Hi, it's Connor Hall, the producer for Wrongful Conviction. Today we're sharing Lamont Hunter's story not because of a new development in his case, but for how closely it resembles that of Robert Robertson and how different the outcomes have been so far. In both cases, there were unfounded accusations of sexual assault that loomed large over their death penalty prosecutions, while medical experts for the state touted tenets of the
now debunked hypothesis known as shaken baby syndrome. This hypothesis was taken on faith by an establishment of science and could only be tested by time, which eventually revealed a flawed theory. The neurologist who developed it back in nineteen seventy one, doctor Norman guth Kelch, before his death in twenty sixteen, said quote, I am frankly quite disturbed that what I intended as a friendly suggestion for avoiding injury to children has become I'm an excuse for imprisoning innocent parents.
End quote. Yet many prosecutors and lawmakers around the globe have not found the same courage as they continued to fight to maintain wrongful convictions as well as prosecute newly aggrieved in innocent parents, and Robert Robertson will be the first of them to be put to death if we do not continue to fight those that value finality over humanity.
Robert was scheduled to be executed in the state of Texas on October seventeen, twenty twenty four, but through an unprecedented series of legal maneuvers, the Texas Supreme Court issued his stay. A new death warrant will likely be sought as Robert lives to fight another day. Governor's attorneys, general, lawmakers, prosecutors, they have the power, but not a responsibility, to do something about injustice. We saw that play out last month
with the execution of Marcella's Williams in Missouri. Innocence is not enough to set you free. The Supreme Court decided that back in nineteen ninety.
Three Herrera v. Collins.
That's your system to them, and it's why folks who are in my opinion, in humane and moratley bankrupt. They're just carrying out the law. I mean, it's only as a matter of what seems to be chance in both cases that you know, I was lucky enough to meet Lamont Hunter as a freeman on a boat in New Orleans, while the image of Robert touching the plexiglasses Jason and I walked away from the visiting area is going to continue to haunt me, especially if the efforts to kill this innocent man succeed.
In two thousand and six, Lamont Hunter lived with his girlfriend los Milda, along with their blended family in Cincinnati, Ohio. Leismilda's three year old son, Trustin, had been previously hospitalized for what was believed to be injuries resulting from child abuse. However, no charges ever materialized. Then, on January nineteenth, two thousand and six, Trustin was in Lamont's care when paramedics were called to take Trustin again to the hospital, where he
passed away. Lamont told police that Trusten took a tumble down the stairs, but the state's experts believed that the medical evidence told a different story, that Trustin's injuries could not have resulted from a fall down the stairs, but rather from violent shaking coupled with forceful impact. In addition, that the three year old boy may have been sexually assaulted. With evidence like this, it didn't take long for a three judge panel to sentence Lamont Hunter to death. 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. Call us at eight three three two O 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 A three three two O seven four six sixty six.
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today we have a story of a crime that never happened, that resulted in a death sentence for a man who should have been given time to grieve. Laman Hunter a sentenced to death in the state of Ohio for a crime that never happened, and here to help him tell his story. I'm going to introduce I actually asked how she would like to be introduced, and Laman jumped right in and said, just call
her the amazing Aaron Barnhardt. But for context, she is Assistant Public Defender at the Southern Ohio Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit. So Aarin, thank you for being.
Here, Thank you for having me.
And here to tell his own story with this assist from Aaron and myself is the man himself who survived this incredible ordeal. Lamont Hunter La Mont. I'm so happy you're here.
I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
It's kind of a miracle that you're here, and you know, and Aaron, you are a big part of that miracle. So let's go back to your upbringing. The place that you were born and where you lived has a lot to do with your wrongful conviction. But did you actually grow up there in Hamilton County.
Ohio, Cincinnati. Yes, I did Hamilton County.
I was born in the late sixties, so I grew up through the seventies and eighties and nineties. My mother, my father, hit my heroes work their fingers to the bone to provide a good life for me and my siblings. My childhood was amazing. Like I always say, I was fortunate to be born in a family that I was born in school. I mean cousins, aunts, uncles. We are all very close knit family, you know.
I understand eventually you became a father as well.
Absolutely, I got four biological children and two children that I raised, and I have an honorary daughter, Aisha.
What are the kids' names, Ashley.
Mariah Lamont Junior, Valita, Eric, Eish and Trinity. I've been instrumental in very hands on and raising all my children, all six of them.
To support his family, Lamont worked as a roofer, but also he had a side hustle sending drugs through Federal Express, which landed him in federal prison. Now, drug trafficking is in no way related to how Lamont ended up on Ohio's death row, but his prior conviction comes up later in the story. So after his stint in prison, he went back to roofing and met a woman named los Milda,
and together they had Lamont's youngest child, Trinity. Louis Milda also had three boys from a previous relationship, Tyree, Tyrell, and Trustin.
So Lamont actually didn't spend much time with trust In. The little boy who died in this case, Trustan was Luzmilda's son, and because of complications with her health, he was born. He was basically raised by other people family friends and relatives.
Right Wilma Forte and Amber White.
Yes, after she delivered Trusting she had kidney stones, so she had immediately go back in for kidney surgery, and she couldn't care for Trusting. So they were loving enough to take Trusting And for some reason I don't agree with luz Milde on this, she just chose to let him stay there. That's where Trustin lived.
Now, Loismila Lamont rarely took care of Trusting, and prior to the two thousand and sixth incident that resulted in Trustin's death, there had been some suspected abuse back in two thousand and four.
In January of two thousand and four, Lamont had been carrying trust In up a flight of stairs and tripped and fell on trust In and ended up breaking his leg bone his tibia. At the time, his two older half siblings were there, saw what happened. It was obviously an accident. No one even suspected it wasn't an accident. He was treated and let go. Then in June of two thousand and four, Trustin had sort of a constellation of injuries, some swelling, scratches, rashes, some other abrasions like
by his lips and his ears. When Luizmilda goes to change trust In's diaper, she sees that it's really raw and red and irritated. Luzimilda wondered if his genital swelling was a bug bite or diaper rash, so she takes him to a local urgent care. When they see these conditions, they end up sending him to the hospital and it's treated as a case of abuse. Now, I don't think we'll ever know what happened to Trustin. I think it's
probably a combination of things. We found in medical records that Trustin had a lot of skin conditions ezema, other sort of conditions where his hair was falling out, environmental stressors and things like that, and then he was playing with two older, rambunctious kids. And I think probably what happened was there was some combination of maybe a little rough housing, maybe some irritation that trust In himself could
have scratched or irritated that resulted in these conditions. No matter what happened, everyone agrees Lamont wasn't involved, but these circumstances were treated as abuse. And at the hospital when they did a skeletal survey an X ray, they discovered that Trusten had a number of older healing fractures in his hands and feet. Now, Trustin was hardly ever taken care of by his mother, and therefore Lamont so at the time that these injuries would have been dated when
he sustained them. Trustin was not around either Lamont or his mother. He was in the care of other.
People, so he had lived with them.
Right, So even if these older injuries were the result of the abuse, it was not from Lamont or his mother.
No one was charged in this two thousand and four incident, but child protective services were made aware, and even though Lamont was never even considered a suspect in two thousand and four, the Hamilton County prosecutors raised the specter of ongoing abuse while seeking the death penalty for Lamont in two thousand and six.
The Death Penalty Information Center has a report called the two Percent Report. If you look statistically, Hamilton County and Kyga County in Ohio, Cleveland and Cincinnati are part of the two percent of counties in the entire nation that account for more than half of people on death row and more than half of people who've been executed in this country.
We've covered a lot of Ohio wrongful convictions, too many to list, but we're going to link Elwood Jones and Keith Lamar both death penalty cases handled by Hamilton County prosecutors in which they hid or ignored exculpatory evidence at trial, and Lamont's story is no different. So let's get to that. On January nineteenth, two thousand and six, tragedy struck when Trustin was staying with Liz Milda and Lamont.
Loiz Milton, Well, she get up and go to work, and about an hour or two later, I get the boys up to get ready for school themselves. So I get Jordan and Tiree out the door on their way to school. And now I got trust In in Trinity and I get trust and situated for breakfast in our living room that I made him French toes sticks and little sausage links. He wanted to watch the new Jurassic Park movie, so set him in a chair, put it on for him, and decided to start my daily chores.
I grabbed Trinity, my nine month old, and I went downstairs in the basement to finish doing the laundry. That's when I first heard him running across the floor above me. Next thing, I hear, he's coming tumbling down the stairs and hit his head. So I immediately run over. His head was back and his eyes were fluttering. Now I'm scared. I just scooped him up and run up the stairs. So I figured I throw some water on his face to try to jug him awake, and his eyes were
still fluttering. So I seeing that he was struggling to take a breath. I don't know how to do CPR, but I attempted it, so I had to open his mouth. I noticed a piece of sausage lodged in the back of his mouth, blocking his airway, so I got that out on my finger. I held his nose and I blew in his mouth like I see people do on TV.
I don't know. I don't know how to do it.
I'm not certified or nothing that so I probably blew too much in his mouth because his stomach was getting bloated. I got scared, so I called his mother and she immediately came home. They made a big deal of this, by the way, at my trial that I didn't immediately call the paramedics instead of calling his mother.
They thought it was something to Farius, but it wasn't.
It was just I panicked, and so paramedics got there very quick and started tending to him.
I was just a mess.
The dog is running around parking.
Absolutely, I could never prove this, but I know my dog when I left the room, tried to take his food from him while he was sitting in that chair. I believe that's what prompted Trusting to run across that.
Floor, and that might explain why he ended up with a piece of food lodge in his throat.
Absolutely, the sausage, and I know my dog was harassing for it. But they get Trusting in the ambulance and Zamilda gets in the ambulance with him, and me and Trinity we followed them to the emergency room at Children's That's how my day started. January nineteenth, one thousand and six.
You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Trustin had head injuries that were fatal. He had blood trapped between the layers of his brain, which they call subdural hematoma, and then his brain also swelled, which is what happens anytime there's any sort of injury or trauma to the brain. They call it cerebral edema. And anytime your brain swells that also puts pressure on your optic nerve and results in rental hemorrhages, so bleeding on the back of your eye.
And by now our listeners are familiar with these findings as what are commonly associated with the grotesque junk science prosecution theory as shaking baby syndrome. We're going to have our shaken baby syndrome episode of ronful conviction junk science lengked as well. For years, the theory was widely accepted across the medical establishment that the presentation of these three things could mean only one thing, that the infant or toddler had been shaken to death by their most recent caretaker,
denying any other potential or even probable causes. But over time this theory has gradually fallen apart.
And this field has been very nimble because anytime someone shows well, guess what this person, We know it was an accident and they show these injuries and then they say like, oh, okay, well, first of all, we're not going to call it shaking baby. Because they did experiments. They had big beefy football players shaik a crash test dummy baby, and they could not generate the type of force needed to cause the brain injuries without breaking the child's neck. And so they said, okay, so so maybe
shaking alone can't cause it. So shaking with impact, that's what we'll say, shaking with impact. So we don't call it shaken baby, will call it abusive head trauma. And they just keep morphine and adapting to whatever fits.
No matter what has been revealed through biomechanical studies and a confluence of medical histories that prove that, in addition to accidental causes like a fall down the stairs, there are eighty one pre existing medical conditions and counting that can cause the presentation of those findings. And yet there are still proponents of this theory that refused to admit that limiting the cause to shaking alone is an unscientific
leap in logic. And so, in two thousand and six, even though some of the medical establishment had begun to realize the problem with this theory, including the neuroscientists who had developed it, the state's witnesses attributed Trusten's triad of findings to shaking and any other injuries, including a sheared vertebrae and what appeared to be an impact injury to further violence. Lamount was arrested on January twenty second, two
thousand and six, three days after Trustin's death. He's taken a trial in June two thousand and seven.
The prosecutor, through their child abuse pediatrician witnesses, said these kinds of injuries could not have come from a fall down the stairs. It had to have been abuse. You know, we only see these kinds of injuries from forces like in a car accident or maybe LaMotte swung trusting around like a base ball bag. You know, that's what have caused it, but not from falling down the stairs. And then in addition, Trusten had some injuries in his anal
rectal era. He had three puncture wounds in his rectal mucosa, so kind of up in his rectum. There were three wounds. I think they were about two millimeters in diameter, and then kind of on the outside lip of his anus. It's not entirely clear if it's a tear or a cut. It wasn't that accurately described, and so those injuries were used to support a charge of rape.
As we'll explained later, there was a completely innocent explanation for those anal and rect injuries. Yet the child abuse pediatrician painted a completely different picture.
The child abuse pediatrician did say that the injuries were consistent with an adult penis. Now that's the magic word, right, consistent, which I think a lot of fact finders here and think that means a match, but it doesn't at all. It just means we can't exclude it as the cause.
I mean, what adult penis is two millimeters in diameter.
So macrof is only talking about the external injury, kind of along the edge of the anus. She never saw the internal injuries, the puncture wounds.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
So the child abuse pediatrician did not have a full understanding of the injuries, which may explain why the coroner, doctor Gretel Stevens, true different conclusions.
What the coroner said was that it looked like the interior wounds were like poked with something sharp, like maybe a pencil. And the prosecutors argued at trial that this wasn't penile rape, but this was rape with some sort of object.
While that explanation is still incorrect, at least doctor Stevens's assumptions were more grounded in reality. However, the investigation failed to find any such object or any efforts to cover
up that kind of crime. Doctor Stevens also acknowledged the evolving science on shaking baby syndrome, saying that a rotational fall would be consistent with the shearing of the neck that trust And experienced, and that stairfalls are responsible for the kinds of findings that were present in trust In situation.
And that's the thing, like doctor Stevens pretty much was a straight shooter at trial, and it was just the fact that she hadn't seen the photographs of the actual staircase to know that there was a ledge abutting one side of the stairs that kind of mashed up with some injuries that she saw. There was also a throw rug if he had slipped on, that may have contributed. She didn't know that Lamont had reported hearing trust and running.
In addition, the coroner was unaware of the innocent explanation for these anal and rectal injuries. So since neither one of the state's experts had a full picture of the incident, this, along with Lamont's ineffective council, allowed the state's erroneous narrative to take.
Hold Lamont's triald counsel, Clyde Bennett, is the attorney's name. Is not a bad criminal defense attorney. He's actually pretty well known as a good criminal defense attorney. But there are a couple things that just weren't going to work in Lamont's case. Number One, a death penalty case is different, A dead kid is different, and you can't just kind of rely on your old tricks and techniques in this kind of case. Number two, this is a case where
the evidence is all based on medical expert testimony. The evidence is the state expert coming in and saying you can only get these injuries from abuse, period. And his trial council did not hire an expert, not only not to testify or just even to consult with an expert to explain the medical records to him, to explain the flaws in the state experts testimony and reasoning. He said he thought that he could just rely on cross examination,
and his theory was that this chatabusee pediatrician. She's not qualified to be talking about retinal hemorrhages. She's not an ophthalmologist. She's not qualified to be talking about the mechanism of injury. She doesn't have a degree in biomechanics or anything. Now, this is all true. The problem was when he made that objection, the court overruled it, and he had no plan B. So when that didn't work, he was left to just kind of on his own try to cross examine.
And he knew enough to be dangerous, and so he's asking questions about stuff that's not relevant. Like he's trying to say, isn't it true that you could have a delayed onset of injury? And that is true sometimes except for that's not what happened in Tresten's case. We know what happened. He fell down the stairs and was immediately unresponsive, So that line of questioning was completely irrelevant. Also, he didn't hire an expert to look through the medical records.
And he didn't look through the records himself.
I mean, Lamont would have been better off with his original court appointed attorney, not I mean much better off. Because it turns out that mister Bennett was more than a little bit distracted at the time.
That's true, he was a little distracted with his own legal troubles. Mister Bennett himself was being investigated for some pretty serious federal crimes, and in fact, shortly after Lamont was sentenced to death, he signed his own plea agreement and turned himself into federal custody and went away to federal prison. He pled to structured deposits, so depositing money just under the reporting limit.
Unbeknownst to Lamont, Clyde Bennett was connected to a major drug dealer out of Dayton, Ohio, both of whom were subjects of a federal investigation that ended in cooperation and a plea deal for Clyde. Meanwhile, in Lamont's trial, Clyde neglected to prepare the vital medical expert testimony, as well as advised Lamont to take a bench trial in front of a three judge panel, reasoning that a jury might be susceptible to the emotion surrounding a dead child.
Turns out, so are three judge panels.
Exactly, especially when we know for sure that this judge who's now passed on. Norbert Natel told Clyde Bennett and his chambers it wouldn't be wise for him to bring me in front of him on a bench trial because I lose, And he still advised me not to have a.
Jury now The advantage of not having a jury is that you can save a lot of time because you don't have to go through vaidir and get a death qualified jury.
So Clyde took a flat fee.
From Lamont's family. So it's just economical to make the trial go as fast as possible, and so great way to cut down on time is to wave jury.
It sounds to me like the judge actually was telling him if you do this, you're going to lose, and he was like, great. I mean, I'm glad you're laughing a lot, because you know, sometimes I feel like I'm laughing to keep from crying. But you live through this.
That's what I'm doing. I've been doing in society. Oh my god, I've been laughing to keep from crying.
Man.
It's just so much trauma on this journey. Man, It's just a lot of trauma.
So this bench troul played out exactly as this judge told Lamont's attorney it would.
It was pretty easy for them to convict because all of the state's expert testimony was entirely unrebutted. So they have these experts from the state saying this had to be abuse. There is no way this could have come from a fall down the stairs. And then on top of that, they had the state saying and look at all this other suspicious stuff injuries in his anal rectal era, these injuries in the past when Lamont was around, trust In.
Clyde Bennett pops up in the jail on a Sunday and I'm pissed at this point, I'm like, what are you doing here? And he just said, man, you know, I just wanted to come and ask you how are federal prisons, how are they ran, what it's like in federal prison. I'm looking at him, like, what does that have to do with my case? He said, well, he's well, I know you've been in federal prison before, and I'm going there. I'm fighting for my own life, Lamont, so
I just wanted to know how these federal prisons. I walked off on him and went back to my sale. Man, I was done with him at the time, so all hope was lost at that point. I was convicted and then mitigation will you have to get the most closest loving person in your life. They had to literally beg the courts to save my life. It was humiliating for me and my family, and it didn't work, so they were dug in.
So I still got sentenced to death.
And my father, who I have a lot of love and respect for, he's actually my hero. I getting on a stand and testifying and asking the course to save my life and telling the story that he did about me and growing up with my siblings. He had a heart attack right there in the courtroom.
He had a heart attack right there in the courtroom.
Right in the courtroom. Ambulance was called. They saved his life there, but he had a heart attack right in the courtroom. They never got talked about in the media or nothing like that. They was too busy calling me a monster and a child rapist. And my father, he's no longer with us. He died in twenty eighteen before I got home, but from that day his health just declined.
Since to death.
Isolated away from general population, there's no programming set up for us back there. It's just mundane and waking up every day knowing that your name is on a list to be executed. The State of Ohio intents on executing you. And that's like having a gorilla constantly on your shoulders, weighing you down. And this is it from far as you can see, is it every day? It's like the same day. The first year I was there, I was still in the haze. I didn't know what to expect
as far as the courts. I've never appealed the sentence before, so I was, of course jaded and kind of paranoid of my attorneys after coming through the horror show of the trial that I went through and being served up by my trial attorney, like, well, what's going to happen at this phase.
Although Lamont had pretty capable post conviction attorneys from the Ohio Public Defender's Office, unfortunately they couldn't get any traction in state court, which is not uncommon. But their claims that they raised were not that different than what we raised in our federal habeas petition, and the problem is they didn't have access to the evidence they needed. They asked for discovery to get the medical records to depose the coroner, just like we did, and it was all denied.
As we've mentioned a trial, both states experts Macaroff and Stevens have been operating with incomplete understandings of the incident. Additionally, Makarov had ignored the evolving science on SBS, which continued through post conviction, even as the science continued to evolve further and further away from her position.
Doctor macaroff, she's doubling down on everything as everyone in her sort of little industry has to do. This is what makes this field so dangerous and unscientific is the feedback loop that exists. During our deposition, doctor Macroff cited an article about stairfalls, saying, look, we know stairfalls aren't fatal because we draw all this data from different hospitals. All these kids come in after falling down the stairs
and they didn't die. And I said, okay, I said, would trust In's case be included in that data set? And she said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, is his case classified as a stairfall because you guys don't believe mister Hunter that he fell down the stairs, right, And she was like, oh, that's a good point. They're self selecting the data they're using to draw the conclusions that they used to exclude the data that they don't want.
And then they say that, you know, these are so rare, and I agree, you know, most kids who tumble down the stairs don't die from it. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible, which is what they say to put people on death row. And just because something is rare doesn't mean that they know which is the rare case and which isn't. So there's all this bad science that goes into it. The thing that actually is scientific about this would be biomechanics, right, Force chaw Tobe s Pediatricians
don't think biomechanics have any place in their world. And when doctor Macroff, she says, I didn't say lamont use trust and I just said that his report does not match the mechanism of injury. And I said, well, when you're talking about the mechanism of injury, that kind of sounds like force.
Right.
Oh, no, I'm not a physicist. Biomechanics doesn't fit there or whatever. I don't know how right, I don't know how you can talk about a mechanism without using biomechanics. Anyway, we did hire a biol mechanical engineer and we went to the site and he took measurements of the stairs and the elasticity of the surface, and he used a computer program and he put in the height that Trustin was and his weight and the.
Average that a child his age.
Could run and you know, ran through all these different scenarios of how he could have fallen and showed that, like the forces generated were well within the range that have been shown to be enough to generate the kind of injuries.
That he had. So absolutely stair falls can cause this.
And also now with cell phones and security cameras, like, people have started capturing injuries that otherwise would have been indicted as abuse if we didn't have proof that it was actually accidental. And doctor Macaroff claims it.
Even that could be doctors, even that could be doctored.
She maybe would have to see it with her own eyes to be convinced, and so you know, there's just no pleasing the child abuse pediatricians.
However, the defense was able to please the Carner doctor Stevens when they provided a fuller picture of the incident, including photographs of the staircase, a biomechanical expert, and finally the innocent explanation for the anal and rectal injuries that were available to prosecutors, the States, experts, and even la Mon's attorney at the trial. Had he even bothered to look.
He would have found, like our investigator Pam Swanson did when we took over the case. Notations in the medical records that staff at the hospital in the pice had attempted to take Trusten's temperature three times with a rector thermometer, had been unsuccessful, and immediately after that had noted blood in his rectum, which of course perfectly matches up with the three puncture wounds that the coroner identified and said could have been caused by something sharp like a pencil.
And in fact, and in another piece of undisclosed evidence, the coroner even told detectives that she couldn't rule out
a temperature probe as the cause of this. Now, nobody turned that over to Lamont at trial, and the prosecutor didn't ask the coroner that question, but he did ask the child abuse pediatrician at trial if Trusten's injuries could have been caused by a thermometer, and she said no. When we deposed the coroner and showed her these records, she immediately changed her opinion on the cause of those injuries. She still said it was non accidental, but it was
inflicted medically, not as an assault. For me, I saw that and felt like I was just shouting into the void. For years after that, nobody seemed to care about it until the coroner did.
But I was like, people, this is it. This explains everything.
Because that was a huge void in my defense.
Yeah, it was a huge gag because nobody could explain I.
Never could explain the rape to the time we found that in the record, I could not explain the rape.
I didn't rapeing.
So these idiots couldn't even figure out the three pokes with the thermometer were what caused what otherwise sounded like an awful thing that was done to this child, right.
Well, yeah, that's the really troubling thing is that I
think nobody looked at these records, including doctor Stevens. You know, at the time, had she she would have learned things about the scene that would have explained the mechanism of injury, plus the findings about the anal and rectal injuries, and so then like she did her deposition when we showed them to her, she would have changed her opinion not only about the injuries that supported the rape, but also about the cause of death that it was not a homicide.
And his trial attorney is just as much to blame.
So, in addition to the Brady violations, this was also a clear case of ineffective assistance of counsel as well.
When we went back to our judge in federal court judgment, Michael Watson, with the deposition testimony from Clyde, he kind of, in his opinion went through all the things he didn't do, you know, didn't hire experts, didn't talk to witnesses, didn't
look at the records, blah blah blah. And then the way he put it was he appeared to settle on his strategy of not using an expert, not as a result of a strategic investigation, but rather in lieu of one, which is kind of the classic definition of being an effective lawyer.
You know, like all.
These people participate in a process that could result in a man's execution, and that there's so little you know, I mean plenty of time. I think there's outright misconduct and malicious intent, and I think there's some of that here with the Brady evidence, the withheld evidence that we see, but a lot of other is I think just in competence, a lack of thoroughness. I don't know that might even be worse, because you know, you care so little about being careful in case.
It was such magnitude as a person's life.
Right, with proceeding so fraught with constitutional violations and convincing evidence of innocence. The Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office joined Lamont's motion for a new trial in April twenty twenty three, but this didn't mean that they were finally seeking justice for Lamont.
After Lamont had a new trial and we are trying to get him out on bond, the prosecutor's office ran to the coroner's office and got the other pathologists in the office to issue this addendum to the original autopsy report that basically just says, like, we think the coroner was wrong to change her opinion under oath and the deposition. We do think that this should still be a homicide and still be a rape with zero explanation. And then those well just refused to talk to us without the
prosecutors being present. It just became so obvious to us that I believe the Hamilton County Corner's Office, there's supposed to be neutral experts guided by science, considers itself an arm of the prosecutor's office.
So while Lamont was still trying to get out on bond and the lead up to his new trial, the prosecutor's office began to apply pressure and here comes to please offer.
Basically, Lamont had this pressure of stay here in jail for at least another year or take a plea and get out time served. Lamont could walk out the door. Well, we decided to fight it and ask for bond, and the prosecutors fought dirty. Basically had to go through a little mini trial where they are allowed to summarize their case by presenting evidence, including evidence that wasn't even presented at trial the first time, so stuff that isn't tested
in any way, but just allegations. We were able to beat them there. The judge ruled that they hadn't met their burden to keep him locked up. But then the bond was five hundred thousand dollars, which he would have need to get fifty thousand dollars together cash to.
Meet, which would have been very hard, which we couldn't.
Do, I mean, So that was one problem. And then the other problem was the prosecutor convinced the judge to order no contact for Lamont with anyone under eighteen, so that meant all of his nine grandchildren eight at the time, and went on the way, Yeah, okay, he wouldn't be able to meet them.
My children was in the courtroom when they asked for that, and just seeing them cry, man, and they want me to meet their kids so bad, and I want to meet my grandchildren so bad.
They're right there.
That's when you know the decision was firmly made that I'm taking his plea agreement.
It sounds like the prosecutor, Seth Tiger, was just trying to have it both ways.
You're saying that he's so dangerous and such a monster that you don't think you should be let at at all. But you've offered him a plea, and if he agrees to that, he.
Walks out of the door today.
With no conditions at all, no conditions, which is what he ended up doing.
Lamar took the plea for time served, which also meant that he's not eligible for state compensation regardless. He was finally free after sixteen long years on June fifteenth, twenty twenty.
Three, one of the best days of my life mine too, on Aaron's birthday, by the way, and ironically I was convicted on her birthday as well.
Sixteen years earlier. Aaron had already told me.
It's a bank of cameras and reporters out there, so be prepared when you walk through the door. One of the questions was how are you feeling getting your freedom back? And my answer then and today is still the same. Imagine feeling all of the emotions anger, stress, joy and relief, frustration, all of those emotions at the same time. I'm still going through it, trying to figure it out.
Man.
It's been amazing though, and I actually got a good start on everything too, got my driver's license, my cousin gave me a vehicle. I got a job rather quickly. It took a little longer for me to get in an apartment. I have to go in for a full knee replacement surgery because the writer is on set in on it, bone on bone, so I haven't been able to work and that is frustrating. So I'm just trying to figure things out. Aaron set up a GoFundMe page that's been helping a little bit.
Well, we're hoping our audience can help out a whole bunch more. And who knows how long it's going to be till Lemon is on his feet again. So if you have a few bucks a few thousand bucks, a few million bucks laid around, whatever you can spare, and you want to help this man who has already been through so much. We're going to have the GoFundMe linked
in the episode description along with Lamont's LinkedIn page. He's begun public speaking and he's a great speaker, so if anyone's interested, I'm sure he'd be very happy to have work that's not as physically demanding as a job he was able to find before the surgery. And with that, we're going to go to closing arguments, where first of all, I want to thank Aaron and Lamont, both of you so much for joining us today. And now I'm just
gonna do what I do best. I'm going to kick back in my chair, turn off my microphone, leave my headphones on, close my eyes, and just listen to anything you feel is left to be said. So let's start with you, Erin, and then just hand the mic off to Lamont, and Lamont you take us out into the sunset.
Nothing like this happens without the help of a village, and that's certainly true in Lamont's case. In our office, attorneys Tiasiplesio and Justin Thompson. We're also on Lamont's team. I mentioned Pam Swanson. She's retired now, but she's the investigator that kick things off. And then our paralegal extraordinary Shannon Flammer.
Oh my god, yes, who runs.
The office and is really the backbone of everything. Was absolutely wonderful. But I honestly don't know if there's a single person in the Capitol habeous unit who didn't help
in some way with Lamont's case. And that includes a lot of our law student externs who helped us with research and writing, people helped with site checking, just brainstorming figuring out how to approach this crazy developments in the case, especially when the Supreme Court is changing the law on what we're allowed to present in the state court and federal court, you know, as it's going on, you know.
And then he had post conviction attorneys Melissa Jackson and Kim Rigby at the Ohio Public Defender's Office who fought valiantly and kept hitting a brick wall, but stayed supportive of Lamont. And then we are just so grateful for al Gerhartstein who's been so supportive and brought on some amazing attorneys to help us in state court. Sarah Jelsonino and Elizabeth Bonham and Marcus Siddodi, they really made an
awesome team. And then Kate Jutson, who's the executive director at the Center for Integrity of Forensic Sciences, helped with in particular her expertise in shaking baby science and abuse of head trauma. Finally, I think a big part of Lamont's success has been his family. He's mentioned. I think he has maybe one of the most supportive families that
I've ever seen. It's been a real privilege to have Lamont and his family trust me with his life and with his case, because it's pretty scary, especially when it's so complicated and technical and you don't know what's going on, and they let me into their home to explain things and we're patient as I explained why we need to be patient and why it takes so long, and that kind of thing.
So one of the things I talk about, especially when talking to the law students, is about you know, how to try your best to meet your client where they are, you know, intellectually, emotionally if you could. Because I just had an attorney asked me, you know, after doing the talk up there, she said, what could I do better?
I have a kind of a guarded client.
You know what I'm saying that I can't seem to get through too, you know, and he don't trust me. I said, well, my recommendation, this is what worked for me and my family. It might not work for everybody. If you could pinpoint somebody in his family or trusted a friend or something who he listens to and try to get through to that person and let that person be the liaison or whatever, maybe you can, you know, get a better working relationship with your client. You know,
Aaron took the time, Aaron justin to you. They took the time to explain the process going forward when Aaron first came on my case, when we first met each other,
and it was very effective. I don't know what other attorneys do with their clients, but Aaron took the necessary time literally explain what to expect going forward and to relate the same information to my family through a liaison, which we chose to be my sister Debbie, who has been amazing in this process as well as keeping me straight when I give Aaron problems and have phone calls
and stuff. So it's a whole village like, like Aaron just mentioned on both sides, it's just it takes a village man.
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 Clyburn. 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