September 28, 2023 • 38 mins
On February 21, 1994, in New Orleans, LA, a 6-year-old girl was taken to the hospital after complaining of pain and unusual vaginal discharge. The doctors concluded that the young girl had been raped after she tested positive for gonorrhea. The girl was interviewed by authorities without any guardian present, and ended up saying that a family member named Patrick had touched her genitals. Despite there being other probable suspects in the family, 20-year-old Patrick Brown was charged with, and ultimately convicted of aggravated rape, and sentenced to life without parole primarily based on this one interview. Over the next 30 years, the girl continuously contacted the prosecutor’s office stating that they had the wrong guy. Yet, Patrick remained in prison.
Guest host, Tiffany Reese, talks to Patrick Brown and Kelly Orians, Patrick's attorney.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning for our listeners. This episode contains discussion of
child sexual assault and of suicide. Please listen with caution
and care. In February of nineteen ninety four, a six
year old girl living in New Orleans complained of pain
(00:21):
in her abdomen and pelvic region. When she was examined
at the hospital, the doctor suspected she had been sexually assaulted,
and the police were alerted. The child was questioned by
doctors and by the police without apparent present. According to
the doctor, when he asked who had harmed her, the
child named Patrick Brown, her mother's live in boyfriend. Patrick
(00:45):
insisted that he was innocent. He would never hurt a child,
let alone someone in his own family. Without any corroborating evidence,
the prosecution relied solely on the notes taken by the doctor,
and after just a day, an hour and half of trial,
the doctor's word was enough to convince the jury to convict.
(01:06):
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
(01:29):
I'm Tiffany Reese, host of the podcast Something Was Wrong,
sitting in for Jason flam. I am a documentarian, survivor,
and advocate, and on my audio docuseries podcast I work
with survivors of abuse and crime. Today's case tragically impacted
the lives of two people, someone who was wrongfully convicted
of a heinous crime and the victim of that crime
(01:52):
who tried for decades to tell the truth that the
wrong person was in prison and was not heard. Thankfully,
there are two survivors in this story, and one of
them is with us today, Patrick Brown. Patrick, thank you
so much for joining us and being willing to share
your story and your experience with us today. I'd like
to start by just saying how sorry I am for
(02:14):
what you've experienced. It was incredibly heartbreaking coming across your
story and the story of the survivor. It was clear
to me that you're both victims and survivors of so
much systemic and legal abuse within this story, and I
think it's really brave that you're willing to share with
us after everything that you've already experienced and overcome to
(02:36):
be here today. So thank you so so much.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You're welcome, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Thank you so much. To your attorney, Kelly Orion's, who's
also joining us today. Kelly, could you introduce yourself and
give us a little bit about your background, before we
jump into Patrick's story.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Sure, sure, thank you so much for having both of
us here today. So I am the director of the
Decarceration and Commune to the re Entry Clinic at the
University of Virginia School's Law. That is a mouthful in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Patrick, I'd love to go back a bit and talk
a bit about you and where you were born, and
a little bit about your background and who you were
leading up to this horrific experience.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, braised in a
lay and I I come from a good family. We're
a beautiful family. Family was full of love, so it
wasn't broken at all. You know, to where my family
the open arms of whoever welcome and feed them, help
them out. Well. I wasn't no bad person, but I
took a turn in my life as I was growing up.
(03:44):
That's to become street hung out all night, hung with
the fellas, doing this, doing that, to the point to
where when I met my kid, Mama, my soldier. You know,
everybody got to have a soldier.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
How did you meet Kathy? What was your reallyationship?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Like? Oh, man, I met Cat. You know, I was
just coming at the club and she was walking up
and she was squiding me, so I was stopped and
I say, you know, saw my concerns. She's a nice
looking woman. And when I talked to her, we had
hooked up and we know, we dated having fun and
(04:21):
you know, moved in with her like two weeks. Then
the relationships stuff like that, and from there to where
it was a beautiful relationship. She had my daughter, and
the whole time she was pregnant, I was just soul
protective of her. I don't want nobody to smoke around her.
(04:41):
I don't want nobody doing that. And I always pop
up at the house. She'll robot stomach leaves back in
the screels, didn't come back home. It was just like
like a no mo tea for me. And she was
all the way one hundred with me. But what I
was one hundred with her. I understand somewhat I wasn't.
(05:02):
Somewhat I wasn't because I stood in the screech all night, hustling,
try to provide for my family by the streets, and
really I didn't have time for my family at home.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Do you do you think like you did the best
you could in the situation you were in at the time.
I mean you were only twenty years old.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Right, right in nineteen Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
That it's tough when you want to be able to
provide for your family and you feel like you have
limited options. I think sometimes on how.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
To do that right. Well, you know, I really had
no guidance on how to raise a family, how to
keep up with the bills and make sure that the
family had Medicare, And I ain't know about all that.
You know, ain't nobody really hold my hand and showed
me how to become a man to provide for family
(05:57):
like the man supposed to do. Because when I was
really young, my dad had died. I wouldn't had no
fault to figure in my life. I just went on
my own, try to learn from the streets.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Did you have any previous run ins with the law?
You mentioned, you know, the lifestyle, but did you have
any like did they know who you were?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
When the system? The system, they did know who I
was because during the time of my arresting, during the
time my trial, they really gave me a figure how
many times that I had been arrested and the thirty
seven times that I've been arrested, was fighting and activated battery,
disturbing the peace, stuff like that. It wasn't have really
(06:43):
no major crime. It was like mostly missed the meanor childs.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yes, and nothing involving violence against children to be.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Clear, no, no, nothing involved.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Thank you, Patrick. We're going to talk about the events
that led to your wrongful conviction. Now, I'd like to
remind the listeners that we'll be discussing some triggering topics
involving a minor child. To protect the privacy of the victim,
we are not using her real name. Instead, we'll call
her Sarah Kelly. Would you mind walking us through what
we know of the case.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
All right, So, first, I think it's important to make
clear that this is a case where someone was horrifically
victimized and survived an awful assault, and then was revictimized
for twenty years after while she tried to tell the
(07:36):
people around her, including the district Attorney's office, that the
wrong person was in prison. I think it's important to
acknowledge the two ways that the victim in this case
was and the survivor in this case was harmed.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
So the case.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Starts in February of nineteen ninety four, when Sarah was
six years old.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
It was the day after Marti Gras.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
When she started complaining about discomfort and her abdomen and
her pelvic region. So they attempted some home remedies and
over the counter treatment, but that didn't work, and so
then she was taken in to see doctor Ronald Wilcox.
Doctor Wilcox immediately suspected that she had been reaped and
(08:18):
asked doctor Maria Menna, a pediatric specialist in child sex abuse,
to evaluate Sarah. And so they start talking to Sarah
about what happened to her. What's really critical to understand
about what happens next is what is actually said in
the doctor's office versus what then gets put onto paper
(08:41):
and given to the police and given then to the
district attorney's office. And what the difference is is you
have in the doctor's office a lot of what we
would call, you know, leading questions because you're dealing with
a six year old girl at the time, it was
recorded in the doctor's notes that she's said, quote, Patrick
(09:01):
put his penis in me down there. Sarah maintains that
is not what she said, and that at the hospital
she was only asked who is Patrick, to which she
responded essentially that he was her family member. When NOPD
detectives were called in, Sarah was also questioned without a
family member present.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Thank you, Kelly. So now Patrick, could you tell us
about what your experience was when you arrived at the
hospital that day with Sarah's mother.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Me and Kaji arrive at the hospital to get it.
And when I got there, I passed the room, the
examination room, and I seen family members in the room
with Sarah to the part to where when the detectives
and then came out of another room and brought me
into it. Was questioned me about it and basically questioned
(09:54):
me about you know something that happened to the victim.
And it was asked me a question by do I
know anything about it? And no, I don't know. That's
why I'm here at the hospital try to find out
what is the problem.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
At this At this time, mister Brown is completely cooperative
with the police and wants to know who hurt this
little girl that he loves and takes care of, and
so he is not at all thinking like a suspect.
He submits to various testing.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
He waived his.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Rights to an attorney and his right to remain silent
and spoke to detectives without an attorney, where he denied
allegations that he had raped Sarah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I went out to the police station with him and
was in a room where Raeric coroper with him as
to answering a lot of questions to the part to
where they asked me, did I actually do the crime?
And I think I could just tell her this, lamb,
I don't know nothing about it. The more I know
about it is what y'all telling me right now. And
(10:58):
I don't know nothing about it. None of that.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
However, based on the statements that Sarah made, or rather
was alleged to have made two doctors that day, mister
Brown was arrested on the charge of aggravated rape.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It was something unspeakable, you know, it's really speakable to
well get you off for something that you didn't do,
that did actually putting this charge on me. But some
kind of way that everything printed at me for some reason.
I don't know why, because maybe I probably do know why,
(11:40):
because the way I was through, the type of person
I would, and that side of the family didn't really
want me to be with their daughter. But like I said,
she was my soldier. She was my everything. You know,
I would protect car. I would lose my life to
give hers and the kids. So I never talked to
(12:21):
nobody while I was in jail about it, but I
was going back and forth to court with it and
doing a pretrial investigation and all that is really really
kind of hurtful because it was like, this is really
actually happened. You know, you're taking me to the trial
behind something I did not do. And where is the
evidence because I ain't seen evidence at all, because I
(12:44):
know they're supposed to do a rape kit and all that,
and didn't no rape kit, and didn't no joining the blood,
and did nothing to take down evidence DNA and did
not that.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
After he was arrested, he was given a two hundred
and if the thousand dollars bond. His family could not
afford the roughly thirty thousand dollars that it would have
cost him to pay a bail bondsman, so mister Brown
spent more than nine months in jail waiting to go
to trial. His family also could not afford an attorney,
(13:16):
so Robert Jenkins, an attorney from the Orleans Parish Indigent
Defender Panel, was appointed to represent mister Brown.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Can you give us a rundown of the details of
the trial? December thirteenth, nineteen ninety four. Who was the judge,
the name of the prosecutor?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Mister Brown went to trial in Section A of Orleans
Parish Criminal District Court in front of Judge Morris Reid.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
The prosecutor on the case was David Wolfe.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And the district Attorney at the time was the notorious
Harry Connick Senior, who headed up the Orleans Parish DA's
office from nineteen seventy three to two thousand and three.
Jason's covered some of the many wrongful convictions that occurred
under Connick's watch on this podcast. His office was known
for withholding and suppressing evidence. In fact, the Innocence Project
(14:09):
of New Orleans estimates that during his tenure, favorable evidence
was withheld in the trials of one in four men
sent to death row.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The trial started that evening with opening statements and it
concluded the next day. We don't actually know the full
extent of what happened during the trial, because, as mister
Brown learned over the nearly thirty years that he fought
his conviction since his direct appeal no trial's transcript has
actually been made available. When the case was reopened by
(14:41):
the District Attorney's office in twenty twenty three, we still
could not find a transcript despite many, many, many efforts. However,
what we do know is that the whole trial lasted
about a day and a half from the time of
jury selection to the time a verdict was delivered, which,
when you think about it, is deeply concerning considering the
(15:04):
mandatory sentence for aggravated rape at the time and still today,
is life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Kelly who testified in the trial and whose behalf did
they testify on.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Zarah was twice brought into the court to testify, and
twice her nose started to bleed as soon as she
took the stand and questions began, which was something that
was really common for her at the time whenever she
was in a very stressful situation, and so she was dismissed.
No accommodations were made for her to testify in private,
(15:41):
and instead the state called doctor Wilcox to testify in
her place, and recalled doctor Wilcox was the first physician
to examine her.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
The child being questioned in front of the whole court
instead of the judges chambers, Like, what is your opinion
on that.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Obviously so traumatic and stressful to the child that they're
having this physical reaction after being raped. It just seems
that the victim wasn't being thought of.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I think, you know, cases like this are really tough
because we keep courtrooms public for really important reasons, to
make sure that crucial decisions in our justice system that
carry serious consequences that compromise people's liberty interests do not
happen in private, and when witnesses testify juries are empowered
(16:38):
to make a decision about that witness's credibility. So, to
answer your question, I think there's a tension because we
want to make sure that people are safe. We want
to make sure that children who have been harmed are
not re traumatized, but we also have to ensure that
the Constitution is followed, that liberty interests are not compromised
(17:02):
in private. That being said, I do believe that accommodations
could have been made to make Sarah more comfortable and
less stressed, and that is crucial here because as we know,
as Sarah has told us in the decades since this happened.
She did not say what doctor Wilcox alleged that she said,
(17:24):
and so had she had the opportunity to testify, she.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Would have been able to say the truth.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
She would have been able to testify that she did
not accuse Patrick of rape, and that was a very
crucial fact for the jury to have. Instead, adults testified for.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Her, and instead, what did the jury hear from doctor Wilcox.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Doctor Wilcox testified to what was in what was recorded
in his notes that Sarah had told him that Patrick
put his penis in me down there, a statement that
we now know and knew at the time had the
police disclosed it, that was not was what was actually
said in the doctor's office. So they were able to
(18:11):
introduce the doctor's report with no scrutinity with this statement
that never got to be cross examined. So what happened
then is she never got a chance to tell her story.
So the jury convicts mister Brown of aggravated rape in Louisiana.
Age of the victim as an aggravating factor, and she
(18:32):
was six years old at the time that she was raped.
So he was sentenced to manna story life without the
possibility of parole and was sent to the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
The hardest part being incarcerated is that you lose a
family member while you're in now, and I lost several
family members. My mom, she went to three open house
surgeries who I was incarcerated, and some people that really
loved me, like my grandmother, my aunt's cousins, they passed
(19:30):
away while I was incarcerated. And that's the hardest part
to where they didn't want let you go out, to
go to any funerals or none of that, and with
the type of charge that they placed me on, you know,
kind of restrict me from everything to where at a
certain age I had to see my daughter once she
(19:51):
get older, and any one of my family members, they
can't come in as a child. Those certain things I
couldn't do. I couldn't go around certain people, certain jobs
I can't have because of the charge.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I'm incredibly sorry that you experienced that. That must have
been so hard to be stigmatized like that and for
something you.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Did not do. From the time my cuceration, you know,
I had to try to make it work for me.
I had to due to the times that and let
the time do me. So at the time I was
in there, you know, I educated myself. I become a
better person, becomes a mentor, and I'm becoming helping a
lot of people out there at a GOOLA even down
(20:40):
to from the Oufenity security staff to where I got
to know them and they got to know me, and
they see that I'm not a really bad person, you know,
from that part from being that goal of being it's
separing criticism from a lot of dudes that's around now.
Really nothing really came hurt me no more because I'm
(21:01):
all crowed out from that and anything that's not positive,
I just don't want to be around it. But on
my coatre that you know, they had dues there and
they were going through a lot of things that they
need mentor that he talked to and especially that's what
I did. At one point in time in my life.
(21:23):
I did lost hope. I did lost I hope to
where I wouldn't come home, I wasn't gonna be with
my family again. And I had looted in my mind
to not be a commodity to the system to where
you're just holding me there and collecting money off of me,
and I'm doing this and doing that to keep a
(21:44):
prison function to where dang, I ain't had them a
hope because you know it ain't goal inside of prison.
Contraband comes and goes in there, and the most dealy
contraband that they had in there was that fit now,
and that fit now into the prison to where I
(22:04):
did wanted to take that just the end this life,
because I didn't want that type of life inside of
a system behind something I did not do. And then
you know, when I got there, dude, say life, I
mean lock in forever. Man, I ain't no going home.
The next place I would be was a party. Lookout,
mister penitentious cemetery. That's what I was gonna be. I
(22:29):
was still going to be incocerated.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What kept you going, Patrick, What gave you hope?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
My family kept coming. It's fishing me talk to my
daughter every day on the phone. My daughter was a
month and eight days old when I got arrested. From
that time, she was just a baby. She don't know
nothing about the charge. And she fought for me too.
She fought to keep me well, I keep hope going.
(22:57):
She wanted her daddy. That kept me going down with
my heart. She kept me going, she kept me fighting,
ca me find this to be with them, so she
could have a fault in our life.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So if you could, Kelly, speak to uh, if you
recall when you first heard about mister Brown's case, what
stood out to you like as a human and what
drew you to essentially work on the case and kind
of like how your relationship started those early days.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
So I got a call on March twenty fourth of
twenty twenty three from the District Attorney's office, Jason William's office.
It was specifically from Assistant District Attorney Emily maw who
is the head of the civil rights division in the office.
And I was asked if I was available to come
in immediately, and I was told that a young woman
(23:51):
had just come into their office and had essentially said
that the wrong person was in prison for raping her.
That's a pretty extraordinary call to get. You don't often
say no when a district attorney's office calls you as
a defense attorney and says we think we have someone
in prison who shouldn't be there.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I didn't need much more information than that.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, wow, So what did they tell you when you
got to their office on that day.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
What we knew is that in two thousand and two,
when Sarah was fourteen years old, was when she first
attempted to get the District Attorney's office to listen to
her about the fact that the wrong man was in
prison for raping her. She explained that she estimated that
she had written at least one hundred letters to the
(24:39):
District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And the DA at that time was still Harry Connick Senior.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
In twenty fifteen, she submitted an affidavit to the District
Attorney's office at this time led by Leon Canazero, declaring
that mister Brown was not the person who raped her
and identifying by name the man who did. She remembers
going to the DA's office at least four times, but
it wasn't until the fourth time, on March twenty fourth,
(25:07):
twenty twenty three, that someone in that office actually decided
to listen to her.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And that was, of course, after Leon Connazaro had been
succeeded as a district attorney by Jason Williams, who was
elected in twenty twenty and.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
They immediately began reinvestigating her case. And I think what
was most important to the investigators and to myself was
Sarah's incredible credibility, her ability to recall in detail the
efforts that she had made over more than two decades
(25:44):
to undo this injustice and for the truth to be
accepted by the DA's office. And part of what also
bolstered her credibility was how deeply deeply harmed she was
by having this truth ignored.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
What drew me to this story or this you know,
hearing about mister Brown's experiences and Sarah's experience is that
it really highlights how important it is to listen to
survivors and for their voices to be heard. And you know,
on the other side of that, the detriment that can
happen to us when we're not heard. Two and a
(26:25):
half perpetrators out of one hundred that rape actually end
up in prison. That's the current statistics. And I mean,
working with survivors every day, I know that, like the
trust just isn't there that the effort will be meaningful
and it won't just do more harm. And I think
that's a really sad reality and a place to be,
(26:50):
but it's one that we need to sit with because
it's so important that we address it because it's absolutely
not okay.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
It's absolutely not okay, and it's just a.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Very heartbreaking, very heartbreaking example of the many cracks within
the system. Kelly, What was the post conviction process like
that led you from taking this case on to ultimately
mister Brown's release.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
One thing that I think is very important and I
want to throw it in there, is that mister Brown
litigated his case himself for two decades. In fact, the
petition that was granted on May eighth was actually the
one that mister Brown filed himself pro see over a
year before this hearing. In it, he argued factual innocence
(27:41):
under a very new law in Louisiana that allows you
to plead factual innocence. So the DA's office actually filed
their response to mister Brown's pro say petition, and before
they did this, they reviewed all of the available records.
They reinterviewed witnesses, consulted with law enforcement, and spent a
considerable amount of time listening to Sarah and assessing her
(28:04):
credibility as well as verifying the details in the story
that she told them. After reviewing all available records, they
found clear and convincing evidence that mister Brown was factually innocent,
and based on their filing their response to mister Brown's
pro say petition, they found a few things. Most compelling
(28:25):
those were the fact that Sarah stated unequivocally and on
multiple occasions that mister Brown was not the man who
raped her. Also that in twenty fifteen, she submitted a
sworn affidavit to the DA's office, in it stating that
mister Brown was not the person who raped her and
naming the person that did. They also considered testimony and
(28:46):
statements from the time the case was pre trial that
indicated that during a fight with the victim's mother, a
man gloated about raping Sarah and about the fact that
mister Brown was doing time for the crime.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
That sounds like it would have been a pretty major
incident for the defense to explore, but somehow the jury
never heard about it. Can you tell us more about
that exchange and why it was not brought up a trial?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So this fight occurred well before the triald, near the
time that mister Brown was indicted on the charge of
aggravated rape. The prosecution was aware of this fight. It
is not entirely clear how accurately that evidence was provided
to the defense. We know definitively that the fact that
(29:35):
there were witnesses to this fight and witnesses.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
To this admission that was not disclosed to the defense, and.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What was said during the fight that was significant.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
He stated, I know that your daughter has got rape
and I ain't gonna be the one to do the
time for and.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I believe he also said, you know that mister Brown
is doing time for somebody else's crime. And it's just
it's almost irrefutable, right, Like that's a very relevant fact
for a jury to hear and understand. This is the
same man that Sarah stated raped her in the affidavit
that she gave to the DA's office in twenty fifteen.
(30:16):
They submitted this information to the court and on May eighth,
an evidentiary hearing was held. And so when Sarah took
the stand to testify, she was able to look at
mister Brown, who was sitting at the table next to me,
and she told the court about her twenty year effort
to be able to sit where she was that day
(30:38):
and tell the truth of what happened to her. At
the end of that hearing, Judge Calvin Johnson delivered his ruling,
and before he did, he addressed Sarah and mister Brown directly,
and I'll never forget what he said, and I want
to repeat it verbatim. He said the state was complicit
in the harm and horror that Sarah endured. He then
(31:01):
vacated mister Brown's conviction and granted mister Brown a new trial,
and Emily maw the Chief of the Civil Rights Division,
immediately revised the bill of information that was filed against
him in nineteen ninety four and immediately dismissed the charges.
That day, he was able to hug Sarah, he was
able to hug his family, and he was able to
(31:22):
walk out.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Of the front steps and not have to go back
to Angola.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Patrick, I can't imagine what it must have felt like
to be in that courtroom with Sarah and to hear
her testimony, and for both of you, after almost thirty years,
to finally be heard.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh yeah, it was unbelievable. It was beautiful. I know
that this person came out and being heard, you know what,
kind of helped heal me. Heal me a whole lot
so well. Once she gave a test, moment she finished
(32:02):
gaving a TESTI moment she came up and she hugged me.
And once she hugged me in the court room, I
felt her pain, she felt mine. She told me that
she was sorry that I have to go through it.
I told her that I was sorry too, that I
wouldn't death for I got supposed to. She said that
(32:28):
she loved me. I told her that I love her back.
Say say you never go back there. I know you
never go back. I told her that I'll never leave again.
Only way that I leave from this place.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Thank you so much, Oh my goodness, thank you so
so much for your time and your willingness. It is
incredibly brave to be this vulnerable in such a public way,
and I just want to hold space and acknowledge that
what you did today is an incredibly big thing. And
(33:16):
I wish you and your family all of the best
in the future. And yeah, thank you so so much.
We also want to let our listeners know that there's
a GoFundMe page to help you get back on your feet.
So listeners, if you want to show your support for
Patrick as he starts this new chapter in his life,
(33:38):
please look for Patrick Brown on GoFundMe dot com or
go to the link in our episode Bio. Now, this
is the part of the show that we call closing arguments.
We'd like to hear your final thoughts, anything at all
that you want to share with listeners or that you
hope listeners will take away from hearing this story. Kelly,
(33:59):
can we hear you're closing arguments first, and then we'll
hear from Patrick.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
This is the first exoneration that I have ever been
involved in, and I am horrified by what I have
learned through this process. I also think it's really important
to remember that what happened to mister Brown.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Is a symptom of a diseased system.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
That puts not only people who are factually innocent in prison,
but puts people in prison who should not be there
in the first place, people who have caused harm, but
who also have a larger story, who have a story
that is often rarely ever heard, usually until decades later.
(34:53):
And so I hope that mister Brown's story will inspire
us not just to look at the cases of people
who are actually innocent, but the cases of all people
who are in prison, to question and continue questioning is
prison really an answer and an effective answer to the
harm that's occurring in our community. It has been, in
(35:13):
my experience, a one hundred and fifty year experiment that
has failed. It has not served people that have been harmed.
It has not brought justice to victims and survivors. I
know that we can do better. I believe that we
can do better, and I hope that all of us
will be inspired to take a second look at this
system that we have become so dependent on and taken
(35:34):
for granted, and challenge ourselves to radically reimagine what justice
and safety and health look like in our communities and
try to do so much better.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Than we have done.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
To all of listeners, adele, be mindful what should do
because just saying I heard that person they hurt out
of people's be truthful to yourself and others to the
point to where we need to stop all the nonsense
and be straightforward with ourselves. That's not putting an instant
(36:13):
person in jail. Let's stop the folence. Let's just stop
all that because it ain't worth it. We all just
come together, no matter and I we love no color race.
Get along. It's time for us people to get along
and enjoy life and George's beautiful world that God gave
us because we don't have nothing. You know, who else
(36:36):
can we depend on? We basically depend on the people
that's around us. You know, we don't know nobody until
we open our mouth and start communicate. I want to
start communicating, we start learning people. We have a better world.
And I really appreciate you all listening and have a
good heart orom your heart to life itself. Hope y'all
(37:02):
have a good heart.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wardis for inviting me to sit in today,
and thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea,
(37:34):
Leila Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
follow me Tiffany Reese at Lookiboo and listen to my
podcast Something Was Wrong. Wherever you get your podcasts. Wrongful
(37:59):
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
A warning for our listeners. This episode contains discussion of
child sexual assault and of suicide. Please listen with caution
and care. In February of nineteen ninety four, a six
year old girl living in New Orleans complained of pain
(00:21):
in her abdomen and pelvic region. When she was examined
at the hospital, the doctor suspected she had been sexually assaulted,
and the police were alerted. The child was questioned by
doctors and by the police without apparent present. According to
the doctor, when he asked who had harmed her, the
child named Patrick Brown, her mother's live in boyfriend. Patrick
(00:45):
insisted that he was innocent. He would never hurt a child,
let alone someone in his own family. Without any corroborating evidence,
the prosecution relied solely on the notes taken by the doctor,
and after just a day, an hour and half of trial,
the doctor's word was enough to convince the jury to convict.
(01:06):
But this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction.
(01:29):
I'm Tiffany Reese, host of the podcast Something Was Wrong,
sitting in for Jason flam. I am a documentarian, survivor,
and advocate, and on my audio docuseries podcast I work
with survivors of abuse and crime. Today's case tragically impacted
the lives of two people, someone who was wrongfully convicted
of a heinous crime and the victim of that crime
(01:52):
who tried for decades to tell the truth that the
wrong person was in prison and was not heard. Thankfully,
there are two survivors in this story, and one of
them is with us today, Patrick Brown. Patrick, thank you
so much for joining us and being willing to share
your story and your experience with us today. I'd like
to start by just saying how sorry I am for
(02:14):
what you've experienced. It was incredibly heartbreaking coming across your
story and the story of the survivor. It was clear
to me that you're both victims and survivors of so
much systemic and legal abuse within this story, and I
think it's really brave that you're willing to share with
us after everything that you've already experienced and overcome to
(02:36):
be here today. So thank you so so much.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You're welcome, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Thank you so much. To your attorney, Kelly Orion's, who's
also joining us today. Kelly, could you introduce yourself and
give us a little bit about your background, before we
jump into Patrick's story.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Sure, sure, thank you so much for having both of
us here today. So I am the director of the
Decarceration and Commune to the re Entry Clinic at the
University of Virginia School's Law. That is a mouthful in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Patrick, I'd love to go back a bit and talk
a bit about you and where you were born, and
a little bit about your background and who you were
leading up to this horrific experience.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, braised in a
lay and I I come from a good family. We're
a beautiful family. Family was full of love, so it
wasn't broken at all. You know, to where my family
the open arms of whoever welcome and feed them, help
them out. Well. I wasn't no bad person, but I
took a turn in my life as I was growing up.
(03:44):
That's to become street hung out all night, hung with
the fellas, doing this, doing that, to the point to
where when I met my kid, Mama, my soldier. You know,
everybody got to have a soldier.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
How did you meet Kathy? What was your reallyationship?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Like? Oh, man, I met Cat. You know, I was
just coming at the club and she was walking up
and she was squiding me, so I was stopped and
I say, you know, saw my concerns. She's a nice
looking woman. And when I talked to her, we had
hooked up and we know, we dated having fun and
(04:21):
you know, moved in with her like two weeks. Then
the relationships stuff like that, and from there to where
it was a beautiful relationship. She had my daughter, and
the whole time she was pregnant, I was just soul
protective of her. I don't want nobody to smoke around her.
(04:41):
I don't want nobody doing that. And I always pop
up at the house. She'll robot stomach leaves back in
the screels, didn't come back home. It was just like
like a no mo tea for me. And she was
all the way one hundred with me. But what I
was one hundred with her. I understand somewhat I wasn't.
(05:02):
Somewhat I wasn't because I stood in the screech all night, hustling,
try to provide for my family by the streets, and
really I didn't have time for my family at home.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Do you do you think like you did the best
you could in the situation you were in at the time.
I mean you were only twenty years old.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Right, right in nineteen Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
That it's tough when you want to be able to
provide for your family and you feel like you have
limited options. I think sometimes on how.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
To do that right. Well, you know, I really had
no guidance on how to raise a family, how to
keep up with the bills and make sure that the
family had Medicare, And I ain't know about all that.
You know, ain't nobody really hold my hand and showed
me how to become a man to provide for family
(05:57):
like the man supposed to do. Because when I was
really young, my dad had died. I wouldn't had no
fault to figure in my life. I just went on
my own, try to learn from the streets.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Did you have any previous run ins with the law?
You mentioned, you know, the lifestyle, but did you have
any like did they know who you were?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
When the system? The system, they did know who I
was because during the time of my arresting, during the
time my trial, they really gave me a figure how
many times that I had been arrested and the thirty
seven times that I've been arrested, was fighting and activated battery,
disturbing the peace, stuff like that. It wasn't have really
(06:43):
no major crime. It was like mostly missed the meanor childs.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yes, and nothing involving violence against children to be.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Clear, no, no, nothing involved.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Thank you, Patrick. We're going to talk about the events
that led to your wrongful conviction. Now, I'd like to
remind the listeners that we'll be discussing some triggering topics
involving a minor child. To protect the privacy of the victim,
we are not using her real name. Instead, we'll call
her Sarah Kelly. Would you mind walking us through what
we know of the case.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
All right, So, first, I think it's important to make
clear that this is a case where someone was horrifically
victimized and survived an awful assault, and then was revictimized
for twenty years after while she tried to tell the
(07:36):
people around her, including the district Attorney's office, that the
wrong person was in prison. I think it's important to
acknowledge the two ways that the victim in this case
was and the survivor in this case was harmed.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
So the case.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Starts in February of nineteen ninety four, when Sarah was
six years old.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
It was the day after Marti Gras.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
When she started complaining about discomfort and her abdomen and
her pelvic region. So they attempted some home remedies and
over the counter treatment, but that didn't work, and so
then she was taken in to see doctor Ronald Wilcox.
Doctor Wilcox immediately suspected that she had been reaped and
(08:18):
asked doctor Maria Menna, a pediatric specialist in child sex abuse,
to evaluate Sarah. And so they start talking to Sarah
about what happened to her. What's really critical to understand
about what happens next is what is actually said in
the doctor's office versus what then gets put onto paper
(08:41):
and given to the police and given then to the
district attorney's office. And what the difference is is you
have in the doctor's office a lot of what we
would call, you know, leading questions because you're dealing with
a six year old girl at the time, it was
recorded in the doctor's notes that she's said, quote, Patrick
(09:01):
put his penis in me down there. Sarah maintains that
is not what she said, and that at the hospital
she was only asked who is Patrick, to which she
responded essentially that he was her family member. When NOPD
detectives were called in, Sarah was also questioned without a
family member present.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Thank you, Kelly. So now Patrick, could you tell us
about what your experience was when you arrived at the
hospital that day with Sarah's mother.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Me and Kaji arrive at the hospital to get it.
And when I got there, I passed the room, the
examination room, and I seen family members in the room
with Sarah to the part to where when the detectives
and then came out of another room and brought me
into it. Was questioned me about it and basically questioned
(09:54):
me about you know something that happened to the victim.
And it was asked me a question by do I
know anything about it? And no, I don't know. That's
why I'm here at the hospital try to find out
what is the problem.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
At this At this time, mister Brown is completely cooperative
with the police and wants to know who hurt this
little girl that he loves and takes care of, and
so he is not at all thinking like a suspect.
He submits to various testing.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
He waived his.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Rights to an attorney and his right to remain silent
and spoke to detectives without an attorney, where he denied
allegations that he had raped Sarah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I went out to the police station with him and
was in a room where Raeric coroper with him as
to answering a lot of questions to the part to
where they asked me, did I actually do the crime?
And I think I could just tell her this, lamb,
I don't know nothing about it. The more I know
about it is what y'all telling me right now. And
(10:58):
I don't know nothing about it. None of that.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
However, based on the statements that Sarah made, or rather
was alleged to have made two doctors that day, mister
Brown was arrested on the charge of aggravated rape.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It was something unspeakable, you know, it's really speakable to
well get you off for something that you didn't do,
that did actually putting this charge on me. But some
kind of way that everything printed at me for some reason.
I don't know why, because maybe I probably do know why,
(11:40):
because the way I was through, the type of person
I would, and that side of the family didn't really
want me to be with their daughter. But like I said,
she was my soldier. She was my everything. You know,
I would protect car. I would lose my life to
give hers and the kids. So I never talked to
(12:21):
nobody while I was in jail about it, but I
was going back and forth to court with it and
doing a pretrial investigation and all that is really really
kind of hurtful because it was like, this is really
actually happened. You know, you're taking me to the trial
behind something I did not do. And where is the
evidence because I ain't seen evidence at all, because I
(12:44):
know they're supposed to do a rape kit and all that,
and didn't no rape kit, and didn't no joining the blood,
and did nothing to take down evidence DNA and did
not that.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
After he was arrested, he was given a two hundred
and if the thousand dollars bond. His family could not
afford the roughly thirty thousand dollars that it would have
cost him to pay a bail bondsman, so mister Brown
spent more than nine months in jail waiting to go
to trial. His family also could not afford an attorney,
(13:16):
so Robert Jenkins, an attorney from the Orleans Parish Indigent
Defender Panel, was appointed to represent mister Brown.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Can you give us a rundown of the details of
the trial? December thirteenth, nineteen ninety four. Who was the judge,
the name of the prosecutor?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Mister Brown went to trial in Section A of Orleans
Parish Criminal District Court in front of Judge Morris Reid.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
The prosecutor on the case was David Wolfe.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And the district Attorney at the time was the notorious
Harry Connick Senior, who headed up the Orleans Parish DA's
office from nineteen seventy three to two thousand and three.
Jason's covered some of the many wrongful convictions that occurred
under Connick's watch on this podcast. His office was known
for withholding and suppressing evidence. In fact, the Innocence Project
(14:09):
of New Orleans estimates that during his tenure, favorable evidence
was withheld in the trials of one in four men
sent to death row.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The trial started that evening with opening statements and it
concluded the next day. We don't actually know the full
extent of what happened during the trial, because, as mister
Brown learned over the nearly thirty years that he fought
his conviction since his direct appeal no trial's transcript has
actually been made available. When the case was reopened by
(14:41):
the District Attorney's office in twenty twenty three, we still
could not find a transcript despite many, many, many efforts. However,
what we do know is that the whole trial lasted
about a day and a half from the time of
jury selection to the time a verdict was delivered, which,
when you think about it, is deeply concerning considering the
(15:04):
mandatory sentence for aggravated rape at the time and still today,
is life without the possibility of parole.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Kelly who testified in the trial and whose behalf did
they testify on.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Zarah was twice brought into the court to testify, and
twice her nose started to bleed as soon as she
took the stand and questions began, which was something that
was really common for her at the time whenever she
was in a very stressful situation, and so she was dismissed.
No accommodations were made for her to testify in private,
(15:41):
and instead the state called doctor Wilcox to testify in
her place, and recalled doctor Wilcox was the first physician
to examine her.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
The child being questioned in front of the whole court
instead of the judges chambers, Like, what is your opinion
on that.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Obviously so traumatic and stressful to the child that they're
having this physical reaction after being raped. It just seems
that the victim wasn't being thought of.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I think, you know, cases like this are really tough
because we keep courtrooms public for really important reasons, to
make sure that crucial decisions in our justice system that
carry serious consequences that compromise people's liberty interests do not
happen in private, and when witnesses testify juries are empowered
(16:38):
to make a decision about that witness's credibility. So, to
answer your question, I think there's a tension because we
want to make sure that people are safe. We want
to make sure that children who have been harmed are
not re traumatized, but we also have to ensure that
the Constitution is followed, that liberty interests are not compromised
(17:02):
in private. That being said, I do believe that accommodations
could have been made to make Sarah more comfortable and
less stressed, and that is crucial here because as we know,
as Sarah has told us in the decades since this happened.
She did not say what doctor Wilcox alleged that she said,
(17:24):
and so had she had the opportunity to testify, she.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Would have been able to say the truth.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
She would have been able to testify that she did
not accuse Patrick of rape, and that was a very
crucial fact for the jury to have. Instead, adults testified for.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Her, and instead, what did the jury hear from doctor Wilcox.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Doctor Wilcox testified to what was in what was recorded
in his notes that Sarah had told him that Patrick
put his penis in me down there, a statement that
we now know and knew at the time had the
police disclosed it, that was not was what was actually
said in the doctor's office. So they were able to
(18:11):
introduce the doctor's report with no scrutinity with this statement
that never got to be cross examined. So what happened
then is she never got a chance to tell her story.
So the jury convicts mister Brown of aggravated rape in Louisiana.
Age of the victim as an aggravating factor, and she
(18:32):
was six years old at the time that she was raped.
So he was sentenced to manna story life without the
possibility of parole and was sent to the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
The hardest part being incarcerated is that you lose a
family member while you're in now, and I lost several
family members. My mom, she went to three open house
surgeries who I was incarcerated, and some people that really
loved me, like my grandmother, my aunt's cousins, they passed
(19:30):
away while I was incarcerated. And that's the hardest part
to where they didn't want let you go out, to
go to any funerals or none of that, and with
the type of charge that they placed me on, you know,
kind of restrict me from everything to where at a
certain age I had to see my daughter once she
(19:51):
get older, and any one of my family members, they
can't come in as a child. Those certain things I
couldn't do. I couldn't go around certain people, certain jobs
I can't have because of the charge.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I'm incredibly sorry that you experienced that. That must have
been so hard to be stigmatized like that and for
something you.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Did not do. From the time my cuceration, you know,
I had to try to make it work for me.
I had to due to the times that and let
the time do me. So at the time I was
in there, you know, I educated myself. I become a
better person, becomes a mentor, and I'm becoming helping a
lot of people out there at a GOOLA even down
(20:40):
to from the Oufenity security staff to where I got
to know them and they got to know me, and
they see that I'm not a really bad person, you know,
from that part from being that goal of being it's
separing criticism from a lot of dudes that's around now.
Really nothing really came hurt me no more because I'm
(21:01):
all crowed out from that and anything that's not positive,
I just don't want to be around it. But on
my coatre that you know, they had dues there and
they were going through a lot of things that they
need mentor that he talked to and especially that's what
I did. At one point in time in my life.
(21:23):
I did lost hope. I did lost I hope to
where I wouldn't come home, I wasn't gonna be with
my family again. And I had looted in my mind
to not be a commodity to the system to where
you're just holding me there and collecting money off of me,
and I'm doing this and doing that to keep a
(21:44):
prison function to where dang, I ain't had them a
hope because you know it ain't goal inside of prison.
Contraband comes and goes in there, and the most dealy
contraband that they had in there was that fit now,
and that fit now into the prison to where I
(22:04):
did wanted to take that just the end this life,
because I didn't want that type of life inside of
a system behind something I did not do. And then
you know, when I got there, dude, say life, I
mean lock in forever. Man, I ain't no going home.
The next place I would be was a party. Lookout,
mister penitentious cemetery. That's what I was gonna be. I
(22:29):
was still going to be incocerated.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What kept you going, Patrick, What gave you hope?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
My family kept coming. It's fishing me talk to my
daughter every day on the phone. My daughter was a
month and eight days old when I got arrested. From
that time, she was just a baby. She don't know
nothing about the charge. And she fought for me too.
She fought to keep me well, I keep hope going.
(22:57):
She wanted her daddy. That kept me going down with
my heart. She kept me going, she kept me fighting,
ca me find this to be with them, so she
could have a fault in our life.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So if you could, Kelly, speak to uh, if you
recall when you first heard about mister Brown's case, what
stood out to you like as a human and what
drew you to essentially work on the case and kind
of like how your relationship started those early days.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
So I got a call on March twenty fourth of
twenty twenty three from the District Attorney's office, Jason William's office.
It was specifically from Assistant District Attorney Emily maw who
is the head of the civil rights division in the office.
And I was asked if I was available to come
in immediately, and I was told that a young woman
(23:51):
had just come into their office and had essentially said
that the wrong person was in prison for raping her.
That's a pretty extraordinary call to get. You don't often
say no when a district attorney's office calls you as
a defense attorney and says we think we have someone
in prison who shouldn't be there.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I didn't need much more information than that.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, wow, So what did they tell you when you
got to their office on that day.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
What we knew is that in two thousand and two,
when Sarah was fourteen years old, was when she first
attempted to get the District Attorney's office to listen to
her about the fact that the wrong man was in
prison for raping her. She explained that she estimated that
she had written at least one hundred letters to the
(24:39):
District Attorney's office.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And the DA at that time was still Harry Connick Senior.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
In twenty fifteen, she submitted an affidavit to the District
Attorney's office at this time led by Leon Canazero, declaring
that mister Brown was not the person who raped her
and identifying by name the man who did. She remembers
going to the DA's office at least four times, but
it wasn't until the fourth time, on March twenty fourth,
(25:07):
twenty twenty three, that someone in that office actually decided
to listen to her.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And that was, of course, after Leon Connazaro had been
succeeded as a district attorney by Jason Williams, who was
elected in twenty twenty and.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
They immediately began reinvestigating her case. And I think what
was most important to the investigators and to myself was
Sarah's incredible credibility, her ability to recall in detail the
efforts that she had made over more than two decades
(25:44):
to undo this injustice and for the truth to be
accepted by the DA's office. And part of what also
bolstered her credibility was how deeply deeply harmed she was
by having this truth ignored.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
What drew me to this story or this you know,
hearing about mister Brown's experiences and Sarah's experience is that
it really highlights how important it is to listen to
survivors and for their voices to be heard. And you know,
on the other side of that, the detriment that can
happen to us when we're not heard. Two and a
(26:25):
half perpetrators out of one hundred that rape actually end
up in prison. That's the current statistics. And I mean,
working with survivors every day, I know that, like the
trust just isn't there that the effort will be meaningful
and it won't just do more harm. And I think
that's a really sad reality and a place to be,
(26:50):
but it's one that we need to sit with because
it's so important that we address it because it's absolutely
not okay.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
It's absolutely not okay, and it's just a.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Very heartbreaking, very heartbreaking example of the many cracks within
the system. Kelly, What was the post conviction process like
that led you from taking this case on to ultimately
mister Brown's release.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
One thing that I think is very important and I
want to throw it in there, is that mister Brown
litigated his case himself for two decades. In fact, the
petition that was granted on May eighth was actually the
one that mister Brown filed himself pro see over a
year before this hearing. In it, he argued factual innocence
(27:41):
under a very new law in Louisiana that allows you
to plead factual innocence. So the DA's office actually filed
their response to mister Brown's pro say petition, and before
they did this, they reviewed all of the available records.
They reinterviewed witnesses, consulted with law enforcement, and spent a
considerable amount of time listening to Sarah and assessing her
(28:04):
credibility as well as verifying the details in the story
that she told them. After reviewing all available records, they
found clear and convincing evidence that mister Brown was factually innocent,
and based on their filing their response to mister Brown's
pro say petition, they found a few things. Most compelling
(28:25):
those were the fact that Sarah stated unequivocally and on
multiple occasions that mister Brown was not the man who
raped her. Also that in twenty fifteen, she submitted a
sworn affidavit to the DA's office, in it stating that
mister Brown was not the person who raped her and
naming the person that did. They also considered testimony and
(28:46):
statements from the time the case was pre trial that
indicated that during a fight with the victim's mother, a
man gloated about raping Sarah and about the fact that
mister Brown was doing time for the crime.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
That sounds like it would have been a pretty major
incident for the defense to explore, but somehow the jury
never heard about it. Can you tell us more about
that exchange and why it was not brought up a trial?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So this fight occurred well before the triald, near the
time that mister Brown was indicted on the charge of
aggravated rape. The prosecution was aware of this fight. It
is not entirely clear how accurately that evidence was provided
to the defense. We know definitively that the fact that
(29:35):
there were witnesses to this fight and witnesses.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
To this admission that was not disclosed to the defense, and.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What was said during the fight that was significant.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
He stated, I know that your daughter has got rape
and I ain't gonna be the one to do the
time for and.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I believe he also said, you know that mister Brown
is doing time for somebody else's crime. And it's just
it's almost irrefutable, right, Like that's a very relevant fact
for a jury to hear and understand. This is the
same man that Sarah stated raped her in the affidavit
that she gave to the DA's office in twenty fifteen.
(30:16):
They submitted this information to the court and on May eighth,
an evidentiary hearing was held. And so when Sarah took
the stand to testify, she was able to look at
mister Brown, who was sitting at the table next to me,
and she told the court about her twenty year effort
to be able to sit where she was that day
(30:38):
and tell the truth of what happened to her. At
the end of that hearing, Judge Calvin Johnson delivered his ruling,
and before he did, he addressed Sarah and mister Brown directly,
and I'll never forget what he said, and I want
to repeat it verbatim. He said the state was complicit
in the harm and horror that Sarah endured. He then
(31:01):
vacated mister Brown's conviction and granted mister Brown a new trial,
and Emily maw the Chief of the Civil Rights Division,
immediately revised the bill of information that was filed against
him in nineteen ninety four and immediately dismissed the charges.
That day, he was able to hug Sarah, he was
able to hug his family, and he was able to
(31:22):
walk out.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Of the front steps and not have to go back
to Angola.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Patrick, I can't imagine what it must have felt like
to be in that courtroom with Sarah and to hear
her testimony, and for both of you, after almost thirty years,
to finally be heard.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Oh yeah, it was unbelievable. It was beautiful. I know
that this person came out and being heard, you know what,
kind of helped heal me. Heal me a whole lot
so well. Once she gave a test, moment she finished
(32:02):
gaving a TESTI moment she came up and she hugged me.
And once she hugged me in the court room, I
felt her pain, she felt mine. She told me that
she was sorry that I have to go through it.
I told her that I was sorry too, that I
wouldn't death for I got supposed to. She said that
(32:28):
she loved me. I told her that I love her back.
Say say you never go back there. I know you
never go back. I told her that I'll never leave again.
Only way that I leave from this place.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Thank you so much, Oh my goodness, thank you so
so much for your time and your willingness. It is
incredibly brave to be this vulnerable in such a public way,
and I just want to hold space and acknowledge that
what you did today is an incredibly big thing. And
(33:16):
I wish you and your family all of the best
in the future. And yeah, thank you so so much.
We also want to let our listeners know that there's
a GoFundMe page to help you get back on your feet.
So listeners, if you want to show your support for
Patrick as he starts this new chapter in his life,
(33:38):
please look for Patrick Brown on GoFundMe dot com or
go to the link in our episode Bio. Now, this
is the part of the show that we call closing arguments.
We'd like to hear your final thoughts, anything at all
that you want to share with listeners or that you
hope listeners will take away from hearing this story. Kelly,
(33:59):
can we hear you're closing arguments first, and then we'll
hear from Patrick.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
This is the first exoneration that I have ever been
involved in, and I am horrified by what I have
learned through this process. I also think it's really important
to remember that what happened to mister Brown.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Is a symptom of a diseased system.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
That puts not only people who are factually innocent in prison,
but puts people in prison who should not be there
in the first place, people who have caused harm, but
who also have a larger story, who have a story
that is often rarely ever heard, usually until decades later.
(34:53):
And so I hope that mister Brown's story will inspire
us not just to look at the cases of people
who are actually innocent, but the cases of all people
who are in prison, to question and continue questioning is
prison really an answer and an effective answer to the
harm that's occurring in our community. It has been, in
(35:13):
my experience, a one hundred and fifty year experiment that
has failed. It has not served people that have been harmed.
It has not brought justice to victims and survivors. I
know that we can do better. I believe that we
can do better, and I hope that all of us
will be inspired to take a second look at this
system that we have become so dependent on and taken
(35:34):
for granted, and challenge ourselves to radically reimagine what justice
and safety and health look like in our communities and
try to do so much better.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Than we have done.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
To all of listeners, adele, be mindful what should do
because just saying I heard that person they hurt out
of people's be truthful to yourself and others to the
point to where we need to stop all the nonsense
and be straightforward with ourselves. That's not putting an instant
(36:13):
person in jail. Let's stop the folence. Let's just stop
all that because it ain't worth it. We all just
come together, no matter and I we love no color race.
Get along. It's time for us people to get along
and enjoy life and George's beautiful world that God gave
us because we don't have nothing. You know, who else
(36:36):
can we depend on? We basically depend on the people
that's around us. You know, we don't know nobody until
we open our mouth and start communicate. I want to
start communicating, we start learning people. We have a better world.
And I really appreciate you all listening and have a
good heart orom your heart to life itself. Hope y'all
(37:02):
have a good heart.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
to this and all Lava for Good podcasts one week
early by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
I'd like to thank executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler,
and Kevin Wardis for inviting me to sit in today,
and thanks to our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea,
(37:34):
Leila Robinson, and Kathleen Fink. The music in this production
was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Be sure to follow us across all social media platforms
at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
follow me Tiffany Reese at Lookiboo and listen to my
podcast Something Was Wrong. Wherever you get your podcasts. Wrongful
(37:59):
Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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