June 22, 2023 • 38 mins
On May 19, 1975, Harold Franks was confronted by two men as he left a grocery store in Cleveland, OH. The men demanded Franks’ briefcase and, when he resisted, hit him with a pipe and splashed acid in his face. One robber then started shooting – killing Franks and injuring Ann Robinson, co-owner of the store. The perpetrators then fled in a getaway car with Franks’ briefcase. Authorities soon obtained a witness statement from 12-year-old Eddie Vernon, who said that the perpetrators were 18-year-old Ricky Jackson and Ricky’s friends, brothers, 17-year-old Ronnie Bridgeman (now known as Kwame Ajamu) and 20-year-old Wiley Bridgeman. Even though Eddie recanted his statements, authorities forced him to testify. Based solely on this child’s coerced testimony, Kwame was convicted and sentenced to death. Jason talks to Kwame Ajamu and Terry Gilbert, Kwame's attorney.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/
https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/7645a58de31e642eee4d46b0027f4b21/lovely-jackson-no-password
https://www.amazon.com/Trying-Times-Terry-Gilbert/dp/1733179526
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/257-jason-flom-with-rickey-jackson/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M On May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, a money owner
salesman named Harold Frank was leaving a Cleveland, Ohio convenience
store when two men demanded his briefcase. When he resisted,
they clubbed him in the head with a pipe, threw
acid in his face, and fatally shot him twice in
the chest. The store's co owner, Anne Robinson, saw the
(00:22):
whole thing go down, and she suffered a bullet wound
before the men sped off in a green car with
four hundred twenty five dollars. Then a busload of school
children were dropped off on the corner, and one local boy,
Eddie Vernon, ragged to his friends that he had seen
the murder and knew who did it, his neighbors Ricky
Jackson and the Brithrean brothers Wileye and Ronnie. The three
(00:43):
young men were arrested and young Eddie Vernon identified them.
At each one of their trials, all three jurys found
Eddie Vernon more credible than the wounded store owner Anne Robinson.
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
(01:12):
This case is it's like a it's like a glaring
example of everything that can go wrong and that does
go wrong in our criminal legal system. But before I
get off on a tangent here, because this case makes
me so angry, I'm going to introduce our guests we
have with us today, the man himself, Kwame A Jammu,
(01:35):
formerly known as Ronnie Bridgeman. Kwame served decades in prison
for a crime he had nothing to do with, but
he's here today, standing strong. Kwame. We're very honored to
have you here on the show today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And with him, there is a man named Terry Gilbert.
Terry is a renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney
as well as a community activist, and importantly, he's a
death penalty abolitionist. And I am absolutely thrilled and honored
to have you here as well. Terry, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Thanks Jason, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Okay, So, Kwame, I'm going to start with you. You
were born Ronnie Bridgeman and grew up with your brother Wiley,
as well as your childhood friend and later co defendant,
Ricky Jackson, who's been on the show before. We'll have
his episode linked in the buyout. But anyway, I've invited
you here to give your own unique side of this story.
Let's go back to the beginning. You all grew up
(02:32):
on the same block, same street, Right.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We did it? Yeah, three holes is apart.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
In Kuyahoga County, right.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, Kyhoga County.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And people that listen to the show have heard so
many cases from Kuyahoga County because it's arguably the epicenter
of the whole wrongful conviction world, which is there's a
lot of competition for that awful distinction. But tell us
about Kyahoga County. Where is it? What's it like?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So Kuyahoga County is more affection known as Cleveland, Ohio,
and that is the city within the Jewish diction of
Cayahouga County. Cleveland, Ohio is a cess fool, if you will.
We have three different sides to it. All of those
sides are policed very heavily, as Kerry will let you
(03:17):
know in a few when you talk. But I was
born in nineteen fifty seven, so my youth in Cleveland
was through two riots, sixty seven and sixty eight riots,
all infused by the poor, the disadvantaged, redlined people, people
who had been segregated for so long. It just was
tired of being poor.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
The situation on the streets of Cleveland and the black
community were horrific in the sixties and the seventies, as
it was across the country, and assassination of Martin Luther King,
Robbie Kennedy, they're so called riots that were happening in
that context. There was a war against the black community.
(04:00):
And we had a mayor in the city of Cleveland,
the first African American mayor in the country of a
major city, named Carl Stokes, who was elected during this period.
And the police unions were not very happy about a
black mayor who was attempting to come up with some
reforms that would deal with the issues that were happening
(04:24):
at the time in the black community.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But those reforms never.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Took hold because of the resistance of the establishment, the
police union, the political climate.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The Cleveland police force was indeed a faction to deal
with it that particular time. They were beyond corrupt, and
as history will show, they're still corrupt to this day.
And so I come up in that, you know, I
come up in the apthampa that actually because I was
seventeen years old in nineteen seventy five when all of
this happened to me.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So you're still really a kid, You're a teenager, and
I'm sure where you had dreams and aspirations like every
other seventeen year old kid in the country. And I
know Ricky Jackson and your brother Wiley had already both
been through the military at this point. So what were
your plans for the future.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I tell people all the time that I wanted to
be a cop. Wow, I had big aspirations and how
do you say ideologies of how police worked, And it
was either going to be a cop or a fireman.
And in the end, in nineteen seventy five, on that
terrible day May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, and mister Harold
(05:32):
Franks entered our neighborhood there in fair Hill and Cedar
and lost both as liberty in his life. And I
became one of the suspects, and then one of the accused,
and then one who was sentencing convicted to die at
just seventeen years old. I had no understanding of how
these people who I supported as a child growing up
(05:52):
and who I wanted to emulate could do such a
thing to me.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And this particular crime. Fifty nine year old white guy
and Harold Franks, who was a money oral salesman, and
when he left the neighborhood grocery store on Fairhill Road,
he was confronted by two men demanding his briefcase. That's
two not three. When he resisted, they clubbed them in
the head with a pipe and splashed acid in his face.
One of the robbers then shot him twice in the
(06:16):
chest and fired a shot through the glass front door
of the store. Mister Franks obviously died. And fifty eight
year old Anne Robinson, who was a colder the store,
was shot once in the neck but miraculously survived, and
the two robbers fled with the briefcase. They got away
with about four hundred and twenty five dollars. It's really
sad when you think of that. So life is so cheap.
(06:37):
In this case, four lives were so cheap. The two
robbers they got into a green car parked down the
street and escaped. Now I'm gonna ask a stupid question,
QUI mean, did any of you guys have a green car?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
No, my brother did own a black and white plymous slaberine.
They did find that green car. Somebody had it and
everything in the yard all that nothing came of it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And it sounds like a very organized type of a crime,
like maybe even a professional criminal who knew that this
money order guy was going to be there through acid
in his face. What would a seventeen year old kid
who wants to be a copy doing with acid and
I mean and a gun in this case, let us
not forget this case wasn't a complicated one. They had
the green car, they had suspects. They also had Missus Robinson, right,
(07:23):
didn't Missus Robinson know you guys?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah right?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So here it is. She's just been shot and she's
the only one who actually saw the perpetrators. And we
know I would his identification is unreliable, but not when
you know the people right, right, So think about it.
So why don't you fill the audience in on how
these guys became the sole focus of these people who
(07:47):
ultimately framed them for this crime.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
In addition to the climate that existed at the time. Specifically,
what happened was a twelve year old boy named Eddie
Vernon who was on a bus coming home from school
at the time, and the shooting occurred. The bus was
in some proximity to the store down about a block away,
(08:11):
and when they got off the bus and they saw
the commotion after the shooting, they started talking and one
kid says, well, I bet you I know who did it,
and he referred to the nicknames of Ricky, Kwame and Wileye.
So that's stuck in this kid, Eddie Vernons mine at
twelve years old. Maybe he should tell the cops who
(08:35):
he thinks might have done this horror for crime.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Eddie Vernon, I've known him since he was a small kid.
My brother went to school one of his sisters, and
we knew the family. Plus he was a paperboy in
the neighborhood. Anyway, on that particular day, May nineteen, nineteen
seventy five, myself and Ricky Jackson was just down the
street at the other end of Burnt Street talking with
a guy by the name of Lynn Garrett and his girlfriend,
(09:00):
and we decided to walk around the corner to the store. Now,
mind you, the store that we decided to go to
is not the store in question of so, and the
way to the store we stopped at, unbelievably, Edwar Vernon's
house and his two sisters Darlene and Susan were sitting
on the porch upstairs, and we began to, you know,
(09:21):
shoot the shit, talking to him, and a car pulls up.
Inside the car, of course as their father, Eddie, hisself,
and a young girl by the name of Rose Brown.
So they opened the window and tell us that hey,
it's a man up there at the store shot. So
boogey boogey boogie. We wait for the girls to come
down and we all go up to the store. Sure enough,
mister Frankens laying on the ground dead. Cops was everywhere right,
(09:44):
you know, asking people who had seen this, who had
seen that? That anybody's seen it unbeknown to any of us.
Young aunt with Vernon, you know, raised his hand and
said I did I did you know, to which they
took him in immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
At this point, they were only looking for two assailants,
not three, so they took Edward down to the police
station without his parents to get a statement that was
more faithful to the crime scene. And remember, like Terry said,
Edward's pardon, this just started off as I bet you
I know who did it.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
They went and started feeding him more details of the crime,
creating a narrative to the point when they pushed him
to say, well, these are the guys that you saw
commit this murder, which we know now is impossible because
other people on the bus we interviewed to show that
there was no way Eddie could have seen this from
(10:39):
that position. So they take the kid in he's twelve
years old, They scare him, they manipulate him to sign
a statement, and about a few days later they brought
him back and they wanted him to look at a lineup,
and he's told the police, well, I don't really know who,
if they did it or not, And one of the
(11:02):
detectives got upset and started pounding his fist into a
table and threatened Eddie that if he did not sign
the document pointing to these young men, that they would
arrest his parents. Of course, none of this was known
back then.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, later on we would find out that his
mother had Ovarian Canton was dying, and so you know,
you asked yourself, who would you choose, guys in the
neighborhood or your mother, you know. So he came out
of that interrogation room, and obviously he wanted to say
what he thought was his mother from being put in
the prison for him, and so he went along with
(11:41):
the details that had been written in.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. They've now heard
what they wanted to hear, or they've forced Edward to
say what they wanted to hear, and they're now ready
to take this to the next level and go arrest
kids who I believe they knew were innocent. They had
the green car, they had suspects. Had they even wanted
(12:05):
to do just a tiny bit of actual police work,
they probably would have landed on the two guys who
actually did this.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
The whole investigation took about a week. There were other
suspects that were far more viable in terms of who
did this crime, suspects that were older, I think even
had a green car, and that had committed other similar
crimes that was not disclosed to the defense console before
(12:32):
the trial.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
There were at least six other men who had been
simultaneously picked up, arrested, and put into Cuyahoga County jail.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But they ignored these other viable avenues and took the
easy route with a coerced twelve year old boy. And
at that point they were only looking for two assailants.
So their narrative only named Ricky and Wilie, but you
Kwame were soon written into the story. After the night
that they scooped all three of you up again. This
(13:03):
was May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. The three of
you had been out that night together and Ricky was
sleeping over at your house when the cops busted his
door down, and when they didn't find Ricky, they dragged
his parents out onto the front lawn with guns to
their heads.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That's exactly what happened at my house.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I was sound asleep and I felt something hitting my foot.
I locked up, cops everywhere, guns pointed, But I didn't
think about myself, my safety and none of that, because
I knew that my mother was in the next room,
and my mother all of my life had suffered from
heart trouble, which is what she died from, a massive
heart attacked in nineteen ninety. But I just voted past
the cops and got into the room where my mother
(13:41):
was at There was more cops and guns, and I
let them have it. Man. I was saying everything to
him right, so the guy snatched me up. I'll never forget,
you know, And he said sorry, it's what you want
to do with this one, you know this one, and
he said, take him on down. We'd figured out later
they had arrested me for obstruction police this and on
the way downtown was when they realized that I was seventeen,
(14:04):
So they had to divert going to the county and
go over to juvenile. And it was only after that
they wrote me into the story.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, as the summer of seventy five was coming to
a close, You, Wiley, and Ricky were all tried separately.
He went in front of Judge John Angelata and the
chief prosecutor at that time, John T. Corrigan, had been
in office since nineteen fifty six and also presided over
the wrongful conviction of Tony Ipanovitch and god knows how
many others. But the trial prosecutor was Dominic del Baso.
(14:35):
So what did he present?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Basically, what we had is the three guys lived in
the neighborhood were young black men, no physical evidence, no
evidence other than that this twelve year old boy testified
and the jury believed him.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It's really madness when you think about they were relying
on obvious lives. I mean, the kid contradicted himself. Vernon
originally told police he was on the bus coming home
from school when he saw the attack. Then later on
he testified that he had actually gotten off the bus
already when he saw the attack. That's pretty hard to
have both of those things be true. And then there
(15:13):
was a sixteen year old neighborhood girl parents myth. She
testified that she walked into the store just before the
attack and saw two men, not boys, two men outside
the store, and she went on to say that neither
of the two men were any of you three guys.
They were not Jackson, they were not the Bridgeman brothers. Also,
several of Eddie Vernon's classmates testified that he was on
(15:35):
the bus with them when they heard the gunshots, and
that none of them were able to see the robbers.
And the defense also presented witnesses who said that you
Klaume were elsewhere at the time to crime with your
brother and another friend, were wrapping up a basketball game.
And then there was Anne Robinson back to her. So
she testified she was shot in the neck by a
(15:56):
bullet that went through the store's front door, but she
was unable to entify the robbers even though she saw them,
and even though she knew you guys well.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
She said, I know them boys backwards forwards running away
because they would come and work for me and my
husband in the store. She said, believe you me, I
wanted to get the person responsible for killing mister Franks
and shooting me in my neck. But it wasn't now,
you know, And that that says a whole lot, because
she could have been on that train, you know. Ultimately
(16:25):
her husband started paying it to the Edward Vernon thing.
But missus Robinson, the wife, heals fast to the fact
that now and kids didn't do that.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
But it was the testimony of Eddie Vernon which carried
the day. The jury obviously thought, well, why would this
kid make it up? You know, And so that was
the ticket to death row.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
So he would perfetuate this story not three but four
times because Wiley my brother, got a retrial and went
back and they sunk him again and put him in
the exact same sale death row that they had originally
put him in.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So now we go to September twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five,
fatal day. Did you hold out any hope at this
point you had seen a lot already but did you
have any did you think that they would still see
through all of this nonsense?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I gave up the ghosts. When the judge himself, he
was instructing the jury. Now listen, because Edward burning up
know how to spell certain words and can't differentiate east
from west doesn't mean he's a liar. Doesn't mean that
when he says that him and he pointed to me,
(17:35):
is guilty, you see. So in my mind, he had
already convinced that jury that I was fucking guilty, you know.
So when they came in, now I'm looked up. They
all looked down, you know. The women was holding their
little skirt tails and you know how they do. And
I say, okay, here we go, you know. Yeah, And
(17:59):
when I came back to the reality of what was
happening to me, I heard him say, until you are dead.
That's all I fucking heard, until you I did.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
This podcast is brought to you by Ohio Justice and
Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for
people to directly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system.
OJPC provides free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated
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(18:45):
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with that parole and exempting seriously mentally ill people from
(19:07):
the death penalty. To learn more about Ohio Justice and
Policy Center and how you can support its mission, visit
OHIOJPC dot org. That's Ohio JPC dot org, Ohio Justice
and Policy Center. We don't write people off.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So that morning, you know, the ride as they call it,
they came in and got me and they give me
a one nine fifty three, something that is embreedded in me.
I'll never forget. Once I actually got to death role,
it became one sale all day, every day. They stripped me,
oh man storry, calling me girl, little sweetie and all that,
(19:53):
making me bend over and spreading my butt cheeks. All
that stuff I never, you know, know nothing about. But
here's one that I'll never forget either, Jason. Before we
go to my cell. We go to the end of
the rings and I got introduced IASI saw the chair
this shot. They gonna be waiting on you, boy, she
(20:14):
gonna rade.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You good well, I mean, I mean, the idea that
your mom lost two of her babies that were kidnapped
by the police and then planned to be executed by
the state is as a type of pain that I
don't think anybody who's not experienced they could ever even
begin to imagine, and that that is just a tragedy
(20:36):
on the tragedy. But and here you were on death
row down the hall from your own brother, like you could,
were you guys able to see each other or just
hear each other or how did that even work?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
You know, everybody's hollering, screaming, So we could do that.
We passed notes and this that, but one hour out
of the twenty four hours that we weren't in the sale,
and that hour, of course you got to go take
a shot and walk them down the range and you know,
pass messages for guys. So we got, you know, that
little time to see each other in passing on the
(21:07):
rains like that as well as.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Ricky and luckily, miraculously for you, Wiley, Ricky, and all
the other guys on Ohio death throughout a critically important
nineteen seventy eight Supreme Court decision came along.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right. So, this was that famous Sondra Lockett case where
she filed against the constitutionality of how everyone was sentenced
that particular time, that if you got premeditated murder, you
got sentenced to die. Every judge across the state was
using the same application she filed, and she won, and
that released everyone that had been previously sentenced to die.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right. This case challenged what factors could be considered by
the judge of jury when weighing whether or not to
impose the death penalty, and so what they found unconstitutional
In Layman's terms, the state had the ability to list
un un limited reasons why the death penalty should be
applied in your case, but there was a very small
(22:07):
number of mitigating factors that were allowed to be presented
by the defense.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The US Supreme Court struck down the Ohio death penalty
law as they did in other jurisdictions, and then there
was a wave of new death penalty statues that came
in where there was more attention to how a jury
would consider the aggravated circumstances versus mitigating factors. So they
(22:33):
got off of death row and went into general population.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right, So each of you were re sentenced to life
sentences with the possibility for parole.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
That happened in August of seventy eight. But yeah, there
was an exception there. An exception was my brother, because
this was the time that he had went back for
the new trial.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, Your brother was granted a new trial, reconvicted and
sent back to death row, only to await the paperwork
that would see him into general population with the same
sentence as the rest of you a year or so later,
and Edward Vernon, fifteen years old at the time, had
testified for a fourth time at that new trial. But
I understand that his resolve began to waver after that,
(23:14):
as it had at the lineup before they threatened to
put his sick mother in prison.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
As time went on, he would go and try to
recanis stirring, always to the same cops, always to the
same two cops that had him hooked up in that
interrogation room in the first place.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, that was detectives. Eugene Terpe and James Farmer, and.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Of course they would pat him on his back and
soothe it over. And long came his life where he
started getting into trouble and did a prison sentence itself.
And I would imagine that's long about the time that
he stopped, you know, trying to be helpful in the
sense of, you know, telling the.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Truth, which unfortunately kept that truth hidden for far too long.
And in the meantime, you were all in general population
now and eventually eligible for parole, so you built a
solid record inside.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I was very active in sports. I can really box.
But one of the things that I did in Lucasville
more than anything, was barber But I got out of Lucasville.
I went to Lima Correction Institution in nineteen eighty four
because Lima had transitioned from being the state hospital, so
so half of the joint was still medicated. It was nothing. Therefore,
(24:25):
it was no recreation. Most of all, it was no school.
And so that's where I excelled. Had a few call hosts,
its about nine of us actually, and we took that
proposition to the administration, and the guy his name is
David Nell, demand that would become the principal of school,
and that we opened the school and I became administrative clerk.
(24:46):
And I did that until I was actually parolled from
Richland Correction Institution in two thousand and three, which is
very hard to do for somebody to come from death
row doing a life sentence and then go through the
just a mere fact that I arbitrated education in that
school to so many men, thousands of men got at
(25:09):
least at least a ged while I was running because
I wouldn't let him not get it. But now, mind you,
I had got a five year and then at ten
year continuance, so it an't like I just walked to it.
I was doing time, but I was also doing something
constructive and that was educational.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
So even though this was parole and not exoneration, tell
us about your newfound freedom in two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Oh great, The very first day was like I was floating.
To make it even sweeter, you know, months later I
would meet the greatest thing that ever happened to me,
which was my wife, Lashan Ajamul, you know, and I
married her a year after I got out of prison.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
That's beautiful. Now that you were out, you were on
a Mission to clear all of your names in free
Wiley and Ricky from prison. And Wiley had actually been
paroled the year before, but was soon sent back because
of none other than Eddie Vernon.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Wiley was at the City Mission while he was on
parole and runs into Eddie who was working there as
a I guess a security guard. They exchanged some words,
no threats or anything like that. He says, man, why
don't you do something about it, you know, go to
the authorities. And he says, ah, you know, I'm afraid
they're going to prosecute me for perjury and all this
(26:25):
stuff is Somehow that conversation got to the parole board
and they looked at it as a guy on parole
intimidating a witness from his crime. So they flopped him
and sent him back until twenty fourteen when he was
exonerated Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So Eddie Vernon held on to his guilty secret for
another eleven or twelve long years, right, and by now
he reached out to Terry for help.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I remember this talk. He said, we need to some
kind of way put more light on the subject, you know,
And he told me about this kid, twenty four year
old kid named Kyle Swinson who wrote for the Cleveland
Scene magazine. So when I met with this kid, I
came back to tell my wife like, well, damn, I've
been in jail on this cat been alive. But man, listen,
(27:15):
Kyle went into that neighborhood, and to this day, I
don't know how he retrieved the information that he did,
but he came back to me talking about things that
I'd never heard of, you know, like, for instance, the
situation with Edward and his mother, and just on and
on and on, you know. And so when about time
we circle back around to Terry. You ever see the
(27:38):
picture of the snowball coming down that hill, it just
started getting bigger. And the next thing I know, my
wife worked at a spot over here in the West Side,
and one of the ladies worked there with her went
to the same church with atwar Vernon and so she
told my wife, and my wife told me, and I
reached out to the pastor. So he did what I
guess anybody would do. Well, let me take into this
(28:01):
and I'll get back to you, you know. And so
I tell cow Man, no go, you know, So Kyle
get on him. So now this is two people calling
him and this is making him like wow. In the meantime,
edw Vernon had a nervous breakdown. He's in the hospital
and so it's fast it goes to see him.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
I remember this scene at the hospital with the pastor
and he said to Eddie, is there something that you
want to tell me?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
You're in the hospital.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
You know, obviously we hope everything works out, but is
there something on your mind? You want to get off
your chest And he then breaks down sobbing and basically
admits that he had lied in the trial and he
put three innocent men in prison. And you know, the
Innocence Project was representing Ricky Jackson. They sent over somebody
(28:53):
to get an affi David, which was the foundation for
the motion for a new trial, which then took place
in November of twenty fourteen. At the hearing before Judge mcmonagall,
Eddie took the stand and was an incredible witness. The
prosecutors tried to impeach him, cross examined him, and he
(29:15):
deflected any challenge and there was a break in the
hearing and the prosecutors came in and they said, Judge,
we concede that he should get a new trial. And
then in the same hearing they said they're dismissing the
murdered indictments.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Right, I understand that the prosecutor in twenty fourteen, Timothy McGuinty,
was not an unreasonable man.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
That was a different prosecutor than we have now. Now
we have a prosecutor doesn't believe in wrongful incarceration. He
doesn't believe that people should get compensation. But the one
that we had back in twenty fourteen saw that there
was no evidence that they were the perpetrators.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So Ricky actually called me that day that he got
exonerate the very moment my wife breaks that went bad
on her truck and it's a friend of mine and
I was changing the brakes and I'm up under the
car and my phone rang, so, you know, put it
on speaker and you have a collect call, you know.
That's what they said. It's Ricky. So, so what's going on, brother?
(30:18):
You know? And he's almost incoherent, you know, because so
he's so ecstatic, you know, And I said what he said?
I said, I'm free. It's all over, you know, you
break down and start crying. I said, what the fuck
you say?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You know?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
He said, Man, it's all over. God, damn you hear me,
you know, and uh man almost dock the damn car down.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Ricky was on a Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
We didn't want Wiley to spend even one day more
than he had to, and we were able to get
before the judge on Friday, and Wiley was exonerated. And
I'll never forget when Wiley comes out of the jail
doors into the lobby. These two guys, the moment that
they hugged was one of the most emotional and ratifying moments.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Of my life as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I'm sure that moment is etched in your mind and
your soul as well.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Without a doubt.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
And so Ricky was exonerated, then two days Wiley, and
then a month later we were able to get Kombe exonerated.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
But thinking about both my brother Wyley and Ricky Jackson
haven't spent thirty nine years. These guys had lost so
much time. When I got out of prison again parole,
I had an eleven year run. No matter how fucked
up it was, I still had an eleven year life
(31:58):
without them, And to this day I feel kind of
bad about that. You know, had I had a wife,
went through seven cars. Right, So as a man, as
a human being, as a person, I wasn't able to
make that equal. And I always feel something there, you.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Know, kind of like a survivor's guilt.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
And so even though no amount of money could ever
replace what you all lost, you were all at least
finally eligible for state compensation. You also won your civil
suits against the city and the estates of the detectives.
But then life took a dire turn again. Your brother
Wiley had lung cancer, and if that wasn't enough, another
tragedy struck.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
He had accident, had an auto accident, and it called
someone's life. He was already in bad shape, in and
out of the hospital. He actually had an oxygen tank
in the car with him prior to his death. He
would like have coughing spells and pass out. And so
I believe that that's what happened to him on the
night and questioned. He was driving his car late at night,
rode by a construction site, end up hitting two guys,
(33:01):
and rolled for another four miles before you a car
come to a stop. One of the guys that he
hit passed away. Oh God, And the very next year
he was gone.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Wow, that's so much. It's just too much, and I'm
so sorry, and our condolences of course to the family
of that construction worker as well. So I guess if
there's a silver lining to this story, it's that you
two were there for each other in prison and did
have a number of years of freedom together before his passing,
and during that time, all three of you guys, as
well as your wife, Lashawn, have been quite active in
(33:34):
a movement that is near and dear to my heart,
which is death Penalty abolition.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
My wife is a member of the OSSI, which is
Ohio Wants to Stop Executions nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight,
I think it was her brother was murdered, and so
she is also a family Victim's member. She do a
lot of advocating for the people having family members being
murdered and how the system leaves them. And I am
(33:59):
very active with their organization OSSI, as there is with
my organization, Witness to Innocence. I'm the chairman of Witness
to Innocence. All of our board, with the exception of
the two volunteers, are death Road exaneries and we have
been key in the twenty one states that have about
US still stop using capital punishment in the United States.
(34:21):
And then there's also what we're doing here to stop
the capital punishment in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Let me just read you something here from the Death
Penalty Information Center. This is a quote. In February twenty
twenty one, a special report the Innocence Epidemic found that
Kyahoga ranked second among US counties, tied with Philadelphia. We
know how bad that is. That's me talking now. But
back to the quote. For the most exonerations of death
row prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted, all of those
(34:46):
wrongful convictions involved police or prosecutorial misconduct or both. Brian
Stevenson estimates at about ten percent of people on death
throw er in a sent and of course most of
those people end up being executed. So it's fair to
say that we execute innocent people in this country one
out of every ten. Now I think it's higher. So
my question is for anyone who still believes in the
death penalty, are you okay with executing innocent people? That's
(35:08):
what I'm going to leave our audience with is I
continue to hope that Ohio soon joins the states who
have seen the wrong of having the option of capital punishment.
So that said, we're going to be linking in the
bio to the organizations that you mentioned, Ohions to Stop
Executions or Atziotse and of course Witness to Innocence. Another
thing I want to shout out for listeners is Ricky's movie.
(35:29):
This is a mind blowing piece of film. It's called
Lovely Jackson. I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.
So we're going to have that linked in the bio
as well. And one last thing, Terry, I understand you
wrote a book.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
The name of the book is Trying to Trying Times,
a lawyer's fifty years struggle fighting for.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Rights in a world of wrongs.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
It goes back to the late sixties, early seventies up
until twenty twenty one. It's really about inspir wh werening
younger activists and lawyers to take up the fight for
people's rights.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Well, I'll be linking that in the bio as well
and grabbing a copy myself. So now we've come to
my favorite part of the show. Of course, it's called
closing arguments, and this works very simply. First of all,
I'm going to thank you guys, Terry Gilbert and Kwameajamu
for being here and courageously sharing your story. So here's
how it works. I'm going to turn my microphone off
(36:27):
for closing arguments, kick back in my chair, and just
listen to anything else you guys want to share with
me and our incredible audience. Terry, let's start with you,
and then Kwame, I'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
The movement has grown against wrongful imprisonment. It's important for
people to be aware that the system is flawed, that
trials are not the end of justice, that things go wrong,
and people need to understand the nature of the criminal
system and fight for what is a better avenue to
(37:02):
achieve justice. Also, I just want to make a note
that I don't even know if kwamean was this. I mean,
this is the first public mention of it. But we
are starting a wrongful conviction clinic at Cleveland State University
Law School in the fall. The Ohio Innocence Project has
done a great job and they're located in Cincinnati, and
(37:25):
we need one in our community.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I just want to say that with Terry Gilbert, the
Innocence Project, and all of the many women who stand
in force to protect those who are down trodden and
who have been subjugated and arbitrarily and capriciously put in
prison for absolutely no reason. I am one who will
stand in every corner that the fight is going on,
(37:48):
a gang's capital punishment, wrong for incarceration and the cohots
which institute that policy. So I say to you, my brother,
thank you so much, thank you for having us today,
and I want to remind the country that we are
survivors and that just like Terry Gilbert, I will be
here tomorrow to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Mark's thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I want
to thank our production team Connor hall, Any, Chelsea, Lyla Robinson,
Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Warns. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
(38:28):
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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 also follow me on Instagram
at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
(38:49):
one
M On May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, a money owner
salesman named Harold Frank was leaving a Cleveland, Ohio convenience
store when two men demanded his briefcase. When he resisted,
they clubbed him in the head with a pipe, threw
acid in his face, and fatally shot him twice in
the chest. The store's co owner, Anne Robinson, saw the
(00:22):
whole thing go down, and she suffered a bullet wound
before the men sped off in a green car with
four hundred twenty five dollars. Then a busload of school
children were dropped off on the corner, and one local boy,
Eddie Vernon, ragged to his friends that he had seen
the murder and knew who did it, his neighbors Ricky
Jackson and the Brithrean brothers Wileye and Ronnie. The three
(00:43):
young men were arrested and young Eddie Vernon identified them.
At each one of their trials, all three jurys found
Eddie Vernon more credible than the wounded store owner Anne Robinson.
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction.
(01:12):
This case is it's like a it's like a glaring
example of everything that can go wrong and that does
go wrong in our criminal legal system. But before I
get off on a tangent here, because this case makes
me so angry, I'm going to introduce our guests we
have with us today, the man himself, Kwame A Jammu,
(01:35):
formerly known as Ronnie Bridgeman. Kwame served decades in prison
for a crime he had nothing to do with, but
he's here today, standing strong. Kwame. We're very honored to
have you here on the show today.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And with him, there is a man named Terry Gilbert.
Terry is a renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney
as well as a community activist, and importantly, he's a
death penalty abolitionist. And I am absolutely thrilled and honored
to have you here as well. Terry, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Thanks Jason, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Okay, So, Kwame, I'm going to start with you. You
were born Ronnie Bridgeman and grew up with your brother Wiley,
as well as your childhood friend and later co defendant,
Ricky Jackson, who's been on the show before. We'll have
his episode linked in the buyout. But anyway, I've invited
you here to give your own unique side of this story.
Let's go back to the beginning. You all grew up
(02:32):
on the same block, same street, Right.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We did it? Yeah, three holes is apart.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
In Kuyahoga County, right.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah, Kyhoga County.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And people that listen to the show have heard so
many cases from Kuyahoga County because it's arguably the epicenter
of the whole wrongful conviction world, which is there's a
lot of competition for that awful distinction. But tell us
about Kyahoga County. Where is it? What's it like?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
So Kuyahoga County is more affection known as Cleveland, Ohio,
and that is the city within the Jewish diction of
Cayahouga County. Cleveland, Ohio is a cess fool, if you will.
We have three different sides to it. All of those
sides are policed very heavily, as Kerry will let you
(03:17):
know in a few when you talk. But I was
born in nineteen fifty seven, so my youth in Cleveland
was through two riots, sixty seven and sixty eight riots,
all infused by the poor, the disadvantaged, redlined people, people
who had been segregated for so long. It just was
tired of being poor.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
The situation on the streets of Cleveland and the black
community were horrific in the sixties and the seventies, as
it was across the country, and assassination of Martin Luther King,
Robbie Kennedy, they're so called riots that were happening in
that context. There was a war against the black community.
(04:00):
And we had a mayor in the city of Cleveland,
the first African American mayor in the country of a
major city, named Carl Stokes, who was elected during this period.
And the police unions were not very happy about a
black mayor who was attempting to come up with some
reforms that would deal with the issues that were happening
(04:24):
at the time in the black community.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
But those reforms never.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Took hold because of the resistance of the establishment, the
police union, the political climate.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The Cleveland police force was indeed a faction to deal
with it that particular time. They were beyond corrupt, and
as history will show, they're still corrupt to this day.
And so I come up in that, you know, I
come up in the apthampa that actually because I was
seventeen years old in nineteen seventy five when all of
this happened to me.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So you're still really a kid, You're a teenager, and
I'm sure where you had dreams and aspirations like every
other seventeen year old kid in the country. And I
know Ricky Jackson and your brother Wiley had already both
been through the military at this point. So what were
your plans for the future.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I tell people all the time that I wanted to
be a cop. Wow, I had big aspirations and how
do you say ideologies of how police worked, And it
was either going to be a cop or a fireman.
And in the end, in nineteen seventy five, on that
terrible day May nineteenth, nineteen seventy five, and mister Harold
(05:32):
Franks entered our neighborhood there in fair Hill and Cedar
and lost both as liberty in his life. And I
became one of the suspects, and then one of the accused,
and then one who was sentencing convicted to die at
just seventeen years old. I had no understanding of how
these people who I supported as a child growing up
(05:52):
and who I wanted to emulate could do such a
thing to me.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
And this particular crime. Fifty nine year old white guy
and Harold Franks, who was a money oral salesman, and
when he left the neighborhood grocery store on Fairhill Road,
he was confronted by two men demanding his briefcase. That's
two not three. When he resisted, they clubbed them in
the head with a pipe and splashed acid in his face.
One of the robbers then shot him twice in the
(06:16):
chest and fired a shot through the glass front door
of the store. Mister Franks obviously died. And fifty eight
year old Anne Robinson, who was a colder the store,
was shot once in the neck but miraculously survived, and
the two robbers fled with the briefcase. They got away
with about four hundred and twenty five dollars. It's really
sad when you think of that. So life is so cheap.
(06:37):
In this case, four lives were so cheap. The two
robbers they got into a green car parked down the
street and escaped. Now I'm gonna ask a stupid question,
QUI mean, did any of you guys have a green car?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
No, my brother did own a black and white plymous slaberine.
They did find that green car. Somebody had it and
everything in the yard all that nothing came of it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And it sounds like a very organized type of a crime,
like maybe even a professional criminal who knew that this
money order guy was going to be there through acid
in his face. What would a seventeen year old kid
who wants to be a copy doing with acid and
I mean and a gun in this case, let us
not forget this case wasn't a complicated one. They had
the green car, they had suspects. They also had Missus Robinson, right,
(07:23):
didn't Missus Robinson know you guys?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah right?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So here it is. She's just been shot and she's
the only one who actually saw the perpetrators. And we
know I would his identification is unreliable, but not when
you know the people right, right, So think about it.
So why don't you fill the audience in on how
these guys became the sole focus of these people who
(07:47):
ultimately framed them for this crime.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
In addition to the climate that existed at the time. Specifically,
what happened was a twelve year old boy named Eddie
Vernon who was on a bus coming home from school
at the time, and the shooting occurred. The bus was
in some proximity to the store down about a block away,
(08:11):
and when they got off the bus and they saw
the commotion after the shooting, they started talking and one
kid says, well, I bet you I know who did it,
and he referred to the nicknames of Ricky, Kwame and Wileye.
So that's stuck in this kid, Eddie Vernons mine at
twelve years old. Maybe he should tell the cops who
(08:35):
he thinks might have done this horror for crime.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Eddie Vernon, I've known him since he was a small kid.
My brother went to school one of his sisters, and
we knew the family. Plus he was a paperboy in
the neighborhood. Anyway, on that particular day, May nineteen, nineteen
seventy five, myself and Ricky Jackson was just down the
street at the other end of Burnt Street talking with
a guy by the name of Lynn Garrett and his girlfriend,
(09:00):
and we decided to walk around the corner to the store. Now,
mind you, the store that we decided to go to
is not the store in question of so, and the
way to the store we stopped at, unbelievably, Edwar Vernon's
house and his two sisters Darlene and Susan were sitting
on the porch upstairs, and we began to, you know,
(09:21):
shoot the shit, talking to him, and a car pulls up.
Inside the car, of course as their father, Eddie, hisself,
and a young girl by the name of Rose Brown.
So they opened the window and tell us that hey,
it's a man up there at the store shot. So
boogey boogey boogie. We wait for the girls to come
down and we all go up to the store. Sure enough,
mister Frankens laying on the ground dead. Cops was everywhere right,
(09:44):
you know, asking people who had seen this, who had
seen that? That anybody's seen it unbeknown to any of us.
Young aunt with Vernon, you know, raised his hand and
said I did I did you know, to which they
took him in immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
At this point, they were only looking for two assailants,
not three, so they took Edward down to the police
station without his parents to get a statement that was
more faithful to the crime scene. And remember, like Terry said,
Edward's pardon, this just started off as I bet you
I know who did it.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
They went and started feeding him more details of the crime,
creating a narrative to the point when they pushed him
to say, well, these are the guys that you saw
commit this murder, which we know now is impossible because
other people on the bus we interviewed to show that
there was no way Eddie could have seen this from
(10:39):
that position. So they take the kid in he's twelve
years old, They scare him, they manipulate him to sign
a statement, and about a few days later they brought
him back and they wanted him to look at a lineup,
and he's told the police, well, I don't really know who,
if they did it or not, And one of the
(11:02):
detectives got upset and started pounding his fist into a
table and threatened Eddie that if he did not sign
the document pointing to these young men, that they would
arrest his parents. Of course, none of this was known
back then.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, later on we would find out that his
mother had Ovarian Canton was dying, and so you know,
you asked yourself, who would you choose, guys in the
neighborhood or your mother, you know. So he came out
of that interrogation room, and obviously he wanted to say
what he thought was his mother from being put in
the prison for him, and so he went along with
(11:41):
the details that had been written in.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. They've now heard
what they wanted to hear, or they've forced Edward to
say what they wanted to hear, and they're now ready
to take this to the next level and go arrest
kids who I believe they knew were innocent. They had
the green car, they had suspects. Had they even wanted
(12:05):
to do just a tiny bit of actual police work,
they probably would have landed on the two guys who
actually did this.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
The whole investigation took about a week. There were other
suspects that were far more viable in terms of who
did this crime, suspects that were older, I think even
had a green car, and that had committed other similar
crimes that was not disclosed to the defense console before
(12:32):
the trial.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
There were at least six other men who had been
simultaneously picked up, arrested, and put into Cuyahoga County jail.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But they ignored these other viable avenues and took the
easy route with a coerced twelve year old boy. And
at that point they were only looking for two assailants.
So their narrative only named Ricky and Wilie, but you
Kwame were soon written into the story. After the night
that they scooped all three of you up again. This
(13:03):
was May twenty fifth, nineteen seventy five. The three of
you had been out that night together and Ricky was
sleeping over at your house when the cops busted his
door down, and when they didn't find Ricky, they dragged
his parents out onto the front lawn with guns to
their heads.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
That's exactly what happened at my house.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I was sound asleep and I felt something hitting my foot.
I locked up, cops everywhere, guns pointed, But I didn't
think about myself, my safety and none of that, because
I knew that my mother was in the next room,
and my mother all of my life had suffered from
heart trouble, which is what she died from, a massive
heart attacked in nineteen ninety. But I just voted past
the cops and got into the room where my mother
(13:41):
was at There was more cops and guns, and I
let them have it. Man. I was saying everything to
him right, so the guy snatched me up. I'll never forget,
you know, And he said sorry, it's what you want
to do with this one, you know this one, and
he said, take him on down. We'd figured out later
they had arrested me for obstruction police this and on
the way downtown was when they realized that I was seventeen,
(14:04):
So they had to divert going to the county and
go over to juvenile. And it was only after that
they wrote me into the story.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, as the summer of seventy five was coming to
a close, You, Wiley, and Ricky were all tried separately.
He went in front of Judge John Angelata and the
chief prosecutor at that time, John T. Corrigan, had been
in office since nineteen fifty six and also presided over
the wrongful conviction of Tony Ipanovitch and god knows how
many others. But the trial prosecutor was Dominic del Baso.
(14:35):
So what did he present?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Basically, what we had is the three guys lived in
the neighborhood were young black men, no physical evidence, no
evidence other than that this twelve year old boy testified
and the jury believed him.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It's really madness when you think about they were relying
on obvious lives. I mean, the kid contradicted himself. Vernon
originally told police he was on the bus coming home
from school when he saw the attack. Then later on
he testified that he had actually gotten off the bus
already when he saw the attack. That's pretty hard to
have both of those things be true. And then there
(15:13):
was a sixteen year old neighborhood girl parents myth. She
testified that she walked into the store just before the
attack and saw two men, not boys, two men outside
the store, and she went on to say that neither
of the two men were any of you three guys.
They were not Jackson, they were not the Bridgeman brothers. Also,
several of Eddie Vernon's classmates testified that he was on
(15:35):
the bus with them when they heard the gunshots, and
that none of them were able to see the robbers.
And the defense also presented witnesses who said that you
Klaume were elsewhere at the time to crime with your
brother and another friend, were wrapping up a basketball game.
And then there was Anne Robinson back to her. So
she testified she was shot in the neck by a
(15:56):
bullet that went through the store's front door, but she
was unable to entify the robbers even though she saw them,
and even though she knew you guys well.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
She said, I know them boys backwards forwards running away
because they would come and work for me and my
husband in the store. She said, believe you me, I
wanted to get the person responsible for killing mister Franks
and shooting me in my neck. But it wasn't now,
you know, And that that says a whole lot, because
she could have been on that train, you know. Ultimately
(16:25):
her husband started paying it to the Edward Vernon thing.
But missus Robinson, the wife, heals fast to the fact
that now and kids didn't do that.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
But it was the testimony of Eddie Vernon which carried
the day. The jury obviously thought, well, why would this
kid make it up? You know, And so that was
the ticket to death row.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
So he would perfetuate this story not three but four
times because Wiley my brother, got a retrial and went
back and they sunk him again and put him in
the exact same sale death row that they had originally
put him in.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So now we go to September twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five,
fatal day. Did you hold out any hope at this
point you had seen a lot already but did you
have any did you think that they would still see
through all of this nonsense?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I gave up the ghosts. When the judge himself, he
was instructing the jury. Now listen, because Edward burning up
know how to spell certain words and can't differentiate east
from west doesn't mean he's a liar. Doesn't mean that
when he says that him and he pointed to me,
(17:35):
is guilty, you see. So in my mind, he had
already convinced that jury that I was fucking guilty, you know.
So when they came in, now I'm looked up. They
all looked down, you know. The women was holding their
little skirt tails and you know how they do. And
I say, okay, here we go, you know. Yeah, And
(17:59):
when I came back to the reality of what was
happening to me, I heard him say, until you are dead.
That's all I fucking heard, until you I did.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
This podcast is brought to you by Ohio Justice and
Policy Center, a nonprofit law firm that seeks justice for
people to directly impact it by Ohio's criminal legal system.
OJPC provides free legal services to currently and formally incarcerated
people through its Beyond Guilt Project. OJPC works to free
over punish people who have rehabilitated themselves. Ojpc's Second Chance
(18:45):
clinics help individuals with criminal records remove barriers to employment
and house it. Ojpc's Human Rights and Prison Project represents
people who face denial of medical care. In its twenty
five year history, OJPC has worked at the policy level
and won numerous victories in Ohio, including ending juvenile life
with that parole and exempting seriously mentally ill people from
(19:07):
the death penalty. To learn more about Ohio Justice and
Policy Center and how you can support its mission, visit
OHIOJPC dot org. That's Ohio JPC dot org, Ohio Justice
and Policy Center. We don't write people off.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So that morning, you know, the ride as they call it,
they came in and got me and they give me
a one nine fifty three, something that is embreedded in me.
I'll never forget. Once I actually got to death role,
it became one sale all day, every day. They stripped me,
oh man storry, calling me girl, little sweetie and all that,
(19:53):
making me bend over and spreading my butt cheeks. All
that stuff I never, you know, know nothing about. But
here's one that I'll never forget either, Jason. Before we
go to my cell. We go to the end of
the rings and I got introduced IASI saw the chair
this shot. They gonna be waiting on you, boy, she
(20:14):
gonna rade.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You good well, I mean, I mean, the idea that
your mom lost two of her babies that were kidnapped
by the police and then planned to be executed by
the state is as a type of pain that I
don't think anybody who's not experienced they could ever even
begin to imagine, and that that is just a tragedy
(20:36):
on the tragedy. But and here you were on death
row down the hall from your own brother, like you could,
were you guys able to see each other or just
hear each other or how did that even work?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
You know, everybody's hollering, screaming, So we could do that.
We passed notes and this that, but one hour out
of the twenty four hours that we weren't in the sale,
and that hour, of course you got to go take
a shot and walk them down the range and you know,
pass messages for guys. So we got, you know, that
little time to see each other in passing on the
(21:07):
rains like that as well as.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Ricky and luckily, miraculously for you, Wiley, Ricky, and all
the other guys on Ohio death throughout a critically important
nineteen seventy eight Supreme Court decision came along.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right. So, this was that famous Sondra Lockett case where
she filed against the constitutionality of how everyone was sentenced
that particular time, that if you got premeditated murder, you
got sentenced to die. Every judge across the state was
using the same application she filed, and she won, and
that released everyone that had been previously sentenced to die.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right. This case challenged what factors could be considered by
the judge of jury when weighing whether or not to
impose the death penalty, and so what they found unconstitutional
In Layman's terms, the state had the ability to list
un un limited reasons why the death penalty should be
applied in your case, but there was a very small
(22:07):
number of mitigating factors that were allowed to be presented
by the defense.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The US Supreme Court struck down the Ohio death penalty
law as they did in other jurisdictions, and then there
was a wave of new death penalty statues that came
in where there was more attention to how a jury
would consider the aggravated circumstances versus mitigating factors. So they
(22:33):
got off of death row and went into general population.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right, So each of you were re sentenced to life
sentences with the possibility for parole.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
That happened in August of seventy eight. But yeah, there
was an exception there. An exception was my brother, because
this was the time that he had went back for
the new trial.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, Your brother was granted a new trial, reconvicted and
sent back to death row, only to await the paperwork
that would see him into general population with the same
sentence as the rest of you a year or so later,
and Edward Vernon, fifteen years old at the time, had
testified for a fourth time at that new trial. But
I understand that his resolve began to waver after that,
(23:14):
as it had at the lineup before they threatened to
put his sick mother in prison.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
As time went on, he would go and try to
recanis stirring, always to the same cops, always to the
same two cops that had him hooked up in that
interrogation room in the first place.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, that was detectives. Eugene Terpe and James Farmer, and.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Of course they would pat him on his back and
soothe it over. And long came his life where he
started getting into trouble and did a prison sentence itself.
And I would imagine that's long about the time that
he stopped, you know, trying to be helpful in the
sense of, you know, telling the.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Truth, which unfortunately kept that truth hidden for far too long.
And in the meantime, you were all in general population
now and eventually eligible for parole, so you built a
solid record inside.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I was very active in sports. I can really box.
But one of the things that I did in Lucasville
more than anything, was barber But I got out of Lucasville.
I went to Lima Correction Institution in nineteen eighty four
because Lima had transitioned from being the state hospital, so
so half of the joint was still medicated. It was nothing. Therefore,
(24:25):
it was no recreation. Most of all, it was no school.
And so that's where I excelled. Had a few call hosts,
its about nine of us actually, and we took that
proposition to the administration, and the guy his name is
David Nell, demand that would become the principal of school,
and that we opened the school and I became administrative clerk.
(24:46):
And I did that until I was actually parolled from
Richland Correction Institution in two thousand and three, which is
very hard to do for somebody to come from death
row doing a life sentence and then go through the
just a mere fact that I arbitrated education in that
school to so many men, thousands of men got at
(25:09):
least at least a ged while I was running because
I wouldn't let him not get it. But now, mind you,
I had got a five year and then at ten
year continuance, so it an't like I just walked to it.
I was doing time, but I was also doing something
constructive and that was educational.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
So even though this was parole and not exoneration, tell
us about your newfound freedom in two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Oh great, The very first day was like I was floating.
To make it even sweeter, you know, months later I
would meet the greatest thing that ever happened to me,
which was my wife, Lashan Ajamul, you know, and I
married her a year after I got out of prison.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
That's beautiful. Now that you were out, you were on
a Mission to clear all of your names in free
Wiley and Ricky from prison. And Wiley had actually been
paroled the year before, but was soon sent back because
of none other than Eddie Vernon.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Wiley was at the City Mission while he was on
parole and runs into Eddie who was working there as
a I guess a security guard. They exchanged some words,
no threats or anything like that. He says, man, why
don't you do something about it, you know, go to
the authorities. And he says, ah, you know, I'm afraid
they're going to prosecute me for perjury and all this
(26:25):
stuff is Somehow that conversation got to the parole board
and they looked at it as a guy on parole
intimidating a witness from his crime. So they flopped him
and sent him back until twenty fourteen when he was
exonerated Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So Eddie Vernon held on to his guilty secret for
another eleven or twelve long years, right, and by now
he reached out to Terry for help.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I remember this talk. He said, we need to some
kind of way put more light on the subject, you know,
And he told me about this kid, twenty four year
old kid named Kyle Swinson who wrote for the Cleveland
Scene magazine. So when I met with this kid, I
came back to tell my wife like, well, damn, I've
been in jail on this cat been alive. But man, listen,
(27:15):
Kyle went into that neighborhood, and to this day, I
don't know how he retrieved the information that he did,
but he came back to me talking about things that
I'd never heard of, you know, like, for instance, the
situation with Edward and his mother, and just on and
on and on, you know. And so when about time
we circle back around to Terry. You ever see the
(27:38):
picture of the snowball coming down that hill, it just
started getting bigger. And the next thing I know, my
wife worked at a spot over here in the West Side,
and one of the ladies worked there with her went
to the same church with atwar Vernon and so she
told my wife, and my wife told me, and I
reached out to the pastor. So he did what I
guess anybody would do. Well, let me take into this
(28:01):
and I'll get back to you, you know. And so
I tell cow Man, no go, you know, So Kyle
get on him. So now this is two people calling
him and this is making him like wow. In the meantime,
edw Vernon had a nervous breakdown. He's in the hospital
and so it's fast it goes to see him.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
I remember this scene at the hospital with the pastor
and he said to Eddie, is there something that you
want to tell me?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
You're in the hospital.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
You know, obviously we hope everything works out, but is
there something on your mind? You want to get off
your chest And he then breaks down sobbing and basically
admits that he had lied in the trial and he
put three innocent men in prison. And you know, the
Innocence Project was representing Ricky Jackson. They sent over somebody
(28:53):
to get an affi David, which was the foundation for
the motion for a new trial, which then took place
in November of twenty fourteen. At the hearing before Judge mcmonagall,
Eddie took the stand and was an incredible witness. The
prosecutors tried to impeach him, cross examined him, and he
(29:15):
deflected any challenge and there was a break in the
hearing and the prosecutors came in and they said, Judge,
we concede that he should get a new trial. And
then in the same hearing they said they're dismissing the
murdered indictments.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Right, I understand that the prosecutor in twenty fourteen, Timothy McGuinty,
was not an unreasonable man.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
That was a different prosecutor than we have now. Now
we have a prosecutor doesn't believe in wrongful incarceration. He
doesn't believe that people should get compensation. But the one
that we had back in twenty fourteen saw that there
was no evidence that they were the perpetrators.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So Ricky actually called me that day that he got
exonerate the very moment my wife breaks that went bad
on her truck and it's a friend of mine and
I was changing the brakes and I'm up under the
car and my phone rang, so, you know, put it
on speaker and you have a collect call, you know.
That's what they said. It's Ricky. So, so what's going on, brother?
(30:18):
You know? And he's almost incoherent, you know, because so
he's so ecstatic, you know, And I said what he said?
I said, I'm free. It's all over, you know, you
break down and start crying. I said, what the fuck
you say?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You know?
Speaker 3 (30:34):
He said, Man, it's all over. God, damn you hear me,
you know, and uh man almost dock the damn car down.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Ricky was on a Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
We didn't want Wiley to spend even one day more
than he had to, and we were able to get
before the judge on Friday, and Wiley was exonerated. And
I'll never forget when Wiley comes out of the jail
doors into the lobby. These two guys, the moment that
they hugged was one of the most emotional and ratifying moments.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Of my life as a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
I'm sure that moment is etched in your mind and
your soul as well.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Without a doubt.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
And so Ricky was exonerated, then two days Wiley, and
then a month later we were able to get Kombe exonerated.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
But thinking about both my brother Wyley and Ricky Jackson
haven't spent thirty nine years. These guys had lost so
much time. When I got out of prison again parole,
I had an eleven year run. No matter how fucked
up it was, I still had an eleven year life
(31:58):
without them, And to this day I feel kind of
bad about that. You know, had I had a wife,
went through seven cars. Right, So as a man, as
a human being, as a person, I wasn't able to
make that equal. And I always feel something there, you.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Know, kind of like a survivor's guilt.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
And so even though no amount of money could ever
replace what you all lost, you were all at least
finally eligible for state compensation. You also won your civil
suits against the city and the estates of the detectives.
But then life took a dire turn again. Your brother
Wiley had lung cancer, and if that wasn't enough, another
tragedy struck.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
He had accident, had an auto accident, and it called
someone's life. He was already in bad shape, in and
out of the hospital. He actually had an oxygen tank
in the car with him prior to his death. He
would like have coughing spells and pass out. And so
I believe that that's what happened to him on the
night and questioned. He was driving his car late at night,
rode by a construction site, end up hitting two guys,
(33:01):
and rolled for another four miles before you a car
come to a stop. One of the guys that he
hit passed away. Oh God, And the very next year
he was gone.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Wow, that's so much. It's just too much, and I'm
so sorry, and our condolences of course to the family
of that construction worker as well. So I guess if
there's a silver lining to this story, it's that you
two were there for each other in prison and did
have a number of years of freedom together before his passing,
and during that time, all three of you guys, as
well as your wife, Lashawn, have been quite active in
(33:34):
a movement that is near and dear to my heart,
which is death Penalty abolition.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
My wife is a member of the OSSI, which is
Ohio Wants to Stop Executions nineteen ninety seven, ninety eight,
I think it was her brother was murdered, and so
she is also a family Victim's member. She do a
lot of advocating for the people having family members being
murdered and how the system leaves them. And I am
(33:59):
very active with their organization OSSI, as there is with
my organization, Witness to Innocence. I'm the chairman of Witness
to Innocence. All of our board, with the exception of
the two volunteers, are death Road exaneries and we have
been key in the twenty one states that have about
US still stop using capital punishment in the United States.
(34:21):
And then there's also what we're doing here to stop
the capital punishment in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Let me just read you something here from the Death
Penalty Information Center. This is a quote. In February twenty
twenty one, a special report the Innocence Epidemic found that
Kyahoga ranked second among US counties, tied with Philadelphia. We
know how bad that is. That's me talking now. But
back to the quote. For the most exonerations of death
row prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted, all of those
(34:46):
wrongful convictions involved police or prosecutorial misconduct or both. Brian
Stevenson estimates at about ten percent of people on death
throw er in a sent and of course most of
those people end up being executed. So it's fair to
say that we execute innocent people in this country one
out of every ten. Now I think it's higher. So
my question is for anyone who still believes in the
death penalty, are you okay with executing innocent people? That's
(35:08):
what I'm going to leave our audience with is I
continue to hope that Ohio soon joins the states who
have seen the wrong of having the option of capital punishment.
So that said, we're going to be linking in the
bio to the organizations that you mentioned, Ohions to Stop
Executions or Atziotse and of course Witness to Innocence. Another
thing I want to shout out for listeners is Ricky's movie.
(35:29):
This is a mind blowing piece of film. It's called
Lovely Jackson. I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.
So we're going to have that linked in the bio
as well. And one last thing, Terry, I understand you
wrote a book.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
The name of the book is Trying to Trying Times,
a lawyer's fifty years struggle fighting for.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Rights in a world of wrongs.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
It goes back to the late sixties, early seventies up
until twenty twenty one. It's really about inspir wh werening
younger activists and lawyers to take up the fight for
people's rights.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Well, I'll be linking that in the bio as well
and grabbing a copy myself. So now we've come to
my favorite part of the show. Of course, it's called
closing arguments, and this works very simply. First of all,
I'm going to thank you guys, Terry Gilbert and Kwameajamu
for being here and courageously sharing your story. So here's
how it works. I'm going to turn my microphone off
(36:27):
for closing arguments, kick back in my chair, and just
listen to anything else you guys want to share with
me and our incredible audience. Terry, let's start with you,
and then Kwame, I'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
The movement has grown against wrongful imprisonment. It's important for
people to be aware that the system is flawed, that
trials are not the end of justice, that things go wrong,
and people need to understand the nature of the criminal
system and fight for what is a better avenue to
(37:02):
achieve justice. Also, I just want to make a note
that I don't even know if kwamean was this. I mean,
this is the first public mention of it. But we
are starting a wrongful conviction clinic at Cleveland State University
Law School in the fall. The Ohio Innocence Project has
done a great job and they're located in Cincinnati, and
(37:25):
we need one in our community.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I just want to say that with Terry Gilbert, the
Innocence Project, and all of the many women who stand
in force to protect those who are down trodden and
who have been subjugated and arbitrarily and capriciously put in
prison for absolutely no reason. I am one who will
stand in every corner that the fight is going on,
(37:48):
a gang's capital punishment, wrong for incarceration and the cohots
which institute that policy. So I say to you, my brother,
thank you so much, thank you for having us today,
and I want to remind the country that we are
survivors and that just like Terry Gilbert, I will be
here tomorrow to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Mark's thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I want
to thank our production team Connor hall, Any, Chelsea, Lyla Robinson,
Jeff Clyburn and Kevin Warns. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
(38:28):
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
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 also follow me on Instagram
at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
(38:49):
one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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