September 7, 2020 • 47 mins
On May 2nd, 1992, Marilyn Mulero was out with a friend and someone whom they had just met, Jackie Montanez, mourning the death of another friend at the hands of the Latin Kings, when they happened to meet 2 members of that very same gang. Montanez’s murderous gang life ambitions put her friends’ lives and freedom in jeopardy when they all collided with 2 of Chicago’s most corrupt detectives.
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https://californiainnocenceproject.org/
https://www.uis.edu/illinoisinnocenceproject/
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https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
On May eleventh, nineteen ninety two, Marilyn Malara was with
a group of people mourning a friend who had recently
been killed by the Latin Kings. The group split up,
and Marilyn went out with a friend and another mourner
who they both had met that night, Jackie Montanez, who
had her own sordid history with that gang. At around midnight,
the three were driving near Humboldt Park when two guys
(00:23):
who knew Jackie called out to her at a light.
They all agreed to meet in the park to hang out.
It turned out that these two men were members of
the Latin Kings. Jackie lured one of them into the
bathroom to make out, and when he stopped to urinate,
she shot him in the back of the head. When
she emerged alone, the other man asked about his friend,
and Jackie shot him too. Marilyn and her friend were
(00:46):
caught completely unaware and panicked. They fled the scene. Then
the case fell into the hands of two of Chicago's
now most infamous detectives, who used incentivized snitches, false eyewitness testimony,
and coercive interrogation tactics to pull Marilyn and her friend
into a case that should have rested squarely on Jackie
mount and as his shoulders, then Marilyn's hired attorney inexplicably
(01:10):
advised her to plead guilty while getting nothing in return
from the prosecutors, sending her directly to death row. News
of this case would reach then twenty nine year old
law professor Justin Brooks, and it drove him to uproot
his life and begin a two and a half decade
long quest to expose the misdeeds of those detectives and
have the evidence of Marilyn's innocence finally heard. She was
(01:33):
released on April eighth, twenty twenty. This is Wrongful Conviction
with Jason Blom Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
(01:56):
Today we have an episode for you that is deeply
person to me, but it's even more personal to our
second guest today, Justin Brooks. He is the founder and
director of the California Innocence Project. Justin Welcome back to
Wrongful Conviction. Always the pleasure, Chason, thank you, And I'm
(02:17):
about to introduce one of the most extraordinary people and
stories that I've ever met or heard. And when I
say that Marilyn Malaro, who I'm going to introduce in
a second was sentenced to death in the nineties in
Illinois after pleading guilty to a crime she didn't commit.
(02:37):
So her attorney did such a terrible job that he
actually resigned from the bar after the trial and became
a priest. Marilyn, I'm so sorry that you have to
be here because of what you went through, but I'm
so happy you're here, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So this whole insane story began around midnight on May
eleventh and into May twelfth, nineteen ninety two, when two
members of the Latin Kings were shot and killed in
and around a bathroom in Chicago's Humble Park. But Maryland,
I want to go back even before that, you were
just twenty one years old. What was your life like
(03:16):
before all of this happened.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, I was a mother of two. I used to
work two jobs, live with my brother. I sold drugs
at the time to help pay for the bills. I mean,
a single woman of mother too. Was very difficult to
pay for bills on your own, so I had to
choose another method to bring some sort of income, and
(03:41):
stelling marijuana and concaine was one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So you really had three jobs, two legal ones and
one in the shadows. But no judgment here. I'm not
a religious person, but let them who was without sincast
the first stone and Justin, can you take us back
to what happened and how the hell they decided to
focus on an innocent woman when in fact they could
(04:06):
have and probably did know all along who the real
perpetrator was of this awful crime. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So, I mean, this case, Jason, and we can get
into each one of these elements as we go along,
involved every cause of wrongful conviction that you discussed on
this podcast. This case involved a false confession, false informant testimony,
a bad identification, a bad lawyer, bad judges, and bad cops.
(04:34):
So pretty much all the causes of wrongful conviction occurred together.
It was the perfect storm which led Maryland to spend
twenty seven years in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This case was such an insane injustice that it actually
led you to give up your life as you knew
it and found an innocence project. Right.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, this case changed my life. I had heard about it.
I was at the time in Michigan teaching law school,
and I read in the newspaper about this young woman,
Marilyn Molara, who'd been sentenced to death on a plea bargain.
And when I read that, I thought, how could she
possibly been sentenced to death on a plea bargain. It's
(05:15):
a plea, but it's certainly not a bargain, and you
know there's supposed to be some kind of negotiated result
where you get a lesser sentence as a result of
you giving up all the rights that you have to
give up in a plea agreement, and you're giving up
your right to trial, you're giving up a lot of
your ap pellet rights, and you know you're going directly
(05:37):
to jail. And with her, she went directly to death row.
And I was so shocked by it that I've found
out more about her case. I ended up meeting with
her on death row. She was a scheduled for execution,
and I remember the day vividly, one twenty five years ago,
sitting across from Maryland and saying, how did you end
(05:58):
up here? And she told me this remarkable story about
how this lawyer who had never handled a case like
this in the past had no training on death penalty litigation,
never negotiated anything with the prosecution, pled her straight up
to the homicide case, and the result was she was
(06:18):
sentenced to death. And then she said the most amazing thing,
which is and I'm innocent. And so I went back
to the law school where I was teaching, and I
told my students her story, and I said, you know
who wants to help me out on this case? And
four brave souls raised their hands, and we started investigating it,
and everywhere we looked, we found out that she was
(06:41):
innocent and that her case was a complete fabrication.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Of course, you know, when you first told me about
this case, or however I learned about it, I became
obsessed with it as well, and kept me up many nights,
and I was so thrilled when it finally resolved. You know,
it was nice for you and I'd have something else
to talk about. Okay, So let's go back to May eleventh,
(07:06):
nineteen eighty two. Maryland's out driving around with Jackie Montez
and another friend around midnight or something, the night before
a mutual friend's funeral who had been killed by the
Latin Kings. They were near Humboldt Park, and they had
two guys who knew Jackie, Jimmy Cruz and Hector Reyes.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
You know, these guys saw these three girls and they
started chatting at the light, and all three women went
to Humboldt Park with these two guys who remembers the
Latin King. Jackie went into the bathroom with one of
the men. They were making out in the bathroom. He
turned around to urinate, and she pulled a gun out
and shot him in the back of the head. She
(07:46):
then leaves the bathroom. And then there's two stories. The
story that convicted Marylyn, which we ultimately proved to be false,
was that Jackie walked over handed the gun to Maryland
and then she shot the second victim. What we now
know happened was Jackie came out of the bathroom, the
(08:08):
other guy said, you know, where's my homeboy? She makes
a joke about it. She laughs and says he's taken
a shit. He turns around, and she walks over and
shoots him in the back of the head in the
exact same manner.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Wait, so I have a couple of questions, but let's
just start with this. How did they all not hear
the gunshot from inside the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, we actually had at former homicide detective go to
the park because I never understood why the guy outside
wouldn't be fully alerted to what happened. But apparently because
it was a low caliber bullet and it was a
contact killing, meaning the gun was actually on the back
of his head. His head actually acted as a sort
(08:53):
of silencer, so there wasn't a lot of noise, even
though it was a tiled bathroom.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Do we know why Jackie did what she did?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So? What Jackie has has said over the years is
her motivation was a friend of theirs was killed by
the Latin Kings, But there's also been a lot of
talk about that she was doing it to rise up
in the gang, to be seen as someone who would
do something like this.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So what did Marilyn do when the shooting happened.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, Marilyn and the other girl are in shock, they
see what happened, They run, and of course you know
when you run, it's going to be equated to guilt.
Neither Marilyn nor her other friend knew what Jackie Mantins
was up to that night, and then ultimately they're arrested
walking out of this funeral that we've been talking about
(09:42):
for their friend who'd been killed by the Latin Kings.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And Marylyn, can you give us just from your perspective.
So here you were a mother of two, you're snatched
off the street after this funeral, and you and fifteen
year old Jackie Mount and as the woman, the girl
really who actually committed this crime, were brought down to
the Latin Kings and detective I can believe they did this,
and detectives tell them, quote unquote, these are the two
(10:09):
girls that killed your homeboys, which put you at immediate
and grave risk. It threatens to make your kids into orphans.
And then the cops bring you down to the station,
deny you legal representation, interrogate you for around twenty hours
without any sleep, and ultimately you signed a statement that
they had prepared.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was a terrible moment. We had just left the funeral.
The detectives just came straight and arrested Montanesse and myself.
Then they parked. They received a phone call. Once they
hung up with the phone call, they took us to
Humble Park. We sat there for like a good ten
minutes and they were questioning us. I did not answer anything.
(10:51):
After the ten minutes, they took us to the beach
in Spalding. They displayed us before the Latin Kings, and.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
That must have been terrifying in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
At that moment, all I thought it was my ending
was right there. You know, somebody's going to pull the
trigger and kill us both. Then they took us to
Grant and Central, placed us in separate rooms, and from
then on that's where the interrogation began. They took turns
Detective GUERVERA. Halverson and kept questioning me over and over,
(11:20):
trying to get me to admit that I've committed one
of the crimes, which I kept telling them I did not.
So the interrogation kept going back and forth between Guevara
and Halverson. They wanted me to say something that I
could not say. You know, they wanted me to lie,
and I didn't want to lie, but they kept pressuring
me and pressuring me, and it's just, you know, it
(11:42):
becomes to where you're like, what the hell, Just leave
me the hell alone. And you know, I spent time
just crying, and it was like they didn't care. It's
they didn't care about the tears. They didn't care about
how I felt. They didn't care about, you know, how
they were pressuring me, you know, and so mentally, emotionally,
and physically, it was very draining.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
So justin why was Marilyn in their sights and how
did they come to focus on her?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So this case started for Marilyn with a combination of
some corrupt detectives detective Guevara and Halverson, who, by the way,
have been linked to now dozens of exonerations in Chicago
and more than fifty million dollars in settlements for wrongful convictions.
So you have a couple of corrupt detectives and a
(12:30):
snitch who's just making stuff up and gave three separate
statements that kept changing in order for them to be
consistent with the detective's story. And it started with her
saying that Jackie Martinez had been bragging about these killings.
Then once they got Marilyn into the mix, then she
(12:53):
changed the story and said that Jackie just took credit
for one of the murders. And then once they got
a confession out of Maryland, after keeping her for nearly
twenty four hours in custody and keeping her up all night,
then they built this news story where Now, this snitch
claims to have seen these girls before the shooting and
(13:14):
had said that they were going to go do the
shooting in gang vernacular, which was that apparently they said,
We're going to roll on some flakes. And by the way,
this snitch had been charged with a drug crime that night,
which of course was later on dropped after they used
her testimony. And all this was to build in the
evidence they needed to make their case, and they were
(13:36):
just literally just making up their case as they went along.
So it started with corrupt detectives and a snitch and
then it went downhill from there.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Now, Marylyn, you've now gone through this unbelievable ordeal, no sleep,
twenty something hours in the police station, and you signed
a statement prepared by the police. At that point you
probably would have signed anything to make this torture stop, right,
But did you understand what this meant? I mean, you
were implicating yourself in both murders, one is a shooter
(14:07):
and the other as a conspirator.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Right, Well, that was not explained to me at that point,
and at that time I did not know the difference.
You know, when they're telling you, well, if you want
to grow old and see your kids, and this is
your best bet that you take the blame from one
of the murders, and Jackie Monteness will take the blame
for the other. So it's like they leave you with
no choice because you're going to put your children's before anything.
(14:29):
So I just went ahead and signed that statement.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
And of course there's more insanity coming our way, right,
because there's a witness who ends up testifying to seeing
the murders from her apartment window, even though we find
out later, right, I guess justin your investigation on covers
some interesting things about that.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Sure, so after they use this snitch testimony to get
to Maryland, they now have to build the case up.
And this woman claimed to see the shooting from her apartment.
And the first weekend I was working on this case,
I drove to Chicago with my students and stood right
in front of her apartment building. And it was crazy
(15:07):
because all you had to do is go to the
park to realize that she was lying. And when I
measured it off, the distance between her apartment and the
bathroom where the shooting occurred in front of it was
four hundred and eighty nine feet. And she claimed at
night in the dark with hardly any lighting. She saw
Jackie hand this gun to Marylyn and do this shooting. Now,
(15:30):
this is like saying you were sitting in a football
stadium behind one end zone in the dark, and you
saw someone hand somebody a hot dog behind the opposite
end zone.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I'm going to take your analogy one step further because
four hundred and eighty nine feet is closer to two
football fields, and it's dark, and there was foliage in
the way, right, So I mean, they don't even have
that in a football state. I've never seen one with foliage.
So there you go with your law students that it
takes you five minutes to realized that this whole thing
(16:01):
is complete horseshit.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
It was factually impossible for her to see what she said,
and nobody investigated it. Now when we finally tracked her down. Coincidentally,
the one person who said they saw this shooting, the
one person in the city of Chicago, was in a
relationship with one of the victims, and none of that
stuff was ever reported or investigated. So that's the bad
(16:23):
identification portion of this case. So now we have bad cops,
bad snitch testimony, and bad identification.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And then there's this lawyer. This lawyer in quotes Jeremiah Lynch.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So he was hired to represent Maryland. There were friends
who hired him. He was paid a retainer. I don't
know if he capitulated his role in this case because
he figured there was no more money coming, so why
not just plea this out? You know, a death penalty
cases takes a lot of time and energy and doing
(16:59):
a trial very expensive and time consuming. But he took
this ten thousand dollars retainer and as a result, he
had a couple of meetings with Maryland, short meetings, and
he didn't meet with the district attorney, and he didn't
go to the crime scene, even though later on when
he was questioned he wasn't that far away his office
from the crime scene, and he'd claimed that maybe he
(17:20):
jogged by there one time. Just basic stuff wasn't done
and he had no training in this, and this was
his final case as a lawyer. After Marylyn was sentenced
to death. He actually went, you know, took off out
of the courtroom. And it took me a year to
find him. And usually lawyers are easy to find. And
when I found him, he was studying to be a
(17:42):
priest at University of Detroit, and he now is a
Catholic priest. And you know, if this was a movie,
we'd have to change his name because it would be
too corny that his name was father Lynch. And he
literally did Lynch Marylynd in this case due to his accompetence.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re
enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving
the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily
(18:28):
to helping young people and students. For more information on
the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org. This
episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
(18:50):
law firm. The AIG Pro Bono program provides free legal
services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals
most in need, and recently they announced that working to
reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar
of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an
unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to
(19:12):
the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
justice area. So Marilyn's lawyer, this ex lawyer who's now
a priest, gave her terrible and that's not even strong
en forward counsel, because when you plead guilty, there's almost
(19:36):
always some sort of a deal made and leniency given.
But in this case, there was no deal on the table,
so she doesn't even get a trial. And on top
of that, her right to present evidence of innocence at
that time and into the appellate process had been waived,
so she went straight to a sentencing hearing in front
(19:57):
of a jury, and it's just the process cution telling
twelve normal everyday people what a terrible, violent, evil person
she is.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And then there's the question of whether she gets death
or whether she gets life in prison. Now the reason
is so incompetent. It's because you could at least make
an argument if the sentencing was being done by a judge,
that the judge had sort of off the record indicated
this isn't going to be a death case. But when
it's a jury, you have no assurances of anything. So
(20:29):
the jury now gets to hear everything that the prosecution
wants to put on, crime scene photos of dead bodies,
testimony from the victim's family, all these things in the
sentencing phase of a death case, and Marilyn ends up
getting sentenced to death.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And it's worth noting that Illinois, I don't know how
long ago, it was more than ten years ago, there
was a professor at Northwestern who assigned his students to
find innocent people on death row. And the student's eleven
innocent people on death row students, by the way, and
(21:05):
at that point Governor Ryan at the end of his term,
commuted the death sentences of everyone on death row in
Illinois because he realized that I think during his term
they'd executed ten people, and here these students had found
eleven innocent ones. So his you know, they weren't even
batting five hundred, even if they got it right on
the ones they executed, and it's extremely unlikely that they
(21:27):
didn't execute some innocent people along the way, so you know,
they were maybe getting it right. About three out of
ten times, and we're talking about the death penalty for
christ sakes, So Marilyn, can you give us some insight
into what it was like on death row as a
young mother now separated from her children, thrown into this
(21:48):
twilight zone nightmare.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, when I first arrived to Dwight, and I was
taken to Cottage fifteen where it's basically segregation, and they
have a wing where they held the defro inmates, and
it's basically glass where segregation inmates can see the defro inmates.
And they put me past that glass into a cell
(22:14):
and I went in the room. They had brought me
some boxes with clothing, all my beddings and everything that's
required from the institution to give to you, and wouldn't
make my bed. I just sat there and started praying,
and I just kept praying and praying, got on my
knees and I'm like, Lord, just take the rings, whatever
you know, whatever you want me to do, I'm here
(22:37):
and I'm gonna do it. You know, Just let me
be at ease, let me be at peace, let me
be right by you, and let me get through this
as fast as I can. You know, it was a
beginning of a new start for me, away from everybody
and getting to know new people. And the officer came
back and saw me praying and kind of disturbed me.
It's like, hey, miss Malero, would you like the chuckhole open?
(23:00):
And I'm like, sure, left the chuck hole open. The
girls came by, introduced them self to me, and they
sat there and they pray with me, you know, through
the chuck ho and so, you know, it was like
an experience being back there on death Ro. I try
to stay as active as I possibly could back there.
You know, you're not allowed to be with other offenders,
(23:23):
but the people they were back there, so we had
moments to where we were able to come out at
hour at a time or two people at a time.
I enjoyed it for the most part, not that I
enjoyed being on death ro, but the way I was treated.
I was loved and cared for. I was tend to.
They would always constantly pray for me. We had lieutenants
(23:45):
and officers, you know, kind of stay back there with us,
keeping us company and praying with us. And because you
get to know these officers, if they're a part of you,
you know, they no longer become officers. You know, some
of them are compassionate and their heart goes out to
you and they try to spend as much time as
they positively can, you know, keeping you on a positive note.
(24:07):
And majority of the times I would stay in my
room and I would try to sleep my days away,
and the officer were like, miss Maler, get up, get up,
let's go, let's go to the yard or whatever, and
I would go just to you know, stay motivated. I
tried to do some schooling. I enrolled in myself for college.
Within three months, they came back and told us back
(24:28):
there that we were not worthy enough to take any
schooling because we were defro inmates. We were you know,
about to be executed. So they took the schooling from us.
And one of the ladies back there decided that, hey, okay,
so let's get some sponsors. Let's write the church and
see if they would you know, sponsor us and pay
(24:50):
for some schooling for us. And that's what we did.
We started writing several churches organizations to try to see
if we got sponsors. You know, I was blessed to
get two different spons to get some of my education.
You know, I have diploma certificates. Right now, I have
like four more modules left before I attain my sociate's
degree on theology. And it hasn't been easy. It's been
(25:14):
kind of a rough time in prison because prison's not
designed for you to be comfortable. It's designed for you
to be uncomfortable, for you to stay in trouble. But
it all determines on the individual in side and what
is it that you want to do and accomplish while
you're there. So I was determined to do the right thing,
not just by me, but for my children and my
(25:36):
family and for my attorneys who were fighting hard to
get my release. So I owed it to everybody, not
just myself. So I pretty much stayed busy trying to
stay focused on a positive note while I was there.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Do you think they knew you were innocent?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yes, they did. They knew from the moment that I
got there, because before my arrival, Montanez was already at
Dwight Correctional Center and she was always bragging about, you know,
killing these guys, so they already knew that I was innocent.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And justin Jackie signed after Davids had admitted verbally numerous
times that she alone planned and executed the murders.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
So these are the arguments that we made for years
and years and years, but the problem was no one
was willing to listen to them as long as that
police stood, and Marilyn never had an opportunity to present
this evidence in a trial.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
So the process of how the hell this thing finally
unraveled itself, it took god a better part of two
and a half decades, really, right.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, twenty five years I was working on it. I
mean when I started this case, to put it in context,
I was twenty nine and Marilyn was twenty four, and
now I'm fifty five, and I won't say how old
Marilyn is, but it's been a long journey. So now
that death sentence got reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court
(27:00):
because the prosecution got greedy in the sentencing phase and
in the prosecution's closing argument to the jury actually said,
you know, ladies and gentlemen, miss Malario filed emotion to
suppress her confession in this case, that show she has
no remorse, and that's another reason to sentence her to death. Now,
(27:20):
the problem with that argument is you're basically saying, because
somebody asserted a constitutional right, they should be executed based
on that, And when it went in front of the
Illinois Supreme Court, the ILLINOI Supreme Court ruled unanimously in
Marylyn's favor to reverse the death sentence, saying like, you
cannot use a constitutional right as an aggravating circumstance, and
also we don't even see a logical connection between a
(27:44):
lawyer filing emotion and then a person not having remorse.
So then we went back to a new sentencing. I
handled that sentencing along with the Chicago Public Defender's office.
I first tried to get in all the innocence evidence,
but it was very difficult because they didn't want to
hear it because they said, this isn't about whether she's
innocent or guilty, this is about whether she gets sentenced
(28:05):
to death. Because the court refused to withdraw her plea,
so Marilyn's always been stuck with this plea. She then
gets sentenced to natural life, which was the best case
scenario out of that proceeding, and then we start this
two decades long odyssey trying to get her out of
prison or get her a new trial. I took the
(28:26):
case up on appeal. From there, we went into federal court.
We argue the ineffective assistance a council Federal court. The
oral argument with it was really frustrating. One of the
justices kept saying, well, it was her decision to plead,
and I said, your honor, this is like going to
a doctor's office and they say you're going to be
(28:47):
dead in ten minutes if you don't have open heart
surgery and you're saying, okay. Your right to effective assistance
a council means getting good advice, and there was no
way this advice was good. But I lost petition, the
US Supreme Court, lost petition the Governor's office three separate
times for clemency. I file a petition in the United
(29:09):
Nations trying to declare Chicago's justice system as a human
rights violation where they allow people to plead guilty and
get death on a plea bargain. And due to all
the incompetence in this case, the United Nations has still
not ruled on that petition. So there's been a lot
of proceedings and ultimately the most successful one occurred just
(29:31):
a few months ago, and that was finally another petition
to the governor asking for her release, laying the case
out that evidence had never really seen the light of day.
It's madness. I mean, the idea that she was prevented
from presenting overwhelming evidence of innocence is not It's absolutely nuts.
It's a terrible indictment of our system. There should be
(29:54):
some mechanism for justice to see.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The light of day. Of course, the last resort this
case was a clemency from the governor.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And by the way, it wasn't just me that petition
for that, it was the Exoneration Project, the Illinois Innocence Project.
As you said, there's been a lot of innocence work
in Chicago over the past few decades. There's a lot
of great lawyers and organizations. They're doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I know, I called so many people trying to get
this on the governor's desk. That's probably people listening who
are like, oh, bomb, you bother to crap out of
me in this case for so long. But anyway, it
doesn't matter, because the point is that it finally worked.
So Maryland, So October ninth of twenty nineteen, there's a
clemency hearing, and then there's a god almost seven months
(30:40):
go by, almost to the day until April sixth, twenty twenty.
How did you find out that the governor had granted
you clemency?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I had surgery not too long ago, and one of
the officers that sat with me at the hospital ended
up working with internal affairs and she comes to my room.
She's like, hey, Marylyn, I need to see you. And
I'm like yeah. Everybody's like, oh shucks, I ace here. Hi,
you're contra band, you know. So she's like, no, come here,
(31:10):
I need to speak to you. I'm like okay, and
she's like do you know. And I'm like, oh my god,
you're leaving me too. And she's like, oh, you don't know.
I'm like, don't know what. She whispered in my ear
and she's like, no, you're going home. I'm like, stop
playing with me. And she's like, I'm for real. I'm like,
stop playing with my emotions. This is not funny. I
(31:31):
love you. You're good to me. You were good to
me then, but right now you're kind of, you know,
working a little nerve. She's like, no, no, I'm for real.
She's like, Officer Dorsey is up there at the business
office right now, shutting down your account. When are your
paperwork the people for the parole board is coming to
see you. You need to sign the paperwork. The governor's
sending you your release form. You need to sign it.
(31:51):
I said, I believe it when I see it. And
I looked at her and she's like, H'm for real.
I'm like, okay, I believe you. So then there's two
officers who are just they go above and beyond. They're
very compassionate and I'm very fond of them because they
break their neck to help women in there. And Lamar
(32:14):
and Hardison and were like, miss Malari, come to the
day room right now. And I'm like, oh shucks. And
they were like, we're about to announce it on the
intercom that you're going home. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
please do not do that just yet. They were like what,
Because I don't want the girls to be in an
uproar because once they find out that I was going home,
because they've been waiting and waiting impatiently. We were on lockdown,
(32:37):
difficult situation to where we couldn't see each other. I
felt like maybe a riot would have kicked out on
the unit, you know. So what we did was we
waited till the next morning. So I woke up about
four o'clock in the morning and started packing my things
and giving everything I had away. I didn't care. I
didn't want to take nothing home but my bible, my pictures,
(32:59):
my school were and my legal work. That's all. I
walked out of there with everything else was left behind,
and the lieutenant came with the paperwork. I signed it.
The parole board came. I signed it at seven o'clock
in the morning when count was clear. They're like, we
got to get you out the institution so you won't
be on our eight o'clock count. I'm like, okay. So
(33:20):
we went to the BFI, took my picture, took the fingerprints,
took my stuff to property, and was headed out the
front gate and right at the sally port where the
visitors come in. Outside at the gate is where my
brothers were waiting for me, and all the wardens were there.
The administration was there at Heidie Brown and other people,
(33:41):
and they, you know, hugged me. We knew we didn't
have it the coronavirus. We hugged and said our goodbyes,
you know, shed tears, and everybody was kind of mad
that I didn't say bye. To the ladies the institution,
but I couldn't because we were on lockdown, you know. So,
I mean when the girls found out, the officers blasted it, Hey,
Malario's going home, and everybody started hollering out the window,
(34:04):
trying to let the other ladies on other units know
that I was going home, and you know, they were
hollering and screaming, don't forget about us, don't forget about us.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I tell you, Marylyn, when I got the call that
you were getting out, I couldn't even speak.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It's just been so long, and yeah, it's heartbreaking. I'm
glad it's over. But I really hope we can learn
from the story, and I hope some changes are made.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Did you get a chance to see your children while
you were in prison or what was that communication?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Like?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Over all those twenty six years.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I was pretty blessed. I had a family who would
take turns bringing my kids see me constantly, So in
that perspective, I, you know, was very grateful for my family.
So throughout my whole incarceration, I was able to see them.
It was heartbreaking sometimes because my oldest son will always
try to undo the handcuffs to release me and stuff,
(35:17):
you know, and he will always be like, my mom, let's go,
let's go. And I'm like, no, baby, I got to
stay here in school. He's like, Mom, you're not in school,
You're in jail, you know. So they pretty much knew.
So at that point I knew that I had to
keep it real with them and be like, yeah, mommy's
in jail, you know, but not for long, and I'll
be home with you guys. You know. It took them
to be grown men now, but I'm blessed to be
(35:40):
here with them and be able to spend time with
them and my grandkids and my family. Since I've been
out here, I've been on a movement trying to focus
back on those ladies that are still there, that are
also innocent, that no one knows about, because like myself,
I've been fighting and it's been falling on deaf ears
and the same thing with the women's that are in there.
(36:02):
So I am fighting hard with the Exoneration Project to
make these ladies known. So that's what I'm working on
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You've really hit the ground running, and it's awesome to
see that your spirit is beyond and all I can
say about that is welcome home. And of course, there
was another development, which is that in May of this year,
the Cook County State's Attorney's Office began a comprehensive review
of now retired Detective Ronaldo Guervera's cases in what has
(36:29):
now been called one of the biggest policing scandals in
US history. And let me just say that again, one
of the biggest policing scandals in US history. This is
the detective, well, the two detectives that were responsible for
your wrongful conviction. But justin what about Ernest Halverson.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yeah, he's been tied into these cases as well. You know,
as usual, it's not one bad apple. There was a
lot of bad things happening in Chicago back then and
there's still problems now. And fortunately we have organizations like
the Exoneration Project in Chicago, the Illinois Innocence Project, the
Center of Wrongful Convictions. It's a real hotbed of wrongful
(37:10):
convictions in Chicago, and they're not just letting these lay down.
You know, for a long time it's been about just
getting our clients out of prison. But we need real
reform and we need to examine these cases after they
happen and look for the people responsible and hold them
accountable and then look at their other cases. I've been
(37:32):
talking for years about how Detective Guevara was part of
Marland's case because people have been looking at him for
a long long time. But the problem is in our system.
Getting the truth into a format that then can get
presented within our judicial system and have a result is very,
(37:52):
very difficult. It's the greatest frustration of my life is
that often we know the truth and we have the facts,
but for some reason, the system won't allow those facts
to be presented or won't give you an opportunity to
get the right result, and that's taken away twenty seven
years of Marilyn's life.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
It's so remarkable to sit here and listen to Marylyn,
and you know, it just dawned to me. She hasn't
had one negative thing to say. There hasn't been any
trace of and maybe I'm just not hearing it, but
I don't think it's there of bitterness. No. I mean,
she's focused on during this interview, on the things, the
bright spots, the positive things that happened while she was
(38:34):
on death row, while she was in prison in maxim
security prison for twenty six years, or something she didn't do.
So all I can say is you are a blessing
and it is an honor to be able just to
talk to you and to be a part of your
story in some small way.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well, I kind of knew that eventually. You know, I've
always believed in God, and I've always placed my faith
in Him and allow me to see me through. That's
going to be okay, that I was going to come
through this if I kept believing and maintaining my faith
in him.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
It takes a lot to maintain faith after everything you've
been through, but more power to you.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
And she is extraordinary. You know you said about how
a positive an upbeat she is. I've had times over
the last couple of decades when Marilyn has tried to
cheer me up about the case, and you know, that's
a very strange thing. She's been a believer. She's an
incredibly strong women. And that's what we see with a
(39:32):
lot of exoneries. They are different, and they are survivors
and they are fighters, and that's why they make it
through this nightmare.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Well said, and it is justice delayed, but at least
in this case, justice was not denied. And there's still
fighting left to be done on Marilyn's behalf, and I
know she's in the best possible hands with you in
the California Innocence as well as all the other great
(40:02):
people that have been involved in helping to get you home, Marylyn,
and I want to put a plug in too. You've
heard today about the work of the California Innocence Project
as well as the two other organizations that helped free Maryland,
the Illinois Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project, and we're
going to have a link in our bio to all
(40:23):
of those wonderful organizations. Please go and click on the
link and learn more and join us and get involved.
So this is part of the show where I first
of all get to thank both of you for coming
on and sharing your thoughts and your perspective and your spirit.
And then I turned my microphone off and kick back
(40:46):
on my chair with my headphones on, close my eyes
and just listen to whatever else you have to say. Maryland.
We're going to save you the best for last, and
I'm really looking forward to that. So now again, Justin Brooks,
founder and director of the California Innocence Project, law professor
and human rights fighter extraordinaire. Thank you again for being
(41:10):
here with us today.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
You know this case changed my life, Marylynd changed my life.
I was teaching law school and a nice quiet life
in the middle of Michigan with a nice little Victorian house,
and I'd been a criminal defense attorney for a number
of years in Washington, d C. But when I got
involved in this case, I was shocked. I was shocked
(41:35):
at the United States of America, a twenty one year
old individual could be sentenced to death on a polea bargain,
with no investigation into our case, a conspiracy between the
police and the lawyers and the judges. Everybody'd let this happen.
They let this twenty one year old fall through this
(41:57):
giant crack. It shocked me, and I didn't think I
could be shocked as a criminal defense attorney, and so
it just changed my life. It caused me to leave
my job in Michigan, move to California, start the California
Innisen's Project. And this case is the inspiration for the
more than thirty people we've been able to free in California.
(42:20):
I don't think any of that would have happened without Maryland.
And now even a few months after she's out of prison,
it's still not real to me because it's been part
of my life for so long. It's almost like I
don't know who I am if I'm not representing Marilyn
Molaro and trying to get her out of prison. So
(42:40):
I'm really happy we could tell her story today. It's
an important story and it's certainly a big part of
who I am.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Amen to that. And Wow, Marilyn, that must have been
an amazing feeling to hear justin say those words and
to know that you are a key element in the
freedom of so many others who were wrongfully convicted of
thirty in counting so and now what we've all been
waiting for, no pressure. Thank you again, Marilyn Malarro for
(43:11):
being here, for being so strong, and will turn it
over to you for closing arguments.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I want to thank you. I want to thank everybody
who's been involved in my case throughout my twenty seven
plus years. I've had a lot of good people working
on my case, and some of them are still in
contact with me, and that's a very you know, emoctional thing.
Knowing that these people can still stay in contact, which
(43:38):
they didn't have to, but they are, you know, so
I take that to heart. Prison life has not been
easy for me, you know. I've had some struggles, my
ups and downs, you know, my downfalls, you know, and
it's part of the struggle while you're in prison. And
sometimes you have to set up a mechanism so that
people won't, you know, think that you're vulnerable or take
the best of you. So I always had my head
(44:01):
up and always stay positive. I've always tried to do
my best to help other women. My experience with my
situation in my case had helped me to deal with
other women in their situations as well and help them
cope with, you know, their pain and suffering and being
able to be away from their families. And you know,
(44:23):
while I've been incarcerated, I've helped create different programs, different
groups and join the Phoenix Rising, And as soon as
a week within joining Phoenix Rising, which is a program
from long term prisoners, I was voted in to become
a committee member, and you know, I was honored by
that because a lot of women had respect for me
(44:43):
and a lot of my ideas and we've always succeeded
in everything that we've tried. To accomplish, and the wardens
would allow me to partake in a lot of the
things and be a part of what they would do
in the institution. And they asked me and Tammy Fike
if we would create a program for the elderly and
the disabled, and we took a whole unit, which was
(45:05):
House Unit six, and we created that which became a
safe haven for those women so they would not be mistreated,
you know, and misled and extorted and beat down in
whatever other case could have taken place with these women.
And We've created various programs, groups, activities. You know, we
constantly always pray for the unit so the women's could
(45:26):
get along together and not create a lot of chaos.
And I'm very grateful that I'm here now. I'm grateful
for Justin. You know, Justin always told me, Hey, Marylyn,
I'm never divorcing this case, so you get home. But
like I told Justin, I'm home, but you're still not
divorcing me. You're stuck with me for life. So you know,
now he's got to deal with me, so, you know,
(45:49):
and Lauren and the other Lauren and you know, send
the all these people. So I'm very grateful and at
this moment, I'm trying to do me. I'm still at peace.
I'm happy with the women I've became while I was incarcerated,
and I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing,
and that's helping people while I'm out here and reaching
(46:12):
back out to the women that are still in there
as well as to the men. You know, I'm insupportive
of all the Gervarra victims and I'm just going to
continue to be me and be positive, and one day
I hope to put together my work release center to
help some of these women that don't have places to go.
And that's my story, that's my life, and that's my dream,
(46:33):
and I believe I was designed.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
To do this. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
a proud donor to the Nnocence 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
(46:57):
Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin wardis the music in the show. Is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
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
(47:21):
Company Number one
On May eleventh, nineteen ninety two, Marilyn Malara was with
a group of people mourning a friend who had recently
been killed by the Latin Kings. The group split up,
and Marilyn went out with a friend and another mourner
who they both had met that night, Jackie Montanez, who
had her own sordid history with that gang. At around midnight,
the three were driving near Humboldt Park when two guys
(00:23):
who knew Jackie called out to her at a light.
They all agreed to meet in the park to hang out.
It turned out that these two men were members of
the Latin Kings. Jackie lured one of them into the
bathroom to make out, and when he stopped to urinate,
she shot him in the back of the head. When
she emerged alone, the other man asked about his friend,
and Jackie shot him too. Marilyn and her friend were
(00:46):
caught completely unaware and panicked. They fled the scene. Then
the case fell into the hands of two of Chicago's
now most infamous detectives, who used incentivized snitches, false eyewitness testimony,
and coercive interrogation tactics to pull Marilyn and her friend
into a case that should have rested squarely on Jackie
mount and as his shoulders, then Marilyn's hired attorney inexplicably
(01:10):
advised her to plead guilty while getting nothing in return
from the prosecutors, sending her directly to death row. News
of this case would reach then twenty nine year old
law professor Justin Brooks, and it drove him to uproot
his life and begin a two and a half decade
long quest to expose the misdeeds of those detectives and
have the evidence of Marilyn's innocence finally heard. She was
(01:33):
released on April eighth, twenty twenty. This is Wrongful Conviction
with Jason Blom Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
(01:56):
Today we have an episode for you that is deeply
person to me, but it's even more personal to our
second guest today, Justin Brooks. He is the founder and
director of the California Innocence Project. Justin Welcome back to
Wrongful Conviction. Always the pleasure, Chason, thank you, And I'm
(02:17):
about to introduce one of the most extraordinary people and
stories that I've ever met or heard. And when I
say that Marilyn Malaro, who I'm going to introduce in
a second was sentenced to death in the nineties in
Illinois after pleading guilty to a crime she didn't commit.
(02:37):
So her attorney did such a terrible job that he
actually resigned from the bar after the trial and became
a priest. Marilyn, I'm so sorry that you have to
be here because of what you went through, but I'm
so happy you're here, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So this whole insane story began around midnight on May
eleventh and into May twelfth, nineteen ninety two, when two
members of the Latin Kings were shot and killed in
and around a bathroom in Chicago's Humble Park. But Maryland,
I want to go back even before that, you were
just twenty one years old. What was your life like
(03:16):
before all of this happened.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, I was a mother of two. I used to
work two jobs, live with my brother. I sold drugs
at the time to help pay for the bills. I mean,
a single woman of mother too. Was very difficult to
pay for bills on your own, so I had to
choose another method to bring some sort of income, and
(03:41):
stelling marijuana and concaine was one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So you really had three jobs, two legal ones and
one in the shadows. But no judgment here. I'm not
a religious person, but let them who was without sincast
the first stone and Justin, can you take us back
to what happened and how the hell they decided to
focus on an innocent woman when in fact they could
(04:06):
have and probably did know all along who the real
perpetrator was of this awful crime. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So, I mean, this case, Jason, and we can get
into each one of these elements as we go along,
involved every cause of wrongful conviction that you discussed on
this podcast. This case involved a false confession, false informant testimony,
a bad identification, a bad lawyer, bad judges, and bad cops.
(04:34):
So pretty much all the causes of wrongful conviction occurred together.
It was the perfect storm which led Maryland to spend
twenty seven years in prison for a crime she didn't commit.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This case was such an insane injustice that it actually
led you to give up your life as you knew
it and found an innocence project. Right.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, this case changed my life. I had heard about it.
I was at the time in Michigan teaching law school,
and I read in the newspaper about this young woman,
Marilyn Molara, who'd been sentenced to death on a plea bargain.
And when I read that, I thought, how could she
possibly been sentenced to death on a plea bargain. It's
(05:15):
a plea, but it's certainly not a bargain, and you
know there's supposed to be some kind of negotiated result
where you get a lesser sentence as a result of
you giving up all the rights that you have to
give up in a plea agreement, and you're giving up
your right to trial, you're giving up a lot of
your ap pellet rights, and you know you're going directly
(05:37):
to jail. And with her, she went directly to death row.
And I was so shocked by it that I've found
out more about her case. I ended up meeting with
her on death row. She was a scheduled for execution,
and I remember the day vividly, one twenty five years ago,
sitting across from Maryland and saying, how did you end
(05:58):
up here? And she told me this remarkable story about
how this lawyer who had never handled a case like
this in the past had no training on death penalty litigation,
never negotiated anything with the prosecution, pled her straight up
to the homicide case, and the result was she was
(06:18):
sentenced to death. And then she said the most amazing thing,
which is and I'm innocent. And so I went back
to the law school where I was teaching, and I
told my students her story, and I said, you know
who wants to help me out on this case? And
four brave souls raised their hands, and we started investigating it,
and everywhere we looked, we found out that she was
(06:41):
innocent and that her case was a complete fabrication.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Of course, you know, when you first told me about
this case, or however I learned about it, I became
obsessed with it as well, and kept me up many nights,
and I was so thrilled when it finally resolved. You know,
it was nice for you and I'd have something else
to talk about. Okay, So let's go back to May eleventh,
(07:06):
nineteen eighty two. Maryland's out driving around with Jackie Montez
and another friend around midnight or something, the night before
a mutual friend's funeral who had been killed by the
Latin Kings. They were near Humboldt Park, and they had
two guys who knew Jackie, Jimmy Cruz and Hector Reyes.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
You know, these guys saw these three girls and they
started chatting at the light, and all three women went
to Humboldt Park with these two guys who remembers the
Latin King. Jackie went into the bathroom with one of
the men. They were making out in the bathroom. He
turned around to urinate, and she pulled a gun out
and shot him in the back of the head. She
(07:46):
then leaves the bathroom. And then there's two stories. The
story that convicted Marylyn, which we ultimately proved to be false,
was that Jackie walked over handed the gun to Maryland
and then she shot the second victim. What we now
know happened was Jackie came out of the bathroom, the
(08:08):
other guy said, you know, where's my homeboy? She makes
a joke about it. She laughs and says he's taken
a shit. He turns around, and she walks over and
shoots him in the back of the head in the
exact same manner.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Wait, so I have a couple of questions, but let's
just start with this. How did they all not hear
the gunshot from inside the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, we actually had at former homicide detective go to
the park because I never understood why the guy outside
wouldn't be fully alerted to what happened. But apparently because
it was a low caliber bullet and it was a
contact killing, meaning the gun was actually on the back
of his head. His head actually acted as a sort
(08:53):
of silencer, so there wasn't a lot of noise, even
though it was a tiled bathroom.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Do we know why Jackie did what she did?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So? What Jackie has has said over the years is
her motivation was a friend of theirs was killed by
the Latin Kings, But there's also been a lot of
talk about that she was doing it to rise up
in the gang, to be seen as someone who would
do something like this.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So what did Marilyn do when the shooting happened.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, Marilyn and the other girl are in shock, they
see what happened, They run, and of course you know
when you run, it's going to be equated to guilt.
Neither Marilyn nor her other friend knew what Jackie Mantins
was up to that night, and then ultimately they're arrested
walking out of this funeral that we've been talking about
(09:42):
for their friend who'd been killed by the Latin Kings.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And Marylyn, can you give us just from your perspective.
So here you were a mother of two, you're snatched
off the street after this funeral, and you and fifteen
year old Jackie Mount and as the woman, the girl
really who actually committed this crime, were brought down to
the Latin Kings and detective I can believe they did this,
and detectives tell them, quote unquote, these are the two
(10:09):
girls that killed your homeboys, which put you at immediate
and grave risk. It threatens to make your kids into orphans.
And then the cops bring you down to the station,
deny you legal representation, interrogate you for around twenty hours
without any sleep, and ultimately you signed a statement that
they had prepared.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was a terrible moment. We had just left the funeral.
The detectives just came straight and arrested Montanesse and myself.
Then they parked. They received a phone call. Once they
hung up with the phone call, they took us to
Humble Park. We sat there for like a good ten
minutes and they were questioning us. I did not answer anything.
(10:51):
After the ten minutes, they took us to the beach
in Spalding. They displayed us before the Latin Kings, and.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
That must have been terrifying in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
At that moment, all I thought it was my ending
was right there. You know, somebody's going to pull the
trigger and kill us both. Then they took us to
Grant and Central, placed us in separate rooms, and from
then on that's where the interrogation began. They took turns
Detective GUERVERA. Halverson and kept questioning me over and over,
(11:20):
trying to get me to admit that I've committed one
of the crimes, which I kept telling them I did not.
So the interrogation kept going back and forth between Guevara
and Halverson. They wanted me to say something that I
could not say. You know, they wanted me to lie,
and I didn't want to lie, but they kept pressuring
me and pressuring me, and it's just, you know, it
(11:42):
becomes to where you're like, what the hell, Just leave
me the hell alone. And you know, I spent time
just crying, and it was like they didn't care. It's
they didn't care about the tears. They didn't care about
how I felt. They didn't care about, you know, how
they were pressuring me, you know, and so mentally, emotionally,
and physically, it was very draining.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
So justin why was Marilyn in their sights and how
did they come to focus on her?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So this case started for Marilyn with a combination of
some corrupt detectives detective Guevara and Halverson, who, by the way,
have been linked to now dozens of exonerations in Chicago
and more than fifty million dollars in settlements for wrongful convictions.
So you have a couple of corrupt detectives and a
(12:30):
snitch who's just making stuff up and gave three separate
statements that kept changing in order for them to be
consistent with the detective's story. And it started with her
saying that Jackie Martinez had been bragging about these killings.
Then once they got Marilyn into the mix, then she
(12:53):
changed the story and said that Jackie just took credit
for one of the murders. And then once they got
a confession out of Maryland, after keeping her for nearly
twenty four hours in custody and keeping her up all night,
then they built this news story where Now, this snitch
claims to have seen these girls before the shooting and
(13:14):
had said that they were going to go do the
shooting in gang vernacular, which was that apparently they said,
We're going to roll on some flakes. And by the way,
this snitch had been charged with a drug crime that night,
which of course was later on dropped after they used
her testimony. And all this was to build in the
evidence they needed to make their case, and they were
(13:36):
just literally just making up their case as they went along.
So it started with corrupt detectives and a snitch and
then it went downhill from there.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Now, Marylyn, you've now gone through this unbelievable ordeal, no sleep,
twenty something hours in the police station, and you signed
a statement prepared by the police. At that point you
probably would have signed anything to make this torture stop, right,
But did you understand what this meant? I mean, you
were implicating yourself in both murders, one is a shooter
(14:07):
and the other as a conspirator.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Right, Well, that was not explained to me at that point,
and at that time I did not know the difference.
You know, when they're telling you, well, if you want
to grow old and see your kids, and this is
your best bet that you take the blame from one
of the murders, and Jackie Monteness will take the blame
for the other. So it's like they leave you with
no choice because you're going to put your children's before anything.
(14:29):
So I just went ahead and signed that statement.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
And of course there's more insanity coming our way, right,
because there's a witness who ends up testifying to seeing
the murders from her apartment window, even though we find
out later, right, I guess justin your investigation on covers
some interesting things about that.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Sure, so after they use this snitch testimony to get
to Maryland, they now have to build the case up.
And this woman claimed to see the shooting from her apartment.
And the first weekend I was working on this case,
I drove to Chicago with my students and stood right
in front of her apartment building. And it was crazy
(15:07):
because all you had to do is go to the
park to realize that she was lying. And when I
measured it off, the distance between her apartment and the
bathroom where the shooting occurred in front of it was
four hundred and eighty nine feet. And she claimed at
night in the dark with hardly any lighting. She saw
Jackie hand this gun to Marylyn and do this shooting. Now,
(15:30):
this is like saying you were sitting in a football
stadium behind one end zone in the dark, and you
saw someone hand somebody a hot dog behind the opposite
end zone.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I'm going to take your analogy one step further because
four hundred and eighty nine feet is closer to two
football fields, and it's dark, and there was foliage in
the way, right, So I mean, they don't even have
that in a football state. I've never seen one with foliage.
So there you go with your law students that it
takes you five minutes to realized that this whole thing
(16:01):
is complete horseshit.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
It was factually impossible for her to see what she said,
and nobody investigated it. Now when we finally tracked her down. Coincidentally,
the one person who said they saw this shooting, the
one person in the city of Chicago, was in a
relationship with one of the victims, and none of that
stuff was ever reported or investigated. So that's the bad
(16:23):
identification portion of this case. So now we have bad cops,
bad snitch testimony, and bad identification.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And then there's this lawyer. This lawyer in quotes Jeremiah Lynch.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So he was hired to represent Maryland. There were friends
who hired him. He was paid a retainer. I don't
know if he capitulated his role in this case because
he figured there was no more money coming, so why
not just plea this out? You know, a death penalty
cases takes a lot of time and energy and doing
(16:59):
a trial very expensive and time consuming. But he took
this ten thousand dollars retainer and as a result, he
had a couple of meetings with Maryland, short meetings, and
he didn't meet with the district attorney, and he didn't
go to the crime scene, even though later on when
he was questioned he wasn't that far away his office
from the crime scene, and he'd claimed that maybe he
(17:20):
jogged by there one time. Just basic stuff wasn't done
and he had no training in this, and this was
his final case as a lawyer. After Marylyn was sentenced
to death. He actually went, you know, took off out
of the courtroom. And it took me a year to
find him. And usually lawyers are easy to find. And
when I found him, he was studying to be a
(17:42):
priest at University of Detroit, and he now is a
Catholic priest. And you know, if this was a movie,
we'd have to change his name because it would be
too corny that his name was father Lynch. And he
literally did Lynch Marylynd in this case due to his accompetence.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The Pacers Foundation is a proud supporter of this episode
and of the Last Mile organization, which provides business and
tech training to help incarcerated individuals successfully and permanently re
enter the workforce. The Pacers Foundation is committed to improving
the lives of Hoosiers across Indiana, supporting organizations dedicated primarily
(18:28):
to helping young people and students. For more information on
the work of the Pacers Foundation or the Last Mile Program,
visit Pacersfoundation dot org or the Lastmile dot org. This
episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company,
and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international
(18:50):
law firm. The AIG Pro Bono program provides free legal
services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals
most in need, and recently they announced that working to
reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar
of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an
unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance to
(19:12):
the most vulnerable members of our society and in support
of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal
justice area. So Marilyn's lawyer, this ex lawyer who's now
a priest, gave her terrible and that's not even strong
en forward counsel, because when you plead guilty, there's almost
(19:36):
always some sort of a deal made and leniency given.
But in this case, there was no deal on the table,
so she doesn't even get a trial. And on top
of that, her right to present evidence of innocence at
that time and into the appellate process had been waived,
so she went straight to a sentencing hearing in front
(19:57):
of a jury, and it's just the process cution telling
twelve normal everyday people what a terrible, violent, evil person
she is.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And then there's the question of whether she gets death
or whether she gets life in prison. Now the reason
is so incompetent. It's because you could at least make
an argument if the sentencing was being done by a judge,
that the judge had sort of off the record indicated
this isn't going to be a death case. But when
it's a jury, you have no assurances of anything. So
(20:29):
the jury now gets to hear everything that the prosecution
wants to put on, crime scene photos of dead bodies,
testimony from the victim's family, all these things in the
sentencing phase of a death case, and Marilyn ends up
getting sentenced to death.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And it's worth noting that Illinois, I don't know how
long ago, it was more than ten years ago, there
was a professor at Northwestern who assigned his students to
find innocent people on death row. And the student's eleven
innocent people on death row students, by the way, and
(21:05):
at that point Governor Ryan at the end of his term,
commuted the death sentences of everyone on death row in
Illinois because he realized that I think during his term
they'd executed ten people, and here these students had found
eleven innocent ones. So his you know, they weren't even
batting five hundred, even if they got it right on
the ones they executed, and it's extremely unlikely that they
(21:27):
didn't execute some innocent people along the way, so you know,
they were maybe getting it right. About three out of
ten times, and we're talking about the death penalty for
christ sakes, So Marilyn, can you give us some insight
into what it was like on death row as a
young mother now separated from her children, thrown into this
(21:48):
twilight zone nightmare.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Well, when I first arrived to Dwight, and I was
taken to Cottage fifteen where it's basically segregation, and they
have a wing where they held the defro inmates, and
it's basically glass where segregation inmates can see the defro inmates.
And they put me past that glass into a cell
(22:14):
and I went in the room. They had brought me
some boxes with clothing, all my beddings and everything that's
required from the institution to give to you, and wouldn't
make my bed. I just sat there and started praying,
and I just kept praying and praying, got on my
knees and I'm like, Lord, just take the rings, whatever
you know, whatever you want me to do, I'm here
(22:37):
and I'm gonna do it. You know, Just let me
be at ease, let me be at peace, let me
be right by you, and let me get through this
as fast as I can. You know, it was a
beginning of a new start for me, away from everybody
and getting to know new people. And the officer came
back and saw me praying and kind of disturbed me.
It's like, hey, miss Malero, would you like the chuckhole open?
(23:00):
And I'm like, sure, left the chuck hole open. The
girls came by, introduced them self to me, and they
sat there and they pray with me, you know, through
the chuck ho and so, you know, it was like
an experience being back there on death Ro. I try
to stay as active as I possibly could back there.
You know, you're not allowed to be with other offenders,
(23:23):
but the people they were back there, so we had
moments to where we were able to come out at
hour at a time or two people at a time.
I enjoyed it for the most part, not that I
enjoyed being on death ro, but the way I was treated.
I was loved and cared for. I was tend to.
They would always constantly pray for me. We had lieutenants
(23:45):
and officers, you know, kind of stay back there with us,
keeping us company and praying with us. And because you
get to know these officers, if they're a part of you,
you know, they no longer become officers. You know, some
of them are compassionate and their heart goes out to
you and they try to spend as much time as
they positively can, you know, keeping you on a positive note.
(24:07):
And majority of the times I would stay in my
room and I would try to sleep my days away,
and the officer were like, miss Maler, get up, get up,
let's go, let's go to the yard or whatever, and
I would go just to you know, stay motivated. I
tried to do some schooling. I enrolled in myself for college.
Within three months, they came back and told us back
(24:28):
there that we were not worthy enough to take any
schooling because we were defro inmates. We were you know,
about to be executed. So they took the schooling from us.
And one of the ladies back there decided that, hey, okay,
so let's get some sponsors. Let's write the church and
see if they would you know, sponsor us and pay
(24:50):
for some schooling for us. And that's what we did.
We started writing several churches organizations to try to see
if we got sponsors. You know, I was blessed to
get two different spons to get some of my education.
You know, I have diploma certificates. Right now, I have
like four more modules left before I attain my sociate's
degree on theology. And it hasn't been easy. It's been
(25:14):
kind of a rough time in prison because prison's not
designed for you to be comfortable. It's designed for you
to be uncomfortable, for you to stay in trouble. But
it all determines on the individual in side and what
is it that you want to do and accomplish while
you're there. So I was determined to do the right thing,
not just by me, but for my children and my
(25:36):
family and for my attorneys who were fighting hard to
get my release. So I owed it to everybody, not
just myself. So I pretty much stayed busy trying to
stay focused on a positive note while I was there.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Do you think they knew you were innocent?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yes, they did. They knew from the moment that I
got there, because before my arrival, Montanez was already at
Dwight Correctional Center and she was always bragging about, you know,
killing these guys, so they already knew that I was innocent.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And justin Jackie signed after Davids had admitted verbally numerous
times that she alone planned and executed the murders.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
So these are the arguments that we made for years
and years and years, but the problem was no one
was willing to listen to them as long as that
police stood, and Marilyn never had an opportunity to present
this evidence in a trial.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
So the process of how the hell this thing finally
unraveled itself, it took god a better part of two
and a half decades, really, right.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, twenty five years I was working on it. I
mean when I started this case, to put it in context,
I was twenty nine and Marilyn was twenty four, and
now I'm fifty five, and I won't say how old
Marilyn is, but it's been a long journey. So now
that death sentence got reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court
(27:00):
because the prosecution got greedy in the sentencing phase and
in the prosecution's closing argument to the jury actually said,
you know, ladies and gentlemen, miss Malario filed emotion to
suppress her confession in this case, that show she has
no remorse, and that's another reason to sentence her to death. Now,
(27:20):
the problem with that argument is you're basically saying, because
somebody asserted a constitutional right, they should be executed based
on that, And when it went in front of the
Illinois Supreme Court, the ILLINOI Supreme Court ruled unanimously in
Marylyn's favor to reverse the death sentence, saying like, you
cannot use a constitutional right as an aggravating circumstance, and
also we don't even see a logical connection between a
(27:44):
lawyer filing emotion and then a person not having remorse.
So then we went back to a new sentencing. I
handled that sentencing along with the Chicago Public Defender's office.
I first tried to get in all the innocence evidence,
but it was very difficult because they didn't want to
hear it because they said, this isn't about whether she's
innocent or guilty, this is about whether she gets sentenced
(28:05):
to death. Because the court refused to withdraw her plea,
so Marilyn's always been stuck with this plea. She then
gets sentenced to natural life, which was the best case
scenario out of that proceeding, and then we start this
two decades long odyssey trying to get her out of
prison or get her a new trial. I took the
(28:26):
case up on appeal. From there, we went into federal court.
We argue the ineffective assistance a council Federal court. The
oral argument with it was really frustrating. One of the
justices kept saying, well, it was her decision to plead,
and I said, your honor, this is like going to
a doctor's office and they say you're going to be
(28:47):
dead in ten minutes if you don't have open heart
surgery and you're saying, okay. Your right to effective assistance
a council means getting good advice, and there was no
way this advice was good. But I lost petition, the
US Supreme Court, lost petition the Governor's office three separate
times for clemency. I file a petition in the United
(29:09):
Nations trying to declare Chicago's justice system as a human
rights violation where they allow people to plead guilty and
get death on a plea bargain. And due to all
the incompetence in this case, the United Nations has still
not ruled on that petition. So there's been a lot
of proceedings and ultimately the most successful one occurred just
(29:31):
a few months ago, and that was finally another petition
to the governor asking for her release, laying the case
out that evidence had never really seen the light of day.
It's madness. I mean, the idea that she was prevented
from presenting overwhelming evidence of innocence is not It's absolutely nuts.
It's a terrible indictment of our system. There should be
(29:54):
some mechanism for justice to see.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
The light of day. Of course, the last resort this
case was a clemency from the governor.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And by the way, it wasn't just me that petition
for that, it was the Exoneration Project, the Illinois Innocence Project.
As you said, there's been a lot of innocence work
in Chicago over the past few decades. There's a lot
of great lawyers and organizations. They're doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I know, I called so many people trying to get
this on the governor's desk. That's probably people listening who
are like, oh, bomb, you bother to crap out of
me in this case for so long. But anyway, it
doesn't matter, because the point is that it finally worked.
So Maryland, So October ninth of twenty nineteen, there's a
clemency hearing, and then there's a god almost seven months
(30:40):
go by, almost to the day until April sixth, twenty twenty.
How did you find out that the governor had granted
you clemency?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I had surgery not too long ago, and one of
the officers that sat with me at the hospital ended
up working with internal affairs and she comes to my room.
She's like, hey, Marylyn, I need to see you. And
I'm like yeah. Everybody's like, oh shucks, I ace here. Hi,
you're contra band, you know. So she's like, no, come here,
(31:10):
I need to speak to you. I'm like okay, and
she's like do you know. And I'm like, oh my god,
you're leaving me too. And she's like, oh, you don't know.
I'm like, don't know what. She whispered in my ear
and she's like, no, you're going home. I'm like, stop
playing with me. And she's like, I'm for real. I'm like,
stop playing with my emotions. This is not funny. I
(31:31):
love you. You're good to me. You were good to
me then, but right now you're kind of, you know,
working a little nerve. She's like, no, no, I'm for real.
She's like, Officer Dorsey is up there at the business
office right now, shutting down your account. When are your
paperwork the people for the parole board is coming to
see you. You need to sign the paperwork. The governor's
sending you your release form. You need to sign it.
(31:51):
I said, I believe it when I see it. And
I looked at her and she's like, H'm for real.
I'm like, okay, I believe you. So then there's two
officers who are just they go above and beyond. They're
very compassionate and I'm very fond of them because they
break their neck to help women in there. And Lamar
(32:14):
and Hardison and were like, miss Malari, come to the
day room right now. And I'm like, oh shucks. And
they were like, we're about to announce it on the
intercom that you're going home. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
please do not do that just yet. They were like what,
Because I don't want the girls to be in an
uproar because once they find out that I was going home,
because they've been waiting and waiting impatiently. We were on lockdown,
(32:37):
difficult situation to where we couldn't see each other. I
felt like maybe a riot would have kicked out on
the unit, you know. So what we did was we
waited till the next morning. So I woke up about
four o'clock in the morning and started packing my things
and giving everything I had away. I didn't care. I
didn't want to take nothing home but my bible, my pictures,
(32:59):
my school were and my legal work. That's all. I
walked out of there with everything else was left behind,
and the lieutenant came with the paperwork. I signed it.
The parole board came. I signed it at seven o'clock
in the morning when count was clear. They're like, we
got to get you out the institution so you won't
be on our eight o'clock count. I'm like, okay. So
(33:20):
we went to the BFI, took my picture, took the fingerprints,
took my stuff to property, and was headed out the
front gate and right at the sally port where the
visitors come in. Outside at the gate is where my
brothers were waiting for me, and all the wardens were there.
The administration was there at Heidie Brown and other people,
(33:41):
and they, you know, hugged me. We knew we didn't
have it the coronavirus. We hugged and said our goodbyes,
you know, shed tears, and everybody was kind of mad
that I didn't say bye. To the ladies the institution,
but I couldn't because we were on lockdown, you know. So,
I mean when the girls found out, the officers blasted it, Hey,
Malario's going home, and everybody started hollering out the window,
(34:04):
trying to let the other ladies on other units know
that I was going home, and you know, they were
hollering and screaming, don't forget about us, don't forget about us.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I tell you, Marylyn, when I got the call that
you were getting out, I couldn't even speak.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It's just been so long, and yeah, it's heartbreaking. I'm
glad it's over. But I really hope we can learn
from the story, and I hope some changes are made.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Did you get a chance to see your children while
you were in prison or what was that communication?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Like?
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Over all those twenty six years.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I was pretty blessed. I had a family who would
take turns bringing my kids see me constantly, So in
that perspective, I, you know, was very grateful for my family.
So throughout my whole incarceration, I was able to see them.
It was heartbreaking sometimes because my oldest son will always
try to undo the handcuffs to release me and stuff,
(35:17):
you know, and he will always be like, my mom, let's go,
let's go. And I'm like, no, baby, I got to
stay here in school. He's like, Mom, you're not in school,
You're in jail, you know. So they pretty much knew.
So at that point I knew that I had to
keep it real with them and be like, yeah, mommy's
in jail, you know, but not for long, and I'll
be home with you guys. You know. It took them
to be grown men now, but I'm blessed to be
(35:40):
here with them and be able to spend time with
them and my grandkids and my family. Since I've been
out here, I've been on a movement trying to focus
back on those ladies that are still there, that are
also innocent, that no one knows about, because like myself,
I've been fighting and it's been falling on deaf ears
and the same thing with the women's that are in there.
(36:02):
So I am fighting hard with the Exoneration Project to
make these ladies known. So that's what I'm working on
right now.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You've really hit the ground running, and it's awesome to
see that your spirit is beyond and all I can
say about that is welcome home. And of course, there
was another development, which is that in May of this year,
the Cook County State's Attorney's Office began a comprehensive review
of now retired Detective Ronaldo Guervera's cases in what has
(36:29):
now been called one of the biggest policing scandals in
US history. And let me just say that again, one
of the biggest policing scandals in US history. This is
the detective, well, the two detectives that were responsible for
your wrongful conviction. But justin what about Ernest Halverson.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yeah, he's been tied into these cases as well. You know,
as usual, it's not one bad apple. There was a
lot of bad things happening in Chicago back then and
there's still problems now. And fortunately we have organizations like
the Exoneration Project in Chicago, the Illinois Innocence Project, the
Center of Wrongful Convictions. It's a real hotbed of wrongful
(37:10):
convictions in Chicago, and they're not just letting these lay down.
You know, for a long time it's been about just
getting our clients out of prison. But we need real
reform and we need to examine these cases after they
happen and look for the people responsible and hold them
accountable and then look at their other cases. I've been
(37:32):
talking for years about how Detective Guevara was part of
Marland's case because people have been looking at him for
a long long time. But the problem is in our system.
Getting the truth into a format that then can get
presented within our judicial system and have a result is very,
(37:52):
very difficult. It's the greatest frustration of my life is
that often we know the truth and we have the facts,
but for some reason, the system won't allow those facts
to be presented or won't give you an opportunity to
get the right result, and that's taken away twenty seven
years of Marilyn's life.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
It's so remarkable to sit here and listen to Marylyn,
and you know, it just dawned to me. She hasn't
had one negative thing to say. There hasn't been any
trace of and maybe I'm just not hearing it, but
I don't think it's there of bitterness. No. I mean,
she's focused on during this interview, on the things, the
bright spots, the positive things that happened while she was
(38:34):
on death row, while she was in prison in maxim
security prison for twenty six years, or something she didn't do.
So all I can say is you are a blessing
and it is an honor to be able just to
talk to you and to be a part of your
story in some small way.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well, I kind of knew that eventually. You know, I've
always believed in God, and I've always placed my faith
in Him and allow me to see me through. That's
going to be okay, that I was going to come
through this if I kept believing and maintaining my faith
in him.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
It takes a lot to maintain faith after everything you've
been through, but more power to you.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
And she is extraordinary. You know you said about how
a positive an upbeat she is. I've had times over
the last couple of decades when Marilyn has tried to
cheer me up about the case, and you know, that's
a very strange thing. She's been a believer. She's an
incredibly strong women. And that's what we see with a
(39:32):
lot of exoneries. They are different, and they are survivors
and they are fighters, and that's why they make it
through this nightmare.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Well said, and it is justice delayed, but at least
in this case, justice was not denied. And there's still
fighting left to be done on Marilyn's behalf, and I
know she's in the best possible hands with you in
the California Innocence as well as all the other great
(40:02):
people that have been involved in helping to get you home, Marylyn,
and I want to put a plug in too. You've
heard today about the work of the California Innocence Project
as well as the two other organizations that helped free Maryland,
the Illinois Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project, and we're
going to have a link in our bio to all
(40:23):
of those wonderful organizations. Please go and click on the
link and learn more and join us and get involved.
So this is part of the show where I first
of all get to thank both of you for coming
on and sharing your thoughts and your perspective and your spirit.
And then I turned my microphone off and kick back
(40:46):
on my chair with my headphones on, close my eyes
and just listen to whatever else you have to say. Maryland.
We're going to save you the best for last, and
I'm really looking forward to that. So now again, Justin Brooks,
founder and director of the California Innocence Project, law professor
and human rights fighter extraordinaire. Thank you again for being
(41:10):
here with us today.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
You know this case changed my life, Marylynd changed my life.
I was teaching law school and a nice quiet life
in the middle of Michigan with a nice little Victorian house,
and I'd been a criminal defense attorney for a number
of years in Washington, d C. But when I got
involved in this case, I was shocked. I was shocked
(41:35):
at the United States of America, a twenty one year
old individual could be sentenced to death on a polea bargain,
with no investigation into our case, a conspiracy between the
police and the lawyers and the judges. Everybody'd let this happen.
They let this twenty one year old fall through this
(41:57):
giant crack. It shocked me, and I didn't think I
could be shocked as a criminal defense attorney, and so
it just changed my life. It caused me to leave
my job in Michigan, move to California, start the California
Innisen's Project. And this case is the inspiration for the
more than thirty people we've been able to free in California.
(42:20):
I don't think any of that would have happened without Maryland.
And now even a few months after she's out of prison,
it's still not real to me because it's been part
of my life for so long. It's almost like I
don't know who I am if I'm not representing Marilyn
Molaro and trying to get her out of prison. So
(42:40):
I'm really happy we could tell her story today. It's
an important story and it's certainly a big part of
who I am.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Amen to that. And Wow, Marilyn, that must have been
an amazing feeling to hear justin say those words and
to know that you are a key element in the
freedom of so many others who were wrongfully convicted of
thirty in counting so and now what we've all been
waiting for, no pressure. Thank you again, Marilyn Malarro for
(43:11):
being here, for being so strong, and will turn it
over to you for closing arguments.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I want to thank you. I want to thank everybody
who's been involved in my case throughout my twenty seven
plus years. I've had a lot of good people working
on my case, and some of them are still in
contact with me, and that's a very you know, emoctional thing.
Knowing that these people can still stay in contact, which
(43:38):
they didn't have to, but they are, you know, so
I take that to heart. Prison life has not been
easy for me, you know. I've had some struggles, my
ups and downs, you know, my downfalls, you know, and
it's part of the struggle while you're in prison. And
sometimes you have to set up a mechanism so that
people won't, you know, think that you're vulnerable or take
the best of you. So I always had my head
(44:01):
up and always stay positive. I've always tried to do
my best to help other women. My experience with my
situation in my case had helped me to deal with
other women in their situations as well and help them
cope with, you know, their pain and suffering and being
able to be away from their families. And you know,
(44:23):
while I've been incarcerated, I've helped create different programs, different
groups and join the Phoenix Rising, And as soon as
a week within joining Phoenix Rising, which is a program
from long term prisoners, I was voted in to become
a committee member, and you know, I was honored by
that because a lot of women had respect for me
(44:43):
and a lot of my ideas and we've always succeeded
in everything that we've tried. To accomplish, and the wardens
would allow me to partake in a lot of the
things and be a part of what they would do
in the institution. And they asked me and Tammy Fike
if we would create a program for the elderly and
the disabled, and we took a whole unit, which was
(45:05):
House Unit six, and we created that which became a
safe haven for those women so they would not be mistreated,
you know, and misled and extorted and beat down in
whatever other case could have taken place with these women.
And We've created various programs, groups, activities. You know, we
constantly always pray for the unit so the women's could
(45:26):
get along together and not create a lot of chaos.
And I'm very grateful that I'm here now. I'm grateful
for Justin. You know, Justin always told me, Hey, Marylyn,
I'm never divorcing this case, so you get home. But
like I told Justin, I'm home, but you're still not
divorcing me. You're stuck with me for life. So you know,
now he's got to deal with me, so, you know,
(45:49):
and Lauren and the other Lauren and you know, send
the all these people. So I'm very grateful and at
this moment, I'm trying to do me. I'm still at peace.
I'm happy with the women I've became while I was incarcerated,
and I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing,
and that's helping people while I'm out here and reaching
(46:12):
back out to the women that are still in there
as well as to the men. You know, I'm insupportive
of all the Gervarra victims and I'm just going to
continue to be me and be positive, and one day
I hope to put together my work release center to
help some of these women that don't have places to go.
And that's my story, that's my life, and that's my dream,
(46:33):
and I believe I was designed.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
To do this. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review.
Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps. And I'm
a proud donor to the Nnocence 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
(46:57):
Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved.
I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin wardis the music in the show. Is by three
time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow
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
(47:21):
Company Number one
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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