April 10, 2017 • 42 mins
Francisco Carrillo Jr. was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1992 in the fatal drive-by shooting of Donald Sarpy in Lynwood. Franky, who was 16 at the time of the 1991 shooting, maintained his innocence through two trials and in prison. His conviction relied on eyewitness testimony from six people. Franky said that a gang of corrupt and racist Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies—known as the "Lynwood Vikings"—coerced and threatened key witnesses into identifying him in a photo lineup. In 2011, a judge overturned his conviction after witnesses later admitted they did not have a view of the shooter, and instead had been influenced by police officers, and each other, to identify Franky. Two men since confessed to the crime, and stated Franky was not involved. Since his release, Franky Carrillo has gotten married, started a family and obtained a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
With the police banging on the door open up. The
choice to be in that lineup was the last choice
I made as a free man. A year later, I
ended up writing the system. I'm going to be one
of those people who everyone in the world is going
to think as a monster or suspect as a monster
for the rest of my life, and I'm just gonna
have to come to peace with that. Somebody was able
(00:28):
to look at my picture in a database and say
that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't. I overheard
three of the jailer's discussing what part they might have
to play in my hanging. They had been told that
two prison officers would have to participate in my execution,
and I walked back inside that prison for the last time.
(00:48):
All hell broke loose. But welcome to another episode of
Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam Today we have a very
incredible person as our guest. Are featured Exonoree. Today's Frankie
(01:12):
kil Korea was sixteen. In fifteen, sheriff's deputies with guns
drawn storm through the front door. Korea was convicted of
murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms Frankie was
released from jail in downtown l A this afternoon after
spending twenty years, and Cario was released after the court
found evidence that Koreo was framed through coerced testimony for
(01:33):
a fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt l
A Sheriff's deputies known as the Lynwood Vikings, coerced six
witnesses into identifying him in a photo lineup. Frankie, welcome,
Jason is good to be here. So Frankie, your story
begins when you were really just a child and the
baby man. Let's go back to the beginning. You grew
(01:55):
up in l A, right, that's correct, Southern California, and
you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah, I would
say that. Yeah, everything was going along more or less. Okay,
nothing's easy about being a sixteen year old boy, that's right.
Then one day it all was turned upside down. That
day was January. I was just a little color there
(02:17):
was a high school student. I was a child of
a divorce family, four siblings. My father had raised us
in stage of nine, so it's a very male dominated household.
Dad and two boys was what I'd known for the
past seven years and you had a sort of a
unique situation too, which is that your mom had one
day just decided to check out. That's it. Yeah, it
wasn't like they got separated and you spent half the
(02:37):
time with her or she just left. That was it. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's an unfortunate story, but that's what happened. Yeah,
So you had been abandoned in a very real way
and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any young
man for the rest of his life. But that wasn't
the worst of what was to come by far. And again,
(02:58):
sixteen is really not a child, but you're closing with
a child than an adult. It even though it was
my age, I was sixteen, psychologically you're just still a
kid and you know, maybe operating at thirteen fourteen level,
not to you know, minimize it, but I'm a boy,
I'm a kid grade tenth grader, tenth grade exactly what
I'm saying. Tenth grade, you're you're you know, you're closer
to middle school than you are to college. You and
(03:19):
and and it hadn't even shaved. So it's like a
good a good references that you're at the point where
like facial hair is sort of developing, but you're not
there yet, Frankie, like, hold off right. And then one night,
fifteen cops bust in your house. What it's surreal situation.
You were asleep. I was asleep, just a normal night.
Actually it was early morning, so it was dark, but
it was it was six in the morning when this happened.
(03:40):
And my father and I went home and they couldn't
get in. They were they were pound in a way,
and ultimately I opened the door, looked at the window,
knew was them. They were screaming who they were, and
they stormed in, stormed in, ordered my father and night
to the floor. And that's the beginning of the nightmare. Really,
so they already to the floor. Did they tell you
what was going on? I wish it did? You know?
(04:00):
It was pretty strategic in all business, so they wanted
to like ramsacked. The home was their main objective. And
you know, my father and I really my dad was
trying to exert his his his position. This is my home.
What are you doing here? And he was being ignored.
So he's telling me, like, what's happening. I'm like, I
don't know, Like I have no idea whether here soon
after on the ride to the sheriff's station is when
(04:21):
I learned that I had been accused and ultimately now
being arrested for a murderer I hadn't committed. So you
get to the sheriff's station and what happens next. Really,
I was expecting my father to show up, but what
happened was I was placed into an interrogation room. The
people who showed up instead were these two sort of
cowboy detectives running to play the good cop bad cop
on me, and I played along. You know. They said
(04:43):
what they're arrested me for? And if I would wouldn't
to talk? And I said, sure, I'll talk like I
have nothing to hide, right, And so you wave your right?
I did. And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because
I think it's hard for most people to understand why
someone would wave their miran to rights when you have
the right to a lawyer who is going to give
(05:04):
that up. But the fact is in your case, I
think it's fairly typical, which is that if you're innocent,
and this is an ironic thing, right, if you're innocent,
A lot of people go in they think, well, why
do I need a lawyer. I'm just gonna answer some questions,
and the justice system is gonna work because I'm an
innocent person who abides by the law, and then they'll
see that they made a mistake and then they'll go
catch the real guy. Exactly right. Unfortunately, it's gonna take
(05:27):
stories like yours to help educate people so that they
don't do that. You do not give up any information
without getting a lawyer. But I will add Jason that
when you're in that code room and the power imbalance
is obvious, you are in a detention facility. Basically, you're
in there in their stronghold. You're in the sheriff's departments space,
(05:49):
and you're there as a visitor. You're there obviously being
charged for this crime, in my case, being wrongfully charged.
And so to some degree, as a young boy, you
want these are adults. I'm looking at these men, and
you want to cooperate. You want to like, I'll talk
to you, and I have nothing to hide, is sort
of my position looking back now. Obviously I wish I
wish there was a Civics class that would have said,
you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever the
(06:10):
situation is, just wait for your parents or wait for
a lawyer. Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that
when you're innocent and you go into the situation, you're
more likely to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty, exactly,
we're in that interrogation room. How long were you interrogated
for it? Do you even know? You know? Surprisingly, I
think back of that five him and interrogation and I
sort of left that room thinking, you know, where was
(06:32):
the lamp? You know where where were these guys punching
on me? Like, you know, you watch enough TV to
understand that this is supposed to unfold a little bit
different than it did in my case. At least, they
were very quick to just say, there's a young boy
who witnessed the crime, who was adamant that you were
the guy who did it. So we got you. Let's
talk about you just confessing to it. So it was
really very brief, very precise on their end, and I
(06:54):
think I'm gonna chuckle not to be silly here, but
it was just like so unreal, like one you're you're
are you sure you're talking to me? I'm adamant that
it wasn't me, Obviously, and their position was like, we're
beyond if you did it or not. We just want
you to just come clean, just confess that she did it.
And I was like, I can't do that. It ended
(07:14):
after ten minutes. That's it. Like they weren't trying to
impress me or and starve me out anything. They were
just like, okay, well we'll see you in court like that,
we're going to jail. Nil Like that was it hearing that?
And that's an unusual interrogation, And that it went on
for such a short period of time, it sounds to
me like at that point they actually did think they
had the right guy, because they were like, Okay, well
this guy is not gonna give it up, but we
(07:35):
got the right guy, so it's okay, we're gonna We're
gonna get them no matter what. But as things unraveled,
they took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did
they end up managing to convict you when you were
so obviously not the guy? So you know, in Los
Angeles at least, that's a very familiar story about misconduct
with the l A p d SO Rampart Division scandal,
(07:57):
it's more readily available knowledge. But my case didn't involve
l APD involved the Lli's Sheriff's Department. And there's a
well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings. So
Linwood is where this this crime happened and where my
arrist was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
(08:18):
naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
were abided by the constitution and their policies in the department.
Some of the people on this investigation team were these
bad cops. Sort of fast forward and here of information
I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
And so when this young boy who was used to
identify me, who was showing a photo lineup photo six
(08:40):
pack to ultimately say this is the guy who committed
the crime, the case sounded pretty pretty cut and dry.
There's a witness, there's a show, was shwing a photographic lineup.
He quickly identified the shooter. We got the rest slam duck.
And so there was a trial when I was trying
to an adult and move forward to a conviction. But
at some point it was discovered that this young boy
(09:01):
wasn't as innocent as you know, he was more than
just a witness. It was revealed that he was an
informant for one specific law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch. And
so deputy deputy of all things, Deputy Ditch, right, I
mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is the guy's name.
He's now retired. The guy had this boy under his
wing as an informant, and he happened to be at
(09:22):
this crime scene, and so it was very very easy
to say, I'm your go to guy here. So the
story later was discovered that this young boy was showing
photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by other investigators
with no results. He realized Ditch had a relationship with
this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The case was
solved when Stitch arrived in less than eight hours, and
(09:45):
the story that was revealed that the young boy was
showing the photographs as what was in the report, and
so he picks a random picture just to play along,
and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
right now. Try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
like an idiot this point. You know, you're trying to help,
You're young you're scared. So he picks another photograph and
the DEPP he says, these guys dead. What about this
(10:07):
guy here? We think he's trying to come up in
the rankings or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah,
I guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's
the guy. And this is the story. Way he was
looking at six photographs. Yep, he was over too exactly.
He picked he picked very badly. He picked a guy
who was in jail and a guy who was dead. Right.
That's really hard to make a case against those guys. Right.
And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
(10:28):
was a guy in the sixth pack who was dead.
Give me a break, I mean, you would think they
would take that guy out just I mean, let me
jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie, what's up.
You're coming off as this high school student, nice guy.
What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like, tell
us about that. I'm sure that was your next question, right,
I'm getting to that what happened in this environment is
(10:48):
referencing here that specific sheriff's department's policy was that if
there was any anyone that you thought was a potential
bad kid or bad guy or bad anything. Let's do
some racial pro Finally at this point right us gather intail.
And so the photograph was obtained in the summer between
my sixth grade and seventh grade vacation. Blocked there, me
and some of my buddies just righting our BMX spikes
(11:10):
through a local park, no big deal, summertime, and this
deputy depute Luna remember the guy's name, sort of just
rolls up next to us. He's done an official lights
on pull over. He stops, We stopped, start talking about
who has a girlfriend, and where do you live? And
what's up with you? Whatever? Right, just pretty cool talking
to a cop, No big deal. And then the guy says,
do you mind if I take your photograph to the group?
(11:31):
I don't remember us looking around saying what do you think? Guys?
Are we just like I guess like you're you're a cop? Right? Like?
What do we say? No? And so this is the
time when you had polar Rod camera. So the guy
got out of his car, went into the trunk and
pulled out the little manual polar Rod camera, and one
by one he just came to right where we were
on our bike standing and just snapped the photograph. And
(11:52):
so that photograph that was taken in a park with
trees in the background and whatever else was in the background,
I was smiling in the picture. That photograph ended up
in the six pack. So talk about like a chain
of events here that fus your life up right, Oh
my god, I mean, that's really the most I've heard
all types of different stories, and you're right, that is
a question that people often ask, why was this picture? Now?
(12:14):
What we know is that if you live in a
poor neighborhood, specifically a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, And you're so
your picture could be in there because you had a joint,
or any other thing could be in there because you
were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
(12:35):
of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
probably I mean, thinking back to when I was at
six or seventh grade, if a cop would ask to
take my picture, I would have felt good, even like, wow,
this guy wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
(12:59):
M So your picture was in the lineup because this
cop had been a sneaky way racially profiled you as
a thirteen year old boy riding his bike in the park,
which is exactly as far as I can tell, what
thirteen year old boys are supposed to be doing. You
were identified in this insane process, right, which is literally
(13:20):
like it would be funny, except the results are so tragic.
So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himselves
the trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
this is the guy we want identify him. That would
have been simple, exactly, would have saved five minutes. So
you're identified, you go to trial. Well, I'm trying as
an adult. I'm gonna keep parking sp I'm a kid.
So there's a process here in California that determines if
(13:43):
you're worthy of juvenile court or you have to go
with the big boys. Right, And so this was a
murderer and they felt that it deserved it higher punishment,
and so ultimately went to trial, had an assigned attorney
that the county it wasn't a public defenders like a
panel attorney. I have to say this part here is
And when I walked into the court room and I
was chained to you know, the chain gang there everyone's
ever been arraigned, all adults, and then one looking at
(14:05):
me like what did you do, like steal some candy
and blah blah blah, and you know, they're just ragging
on me, these adults who had obviously been there before.
And so I'm the last guy to be arraigned, and
so everyone's freaking out, like, oh ship, we weren't expecting
that charge for this kid, right, And prior to that,
I will say that, and it's and it kind of
goes to just me being so naive here is that
(14:25):
I heard someone call my name and I'm like, I'm
so little. I'm like raising my hand like I'm over here.
And I looked over and I saw this good looking
white man with this amazing suit on, just like tan suit,
walking towards him with the file and I was like,
oh my god, they'd have signed me the best fucker
in the room, man, Like this is all gonna be
(14:46):
worked out, Like this is it. I got the very
check of the world. Sadly. It's just an example of
like where my mentality was, even my perception of this
new world. This courtroom was like sadly, like the white
guy come in to your rescue, had like such an
impact from living in a society where the majority people
around you or people who look like you and who
(15:06):
you know other than the teacher or whatever, and so
I thought it was a funny and looking back at
that moment, getting me so excited about everything's gonna be
okay now, right obviously not obviously not. I mean the odds,
the odds were stacked against you. The government was willing
to lie to get the conviction. They were willing to
use an incentivized witness, and they convicted you, they did,
(15:27):
and now you get sent to maximum security prison. At
the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it was
like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I went
there and the sentence was thirty years to life, with
an additional six life sentences attached to that. So I'll
say that when I heard those words come of the
judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceived like a week
(15:47):
or a few months in might life to now to
imagine thirty years to life's life. I couldn't even comprehend
that for someone wants to be sort of funny and
sort of mess with me. It meant like, do thirty
years to life die and then you're back in prison,
like even if you ever come back, right, And it
was like, I mean, like if you get reincarnated, I
suppose right like you're you're they'll send you up for
(16:09):
for your next life. It doesn't make any sense. And
also none of this makes any sense. But that in
particular doesn't make any sense just in terms of the
semantics of it. It's interesting too, write because there was
a witness who actually wanted to come forward and who
had information that could have prevented you from being convicted
in the first places. There was so he wasn't just
a witness. This guy that you're referring to was the
actual killer. So as a bizarre twist in this case,
(16:33):
the investigator had discovered who the murderer was, and um,
your investigator there, and it's a bizarre twist all this.
And it's not to minimize the bad police work here,
but now it's also bad defense work here. My defense
attorney had an investigator who had went out and become
the world's best investigator by tracking down who achument the crime.
(16:54):
Turns out he knew the murderer, and so there was
just this conflict of interests of either get off the
cave or reveal that this is the guy who did it.
He had this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to
the crime. There's a six page confession that he took
from this man and what he tried to do. To
his credit, he trying to convince this guy to come
(17:14):
to the court and just say, look, frank didn't do it,
it was me, and he arrived with an attorney. You
would assume that the judge would say, well, wait a
minute here, before Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's
hear about this guy in the hallway. And lo and behold,
the judge says, you're too late. You've been convicted by jury.
All this sort of like last Man information that's apparently
(17:35):
in the hallway. Just deal with it in your appeal.
So after the jury renders you guilty and the guys
standing outside the doors of the courtroom, exactly who's actually
holding the cards to your freedom? Well, I mean it
would have shed light. If it's someone cared about truth, right,
it would have been like, well, let's bring the guy in.
And so it failed me even again at that point
that's such a crazy You were like thirty feet from
(17:58):
freedom sort of right, doors would have opened and this
guy would have been allowed to walk in and and
provided he actually came clean, true, because he might have
changed his mind. People do that. But you had a
real opportunity to avoid this most nightmarish faith that anybody
can possibly imagine. But that's not what happened. And ultimately
there were six witnesses who testified against you, and the
(18:19):
crazy thing is they all recanted, right, Eventually they all recanted.
They initially used this one boy, the swift Yer old boy,
to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
six months which is bizarre here everyone was under eighteen,
so that everyone was very young. Six months maybe even
seven months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
(18:40):
And we all know about memory, and there has been
studies and it's been proven that this is not the
recording that you have on your phone in your mind.
The memories record a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots,
and as time goes on they fade and other information
filters in and it gets very tainted. So it's hard
to really recall, especially a dry by shooting in the
middle of the night. You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running,
(19:02):
so to really capture that, it's like an immediate on
the scene interview is like the best one. So we're
talking about seven months later now where these boys are
showing photographs for the first time ever, and sure enough,
sure enough, one by one they say, yep, that's the guy.
It's photographed number one, and it was obviously later determined
it's his young boy, the fifteen year old boy. Made
(19:22):
it a point to tell everyone else if they ever
show you photographs, believe me, I know who did it.
It was photographed number one. And so now we got
six people right. And it's so absurd to think that
seven months later, as you said, in the middle of
the night, in the dark and a drive by shooting,
that all the factors are there for almost a guarantee
of wrong flight identification, missidentification, and that's exactly what happened.
(19:45):
So you spent much more than half your life behind bars.
You're you're only really a cognizant human maybe for ten
years around number so more than twice that amount of time.
You're now in a cage in a violent, scary, hostile environment.
How did you manage to make it through that? You know? Well,
(20:11):
you know, when I think back about how I survived
twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most about something my
dad said sort of in passing or just started to
give me some advice at the dinner table, which was,
if those adults around, go to them. He's sort of
instilling these things about just society, they'll help you. And
so I think, here I am in a room full
of adults. I'm an adult court, and I'm expecting everyone
(20:34):
to do the right thing just because you're an adult.
I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching out for
the system and yourself and and everyone in the room.
And so that went, that went haywire. That that failed me.
But I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity
was being born, and so I arrived in the place
that was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you
(20:56):
hear about it from the outside. From the inside, it's
a very somber and just a sad place where people
are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
the ground level here other people who don't want to
be there and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
And so the first couple of years of that, and
(21:16):
you know, you're trying to sort of find your place.
It's a social dynamic there, and so you're moving in
groups of your kind, and you know, you get a
job and you're you kind of get active and what's
happening there. But luckily for me, and I really thank
my dad for saying that, it's instilling in this idea
that whoever they are, but people are good people. And
in my case, I had to be careful with who
(21:36):
I told that I was innocent, because you know, that's
back to the sort of ranking about like your murderer
in prison has more status than if you're there for
a child molestation. And so even in my environment, I
think innocent is probably below child molester. You don't belong here,
Like what what the funk man? Like you're you know,
I mean the criminal, Like we're all you know, we're
all tough here what's what's so I learned that I
(21:58):
mean a mistaken, total the wrong guy, that I was innocent,
and the looky gabing was like, oh shit, maybe I
shouldn't be telling people that that I'm not like you,
right obviously like everyone else I read and I and
I feel like I'm want to sound like a natural chameleon.
So I just adapted to my environment. I've been always
been very diplomatic, so I was always trying to be
the peacekeeper, and so that helped the pain. And also,
(22:19):
like the hope was that like somewhere, somehow someone was
going to realize that this was a huge mistake. And
so the system that failed me, the criminal justiceystem that
failed me, and everyone who makes that sort of term,
you know, happen and work though it's it's supposed to work.
Is I suppose I was expecting them to figure it
out and help me. It's sort of like suspending reality
(22:41):
and thinking, forget what has happened to you where you've
been wrongly convicted, and try to hold onto the one
piece that these people can do the right thing. And
so I'm expecting people to do the right thing. It's
incredible that you would be expecting people to do the
right thing when, with the exception of your father, that
everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
(23:03):
you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
people are going to accept me for who I am,
which is an innocent guy trapped in the sentence that
that doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot
to be learned from that, right, because all of us
go through little disappointments on a daily basis, right, or
(23:26):
a weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react
to those, and certainly being around you and the other
exonorees it, I always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude,
you know, and I learned to be I think much
more understanding of life's little twists and turns, because they
all seem so trivial. When you deal with someone who's
been through hell and managed to maintain not just sanity,
(23:49):
but a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's
it's remarkable. I'm going to add also, Jason, that there
was something happening that. I didn't realize this until many
years later. But we're all conditioning the way, and specifically,
when we think of prison, we think of the ugliest
human from his behavior, what he did, or the way
he looks in the tattoos and the what ponytail. Whatever
(24:10):
we have in our minds etched out as like what
a prisoner looks like. And so imagine a guy who's
great looking as I am in a prison. You might think, oh, man,
this guy is vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But
the reality is that it pulled perversion out of it.
You're in a place where you're almost like a porcelain
figuring in a bar, and it's almost like people want
(24:31):
to protect you, and they're curious about, like, what's this
guy with no tattoos doing amongst us? Why is he
still nice? Like you know, we're all mean and talking
ship to each other, and this guy's like talking about
good morning and whatever. Right, And so I learned that
my humanity hadn't been detached from me. There was no
guilt that made me feel like I couldn't be human.
So I was just who I thought I had to be.
(24:51):
And as time went on, I'd use it as a
shield because I knew that that was happening, that there
was like the social conditioning that was working in my favor,
even just a survival part, let alone the criminal justice
me trying to get out. Now that you've been out
(25:15):
for six years, and hearing you talk about it, you're
very calm, and you paint a picture that is I
think either you're in a little bit of denial, you know,
like they say, denial is not a river in Egypt.
About how terrifying and how I know it was a
brutal experience, no matter all the things you're saying, notwithstanding,
(25:37):
but I do want to turn to the happy part
of this story, right your exoneration and then what happened
after you got out, because America loves to come back. Yeah, man,
and your story is very uplifting. I mean, just the
fact that you're here now is has got to be
inspiring to so many people. So how did you? Was
it the Northern California Innocence Project that too. I think
(25:58):
my exoneration it's sort of twofold her. But when it
came to the legal components to it, I did what
many other people do. They write letters, and they they
bothered their families and that they have a friend who
they can nag about it. They do that like it's
a constant scratching away at this right. And so for
me it was a fifteen year literal writing campaign that
went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty and
(26:19):
forty hours and some row back, you know, along with
Barry Scheck, who wasn't interested in at the time with
a case who wasn't involving DNA, which I understood, but
as bizarre as it was, I was. I was a
fulsome prisoner working as a teacher's aid. So I was,
you know, helping the teacher correct papers and do some
algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty basic stuff, right.
And Tony Carter, who was a teacher, she was about
(26:41):
to retire, and those like this internal policy where you
can't get too close to the prisoners suse. If not,
they'll fire you and so on. And so I knew that,
and now I want to get her in trouble. So
she knew my plight, but I never never went as
far as to say, hey, Tony, would he help? But
now I figured she's done, you know, she's about to retire.
Now is the time, right, So on the last moments
she's walking away on that Friday, I say, Tony, Tony,
(27:02):
and she looks back and she said, yeah, what's up?
You forget to say something? And sure enough I did, right,
I said, would would you help me? She's like, sure, Like,
what can I do for you? Right? You know my story?
If Melt retired, if you're in your travels in the world,
if you come across a lawyer, a reporter, or anyone
you think might be interested in my story, would you
just mind just sharing that with him? And I think
(27:23):
anyone would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right, you're
about to leave, and so she she says, sure, I
can't do that, and I was. I was really relieved
because a letter I I can do that all day long,
but face to face it's it's a different dynamic there.
But I felt really happy that I was able to
mustard the guts to do that. And so turns out
that six months after that conversation, she was invited to
(27:43):
a book club in Sacramento. This guy named bow mos Off,
who was now has passed I was gonna do some
book signing and she had seen him before, and so
she shows up and lo and behold there's an attorney
in the room. And luckily for me, she mentioned that
she was a lawyer because I guess who was listening Tony,
who says, oh shit, I guess this is guess this
is a calling, right, So she goes over and says her,
(28:05):
dear lawyer, and you know, have this guy, you know,
I used to be a former teacher in prison, and
there's a story I want to share with you. And
literally that's what's it triggered it. This woman was Ellen Eggers,
was a public defender working on death penalty cases in California,
who then got in touch with Northern California Innocence Project.
Morrison enforced her and this dream came together. It took
(28:25):
them five years, and they could have taken them ten years.
I didn't care. But finally someone was going beyond the
record and saying, let's listen to this guy has to say.
So they turned stones over that had been ignored. They
tracked down these six boys, these nel man, you know,
they weren't kids anymore, and one by one it was
almost like if they were being freed from their own miseries.
(28:48):
They all, from what I hear, they were all so
gracious to say like, you know what, thank you for
finding me. I need to tell you the truth as
if they were living with this pain as well. There
was witnesses that were brought in to clarify the All
things were described that happened couldn't have happen. And and
so the evidence I was used against me had gone
away and there was a final hearing. Luckily for me,
the Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded the case, so
(29:09):
there was ultimately no fight. They agreed that this had
gone wrong and I was free to go. And so
the words I've been I've been yearning to hear all
my life, well it seemed to be my entire life,
the judge said them, which is basically, get out of here.
He apologize. The d S apologized in the room, which
felt really good. The heme over and shook my hand.
I think the judge he gave more of like a
(29:30):
philosophical response to that, but it was less about him,
was more about the D's office. And it turned out
that the corporate the bad players here were just his
bad cop. I'm a big fan of law enforcement, but
in this situation, it was a bad cop who was
tied up with this internal gang situation and ship went
bad and I had a supper. Yes, you certainly did.
So you walked out of the courthouse, you walked in
(29:53):
or you were arrested, and you can walk in. You
were taken in as a sixteen year old boy, you
walk out as a thirties seven having year old man.
What's that like? You walk out? I mean, what is
freedom taste? And then your dad had died at the right,
so now you're an orphan yep, and you walk out
into what what did you do? Did you go get something? Like?
(30:14):
What do you do? I mean? I wish I would
been released from the courtroom. I was released from the
Sheriff's Department's jail there the county jail il like county jail,
And it was about it was mid midweek. It was
about maybe two in the afternoon, and they called me
on my sale and took me down to the street
level when doors opened, and there was like a TMZ moment, really,
(30:34):
all these cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
and and all the mics come out before my family
and lawyers could get to me. And how does it
feel be free? How does it feel to be free, right,
and the big question, And I think I ignored that
one because I sort of thought about that for a
very long time when I was in prison. What's it
gonna feel like? And it sort of felt stupid to
say if it felt this great or whatever. So but
(30:56):
I remember thinking that such a bright day, the colors
that just at my disposal now it seemed to be
like a century overload, which is my immediate reaction was wow,
when the colors, the people, the attention, because you know, Jason,
the reality was that at a very young age, I
had become like the man in the iron mask, where
my voice was taken away. My existence before I had
(31:19):
a chance to even blossom, was extinguished. There was no
chance for this young life to become anything, and so
I had to live with that. I live with the
fact that when I did try to make an attempt
to speak up for myself, that was ignored and I
was minimized. So that was a personal struggle that all
kind of came together the day I was out, So
(31:40):
from no attention to like, hey, we're all here for you, right,
which was great. My attorneys were there, my family was there,
some who hadn't seen them very long time, and I
was ushered into a car pretty quickly, and we went
to Echo Park to a friend's home who they had
a good whole food sort of spread waiting for me. Right,
so I went for a cafeteria food for twenty years
(32:02):
or prison food, which is even worse, to this long
table of organic almonds and dried apricots. You know. So
that was pretty cool. Almonds and apricots and sounds a
little biblical, you know, it's kind of funny. I was
thinking of you. I was thinking, you're gonna say, you've
got like sandwiches, and you know, I was picturing more
of a you know, I mean, if they had almonds
(32:24):
and apricots, I would have actually been piste out of it,
like come on, really, like can I get a slice
a little pizza something? I mean, come on. So then
you went home and then now now here it is,
you've rebuilt your life. You've successfully filed a lawsuit. Well
you had to lawsuits, right, and one was settled and
(32:44):
the other one you won. Right, So you're now unlike
many of our axonorees. There's a bright spot there because
you know I talked about often. But the fact is,
you know, so many exgonres and it's something we're working
to fix. Do not receive compensation. You were able to
prove violations of your civil rights and other things that
led to you being compensated in a meaningful way. That's
(33:06):
gonna now allow you to help fix the system. That
that would be a great full circle, wouldn't it. You know,
I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the money here
because it makes my life very enjoyable. I think the
true joyous moments for me since I've been home is
that before I even got out, and this is this
is I hope they can be sort of passed along
to those who are who were imprisoned rightly or wrongly.
(33:27):
But this idea that you have to before even get out.
You can't sort of prepare yourself the week to date,
that the week the night before, like okay, tomorrow is
a big release date. Let me kind of get my
thoughts together. This has to happen long before the door opens.
And so I feel that sort of credit to myself
and those who are around me that my transition phase
happened long before the door opened. And so when the
(33:49):
door opened, I felt very prepared to just attempt to
just now really be free, because a common theme was
when you got there, some older guy kind of gave
you some like advice. As an example, you have five
years to do, and the advice was, for the first
four years, just kind of hang out, man, you know
you're in prison. Just relaxed, just play some cards and
ship and if you know you want to play dominoes,
(34:09):
go work out, right. But the last year, man, like
the last year, like, you know, go to church, or
if you're smoking, stop smoking, get it together, right, And
I thought that was pretty good advice. Why not, man,
what else you got to lose? Right? And at some
point I realized that that even though it was a
life for that advice applied to me and it was
against suspending complete reality here. But it was like, you
know what, I'm making all these efforts to try to
(34:31):
get my case hurt and try to get some attention here.
Let me work on me too. Let me work on
this idea that I need prepare myself. And so fast
forward I went A month after I got out with
some good friends Scott Would and who who ended up
living with in Mannon Beach and his wife Jeanie Would,
I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles, Loyola
Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort of
(34:53):
funny here, but I went from one prison to another
because it had all the elements that I needed, and
it felt like for a guy like me, I needed
the structure that I had been accustomed to. And it's
not the put down, but it was the university gave
me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
but ship. I had deadlines. Man had had to show up,
you know. And so went from a very negative environment
(35:14):
that I was into a very very loving and encouraging space,
which was the school. Right along with just sort of
being active and being an activism. How could I not
support the Innocence Project and weighs the end the death
penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
But and that's just gotten a whole lot worse with
the speed up to death penalty refront of the past
in California, which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable that people
(35:39):
would have because they well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing
that we're going to execute a lot of innocent people.
Because the changes to the law are devastating to people
who have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
It's the speed up the death penalty. None of it
makes any sense. But voices like yours and all the
(36:00):
cosure that is the media is really driving interest in
this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of mass
incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are sadly
uniquely American problems because other countries are so much more
evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie. We
(36:21):
have five percent of the world's population, the world's prison population.
The point I'm making is that when we process people
at this rate, where we just keep feeding this prison
industrial complex, they're gonna be mistakes. They're going to be
more Frankie careos. We have to reverse the entire way
of thinking that we have and start to become a
(36:41):
more progressive society in terms of the way we treat
to people who are really the leased among us, people
who find themselves in the situation that you're in, not
a wealthy person by any means, and then just being
ground up by the system. I want to get to
last words, because I want to always like to give
our guests the opportunity to air anything that you can
think of that want to share with our audience. You've
(37:02):
been through so much, You've come through sounding, looking, feeling,
acting like a person who knows stuff. You have such
a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook. It's almost
unnerving to be honest with you, you know. I mean,
for a minute there you were making prisons sound like
it was like, yeah, you know whatever. There's many years
(37:22):
that man, like I'm gonna be like like, it's just
you know, thank you Jason for these final words here
that I think that for many people listening, and people
even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
different level here, right. And you know, I wish that
I can sort of either write a book or explain
how I made it through and how these things weren't
able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer. I
(37:44):
can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
what I experienced as a whole, about the things that
were lost, about you know, all the what ifs, right
and very quickly I made it a point to remember
what anger and what revenge and what hatred does to someone.
(38:04):
Tell you even even deeper here that when I was
in prison, I think about those who had owned that,
who had owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred,
and I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
and I don't want to be that. And here we
are in a roomful of statues, this beautiful art that
predates all of us here, and I think about if
(38:24):
that was who I'd become in prison, I would I
wouldn't be here one and two. If I had traces
of that and I was out on some level, I
would still be on the inside. I would be physically free,
but the rage that would that would be living within
me would be like a prison all to itself. And
so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
(38:45):
and and as a move forward to my life. And
speaking of that life, I'm happily married. I have three
amazing children. I have theo A, Kiva, and Frieda my wife.
FT is amazing, and life is great. And I think
it's a responsibility for not only myself, my family to
take on this responsibility of giving people the pleasure of
experiencing the cognitive dissonance, which is you are around or
(39:09):
you hear and you experience something that suspends you from
and it shocks you into like this is not what
I expected from a guy who had been in prison
for all these years, And it challenge you your own beliefs,
own things you've you've been carrying with you. This psychological
moment says wow, like I need to change what I
used to think about those who are on the inside.
And so it's a responsibility for me and other exonoreas
(39:31):
I feel that to awaken that side of all of
us to say, let's not do that. Let's not do
that to each other. And when someone says it's not
a joke anymore, that they are innocent, let's listen, because
you know many experiences and many stories that are tragic
that we've been listening to this whole weekend of if
only someone really listened and cared. Yeah, and everybody out
(39:51):
there has the power to make a difference. I always
encourage our audience to get involved, and it's great to
see that many of them are I know and hearing
your story for me again, it puts gratitude in my
attitude and makes all those little wham wads that we
all have in life just seem so much easier to
deal with and so much to surface noise right when
(40:14):
somebody like you can can come and have this sort
of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know, the the
fact is, to any of us in the movement and
to other people on the outside, it's a source of
never ending wonder and awe that every single Egonorey I've
ever met has some version of that type of higher
(40:35):
consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this state
of almost like a state of grace that is, it's
just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I appreciate
you taking the time to share your experience, strength and
hope with us. And again, I'm just gonna have to
take a moment to process this and and then I'm
(40:56):
going to go and get busy and get back to
work on helping other We've had a very unique experience
because we've been recording the podcast in an idyllic environment.
We're actually in a in a room in a home
overlooking the Pacific ocean on a cliff, surrounded by the
most incredible African art. So I want to thank our hosts,
(41:16):
Bill Larroc and Michelle Chickarelli Laroc for having us here
and allowing us to record in their beautiful home. Don't
forget to give us a fantastic review Wherever you get
your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor
to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join
(41:38):
me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org
to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on face Book at Wrongful
(42:01):
Conviction Podcast. Rightful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production
of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
Number one h
With the police banging on the door open up. The
choice to be in that lineup was the last choice
I made as a free man. A year later, I
ended up writing the system. I'm going to be one
of those people who everyone in the world is going
to think as a monster or suspect as a monster
for the rest of my life, and I'm just gonna
have to come to peace with that. Somebody was able
(00:28):
to look at my picture in a database and say
that I was somewhere where I definitely wasn't. I overheard
three of the jailer's discussing what part they might have
to play in my hanging. They had been told that
two prison officers would have to participate in my execution,
and I walked back inside that prison for the last time.
(00:48):
All hell broke loose. But welcome to another episode of
Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam Today we have a very
incredible person as our guest. Are featured Exonoree. Today's Frankie
(01:12):
kil Korea was sixteen. In fifteen, sheriff's deputies with guns
drawn storm through the front door. Korea was convicted of
murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms Frankie was
released from jail in downtown l A this afternoon after
spending twenty years, and Cario was released after the court
found evidence that Koreo was framed through coerced testimony for
(01:33):
a fatal drive by shooting. The gang of corrupt l
A Sheriff's deputies known as the Lynwood Vikings, coerced six
witnesses into identifying him in a photo lineup. Frankie, welcome,
Jason is good to be here. So Frankie, your story
begins when you were really just a child and the
baby man. Let's go back to the beginning. You grew
(01:55):
up in l A, right, that's correct, Southern California, and
you had a pretty happy upbringing, right, Yeah, I would
say that. Yeah, everything was going along more or less. Okay,
nothing's easy about being a sixteen year old boy, that's right.
Then one day it all was turned upside down. That
day was January. I was just a little color there
(02:17):
was a high school student. I was a child of
a divorce family, four siblings. My father had raised us
in stage of nine, so it's a very male dominated household.
Dad and two boys was what I'd known for the
past seven years and you had a sort of a
unique situation too, which is that your mom had one
day just decided to check out. That's it. Yeah, it
wasn't like they got separated and you spent half the
(02:37):
time with her or she just left. That was it. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's an unfortunate story, but that's what happened. Yeah,
So you had been abandoned in a very real way
and experienced something that's obviously going to affect any young
man for the rest of his life. But that wasn't
the worst of what was to come by far. And again,
(02:58):
sixteen is really not a child, but you're closing with
a child than an adult. It even though it was
my age, I was sixteen, psychologically you're just still a
kid and you know, maybe operating at thirteen fourteen level,
not to you know, minimize it, but I'm a boy,
I'm a kid grade tenth grader, tenth grade exactly what
I'm saying. Tenth grade, you're you're you know, you're closer
to middle school than you are to college. You and
(03:19):
and and it hadn't even shaved. So it's like a
good a good references that you're at the point where
like facial hair is sort of developing, but you're not
there yet, Frankie, like, hold off right. And then one night,
fifteen cops bust in your house. What it's surreal situation.
You were asleep. I was asleep, just a normal night.
Actually it was early morning, so it was dark, but
it was it was six in the morning when this happened.
(03:40):
And my father and I went home and they couldn't
get in. They were they were pound in a way,
and ultimately I opened the door, looked at the window,
knew was them. They were screaming who they were, and
they stormed in, stormed in, ordered my father and night
to the floor. And that's the beginning of the nightmare. Really,
so they already to the floor. Did they tell you
what was going on? I wish it did? You know?
(04:00):
It was pretty strategic in all business, so they wanted
to like ramsacked. The home was their main objective. And
you know, my father and I really my dad was
trying to exert his his his position. This is my home.
What are you doing here? And he was being ignored.
So he's telling me, like, what's happening. I'm like, I
don't know, Like I have no idea whether here soon
after on the ride to the sheriff's station is when
(04:21):
I learned that I had been accused and ultimately now
being arrested for a murderer I hadn't committed. So you
get to the sheriff's station and what happens next. Really,
I was expecting my father to show up, but what
happened was I was placed into an interrogation room. The
people who showed up instead were these two sort of
cowboy detectives running to play the good cop bad cop
on me, and I played along. You know. They said
(04:43):
what they're arrested me for? And if I would wouldn't
to talk? And I said, sure, I'll talk like I
have nothing to hide, right, And so you wave your right?
I did. And that's such a crazy thing, Frankie, because
I think it's hard for most people to understand why
someone would wave their miran to rights when you have
the right to a lawyer who is going to give
(05:04):
that up. But the fact is in your case, I
think it's fairly typical, which is that if you're innocent,
and this is an ironic thing, right, if you're innocent,
A lot of people go in they think, well, why
do I need a lawyer. I'm just gonna answer some questions,
and the justice system is gonna work because I'm an
innocent person who abides by the law, and then they'll
see that they made a mistake and then they'll go
catch the real guy. Exactly right. Unfortunately, it's gonna take
(05:27):
stories like yours to help educate people so that they
don't do that. You do not give up any information
without getting a lawyer. But I will add Jason that
when you're in that code room and the power imbalance
is obvious, you are in a detention facility. Basically, you're
in there in their stronghold. You're in the sheriff's departments space,
(05:49):
and you're there as a visitor. You're there obviously being
charged for this crime, in my case, being wrongfully charged.
And so to some degree, as a young boy, you
want these are adults. I'm looking at these men, and
you want to cooperate. You want to like, I'll talk
to you, and I have nothing to hide, is sort
of my position looking back now. Obviously I wish I
wish there was a Civics class that would have said,
you know what, no matter what, innocent, guilty, whatever the
(06:10):
situation is, just wait for your parents or wait for
a lawyer. Yes, it's a tragic twist or irony that
when you're innocent and you go into the situation, you're
more likely to waive your Miranda rights and if you're guilty, exactly,
we're in that interrogation room. How long were you interrogated
for it? Do you even know? You know? Surprisingly, I
think back of that five him and interrogation and I
sort of left that room thinking, you know, where was
(06:32):
the lamp? You know where where were these guys punching
on me? Like, you know, you watch enough TV to
understand that this is supposed to unfold a little bit
different than it did in my case. At least, they
were very quick to just say, there's a young boy
who witnessed the crime, who was adamant that you were
the guy who did it. So we got you. Let's
talk about you just confessing to it. So it was
really very brief, very precise on their end, and I
(06:54):
think I'm gonna chuckle not to be silly here, but
it was just like so unreal, like one you're you're
are you sure you're talking to me? I'm adamant that
it wasn't me, Obviously, and their position was like, we're
beyond if you did it or not. We just want
you to just come clean, just confess that she did it.
And I was like, I can't do that. It ended
(07:14):
after ten minutes. That's it. Like they weren't trying to
impress me or and starve me out anything. They were
just like, okay, well we'll see you in court like that,
we're going to jail. Nil Like that was it hearing that?
And that's an unusual interrogation, And that it went on
for such a short period of time, it sounds to
me like at that point they actually did think they
had the right guy, because they were like, Okay, well
this guy is not gonna give it up, but we
(07:35):
got the right guy, so it's okay, we're gonna We're
gonna get them no matter what. But as things unraveled,
they took steps that were corrupt and illegal. How did
they end up managing to convict you when you were
so obviously not the guy? So you know, in Los
Angeles at least, that's a very familiar story about misconduct
with the l A p d SO Rampart Division scandal,
(07:57):
it's more readily available knowledge. But my case didn't involve
l APD involved the Lli's Sheriff's Department. And there's a
well known at least locally of the Linwood Vikings. So
Linwood is where this this crime happened and where my
arrist was ultimately investigated. And the Linwood Vikings had become
a rogue police gang. So what I thought is a
(08:18):
naive boy, that I was dealing with law enforcement who
were abided by the constitution and their policies in the department.
Some of the people on this investigation team were these
bad cops. Sort of fast forward and here of information
I knew, not at the time, but as the case developed.
And so when this young boy who was used to
identify me, who was showing a photo lineup photo six
(08:40):
pack to ultimately say this is the guy who committed
the crime, the case sounded pretty pretty cut and dry.
There's a witness, there's a show, was shwing a photographic lineup.
He quickly identified the shooter. We got the rest slam duck.
And so there was a trial when I was trying
to an adult and move forward to a conviction. But
at some point it was discovered that this young boy
(09:01):
wasn't as innocent as you know, he was more than
just a witness. It was revealed that he was an
informant for one specific law enforcement officer, Deputy Ditch. And
so deputy deputy of all things, Deputy Ditch, right, I
mean what a name, right, Craig Ditch is the guy's name.
He's now retired. The guy had this boy under his
wing as an informant, and he happened to be at
(09:22):
this crime scene, and so it was very very easy
to say, I'm your go to guy here. So the
story later was discovered that this young boy was showing
photographs after he'd been interviewed five times by other investigators
with no results. He realized Ditch had a relationship with
this boy. Ditch shows up cases over. The case was
solved when Stitch arrived in less than eight hours, and
(09:45):
the story that was revealed that the young boy was
showing the photographs as what was in the report, and
so he picks a random picture just to play along,
and Ditch says, that's the wrong guy. He's in jail
right now. Try again. You know, I'm sure he's feeling
like an idiot this point. You know, you're trying to help,
You're young you're scared. So he picks another photograph and
the DEPP he says, these guys dead. What about this
(10:07):
guy here? We think he's trying to come up in
the rankings or whatever, And so the boy just says, yeah,
I guess that makes sense. I guess I guess that's
the guy. And this is the story. Way he was
looking at six photographs. Yep, he was over too exactly.
He picked he picked very badly. He picked a guy
who was in jail and a guy who was dead. Right.
That's really hard to make a case against those guys. Right.
And by the way, it's sort of odd that there
(10:28):
was a guy in the sixth pack who was dead.
Give me a break, I mean, you would think they
would take that guy out just I mean, let me
jump in here and say, well, you know, Frankie, what's up.
You're coming off as this high school student, nice guy.
What's your photograph doing in the sheriff's apartment? Like, tell
us about that. I'm sure that was your next question, right,
I'm getting to that what happened in this environment is
(10:48):
referencing here that specific sheriff's department's policy was that if
there was any anyone that you thought was a potential
bad kid or bad guy or bad anything. Let's do
some racial pro Finally at this point right us gather intail.
And so the photograph was obtained in the summer between
my sixth grade and seventh grade vacation. Blocked there, me
and some of my buddies just righting our BMX spikes
(11:10):
through a local park, no big deal, summertime, and this
deputy depute Luna remember the guy's name, sort of just
rolls up next to us. He's done an official lights
on pull over. He stops, We stopped, start talking about
who has a girlfriend, and where do you live? And
what's up with you? Whatever? Right, just pretty cool talking
to a cop, No big deal. And then the guy says,
do you mind if I take your photograph to the group?
(11:31):
I don't remember us looking around saying what do you think? Guys?
Are we just like I guess like you're you're a cop? Right? Like?
What do we say? No? And so this is the
time when you had polar Rod camera. So the guy
got out of his car, went into the trunk and
pulled out the little manual polar Rod camera, and one
by one he just came to right where we were
on our bike standing and just snapped the photograph. And
(11:52):
so that photograph that was taken in a park with
trees in the background and whatever else was in the background,
I was smiling in the picture. That photograph ended up
in the six pack. So talk about like a chain
of events here that fus your life up right, Oh
my god, I mean, that's really the most I've heard
all types of different stories, and you're right, that is
a question that people often ask, why was this picture? Now?
(12:14):
What we know is that if you live in a
poor neighborhood, specifically a poor minority neighborhood, the cops do
sweeps and they'll pick up everybody, right, And you're so
your picture could be in there because you had a joint,
or any other thing could be in there because you
were trespassing, right, I have air quotes under that one
or whatever. And so it's really true that a lot
(12:35):
of people have records for the most minor misdemeanors. In
your case, you had no record whatsoever. Actually, it was
probably I mean, thinking back to when I was at
six or seventh grade, if a cop would ask to
take my picture, I would have felt good, even like, wow,
this guy wants to take my picture. I'm pretty cool kid.
(12:59):
M So your picture was in the lineup because this
cop had been a sneaky way racially profiled you as
a thirteen year old boy riding his bike in the park,
which is exactly as far as I can tell, what
thirteen year old boys are supposed to be doing. You
were identified in this insane process, right, which is literally
(13:20):
like it would be funny, except the results are so tragic.
So he eventually managed to come up with the answer
that the cop wanted, which he could have saved himselves
the trouble by just saying initially to the kid, hey,
this is the guy we want identify him. That would
have been simple, exactly, would have saved five minutes. So
you're identified, you go to trial. Well, I'm trying as
an adult. I'm gonna keep parking sp I'm a kid.
So there's a process here in California that determines if
(13:43):
you're worthy of juvenile court or you have to go
with the big boys. Right, And so this was a
murderer and they felt that it deserved it higher punishment,
and so ultimately went to trial, had an assigned attorney
that the county it wasn't a public defenders like a
panel attorney. I have to say this part here is
And when I walked into the court room and I
was chained to you know, the chain gang there everyone's
ever been arraigned, all adults, and then one looking at
(14:05):
me like what did you do, like steal some candy
and blah blah blah, and you know, they're just ragging
on me, these adults who had obviously been there before.
And so I'm the last guy to be arraigned, and
so everyone's freaking out, like, oh ship, we weren't expecting
that charge for this kid, right, And prior to that,
I will say that, and it's and it kind of
goes to just me being so naive here is that
(14:25):
I heard someone call my name and I'm like, I'm
so little. I'm like raising my hand like I'm over here.
And I looked over and I saw this good looking
white man with this amazing suit on, just like tan suit,
walking towards him with the file and I was like,
oh my god, they'd have signed me the best fucker
in the room, man, Like this is all gonna be
(14:46):
worked out, Like this is it. I got the very
check of the world. Sadly. It's just an example of
like where my mentality was, even my perception of this
new world. This courtroom was like sadly, like the white
guy come in to your rescue, had like such an
impact from living in a society where the majority people
around you or people who look like you and who
(15:06):
you know other than the teacher or whatever, and so
I thought it was a funny and looking back at
that moment, getting me so excited about everything's gonna be
okay now, right obviously not obviously not. I mean the odds,
the odds were stacked against you. The government was willing
to lie to get the conviction. They were willing to
use an incentivized witness, and they convicted you, they did,
(15:27):
and now you get sent to maximum security prison. At
the time, they had a juvenile facility, so it was
like the Youth Authority for young adults. So I went
there and the sentence was thirty years to life, with
an additional six life sentences attached to that. So I'll
say that when I heard those words come of the
judge's mouth, I couldn't imagine or perceived like a week
(15:47):
or a few months in might life to now to
imagine thirty years to life's life. I couldn't even comprehend
that for someone wants to be sort of funny and
sort of mess with me. It meant like, do thirty
years to life die and then you're back in prison,
like even if you ever come back, right, And it
was like, I mean, like if you get reincarnated, I
suppose right like you're you're they'll send you up for
(16:09):
for your next life. It doesn't make any sense. And
also none of this makes any sense. But that in
particular doesn't make any sense just in terms of the
semantics of it. It's interesting too, write because there was
a witness who actually wanted to come forward and who
had information that could have prevented you from being convicted
in the first places. There was so he wasn't just
a witness. This guy that you're referring to was the
actual killer. So as a bizarre twist in this case,
(16:33):
the investigator had discovered who the murderer was, and um,
your investigator there, and it's a bizarre twist all this.
And it's not to minimize the bad police work here,
but now it's also bad defense work here. My defense
attorney had an investigator who had went out and become
the world's best investigator by tracking down who achument the crime.
(16:54):
Turns out he knew the murderer, and so there was
just this conflict of interests of either get off the
cave or reveal that this is the guy who did it.
He had this young man, the actual murderer, confessed to
the crime. There's a six page confession that he took
from this man and what he tried to do. To
his credit, he trying to convince this guy to come
(17:14):
to the court and just say, look, frank didn't do it,
it was me, and he arrived with an attorney. You
would assume that the judge would say, well, wait a
minute here, before Frankie goes down and he's sentenced, let's
hear about this guy in the hallway. And lo and behold,
the judge says, you're too late. You've been convicted by jury.
All this sort of like last Man information that's apparently
(17:35):
in the hallway. Just deal with it in your appeal.
So after the jury renders you guilty and the guys
standing outside the doors of the courtroom, exactly who's actually
holding the cards to your freedom? Well, I mean it
would have shed light. If it's someone cared about truth, right,
it would have been like, well, let's bring the guy in.
And so it failed me even again at that point
that's such a crazy You were like thirty feet from
(17:58):
freedom sort of right, doors would have opened and this
guy would have been allowed to walk in and and
provided he actually came clean, true, because he might have
changed his mind. People do that. But you had a
real opportunity to avoid this most nightmarish faith that anybody
can possibly imagine. But that's not what happened. And ultimately
there were six witnesses who testified against you, and the
(18:19):
crazy thing is they all recanted, right, Eventually they all recanted.
They initially used this one boy, the swift Yer old boy,
to arrest me based on this photographic lineup, and so
six months which is bizarre here everyone was under eighteen,
so that everyone was very young. Six months maybe even
seven months after the crime had occurred. For the first time,
the other five boys had been shown the photographic lineup.
(18:40):
And we all know about memory, and there has been
studies and it's been proven that this is not the
recording that you have on your phone in your mind.
The memories record a little bit differently. It's like little snapshots,
and as time goes on they fade and other information
filters in and it gets very tainted. So it's hard
to really recall, especially a dry by shooting in the
middle of the night. You hear gunfire, you're ducking, you're running,
(19:02):
so to really capture that, it's like an immediate on
the scene interview is like the best one. So we're
talking about seven months later now where these boys are
showing photographs for the first time ever, and sure enough,
sure enough, one by one they say, yep, that's the guy.
It's photographed number one, and it was obviously later determined
it's his young boy, the fifteen year old boy. Made
(19:22):
it a point to tell everyone else if they ever
show you photographs, believe me, I know who did it.
It was photographed number one. And so now we got
six people right. And it's so absurd to think that
seven months later, as you said, in the middle of
the night, in the dark and a drive by shooting,
that all the factors are there for almost a guarantee
of wrong flight identification, missidentification, and that's exactly what happened.
(19:45):
So you spent much more than half your life behind bars.
You're you're only really a cognizant human maybe for ten
years around number so more than twice that amount of time.
You're now in a cage in a violent, scary, hostile environment.
How did you manage to make it through that? You know? Well,
(20:11):
you know, when I think back about how I survived
twenty years incarceration, what I remembered most about something my
dad said sort of in passing or just started to
give me some advice at the dinner table, which was,
if those adults around, go to them. He's sort of
instilling these things about just society, they'll help you. And
so I think, here I am in a room full
of adults. I'm an adult court, and I'm expecting everyone
(20:34):
to do the right thing just because you're an adult.
I'm a kid. You're supposed to be watching out for
the system and yourself and and everyone in the room.
And so that went, that went haywire. That that failed me.
But I think that this very fuzzy idea of humanity
was being born, and so I arrived in the place
that was very sad. I mean, it's dangerous when you
(20:56):
hear about it from the outside. From the inside, it's
a very somber and just a sad place where people
are being confined. And so I'm talking to you from
the ground level here other people who don't want to
be there and they're also suffering on whatever level, and
you join in on this pity party about life, you know.
And so the first couple of years of that, and
(21:16):
you know, you're trying to sort of find your place.
It's a social dynamic there, and so you're moving in
groups of your kind, and you know, you get a
job and you're you kind of get active and what's
happening there. But luckily for me, and I really thank
my dad for saying that, it's instilling in this idea
that whoever they are, but people are good people. And
in my case, I had to be careful with who
(21:36):
I told that I was innocent, because you know, that's
back to the sort of ranking about like your murderer
in prison has more status than if you're there for
a child molestation. And so even in my environment, I
think innocent is probably below child molester. You don't belong here,
Like what what the funk man? Like you're you know,
I mean the criminal, Like we're all you know, we're
all tough here what's what's so I learned that I
(21:58):
mean a mistaken, total the wrong guy, that I was innocent,
and the looky gabing was like, oh shit, maybe I
shouldn't be telling people that that I'm not like you,
right obviously like everyone else I read and I and
I feel like I'm want to sound like a natural chameleon.
So I just adapted to my environment. I've been always
been very diplomatic, so I was always trying to be
the peacekeeper, and so that helped the pain. And also,
(22:19):
like the hope was that like somewhere, somehow someone was
going to realize that this was a huge mistake. And
so the system that failed me, the criminal justiceystem that
failed me, and everyone who makes that sort of term,
you know, happen and work though it's it's supposed to work.
Is I suppose I was expecting them to figure it
out and help me. It's sort of like suspending reality
(22:41):
and thinking, forget what has happened to you where you've
been wrongly convicted, and try to hold onto the one
piece that these people can do the right thing. And
so I'm expecting people to do the right thing. It's
incredible that you would be expecting people to do the
right thing when, with the exception of your father, that
everybody who was supposed to have protected you either abandoned
(23:03):
you or turned on you in the most vicious way,
and yet you maintained this outlook like, if I just
be me and be honest and be optimistic, then eventually
people are going to accept me for who I am,
which is an innocent guy trapped in the sentence that
that doesn't belong to me. That's really there's a lot
to be learned from that, right, because all of us
go through little disappointments on a daily basis, right, or
(23:26):
a weekly basis or whatever, and so many people react
to those, and certainly being around you and the other
exonorees it, I always say, it puts gratitude in my attitude,
you know, and I learned to be I think much
more understanding of life's little twists and turns, because they
all seem so trivial. When you deal with someone who's
been through hell and managed to maintain not just sanity,
(23:49):
but a sense of grace and kindness and optimism, it's
it's remarkable. I'm going to add also, Jason, that there
was something happening that. I didn't realize this until many
years later. But we're all conditioning the way, and specifically,
when we think of prison, we think of the ugliest
human from his behavior, what he did, or the way
he looks in the tattoos and the what ponytail. Whatever
(24:10):
we have in our minds etched out as like what
a prisoner looks like. And so imagine a guy who's
great looking as I am in a prison. You might think, oh, man,
this guy is vulnerable to like sexual assaults, right, But
the reality is that it pulled perversion out of it.
You're in a place where you're almost like a porcelain
figuring in a bar, and it's almost like people want
(24:31):
to protect you, and they're curious about, like, what's this
guy with no tattoos doing amongst us? Why is he
still nice? Like you know, we're all mean and talking
ship to each other, and this guy's like talking about
good morning and whatever. Right, And so I learned that
my humanity hadn't been detached from me. There was no
guilt that made me feel like I couldn't be human.
So I was just who I thought I had to be.
(24:51):
And as time went on, I'd use it as a
shield because I knew that that was happening, that there
was like the social conditioning that was working in my favor,
even just a survival part, let alone the criminal justice
me trying to get out. Now that you've been out
(25:15):
for six years, and hearing you talk about it, you're
very calm, and you paint a picture that is I
think either you're in a little bit of denial, you know,
like they say, denial is not a river in Egypt.
About how terrifying and how I know it was a
brutal experience, no matter all the things you're saying, notwithstanding,
(25:37):
but I do want to turn to the happy part
of this story, right your exoneration and then what happened
after you got out, because America loves to come back. Yeah, man,
and your story is very uplifting. I mean, just the
fact that you're here now is has got to be
inspiring to so many people. So how did you? Was
it the Northern California Innocence Project that too. I think
(25:58):
my exoneration it's sort of twofold her. But when it
came to the legal components to it, I did what
many other people do. They write letters, and they they
bothered their families and that they have a friend who
they can nag about it. They do that like it's
a constant scratching away at this right. And so for
me it was a fifteen year literal writing campaign that
went nowhere. I mean it was Oprah and twenty and
(26:19):
forty hours and some row back, you know, along with
Barry Scheck, who wasn't interested in at the time with
a case who wasn't involving DNA, which I understood, but
as bizarre as it was, I was. I was a
fulsome prisoner working as a teacher's aid. So I was,
you know, helping the teacher correct papers and do some
algebra on the board, whatever, just pretty basic stuff, right.
And Tony Carter, who was a teacher, she was about
(26:41):
to retire, and those like this internal policy where you
can't get too close to the prisoners suse. If not,
they'll fire you and so on. And so I knew that,
and now I want to get her in trouble. So
she knew my plight, but I never never went as
far as to say, hey, Tony, would he help? But
now I figured she's done, you know, she's about to retire.
Now is the time, right, So on the last moments
she's walking away on that Friday, I say, Tony, Tony,
(27:02):
and she looks back and she said, yeah, what's up?
You forget to say something? And sure enough I did, right,
I said, would would you help me? She's like, sure, Like,
what can I do for you? Right? You know my story?
If Melt retired, if you're in your travels in the world,
if you come across a lawyer, a reporter, or anyone
you think might be interested in my story, would you
just mind just sharing that with him? And I think
(27:23):
anyone would have said yes, it's pretty simple. Right, you're
about to leave, and so she she says, sure, I
can't do that, and I was. I was really relieved
because a letter I I can do that all day long,
but face to face it's it's a different dynamic there.
But I felt really happy that I was able to
mustard the guts to do that. And so turns out
that six months after that conversation, she was invited to
(27:43):
a book club in Sacramento. This guy named bow mos Off,
who was now has passed I was gonna do some
book signing and she had seen him before, and so
she shows up and lo and behold there's an attorney
in the room. And luckily for me, she mentioned that
she was a lawyer because I guess who was listening Tony,
who says, oh shit, I guess this is guess this
is a calling, right, So she goes over and says her,
(28:05):
dear lawyer, and you know, have this guy, you know,
I used to be a former teacher in prison, and
there's a story I want to share with you. And
literally that's what's it triggered it. This woman was Ellen Eggers,
was a public defender working on death penalty cases in California,
who then got in touch with Northern California Innocence Project.
Morrison enforced her and this dream came together. It took
(28:25):
them five years, and they could have taken them ten years.
I didn't care. But finally someone was going beyond the
record and saying, let's listen to this guy has to say.
So they turned stones over that had been ignored. They
tracked down these six boys, these nel man, you know,
they weren't kids anymore, and one by one it was
almost like if they were being freed from their own miseries.
(28:48):
They all, from what I hear, they were all so
gracious to say like, you know what, thank you for
finding me. I need to tell you the truth as
if they were living with this pain as well. There
was witnesses that were brought in to clarify the All
things were described that happened couldn't have happen. And and
so the evidence I was used against me had gone
away and there was a final hearing. Luckily for me,
the Los Angeles disc Attorney's office conceded the case, so
(29:09):
there was ultimately no fight. They agreed that this had
gone wrong and I was free to go. And so
the words I've been I've been yearning to hear all
my life, well it seemed to be my entire life,
the judge said them, which is basically, get out of here.
He apologize. The d S apologized in the room, which
felt really good. The heme over and shook my hand.
I think the judge he gave more of like a
(29:30):
philosophical response to that, but it was less about him,
was more about the D's office. And it turned out
that the corporate the bad players here were just his
bad cop. I'm a big fan of law enforcement, but
in this situation, it was a bad cop who was
tied up with this internal gang situation and ship went
bad and I had a supper. Yes, you certainly did.
So you walked out of the courthouse, you walked in
(29:53):
or you were arrested, and you can walk in. You
were taken in as a sixteen year old boy, you
walk out as a thirties seven having year old man.
What's that like? You walk out? I mean, what is
freedom taste? And then your dad had died at the right,
so now you're an orphan yep, and you walk out
into what what did you do? Did you go get something? Like?
(30:14):
What do you do? I mean? I wish I would
been released from the courtroom. I was released from the
Sheriff's Department's jail there the county jail il like county jail,
And it was about it was mid midweek. It was
about maybe two in the afternoon, and they called me
on my sale and took me down to the street
level when doors opened, and there was like a TMZ moment, really,
(30:34):
all these cameras bouncing on their shoulders trying to interview me, right,
and and all the mics come out before my family
and lawyers could get to me. And how does it
feel be free? How does it feel to be free, right,
and the big question, And I think I ignored that
one because I sort of thought about that for a
very long time when I was in prison. What's it
gonna feel like? And it sort of felt stupid to
say if it felt this great or whatever. So but
(30:56):
I remember thinking that such a bright day, the colors
that just at my disposal now it seemed to be
like a century overload, which is my immediate reaction was wow,
when the colors, the people, the attention, because you know, Jason,
the reality was that at a very young age, I
had become like the man in the iron mask, where
my voice was taken away. My existence before I had
(31:19):
a chance to even blossom, was extinguished. There was no
chance for this young life to become anything, and so
I had to live with that. I live with the
fact that when I did try to make an attempt
to speak up for myself, that was ignored and I
was minimized. So that was a personal struggle that all
kind of came together the day I was out, So
(31:40):
from no attention to like, hey, we're all here for you, right,
which was great. My attorneys were there, my family was there,
some who hadn't seen them very long time, and I
was ushered into a car pretty quickly, and we went
to Echo Park to a friend's home who they had
a good whole food sort of spread waiting for me. Right,
so I went for a cafeteria food for twenty years
(32:02):
or prison food, which is even worse, to this long
table of organic almonds and dried apricots. You know. So
that was pretty cool. Almonds and apricots and sounds a
little biblical, you know, it's kind of funny. I was
thinking of you. I was thinking, you're gonna say, you've
got like sandwiches, and you know, I was picturing more
of a you know, I mean, if they had almonds
(32:24):
and apricots, I would have actually been piste out of it,
like come on, really, like can I get a slice
a little pizza something? I mean, come on. So then
you went home and then now now here it is,
you've rebuilt your life. You've successfully filed a lawsuit. Well
you had to lawsuits, right, and one was settled and
(32:44):
the other one you won. Right, So you're now unlike
many of our axonorees. There's a bright spot there because
you know I talked about often. But the fact is,
you know, so many exgonres and it's something we're working
to fix. Do not receive compensation. You were able to
prove violations of your civil rights and other things that
led to you being compensated in a meaningful way. That's
(33:06):
gonna now allow you to help fix the system. That
that would be a great full circle, wouldn't it. You know,
I can't wait, and I'm not minimizing the money here
because it makes my life very enjoyable. I think the
true joyous moments for me since I've been home is
that before I even got out, and this is this
is I hope they can be sort of passed along
to those who are who were imprisoned rightly or wrongly.
(33:27):
But this idea that you have to before even get out.
You can't sort of prepare yourself the week to date,
that the week the night before, like okay, tomorrow is
a big release date. Let me kind of get my
thoughts together. This has to happen long before the door opens.
And so I feel that sort of credit to myself
and those who are around me that my transition phase
happened long before the door opened. And so when the
(33:49):
door opened, I felt very prepared to just attempt to
just now really be free, because a common theme was
when you got there, some older guy kind of gave
you some like advice. As an example, you have five
years to do, and the advice was, for the first
four years, just kind of hang out, man, you know
you're in prison. Just relaxed, just play some cards and
ship and if you know you want to play dominoes,
(34:09):
go work out, right. But the last year, man, like
the last year, like, you know, go to church, or
if you're smoking, stop smoking, get it together, right, And
I thought that was pretty good advice. Why not, man,
what else you got to lose? Right? And at some
point I realized that that even though it was a
life for that advice applied to me and it was
against suspending complete reality here. But it was like, you
know what, I'm making all these efforts to try to
(34:31):
get my case hurt and try to get some attention here.
Let me work on me too. Let me work on
this idea that I need prepare myself. And so fast
forward I went A month after I got out with
some good friends Scott Would and who who ended up
living with in Mannon Beach and his wife Jeanie Would,
I enrolled at a great university in Los Angeles, Loyola
Marymount University. So I went from and I'm sort of
(34:53):
funny here, but I went from one prison to another
because it had all the elements that I needed, and
it felt like for a guy like me, I needed
the structure that I had been accustomed to. And it's
not the put down, but it was the university gave
me the camaraderie, the friendship. There was no Bob Wire,
but ship. I had deadlines. Man had had to show up,
you know. And so went from a very negative environment
(35:14):
that I was into a very very loving and encouraging space,
which was the school. Right along with just sort of
being active and being an activism. How could I not
support the Innocence Project and weighs the end the death
penalty in California and other social issues around the state.
But and that's just gotten a whole lot worse with
the speed up to death penalty refront of the past
in California, which is absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable that people
(35:39):
would have because they well, essentially they voted for guaranteeing
that we're going to execute a lot of innocent people.
Because the changes to the law are devastating to people
who have claims of innocence. It's exactly what it sounds like.
It's the speed up the death penalty. None of it
makes any sense. But voices like yours and all the
(36:00):
cosure that is the media is really driving interest in
this issue, this issue of innocence, this issue of mass
incarceration and other related criminal justice problems that are sadly
uniquely American problems because other countries are so much more
evolved than we are. You know, it's incredible, Frankie. We
(36:21):
have five percent of the world's population, the world's prison population.
The point I'm making is that when we process people
at this rate, where we just keep feeding this prison
industrial complex, they're gonna be mistakes. They're going to be
more Frankie careos. We have to reverse the entire way
of thinking that we have and start to become a
(36:41):
more progressive society in terms of the way we treat
to people who are really the leased among us, people
who find themselves in the situation that you're in, not
a wealthy person by any means, and then just being
ground up by the system. I want to get to
last words, because I want to always like to give
our guests the opportunity to air anything that you can
think of that want to share with our audience. You've
(37:02):
been through so much, You've come through sounding, looking, feeling,
acting like a person who knows stuff. You have such
a calm demeanor and such a positive outlook. It's almost
unnerving to be honest with you, you know. I mean,
for a minute there you were making prisons sound like
it was like, yeah, you know whatever. There's many years
(37:22):
that man, like I'm gonna be like like, it's just
you know, thank you Jason for these final words here
that I think that for many people listening, and people
even in my life now think, you know, like this dude,
you know this optimism stuff is he's taken to a
different level here, right. And you know, I wish that
I can sort of either write a book or explain
how I made it through and how these things weren't
able to penetrate my armor here. But I suffer. I
(37:44):
can't minimize that there are things and moments where I
might hear a song that might trigger true sadness about
what I experienced as a whole, about the things that
were lost, about you know, all the what ifs, right
and very quickly I made it a point to remember
what anger and what revenge and what hatred does to someone.
(38:04):
Tell you even even deeper here that when I was
in prison, I think about those who had owned that,
who had owned the anger and the revenge and the hatred,
and I saw these men that were being blinded by it,
and I don't want to be that. And here we
are in a roomful of statues, this beautiful art that
predates all of us here, and I think about if
(38:24):
that was who I'd become in prison, I would I
wouldn't be here one and two. If I had traces
of that and I was out on some level, I
would still be on the inside. I would be physically free,
but the rage that would that would be living within
me would be like a prison all to itself. And
so I mean, I'm happy that I can make those
connections of my own existence for my own personal healing
(38:45):
and and as a move forward to my life. And
speaking of that life, I'm happily married. I have three
amazing children. I have theo A, Kiva, and Frieda my wife.
FT is amazing, and life is great. And I think
it's a responsibility for not only myself, my family to
take on this responsibility of giving people the pleasure of
experiencing the cognitive dissonance, which is you are around or
(39:09):
you hear and you experience something that suspends you from
and it shocks you into like this is not what
I expected from a guy who had been in prison
for all these years, And it challenge you your own beliefs,
own things you've you've been carrying with you. This psychological
moment says wow, like I need to change what I
used to think about those who are on the inside.
And so it's a responsibility for me and other exonoreas
(39:31):
I feel that to awaken that side of all of
us to say, let's not do that. Let's not do
that to each other. And when someone says it's not
a joke anymore, that they are innocent, let's listen, because
you know many experiences and many stories that are tragic
that we've been listening to this whole weekend of if
only someone really listened and cared. Yeah, and everybody out
(39:51):
there has the power to make a difference. I always
encourage our audience to get involved, and it's great to
see that many of them are I know and hearing
your story for me again, it puts gratitude in my
attitude and makes all those little wham wads that we
all have in life just seem so much easier to
deal with and so much to surface noise right when
(40:14):
somebody like you can can come and have this sort
of aura. And it's amazing, Frankie. You know, the the
fact is, to any of us in the movement and
to other people on the outside, it's a source of
never ending wonder and awe that every single Egonorey I've
ever met has some version of that type of higher
(40:35):
consciousness that you've managed to achieve. They have this state
of almost like a state of grace that is, it's
just inspiring, that's all it is. And so I appreciate
you taking the time to share your experience, strength and
hope with us. And again, I'm just gonna have to
take a moment to process this and and then I'm
(40:56):
going to go and get busy and get back to
work on helping other We've had a very unique experience
because we've been recording the podcast in an idyllic environment.
We're actually in a in a room in a home
overlooking the Pacific ocean on a cliff, surrounded by the
most incredible African art. So I want to thank our hosts,
(41:16):
Bill Larroc and Michelle Chickarelli Laroc for having us here
and allowing us to record in their beautiful home. Don't
forget to give us a fantastic review Wherever you get
your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm a proud donor
to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join
(41:38):
me in supporting this very important cause and helping to
prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org
to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wardis.
The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on face Book at Wrongful
(42:01):
Conviction Podcast. Rightful Conviction with Jason Flam is a production
of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company
Number one h
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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