#540 Jason Flom with Joe Berlinger on the West Memphis 3

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Last time we talked about the West Memphis Three, we
interviewed documentarian Joe Burlinger about his experience filming the victim's
families and the three suspected killers before and during the trial,
and how his realization of their innocence changed the direction
of his life's work. To add greater context in our episode,
we edited in excerpts from our previous interviews with Jason

(00:28):
Baldwin and Damian Eccles of the West Memphis Three, who
to recap, had been released on an Alfred plea along
with Jesse Miskale, were all excluded from some crime scene
evidence by later DNA testing, and one hair sample also
included one of the victim's stepfathers, but the West Memphis
Three are still fighting to clear their names. A twenty

(00:49):
twenty one Arkansas law allowed for new DNA testing with
more modern methodologies, and when they sought this testing, the
state represented in court that all crime scene evidence had
been destroyed, But in the same year a box belonging
to the West Memphis Police Department was located and it
held some missing evidence from their case, including the shoelaces

(01:12):
that had been used to bind the three young victims,
as well as a hare that might match the long
ignored alternative suspect from the po Jangles restaurant twenty twenty two.
Denial of further testing was reversed in twenty twenty four,
and after additional proceedings, testing is finally going to move forward,
hopefully towards the real perpetrator or perpetrators of this horrible crime. Now,

(01:36):
without any further ado, here's our interview mashup with Joe
Burlinger and the West Memphis Three.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
In May nineteen ninety three, three young Arkansas boys Stevie Branch,
Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore went missing.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Three little cub scouts, hog tied and left in an
Arkansas dis one.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Of the most controversial legal cases in the state's history,
they found the man guilty of murdering the eight year
old boys back in nineteen ninety three, in what prosecutors
at the time had called some sort of a satanic ritual.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Celebrities fighting for the teen's release claimed the kids were
railroaded because of their mumllets, dark clothes, and fascination with.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
The occult sticking killings that might have been part of
a satanic ritual. Convicted murderers Jason Baldwin, Jesse mss Kelly,
and Damian Eccles are now free men.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
They spent seventeen years in prison for a crime that
stunned dark and so West Memphis three would be allowed
to walk out of prison, but prosecutors agreed to sign
off on the deal only if the defendants would plead guilty.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
A long time on death row for something that you
insist you didn't do. There's always the possibility that the
person that you're killing is asking this is wrongful conviction.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Hey y'all, it's Maggie. I'm here to tell you about
a new show I've been working on for the past
two years called Graves County. And it's an investigative series
about the murder of a young mom in Kentucky and
just how far our legal system will go in order
to find someone to blame. Here is the trailer for
Graves County.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
All I know is what I've been told, and that's
a half truth is a whole live.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
For almost a decade, the murder of an eighteen year
old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky,
went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a
handful of girls came forward with a story.

Speaker 6 (03:39):
I'm telling you, we know, we know a story that
law enforcement used to convict six people, and that got
the Citizen Investigator on national TV.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give
justice to Jessica Current.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer winning journalist producer,
and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that
easy to find.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
I did not know her, and I did not kill
her or raid or burn or any of that other
stuff that y'all said it.

Speaker 6 (04:13):
They literally made me say that I took a match
and struck and threw it on her. They made me
say that I'm pore guests on her.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
From LoVa for Good. This is Graves County, a show
about just how far our legal system will go in
order to find someone to blame Marka.

Speaker 7 (04:31):
Y'all gotta work the hell up.

Speaker 8 (04:33):
Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley Feed starting
September seventeenth, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts, and to binge. The entire season
ad free subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction today. I have a special
show for you, and I think it's going to be
a real treat because with me, I have a guy
who has done profound work in film dealing with wrongful convictions.
I'm super excited to have him here to share some

(05:22):
stories and some wisdom and his outlooks. So Joe Burlinger,
Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.

Speaker 7 (05:27):
Jason.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Thanks.

Speaker 7 (05:28):
I'm a big fan of the podcast and a fan
of you, so I'm glad to be here. In fact,
it amazes me that since I consider myself a music
and wrongful conviction guy and you're amazing music and wrongful
conviction guy, I'm amazed. We haven't met until recently, which
is why this podcast came to be. We shared a
nice dinner together.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, we had dinner recently with Damian Eccles and Amanda
Knox and so we really connected. And it's interesting because
I do sort of music and justice. You do film
music injustice. And the thing that you've been known for
is your movie about the West, Memphis three, because it
was such an important not only such an important documentary,
but also such an important moment in the changing of

(06:11):
the perception of the American public and the worldwide public
as to how these things happen. And I'm interested to
know how did you because you know, you and I
both were in criminal justice reform before it was sort
of a thing, right, I mean, we were early adopters,
and I like to say we were before it was cool,

(06:31):
but that sounds ridiculous, but anyway, true. Listen, I'm glad
it's cool because we need more and more people.

Speaker 7 (06:37):
We didn't have enough storytellers shining a light on injustice
and activists trying to change this miserable system we have.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
No we need an army. And so you made this
remarkable Paradise Lost trilogy that I'm holding in my hand
right now, which told the story of the three kids.
And they were kids. They were teenagers, Damian Eccles, Jason Baldwin,
and Jesse Miss who were persecuted, prosecuted, arrested, tried, convicted

(07:08):
for one of the most gruesome and notorious triple murders
in the history of the world. Yeah, from the three
eight year old boys that went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas,
out riding their bikes and turned up in a riverbank, tortured,
brutally assaulted, sexually mutilated, and of course dead. And how

(07:29):
did it come to be that? And we'll get into
how the wrong conviction happened, but how did you go
from being a filmmaker to being this guy? And how
were you made aware of this case? And how did
you get involved? And boy, it's a good thing you did,
or Damien would have been executed by now.

Speaker 7 (07:45):
Yeah, you know, it's amazing and thank you for all that.
That's very kind of you to say, because you've also
done amazing work, which I appreciate. You know, my first film,
which I should say, Paradise Lost and Brothers Keeper were
made with Bruce Sinofsky, who recently passed away. You know,
so if I revert to the eyes, I always mean we.
But you know we had made Brothers Keeper, which there

(08:06):
was no sense of social justice behind the making of
that movie. That was purely an aesthetic exercise to push
the documentary form a little further. You know, there was
a handful of filmmakers in the late eighties early nineties
that were looking to expand what it means to be
a documentary. Errol Morris did it with thin Blue Line.
But his contribution, besides the wrongful conviction aspect, was you know,

(08:27):
pushing recreations to a whole new level. Michael Moore was
pushing documentary by you know, the filmmaker as on camera curmudgeon,
you know, crusading for a social cause. That was new.
Morgan Spurlock then picked up that kind of thread in others.
What we were trying to do with Brothers Keeper was
simply by using a murder trial because it has perfect

(08:50):
dramatic structure. Is to take the documentary and create a
just a film that feels like a narrative film because
of how it shot, how it's edited, how it looks,
how it structured, and to push the documentary form. I
had no interest in social justice, no interest in wrongful
I didn't even know wrongful convictions took place back then.
I was very naive about the justice system. And Brother's

(09:10):
Keeper was very successful. And so Sheila Nevians from HBO
came a calling. You know, she was until very recently
the head of documentaries at HBO for three decades. And
if I had to pick one person responsible for expanding
the form to what it is today, Sheila would be
that woman. But she also likes salacious material, and so

(09:31):
she read this story about three devil worshiping teens who
were just been arrested for these horrible crimes, and she
wanted a satanic kids killing kids movie because it seemed
like that was the case. So one week after the
arrests of the three. Of course they weren't called the

(09:52):
West Memphis three back then, they were these rotten teenagers
accused of these horrible crimes. We went down to West Memphis, Arkansas,
in June of ninety three, thinking we were making a
film about kids killing kids. All the press was saying
they were guilty Jesse miss Kelly's confession without any context.
The multiple statements over time were reduced to a digestible

(10:12):
paragraph without context, published in the local paper. So we
thought there was a confession. You know, the prosecution and
the police were saying at press conferences on a scale
of one to ten, this is an eleven. I was
going down as a filmmaker, coming off of a really
great experience on my first film of pushing the form
of documentary, but no idea of social justice.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
We go down.

Speaker 7 (10:36):
We embed with the families of the victims. Mainly the
trial is still seven months away. For the first three
months of the project, we really spent time with the
families of the victims, and of course they hated these
guys and thought they were, you know, the devil, and
we had no reason to believe otherwise.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
On season seven of Wrongful Conviction, on the fifth episode,
I interviewed Damien eccles. Here's an excerpt. We were an outcast, right,
and there were these very small minded people around who
sort of came to this instinctual call it conclusion that
it must be the weird kid, right, it must be
the kid that wears black and listens to heavy metal.

(11:14):
And this was during the Satanic Panic as well. Right
back then, for those of you who are old enough
to remember, in the early nineties, there was this very
strange thing that was going on in America with rumors
of Satanic cults and stuff like that. None of them
turned out to be true. But that's beside the point.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
So what happened for me my entire life, The thing
that has been most important to me, that I love
the most, that my life always sort of revolved around,
was Western hermeticism ceremonial magic. All the way back from
when I was a child but I lived in an
incredibly right wing fundamentalist town where I mean, there were

(11:48):
places in this town where you come to a four
corner stop and on all four corners of the street
will be churches.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
It's like Starbucks.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
Now, yeah, that's exactly what it was like. And if
you didn't belong to, you know, one of these mainstream
for that area, mainstream fundamentalist religions, you were automatically.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Viewed as suspicious.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
You were Satanic.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's what they thought.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
And it didn't matter if you were a Buddhist or
a Hindu or something like that. You're still satanic. You
just don't know you're a Satanist. You're just being tricked
by the devil into thinking there's some other religion.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
You know.

Speaker 5 (12:20):
The fact that I actually did love ceremonial magic, and
that's been one of their things that you know, they
harp on forever that that is Satanism. So that was
a huge part of what made them focus on me
as well. You know, that was what they thought made
me a freak. They think, automatically, you're a Satanist. It
would take a Satanist to commit a crime like this.
Stick all those things together and they didn't even look

(12:41):
for anybody or anything else.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
So in this case, they focused on you, and then
they had to find a way to get to you,
right because there was no evidence connecting you, no, So
they found a way, and that way was Jesse Mscally exactly.
So they originally sort of tricked into confessing and he
immediately recanted after he confessed.

Speaker 5 (13:04):
Of somewhere between seventy and seventy two, and they interrogated him.
I can't remember exactly how many hours it was. It
was something like between twelve and fourteen hours. And they're
tilling this guy who has an IQ that's way way
below normal. They're telling him things like, you know, just
tell us what we want to know and we'll let
you go home. So they finally get this guy to confess,

(13:24):
and he can't get anything about the crime scene, right
because he wasn't actually there, so he didn't know anything.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
They didn't care.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
The only thing they cared about was the fact that
they got him to say yes.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
And we also know, Damien, that people who are most
susceptible to this are adolescents. We now know that the
human brain isn't fully formed until you're twenty five. He
was sixteen, right seventeen, and with his low IQ, he
was totally outmatched, overwhelmed, and probably after twelve to fourteen
hours he would have confessed to know anything killing Abraham
Lincoln exactly, I mean, just to go home. So he

(13:56):
implicated you and Jason. So Jason was sort of your
one and best and pretty much only friend at the time, right,
And he was just physical appearances, he didn't have the
same stigma that you did, right. He was sort of
just an average looking kid, very young looking, must have
weighed one hundred pounds or less. Didn't look like a killer, right,
But to them you did exactly. And he got caught

(14:18):
up in all of this too, yep, just because he
knew me, right, unbelievable. On season two of Wrongful Conviction,
Episode eight, I interviewed Jason Baldwin. Here's what he had
to say.

Speaker 9 (14:30):
And so when the police came, honestly, it didn't really
scare me or alarm me, because I figured they were
going everywhere. I figured it was door to door, you know,
that they were talking to everybody they could, you know,
And to me that made sense, you know, that was logical.
But what I didn't know that they were targeting us.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
So now everything goes completely haywire and you guys get arrested.

Speaker 9 (14:52):
Correct, They mugshot in me, But when they fingerprinted me,
they didn't stop there. They took a fingerprint, They took
an entire hand impression. They took my entire footprints, right,
and then they took me to the hospital and they
took hair samples, they took saliva samples, they took blood samples.
When they were taking these samples from me, it gave

(15:13):
me hope because I thought, Okay, whoever committed this crime,
they've left something for the police to compare my samples to, right,
and so that's where my hope was. And now at
this point I had already been engaged with the police,
and they had asked me, you know, questions and stuff,
and I told them where I was at, and they
absolutely refused the truth. They kept telling me, no, we've

(15:35):
got another story. Your friend has told us that you
have done this and that what you're telling us is
not true. I'm like, well, who is this friend? And
they refused to tell me. The boys' bodies were found
May the sixth, we were arrested. Jesse Muskelli gave the
false confession on June third, But what many people have
not really noticed it. On May the fifteenth, just a

(15:55):
couple of weeks after the boys' bodies were found, Jesse
went to the police with another friend because there was
a tip line and a reward offered out for any
information on who may have committed this crime. Now, Jesse
did not know who committed his crime, but he wanted
the reward money. He was imagining the brand new truck
he could buy his father and things like that. So

(16:17):
him and another kid out of his trailer park went
to the police and said, there's this suspicious guy in
the town that you know, you need to check out.
And I don't know exactly what all he told them
about this guy or whatever, but they ended up telling him, Jesse,
you need to come back with a more believable story
than that. Right, a few weeks go by, now they're

(16:38):
saying they've got that believable story when he gives the
false confession against Damian on me.

Speaker 7 (16:45):
Then we finally negotiated access. They were all in county
jail awaiting trial, and somehow we taught you know, documentary
was a little more naive in those days in terms
of people's perceptions, and so we were able. I mean,
one of the amazing things about Paradise losses just where
we stuck our camera. I mean, we got tremendous access,
which I don't think we'd ever get today, luckily for

(17:06):
all involved. But we finally negotiated access to the West
Memphis three and again they weren't called that then, and
we did our first series of interviews, and I think
I'm sitting down with killers, you know, horrible kids, wanting
to understand how three teens could be so disaffected from
life that they would they would do this horrible thing.

(17:27):
There were some killings in the UK on railroad tracks
just a few years before, you know, the Jamie Bolger
case that actually I had tried to get access to
and make a film about. So my head is kids
killing kids, it's a trend, let's make a film about it.
Of course, the late eighties was the whole Satanic panic
and Satanic hysteria. I was a young filmmaker and you know,

(17:47):
didn't have any reason to think that wasn't necessarily true.
So I went into this project. In the great irony
is that, you know, two decades and three films later,
this crusade to get these guys out. Started off as
let's make a film about these rotten punks. So we
sit down, we do our first series of interviews. Honestly,

(18:09):
Damien was a little hard to read. I look back now,
Obviously he was in shock. He didn't believe he would
actually be convicted. Not to be judgmental, I mean, Damien's
a hero to me, who's gone through the most amazing journey.
But that first interview I couldn't quite tell with him.
But the person who really just whatever sense of tapping

(18:30):
into something that I had at the time. It was
talking to Jason Baldwin where I just said, this doesn't
add up four months before the trial, three months into
being embedded in West Memphis, Arkansas, because we spent literally
seven months camping out there before the trial started. And
it's not like a light bulb went off and I said,

(18:51):
oh my god, they're innocent. But something didn't seem right.
And so I remember calling Sheila Evans, who, again, to
her credit, she's an amazing catalyst for what documentary has become,
but she also likes, you know, salacious subject matter. And
she had sent me down, or sent us down to
make a film about teen Satanic Killers. So I remember

(19:13):
picking up the phone calling her to let her know
that something. You know, I'm not sure these guys are guilty,
and I'm not sure the film is what you think
it's going to be a little trepidacious that she was
going to cancel the project, but I felt I had
to tell her. You know, we're like four months in
and we've gathered enough information that these kids seem like
they're the wrong guys had been picked up. I also

(19:34):
created this incredible moral ambiguity because we had convinced the
parents of the victims that we were here to tell
their story, and they were utterly convinced of their guilt.
But I called Sheila, and to her credit, she said, oh,
that sounds even more interesting. Stick with it, because she
couldn't pulled the plug.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
You know.

Speaker 7 (19:52):
And it's the number one lesson. I mean, I'm not
sure if there are filmmakers in the in your audience
or whatever, but my number one lesson that I tell
people about filmmaking is never, particularly in documentary, never lock
into the preconceived idea of what you think your film
is about, because you'll miss the story. If we had
locked into teen Satan Killers, and hadn't opened our eyes
to the real story, we might have missed the story.

(20:13):
But I never imagined that it would actually ever get
to trial because I had faith in the justice system.
I never imagined that evidence such as Metallica lyrics or
Stephen King novels would be presented in a court of
law in the United States of America as the main evidence,
and that somebody could be convicted on literally no forensic evidence,
no blood at the crime scene. I mean, you know,

(20:33):
you know the details of this case, and.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
So yeah, but it's worth refreshing that.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
We're at the police station. The only thing. Every so
often one of the cops would come in and say,
are you ready to make your confession? Yet I would
just stand there and look at them.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
They would leave.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
I stood there all night long until the next day
they got me and took me into a courtroom. They
tell me, you know, somebody's already confessed to this crime.
They've implicated you, saying you were the ring leader of this.
So now what you need to do is confess to
this and say no, you weren't the ring leader they were.
Try to put the blame back on them, or you're

(21:09):
going to die because of this. I can't even figure
out who the hell they're talking about because I've only
got one friend in the entire world, and that was
Jason Baldwin. I knew it wasn't him because he was
with me, and I knew he didn't do it. I
knew he wasn't going to confess to something he hadn't done.
So I didn't realize who it even was that had
confessed until the next day. Whenever they take me into
the courtroom, they say who it is, and they ask,

(21:30):
you know, how do you plead all this sort of thing.
They refuse to even read the confession in the courtroom.
They asked me, did I want it read? I said yes,
and they wouldn't read it even after they asked me
and I said yes. Instead, they take me out of
the courtroom into a janitor's closet with mops and brooms.
They give me a transcript, a type transcript of this confession.
When I started reading it, it's immediately obvious why they

(21:52):
didn't want this thing or read in court. It made
no sense whatsoever. You know, you're talking about this story
that's like a Frankenstein patchwork thing that they've so did
together out of many statements made by somebody with an
IQ of between seventy and seventy two. And what they
would do is when he would confess to something and
wouldn't get anything right, they would come back into the
room and say, well, do you think maybe this could

(22:15):
have happened? Or I mean even more blatantly obvious. The
first time they asked him when did the murders happen?
And he says something like eight o'clock in the morning. Well,
they knew that wasn't true because all three of the
kids were in school. So gradually what they did was
shape this thing to make it what they wanted it
to be. That's why they didn't want it read in court.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
No, and they ignored obvious signs that pointed to at
least one, arguably up to three other individuals. Yes, including
there was a local restaurant, was it Bojangles or something?
Was a Bojangles where the manager called the cops that
night and said there was a guy covered in mud
and blood that stumbled into the fast food place and

(22:54):
went into the bathroom. And to their credit, the manager
called up and a police officer came but didn't investigate,
and they ultimately collected evidence from that bathroom that he
went into, which there was blood all over the place
and mud, and they lost it. Yes, and there again
were obvious signs. I mean the one I just talked about,
the various signs pointing to the stepfather of one of

(23:15):
the boys. I mean, this one kind of came with instructions,
and I know that it's difficult. I'm not an anarchist.
I believe we do need a system of law and order.
I think there are a lot of very good police
and judges and prosecutors out there. But in this case,
it's a small town, high profile, complicated crime. Because the
crime scene itself was a muddy riverbed, not the easiest

(23:36):
place to collect evidence. It seemed to have been scrubbed
to some degree. And then all the pressure you ran
into the perfect storm.

Speaker 5 (23:42):
They put me in another sale where I would stay
for almost the next year while I waited to go
to trial. When we do go to trial, the evidence
that they present against us is things like Stephen King books,
the fact that we owned Metallica T shirts and albums,
posters that were hanging on our wall, you know, things
that were from like skateboarding magazines, ceremonial magic books. This

(24:05):
is the evidence they had. That the prosecutors tell the
jury that these things are not only evidence that were guilty,
but their evidence that I don't even have a soul,
that this is how evil I am.

Speaker 9 (24:16):
I was totally surprised when I went to trial and
instead of the narration of the story revolving around evidence,
the prosecutor John Fogeman and Brenton Davis were saying things
like the crime scene was completely clean, there was absolutely
no evidence, no physical evidence left behind, and this, in
fact is evidence of Satanic cult ritual activity.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Because the devil faned up the crime scene. Basically, when
they put that guy in the stand who was testifying
as an expert on Satanism and witchcraft and all, and
the defense attorney quite rightly said to him, where did
you get certified at this? And it turned out he
had spent like an hour doing some online something or whatever.
It was ridiculed. It was laughable, right, The fact that
he was called himself an expert was laughable. And that's

(25:02):
one thing that I was like, well, the jury's got
to hear that. And the other thing was when they
had the doctor on the stand, right, it was like
orthopedic surgeon or something, and they were asking him about
the way that the one boy had been mutilated, right,
and we had the skin cut off his penis. I mean,
he's really pretty disgusting even thinking about it now. Now.

Speaker 9 (25:19):
We found out later was animals had actually started eating
their bodies in the water that they were submerging. And
so when the police pulled Jesse into the police station
and they laid out the photos of the bodies, they
had him make up a story for all the visible wounds.
The calls and manner of the wounds were unknown. They
didn't know that all these wounds were animal predation.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
If you remember when the jury went out, what did
you think was going to happen?

Speaker 9 (25:43):
I sincerely believed that we would go home, they would
find us not guilty, that they would be able to
totally ignore all the flaming prejudicial stuff that the prosecution
was bringing up about Satanism and everything, and look at
the case for what it was and follow the evidence.
So told all your life that the purpose of the
judicial system is to find the truth, when really it's

(26:05):
to get a conviction.

Speaker 5 (26:07):
They came back in they sentenced me to death three times.
They sentenced me to die by lethal injection three times.
They sentenced Jason to life in prison without parole. The
other guy they sentenced to life plus forty years. They
immediately take me from the courtroom to death Row, where
I would not see Jason again. I saw him maybe

(26:31):
twelve fifteen years later, for maybe twenty to thirty seconds.
They used to bring other prisoners in to clean the barracks,
and he was one of the prisoners they brought in
one day to clean death row. So he comes by
mysell mopping and sweeping. That was the first contact I'd
had with him in like fifteen years by that point.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
It's truly mind boggling the whole thing, even by our standards,
being entrenched in this work, you know, and you hear
one fuck up story after another, but this one takes
the King go, yeah, you know. I talk a lot
about the idea that when we willfully or accidentally, want
to call it mistakenly, prosecute the wrong person and convict them,

(27:14):
by definition, we stop looking for the right person exactly.
And in this case, it sure seems like the prosecutors
must have known that these guys didn't do it. At
some point they realized that they had the wrong guys.
Maybe it was around the time you did, maybe it
was sooner, may it was later. But then you're left with,
wait a minute, So, whoever this sick fuck is that

(27:35):
did this terrible, or whoever these people are that did this,
they're amongst us. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (27:41):
Well, first of all, I do believe that during the
trial and through the conviction, the authorities felt they had
the right guy. And the reason that's scary is because
of the utter incompetence and the ability to fall victim
to confirmation bias, to all sorts of problems within our system.
I actually think that they felt they had the right people.

(28:02):
What I find evil, the real evil in this case
because a lot of that initial false conviction I attribute
to human error, which is scary in some way scarier
than a conspiracy. But it's the post conviction period where
it became quite clear, I think to everybody involved that
these guys were innocent, and for people to hang on

(28:25):
to their jobs, for people to not question things, you know,
for the same judge Judge Burnett, who presided over the
original trial, to be the post conviction appellate judge ruling
whether he had reversible error in the original is absurd,
and that's what the way it was for over a
decade on that case. So the real evil in this

(28:46):
case is the post conviction period where people cared more
about their jobs. And you see that all the time.
It's why there shouldn't be prosecutorial immunity and all sorts
of other issues. But just getting back to my origin story,
you know, in covering this story, I just still I
didn't have the gene that I thought film could be
used for social good until the final moments of Paradise Lost,

(29:09):
which are the final moments of the trial where oh
my god, they really have convicted this guy on no evidence.
And you see in Paradise Laws in the movie, Jason
has already been convicted halfway through the movie, and then
the second half of the movie is focusing on Jason
and Damien, and you see Damien being chained up and
led off to death row. I mean, we were in
the room with him as he was being chained off
and led off to death row, and Jason was being

(29:31):
led off to life without parole sentences and they get
escorted out of the room, and Bruce and I look
at each other like, oh my god, I cannot believe
what we just witnessed. And that's when we vowed to
do everything we could. And when the gene or the
light bulb went off in my head where I realized that, yes,
I'm sitting on all this footage that can help, and
that film I think can be used for shining a light.

(29:54):
And so I feel like I stumbled on to the
criminal justice system as a place to place my f focus.
But seeing how easy it is for people to make mistakes,
seeing how easy it is for somebody to be sent
to death, this became my calling when I saw that
zero evidence and Stephen King novels and Metallica lyrics can
put you on death row.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Right, Well, if that's the case, I mean when you
add up all the Stephen King novels and all the
Batallica records that would sold out, means there's tens of
millions of serial killers out there that we should all
be very scared crazy.

Speaker 7 (30:25):
And you know, he did have an affinity for Aleister
Crowley and that was also introduced. But still, this is
not forensic evidence. You know, there was no blood at
the crime scene, no forensic evidence. I mean, it's just
this is the worst case probably I've studied, you know,
in all these years.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
So your film ultimately led to an amazing outpouring of
support from people all over the world, regular people as
well as people at the very top echelons of society.
Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, Natalie Maine to Peter Jackson. Amazing,
amazing people who became like, not casually involved, but deeply involved.

(31:06):
And there's no separating that from the fact that it
was a direct result of your movie, which had to
feel good. But then how did it feel when finally,
eighteen years later, these guys walked out of prison and
knowing the role that you played in that, right, well,
and a lot of people played roles in it, right,
That's the thing I mean this. I hope this doesn't

(31:27):
sound falsely humble. I'm very proud of the films, and
I think the film's definitely played a role. And I
definitely think that we're the ones who said against all
the other media, because every night there was a news
report or story of these monstrous killers. It was so
prejudicing everything, so we were truly the only media saying
that they were innocent. I think the film attracted a

(31:47):
lot of the attention, but it's the activism of tens
of thousands of people and the well known people that
got them out of prison.

Speaker 7 (31:54):
But that feels good. I mean, it's rare in one's career.
You know, when you make documentaries, you hope to affect
people in some way. When you're a storyteller in general,
you want to affect people in some way, and to
have that kind of tangible effect on the outcome of
a case felt terrific, although I will say it was
also very bittersweet because a it took way too long,

(32:15):
you know, eighteen and a half years. Actually, with some
cases that's on the low end of things, sadly, but
still it took so long, and the attempts to deny
DNA testing and the fact that the same judge remained
on the case during the whole post conviction is just outrageous.
And then the end result was the Alfred plea, where
you know, Damien was not well on death row as

(32:35):
we know, and you know, Jason had to really debate
whether he wanted to take the deal because he wanted
to keep fighting, and some evidence that Peter Jackson paid
for was coming out and very helpful, which of course
scared the prosecution, which is why they were even willing
to do the Alfred plea. Should we explain what the
Alfred plea is?

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, let me talk about it. Go ahead.

Speaker 7 (32:57):
Well, the Alfred plea is basically where you stand up
in court. In this case, Damien and Jason and Jesse
acknowledged that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict, but
you maintain your innocence. You state that I am innocent
of these charges, but I believe the state has enough
evidence that a conviction could occur, So I plead guilty

(33:20):
in exchange for time served. Is basically what happened. So
the death sentence was vacated and turned into a first
degree murder charge, and he was sentenced to life served,
which allowed him to go out of the prison, and
the life without parole sentences were vacated and turned into
time served. That's you know, you can understand why somebody
would accept that, especially if you're on death row. But

(33:43):
it's so cowardly on the part of the State of Arkansas.
Does anyone really believe that if the State of Arkansas
had an abiding belief that these were teen child killers
who sacrificed eight year olds to the devil in a
satanic ritual that they would allow them to walk free
after eighteen years. Of course not they know they're innocent,

(34:04):
but they want to protect themselves from accountability.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
You know.

Speaker 7 (34:07):
Some people have said, well, they want to also protect
themselves from being sued for wrongful conviction, which you know,
the average wrongful conviction case is worth a million dollars
a year. Times eighteen years times three defendants, that's fifty
four million dollars if I'm doing my math correctly or
something like that. But they could have even signed, you know,
a way that they won't sue for wrongful conviction. It's

(34:28):
all about accountability, and that's how these things happen. That's
why post conviction takes for so long. Nobody wants to
be accountable. And I think it's so cowardly and disturbing
that this is how these guys ended up free. I mean,
I took Jason to both the Berlin Film Festival with
Paradise Lost three and there's a great documentary festival in

(34:49):
Amsterdam called IFA International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam, and both
of those border crossings were fraught with delays and problems
because as in the computer, it's Jason Bald with convicted
child killer. Jason wants to study law and become a lawyer.
He can't do it because he's a convicted child killer.
So yesfl great that the movie had an impact on people,

(35:13):
and those people pushed and pushed until these guys were
let out. But sad that it's the alphad plea and
they're not fully exonerated.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
The alpha plea is such a it's like a Sophie's
choice kind of thing. And we've had Oh god, I
don't know how many people on Ralph conviction who have
resorted to that. You know, they have so much leverage
when you're looking at the amount of time it will
take to go back for another trial, Yeah, you're going
to spend that time in prison awaiting that trial. If

(35:50):
you're trying to put yourself in the shoes of someone
who's face with that choice, If you know that you've
already been framed once or gotten you know, convicted, he
didn't do however it got to that once, you would
be hard pressed to risk the rest of your life
in the system that has already.

Speaker 7 (36:07):
Ye, Damien was truly unhealthy and being abused by guards.
And that's ultimately why I think they're all heroes to me.
But Jason Baldwin acted very heroically because he was ready
to stay and fight and clear his name. But everyone
felt that Damien's health was in such a state that
to wait any longer might be detrimental, so he made

(36:28):
that decision a death sentence.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Jason. Of all the eighty something episodes we recorded, now,
his was really like it was difficult to even hear
the stories that he told. He's such an amazingly gentle,
you know, soul, and you know he was what ninety

(36:51):
one hundred pounds back then, right, actually did well.

Speaker 7 (36:55):
In school, And you're right. That was the vibe he
was giving off. Was this sweet little boy talking to
me about phishing and what he likes to do when
he's not at school and drawing. He was an avid drawer.
And while he's talking to me, I'm looking at his
tiny little wrists, because if you believe the prosecution story,
it's Baldwin who wielded the serrated hunting knife that castrated

(37:16):
the buyer's boy. And I'm talking to the sweet little
kid and staring at his wrist and trying to imagine
that this guy knifed these kids in the way that
it was alleged, and I just found it incredible.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Jason Baldwin on the show. It was an experience I'll
never forget when this all came down. You were in
tenth grade.

Speaker 9 (37:36):
Tenth grade.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Tenth grade. Let's just reflect on that for a second.
You're not even anywhere near being an adult in tenth grade.
So then you end up getting sent to maximum security prison.

Speaker 9 (37:47):
Right when you first go to prison and you're not
going to death row, you go to what's called a
diagnostic unit, and that's where they evaluate you mentally and
physically to determine what your parent unit in the department
corrections will be. Because they have a myriad of prisons
on various different old slave plantations in the South, and
each of them are different and in different ways by

(38:10):
age and your strength and things like that. And when
I went to diagnostics, they saw me like you saw
me as a small innocent kid, and a diagnostics they
were like, we've got to send you to one of
two places, Jason, or you're not gonna make it PC
Protective custody or what's called SPU Suicide Prevention Unit and
suicide prevention unit. You will have your own cell. And

(38:32):
you know, I looked at it like this. At the time,
we didn't have very many people on our side. In fact,
it was just us. And I'm thrust into this incredibly
impossible situation. And I was escorted everywhere I went in
the prison, and so I'd see the people in SPU
going to chow and they'd be doing the thorizine shuffle
because they're so heavily medicated. And I had a fear

(38:55):
that if I acquiesced and let them put me in SPU,
that they would forcefully make me and I would lose
my mind and my ability to think and reason and
to fight. And so I said, no, I can't do that.
And as far as the PC protective custody, anybody knows
if you are saying you are so weak that you

(39:15):
need protection, that people are gonna see that and prey
on you even more. And so I knew I had
to some way, some fashion stand on my own two
feet in there and earn everybody's respect from the inmates
and guards a light and they said, well, you not
going to one of these places. We're gonna have to
send you to Barner. And at the time they had

(39:37):
just shipped all these guys from the Little Tucker Unit
to Barner and they were destroying the place. They said,
it was just chaos and destruction and just incredibly violent place,
and that's where they were going to have to send me.
And I just told them that that's what you got
to do. You got to do it. And so they
did eventually send me to Barner Unit, and it was

(39:59):
everything they said it was.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
How did you survive there?

Speaker 9 (40:02):
And you know, by the grace of God, you know,
as you said, I guess, I'll say I was incredibly luckily,
but I was incredibly blessed to I went in there,
they opened up and mister Patten stepped out, and his
clerk stepped out, and mister Panton says, in May Bowlin,
I'm mister Patten, the classification officer. I'll be assigning you
to your housing unit. And this is my clerk, Mojo.

(40:24):
And they tell me you got to stand up for
yourself in here or these people just will run you
over and turn you into a sex slave and all
these horrible things and make you pay money for protection
and stuff like that. And so they assign me to
seven barracks, and seven barracks at the Barner unit is
in take barracks. I walk down the hall and as

(40:46):
I'm walking, I'm walking next to this barracks and it's
got bulletproof glass three stories high, and these guys are
beating on it. Right, it's plexiglass, it's got chicken wire
in it, and there are sell bars on the inside
of it, going all the way up three stories. And
I look and these guys are literally climbing this thing.
They are climbing it above one another're hanging on to

(41:08):
the bars, looking at me, beating the glass and pointing
at me. Because they've been watching the trial on TV
and the hearings and stuff for an entire year. It's
like a pep rally. Right, They're finally going to have
their hands on me.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Right.

Speaker 9 (41:22):
And I get there and Sergeant Ivy's working the door
and he tells me, He says, if you go in
there and stand up for yourself, I got your back.
If not, they got you. And I'm just holding the
only thing I have is a bible, a couple of
letters from a mom. That's it in a little paper bag.
And they opened the door and put me in there,
and next thing I know, somebody swings a fist at me.

(41:44):
I duck that one. The next one catches me and
I'm fighting. Immediately the door opens back up, there's may sprayed.
Sergeant Ivy's yeanking people off of me. I'm on the
ground and he says, are you ready to go to PC?

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Now?

Speaker 9 (41:59):
You need to catch out, and the guys are hollering,
catch out, bitch, catch out, O all these horrible things,
you know, which catch out means to leave the barracks
and to go and to protective custody. And like I said,
you know, I knew I needed to earn these people's
respect because I did not know how long I would
be there. I know I'm innocent, but I don't know

(42:20):
how long I'm going to be in this prison. And
so I tell them no leave me. And next thing
I know, we go from the dayroom tier downstairs of
guys like push all the racks up against the wall.
They circle around us, and I'm fighting this guy. And
then I'm fighting this guy and there's people hitting me
from behind. So it's kind of orderly and fair, but
then again it's kind of not. And so I fight

(42:42):
the whole barracks that Friday, everybody, and then they call
shower call and the barracks next door eight bricks. They
call two barracks at a time to go to shower.
The shower holds one hundred people, and so when I
get there, I gotta fight all these guys from eight barracks.
And so I fought all weekend. My whole face would
swollen up, my fists were swoll up, my body was

(43:05):
beat And so I do this all weekend. I get
into fights in the chowhau even like because there's even
other people from other barracks is wanting to get to
me in the chow haw and stuff like that. Come
Monday morning, I'm barely even able to walk, you know,
and like the guys are like just pushing me and
guiding me a bit and which way to go and stuff,

(43:27):
because I can't even see even less than I normally
do because my eyes and stuff are all swollen up.
And I just remember thinking that whole weekend about this
job out in the fields, whole squad. There's gonna be sunshine,
there's gonna be a dawn, and I'm gonna get to
witness that. I was just looking forward to that first dawn,

(43:48):
you know, that morning air. And so there was a
part of me just no matter how bad it was,
I was just looking forward to that first dawn. I'm like,
if I can make it to that, you know, if
I can make it to that, that's something good.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
It's interesting. Fifteen to twenty years ago, I was going
around to different studios in Hollywood and saying, we should
do a show that features these type of cases and
shine a light on these injustices. And people were like, no,
nobody wants that, you know, And now it seems like

(44:21):
every other show you turn.

Speaker 7 (44:22):
On I have several of them. Yeah you do ye
a wrong man on Stars. And I did a show
for Discovery called Killing Richard Glossop, who another horrible case
that I wish people would pay more attention to.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Richard Glossops.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
And on Oklahoma's death Row, the status tried to kill
him three times. The last time they tried to kill him,
the portal was in his arm and they were using
the wrong execution drugs and the clock struck three, which
is the appointed killing hour, and the family on the
outside thought the stay had not come as it had
several times before, crying and hugging, thinking that he had
been killed, when in fact, what was going on inside

(44:58):
the death room was an argu between the state's attorney
general and the head of prisons trying to figure out
whether they should kill this guy because he had the
wrong execution drugs and that fracas, and it's the second
time there was the wrong execution drugs were being used.
There's you know, there's a moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.
That's the only thing that's keeping Richard Glossop alive, as

(45:18):
opposed to this bizarre story that the prosecution, you know,
has given as to why he deserves to be killed,
which is completely bogus.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
The case of Richard Glossop came to my attention several
years ago, and I felt like I'd been kicked in
the stomach. I mean, let's talk about him, because they
do need to bring more attention to it. Can you
give us the capsule summary of this.

Speaker 7 (45:41):
There's not a long story to tell. It's Richard Glossop
was the manager of a kind of a sleazy motel,
and he is accused of hiring the motel's janitor, who
he had given a job to only a few months before,
to kill the owner of the hotel that he could
take it over. The whole story on its face when

(46:03):
you pick it apart is ridiculous. The guy who actually
did the killing is the junkie hotel janitor maintenance man
named Justin Snead, and he was convicted of the murder,
but you know, was not sentenced to death. He cut
a deal, pointed a finger at his boss. There's zero evidence,
zero corroboration. We did some forensic accounting or the defense
attorney did some forensic accounting to show this idea of

(46:26):
swindling and taking money is bogus. But conspiracy to murder
hiring somebody to do a murder as a capital offense,
and these guys wanted that notch on their belt. I'm convinced.
I mean, there's just if you look at the evidence,
there is none. It's just one of these cases where
it's so bizarre. And this guy has been on it's

(46:48):
been two years since I did the show. It's either
thirty five days or thirty eight days prior to your execution,
your move from one terrible cell in death row to
your final cell where you're placed on death watch, where
the lights are on twenty four seven. You now only
have one meal a day. You are sleeping on a
thin like half inch excuse for a mattress instead of

(47:10):
a real cot and they're just trying to wear you down.
And this poor guy has gone through this process three times.
He's had the portal placed in his arm awaiting the
lethal injection drugs. When they realized, oh, we have the
wrong drugs. That's the only thing that has saved this guy.
We're two mistakes by the prison. The first attempt to
kill him, there was a stay because a new witness

(47:31):
came along and the government dismissed it as being relevant.
But that was the first day. The other two stays,
the last two stays were because of botched execution. And
there's just no evidence tying this guy to the murder.
The convicted killer who confessed to doing it is serving
a life sentence, whereas the guy who allegedly hired him
for which there's snow proof, is on death row under

(47:53):
the most miserable conditions.

Speaker 5 (47:55):
You know.

Speaker 7 (47:56):
And this is where my big thing is prosecutorial immunity.
You know, on the one hand, it's been argued to me, well,
prosecutors have to be immune from their actions because you know,
in many places prosecutors are underpaid. You know, you wouldn't
get good prosecutors to do their job if they were
fearful of immunity. I get that on a certain level.

(48:17):
And there's lots of great prosecutors and not everyone's a
bad guy, and not every CoP's a bad cop. And
I'm like, like, you can't paint people with a broad stroke.
But there's got to be a happy medium where willful
withholding of evidence. Prosecutors have got to be held accountable
and a lot of this shit would go away in
my opinion. I mean, you know, Judge Janine Janine Piro,

(48:41):
the Fox commentator in the case of Jeffrey Dskovic, she
fought DNA testing for a long time. You know, she
went off to go run for office, and then her successor, Janetdfiori, said,
of course, we'll test the DNA. The DNA was tested
and it immediately pointed to another person.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Season four of Romful Conviction, Episode eight, Jeffrey Deskovic.

Speaker 8 (49:05):
And then the trial comes in. Just before the trial,
the results of the DNA test comes back from the
FBI laboratory, which shows that the seamen found and the
victim didn't.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Match me, right, because remember she was raped.

Speaker 8 (49:19):
She was raped, yes, And by the way, the lieutenant
who oversaw everything. In the letter that he penned to
the FBI asking them to expedite the testing. He wrote
in the letter that the DNA testing would either show
my guilt or it would exonerate me. But when it
came back and it didn't match me, my lawyer did

(49:40):
try to get the indictment dismissed against me based on that,
but the judge denied that motion.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
That alone seems so just incomprehensible to me. I mean,
the judge is impartial, right, we know the prosecutor has
an agenda, but the judge's impartial. Yeah, I don't know,
I don't understand. You know that back then DNA wasn't
it wasn't as well known.

Speaker 8 (50:03):
But to be clear, I mean, DNA started being used
in the court system as early as nineteen eighty seven,
and this we're on trial now in nineteen ninety, so
it's been around for three years. So while not in
currency like now, it is not exactly totally unknown.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Right, and it's perfect I mean.

Speaker 8 (50:21):
Right, it's the gold standard.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, so your DNA doesn't match. This is an inconvenient
truth for the authorities, and the judge allows this. This
circus to go on. Meanwhile, let's spend a moment talking
about the actual perpetrator. Yes, because every time, and I
sound like a broken record when I say this, but

(50:44):
every time that somebody like you gets convicted wrongfully, the
actual perpetrator, they stop looking for him. Right, the case
is closed, And in this case, the consequences were very real.

Speaker 8 (50:57):
Yes, school teacher Patricia Morrison who had a couple of kids.
She was from Peak Skill, and she was killed by
the stained perpetrator, Stephen Cunningham. She was killed three and
a half years later as a result of Cunningham being
left free on the street while I was doing time
for his crime.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Now you say, the real perpetrator, how do we know that?

Speaker 8 (51:18):
Well, here, great, that's a great question. I'm so glad
you asked. Because the DNA matched him, because he got
caught for the second murder Patricia Morrison, which resulted in
his being incarcerated and having to give up a DNA
sample which was put into the data bank. And so
when I eventually got the further testing with the Innocence

(51:41):
Projects help, it matched him. Then he subsequently confessed and
he played guilty in court.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
When did this happen that happened.

Speaker 8 (51:51):
Twelve and a half years after he killed a second victim.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Well, so, Patricia Morrison, yes, today would be probably a
LUs sitting around with her grandchildren, you know, probably be
a retired school teacher by now having a nice life.
Her children would have grown up as they deserve too,
as everyone deserves to with their mother. The rest of
her family wouldn't have gone through this horrendous loss. None

(52:14):
of it had to happen except for the fact that
they went on this crazy witch hunt to convict you,
Jeffrey Deskovic, of a crime that they knew you didn't commit.

Speaker 7 (52:25):
So he was exonerated, got millions of dollars from Westchester
County and Putnam County, which the taxpayers should be livid
about that. You know, this case was allowed to happen,
and the same thing in Damien's case. They were you know,
the seven or eight years was spent with a guy
on death row. Seven or eight years was spent fighting

(52:45):
DNA testing because of the finality of judgment concept in
our legal system, which is absurd.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
Years later they do DNA testing, find out that the
DNA does not match me or the other two guys
they convicted to this they still have not run that
DNA through CODIS to see who it matches. They refuse
to do that.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, which is so strange because in a case like this,
especially in the small community, the people who are doing
investigating live in that community. By definition, When you have
somebody out there who's capable of this sort of pure evil,
you would think, if for no other reason than purely
selfish reasons, you would want to get that person off
the street. But that's not what happened, and it happens

(53:26):
too frequently that these various factors combine to result in
a tragic outcome.

Speaker 5 (53:32):
And what people don't realize also, you know, just most
people's knowledge of the legal system comes from watching TV,
and it fosters this idea that these people, these judges,
these prosecutors, these attorney generals, that they have these positions
because there's somehow moral people. They're good people who are
looking out for society. In actual fact, these are politicians,
just like senators, just like congressmen. Their number one priority

(53:55):
is winning that next election. So they are going to
do or that next case exactly whatever the community is
pressuring them to do. That's the way they're going to
lean because they want to win the next election.

Speaker 7 (54:11):
The legal system should be about finding the truth and
if there's reason to believe that somebody has a wrongful
conviction claim, especially with the advent of DNA technology, which
you know, that's a new that was a new thing.
The fact that a prosecutor can fight DNA testing like
they did in Damien's case for eight or nine years,
like they did in Jeffrey Dskovic's case, which resulted in

(54:33):
the death of another innocent human being, it's just outrageous.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
You know. And that's true too in the Central Park
five case, where Linda Fairstein prosecuted those five kids even
though she knew she had the evidence, she knew they
didn't do it, and they had every reason to suspect
that Matthias Rays was the actual killer. Ye, and then
he went out and raped three other women and killed
one of them in front of her kids. I mean,
it's like, I mean, I'm getting the shells just thinking

(54:56):
about it. Like that is so bad and we should
all want that to end, right.

Speaker 7 (55:02):
I'm telling you, If some tougher laws were passed about
prosecutors being held accountable for their actions, I think a
lot of the shit would end, it's about winning at
all costs. It's not about the search for the truth.
And again, I'm friends with a prosecutor. I know many
good prosecutors. There's good guys out there, so I'm not
saying every prosecutor is like that. But it's the system

(55:22):
is human. It's the reason you cannot have a death
penalty because the system is human and it's so easy.
We see with Damien how an innocent person can be killed.
And so I've spent a lot of times talking to
the mothers of victims of violent crime, and they want vengeance.
And I understand that desire to have vengeance. And I
don't want to look a mother in the eye and

(55:44):
say to her, you don't morally have the right to
want the death of the killer of your child. But
we don't even have to get to that moral place
because the death of one innocent person on death row,
to me, means you can can't have a death penalty
because the system is fallible. It's run by human beings,
some of whom want to win at all costs.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
No, that's the argument I have with anybody who's pro
death penalty. I always say, okay, what percentage of innocent people,
Are you okay with executive exactly ten percent? I mean,
we know that of the people that have been exonerated
from death row, there's proof that four percent of people
that were on death row are innocent. But we don't
know how many others were executed that were innocent as well,
because most of those cases just literally die when that

(56:28):
death takes place. No one goes and investigates those cases.
I want to say too, there was one period of
time where Harry Conic Senior was theda in New Orleans
and he put eight people on death row, and six
of them were exonerated. I don't know whether the other
two are innocent or guilty or what became of them,
but that was a pretty scary time right there. And

(56:49):
there was that amazing sixty minutes piece where another prosecutor
from New Orleans actually came forward and with tears and
said that you know, he feels terrible to this day
about a guy that he put on death row that
he knew was innocent, and he witheld the evidence, and
he talks about his sort of perverse motives and it's
just not a thing, like the death penalty is not
a thing, and just a slight divergence. You know, when

(57:12):
you said earlier that the typical exonnery gets a million
dollars a year, the typical exunery actually gets nothing, right.
I mean, some of them get paid, but even then
it varies wildly from whether they get paid thousands of
dollars or tens of thousands, or in the rare case
like Jeffrey Eskobic, they actually did manage to get millions
of dollars. But those are rare. You have to prove

(57:32):
civil rights violations. And I'll never forget there was a
guy who actually was friendly with he's gone now, but
he was sentenced to death in Louisiana and came within
days of being executed before somebody found with a microscope
and some brilliant scientific research was able to prove with
DNA that he was innocent, and he was exonerated and freed,

(57:56):
and he was awarded fourteen and a half million dollars,
and the State of Louisiana appealed all the way to
the US Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court overturned the
award five to four. He had proven that they had
willfully prosecuted him while knowing that he was innocent, and
the Supreme Court made some bizarre ruling that it wasn't
the responsibility of the prosecutors to train the younger prosecutors,

(58:18):
that they had to turn over culpatory evidence, and that
he had to prove a pattern of misconduct. You know,
it was just totally nuts. And he wrote an op
ed in the New York Times where he said, I
don't understand why the prosecutor who tried to kill me,
knowing I was innocent, wouldn't be charged with attempted murder. Yeah,

(58:38):
I mean, rest in peace. He was a wonderful guy.
And what you know, I had breakfast with him actually
within days of the time the Supreme Court overturned his
award and he got nothing. I was happy to be alive.
And I'm glad you said what you said, Joe, because
I also believed that. I still believe in in people.
I still believe in in prosecutors and police, and I
believe in a system of laws. And I think that

(58:59):
the the large majority of people in our system are
good people. I think most of the judges are good.
But the ones that are bad, we should all want
to get rid of them because they do such terrible
damage that they do damage to the reputation of the
profession as a whole as well. And these stories are real,
These are real people, right, Richard Glossip. It's unimaginable, And
I'm glad you brought that up too, because what the

(59:22):
fuck kind of sense does it make that before they
execute you, they go through this torture, like literal torture.
And you know, there was a guy in Virginia whose
case I've been involved with, and thankfully we were able
to prevent his execution because he's innocent, guy Naman Bontelugus.
And during the process of you know, working through his case,

(59:43):
I learned that they have a practice in the Commonwealth
of Virginia where I think it's fifteen days or three
weeks before your execution, they move you to another cell
where you to have none of your books. You have
basically nothing. The lights are on, like you said, the
whole time, and they come and check on you every
fifteen minutes, So they wake you up every fifteen minutes

(01:00:04):
and go, hey, just want to make sure Joe everything
okay in there, Like I just want to you know,
like what what I mean, Well, who came up with that?

Speaker 7 (01:00:13):
Well, I think they're trying to wear you down. So
why so you just accept your death so that you
don't make a scene for the witnesses who are experiencing it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 7 (01:00:22):
I don't know, I mean, and no one's told me that,
but I just feel like they're just trying to wear
you down so you don't fight back. And Glossop told
me himself, like he was so tired that, you know,
he was accepting of his fate even though he knew
it was wrong, you know, and if it wasn't for
the wrong drug, he'd be gone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
It's so incredibly troubling because like, why just why you
got the guy you wanted, you got the actual killer.
You guys did your job right, It's done. What do
you need the extra body for what? And there's so
many richer Glossops out there, I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:00:52):
The other weird and hard dynamic is that the family
of the victim in that case believes the Golossip is guilty.
And for years, the families of the West Memphis Three, sorry,
the families of the victims, the parents of Michael Moore,
Christopher Buyers, and Stevie branch It thought we were horrible people,

(01:01:17):
just Hollywood elites, and so funny when I don't call
the Hollywood elite. I live an hour north of Manhattan,
and you know that as far away from Hollywood as possible,
But you know that somehow Hollywood elites conspire to get
these devil worshipers out of prison. For years, they hated us,
call us names, and that's painful because you don't want
to as makers of these things. You want to shine

(01:01:39):
a light on the truth, but you don't want to
cause the famili's pain. And that's the disservice that these
police officials and prosecutors who maintain this facade of righteousness,
that's the damage they inflict on the family members because
a there's no justice because the real killers are running free.
And secondly, the healing process. You know, we're both parents

(01:02:01):
and I can't imagine, you know, anything worse than losing
a child, and there's no closure for losing a child,
but there certainly can be finality to the experience, and
your healing process is predicated on knowing justice has been served.
And so we came along and upset the apple cart
by coming out with a film that's saying, hey, everything,

(01:02:22):
the police and prosecution and all your ten thousand meetings
with these people is wrong, and you're putting these families
through a double tragedy. And for years they hated our guts,
and two of the three families came to accept our
point of view by the end of the Second Paradise Loss,
but even by the time of the Third Paradise Loss,

(01:02:43):
which came out in twenty eleven and coincided with their release.
One of the families. You know, the movie was nominated
for an Academy Award and some other prizes. And I
mentioned that only because these families took the time to
write to the Academy and to the Director's Guild and
every place that had nominated us for a prize, to
say that these films are works of fiction, that we

(01:03:05):
manipulated them, we lied to them, that the West Memphis
Three are guilty. And I look, I have, even though
they hate us, I have endless reservoirs of sympathy for them,
because again, going through this experience is every parent's worst nightmare,
and then to be victimized by the system again because
the police and the prosecution have lied to them. That's

(01:03:25):
the other part that people don't really think about, is
what happens to the victims when the truth is just
not the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Who do you think killed those kids?

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
Oh, I don't want to do. I don't want to
do to somebody else what I think was done to Damien.
What I do know is that the case needs to
be reopened. That we all know that no sane prosecutor
would knowingly let convicted teen Satanist child killers out into

(01:03:55):
the real world if they had any kind of belief
that they were guilty. If they did, because the argus
been in Arkansas amongst some of these officials is there
was so much pressure from Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder
and Peter Jackson. Well, shame on you. You're gonna let a
convicted child killer who you believe is capable of castrating
little boys in a Satanic ritual. You're going to let

(01:04:16):
them out after eighteen years because Johnny Depp said to
So if that's true, shame on you. And if you
don't believe that and they're actually innocent, as we all know,
then shame on you for sticking with this Alfred plea
and not looking into the case. As we all know,
there's some evidence that points very directly to one of
the stepfathers. I don't want to say he's guilty or not,

(01:04:39):
but a competent authority needs to look into this, and
they refuse to because they're hiding behind the Alfred plea.
And that's the crime here. I mean, there are some
simple abuses that I think could easily be remedied. One
is prosecutorial accountability. There's way too much misconduct that needs
to be arrested, and I think finding the balance between
making it so scary that a prosecutor doesn't even want

(01:05:01):
to take the job, which I understand, versus like just
wilful withholding of evidence for example, it just needs to
be stopped. The other thing is that people get a
vested interest in staying on a case forever. Prosecutors stay
on a case. Judges in some states like Arkansas are
allowed to stay on the case if something is up
for review. The original people should be out of the

(01:05:21):
picture immediately. I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me.
One of the cases that the Supreme Court finally is
going to hear is the Curtis Flowers case, and we
profiled Curtis Flowers. I mean, he's the guy I think
is totally innocent, and we profiled that case on a
show I do call wrong Man, and the guy has
been tried. He's the most tried inmate in the history

(01:05:44):
of American jurisprudence. Jurisprudence.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
He said, yes, that's right.

Speaker 7 (01:05:50):
I'm better at filmmaking than vocabulary. He's been tried six
times and each time it's the same prosecutor, and they
keep affirming his conviction again, circumstantial evidence and so many
holes in that case. And thankfully the Supreme Court a
few weeks ago said they're going to hear the case again.
But even the Supreme Court hearing the case, if it's

(01:06:12):
a good result and the state appeal is overturned by
the Supreme Court, then it gets remanded back to you know,
to the state to determine if they're going to try
him a seventh time, which is absurd, and it's the
same prosecutor.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
It's like crazy, right, the taxpayer dollars that are being
expended on this if, I mean, it's probably the least
important aspect of it, but it's still a remarkable amount
of time and energy and resources being devoted to persecuting
this one guy, Curtis Flowers, who was convicted of murdering
four people in a furniture store in Mississippi.

Speaker 7 (01:06:42):
Mississippi, four white people. He's a black man. And you
know that's the other huge problem, as I don't need
to tell anyone that the extreme racial inequity is in
our system, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
So we don't have a ton of time left. I
do want to ask you what do you think about
the role of media in the criminal justice debate? Right now?
And then I have one more question for you before
we go to final thoughts.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
Sure, you know, I think one size does not fit all.
There's a lot of irresponsible reporting. I mean, we saw
in the Amanda Knox case that reporters were horrible in
festering the image of Foxy Noxy and making her seem
guilty and really did her a disservice in her case.
And same thing with Echoles. I mean, you know, the
local media down there was just fanning the flames of

(01:07:31):
the monster of the daily headline and the daily news report.
So there's a lot of irresponsible reporting. There's a lot
of true crime And I hate that phrase again because
it somehow implies like I'm considered a true crime filmmaker.
I'd rather not be known as a true crime filmmaker,
you know, I'm a filmmaker who's involved in the criminal
justice system. True crime implies that you're wallowing in the

(01:07:54):
misery of others, you know, for entertainment purposes, and that's
the last thing I'm doing. But some of that stuff
on some of the networks does that. So I think
the role of smart, talented storytellers who are shining a
light on criminal justice abuse has never been more important.
First of all, for the first time because of the
last couple of years, with the advent of streaming and

(01:08:17):
the growing popularity of documentary in general. You know, when
I started making films twenty five years ago, if you
didn't sell your documentary to PBS or HBO, you weren't
selling your documentary. And now there's just you know, unscripted
series were never heard of. I mean, that was just
not even a concept. And with that also has come,
you know, the blurring of the line between entertainment and

(01:08:37):
news at networks has become so blurry that certain stories
aren't covered. You know, the networks are owned by a
handful of corporations after all, and I like all the
companies I work with, but there are certain stories that
they won't cover for fear of offending advertise. I'm not
just talking in the criminal justice realm, but there's certain
stories that either they won't rate, you know, in other words,

(01:08:59):
the audience won't be big enough, or they'll offend certain advertisers.
So today in twenty nineteen, also because of the demise
of print journalism because of the Internet, you know, newspapers
have been gutted. You know, I think the independent documentarians
are doing some of the most robust social justice reporting,

(01:09:19):
and so that kind of filmmaking couldn't be more important
and more timely. But it's hard to paint it all
with the same brush because there's a lot of horrible
reporting and irresponsible reporting. But generally I think it's a
good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
For people that are listening now and who are hearing
the amazing story of how you sort of almost accidentally
got involved in this or serendipitously got involved in this
work and then ended up having an outsize impact. I know,
for me, more than ever, I'm getting increase from people.

(01:09:55):
How do I help? What do I do? I want
to be involved? I want to do something. I listen
to your show, or I saw some a TV or
I came to an Innocence Project event, And what would
you tell people that are listening now that want to
get involved, What's what's the best way for them to,
you know, make a difference. Someone who's not you know,
isn't a rich person, but it's someone who has a
heart and who hears about Richard Glossip or hears about

(01:10:16):
so many of the other people Yvonne Tellegus or Rob
will who I recently visited on death row in Texas,
who's as innocent as as could be. What do you
tell these people?

Speaker 7 (01:10:24):
I mean, first of all is awareness. You know, I myself,
before I got involved in this accidentally went because I
was making a film about something else. I thought I
had a basic belief that the system works, and it
works sometimes, but it often fails miserably. So just having
that basic understanding and awareness is helpful and little actions
add up to a lot. Again, not saying anything discourteous

(01:10:48):
about Johnny Depp or Eddie Vedder or Natalie Mains, those
guys were amazing. Those names wrote checks and did things
and did concerts. But what really made the difference, in
my opinion, really what made a difference in that case
were tens of thousands of regular people who saw paradise loss,

(01:11:08):
who did not have an outsized wallet. But until the
local politicians and prosecutors are politicians in many municipalities, they
are elected officials. They didn't start taking the case seriously
until the local population took the case seriously. And what
made the local population take the case seriously is tens

(01:11:31):
of thousands of people who banded together on this website
called Free the West Memphis III. Went down religiously to
every action, every appeal, every hearing. There were thousands of
regular people from all walks of life who chose to
take their vacation in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to hold up a
sign and have their voices heard. At the end of

(01:11:53):
the day, a lot of these people who hold positions
of power, who have this unique power to take your
liberty away, often unjustly, often justly. Again, I don't think
every prosecutor is a bad guy, but they are elected
officials for the most part, and people should wake up
and if you live in Oklahoma, pay attention to the

(01:12:14):
Richard Glossop case.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
I mean, there's.

Speaker 7 (01:12:16):
Sadly there's a case, and there's a wrongful conviction case.
Yet probably in every state and just little actions and
awareness I think go a long way. You don't have
to write a big check.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
So I guess start by watching learning more. Watch The Wrong.

Speaker 7 (01:12:31):
Man you can stream on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Watch An Innocent Man, the amazing documentary about the book
that John Grisham wrote about these cases in Ada, Oklahoma,
and go to free Robwill dot org. Is there a
Richard glossupside.

Speaker 7 (01:12:45):
I'm sure there is if you google Richard glossop and
why I'm drawing a blank what the website is, But
just google Richard Glossip and you'll find a lot of supporters.
There's a guy named Don Knight in Colorado who's running
that case. He's the tireless, thankless defense attorney who is
really is doing amazing work. So Don Knight in Colorado
is a good guy to be in touch with if

(01:13:07):
you feel you have something significant to offer, or just
be aware.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
And one minute speed round. First of all, I want
to thank you for this has been fun coming Joe Berlinger,
amazing filmmaker and advocate for the wrongfully convicted, and I'm
looking forward to doing more work with you. Yeah, me too,
And like I said, let's sake the last minute or
two any final thoughts that you have, if you have any.

Speaker 7 (01:13:31):
You know, we have a criminal justice system sorely in
need to reform, and I think it's the number one issue.
The thing we hold most dear as Americans. The thing
that's set us apart is our personal liberty, and a
prosecutor has the unique power to take that personal liberty
away without accountability. And I think it's time to hold
those people who have the power to take our liberty

(01:13:53):
away to be held accountable to a higher standard. And
I think a lot of these problems would go away.
But there's all sorts of problems in our criminal jobs
to system, and people should be aware of it because
it really needs addressing. I mean, a whole generation has
been locked away over horrible drug laws. I mean, we
can go on and on and on. You know, we
have five percent of the world's population and twenty five
percent of the world's prison population, more than Russia and

(01:14:14):
China combined. That's disturbing and goes against who we think
we are as Americans.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Yeah, we locked black people up at six times the
rate of South Africa the height of apartheid. It's all
a national shame and a disgrace. But absolutely yeah, please
do get involved, keep listening. We appreciate you being here
with us. And when you're on a jury, we need
everybody to show up serve because it's just your fellow
human being who's up there, and they may be the

(01:14:39):
next Damien Echols. So thanks again for listening. This is
wrongful Connection. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review
wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm

(01:15:00):
a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really
hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause
and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence
Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow

(01:15:22):
us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at
Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a
production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal
Company Number one

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#540 Jason Flom with Joe Berlinger on the West Memphis 3