June 30, 2021 • 39 mins
At age 13, Marcus Wiggins became one of many young black men to be tortured into a false statement by sadistic Chicago PD Detective Commander Jon Burge and his “Midnight Crew.” When an eyewitness foiled their first frame job, Marcus’ mother Carolyn successfully sued and exposed these men, leading Burge’s underlings to embark on a vendetta to frame Marcus Wiggins for murder. After another failed attempt in 1994, they succeeded and sent Marcus to prison in 1999 for a crime that he did not commit.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-marcus-as-a-free-man
Northwestern University Students’ Documentary, “Heroes for a Semester”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUtWjeFkIbM
Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - The Midnight Crew released on October 26, 2020:
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s12e7-wrongful-conviction-false-confessions-the-midnight-crew
Righteous Convictions - Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx released on April 26, 2021:
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s12e49-righteous-convictions-cook-county-states-attorney-kim-foxx
https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Vietnam and Korean War veteran John Burge joined Chicago p
D in nineteen seventy, a detective in nineteen seventy two,
and eventually Detective commander of Area two and later Area three.
During his career, heinous acts of brutality and torture were
carried out by him or at his direction, fixing cases
with coerced confessions and false witness statements alike. He and
(00:24):
his brethren were known as the Midnight Crew before his
termination in disgrace in nineteen nine and his eventual federal
prison sentence. Purge and his crew beat an electrocuted thirteen
year old Marcus Wiggins to extract the confessions of the
nineteen ninety one murder of Alfredo Hernandez. Fortunately, a courageous
witness named Sean Tyler came forward and ensured that the
(00:46):
attempted frame job failed. Marcus's mother, Caroline, sued and eventually
settled for ninety thousand dollars. However, the Midnight Crew didn't
like being exposed. In nineteen ninety four, they tried to
frame Marcus again along with Sean Tyler, for the murder
of Rodney Collins, but Marcus was at school in Wisconsin,
so his alibi was rock solid. Sean Tyler was not
(01:09):
as lucky, and he's currently serving fifty eight years. Then
on February Theopolis Tigue was found undressed and shot. I
won't bore you with a completely made up story about
a fender bender from witnesses who have since recanted, one
of whom was shot in the mouth the morning he
was set to deliver an affidavit. Marcus Wiggins was paroled
(01:32):
after twenty three years in prison and has not yet
been exonerated. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
(01:53):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course,
I'm your host, and today we're gonna be telling the
story with Marcus Wiggins of Marcus Wiggins. Marcus was framed
three times by the same cops that let me just
roll that back again, three times by the same cops.
He was physically tortured in a way that you know
(02:13):
you would see and locked up abroad in some third
world country, but it happened right in Chicago with us. Today,
we have his legal team and that consists of Justin Bonus,
who is Marcus's pro bono appellate counsel and said, justin,
welcome to wrongful convictions. And then a guy with his
own amazing story, but we're gonna tell it in a
(02:34):
different episode. But today we have Jared Adams. Jared was
wrongfully convicted himself since almost three decades in prison and
basically became a lawyer in prison, got himself out past
the bar, worked at the Innocent Project for a couple
of years as an attorney, is now in private practice.
I'm super happy to have you on here this time
as an attorney representing an innocent man. Appreciate the opporton
(02:57):
great to have you here. And of course Marcus Way
agains as I always say, I'm happy you're here, but
i'm sorry you're here because of the reason why you're here.
But anyway, welcome to wrongful conviction. I appreciate man. So
let's get right into it because this story, it's a
Chicago story, and of course Chicago has a miserable history
(03:18):
of law enforcement having tortured hundreds of black men, specifically
black men in a literal torture chamber. It was an
offsite warehouse, and I know it sounds insane, but it's
all true. It's all been documented, and hundreds of innocent
men went to jail, but also cops went to jail
as a result of their horrendous illital activities and their
(03:40):
disgusting practice of torturing confessions and false witness statements out
of people. And of course that group of cops was
known as the infamous Midnight Crew of Chicago Police. Detective
Commander John Burge. Now Laura and I writer and Steve
Drizzon covered them on our show Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
So to hear more about them, you can find that
right on our feet here. But today we're here to
(04:03):
talk about Marcus Cases specifically. So Marcus, take us back
to before all of this happened. What was your life
like growing up? You know, at school, I want to
be a firefighter. I'll seek a service agent. You know,
just being a kid, come home from school and do
my homework, delicate cartoons, you know, just a normal kid life,
(04:27):
a normal kid life. But this nightmare began when you
were just thirteen years old. So Marcus gets picked up
in one for homicide along with several other people, and
he's beaten with a flashlight over the head, electrocuted, taking
in the precinct, tortured some more along with other people.
And and and from my understanding is is that people
(04:47):
actually heard screams in the police station. And all the
while that this was going on, there was a witness
that could exonerate Marcus. That did exonerate Marcus, a guy
by the name of Sean Tyler. And the police were
so on the Sean Tyler that a judge issued a
protective order for Sean Tyler that the police were not
(05:08):
allowed to talk to Sean Tyler. And this case went
on for about four or five years before the case
was dismissed. In Marcus's mother filed the civil rights complaint
alleging the torture by John Burge and Fred Bunky was
a sergeant, Kenneth Boudreau, James O'Brien, These were all officers
(05:28):
that were involved with Marcus's alleged statement that they took
after they beat him until he gave the statement, I'm
just sucked that a person, as a citizen of his
country was elected shock something that this guy learned. I
think I read somewhere at Vienna Yea and came over
here and used that tactics. And it's not an outrage. Yeah,
(05:55):
that's that's like man blowing to me, like like the
State's Attorney's office, every body that who was involved didn't
say enough is enough, man, we can't allow this to
happen to our citizens. I mean, I imagine with what
you went through, you would have confessed to killing Abraham Lincoln.
Am I right? Man? You know, people going to the
type of torture, you know what I'm saying, anything just
(06:18):
to get the mother that pressure and that pain that
you're going through, especially at thirteen years old, I mean thirteen.
And then the thing the thing about it too. You know,
when you think about Birge Jason, you don't get decorated
in Korean Wars and Vietnam Wars if you don't get trauma.
You understand what I'm saying. So this is the guy
(06:38):
who was given such power. And it may have been
broken with Marcus case, but the pd S office had
notes between each other for years before Marcus, and they
were all saying, hey, these guys, it's like they're reading
off a template. You know. It's like all of their
confessions aren't signed and written the same, you know, and
(07:01):
it's like, you know, Marcus said, somebody should have stepped
up and said stop, let's not move forward until we
find out if all one hundred and fifty of these
black men who signed confessions, and I'm just throwing out
a number, but you could just scratch out a name
and you could put Marcus or anyone else's confession, Sean
(07:21):
Tyler and all of them, and you would see the
same hallmarks. There's no way judges weren't tipped that something
was wrong with that. Right, every confession was the same,
and every one of the victims which basically described the
same treatment. That lawsuit that Marcus mom Um spearheaded, it
really unearthed exactly how they were doing what they were doing, right,
(07:43):
Because it's one thing for people to just say, hey,
they're beating me, they kicking me. They found out in
several different other circumstances that they were doing the same
type of technics. They were smacking people with phone books
so it wouldn't leave a mark, they would twist your
general dues so no one could be seen, and in
court were bruises on him. So when Marcus went through
(08:03):
with the lawsuit, it's settled for ninety and made Marcus
a target. From that point on. This was the Alfredo
Hernandez murder, right, and ultimately they couldn't pin that on you.
Now we get to the second framing, right, which is
the murder of Rodney Collins, right, And so they do
no investigation whatsoever. Right now, which homicide didn't they do
(08:27):
any investigation on? They did no investigation on all of them.
They rely on terrible, holy, unreliable witnesses. I mean, Marcus's name,
and Rodney Collins gets thrown in there, and they list
him as a gang member in the Alfredo hernande is
the different gang member, and Rodney Collins and then I
think a different gang member in Theopolis Tigue, which we
haven't gotten to yet, which is so we did a
(08:47):
little research Marcus on you because I went back thinking, well,
why why would he be targeted by the cops in
this way in the first place? And all I could
find about your background is that you were described as sweet, caring, goodhearted,
funny like people had nothing but good things to say
about young Marcus. And I mean, were you ever in
a gang or anything like that? No, No, he knew
(09:10):
the answered that question because I researched it, and the
idea that this was really good versus evil, like literally
good versus evil, And we're talking about cops that were
well ultimately convicted of heinous acts of violence, torture, psychological abuse, electrocuting,
mock executions. Right, the same detectives that arrested and tortured
Marcus and knew about Sean Tyler as an exculpatory witness,
(09:34):
then go after Sean Tyler for the Rodney Collins murder.
He's another bird victim, so is his brother. There was
several others that were convicted in this murder, and Sean,
I think he was beaten into the vomited blood. Sean
Tyler ends up getting fifty eight years in prison and
his his post conviction motion is pending and he's claiming
he's innocence. So Marcus was a target of that investigation
(09:55):
as well, from these same officers. Marcus was eliminated as
a suspect because he was in school in Wisconsin, because
he left the state, Okay, because he was terrified alright,
as he still is. And I think if Marcus had
been in the city of Chicago for the Rodney Collins
murder gone down. Okay, So now we get to the
(10:17):
crux of this situation. Why Marcus spent twenty three years
wrongfully in cars rated the murder of Theopolis t on
February twenty seven. This is the story of the crime
that the police and State's Attorney's office used to convict Marcus.
But I believe we can all see a pattern forming
here that leans towards this being a total fabrication from
(10:38):
Burge and his flunkeys. So, okay, Allegedly, Theopolis Tigue was
driving down fifty first treet in Chicago with Cedric Farley
and Terence Tyler Sean Tyler's fucking brother by the way, okay,
and allegedly, now the maroon car in front of Theopolis
Tigus car backs up into them with enough force to
(10:59):
push them in the car backward. Then Tigue allegedly drove
to the block of South Marshfield Abue, parked his car
and got out to assess the damage, at which point,
supposedly the driver of the maroon car, allegedly Marcus Wiggins,
stepped up to Tigue and said what's up now. Tigue
(11:20):
and the others allegedly ran, while Marcus allegedly opened fire,
killing Tigue. Now, neighbors heard thirteen shots that supposedly came
from a nine millimeter semi automatic. Neither were shell casings
found or collected at the scene, by the way, nor
were bullets recovered from Tigue's body. So police maintained that
(11:42):
the shooting was gang related, despite what we already covered,
which was that Marcus was never in any gangs. Again,
the state's word here is wholly and totally unreliable. Now,
according to Cedric Barley, a statement and testimony that he
later recanted, he ran over the Tigue who allegedly told
(12:02):
him that a guy named Stutter shot him, and Stutter
was Marcus nickname. Yeah, Marcus, please clarified about calling you
Stutter and stuff like that, like where it came from.
It came from after the torture, Like about friend of
my friends and my cousin them knows when I talk,
I started, So it's the name because I knows I
(12:24):
started after the torture. So that's important, Jason, because they
put that chip in the witness's mouth. Man, that's intimate
knowledge from somebody that you know. Soo do we want?
(12:46):
The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
of Ronal Conviction with Jason Flam 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
(13:08):
young people and students. For more information on the work
of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, please
visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Last Mile dot org.
This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison,
a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
(13:30):
an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
criminal justice area. It's worth noting that a witness to
(13:52):
the alleged fender bender, remember that part of the story
reported that the car Marcus was allegedly driving was maroon
or burgundy, but we know that he never her owned
a Bruna burgundy car. You go to black car and
the mechanic bravely also reported that when Marcus brought his
black car, a get black color was black to the
shop it had no damage to the rear bumper, so
(14:14):
and the police told it. So the police knew that
that didn't match up the mechanic. That information only comes
out three years after his conviction. So it's documented that
that car was in the shop. And get this, the
police take the car out of the shop, destroy it
right away. Now here's another crazy thing about this case.
(14:35):
The victim, Theopolis Tigue, his body was discovered clothed only
in a T shirt and boxers in the dead of
Chicago winter. So during this time, in this era, when
people were robbed, they would make them undress almost right,
So that was a big detail. It was glossed over, right,
(14:56):
So it's more likely than not how the body was found,
Like you said, with the T shirt with the boxes,
that he was robbed, ben shot and killed, and it
had nothing to do with the scenario that they made
up to get their target Marcus or he was dropped
there that as well. Those are the options, but the
option of back into the car, I want to go
check the damage. I was shot and ran away. It's
(15:17):
nonsense and it's never been credible. So we now have
the car. He didn't own, the gunning never owned the
gang that he was never in because they said this
was a gang related shooting, which again would point away
from Marcus. Everyone knew he was never in a gang.
In fact, he used to be tormented by gang members
because he wasn't in the game. So ultimately Marcus has
charged with murder Atlanta Johnson. This his attorney through the
(15:40):
initial trial, and the state utilized that were it has
chosen carefully. Three witnesses, Cedric Farley, R. L. Mahan, and
Kelly Stokes to testify against Marcus, and he fully recant it.
He was interviewed by Kenneth Boudreau, who was a person
that Marcus sued unless to say Kenneth Boudreau was a
(16:02):
hands on interviewer, totally hands on. People want to make
Chicago only look like confessions are what these guys were
obtaining through torture. They were getting everything through torture. All
the witnesses in this case were the type of guys
that you want to flip and how do you flip them? Force?
It's gonna go to move, is it right? What they
(16:22):
weren't doing any investigating? So guess what else have you got?
They do? No canvas in this case what police do
when they find a body in the neighborhood, what do
they do? They go door to door to talk to people.
What independent witnesses do we have. They don't do that.
No shell casings, no door to door. You arrest a
guy three hours later, and Jason three hours after the crime.
(16:43):
In the nineties and even till today, it is standard
to do gunshot residue testing on clothing hands that the
powder is going to stay on you. They don't do
any of this because they don't want the physical evidence
to show the unreliability of their witnesses. And I mean
unreliability to me is actually a kind word in this
(17:04):
In this case, it's kind the lies, the fabrication, and
all the witnesses say when they're in the police station
they're talking about Marcus Wiggins. They were aggressively disinterested in
who actually committed this crime, which of course is just
more the issue. Of course, you know for folks like
like Marcus, you know, even like myself backed in. You
(17:28):
can't afford a freaking attorney, man like you can't even
like somebody like Justin backed in with those facts were
fucking hammer him, man. The guys found damn their neked
in the wintertime, if he was running when the top
time to take his what you investigate? Yeah, they if
they would have called the cops in this case in
front of a Chicago jury, the jury would have heard
(17:49):
that these cops were sued by this kid five years
prior and they tried to frame him in ninety four
like this, all would have come. And I hate to
slam them because they cross examine one of the witnesses.
One of the witnesses recants, but then they don't call
their own investigator. But they get out of the witness
that the witness recanted. A thirteen year old this guy
or o Mayhan, who was named as the killer by
(18:11):
one of our witnesses, presently recants. You know. He actually says,
Marcus doesn't do it, I mean, you know, and then
he and then he gets back and he recants on
his recantation. All three of them later recanted their testimony, right.
Two of them, Farley and Stokes, signed Afford David's admitting
that their testimonies were false. That's very brave, right, considering
(18:34):
what they had been through. When you say, well, what
happened the third witness, I'm glad you asked the third
witness was fatally shot in the mouth on the day
that he planned to sign a similar document. That's got
to give everybody the fucking chills. I mean, he was
shot in the mouth on the day he was going
to sign a similar and what a coincidence, Jesus Christ.
(18:55):
That's he recanted to three different people he were cannon
on the witness stand in the trial. He were canned
to Marcus Is, a Pellet attorney, and then he were
canned to another woman, Tracy Ross, who gave a sworn
affidavit as well. So Rl Mayhan he recanted three separate
times before he was killed. And if that wasn't enough,
(19:15):
people are probably pulling their hair outs in the homeless
into this or in their car. Melinda Chambers also reported
what she knew what the case and assigned affidavit that
she was sitting on her porch. Wintigue, a member of
the black Stones Tigue was the victim, came up to
her and said that he saw a murder by other
black Stone members and that they were going to come
after him and kill him. So this is powerful, right,
(19:39):
because those witnesses were never called to the stand either,
and we don't know if that's because of threats from
detectives or more torture or just ineffective assistance. But that's
certainly since Marcus was never a member of the Black Stones,
you know, or any of these gangs, that certainly would
have also been exculpatory. So there were all these different
witnesses who could have refuted the state's phony narrative, the
(20:03):
whole thing about the bumper. There were the witnesses that
could have placed you at your girlfriend's house, multiple witnesses.
Why why did your attorney not call them? And did
you have the conversations with your attorney about it at
that time? Man oh Man, I had. I had a
conversation with them, but she was an impression day. She
(20:25):
didn't need to call witness because our am mayhem and
change his statement and there was gonna be the winning tickets,
you know, listen and yeah, and I mean and it's
the same thing that I went through where where it
is where a lawyer court appointed, Oh this is a
(20:45):
slam nunck. You don't have to worry about that. I've
never heard of a patient saying, look that's okay, you
gave me half the antibiotics, you can keep the rest.
I think this half of probably work. It doesn't make
any sense, right, doctors take half of my appandics? How
I think that will work? Makes no sense. But you
know there was no chance. This was a show trial
because Marcus was never going to get a fair ruling
(21:06):
as long as the presiding judge was then as turn
Back because turn Back was was known at the time
as being a part of burgess go to team when
he had worked in the state's attorney's office and he
had a history of accepting confessions despite knowing that they
were coerced and given under torture. He allowed the state
(21:28):
that had to wait and then um Mark, turning on
to Johnson, couldn't do this, couldn't do that. He gat
his state a lot of league way. I think that
when I found out who done about was I stand
a chance anyway? So September nine, Marcus, I mean, you
had a lot of bad days in your life leading
up to this, But can you take us back to
(21:50):
that miserable day when you were found guilty of first
degree murder? And since the forty six years in prison,
what was that moment? Like, couln't I can't believe it.
I wouldn't know, you know, killed you and then he
gave me fourty six years. No, Chrison is it's what
like the soldiers when they leave from overseas and come
(22:13):
back home, they have post trumpet stress. I have that,
you know what I said. Because of the torture the jails,
the penitentiaries, there's not a plase tobody wanted to be
so I can constantly be on guard. Yea. They feeds themselves,
the officers. You know, they come in with a baggage
on top of everything. Yes, that's going on in out jails.
(22:35):
So it's a nightmare, you know what I'm saying. Don't
nobody want to live at night? Man? I don't. I
don't want to let a night mare no more. Two
(22:57):
thousand two, Markets filed approachate motion with detailing about the
destruction of the car, detailing that the car was in
the shop. You know, it's amazing the cars in the
shop cargus destroyed by the police, the piece of evidence
that they needed to prove their case that there was
a car accident going right. Marcus's alibis all detailed in
(23:17):
his pro say motion in two thousand two was a
very good motion. It should have had a hearing. It
was summarily denied. Again, we go back to Dennis Dernbeck,
the guy who presides over his trial, the guy who
has this intimate relationship with these cops, is the guy
that hears the post conviction motion. And then for years
Marcus went really without a lawyer, and again he battled,
(23:37):
and Northwestern got involved because they saw Marcus's case and
they ended up doing a documentary. Jane Riley took over
his case and God bless her, God bless her, but
she passed away, and so Marcus gets stuck in limbo.
He submits an application to the Torture Commission and they
tell him we don't condone the fact that your witnesses
(23:57):
were tortured, but you weren't to true. Yeah, so it
was outside of yes, right, you weren't tortured in this case.
You were tortured in any other case the case, but
we can't help you, right. So then you know, I
got involved when I saw the documentary, and of course
I knew Jared is licensed in Illinois, and we kind
(24:18):
of formed like Voltron, and you know, and literally, let
me just tell you something. Very few cases that I have,
Jared knows this. I've got cases were men are getting
ready to be exonerated four or five years. The investigation
takes right, Marcus is investigator, hits the ground in August.
Motions filed in January. We've got seven half of David's
from right all the witnesses of re canon full file
(24:42):
from the prosecutor's office where you know, you see that
Fred Bunkie is the supervisor at the scene of the investigation.
This is a guy that Marcus sued personally. He's the supervisor,
he's the quarterback. He chooses what detectives are going to interview,
what this is. He chooses Kenneth Boudrow to interview Kelly Stokes.
(25:04):
And then what we learned from Marcus Wiggins is that
James O'Brien was in the police station after they arrest
Marcus Wiggins three hours after them said sticks his head
and says, go suck your thumb in the corner now,
because allegedly after he was thirteen and he had this
the trauma that he suffered when he was thirteen from
being electrocuted, caused him to suck his thumb. O'Brien walks
(25:25):
right in there and and Marcus knows O'Brien because he
was beat over the head with a flashlight by James
O'Brien and he tells him, we're gonna stick your ass
with this one, and you ain't beaten this one, right.
The misconduct was so bad in the police station that
Cedric Farley, one of the witness, said that they were
passing around a single photo of Marcus. They showed him
(25:49):
a single photo of Marcus, and they're talking about the
lawsuit in the police station. But it gets warre. I
mean again, the first witness to mention Marcus name is
Terence Tyler. And we go back to the Tyler named
Terence is Sean Tyler's brother. Terrence is recovering right now
from a stroke. But he recanted to two separate people.
(26:11):
He recanted his statement and he said, I know Marcus
is innocent, that he didn't commit this crime. I mean,
this is unbelievable too, because Marcus has a code defendant
in this case. This code offended goes bench, he goes
bench trial. Let me just explain it. You have a
right in America to a jury trial. Right. Would you
want one person judging you or would you want twelve
(26:33):
people judging you? Right? You want twelve? You definitely don't
want to judge if you're a defendant, the code offended
in Marcus's case, goes bench and gets acquitted. Wow, that's crazy, Okay,
And he's still so scared to talk because of retaliation.
(26:53):
Every witness that's Ricannon, Kelly Stokes recanon fearful retaliation, Cedric
Farley recanned fearful retaliation. Lavell Adams, who was the co defendant,
refuses to talk because he said his lawyer said, don't
speak because the Chicago Police Department will come after you. Yeah,
we're talking about folks impoverished areas, no protection, no protection,
(27:17):
there's no I'm just gonna get up and moved. That's
not an option, Jason. Where with the money yet? You
know it's not an option. Just hostage in their own place.
And where's wit SEC for the civilians in Chicago? Right?
Where's with this protection against the police. In case anyone
thought we were exaggerating any part of the torture as
a practice of the Chicago Police Department and not insignificant
(27:41):
number of police officers in the Chicago p D who
were doing this systematically. There was an investigation which resulted
in Burge himself going to prison for three years, which
don't even get me started three years for framing and
torturing hundreds of people while he collected pension collective their
(28:04):
tax dollars are paying for the ship. So there were
actual convictions that this was all supported and all found,
you know, And it's hard to prove these things. It's
always hard to get any sort of justice when it's
a person in blue that's committed almost thirty years later. Yeah,
and I want to I want to be real clear
about this because this was a thirty year conspiracy, because
it starts at one right, But Marcus is testified in
(28:25):
other cases incredibly where he's identified these officers because being
around these men for so long he was able to
identify them, and courts have found him credible. I mean,
this is something that is firmly established. And it's unfortunate
that Marcus had the languish in prison for twenty three
years and come home from the jails back until Sady,
(28:53):
where everybody want to play politics, nobody want to step
up and do the right thing, which is what you
was put in these position for anyway, is to do
the right thing. Yeah. And I think State's Attorney Kimpbox
is the kind of person that will do the right thing.
You know, we had her on Righteous Convictions just a
(29:15):
few months ago. We asked her about your case, and
although she couldn't comment on the ongoing proceedings, she expressed
her hopes for getting to the truth and righting the
wrongs of the past. I believe we've laid out plainly
here today the only thing that justice could or even
should be in here and now, with your leave application granted,
(29:36):
the ball is in her court. If the Cook County
State's Attorney's office is not willing right now to say
Marcus Wiggins is actually innocent like me and Justin and
and and forget me and Justine, just look at the evidence, says.
If they aren't willing to do that, then then Jason,
what's wrong we're being able to admit that this man
(29:58):
didn't receive a fair trial. Well, don't ask me, because
obviously nothing but Marcus. October thirty, you walked out of prison.
You were paroled, You should have been exonerated, You will
be exonerated. October three, you walked out of prison. What
was that like? Okay, it's like a feeling that I
(30:20):
can't describe, but I was so happened. I was I
was humble, I was peaceful. It was just still so
good man to actually have the feet hit the hit
on the payments and walk around and just feel it,
feeling freedom, feel it weird, feeling space. It was amazing. Uh.
(30:44):
And you, I know, we know you passed your driving tests.
Obviously you had to get a cell phone computer. I
know I know you have love FaceTime because we've spoken
on FaceTime a bunch of times. All this new stuff
that happened while you were locked up, right, how is
it getting used to it, starting to feel comfortable with
some of this new technology and stuff. Yeah, well, I'm
(31:04):
still I'm still learn how to work my phone, my laptop.
I'm still to learn that too. That's a lot of
new stuff Go Google going on out here. I'm trying
to and we're going to put links in the bio
to learn more about Marcus's case to be able to
support him. And now we turn to the part of
(31:25):
our show, which I call closing arguments. First of all,
I thank each of you for being here, and then
turn off my mic, kick back in my chair and
just sit and listen and learn from whatever you want
to share. Anything we might have left out or anything
you want to say at all about anything. I don't
care if you want to talk about the weather. So
let's do this. Alphabetical order is good for me and
(31:49):
also saves Marcus for the closing of the closing arguments.
So you're bad and clean up, Marcus. Um, let's go
to Jarrett first, and Justin and then Marcus. Look, justice
requires us to stop waiting for things to become a
hashtag before we stand up and do something. You know,
as we think about the one year anniversary of us
(32:11):
watching George Floyd loses his life, you know, we as
a society have to say to ourselves We've come a
long way, but there's so much work to do, and
I want to I want to close my comments by
saying this. There is power in people's voices. You know.
People become jurors, people become judges, people are voters. People
(32:33):
can make a difference. And I want people to think
about this when they are faced with things that challenge
them doing the right thing and speaking up. If your
life was to be depicted in the book where the
only reader would be someone that means the world to you,
would they read that book and walk away impressed right
(32:57):
now about you ending up for what's right, calling out
things that are wrong. If you can't answer that question definitively,
there's more work to do, Jason. I can't answer that
question definitively, So I get up and our work every day,
and so I'm just calling on folks to not allow
(33:19):
the norms and the depictions and narratives of folks to
ever stop their moral compass from doing the right thing.
I want to thank you, my friend, for having me
on the show. Justin Marcus is an honor and a
pleasure and a privilege to know you, to represent you
and your mom a real g I'm gonna get her
name on a T shirt real soon so people know
who she she is, because she is the one who
(33:41):
should get the credit for for giving birth to you
more than once. She gave birth to you to get here,
and she also loved you out of that situation, and
she's still fighting. Justin will tell you you, okay, she will.
She She put you in, put you in your place
if you say something wrong. Okay. So I thank you,
guys man again for his opportunity. And it's always a
(34:01):
pleasure to be around you. Are I appreciate justin Uh, definitely.
Carolin Johnson is strong woman. UM has spoken her many,
many many times. UM. So, would you want somebody that
you sued to investigate you for a homicide successfully suit?
(34:22):
I mean, I think that's like, I think this is
a common sense case just to get the man a
new trial. We don't even need to get to the witnesses.
We could just stop it. Would you want somebody that
you soothed to be the person that investigated you for
a homicide? The answer is no, Okay. I mean, and
these guys really really disliked Marcus. Not only does he
(34:46):
sue them, but he also basically internally gets them in trouble,
blows the lid off of bird. This is like the
keystone case that sets everything in motion. This is like
the clearest case I've ever seen a retaliation. And that's
before we get of the witnesses. All right, Every witness
in this case is recandid. There's no evidence that Marcus
(35:06):
was in a gang. There's no evidence that there was
a car accident, there's no evidence that there were showcases
at the scene, there's no evidence that backs up anything.
This trial literally like happened in a vacuum right where
everything was literally stripped away in this trial, so you
don't hear the truth. It is just clearly a depiction
(35:27):
that only the state's attorney and the police department wanted
the jury to hear. And then Marcus had no defense.
How can anyone have a fair trial when something like
that goes on. And then when you come back and
witnesses are a little bit more willing to talk about
what actually happens, because it takes time for people to
(35:48):
come It takes time, and you know, I'm not the
same as I was when I was a teenager. There
are things when I was a teenager that I probably
would have lied about if I had gotten put into
a certain situation. So it took time for this body
of evidence to come forward and these witnesses to come
out and tell you what happened in that precinct. These
(36:09):
cops were obsessed with Marcus Wiggins. And we'll name them
James O'Brien scumbag, Okay, Kenneth Boudreau scumbag, and Fred Bunky scumbag.
They were all under the umbrella of John Birch. These
are the ones that focused on Marcus, and every single
witness that testified in this case said the same thing,
(36:33):
which is I was either beaten, I was threatened, and
this is why I did what I did. And it's
believable because it's happened. How I mean at this point
that we don't have two, three, four, or five, six, seven,
eight hands we got I don't know, there's so many
hands that you'd have to have to count the fingers
that this has happened. It's just it's unbelievable. And Marcus
case is clear. There was no case against Marcus. This
(36:54):
is a complete, utter fabrication, and it's the clearest case
I've ever seen of retaliation in my life. All Right, Marcus,
saving the best for last over to you. Well, well,
we know, we know, and we see what's going on
all around the country, files dealing with the police, how
(37:14):
they fabricate they police reports. And then all of a sudden,
our video comes out, obviously from what they found in
the report. So we know what's going around and see,
we know what's going on these officers, especially in the
city of Chicago, where I feel like I'm up against
a giant, and you don't nobody want to do the
(37:35):
right thing because their friends did their careers. They were
about more conventions, more of this and study doing the
right thing. It frustrates me so much. It's just it's
just frustrating to be so much. But I don't know
a brighter note. Y'all have been a blessing to me man,
since I've been out. Man, y'all truly been a blessing
(37:56):
all y'all, you know, it's all three of y'all. You know,
I want to continue to strive with what I'm doing,
and I feel like I'm in debt to help the
next person. I feel like I'm in debt to y'all
to help the next person to be on the same page.
That's all along when y'all come out, help people and
(38:16):
fight the power that be Man, and y'all definitely been
a blessed man. I've definitely appreciate y'all from the bottom
of my heart. Man, And I'm just hoping I hope
to kill Fox do the right thing. See how full
anledgely what's going on in our community, full Mother's going
on with our birth and the Men Night crew. I'll
(38:38):
just hope everybody to do the right game. Thank you
for listening. To Run for Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
support your local innocence projects and go to the link
in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn
(39:00):
and Kevin Warns. The music on the show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Vietnam and Korean War veteran John Burge joined Chicago p
D in nineteen seventy, a detective in nineteen seventy two,
and eventually Detective commander of Area two and later Area three.
During his career, heinous acts of brutality and torture were
carried out by him or at his direction, fixing cases
with coerced confessions and false witness statements alike. He and
(00:24):
his brethren were known as the Midnight Crew before his
termination in disgrace in nineteen nine and his eventual federal
prison sentence. Purge and his crew beat an electrocuted thirteen
year old Marcus Wiggins to extract the confessions of the
nineteen ninety one murder of Alfredo Hernandez. Fortunately, a courageous
witness named Sean Tyler came forward and ensured that the
(00:46):
attempted frame job failed. Marcus's mother, Caroline, sued and eventually
settled for ninety thousand dollars. However, the Midnight Crew didn't
like being exposed. In nineteen ninety four, they tried to
frame Marcus again along with Sean Tyler, for the murder
of Rodney Collins, but Marcus was at school in Wisconsin,
so his alibi was rock solid. Sean Tyler was not
(01:09):
as lucky, and he's currently serving fifty eight years. Then
on February Theopolis Tigue was found undressed and shot. I
won't bore you with a completely made up story about
a fender bender from witnesses who have since recanted, one
of whom was shot in the mouth the morning he
was set to deliver an affidavit. Marcus Wiggins was paroled
(01:32):
after twenty three years in prison and has not yet
been exonerated. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome
(01:53):
back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. That's me, of course,
I'm your host, and today we're gonna be telling the
story with Marcus Wiggins of Marcus Wiggins. Marcus was framed
three times by the same cops that let me just
roll that back again, three times by the same cops.
He was physically tortured in a way that you know
(02:13):
you would see and locked up abroad in some third
world country, but it happened right in Chicago with us. Today,
we have his legal team and that consists of Justin Bonus,
who is Marcus's pro bono appellate counsel and said, justin,
welcome to wrongful convictions. And then a guy with his
own amazing story, but we're gonna tell it in a
(02:34):
different episode. But today we have Jared Adams. Jared was
wrongfully convicted himself since almost three decades in prison and
basically became a lawyer in prison, got himself out past
the bar, worked at the Innocent Project for a couple
of years as an attorney, is now in private practice.
I'm super happy to have you on here this time
as an attorney representing an innocent man. Appreciate the opporton
(02:57):
great to have you here. And of course Marcus Way
agains as I always say, I'm happy you're here, but
i'm sorry you're here because of the reason why you're here.
But anyway, welcome to wrongful conviction. I appreciate man. So
let's get right into it because this story, it's a
Chicago story, and of course Chicago has a miserable history
(03:18):
of law enforcement having tortured hundreds of black men, specifically
black men in a literal torture chamber. It was an
offsite warehouse, and I know it sounds insane, but it's
all true. It's all been documented, and hundreds of innocent
men went to jail, but also cops went to jail
as a result of their horrendous illital activities and their
(03:40):
disgusting practice of torturing confessions and false witness statements out
of people. And of course that group of cops was
known as the infamous Midnight Crew of Chicago Police. Detective
Commander John Burge. Now Laura and I writer and Steve
Drizzon covered them on our show Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
So to hear more about them, you can find that
right on our feet here. But today we're here to
(04:03):
talk about Marcus Cases specifically. So Marcus, take us back
to before all of this happened. What was your life
like growing up? You know, at school, I want to
be a firefighter. I'll seek a service agent. You know,
just being a kid, come home from school and do
my homework, delicate cartoons, you know, just a normal kid life,
(04:27):
a normal kid life. But this nightmare began when you
were just thirteen years old. So Marcus gets picked up
in one for homicide along with several other people, and
he's beaten with a flashlight over the head, electrocuted, taking
in the precinct, tortured some more along with other people.
And and and from my understanding is is that people
(04:47):
actually heard screams in the police station. And all the
while that this was going on, there was a witness
that could exonerate Marcus. That did exonerate Marcus, a guy
by the name of Sean Tyler. And the police were
so on the Sean Tyler that a judge issued a
protective order for Sean Tyler that the police were not
(05:08):
allowed to talk to Sean Tyler. And this case went
on for about four or five years before the case
was dismissed. In Marcus's mother filed the civil rights complaint
alleging the torture by John Burge and Fred Bunky was
a sergeant, Kenneth Boudreau, James O'Brien, These were all officers
(05:28):
that were involved with Marcus's alleged statement that they took
after they beat him until he gave the statement, I'm
just sucked that a person, as a citizen of his
country was elected shock something that this guy learned. I
think I read somewhere at Vienna Yea and came over
here and used that tactics. And it's not an outrage. Yeah,
(05:55):
that's that's like man blowing to me, like like the
State's Attorney's office, every body that who was involved didn't
say enough is enough, man, we can't allow this to
happen to our citizens. I mean, I imagine with what
you went through, you would have confessed to killing Abraham Lincoln.
Am I right? Man? You know, people going to the
type of torture, you know what I'm saying, anything just
(06:18):
to get the mother that pressure and that pain that
you're going through, especially at thirteen years old, I mean thirteen.
And then the thing the thing about it too. You know,
when you think about Birge Jason, you don't get decorated
in Korean Wars and Vietnam Wars if you don't get trauma.
You understand what I'm saying. So this is the guy
(06:38):
who was given such power. And it may have been
broken with Marcus case, but the pd S office had
notes between each other for years before Marcus, and they
were all saying, hey, these guys, it's like they're reading
off a template. You know. It's like all of their
confessions aren't signed and written the same, you know, and
(07:01):
it's like, you know, Marcus said, somebody should have stepped
up and said stop, let's not move forward until we
find out if all one hundred and fifty of these
black men who signed confessions, and I'm just throwing out
a number, but you could just scratch out a name
and you could put Marcus or anyone else's confession, Sean
(07:21):
Tyler and all of them, and you would see the
same hallmarks. There's no way judges weren't tipped that something
was wrong with that. Right, every confession was the same,
and every one of the victims which basically described the
same treatment. That lawsuit that Marcus mom Um spearheaded, it
really unearthed exactly how they were doing what they were doing, right,
(07:43):
Because it's one thing for people to just say, hey,
they're beating me, they kicking me. They found out in
several different other circumstances that they were doing the same
type of technics. They were smacking people with phone books
so it wouldn't leave a mark, they would twist your
general dues so no one could be seen, and in
court were bruises on him. So when Marcus went through
(08:03):
with the lawsuit, it's settled for ninety and made Marcus
a target. From that point on. This was the Alfredo
Hernandez murder, right, and ultimately they couldn't pin that on you.
Now we get to the second framing, right, which is
the murder of Rodney Collins, right, And so they do
no investigation whatsoever. Right now, which homicide didn't they do
(08:27):
any investigation on? They did no investigation on all of them.
They rely on terrible, holy, unreliable witnesses. I mean, Marcus's name,
and Rodney Collins gets thrown in there, and they list
him as a gang member in the Alfredo hernande is
the different gang member, and Rodney Collins and then I
think a different gang member in Theopolis Tigue, which we
haven't gotten to yet, which is so we did a
(08:47):
little research Marcus on you because I went back thinking, well,
why why would he be targeted by the cops in
this way in the first place? And all I could
find about your background is that you were described as sweet, caring, goodhearted,
funny like people had nothing but good things to say
about young Marcus. And I mean, were you ever in
a gang or anything like that? No, No, he knew
(09:10):
the answered that question because I researched it, and the
idea that this was really good versus evil, like literally
good versus evil, And we're talking about cops that were
well ultimately convicted of heinous acts of violence, torture, psychological abuse, electrocuting,
mock executions. Right, the same detectives that arrested and tortured
Marcus and knew about Sean Tyler as an exculpatory witness,
(09:34):
then go after Sean Tyler for the Rodney Collins murder.
He's another bird victim, so is his brother. There was
several others that were convicted in this murder, and Sean,
I think he was beaten into the vomited blood. Sean
Tyler ends up getting fifty eight years in prison and
his his post conviction motion is pending and he's claiming
he's innocence. So Marcus was a target of that investigation
(09:55):
as well, from these same officers. Marcus was eliminated as
a suspect because he was in school in Wisconsin, because
he left the state, Okay, because he was terrified alright,
as he still is. And I think if Marcus had
been in the city of Chicago for the Rodney Collins
murder gone down. Okay, So now we get to the
(10:17):
crux of this situation. Why Marcus spent twenty three years
wrongfully in cars rated the murder of Theopolis t on
February twenty seven. This is the story of the crime
that the police and State's Attorney's office used to convict Marcus.
But I believe we can all see a pattern forming
here that leans towards this being a total fabrication from
(10:38):
Burge and his flunkeys. So, okay, Allegedly, Theopolis Tigue was
driving down fifty first treet in Chicago with Cedric Farley
and Terence Tyler Sean Tyler's fucking brother by the way, okay,
and allegedly, now the maroon car in front of Theopolis
Tigus car backs up into them with enough force to
(10:59):
push them in the car backward. Then Tigue allegedly drove
to the block of South Marshfield Abue, parked his car
and got out to assess the damage, at which point,
supposedly the driver of the maroon car, allegedly Marcus Wiggins,
stepped up to Tigue and said what's up now. Tigue
(11:20):
and the others allegedly ran, while Marcus allegedly opened fire,
killing Tigue. Now, neighbors heard thirteen shots that supposedly came
from a nine millimeter semi automatic. Neither were shell casings
found or collected at the scene, by the way, nor
were bullets recovered from Tigue's body. So police maintained that
(11:42):
the shooting was gang related, despite what we already covered,
which was that Marcus was never in any gangs. Again,
the state's word here is wholly and totally unreliable. Now,
according to Cedric Barley, a statement and testimony that he
later recanted, he ran over the Tigue who allegedly told
(12:02):
him that a guy named Stutter shot him, and Stutter
was Marcus nickname. Yeah, Marcus, please clarified about calling you
Stutter and stuff like that, like where it came from.
It came from after the torture, Like about friend of
my friends and my cousin them knows when I talk,
I started, So it's the name because I knows I
(12:24):
started after the torture. So that's important, Jason, because they
put that chip in the witness's mouth. Man, that's intimate
knowledge from somebody that you know. Soo do we want?
(12:46):
The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
of Ronal Conviction with Jason Flam 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
(13:08):
young people and students. For more information on the work
of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program, please
visit Pacers Foundation dot org or the Last Mile dot org.
This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison,
a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
(13:30):
an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
criminal justice area. It's worth noting that a witness to
(13:52):
the alleged fender bender, remember that part of the story
reported that the car Marcus was allegedly driving was maroon
or burgundy, but we know that he never her owned
a Bruna burgundy car. You go to black car and
the mechanic bravely also reported that when Marcus brought his
black car, a get black color was black to the
shop it had no damage to the rear bumper, so
(14:14):
and the police told it. So the police knew that
that didn't match up the mechanic. That information only comes
out three years after his conviction. So it's documented that
that car was in the shop. And get this, the
police take the car out of the shop, destroy it
right away. Now here's another crazy thing about this case.
(14:35):
The victim, Theopolis Tigue, his body was discovered clothed only
in a T shirt and boxers in the dead of
Chicago winter. So during this time, in this era, when
people were robbed, they would make them undress almost right,
So that was a big detail. It was glossed over, right,
(14:56):
So it's more likely than not how the body was found,
Like you said, with the T shirt with the boxes,
that he was robbed, ben shot and killed, and it
had nothing to do with the scenario that they made
up to get their target Marcus or he was dropped
there that as well. Those are the options, but the
option of back into the car, I want to go
check the damage. I was shot and ran away. It's
(15:17):
nonsense and it's never been credible. So we now have
the car. He didn't own, the gunning never owned the
gang that he was never in because they said this
was a gang related shooting, which again would point away
from Marcus. Everyone knew he was never in a gang.
In fact, he used to be tormented by gang members
because he wasn't in the game. So ultimately Marcus has
charged with murder Atlanta Johnson. This his attorney through the
(15:40):
initial trial, and the state utilized that were it has
chosen carefully. Three witnesses, Cedric Farley, R. L. Mahan, and
Kelly Stokes to testify against Marcus, and he fully recant it.
He was interviewed by Kenneth Boudreau, who was a person
that Marcus sued unless to say Kenneth Boudreau was a
(16:02):
hands on interviewer, totally hands on. People want to make
Chicago only look like confessions are what these guys were
obtaining through torture. They were getting everything through torture. All
the witnesses in this case were the type of guys
that you want to flip and how do you flip them? Force?
It's gonna go to move, is it right? What they
(16:22):
weren't doing any investigating? So guess what else have you got?
They do? No canvas in this case what police do
when they find a body in the neighborhood, what do
they do? They go door to door to talk to people.
What independent witnesses do we have. They don't do that.
No shell casings, no door to door. You arrest a
guy three hours later, and Jason three hours after the crime.
(16:43):
In the nineties and even till today, it is standard
to do gunshot residue testing on clothing hands that the
powder is going to stay on you. They don't do
any of this because they don't want the physical evidence
to show the unreliability of their witnesses. And I mean
unreliability to me is actually a kind word in this
(17:04):
In this case, it's kind the lies, the fabrication, and
all the witnesses say when they're in the police station
they're talking about Marcus Wiggins. They were aggressively disinterested in
who actually committed this crime, which of course is just
more the issue. Of course, you know for folks like
like Marcus, you know, even like myself backed in. You
(17:28):
can't afford a freaking attorney, man like you can't even
like somebody like Justin backed in with those facts were
fucking hammer him, man. The guys found damn their neked
in the wintertime, if he was running when the top
time to take his what you investigate? Yeah, they if
they would have called the cops in this case in
front of a Chicago jury, the jury would have heard
(17:49):
that these cops were sued by this kid five years
prior and they tried to frame him in ninety four
like this, all would have come. And I hate to
slam them because they cross examine one of the witnesses.
One of the witnesses recants, but then they don't call
their own investigator. But they get out of the witness
that the witness recanted. A thirteen year old this guy
or o Mayhan, who was named as the killer by
(18:11):
one of our witnesses, presently recants. You know. He actually says,
Marcus doesn't do it, I mean, you know, and then
he and then he gets back and he recants on
his recantation. All three of them later recanted their testimony, right.
Two of them, Farley and Stokes, signed Afford David's admitting
that their testimonies were false. That's very brave, right, considering
(18:34):
what they had been through. When you say, well, what
happened the third witness, I'm glad you asked the third
witness was fatally shot in the mouth on the day
that he planned to sign a similar document. That's got
to give everybody the fucking chills. I mean, he was
shot in the mouth on the day he was going
to sign a similar and what a coincidence, Jesus Christ.
(18:55):
That's he recanted to three different people he were cannon
on the witness stand in the trial. He were canned
to Marcus Is, a Pellet attorney, and then he were
canned to another woman, Tracy Ross, who gave a sworn
affidavit as well. So Rl Mayhan he recanted three separate
times before he was killed. And if that wasn't enough,
(19:15):
people are probably pulling their hair outs in the homeless
into this or in their car. Melinda Chambers also reported
what she knew what the case and assigned affidavit that
she was sitting on her porch. Wintigue, a member of
the black Stones Tigue was the victim, came up to
her and said that he saw a murder by other
black Stone members and that they were going to come
after him and kill him. So this is powerful, right,
(19:39):
because those witnesses were never called to the stand either,
and we don't know if that's because of threats from
detectives or more torture or just ineffective assistance. But that's
certainly since Marcus was never a member of the Black Stones,
you know, or any of these gangs, that certainly would
have also been exculpatory. So there were all these different
witnesses who could have refuted the state's phony narrative, the
(20:03):
whole thing about the bumper. There were the witnesses that
could have placed you at your girlfriend's house, multiple witnesses.
Why why did your attorney not call them? And did
you have the conversations with your attorney about it at
that time? Man oh Man, I had. I had a
conversation with them, but she was an impression day. She
(20:25):
didn't need to call witness because our am mayhem and
change his statement and there was gonna be the winning tickets,
you know, listen and yeah, and I mean and it's
the same thing that I went through where where it
is where a lawyer court appointed, Oh this is a
(20:45):
slam nunck. You don't have to worry about that. I've
never heard of a patient saying, look that's okay, you
gave me half the antibiotics, you can keep the rest.
I think this half of probably work. It doesn't make
any sense, right, doctors take half of my appandics? How
I think that will work? Makes no sense. But you
know there was no chance. This was a show trial
because Marcus was never going to get a fair ruling
(21:06):
as long as the presiding judge was then as turn
Back because turn Back was was known at the time
as being a part of burgess go to team when
he had worked in the state's attorney's office and he
had a history of accepting confessions despite knowing that they
were coerced and given under torture. He allowed the state
(21:28):
that had to wait and then um Mark, turning on
to Johnson, couldn't do this, couldn't do that. He gat
his state a lot of league way. I think that
when I found out who done about was I stand
a chance anyway? So September nine, Marcus, I mean, you
had a lot of bad days in your life leading
up to this, But can you take us back to
(21:50):
that miserable day when you were found guilty of first
degree murder? And since the forty six years in prison,
what was that moment? Like, couln't I can't believe it.
I wouldn't know, you know, killed you and then he
gave me fourty six years. No, Chrison is it's what
like the soldiers when they leave from overseas and come
(22:13):
back home, they have post trumpet stress. I have that,
you know what I said. Because of the torture the jails,
the penitentiaries, there's not a plase tobody wanted to be
so I can constantly be on guard. Yea. They feeds themselves,
the officers. You know, they come in with a baggage
on top of everything. Yes, that's going on in out jails.
(22:35):
So it's a nightmare, you know what I'm saying. Don't
nobody want to live at night? Man? I don't. I
don't want to let a night mare no more. Two
(22:57):
thousand two, Markets filed approachate motion with detailing about the
destruction of the car, detailing that the car was in
the shop. You know, it's amazing the cars in the
shop cargus destroyed by the police, the piece of evidence
that they needed to prove their case that there was
a car accident going right. Marcus's alibis all detailed in
(23:17):
his pro say motion in two thousand two was a
very good motion. It should have had a hearing. It
was summarily denied. Again, we go back to Dennis Dernbeck,
the guy who presides over his trial, the guy who
has this intimate relationship with these cops, is the guy
that hears the post conviction motion. And then for years
Marcus went really without a lawyer, and again he battled,
(23:37):
and Northwestern got involved because they saw Marcus's case and
they ended up doing a documentary. Jane Riley took over
his case and God bless her, God bless her, but
she passed away, and so Marcus gets stuck in limbo.
He submits an application to the Torture Commission and they
tell him we don't condone the fact that your witnesses
(23:57):
were tortured, but you weren't to true. Yeah, so it
was outside of yes, right, you weren't tortured in this case.
You were tortured in any other case the case, but
we can't help you, right. So then you know, I
got involved when I saw the documentary, and of course
I knew Jared is licensed in Illinois, and we kind
(24:18):
of formed like Voltron, and you know, and literally, let
me just tell you something. Very few cases that I have,
Jared knows this. I've got cases were men are getting
ready to be exonerated four or five years. The investigation
takes right, Marcus is investigator, hits the ground in August.
Motions filed in January. We've got seven half of David's
from right all the witnesses of re canon full file
(24:42):
from the prosecutor's office where you know, you see that
Fred Bunkie is the supervisor at the scene of the investigation.
This is a guy that Marcus sued personally. He's the supervisor,
he's the quarterback. He chooses what detectives are going to interview,
what this is. He chooses Kenneth Boudrow to interview Kelly Stokes.
(25:04):
And then what we learned from Marcus Wiggins is that
James O'Brien was in the police station after they arrest
Marcus Wiggins three hours after them said sticks his head
and says, go suck your thumb in the corner now,
because allegedly after he was thirteen and he had this
the trauma that he suffered when he was thirteen from
being electrocuted, caused him to suck his thumb. O'Brien walks
(25:25):
right in there and and Marcus knows O'Brien because he
was beat over the head with a flashlight by James
O'Brien and he tells him, we're gonna stick your ass
with this one, and you ain't beaten this one, right.
The misconduct was so bad in the police station that
Cedric Farley, one of the witness, said that they were
passing around a single photo of Marcus. They showed him
(25:49):
a single photo of Marcus, and they're talking about the
lawsuit in the police station. But it gets warre. I
mean again, the first witness to mention Marcus name is
Terence Tyler. And we go back to the Tyler named
Terence is Sean Tyler's brother. Terrence is recovering right now
from a stroke. But he recanted to two separate people.
(26:11):
He recanted his statement and he said, I know Marcus
is innocent, that he didn't commit this crime. I mean,
this is unbelievable too, because Marcus has a code defendant
in this case. This code offended goes bench, he goes
bench trial. Let me just explain it. You have a
right in America to a jury trial. Right. Would you
want one person judging you or would you want twelve
(26:33):
people judging you? Right? You want twelve? You definitely don't
want to judge if you're a defendant, the code offended
in Marcus's case, goes bench and gets acquitted. Wow, that's crazy, Okay,
And he's still so scared to talk because of retaliation.
(26:53):
Every witness that's Ricannon, Kelly Stokes recanon fearful retaliation, Cedric
Farley recanned fearful retaliation. Lavell Adams, who was the co defendant,
refuses to talk because he said his lawyer said, don't
speak because the Chicago Police Department will come after you. Yeah,
we're talking about folks impoverished areas, no protection, no protection,
(27:17):
there's no I'm just gonna get up and moved. That's
not an option, Jason. Where with the money yet? You
know it's not an option. Just hostage in their own place.
And where's wit SEC for the civilians in Chicago? Right?
Where's with this protection against the police. In case anyone
thought we were exaggerating any part of the torture as
a practice of the Chicago Police Department and not insignificant
(27:41):
number of police officers in the Chicago p D who
were doing this systematically. There was an investigation which resulted
in Burge himself going to prison for three years, which
don't even get me started three years for framing and
torturing hundreds of people while he collected pension collective their
(28:04):
tax dollars are paying for the ship. So there were
actual convictions that this was all supported and all found,
you know, And it's hard to prove these things. It's
always hard to get any sort of justice when it's
a person in blue that's committed almost thirty years later. Yeah,
and I want to I want to be real clear
about this because this was a thirty year conspiracy, because
it starts at one right, But Marcus is testified in
(28:25):
other cases incredibly where he's identified these officers because being
around these men for so long he was able to
identify them, and courts have found him credible. I mean,
this is something that is firmly established. And it's unfortunate
that Marcus had the languish in prison for twenty three
years and come home from the jails back until Sady,
(28:53):
where everybody want to play politics, nobody want to step
up and do the right thing, which is what you
was put in these position for anyway, is to do
the right thing. Yeah. And I think State's Attorney Kimpbox
is the kind of person that will do the right thing.
You know, we had her on Righteous Convictions just a
(29:15):
few months ago. We asked her about your case, and
although she couldn't comment on the ongoing proceedings, she expressed
her hopes for getting to the truth and righting the
wrongs of the past. I believe we've laid out plainly
here today the only thing that justice could or even
should be in here and now, with your leave application granted,
(29:36):
the ball is in her court. If the Cook County
State's Attorney's office is not willing right now to say
Marcus Wiggins is actually innocent like me and Justin and
and and forget me and Justine, just look at the evidence, says.
If they aren't willing to do that, then then Jason,
what's wrong we're being able to admit that this man
(29:58):
didn't receive a fair trial. Well, don't ask me, because
obviously nothing but Marcus. October thirty, you walked out of prison.
You were paroled, You should have been exonerated, You will
be exonerated. October three, you walked out of prison. What
was that like? Okay, it's like a feeling that I
(30:20):
can't describe, but I was so happened. I was I
was humble, I was peaceful. It was just still so
good man to actually have the feet hit the hit
on the payments and walk around and just feel it,
feeling freedom, feel it weird, feeling space. It was amazing. Uh.
(30:44):
And you, I know, we know you passed your driving tests.
Obviously you had to get a cell phone computer. I
know I know you have love FaceTime because we've spoken
on FaceTime a bunch of times. All this new stuff
that happened while you were locked up, right, how is
it getting used to it, starting to feel comfortable with
some of this new technology and stuff. Yeah, well, I'm
(31:04):
still I'm still learn how to work my phone, my laptop.
I'm still to learn that too. That's a lot of
new stuff Go Google going on out here. I'm trying
to and we're going to put links in the bio
to learn more about Marcus's case to be able to
support him. And now we turn to the part of
(31:25):
our show, which I call closing arguments. First of all,
I thank each of you for being here, and then
turn off my mic, kick back in my chair and
just sit and listen and learn from whatever you want
to share. Anything we might have left out or anything
you want to say at all about anything. I don't
care if you want to talk about the weather. So
let's do this. Alphabetical order is good for me and
(31:49):
also saves Marcus for the closing of the closing arguments.
So you're bad and clean up, Marcus. Um, let's go
to Jarrett first, and Justin and then Marcus. Look, justice
requires us to stop waiting for things to become a
hashtag before we stand up and do something. You know,
as we think about the one year anniversary of us
(32:11):
watching George Floyd loses his life, you know, we as
a society have to say to ourselves We've come a
long way, but there's so much work to do, and
I want to I want to close my comments by
saying this. There is power in people's voices. You know.
People become jurors, people become judges, people are voters. People
(32:33):
can make a difference. And I want people to think
about this when they are faced with things that challenge
them doing the right thing and speaking up. If your
life was to be depicted in the book where the
only reader would be someone that means the world to you,
would they read that book and walk away impressed right
(32:57):
now about you ending up for what's right, calling out
things that are wrong. If you can't answer that question definitively,
there's more work to do, Jason. I can't answer that
question definitively, So I get up and our work every day,
and so I'm just calling on folks to not allow
(33:19):
the norms and the depictions and narratives of folks to
ever stop their moral compass from doing the right thing.
I want to thank you, my friend, for having me
on the show. Justin Marcus is an honor and a
pleasure and a privilege to know you, to represent you
and your mom a real g I'm gonna get her
name on a T shirt real soon so people know
who she she is, because she is the one who
(33:41):
should get the credit for for giving birth to you
more than once. She gave birth to you to get here,
and she also loved you out of that situation, and
she's still fighting. Justin will tell you you, okay, she will.
She She put you in, put you in your place
if you say something wrong. Okay. So I thank you,
guys man again for his opportunity. And it's always a
(34:01):
pleasure to be around you. Are I appreciate justin Uh, definitely.
Carolin Johnson is strong woman. UM has spoken her many,
many many times. UM. So, would you want somebody that
you sued to investigate you for a homicide successfully suit?
(34:22):
I mean, I think that's like, I think this is
a common sense case just to get the man a
new trial. We don't even need to get to the witnesses.
We could just stop it. Would you want somebody that
you soothed to be the person that investigated you for
a homicide? The answer is no, Okay. I mean, and
these guys really really disliked Marcus. Not only does he
(34:46):
sue them, but he also basically internally gets them in trouble,
blows the lid off of bird. This is like the
keystone case that sets everything in motion. This is like
the clearest case I've ever seen a retaliation. And that's
before we get of the witnesses. All right, Every witness
in this case is recandid. There's no evidence that Marcus
(35:06):
was in a gang. There's no evidence that there was
a car accident, there's no evidence that there were showcases
at the scene, there's no evidence that backs up anything.
This trial literally like happened in a vacuum right where
everything was literally stripped away in this trial, so you
don't hear the truth. It is just clearly a depiction
(35:27):
that only the state's attorney and the police department wanted
the jury to hear. And then Marcus had no defense.
How can anyone have a fair trial when something like
that goes on. And then when you come back and
witnesses are a little bit more willing to talk about
what actually happens, because it takes time for people to
(35:48):
come It takes time, and you know, I'm not the
same as I was when I was a teenager. There
are things when I was a teenager that I probably
would have lied about if I had gotten put into
a certain situation. So it took time for this body
of evidence to come forward and these witnesses to come
out and tell you what happened in that precinct. These
(36:09):
cops were obsessed with Marcus Wiggins. And we'll name them
James O'Brien scumbag, Okay, Kenneth Boudreau scumbag, and Fred Bunky scumbag.
They were all under the umbrella of John Birch. These
are the ones that focused on Marcus, and every single
witness that testified in this case said the same thing,
(36:33):
which is I was either beaten, I was threatened, and
this is why I did what I did. And it's
believable because it's happened. How I mean at this point
that we don't have two, three, four, or five, six, seven,
eight hands we got I don't know, there's so many
hands that you'd have to have to count the fingers
that this has happened. It's just it's unbelievable. And Marcus
case is clear. There was no case against Marcus. This
(36:54):
is a complete, utter fabrication, and it's the clearest case
I've ever seen of retaliation in my life. All Right, Marcus,
saving the best for last over to you. Well, well,
we know, we know, and we see what's going on
all around the country, files dealing with the police, how
(37:14):
they fabricate they police reports. And then all of a sudden,
our video comes out, obviously from what they found in
the report. So we know what's going around and see,
we know what's going on these officers, especially in the
city of Chicago, where I feel like I'm up against
a giant, and you don't nobody want to do the
(37:35):
right thing because their friends did their careers. They were
about more conventions, more of this and study doing the
right thing. It frustrates me so much. It's just it's
just frustrating to be so much. But I don't know
a brighter note. Y'all have been a blessing to me man,
since I've been out. Man, y'all truly been a blessing
(37:56):
all y'all, you know, it's all three of y'all. You know,
I want to continue to strive with what I'm doing,
and I feel like I'm in debt to help the
next person. I feel like I'm in debt to y'all
to help the next person to be on the same page.
That's all along when y'all come out, help people and
(38:16):
fight the power that be Man, and y'all definitely been
a blessed man. I've definitely appreciate y'all from the bottom
of my heart. Man, And I'm just hoping I hope
to kill Fox do the right thing. See how full
anledgely what's going on in our community, full Mother's going
on with our birth and the Men Night crew. I'll
(38:38):
just hope everybody to do the right game. Thank you
for listening. To Run for Conviction with Jason Flam. Please
support your local innocence projects and go to the link
in our bio to see how you can help. I'd
like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn
(39:00):
and Kevin Warns. The music on the show, as always,
is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason
Flam is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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