April 15, 2019 • 44 mins
On December 5th, 1997, two armed and disguised men robbed a beauty salon and its patrons in Norfolk, VA. On December 19th, Messiah Johnson was misidentified as the culprit and arrested. In the absence of any physical evidence and in spite of his corroborated alibi, Messiah Johnson was convicted on 26 counts of armed robbery, abduction, and related gun charges, and he was sentenced to 132 years in prison. He was pardoned by Governor Terry McAuliffe in 2018. Messiah is a graphic designer and still lives in Virginia, as he continues to fight to clear his name. You can find him on Instagram @messiahaladar johnson. If you’d like to show him support, please visit: https://www.gofundme.com/rc8d4-welcome-home-messiah-johnson
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
to monitoring and recording exactly a hundred years. That's manly.
(00:21):
I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh,
you know that was that was real payingful man, no,
because my life was discarded as if you know, like
I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
a hundred years. I had dreams and I wanted to
do things. I wouldn't commit me crimes. You know. That
was a very good young man. That is what happened
(00:43):
in so many cases. The cops have a hunch because
they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch,
and once they act on that hunch, they sort of
developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the
wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these
wrongful convictions. They opening the cell door, and I walked downstairs.
(01:04):
And I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
very strange to be, like I said, to be walking
without shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream,
But then again, it wasn't a dream. This is wrong
for conviction. Welcome back to Wrong for Conviction. My guest
(01:31):
this week is Messiah Johnson and Messiah. First of all,
welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a
pleasure being here. Some Messiah. This case and let's go back.
It's a Virginia case. It is. You came from Norfolk. Yes,
and this goes back to late nineties, right, Yes, it
(01:53):
goes back to December. The crime actually happened on December nine,
was the day of my arrest. This was an armed
robbery of a hair salon in Norfolk in which nobody
was hurt. That doesn't make it right. Um, don't get
me wrong. I'm not a favorite of armed robberies by
(02:14):
any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, this is a
robbery that you had nothing to do with. You had alibis,
there was no physical evidence connecting you to it. And
first of all, set the table for us here. How
old were you at the time, what were you doing,
and how is your life? I was four years old
at the time. I was working for government funded program.
(02:38):
It was a lead abatement program. I happened to be
one of the people who were educated in the field
very early on. I uh so, you were helping to
get lead out of housing housing and I got a
biochemical certificated from O D you in this field, and
at the time of my arrest, I was actually writing
a proposal to hut Homes for like five million dollars
(03:00):
to kind of extend our licenses to other states and
kind of setting myself up for my career in this field.
And then of course this happened, and you kind of
just obliviated everything that I had planned for my life.
I'm sitting here with you now. We had dinner last night.
Here you are in the blue suit, you know, with
(03:20):
the tie and looking the part of somebody who would
be doing exactly what you described like doing actually very
good work helping people. And you know, if people want
to go to my Instagram, it's at it's Jason Flam
you'll see pictures that I posted with Messiah and you'll
see what I mean. You know, you look like an
upstanding citizen like anybody else, and yet if you've been
(03:41):
through this unbelievable or deal twenty years in prison, it's
so strange because, aside from the fact that there was
no evidence taking physical appearances aside, you just wouldn't seem
to fit any sort of profile of somebody that would
commit an arm robbery. When you've got this whole other life.
I mean, that's not a thing. It's just not a thing.
(04:03):
But okay, let's go back to it. So this robbery
takes place, yes, and they're out obviously looking for suspects.
And how did it end up that you even got
on the radar. That's a good question, because I didn't
really understand it until I actually went to trial in
August the following year. I tried to take you back
(04:24):
to the day I was arrested on the nineteenth December.
It really was a typical day in the life of
any young man in my age from where I'm from.
A couple of friends hanging out. It was on a Friday.
Earlier in the day, I had you made arrangements to
see a friend of mine, a lady friend of mine,
later on in the night. But prior to that, another
friend of mine, he and I decided to go up
(04:46):
to shoot pool conversed with some other friends, and we
were doing that, and it kind of got to the
time where I was about to go to see this
lady friend, and so I made a phone call while
I was in the club. It was a little bit
too noisy. She couldn't hear me. So I said, look,
I'm gonna step outside across the street and make this
phone call so you can hear me, you know, just
to let her know I was on my way. And
then he and I were gonna part ways. And so
(05:07):
as I was walking out of the club, it was
several officers coming in and the phone booth was directly
across the street. We walked across the street. I didn't
see any cops, so they must have been hiding around
the building and the dock or something like that, because
you know, as soon as I picked up the phone,
you know, everything about my life kind of changed in
the instance, because all I can hear was screeching tires,
(05:29):
flashing lights and sirens, and in that moment, it was
difficult the process was what was happening. But from behind
the lights, you know, before my eyes really had a
chance to adjust, you can really hear the demands of
putting hands up, and so you don't really have time
to process that. So I just complied, not really knowing
what was going on, and I did so because, you know,
(05:50):
once my eyes were able to judge it was three
or four guns in my face. I remained calm because
I didn't want to do anything that would cause me
to be possibly out anything like that, and so we
were asked to put our hands up, which we did,
and we were placing handcuffs and your one friend, me
and one other friends and you know, I didn't realize
(06:10):
at the time, only after studying the law that this
is where the miscarriage is. Justice began to make manifest
against me because I was sat down on the curve
with handcuffs on in between two police cars and the
Neil versus big as. If you understand you know the
citation law, it tells you that any person that is
singly displayed in handcuffs is presumed to be the person
(06:32):
who did the crime when you're doing a show up.
And so we finally got a chance to look at
the case later on and realized that the person who
initially I didn't know he was with the officers as
we were leaving out of the club, he was with them,
and so once they put us in handcuffs, he had
told the police that, you know, well, one of the
other victims that I worked with is at his shop,
(06:55):
and so instead of the police just going back to
get him to do a show up, he actually took
the person who initially identified me back there with him
and allowed them to ride in the car together. As
they were riding in the car together, it's easy for
him to say there, he is right there, right, so
they could share the information already seen you, yeah, and
we've seen this time and again. Of course, that's going
(07:15):
to increase exponentially the percentage of people who are going
to identify that suspect. We know from research, even when
somebody sees a person in the defendants box, just the
normal person off the street who is now adjuror that,
people have a natural proclivity to think that that person
must be guilty, because otherwise what would they be doing there.
(07:36):
But then when you take that, and then you add
to it someone who's been a victim and a person
in handcuffs on the street with the police, it's almost
like a fate to complete, Like it would be strange
for them not to identify you. They would have to
be like, um, I don't know, would have to be
something bizarre, you have to be the wrong race or something. Anyway,
(07:57):
there's a lot of factors that go to that. So
at this point, did you realize how dire the situation
was or did you feel like they just made a
mistake and I'm going to go home after this gets
sorted out. No, prior to the show up, you know,
there was a moment where one of the officers, I
was like, yeah, I'm a little confused, officer, what is
this about? And he was card you, well, you're suspecting crime.
(08:18):
What crime could that have been? We've been here a
majority of the night, the day and night, so what
are you talking about? And he was like, well, I
let the detectives share that with you when you go downtown.
So it was already they had already made a decision.
It was a predetermined idea that I was going downtown regardless,
you know, even prior to the show up. At least
that's what it seemed like to me. So now they
(08:39):
take you downtown, and they brought your friend. What was
your friend's name? His name was Mandel. Until you and
Mondel both got taken downtown, we did interrogated separately, as
of course, you know, its the whole You know, we're
gonna put him in this very cold cell. And those
of us who have been locked up, you always know
you always put in a very ice cold cell, and
it's so cold that you're in the fetal position just
(09:01):
to keep warm. And so I've studied a lot of cases,
and I can always see why people really just want
to just get away from the police station and they
just kind of just say, you know, I did it
just to get away from the circumstances, because it's a process.
It's a very harsh on a person when you're in
that very cold selling. Then they bring you out and
they held you in this freezing cell for how long
(09:24):
you know, a few hours? Wow, then you're going to
be interrogated. But yes, but you never confessed and they
have any knowledge of what they were talking about. Right,
But we know that a lot of people do confess
in the circumstances. You just said, just to go home,
even if they don't know what they're talking Yes, yes,
but you did not know. They brought me out after
that and began the good cop, bad cop thing. And
(09:45):
the first thing I said was, look, before you ask
me any questions, I want to make a phone call
to an attorney. I'm a practitioner of Islam and I'm
righteous and them civilized. So whatever you accuse me of,
you know, you have the wrong person. I don't know
anything about a robbery or any other crime, and so
I didn't know it was dire until, you know, he
got very upset. I think the fact that he automatically
(10:07):
thought I was a Muslim. He began to talk about
being a Muslim to me, and that's not what I am.
I was a practice of Islam, of my cultures, the
fibers a nation of guards and earths, and um I
didn't really want to get into a dialogue with him
about that, but then he said, well, you don't have
to talk to me. You're gonna end up with fifty felonies.
And then that's when it kind of began to tense.
(10:29):
St up I was, you know, concerned then, so what
do you mean? He said, Yeah, we're gonna be typing
up about fifty felonies against you. And in the state
of Virginia, that's one of the states that can stack charges.
So for every individual robbery, I got an abduction charge,
a fire on for deduction, and the fire on for
(10:50):
the robbery. So I ended up with forty three felonies,
most of them current life sentences, based on the one
crime that they suspected you were doing. Exactly why out
um I don't even know what to say about that.
I turned one of the forty three. That math is
just as fuzzy as could be. So how long were
you interrogated for? You know, the records show that I
(11:12):
was brought out to be interrogated and not said that
I didn't know anything, and then I was taken right
back to my cell, which is not the truth. You know,
you would have to look at the time frame, you know,
from the time I was down at the police Operations
Center and to the time I was actually taking to
the jail, which was about seven or eight hours, And
so I was taken out of that cell on three
(11:33):
different occasions to the interrogation room. Did you get your
phone call? I never got the phone call. And actually,
if you look at my pre trial records, it will
tell you that Massiah requests a phone call and we
tell him a phone call is not one of his rights.
But he left out the fact that I requested a
phone call to talk to an attorney. So I'm guessing
that you probably should have said I want an attorney
(11:55):
and then they stopped questioning you. Right If you said
I want to call an attorney, that's not the same thing.
I wanted an attorney president, they did stop questioning me,
and once I requested that, they stopped questioning me and
took me back to the sale of the final time.
And then you were held for almost a year before
your trial. Is that right? Just about nine months exactly.
And I went to my first trial in August, and
(12:17):
tell me about that. Because you didn't have a quarter
point of attorney I did initially, which was the foundation
of the injustice. Once I got into the courtroom at
an attorney by the name of Andrew Sebak, and during
preliminary hearing in the cells, it's very packed. Everybody's waiting
to go for their hearing, and so several lawyers are
coming talking. He comes in and speak to me, and
(12:39):
you know, the first thing he says was, my name
is Andrew Sebak, so forth and so on. He said, now, look,
what can you tell me about this crime, which was
perplexing to me. And I was like, look, I don't
know anything about this crime. I'm not guilty of it.
I want to make sure that when you go in here,
you separate the witnesses and you know, make sure that
they understand I have anything to do with this, Okay,
he leaves, comes back and it's as if he didn't
(13:01):
hear anything. I said, you know again he was asking,
He said, well, when you and your friend committed this crime.
And then my antennas went up immediately, what are you
talking about? I just told you to have anything to
do with this crime. And so this man actually went
into this courtroom without a stenographer, which was one of
my first requests because I figured that something was wrong.
(13:22):
And when I walked in the courtroom, there was no sonographer.
So my initial reaction to him was where's the scenographer.
This guy told me, well, it's too late to get
one now, we're already in here. And so I was frustrated,
and I was speaking kind of loud, and the deputy
was saying, look, we have to keep it down. We're
about to of course, it's going to be in sessions.
So I said, okay. He separated the witnesses. These witnesses
(13:43):
described two different people. Once said this guy had on
camouflage from head to toe. One said he had on
a blue jacket. It was the kind of evidence that
you simply just get up and say you're honor based
on the evidence. Asked for the charge to be dismissed.
But at the end of everything, you know, he's simply said,
that's all I have, Yanna. The courtroom was dumbfounded. The
(14:06):
judge had to look over top of his glass and
say that's it. And he said, oh, other than the
fact that we asked for a bond. Obviously, now you're
extremely knowledgeable about the law, but at the time you weren't.
I'm assuming right now I wasn't knowledgeable of the law.
But you know, when you're being wrong. What was your reaction?
Did you like elbow room like I actually did? And
(14:26):
the deputy had to step in again and say, look,
we have to relax. Like I'm saying to him, what
are you doing? Man? What happened? And so I didn't
want to put up a fuss in the courtroom. I
knew that the judge knew that something was wrong, but
I made a phone call to him. When I got
back to the jail. We got on the phone and said, look,
what did you do to me in courtroom today? May
you didn't have a scenographer? I said, are you working
(14:46):
with the commonwealth or something? And you know, he said
that there's other people that feel like you may have
committed this crime. And so my suggestion to you is,
if you don't want me on your case, I would
suggest you get me off. And that basically told me
that he was somehow work with the police Department order
the Commonwealth Attorney. And we found out years later that
he was actually desbarred because he was dealing with a
(15:08):
mental deficiency. Wow. And so when I went to court
to get him off from my case, the judge gave
me a five minute speeches in the transcripts about how
this is a good attorney, and I said, yeah, honest.
He told me he was working with the Commonwealth in
so many words, and then he asked the attorney, like,
what do you say to this man who's accusing you're
working to come off? He said, well, am I getting
(15:29):
a check from the Commonwealth, and the judge that's not
what I'm asking you. He actually speak to him and
his chambers and removed them of from my case. It
was then that I hired an attorney. But at this
point this was still part of the initial phase. I
had you already been convicted, No, this was this is
preliminary hearing. So okay, So now we're dealing with an
attorney who is mentally impaired. Yes, doesn't have a stenographer
(15:51):
in the courtroom, which alone should be impossible. I mean,
that can't happen. And then you have a judge who's
looking over his glasses at him and go on, really, dude,
like really, And then they have been working with the
commonwealth against your best interests. And above all, you had
an attorney who is coming to you, ignoring everything you're
(16:12):
saying time and time again, and going tell me how
about how you robbed this place and who did you
do it with and all this other stuff. And you
had to be looking forward to having your day in
court and having an attorney who's got your back, who's
going to go up there and tell the truth and
make this go away. You know, my family now decided that,
and we didn't have a lot of money, we decided
that we would get a you know, attorney. We considered
(16:34):
a seasoned attorney who had a name for himself, who
had been, you know, practicing law for some time. And
then what happened. We went into court August nineteenth. Now,
initially before we even went in, several people who were
victims said, look, I can't identify anybody. These guys had
on a mask, they were covered up completely. It's no
(16:55):
way I can come in here and identify anybody. And
so for every person that came in and said that,
those charges were dropped. And then we went through the trial.
And one of the things that he asked when one
of the witnesses got understand was did you see any photographs?
And the witnesses said yes. The detective came by my
place of residence and showed me some photographs. He said, well,
(17:15):
how many futogre residents he he said, well, she said,
I saw a book of about sixty photographs where I
picked out a person that I thought me had been
the person. And then my lawyer immediately asked for a
mistrial because we hadn't seen any photographs, and the Commonwealth
claimed she didn't know anything about it, and so the
next day the mistrial was granted. And I really didn't
want to mistrial. I wanted to go through with this
(17:36):
trial because I felt like I had a drey of
my peers. And what I mean by that is that
the majority of the jury was black, which is unusual,
you know, and of a certain age closer to my age.
And while I was sitting and sell alone, my lawyer
came back and said, look, they're offering you a plea deal.
(17:56):
I said, why are you bringing it to me? I'm innocent, Like,
it's no way I'm taking a plea deal. What was
the play? Three years? Three years? You know, Once I
didn't take that plea deal, this became about malicious prosecution,
and she knew it was really no evidence, you know,
reliable evidence, which we found out later on. I'm locked
up because I wear glasses because one of the one
(18:20):
of the robbers had glasses on. That's it, because I mean,
how can you possibly have my witness identification when I
mean it's hard enough in the situation of violent, chaotic
situation to identify anybody if they don't have a mask,
but with a mask, come on, I mean, that's crazy. Like,
but now you've refused the plea deal. Now they're out
for blood because you had the audacity to reject the
(18:41):
plea deal for crime you didn't command. So it goes
to trial, and how did it end up going so wrong?
I testified, my witnesses, testified, my alibi witnesses. There were
no contradictions, and it's hard to explain my lawyer, you know,
it was really no pre trial investigation by him where
(19:03):
I expected for him to give me. It was as
if I was only getting like from him, just enough
for him to be able to say to the ball
I did my job. But when you look at it
more closely, you understand that there were a lot of
things that he didn't do that he could have done.
I know that by the time the evidence, this was
what really stood out to my attorneys. By the time
(19:26):
they had heard two days of trial, when they were
time to go in and make a decision, a question
came out from the jury, and that question was who
positively identified Massida winning Where? This was after all the
evidence was presented to them. The case was just that
confusing that they couldn't remember who identified me positively winning where?
(19:46):
And the judges said, you have to go from your
own recollection. I can't tell you that, And so they
went in. They were in there for about forty five minutes,
not long. My lawyer came back to tell me and said, look,
if it's not good, they found you guilty. And I was.
I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. Man, it was um,
(20:10):
I don't know. It's hard to explain. In sort of
a haze. And as I was sitting there, you know,
the jury began readn't go off how much time for
each charge that I was convicted of, and they were saying,
you know, seven seven, five, five. And it was a
moment when my attorney looked at me and said, well,
how much is that? And I was just like, man,
(20:30):
you have depending paper, you're not adding this up after
the first five years, you know, I didn't hear anything else.
And so how many charges were convicted of? Six charges?
Twenty six charges for allegedly walking into a beauty salon,
holding up the place, and not even whoever was did
(20:51):
this didn't actually hurt anybody? Right, No, I mean it's
a violent crime because there was a weapon involved, so exactly,
you know, legally speaking at a violent crime. But I
do think there's an important distinction when no one was hurt. Obviously,
it's traumatic for the victims in this case to have
gone through this, and there's I don't want to diminish
that in any way. But at the same time, it's
(21:12):
bizarre when you know that murderers get fifteen years, right,
and around the world the most you can get in
most civilized countries is fifteen years no matter what you've done, right,
And here you have a crime in which nobody was hurt,
and forgetting the fact that for a second that you're innocent.
So they convicted you on twenty six counts, but they
ended up sentencing you when they added up the fives
(21:32):
and the sevens and everything else, one hundred and thirty
two years thirty two years or so, and in Virginia
for those who don't know, you know, and it took
away the ability to have parole available to you. In
addition to that, in that statute, there's an additional statue
(21:52):
that says you also have to serve eighty five percent
of your time. So what I received was equivalent to, well, yeah,
you're to live the rest of your life in prison
and didn't die there. Yeah, they abolished pearl in Virginia,
which is, uh, it's incomprehensible to me. But the idea
that they sentenced you to life in prison after offering
(22:13):
you three years also like, how is there even a
universe in which you could say, well, as a society,
we were good with you doing three years for this,
but because you exercise your constitutional right to a trial,
you get a hundred and thirty two years. Yeah, it
was devastating for me and my family. And I can
tell you that it was a moment where I was
(22:35):
at the jail after that happened, sentenced and my oldest daughter,
who was about seven at the time, she came to
see me, and you know, she's an intelligent young lady,
and she asked me, she said, Dad, do you really
have a hundred and thirty two years and doing prison?
And I said yes, and you know, her response was,
you can't even live that one. There was a moment,
(23:04):
you know, which was really important to me while I
was being sentenced. I didn't drop my head, but I
think one of my family friends must have noticed that
maybe I was about to. She actually stood up in court,
you know, and said, look, hold your head up. We're
not gonna give up. And it was in that moment,
(23:26):
very early for me, in that moment that I realized
that I was gonna have to continue fighting. And so
after that, I just knew it was time for me
to get back to business of fighting for my freedom.
When you get in prison, when you really understand that
they've decided that they want to take your life, because
everything about my life changed the way I walked talk.
(23:50):
You know, everything, the movements, how long I got to
be on the phone, who I can call, what kind
of foods to eat, what kind of medical care? Everything
changed complete league, and so I decided that I didn't
want that to be my life. And so what I
did was I looked at the contrast to myself imprisoned,
and the contrast is most of us have who are
(24:12):
doing time with that has that amount have fallen to
despair and given up because Virginia has made it extremely
difficult for you to get out of prison. Once you're
in prison, everything is contingent on newly discovered evidence. But
a lot of people are not aware the anti terrorism
effective definitely. I gotta speak about this all the time
that Bill Clinton acted. Basically, it is telling you that
(24:33):
once you're direct appeal is over where you have representation,
that you are required to file Haber's corpus within a year.
So you're expected a law student. How long does it
take that person to graduate eight years in seven or whatever.
You're required to have that knowledge and represent yourself proceed
(24:54):
with any adequate information and materials, and if you don't,
then after that year, you judicially bought from being able
to present legitimate claims, your costumes advice being violated. It's
just ridiculous. The idea that that we would want to
keep anybody in prison one day after we find out
that they're innocent, regardless of whatever procedural you know, it's nuts, right,
(25:18):
And the fact that we want to deny somebody like
yourself the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence is completely
illogical too. And you really said it best. I mean
when you talk about the idea that, yeah, you're right,
you're You're given a year for a lot of people
who hadn't been to college to learn everything you would
have learned in college plus law school. Not everything, but
all the most important things that are gonna help you
in your defense. Then figure out how to file these
(25:40):
papers and find the evidence that's been hidden from you
in the first place. That would have been much easier
to find an original trial and then file it. And
then it's much harder for a pro say emotion to
succeed an emotion that's filed by an attorney in the
free world. So it's really a shame that that law
has prevented so many other people from getting out that
deserve to get out. I will say this. I know
(26:01):
I hear the terminology mass incarceration quite often, but with
this law, and especially with the laws and the state
of Virginia, you know, this is more along the lines
of judicial genocide. This is not mass incarceration. You're talking
about taking away generations of individuals and never giving them
(26:22):
a second chance back out of society. And it's targeted
with disenfranchise mainly blacks and Latinos. Yeah, they make it
easy to get in and really hard to get out,
I mean almost impossible. Unfortunately. Uh. I began to study
the law. You know, I did a lot of research
on my own case, and you know, when I combed
(26:43):
through the transcripts just to see how many because I
can remember all these contradictions, I ended up with nine
pages of conflicting testimony. Was just mind blowing to me.
It was one of the things I presented to the
Innocent Project and to other organizations. I did a lot
of research, rich and I painted a very clear picture
of my innocence with all the research I had done,
(27:05):
and began presenting it and I was turned down by
quite a few post conviction organizations, and then the Innocence
projects began to materialize, and we're talking about the University
of Virginia Instance Project to do incredible work they do. Yeah,
and I've been down there and I know the people there,
and I encourage anyone listening to support them. You can
(27:25):
just google University of Virginia Instance Project. It's a great
organization to hear more about that. But one of the
people that I had a pleasure speaking to was did
Your In Right? And I'm smiling now because I think
about the first time I met did Your In Right?
And she and I had a conversation and even though
we were having a conversation about my case, it was
(27:46):
a personal conversation too, about character and family and you know,
just my how much loss I had endured. And so
how many years have you been there by this point?
Fourteen fifteen years? And Deirdre as the director right, she
is director of the Innocent Project at uv A School
Law and runs the pro bono clinic. So for you,
(28:08):
that's when things started to take a term in the
right direction. It did. She understood immediately once I presented
those things to her, and she's impeccable in her investigation skills.
She knew exactly how she wanted to, you know, go
about getting the necessary information. Her and her students went out.
They utilized the Free Information Act and found out that
(28:28):
this guy had committed all these robberies around the same
time I was arrested. And this is what led them
to the person who actually committed the crime. They went
to see him and he basically five minutes into the
conversation and he was like, I know why you're here.
You know, they mentioned that, you know, this beauty salon
got robbed, and he basically said, look, I know what
(28:50):
you want. I'm the person who did this. He said
he didn't know that anybody was actually locked up for
the crime, and UM had spoke to his spiritual advisors
and family men, was in you know, he wanted to
just come clean about it. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really dramatic.
Because they went to see him. They were only giving
twenty five minutes to talk to him, and in those
twenty five minutes they had to somehow other earn his
(29:11):
trust and get him to confess to a crime that
you were in prison for. And they did, and then
from there we began to build a case, not forward,
We started from the back. Once we got the confession,
in Virginia. You know, you don't take it directly to
the commonwealth because then they're gonna go to all the
witnesses involved. Everybody want to say, look, this guy is
trying to say that he didn't have anything to do
(29:32):
with it. They're going to get out for Davis from
those people. But we did that, and by the time
we presented that to the courts, we got denied by
the same judge who initially refused to give me a
sentence reduction, but he was still on the bench. I
think he's still present now. Because of Virginia law after
that year, you're not allowed to follow Habeas. Corp was
second and successor has Corpus, so he denied us. And
(29:52):
so mcculoff was in office at the time, right And
this gets to a really interesting part of the story too,
because Governor mccauliffe um, who have become very friendly with
to his credit, he had this sense of outrage when
I was talking to him about these crazy sentences that
Virginia was handing out to people. You know, we talked
about Travian Blount, and we talked about Letting Singleton, and
(30:15):
we talked about some of these other people that were
doing these literally like mind blowing sentences, and you were
you were certainly one of them, I mean, like your sentences,
so nut and he fortunately was in a position to
do something about it. So how did that come down?
So to me, it was very forward thinking governor, and
he had made public comments about how how far behind
(30:36):
Jenia was compared to other states in the clminal justice system,
and so we as a whole thought that it was
best for us to put together a petition for clemency
while he was in office before he left, and so
we did that. And that's basically like buying a lot
of retakes. It is it is. I say that all
the time. It is very difficult because they usually deal
with those things after you've exhausted all your remedies. And
(30:59):
because we had this newly discovered evidence, we were able
to still go to the federal courts, which we're getting
ready to do now because we're still pending. And so
on the day that he was leaving, on the day before,
we were asking, you know, has he ruled on the
side his petition yet, and he's like no, but he's
getting to it, and he'll get to it before he leaves.
And you know, ditter was calling periodically every hour. You know,
(31:24):
I think we're gonna get it. We're not sure yet,
you know, I tried to call this person. They said, yeah,
they're looking at it right now. So the day of
I think, no more than an hour after he was
supposed to be leaving office, we get the call, you know,
and he said, you've been granted the conditional part and
with the absolute aspect of the part and still pending,
(31:48):
you know, the outcome of the investigation. And that was
a wonderful feeling, man, to hear that dis recalled me.
We were just elated. We will overjoyed here, the whole team, everybody,
you know, General in right and Jennifer Gibbons who was
another attorney there, also a director. They have been coming
(32:08):
to the prison regularly and calling for me. They assisted
me and aided me in ways, you know, and anybody
who who is represented by them will tell you they
go above and beyond with their representation and helping you
not only with the legal aspect, but personal things that
you'd be going through in prison. It's rare you see
somebody who does that, you know, all the way proceed throughout,
(32:30):
you know, but this was a collective effort of all
of us. What was the reaction in the prison when
you got this news where people jealous? Were they happy?
(32:53):
What was the reaction of the other The majority of
people were happy because they understood my struggle. They saw
me working. There's two different types of people in prison,
those who working to get out those who's just waiting
for something to happen. And while I was in prison,
I helped a lot of people along the way digit
and righting. Jennifer Gills will tell you I've read people's cases.
(33:14):
I've read multiple cases. I've done research myself and help
them with their cases, file motions for them. But I've
also introduced them to gender in right and Jennifer Gibbons
and so those people and a lot of people, I
made quite a few friends. You imagine after twenty years
you make some friends. They were just related. How long
did it take you to get out after they after
the call they want to make you do five months?
(33:36):
I did four from January to April because they have
that re entry every entry program, but I I stayed
on top of the people every day, like, look, you
gotta get this program. Man. Everything is supposed content on
me getting out. Is me complete these programs, so they
put me to the top of the list. And you know,
you had a hundred and twelve years left to go,
and now it turns to four months. How did those
four months go by? Faster? Slow? It went by the
(33:58):
same For me. I put myself in that kind of
mind frame that I'm not I don't really believe until
it actually happens. You know, even though I got the
pardon with a discretionary release date, you still don't believe
until it actually happens. Anybody, I think everybody will tell
you this. Until you actually crush that threshold, you just
don't believe it. Man. And I've seen the video of
(34:18):
you walking out of prison into the arms of your
family and attorneys from the Virginia and It's project. It's
a very powerful moving thing to see. Going back to
prison for a second, sometimes like to ask what was
the best and the worst thing that happened? It was
there a moment, even in the darkest of times, when
there was like a ray of flight or hope mentally
(34:40):
and emotionally, you know, there's valleys and peaks. You know,
you're trying to make sense of everything that's happening to you,
you know, you want to stay within the realm of reality,
but that reality maybe something that's for the rest of
your life. And so for me, there was some a
few dark moments and I reached out to you know,
(35:00):
Nikki Giovanni. You know, she's a renown black activist, scholar, poet,
and educator, because she had a poem that resonated with
me called Quoting the Black I p And I couldn't
find a book anywhere, and so I wrote her, and
she wrote me back and sent me to autograph books,
and that kind of gave me that these people out
(35:21):
here that still really do care, you know. And so
there were moments like that that really continue to inspire
me to, you know, fight from my freedom. But I
have to say this, all of who I am today
is a reflection of of that which has been shaped
and motive by my circumstances of the last twenty years.
So I developed a very profound perspective about life that
(35:44):
has allowed me to know my purpose, and within that purpose,
it's really about helping others. And so at some point
I want to be able to develop a nonprofit which
I've really developed, and it's called the Lying Initiative. Liberating
individuals oppression now and it will have several programs, and
they want about educating the the community about laws and
(36:07):
how they can affect change through their legislators, people who
are supposed to represent them. But I learned a lot
of elders in the communities they don't have the education.
They want to be educated about the law and how
they can effectively make change. And so that in and
cause a recent prevention with the youth and investigative practices
for those who are in prison who don't have the
(36:28):
money and can't find the resources. Because everything in Virginia
is based on post conviction investigation, you really need that
in order for you to even find newly discovered evidence. No,
I'm glad you brought that up, because that is truly
what the Virginia Innocence Project did in your case. They
wouldn't really reinvestigated the case, and it was never investigated
(36:49):
properly in the first place, exactly. And you know, if
we had a fairer system, we would have defense attorneys,
even public defenders, who were given enough time to work
on each individual case that they could at least mount
some sort of effective investigation. Obviously, they're not going to
be able to do you know what a private attorney
(37:10):
who is working on just a few cases can do,
because they're always going to be overworked. But we need
to reduce that burden because some of these guys are
working on a hundred cases at the time and and
there's just no way even the best attorney in that
situation can't possibly do the most effective job for their client.
And in your case, it was literally your life that
was hanging in the balance. And so forgetting the fact
(37:32):
that you had this you know, half crazy and competent
guy in the first place. Um, I mean you had
really hit the jack pot of me between the mistaken
eye witnesses and an official misconduct and effective assistance of counsel,
the show up the I mean everything, it's really it's
it's the reverse jackpot. I mean everything that could have
(37:52):
gone wrong went wrong, and we know what the end
result was, and and and results. It's a man in
prison for twenty years and and even then it's a
merror icle that you're here now and still fighting, which
is great, and I want to talk about that too,
because you are fighting your case. I believe you will prevail,
even though it's them tedious process and has made it
so difficult for federal judges to overturn state convictions even
(38:15):
when they know it's wrong. But that being said, you're
also you know, it seems to me like you're hitting
the ground running, you know, not missing a beat. I
know you're working now, But you have a skill. That's
that I want to talk about because you know, we
don't know who's listening. It might be somebody listening who
might need some of your talents, you know, um and
talking about graphic design and you know, talk about some
(38:37):
of that stuff that it was a trade that was
available at sausse to state prison, communication, graphic loss and design.
It's the re entry process. And so I finally made
it into the class and became proficient. But I'm still
a feeling and so every time I go to fill
out applications so forth and so on. You got to
check the box. You gotta check the box. But if
people want to if they need somebody to do some
(38:59):
design of work for him or something like that, whether
they're in Virginia or even do something you could do
on the web, how could they reach out to you?
My Gmail was Lois Sean three six S L O. R.
D s h I n E. It's l O R
D s h I n E three sixty at gmail
dot com. That's correct. Come on Facebook, Instagram, what's your Instagram? Oh,
Messiah alidl So it's Messiah M E S s I
(39:22):
A h A l A d A y'all, l A
space and then Johnson. Okay, Messiah, it's easy, I think
once you type in Messiah and then L A D
A R and then underscore Johnson. So, Messiah, I want
to um, of course, thank you for coming and being
here and sharing this insane story. And I think a
(39:44):
lot of people are gonna take something out of it
that's going to be meaningful to them, not least which
is your spirit, which remains, you know, just so positive
and it's it's quite remarkable. I want to make sure
we'd ask you, is there anyone else that you want
to thank? Do you want to shout out your girls? Yes?
I couldn't be here today without all the love and
support that I received from my family and friends. It
(40:06):
was an arduous journey and it still is because I'm
still fighting for exoneration. I need to be vindicated for
all the stuff that you know I've been through. But
They have truly been an inspiration to me, and I
just couldn't have done it without them and all of
the students that help work on this case. Of course,
there's in right, her family, Jennifer Givevens, her family, the
(40:28):
media who eventually began reporting the true story, and I
don't know the list can I can go on forever?
Yourself for having me here today and allowing me to
share this story and this truth, because ultimately, I hope
that this inspired somebody, whether you're a prisoner in prison
and feel like you're hopeless, these stories and I've listened
(40:49):
to a lot of your podcasts. They are inspiring. Even
though I've gone through my own set of circumstances, those
podcasts are still inspiring to me for me to continue
fighting for myself for others, that means a lot. I mean, no,
you're you're genuine. I met you a few months back,
and I always want to know if somebody is genuine,
you know, especially if you haven't gone through these set
(41:12):
of circumstances, and you are the real deal man um
And I appreciate everything that you're doing because you could
be doing so many other things, but to have somebody
at some point inspire you and for you to take
on this cause. Man is truly important man for society
and I'm with you man, well, thank you man. That
(41:33):
means a lot. And um, and now after I collect myself, UM,
I want to honor our tradition here at wrong for
conviction and our our listeners know this is a part
of the show where I get to, uh to basically
sign off. But before I do that, UM, and what
I mean by that, I don't mean sign off, So
don't don't true now because it's the best part of
(41:55):
the show. But I want to, uh, of course, thank
you again Messiah Johnson for coming in and sharing, um,
your story with us. UM. I want to apologize to
you for what society America, Virginia you know, put you through.
But I know the best is yet to come for you,
and I'm looking forward to a friendship and watching you,
(42:16):
you know, succeed beyond everybody's wildest expectations. So I get
to turn the microphone, my microphone off and leave yours
on for any closing thoughts that you have. I don't
know if you know Melvin van People's Mario van People's father, Well,
he said he had a friend that had three partners.
They all went out to a club one day and
(42:38):
all three of them got locked up. Two of them
got out on bail, went home. His friend got out
the next day, and by the time he got there,
his friends had split up his property in his house
as if he was never coming back. And he said,
this is basically the mentality of society about prisoners, and
so you have to know that that mentality won't bring
about a change. You know, you have to know that
(43:02):
these laws can affect you, either directly or indirectly in
some form of fashion if you're not involved. I hope
that me coming here today, like I said, inspires others
to continue fighting for themselves and others. It is truly
a necessity that we begin to educate ourselves. So my
plea to everybody is begin educating yourself, begin, you know,
(43:24):
getting behind these causes of criminal justice reform so we
can bring about a true balance back in society. Thank
you for listening. This has been an amazing experience for
me and I hope for you to. We'll see you
next week on Wrong for Conviction. Don't forget to give
(43:49):
us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It
really helps and I'm a proud donor to the Innocence
Project and I really hope you'll join me and supporting
this burying partant 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
(44:12):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
This call is from a correction facility, and it's subject
to monitoring and recording exactly a hundred years. That's manly.
(00:21):
I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh,
you know that was that was real payingful man, no,
because my life was discarded as if you know, like
I was a piece of trash or something, you know,
a hundred years. I had dreams and I wanted to
do things. I wouldn't commit me crimes. You know. That
was a very good young man. That is what happened
(00:43):
in so many cases. The cops have a hunch because
they're so smart at the scene, they have a hunch,
and once they act on that hunch, they sort of
developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the
wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these
wrongful convictions. They opening the cell door, and I walked downstairs.
(01:04):
And I actually walked downstairs to be outside. It felt
very strange to be, like I said, to be walking
without shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream,
But then again, it wasn't a dream. This is wrong
for conviction. Welcome back to Wrong for Conviction. My guest
(01:31):
this week is Messiah Johnson and Messiah. First of all,
welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a
pleasure being here. Some Messiah. This case and let's go back.
It's a Virginia case. It is. You came from Norfolk. Yes,
and this goes back to late nineties, right, Yes, it
(01:53):
goes back to December. The crime actually happened on December nine,
was the day of my arrest. This was an armed
robbery of a hair salon in Norfolk in which nobody
was hurt. That doesn't make it right. Um, don't get
me wrong. I'm not a favorite of armed robberies by
(02:14):
any stretch of the imagination. But nonetheless, this is a
robbery that you had nothing to do with. You had alibis,
there was no physical evidence connecting you to it. And
first of all, set the table for us here. How
old were you at the time, what were you doing,
and how is your life? I was four years old
at the time. I was working for government funded program.
(02:38):
It was a lead abatement program. I happened to be
one of the people who were educated in the field
very early on. I uh so, you were helping to
get lead out of housing housing and I got a
biochemical certificated from O D you in this field, and
at the time of my arrest, I was actually writing
a proposal to hut Homes for like five million dollars
(03:00):
to kind of extend our licenses to other states and
kind of setting myself up for my career in this field.
And then of course this happened, and you kind of
just obliviated everything that I had planned for my life.
I'm sitting here with you now. We had dinner last night.
Here you are in the blue suit, you know, with
(03:20):
the tie and looking the part of somebody who would
be doing exactly what you described like doing actually very
good work helping people. And you know, if people want
to go to my Instagram, it's at it's Jason Flam
you'll see pictures that I posted with Messiah and you'll
see what I mean. You know, you look like an
upstanding citizen like anybody else, and yet if you've been
(03:41):
through this unbelievable or deal twenty years in prison, it's
so strange because, aside from the fact that there was
no evidence taking physical appearances aside, you just wouldn't seem
to fit any sort of profile of somebody that would
commit an arm robbery. When you've got this whole other life.
I mean, that's not a thing. It's just not a thing.
(04:03):
But okay, let's go back to it. So this robbery
takes place, yes, and they're out obviously looking for suspects.
And how did it end up that you even got
on the radar. That's a good question, because I didn't
really understand it until I actually went to trial in
August the following year. I tried to take you back
(04:24):
to the day I was arrested on the nineteenth December.
It really was a typical day in the life of
any young man in my age from where I'm from.
A couple of friends hanging out. It was on a Friday.
Earlier in the day, I had you made arrangements to
see a friend of mine, a lady friend of mine,
later on in the night. But prior to that, another
friend of mine, he and I decided to go up
(04:46):
to shoot pool conversed with some other friends, and we
were doing that, and it kind of got to the
time where I was about to go to see this
lady friend, and so I made a phone call while
I was in the club. It was a little bit
too noisy. She couldn't hear me. So I said, look,
I'm gonna step outside across the street and make this
phone call so you can hear me, you know, just
to let her know I was on my way. And
then he and I were gonna part ways. And so
(05:07):
as I was walking out of the club, it was
several officers coming in and the phone booth was directly
across the street. We walked across the street. I didn't
see any cops, so they must have been hiding around
the building and the dock or something like that, because
you know, as soon as I picked up the phone,
you know, everything about my life kind of changed in
the instance, because all I can hear was screeching tires,
(05:29):
flashing lights and sirens, and in that moment, it was
difficult the process was what was happening. But from behind
the lights, you know, before my eyes really had a
chance to adjust, you can really hear the demands of
putting hands up, and so you don't really have time
to process that. So I just complied, not really knowing
what was going on, and I did so because, you know,
(05:50):
once my eyes were able to judge it was three
or four guns in my face. I remained calm because
I didn't want to do anything that would cause me
to be possibly out anything like that, and so we
were asked to put our hands up, which we did,
and we were placing handcuffs and your one friend, me
and one other friends and you know, I didn't realize
(06:10):
at the time, only after studying the law that this
is where the miscarriage is. Justice began to make manifest
against me because I was sat down on the curve
with handcuffs on in between two police cars and the
Neil versus big as. If you understand you know the
citation law, it tells you that any person that is
singly displayed in handcuffs is presumed to be the person
(06:32):
who did the crime when you're doing a show up.
And so we finally got a chance to look at
the case later on and realized that the person who
initially I didn't know he was with the officers as
we were leaving out of the club, he was with them,
and so once they put us in handcuffs, he had
told the police that, you know, well, one of the
other victims that I worked with is at his shop,
(06:55):
and so instead of the police just going back to
get him to do a show up, he actually took
the person who initially identified me back there with him
and allowed them to ride in the car together. As
they were riding in the car together, it's easy for
him to say there, he is right there, right, so
they could share the information already seen you, yeah, and
we've seen this time and again. Of course, that's going
(07:15):
to increase exponentially the percentage of people who are going
to identify that suspect. We know from research, even when
somebody sees a person in the defendants box, just the
normal person off the street who is now adjuror that,
people have a natural proclivity to think that that person
must be guilty, because otherwise what would they be doing there.
(07:36):
But then when you take that, and then you add
to it someone who's been a victim and a person
in handcuffs on the street with the police, it's almost
like a fate to complete, Like it would be strange
for them not to identify you. They would have to
be like, um, I don't know, would have to be
something bizarre, you have to be the wrong race or something. Anyway,
(07:57):
there's a lot of factors that go to that. So
at this point, did you realize how dire the situation
was or did you feel like they just made a
mistake and I'm going to go home after this gets
sorted out. No, prior to the show up, you know,
there was a moment where one of the officers, I
was like, yeah, I'm a little confused, officer, what is
this about? And he was card you, well, you're suspecting crime.
(08:18):
What crime could that have been? We've been here a
majority of the night, the day and night, so what
are you talking about? And he was like, well, I
let the detectives share that with you when you go downtown.
So it was already they had already made a decision.
It was a predetermined idea that I was going downtown regardless,
you know, even prior to the show up. At least
that's what it seemed like to me. So now they
(08:39):
take you downtown, and they brought your friend. What was
your friend's name? His name was Mandel. Until you and
Mondel both got taken downtown, we did interrogated separately, as
of course, you know, its the whole You know, we're
gonna put him in this very cold cell. And those
of us who have been locked up, you always know
you always put in a very ice cold cell, and
it's so cold that you're in the fetal position just
(09:01):
to keep warm. And so I've studied a lot of cases,
and I can always see why people really just want
to just get away from the police station and they
just kind of just say, you know, I did it
just to get away from the circumstances, because it's a process.
It's a very harsh on a person when you're in
that very cold selling. Then they bring you out and
they held you in this freezing cell for how long
(09:24):
you know, a few hours? Wow, then you're going to
be interrogated. But yes, but you never confessed and they
have any knowledge of what they were talking about. Right,
But we know that a lot of people do confess
in the circumstances. You just said, just to go home,
even if they don't know what they're talking Yes, yes,
but you did not know. They brought me out after
that and began the good cop, bad cop thing. And
(09:45):
the first thing I said was, look, before you ask
me any questions, I want to make a phone call
to an attorney. I'm a practitioner of Islam and I'm
righteous and them civilized. So whatever you accuse me of,
you know, you have the wrong person. I don't know
anything about a robbery or any other crime, and so
I didn't know it was dire until, you know, he
got very upset. I think the fact that he automatically
(10:07):
thought I was a Muslim. He began to talk about
being a Muslim to me, and that's not what I am.
I was a practice of Islam, of my cultures, the
fibers a nation of guards and earths, and um I
didn't really want to get into a dialogue with him
about that, but then he said, well, you don't have
to talk to me. You're gonna end up with fifty felonies.
And then that's when it kind of began to tense.
(10:29):
St up I was, you know, concerned then, so what
do you mean? He said, Yeah, we're gonna be typing
up about fifty felonies against you. And in the state
of Virginia, that's one of the states that can stack charges.
So for every individual robbery, I got an abduction charge,
a fire on for deduction, and the fire on for
(10:50):
the robbery. So I ended up with forty three felonies,
most of them current life sentences, based on the one
crime that they suspected you were doing. Exactly why out
um I don't even know what to say about that.
I turned one of the forty three. That math is
just as fuzzy as could be. So how long were
you interrogated for? You know, the records show that I
(11:12):
was brought out to be interrogated and not said that
I didn't know anything, and then I was taken right
back to my cell, which is not the truth. You know,
you would have to look at the time frame, you know,
from the time I was down at the police Operations
Center and to the time I was actually taking to
the jail, which was about seven or eight hours, And
so I was taken out of that cell on three
(11:33):
different occasions to the interrogation room. Did you get your
phone call? I never got the phone call. And actually,
if you look at my pre trial records, it will
tell you that Massiah requests a phone call and we
tell him a phone call is not one of his rights.
But he left out the fact that I requested a
phone call to talk to an attorney. So I'm guessing
that you probably should have said I want an attorney
(11:55):
and then they stopped questioning you. Right If you said
I want to call an attorney, that's not the same thing.
I wanted an attorney president, they did stop questioning me,
and once I requested that, they stopped questioning me and
took me back to the sale of the final time.
And then you were held for almost a year before
your trial. Is that right? Just about nine months exactly.
And I went to my first trial in August, and
(12:17):
tell me about that. Because you didn't have a quarter
point of attorney I did initially, which was the foundation
of the injustice. Once I got into the courtroom at
an attorney by the name of Andrew Sebak, and during
preliminary hearing in the cells, it's very packed. Everybody's waiting
to go for their hearing, and so several lawyers are
coming talking. He comes in and speak to me, and
(12:39):
you know, the first thing he says was, my name
is Andrew Sebak, so forth and so on. He said, now, look,
what can you tell me about this crime, which was
perplexing to me. And I was like, look, I don't
know anything about this crime. I'm not guilty of it.
I want to make sure that when you go in here,
you separate the witnesses and you know, make sure that
they understand I have anything to do with this, Okay,
he leaves, comes back and it's as if he didn't
(13:01):
hear anything. I said, you know again he was asking,
He said, well, when you and your friend committed this crime.
And then my antennas went up immediately, what are you
talking about? I just told you to have anything to
do with this crime. And so this man actually went
into this courtroom without a stenographer, which was one of
my first requests because I figured that something was wrong.
(13:22):
And when I walked in the courtroom, there was no sonographer.
So my initial reaction to him was where's the scenographer.
This guy told me, well, it's too late to get
one now, we're already in here. And so I was frustrated,
and I was speaking kind of loud, and the deputy
was saying, look, we have to keep it down. We're
about to of course, it's going to be in sessions.
So I said, okay. He separated the witnesses. These witnesses
(13:43):
described two different people. Once said this guy had on
camouflage from head to toe. One said he had on
a blue jacket. It was the kind of evidence that
you simply just get up and say you're honor based
on the evidence. Asked for the charge to be dismissed.
But at the end of everything, you know, he's simply said,
that's all I have, Yanna. The courtroom was dumbfounded. The
(14:06):
judge had to look over top of his glass and
say that's it. And he said, oh, other than the
fact that we asked for a bond. Obviously, now you're
extremely knowledgeable about the law, but at the time you weren't.
I'm assuming right now I wasn't knowledgeable of the law.
But you know, when you're being wrong. What was your reaction?
Did you like elbow room like I actually did? And
(14:26):
the deputy had to step in again and say, look,
we have to relax. Like I'm saying to him, what
are you doing? Man? What happened? And so I didn't
want to put up a fuss in the courtroom. I
knew that the judge knew that something was wrong, but
I made a phone call to him. When I got
back to the jail. We got on the phone and said, look,
what did you do to me in courtroom today? May
you didn't have a scenographer? I said, are you working
(14:46):
with the commonwealth or something? And you know, he said
that there's other people that feel like you may have
committed this crime. And so my suggestion to you is,
if you don't want me on your case, I would
suggest you get me off. And that basically told me
that he was somehow work with the police Department order
the Commonwealth Attorney. And we found out years later that
he was actually desbarred because he was dealing with a
(15:08):
mental deficiency. Wow. And so when I went to court
to get him off from my case, the judge gave
me a five minute speeches in the transcripts about how
this is a good attorney, and I said, yeah, honest.
He told me he was working with the Commonwealth in
so many words, and then he asked the attorney, like,
what do you say to this man who's accusing you're
working to come off? He said, well, am I getting
(15:29):
a check from the Commonwealth, and the judge that's not
what I'm asking you. He actually speak to him and
his chambers and removed them of from my case. It
was then that I hired an attorney. But at this
point this was still part of the initial phase. I
had you already been convicted, No, this was this is
preliminary hearing. So okay, So now we're dealing with an
attorney who is mentally impaired. Yes, doesn't have a stenographer
(15:51):
in the courtroom, which alone should be impossible. I mean,
that can't happen. And then you have a judge who's
looking over his glasses at him and go on, really, dude,
like really, And then they have been working with the
commonwealth against your best interests. And above all, you had
an attorney who is coming to you, ignoring everything you're
(16:12):
saying time and time again, and going tell me how
about how you robbed this place and who did you
do it with and all this other stuff. And you
had to be looking forward to having your day in
court and having an attorney who's got your back, who's
going to go up there and tell the truth and
make this go away. You know, my family now decided that,
and we didn't have a lot of money, we decided
that we would get a you know, attorney. We considered
(16:34):
a seasoned attorney who had a name for himself, who
had been, you know, practicing law for some time. And
then what happened. We went into court August nineteenth. Now,
initially before we even went in, several people who were
victims said, look, I can't identify anybody. These guys had
on a mask, they were covered up completely. It's no
(16:55):
way I can come in here and identify anybody. And
so for every person that came in and said that,
those charges were dropped. And then we went through the trial.
And one of the things that he asked when one
of the witnesses got understand was did you see any photographs?
And the witnesses said yes. The detective came by my
place of residence and showed me some photographs. He said, well,
(17:15):
how many futogre residents he he said, well, she said,
I saw a book of about sixty photographs where I
picked out a person that I thought me had been
the person. And then my lawyer immediately asked for a
mistrial because we hadn't seen any photographs, and the Commonwealth
claimed she didn't know anything about it, and so the
next day the mistrial was granted. And I really didn't
want to mistrial. I wanted to go through with this
(17:36):
trial because I felt like I had a drey of
my peers. And what I mean by that is that
the majority of the jury was black, which is unusual,
you know, and of a certain age closer to my age.
And while I was sitting and sell alone, my lawyer
came back and said, look, they're offering you a plea deal.
(17:56):
I said, why are you bringing it to me? I'm innocent, Like,
it's no way I'm taking a plea deal. What was
the play? Three years? Three years? You know, Once I
didn't take that plea deal, this became about malicious prosecution,
and she knew it was really no evidence, you know,
reliable evidence, which we found out later on. I'm locked
up because I wear glasses because one of the one
(18:20):
of the robbers had glasses on. That's it, because I mean,
how can you possibly have my witness identification when I
mean it's hard enough in the situation of violent, chaotic
situation to identify anybody if they don't have a mask,
but with a mask, come on, I mean, that's crazy. Like,
but now you've refused the plea deal. Now they're out
for blood because you had the audacity to reject the
(18:41):
plea deal for crime you didn't command. So it goes
to trial, and how did it end up going so wrong?
I testified, my witnesses, testified, my alibi witnesses. There were
no contradictions, and it's hard to explain my lawyer, you know,
it was really no pre trial investigation by him where
(19:03):
I expected for him to give me. It was as
if I was only getting like from him, just enough
for him to be able to say to the ball
I did my job. But when you look at it
more closely, you understand that there were a lot of
things that he didn't do that he could have done.
I know that by the time the evidence, this was
what really stood out to my attorneys. By the time
(19:26):
they had heard two days of trial, when they were
time to go in and make a decision, a question
came out from the jury, and that question was who
positively identified Massida winning Where? This was after all the
evidence was presented to them. The case was just that
confusing that they couldn't remember who identified me positively winning where?
(19:46):
And the judges said, you have to go from your
own recollection. I can't tell you that, And so they
went in. They were in there for about forty five minutes,
not long. My lawyer came back to tell me and said, look,
if it's not good, they found you guilty. And I was.
I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. Man, it was um,
(20:10):
I don't know. It's hard to explain. In sort of
a haze. And as I was sitting there, you know,
the jury began readn't go off how much time for
each charge that I was convicted of, and they were saying,
you know, seven seven, five, five. And it was a
moment when my attorney looked at me and said, well,
how much is that? And I was just like, man,
(20:30):
you have depending paper, you're not adding this up after
the first five years, you know, I didn't hear anything else.
And so how many charges were convicted of? Six charges?
Twenty six charges for allegedly walking into a beauty salon,
holding up the place, and not even whoever was did
(20:51):
this didn't actually hurt anybody? Right, No, I mean it's
a violent crime because there was a weapon involved, so exactly,
you know, legally speaking at a violent crime. But I
do think there's an important distinction when no one was hurt. Obviously,
it's traumatic for the victims in this case to have
gone through this, and there's I don't want to diminish
that in any way. But at the same time, it's
(21:12):
bizarre when you know that murderers get fifteen years, right,
and around the world the most you can get in
most civilized countries is fifteen years no matter what you've done, right,
And here you have a crime in which nobody was hurt,
and forgetting the fact that for a second that you're innocent.
So they convicted you on twenty six counts, but they
ended up sentencing you when they added up the fives
(21:32):
and the sevens and everything else, one hundred and thirty
two years thirty two years or so, and in Virginia
for those who don't know, you know, and it took
away the ability to have parole available to you. In
addition to that, in that statute, there's an additional statue
(21:52):
that says you also have to serve eighty five percent
of your time. So what I received was equivalent to, well, yeah,
you're to live the rest of your life in prison
and didn't die there. Yeah, they abolished pearl in Virginia,
which is, uh, it's incomprehensible to me. But the idea
that they sentenced you to life in prison after offering
(22:13):
you three years also like, how is there even a
universe in which you could say, well, as a society,
we were good with you doing three years for this,
but because you exercise your constitutional right to a trial,
you get a hundred and thirty two years. Yeah, it
was devastating for me and my family. And I can
tell you that it was a moment where I was
(22:35):
at the jail after that happened, sentenced and my oldest daughter,
who was about seven at the time, she came to
see me, and you know, she's an intelligent young lady,
and she asked me, she said, Dad, do you really
have a hundred and thirty two years and doing prison?
And I said yes, and you know, her response was,
you can't even live that one. There was a moment,
(23:04):
you know, which was really important to me while I
was being sentenced. I didn't drop my head, but I
think one of my family friends must have noticed that
maybe I was about to. She actually stood up in court,
you know, and said, look, hold your head up. We're
not gonna give up. And it was in that moment,
(23:26):
very early for me, in that moment that I realized
that I was gonna have to continue fighting. And so
after that, I just knew it was time for me
to get back to business of fighting for my freedom.
When you get in prison, when you really understand that
they've decided that they want to take your life, because
everything about my life changed the way I walked talk.
(23:50):
You know, everything, the movements, how long I got to
be on the phone, who I can call, what kind
of foods to eat, what kind of medical care? Everything
changed complete league, and so I decided that I didn't
want that to be my life. And so what I
did was I looked at the contrast to myself imprisoned,
and the contrast is most of us have who are
(24:12):
doing time with that has that amount have fallen to
despair and given up because Virginia has made it extremely
difficult for you to get out of prison. Once you're
in prison, everything is contingent on newly discovered evidence. But
a lot of people are not aware the anti terrorism
effective definitely. I gotta speak about this all the time
that Bill Clinton acted. Basically, it is telling you that
(24:33):
once you're direct appeal is over where you have representation,
that you are required to file Haber's corpus within a year.
So you're expected a law student. How long does it
take that person to graduate eight years in seven or whatever.
You're required to have that knowledge and represent yourself proceed
(24:54):
with any adequate information and materials, and if you don't,
then after that year, you judicially bought from being able
to present legitimate claims, your costumes advice being violated. It's
just ridiculous. The idea that that we would want to
keep anybody in prison one day after we find out
that they're innocent, regardless of whatever procedural you know, it's nuts, right,
(25:18):
And the fact that we want to deny somebody like
yourself the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence is completely
illogical too. And you really said it best. I mean
when you talk about the idea that, yeah, you're right,
you're You're given a year for a lot of people
who hadn't been to college to learn everything you would
have learned in college plus law school. Not everything, but
all the most important things that are gonna help you
in your defense. Then figure out how to file these
(25:40):
papers and find the evidence that's been hidden from you
in the first place. That would have been much easier
to find an original trial and then file it. And
then it's much harder for a pro say emotion to
succeed an emotion that's filed by an attorney in the
free world. So it's really a shame that that law
has prevented so many other people from getting out that
deserve to get out. I will say this. I know
(26:01):
I hear the terminology mass incarceration quite often, but with
this law, and especially with the laws and the state
of Virginia, you know, this is more along the lines
of judicial genocide. This is not mass incarceration. You're talking
about taking away generations of individuals and never giving them
(26:22):
a second chance back out of society. And it's targeted
with disenfranchise mainly blacks and Latinos. Yeah, they make it
easy to get in and really hard to get out,
I mean almost impossible. Unfortunately. Uh. I began to study
the law. You know, I did a lot of research
on my own case, and you know, when I combed
(26:43):
through the transcripts just to see how many because I
can remember all these contradictions, I ended up with nine
pages of conflicting testimony. Was just mind blowing to me.
It was one of the things I presented to the
Innocent Project and to other organizations. I did a lot
of research, rich and I painted a very clear picture
of my innocence with all the research I had done,
(27:05):
and began presenting it and I was turned down by
quite a few post conviction organizations, and then the Innocence
projects began to materialize, and we're talking about the University
of Virginia Instance Project to do incredible work they do. Yeah,
and I've been down there and I know the people there,
and I encourage anyone listening to support them. You can
(27:25):
just google University of Virginia Instance Project. It's a great
organization to hear more about that. But one of the
people that I had a pleasure speaking to was did
Your In Right? And I'm smiling now because I think
about the first time I met did Your In Right?
And she and I had a conversation and even though
we were having a conversation about my case, it was
(27:46):
a personal conversation too, about character and family and you know,
just my how much loss I had endured. And so
how many years have you been there by this point?
Fourteen fifteen years? And Deirdre as the director right, she
is director of the Innocent Project at uv A School
Law and runs the pro bono clinic. So for you,
(28:08):
that's when things started to take a term in the
right direction. It did. She understood immediately once I presented
those things to her, and she's impeccable in her investigation skills.
She knew exactly how she wanted to, you know, go
about getting the necessary information. Her and her students went out.
They utilized the Free Information Act and found out that
(28:28):
this guy had committed all these robberies around the same
time I was arrested. And this is what led them
to the person who actually committed the crime. They went
to see him and he basically five minutes into the
conversation and he was like, I know why you're here.
You know, they mentioned that, you know, this beauty salon
got robbed, and he basically said, look, I know what
(28:50):
you want. I'm the person who did this. He said
he didn't know that anybody was actually locked up for
the crime, and UM had spoke to his spiritual advisors
and family men, was in you know, he wanted to
just come clean about it. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really dramatic.
Because they went to see him. They were only giving
twenty five minutes to talk to him, and in those
twenty five minutes they had to somehow other earn his
(29:11):
trust and get him to confess to a crime that
you were in prison for. And they did, and then
from there we began to build a case, not forward,
We started from the back. Once we got the confession,
in Virginia. You know, you don't take it directly to
the commonwealth because then they're gonna go to all the
witnesses involved. Everybody want to say, look, this guy is
trying to say that he didn't have anything to do
(29:32):
with it. They're going to get out for Davis from
those people. But we did that, and by the time
we presented that to the courts, we got denied by
the same judge who initially refused to give me a
sentence reduction, but he was still on the bench. I
think he's still present now. Because of Virginia law after
that year, you're not allowed to follow Habeas. Corp was
second and successor has Corpus, so he denied us. And
(29:52):
so mcculoff was in office at the time, right And
this gets to a really interesting part of the story too,
because Governor mccauliffe um, who have become very friendly with
to his credit, he had this sense of outrage when
I was talking to him about these crazy sentences that
Virginia was handing out to people. You know, we talked
about Travian Blount, and we talked about Letting Singleton, and
(30:15):
we talked about some of these other people that were
doing these literally like mind blowing sentences, and you were
you were certainly one of them, I mean, like your sentences,
so nut and he fortunately was in a position to
do something about it. So how did that come down?
So to me, it was very forward thinking governor, and
he had made public comments about how how far behind
(30:36):
Jenia was compared to other states in the clminal justice system,
and so we as a whole thought that it was
best for us to put together a petition for clemency
while he was in office before he left, and so
we did that. And that's basically like buying a lot
of retakes. It is it is. I say that all
the time. It is very difficult because they usually deal
with those things after you've exhausted all your remedies. And
(30:59):
because we had this newly discovered evidence, we were able
to still go to the federal courts, which we're getting
ready to do now because we're still pending. And so
on the day that he was leaving, on the day before,
we were asking, you know, has he ruled on the
side his petition yet, and he's like no, but he's
getting to it, and he'll get to it before he leaves.
And you know, ditter was calling periodically every hour. You know,
(31:24):
I think we're gonna get it. We're not sure yet,
you know, I tried to call this person. They said, yeah,
they're looking at it right now. So the day of
I think, no more than an hour after he was
supposed to be leaving office, we get the call, you know,
and he said, you've been granted the conditional part and
with the absolute aspect of the part and still pending,
(31:48):
you know, the outcome of the investigation. And that was
a wonderful feeling, man, to hear that dis recalled me.
We were just elated. We will overjoyed here, the whole team, everybody,
you know, General in right and Jennifer Gibbons who was
another attorney there, also a director. They have been coming
(32:08):
to the prison regularly and calling for me. They assisted
me and aided me in ways, you know, and anybody
who who is represented by them will tell you they
go above and beyond with their representation and helping you
not only with the legal aspect, but personal things that
you'd be going through in prison. It's rare you see
somebody who does that, you know, all the way proceed throughout,
(32:30):
you know, but this was a collective effort of all
of us. What was the reaction in the prison when
you got this news where people jealous? Were they happy?
(32:53):
What was the reaction of the other The majority of
people were happy because they understood my struggle. They saw
me working. There's two different types of people in prison,
those who working to get out those who's just waiting
for something to happen. And while I was in prison,
I helped a lot of people along the way digit
and righting. Jennifer Gills will tell you I've read people's cases.
(33:14):
I've read multiple cases. I've done research myself and help
them with their cases, file motions for them. But I've
also introduced them to gender in right and Jennifer Gibbons
and so those people and a lot of people, I
made quite a few friends. You imagine after twenty years
you make some friends. They were just related. How long
did it take you to get out after they after
the call they want to make you do five months?
(33:36):
I did four from January to April because they have
that re entry every entry program, but I I stayed
on top of the people every day, like, look, you
gotta get this program. Man. Everything is supposed content on
me getting out. Is me complete these programs, so they
put me to the top of the list. And you know,
you had a hundred and twelve years left to go,
and now it turns to four months. How did those
four months go by? Faster? Slow? It went by the
(33:58):
same For me. I put myself in that kind of
mind frame that I'm not I don't really believe until
it actually happens. You know, even though I got the
pardon with a discretionary release date, you still don't believe
until it actually happens. Anybody, I think everybody will tell
you this. Until you actually crush that threshold, you just
don't believe it. Man. And I've seen the video of
(34:18):
you walking out of prison into the arms of your
family and attorneys from the Virginia and It's project. It's
a very powerful moving thing to see. Going back to
prison for a second, sometimes like to ask what was
the best and the worst thing that happened? It was
there a moment, even in the darkest of times, when
there was like a ray of flight or hope mentally
(34:40):
and emotionally, you know, there's valleys and peaks. You know,
you're trying to make sense of everything that's happening to you,
you know, you want to stay within the realm of reality,
but that reality maybe something that's for the rest of
your life. And so for me, there was some a
few dark moments and I reached out to you know,
(35:00):
Nikki Giovanni. You know, she's a renown black activist, scholar, poet,
and educator, because she had a poem that resonated with
me called Quoting the Black I p And I couldn't
find a book anywhere, and so I wrote her, and
she wrote me back and sent me to autograph books,
and that kind of gave me that these people out
(35:21):
here that still really do care, you know. And so
there were moments like that that really continue to inspire
me to, you know, fight from my freedom. But I
have to say this, all of who I am today
is a reflection of of that which has been shaped
and motive by my circumstances of the last twenty years.
So I developed a very profound perspective about life that
(35:44):
has allowed me to know my purpose, and within that purpose,
it's really about helping others. And so at some point
I want to be able to develop a nonprofit which
I've really developed, and it's called the Lying Initiative. Liberating
individuals oppression now and it will have several programs, and
they want about educating the the community about laws and
(36:07):
how they can affect change through their legislators, people who
are supposed to represent them. But I learned a lot
of elders in the communities they don't have the education.
They want to be educated about the law and how
they can effectively make change. And so that in and
cause a recent prevention with the youth and investigative practices
for those who are in prison who don't have the
(36:28):
money and can't find the resources. Because everything in Virginia
is based on post conviction investigation, you really need that
in order for you to even find newly discovered evidence. No,
I'm glad you brought that up, because that is truly
what the Virginia Innocence Project did in your case. They
wouldn't really reinvestigated the case, and it was never investigated
(36:49):
properly in the first place, exactly. And you know, if
we had a fairer system, we would have defense attorneys,
even public defenders, who were given enough time to work
on each individual case that they could at least mount
some sort of effective investigation. Obviously, they're not going to
be able to do you know what a private attorney
(37:10):
who is working on just a few cases can do,
because they're always going to be overworked. But we need
to reduce that burden because some of these guys are
working on a hundred cases at the time and and
there's just no way even the best attorney in that
situation can't possibly do the most effective job for their client.
And in your case, it was literally your life that
was hanging in the balance. And so forgetting the fact
(37:32):
that you had this you know, half crazy and competent
guy in the first place. Um, I mean you had
really hit the jack pot of me between the mistaken
eye witnesses and an official misconduct and effective assistance of counsel,
the show up the I mean everything, it's really it's
it's the reverse jackpot. I mean everything that could have
(37:52):
gone wrong went wrong, and we know what the end
result was, and and and results. It's a man in
prison for twenty years and and even then it's a
merror icle that you're here now and still fighting, which
is great, and I want to talk about that too,
because you are fighting your case. I believe you will prevail,
even though it's them tedious process and has made it
so difficult for federal judges to overturn state convictions even
(38:15):
when they know it's wrong. But that being said, you're
also you know, it seems to me like you're hitting
the ground running, you know, not missing a beat. I
know you're working now, But you have a skill. That's
that I want to talk about because you know, we
don't know who's listening. It might be somebody listening who
might need some of your talents, you know, um and
talking about graphic design and you know, talk about some
(38:37):
of that stuff that it was a trade that was
available at sausse to state prison, communication, graphic loss and design.
It's the re entry process. And so I finally made
it into the class and became proficient. But I'm still
a feeling and so every time I go to fill
out applications so forth and so on. You got to
check the box. You gotta check the box. But if
people want to if they need somebody to do some
(38:59):
design of work for him or something like that, whether
they're in Virginia or even do something you could do
on the web, how could they reach out to you?
My Gmail was Lois Sean three six S L O. R.
D s h I n E. It's l O R
D s h I n E three sixty at gmail
dot com. That's correct. Come on Facebook, Instagram, what's your Instagram? Oh,
Messiah alidl So it's Messiah M E S s I
(39:22):
A h A l A d A y'all, l A
space and then Johnson. Okay, Messiah, it's easy, I think
once you type in Messiah and then L A D
A R and then underscore Johnson. So, Messiah, I want
to um, of course, thank you for coming and being
here and sharing this insane story. And I think a
(39:44):
lot of people are gonna take something out of it
that's going to be meaningful to them, not least which
is your spirit, which remains, you know, just so positive
and it's it's quite remarkable. I want to make sure
we'd ask you, is there anyone else that you want
to thank? Do you want to shout out your girls? Yes?
I couldn't be here today without all the love and
support that I received from my family and friends. It
(40:06):
was an arduous journey and it still is because I'm
still fighting for exoneration. I need to be vindicated for
all the stuff that you know I've been through. But
They have truly been an inspiration to me, and I
just couldn't have done it without them and all of
the students that help work on this case. Of course,
there's in right, her family, Jennifer Givevens, her family, the
(40:28):
media who eventually began reporting the true story, and I
don't know the list can I can go on forever?
Yourself for having me here today and allowing me to
share this story and this truth, because ultimately, I hope
that this inspired somebody, whether you're a prisoner in prison
and feel like you're hopeless, these stories and I've listened
(40:49):
to a lot of your podcasts. They are inspiring. Even
though I've gone through my own set of circumstances, those
podcasts are still inspiring to me for me to continue
fighting for myself for others, that means a lot. I mean, no,
you're you're genuine. I met you a few months back,
and I always want to know if somebody is genuine,
you know, especially if you haven't gone through these set
(41:12):
of circumstances, and you are the real deal man um
And I appreciate everything that you're doing because you could
be doing so many other things, but to have somebody
at some point inspire you and for you to take
on this cause. Man is truly important man for society
and I'm with you man, well, thank you man. That
(41:33):
means a lot. And um, and now after I collect myself, UM,
I want to honor our tradition here at wrong for
conviction and our our listeners know this is a part
of the show where I get to, uh to basically
sign off. But before I do that, UM, and what
I mean by that, I don't mean sign off, So
don't don't true now because it's the best part of
(41:55):
the show. But I want to, uh, of course, thank
you again Messiah Johnson for coming in and sharing, um,
your story with us. UM. I want to apologize to
you for what society America, Virginia you know, put you through.
But I know the best is yet to come for you,
and I'm looking forward to a friendship and watching you,
(42:16):
you know, succeed beyond everybody's wildest expectations. So I get
to turn the microphone, my microphone off and leave yours
on for any closing thoughts that you have. I don't
know if you know Melvin van People's Mario van People's father, Well,
he said he had a friend that had three partners.
They all went out to a club one day and
(42:38):
all three of them got locked up. Two of them
got out on bail, went home. His friend got out
the next day, and by the time he got there,
his friends had split up his property in his house
as if he was never coming back. And he said,
this is basically the mentality of society about prisoners, and
so you have to know that that mentality won't bring
about a change. You know, you have to know that
(43:02):
these laws can affect you, either directly or indirectly in
some form of fashion if you're not involved. I hope
that me coming here today, like I said, inspires others
to continue fighting for themselves and others. It is truly
a necessity that we begin to educate ourselves. So my
plea to everybody is begin educating yourself, begin, you know,
(43:24):
getting behind these causes of criminal justice reform so we
can bring about a true balance back in society. Thank
you for listening. This has been an amazing experience for
me and I hope for you to. We'll see you
next week on Wrong for Conviction. Don't forget to give
(43:49):
us a fantastic review wherever you get your podcasts. It
really helps and I'm a proud donor to the Innocence
Project and I really hope you'll join me and supporting
this burying partant 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
(44:12):
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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