March 14, 2024 • 40 mins
In 2007, a man wearing a wig and sunglasses entered a Bell Wireless store on the west side of Cincinnati, OH brandishing a gun. He ordered the patrons to the floor, demanded money from the store manager, and fled with the store's till. A witness across the street allegedly saw the man put on the wig and sunglasses, enter the store and flee a few minutes later in a Ford Expedition. The witness later identified that man as Chris Smith. Soon after the robbery, police found the Ford Expedition, a wig and sunglasses in the vicinity of Chris’s residence. Despite DNA test results performed on the wig and sunglasses that pointed to another man, Chris was still convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On October seventeenth, two thousand and seven, Chris Smith was
on parole for a previous robbery conviction when an armed
robbery happened at a Cincinnati Bell wireless store in his area.
A disguised sail at brandishing a gun commanded the customers
to hit the floor and demanded all the money for
the register before fleeing in a Blue Ford Expedition. The
(00:24):
owner of that car Chrismis's girlfriend. Soon after the robbery,
the Blue Expedition was all over the news, and Chris
texted his girlfriend to report the vehicle stolen. As police
were preparing to arrest him, Chris fled to the apartment
of an old friend, Charles Allen, where he removed his
ankle monitor. It wasn't long before Chris was arrested, prosecuted,
(00:44):
and convicted by circumstantial evidence that was so powerful it
overwhelmed physical evidence to the contrary. After all, he'd done
things like this before. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:08):
back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode features some circumstantial evidence
that definitely twists somebody's head around. If you were sitting
on a jury so fasting your seatbelt, this is a
crazy story. I'm really honored to have the people here
to tell it, including the man himself who lived this
night mare, Chris Smith. So, Chris, it's about time we
(01:31):
did this, and I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Thank you honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And with him is his attorney, Michelle Berry Godsey, who
actually began her career, as I understand that at the
Ohio and isis project with this case. So Michelle, thanks for.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Being here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And of course it'll surprise exactly no one that we
have another case out of Ohio, because man, Ohio it's
you know, it's a hot Yeah, with all due respect
to anybody who lives there, but in terms of justice
it ain't great. And Avid Listener knows that because we
have really the high proportional cases out of Ohio. But
(02:08):
before we get into that part of the story, Chris,
what was your life like? I understand you were a musician,
had a couple of kids growing up in Cincinnati. Is
all that accurate?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, sir, seven year old son and just had darted
with seven months when all this happened.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
What kind of music would you play?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
What was your thing? So I was a hip hop
artist and a writer as well. I was discovered by
a manager who signed boy band Youngstown, discovered Neo and
gave me an opportunity, took me out to LA and
they had me as the next big thing. And so
I was writing with Neo, Mike Citi, Shinghi, working with
(02:46):
Polly Paul Grammy nominated producers and things like that. So
I was on my way.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Before making this progress in the music industry. Chris had
a prior robbery conviction, but by two thousand and seven
he had served his time and was living cleanly on parole. Then,
on October seventeenth, two thousand and seven, at around three
forty pm, a man wearing a wig, sunglasses, and his
T shirt collar pulled up over his mouth, ran into
a Cincinnati Bell wireless store with a gun, ordered the
(03:13):
customers to the ground, told the manager to empty the
cash register, and fled with about eight hundred dollars in
a blue Ford expedition. So, with his prior conviction, in
addition to some other circumstantial evidence, Chris became a prime suspect.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The police in the area admitted that they immediately suspected
Chris and his brother Ricky. Now Ricky was lucky because
he was actually in the county jail at the time
on some petty drug possession thing, so he immediately was eliminated.
But they still latched onto Chris simply because he was
on parole at the time and they knew that he
(03:51):
lived in this area. So that's one thing. The second
thing is it was known fairly early on that the
get Us truck that was used the blue Ford expedition,
it was traced to his girlfriend at the time, who
told the police that she had basically given the truck
to Chris for his personal use. So those two things
(04:13):
don't look good on Chris. But the bigger picture that
was really unfolding here, like you mentioned, this was the
robbery of a Cincinni Bell wireless store. There was one
eyewitness to this crime and he was across the street
driving and he saw the man run out of the
store carrying a laptop. He believed it was a laptop,
that's what he told on the nine one one call
(04:35):
and described the gunman as a light skinned black man.
And even knowing how this caller had described the gunman,
police came to the scene with lineups already matching Chris's description.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Chris, have you ever been a light skinned man?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
No, I've been pretty dark on my life.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I'm glad you pointed that out.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So the robber hopped in this getaway car, a blue
Ford expedition. The a nine to one one caller tried
to follow him but lost the truck, and soon police
were on the scene and they found the truck along
with the robbers costume. So this was two thousand and seven.
Everyone knew at that point to do DNA testing. That
testing did occur before trial, but happened a little bit
(05:19):
further down the.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Line before the DNA testing. During the immediate aftermath. Chris
was the focus of the investigation, something that became clear
to him when he recognized the truck that he shared
with his girlfriend on the five o'clock news.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
On a breaking news story. You're looking at it, You're like,
hold on, wait a minute, Like what do I do?
And so when you're from the city hood whatever you
want to call it is just like, you don't call
the police because grow up not to trust the police. Right.
So I'm reaching out to the person who named the
truck is in and I'm like, listen, I didn't do this.
(05:53):
So report this stolen.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
And we ended up getting Chris's text messages at the
exact moment that this new story aired, so we had
that in our favor to show, but no one ended
up caring with.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The circumstantial even it's available. It wasn't long before police
began surrounding Chris's apartment.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And so you see all these playing clothes officers around
the properties. Then you have my daughter Mom in there,
who was with me years prior when I went to
jail the same way, right, So she's remembering this. So
it's a lot of trauma and stuff going on, and she's,
oh my god, you have to go, and I'm like, go,
not I didn't do nothing. So I'm thinking, like, okay,
(06:34):
what can I do? I don't just want to run.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Chris had to be more proactive about clearing his name
beyond reporting the vehicle stolen. After all, he had lent
it to an old friend, Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So I'm trapped between the rock and a hard place.
I'm a rapper, a street rapper at that. I'm talking
about gangster stuff at the time, Right, I can't call
the police and say such and such did it my
credibility yet be done. Career be over with. So I
have to do it in the creative way because I
got all this good stuff going for me, and then
(07:07):
I have the cold. And so what I do was
call my parole officer immediately, and I got a GPS monitor, right,
So it's two parts of the GPS, so no one
is confused. You have the box where I have to
download my data from the GPS, which is important that
I left at my house for my parole officer to get.
(07:29):
Then you have the actual ankle tracker that's tracking you
everywhere you go. That's on my ankle at the time.
And so what I do was tell my parole officer listen,
you could find my tracking device downstairs. But I still
have the ankle monitor on now.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
His parole officer was in possession of Chris his alibi evidence,
which proved his whereabouts at the time of the crime,
while Chris went ahead and made contact with Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I call this guy, bru, What did you do with
my up bron will tell you about to come to
the place. I go to his place.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Wait, how did you get past the detectives that were
outside the undercovers?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's different cuts and stuff you could go. His mom
stays like, probably like a mile away. So I went there,
cut off my ankle monitor there, thinking my ankle thing
will be tracked here, right, and maybe this will lead
to people to the right guy. He's telling me the story,
who's involved. I'll call my brother, call my team. They like, listen,
(08:29):
get out of there, come here, let's figure this out.
And then I went right. And the whole time I'm
in communication with my parole officer. I'm cooperating, getting information,
and they saying, well, they retrieved the costume and this
and that, and the first thing I said was, run
a DNA. You have all this stuff, run a DNA
(08:49):
and please let me know.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Thankfully, they found all three pieces, the wig, the sunglasses,
and there was a black T shirt that the robber
was using to pull up over the lower half of
his face. Ultimately, those items were tested and came back
to exclude Chris and identify this man, Charles Allen. So
the one eyewitness described the gunman as a light skinned
(09:14):
black man, and Charles Allen, the man that was ultimately
identified being a light skinned man. It's always the first
thing people describe him as. That's the way he's described
in his file with the Hamilton County Police Department. Chris
ultimately did say in an interview before the DNA test
(09:34):
was conducted that he loaned his truck to Charles Allen.
He said what he looks like. He also said light skinned.
In short, all of the fingerprints also excluded Chris, and
three of them came back to Charles Allen. He was
in the APHIS system. So they had Charles Allen from
Chris's mouth, from fingerprints GPS, they had a description from
(09:57):
a neutral eyewitness of a light skinned man that matches
Charles Allen. They finally did the DNA testing and boom,
it's also Charles Allen. All of this was known before
Chris's trial. No one was interested in going after Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I mean word on a street, see as he was
helping them with more bigger things gang stuff, murders, organized
crime and things like that. That's why he was given immunity.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It starts with circumstantial evidence against Chris, and then it
turns into literally the easiest case to solve. Literally, Jesus
could have popped up and said, that's the guy who
did it. And it seems like the judge throwing a went, sorry, Jesus,
I got a different idea. I mean, and this was
a bench trial. Now we got to talk about that too.
(10:48):
But first of all, of course, it's Hamilton County and
we know they have a history of hiding overwhelming evidence
of innocence, for instance Elwood Jones, who we interviewed on
this podcast. So Hamilton County very notorious.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
The head prosecutor, of course, was Joe Dieters, the district
attorney at the time, but the actual line prosecutor doing
the case it was a guy named Clay Tharp. It
wasn't the usual suspects of Seth Ti or Pete Meyer.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Chris, how did you end up with Michelle? An attorney
who actually could defend you, which a lot of people
don't even have that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I had an attorney that people was trying to get
me to work with, one that's been practicing law for
thirty plus years. I really didn't trust this lawyer. And
Michelle was there seeing someone else. She was up on
our floor in a bullpen, and I seen her and
then I just seen the energy and I'm like, okay,
she looked like she's fairly no. I needed somebody fresh
(11:42):
that was going to actually fight for me, and I'm
not taking no plea deal, right. So I approached Michelle
and I just sat down with her and I was
telling her about the situation. She was like, Yeah, I
love to take this case, and this probably like one
of the best decisions I made, even though I was convicted,
because I think no matter what attorney I had, I
would have been convicted at this point because they was
(12:04):
just so deep and put so much in their eggs
in one basket that it was no turning back.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
What they were going to try to say to still
say that this was Chris was to say that because
Chris and Charles knew each other, that somehow Charles's DNA
just briefly rubbed off on the costumes and somehow Chris
just got lucky and wasn't on it. So for that reason,
we had specifically requested the lab notes and all the
(12:32):
data underlying the DNA testing, but that was never turned
over at the time of trial.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
In addition to demanding the DNA testing and underlying data,
they turned their sights on Charles Allen.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Chris, and I worked with a private detective to wire
up Chris's brother Ricky to go talk to Charles the
strategy where we were using is Ricky would feed him
some wrong facts and see if Charles would like correct
it since he was there and he knew would he
did so, Remember I said the eyewitness said he saw
(13:04):
the gunman come out carrying a laptop. It actually was
a cash registered drawer, but the eyewitness thought it was
a laptop. So Ricky, when he's wired up, says to Charles,
they're saying that Chris was coming out of the store
carrying a laptop, and Charles says, on the recording, I
wasn't carrying a motherfucking laptop.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It was a cash drawer.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
First person, I wasn't carrying a motherfucking laptop.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
It was a cash drawer. So we have this on recording.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We have eventually additional recordings to this, but we're like, okay,
well this is rock solid now.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And of course it ends up as a bench trial
with Judge Robert Ruhlman, which I'm curious to know how
that decision was made.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So Cincinnati, the criminal justice community here is like everybody
knows everybody. So I was talking to every criminal defense
attorney and universally, the one thing to know about Robert
Ruhlman is if he takes you back in chambers and
is talking with you about the case and he says,
(14:06):
this sounds like a bench trial, that is your signal
that he is going to acquit your person. But at
that time he had been on the bench for decades.
I think people get so inundated in the system unless
they are actively checking themselves. They get a mindset that
they can just judge a case and that they just
(14:29):
know what the right answer is. And so despite that,
I think Robert Ruhlman is a good person and he
used his This looks like a bench trial to me,
he conned us and the reason that happened. Although this
played out after the fact, this was not far from
his neighborhood and the police in that area talked with
(14:51):
him frequently about the crime in that area of town.
And I think that, like Chris was saying, this would
have happened with any attorney, because he was going to
convic Chris no matter what.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So trial began in two thousand and eight and the
state presented their theory about Charles and Chris committing the
robbery together, Charles as the driver and Chris donned in
the costume and holding up to Cincinnati Bell wireless store.
The eyewitness testified about what he saw, as well as
Chris's girlfriend, saying that she had basically given him the expedition.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
So the whole trial is playing out, all the DNA
is presented. Sure enough, the state tries to go with
this theory that Chris just got lucky that his DNA
didn't rub off, and Charles somehow got unlucky that his
DNA did rub off when he somehow briefly touched these items.
So the state closed their case. We put on our case,
(15:45):
and the state ended up calling Charles Allen as a
rebuttal witness. And I was hoping this is exactly what
would happen, that he would somehow be called on the stand,
because I got to present his statements to him. Now,
of course, these had already been played in court and
he wasn't there to hear them. Four people had already
(16:07):
identified his voice on them. But unsurprisingly he's like, that's
not my voice. So that day he was waiting in
the jail to be called as a witness in this trial,
and I got his recorded calls. The first call he makes,
he starts complaining that he's salty that Ricky wired up
on him and recorded him talking about the robbery. So
(16:31):
when he's on the stand saying that's not my voice,
I got to then play for him the recording of
him saying, man, I'm so salty that Ricky wired up
on me and recorded me, to make it very obvious
that this actually is him. In addition, Chris called him
many times and got him to talk about things too.
He got him to say that he would meet with
(16:54):
me his attorney, to describe other people who were there.
He made other dominating statements like they must be paying
the witnesses to say that Chris did this because they
know that he didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You can't be a worse criminal than this guy, right,
And now here you are at trial, you're watching this
unfold and it comes to the moment that the judge
is going to make his ruling.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We all knew that I was through. It's very rare
to go to trial as a defendant and prove your innocence,
not just raising the doubt. Right. And it's like the
harder Michelle went for me, the more irritated this judge became.
And it was just a lot of comments and how
he said to Michelle, well, you did a great job
for a public defender are Yeah, this is not the
(17:38):
futuitive movie. It's like he said so many sly comments
and convicting me and giving me twenty eight years for
robbery when no one was hurt. To go to jail
period is something. But to be given all that time
for something didn't do, it's just a whole nother feeling.
(18:12):
It's the whole conditioning of it, right. It goes beyond
just the wrong for conviction, right, the conditioning of it,
from the time you walk into the county jail, how
they have you stand, how they process you, taking you
to a floor where you sit in here all day,
let you out, take you to the bullpen, go to court,
sing you up to another thing. One call is about
(18:33):
that control, and it gets in your mind to tell you,
this is your life, this is all you work. Don't
expect nothing more, right, And so you do this for
years and years, and you just conditioned to feel like shit,
to feel like you nothing, to feel like you don't
deserve nothing more from being an adult and having correctional
(18:53):
officers have a key to yourself that's ten fifteen years
younger than you, and you have to say, miss such
and such or CEO, and it dehumanizes you. And so
you go through that for years and years to where
it becomes a part of you, right shaping me into
who I became or who I am today. So how
(19:14):
do you find balance of staying true to who you
are but surviving this right? Because I knew I was
coming home and I just didn't know when. Because I
knew I had a fighter with Michelle, I knew I
had a great organization such as the op with me.
I'm one of the fortunate ones that came home with
an opportunity to get back into society, to have the
(19:36):
humanity back in the store. And I found myself coming
home from work and coming in and confining myself to
my bedroom just at one space when I got two floors,
because I'm like unconsciously conditioned to be right here just
in the bed, having a refrigerator full of food but
only eating chips and news. Like. I really went through
(19:57):
this phase for at least ninety days, and I woke
up one day. I was making some noodles for breakfast,
Raymond noodles, and I was stirring the noodles and I'm
the only one in here, and I was like, oh shit,
I'm really eating noodles At ten o'clock in the morning,
made the noodles and took them back in my room,
like I had to go there. That's what my incarceration did.
(20:19):
I took a lot. I went through a life. My
mom died, which was my best friend, only one of
the main supports I had, and me not being able
to go to her funeral and listening to it from
a jail phone, and things like that, missing your children
grow up and all this, and so you like, you
have to deal with it because you don't want to
come out out of this thing destroyed.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And so many of the stories we hear as our
guest struggle with prison life. They also typically received denials
on their direct appeals. While exonerating information remains hidden. But
in Chris's case, Chris already had Michelle and they knew
what they needed to do, and still it took twelve
long years.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
After Chris was convicted.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
One of the things I was hell bent on doing
was getting the data underlying the DNA evidence, and my
expert re ran all the tests. So she retested the wig,
the sunglasses, and the T shirt and it showed from
her lab notes and the States lab notes that were
withheld during his trial that Charles Allen's DNA was present
(21:25):
across the board fourteen out of fifteen and fifteen out
of fifteen low SI on the wig and the T
shirt the sunglasses. The States testing came back inconclusive, but
my expert post trial came back and also identified Charles Allens.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We were able to have a post conviction.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Hearing and present all of this evidence and get it
in the record also with Judge Ruhlman and my expert.
She explained that contrary to the state's theory that that
is not consistent with somebody who just briefly handles something,
especially a wig. You think about if you just touch wig,
you're touching like the outside of it, the inner part
that touches your head when you're wearing it was heavily
(22:05):
present with his DNA, and so was the shirt. And
she explained that this is evidence that Charles Allen was
wearing these items. And we were before the same judge
that convicted Chris, and he said, on the record, Okay,
I understand the evidence. The evidence shows that Chris isn't
the one who committed this robbery, but I think he
(22:27):
was involved somehow, So I'm going to deny this motion
and keep his convictions in place, which is insane, truly insane,
because the state's theory from start to finish and even
to that point, was that Chris was the one who
wore the costume and came in with the gun and
(22:48):
committed this robbery, and Charles claimed that he was the
getaway driver. So the judge deny this motion. But at
least we were able to get all of this crucial
DNA evidence in addition to our DNA testing of the
sunglasses that also identified Charles Allen on the record.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Now with the Brady material on the record, they could
present it on direct appeal, for which Chris had to
hire a different attorney.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
I was sending this attorney all kinds of emails, voicemails,
Please meet with me. I have to explain this to you,
and will you believe that appellat attorney didn't even raise
the error of a Brady violation and didn't even include
any of the evidence from the post conviction hearing. Basically,
(23:35):
the errors that she raised were non errors. So of
course he lost his appeal.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
This was the same attorney that I was working with
before I end up retaining Michelle that's been practicing law
for thirty plus years. Everybody that knows her and is like,
how did she miss that? And then not communicate with Michelle.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
At that point, if there's anything that you don't raise
in one court, you can never raise it in a
higher court. It's considered procedurally defaulted. So I was still
desperate to fix this. So what I did at that
point was I got the Ohio Public Defender's Office involved
(24:19):
to file a non routine motion in the appellate Court
called a Rule twenty six B motion, which it's available
for situations like this where the appellate attorney is ineffective
to try to reopen the appeal and put forth the
error that the appellaate attorney didn't raise. Now, again, this
(24:39):
is still obvious that we should win this. But the
court denied the Rule twenty six B motion and said
that the appellate attorney was not ineffective for raising this because,
in their opinion, this DNA evidence that was presented in
the post conviction motion was only cumulative to what was
(25:00):
already presented at the trial and it really didn't shed
any new light. So they really missed the entire point
of it.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
While the appeals unfolded over a decade of Chris's life
ticked away, and they moved on to federal court, where
there are ways to raise procedurally defaulted issues. After one denial,
they had a win at the next level in the
Sixth Circuit.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
They issued an amazing decision in June of twenty nineteen,
and this was the first court that ever understood that
the state was repeatedly putting forth false claims. Like the
judge did, Chris was involved somehow. I have a hunch
he was involved in this somehow, and that's not a
(25:40):
valid basis for conviction, And in fact, all the evidence
showed the exact opposite. The Sixth Circuit had to remand
it back to the district court to actually decide the
merits of the Brady claim and the ineffective assistance of
a Pellet Council claim, and they ended up not having
to rule on the ineffective assistance of a Pellet council
claim because the Brady violation trumped it. So finally, in
(26:03):
April of twenty twenty, height of the COVID pandemic, Chris
was finally released.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Chris was supposed to be released on April ninth, twenty twenty,
and with a co morbidity. His release during the early
days of the COVID pandemic could not have been more urgent.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
April ninth, com and Michelle we have steadied communication. She's like,
it's going to happen, like, yeah, you're being released, and
Saw I'm just like ready sale, pack case, sleep. The
night before my son, who's at this time is what
nineteen years old, haven't seen him since seven. He comes
up to Leedo with Michelle and all day just waiting,
(26:43):
not getting answers anything, and Dan finally eleven o'clock eleven
thirty that evening they come into my sale and saying, okay,
you being released and just to have that sense of freedom,
right and you're getting dressed out and things like that,
and then walk out and highway patrol is sitting there waiting,
not your family, but highway patroler sitting there waiting with
(27:06):
chains and saying, hey, you're coming with us. So I'm like,
hold up, wait a minute, where is my lawyer? Like
are you coming with us? Don't worry about it, and
chaining me not in the back, but in the front
of a highway patrol car highway patrol may get in
the back behind me, and it's like, at this point,
(27:26):
twelve thirty one in the morning, and we drive it
from Toledo to Cincinnati, which is a three and a
half hour drive, and you just got this patrol man
sitting behind you when you up front with your hands
visible and I'm just sitting up. Came the scariest thing
in my life because in my mind, I'm like, oh
my god, I'm just waiting to hear drop the weapon,
(27:46):
drop the weapon, or he reached for my gun and
they kill me right there. I mean, I'm having to
like scratch my nose. I don't want to move. I'm
just right here, just sitting straight up, just watching the road,
not asking questions in anything. Just take me where I'm going,
and they end up processing me in the county jail.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
The writ hit said that Chris was to be immediately
released under no conditions, so they weren't following the orders.
So I got a ruling from the federal judge saying
that he essentially was going to hold the state in
contempt if you weren't released. And what we found out
a couple days later, ironically, Judge Ruleman came to our
(28:37):
aid is that on April ninth, when the federal court
issued the ordering Chris released, Hamilton County called Judge Ruleman
and said, there's this order on this case that was
your case, saying that Chris Smith is to be released,
but we want to continue to hold him to bring
(28:57):
him to trial again. Can we get an order to
that which they were not allowed to do. That's in
direct violation of the federal order. And Judge Roulman said
to them, I need to see the federal order first
before I can do that. They didn't give it to him,
so he thought the issue was just dropped. But no,
that is not what happened. Because this was COVID, not
(29:19):
all the judges were present. They were having like alternate
judges coming in. The prosecutors went to the judge who
was the presiding judge, who was physically there at the courtroom,
and told her that Judge Rulman said for her to
sign this order on his case to have Chris Smith
brought back, which he explicitly did not do. But she
signed it because that's what she was told Roulman wanted,
(29:42):
and Chris was brought back to Hamilton County and defiance
of the federal order, and a few days later we
finally got in court in front of Judge Roulman. Judge
Roulman was then one hundred percent on our side and
saying no, Chris Smith has to be released, very very
angry with the county prosecutors at what they had done
(30:04):
deceiving him.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The Hamilton County Court of Common Please issued a release
order as well, but the state continued on appealing whether
the federal court even had the jurisdiction to rule on
the Brady material. Nevertheless, Chris was freed on April fourteenth,
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I just came home and hit the ground running. Just
got back to things I was doing before I went in,
as such as my music, just building a brand, a
lot of things that I started even before I was released,
as far as start my own company and got into
promotion and things like that. Got married, and I got
(30:41):
a job, a good opportunity at a dealership here. Started
excelling in that, working with found village organization of at
risk youth, coaching football, mentoring youth, just doing everything I
could to contribute to the goodness of this world, and
just to stay busy. I just really want to think
about where it came from and kind of just put
(31:03):
it behind me and just pressed forward.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
State appealed Chris's habeas petition on the basis of saying
that the state appellate court, when they denied that rule
twenty six B motion, if you'll remember back, that was
the one to get his direct appeal reopened to raise
the Brady claims. When appealing his habeast grant, the state
said that twenty six B motion ruled on the Brady claim.
(31:31):
They said something like the appellate attorney didn't mess up
here because any claim of a Brady violation wasn't material.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Even though the Brady violation in question was most definitely material.
The DNA testings underlying data thwarted the state's theory and
prove Chris's innocence.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The state was now saying the federal District court was
wrong to grant the habeat petition because the state court
already ruled on your Brady claim and they didn't get
it wrong. And the federal court can't undo a state
court ruling unless it's contrary to or an unreasonable application
of US Supreme Court precedent. And so when we went
(32:09):
before the Sixth Circuit the second time with a horrendous panel,
they agreed with the state and said, yes, in fact,
despite everything that our same court said about the DNA,
evidence shows that you weren't the gunman. The trial evidence
shows that you weren't an accomplice. The state Appellate Court's
(32:31):
ruling when they rejected your twenty six B motion has
to stand because some reasonable minds could think that way.
So the Sixth Circuit reversed the grant of the habeas petition.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Once that decision came back, I lost their drift and
I stopped writing, I stopped creating, and I stopped moving
the company forward and just became content with working. That's
how you conditioned, like when you're in prison, like going
to Chilhall or having your port a job and being
going on back to Yosee.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So where his case technically stands now, there's kind of
two parts to it. Sixth Circuit remanded it back to
the District Court again to rule on the merits of
the ineffective assistance of appellate Council claim. We had to
brief that in May of twenty twenty one, and it's
still been pending since then, and Chris was, of course,
(33:22):
under threat of having to go back to prison because
his habeas grant was reversed, and so Judge Rolmand recused himself,
passed the case off to a different judge, a newly elected,
absolutely fantastic judge Jennifer Branch on his case in state
court now, who granted Chris' judicial release, basically commuted the
(33:43):
remainder of his sentence so that he could not go
back to prison on this but left it so that
he's on supervision by the state court, so to speak,
so that we still retained jurisdiction and federal court to
get his convictions officially wiped off theirroat record once and
for all.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You know, I have a probation officer, a parole officer,
so technically I'm not free. And when I'm here and
enjoying my day and I get a knock on the
door and look out to people, it's two probation officers
with guns and badges, invest on like I'm a threat,
one standing on the side of the door and not
let them in. And it could just pop up and
evade my home at any given time. There's no freedom
(34:24):
in that. I don't feel free, and in that process,
you damaging and undermining and uprooting everything that I've worked
so hard for since I've been home, and just recently,
I claim that freedom back. On my forty second birthday
November third, I woke up and I said, you know what,
this chapter forty two is going to represent freedom, true
(34:48):
freedom with themself and I'm getting back to me, putting
in to me, and I'm not about to let no
prison or even being exonerated to find my sense of freedom.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Well, I wish you all the best on your journey,
all the best of everything. And I hope this means
you'll be making more music too. Is that fair to assume?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm on the major platforms. I'm everywhere. I'm back creating.
Michelle is actually on the first song that I recorded
when I came home is remember Me. We have a
video of add on YouTube reality with what whole.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Have I have to just brag on Chris for just
a minute. He's a brilliant writer. And that video that
he was just talking about he was released in mid
April twenty twenty. He recorded this about a month later.
I mean, just to think about that whirlwind he was
going through and then you see what he was able
to put together in just a few weeks. If you
(35:43):
watch that video, remember me, it's mind boggling. I mean,
it's just the tip of the iceberg of his talent.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Well, we're going to be sure to have your music,
your YouTube channel, and Instagram linked in the episode description
for everyone to follow. And with that, we're going to
go to closing arguments. First of all, thank you for
being here and sharing this remarkable story. And then I'm
going to switch my microphone off, kick back in my
chair with my headphones on, and close my eyes and
(36:09):
just listen to anything else you want to share with
me and our incredible audience. So Michelle, why don't you
go first, and then just hand the mic off to
Chris and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
I think an important takeaway is that people get involved
in elections to an extent, thinking about, oh what president
am I going to elect? What congressman? But it's really
important to look at what judges are on the ballot,
and it might be a little more difficult to know
which judge is the right judge to elect. So go
(36:43):
seek out information from your local Innocence project or your
local public Defender's office and seek advice about who will
be a fair judge on that ballot, because I think
something that's overlooked is the power of judges here in
our country at the state court level. Our judges are elected,
they are politicians like anyone else at that point, and
(37:08):
they will decide cases based on their ideology, and that
can lead to wrongful convictions, and it did here, and
so it's very important to educate yourself on who to
elect and pay attention to those elections to not just
the president and the congressman. I think Chris's case is
a case in point for that, and Chris's case points
(37:31):
out also tunnel vision and what that can do. This
often happens in court cases and in wrongful conviction cases,
but this can happen in everyday life too. You hear
just in your everyday encounters. You hear some gossip of
something crazy, You hear bits and pieces, and you form
a conclusion, and then when you hear a few days
(37:53):
later the full story or the other person's side to it,
what actually happened is completely different. Or you hear a
news headline of a world event and it seems unbelievable
or maybe very believable to you, and you start leaping
to conclusions based on that, and then time plays out
and there's more to the story. So I think it's
just very important in life. These wrongful convictions teach us this.
(38:17):
Don't jump to conclusions, don't jump down those tunnels and
have your decisions made up so early that you can't
have an open mind to hearing things out, hearing what
the bigger picture might be. I think overall people would
have more peaceful lives, the world would be a more
peaceful place. Certainly, there would be less wrongful convictions. I mean,
(38:39):
it's just an important concept to learn that. Chris's case
teaches about hear all sides, look at objective facts, educate yourself,
and then form your conclusions.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I just want to say in close, and it's not
about guilt, it's not about innocence. It's about us just
plan our part to just contribute to the goodness out
the world. Everybody make mistakes, whether it's the defendant on
the prosecution, the judges, the pillaricle. Everybody make mistakes, but
(39:10):
it's about what we do afterwards. It's like, you can
think about that storm I went through, but we're still
talking about that storm right now, and because we made
it out that storm, right, it's about what we do now,
It's about what we learned while we was in the
midst of that storm. We hear this so so often,
it's so common, right. Would it stopped next year, five
(39:31):
years from now, two years from now. Probably not. But
we just got to do our part because each one
of us can make a difference. How we need is
that one opportunity.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Thank you for listening to Ron 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 and Kathleen fa as well as my fellow
executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
(40:07):
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. 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 one
On October seventeenth, two thousand and seven, Chris Smith was
on parole for a previous robbery conviction when an armed
robbery happened at a Cincinnati Bell wireless store in his area.
A disguised sail at brandishing a gun commanded the customers
to hit the floor and demanded all the money for
the register before fleeing in a Blue Ford Expedition. The
(00:24):
owner of that car Chrismis's girlfriend. Soon after the robbery,
the Blue Expedition was all over the news, and Chris
texted his girlfriend to report the vehicle stolen. As police
were preparing to arrest him, Chris fled to the apartment
of an old friend, Charles Allen, where he removed his
ankle monitor. It wasn't long before Chris was arrested, prosecuted,
(00:44):
and convicted by circumstantial evidence that was so powerful it
overwhelmed physical evidence to the contrary. After all, he'd done
things like this before. But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome
(01:08):
back to Wrongful Conviction. Today's episode features some circumstantial evidence
that definitely twists somebody's head around. If you were sitting
on a jury so fasting your seatbelt, this is a
crazy story. I'm really honored to have the people here
to tell it, including the man himself who lived this
night mare, Chris Smith. So, Chris, it's about time we
(01:31):
did this, and I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Thank you honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And with him is his attorney, Michelle Berry Godsey, who
actually began her career, as I understand that at the
Ohio and isis project with this case. So Michelle, thanks for.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Being here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And of course it'll surprise exactly no one that we
have another case out of Ohio, because man, Ohio it's
you know, it's a hot Yeah, with all due respect
to anybody who lives there, but in terms of justice
it ain't great. And Avid Listener knows that because we
have really the high proportional cases out of Ohio. But
(02:08):
before we get into that part of the story, Chris,
what was your life like? I understand you were a musician,
had a couple of kids growing up in Cincinnati. Is
all that accurate?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yes, sir, seven year old son and just had darted
with seven months when all this happened.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
What kind of music would you play?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
What was your thing? So I was a hip hop
artist and a writer as well. I was discovered by
a manager who signed boy band Youngstown, discovered Neo and
gave me an opportunity, took me out to LA and
they had me as the next big thing. And so
I was writing with Neo, Mike Citi, Shinghi, working with
(02:46):
Polly Paul Grammy nominated producers and things like that. So
I was on my way.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Before making this progress in the music industry. Chris had
a prior robbery conviction, but by two thousand and seven
he had served his time and was living cleanly on parole. Then,
on October seventeenth, two thousand and seven, at around three
forty pm, a man wearing a wig, sunglasses, and his
T shirt collar pulled up over his mouth, ran into
a Cincinnati Bell wireless store with a gun, ordered the
(03:13):
customers to the ground, told the manager to empty the
cash register, and fled with about eight hundred dollars in
a blue Ford expedition. So, with his prior conviction, in
addition to some other circumstantial evidence, Chris became a prime suspect.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The police in the area admitted that they immediately suspected
Chris and his brother Ricky. Now Ricky was lucky because
he was actually in the county jail at the time
on some petty drug possession thing, so he immediately was eliminated.
But they still latched onto Chris simply because he was
on parole at the time and they knew that he
(03:51):
lived in this area. So that's one thing. The second
thing is it was known fairly early on that the
get Us truck that was used the blue Ford expedition,
it was traced to his girlfriend at the time, who
told the police that she had basically given the truck
to Chris for his personal use. So those two things
(04:13):
don't look good on Chris. But the bigger picture that
was really unfolding here, like you mentioned, this was the
robbery of a Cincinni Bell wireless store. There was one
eyewitness to this crime and he was across the street
driving and he saw the man run out of the
store carrying a laptop. He believed it was a laptop,
that's what he told on the nine one one call
(04:35):
and described the gunman as a light skinned black man.
And even knowing how this caller had described the gunman,
police came to the scene with lineups already matching Chris's description.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Chris, have you ever been a light skinned man?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
No, I've been pretty dark on my life.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I'm glad you pointed that out.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So the robber hopped in this getaway car, a blue
Ford expedition. The a nine to one one caller tried
to follow him but lost the truck, and soon police
were on the scene and they found the truck along
with the robbers costume. So this was two thousand and seven.
Everyone knew at that point to do DNA testing. That
testing did occur before trial, but happened a little bit
(05:19):
further down the.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Line before the DNA testing. During the immediate aftermath. Chris
was the focus of the investigation, something that became clear
to him when he recognized the truck that he shared
with his girlfriend on the five o'clock news.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
On a breaking news story. You're looking at it, You're like,
hold on, wait a minute, Like what do I do?
And so when you're from the city hood whatever you
want to call it is just like, you don't call
the police because grow up not to trust the police. Right.
So I'm reaching out to the person who named the
truck is in and I'm like, listen, I didn't do this.
(05:53):
So report this stolen.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
And we ended up getting Chris's text messages at the
exact moment that this new story aired, so we had
that in our favor to show, but no one ended
up caring with.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The circumstantial even it's available. It wasn't long before police
began surrounding Chris's apartment.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And so you see all these playing clothes officers around
the properties. Then you have my daughter Mom in there,
who was with me years prior when I went to
jail the same way, right, So she's remembering this. So
it's a lot of trauma and stuff going on, and she's,
oh my god, you have to go, and I'm like, go,
not I didn't do nothing. So I'm thinking, like, okay,
(06:34):
what can I do? I don't just want to run.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Chris had to be more proactive about clearing his name
beyond reporting the vehicle stolen. After all, he had lent
it to an old friend, Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So I'm trapped between the rock and a hard place.
I'm a rapper, a street rapper at that. I'm talking
about gangster stuff at the time, Right, I can't call
the police and say such and such did it my
credibility yet be done. Career be over with. So I
have to do it in the creative way because I
got all this good stuff going for me, and then
(07:07):
I have the cold. And so what I do was
call my parole officer immediately, and I got a GPS monitor, right,
So it's two parts of the GPS, so no one
is confused. You have the box where I have to
download my data from the GPS, which is important that
I left at my house for my parole officer to get.
(07:29):
Then you have the actual ankle tracker that's tracking you
everywhere you go. That's on my ankle at the time.
And so what I do was tell my parole officer listen,
you could find my tracking device downstairs. But I still
have the ankle monitor on now.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
His parole officer was in possession of Chris his alibi evidence,
which proved his whereabouts at the time of the crime,
while Chris went ahead and made contact with Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I call this guy, bru, What did you do with
my up bron will tell you about to come to
the place. I go to his place.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Wait, how did you get past the detectives that were
outside the undercovers?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's different cuts and stuff you could go. His mom
stays like, probably like a mile away. So I went there,
cut off my ankle monitor there, thinking my ankle thing
will be tracked here, right, and maybe this will lead
to people to the right guy. He's telling me the story,
who's involved. I'll call my brother, call my team. They like, listen,
(08:29):
get out of there, come here, let's figure this out.
And then I went right. And the whole time I'm
in communication with my parole officer. I'm cooperating, getting information,
and they saying, well, they retrieved the costume and this
and that, and the first thing I said was, run
a DNA. You have all this stuff, run a DNA
(08:49):
and please let me know.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Thankfully, they found all three pieces, the wig, the sunglasses,
and there was a black T shirt that the robber
was using to pull up over the lower half of
his face. Ultimately, those items were tested and came back
to exclude Chris and identify this man, Charles Allen. So
the one eyewitness described the gunman as a light skinned
(09:14):
black man, and Charles Allen, the man that was ultimately
identified being a light skinned man. It's always the first
thing people describe him as. That's the way he's described
in his file with the Hamilton County Police Department. Chris
ultimately did say in an interview before the DNA test
(09:34):
was conducted that he loaned his truck to Charles Allen.
He said what he looks like. He also said light skinned.
In short, all of the fingerprints also excluded Chris, and
three of them came back to Charles Allen. He was
in the APHIS system. So they had Charles Allen from
Chris's mouth, from fingerprints GPS, they had a description from
(09:57):
a neutral eyewitness of a light skinned man that matches
Charles Allen. They finally did the DNA testing and boom,
it's also Charles Allen. All of this was known before
Chris's trial. No one was interested in going after Charles Allen.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I mean word on a street, see as he was
helping them with more bigger things gang stuff, murders, organized
crime and things like that. That's why he was given immunity.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It starts with circumstantial evidence against Chris, and then it
turns into literally the easiest case to solve. Literally, Jesus
could have popped up and said, that's the guy who
did it. And it seems like the judge throwing a went, sorry, Jesus,
I got a different idea. I mean, and this was
a bench trial. Now we got to talk about that too.
(10:48):
But first of all, of course, it's Hamilton County and
we know they have a history of hiding overwhelming evidence
of innocence, for instance Elwood Jones, who we interviewed on
this podcast. So Hamilton County very notorious.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
The head prosecutor, of course, was Joe Dieters, the district
attorney at the time, but the actual line prosecutor doing
the case it was a guy named Clay Tharp. It
wasn't the usual suspects of Seth Ti or Pete Meyer.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Chris, how did you end up with Michelle? An attorney
who actually could defend you, which a lot of people
don't even have that.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I had an attorney that people was trying to get
me to work with, one that's been practicing law for
thirty plus years. I really didn't trust this lawyer. And
Michelle was there seeing someone else. She was up on
our floor in a bullpen, and I seen her and
then I just seen the energy and I'm like, okay,
she looked like she's fairly no. I needed somebody fresh
(11:42):
that was going to actually fight for me, and I'm
not taking no plea deal, right. So I approached Michelle
and I just sat down with her and I was
telling her about the situation. She was like, Yeah, I
love to take this case, and this probably like one
of the best decisions I made, even though I was convicted,
because I think no matter what attorney I had, I
would have been convicted at this point because they was
(12:04):
just so deep and put so much in their eggs
in one basket that it was no turning back.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
What they were going to try to say to still
say that this was Chris was to say that because
Chris and Charles knew each other, that somehow Charles's DNA
just briefly rubbed off on the costumes and somehow Chris
just got lucky and wasn't on it. So for that reason,
we had specifically requested the lab notes and all the
(12:32):
data underlying the DNA testing, but that was never turned
over at the time of trial.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
In addition to demanding the DNA testing and underlying data,
they turned their sights on Charles Allen.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Chris, and I worked with a private detective to wire
up Chris's brother Ricky to go talk to Charles the
strategy where we were using is Ricky would feed him
some wrong facts and see if Charles would like correct
it since he was there and he knew would he
did so, Remember I said the eyewitness said he saw
(13:04):
the gunman come out carrying a laptop. It actually was
a cash registered drawer, but the eyewitness thought it was
a laptop. So Ricky, when he's wired up, says to Charles,
they're saying that Chris was coming out of the store
carrying a laptop, and Charles says, on the recording, I
wasn't carrying a motherfucking laptop.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
It was a cash drawer.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
First person, I wasn't carrying a motherfucking laptop.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
It was a cash drawer. So we have this on recording.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
We have eventually additional recordings to this, but we're like, okay,
well this is rock solid now.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And of course it ends up as a bench trial
with Judge Robert Ruhlman, which I'm curious to know how
that decision was made.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So Cincinnati, the criminal justice community here is like everybody
knows everybody. So I was talking to every criminal defense
attorney and universally, the one thing to know about Robert
Ruhlman is if he takes you back in chambers and
is talking with you about the case and he says,
(14:06):
this sounds like a bench trial, that is your signal
that he is going to acquit your person. But at
that time he had been on the bench for decades.
I think people get so inundated in the system unless
they are actively checking themselves. They get a mindset that
they can just judge a case and that they just
(14:29):
know what the right answer is. And so despite that,
I think Robert Ruhlman is a good person and he
used his This looks like a bench trial to me,
he conned us and the reason that happened. Although this
played out after the fact, this was not far from
his neighborhood and the police in that area talked with
(14:51):
him frequently about the crime in that area of town.
And I think that, like Chris was saying, this would
have happened with any attorney, because he was going to
convic Chris no matter what.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So trial began in two thousand and eight and the
state presented their theory about Charles and Chris committing the
robbery together, Charles as the driver and Chris donned in
the costume and holding up to Cincinnati Bell wireless store.
The eyewitness testified about what he saw, as well as
Chris's girlfriend, saying that she had basically given him the expedition.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
So the whole trial is playing out, all the DNA
is presented. Sure enough, the state tries to go with
this theory that Chris just got lucky that his DNA
didn't rub off, and Charles somehow got unlucky that his
DNA did rub off when he somehow briefly touched these items.
So the state closed their case. We put on our case,
(15:45):
and the state ended up calling Charles Allen as a
rebuttal witness. And I was hoping this is exactly what
would happen, that he would somehow be called on the stand,
because I got to present his statements to him. Now,
of course, these had already been played in court and
he wasn't there to hear them. Four people had already
(16:07):
identified his voice on them. But unsurprisingly he's like, that's
not my voice. So that day he was waiting in
the jail to be called as a witness in this trial,
and I got his recorded calls. The first call he makes,
he starts complaining that he's salty that Ricky wired up
on him and recorded him talking about the robbery. So
(16:31):
when he's on the stand saying that's not my voice,
I got to then play for him the recording of
him saying, man, I'm so salty that Ricky wired up
on me and recorded me, to make it very obvious
that this actually is him. In addition, Chris called him
many times and got him to talk about things too.
He got him to say that he would meet with
(16:54):
me his attorney, to describe other people who were there.
He made other dominating statements like they must be paying
the witnesses to say that Chris did this because they
know that he didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
You can't be a worse criminal than this guy, right,
And now here you are at trial, you're watching this
unfold and it comes to the moment that the judge
is going to make his ruling.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
We all knew that I was through. It's very rare
to go to trial as a defendant and prove your innocence,
not just raising the doubt. Right. And it's like the
harder Michelle went for me, the more irritated this judge became.
And it was just a lot of comments and how
he said to Michelle, well, you did a great job
for a public defender are Yeah, this is not the
(17:38):
futuitive movie. It's like he said so many sly comments
and convicting me and giving me twenty eight years for
robbery when no one was hurt. To go to jail
period is something. But to be given all that time
for something didn't do, it's just a whole nother feeling.
(18:12):
It's the whole conditioning of it, right. It goes beyond
just the wrong for conviction, right, the conditioning of it,
from the time you walk into the county jail, how
they have you stand, how they process you, taking you
to a floor where you sit in here all day,
let you out, take you to the bullpen, go to court,
sing you up to another thing. One call is about
(18:33):
that control, and it gets in your mind to tell you,
this is your life, this is all you work. Don't
expect nothing more, right, And so you do this for
years and years, and you just conditioned to feel like shit,
to feel like you nothing, to feel like you don't
deserve nothing more from being an adult and having correctional
(18:53):
officers have a key to yourself that's ten fifteen years
younger than you, and you have to say, miss such
and such or CEO, and it dehumanizes you. And so
you go through that for years and years to where
it becomes a part of you, right shaping me into
who I became or who I am today. So how
(19:14):
do you find balance of staying true to who you
are but surviving this right? Because I knew I was
coming home and I just didn't know when. Because I
knew I had a fighter with Michelle, I knew I
had a great organization such as the op with me.
I'm one of the fortunate ones that came home with
an opportunity to get back into society, to have the
(19:36):
humanity back in the store. And I found myself coming
home from work and coming in and confining myself to
my bedroom just at one space when I got two floors,
because I'm like unconsciously conditioned to be right here just
in the bed, having a refrigerator full of food but
only eating chips and news. Like. I really went through
(19:57):
this phase for at least ninety days, and I woke
up one day. I was making some noodles for breakfast,
Raymond noodles, and I was stirring the noodles and I'm
the only one in here, and I was like, oh shit,
I'm really eating noodles At ten o'clock in the morning,
made the noodles and took them back in my room,
like I had to go there. That's what my incarceration did.
(20:19):
I took a lot. I went through a life. My
mom died, which was my best friend, only one of
the main supports I had, and me not being able
to go to her funeral and listening to it from
a jail phone, and things like that, missing your children
grow up and all this, and so you like, you
have to deal with it because you don't want to
come out out of this thing destroyed.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And so many of the stories we hear as our
guest struggle with prison life. They also typically received denials
on their direct appeals. While exonerating information remains hidden. But
in Chris's case, Chris already had Michelle and they knew
what they needed to do, and still it took twelve
long years.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
After Chris was convicted.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
One of the things I was hell bent on doing
was getting the data underlying the DNA evidence, and my
expert re ran all the tests. So she retested the wig,
the sunglasses, and the T shirt and it showed from
her lab notes and the States lab notes that were
withheld during his trial that Charles Allen's DNA was present
(21:25):
across the board fourteen out of fifteen and fifteen out
of fifteen low SI on the wig and the T
shirt the sunglasses. The States testing came back inconclusive, but
my expert post trial came back and also identified Charles Allens.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We were able to have a post conviction.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Hearing and present all of this evidence and get it
in the record also with Judge Ruhlman and my expert.
She explained that contrary to the state's theory that that
is not consistent with somebody who just briefly handles something,
especially a wig. You think about if you just touch wig,
you're touching like the outside of it, the inner part
that touches your head when you're wearing it was heavily
(22:05):
present with his DNA, and so was the shirt. And
she explained that this is evidence that Charles Allen was
wearing these items. And we were before the same judge
that convicted Chris, and he said, on the record, Okay,
I understand the evidence. The evidence shows that Chris isn't
the one who committed this robbery, but I think he
(22:27):
was involved somehow, So I'm going to deny this motion
and keep his convictions in place, which is insane, truly insane,
because the state's theory from start to finish and even
to that point, was that Chris was the one who
wore the costume and came in with the gun and
(22:48):
committed this robbery, and Charles claimed that he was the
getaway driver. So the judge deny this motion. But at
least we were able to get all of this crucial
DNA evidence in addition to our DNA testing of the
sunglasses that also identified Charles Allen on the record.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Now with the Brady material on the record, they could
present it on direct appeal, for which Chris had to
hire a different attorney.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
I was sending this attorney all kinds of emails, voicemails,
Please meet with me. I have to explain this to you,
and will you believe that appellat attorney didn't even raise
the error of a Brady violation and didn't even include
any of the evidence from the post conviction hearing. Basically,
(23:35):
the errors that she raised were non errors. So of
course he lost his appeal.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
This was the same attorney that I was working with
before I end up retaining Michelle that's been practicing law
for thirty plus years. Everybody that knows her and is like,
how did she miss that? And then not communicate with Michelle.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
At that point, if there's anything that you don't raise
in one court, you can never raise it in a
higher court. It's considered procedurally defaulted. So I was still
desperate to fix this. So what I did at that
point was I got the Ohio Public Defender's Office involved
(24:19):
to file a non routine motion in the appellate Court
called a Rule twenty six B motion, which it's available
for situations like this where the appellate attorney is ineffective
to try to reopen the appeal and put forth the
error that the appellaate attorney didn't raise. Now, again, this
(24:39):
is still obvious that we should win this. But the
court denied the Rule twenty six B motion and said
that the appellate attorney was not ineffective for raising this because,
in their opinion, this DNA evidence that was presented in
the post conviction motion was only cumulative to what was
(25:00):
already presented at the trial and it really didn't shed
any new light. So they really missed the entire point
of it.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
While the appeals unfolded over a decade of Chris's life
ticked away, and they moved on to federal court, where
there are ways to raise procedurally defaulted issues. After one denial,
they had a win at the next level in the
Sixth Circuit.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
They issued an amazing decision in June of twenty nineteen,
and this was the first court that ever understood that
the state was repeatedly putting forth false claims. Like the
judge did, Chris was involved somehow. I have a hunch
he was involved in this somehow, and that's not a
(25:40):
valid basis for conviction, And in fact, all the evidence
showed the exact opposite. The Sixth Circuit had to remand
it back to the district court to actually decide the
merits of the Brady claim and the ineffective assistance of
a Pellet Council claim, and they ended up not having
to rule on the ineffective assistance of a Pellet council
claim because the Brady violation trumped it. So finally, in
(26:03):
April of twenty twenty, height of the COVID pandemic, Chris
was finally released.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Chris was supposed to be released on April ninth, twenty twenty,
and with a co morbidity. His release during the early
days of the COVID pandemic could not have been more urgent.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
April ninth, com and Michelle we have steadied communication. She's like,
it's going to happen, like, yeah, you're being released, and
Saw I'm just like ready sale, pack case, sleep. The
night before my son, who's at this time is what
nineteen years old, haven't seen him since seven. He comes
up to Leedo with Michelle and all day just waiting,
(26:43):
not getting answers anything, and Dan finally eleven o'clock eleven
thirty that evening they come into my sale and saying, okay,
you being released and just to have that sense of freedom,
right and you're getting dressed out and things like that,
and then walk out and highway patrol is sitting there waiting,
not your family, but highway patroler sitting there waiting with
(27:06):
chains and saying, hey, you're coming with us. So I'm like,
hold up, wait a minute, where is my lawyer? Like
are you coming with us? Don't worry about it, and
chaining me not in the back, but in the front
of a highway patrol car highway patrol may get in
the back behind me, and it's like, at this point,
(27:26):
twelve thirty one in the morning, and we drive it
from Toledo to Cincinnati, which is a three and a
half hour drive, and you just got this patrol man
sitting behind you when you up front with your hands
visible and I'm just sitting up. Came the scariest thing
in my life because in my mind, I'm like, oh
my god, I'm just waiting to hear drop the weapon,
(27:46):
drop the weapon, or he reached for my gun and
they kill me right there. I mean, I'm having to
like scratch my nose. I don't want to move. I'm
just right here, just sitting straight up, just watching the road,
not asking questions in anything. Just take me where I'm going,
and they end up processing me in the county jail.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
The writ hit said that Chris was to be immediately
released under no conditions, so they weren't following the orders.
So I got a ruling from the federal judge saying
that he essentially was going to hold the state in
contempt if you weren't released. And what we found out
a couple days later, ironically, Judge Ruleman came to our
(28:37):
aid is that on April ninth, when the federal court
issued the ordering Chris released, Hamilton County called Judge Ruleman
and said, there's this order on this case that was
your case, saying that Chris Smith is to be released,
but we want to continue to hold him to bring
(28:57):
him to trial again. Can we get an order to
that which they were not allowed to do. That's in
direct violation of the federal order. And Judge Roulman said
to them, I need to see the federal order first
before I can do that. They didn't give it to him,
so he thought the issue was just dropped. But no,
that is not what happened. Because this was COVID, not
(29:19):
all the judges were present. They were having like alternate
judges coming in. The prosecutors went to the judge who
was the presiding judge, who was physically there at the courtroom,
and told her that Judge Rulman said for her to
sign this order on his case to have Chris Smith
brought back, which he explicitly did not do. But she
signed it because that's what she was told Roulman wanted,
(29:42):
and Chris was brought back to Hamilton County and defiance
of the federal order, and a few days later we
finally got in court in front of Judge Roulman. Judge
Roulman was then one hundred percent on our side and
saying no, Chris Smith has to be released, very very
angry with the county prosecutors at what they had done
(30:04):
deceiving him.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The Hamilton County Court of Common Please issued a release
order as well, but the state continued on appealing whether
the federal court even had the jurisdiction to rule on
the Brady material. Nevertheless, Chris was freed on April fourteenth,
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I just came home and hit the ground running. Just
got back to things I was doing before I went in,
as such as my music, just building a brand, a
lot of things that I started even before I was released,
as far as start my own company and got into
promotion and things like that. Got married, and I got
(30:41):
a job, a good opportunity at a dealership here. Started
excelling in that, working with found village organization of at
risk youth, coaching football, mentoring youth, just doing everything I
could to contribute to the goodness of this world, and
just to stay busy. I just really want to think
about where it came from and kind of just put
(31:03):
it behind me and just pressed forward.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
State appealed Chris's habeas petition on the basis of saying
that the state appellate court, when they denied that rule
twenty six B motion, if you'll remember back, that was
the one to get his direct appeal reopened to raise
the Brady claims. When appealing his habeast grant, the state
said that twenty six B motion ruled on the Brady claim.
(31:31):
They said something like the appellate attorney didn't mess up
here because any claim of a Brady violation wasn't material.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Even though the Brady violation in question was most definitely material.
The DNA testings underlying data thwarted the state's theory and
prove Chris's innocence.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The state was now saying the federal District court was
wrong to grant the habeat petition because the state court
already ruled on your Brady claim and they didn't get
it wrong. And the federal court can't undo a state
court ruling unless it's contrary to or an unreasonable application
of US Supreme Court precedent. And so when we went
(32:09):
before the Sixth Circuit the second time with a horrendous panel,
they agreed with the state and said, yes, in fact,
despite everything that our same court said about the DNA,
evidence shows that you weren't the gunman. The trial evidence
shows that you weren't an accomplice. The state Appellate Court's
(32:31):
ruling when they rejected your twenty six B motion has
to stand because some reasonable minds could think that way.
So the Sixth Circuit reversed the grant of the habeas petition.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Once that decision came back, I lost their drift and
I stopped writing, I stopped creating, and I stopped moving
the company forward and just became content with working. That's
how you conditioned, like when you're in prison, like going
to Chilhall or having your port a job and being
going on back to Yosee.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
So where his case technically stands now, there's kind of
two parts to it. Sixth Circuit remanded it back to
the District Court again to rule on the merits of
the ineffective assistance of appellate Council claim. We had to
brief that in May of twenty twenty one, and it's
still been pending since then, and Chris was, of course,
(33:22):
under threat of having to go back to prison because
his habeas grant was reversed, and so Judge Rolmand recused himself,
passed the case off to a different judge, a newly elected,
absolutely fantastic judge Jennifer Branch on his case in state
court now, who granted Chris' judicial release, basically commuted the
(33:43):
remainder of his sentence so that he could not go
back to prison on this but left it so that
he's on supervision by the state court, so to speak,
so that we still retained jurisdiction and federal court to
get his convictions officially wiped off theirroat record once and
for all.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
You know, I have a probation officer, a parole officer,
so technically I'm not free. And when I'm here and
enjoying my day and I get a knock on the
door and look out to people, it's two probation officers
with guns and badges, invest on like I'm a threat,
one standing on the side of the door and not
let them in. And it could just pop up and
evade my home at any given time. There's no freedom
(34:24):
in that. I don't feel free, and in that process,
you damaging and undermining and uprooting everything that I've worked
so hard for since I've been home, and just recently,
I claim that freedom back. On my forty second birthday
November third, I woke up and I said, you know what,
this chapter forty two is going to represent freedom, true
(34:48):
freedom with themself and I'm getting back to me, putting
in to me, and I'm not about to let no
prison or even being exonerated to find my sense of freedom.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Well, I wish you all the best on your journey,
all the best of everything. And I hope this means
you'll be making more music too. Is that fair to assume?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm on the major platforms. I'm everywhere. I'm back creating.
Michelle is actually on the first song that I recorded
when I came home is remember Me. We have a
video of add on YouTube reality with what whole.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Have I have to just brag on Chris for just
a minute. He's a brilliant writer. And that video that
he was just talking about he was released in mid
April twenty twenty. He recorded this about a month later.
I mean, just to think about that whirlwind he was
going through and then you see what he was able
to put together in just a few weeks. If you
(35:43):
watch that video, remember me, it's mind boggling. I mean,
it's just the tip of the iceberg of his talent.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Well, we're going to be sure to have your music,
your YouTube channel, and Instagram linked in the episode description
for everyone to follow. And with that, we're going to
go to closing arguments. First of all, thank you for
being here and sharing this remarkable story. And then I'm
going to switch my microphone off, kick back in my
chair with my headphones on, and close my eyes and
(36:09):
just listen to anything else you want to share with
me and our incredible audience. So Michelle, why don't you
go first, and then just hand the mic off to
Chris and he'll take us off into the sunset.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
I think an important takeaway is that people get involved
in elections to an extent, thinking about, oh what president
am I going to elect? What congressman? But it's really
important to look at what judges are on the ballot,
and it might be a little more difficult to know
which judge is the right judge to elect. So go
(36:43):
seek out information from your local Innocence project or your
local public Defender's office and seek advice about who will
be a fair judge on that ballot, because I think
something that's overlooked is the power of judges here in
our country at the state court level. Our judges are elected,
they are politicians like anyone else at that point, and
(37:08):
they will decide cases based on their ideology, and that
can lead to wrongful convictions, and it did here, and
so it's very important to educate yourself on who to
elect and pay attention to those elections to not just
the president and the congressman. I think Chris's case is
a case in point for that, and Chris's case points
(37:31):
out also tunnel vision and what that can do. This
often happens in court cases and in wrongful conviction cases,
but this can happen in everyday life too. You hear
just in your everyday encounters. You hear some gossip of
something crazy, You hear bits and pieces, and you form
a conclusion, and then when you hear a few days
(37:53):
later the full story or the other person's side to it,
what actually happened is completely different. Or you hear a
news headline of a world event and it seems unbelievable
or maybe very believable to you, and you start leaping
to conclusions based on that, and then time plays out
and there's more to the story. So I think it's
just very important in life. These wrongful convictions teach us this.
(38:17):
Don't jump to conclusions, don't jump down those tunnels and
have your decisions made up so early that you can't
have an open mind to hearing things out, hearing what
the bigger picture might be. I think overall people would
have more peaceful lives, the world would be a more
peaceful place. Certainly, there would be less wrongful convictions. I mean,
(38:39):
it's just an important concept to learn that. Chris's case
teaches about hear all sides, look at objective facts, educate yourself,
and then form your conclusions.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I just want to say in close, and it's not
about guilt, it's not about innocence. It's about us just
plan our part to just contribute to the goodness out
the world. Everybody make mistakes, whether it's the defendant on
the prosecution, the judges, the pillaricle. Everybody make mistakes, but
(39:10):
it's about what we do afterwards. It's like, you can
think about that storm I went through, but we're still
talking about that storm right now, and because we made
it out that storm, right, it's about what we do now,
It's about what we learned while we was in the
midst of that storm. We hear this so so often,
it's so common, right. Would it stopped next year, five
(39:31):
years from now, two years from now. Probably not. But
we just got to do our part because each one
of us can make a difference. How we need is
that one opportunity.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Thank you for listening to Ron 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 and Kathleen fa as well as my fellow
executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Clyburn. The
music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
(40:07):
nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us across
all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at
Wrongful Conviction. 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 one
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