital with my wife.
Right, like you said earlier, you had a recording studio set up in your parents' basement. A young lady came to visit you there and spent the night. Yes, Now, unbeknownst to you, your daughter had developed an ear infection. I was taken to the hospital that morning. Now there's no cell phones back then. Your wife was calling around looking for you, and she gets a hold of your mother, who walks the phone to you downstairs.
That's correct.
You spoke with your wife, assured her that you were at your way, and then you shower and get the help.
When I got there, you know, basically, my wife is just like here, she's your responsibility. Now I had all and so you know, I did everything with her till the doctors wanted to come in. She had an air affection, so they wanted to do an X ray. Now, this is one of the things that baffled me even to today with all the technology and stuff that they have, my hands got captured in this X ray. When people read this case, really sit down and read this case, they wonder, how did you get convicted.
You had a solid alibi.
I trial.
One person testified against me, and I had four or five alibi witnesses that testified. The one person that testified against me mister Yu Keys, And I feel for him because I know that he's been duped because he told the nine one one operator when he called them during the day, that the crime was committed, about being robbed, about the individual being shot, what have you, And when they asked him to give a description enough the individual,
he told him that he couldn't. He said he never looked at the individual, that he never looked at the person that robbed them. Wow, because he was afraid too, because he seeing what happened to the guy that got shot, he was afraid for his life. He also told that to the first police that came on the scene. But yet here it is Detective Calabrese is saying that this individual picked my picture up and said, this is the guy that robbed me. The district attorney is saying that
the witness didn't say that. The witness said that I looked like the individual that robbed them. But in all the police reports it's saying that the witness said that I'm the guy that robbed them. But in court, the district attorney is saying that the witness said that I looked like the guy that robbed them, and if he sent me in person, he would be able to identify me.
But here's the catch.
The witness get on the stand and said that he never made no identification of me prior to my arrest. So how did I become a suspect?
Right? Which one is it?
Right?
Three different opinions about one identification? Now, who should you believe the detective who was saying that he positively identified me as the person that robbed them. The district attorney who was saying that the witness said I looked like the individual, but he will be able to identify me if he see me in person. Or the witness who said that he never made no identification when the police came to his house on numerous occasions.
Who should we believe this guy? He didn't know me.
The only thing that he knew, which he told the police, was that the guy.
Was dark skinned and stocky.
That described half of your neighborhood.
When they ask him, well how tall is this guy?
He don't know. Is he taller than you? I don't know? Is he shorter than you? I don't know.
Did he have a bed, I don't know. Did he have a mustache?
I don't know.
But he didn't see him.
What do you know?
He was dark skinned and stocky. They showed him the tape, and on the tape, you can't make the features out of the individuals, the two perpetrators. You can't really make facial features out of anybody on the tape. But the perpetrators had on hats and hoodies and three quarter length copes. And he stated that he couldn't see these individuals. He didn't know what the person looked like. He don't know if they had a bed, mustache anything. He was just
dusking and stocky. So when you look at the tape, all you see is shapes and sizes.
That's not enough.
He couldn't even identify hisself on the tape. During trial, the district attorney had to reference something of what he had on.
Wait, hold on the witness. This tape was so grainy that the guy couldn't identify himself.
Yes, when the district attorney asked him to point to himself on the tape, he pointed to someone else. Wow, And then the disc attorney says something like this, is that you with the checkerboard shirt or who's in the checkerboard shirt or something of that effect, right led him to basically say, oh, and then that's me standing right here.
Okay, I've heard enough about that. Now we know that's completely unreliable and out. That should have been out the window right off the bat. One of the things that sticks with me is the idea that detective Calibreeds claimed that he could recognize you from a security tape because he could recognize your walk.
Yeah.
I believe that was the lynch pin that's that sealed my fate because he got understanding and he pointed me out in court and he said this is the guy and they asked him how he knows and he says that he could tell that it was me because of how I walked. And the tape doesn't show the perpetrator from his waist down, and they showed this tape in court. But yet, you know, I believe that that was the nail in the coffin for me because he's an officer.
They have a tape, and people believe even when I was appealing, and I know that these judge never viewed the tape, but because of the language and the dialogue in the trial transcript, they even denied certain of my appeals because they saying you were clearly sint on the tape.
The idea that anyone could identify anyone else short of someone who does have a physical, you know, impairment for war impairment exactly that's what I was looking for, is preposterous. I mean, the fact that they would even present that as evidence, it's ridiculous. But they did, and the consequences are not funny at all. They're very real. So there's there's that, and then there's the fact that you know, we know, we know what happened at the trial. That
you know your brother was not allowed to testify. That is correct because your lawyer didn't submit his name on the witness list.
That is right.
Had he been able to, we don't. We never will never know what he would have said in the moment, but there's a realistic chance that he might have said something that could have exonerated you.
Well, well, at that time, my opinion and believe is that he wanted to come forward, and he did come to court to testify. And what I realized later is that my lawyer sent them home. When they started to question my parents about my brother and his whereabouts, they answered truthfully that he was here. Came to court today to testify, and the district attorney stopped the proceeding and asked for a sidebar so they can discuss certain things
which the sonographer records. And at this sidebar, the district attorney wanted to bring up my lawyer on charges for lyon about the whereabouts of my brother, because early that morning he said he don't know where my brother was. He never seen them, he never met him. And then it was discovered later the same day that my brother was at his office that morning and he sent them home.
Wow, that's a big lie.
And it's in the trial transcripts taking it up.
And he didn't forget that he saw your brother that day.
No, No, I mean because it was right. It was early that morning and trial was on and my brother came to testify.
At that time.
I believe the best. Now, I understand why a person would be apprehensive for coming forward and trying to tell the truth about what really took place or who was involved on things of that nature.
Yeah, I mean, he's your little brother. You know, he must have had a lot of conflicted emotions. I can't imagine being in his place. He's trying to save his own life at the same time. You know, he's got I'm sure a lot of guilt about putting you in this situation in the first place, because you talk about how you never would have been in the system if you hadn't have done certain things when you were younger.
But you also would have never been in this situation if your brother hadn't have been involved in this thing in the first place.
I think that I had set a bad president for my brother. I believe I was part of the influence.
Now.
I don't know if he looked up to me, but I believe that some of my actions are friends that I had that was around probably also roughed off on him. Unfortunately, I wasn't around for him when he started to engage in activities and pick certain people as friends that I could have probably said, you know, those are the guys you shouldn't thing, because what I try to do was distance myself from everyone that was in my neighborhood at that point in time when I started to clear my life up.
I mean, you basically took the fall for your brother.
Well, I wouldn't say that I took the fall. They gave it to me, right.
Your last hope was that your lawyer was going to do a good job representing you and that the truth was going to come out. That's correct, and you were going to go back and get a hold your life. But in fact your lawyer was compromised.
Yes, as it seems.
I mean, he was kind of like conflicted in between his duties as a lawyer to me and also to the people that were paying him to represent me.
And the people that were paying him were your parents. Yes, it's almost like they had a Sophie's choice. They had to choose what they did choose and if they had to choose to save one child for me.
It is basically and this was never spoken. This is just my thoughts as I got a little older and probably start to piece things together that you know, he had to pass.
You know, he was in trouble before.
Maybe he could handle this and we would support him. But my brother, he's the baby, and you know, the cops wasn't looking for him. They already gave him a clean slave and said they didn't want him. Even the district attorney said that they had nothing to convict him on, so they look for the easy choice, the person that had the record. If we can't get his brother, then we're going to get him.
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You served twenty three years.
Twenty three years in maximum security prisons in New York State. Yes, was there a worst moment and was there a best moment?
I mean I had a lot of not a lot of bad moments, but this.
A few.
One of my worst moments was when I was in green Haven in two thousand and nine ten. I was in college. I was taking Christian Ministry Human Services theology course. I was working in the barbershop and this particular day, I was coming from study hall that I have my books and I'm going back to my cell. I saw a crate and I was like, let me take the crate and put my school books in because if anything happened to the school books, I have to pay for him.
This is an old.
Maximum security prison, so they have leaks and waters dripping all.
Over the place.
Sometimes your toilet overfloor, your sink overfloor. So long story short of officers see me with the crate, tell me to put it back. I can't have it, and I complied. Supposedly he must have spoke to another officer because another officer calls me back and started going crazy on me, like what are you touching here? You know, don't eff in this, don't eff in that. And you know, I
just stood there. I figured, you know, okay, he got his buddies here, I'm gonna just listen to him, you know, comply and you know, hopefully, you know, I can go to my cell and lock in. And that wasn't the case, you know. So after he started to berate me about you know, touching stuff and his un and all this other stuff, I said, okay, you know, I'm sorry. You know,
here's the create and I turned to leave. And I think at this point in time he felt like I was dismissing him, you know, or I left without his authority, saying okay, you go, and he took offense to me turning to leave, and he jumped on me.
They beat me up.
You see my elbow, I left elbow.
Yep, got a giant nodding it right.
My shoulders still hurt to this day. They beat up my elbows, they beat up my shoulders, they beat me up, They dragged me to the box, and they tried to charge me with assault. And that was like for me, the worst day because everything that I was doing, I never had no physical altercations while I was in with inmates, all officers, anything of that nature. And I'm fighting my case and the only thing that's coming to my mind is that maybe I have an opportunity to get out
of the prison for my case. But if they try to convict me for assault on the staff, which mostly everybody gets convicted of, you know, I just seen my lights go out. It's your word against officer words. And more than one officer is gonna say that you didn't what you didn't do. And it's funny to me because it's like I'm saying to myself, like, God, how does
stuff and keep happening to me? And my parents. They're so religious that you know they would hit you with you haven't submitted to God yet, you haven't let go. You're being tested, You're going through the fire. And you know, I cried like a baby, because I seen my lights
go out. And maybe this was also the opportunity that I seen God working in my life because subsequently, guys that knew me, that le locked on the company with me, they had wrote this Attorney's General Office, they inspect the General. They had wrote prison Legal Services, and I never knew that people probably watched me or cared about me like that I'm talking about inmates, HEARDing, criminals or whatever, and
they inspect the general. When the inspect the generals came to see me, and I had written to them again cause one of the guys inside the shoe area had told me, listen, you need to write these people. You need to write this person.
Da da da da dad.
So I was getting advice from individuals or who I have to write, who I have to contact to try to get from underneath this, and so I wrote them as well. And when they came to see me, you know, we talk. He says, well, we have to do our investigation and stuff of that nature.
And then they came to see me, and.
I guess this is the first time in my life that I could say that I've seen the hand of God, because.
When he called me and they interviewed me.
He says, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we're not going to charge you with assault on staff because I've read all the reports that came in. I read the police reports, and I read not just your report, but I got several letters written from other inmates who have witnessed what took place. And I know that you didn't have contact with these individuals because they brought you to the box and it says your story and their story adds up, and none
of the police stories adds up. But you have to go through the format I still had the hearing to go to, and this is how corrupt the Department of Corrections is. I remember the officer that had the altercation with me, that smacked me in my face and hit me with the sticks and all that. And there was two other officers there, but I didn't remember the two. And the reason why I remember the one is because he was my company officer.
He's there every day.
The officer that comes in the hearing was in the officer that hit me or I had the altercation with It was somebody else. And we're going through the formalities and questioning the officer and stuff like that. So the officer said that we were standing the right shoulder, the right shoulder, and I took my left hand and punched them on the left side of his face. That caused him to bust his head on the pipes and bust
his head open. And when I started to play if we stand the right shoulder to shoulder and I hit him with my left hand on the left side of his face, how is that possible. I would have to go over It's not come back and hit him. And you know so, so I asked the officer to demonstrate this punch. Can you demonstrate how I hit you with my left hand on the left side of your face? If we stand the right shoulder the right shoulder, I
would like for you to demonstrate this. And the hearing officer said that there will be no demonstrations in here, so he never got to demonstrate, and I, you know, objected, and I told him that it's impossible that that can take place. Long story short, the officer that wrote the report or that they brought in that said he wrote the report. I asked him did he see the police hit me? And he said yes. So then I asked him, then, why is it not written in the report that the
police struck me. The lieutenant looks and he's like, I said, it's not in the ticket, it is not in the two firm reports. It's not in any document that was given to me. So the lieutenant asked the CEO, why is that? And maybe at this time he was afraid. I don't know what it is, but I believe that at this point in time, this is when I've seen God worked in my life. And he tells the truth. He says, I didn't write the report. The lieutenant said, you didn't write the report. He said, no, I didn't
write the report. He said, who wrote the report? He said, a sergeant such and such wrote the report? He said, where was the sergeant when the incident happened. He wasn't there. The sergeant wrote the report, made another officer sign it and sit in the hearing as the officer who witnessed what took place and knew nothing about it, and they dismissed the case.
Amen to that, or you might not be here now so and we know now that you paroled. And I want to get to that, because that's a really extraordinary story in and of itself. I think it says a lot about what the parole board really thought about your claims of innocence. But before we get to that, I want to talk about what was going on on the outside. Because there was a guy in the neighborhood. I mean, can we mention his name?
Well, for legal purposes, you know, I wouldn't like to mention his name. It called my case is still being reviewed by the Convention Review Unit. So, but this individual was a childhood friend of mine. We haven't seen each other in years, and he had moved away from the neighborhood. And when he came back to the neighborhood, he was looking, you know for old friends, and you know, subsequently he was looking for me and heard that I was in prison.
So he wanted to.
Know why, and the whole story came out and he couldn't believe it. You know, he took it upon himself to try to help me.
How do you do that?
Well, the individual who actually committed a crime used to see him all the time, and because he's still living in the neighborhood, mostly people that knew both of us, He would ask them, you know, how they felt about him. It was he still you know, like welcome, or they still had love for him, knowing that I was in prison serving time for a crime that he committed. And my friend, he was like, he couldn't believe this, and he's like, this guy just keep saying that he did it.
He did it, and he's the reason why you in prison. You know, he wrote me a letter. I showed you the letter that he wrote. And he took it upon himself too to record this individual, to tape them saying the same things about me being in prison for a crime he committed, and even went as far as that he used to he does security bouncing work because he's six eight, three hundred and something pounds, and this is
God again in my life. He so happened to be working doing security at a spot where detective Calibri's, the leading detective in my case, was also working. What's the odds of that?
Pretty long?
And he spoke to Calibres about the case and told him that he had the wrong person in prison for the crime. What Calbri's say, Calabri's just told him tell his brother to come forward and he can get out.
That was his words.
See, because Calabri's knew and he had told me as much when he brought me in, you know, because he was like, where's your brother weighs his friends, and I'm like, I don't know. I'm not my brother's keeper. You know, I don't live with my brother. I live with my wife.
But he didn't care about that. And you know, once things start to unravel in the conviction review unit and they start to review my case, they reached out to him two to three weeks after they reviewed my case and next thing, you know, self inflicted wound somewhere in his car. You know, he took his own life.
Yeah, it seems like his conscience may have gotten to him. And we'll never know because he didn't leave a note or anything, right, but the timing seems.
Really to be suspicious.
Yeah, I mean, the conviction review unit starts looking into your case, it's inevitable that they're going to find out what happened. Because the conviction Review Unit in Brooklyn, I can say this, they don't fuck around. But these guys are under the leadership of American Zales and before that Ken Thompson. They are committed to finding and identifying and resolving wrong for conviction cases. And they've been doing it and walking the walk and so once they took over
investigating your case. Yeah, Detective Calabrizi must have known that some of his misdeeds were going to become public.
Yes, he did everything from interviewing the witnesses to getting the fillers for the lineups, conducting the lineup. I mean, nobody else did anything. His name is on all the reports.
So the guy who holds the key is dead. Now you went to the parole board, Yes, and you did exactly the opposite of what All the smartest people you knew were the most the wisest people, I should say, were advising you to do right.
I'm not gonna lie, you know. I was very apprehensive and rustle with it.
You know.
As my wife was here, she would tell you, you know, because knowing what I know now, I had told her and I told her.
Before that if.
I had a chance to do this all over again, I probably would have copped out to something less right.
So I was gonna say is when you go to the parole board, the general rule, and this is with very very rare exceptions, the parole board wants to hear you express remorse for the time, whether you committed it or not. They don't know whether you committed it, they
don't have time to reinvestigate it. In New York State, the parole Board is reviewing ten thousand cases, around ten thousand cases a year, and there's only somewhere between twelve and nineteen people for the entire state in panels of three. So they have a few minutes to look into your case. They don't have time to go through it, even like we're doing now. So it would be great if they did, but they don't. They're only human beings, They only you know,
they don't have so much time in the day. So the logical thing to do for somebody like you who's desperate to get out and get back with your family and get back on, you know, to your life, is to just plead guilty. And then they're most likely going to say, okay, well you've served twenty three years and you've done you know, ministry and all that. There's other stuff in prison. Yeah you can go home now. But you didn't know.
And I mean I wrestled with it. I prayed about it because I want to go home. You know, what should I do? I mean, even though all these years I'm telling them I didn't commit the crime. Now I'm up for parole. What do I do Do I go in there and put on a show and say that I'm remorse and I'm sorry and that you know, you know, I don't know what to say but the truth. And I wrestle with it. And I mean, like people is telling me, don't go in there and tell them that
you didn't do it. They're going to hit you, They're going to give you more time. And I say, well, I'm going in there and I'm going to tell them what I've been telling them since the beginning. I didn't commit the crime, but I understand why it's possible for individual like me to be considered for a crime such as this, you know. And I'm gonna give them my story about my past, how I came to be here today, and what I've done since I was incarcerated, and what I plan to do when.
I get out.
And for that whole ten days after that, I had to wait to get the results, seven to ten days. It was the worst week of my life. No sleep, no sleep, because that whole week I already felt because the way that they spoke to me inside the parole board, I felt that there wasn't going to release me.
My counselor gives me the envelope.
I opened it, and to be honest, my eyes are teared up because I'm and I'm looking for the worst. And it's sad to say I'm looking for denial. I'm just looking for any word with a D for denial, refuse, whatever. And I didn't see and my counselors like you okay, I said, yeah, I just I can't find the decision. So he's like, well, give it to me, and he highlights it he knew before and he gave it back to me, and I couldn't believe it.
They let me go.
And I'll be lying out of there, you know, call my family and told him and there was overjoyed.
But it was it's still a lot now just thinking about it.
I can't imagine. Nobody can't imagine that hasn't been through it.
You know, that was the best moment for me in prison.
That and learning some stuff about myself because you know, like I became the director of that used as system program and I used to mentor teens that used to bring high school kids in and I used to speak to them about my life, life story, about how I end up serving a life scientist for a kroim I didn't commit and how easy it is full you to find yourself in situations like this by the company that you keep in, the choices that you make, and the
bro shure that I penned had the title. You know, you never get a second chance for first impression.
It's been an extraordinary experience for me getting to know you and learning about your story. Of course, you know, I thank you for coming in and sharing it, and I think that through your words it's going to inspire a lot of people to keep fighting whatever they're up against. And now it's time for my favorite part of the show. Fans of the podcast know that this is the time when I turn off my microphone and just sit back and leave your microphone on. For closing arguments.
I guess the one of the most things that I could possibly say is for jurors, because district attorneys is going to be them. They trying to win cases. Officers are trying to lock people up. But as a juror, it is your job.
To discern the truth, to find the truth, and sometimes I guess they get more clouded by what took place as opposed to what.
Is the truth and so emotions.
Come into play with everything as opposed to rational and that's why you can find individuals such as myself in positions like this where you can do time for a crime you didn't commit, because people's emotions are more tied up in the event, but not trying to find the actual truth when they sit.
On jerors on jury.
I believe part of that outside of what the district attorney did it detective did, the jurors are the ones who has the final say, and if they don't use rationale to decipher the truth from the garbage that is being spewed out there, that's why there's so many of us in prison. Ruefully, anyone out there that is going through a situation such as this, just continue fighting. No one knows what the future holds, and its hope.
Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three I'm Oscar
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one