February 8, 2024 • 39 mins
In the early morning of March 24, 1994, 20-year-old Kenneth Hayes was getting out of his car when someone emerged from the bushes, chased him down, and fatally shot him in front of his home in Detroit, MI. 18-year-old Larry Smith Jr. became a suspect when a car belonging to a friend of his was spotted near the scene of the crime. Since there was no physical evidence tying Larry to the crime, authorities relied on junk science and questionable eyewitness testimony to convict him of the murder and sentence him to life in prison without parole.
To learn more and get involved, visit:
https://www.lifeafterjustice.org/
https://www.jarrettadamslaw.com/redeeming-justice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/396-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-footwear-comparison-evidence/
Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four, a man named
Carl Voltz dropped off his friend Kenneth Hayes at twenty
two point fifty Annabelle Street in Detroit, Michigan. As he
got out of the car, a gunman came out of
the darkness, fatally shooting Hayes as he struggled up the driveway.
Neither Carl Volts nor anyone in the house had seen
the shooter's face. However, a car in the area belonged
(00:25):
to a young man named Jay Clay, which led investigators
to another young man named Larry Smith. The victim's landlord
said that Hayes's growl friend identified Larry, and the landlord's
son thought the assailant walked like Larry as well. Then
Shell Casings allegedly founded the scene with the same size
as one allegedly found in Larry's laundry hamper. But this
(00:48):
is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode
is an episode well of full circles. And when I
(01:08):
say that we have somebody who listeners the show will
probably recognize one of my great heroes, Jared Adams, whose
full circle involved going from being wrongfully convicted himself, from
serving over a decade in a maximum security prison to
becoming a lawyer and helping other wrongfully convicted people get justice. Jarrett,
(01:30):
so great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Jason, always a pleasure man.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
The other full circle here is the star of our show,
a gentleman named Larry Smith Junior. We're glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
When I say full circle. This is a man who's
working at a rec center now in Detroit, Michigan, helping
senior citizens as well as youth. And it is Detroit
that he was snatched out of when he was just
a kid himself. But before we get into all of that,
what was your life like growing up? Did you grow
up in a Detroit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yes, sir, I was the only child my mom.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
She had me and then my siblings would come later,
like basically through it. I had adoption more or less.
But we was family. We grew up in the same
house and life was cool. My mom always told me
long as I worked, as long as I put forth
that effort, as long as I did well in school.
At the times was tough, but it was gonna come
a time when they wouldn't be so tough. She was
gonna have those degrees that she was going and working
(02:23):
so hard for, and that our life was just gonna
be different.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Great.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So right, I read here that your mom was studying
for her masters in sociology. Do you have similar aspirations?
I mean, you're just an eight year old kid at
the time. What did you have in mind? What did
you want to do with your life.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I was working and I was going to school, and
my attent was to become a respiratory therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think my future was promising.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, and your nickname, I understand, was butter how'd that
come to be?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
My mama? Some with my mom when I was born?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
My complexion And this is the Michigan story. And we've
heard a lot of Michigan stories on this show, and
this was aticular time and place when people were being framed.
It's call it what it is like. It was day
in and day out.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You got to think about where Detroit was in the nineties,
just like a lot of the inner city neighborhoods dealing
with the crack epidemic and drugs and gangs and things
like that. So Detroit was dealing with a bunch of homicides,
you know, And what they would do is try to
find ways to resolve unsolved homicides, and they would do
(03:30):
it in a way that would just downright be violating
people's constitutional rights.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So Larry fell into the cross hairs somehow, and it
didn't make sense because you were a kid who wasn't
on the radar, shouldn't have been on the raidar of
the police at all, which must have been tricky just
to avoid that life in the area and that time
and place that you were growing up in. But somehow
or other, you were navigating these challenges and then everything
went crazy. So Jared set the stage for the whole
(03:58):
situation if you.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Would, well, I think the best place to start with.
Set in the stage is Ralph Cartwright, who was addicted
to drugs along with his mom, Sondra cart Right, lived
together in a house that they used to rent out
rooms to drug dealers to have a supply of drugs.
And in this case, the victim lived in one of
(04:22):
those rented rooms because he sold drugs and rob drug dealers.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Which is dangerous behavior to say the least. So the victim,
Kenneth Hayes, was shot around five thirty am March twenty four,
eighty four, in front of the Cartwright's house at twenty
two fifty Annabel Street, Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The victim was called out of his house at the
middle of the night to do a drug deal. He
has someone drive him to an apartment complex. We assume
he makes a purchase or not he comes back. When
he's coming back and he's getting out of his vehicle
is when someone is lying in wait and runs out
of the bushes and fire shots. The victim takes off
(05:03):
and runs across the front of the car from whether
a person dropped them.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Off and the driver was mister Hayes's friend, a guy
named Carl Voltz, and.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Mister Volts saw the shooter and said, I couldn't see
anyone's face, but he gave a description, and it did
not match Larry at all. He described the man as
being heavy set. If you see any picture of Larry
from back then Larry is then you would not mistake
him for being heavy set at all.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Right, But Carl Voltz's description was disregarded, as was the
statement of another witness, the victim's girlfriend, who was in
the house at the time of the shooting. What did
she tell the police?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
She said exactly what she said to the Conviction and
Charity unit. Years later, she says she never saw anyone
shoot the victim. The victim was her boyfriend, so she
would have been honest about that. She said she was
still in the bed sleep and didn't see anything but
herd the shots.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
No. No one knew about that statement until years later. Rather,
there was a statement from the landlord, Sandra Cartwright, who,
as someone involved in drugs, she and Ralph were vulnerable
to police coercion. Well Cartwright attributed the following words to
the victim's girlfriend quote, I looked right in his face.
It was butter unquote and as we mentioned, that was
(06:21):
Larry's childhood nickname.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
That same person denied ever saying that she saw Larry.
And she also told police the very same day that
they were investigating, that someone had came up to her
in a social club and told her that they were
going to kill her boyfriend, and she gave them the
name of that person. And they never went to go
(06:45):
talk to this guy investigate this guy.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So instead of just an open and shut case, they
chased down a far less compelling lead than a drug
dealer who was recently robbed, and who knows what kind
of relationship that drug dealer had with law enforcement. So
this much less compelling lead was that one of the
witnesses had said that they saw a car that belonged
to a friend of Larry's name, Jay Clay, who delivered newspapers.
(07:09):
But it was five thirty am, the typical newspaper delivery time,
and this was on his delivery route.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Larry's friend has identified his vehicle driving past around the time.
He has a legitimate reason why. Now, something like that
in most cases isn't uncommon to be reported and followed
up on, But in Larry's case, they didn't follow up
on it to investigate it, to find out if it
was any truth of whether his friend was involved, well,
(07:37):
whether he was involved. They investigated to make them involved.
They applied pressure to Sondra Cartwright and made her come
up with a version of events that has been found
to be untrue, and the police knew because they had
a police report from the young lady said she never
(08:01):
told Sandra cart Write anything about identifying Larry Smith as
shooting because she says she was never.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Up And then Ralph Cartwright supported his mother's narrative saying
that he didn't see Larry's face, but he recognized him
anyway in the area before and after the shooting. No, no, no, no, no, no, Like,
what does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Larry was never identified ever at all by eyewitness. They
got the witness to say that the person that they
saw around the crowd six, the way they walked was
similar to how that guy named Butter, you know, a
couple blocks down walked and also his freeend drives the car.
(08:43):
So you can see how if you want to make
that narrative fit, you can make it fit.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So we have Sandra cart Writ's secondhand identification even though
the alleged eyewitness said she never saw anyone, and then
Ralph making an identification of Larry's walk, which sounds like
some sort of like that's almost junk science to the
nth degree. But this was just a precursor to actual
junk science later when a Hancho brand footprint was allegedly
(09:12):
found at the scene. Now, Larry, this was in your neighborhood.
Your friend Jay had probably overheard the shots. When did
you hear about it?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, my mom, she called me at work, said she
wanted me to go to the police station. I ain't
asked no question, like okay, mama, I ain't did nothing,
I ain't involved in nothing. So I got my car
from work and I drove down there and took me
twenty six years, ten months, in seven days actually to
come home from that ride.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
So as they're investigating the case, they've already gotten out
ahead of their skis. They've charged both Larry's friend and
Larry with this murder based solely off of this guy
who says he saw the vehicle and he's seeing a
guy running away who appears to walk like Larry, and
(10:11):
the third party statement of a lady who says someone
told them they saw, you know, Larry do it. So
the case immediately starts to fall apart because Jason it
wasn't true. On the day that Larry was arrested, the
police go inside of his house and they come out
(10:31):
and say, we found some shellcasings and these shellcasings, mattch
some shellcasings that are over at the crime scene right right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
They said forty caliber bullets were used, and then they
allegedly found an empty box of forty caliber bullets in
Larry's bedroom, as well as a spent shellcasing in his
laundry hamper, which was then said to have been fired
by the same weapon.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
But then the autopsy report comes back and the autopsy
says the victim was not with the shallcasings that you
got from the crime scene or that you got from
Larry's house. He was shot with a smaller caliber weapon
and the bullet was left inside of him.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Jesus Christ, it gets worse, It gets, it gets worse.
Listens to it to keep from crying sometimes, I know.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
But this is gonna really blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So as the weeks are going on and they're turning
into months, and they're realizing that they got the wrong
guy right, the wrong two guys.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
But they still tried to square this circle. So let
me guess they accused Jay the paper boy of firing
at thirty two.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
The cold defendant is able to produce a lady, and
this is an older lady, very credible, no dog in
this fight. She says that that boy was on my
porch handing me the paper when we both heard the shots,
and so that definitively places the cold defendant delivering papers.
So they dissed the charges against the co defendant, and
(12:03):
now said, Larry did this all by himself and had
to be shooting with two guns and got away on
foot there with.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Two guns, like the wild West, Like boooooo with.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
The wild West. It gets worse, Okay. When they investigate further,
they find out that the person who dropped off the victim,
mister Votes said, I couldn't see anyone's face, but the
guy was only firing from one gun. So literally every
step that they took to frame Larry, it was unraveling.
So what they did was they reached to an old
(12:36):
trick and they produced a jail house informant who put
together a false story and he had never even met
or seen or was even housed with Larry.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So Larry, back to you. So now you're caught up
in this vortex. I mean, describe to us what it
was like. You go from the police station, they interrogate you,
they took you straight to jail. From there, they kept.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Me in jail like three days, and they put me
in a county.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
How long were you in jail awaiting trial?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Eight months or something?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Did you get to sign a public defender?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Trash?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Trash?
Speaker 4 (13:09):
My mother, she took her last money and got an
attorney he didn't do very well more or less like
did you ever heard the term somebody swap somebody out
or they don't do a great job. And I say
that because the guy who testified against me, the jail
house person, he had testified against other people as well.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He had a history and if.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Somebody would when it did some type of investigation, it
was records that was in there, but the police and
the prosecutors had them.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They was in eight files, and.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It's possible that they never made those records available to
your attorney, just like the statement from the victim's girlfriend.
But had you known about this repeat offender snitch, that
could have crumbled their whole house of cards. But still,
even without that, this snitch, Edward Allen, his story was
full of holes. He alleged that you had bragged about
(13:56):
how you killed Kenneth Hayes with a glock nine millimeter
guns right while j. Clay had a forty five caliber.
So he got the calibers wrong and the number of
assailants wrong. Pretty important details. But nonetheless, the state went
to trial in November of ninety four, presenting the cart rights,
this erroneous snitch testimony, as well as the forty caliber
(14:19):
shell casings, which allegedly served as this connection between Larry
and the crime scene, even though the victim was killed
by a thirty two caliber weapon and the only actual eyewitness,
Carl Voltz, said that the shooter fired only one gun.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, so you know, the police tried to frame Larry.
It was a plant of forty caliber shalecasings at and
around the scene of the shooting, and that these showcases
were recovered from Larry's house, and when the ballistics came
back from the autopsy, it clearly was not the same
caliber and there was some explaining to do.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yet they still presented a police technician and a detective
that testified about the forty caliber bullets found at the
scene in Larry's house, followed by a medical examiner who
testified about the thirty two caliber bullets found in the
body of the victim.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, and the bullet is so much bigger on a
forty caliber.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
They even presented a police firearms expert, David Pouch, who
testified to that fact, but he also testified that the
forty caliber casings found at Larry's house were fired by
the same gun as the casings from the scene, So
in other words, just doubling down on the two gun theory.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Even though the only real eyewitness, Carl Votes, has said
he never saw anything but one person shooting with one gun.
Carl testified that as soon as the victim got out
of the car, someone ran out of a gangway and
opened fire on him, who he described in detail, and
the description did not match Larry at all.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
While Carl Voles exonerated Larry, if the jury were to
believe him over law enforcement, it would have meant that
those shells had to have been planted in Larry's house,
which was something it seems like they were not willing
to accept. It would have also meant that two more
officials who took the stand and claimed that Larry had
made incriminating statements to them while in custody, had actually
(16:09):
perjured themselves.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
They did purgured themselves, I mean, point blank period.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
They lot, but somehow they had muddied the waters enough
with the casing allegedly found at Larry's house and the scene,
in addition to a bootprint that was found at the
scene that they matched with the Hancho brand boot taken
from Larry's house. When the shoe print analyst took the stand.
The prosecutor asked, quote, and these are a mirror image
of that pattern end quote to which the expert agreed.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
If I found a pair of prints for Air Jordans,
what does that mean nothing?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
There are other Air Jordans, just like there are other
Hancho brand boots. I mean right, It's like, did they
only manufacture one pair? It's insane, which is one reason
why shoeprint analysis is such bullshit, especially when there's no
other corroborating information.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
The boot was a boot that his cousin had a
bag full of other clothes. They never provided any context
to this boot. They never said they saw any mud
on the boots, that the boots had looked like it
had been worn at all. There was never any pictures
matched up to the prints of the boots. The shit
was all made up.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And you can hear the shoe print analysis episode of
Wrongful Conviction junk signs that we're gonna have linked in
the bio. I just listened to it again myself. It's
it's mind boggling. So now we get to our witnesses.
Let's start with Sandra cart Right, who testified about the
victim's girlfriend's alleged identification quote I looked him right in
the face, it was butter end quote.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, I looked him right in the face. And Sandra
cart Wright had an open case against her, and she
didn't come to court to testify. On a day that
she was called, the police issued a warrant for her arrest,
and in exchange for her testifying, they dismissed the charges
that were pending against her.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So incentivized, to say the least. But this statement was
a second hand account. What about the girlfriend herself?
Speaker 3 (18:01):
She was never called to court. It was some trickery.
And you know, there were some shortcomings of Larry's defense.
I'll just say that a fast one was gotten over
on them, and this witness was never called. I don't
believe that the defense team ever had the police report
that was taken the night of from the witness who
says that she never saw anyone. I believe if they
(18:24):
had that they would have called her. Because we know
that Larry himself didn't learn of it until after his
post conviction lawyer had obtained it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
And this was already a decade later.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Wow, So the judge, jury and defense were completely unaware
of the girlfriend's actual statement just Sandra cart writes secondhand
testimony to the contrary with no opportunity to cross examine
the actual eyewitness.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And not only can they not cross examine this person,
but now you have a jail house in Foreignert coming
in and you know, he's like, yeah, he told me
he did it, and things like that, and so you
put that together, it's the perfect storm.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And I understand that the inconsistencies between the guns and
the snitch testimony and the thirty two caliber bullets pulled
from the body of the victim that was never pointed out.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I didn't know nothing about this guy testified That gives
me doing what he had a history of doing. Like
I just knew I didn't say nothing to him. I
knew I didn't say nothing to no police, that I
didn't commit no crime.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So the fabricated evidence appears to have overcome the only
actual eyewitness, Carl Voltz, as well as your mother who
testified about how you were in your basement bedroom all
night long.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
She knew Larry was in the house because she was
in the front room finishing up their dissertation to complete
her Masters and it was only one way Larry could
get out of his room. He would have to come
up the stairs and go out the front door.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
When they said guilty, man, do you know that?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
My lawyer?
Speaker 4 (19:53):
When I asked him, I said, what they say? He
pushed away from me like he was scared. He didn't
even want to talk to me. He wanted to be
separated from me. And it was like, you got my life.
Man helped me, you know, helped me. Goodness, man, I'm sorry.
(20:26):
I went to Riverside quarantine.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
First.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
They brought us off a bus, all of us together,
and they had a woman strip searchers like they had
a man tell us take all our clothes off, and
they had a lady inspectors like we was cattle. This
introduction into institutions, but it was like experience and the
closest thing that I could see slaves having. My second
day in general population, I've seen a guy get raped.
I walked in the shower on the guy was getting raped.
Eight months seeing I've seen a guy get killed.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I stayed there about ten months.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
From there, they send me up north to u RF
and that stand for you are fucked.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
They had on KKK.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Belt buckles, tattoos and that you would have to fight
with the guards, period, and if you didn't fight the guard,
you had to go to the hole for a year.
If you whooped the guard, then you was the man.
If you didn't whoop the guard or you was refused
to fight. If you lost, it was okay. But if
you didn't fight, you had to go to a hole.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
For a year like some gladiator shit.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, for sure, they tell you fight fuck a lock up,
and that's what it was. So to go through that experience.
In the whole time, all I'm saying is, damn God,
why you do this to me? Like I ain't did nothing.
So now like I'm going through process of okay, ain't
no God, ain't no, this, ain't no that. Like Mama,
I'm trying. Every phone causes eight to ten dollars to
(21:42):
call home everything. I'm just a purity burden on everybody.
I need help. The only help I got his meat.
I just got testified against by somebody who I don't know.
And then I'm back in nineteen ninety five. I'm finding
out that the guy who testified against me, the jail
house person, he had testified against other people as well.
He had a history. Well, how do I find these people?
(22:03):
And that's put off a whole nother rat race because
now I'm going through the process of learning to live
inside of this environment. But I got to ask people
who they call killers, that I need to find out
what the hell is going on with me in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So you were navigating this horrendously violent situation while not
knowing who, if anyone, you can trust, but still desperately
in need of information on this snitch Edward Allen, who
was a prolific jail house snitch, and he wasn't the
only one by far. Rather, Wayne County had a snitch
system where they were sort of routinely incentivizing these guys
(22:39):
not only with lenient sentences, but they took it several
steps further. I'm talking about drugs, women they would provide.
They basically turned part of the police station into a flophouse.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Just going to say that too, Jason, where you can
come and have girls come in and go out. And
really what they were doing was this. They had a
couple men at a time who were housed on a
ninth floor lockup. And let me explain what the ninth
floor lockup is. If you're suspected of a crime, the
police could hold you for up to forty eight hours,
(23:13):
but at that point they have to either release or
charge you. So anyone on the ninth floor is only
supposed to be on the ninth floor for up to
forty eight to seventy two hours. You know, at most
they had a couple men at a time who were
living on the ninth floor who were Michigan Department of
(23:33):
Corrections inmates who were ritted out and housed on the
ninth floor and given jobs as tear tenders, and they
would grab a broom, sweep past your sale, start a
conversation up with you, and he'd go out the next
day and say I talked to him what you need
me to do?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And that was the scheme. If I understand this correctly.
They were giving these guys on the ninth floor like
papers to read so that they would know what to say,
right because they obviously nobody confessed to these idiots when
they were sweeping along the thing like, I mean, just
thick for a second, how ridiculous that is. Some guy's
sweeping along. It's like, hey, Larry, how you doing. Oh
(24:15):
I'm doing great. I just killed this guy at five
o'clock in the morning. How you doing what's your name again?
It's so stupid that it's like, I mean, nobody's gonna
do that. Yeah, but somehow or other they were able
to sell it.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And one of the alleged culprits who was in this
informant thing, he had done this upwards of twenty cases.
And no alarm bells go off none. This goes without saying,
but I have to say it. This was happening to
young black men in the city of Detroit. This would
have raised alarm beals if this took place in an
(24:47):
affluent neighborhood or county. They were only doing this to
people who had very little resources to afford a defense.
And you say this all the time, Jason. The justice
system is what you can afford, which.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You can't absolutely and it starts with cash bail, because
let's face it, if you have money for bail, you
don't go through the same experience in the criminal legal
system as those who don't. Guilty not guilty, It doesn't matter.
Only money matters, and not having it can leave you
in a situation or an informant has an opportunity to
trade false information on you, as what happened in this case.
(25:22):
That can then be spun to appear truthful in court.
And this Edward Allen and countless other snitches have worked
the system with their allies in the prosecutor's offices around
the country, and who knows, we'll never know how many
lives they've ruined.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
By the admission of the guy testified against me, not
only did he lie, he was weaponized by them. They
taught him what to do when he was a minor
and then became an adult and then made it all
the way to do it to me. Matter of fact,
it's a guy named Charles Wilson one seven two six
eight eight. The same guy testified against me, testified against
him thirteen years before.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Why he's still in prison.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He's still in prisons.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yes, he's in prison right now, twenty some years.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And that's Charles Wilson. I'm just gonna write that name
down right now. I got it our producer Connor, who's
of course listening in. It sounds like we're gonna have
to cover this case.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
We're representing mister Wilson. We definitely need a push. I'll
discuss to you. You know what our strategy.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Is, well, you know my number. So this guy, Edward Allen,
Larry was definitely not his only, you know, victim, let's
call it what it is. In fact, he gave an interview.
Edar Allen gave an interview in twenty seventeen in which
he spilled his guts on everything, which ended up being
very helpful in freeing Larry and several others.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
When the informant was interviewed, he said he had never
seen Larry before. He didn't even know what he looked like.
He says that he was fed the information by prosecutors
and by police officers and told what to say, who
to point out, and how to get around the questions
of the defense attorney. This was not an accident. This
(26:58):
was deliberate. Larry and his mom were ill prepared to
fight against this because Larry had never been in any
trouble before. His mom at the time that this was
going on, she was so adamant that Larry didn't do anything.
And do you know whose testimony they found not credible
and whose testimony they found credible? I can guess they
found mom's testimony not credible. But somehow a lifelong informant
(27:23):
who had not even met Larry didn't have any of
the details correct. Somehow the court in the jurors found
this got to be more credible than the person who
gave birth and raised.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Larry credible until, of course, he was no longer useful.
And as I understand it, before the twenty seventeen interview
and all this information came out, Allen had actually written
a letter to Larry in two thousand and three admitting
that he'd lied. But the judge denied your motion for
a new trial anyway, saying that she didn't find Alan's
recantation credible. How convenient. Then your new attorney, Mary Owens,
(27:59):
filed habeas in two thousand and seven. The following year,
the Michigan State Crime Lab was shuddered after widespread errors
and firearm testing and ballistics evidence were exposed, including in
cases involving the expert in your case, David Pouch. So
when Mary Owen sought to retest the forty caliber casings
allegedly found at the scene and in your basement, the
crime scene casings were saved, but the one from your
(28:21):
basement had been destroyed. Again quite convenient.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
So I had just jumped from two thousand and seven
to twenty and thirteen. Right, I'm transferring from prison to prison.
So a guy by the name of Jesse agnew He
asked me to see a brief of mine. He said, hey, man,
I'm gonna introduce you to Claudia Whitman. She came from
Colorado and she went to bat for me for like
twelve years. She fought for me pro bono, her and
Mary Owens, and come be known all the guys who
(28:45):
got released based on this what happened to me. Claudia Whitman,
she ended up knowing all of them.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
There were four guys whose convictions were reversed that were
tied to this ninth floor allegation in a certain set
of homicide detectives, and.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
They had what they call our Conviction Integrity Unit in
Wayne County. That's what opened up and that's what freed me.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So when val Newman and the Conviction Integrity Unit started
investigating these cases, they saw that the same allegations were
being made. And Jason, you know how that goes, right, Like,
if one person, yeah, two persons maybe, but if three,
four people, five people are saying the same thing, then
it deserves some credit and also some deeper dive investigation.
(29:31):
In Larry's case, they went to interview the witnesses again,
and sure enough, the young lady said again she never
told anyone she saw Larry shoot anyone because she wasn't
even looking out outside. She said she never said it.
So at that point was when I believe Val Newman
and the Conviction Intergity Unit acknowledged the corruption that was
(29:54):
so blatant in the case. I took my cap to
the courage it took from that office to would turn
his conviction, because if it was left to Larry filling
the motion in court, we would be doing this interview
off of a prison call, because no court really designed
to take such courageous acts. They are more so designed
(30:15):
to preserve finality than they are to deliver justice.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's true across our entire criminal legal system, unfortunately, and
the Supreme Court of the United States actually ruled that
way and said that even in death penalty cases, that
finality is more important than actual innocence. And people find
that shocking, and it is shocking, and it should be
shocking to anybody of good conscience or just anybody at all.
But that's where we're at. And of course the system
(30:42):
is designed thanks to the awful EDPA Act back from
nineteen ninety four and other factors. Yeah, we need to
repeal edput exactly. And these things make it virtually impossible
for somebody to dig out of that quicksand that you
found yourself in. And luckily there was a conviction of
you unit, and luckily there was somebody there who was sincere,
and that's a big part of why you're here.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Man.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
It's heavy, and I think every day like I love
al Newman because if it be one for her, I wouldn't
be out of prison. She said that one wrongfully convicted
was one too many. So you know, I'm just hopeful
that they hear this and they hear the pleat for
that man, Charles Wilson, so that I can get that
stuff for all my conscience, because I know that guy
lied on me. And every time I talk to Charles Wilson,
(31:24):
I'm telling him, bro, it's gonna be all right. And
it's making me feel like I'm a liar, because it's
not all right for somebody to wake up for forty
years plus in prison for a crime to commit.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
It's not all right.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. Well, we're in that fight together and that's for sure.
And we got Jared, you know, and for me, it's
such an honor to get to know you and to
see people like yourself who've been through hell and come
out carrying buckets of water for the people left behind.
I mean, I don't think there's anything better, you know,
you could be doing and taking this horrible, horrible, unimaginable
(31:54):
experience and transforming it into positive good, just as Jarrett
has done and has so many of the other ex houneries.
So okay, so let's get to the good stuff. So
ultimately you prevailed. So take us to that series of events,
because I you know, we've had a lot of doom
and gloom on this show, but I want to hear
the good stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Well, they had let Ramon War go, they had a
little Sino Hamilton go, they had let Banara Hower go.
So watching these people go, my attorney told me that
she felt like they was going to do something. So
I was in the in there sleeping and guys come
and hit the door.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Boom boom boom boom boom. I jump up, like, man,
what's up?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Go to the door. They're like, man, you going home tomorrow.
You're going home tomorrow. And it's people all I'm talking about,
like prisoners, They all in the hall way and I'm
coming out. I'm looking like what's up and the security
guards people they clapping.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Like, bro, you're going home tomorrow. I'm like what They're like, Yeah,
I go to the TV. I see it on the TV.
I get up there.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
I started passing my stuff for a whund because they
say I'm going to court tomorrow where they saying they're
going to drop the charges. So the next day came
and I didn't go to court. I just walked straight
from back in the day room with a prison to
the control center to the street where I read a
foreigner half paid statement about other people in it semitically
frail over sentenced being incarcerated, asking the governor to take
(33:15):
a look at what had been taking place. And that's
just what happened, man Like. It wasn't no big long
it was, oh, you're going home to Maryland, and I.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Was to it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I must have seemed like a dream, especially since you
were woken up out of a deep sleep and just
banging and then all of a sudden everybody's cheering. I mean,
you must have had that dream before and now it
was real.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
I'll just say this for anybody who've been through what
we've been through. Right, they gonna understand this. It's times
in my life that I still think I'm dreaming. But
I'm not gonna do nothing to mess it up. See,
I ain't gonna do nothing to mess it up long
as I keep putting out good energy, long as I
keep giving the love that was bestowed on me.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
See, I ain't get a second chance. This was really
my first chance.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
But for a lot of people our experiences, they considered
to be a second chance. They say stuff like, don't
do that no more. Right, So you're right, I won't
go down to the police station. Like, you're right, I
won't do that no more. But as far Red just
loving it being a part of giving energy and advocating
on behalf of innocent people, medically frail people. Oh but
since people like I'm gonna do that every day and
(34:16):
a day gonna go by, I ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Larry, is there anything you want people to do? Is
there a website you think they should go to? Is
there another person besides Charles Wilson you want to shout
out and bring attention to their case? And what can
people do to help?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
So out of Wayne County, we got Tamara Washington, She's
going through what I'm going through. They say her file
is missing. So she talked to Dwayne County prosecuted. She
told us that she would do what was needed in
order to help her out, but she never did. So
I want to shout out to Merraa Washington four A
six three six y four Wayne Duve sixteen forty four
ninety eight, again innocent, but he been in prison over
(34:53):
forty some years. So I want to ask you guys
this question. When a person is innocent, right and they
got natural life, when you say that over and over again,
what is the next step? Is there any formal relief?
Is there any formal relief with a person with a
death sentence inside of prison? Is there another option that's
made available for that person too? So you serve forty
forty one, forty five years, when is enough enough? So
(35:16):
I just want to point that out that in this
country where you don't have no self gates and then
how you pronounce it the ADPA atput so then you
got something as such, it don't allow us to file
our appeals. So I'm hopeful that us is on the
reads as a collective can march down on DC and
that we could talk to these administrations about what's taking
place in this country. Because without getting our friends at
(35:38):
the top to help us on our local levels and
getting our people on the local levels to work with
us people on these levels.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
We done, man, We done.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
So that's all I just want to say, is innocent
medically frail.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Over sentence It.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
When you get old and you innocent, you're going to
die in prison. That means you're gonna become medically frail
because you over sentenced. I just want people to learn that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
With that, we now turned to my favorite part of
the show, which of course is called closing arguments or
I again thank YouTube guys, Jared Adams, Larry Smith Jr.
For being here with us today and sharing your stories.
And then I'm going to turn my microphone off and
kick back in my chair, close my eyes with my
headphones on, and just listen to any other thoughts you
(36:20):
want to share with me and our amazing audience. So, Jared,
we always do it the same way. You go first,
and then we turn it over to our future guest.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I would love for us to find a way to
implement both strategies that prevent wrongful convictions collectively as well
as tackle issues of reintegration. And I say collectively again,
and I'm speaking to the entire innocent world when I
say this, the innocence world, the movement, the network, the organizations.
(36:52):
We need to start moving as one body because it
is way too difficult to deal with one case alone
and collectively. If we move in the same direction, the
same accord, same beat, it allows us to fight this
giant a lot more effectively. I say that along with
tackling the issue of government entities such as cities like
(37:15):
the City of Detroit, who has decided not to compensate
mister Smith but instead find a way to limit their
damages and continue to drag mister Smith through this anxiety
field roller coaster that has not sopped since he went
down to the police station willingly because his mama called him.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
I'm just going to say that for every person that's
got a family member that's incarcerated, some people saying they innocent,
other people, you know, they're just there for a long time,
don't give up on your people. If if my people
would have gave up on me, I would have died
in prison for a crime ie commit And it was
that energy that allowed me to carry on to our
community in which I stay here and to be able
to put forth these actions. So I just call on
(37:59):
every person out there to put forth they good effort,
put forth they good heart, because it's something good, and
everybody I'm hopeful to anyway. So free William Wiley, Free
Tamia Washington, of course, free Charles Wilson. And thank you
for having us, thank you for having Jared and myself,
and thank you for doing what you do. Oh freeda
innocent freedom medically frail Fredo over since we cannot lead
(38:21):
it out.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(38:48):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrong for Conviction. You can also follow me on
Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production
of Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number one
On March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four, a man named
Carl Voltz dropped off his friend Kenneth Hayes at twenty
two point fifty Annabelle Street in Detroit, Michigan. As he
got out of the car, a gunman came out of
the darkness, fatally shooting Hayes as he struggled up the driveway.
Neither Carl Volts nor anyone in the house had seen
the shooter's face. However, a car in the area belonged
(00:25):
to a young man named Jay Clay, which led investigators
to another young man named Larry Smith. The victim's landlord
said that Hayes's growl friend identified Larry, and the landlord's
son thought the assailant walked like Larry as well. Then
Shell Casings allegedly founded the scene with the same size
as one allegedly found in Larry's laundry hamper. But this
(00:48):
is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode
is an episode well of full circles. And when I
(01:08):
say that we have somebody who listeners the show will
probably recognize one of my great heroes, Jared Adams, whose
full circle involved going from being wrongfully convicted himself, from
serving over a decade in a maximum security prison to
becoming a lawyer and helping other wrongfully convicted people get justice. Jarrett,
(01:30):
so great to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Jason, always a pleasure man.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
The other full circle here is the star of our show,
a gentleman named Larry Smith Junior. We're glad you're here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
When I say full circle. This is a man who's
working at a rec center now in Detroit, Michigan, helping
senior citizens as well as youth. And it is Detroit
that he was snatched out of when he was just
a kid himself. But before we get into all of that,
what was your life like growing up? Did you grow
up in a Detroit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yes, sir, I was the only child my mom.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
She had me and then my siblings would come later,
like basically through it. I had adoption more or less.
But we was family. We grew up in the same
house and life was cool. My mom always told me
long as I worked, as long as I put forth
that effort, as long as I did well in school.
At the times was tough, but it was gonna come
a time when they wouldn't be so tough. She was
gonna have those degrees that she was going and working
(02:23):
so hard for, and that our life was just gonna
be different.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Great.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So right, I read here that your mom was studying
for her masters in sociology. Do you have similar aspirations?
I mean, you're just an eight year old kid at
the time. What did you have in mind? What did
you want to do with your life.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I was working and I was going to school, and
my attent was to become a respiratory therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think my future was promising.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, and your nickname, I understand, was butter how'd that
come to be?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
My mama? Some with my mom when I was born?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
My complexion And this is the Michigan story. And we've
heard a lot of Michigan stories on this show, and
this was aticular time and place when people were being framed.
It's call it what it is like. It was day
in and day out.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You got to think about where Detroit was in the nineties,
just like a lot of the inner city neighborhoods dealing
with the crack epidemic and drugs and gangs and things
like that. So Detroit was dealing with a bunch of homicides,
you know, And what they would do is try to
find ways to resolve unsolved homicides, and they would do
(03:30):
it in a way that would just downright be violating
people's constitutional rights.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So Larry fell into the cross hairs somehow, and it
didn't make sense because you were a kid who wasn't
on the radar, shouldn't have been on the raidar of
the police at all, which must have been tricky just
to avoid that life in the area and that time
and place that you were growing up in. But somehow
or other, you were navigating these challenges and then everything
went crazy. So Jared set the stage for the whole
(03:58):
situation if you.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Would, well, I think the best place to start with.
Set in the stage is Ralph Cartwright, who was addicted
to drugs along with his mom, Sondra cart Right, lived
together in a house that they used to rent out
rooms to drug dealers to have a supply of drugs.
And in this case, the victim lived in one of
(04:22):
those rented rooms because he sold drugs and rob drug dealers.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Which is dangerous behavior to say the least. So the victim,
Kenneth Hayes, was shot around five thirty am March twenty four,
eighty four, in front of the Cartwright's house at twenty
two fifty Annabel Street, Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
The victim was called out of his house at the
middle of the night to do a drug deal. He
has someone drive him to an apartment complex. We assume
he makes a purchase or not he comes back. When
he's coming back and he's getting out of his vehicle
is when someone is lying in wait and runs out
of the bushes and fire shots. The victim takes off
(05:03):
and runs across the front of the car from whether
a person dropped them.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Off and the driver was mister Hayes's friend, a guy
named Carl Voltz, and.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Mister Volts saw the shooter and said, I couldn't see
anyone's face, but he gave a description, and it did
not match Larry at all. He described the man as
being heavy set. If you see any picture of Larry
from back then Larry is then you would not mistake
him for being heavy set at all.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Right, But Carl Voltz's description was disregarded, as was the
statement of another witness, the victim's girlfriend, who was in
the house at the time of the shooting. What did
she tell the police?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
She said exactly what she said to the Conviction and
Charity unit. Years later, she says she never saw anyone
shoot the victim. The victim was her boyfriend, so she
would have been honest about that. She said she was
still in the bed sleep and didn't see anything but
herd the shots.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
No. No one knew about that statement until years later. Rather,
there was a statement from the landlord, Sandra Cartwright, who,
as someone involved in drugs, she and Ralph were vulnerable
to police coercion. Well Cartwright attributed the following words to
the victim's girlfriend quote, I looked right in his face.
It was butter unquote and as we mentioned, that was
(06:21):
Larry's childhood nickname.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
That same person denied ever saying that she saw Larry.
And she also told police the very same day that
they were investigating, that someone had came up to her
in a social club and told her that they were
going to kill her boyfriend, and she gave them the
name of that person. And they never went to go
(06:45):
talk to this guy investigate this guy.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So instead of just an open and shut case, they
chased down a far less compelling lead than a drug
dealer who was recently robbed, and who knows what kind
of relationship that drug dealer had with law enforcement. So
this much less compelling lead was that one of the
witnesses had said that they saw a car that belonged
to a friend of Larry's name, Jay Clay, who delivered newspapers.
(07:09):
But it was five thirty am, the typical newspaper delivery time,
and this was on his delivery route.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Larry's friend has identified his vehicle driving past around the time.
He has a legitimate reason why. Now, something like that
in most cases isn't uncommon to be reported and followed
up on, But in Larry's case, they didn't follow up
on it to investigate it, to find out if it
was any truth of whether his friend was involved, well,
(07:37):
whether he was involved. They investigated to make them involved.
They applied pressure to Sondra Cartwright and made her come
up with a version of events that has been found
to be untrue, and the police knew because they had
a police report from the young lady said she never
(08:01):
told Sandra cart Write anything about identifying Larry Smith as
shooting because she says she was never.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Up And then Ralph Cartwright supported his mother's narrative saying
that he didn't see Larry's face, but he recognized him
anyway in the area before and after the shooting. No, no, no, no, no, no, Like,
what does that even mean?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Larry was never identified ever at all by eyewitness. They
got the witness to say that the person that they
saw around the crowd six, the way they walked was
similar to how that guy named Butter, you know, a
couple blocks down walked and also his freeend drives the car.
(08:43):
So you can see how if you want to make
that narrative fit, you can make it fit.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So we have Sandra cart Writ's secondhand identification even though
the alleged eyewitness said she never saw anyone, and then
Ralph making an identification of Larry's walk, which sounds like
some sort of like that's almost junk science to the
nth degree. But this was just a precursor to actual
junk science later when a Hancho brand footprint was allegedly
(09:12):
found at the scene. Now, Larry, this was in your neighborhood.
Your friend Jay had probably overheard the shots. When did
you hear about it?
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Well, my mom, she called me at work, said she
wanted me to go to the police station. I ain't
asked no question, like okay, mama, I ain't did nothing,
I ain't involved in nothing. So I got my car
from work and I drove down there and took me
twenty six years, ten months, in seven days actually to
come home from that ride.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
So as they're investigating the case, they've already gotten out
ahead of their skis. They've charged both Larry's friend and
Larry with this murder based solely off of this guy
who says he saw the vehicle and he's seeing a
guy running away who appears to walk like Larry, and
(10:11):
the third party statement of a lady who says someone
told them they saw, you know, Larry do it. So
the case immediately starts to fall apart because Jason it
wasn't true. On the day that Larry was arrested, the
police go inside of his house and they come out
(10:31):
and say, we found some shellcasings and these shellcasings, mattch
some shellcasings that are over at the crime scene right right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
They said forty caliber bullets were used, and then they
allegedly found an empty box of forty caliber bullets in
Larry's bedroom, as well as a spent shellcasing in his
laundry hamper, which was then said to have been fired
by the same weapon.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
But then the autopsy report comes back and the autopsy
says the victim was not with the shallcasings that you
got from the crime scene or that you got from
Larry's house. He was shot with a smaller caliber weapon
and the bullet was left inside of him.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Jesus Christ, it gets worse, It gets, it gets worse.
Listens to it to keep from crying sometimes, I know.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
But this is gonna really blow your mind.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So as the weeks are going on and they're turning
into months, and they're realizing that they got the wrong
guy right, the wrong two guys.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
But they still tried to square this circle. So let
me guess they accused Jay the paper boy of firing
at thirty two.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
The cold defendant is able to produce a lady, and
this is an older lady, very credible, no dog in
this fight. She says that that boy was on my
porch handing me the paper when we both heard the shots,
and so that definitively places the cold defendant delivering papers.
So they dissed the charges against the co defendant, and
(12:03):
now said, Larry did this all by himself and had
to be shooting with two guns and got away on
foot there with.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Two guns, like the wild West, Like boooooo with.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
The wild West. It gets worse, Okay. When they investigate further,
they find out that the person who dropped off the victim,
mister Votes said, I couldn't see anyone's face, but the
guy was only firing from one gun. So literally every
step that they took to frame Larry, it was unraveling.
So what they did was they reached to an old
(12:36):
trick and they produced a jail house informant who put
together a false story and he had never even met
or seen or was even housed with Larry.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So Larry, back to you. So now you're caught up
in this vortex. I mean, describe to us what it
was like. You go from the police station, they interrogate you,
they took you straight to jail. From there, they kept.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Me in jail like three days, and they put me
in a county.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
How long were you in jail awaiting trial?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Eight months or something?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Did you get to sign a public defender?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Trash?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Trash?
Speaker 4 (13:09):
My mother, she took her last money and got an
attorney he didn't do very well more or less like
did you ever heard the term somebody swap somebody out
or they don't do a great job. And I say
that because the guy who testified against me, the jail
house person, he had testified against other people as well.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
He had a history and if.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Somebody would when it did some type of investigation, it
was records that was in there, but the police and
the prosecutors had them.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They was in eight files, and.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It's possible that they never made those records available to
your attorney, just like the statement from the victim's girlfriend.
But had you known about this repeat offender snitch, that
could have crumbled their whole house of cards. But still,
even without that, this snitch, Edward Allen, his story was
full of holes. He alleged that you had bragged about
(13:56):
how you killed Kenneth Hayes with a glock nine millimeter
guns right while j. Clay had a forty five caliber.
So he got the calibers wrong and the number of
assailants wrong. Pretty important details. But nonetheless, the state went
to trial in November of ninety four, presenting the cart rights,
this erroneous snitch testimony, as well as the forty caliber
(14:19):
shell casings, which allegedly served as this connection between Larry
and the crime scene, even though the victim was killed
by a thirty two caliber weapon and the only actual eyewitness,
Carl Voltz, said that the shooter fired only one gun.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, so you know, the police tried to frame Larry.
It was a plant of forty caliber shalecasings at and
around the scene of the shooting, and that these showcases
were recovered from Larry's house, and when the ballistics came
back from the autopsy, it clearly was not the same
caliber and there was some explaining to do.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yet they still presented a police technician and a detective
that testified about the forty caliber bullets found at the
scene in Larry's house, followed by a medical examiner who
testified about the thirty two caliber bullets found in the
body of the victim.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, and the bullet is so much bigger on a
forty caliber.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
They even presented a police firearms expert, David Pouch, who
testified to that fact, but he also testified that the
forty caliber casings found at Larry's house were fired by
the same gun as the casings from the scene, So
in other words, just doubling down on the two gun theory.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Even though the only real eyewitness, Carl Votes, has said
he never saw anything but one person shooting with one gun.
Carl testified that as soon as the victim got out
of the car, someone ran out of a gangway and
opened fire on him, who he described in detail, and
the description did not match Larry at all.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
While Carl Voles exonerated Larry, if the jury were to
believe him over law enforcement, it would have meant that
those shells had to have been planted in Larry's house,
which was something it seems like they were not willing
to accept. It would have also meant that two more
officials who took the stand and claimed that Larry had
made incriminating statements to them while in custody, had actually
(16:09):
perjured themselves.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
They did purgured themselves, I mean, point blank period.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
They lot, but somehow they had muddied the waters enough
with the casing allegedly found at Larry's house and the scene,
in addition to a bootprint that was found at the
scene that they matched with the Hancho brand boot taken
from Larry's house. When the shoe print analyst took the stand.
The prosecutor asked, quote, and these are a mirror image
of that pattern end quote to which the expert agreed.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
If I found a pair of prints for Air Jordans,
what does that mean nothing?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
There are other Air Jordans, just like there are other
Hancho brand boots. I mean right, It's like, did they
only manufacture one pair? It's insane, which is one reason
why shoeprint analysis is such bullshit, especially when there's no
other corroborating information.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
The boot was a boot that his cousin had a
bag full of other clothes. They never provided any context
to this boot. They never said they saw any mud
on the boots, that the boots had looked like it
had been worn at all. There was never any pictures
matched up to the prints of the boots. The shit
was all made up.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And you can hear the shoe print analysis episode of
Wrongful Conviction junk signs that we're gonna have linked in
the bio. I just listened to it again myself. It's
it's mind boggling. So now we get to our witnesses.
Let's start with Sandra cart Right, who testified about the
victim's girlfriend's alleged identification quote I looked him right in
the face, it was butter end quote.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, I looked him right in the face. And Sandra
cart Wright had an open case against her, and she
didn't come to court to testify. On a day that
she was called, the police issued a warrant for her arrest,
and in exchange for her testifying, they dismissed the charges
that were pending against her.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
So incentivized, to say the least. But this statement was
a second hand account. What about the girlfriend herself?
Speaker 3 (18:01):
She was never called to court. It was some trickery.
And you know, there were some shortcomings of Larry's defense.
I'll just say that a fast one was gotten over
on them, and this witness was never called. I don't
believe that the defense team ever had the police report
that was taken the night of from the witness who
says that she never saw anyone. I believe if they
(18:24):
had that they would have called her. Because we know
that Larry himself didn't learn of it until after his
post conviction lawyer had obtained it.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
And this was already a decade later.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Wow, So the judge, jury and defense were completely unaware
of the girlfriend's actual statement just Sandra cart writes secondhand
testimony to the contrary with no opportunity to cross examine
the actual eyewitness.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And not only can they not cross examine this person,
but now you have a jail house in Foreignert coming
in and you know, he's like, yeah, he told me
he did it, and things like that, and so you
put that together, it's the perfect storm.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
And I understand that the inconsistencies between the guns and
the snitch testimony and the thirty two caliber bullets pulled
from the body of the victim that was never pointed out.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
I didn't know nothing about this guy testified That gives
me doing what he had a history of doing. Like
I just knew I didn't say nothing to him. I
knew I didn't say nothing to no police, that I
didn't commit no crime.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So the fabricated evidence appears to have overcome the only
actual eyewitness, Carl Voltz, as well as your mother who
testified about how you were in your basement bedroom all
night long.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
She knew Larry was in the house because she was
in the front room finishing up their dissertation to complete
her Masters and it was only one way Larry could
get out of his room. He would have to come
up the stairs and go out the front door.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
When they said guilty, man, do you know that?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
My lawyer?
Speaker 4 (19:53):
When I asked him, I said, what they say? He
pushed away from me like he was scared. He didn't
even want to talk to me. He wanted to be
separated from me. And it was like, you got my life.
Man helped me, you know, helped me. Goodness, man, I'm sorry.
(20:26):
I went to Riverside quarantine.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
First.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
They brought us off a bus, all of us together,
and they had a woman strip searchers like they had
a man tell us take all our clothes off, and
they had a lady inspectors like we was cattle. This
introduction into institutions, but it was like experience and the
closest thing that I could see slaves having. My second
day in general population, I've seen a guy get raped.
I walked in the shower on the guy was getting raped.
Eight months seeing I've seen a guy get killed.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I stayed there about ten months.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
From there, they send me up north to u RF
and that stand for you are fucked.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
They had on KKK.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Belt buckles, tattoos and that you would have to fight
with the guards, period, and if you didn't fight the guard,
you had to go to the hole for a year.
If you whooped the guard, then you was the man.
If you didn't whoop the guard or you was refused
to fight. If you lost, it was okay. But if
you didn't fight, you had to go to a hole.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
For a year like some gladiator shit.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, for sure, they tell you fight fuck a lock up,
and that's what it was. So to go through that experience.
In the whole time, all I'm saying is, damn God,
why you do this to me? Like I ain't did nothing.
So now like I'm going through process of okay, ain't
no God, ain't no, this, ain't no that. Like Mama,
I'm trying. Every phone causes eight to ten dollars to
(21:42):
call home everything. I'm just a purity burden on everybody.
I need help. The only help I got his meat.
I just got testified against by somebody who I don't know.
And then I'm back in nineteen ninety five. I'm finding
out that the guy who testified against me, the jail
house person, he had testified against other people as well.
He had a history. Well, how do I find these people?
(22:03):
And that's put off a whole nother rat race because
now I'm going through the process of learning to live
inside of this environment. But I got to ask people
who they call killers, that I need to find out
what the hell is going on with me in my life.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So you were navigating this horrendously violent situation while not
knowing who, if anyone, you can trust, but still desperately
in need of information on this snitch Edward Allen, who
was a prolific jail house snitch, and he wasn't the
only one by far. Rather, Wayne County had a snitch
system where they were sort of routinely incentivizing these guys
(22:39):
not only with lenient sentences, but they took it several
steps further. I'm talking about drugs, women they would provide.
They basically turned part of the police station into a flophouse.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Just going to say that too, Jason, where you can
come and have girls come in and go out. And
really what they were doing was this. They had a
couple men at a time who were housed on a
ninth floor lockup. And let me explain what the ninth
floor lockup is. If you're suspected of a crime, the
police could hold you for up to forty eight hours,
(23:13):
but at that point they have to either release or
charge you. So anyone on the ninth floor is only
supposed to be on the ninth floor for up to
forty eight to seventy two hours. You know, at most
they had a couple men at a time who were
living on the ninth floor who were Michigan Department of
(23:33):
Corrections inmates who were ritted out and housed on the
ninth floor and given jobs as tear tenders, and they
would grab a broom, sweep past your sale, start a
conversation up with you, and he'd go out the next
day and say I talked to him what you need
me to do?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And that was the scheme. If I understand this correctly.
They were giving these guys on the ninth floor like
papers to read so that they would know what to say,
right because they obviously nobody confessed to these idiots when
they were sweeping along the thing like, I mean, just
thick for a second, how ridiculous that is. Some guy's
sweeping along. It's like, hey, Larry, how you doing. Oh
(24:15):
I'm doing great. I just killed this guy at five
o'clock in the morning. How you doing what's your name again?
It's so stupid that it's like, I mean, nobody's gonna
do that. Yeah, but somehow or other they were able
to sell it.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And one of the alleged culprits who was in this
informant thing, he had done this upwards of twenty cases.
And no alarm bells go off none. This goes without saying,
but I have to say it. This was happening to
young black men in the city of Detroit. This would
have raised alarm beals if this took place in an
(24:47):
affluent neighborhood or county. They were only doing this to
people who had very little resources to afford a defense.
And you say this all the time, Jason. The justice
system is what you can afford, which.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You can't absolutely and it starts with cash bail, because
let's face it, if you have money for bail, you
don't go through the same experience in the criminal legal
system as those who don't. Guilty not guilty, It doesn't matter.
Only money matters, and not having it can leave you
in a situation or an informant has an opportunity to
trade false information on you, as what happened in this case.
(25:22):
That can then be spun to appear truthful in court.
And this Edward Allen and countless other snitches have worked
the system with their allies in the prosecutor's offices around
the country, and who knows, we'll never know how many
lives they've ruined.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
By the admission of the guy testified against me, not
only did he lie, he was weaponized by them. They
taught him what to do when he was a minor
and then became an adult and then made it all
the way to do it to me. Matter of fact,
it's a guy named Charles Wilson one seven two six
eight eight. The same guy testified against me, testified against
him thirteen years before.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Why he's still in prison.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
He's still in prisons.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yes, he's in prison right now, twenty some years.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And that's Charles Wilson. I'm just gonna write that name
down right now. I got it our producer Connor, who's
of course listening in. It sounds like we're gonna have
to cover this case.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
We're representing mister Wilson. We definitely need a push. I'll
discuss to you. You know what our strategy.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Is, well, you know my number. So this guy, Edward Allen,
Larry was definitely not his only, you know, victim, let's
call it what it is. In fact, he gave an interview.
Edar Allen gave an interview in twenty seventeen in which
he spilled his guts on everything, which ended up being
very helpful in freeing Larry and several others.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
When the informant was interviewed, he said he had never
seen Larry before. He didn't even know what he looked like.
He says that he was fed the information by prosecutors
and by police officers and told what to say, who
to point out, and how to get around the questions
of the defense attorney. This was not an accident. This
(26:58):
was deliberate. Larry and his mom were ill prepared to
fight against this because Larry had never been in any
trouble before. His mom at the time that this was
going on, she was so adamant that Larry didn't do anything.
And do you know whose testimony they found not credible
and whose testimony they found credible? I can guess they
found mom's testimony not credible. But somehow a lifelong informant
(27:23):
who had not even met Larry didn't have any of
the details correct. Somehow the court in the jurors found
this got to be more credible than the person who
gave birth and raised.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Larry credible until, of course, he was no longer useful.
And as I understand it, before the twenty seventeen interview
and all this information came out, Allen had actually written
a letter to Larry in two thousand and three admitting
that he'd lied. But the judge denied your motion for
a new trial anyway, saying that she didn't find Alan's
recantation credible. How convenient. Then your new attorney, Mary Owens,
(27:59):
filed habeas in two thousand and seven. The following year,
the Michigan State Crime Lab was shuddered after widespread errors
and firearm testing and ballistics evidence were exposed, including in
cases involving the expert in your case, David Pouch. So
when Mary Owen sought to retest the forty caliber casings
allegedly found at the scene and in your basement, the
crime scene casings were saved, but the one from your
(28:21):
basement had been destroyed. Again quite convenient.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
So I had just jumped from two thousand and seven
to twenty and thirteen. Right, I'm transferring from prison to prison.
So a guy by the name of Jesse agnew He
asked me to see a brief of mine. He said, hey, man,
I'm gonna introduce you to Claudia Whitman. She came from
Colorado and she went to bat for me for like
twelve years. She fought for me pro bono, her and
Mary Owens, and come be known all the guys who
(28:45):
got released based on this what happened to me. Claudia Whitman,
she ended up knowing all of them.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
There were four guys whose convictions were reversed that were
tied to this ninth floor allegation in a certain set
of homicide detectives, and.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
They had what they call our Conviction Integrity Unit in
Wayne County. That's what opened up and that's what freed me.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So when val Newman and the Conviction Integrity Unit started
investigating these cases, they saw that the same allegations were
being made. And Jason, you know how that goes, right, Like,
if one person, yeah, two persons maybe, but if three,
four people, five people are saying the same thing, then
it deserves some credit and also some deeper dive investigation.
(29:31):
In Larry's case, they went to interview the witnesses again,
and sure enough, the young lady said again she never
told anyone she saw Larry shoot anyone because she wasn't
even looking out outside. She said she never said it.
So at that point was when I believe Val Newman
and the Conviction Intergity Unit acknowledged the corruption that was
(29:54):
so blatant in the case. I took my cap to
the courage it took from that office to would turn
his conviction, because if it was left to Larry filling
the motion in court, we would be doing this interview
off of a prison call, because no court really designed
to take such courageous acts. They are more so designed
(30:15):
to preserve finality than they are to deliver justice.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's true across our entire criminal legal system, unfortunately, and
the Supreme Court of the United States actually ruled that
way and said that even in death penalty cases, that
finality is more important than actual innocence. And people find
that shocking, and it is shocking, and it should be
shocking to anybody of good conscience or just anybody at all.
But that's where we're at. And of course the system
(30:42):
is designed thanks to the awful EDPA Act back from
nineteen ninety four and other factors. Yeah, we need to
repeal edput exactly. And these things make it virtually impossible
for somebody to dig out of that quicksand that you
found yourself in. And luckily there was a conviction of
you unit, and luckily there was somebody there who was sincere,
and that's a big part of why you're here.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Man.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
It's heavy, and I think every day like I love
al Newman because if it be one for her, I wouldn't
be out of prison. She said that one wrongfully convicted
was one too many. So you know, I'm just hopeful
that they hear this and they hear the pleat for
that man, Charles Wilson, so that I can get that
stuff for all my conscience, because I know that guy
lied on me. And every time I talk to Charles Wilson,
(31:24):
I'm telling him, bro, it's gonna be all right. And
it's making me feel like I'm a liar, because it's
not all right for somebody to wake up for forty
years plus in prison for a crime to commit.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
It's not all right.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. Well, we're in that fight together and that's for sure.
And we got Jared, you know, and for me, it's
such an honor to get to know you and to
see people like yourself who've been through hell and come
out carrying buckets of water for the people left behind.
I mean, I don't think there's anything better, you know,
you could be doing and taking this horrible, horrible, unimaginable
(31:54):
experience and transforming it into positive good, just as Jarrett
has done and has so many of the other ex houneries.
So okay, so let's get to the good stuff. So
ultimately you prevailed. So take us to that series of events,
because I you know, we've had a lot of doom
and gloom on this show, but I want to hear
the good stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Well, they had let Ramon War go, they had a
little Sino Hamilton go, they had let Banara Hower go.
So watching these people go, my attorney told me that
she felt like they was going to do something. So
I was in the in there sleeping and guys come
and hit the door.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Boom boom boom boom boom. I jump up, like, man,
what's up?
Speaker 4 (32:32):
Go to the door. They're like, man, you going home tomorrow.
You're going home tomorrow. And it's people all I'm talking about,
like prisoners, They all in the hall way and I'm
coming out. I'm looking like what's up and the security
guards people they clapping.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Like, bro, you're going home tomorrow. I'm like what They're like, Yeah,
I go to the TV. I see it on the TV.
I get up there.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
I started passing my stuff for a whund because they
say I'm going to court tomorrow where they saying they're
going to drop the charges. So the next day came
and I didn't go to court. I just walked straight
from back in the day room with a prison to
the control center to the street where I read a
foreigner half paid statement about other people in it semitically
frail over sentenced being incarcerated, asking the governor to take
(33:15):
a look at what had been taking place. And that's
just what happened, man Like. It wasn't no big long
it was, oh, you're going home to Maryland, and I.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Was to it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I must have seemed like a dream, especially since you
were woken up out of a deep sleep and just
banging and then all of a sudden everybody's cheering. I mean,
you must have had that dream before and now it
was real.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
I'll just say this for anybody who've been through what
we've been through. Right, they gonna understand this. It's times
in my life that I still think I'm dreaming. But
I'm not gonna do nothing to mess it up. See,
I ain't gonna do nothing to mess it up long
as I keep putting out good energy, long as I
keep giving the love that was bestowed on me.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
See, I ain't get a second chance. This was really
my first chance.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
But for a lot of people our experiences, they considered
to be a second chance. They say stuff like, don't
do that no more. Right, So you're right, I won't
go down to the police station. Like, you're right, I
won't do that no more. But as far Red just
loving it being a part of giving energy and advocating
on behalf of innocent people, medically frail people. Oh but
since people like I'm gonna do that every day and
(34:16):
a day gonna go by, I ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Larry, is there anything you want people to do? Is
there a website you think they should go to? Is
there another person besides Charles Wilson you want to shout
out and bring attention to their case? And what can
people do to help?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
So out of Wayne County, we got Tamara Washington, She's
going through what I'm going through. They say her file
is missing. So she talked to Dwayne County prosecuted. She
told us that she would do what was needed in
order to help her out, but she never did. So
I want to shout out to Merraa Washington four A
six three six y four Wayne Duve sixteen forty four
ninety eight, again innocent, but he been in prison over
(34:53):
forty some years. So I want to ask you guys
this question. When a person is innocent, right and they
got natural life, when you say that over and over again,
what is the next step? Is there any formal relief?
Is there any formal relief with a person with a
death sentence inside of prison? Is there another option that's
made available for that person too? So you serve forty
forty one, forty five years, when is enough enough? So
(35:16):
I just want to point that out that in this
country where you don't have no self gates and then
how you pronounce it the ADPA atput so then you
got something as such, it don't allow us to file
our appeals. So I'm hopeful that us is on the
reads as a collective can march down on DC and
that we could talk to these administrations about what's taking
place in this country. Because without getting our friends at
(35:38):
the top to help us on our local levels and
getting our people on the local levels to work with
us people on these levels.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
We done, man, We done.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
So that's all I just want to say, is innocent
medically frail.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Over sentence It.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
When you get old and you innocent, you're going to
die in prison. That means you're gonna become medically frail
because you over sentenced. I just want people to learn that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
With that, we now turned to my favorite part of
the show, which of course is called closing arguments or
I again thank YouTube guys, Jared Adams, Larry Smith Jr.
For being here with us today and sharing your stories.
And then I'm going to turn my microphone off and
kick back in my chair, close my eyes with my
headphones on, and just listen to any other thoughts you
(36:20):
want to share with me and our amazing audience. So, Jared,
we always do it the same way. You go first,
and then we turn it over to our future guest.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I would love for us to find a way to
implement both strategies that prevent wrongful convictions collectively as well
as tackle issues of reintegration. And I say collectively again,
and I'm speaking to the entire innocent world when I
say this, the innocence world, the movement, the network, the organizations.
(36:52):
We need to start moving as one body because it
is way too difficult to deal with one case alone
and collectively. If we move in the same direction, the
same accord, same beat, it allows us to fight this
giant a lot more effectively. I say that along with
tackling the issue of government entities such as cities like
(37:15):
the City of Detroit, who has decided not to compensate
mister Smith but instead find a way to limit their
damages and continue to drag mister Smith through this anxiety
field roller coaster that has not sopped since he went
down to the police station willingly because his mama called him.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
I'm just going to say that for every person that's
got a family member that's incarcerated, some people saying they innocent,
other people, you know, they're just there for a long time,
don't give up on your people. If if my people
would have gave up on me, I would have died
in prison for a crime ie commit And it was
that energy that allowed me to carry on to our
community in which I stay here and to be able
to put forth these actions. So I just call on
(37:59):
every person out there to put forth they good effort,
put forth they good heart, because it's something good, and
everybody I'm hopeful to anyway. So free William Wiley, Free
Tamia Washington, of course, free Charles Wilson. And thank you
for having us, thank you for having Jared and myself,
and thank you for doing what you do. Oh freeda
innocent freedom medically frail Fredo over since we cannot lead
(38:21):
it out.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction. You can
listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
one week early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus
on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team
Connor Hall, Andy Chelsea, and Kathleen Fink, as well as
my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Cliburn.
The music in this production was supplied by three time
(38:48):
OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
at Wrong for Conviction. You can also follow me on
Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production
of Lava for Good podcasts in association with Signal Company
Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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