June 10, 2020 • 41 mins
After a short stint in prison, Steven Carrington was a newlywed father, training to be an EMT and getting his life back on track. But when the police came looking for his brother at the same Brooklyn, NY address, the police mistakenly zeroed in on Steven as the primary suspect of a felony murder at a Brooklyn lumber store. Steven was convicted and sentence to 23 years to life.
Learn more and get involved at:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=6802
https://www.nyls.edu/faculty/adele-bernhard/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It was a new year, and Stephan Carrington was a
young man with a short criminal history who had just
gotten out of prison. He had recently gotten married. The
young father was training to be an e. M. T.
After having paid his debtist Society. His life was getting
back on traffic. On the morning of January two, Stephen's
(00:23):
brother Mark stood outside of a lumber yard in Brooklyn
as Shannon France and another man arrived. Mr France pulled
the twenty five, announcing a stick up as the other
man rob's customer, Hugh Keys, the store clerk, tries to
grab Mr France's weapon and was shot. Mr France loots
the strong box and the two men fled, leaving Mr
Keys alive. A confidential informant would tell the lead investigator,
(00:47):
Detective Calabri's, the names of three men who were seen
by the lumber yard at the time of the crime,
Shannon France, Eddie West, and Mark Carrington. However, when he
searched for Mark Carrington, Stephen popped up at the same
address and with his criminal record, Calabrizi added his photo
into an array. Hugh Keys gave a shaky identification and
(01:09):
the absence of any physical evidence whatsoever connecting to the crime.
Stephen went to trial right next to the trigger man,
Shannon France. The Carrington's hired a lawyer to protect both
of their sons, but it turned out to be to
the detriment of one of them. Mark was never called
to testify a trial, and twenty years later, finally free,
(01:29):
Stephen Carrington is out on parole, but still fighting to
clear his name of a crime that he simply didn't commit.
This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
(01:53):
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, I'm your host,
and today we have a story an outcome that we're
going to hope that who knows, maybe somebody out there
can be helpful with, because we are fighting to prove
the innocence of the man who's sitting right in front
of me now, Stephen Carrington. Stephen, as I always say,
I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy you're here. Well,
(02:16):
thank you, but I'm happy that I'm here and having
an opportunity to set the record straight and probably clear
my name. Yeah, that's what we're here for. But let's
go back to that original fateful day January. Um, what
happened that day in the lumber store. Um, basically, all
my knowledge of this saga story that took place I
(02:38):
learned through reading trial minutes, from hearing from people in
the street and things of that nature, because you know,
I wasn't there when it took place on that day.
They said that two individuals into the lumber yard at
apparent robbery which resulted to homicide, wanted the employee at
the lumber yard try to take a weapon for this individual,
(03:00):
and subsequently this guy shot him twice and ultimately, um,
he died, eventually died. Uh. The two individuals fled the scene.
My brother was the lookout and subsequently Um the person
that is my co defend and Shannon, his girlfriend best
(03:22):
friend is the one that gave his name, photos and
everything to the police. There's a third individual who named
was Eddie West. And I have to say that neither
my brother or Eddie West was ever interviewed, questioned, sought
after by the police department. So Eddie West was the
(03:42):
other guy in the store. Now, Eddie West was that
one of the individuals that they mentioned that was out
on the corner during the time the robbery was committed.
Shannon France, though, was he had some involvement in the crime.
Is that right? Um, they've found his fingerprints on the
cash box inside the lumber yard. That's not a good sign.
They didn't find yours. No, they have no physical evidence
(04:06):
or anything linked me to the crime, besides having a
sibling who was mentioned to be outside with the individuals
who was involved. So these guys go, they robbed the
lumberyard and they shot clerk named Lloyd Campbell, both in
the head and in the back, and then they found
(04:28):
the strong box, they looted it. The two guys fled
the scene. Your brother was either there or not as
a lookout whatever he was doing. He was apparently not
in the store, that is correct. So how did your
name come to be associated because it's sort of a
leap to say, Okay, well they got your brother, now
(04:50):
they're going to just go after you. Well, I could
just tell you from the police reports the officers during
the investigation when they received these names and photos of
these individuals. Um, there was an address on the photo,
which was a promotional photo. At the time, I had
a recording studio and we used to you know, range
(05:10):
studio time out to individuals wanted the group, shouting my
co defending he was an individual who was in the
rap group which my brother was affiliated with a part of,
and they had promotional photos up and down the avenue,
the same avenue that these guys went and committed this
crime on. It so happened that they committed a crime
(05:33):
across the street from his girlfriend's business, and his girlfriend
best friend is the one that saw him out there
and eventually gave his name in the photos to the police,
to the detective Calabris. When Calabris was doing his investigation,
all he did was run the address through the police
system and my name came back because I was parole
(05:57):
to the address. So when they discovered that I was
on parole, the whole case shifted to me. Um. Detective
Calibies is quoted as saying that he had a gut
feeling I was involved. He felt that I matched the
description my brother was involved. He felt that if I
(06:18):
wasn't involved, I knew something about it. And because I
had a prior and I was on parole, they came
for me. But you match the description of the actual shooter,
um no, or the lookout? Um No? Whose description did
you match? He said? I matched the individual who robbed
another patron of this lumber yard, Mr u Case. I
(06:40):
didn't know what he was talking about. In my mind,
I believe that eventually whatever they was trying to do with,
you know, resolve itself. Because I didn't have I had
nothing to do with any crime. This situation, you know,
had me think about this one phrase, you know, and
it always stuck with me that you you never get
a second chance to make it for a impression. And
(07:03):
because of my past is why I'm here today now.
I'm not a goodie two shoe. I wasn't and that
is only because I tried to fit in with individuals
I wanted, you know, to be down. I brought up
my father's the pastor. I brought up in church. I
went to church the majority of my life, and I
wouldn't lie, you know, I hated church. I was forced
(07:27):
to go every day. I wouldn't say a worse experience,
but just not to do what normal kids do was
kind of tough for me because I was a free spater.
Like so, when I was like seventeen, I tried to
move out and so I saw to sell drugs and
my best friend and that's how I got into the
(07:48):
life of criminality and things of that nature. And subsequently
I did get rested for drug sale robbery and I
went to Racket's Island and I had a traumatic experience.
I got jumped, got stabbed, got robbed, and as time
(08:10):
went on, and I knew that this wasn't for me,
prison wasn't something that I wanted to do. It wasn't
a lifestyle that I wanted to live. And if you know,
selling drugs all these other stuff was gonna lead me
to prison. And I had to do away with that,
and not just those activities, but also the people that
(08:32):
I used to associate with, and that's what I did.
You were really putting your life on track at this time,
which is sort of an added element of tragedy. You
had gone through some training to be an E. M. T. Right. Yes,
that's correct, your young father, that's correct, and basically married,
recently married. Yeah, so you had your whole life in
front of you. I had changed my life. I cut
(08:54):
off all my friends. You know, I had a newborn,
my daughter. She was only seven months when they took
me from It's sickening, I mean, and let's set the
record straight by talking about your alibi, which is a
bit of a sensitive topic. I mean, you were a
married man, but your alibi involves another woman, right, sad
to saying, Unfortunately, the day that they accused me of
(09:16):
committing this crime, I was in the hospital with my wife,
and I was also with another female friend before I
was in the hospital with my wife. Right, like you
said earlier, you had a recording studio set up in
your parents basement. A young lady came to visit you
there and spent the night. Now, unbeknownst to you, your
daughter had developed an ear infection. I was taken to
the hospital that morning. Now there's no cell phones back then.
(09:40):
Your wife was calling around looking for you, and she
gets a hold of your mother, who walks the phone
to you. Downstairs. You spoke with your wife, assured her
that you were on your way, and then you shower
and get the hell out of there. When I got there,
you know, basically, my wife is just like him. She's
very possibility. Now, I had all and um, so you know,
(10:03):
I did everything with until the doctors wanted to come
and she had an earfecture so they wanted to do
an X ray. Now, this is one of the things
that baffled me even till today with all the technology
and stuff that they have, my hands got captured in
this X ray. When people read this case, really sit
down and read this case, they wonder, how did you
get convicted? You had a solid alibi. I trial. One
(10:25):
person testified against me, and I had four or five
alibi witnesses that testified. The one person that testified against me,
Mr you Keys, And I feel for him because I
know that he's been duped because he told the none
one one operated when he called them during the day
that the crime was committed, about being robbed, about the
(10:49):
individual being shot, or what have you. And when they
asked him to give a description of the individual, he
told him that he couldn't. He said he never looked
at the individual. You that he never looked at the
person that robbed him. Wow, because he was afraid too,
because he seen what happened to the guy that got shot.
(11:10):
He was afraid for his life. He also told that
to the first police that came on the scene. But
yet here it is Detective Calbies is saying that this
individual picked my picture up and said this is the
guy that robbed me. The district attorney is saying that
the witness didn't say that the witness said that I
looked like the individual that robbed him, But in all
(11:30):
the police reports it's saying that the witness said that
I'm the guy that robbed them. But in court, the
district attorney is saying that the witness said that I
looked like the guy that robbed him, and if he
seen me in person, he would be able to identify me.
But here's the catch. The witness get on the stand
and said that he never made no identification of me
(11:52):
prior to my arrest. So how did I become a suspect?
Which one is it? Right? Three different opinions about one identification? Now,
who should you believe the detective who was saying that
he positively identified me as the person that robbed him.
The district attorney who was saying that the witness said
(12:15):
that I looked like the individual, but he will be
able to identify me if he see me in person.
Or the witness who said that he never made no
identification when the police came to his house on numerous occasions.
Who should we believe this guy? He didn't know me.
The only thing that he knew, which he told the
police was that the guy was dark skin and stocking,
(12:37):
described half of your neighborhood. When they are asking, well,
how tall is this guy? He don't know. Is he
taller than you, I don't know. Is he shorter than you?
I don't know. Did he have a bid I don't know.
Did he have a much stache? I don't know. For
he didn't see him, what do you know? He was
dark skin and stocky. They showed him the tape, and
on the tape, you can't make the features out of
(12:59):
the individuals to two perpetrators. You can't really make facial
features out of anybody on the tape. But the perpetrators
had on hats and hoodies and three quarter length copes,
and he stated that he couldn't see these individuals. He
(13:19):
didn't know what the personal like. He don't know if
they had a bed mustache anything. He was just duskin
and stocky. So when you look at the tape, all
you see is shapes and sizes. That's not enough. He
couldn't even identify himself on the tape. During trial, the
disc attorney had to reference something of what he had
(13:42):
on hold on the witness. This tape was so grainy
that the guy couldn't identify him himself. Yes, when the
disc attorney asked him to point to himself on the tape,
he pointed to someone else. And then the disc attorney says, um,
something like this is that you with the checkerboard shirt?
(14:03):
Or who's who's in the checkerboard shirt or something of
that effect right led him to basically say, oh, and
then that's me standing right here. Okay, I've heard enough
about that. Now we know that's completely unreliable and out.
That should have been out the window right off the bat. Uh.
One of the things that sticks with me is the
idea that detective Caliber has claimed that he could recognize
(14:23):
you from a security tape because you could recognize your walk. Yeah.
I believe that was the lynch pin. That's that sealed
my fate, because he got to understanding and he pointed
me out in court and he said this is the guy,
and they asked him how he knows and he says
that he could tell that it was me because of
how I walked. And the tape doesn't show the perpetrator
(14:45):
from his waist down, and they showed this tape in court.
But yet, you know, I believe that that was the
nail in the coffin for me, because he's an officer.
They have a tape, and people believe even when I
was healing, and I know that these judges never viewed
the tape, but because of the language and the dialogue
and the trial transcript, they even denied certain of my
(15:09):
appeals because they saying you were clearly seen on the tape.
The idea that anyone could identify anyone else short of
someone who does have a physical, you know, impairment, for
impairment exactly what I was looking for, is preposterous. I mean,
the fact that they would even present that as evidence
is ridiculous. But they did, and the consequences are not
(15:29):
funny at all. They're very real. So there's there's that,
and then there's the fact that you know, we know,
we know what happened at the trial, that you know
your brother was not allowed to testify. That is correct
because your lawyer didn't submit his name on the witness list.
Had he been able to, we don't. We never will
never know what he would have said in the moment,
(15:49):
but there's a realistic chance that he might have said
something that could have exonerated you well at that time.
My opinion and belief is that he wanted to come forward,
and he did come to court to testify. And what
I realized later is that my lawyer sent them home.
When they started to question my parents about my brother
and his whereabouts, they answered truthfully that he was here,
(16:14):
came to court today to testify, and the distric attorney
stopped the proceeding and asked for a sidebar so they
can discuss certain things which the scenographer records. And at
this sidebar, the disc attorney wanted to bring up my
lawyer on charges for lying about the whereabouts of my brother,
(16:37):
because earlier that morning he said he don't know where
my brother was. He never seen them, he never met him.
And then it was discovered later the same day that
my brother was at his office that morning and he
sent them home. Wow, that's a big lie, and it's
in the trial transcripts. I'm not making it up. And
he didn't he didn't forget that he saw your brother
that day. I mean, because it was right, it was
(16:59):
early that morning and trial was on and my brother
came to testify at that time. I believe the best.
Now I understand why a person would be apprehensive for
coming forward and trying to tell the truth about what
really took place or who was involved things of that nature. Yeah,
I mean, he's he's your your little brother. You know,
(17:21):
he must have had a lot of conflicted emotions. I
can't imagine being in his place. He's trying to save
his own life at the same time. You know, he's
got I'm sure a lot of guilt about putting you
in this situation in the first place, because you talked
about how you never would have been in the system
if you hadn't have done certain things when you were younger.
(17:42):
But you also would have never been in this situation
if your brother hadn't been involved in this thing in
the first place. I think that I have said a
bad president for my brother. I believe I was part
of the influence. Now. I don't know if he looked
up to me, but I believe that some of my
actions are friends that I had that was around probably
(18:03):
also ropped off on him. Unfortunately, I wasn't around for
him when he started to engage in activities and pick
certain people as friends that I could have probably said,
you know, those those are the guys you shouldn't think
because what I tried to do was distance myself from
everyone that was in my neighborhood at that point in
time when I started to claim my life up. I mean,
(18:26):
you basically took the fall for your brother. Well, I
wouldn't say that I took the fall. They gave it
to me, right. Your last hope was that your lawyer
was going to do a good job representing you and
that the truth was going to come out. That's correct,
and you're gonna go back and get him with your life.
But in fact, your lawyer was compromised. Um, yes, as
it seems. I mean, he was kind of like conflicted
(18:50):
in between his duties as a lawyer to me and
also to the people that were paying him to represent
me and the people that were paying him with your parents. Yes,
it's almost they had a selfie's choice, that had to
choose what they did choose and if they had to
choose to save one job for me. It is basically,
and this was never spoken. This is just my thoughts
(19:10):
as I got a little older and probably start to
piece things together that you know, he had a pass,
you know he was in trouble before. Maybe he could
handle this and we would support him. But my brother,
he's the baby. And you know the cops wasn't looking
for him. They already gave him a clean slave and
(19:31):
said they didn't want him. Even the district attorney said
that they had nothing to convict him on. So they
look for the easy choice, the person that had the record.
If we can't get his brother, then we're going to
get him. You served UM twenty three years twenty three
(19:59):
years and maximum security prisons in New York State. Was
there a a worst moment um and was there a
best moment? I mean I had a lot of not
a lot of bad moments, but there this this fear.
One of my worst moments. When I was in green
Haven in two thousand and I was in college. I
(20:25):
was taking up Christian Ministry Human Services UM theology course.
I was working in the barbershop and this particular day,
I was coming from study hall that have my books,
and I'm going back to my cell and I saw
a crate and I was like, let me take the
crateing put my school books in because if anything happened
(20:48):
to the school books, I have to pay for. This
is an old maximum security prison, so they have leaks
and waters, dripping all over the place. Sometimes you toil
it over floor, your sinkle will flow. So long story show.
The officers see me with the crate, tell me to
put it back. I can't have it, and I complied.
Supposedly he must have spoke to another officer because another
(21:10):
officer calls me back and started going crazy on me,
like what are you touching here? You know, don't and this,
don't and that, and you know, I just stood there.
I figured, you know, okay, he got his buddies here,
I'm gonna just listen to him, you know, comply and
you know, hopefully, you know, I can go to my
(21:30):
cell and lock in. And that wasn't the case, you know.
So after he started to berape me about you know,
touching stuff in his unit and all this other stuff,
I said, okay, you know, I'm sorry. You know, here's
the crate. And I turned to leave. And I think
at this point in time he felt like I was
(21:53):
dismissing him, you know, or I left without his authority,
saying okay, you go, and he took offense to me
turning to leave, and he jumped on me. They beat
me up. You see my elbow. M I left elbow.
(22:13):
I've got a giant nodded it right. My shoulders still
hurt to this day. They beat up my elbows, they
beat up my shoulders, they beat me up, They dragged
me to the box, and they try to charge me
with a soul. And that was like for me the
worst day because everything that I was doing, I never
(22:34):
had no physical altercations while I was in with inmates,
all officers, anything of that nature. And I'm fighting my
case and the only thing that's come into my mind
is that maybe I have an opportunity to get out
to prison for my case. But if they try to
convict me for assault on the staff, which mostly everybody
(22:57):
gets convicted of, you know, I just see my lights
go out. It's your word against officer words. And more
than one officer is going to say that you didn't
what you didn't do. And it's funny to me because
it's like I'm saying to myself, like God, how does
stuff and keep happening to me? And my parents they're
(23:20):
so religious that you know they would hit you with
you haven't submitted to God yet, you haven't let go.
You're being tested, You're going through the fire, and you know,
I cried like a baby because I've seen my lights
go out. And maybe this was also the opportunity that
I've seen God working in my life. Because subsequently, guys
(23:48):
that knew me, that locked on the company with me,
they have wrote this Attorney's General Office to inspect the general.
They have wrote Prison Legal Services, and and I never
knew that people probably watched me or cared about me
like that. I'm talking about inmates, hard and criminals or whatever.
(24:11):
And the inspect the general one the inspect the generals
came to see me, and I've written to them again, um,
because one of the guys inside the shoe area had
told me, listen, you need to write these people. You
need to write this person data data that. So I
was getting advice from individuals or who I have to write,
who I have to contact to try to get from
(24:33):
underneath this, and um, so I wrote them as well.
And when they came to see me, you know, we talked.
He says, well, we have to do our investigation and
stuff for that nature. And then they came to see me,
and I guess this is the first time in my
life that I could say that I've seen the hand
(24:54):
of God, because when he called me and they interviewed me.
He says, Um, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that we're not going to charge
you with assault on staff because I've read all the
reports that came in. I read the police reports, and
(25:16):
I read not just your report, but I got several
letters written from other inmates who have witnessed what took place.
And I know that you didn't have contact with these
individuals because they brought you to the box and it
says your story and their story adds up, and none
of the police stories adds up. But you have to
(25:39):
go through the formalities. I still had their hearing to
go to. And this is how corrupt the Department of
Corrections is. I remember the officer that had the altercation
with me, that smacked me in my face and hit
me with the sticks and all that, and it was
two other officers there, but I didn't remember the too.
And the reason why I remember the one is because
(26:00):
as he was my company officer, he's there every day.
The officer that comes in the hearing was in the
officer that that that hit me or I had the
altercation with It was somebody else. And we're going through
the formalities and questioning the officer and stuff like that.
So the officers said that we were standing right shoulder,
(26:21):
the right shoulder, and I took my left hand and
punched him on the left side of his face. That
caused him to bust his head on the pipes and
bust his head open. And when I started to play
if we stand the right shoulder to shoulder and I
(26:43):
hit him with my left hand on the left side
of his face, how is that possible. I would have
to go over It's not come back and hit him.
And you know so, so I asked the officer to
demonstrate this punch. Can you demonstrate how I hit you
with my left hand on the left side of your face?
(27:05):
If we stand the right shoulder the right shoulder, I
would like for you to demonstrate this. And the heroing
officer said that there will be no demonstrations in here,
so he never got to demonstrate, and I, you know, objected,
and I told him that it's impossible that that can
take place. Long story short, The officer that wrote the
(27:25):
report or that they brought in that said he wrote
the report. I asked him, did he see the police
hit me? And he said yes. So then I asked them, then,
why is it not written in the report that the
police struck me. The lieutenant looks and he's like, I said,
(27:47):
It's not in the ticket, is not in the two
firm reports, is not in any document that was given
to me. So the lieutenant asked the CEO, why is that?
And maybe at this time he was afraid. I don't
know what it is, but I believe at this point
in time, this is when I've seen God worked in
my life. And he tells the truth. He says, I
(28:11):
didn't write the report. The lieutenant said, you didn't write
the report. He said, no, I didn't write the report.
He said, who wrote the report? He said, a sergeant
such and such wrote the report. He said, where was
the sergeant when the incident happened? He wasn't there. The
sergeant wrote the report, made another officer sign it and
(28:32):
sit in the hearing as the officer who witnessed what
took place and knew nothing about it, and they dismissed
the case. Amen to that, um or, you might not
be here now so and we know now that you paroled,
And I want to get to that because that's a
(28:53):
really extraordinary story in and of itself. I think it
says a lot about what the parole board really thought
about your claims of innocence. But before we get to that,
I want to talk about what was going on on
the outside. Because there was a guy in the neighborhood.
I mean, can we mention his name? Well, for legal purposes,
(29:15):
you know, I wouldn't like to mention his name. He
called My case is still being reviewed by the Convention
Review Unit. So, but this individual was a childhood friend
of mine. We had um I haven't seen each other
in years, and he had moved away from the neighborhood.
And when he came back to the neighborhood, he was looking,
you know for old friends, and you know, subsequently he
(29:35):
was looking for me and heard that I was in prison.
So he wanted to know why, and the whole story
came out and he couldn't believe it. You know, he
took it upon himself to try to help me. How
did you do that? Well, the individual who actually committed
a crime used to see him all the time, and
because he's still living in the neighborhood, mostly people that
(29:57):
knew both of us, he would ask them, you know,
how they felt about him, and was he still you know,
like welcome or they still had love for him, knowing
that I was in prison serving time for a crime
that he committed. And my friend, he was like he
couldn't believe this, and he's like, this guy just keeps
(30:17):
saying that he did it. He did it, and he's
the reason why you're in prison. You know, he wrote
my letter. I showed you the letter that he wrote.
And he took it upon himself too to record this individual,
to tape him saying the same things about me being
in prison for a crime he committed. And he even
went as far as that he used to he does
(30:39):
security bouncing work because he's six eight, three hundreds something pounds,
And this is God again in my life. He's so
happened to be working doing security at a spot where
Detective Calbies, leading detective in my case, was also working.
(30:59):
What's the as of that m pretty long, and he
spoke the Calibies about the case and told him that
he had the wrong person in prison for the crime.
What Calibaries saying. Calibies just told him tell his brother
to come forward and he can get out. That was
(31:20):
his words, Secause Calibries knew and he had told me
as much when he brought me in, you know, because
he was like, where's your brother, where's his friends? And
and I'm like, I don't know. I'm not my brother's keeper.
You know, I don't live with my brother. I lived
with my wife. But he didn't care about that. And
(31:42):
you know, once things start to unravel in the conviction
review unit and they start to review my case. They
reached out to him two to three weeks after they
reviewed my case and next thing, you know, self inflicted
wounds somewhere in his car. You know, it took his
own life. Yeah, it seems like his conscience may have
(32:05):
gotten to him. We will never know, um because he
didn't leave a note or anything, right, but the timing
seems really um to be suspicious. Yeah, I mean, the
conviction review unit that starts looking into your case, it's
inevitable that they're going to find out what happened. Because
the conviction review unit in Brooklyn, I can say this,
they don't funk around. But these guys are under the
(32:26):
leadership of Eric Gonzalis and before that, Ken Thompson. They
are committed to finding and identifying and resolving wrong for
conviction cases and they've been doing it and then walking
the walk. And so once they took over reinvestigating your case,
Detective Calibrizi must have known that some of his misdeeds
(32:47):
were going to become public. Yes, he did everything from
interviewing the witnesses to getting the fillers for the lineups,
conducting the lineup. I mean, nobody else did anything. His
name is on all the reports. So the guy who
holds the key is dead. Now you went to the
(33:14):
parole board. Yes, and you did exactly the opposite of
what all the smartest people you knew were the most
wisest people. I should say, we're advising you to do right.
I'm not gonna lie, you know. I was very apprehensive
as a russell with it. You know, if my wife
was here, she would tell you, you know, because knowing
(33:36):
what I know now, I had told her and I
told her before that f I had a chance to
do this all over again, I probably would have copped
out to something less right. So I was gonna say
is when you go to the parole board, the general rule,
and this is with very very rare exceptions, the parole
board wants to hear you express remorse for the crime.
(33:57):
Whether you committed it or not. They don't know whether
you committed it. They don't have time to reinvestigate it.
In New York State, the parole Board is reviewing ten
thousand cases, around ten thousand cases a year, and there's
only somewhere between twelve and nineteen people for the entire
state in panels of three. So they have a few
minutes to look into your case. They're not. They don't
have time to go through it, even like we're doing now.
(34:17):
So it would be great if they did, but they don't.
The only human beings, they only you know, they don't
have so much time in a day. So the logical
thing to do for somebody like you who is desperate
to get out and get back with your family and
get back on, you know, to your life, is to
just plead guilty. And then they're most likely going to say, okay,
well you've served twenty three years and you've done you know,
(34:39):
ministry and all this other stuff in prison. Yeah, you
can go home now. But you didn't know. And I
mean I rustle with it. I prayed about it because
I want to go home. You know, what should I do?
I mean, even though all these years I'm telling him
I didn't commit the crime. Now I'm note for parole.
(35:00):
What do I do do I go in there and
put on the show and say that I'm remorse and
I'm sorry and that you know, you know, I don't
know what to say but the truth, and I rustle
with it. And I mean, like people was telling me,
don't go in there and tell them that you didn't
do it. You're they're gonna hit you, They're going to
(35:20):
give you more time. And I said, well, I'm going
in there and I'm gonna tell them what I've been
telling them since the beginning. I didn't commit the crime,
but I understand why it's possible for individual like me
to be considered for a crime such as this, you know.
(35:40):
And I'm gonna give them mind story about my past,
how I came to be here today, and what I've
done since I was incarcerated, and what I planned to
do when I get out. And for that whole ten
days after that, I had to wait to get the results,
seven or ten days. It was the worst week of
(36:05):
my life. No sleep because that whole week already felt
because the way that they spoke to me inside the
parole board, I felt that there wasn't going to release me.
My counsel gives me the envelope. I opened it, and
to be honest, my eyes are teared up because I'm
and I'm looking for the worst. And it's sad to
(36:27):
say I'm looking for denial. I'm just looking for any
word with a D for denial, refused whatever, and I
didn't see and my counsels like, um, you're okay. I said, yeah,
I just um, I can't find the decision. So he's like, well,
give it to me, and he highlights it he knew
(36:48):
before and he gave it back to me, and I
can't believe it. They let me go and I'll be
lying out of there, you know, call my family and
told them and it was overjoyed, but it was. It's
(37:14):
still a lot now just thinking about it. I can't imagine.
Nobody can imagine that hasn't been through it. You know,
that was the best moment for me in prison. That
and and learning some stuff about myself because you know,
like I became the director to US assistant program and
I used to mentor teams that used to bring high
(37:37):
school kids in and I used to speak to them
about my life story. Boy, how I end up serving
a life scientis for a crime I didn't commit. And
how easy it is for you define yourself in situations
like this by the company that you keep in choices
that you make and the brochure that I had pen
had the title. You know, you never get a second
(37:59):
chance for or suppression. It's been an extraordinary experience for
me getting to know you and learning about your story.
Of course, you know, I thank you for coming in
and sharing it, and I think that through your words
it's going to inspire a lot of people to keep
(38:20):
fighting whatever they're up against. And now it's time for
my favorite part of the show. Fans of the podcast,
no that this is uh the time when I turned
off my microphone and just sit back and leave your
microphone on. For closing arguments, I guess the one of
the most things that I could possibly say is for
(38:42):
is for jurors, because district attorneys is going to be them.
They trying to win cases. Officers are trying to lock
people up. But as a juror is your job to
discern the truth, to find the truth, and sometimes I
guess they get more clouded by what took place as
(39:07):
opposed to what is the truth, and so emotions come
into play with everything as opposed to rational and that's
why you can find individuals such as myself in positions
like this where you can do time for a crime
you didn't commit, because people's emotions are more tied up
(39:28):
in the event, but not trying to find the actual
truth when they sit on jervish on jury. I believe
part of that outside of what the disc attorney did,
the detective did, the jurors are the ones who has
the final say, and if they don't use rationale to
(39:49):
decipher the truth from the garbage that is being spelled
out there, that's why there's so many of us in prison.
Runefully anyone out there it is going through a situation
such as this, Just continue fighting. No one knows what
the future holes. And as hope, don't forget to give
(40:16):
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 in supporting
this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production
team Connor Hall and Kevin Wards. The music of the
(40:39):
show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Rawn Full
Conviction and on Facebook at Rawn Full Conviction. Podcast Wrongful
Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one a
(41:00):
w
It was a new year, and Stephan Carrington was a
young man with a short criminal history who had just
gotten out of prison. He had recently gotten married. The
young father was training to be an e. M. T.
After having paid his debtist Society. His life was getting
back on traffic. On the morning of January two, Stephen's
(00:23):
brother Mark stood outside of a lumber yard in Brooklyn
as Shannon France and another man arrived. Mr France pulled
the twenty five, announcing a stick up as the other
man rob's customer, Hugh Keys, the store clerk, tries to
grab Mr France's weapon and was shot. Mr France loots
the strong box and the two men fled, leaving Mr
Keys alive. A confidential informant would tell the lead investigator,
(00:47):
Detective Calabri's, the names of three men who were seen
by the lumber yard at the time of the crime,
Shannon France, Eddie West, and Mark Carrington. However, when he
searched for Mark Carrington, Stephen popped up at the same
address and with his criminal record, Calabrizi added his photo
into an array. Hugh Keys gave a shaky identification and
(01:09):
the absence of any physical evidence whatsoever connecting to the crime.
Stephen went to trial right next to the trigger man,
Shannon France. The Carrington's hired a lawyer to protect both
of their sons, but it turned out to be to
the detriment of one of them. Mark was never called
to testify a trial, and twenty years later, finally free,
(01:29):
Stephen Carrington is out on parole, but still fighting to
clear his name of a crime that he simply didn't commit.
This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to
(01:53):
Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, I'm your host,
and today we have a story an outcome that we're
going to hope that who knows, maybe somebody out there
can be helpful with, because we are fighting to prove
the innocence of the man who's sitting right in front
of me now, Stephen Carrington. Stephen, as I always say,
I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy you're here. Well,
(02:16):
thank you, but I'm happy that I'm here and having
an opportunity to set the record straight and probably clear
my name. Yeah, that's what we're here for. But let's
go back to that original fateful day January. Um, what
happened that day in the lumber store. Um, basically, all
my knowledge of this saga story that took place I
(02:38):
learned through reading trial minutes, from hearing from people in
the street and things of that nature, because you know,
I wasn't there when it took place on that day.
They said that two individuals into the lumber yard at
apparent robbery which resulted to homicide, wanted the employee at
the lumber yard try to take a weapon for this individual,
(03:00):
and subsequently this guy shot him twice and ultimately, um,
he died, eventually died. Uh. The two individuals fled the scene.
My brother was the lookout and subsequently Um the person
that is my co defend and Shannon, his girlfriend best
(03:22):
friend is the one that gave his name, photos and
everything to the police. There's a third individual who named
was Eddie West. And I have to say that neither
my brother or Eddie West was ever interviewed, questioned, sought
after by the police department. So Eddie West was the
(03:42):
other guy in the store. Now, Eddie West was that
one of the individuals that they mentioned that was out
on the corner during the time the robbery was committed.
Shannon France, though, was he had some involvement in the crime.
Is that right? Um, they've found his fingerprints on the
cash box inside the lumber yard. That's not a good sign.
They didn't find yours. No, they have no physical evidence
(04:06):
or anything linked me to the crime, besides having a
sibling who was mentioned to be outside with the individuals
who was involved. So these guys go, they robbed the
lumberyard and they shot clerk named Lloyd Campbell, both in
the head and in the back, and then they found
(04:28):
the strong box, they looted it. The two guys fled
the scene. Your brother was either there or not as
a lookout whatever he was doing. He was apparently not
in the store, that is correct. So how did your
name come to be associated because it's sort of a
leap to say, Okay, well they got your brother, now
(04:50):
they're going to just go after you. Well, I could
just tell you from the police reports the officers during
the investigation when they received these names and photos of
these individuals. Um, there was an address on the photo,
which was a promotional photo. At the time, I had
a recording studio and we used to you know, range
(05:10):
studio time out to individuals wanted the group, shouting my
co defending he was an individual who was in the
rap group which my brother was affiliated with a part of,
and they had promotional photos up and down the avenue,
the same avenue that these guys went and committed this
crime on. It so happened that they committed a crime
(05:33):
across the street from his girlfriend's business, and his girlfriend
best friend is the one that saw him out there
and eventually gave his name in the photos to the police,
to the detective Calabris. When Calabris was doing his investigation,
all he did was run the address through the police
system and my name came back because I was parole
(05:57):
to the address. So when they discovered that I was
on parole, the whole case shifted to me. Um. Detective
Calibies is quoted as saying that he had a gut
feeling I was involved. He felt that I matched the
description my brother was involved. He felt that if I
(06:18):
wasn't involved, I knew something about it. And because I
had a prior and I was on parole, they came
for me. But you match the description of the actual shooter,
um no, or the lookout? Um No? Whose description did
you match? He said? I matched the individual who robbed
another patron of this lumber yard, Mr u Case. I
(06:40):
didn't know what he was talking about. In my mind,
I believe that eventually whatever they was trying to do with,
you know, resolve itself. Because I didn't have I had
nothing to do with any crime. This situation, you know,
had me think about this one phrase, you know, and
it always stuck with me that you you never get
a second chance to make it for a impression. And
(07:03):
because of my past is why I'm here today now.
I'm not a goodie two shoe. I wasn't and that
is only because I tried to fit in with individuals
I wanted, you know, to be down. I brought up
my father's the pastor. I brought up in church. I
went to church the majority of my life, and I
wouldn't lie, you know, I hated church. I was forced
(07:27):
to go every day. I wouldn't say a worse experience,
but just not to do what normal kids do was
kind of tough for me because I was a free spater.
Like so, when I was like seventeen, I tried to
move out and so I saw to sell drugs and
my best friend and that's how I got into the
(07:48):
life of criminality and things of that nature. And subsequently
I did get rested for drug sale robbery and I
went to Racket's Island and I had a traumatic experience.
I got jumped, got stabbed, got robbed, and as time
(08:10):
went on, and I knew that this wasn't for me,
prison wasn't something that I wanted to do. It wasn't
a lifestyle that I wanted to live. And if you know,
selling drugs all these other stuff was gonna lead me
to prison. And I had to do away with that,
and not just those activities, but also the people that
(08:32):
I used to associate with, and that's what I did.
You were really putting your life on track at this time,
which is sort of an added element of tragedy. You
had gone through some training to be an E. M. T. Right. Yes,
that's correct, your young father, that's correct, and basically married,
recently married. Yeah, so you had your whole life in
front of you. I had changed my life. I cut
(08:54):
off all my friends. You know, I had a newborn,
my daughter. She was only seven months when they took
me from It's sickening, I mean, and let's set the
record straight by talking about your alibi, which is a
bit of a sensitive topic. I mean, you were a
married man, but your alibi involves another woman, right, sad
to saying, Unfortunately, the day that they accused me of
(09:16):
committing this crime, I was in the hospital with my wife,
and I was also with another female friend before I
was in the hospital with my wife. Right, like you
said earlier, you had a recording studio set up in
your parents basement. A young lady came to visit you
there and spent the night. Now, unbeknownst to you, your
daughter had developed an ear infection. I was taken to
the hospital that morning. Now there's no cell phones back then.
(09:40):
Your wife was calling around looking for you, and she
gets a hold of your mother, who walks the phone
to you. Downstairs. You spoke with your wife, assured her
that you were on your way, and then you shower
and get the hell out of there. When I got there,
you know, basically, my wife is just like him. She's
very possibility. Now, I had all and um, so you know,
(10:03):
I did everything with until the doctors wanted to come
and she had an earfecture so they wanted to do
an X ray. Now, this is one of the things
that baffled me even till today with all the technology
and stuff that they have, my hands got captured in
this X ray. When people read this case, really sit
down and read this case, they wonder, how did you
get convicted? You had a solid alibi. I trial. One
(10:25):
person testified against me, and I had four or five
alibi witnesses that testified. The one person that testified against me,
Mr you Keys, And I feel for him because I
know that he's been duped because he told the none
one one operated when he called them during the day
that the crime was committed, about being robbed, about the
(10:49):
individual being shot, or what have you. And when they
asked him to give a description of the individual, he
told him that he couldn't. He said he never looked
at the individual. You that he never looked at the
person that robbed him. Wow, because he was afraid too,
because he seen what happened to the guy that got shot.
(11:10):
He was afraid for his life. He also told that
to the first police that came on the scene. But
yet here it is Detective Calbies is saying that this
individual picked my picture up and said this is the
guy that robbed me. The district attorney is saying that
the witness didn't say that the witness said that I
looked like the individual that robbed him, But in all
(11:30):
the police reports it's saying that the witness said that
I'm the guy that robbed them. But in court, the
district attorney is saying that the witness said that I
looked like the guy that robbed him, and if he
seen me in person, he would be able to identify me.
But here's the catch. The witness get on the stand
and said that he never made no identification of me
(11:52):
prior to my arrest. So how did I become a suspect?
Which one is it? Right? Three different opinions about one identification? Now,
who should you believe the detective who was saying that
he positively identified me as the person that robbed him.
The district attorney who was saying that the witness said
(12:15):
that I looked like the individual, but he will be
able to identify me if he see me in person.
Or the witness who said that he never made no
identification when the police came to his house on numerous occasions.
Who should we believe this guy? He didn't know me.
The only thing that he knew, which he told the
police was that the guy was dark skin and stocking,
(12:37):
described half of your neighborhood. When they are asking, well,
how tall is this guy? He don't know. Is he
taller than you, I don't know. Is he shorter than you?
I don't know. Did he have a bid I don't know.
Did he have a much stache? I don't know. For
he didn't see him, what do you know? He was
dark skin and stocky. They showed him the tape, and
on the tape, you can't make the features out of
(12:59):
the individuals to two perpetrators. You can't really make facial
features out of anybody on the tape. But the perpetrators
had on hats and hoodies and three quarter length copes,
and he stated that he couldn't see these individuals. He
(13:19):
didn't know what the personal like. He don't know if
they had a bed mustache anything. He was just duskin
and stocky. So when you look at the tape, all
you see is shapes and sizes. That's not enough. He
couldn't even identify himself on the tape. During trial, the
disc attorney had to reference something of what he had
(13:42):
on hold on the witness. This tape was so grainy
that the guy couldn't identify him himself. Yes, when the
disc attorney asked him to point to himself on the tape,
he pointed to someone else. And then the disc attorney says, um,
something like this is that you with the checkerboard shirt?
(14:03):
Or who's who's in the checkerboard shirt or something of
that effect right led him to basically say, oh, and
then that's me standing right here. Okay, I've heard enough
about that. Now we know that's completely unreliable and out.
That should have been out the window right off the bat. Uh.
One of the things that sticks with me is the
idea that detective Caliber has claimed that he could recognize
(14:23):
you from a security tape because you could recognize your walk. Yeah.
I believe that was the lynch pin. That's that sealed
my fate, because he got to understanding and he pointed
me out in court and he said this is the guy,
and they asked him how he knows and he says
that he could tell that it was me because of
how I walked. And the tape doesn't show the perpetrator
(14:45):
from his waist down, and they showed this tape in court.
But yet, you know, I believe that that was the
nail in the coffin for me, because he's an officer.
They have a tape, and people believe even when I
was healing, and I know that these judges never viewed
the tape, but because of the language and the dialogue
and the trial transcript, they even denied certain of my
(15:09):
appeals because they saying you were clearly seen on the tape.
The idea that anyone could identify anyone else short of
someone who does have a physical, you know, impairment, for
impairment exactly what I was looking for, is preposterous. I mean,
the fact that they would even present that as evidence
is ridiculous. But they did, and the consequences are not
(15:29):
funny at all. They're very real. So there's there's that,
and then there's the fact that you know, we know,
we know what happened at the trial, that you know
your brother was not allowed to testify. That is correct
because your lawyer didn't submit his name on the witness list.
Had he been able to, we don't. We never will
never know what he would have said in the moment,
(15:49):
but there's a realistic chance that he might have said
something that could have exonerated you well at that time.
My opinion and belief is that he wanted to come forward,
and he did come to court to testify. And what
I realized later is that my lawyer sent them home.
When they started to question my parents about my brother
and his whereabouts, they answered truthfully that he was here,
(16:14):
came to court today to testify, and the distric attorney
stopped the proceeding and asked for a sidebar so they
can discuss certain things which the scenographer records. And at
this sidebar, the disc attorney wanted to bring up my
lawyer on charges for lying about the whereabouts of my brother,
(16:37):
because earlier that morning he said he don't know where
my brother was. He never seen them, he never met him.
And then it was discovered later the same day that
my brother was at his office that morning and he
sent them home. Wow, that's a big lie, and it's
in the trial transcripts. I'm not making it up. And
he didn't he didn't forget that he saw your brother
that day. I mean, because it was right, it was
(16:59):
early that morning and trial was on and my brother
came to testify at that time. I believe the best.
Now I understand why a person would be apprehensive for
coming forward and trying to tell the truth about what
really took place or who was involved things of that nature. Yeah,
I mean, he's he's your your little brother. You know,
(17:21):
he must have had a lot of conflicted emotions. I
can't imagine being in his place. He's trying to save
his own life at the same time. You know, he's
got I'm sure a lot of guilt about putting you
in this situation in the first place, because you talked
about how you never would have been in the system
if you hadn't have done certain things when you were younger.
(17:42):
But you also would have never been in this situation
if your brother hadn't been involved in this thing in
the first place. I think that I have said a
bad president for my brother. I believe I was part
of the influence. Now. I don't know if he looked
up to me, but I believe that some of my
actions are friends that I had that was around probably
(18:03):
also ropped off on him. Unfortunately, I wasn't around for
him when he started to engage in activities and pick
certain people as friends that I could have probably said,
you know, those those are the guys you shouldn't think
because what I tried to do was distance myself from
everyone that was in my neighborhood at that point in
time when I started to claim my life up. I mean,
(18:26):
you basically took the fall for your brother. Well, I
wouldn't say that I took the fall. They gave it
to me, right. Your last hope was that your lawyer
was going to do a good job representing you and
that the truth was going to come out. That's correct,
and you're gonna go back and get him with your life.
But in fact, your lawyer was compromised. Um, yes, as
it seems. I mean, he was kind of like conflicted
(18:50):
in between his duties as a lawyer to me and
also to the people that were paying him to represent
me and the people that were paying him with your parents. Yes,
it's almost they had a selfie's choice, that had to
choose what they did choose and if they had to
choose to save one job for me. It is basically,
and this was never spoken. This is just my thoughts
(19:10):
as I got a little older and probably start to
piece things together that you know, he had a pass,
you know he was in trouble before. Maybe he could
handle this and we would support him. But my brother,
he's the baby. And you know the cops wasn't looking
for him. They already gave him a clean slave and
(19:31):
said they didn't want him. Even the district attorney said
that they had nothing to convict him on. So they
look for the easy choice, the person that had the record.
If we can't get his brother, then we're going to
get him. You served UM twenty three years twenty three
(19:59):
years and maximum security prisons in New York State. Was
there a a worst moment um and was there a
best moment? I mean I had a lot of not
a lot of bad moments, but there this this fear.
One of my worst moments. When I was in green
Haven in two thousand and I was in college. I
(20:25):
was taking up Christian Ministry Human Services UM theology course.
I was working in the barbershop and this particular day,
I was coming from study hall that have my books,
and I'm going back to my cell and I saw
a crate and I was like, let me take the
crateing put my school books in because if anything happened
(20:48):
to the school books, I have to pay for. This
is an old maximum security prison, so they have leaks
and waters, dripping all over the place. Sometimes you toil
it over floor, your sinkle will flow. So long story show.
The officers see me with the crate, tell me to
put it back. I can't have it, and I complied.
Supposedly he must have spoke to another officer because another
(21:10):
officer calls me back and started going crazy on me,
like what are you touching here? You know, don't and this,
don't and that, and you know, I just stood there.
I figured, you know, okay, he got his buddies here,
I'm gonna just listen to him, you know, comply and
you know, hopefully, you know, I can go to my
(21:30):
cell and lock in. And that wasn't the case, you know.
So after he started to berape me about you know,
touching stuff in his unit and all this other stuff,
I said, okay, you know, I'm sorry. You know, here's
the crate. And I turned to leave. And I think
at this point in time he felt like I was
(21:53):
dismissing him, you know, or I left without his authority,
saying okay, you go, and he took offense to me
turning to leave, and he jumped on me. They beat
me up. You see my elbow. M I left elbow.
(22:13):
I've got a giant nodded it right. My shoulders still
hurt to this day. They beat up my elbows, they
beat up my shoulders, they beat me up, They dragged
me to the box, and they try to charge me
with a soul. And that was like for me the
worst day because everything that I was doing, I never
(22:34):
had no physical altercations while I was in with inmates,
all officers, anything of that nature. And I'm fighting my
case and the only thing that's come into my mind
is that maybe I have an opportunity to get out
to prison for my case. But if they try to
convict me for assault on the staff, which mostly everybody
(22:57):
gets convicted of, you know, I just see my lights
go out. It's your word against officer words. And more
than one officer is going to say that you didn't
what you didn't do. And it's funny to me because
it's like I'm saying to myself, like God, how does
stuff and keep happening to me? And my parents they're
(23:20):
so religious that you know they would hit you with
you haven't submitted to God yet, you haven't let go.
You're being tested, You're going through the fire, and you know,
I cried like a baby because I've seen my lights
go out. And maybe this was also the opportunity that
I've seen God working in my life. Because subsequently, guys
(23:48):
that knew me, that locked on the company with me,
they have wrote this Attorney's General Office to inspect the general.
They have wrote Prison Legal Services, and and I never
knew that people probably watched me or cared about me
like that. I'm talking about inmates, hard and criminals or whatever.
(24:11):
And the inspect the general one the inspect the generals
came to see me, and I've written to them again, um,
because one of the guys inside the shoe area had
told me, listen, you need to write these people. You
need to write this person data data that. So I
was getting advice from individuals or who I have to write,
who I have to contact to try to get from
(24:33):
underneath this, and um, so I wrote them as well.
And when they came to see me, you know, we talked.
He says, well, we have to do our investigation and
stuff for that nature. And then they came to see me,
and I guess this is the first time in my
life that I could say that I've seen the hand
(24:54):
of God, because when he called me and they interviewed me.
He says, Um, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that we're not going to charge
you with assault on staff because I've read all the
reports that came in. I read the police reports, and
(25:16):
I read not just your report, but I got several
letters written from other inmates who have witnessed what took place.
And I know that you didn't have contact with these
individuals because they brought you to the box and it
says your story and their story adds up, and none
of the police stories adds up. But you have to
(25:39):
go through the formalities. I still had their hearing to
go to. And this is how corrupt the Department of
Corrections is. I remember the officer that had the altercation
with me, that smacked me in my face and hit
me with the sticks and all that, and it was
two other officers there, but I didn't remember the too.
And the reason why I remember the one is because
(26:00):
as he was my company officer, he's there every day.
The officer that comes in the hearing was in the
officer that that that hit me or I had the
altercation with It was somebody else. And we're going through
the formalities and questioning the officer and stuff like that.
So the officers said that we were standing right shoulder,
(26:21):
the right shoulder, and I took my left hand and
punched him on the left side of his face. That
caused him to bust his head on the pipes and
bust his head open. And when I started to play
if we stand the right shoulder to shoulder and I
(26:43):
hit him with my left hand on the left side
of his face, how is that possible. I would have
to go over It's not come back and hit him.
And you know so, so I asked the officer to
demonstrate this punch. Can you demonstrate how I hit you
with my left hand on the left side of your face?
(27:05):
If we stand the right shoulder the right shoulder, I
would like for you to demonstrate this. And the heroing
officer said that there will be no demonstrations in here,
so he never got to demonstrate, and I, you know, objected,
and I told him that it's impossible that that can
take place. Long story short, The officer that wrote the
(27:25):
report or that they brought in that said he wrote
the report. I asked him, did he see the police
hit me? And he said yes. So then I asked them, then,
why is it not written in the report that the
police struck me. The lieutenant looks and he's like, I said,
(27:47):
It's not in the ticket, is not in the two
firm reports, is not in any document that was given
to me. So the lieutenant asked the CEO, why is that?
And maybe at this time he was afraid. I don't
know what it is, but I believe at this point
in time, this is when I've seen God worked in
my life. And he tells the truth. He says, I
(28:11):
didn't write the report. The lieutenant said, you didn't write
the report. He said, no, I didn't write the report.
He said, who wrote the report? He said, a sergeant
such and such wrote the report. He said, where was
the sergeant when the incident happened? He wasn't there. The
sergeant wrote the report, made another officer sign it and
(28:32):
sit in the hearing as the officer who witnessed what
took place and knew nothing about it, and they dismissed
the case. Amen to that, um or, you might not
be here now so and we know now that you paroled,
And I want to get to that because that's a
(28:53):
really extraordinary story in and of itself. I think it
says a lot about what the parole board really thought
about your claims of innocence. But before we get to that,
I want to talk about what was going on on
the outside. Because there was a guy in the neighborhood.
I mean, can we mention his name? Well, for legal purposes,
(29:15):
you know, I wouldn't like to mention his name. He
called My case is still being reviewed by the Convention
Review Unit. So, but this individual was a childhood friend
of mine. We had um I haven't seen each other
in years, and he had moved away from the neighborhood.
And when he came back to the neighborhood, he was looking,
you know for old friends, and you know, subsequently he
(29:35):
was looking for me and heard that I was in prison.
So he wanted to know why, and the whole story
came out and he couldn't believe it. You know, he
took it upon himself to try to help me. How
did you do that? Well, the individual who actually committed
a crime used to see him all the time, and
because he's still living in the neighborhood, mostly people that
(29:57):
knew both of us, he would ask them, you know,
how they felt about him, and was he still you know,
like welcome or they still had love for him, knowing
that I was in prison serving time for a crime
that he committed. And my friend, he was like he
couldn't believe this, and he's like, this guy just keeps
(30:17):
saying that he did it. He did it, and he's
the reason why you're in prison. You know, he wrote
my letter. I showed you the letter that he wrote.
And he took it upon himself too to record this individual,
to tape him saying the same things about me being
in prison for a crime he committed. And he even
went as far as that he used to he does
(30:39):
security bouncing work because he's six eight, three hundreds something pounds,
And this is God again in my life. He's so
happened to be working doing security at a spot where
Detective Calbies, leading detective in my case, was also working.
(30:59):
What's the as of that m pretty long, and he
spoke the Calibies about the case and told him that
he had the wrong person in prison for the crime.
What Calibaries saying. Calibies just told him tell his brother
to come forward and he can get out. That was
(31:20):
his words, Secause Calibries knew and he had told me
as much when he brought me in, you know, because
he was like, where's your brother, where's his friends? And
and I'm like, I don't know. I'm not my brother's keeper.
You know, I don't live with my brother. I lived
with my wife. But he didn't care about that. And
(31:42):
you know, once things start to unravel in the conviction
review unit and they start to review my case. They
reached out to him two to three weeks after they
reviewed my case and next thing, you know, self inflicted
wounds somewhere in his car. You know, it took his
own life. Yeah, it seems like his conscience may have
(32:05):
gotten to him. We will never know, um because he
didn't leave a note or anything, right, but the timing
seems really um to be suspicious. Yeah, I mean, the
conviction review unit that starts looking into your case, it's
inevitable that they're going to find out what happened. Because
the conviction review unit in Brooklyn, I can say this,
they don't funk around. But these guys are under the
(32:26):
leadership of Eric Gonzalis and before that, Ken Thompson. They
are committed to finding and identifying and resolving wrong for
conviction cases and they've been doing it and then walking
the walk. And so once they took over reinvestigating your case,
Detective Calibrizi must have known that some of his misdeeds
(32:47):
were going to become public. Yes, he did everything from
interviewing the witnesses to getting the fillers for the lineups,
conducting the lineup. I mean, nobody else did anything. His
name is on all the reports. So the guy who
holds the key is dead. Now you went to the
(33:14):
parole board. Yes, and you did exactly the opposite of
what all the smartest people you knew were the most
wisest people. I should say, we're advising you to do right.
I'm not gonna lie, you know. I was very apprehensive
as a russell with it. You know, if my wife
was here, she would tell you, you know, because knowing
(33:36):
what I know now, I had told her and I
told her before that f I had a chance to
do this all over again, I probably would have copped
out to something less right. So I was gonna say
is when you go to the parole board, the general rule,
and this is with very very rare exceptions, the parole
board wants to hear you express remorse for the crime.
(33:57):
Whether you committed it or not. They don't know whether
you committed it. They don't have time to reinvestigate it.
In New York State, the parole Board is reviewing ten
thousand cases, around ten thousand cases a year, and there's
only somewhere between twelve and nineteen people for the entire
state in panels of three. So they have a few
minutes to look into your case. They're not. They don't
have time to go through it, even like we're doing now.
(34:17):
So it would be great if they did, but they don't.
The only human beings, they only you know, they don't
have so much time in a day. So the logical
thing to do for somebody like you who is desperate
to get out and get back with your family and
get back on, you know, to your life, is to
just plead guilty. And then they're most likely going to say, okay,
well you've served twenty three years and you've done you know,
(34:39):
ministry and all this other stuff in prison. Yeah, you
can go home now. But you didn't know. And I
mean I rustle with it. I prayed about it because
I want to go home. You know, what should I do?
I mean, even though all these years I'm telling him
I didn't commit the crime. Now I'm note for parole.
(35:00):
What do I do do I go in there and
put on the show and say that I'm remorse and
I'm sorry and that you know, you know, I don't
know what to say but the truth, and I rustle
with it. And I mean, like people was telling me,
don't go in there and tell them that you didn't
do it. You're they're gonna hit you, They're going to
(35:20):
give you more time. And I said, well, I'm going
in there and I'm gonna tell them what I've been
telling them since the beginning. I didn't commit the crime,
but I understand why it's possible for individual like me
to be considered for a crime such as this, you know.
(35:40):
And I'm gonna give them mind story about my past,
how I came to be here today, and what I've
done since I was incarcerated, and what I planned to
do when I get out. And for that whole ten
days after that, I had to wait to get the results,
seven or ten days. It was the worst week of
(36:05):
my life. No sleep because that whole week already felt
because the way that they spoke to me inside the
parole board, I felt that there wasn't going to release me.
My counsel gives me the envelope. I opened it, and
to be honest, my eyes are teared up because I'm
and I'm looking for the worst. And it's sad to
(36:27):
say I'm looking for denial. I'm just looking for any
word with a D for denial, refused whatever, and I
didn't see and my counsels like, um, you're okay. I said, yeah,
I just um, I can't find the decision. So he's like, well,
give it to me, and he highlights it he knew
(36:48):
before and he gave it back to me, and I
can't believe it. They let me go and I'll be
lying out of there, you know, call my family and
told them and it was overjoyed, but it was. It's
(37:14):
still a lot now just thinking about it. I can't imagine.
Nobody can imagine that hasn't been through it. You know,
that was the best moment for me in prison. That
and and learning some stuff about myself because you know,
like I became the director to US assistant program and
I used to mentor teams that used to bring high
(37:37):
school kids in and I used to speak to them
about my life story. Boy, how I end up serving
a life scientis for a crime I didn't commit. And
how easy it is for you define yourself in situations
like this by the company that you keep in choices
that you make and the brochure that I had pen
had the title. You know, you never get a second
(37:59):
chance for or suppression. It's been an extraordinary experience for
me getting to know you and learning about your story.
Of course, you know, I thank you for coming in
and sharing it, and I think that through your words
it's going to inspire a lot of people to keep
(38:20):
fighting whatever they're up against. And now it's time for
my favorite part of the show. Fans of the podcast,
no that this is uh the time when I turned
off my microphone and just sit back and leave your
microphone on. For closing arguments, I guess the one of
the most things that I could possibly say is for
(38:42):
is for jurors, because district attorneys is going to be them.
They trying to win cases. Officers are trying to lock
people up. But as a juror is your job to
discern the truth, to find the truth, and sometimes I
guess they get more clouded by what took place as
(39:07):
opposed to what is the truth, and so emotions come
into play with everything as opposed to rational and that's
why you can find individuals such as myself in positions
like this where you can do time for a crime
you didn't commit, because people's emotions are more tied up
(39:28):
in the event, but not trying to find the actual
truth when they sit on jervish on jury. I believe
part of that outside of what the disc attorney did,
the detective did, the jurors are the ones who has
the final say, and if they don't use rationale to
(39:49):
decipher the truth from the garbage that is being spelled
out there, that's why there's so many of us in prison.
Runefully anyone out there it is going through a situation
such as this, Just continue fighting. No one knows what
the future holes. And as hope, don't forget to give
(40:16):
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 in supporting
this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions.
Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to
donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production
team Connor Hall and Kevin Wards. The music of the
(40:39):
show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Rawn Full
Conviction and on Facebook at Rawn Full Conviction. Podcast Wrongful
Conviction with Jason Flam is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one a
(41:00):
w
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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