August 24, 2020 • 45 mins
In the early morning hours of June 30th, 1995, 21 year old mother Kristine Bunch awoke in a carbon monoxide haze to the decimation of her entire world - only for junk science and the false testimony of an actual scientist to make matters worse.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
In the summer of nineteen ninety five, twenty one year
old single mom Christine Bunch was living in a trailer
in Greensburg, Indiana, with her three year old son Tony.
In the early morning hours of July thirtieth, an electrical
fire began between the roof and the ceiling tiles. When
the fire caused one of the ceiling tiles to fall
in Tony's bedroom, a cloud of carbon monoxide gas killed
(00:24):
the little boy before the fire even could. Christine awoke
in a carbon monoxide haze, desperately trying to save Tony.
After failed attempts at extinguishing the fire, she ran for help.
Then she smashed Tony's bedroom window, but it was too late.
She was barefoot, homeless, and deep in despair. Arson investigator
(00:47):
Brian Frank used what is widely now known as junk
science to point the blame for Tony's death squarely at Christine.
So six days after losing her three year old boy
and nearly everything she ever had, Christine lost her freedom
as well. With no potential alibi or eyewitnesses, the state
easily sealed Christine's fate with the testimony of Brian Frank
(01:11):
and ATF forensic analyst William Kinnard. Christine gave birth to
her son, Trent, just a few months after being sent
to prison and a decade passed before her attorney and
a team from the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern
University uncovered an egregious Brady violation and blatantly false testimony,
freeing Christine after seventeen years, one month and sixteen days
(01:35):
behind bars. This it's Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
(01:55):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course,
and today you're going to hear a story that's as
heartbreaking and tragic as it was preventable, and it's a
remarkable look inside the systemic flaws as well as human
errors that lead to wrongful convictions. And in this particular case,
we're going to be telling the story and hearing the
(02:16):
story of one of my absolute favorite human beings, a
personal hero of mine, who is doing amazing, amazing things
in the world right now, today and every day. And
so I am thrilled and honored to have with us
on the show today, Christine Bunch, Thank you so much.
I'm happy to be here and with Christine as someone
(02:37):
whose name you'll probably recognize, Ron Safe for Ron is
a former US attorney turned corporate lawyer turned justice fighter,
and you'll recognize him because he was a huge part
of the exoneration of Julie Ray, an episode that I'll
never forget, and I hope, if I haven't heard it,
that you'll go back and take a listen. Anyway, Ron,
(02:58):
welcome back to be here. Thank you, Jason. So let's
get right into it. Christine, you grew up in Indiana, right,
I did. Things took a crazy turn one my parents divorced,
but for the most part I was happy and it
was good. Now, at the time of this unimaginable tragedy,
(03:19):
you were just a young mother living in a trailer,
working hard, going to school, just starting your life, just
twenty one years old, right, that's correct. I was working
and going to school, and I had a beautiful three
year old son named Tony. And then the worst nightmare
that any parent can possibly have or wake up to
(03:40):
in a cold sweat, and some of us probably have
had that experience, but it actually happened to you. And Ron,
can you tell us about that awful morning of June thirtieth,
nineteen ninety five. What happened was Christine and Tony had
gone to sleep together on a couch in the living
room area of the trailer. Before Christine woke up, Tony
(04:04):
had moved to the front room, which was a separate
room from the living room. Christine awoke to a sound
and a small fire. She was disoriented, but she saw
the small fire and she tried to put it out
(04:26):
with a pillow and couldn't do that, so she tried
to smother the fire with a blanket, and that didn't
work either. Carbon monoxide is intoxicating. Christine was undoubtedly affected
by this carbon monoxide. She's trying to put out the fire.
(04:46):
She can't find the fire extinguisher. She knows where the
fire extinguisher is, she can't find it. So by that time,
the fire had grown into a wall between wean her
and Tony, and she could not get to him. So
she frantically went out of the trailer, tried to get help,
(05:07):
and then tried to break the window into the front
room so that she could get to Tony, but it
was too late, and Tony had perished. It's impossible to
even conceive of the horror and the panic in a
time like that, even if you didn't have kids, like
waking up to a fire. Christine, what are your memories
(05:30):
of that awful night now twenty five years ago. I
think the thing that sits with me the most is
it was just normal. I came home from school, and
I got Tony from the babysitter, and we went home
and we cooked, and I think we watched some TV
and did some laundry, and we fell asleep. I'd read
(05:53):
him a story and he wasn't feeling really well, and
we fell asleep on the couch under the air conditioner,
and everything just seemed normal. You didn't realize that you
were going to wake up in your whole world would
be turned upside down. Yeah. I mean, your whole world
was really destroyed at a time when the community and
(06:19):
the system should have been coming to help you in
every conceivable way. Instead, you were exposed to and victimized
by the worst that the system and our society has
to offer. And it's so important that you're here now
because this arson quote unquote science that they used in
(06:40):
order to frame you and wrongfully convict you for a
crime that never even happened is something that we need
to focus on because we need awareness among everyone, because someday, you,
the listener, may find yourself on a jury and you
may be presented with this same sort of junk science.
So fire investigation was an apprentice art. They were what
(07:06):
was regarded as common knowledge and industry standards that were
passed down from generation to generation. Virtually none of those
conventional wisdom were true, and when tested by scientific principles,
they were all debunked. Unfortunately that came too late for Christine.
(07:31):
And this starts with a fire investigator named Brian Frank.
So what Frank did was the day of this fire,
and keep in mind this trailer was completely incinerated. He
comes into the trailer and just plucks things out of
thin air. He says, oh, this, this is a burn
(07:55):
pattern on the floor. That's evidence of a liquid with
the accelerant, like gasoline. Oh, there's a V pattern on
the wall. That is fire burns up in a V pattern.
And therefore, because there were two of these, there were
two points of origin. A normal accidental fire will have
(08:20):
one point of origin. Sometimes if a fire is intentionally set,
it will have two points of origin. Says oops, here
the fire burned down. That is a sign of a
liquid accelerant. For all of these reasons, I conclude this
was not an accidental fire. This was intentionally set because,
(08:44):
as you said at the beginning, Jason, unlike many crimes
like a robbery or a fraud or a murder, the
question in an arson is was a crime even committed?
And upon that threshold question rests the lives of hundreds
of people, including Christine. Here's what's absolutely nuts is that
(09:09):
to become a licensed arson investigator, one who can testify
in court, you can take a forty hour correspondence course.
It takes fifteen hundred hours in some places to become
a manicurist. You can't get a barber's license in less
than six months. It's the idea that they've been relying
on these Charlottean's you'd be better off consulting with psychics
(09:33):
or even just guessing. And in Christine's case, there are
so many other problems, right. There's tunnel vision with holding
of a sculptory evidence, there's multiple incompetent investigators who pass
themselves off as experts, and then it goes downhill from there.
So there you are outside the house and in minutes,
in moments, your life has gone from a good life
(09:56):
full of love and hope to the worst imaginable scenario.
You're just in shock, and you don't really believe what
people are telling you because they kept telling me, no,
you can't go in, and no we couldn't get hit
him and know he's got alive. And of course, as apparent,
(10:17):
you don't want to believe that. People on the outside
want to look at it and say, well, if this
was done differently, or if you had acted this way.
And I mean, for myself, I have played it over
and over and over and over again in my mind.
(10:37):
I still every day that I wake up play it
over in my mind, and I don't know how to
come up with a different scenario. When you're in that
moment and the terror paralyizes you, you don't know what
you would do. So it's easy to stand outside and
(10:58):
say this should have never happened, and somebody has to
be blamed, right, because the alternative is incomprehensible to most
people why an innocent baby would be taken from us. Christine,
six days in hell, right, six days for you between
(11:18):
the fire and the loss of your child and the
time that you're arrested what were those six days? Like?
What were you doing? I went with my parents to
plan a funeral, and my mom and dad really went
through how the service was going to be, and I
(11:39):
just remember sitting there and crying, and then I told
him that I wanted a song played something that I,
you know, sang with Tony, and he said, we can
play whatever you want, and then I had to go
get clothes to where to a funeral. At that time,
I was still walking around barefoot because I'd literally lost everything,
(12:04):
and everybody was trying to comfort you and give you advice,
and it just doesn't comfort you. So you feel more
alone than ever because you don't want to hurt their feelings,
but everything they're saying to you doesn't penetrate. The police
(12:27):
didn't help because they followed me everywhere I went and
talked to everybody after I left, and they even showed
up and my son's funeral and burial. They came to
me before I even got out of the hospital and
told me that it was an arson. They literally wanted
(12:49):
a list of all my family and friends, anybody that
could have possibly done it. Then they come back to
me and saying, no, you're you're the person you're under
arrest for this, and in a small town, once they
make or arrest and put a headline on the paper
in a small community, in that community's mind, you're guilty.
(13:13):
So now you're arrested. How long were you held before
the trial? Were you able to bail out? I was
in there from July sixth to October mid October, I
bonded out on a fifty thousand dollars cash bond. I
tell my son Trent all the time that he's the
miracle that saved me. But when I got out, I
(13:38):
certainly didn't care if I lived or died, and so
I was drinking and doing a lot of self medicating
because I just didn't want to feel anymore. And in
the midst of that, I started getting sick and that's
when I discovered I was pregnant. Yeah, and that's the
(14:02):
worst possible scenario. Although now, as you said, it turns
out to be the thing that saved you. And we'll
get into more of that later. But Ron, this trial
is full of I mean again, it's horseshit. The stuff
that they were spewing from the stand. It began with
the prosecutors standing in front of the jury and saying
(14:24):
motive is not an element of the crime. We don't
have to prove motive. People tend not to commit crimes
for no reason. And of course they investigated Christine and
her motive for this crime, and they found that she
was a good, loving, caring, wonderful mother, and that she
(14:50):
and Tony had a beautiful relationship. Everybody said that universally,
And so they're left with telling the jury, Okay, Christine
committed this horrific crime for no reason, but we don't
have to prove motive. Then their case depended one hundred
(15:13):
percent on this quote unquote expert testimony, because Christine didn't
set this fire, so of course nobody saw her set
the fire, nobody saw her prepare to set the fire,
nobody heard her talk about setting the fire, nobody afterwards.
There was no physical evidence, no forensic evidence, nothing. Of course,
(15:36):
the trailer wasn't insured, she lost all of her possession,
she lost, of course, the person who meant most to
her in the world. So they were left with this
expert testimony, these absurd fire investigation myths, which should have
and could have been dispelled by a defense attorney or
(16:00):
competent defense expert. But there was something else that was
critical in this trial that would have been difficult for
a defense attorney to combat. And I have to tell
the audience that this critical evidence becomes just as important
later to proving Christine's innocence as it was in getting
her convicted. But go ahead, Ron. They took ten samples
(16:24):
from the trailer, from the floor of the trailer, from
the carpet of the trailer, from Christine's nightgown, and they
tested it for various accelerants. There was no gasoline. There
was no inflammatory substance of any kind on Christine's nightgown,
(16:44):
even though they said that she would splash this accelerant
all around. But there were two positive samples. And those samples,
by the way, we're given to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms atf who federally investigates arson crimes, and
they have special laboratories, and they did gas chromatography on
(17:08):
these samples, and they presented evidence at trial that there
were two positive tests for what they called a heavy
petroleum distolate like jet fuel or something else specifically not kerosene,
(17:30):
and that was found in the living room area and
critically in the front room, the room where Tony was found. Now,
there is reason for there to be kerosene in the
living room because the prior owners of this trailer testified
(17:50):
that they had a kerosene heater and that they overfilled
it from time to time. Kerosene does not evaporate, and
so even from years before, there would be kerosene in
the wood. But there's no explanation for a heavy petroleum
distillate like jet fuel. And there is absolutely no innocent
(18:11):
explanation for there to be a heavy petroleum distillate in
the front room Tony's bedroom. And that was critical evidence
that was not refuted by the defense attorney. And on
the strength of that expert testimony of end these critical
(18:31):
lab determinations, Christine was convicted March fourth, nineteen ninety six,
twenty two years old. Pregnant, Christine is convicted of arson
and murder. Less than a month later, she's sentenced to
two concurrent terms, sixty years for murder and fifty years
(18:52):
for arson. So how pregnant were you Christine at the
time of this wrongful conviction And what the hell was
it like giving birth behind bars? I was almost six
months pregnant. The only thing they don't do to pregnant
women is make them wearing the belly chain and the
box because the baby's not a prisoner. But with so
(19:16):
many pregnant women in there, you don't always get soft
cuffs for your feet. So I've got deep scars on
the back of my ankles from wearing those metal shackles.
And then when I finally went into labor, I didn't
really know that I was in labor because I was
(19:38):
just having a backache. So they took me to the
infirmary and couldn't find a heartbeat. I lost it. I started,
you know, screaming at them, and so I was handcuffed
and shackle then taken out into an ambulance. And when
I got to the hospital, a doctor come in and
explained that I was having contractions and that's why they
(19:59):
could here the heartbeat. They determined that I was going
to have an emergency c section, so they handcuffs and shackles.
Came home, and I got a metal cuff on my
angle in the log chain. I got about thirty six
hours with Trent, and then I was transferred back to
the facility and my family took him home. The Pacers
(20:30):
Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode of Rawful
Conviction and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business
and tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently
re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to
improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations that
are dedicated primarily to helping young people and students. For
(20:51):
more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation or
the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation dot org or
the Last Mile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
(21:12):
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
(21:34):
our society and in support of the public interest, including
extensive or in the criminal justice area. So the good
news is that there is actually an equal or greater
number of heroes in this story than villains Betsy Marks,
(21:55):
Hillary po Ricks, Jamie McAllister, and the other two actual
fire science John Dahan and John Mululey, plus the electrical
engineer Richard Hansen. Then Karen Daniel and Jane Raley, legends
in the field were on your side. And of course
Ron himself, Ron Safer, I mean, the fucking cavalry came
(22:17):
in on this one, right. Can you talk now about
the process that led seventeen years later to Christine finally
coming home. Yes, Christine pursued this tirelessly against all odds.
Found a wonderful local attorney, Hilary bow Ricks, who believed
(22:38):
in Christine but really did not have the resources to
take on the awesome power of the state, and a
supporter of Christine. Wrote a letter to Northwestern Center on
Wrongful Convictions, and Jane Raleigh, along with Karen Daniel, took
Christine's case and they disassembled every piece of evidence the
(23:01):
state put forward. Karen and Jane assembled the world's experts
on fire science, not the myths of arson investigation, but
on fire science, to prove first that everything the state
said was wrong and then second that Christine was innocent.
(23:23):
Not beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. So first
they got a former ATF agent and he testified that
every one of the myths that was used by the
so called arson investigator Brian Frank was wrong. A V
pattern does not indicate a point of origin. It indicates
(23:45):
a point where something burned against a wall. Fire burns
down not because of a liquid accelerant, but because it's
seeking oxygen and there was a hole in the trailer.
So the burn patterns that Frank says indicated that there
was a liquid accelerant had been disproved. Brian Franks said
(24:06):
that the fire was hotter because a liquid accelerant was used.
That is a myth. Controlled experiments prove that fire is
no hotter. Indeed, the heat depends on what is being burnt.
So chemistry physics disproved every one of the pieces of evidence.
(24:27):
But there was one more critical thing that Karen Daniel
did that was pivotal. She subpoenaed the underlying test data
that had been used by the ATF lab and all
of the documents related to those tests, and what that
bound was stunning. First, she got the actual gas chromatographs,
(24:53):
so the actual tests and contrary to his testimony, he
did test against the standard of kerosene, not a heavy
but kerosene. Then when you look at those actual test data,
you find that, yes, there was kerosene in the living
room where the kerosene heater had been years before. But
(25:17):
then you look at the sample from Tony's bedroom, the
sample that convicted Christine, and the test was negative for
any liquid accelerate, kerosene, heavy petroleum distillate, nothing. What's more,
in that file, there was a draft report that reflected
(25:42):
accurately the test results, that is, that there had been
kerosene in the living room and that the sample in
Tony's bedroom was negative. And then there was a report
that in handwriting that crossed that out and made that
test result positive. How that happened, unfortunately, we'll never know
(26:05):
because by the time we got to the hearing, the
ATF agent, who is now deceased, was incompetent in an
assisted living home and could not testify about what happened.
But what was clear was Christine was convicted based on
(26:25):
not only faulty but false evidence. So that takes care
of the state's case. So Christine's team exposed the junk
science and the outright falsification of the real scientific data
that led to our conviction. And by the way, these
are your tax dollars at work. And if you don't
think this could happen to you, well, don't even get
(26:46):
me started that there's more to this, and I'm talking
about what the defenses expert Jamie McCallister testified to about
how the fire really started. Jamie McCallister, who is expert
in examining the victim's chemistry and reverse engineering how a
fire must have started, testified about how this fire started.
(27:09):
Tony died before the fire got hot. He died of
carbon monoxide poisoning. There was no burning in his trachea,
no burning in his lungs, and so he had stopped
breathing before the fire got hot. His carboxy hemoglobin rate,
(27:30):
which is what we referred to as carbon monoxide poisoning.
It's when the carbon monoxide bonds with your blood. The
hemoglobin was eighty percent. Fifty percent is lethal. So how
did it get that high? Well, Jamie McCallister testifies that
controlled experiment show that if the fire had started out
(27:53):
in the open air of the living room or the bedroom,
it would have produced a lot of carbon diet oxide
two oxygen molecules. Because there's a lot of air floating
around and very little carbon monoxide one oxygen molecule. It
would have taken ninety minutes for the fire to have
(28:16):
produced enough carbon monoxide for Tony to have gotten to
a carboxyhemoglobin rate approaching eighty percent. He would have burned
to death long before that, and of course his lungs
and everything else would have burned. That didn't happen. So
how did this fire happen? Well, as an electrician testified,
(28:40):
they were electrical wires that were overloaded that ran between
the roof and the drop down ceiling tiles. There was
an electrical fire that started that morning. But because there's
limited oxygen there, what happens is the fire smolders and
produces a lot of carbon monoxide up in the ceiling. Now,
(29:05):
eventually the fire gets hot enough so that one of
the ceiling tiles burns and drops to the floor. That
undoubtedly is what Christine awakens to. Now, when that happens,
the carbon monoxide fills the Tony's room like a balloon
that is letting out its air. Physical tests and chemical
(29:29):
tests prove within minutes he dies of carbon monoxide poisoning.
That's how this fire had to have happened. And thus,
not only was there no evidence that Christine was guilty
of an arson, there was conclusive evidence that the fire
(29:50):
was an accidental fire that took place in the confined
area of the ceiling, and that Tony died as everybody knew,
of carbon monoxide poisoning. But in spite of all of this,
on June eighth of twenty ten, now over fourteen years
after your conviction, Judge Westhofer denied you a new trial.
(30:12):
He said, quote, while and this is a quote, while
miss Bunch had new resources available to her at the
post conviction hearing, new experts do not create new evidence.
The issues raised and the conclusions reached, while package differently,
remained basically the same as they were at trial in
nineteen ninety six end quote. He went on to add
(30:36):
that he did not believe the ATF documents would have
changed the outcome of the trial. And I mean it
was exposed that they falsified the findings and said the
samples were positive when they weren't. What the actual fuck
like And this again, if you don't think this can
happen to you, and of talking to the audience. Now,
of course you're wrong. A very large percentage of judges
(30:58):
are elected and others are appointed by elected officials. Either way,
your decisions in the voting booth are going to determine
who ends up on the bench. So and my rant
back to the story. Meanwhile, another Indianapolis lawyer joins the team,
John Larimore, And then we get to the good stuff.
(31:19):
Right on July thirteenth, twenty eleven, Ron who's here with
us now, argued in front of a three member panel
of the Court of Appeals of Indiana. At the argument itself,
it was very clear from the questioning of the judges
that one judge was dead set against us. There was
nothing I was going to be able to say to
(31:40):
change his mind. One judge was for us, and no
matter how incoherently I babbled, he was going to vote
for us. And so the middle judge, the chief judge,
held Christine's fate in her hand. Our working theory, and
it made sense, said, if the court was going to
(32:01):
reverse this conviction, they would have done it right away
because they know she's sitting in jail. So we're sitting
there understanding that the longer this goes on, the more
likely it is we lost. As time wore on, despair grew,
and eight of what must have been truly agonizing. Months later, Christine,
(32:26):
on March twenty first of twenty twelve, in a two
to one decision, the panel reversed the conviction and granted
you a new trial, citing the evolution of fire science,
as well as the fact that the sculptory evidence was
withheld that quote unquote directly contradicted atf forensic analyst William
Kinnard's trial testimony. Christine, how did you find out about
(32:50):
this momentous decision. I got a call to come to
the counselor's office and my lawyers were on the phone
to tell me that they had reversed my conviction and
remanded for a new trial. I started crying, and I
asked them if they called my son. I wanted him
to go that I won and I was going to
(33:11):
come home. So they assured me that yes, they were,
they were calling him, and I ended up I stayed
in the counselor's office for like an hour and a
half because I had back to back calls, and she said,
you know, she said, we're just gonna make this your day,
so everybody can call and congratulate you and tell you
(33:32):
the news, and they were just so happy for me. Ron.
What about you, what's your recollection of that phone call?
I cared beyond measure about Christine in this case and
getting her out of jail, and when it ultimately happened,
it was as if it was happening to my sister.
Just the most moving experience. Although the reality comes home
(33:58):
of Okay, she's not at a jail, she gets a
new trial, she's still sitting in jail. We got to
get her out of jail. So almost five months go
by after March twenty first, twenty twelve and the amazing
phone call, all the way to August eighth, when the
Indiana Supreme Court left the Appellate Court's decision undisturbed. And
(34:20):
then finally about a month after that, September first, twenty twelve,
seventeen years, one month and sixteen days after you were arrested, Christine,
you were finally released into the arms of your family.
What was that like, Well, I mean, when you first
walk out, I think all you're looking at is the
(34:41):
dream finally happened, and I have so many possibilities. After
that initial who wears off, then you're left with all
of these fears and insecurities. It was great walking out
and seeing everyone, but then you know, I'm facing another
(35:05):
murder trial, so we have to start preparing for that.
And I have, you know, my son, who I have
to provide a home for, and I have to make
sure that he has everything he needs. He's just sixteen,
so I don't have a driver's license, I don't have
any kind of ID, I don't have Wrinter's history credits
(35:27):
for all of these things. I don't even know where
I'm going to get a job after seventeen years. So
fear starts to take you over, and I think that
at first I was just like, I'm not going to
make it. There's no way I'm going to be able
to make it. And that first night, my son was
showing me on his laptop how to set up a
(35:49):
Facebook account. And while I'm looking at it, I see
that he has the Appellate Court site bookmarked, and I said,
why do you have that? And he looked at me
and he said, because I checked every day to see
if they made a decision, and you were coming home
and I started crying and I said, you know, I said,
(36:13):
I've been so worried and so unsure, but hearing that
you believed in me and we're just waiting for me
to come home. I can make it through anything. Then
(36:34):
another and a long line of amazing developments in your
case happened just before Christmas, which must have made that
time of year even sweeter. The prosecution finally came around
to their senses and dropped the charges, which brings us
to your next struggle, compensation for all that lost time.
And of course no amount of money could be enough
(36:55):
to repay what you lost, but you had an uphill
battle and a unique struggle just to even get compensation.
Can you fill us in on that. Yes, So, like everyone,
I filed a civil suit. Clearly people are protected, so
you have to break through immunity to try to sue.
The issue is the ATF chemist is deceased, so I
(37:18):
didn't have a leg to stand on, and that was
ultimately dismissed. Compensation. I have been working since I've been out,
and while I've helped pass new legislation in three different
states working with the Innocence Project, this past year we
passed compensation in Indiana, and then when my civil suit
(37:40):
was dismissed, I applied for the compensation. You know, it
was I think, very surreal to receive a letter from
them saying that just because my conviction was reversed and
I wasn't retried did not mean that I was actually innocent.
And it really, I mean it hurt my feeling because
(38:00):
I testified before these legislators three separate occasions. The senators
and representatives that pass this bill used my case to
pass this compensation bill, and then you're going to basically
retry me all over again. So are they really trying
to relitigate this case? No, they are not. But as
(38:23):
you go through the process, you fill out a compensation
application and then they review it. So for them, they
reached out to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor said, you know, no,
we didn't have evidence at the time to retry this,
but you know, we aren't going to say we made
a mistake. They never want to say they made a mistake.
(38:46):
So I had to reach out to everyone I knew,
the Center on Wrongful Convictions with you know, the amazing
Laura and I writer and Steve Drisen, Ron Safer and
all of them wrote letters and admitted the evidence that
was used to exonerate me in order to show them
that I am innocent and worthy of this compensation. Twenty
(39:09):
five years after the fact, they are reviewing the application.
They've been reviewing it since November. Yeah, well, let's hope
they come to their senses and come to the right decision,
because I think the right thing to do is clear
to everyone who's listening and to anyone with a heart
and a soul. So let's get to what you're doing now.
(39:30):
You started an organization called just Is for just Us.
Just is just like it sounds because the situation just is,
and then it's for just us, which means all of
us exoners. Justice for just Us was started by myself
and another exonrere that came from the Center on Wrongful
(39:50):
Convictions and one and I just basically wanted to address
what it was like because when people walk out, you
don't have a toothbrush, you don't have the basic necessities.
So J for J for short. You know, we're helping
with boxes. If somebody reaches out and says, hey, I
need an outfit, I need basic hygienes, we put that
(40:11):
together We've helped take some exonorees to the Innocence conference,
sent out gas cards, cash cards, and we've paid rents,
we've paid bills, and our organization allows healthcare providers to
donate services so they can get a dental visit or
some counseling sessions or a physical things that are desperately
(40:34):
needed when you return. It's such an important thing, you know.
I've tried to devote myself to doing as much as
I can to help people coming out of the system,
because it's exactly as you described. It's like I call
it the second punishment. And what I mean by that
is most people coming out have no support whatsoever. They
may get forty dollars in a bus ticket and then
(40:55):
you know, not even a good luck. So there are
a number of wonderful organist stations doing this work, and
I encourage everyone to support just is for just Us.
So please everyone scroll down on the episode description and
get involved with Justice for just Us. And now this
is a part of the show, of course that we
call closing Arguments. So first of all, thank you to
(41:18):
our phenomenal guests today. The closing argument segment works like this,
I turn off my microphone, kick back in my chair,
leave my headphones on. Sometimes I close my eyes, and
we're going to let each of you have the final
word on whatever you want to talk about. So let's
go to run first, and then Christine, you can just
take us out. Well, first of all, thanks so much
(41:40):
Jason for telling this story, for telling the other stories.
It is so critically important to raise public awareness of
these wrongful convictions. We have the best criminal justice system
in the world, but it is run by human being,
(42:00):
and human beings are flawed. They make mistakes, they at
times act intentionally maliciously. When that happens, it takes enormous
resources to get the system back on track, and so
few people are able to afford those resources or are
(42:22):
given those resources. So what has to happen is everybody
involved in the system. Prosecutors, judges, jurors have to have
an open mind. They have to be persons of goodwill.
(42:43):
We as citizens have to hold them accountable that their
jobs are not to get convictions, their jobs are to
do justice, and we have to insist on that. We
have to enter that jury box as citizens, giving credence
to the presumption of innocence, that our constitution requires. They're
(43:09):
not words. They are a critical concept. But if we
don't pay attention to it, if we don't honor it,
then wonderful people like Christine will have their lives robbed
from them, losing decades that nobody can give back to them.
(43:29):
And so this is a call to action. We have
to be more active, we have to be more responsible.
We have to be accountable and make sure that everybody
in the system is accountable. Christine, when I go speak
(43:50):
to the community and tell them how they can help
with JAY or Jay, or how they can help the
Innocence Project, or how they can step up and make
changes within our system. Because it is a great system.
It is designed to work, and we have to take
responsibility and make sure it works. So I know that
(44:14):
everybody is sitting there saying I don't have money to donate,
but everybody does have to step up and say I
have something to give here, I can vote. I get
to educate myself so that when I'm sitting on a jury,
I know what I'm listening to because the CSI you
watch on TV that's not always accurate. So really learning
(44:38):
about these issues, really raising your voice and saying you know,
we need to change some things. That's how we make
the world better. And I encourage all of you to
learn about this and figure out if you can help
by voting, by sharing our stories, by talking to an axonary,
by just being there. Don't forget to give us a
(45:06):
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 Words. The music in the show
(45:29):
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 and
association with Signal Company Number one
In the summer of nineteen ninety five, twenty one year
old single mom Christine Bunch was living in a trailer
in Greensburg, Indiana, with her three year old son Tony.
In the early morning hours of July thirtieth, an electrical
fire began between the roof and the ceiling tiles. When
the fire caused one of the ceiling tiles to fall
in Tony's bedroom, a cloud of carbon monoxide gas killed
(00:24):
the little boy before the fire even could. Christine awoke
in a carbon monoxide haze, desperately trying to save Tony.
After failed attempts at extinguishing the fire, she ran for help.
Then she smashed Tony's bedroom window, but it was too late.
She was barefoot, homeless, and deep in despair. Arson investigator
(00:47):
Brian Frank used what is widely now known as junk
science to point the blame for Tony's death squarely at Christine.
So six days after losing her three year old boy
and nearly everything she ever had, Christine lost her freedom
as well. With no potential alibi or eyewitnesses, the state
easily sealed Christine's fate with the testimony of Brian Frank
(01:11):
and ATF forensic analyst William Kinnard. Christine gave birth to
her son, Trent, just a few months after being sent
to prison and a decade passed before her attorney and
a team from the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern
University uncovered an egregious Brady violation and blatantly false testimony,
freeing Christine after seventeen years, one month and sixteen days
(01:35):
behind bars. This it's Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
(01:55):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course,
and today you're going to hear a story that's as
heartbreaking and tragic as it was preventable, and it's a
remarkable look inside the systemic flaws as well as human
errors that lead to wrongful convictions. And in this particular case,
we're going to be telling the story and hearing the
(02:16):
story of one of my absolute favorite human beings, a
personal hero of mine, who is doing amazing, amazing things
in the world right now, today and every day. And
so I am thrilled and honored to have with us
on the show today, Christine Bunch, Thank you so much.
I'm happy to be here and with Christine as someone
(02:37):
whose name you'll probably recognize, Ron Safe for Ron is
a former US attorney turned corporate lawyer turned justice fighter,
and you'll recognize him because he was a huge part
of the exoneration of Julie Ray, an episode that I'll
never forget, and I hope, if I haven't heard it,
that you'll go back and take a listen. Anyway, Ron,
(02:58):
welcome back to be here. Thank you, Jason. So let's
get right into it. Christine, you grew up in Indiana, right,
I did. Things took a crazy turn one my parents divorced,
but for the most part I was happy and it
was good. Now, at the time of this unimaginable tragedy,
(03:19):
you were just a young mother living in a trailer,
working hard, going to school, just starting your life, just
twenty one years old, right, that's correct. I was working
and going to school, and I had a beautiful three
year old son named Tony. And then the worst nightmare
that any parent can possibly have or wake up to
(03:40):
in a cold sweat, and some of us probably have
had that experience, but it actually happened to you. And Ron,
can you tell us about that awful morning of June thirtieth,
nineteen ninety five. What happened was Christine and Tony had
gone to sleep together on a couch in the living
room area of the trailer. Before Christine woke up, Tony
(04:04):
had moved to the front room, which was a separate
room from the living room. Christine awoke to a sound
and a small fire. She was disoriented, but she saw
the small fire and she tried to put it out
(04:26):
with a pillow and couldn't do that, so she tried
to smother the fire with a blanket, and that didn't
work either. Carbon monoxide is intoxicating. Christine was undoubtedly affected
by this carbon monoxide. She's trying to put out the fire.
(04:46):
She can't find the fire extinguisher. She knows where the
fire extinguisher is, she can't find it. So by that time,
the fire had grown into a wall between wean her
and Tony, and she could not get to him. So
she frantically went out of the trailer, tried to get help,
(05:07):
and then tried to break the window into the front
room so that she could get to Tony, but it
was too late, and Tony had perished. It's impossible to
even conceive of the horror and the panic in a
time like that, even if you didn't have kids, like
waking up to a fire. Christine, what are your memories
(05:30):
of that awful night now twenty five years ago. I
think the thing that sits with me the most is
it was just normal. I came home from school, and
I got Tony from the babysitter, and we went home
and we cooked, and I think we watched some TV
and did some laundry, and we fell asleep. I'd read
(05:53):
him a story and he wasn't feeling really well, and
we fell asleep on the couch under the air conditioner,
and everything just seemed normal. You didn't realize that you
were going to wake up in your whole world would
be turned upside down. Yeah. I mean, your whole world
was really destroyed at a time when the community and
(06:19):
the system should have been coming to help you in
every conceivable way. Instead, you were exposed to and victimized
by the worst that the system and our society has
to offer. And it's so important that you're here now
because this arson quote unquote science that they used in
(06:40):
order to frame you and wrongfully convict you for a
crime that never even happened is something that we need
to focus on because we need awareness among everyone, because someday, you,
the listener, may find yourself on a jury and you
may be presented with this same sort of junk science.
So fire investigation was an apprentice art. They were what
(07:06):
was regarded as common knowledge and industry standards that were
passed down from generation to generation. Virtually none of those
conventional wisdom were true, and when tested by scientific principles,
they were all debunked. Unfortunately that came too late for Christine.
(07:31):
And this starts with a fire investigator named Brian Frank.
So what Frank did was the day of this fire,
and keep in mind this trailer was completely incinerated. He
comes into the trailer and just plucks things out of
thin air. He says, oh, this, this is a burn
(07:55):
pattern on the floor. That's evidence of a liquid with
the accelerant, like gasoline. Oh, there's a V pattern on
the wall. That is fire burns up in a V pattern.
And therefore, because there were two of these, there were
two points of origin. A normal accidental fire will have
(08:20):
one point of origin. Sometimes if a fire is intentionally set,
it will have two points of origin. Says oops, here
the fire burned down. That is a sign of a
liquid accelerant. For all of these reasons, I conclude this
was not an accidental fire. This was intentionally set because,
(08:44):
as you said at the beginning, Jason, unlike many crimes
like a robbery or a fraud or a murder, the
question in an arson is was a crime even committed?
And upon that threshold question rests the lives of hundreds
of people, including Christine. Here's what's absolutely nuts is that
(09:09):
to become a licensed arson investigator, one who can testify
in court, you can take a forty hour correspondence course.
It takes fifteen hundred hours in some places to become
a manicurist. You can't get a barber's license in less
than six months. It's the idea that they've been relying
on these Charlottean's you'd be better off consulting with psychics
(09:33):
or even just guessing. And in Christine's case, there are
so many other problems, right. There's tunnel vision with holding
of a sculptory evidence, there's multiple incompetent investigators who pass
themselves off as experts, and then it goes downhill from there.
So there you are outside the house and in minutes,
in moments, your life has gone from a good life
(09:56):
full of love and hope to the worst imaginable scenario.
You're just in shock, and you don't really believe what
people are telling you because they kept telling me, no,
you can't go in, and no we couldn't get hit
him and know he's got alive. And of course, as apparent,
(10:17):
you don't want to believe that. People on the outside
want to look at it and say, well, if this
was done differently, or if you had acted this way.
And I mean, for myself, I have played it over
and over and over and over again in my mind.
(10:37):
I still every day that I wake up play it
over in my mind, and I don't know how to
come up with a different scenario. When you're in that
moment and the terror paralyizes you, you don't know what
you would do. So it's easy to stand outside and
(10:58):
say this should have never happened, and somebody has to
be blamed, right, because the alternative is incomprehensible to most
people why an innocent baby would be taken from us. Christine,
six days in hell, right, six days for you between
(11:18):
the fire and the loss of your child and the
time that you're arrested what were those six days? Like?
What were you doing? I went with my parents to
plan a funeral, and my mom and dad really went
through how the service was going to be, and I
(11:39):
just remember sitting there and crying, and then I told
him that I wanted a song played something that I,
you know, sang with Tony, and he said, we can
play whatever you want, and then I had to go
get clothes to where to a funeral. At that time,
I was still walking around barefoot because I'd literally lost everything,
(12:04):
and everybody was trying to comfort you and give you advice,
and it just doesn't comfort you. So you feel more
alone than ever because you don't want to hurt their feelings,
but everything they're saying to you doesn't penetrate. The police
(12:27):
didn't help because they followed me everywhere I went and
talked to everybody after I left, and they even showed
up and my son's funeral and burial. They came to
me before I even got out of the hospital and
told me that it was an arson. They literally wanted
(12:49):
a list of all my family and friends, anybody that
could have possibly done it. Then they come back to
me and saying, no, you're you're the person you're under
arrest for this, and in a small town, once they
make or arrest and put a headline on the paper
in a small community, in that community's mind, you're guilty.
(13:13):
So now you're arrested. How long were you held before
the trial? Were you able to bail out? I was
in there from July sixth to October mid October, I
bonded out on a fifty thousand dollars cash bond. I
tell my son Trent all the time that he's the
miracle that saved me. But when I got out, I
(13:38):
certainly didn't care if I lived or died, and so
I was drinking and doing a lot of self medicating
because I just didn't want to feel anymore. And in
the midst of that, I started getting sick and that's
when I discovered I was pregnant. Yeah, and that's the
(14:02):
worst possible scenario. Although now, as you said, it turns
out to be the thing that saved you. And we'll
get into more of that later. But Ron, this trial
is full of I mean again, it's horseshit. The stuff
that they were spewing from the stand. It began with
the prosecutors standing in front of the jury and saying
(14:24):
motive is not an element of the crime. We don't
have to prove motive. People tend not to commit crimes
for no reason. And of course they investigated Christine and
her motive for this crime, and they found that she
was a good, loving, caring, wonderful mother, and that she
(14:50):
and Tony had a beautiful relationship. Everybody said that universally,
And so they're left with telling the jury, Okay, Christine
committed this horrific crime for no reason, but we don't
have to prove motive. Then their case depended one hundred
(15:13):
percent on this quote unquote expert testimony, because Christine didn't
set this fire, so of course nobody saw her set
the fire, nobody saw her prepare to set the fire,
nobody heard her talk about setting the fire, nobody afterwards.
There was no physical evidence, no forensic evidence, nothing. Of course,
(15:36):
the trailer wasn't insured, she lost all of her possession,
she lost, of course, the person who meant most to
her in the world. So they were left with this
expert testimony, these absurd fire investigation myths, which should have
and could have been dispelled by a defense attorney or
(16:00):
competent defense expert. But there was something else that was
critical in this trial that would have been difficult for
a defense attorney to combat. And I have to tell
the audience that this critical evidence becomes just as important
later to proving Christine's innocence as it was in getting
her convicted. But go ahead, Ron. They took ten samples
(16:24):
from the trailer, from the floor of the trailer, from
the carpet of the trailer, from Christine's nightgown, and they
tested it for various accelerants. There was no gasoline. There
was no inflammatory substance of any kind on Christine's nightgown,
(16:44):
even though they said that she would splash this accelerant
all around. But there were two positive samples. And those samples,
by the way, we're given to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms atf who federally investigates arson crimes, and
they have special laboratories, and they did gas chromatography on
(17:08):
these samples, and they presented evidence at trial that there
were two positive tests for what they called a heavy
petroleum distolate like jet fuel or something else specifically not kerosene,
(17:30):
and that was found in the living room area and
critically in the front room, the room where Tony was found. Now,
there is reason for there to be kerosene in the
living room because the prior owners of this trailer testified
(17:50):
that they had a kerosene heater and that they overfilled
it from time to time. Kerosene does not evaporate, and
so even from years before, there would be kerosene in
the wood. But there's no explanation for a heavy petroleum
distillate like jet fuel. And there is absolutely no innocent
(18:11):
explanation for there to be a heavy petroleum distillate in
the front room Tony's bedroom. And that was critical evidence
that was not refuted by the defense attorney. And on
the strength of that expert testimony of end these critical
(18:31):
lab determinations, Christine was convicted March fourth, nineteen ninety six,
twenty two years old. Pregnant, Christine is convicted of arson
and murder. Less than a month later, she's sentenced to
two concurrent terms, sixty years for murder and fifty years
(18:52):
for arson. So how pregnant were you Christine at the
time of this wrongful conviction And what the hell was
it like giving birth behind bars? I was almost six
months pregnant. The only thing they don't do to pregnant
women is make them wearing the belly chain and the
box because the baby's not a prisoner. But with so
(19:16):
many pregnant women in there, you don't always get soft
cuffs for your feet. So I've got deep scars on
the back of my ankles from wearing those metal shackles.
And then when I finally went into labor, I didn't
really know that I was in labor because I was
(19:38):
just having a backache. So they took me to the
infirmary and couldn't find a heartbeat. I lost it. I started,
you know, screaming at them, and so I was handcuffed
and shackle then taken out into an ambulance. And when
I got to the hospital, a doctor come in and
explained that I was having contractions and that's why they
(19:59):
could here the heartbeat. They determined that I was going
to have an emergency c section, so they handcuffs and shackles.
Came home, and I got a metal cuff on my
angle in the log chain. I got about thirty six
hours with Trent, and then I was transferred back to
the facility and my family took him home. The Pacers
(20:30):
Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode of Rawful
Conviction and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business
and tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently
re enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to
improving the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations that
are dedicated primarily to helping young people and students. For
(20:51):
more information on the work of the Pacers Foundation or
the Last Mile Program, visit Pacers Foundation dot org or
the Last Mile dot org. This episode is sponsored by AIG,
a leading global insurance company, and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton
and Garrison, a leading international law firm. The AIG pro
(21:12):
Bono Program provides free legal services and other support to
many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need, and recently
they announced that working to reform the criminal justice system
will become a key pillar of the program's mission. Paul
Weiss has long had an unwavering commitment to providing impactful
pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of
(21:34):
our society and in support of the public interest, including
extensive or in the criminal justice area. So the good
news is that there is actually an equal or greater
number of heroes in this story than villains Betsy Marks,
(21:55):
Hillary po Ricks, Jamie McAllister, and the other two actual
fire science John Dahan and John Mululey, plus the electrical
engineer Richard Hansen. Then Karen Daniel and Jane Raley, legends
in the field were on your side. And of course
Ron himself, Ron Safer, I mean, the fucking cavalry came
(22:17):
in on this one, right. Can you talk now about
the process that led seventeen years later to Christine finally
coming home. Yes, Christine pursued this tirelessly against all odds.
Found a wonderful local attorney, Hilary bow Ricks, who believed
(22:38):
in Christine but really did not have the resources to
take on the awesome power of the state, and a
supporter of Christine. Wrote a letter to Northwestern Center on
Wrongful Convictions, and Jane Raleigh, along with Karen Daniel, took
Christine's case and they disassembled every piece of evidence the
(23:01):
state put forward. Karen and Jane assembled the world's experts
on fire science, not the myths of arson investigation, but
on fire science, to prove first that everything the state
said was wrong and then second that Christine was innocent.
(23:23):
Not beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. So first
they got a former ATF agent and he testified that
every one of the myths that was used by the
so called arson investigator Brian Frank was wrong. A V
pattern does not indicate a point of origin. It indicates
(23:45):
a point where something burned against a wall. Fire burns
down not because of a liquid accelerant, but because it's
seeking oxygen and there was a hole in the trailer.
So the burn patterns that Frank says indicated that there
was a liquid accelerant had been disproved. Brian Franks said
(24:06):
that the fire was hotter because a liquid accelerant was used.
That is a myth. Controlled experiments prove that fire is
no hotter. Indeed, the heat depends on what is being burnt.
So chemistry physics disproved every one of the pieces of evidence.
(24:27):
But there was one more critical thing that Karen Daniel
did that was pivotal. She subpoenaed the underlying test data
that had been used by the ATF lab and all
of the documents related to those tests, and what that
bound was stunning. First, she got the actual gas chromatographs,
(24:53):
so the actual tests and contrary to his testimony, he
did test against the standard of kerosene, not a heavy
but kerosene. Then when you look at those actual test data,
you find that, yes, there was kerosene in the living
room where the kerosene heater had been years before. But
(25:17):
then you look at the sample from Tony's bedroom, the
sample that convicted Christine, and the test was negative for
any liquid accelerate, kerosene, heavy petroleum distillate, nothing. What's more,
in that file, there was a draft report that reflected
(25:42):
accurately the test results, that is, that there had been
kerosene in the living room and that the sample in
Tony's bedroom was negative. And then there was a report
that in handwriting that crossed that out and made that
test result positive. How that happened, unfortunately, we'll never know
(26:05):
because by the time we got to the hearing, the
ATF agent, who is now deceased, was incompetent in an
assisted living home and could not testify about what happened.
But what was clear was Christine was convicted based on
(26:25):
not only faulty but false evidence. So that takes care
of the state's case. So Christine's team exposed the junk
science and the outright falsification of the real scientific data
that led to our conviction. And by the way, these
are your tax dollars at work. And if you don't
think this could happen to you, well, don't even get
(26:46):
me started that there's more to this, and I'm talking
about what the defenses expert Jamie McCallister testified to about
how the fire really started. Jamie McCallister, who is expert
in examining the victim's chemistry and reverse engineering how a
fire must have started, testified about how this fire started.
(27:09):
Tony died before the fire got hot. He died of
carbon monoxide poisoning. There was no burning in his trachea,
no burning in his lungs, and so he had stopped
breathing before the fire got hot. His carboxy hemoglobin rate,
(27:30):
which is what we referred to as carbon monoxide poisoning.
It's when the carbon monoxide bonds with your blood. The
hemoglobin was eighty percent. Fifty percent is lethal. So how
did it get that high? Well, Jamie McCallister testifies that
controlled experiment show that if the fire had started out
(27:53):
in the open air of the living room or the bedroom,
it would have produced a lot of carbon diet oxide
two oxygen molecules. Because there's a lot of air floating
around and very little carbon monoxide one oxygen molecule. It
would have taken ninety minutes for the fire to have
(28:16):
produced enough carbon monoxide for Tony to have gotten to
a carboxyhemoglobin rate approaching eighty percent. He would have burned
to death long before that, and of course his lungs
and everything else would have burned. That didn't happen. So
how did this fire happen? Well, as an electrician testified,
(28:40):
they were electrical wires that were overloaded that ran between
the roof and the drop down ceiling tiles. There was
an electrical fire that started that morning. But because there's
limited oxygen there, what happens is the fire smolders and
produces a lot of carbon monoxide up in the ceiling. Now,
(29:05):
eventually the fire gets hot enough so that one of
the ceiling tiles burns and drops to the floor. That
undoubtedly is what Christine awakens to. Now, when that happens,
the carbon monoxide fills the Tony's room like a balloon
that is letting out its air. Physical tests and chemical
(29:29):
tests prove within minutes he dies of carbon monoxide poisoning.
That's how this fire had to have happened. And thus,
not only was there no evidence that Christine was guilty
of an arson, there was conclusive evidence that the fire
(29:50):
was an accidental fire that took place in the confined
area of the ceiling, and that Tony died as everybody knew,
of carbon monoxide poisoning. But in spite of all of this,
on June eighth of twenty ten, now over fourteen years
after your conviction, Judge Westhofer denied you a new trial.
(30:12):
He said, quote, while and this is a quote, while
miss Bunch had new resources available to her at the
post conviction hearing, new experts do not create new evidence.
The issues raised and the conclusions reached, while package differently,
remained basically the same as they were at trial in
nineteen ninety six end quote. He went on to add
(30:36):
that he did not believe the ATF documents would have
changed the outcome of the trial. And I mean it
was exposed that they falsified the findings and said the
samples were positive when they weren't. What the actual fuck
like And this again, if you don't think this can
happen to you, and of talking to the audience. Now,
of course you're wrong. A very large percentage of judges
(30:58):
are elected and others are appointed by elected officials. Either way,
your decisions in the voting booth are going to determine
who ends up on the bench. So and my rant
back to the story. Meanwhile, another Indianapolis lawyer joins the team,
John Larimore, And then we get to the good stuff.
(31:19):
Right on July thirteenth, twenty eleven, Ron who's here with
us now, argued in front of a three member panel
of the Court of Appeals of Indiana. At the argument itself,
it was very clear from the questioning of the judges
that one judge was dead set against us. There was
nothing I was going to be able to say to
(31:40):
change his mind. One judge was for us, and no
matter how incoherently I babbled, he was going to vote
for us. And so the middle judge, the chief judge,
held Christine's fate in her hand. Our working theory, and
it made sense, said, if the court was going to
(32:01):
reverse this conviction, they would have done it right away
because they know she's sitting in jail. So we're sitting
there understanding that the longer this goes on, the more
likely it is we lost. As time wore on, despair grew,
and eight of what must have been truly agonizing. Months later, Christine,
(32:26):
on March twenty first of twenty twelve, in a two
to one decision, the panel reversed the conviction and granted
you a new trial, citing the evolution of fire science,
as well as the fact that the sculptory evidence was
withheld that quote unquote directly contradicted atf forensic analyst William
Kinnard's trial testimony. Christine, how did you find out about
(32:50):
this momentous decision. I got a call to come to
the counselor's office and my lawyers were on the phone
to tell me that they had reversed my conviction and
remanded for a new trial. I started crying, and I
asked them if they called my son. I wanted him
to go that I won and I was going to
(33:11):
come home. So they assured me that yes, they were,
they were calling him, and I ended up I stayed
in the counselor's office for like an hour and a
half because I had back to back calls, and she said,
you know, she said, we're just gonna make this your day,
so everybody can call and congratulate you and tell you
(33:32):
the news, and they were just so happy for me. Ron.
What about you, what's your recollection of that phone call?
I cared beyond measure about Christine in this case and
getting her out of jail, and when it ultimately happened,
it was as if it was happening to my sister.
Just the most moving experience. Although the reality comes home
(33:58):
of Okay, she's not at a jail, she gets a
new trial, she's still sitting in jail. We got to
get her out of jail. So almost five months go
by after March twenty first, twenty twelve and the amazing
phone call, all the way to August eighth, when the
Indiana Supreme Court left the Appellate Court's decision undisturbed. And
(34:20):
then finally about a month after that, September first, twenty twelve,
seventeen years, one month and sixteen days after you were arrested, Christine,
you were finally released into the arms of your family.
What was that like, Well, I mean, when you first
walk out, I think all you're looking at is the
(34:41):
dream finally happened, and I have so many possibilities. After
that initial who wears off, then you're left with all
of these fears and insecurities. It was great walking out
and seeing everyone, but then you know, I'm facing another
(35:05):
murder trial, so we have to start preparing for that.
And I have, you know, my son, who I have
to provide a home for, and I have to make
sure that he has everything he needs. He's just sixteen,
so I don't have a driver's license, I don't have
any kind of ID, I don't have Wrinter's history credits
(35:27):
for all of these things. I don't even know where
I'm going to get a job after seventeen years. So
fear starts to take you over, and I think that
at first I was just like, I'm not going to
make it. There's no way I'm going to be able
to make it. And that first night, my son was
showing me on his laptop how to set up a
(35:49):
Facebook account. And while I'm looking at it, I see
that he has the Appellate Court site bookmarked, and I said,
why do you have that? And he looked at me
and he said, because I checked every day to see
if they made a decision, and you were coming home
and I started crying and I said, you know, I said,
(36:13):
I've been so worried and so unsure, but hearing that
you believed in me and we're just waiting for me
to come home. I can make it through anything. Then
(36:34):
another and a long line of amazing developments in your
case happened just before Christmas, which must have made that
time of year even sweeter. The prosecution finally came around
to their senses and dropped the charges, which brings us
to your next struggle, compensation for all that lost time.
And of course no amount of money could be enough
(36:55):
to repay what you lost, but you had an uphill
battle and a unique struggle just to even get compensation.
Can you fill us in on that. Yes, So, like everyone,
I filed a civil suit. Clearly people are protected, so
you have to break through immunity to try to sue.
The issue is the ATF chemist is deceased, so I
(37:18):
didn't have a leg to stand on, and that was
ultimately dismissed. Compensation. I have been working since I've been out,
and while I've helped pass new legislation in three different
states working with the Innocence Project, this past year we
passed compensation in Indiana, and then when my civil suit
(37:40):
was dismissed, I applied for the compensation. You know, it
was I think, very surreal to receive a letter from
them saying that just because my conviction was reversed and
I wasn't retried did not mean that I was actually innocent.
And it really, I mean it hurt my feeling because
(38:00):
I testified before these legislators three separate occasions. The senators
and representatives that pass this bill used my case to
pass this compensation bill, and then you're going to basically
retry me all over again. So are they really trying
to relitigate this case? No, they are not. But as
(38:23):
you go through the process, you fill out a compensation
application and then they review it. So for them, they
reached out to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor said, you know, no,
we didn't have evidence at the time to retry this,
but you know, we aren't going to say we made
a mistake. They never want to say they made a mistake.
(38:46):
So I had to reach out to everyone I knew,
the Center on Wrongful Convictions with you know, the amazing
Laura and I writer and Steve Drisen, Ron Safer and
all of them wrote letters and admitted the evidence that
was used to exonerate me in order to show them
that I am innocent and worthy of this compensation. Twenty
(39:09):
five years after the fact, they are reviewing the application.
They've been reviewing it since November. Yeah, well, let's hope
they come to their senses and come to the right decision,
because I think the right thing to do is clear
to everyone who's listening and to anyone with a heart
and a soul. So let's get to what you're doing now.
(39:30):
You started an organization called just Is for just Us.
Just is just like it sounds because the situation just is,
and then it's for just us, which means all of
us exoners. Justice for just Us was started by myself
and another exonrere that came from the Center on Wrongful
(39:50):
Convictions and one and I just basically wanted to address
what it was like because when people walk out, you
don't have a toothbrush, you don't have the basic necessities.
So J for J for short. You know, we're helping
with boxes. If somebody reaches out and says, hey, I
need an outfit, I need basic hygienes, we put that
(40:11):
together We've helped take some exonorees to the Innocence conference,
sent out gas cards, cash cards, and we've paid rents,
we've paid bills, and our organization allows healthcare providers to
donate services so they can get a dental visit or
some counseling sessions or a physical things that are desperately
(40:34):
needed when you return. It's such an important thing, you know.
I've tried to devote myself to doing as much as
I can to help people coming out of the system,
because it's exactly as you described. It's like I call
it the second punishment. And what I mean by that
is most people coming out have no support whatsoever. They
may get forty dollars in a bus ticket and then
(40:55):
you know, not even a good luck. So there are
a number of wonderful organist stations doing this work, and
I encourage everyone to support just is for just Us.
So please everyone scroll down on the episode description and
get involved with Justice for just Us. And now this
is a part of the show, of course that we
call closing Arguments. So first of all, thank you to
(41:18):
our phenomenal guests today. The closing argument segment works like this,
I turn off my microphone, kick back in my chair,
leave my headphones on. Sometimes I close my eyes, and
we're going to let each of you have the final
word on whatever you want to talk about. So let's
go to run first, and then Christine, you can just
take us out. Well, first of all, thanks so much
(41:40):
Jason for telling this story, for telling the other stories.
It is so critically important to raise public awareness of
these wrongful convictions. We have the best criminal justice system
in the world, but it is run by human being,
(42:00):
and human beings are flawed. They make mistakes, they at
times act intentionally maliciously. When that happens, it takes enormous
resources to get the system back on track, and so
few people are able to afford those resources or are
(42:22):
given those resources. So what has to happen is everybody
involved in the system. Prosecutors, judges, jurors have to have
an open mind. They have to be persons of goodwill.
(42:43):
We as citizens have to hold them accountable that their
jobs are not to get convictions, their jobs are to
do justice, and we have to insist on that. We
have to enter that jury box as citizens, giving credence
to the presumption of innocence, that our constitution requires. They're
(43:09):
not words. They are a critical concept. But if we
don't pay attention to it, if we don't honor it,
then wonderful people like Christine will have their lives robbed
from them, losing decades that nobody can give back to them.
(43:29):
And so this is a call to action. We have
to be more active, we have to be more responsible.
We have to be accountable and make sure that everybody
in the system is accountable. Christine, when I go speak
(43:50):
to the community and tell them how they can help
with JAY or Jay, or how they can help the
Innocence Project, or how they can step up and make
changes within our system. Because it is a great system.
It is designed to work, and we have to take
responsibility and make sure it works. So I know that
(44:14):
everybody is sitting there saying I don't have money to donate,
but everybody does have to step up and say I
have something to give here, I can vote. I get
to educate myself so that when I'm sitting on a jury,
I know what I'm listening to because the CSI you
watch on TV that's not always accurate. So really learning
(44:38):
about these issues, really raising your voice and saying you know,
we need to change some things. That's how we make
the world better. And I encourage all of you to
learn about this and figure out if you can help
by voting, by sharing our stories, by talking to an axonary,
by just being there. Don't forget to give us a
(45:06):
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 Words. The music in the show
(45:29):
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 and
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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