Something Stinks in Missouri

With an estimated 60,000 innocent people sitting in prison today, many believe it’s particularly challenging to free the wrongfully convicted in the state of Missouri. But why? Who is fighting for justice and who isn’t? The answer is both shocking and disturbing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
MHM. Justice never has an expiration date. If we can't
correct wrongful convictions, then people are saying, how can we
trust the whole criminal justice system. Rodney Lincoln's case is
not an anomaly. Decades of unchecked misconduct leads to decades

(00:20):
of injustice. Right, I'm Leah Rothman, this is the Real
Killer Episode eleven. Something stinks in Missouri. You know they

(00:47):
said justice is supposed to be equal to all. I've
never taught to anyone that believes that justice is equal
to all, and some of the people that I talked
to you would judge I have the judges don't believe
in it. Who does. Rodney Lincoln spent thirty six years

(01:08):
and ten days in prison for crimes the vast majority
of people believe he did not commit. I want to
know why, Why in Missouri is it so hard to
free the wrongfully convicted? And to be fair, it's not
just a problem in Missouri. According to the National Registry
of Exonerations, in there were one and twenty nine exonerations nationwide,

(01:34):
with a total of one thousand, seven hundred and thirty
seven years lost behind bars. Again, we're only talking about
those who are actually exonerated seven of those exonerations involved
official misconduct, and thirty exonerations were convictions based at least
in part on mistaken witness identifications. You know, the Missouri

(01:57):
state motto is Salus popular least suprema lex esto, which
translates to let the good or safety of the people
be the supreme law. Rodney's former attorney, Shawn O'Brien, who
has been in the thick of the fight to free
the innocent for decades, may disagree Missouri's measuring up to

(02:17):
its own motto for all of its people. First of all,
what percentage of people in prison do you believe are innocent?
The best estimate was a fellowed by the name of
Sam Gross, who is a criminal procedure professor at Michigan
Law School. Um. Really good guy, really smart, scary smart

(02:38):
kind of person, and his estimate. You can take it
as high as ten or twelve percent, but more likely
it's probably closer to um two to three percent UM.
And so when you think about the fact that we have,
you know, two point one million prisoners in custody at

(03:01):
this moment, that's pretty high. That's just people who have
already been convicted. I think that number would be much
higher among pre trial detainees. In death penalty cases. I
can tell you that, for um, every nine people we execute,
we release one innocent person from death row. And the

(03:25):
question it is staggering. Yeah. There's an organization called the
Death Penalty Information Center. They did a study of death
penalty Where are you most likely to get executed in
the US if you're convicted of murder? And of course
a lot of counties in Texas are very high on

(03:49):
the list. St. Louis City is number nine. St. Louis
County is number ten, and if you eliminate Texas, St.
Louis City in St. Louis County are number two and
three in the US at actually killing people. St. Louis
is a perfect storm. You have zealous prosecutors, assembly line courts,

(04:17):
and weak public defenders in that office. Their caseloads are awful,
and they've been cutting corners for so long that nobody's
actually practicing law in the defense of cases. I mean,
a successful result in a case is more of a
fluke or an accident than the product of how the

(04:38):
system should work. And in that environment, it's a perfect
place for detectives like Joe bragoon to function because nobody
is going to really look at the integrity of his
work product and question it. It just doesn't happen. If

(05:01):
an innocent persons on death row, it's obviously a serious
fight against the clock to free them, but at the
very least they have a statutory right to an attorney
up until the moment they're executed. For those not on
death row, they're kind of on their own. For you know,

(05:22):
the common person sentenced to length the time in jail
for something he didn't do. We don't have lawyers digging
except you know, for the handful of exoneration projects around
the US. That's really the issue is the resources to
prove their innocence are scarce. So it's not unusual for

(05:43):
an innocence project to have a backlog of six or
seven cases people just asking please look at my case.
And if someone is actually lucky enough to get an
innocence project or pro bono attorney to take on their case,
well it's just the first step in a very arduous process.

(06:05):
Why do these cases take so long, Well, because the
standard is so high and there are so many barriers
to release. You know, the system operates under a very
heavy presumption that everybody in prison is guilty, and it
is very difficult to overturn that presumption of finality. And

(06:27):
I don't want to get into a complicated lecture about
post conviction procedure. But every case goes through about nine
possibly available uh stages of review, and it works like
shoots and ladders. You can get to a certain stage
and they say, I want to go back to this
stage and try again. I mean mostly that bouncing around

(06:49):
is over procedural technicalities. Are you a Douglas Adams fan
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I have not read it.
I'm sorry. Well, and one of my favorite chapters is
titled somebody Else's Problem. So they're flying along in their
rocket ship in outer space and they go through what

(07:10):
the author calls is somebody Else's problem field where the
captain is about to crash the ship into a planet
and he says, it's not my problem. I'm not the navigator,
and the navigator says, not my problem. IY not the engineer,
And the engineer says it's not my problem. I'm not.
It's always somebody else's responsibility to fix. And I see

(07:31):
the criminal justice system after having read that book, I
thought that's a perfect analogy for post conviction litigation. You know,
the judge and post conviction says, well, the jury pronounced
him guilty, and if they're wrong, the appellate court is
gonna overturn it. Uh. And if the appellate court's wrong,
then the post conviction court can take another look at it.
And the post conviction court says, why should I look

(07:53):
at it. It's already been looked at by all these
other people like you. Get to the point of ridiculousness.
Um at nobody has responsibility because it's spread out over
so many places. There are so many things about Rodney's
case that should make everybody who ever touched it very uncomfortable,

(08:15):
if not ashamed, had the role that they played in
obtaining and reviewing this conviction. When we talk about how
much time the crime in this case happened before I
was born, so the entire time I represented Rodney, he

(08:36):
had been incarcerated for longer than I had been alive.
That's Tricia Rojo bush Nell again. She's Rodney's attorney and
the executive director at the Midwest Innocence Project. Everything I
ever did in my life until I was thirty six.
Rodney was incarcerated during it my whole life. It should

(08:58):
not take that long. M hm. And my whole life
means his kid's whole life, his grandkids. How much do
you miss in that time? And it's impossible to explain.
So it takes forever to even prove in the courts
that these people are innocent. Then innocence is not enough.
I don't understand that. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it.

(09:23):
That is the way the system is designed, right, And
although everyone in Rodney's case is white, the system is
disproportionately designed and stacked against people of color. You know.
I think a lot about this in the state of Missouri.
One is, we are a Southern state that doesn't want
to admit that we were a Southern state, right, So
we were a slave state that did not fight for

(09:44):
the Confederacy. So we have and we are identified as
the Midwest. Right, folks think about the injustice and the
racism and the problems in places like the South, when
we have all those same problems and racist problems and
practices are still existing today and the consequences that are
tuisting today. I mean, in our office, we say that

(10:05):
systemic racism is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. It
infects every part of it. Right. The reason we don't
fund public defenders is also because the vast majority of
people who need public defenders are black and brown folks
who come from disadvantaged socio economns status, and so it
infects every part of it. And it's it's it's like,

(10:25):
we need just change who's in power that give people
who are affected real power. I mean, what would the
criminal legal system look like if the people impacted by
the criminal skillstem designed it right? And also, we need
people to care about other human beings. That's what I
think is so insane when we walk in in the
court and they say, oh, it's not enough unless you're
sentenced to death, Like how do you go home? How
do you write those words down? And I'd be like,

(10:48):
you know, I feel good about today. And when a
decision like that, innocence isn't enough unless your sentence to
death is handed down, it has some laugh sting, life
altering effects for so many. When we lost Rodney's case,

(11:15):
not only did we lose it for Rodney, we lost
it for every other innocent person coming next. Right now,
that's still the standard innocence is not enough unless you
are sentenced to death. And one of those people directly
affected by that loss is forty eight year old Lamar Johnson,
also from St. Louis. So you know, in Missouri's most

(11:39):
folks know Lamar Johnson because there is another devastating loss
also just like Rodney Lincoln. Right, It's another one of
those cases that seems to defy logic. In during a
botched robbery, twenty five year old Marcus Boyd is shot
and killed, and I witness Greg Elking, who was sitting
next to Marcus Boyd at the time, tells St. Louis

(12:01):
Metro p D he can't identify the two shooters because
it was nighttime and the men were wearing masks. Although
Lamar Johnson has an alibi for the time of the murder,
Gregg Elking eventually I DA s him as one of
the two perpetrators. Lamar Johnson is convicted and sentenced to
life without parole. Then, in nineteen ninety six and two

(12:25):
thousand and two, the two masked men confessed to the
murder and say Lamar Johnson was never there. In two
thousand three, Greg Elking, the witness, recounts to his pastor,
and in two thousand eight, about fourteen years after Lamar
Johnson was convicted, the Midwest Innocence Project takes his case.

(12:46):
By the way. For years before m IP came on board,
Lamar Johnson was acting as his own advocate, gathering evidence
which could help prove his innocence. He tried and lost
several appeals, even with the sworn affidavits of the two
confessed killers. Then in St. Louis Circuit, attorney Kim Gardner

(13:08):
and her conviction integrity units start reviewing Lamar Johnson's case
and in time what they find is shocking. They uncover
more than four thousand dollars worth the payments paid out
to the witness, Greg Elking, which was in exchange for
him identifying Lamar Johnson as one of the killers. Here's

(13:29):
Tricia again. We had asked for records of those payments
ten different times and we were told no such payments exist. Right,
Kim Garner gets elected, We go and present this case
to her. She they go and they look in the
file and there is a blue folder says did not
disclose and inside his record of all the payments and

(13:50):
all of our requests asking for proof of the payments.
They also find proof that police invented witness statements, fabricae,
did a false confession from Lamar Johnson, and prosecutors hit
all of this and more from defense attorneys. So you know,
at that time, Kim Gardner says, it isn't we need

(14:13):
let him out, and so she filed the emotion for
new trial. And the Statute of Missouri says a defendant
has fifteen days after this convictions finlet to file emotion
for new trial. And it doesn't make clear what the
timeline is for prosecutors. So we were going to say,
prosecutor can do it anytime. She has an ethical duty
right as a minister of justice. So she filed it.

(14:35):
It filed it in the St. Louis Um Circuit Court.
The judge appointed the a g to appear for reasons
I cannot explain. The ag said, you have no power
to do that. We were denied. It went up to
the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals said, we
don't really know and we think the miss Ray Supreme
Court should should hear this. They transferred it to the

(14:55):
Misra Supreme Court for them to decide that no, a
prosecutor cannot do that. So to sum it up, the
witness re cants, the killers confess there's proof of police
and prosecutorial misconduct. And when Kim Gardner takes all of
this to the courts requesting a new trial, the judge

(15:17):
appoints Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt to take over the case,
who then fights her authority, saying she should have none,
and he wins. Imagine you take this job and you're
told that you don't have the right to correct wrathful convictions. Again,
Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. I think that Lamar Johnson represents

(15:42):
a issue that I believe when a prosecutor, as in
other jurisdictions, they have told me, when they are made
aware that something was not right, everyone including the courts,
trying to find a way to correct what prosecutor discovers
maybe a rawful uh conviction. And I believe that in

(16:05):
this case it was very strange that a judge automatically
called in the attorney general, who I represent the state,
and when the Attorney general um re appealed. It was
not about Lamar Johnson. It was not about whether he
was innocent or guilty. It was more about me, as

(16:27):
the elected prosecutor not having the ability to correct wrongful convictions.
And the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in the Attorney General's favor,
but it was more disturbing that we are ministers of
justice and regardless of whether we secure of conviction or not,
justice does not stop after that conviction. Do you feel

(16:49):
like the Attorney General, Eric Schmidt, was that personal? Do
you think because you're reform based, because you're a woman. Well,
I think it was, you know, personal to to the
circuit attorney because I am the first African American female
reformat a prosecutor to ever lead this office. So I

(17:10):
believe that because our philosophies and somehow are different, but
our philosophy should be sent the same in terms of justice.
Justice is not a Republican idea or a democratic idea,
or a progressive idea or a conservative idea. Justice is
what it is justice and we seek justice. And I

(17:30):
believe that the Attorney General made it more about attacking me,
the elected prosecutor, and he's never denied that Lamar Johnson
is is is innocent. It was just about me and
do I have the right to correct month for convictions?
So yeah, I think it's personal here, Sawn O'Brien again,

(17:51):
to say that Kim Gardner is meeting a lot of
opposition from the Attorney General's office would be the understatement
of the century. It is shameful how much the Attorney
General has politicized the criminal justice process, and frankly, I
think it's because of race. Not only is she a
reform minded prosecutor, but she is a black reform minded prosecutor,

(18:16):
the first black prosecutor that St. Louis City has ever
seen in its history. And the pushback is incredible. Presumably
Attorney General Eric Schmidt would deny this. I've reached out
multiple times to ask him about it, but I haven't
heard back. What Kim Gardner was trying to do should

(18:39):
have worked. Maybe it would have worked in other states,
not Missouri. That's former m IP investigator Dan growth House.
You met him in earlier episodes. He's worked tirelessly on
both Rodney Lincoln and Lamar Johnson's cases. I mean Lamar.
I've known Lamar Sin's two thousand and eight. I know

(19:04):
everything about his case, the amount of evidence that I
collected from the people that committed the crime. Very seldom
do I get affidavit signed by the real shooters, And
very seldom do I get affidavits signed by the witness
that lied to the police who tells me why they

(19:24):
lied to the police. Seldom do I get affidavits from
witnesses that looked at the police reports and said, I
never told the cops that I'll sign an affidavit that
said that that that police report is fraudulent, that I
never said that. It's just, you know, nine yards of craziness.

(19:44):
Lamar keeps me up at night. Son of a bitch.
I could. I could talk like a sailor for five
minutes talking about how mother fucking pisted I am. That
Lamar is still sitting in prison makes me puke. According

(20:08):
to Injustice Watch, a not for profit, nonpartisan organization that
does in depth research on institutions, justice and equality, it's
not just the current Attorney General, Eric Schmidt, who has
been opposing relief for the wrongfully convicted. The Missouri AG's
office has been opposing nearly every wrongful conviction case since

(20:30):
the year two thousand. A perfect example of this is
Shawn O'Brien's Joe am Ran case, which we talked about
in a previous episode. When The Assistant Attorney General was
asked by one of the justices, quote, are you suggesting
even if we find that Mr Amran is actually innocent,

(20:51):
he should be executed? He answered, that is correct, your honor.
Absolutely unbelievable, right mean stomach turning. Although Joe am Rin
was not executed and was eventually released from prison, that
Assistant a G sentiment for me kind of sums up

(21:12):
one of the biggest problems with the post conviction justice
system in Missouri. While it's completely legal for the a
G to oppose relief, why would they do it based
on their duty to do so instead of basing it
on a person's guilt or innocence? And it is in
fact happening all over Missouri, like in Jackson County. Kevin

(21:34):
Strickland is another man most believe is innocent. He's been
serving time for a triple homicide that happened back in
nine similar to the Lamar Johnson case. Jackson County Prosecutor
Jean Peters Baker has been stripped of any power to
release Kevin Strickland. Here she is in a May press conference.

(21:58):
I'm here advocating from Mr strict It's freedom and that
his conviction should be vacated. Most importantly, though I'm advocating
that this man must be freed immediately. My job is
to protect the innocent. It is important to recognize when
the system has made wrongs, and what we did in

(22:22):
this case was wrong. So to Mr Strickland, I am
profoundly sorry. I am profoundly sorry for the harm um
that has come to you. And to that end, Um,
I want to tell this community that I represent um,

(22:44):
that I find this mistake in this system to be profound,
to be one that I should take every ounce of
energy I have to correct. I am sorry for this
mistake made by this system. An uphill battle for Jean Peters, Baker,

(23:08):
Kim Gardner, and many of the other prosecutors in Missouri,
but they may have just gotten a break. On July,
Missouri Governor Mike Parson signs Senate Bill fifty three into law, which,
among other things, creates quote a judicial procedure that provides

(23:28):
a pathway for a prosecuting attorney to correct a miscarriage
of justice resulting from a wrongful conviction. And there's some
more good news. I'm beyond ecstatic to report that on
November with the help of Tricia and the Midwest Innocence Project.
A judge set aside the conviction of the now sixty

(23:51):
two year old wheelchair dependent Kevin Strickland after serving forty
three years in prison. He's finally free. Two victories, for sure,
but the fight is far from over. I mean, forgive
me for like being so pedestrian about it. But if

(24:11):
Eric Schmidt's family member it's been wrongfully convicted, they're sitting
in prison and it's just bureaucracy and it being politicized,
and that's the stuff that's keeping their innocent loved one
in prison, would they be reacting the same way. Well,
I think that's a very good question to ask, because
in the end of the day, it's about justice. In

(24:31):
the end of the day, it should not be about
a political pissing contest against the elected Stircuit attorney because
you don't like her stance on reforming a system that
we all know is beyond broken. Yeah, if I can
get the Attorney General to call me back, I'll let
you know what he says. Do you think that it's ego?

(24:55):
Do you think they're afraid of payouts? And obviously you
can't speak for them, but what isn't. I mean, why
do they think it's I think it's the false premise
of this law and auto rhetoric that some people run
on a platform that that law and art are tough
on crime. And we know that that was been allied,
the war on drugs was aligned. We need to talk

(25:16):
about the war on um, poor people, people of color.
We need to you know, actually show and look at
the data that have we made our city safe with
the lawn auto rhetoric and we have not again, And
like I told Kim, I've reached out to Attorney General
Eric Schmidt multiple times for comment but have not heard back. He,

(25:40):
like the ex Governor Eric Grayten's, is also running for
the U. S. Senate. When we talk about Lamar Johnson,
Rodney Lincoln, and many others, everyone should be doing their
best under the rule of law to find a way,
and even the courts, the courts have discretion to actually
make away when there's no way, and I think that
that's where we have to to really look at what

(26:02):
is at stake. Mr Lincoln has served thirty six years
of his life, I mean thirty six years and he's
now seventy plus. You know, when you have lived most
of your life can find for a crime you did
not commit, just the mental angers, the mental torment, the
toll it takes on a person's family. Ronney Lincoln's family

(26:24):
and friends have served those thirty plus years with them,
and the end of the day, we have to do
better if we truly want people to believe in the
criminal justice system. And I think that that's what says
Steak is we have to make the system fair for everybody.
It's about fairness and justice, and I believe that you know,
either you gotta get on board or you need to

(26:44):
get out the way. Well, it seems this is where
our journey comes to an end. But the most most
important question still remains. Who killed joe An Tate and

(27:04):
savagely attacked Melissa and Renee. Circuit attorney Kim Gardner says
the case is still open. Melissa, uncle Nat and aunt
Lourie have since reached out to her office requesting whatever
viable evidence there is be entered into the national databases.
Maybe the DNA is too degraded. I don't know, but

(27:26):
in my conversations with people close to the case, it
seems there may be some fingerprints that, even if they
aren't good enough to be a match to someone. Maybe
they're good enough at least to exclude some people. Melissa
and her family deserve the chance to possibly finally get
the answers which have alluded them since April. Also a

(27:51):
quick follow up on the Steve Vancy episode. I wanted
to try to verify his story that police considered him
enough of a suspect that they had him take a
polygraph and then cleared him after he passed it. But
I haven't been able to find anything in any of
the police reports to back that up. If I talked
to Steve Nancy again and have new information that's worth sharing,

(28:15):
I will. I want to thank everyone who participated in
the making of this podcast. Your time and insight have
been invaluable. I could not have done it without you all.
I especially want to thank Melissa, who just finished writing
her memoir entitled Not Quite Right. It's a love letter

(28:38):
to society's outsiders, which she hopes will help and inspire
survivors of all kinds. And Rodney, who is skydiving, fishing,
and making up for lost time with his family. He
is patiently waiting to learn if he'll receive a full
pardon from the Governor of Missouri. Melissa and Rodney's honesty, openness,

(28:59):
and bravery are why this podcast was possible. They are
the epitome of strength, forgiveness, and love. If anyone has
any information about this case, please go to www dot
Circuit Attorney dot org. The Real Killer is a production

(29:25):
of a y R Media and I Heart Radio, hosted
by me Leah Rothman, Executive producers Leah Rothman and Eliza
Rosen for a y R Media. Written by me Leah Rothman,
Senior Associate producer Eric Newman, Editing and sound design by
Cameron Taggy, mixed and mastered by Cameron Taggi. Audio engineering

(29:49):
by Jesus c Mario Studio engineering by Tom Weir and
Kelly McGrew. Legal counsel for a y R Media Gianni Douglas,
Executive producer for I Heart Radio Chandler Maze. If you're
enjoying The Real Killer, tell your friends about it and
leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you

(30:10):
get your podcasts.