October 17, 2022 • 35 mins
In April 1989, a drive-by shooting in San Francisco, CA, left at least 11 people injured, and 2 people dead. Despite the lack of physical or forensic evidence, Caramad Conley was convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, two counts of first degree murder, and eleven counts of attempted murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on the strength of one man’s testimony, Clifford Polk.
Earlonne is a podcaster and author, best known for co-hosting and co-founding the podcast Ear Hustle. Woods helped create Ear Hustle while incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. In November 2018, Earlonne’s sentence was commuted by California Governor Jerry Brown. In 2020, he and his Ear Hustle co-hosts were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting.
After Caramad's exoneration, and while Earlonne was still serving his sentence at San Quentin, Caramad visited the prison and he and Earlonne met in the media center. They began talking, became friends, and remained close since Earlonne's release.
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This episode is part of a special series in our Wrongful Conviction podcast feed of 15 episodes focused on individual cases of wrongful incarceration, guest hosted by formerly incarcerated returning citizens and leading criminal justice advocates, award-winning journalists and progressive influencers.
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jason Flaman. I'm over the top excited because this
is our three hundredth episode. Listen. I wish we never
had to do any episodes at all, and I wish
that these wrongful convictions weren't even a thing. But we're
gonna keep doing them for as long as we possibly can.
Until my last breath, I'll be making these podcasts. But
this is the three one, and we are honored and
(00:22):
I'm humbled to have as a guest host for this
episode my friend and personal hero, Mr erl On Woods.
Now erl On you probably know his name because he's
the guy who created and co hosted the groundbreaking podcast
Your Hustle, which he produced while serving time in San
Quentin Prison. So thank you for your continued support. We
(00:44):
still have tons more work to do and we hope
you'll listen and get involved. Back in the car, Connelly
was living in San Francisco, California, that was doing a
crack era and police was doing everything they could to
stump out gang activity. On April eight nine, there was
(01:06):
a drive by shooting in Karraman's neighborhood. The bullets injury
Levin and killed two Charles Hughes and Rowshawn Johnson. Of
the eight people who were allegedly involved in the crime,
only one person, Paul Green, was convicted and sentenced. The
pressure was built in for police to find other perpetrators.
About a month before this crime happened, Karamad had gotten
(01:28):
into a fight with another kid from school. It landed
Karamid with an assault charge, so police created a narrative
around his fight that it started a whole series of
violent retaliations resulting in the drive by shooting. Yet police
had no evidence beyond one witness would claim he heard
Karamik bragging about his involvement. Still, Kara Mood would be
(01:48):
convicted of to murders and ten attempted murders. He was
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This is wrongful conviction. I'm Herlin Woods and I'm a
(02:14):
co host and co creative a podcast called ear Hustle,
which brings you the daily realities of life inside prison
shared by those living it. And we also do stories
from the outside, posting coarceration. And today I have the
pleasure of guest hosting Wrongful Conviction. And I'm here with
a cat named Karami Connley and Carami. I would like
(02:34):
you to introduce yourself to the people. Hello, everybody, what's up? Rline.
Glad to be here. I'm excited about talking about the story.
My name is Karama Conley. I'm from originally Oakland, California,
born and raised, raised between there in San Francisco, California. So,
Karra mod um, can you describe your life prior to
(02:58):
being arrested. I was born to a family a nine.
I have five brothers, three sisters. Our neighborhood was predominantly
African American working class families. Um. Everybody in the neighborhood
knew each other, you know, mother's, father's you know, it
was a great environment to grow up in. Cool and
and let me ask this. You know you grew up
(03:19):
in San Francisco. How was like law enforcement in your neighborhood?
You know, did you have any prior run ins with
him or any anything leading up to nah And And
that's a great question, right. And it's interesting because my
dad was in the military, so we had already kind
of been in still with that kind of country duty,
honor stuff. But my dream really was to be a
(03:42):
SWAT officer when I was young, right, back in those days,
they were considered the good guys. And I've always seen
police officers like that. Did anything derail you from becoming
a SWAT officer? Yeah? Yeah, when I became a teenager. Um,
so you have to tie in what they call the
crack era, right, the drug era that changed everything. That
(04:04):
changed our whole community, That changed our perceptions of like
the police. That changed everything. You started seeing people in
our community, in our neighborhoods, like who started kind of
indulging in the selling of it. So that's when you
started seeing like, wow, look at that. You know, he
got a new car. You know, you start seeing all
these different things you've never seen before. So that's when
(04:25):
I started understanding like there was a shift going on
in our our society and particularly in our community. You
started seeing, you know, police more at the schools. You
started those kind of interactions. So what we didn't know,
meaning like the kids in the community, teenagers, was that
the police officers started creating these narratives around our community.
(04:50):
So they started calling them turfs, right, And we definitely
believe that they were trying to take a page out
of Los Angeles politics gained politics and stuff, and that
there and if you from like this area, you were
part of this turf and then this turf and people
used always, uh try to correct these officers and journalists
(05:12):
when they used to use these turns, and people used
to be like, what are y'all talking about? Like we
ain't this ain't no turf. So the police are creating
this narrative, But did you identify with any games sunny
Dale or Bay Point or any of that, because it
wasn't that type of thing, man, Like, the only ones
that created that narrative that was trying to put us
in that was police officers. Okay, So I want to
(05:34):
move into the story a little bit. In March, you
get into a fight with a friend from school named
Jeff Franklin over some gossip going around. And then later
on that same day, in an unrelated event, there's this
other crime, a guy named Peter Lee is murdered. The
police connect these two incidents, I guess because they happened
(05:56):
on the same day or something. So tell me about
your first interaction with the police. How did they connect
these two separate things. This is where I could introduce
uh Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks because they were there too.
African American veteran homicide detectives, and uh, they were always
wearing suits and these like for Dora Brims, and uh,
(06:19):
they came to my house. They never called me to
come down there. They came to my house. And my
father was always a straight shooter, and he's like, well,
you know my son, I know, he doesn't have anything
to hid, so he didn't mind them talking to me.
They started asking me about the situation with Jeff, like,
and I said, yeah, we had an altercation and you know,
we resolved it. We made peace and everything was cool,
(06:40):
and uh, they started alluding to Peter possibly being murdered
because of the artercation I had with Jeff. Right, this
was their narrative. Like, so I was like, what are
you talking about? So it was like they were trying
to say what you did proceeded this. So they they
started asking me about all these different people and I'm like, yeah,
(07:03):
I don't I don't know who you're talking about. I
don't know this person. I don't know that person. That's
when they kind of formulated this. Uh, I don't know.
I think they were they were piste off that I
wasn't really helping them. The narrative that the police were
pushing was that this is all gang related. And then
about a month later, on April, there was a drive
(07:24):
by shooting in Bay View in your neighborhood. Eleven people
were injured and two people were killed, Charles Hughes and
Roshawn Johnson. And it's really a terrible crime. It's sad.
But how did you get wrapped up in all of this?
There was a lot of pressure on the police to
solve these crimes. You know, people in the community were
coming out and they were like fed up with this stuff,
(07:47):
and they were you know, now the police are really
just going crazy, like okay, because now they're saying that
this was retaliation for Peter Lee being killed. So now
they come back to me again. So they now they
come in with a different energy, like they're threatening me
and all this other kind of stuff. So my pops
was like, look, I'm not letting him talk to you again,
(08:09):
you know what I mean. So that was it, and uh,
but they were like, look, we're gonna we're gonna come
back and get him if he doesn't help us, you know,
get you know this, that and the other. So but
in July they came back with a warrant. So they
charged me with that assault and that at that time,
but they had me thinking they were charging me with
murders or whatever. So I'm like, this is why you
(08:31):
are arrested me. I'm like, well, that was already resolved,
but the district attorney had picked it up. And so
what I learned later was that because I had no
criminal record I had, I was not even in the system.
I said, this is a way for them to get
me in the system under paperwork, right, So you know,
they booked me, and ultimately I pleaded totally. Even then
I told them, yeah, I did it. I did that.
(08:53):
We had an issue and that's what happened, and we
resolved and I wasn't trying to hide it or nothing
like that. So that's they end up giving me three
years probation and I spent like thirty days in jail
in the county whatever. They gave me three years probation.
So meanwhile, detective Saunders and Henders with their suits in
there for door brims, they end up arresting a guy
(09:14):
named Paul Green for the drive by shooting on April eight,
and doing Paul's trial in you were called to testify. Yeah,
it wasn't around till two when Paul Green's trial started
that I get a subpoena to his court. So I
get an outside lawyer, Donald Bergerson, who would later become
(09:34):
my actual attorney, but I get him to represent me
on this subpoena because I'm like, I don't have nothing
to say to these people. So Paul Green goes on trial,
You get subpoena and hired Donald Bergerson to representation, and
then at some point you start to realize that there
was more to this, that they were going to try
to wrap you up in the same crime that April
(09:56):
eight drive by shooting that killed two people. Do you remember, member,
how you first heard about that. The rumblings started coming,
Like my lawyer started talking to me about hey, uh,
you know they're talking about this guy, like they have
some evidence against you for this, and I'm like, well,
what what that's just when Clifford Polk enters the picture.
He was he was probably four years younger than me,
(10:17):
But Clifford Polk was a guy who was really friends
with my younger brother that he was friends. We met
he was in high school. He was raised by a
single mother, so we kind of took him in as
a younger like siblings, so to speak, because that's how
my father was with the kids in the neighborhood. He
would just you know, be a father figure to a
lot of these kids. Clifford Pope, now he's a pretty
important character in the story because it's ultimately his evidence
(10:41):
that they used to convict you. What did he say
to the police to tie you into the crime? Poke
brought in another mutual friend of ours name Batis Batis Richardson.
He said that Batis loaned me a weapon, and then
when Batiste went to retrieve the weapon back from me,
like hey, let me get that back, Cliff said that
I said to Patize, oh you don't want that man
(11:02):
that got cheap Charlie name written all over it, and
Chief Charlie that's Charles Hughes, one of the people murdered
on April eight. Cliff just made up a lot of stuff.
He just started making up stuff like I was selling
guns out of my house and he was just making
up stuff, right, And then they investigated Batist of course,
to collaborate what Cliffs said, and of course Patisse was like,
(11:23):
what you know, this is bullshit, Like this did not happen.
I don't know what this dude is talking about. So
my attorney told me, they want you to turn yourself in,
and I said, I turned myself in for what he's like,
they have a charge against you, like, they have a warrant.
And it was probably two months before they finally came
to the house while I was there and arrested me. Okay,
(11:46):
so now we're getting into the trial. The prosecution's main
argument was the testimony of Clifford Pope. There was some
back and forth between both sides as to whether Pope
was being incentivized by the police to implicate you, but
Pope said on stand that he wasn't in witness protection
and he wasn't getting anything in return for his testimony.
And this is really important and we'll get back to
(12:08):
that later on. So all this is going on, and
you actually decided to testify in your own defense, something
that you rarely see. Why don't you decide to testify?
So one of the primary reasons why I testified is
because one, I didn't do it right, and I wasn't
afraid to get up there, and I knew whatever the
(12:29):
district attorney was going to say about me like I
had already admitted to it, meaning like my prior saw
it or whatever it was like, so I knew beyond
that anything he tried to allege against me, he would
be just making it up. And I felt like I
wanted to I wanted to speak my piece, like I
wanted to be able to say no, I didn't do this,
(12:52):
And and getting up there, I mean, how did how
did you feel about to try to how did you
gauge the jury that you think they was they was listening.
I just figure if they hear this information, they're gonna
side with the truth. So the way that the d
A spun it though he painted a very effective picture,
all they see is what's on TV. And it's like
like what I once thought police are good. Uh, if
(13:16):
you weren't bad, you wouldn't be coming from out of
that holding tanking this orange like you would be coming
from out here, Like it's all those dynamics where at play,
and and going through that, going through that trial, you know,
and I'm I'm gonna speak for from personal, but going
through a trial, you don't know what's going on, you
don't know the law, you don't you have no clue
(13:36):
on whether it's up down whatever. You're just sitting there.
How long did your trial last? And when you was convicted?
How did the words guilty hit you? Okay, so my
trial lasted I would say, I wouldn't say it lasted
longer than two weeks. They tried to offer me a deal.
So my lawyer came in there and he's like, I
(13:57):
know this is the part that you know, you you
don't we want to hear about and you know, but
I have to do this, you know, like I have
to offer this, and you know, Jennin is talking about
a deal here. And I said a deal like what
they're gonna let me go? And I don't assume what like?
And he's like, whoa, no, you know. Uh. He said,
if you wanted to take thirty years, you know, uh
(14:20):
you could, I said, what thirty years? Like? So then
my lawyer went down to like fifteen years, right, and
then he went down to like ten and I said,
I'm not taking a day like I'm not I'm not
taking a day period. And I told my lawyer, I said, man,
(14:43):
they're about to find me not guilty. And we went
out there and they, you know, the foreman read the
verdict or gave it to the judge and the judge
said guilty. It was a surprise. It was a It
was kind of surreal. So I just kind of sat
(15:05):
with it, like, Okay, um, what do we do now.
This episode is sponsored by the A i G pro
Bono Program. Hey i G is a leading global insurance company,
and the A i G pro Bono Program provides free
legal services as well as other support to many nonprofit
(15:27):
organizations as well as individuals who are most in need,
and they recently announced that working to reform the criminal
justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission.
(15:48):
Once that happened, uh, you know, it was just guilty
or all these charges, right, So you also have your lawyer.
When you hear your lawyers say, your honor, you want
to put this in a record to appeal to this.
So that means you have one last chance, which is
you can go in front of the judge and then
the judge can actually just do the right thing, you know,
(16:08):
like I'm gonna Oh, I don't believe that the burden
of proof was met on the side of the prosecution,
and and that's what I was hoping for. And I
really thought that that was gonna happen. And I spoke
to the judge. You know, I told the judge, I said, listen,
all I expected was fairness and impartiality, and I haven't
gotten any of that. So I'm appealing to your fairness
and your impartiality in this matter. That's what I said
(16:29):
to him. And uh, he gave me all these life sentences,
like so what what was your what was your sentence? Um?
So I ended up with twelve life sentences to without
parole plus twenty six years? Damn hell long? I mean,
I know I might be joking, but ship, how long
would have had took you to do all that time? Well?
And then I would have had to die once, come back,
(16:50):
dieg in, come back, died ten more times, come back,
and then do twenty six years. That's what it meant
like the ship didn't make no sense to it was
surreal it did. I'm like, you could have just gave
me one life sentence and it would have helped me,
but it it essentially was a death sentence. That's basically
what it was. I used to claim on one of
(17:11):
my partners, he had two hundred and ten years to
life and ship under the three strikes law and we
just be like, man, so when you get out, okay,
so you you on your way to prison from the
county jail, and I you know, it's a trip. Man. Uh.
You know, I've always wondered about, you know, innocent people
in prison. You know, I was pretty much guilty for
(17:32):
the uh my actions, you know what I'm saying. But
I always while I was in prison, I used to
always wonder what an innocent individuals. So I gotta ask, man,
what was prison like for an innocent man? Man, Look,
I watched that movie before I ever went to prison, before,
like it was American me and I watched some other
kind of penitentiary movies, and that ship was just like
(17:52):
scary as fun. Right. So I was like, god, never,
I never never want to go to prison, right. And
this is before any of that stuff. Like it was
just that environment, that culture, right, and San Quentin being
the one place, especially back then, because when I went
to San Quentin, like the inmates were like the counsel
(18:13):
they did all the intake, you know, like it wasn't
you didn't go see a counselor they did it. They
gave you your CDC number, you know what I mean,
your picture looked like you wanted them Alcatraz Island inmates. Like,
so that's what I had. That was my experience. Like
they did a special transfer because I was now like
essentially a death penalty kind of case with them ailwops,
(18:33):
so I didn't have to wait for the prison bus
and load up. They literally got me out of there
the next day, Like I didn't get a chance to
say bye to nobody, Like as soon as I was
convicted the next day, I was on that butt on
that van on my way to Quentin. And what was
your mindset like going in with the ail wasp sentence,
(18:53):
you know, life without the possibility of parole. It didn't
I didn't. It didn't compute because it didn't make sense
to me, Like I didn't understand what that meant, Like
this is my first time going through something like this,
So I didn't understand that it meant you're gonna die
in prison, you ain't never going to the board. I
didn't understand any of that. I just assumed at some
(19:14):
point somebody gonna get me back, you know, my lawyer
or somebody gonna find something that's and and again we
had an appeal in so you you hanging on those
hopes like that your appeal and and uh so I
I just told myself immediately, I said, you know what,
I'm I'm just gonna meet this environment how it meets me.
(19:34):
Like that's what I'm about to do. I have to ask, man, like,
like what was what was like a bad day in
prison for you? Every day? There's not a prison I
went to. I'm talking about By the time I left prison,
I have been to like ten different and all maximum
security prisons because of my ail walk everywhere up north
(19:55):
to down south by the Mexican border in between, like
I've been to all of that, and I tell you
it was it was because of the type of sentence
I had. It meant that I was only going to
be around what they call the most violent kind of inmates,
the most you know, all of that stuff. And uh
and it and it lived up to every every word
(20:16):
of that. Like two years after I was in prison,
I was almost murdered in an unprovoked attack by some
white supremacists. I just just real quick what happened. Me
and a friend of mine was just like walking the
track and and uh it was like these five five guys,
they were Nazi low riders as they call them in
lars back then. And uh, they all had flat pieces
(20:37):
of steel like and two of them came at my partner,
like two of them, three of them came at me.
And uh, thank God, like divine intervention in my fighting skills,
because I did receive like some puncture wounds, Like I
got about nine puncture wounds out of it because it
was three of them. But they didn't hit no vital Uh,
they wasn't able to hit vital organs because of the
fact that I was fighting back um and the guard
(21:00):
for shooting and stuff like that. And uh, in turn,
you know that that put me in like a war
mode mind, like when your security has breached like that,
Like it's like what happened when I was on the streets,
Like my perception changed from that point. So so it's
safe to say you've seen a lot of violence in
those level for prisons every day every day. I was
(21:41):
just like you. I looked at the Court of appeals
as a way to get out. How did how did
it work out for you? And and and in post
litigation that you win your appeals denied I was denied
all the way through around two thousand one, Uh, two
other guys that I grew up with, John tennis In
and Anton Gulf JJ and Sodapop That's what their names were.
(22:05):
So around two thousand one, John's case started getting some
traction in the news. A journalist by the name of A. C.
Thompson who had worked for the Bay Guardian news at
the time. So John Tennison's brother, Bruce, always believed that
his brother was falsely convicted. He decided to I guess
(22:26):
he connected some kind of way with this journalist, told
H man, my brother is innocent and this and that,
and the police are lying. And so A. C. Thompson
decided to investigate it. He discovered that the exact same
homicide detectives Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks that had done
that to me had prior done it to John Tennison
(22:46):
and Anton Golf. In their case, there had already been
a videotape confession of the person who had already killed. Uh,
the people that John and Anton had been convicted of,
they had already had a videotape confession of the person
who did it, admitted to it. They suppressed it. When
the Bay Guardian newspaper came out with John Tennyson's face
(23:07):
on the front of it and like questioning whether this
man should be imprisoned. His brother, Bruce worked for this
like car lot. He was a car lot attended and
next to his car lot was the law firm Kecker
in Vaness. So what Bruce did was Bruce took all
those Bay Guardian newspapers out that thing and he put
(23:27):
them on their car windows. And they had happened to
have a pro bono wing in their uh, their firm.
So they investigated, and sure enough they found out that
there was a suppressed tape and that these two guys
have been framed. So at the same time in two
thousand three that they were being exonerated, I received the
(23:49):
letter out the blue from the Innocence Project. I sent
the letter to my father, and my father gathered up
all my information that they were requesting and sent it
to him. So, um, the Innocent Project, once they connected
the dots and seeing that we had the same homicide
detectives that had done all of this, they was like
they started coming to visit me. Yeah, this is a
(24:11):
crazy kind of story. The Northern California Innocent Project ends
up taking your case and they bring it to Kicker
in van Ness, hoping they would have some more information
that could help you out. They end up talking to
this lawyer, a guy named Daniel Purcell, who worked on
John and Antoine's case, and Daniel Purcell says to this day,
he said, if it wasn't for your name, you would
(24:34):
still be imprisoned. He said, the name registered. And he said, like,
where have I heard that name from? During the investigation
of John and Anton's case, they sent an investigator, they
had a motion for discovery and and I guess the
city said you can go check this storage unit in
these files and whatever, you know. And he had to
go under, like he had to go under the debris
(24:55):
and all of this stuff to pull these boxes out.
It just so happened to have new Meris boxes with
my name and all kinds of other stuff connected to it.
And Dan was like, So the first thing Dan did
was he contacted my old attorney, Donald Bergerson, and he's like, hey, Don, like,
you know who did tell him who he was what
they were doing. He said, yeah, so we have these
(25:17):
boxes and it has all these receipts and this and
this and this, and my lawyer at the Donald was
like I knew it, I fan knew it. He was like,
and then it made sense to me because back when
I was in trial, this man used to file so
many damn motions, right, and he always alleged that the
district Attorney, Alfred jian Ninny was withholding information and not
(25:39):
turning everything over so much so that we had to
have a special hearing in order to resolve it once
and for all. And that's when Giannini went on the
record and back then and was like, your honor, we
have given. I've given and furnished Mr Bergerson with everything
just to any other. So now we got all this
suppressed evidence sitting right here. So what ultimately came to
(26:00):
light from all those boxes of suppressed evidence was that
Clifford Pope not only lied when he named you, but
he was actually paid to do it. In the trial,
Clifford said that he wasn't in witness protection, but the
evidence in those boxes proved that he was. He'd been
paid a nice chunk of change to name you in
this crime. And then in two thousand five, ten years
(26:23):
after you were sent to prison, cliff free candidate's testimony,
he said that he was telling the truth now because
he could no longer live with the guilt of you
being in prison for a crime you didn't do. Do
you hold any animosity towards him? I never saw a
Cliff as anything other than like a victim. As like me,
Cliff is a young kid, you know, and he's scared
(26:46):
to depise homicide. They do the same assume the same
thing that they tried to do to me to him,
But it worked on him, and your lawyers from the
Northern California Innocent Project ended up taking this suppressed evidence
us all the way to the California Supreme Court. Yeah,
by two thousand nine, the California Supreme Court, which I
(27:07):
think this happens less than seven percent of the time
with l watch cases, but they granted me an evidentiary hearing.
So for the first time in all these years, I
was able to come back in two thousand and ten
for a week and we were able to depose the
district attorney and I think Hendricks, the Sanders partner, had
passed away in oh eight by this time, so they
(27:29):
were also able to interview and depose Earl Sanders, and uh,
basically they just was blaming each other, like Alfred Jennenny
was saying, no, they never gave us this stuff. Sanders
was saying, we gave Jenny and all this stuff. And
I'm just sitting back like whatever, y'all still fucked up,
like it ain't y'all the Hall Live period. So Judge
(27:50):
Marta J. Miller, she uh, she looked through it, and
she saw through it, and she ultimately, uh, she vacated
my conviction December fourteen. I believe it was so caramel.
As you know, I was commuted by Governor Brown. My
life sentence was commuted gone. And I know what I
felt like, I have to ask you this, how did
(28:11):
you find out that you were getting out. I was
just in the cell like they had sent me back
to prison, and I was doing what I do and
uh one of my friends came up to me and
he was like, man, you know you're going home, right.
I was like what He was like, Man, you're going home,
and he slid the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle to
me under my door and it had my article right
(28:33):
there on the front page. Judge vacates conviction, right. So
I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh ship. So
then you really start feeling like getting me out of
here right now. You know what am I doing here?
Like you think you free now right? Trust, I know
that feeling about Let me out now. But the d
A can hold you in there to see if the
city wants to retry the case. But luckily for you,
(28:55):
the d A at the time, Kamala Harris, the one
that wants you to wait and see what happens with
the city. She was leaving office to take a new
job as the California Attorney General. She was being replaced
by a new d A, George Gascone. The first major
order of business he did was dismiss my case outright,
(29:15):
like just straight up just dismissed it, and uh, and
then I would be released January twelve, January Gascon. Absolutely,
that's a good thing right there. And you you have
to explain, man, like what was that day like when
you first walked out, Like what did you do? Of
(29:36):
course I was elated to be getting out, but now
it's like fuck, like you know, I'm out of prison now,
what you know what I mean? Like I'm coming out
of a controlled environment, extremely controlled environment to just basically
be able to do what I want to do. So
it was overwhelming like it was scary. It was I
was happy about it, um, but it was it was
just like I gotta take this one day at a time.
(29:58):
But then ultimately I just to you know, it's like,
you know what, I'm gonna take this head on out here,
you know. And uh, that's what I did. I never
looked back, you know. And now that you're free, what
are you doing? Well? When I first came home, like
I was, I was, Uh, I was always like going
to different law schools, you know, and talking talking to
(30:18):
the first and second year law students. And I was
doing this like all over the state, Like I was
just going everywhere anywhere I was invited. Like I love
talking about this story because it feels like it almost
feels like it's not me I'm talking about, you know. Um,
And I kind of I kind of always say I
was already free mentally, sparitually, I was already free. They
(30:39):
just physically had my body. So I was very focused,
like prior to getting out of prison, like, I was
very focused on how I was going to live my life,
what I was gonna do. One of the main things
was to be able to get back into prison, to
be able to walk back through that visiting room as
a free person, you know, with people that I literally
grew up with in prison because I spent at that
(31:00):
point half my life in there. So that was one
of the most empowering things, was to be able to
get approved by the CDC to come back in and visit,
you know. And uh, and that's where I met you. Yep,
that's exactly what happens. I was serving life sentence and
you came in and that's how I met you. Yeah.
So from that point it was all about, Okay, I
(31:23):
know all these great stories and different people in prison,
and I always say prison is one of the most
untapped markets for creatives. So uh, in sen I ultimately
created a production company, Lifted Clouds, and uh the goal
there was to just bring a lot of guys content,
um books, you know, personal stories, you know, all of
(31:46):
this to the to the public, you know, because it's
some amazing it's some amazing people in there. Camel Connelly,
We thank you for definitely telling us your story of
being appreciated evicted in California, man, and I'm glad you
out here like the one your thing man, and and
appreciate everything you're doing. Yeah. I appreciate you all having
me on here. So Caraman, you know, I always wanted
(32:09):
to be a lawyer. So now we're coming to what's
called closing arguments. Do you have any final thoughts, any epiphanies,
what would you like to share with the wrongful conviction listeners?
You know, I would just say that, uh, you know,
it's like there's this there's this this kind of myth
(32:31):
where people say, you know, everybody in prison say always
say they're innocent, right, everybody says they're innocent when they're
in prison. Um, And that's a myth, honestly, Like there
are gods. Most of the guys that I was in
prison with, they said they did the crime. They just
didn't believe they should have got the time that they got.
Like I said, essentially, a life without parole sentence is
(32:52):
the death sence. But imagine if they would have gave
me the death penalty and I would have actually died
on death row, you know, and then you see all
of it. Yeah, So that's that's the scary part about
all of this. We think our systems are perfect and
and they're not. They're not. They need to be absolutely
reformed from the inside out and I'm gonna tell you
so much might come as a surprise. I'm not anti
(33:15):
law enforcement by no me, you know. So, so do
you still want to be a SWAT member? I am
a SWAT member, just in a different way. Also, it's
and one thing I can't say I did this whole story, man,
is uh, you got the best thing because your name
is what got you back into the game. So no doubt. Man.
(33:37):
I thank my father and my mom for that because
growing up it was hell having that name because nobody
can pronounce it right, you know. Shout out to my
mom and pops, you know, for that. Thank you for
listening to Role for Conviction. I'm your guest host Erlin Woods.
(33:58):
I like to thank our executive producer Jason Flam and
Kevin Waters. The senior producer for this episode is Jackie
Pauli and our producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburn.
Our editor is Rook Sandra Guidi. The music in this
production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Rath.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
(34:21):
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on
all three platforms. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook at Arline Woods, and check out ear Hustle,
the podcast I co created with Nichil Poor wherever you
get your podcasts. We also wrote a book called This
(34:44):
is ear Hustle, Unflinching stories of everyday prison life. Wrongful
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one. On next week's guest
(35:05):
hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, my friend and personally hero
Egs Honerie and musician Jimmy Dennis is going to interview
Chester Home in the third about their harrowing, tragic shared
experiences of having been locked up in Philadelphia for crimes
they didn't commit. Now, both men were put away by
the notorious, infamous and even I'm gonna say, evil prosecutor
(35:30):
Roger King, who get this. He put more people on
death row than anyone else in Pennsylvania history. And we
know a bunch of them were innocent. And there's a
lot of guys will never know about who we put
on death row who are innocent as well. It's it's sickening,
but it's a must here story. It's gonna be on Monday.
(35:50):
In the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed
I'm Jason Flaman. I'm over the top excited because this
is our three hundredth episode. Listen. I wish we never
had to do any episodes at all, and I wish
that these wrongful convictions weren't even a thing. But we're
gonna keep doing them for as long as we possibly can.
Until my last breath, I'll be making these podcasts. But
this is the three one, and we are honored and
(00:22):
I'm humbled to have as a guest host for this
episode my friend and personal hero, Mr erl On Woods.
Now erl On you probably know his name because he's
the guy who created and co hosted the groundbreaking podcast
Your Hustle, which he produced while serving time in San
Quentin Prison. So thank you for your continued support. We
(00:44):
still have tons more work to do and we hope
you'll listen and get involved. Back in the car, Connelly
was living in San Francisco, California, that was doing a
crack era and police was doing everything they could to
stump out gang activity. On April eight nine, there was
(01:06):
a drive by shooting in Karraman's neighborhood. The bullets injury
Levin and killed two Charles Hughes and Rowshawn Johnson. Of
the eight people who were allegedly involved in the crime,
only one person, Paul Green, was convicted and sentenced. The
pressure was built in for police to find other perpetrators.
About a month before this crime happened, Karamad had gotten
(01:28):
into a fight with another kid from school. It landed
Karamid with an assault charge, so police created a narrative
around his fight that it started a whole series of
violent retaliations resulting in the drive by shooting. Yet police
had no evidence beyond one witness would claim he heard
Karamik bragging about his involvement. Still, Kara Mood would be
(01:48):
convicted of to murders and ten attempted murders. He was
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
This is wrongful conviction. I'm Herlin Woods and I'm a
(02:14):
co host and co creative a podcast called ear Hustle,
which brings you the daily realities of life inside prison
shared by those living it. And we also do stories
from the outside, posting coarceration. And today I have the
pleasure of guest hosting Wrongful Conviction. And I'm here with
a cat named Karami Connley and Carami. I would like
(02:34):
you to introduce yourself to the people. Hello, everybody, what's up? Rline.
Glad to be here. I'm excited about talking about the story.
My name is Karama Conley. I'm from originally Oakland, California,
born and raised, raised between there in San Francisco, California. So,
Karra mod um, can you describe your life prior to
(02:58):
being arrested. I was born to a family a nine.
I have five brothers, three sisters. Our neighborhood was predominantly
African American working class families. Um. Everybody in the neighborhood
knew each other, you know, mother's, father's you know, it
was a great environment to grow up in. Cool and
and let me ask this. You know you grew up
(03:19):
in San Francisco. How was like law enforcement in your neighborhood?
You know, did you have any prior run ins with
him or any anything leading up to nah And And
that's a great question, right. And it's interesting because my
dad was in the military, so we had already kind
of been in still with that kind of country duty,
honor stuff. But my dream really was to be a
(03:42):
SWAT officer when I was young, right, back in those days,
they were considered the good guys. And I've always seen
police officers like that. Did anything derail you from becoming
a SWAT officer? Yeah? Yeah, when I became a teenager. Um,
so you have to tie in what they call the
crack era, right, the drug era that changed everything. That
(04:04):
changed our whole community, That changed our perceptions of like
the police. That changed everything. You started seeing people in
our community, in our neighborhoods, like who started kind of
indulging in the selling of it. So that's when you
started seeing like, wow, look at that. You know, he
got a new car. You know, you start seeing all
these different things you've never seen before. So that's when
(04:25):
I started understanding like there was a shift going on
in our our society and particularly in our community. You
started seeing, you know, police more at the schools. You
started those kind of interactions. So what we didn't know,
meaning like the kids in the community, teenagers, was that
the police officers started creating these narratives around our community.
(04:50):
So they started calling them turfs, right, And we definitely
believe that they were trying to take a page out
of Los Angeles politics gained politics and stuff, and that
there and if you from like this area, you were
part of this turf and then this turf and people
used always, uh try to correct these officers and journalists
(05:12):
when they used to use these turns, and people used
to be like, what are y'all talking about? Like we
ain't this ain't no turf. So the police are creating
this narrative, But did you identify with any games sunny
Dale or Bay Point or any of that, because it
wasn't that type of thing, man, Like, the only ones
that created that narrative that was trying to put us
in that was police officers. Okay, So I want to
(05:34):
move into the story a little bit. In March, you
get into a fight with a friend from school named
Jeff Franklin over some gossip going around. And then later
on that same day, in an unrelated event, there's this
other crime, a guy named Peter Lee is murdered. The
police connect these two incidents, I guess because they happened
(05:56):
on the same day or something. So tell me about
your first interaction with the police. How did they connect
these two separate things. This is where I could introduce
uh Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks because they were there too.
African American veteran homicide detectives, and uh, they were always
wearing suits and these like for Dora Brims, and uh,
(06:19):
they came to my house. They never called me to
come down there. They came to my house. And my
father was always a straight shooter, and he's like, well,
you know my son, I know, he doesn't have anything
to hid, so he didn't mind them talking to me.
They started asking me about the situation with Jeff, like,
and I said, yeah, we had an altercation and you know,
we resolved it. We made peace and everything was cool,
(06:40):
and uh, they started alluding to Peter possibly being murdered
because of the artercation I had with Jeff. Right, this
was their narrative. Like, so I was like, what are
you talking about? So it was like they were trying
to say what you did proceeded this. So they they
started asking me about all these different people and I'm like, yeah,
(07:03):
I don't I don't know who you're talking about. I
don't know this person. I don't know that person. That's
when they kind of formulated this. Uh, I don't know.
I think they were they were piste off that I
wasn't really helping them. The narrative that the police were
pushing was that this is all gang related. And then
about a month later, on April, there was a drive
(07:24):
by shooting in Bay View in your neighborhood. Eleven people
were injured and two people were killed, Charles Hughes and
Roshawn Johnson. And it's really a terrible crime. It's sad.
But how did you get wrapped up in all of this?
There was a lot of pressure on the police to
solve these crimes. You know, people in the community were
coming out and they were like fed up with this stuff,
(07:47):
and they were you know, now the police are really
just going crazy, like okay, because now they're saying that
this was retaliation for Peter Lee being killed. So now
they come back to me again. So they now they
come in with a different energy, like they're threatening me
and all this other kind of stuff. So my pops
was like, look, I'm not letting him talk to you again,
(08:09):
you know what I mean. So that was it, and uh,
but they were like, look, we're gonna we're gonna come
back and get him if he doesn't help us, you know,
get you know this, that and the other. So but
in July they came back with a warrant. So they
charged me with that assault and that at that time,
but they had me thinking they were charging me with
murders or whatever. So I'm like, this is why you
(08:31):
are arrested me. I'm like, well, that was already resolved,
but the district attorney had picked it up. And so
what I learned later was that because I had no
criminal record I had, I was not even in the system.
I said, this is a way for them to get
me in the system under paperwork, right, So you know,
they booked me, and ultimately I pleaded totally. Even then
I told them, yeah, I did it. I did that.
(08:53):
We had an issue and that's what happened, and we
resolved and I wasn't trying to hide it or nothing
like that. So that's they end up giving me three
years probation and I spent like thirty days in jail
in the county whatever. They gave me three years probation.
So meanwhile, detective Saunders and Henders with their suits in
there for door brims, they end up arresting a guy
(09:14):
named Paul Green for the drive by shooting on April eight,
and doing Paul's trial in you were called to testify. Yeah,
it wasn't around till two when Paul Green's trial started
that I get a subpoena to his court. So I
get an outside lawyer, Donald Bergerson, who would later become
(09:34):
my actual attorney, but I get him to represent me
on this subpoena because I'm like, I don't have nothing
to say to these people. So Paul Green goes on trial,
You get subpoena and hired Donald Bergerson to representation, and
then at some point you start to realize that there
was more to this, that they were going to try
to wrap you up in the same crime that April
(09:56):
eight drive by shooting that killed two people. Do you remember, member,
how you first heard about that. The rumblings started coming,
Like my lawyer started talking to me about hey, uh,
you know they're talking about this guy, like they have
some evidence against you for this, and I'm like, well,
what what that's just when Clifford Polk enters the picture.
He was he was probably four years younger than me,
(10:17):
But Clifford Polk was a guy who was really friends
with my younger brother that he was friends. We met
he was in high school. He was raised by a
single mother, so we kind of took him in as
a younger like siblings, so to speak, because that's how
my father was with the kids in the neighborhood. He
would just you know, be a father figure to a
lot of these kids. Clifford Pope, now he's a pretty
important character in the story because it's ultimately his evidence
(10:41):
that they used to convict you. What did he say
to the police to tie you into the crime? Poke
brought in another mutual friend of ours name Batis Batis Richardson.
He said that Batis loaned me a weapon, and then
when Batiste went to retrieve the weapon back from me,
like hey, let me get that back, Cliff said that
I said to Patize, oh you don't want that man
(11:02):
that got cheap Charlie name written all over it, and
Chief Charlie that's Charles Hughes, one of the people murdered
on April eight. Cliff just made up a lot of stuff.
He just started making up stuff like I was selling
guns out of my house and he was just making
up stuff, right, And then they investigated Batist of course,
to collaborate what Cliffs said, and of course Patisse was like,
(11:23):
what you know, this is bullshit, Like this did not happen.
I don't know what this dude is talking about. So
my attorney told me, they want you to turn yourself in,
and I said, I turned myself in for what he's like,
they have a charge against you, like, they have a warrant.
And it was probably two months before they finally came
to the house while I was there and arrested me. Okay,
(11:46):
so now we're getting into the trial. The prosecution's main
argument was the testimony of Clifford Pope. There was some
back and forth between both sides as to whether Pope
was being incentivized by the police to implicate you, but
Pope said on stand that he wasn't in witness protection
and he wasn't getting anything in return for his testimony.
And this is really important and we'll get back to
(12:08):
that later on. So all this is going on, and
you actually decided to testify in your own defense, something
that you rarely see. Why don't you decide to testify?
So one of the primary reasons why I testified is
because one, I didn't do it right, and I wasn't
afraid to get up there, and I knew whatever the
(12:29):
district attorney was going to say about me like I
had already admitted to it, meaning like my prior saw
it or whatever it was like, so I knew beyond
that anything he tried to allege against me, he would
be just making it up. And I felt like I
wanted to I wanted to speak my piece, like I
wanted to be able to say no, I didn't do this,
(12:52):
And and getting up there, I mean, how did how
did you feel about to try to how did you
gauge the jury that you think they was they was listening.
I just figure if they hear this information, they're gonna
side with the truth. So the way that the d
A spun it though he painted a very effective picture,
all they see is what's on TV. And it's like
like what I once thought police are good. Uh, if
(13:16):
you weren't bad, you wouldn't be coming from out of
that holding tanking this orange like you would be coming
from out here, Like it's all those dynamics where at play,
and and going through that, going through that trial, you know,
and I'm I'm gonna speak for from personal, but going
through a trial, you don't know what's going on, you
don't know the law, you don't you have no clue
(13:36):
on whether it's up down whatever. You're just sitting there.
How long did your trial last? And when you was convicted?
How did the words guilty hit you? Okay, so my
trial lasted I would say, I wouldn't say it lasted
longer than two weeks. They tried to offer me a deal.
So my lawyer came in there and he's like, I
(13:57):
know this is the part that you know, you you
don't we want to hear about and you know, but
I have to do this, you know, like I have
to offer this, and you know, Jennin is talking about
a deal here. And I said a deal like what
they're gonna let me go? And I don't assume what like?
And he's like, whoa, no, you know. Uh. He said,
if you wanted to take thirty years, you know, uh
(14:20):
you could, I said, what thirty years? Like? So then
my lawyer went down to like fifteen years, right, and
then he went down to like ten and I said,
I'm not taking a day like I'm not I'm not
taking a day period. And I told my lawyer, I said, man,
(14:43):
they're about to find me not guilty. And we went
out there and they, you know, the foreman read the
verdict or gave it to the judge and the judge
said guilty. It was a surprise. It was a It
was kind of surreal. So I just kind of sat
(15:05):
with it, like, Okay, um, what do we do now.
This episode is sponsored by the A i G pro
Bono Program. Hey i G is a leading global insurance company,
and the A i G pro Bono Program provides free
legal services as well as other support to many nonprofit
(15:27):
organizations as well as individuals who are most in need,
and they recently announced that working to reform the criminal
justice system will become a key pillar of the program's mission.
(15:48):
Once that happened, uh, you know, it was just guilty
or all these charges, right, So you also have your lawyer.
When you hear your lawyers say, your honor, you want
to put this in a record to appeal to this.
So that means you have one last chance, which is
you can go in front of the judge and then
the judge can actually just do the right thing, you know,
(16:08):
like I'm gonna Oh, I don't believe that the burden
of proof was met on the side of the prosecution,
and and that's what I was hoping for. And I
really thought that that was gonna happen. And I spoke
to the judge. You know, I told the judge, I said, listen,
all I expected was fairness and impartiality, and I haven't
gotten any of that. So I'm appealing to your fairness
and your impartiality in this matter. That's what I said
(16:29):
to him. And uh, he gave me all these life sentences,
like so what what was your what was your sentence? Um?
So I ended up with twelve life sentences to without
parole plus twenty six years? Damn hell long? I mean,
I know I might be joking, but ship, how long
would have had took you to do all that time? Well?
And then I would have had to die once, come back,
(16:50):
dieg in, come back, died ten more times, come back,
and then do twenty six years. That's what it meant
like the ship didn't make no sense to it was
surreal it did. I'm like, you could have just gave
me one life sentence and it would have helped me,
but it it essentially was a death sentence. That's basically
what it was. I used to claim on one of
(17:11):
my partners, he had two hundred and ten years to
life and ship under the three strikes law and we
just be like, man, so when you get out, okay,
so you you on your way to prison from the
county jail, and I you know, it's a trip. Man. Uh.
You know, I've always wondered about, you know, innocent people
in prison. You know, I was pretty much guilty for
(17:32):
the uh my actions, you know what I'm saying. But
I always while I was in prison, I used to
always wonder what an innocent individuals. So I gotta ask, man,
what was prison like for an innocent man? Man, Look,
I watched that movie before I ever went to prison, before,
like it was American me and I watched some other
kind of penitentiary movies, and that ship was just like
(17:52):
scary as fun. Right. So I was like, god, never,
I never never want to go to prison, right. And
this is before any of that stuff. Like it was
just that environment, that culture, right, and San Quentin being
the one place, especially back then, because when I went
to San Quentin, like the inmates were like the counsel
(18:13):
they did all the intake, you know, like it wasn't
you didn't go see a counselor they did it. They
gave you your CDC number, you know what I mean,
your picture looked like you wanted them Alcatraz Island inmates. Like,
so that's what I had. That was my experience. Like
they did a special transfer because I was now like
essentially a death penalty kind of case with them ailwops,
(18:33):
so I didn't have to wait for the prison bus
and load up. They literally got me out of there
the next day, Like I didn't get a chance to
say bye to nobody, Like as soon as I was
convicted the next day, I was on that butt on
that van on my way to Quentin. And what was
your mindset like going in with the ail wasp sentence,
(18:53):
you know, life without the possibility of parole. It didn't
I didn't. It didn't compute because it didn't make sense
to me, Like I didn't understand what that meant, Like
this is my first time going through something like this,
So I didn't understand that it meant you're gonna die
in prison, you ain't never going to the board. I
didn't understand any of that. I just assumed at some
(19:14):
point somebody gonna get me back, you know, my lawyer
or somebody gonna find something that's and and again we
had an appeal in so you you hanging on those
hopes like that your appeal and and uh so I
I just told myself immediately, I said, you know what,
I'm I'm just gonna meet this environment how it meets me.
(19:34):
Like that's what I'm about to do. I have to ask, man, like,
like what was what was like a bad day in
prison for you? Every day? There's not a prison I
went to. I'm talking about By the time I left prison,
I have been to like ten different and all maximum
security prisons because of my ail walk everywhere up north
(19:55):
to down south by the Mexican border in between, like
I've been to all of that, and I tell you
it was it was because of the type of sentence
I had. It meant that I was only going to
be around what they call the most violent kind of inmates,
the most you know, all of that stuff. And uh
and it and it lived up to every every word
(20:16):
of that. Like two years after I was in prison,
I was almost murdered in an unprovoked attack by some
white supremacists. I just just real quick what happened. Me
and a friend of mine was just like walking the
track and and uh it was like these five five guys,
they were Nazi low riders as they call them in
lars back then. And uh, they all had flat pieces
(20:37):
of steel like and two of them came at my partner,
like two of them, three of them came at me.
And uh, thank God, like divine intervention in my fighting skills,
because I did receive like some puncture wounds, Like I
got about nine puncture wounds out of it because it
was three of them. But they didn't hit no vital Uh,
they wasn't able to hit vital organs because of the
fact that I was fighting back um and the guard
(21:00):
for shooting and stuff like that. And uh, in turn,
you know that that put me in like a war
mode mind, like when your security has breached like that,
Like it's like what happened when I was on the streets,
Like my perception changed from that point. So so it's
safe to say you've seen a lot of violence in
those level for prisons every day every day. I was
(21:41):
just like you. I looked at the Court of appeals
as a way to get out. How did how did
it work out for you? And and and in post
litigation that you win your appeals denied I was denied
all the way through around two thousand one, Uh, two
other guys that I grew up with, John tennis In
and Anton Gulf JJ and Sodapop That's what their names were.
(22:05):
So around two thousand one, John's case started getting some
traction in the news. A journalist by the name of A. C.
Thompson who had worked for the Bay Guardian news at
the time. So John Tennison's brother, Bruce, always believed that
his brother was falsely convicted. He decided to I guess
(22:26):
he connected some kind of way with this journalist, told
H man, my brother is innocent and this and that,
and the police are lying. And so A. C. Thompson
decided to investigate it. He discovered that the exact same
homicide detectives Earl Sanders and Napoleon Hendricks that had done
that to me had prior done it to John Tennison
(22:46):
and Anton Golf. In their case, there had already been
a videotape confession of the person who had already killed. Uh,
the people that John and Anton had been convicted of,
they had already had a videotape confession of the person
who did it, admitted to it. They suppressed it. When
the Bay Guardian newspaper came out with John Tennyson's face
(23:07):
on the front of it and like questioning whether this
man should be imprisoned. His brother, Bruce worked for this
like car lot. He was a car lot attended and
next to his car lot was the law firm Kecker
in Vaness. So what Bruce did was Bruce took all
those Bay Guardian newspapers out that thing and he put
(23:27):
them on their car windows. And they had happened to
have a pro bono wing in their uh, their firm.
So they investigated, and sure enough they found out that
there was a suppressed tape and that these two guys
have been framed. So at the same time in two
thousand three that they were being exonerated, I received the
(23:49):
letter out the blue from the Innocence Project. I sent
the letter to my father, and my father gathered up
all my information that they were requesting and sent it
to him. So, um, the Innocent Project, once they connected
the dots and seeing that we had the same homicide
detectives that had done all of this, they was like
they started coming to visit me. Yeah, this is a
(24:11):
crazy kind of story. The Northern California Innocent Project ends
up taking your case and they bring it to Kicker
in van Ness, hoping they would have some more information
that could help you out. They end up talking to
this lawyer, a guy named Daniel Purcell, who worked on
John and Antoine's case, and Daniel Purcell says to this day,
he said, if it wasn't for your name, you would
(24:34):
still be imprisoned. He said, the name registered. And he said, like,
where have I heard that name from? During the investigation
of John and Anton's case, they sent an investigator, they
had a motion for discovery and and I guess the
city said you can go check this storage unit in
these files and whatever, you know. And he had to
go under, like he had to go under the debris
(24:55):
and all of this stuff to pull these boxes out.
It just so happened to have new Meris boxes with
my name and all kinds of other stuff connected to it.
And Dan was like, So the first thing Dan did
was he contacted my old attorney, Donald Bergerson, and he's like, hey, Don, like,
you know who did tell him who he was what
they were doing. He said, yeah, so we have these
(25:17):
boxes and it has all these receipts and this and
this and this, and my lawyer at the Donald was
like I knew it, I fan knew it. He was like,
and then it made sense to me because back when
I was in trial, this man used to file so
many damn motions, right, and he always alleged that the
district Attorney, Alfred jian Ninny was withholding information and not
(25:39):
turning everything over so much so that we had to
have a special hearing in order to resolve it once
and for all. And that's when Giannini went on the
record and back then and was like, your honor, we
have given. I've given and furnished Mr Bergerson with everything
just to any other. So now we got all this
suppressed evidence sitting right here. So what ultimately came to
(26:00):
light from all those boxes of suppressed evidence was that
Clifford Pope not only lied when he named you, but
he was actually paid to do it. In the trial,
Clifford said that he wasn't in witness protection, but the
evidence in those boxes proved that he was. He'd been
paid a nice chunk of change to name you in
this crime. And then in two thousand five, ten years
(26:23):
after you were sent to prison, cliff free candidate's testimony,
he said that he was telling the truth now because
he could no longer live with the guilt of you
being in prison for a crime you didn't do. Do
you hold any animosity towards him? I never saw a
Cliff as anything other than like a victim. As like me,
Cliff is a young kid, you know, and he's scared
(26:46):
to depise homicide. They do the same assume the same
thing that they tried to do to me to him,
But it worked on him, and your lawyers from the
Northern California Innocent Project ended up taking this suppressed evidence
us all the way to the California Supreme Court. Yeah,
by two thousand nine, the California Supreme Court, which I
(27:07):
think this happens less than seven percent of the time
with l watch cases, but they granted me an evidentiary hearing.
So for the first time in all these years, I
was able to come back in two thousand and ten
for a week and we were able to depose the
district attorney and I think Hendricks, the Sanders partner, had
passed away in oh eight by this time, so they
(27:29):
were also able to interview and depose Earl Sanders, and uh,
basically they just was blaming each other, like Alfred Jennenny
was saying, no, they never gave us this stuff. Sanders
was saying, we gave Jenny and all this stuff. And
I'm just sitting back like whatever, y'all still fucked up,
like it ain't y'all the Hall Live period. So Judge
(27:50):
Marta J. Miller, she uh, she looked through it, and
she saw through it, and she ultimately, uh, she vacated
my conviction December fourteen. I believe it was so caramel.
As you know, I was commuted by Governor Brown. My
life sentence was commuted gone. And I know what I
felt like, I have to ask you this, how did
(28:11):
you find out that you were getting out. I was
just in the cell like they had sent me back
to prison, and I was doing what I do and
uh one of my friends came up to me and
he was like, man, you know you're going home, right.
I was like what He was like, Man, you're going home,
and he slid the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle to
me under my door and it had my article right
(28:33):
there on the front page. Judge vacates conviction, right. So
I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh ship. So
then you really start feeling like getting me out of
here right now. You know what am I doing here?
Like you think you free now right? Trust, I know
that feeling about Let me out now. But the d
A can hold you in there to see if the
city wants to retry the case. But luckily for you,
(28:55):
the d A at the time, Kamala Harris, the one
that wants you to wait and see what happens with
the city. She was leaving office to take a new
job as the California Attorney General. She was being replaced
by a new d A, George Gascone. The first major
order of business he did was dismiss my case outright,
(29:15):
like just straight up just dismissed it, and uh, and
then I would be released January twelve, January Gascon. Absolutely,
that's a good thing right there. And you you have
to explain, man, like what was that day like when
you first walked out, Like what did you do? Of
(29:36):
course I was elated to be getting out, but now
it's like fuck, like you know, I'm out of prison now,
what you know what I mean? Like I'm coming out
of a controlled environment, extremely controlled environment to just basically
be able to do what I want to do. So
it was overwhelming like it was scary. It was I
was happy about it, um, but it was it was
just like I gotta take this one day at a time.
(29:58):
But then ultimately I just to you know, it's like,
you know what, I'm gonna take this head on out here,
you know. And uh, that's what I did. I never
looked back, you know. And now that you're free, what
are you doing? Well? When I first came home, like
I was, I was, Uh, I was always like going
to different law schools, you know, and talking talking to
(30:18):
the first and second year law students. And I was
doing this like all over the state, Like I was
just going everywhere anywhere I was invited. Like I love
talking about this story because it feels like it almost
feels like it's not me I'm talking about, you know. Um,
And I kind of I kind of always say I
was already free mentally, sparitually, I was already free. They
(30:39):
just physically had my body. So I was very focused,
like prior to getting out of prison, like, I was
very focused on how I was going to live my life,
what I was gonna do. One of the main things
was to be able to get back into prison, to
be able to walk back through that visiting room as
a free person, you know, with people that I literally
grew up with in prison because I spent at that
(31:00):
point half my life in there. So that was one
of the most empowering things, was to be able to
get approved by the CDC to come back in and visit,
you know. And uh, and that's where I met you. Yep,
that's exactly what happens. I was serving life sentence and
you came in and that's how I met you. Yeah.
So from that point it was all about, Okay, I
(31:23):
know all these great stories and different people in prison,
and I always say prison is one of the most
untapped markets for creatives. So uh, in sen I ultimately
created a production company, Lifted Clouds, and uh the goal
there was to just bring a lot of guys content,
um books, you know, personal stories, you know, all of
(31:46):
this to the to the public, you know, because it's
some amazing it's some amazing people in there. Camel Connelly,
We thank you for definitely telling us your story of
being appreciated evicted in California, man, and I'm glad you
out here like the one your thing man, and and
appreciate everything you're doing. Yeah. I appreciate you all having
me on here. So Caraman, you know, I always wanted
(32:09):
to be a lawyer. So now we're coming to what's
called closing arguments. Do you have any final thoughts, any epiphanies,
what would you like to share with the wrongful conviction listeners?
You know, I would just say that, uh, you know,
it's like there's this there's this this kind of myth
(32:31):
where people say, you know, everybody in prison say always
say they're innocent, right, everybody says they're innocent when they're
in prison. Um, And that's a myth, honestly, Like there
are gods. Most of the guys that I was in
prison with, they said they did the crime. They just
didn't believe they should have got the time that they got.
Like I said, essentially, a life without parole sentence is
(32:52):
the death sence. But imagine if they would have gave
me the death penalty and I would have actually died
on death row, you know, and then you see all
of it. Yeah, So that's that's the scary part about
all of this. We think our systems are perfect and
and they're not. They're not. They need to be absolutely
reformed from the inside out and I'm gonna tell you
so much might come as a surprise. I'm not anti
(33:15):
law enforcement by no me, you know. So, so do
you still want to be a SWAT member? I am
a SWAT member, just in a different way. Also, it's
and one thing I can't say I did this whole story, man,
is uh, you got the best thing because your name
is what got you back into the game. So no doubt. Man.
(33:37):
I thank my father and my mom for that because
growing up it was hell having that name because nobody
can pronounce it right, you know. Shout out to my
mom and pops, you know, for that. Thank you for
listening to Role for Conviction. I'm your guest host Erlin Woods.
(33:58):
I like to thank our executive producer Jason Flam and
Kevin Waters. The senior producer for this episode is Jackie
Pauli and our producers are Lila Robinson and Jeff Clyburn.
Our editor is Rook Sandra Guidi. The music in this
production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Rath.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
(34:21):
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good on
all three platforms. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook at Arline Woods, and check out ear Hustle,
the podcast I co created with Nichil Poor wherever you
get your podcasts. We also wrote a book called This
(34:44):
is ear Hustle, Unflinching stories of everyday prison life. Wrongful
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and
association with Signal Company Number one. On next week's guest
(35:05):
hosted episode of Wrongful Conviction, my friend and personally hero
Egs Honerie and musician Jimmy Dennis is going to interview
Chester Home in the third about their harrowing, tragic shared
experiences of having been locked up in Philadelphia for crimes
they didn't commit. Now, both men were put away by
the notorious, infamous and even I'm gonna say, evil prosecutor
(35:30):
Roger King, who get this. He put more people on
death row than anyone else in Pennsylvania history. And we
know a bunch of them were innocent. And there's a
lot of guys will never know about who we put
on death row who are innocent as well. It's it's sickening,
but it's a must here story. It's gonna be on Monday.
(35:50):
In the Wrongful Conviction podcast feed
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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