April 16, 2024 • 31 mins
Episode 6 of 10
It’s 2013, and a fierce election for Brooklyn D.A. is in process. It’s an election that will change Brooklyn forever. The old guard is on the ropes and Louie Scarcella is a hot button issue. The lives of our main characters - Derrick, Shabaka, Louie, converge and no one will be the same.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden, as well
as the number one true crime podcast, My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Luis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh.
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Previously on The Burden, they have.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
No concept of what it was like back then, two
hundred murders a year in the city.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Violence was happening everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're here in the belly of the Beast. We're here
doing what we gotta do, and we did it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Everybody was in on it. The cops were in on it,
and the witnesses were in on it all. Hell was
breaking loose.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Says to me, kid, get your head out your ass.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I want you to know what they're doing in your life.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
He told a moment put us, hey, now, what's going
on with you? A lot? They've got me way up
here in this bullshit that has joy away. This ship
here is ridiculous. Oh yeah, on my transfer, I think
they just destroyed my typewritters so to keep me from
doing legal work. They haven't send me my typewriter back here.
(01:51):
Ain't no saying to me for sailing ship. What the
fuck am I doing? Way up shit? How the fuck
can I be of any use? Way up here? You
can't even get to the lawn linerary is you got
to wait two weeks fifty get to the law lickery.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's twenty thirteen and Shobacca Shakur has been shipped to
a prison near the Canadian border. At that moment, he's
been in prison twenty five years for a double homicide.
He insists he didn't commit. He's challenged his murder conviction
who knows how many times, and almost exhausted his appeals.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's depressing.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
He calls his friend and advisor Derek Hamilton, who's out
of prison on parole.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We got a hold of about one hundred.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Hours of Shabaka's calls from prison, all recorded by corrections officials.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
One thing you got to remember the moment is in
your favorite rate. I agree with that.
Speaker 7 (02:51):
Listen man, it's your time.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Brother, Maybe it is Shabacca's time. He's still working the
courts and suddenly there's another possibility, a little flashlight at
the end of his long tunnel, because at that moment
(03:14):
changes in the air. There's a heated campaign for Brooklyn
District Attorney, and wrongful convictions are becoming a crucial campaign issue.
There is the possibility, maybe for the first time, that
a sincere reinvestigation of questionable convictions will take place inside
(03:34):
the DA's office.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
When God says your time is your time, you know
what I mean. Nobody can't stop.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
At me, but Shabaka, he's not quite sure.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
It's politics now, it's no longer, it's no long a thought.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
Stone cloud of comments common strate to you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You can't run for shelter.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
There's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Welcome to the burden.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I'm Steve Fishman and i'm DA's Devlin Ross. In this episode,
does a new DA mean a new day?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
We have concluded that men were wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
I think that your state is going to be one
of the primary one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
These are real wives that you're impacting.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
You got to your parents go to court.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You gotta hold old time.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Goo Okay, Steve, before things really heat up in the
(05:13):
Brooklyn DA's race.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Let's rewind the clock.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It's twenty twelve and Luis Garcela is living on Staten Island.
He's been retired for a dozen years. At one point
he'd become a commercial diver, building stuff like piers underwater.
He frequents the Russian baths and regularly plunges into the
freezing water off Coney Island for his health. As he
(05:42):
liked to say, his former life is a cigar smoking,
swashbuckling detective is by now long behind him, living on
mainly as memories archived on TV.
Speaker 10 (05:56):
My partner and I have investigated more than three hundred motives,
but there's one case that stands out from the rest
because of in my neighborhood and the people who lived there.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Like when he started an episode of Top Cops that
was a nationally syndicated TV show, from the early nineties.
It dramatized great detective.
Speaker 11 (06:16):
Work in Williamsburg.
Speaker 9 (06:18):
The minute I arrived, I knew something big was going.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
On with cheesy recreations like this actor who played Louis.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Hey, what's what.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
On this episode of Top Cops. It's the story of
Louie's most famous case. It's nineteen ninety one and a
leader in the Jewish community has been gunned down. Dozens
of detectives were assigned to the case. No one can
catch the murderer, and so the lieutenant sends in his
top dog, Louis Scarcella.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Okay, you're up to chart until this one's finished. This
baby's yours.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
In the show, Scarcella arrested a crack addict for the
rabbi's murder, a streak Mutt. Scarcella like to call him.
His name David Ranta. Scarcella was eventually alone with Ranta
in Central Booking, and he went to work.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Be a man about it. You won't be a nothing.
Speaker 9 (07:15):
You did this.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Right in impatient, all right?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
All right?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That was there, So Ranta just comes clean.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Kind of what happened, according to Scarcela, just like in
Schebacca's case, is that Ranta doesn't make a full confession.
The statement attributes three fateful words to Ranta. I was
there that puts Ranta at the scene of the crime,
and because of that a jury will decide, in effect,
(07:53):
he's an accomplice to murder, for which Ranta will be
sentenced to thirty seven and a half years behind bars.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Fast forward two decades, two decades after the show that
lauded Scarcella's detective work, and the real David Ranta appears
before Brooklyn judge the DA. The same DA who prosecuted him,
has petitioned the court to overturn the conviction, and as
Ranta leaves the Court of Freeman, the press surrounds him.
Speaker 12 (08:22):
Right now, I feel like I'm on the water swimming,
So I can't really just be honest with an answer,
because this is overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
If you have any one thing you want to do.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, get the hell out of here.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Maybe the rant To ruling detonates in Scarcella's life. For years,
the DA's office had stood by Scarcella's police work. No longer,
the DA said quote The decision to overturn the rant
To conviction was made in part because of the conduct
(08:57):
of detective Scarcella.
Speaker 13 (09:04):
David Ranta getting out was the match that lit the spark.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
Detective Scarcela, I'm retired.
Speaker 11 (09:15):
You served.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
The day Ranta was freed, a reporter caught up with
Scarcella as he was heading into his Staten Island home.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
What do you think about this release of Ranta.
Speaker 14 (09:25):
I really can't talk about it, but well, what I
will say is this, I'm certainly not running from you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I stand by the confession. I stand by the case.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Shebacca knows the Ranta case has echoes of his case,
namely that supposed confession. Remember, Scarcella claimed he took a
confession from Schabacca, just as he says he took one
from Ranta. Both Ranta and Shabacca deny they gave statements.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
But there was also a key difference between their cases.
David Rant gets a case overturned. He the important part,
David Ranta was white.
Speaker 13 (10:14):
So now it made it seem like you got a
bunch of people who have been saying he's a crooked
cop all this time, and y'all didn't do anything. But
here comes the white guy and says it, and y'all
let him out of jail. So the newspaper hopped on
it immediately. We was able to get it to the
New York Times and say, look, look what's going on here.
How is he getting out for saying the same thing
(10:36):
that we've been saying for twenty something years.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It's the Rantom case that drives me because I know
now that I'm right. You know that Hamilton is right,
that Derek Hamilton has told me something that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
New York Times reporter Franchie roblas Derek had told Franchie
that Carcela's alleged misdeeds were responsible for lots of wrongful convictions.
The district attorney now said he was right in at
least one case, when Ranta was freed in twenty thirteen.
Charles Hines is the Brooklyn District Attorney and he's running
(11:12):
for reelection. It is politics now. Heines overturns Ransa's conviction,
and that's good for his campaign, but remember it was
Heinz's office that also prosecuted Rancid twenty years earlier, and
that that's not a good look for his campaign. So
Heines paints Detective Scarcella as the culprit a rogue, a
(11:35):
lone bad actor, nothing to do with the DA's work.
Keep moving people. Nothing to see here.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office, for whatever reason, was remaining really, really,
really adamant that they were not going to open any
other Scarcella cases. They were like, no, this is a
one time thing. We don't have any reason to believe
that it was a pattern.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
French didn't buy it. She put together her explosive story,
asserting that Scarcella's alleged misdeeds may have led to lots
of wrawful convictions. Before her story was published, French she
had posed a crucial question to the DA.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Do you stand behind these convictions or not?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Turned out he wasn't standing behind them. Frenchie's article lands
in the middle of what was turning out to be
a brutal reelection campaign. Her reporting puts pressure on Hines.
He responds he reopens more than fifty Scarcella cases, among
them Shabacca's.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
They reopened the Kings because we forced them to. Hines
actually dodged me for the eleven months that I spent
on that story.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
And so suddenly Louis Scarcella is a campaign issue. A
guy from the Post is low. Hines just threw you
under the bus.
Speaker 11 (13:00):
What did that?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
What was the feeling you had? I was enraged.
Speaker 11 (13:05):
I was angry.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I was very very angry.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But Chabacca he was elated.
Speaker 13 (13:13):
The most excited I was was when the newspaper article
that The New York Times printed came out. When that
came out, I said, I'm going home.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Wrongful convictions were a full blown scandal, now a contagion,
and District Attorney candidate Hines could not contain it.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
He'd been the DA for twenty three years, and suddenly
it looked like he was part of the problem.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Yeah, what's up?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Was this dude of Kenneth Thomas, This dude Kenneth Thompson,
the man trying to unseat Hines, the man who could
change Shabaka's fate. That's after the break.
Speaker 14 (14:09):
I'm running for a DA for every person that is
wrongfully convicted and sentenced to prison for murders they didn't commit.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Kenneth Thompson.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
It's twenty thirteen and Thompson is running against Charles Hines,
a seventy eight year old man in his sixth term
as Brooklyn District Attorney.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Thompson is an exciting candidate. He's a black man only
forty seven years old, and his message is in sync
with the moment.
Speaker 9 (14:37):
I believe in my heart that it is the job
of the DA to correct such mischaracters of justice and
to freemen from prison who do not belong in prison.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
He's a former prosecutor who grew up in a public
housing project. He sympathizes with the wrongfully convicted. In law school,
he'd memorized every account of police abuse in the country.
He could recite dates and details.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
Because these wrongful convictions not only destroy the lives of
those who are wrongfully convicted, but their families, and they
undermine the integrity of our criminal justice system.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So Shebaca and Derek are extremely excited about the possibility
that Thompson might be the new DA. Maybe Thompson will
clear Derek's record, maybe he'll help Shobacca win his freedom.
But first Thompson has to get elected, and that isn't going.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
To be easy.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
He has virtually no support from the political establishment. What's more,
no incumbent has lost a Brooklyn DA election in a century,
and the incumbent he's up against he's not going to
go down without a fight.
Speaker 15 (15:51):
Joining me once again is the district Attorney of Brooklyn,
Charles Hines, welcome to reaching out once again.
Speaker 11 (16:01):
Could to be with it, Greg, thank you very much
for this is.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
A clip from local radio station AM nine seventy.
Speaker 11 (16:06):
Quickly the background.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I had the privilege of becoming da In nineteen ninety
there were one hundred and fifty eight thousand serious felonies
in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But by the time of this election, murders in the
city had fallen eighty five percent. Hines liked to claim
credit for safer streets, but to a public, many of
whom didn't remember the bad old days of the eighties
and nineties, that seemed like old news, kind of like
Heines himself.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
So this campaign is heated, and Hines accuses Thompson of
misrepresenting the record.
Speaker 7 (16:37):
Why why do you lie repeatedly?
Speaker 14 (16:41):
You know, damn, let's be well, you have to go
a sibyl if you don't mind to be civil here
to be civil.
Speaker 7 (16:47):
I don't think you understand what the word means.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
Les all.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
To Derek and Shabaka, Hines is the enemy.
Speaker 12 (17:01):
Derek pressed them when they would have on press conferences.
He would ask them what about wrong for convictions?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Heines hoped that by reopening fifty scar Seller cases. He
could put the wrong for conviction issue behind him, but
Thompson he wasn't going to let him outrun his past.
He called out Hines for ducking responsibility, for blaming one
rogue cop.
Speaker 14 (17:26):
It is extraordinary that he has to review fifty tainted
homicide cases and he wants to throw Detective scars Sell
up under the bus. The tect divescus Seller did not
operate in a vacuum. He operated hand in hand with
the DA's office. So you can't stand here and awfully
convict people and then turn around and try to make
Captain of America and say that you're going to free them.
Speaker 11 (17:48):
Find the.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Shabaka says that Thompson's attacks fired Derek up.
Speaker 12 (17:56):
He went and advocated, and we had all the people
of families and friends of the wrong conviction spread in
the word. And Derek went to Ken Thompson and said,
I am going to advocate for you. I'm going to
push for everybody, but you're going to do what you
said about wrongful convictions, or I am going to advocate
(18:19):
against you once you're in office.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Derek Tellschabaka that he got to know Thompson.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Me and them guys have a pretty decent relationship because
I was out knocking on doors for them all. You
know what I mean the project.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Derek says he has a decent relationship with Thompson's people
because he was out campaigning for him in the projects.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
We spread the word to everybody that we knew in
the streets, vote for this person, vote for that person's.
Speaker 7 (18:45):
Pure They wouldn't go, you know, I'm knocking on doors given.
Speaker 12 (18:48):
People, and we had the prisoners in jail telling them,
make sure your family votes for Ken Thompson. He went,
he did more rallies.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
You have a vac prepaid call from an inmate, Aunt Wendy,
and it works vot correctional.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Hello Hello Leah Hi, yeah backo Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
This is one of Chbacca's lawyers, Leah Busby.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
Hi.
Speaker 10 (19:15):
I didn't say your name, but I guess it was you.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
That's it going, oh rings all.
Speaker 10 (19:24):
Oh, by the way, did you hear about what happened
in the election.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Oh, Heine's is out.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh that's it's a huge upset in an historic victory.
The vote wasn't close. Thompson fifty five percent, Heines forty five.
Thompson would become the first black DA in Brooklyn history.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I just got a change tonight at Berl Hall downtown.
They got a unitie rally for Ken Thompson.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It's a victory rally, and Derek goes to celebrate. Meanwhile,
back in prison, Chabaka allows himself to think that maybe
maybe this new DA will help him.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
I definitely need Jonna holla at him about my case.
Let him know this man, that's gonna be done.
Speaker 7 (20:12):
That's going to be done. We just had a conversation.
I was in his office. They asked for a list
of cases. I said, hey, what what case was jury from?
He said, of course. So everybody agreed man that you
know you are one of the primary cases that should
be the view.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Now Thompson just needs to keep his word.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
If that happens, then Schabacca believes he will walk free,
and so does Derek. But Derek has another priority, his
own case. Derek wants his own conviction overturned, and now
he knows someone on the inside.
Speaker 7 (20:52):
KENFF Johnson is a very good man. Max.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
That's after the break.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Here's Ken Thompson's situation as he walks in the door.
The DA's office is a trouble place. On one side,
there's Thompson's new Guard. These are the people he selected.
Speaker 15 (21:17):
So this sense of writing past injustices was very important
to him.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's Eric Gonzales back then he was Thompson's number two.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And then there's the Old Guard, the people Thompson inherited,
Hinz's crew. These are prosecutors who'd fought Shabaka's and Derek's
appeals for decades. Assistant DA Taylor Coss remembers what the
Old Guard was saying about Derek.
Speaker 16 (21:42):
Hamilton was so he was notorious in the office right.
He was a known quantity. In fact, they got to
know his stuff so well so that when another inmate
would make a submission, they could tell when he helped
them out.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Derek was out on parole. He wanted to fight for Shabaka,
but he was also determined to get his own conviction overturned.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
His case was.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Being reviewed by the new DA's Conviction Review Unit, which
was at that moment still influenced by the Old Guard.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
They was a real big movement to stop by his hooneration.
There was actually people in the DA's office that hated
me to the degree that they didn't want this to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Why did DA's Office fight your exoneration so much?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Because I won so many cases against the DA's office.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
For other people.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
The DA's office look at me as being a trouble maker.
They look at me as interfering in how they do business.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Derek's case becomes a test for Ken Thompson's office. Eric Gonzales,
this was.
Speaker 15 (23:00):
The hardest one for the agency because there was so
much internal pushback.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Taylor Costs heard the grumblings. He knew exactly how the
Old Guard felt. They remember Derek's earlier cases, like the
bread truck murder, the case he'd gotten overturned in the
previous episode.
Speaker 8 (23:20):
I just don't think people think he was a good
guy to begin with. Yeah, I don't have any reason
to know one way or the other, but I did hear,
and you know, people think he obviously commanded those original murders. Yeah,
they were extraordinarily displeased that he was released so early
on the first homicide.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
The Old Guard is blocking Derek's path inside the conviction
review unit. Derek realizes, now electing Thompson that wasn't enough.
He writes Thompson a personal.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Letter, and I tell him I said, hey, man, do
you promise integrity? Dan was transparent, it was fair, and
this is not what I'm getting and I look forward
to whooping yell ass in court.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Thompson takes the letter seriously. He has a message for
the Old Guard.
Speaker 15 (24:12):
It was a moment for the DA where he basically
said to the office, if you can't get with the
new way of us going back and looking at these
conviction review matters, then maybe you.
Speaker 11 (24:26):
Have to leave.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Gonzalez reviews the file and comes to a different conclusion
than the Old Guard. He recommends that Thompson overturned the conviction.
Speaker 15 (24:38):
Once the decision was made, it was done quickly.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Please hold a moment. Sure he's going on with your wall.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Meanwhile, Shabaka is still waiting to hear back from Ken
Thompson's office, so he calls Derek. He's hopeful that Ken
Thompson will come through, but his lawyer, Ron Koby, isn't
so sure.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
He hasn't heard from this duel Kenneth Thompson. He doesn't
have any faith in him. So I'll explain to him that, look,
people that I deal with have been dealing with him.
You see what I'm saying, And this guy is going
to look into the matters of these lawful convictions.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
It's a tough moment for Shabaka. He wants to put
his faith in Ken Thompson.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
At the same time, his legal skills have won him
a court hearing and that court could just throw out
his conviction. But going to court now pokes the bear.
Instead of working with the DA, he'll have to fight
the DA.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He calls Kooby to see how long it will take
to get into court.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Probably another four to six weeks, that's my guess. So
we're talking about some time in November.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
Sometimes November, maybe beginning of December. You know, you have Thanksgiving.
People go away. I don't go anywhere, and you don't
go anywhere, but.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
So definitely do not.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It's frustrating as hell for Shabaka. He can't even nail
down at court date. Waiting seems like all he's doing.
Speaker 10 (26:21):
Once you go to court, you lose what you know,
a lot of control over a lot of moving parts,
and sometimes they break in your favor and sometimes they
break against you.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
I don't want to go down there and then we
don't have enough because if I lose this here and
this is it.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Kobe follows Shabacca's lead and agrees to put the court
case on hold, let Thompson's conviction review people just do
their work.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
For a while, I was happy.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I mean.
Speaker 12 (26:52):
I really thought I said, yeah, he's gonna let me
go because he's gonna do something.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
But then the DA called his lawyer.
Speaker 12 (27:01):
They contacted Ron and told Ron they wanted more time
to investigate.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
They wanted more time. They'd already had the case for
two years.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Chabacca is calling Kobe's.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Office for morning, is just pushing me on. I have
absolutely no faith in the District Attorney's office. Given the
District attorney time for them to figure out some type
of trick or whatever the fuck they want to do
to try to fuck my case up, do not postpone
my case. Do not postpone my case. I don't want
(27:39):
my case going off for months and months and months.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Chabacca turns down the DA. He wants Koby to get
him into court.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It forced them to make a decision.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It forced the DA's office to say once and for
all whether or not they thought Chabacco was guilty. On
the first day of the court hearing, the judge turns
to the Assistant District attorney.
Speaker 12 (28:04):
That's when the judge asks them, well, what's your position.
So they took the position, well, we believe he is guilty.
So rather than say okay, let's exonerate him and then say no,
well let.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Him prove it.
Speaker 13 (28:20):
That was okay with me because that's all I wanted anyway.
Speaker 16 (28:23):
It was to prove it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Now it's law, not politics.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Next time on The Burden, Shebacca has his day in court.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
The biggest debate that Shebacca and I had, what's whether
or not the call Scar self. I'm surely not gonna
call it.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
How do you bring in the information of his past mistive.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Stone Clark common commonstrating.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
You can't run for shelter?
Speaker 10 (29:14):
Does look that you can't do.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
The Burden is created by Steve Fishman.
Speaker 11 (29:20):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and Dax Devlin. Ross.
Story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior producer is Simon Rentner.
Our producer is Sanam Skelly, Associate producer Austin Smith. Fact
checking by Sona Avakian. Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise.
Mixing and sound design by Mumbo Media. Our executive producers
(29:44):
are Fisher, Stevens, Evan Williams and me Steve Fishman. Additional
production help from Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Bronner, Lucy Suchek,
Drew Nellis, Micah Hazel, Priscilla Alabi, Saxon Baard, Katie Simon,
and Katie Spranger. We give special thanks to Ellen Horn,
Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe, Tobiah Black, Rachel Morrissey, Lyla Robinson,
(30:09):
Mark Smerling and Jack Stewart Pontier. And deep appreciation to
Marcy Wiseman. Special thanks to our agents Ben Davis and
Marissa Hurrowitz. Mona Hook provided our legal advice. She's from
mksr LLLP, and a very special thanks to Evan Williams,
one of our executive producers and the person who made
(30:30):
this podcast possible. We are honored to feature the song
Black Lightning from The Bell Rays as our theme music.
The Burden is a production of Orbit Media in association
with Signal Company.
Speaker 11 (30:41):
Number one.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Season two of The burdon Empire on blow Ud will
be available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh.
All episodes will be available early and ad free along
with exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse,
our subscription channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety
(31:19):
nine a month.
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden, as well
as the number one true crime podcast, My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Luis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh.
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Previously on The Burden, they have.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
No concept of what it was like back then, two
hundred murders a year in the city.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Violence was happening everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We're here in the belly of the Beast. We're here
doing what we gotta do, and we did it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Everybody was in on it. The cops were in on it,
and the witnesses were in on it all. Hell was
breaking loose.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Says to me, kid, get your head out your ass.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I want you to know what they're doing in your life.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
He told a moment put us, hey, now, what's going
on with you? A lot? They've got me way up
here in this bullshit that has joy away. This ship
here is ridiculous. Oh yeah, on my transfer, I think
they just destroyed my typewritters so to keep me from
doing legal work. They haven't send me my typewriter back here.
(01:51):
Ain't no saying to me for sailing ship. What the
fuck am I doing? Way up shit? How the fuck
can I be of any use? Way up here? You
can't even get to the lawn linerary is you got
to wait two weeks fifty get to the law lickery.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
It's twenty thirteen and Shobacca Shakur has been shipped to
a prison near the Canadian border. At that moment, he's
been in prison twenty five years for a double homicide.
He insists he didn't commit. He's challenged his murder conviction
who knows how many times, and almost exhausted his appeals.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's depressing.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
He calls his friend and advisor Derek Hamilton, who's out
of prison on parole.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We got a hold of about one hundred.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Hours of Shabaka's calls from prison, all recorded by corrections officials.
Speaker 6 (02:43):
One thing you got to remember the moment is in
your favorite rate. I agree with that.
Speaker 7 (02:51):
Listen man, it's your time.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Brother, Maybe it is Shabacca's time. He's still working the
courts and suddenly there's another possibility, a little flashlight at
the end of his long tunnel, because at that moment
(03:14):
changes in the air. There's a heated campaign for Brooklyn
District Attorney, and wrongful convictions are becoming a crucial campaign issue.
There is the possibility, maybe for the first time, that
a sincere reinvestigation of questionable convictions will take place inside
(03:34):
the DA's office.
Speaker 7 (03:37):
When God says your time is your time, you know
what I mean. Nobody can't stop.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
At me, but Shabaka, he's not quite sure.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
It's politics now, it's no longer, it's no long a thought.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
Stone cloud of comments common strate to you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You can't run for shelter.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
There's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Welcome to the burden.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I'm Steve Fishman and i'm DA's Devlin Ross. In this episode,
does a new DA mean a new day?
Speaker 9 (04:30):
We have concluded that men were wrongfully convicted.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
I think that your state is going to be one
of the primary one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
These are real wives that you're impacting.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
You got to your parents go to court.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You gotta hold old time.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Goo Okay, Steve, before things really heat up in the
(05:13):
Brooklyn DA's race.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Let's rewind the clock.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It's twenty twelve and Luis Garcela is living on Staten Island.
He's been retired for a dozen years. At one point
he'd become a commercial diver, building stuff like piers underwater.
He frequents the Russian baths and regularly plunges into the
freezing water off Coney Island for his health. As he
(05:42):
liked to say, his former life is a cigar smoking,
swashbuckling detective is by now long behind him, living on
mainly as memories archived on TV.
Speaker 10 (05:56):
My partner and I have investigated more than three hundred motives,
but there's one case that stands out from the rest
because of in my neighborhood and the people who lived there.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Like when he started an episode of Top Cops that
was a nationally syndicated TV show, from the early nineties.
It dramatized great detective.
Speaker 11 (06:16):
Work in Williamsburg.
Speaker 9 (06:18):
The minute I arrived, I knew something big was going.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
On with cheesy recreations like this actor who played Louis.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Hey, what's what.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
On this episode of Top Cops. It's the story of
Louie's most famous case. It's nineteen ninety one and a
leader in the Jewish community has been gunned down. Dozens
of detectives were assigned to the case. No one can
catch the murderer, and so the lieutenant sends in his
top dog, Louis Scarcella.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Okay, you're up to chart until this one's finished. This
baby's yours.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
In the show, Scarcella arrested a crack addict for the
rabbi's murder, a streak Mutt. Scarcella like to call him.
His name David Ranta. Scarcella was eventually alone with Ranta
in Central Booking, and he went to work.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Be a man about it. You won't be a nothing.
Speaker 9 (07:15):
You did this.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Right in impatient, all right?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
All right?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That was there, So Ranta just comes clean.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Kind of what happened, according to Scarcela, just like in
Schebacca's case, is that Ranta doesn't make a full confession.
The statement attributes three fateful words to Ranta. I was
there that puts Ranta at the scene of the crime,
and because of that a jury will decide, in effect,
(07:53):
he's an accomplice to murder, for which Ranta will be
sentenced to thirty seven and a half years behind bars.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Fast forward two decades, two decades after the show that
lauded Scarcella's detective work, and the real David Ranta appears
before Brooklyn judge the DA. The same DA who prosecuted him,
has petitioned the court to overturn the conviction, and as
Ranta leaves the Court of Freeman, the press surrounds him.
Speaker 12 (08:22):
Right now, I feel like I'm on the water swimming,
So I can't really just be honest with an answer,
because this is overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
If you have any one thing you want to do.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, get the hell out of here.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Maybe the rant To ruling detonates in Scarcella's life. For years,
the DA's office had stood by Scarcella's police work. No longer,
the DA said quote The decision to overturn the rant
To conviction was made in part because of the conduct
(08:57):
of detective Scarcella.
Speaker 13 (09:04):
David Ranta getting out was the match that lit the spark.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
Detective Scarcela, I'm retired.
Speaker 11 (09:15):
You served.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
The day Ranta was freed, a reporter caught up with
Scarcella as he was heading into his Staten Island home.
Speaker 11 (09:23):
What do you think about this release of Ranta.
Speaker 14 (09:25):
I really can't talk about it, but well, what I
will say is this, I'm certainly not running from you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I stand by the confession. I stand by the case.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Shebacca knows the Ranta case has echoes of his case,
namely that supposed confession. Remember, Scarcella claimed he took a
confession from Schabacca, just as he says he took one
from Ranta. Both Ranta and Shabacca deny they gave statements.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
But there was also a key difference between their cases.
David Rant gets a case overturned. He the important part,
David Ranta was white.
Speaker 13 (10:14):
So now it made it seem like you got a
bunch of people who have been saying he's a crooked
cop all this time, and y'all didn't do anything. But
here comes the white guy and says it, and y'all
let him out of jail. So the newspaper hopped on
it immediately. We was able to get it to the
New York Times and say, look, look what's going on here.
How is he getting out for saying the same thing
(10:36):
that we've been saying for twenty something years.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It's the Rantom case that drives me because I know
now that I'm right. You know that Hamilton is right,
that Derek Hamilton has told me something that's true.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
New York Times reporter Franchie roblas Derek had told Franchie
that Carcela's alleged misdeeds were responsible for lots of wrongful convictions.
The district attorney now said he was right in at
least one case, when Ranta was freed in twenty thirteen.
Charles Hines is the Brooklyn District Attorney and he's running
(11:12):
for reelection. It is politics now. Heines overturns Ransa's conviction,
and that's good for his campaign, but remember it was
Heinz's office that also prosecuted Rancid twenty years earlier, and
that that's not a good look for his campaign. So
Heines paints Detective Scarcella as the culprit a rogue, a
(11:35):
lone bad actor, nothing to do with the DA's work.
Keep moving people. Nothing to see here.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
The Brooklyn District Attorney's office, for whatever reason, was remaining really, really,
really adamant that they were not going to open any
other Scarcella cases. They were like, no, this is a
one time thing. We don't have any reason to believe
that it was a pattern.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
French didn't buy it. She put together her explosive story,
asserting that Scarcella's alleged misdeeds may have led to lots
of wrawful convictions. Before her story was published, French she
had posed a crucial question to the DA.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Do you stand behind these convictions or not?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Turned out he wasn't standing behind them. Frenchie's article lands
in the middle of what was turning out to be
a brutal reelection campaign. Her reporting puts pressure on Hines.
He responds he reopens more than fifty Scarcella cases, among
them Shabacca's.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
They reopened the Kings because we forced them to. Hines
actually dodged me for the eleven months that I spent
on that story.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
And so suddenly Louis Scarcella is a campaign issue. A
guy from the Post is low. Hines just threw you
under the bus.
Speaker 11 (13:00):
What did that?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
What was the feeling you had? I was enraged.
Speaker 11 (13:05):
I was angry.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I was very very angry.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But Chabacca he was elated.
Speaker 13 (13:13):
The most excited I was was when the newspaper article
that The New York Times printed came out. When that
came out, I said, I'm going home.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Wrongful convictions were a full blown scandal, now a contagion,
and District Attorney candidate Hines could not contain it.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
He'd been the DA for twenty three years, and suddenly
it looked like he was part of the problem.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Yeah, what's up?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Was this dude of Kenneth Thomas, This dude Kenneth Thompson,
the man trying to unseat Hines, the man who could
change Shabaka's fate. That's after the break.
Speaker 14 (14:09):
I'm running for a DA for every person that is
wrongfully convicted and sentenced to prison for murders they didn't commit.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Kenneth Thompson.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
It's twenty thirteen and Thompson is running against Charles Hines,
a seventy eight year old man in his sixth term
as Brooklyn District Attorney.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Thompson is an exciting candidate. He's a black man only
forty seven years old, and his message is in sync
with the moment.
Speaker 9 (14:37):
I believe in my heart that it is the job
of the DA to correct such mischaracters of justice and
to freemen from prison who do not belong in prison.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
He's a former prosecutor who grew up in a public
housing project. He sympathizes with the wrongfully convicted. In law school,
he'd memorized every account of police abuse in the country.
He could recite dates and details.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
Because these wrongful convictions not only destroy the lives of
those who are wrongfully convicted, but their families, and they
undermine the integrity of our criminal justice system.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
So Shebaca and Derek are extremely excited about the possibility
that Thompson might be the new DA. Maybe Thompson will
clear Derek's record, maybe he'll help Shobacca win his freedom.
But first Thompson has to get elected, and that isn't going.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
To be easy.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
He has virtually no support from the political establishment. What's more,
no incumbent has lost a Brooklyn DA election in a century,
and the incumbent he's up against he's not going to
go down without a fight.
Speaker 15 (15:51):
Joining me once again is the district Attorney of Brooklyn,
Charles Hines, welcome to reaching out once again.
Speaker 11 (16:01):
Could to be with it, Greg, thank you very much
for this is.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
A clip from local radio station AM nine seventy.
Speaker 11 (16:06):
Quickly the background.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
I had the privilege of becoming da In nineteen ninety
there were one hundred and fifty eight thousand serious felonies
in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But by the time of this election, murders in the
city had fallen eighty five percent. Hines liked to claim
credit for safer streets, but to a public, many of
whom didn't remember the bad old days of the eighties
and nineties, that seemed like old news, kind of like
Heines himself.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
So this campaign is heated, and Hines accuses Thompson of
misrepresenting the record.
Speaker 7 (16:37):
Why why do you lie repeatedly?
Speaker 14 (16:41):
You know, damn, let's be well, you have to go
a sibyl if you don't mind to be civil here
to be civil.
Speaker 7 (16:47):
I don't think you understand what the word means.
Speaker 11 (16:53):
Les all.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
To Derek and Shabaka, Hines is the enemy.
Speaker 12 (17:01):
Derek pressed them when they would have on press conferences.
He would ask them what about wrong for convictions?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Heines hoped that by reopening fifty scar Seller cases. He
could put the wrong for conviction issue behind him, but
Thompson he wasn't going to let him outrun his past.
He called out Hines for ducking responsibility, for blaming one
rogue cop.
Speaker 14 (17:26):
It is extraordinary that he has to review fifty tainted
homicide cases and he wants to throw Detective scars Sell
up under the bus. The tect divescus Seller did not
operate in a vacuum. He operated hand in hand with
the DA's office. So you can't stand here and awfully
convict people and then turn around and try to make
Captain of America and say that you're going to free them.
Speaker 11 (17:48):
Find the.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Shabaka says that Thompson's attacks fired Derek up.
Speaker 12 (17:56):
He went and advocated, and we had all the people
of families and friends of the wrong conviction spread in
the word. And Derek went to Ken Thompson and said,
I am going to advocate for you. I'm going to
push for everybody, but you're going to do what you
said about wrongful convictions, or I am going to advocate
(18:19):
against you once you're in office.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Derek Tellschabaka that he got to know Thompson.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Me and them guys have a pretty decent relationship because
I was out knocking on doors for them all. You
know what I mean the project.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Derek says he has a decent relationship with Thompson's people
because he was out campaigning for him in the projects.
Speaker 12 (18:40):
We spread the word to everybody that we knew in
the streets, vote for this person, vote for that person's.
Speaker 7 (18:45):
Pure They wouldn't go, you know, I'm knocking on doors given.
Speaker 12 (18:48):
People, and we had the prisoners in jail telling them,
make sure your family votes for Ken Thompson. He went,
he did more rallies.
Speaker 7 (19:00):
You have a vac prepaid call from an inmate, Aunt Wendy,
and it works vot correctional.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
Hello Hello Leah Hi, yeah backo Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
This is one of Chbacca's lawyers, Leah Busby.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
Hi.
Speaker 10 (19:15):
I didn't say your name, but I guess it was you.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
That's it going, oh rings all.
Speaker 10 (19:24):
Oh, by the way, did you hear about what happened
in the election.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Oh, Heine's is out.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh that's it's a huge upset in an historic victory.
The vote wasn't close. Thompson fifty five percent, Heines forty five.
Thompson would become the first black DA in Brooklyn history.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I just got a change tonight at Berl Hall downtown.
They got a unitie rally for Ken Thompson.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It's a victory rally, and Derek goes to celebrate. Meanwhile,
back in prison, Chabaka allows himself to think that maybe
maybe this new DA will help him.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
I definitely need Jonna holla at him about my case.
Let him know this man, that's gonna be done.
Speaker 7 (20:12):
That's going to be done. We just had a conversation.
I was in his office. They asked for a list
of cases. I said, hey, what what case was jury from?
He said, of course. So everybody agreed man that you
know you are one of the primary cases that should
be the view.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Now Thompson just needs to keep his word.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
If that happens, then Schabacca believes he will walk free,
and so does Derek. But Derek has another priority, his
own case. Derek wants his own conviction overturned, and now
he knows someone on the inside.
Speaker 7 (20:52):
KENFF Johnson is a very good man. Max.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
That's after the break.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Here's Ken Thompson's situation as he walks in the door.
The DA's office is a trouble place. On one side,
there's Thompson's new Guard. These are the people he selected.
Speaker 15 (21:17):
So this sense of writing past injustices was very important
to him.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's Eric Gonzales back then he was Thompson's number two.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And then there's the Old Guard, the people Thompson inherited,
Hinz's crew. These are prosecutors who'd fought Shabaka's and Derek's
appeals for decades. Assistant DA Taylor Coss remembers what the
Old Guard was saying about Derek.
Speaker 16 (21:42):
Hamilton was so he was notorious in the office right.
He was a known quantity. In fact, they got to
know his stuff so well so that when another inmate
would make a submission, they could tell when he helped
them out.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Derek was out on parole. He wanted to fight for Shabaka,
but he was also determined to get his own conviction overturned.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
His case was.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Being reviewed by the new DA's Conviction Review Unit, which
was at that moment still influenced by the Old Guard.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
They was a real big movement to stop by his hooneration.
There was actually people in the DA's office that hated
me to the degree that they didn't want this to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Why did DA's Office fight your exoneration so much?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Because I won so many cases against the DA's office.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
For other people.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
The DA's office look at me as being a trouble maker.
They look at me as interfering in how they do business.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Derek's case becomes a test for Ken Thompson's office. Eric Gonzales,
this was.
Speaker 15 (23:00):
The hardest one for the agency because there was so
much internal pushback.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Taylor Costs heard the grumblings. He knew exactly how the
Old Guard felt. They remember Derek's earlier cases, like the
bread truck murder, the case he'd gotten overturned in the
previous episode.
Speaker 8 (23:20):
I just don't think people think he was a good
guy to begin with. Yeah, I don't have any reason
to know one way or the other, but I did hear,
and you know, people think he obviously commanded those original murders. Yeah,
they were extraordinarily displeased that he was released so early
on the first homicide.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
The Old Guard is blocking Derek's path inside the conviction
review unit. Derek realizes, now electing Thompson that wasn't enough.
He writes Thompson a personal.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
Letter, and I tell him I said, hey, man, do
you promise integrity? Dan was transparent, it was fair, and
this is not what I'm getting and I look forward
to whooping yell ass in court.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Thompson takes the letter seriously. He has a message for
the Old Guard.
Speaker 15 (24:12):
It was a moment for the DA where he basically
said to the office, if you can't get with the
new way of us going back and looking at these
conviction review matters, then maybe you.
Speaker 11 (24:26):
Have to leave.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Gonzalez reviews the file and comes to a different conclusion
than the Old Guard. He recommends that Thompson overturned the conviction.
Speaker 15 (24:38):
Once the decision was made, it was done quickly.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Please hold a moment. Sure he's going on with your wall.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Meanwhile, Shabaka is still waiting to hear back from Ken
Thompson's office, so he calls Derek. He's hopeful that Ken
Thompson will come through, but his lawyer, Ron Koby, isn't
so sure.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
He hasn't heard from this duel Kenneth Thompson. He doesn't
have any faith in him. So I'll explain to him that, look,
people that I deal with have been dealing with him.
You see what I'm saying, And this guy is going
to look into the matters of these lawful convictions.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
It's a tough moment for Shabaka. He wants to put
his faith in Ken Thompson.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
At the same time, his legal skills have won him
a court hearing and that court could just throw out
his conviction. But going to court now pokes the bear.
Instead of working with the DA, he'll have to fight
the DA.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He calls Kooby to see how long it will take
to get into court.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Probably another four to six weeks, that's my guess. So
we're talking about some time in November.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
Sometimes November, maybe beginning of December. You know, you have Thanksgiving.
People go away. I don't go anywhere, and you don't
go anywhere, but.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
So definitely do not.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
It's frustrating as hell for Shabaka. He can't even nail
down at court date. Waiting seems like all he's doing.
Speaker 10 (26:21):
Once you go to court, you lose what you know,
a lot of control over a lot of moving parts,
and sometimes they break in your favor and sometimes they
break against you.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
I don't want to go down there and then we
don't have enough because if I lose this here and
this is it.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Kobe follows Shabacca's lead and agrees to put the court
case on hold, let Thompson's conviction review people just do
their work.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
For a while, I was happy.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
I mean.
Speaker 12 (26:52):
I really thought I said, yeah, he's gonna let me
go because he's gonna do something.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
But then the DA called his lawyer.
Speaker 12 (27:01):
They contacted Ron and told Ron they wanted more time
to investigate.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
They wanted more time. They'd already had the case for
two years.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Chabacca is calling Kobe's.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Office for morning, is just pushing me on. I have
absolutely no faith in the District Attorney's office. Given the
District attorney time for them to figure out some type
of trick or whatever the fuck they want to do
to try to fuck my case up, do not postpone
my case. Do not postpone my case. I don't want
(27:39):
my case going off for months and months and months.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Chabacca turns down the DA. He wants Koby to get
him into court.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It forced them to make a decision.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It forced the DA's office to say once and for
all whether or not they thought Chabacco was guilty. On
the first day of the court hearing, the judge turns
to the Assistant District attorney.
Speaker 12 (28:04):
That's when the judge asks them, well, what's your position.
So they took the position, well, we believe he is guilty.
So rather than say okay, let's exonerate him and then say no,
well let.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Him prove it.
Speaker 13 (28:20):
That was okay with me because that's all I wanted anyway.
Speaker 16 (28:23):
It was to prove it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Now it's law, not politics.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Next time on The Burden, Shebacca has his day in court.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
The biggest debate that Shebacca and I had, what's whether
or not the call Scar self. I'm surely not gonna
call it.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
How do you bring in the information of his past mistive.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Stone Clark common commonstrating.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
You can't run for shelter?
Speaker 10 (29:14):
Does look that you can't do.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
The Burden is created by Steve Fishman.
Speaker 11 (29:20):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It's hosted and reported by Steve Fishman and Dax Devlin. Ross.
Story editor is Dan Bobkoff. Our senior producer is Simon Rentner.
Our producer is Sanam Skelly, Associate producer Austin Smith. Fact
checking by Sona Avakian. Our production coordinator is Davon Paradise.
Mixing and sound design by Mumbo Media. Our executive producers
(29:44):
are Fisher, Stevens, Evan Williams and me Steve Fishman. Additional
production help from Josie Holtzman, Isaac Kestenbaum, Naomi Bronner, Lucy Suchek,
Drew Nellis, Micah Hazel, Priscilla Alabi, Saxon Baard, Katie Simon,
and Katie Spranger. We give special thanks to Ellen Horn,
Lizzie Jacobs, Nathan Tempe, Tobiah Black, Rachel Morrissey, Lyla Robinson,
(30:09):
Mark Smerling and Jack Stewart Pontier. And deep appreciation to
Marcy Wiseman. Special thanks to our agents Ben Davis and
Marissa Hurrowitz. Mona Hook provided our legal advice. She's from
mksr LLLP, and a very special thanks to Evan Williams,
one of our executive producers and the person who made
(30:30):
this podcast possible. We are honored to feature the song
Black Lightning from The Bell Rays as our theme music.
The Burden is a production of Orbit Media in association
with Signal Company.
Speaker 11 (30:41):
Number one.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Season two of The burdon Empire on blow Ud will
be available everywhere you get your podcasts on August seventh.
All episodes will be available early and ad free along
with exclusive bonus content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse,
our subscription channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety
(31:19):
nine a month.
Hosts And Creators
Dax-Devlon Ross
Steve Fishman
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