September 16, 2024 • 42 mins
In 2004, Marvin Haynes was a pretty average 16-year-old — watching Nickelodeon, chasing trends and girls, just having a good time. “I just couldn't wait for the weekends” Marvin says. Until he was picked up by police for a murder at a Minneapolis, MN flower shop. With no physical evidence tying Marvin to the scene, shaky witness IDs, and even a witness recanting at the stand, teenage Marvin was sentenced to life in prison.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In May of two thousand and four. Marvin Haynes was
a pretty average sixteen year old kid.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I was a party animal at that time, so it
was like I just couldn't wait for the weekends and
just you know, just to have the good, nice clothes
on and just be able to go have fun. That's
what I was like doing.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Marvin didn't have a care in the world except for
the latest trends and chasing girls. That is until he
was picked up by the police.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It was just like basically something happened bad and just
asking me like was I involved or do I know
anything like that? And they was talking about a flower shop,
so I didn't really know what they were talking about.
They never really told me it was a murder.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Marvin says he had never been in any kind of
serious trouble, so he wasn't really worried about it. He
figured there was a mix up and the police would
get it right.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I was thinking more like at that time, as long
as I get out by Friday and so I can
go on. What I was was doing is wels, Yeah,
So I was like that's all my thought process was.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But Marvin never left the station.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi, my name is Marvin Haynes. I was wrongly convicted
at sixteen. I spent nineteen in like seven months incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
From Lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today Marvin Haynes. Marvin Haynes was born on December sixth,
nineteen eighty seven. He was raised in a working class
(01:41):
family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father worked in construction and
his mother stayed at home raising the family. He's one
of seven kids.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I got three sisters older than me, well, four sisters
and then me. Then I got a little brother and
a little sister. I'm the oldest boy.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We had a close knit family. So it was like
we did all a lot of things together, like summer
vacations to my granny home, State Bellley Fair, six Flags,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So it was kind of like Marvin says, growing up,
life was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
As a kid. I just like to have fun and like,
you know, play with cars and you know, stuff like that,
just like kid things. So I go home watch Nickelodeon literally,
so yeah, that was like one of my things.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All the classic Nickelodeons, all the classes you know. Hay
Arnold's there was like, oh, did you ever watch Doug Doug?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Also, what's the Rugrats? You know what I mean? So
like all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Marvin told me he especially loved to bike ride.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
People look at me and be like at my cass
and be like, do you play football? Used to play football?
But no, I just used to watch ride bikes.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A lot, kind of bikes, like BMX bikes, regular.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
All the BMX bikes like Gt. Dino's, Gary Fisher's, you know, yeah,
the nice bikes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But as he got older and became a teenager, Marvin
says his priorities changed.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It was all about being having the newest clothes and
like girls parties every weekend, go to like all the
parties in the neighborhood, so you know, just having fun,
having fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
With your friends around.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah that was me. Yeah, literally, Like so I liked
it having all the new shoes and stuff like that.
So that was like what I liked doing.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Did you work? No?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I didn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
How'd you get money to buy nice shoes?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I got five sisters and stuff. So I used to like, honestly,
some of my sister used to have the nicest shoes
and if I couldn't get them that week or something.
I'd probably get you know, get their shoes or because
they had jobs and stuff. So yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Had ways, and Marvin knew how to hustle his sisters.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I had children really young.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This is Marvin's sister, Marvina. She's four years older.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And Marvin helped me out with the kids because I
was like always like going out and running the streets.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And you left your baby brother tod.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But it was the house of us, right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It was like the mom is there and she probably
don't want to watch the kid. And then Marvin's like,
you give me five dollars.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I'm like, yeah, I'm giving you five dollars. I'm out of.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Marvin was just an ordinary sixteen year old kid, hanging
out with friends and chasing the latest trends.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Honestly, I was just living for the that day, Marvin
told me, the evening of Sunday, May sixteenth, two thousand
and four, was just like any other I was at
a party, you know what I'm saying, Like just having fun,
doing regular things, went home late, you know, like two
(04:40):
in the morning, two three in the morning, slept and
woke up like a normal day, you know, like woke
up at like late in the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Marvin says he got up and went to meet up
with friends at some local spots.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Like where I know everybody yet, so just going about
your norse. Yeah, I was going by my normal life.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So a few days later, on May nineteenth, Marvin wakes
up to his mom something.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I think it was a Wednesday. I was woke up
early in the morning and my mom was basically saying, like,
the police here. They got a warrant for your arrest.
They just want to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
At first, Marvin says he wasn't too concerned.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Because this that happened to me before, for like violations
of curfews and different things like that.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
In fact, that's exactly the charge. They picked him up
and held him on he'd missed a court appearance for
breaking curfew.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
With you, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The police took Marvin into the station for questioning.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay, okay, Yeah. They brought me into an interrogation room,
set me in there for a while. I feel like
I don't have nothing to hide, okay, your.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Junior.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So Marvin spoke to the officers with no adult or
attorney president, thinking this was just for a curfew violation.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And I think it was a curve from g and
I was walking to the club.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
She regreting because you don't have a car, you don't
have a relacens.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I ain't got no nue okay. But just was telling
them my normal thing of what I was doing that
past week, you know, like the past days that led
it to me being in that room. So I'm just
telling them like who I hang with, where i'd be at,
you know, just stuff like that, and oh my cousin
Poopie house. I actually had some cash on me, so
(06:31):
I was asking them about, like, hey, did you make
sure you give me a receipt for the money that
I you know that I had when I came in here,
I said, seat because they took they took my money
down to the game. I didn't know nothing. I had
no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Marvin had no idea that while he was sitting there
worrying about receipts for a few dollars, that he'd been
identified in a murder.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But then when I when I was hearing them saying
like we got your fingerprints and stuff like that, and
I was just like I was like discompibulated, Like what
what was y'all talking about I had to really think back,
like what did I do wrong this weekend? We know
you were in that Mark Okay, so we know that.
And they was talking about a flower shop, and I
ain't never told nobody ain't that flower shop? Yeah you have, Yeah,
(07:17):
you have, Marvin straight up. Now, I'm keeping it real
with you.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
You say, keep unreal.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm just trying to give her town.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
That's Martin where you're saying, you saying that you're trying
to point You're trying to say that you.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Were in the flower shop. Yeah. Straight, I was putting
two together, and I still was kind of confused, expressing
to them like y'all got the wrong person.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That person had shot and killed fifty five year old
Randy Scharer inside his family business, Jerry's Flower Shop.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Is that a flower shop in North Minneapolis, May sixteenth,
two thousand and four. Someone comes in and is asking
for flowers, ends up, you know, pulling a gun and
saying he wants money from from the back.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
This is Andrew Marcourt. He's a managing attorney at the
Great North Innocence Project. Andrew explains that the robber had
originally been speaking with Cynthia McDermott when her brother Randy
walked in.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
And the person shoots him two times.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Then McDermott flees out the back.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
She becomes kind of the primary eyewitness in the case.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
McDermott had run to a neighbor's house and called nine
one one before rushing back to the flower shop, where
she found her brother Randy dead. McDermott told first responders
that the gunman was a tall, thin blackmail in his
early twenties. She said he weighed about one hundred and
eighty pounds, and she also specified his hair was short
(08:51):
cropped to his head. When police first showed her a
photo lineup, she identified someone with what she said was
seventy five to eight percent confidence.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
This witness, Cynthia McDermott. She actually picked a filler, which
is like one of the nun suspects in the lineup.
You know, she picked this person who looks nothing like Marvin.
And more to the points, I mean, you know, in
terms of just best practices, when someone picks a filler,
I mean, what that tells you is they don't, you know,
(09:23):
like they don't have a good memory of what the
suspect looks like.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Why wouldn't it have been that guy.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Well, one, he was a filler, so there was no
reason to suspect him. He was just pulled from the database.
But also they did they did actually look into whether
he could be a credible suspect, and he appeared to
have an alibi that he was in South Dakota at
the time. That really should have been the end of
it for her, that that should have been like, well,
(09:49):
she doesn't know, so we're going to have to solve
this case some other way.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But that wasn't the end of it.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
So Marvin comes to the attention of the police a
few days later with an an anonymous with a tip
saying that there's some word that little Marvin was involved.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Why did you have the nickname Little Marvin?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
My dad named Marvin, So it was like everybody that
know me call me little Marvin, or everybody that like
literally that know me, call me little Marvin.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
At the time, Marvin was indeed little, at least compared
to the suspect that McDermott had described.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
He was much smaller, I think about fifty pounds lighter
than the estimate, several inches shorter, several years younger, but
perhaps most obviously the witnesses just both to describe someone
with short hair. The primary witness that he had short
cropped hair, and at.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
The time Marvin had a tall.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Afro, nothing anyone could describe as close cropped hair. When
they did the photo lineup, though, they didn't use a
contemporaneous picture of him, even though he'd been arrested at
that time and they had there was you know, they
had a mugshot created that day. What they used was
a two year old photo where he did have short hair,
so it was much more closely resembling what the witnesses
(11:06):
had described, even though that wasn't how he looked that day.
So that was a problem.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So they have they they have Marvin in custody right now.
Yeah afro. They know this witness they're looking for is
taller with no afro. And they're like, well, fine, we'll
just we'll still go for him. But an old picture, yeap.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
So they so they use this old picture and in
that time she she did pick him. I mean, this
case is just an absolute disaster from a eyewitness identification perspective.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
At least, I'm keeping it. I'm keeping it. When they
came to see me, they was asking me that so
this is how you wear your hair.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Tell me why did you change your hair style?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And I didn't put twods too together because I'm like,
I didn't. I just like this, I'll wear my hair,
you know. They kept asking me about my hair.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Eventually, Marvin was put in a live lineup work going
in March.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Stand right there and right there, look straight at the window.
Turns it right.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I've never been in a lineup? What is that like?
Is it like in the movies? Like are you? Is
there a glass wall and you can't see that?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
No way, I can't even lie to you. It's true
when they say that when you go to like through
a like a uh a difficult moment in your life,
or is something like hard like that, you can't really
remember it like I can't. I couldn't really remember it
for years until I really seenk it don't move and
allowed the many voice repeat that to me. Don't don't move.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Where's the tape?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Where's the tape? This is no joke, there's no joke.
I want the money.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
I want the money.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
No tell no till in that lineup, McDermott picked Marvin again,
and at this point Marvin realized he might be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Got intense, and then I realized, like, man, like they
trying to, you know, frame me. But then I was
thinking like, well, they gonna find the right person and
then they gonna just gonna come and correct this. I
literally didn't think that I would be going to prison
or I would be arrested for something like this. So
I was more thinking I was in I was trusting them,
thinking like Okay, well they gonna figure this out and
(13:21):
they gonna come to me and be like, Okay, we
got the wrong person, you know what I mean. So
I never thought I would go to prison or I
would be arrested for something like this. At that time,
these my family didn't know nothing about the justice system.
We never had a family member to go through anything
(13:41):
like this, you know what I mean. So we was
not knowledgeable about things like this or what to do
when it happened, or don't talk to the police. We
was talk like the police is the good guys.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But the police charged Marvin with first degree murder and
second degree assault.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Happened to Marvin.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
It affected our whole family, Mervin's mother especially.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
She asked me once though, she was like, Marvin, did
you have anything to do with this, and I told her,
like she only asked me one time. I said, no,
I had, I don't know nothing about this, and she
never asked me again. She knew that I wasn't lying
about that, you know.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
What I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We were a good kid, yeah, but never.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I wouldn't say I was a great kid, But she
knew that I wasn't involved in on stuff like that,
you know what I'm saying. So it only took for
me to tell her one time that I wasn't involved
in it or I didn't have and she knew that
I wasn't lying about it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But the truth that her sixteen year old boy was
being charged with murder was too much for Mervin's mom
to handle.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
My mom kind of like mentally checked out. There was
like never any more dinner at the dinner table. Our
parents separated totally at that point. And so when it
affected my mom and my parents, it affect us all,
(15:01):
which caused the other children to end up being like
the system.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
My mom eventually lost her kids and my sister took them.
And so it's just like it affected me in crazy ways,
affected our whole family.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And we wasn't able to ask her.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
We wasn't able to check on her because when you
were mom, everybody just think you're strong.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
She took it hard. She started partying more too after that,
and just going out. My mom never was going out.
She stayed at home, took care of us. But once
this happened to me, she's just like, you know, like
was trying to escape it, you know what I'm saying,
or trying to figure because she felt like she couldn't
do nothing, and she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The case was moving forward with the witness ideas in
the bag, the police focused on what they believed had happened,
homing in on Marvin's family for answers.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
They claim that Marvin was hanging out with some friends
and his cousin over at another friend's house.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The police questioned Marvin's fourteen year old cousin, Isaiah. During
the first few interviews, Isaiah didn't have anything to say,
but then in a later interrogation, Isaiah cracked. He allegedly
told police.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
That Marvin said that the mourning of that he was
going to go hit a lick, which is like a
slang term for committed a robbery. Afterwards, he told him
he had shut a white man.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
He'd be the first of three kids who the police
would use to implicate Marvin in the crime. A few
months later, a fourteen year old acquaintance of Marvin's gave
a statement. Anthony Todd told police had also heard Marvin
bragging about hitting a lick. Then a year later, in
August two thousand and five, seventeen year old Marvin Haines
(17:09):
went to trial. Mike Fernstall prosecuted the case. He presented
multiple witnesses he believed with I D Marvin as the shooter,
including Cynthia mcdermodd, who said she had no doubt Marvin
had shot and killed her brother. But then Marvin's cousin
Isaiah took the stand.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
He actually, in a pretty dramatic moment, actually tried to
recant from the stand at trial and said, look, this
isn't true. The only reason I said it is that
they were threatening me with my own time. Said that
I was looking at you know, up to fifteen years,
get half of what Marvin's looking at if if I
(17:51):
don't cooperate.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
He told the people. He told a judge, he said,
look y'all making me say my cousin to jail for
something he didn't do. He's screaming like this man is
He's saying like my cousin is innocent, and they took
him off the stand.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
They call a recess because things really went off the rails.
I mean, this is in live court with the state,
and then they go back and you know, basically they're
threatening him with perjury charges if he doesn't recant his recantation.
And he was you know, there was testimony that he's
(18:24):
on the hall he's you know, a kid and who
like bawling in the hallway because he's been placed in
this this impossible situation. So anyway, they bring him back
in and he ends up and kind of fits and
starts basically going back to the original story he told
(18:45):
the police.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A few other witnesses were called to the stand, including
Robb Seely, who was.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
A fourteen year old boy who was in the neighborhood
attending temple and just happened to be walking by and
heard shots and saw someone fleeing shortly.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
After the shooting.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Seely had ideed Marvin in a lineup, but a year
later on the stand, Seely said he had doubts. Another witness,
Jennifer Coleman, testified that she had spoken to Marvin the
morning of the shooting at his house and he told
her he shot some old white man. However, Coleman could
not I d Marvin in court and the house she
(19:25):
had said was Marvin's was actually the house of another
person named Marvin. Things were looking shaky for the prosecution.
Finally it was the defense's turn. Marvin's mom hired a
private defense attorney, Cassius Benson, to represent Marvin. Benson advised
(19:51):
Marvin not to take the stand, as many defense attorneys do. However,
Marvin insisted, what.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I'm like, man, look I often in take the stand
and tail. They's people that I'm innocent. You know what
I'm saying. I'm telling my story, and I was able to.
I was able to tell, you know, I wasn't the
person that committed this crime. You know.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
He gave a story which is the same story he's
been saying for years, which is that he was home
in bed that morning, that he went out with friends
the night before, was I got home kind of late,
slept in and it was kind of an unremarkable day.
So that that was essentially the defense case.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
After a week long trial with no forensic evidence tying
Marvin to the shooting, no murder weapon, shaky witness ideas,
and even a witness recanting on the stand. Marvin thought
he'd be back to being a teenager in no time.
Did you think you'd be convicted?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
No? I did not think I was going to be convicted.
I did not ever think I was going to be convicted, Like,
especially with all the evidence that I seen myself. So
I'm thinking, like, it's so obvious they this is impossible
for me to get convicted. So when it happened, it
was just like I was shocked. I was just like damn.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
On September second, two thousand and five, the jury convicted
Marvin a first degree murder and second degree assault. Did
you see your family in the courtroom?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah? Hell, yeah, my mom that that.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, that's okay. There's tissues right here too.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah. I'm good though, But I just see my mom.
I had affected her. That's the only thing that made
me upset. She actually just walked out, and she was
said so mad.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
After seeing his mother walk out, seventeen year old Marvin,
upset and angry, lashed out at the judge, yelling.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
All y'all gonna burn it. Hell because you'll know I
didn't commit.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
This, that's what you said.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah I did. It was just like I said. When
it happened, I couldn't believe that they was able to,
you know, a judge was able to see this stuff
taking place, and like it was. The courtroom was packed
with people and they seen that, you know, I was
actually wrongly convicted.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It was very hard for us to actually understand what
was happening to Marvin because we had this faith into
the system.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Later that month, Judge Robert Blazer sentenced Marvin to life
in prison. Well, Marvin's family grappled with their new reality.
Marvin was in his own health, sent to an adult
men's prison to serve his time, and in order to survive,
Marvin says he had to be tough.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
When I first got to prison, I had to, you know,
do a lot of different things to establish my dominance
and let them know, like I'm not going for none
of this type of stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well did you have to do you're a kid that
winds up in an adult prison, Yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I was doing a lot of fighting when I came
to the county. I was fighting adults. I understand now
that a lot of people going through a lot of
things in there, so anything could send somebody over there
over the top, any little thing, or it's just like
that because you people facing life. I was hopeless at
that point.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Marvin told me, with time like that, some people have
nothing to lose, so they'll try to prove themselves by
picking on someone else like a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
You gotta, you know, protect yourself by any means, you
know what I'm saying, or you'll become a victim in
that place because in them environments, like you test it
all the time, you know what I mean, or just
like you got to prove yourself. I was. I was
hanging out with people that I wasn't you know, that
wouldn't have the best my best interest at hand. So
I had to really learn a lot. You know. When
I first got there, I was seventeen years old, so
(23:46):
I was, you know what I'm saying, just trying to
get by.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Actually, Marvin says he's lucky he's not facing time for
something he actually did, like fighting with other prisoners.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I could have harmed somebody in there, or somebody could
have harmed me because in them environments, like people I
don't understand, like you tested all the time.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But Marvin says things changed when he wound up in
solitary confinement just shortly after he got to prison.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I ended up in a whole one time, and I
read about the Innocent Project. It was at the last
page of the the article that I of this magazine
that I seen. It was literally the last page and
it was just saying, if you actually innocent, you wrongly convicted,
please contact Is this in.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
A prison magazine or like what magazine was the Innocence
Project advertising in?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah? Probably I think it was. It was like a
mirror of prison mirrors. Oh yeah, it was so Yeah,
it was at the last page and I'm like, damn,
I'm like I I literally ripped it out. So when
I got out the whole, when right to the lad Iberry,
That's when I really started finding out, like, damn, You're
(24:49):
not the only person that's gone through this or that
went through this. So I started writing people I could
beare to even write, No.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I still can't get over that you were a child,
Like thinking back for sixty and I don't know if
I would even comprehend what a life sentence is.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, I couldn't even describe it. YEP, I show you
a letter. I was all over the place but explaining
my story of people and just trying to get them
to understand.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But I'm innocent, Marvin says. A week later, the Great
North Innocence Project wrote him back and sent a questionnaire.
He filled it out and sent it back and then
waited and waited, but nothing. So we went ahead and
filed an appeal without them in two thousand and seven,
but he was denied.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I got that letter in the mail and I sat
down and I read it, and I was just like,
all right, I gotta find a different way. Like literally,
I didn't never give up. I didn't cry. I didn't
I wasn't mad or nothing. I was just like, okay,
well they not listening at this time, you know, and
I'll go to I used to go tell the people
that I was close to in there, and I used
to tell them like, look, man, my appeal got denied
and they and they ain't really give me no words
(25:54):
and encouraged me. I had to do it myself, you
know what I'm saying. I had to encourage myself that
it'll be okay.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Marvin says he didn't even want to tell his family
because he didn't want to disappoint them. Plus he was
on the outs with some family members like his cousin
Isaiah and his sister Marvina.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I didn't talk to Marvin for like three or four
years just because of family issues.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But Marvina and Marvin eventually reconnected and she became the
driving force behind his case. It all happened when Marvin
convinced her to take over his social media.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
We talked over the phone a few times and Marvin
was like, just take my past code.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I don't want your past go.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
So I finally took the past code and I started
to work his social media account. And then as I
was sitting on my couch, I had started connecting with
people like all over the world, in Hong Kong, people
from Detroit, Michigan, everywhere, and I was aligning myself anywhere
that I can to tell what had happened to my brother.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
But then as I was sitting on a couch, on a.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Couch similar to this one, and I'm doing the Facebook,
I heard a voice in my head and it said,
you're not going to get your brother out behind this keyboard.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So Marvina hit the streets and made a sign with
Marvin on it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And I went out to this protest.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
A sister by the name Amoni Dotton asked me if
I wanted to speak on my brother's behalf, and when
she pulled me to the front, is like she pulled
me through a universe, and I felt this power.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
At the time, North Minneapolis was dealing with a surge
in violent crime. Many residents were scared and elected officials
and the police responded by arresting people in record numbers,
not all of them guilty, and many from families just
like Marvina's.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
So family started to reach out to me and they say,
we found you on Facebook, We've seen you on a
news or we heard you speak here.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This is going on with our family.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I started organizing protests and press conferences for my brother
in Minneapolis. Woke Marvin up at the age of sixteen
in our mother house in two thousand and four, they
gave him life for a crime.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Evidence shows he didn't commit.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
This t I was like popping up at the key
at the General's office, going to the Governor's house wherever
I needed to be, because I needed people to understand
that when we're talking about Wronfau incarceration, that's a state
of emergency. There's more than one way to lynch amen
(28:34):
and what they're doing with wrongfo incarceration. That's called a
miling day lynching.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
While Marvina fucked for Marvin on the outside, Marvin continued
researching his case and writing The Great North Innocence Project
from the inside.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
There was a couple of rounds where he had reached
out to us over the years, and there weren't any
real big breaks for a long time.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
But then finally, just a couple.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Of years ago, we were able to get some new evidence.
Kind of the big break for us was we were
able to talk with Robbie Seely, who was one of
the eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Robbie Ceely was the fourteen year old who said he
saw someone fleeing the flower shop. He'd initially id'd Marvin,
but later on the stand expressed doubts.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
He told us that he never actually got a good
look at Marvin's face, that he didn't know who the
perpetrator was, that he felt pressured to make an identification
because you know, he himself was a young kid at
the time and the police were saying this is a
really serious case. He felt like he needed to help
(29:43):
him out and he did the best he could within
some very flawed procedures, but he had no idea, and
he never saw the person's face and was willing to
go on the record with that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
From there, the prosecution's entire case crumbled.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
Got recantation from Anthony Todd, who is one of one
of the witnesses who said a trial that Marvin had
told him he was going to go.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Hit a lick.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Remember he was fourteen, a middle schooler.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
He originally said he didn't know anything until he got
into some trouble himself. And so the police go and
see him and and you know, similarly are sort of
threatening him with his own time, and he cracks in
the same way that Isaiah Harper did.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Marvin's cousin, Isaiah.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
The police had tried to talk to Isaiah many many times.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
They came to him multiple times, saying, well, you're going
to get charged with drive without license or these different
charges if you know, you don't give us information.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Now, he had had tried to recance back at trial,
but he he, you know, sort of reaffirmed his reincantation
to us. He said that they had reason to think
it was Marvin, and that they knew he had him
from and that look, you know, if you are if
you're obstructing an investigation, you can get half the time
that the principal actor is looking at You could be
(31:10):
looking at fifteen years and he was I think he
was fourteen at the time. He was even younger than Marvin.
So a fourteen year old kid saying if you don't cooperate,
you could go to prison for fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Teenagers being threatened to lie on another teenager.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
I mean, it's not that hard to understand, like why
you would crack under those circumstances.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Marvina, did you talk to your cousin at that time?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, he lived with me throughout it.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I helped support it Isaiah, even when folks out that
I shouldn't have had supported Isaiah.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
That's still my blood cousin.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And at that time I knew that the police had
done something bad, and then even using our cousin to test,
to make him throw him in adult prisons, to make
him say that his own.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Blood cousin did that.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
Do you you know how it made Isaiah feel walking
into Thanksgiving, everybody's whispering around his head.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
He's fourteen years old.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
A lot of my cousins and stuff. Family members. They
didn't even allow him over at their house because they like,
you send little Marvin and jail for life, and you know,
he's innocent. I got cousins that don't even still talk
to him to this day, and he's affected by that.
So they created more victims victims by doing that.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Well, we were able to get an eyewitness s ID
expert to do a really deep dive on some of
the problems with his case and the science behind eyewitness
identifications to show that this was just a really profoundly
flawed idea.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
To start. The photo lineup was not done in a
double blind manner.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Which you know, means that the person administering the lineup
does and know who the suspect is, which is just
a really basic fundamental best practice for eyewinness identifications.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And then the police used to Marvin again in a
second lineup.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
This time a live, old fashioned in person lineup, and
that again just violates sort of every best practice. No,
and like it's just a basic principle that you don't
show the witnesses the same suspect more than once. And
there's a couple of reasons for that that are pretty
intuitive like, once they've seen him, he's gonna look familiar
(33:37):
to them, right, because he's the one. He's the only
common denominator, right, He's the one they're showing me more
than once. That must be the guy they think did it.
And of course, with good procedures, that is exactly what
you want to avoid, is any suggestion to the witness
of who the suspect is.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So that was just enormously problematic.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And from the jump one of the officers at the
lineup had raised concerns, Michael Keef. He said he wasn't
confident in the identification, correct, He said he had doubts
as to convicted defendants guilt.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Yeah, And he testified that he had problems with the
lineup procedures, and he objected at the time and it
was overruled. And he testified that this was the one
case he'd worked on that had resulted in a conviction
where he had real doubts about whether that person was guilty,
which was a pretty pretty dramatic moment in the.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Court that week.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Andrew and the Great North Innocence Project filed their case
in late June of twenty twenty three and had a
hearing around Thanksgiving. By this point, the case was huge news.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
When I came back from court, everybody that I knew,
I will everybody in the prison was just like walking
up to me, like, man, you was on court TV
because you see all the and stuff and seeing that
I was on the front page to start your grew
and I'm like, look, it's it's impossible for them not to,
you know, give me some gestice at this time, because
it's it's everywhere, you know what I mean, people seeing that.
(35:21):
You know, I was actually grownly convicted that they put
the facts in there, you know what I'm saying. So
it was just like me seeing that and stuff, I'm like,
I was in a good move. I was just so happy.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And then Marvin's thirty sixth birthday came.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I was actually just beIN a chill that day. I
worked out, it was gonna make me some food and
just watch the sport. I wasn't gonna watch the NBA
like it was. NBA was a Wednesday, I think it
was Boston. It was a couple of double hitters or
something like that that day. So I was keeping it
simple actually, and then I got a call and.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Shit, and December sixth, we were able to call him
and tell him that the stay ahead read that we
had proved our case, they were gonna concede, and that
he was gonna go home. It was pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
What did he say? Do you even remember like what happened?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I mean, it was just I kind of could hear
a little happiness then Andrew voice, because you know, he
more nuts alned with his stuff and just like reserve
and shit, so he really don't he really you don't
really see too much emotion from him, you know what
I'm saying, Like that was just like WHOA. I couldn't
even really I just was like, dam I just was
excited because I knew that day was gonna come. I
(36:32):
never doubted it, you know what I'm saying. I never,
not once. I never thought myself that you're never gonna
I never I knew that I wasn't gonna do no
life since that, you know what I'm saying. I knew
that because I'm I got too much fight in you, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
A few days later, Marvin was a free man.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
Almost twenty years ago, a terrible injustice occurred when this
state prosecuted Marvin Haines.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
In front of the press and his family. Mary Moriarty,
the county's top prosecutor, looked Marvin in the eye and
offered an apology.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
You lost the opportunity to graduate from high school, to
attend prom have relationships, attend weddings and funerals, and spend
time with your family around the holidays. I am so
deeply sorry for that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Marvin says he was able to keep fighting because of
his faith.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
God finna give me do this. So it was more.
I had so much faith, man, You had no idea,
And I don't even know how I had that much faith.
Even now, I still got the faith, but I always knew.
I'm like, man, look this stuff based on truth is
gonna reveal.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Marvin has had just an incredible support group, you know,
an incredible amount of support from his family. His sisters
have been standing by his side for years, just fighting
relentlessly for him.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Marvina founded Minnesota Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform because of Marvin's
wrongful conviction, but she says she hasn't forgotten about Randy
Shearer and Cynthia McDermott.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I'm really, really sorry that that happened to that family.
And when the right person doesn't go to jail. We
know that that leaves the killer out to prey on
other people in our community.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
She now works to help other families fighting for loved
ones who are wrongfully convicted. Marvin and I spoke at
this year's Innocence Network conference in New Orleans, just three
months after his release from prison. He told me about
his new place he just furnished, and how excited he
is to work.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I work at It's like a material handler typeverything, fork
lift driving, different things like that. But my job. I
like my job, and stuff is cool because I was
in prison working doing similar work and I was getting
paid like twenty five cents an hour, you know what
I'm saying. So after two weeks of eighty hours, my
check fourteen dollars, you know what I'm saying. Or it's
(39:07):
just crazy. So to know that I got at least
I'm able to, you know, take care of my responsibilities
and stuff with a job and just accomplish the goals.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
At I'm sitting, are you thinking about like dating or
having a family or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
No, I don't. I don't thinking about no family. I
am dating though, I got a girlfriend and stuff that
I've been with that that was rocking it out with
me when I was in there and stuff. She been
there through some through some hard times and help me
with a lot of stuff. So yeah, but yeah, I
don't see no kids in my future. I feel like
I had too much time taking away so I kind
of wanted, like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Just live your own mind in my life.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, and I feel like I want to be the baby,
you know what I'm saying, and be spoiled and all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
So yeah, does your brow spoil you?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah? She do. Honestly, I'm a miss Like waking up
to breakfast and coffee and stuff like that, I was
just thinking, like, damn, like to know, I'm not going
to wake up to that. You know, it's gonna be cray.
I gotta do it all myself, like she Yeah, it's
gonna be weird, but I'll be eyd.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Marvin, how do you feel now you're out? But knowing
now that that back then there were police officers that
weren't they didn't feel good about this. Your cousin was
lying like, how do you feel now looking back that
all of these people just didn't even feel good about
this conviction?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
At the end of the day, I'm not mad at
them because you know, Carmar always come back around and
truth always prevails. So the end of the days like
I can't dwell on what they've done to me or
I feel some way about it, because luckily I got
my life and I'm still young and I'm able to
still go be productive, and I'm so blessed.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer
is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is Halle Dolce, with additional
(41:32):
mixing by Josh Allen and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurtis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(41:54):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Come Penny Number One
In May of two thousand and four. Marvin Haynes was
a pretty average sixteen year old kid.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I was a party animal at that time, so it
was like I just couldn't wait for the weekends and
just you know, just to have the good, nice clothes
on and just be able to go have fun. That's
what I was like doing.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Marvin didn't have a care in the world except for
the latest trends and chasing girls. That is until he
was picked up by the police.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It was just like basically something happened bad and just
asking me like was I involved or do I know
anything like that? And they was talking about a flower shop,
so I didn't really know what they were talking about.
They never really told me it was a murder.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Marvin says he had never been in any kind of
serious trouble, so he wasn't really worried about it. He
figured there was a mix up and the police would
get it right.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I was thinking more like at that time, as long
as I get out by Friday and so I can
go on. What I was was doing is wels, Yeah,
So I was like that's all my thought process was.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But Marvin never left the station.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Hi, my name is Marvin Haynes. I was wrongly convicted
at sixteen. I spent nineteen in like seven months incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
From Lava for good. This is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Freeling today Marvin Haynes. Marvin Haynes was born on December sixth,
nineteen eighty seven. He was raised in a working class
(01:41):
family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father worked in construction and
his mother stayed at home raising the family. He's one
of seven kids.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I got three sisters older than me, well, four sisters
and then me. Then I got a little brother and
a little sister. I'm the oldest boy.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We had a close knit family. So it was like
we did all a lot of things together, like summer
vacations to my granny home, State Bellley Fair, six Flags,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So it was kind of like Marvin says, growing up,
life was pretty good.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
As a kid. I just like to have fun and like,
you know, play with cars and you know, stuff like that,
just like kid things. So I go home watch Nickelodeon literally,
so yeah, that was like one of my things.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All the classic Nickelodeons, all the classes you know. Hay
Arnold's there was like, oh, did you ever watch Doug Doug?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Also, what's the Rugrats? You know what I mean? So
like all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Marvin told me he especially loved to bike ride.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
People look at me and be like at my cass
and be like, do you play football? Used to play football?
But no, I just used to watch ride bikes.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A lot, kind of bikes, like BMX bikes, regular.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
All the BMX bikes like Gt. Dino's, Gary Fisher's, you know, yeah,
the nice bikes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
But as he got older and became a teenager, Marvin
says his priorities changed.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
It was all about being having the newest clothes and
like girls parties every weekend, go to like all the
parties in the neighborhood, so you know, just having fun,
having fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
With your friends around.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah that was me. Yeah, literally, Like so I liked
it having all the new shoes and stuff like that.
So that was like what I liked doing.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Did you work? No?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I didn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
How'd you get money to buy nice shoes?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I got five sisters and stuff. So I used to like, honestly,
some of my sister used to have the nicest shoes
and if I couldn't get them that week or something.
I'd probably get you know, get their shoes or because
they had jobs and stuff. So yeah, so I.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Had ways, and Marvin knew how to hustle his sisters.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I had children really young.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This is Marvin's sister, Marvina. She's four years older.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And Marvin helped me out with the kids because I
was like always like going out and running the streets.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And you left your baby brother tod.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But it was the house of us, right.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
It was like the mom is there and she probably
don't want to watch the kid. And then Marvin's like,
you give me five dollars.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I'm like, yeah, I'm giving you five dollars. I'm out of.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Marvin was just an ordinary sixteen year old kid, hanging
out with friends and chasing the latest trends.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Honestly, I was just living for the that day, Marvin
told me, the evening of Sunday, May sixteenth, two thousand
and four, was just like any other I was at
a party, you know what I'm saying, Like just having fun,
doing regular things, went home late, you know, like two
(04:40):
in the morning, two three in the morning, slept and
woke up like a normal day, you know, like woke
up at like late in the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Marvin says he got up and went to meet up
with friends at some local spots.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Like where I know everybody yet, so just going about
your norse. Yeah, I was going by my normal life.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
So a few days later, on May nineteenth, Marvin wakes
up to his mom something.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I think it was a Wednesday. I was woke up
early in the morning and my mom was basically saying, like,
the police here. They got a warrant for your arrest.
They just want to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
At first, Marvin says he wasn't too concerned.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Because this that happened to me before, for like violations
of curfews and different things like that.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
In fact, that's exactly the charge. They picked him up
and held him on he'd missed a court appearance for
breaking curfew.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
With you, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The police took Marvin into the station for questioning.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Okay, okay, Yeah. They brought me into an interrogation room,
set me in there for a while. I feel like
I don't have nothing to hide, okay, your.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
Junior.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So Marvin spoke to the officers with no adult or
attorney president, thinking this was just for a curfew violation.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And I think it was a curve from g and
I was walking to the club.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
She regreting because you don't have a car, you don't
have a relacens.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I ain't got no nue okay. But just was telling
them my normal thing of what I was doing that
past week, you know, like the past days that led
it to me being in that room. So I'm just
telling them like who I hang with, where i'd be at,
you know, just stuff like that, and oh my cousin
Poopie house. I actually had some cash on me, so
(06:31):
I was asking them about, like, hey, did you make
sure you give me a receipt for the money that
I you know that I had when I came in here,
I said, seat because they took they took my money
down to the game. I didn't know nothing. I had
no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Marvin had no idea that while he was sitting there
worrying about receipts for a few dollars, that he'd been
identified in a murder.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But then when I when I was hearing them saying
like we got your fingerprints and stuff like that, and
I was just like I was like discompibulated, Like what
what was y'all talking about I had to really think back,
like what did I do wrong this weekend? We know
you were in that Mark Okay, so we know that.
And they was talking about a flower shop, and I
ain't never told nobody ain't that flower shop? Yeah you have, Yeah,
(07:17):
you have, Marvin straight up. Now, I'm keeping it real
with you.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
You say, keep unreal.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm just trying to give her town.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
That's Martin where you're saying, you saying that you're trying
to point You're trying to say that you.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Were in the flower shop. Yeah. Straight, I was putting
two together, and I still was kind of confused, expressing
to them like y'all got the wrong person.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That person had shot and killed fifty five year old
Randy Scharer inside his family business, Jerry's Flower Shop.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Is that a flower shop in North Minneapolis, May sixteenth,
two thousand and four. Someone comes in and is asking
for flowers, ends up, you know, pulling a gun and
saying he wants money from from the back.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
This is Andrew Marcourt. He's a managing attorney at the
Great North Innocence Project. Andrew explains that the robber had
originally been speaking with Cynthia McDermott when her brother Randy
walked in.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
And the person shoots him two times.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Then McDermott flees out the back.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
She becomes kind of the primary eyewitness in the case.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
McDermott had run to a neighbor's house and called nine
one one before rushing back to the flower shop, where
she found her brother Randy dead. McDermott told first responders
that the gunman was a tall, thin blackmail in his
early twenties. She said he weighed about one hundred and
eighty pounds, and she also specified his hair was short
(08:51):
cropped to his head. When police first showed her a
photo lineup, she identified someone with what she said was
seventy five to eight percent confidence.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
This witness, Cynthia McDermott. She actually picked a filler, which
is like one of the nun suspects in the lineup.
You know, she picked this person who looks nothing like Marvin.
And more to the points, I mean, you know, in
terms of just best practices, when someone picks a filler,
I mean, what that tells you is they don't, you know,
(09:23):
like they don't have a good memory of what the
suspect looks like.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Why wouldn't it have been that guy.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Well, one, he was a filler, so there was no
reason to suspect him. He was just pulled from the database.
But also they did they did actually look into whether
he could be a credible suspect, and he appeared to
have an alibi that he was in South Dakota at
the time. That really should have been the end of
it for her, that that should have been like, well,
(09:49):
she doesn't know, so we're going to have to solve
this case some other way.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But that wasn't the end of it.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
So Marvin comes to the attention of the police a
few days later with an an anonymous with a tip
saying that there's some word that little Marvin was involved.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Why did you have the nickname Little Marvin?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
My dad named Marvin, So it was like everybody that
know me call me little Marvin, or everybody that like
literally that know me, call me little Marvin.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
At the time, Marvin was indeed little, at least compared
to the suspect that McDermott had described.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
He was much smaller, I think about fifty pounds lighter
than the estimate, several inches shorter, several years younger, but
perhaps most obviously the witnesses just both to describe someone
with short hair. The primary witness that he had short
cropped hair, and at.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
The time Marvin had a tall.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Afro, nothing anyone could describe as close cropped hair. When
they did the photo lineup, though, they didn't use a
contemporaneous picture of him, even though he'd been arrested at
that time and they had there was you know, they
had a mugshot created that day. What they used was
a two year old photo where he did have short hair,
so it was much more closely resembling what the witnesses
(11:06):
had described, even though that wasn't how he looked that day.
So that was a problem.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So they have they they have Marvin in custody right now.
Yeah afro. They know this witness they're looking for is
taller with no afro. And they're like, well, fine, we'll
just we'll still go for him. But an old picture, yeap.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
So they so they use this old picture and in
that time she she did pick him. I mean, this
case is just an absolute disaster from a eyewitness identification perspective.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
At least, I'm keeping it. I'm keeping it. When they
came to see me, they was asking me that so
this is how you wear your hair.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Tell me why did you change your hair style?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And I didn't put twods too together because I'm like,
I didn't. I just like this, I'll wear my hair,
you know. They kept asking me about my hair.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Eventually, Marvin was put in a live lineup work going
in March.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Stand right there and right there, look straight at the window.
Turns it right.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I've never been in a lineup? What is that like?
Is it like in the movies? Like are you? Is
there a glass wall and you can't see that?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
No way, I can't even lie to you. It's true
when they say that when you go to like through
a like a uh a difficult moment in your life,
or is something like hard like that, you can't really
remember it like I can't. I couldn't really remember it
for years until I really seenk it don't move and
allowed the many voice repeat that to me. Don't don't move.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Where's the tape?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Where's the tape? This is no joke, there's no joke.
I want the money.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
I want the money.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
No tell no till in that lineup, McDermott picked Marvin again,
and at this point Marvin realized he might be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Got intense, and then I realized, like, man, like they
trying to, you know, frame me. But then I was
thinking like, well, they gonna find the right person and
then they gonna just gonna come and correct this. I
literally didn't think that I would be going to prison
or I would be arrested for something like this. So
I was more thinking I was in I was trusting them,
thinking like Okay, well they gonna figure this out and
(13:21):
they gonna come to me and be like, Okay, we
got the wrong person, you know what I mean. So
I never thought I would go to prison or I
would be arrested for something like this. At that time,
these my family didn't know nothing about the justice system.
We never had a family member to go through anything
(13:41):
like this, you know what I mean. So we was
not knowledgeable about things like this or what to do
when it happened, or don't talk to the police. We
was talk like the police is the good guys.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But the police charged Marvin with first degree murder and
second degree assault.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Happened to Marvin.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
It affected our whole family, Mervin's mother especially.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
She asked me once though, she was like, Marvin, did
you have anything to do with this, and I told her,
like she only asked me one time. I said, no,
I had, I don't know nothing about this, and she
never asked me again. She knew that I wasn't lying
about that, you know.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
What I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
We were a good kid, yeah, but never.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I wouldn't say I was a great kid, But she
knew that I wasn't involved in on stuff like that,
you know what I'm saying. So it only took for
me to tell her one time that I wasn't involved
in it or I didn't have and she knew that
I wasn't lying about it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But the truth that her sixteen year old boy was
being charged with murder was too much for Mervin's mom
to handle.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
My mom kind of like mentally checked out. There was
like never any more dinner at the dinner table. Our
parents separated totally at that point. And so when it
affected my mom and my parents, it affect us all,
(15:01):
which caused the other children to end up being like
the system.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
My mom eventually lost her kids and my sister took them.
And so it's just like it affected me in crazy ways,
affected our whole family.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And we wasn't able to ask her.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
We wasn't able to check on her because when you
were mom, everybody just think you're strong.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
She took it hard. She started partying more too after that,
and just going out. My mom never was going out.
She stayed at home, took care of us. But once
this happened to me, she's just like, you know, like
was trying to escape it, you know what I'm saying,
or trying to figure because she felt like she couldn't
do nothing, and she couldn't.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The case was moving forward with the witness ideas in
the bag, the police focused on what they believed had happened,
homing in on Marvin's family for answers.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
They claim that Marvin was hanging out with some friends
and his cousin over at another friend's house.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The police questioned Marvin's fourteen year old cousin, Isaiah. During
the first few interviews, Isaiah didn't have anything to say,
but then in a later interrogation, Isaiah cracked. He allegedly
told police.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
That Marvin said that the mourning of that he was
going to go hit a lick, which is like a
slang term for committed a robbery. Afterwards, he told him
he had shut a white man.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
He'd be the first of three kids who the police
would use to implicate Marvin in the crime. A few
months later, a fourteen year old acquaintance of Marvin's gave
a statement. Anthony Todd told police had also heard Marvin
bragging about hitting a lick. Then a year later, in
August two thousand and five, seventeen year old Marvin Haines
(17:09):
went to trial. Mike Fernstall prosecuted the case. He presented
multiple witnesses he believed with I D Marvin as the shooter,
including Cynthia mcdermodd, who said she had no doubt Marvin
had shot and killed her brother. But then Marvin's cousin
Isaiah took the stand.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
He actually, in a pretty dramatic moment, actually tried to
recant from the stand at trial and said, look, this
isn't true. The only reason I said it is that
they were threatening me with my own time. Said that
I was looking at you know, up to fifteen years,
get half of what Marvin's looking at if if I
(17:51):
don't cooperate.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
He told the people. He told a judge, he said,
look y'all making me say my cousin to jail for
something he didn't do. He's screaming like this man is
He's saying like my cousin is innocent, and they took
him off the stand.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
They call a recess because things really went off the rails.
I mean, this is in live court with the state,
and then they go back and you know, basically they're
threatening him with perjury charges if he doesn't recant his recantation.
And he was you know, there was testimony that he's
(18:24):
on the hall he's you know, a kid and who
like bawling in the hallway because he's been placed in
this this impossible situation. So anyway, they bring him back
in and he ends up and kind of fits and
starts basically going back to the original story he told
(18:45):
the police.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
A few other witnesses were called to the stand, including
Robb Seely, who was.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
A fourteen year old boy who was in the neighborhood
attending temple and just happened to be walking by and
heard shots and saw someone fleeing shortly.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
After the shooting.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Seely had ideed Marvin in a lineup, but a year
later on the stand, Seely said he had doubts. Another witness,
Jennifer Coleman, testified that she had spoken to Marvin the
morning of the shooting at his house and he told
her he shot some old white man. However, Coleman could
not I d Marvin in court and the house she
(19:25):
had said was Marvin's was actually the house of another
person named Marvin. Things were looking shaky for the prosecution.
Finally it was the defense's turn. Marvin's mom hired a
private defense attorney, Cassius Benson, to represent Marvin. Benson advised
(19:51):
Marvin not to take the stand, as many defense attorneys do. However,
Marvin insisted, what.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I'm like, man, look I often in take the stand
and tail. They's people that I'm innocent. You know what
I'm saying. I'm telling my story, and I was able to.
I was able to tell, you know, I wasn't the
person that committed this crime. You know.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
He gave a story which is the same story he's
been saying for years, which is that he was home
in bed that morning, that he went out with friends
the night before, was I got home kind of late,
slept in and it was kind of an unremarkable day.
So that that was essentially the defense case.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
After a week long trial with no forensic evidence tying
Marvin to the shooting, no murder weapon, shaky witness ideas,
and even a witness recanting on the stand. Marvin thought
he'd be back to being a teenager in no time.
Did you think you'd be convicted?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
No? I did not think I was going to be convicted.
I did not ever think I was going to be convicted, Like,
especially with all the evidence that I seen myself. So
I'm thinking, like, it's so obvious they this is impossible
for me to get convicted. So when it happened, it
was just like I was shocked. I was just like damn.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
On September second, two thousand and five, the jury convicted
Marvin a first degree murder and second degree assault. Did
you see your family in the courtroom?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah? Hell, yeah, my mom that that.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, that's okay. There's tissues right here too.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah. I'm good though, But I just see my mom.
I had affected her. That's the only thing that made
me upset. She actually just walked out, and she was
said so mad.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
After seeing his mother walk out, seventeen year old Marvin,
upset and angry, lashed out at the judge, yelling.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
All y'all gonna burn it. Hell because you'll know I
didn't commit.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
This, that's what you said.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah I did. It was just like I said. When
it happened, I couldn't believe that they was able to,
you know, a judge was able to see this stuff
taking place, and like it was. The courtroom was packed
with people and they seen that, you know, I was
actually wrongly convicted.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It was very hard for us to actually understand what
was happening to Marvin because we had this faith into
the system.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Later that month, Judge Robert Blazer sentenced Marvin to life
in prison. Well, Marvin's family grappled with their new reality.
Marvin was in his own health, sent to an adult
men's prison to serve his time, and in order to survive,
Marvin says he had to be tough.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
When I first got to prison, I had to, you know,
do a lot of different things to establish my dominance
and let them know, like I'm not going for none
of this type of stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well did you have to do you're a kid that
winds up in an adult prison, Yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I was doing a lot of fighting when I came
to the county. I was fighting adults. I understand now
that a lot of people going through a lot of
things in there, so anything could send somebody over there
over the top, any little thing, or it's just like
that because you people facing life. I was hopeless at
that point.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Marvin told me, with time like that, some people have
nothing to lose, so they'll try to prove themselves by
picking on someone else like a kid.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
You gotta, you know, protect yourself by any means, you
know what I'm saying, or you'll become a victim in
that place because in them environments, like you test it
all the time, you know what I mean, or just
like you got to prove yourself. I was. I was
hanging out with people that I wasn't you know, that
wouldn't have the best my best interest at hand. So
I had to really learn a lot. You know. When
I first got there, I was seventeen years old, so
(23:46):
I was, you know what I'm saying, just trying to
get by.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Actually, Marvin says he's lucky he's not facing time for
something he actually did, like fighting with other prisoners.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I could have harmed somebody in there, or somebody could
have harmed me because in them environments, like people I
don't understand, like you tested all the time.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But Marvin says things changed when he wound up in
solitary confinement just shortly after he got to prison.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I ended up in a whole one time, and I
read about the Innocent Project. It was at the last
page of the the article that I of this magazine
that I seen. It was literally the last page and
it was just saying, if you actually innocent, you wrongly convicted,
please contact Is this in.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
A prison magazine or like what magazine was the Innocence
Project advertising in?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah? Probably I think it was. It was like a
mirror of prison mirrors. Oh yeah, it was so Yeah,
it was at the last page and I'm like, damn,
I'm like I I literally ripped it out. So when
I got out the whole, when right to the lad Iberry,
That's when I really started finding out, like, damn, You're
(24:49):
not the only person that's gone through this or that
went through this. So I started writing people I could
beare to even write, No.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I still can't get over that you were a child,
Like thinking back for sixty and I don't know if
I would even comprehend what a life sentence is.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, I couldn't even describe it. YEP, I show you
a letter. I was all over the place but explaining
my story of people and just trying to get them
to understand.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But I'm innocent, Marvin says. A week later, the Great
North Innocence Project wrote him back and sent a questionnaire.
He filled it out and sent it back and then
waited and waited, but nothing. So we went ahead and
filed an appeal without them in two thousand and seven,
but he was denied.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
I got that letter in the mail and I sat
down and I read it, and I was just like,
all right, I gotta find a different way. Like literally,
I didn't never give up. I didn't cry. I didn't
I wasn't mad or nothing. I was just like, okay,
well they not listening at this time, you know, and
I'll go to I used to go tell the people
that I was close to in there, and I used
to tell them like, look, man, my appeal got denied
and they and they ain't really give me no words
(25:54):
and encouraged me. I had to do it myself, you
know what I'm saying. I had to encourage myself that
it'll be okay.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Marvin says he didn't even want to tell his family
because he didn't want to disappoint them. Plus he was
on the outs with some family members like his cousin
Isaiah and his sister Marvina.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I didn't talk to Marvin for like three or four
years just because of family issues.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But Marvina and Marvin eventually reconnected and she became the
driving force behind his case. It all happened when Marvin
convinced her to take over his social media.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
We talked over the phone a few times and Marvin
was like, just take my past code.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I don't want your past go.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
So I finally took the past code and I started
to work his social media account. And then as I
was sitting on my couch, I had started connecting with
people like all over the world, in Hong Kong, people
from Detroit, Michigan, everywhere, and I was aligning myself anywhere
that I can to tell what had happened to my brother.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
But then as I was sitting on a couch, on a.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Couch similar to this one, and I'm doing the Facebook,
I heard a voice in my head and it said,
you're not going to get your brother out behind this keyboard.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
So Marvina hit the streets and made a sign with
Marvin on it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
And I went out to this protest.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
A sister by the name Amoni Dotton asked me if
I wanted to speak on my brother's behalf, and when
she pulled me to the front, is like she pulled
me through a universe, and I felt this power.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
At the time, North Minneapolis was dealing with a surge
in violent crime. Many residents were scared and elected officials
and the police responded by arresting people in record numbers,
not all of them guilty, and many from families just
like Marvina's.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
So family started to reach out to me and they say,
we found you on Facebook, We've seen you on a
news or we heard you speak here.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This is going on with our family.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I started organizing protests and press conferences for my brother
in Minneapolis. Woke Marvin up at the age of sixteen
in our mother house in two thousand and four, they
gave him life for a crime.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Evidence shows he didn't commit.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
This t I was like popping up at the key
at the General's office, going to the Governor's house wherever
I needed to be, because I needed people to understand
that when we're talking about Wronfau incarceration, that's a state
of emergency. There's more than one way to lynch amen
(28:34):
and what they're doing with wrongfo incarceration. That's called a
miling day lynching.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
While Marvina fucked for Marvin on the outside, Marvin continued
researching his case and writing The Great North Innocence Project
from the inside.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
There was a couple of rounds where he had reached
out to us over the years, and there weren't any
real big breaks for a long time.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
But then finally, just a couple.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Of years ago, we were able to get some new evidence.
Kind of the big break for us was we were
able to talk with Robbie Seely, who was one of
the eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Robbie Ceely was the fourteen year old who said he
saw someone fleeing the flower shop. He'd initially id'd Marvin,
but later on the stand expressed doubts.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
He told us that he never actually got a good
look at Marvin's face, that he didn't know who the
perpetrator was, that he felt pressured to make an identification
because you know, he himself was a young kid at
the time and the police were saying this is a
really serious case. He felt like he needed to help
(29:43):
him out and he did the best he could within
some very flawed procedures, but he had no idea, and
he never saw the person's face and was willing to
go on the record with that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
From there, the prosecution's entire case crumbled.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
Got recantation from Anthony Todd, who is one of one
of the witnesses who said a trial that Marvin had
told him he was going to go.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Hit a lick.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Remember he was fourteen, a middle schooler.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
He originally said he didn't know anything until he got
into some trouble himself. And so the police go and
see him and and you know, similarly are sort of
threatening him with his own time, and he cracks in
the same way that Isaiah Harper did.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Marvin's cousin, Isaiah.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
The police had tried to talk to Isaiah many many times.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
They came to him multiple times, saying, well, you're going
to get charged with drive without license or these different
charges if you know, you don't give us information.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Now, he had had tried to recance back at trial,
but he he, you know, sort of reaffirmed his reincantation
to us. He said that they had reason to think
it was Marvin, and that they knew he had him
from and that look, you know, if you are if
you're obstructing an investigation, you can get half the time
that the principal actor is looking at You could be
(31:10):
looking at fifteen years and he was I think he
was fourteen at the time. He was even younger than Marvin.
So a fourteen year old kid saying if you don't cooperate,
you could go to prison for fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Teenagers being threatened to lie on another teenager.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
I mean, it's not that hard to understand, like why
you would crack under those circumstances.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Marvina, did you talk to your cousin at that time?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, he lived with me throughout it.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I helped support it Isaiah, even when folks out that
I shouldn't have had supported Isaiah.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
That's still my blood cousin.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And at that time I knew that the police had
done something bad, and then even using our cousin to test,
to make him throw him in adult prisons, to make
him say that his own.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Blood cousin did that.
Speaker 7 (31:59):
Do you you know how it made Isaiah feel walking
into Thanksgiving, everybody's whispering around his head.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
He's fourteen years old.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
A lot of my cousins and stuff. Family members. They
didn't even allow him over at their house because they like,
you send little Marvin and jail for life, and you know,
he's innocent. I got cousins that don't even still talk
to him to this day, and he's affected by that.
So they created more victims victims by doing that.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Well, we were able to get an eyewitness s ID
expert to do a really deep dive on some of
the problems with his case and the science behind eyewitness
identifications to show that this was just a really profoundly
flawed idea.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
To start. The photo lineup was not done in a
double blind manner.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Which you know, means that the person administering the lineup
does and know who the suspect is, which is just
a really basic fundamental best practice for eyewinness identifications.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And then the police used to Marvin again in a
second lineup.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
This time a live, old fashioned in person lineup, and
that again just violates sort of every best practice. No,
and like it's just a basic principle that you don't
show the witnesses the same suspect more than once. And
there's a couple of reasons for that that are pretty
intuitive like, once they've seen him, he's gonna look familiar
(33:37):
to them, right, because he's the one. He's the only
common denominator, right, He's the one they're showing me more
than once. That must be the guy they think did it.
And of course, with good procedures, that is exactly what
you want to avoid, is any suggestion to the witness
of who the suspect is.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So that was just enormously problematic.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
And from the jump one of the officers at the
lineup had raised concerns, Michael Keef. He said he wasn't
confident in the identification, correct, He said he had doubts
as to convicted defendants guilt.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Yeah, And he testified that he had problems with the
lineup procedures, and he objected at the time and it
was overruled. And he testified that this was the one
case he'd worked on that had resulted in a conviction
where he had real doubts about whether that person was guilty,
which was a pretty pretty dramatic moment in the.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Court that week.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Andrew and the Great North Innocence Project filed their case
in late June of twenty twenty three and had a
hearing around Thanksgiving. By this point, the case was huge news.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
When I came back from court, everybody that I knew,
I will everybody in the prison was just like walking
up to me, like, man, you was on court TV
because you see all the and stuff and seeing that
I was on the front page to start your grew
and I'm like, look, it's it's impossible for them not to,
you know, give me some gestice at this time, because
it's it's everywhere, you know what I mean, people seeing that.
(35:21):
You know, I was actually grownly convicted that they put
the facts in there, you know what I'm saying. So
it was just like me seeing that and stuff, I'm like,
I was in a good move. I was just so happy.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And then Marvin's thirty sixth birthday came.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I was actually just beIN a chill that day. I
worked out, it was gonna make me some food and
just watch the sport. I wasn't gonna watch the NBA
like it was. NBA was a Wednesday, I think it
was Boston. It was a couple of double hitters or
something like that that day. So I was keeping it
simple actually, and then I got a call and.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Shit, and December sixth, we were able to call him
and tell him that the stay ahead read that we
had proved our case, they were gonna concede, and that
he was gonna go home. It was pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
What did he say? Do you even remember like what happened?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I mean, it was just I kind of could hear
a little happiness then Andrew voice, because you know, he
more nuts alned with his stuff and just like reserve
and shit, so he really don't he really you don't
really see too much emotion from him, you know what
I'm saying, Like that was just like WHOA. I couldn't
even really I just was like, dam I just was
excited because I knew that day was gonna come. I
(36:32):
never doubted it, you know what I'm saying. I never,
not once. I never thought myself that you're never gonna
I never I knew that I wasn't gonna do no
life since that, you know what I'm saying. I knew
that because I'm I got too much fight in you, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
A few days later, Marvin was a free man.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
Almost twenty years ago, a terrible injustice occurred when this
state prosecuted Marvin Haines.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
In front of the press and his family. Mary Moriarty,
the county's top prosecutor, looked Marvin in the eye and
offered an apology.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
You lost the opportunity to graduate from high school, to
attend prom have relationships, attend weddings and funerals, and spend
time with your family around the holidays. I am so
deeply sorry for that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Marvin says he was able to keep fighting because of
his faith.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
God finna give me do this. So it was more.
I had so much faith, man, You had no idea,
And I don't even know how I had that much faith.
Even now, I still got the faith, but I always knew.
I'm like, man, look this stuff based on truth is
gonna reveal.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Marvin has had just an incredible support group, you know,
an incredible amount of support from his family. His sisters
have been standing by his side for years, just fighting
relentlessly for him.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Marvina founded Minnesota Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform because of Marvin's
wrongful conviction, but she says she hasn't forgotten about Randy
Shearer and Cynthia McDermott.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I'm really, really sorry that that happened to that family.
And when the right person doesn't go to jail. We
know that that leaves the killer out to prey on
other people in our community.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
She now works to help other families fighting for loved
ones who are wrongfully convicted. Marvin and I spoke at
this year's Innocence Network conference in New Orleans, just three
months after his release from prison. He told me about
his new place he just furnished, and how excited he
is to work.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I work at It's like a material handler typeverything, fork
lift driving, different things like that. But my job. I
like my job, and stuff is cool because I was
in prison working doing similar work and I was getting
paid like twenty five cents an hour, you know what
I'm saying. So after two weeks of eighty hours, my
check fourteen dollars, you know what I'm saying. Or it's
(39:07):
just crazy. So to know that I got at least
I'm able to, you know, take care of my responsibilities
and stuff with a job and just accomplish the goals.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
At I'm sitting, are you thinking about like dating or
having a family or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
No, I don't. I don't thinking about no family. I
am dating though, I got a girlfriend and stuff that
I've been with that that was rocking it out with
me when I was in there and stuff. She been
there through some through some hard times and help me
with a lot of stuff. So yeah, but yeah, I
don't see no kids in my future. I feel like
I had too much time taking away so I kind
of wanted, like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Just live your own mind in my life.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, and I feel like I want to be the baby,
you know what I'm saying, and be spoiled and all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
So yeah, does your brow spoil you?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah? She do. Honestly, I'm a miss Like waking up
to breakfast and coffee and stuff like that, I was
just thinking, like, damn, like to know, I'm not going
to wake up to that. You know, it's gonna be cray.
I gotta do it all myself, like she Yeah, it's
gonna be weird, but I'll be eyd.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Marvin, how do you feel now you're out? But knowing
now that that back then there were police officers that
weren't they didn't feel good about this. Your cousin was
lying like, how do you feel now looking back that
all of these people just didn't even feel good about
this conviction?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
At the end of the day, I'm not mad at
them because you know, Carmar always come back around and
truth always prevails. So the end of the days like
I can't dwell on what they've done to me or
I feel some way about it, because luckily I got
my life and I'm still young and I'm able to
still go be productive, and I'm so blessed.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links in the episode description to see how you can help.
This episode was written by me Maggie Freeling, with story
editing and mixing by senior producer Rebecca Ibada. Our producer
is Kathleen Fink. Our researcher is Halle Dolce, with additional
(41:32):
mixing by Josh Allen and additional production help by Jeff Cliburn.
Executive producers are Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wurtis.
The music is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Make sure to follow us on all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
(41:54):
Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Good Podcasts in association with Signal Come Penny Number One
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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